Latest news with #DOD-funded
Time of India
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
US Navy bans dog and cat experiments following White Coat Waste Project advocacy
White Coat Waste Project uncovered a $10 Navy-funded lab that was performing painful experiments on cats, some of which were already disabled. The experiments involved tests and electroshocking experiments on the cats as a part of strange and disturbing research on things like constipation and erectile problems. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now After their relentless investigation and public campaign, the US Navy has officially announced a ban on all experiments involving dogs and cats. With this, a very painful chapter of government-funded abuse comes to an end. According to WAN, the White Coast investigators uncovered the barbaric practices, exposing them to the public through international media outlets. The shocking news led to a huge response from regular people all over the country, including concerned taxpayers, animal lovers, and pet owners US Navy permanently ends dog and cat testing after activist pressure Anthony Bellotti, President and Founder of White Coat Waste, told WAN 'White Coat Waste didn't just shut down this one cat crippling lab—we ended all future dog and cat testing by the Navy, for good. As someone who's proudly adopted several cat survivors who were rescued after White Coat Waste shut down their labs, this victory is deeply personal. Knowing that no more puppies or kittens will suffer behind Navy lab doors makes this a defining moment in the movement to end animal testing. ' 'We're grateful to Secretary John Phelan, Pete Hegseth, and the Trump Administration for this policy. Pets are family. For too long, beloved dogs and cats were abused in secretive government labs. That era is ending—because White Coat Waste is ending it. The solution is simple: Stop the Money. Stop the Madness,' added Bellotti. PETA reacts to the initiative for animals by White Coast Waste members According to the reports, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) penned a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan, thanking the Trump administration for its ban on Navy-funded dog and cat experiments and requesting a broader ban on all animal testing in all the military branches. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now PETA Vice President Shalin Gala wrote in a statement, "PETA appreciates the Trump administration's decision to stop the Navy's torture tests on dogs and cats, and we urge a broader ban across the Pentagon to end the use of animals in Navy-funded decompression sickness and oxygen toxicity tests, Army-funded weapon-wounding tests and DOD-funded foreign experiments. PETA further urged the Department of Defense to conduct a similar comprehensive, agency-wide audit aimed at rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in cruel and outdated animal experimentation A major win for the innocents For the public and members of the White Coat Waste team who have adopted rescued animals from closed-down government labs, this mission is very personal. Knowing that no more puppies or kittens will suffer behind Navy lab doors marks a powerful and emotional victory. With this major win, we must continue to push for the end of animal testing nationwide, once and for all.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pentagon touts $80M in DOGE cuts, but public receipts don't add up
In a video posted to social media Monday evening, a Pentagon spokesperson read from a list of $80 million in savings found by the Department of Government Efficiency, billionaire Elon Musk's chainsaw effort to cut the federal government. '$80 million in wasteful spending, just right here,' Press Secretary Sean Parnell said after reading a short list. 'Today's actions are just the start,' Parnell added, promising more this week. But after checking these numbers against the public ledger posted on DOGE's website, the two don't add up. Online, Musk's team lists about $11 million in Defense Department savings identified so far. Adding the various items Parnell mentioned in the video, which don't appear on DOGE's website, would bring the total to around $25 million. The Defense Department declined to share the list Parnell read. It also refused to respond to questions about why there was a disparity between the two numbers and when the full receipts would be posted online. President Donald Trump said in February that DOGE would find 'hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse' in the military, tasking Musk to lead the effort. The Biden administration's last budget request for the Pentagon was just under $850 billion. The first round of DOGE's Pentagon cuts represents about .009% of that budget. DOGE says it updates its 'wall of receipts' — which lists federal contracts, grants and building leases that the organization has terminated in recent months — on a weekly basis. The site was last updated March 2, a lag that could account for the discrepancy. It's also possible that some of the contracts making up the $80 million touted by the department haven't been canceled yet and are therefore not included on DOGE's list. Numerous media outlets have found errors in the organization's accounting, including typos that skew contract values or the inclusion of agreements that ended before DOGE was created. The organization says the numbers it posts come directly from government contracting officials. The website currently features nine Defense Department contracts worth approximately $4.8 million. Funding for many of them has been fully obligated, meaning there was no money to gain from canceling them early — like canceling a yearlong subscription six months in. The remaining three would yield about $2.5 million in savings. Included among those is a $3.6 million contract the Air Force awarded in 2023 to Digitas Technologies for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility training. The service has already obligated $1.4 million in funding, so canceling the agreement a year early would net about $2.2 million in savings. Musk's department also lists 12 DOD-funded building leases that have been terminated, but doesn't offer details about when they were canceled. The website claims it saved $8.5 million by consolidating organizations, moving employees to other federal workspaces and closing entire offices. The projected savings for many of the leases assumes they would have continued another five years. For example, DOGE claims $2.7 million in savings from canceling a Defense Contract Management Agency building lease agreement in Buffalo, New York, that cost about $550,000 annually. The DOGE-led cuts follow others promised in the Pentagon under the second Trump administration. In February, the Pentagon said it planned to fire 5,400 civilian employees, part of an early effort to reduce the workforce by 5% to 8%. And the acting Pentagon leadership has said it intends to redirect around $50 billion toward new priorities, offering little detail on what would be sacrificed. Meanwhile, Republicans in the Senate are calling for a massive defense buildup, potentially adding $200 billion to the defense budget over the next two years.
