Geoff Bennett:
The NCAA is updating its transgender policy to limit women’s competition to athletes who were assigned as female at birth. The change comes a day after President Trump signed an executive order aimed at banning transgender athletes from girls and women’s sports. The policy is effective immediately, and it applies to all 500,000 NCAA athletes across the organization’s 1,200 schools.
Prior to this change, eligibility was based on rules set by each sport’s national or international governing body.
President Trump signed an executive order this afternoon sanctioning the International Criminal Court. The measure includes freezing assets of court employees who work on ICC investigations of U.S. citizens or allies such as Israel. It also blocks them from traveling to the U.S.
The move comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington. Last year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for the prime minister and his former defense minister for alleged war crimes in Gaza, which they deny. Neither the U.S. nor Israel recognize the court’s authority.
Separately, it emerged today that Netanyahu gave President Trump a golden pager mounted on a wooden stand during their meeting in Washington yesterday. It’s a not-so-subtle nod to Israel’s operation in Lebanon last year, when pagers and handheld radios were used to attack members of Hezbollah.
In Panama, the country’s president is pushing back on U.S. claims over transit fees for the Panama Canal. The U.S. State Department posted on social media last night that a deal was reached that would allow U.S. government vessels to pass through free of charge, saving the federal government millions of dollars a year.
It followed Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to the critical trade route earlier this week., But this morning, Panama’s president rejected that claim, calling it flat-out false.
Jose Raul Mulino, President of Panama (through interpreter): I am very surprised by the statement from the U.S. State Department. That is simply intolerable. And today, Panama, to you and to the world, expresses my absolute rejection of continuing to explore the path of managing the bilateral relationship based on lies and falsehoods.