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The Trump administration is rescinding a total of $1.5 billion in health and transportation funds from multiple blue states, a spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) confirmed Thursday. The OMB directed the Transportation Department to rescind $943 million from Colorado, Illinois, California and Minnesota, and it directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to rescind $602 million from those states. (Frazin, 2/5)

The Trump administration finalized a new policy on Thursday that would strip job protections from up to 50,000 federal workers, a move that would make it easier for President Trump to remove or discipline them, in his latest effort to dismantle the federal work force. Until now, the roughly 4,000 people appointed by the president, known as political appointees, were the only federal workers who could be fired at will. The policy issued on Thursday allows the administration to expand that number to include career employees whom the administration considers to also have policy-related roles. For these employees, any whistle-blower complaints would now be handled inside their agencies rather than by the independent Office of Special Counsel, as they had previously. (Sullivan, 2/5)

Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl Health News: Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl Health News’ ‘What The Health?’: HHS Gets Funding, But How Will Trump Spend It?

The Department of Health and Human Services is funded for the rest of the fiscal year. But lawmakers remain concerned about whether the Trump administration will spend the money as directed. Meanwhile, negotiations over extending expanded subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans have broken down in the Senate, mostly over a perennial issue — abortion. The subsidies’ expiration at the end of 2025 has left millions of Americans unable to afford their health insurance premiums. (Rovner, 2/5)

A bipartisan working group convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has released a new report identifying critical policy actions that would strengthen US defenses against biological threats. The report, Protecting Americans from Biological Threats, was developed by the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security Working Group on Biodefense over the course of four months and is endorsed by more than 40 experts spanning public health, national security, biotechnology, and government. (Bergeson, 2/5)

Scientists studying the artificial intelligence capabilities for assisting in the development of biological and chemical weapons may inadvertently violate security laws. (Kristopaityte, 2/4)

The U.S. Army is looking to have autonomous airborne drones and ground robots clean up chemical and biological weapons. The Autonomous Decontamination System, or ADS, would scrub vehicles, critical infrastructure and key terrain. Equally important, it would allow troops in the field to protect themselves and thus ease the strain on Army chemical warfare units that might not be available when needed. (Peck, 2/3)