Week in Review

IN THE NEWS:

• The U.S. Supreme Court paused an order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, temporarily restoring telehealth access to the abortion medication Mifepristone. Two pharmaceutical companies, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, appealed the Fifth Circuit’s decision, which held that Louisiana could require an in-person medical consultation for access to Mifepristone. The case arose when Louisiana sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2025, alleging that telehealth access to abortion medication was unsafe, circumvented state abortion restrictions, and harmed patients and taxpayers in Louisiana. The Fifth Circuit agreed and temporarily prohibited telehealth-only consultations for Mifepristone. Following Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro’s emergency docket appeal, the Supreme Court paused the Fifth Circuit’s restrictions through May 11, requesting that parties file supplementary responses.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reached a settlement with Elon Musk regarding alleged disclosure violations related to Musk’s purchase of Twitter—now known as X—in 2022. Although Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, who is presiding over the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, still has to approve the settlement, the parties agreed for Musk to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to dismiss the case and conclude the SEC’s investigation. The lawsuit stemmed from Musk’s alleged failure to disclose owning over 5 percent of Twitter’s stocks, thereby putting other investors at a disadvantage, which enabled him to ultimately purchase the company for $44 billion.
• President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order tightening economic sanctions on the Republic of Cuba. The measure supplements the existing Cuban Asset Control Regulations and broadens the scope of sanctions to mitigate threats to U.S. national security and address human rights abuses by the Cuban government. The executive order authorizes the Office of Foreign Assets Control, within the U.S. Department of the Treasury, to sanction any foreign individuals—or their family members—who have ever operated in Cuba’s defense, energy, heavy industry, financial services, or mining sectors. The order also permits sanctions against individuals who are broadly affiliated with the Cuban government and those who have perpetrated human rights abuses in Cuba.
• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a plan to curb the overprescribing of psychiatric medications such as antidepressants and promote “deprescribing”—the supervised tapering or discontinuation of medications. HHS issued a letter encouraging providers to prioritize informed consent and shared decision-making, highlight non-medication approaches such as psychotherapy and physical activity, and regularly review the risks and benefits of psychiatric medications with patients. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services simultaneously released guidance clarifying how physicians can be reimbursed under Medicare for deprescribing-related care. The American Psychiatric Association said it supported further investment in research and training on prescribing and deprescribing, but objected to framing the mental health crisis as primarily a problem of overmedicalization, stating that deprescribing alone is not a sufficient response.
• FDA authorized marketing for several fruit-flavored electronic cigarettes, marking the first time the agency has approved non-tobacco-flavored vaping products. FDA stated the products will be age-restricted through verification with a government-issued ID and a Bluetooth connection with the user’s smartphone, limiting access to adults aged 21 and older. The announcement follows President Donald J. Trump’s campaign pledge to “save” vaping. FDA previously rejected marketing applications for fruit-, candy-, and dessert-flavored vaping products, and the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the agency’s authority to enforce those restrictions in 2025.
• The U.S. Department of Transportation announced a proposed rule that would establish a process allowing critical infrastructure facilities—such as energy plants and refineries—to petition the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for restrictions on drone flights near their sites. The proposed rule implements the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016, which directed the agency to create a framework for protecting critical infrastructure from unauthorized drone activity but had remained largely unfulfilled until now. Under the proposed rule, the FAA would create a new application portal through which eligible facilities could request restricted airspace and demonstrate safety or security concerns. The public comment period on the proposed ruleruns until July 5, 2026.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit struck down the mandatory detention policy put forth by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In a 2-1 decision, the court rejected ICE’s interpretation of immigration laws, which expanded no-bond detention to any undocumented immigrant living within the United States instead of just those who had newly arrived to the country. The dissenting judge argued in favor of ICE’s interpretation, finding the majority’s view to be unsupported by the ordinary meaning of the statute. This decision adds to a growing circuit split on ICE’s mandatory detention policy, with the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Seventh Circuits finding in favor of ICE and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit finding against it.
• The U.S. Department of Defense announced agreements with eight artificial intelligence (AI) firms to use their AI systems in the Defense Department’s classified networks. The agreements, signed by OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Reflection AI, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, SpaceX, and Oracle, enables the Defense Department to make use of their technologies for “lawful operational use.” Specifically, the Defense Department stated that these AI capabilities will be used to advance data synthesis and situational understanding and supplement decision-making in complicated, dynamic operational environments. The Defense Department also noted that this initiative supports its broader AI Acceleration Strategy in its key pillars of “warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise operations.”

WHAT WE’RE READING:

• A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigated efforts to address sexual assault in federal correctional facilities. The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) attempts to reduce sexual assault in all correctional facilities by requiring auditors to conduct inspections every three years. Although the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is responsible for ensuring compliance with PREA requirements in federal facilities, GAO found that between 2014 and 2022, 8,525 sexual assaults were reported to BOP, with roughly equal numbers committed by incarcerated individuals and agency employees. GAO identified several changes that could make PREA audits more successful. GAO determined that audits could go beyond reviewing statutory compliance to evaluating substantive efforts to address sexual assault instead. GAO also found that contractors conducting the audits were paid a flat rate fee, regardless of the size of the facility, and that auditors reported being denied access to relevant BOP records.
• In a recent Brookings Institution report, Patrice H. Kunesh, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, argued that the rapid growth of online prediction markets poses an existential threat to Tribal sovereignty and the economic development model that American Indian nations have built around gaming. Kunesh traced how the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA) established a comprehensive federal regulatory framework under which Tribal governments operate gaming as a primary source of revenue for essential community services—revenues that reached $43.9 billion in 2024. Kunesh argued that prediction market platforms such as Kalshi, Crypto.com, and Robinhood, which offer sports “event contracts,” circumvent IGRA’s regulatory scheme and disregard state and Tribal licensing requirements, age restrictions, and consumer protections established through negotiated gaming compacts. Kunesh concluded by outlining ongoing legal challenges in federal courts and called for alternative models to diversify Tribal economies beyond gaming.
• A recent report by GAO investigated the approach of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to maintaining its high-tech medical equipment. GAO explained that VA medical centers ordinarily maintain their equipment by using agency-wide or stand-alone contracts to buy maintenance services. GAO found, however, that VA procurement guidance provided inconsistent information on whether agency-wide contracts are mandatory and that regional contracting officials found information on this matter from the national contracting office to be unclear. GAO recommended that the U.S. Secretary for Veterans Affairs clearly indicate which agency-wide contracts for high-tech medical equipment are mandatory in nationwide guidance, improve training for regional contracting officials, and provide them with up-to-date information on how to compare prices and use center resources.

EDITOR’S CHOICE:

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, Michael Karanicolas, the James S. Palmer Chair in Public Policy and the Law at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law, argued that the Trump administration’s attempts to implement AI in the administrative state poses threats to trust in agency legitimacy and the values embedded in “America’s constitutional system.” Karanicolas explained that the Trump Administration has not incorporated existing international—or domestic—safeguards in its AI implementation policy, and has not provided opportunities for public engagement into this process. Furthermore, Karanicolas argued that the speed at which the Trump administration is embedding AI into the administrative state requires sufficient systems to monitor and assess AI performance failures. Karanicolas stressed that, although using AI for regulatory enforcement may allow for regulation of more sophisticated entities, AI undercuts the “fairness, bias, and due process” that require human decision-makers in agencies.