Sarah Jeong

After a heated hearing in a California district court this morning, Judge William Alsup ruled that the Trump administration must offer to reinstate thousands of federal workers who were fired as part of the DOGE cuts. There were a lot of things that irked the judge, though most predictably, he did not like that an Office of Personnel Management official ghosted the court after being ordered to testify. (“I’m getting mad,” the judge said.)

A federal judge in the District of Columbia has granted a temporary restraining order that enjoins the Trump administration from laying off or terminating without cause any more employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as from deleting agency data or transferring agency funds “other than to satisfy the ordinary operating obligations of the CFPB.”

It is not normal for the government to get sued so hard over something that it has to appear in federal court three times in three different lawsuits in a single day. In the Southern District of New York, which is currently also dealing with an entirely different Trump-related mess, Judge Jeannette Vargas has extended a temporary restraining order barring DOGE from accessing Treasury Department systems.

Whimsical flags for made-up organizations are a common protest prop in South Korea, originating as a satirical response to accusations of astroturfing. This Star Wars flag made a showing at Saturday’s protests, as the Korean legislature failed to impeach Yoon over his attempted coup on Tuesday night.

Like everyone else who survived the pandemic, my brain has sealed away the year 2020 in a mental Yucca Mountain. But as a reminder, some vote tabulations may stretch out for quite a while.