Minnesota man takes fight against suspected $1B daycare scheme to governor’s doorstep
Independent journalist Nick Shirley and his researcher “David” returned to the Quality Learning Center in Minneapolis on Tuesday dressed in a sweatshirt emblazoned with “1-800 FRAUD,” following the release of his viral video alleging fraud at state-funded childcare facilities in Minnesota.
At the site, David also told reporters he had filed a criminal complaint against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz related to the alleged widespread fraud.
In a post shared on X, Shirley and David are also shown during the visit standing outside the facility in matching sweatshirts.
Shirley captioned the post, “WE OUT HERE LEARIN AND STOPPING FRAUD.”
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Both men’s sweatshirts also read “Quality ‘Learing’ Center,” a misspelling that mirrored the signage associated with the Minneapolis site central to fraud allegations.
Shirley’s return visit came after the facility’s manager claimed his original video misrepresented the business by filming outside posted hours and falsely suggesting the center was inactive.
State officials and a daycare manager on Monday denied allegations of fraud, disputing claims that the location was closed or improperly collecting taxpayer funds.
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The allegations stem from Shirley’s viral video showing visits to multiple state daycare facilities.
The Quality Learning Center appeared inactive at the time of Shirley’s filming despite receiving state childcare assistance money.
Shirley’s video sparked widespread attention online as officials such as Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk praised Shirley’s reporting, while others, including Walz, pushed back against it.
Walz was already facing criticism as the scandal involved at least $1 billion lost to alleged social services fraud mostly tied to Minneapolis’ Somali community.
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During Tuesday’s visit, David confirmed to reporters he had filed a criminal complaint against Walz related to the alleged fraud.
“I filed a formal criminal complaint against Tim Walz for violating Minnesota Statute 3.971, Subdivision 9,” David said before confirming he had filed the complaint three to four weeks ago. “So there’s an investigation ongoing, and I think Tim’s going to have a bad day, and he deserves it, because he allowed this fraud.”
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“Because he wanted the voting block that the Somalis represent, because they all vote in a block, and it’s 100,000 150,000,” he added. “Who knows how many, but it’s so bad now that when we go to a facility, they’re already screaming, Nick Shirley, Nick Shirley, Nick Shirley!”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Walz’s office for comment.
NYC’s socialist mayor-elect appoints al Qaeda terrorist’s lawyer as top city attorney
Socialist New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced on Tuesday that he is appointing controversial lawyer Ramzi Kassem, who defended al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi in court, as the city’s top attorney.
Mamdani, who will take office on Jan. 1, announced he was appointing Kassem as New York City’s chief counsel, the top legal role in the city. He also shared that he is appointing Steven Banks a self-proclaimed “social justice attorney” as corporation counsel and Helen Arteaga as deputy mayor for health and human services.
Kassem’s record includes serving as a senior policy advisor for immigration on the White House Domestic Policy Council under former President Joe Biden.
Kassem served as lead counsel in al-Darbi’s defense. In 2014, al-Darbi pled guilty before a U.S. military commission to conspiracy in connection with an al Qaeda terrorist plot to bomb the French oil tanker MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen. One civilian was killed in the attack and several others were injured. He was convicted of the crime in 2017 and was transferred by the Trump administration in 2018 to Saudi Arabia’s custody.
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“While it may not make him whole, my hope is that repatriation at least marks the end of injustice for Ahmed,” Kassem said at the time of the transfer, adding he had “16 long and painful years in captivity.”
In 2025, Kassem represented anti-Israel activist and Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil who was arrested by ICE for his alleged role in leading antisemitic demonstrations on campus. Khalil has since been released, though his legal case is ongoing.
Announcing the appointment, Mamdani said, “I will turn to Ramzi for his remarkable experience and his commitment to defending those too often abandoned by our legal system.”
The mayor-elect said that “City Hall will be stronger with him in it, and our work of building a more prosperous city for all will have a powerful advocate.”
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“My sincere hope is that New Yorkers who have long felt on the margins of this city, the homeless veteran straining to survive, the patient searching for the care that they need, an immigrant trying to get by will feel that they now have leaders in their corner who understand their struggles and care to fight for them,” Mamdani went on, adding, “That is the city I want to build. The prosperity I intend to deliver and the leadership that has too long been lacking.”
Kassem thanked Mamdani for the appointment, saying he considers it a “call of duty to serve the city that I’ve called home, the city that embraced me.”
“I grew up in war-torn countries in the Middle East, authoritarian regimes, and New York City was really my first stable and permanent home,” said Kassem. “This is an opportunity for me to repay that debt. I’ve been trying to repay that debt ever since I came to this country, ever since I immigrated.”
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Kassem is the founder of the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) law clinic, a project that, according to its website, has a mandate “to support Muslim and all other client, communities, and movements in the New York City area and beyond that are targeted by local, state, or federal government agencies under the guise of national security and counterterrorism.”
Trump admin suspends all child care payments to Minnesota amid exploding fraud scandal
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will freeze all child care payments to Minnesota, the agency said Tuesday, amid the scrutiny surrounding alleged fraud involving child daycare centers across the state.
“You have probably read the serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill wrote on X.
In a video message, O’Neill cited the viral video released last week by independent journalist Nick Shirley that highlighted alleged fraud involving Minnesota childcare and learning centers.
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In the video, many of the facilities appeared non-operational despite allegedly receiving millions of dollars in government aid.
“We believe the state of Minnesota has allowed scammers and fake daycares to siphon millions of taxpayer dollars over the past decade,” he said.
In an effort to combat fraud, O’Neill said he ordered that all Administration for Children and Families payments made across the country require justification and receipt or photo evidence before money is sent to a particular state.
Secondly, the agency is demanding that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz hand over a comprehensive audit of the centers featured in Shirley’s video, including attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations and inspections.
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In addition, HHS has launched a hotline to report fraud.
A spokesperson for Walz’s office told Fox News Digital that the HHS move was politically motivated.
“The governor has been combatting fraud for years while the President has been letting fraudsters out of jail,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Fraud is a serious issue. But this is a transparent attempt to politicize the issue to hurt Minnesotans and defund government programs that help people.”
Alex Adams, the assistant secretary for HHS’ Administration for Children and Families, said his office has provided Minnesota with $185 million in child funds annually.
“That money should be helping 19,000 American children, including toddlers and infants. Any dollars stolen by fraudsters is stolen from those children,” Adams said.
Adams said he spoke with the head of Minnesota Child Care Services office on Monday.
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“She could not tell me with confidence whether those allegations of fraud are isolated or whether there’s fraud stretching statewide,” he said.
Tatiana Schlossberg, environmental journalist and JFK’s granddaughter, dies at 35
Tatiana Schlossberg, the environmental journalist and author who was the granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, has died at the age of 35, her family announced.
“Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the family said in a statement shared via the JFK Library Foundation’s Instagram account Tuesday.
Born and raised in New York City, Schlossberg was the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and the granddaughter of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and JFK.
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She built a career as a voice on climate and environmental issues after earning a bachelor’s in history from Yale University and a master’s degree in American history from the University of Oxford.
In 2024, Schlossberg was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and shared her experience publicly in a personal essay for The New Yorker in November 2025.
“My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half,” she wrote at the time.
Schlossberg also explained how doctors discovered her disease while she was hospitalized after giving birth to her second child, a daughter.
She explained in her essay how doctors spotted that her white-blood-cell count “looked strange.”
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She and her husband, George Moran, who she had married in 2017, also had a son.
After hearing from a doctor that she had “a year, maybe” to live, Schlossberg told how her first thought was that “my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me.”
In her essay she also predicted that her son “might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears.”
At the time, Schlossberg said she had experienced a postpartum hemorrhage that nearly claimed her life.
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Schlossberg’s family history has been marked by loss.
Caroline Kennedy was five days away from her sixth birthday when her father, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Her mother was Jacqueline Kennedy. Decades later, Caroline also lost her only living sibling, John F. Kennedy Jr., in a plane crash in 1999.
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Before her diagnosis, Shlossberg had been planning a research project focused on ocean conservation.
Netanyahu denies tensions between him and President Trump on Gaza peace plan
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed what he called “fake spins” of his meeting with President Donald Trump during an interview on “Special Report” Tuesday evening.
Netanyahu spoke with “Special Report” executive editor Bret Baier after meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday to discuss plans to implement the second phase of the Gaza peace deal.
Though he acknowledged the difficulty implementing the second phase has been, Netanyahu denied reports that he and Trump were “butting heads” over the issue.
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“He cut right to the chase,” Netanyahu said. “He said, ‘Look, skip all this press stuff.’ I mean, the real thing is, you have got to get Hamas to disarm. He just banged the nail on the head, you know.”
When Baier brought up Trump telling the press on Monday that he did not agree with Netanyahu on issues regarding the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Israeli leader insisted that they both agreed on the desire for peace in the area.
“I think there is a lot of daylight, because I think we both want to see a future in which that territory is not used for terrorist attacks,” Netanyahu said. “We have done a lot of things in that regard. We also want to build a lot of infrastructure there. Both for us and for our Palestinian neighbors, and I think there is a lot of room to talk about it.”
He added that his main takeaway from the meeting was the reassuring strength and alliance between Israel and the U.S.
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“Israel emerged from the seven-front war hoisted on us as the most powerful country in the Middle East. But part of that is the tremendous alliance we have with President Trump,” Netanyahu said. “It’s a partnership of like-minded people and leaders. And I am very grateful to President Trump for that support that he gives us.”
After Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, the war in Gaza stretched on for nearly two years, leaving tens of thousands estimated dead. Israel and Hamas reached a breakthrough peace deal following months of mediation by Trump administration officials.
As part of the first phase in the peace deal, Hamas released the final 20 living hostages in exchange for Israel freeing 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
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During Tuesday’s interview, Netanyahu also told Baier that he believed a stabilized Gazan government was “possible” in the new year provided that Hamas commits to disarm itself.
“[I]f we disarm Hamas, whether with an international force or by any other means, yes, I see a different future for Gaza,” Netanyahu said. “And this is the one remaining step. Everybody understands that. I think Hamas understands it. That’s why they don’t want to do it. Because, you know, the point here is not to negotiate with Hamas. That’s not the job. Their job is to vanish, stop, no more. And you know who wants it more than anyone else? The people of Gaza.”
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After their meeting on Monday, Netanyahu informed the press that Trump would be receiving the nation’s highest cultural honor, the Israel Prize, making Trump the first non-Israeli citizen to receive it in almost 80 years.
World’s most contagious virus detected at two major US airports amid holiday traffic
During peak holiday travel, one of the most infectious diseases was detected at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.
A case of measles was identified in a passenger at terminals B & C on Dec. 12, according to a New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) press release.
“Measles symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose, watery red eyes, and a rash that usually appears between three and five days after symptoms begin,” the release says.
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“The rash usually begins as flat red spots that appear on the face at the hairline and spread downward to the neck, torso, arms, legs and feet.”
The airborne virus can spread when someone coughs or sneezes.
Measles can stay in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves the area.
Officials are asking those who suspect exposure or illness to call their health provider before visiting a medical care center or hospital.
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“NJDOH is working in collaboration with local health officials on ongoing contact tracing and on efforts to notify people who might have been exposed and to identify additional exposures that may have occurred,” says the release.
The New Jersey Department of Health says individuals at risk include those who have not been fully vaccinated or have not had measles in the past.
This year, there have been 11 confirmed cases of measles in New Jersey, according to NJDOH.
A record 8.03 million travelers are expected to fly across America this holiday season, according to AAA.
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The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) also confirmed on Christmas Eve that a visitor from Texas was diagnosed with measles.
The traveler flew into Boston Logan International Airport on American Airlines flight 2384 from Dallas-Fort Worth and was in terminal B, according to a DPH press release.
As of Dec. 23, there have been 2,012 measles cases in the U.S., according to the CDC.
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“The single best way to protect your children and yourself from measles is to be vaccinated,” Connecticut’s DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, M.D., wrote in a statement, as Fox News Digital recently reported.
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“One dose of measles vaccine is about 93% effective, while two doses are about 97% effective.”
WATCH: Lakers star faces backlash for behavior during national anthem
LeBron James took heat over the weekend after he was seen swinging his hips during the national anthem before the Los Angeles Lakers played the Sacramento Kings.
The Lakers star was accused of practicing his golf swing instead of standing still with either his hand over his heart or with his hands behind his back. Sports pundit Craig Carton called out James for the move during an episode of his podcast on Monday.
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“If you wanna disregard your coach, disregard your teammates, being an 11-plus-1 type of guy, do it on your own time. Don’t do it during my national anthem,” Carton said. “A couple of days ago, Lakers basketball, national anthem, he disrespects the national anthem.
“And while the anthem is being played, your guy, the self-appointed ‘King,’ decides that’s a good time to work on my golf swing and disrespect the men and women of the military who gave their lives for this country. ‘Let me get a couple of air swings in while the anthem is being played because I don’t play good basketball anymore. I gotta work on my golf game.’”
Fox News Digital reached out to James’ reps for comment.
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National anthem controversies first bubbled up during the 2016 season when then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played. He said he was protesting racial injustice in the U.S., and took it a step further when he wore socks depicting police officers as pigs and expressed support for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
An anthem controversy sparked up again when James and others took a knee during the song in the NBA bubble after Jacob Blake was shot in a police incident weeks after the death of George Floyd. Blake later admitted he had a knife on him when he was shot.
It didn’t appear James was doing an act of protesting before the game against the Kings.
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Los Angeles defeated Sacramento, 125-101. James had 24 points and five assists.
IRS giving out major tax break for certain expenses in 2026: What you need to know
People who use their cars for work will be able to deduct more money per mile on their taxes in the new year.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced this week that the standard mileage rate for business driving will increase by 2.5 cents per mile. Additionally, vehicles used for medical purposes will decrease by half a cent, which the agency said reflects “updated cost data and annual inflation adjustments.”
The standard mileage rate is an IRS-set figure, which is expressed in cents per mile, that is used to calculate the deductible costs of using a personal vehicle for business purposes when filing federal income taxes. Self-employed individuals, gig workers, freelancers, and small businesses who use personal vehicles for business can claim the standard mileage deduction on their tax returns. However, the standard mileage rate is also calculated for vehicles used for medical purposes, moving purposes for active duty members and for charity work.
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Overall, starting Jan. 1, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car, van, pickup or panel truck will be 72.5 cents per mile driven for business use, 20.5 cents per mile driven for medical purposes, 20.5 cents per mile driven for moving purposes for certain active-duty members of the Armed Forces and certain members of the intelligence community. But the rate per mile driven in service of charitable organizations will remain at 14 cents, the IRS said.
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The aforementioned rates apply to fully-electric and hybrid automobiles, as well as gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. If taxpayers are using a leased vehicle, the standard mileage rate must be applied for the entire lease period, including renewals.
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The rate for medical and moving purposes, meanwhile, is based only on costs that increase when you drive more, such as gas, oil changes, and basic vehicle maintenance.
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However, the IRS noted that the standard mileage rate is optional for taxpayers. They can instead calculate the actual costs of using their vehicle.
NFL star’s rumored model girlfriend reflects on ‘hard month’ as QB questions future
Model Olivia Ponton, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow’s rumored girlfriend, reflected on her year on social media in a two-day Q&A session with her followers.
Ponton was asked about the “most difficult time of 2025.” She pointed to the month of October as being quite difficult for her. At the same time, Burrow was rehabbing a turf toe injury that kept him sidelined until the Bengals’ Thanksgiving night game against the Baltimore Ravens.
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“October was a pretty hard month for me but thankfully I got this girl next to me,” she wrote in response to the question.
After Burrow returned, he made some concerning comments about his future. The former LSU standout was asked whether his latest injury changed the way he viewed the game.
“It certainly doesn’t change my desire to win. If I wanna keep doing this, I have to have fun doing it,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot and if it’s not fun, what am I doing it for? So, that’s the mindset I’m trying to bring to the table.”
Burrow added that his mindset now was based on a reflection about his career.
“I’m not sure there was a singular moment or time,” he said. “It’s reflection on a lot of things that I’ve done and been through in my career. I think I’ve been through more than most and it’s certainly not easy on the brain or the body. So, just trying to have fun doing it again.”
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He also mentioned there were “a lot of things” going on in his personal and professional life, but didn’t elaborate further.
Still, Ponton suggested she was keeping a level head.
“2025 was a year of focusing on stability and consistency in 2026,” she wrote. “I want to travel to a few new countries on my bucket list.”
Ponton made clear she didn’t have any superstitions but planned to go into the New Year on a healthy note.
“I wouldn’t say superstitions but I love starting the year off on a positive note in some type of ‘challenge’ for myself to complete that way I can bring healthy habits into (2026),” she added.
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Ponton and Burrow were linked as an item in December 2024 as she was the one who reported the break-in at the quarterback’s home. She never spoke publicly about the incident.