NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A former Obama press aide, Adam Fetcher, is facing a felony charge as he stands accused of stealing a co-worker’s debit card to purchase kratom, a mood-altering substance, from a Minneapolis smoke shop.Fetcher served as the Chief Communications Officer for the City of Minneapolis until he was fired from his role in early July during a police investigation following reports that he had stolen cash and bank cards from three fellow municipal employees and blown through hundreds of dollars in smoke shops. Prosecutors formally charged Fetcher with a felony count of financial transaction fraud on Wednesday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.The allegations create a fresh political problem for Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who is already facing scrutiny over widespread fraud tied to members of the city’s Somali community, a constituency with which he has cultivated close political ties.MILLION-DOLLAR SNAP FOOD STAMP FRAUD SCHEME IN WALZ’S BACKYARD SPARKS OUTRAGE: ‘CRUEL JOKE’ Before finding himself working for Frey, Fetcher held a number of high-level communications posts in the Obama administration and on the former president’s campaign.He served as the assistant press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security for about eight months in 2011.…

Attorneys for a vacationing soldier who was shot when he was caught in a “hail of bullets” in front of the White House have filed a $25 million claim against the U.S. Secret Service.Private First Class Benjamin Del Real, Jr., 25, alleges negligence on the part of the Secret Service, accusing agents of failing to exercise reasonable care in responding to the incident of a shooter who opened fire on a Secret Service security post. The soldier and his father were visiting with Del Real’s sister, Sara, in Washington, D.C., and were walking to dinner on May 23 when they saw a shooter begin firing toward the security post, their attorney, Joseph T. Murphy, said during a Tuesday press conference announcing the legal action.The three tourists, about 20 yards away, dropped to the ground, and Del Real moved his father to safety. But Del Real suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen and a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), in his knee.He was taken to George Washington University Hospital, where he underwent emergency, lifesaving surgery. Del Real had a subsequent surgery May 25. He was discharged from that hospital on June 1 and brought to Walter Reed National Military Medical…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The World Cup may be over, but there are some still upset over the controversy surrounding USMNT star Folarin Balogun’s red-card ban being suspended.Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) President Lise Klaveness said she is going to ask her board to pursue a formal ethics complaint over the incident. She called on FIFA to acknowledge the decision to suspend Balogun’s ban as an error.”We need our leader in FIFA to say that this was an error,” Klaveness told The Times. “If you start to adapt in such a way towards state leaders and state politics, you will move your behavior and the organization’s behavior, and also the red line of what states’ leaders should interfere with. And that happened.” Klaveness claimed that the proper process was not followed and that bending the rules could put the whole game at risk.”First of all, it should not have happened. It is very important now to have honest communication around it. We all know that this verdict was influenced from external forces and did not have the proper process,” Klaveness said. “When you bend a rule like this, you’re on a slippery slope that will put the…

Low pay is the leading reason childcare providers leave their jobs — both military and civilian — but even a $500 retention bonus could keep many of these providers at risk of leaving, new research has found.Across the board, childcare providers struggle with financial issues, with about one in five reporting food insecurity, and about one-third struggling with debt.Childcare providers across the board are experiencing high levels of stress and depression, researchers with the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska found.In looking at potential solutions to bolster the military childcare provider work force, researchers also noted that poor access to behavioral support is a major reason for turnover, and there’s a high level of acting-out behaviors among children in military childcare. The research, conducted by the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, provides more insight into military and civilian childcare providers, their needs and their differences. Among other findings, the researchers determined that a one-time retention bonus of $500 would retain six out of 10 of those who were at risk of leaving for another year.“You’d be shocked at how little it would take to keep them,” said Walter Gilliam, executive director of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute. “It’s…

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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Former ESPN star Trey Wingo wants to set the record straight.Former NFL linebacker and ex-ESPN analyst Emmanuel Acho claimed that Ryan Clark built ESPN’s “NFL Live” into the “juggernaut” it is today, and Wingo was not having any of it.”Ryan Clark built NFL Live into the juggernaut it is today (along with Rutledge, Mina, and Spears), he didn’t ideate NFL Live, there’s a difference,” Acho posted. Wingo, who hosted “NFL Live” for 15 years, from 2003 to 2018, clapped back at Acho’s claim that Clark built the show by posting a graphic showing its ratings over the years, which he said disproved Acho’s claim.The graphic, which was based on numbers that ESPN reported, showed that the “NFL Live” averaged 688,000 viewers during a comparable early-season period in 2013 and 624,000 in 2012. It averaged roughly 486,000 in 2015, 492,000 in 2016, 449,000 in 2021 and 440,000 in 2025.Wingo captioned his post on X, “’Let your apology be as loud as your disrespect.’ I think someone said that once.”The former ESPN host’s line about letting your apology be as loud as your disrespect referenced a spat in which Acho insulted former San Francisco…

In 2022, Lt. Cmdr. Alex “Phrog” Vogel flew his 60-year-old C-2A Greyhound carrier onboard delivery aircraft from San Diego to Japan in a memorable mission that at times balanced on a knife’s edge of timing and logistics. The relatively small plane required numerous and specific refueling stops at remote locations. But one leg of the trip — from the tip of Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain to Misawa, Japan — cannot be completed without carrying additional fuel onboard, Vogel said. “It’s a little bit of a nail-biting experience to make sure that your fuel transfers properly and that your engines are running properly,” he said, adding that the flight’s emergency diversion option was Russia, and even that stopped being a possibility after a certain point.Three pilots shared the workload, taking turns cycling up to the cockpit as barrels of gas were being pumped into the aircraft in the rear. Watching the plane’s fuel gauge tick up above zero, he said, was a massive relief. The C-2 Greyhound made its final carrier landing at the end of June, capping off its mission as the Navy’s only carrier delivery passenger plane. The mission will now be conducted by the CMV-22, the Navy’s version…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Efforts to bar lawmakers from dating congressional staff are gaining momentum following multiple high-profile cases of alleged sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill.Rep. Jeff Crank, R-Colo., introduced legislation on Tuesday that would bar members of the House of Representatives from having sexual relationships with any congressional staffers unless the House Ethics Committee determines the contact does not constitute a conflict of interest. The proposal follows a number of sexual controversies facing lawmakers such as former Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., former Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., and Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.A Gallego spokesperson told Fox News Digital the lawmaker supports the House bill and hopes to see Republicans who engage in relationships with staffers held accountable. Members of Congress are already prohibited from dating their personal employees or staff serving on their committees. Crank’s proposal would expand that prohibition to all congressional staff pending approval from the ethics committee.’DISTURBING’ ALLEGATIONS AGAINST UNNAMED SENATOR UNDER REVIEW IN WAKE OF SCANDALS ROCKING CONGRESS Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., signaled that he is on board with the movement.”I think it’s inappropriate, as it would be in any workplace,” Johnson told Axios on Tuesday…

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently announced a new policy to screen service members over 30 for low testosterone and offer replacement therapy to those who qualify. The intent — a stronger, more capable force — is a good one. Policies built on good intentions, however, can still go wrong, and this one deserves careful scrutiny before it is implemented at scale. The goal of having a more effective military is understandable, but the question remains whether the science supports the strategy. Testosterone replacement therapy is an important treatment for men with true hypogonadism, a carefully diagnosed medical condition. But expanding hormone screening across hundreds of thousands of healthy service members represents a significant shift in military medicine — one that deserves far more public discussion than it has received. The military has always embraced innovation, but medicine is different. Good intentions are not enough. Before introducing any intervention on a broad scale, policymakers should be confident that the benefits outweigh the risks for the entire force. So, does the evidence actually show testosterone makes troops more lethal or better fighters? Not clearly. The Army’s own research is instructive. In the service’s first Optimizing Performance for Soldiers study, men given…

You don’t rise to the occasion behind the wheel. You default to your last level of training. Most drivers don’t have one. They have habits, what they saw in a reel, or the assumption nothing bad will happen between ignition and destination. That assumption is where things start to unravel. When a street turns hostile, drivers don’t perform to the level of their intentions — they perform to the level of their preparation. Steel and glass feel protective right up to the moment they stop being so. A vehicle is not a bunker. Steel and glass give you the illusion of safety right up until they don’t. A vehicle gives you movement. Movement is leverage. Distance buys time. Time preserves options. Lose either one and the whole equation folds like a lawn chair. Missed Warnings Most people who get swallowed up by a hostile crowd didn’t get ambushed by surprise. They got there one ignored threat indicator at a time. Something felt a little off, an intersection that didn’t look right, a cluster of people where there shouldn’t be any, other vehicles positioned just a little too conveniently to block movement. But instead of taking active measures, they drove straight…