Twenty states, including Minnesota, are suing multiple federal agencies, contending President Donald Trump’s administration has illegally fired thousands of federal probationary workers.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is leading the coalition of attorneys general in the federal lawsuit that was filed late Thursday in Maryland, where the state estimates about 10% of households receive wages from the federal government.

“The draconian actions of the Trump-Vance Administration could lead to tens of thousands of jobs lost, hundreds of thousands of lives disrupted, and the cratering of tens of millions of dollars in income here in Maryland,” Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said Friday in support of the complaint.

Brown followed up on Friday by moving for a temporary restraining order in federal court in Maryland seeking to stop any more firings of federal probationary employees and to reinstate those who have already been dismissed.

The mass firings will cause irreparable burdens and expenses on the states, the lawsuit said, because states will have to support recently unemployed workers and review and adjudicate claims of unemployment assistance. More than 800 fired federal workers in Maryland already have applied for unemployment benefits, Brown’s office said.

The lawsuit also contended that the layoffs will hurt state finances due to lost tax revenue.

CDC to study debunked vaccine-autism link

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to conduct a large-scale study to reexamine whether there is a connection between vaccines and autism, federal officials said Friday.

Dozens of scientific studies have failed to find evidence of a link. But the CDC now falls under the purview of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long expressed skepticism about the safety of vaccines and has vowed to revisit the data.

“As President Trump said in his Joint Address to Congress, the rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed. CDC will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening,” Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement Friday.

Nixon did not offer details about the scope or methods of the project.

In pursuing the study, the CDC is defying the wishes of the chair of the Senate Health Committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who said this week that further research into any supposed link between vaccines and autism would be a waste of money and a distraction from research that might shed light on the “true reason” for a rise in autism rates.

White House planning new travel bans to U.S.

The Trump administration is finalizing a new ban on travel to the United States for citizens of certain countries that would be broader than the versions President Donald Trump issued in his first term, according to two officials familiar with the matter.

A draft recommendation circulating inside the executive branch proposes a “red” list of countries whose citizens Trump could bar from entering the United States, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations.

One of the officials said the proposed red list currently consists mainly of countries whose nationals were restricted under versions of Trump’s previous travel ban. Last time, those countries included Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

The draft tentatively proposes adding Afghanistan to the group whose citizens would be categorically barred from entering the United States, according to one of the officials.

DOJ investigating major egg producers

The Justice Department is in the early stages of investigating major egg producers in the United States over possible antitrust violations as the price of eggs skyrockets, two people familiar with the matter said.

The department’s lawyers are preparing to send civil investigative demands — effectively subpoenas for civil investigations — to several producers, including Cal-Maine Foods and Rose Acre Farms, one of the people said. Investigators are looking at whether the companies are sharing sensitive information about pricing and supply, contributing to a spike in prices.

The inquiry is being run out of the antitrust division’s Chicago office, the people said.

Trump pulling $400M in funds from Columbia

The Trump administration said Friday that it’s pulling $400 million from Columbia University, canceling grants and contracts because of what the government describes as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.

The notice came five days after federal agencies announced they were considering orders to stop work on $51 million in contracts with the New York City university and reviewing its eligibility for over $5 billion in federal grants going forward. And it came after Columbia set up a new disciplinary committee and ramped up its own investigations into students critical of Israel, alarming free speech advocates.

But Columbia’s efforts evidently didn’t go far enough for the federal government.

$60M in federal housing funds in limbo

The Trump administration has stalled at least $60 million in funding intended largely for affordable housing developments nationwide, throwing hundreds of projects into a precarious limbo, according to information and documents obtained by the Associated Press

The move is part of a flurry of funding freezes, staffing cuts and contract cancellations by the Trump administration at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, changes that have instilled widespread uncertainty in the affordable housing industry.

The some $60 million is intended to go to small community development nonprofits in small grants. The money is often used as seed funding for affordable housing projects, turning a concept into a viable development and consequently drawing in more public and private investment.

Justice Department sacks more top officials

The Trump administration Friday forced out a handful of senior Justice Department officials, further thinning the ranks of career officials who help guide the agency, according to several people familiar with the actions.

The ouster of lawyers managing the Justice Department’s pardon work, bankruptcy litigation and other legal issues marks the latest move by the new administration to remove or reassign senior officials with many years of experience. The official overseeing the Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles internal ethics investigations, was also removed from that role, though he was placed on administrative leave, these people said.

The removals follow a pattern that has fueled turmoil and alarm inside the Justice Department as the new administration seeks to take control of the agency and reshape it with an emphasis on loyalty to President Donald Trump.

DOJ celebrates nixed lawsuit targeting cancer

The Justice Department on Friday celebrated its decision to drop a federal lawsuit against a Louisiana petrochemical plant accused of worsening cancer risks for residents in a majority-Black community, saying the dismissal showed that officials are “delivering on President (Donald) Trump’s promise to dismantle radical DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs and restore integrity to federal enforcement efforts.”

The dismissal Wednesday of the two-year-old case underscored the Trump administration’s commitment to “eliminate ideological overreach and restore impartial enforcement of federal laws,’’ Justice said in a statement.

At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew its formal referral of the case to the Justice Department.

Panama will release 112 confined U.S. deportees

Panama will release 112 migrants who had been deported from the United States last month and were being held in a remote jungle camp, a minister said Friday after lawyers and advocates said the conditions violated Panamanian and international laws.

The migrants come from countries that the United States cannot easily return deportees to, often because those nations will not receive them.

The decision to release the migrants could represent another challenge to President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport millions of migrants from the United States.

Trump culls loan forgiveness program

President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing administration officials to alter a student loan forgiveness program for public servants to exclude nonprofit organizations that engage in activities that have what he called a “substantial illegal purpose.”

His order to restrict the program appears to target groups supporting immigrants in the country illegally, diversity initiatives or gender-affirming care for children, among others, as the Trump administration has sought to eliminate federal support for efforts that have drawn right-wing ire.

The order, made public Friday, is the latest of many attempts to overhaul the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which has often whipsawed borrowers with rule changes and bureaucratic obstacles.

Trump aims to punish law firm he dislikes

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order seeking to severely punish law firm Perkins Coie by stripping its lawyers of security clearances and access to government buildings and officials — a form of payback for its legal work for Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign.

With the order, Perkins Coie becomes the second such firm to be targeted by Trump. Late last month, he signed a similar memorandum attacking Covington & Burling, which has done pro bono legal work for Jack Smith, who as special counsel pursued two separate indictments of Trump.

While the Covington memorandum sought to strip clearances and contracts from that firm, the Perkins Coie order goes much further, seeking to also limit its lawyers’ access to federal buildings, officials and jobs in a way that could cast a chilling effect over the entire legal profession.

— News service reports