🦅 Executive Branch |
White House |
- The proclamation signed December 29, 2025 says the President is extending duty‑free entry for specified Israeli agricultural goods through 11:59 pm Eastern on December 31, 2026, and it adds exact 2026 quantity limits of 466,000 kg, 1,304,000 kg, 1,534,000 kg, 131,000 kg, and 707,000 kg for different categories; the document says this action rests on a 1985 U.S.–Israel law (the USIFTA Implementation Act) and the Trade Act of 1974. This affects Israeli exporters, U.S. importers and Customs, and U.S. producers who compete with those foods because it changes which imports are taxed (tariffs) and how much can enter duty‑free. The proclamation also says it fixes several technical errors in U.S. tariff rules tied to trade pacts with Singapore, Korea, the EU, and others (with some fixes effective October 14, 2025 and November 1, 2025), and it says these temporary changes are meant to keep trade concessions in place while a December 1, 2025 agreement to make permanent changes is finalized; the proclamation further says it supersedes earlier proclamations to the extent they conflict. Read full document →
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Federal Register |
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On December 29, 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services withdrew the remaining parts of a proposed rule called HTI-2 (first published August 5, 2024, with comments closed October 4, 2024), so the new requirements in that proposal will not take effect. That means health IT companies, hospitals, doctors, clinics, public health agencies, and health insurers do not have to follow the withdrawn proposals. The withdrawn items included many planned changes — for example, adopting USCDI version 4 (a new list of what patient data should include), new ways to share medical images, updated encryption rules (including a proposed January 1, 2026 deadline), new APIs to let patients, providers, and payers exchange data, and changes to “information blocking” rules — but none of those will become rules as of December 29, 2025. Some related changes were already finalized earlier (December 2024 and August 4, 2025) and still apply. This matters because it delays some changes that could make it easier for people to move and view their health records and for public health reporting, while also avoiding new costs and paperwork for providers and software makers. Read full document →
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Starting February 27, 2026 (in time for the FY2027 H‑1B registration season that begins March 2026), USCIS changed how it picks which H‑1B registrations can file full visa petitions: instead of a pure random lottery, each unique worker gets a “weight” based on the wage the employer offered (using government wage data), so level IV gets 4 chances, level III gets 3, level II gets 2, and level I gets 1; employers or their representatives who register workers for the H‑1B cap (the 65,000 regular slots plus the 20,000 U.S. advanced‑degree slots) must give the wage level, job code, work location, passport info when they register and must match that information when they file the petition for any registration or petition submitted on or after the rule’s effective date; this matters because higher‑paid job offers will have much better odds of being chosen, which will tend to favor more experienced, higher‑paid foreign workers and lower the chances for lower‑paid or entry‑level applicants, affecting hiring, wages, and opportunities for both U.S. and foreign graduates. Read full document →
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On December 29, 2025, HHS proposed big changes to the rules that govern electronic health records and how health data is shared (parts 170 and 171 of the rules). The plan would remove 34 out of 60 “certification” checks that makers of EHRs and health apps must meet, change 7 more, adopt a new baseline data list called USCDI v3.1, and tighten some rules about when a company can refuse to share data (information‑blocking rules), including removing a special TEFCA exception; many changes would take effect when the final rule is issued or by January 1, 2027. The people who must follow these changes are health IT developers (the companies that build EHRs and health apps), the labs and bodies that test and certify them, and, indirectly, hospitals and clinics that buy certified products; public comments on the proposal are due by February 27, 2026. This matters to everyday people because HHS says the changes could save the industry a lot of money (about $1.53 billion in present value), speed up modern ways of sharing records so patients and doctors can use more apps and tools, but they also reduce some official checks for privacy and security in certified products and change who can limit data access — so it could mean faster, cheaper tools, but also calls for patients to watch how their data is protected. Read full document →
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