This week’s subtitle comes from Sir Thomas More, a 400 year old play with multitudinous authorship. Specifically, the words come “The Strangers’ Case”, a monologue likely written by William Shakespeare. Ian McKellen delivered it with an icy vigor on The Late Show this week.
The big news this week is that the majority of the US federal government is funded for the rest of the fiscal year, though the President did just make it easier to fire federal employees and has directed the rescission of over a billion dollars in federal funding to select states.
Government Shutdown
The House passed a spending package on Tuesday that provides funding for most of the government for the fiscal year.
Negotiations for the bill appropriating funds to the Department of Homeland Security continue. The deal signed this week extends DHS funding for another week under a continuing resolution as Congress debates regulation of that agency.
Federal Research Policy
On Tuesday, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya testified before the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee. It went as expected. Are Technica’s reporting on all this is especially pointed.
Undark has some reporting on the background of Kyle Walsh, the new Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program
Public Health
In comments to Politico, Kirk Milhoan - the new chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) - has stated that he believes the committee’s role is to evaluate the safety of vaccines rather than public health.
On the podcast Why Should I Trust You?, Dr. Milhoan recently outlined his belief that all vaccines - including the polio and measles vaccines - should be optional. The NYT has additional reporting.
Following the US’s departure from the World Health Organization, Illinois has followed California in joining the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.
Higher Education
The New York Times reported on Monday that the Administration had dropped its demand of $200 million dollars from Harvard University. In response, the President posted on social media Monday evening that he was now seeking a billion dollars “in damages” and declared that the investigations into Harvard should now be criminal.
With the release of additional documents related to Jeffrey Epstein has come more revelations about his connections within the world of higher education. Nature has coverage.
Using newly released federal data, new report out of Class Action breaks down the impact of the end of race-based affirmative action following Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education and other outlets, there has been a substantial decrease in the enrollment of underrepresented minority students in highly selective universities (e.g. Ivy Plus institutions) and a cascading increase in enrollment of such students at public universities.
Finally, here’s a bit pro-wrestling to brighten your day. It’s not quite Shakespeare, but the sentiment is the same.