Axios

This National Coffee Day, take in the latest facts and health benefits of the beautiful bean as you sip your morning mug.

Driving the news: Friday is when you can take advantage of free coffee deals at spots like Dunkin' and Krispy Kreme.

• Also: Sunday is International Coffee Day.

Lorna Roxanne Green was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison and three years probation for burning down Wyoming's only abortion clinic.

Driving the news: Green previously admitted to setting fire to the clinic in May 2022. It had been under construction at the time and planned to offer gender-affirming care and abortion procedures.

Pregnant veterans will soon have vastly expanded access to so-called maternity care coordinators who provide a range of supportive services, the Department of Veterans Affairs told Axios first.

Why it matters: The announcement is part of the Biden administration's efforts to tackle the country's maternal health crisis and seeks to help a population that may be at heightened risk of pregnancy complications.

Blue cities that have taken the most progressive — and often controversial — steps to tackle the nation's drug crisis are beginning to question those strategies amid rising political backlash.

Why it matters: Public health experts emphasize policies that prioritize saving the lives of drug users — like so-called safe injection sites — but the worsening fentanyl problem is testing the patience of even the seemingly most tolerant cities.

Private insurers saw the percentage of medical claims stemming from opioid dependence fall slightly from 2018 to 2022 in the United States, according to data released by FAIR Health.

The big picture: Opioid use and dependence accounted for about two-tenths of 1% of total claims in 2022, compared to one-quarter of 1% in 2018.

Republican candidates during the second GOP presidential debate Wednesday night offered some unconventionally tough talk about the health care industry, even if they failed to offer substantive policy answers.

Between the lines: No one on the debate stage offered major new ideas about how they would tackle health care costs, lower the uninsured rate or address Obamacare — and many of the candidates have typically hewed to conservative orthodoxy on health care.

Community pharmacies in a new lawsuit claim CVS Health and its Caremark pharmacy benefit manager violated antitrust laws and illegally collected fees from pharmacies that fill Medicare prescriptions.

Why it matters: If the Iowa pharmacy leading the lawsuit prevails, CVS will have to return hundreds of millions — if not billions — of dollars its PBM recouped from independent pharmacies over the past four years, according to a lawyer for the National Community Pharmacists Association.