February 27th, 2026

Nature published a piece this morning about how the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is behind the delays in federal research funding. The NIH has, as of this writing, not received approval to spend any of the funding allocated in the appropriations bill that was signed into law on February 3rd.

NIH released its latest statistics on funding rates for early stage investigators last week. Science published a summary of the results this week, which demonstrate how a hard task for early career researchers - getting their first major NIH grant - grew even more difficult last year.

NIH and CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya appeared on the Why Should I Trust You? podcast this week (the transcript is here) and faced some very direct questions about last year’s grant terminations. There was also an interestingly framed piece published in the NYT yesterday about Dr. Bhattacharya’s new role as CDC Director.

The confirmation hearing for Casey Means, the administration’s nominee for surgeon general, was held this week. Stat and others have coverage.

The Administration has deferred nearly $260 million dollars of Medicaid funding to Minnesota, alleging widespread fraud. Its probably worth pointing out that the alleged childcare fraud in Minnesota - and the subsequent freeze in related federal funds - was not exactly supported by a sincere investigation.

The Justice Department filed suit against the University of California this week, alleging that UCLA has engaged in an antisemitic hostile work environment. 

Due to their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, former Harvard president Larry Summers will relinquish his academic and faculty appointments at the end of the academic year and Richard Axel will step down as the co-director of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia. The Chronicle of Higher Education has additional commentary this week as well.

After announcing earlier this month that his department will be ending all military training, fellowships and certificate programs with Harvard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has now ordered that members of the military must cease attending graduate programs at “elite” universities such as Princeton, Columbia, MIT, Brown, Yale and “many others.” Secretary Hegseth holds degrees from both Princeton and Harvard.

I love going to the movies, watching movies, and talking about movies, but I will be skipping the potentially forthcoming satirical comedy about the US’s pandemic response. No thank you.

It’s not directly a science of higher education story, but there substantial media and media literacy implications. Paramount has formally announced its purchase of Warner Brothers today. Among other things, maybe archive those old episodes of Star Trek and social justice oriented superhero comics…