The Latest: Supreme Court keeps Trump’s $5 billion foreign aid funding freeze in place

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The Supreme Court on Friday extended an order that allows President Donald Trump ’s administration to keep frozen nearly $5 billion in foreign aid, handing him another victory in a dispute over presidential power.

With the three liberal justices in dissent, the court’s conservative majority granted the Republican administration’s emergency appeal in a case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid. Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.

The Justice Department sought the high court’s intervention after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled that Trump’s action was likely illegal and that Congress would have to approve the decision to withhold the funding.

Here's the latest:

The FBI’s dismissal of agents who took a knee during a demonstration following the 2020 killing of Floyd comes amid a broader personnel purge at the bureau under Director Kash Patel.

Five agents and top-level executives were known to have been summarily fired last month in a wave of ousters that current and former officials say has contributed to declining morale.

One helped oversee investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Another served as acting director in the early days of the Trump administration and resisted Justice Department demands to supply the names of agents who investigated Jan. 6. A third was incorrectly rumored on social media to have participated in the investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

A lawsuit filed last week by three of the fired agents alleged that Patel understood the firings were “likely illegal” but had to carry them out because he was ordered to do so by the White House.

Patel has denied taking orders from the White House on whom to fire and has said anyone who has been fired failed to meet bureau standards.

The federal judge in Minnesota found that Lindell falsely claimed that Smartmatic’s voting machines helped rig the 2020 presidential election, identifying 51 instances in which he made false claims.

However the question of whether Lindell acted with “actual malice” will not be resolved until later — Smartmatic needs to prove that to collect damages.

Attorney Erik Connolly said Smartmatic will be seeking “nine-figure damages” from Lindell and MyPillow for “spreading lies” and “Smartmatic did not and could not have rigged the 2020 election.”

The agents were photographed at a protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, three people familiar with the matter said Friday.

The bureau reassigned the agents last spring but has since fired them, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel matters with The Associated Press.

The number of employees dismissed was not immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20.

An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

— Eric Tucker

The man’s claim seeks $50 million in damages and says federal agents violated his civil rights when they tackled him during the Sept. 9 raid at a car wash.

Car wash owner Rafie Ollah Shouhed suffered several broken ribs, chest trauma and elbow injuries and has symptoms of a traumatic brain injury, according to the claim. Shouhed is a naturalized U.S citizen from Iran.

The claim was filed against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection.

A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that authorities arrested five people from Guatemala and Mexico “who broke our nation’s immigration laws” and alleged that Shouhed “impeded the operation and was arrested for assaulting and impeding a federal officer.”

Shouhed and his attorney V. James DeSimone denied that accusation.

The complaint filed Friday by 16 states and the District of Columbia alleges that threats by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to pull funding over curricula mentioning diverse gender identities violate federal law and Congress’ spending power.

“Through threatening letters and coercive terms and conditions, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is attempting to force Plaintiff States to rewrite sexual health curricula to erase entire categories of students,” the complaint says.

HHS wants to prohibit the inclusion of what it describes as “gender ideology” in lessons funded by the Personal Responsibility Education Program and the Title V Sexual Risk Avoidance Education program.

The lawsuit comes after HHS warned states in August that they had 60 days to change lessons or lose grants. California was warned previously, and its $12 million grant was withdrawn Aug. 21.

HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new rules announced Friday make getting commercial driver’s licenses extremely hard for immigrants because only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible.

States will also have to verify an applicant’s immigration status in a federal database. These licenses will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner than that.

A nationwide commercial driver’s license audit began after officials say a driver in the country illegally made a U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. Fatal truck crashes in Texas and Alabama earlier this year also highlight questions about these licenses.

▶ Read more about the new rules

For a Justice Department facing intense White House pressure to investigate perceived presidential enemies, indicting former FBI Director James Comey was the easy part.

Building a case that can sway a jury beyond a reasonable doubt is a significantly tougher task, but like in other cases of investigations of Trump’s critics, that increasingly seems to be almost beside the point.

As the administration aims to comply with Trump’s ordered prosecutions, officials have signaled that making life uncomfortable for targets of retribution — including through reputational harm, legal fees and lingering uncertainty — is a desired goal in its own right, separate and apart from the ability to secure a guilty verdict.

It’s a sharp break for a department that for decades, under bipartisan leadership, has been hesitant to bring cases unless it believes it can win, securing convictions in the overwhelming majority of prosecutions it initiates.

After Nexstar Media Group joined Sinclair Broadcast Group in bringing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” back to its local TV stations Friday, Matthew Dolgin, senior equity analyst at research firm Morningstar, said he wasn’t surprised.

“The relationship with Disney is far too important for these firms to risk,” Dolgin said.

And setting aside legal rights from either side, Dolgin added, “Disney would’ve been free to take its affiliate agreements elsewhere in 2026 if these relationships were too difficult. That scenario would be devastating to Nexstar and Sinclair.”

The companies suspended the program over the comedian’s comments related to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

But now Kimmel will once again air on Nexstar’s ABC affiliates in 28 cities, along with the 38 stations where Sinclair agreed to restore the show.

The department has been pulling back grants already announced for recreational trails and bicycle lanes, telling local officials that their projects fail to promote road capacity or are “hostile to motor vehicles.”

The department recently sent letters to local governments in at least six states — Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Mexico — informing them it was withdrawing money awarded under the $1.1 trillion infrastructure law former President Joe Biden signed in 2021.

The reversals are among the clearest signals yet of the drastic shift from the Biden administration’s emphasis on alternative transportation, such as transit and biking, to the Trump administration’s focus on preserving and expanding lanes for cars and trucks.

While the new grants Trump’s transportation department announced this year reflect that change, it’s practically unprecedented for an administration to claw back grants awarded by a predecessor without a compelling reason, such as potential environmental harms.

▶ Read more about the projects here

Friday’s high court decision extended an order that allows Trump’s administration to keep frozen nearly $5 billion in foreign aid, handing him another victory in a dispute over presidential power.

Nick Sansone, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group who represented the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition in the case, said the ruling “further erodes separation of powers principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order.”

“It will also have a grave humanitarian impact on vulnerable communities throughout the world.”

The White House is moving forward with a deal that would allow the U.S. government to take a small equity stake in a Canadian company that is developing one of the world’s largest lithium mines in northern Nevada, an official said.

The Department of Energy and Lithium Americas, developer of the proposed Thacker Pass lithium mine and processing plant about 200 miles north of Reno, have agreed on changes to a $2.3 billion federal loan that could allow the project to move forward to extract the silver-white metal used in electric vehicle batteries.

General Motors has pledged more than $900 million to help develop Thacker Pass, which holds enough lithium to build 1 million electric vehicles annually.

The proposed equity stake in Vancouver-based Lithium Americas is the latest example of the Trump administration intervening directly in private companies.

“We support the project moving forward,’′ said the White House official, who was granted anonymity in order to talk about a deal that is not yet completed.

— Matthew Daly

▶ Read more about the proposed deal here

Nexstar Media Group joined Sinclair Broadcast Group in bringing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” back to its local TV stations on Friday, restoring the late-night talk show to the full slate of ABC affiliates across the U.S.

The companies suspended the program over the comedian’s comments related the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The move means “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will return to local TV on Nexstar’s ABC affiliates in 28 cities, along with the 38 stations where Sinclair agreed to restore the show.

Trump made the announcement on his social media site shortly after he returned to the White House from attending the Ryder Cup golf tournament in New York.

He said Earhart’s story is such an “interesting story” and that “many people” have asked him about it and whether he’d consider declassifying and making public everything the government knows about her, including her final flight.

Earhart’s plane vanished in 1937 during her attempt to fly around the world.

“Her disappearance, almost 90 years ago, has captivated millions,” Trump wrote. “I am ordering my Administration to declassify and release all Government Records related to Amelia Earhart, her final trip, and everything else about her.”

The Supreme Court on Friday extended an order that allows President Donald Trump’s administration to keep frozen nearly $5 billion in foreign aid, handing him another victory in a dispute over presidential power.

The court acted on the Republican administration’s emergency appeal in a case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid. Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.

The Justice Department sought the high court’s intervention after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled that Trump’s action was likely illegal and that Congress would have to approve the decision to withhold the funding.

The federal appeals court in Washington declined to put Ali’s ruling on hold, but Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked it on Sept. 9. The full court indefinitely extended Roberts’ order.

The helicopter landed at 4:18 p.m.

Wearing a blue suit and white golf shoes, Trump walked into the Oval Office with his granddaughter, Kai Trump, who is a competitive golfer at the collegiate level.

He didn’t stop to answer any questions from reporters and had nothing else on his public schedule for the rest of the day.

Security guards stand outside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building at 26 Federal Plaza, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith, file)

A federal immigration officer who shoved an Ecuadorian woman to the floor at a Manhattan court is “being relieved of current duties,” the Department of Homeland Security said Friday in a rare rebuke of one of its officers.

The altercation, which was captured on videos that spread quickly on social media, unfolded after the woman’s husband was arrested at an immigration court in New York City.

Footage shows the woman approach the immigration officer following her husband’s arrest, pleading with the officer in Spanish and at one point saying “You don’t care about anything,” before he pushes her into a wall and then onto the floor of a crowded hallway.

“The officer’s conduct in this video is unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at DHS, which oversees immigration enforcement.

It is extremely rare for the Trump administration’s DHS to discipline immigration officers for aggressive tactics across the U.S.

▶ Read more about the incident here

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that he has decided that the 19 soldiers who received the Medal of Honor for their actions in 1890 at Wounded Knee will keep their awards in a video posted to social media Thursday evening.

Hegseth’s predecessor, Lloyd Austin, ordered the review of the awards in 2024 after a congressional recommendation in the 2022 defense bill — itself a reflection of efforts by some lawmakers to rescind the awards for those who participated in the bloody massacre on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation near Wounded Knee Creek.

While the events of that day are sometimes described as a battle, historical records show that the U.S. Army, which was in the midst of a campaign to repress the tribes in the area, killed an estimated 250 Native Americans, including women and children, of the Lakota Sioux tribe, while attempting to disarm Native American fighters who had already surrendered at their camp.

“We’re making it clear that (the soldiers) deserve those medals,” Hegseth said in the video, before adding that “their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate.”

Trump is back at the airport in Farmingdale on New York’s Long Island after taking in a few hours of the golf tournament.

The U.S. trailed Europe when the president left.

He’s scheduled to return to Washington.