The Latest: Justice Department releases transcript interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell

The Justice Department on Friday released transcripts of interviews its No. 2 official did with Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend as the Trump administration scrambles to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.

The disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from President Donald Trump’s base even as they continue to sit on other evidence they had suggested was being prepared for public release.

Here's the latest:

Judge blocks Trump from cutting funding from 34 cities and counties over ‘sanctuary’ policies

U.S. District Judge William Orrick extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds for Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties. His earlier order protected more than a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.

The Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on those communities as it seeks to make good on Trump’s campaign promise to remove millions of people in the country illegally.

One executive order issued by Trump directs officials to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions. Another order directs federal agencies to ensure payments to state and local governments do not assist “policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”

The cities and counties that sued said billions of dollars were at risk.

More military leaders are fired

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who was chief of the Navy Reserve, as well as Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversaw Naval Special Warfare Command.

That’s according to a U.S. official who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity to detail personnel changes.

Hegseth also has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Trump.

The reasons for their firings, the latest in a series of steps targeting military leaders, were not clear Friday.