“It seems pretty clear they don’t want to release this video because they don’t want people to see it, because it’s very, very difficult to justify,” said Smith on one of the weekend news shows.

President Donald Trump said last week he would have “no problem” making the video public. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on the other hand, said he might object to that, claiming that it could “compromise sources and methods.”

Follow up: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “vaccine advisory panel voted Friday to change the recommendation for when children should get their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine,” reports CBS. “Instead of a first dose within 24 hours of birth—as the CDC has advised for more than 30 years—the panel voted to recommend delaying it until a child is 2 months old for children born to mothers who test negative for the virus.”

As I’ve written previously [link?], this is a welcome change for parents worried about overly broad public health guidance. American mothers who receive prenatal care—so nearly all of them—already get tested in pregnancy for Hepatitis B, which is spread through infected blood or bodily fluids (sex, needles, and the like).

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., spent a fair bit of their December meeting arguing over this issue. Recommendations from ACIP go to the CDC director for approval. Though public health decisions like these are left to the states, ACIP’s recommendations matter to insurance companies: Private insurers tend to be forced to cover the recommended vaccines. If birth doses of the Hep B vaccine are no longer recommended, it’s possible that insurer coverage could change. (The panel has not recommended that children forego the Hep B shot altogether, just that it is delayed until the two-month appointment versus given within the first few hours of birth.)

I can understand people feeling that universalized public health approaches are the best way to ensure no at-risk child slips through the cracks and contracts a terrible disease. At the same time, it is a bit crazymaking to have your child be given shots that they specifically don’t need when they are all of 12 hours old, all for the sake of the greater good. I am personally happy to have this specific recommendation changed.

Scenes from New York: Get outta here, Chi Ossé.

Ossé, a councilmember (formerly mine) who represents a lot of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, had mounted a primary challenge against Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and hoped to win the Democratic Socialists of America’s endorsement and (apparently activated) bloc of voters.

Incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani “took the unusual step of lobbying the Democratic Socialists of America, the small but increasingly influential leftist group that helped power his campaign, not to back Mr. Ossé, an ally,” reports The New York Times. Mamdani “argued that a race against Mr. Jeffries would be a messy distraction that could undermine his mayoralty.”