DHS officers posed as concerned citizens, joining Signal groups and taking photos of community meetings

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Newly disclosed records reveal how undercover federal agents posed as concerned community members to spy on residents and activists who opposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) crackdown in Minnesota.

Internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) files, disclosed in federal court and reviewed by the Guardian, document the actions of several undercover agents, including one who went by the username “peanutbutterjelly” in Signal chats with activists. The documents show that the officer kept records of Signal conversations, screenshotting chats about protest plans and volunteer recruitment, and offering to help with fundraising efforts.

The former Sunday Night Football stalwart is now one step from a seat in the US Senate. And she could cause a shock in liberal Minnesota

As the third leg of NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew alongside play-by-play man Al Michaels and the tart-tongued analyst Cris Collinsworth, Michele Tafoya was a paragon of deference and neutrality for 11 years as an NFL sideline reporter, dutifully relating boilerplate tactics, talking points and injury updates when she wasn’t nodding along to softball interviews or fumbling through hammy production gimmicks for viewers who might have been too offline to get the bit. She was almost pathologically committed to not doing anything to draw attention to herself or her gender in an era when sideline reporting was a fast track to national celebrity. Even her football takes hewed to the middle. (“New Orleans doesn’t want to lose to Atlanta twice in a season …”) Anyone who says they saw the 61-year-old emerging as a rightwing firebrand was watching a different game.

And yet here we are. Last week, Tafoya was the decisive winner of Minnesota’s US Senate Republican primary, earning the party’s nomination for November’s general election. Even more striking: she beat back eight challengers, not least Adam Schwarze, the party-endorsed pro-gun, pro-military ex-Navy SEAL, and Royce White, the anti-leftist, anti-trans NBA flameout currently testing WNBA gender norms.

MyPillow founder and Trump ally lost primary to Lisa Demuth by 11 points, but still refuses to concede defeat

The pillow salesman, Donald Trump supporter and election denier Mike Lindell has offered to personally fund a recount and audit of every paper ballot cast in Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary, which he lost last week.

Lindell’s announcement on Wednesday escalates his bid to challenge the results of last week’s vote, after finishing a distant second to the Minnesota house speaker, Lisa Demuth.