🌎 Fraud Finders

FBI investigating Minnesota fraud scheme

Over a billion in taxpayer dollars have reportedly been misappropriated. On Sunday, FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency is ramping up its presence in Minnesota as it investigates claims of widespread fraud tied to federally funded programs.

Finding the fraud

The announcement followed a 42-minute documentary released last week by investigative YouTuber Nick Shirley, who visited the listed addresses of day care centers, adult home care firms, and other businesses:

• In the video (watch here), each appeared inactive despite reporting millions in taxpayer-funded programs, including from the Department of Education and Medicaid.

Patel said the bureau had “surged” resources into the state and is working to dismantle the schemes, which involve millions of dollars intended for social-service programs.

Minnesota is no stranger to fraud

In Sunday’s report, Patel mentioned the FBI’s takedown of a $250 million fraud orchestrated by the Feeding Our Future nonprofit, a scheme that misappropriated pandemic-era food aid intended for vulnerable children (see explanation).

The scale of the alleged fraud is significant, with low estimates of taxpayer losses from multiple schemes totaling over $1 billion:

• So far, more than 90 people have been indicted and over 50 convicted, many of them from Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community.

What does Minnesota’s leadership say? A spokesperson for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told Fox News that he spent years working to “crack down on fraud” and has vowed to defend his administration, which managed the distribution of the misappropriated funds.

DOJ finds over one million more Epstein files

Demand for black ink just skyrocketed. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it has uncovered more than 1 million extra documents potentially related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

When will they be released?

The department stated that it could take “a few more weeks” to complete the review and preparation of the records for public release, which is espeically time consuming due to the sheer volume of material.

• Lawyers are reportedly working “around the clock” to make redactions, which are necessary to comply with federal law and the requirement to protect victims’ identities.

The files came in as the DOJ is in the midst of releasing tens of thousands of pages of material under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. To date, the DOJ has released 40,000 Epstein documents (see public library).

What does the act entail? The Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed by Congress and signed last month, which required the DOJ to post unclassified files related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell by Dec. 19, 2025, with redactions only for victim privacy, ongoing investigations, or national security.

Criticism has mounted

The DOJ’s delayed timeline has drawn ire from the public and significant political scrutiny from members of Congress:

• A bipartisan group of lawmakers has pushed for legal action, claiming that the DOJ has failed to meet the requirements of the act by missing the deadline and issuing heavily redacted releases.

The files go deeper: Outside of the recent wave of releases, various Epstein-related records have been made public in recent years by Congress, the courts, and the DOJ. See a full guide here.

Post-holiday “bomb cyclone” dumps winter weather on much of the US

Who doesn’t love freezing temps and too much snow? A powerful winter storm moved across much of the US this weekend, with snow, ice, and strong winds creating dangerous conditions and putting a chill on post-holiday travel.

Bring on the bomb cyclone

The cold snap hit on the year’s busiest travel day, as an estimated 2.8 million air passengers headed home after the holiday:

• Tens of millions across the Upper Midwest were under winter weather alerts yesterday after an arctic storm barreled down from Canada.

• Other areas saw blizzard conditions, near-hurricane-force winds, and up to two feet of snow.

As of this writing, more than 7,551 flights going into or out of the US have been delayed, and over 824 have been cancelled due to unfavorable weather conditions. See the live stats here.

Why the poor weather? The massive winter storm is being fueled by a bomb cyclone, a large storm system that rapidly intensifies in a short period, and below-average temperatures are expected to linger across the US for much of the week.

It’s a sharp reversal from last week: Despite the current arctic blast, last week was anything but wintry, when unseasonably high temperatures swept much of the country and helped deliver the warmest Christmas Day on record in the contiguous US, with average highs nearing 58 degrees.

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ADHD medications work differently than we thought

The research may help better target those with the disorder. New research is challenging long-held beliefs about how common stimulant medications help people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

What did researchers figure out?

For years, experts assumed widely used ADHD medications, like Ritalin and Adderall, improved attention by directly stimulating the brain circuits that control focus, but the new study shows that’s not actually how they work:

• Instead, brain scans revealed that the stimulants mainly affect the brain’s reward and alertness systems rather than attention networks.

• By targeting those areas, ADHD medications make tasks feel more engaging or worthwhile rather than directly “sharpening” attention.

How did they do this? Researchers analyzed resting-state fMRI scans from thousands of children (and a smaller adult group) to compare brain activity in those taking stimulant ADHD medications versus those who were not, finding the stimulants almost entirely lit up reward-related and wakefulness networks in the brain, not the traditionally thought attention-control centers.

Looking forward: Some experts say this could shift how doctors and scientists think about ADHD treatment and diagnosis, and highlight the importance of other factors, like sleep quality, since lack of sleep can affect similar brain networks.

Scientists say fusion reactors could create dark matter particles

They might just unlock secrets of the universe. Researchers say future fusion reactors, which generate energy by mimicking the reactions inside the Sun, could also produce tiny, mysterious particles linked to dark matter.

What are these bits of dark matter?

The particles in question are called axions, a theoretical type of particle that could help explain what dark matter (one of the biggest mysteries of our universe) is made of:

• Axions are thought to be extremely light particles that could make up much of the universe’s mass, but their existence has never been directly confirmed.

Until now, fusion reactors were primarily studied for their potential to generate a vast amount of clean power, but this new theory could allow scientists to use them as laboratories for fundamental physics as well.

How would a reactor create Axions?

Researchers suggest that fusion reactors may create these particles when high-energy neutrons interact with the reactor’s internal structure, such as its metal walls or lithium blankets (see diagram).

• In a fusion reactor, high-energy neutrons are released when hydrogen atoms fuse and then fly out and slam into the walls and materials inside the reactor.

• According to the study (read here), those impacts could trigger rare nuclear reactions that briefly release energy, and in the process, produce axions.

Because axions barely interact with normal matter, scientists think they would pass straight through the reactor walls and escape into the surrounding area, where they could detect them using sensitive instruments placed nearby.

Why is this so important? If fusion reactors can reliably produce axions, it would give scientists a new, Earth-based way to observe dark matter, which has only ever been able to be studied indirectly in space.

Catch up on this week’s weird news

 > For the first time in history, the New Year’s Eve ball will drop twice this year; once to celebrate the start of the new year and once to kick off the 250th anniversary of the United States, with a specially themed ball and confetti.

 > China has released draft rules to regulate human-like AI systems, requiring models to enforce “socialist values” and limit users to a two-hour usage window.

 > A Florida chef saved the life of a loyal 78-year-old customer, who’d dined there every day for a decade, after he missed his daily gumbo.

 > Starbucks estimates that at least 1 in 5 Americans received a gift card to its stores this Christmas, with over $60 million worth sold on December 24th alone.

 > Marine archaeologists have discovered a vast undersea stone wall in France, which dates to around 5,000 BC; residents believe it could be from a Stone Age society and the source of a local sunken city myth.