Proposal requires California seniors seeking state medical benefits to pass unique test
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing an “asset test” for seniors to prove eligibility for Medi-Cal healthcare benefits for low-income Californians in response to a budget shortfall. To qualify, people would have to possess less than $2,000 in assets to qualify.
The governor’s budget proposal, written by the California Department of Finance, said the reasons for the increased costs include “higher overall enrollment, pharmacy costs and higher managed care costs.”
In the last 10 years, he said, Medi-Cal costs have increased by $20.5 billion.
NEWSOM PROPOSES FREEZE ON ALLOWING ADULT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO JOIN CALIFORNIA MEDICAID PROGRAM
Newsom has also proposed freezing new enrollment for adults in the country illegally as a way to cut Medi-Cal costs.
“Some of the most significant contributing factors to this growth are the COVID-19 continuous coverage requirement and the implementation of major policy changes such as the full elimination of the asset test for older adults and the full-scope expansion to all income-eligible Californians, regardless of immigration status,” the proposal said. .
The assets included in the test would be salary, money in a bank account, cash on hand, a second car, home value and retirement funds. Applicants with more than $2,000 in assets would be ineligible for Medi-Cal.
The 2025-26 budget proposal said Medi-Cal costs have increased starkly and continue to outpace revenues. The program cost $37.6 billion over the last year, and the cost is expected to increase by $10 billion over the next year without cuts.
Along with low-income adults, many seniors and people with disabilities use Medi-Cal benefits that include in-home care services.
For decades before 2024, the asset test was required for seniors to prove their eligibility for Medi-Cal, and Newsom’s proposal would reinstate it.
The proposal said that the asset test would save $94 million this fiscal year and $791 million by the 2028-29 fiscal year.
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Disability Rights California, a nonprofit, said the proposal would do “tremendous harm” to Californians.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT HEALTHCARE COSTS IN BLUE STATE TRIGGERS INTENSE BUDGET DEBATE
“While we understand the reality of budget shortfalls and that cuts will sometimes be necessary, the priorities and reality of this May revision are even worse than what we imagined,” the group said in a statement. “It demonstrates a continued willingness on the part of the governor to sacrifice the health and human services of California’s people, particularly the disabled, poor, and elderly populations of this abundant state.”
The group added that the asset test “effectively demands extreme poverty in order to continue receiving critical healthcare.”
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The governor defended his proposals, according to the Los Angeles Times, saying, “None of this is the kind of work you enjoy doing, but you’ve got to do it. We have to be responsible. We have to be accountable. We have to balance the budget.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Newsom’s office for comment.
Musk and Rogan fact-check Bono’s claim of deaths from Trump aid cuts
U2 frontman and longtime global activist Bono took a swing at the Trump administration disbanding the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)) on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, blaming the cuts for a staggering 300,000 deaths.
And he was swiftly fact-checked by Rogan and Elon Musk in a takedown that lit up social media.
“This will f— you off,” Bono warned, claiming tens of thousands of tons of food are “rotting” in warehouses from Djibouti to Houston because of recent USAID cuts, and that the people who ran those warehouses have been fired.
“What is that? That’s not America, is it?”
I AM A USAID WHISTLEBLOWER. I’VE GOT TO ADMIT, MUSK IS MOSTLY RIGHT ABOUT AGENCY’S WASTE
Rogan wasn’t having it.
“They’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” he said, acknowledging that while some aid groups do good work, the USAID system has been riddled with corruption.
“For sure, it was a money laundering operation. For sure, there was no oversight. … Trillions that are unaccounted for.”
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CUTTING 90% OF USAID FOREIGN AID CONTRACTS, DOCUMENTS SHOW
Reacting on X to a clip of the conversation, Elon Musk slammed Bono directly.
“He’s such a liar/idiot,” Musk wrote.
Musk, who has championed sharp cuts to what he sees as a bloated foreign aid machine, pushed for major USAID reforms under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) before his formal departure this week.
His response ignited debate online, with conservatives cheering for overdue accountability.
Popular online commentator “Catturd” posted that “I agree 100% with Elon Musk that Bono is an idiot and a liar.”
One commentator also wrote, “They’ve made this 300,000 number up and propagandized people with it.”
Another eagle-eyed X user posted, “Bono starts off by saying, ‘It’s not proven.’ So he’s lying.”
Bono’s 300,000 figure comes not from confirmed deaths, but from a speculative model built by Brooke Nichols, a mathematical health modeler at Boston University, projecting what could happen as a result of the cuts.
Nichols has said that the number is a projection, not a direct count, due to the absence of real-time tracking in many affected regions.
“The biggest uncertainties in all of these estimates are: 1) the extent to which countries and organizations have pivoted to mitigate this disaster (likely highly variable),” she wrote in The Washington Post. “And 2) which programs are actually still funded with funding actually flowing — and which aren’t.”
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The State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
White House pulls billionaire’s NASA nomination over ‘America First’ alignment issues
The Trump administration recently pulled Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA administrator, alluding that he was not in “complete alignment” with the president’s agenda.
“The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President [Donald] Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston told Fox News Digital on Saturday.
Huston added it is “essential” that the next leader of NASA “is in complete alignment” with President Trump’s “America First” agenda.
A replacement will be announced directly by Trump “soon,” according to the White House.
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Isaacman is the billionaire founder and CEO of Shift4 payments, a credit card payment processing company.
He reportedly dropped out of high school as a teen, using a $10,000 check from his grandfather to form his tech business.
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Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., who introduced Isaacman to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, described him as “a successful innovator, entrepreneur, pilot, and astronaut.”
“Jared believes in NASA’s core mission,” Sheehy told Fox. “He has the experience and skillset to ensure we continue to lead in the greatest frontier ever known, and I look forward to adding NASA administrator to his already remarkable resume.”
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“For nearly 70 years, the United States has been at the forefront of space exploration,” he continued. “President Trump knows how critical it is to reinvigorate NASA so we can once again lead the world to new heights, and that’s why he chose exactly the right man for the job: Jared Isaacman.”
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The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Musk’s sweeping State Department reforms will remain despite his departure
Elon Musk may no longer be the top dog at DOGE, but his reforms at the State Department will remain permanently in place, a senior agency official told Fox News Digital Thursday.
As Musk’s 130-day mandate as a “special government employee” comes to an end, the billionaire entrepreneur announced his departure from DOGE in a post on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Wednesday night.
During Musk’s time as the head of DOGE, he helped usher in big reforms at the State Department, which included an effective dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), staff reductions, and the cancellation of various foreign aid programs due to lack of oversight, inefficiency, and other reasons.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DOGE AFTER ELON MUSK’S DEPARTURE? ‘ONLY JUST BEGUN’
The indication that Musk’s DOGE-related work at the State Department will continue was reinforced by a new reorganization effort at the Department of State announced by Secretary Marco Rubio on Thursday. The new reorganization plans are expected to cut or consolidate more than 300 of the State Department’s offices and bureaus as part of a massive overhaul aimed at streamlining the department, according to agency officials.
The agency currently has about 700 offices, meaning the reorganization effort will slash, or join, more than 40% of its offices.
“We have too many godd— offices,” a senior State Department official told Fox News Digital. “We’re trying to shrink offices rather than create them.”
WHITE HOUSE DISCLOSES WHO WILL LEAD DOGE EFFORTS AFTER MUSK’S DEPARTURE
The State Department submitted a notice to Congress Thursday disclosing plans for the reorganization overhaul, which senior State Department officials said will be the largest restructuring for the agency since the Cold War.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added Thursday that many DOGE employees will remain part of the Trump administration, despite Musk winding down his work.
“Surely the mission of Doge will continue,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “Many Doge employees are now political employees.”
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One of Musk’s DOGE associates, Jeremy Lewin, has recently been tapped for a top role within the State Department. In April, he was placed at State for a different role. For his part, Lewin, however, disputes that he ever did any direct work for Musk’s DOGE.
Pickup driver in crash near Yellowstone that killed him and six others was drunk
A driver who crashed a pickup into a tour van near Yellowstone National Park earlier this month, causing the death of seven people including himself, had a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit for driving, police said Friday.
Isaiah Moreno, 25, of Humble, Texas, was operating a Dodge Ram pickup truck on U.S. Highway 20 in eastern Idaho when his vehicle crossed the center line and collided head-on with a Mercedes tour van carrying more than a dozen people.
Both vehicles burst into flames, and Moreno, along with six people from China, Italy and California, were killed. Survivors were taken to nearby hospitals with injuries.
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The deadly crash happened near Henrys Lake, about 16 miles west of Yellowstone in Wyoming. Yellowstone is one of the country’s largest national parks and draws millions of visitors each year.
Moreno had a blood alcohol level of .20%, Idaho State Police said in a statement. The limit is .08%.
“This tragedy should be a wake-up call,” police Capt. Chris Weadick said. “No one plans to cause a crash or take a life when they get behind the wheel, but choices have consequences.”
Video from the May 1 crash shows a red truck on the wrong side of the road, its front crushed and on fire, while the tour van is engulfed in flames. Survivors were being tended to on the side of the road while a helicopter arrived.
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Roger Merrill, 60, told The Associated Press he was driving home when he came upon the collision, and he said there was an anxious wait for first responders.
“It took an unnervingly long time for help to arrive just because of the location,” he said.
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ISP troopers responded to the collision at milepost 399. The highway where the crash happened is on a route between Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons that is open in the spring before a north-south route is plowed and the park fully opens for summer.
The victims in the tour van were named by Local News 8 as van driver Yu Zhang, 30, of Eastvale, California; Ivana Wen, 28, of Milan, Italy; Jianping Li, 71, of Guangxi, China; Xiaoming Jiang, 66, of Guilin, China; Li Nie, 64, of Arcadia, California; and Aifeng Wan, 53, also of Arcadia, California.
Popular band draws strong reaction after singer raises Palestinian flag on stage
Rock band Imagine Dragons set social media ablaze after lead singer Dan Reynolds waved a Palestinian flag on stage during a concert in Milan, Italy on Tuesday.
Video clips of Reynolds picking up a Palestinian flag and waving it before draping it across his shoulders at the concert’s end racked up millions of views and drew mixed reactions on social media.
The band’s frontman also kissed the flag and threw it back into the crowd.
Palestinians on social media praised the band for its support. One post that reached over one million views applauded the “powerful gesture.”
LIBERAL, PRO-ISRAEL COMEDIAN SAYS THERE’S A DOUBLE STANDARD FOR CELEBRITIES WHO BACK THE JEWISH STATE
“Very nice to see more people showing support,” another pro-Palestinian account posted.
Liberals also applauded the band for appearing to take a political stand while they poked fun at the band over their dislike of their music.
“Omg Radiohead has now been lapped by IMAGINE DRAGONS?!?” Stand-up comedian Matt Lieb wrote in a post that reached over two million views.
Lieb was referring to the band Radiohead telling off an anti-Israel heckler during a show last October.
“Imagine Dragons are now on the very short list of respectable celebs,” another person praised.
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But Jewish fans of the band and pro-Israel commentators expressed their disappointment and outrage.
“It looks like the band ‘Imagine Dragons’ supports terrorism,” ACT for America Chairman Brigitte Gabriel wrote.
“You know it’s moments like these where I genuinely don’t know what to do with myself anymore… I actually really liked Imagine Dragons, But now it seems they genuinely hate my people,” one Jewish fan posted, adding, “It’s disgusting how people still view Palestine as a moral virtue when it’s all a myth.”
One popular post by a Jewish woman who says her grandparents were Holocaust survivors accused the band of “waving their solidarity with terrorists.”
“They’re calling for ‘gay rights’ and ‘Free Palestine,’” her post continued.
“Essentially, they just called for the deaths of all gay people — and their music career. Goodnight, Imagine Dragons.”
The band is outspoken about its support for the LGBTQ community and Reynolds waved “Progress Pride” flags at previous shows.
During the Milan concert, Reynolds also waved a Ukrainian flag.
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Representatives of Imagine Dragons did not immediately return a request for comment.
The band faced blowback for playing in Israel in August 2023, before the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.
During a July 2024 interview with Rolling Stone, Reynolds said he didn’t have any regrets about playing shows in Israel and in Azerbaijan.
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“I don’t believe in depriving our fans who want to see us play because of the acts of their leaders and their governments. I think that’s a really slippery slope. I think the second you start to do that, there’s corrupt leaders and warmongers all over the world, and where do you draw the line?” Reynolds told the outlet.
MLB player sparks bench-clearing incident after rundown interference attempt
The Baltimore Orioles’ Coby Mayo took some heat Saturday during his team’s 4-2 win over the Chicago White Sox.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, with two outs and a runner on second, Mayo hit a single to left field for his first career MLB RBI.
When Mayo attempted to advance to second base after the hit, the White Sox threw the ball back in and caught Mayo in a rundown between first and second base.
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Then Mayo appeared to try and draw interference when he ran out of the baseline to avoid the tag and ran into White Sox infielder Lenyn Sosa. Mayo fell to the ground on his back on the infield grass and was tagged out.
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Mayo then exchanged words with White Sox infielders Miguel Vargas and Sosa, and umpires stood near them as the conversation intensified. Eventually, Mayo retrieved his helmet and returned to the O’s dugout on the first-base line, but he reached out his right hand and shoved Sosa in the chest on the way. Rojas then shoved Mayo from behind.
The shoving prompted both benches and bullpens to clear, and the teams converged in the middle of the field. Umpires eventually restored order before anything got physical, and both teams retreated.
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Mayo was criticized for the stunt on social media, with many calling his actions “bush league.”
“Obviously, just trying to get to second base and trying to get into scoring position for Heston [Kjerstad]. [They cut] it off and got into a rundown. Obviously, just being told in the minor leagues to try to stay in a rundown, and I thought he was in the baseline, and [I was] trying to get some contact. Didn’t mean for it to escalate. I wasn’t trying to do that, it just did,” Mayo told reporters.
Trans activist appears to strike man with pole at tense California track and field meet
California’s track and field state championship in Clovis, California, turned into a crime scene Friday as tensions rose between opposing protesters.
One LGBTQ protester was arrested after allegedly attacking a conservative protester outside Veteran Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High School, the Clovis Police Department confirmed to Fox News Digital.
The man allegedly attacked is California right-wing activist and content creator Josh Fulfer, who goes by the nickname “Oreo Express” on social media.
Footage obtained by Fox News Digital shows the LGBTQ protester, who police have identified as 19-year-old Ethan Kroll, striking Fulfer with a flag pole that had a large transgender pride flag attached.
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Additional footage showed the LGBTQ protester being arrested by Clovis police after the incident.
Police records obtained by Fox News Digital show that Kroll, a male, was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm, obstructing a public officer and vandalism.
Fulfer told Fox News Digital the incident happened after he left the meet, was driving with his wife and came up to a red light. He says Kroll was there wearing black face coverings.
“They were yelling something, and they recognized me right away. And they said something. I don’t even know, I can’t understand what they were saying, but I said something in the nature of, ‘If you’re so proud and you’re not ashamed of your cause, why don’t you show your face? Why are you so embarrassed to show your face?'” Fulfer said.
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“And then they yelled something. And when they yelled something, they started going right across the street onto the center divide. And then they said, ‘You’re Josh Fulfer,’ and started hitting me with the pole. They put the pole in the car and started jabbing me with the pole.”
Fulfer said he sustained bruising and scrapes on his arm from the strikes. Fulfer then pepper-sprayed Kroll’s eyes, he and police said.
Fulfer alleges that after pepper-spraying Kroll, the LGTBQ protester pulled the pole out of the car and started smashing the roof and door of his car. Fulfer says he then drove away and alleges Kroll smashed the back of his car as he drove off.
Photos provided by Fulfer show slight denting to the vehicle.
Fulfer says nearby police officers watched and rushed in to intervene.
Clovis Police Sgt. Chris Hutchison told Fox News Digital no other criminal incidents occurred at or near the track meet Friday night.
“Our stance is always to allow people to exercise their constitutional right to free speech and protest,” Hutchison said. “They have a right to do it in a manner that isn’t inciting violence or causing other problems. … We don’t have room for violence or property damage or anything like that.”
Hutchison and Fulfer told Fox News Digital police set up designated “free speech zones” for activists in attendance this weekend.
The competition has seen a sizable presence of protesters due to the participation of transgender athlete AB Hernandez of Jurupa Valley High School competing in the girls long jump, high jump and triple jump. The athlete finished in first place in all three events during the preliminary round Friday night. Saturday, Hernandez will compete in the final round and look to take all three state titles.
Witnesses told Fox News Digital there were more than 50 protesters at the competition Friday, with many planning to return to Saturday for the finals.
Women’s athlete activists held a protest early Saturday morning, organized by California Family Council Outreach Director Sophia Lorey.
During Friday’s event, a plane flew over the stadium with a banner that said, “No Boys in GIrls’ Sports!”
Hernandez dominated the girls’ postseason this spring, attracting national attention in recent weeks as President Donald Trump called out the state for allowing it to happen and threatening federal funding cuts if it continues.
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Then the Department of Justice announced Wednesday it would launch an investigation into the California Interscholastic Federation and California Attorney General Rob Bonta over the state’s law that allows biologically male trans athletes to compete with girls and women.
The CIF announced a pair of rule changes Tuesday and Wednesday in response to the backlash, expanding the size of the competitor pool and even handing out medals to any “biological female” athlete displaced by a transgender athlete at the meet.