President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to discourage state governments from regulating artificial intelligence and urge Con…

The deployment of National Guard troops in Washington faces a challenge in a court in the nation's capital. Meanwhile, a judge in West Virginia continued a hearing until early next month, while a judge in Portland, Oregon, is considering whether to let President Donald Trump deploy troops there. The Friday hearings are the latest in a head-spinning array of lawsuits and overlapping rulings prompted by Trump's push to send the military into Democratic-run cities despite fierce resistance from mayors and governors. Deployment remains blocked in the Chicago area, where all sides are waiting to see if the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes to allow it.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War. Some of Trump's Republican supporters in Congress have proposed legislation to make the name change official. Without a change in law, Trump plans to authorize the Pentagon to use secondary titles. The Department of War was the original name from 1789 until it was changed in 1947, two years after World War II ended. Trump has expressed a preference for the original name, saying it "just sounded better."

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump's plans to downsize the federal workforce. The order comes despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs. The justices on Tuesday overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts. The court said in an unsigned order that no specific cuts were in front of the justices, only an executive order issued by Trump and an administration directive for agencies to undertake job reductions. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, accusing her colleagues of a "demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President's legally dubious actions in an emergency posture."

In less than a month, TikTok could have one or a few new owners, be banned again, or simply receive another reprieve to continue operating in the U.S. Questions about the fate of the popular app has continued to linger since a law requiring its China-based parent company to divest or face a ban took effect on Jan. 19. After taking office, President Donald Trump gave the company a 75-day reprieve through an executive order. Trump told reporters on Sunday that a deal could over TikTok come soon. He did not offer any details on the interested buyers, But said the administration was in talks with "four different groups" about TikTok and that "all four are good."

The first lawsuits have been filed against President Donald Trump's executive order revising policy on transgender troops. Six transgender active duty service members and two former service members who seek reenlistment sued in a federal court in Washington on Tuesday. Trump's order, which he signed late Monday, probably sets the stage for a ban on transgender troops in the armed forces. The lawsuit is from the same legal team that fought Trump's transgender ban in his first term. Joe Biden scrapped the ban when he became president. The lawsuit challenges the executive order on the basis of equal protection and argues that it reveals animus against a specific group.