A new report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) found that the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) has not tried to recover over $40 million in overpayments that went to healthcare providers under the state’s Medical Assistance program.
In Minnesota, DHS is responsible for administering several healthcare programs including Medical Assistance (MA), the state’s Medicaid program.
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Derek Chauvin’s new attorney indicated in court documents filed late last month that the former Minneapolis police officer plans to ask for his convictions to be overturned or, in the alternative, request a new trial.
Chauvin was found guilty in April 2021 of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree murder, and third-degree murder in the May 2020 death of George Floyd. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case in November 2023, ending his direct appeal.
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The University of Minnesota has been hit with a federal civil rights complaint regarding a race-based program—and it isn’t the first time the feds have been called in to investigate.
Bill Jacobson, president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation and its Equal Protection Project, joined Liz Collin Reports to speak about the latest complaint his group has lodged against the U of M Twin Cities.
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The day before the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a case that could decide the availability of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical removal of healthy breasts and genitals for gender-confused minors, the Minnesota Supreme Court heard arguments on another transgender issue: eligibility rules in private athletic competition.
The hypotheticals from the justices got creative, with one speculating that bowling leagues could bar Catholics from competition if the high court upheld USA Powerlifting’s ban on athletes in women’s competition who have completed male puberty.
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Minnesota House of Representatives candidate Aaron Paul, a Republican, filed an election contest lawsuit on Friday that seeks to bring a new election in House District 54A.
The election in District 54A proved to be one of the closest elections in Minnesota this year. After a recount was conducted last week, State Rep. Brad Tabke, DFL-Shakopee, led Paul by just 14 votes in the race for the Scott County legislative seat.
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An investigation into missing ballots in a tight Minnesota state House race found they were most likely thrown away and will not be recovered.
Following a recount, incumbent Democratic- Minnesota state Rep. Brad Tabke leads Republican Aaron Paul by just 15 votes, with officials saying they had records of 21 more people voting than ballots received, according to a Scott County, Minnesota, investigative report. Of the 21 ballots unaccounted for, 20 came from a single precinct, sparking an investigation that found the votes were likely thrown away and have already been shredded.
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The City of Minneapolis has announced the first recipients of its Arts & Culture Vibrant Storefronts initiative, a pilot program providing over $224,000 to help local arts organizations turn empty storefronts into “vibrant cultural hubs.”
In a press release, Mayor Jacob Frey praised the initiative as a “game-changer,” adding, “This is just the beginning,” while pointing to plans to expand the program into Uptown with even more taxpayer dollars.
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A newly released report from the Center of the American Experiment (CAE) challenges the narrative that Minnesota’s criminal justice system is racially biased against black offenders.
According to the report, titled “Case Closed: Minnesota’s Offender Outcomes Devoid of Racial Bias,” black offenders reportedly face more favorable outcomes in the system compared to white offenders across various stages, including incarceration.
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Illegal immigrants in Minnesota will be able to use a state-run healthcare program starting in Jan. of 2025, a bulletin from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) says.
Last year, Democrats in control of state government passed a law which expanded MinnesotaCare eligibility to illegal immigrants. A publicly-funded healthcare program that has existed since 1992, MinnesotaCare provides health insurance to low-income individuals.
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The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office is in crisis, hemorrhaging attorneys at a rate that would make even a fast-food chain flinch.
That’s according to AFSCME Local 2938, a labor union that represents Hennepin County attorneys and legal support staff. In contract negotiation documents from August, the union warned that even with immediate pay adjustments, it could take years—if not decades—for some divisions within the office to regain “their pre-2023 levels of proficiency, professionalism, and recognized statewide leadership among fellow county attorneys’ offices.”
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A Minneapolis man is one of two Somali pirates convicted of kidnapping this week and sentenced to federal prison for 30 years.
Abdi Yusuf Hassan, now 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen and prior resident of Minneapolis, along with Mohamed Tahlil Mohamed, now 43, of Mogadishu, Somalia, held American journalist Michael Scott Moore hostage for nearly three years in Somalia after kidnapping him in 2012.
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A teacher at Minnesota Connections Academy, an online public school, sent an email to eighth grade Language Arts students saying he wondered how he “could possibly come to school” following last week’s election of President Donald Trump.
“It’s the fact that it’s pushing an agenda. The Democrats are saying that it’s not happening, but it very clearly is,” Antonio Pici, a law enforcement officer and veteran, shared with Alpha News.
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As local Republicans celebrate President Donald Trump’s historic reelection to the White House on Nov. 5, Minnesota workplaces, schools, and local leaders have responded by creating safe spaces and mourning.
“We have been through a Trump presidency before and we made it through,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a somber video posted to X. “We will make it through again.”
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With almost all the dust settled the day after the election in Minnesota, caucus leaders in the Minnesota House faced the media for the first time since they learned that Republicans and DFLers are likely to be deadlocked in a 67-67 tie when the 2025 legislative session starts on Monday, Jan. 13
Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth both acknowledged that their caucuses will have just a few weeks to structure the organization of their chamber in a challenging, but not unprecedented, “power-sharing agreement.”
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U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar won a fourth term Tuesday night after beating Republican challenger Royce White by double digits.
Klobuchar, a Democrat, has represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate since first being elected in 2006. She won her first three elections for the seat by more than 20 points.
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Minnesota state leaders are facing a new lawsuit from the Heritage Foundation, which alleges the state has not disclosed crucial details on an estimated 1,000 voters who were removed from the voter rolls.
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A new report from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee claims that Gov. Tim Walz’s handling of Minnesota’s $140 billion public pension fund is driving up energy bills for consumers in Minnesota and other states.
Titled “How Governor Tim Walz’s State Public Pension Fund Colludes with the Climate Cartel to Raise Energy Costs for American Consumers,” the report accuses Walz of using the Minnesota State Board of Investment (MSBI) to push overly ambitious climate goals that are being felt in consumers’ wallets.
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Hennepin County, Minnesota, fired an election worker who left several boxes of mail-in ballots unattended after a local GOP group exposed the alleged negligence, according to a statement from county officials released Friday.
Minnesota Senate District 50 Republicans — the Republican Party’s official political unit for portions of Minnesota cities Edina and Bloomington — snapped a photo outside of Edina City Hall Friday showing a courier vehicle’s “rear door ajar with ballot transfer cases inside.” A review of parking lot surveillance footage found the ballots were not tampered with, and a comparison of the votes with the statewide voter registration system for absentee ballots found a perfect match.
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In the absence of NCAA rules limiting eligibility for women’s college volleyball to females, several teams forfeited games against San Jose State University this season without explicitly citing a player on SJSU’s team who allegedly is a transgender athlete.
The University of Nevada overruled its team this week when players voted to forfeit its Oct. 26 match against SJSU, claiming a forfeit would violate state and federal law and NCAA and Mountain West Conference rules, but promised not to punish individuals for sitting out.
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Public school teachers from across Minnesota will meet in St. Paul Oct. 17 to participate in a conference put on by Education Minnesota, the state’s teachers union.
At Education Minnesota’s 2024 MEA Conference, educators will learn about, and discuss, various public education topics in conference sessions throughout the day. While some of those sessions appear to cover noncontroversial topics, others are steeped in what Center of the American Experiment policy fellow Catrin Wigfall described as “ideological agendas.”
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As Gov. Tim Walz seeks a promotion to second-in-command of the country, Congress is investigating how he allowed the largest COVID-era scam in the nation to unfold in Minnesota while serving as the head of the state.
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Over the span of 48 hours, national news outlets have reported that Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz went from declaring he’d like to see the Electoral College abolished in favor of a national popular vote to seemingly walking back that statement in a sit-down interview on ABC News.
But those who pay attention to not just what the Minnesota governor says on the national campaign trail, but what he has done in his capacity as governor, know better.
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In a lawsuit filed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, an Eden Prairie business is accused of engaging in deceptive trade practices and defrauding Somali families.
Founded two years ago by “passionate Somali-American public health professionals,” Nolosha Development, LLC says it seeks to “address the housing disparity affecting East African households in the Twin Cities.” As such, the company allegedly has been working on the construction of a housing development in Lakeville called “Nolosha-Lakeville.”
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Republicans in Congress are working to add new protections in federal law for babies who are born during attempted abortions.
In January of 2023, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. According to the bill’s chief author, Congresswoman Ann Wagner, the bill “will provide commonsense protections for innocent children and their mothers and will ensure all babies receive the essential care they need at an incredibly vulnerable moment.”
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Minnesota State Library Services, part of Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s administration, plans to use public funds to pay for a retreat intended exclusively for “BIPOC” librarians, according to documents obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Walz administration describes the event, which will take place in October, as “a day of professional development and network-building designed specifically for BIPOC library workers of Minnesota,” according to a registration page. Minnesota will use public funds to cover hotel lodging, meals and other fees for those attending the program, state documents show.
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It was September 1995, and Tim Walz’s Nebraska National Guard unit, the 1-168th Field Artillery, upgraded to the M109A5 self-propelled howitzer. One of its capabilities was firing nuclear artillery shells.
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A Brooklyn Center man who will appear on ballots this fall as the “Constitutional Conservative” Party candidate in Minnesota’s Second Congressional District has told a national media outlet he believes he was recruited to run as a third-party “spoiler” candidate for Democrats in one of the nation’s most closely watched U.S. House elections.
The Republican challenger in that race, Joe Teirab, is calling the act “blatant election interference” orchestrated by political allies of Democratic incumbent Angie Craig.
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An anonymous person reported a University of Minnesota (UMinn) professor to the bias team for using the phrase “piñata of shame” in an editorial.
It is one of the 175 bias reports filed in the 2023-24 school year and obtained recently by The College Fix through a records request.
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After working for more than a decade as a GED instructor, Alicia Beckmann recently left her job because of a new transgender policy. According to Beckmann, the policy puts both corrections staff and inmates at risk.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections first transferred biological males Christina Lusk and Bradley Sirvio to Shakopee after Lusk successfully sued the state in 2023. A New York Post report last week revealed Gov. Tim Walz’s administration paid nearly $449,000 to a left-wing legal nonprofit as part of the resolution of Lusk’s case.
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Republican legislators are calling on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to condemn a comment Attorney General Keith Ellison posted to social media on Monday that seemingly endorsed a court ruling in Brazil to block its citizens from accessing the X social media platform.
Ellison posted “Obrigado, Brasil!” from one of this two X social media accounts, just hours after the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil upheld a measure which bans Brazilians from using X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
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A former West Central Area School District board member is suing multiple individuals after resigning last year over a sexually explicit video he posted on Snapchat.
According to the lawsuit, Jared Olson, who recently filed to return to the school board, claims the video was intended for his wife, but was instead shared to his Snapchat “stories” by accident.
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Is it possible that a two-time elected Democratic governor of Minnesota is a drag on his presidential running mate in his own state?
That’s one takeaway from a poll conducted late last month on the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in Minnesota, which shows Trump cutting Harris’ lead in half since she tapped Tim Walz to join her ticket as her vice presidential nominee.
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At a recent school board workshop meeting, Hopkins School Board member Jen Westmoreland questioned whether people will survive climate change and white supremacy.
“If we look at climate grief, if we look at the impacts of white supremacy, if we look at all of these systems of oppression that are bearing down—I mean, there’s like a survival element that we’re talking about, right?” Westmoreland said. “So it’s not like, are you going to go out and get [inaudible] job? It’s like, are you going to survive?”
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A series of potential additions to the Minneapolis Civil Rights Ordinance are under consideration in Minnesota’s largest city. Should these additions be authorized, illegal immigrants, the homeless, and so-called “justice impacted” persons could receive new protections.
Last week, the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission held a meeting to discuss potential changes to the Minneapolis Civil Rights Ordinance. At that meeting, Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez outlined what he referred to as “our plan” to add “homeless status, immigration status, and justice impacted status as protected classes” in the city’s civil rights ordinance.
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Minnesota’s Department of Education awarded $10 million in education grants to support and train special education teachers in more than 35 public school districts, charter schools and co-ops.
“As a former classroom teacher for over 20 years, I understand the impact a dedicated teacher can have on their students’ lives,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday. “By investing in our special education workforce, we can help ensure every student in Minnesota receives the support they need to thrive in their education.”
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The Hennepin County Board of Commissioners, the Hennepin County sheriff, and the Hennepin County attorney are set to receive significant pay rate increases in the next two years after a pair of 6-0 votes from the county commissioners.
On Tuesday, the commissioners held one vote to increase their own pay rates and a separate vote to increase the pay rates of the county sheriff and county attorney. One commissioner, Debbie Goettel, was not present for the votes.
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, repeatedly implied he and his wife used IVF procedures in order to conceive their children. However, the couple never used IVF.
According to both the New York Times and CNN, the Harris-Walz campaign recently disclosed that Walz and his wife, Gwen, did not use IVF to conceive their children. Instead, the couple used a very different procedure called IUI. For months, Walz had been heavily implying that he and his wife used IVF to conceive their children.
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“He’s being portrayed as this blue-collar, likable, rural guy, and he’s the furthest thing from it,” said Nate O’Reilly, a 30-year veteran of the construction industry and former president of the Southeastern Minnesota Building & Construction Trades Council.
The Zumbrota resident once considered himself a staunch DFL supporter who strongly backed Gov. Tim Walz.
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A man who says he joined Tim Walz on a trip to communist China is speaking out about his experience of traveling to the country with the future vice-presidential candidate.
“It was almost a daily revelation of how much he adores the communist regime,” the former student told Alpha News.
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The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Minnesota GOP are raising concerns about Minnesota’s election system after a non-citizen, lawfully residing in the U.S., reportedly received a primary ballot.
The incident, first reported by Breitbart, has prompted calls for an immediate review of voter rolls and stricter citizenship verification measures.
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A former attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission who conducts independent investigations on pension funds is blowing the whistle on behalf of a group of Minnesota teachers who have hired him to investigate claims that their retirement investment returns have been inflated.
Edward Siedle is well known across the nation in circles that closely scrutinize pension fund investments. He’s alleging that the state’s Teachers Retirement Association recently sent emails to its board and staff and to liaisons in the administration of Gov. Tim Walz warning them of Siedle’s investigation.
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A Minnesota man and over a dozen co-conspirators have been charged with trafficking over 1,600 pounds of methamphetamine and other drugs from Mexico to Minnesota in what U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger described as a “sprawling” Mexican-based drug trafficking organization.
Luger’s comments came during a press conference on Tuesday during which he named Clinton James Ward, 45, as the leader of the organization who has been operating for years.
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Democrats’ new running mate for presidential nominee Kamala Harris signed a bill last year allowing illegal immigrants to receive Minnesota driver’s licenses.
In March 2023, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed legislation allowing Minnesota residents to apply for and attain standard state driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status.
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All eyes are on Minnesota, now that Vice President Harris has picked Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate in November. But that is not the only North Star State race voters should be watching.
Unbeknownst to many, Minnesota has an open primary system. This means that, according to Ballotpedia, “a voter can participate in the party primary of his or her choice.” Whether residents of the district are Republicans, Independents, or Democrats they can all vote in the Ilhan Omar primary on August 13th.
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A pair of non-profit public interest law firms have threatened to sue Rochester Public Schools (RPS) if the district utilizes its new pro-transgender policy to “transition a child without parental consent.”
Just weeks ago, the RPS school board gave final authorization to a new policy governing how the district will “address the needs and concerns of transgender and/or gender-expansive students” in its schools. According to that policy, if a child changes their name, or begins using a different bathroom, the school district will only alert the child’s parents if the parent specifically asks about such information.
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Prominent Minnesota Republicans are demanding Democratic Gov. Tim Walz terminate the employment of a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) official who cheered the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, arguing that failure to do so would constitute an endorsement of political violence.
State Sens. Andrew Matthews, Steve Drazkowski, Cal Bahr, and State Reps. Pam Altendorf, Shane Mekeland, and Ben Davis issued a joint statement in which they pushed for Walz to act. The statement referred to the assassination attempt as “a disturbing example of political violence and Americans rightly were disturbed by the attack, regardless of political affiliation.”
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A federal immigration enforcement office based in St. Paul has removed an illegal immigrant who was wanted in Mexico for rape of a minor.
On July 18, Andres Palacios Pizano, a 25-year-old illegal immigrant, was transferred to Mexican authorities after being picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) St. Paul Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) office. A “recidivist offender of U.S. immigration law,” Pizano has been removed from the United States by ICE six times since 2017.
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Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, likely to succeed President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential election, is facing renewed scrutiny for her past support of a controversial bail fund with a history of springing violent offenders from jail.
Harris, despite often citing her experience as a district attorney and attorney general as a demonstration of her law and order credentials, endorsed the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF) in a tweet from June 1, 2020, declaring, “if you’re able to, chip in now to the MN Freedom Fund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” The fund received a $40 million cash windfall after it was promoted by celebrities like Harris, Seth Rogen and Chrissy Teigen.
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The Minneapolis City Council voted on Thursday to approve a new contract with the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis (POFM), the union which represents officers with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). In accordance with that contract, officers with the city are set to receive pay raises.
For well over a year, Minneapolis police officers have been working without a contract. As such, the new contract applies retroactively, covering a three-year period from January 2023 through December of 2025.
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One Minnesota school system has found itself at the center of controversy over staff trainings regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), along with social justice.
“Rochester Public Schools provides training that has staff participate in a “Social Justice Stretch” [and] staff are taught to embrace LGBTQ ideology with the ‘Genderbread Person,’ [and] staff are told not to tell parents about their children’s gender identity,” according to a watchdog group called Parents Defending Education (PDE).
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