Lawyers for the unions hail ruling as ‘important initial victory’
Welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the second Donald Trump administration and US politics.
Labor unions were celebrating after a federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ordering the US defense department and other agencies to carry out the mass firings.
Attorneys for the coalition cheered the order, although it does not mean that fired employees will automatically be rehired or that future firings will not occur.
“What it means in practical effects is the agencies of the federal government should hear the court’s warning that that order was unlawful,” said Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the coalition, after the hearing.
“This ruling by Judge Alsup is an important initial victory for patriotic Americans across this country who were illegally fired from their jobs by an agency that had no authority to do so,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
“These are rank-and-file workers who joined the federal government to make a difference in their communities, only to be suddenly terminated due to this administration’s disdain for federal employees and desire to privatize their work.”
Here are the rest of the headlines:
The Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency.
The Trump administration has taken down the online application form for several popular student debt repayment plans, causing confusion among borrowers and likely creating complications for millions of Americans with outstanding loans.
The US justice department has released additional files related to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
New laws in Florida impose harsher penalties for offenses committed by people illegally in the US than for everyone else, with an automatic death sentence for anyone who is in the US illegally and is convicted of first-degree murder.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected in Washington DC later today, where he and Donald Trump are expected to hold a joint press conference.
