Health officials in three states have reported 10 measles deaths in 80 days.
One of them was reported today in Grant County, Wisconsin, where a second child has died a week after a baby too young for the vaccine. No one in Wisconsin had died of measles in 36 years. Babies that small, and people whose immunity has been wiped out by cancer treatment or another medical condition, are protected only when everyone around them is. The Wall Street Journal reported that the United States has lost the measles-free status it held since 2000.
Donald Trump signed an order in August to break the measles vaccine into three shots. He said the change would have “a huge impact on autism” and that the combined shot could be “quite lethal.” Two weeks later Pennsylvania reported the country’s first two measles deaths of the year, one of them a newborn. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his health secretary, asked whether they were “altogether fabricated” and had the CDC take them out of its count. The CDC now counts only six.
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FAA expands AI air traffic advisory tool to all 22 control centers seven weeks after Washington debut, as controllers’ union says it was not consulted.
Today’s GovBrief News
White House confirms Trump will meet Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin together Thursday in Shenzhen, planning to discuss Iran war but not Ukraine.
Source: The Associated Press
November 13, 2026Details
Treasury Secretary Bessent says “‘F’ the Iranian leadership” and calls death threats that moved him onto a military base proof his economic campaign is “working.”
Source: ABC News
November 13, 2026Details
Trump administration lets states wait until July to cut anyone from Medicaid over its work requirement, 10 days after Democrats won Congress.
Source: NBC News
November 13, 2026Details
US loses measles elimination status it held since 2000 after 5,400-plus cases this year under Health Secretary Kennedy, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Source: The Wall Street Journal [gift link]
November 13, 2026Details
Wisconsin reports second child’s measles death in Grant County a week after its first since 1990, as state epidemiologist says cases likely top 1,000.
Source: Wisconsin Public Radio
November 13, 2026Details
Georgia election board members and staff coordinated with the activist network of Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer in Trump’s bid to overturn 2020, ProPublica finds.
Source: ProPublica
November 13, 2026Details
Agriculture Department gives stores 90 more days to meet SNAP food-stocking rules nationwide after New York City Mayor Mamdani presses Trump on behalf of bodegas.
Source: Newsweek
November 13, 2026Details
Treasury Secretary Bessent says four agencies wanted the firm in Nvidia’s spy scandal blacklisted “for months,” but the decision belongs to Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s department.
Source: CNBC
November 13, 2026Details
Federal judge says Trump administration “created a lack of an operator” it now cites to close Washington’s East Potomac golf course Sunday.
Source: The Washington Post [gift link]
November 13, 2026Details
Supreme Court will decide whether Trump can suspend border asylum under his “invasion” proclamation, which an appeals court struck down but left in effect.
Source: SCOTUSblog
November 13, 2026Details
Trump administration cancels Biden-era rule that would have raised most Head Start teachers’ pay $10,000 a year, calling it “costly and overly prescriptive.”
Source: K-12 Dive
November 13, 2026Details
Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins wins Alaska governor’s race with 50.8% of first-choice votes, the state’s first Democratic governor since 2002, as the Trump-endorsed Republican gets 28.1%.
Source: The Anchorage Daily News
November 13, 2026Details
State Department opens online passport applications to some first-time applicants Monday through the White House’s AI chatbot, America.gov, in a yearlong pilot starting with naturalized citizens.
Source: Government Executive
November 13, 2026Details
Congress’ attending physician resigns facing misconduct allegations after 17 years, as Pentagon inspector general finds his office poorly tracked sleep aids and pain medication.
Source: CBS News
November 13, 2026Details
Democrat Eileen Laubacher, a retired Navy rear admiral and former Republican, unseats Republican Rep. Boebert in Colorado’s most conservative House district, 48.8% to 47.9%.
Source: The Colorado Newsline
November 13, 2026Details
Former special counsel Jack Smith calls Republican Sen. Hagerty’s bid to disbar him, filed a day after his Senate testimony, a “retaliatory political stunt.”
Source: Politico
November 13, 2026Details
FAA grounds flights nationwide for hours, forcing 6,000-plus cancellations, in a breakdown Transportation Secretary Duffy blames on overloaded, outdated air traffic control communications equipment.
Source: Axios
November 13, 2026Details
Campaign Legal Center asks Health Department watchdog to investigate top official who backed hormone therapy change while owning stock in a menopause-treatment company she founded.
Source: ProPublica
November 13, 2026Details
Baltimore City Council votes 12-1 to create a Department of Neighborhood Safety that will send clinicians and social workers, not police, to low-level 911 calls.
Source: WYPR Baltimore
November 13, 2026Details
Washington state judge rules Adams County sheriff illegally sent inmates’ release dates to federal immigration agents, upholding the state’s sanctuary law for the first time.
Source: The Washington State Standard
November 13, 2026Details