Author: Mandy Matthews

Minnesota is embroiled in a dispute over alleged large-scale fraud and an official pattern of inaction by state leaders, with Republican lawmakers saying the governor and attorney general have downplayed or blocked investigations tied to immigrant-run programs that received federal funds. Claims include a $9 billion loss since 2018 to fraud in social programs, questions about policies requiring top-level approval for probes, and specific scandals involving child nutrition and daycare funding that have drawn federal scrutiny. The controversy has prompted federal freezes on payments and a call from GOP members of Congress for answers and cooperation. Republican House leaders are…

Renee Hardman’s special election victory in Iowa’s Senate District 16 stopped Republicans from reaching a two-thirds Senate majority, continued a string of Democratic special-election upsets in 2025, and leaves GOP leaders facing a narrower path to override vetoes and confirm appointments while energizing both parties on the ground. Renee Hardman pulled off an upset in the District 16 special election, defeating Republican Lucas Loftin and preventing the GOP from securing a two-thirds supermajority in the Iowa Senate. That threshold would have allowed Republicans to override vetoes and approve nominations without Democratic support. The result shifts the strategic landscape in Des…

A New Year’s Eve fireworks display in Omaha, Nebraska, ended much earlier than planned when a man accidentally tripped over a cord, cutting the show short and leaving attendees surprised and scrambling for answers. The outage happened as the crowd watched the final set of fireworks, when a single misstep disrupted the wiring or firing system and stopped the pyrotechnics. Organizers scrambled to diagnose the problem while audience members reacted with confusion and frustration. The abrupt ending turned what should have been a carefully timed moment into an awkward, early finale. Fireworks shows rely on precise timing and secure setups,…

Measles has been confirmed at Newark Liberty and Boston Logan airports during the holiday travel surge, prompting contact tracing and public health alerts as officials track exposures and remind the public about symptoms and vaccine protection. Health authorities reported cases tied to two major U.S. airports in the middle of peak holiday travel, creating a complicated exposure situation for thousands of passengers passing through busy terminals. One case was identified at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and another at Boston Logan International Airport in Massachusetts, and both incidents arrived as travelers crisscrossed the country for the season. Officials…

Across the last year the legacy press pushed a string of narratives that fell short of the facts, and many Americans saw through the pattern. The media didn’t just make mistakes; it repeatedly prioritized narrative over truth, and that habit produced a stream of stories that looked more like PR than reporting. Outlets leaned on anonymous sourcing, selective editing, and loud headlines to drive attention rather than to clarify reality. That pattern left readers with claims that later required corrections, reversals, or quiet walking-back statements that never matched the initial splash. A common play was the premature certainty story. Reporters…

A newly unsealed order in the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia shows high-level Justice Department officials pressed for his indictment and labeled it a “top priority,” a detail that invites serious questions about how prosecutorial decisions were made. The document’s release raises concerns about political influence, the impartiality of law enforcement, and the need for clear answers from the agencies involved. The unsealed order makes one simple fact impossible to ignore: senior officials inside the Justice Department signaled unusual interest in this prosecution and described it as a “top priority,” which is a loaded phrase coming from the nation’s…

Trump’s second-term immigration push has produced big, measurable results — mass departures, tough executive moves, and a clear enforcement-first posture that conservatives say proves promises were kept. The administration moved fast on day one and never really let up, turning enforcement into the centerpiece of border policy. The result is more than rhetoric: the government reports more than 2.5 million unauthorized migrants left the country in 2025, a development that has energized the right. That shift is being touted as one of the administration’s biggest practical wins. On January 20, 2025, a string of executive orders set a hard line,…

Presidential rankings often reflect the values of whoever counts the votes, and this piece looks at why those lists tilt left, how that influences public memory, and how conservative voices like PragerU respond to reshape the conversation. Polls of historians and popular lists of presidents shape how a nation remembers its leaders, but the process is not neutral. The people doing the ranking choose the criteria, and those choices tilt the scale toward certain achievements and away from others. That tilt has real consequences: it decides which presidents get lionized and which get buried in the footnotes of history. “Presidential…

A wave of false claims — from the ‘Maryland man’ line to that ‘misleading edit’ — swept through the landscape, but the barrage meant to derail Trump ran out of steam and failed to change the outcome. From the start, the narrative was simple and relentless: stories, snippets, and edits were circulated to create doubt and panic among voters. The most visible examples were the ‘Maryland man’ allegation and a prominent ‘misleading edit’ that got traction online. Those episodes illustrate a pattern of rapid-fire accusations designed to create headlines rather than reveal truth. The end result did not match the…

Hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday in the rain and cold outside a mosque in Homs for the funeral of eight people killed in a bombing, and an imam warned that the attack could The scene outside the mosque in Homs was bleak and tightly packed, with hundreds of people braving rain and cold to pay respects to those killed. The funeral honored eight people who died in a bombing that shook the neighborhood and left families searching for answers. Mourners moved slowly through the crowd, some holding hands, others staring down at the wet pavement, hesitant to break the fragile…