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State and national officials lauded former President Jimmy Carter for his public service after learning of his death Sunday afternoon at the age of 100.

President Joe Biden said an official state funeral would be held for Carter in Washington.

"He was a man of great character and courage, hope and optimism," Biden said. "We will always cherish seeing him and Rosalynn together. The love shared between Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter is the definition of partnership and their humble leadership is the definition of patriotism."

President-elect Donald Trump urged everyone to keep the Carter family in their thoughts and prayers.

"The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans," Trump said in a statement released from his campaign. "For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude."

Former president Bill Clinton gave Carter and his wife Rosalynn the Medal of Freedom in 1999.

"From his commitment to civil rights as a state senator and governor of Georgia; to his efforts as President to protect our natural resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, make energy conservation a national priority, return the Panama Canal to Panama, and secure peace between Egypt and Israel at Camp David; to his post-presidential efforts at the Carter Center supporting honest elections, advancing peace combating disease, and promoting democracy; to his and Rosalynn's devotion and hard work at Habitat for Humanity--he worked tirelessly for a fairer, better world," Clinton and his wife Hillary said in a statement.

Former president George W. Bush hailed Carter as a man of deeply held convictions.

"President Carter dignified the office," Bush said on social media. "And his efforts to leave behind a better world didn't end with the presidency. His work with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center set an example of service that will inspire Americans for generations."

Carter served as Georgia's governor from 1971-1975 before becoming president.

Under his leadership, the European and Japanese state trade offices were launched, as well as the Georgia Film Commission," Gov. Brian Kemp said. "He and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter's support of the civil rights movement in the place of its birth is also remembered with deep appreciation."

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones said Carter exemplified what it meant to be a public servant.

"I had the honor of meeting him and his wife, and I will never forget that day," Jones said. "They were kind, wonderful, accepting and exactly what they portrayed every day, two people devoted to lifting up those in their community who needed help the most. President Carter's legacy will live on in the numerous nonprofits, charities and organizations Rosalynn, his family and him started."

Gender transition procedures on minors face intensifying scrutiny as the transgender-friendly Biden administration prepares to step down, with Republican lawmakers demanding a federal health agency reveal the scientific evidence justifying such treatments.

In a letter sent to the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, members of the GOP-led House Committee on Energy and Commerce dubbed the HHS a “global outlier” for its promotion of puberty blockers and reconstructive surgeries for children.

The lawmakers cited European studies and restrictions that apparently contradict the HHS’ assertions that such procedures are beneficial.

“[A]ll of HHS’s medical treatment recommendations, especially medical treatment recommendations for children, should be based on rigorous and well-established research,” the lawmakers wrote. “Accordingly, the Committee requests that the OIG investigate this matter to ensure American children receive evidence-based, high-quality, and safe medical care.”

The committee’s letter came about a week after the House passed the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which included a last-minute GOP addition banning military health insurance from covering procedures on minors that “may result in sterilization.”

The HHS has defended its support of what it calls “gender-affirming care” for minors, claiming that scientific data and medical experts back treatments like hormones and surgeries on children.

“At HHS, we listen to medical experts and doctors, and they agree with us, that access to affirming care for transgender youth is essential and can be life-saving,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in March 2022.

But as recently as October 2024, new research suggests that gender transition procedures on minors may not deliver the benefits promised.

The $10 million study involving Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the second-largest provider of child medical gender reassignment interventions, is currently being withheld from publication due to the author’s fear its results could be “weaponized” against the practice of giving children puberty blocker hormones.

Some medical organizations in the U.S. had expressed caution even before the study was finished, most notably the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

"ASPS currently understands that there is considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria, and the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty. This patient population requires specific considerations," the organization said in April.

Yet, as warning signs grow, the number of gender transition procedures on minors in America has risen significantly over the past five years.

According to medical nonprofit group Do No Harm, between 2019 and 2023, there were at least 13,394 gender reassignment procedures on individuals 17.5 years old or younger nationwide, with the youngest seven years old.

“Procedures” are defined as either the use of puberty or hormone blockers, or gender reassignment surgeries such as mastectomies and penile reconstruction. The organization reports that of those, there were 4,160 breast removal procedures and 660 phalloplasty procedures on minors.

Some states have begun enacting restrictions on what gender dysphoria treatments minors may receive, prompting a slew of lawsuits.

One case challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee’s ban on transgender-identifying children receiving sex surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers is currently being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court is set to rule on whether state-level bans are constitutional in 2025.

A new report published by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, highlights more than $1 trillion worth of taxpayer money spent on projects that he argues wastes and abuses taxpayer money.

Tucked in the report are three programs funded by federal agencies using millions of taxpayer dollars to experiment on cats.

The details are explicit and gruesome.

$11 million on Department of Defense “Orwellian cat experiments”

The US Department of Defense spent nearly $11 million on “Orwellian cat experiments” that have nothing to do with training the U.S. military or national defense.

“When George Orwell wrote 1984, he couldn’t have imagined the bizarre, dystopian reality we find ourselves in today where tax dollars are being spent to shock cats into having erections and defecating marbles. Yes, you read that correctly,” the report states.

Through the DOD’s, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), $10,851,439 of taxpayer dollars were allocated to the University of Pittsburgh to conduct “grotesque and extremely invasive experiments on cats.”

This involved slicing open the backs of male cats to expose their spinal cords and inserting electrodes to send electric shocks “to make cats have an erection.”

The cats were then subjected to “even more electric shocks, sometimes for up to 10 minutes at a time, before having their spinal cords severed to paralyze their lower bodies,” the report states. “And just for good measure, the shocks continued for another 10 minutes. All this, in the name of ‘science.’”

In another DARPA-funded experiment, balloons were inserted into the cats’ colons and marbles into their rectums “to force these poor animals to defecate the marbles via electric shock.”

“Nothing says ‘national defense’ quite like torturing cats to poop marbles,” the report notes. “If we can’t stop the government from shocking cats into defecating marbles, then what can we stop?”

$2.24 million on feline COVID experiments

The report also notes that under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, since 2022, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the U.S. Department of Agriculture allocated $2.24 million in grants to Cornell University to conduct feline COVID experiments.

Through a University of Illinois NIAID subgrant, Cornell received $1.59 million over the past two years in addition to a $650,000 USDA grant, bringing the total to $2.24 million, the report notes.

The experiments led to the suffering and death of 30 cats, according to the records of the experiments, the report notes.

The experiments involved injecting healthy cats with COVID-19, observing them suffer and then killing them in groups of four. The cats were not given any type of vaccine or treatment but killed as early as two days after being injected and left isolated in cages.

NIAID funding for the program is slated to continue through 2025; the USDA’s through May 2026, the report notes.

“It’s a mystery as to why the U.S. government continues to fund these barbaric types of studies, especially when the knowledge gained is either useless to society or could be learned without torturing an animal,” the report states.

$1.5 million to torture primarily female kittens

The National Institutes of Health spent more than $1.5 million to torture primarily female kittens in an extreme example “of waste and cruelty,” the report found.

“If you learned that your money is being used to electro-shock young kittens, torturing them for hours on end, and to the point that they vomit, would you believe it?” the report asks. “Since 2019, $1,513,299 worth of taxpayer money has been going to these medieval-type experiments. This is not some distant, dystopian future; it’s happening right now at the University of Pittsburgh, courtesy of a grant from the NIH.”

According to the report, primarily female kittens between four and six months old were strapped to a hydraulic table, spun 360 degrees, flashed with bright lights, injected with copper sulfate, had holes drilled into their skulls, to be “shocked, and abused without resistance.”

According to NIH, the purpose of the experiments is to study how different species, like cats and monkeys, respond to motion sickness. Understanding responses to the test “could have implications for human health, potentially aiding in the treatment of conditions like vertigo or helping us understand the effects of space travel on the human body,” the report states.

The report cites primary sources and includes photographs of the animals and diagrams of the machines used.