Free Republic

Last week, the FBI raided 22 shady day-care businesses in Minneapolis, Minn., as the federal government expanded its investigation of social-services fraud there. On Monday, Vice President JD Vance added Columbus, Ohio, to his fraud task force’s agenda in the wake of a new report alleging a billion-dollar Medicaid scam. Both investigations were spurred by the dogged work of citizen and independent journalists like Nick Shirley in Minneapolis and Luke Rosiak in Columbus, who knocked on doors and interviewed dozens of supposed service providers to uncover the truth about fraudsters who may have bilked the federal government of billions. And...

Former President Barack Obama’s presidential library is hocking pricey merch shaped like the unsightly Chicago tower — as the project’s architects revealed the former commander-in-chief himself was behind the “Death Star” design that’s been widely mocked since construction began. Ungainly lapel pins that “capture the silhouette” of the Obama Presidential Center are going for $30 in the online store. “The pin represents the intersection of bold design and global leadership,” the website reads, noting the proceeds go to the Obama Foundation “to inspire, empower and connect people to change their world.” Each pin is “handcrafted from unfired paper clay,” and...

A team of astronomers in Japan has detected a thin atmosphere around (612533) 2002 XV93, a trans-Neptunian object about 500 km in diameter — an object far too small and cold to retain one. An artist’s conception of the trans-Neptunian object 2002 XV93. Image credit: NAOJ. “In the cold reaches of the outer Solar System lie thousands of small objects known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) because they lie outside the orbit of Neptune,” said Dr. Ko Arimatsu from Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory and colleagues. “A thin atmosphere has been observed around Pluto, the most famous TNO, but studies of other TNOs...

South Carolina killer mom Susan Smith is back up for parole once again after she was convicted of drowning her two young children. The 53-year-old, who is serving a life sentence for drowning her two young sons in a lake in 1994, was denied parole in November 2024, after spending 30 years incarcerated. Now, Smith is once again eligible for release as she continues to serve a 30-years-to-life sentence. Smith strapped her sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander Smith, into the back seat of her car and let it roll down a ramp into John D. Long Lake in Union,...

A Chicago alderman, incensed by the upcoming closure of a Walgreens store amid safety concerns, stated that the corporate retailer should be charged with "first-degree corporate abandonment." Ald. William Hall, along with several community members, held a news conference Monday to voice their anger over the company's decision to close the location in Chicago’s 6th Ward in the Chatham neighborhood. "Walgreens should be charged with first-degree corporate abandonment," Hall said. "It should be a crime, the way they're treating our elders. It should be a crime, the way they're treating our families." The store is slated to close on June...

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., refused to respond to a request from a Minnesota committee seeking more information on her ties to the massive fraud scandal in the state, prompting a failed subpoena vote on Tuesday, but the committee’s chair says more options exist. The subpoena, which required a two-thirds committee vote in favor to pass, only got five out of the six votes needed despite the committee's Republican majority. "We have reached out to Representative Ilhan Omar on multiple occasions, inviting her to testify and inviting and requesting documents," State Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the House Fraud Prevention and...

The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it has filed a lawsuit against the city of Denver, Colorado, "alleging that the City unconstitutionally bans certain constitutionally protected semi-automatic rifles." "These laws unconstitutionally infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms in common use for lawful purposes," according to the Justice Department. "The Constitution is not a suggestion and the Second Amendment is not a second-class right," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. "Denver's ban on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles directly violates the right to bear arms. This Department of Justice will vigorously...

Justice Samuel Alito tore into Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s lone dissent in a high-stakes Louisiana redistricting dispute on Monday, calling her arguments "baseless and insulting" after the Supreme Court decided to fast-track implementing its recent redistricting ruling ahead of the 2026 midterms. Alito used a concurring opinion, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, to directly rebuke Jackson, saying her "dissent in this suit levels charges that cannot go unanswered." "The dissent goes on to claim that our decision represents an unprincipled use of power," Alito wrote, adding that that was a "groundless and utterly irresponsible charge." The clash...

A Mexican Navy Mil Mi-17 helicopter failed to take off in Mazatlán, Sinaloa after engine problems, and after a few seconds crashed to the ground. There were no casualties, but the helicopter broke its nose landing gear during the hard landing. 43 Second Video at link. They got lucky................

Overshadowed by the rise of the Roman Empire, the Etruscan civilization -- and their exquisite art, progressive society, and advanced engineering -- was largely forgotten by history. This film reclaims their story, revealing how Etruscan innovations and customs were the foundation upon which the entire Roman world was built, and how their legacy continues today. The Etruscans, the ancient world's greatest untold story | 11:12 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco | 36.1K subscribers | 58,106 views | May 1, 2026

In the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, archaeologists recently discovered a 1,600-year-old tomb with several mummies inside. Some of them were decorated with gold leaf or geometric patterns—features commonly found in burials of this kind.But one of the mummies was unearthed alongside a particularly unusual artifact: a papyrus fragment from Homer's Iliad, the epic poem set during the Trojan War. The ancient Greek text had been tucked beneath the wrappings on the mummy's abdomen during the embalming process."The fact that in this case the text, in Greek, refers to a literary text is truly novel," say Maite Mascort and Esther...

Rick Harrison, the Las Vegas pawn shop owner and star of the hit show Pawn Stars, stood up at the White House Small Business Summit on Monday and said what a lot of Main Street business owners have been thinking. “Literally he’s going to go down as maybe the best president ever,” Harrison said of President Donald Trump. “I love this guy!” The moment drew cheers from a room packed with more than 130 business owners who had traveled from across the country to mark National Small Business Week at the White House. VIDEO AT LINK............. Harrison, who owns the...

According to a statement released by the University of South Florida, a mass grave containing the remains of victims of the Plague of Justinian (A.D. 541–750) has been identified at the site of Jerash in northern Jordan by a team of researchers led by Rays H.Y. Jiang of the University of South Florida. Hundreds of people were buried within several days in this mass grave dug in the city's hippodrome. "By linking biological evidence from the bodies to the archaeological setting, we can see how disease affected real people within their social and environmental context," Jiang said. Examination of the...

The X-59 soared over California’s Mojave desert as it prepares for quiet supersonic flight. NASA’s X-59 performs a bank-to-bank auto roll maneuver during a test flight over California’s Mojave desert. NASA / Lori Losey NASA pilots recently put the X-59 supersonic aircraft through the wringer—performing roller-coaster-style climbs and descents, among other actions, as part of its ongoing test campaign. The space agency released a video of its experimental aircraft performing a series of maneuvers as it soared over California’s Mojave desert. The X-59, built by aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin, is designed to break the sound barrier without the explosive, thunder-like...

The Columbia-class submarine program encountered early setbacks. The United States Navy’s effort to build its newest class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines is now expected to reach a key milestone in 2028, according to General Dynamics. The lead vessel, currently under construction, has faced schedule adjustments but is showing signs of steady progress as production challenges are gradually resolved. First submarine was planned for delivery earlier Reports revealed that the first submarine in this class was initially planned for delivery earlier, but complications during construction led to a revised target. Issues involving the supply of critical components, along with delays...

According to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, an international team of researchers compared models for the distribution of three major mosquito complexes, paleoclimate models, and places where early humans lived in sub-Saharan Africa between 5,000 and 74,000 years ago. The resulting map indicates that people avoided or died out in areas where Plasmodium falciparum-induced malaria, a disease transmitted by mosquitoes, was likely prevalent. "The effects of these choices shaped human demography for the last 74,000 years, and likely much earlier," said Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge. "By fragmenting human societies across the landscape,...

According to a statement released by Antiquity, analysis of skeletal remains recovered from a seventeenth-century hospital cemetery in Basel, Switzerland, suggests that young laborers were the people most likely to die during an outbreak of plague. As a trade center that drew people in from abroad, the city of Basel was vulnerable to the spread of Yersinia pestis bacteria and outbreaks of plague. The last recorded outbreak of the disease in Basel occurred between 1665 and 1670. Researchers led by osteoarchaeologist Laura Rindlisbacher of the University of Basel examined skeletal remains recovered from the hospital cemetery dated to this period,...

According to a statement released by the University of Copenhagen, analysis of the remains of 132 individuals unearthed near a megalithic tomb in northern France suggests that the site was initially used by one group of people, but that population declined around 3000 B.C. and was eventually replaced by another group. "We see a clear genetic break between the two periods," said Frederik Valeur Seersholm of the University of Copenhagen. Genetic testing revealed that the earlier group was composed of early farmers from northern France and Germany, while the later group was linked to people in southern France and the...

Horrors! The latest atrocity in Gaza, reports Al Jazeera, is a wave of “luxurious” cafes and restaurants that have sprung up, “revealing a new genocidal reality.” That’s right: Israel-haters have yet another new definition of “genocide,” wherein “fancy” restaurants “built with expensive materials, carefully painted, furnished with tables, sofas, and elegant chairs, with glass facades and shining lights,” giving off a “luxury feel” are fresh proof of the “genocidal abnormality” that Israel has inflicted on the people of Gaza. It’s genocidal, you see, because not everyone in Gaza can afford to go there: “The expensive new establishments reflect the deeply...

Live Science reports that Joachim Burger of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and his colleagues examined more than 250 sets of human remains of people who lived in what is now southern Germany, on what was the frontier of the Roman Empire, between A.D. 400 and 700. The researchers analyzed DNA samples from the bones, performed strontium isotope analysis to look for chemical signatures in the bones, and compared the results of the tests with 2,500 ancient and 379 modern genomes. The study suggests that many people engaged in monogamy, and nearly one-quarter of the children lost at least one parent...