Archive July 2, 2025

Following repression from President Donald Trump’s administration, a top university in the country has agreed to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports and erase records set by a prominent trans swimmer.

Tuesday marked the conclusion of a federal civil rights investigation involving transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn).

Thomas, who was born in the male gender and admitted to being a trans woman in 2018, won the first-ever transgender champion title in 2022.

Thomas, who switched from being a man to a woman in the transition from being a man to a woman, also set UPenn records in five women’s events, including the 100-meter and 500-meter freestyle competitions.

LGBTQ campaigners praised the swimmer’s participation as a victory for inclusion while some of Thomas’s teammates criticized her as an assault on women’s rights, making her accomplishments the center of the debate about fairness in sport.

The university acknowledged that some student athletes had been disadvantaged by the NCAA eligibility requirements that had been in place at the time of Thomas’ participation, according to Larry Jameson, president of UPenn.

Following Trump’s executive order denying funding to educational institutions that allow trans girls and women to compete, the NCAA changed its eligibility requirements in March to only allow female-born athletes to compete in women’s events.

We are aware of this and will make amends to those who have been put at a disadvantage or have anxiety as a result of the policies in place at the time, Jameson said.

We will review and update the Penn women’s swimming records to reflect the current eligibility requirements for those who hold the records.

Thomas was later removed from the “All-Time School Records” section of UPenn’s website on Tuesday, along with a note stating that Thomas set records for the 2021-22 season under “eligibility rules in effect at the time.”

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights announced in April that the university had “permitted male athletes to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women’s only intimate facilities,” making the decision to change.

The agreement, according to US Education Secretary Linda McMahon, was a “great victory for women and girls.”

The Department applauds UPenn for correcting its discriminatory practices against women and girls, and it will continue to fight unabated to reinstate Title IX’s proper application and full application, McMahon said in a statement.

The biggest LGBTQ advocacy groups in the US, GLAAD and Human Rights Campaign, did not respond to requests for comment right away.

The latest in a line of measures to restrict transgender participation in sports since Trump’s January return to the White House is UPenn’s announcement.

World Athletics announced in March that participants in female competitions would have to undergo DNA testing to establish their biological sex.

According to opinion polls, trans women&nbsp and girls competing against female-born athletes are increasingly popular.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, July 2:

Fighting

• A Ukrainian drone attack on an industrial plant in Izhevsk, in central Russia, killed three people and injured 35 others, regional Governor Alexander Brechalov said in a post on Telegram.
• The drone struck the Kupol Electromechanical Plant, which produces air defence systems and drones for the Russian military, an unnamed official with Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, told the Associated Press news agency.
• A Russian attack on a vehicle evacuating civilians from Pokrovsk, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, killed one person and injured a policeman, police said.
• The Ministry of Defence in Moscow said that 60 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight over several regions, including 17 over Russian-occupied Crimea, 16 over Russia’s Rostov region and four over Russia’s Saratov region.
• Ukraine’s Air Force said on Tuesday that Russia launched 52 Shahed and decoy drones at the country overnight.
• The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Tuesday that it has been informed of a drone attack last week near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that damaged several vehicles near the site’s cooling pond.

Weapons

• Ukrainian Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov announced a new joint weapons production programme with members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), an alliance of about 50 countries. The programme would offer “a special legal and tax framework” to help establish new factories, “both on Ukrainian territory and abroad”, Umerov said in a post on social media.
• The Pentagon has reportedly halted some shipments of air defence missiles and other precision munitions to Ukraine over concerns that US stockpiles are too low, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two unnamed sources. The Pentagon did not immediately comment on the report.
• A Russian-British dual national appeared in a London court on Tuesday, charged with sending cryptocurrency for pro-Russian separatist militias in eastern Ukraine to buy weapons and military equipment.

Politics and diplomacy

• French President Emmanuel Macron called for a ceasefire in Ukraine in his first call with Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2022.
• A Kremlin statement said that Putin reminded Macron that “the Ukrainian conflict is a direct consequence of the policy of Western states”.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “no one is delaying anything here”, after US envoy Keith Kellogg accused Russia of “stall[ing] for time” on ceasefire talks, “while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine”.
• Peskov added: “We are naturally in favour of achieving the goals that we are trying to achieve through the special military operation via political and diplomatic means. Therefore, we are not interested in drawing out anything. ”

The United States Department of Justice has charged two Chinese citizens for spying and trying to recruit from within the country’s military ranks.

According to Tuesday’s statement, Yuance Chen, 38, and Liren “Ryan” Lai, 39, are accused of working on behalf of China’s foreign intelligence arm, the Ministry of State Security (MSS).

The pair allegedly carried out a range of “clandestine intelligence taskings”, including facilitating payments in exchange for national security information, gathering intelligence on Navy bases and attempting to recruit MSS assets.

“This case underscores the Chinese government’s sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate our military and undermine our national security from within,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi.

According to an affidavit from the FBI, Lai was part of an MSS network “who could travel more easily” between China and the US “to facilitate clandestine operations”.

Starting around 2021, he began developing Chen, who is a legal permanent resident, into his asset.

After ascertaining that Chen knew people in the US military, Lai urged him to travel abroad to discuss his connections in person, even offering to pay for the tickets, according to the affidavit.

The men reportedly met with MSS agents, and in 2022, they left a backpack with $10,000 in cash in a California locker as payment to other individuals for intelligence gathering.

In the years that followed, the affidavit says that Chen collected information about the Navy and sent it to Lai, while also discussing recruitment efforts directly with the MSS.

Some of that information included personal details from Navy employees. In one case, Chen travelled to San Diego, California, to meet with a Navy hire and tour the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier.

Photos included in the affidavit show a visitor’s badge as well as Chen posing with the employee and their child on top of the aircraft carrier’s deck.

The FBI says that such interactions are part of China’s campaign to extend its military’s reach.

“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] government seeks blue-water naval capabilities as part of their effort to modernize their navy and establish hegemony in the South China Sea,” the affidavit reads.

“Blue-water capabilities” generally refer to long-distance maritime efforts, as opposed to operations based closer to domestic shores.

“As such, the PRC government tasks and deploys the MSS to surreptitiously target the US Navy and collect intelligence,” the affidavit continues.

Both men were charged under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA, which requires that those working on behalf of another country register with the US government.

In recent years, the US government has ramped up its use of the law in its effort to combat alleged Chinese espionage activity.

Beijing typically denies such claims and has accused the US of discriminatory tactics.

“These charges reflect the breadth of the efforts by our foreign adversaries to target the United States,” US Attorney Craig H Missakian said in the Justice Department statement.