How the releases came together The fight goes back to a 2020 lawsuit filed by the North Carolina NAACP, the ACLU, and other groups. They said crowded prisons during the pandemic put inmates at unconstitutional risk. The state settled in early 2021 and agreed to lower the prison population through early releases, parole reviews, and other steps. About 3,500 inmates were released over a 180-day span from February to August 2021. Cooper's administration said the plan would focus on nonviolent offenders, but officials later acknowledged that some people with violent convictions were included. Court records also show that some of the released inmates had long felony histories tied to assault, sexual offenses, kidnapping, and crimes against children. That is the kind of detail that tends to get lost when policy is sold as an emergency fix. What the review found A Fox News Digital review of data from the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission found that more than 560 inmates released during the Cooper administration were later arrested on new charges within two years of release. The review also said that, in a sample group of 1,180 prisoners, 566 were later arrested on charges of new offenses, or…

Lawsuit alleges a charity turned into a wallet Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has sued We Push for Peace, founder Trahern Pollard, and former director Jaclyn McGuigan. The state says the group, created in 2016 to help reduce violence in Minneapolis, treated nonprofit money like a private account. The lawsuit claims more than $6 million was steered toward Pollard's personal benefit, including trips, vehicle purchases, business support, and even payments tied to child support. The irony is thick enough to need its own filing system. A nonprofit is supposed to serve the public, not act like a speed bump on the way to someone's side hustle. The money trail runs through cars, clubs, and side businesses The complaint says funds went to Las Vegas trips, Harley-Davidson purchases, a used-car business, Merwin Liquors in north Minneapolis, and a $35,000 "Chicago Payroll" payment that prosecutors say was really money for Pollard's friends. Ellison says McGuigan allegedly moved $1,000 a week into her own account and also tapped government grant money for "administrative" costs. Bureaucracy loves a tidy label, especially when it is covering something messy. Prosecutors also say Pollard used nonprofit money to pay child support and settle a personal IRS bill,…