U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it is temporarily suspending premium processing of H-1B skilled worker visa applications for up to six months beginning on April 3. USCIS said the suspension is intended to "reduce overall H-1B processing times" by allowing the government to "process long-pending petitions, which we have currently been unable to process due to the high volume of incoming petitions and the significant surge in premium processing requests over the past few years."
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/03/06/premium-h-1b-visa-processing-temporarily-suspended