This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

That portion of America's population that preps for disaster often in the past has been limited to handsful of people with electric generators in their garages and basements full of dry and canned foods stacked on shelves.

In other words, a relatively small number.

But it's growing, and the younger populations are leading the way.

That's according to a survey by Finder.com that was profiled in Fox News.

The results reveal that in 2019, only 20% of Americans reported making a disaster-related purchase over the previous year. The most recent year found 29% doing that, with 39% of Millennials and 40% of Gen Zers "reported spending money on disaster prepping in the last 12 months."

Those numbers had spiked during COVID when 45% confirmed such purchases, and among Millennials it was 58% and Gen Zers was 59%.

While the later numbers were down, Fox explained, "Younger Americans appear to be the ones preparing the most for a disaster scenario ahead of 2024, with everything from global pandemics to the upcoming presidential election on their minds."

"In my work, I see young people worried about a repeat of a COVID-type event and the types of disruption it can bring to daily life," explained Chad Huddleston, of Southern Illinois University, in a visit with Fox News Digital.

And Drew Miller, chief of Fortitude Collapse Preparedness, added, "Our people have known for a long time that when there's an electric grid failure or a real pandemic… that people won't go to work, there won't be food, and they'll starve if you don't have preparations."

Patrick McCall, of McCall Risk Group, explained to Fox, "The number of sites I think that were selling these [emergency preparedness] things or the number of places that were offering this type of stuff on the Internet was very scarce [in 2017]. Then we got into COVID, which created its own dilemmas and own kind of prepping in a different bit of craziness, as I would call it."

Several experts suggested concerns over the 2024 presidential election could be a motivating factor.

Miller cited concerns over a "possible civil war" following the election. Democrats, in fact, repeatedly have claimed that democracy will be dead if President Donald Trump is victorious, despite the fact the policies and actions of Democrat candidate Joe Biden, the incumbent, have repeatedly undermined democracy through his agenda to censor ordinary Americans, and impose punishment for thought crimes.

It's also partly because national and international politics are "more chaotic," according to Brekke Wagoner, who runs the Sustainable Prepping social media channel.

"I think for the first time, a lot of Millennials and Gen Zers are realizing how fragile our systems are. We've grown up in a time in which technology has meant we've had grocery stores that were always stocked and you can get anything from Amazon in 24 hours. Then all of a sudden the pandemic and some uncertainties in our national and international politics has made us rethink how all of these systems are not as stable as we assumed," Wagoner said.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Deadspin, the publication that slammed a young Kansas City Chiefs fan as racist for wearing a headdress – he is Native American – and "blackface" – he had painted his face Chiefs colors of black and red – finally is getting around to a "correction."

report at Outkick explained, "Deadspin finally updated its story that originally falsely accused a young Chiefs fan of wearing blackface at an NFL event. Sometime Thursday, the outlet added an editor's note to Carron J. Phillips’ hit piece."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The federal government's "Censorship Industrial Complex" is being hit with a new lawsuit that challenges it for being "one of the most audacious, manipulative, secretive, and gravest abuses of power and infringements of First Amendment rights by the federal government in American history."

report at The Federalist explains it is working with the Daily Wire and the state of Texas on the legal case.

The case, in U.S. District Court, alleges the U.S. State Department has funded and backed censorship efforts "aimed at bankrupting media outlets with conservative views," according to a report at Twitchy.

The federal bureaucracy, under Joe Biden, is accused of "violating the U.S. Constitution by funding technology to silence Americans who question government claims.

The Federalist explained the lawsuit is to stop government censorship activities "even beyond the dramatic discoveries in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case, Murthy v. Missouri (also known as Missouri v. Biden)."

In that case, WND has reported, U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty said the feds were playing the Orwellian role of a "Ministry of Truth," that fictional entity in "1984" that was tasked with spreading lies.

That case is now pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. It charges the program set up by the Biden administration worked like this: Since the government cannot directly censor speech, Biden's bureaucrats would work with various sympathetic foundations or other organizations. Biden's officials would tell the foundations what they wanted tech and social media corporations to censor, and those organizations then would lobby the companies to do that.

In the case, attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana sued the Biden administration over its communications with social media companies concerning the censorship of various ideas. They charged that the indirect route to censorship was equally a violation of the First Amendment.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The evidence of Joe Biden's involvement in the business deals run by his son, Hunter, just continues to add up.

Congress right now is investigating what the Biden family's operations included, and has found dozens of shell company bank accounts that took in tens of millions of dollars from foreign nationals including Russians and Chinese in recent years.

At the same time, the family apparently provided no product or service for those millions – except for access to Joe Biden and his influence as a vice president, then former vice president, and now president.

Joe Biden is even on video at one point boasting about how he forced Ukraine to fire a prosecutor that was investigating corruption at Burisma, a gas company that was, at the time, paying Hunter Biden $1 million a year to be on its board.

In that situation, there's also an FBI document claiming that a Burisma official paid Joe and Hunter $5 million bribes, apparently to get rid of that prosecutor. Joe Biden, in fact, did get him fired.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Leftists rioted violently all across the U.S. during 2020, following the Minneapolis death of George Floyd.

But the riots, which decimated large districts of hundreds of towns and cities with billions in damages, and were in fact, extremely violent despite legacy reporters calling them "mostly peaceful" while standing in front of a burning city block, are now more than riots.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

A Catholic school in Michigan is asking an appeals court for help in stopping a takeover of the institution by leftist politicians who want it to promote their sex ideologies.

It is the St. Joseph Parish, in a lawsuit against Attorney General Dana Nessel and other state officials, that is asking the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to "protect its ability to guide its church and school community" without following the political and ideological demands of state officials.

At issue is a new state demand that makes it illegal for St. Joseph "to hire staff who agree to uphold its religious beliefs and bars it from maintaining a church and school environment that reflects its faith," according to a report from Becket, a specialized legal team that fights for Americans' religious rights.

The lawsuit had been dismissed earlier by a lower court, so St. Joseph is asking the appellate judges to reinstate the action, and let "St. Joseph run its parish and school activities consistent with its Catholic beliefs about human sexuality and marriage."

"For over a century, St. Joseph has existed to serve its local community and help its parish and school grow deeper in the faith," said William Haun, senior counsel at Becket. "St. Joseph must have the freedom to foster an environment that is faithful to its Catholic identity to continue that mission."

Becket reported St. Joseph Catholic Church has since 1857 served the local Catholic community of St. Johns, Michigan.

It started its school in 1924 to give Catholic families "a Catholic education rooted in the teachings of the church."

Like most religious schools, it hires teachers and staff to support and advance Catholic beliefs.

And it asks them to be practicing Catholics and to uphold the faith.

It also treats children as boys and girls and provides separate locker rooms and bathrooms, which in today's world is an offense to the transgender ideology that Joe Biden has been promoting from the White House.

However, the state changed its civil rights law specifically to provide special protections for "sexual orientation and gender identity" and deliberately left out any protections for religious organizations.

That led Nessel to describe Michigan residents of faith as "bigots."

The state has admitted that its agenda penalizes the Catholic school just for exercising its religion. It has ordered the school to ask for state permission if it wants to live by its faith.

"Constitutional rights don’t come with permission slips. Michigan cannot tell St. Joseph and every other religious organization in the state that they are breaking the law by staying true to their religious beliefs," said Haun. "We are asking the court to step in and ensure that religious groups across the state can live out their faith and not be sued simply because they open their doors to everyone."

The appellate court filing explains the state's goal was to "penalize religious objectors who could not endorse same-sex marriage or gender transitions."

The fact that the district court failed to recognize and act on the state's violation of St. Joseph's constitutional rights is a reversible error, the filing charges.

"St. Joseph is engaged in core religious exercise: worshipping and handing on the faith," the filing explains. The document notes that the Constitution allows the school to "uphold its Catholic identity."

The state adopted a novel "reinterpretation" of the law and then prosecuted those religious individuals and organizations that failed to follow that leftist ideology, the filing explains.

Nessel officially attacked those of faith, saying they are not religious heroes, but "bigots."

When the law was considered in the legislature, state Sen. Jeremy Moss said the government must prevent "religion" from discriminating "against someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity."

That ideology conflicts with recent Supreme Court precedent on the same issue.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Joe Biden's demands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in the U.S. military hold a very dark meaning, even darker than the concept that quotas have to be established and filled for the latest group claiming an alternative sexual lifestyle choice.

It means he's "intent on destroying our military by dividing us further," according to a member of Congress who discussed the leftist ideology with The Washington Stand.

It is Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., who said the Democrats' social agenda for soldiers and sailors is "doing nothing but divide us in the military, dividing our nation."

It was in an interview with "Washington Watch with Tony Perkins" that he condemned Biden's demands that the armed forces indoctrinate soldiers in Biden's chosen leftist belief system.

Already, the Department of Defense under Biden has called for $114.7 million to teach "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility" to the nation's fighting forces.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Noted historian and Hillsdale College professor Victor Davis Hanson is issuing a warning to the United States, that the Democrats essentially will do anything they see necessary to defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

Hanson has a long list of credits, including his position as the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, as a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The mouthpieces for Joe Biden's White House, Karine Jean-Pierre, and Andrew Bates, were told they were not allowed to slam Republicans as "MAGA" members, but then did so anyway, according to a new report.

The Daily Mail explains the independent Office of Special Counsel said the two participated in actions "contrary" to official guidance on federal law when they used the "MAGA" moniker to slam Republicans.

It is the Hatch Act that prohibits federal employees from promoting a political ideology while being paid by taxpayers.

The violation happened only after Jean-Pierre already was warned against violating the law that is intended to prevent federal employees from using their positions to influence elections.

It was the OSC that told government officials last summer that "MAGA" and other related terms were "off-limits" because they were being seen as campaign-related slogans.

Jean-Pierre then, after, was found to be in violation of the law with her use of that term, the report said.

A White House official claimed the Democrats running the administration "take the law seriously," and Jean-Pierre often cites the law when she refuses to answer questions about Biden that may be considered campaign-related.

But both Jean-Pierre and Bates used the word "MAGA" repeatedly to demonize Republicans.

"The complaint against the duo was filed by a conservative watchdog group called Protect the Public's Trust, which is run by former Trump administration official Michael Chamberlain," the report explained.

He told NBC News, "Apparently, nobody takes the Hatch Act very seriously, at least nobody that matters. Ms. Jean-Pierre cites it frequently to avoid tough questions, but when she and her deputy received the initial warning from OSC, they doubled down."

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Joe Biden's history of verbal gaffes, misstatements and just plain lies dates back a generation or more.

He dropped out of one of his multiple presidential campaigns years ago because he plagiarized in a speech.

But he's taken his verbal antics to a whole new level now: He's boasting that his "Marine" has the code "to blow up the world."

The stunning comment came during Biden's visit Wednesday to Colorado to promote his green ideology.

At a tour of the CS Wind facility, which makes wind towers, near Pueblo, he abruptly blurted it out.

"Look, my Marine has a code to blow up the world … that doesn't … this is not nuclear weapons, is it?"

According to The Gateway Pundit, "The workers giving Biden the tour awkwardly laughed as he told them about the code to blow up the world."

In fact, the president always is accompanied by a military officer carrying what sometimes is called the nuclear "football," which would allow him to confirm his identity and give orders should the nation be facing a nuclear attack.

It was installed as a practice for every president after President John F. Kennedy wondered, "What would I say to the Joint War Room to launch an immediate nuclear strike?" and "How would the person who received my instructions verify them?"

The report did note that Biden successfully navigated the steps to get off his jet, steps that have proven problematic for him multiple times.

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