A federal judge on Thursday refused to immediately block the Trump administration’s abrupt halt to funding of the nation’s largest private refugee resettlement program in a setback to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Judge Trevor McFadden denied the bishops’ request for a temporary restraining order that would have restored the funding, but called his ruling “very tentative.”

“A temporary restraining order is an extraordinary remedy that should be granted sparingly,” he said.

McFadden scheduled another hearing for next Friday on the bishops’ related request for a preliminary injunction that also would block the administration’s pause in program funding. He also ordered the two sides to have a mediation session with a federal magistrate judge next week.

“I want to see further briefing from the parties,” McFadden said.

The bishops are asking him to prohibit the U.S. State Department from enforcing a Jan. 24 suspension of millions of dollars in aid, saying it has affected nearly 7,000 newly arrived refugees.

Unions sue to block mass federal firings

Unions for federal workers have filed a lawsuit to block the mass firings of probationary federal employees by President Donald Trump’s administration, alleging that officials are exploiting and misusing the probationary period to eliminate staff across government agencies.

The unions allege in the complaint filed late Wednesday in U.S. District Court in California that the firings “represent one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”

The lawsuit says the administration’s Office of Personnel Management acted unlawfully by directing federal agencies to use a standardized termination notice falsely claiming performance issues.

Disaster aid agency due for 84% cutback

The Trump administration plans to all but eliminate the office that oversees America’s recovery from the largest disasters, raising questions about how the United States will rebuild from hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities made worse by climate change.

The Office of Community Planning and Development, part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, pays to rebuild homes and other recovery efforts after the country’s worst disasters, such as Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida.

The administration plans to cut the staff in that office by 84%, according to a document obtained by the New York Times. The number of workers would be cut to 150, from 936 when President Donald Trump took office last month.

Elon Musk accuses Democrats of ‘treason’

Billionaire Elon Musk appeared at a conservative gathering outside Washington on Thursday waving a chainsaw in the air, showing openness to auditing the Federal Reserve and accusing Democrats of “treason.”

Musk, the Tesla CEO who has become perhaps President Donald Trump’s most influential adviser, spoke about his crusade to cut government spending and downsize the federal workforce with the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The entrepreneur was first announced earlier that day as a speaker, drawing huge cheers from activists gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Before his appearance, he met with Argentine President Javier Milei, who has been frequently praised by Musk and popularized the power tool while campaigning in 2023 and proposing slashing public spending.

After Musk appeared onstage, wearing shades and his trademark black “Make America Great Again” hat, he said Milei had a gift for him. The Argentine leader then walked onstage with the red chainsaw and passed it to Musk. The chainsaw was engraved with Milei’s slogan, “Viva la libertad, carajo,” which is Spanish for “Long live liberty, damn it.”

Tiger Woods marks Black History Month

President Donald Trump marked Black History Month at the White House on Thursday by making an appearance at a celebratory reception with a surprise guest, golf legend Tiger Woods, while calling out other athletes in attendance and marveling at the size of the crowd.

Trump also announced he planned to bring Alice Johnson, a prison reform advocate whom he pardoned in 2020, into his administration to work on clemency issues.

The White House’s Black History Month reception preserved a tradition, but it comes in the wake of Trump issuing a wide-ranging executive order ending the federal government’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs has disrupted its observance elsewhere.

Haitians to lose temporary legal status

The Trump administration is throwing out protections for roughly half a million Haitians that had shielded them from deportation. The decision announced Thursday means they would lose their work permits and could be eligible to be removed from the country by August of this year.

The decision is part of a sweeping effort by the Trump administration to make good on campaign promises to carry out mass deportations and specifically scale back the use of the Temporary Protected Status designation that was greatly expanded under the Biden administration to cover roughly 1 million immigrants.

The Department of Homeland Security in a news release said they were vacating a decision by the Biden administration to renew Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. That status gives people legal authority to be in the country but doesn’t provide a long-term path to citizenship.

Guantanamo migrants sent back to Venezuela

The Trump administration on Thursday transferred all of the Venezuelan migrants it had brought to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suddenly emptying a detention operation that it had just as abruptly started this month.

Two passenger planes operated by a charter aircraft company flew to the naval base Thursday morning and shuttled most of the migrants to an airfield in Honduras. They were to then be put aboard a Venezuelan plane for repatriation.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, said 177 migrants had been transferred to Venezuelan custody, and one had been brought back to an immigration facility in the United States. In a declaration filed in court earlier Thursday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official had said 178 Venezuelans were at the base.

It was unclear whether the administration intended to send additional migrants to the base.

Asian deportees flown to Costa Rica

A group of families and children hailing from Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan, Russia and more countries climbed down the stairs of an airplane in Costa Rica’s capital Thursday, the first flight of deportees from other nations Costa Rica agreed to hold in detention facilities for the Trump administration while it organized the return back to their countries.

The flight of 135 deportees, half of them minors, added Costa Rica to a growing list of Latin American nations to serve as a stopover for migrants as the administration seeks to step up deportations.

National park in Pelosi district due cutbacks

President Donald Trump moved to drastically shrink the Presidio Trust, the agency that oversees the Presidio of San Francisco, a national park at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge and one of the city’s most cherished public spaces, in an executive order issued Wednesday evening.

The order, which calls for “dramatically” reducing the size of the federal government, said the Presidio Trust was an “unnecessary governmental entity.” The order also targeted three other agencies — the Inter-American Foundation, the U.S. African Development Foundation and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The Presidio Trust was established by Congress in 1996 to help oversee the Presidio, a 1,500-acre former military base. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House and a frequent critic of Trump’s, played a central role in the creation of the trust, and the park is in her district.

“What is the purpose of this?” Pelosi asked in a Thursday interview. “It’s a distraction.”

Kennedy announces ‘sex-based definitions’

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday that the Trump administration had adopted a set of official government “sex-based definitions” to give the public and federal agencies precise terms with which to describe categories including “male,” “female,” “woman” and “man.”

The definitions are listed in a one-page “guidance” that is aimed, in part, at keeping transgender women and girls out of female sports, discouraging gender-affirming care for young people and fulfilling President Donald Trump’s pledge that the federal government will recognize only two sexes: male and female.

But many medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, recognize that not everyone fits into neat categories of male and female.

— News service reports