Free Republic

Russia is to expel 23 British diplomats amid tensions over the nerve agent attack on a former spy and his daughter in the UK. The Russian foreign ministry said staff from the UK's Moscow embassy would be expelled within a week. It also said it would close the British Council in Russia, which promotes cultural ties between the nations, and the British Consulate in St. Petersburg. The move comes in response to Britain's decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats.........

While few might consider being a diplomat a life-threatening or even dangerous job, that trend may be quickly reversing — that is, at least for Russian diplomats.[snip] Since late December, four top Russian diplomats, including three ambassadors, have died under circumstances that remain unclear. .....................................

Republican California Rep. Ed Royce is pressing the Obama administration on how it will deal with dozens of high-living Russian diplomats who lied about their incomes to collect healthcare money meant for the poor. Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Monday he wants a briefing on the alleged Medicaid fraud, and wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry asking how officials will handle "the law enforcement and diplomatic aspects" of the case, The Hill reported. In a complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan last Thursday, 49 former and current diplomats are charged with defrauding Medicaid of...

Federal law enforcement authorities have charged nearly 50 past or present Russian diplomats and their spouses in a $1.5 million Medicaid fraud scheme, an unusual twist in what has become a familiar criminal story line in New York. An F.B.I. investigation revealed “the systemic fraudulent submission of falsified applications for Medicaid benefits” by the diplomats and their spouses, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday in United States District Court in Manhattan. The diplomats and their spouses obtained the benefits for pregnancies, births and first-year-of-life medical needs, generally applying at the same New York hospital, which was not identified,...