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Medicaid leaders and advocates say they’re shocked by the Trump administration’s harsh directives for implementing Medicaid work requirements, which they say mark a pivot from how federal officials had characterized their plans just weeks ago. Much of the conversation around the nearly 400-page rule that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released Monday afternoon centers on one of the ways that people can be exempted from work requirements: medical frailty. Getting that exemption will be more difficult than most people had expected, meaning that more sick and disabled people are likely to lose their Medicaid coverage. (Bannow, Cirruzzo and Payne, 6/3)

On Monday, the Trump administration finalized a key rule that establishes national guidelines for the rollout of work requirements in Medicaid, and industry groups warn that the regulation could prove burdensome to enrollees and state programs. The Alliance of Community Health Plans said in a statement that the final rule adds documentation requirements and tightens criteria for exemptions to the requirements, which will make it harder for individuals who need coverage to secure exemptions they may qualify for. (Minemyer, 6/2)

A sweeping proposed rule that would transfer federal grantmaking decisions from scientific experts to senior political appointees is "dystopian," "disastrous," and a "flagrant assault on our democracy," scientists and health advocates said. The White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) document, issued May 28, seeks to give the Trump administration authority over funding throughout the government, they said. (Clark, 6/2)

The costs of meeting a federal mandate to make research papers freely and immediately available to the public are exorbitant, and most agencies don't have adequate plans in place to cover it, a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found. The U.S. government is a huge funder of scientific research globally. In 2022, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a federal mandate to make research freely accessible to the public as soon as it's published. For this report, the GAO examined agencies' efforts to implement that mandate. (Robertson, 6/2)

He spoke fast, hammering through the Trump administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug prices, combat health care fraud, and curb the spread of Ebola overseas. But when reporters tried to ask Dr. Mehmet Oz about the most-pressing issues of the day — the point of the White House briefing where he was speaking for the administration — the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had little to offer, and said so again and again. Oz’s appearance showcased how the White House can struggle to respond to major news that breaks on any given day — a telling weakness as public sentiment has increasingly turned against the president. (Weissert and Boak, 6/2)

For generations, the federal government enforced civil rights laws with an eye toward remedying historic, systemic discrimination against Black people and other people of color. The Justice Department pressed schools to desegregate. The Education Department worked to promote equal opportunity and held schools accountable for racial bias. But under the Trump administration, efforts to address deep-rooted inequities for students of color are being cast as discriminatory against white students. Programs that have long withstood legal scrutiny are now quick to be deemed “ illegal DEI ” — diversity, equity and inclusion — by the White House. Schools that do not comply have faced threats to their funding, and in some cases, lost federal grants. (Ma, 6/3)

Timothy Mellon, a reclusive banking heir who was one of President Trump’s and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s biggest financial backers in the 2024 election, gave two sprawling properties in Connecticut last year to Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group Mr. Kennedy founded. The donation, which has not previously been reported, shows how tightly intertwined Mr. Mellon has become with Mr. Kennedy and their shared work against vaccines. The adjacent parcels cover about 300 acres at the confluence of the Connecticut and Eightmile Rivers in Lyme and feature a pool, a tennis court and several buildings, property records show. (Davis O'Brien and Schleifer, 6/2)

Many patients arriving at a medical center in eastern Caracas at the end of April were turned away. The services they needed were no longer available. The specialists were gone. ... Cuban health professionals, including pediatricians, obstetricians, gynecologists, ophthalmologists and physiotherapists are leaving this and other facilities across Venezuela as US pressure mounts to shut down Havana’s overseas medical missions. (Itriago and Yapur, 6/2)

Jill Biden says she’s sorry she didn’t talk more about her son Hunter’s drug addiction during her time in the White House, explaining that she now realizes that being open about his substance abuse and his recovery can offer hope to others in the same situation. In a wide-ranging interview with “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg to promote her White House memoir, the former first lady said Tuesday that she had put life in perspective after her husband, former President Joe Biden, was diagnosed with prostate cancer that spread to his bones. (Superville, 6/3)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated on Tuesday that the United States may resume its funding of a global vaccines alliance that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled the United States out of last year, an unusual public rebuke of Mr. Kennedy’s involvement in matters of global health. Testifying on Capitol Hill, Mr. Rubio told senators that President Trump had asked the State Department to allow Mr. Kennedy to “play a leading role” in the decision on whether to fund Gavi, an organization that provides immunizations for low-income nations and maintains the global Ebola vaccine stockpile. (Nolen and Gay Stolberg, 6/2)

In 2020, the National Institutes of Health funded a network of 10 centers intended to “expand knowledge on re-emerging and emerging infectious diseases.” But when dangerous Ebola and hantaviruses spilled over and caused outbreaks in recent months, those research centers have not been in a position to provide aid. In 2025, the centers’ grants were terminated by the Trump administration as part of cuts that targeted work related to Covid-19 and pandemic preparedness. (Oza, 6/3)

Yesterday and today, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reduced the official case count of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda from nearly 1,000 cases to 321 confirmed cases, including 48 deaths in the DRC. Another 116 cases are suspected. In Uganda, the new case count is 11 confirmed cases, one confirmed death, one probable case, and one probable death. (Soucheray, 6/2)

Months ago, doctors in Ituri Province in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo started seeing patients with the vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding that are the hallmarks of Ebola. The tests kept coming back negative. It was weeks before samples from sick people — many of whom had already died — made it to the National Institute of Biomedical Research in the capital, Kinshasa. There, researchers used a different test that screened for more species of Ebola and related viruses. (Nolen, 6/2)

A Kenyan high court instructed the authorities to disclose details of an agreement with the US government to establish an Ebola quarantine facility in the East African nation. Judge Patricia Nyaundi ordered the publication of the “full terms of any agreement, memorandum, arrangement or negotiations relating to the proposed facility,” details of public health, environmental, biosafety or security assessments that were undertaken and approvals obtained from lawmakers and other regulatory bodies. (Herbling, 6/2)

Federal funding cuts for one of America's major infectious disease surveillance programs could threaten public health responses, experts say, sparking widespread concern, particularly as a newer variant of COVID-19 continues to spread across the U.S., highlighting the need for monitoring systems. As part of President Donald Trump's budget plan, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) will see its funding cut from around $125 million a year to about $25 million. (Laws, 6/3)

Federal law enforcement agencies on Tuesday charged two researchers at a National Institutes of Health lab in Montana with conspiracy to smuggle deactivated mpox virus into the United States and with giving false statements about it. The researchers are Vincent Munster, an award-winning scientist who heads the virus ecology section at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, a small town an hour’s drive south of Missoula, and Claude Kwe, a research fellow in Munster’s section, according to a statement from the Department of Justice. Munster is Dutch. Kwe is Cameroonian. (Paun, 6/2)

The Florida Department of Health said there have been 154 measles cases in the state this year, with the most recent cases identified in Orange and Palm Beach counties. The total comes from cases reported in 15 counties through May 23 and is the highest number of cases reported in the state in a single year over the last 25 years. Most of the cases come from Collier County, where Ave Maria University reported an outbreak in January and February of this year. (Soucheray, 6/2)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order asking artificial intelligence companies to provide models to the federal government to assess their capabilities ahead of a full release. The order asks companies, on a voluntary basis, to participate in a benchmarking process to assess a model’s “advanced cyber capabilities” and determine whether it should be considered a “covered frontier model.” It then asks for access to those models up to 30 days before the companies plan to release them more broadly, and enables the government to help select the “trusted partners” that will receive early access. (Capoot, 6/2)

Researchers at the University of Toronto say they have found a way to use artificial intelligence to create a dangerous computer “worm” capable of targeting any known flaw in the world’s computers and quickly spreading mayhem throughout the internet. The computer scientists said in a paper published on Tuesday night that this program could be built and that a prototype they had created spread across a test network with no human intervention. (Metz, 6/2)

On Tuesday, a group of 16 mathematicians, in consultation with colleagues and math organizations worldwide, published the Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics. It aims to “frame the conversation about future directions,” said Dame Ursula Martin, one of the authors, and a mathematician and computer scientist at Oxford. This effort comes as A.I. models have been making headlines with successful results in research-level mathematics. In late May, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, announced that one of its models had disproved a notable 80-year-old mathematics conjecture in the field of combinatorial geometry. (Roberts, 6/2)

Studies released in recent weeks are fueling optimism — and fresh questions — about GLP-1 drugs' potential role in cancer prevention and treatment. (Cha and Rowland, 6/3)

Taking Ozempic or Zepbound might lower a woman’s risk of breast cancer, a new study says. Women with excess weight taking GLP-1 drugs were about 30% less likely to develop breast cancer than those not taking such medications, researchers reported June 2 in the journal JCO Oncology Practice. (Thompson, 6/3)

Taking weight-loss drugs for at least three years could prevent thousands of knee replacements a year, research suggests. Globally, more than 500 million people have osteoarthritis. Knee arthritis is the most common form, affecting about 14 million people in the US and more than 5 million in the UK. Many will require knee surgery. In the UK more than 120,000 knee replacements are carried out every year. (Bawden, 6/2)

Scientists who've spent decades learning how the brain works say they're now ready to start fixing it when it breaks. That's the premise of the Brain Health accelerator, a collaborative effort launched by the Allen Institute in Seattle, which has become a major player in brain research. (Hamilton, 6/3)

The decision comes at a particularly consequential time for California. Residents face a crushing cost of living, nation-topping gas prices made worse by the war in Iran, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of state, an unstable state budget, impending federal cuts to the state’s expansive health system and an economy dampened by immigration enforcement. (Kuang, 6/2)

State Rep. Josh Turek won the Democratic primary for Senate in Iowa, giving Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and his allies the candidate they wanted in an uphill battle to retake the Senate. Rep. Randy Feenstra narrowly lost in the Republican primary for governor in Iowa despite having President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Democrats have not won a Senate race in Iowa since 2008. And Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, and Democrat Xavier Becerra, a former health secretary, were leading in the California gubernatorial primary, which remained uncalled. (Meyer, Merica and Knowles, 6/3)

For the first time in more than two decades, the House of Representatives has approved a major increase in benefits for some of the nation's most catastrophically disabled veterans. The legislation now heads to the Senate. ... The legislation focuses on veterans receiving the highest levels of Special Monthly Compensation, a benefit intended for those with severe service-connected disabilities requiring substantial assistance from caregivers. (Lindsay, 6/3)

Veteran advocates met last month with legislators on a daunting yet important task: finding a way to reduce the veteran suicide rate. One piece of legislation includes the Daniel J. Harvey Jr. and Adam Lambert Improving Servicemember Transition to Reduce Veteran Suicide Act, which calls for expanding Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DoD) programs to help active-duty military members and veterans spot risk factors for suicide and reach out for mental health support. Another bill circulating through Congress is the Barriers to Suicide Act, which if passed would install suicide-deterrent barriers on bridges and non-bridge structures deemed high risk for suicide attempts. (Damask, 6/3)

Over the last 9 months, nurses have been protesting a federal regulation that they say would drive up student loan debt, exacerbate workforce shortages, and threaten patient access to care. Last week, they put their words into action by suing the Department of Education (DOE) over that rule. The American Nurses Association (ANA) and nine other national nursing organizations filed a lawsuit against the department and Secretary Linda McMahon last week. (Firth, 6/2)

A study of more than 13,000 US nursing homes concludes that those in states that adopted laws granting them immunity from COVID-related lawsuits operated with 2.5% less daily staff than those in states without those protections, potentially compromising patient care. Northwestern University researchers led the study, publishing their findings yesterday in JAMA Health Forum. (Van Beusekom, 6/2)

Having a baby in the United States is about to get more complicated. Under new billing codes that take effect in January, doctors who manage maternity care will start charging à la carte for visits and services related to pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care. It's an about-face from recent years, when doctors have often received a single "bundled" payment for maternity care they provided. (Andrews, 6/3)

The Federal Trade Commission is ordering Ascension to divest seven ambulatory surgery centers as a condition of the health system’s pending Amsurg acquisition. Under the terms of the FTC’s proposed consent order, Ascension would have to sell the Amsurg facilities in markets where the deal would threaten competition. The sales must take place within 10 days after the acquisition’s completion. The divestitures would affect centers in Nashville, Tennessee; Panama City, Florida; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Waco, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas. (Hudson, 6/2)

���ϳԹ��� News: At A Tennessee Hospital, A Nurse Stole Fentanyl And AI Missed It, State Records Say

About a year ago at Erlanger Baroness, the largest hospital in Chattanooga, anesthesia staff noticed that a nurse was slurring his words and struggling to stay awake while on duty in the surgery center, according to a Tennessee Board of Nursing consent order. In the days that followed, the nurse failed a drug test and was fired, the order states. The nurse later admitted that for months he had pilfered and abused fentanyl left over after surgeries, sometimes daily, according to the order. (Kelman and Tahir, 6/3)

Marty Bonick is out as Ardent Health’s president and CEO. Ardent named Dave Caspers as his replacement, effective immediately. Caspers joined the health system in 2025 as chief operating officer. Bonick, who became president and CEO in 2020, left to pursue other opportunities, according to a Tuesday news release. (Hudson, 6/2)

Molokaʻi native Misty Kahale completed her first year of medical school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on Friday. By the time she graduates, she expects to have $300,000 in student debt. With final exams behind her and a mountain of tuition bills ahead, she plans to apply for a breakthrough new Hawaiʻi grant program that would cover the rest of her medical school expenses — a prospect that she said would instantly diffuse her financial stress. (Lyte, 6/2)

As of 2024, 0.3% of practicing physicians in the nation were Native American. A proposed Indigenous School of Medicine in Rapid City could help change that. The school would be the first of its kind in the nation, said Donald Warne, a physician, co-director for the Center for Indigenous Health at Johns Hopkins, and member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. (Huber, 5/31)

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration on Monday enacted historic staffing requirements for psychiatric hospitals in California aimed at keeping tens of thousands of people a year safe while they are being treated for emotional crises. The California Department of Public Health emergency regulations specify that the hospitals must assign 1 nurse for every 6 patients in adult psychiatric units, and 1 nurse for every 5 adolescent patients. Hospitals found in violation of this standard can be fined $15,000 to $30,000 per day. (Palomino and Dizikes, 6/2)

As soccer fans prepare to descend upon North American cities to watch their favorite teams compete in the World Cup, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued an alert encouraging healthcare providers to be mindful of travel-related, sexually transmitted, and seasonal infectious diseases. (Holohan, 6/2)

Some D.C. residents will now have to prove they are working or volunteering to qualify for assistance with groceries — a federally imposed change that attorneys for the city’s poorest residents worry will increase hunger over the coming months and years. (Gathright, 6/2)

���ϳԹ��� News: Michigan Found A Way To Reduce School Vaccine Waivers. Until It Backfired

State health officials urged parents in several counties to vaccinate babies against measles ahead of schedule this spring as cases multiplied in Michigan. The outbreaks of the highly contagious virus — which can lead to brain swelling, deafness, and death — came as parents are opting school-age kids out of vaccinations at a record-high rate. It’s a situation state officials have spent more than a decade trying to avoid. For years, they’ve been trying to make it harder for parents to send their kids to school unvaccinated. (Wells, 6/3)

NYU Langone Health is constructing a multi-billion dollar academic medical center and hospital on Long Island. The new hospital in Melville will include 500 private inpatient rooms, 70 emergency department bays and the latest diagnostic imaging capabilities, the healthcare system said in a statement on Tuesday. The campus will also have space for scientific research and comprehensive outpatient care. (Cattan, 6/2)

Opelika, Ala.-based East Alabama Health will assume operations and management of Bullock County Rural Emergency Hospital in Union Springs, Ala., effective June 1. The move comes after the rural emergency hospital’s previous operator notified local leaders it would depart, prompting efforts to maintain uninterrupted access to emergency and outpatient services for the community, according to a June 1 news release. (Condon, 6/2)

A screening of a documentary about chemical pollution in St. John the Baptist Parish will finally move forward after it was abruptly canceled months ago due to what the event’s organizers said was pressure from the parish president. The reversal came several days after a Verite News story highlighted what free speech advocates and environmental groups criticized as censorship by Parish President Jaclyn Hotard, who has denied giving a direct order to cancel the late February screening of “The Big Sea” at a parish-owned theater. (Baurick, 6/2)

As a yoga instructor in a clinic for people with eating disorders, I don’t see many straight cisgender male clients. But when I do, many have one thing in common: military service. It is so common that, anecdotally, I would say a military background is one of the greatest risk factors for eating disorders in this population. (Paula Chesley, 6/3)

California faces the nation’s most severe nursing shortage. By 2038, the state is projected to face a deficit of 36,000 nurses—the largest in the nation. Nearly 75% of California’s regions are already experiencing a nursing shortage. California can address this crisis. One proven way to do so is to authorize California’s community colleges to offer Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees. (Cecilia Rios-Aguilar and Davis Vo, 6/1)

Lost coverage for families will have negative effects on children, since kids’ health is inseparable from their parents. Parental coverage leads to lower infant mortality, fewer preterm births and greater access to prenatal care. Then as kids grow, stable family coverage continues to protect them, which not only leads to better health outcomes, but better school attendance, improved mental health, fewer cases of child neglect and greater family financial stability. When parents lose health care coverage, it affects their child’s entire life trajectory. (Tamira Daniely, 6/2)

Far from being a dying way of life, as many people think, the Amish population is growing rapidly — doubling roughly every 20 years. “So public health is going to have to talk about the Amish more and more, especially if their health profiles are going to continue to differ from non-Amish populations,” said Cory Anderson, a postdoctoral researcher in population health and demography at Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute. That means discussing communicable diseases — like many populations, the Amish, many of whom do vaccinate, have been increasingly hesitant since the Covid-19 pandemic — as well as genetic and other conditions. (Tory Bosch, 6/3)

Contrary to popular belief, at least in Western nations, mothers aren’t necessarily having fewer children compared with a decade or two ago. It’s that fewer women are becoming mothers in the first place. Despite the growing attention paid to the topic, analysts are struggling to figure out why more women are having zero children. (Shadi Hamid, 6/2)