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DOGE spreads, Trump bans and bird flu strikes again

 
Today's NATIONAL story

Musk's DOGE gains access to Medicare, eyes FAA

What happened
Members of Elon Musk's secretive "Department of Government Efficiency" have been granted access to "systems and technology" at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency said yesterday, after The Wall Street Journal reported that DOGE had "gotten access to key payment and contracting systems." Musk and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also said DOGE had agreed to "upgrade" the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control system.

Thousands of people gathered in dozens of cities and outside capitols across the U.S. yesterday to protest Musk's rapid takeover of the federal government and President Donald Trump's early flurry of executive orders.

Who said what
DOGE is "going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system," Duffy said on X. Musk replied that his team would "aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system." The details were "murky" on what role DOGE would play, Politico said, or which "upgrades" they would attempt on the aging and "complex web of software, hardware, facilities and people that keep planes from crashing into each other."

CMS is a "highly politically and economically sensitive agency," the "nerve center of much of the nation's complex health care economy," the Journal said, But a person familiar with DOGE's work at the agency said its access was "read only" and "that, to their knowledge, Musk's allies hadn't yet been given access to databases that include identifiable personal health information of Medicare or Medicaid enrollees." DOGE operatives met with the Labor Department yesterday, "seeking access to sensitive data," The Washington Post said.

What next?
Musk's efforts are "part of a massive government restructuring by Trump, who has fired and sidelined hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists," Reuters said. "Multiple government officials have already privately warned" that some DOGE actions "appear to be illegal," the Post said. But "critics have struggled to keep up" with the onslaught and "the Republicans who control Congress have largely applauded its work" and dismissed Democrats' "protests that an unelected billionaire should not be able to dismantle the bureaucracy without lawmakers' consent."

 
 
Today's POLITICS story

Trump orders ban on trans female athletes

What happened
President Donald Trump yesterday signed an executive order seeking to bar transgender girls and women from competing in women's sports. The order directs the federal government to withhold funding from schools that do not comply with his administration's new interpretation of Title IX, the law that bars sex discrimination in schools.

Who said what
"The war on women's sports is over," Trump said at a White House signing ceremony. The directive was "widely expected," The New York Times said. "The Trump campaign spent nearly 20% of its overall ad budget on transgender attack ads," and he had already issued a flurry of orders "aimed at least in part at transgender Americans." Enforcement of the new decree relies on the Education Department, which Trump is reportedly taking steps to dismantle.

Along with using federal funds as a cudgel, The Washington Post said, Trump's order "seeks to use the bully pulpit to persuade sports associations governing nonscholastic sports to adopt similar rules," including the International Olympic Committee. 

What next?
Local school districts "have ranged widely in their responses" to Trump's attacks on transgender students, "from acquiescence to defiance," the Post said, but overall they are "working to understand what the shifting legal and political landscape means for them." Legal challenges to Trump's order are widely expected.

 
 
Today's Health Story

New form of H5N1 bird flu found in US dairy cows

What happened
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said yesterday that a second type of H5N1 bird flu had infected U.S. dairy herds, suggesting that cattle are more susceptible to the avian virus than previously believed and putting dairy workers at greater risk.

Who said what
The new H5N1 version, known as D1.1, was found in dairy cattle in Nevada and is different than the B3.13 type that has spread to more than 950 herds in 16 states over the past year, starting in Texas. The D1.1 infection was discovered by testing raw milk under a USDA dairy surveillance project launched last year.

"I always thought one bird-to-cow transmission was a very rare event," said Richard Webby, an influenza expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. That it happened twice is "a little bit of a 'wow' to me." Most of the 67 people diagnosed with bird flu in the U.S. had mild symptoms and had worked with dairy or cattle, but the one known death was an elderly man infected with D1.1 after contact with wild and backyard birds. 

What next?
"There does not appear to be an immediate change to human risk," already considered low for the general public, The Washington Post said. But it's important for federal officials to be vigilant and transparent about a virus that could "make Covid seem like a walk in the park," said Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist.

 
 

It's not all bad

Conservationists dedicated to saving the tiny Darwin's frog from extinction are celebrating the birth of 33 froglets at the London Zoo. Darwin's frogs live in Chile's Parque Tantauco, and their monitored populations dropped by 90% within a year of the deadly chytrid fungus infecting the forest in 2023. More than 50 of the minuscule frogs — fully grown males are smaller than 3 centimeters — were brought to London, and the hope is they can return to the wild once the fungus is contained.

 
 
Under the radar

A study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry found that sperm cells can carry traces of trauma. Specifically, the researchers looked at the epigenetics of sperm from people exposed to high levels of stress in their childhood — and the findings suggest a parent's experiences may have a larger impact on future generations than previously assumed.

"Understanding inheritance through genes and DNA has been one of the most crucial elements of our understanding of biology," Dr. Jetro Tuulari, an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Turku in Finland and the author of the study, said to Live Science.

Epigenetics is the study of how cells alter "which genes can be switched on" without changing the DNA sequence, said Live Science. Researchers here looked at two epigenetic markers: DNA methylation and small noncoding RNA. The findings showed a "different epigenetic profile compared with the sperm from men who reported less trauma," with the pattern holding "even after the researchers checked if the differences could be attributed to other factors, such as drinking or smoking." These results "provide further evidence that early life stress influences the paternal germline epigenome and supports a possible effect in modulating the development of the central nervous system of the next generation," the study said.

Scientists have long been interested in how the behavior and experiences of parents genetically affect their children. A 2024 study found that paternal diet and weight can affect their offspring's metabolic health — even if the offspring has a healthy diet.

 
 
On this day

February 6, 1952

Elizabeth II became queen of the United Kingdom following the death of her father, King George VI. Elizabeth would sit on the throne for over 70 years, making her reign the longest of any U.K. monarch, and one of the longest in world history. She died in 2022 and was succeeded by her son King Charles III.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

President Donald Trump's proposal that the U.S. take ownership of Gaza, a "plan put forward without details or consultation," is "rattling the Middle East," The New York Times says on Thursday's front page. "Mideast powers reject Trump's Gaza proposal," as the "president veers into foreign intervention," The Wall Street Journal says. "White House softens part of Trump's pitch for Gaza," The Washington Post says, and on the trade war front, "Beijing digs in" and might let TikTok "die without trade, tech policy concessions from Trump." Some call Trump's "DEI backlash 'kick in the teeth,'" says USA Today.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Everything old is new again

A museum dedicated to remembering a 19th-century flood in Pennsylvania has temporarily closed due to flooding. The Johnstown Flood Museum said it was forced to shut down due to an influx of water caused by a leak stemming from recent extreme weather. "Nothing of historic significance was affected" by the incident, the museum said on social media, and after some repainting, floor refinishing, and replacement of carpet and soundproofing material, it expects to reopen in the spring.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Nathan Posner / Anadolu via Getty Images; Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images; Illustration by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images