WASHINGTON >> Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled sympathy Wednesday toward a bid led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation’s first taxpayer- funded religious charter school in a major test of religious rights and the separation of church and state in American education.

An appeals court this week decided that the Department of Government Efficiency did not need access to sensitive Social Security data to carry out its functions.

President Donald Trump’s administration urged the Supreme Court on Friday to allow Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access Social Security Administration data on hundreds of millions of Americans.

A federal judge in Maryland found that scrutiny of the agency’s sensitive information systems by Elon Musk’s team appeared to violate federal privacy laws.