Plus: President Trump signs an executive order targeting 'anti-Christian bias.' | The U.S. Treasury temporarily agrees to limit DOGE access.

A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s buyout offer to federal civilian employees from taking effect Thursday, hours before the deadline the administration set for more than 2 million employees to decide whether to take resignation packages with pay through September.

The administration set a deadline for Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern for employees to decide on the offer. But a federal judge in Massachusetts paused the deadline until at least a hearing set for Monday at 2 p.

President Donald Trump is facing legal hurdles in his efforts to shrink the federal government. The latest coming from a federal judge who is pausing the implementation of the White House’s buyout offer to all federal workers until Monday after employee unions filed suit arguing it violates federal law.

The judge could opt to delay the buyout further or block it on a more permanent basis when he next considers the legal challenge by the unions at a hearing on Monday.

By midnight today, federal workers must decide whether to accept or reject Trump’s buyout offer. What will happen to those who reject the offer and decide not to resign?

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily paused President Donald Trump’s plan to offer buyouts to millions of federal workers, an initiative aimed at trimming the federal workforce but that

The Trump administration warned federal employees that they could be furloughed if they don't accept a buyout offer.

Wes Battle has been glued to the phone at his financial-planning office in Maryland for days, endlessly fielding calls from clients, most of whom work for the federal government. They all want to know the same thing in a hurry: Is the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s “fork in the road” offer a good deal financially?