On Sunday, I will dutifully call my dad and wish him a happy Father’s Day.

I’ll ask him how the weather is, and ask if the deer, squirrels and blue jays have visited the picture window in the living room where apples, peanuts and seeds have been waiting since dawn.

Later in the day, I’ll wonder if he remembers I called and if he knows the new American flag flying on the front porch was a Father’s Day gift from me.

My dad still teases my mom and still reads the paper every day. But he is getting older, slowing down, losing his hearing (please, put those hearing aids in, Dad). He is no longer as trim as he looks in those old Marine photos, and he has stopped driving.

But most noticeable as he ages: My dad is starting to forget things. The doctor says he is showing early signs of dementia.

He is forgetting more and more. But I remember. I remember a lot.

I remember telling him I wanted to learn how to play tennis after watching Wimbledon. That day, we were in Kmart, buying a can of Wilson tennis balls and two black-and-orange MacGregor tennis rackets. I’ve loved tennis ever since.

I remember the nearly two-hour trips from our house in western Maryland to Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Just me and him, keeping score in the $1 program — he showed me how — cheering on the Pirates and hoping, wishing for a foul ball that we could snag with the gloves we brought in. Countless trips, no foul balls. On one trip, I had to have a hot dog and when we returned to our seats, the guy behind us held aloft a baseball, beamed, and said it landed in our seats.

I remember him calling balls and strikes as the catcher/umpire in our backyard when I practiced throwing knuckleballs and curveballs. I seemed to always get the outside-corner strike. I don’t think I ever walked a batter.

I remember asking if we could have a basketball hoop in the driveway. The next day, a gleaming hoop stood straight at exactly 10 feet — homemade with a bleach-white wooden backboard, perfect orange square in the middle and an old rim re-painted bright orange. I was undefeated against him; somehow he always seemed to miss the game-winning shot.

I remember looking up during an away tennis match, or basketball game, or baseball game, and he’d be there. He’d hurried from work to see me play, no matter how far.

I remember him as a forgiving and positive Little League baseball coach who stopped at the local store for 1-cent strands of red licorice I could stuff into my jaw to imitate the tobacco-chewing big-leaguers I watched on TV. There was no error or loss that couldn’t be forgotten with a postgame stop at Scottie’s for a vanilla milkshake on the way home.

I remember him working on my grandfather’s truck as I shifted the gears one day pretending to drive. I shifted one too many times, felt it start to drift and jumped out into his arms. We both watched as the truck slowly rolled into a ditch. He laughed and hugged me. I cried.

I remember Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame. We oo’d and ahh’d for hours.

I remember the bright-yellow Wiffle-Ball bats he’d buy religiously every summer to replace the one from last season that I bashed with dents while launching rocks and pebbles into the field by our house. He was usually working nearby and never seemed bothered by my play-by-play and crowd noise.

I remember hearing the lawnmower early one morning and waking up to a freshly cut baseball diamond for me and my friends.

I remember on visits after he became “Pap”, he’d bring a football or baseball and gloves to have a catch with his grandsons.

We hadn’t had a catch in years, but I took some gloves and a baseball on a recent visit, and he kept alive his streak of never turning down a request to play catch. His fastball has lost some of its zip, but I still got the outside-corner strike.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. You may not remember all these things. But I remember, and I hope I always will.

Jami frankenberry, [email protected]. Twitter @JamiVP

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission will launch a new license and vessel registration system dubbed “Go Outdoors North Carolina” on July 1.

As the transition begins, the current system, called ALVIN, will be unavailable starting Tuesday, June 27 after 5 p.m. through 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 1.

For lifetime license holders, information along with a tutorial on how to obtain your seasonal information will be distributed by email in early July, the division said in a news release.

The permit hunt application system will be available in early July. Program participants will be notified by email when the system is ready, and a tutorial will be provided that demonstrates how to apply for permit hunting opportunities.

Some of the features that will be available through the new system include:

• Set up an account and manage all of your license, permit, vessel needs.
• View your license, permit hunt and vessel registration history.
• View and print certifications, including hunter ed and boater safety.
• Upload documents such as vessel registration documentation, forms, applications and birth certificates.
• Purchase hunting, fishing and trapping licenses.
• Apply for permitted hunting opportunities.
• Digital licensing and big game harvest report cards.
• Report big game harvests.
• Sign up for auto renew to ensure your license doesn’t expire.
• Renew your vessel registration online.
• Sign up for auto renew to ensure your vessel’s registration doesn’t expire.
• Apply for a new or transfer vessel registration online.
• Track the progress of your registration application.

The commission will also launch the GoOutdoorsNorthCarolina mobile app July 1, where users can buy licenses, find sunrise/sunset times by GPS location, find places to hunt and fish nearby and report big game harvests, even when cell service is not available.

NEWPORT NEWS — The great-grandfather of the 6-year-old shooter at Richneck Elementary says the boy is thriving — living with him and attending a new school in the region.

Calvin Jerome Taylor, 62 — a retired U.S. Army soldier with a military bearing — said a Newport News judge granted him full custody of his great-grandson on Jan. 17, or 11 days after the shooting that shocked the nation.

The boy was released in April from Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk, where the first grader was evaluated after he shot his 25-year-old teacher, Abby Zwerner, during class on Jan. 6. He then moved in with his great-granddad.

“He’s doing wonderful,” Taylor said Friday. “I’m picking him up from school as we speak. Well, as soon as I get through this traffic.”

He declined to say which school the 6-year-old — who turns 7 this month — is attending. But he said it’s a privately run institution that’s not part of Newport News Public Schools.

“I really don’t want to say which school, since you guys have a habit of popping up places,” he said of news reporters. “And I would not want to do that to this school.”

“He’s reading, writing, counting, doing everything a kid his age should do,” Taylor said. “He’s progressing. He’s progressed more since he’s been at this school than all those crazy years he was in a Newport News public school system. And I guess basically what he needed was a stable environment. And he just needed to be in a loving environment.”

“And he’s gonna get that from me,” he added. “We have a good time. We play games.”

Those descriptions of the boy’s life mark a vast improvement from what was is asserted in court records about the boy’s behavior at Richneck.

According to a lawsuit filed by Zwerner’s lawyers against the against the school division, the 6-year-old choked another teacher in the academic year prior to the shooting, causing him to be moved to a different school.

When the boy came back to Richneck in the fall of 2022, the lawsuit says the boy cursed at staff and one day took off his belt and chased schoolmates in the playground with it, trying to whip them. Two days before the shooting, the lawsuit asserts, he cursed at guidance counselors and “slammed Ms. Zwerner’s phone, breaking it.” That led to the 6-year-old’s one-day suspension the next day.

On the morning of the shooting, police said, the boy gained access to his mother’s handgun at home, put it in his backpack and carried it to school. While sitting at his desk at about 2 p.m., he fired a single round at Zwerner, who was sitting at a nearby reading table. She was struck in the hand and upper chest.

The 6-year-old and his mother were living with Calvin Taylor at the time, and he said Friday that he regrets that he didn’t act more quickly.

“I think that maybe we as a family could have stepped in a lot sooner,” he said. “It just bothers me. But guess what? I may have failed him once, but I’m not going to fail him again … My sole purpose now is to make sure that this young man has a better chance in life than his first couple of years.”

He said his great-grandson will never return to Newport News Public Schools, which he believes failed the child. And he says he’s grateful a Newport News judge granted him full custody.

“They wanted to take that little boy and put him in a system and whisk him away somewhere like he was public enemy number one,” Taylor said. “Which is not right. Because guess what? Had I not been in court that day, I would probably still be fighting for him. I will fight for him to my dying breath.”

Taylor said his granddaughter — the boy’s mother, Deja Nicole Taylor — is no longer living with him. She’s now living with her mother elsewhere in Newport News.

Deja Taylor faces a felony child neglect charge as well as a misdemeanor charge of allowing a minor access to a firearm. She also faces federal charges of having a gun while using marijuana, a drug that’s still illegal federally. Moreover, she’s accused of lying on a federal background check when she said she didn’t use weed — when in fact she has used it heavily.

The boy’s father, Malik Ellison, was involved in his son’s life but wasn’t living with him. He’s got numerous convictions on his record, and is currently a fugitive from justice, having failed to show for court hearing to resolve a 2020 charge of assaulting Deja Taylor.

“His role is very limited,” Calvin Taylor said of Ellison. “Just like my granddaughter’s role is very limited. They’re always gonna be his parents, but until they can get their lives together, that’s how we are gonna be.”

Taylor said several acqaintances have suggested he leave the area with his great-grandson and start anew. But he and his wife’s family, he said, “have deep roots in the 757.”

“Why should I move?” he said. “I was born and raised in Newport News. That’s my home. I lived other places around the world, other countries. But Newport News, Virginia is my home. Has always been my home. And I don’t think I should have to take that little boy and go anywhere.”

Some organizations have even offered Taylor money to move somewhere else — and he’s always quickly rejected the idea.

“Because guess what, just like anybody else who makes a mistake in life, that little boy should be able to have an opportunity to be the best that he can be in an environment that he knows,” he said. “And I’m going to protect that little boy at all costs.”

Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, [email protected]

RICHMOND (AP) — Most Republican candidates running for the Virginia legislature this year are centering their pitches to voters on issues such as education, the cost of living and gun rights.

But for a small segment of contenders, former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a rigged 2020 election have remained an important campaign selling point heading into Tuesday’s primary.

“There’s still an underlying distrust of the election process by Republicans,” said state Sen. Amanda Chase, who is in a three-way primary for a GOP-leaning seat in suburban Richmond.

The son of NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis died from an accidental drug overdose, according to a report attributed to police in Florida.

Ray Lewis III, 28, was found unresponsive when police responded to a call for a medical emergency around 6 p.m. Wednesday evening, reports TMZ.

The former college football player was reportedly receiving CPR from a friend, as another friend shouted for Narcan — a drug used to treat overdoses — as authorities arrived on the scene.

Police say Lewis was naked, lying on the floor between a bed and a wall, and was not breathing. Narcan was administered in his right nostril according to the report, but it was too late to save his life.

Authorities also searched the scene and discovered a blue pill near Lewis’ body. Reports said the pill was alprazolam, better known by one of its brand names, Xanax.

There was also a used needle in the room, as well as a small plastic bag in an empty beer can, police reported.

Although authorities labeled Lewis’ death an accidental overdose, they note that the final determination of how he died will be left to a medical examiner.

On Thursday, younger brother Rashaan Lewis posted an Instagram Story dedicated to his late brother.

“Really can’t believe I’m even typing this but RIP big brother,” he captioned a picture of Lewis III.

“A true angel, I pray [you’re] at peace now because [I know] how much you was [really] hurtin’. I don’t and won’t ever have the words,” he added.

“Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” President Joe Biden said when he signed the Juneteenth National Independence Act, making June 19th the federal Juneteenth holiday.

Once celebrated primarily by African Americans to mark June 19, 1865, when 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, to enforce compliance with President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery, Juneteenth now symbolizes both freedom from oppressive laws and America’s responsibility to live up to its pledge of liberty and justice for all.

Ironically, in 2023, millions of Americans believe that their freedoms are still under attack. American women are grappling to regain freedom to exercise control over our own bodies after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that ruled against state laws that banned a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. The recent surge in gun violence — resulting in more than 270 mass shootings and more than 350 deaths in the first six months of 2023 — has pitted calls for stricter gun control laws with Second Amendment rights to bear arms. Moreover, more than 50 years after the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law, African Americans are still protesting attacks on voting rights. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of African Americans who challenged Alabama’s congressional redistricting designed to diminish equal power over the ballot box.

In the midst of these struggles, the celebration of Juneteenth arrives as a much-needed diversion and powerful reminder to keep hope alive. It is only fitting that America’s Historic Triangle region — Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown — where Virginia slavery was codified, would join communities nationwide in the celebration.

An array of Juneteenth events are sponsored by members of the Juneteenth Community Consortium, a group of community organizations in Greater Williamsburg that work together to educate, commemorate and celebrate the end of slavery.

The celebrations began on Wednesday, June 14, with the Prelude to Juneteenth sponsored by Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, which featured noted African American history professor Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, musical performances and dramatic readings.

The celebrations picked up steam on Friday when William & Mary kicked off Juneteenth weekend with a special program at the Sadler Center, and the second annual Juneteenth Commemorative Art Exhibition opened at the Stryker Center to highlight Black local artists.

Today, the local NAACP and York County Juneteenth festivities begin with an NAACP-led motor parade that starts at Highland Park and a Juneteenth Community Fest featuring 45 vendors, food trucks and a talent showcase from 9-12 p.m. at Bicentennial Park. York County’s Juneteenth Celebration will be held from 3-8 p.m. at McReynolds Athletic Complex in Yorktown and includes games, speakers, live music and food vendors.

Sunday’s activities include a 6 a.m. Sunrise Service sponsored by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation at the Compton Oak, a landmark tree representing life, endurance, shelter and joy. Williamsburg Live will sponsor Keb’ Mo’, a five-time Grammy winning artist and 2021 recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement in Performance Award.

The grand finale will be on Monday, June 19, when Colonial Williamsburg offers free admission and the Village Initiative in Education Equity sponsors a Juneteenth Celebration Honoring the Ancestors from 1-7 p.m. at the Triangle District located at Scotland and Prince George streets in Williamsburg. The celebration will feature a parade, the crowning of Little Miss and Mr. Juneteenth and vendors.

On Tuesday, community members are invited to a virtual “Juneteenth After Party,” sponsored by Coming to the Table-Historic Triangle to provide an opportunity to share feedback about Juneteenth 2023 and ideas for making Juneteenth 2024 bigger and better.

I hope to see you at the “Table!”

When we come together to build a more inclusive and welcoming community, we all win!

Laura D. Hill is the founder and director of Coming to the Table-Historic Triangle, a program of the Virginia Racial Healing Institute. Learn more about her work at Comingtothetable-historictriangle.org.

NEWPORT NEWS — The mother of the 6-year-old student who shot his teacher at Richneck Elementary School on Jan. 6 is being taken to task in the criminal justice system for her son’s actions.

Deja Nicole Taylor, 25, faces a maximum of 31 years in prison if convicted of charges pending against her in state and federal courts.

But some have asked: What about the boy’s father? Where is he in all of this?

The answer is that while Malik Ramon Ellison, 26, has had a relationship with his son over the years, he wasn’t living with him at the time of the shooting and didn’t take him to school that day.

Yet Ellison is no stranger to the criminal justice system.

In recent years, he faced domestic assault charges from two women — including Taylor. He’s got convictions for assault and battery, violating a protective order and having ammunition as a convicted felon, among others. And he was accused of lying about a past felony conviction when he tried to buy a gun.

One of the assault charges — stemming from a September 2020 argument with Taylor — remains unresolved after Ellison failed to show up for court hearings in January and May. He’s now listed as a fugitive, with an active warrant for his arrest.

And in another case — in which a woman accused Ellison of holding a gun to the back of her head and threatening to kill her — he pleaded guilty to two charges last August and landed a one-year prison term. (He was released a few months later on time already served).

In the school shooting case that has garnered national headlines, police say the 6-year-old boy took Taylor’s handgun to school in his backpack.

As the boy sat at his desk at about 2 p.m., he pulled the firearm out of his front hoodie pocket. Then he pointed it at his first grade teacher — 25-year-old Abigail Zwerner, who was seated at a nearby reading table — and opened fire. The bullet went through the teacher’s left hand, then struck her in the upper chest and shoulder, where it remains today.

Deja Taylor is accused in state court of felony child neglect and a misdemeanor count of access to firearms by children.

Separately, federal prosecutors are charging her with having a gun along with marijuana — a drug that remains illegal under federal law. She’s also accused of lying on a gun background check form saying she didn’t use weed when in fact she was a heavy user.

Ellison, meanwhile, has had a criminal record dating to his preteen years.

He was convicted in 2009 of two sexual assault charges in Hampton stemming from a year earlier, when he was 11. When he was 17, Ellison was one of two teens convicted in a felony breaking and entering case in Hampton.

In September 2020, a then-24 Ellison was charged with breaking and entering into Deja Taylor’s Newport News home and assaulting her. The boy was 4 years old at the time and living in the home.

“Taylor stated when she asked Ellison to leave, he pushed her front door open, came inside and struck her in the jaw,” according to a criminal complaint from police. “Taylor stated Ellison threw her onto the ground, and when she got up, she ran into her apartment, locked the door, and called police.”

Taylor told police that Ellison “followed her” to a McDonald’s in Oyster Point the day before. Taylor also took out a protective order against Ellison on behalf of herself and her son.

At a hearing in January 2021, prosecutors dropped the breaking and entering charge. But Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Rebecca Robinson found the “evidence sufficient” to find Ellison guilty of assaulting Taylor.

Robinson withheld the sentence and final judgement for two years — to January 2023 — to allow Ellison time to demonstrate good behavior.

A few months later — after Ellison was charged with violating a protective order by being with Taylor during a Williamsburg traffic stop — Taylor asked that the protective order be lifted. “He will be living with us as I work full time and cannot afford childcare and would like to coparent on a mutual level,” she wrote in that request.

The judge declined to revoke the protective order. And when it came time to finally resolve the 2020 assault case at a hearing in January, Ellison failed to show up several times.

A warrant was issued for his arrest. Police took him into custody May 9, and he was ordered to come back for a hearing seven days later. But Ellison again failed to show on May 16. A judge issued an order to arrest him, with an active warrant now on file for his arrest.

Another woman came forward in August 2021 to say Ellison had assaulted her. The woman said she and Ellison were arguing about “possible infidelity,” with the woman accusing him of being still involved with Taylor.

The woman said Ellison knocked her glasses off. When she tried to close the door, she said, Ellison kicked and pushed his way through. She said Ellison pushed her into a bed and grabbed her neck. “Stop causing problems, I will kill you!” she said he told her.

The woman sought protective orders against Ellison and Taylor, who she contended also showed up at her home and yelled, “I’ll be back.” But though a magistrate issued a three-day protective order against Ellison, none was issued against Taylor.

The same woman went to police a second time a month later.

In September 2021, the woman said she asked Ellison to leave her home because she learned he was sleeping with his “baby mama.” The woman asserted that Ellison pointed a gun to the back of the woman’s head and threatened to kill her, and that she feared for her life.

Police were on the lookout for a red Chrysler, pulling it over in Oyster Point. Taylor was at the wheel, Ellison in the passenger seat, court records say. Officers said they found a small black and blue Taurus handgun in the car, a criminal complaint said.

Ellison was charged in those cases with abduction — accused of not allowing the woman to leave her apartment — as well as brandishing a firearm, assault and battery, using a firearm in a felony, and two counts of possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. He was also charged with violating the prior protective order pertaining to Taylor.

Four of those charges advanced to the trial stage. In August 2022, Ellison pleaded guilty to two charges — assault and battery and having ammunition as a convicted felon.

He was sentenced under a plea agreement deal to a year of active time, with another five years suspended. With time already served and credit for good behavior, he was out of custody by last fall.

Court documents also show that Ellison was charged in January 2022 with lying on a gun purchasing form when he tried to buy a firearm at a Warwick Boulevard gun shop in March 2020. The Virginia State Police said Ellison checked a box saying he had never been convicted of a felony, despite the Hampton breaking and entering conviction.

Court records show that Newport News prosecutors dropped the false statement charge in May 2022, though no reason is provided and Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard did not return a phone call on the issue Friday.

When Taylor pleaded guilty last week to the federal charges against her, a statement of facts also delves heavily into an April 2021 traffic stop in which a car Taylor was driving was pulled over for speeding in Williamsburg. Taylor was in the car with Ellison, their 4-year-old son, and another man.

One man’s backpack contained “suspected crack cocaine,” weed and other drugs, the statement of facts said, adding that there were “several marijuana edibles that looked like rice treats” next to the boy. Court documents say Ellison was found guilty of violating a protective order by being with Taylor, getting one day in jail.

A phone number listed for Ellison was not in service this week.

His lawyer with the Newport News Public Defender’s Office declined to speak about the case. “I must respectfully decline to comment on that issue,” Assistant Public Defender Katherine Boyle wrote in an email.

According to court documents, Ellison is a high school graduate who attended the Culinary Institute of Virginia and has ties in the community through his mother.

One of Taylor’s lawyers, James Ellenson, declined to comment on Ellison’s cases.

But the 6-year-old’s great grandfather — who landed custody of the boy in late April — said he would put strict limits on the boy’s exposure to his parents.

“I can tell you that I have full custody of my great grandson, and (Ellison’s) role is very limited, just like my granddaughter’s role is very limited,” said Calvin Taylor, 62. “They’re gonna always be his parents, but until they can get their lives together, that’s how we’re gonna be.”

Calvin Taylor said he knows Ellison’s family well. “He wasn’t raised that way,” he said of his issues with the law. “He has some very loving parents” who are “shocked at his behavior.”

“You can sit down with that young man, and he will make you think that he is the most intelligent, polite, engaging individual you’ve ever met,” Taylor said. But “if you put him in a different environment,” he acts differently too.

He also believes Ellison was treated too lightly by prosecutors. “How can you assault a woman, leave the scene, get stopped in the car that the woman said you were in, and you have a gun? But yet, when you go to court, it gets dropped down to having ammunition? I just don’t understand that.”

Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, [email protected]

By STEFANIE DAZIO (Associated Press)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles prosecutors charged former “Saturday Night Live” star Pete Davidson with reckless driving Friday, three months after authorities said he crashed into a Beverly Hills home.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed one misdemeanor count of reckless driving against the actor and writer but did not release details about the March 4 collision in Beverly Hills.

“We believe that Mr. Davidson engaged in reckless driving, which ultimately resulted in his involvement in a serious collision into a home,” the DA’s office wrote. “Luckily, no one was seriously injured as a result of this collision.”

Davidson’s arraignment is set for July 27. His representatives and Beverly Hills police did not immediately return requests for comment.

Prosecutors used the high-profile case to highlight the “devastating consequences” of reckless driving.

“In 2022, traffic fatalities in Los Angeles have reached the highest levels seen in 20 years,” the office wrote in its statement. “This is an alarming trend that we cannot ignore. As a result, it’s crucial that we take all allegations of reckless driving seriously and hold those responsible accountable.”

Davidson’s latest show, “Bupkis,” debuted on Peacock last month.

By TOM DAVIES (Associated Press)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge issued an order Friday stopping an Indiana ban on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors from taking effect as scheduled July 1.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sought the temporary injunction in its legal challenge of the Republican-backed law, which was enacted this spring amid a national push by GOP-led legislatures to curb LGBTQ+ rights.

The order from U.S. District Court Judge James Patrick Hanlon will allow the law’s prohibition on gender-affirming surgeries to take effect. Hanlon’s order also blocks provisions that would prohibit Indiana doctors from communicating with out-of-state doctors about gender-affirming care for their patients younger than 18.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit within hours after Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the bill April 5. The challenge, on behalf of four youths undergoing transgender treatments and an Indiana doctor who provides such care, argued the ban would violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees and trampled upon the rights of parents to decide medical treatment for their children.

Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature approved the ban after contentious hearings that primarily featured testimony from vocal opponents, with many arguing the gender-affirming care lessened the risk of depression and suicide among transgender youth.

Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature approved the ban after contentious hearings that primarily featured testimony from vocal opponents, with many arguing the gender-affirming care lessened the risk of depression and suicide among young people diagnosed with “gender dysphoria,″ or distress caused when gender identity doesn’t match a person’s assigned sex.

Hanlon, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, wrote that he was blocking the law from taking effect because its opponents had demonstrated potential irreparable harm to those undergoing treatment and shown “some likelihood of success” in arguments that it was unconstitutional.

The ACLU had provided “evidence of risks to minors’ health and wellbeing from gender dysphoria if those treatments can no longer be provided to minors — prolonging of their dysphoria, and causing additional distress and health risks, such as depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and suicidality,” Hanlon said. “While the State has identified legitimate reasons for regulation in this area, the designated evidence does not demonstrate, at least at this stage, that the extent of its regulation was closely tailored to uphold those interests.”

ACLU leaders hailed the ruling as a victory in the fight “to defend the right of all trans people to be their authentic selves, free from discrimination.”

“We won’t rest until this unconstitutional law is struck down for good,” Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, said in a statement.

At least 20 GOP-led states have now enacted laws restricting or banning such medical treatments for transgender minors after Missouri’s governor signed that state’s bill into law last week. Lawsuits have been filed in several states against transgender treatment bans. Federal judges have also blocked enforcement of laws in Alabama and Arkansas, and Oklahoma has agreed to not enforce its ban while opponents seek a temporary court order blocking it.

Indiana bill sponsor Republican Rep. Joanna King of Middlebury said as the ban was debated that it would “protect our children from irreversible, harmful, life-altering procedures.”

Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office said in a statement it was disappointed in the decision but that “we will continue to fight for the children.” The statement said the ruling “recognizes that the State has shown there are good reasons for regulating gender transition procedures for minors.”

The office didn’t say whether it would attempt to appeal the injunction before July 1. Provisions of the law that were blocked gave trans youth taking medication to transition until Dec. 31 to stop.

A top attorney for the state told Hanlon during a court hearing on Wednesday that risks from gender-affirming treatments during puberty such as future fertility, bone strength, brain development and possible reversibility had not been adequately studied by scientists.

Such factors make it within the Legislature’s authority to decide “we don’t want our children to be part of this grand experiment,” Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher said.

Though guidelines from leading authorities on gender-affirming medical care already say surgery generally should be reserved for adults, with exceptions for older teens who meet certain criteria, the Indiana law calls for an immediate ban gender-affirming surgeries.

The provisions of the law banning gender-affirming surgeries for minors in Indiana will have no immediate impact. Hanlon wrote in his ruling that no medical providers in the state perform those procedures on people younger than 18.

Representatives from Indiana University Health Riley Children’s Hospital, the state’s sole hospital-based gender health program, told legislators earlier this year that for patients who are minors, doctors do not perform genital surgeries or provide those surgery referrals. IU Health was not involved in the ACLU’s lawsuit.