Welcome back to the Week in Review! This will cover February 24 – March 2.

Government and Politics:

• On Monday, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman temporarily blocked the Department of Education and the US Office of Personnel Management from sharing sensitive government data with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
• A group of unions, who first sued DOGE last week in a California federal court for firing federal employees, updated their complaint to include DOGE’s order for all federal workers to describe five accomplishments they had in an email. They said it was unconstitutional because the email had not been announced in advance in the Federal Register as a policy or program and thus did not comply with federal regulations.
• A federal judge partially paused President Donald Trump‘s new policy giving immigration enforcement more power to arrest illegal immigrants at some churches and other houses of worship. However, this ruling only blocked the administration from carrying out the policy at the places of worship of any religious organizations that brought the lawsuit, including congregations of Quakers, Baptists, and Sikhs.
• U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden declined to temporarily restore the Associated Press’ access to some of President Trump’s events.
• The United States Department of Agriculture reopened a scholarship program aimed at people in HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities) interested in careers in agriculture, food safety, and environmental science after they closed it last week.
• On Tuesday, President Trump said that the U.S. will sell a “gold card” to wealthy foreigners, giving them the right to live and work in the U.S. and offering them a path to citizenship in exchange for a five million dollar fee. This card is supposed to go into effect in two weeks.
• The DOGE quietly removed the top five contracts it claims saved taxpayers money from its website.
• On Tuesday, teachers unions sued the Trump administration for a Department of Education letter that threatens to cut federal funding of schools that consider race in “most aspects of student life” because they claim the letter infringes upon free speech and is unconstitutionally vague.
• The U.S. House of Representatives voted to adopt Republicans’ budget blueprint 217-215, with Representative Thomas Massie as the only Republican to vote against adopting the resolution.
• The Senate voted 56-43 to confirm Jamieson Greer as U.S. trade representative on Wednesday.
• The Trump administration will begin converting federal agencies’ most senior level workers to political appointees, but critics say the move will “further politicize the senior levels of our government” and will inevitably lead to “corruption and incompetence in our government.”
• President Trump signed an executive action Wednesday that froze agency employees’ credit cards for 30 days as part of the DOGE’s “efficiency initiative.”
• The Justice Department on Wednesday announced they were abandoning cases that sought to force police and fire departments to end what Former President Joe Biden‘s administration alleged were discriminatory hiring processes.
• Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily pauses a federal court’s order for the Trump administration to pay $2 billion in foreign aid by midnight on Wednesday until the Supreme Court finishes reviewing the case.
• On Thursday, U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled a representative of the DOGE must answer questions under oath about the agency’s leadership structure and access to sensitive government data.
• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reversed a requirement called the Richardson Waiver, which requires some notice and an opportunity for public comment on the department’s decisions related to “agency management or personnel or to public property, loans, grants, benefits, or contracts.”
• The Trump administration terminated the U.S.’s $25 million contribution to an initiative to support Ukraine’s energy infrastructure against Russian attacks.
• Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California halted mass firings of federal workers at some agencies including the Department of Defense, saying the Office of Personnel Management did not have the power to fire any federal workers except for its own.
• The U.S.-Ukraine alliance is strained after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Trump met in the Oval Office on Friday.
• On Saturday, advocates for immigrants’ rights, including The American Civil Liberties Union, sued the Trump administration to try to stop the transfer of migrants to Guantanamo Bay.
• President Trump signed an executive order designating English as the official language of the U.S.

Arts and Entertainment:

• The 97th Oscars award ceremony was this Sunday. The cast and crew of “Anora” and “The Brutalist” took home the most awards, winning five and three awards, respectively.

Sports News:

• The NFL Scouting Combine ran from February 27 to March 2.

Local News:

• Cincinnati Bearcats football had three players at the NFL Combine: running back Corey Kiner and offensive linemen Luke Kandra and John Williams.

Good News:

• Award-winning actress and choreographer Debbie Allen, forced to evacuate from Los Angeles herself, has offered dance classes to L.A. wildfire victims.

This Week in History:

• Monday, February 24 was the day the U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson for his Reconstruction policies in the South in 1868.
• Tuesday, February 25 was the day Anthony Burgess, English writer and author of “A Clockwork Orange” was born in 1917.
• Wednesday, February 26 was the day Napoleon escaped from exile on the island of Elba in 1815.
• Thursday, February 27 was the day the first women’s magazine “The Ladies’ Mercury” was published in London in 1693.
• Friday, February 28 was the final episode of the T.V. Show “M*A*S*H” aired in 1983.
• Saturday, March 1 was the day President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961.
• Sunday, March 2 is the day Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, was born in 1977.