In case you missed it — and how could you? — President Donald Trump earlier this week held an event with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, and Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, to announce Stargate, a new venture that promises to invest $500 billion in U.S.-based AI infrastructure. It’s early days, but still the whole thing is somewhat nebulous. The assembled executives praised Trump for facilitating the deal, but besides providing space for a press conference, he has only said his role in all this will be aiding the effort through emergency declarations.
The CDC is operating without an acting director, leaving the agency responsible for defending the U.S. against emerging pandemics and responding to health emergencies without a clear chain of command. A leadership vacuum atop the CDC is unprecedented. Under previous administrations, including the first term of President Trump, officials made sure either to immediately appoint their pick for the position or decide during the transition on whom would assume the top post in an acting capacity.
The Trump administration has instructed federal health agencies to pause all external communications, such as health advisories, weekly scientific reports, updates to websites and social media posts, according to nearly a dozen current and former officials and other people familiar with the matter. The instructions were delivered Tuesday to staff at agencies inside the Department of Health and Human Services, including officials at the FDA, CDC, NIH, and FDA , one day after the new administration took office.
In a long-waged battle between the city of Pittsburgh and its major nonprofits, Highmark Health has reaffirmed an agreement to make a financial contribution to the city, but only if the other three large organizations agree to do the same.
A new task force could be created to find out why rural hospitals are closing in a newly proposed plan. The bill was filed by freshman Rep. Amy Murri Briel (D-Ottawa) who said in her district there have been four hospital closures in six years. The closing of rural hospitals is a national crisis, with many of these hospitals cutting services or closing due to profitability issues. Another issue that plagues hospitals is the rise of ransomware attacks, cyberattacks that target hospital computers, lock access away from doctors and only return access after a fee has been paid.