This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The full repercussions of a decision by San Jose State to allow a male to participate on a women's volleyball team over the last year still haven't hit.

But the next wave is just developing, as a long list of players on that team have confirmed they are planning to transfer to other schools.

Fox News reports that a "wave" of players announced their exodus from San Jose State's team after a "controversy-riddled" season.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – Israel's patience with its Iranian-backed Yemenite adversary – the Houthis – ran out overnight, as it launched a wave of airstrikes against key infrastructure sites. Nine people were reported killed as Israeli fighter jets took out Yemen's three main ports, as well as power stations.

The Houthis fired a ballistic missile toward Israel in the early hours of Thursday morning, which set off incoming rocket alert sirens across large swaths of Israel's central region – including Tel Aviv – causing millions of people to seek cover in safe rooms and shelters. Israel's planes were already in the sky on their way to attack Yemen while this rocket was flying toward the Jewish state. It marked the second time since Monday that Iran's terrorist proxy in the Gulf of Aden had fired a ballistic missile – as well as a drone – toward Israel's densely concentrated population centers. No injuries or loss of life were reported, although an elementary school in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv, was so badly damaged it might need to be torn down. It was thought to be either a fragment from the intercepted rocket or shrapnel from the interceptor missile, which caused the building's destruction.

Reports emerged Israeli military officials have been planning a heavy response to the Houthis for some time, and were waiting for the provocation that would almost inevitably emerge. On Wednesday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei warned Israel the so-called "axis of resistance" had not been broken, despite the fall of Assad's Syria. Even prior to this threat, it had been assumed the Houthis, who remain the most largely untouched of Iran's proxy groups, would be activated to up their involvement.

According to a statement by the military, dozens of Israeli Air Force (IAF) aircraft participated in the strikes in Yemen, including fighter jets, refuelers, and spy planes, some 2,000 kilometers from their home bases. In the first wave, Houthi targets were struck at the Hodeida port — which Israel has struck twice before — and also at the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea, as well as the Salif port. In the second wave of strikes, the Yemeni capital Sana'a was attacked, in which two power stations, the Haziz and D'Habban, were hit.

It is not only Israel which has borne the brunt of this, but also international shipping in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. This has occasioned U.S. and U.K. airstrikes on the Houthis, as Iran yet again leverages its hegemonic ambitions for the region on the backs of Arab blood and treasure. Indeed, earlier in the week, CENTCOM announced it had destroyed a Houthi command and control center used in the targeting of U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels.

While the degradation of Yemen's infrastructure is an important step, the limits of these kinds of attacks can be easily juxtaposed when we look at the cases of Hamas and Hezbollah side-by-side.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is raising questions about just what "genocide" is being addressed in the International Criminal Court's recent decision to target him with an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.

"The state of Israel is being accused of genocide at a time that we are taking action to defend ourselves from an enemy that is trying to commit genocide against us. We are accused of deliberately attacking civilians at a time that we are doing everything to prevent harm to civilians. And this is against an enemy that hides behind civilians and uses them as a human shield. So what genocide are they talking about there in The Hague?" he asked recently.

His comments came after the ICC took the unprecedented step of naming him, and other Israeli leaders over their response to Hamas' terror attack on Israel a year ago, in which some 1,200 civilians were murdered, often in horrific ways, and hundreds more were kidnapped.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, was attacked Monday by a student, a girl who left multiple victims dead or injured, according to police who confirmed five fatalities, then updated that to three, with another five to seven hospitalized. The shooter was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted shot inside the school.

The shooting happened at Abundant Life Christian School, situated on a 28-acre campus it shares with a child care center and a church.

There are almost 400 students at the school. Authorities have said the girl was school age, but have released few other details. Her family was reported cooperating with investigators. The two victims who were killed apparently were a student and a teacher, but they had not been identified. No motive had been released.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

In a media world that has moved well into the make-believe with its promotion of the transgender ideology, a watchdog organization in the United Kingdom has been offended by a journalist's use of the phrase "a man who claims to be a woman."

That watchdog, the Independent Press Standards Organization, immediately condemned the words as "pejorative and prejudicial."

The words follow the science in that a transgender male can "claim" to be a woman, but being male or female is embedded in the body down to the DNA level and cannot be changed.

It is the Christian Institute that noted the publication is the Spectator, and officials there defended the freedom of speech of journalist Gareth Roberts, who used the phrase to refer to transgender author Juno Dawson, who filed a complaint.

"The Spectator published the judgment, as required of the magazine by IPSO, but criticized the decision as an attack on free speech," the institute reported.

Michael Gove, editor, explained, "We publish what Ipso requires of us here. But I am in no doubt this is an outrageous decision, offensive to the principle of free speech and chilling in its effect on free expression."

He said, "When Gareth Roberts wrote that Juno Dawson is a man who claims to be a woman, he was exercising his right to free speech and indeed expressing a view that many would consider a straightforward truth. For The Spectator, free speech is not a cause among many others which we may champion – it is the essence of our existence."

He pointed out the scientific reality of the agenda on which politics has had a heavy influence.

"Dawson may have a Gender Recognition Certificate but no piece of paper, whatever it may say, can alter biological reality. Parliament may pass laws, but they cannot abolish Dawson's Y chromosome."

Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, told the institute when a press regulator penalizes a publication "because it doesn't like its politics," the regulator then "is no longer fit for purpose."

The Christian Institute's James Kennedy stated: "Journalists are right to say what everyone knows – that a man cannot become a woman, no matter what a piece of paper from the government says."

He called for courtesy to all, but "no one should be punished for stating the truth."

Gove wrote that his publication's first duty "is not to any committee, no matter how well-intentioned – it is to you, our readers. We are here to report honestly, uphold freedom of speech, and defend the right of our writers to express themselves, within the boundaries of the law, as they see fit."

He said Robert's view is one "that many would consider a straightforward truth."

"Society has, understandably, sought to accommodate and make changes to ensure people who wish to live as trans women, even though they were born biological males, have every opportunity to find the happiness they seek in their assumed identity. Juno Dawson is no exception. But Dawson cannot dictate how others think, nor decide what language others use when they describe the reality they see," he said.

He cited the work of journalists who investigated the body mutilations advocated by the Tavistock Clinic's National Health Service clinicians, and the fact that was shut down.

"The testimony of victims of these practices, such as Keira Bell, is heart-breaking. Subsequent work by the distinguished pediatrician Hilary Cass laid bare the unethical, unscientific, and unsupportable nature of what had been going on," he said.

For his publication, "We trust our readers to make up their minds on vital and sensitive questions of moral and ethical importance. We believe that individuals are better able to do so if they can read and hear from writers and thinkers who ask uncomfortable questions. We will continue to give free thinkers and brilliant writers such as Gareth Roberts a platform. And we will resist any effort to pressure them into conformity with another's morality."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Colorado officials chose the route of exhibiting hostility to Christianity when they attacked baker Jack Phillips and tried to demand he produce messages on his products that violated his Christian faith.

The Supreme Court delivered a victory to Phillips in that fight, scolding the state.

Officials in that extreme leftist state then decided the Supreme Court wasn't really serious, and attacked a website designer over the same dispute. They tried to order her to promote projects and ideologies that violated her faith.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Almost two-thirds of America's abortion industry businesses are breaking federal law by handing out abortion pill chemicals for use after the Food and Drug Administration's deadline of 10 weeks, according to a new report.

It is the "2024 survey: American abortion facilities," done by Operation Rescue that provides the alarming details.

Dispensing those drugs for use beyond the FDA's limit increases "the chances mothers will experience harmful – and potentially deadly – side effects," the report confirms.

Chemical abortions, using mifepristone and misoprostol, accounted for about 56% of all abortions in 2022, and while the FDA originally wanted those drugs not to be used beyond seven weeks of pregnancy, Barack Obama unilaterally changed that limit to 10 weeks in 2016.

But the survey says a large majority of abortion businesses are violating even that.

"Sixty-four percent of abortion clinics have gestational cut-off limits set between 11 and 13 weeks for abortion pills. This range indicates a significant majority of clinics provide abortion pills to women beyond the FDA's limit of 10 weeks," confirms the Operation Rescue report.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

JERUSALEM – Events in the Middle East are moving so fast it's almost impossible to keep on top of them.

This could not be more true of the country formerly known as Syria, which stands at the precipice of potential Balkanization, as competing forces try to take stock of the political landscape following the massive power vacuum created by President Bashar al-Assad's rapid demise.

Initially, the most obvious "winner" from Assad's fall seemed to be Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, its increasingly Islamist long-standing leader. However, events in the last day or so, have highlighted how a more nuanced approach is called for in determining where each piece might fit on this highly charged Middle Eastern chessboard.

The bald facts seemed to be these: Turkey's Erdogan viewed Syria's Assad, once a friend and ally, as an enemy to be gotten rid of (fighting a civil war in which millions of refugees are externally displaced across your border will do that); and he thought he possessed the means to do so. Step forward Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, a Turkish-armed jihadist group whose stronghold was in the Idlib area of northwestern Syria, abutting the border with Turkey, and the so-called rebel Syrian National Army, or SNA.

Erdogan's government is reported to have made overtures to the Assad regime as recently as late November, suggesting it should make some concessions to the opposition or risk the somewhat dormant 13-year civil war erupting again. Assad did not heed the warning, and now he is a stateless guest of Russian President Vladiimr Putin in Moscow. For how long this is the case remains to be seen.

To be sure, Turkey does not back all the groups that have caused Assad's fall, some are also supported by another destabilizing influence in the Middle East, namely Qatar. It's a somewhat bitter irony Turkey is a full NATO ally and Qatar, which is by no means averse to playing both sides of the ball (as it were), has special ally status with the United States. For now, at least.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

(AP) — After African countries struggled to get testing kits during the COVID-19 pandemic, officials vowed to make the continent less dependent on imported medical supplies. Now, in a first for Africa, a Moroccan company is filling orders for mpox tests as an outbreak continues.

Moroccan startup Molding began developing mpox tests after the World Health Organization declared the virus a global emergency in August. Africa's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported more than 59,000 mpox cases and 1,164 deaths in 20 countries this year.

The WHO has also announced a plan to provide mpox tests, vaccines and treatments to the most vulnerable people in the world's poorest countries, after facing criticism for moving too slowly on vaccines. It recommends all suspected mpox cases be tested.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

David Hogg, a student-turned-antigun-activist following a shooting at his school, has begun promoting himself to a leadership post in the Democrat party, and the online trolling erupted immediately.

"This the guy who stood on the bodies of his dead classmates to be famous, right?"

"I cannot tell you how much I want this to happen."

"Please, keep filling Democrat leadership with extremists. It helps."

And, "HAHAHAHA. I hope he does run, this guy is a moron," were among the responses as soon as Hogg said on television he would like to be DNC vice chairman.

The Washington Examiner cited how Hogg "got trolled" across social media after stating he would consider a run to become part of the Democratic National Committee.