Week in Review

IN THE NEWS

• President Donald J. Trump ordered air strikes and an invasion of Venezuela, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros. A joint military and law enforcement operation brought President Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores de Maduro to the United States to face criminal charges for drug trafficking and weapons possession detailed in a 2020 indictment. In his first court appearance before Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Maduro and his wife pleaded not guilty to all charges. Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez assumed the role of Interim President following an order by the country’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice. President Trump has since stated that the United States will “run” and “fix” Venezuela with the cooperation of Interim President Rodríguez, contradicting Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement that the United States would only enforce the existing “oil quarantine.”
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit maintained an injunction that stops the National Institutes of Health from imposing a 15 percent cap on “indirect” cost reimbursements on research grants. Indirect costs—also known as overhead costs—include labs, utilities, and support staff, but not individual research projects. A coalition of 22 states, medical groups, and universities sued the National Institutes of Health after it announced the cap last February. The First Circuit said the move conflicted with federal law and rules that preserve negotiated overhead rates. The decision keeps each school’s negotiated rate in place while the lawsuit continues.
• The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it will replace the nation’s radar network as part of a sweeping modernization of the air traffic control system. The overhaul retires radar technology from the 1980s and consolidates radar configurations into a single system designed to improve safety, efficiency, and reliability. Agency officials said that many existing radar units have exceeded their intended service lives, are costly to maintain, and rely on components that are no longer manufactured. The new radar systems are scheduled to be installed this year, with priority given to high-traffic areas of the national airspace system.
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced changes to the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule, reducing the number of vaccines recommended for children. The agency recommended universal vaccination against 11 diseases—down from 18—while continuing to make the other vaccines available and covered by insurance. Agency officials said the changes are intended to restore public trust in vaccination, responding to declines in childhood immunization rates after the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health experts criticized the move as insufficiently transparent and warned that narrowing universal recommendations could increase confusion and lower vaccination uptake, heightening the risk of outbreaks of preventable diseases.
• President Trump signed an executive order stopping the sale of the microchip assets of an American aerospace and defense corporation to the HieFo Corporation, which is allegedly owned by a Chinese national. Emcore Corporation, based in New Jersey, had reached a deal to sell its microchip manufacturing assets for $2.92 million. President Trump barred the sale using the Defense Production Act of 1950, alleging that one of the owners of HieFo Corporation is a Chinese national, and that the sale threatens U.S. national security. The executive order requires HieFo Corporation to divest the assets within 180 days and report to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that California’s ban on the open carry of firearms in counties with more than 200,000 residents was unconstitutional and violated the Second Amendment. Judges Lawrence VanDyke and Kenneth Lee found that there is a “history and tradition” of open carrying and that no similar law existed during the founding of the United States that could provide a basis for California’s ban. Judge N. Randy Smith dissented, arguing that California’s restriction was constitutional because the state still allowed concealed carry and therefore did not violate citizens’ Second Amendment right to use a firearm for self-defense.
• After the U.S. military operation in Venezuela, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed portions of the eastern Caribbean airspace “due to safety-of-flight risks.” This decision prompted major U.S. airlines to cancel hundreds of flights, including to Puerto Rico. On Sunday, the FAA allowed those curbs to expire and flights began to resume. Even with the reopening, carriers warned that full schedules would take days to recover, and the FAA continued to advise caution to non-U.S. carriers operating near Venezuelan airspace.
• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture released new national dietary guidelines for the next five years, positioning “real food” at the center of federal advice. The guidelines emphasize the consumption of whole, nutrient-dense foods—prioritizing protein, full-fat dairy, vegetables, fruit, healthy fats, and whole grains—while urging sharp reductions in highly processed products and added sugars. The Trump Administration framed the new guidelines as restoring “scientific integrity” to health guidance and said the guidelines will steer school, military, veteran, and other feeding programs.

WHAT WE’RE READING THIS WEEK

• In a recent report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined barriers that disabled people face in accessing health care and assessed federal efforts to address those obstacles. GAO found that people with disabilities continue to encounter challenges such as inaccessible medical equipment, communication barriers, and bias, despite longstanding federal nondiscrimination requirements. GAO identified that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lacks a strategy for collecting national-level data on health care accessibility and has limited oversight mechanisms to ensure compliance with accessibility requirements. GAO recommended that the department develop plans to collect accessibility data, strengthen oversight and information sharing, and provide clearer guidance to health care organizations to ensure equitable access to care.
• A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began distributing 1,000 new, Medicare-funded residency positions under Section 126 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. By September 2025, CMS had allocated 600 positions across three years. About half of the 393 applicant hospitals received slots, most in urban areas, with about half of the slots supporting primary care. GAO highlighted benefits such as more training capacity and added physician services. GAO also noted concerns about rural hospitals whose positions on the priority list can decrease dramatically with the addition of a few physicians due how CMS calculates a hospital’s “shortage score.”
• In a recent article in the Utah Law Review, Temple Stoellinger of the University of Wyoming and several coauthors argued that state trust land managers who have a legal obligation to generate profits to help fund public schools do not rely enough on conservation uses such as those that protect wildlife habitat or promote recreation. Stoellinger and her coauthors claimed that the “duty to maximize long-term financial returns” can be fulfilled more effectively through conservation uses that dovetail with growing interests in outdoor recreation and environmental protection. Although profits from state trust lands traditionally come from oil, gas, and grazing uses, Stoellinger and her coauthors argued that conservation-oriented uses, such as habitat preservation, could provide greater financial returns, steadier long-term income, and added environmental benefits. They described the challenges of expanding conservation uses in state trust lands, and offered options for states looking to diversify their “portfolio” of uses.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, Eric W. Orts, the Guardsmark Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, challenged the view that businesses exist solely to maximize profits. Orts contended that although businesses must make profits, corporate law has long permitted firms to also pursue moral, social, and environmental objectives with broad managerial discretion. He argued that treating profit as the sole goal of business allows companies to ignore their ethical responsibilities to employees, society, and democratic institutions. Orts concluded that business law should better reflect the idea that companies are created by law and therefore owe responsibilities not only to shareholders, but also to society more broadly.