DENVER (AP) — The Colorado Supreme Court has ordered Colorado’s largest provider of gender-affirming care for young people to resume medical treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy despite threats that providing the care could lead to losing federal funding.
Children’s Hospital Colorado suspended medical treatments for transgender patients under 18 in January after it said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services opened an investigation into its treatments following a series of clashes between President Donald Trump's administration and advocates over transgender health care for children.
The hospital said in a statement that it is reviewing Monday's court ruling and considering its next steps. It previously said it would continue to provide mental health treatment for minors and also medical treatment for patients aged 18 to 21.
Four transgender girls, ranging from age 10 to 17, sued the hospital, through their parents, alleging that the hospital was violating the state’s antidiscrimination law by refusing to provide them treatment both because of their gender identity and their disability, gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is the distress caused when someone’s gender expression doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth.
The girls said they feared not being able to get medication and monitoring to prevent them from undergoing puberty and developing male traits. And they cited mental health fallout, including depression and suicidal ideation.
The court sided with the girls in a 5-2 ruling, finding that the decision to shutter the services for minors violated a state antidiscrimination law. In the majority opinion, Justice William Wood III said, “We conclude that the actual immediate and irreparable harm to petitioners outweighs the speculative harm CHC may face if the federal government further acts against it.”
In a dissent, Justice Brian Boatright said the hospital didn't make its decision to stop the case because of the gender identity of the patients. Rather, he wrote, “It was a decision driven by the direct threat to the viability of the entire hospital.”
A Kansas judge also sided with transgender minors in a ruling last week.
The Colorado hospital’s TRUE Center, which focuses on gender-affirming care, is one of the largest programs in the country and the only comprehensive care center in the Rocky Mountain region, according to the lawsuit.
Children’s Hospital Colorado said the HHS opened the investigation of the hospital after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a declaration that called treatments like puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries unsafe and ineffective for children and adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria, or the distress when someone’s gender expression doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth.
An Oregon-based federal judge ruled in March for Colorado and 20 other states that Kennedy's declaration went too far.
Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, New Jersey.
FILE - The Ralph Carr Judicial Building, which houses the Colorado Supreme Court and Colorado Court of Appeals, in Denver on Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Iran is taking “too long to negotiate a deal” and that “now they will have to pay the price.” What that means for Tehran wasn't clear. His latest statement came after the U.S. launched airstrikes early Wednesday against Iran after Trump blamed Tehran for the crash of an American attack helicopter. Iran fired back at countries in the region.
A bill to provide nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement narrowly passed the House on Tuesday and now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature, bolstering the administration’s deportation agenda for the remainder of his time in the White House.
Graham Platner has secured Maine’s Democratic Senate nomination, setting up a high-stakes battle against longtime incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a race that could determine party control of the U.S. Senate. In South Carolina and Nevada, where Trump endorsed his favored candidates, his clout within his party was tested.
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Consumer prices rose 4.2% in May from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, up from 3.8% in April and the third straight increase. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.5% last month, after big gains of 0.6% in April and 0.9% in March.
The numbers are a headache for the Federal Reserve and a political challenge for the Trump administration as midterm elections near.
Inflation had been cooling before Trump’s sweeping tariffs in April 2025 made many goods more costly. Prices surged again after the Iran war made oil and gas more expensive, potentially spreading price hikes across the economy.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.9% in March from a year earlier, up from 2.8% in April. On a monthly basis, core prices increased a modest 0.2%, down from a 0.4% gain in April.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X around the same time as Trump, again insisting that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon and defending Israel’s decisions to attack the Islamic Republic in the past.
While Iran and the U.S. seem to be looking for a way to end the conflict, Netanyahu appears intent on pursuing much more difficult goals: the collapse of Iran’s theocratic government, the elimination of its nuclear program and the destruction of the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. That will make compromise much harder.
Hours after Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan came under Iranian fire, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Iran was taking “too long to negotiate a deal” and that “now they will have to pay the price.”
It wasn’t clear what exactly that would mean, but the back-and-forth strikes Wednesday again raised the question of how much pressure the deal can take before it cracks. The exchange of fire was the second time this week that such strikes have tested the ceasefire after Iran and Israel targeted each other on Monday.
Recent U.S. sanctions targeting Cuba’s leadership and the indictment of former President Raúl Castro are a “pretext” for the Trump administration to persuade the American people to support a military intervention, Cuba’s top diplomat to the United States told The Associated Press.
In an interview on Tuesday, Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera repeated accusations against the Trump administration made by other Cuban officials, including the foreign minister and the president, and complained bitterly that the U.S. is targeting Cuban civilians with its decades-old embargo and new blockade of energy shipments to the island.
“The sanctions against our leaders, we see as a pretext to make the American people think we are a threat,” she said at Cuba’s embassy in Washington. “We are not a threat to the U.S., and we don’t want confrontation.”
Torres Rivera, who holds the formal title of chargé d’affaires, described the situation as “a war without bombs.” She said efforts to change Cuba’s government by coercion or force would be met by fierce resistance.
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Mismanagement at a massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas created unsafe conditions that contributed to detainee deaths and suffering even as millions of wasted tax dollars enriched contractors, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
The Government Accountability Office report documents serious problems at Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso, where three detainees have died in little more than six months. Evidence in one of those deaths, of a 55-year-old Cuban migrant who died in January after being held down by guards, was “missing or destroyed,” the report found.
ICE rushed to open the camp in August before construction was complete and failed to conduct required oversight to ensure detainees were held in sanitary conditions and receiving adequate medical care, according to the report.
DHS noted that ICE has replaced the contractor running the facility. “This new contractor will allow Camp East Montana to continue abiding by the highest detention standards with the ability to provide more medical care on-site,” said spokesperson Lauren Bis.
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The United States launched airstrikes early Wednesday against Iran after blaming Tehran for the crash of an American attack helicopter, and Iran fired back at countries in the region — another escalation that threatened to derail efforts to end the war.
Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan — all of which host U.S. troops — came under Iranian fire. It was the second time this week that back-and-forth strikes have tested the ceasefire after Iran and Israel targeted each other on Monday, and it again raised the question of how much pressure the deal can take before it cracks.
While Trump has insisted that negotiations with Iran to end the war are making progress, he has repeatedly vacillated between expressing such optimism and warning that he was ready to return to all-out war. Iran, meanwhile, has proved resilient despite having faced weeks of heavy bombing, betting that its ability to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial passageway for the world’s oil and natural gas — gives it a strong bargaining chip.
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Graham Platner has secured Maine’s Democratic Senate nomination, setting up a high-stakes battle against longtime incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a race that could determine party control of the U.S. Senate.
Nevada, South Carolina and North Dakota hosted primary elections Tuesday, but much of the political world was focused on Maine’s high-stakes U.S. Senate contest.
The results were never in question. Neither Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins nor Democratic challenger Graham Platner faced serious opposition for their party’s nomination. And yet Tuesday marked an especially significant moment for Platner, the embattled veteran and oyster farmer, who is fighting to rebuild his credibility in a campaign rocked by controversy.
Elsewhere, President Donald Trump’s clout within his party was tested anew in states like South Carolina and Nevada, where he endorsed his favored candidates. Democrats hoped to build momentum in Nevada as part of a broader push to reclaim key governor’s seats.
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A bill to provide nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement narrowly passed the House on Tuesday and now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature, bolstering the administration’s deportation agenda for the remainder of his time in the White House.
Republicans used their majority to get the bill over the finish line, funding a pair of Homeland Security agencies through the next three years. The bill passed by a vote of 214-212, over the objections of Democrats. Trump is expected to sign it into law on Wednesday.
The White House says the bill will provide $38 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26 billion for the Border Patrol and another $5 billion to cover unforeseen costs. It frontloads routine annual funding, ensuring a virtually uninterrupted flow of money as the Trump administration seeks to deport some 1 million people per year.
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FILE - Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks as President Donald Trump signs the Gold Card executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room opens to the public, where approximately 3.5 million pages of public records of the Epstein files are on display, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Medical staff transfer patients to a protected underground facility following an Iranian missile attack, at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
First Lady Melania Trump applauds students as she host the Inaugural Presidential AI Challenge National Champion Awards Ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, right, and his wife Amy Gertner gesture to supporters during a primary election night watch party Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Blue Hill, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
