Federal prosecutors accused a Minneapolis daycare owner of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars by lying about the number of kids she was serving.  The Justice Department charged Fahima Egeh Mahamud on Wednesday with wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States over a scheme involving the federally funded Child Nutrition Program and Child Care Assistance Program. In February, Mahamud was charged for her alleged role in the $250 million Feeding Our Future scam.  Prosecutors said Wednesday that Mahamud “exploited changes in the program intended to ensure that underserved children received adequate nutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic to enrich herself by fraudulently misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal child nutrition program funds.”  The Trump administration began probing the extent of apparent widespread fraud throughout Minneapolis daycare and autism centers after videos from independent journalist Nick Shirley went viral as he looked into questionable businesses. Mahamud was featured in one of those videos.  Mahamud, who needs a Somali language interpreter at her court proceedings, ran the Minneapolis-based Future Leaders Early Learning Center, which participated in the federal nutrition program under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. From January 2021 to July 2021, she received $854,000 in nutrition program funds for the daycare, and from October 2022 to December 2025, she was reimbursed over $4.6 million for childcare assistance claims, according to prosecutors. She is accused of not meeting requirements to collect co-payments for the childcare claims.  Investigators say that Mahamud relied on fake meal counts, rosters, and invoices with “inflated figures” to submit her claims to the government and that she received funds that “substantially exceeded” the actual amount given to children. Mahamud’s operations served “only a fraction” of the tens of thousands of meals claimed, prosecutors said.  Mahamud “diverted much of those taxpayer dollars for the purchase of real property, for the benefit of herself” and other companies associated with her, like Future Properties LLC and Minneapolis Autism Center Corp, according to investigators.  Prosecutors say that Mahamud attempted to fly to London after she shut down the Future Leaders center in February amid federal scrutiny. She is currently under house arrest.  Top Trump administration officials, including Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are expected to travel to Minneapolis on Thursday morning to make an announcement on their efforts to crack down on fraud.

Are you fighting with your spouse? Did you screw over a coworker? Don’t ask ChatGPT for advice — unless you want to be told that your bad behavior is absolutely magnificent. A bombshell study published in Science, one of the most prestigious academic journals on the planet, delivered a chilling wake-up call to millions of tech-obsessed Americans. Your favorite artificial intelligence chatbot isn’t just a helpful assistant; it is a world-class yes-man that is actively training you to be an uncompromising, unapologetic jerk. The groundbreaking research was launched earlier this year after Stanford University PhD student Myra Cheng noticed a disturbing trend on campus: her classmates were outsourcing their personal lives to computers, even asking AI to draft their breakup texts. “We were inspired to study this problem as we began noticing that more and more people around us were using AI for relationship advice and sometimes being misled by how it tends to take your side, no matter what,” Cheng said. Cheng teamed up with her advisor, Dan Jurafsky, to test 11 of the world’s most dominant AI models — including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, and DeepSeek. They threw nearly 12,000 real-world social situations at the machines to measure “social sycophancy” — the scientific term for sucking up to the user. The results were terrifying. The study found that AI chatbots agree with the user a staggering 49% more often than a real human would in the exact same situation. Instead of offering a reality check or some tough love, the bots simply told users exactly what their egos wanted to hear. It gets worse. When researchers fed the algorithms thousands of prompts describing toxic behavior — like lying to a romantic partner, manipulating a friend, or committing outright illegal acts — the AI endorsed the bad behavior 47% of the time. Even when tested against Reddit’s famous “Am I The A**hole?” forum on posts where human commentators mostly agreed the poster was the a**hole, the AI coddled the wrongdoers, validating them in 51% of the cases. To see how this plays out in the real world, researchers had 2,400 participants discuss genuine, real-life conflicts from their own lives with either an honest bot or a people-pleasing, sycophantic AI. The consequences of talking to the suck-up AI were immediate and destructive. After just a single session, users became: More convinced they were right. Less willing to apologize or take responsibility. Measurably less interested in making things right with the person they hurt. In an analysis of letters written to the other person in the conflict, those who spoke to an honest bot apologized 75% of the time. Those who spoke to the sycophantic AI apologized just 50% of the time. “Users are aware that models behave in sycophantic and flattering ways,” Jurafsky said. “But what they are not aware of, and what surprised us, is that sycophancy is making them more self-centered, more morally dogmatic. … Sycophancy is a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight. We need stricter standards to avoid morally unsafe models from proliferating.” Here is the sinister twist: users absolutely love being lied to. The study revealed that participants rated the flattering AI responses as higher quality, trusted the bots more, and were far more likely to return to them for future advice. Shockingly, users frequently described the sycophantic models as “objective” and “honest” — even when the computer was just echoing their own toxic biases. With nearly half of young adults under 30 admitting they turn to AI for relationship advice, experts fear we are heading toward a social crisis. Cheng’s advice for anyone looking to navigate their messy love lives or workplace drama? Step away from the smartphone. “I think that you should not use AI as a substitute for people for these kinds of things,” Cheng said. Bottom line: If you want real advice, talk to a human who cares enough to tell you the truth. If you just want to feel like a saint while acting like a villain, AI is waiting.

Mythology surrounds Marie Antoinette, a French royal so removed from the struggles of common people that she allegedly couldn’t fathom why they were upset about not having bread. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) plays a similar role in the debate over private equity in 401(k)s — and the irony is chocolate cake rich. Call her Sen. Antoinette. Warren tells average American workers, “Let them eat index funds,” while she herself indulges in higher-returning investments for her own retirement. Warren is crusading against the Trump administration’s Labor Department-proposed rule, currently open for public comment, that would expand access to private-market investments in 401(k) plans. Independent Women is submitting public comment and gathering comments from others until the June 1 deadline in support of this rule. Warren badgered Empower Retirement, the country’s second-largest retirement services provider, for encouraging contribution plans for retirement savers in private equity and private credit. Warren called PE investments a “Wall Street time bomb,” and warned darkly that allowing working people access to such investments serves no one “other than private funds.” The senator from Massachusetts appointed herself guardian of the little guy’s nest egg. There’s just one problem: the little guys she’s protecting can’t have what she has. Start with Warren’s own financial disclosure. Her largest retirement asset — between $1 million and $5 million — sits in TIAA-CREF Traditional, a guaranteed-principal fund available almost exclusively to university professors and academic elites. It offers something no ordinary 401(k) holder can access: a promise that you’ll never lose your principal, a guaranteed minimum interest rate, and a lifetime income stream. Warren collected $88,423 in retirement income from it in 2024 alone. That’s not a 401(k). That’s a golden parachute stitched together by decades of Ivy League employment. Pure hypocrisy: among Warren’s disclosed holdings is a TIAA Real Estate Account, valued between $500,000 and $1 million. A private real estate fund. An alternative investment of the very asset category she insists is too risky, too opaque, and too Wall Street for average Americans’ retirement accounts. Sen. Antoinette holds alternatives for herself while pulling up the drawbridge for everyone else. And it doesn’t stop there. Massachusetts, her home state, has private equity throughout its public pension system. And Harvard, where she built her career, has 39% of its massive endowment parked in private equity, managed by a board stacked with executives from Blackstone, General Atlantic, and other titans of the industry she vilifies on the Senate floor. In other words: private equity for me, not for thee. The national picture makes this even more glaring. Roughly 89% of public pension funds across America invest in private equity. Some 34 million public sector workers — teachers, firefighters, police officers — depend on these returns to fund their retirements. When the American Investment Council studied 200 public pension funds, it found private equity delivered a median annualized return of 13.5% over 10 years, outperforming every other major asset class in those portfolios. While government employees and academic elites enjoy these returns, private-sector workers — the people actually in 401(k) plans — are largely locked out. They’re stuck with the menu their employers offer, typically public stocks and bond funds. President Donald Trump’s executive order aims to change that, instructing federal agencies to explore letting workers access alternative assets under strict fiduciary guardrails and professional management. Sen. Antoinette hasn’t explained why a Massachusetts schoolteacher’s pension deserves access to private equity returns that a Massachusetts private-sector worker cannot touch, nor why her own TIAA Real Estate Account is a prudent holding while a similar alternative investment in a worker’s 401(k) is a “time bomb.” She ignores the core unfairness she is defending: a multi-tiered retirement system where public employees, Ivy League academics, and the wealthy elite feast on alternative investments while everyone else is banned “for their own good.” There is a legitimate debate to be had about fees, liquidity, and investor protections — and it’s one worth having. But that is a debate about how to extend access responsibly, not whether to extend it at all. Warren isn’t engaging in the former. She’s blocking the latter. Warren spent her career positioning herself as the scourge of a rigged system that protects the connected at the expense of everyone else. On this issue, she is the rigged system. She benefits from guaranteed returns, private real estate funds, and PE-backed pensions that she wants to deny to the very workers she claims to champion. It’s time to end the double standard Warren champions and expand retirement freedom and affordability for everyday Americans. *** Carrie Sheffield is director of the Center for AI and Technology at Independent Women and author of ”Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness.”

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Early in May, GNN reported how Australia and USA citizens have amassed 85 million acres of private land specifically for conservation. From the Spokesman-Review comes the story of a man in Washington state who’s about to make it 85,000,885 by donating his own patch, to the Kalispel Indian Tribe. Having spent his whole working life […] The post Man Gathers Up Family Acres Home to Moose and Mountain Lion and Returns Them to Indian Tribe appeared first on Good News Network.

Books samurai Seven SFF Samurai Stories Sword-wielding samurai vs. monsters, time travel, magic, and more! By Lorna Wallace | Published on May 21, 2026 The Last Contract of Isako cover art by Thomas Walker Comment 0 Share New Share The Last Contract of Isako cover art by Thomas Walker I’ve loved stories filled with samurai and martial arts since I was a little kid. Understandably, my parents weren’t keen on putting a katana into my hands, but they did sign me up for karate classes, which fueled my love even further. I don’t really recall encountering sci-fi or fantasy elements in any of the samurai movies I watched when I was growing up, but in recent years I’ve been seeking such stories out wherever I can find them. Given that Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) is one of the most influential films ever made, I thought it would be fun to also take inspiration from the best by choosing seven examples for this list. The samurai books, movies, and TV shows below run the gamut of SF, fantasy, and horror, with some works drawing on real-world history to some degree and others focusing far more on speculative elements, from magic and monsters to time travel and distant planets. Into the Badlands (2015 – 2019) The AMC series Into the Badlands is set in a post-apocalyptic world that has limited technology and is ruled by barons—each with their own army, people, and key resources (such as opium and oil). Sunny (Daniel Wu) leads the army of the most powerful baron and is widely regarded as one of the most skilled fighters in the Badlands, being an expert in both martial arts and sword fighting. But both his loyalty and his skills are put to the test when a rebellious teenage boy with strange powers (Aramis Knight) steps into his life. I enjoyed the high-stakes plot and character drama of Into the Badlands, but the fight scenes were the real highlight for me, with Daniel Wu’s skills in particular stealing the show. Sure, he isn’t the only character we see deftly wielding a blade, but it’s his scenes that stick most vividly in my mind. The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang (2019) The Matsuda family live on a mountain on the edge of the Kaigenese Empire and—along with a few other warrior families—are trusted to keep the Empire safe from its enemies with their exceptional sword-wielding skills and ice-bending abilities. The book follows two members of this family: 14-year-old Mamoru and his mother Misaki. Mamoru has been training to be a warrior since he was big enough to hold a blade, but his worldview is challenged to the point of shattering by the arrival of an outsider. As for Misaki, she married into the Matsuda family and has a little more knowledge about the wider world, but she’s been forced to hide her samurai past. The combat scenes in The Sword of Kaigen bristle with frenetic energy and the impressive action is given extra punch thanks to the emotional arcs of the characters who are swinging the swords. Both Mamoru and Misaki go on transformative personal journeys over the course of the story, which digs into the horrifying ramifications of war on both a personal and public scale. The book is a war epic and a family drama all in one, with each of those threads enhancing the other. Blue Eye Samurai (2023 – ) I’d recommend going into Blue Eye Samurai with as little information as possible (that it was an adult animated samurai series was enough to convince me to check it out!), but I’ll explain the basic premise for those who might need a bit more convincing. The story is set in an alternate version of 17th-century Japan and follows Mizu (Maya Erskine)—a half-white, half-Japanese samurai—as she pursues bloody revenge while disguised as a man. I came for the stunningly animated sword fights—the moves are slick, the gore is brutal, and the backgrounds are beautiful—but I stayed for Mizu. She’s an incredibly compelling character to follow, consumed by rage and self-hatred and yet somehow still maintaining a core of kindness and morality. Only one season of the show is currently out, but a second season is in the works. The first episode is also freely available to watch on YouTube, but you’ll need to head to Netflix to watch the other seven episodes. A Samurai in Time (2024) Kosaka Shinzaemon (Makiya Yamaguchi) is an Edo-era samurai who is about to fight another samurai when a lightning bolt hits his raised blade. He wakes up confused on an unfamiliar street where people are acting strangely and eventually comes to understand that he’s on a movie set in the 21st century. Left with no way to get back to his original time period, he decides to put his samurai skills to use by working as stuntman in jidaigeki (Japanese period drama) shows and movies. A Samurai in Time is light on the technical aspects of the time travel (basically, don’t expect to get an explanation) because that isn’t really the point of the movie. Instead, the focus is on fish-out-of-water Shinzaemon and his floundering attempts to carve out a place for himself in this unfamiliar world. The film is a little comical, extremely endearing, and essentially a love letter to the jidaigeki genre. Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) Set within the world of the Predator franchise, Killer of Killers is an animated anthology film told in four parts. The second section, titled “The Sword,” is set in 17th-century Japan and follows a pair of brothers—one a samurai and the other a ninja—who are forced to battle a Predator. Kenji and Kiyoshi (both voiced by Louis Ozawa Changchien, who fans of the franchise will recognize from 2010’s Predators) were close when they were young, but they’ve been estranged for 20 years after a bloody betrayal led to Kenji living in exile. Their feud is reignited with the death of their samurai lord father, but their unhappy reunion is interrupted by a Predator. Aside from a few words at the beginning and end, there’s no dialogue throughout most of “The Sword.” This stylistic choice puts the focus on the stunning action sequences, which see Kenji and Kiyoshi using all of their skills and shrewdness while fighting the Predator. But the lack of dialogue doesn’t mean there’s a lack of characterization—the conflicted emotions of both brothers come through razor sharp via their facial expressions and reactions. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker (2026) There are two timelines and two main characters in Japanese Gothic, but they’re both anchored by the same house. The story starts in 2026, with college student Lee running away to his dad’s secluded house in Japan after possibly killing his roommate (he can’t quite remember what happened). The second timeline follows Sen, a young samurai who’s being trained brutally by her father and who lives in the same house, but in 1877. Sen and Lee find themselves slipping into each other’s timelines and although things get off to a rocky start, they eventually form a bond. This time-bending horror novel starts out fairly slowly, but it steadily builds to an explosive ending. From start to finish it’s both chillingly atmospheric and heartwrenchingly tragic. The horror comes less from spooky things going bump in the night and more from the awful situations that both Sen and Lee find themselves in. The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee (2026) The Last Contract of Isako is set on a distant planet that has long since lost contact with Earth. Although resources are stretched thin (aside from for the richest and most powerful, of course), there’s hope for the future—either through terraforming the planet or by reconnecting with Earth. Titular character Isako has made her living on this world as a longknives-woman—a role which has seen her protect and advise various powerful people. But she’s in her 50s now and the physical demands of her life have taken a toll on her body, so she’s aware that retirement (which on this world means leaving the protection of the airshield and dying out in the frozen wasteland) is in her near-future. But then she’s roped into one last contract that turns out to be far more complicated than expected… The majority of the book is concerned with corporate espionage, which means that Isako’s longknife doesn’t do quite as much slicing and dicing as I’d like, but the fight scenes that are included are fantastic. Plus, the mystery that Isako finds herself unraveling is intriguing in its own right, and raises many fascinating questions about honor, loyalty, and identity. I’ve already got Samurai Jack high on my to-be-watched list, but I’d love to know if there are any other SFF samurai stories missing from this list that I need to read or watch. The comments are open below for any recommendations! The post Seven SFF Samurai Stories appeared first on Reactor.

After Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez claimed that “despite the (U.S.) embargo, sanctions and threats of the use of force, Cuba continues on a path of sovereignty toward its socialist development,” several Republican lawmakers dismissed his remarks as disconnected from reality. “Ha, ha, ha,” Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., said sarcastically in response. “Ha, ha, ha.” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told The Daily Signal that Rodríguez should “keep going—that’s not going to go well.” Salazar and Rep. Carlos Giménez, R-Fla., argued that Cuba’s foreign minister lacks real authority in shaping the country’s policy, pointing instead to the influence of GAESA, a military-run economic conglomerate. “The foreign minister of Cuba is not part of the ruling establishment of Cuba,” Giménez said, referring to GAESA. He described Rodríguez as a “figurehead.” “A foreign minister can say whatever, the president can say whatever—it doesn’t matter,” Giménez added. “It only matters, really, what Raúl Castro and GAESA are saying.” Both lawmakers emphasized what they described as a contradiction in Cuba’s leadership, noting that GAESA reportedly controls billions in assets while ordinary Cubans struggle economically. They accused the institution of prioritizing investments in hotels and other profit-generating industries. “They are thieves, disguised as revolutionaries,” Giménez said, adding that Cuba’s leaders “don’t even believe in communism.” “Everybody suffers, and them and their children and relatives go off in a jet-set world, date Hollywood stars, while the people of Cuba are suffering,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what the foreign minister says—he really has nothing to say, because he doesn’t govern Cuba.” Salazar also contrasted Cuba’s leadership with that of Iran, arguing that the Castro regime lacks comparable resources. “The difference between the Castros and the ayatollahs is that the Castros do not have resources,” she said. She further contended that Cuba no longer enjoys the same level of support from allies such as Russia and Venezuela, and pointed to Mexico’s past involvement with Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., in providing oil to the island. “President [Donald] Trump sent a very clear message that [Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum] could not be helping these thieves any longer. We very much appreciate the fact that she stopped,” Salazar added. Cuban Military Action? Salazar argued that the Cuban military’s financial reserves could pose a potential concern for the United States, questioning how those funds might be used. “Let’s find out what they are going to do with that money,” she told The Daily Signal. “If they are going to indeed attack, or if they are going to create a military problem for the United States.” “We know exactly how we are going to respond, but that is up to the secretary,” Salazar added, without elaborating. Rep. Giménez nodded in agreement. Salazar also spoke about accountability for Cuba’s leadership, saying that many of her constituents want to see consequences for members of the Castro family. She said her constituents “would love” to see former leader Raúl Castro and his relatives face justice, adding that “I’m sure that my constituents would be OK with that.” On Wednesday, the Department of Justice unveiled criminal charges, including murder, against Castro and five others.