“A judge in Minnesota is facing heat after she overturned a guilty verdict for an individual convicted in a $7.2 million fraud scheme that involved taxpayer money. Abdifatah Yusuf and his wife Lul Ahmed were charged in June 2024 after they were accused of stealing $7.2 million from the state’s Medicaid program while running a home healthcare business that lacked an office building and operated ‘for years out of a mailbox,’ according to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. Prosecutors said Yusuf received Medicaid money for services that weren’t provided and overbilled for services that didn’t have documentation. Yusuf allegedly used the money to fund ‘a lavish lifestyle’ that included shopping sprees at ‘luxury clothing stores including Coach, Canada Goose, Michael Kors, Third Degree Heat, Nike, and Nordstrom.'” (12/01/25)
“‘Everyone is a V.I.P.’ was the motto of the Disney theme parks for decades after the opening of Disneyland in 1955. A broad middle class could afford a trip to a Disney park, and visitors had equal access to the attractions once they were there. Unfortunately, America is a long way from that middle-class ideal today. Disney and other companies now make more money from people with high incomes, and they tailor their services accordingly. So much for the old Disney theme song: ‘When you wish upon a star / Makes no difference who you are.’ The original Disney vision reflected a long history of popular cultural affordability that once set America apart.” (12/01/25)
“Prosecutors Monday argued a Massachusetts man was responsible for the grisly murder of his wife who disappeared more than two years ago while his lawyers insisted the man panicked after she suddenly died in bed. Ana Walshe, a real estate agent who immigrated from Serbia, was last seen early on Jan. 1, 2023, following a New Year’s Eve dinner at her Massachusetts home. Her body has never been found. Her husband, Brian Walshe, faces a first-degree murder charge, after agreeing to plead guilty last month to lesser charges of misleading police and willfully disposing of a human body in violation of state law.” (12/01/25)
“More Americans are wising up to the fact that higher education has become a raw deal for all too many young people. A new NBC News poll finds that a full 63% of voters believe a four-year college degree now isn’t worth it, since many students graduate with ‘a large amount of debt’ but ‘no specific job skills.’ That’s up markedly from 2013, when a majority took the opposite view, as 53% called a degree ‘worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime.’ That was the case for generations of Americans, who saw college as a key step to higher-paying jobs and a better life: ‘Upwardly mobile’ was almost entirely synonymous with ‘college-educated.’ But over the last few decades, the dynamic has shifted: Far too many college degrees guarantee nothing … except onerous debt.” (11/30/25)
“Civilian deaths and injuries from landmines and explosive remnants of war have risen to their highest level in four years, according to the Landmine Monitor 2025 report launched in Geneva on Monday. It documents 6,279 casualties in 2024. Children remain especially vulnerable, particularly in conflict-affected countries where displaced families are returning to heavily contaminated areas. ‘Civilians made up 90 per cent of casualties in 2024,’ said Loren Persi, Impact Team Lead for the report. ‘And children remained a significant portion of all casualties, almost half … In Afghanistan, 77 per cent, so over three-quarters of all casualties, were children, which is horrific.’ The launch was led by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and hosted by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).” (12/01/25)
“Luigi Mangione watched stoically in court Monday as prosecutors played surveillance videos showing the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk last year and Mangione’s arrest five days later at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. The videos, including footage from the restaurant previously unseen by the press or the public, kicked off a hearing on Mangione’s fight to bar evidence from his state murder trial, including the gun prosecutors say matches the one used in the Dec. 4, 2024, attack.” (12/01/25)
“Leslie Begay sets aside the last few bites of his BLT. It’s something he does every meal as an offering for the person who gave him his lungs, he explains at a family-run diner in Gallup, N.M. Every morning and evening, Begay prays for the person whose organ donation, four years ago, saved his life. He doesn’t know their identity. … He is the only person he knows who got a double lung transplant. When his friends, coworkers and family members got sick, they died. They moved heaven and earth to get what they wanted when they needed it. But they will not move heaven and earth to clean up the mess they left behind.” (12/01/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Trump has bizarrely announced that the airspace over Venezuela is ‘closed’, posting the following on Truth Social on Saturday: ‘To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.’ It isn’t even clear what precisely the president means by this. Are they about to start shooting down Venezuelan aircraft like they’ve been blowing up boats? Are they preparing for a ground invasion? Whatever it is, things are looking ugly. Washington is banging the war drums trying to justify regime change interventionism in Venezuela under the ridiculous claim that it’s about fighting drug trafficking just as Trump announces that he will pardon former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández, who the US convicted of drug trafficking charges just last year.” (12/01/25)
“It’s strange so many years later, in the United States of America, to feel as if I’m living in a country threatening to become like the Russia of Vladimir Putin that I spent years experiencing earlier in this century. To start, let me tell you a little something about that. For decades as a young adult, I lived and traveled in Russia. I was an anthropology doctoral student and human rights worker, studying the effects of President Vladimir Putin’s centralizing policies and that country’s Christian nationalist media on the everyday lives of Russians. In one of my last projects, I investigated the government’s practice of separating kids with disabilities (and poorer kids generally) from their parents and detaining them in closed institutions.” (11/30/25)
“Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., has long performed a key role for many on the left [sic]. When there is an argument barred by decency or decorum, Wasserman Schultz is happy to make it, from attacking journalists in her defense of censorship to attempting to rig an election and bar Republicans from ballots as part of her defense of democracy. However, on Friday, the Florida representative set a new low in American politics: attempting to assign some of the blame for the shooting of two National Guardsmen on President Donald Trump. On CNN’s ‘News Central,’ Wasserman Schultz declared: ‘This is a deeply concerning situation, but, you know, it’s one that I think we have to — it begs the question, would an individual have flown across the country to target law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.? And, I mean, the answer is likely no.” (11/29/25)
