Free Republic

(The Center Square) – Medicare premiums and senior citizens' prescription drug costs have surged since passage of the $891 billion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, according to data compiled by an advocate for seniors on the federal health care program. The legislation promised financial relief for millions of people with Medicare by expanding benefits, lowering drug costs, and strengthening Medicare for future seniors. Medicare Is for Seniors' "Misery Index," as the report is known, says prescription drug costs instead have risen nationally by 31%, leaving seniors with new expenses and fewer options. Those costs will rise again under the new...

Cash Not Drugs" proposal, under which certain residents would receive money to stay sober, is now closer to becoming reality after the city's Board of Supervisors passed the bill earlier this week. The bill gives welfare recipients a $100 city-issued gift card for each week they stay sober. Proponents of the plan call it a humane and effective way of dealing with the drug crisis plaguing San Francisco. Supervisors Ahsha Safai, Dean Preston, Matt Dorsey, and Rafael Mandelman sponsored the bill. Eligible recipients include those enrolled in the County Adult Assistance Program (CAAP). The Cash Not Drugs is completely voluntary...

Parents accuse Texas elementary school of giving children ‘sleepy stickers’ Parents at a Texas school say a teacher gave their pre-K students sleep aids to make them sleepy. The school district says there is an "active criminal investigation" and they have removed four teachers from the classroom. “We’re not going to stay quiet,” Lisa Luviano, who says her 5-year-old daughter Layne told her in September that teachers had been putting a “sleepy sticker” on her body. TODAY.com has not verified the product in question; parent Melissa Gilford, whose 4-year-old daughter Ava said she was also given a sleep-aid sticker at...

California has invested a staggering $24 billion over the past five fiscal years to address homelessness, a figure that underscores the state’s urgent effort to curb this intractable crisis. Yet, as this spending has increased, so has California’s homeless population. In the 2021-22 fiscal year, when the homeless population was estimated to be 172,000, California spent $7.2 billion, which equated to nearly $42,000 per homeless individual. The spending includes housing and rental assistance, physical and mental health outreach, case management, and funds to purchase motels and other types of temporary housing. In a scathing report released in April, the California...

Cops in Southeast Portland stopped a couple who were driving a suspected stolen car. During the stop, the cops searched the car and allegedly found a whole bunch of incriminating stuff. A lot of cash. A loaded revolver. Some scales for weighing drugs. And they found a bag full of drugs that had the words “Definitely Not a Bag Full of Drugs” written on it. They say the bag contained 10 grams of fentanyl and methamphetamine. The couple was arrested. The guy, a 35-year-old named Reginald Lamont Reynolds, is facing multiple charges including delivery and unlawful possession of methamphetamine, unauthorized...

Law enforcement in Latvia has seized a haul of drugs worth at least 400 million euros (437.8 million U.S. dollars) from a clandestine narcotics lab in Latvia, the State Police said Thursday, APA reports citing Xinhua. Eight members of the criminal group, aged 24 to 35, were detained during the police operation last week in the northeastern Aluksne municipality. They include five Ukrainian citizens, two Polish citizens, and one Armenian citizen. The largest such operation in the country was conducted simultaneously in several cities and towns across Latvia, involving seven raids. Police seized more than one ton of the synthetic...

Vice President Kamala Harris sided Wednesday with dockworkers who launched a massive strike this week that threatens to cripple the economy. “This strike is about fairness,” Harris said. “Foreign-owned shipping companies have made record profits and executive compensation has grown. The Longshoremen, who play a vital role transporting essential goods across America, deserve a fair share of these record profits.” Harris also threw in a barb at her opponent, accusing former President Donald Trump of making “empty promises” to workers and promising that she will “have workers’ backs” and fight for an “opportunity economy.” “Donald Trump, on the other hand,...

Deaths from fentanyl appear to be going down for the first time in a decade after reaching astronomic levels - but experts warn there's a 'horrific' reason behind it. They say the drug is simply running out of people to kill, after claiming the lives of around 320,000 Americans in the last decade. Last year, around 75,000 people in the US were killed by the lethally potent drug, which was slightly down on the previous year and the first time deaths have fallen annually since 2011. Dr Caleb Banta-Green, an addiction expert at the University of Washington, says King County,...

Tales of the Jersey mob: Body behind diner a missing Mafiosi? Wedding Services Search By LARRY McSHANE Associated Press Writer December 1, 2005, 4:28 PM EST NEW YORK -- A mob trial, a missing defendant, a decomposing body and a car trunk. Don't cue "The Sopranos" theme for this real-life mob scenario, where a reputed Genovese family capo vanished during his waterfront corruption case only to turn up dead _ perhaps _ behind a New Jersey diner. The body found Wednesday in a parking lot behind the Huck Finn Diner in Union, N.J., was likely that of Lawrence Ricci, a...

For Daniel Guerra, an aspiring Brazilian sailor keen to travel the world, the job ad was a dream come true. A British yacht owner was seeking two deck-hands to help sail his boat from Brazil across the Atlantic, one of the great ocean journeys. There would be no salary, but all expenses paid - and, crucially, Mr Guerra would gain some of the sailing experience he needed to qualify as a sea captain. "My dream was to become a captain and go work in Europe," remembers the 43-year-old, who saw the advert from an online sailing recruitment agency. "So I...

BY THE OREGONIAN/OREGONLIVE (Compiled from news accounts, court records, public notices) Last week's arrest of a long-sought accused eco-saboteur pushed the spotlight back on a tight-knit cell of radical environmentalists responsible for a $48 million run of firebombings and other crimes across the West in the 1990s and early 2000s. Six men and five women prosecuted in Oregon received sentences ranging from three years to 13 years. They were arrested starting in 2005 in what the FBI called "Operation Backfire," a task force that tracked down the suspects with the help of an informant deep within the underground group....

A cannabis dispensary in San Francisco was ransacked overnight Tuesday in a burglary that involved a vehicle smashing into the front of the building, causing significant damage. Security camera footage of the incident showed at least five burglars emerging from two vehicles at 4:48 a.m. Tuesday in front of Cannabis Cultures dispensary at 2715 Judah Street in the city's Sunset District. The burglars are seen attaching a chain from the back of an SUV to the metal security gate and yanking it free. The vehicle is then seen ramming through the store's rollup metal door and into the front lobby;...

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The man accused of pointing a rifle into the golf course where former President Donald Trump was playing last weekend, was known in his hometown as something of a bad actor. “Weird” is how one of Ryan Routh’s former neighbors in Greensboro described him. She told reporters he once had a horse in his house and that he also kept guns. A man, who like the first neighbor asked not to be identified for fear of being associated with Routh, says he didn’t know the 58 year old well but got a similar vibe. “I mean, [he]...

Sandwiched between the San Joaquin River and a trio of stunning national parks, the California city of Antioch seems like a peaceful part of the state's East Bay region, but in reality, it harbors an enormous underground criminal enterprise. You'd never know it based on the wealth of the neighborhood. In fact, residents fork out 93 percent more than the national average to live in the upscale area, with the median house costing $588,000, while renters pay a median $2,850 per month, according to Fly Homes. But the Golden State city's sunny exterior belies the shady underground weed trade that...

Russell Bentley, a self-described “Donbass Cowboy,” joined Russian forces soon after they created a proxy state in eastern Ukraine in 2014. He quickly became one of Russian propaganda’s favorite Americans, receiving a Russian passport and a gig with state-run Sputnik TV. On April 8, the 64-year-old Austin native better known under his call sign “Texas” was detained by Russian soldiers in the city of Donetsk, occupied by Russia for the past decade, according to his wife. Eleven days later, he turned up dead. He is the latest in a string of figures involved in Russia’s 2014 takeover of parts of...

Antimicrobial resistance is already killing millions around the globe, but deaths could surge by 68 per cent between 2021 and 2050, according to a major new study. More than 39 million people worldwide could die from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years, and another 130 million could die of related causes, according to a landmark new study that comes days before global leaders convene in New York to sign off on a pledge to combat the growing public health threat. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – when bacteria or other pathogens evolve to the point where antibiotics are no longer effective...

Worries about retail theft and fentanyl deaths shaped a November ballot measure that would toughen some criminal penalties. Here are the facts about California crime trends.

In 2019, Brandon McDowell was contacted by a sophomore in college who asked to buy Percocet, a prescription painkiller. What the 20-year-old sold her instead were counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that can be lethal in a dose as small as 2 milligrams. Hours later, Alexandra Capelouto, also 20, was dead in her Temecula, California, home. It is an increasingly common scenario as fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death for minors in the last five years, with more than 74,000 people dying in the U.S. from a synthetic opioid in 2023, according to...

The Royal Navy has intercepted its first-ever “narco sub” – filled with £160m ($208M) worth of cocaine. HMS Trent seized the vessel in the Caribbean Sea. In eight drugs busts in seven months, the Portsmouth-based patrol ship has stopped nearly £750m ($979M) of narcotics reaching the streets of the UK in eight months. Trent’s latest operation, alongside the US Coast Guard and a US Maritime Patrol Aircraft, was the first “narco-sub” the Royal Navy has ever intercepted. The ship’s boarding team – comprising US Coast Guard personnel, Royal Marines from 47 Commando and specialist sailors – clambered aboard the semi-submersed...

The FDA has just written a letter to pharma-giant AbbVie, asking the company to cease running an advertisement for a migraine drug that features tennis legend Serena Williams. The letter details that the advertisement for Ubrelvy 'makes false or misleading representations' about the drug, and might lead migraine patients to believe that, 'all patients who take Ubrelvy can expect their migraine pain to be eliminated after a single dose of Ubrelvy, when this has not been demonstrated'. It asks the company to come up with a plan to cease running the advertisement or discontinue distribution of the drug. AbbVie reported...