Overview

• U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued a preliminary injunction halting new termination notices and pausing implementation of previously issued firings.
• The government must report by Friday the exact number of affected workers after filings showed roughly 4,100 termination notices across eight agencies, with several hundred later rescinded.
• OMB Director Russell Vought said the administration expected to cut more than 10,000 positions, describing an aggressive push to reduce the federal bureaucracy.
• Illston cited public statements suggesting political targeting of "Democratic" agencies and said the shutdown could not be exploited to set aside the rule of law, as unions AFGE and AFSCME pressed the case.
• With more than 706,000 federal employees furloughed, Treasury officials revised the estimated economic cost from up to $15 billion per day to as much as $15 billion per week.