Judge strikes down controversial Biden mandate to increase nursing home staffing
CNN
A federal judge in Texas on Monday nixed a controversial Biden administration rule that would have required nursing homes to boost their nursing staff in coming years.
A federal judge in Texas on Monday nixed a controversial Biden administration rule that would have required nursing homes to boost their nursing staff in coming years. US District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk noted that staffing and other deficiencies at nursing homes “deserve an effectual response. But any regulatory response must be consistent with Congress’s legislation governing nursing homes.” “Though rooted in laudable goals, the Final Rule still must be consistent with Congress’s statutes,” wrote Kacsmaryk, an appointee of President Donald Trump. The Biden administration finalized the first-ever minimum staffing regulation for nursing homes last April. The mandate, which would have required facilities to hire more registered nurses and nurse aides, was quickly challenged in court by nursing home operators and their trade associations. Nursing homes already struggle to fill open positions, they said. “This unrealistic staffing mandate threatened to close nursing homes and displace vulnerable seniors,” Clif Porter, CEO of American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement. Meeting the proposed mandate would have required nursing homes to hire more than 100,000 additional nurses and nurse aides at an annual cost of $6.8 billion, according to the association’s 2023 analysis.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.
Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.
As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.
The murder trial of Brian Walshe, who is accused of killing and dismembering his wife in 2023 continues. Follow for live updates.
The FBI arrested a person Thursday who investigators believe planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot.
Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office are expected to appear in federal court in Albany on Thursday to try to disqualify a US attorney from investigating the state’s civil case against President Donald Trump.
A new poll shows more than 70% of Republicans with Obamacare coverage don’t want their enhanced premium subsidies to expire.
A safety volunteer accused of fatally shooting a man taking part in a “No Kings” protest last June in Salt Lake City while firing at another man he believed to be a potential mass shooter has been charged with manslaughter, prosecutors announced Wednesday.