Biden Admin Spend Up to $300K in Taxpayer Money to Boost LGBT ‘Social Acceptance’ in Botswana

The Biden administration is spending up to $300,000 in tax dollars to promote gay and transgender “social acceptance” in Botswana, according to a federal grant listing reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Department of State will award one U.S. organization or academic institution with the funds so they may “bolster LGBTQI+ community initiatives” and “build support networks and organizations” in the African country. The participants, which will travel to the country and spend up to 18 months there, will be tasked with promoting gay and transgender acceptance among “influential religious groups and traditional groups.”

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Evacuation Flight Departs Afghanistan for the First Time Since November

On Wednesday, after a nearly two-month pause, another evacuation flight departed the country of Afghanistan en route for the United States.

According to CNN, the flight was a Qatar Airways flight that departed from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, paid for by the United States government, with an unknown number of American citizens on board. It is the first such flight since November.

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Bill to Streamline Campaign Finance Reporting Gets Pennsylvania Senate Approval

Legislation authored by Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, to bring transparency and efficiency to Pennsylvania’s campaign finance reporting system was approved by the state Senate.

Under Senate Bill 140, all candidates for office and political action committees will be required to file with the secretary of the commonwealth by utilizing the Pennsylvania Department of State’s online filing system to provide campaign finance reports.

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Pentagon Says Almost 450 Americans Are Still in Afghanistan

Nearly 450 American citizens are estimated to remain in Afghanistan almost two months after U.S. troops withdrew from the country, according to the Pentagon.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken originally said the Biden administration believed there to be “under 200, and likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave,” on Aug. 30, the day before the last Anerican troops left Afghanistan.

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State Department Launching Investigations into Afghanistan Withdrawal

The State Department’s inspector general will investigate the Biden administration’s diplomatic operations in Afghanistan, a spokesperson confirmed with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The series of investigations will tackle a range of issues, from the State Department’s Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, to the processing of Afghans who applied for refugee admission into the U.S, to the resettlement of those refugees and visa recipients, according to an Oct. 15 action memorandum to Secretary of State Antony Blinken first obtained by Politico.

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State Department Can’t Answer How U.S. Will Deal with Afghan Refugees Who Do Not Pass ‘Rigorous’ Security Screening

The State Department would not reveal what the U.S. will do with Afghan refugees who are flagged for security reasons.

“I would rather not entertain a hypothetical,” Ned Price, a spokesperson for the State Department, said at a press briefing Thursday when asked what would happen to Afghan evacuees who fail the vetting process.

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State Department Says It Doesn’t Have Data on Number of Americans Rescued Since Last Kabul Flight

A spokesperson for the State Department said he did not “have data” on whether Americans have been rescued from Afghanistan since the last U.S. flight out of Kabul at a press briefing on Wednesday.

“I don’t have data to provide on that front,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at the briefing when asked if he had a number.

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Report: U.S. Left Behind Majority of Afghan Allies Who Applied for Visas

The U.S. abandoned more than half of all interpreters and Afghans who applied for special immigrant visas (SIV), a senior State Department official told The Wall Street Journal.

The official didn’t share specific information or figures, but estimated that a majority of the visa applicants were left behind in Afghanistan, the WSJ reported. The Department of State doesn’t have exact data on who was evacuated from the Middle Eastern nation after the Taliban took control of the capital city of Kabul, due to the urgent nature of the operation.

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Pennsylvania GOP Senators’ Internal Battle Over Imperiled Forensic Election Audit Goes Public

An internal fight among legislators over a forensic election audit is spilling into public after Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Gettysburg, accused leaders in his own party of stonewalling his investigation.

The senator made the comments during a Thursday interview with One America News Network that he later doubled down on in a lengthy statement posted to his social media pages the following day.

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