A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a Trump administration push to reinstate a sweeping pause on federal funding, a decision that comes after a judge found the administration had not fully obeyed an earlier order.

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned back the emergency appeal, though it said it expected the lower court judge to act quickly to clarify.

The Justice Department had asked the appeals court to let it implement sweeping pauses on federal grants and loans, calling the lower court order to keep promised money flowing “intolerable judicial overreach.”

That ruling came from U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island, the first judge to find that the administration had disobeyed a court order.

He is presiding over a lawsuit from nearly two dozen Democratic states filed after the administration issued a boundary-pushing memo purporting to halt all federal grants and loans, worth trillions of dollars. The plan sparked chaos around the country.

The administration has since rescinded that memo, but McConnell found Monday that not all federal grants and loans had been restored.

Money for things like early childhood education, pollution reduction and HIV prevention research has remained tied up even after his Jan. 31 order halting the spending freeze plan, the states said.

Pope rebukes White House on deportations

Pope Francis issued a major rebuke Tuesday to the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of migrants, warning that the forceful removal of people purely because of their illegal status deprives them of their inherent dignity and “will end badly.”

Francis took the remarkable step of addressing the U.S. migrant crackdown in a letter to U.S. bishops in which he appeared to take direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s defense of the deportation program on theological grounds.

U.S. border czar Tom Homan immediately pushed back, noting that the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by walls and that Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.

History’s first Latin American pope has long made caring for migrants a priority of his pontificate, citing the biblical command to “welcome the stranger” in demanding that countries welcome, protect, promote and integrate those fleeing conflicts, poverty and climate disasters. Francis has also said governments are expected to do so to the limits of their capacity.

Senator: Nominee may have directed FBI purge

A top Democratic senator has asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate after he says he received information that President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, had been “personally directing the ongoing purge” of agents at the bureau.

The letter Tuesday from Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asserts that Patel may have misled the panel at his confirmation hearing last month when he said in response to a question that he was not aware of any plans inside the FBI to punish or fire any agents.

The hearing took place just hours before news broke that a group of senior FBI executives had been told either to resign or be fired, and one day before it was revealed that the Justice Department had demanded a list of thousands of agents who worked on investigations related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, a move some bureau employees fear could be a precursor to more expansive firings.

AP reporter blocked from Oval Office

The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday after demanding the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump has ordered renamed the Gulf of America.

The reporter tried to enter the White House event as usual Tuesday afternoon and was turned away, AP executives said. The highly unusual ban, which Trump administration officials had threatened earlier Tuesday unless the AP changed the style on the Gulf, could have constitutional free-speech implications.

The AP said last month that it would continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico while noting Trump’s decision to rename it as well. As

a global news agency, the AP says it must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.

Judge orders agencies to restore health data

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered government agencies to restore public access to health-related webpages and datasets that they removed to comply with an executive order by President Donald Trump.

U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington agreed to issue a temporary restraining order requested by the Doctors for America advocacy group. The judge instructed the government to restore access to several webpages and datasets that the group identified as missing from websites and to identify others that also were taken down “without adequate notice or reasoned explanation.”

On Jan. 20, his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an order for agencies to use the term “sex” and not “gender” in federal policies and documents. In response, the Office of Personnel Management’s acting director required agency heads to eliminate any programs and take down any websites that promote “gender ideology.”

Hegseth aims to reverse Army base renamings

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signed an order restoring the name of a storied special operations forces base in North Carolina back to Fort Bragg and said Tuesday that there will be more name changes coming.

Speaking to reporters in Germany, Hegseth hinted at a wholesale reversal of the broader Biden administration effort in 2023 to remove names that honored Confederate leaders, including nine Army bases. It sets up a potentially costly, complicated and delicate process that could run afoul of the law.

The North Carolina base was renamed Fort Liberty in 2023. Its original namesake, Gen. Braxton Bragg, was a Confederate general from Warrenton, N.C., who was known for owning slaves and losing key Civil War battles, contributing to the Confederacy’s downfall.

Hegseth is renaming the base to honor Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, who the Army said was a World War II hero who earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart for exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge.

Trump puts foreign corruption law on hold

President Donald Trump on Monday ordered a pause in the enforcement of a federal law aimed at curbing corruption in multinational companies, saying it creates an uneven playing field for American firms.

The law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, makes it illegal for companies that operate in the United States to pay foreign government officials to secure business deals. Though the law was enacted in 1977, federal authorities have more heavily enforced it since around 2005, cracking down on bribery, especially in countries where it is a common business practice.

Trump has objected to the law, which has led to charges and huge fines against some of the world’s largest companies.

Trump taps ally to run Kennedy Center

President Donald Trump announced in a post on social media Monday that he was appointing Richard Grenell as the “interim executive director” of the Kennedy Center in Washington. Grenell, who was Trump’s ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, is one of his most fiercely loyal apparatchiks.

The president wrote that Grenell “shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture” and would be overseeing “daily operations” to ensure there was no more “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.”

The appointment was just the latest in a series of moves designed to strengthen Trump’s grip on the performing arts center in Washington.

Trump kicked off a purge Friday, when he announced his intent to gut the Kennedy Center’s board and install himself as chair.

White House fires USAID’s watchdog

The White House fired the inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development on Tuesday, U.S. officials said, a day after his office warned that the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID had made it all but impossible to monitor $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian funds.

The White House gave no reason for the firing of Inspector General Paul Martin, one of the officials said. The officials were familiar with the dismissal but not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Inspectors general are typically independently funded watchdogs attached to government agencies and tasked with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. The Trump administration earlier purged more than a dozen inspectors general.

— News service reports