Free Republic

... During discussions with the worker, organizers learned that Tesla was performing large-scale ductwork installations using more than 60 workers from across the country — workers who were not SMART members. The worker also identified the project location and explained that Tesla was staffing the operation through a temporary labor provider, Superior Skilled Trades (SST), based out of Florida. Further investigation revealed that SST was recruiting heavily from Southern states and other regions with lower wage rates, making Tesla’s compensation package highly attractive to workers willing to travel. SST’s focus was on providing labor quantity rather than skilled sheet metal...

Many Washington state daycare providers receive large taxpayer subsidies, but an investigation by The Center Square found several that had few, if any, children and at least one establishment that received hundreds of thousands of dollars despite residents at the listed address indicating it was not a daycare. Yet politicians charged with overseeing the spending continue to publicly say there is no problem with improper payments to the daycares and, instead, have been criticizing journalists for investigating the potential fraud. No state official has announced an investigation or crackdown though the legislature instituted some reforms last session. The Center Square...

The Mamdani administration is scrambling to ease concerns about its plans to open government-owned supermarkets — but recent talks have instead raised even greater alarms among local business owners, The Post has learned. New York City bodega owners came to City Hall last week for a “roundtable discussion” at the invitation of Julie Su, deputy mayor for economic justice — only to get barraged with “intrusive” questions about their businesses, a source close to the situation said. Ahead of the meeting last Monday — attended by reps from city agencies and trade groups for the city’s 13,000 bodegas — Su...

I thought I had missed something major in my reporting. Turns out I had stumbled into an AI-fueled feedback loop that involved a real LLC’s fictional website and a search engine that’s thrusting unreliable answers on users. Last month, my colleagues and I published an investigation into a Texas oil refinery startup, America First Refining, that had secretly gotten investment from Donald Trump Jr. We discovered a saga involving the Trump administration’s tariff policy, sanctioned Russian oil and an Indian billionaire family’s private zoo. At the center of the story was the CEO of the refinery company, Texas businessman John...

Temperatures on the ocean surface hit a record high in June, European scientists warned Wednesday, fueling fears of more dangerous heat waves this summer and fanning concerns over the escalating global climate crisis. Two separate services under the European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation program — the Copernicus Climate Change Service and the Copernicus Marine Service — announced they had both independently confirmed the record temperatures. Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, warned that the rising temperatures could mark the “beginning of a new phase.” “With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we...

There are 64 Medicaid-funded social adult daycare centers packed into a single one-mile radius of Flushing, Queens. Not 64 in the borough. Not 64 in the city. Sixty-four within walking distance of each other, according to a new CBS News data analysis that found the densest cluster of such facilities anywhere in the country. Federal investigators have noticed, and they are asking the question any taxpayer with a pulse would ask. “[It] begs the question: How many social adult daycare centers do you need?” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in the CBS...

A resident of Hewlett, New York, has been accused of defrauding Medicaid out of more than $2.5 million through a scheme that denied children access to necessary nutritional products. Nduka Lewis Ekpenyong, 36, submitted over 6,000 Medicaid claims via his business, Duke Medical, Inc., for PediaSure with Peptides, a product he largely never actually procured, according to prosecutors. [snip] “Ekpenyong heartlessly charged Medicaid millions for pediatric formula that was never delivered, making it harder for kids to get the care they needed,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a post. “While Nduka Ekpenyong was buying luxury cars with...

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can continue counting mail-in ballots sent by, and received within, five days of Election Day - delivering a staggering blow to President Donald Trump on one of his biggest fixations. The high court ruled 5-4 to allow state voting laws that permit the counting of the mail-in ballots to remain in place. Republicans argued it conflicted with federal legislation. 'The federal election-day statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days thereafter; nothing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be...

EXCLUSIVE: As part of an anti-fraud crackdown that spans the entirety of the federal government, the Trump administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) uncovered millions of alleged fraudsters on the Affordable Care Act rolls, according to a report obtained by Fox News Digital. A Biden-era spike in Obamacare enrollments led to a probe into the veracity of millions of claims, a Trump administration official confirmed. At the beginning of Biden's term, there were 10 million people enrolled in the government's healthcare program, but that number drastically skyrocketed to 22 million at its 2024 peak. Now, the Trump administration...

A Fort Lauderdale woman is behind bars, accused of taking statewide teacher exams for several educators, Florida's attorney general announced Thursday. Kashaundra Knowles, 37, who runs a tutoring business, had been taking the exams in person for other people for $1,000 per test over the last two years, according to the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution. Three of those teachers who hired her are from the Broward County Public Schools district. “She fraudulently took tests for other people, and now there are teachers here in Broward County that have no business being in the classroom," Attorney General James Uthmeier said....

A radical, Israel-hating California teacher claimed she married a Gaza resident online to help him gain American citizenship — and push her pro-Palestinian agenda. Laura Pinho, a dance teacher at Canoga Park Senior High School in California, announced her nuptials in a wild June 16 CODEPINK Zoom webinar called “Challenging Zionism In Our Schools.” When CODEPINK activist Marcy Winograd congratulated her on her marriage and asked her to share details about her life, Pinho, 51, launched into a pedantic monologue about how she only married Salem S.E. Abu Amra to advance “Palestinian rights and freedoms.” “I have power as an...

🚨 HOLY SMOKES: Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Oz have just announced OVER *ONE MILLION* PEOPLE are on Obamacare with NO Social Security number… 🤯🤯 It’s one big racket! Shut it down! “They submit applications for fake people and enroll stolen identities all to collect millions of dollars in fees from insurance companies for selling plans they never legitimately sold!” “The Obamacare marketplace is plagued by fraud, in large part because the Biden administration dismantled basic program integrity guardrails.” “More than a million people enrolled in Obamacare without social security numbers on file. That is a glaring warning...

The City of Los Angeles, California spent over $5.5 million to construct a new tiny home village for the homeless in Van Nuys. The project was only able to produce 100 beds for those who would use them. The tiny home village is the fourth site of its type in Council District 2 and was made in an effort to help with the huge homeless population in LA. The city had allocated $5,578,379 to spend on construction for the project, according to city documents. [snip] The tiny home village, equipped with 100 beds, mean that each spot cost approximately $55,000...

MINNEAPOLIS — An alleged leader of the largest pandemic-era fraud scheme in the country has been arrested overseas after being on the run for more than four years, according to federal officials. Abdikerm Eidleh, 42, was taken into custody Thursday in Mogadishu, Somalia, in a daytime raid coordinated by both the FBI and Somali intelligence agencies. He was indicted in September 2022 as part of the sweeping $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud investigation. "This is a big fish," Daniel Rosen, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, told CBS News. "Eidleh was a key leader and was responsible for bribing and recruiting...

Michigan lawmakers are investigating a childcare provider that received more than $1.1 million in taxpayer-funded childcare reimbursements despite allegations that it does not appear to operate at its listed address. The investigation centers on 1st Premier Learning Academy & Daycare in Clinton Township and was launched by the Michigan House Oversight Subcommittee on State & Local Public Assistance Programs. According to an investigative report, the facility received $1,121,641 in Child Development & Care (CDC) Program reimbursements between fiscal years 2023 and 2026, yet committee staff said repeated site visits found no evidence that children were being cared for at the...

A Long Island school clerk overseeing board of education elections tore up ballots and threw them in a dumpster to help her favorite candidate win, a newly revealed internal probe found. Hempstead Union Free School District Clerk April Keys allegedly rigged the May 19 trustee election by smuggling official ballots out of her office and handing absentee ballots to favored candidate Victor Pratt so he could trash them, according to a 51-page petition filed by the district with the state Education Department. Keys could now face criminal charges as the district is looking to overturn Pratt’s razor-thin win. “The Board...

Federal authorities on Tuesday charged 10 Southern California defendants in a series of healthcare fraud schemes, including one case involving nearly $270 million in fraudulent Medi-Cal claims and another that allegedly defrauded Medicare out of approximately $27 million. The charges were part of the Justice Department's broader "2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown," which resulted in charges against 455 defendants nationwide in schemes involving more than $6.5 billion in alleged fraud. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche described the operation as "the greatest combined federal and state effort in combating healthcare fraud in history."

Today we are here to announce the results of the 2026 National Healthcare Fraud takedown. This announcement marks the greatest combined federal and state effort in combating healthcare fraud in history. When we talk about the team that's working on these cases, I want to give some context around that. There are nine healthcare fraud strike forces that have been part of this effort. 57 US attorney's offices, 41 state attorney general's offices—not red states, not blue states, but both—working together with the federal government, multiple law enforcement agencies, including inspector generals, some of the agencies that are here with...

More than 450 alleged fraudsters — including 90 doctors and medical professionals — were busted for bilking at least $6.5 billion in fake Medicare and Medicaid claims, with one greedy nurse splashing her ill-gotten gains on an $865,000 Bulgari necklace, $594,000 Ferrari and a $4.6 million Philippines beach resort, authorities said. The colossal crackdown, which spanned 45 US states and territories, was announced Tuesday by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who called it “the greatest combined federal and state effort combating health care fraud in history.” In total, 455 people were netted — including alleged con artists who blew the...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday announced is seeking to fine an immigration attorney who allegedly filed false asylum claims -- the first time the agency has filed such a claim. Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, announced five notices of intent to fine attorney Vinod Doddamani, who they say filed 32 immigration cases in which he filed 64 fraudulent documents. Doddamani faces a $250,000 fine for what DHS says is a pattern of filing allegedly false asylum claims. He allegedly filed the "identical or nearly identical in language and substance, containing the same...