The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration two victories Friday in cases involving the Department of Government Efficiency, including giving it access to Social Security systems containing personal data on millions of Americans.

The justices also separately reined in orders seeking transparency at DOGE, the team once led by billionaire Elon Musk.

The court’s conservative majority sided with the Trump administration in the first Supreme Court appeals involving DOGE. The three liberal justices dissented in both cases.

The DOGE victories come amid a messy breakup between the president and the world’s richest man that started shortly after Musk’s departure from the White House and has included threats to cut government contracts and a call for the president to be impeached. The future of DOGE’s work isn’t clear without Musk at the helm, but both men have previously said that it will continue its efforts.

In one case, the high court halted an order from a judge in Maryland that has restricted the team’s access to the Social Security Administration under federal privacy laws.

Trump issues orders on drone usage

President Donald Trump wants to counter the threats drones pose to national security under new rules released Friday, while also aiming to make it easier for Americans to fly faster than the speed of sound and expedite the development of the flying cars of the future.

The three executive orders will encourage the Federal Aviation Administration to expedite rules to allow companies to use drones beyond their operators’ line of sight, while also imposing restrictions meant to help protect against terrorism, espionage and public safety threats.

Drones are already used in a variety of ways, including bolstering search and rescue operations, applying fertilizer, inspecting power lines and railroad bridges, and even delivering packages.

But the war in Ukraine has highlighted how drones could be used in a military or terrorist attack — a concern as the World Cup and Olympics approach in the U.S. There also have been espionage cases where drones have been used to surveil sensitive sites. And White House officials said drones are being used to smuggle drugs over the border, and there are concerns about the potential for a disastrous collision between a drone and an airliner around an airport.

Trump asks justices to affirm education cuts

President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to pause a court order to reinstate Education Department employees who were fired in mass layoffs as part of his plan to dismantle the agency.

The Justice Department’s emergency appeal to the high court said U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston exceeded his authority last month when he issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs of nearly 1,400 people and putting the broader plan on hold.

Joun’s order has blocked one of the Republican president’s biggest campaign promises and effectively stalled the effort to wind down the department. A federal appeals court refused to put the order on hold while the administration appealed.

The judge wrote that the layoffs “will likely cripple the department.”

But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on Friday that Joun was substituting his policy preferences for those of the Trump administration.

Judge blocks Trump’s Harvard student ban

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a proclamation by President Donald Trump that banned foreign students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard University.

Trump’s proclamation was the latest attempt by his Republican administration to prevent the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college from enrolling a quarter of its students, who account for much of its research and scholarship.

It’s the second time in a month Harvard’s incoming foreign students have had their plans thrown into jeopardy, only to see a court intervene. Alan Wang, a 22-year-old from China who is planning to start a Harvard graduate program in August, said it has been an emotional roller coaster.

“I cannot plan my life when everything keeps going back and forth. Give me some certainty: Can I go or not?” Wang said.

Wang was born and raised in China but attended high school and college in the U.S. He’s now in China for summer vacation. Recently he has been exploring options in countries with more appealing immigration policies, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Proud Boys sue over Jan. 6 prosecutions

Five members of the Proud Boys who were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges in connection with the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, sued the government for $100 million Friday, claiming that federal officials had subjected them to “political persecution” as “allies of President Trump.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Orlando, Florida, came nearly six months after President Donald Trump offered an expansive grant of clemency to all of the more than 1,500 people who had taken part in the attack. It was another attempt by rioters to flip the script about Jan. 6 and blame the Justice Department and the FBI for engaging in what the complaint called “a corrupt and politically motivated” prosecution.

In the years since Jan. 6, Trump has repeatedly sought to rewrite the history of the riot, claiming it was a “day of love” despite the fact that more than 140 police officers were injured by the mob. Since his return to the White House, he has also claimed that the Biden administration unfairly prosecuted him and many of his allies — even while setting up a special task force inside the Justice Department designed to pursue retributive investigations against his adversaries.

Much of the lawsuit submitted by the five Proud Boys — Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — sought to relitigate legal questions that had not gone their way during a lengthy pretrial period and a multiweek trial in U.S. District Court in Washington that ended in May 2023 with guilty verdicts against all of them.

— From news services