What happened
The Trump administration yesterday took several steps designed to end gender-affirming care for Americans under age 18. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, proposed pulling all federal funding from any hospital that provides puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapies or surgeries to minors, and prohibiting Medicaid from paying for such treatments. The Food and Drug Administration also warned makers of breast binders, used by many transgender males to flatten their chests, about “illegally marketing” their products to minors with gender dysphoria. 

Who said what
The “sweeping proposals” are the Trump administration’s “most significant moves” yet to quash treatments for transgender minors, The Associated Press said. But this is more than “just a regulatory shift,” The New York Times said. It reflects President Donald Trump’s “laserlike focus” on proving that his government “does not recognize even the existence” of transgender or nonbinary people. 

Republicans are also “trying to flip the health care script” from “health care affordability” to “an issue that’s worked for them in the past” and “mostly unites Republicans,” Politico said. Most major medical groups oppose the changes, saying the rules “intrude on physician-patient relationships and jeopardize care for everyone,” said CNN. Kennedy and other HHS officials “frequently invoke parental rights when discussing childhood vaccines,” The Washington Post said, but “when it comes to transition care, Oz said the government needs to step in because parents have been ’tricked’” into seeking medical or pharmaceutical intervention.

What next?
The public has 60 days to comment on the proposals. If the rules are enacted, they “would effectively shut down hospitals that failed to comply,” the Times said. The ACLU said it plans to challenge the rules in court. 

What happened
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, said yesterday it had secured binding deals with three major investors to form a U.S. version of the popular video-sharing platform. Under the agreements, outlined by TikTok CEO Shou Chew in a memo to employees, Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will each own 15% of the new venture, in a consortium with 50% control U.S. TikTok.

Who said what
The deal “marks the end of years of uncertainty” about TikTok’s fate in the U.S., The Associated Press said. Congress passed a law that “would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner,” but after the platform briefly went dark in January, President Donald Trump, “without a clear legal basis,” signed four executive orders to stave off the ban while his administration sought new ownership. 

ByteDance is set to retain a 19.9% stake in the new venture, while 30.1% will be owned by its affiliates and partners. It wasn’t clear who would own the last 5%, but Trump suggested in September that Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch would hold stakes. “Trump wants to hand over even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media yesterday.

What next?
Chew’s memo “suggested that the deal would close on Jan. 22, just one day before the latest deadline for TikTok to find a new owner,” The New York Times said. The Trump administration has to approve the deal, but “at this stage, I see no regulatory issues,” analyst Craig Huber told Reuters, especially since Trump was “very involved in putting the whole sale together from the beginning.”