19 states sue over DEI funding threat

Nineteen states that refused to comply with a Trump administration directive aimed at eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools went a step further Friday, filing a federal lawsuit challenging what they consider an illegal threat to cut federal funding.

The lawsuit filed in Massachusetts by Democratic attorneys general, including from Minnesota and Wisconsin, seeks to block the Department of Education from withholding money based on its April 3 directive ordering states to certify their compliance with civil rights laws, including the rejection of what the federal government calls “illegal DEI practices.” States also were told to gather signatures from local school systems certifying their compliance by April 24.

Instead, the plaintiffs informed the government that they stand by their prior certifications of compliance with the law but refuse to abandon policies that promote equal access to education.

Federal judge preserves union rights for now

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing an executive order that a labor union says would cancel collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that a key part of President Donald Trump’s March 27 order can’t be enforced at roughly three dozen agencies and departments where employees are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union.

The union, which represents nearly 160,000 federal government employees workers, sued to challenge Trump’s order. The union said it would lose more than half of its revenue and over two-thirds of its membership if the judge denied its request for a preliminary injunction.

Order eases firings of probationary workers

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Thursday making it easier for the government to fire federal employees who are in a probationary period.

Probationary government workers already have far fewer job protections than their established colleagues, and they were the Trump administration’s first targets for mass firings earlier this year. At least 24,000 of those terminations led to court-ordered reinstatements that were overturned on appeals.

Normally, probationary federal employees attain full status in one or two years, depending on the job — unless the agency they work for takes steps to dismiss them, which usually involves citing poor performance.

Under the executive order, whose implications were outlined in a White House fact sheet, probationary employees will only attain full status if their managers review and sign off on their performance.

Firings of food-safety scientists reversed

Federal health officials have reversed the decision to fire a few dozen scientists at the Food and Drug Administration’s food-safety labs, and say they are conducting a review to determine if other critical posts were cut.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the rehirings and said that several employees would also be restored to the offices that deal with Freedom of Information requests, an area that was nearly wiped out.

In the last few months, roughly 3,500 FDA jobs, about 20%, were eliminated, representing one of the largest workforce reductions among all government agencies targeted by the Trump administration.

The HHS spokesperson said those employees called back had been inadvertently fired because of inaccurate job classification codes.

Auto crash rule changes would benefit Musk

Rule changes announced by the Trump administration this week could allow automakers to report fewer crashes involving self-driving cars, with Tesla potentially emerging as the main beneficiary.

The Transportation Department announced Thursday that it will no longer require automakers to report certain kinds of non-fatal crashes — but the exception will apply only to partial self-driving vehicles using so-called Level 2 systems, the kind Tesla deploys. Tesla CEO Elon Musk had complained the old reporting rules cast his company in a bad light.

If Tesla and other automakers are required to report fewer crashes into a national database, that could make it more difficult for regulators to catch equipment defects and for the public to access information about a company’s overall safety, auto industry analysts say. It will also allow Tesla to trumpet a cleaner record to sell more cars.

Tesla stock soared nearly 10% Friday on the rule changes.

Plan would terminate local Narcan funding

The opioid overdose reversal medication commercially known as Narcan saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year and is routinely praised by public health experts for contributing to the continuing drop in opioid-related deaths. But the Trump administration plans to terminate a $56 million annual grant program that distributes doses and trains emergency responders in communities across the country to administer them, according to a draft budget proposal.

In the document, which outlines details of the drastic reorganization and shrinking planned for the Department of Health and Human Services, the grant is among many addiction prevention and treatment programs to be zeroed out.

States and local governments have other resources for obtaining doses of Narcan, which is also known by its generic name, naloxone. One of the main sources, a program of block grants for states to use to pay for various measures to combat opioid addiction, does not appear to have been cut. But addiction specialists are worried about the symbolic as well as practical implications of shutting down a federal grant designated specifically for naloxone training and distribution.

DOJ to crack down on leaks to news media

The Justice Department is poised to crack down on leaks of information to the news media, authorizing prosecutors to issue subpoenas to news organizations as part of leak investigations, serve search warrants when appropriate and force journalists to testify about their sources.

New regulations, announced by Attorney General Pam Bondi in a memo to the workforce obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, rescind a Biden administration policy that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations — a practice long decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.

The new regulations assert that news organizations must respond to subpoenas “when authorized at the appropriate level of the Department of Justice” and also allow for prosecutors to use court orders and search warrants to “compel production of information and testimony by and relating to the news media.”

— News service reports