Today’s updates include some notes on the continued shutdown, a correction from CMS, and more universities saying “Hey, so how about no.” to the Compact for Excellence in Higher Education.
The government is still shut down.
The Senate voted down the House passed stopgap funding bill for the tenth time on Thursday. At the moment, the next vote is not until Tuesday.
The Speaker of the House extended that body’s recess through next week, meaning that the stakes continue to be the House passed continuing resolution or a continued shutdown.
The Supreme Court and other federal courts will run out of funding over the weekend. Courts will continue to conduct essential work, but staff will furloughed or not paid.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has updated an announcement from earlier this week that it would be pausing Medicare reimbursements to physicians as a result of the government shutdown. The statement now clarifies that CMS will will wait to process claims that are related to programs that have expired, such as some telehealth or rural services.
The President posted a memo on Wednesday directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use unspent federal funds to pay members of the armed forces. This would be a subversion of Congress’s constitutional authority to decide federal spending.
The University of Pennsylvania, USC, and UVa have joined MIT and Brown University in rejecting the Compact for Excellence in Higher Education.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Administration has now reached out to Washington University at St Louis, The University of Kansas, and Arizona State about about signing onto the proposal.
The White House had invited a number of institutions to a call to discuss the proposal today, but there hasn’t been any reporting about how that went or if it even occurred.
This is being discussed on social media but has yet to be reported or announced anywhere, so take it with a grain of salt. But Kyle Walsh may have been appointed as the new Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) today.
The previous (?) director, Rick Woychik, was appointed to a five year term in 2020.
Dr. Walsh claims vice president J.D. Vance as a close friend.
In happier news, Gary Larson posted a batch of new Far Side cartoons on his website this week.