29
Jan
A US judge temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s order to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans, minutes before it was set to come into effect on Tuesday. Judge Loren AliKhan’s order to pause the plan until next Monday at 17:00 EST (22:00 GMT) came in response to a lawsuit filed earlier in the day by a group of organisations representing grant recipients. The lawsuit claims the White House’s temporary freezing of already approved funding violates the law. In the hours before the order was due to take effect, there was widespread confusion about which agencies…