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The Biden administration plans to cut funding by more than 6 percent in fiscal 2025 from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the 21-year-old program credited with saving millions of lives in Africa, a senior PEPFAR official told POLITICO. The State Department, which oversees the program, confirmed the cuts. The department has gradually spent down a glut in the PEPFAR budget from years in which funding from Congress exceeded State’s ability to spend it, said a department spokesperson who, like the PEPFAR official, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive program decisions. Now the glut is gone and Congress in March held the program’s $4.4 billion budget flat. (Paun, 7/2)

When Felix Hernandez learned that he had HIV, he had no one to lean on. In the years since his diagnosis, he found a way to support other people who may be feeling alone by helping administer HIV tests at a Tennessee clinic. (Chavez and Mclean, 7/2)

Last-minute cuts to HIV services that New York City’s health department announced in May will be reversed in the city's new budget, protecting a program that helps HIV patients keep their viral loads low and avoid spreading the virus to others. The move means some HIV services that already started turning away new patients can open up their rolls once again. It follows swift pushback from city councilmembers and activists, who protested against the cuts outside City Hall earlier this month. (Lewis, 7/1)

Boston-area researchers are exploring whether PrEP, the HIV prevention medication, should be available over the counter. Marcus and Douglas Krakower, a fellow professor, received a $500,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct the research. They will survey gay and bisexual men, cisgender women and transgender women about whether they would want easy access to PrEP and why or why not. (Solis, 7/3)