The Trump administration says three major public school districts could lose $24 million in funding because of their policies supporting transgender students. The U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights had given New York City, Chicago, and Fairfax County, Virginia, schools until Tuesday to agree to changes. Among them were rescinding policies allowing students access to restrooms and locker rooms matching their gender identity. The department says the rules violate Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education. The districts risk losing funding for specialty magnet schools as a result.

Texas A&M University’s president is stepping down amid a controversy roiling the campus. In a statement issued Friday, Mark A. Welsh III did not say if political pressure and criticism he and the school received after a video showing a confrontation between a professor and a student over the teaching of gender identity in a children’s literature class played a role. Welsh said it had become clear to him in recent days that it was time for him to step down as leader of one of the largest universities in the country. Welsh’s resignation will take effect on Friday. The professor has since been fired.

President Donald Trump’s administration is asking the Supreme Court to let it enforce a passport policy for transgender and nonbinary people requiring male or female sex designations based on birth certificates. The Republican administration on Friday appealed a lower-court order allowing people use the gender or “X” identification marker that lines up with their gender identity. The government says it can’t be required to use sex designations it considers inaccurate on official identification documents. The plaintiffs say some transgender people had seen their passport applications returned with changed designations and others were afraid to submit applications. An attorney for the plaintiffs says the passport rules are discriminatory.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order Thursday "aimed at eliminating” the U.S. Education Department. Meanwhile a federal judge ordered the administration Thursday to provide more information about flights that took deportees to El Salvador, or make a formal “state secrets“ claim. The Justice Department has resisted, accusing the judge of encroaching on the executive branch’s “absolute and unreviewable” authority relating to national security and foreign policy. Trump's border czar has tallied 40,000 immigration-related arrests since Trump got into office. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has negotiated the release of an American hostage held for more than two years by the Taliban.

President Donald Trump began his second administration with a blitz of policy actions to reorient U.S. government priorities. He has covered issues from trade, immigration and U.S. foreign aid to demographic diversity, civil rights and the hiring of federal workers. Some have an immediate policy impact. Others are more symbolic. Some already are being challenged by federal lawsuits. In total, the Republican president’s sweeping actions reflect many of his campaign promises and determination to concentrate executive branch power in the West Wing, while moving the country sharply rightward.