President Donald Trump’s administration released a lengthy review of transgender health care on Thursday that advocates for a greater reliance on behavioral therapy rather than broad gender-affirming medical care for youths with gender dysphoria.

The 409-page Health and Human Services report questions standards for the treatment of transgender youth issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and is likely to be used to bolster the government’s abrupt shift in how to care for a subset of the population that has become a political lightning rod.

Major medical groups and those who treat transgender young people sharply criticized the new report as inaccurate.

This “best practices” report is in response to an executive order Trump issued days into his second term that says the federal government must not support gender transitions for anyone under age 19.

“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”

The report questions the ethics of medical interventions for transgender young people, suggesting that adolescents are too young to give consent to life-changing treatments that could result in future infertility. It also cites and echoes a report in England that reinforced a decision by its public health services to stop prescribing puberty blockers outside of research settings.

The report accuses transgender care specialists of disregarding psychotherapy that might challenge preconceptions, partly because of a “mischaracterization of such approaches as ‘conversion therapy,’” a discredited practice that seeks to change patients’ sexual orientation or gender identification. About half the states, including Minnesota, have banned conversion therapy for minors.

Army planning Trump birthday parade in June

Detailed Army plans for a potential military parade on President Donald Trump’s birthday in June call for more than 6,600 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, seven bands and possibly a couple thousand civilians, the Associated Press has learned.

The planning documents, obtained by the AP, are dated April 29-30 and have not been publicly released. They represent the Army’s most recent blueprint for its long-planned 250th birthday festival on the National Mall and the newly added element — a large military parade that Trump has long wanted but is still being discussed.

While the slides do not include any price estimates, it would likely cost tens of millions of dollars to put on a parade. Costs would include the movement of military vehicles, equipment, aircraft and troops from across the country to Washington and the need to feed and house thousands of service members.

An Army spokesman said Thursday that no final decisions have been made.

Hegseth memo details Army restructuring

The Army is planning a sweeping transformation that will merge or close headquarters, dump outdated vehicles and aircraft, slash as many as 1,000 headquarters staff in the Pentagon and shift personnel to units in the field, according to a new memo and U.S. officials familiar with the changes.

In a memo released Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the transformation to “build a leaner, more lethal force.” Discussions about the changes have been going on for weeks, including decisions to combine a number of Army commands.

Col. Dave Butler, an Army spokesman, said the potential savings over five years would be nearly $40 billion.

White House heads off Hawaii’s climate suit

On Monday, Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii said his state intended to sue fossil fuel companies over their role in climate change to make them pay for damage from its effects, like the 2023 wildfires that devastated Maui.

“I guess this might be breaking news,” he said during an interview on local television. “We will be filing suit.”

On Wednesday, the Trump administration sued Hawaii first, seeking to block the lawsuit before it could even be filed.

The Justice Department also filed a nearly identical suit against Michigan, where Attorney General Dana Nessel has retained three private law firms to pursue climate change litigation but has not yet sued. The main thrust of the administration’s argument is that the federal government should determine national energy policy, not individual states.

Legal experts said it was highly unusual to sue to block other lawsuits that have yet to be filed.

White House dismisses climate report authors

The Trump administration has dismissed the hundreds of scientists and experts who had been compiling the federal government’s flagship report on how global warming is affecting the country.

The move puts the future of the report, which is required by Congress and is known as the National Climate Assessment, into serious jeopardy, experts said.

Since 2000, the federal government has published a comprehensive look every few years at how rising temperatures will affect human health, agriculture, fisheries, water supplies, transportation, energy production and other aspects of the U.S. economy. The last climate assessment came out in 2023 and is used by state and local governments as well as private companies to help prepare for the effects of heat waves, floods, droughts and other climate-related calamities.

On Monday, researchers ho had begun work on the sixth national climate assessment, planned for early 2028, received an email informing them that the scope of the report “is currently being reevaluated” and that all contributors were being dismissed.

Judge puts block on library agency cutbacks

A federal judge agreed Thursday to temporarily block the Trump administration from taking any more steps to dismantle an agency that funds and promotes libraries across the U.S.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that plaintiffs who sued to preserve the Institute of Museum and Library Services are likely to show that the administration doesn’t have the legal authority to unilaterally shutter the agency, which Congress created.

The American Library Association and a labor union for federal employees filed a lawsuit last month to stop the administration from gutting the institute after President Donald Trump signed a March 14 executive order that refers to it and several other federal agencies as “unnecessary.”

Keith Sonderling, the agency’s newly appointed acting director, subsequently placed many agency staff members on administrative leave, sent termination notices to most of them, began canceling grants and contracts and fired all members of the National Museum and Library Services Board.

— News service reports