What Damage Could Be Done With Missing Explosives;

500 Pounds of Explosives Missing from Detroit-Bound Train: ATF

Explosives, similar to commercial grade fireworks, stolen from train that left Chicago and traveled through Ohio before arriving in Detroit.

Shared from the Royal Oak, MI Patch

By BETH DALBEY (Patch Staff) -  April 22, 2016 10:15 pm ET 

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DETROIT, MI – A CSX freight train rolled into Detroit earlier this week minus about 32 cases of explosives, and federal authorities say they’re concerned they may have fallen into the wrong hands.

Federal authorities are searching for the approximately500 pounds of commercial grade explosives in at least three states. The theft was reported two days ago, but wasn’t made public, CBS reported Friday.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was expected to issue an advisory and offer a reward in the coming days, CBS said.

The train left Chicago with the explosives intact and traveled through Ohio before arriving in Detroit, where the theft of half of the cargo was discovered.

Donald Dawkins, a spokesman for the Detroit Field Division of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told the Detroit Free Press the explosives — shells between 2½ and 5 inches long — are similar to aerial fireworks, and emphasized “there isnothing to indicate any acts of terrorism at this time.”

But authorities are treating the investigation seriously, Dawkins said.

The ATF’s Detroit Field Division is leading the investigation, with assistance from the Detroit Police Department and the CSX railroad.

Dawkins said the investigation so far is leading investigators to believe the theft likely occurred in Detroit.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call ATF's Detroit offices at (313) 202-3400.

Image credit: Don O’Brain via Flickr / Creative Commons

Separate Bathrooms For Different Sexes Now Are Illegal. Ridiculous Ruling To Placate .03% Of The Population

EDUCATIONCOMMENTARY

Federal Court: Schools May

 Not Provide Separate

 Bathrooms Based on Biology

Ryan T. Anderson / @ryantand / April 19, 2016 / 379 comments

• 23.k

(Photo: Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye/Newscom)

COMMENTARY BY

Ryan T. Anderson@ryantand

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon senior research fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory. He's the author of the just-released book, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Liberty." Read his research.

The Fourth Circuit Court ruled today 

against a Virginia school district that 

sought to accommodate a transgender

 student while also protecting the privacy

 rights of other students.

The federal court concluded that Title IX 

of the Education Amendments of 1972—

which prohibits discrimination on the basis

 of sex—should be interpreted as 

prohibiting discrimination on the basis of 

gender identity, as a Department of 

Education letter suggested in 2015. The 

ruling allows a lawsuit brought by a 

transgender student to proceed.

The case involves a biological girl who

 identifies as a boy. The court’s majority

 explains it this way: “G.G.’s birth-assigned

 sex, or so-called ‘biological sex,’ is female,

 but G.G.’s gender identity is male.” Note

 the scare quotes around what the court

 calls “so-called ‘biological sex.’” Biological

 sex, in fact, is precisely what Congress 

protected in 1972.

In a stinging dissent, Judge Paul

 Niemeyer points out that “the majority’s 

opinion, for the first time ever, holds that 

a public high school may not provide 

separate restrooms and locker rooms 

on the basis of biological sex.” It’s 

hard to imagine that that’s what Congress 

was prohibiting when it enacted Title IX 

in 1972.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia 

This holding completely tramples on

all universally accepted protections

of privacy and safety that are based

on the anatomical differences between

the sexes. … schools would no longer

be able to protect physiological

privacy as between students of the

opposite biological sex.

This unprecedented holding overrules

custom, culture, and the very

demands inherent in human nature

for privacy and safety, which the

separation of such facilities is

designed to protect. More

particularly,

it also misconstrues the clear

language of Title IX and its

regulations. And finally, it reaches

an unworkable and illogical result.

Niemeyer even points out that students 

have privacy rights to not have students

 of the other biological sex in their locker

 rooms:

Across societies and throughout

history, it has been commonplace

and universally accepted to

separate public restrooms, locker

rooms, and shower facilities on the

basis of biological sex in order to

address privacy and safety concerns

arising from the biological differences

between males and females. An

individual has a legitimate and

important interest in bodily privacy such that his or her nude or partially nude body, genitalia,

and other private parts are not

exposed to persons of the opposite

biological sex. Indeed, courts have

consistently recognized that the need

for such privacy is inherent in the

nature and dignity of humankind.

Nevertheless, G.G. sued the school

 district. Why? Because the district 

created a policy which says that bathroom

 and locker room access is primarily 

based on biology, while also creating 

accommodations for transgender

 students. Specifically, the policy is that 

only biological girls can use the girls’ 

room, only biological boys can use the

 boys’ room, and any student can use 

one of the three single-occupancy 

bathrooms, which the school created 

specifically to accommodate transgender 

students.

But even this accommodation wasn’t 

good enough. Hence the lawsuit and 

Tuesday’s ruling.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Andre

 Davis claims the student is at risk of 

“irreparable harm” if forced to use a

 single-occupancy bathroom. Davis 

says that to support the claim of 

“irreparable harm, G.G. submitted an

 affidavit to the district court describing 

the psychological distress he experiences

 when he is forced to use the single-stall 

restrooms.”

Davis adds that “G.G. experiences daily

 psychological harm that puts him at risk

 for long-term psychological harm, and his

 avoidance of the restroom as a result of 

the Board’s policy puts him at risk for 

developing a urinary tract infection as 

he has repeatedly in the past.” Davis

 concludes that for G.G. to use single-

occupancy restrooms “is tantamount

 to humiliation and a continuing mark

 of difference.”

Niemeyer, however, points out that 

the majority relies not on the actual 

text, history, or legal implementation 

of Title IX, but on a 2015 letter from

 the Office for Civil Rights of the

 Department of Education: “The 

recent Office for Civil Rights letter, 

moreover, which is not law but which 

is the only authority on which the

 majority relies, states more than the 

majority acknowledges.” Indeed, that 

letter suggested that schools “offer the

 use of gender-neutral, individual-user

 facilities to any student who does not 

want to use shared sex-segregated

 facilities.”

At the end of the day, it’s hard to 

disagree with Niemeyer when he

 writes, “Any new definition of sex

 that excludes reference to physiological

 differences, as the majority now 

attempts to introduce, is simply an

 unsupported reach to rationalize a 

desired outcome.” This is simply an

 unaccountable agency and an activist 

court rewriting Title IX and remaking 

bathroom policy across our nation.

Bathroom, locker room, and shower

 facility policies that protect privacy 

based on biology while also

 accommodating transgender students

 make good sense. And as Niemeyer 

explains, they comply with the law, too:

 “When the school board assigned 

restrooms and locker rooms on the 

basis of biological sex, it was clearly 

complying precisely with the 

unambiguous language of Title IX and

 its regulations.”