Mass firings of federal workers begins as Trump and Musk purge US government

Musk team member enters IRS, raising fears of cuts at tax collecting agency. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 14 February 2025
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Mass firings of federal workers begins as Trump and Musk purge US government

  • OPM probationary staff fired in group call

WASHINGTON: Mass firings at multiple US government agencies have begun as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk accelerate their purge of America’s federal bureaucracy, union sources and employees familiar with the layoffs told Reuters on Thursday.
Termination emails have been sent in the past 48 hours to scores of government workers, mostly recently hired employees still on probation, at the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the General Services Administration, which manages many federal buildings.
All probationary staff at the Office of Personnel Management, the human resources arm for the US government, were fired in a group call on Thursday and told to leave the agency’s headquarters in Washington by 3 p.m. ET (2000 GMT), two sources told Reuters.
OPM officials also met with other government agencies on Thursday and advised them to lay off their probationary employees, with some exceptions, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Trump and Tesla CEO Musk’s overhaul of the federal government appeared to be widening as Musk aides arrived for the first time at the federal tax-collecting agency, the Internal Revenue Service, and US embassies were told to prepare for staff cuts.
It was not immediately clear on Thursday how many domestic federal workers stood to lose their jobs in the first wave of layoffs. But the move fulfills Trump’s vow to reduce the size of the federal government and root out the “deep state,” a reference to bureaucrats he views as not sufficiently loyal to him.
“The Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the current needs, and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment with the Agency,” letters sent to at least 45 probationers at the SBA stated.
Reuters has seen a copy of the termination letter.
Letters to at least 160 recent hires at the Department of Education, also seen by Reuters, told them that their continued employment “would not be in the public interest.”
Trump, a Republican serving his second term, repeatedly called for the elimination of the Department of Education during his presidential campaign. On Wednesday, he called it a “con job” and said he wants it closed.
About 100 probationary employees received termination letters on Wednesday at the GSA, according to two people familiar with the firings.
One GSA employee, who said he had one month left until his probation period ended and had been receiving excellent performance reviews, was told this week he will be fired on Friday.
“Up until two weeks ago, this was an absolute dream job. Now it’s become an absolute nightmare because of what is going on. I have small children and a mortgage to pay,” the worker told Reuters.
According to government data, about 280,000 civilian government workers were hired less than two years ago, with most still on probation.
Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story, but a spokesperson for OPM said the firings were in line with new government policy.
“The Trump administration is encouraging agencies to use the probationary period as it was intended: as a continuation of the job application process, not an entitlement for permanent employment,” the spokesperson said.
About 75,000 workers have signed up for the buyout, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. That is equal to 3 percent of the civilian workforce.
The deadline to take the offer expired on Wednesday evening. Asked why workers were not given extra time to consider the buyout so more would take it, Leavitt said, “I’m not so sure that we didn’t hit the numbers we wanted.”

Massive downsizing
Trump has tasked the South African-born Musk and his team at DOGE, a temporary government agency, to undertake a massive downsizing of the 2.3 million-strong civilian federal workforce.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has sent DOGE members into at least 16 government agencies, where they have gained access to computer systems with sensitive personnel and financial information, and sent workers home.
Gavin Kliger, a top staffer in DOGE, arrived at a new agency, the IRS, on Thursday, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
It was the first time a Musk aide has entered the IRS, a longtime target of Republicans who claim without evidence that the Biden administration weaponized the agency to target small businesses and middle-class Americans with unnecessary audits.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has asked US embassies worldwide to prepare for staff cuts, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as part of the president’s effort to overhaul the US diplomatic corps.
Trump’s overhaul of government has sown panic among thousands of federal workers in the US capital who fear they may be targeted next.
In a video call addressing the World Government Summit in Dubai on Thursday, Musk said, “We do need to delete entire agencies.”
Trump has pressed ahead with the effort despite a barrage of lawsuits from labor unions and Democratic attorneys general and criticism, including from several Republican budget experts, that the initiative is ideologically driven.
Trump has defended the effort, saying the federal government is too bloated and that too much money is lost to waste and fraud. While there is bipartisan agreement on the need for government reform, critics have questioned the blunt force approach of Musk, who has amassed extraordinary influence in the first weeks of Trump’s presidency.


Defense chief Hegseth shared war plans in second Signal chat, NYT reports

Updated 7 sec ago
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Defense chief Hegseth shared war plans in second Signal chat, NYT reports

  • The Trump administration has aggressively pursued leaks, an effort that has been enthusiastically embraced by Hegseth at the Pentagon

WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared details of a March attack on Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in a message group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, the New York Times reported on Sunday, raising more questions about his use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly-sensitive security details.
Hegseth allegedly shared the same details of the attack that were revealed last month by The Atlantic magazine after its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was included in a separate chat on the Signal app by mistake, in an embarrassing incident involving all of President Donald Trump’s most senior national security officials.
The Times, citing four sources familiar with the message group, said that second chat included details of the schedule of the air strikes.
Hegseth’s wife Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, has also reportedly attended sensitive meetings with foreign military counterparts, the Wall Street Journal has separately reported.
Revelations of another use of Signal for classified information come as one of Hegseth’s leading advisers, Dan Caldwell, was escorted from the Pentagon last week after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense, a US official told Reuters.
Following Caldwell’s departure, less senior officials Darin Selnick, who recently became Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, and Colin Carroll, who was chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, were put on administrative leave, officials said.
The Trump administration has aggressively pursued leaks, an effort that has been enthusiastically embraced by Hegseth at the Pentagon.
The Pentagon was not immediately available for comment.


Trump says he hopes Russia, Ukraine to strike ‘deal this week’

Updated 21 April 2025
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Trump says he hopes Russia, Ukraine to strike ‘deal this week’

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Sunday that he hoped for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal “this week,” promising “big business with the United States” for both combatants if a truce is signed.
“Hopefully Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week,” Trump posted to his Truth Social network, without giving details of any progress in peace talks Washington has sought to push forward since he took over from Joe Biden in January.
 


Congo suspends Kabila’s political party

Updated 20 April 2025
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Congo suspends Kabila’s political party

  • Joseph Kabila, who was president for 18 years up to 2019, remains head of his People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, the Interior Ministry said

KINSHASA: The Democratic Republic of Congo government said it suspended the political party of former President Joseph Kabila days after security services raided his properties.

“This decision follows the overt activism” of Kabila, who was president for 18 years up to 2019 and remains head of his People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, PPRD, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

PPRD activities “are suspended across all the national territory,” the statement said.

There was no immediate reaction from the party.

Current leader President Felix Tshisekedi has accused Kabila of preparing “an insurrection” and backing an alliance that includes the M23 armed group that is fighting government forces in eastern DR Congo.

According to a spokesman for his family, Kabila, 53, left the country before the last presidential election in 2023.

But in early April, in a message relayed by his staff, he said he would return on an unspecified date because the country was “in peril.”

There are unconfirmed suggestions that he will arrive, or is already in, the eastern city of Goma.

The family spokesman said on Thursday that security services mounted raids on Kabila’s main property, a farm east of Kinshasa, and on a compound belonging to the family in the capital.

The Interior Ministry statement accused Kabila’s party of keeping “a guilty, or even complicit, silence” over “the Rwandan war of aggression.”

Kinshasa, UN experts, and several international powers have said M23 is backed by Rwanda, which denies the charge.

The armed group is at the center of a new surge in conflict in eastern DR Congo, having taken the key cities of Goma and Bukavu.

The DR Congo ministry statement said Kabila has maintained an “ambiguous attitude” on the M23 rebellion, which he “has never condemned.”

It criticized Kabila’s “deliberate choice” to enter the country through the city of Goma, under the “control of the enemy.”

A separate statement from the country’s Justice Ministry said the chief prosecutor had been asked to start legal action against Kabila for “his direction participation” in M23.


Exec linked to Bangkok building collapse arrested

Updated 20 April 2025
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Exec linked to Bangkok building collapse arrested

BANGKOK: Thai authorities said they have arrested a Chinese executive at a company that was building a Bangkok skyscraper which collapsed in a major earthquake, leaving dozens dead.

The 30-story tower was reduced to an immense pile of rubble when a 7.7-magnitude quake struck neighboring Myanmar last month, killing 47 people at the construction site and leaving another 47 missing.

Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong told a news conference Saturday that a Thai court had issued arrest warrants for four individuals, including three Thai nationals, at China Railway No.10 for breaching the Foreign Business Act.

The Department of Special Investigation, which is under the justice ministry, said in a statement Saturday that one of the four had been arrested — a Chinese “company representative” who they named as Zhang.

China Railway No.10 was part of a joint venture with an Italian-Thai firm to build the State Audit Office tower before its collapse.

Zhang is listed as a 49-percent shareholder in the firm, while the three Thai citizens have a 51-percent stake in the company.

But Tawee told journalists that “we have evidence ... that the three Thais were holding shares for other foreign independents.”

The Foreign Business Act says that foreigners may hold no more than 49 percent of shares in a company.

Separately, Tawee said several investigations related to the collapse were ongoing, including over the possibility of bid rigging and the use of fake signatures of engineers in construction supervisor contracts.

Earlier this month Thai safety officials said testing of steel rebars — struts used to reinforce concrete — from the site has found that some of the metal used was substandard.

The skyscraper was the only major building in the capital to fall in the catastrophic March 28 earthquake that has killed more than 3,700 people in Thailand and neighboring Myanmar.


Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of breaching Easter truce

Updated 20 April 2025
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Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of breaching Easter truce

  • The 30-hour truce had been meant to start Saturday to mark the religious holiday
  • Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of keeping up its attacks on the front line

KRAMATORSK: Russia and Ukraine on Sunday accused each other of violating an Easter truce announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The 30-hour truce had been meant to start Saturday to mark the religious holiday, but Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of keeping up its attacks on the front line.
While Ukrainian troops told AFP that fighting had eased, Zelensky said Russian forces staged hundreds of shelling and drone assaults along the front line despite the surprise truce.
“The Ukrainian army is acting and will continue to act in an absolutely mirror image” of Russia,” he warned.
Zelensky also renewed a proposal for a 30-day truce.
Moscow said it had “repelled” assaults by Ukraine and accused Kyiv of launching hundreds of drones and shells, causing civilian casualties.
“Despite the announcement of the Easter truce, Ukrainian units at night made attempts to attack” Russia’s positions in the Donetsk region, its defense ministry added.
Russian troops had “strictly observed the ceasefire,” the defense ministry insisted.
Rescue services in the eastern town of Kostyantynivka said they had recovered the bodies of a man and a woman from the ruins of building hit the previous day by Russian shelling.
The Russian-appointed mayor of Gorlovka in occupied Donetsk, Ivan Prikhodko, said two civilians had been wounded there, without giving details.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and now occupies around 20 percent of the country.
Putin’s order to halt all combat over the Easter weekend came after months of efforts by US President Donald Trump to get the war rivals to agree to a ceasefire.
But on Friday, Trump threatened to withdraw from talks if no progress was made.
Ukrainian soldiers told AFP that they had noticed a lull in fighting.
A drone unit commander said that Russia’s activity had “significantly decreased both in Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions,” combat zones in the south and northeast where the unit is active.
“Several assaults were recorded, but those were solitary incidents involving small groups,” the commander told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Fewer guys (soldiers) will die today.”
Russian “artillery is not working. it is quiet compared to a regular day,” Sergiy, a junior lieutenant fighting in the Sumy border region, wrote to AFP in a message.
Ukrainian troops “are on the defensive,” he added. “If the enemy doesn’t move forward, they don’t shoot.”
AFP journalists monitoring in eastern Ukraine heard fewer explosions than usual and saw no smoke on the horizon.
Putin announced a truce from 6:00 p.m. (1500 GMT) Saturday to midnight Sunday Moscow time (2100 GMT), saying it was motivated by “humanitarian reasons.”
Zelensky responded that Ukraine was ready to follow suit and proposed extending the truce for 30 days to “give peace a chance.”
But he said Sunday that Russia “has not yet responded to this.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin had given no order to extend the truce.
In Kyiv, as Easter Sunday bells rang out, people doubted Russia’s good faith.
“They’ve already broken their promise,” said 38-year-old Olga Grachova, who works in marketing. “Unfortunately, we cannot trust Russia today.”
Natalia, a 41-year-old medic, said of Zelensky’s 30-day proposal: “Everything we offer, unfortunately, remains only our offers. Nobody responds to them.”
People in Moscow welcomed an Easter truce and hoped for more progress toward an end to the war.
“We dreamt of course that peace would come by Easter. Let it come soon,” said Svetlana, a 34-year-old housewife.
“I think that this awful thing will end at some point, but not soon,” said Irina Volkova, a 73-year-old pensioner.
“All is not going well for us in Ukraine,” she added. “People are dying, our guys are dying.”
Moscow said this weekend that it had now recovered 99.5 percent of its Kursk region, which Ukrainian troops occupied in a surprise offensive in August.