This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The transgender issue became a cause celebre for Joe Biden and his administration. He pushed the ideology, unscientific though it is, that men or boys can become women or girls. And vice versa.

His fight extended to the point he was trying to force doctors with ethical and religious objections to do body mutilating surgeries – and he was trying to force taxpayers to pay for it. And not just in the U.S., but around the globe.

President Donald Trump put a block on the agenda when he took office, stating that the government's official policy is that there are two genders, men and women.

But now a report reveals that over recent years, taxpayers have been billed for some $241 million – for transgender experiments on animals.

It is Fox News that reported Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., described such spending as "insane."

It was just weeks ago that the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, in a hearing called, "Transgender Lab Rats and Poisoned Puppies: Oversight of Taxpayer Funded Animal Cruelty," heard from Justin Goodman of the White Coat Waste Project about the spending.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

If politicians are known by the company they keep, things are looking a little precarious for U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

It's because he's been keeping company with Chinese Communist Party officials, including those "actively seeking to weaken American from within."

That's according to a Fox News report which explained Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, warned, "It sends mixed signals when politicians talk about countering the CCP one day then break bread with them the next.

Images of Schumer, a far left politician who now leads the minority Democrats in the Senate and has faced calls for an investigation over his threat to two members of the U.S. Supreme Court if they didn't rule the way he wanted them to on abortion, have been appearing on social media as well as on Chinese sites.

Fox reported Schumer "has been repeatedly photographed this month" sharing stages with CCP Consul General Chen Li, who then posted images online.

Chen Li, known for publicly denying China's alleged genocide against the Uyghur population, posted, "Thrilled to join thousands at the [Brooklyn] Lantern Festival Parade!" The posting included a photo of him standing with Schumer.

Schumer previously was the target of criticism for his association with Chen's predecessor at the consulate, Huang Ping, "who also denied the Uyghur genocide and has promoted CCP propaganda in the past," the report explained.

Huang left his post last year after being named in a criminal indictment against Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's former deputy chief of staff, Linda Sun, the report said.

Huang has called the CCP a "great" party and is listed as PRC Official-1 in the indictment.

Chen's denials of China's alleged genocide conflicts with condemnations from multiple governments around the world, as well as one from the United Nations.

The report said, "The CCP has long claimed its 're-education camps' are voluntary and work only to stamp out extremism, but the leaked documents and photos have shown the camps are far from voluntary."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The initial goals indeed were lofty: For the Department of Government Efficiency to cut $2 trillion from federal spending by cutting out fraud, waste and corruption.

Even $1 trillion, discussed by many as realistic, was huge.

In just a few weeks, reports say, DOGE, run by Elon Musk, has found $55 billion to eliminate.

And it looks like a bit of that could end up coming back to taxpayers.

The Washington Examiner reports, "The Trump administration could be sending out $5,000 checks to millions of people next summer if Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have their way."

Musk said on social media he's checking with the president on the future of what proponents call a DOGE Dividend.

Early plans suggest 20% of what is saved could be sent back to taxpayers.

The report said, "If the idea moves forward, it is sure to face pushback, as have most of Trump and Musk's moves over the last month. Thousands of people have been laid off or fired throughout the federal government, and Democrats are staging protests almost daily outside various agencies or on the National Mall."

A report from Forbes said the idea was pitched by James Fishback of investment firm Azoria. He reportedly advises DOGE.

The report explained the plan is to return 20% of DOGE's targeted $2 trillion in savings to some 79 million tax-paying households.

Musk has confirmed that ultimately the decision would be up to President Trump.

Musk and his DOGE team have been working to cancel grants and contracts, reduce the federal workforce, and more. Multiple lawsuits have been filed, with some of the DOGE actions now on hold, while other judges have affirmed various moves, such as offering federal workers six months of paid leave in return for leaving government employment.

Fishback, in the report, was called "an outspoken supporter of Trump, Musk and DOGE" who considers DOGE "pro-taxpayer and anti-waste."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

In the aftermath of a decision by President Donald Trump's DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, essentially to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and transfer a few remaining workers and responsibilities to the Department of State, a columnist has released a stunning report.

It charges that USAID ultimately was responsible for the delivery of billions of dollars in American cash to the Taliban.

A description of the events that transpired, leaving the Taliban with $2.9 billion in American cash, was provided by Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, at the Gatestone Institute.

He explained how the DAB Afghanistan Bank boasted of $40 million in stacks of hundred-dollar bills "sitting on the tarmac at Kabul International Airport."

He said the Taliban-run bank called it one of three shipments of "humanitarian aid" totaling more than $100 million.

At the time, the bank was run by Noor Ahmad Agha, a "specially designated terrorist" who had been accused of financing "bomb-making" including IEDs that killed more than 1,000 American soldiers.

"While no international organization was willing to admit to the cash-smuggling operation, the ultimate responsibility lay with USAID," the report said. "The $40 million on the tarmac was part of a much larger scheme under which USAID and the State Department provided over $1.7 billion in funding to the UN, which then shipped $2.9 billion in cash to Afghanistan."

At the time, it was illegal for U.S. banks to process such transfers to the Taliban.

"USAID was helping finance an illegal operation to circumvent sanctions on terrorists," he wrote.

The report said USAID claimed it did not provide "currency" to the Taliban because the money instead went to the United Nations' "pooled accounts."

What happened was that the $1.7 billion was sent to the U.N., which "used some of the money to buy dollars to fly into Afghanistan, to trade for Afghan currency, which the U.S. had also arranged to have printed on behalf of the Taliban."

The report charged, "USAID funded the U.N., which used an intermediary to purchase the hundred-dollar bills from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where Afghanistan's wealth, claimed by the Taliban, was being held, then contracted with a company, quite possibly Osama bin Laden's old airline, to fly it to Afghanistan, deposit it in banks, allocate it to NGOs and then use DAB to convert the dollars into local Afghan currency."

Ned Price, then a spokesman for the State Department, said the plan was to "address one of the aspects of Afghanistan's ongoing liquidity crisis."

Greenfield reported the situation actually "is even worse than it sounds," as DAB arbitrarily set the exchange rate for afghanis and dollars "at a far higher rate than the black market exchange rate."

He said, "The money laundering operation required multiple steps and plausible deniability for USAID, the State Department and the U.N., which insisted that '[n]one of the cash brought into Afghanistan is deposited in the Central Bank of Afghanistan nor provided to the Taliban de facto authorities by the U.N.' To the extent this was true, it was because the money was deposited in a 'private bank,' allocated to NGOs funded by the U.N., which then exchanged it with DBA's assets."

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Amid rumors that an all-female flight crew was at the helm of the Delta Air Lines flight that crashed and flipped upside down in Toronto this week, the company's chief executive officer is refusing to identify the pilots.

"I can't provide any details," Delta CEO Ed Bastian said Wednesday morning on CBS. "It's an ongoing investigation."

When asked specifically about the pilots, Bastian said: "It was an experienced crew."

"There is one level of safety at Delta," Bastian said. "All these pilots train for these conditions."

While he called video of the crash "horrifying," he praised the actions of the crew deducting the evacuation process.

"This is what we train for," Bastian noted. "We train for this continuously."

Meanwhile, video has emerged of the pilots of Endeavor Air, which operated the Minneapolis-to-Toronto flight.

One clip is set to the 2004 Disney movie "The Incredibles" and includes the lyrics: "Girls, come on? Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don't think so. I don't think so."

A female pilot os shown lip-synching the words as she wags her finger in a negative manner.

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Famous "The Harbinger" author Jonathan Cahn has delivered a prophetic message to members of Congress – and others – during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

It's a call for revival across America.

"We have this chance. We have this window that we may never have again," he explained.

He said the "window" that has opened is the re-election of President Donald Trump.

"This is our moment. This is our window."

He cited the warning from America's first president. "The propitious smiles of heaven, he said, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained."

And now, he judged, "We have turned away from God, we have disregarded His eternal rules of order and right. We have profaned the holy and we have sanctified the profane. We have celebrated evil and condemned and canceled the good."

But Trump, he said, likening the president to the Old Testament king Jehu.

He said Jehu was "wild, impulsive and unpredictable," he forged an alliance with religious conservatives, he contended against a former national leader, and then overturned the nation's temple of Baal and "moved with lightning speed."

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Delta Air Lines is coming under severe criticism for doubling down on its push for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or DEI, just days before Monday's spectacular crash involving a Minneapolis-to-Toronto flight that flipped one of its planes upside down during landing.

On Feb. 6, Peter Carter, chief external affairs officer at Delta, said: "We are steadfast in our commitments because we think that they are actually critical to our business."

"Sustainability is about being more efficient in our operations and really DE&I is about talent and that's been our focus."

"The key differentiator at Delta is our people," Carter added, according to Fox5Atlanta.

Among those slamming the airline in harsh terms is comedian Tyler Fischer, a frequent face on the Fox News Channel, who said on X:

"This is from Delta's DEI website. An airline OBSESSED with the race and sexual preferences of their workers. Think the passengers who almost died in Toronto give a flying F*** about if the pilot [has sex with] dudes or the flight attendant's great grandma was a nonbinary Native American?"

"Just land the damn plane right side up. Look at their site it's insane:"

Another commenter noted: "Delta, the epitome of DEI zealotry, now faces the stark reality of their folly. A crash, not of mechanical failure, but of judgment, where diversity trumped skill. The wreckage serves as a stark reminder: competence, not checkboxes, should dictate roles. The cost? People's lives!"

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Voters already have settled on Joe Biden's legacy for his time in the White House.

Nothing.

The results of a survey, reported by Daily Mail, made it clear; "It is the one question that unites Americans when it comes to President Joe Biden."

The report continues, "Ask Democrats, Republicans or independents for their one-word summary of his legacy and they put aside their differences to answer almost unanimously: Nothing."

The results are from a poll by J.L. Partners, done for the Daily Mail, which quizzed 1,009 registered voters about their thoughts regarding Biden's legacy.

The poll, taken just as Biden was leaving the White House, also found people responding with comments such as "economy," "inflation," and such. Democrats claimed their other memories included "good" and "stability."

But "Nothing" dominated among all political subdivisions.

"When voters were asked whether they can remember a single Biden achievement, more than half say they cannot. Some 37 percent say they 'strongly' agree with the statement that they cannot name a single one," the report continued. "Even Democrats struggle. More than a third said they could not name a single achievement."

Pollster James Johnson said, "As far as public opinion is concerned, you have to squint to see even the echoes of a legacy—and even then people are more likely to remember it negatively. Biden's biggest achievements in office—such as legislation in Congress – are crowded out by the overriding view: That he was responsible for inflation, and that he was a mentally unwell commander-in-chief."

He suggested the history books may come up with a legacy, "but in the minds of the public there's no legacy to be seen."

Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told the publication that history will view Biden favorably. "I think he's going to be regarded in the future as a prophet, because I think we'll look back at the inflation Reduction Act and his other environmental activism, and say: 'Boy, I wish we had paid more attention then to what he did.'"

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A school district in the leftist enclave of Minnesota, now run by Gov. Tim Walz, the failed Democrat nominee for vice president in 2024 whose agenda has been to promote abortion and transgenderism, has decided to ban pastors from meetings of the local Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

A report from columnist Todd Starnes identified the school as Pequot Lakes Public Schools, which announced "non-school adults may not attend FCA meetings on a regular basis."

The report explained the school imposed the draconian viewpoint discrimination rule after the Freedom From Religious Foundation filed a complaint and accused a local youth pastor of recruiting students at middle school FCA meetings.

"They accused the middle school of using FCA meetings as a recruiting ground for a religious mission. They further contended that the youth pastor broke the Equal Access Act," Starnes reported.

Kyle Steinberg, a part of the FFRF team, complained, "Schools cannot constitutionally allow religious organizations to treat schools as a recruiting ground for their religious mission."

And Annie Laurie Gaylor, another FFRF member, insisted, "A pastor or other evangelists may not be allowed unobstructed access to a captive audience of public school students. The district has made the right call to abide by the Constitution."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Marco Rubio, America's secretary of state, has outlined several basic points on which agreement already has been reached for developing peace talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

That has been one of the major goals President Donald Trump has emphasized for his presidency.

Rubio, according to a report in the Daily Mail, revealed plans to "re-establish diplomatic facilities," appoint a high-level diplomatic team to work on an "enduring peace," and address plans for economic and geopolitical cooperation.

The U.S. launched talks with Russian officials with the goal of reaching an agreement involving the various parties that will halt the war between the two. Trump already has talked with Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky by phone.

And America has announced that it no longer is giving virtually unlimited funding to Ukraine.

Involved so far have been Rubio, U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.

The war has been raging since 2022 and has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

"The talks came after Trump spoke with Putin last week as the U.S. moves away from isolating Russia, but Ukrainian representatives were not present for the sit-down in the Middle East," the report said. Zelensky has insisted that no deal will be accepted if Ukraine is not at the negotiating table.

The report said additionally, the five people at the first meeting will remain engaged, "so they know it is moving along 'in a productive way,'" the report said.

Commentator Charlie Kirk explained, "America does NOT have to be engaged in an endless proxy war with Russia. We can have peace and even cooperation. What a breath of fresh air."

Rubio noted, "The only leader in the world who can make this happen, who can even bring people together to begin to talk about it in a serious way is President Trump."

And he affirmed that "everyone involved" has to be on board with a resolution.

Waltz said the issue of territory taken by Russia would have to be discussed.

"What the president did not find acceptable was an endless war in Europe that was literally turning into, has turned into a meat grinder of people on both sides," Waltz said.

Zelensky has said Ukraine will not "give in" to Russian ultimatums.