President Donald Trump’s administration announced Tuesday that it is freezing Minnesota’s child care funds after a series of fraudulent schemes in recent years.

Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill said on the social platform

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz responded in an article on

“He is politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans,” Walz said.

O’Neil called out a right-wing influencer who posted a video Friday claiming to have discovered that daycares run by Somali residents in Minneapolis committed as much as $100 million in fraud. O’Neill said he asked Walz to submit an audit of those centers including attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations and inspections.

“We turned off the money spigot and we discovered the fraud,” O’Neill said.

The announcement comes a day after U.S. Homeland Security officials traveled to Minneapolis to conduct a fraud investigation by visiting unidentified businesses and interviewing workers.

There have been years of fraud investigations that began with the nonprofit Feeding Our Future’s $300 million scheme, for which 57 Minnesota defendants were convicted. Prosecutors said the organization was at the center of the nation’s largest COVID-19 scam, when defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food to children.

A federal prosecutor alleged earlier in December that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that have supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen. Most of the defendants are Somali Americans, they said.

O’Neill, who is acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said in a social media post Tuesday that payments across the United States through the Administration for Children and Families, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will now require “justification and a receipt or photographic proof” before the money is sent. They also launched a hotline and email address to report fraud, he said.

The Administration for Children and Families provides $185 million in child care funds to Minnesota each year, according to Deputy Secretary Alex Adams.

“This money is expected to help 19,000 American children, including toddlers and infants,” he said in a video posted on X. “Any dollars stolen by the scammers are stolen from these children.”

Adams said he spoke with the director of Minnesota’s Office of Child Care on Monday and she was unable to say “with certainty whether these allegations of fraud are isolated or whether the fraud is statewide.”

Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said fraud would not be tolerated and his administration “will continue to work with our federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are arrested.”

Walz said an audit scheduled for late January should give a better idea of ​​the extent of the fraud. He said his administration was taking aggressive steps to prevent further fraud. He has long defended his administration’s response.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota’s most prominent Somali American, urged people not to blame an entire community for the actions of a few.

Beijing — China launched missiles and deployed dozens of fighter jets and warships around Taiwan on Tuesday for a second day of live-fire exercises aimed at simulating a blockade of the self-ruled island’s main ports and assaults on maritime targets.

The two-day war games, dubbed “Mission Justice 2025”, were described by Taipei as “highly provocative and reckless”.

China claims Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory and has refused to rule out military action to seize the island democracy.

AFP journalists on Pingtan, the Chinese island closest to the main island of Taiwan, saw a volley of rockets fly into the air around 9 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Tuesday, leaving trails of white smoke.

At least 10 rockets were launched in rapid succession, sending a booming sound reverberating through the sky and drawing tourists to the waterfront to take photos and videos with their phones.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said in a statement shortly afterward that it had “conducted long-range live-fire exercises in the waters north of the island of Taiwan and achieved the desired effects.”

The show of force follows a Exceptional arms sales to Taipei by the United States – the main financier of Taiwan’s security – and Japanese Prime Minister’s comments that any use of force against Taiwan by China could justify a military response from Tokyo.

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, said Tuesday that Beijing will “strongly oppose” large-scale U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, adding that any attempt to hinder China’s unification with the island “will inevitably end in failure.”

Beijing said this month it would take “resolute and forceful measures” to safeguard its territory after U.S. lawmakers approved the latest major arms sale to the island.

President Trump said Monday that the United States was not informed in advance of the Chinese exercises, but he was not particularly concerned about them either. He ruled out the possibility that his counterpart Xi Jinping would order an invasion of Taiwan, noting that China has been conducting exercises around the island for many years.

“I don’t believe he’s going to do it,” Mr. Trump said, touting what he called his “great relationship” with the Chinese leader.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian called the exercises “a punitive response to Taiwan’s pro-independence separatist forces and a necessary action to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te expressed his “strongest condemnation” and said Beijing was “deliberately undermining regional stability through military intimidation.”

“This is a blatant provocation against regional security and the international order,” he wrote on Facebook, adding that Taipei would not escalate the situation.

China blocks Taiwan

China said Tuesday morning it had deployed destroyers, frigates, fighters and bombers “to conduct exercises on the topics of identification and verification, warning and expulsion, simulated strikes, assault on maritime targets, as well as anti-aircraft and anti-submarine operations.”

A statement from the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command said the exercises in the waters north and south of Taiwan “tested the capabilities of air-sea coordination and integrated blockade and control.”

State broadcaster CCTV reported that one of the central themes of the exercises was the “blockade” of Taiwan’s main ports, including Keelung in the north and Kaohsiung in the south.

Chinese authorities have released a map of five major areas around Taiwan where war exercises would take place. They are expected to end on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Taiwan said these areas, some of which are within 12 nautical miles of its coasts, had affected international sea and air routes.

Dozens of flights to Taiwan’s Kinmen and Matsu islands have been canceled, according to the island’s Civil Aviation Administration, affecting around 6,000 passengers, while more than 850 scheduled international flights will be “affected” and could face delays.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it detected 130 Chinese military aircraft near the island, as well as 14 Chinese navy ships and eight unspecified government vessels, in the 24 hours ending at 6 a.m.

Taiwan’s coast guard said it deployed 14 vessels to monitor naval activity, “using a one-on-one observation approach to forcefully deter vessels.”

“So many exercises like this over the years”

Many ordinary Taiwanese reacted stoically.

“There have been so many such exercises over the years that we are used to them,” said Chiang Sheng-ming, 24, a fishmonger at a market in the capital Taipei.

“If you hold on, you have nothing to fear,” adds Tseng Chang-chih, 80, a fruit seller.

“War? Impossible. It’s just a posturing. If they really attacked Taiwan, they would have to pay the price.”

The Chinese military last held large-scale exercises involving live fire around Taiwan in April. Surprise maneuvers condemned by Taipei as “blatant military provocations” and “escalatory behavior” that he said threatened the peace.