Free Republic

Polls show Americans are angry – and rightly so – at accelerating medical bills. Meanwhile, the insurers and hospitals keep raking in record profits. UnitedHealthcare just reported jumbo profits so far in 2026, and in 2025, it recorded revenues of more than $400 billion. It is raking in profits from the $1.9 trillion in federal healthcare programs. Two of the largest "nonprofit" hospital chains, Kaiser Permanente and HCA Healthcare, recorded nearly $200 billion in assets at the end of 2024. As Republican Rep. Jason Smith (MO-8), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, put it: "Hospitals are charging an...

An enterprising New Jersey man raked in up to $20,000 a day running illegal marijuana vending machines — with at least 80 locations across the state, prosecutors said. Ben Gross, a 40-year-old Toms River resident, was arrested Friday after investigators identified him as the owner of the Barbwire vending machine company. Cops in Ocean and Monmouth counties spent more than two years tracing the operation, officials said. Prosecutors said Gross made between $17,000 and $20,000 per day from the machines.

The United Nations, in its infinite wisdom has appointed the Islamic Republic of Iran to serve as one of the 34 Vice Presidents of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference on Monday, which is set to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The decision was made by a bloc of non-aligned and other states, typically composed of developing and non-nuclear countries. BREAKING: The U.N. just elected the Islamic Republic of Iran as one of the Vice Presidents of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference.Bravo to the U.S., UAE, Australia, UK, France and Germany for objecting.Last time, only 🇺🇸 spoke out: https://t.co/bmhFp2gKEw https://t.co/Ije4bXbV7u...

In recent days, a disturbing video and photos have circulated widely on social media showing two Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in southern Lebanon destroying a statue of Christ on the cross. The soldiers reportedly tore the statue down and smashed it with a hammer while another filmed the act. The incident occurred in the Christian village of Debel during routine operations against Hezbollah terrorists. As a Christian who has followed the Israel-Hezbollah conflict online, I found the images as shocking and indefensible as anyone else.The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) itself confirmed the event in an official statement released shortly...

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A federal judge in Arizona has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking unredacted voter rolls from the secretary of state’s office. On Tuesday in Phoenix, District Judge Susan M. Brnovich granted Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ motion to dismiss the suit filed at the beginning of the year. Federal officials say the data is needed to ensure election security, and have requested information including full names, dates of birth, addresses and driver’s license numbers. As of April 1, the DOJ reports that it has sued 30 states and the District of...

An Indian billionaire's son has offered to help Colombia get rid of a problem it has grappled with for years - a herd of hippos linked to notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. Escobar, who was shot dead by police in 1993, illegally imported exotic animals, including a male and a female hippopotamus - dubbed the "cocaine hippos". ... Efforts failed to contain the herd's growth, with a lack of predators and the fertile and swampy Antioquia region providing perfect conditions for the native African animal to thrive. Colombian environmentalists say the hippos, believed to be the biggest herd outside Africa,...

An American soldier stationed at Fort Polk in Louisiana was arrested last week after he told users on the popular messaging platform Discord that he planned to conduct a mass shooting at a synagogue. Jakob Marcoulier, 22, was arrested on Thursday and charged with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce after the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received a tip in February that he had made threats toward synagogues, according to the US attorney’s office for the Western District of Louisiana. According to court documents, the FBI obtained audio from Discord in which Marcoulier allegedly said, “After this deployment if...

Sure, it's not antisemitism. It's a political statement against Bibi Netanyahu or something. A benefit concert for the victims of the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia has been canceled because the choir that was scheduled to sing refused to share the stage with a Jewish choir group. You can't make this up. I used to love visiting Australia. This is very sad. https://t.co/2RRrABKrF7— Thrill Science ✡️ עם ישראל חי (@ThrillScience) April 28, 2026Surprised to find an action like this from the cultural elite? I'm not. A choral concert fundraiser for the victims of the Bondi Beach terror attack at a...

In briefMozilla says Anthropic’s Claude Mythos identified 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox during testing.Anthropic is restricting the model to vetted partners through Project Glasswing because of cybersecurity risks.Researchers warn that the same capability could accelerate automated cyberattacks. For decades, attackers have had the advantage in cybersecurity. Artificial intelligence may be about to change that.In a blog post published on Tuesday, Firefox browser developer Mozilla said an early version of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos AI—which has drawn attention in recent weeks for its purported cybersecurity prowess—model helped identify 271 vulnerabilities in the browser during internal testing. Those bugs were patched this week.The results...

History does not whisper. It warns. Empires do not collapse because of a single moment of weakness. They erode from within, slowly hollowed out by overreach, moral ambiguity and the false belief that their power exempts them from consequence. The question before us is not whether America is strong. It is whether we are wise enough to endure the burden that comes with being the world’s lone superpower. Scores of empires have come before us. Each one believed itself indispensable. Each one believed its reach was justified. And each one eventually fell, often not at the hands of foreign enemies...

At a time when secularization has long been treated as an irreversible trend in Western Europe, new data indicate that a significant segment of Spanish youth may be rediscovering religious identity... Preliminary findings from the forthcoming “Spanish Youth Report 2026,” produced by the SM Foundation and based on data collected in 2025, suggest that 45 percent of young people in Spain identify as Catholic. The figure marks a notable increase from 31.6 percent in 2020... Several dynamics appear to be at work. One is demographic: religious families... tend to have higher birth rates and transmit faith more consistently. Immigration also...

A pastor who runs a ministry in a rumored swingers community for Florida seniors — and ironically wrote a book on how to love your spouse — was arrested Wednesday following allegations that he married multiple women. Leslie Williams, 62, was taken into custody at the sprawling retirement center, The Villages, on an outstanding warrant out of Georgia tied to a bigamy charge, according to the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. He is currently being held without bond due to his status as an out-of-state fugitive, with legal holds stemming from Rockdale County, Georgia. "Florida marriage records were obtained...

Conrad Murray served two years in prison for his role in Michael Jackson's 2009 deathIn 2011, Dr. Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for his role in the death of pop icon Michael Jackson. SNIP A decade later, he opened up a medical institute in his native country, Trinidad and Tobago, the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian reported. SNIP "I have lost a great deal," Murray said at the time. "I've lost everything. Everything I've amassed has been taken from me as a result of an unjust verdict. I am and I remain an innocent man." In May 2023,...

Authorities in Sri Lanka have detained 22 Buddhist monks after customs officers discovered about 240 pounds (110 kilograms) of high-grade cannabis hidden in their luggage at Bandaranaike International Airport. Officials said the haul is the largest cannabis seizure ever recorded at the country’s main international gateway. Drugs hidden in modified luggage Customs officers stopped the group during routine checks after they arrived from Bangkok. Investigators said the monks, many of them junior trainees from temples across Sri Lanka, each carried roughly 11 pounds (5 kilograms) of cannabis concealed in suitcases fitted with false compartments. A spokesperson for Sri Lanka Customs...

… The North Carolina State Board of Elections found the thousands of dead individuals during its “ongoing effort to verify” voters United States citizenship, according to ABC11 News. In a statement, Sam Hayes, who serves as the executive director for NC’s State Board of Elections, expressed that the number was “higher” than they had “anticipated.” “While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated,” Hayes said in a statement. “The benefit of entering into cross-state and federal database checks is that it allows us to uncover issues like this. Our goal is to use every available...

Calls are growing for California’s high-speed rail to be abandoned completely after revelations the estimated cost of completing Gavin Newsom’s fantasy train project has ballooned to a staggering $231 billion. The latest cost revisions for the project — revealed during a Senate Transportation Committee meeting — left lawmakers fuming after the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office flagged numerous concerns. State Sen. Tony Strickland, vice chair of the STC, said the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan continues to obscure true costs — and now he’s calling for the entire project to be scrapped.

The British monarch urged Americans to protect the environment during his speech before Congress, and it’s far from the first time he’s stood up for nature. King Charles is one of the world’s most vocal environmental activists — and he made sure to highlight his passion for protecting the globe in his speech to Congress on Tuesday. Charles stressed to lawmakers that “our generation must decide how to address the collapse of critical natural systems.” He warned that “we ignore at our peril the fact that these natural systems … provide the foundation for our prosperity and our national security.”...

Former Rep. Barney Frank, a liberal icon who was a key architect of the landmark Wall Street regulations Democrats enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, has entered hospice care at his home in Maine. And as one of his last acts, he is preparing to release a book repudiating his party’s left flank. A champion of liberal causes during his 32 years representing Massachusetts in the House, Frank says progressive Democrats have “embraced an agenda that goes beyond what’s politically acceptable.” “Until we separate ourselves from that agenda, we don’t win,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau spent nearly a year investigating a social media post that led to Tuesday’s indictment of one of his predecessors, James Comey. Comey was charged over an Instagram post he made in May 2025, which he later deleted after conservative uproar. The post showed an image of seashells on a beach arranged in a way that read “86 47.” The former FBI director wrote, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” President Donald Trump is the 47th president, while “86” is slang in the service industry and typically means to refuse service to someone...

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