A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order to shut down the Education Department and ordered the agency to reinstate employees who were fired in mass layoffs. It marks a setback to one of Trump’s campaign promises.
Meanwhile, House Republicans stayed up all night to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package, with Speaker Mike Johnson defying the skeptics and unifying his ranks to muscle Trump's priority bill to approval.
With last-minute concessions and stark warnings from Trump, the Republican holdouts largely dropped their opposition to salvage the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that’s central to the GOP agenda.
Here's the latest:
Hundreds of state lawmakers urge Congressional leaders to keep hands off Planned Parenthood funding
As House Republicans passed their multitrillion-dollar budget bill overnight, 562 state lawmakers signed a letter to Congressional leadership urging them not to prohibit Medicaid funds from going to Planned Parenthood and calling the organization “an integral and irreplaceable part of the health care system.”
″‘Defunding’ Planned Parenthood blocks patients from getting the care they need and increases health care costs for everyone,” the letter said.
Anti-abortion groups have long taken aim at Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding through a mounting initiative called Defund Planned Parenthood.
The federal Hyde Amendment already restricts government funding for most abortions, and less than 5% of the services Planned Parenthood provides are abortions, according to the organization’s 2023 annual report. Contraceptive services and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections make up the vast majority of its medical care. It also performs more cancer screening and prevention procedures than abortions, according to the report.
Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff to lead US delegation to next round of nuclear talks with Iran
That’s according to an American official familiar with the matter who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity to discuss an upcoming private diplomatic meeting.
Witkoff and the State Department’s director of policy planning Michael Anton will attend Friday’s talks in Rome that had been announced earlier by Oman’s foreign minister whose country has been mediating the talks, the official said.
The talks, which will be the fifth round of direct and indirect discussions, are expected to be held at the Omani embassy in the Italian capital.
— Matthew Lee
The US government will no longer make cents
The U.S. Mint has made its final order of penny blanks and plans to stop making the coin when those run out, a Treasury official confirmed Thursday.
The move is expected to produce an immediate annual savings of $56 million in reduced material costs, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the news.
In February, President Trump announced he ordered his administration to cease production of the 1-cent coin.
Advocates for ditching the penny cite its high production cost — currently almost 4 cents per penny, according to the U.S. Mint — and limited utility. Fans of the penny cite its usefulness in charity drives and relative bargain in production costs compared with the nickel, which costs almost 14 cents to mint.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news.
— Fatima Hussein
Nonprofits sue Justice Department over canceled criminal justice and victims group grants
The five organizations that had grants terminated by the U.S. Department of Justice in April are suing the department and Attorney General Pam Bondi calling the cancellations unconstitutional and asking that the money be reinstated.
The lawsuit filed late Wednesday by the Vera Institute of Justice, the Center for Children & Youth Justice, Chinese for Affirmative Action, FORCE Detroit and Health Resources in Action, asks a federal judge to vacate the midstream grant cancellations.
They ask the court to award class status to the awardees for the more than 360 grants initially worth $820 million that were canceled last month, naming both the Office of Justice Programs and its acting agency head as additional defendants.
Judge blocks Trump administration’s mass layoffs at the Education Department
The federal judge on Thursday blocked Trump’s executive order to shut down the Education Department and ordered the agency to reinstate employees who were fired in mass layoffs.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Trump administration from carrying out two plans announced in March that sought to work toward Trump’s goal to dismantle the department. It marks a setback to one of the Republican president’s campaign promises.
▶ Read more about Trump’s effort to shut down the Education Department
Democrats decry Trump’s crypto dinner as selling access to the White House
The dinner Trump is hosting at his suburban Washington golf club is for top investors in a meme coin controlled by his family.
Sen Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, says the dinner means “in effect putting a for sale sign on the White House.”
“It’s auctioning off access,” Blumenthal said on a press call.
The senator said those attending Thursday night’s dinner don’t have to file any federal paperwork — despite enriching the Trump Organization — because crypto currency isn’t regulated like traditional campaign donations.
Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts said during a contentious House hearing earlier this month, “Never in American history has a sitting president so blatantly violated the ethics laws.”
United Arab Emirates condemns fatal shooting of Israeli Embassy staffers
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its condolences and solidarity with the families of the victims and with the Israeli people over the attack.
The UAE agreed to normalize relations with Israel in a U.S.-brokered deal in 2020, the first of the so-called Abraham Accords that Israel eventually concluded with four Arab nations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken with parents of slain embassy staffers
Netanyahu “told the families that he shares in their deep sorrow, together with the entire Jewish People,” his office said in a statement.
The prime minister also spoke with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, his office said.
US envoy to Israel calls Israel embassy staffer killings an ‘act of terror’
“It is just a horrific tragedy, an act of terror, and another way in which we have to recognize Jewish people all over the world are being singled out for these kind of horrible attacks,” U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said in an interview on Fox & Friends.
Huckabee went on to push back against critics of Israel’s execution of the war in Gaza, blaming Hamas for the war dragging on.
“We’ve got a lot of ignorant, idiotic people who don’t seem to understand the difference between right and wrong,” Huckabee said. “It shouldn’t be that complicated.”
The crypto industry saw Trump as a champion. Some now fear he’s putting personal profits first
It seems like a triumph for a cryptocurrency industry that has long sought mainstream acceptance: Top investors in one of President Trump’s crypto projects invited to dine with him at his luxury golf club in Northern Virginia on the heels of the Senate advancing key pro-crypto legislation and while bitcoin prices soar.
But Thursday night’s dinner for the 220 biggest investors in the $TRUMP meme coin has raised uncomfortable questions about potentially shadowy buyers using the anonymity of the internet to buy access to the president.
While Democrats charge that Trump is using the power of the presidency to boost profits for his family business, even some pro-Trump crypto enthusiasts worry that the president’s push into meme coins isn’t helping their efforts to establish the credibility, stability and legitimacy they had thought his administration would bring to their businesses.
▶ Read more about Trump and crypto
Trump celebrates passage of his ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’
The president in his morning social media posting praised House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leadership for getting his major tax bill through the lower chamber.
Now, he’s pushing Senate Republicans to get moving and notch a political win on Democrats.
“it’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work, and send this Bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!” Trump said. “There is no time to waste. The Democrats have lost control of themselves, and are aimlessly wandering around, showing no confidence, grit, or determination.”
Planned Parenthood says barring it from Medicaid funding could have a major impact
The group says a provision barring it from receiving Medicaid funds could lead to one-third of its health centers closing.
Planned Parenthood said about 200 centers are at risk — most of them in states where abortion is legal. The nation’s largest abortion provider also offers other health services, including birth control and cancer screening. State Medicaid money covers abortion in some states, but not others.
“We’re in a fight for survival — not just for Planned Parenthood, but for the ability of everyone to get high-quality, non-judgmental health care,” Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America celebrated the provision, saying in a statement, “Congress took a big step toward stopping taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry.”
Institute of Peace reclaims its headquarters after court win over Musk’s cost-cutting team
The U.S. Institute of Peace retook control of its headquarters Wednesday, two days after a federal judge said the firing of its board and employees by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was illegal.
The institute’s acting president, George Moose, entered the organization’s headquarters with private security and the institute’s outside attorney for the first time since being escorted off the premises during the DOGE takeover. Moose and most of the institute’s board were fired in March, part of the mass slashing of the federal workforce spearheaded by Musk.
The institute and many of its board members filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration soon after, seeking to prevent their removal and stop DOGE from taking over its operations. U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell’s opinion on Monday reversed DOGE’s actions.
Speaking after a short examination of the headquarters, Moose said all appeared to be in order.
▶ Read more about USIP
Here’s what’s inside the tax bill
Republicans made one last round of revisions before the bill reached the House floor, boosting the state and local tax deduction to win over centrists and speeding up the work requirements in Medicaid to win over those who didn’t believe the bill did enough to curb spending.
Here’s a look at what’s in the legislative package, which is expected to undergo more changes when it goes to the Senate:
1. Tax cuts for individuals and businesses
2. Parents and older Americans face work requirements for food assistance
3. And new work requirements for Medicaid
4. No taxes on gun silencers, no money for Planned Parenthood and more
5. ‘Trump’ kids $1,000 savings accounts
6. Funding for Trump’s mass deportation operation
7. More money for the Pentagon and Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’
8. Tax on university endowments and overhaul of student loans
9. More drilling, mining on public lands
▶ Read more about what’s inside the bill
House Republicans pass Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and program cuts after all-night session
House Republicans stayed up all night to pass their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package, with Speaker Mike Johnson defying the skeptics and unifying his ranks to muscle Trump’s priority bill to approval Thursday.
With last-minute concessions and stark warnings from Trump, the Republican holdouts largely dropped their opposition to salvage the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that’s central to the GOP agenda. The House launched debate before midnight and by dawn the vote was called, 215-214, with Democrats staunchly opposed. It next goes to the Senate.
“To put it simply, this bill gets Americans back to winning again,” said Johnson, R-La.
The outcome caps an intense time on Capitol Hill, with days of private negotiations and public committee hearings, many happening back-to-back, around-the-clock. Republicans insisted their sprawling 1,000-page-plus package was what voters sent them to Congress — and Trump to the White House — to accomplish. They believe it will be “rocket fuel,” as one put it during debate, for the uneasy U.S. economy.
▶ Read more about the passage of the bill in the House
The Associated Press
