Trump admin updates: White House asks court to stay order to ground deportation flights

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that rescinds 19 executive actions issued by the Biden administration. He rescinded orders focused on gender, labor policies and industry regulations.

With this executive order, Trump has reversed nearly 100 actions that Biden issued.

"President Trump is committed to continuing the review and repeal of harmful Biden administration policies to usher in a new golden age for America," the White House said in a fact sheet.

Trump rescinded Biden's executive action that "elevated radical gender ideology in U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid." He also ended "mandates" for electric heat pumps and solar panels and reversed the order that raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour.

-ABC News' Kelsey Walsh

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that attempts to decrease the federal government's size by eliminating "unnecessary government entities" determined by the president.

The action furthers the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to identify billions in waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.

According to a fact sheet provided by the White House, the president has eliminated the following entities: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, the Minority Business Development Agency and the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.

-ABC News' Kelsey Walsh

After a week of legal losses for the Trump administration, a federal appeals court handed the president a win on Friday night by allowing enforcement of a pair of executive orders that sought to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs from the federal government.

A panel of three judges on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found the Trump administration was likely to prevail in challenging a lower court’s ruling that Trump’s DEI executive orders -- one abolishing DEI in government and another requiring that grant recipients not operate DEI programs -- were unconstitutional.

The judges -- two of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents -- are allowing the Trump administration to enact the policy while they consider a final decision about whether the orders violate the Constitution.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Albert Diaz issued a warning about the political messaging surrounding DEI, which he called "a monster in America’s closet." The people working to enact DEI policies "deserve praise" because they are trying to create an "environment and culture where everyone is respected and valued," he wrote.

"From boardrooms to courtrooms to operating rooms to classrooms, previously marginalized Americans are thriving in spaces long closed to them. And we are the better for it," he wrote. "As with most monsters in the closet, what lurks is but a mere shadow, for which the remedy is simply light."

-ABC News Katherine Faulders and Peter Charalambous

Some probationary federal workers at the General Services Administration who had been terminated received notices on Friday that their employment had been temporarily reinstated and that they were being placed on administrative leave, according to sources familiar with the matter.

In an email sent Friday afternoon, terminated probationary GSA employees were told that they would be reinstated effective March 17 through "at least March 27" and that their "accrued leave and benefits will be reinstated," according to multiple emails obtained by ABC News.

The email states that the temporary reinstatement was issued to comply with a March 13 temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge James Bredar in a lawsuit filed by 19 states and the District of Columbia against the Trump administration’s mass firing of probationary federal employees.

On Thursday, the judge ruled that the administration had failed to provide the legally required 60-day notice before attempting the mass layoffs. He also barred the administration from carrying out further mass terminations without proper notice.

-ABC News' Soo Rin Kim, Will Steakin, Cheyenne Haslett and Ben Siegel