A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has temporarily halted President Trump’s radical plan to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, even though the money has already been appropriated by Congress. U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan said Tuesday she would decide by next week whether to make the injunction permanent. The ruling came after several nonprofits and attorneys general from 22 states filed lawsuits arguing the order would have a devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of recipients who rely on federal grants and loans for their operations. At the White House, newly minted Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s unprecedented actions.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: “It means no more funding for illegal DEI programs. It means no more funding for the green new scam that has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. It means no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies.”

As Trump’s federal spending freeze briefly took effect Tuesday, Medicaid reimbursement portals went down in all 50 states, cutting off compensation to hospitals and clinics that provide healthcare to children, low-income families and people with disabilities. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s actions would likely impact universities, nonprofits, food assistance programs, hospitals and rural health centers, organizations that assist disabled veterans and much more.

Sen. Chuck Schumer: “This decision is lawless. It’s destructive. It’s dangerous. It’s cruel. It’s illegal, and it’s unconstitutional. Donald Trump has done a lot of bad things in the last week, but nothing’s worse than this.”

Washington Democratic Senator Patty Murray called Trump’s executive order a “brazen and illegal move.” Maine independent Senator Angus King said, “If this stands, then Congress may as well adjourn.” Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders declared of Trump, “He is not a king.” We’ll have more on this story after headlines.

The White House has announced plans to offer all 2.3 million federal employees eight months of salary and benefits in exchange for their resignation, in a move condemned by labor unions as an unprecedented violation of laws governing buyout payments. A memo sent by the Office of Personnel Management to federal employees Tuesday urges anyone wishing to accept the deal to type the word “resign” into the body of an email replying to the offer. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 federal government and Washington, D.C., workers, said Trump’s goal was to create chaos. AFGE national president Everett Kelley said, “Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.”

President Trump on Monday fired two leaders of the National Labor Relations Board, in a major attack on workers’ rights and labor unions. Trump’s surprise removal of Democratic NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox came even though federal law says that board members can only be fired for neglect or malfeasance. Trump also ousted NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who wrote in a parting statement, “if the Agency does not fully effectuate its Congressional mandate in the future … I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands in order to get well-deserved dignity and respect in the workplace as well as a fair share of the significant value they add to their employer’s operations.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made her debut in the briefing room Tuesday admitting to reporters the Trump administration believes all undocumented immigrants are criminals and will be targeted for mass detention and deportation. Raids are taking place nationwide, with thousands arrested since Trump’s inauguration, including in Chicago and New York City, where Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, agents in operations that began Tuesday. ICE is reportedly planning a round of raids in Aurora, Colorado, this Thursday, and three more cities are expected to be targeted next week.

President Trump is signing the Laken Riley Act into law today, his first piece of legislation since returning to office. The bill expands mandatory detention and possible deportation of undocumented people who are accused, though not convicted, of nonviolent theft offenses such as shoplifting. This comes as ICE has been directed to meet a quota of between 1,200 to 1,500 arrests per day, as Trump plans to pack ICE detention centers, including those run by for-profit prison companies.

In related news, Oklahoma’s state Board of Education has unanimously approved a rule that will force parents to provide proof of their children’s citizenship and immigration status when they’re enrolled in school. The policy still needs to be approved by Oklahoma’s Legislature and governor.

Meanwhile, deportation flights from the U.S. to Colombia resumed Tuesday after a diplomatic spat over the abuse of asylum seekers who described being shackled. This is Carlos Gómez, a deportee who arrived in Bogotá Tuesday.

Carlos Gómez: “The food they served was bad. Sometimes they gave awful burritos, terrible food. And we were locked up and sleeping for 10 or 12 hours because we had nothing else to do. We didn’t even know if it was day or night. We were treated worse than prisoners.”

The Senate has confirmed Sean Duffy as secretary of transportation on a vote of 77 to 22. Duffy is a former reality TV star, climate denier and four-term Republican congressmember from Wisconsin who’s worked as a lobbyist since resigning from Congress in 2019. As his first official act, Duffy moved to roll back the Biden administration’s fuel efficiency standards for new cars and trucks.

On Monday, senators voted 68 to 29 to confirm billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as U.S. Treasury secretary, with 16 Democrats supporting the nomination. In a statement, Public Citizen called Bessent “an oligarch who spent a career serving rich clients,” adding, “By ignoring climate change as a financial risk, Trump’s Treasury Department under Bessent is on a path that could devastate hard-working families.”

Senate confirmation hearings open today for President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmental attorney known for spreading public health conspiracy theories and disinformation. He has claimed HIV may not cause AIDS, that COVID-19 was designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, and that chemicals in the U.S. water supply are leading more children to be gay and transgender. Ahead of RFK Jr.'s appearance before the Senate Committee on Finance, his cousin Caroline Kennedy, the former U.S. ambassador to Japan and Australia and daughter of President John F. Kennedy, called on senators to reject RFK Jr.'s nomination.

Caroline Kennedy: “I’ve known Bobby my whole life. We grew up together. It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets, because Bobby himself is a predator. … Bobby is addicted to attention and power. Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids while building a following hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.”

Kennedy’s confirmation hearing follows President Trump’s stop-work order for all global health funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. On Monday, the Trump administration explicitly ordered foreign health organizations to stop administering drugs for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis purchased with U.S. aid, even if healthcare workers already have the medications on hand. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver for lifesaving drugs under PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, started by former President George W. Bush, which is credited with saving more than 25 million lives worldwide. But it’s not clear whether Rubio’s waiver will reverse Trump’s freeze on funding for drugs for HIV/AIDS prevention, outreach and testing and other programs.

More than half a million people have returned to an “unrecognizable” northern Gaza in the past 72 hours, according to Palestinian authorities. People hoping to return home described the utter decimation of north Gaza after 15 months of relentless Israeli bombings and attacks.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least two Palestinians in fresh raids that began overnight. One of the victims was identified as 25-year-old Osama Omar Abu al-Haija from Jenin. This comes as Israeli lawmakers have advanced a bill that would further facilitate the theft and purchase of land for illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Israel has also continued its attacks on southern Lebanon, where at least five people were injured earlier today and another 24 were wounded on Tuesday in Israeli airstrikes.

Senate Democrats have blocked a bill that would sanction the International Criminal Court over its arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for possible war crimes in Gaza. U.N. experts and others have warned the legislation would set a dangerous precedent for the erosion of international law. This comes as Trump and Netanyahu are set to meet in the White House next week.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, protests broke out in Kinshasa Tuesday as people denounced inaction from the international community to end the raging conflict in the eastern city of Goma, where M23 forces have consolidated power. The U.N. says over half a million people have been forced to flee their homes in January alone due to the escalating violence in the eastern DRC. Congo’s foreign minister has called for targeted sanctions and an arms embargo on Rwanda over its backing of M23 soldiers, and for Rwanda to withdraw its troops from the region. Hundreds of foreign military contractors crossed into Rwanda from Goma today as they surrendered to the U.N. after M23 fighters consolidated control of the eastern DRC’s largest city. U.N. envoy for the DRC Vivian van de Perre addressed the Security Council Tuesday via video link from Goma wearing a helmet and flak jacket as she pleaded with Rwanda and DRC to work toward a diplomatic solution.

Vivian van de Perre: “We remind all parties of their obligation to uphold international humanitarian law and stress that attacks on United Nations peacekeepers may constitute war crimes. The degree of suffering that the population in Goma and its environs is enduring is truly unimaginable.”