[FOX] As Minnesota’s massive fraud problems continue to gain nationwide attention, an audit is now sounding the alarm about potential fraud in a new area in the state related to contracts doled out by the city of Minneapolis in response to the death of George Floyd.
More than 100 contracts were handed out to community groups as alternatives to policing in 2020 and the lax oversight of those contracts, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune report, was found by an audit to be susceptible to fraud and favoritism.
The new Neighborhood Safety Contract Management Audit Report, which reviews spending from 2020-2025, shows the city is "not providing sufficient contract oversight or managing contracts effectively" in order to properly manage the more than $36 million that has been spent since 2023 on five major violence-prevention programs.
The report warns that Minneapolis’ weak contract controls created a heightened risk of fraud and improper payments. Auditors found contractors often submitted invoices with limited supporting documentation, while the city sometimes continued making payments despite missing records or unresolved concerns. The department is also said to have lacked a standardized process for conducting and documenting site visits to verify that contracted services were actually being performed.
[JTN] As former Special Counsel Jack Smith prepares to testify before Congress Tuesday morning, the scandals resulting from his investigation into President Donald Trump and Trump’s supporters are still being untangled. Politicians and pundits alike — as well as the public — are retracing the steps that may land Smith in hot water.
SECRETLY OBTAINING PHONE RECORDS FOR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Records released in July 2025 showed that Smith’s team accessed the private text messages of more than 40 lawmakers from Jan. 6, 2021, leading to questions about whether Smith lied when testifying to Congress the previous year, Just the News previously reported. At that July hearing, Smith answered "no" when asked by congressional investigators whether he included the content of text messages when requesting toll records from members of Congress he secretly surveilled.
The records released this summer showed that the Biden DOJ created a “Filter Team” to evaluate materials obtained during Smith’s investigations, including a probe codenamed “Project Coconut” relating to January 6 and another called Project “Cranberry,” relating to Trump’s handling of classified documents. All were under the umbrella of “Arctic Frost,” a large-scale probe of Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election.
“Communications from Members of Congress pertaining to their official legislative duties are protected from criminal prosecution under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause,” the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a press release when the new documents were released. “Bypassing a Filter Team evades consideration of additional privileges, such as attorney-client privilege.”
In July 2026, Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., queried on social media whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) should investigate whether Smith misled Congress, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Former US special counsel Jack Smith told senators on Tuesday he will not be silenced by threats of prosecution, as he faced Republican accusations of abuse of power in his investigations of President Donald Trump.
"I will not be silenced by the continued threats of prosecution from the president or others," Smith told the Senate Judiciary Committee, his second public hearing before Congress on his investigations of Trump. Smith condemned the firings of investigators in his office, accusing the Trump administration of "vilification of the career prosecutors, FBI agents, and support staff who served on my team."
Smith brought two since-dismissed criminal cases against Trump over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his first term.
Republican lawmakers, who have repeatedly blasted Smith for what they see as vindictive, politically driven prosecutions of Trump and his allies, alleged Smith abused his authority and used his investigations to obtain information from a variety of Republican officials and groups.
“This wasn't a normal prosecution,” Senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Judiciary Committee, said. "Mr. Smith's operation was a partisan weapon that broke the rules."
Democrats have defended Smith’s investigations as holding Trump and others accountable for unlawful actions and argue Republicans are the ones trying to carry out vindictive justice on behalf of Trump.
Smith said his investigations followed Justice Department policy and were not influenced by politics. He has been the constant target of Trump, who has called for Smith’s prosecution.
i talked about this a year ago. how republicans have moved their anti-welfare rhetoric away from black “welfare queens” to young white men (gamers, to be exact for some reason?) because even they know who the acceptable target is nowadays https://t.co/2mKaBvAsKjpic.twitter.com/2lLJO42SKW
#4
Whites have always outnumbered Blacks on the welfare rolls, just not in proportion. Art. 1, Section 8, does not provide powers to Congress to run a welfare system or subsidize state that choose to.
CDC is responding to an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
This outbreak is spreading substantially faster than previous Ebola outbreaks and is now the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record. The outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo virus, a type of Ebola virus.
In DRC, cases have been confirmed in Bas-Uele, Haut-Uele, Ituri, Nord-Kivu (North Kivu), Sud-Kivu (South Kivu), Sud-Ubangi (South Ubangi), and Tshopo provinces. This is the 17th outbreak of Ebola in DRC.
This Ebola outbreak surpassed 1,000 confirmed cases within 40 days of response activation. In comparison, the 2018 Ebola outbreak in DRC took approximately 235 days to reach more than 1,000 cases.
South Kivu has reported no confirmed cases since May 29.
Uganda also reported cases of Ebola at the same time DRC declared an outbreak.
Uganda reported 21 confirmed and probable cases and 3 deaths. The last reported case there was confirmed June 21.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
