Conservative activists James O’Keefe and Cam Higby are facing felony charges after wearing Muslim clothing in a filmed effort to test Minnesota’s voting procedures, which they described as “lunacy.”

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty charged O’Keefe, 42, and Higby, 26, on Wednesday with unlawful voting and identity theft over a political stunt carried out on August 11.

During Minnesota’s primary election, the pair recorded themselves entering polling places in head-to-toe Muslim clothing. They said the exercise was intended to highlight what they called the “sheer lunacy” of the state’s election procedures.

Their focus was Minnesota’s “vouching” system, which allows a registered voter to confirm the identities of as many as eight other people. Those voters can then cast ballots without presenting identification.

Videos of the activists’ attempt to test the system drew millions of views across social media.

Moriarty said the men broke election laws by deliberately “misrepresenting their identity when they applied for a ballot.”

At a news conference, Moriarty acknowledged that neither man cast a ballot and that they “stopped short of signing the oath we all sign before receiving our ballot.” She nevertheless said their conduct violated Minnesota’s voting laws.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon called the operation “outrageous,” adding: “We have zero tolerance for lying, lawbreaking, and disruptions at our polling places.”

Minnesota’s vouching provision is intended to help people who have recently moved cast ballots in a precinct where they have not yet completed registration.

Supporters say the process helps prevent eligible voters from being disenfranchised, while critics argue that it could create an opportunity for election fraud.

O’Keefe, who founded Project Veritas, appears in the videos wearing white Muslim clothing as he approaches poll workers and asks whether he can vouch for people who are not registered.

In one exchange, O’Keefe adopted a Middle Eastern accent and asked: “I want to vouch… They are not registered, is that ok?”

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“That’s ok, that’s fine,” the poll worker replied.

In another exchange, O’Keefe asked a poll worker to explain the vouching process. She responded: “Well, if you’re all in the same precinct, and you are already registered, then you can vouch for them as ID for them.”

“You are the ID,” she added.

Higby darkened his skin with makeup and wore a full-length burqa that covered his face during the stunt. In one part of the video, O’Keefe joked that Higby looked like “a transgender.”

Higby and O’Keefe are facing felony charges of unlawful voting and identity theft, each of which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. 

At a press conference on Wednesday announcing the charges, Moriarty accused the conservative activists of attempting to meddle in the state’s elections and undermine confidence in the results.

‘Free and fair elections are the bedrock of democracy, and their protection is one of our highest priorities,’ Moriarty said. 

The prosecutor said authorities tracked down the names that O’Keefe and Higby gave to poll workers, which she said included the names of deceased voters. Asked where they obtained the names, Moriarty said: ‘We don’t know that.’ 

O’Keefe and his attorneys have not yet responded to the charges, but Higby quickly spoke out on Wednesday to plead his innocence.

‘I never voted, I never signed an affidavit, and I never violated a law,’ Higby said in a statement. 

‘For showing how Minnesota abuses votes, they seek to take mine away from me permanently.’

Patrick Clancy’s attorneys say his former wife is expected to testify that she warned her doctors about thoughts of harming their children before their deaths.

His legal team appeared in a Massachusetts courtroom Wednesday for a hearing in his wrongful death lawsuit against the medical providers who treated Lindsay Clancy.

Patrick is suing Lindsay’s doctors and other healthcare providers, accusing them of overmedicating her while she was being treated for postpartum mental health problems.

The hearing took place slightly more than a month after a mistrial was declared in Lindsay’s murder case involving the January 2023 deaths of her children: five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan.

Patrick’s attorney, Howard Cooper, said he believes Lindsay will confirm that she told her doctors about homicidal and suicidal thoughts once issues involving her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination have been resolved.

“You know who hasn’t testified yet, Your Honor? Lindsay Clancy,” Cooper said. “We allege in our complaint that she is going to confirm that she told these defendants that she had homicidal ideation.”

“We believe that Lindsay Clancy, once her Fifth Amendment issues are resolved, one way or the other, will testify that she told these defendants explicitly that she had homicidal ideation, that she was worried about something awful happening to her kids,” he added.

The lawsuit names several medical providers who testified during the closely watched murder trial, including Dr Jennifer Tufts and nurse Rebecca Jollotta. It alleges they failed to provide appropriate care, which “resulted in tragedy, namely, allegations that Lindsay took the lives of her children.”

“If Defendants had not acted negligently, and rather had provided adequate care, it is more likely than not that Patrick and Lindsay’s children would still be alive today,” the lawsuit states.

Tufts and Jollotta, as well as the other defendants, South Shore Health System and Aster Mental Health, have denied the allegations and filed motions seeking to dismiss the case.

At Wednesday’s hearing in Norfolk Superior Court, Mary Azzarito, an attorney for Tufts, argued that Lindsay never told her healthcare providers she was thinking about harming the children.

“She told her mother, she told her husband. There is no clear evidence that she told her providers,” Azzarito said.

Timothy Sweetland, who represents Jollotta, argued that Lindsay never communicated to the defendants that she had thoughts of harming or killing her children, nor expressed an intention or made an explicit threat to do so.

Cooper accused the defense attorneys of presenting what amounted to “closing arguments” before the case had gone to trial.

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“What you just heard is a closing argument, Your Honor. Completely inappropriate at this stage,” he said.

“The complete mismanagement of Lindsay Clancy’s mental health care became the substantial cause of her murdering her three children,” Cooper alleged.

The hearing ended without a ruling from the judge on whether the wrongful death lawsuit should be dismissed.

Earlier this month, Patrick ran the Chicago Marathon, and his pregnant new wife, Dr Rachel Danis, 37, was spotted cheering him on.

Danis shared how running sparked their romance during the couple’s sit-down interview with 60 Minutes, which aired following the trial.

‘I was just a girl that met a guy running in Central Park on a really cold Saturday. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,’ the fertility doctor said.

Friends told the Daily Mail that the couple share a passion for exercise, with photos showing them hiking, running and working out from as early as February 2024.

Patrick was also seen running around New York City, where he relocated in April 2023, during Lindsay’s high-profile trial.

The couple is reportedly renting out their Big Apple apartment as prosecutors mull whether to retry his ex-wife for the murder of their three children.

Lindsay was charged with three counts of first-degree murder for strangling her children with exercise bands inside the family home after she sent Patrick out to run errands.

She then tried to kill herself, cutting her wrists and neck and jumping from the second-floor bedroom window. Clancy survived but was left paralyzed from the waist down. 

She did not deny killing her children but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, saying she was suffering from severe postpartum depression and psychosis at the time.

Clancy’s trial ended with an 11-1 deadlocked jury verdict of acquittal on September 4.

It remains unclear whether she will face another trial for the children’s deaths. Her next court hearing is scheduled for November 2.

She has also filed separate lawsuits against her medical providers.

Accommodation prepared for the UK’s abandoned Rwanda asylum plan could reportedly be repurposed under a possible new migration agreement involving five European countries and the east African nation.

The Labour government scrapped the Conservatives’ Rwanda arrangement shortly after taking office, making the decision one of its first major policy moves.

However, reports suggest that facilities originally intended for asylum seekers deported from Britain could now be used by Germany, Austria, Greece, the Netherlands and Denmark.

One site potentially involved is a complex of more than 500 apartments on the outskirts of Kigali. Suella Braverman, who was home secretary at the time, attended a brick-laying ceremony there during an official visit in 2023.

Conservative MPs have argued that the emerging proposal exposes Labour’s decision to cancel the Rwanda scheme as “weak and foolish”, while urging ministers to revive the original agreement.

An estimated £700million in UK taxpayers’ money was committed to establishing the Rwanda partnership. That included £290million paid to the Rwandan government to prepare accommodation and provide other services for asylum seekers.

Under the Conservative government’s plan, anyone who entered the UK illegally, including people arriving in small boats, could have been sent to Rwanda to pursue an asylum claim there.

The five European countries and Rwanda are reportedly nearing an agreement, with an announcement potentially set to take place alongside a migration conference in Vienna next month, according to the Financial Times.

Greece’s migration minister Thanos Plevris said: “The country and the exact timetable will be announced in November.

“The agreement will be signed by the end of the year or in January, and possibly as early as April or May, returns to a third country will become a reality.”

People familiar with the negotiations said financial pressures had led the European countries to consider using “existing infrastructure” in Rwanda, including sites that may have been developed under the UK’s cancelled scheme.

A separate source told the FT that officials were examining a complex originally constructed for Britain’s asylum deportation plan.

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The only completely new development publicly known to have formed part of the Conservatives’ Rwanda agreement was a block of flats at Gahanga, outside Kigali.

In 2023, Mrs Braverman helped lay the first bricks for the planned development, which was expected to contain more than 500 apartments.

The Hope Hostel in Kigali is another possible location. Then home secretary Dame Priti Patel visited the site in 2022 while announcing the migration agreement with Rwanda.

The proposed European scheme is intended to remove migrants whose asylum applications have already been refused.

Some participating countries, including Denmark, are understood to be considering extending the arrangement to people whose asylum claims are still being assessed.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘This shows how weak and foolish the Labour government is.

‘The UK’s Rwanda scheme was ready to start in July 2024 but the first thing Labour did after winning the election was to cancel it just days before it was due to start.

‘Now we see other European countries using the very facilities the British taxpayers’ money paid for in Rwanda – all because Labour needlessly cancelled our scheme.’

He added: ‘Common sense tells you that if illegal immigrants are rapidly deported, they’re pretty soon going to stop coming.

‘It’s time this Labour government saw sense and brings back the Rwanda scheme.

‘Otherwise illegal immigrants will keep coming – 85,000 have crossed the Channel since the election with many more expected in the coming days.’

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘The Home Secretary has repeatedly said that the UK – like other European countries – continues to explore new models like return hubs.

‘We are continuing to work closely with governments around the world to develop and maintain returns agreements.’

Ellidy Pullin says she hopes to welcome another baby with her fiancé, Brock Wadsworth, before the couple’s planned wedding next year.

The 34-year-old influencer is already mother to Minnie, whom she conceived through posthumous IVF using sperm from her late partner, snowboarding champion Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin. She announced her engagement to Brock last month.

Pullin revealed that she would ideally be pregnant ‘right now’ and give birth before walking down the aisle. 

‘I think baby then wedding. I would just love to be pregnant right now, and then have a wedding at the end of next year,’ she told Emilee Hembrow on her podcast Let’s Be Real.

‘That’s pretty hectic. But then I’ll have those milk boobs still. I’m dying for some t***.’ 

She said she had ‘loved being pregnant’ with Minnie, joking that she had felt ‘like a million bucks’ despite the difficult symptoms.  

‘Pretty good. I mean, I vomited every single day of the whole thing,’ Pullin said with a laugh.

‘Honestly, all in all, it was pretty good. I just lived on Vegemite, toast and cheese. I vomited every day until the end. 

‘But as soon as you get that little spew up, I’d feel like a million bucks. I loved being pregnant.’ 

Pullin’s former partner, Chumpy, was a celebrated snowboarding champion who drowned on Queensland’s Gold Coast at the age of 32. 

The couple were in a long-term relationship when he died in a tragic spearfishing accident at Palm Beach on July 8, 2020. 

Chumpy experienced a shallow-water blackout and was found unresponsive on the ocean floor by another diver.

Following his death, Pullin underwent posthumous sperm retrieval. She later gave birth to their daughter, Minnie, in October 2021.

Although she and Chumpy never married, she changed her surname from Vlug to Pullin by deed poll.  

Pullin is now engaged to Brock, who ended up proposing during a flight after Minnie accidentally revealed the surprise.

The influencer recently posted an Instagram video capturing the moment she accepted a ring from Brock as they travelled to Europe.

‘You didn’t keep the secret,’ Brock could be heard telling four-year-old Minnie, while Ellidy wore a skincare mask in her first-class seat.

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‘Minnie just came up to me on the plane and said, “Can you marry Broccoli?” and he goes, “F***, you blew it Minnie,”‘ Ellidy recalled.

‘I’m so lost for words. If that’s not the most “me, you and Minnie” proposal ever.’

Ellidy then asked Brock: ‘You’re so cute. You were gonna do it overseas, and Minnie just blew it?’

Brock explained that he had plans to pop the question aboard a boat during the couple’s overseas holiday.

‘Me and mummy and you are all engaged!’ Brock told Minnie after getting his accidental ‘Yes’.

Ellidy added in her caption: ‘And that was how the cookie accidentally crumbled. Best surprise ever, just us, up in the sky, no frills and no WiFi.

‘I am still on a big fat high from that moment. I LOVE YOU @brockwad FOREVER!’

The pair announced their engagement last month, after Brock handed over a diamond ring worth up to $350,000.

Alder Fine Jewellery, the company that made the engagement ring, confirmed to the Daily Mail that the diamond is natural.

The jewellers revealed the diamond is a four-carat ‘old mine cushion cut natural diamond ring’, adding that it has the ‘spread of a five-carat diamond’.

The elongated, cushion-cut diamond in a yellow-gold bezel setting is very similar to the bling gifted to pop star Taylor Swift by her now-husband, Travis Kelce, for their 2025 engagement.

It features what appears to be a high-quality natural diamond, putting the ring at a value of $250,000 to $350,000.

Ellidy’s engagement marks a major new chapter six years after the death of Olympic snowboarder Chumpy.

Taking to Instagram to share the news, Ellidy revealed Brock had popped the question during a trip to Europe, with the couple celebrating their engagement in a series of romantic photographs.

‘HE WANTS TO BE STUCK WITH ME FOREVER,’ she captioned the post alongside several crying and ring emojis.

Brock is a Gold Coast-based contractor and the managing director of Wadsworth Contracting.