The Latest: Trump administration moves to cut off transgender care for children

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday unveiled a series of regulatory actions designed to effectively ban gender-affirming care for minors, building on broader Trump administration restrictions on transgender Americans.

The sweeping proposals — the most significant moves this administration has taken so far to restrict the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical interventions for transgender children — include cutting off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children and prohibiting federal Medicaid funding from being used on such procedures.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that could reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The move could ease regulations and expand medical research by shifting marijuana from a Schedule I drug, like heroin, to a Schedule III substance, similar to ketamine.

The change won’t legalize recreational use nationwide but may alter regulation and taxation. President Joe Biden’s Justice Department had also proposed reclassifying marijuana, but Trump’s order on Thursday could speed up the process.

Here’s the latest:

Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the nation’s largest and oldest grassroots civil rights organization questioned what accomplishments make President Trump worthy to share billing with John F. Kennedy on the Kennedy Center.

“Donald Trump doesn’t actually do anything; he just brands it. And that hasn’t worked out too well for him,” Johnson said in a statement. “President Kennedy led America to the moon, championed the most significant civil rights legislation in our history, and steered the nation away from nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

Johnson said, meanwhile “Donald Trump is stoking military conflict with Venezuela, fanning the flames of hate and division, and significantly driving up costs and unemployment. It is pathetic to see his name placed alongside Kennedy’s at a cherished American institution.”

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson told a Minneapolis news conference the scale of fraud in Minnesota outpaces that of other states and puts services at risk for people who really need them.

He says about half or more of the roughly $18 billion in claims paid out by Medicaid to 14 Minnesota-run programs since 2018 may have been fraudulent.

A sign is shown as first Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson, not seen, delivers remarks during a news conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Office inside the United States Courthouse on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Minneapolis. (Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)

Investigators’ findings may bolster President Trump in his claims that Minnesota is a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” under Democratic Gov. Tim Walz. Trump has capitalized on the fraud cases to target the Somalian diaspora in Minnesota, which has the largest Somali population in the U.S.

Thompson said five people were charged Thursday in connection with a Minnesota housing services fraud. Eight others were charged in September for their alleged roles in the scheme to defraud the Minnesota Housing Stability Services Program.

▶Read more about the investigation here

The “top levels of government” were involved in bringing charges against Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, her defense attorney argued during closing arguments Thursday.

Prosecutors countered that Dugan put her personal beliefs above the law.

The jury got the case after a four-day trial.

The highly unusual charges against a sitting judge are an extraordinary consequence of President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Dugan’s supporters say Trump is looking to make an example of her to blunt judicial opposition to immigration arrests.

▶Read more about the trial

Legislation approved Thursday would speed up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects and limit judicial review.

The bill, known as the SPEED Act, would enact the most significant change in decades to the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law requires federal agencies to consider a project’s possible environmental impacts before it is approved.

Lawmakers approved the bill by a 221-196 vote, sending it to the Senate.

Republicans and many Democrats blame NEPA for red tape that routinely results in yearslong delays for major projects. The House bill would place statutory limits on environmental review.

It also limits who can bring legal challenges and legal remedies that courts can impose.

▶Read more about the legislation here.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued its long-awaited order as the Trump administration urges it to help the U.S. lead the world in artificial intelligence and revive domestic manufacturing.

The order could become a blueprint for how the commission handles a request from Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, to ensure that data centers and large manufacturers get the power they need as quickly as possible.

It comes amid concerns about electricity shortages in the coming years as the build-out of data centers outpaces the speed of new power sources coming online.

“I don’t know why we have to extend,” the president said of whether lawmakers needed to extend subsidies for insurance plans purchased by millions of Americans on health markets.

Trump added that he thought the insurance plans available through the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, were “unaffordable.”

He said he would prefer sending money directly to Americans for them to buy insurance.

“I want that money to go to the people directly and let the people buy their own health care,” said Trump.

The president’s envoys are set to meet with a top adviser to President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in Miami to discuss an evolving U.S. peace agreement aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Asked about the coming talks, Trump once again expressed optimism that a deal could be within reach. The U.S. leader again pressed Ukraine to come to terms to an agreement.

“Well, we’re getting close to something, but I hope Ukraine moves quickly because Russia is there” Trump said. “Every time they take too much time, Russia changes their mind.”

Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, whose committee has been conducting an investigation into a strike that killed two survivors of an initial attack on an alleged drug boat, says that he has confidence that President Donald Trump’s campaign is operating on “sound legal advice.”

Wicker’s statement essentially concludes the Senate Armed Services Committee’s review of the Sept. 2 strike, ending it on contrasting conclusions from Republicans and Democrats.

A number of Democratic lawmakers have said the strike killed two people who were helpless and clinging to the wreckage of the boat, but Republicans have emerged backing the Trump administration’s decisions.

“I have seen no evidence of war crimes. The fact is that our military is asked to make incredibly difficult decisions,” Wicker said.

That includes a public comment period that has drawn tens of thousands of reactions from across the U.S. The DEA was still in the review process when Trump took office in January.

Trump’s order is expected to speed the process along, though it was not immediately clear how long it might take.

Many states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana for adults or allow it for medical purposes. But U.S. laws have remained stricter, potentially leaving people subject to federal prosecution.

Trump’s order also calls for expanded research and access to CBD, a legal and increasingly popular hemp-derived product whose benefits are debated by experts.

▶Read more about the executive order here

Trump has signed an executive order that would reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug and open new avenues for medical research, a major shift in federal drug policy that inches closer to what many states have done.

The switch would move marijuana away from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. Cannabis would instead be a Schedule III substance, like ketamine and some anabolic steroids.

Reclassification by the Drug Enforcement Administration would not make it legal for recreational use by adults nationwide, but it could change how the drug is regulated and reduce a hefty tax burden on the cannabis industry.

Similarly, the Justice Department under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, proposed reclassifying marijuana to a Schedule III substance. Unlike Biden, Trump did not have open encouragement from across his party for the move. Some Republicans have spoken out in opposition to any changes and urged Trump to maintain current standards.

The president's handpicked board voted Thursday to rename Washington’s leading performing arts center as the Trump-Kennedy Center, the White House said.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the vote on social media, saying it was because of the “unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation.”

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was named by Congress.

An Illinois commission says it’ll document alleged harassment and abuse by federal agents amid an immigration crackdown in the Chicago area.

The group held its first hearing Thursday and focused on the wide use of chemical agents by federal agents.

The meeting came as a Border Patrol commander who was the face of the Chicago operation before leading similar crackdowns in North Carolina and Louisiana returned to the nation’s third-largest city.

The commission, formed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, is the latest resistance effort by Democratic states who say the federal intervention is discriminatory and an overreach.

The U.S. government this week finalized funding for one of its largest development projects in Africa by signing a $553 million loan to refurnish 1,300 kilometers of the Lobito Atlantic Railway between the Angolan port city of Lobito and its border town of Luau. Discussions of the project began under the Biden administration, and former President Joe Biden promoted it when he visited Angola in 2024.

The railway would soon be able to “carry 4.6 million metric tons of critical minerals and goods,” said Ben Black, chief executive officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. The U.S. is now seeking to reduce its reliance on China for critical-mineral products that are indispensable in a range of products such as electric cars, phones, fighter planes and missiles.

He said the project will forge stronger U.S.-Angola ties. The Wednesday announcement came on the same day that Congress drastically expanded the corporation’s lending cap to $205 billion, up from $60 billion, as part of a foreign policy strategy to counter China’s global influence while securing U.S. interests

Advocates of transgender care for children are strongly condemning proposals from the Trump administration to cut off funding for gender-affirming treatments.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy and other Trump officials announced the measures Thursday, referring to transgender care as “sex-rejecting procedures” and “malpractice.” It’s the latest example of the administration’s restrictions targeting transgender Americans.

Doctors who offer the care—including medication and surgery—said the changes would put lives at risk.

“The Trump Administration is forcing health care systems to choose between providing lifesaving care for LGBTQ+ young people and accepting crucial federal funding,” Dr. Jamila Perritt, a Washington-based OB/GYN and president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen of The Trevor Project, a nonprofit suicide prevention organization, called the changes a “one-size-fits-all mandate from the federal government.”

House Democrats released several dozen more photos Thursday from the estate of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, showing his associations with the rich and famous.

The photos released add to the anticipation as the Department of Justice faces a deadline to release many of its case files on the late financier by the end of the week.

The photos released Thursday were among more than 95,000 that the House Oversight Committee has received after issuing a subpoena for the photos that Epstein had in his possession before he died in a New York jail cell in 2019.

Slovenia, which holds the council presidency this month, said the meeting will take place on Tuesday afternoon.

Venezuela’s U.N. Ambassador Samuel Moncada called for an emergency council meeting Wednesday to discuss “the ongoing U.S. aggression” against his country.

Venezuela has accused the U.S. of acting like a colonial power and violating its sovereignty by declaring that its territory and assets, including oil, belong to the United States.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to reinstate roughly 300 federal workers it fired during the government shutdown, but she put the ruling on hold to allow the administration a chance to appeal.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco ruled Wednesday the funding bill that ended the shutdown required the administration to reinstate employees it fired while the government was closed and refrain from firing any more workers until the end of January.

Labor unions said some employees were not being reinstated, and others were facing the threat of termination.

Illston, however, put her reinstatement order on hold until Tuesday. She said she wanted to avoid subjecting the affected employees to whiplash if an appeals court later put her ruling on hold and allowed the terminations.

Her ruling also indefinitely blocked the firing of another 400 or so workers. That part of her order went into effect immediately.

The Justice Department has launched a monthslong effort to prosecute people accused of assaulting or hindering federal officers while protesting President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and military deployments.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has vowed such offenders will face “severe consequences.”

In a review of scores of criminal prosecutions brought by federal prosecutors, The Associated Press found that the Justice Department has struggled to deliver on Bondi’s pledge.

An analysis of 166 federal criminal cases brought since May against people in four Democratic-led cities at the epicenter of demonstrations found that aggressive charging decisions and rhetoric painting defendants as domestic terrorists have frequently failed to hold up in court.

▶Read key findings and more from the AP investigation

A State Department official says Trump’s special envoy for peace negotiations, Steve Witkoff, will meet Friday in Miami with officials from key Arab and Muslim nations to discuss the next phase in the president’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Witkoff and senior officials from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar will review implementation of Phase 2 of the plan, which has been endorsed by the UN Security Council, and calls for the territory to be overseen by a Trump-led Board of Peace and policed by an international security force, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview a meeting that has not yet been publicly announced.

The meeting is set for just a day before Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner host Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev for another round of discussion on U.S. proposals to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

— By Matthew Lee