Oklahoma ideology test for teachers from New York and California draws criticism
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma's public schools superintendent, said Monday that any teacher coming from the two blue states will be required to pass an assessment exam administered by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative nonprofit, before getting a state certification.
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26 minutes ago
Donations to Sean Feucht groups via B.C.-based charity add to financial transparency concerns raised in Canada
A non-profit watchdog says Canadians have no way of knowing how much money is being donated to an evangelical group founded by an American who is making headlines across the country for event cancellations and questions about his views. Permits for Sean Feucht's summertime worship concert events organized by his Burn 24/7 group in major cities across Canada — including Winnipeg, Halifax, Charlottetown and Abbotsford, B.C. — were cancelled recently amid public backlash. The Canadian arm of Feucht's Burn 24/7 organization accepts some donations via the Great Commission Foundation, a B.C.-based registered charity that provides tax receipts on behalf of hundreds of unregistered Christian organizations. Charity Intelligence says the foundation's finances are opaque, and the only way to get audited statements is through access-to-information requests. This charity is not financially transparent, said Kate Bahen, Charity Intelligence's managing director. When charities are not transparent and are not accountable and they're not open and disclosing where the money goes, that opens them up to these questions. Enlarge image (new window) The project page for Burn 24/7 Canada on the Great Commission Foundation's website welcomes donations. The B.C.-based registered charity takes donations on behalf of hundreds of unregistered Christian organizations. Photo: CBC / Arturo Chang MAGA-affiliated musician and preacher Feucht has drawn condemnation over comments he's made online and in past interviews about abortion, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, critical race theory and gender diversity (new window) . Charity Intelligence's criticism of the foundation comes as others note that news articles about Feucht's cancelled worship concerts have likely raised his profile among potential donors. Kate Bahen of Charity Intelligence says the foundation's finances are opaque. Photo: Submitted by Charity Intelligence The attempt to censor has backfired in a way that's … brought him attention that $1 million in advertising would have never brought him, said James Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University. Burn Canada Ministries previously held registered charitable status in Canada, but it was revoked in 2021 over a failure to file required documents. Then in 2024, the Great Commission Foundation announced Burn Canada was one of its projects (new window) . Canadians can also donate directly to Burn Canada without receiving any tax receipts. In a 2024 annual report (new window) , the organization says broadly how it's spending funds on such things as recruitment, worship events and Feucht's Let Us Worship tour, but there is no detailed breakdown of its spending. CBC reached out to the Great Commission Foundation and Burn Canada for comment, asking them how much money the foundation processes on behalf of Burn Canada. They did not respond. Miles Howe, a Brock University sociology and criminology professor who studies charities, said oversight in the Canadian charity sector is too lenient, and the Great Commission Foundation should be scrutinized. Any time that you have a Canadian charity operating in this fashion of … an amped-up GoFundMe campaign for dozens of other intermediaries, be they qualified or non-qualified donees, it's certainly cause for further investigation, he said about the foundation. Audited Great Commission Foundation financial statements from 2022 obtained by Charity Intelligence through an access to information request show only consolidated results. There was $31.1 million in total agency program costs, but no disclosure of which organizations got the money. The foundation does break down how much it spends on individual international programs in publicly available filings. CRA not doing enough audits: Lawyer Toronto-based charity lawyer Mark Blumberg wouldn't speak about specific charities, but he said public filings usually have more information on foreign activity than on what charities manage inside the country. Guidance from the Canada Revenue Agency says while registered charities can use intermediaries or make grants, they cannot act as a conduit that merely funnels resources to an organization that is not a qualified donee. The CRA says charities must keep adequate records showing that's not the case. But Blumberg said most of the time, charities don't make it clear enough to the public that they're following the rules. A charity may be publicly talking about doing certain work, he said, but is there all the backup for it? Did they do the due diligence? Blumberg says transparency is an issue because Canadians may question why some charities get special tax privileges. He believes the CRA does not do enough audits, saying the agency only performs about 200 a year, even though there are about 86,000 registered charities. The CRA said in an email that its enforcement is based on the risk of non-compliance, and a charity may be chosen for an audit based on things like public complaints and media coverage. The CRA claims to have checks in place, Howe said, but to me … there's a lack of even baseline reporting there that the CRA appears comfortable with. Ex-Feucht volunteers urge caution Questions are also being raised in the United States about some of Feucht's charities. Burn 24/7 is only one of several charities led by Feucht, whose main organization — Sean Feucht Ministries — was given a withhold giving rating by U.S.-based Christian charity watchdog MinistryWatch (new window) , which gave it an "F" grade for transparency. Sean Feucht Ministries changed its Internal Revenue Service tax-exempt status to church in 2022, exempting it from filing some documents that provide financial information to the public. Another Feucht charity, Let Us Worship, is also exempt from disclosing that information because it has church status. Two other organizations, Burn 24/7 and Light a Candle, do file the U.S.-based tax Form 990, which can increase financial transparency. But for Burn 24/7, the most recent annual filing available is from 2021. In 2020, the last year in which Sean Feucht Ministries, Burn 24/7 and Light a Candle all reported publicly available financial details, the disclosed compensation for Feucht himself is listed as $167,000 US, $17,500 US and $37,467 US respectively. That equals over $221,000 US a year. Earlier this year, a group of former employees and volunteers who worked for Feucht called on the U.S. government to formally investigate Feucht's financial practices. 'Sean was like a hero,' says Richie Booth, who worked as an administrative staff member for Burn 24/7. Booth is part of a group of former volunteers and staffers calling for an investigation into Feucht's finances. Photo: Submitted by Richie Booth I was someone that believed in his cause, said Richie Booth, who worked as an administrative staff member for Burn 24/7. Sean was like a hero in the worship and prayer movement. He cautioned people who may agree with some of Feucht's views about donating to his ministries. The group of former supporters raises concerns about real estate owned by Feucht and his ministry, asking why a charity needs such expensive real estate. Public records say Sean Feucht Ministries is owner of a residential property in Washington, D.C., that was purchased for $967,000 US in 2022; a mansion in Orange County, Calif., that, according to real estate site RedFin, was bought for $3.5 million US in 2024; and a cabin and 40 acres of land in Montana with a market value of over $1 million US purchased in 2023. The Washington property is home to Camp Elah, which Feucht has described as his ministry headquarters in D.C. Enlarge image (new window) This mansion in Orange County belongs to Sean Feucht Ministries. Photo: Public disclosures from the D.C. licensing department show the non-profit status for Sean Feucht Ministries — which would allow it to operate in the U.S. capital — was revoked in 2023. A department spokesperson said in an email Tuesday the organization failed to submit a required filing. CBC News could not reach Feucht for comment. Feucht unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican in California in 2020. Documents say the singer's campaign made two contributions (new window) to Burn 24/7 despite U.S. regulations barring electoral committees from making donations to charities that have previously compensated candidates. The contributions to Burn 24/7 totalled $22,844 US in 2020 and 2021 — both years when Feucht received compensation as president of Burn 24/7, tax filings say. More than half of the donated money ended up being returned to the campaign after regulators told the campaign committee that a number of prohibited contributions had to be refunded to donors, U.S. Federal Election Commission documents say. Christy Gafford appears at a Burn 24/7 'furnace' in Corsicana, Texas, in 2021. Gafford served as national director for the U.S. non-profit. Photo: Submitted by Christy Gafford Christy Gafford, who served as a national director for Burn 24/7 at the time, said she did not have any information on the campaign, but that she has serious concerns regarding how Feucht operates through his organizations. He's very charismatic. He is very influential. But I also believe that he utilizes his platform to dictate a narrative that is going to be beneficial to him, she said. I believe that he uses that platform to increase the controversy, instead of actually using the platform to properly tell the gospel. Gafford said that the controversy in Canada has played into Feucht's hands. He creates a narrative that is going to, in the long run, make him look as though he is persecuted and utilize that to increase his own enrichment, she said. Arturo Chang (new window) · CBC News · Reporter Arturo Chang is a reporter with CBC Manitoba. Before that, he worked for CBC P.E.I. and BNN Bloomberg. You can reach him at
an hour ago
'Gives us some hope': Afghan women at risk of deportation due to USAID cuts look to find home at U of R
Nilab still remembers the day Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021. She was at the bank trying to pay for her sister's passport in preparation for fleeing the country. Dressed in a red suit from work and with her hair uncovered, every taxi driver refused to take her home. Nilab, 29, says they feared they would be killed by the Taliban for giving her a ride without a male guardian. At the time, she had a professional job and was studying at the American University of Afghanistan. Her father worked for the U.S. government. The family had to flee. She says getting out was dangerous enough, and returning is not an option. There is no way back to Afghanistan, Nilab said by video call from her dorm room in Qatar, where she has studied computer science for the past three years. CBC News has agreed to conceal her identity because of safety concerns. If she and her sister return to Afghanistan, they would likely be caught as soon as they land at the airport, she said. They would torture us. They would kill us. Both women are currently facing deportation from Qatar after the scuttling of the USAID program upended their studies at the American University of Afghanistan's so-called campus in exile in Doha. The women's scholarships to the Middle East were completely dependent and reliant on the USAID funding, said Friba Rezayee, the executive director of Women Leaders of Tomorrow, a Vancouver-based non-profit which works to pair Afghan women with scholarships in the United States and Canada. When USAID was defunded, the women were basically left to cry. Without a valid study or work permit, Nilab must leave Qatar in September, when her current Qatar residence permit expires. Up to 25 women in the same situation are hoping to find safety at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan. The university and Women Leaders of Tomorrow are working to raise half a million dollars to cover the international tuition fees of the women and bring them to Canada. Rezayee says they have made substantial progress toward that goal so far. Enlarge image (new window) Young Afghan athletes connected to Women Leaders of Tomorrow at a sports stadium in Afghanistan. Photo: Submitted by Friba Rezayee They were left without hope, certainty or any light in their lives, Rezayee said. The students reached out to her, and Rezayee put out a call to Canadian post-secondary schools (new window) asking for help. The University of Regina was one of the very first universities to step up and help, Rezayee said. They're willing to put up the work. They're willing to do all the paperwork. U of R says it has room for all the students put forth University of Regina President Jeff Keshen says the school is doing everything it can to provide support for the students and to raise funds. The university launched its Project Resilience (new window) scholarship program back in 2022, to provide students fleeing war, conflict or political violence in their home countries with funding to study at the University of Regina. We will provide them with free housing and a meal plan, as long as they will pay the international tuition, Keshen said, adding that the school has the luxury of space on campus. We're one of the places in Canada that actually has capacity to accept students on our campus, in rooms, Keshen said, We don't have a housing crisis at U of R. The $500,000 fundraising goal would cover all the students put forth by Women Leaders of Tomorrow. Currently, Keshen said there's enough money to bring a portion of those students over, pending approval from the federal government for their study permits. If we can't do it all, we'll do what we can, Keshen said. All the prospective students are very talented, as many have attended professional schools and are partway through their masters' degrees, Keshen said. We're hoping that we can help these very deserving students have a new opportunity at the University of Regina, rather than returning to what's going to be horrible circumstances, Keshen said. Enlarge image (new window) A group of young women in Women Leaders of Tomorrow's English language program defy the Taliban to meet and learn in a secure location in Kabul in late summer 2021. Photo: Submitted by Friba Rezayee He said the university has found that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has been operating at a glacial pace for processing international students. Sadly the refusal rate is very high or these applications just don't get processed. They sit and they wait and then the student by default doesn't get over here, Keshen said. Really this is a federal issue at this point, he said. The ball is in Ottawa's court now. In a statement to CBC, IRCC acknowledged that some students, including those with acceptance letters to Canadian schools, may have been experiencing increased processing times for their study permit applications. While an offer of admission is an important step, it does not automatically lead to a study permit, the statement said. Decisions are made by highly-trained officers who carefully and systematically assess each application against the criteria set out in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and its regulations, said the statement. Rezayee said even if all 25 women can come to Saskatchewan, there will still be more left behind in Qatar. We're trying to help as many as we can, she said. Women Leaders of Tomorrow is currently looking for volunteers in Regina to help the women settle into their new communities — things like giving the women a tour of the city and helping them find a doctor. She said the group wants to start the admission letter process, though the final number for how many can come is still being determined. A life interrupted Nilab said she has been in contact with the University of Regina about what she'll study, but her younger sister is still waiting for news. The two are separated from the rest of their family, who were able to immigrate to the United States before President Donald Trump restricted the entry of Afghan nationals to the United States. Nilab had already mailed all belongings from Qatar to the United States when the policy change was made. My clothes are in the U.S. and I'm still here, she said, joking that if she makes it to Canada, it will be easier to get them back. But being separated from her family is painful, she said. It is like part of your body is here, another part of your body is with them. She said she will only go to Canada if her sister is able to as well, no matter how much she wants to finish her education. I registered for my bachelors in 2018. Then a lot happened, said Nilab. If the Taliban hadn't upended the trajectory of her life, she would have graduated and had a PhD by now, she said. But I'm still stuck, Nilab said. She wants to complete a masters degree in AI and her sister is planning to get a masters degree in cybersecurity. Nilab says she is sad she was unable to study in the U.S., But another hope is that [the university of] Regina will help us to get our masters not in America, but in Canada. Katie Swyers (new window) · CBC News · Reporter Katie Swyers is a reporter with CBC Saskatchewan, based in Regina. She is a 2021 Joan Donaldson Scholar and has previously worked for CBC Podcasts, CBC's Marketplace, CBC's network investigative unit, CBC Toronto, CBC Manitoba and as a chase producer for Canada Tonight on CBC News Network. You can reach her at
Toronto Star
2 hours ago
- Toronto Star
California Democrats hold hearings on new congressional map to counter Trump-backed redistricting
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Californians had their first chance Tuesday to tell lawmakers how they feel about a partisan plan to win Democrats more U.S. House seats by making a new political map in response to a Republican redistricting effort in Texas that President Donald Trump wants. California Democrats said they are pushing back against Trump and his desire to reshape U.S. House maps to his advantage in an expanding fight over control of Congress ahead of the 2016 midterm elections. The California Legislature is expected to approve a proposed congressional map and declare a Nov. 4 special election by Thursday to get required voter approval.
