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Senate Republicans on Thursday bulldozed past Senate precedents and changed the rules to break a Democratic blockade of President Trump’s nominees, in an extraordinary move that is likely to undercut Congress’s future role in vetting executive branch officials. The change, pushed through along party lines, lowered the existing 60-vote threshold for considering a group of presidential nominees to a simple majority, weakening the ability of individual senators to block nominees they find objectionable. It was the latest step in a yearslong back-and-forth between the two parties that has eroded the filibuster, a once-potent Senate tool to protect the rights of the minority and force consensus. (Gold, 9/11)

Top Food and Drug Administration regulator Vinay Prasad has regained his role as the agency’s chief medical and scientific officer after he abruptly departed and then came back to the agency, according to an update on the agency’s website Thursday. Prasad returned as the agency’s top regulator for vaccines and gene therapies as head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research on Aug. 9. (Cohrs Zhang, 9/11)

A U.S. appeals court panel on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to block Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood while legal challenges continue. A federal judge in July ruled Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the nation’s largest abortion provider fights Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation. ... Nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s patients rely on Medicaid. (9/12)

Millions of dollars’ worth of birth control pills and other contraceptives destined for people in low-income countries have been destroyed at the direction of the Trump administration, the United States Agency for International Development said on Thursday. The pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants, valued at about $9.7 million, had been purchased by the agency before it was largely dismantled earlier this year. (Nolen, Smialek and Wong, 9/11)

A federal lawsuit filed on Thursday in Rhode Island by two organizations that support the homeless claims that, with $75 million in homelessness grants about to expire, the Department of Housing and Urban Development illegally coerced applicants into embracing President Trump’s positions on immigration enforcement, transgender rights and other charged issues. The new conditions on aid are so wide-reaching, the lawsuit says, that they disqualify groups in most states from applying, and critics warn they may foreshadow larger efforts to make federal aid a tool of ideological enforcement. (DeParle, 9/11)

The U.S. government on Thursday sued Uber Technologies, accusing the ride-sharing company of violating federal law by discriminating against passengers with disabilities. In a complaint filed in San Francisco federal court, the U.S. Department of Justice said Uber drivers routinely refuse to serve riders with disabilities, including people who travel with service animals or stowable wheelchairs. (Stempel, 9/11)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Under Trump, FDA Seeks To Abandon Expert Reviews Of New Drugs

FDA leaders under President Donald Trump are moving to abandon a decades-old policy of asking outside experts to review drug applications, a move critics say would shield the agency’s decisions from public scrutiny. The agency “would like to get away” from assembling panels of experts to examine and vote on individual drugs, because “I don’t think they’re needed,” said George Tidmarsh, head of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. He relayed the message Tuesday at a meeting of health care product makers and Wednesday to an FDA advocacy group. (Allen, 9/12)

Thanks to a frenzy of grantmaking activity during August, the National Institutes of Health looks, for the first time this year, like it might be able to spend its entire $47 billion budget before the Sept. 30 deadline. After lagging by billions of dollars throughout the spring and summer due to pauses in grant proposal evaluations, agency-wide layoffs, and new layers of political review, the NIH now appears on track to award close to the full tranche of taxpayer money appropriated by Congress. (Molteni, Oza and Parker, 9/12)

Several blue and purple states that typically follow federal vaccine guidance are breaking with the Trump administration and taking steps to bolster immunizations. But tens of millions of people could still be left without access to free shots heading into the fall flu season. A flurry of bills and executive orders in Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and other blue and purple states aim to guarantee vaccine availability at pharmacies and push insurance companies to cover the shots regardless of what federal officials recommend. (Ollstein, 9/11)

In new polling designed to gauge American perceptions of the Trump administration’s vaccine policy shifts, only one in four believe that recent recommendations are based on scientific evidence and facts, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos survey. Led by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic, federal agencies have narrowed their recommendations on who should get COVID-19 shots, which now exclude younger healthy people without underlying health conditions as well as pregnant women. (Schnirring, 9/11)