Nearly two dozen states, including Minnesota, sued the Trump administration and the National Institutes of Health on Monday to block a $4 billion cut to research funding that scientists say would cost thousands of jobs and eviscerate studies into treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and a host of other ailments.

The funding cuts were to take effect Monday. The attorneys general of Massachusetts and 21 other states filed the suit, arguing the Trump administration’s plan to slash overhead costs — known as “indirect costs” — violates a 79-year-old law that governs how administrative agencies establish and administer regulations.

“Without relief from N.I.H.’s action, these institutions’ cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt,” the lawsuit said.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, strongly objected to what she called “these arbitrary cuts.” Collins said that when she called President Donald Trump’s nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to complain, he promised to “reexamine this initiative” if confirmed.

Scientists, medical researchers and public health officials have felt under siege since Trump became president. In addition to freezing grant dollars and slashing overhead costs, the administration has blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from publishing scientific information on the threat of bird flu to humans.

Labor unions sue over Musk’s data access

A coalition of labor unions filed a lawsuit Monday asking a federal court to stop Elon Musk’s team from accessing private data at the Education Department, the Treasury Department and the Office of Personnel Management.

The suit, led by the American Federation of Teachers, alleges the Trump administration violated federal privacy laws when it gave Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency access to systems with personal information on tens of millions of Americans without their consent. It was filed in federal court in Maryland.

The AFT suit warns of safety risks to personal data that has been shared with Musk’s team, including an Education Department system housing information on more than 40 million Americans with federal student loans. The database includes Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, home addresses and more.

Judge blocks firing of whisteblower official

A judge on Monday ordered the fired head of the agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers to be reinstated while a court fight continues over his removal by President Donald Trump.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s order came hours after Hampton Dellinger sued the Republican president over his removal as the leader of the Office of Special Counsel, which is responsible for guarding the federal workforce from illegal personnel actions, such as retaliation for whistleblowing.

The judge said Dellinger must be allowed to serve as special counsel through midnight on Thursday while she considers his request for a temporary restraining order to keep him in the job.

Also on Monday, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics posted on its website that Trump had removed its director, David Huitema, who like Dellinger was confirmed by the Senate last year to a five-year term.

Trump issues mandate for plastic straws only

President Donald Trump said Monday he is banning federal use of paper straws, saying they “don’t work” and don’t last very long. Instead he wants the government to exclusively move to plastic.

“It’s a ridiculous situation. We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump said as he signed an executive order to reverse federal purchasing policies that encourage paper straws and restrict plastic ones. The order directs agencies to stop buying paper straws “and otherwise ensure that paper straws are no longer provided within agency buildings.”

The move by Trump — who has long railed against paper straws, and whose 2019 reelection campaign sold Trump-branded reusable plastic straws for $15 per pack of 10 — targets a Biden administration policy to phase out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.

While plastic straws have been blamed for polluting oceans and harming marine life, Trump said Monday that he thinks “it’s OK” to continue using them. “I don’t think that plastic is going to affect the shark very much as they’re eating, as they’re munching their way through the ocean,’’ he said at the White House.

Trump pardons disgraced Blagojevich

President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose 14-year sentence for political corruption charges he commuted during his first term.

The Republican president called the Democratic former governor, who once appeared on Trump’s reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice,” “a very fine person” and said the conviction and prison sentence “shouldn’t have happened.”

Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 on charges that included seeking to sell an appointment to then-President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat and trying to shake down a children’s hospital. Blagojevich served eight years in prison before Trump cut short his term in 2020.

“I’ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people I had to deal with,” Trump said at the White House as he signed the pardon.

Blagojevich told reporters outside his Chicago homey that he was thankful.

Watchdog: USAID funds now untrackable

The U.S. Agency for International Development has lost almost all ability to track $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid following the Trump administration’s foreign funding freeze and idling of staffers, a government watchdog warned Monday.

The administration’s fast-moving dismantling of the agency has left oversight of the aid “largely nonoperational,” USAID’s inspector general’s office said. That includes a greatly reduced ability to ensure that no assistance falls into the hands of violent extremist groups or goes astray in unstable regions or conflict zones, the watchdog said.

The Trump administration’s actions have “significantly impacted USAID’s capacity to disburse and safeguard its humanitarian assistance programming,” it said, also citing the risk of hundreds of millions of dollars in commodities rotting after staff was barred from delivering it.

The inspector general, however, also noted that it has “longstanding concerns about existing USAID oversight mechanisms.”

Refugee advocates sue over federal freeze

A coalition of some of the nation’s largest refugee resettlement organizations on Monday sued the Trump administration over its indefinite pause of the refugee system, asking a federal court to move swiftly to restart the program.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Seattle, aims to immediately revive a system that had thrived for decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations and to restart federal funding for organizations that help refugees resettle in the United States. It is the first suit to challenge the Trump administration’s freeze of the program.

“The impact of these executive actions has been sweeping and harmful for our refugee clients, our staff and our local faith community partners,” Rick Santos, head of the Church World Service, one of the resettlement organizations that filed the suit, said in a statement.

Vatican: Ending USAID could kill millions

The Vatican’s charity said Monday that U.S. plans to gut USAID were “reckless” and could kill millions, while Pope Francis’ point man on development urged the Trump administration to remember Christian principles about caring for others.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, a Czech-born Canadian Jesuit, is one of the cardinals most closely associated with Francis’ pontificate and heads the Vatican office responsible for migrants, the environment, the church’s Caritas Internationalis charity and development.

Caritas on Monday warned that millions of people could die as a result of the “ruthless” U.S. decision to “recklessly” stop USAID funding, and hundreds of millions more will be condemned to “dehumanizing poverty.”

— News service reports