Free Republic

U.S. nonprofit AARP projected on Thursday that out-of-pocket savings from the first 10 Medicare Part D drugs negotiated under the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act will exceed 50% on average next year. The report, based on data from stand-alone Part D plans in five states with high Medicare enrollment, forecasts that Medicare enrollees will witness significantly lower monthly expenses for these medications beginning Jan. 1. In August 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the first 10 Part D drugs selected for pricing negotiations, including blockbuster therapies from companies such as Bristol Myers (BMY)/ Pfizer (PFE) and...

Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro denounced right-wing podcast titan Tucker Carlson as “an opponent of conservatism” who “has trafficked in nearly every conspiracy theory under the sun” in a speech*** Shapiro appeared at the largest conservative think tank in DC ostensibly to discuss his book, “Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics).” Instead, he took advantage of the platform to address what he called “the elephant in the room.” “If we care about conservatism, if, as Heritage Foundation proclaims, our goal ought to be to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of...

EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Digital spoke to Minnesota state Rep. Kristin Robbins shortly after she unveiled millions in alleged fraud in the state’s assisted living program and identified an individual already indicted for fraud who is still receiving payments from the state, adding to the already exploding fraud scandal in the state. The Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy, chaired by Robbins, held a hearing that focused on a new sector of fraud, the state’s assisted living programs, that comes amid a massive unfolding fraud scandal in the state that has affected a variety of other sectors and resulted in...

Yesterday the Pennsylvania state House passed the measure for abortions up to birth by one vote. Not only would it allow abortions on demand throughout pregnancy, it would force Pennsylvania residents to fund abortions. ““House Bill 1957 is a highly regressive form of legislation which would wipe out protections against taxpayer funding of abortion at a time when the vast majority of taxpayers do not want their hard-earned money to pay for abortion,” said Maria Gallagher, executive director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the Keystone State affiliate of National Right to Life. “The vote was as tight as it could...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is investigating whether Colorado providers helped nearly 3,000 people swindle taxpayer money from Uncle Sam, The Post has learned. The investigation comes after an internal HUD audit found that benefits were granted to 221 dead people, while another 87 were otherwise ineligible. The department also said that another 2,519 beneficiaries will need to undergo additional verification. “From deceased tenants to individuals receiving HUD housing benefits who were never supposed to, the Department has questions for HUD-supported housing providers in Colorado, and we expect prompt answers and enforcement action,” a HUD spokesperson told...

Thousands of immigrant truck drivers are breathing a sigh of relief after California said Tuesday it’s preparing to reissue commercial licences it planned to revoke after federal pressure. State transportation officials confirmed that the Department of Motor Vehicles will start reissuing the contested licences to 17,000 immigrant drivers who were sent 60-day cancellation notices on Nov. 6.

Multiple people are feared dead after a private jet crashed and exploded into flames on Thursday at a North Carolina airport frequented by NASCAR teams and Fortune 500 companies. The Cessna C550 plane went down at Statesville Regional Airport at about 10:15 a.m, authorities said. Footage shot by WSOC-TV captured the aircraft entirely engulfed in flames as emergency crews rushed onto the runway. It wasn’t immediately clear how many were onboard but the local sheriff’s office said there were a number of fatalities. The airport is owned by the city and “provides corporate aviation facilities for Fortune 500 companies and...

The Trump administration has acted to ban gender-affirming care for minors across the country. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday it could pull federal funding from any US hospital that offered transgender surgeries or pharmaceutical treatment. The department's announcement said the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will release a notice of proposed rulemaking that will bar hospitals from performing 'sex-rejecting' procedures on children under 18 if the institutions want to participate in Medicare and Medicaid programs. 'These procedures include pharmaceutical or surgical interventions of specified types that attempt to align a child’s physical appearance...

The Trump administration announced on Wednesday $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest ever U.S. weapons package for the island which is under increasing military pressure from China. The Taiwan arms sale announcement is the second under U.S. President Donald Trump's current administration, and comes as Beijing ramps up its military and diplomatic pressure against Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims. The proposed arms sales cover eight items, including HIMARS rocket systems, howitzers, Javelin anti-tank missiles, Altius loitering munition drones and parts for other equipment, Taiwan's defence ministry said in a statement. "The United States continues to...

Explanation: What's large and blue and can wrap itself around an entire galaxy? A gravitational lens mirage. Pictured here, the gravity of a massive elliptical galaxy (luminous red galaxy: LRG) has gravitationally distorted the light from a much more distant blue galaxy. More typically, such light bending results in two discernible images of the distant galaxy, but here the lens alignment is so precise that the background galaxy is distorted into a horseshoe -- a nearly complete ring: an Einstein ring. Although LRG 3-757 was discovered in 2007 in data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the image shown...

VIDEOIn 2026 the FIFA World Cup Soccer arrives in the USA. That will be the time when native born Americans PRETEND (if they are polite) to be interested in Soccer or what the rest of the world calls Football. Watching these Brits suffering extreme meltdowns over absurdly (and typically) low scoring soccer games is amusing to watch. It has convinced me that growing up watching either American football vs soccer somehow wires your brain differently. The way soccer flows with its absurdly low scores just does NOT appeal to Americans who expect higher scores in a game that flows entirely...

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A Republican push to make drilling cheaper on federal land is creating new fiscal pressure for states that depend on oil and gas revenue, most notably in New Mexico as it expands early childhood education and saves for the future. The shift stems from the sweeping law President Donald Trump signed in July that rolls back the minimum federal royalty rate to 12.5%. That rate — the share of production value companies must pay to the government — held steady for a century under the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act. It was raised to 16.7% under...

"Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared “dead” the proposals to seize the $247 billion in frozen Russian assets within the European Union and use them to finance a reparations loan for Ukraine. Orban, a right-wing nationalist who has warm relations with Russia, and is also one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s closest political allies in Europe, made the remark to reporters on Thursday morning as he entered a European Council meeting for crunch talks on the assets issue."

As the manhunt for the Brown University shooter entered its sixth day Thursday, sources say police in Providence, Rhode Island, recovered live rounds from the shooting scene.

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a Trump administration policy that sought to require members of Congress to submit requests a week before visiting and inspecting Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the policy likely violated an appropriations law passed by Congress saying that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, cannot use funds to require lawmakers in Congress to "provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility" to conduct oversight. That DHS policy, announced in June, said members of Congress should file requests to inspect ICE facilities...

A tow-truck driver in Florida is facing felony charges after being accused of towing a car that had a little girl inside. The incident was caught on surveillance video. The car’s owner told police he was inside a restaurant in Sunrise, Florida, for only two minutes before the tow truck came and took his car and he ran out of the business to try and stop the truck’s driver. The car was in a fire zone where there were no parking signs, WPLG reported. The video shows the owner of the car running to the tow truck driver, telling him...

Daily Readings from the USCCBWhen Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. Matthew 1:24The human person is a fascinating subject of study. Throughout the ages, countless philosophers, theologians, and social scientists have sought to understand the complexities of human nature. Within the Catholic philosophical tradition, Saint Thomas Aquinas stands out as an influential and trustworthy teacher on this topic. Aquinas teaches that while a person sleeps, the external senses are inactive. However, sense images within the imagination can still be active to varying degrees, depending on the...

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV tapped Bishop Ronald A. Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, to lead the influential Archdiocese of New York, replacing Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who led New York's 2.8 million Catholics for 16 years.

Heavily armed Australian police swooped on a group of men heading to Bondi Beach on Thursday after intelligence suggested they could be planning a “violent act” days after 15 people were slaughtered at a Hanukkah event there. The suspects were nabbed in two cars with out-of-state license plates in Sydney’s south-west just days after two ISIS terrorists shot up the famed beach. Chaotic footage captured SWAT teams searching and cuffing five bloodied men after authorities rammed their vehicle in the broad-daylight sting. A weapon may have been uncovered from the car, sources told the Sydney Morning Herald. Police also swooped...

Yesterday, the FBI delivered to the Senate Judiciary Committee emails relating to the search of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Senator Charles Grassley has released what I take to be all of the responsive documents. Comments you may have seen on the emails are correct: the FBI didn’t think there was probable cause to search Trump’s home, but Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice insisted. The FBI thought they should communicate with Trump’s lawyer and likely be able to reach an agreement. Garland’s DOJ refused. The FBI pointed out that President Trump likely had a good legal argument on the documents; DOJ...