A transgender activist group in South Dakota is suing Republican Gov. Kristi Noem after she canceled a contract with the group and disavowed its efforts in December.

The Transformation Project filed a lawsuit Friday against Noem and South Dakota Secretary of Health Melissa Madstadt alleging discrimination after the cancellation caused the group to lose a nearly $136,000 grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Susan Williams, director of the Transformation Project, said the loss of the grant was ‘uncalled for and was, in fact, discrimination.’

‘We believe that our contract was not broken and that the State’s claims against us are unfounded,’ she said.

Noem spokesperson Ian Fury said in December that the contract with the Transformation Project had been signed without Noem’s knowledge or consent. 

The governor’s office has also said the organization did not meet all the terms of its contract, such as providing quarterly reports. 

‘South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them,’ Noem said in a statement at the time. ‘We should not be dividing our youth with radical ideologies. We should treat every single individual equally as a human being.’

The termination came after The Daily Signal and Alpha News reported on the Transformation Project’s ‘Gender Identity Summit’ hosted by a South Dakota health care provider.

The summit included sessions on ‘Transgender Cultural Competency’ and ‘Learning to Address Implicit Bias Towards LGBTQ+ & 2S Patients.’

Brendan Johnson, an attorney representing the group, said Friday the contract’s cancellation was unconstitutional and unlawful.

‘Even our state government is not above the rule of law, and we stand with the Transformation Project in this important constitutional challenge,’ Johnson said.

The governor’s office and state Department of Health did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment Sunday.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers are demanding President Biden provide ‘maximum transparency’ on what the administration learns about the now four unidentified flying objects that have been shot down over the U.S. and Canada in recent days.

The U.S. military on Sunday shot down another unidentified flying object over Lake Huron in Michigan. It was the third time in as many days and the fourth overall since Feb. 4 that an ‘unidentified object’ was shot down in North America. 

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) released a statement Sunday confirming that the fourth object was shot down by a F-16 at 2:42 p.m. ‘at the direction of President Biden, and based on the recommendations of Secretary Austin and military leadership.’ The object was flying at 20,000 feet over Lake Huron, according to NORAD.

The object was shot down because it could have been a ‘hazard’ to ‘civil aviation,’ continued the statement, and there were ‘no indications’ of civilians that were impacted. NORAD said a team is working to recover the object in ‘an effort to learn more.’

However, neither the Pentagon nor NORAD has released additional information whether the object shot down Sunday was related to Chinese surveillance activities that led to the shooting down of a massive floating balloon last week over the coast of South Carolina, or other two floating objects shot down over Alaska and Canada.

A senior U.S. official told Fox News Sunday that the unidentified ‘objects’ the U.S. shot down over Canada and Alaska are both believed to be balloons that were carrying a payload.

Montana GOP Sen. Steve Daines called the lack of transparency from the Biden administration after the shooting down of a fourth airborne object ‘unacceptable.’

‘The lack of communication from the Biden administration regarding the closing of Montana airspace last night and the recent shoot-downs that took place over Alaska and Canada is unacceptable,’ Daines said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. 

‘The top priority of the administration should be the safety and security of the people of the United States and keeping the American people informed is a key part of fulfilling that duty,’ Daines continued. ‘President Biden owes Montanans and the country an immediate and full explanation. Without information, the public and media are left to rely on leaks, speculation and worst of all disinformation from foreign governments.’

‘I appreciate DoD’s notification to my office of the actions they took in downing yet another ‘foreign object’ over Lake Huron,’ said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.

‘Maximum transparency on what they learn about these objects is essential,’ Johnson continued. ‘We need to preemptively take the necessary steps to keep our nation safe. Purchase of replacement Large Power Transformers is a must to protect the nation’s electrical grid.’

Rep. Slotkin, D-Mich., committed to asking for Congress to receive a ‘full briefing’ on what happened Sunday.

Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., said Sunday ‘the American people deserve far more answers than we have.’

Another Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain said that more answers are warranted.

‘I have been keeping a close eye on the military’s actions over the Great Lakes today. Our state, and the entire country, deserve answers to what happened, and I will ensure we get them.’

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said that ‘lack of briefings’ by the Biden administration on the objects is noticeable.

‘There’s been space junk, weather balloons, spy balloons, and military advancements for years. All of sudden world super powers are shooting unidentified objects down,’ she tweeted Sunday. ‘This looks like a testing of military prowess. Lack of evidence and briefings are extremely noticeable.’

GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana tweeted his thanks for the military taking action to protect ‘our homeland.’

‘This afternoon, I learned the object identified in Montana airspace last night has been brought down over Lake Huron. Thank you to our servicemen and women who responded to protect our homeland.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut told NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that he wishes the Biden administration was ‘a little quicker to tell us everything that they do know,’ because a lack of information contributes to heightened anxiety for Americans.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said the American people ‘deserve transparency and accountability from the Biden administration.’

‘We need to know about the numerous invasions of U.S. airspace,’ she continued.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that the recent unidentified object activity has been ‘happening for years.’

‘The last 72 hours revealed to the public what has happening for years, unidentified aircraft routinely operating over restricted U.S. airspace,’ he tweeted.

On Sunday, the U.S. briefly closed the airspace over Lake Michigan; on Saturday night, that was done over rural Montana. Officials Sunday said they were no longer tracking any objects over those locations.

U.S. officials said the two more recent objects were much smaller in size, different in appearance and flew at lower altitudes than the suspected Chinese spy balloon that fell into the Atlantic Ocean after the U.S. missile strike. 

They said the Alaska and Canada objects were not consistent with the fleet of Chinese aerial surveillance balloons that targeted more than 40 countries, stretching back at least into the Trump administration.

Republican-led pushback against a controversial investing movement that critics decry for pushing ‘woke’ political causes appears to be having an impact.

U.S. sustainable funds, which use ESG criteria to evaluate investments or assess their societal impact, sank to their lowest level in more than five years by bleeding over $6 billion during the fourth quarter of 2022, according to a report from financial services firm Morningstar.

ESG, short for environmental, social, and governance investing, is based on the concept that investors should use these three broad categories when evaluating where to put their money, prioritizing progressive values and ‘social responsibility’ when making financial decisions.

Sustainable funds netted more than $3 billion in 2022, boosting their assets to $286 billion and performing better for the year than other U.S. funds. However, nearly all the inflow into ESG funds occurred during the first quarter as demand for them has steadily declined over the least two years.

According to Morningstar, investors pulled their money for a variety of reasons, including high inflation, rising interest rates, risk of an impending recession, poor market returns, and ‘greenwashing’ — the practice of companies deceptively promising to be environmentally friendly but not living up to their promises.

Another factor was political backlash against ESG.

‘In the United States, prominent politicians have spoken out against ESG investing, and some have taken measures to limit state investment funds from doing business with asset managers based on perceptions of those managers’ ESG approaches,’ the report stated. ‘Although both sustainable funds and their conventional counterparts saw outflows in the fourth quarter, the short-term withdrawals were more severe for sustainable funds.’

ESG has become a politically explosive issue over the past couple years.

The theory underpinning ESG is that corporations should deemphasize their traditional responsibility to maximize value for shareholders and instead make new commitments to alternative stakeholder groups, serving other interests and society at large.

Many investors now use ESG as a rating system to measure a company’s advancement of policies designed to address climate change, increase corporate board demographic diversity and support a progressive ‘social justice’ agenda, among other initiatives.

ESG has become increasingly influential in recent years, evolving into a roughly $35 trillion industry, with that much in global assets being invested using ESG principles.

By 2025, global ESG assets are expected to exceed $53 trillion, representing more than one-third of the $140.5 trillion in projected total assets under management.

However, critics of what they describe as ‘corporate wokeness’ have been mobilizing against the march of ESG advocates, arguing the financial movement is a way to push left-wing causes through business rather than the legislature.

Republican leaders on the House Financial Services Committee are creating a task force to coordinate their response to various proposals related to ESG. 

‘Progressives are trying to do with American businesses what they already did to our public education system — using our institutions to force their far-left ideology on the American people,’ Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital earlier this month. ‘Their latest tool in these efforts is environmental, social, and governance proposals. This is why I am creating a Republican ESG working group led by Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee Chair Bill Huizenga.’

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., recently joined Republican lawmakers in introducing legislation meant to block a new rule implemented by the Biden administration rule that allows managers to factor environmental and social issues into investment decisions for the retirement funds of more than 152 million Americans. 

At the state level, red states have begun implementing measures to push back on ESG policies.

In Kentucky, for example, State Treasurer Allison Ball last month threatened to pull state pension funds from about a dozen companies — including banks and major asset managers such as BlackRock, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, if they continued boycotting the oil and gas industry.

Around the same time, Florida prohibited state-run fund managers from taking ESG factors into consideration when making investments.

‘Thanks to the leadership of Governor [Ron] DeSantis, the Florida cabinet reaffirmed today that we don’t want a single penny of our dollars going to woke funds,’ Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said in a statement at the time. ‘We need asset managers to be laser focused on returns and nothing more. Florida’s not going to subsidize the actions of a bunch of Leftist ideologues who hate America; we’re not going to let a bunch of rich people in Manhattan or Europe try to circumvent our democracy.’

Critics argue companies are violating their fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders by sacrificing the main financial objectives of the company for a ‘woke agenda’ and not doing what the shareholders want.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, one of corporate America’s biggest promoters of ESG, responded to such criticism in a letter he penned to CEOs last year.

The ESG movement ‘is not about politics. It is not a social or ideological agenda. It is not ‘woke,” wrote Fink. ‘It is capitalism, driven by mutually beneficial relationships between you and the employees, customers, suppliers, and communities your company relies on to prosper … Make no mistake, the fair pursuit of profit is still what animates markets; and long-term profitability is the measure by which markets will ultimately determine your company’s success.’

In December, Patronis announced that Florida would dismiss BlackRock as manager of about $600 million in short-term overnight investments and an additional $1.4 billion in long-term securities.

Two months earlier, Missouri pulled $500 million in state pension funds from BlackRock. Meanwhile, Louisiana removed $794 million from BlackRock funds. Both states said that BlackRock’s ESG commitments were the reason for their divestments.

In Texas, State Comptroller Glenn Hegar declared in August that BlackRock and other asset managers were boycotting the Texas fossil fuel industry, prompting the state’s pension fund to divest from the firms.

Such efforts may be bearing fruit. According to Morningstar, sustainable funds shed $2.4 billion during the fourth quarter, their steepest outflows in more than three years. Meanwhile, active sustainable funds bled $3.8 billion, causing these funds to land in negative territory for 2022 with a $1.3 billion net outflow.

Overall, 2022 was a bad year for U.S. funds. All mutual and exchange-traded funds suffered more than $370 billion in withdrawals, marking the first year of net outflows since Morningstar began tracking data in 1993.

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., seemingly referenced claims of Rep. George Santos’, R-N.Y., stunts as a drag queen in Brazil in a tweet ahead of Super Bowl LVII. 

‘Does anyone have the set list for George Santos’s Super Bowl halftime performance?,’ Swalwell tweeted on Sunday. 

The California Democrat referenced previous reports that Santos had performed as a drag queen named Kitara in Brazil. The claims initially came to light in January after reporter Marisa Kabas shared a 2009 photo of what appears to be Santos in a drag costume. The photo also includes another drag queen accompanied by a caption calling them ‘Eula Rorard’ and ‘Kitara Ravache.’

Santos later denied these claims, calling them ‘categorically false.’

‘The most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or ‘performed’ as a drag Queen is categorically false,’ Santos said on Twitter. ‘The media continues to make outrageous claims about my life while I am working to deliver results. I will not be distracted nor fazed by this.’

Santos has been plagued with scandals since being elected to Congress in November, with a former staffer accusing the congressman of sexual harassment and violating House ethics’ pay rules on February 3. 

Derek Myer, 30, wrote in a Twitter thread that he had filed an ethics complaint with the U.S. Capitol Police and the Office of Congressional Ethics after being hired by Santos’ office in January. Meyers lasted just a couple of days in the congressman’s office.

Likewise, Santos has been the target of a number of attacks by House members, including Swalwell. Swalwell tweeted in late December calling for Santos to be ‘banned from taking the oath for Congress,’ days before the 118th Congress was set to be sworn in. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Santos’ office for comment but did not hear back in time for publication. 

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, during an interview with Caribbean Power Jam Radio’s ‘The Reset Show,’ defended the rescinding of a COVID vaccine for city workers and that there may be a time that mandates will be in place again.

Adams defended his decision to rescind the vaccine mandate because COVID was becoming normalized, adding that when employees said, ‘I want to do whatever I want,’ that it was not right.

‘I know what COVID looked like, and I know that if we didn’t have those mandates – I take my hat off to Bill de Blasio. That was a tough call, because you know New Yorkers…No New Yorker wants anyone telling them anything,’ Adams said during the interview. ‘That’s who we are. We don’t want to be mandated. We don’t want anyone to tell us to put on a mask.’

The mayor continued to talk about a cultural mind shift of fighting a dangerous and deadly virus, adding that he went to the hospitals and saw trailers of bodies.

He also said he saw nurses and doctors at hospitals wearing makeshift masks and plastic bags to protect themselves.

‘This was real. If we didn’t have that vaccine and we didn’t have those mandates, we would have lost so many more lives,’ Adams said. ‘And so, those who made the determination that, no, I still want to come into a work environment and I’m not going to be vaccinated, no, I want to still ride the trains. I want to do whatever I want. That just wasn’t right. That wasn’t right.’

Adams did not immediately respond to questions regarding the matter.

Adams announced on Feb. 6 that the city would make COVID vaccines optional for current and prospective city workers, effective Feb. 10.

The announcement came as more than 96% of city workers were fully vaccinated against coronavirus. Despite the reversal, the approximately 1,780 former city workers who were terminated for not complying with the COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the past will not automatically get their jobs back, but can reapply for positions in their former agencies.