Free Republic

Blackstone Group Inc BX.N said on Wednesday it agreed to acquire genealogy provider Ancestry.com Inc from private equity rivals for $4.7 billion, including debt, placing a big bet on family-tree chasing as well as personalized medicine. Ancestry.com is the world’s largest provider of DNA services, allowing customers to trace their genealogy and identify genetic health risks with tests sent to their home. Blackstone is hoping that more consumers staying at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic will turn to Ancestry.com for its services. “We believe Ancestry has significant runway for further growth as people of all ages and backgrounds become increasingly...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its investment arm have been fined $5 million for using shell companies to obscure the size of its $32 billion portfolio, which was under church control, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday. The faith, known as the Mormon church, maintains billions of dollars of investments in stocks, bonds, real estate and agriculture. Much of its portfolio is controlled by Ensign Peak Advisers, a nonprofit investment manager overseen by ecclesiastical leaders known as its presiding bishopric. The Mormon church was allegedly worried that the size of its portfolio, which reached...

The current size of Ensign Peak’s holdings remains a tightly held secret. The firm, based in Salt Lake City, was incorporated in 1997. Under SEC rules, it must disclose some types of investments, like U.S.-listed stocks, that it manages directly, which amounted to roughly $40 billion on Sept. 30. The remainder of the portfolio is made up of investments such as fixed-income securities, private companies or funds. Ensign Peak had an estimated $100 billion of holdings in 2019.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The leader of a small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border had taken at least 20 wives, most of them minors, and punished followers who did not treat him as a prophet, newly filed federal court documents show. Samuel Bateman was a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, until he left to start his own small offshoot group. He was supported financially by male followers who also gave up their own wives and children to be Bateman’s wives, according to an FBI affidavit.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it would back proposed federal legislation to safeguard same-sex marriages, marking the latest show of support for the measure from conservative-leaning groups. The nearly 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God’s commandments. Yet it said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose. “We believe this approach is the way forward. As we work together to preserve the principles and practices of...

In an unexpected move, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave its support Tuesday to a proposed federal law that would not only recognize all legal marriages but also codify ones between same-sex couples. The Utah-based faith’s doctrine “related to marriage between a man and a woman is well known and will remain unchanged,” according to a news release posted to the church’s website. “We are grateful for the continuing efforts of those who work to ensure the Respect for Marriage Act includes appropriate religious freedom protections while respecting the law and preserving the rights of our LGBTQ...

On this date in 1942, 17-year-old Helmuth Hübener was executed at Plotzensee Prison for listening to the BBC. Huebener was a Mormon youth with the political perspicacity to abhor fascism from a very young age: the former Boy Scout (Mormons really take to scouting) ditched the Hitler Youth after Kristallnacht, which happened when Huebener was only 10 years old. As Germany forged ahead towards worse horrors in the years, conscientious people of all ages had moral dilemmas to resolve. Mormons in Nazi Germany weren’t persecuted per se and to keep it that way that small community generally kept its head...

As discussions, debates and disputes about the recent reversal of Roe v. Wade rage on, the questions always seem to be about women. Gabrielle Blair, a successful Latter-day Saint influencer known as “Design Mom,” says it’s time to shift that focus to men. After all, she argues in her soon-to-be-released book, “Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion,” 100% of unwanted pregnancies ultimately are caused by men. The issue must move away from controlling and legislating women’s bodies, she insists, and turn instead to the lack of male accountability. Here are excerpts from The Salt Lake Tribune’s...

Independent U.S. Senate candidate Evan McMullin called on Sen. Mike Lee to “break from partisan extremes” and get behind the bipartisan gun safety proposal unveiled in the Senate this week. McMullin said in a brief news conference via Zoom on Monday that he supports the proposal as a common-sense plan to protect children, families and gun rights.

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis courting catastrophe by fudging wording on Fatima consecrationThe pontiff indicated that he will consecrate 'humanity' and not just Russia. Mon Mar 21, 2022 - 7:12 pm EDT (LifeSiteNews) — The requests of Our Lady of Fatima for the consecration of Russia were very specific. In at least eight attempts over the last nearly 100 years, Popes have failed to do it as she explicitly requested. And for that very reason, the promised full conversion of Russia and world peace were not granted to the world.The best opportunity for the consecration of Russia has presented itself now,...

Brian Murray knows just how fierce an opponent Arizona's Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can be. The Republican strategist saw his candidate lose to Democrat Sinema in their 2012 race for the House. Calling the experience "unpleasant," Murray admits his candidate, Vernon Parker, was flawed, but "flawed candidates win all of the time. Kyrsten, however, was an absolute machine." Sinema, along with fellow centrist Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has recently become the epicenter of American politics largely because she insists on siding with the interests of her constituents instead of the demands of her party. Over the past few...

“Doomsday” mom Lori Vallow’s brother told detectives he believes that she murdered her third husband, who reportedly died of natural causes, in addition to her fourth husband and two children, new court documents revealed. Vallow’s brother Alex Cox told detectives he believes that Vallow and Alex murdered Vallow’s third husband Joseph Ryan, who had purportedly died of a heart attack in 2018. Alex had killed Vallow’s fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in July 2019 shooting in what he said was self-defense. She faces a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in Arizona in connection with his death.

A member of a cartel blamed for the 2019 massacre of nine United States-Mexico dual citizens has been arrested. Uriel '18' Valles Domínguez was apprehended by security forces in the northern Mexican municipality of Chihuahua City on Wednesday, two years after the barbaric incident that left three mothers and six children of a tight knit Mormon community dead. Officials have yet to say what charges he faces, or his suspected links to the mass-slaughter.

Phoenix – Former Congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Matt Salmon today issued the following statement about President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement in the Arizona gubernatorial race: “I have a great deal of respect for President Trump and the hard work he’s done for our country, but I disagree with his decision today. “The clear fact remains that Kari Lake isn’t a conservative or even a Republican, and she certainly isn’t the MAGA candidate in this race. She is a former registered Democrat who donated to Barack Obama and John Kerry, who refused to support Republicans, and who gushed over Dr....

Laura Gaddy, who grew up as a devout Latter-day Saint in North Carolina, says she felt her surety in church principles begin to unravel in 2015, when leaders pulled Joseph Smith’s “seer stone” from a vault and showed it to the media. For her, according to court documents, the event signaled that the faith’s founding prophet had not translated the Book of Mormon, the church’s signature scripture, directly from gold plates inscribed with reformed Egyptian characters, but instead had dictated the narrative “from a stone with his head in a hat.” Gaddy came to be deeply troubled by what she...

VALDOSTA, Georgia — President Donald Trump said Saturday during a campaign rally for the Georgia Senate runoff elections that no one has “fought harder for me” than Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA). The president praised the junior Georgia senator’s fight for Trump’s America First agenda. “When Kelly came in, I didn’t know what to think. There was nobody that fought harder for me,” the president said. The president also described Loeffler as a “trooper.” The president also noted that Loeffler had attacked Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) for prolonging the impeachment trial against Trump. “She is so tough and smart; she even...

Just before the Democratic National Convention kicks off Monday, Joe Biden’s campaign staged a national virtual event Saturday in which a parade of Latter-day Saints told fellow church members why they support the former vice president. And sometimes they also said why they see President Donald Trump as wicked. It came during an event where participants opened and closed with prayer, quoted scriptures, repeated teachings of church leaders and sometimes shared testimonies that helped put Biden in a divine light. “We can probably all agree that Donald Trump isn’t good or right,” said Abigail Woodfield, president of BYU College Democrats....

Calls to ban statues, flags and images of groups that were involved in slavery would have to include the Democrat Party's Donkey and Islam's Crescent, as both of these institutions were involved in the enslavement of Africans. Beginning in colonial times, approximately 350,000 African slaves were brought to America. This number grew to nearly 4 million slaves prior to the Civil War. Slaves were purchased at sharia Muslim slave markets. Sharia Islam defended the right to own slaves, as its founder, Mohammed, owned slaves. Beginning in 622 AD, the next 1,400 years saw an estimated 180 million Africans enslaved in...

Fremont County Sheriff deputies, Rexburg Police officers and the FBI arrived at the house on the 200 block of 1900 East around 7 a.m. The warrant from the Rexburg Police Department is sealed so it is unknown what information officers are trying to obtain. Numerous roads around the home are closed and drivers are being re-routed. The media is being asked to remain in a staging area. Nobody has been taken into custody and police tell EastIdahoNews.com they will be on the scene for hours. FBI spokeswoman Sandra Barker confirms the agency’s Evidence Response Team is assisting Madison County with...

Never Trump Republicans planning to gather in Charlotte, North Carolina, in August, at the same moment as President Trump’s renomination celebration there are taking aim at congressional Republicans. The “Convention on Founding Principles” is scheduled to coincide with the Republican presidential nominating convention, which is set for Aug. 24–27 at the Spectrum Center arena. . . . “Even if Trump weren’t in the picture, the party would still need some reforming,” said Evan McMullin, a Never Trump Republican and one of the organizers of the event. McMullin mounted a failed, eleventh-hour third-party bid against Trump in 2016 and later co-founded...