President Donald Trump’s executive order to facilitate the closure of the U.S. Education Department is met with protests and court challenges. Elon Musk focuses his attention on the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media that the billionaire cost-cutter will discuss “innovation, efficiencies & smarter production.” Leaders at dozens of universities facing Trump administration investigations scramble to distance themselves from a nonprofit that helped Black and Latino students pursue business degrees. And the arrests of Canadian and European visitors at U.S. borders has some saying no one is safe to come to America as a tourist anymore.

Here’s the Latest:

Education Secretary Says She’ll ‘Unwind’ Regulations

Linda McMahon said she is preparing to relocate the Education Department’s core operations to other agencies and roll back federal regulations.

She sketched out a roadmap for executing President Donald Trump’s order to dismantle the agency in an opinion piece published Friday by Fox News.

McMahon said abolishing the department “will not happen tomorrow,” but she plans to pave the way.

“We will systematically unwind unnecessary regulations and prepare to reassign the department’s other functions to the states or other agencies,” McMahon wrote.

Related Story: Trump Orders a Plan to Dismantle the Education Department While Keeping Some Core Functions

Another Republican Lawmaker Tries to Calm Fears Over Social Security

Speaking to his constituents on a tele-town hall on Friday morning, Florida Rep. Gus Bilirakis defended DOGE’s efforts to fire federal workers and dismantle federal agencies, saying the push has faced a “gross overreaction in the media.”

“It looks radical, but it’s not. I call it stewardship, in my opinion,” the Republican said. “I think they’re doing right by the American taxpayer.”

Bilirakis sought to calm the older adults and veterans who complained about efforts to slash even the agencies that have bipartisan support.

“Elon Musk will not touch Social Security,” he said.

Musk has described Social Security and other federal benefit programs as rife with fraud, suggesting they’ll be a primary target in his crusade to reduce government spending.

Some Members of Congress Face Tough Crowds at Town Halls

House Speaker Mike Johnson warned them against facing protesters, but GOP Reps. Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy of Utah did so anyway in liberal Salt Lake City, and got earfuls from the boisterous audience.

Many urged Maloy to denounce Trump’s sweeping federal budget cuts, but she said getting the country out of its financial situation will require “all of us feeling some pain.”

To jeers from the crowd Thursday, Kennedy defended Trump’s actions. Many questions focused on how federal cuts might impact Utah’s vast public lands. Both lawmakers said they had little power to influence Trump’s decisions.

Detained Columbia University Student Activist Appears Before Immigration Judge in Louisiana

Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, sat alone next to an empty chair inside the detention center. His lawyer participated by video conference. The brief session dealt only with scheduling — the judge set a fuller hearing for April 8 — as his lawyers try in multiple venues to free him.

Khalil briefly smiled at two supporters who attended, but he otherwise showed no expression.

Born in Syria to a Palestinian family and married to a U.S. citizen, Khalil served as a spokesperson and negotiator for Columbia students demonstrating against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza last year. He was detained by immigration agents in a crackdown on what Trump calls antisemitic and “anti-American” campus protests.

Khalil said in a statement Tuesday that his detention reflects “anti-Palestinian racism” in the U.S.

Related Story: How Trump’s Tariffs Affect US Farmers

Trump Administration Is Debating Invoking a ‘State Secrets Privilege’ Around Deportation Flights

That’s according to a court filing Friday by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in response to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s demand for details about flights carrying Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador.

Blanche said “ongoing Cabinet-level discussions” continue on whether to provide the details or make a formal claim that revealing them would harm “state secrets.”

The administration has called the judge’s request an “unnecessary judicial fishing” expedition, while Boasberg called its previous response “woefully insufficient,” increasing the possibility he may hold administration officials in contempt.

The judge temporarily blocked deportations under an 18th century wartime law. He is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Friday afternoon.

After Job Cuts, National Weather Service Says Its Eliminating or Reducing Weather Balloon Launches

Weather balloon launches will be eliminated in Omaha, Nebraska; and Rapid City, South Dakota; “due to a lack of Weather Forecast Office (WFO) staffing,” the weather service said in a notice. It’s also cutting from twice daily to once daily balloon launches in Aberdeen, South Dakota; Grand Junction, Colorado; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Gaylord, Michigan; North Platte, Nebraska; and Riverton, Wyoming.

Earlier this month, the Weather Service had announced weather balloon cuts in Albany, New York; and Gray, Maine.

Until hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000 cuts at NOAA were imposed by the Trump administration, the weather agency had been launching weather balloon twice a day in 100 locations in the United States, Caribbean and Pacific Basin. The weather balloons have devices attached that measure temperature, dew point, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction.

Trump’s Call to Dismantle Education Department Shows Republican Rightward Lurch and His Grip on GOP

A little more than 23 years ago, Republican President George W. Bush sat at a desk at a high school in Hamilton, Ohio, and signed a law that would vastly expand the role of the Education Department and transform American schooling.

On Thursday, his Republican successor, President Trump, signed a very different document — this one an executive order designed to dismantle the department.

For years, as right-wing activists called for eliminating the agency, many Republicans paid lip service to the cause but still voted to fund it. Now Trump, emboldened and unapologetic in his drastic remaking of the federal government, has brushed aside concerns that deterred his predecessors.

Democrats’ New Internet Strategy Tops Trending Charts but Also Draws Mockery From Allies and Foes

For weeks, Democratic lawmakers have met with and mimicked figures they believe may offer them a path back to power in Washington: online influencers and content creators.

Hours before President Trump’s joint address to Congress this month, Senate Democrats huddled with a dozen online progressive personalities who have millions of followers. House Democrats were introduced, without staff, to 40 content creators who Democratic leaders said could help them grow their audience online.

An earlier tutorial session in February featured online personalities like the YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.

The result has been a burst of Democratic online content, including direct-to-camera explainers in parked cars, scripted vertical videos, podcast appearances and livestreams — some topping trending charts online, others drawing mockery from liberal allies and Republicans in Congress.

Judge Calls Trump Administration’s Latest Response on Deportation Flights ‘Woefully Insufficient’

U.S. District Judge Jeb Boasberg demanded answers from the Trump administration after flights carrying Venezuelan immigrants alleged by the Trump administration to be gang members landed in El Salvador after the judge temporarily blocked deportations under an 18th century wartime law.

Boasberg had given the administration until noon Thursday to either provide more details about the flights or make a claim that it must be withheld because it would harm “state secrets.” The administration resisted the judge’s request, calling it an “unnecessary judicial fishing” expedition.

In a written order, Boasberg called Trump officials’ latest response “woefully insufficient.” The judge said the administration “again evaded its obligations” by merely repeating “the same general information about the flights.” And he ordered the administration to “show cause,” as to why it didn’t violate his court order to turn around the planes, increasing the prospect that he may consider holding administration officials in contempt of court.

Maine Found in Violation of Title IX Over Transgender Athletes After Trump Clashed With Governor

Maine’s education office is being ordered to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports or face federal prosecution.

The Education Department on Wednesday said an investigation concluded Maine’s education office violated the Title IX antidiscrimination law by allowing transgender girls to compete on girls’ sports teams and use girls’ facilities. It’s giving Maine 10 days to comply with a list of demands or face Justice Department prosecution.

The federal investigation into Maine’s Department of Education was opened Feb. 21, just hours after Trump and the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, clashed over the issue at a meeting of governors at the White House. During the heated exchange, Mills told the Republican president, “We’ll see you in court.”

Facing Anti-DEI Investigations, Colleges Cut Ties With Nonprofit Targeted by Conservatives

Last week, the Education Department said it was investigating dozens of universities for alleged racial discrimination, citing ties to the nonprofit organization. That followed a warning a month earlier that schools could lose federal money over “race-based preferences” in admissions, scholarships or any aspect of student life.

The investigations left some school leaders startled and confused, wondering what prompted the inquiries. Many scrambled to distance themselves from The PhD Project, which has aimed to help diversify the business world and higher education faculty.

The rollout of the investigations highlights the climate of fear and uncertainty in higher education, which President Donald Trump’s administration has begun policing for policies that run afoul of his agenda even as he moves to dismantle the Education Department.

Trump’s Plan to Dismantle the Education Department Will Keep Some of Its Core Functions

Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979. Republicans said they will introduce legislation to achieve that, while Democrats have quickly lined up to oppose the idea.

Trump’s order says the education secretary will, “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”

It offers no detail on how that work will be carried out or where it will be targeted, though the White House said the agency will retain certain critical functions.

Trump said his administration will close the department beyond its “core necessities,” preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants and money for children with disabilities.