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After 2 years of Israel-Hamas war, a systematic and brutal conflict continues amid glimpses of potential peace

October 7, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — As Israel’s military prepared last month to launch its ground offensive into Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces published a warning about al-Kawthar Tower, a residential high-rise in the city.

Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arab-language spokesperson, shared on social media a satellite photo with the building highlighted in red. Leave now, he said at about 10 a.m. local time, adding, “The defense army will attack the building soon due to the presence of Hamas terrorist infrastructure inside it or adjacent to it.”

By the time the afternoon began, an Israeli airstrike had reduced that building and another one-time residential high-rise like it to piles of rebar and concrete.

Those systematic warnings and strikes — which came weeks ahead of the second anniversary of the brutal conflict between Israel and Hamas, the terrorist group that launched a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed more than 1,200 — were just two of many as Israel continued its campaign to “crush” Hamas, in the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel, in the second year of the war, continued hunting militants throughout the Gaza Strip, proceeding at times in block-by-block sweeps of neighborhoods and buildings. Like the al-Kawthar Tower, many buildings and much infrastructure have been destroyed in the process. Hospitals, schools-turned-shelters and sprawling “tent cities” of displaced people have all been routinely attacked. The United Nations in March described the damage as “unprecedented,” saying at that time that some 51 million tons of rubble covered the enclave.

Many have died, including thousands of noncombatants, according to officials at government agencies run by Hamas. By Sunday, two days prior to the war’s second anniversary, the death toll in the strip had risen to 67,139, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said.

An average of 27 children have been killed each day over the past two years, the strip’s media office said on Monday.

A broadening conflict and Trump’s helping hand

A ceasefire deal came into effect a day before President Donald Trump took office in January. As the president’s second term began, he said he would seek to be a “peacemaker and unifier.” He said he wanted to measure success by the wars the U.S. ended and “perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

Trump has in months since pushed for a resolution to the war between Israel and Hamas. He hosted Netanyahu at the White House and dispatched Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Tel Aviv and Qatar to assist in negotiations.

But still, the sinews of the conflict have stretched wider in the last year. Although the military said its focus has remained on destroying Hamas in Gaza, the IDF also launched significant air, ground and sea campaigns into Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. As of the war’s second anniversary, Israeli troops are still occupying recently seized territory in Lebanon and Syria — plus conducting air and artillery strikes in both.

“Together, we pushed back our enemies’ plans of destruction,” Netanyahu said on social media on Saturday. “From Gaza to Rafah, from Beirut to Damascus, from Yemen to Tehran, together we have achieved great things.”

He added, “From victory to victory — we are changing the face of the Middle East together. Together we will continue to act to ensure the eternity of Israel.”

Israeli forces have used U.S.-provided weapons and intelligence throughout its recent regional conflicts. Trump in June ordered U.S. fighter and bomber aircraft to launch an attack on several key nuclear facilities in Iran — assisting Israel in an intense and broad airstrike and covert operations campaign it had already launched against Tehran. Trump in a speech after the strikes said, “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.”

Trump also told ABC News he thought the attacks had been “excellent” and suggested there was “more to come.”

Accusations of ‘genocide’ against Israel, UN commission says
Israel has, since the first months of the conflict, been accused of systematically killing noncombatants, including claims that its actions in Gaza amount to a genocide, according to an independent U.N. commission and the Palestinian Authority president.

Those claims continued to dog Israel in the second year of its conflict, as civilian casualties in Gaza climbed, mass hunger spread and the IDF repeatedly forced large numbers of Palestinians to relocate. As Israel opened aid routes in July, the IDF said in a statement that that there is “no starvation in Gaza.”

The International Association of Genocide Scholars, for example, passed a resolution in September saying Israel’s “policies and actions” in Gaza “meet the legal definition of genocide,” established by the U.N. in 1948, the organization said in a release.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement late last month, “Israel’s actions in Gaza should have long ago triggered the ‘duty to prevent’ under the Genocide Convention, but states have failed to act decisively.”

Israel has vociferously rejected all allegations of genocide, framing its critics as anti-Semitic or — in Netanyahu’s words — “useful idiots” in the service of both Hamas and Iran.

Those accusations continued into the summer and fall of this year, as another group, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global initiative monitoring hunger with the backing of governments, the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations, warned that the “worst-case scenario of famine” was unfolding in Gaza.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC warning said. “Latest data thresholds have been reached for food consumption in the Gaza Strip, and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.”

Netanyahu’s office called that determination “an outright lie” and “a modern blood libel.”

International outrage built as the killing of civilians at or close to aid sites — including those organized by the U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — by Israeli forces happened on multiple occasions. The U.N. and other aid groups refused to collaborate with the GHF. U.N. experts said the group was an “utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law.”

The experts alleged an “entanglement of Israeli intelligence, U.S. contractors and ambiguous non-governmental entities” with the GHF.

The organization’s executive chairman told ABC News in June that he “fundamentally” disagrees “with the premise that our operation is somehow disproportionately imperiling people.”

The IDF repeatedly rejected claims that it had intentionally fired on hungry civilians. Israeli military and political officials, plus the GHF, blamed Hamas or other Palestinian actors for the violent and desperate scenes near the aid sites.

A peace deal takes shape under Trump
Since returning to office in January, Trump has twinned his push for a peace deal with apocalyptic threats against Hamas. The president has framed a possible ceasefire agreement as one part of a wider Middle East accord, and “something special” for the whole region.

The president has secured buy-in from key Arab and Muslim states, his efforts energized by his criticism of Israel’s audacious and unsuccessful effort to assassinate top Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya in an airstrike in the Qatari capital of Doha.

The 20-point peace plan presented by Trump and Netanyahu at the White House on Sept. 29 appears a far cry from his February “Gaza Riviera” redevelopment scheme, which he said would see the U.S. “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip, overseeing its reconstruction with Palestinians relocated outside of the strip.

The new proposal foresees a transfer of power to a technocratic Palestinian government backed by a temporary “International Stabilization Force,” manned by Arab and other international partners to oversee the security of Gaza. The new government would also be overseen by the “Board of Peace” transitional body, chaired by Trump with other members including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The IDF, though, would remain along the Gaza perimeter and in the southern Philadelphi frontier crossing, while retaining freedom of military action throughout the strip. Hamas leaders would be allowed to leave the strip, but the organization would have to fully disarm.

Hamas on Friday gave a positive initial response, signifying its readiness to free all hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners if “the field conditions for the exchange are met.”

But the group said more negotiations will be needed before it can agree to a full peace deal. This week, Hamas, Israeli and U.S. representatives will gather in Egypt’s Red Sea city of Sharm el-Sheikh for further ceasefire talks.

In any settlement, those responsible for post-war Gaza face a daunting reconstruction task.

Entire towns have disappeared from Gaza over the past two years. The U.N. reported in September that 78% of Gaza Strip buildings had been partially or fully destroyed. An ABC News visual analysis of satellite imagery and more than 200 verified social media videos showed that 88% of Gaza’s schools are destroyed or damaged.

In Gaza City, where the al-Kawthar Tower and others were brought down last month, more than 50 such “terror towers” were destroyed before the ground invasion began, Israel said. Netanyahu in a statement, said those towers coming down was “just a start.”

“We brought down 50 terror towers in two days, and this is just the opening for the independent operation of the ground maneuver in Gaza City,” Netanyahu said as the Gaza City invasion began.

The U.N. warned in a statement that the operation to seize Gaza City would be “catastrophic” for civilians.

When Netanyahu spoke of the potential deal on Saturday, he again lauded the strong military action in the city, saying, “As a result of the intense military pressure we applied and the diplomatic pressure, Hamas was pressured into agreeing to the plan we presented.”

And U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has several times discussed the difficulties that lie ahead, even if a deal is made to pause or end the fighting.

He said last month that “when all is said and done, there is still a group called Hamas, which is an evil group that still has weapons and is terrorizing.” He added, “there is still the hard work ahead of, once this ends, of rebuilding Gaza in a way that provides people a quality of life that they all want.”

“Who’s going to do that?” Rubio added. “Who’s going to pay for it? And who’s going to be in charge of it?”

Bill Nye asks Congress to push back against ‘extinction-level’ NASA budget cuts

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — One of the most well-known names in science, Bill Nye, the “Science Guy,” is pushing back on the Trump administration’s proposed NASA budget cuts.

NYE, the CEO of the Planetary Society, a nonprofit founded by Carl Sagan in 1980, joined colleagues, space advocates and legislators on Capitol Hill Monday to make a case for keeping NASA’s funding intact and the benefits of space exploration.

The Trump administration has proposed cutting NASA’s budget by approximately 24% for the 2026 fiscal year. The agency’s total budget would decrease from around $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. Around $6 billion of the cuts would impact the agency’s planetary science, Earth science and astrophysics research funding, which all form part of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

“We’re not talking about delays in scientific exploration, we’re talking about the end of it,” Nye said at a press conference Monday on the steps of Capitol Hill. “While we’re checking out, our competitors are checking in,” he added.

Under the proposed budget, NASA’s science research funding would be among the hardest hit by the cuts, with a 47% cut. In a statement, The Planetary Society called this cut an “extinction-level event for space exploration.”

ABC News has reached out to multiple NASA centers for comment, but the agency is currently being affected by the government shutdown.

“Cutting NASA science in half would end several missions that are spacecraft that are already flying and several missions that are scheduled to fly,” Nye told Diane Macedo on ABC News Live on Monday. “And why this matters is if you cut it in half, cut the science budget in half, you’ll probably turn the whole thing off.”

Casey Dreier, the chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, says his organization has a simple goal: protecting existing programs.

“So, this is no new money, it’s no changes in policy, it’s just to continue these projects that we’ve already invested in, already paid for and are currently returning in fantastic science,” Dreier said.

At Monday’s press conference, Dreier explained that at this point, “Both House and Senate [are] a near-full rejection of the proposed cuts to NASA science and broadly around other areas of NASA as well.”

The Science Mission Directorate is responsible for sending satellites into space like the James Webb Space Telescope, the Perseverance Rover (the spacecraft that landed on Mars in 2021) and the Landsat 9 satellite, which work to collect vital data and “achieve scientific understanding of Earth, the solar system, and the universe.”

The White House’s proposal referred to several missions as “unaffordable.” More than 40 projects have already been flagged for defunding, including the Mars Sample Return, Mars orbiter MAVEN and the Juno mission.

“The Budget proposes termination of multiple unaffordable missions and reduces lower priority research, resulting in a leaner Science program that reflects a commitment to fiscal responsibility,” the proposal stated.

There was also a specific request within the proposal for the cancellation of climate-focused projects, as well as funding for the Office of STEM engagement.

ABC News has reached out to the Trump administration for a comment, but did not immediately hear back.

“The Budget eliminates climate-focused ‘green aviation’ spending while protecting the development of technologies with air traffic control and defense applications, producing savings,” NASA headquarters said in a statement.

Nye and Drier say they are speaking out to explain the dangers of cutting funding for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and the National Science Foundation. Nye suggested that those cuts could ultimately have a direct impact on the United States’ position in the global race back to the moon’s surface.

“The China National Space Administration is going fast, doing a lot of extraordinary missions very similar, almost mission for mission, to what the United States is doing and I’m telling you there’s going to be a Sputnik moment when Taikonauts, China National Space Administration space travelers, are on the moon in the next five years,” Nye said.

U.S. Representative Glenn Ivey, D-Md., echoed those thoughts during the Capitol press conference.

“We’re falling behind with respect to China,” Rep. Ivey said. “They’re pushing money and engineers and scientists towards advancing science in China, competing against us, while we’re doing the exact opposite. The White House almost wants to zero out NASA science.”

More than 300 advocates joined the call to action on Capitol Hill Monday, along with 20 education, science and space partner organizations. Some of the groups represented at the press conference at the U.S. Capitol included the American Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

“Finish the job. So, both the Senate and House have bills that reject these cuts, pushing back against these cuts, but we want them to sign it into law,” Nye said.

Government shutdown halts data, stokes risk as economy wobbles, experts say

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The government shutdown halted the release of key economic data, choking off the flow of information as some experts warn the economy may be slipping toward a recession, some economists told ABC News.

A federal agency postponed the release of a monthly jobs report on Friday, leaving observers in the dark about the status of a sharp hiring slowdown. If the government shutdown stretches into next week, fresh inflation figures will go unreported, masking price levels in the midst of rising costs.

Jim Reid, a research strategist at Deutsche Bank, in a memo to clients on Monday, lamented the “data vacuum.”

The absence of government data heightens uncertainty at a fraught moment for the U.S. economy, potentially hamstringing responses from consumers, businesses and policymakers, some economists told ABC News. The extent of possible shutdown-induced economic damage could also go undetected, they added.

“It adds to risk and uncertainty at a most inopportune time,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, told ABC News. “Now we’re all essentially looking through a fog.”

The government shutdown entered its sixth day on Monday. The Senate has rejected dueling funding proposals from Democrats and Republicans in four separate votes, most recently on Friday.

The U.S. Department of Labor last week said some data would not be released during the shutdown, including closely watched monthly jobs and inflation reports. The Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau — two important sources of additional data — also said they will pause scheduled releases for the duration of a shutdown.

The loss of data has arrived at an uneasy period for the economy. In recent months, the economy has suffered a sharp hiring slowdown alongside a rise in inflation, setting the conditions for what economists call “stagflation.”

The downshift in hiring has proven especially worrisome, stoking concern among some economists about a possible recession.

A jobs report last month showed a sharp decrease in hiring in August, extending a lackluster period for the labor market. Meanwhile, a revision of previous hiring estimates days later revealed the U.S. economy added far fewer jobs in 2024 and early 2025 than previously estimated, deepening concern.

“The job market is the primary area of concern for the U.S. economy,” Hamrick said, adding that the hiring cooldown suggests a 40% risk of a recession over the next 12 months. “That’s an elevated recession risk.”

Without up-to-date government data, businesses may be hesitant to take actions such as major expansions or hiring sprees, while consumers could seek to avoid big-ticket purchases, some experts said.

“In general, the absence of economic data makes the economic trajectory more uncertain as it forces investors and business executives to be more cautious,” Gregory Daco, chief economist at accounting firm EY, told ABC News.

The Federal Reserve is set to announce its next interest rate decision on Oct. 29, following a meeting between members of the FOMC. If the government shutdown remains in place ahead of that meeting, it could leave Fed officials ill-equipped to set the best policy, Hamrick said.

“This is an exceptionally difficult period to read where inflation is going and where growth is going,” Kenneth Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University, told ABC News.

To be sure, an interruption of data releases could leave investors unaware of possible improvement in the economy. Some experts noted the continued availability of private sector data sources, though observers typically view such data as inferior to government statistics.

A government shutdown typically risks only modest damage to the U.S. economy, stemming mainly from furloughed public workers, who temporarily lose out on pay and put a dent in U.S. consumer spending.

Each week of a potential government shutdown would reduce annualized real gross domestic product growth in the quarter by about 0.1%, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told ABC News in a statement.

For reference, the economy grew by an average annualized rate of 1.6% over the first half of 2025, meaning it would take several weeks of a government shutdown for notable damage to be incurred.

An absence of economic data could make it more difficult for observers to identify the economic impact of the shutdown, some experts said.

“Typically, shutdowns are not major events, but nothing is typical about the current environment,” Rogoff said.

Cuomo tells ‘The View’ a Mamdani win would be ‘gift’ for Trump, lead to NYC takeover

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo told “The View” on Monday it would be a “gift” to President Donald Trump if Zohran Mamdani wins the election in November and becomes New York City’s next mayor.

Cuomo said he’s the “last person” Trump wants to see as mayor, citing their relationship while he was governor of New York. “We fought on a daily basis,” Cuomo said.

He alleged that a Mamdani win would lead to a federal takeover of New York City and then Trump would use Mamdani as an example during other elections about the dangers of electing a far-left politician.

Trump “will take a picture of Mamdani and run around the country and say, here’s what happened to the Democrats,” Cuomo said. “Mamdani is a gift for him … because it’s the excuse he needs to take over New York, which he said he will do.”

In a recent interview with “The View,” Mamdani said New York should be prepared to push back against Trump.

“This is just one of the many threats that Donald Trump makes. Every day he wakes up, he makes another threat, a lot of the times about the city that he actually comes from,” Mamdani said. “[Trump] wants to do a whole lot of things with this city, and we’re going to fight him every step of the way, as long as it is something that comes at the expense of this city.”

Cuomo denied allegations from Mamdani and other critics that he’s Trump’s pick in the race. Cuomo also denied reporting in the New York Times that he had recently discussed the race on a call with Trump.

New York City’s mayoral race is down to three candidates, including Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, after Mayor Eric Adams recently dropped out of the race. He said the race is down to a democratic socialist in Mamdani and himself, a true Democrat.

“What’s really happening is there’s a civil war within the Democratic Party going on, and the Democratic Party is looking for its identity. And there are two factions. You have the democratic socialists, and then you have the Democrats, they have a very extreme view that they’re pursuing, which is different than the Democratic Party,” Cuomo said Monday on “The View.”

After Adams announced he was dropping out of the mayor’s race, Cuomo gave him kudos and said his withdrawal indeed shakes up the race. He said that New Yorkers should be “afraid” of a win by Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.

“I believe Mayor Adams is 100% sincere. I applaud his selflessness. You know, we often wonder, is it about us, or is it about a greater calling? And I think what Mayor Adams said today speaks volumes,” Cuomo said at the time. “He said, I’m going to put my personal ambition aside for the good of the city, because he’s afraid of the result if Mr. Mamdani would have [sic] win the election, and we should all be afraid of the result.”

And Adams no longer campaigning makes a difference, Cuomo said: “It’s not just about the polling. You know, the mayor was – is the incumbent mayor, so he is a potent force in the campaign; if he is not actively campaigning, that changes the entire dynamic of the race.”

Even still, Cuomo is running an uphill campaign after Mamdani delivered an upset win during the June Democratic primary. The former governor has been trailing the Democratic nominee in most polls and Mamdani has racked up major endorsements, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Cuomo has faced scrutiny during his mayoral campaign following his exit from the governor’s office four years ago as he faced mounting sexual harassment allegations.

During his appearance on The View, Cuomo said he now acts much more cautiously due to the “very painful” allegations.

“I learned a lesson, a painful lesson, which is to be much more cautious about everything you say, any joke, any comment,” Cuomo said Monday. “I won’t kiss a person on the cheek unless they initiate a kiss. So they taught me a lesson, just to be super cautious, because there is a sensitivity that has evolved that is real. If people feel it, it’s true, and it has to be respected.”

Cuomo made apologies back in 2021 when the allegations surfaced, but has since insisted he did nothing wrong, despite a state attorney general probe alleging he harassed 11 women. He was never charged with any wrongdoing,

Mamdani and other opponents have contended that Cuomo is still unfit to serve in office.

The former governor lost the Democratic primary after three rounds of ranked choice voting by nearly 130,000 votes. Cuomo pressed on and announced shortly after the defeat that he would continue to run as an independent candidate.

Cuomo tells ‘The View’ a Mamdani win would be ‘gift’ for Trump, lead to NYC takeover

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

Cuomo said he’s the “last person” Trump wants to see as mayor, citing their relationship while he was governor of New York. “We fought on a daily basis,” Cuomo said.

In a recent interview with “The View,” Mamdani said New York should be prepared to push back against Trump.

Cuomo has faced scrutiny during his mayoral campaign following his exit from the governor’s office four years ago as he faced mounting sexual harassment allegations.

During his appearance on The View, Cuomo said he now acts much more cautiously due to the “very painful” allegations.

Mamdani and other opponents have contended that Cuomo is still unfit to serve in office.

South Carolina judge’s house destroyed by fire; officials investigating cause

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(EDISTO ISLAND, S.C.) — A South Carolina judge’s house went up in flames Sunday, hospitalizing three and destroying the home.

Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein was walking her dogs on the beach in Edisto Island, S.C., about an hour south of Charleston, when the fire began, according to officials. Her husband, former state Sen. Arnold Goodstein, their son, Arnold Goodstein III, and one other occupant were forced to jump from the burning building from an elevated first floor to escape the blaze, officials said.

The three occupants were rescued by kayak from the home’s backyard due to the area’s marshy terrain, Colleton County Fire-Rescue told ABC News. One occupant was airlifted to Medical University of South Carolina hospital in Charleston and the other two were taken there via ground transportation, according to Colleton County Fire-Rescue.

The current condition of the victims is not known.

The South Carolina Supreme Court said in a statement that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) responded to the scene and is investigating the cause of the fire. “Local law enforcement partners have been alerted and asked to provide extra patrols and security. The Judicial Branch will remain in close communication with SLED,” the statement added.

“SLED’s investigation is active and ongoing,” the agency told ABC News.

Last month, Goodstein blocked the South Carolina Election Commission from providing the Department of Justice with millions of voter files that included personal names, addresses, driver’s license numbers and social security numbers, according to court documents.

President Trump issued an executive order in March prohibiting non-citizens from registering to vote, leading the DOJ to request the information of more than 3.3 million registered voters in South Carolina. Goodstein’s decision, however, was reversed a few days later by the State Supreme Court, according to court documents.

Goodstein was first elected to her Circuit Court judgeship in 1998, according to the South Carolina Judicial Branch.

Supreme Court weighs ban on ‘conversion therapy’ against counselors’ free speech

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — Conversion therapy, or the attempt to change a patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity as a form of treatment, has been widely discredited by major American mental health and medical organizations for decades. Half the states have outlawed the practice as ineffective and harmful to minors, often on a bipartisan basis.

On Tuesday, a licensed therapist who offers “faith-informed” counseling services in Colorado will directly confront that consensus at the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to strike down the laws as infringements on free speech.

“I want to be able to speak genuinely, openly, have full conversations with my clients,” said Kaley Chiles, the plaintiff in the high court case, in an interview with ABC News, “without the state kind of peering into my office in these completely private conversations.”

“If someone comes into the office and they say, I am a biological male and I have been living and presenting as a female for a while now – those are the clients who I cannot have a full conversation with,” Chiles said.

The case pits the First Amendment against a state’s regulation of medical practices to comply with an established standard of care. It also implicates the rights of parents in search of help for children struggling during puberty and the mental health of LGBTQ young people in search of greater societal acceptance.

The Colorado Minor Conversion Therapy Law, enacted in 2019, says therapists licensed by the state are not allowed to try to “change behaviors or gender expressions” or try to “eliminate or reduce” same-sex attraction. Violators face up to a $5000 fine and potential loss of license.

The law does not apply to religious groups or faith-based ministries aimed at changing a person.

Therapists are allowed to provide “acceptance, support, and understanding” around areas of sexuality and gender identity as a child develops.

“Making you feel bad about who you are, or pressuring you to be someone else, that’s not legitimate therapy,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told ABC. “The medical consensus is clear. That’s why it’s banned here in Colorado on a bipartisan basis.”

“This law allows children to be their best authentic selves, whatever it is. It doesn’t put a thumb on the scale either way,” Weiser said.

One in four American high schoolers identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, according to a first-of-its-kind 2023 survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three percent of teens identify as transgender and another 2 percent report questioning their gender, the survey found.

“What happens is that people do develop, their sexuality emerges, their gender emerges. Those changes happen naturally, but it’s not because some therapist has affected that change,” said Dr. Clinton Anderson, a trained psychologist who spent more than 30 years studying mental health care for LGBTQ people at the American Psychological Association (APA).

Citing scientific, ethical, and safety concerns, the APA, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association and nine other mental health and medical organizations oppose efforts by a provider to change a young person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“If you are trying to make them change, and they’re not going to be successful,” Anderson added, “then the distress they bring into the therapy gets compounded by their concern about being a failure, particularly in these religious contexts.”

Attorneys for Chiles dispute the consensus scientific conclusions about the ineffectiveness of using talk therapy for a goal of conversion and any harm that may come from it.

Chiles won’t say directly whether she wants to practice conversion therapy or whether she has successfully used the treatment in the past to help a client eliminate unwanted feelings of same-sex attraction or reach better alignment with sex assigned at birth.

She said the law has a chilling effect that prevents her from even approaching the topics.

“The statute is broad, overarching language and it prevents me from doing what I want to do with clients,” she said. “Minors who are coming to me voluntarily of their own free will, who might have values different from the state and who have goals that the state has forbidden – they can’t come and have the same conversation with me that they could before this law.”

Erin Lee, a mother of three in Wellington, Colorado, says her daughter Chloe was unable to find a counselor willing to help her resolve a struggle over gender identity during puberty because of Colorado’s law.

“She had already made up this, ‘I’m gonna go by Toby now’ and ‘I’m ready to cut my hair’ and ‘I don’t wanna wear girls’ clothes anymore’,” Erin said of her then 12-year-old daughter in an interview at the family home.

“We knew she was not a boy who was trapped in the wrong body,” she said. “We thought, we have to talk to a professional so we know what to say, because if in fact she’s just experiencing normal distress over her sex, we don’t wanna push her further into this trans identity.”

Lee claims a counselor who worked briefly with Chloe “was dodging the issue entirely” because of the law, which in turn pushed Chloe deeper into depression and contemplation of suicide.

“The law as I very clearly – it’s very clearly written and, as I interpret it, it prevents counselors from being able to help kids through their gender confusion. They can only help them into it,” Erin said. She founded a grassroots advocacy group, Protect Kids Colorado, to oppose the restrictions on therapists.

Chloe, now 16, said she has become more comfortable as a cisgender girl despite what her parents have lamented was a lack of resources to help her. “I felt a lot of shame and despair that seemed absolutely inexplicable,” she recently told a gathering of parent advocates. “I’m not a boy, and I was just really really confused.”

Still, many Americans who have experienced conversion therapy as minors – and therapists who once pushed the practice — now say it was dangerously destructive and rightfully banned.

An estimated 700,000 LGBT adults in the US have received conversion therapy –half were subjected to the practice as adolescents, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

“The trauma of conversion therapy can last a lifetime,” said Matthew Shurka, 37, a self-described “survivor” of four conversion therapists over five years.

After sharing feelings of sexual attraction to other boys with his parents when he was 16, Shurka’s father sought out help from licensed therapists. Some said they could cure Matthew.

“They said that I was an easy case, that I should start to see my heterosexuality come back within six weeks,” he told ABC News in an interview. “My father made this situation life or death, and he really felt that he was saving my life.”

One therapist told Shurka that a key part of treatment would be no contact with female family members — his two sisters and his mother — which lasted 3 years. He was also coached as a teenager to use Viagra to help intimacy with women.

“Maybe I was able to perform on that specific evening, but the harm that I was doing to my mental self was starting – at times, it felt irreversible,” Shurka said. “That is when I knew that suicide may be an option for me, because I knew I wasn’t changing.”

In 2018, Shurka testified in Colorado about his experience, urging lawmakers to adopt the conversion therapy ban, which they later did.

“Any therapist can share their opinion on anything. That is their freedom of speech,” he said. “But when it comes to a course of treatment, that’s professional speech. I was given a treatment to cure my homosexuality that had no basis in any scientific finding.”

The Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Colorado’s law as a legitimate regulation of “professional conduct,” which incidentally restricted speech but was not viewpoint discrimination.

The Supreme Court will decide whether to affirm that conclusion and, in the process, wade into an impassioned national debate over how to best help developing teens.

“We know that young kids right now are hurting,” said Attorney General Weiser. “One of the ways we protect young people is we let them have autonomy about who they are.”

A decision in the case — Chiles v Salazar — is expected in spring 2026.

Cuomo tell ‘The View’ a Mamdani win would be ‘gift’ for Trump, lead to NYC takeover

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

Cuomo said he’s the “last person” Trump wants to see as mayor, citing their relationship while he was governor of New York. “We fought on a daily basis,” Cuomo said.

He alleged that a Mamdani win would lead to a federal takeover of New York City and then use Mamdani as an example during other elections about the dangers of electing a far-left politician.

New York City’s mayoral race is down to three candidates after Mayor Eric Adams recently dropped out of the race.

“I believe Mayor Adams is 100% sincere. I applaud his selflessness. You know, we often wonder, is it about us, or is it about a greater calling? And I think what Mayor Adams said today speaks volumes,” Cuomo said. “He said, I’m going to put my personal ambition aside for the good of the city, because he’s afraid of the result if Mr. Mamdani would have [sic] win the election, and we should all be afraid of the result,” said Cuomo.

Cuomo has faced scrutiny during his mayoral campaign following his exit from the governor’s office four years ago as he faced mounting sexual harassment allegations.

Cuomo made apologies back in 2021 when the allegations surfaced, but has since insisted he did nothing wrong, despite a state attorney general probe alleging he harassed 11 women.

Mamdani and other opponents have contended that Cuomo is still unfit to serve in office.

CDC drops universal COVID vaccine recommendations, suggests separate MMRV shots

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its immunization schedule on Monday, dropping the universal COVID-19 vaccine recommendation and recommending that toddlers receive the chickenpox shot separately from the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot.

Acting Director and Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill signed off on the recommendations, which were made by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) last month.

“Informed consent is back,” O’Neill said in a statement. “CDC’s 2022 blanket recommendation for perpetual COVID-19 boosters deterred health care providers from talking about the risks and benefits of vaccination for the individual patient or parent. That changes today.”

Last month, the ACIP voted to abandon its previous universal recommendation for annual COVID-19 vaccine shots for anyone aged 6 months and older, instead suggesting that Americans can get the vaccine “based on individual-based decision-making,” or a personal choice.

The panel also voted to no longer recommended children around 12 months old receive the first dose of the combined measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) vaccine.

Instead, the committee recommended that children receive two separate shots, one for the combined MMR shot and a second shot for chickenpox. The MMRV shot will be recommended as an option for a child’s second dose, typically given at around 4 to 6 years old.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Illinois files lawsuit to block deployment of National Guard

October 6, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(CHICAGO) — The state of Illinois and city of Chicago filed a lawsuit Monday morning seeking to block President Donald Trump’s federalization and deployment of the National Guard.

“The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” the complaint said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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