President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday that seeks greater authority over regulatory agencies that Congress established as independent from direct White House control, part of a broader bid to centralize a president’s power over the government.

The order requires independent agencies to submit their proposed regulations to the White House for review, asserts a power to block such agencies from spending funds on projects or efforts that conflict with presidential priorities, and declares that they must accept the president’s and the Justice Department’s interpretation of the law as binding.

The order follows Trump’s summary firings of leaders of independent agencies in defiance of statutes that bar their removal without cause before their terms are up. Collectively, the moves constitute a major front in the president’s assault on the basic shape of the American government and his effort to seize some of Congress’s constitutional power over it.

The directive applies to various executive branch agencies that Congress established and empowered to regulate aspects of the economy, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.

The order declared that the White House’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell T. Vought, can withhold funding for any projects or initiatives that conflict with Trump’s policies and priorities.

Specifically, it said, Vought will have the power to “adjust such agencies’ apportionments by activity, function, project, or object, as necessary and appropriate, to advance the president’s policies and priorities,” including by prohibiting them from expending funds on matters Trump does not like.

That power for Vought to restrict agencies’ ability to spend funds that Congress has appropriated for them to use, the order says, is limited: He can do that only “so long as such restrictions are consistent with law.” But another section of the order says the agencies must accept the views of Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi on what the law means.

Lutnick confirmed to lead Commerce Dept.

The Senate confirmed wealthy financier Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary Tuesday, putting in place a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump’s hardline trade polices.

At the Commerce Department, Lutnick, who was CEO at the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, will oversee 50,000 employees who do everything from collecting economic statistics to running the census to issuing weather reports. But he’s likely to spend a lot of time — along with Jamieson Greer, Trump’s nominee to be the top U.S. trade negotiator — managing the president’s aggressive plans to impose import taxes on U.S. trading partners, including allies and adversaries alike.

The Senate vote to confirm Lutnick was 51-45.

At his confirmation hearing last month, Lutnick dismissed as “nonsense’’ the idea that tariffs contribute to inflation. He expressed support for deploying across-the-board tariffs ”country by country’’ to strong-arm other countries into lowering barriers to American exports.

Bishops sue over refugee policy

Catholic bishops have sued the Trump administration over its abrupt halt to funding of refugee resettlement, calling the action unlawful and harmful to newly arrived refugees and to the nation’s largest private resettlement program.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the administration, by withholding millions even for reimbursements of costs incurred before the sudden cut-off of funding, violates various laws and the constitutional provision giving the power of the purse to Congress, which already approved the funding.

The conference’s Migration and Refugee Services has sent layoff notices to 50 workers, more than half its staff, with additional cuts expected in local Catholic Charities offices that partner with the national office, the lawsuit said.

Trump ends legal aid for migrant children

The Trump administration on Tuesday stopped support for legal representation in immigration court for children who enter the United States alone, a setback for those fighting deportation who can’t afford a lawyer.

The Acacia Center for Justice says it serves 26,000 migrant children under its federal contract. The Interior Department gave no explanation for the stop-work order, telling the group only that it was done for “causes outside of your control” and should not be interpreted as a judgment of poor performance. The halt remains in effect until further notice.

The Interior Department and Health and Human Services Department, which oversees unaccompanied migrant children, did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.

Acacia says it runs the legal aid program through a network of 85 organizations nationwide that represent children under 18.

DOGE sets sights on Pentagon staff cuts

Department of Government Efficiency staffers were at the Pentagon on Tuesday and receiving lists of the military’s probationary employees, U.S. officials said.

However, it was not clear that all probationary personnel would be let go — instead, some might be exempted due to the critical nature of their work. The military services each had until end of business Tuesday to identify their probationary employees.

The affected personnel would include defense civilians who are still new to their jobs, not uniformed military personnel, who are exempt, according to the four officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Judge: Pentagon trans order ‘frankly ridiculous’

A federal judge on Tuesday questioned President Donald Trump’s motives for issuing an executive order that calls for banning transgender troops from serving in the U.S. military, describing a portion of the directive as “frankly ridiculous.”

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes indicated that she won’t rule before early March on whether to temporarily block the Trump administration from enforcing the order, which plaintiffs’ attorneys have said illegally discriminates against transgender troops.

But her questions and remarks during Tuesday’s hearing suggest that she is deeply skeptical of the administration’s reasoning for ordering a policy change. Reyes also lauded the service of several active-duty troops who sued to block the order.

Trump’s order also says that “use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex” is inconsistent with a government policy to “establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.”

Reyes said it is “frankly ridiculous” to suggest that pronoun usage could impact the military readiness of the U.S. armed forces.

Judge allows access to U.S. education data

A U.S. District Court judge in Washington declined to bar associates of Elon Musk from gaining access to the Education Department’s data systems, finding that the University of California Student Association, which sued to block the incursion, had not shown that students were irreparably harmed in the process.

In an order Monday, Judge Randolph D. Moss wrote that lawyers representing the students had failed to show that sensitive student data from the department’s databases had been illegally disseminated in a way that would justify an emergency restraining order barring Musk’s team from the agency’s systems.

Trump order would study IVF access

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to study how to expand access to in vitro fertilization and make it more affordable.

The order calls for policy recommendations to “protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments,” according to the White House. On the campaign trail, Trump called for universal coverage of IVF treatment after his Supreme Court nominees helped to overturn Roe v. Wade, leading to a wave of restrictions in Republican-led states, including some that have threatened access to IVF by trying to define life as beginning at conception.

— From news services