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About 2,600 times each day, someone has a story for the Veterans Crisis Line. The calls to the Department of Veterans Affairs hotline always vary, both in intensity and duration. Phone operators talk callers through their problems, enlisting help from local first responders or other VA programs when warranted. But over the past six weeks, employees at the crisis line have been left reeling over President Donald Trump’s cuts to the staffing and contracts of federal agencies, including VA. (Craig, 3/27)

The Department of Veterans Affairs has a new No. 2 official after the Senate voted along party lines Thursday to approve Paul Lawrence as deputy VA secretary. Lawrence, a former Army captain who served as the VA's under secretary for benefits in the first Trump administration, was approved in a 51-45 vote Thursday, an unusually partisan split for a VA nominee. By contrast, VA Secretary Doug Collins, who has since become toxic for Democrats, was approved 77-23 last month. (Kheel, 3/27)

US President Donald Trump may allow some power plants, chemical makers and others to bypass a range of regulations for years under an obscure provision of the Clean Air Act, the EPA said. Companies that email requests for exemptions to emissions rules ranging from coal-burning power plants to copper smelters by the end the month may be granted them, according to guidance the Environmental Protection Agency posted on its website. (Natter, 3/27)

A U.S. judge in Washington state has blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump’s order banning transgender people from serving in the military, the second nationwide injunction against the policy in as many weeks. The order Thursday from U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma came in a case brought by several long-serving transgender military members who say the ban is insulting and discriminatory, and that their firing would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations. (Johnson, 3/28)

Federal officials have launched an investigation of the California Department of Education for withholding from parents information about changes to their child’s gender identity, setting up a showdown between the state and President Trump, with billions of dollars in federal funding potentially at stake. The investigation, announced Thursday morning by the U.S. Department of Education, takes aim at a California law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in July, which prohibits schools from automatically notifying families about student gender-identity changes and shields teachers from retaliation for supporting transgender student rights. Federal officials contend the California law illegally violates the right of parents to receive school records related to their children. (Blume, 3/27)