Former U.S. senator from Florida Marco Rubio jumps into new role as secretary of state with flurry of phone calls, planned trip to Panama.

State Department staff were instructed to “suspend any application requesting an X sex marker” and to “suspend any application where the applicant is seeking to change their sex marker.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is advising his department to cease refugee resettlement operations and begin ramping up vetting of visas from certain regions.

The Trump administration paused all foreign aid and urged USAID to follow in step or face disciplinary action for not complying with the freeze.

The State Department has frozen new funding for almost all U.S. aid programs worldwide, making exceptions to allow humanitarian food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt to continue.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a memo reviewed by NBC News, said additional guidance would be issued on existing passports containing an “X” sex marker.

It wasn’t immediately clear if already-issued passports that use “X” under the gender option will remain valid. A State Department spokesperson told NBC updates would be shared as soon as possible on the department's travel website.

Marco Rubio will head overseas late next week; he's also scheduled to visit Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's trip to Central America, including Panama, is partially about countering China, a State Department spokesperson told Fox Business, as new President Donald Trump is pushing to "take back" the Panama Canal.

Just days after taking office, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is thrust into a crisis with a deadly plane crash at Reagan National Airport

The extent of the impacts of the Trump administration’s sudden 90-day freeze of almost all foreign aid is still unclear almost a week on, as officials and aid workers overseas try to make sense of which activities must be suspended.

Authorities provide an update to the collision between an American Airlines plane and a military helicopter, saying they expect there to be no survivors and the mission is transitioning from a rescue to a recovery operation.