Read Online  |  June 27, 2026  |  E-Paper  | 🎧 Listen

“To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.”

— Confucius, “Analects”

Ivan Pentchoukov
National Editor

Good morning. It’s Saturday. Here are today’s top stories.

• The Department of Justice has charged 455 individuals, including 90 medical professionals, for their involvement in healthcare fraud schemes totaling over $6.5 billion. The cases are a representative cross section of how healthcare fraud takes place in America.
• U.S. forces launched retaliatory strikesagainst Iran after U.S. President Donald Trump accused Tehran of violating the ceasefire deal.
• Trump delivered a speech warning that the influx of communism is the biggest danger to the United States since its founding.
• The death toll from the twin earthquakes in Venezuela has risen to 920 people, with 4,300 injured, as foreign rescue teams arrived on Friday, two days after the powerful quakes devastated parts of the country. 
• 🍵 Health: Beyond their ability to support elimination, a growing body of research now links a daily serving of prunes to everything from bone density and heart health to inflammation, metabolic function, and, yes, digestive regularity. It’s time to take prunes seriously.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (C), flanked by administration officials, announces healthcare fraud takedown results, at the Department of Justice in Washington on June 23, 2026. (Ken Cedeno / AFP via Getty Images)

How Healthcare Fraud Works in America

The Department of Justice has charged 455 individuals, including 90 medical professionals, for their involvement in healthcare fraud schemes totaling over $6.5 billion, as part of the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said on June 23.

The number of defendants is up from 324 in 2025 and 193 in 2024.

The operation represented “the greatest whole-of-government effort to combat healthcare fraud in our nation’s history,” Blanche told reporters. It involved cases across 45 states and 56 federal districts, and 50 state Medicaid fraud control units participated, the most in the department’s history. 

The effort resulted in the apprehension and return to the United States of fraudsters operating from Cyprus, Estonia, and the Philippines, who had bilked taxpayers out of more than $15 billion, according to a federal statement. Officials have seized more than $182 million in assets since June 8, including cash and luxury cars.

But the greater offense was the physical harm to patients resulting from the fraud, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “The actual cost is that of human health and the lives of humans hurt by these fraudsters,” Oz said.

Medicaid, which provides health coverage to low-income and disabled Americans, is increasingly targeted by criminals, according to the DOJ. The operation netted the largest number of Medicaid fraud charges in U.S. history, involving 295 defendants and $518 million in false claims.

Schemes included billing for services never provided and bribing individuals to obtain their Medicaid numbers, which could then be used to obtain fraudulent payments, according to a federal statement.

An Illinois defendant was charged for involvement in a $67 million scheme to bill Medicaid for behavioral health services that were never provided. Some of the supposed recipients were actually hospitalized at entirely separate health facilities during the period for which services were billed, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said.

A mental health company in Virginia allegedly netted $49 million by bribing homeless individuals with hotel stays in exchange for their Medicaid numbers. The fraudsters then billed Medicaid for crisis stabilization services the patients never needed or received.

In New York, eight people were charged in a $38 million scheme involving social adult daycare centers. The perpetrators allegedly offered kickbacks to get beneficiaries’ information, then billed Medicaid for services supposedly given to hundreds of people a day at a facility with room to accommodate just 30 people. (More)

⚽ WORLD CUP

• Ousmane Dembele’s three consecutive goals for France just 25 minutes apart against Norway on Friday marked the fastest hat trick in World Cup history since 1954 and put him in the Golden Boot race with teammate Kylian Mbappe, who also netted four scores in Group I play. France won 4-1.
• At least one Cinderella story continues beyond the World Cup’s group stage. Cape Verde secured a spot in the knockout round of 32 teams on a 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia, and Spain’s 1-0 win against Uruguay on June 26. The debutant team representing an island nation of around half a million people remains undefeated, including a draw against the reigning world champions, Spain.

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US President Donald Trump points at the crowd after speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s 2026 Policy Conference at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC, on June 26, 2026. (Kent Nishimura/ AFP via Getty Images)

POLITICS

• President Trump signed an executive order to promote regenerative agriculture practices in an effort to support farmers and boost the nation’s food supply security.
• Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed officials to cancel a campaign encouraging people to receive an influenza vaccine, according to newly released emails.
• Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty to illegally retaining classified information.
• The U.S. Commerce Department won’t allow Polestar to sell vehicles in the United States beginning with its 2027 model year, in the latest restriction targeting connected vehicle technology tied to China.

LATEST NEWS

• Federal authorities in the United States have seized nearly 400 internet sites for illegally streaming FIFA World Cup finals.
• Authorities tracked down a Minnesota fraud suspect in Mogadishu, Somalia, and arrested him on June 25—nearly four years after he was first charged in the nation’s largest COVID-19 pandemic scam.
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Laredo sector of the U.S.–Mexico border intercepted more than $72.3 million worth of methamphetamine from separate encounters on the same day.
• SpaceX plans to start construction on an 8-mile Starpipe natural gas pipeline on July 7 to bring fuel directly to its Texas launch site, according to the company’s filing with the Texas Railroad Commission.
• With a third advanced nuclear reactor prototype in less than a month set to reach criticality next week, United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright projects that as many as five more first-of-kind reactors, including several that could fit in a pickup truck bed, will be federally cleared for commercial development in 2026.
• A federal judge declared a mistrial in a case accusing a troubled Uber driver of lighting a blaze in the Santa Monica Mountains that investigators say led to one of the most destructive fires in U.S. history.
• Developer Zhu Yan Po, who allegedly bribed top Eric Adams adviser Frank Carone with $120,000 and was arrested Wednesday, also donated to the foundation that operated a secret Chinese police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown. 
• The Texas Board of Education approved on Friday a new public school reading list that includes stories from the Bible.

Commercial vessels remain anchored off Port Sultan Qaboos around Qaboos Port in Muscat, Oman, on June 21, 2026. (Elke Scholiers/Getty Images)

WORLD

• The governments of Lebanon, Israel, and the United States enacted a new peace framework on Friday, aimed at resolving months of armed conflict and bringing about long-term stability.
• South Korea has announced plans to train 500,000 military personnel to operate drones and rapidly expand unmanned and counter-drone capabilities as Seoul seeks to strengthen defenses against North Korea.
• A Kazakh human rights activist fears his sister could be repatriated to Chinaafter police in Kazakhstan arrested her at home on June 25.

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OPINION

• Don’t Forget the Broader Context of the Iranian Memorandum—by Victor Davis Hanson (Read)
• The Paradox of Thrift Revisited—by Jeffrey A. Tucker (Read)
• Save Our Bacon Doesn’t Really Save Our Bacon—by Mollie Engelhart(Read)
• Israel’s Security Zone in Lebanon Is Justified—by Anders Corr (Read)

Volunteers clear debris as they search for bodies in the rubble of collapsed buildings in Catia La Mar, La Guaira, Venezuela, after deadly earthquakes on June 26, 2026. (Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images)

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FILM

Trafficking in the outback catches up with May (Michelle Lim Davidson), in “Goldstone.” (GJW+)

‘Goldstone’: Danger and Justice in the Outback 

“Goldstone” sits in a rare screen world. It’s one that began as an outback detective film, moved through a sequel, and then kept traveling into television without losing the dust on its boots.

Director Ivan Sen first sent Detective Jay Swan down “Mystery Road” in 2013. Sen then brought him back for this 2016 follow-up, with Aaron Pedersen returning as the Aboriginal investigator. His stillness has less to do with trying to be cool and more to do with exhaustion, suspicion, and damage.

This film extends Jay Swan’s screen life beyond a single case. The story gives him another town full of bad money, civic rot, and buried history. It plays like another harsh chapter in a country-sized file Jay’s been carrying for years.

Indeed, Sen’s authorship is stamped all over the film. He writes, directs, shoots, edits, and scores with the control of someone who seems to hear the landscape before he puts it on screen. The result has a rough, handmade force, with dusty roads, pale skies, vast horizons, cramped trailer rooms, mining-town glares, and grizzled faces.

“Goldstone” is akin to a modern Western with a bit of police procedural in its bloodstream, though even that description feels too tidy for what Sen is doing here. He sets the film in a remote town built around mining, then frames that town to seem small against the vast country around it. (More)

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Thanks for reading 🙏

Have a wonderful day!

—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li.

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