A US judge on Thursday denied a union bid to temporarily halt the firing of thousands of federal employees on probationary status, handing President Donald Trump another legal win in his plan to slash the government workforce.District Judge Christopher Cooper said he lacked the jurisdiction to handle the complaint, one of several filed in courts in recent days in an effort to pause the mass sackings.The judge’s decision comes as around 6,700 workers at the 100,000-strong Internal Revenue Service (IRS) who were on probation were being laid off.”The anxiety was running through the floor, like I personally felt anxious because I was one of (the) last people to get that email,” an IRS probationary worker who was laid off Thursday told AFP.A former IRS official said most of the IRS employees being let go were part of the US tax agency’s enforcement teams, less than two months before the US income tax filing deadline of April 15. A number of IRS employees posted messages on LinkedIn saying they had been abruptly terminated and were seeking other opportunities.The National Treasury Employees Union and four other unions that represent federal employees had asked Cooper to issue a temporary restraining order preventing termination of their members who are probationary employees.Cooper, an appointee of former president Barack Obama, said his court lacks jurisdiction to hear their claims and they should instead be brought before the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a body that adjudicates federal labor disputes.”Federal district judges are duty-bound to decide legal issues based on even-handed application of law and precedent — no matter the identity of the litigants or, regrettably at times, the consequences of their rulings for average people,” the judge said.- Managers had ‘no idea’ -The probationary worker who spoke to AFP, on condition of anonymity to freely discuss his former employer, said that managers at the agency had “no idea” the layoffs were coming.”I think DOGE has been very careful to make it seem like the agencies themselves are making the decisions, when I can tell, our managers yesterday were just as shocked as we were,” he said. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a free-ranging entity run by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a top Trump ally and donor.On Thursday, the laid-off IRS worker said staff at his agency were “a little resigned, a little defeated, including our managers… some of them were, seemed like they were on the verge of tears.”The worker had been a revenue agent on a team that oversaw tax collection for corporations and wealthy individuals.”I think Republicans have really kind of twisted the narrative in the press to say that the IRS has hired a bunch of people to go after middle- or working-class folks, when really a lot of the people that were hired were hired to go after large corporations and high net worth individuals,” he said. – ‘Cruel’ -In his opinion, Cooper said the federal government employs 220,000 probationary employees and he noted that workers with that status at the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service and other agencies have already been sacked.On Wednesday, another federal judge declined a request to temporarily block DOGE from firing federal employees.Fourteen Democratic-ruled states had filed suit last week contesting Musk’s legal authority but District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied their emergency request to pause his actions.Musk’s cost-cutting spree has been met with legal pushback on a number of fronts and a mixed bag of rulings.A judge last week lifted a freeze he had temporarily imposed on a mass buyout plan offered by the Trump administration to federal workers.According to the White House, more than 75,000 federal employees signed on to the buyout offer from the Office of Personnel Management.The fired IRS worker said he had felt “between a rock and a hard place” when he received the buyout offer, facing either quitting his job or being fired anyway.”For all of this to happen in such a cruel fashion, just it doesn’t make sense to me,” he said.

A study published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that people can transmit bird flu to their domestic cats, with fatal consequences.Two household case studies from Michigan in May 2024 were published in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, as fears grow that the virus could mutate and cause a human pandemic. Since then, it has also emerged that cats can be infected by pet food contaminated with the virus — and it can spread between “big cat” species in shelters. Both case studies involved pet owners who worked at or near dairy cattle farms affected by bird flu, and both resulted in deaths of infected felines.In the first case, a five-year-old indoor female cat rapidly developed a loss of appetite, poor grooming habits, disorientation, lethargy, and neurological deterioration. Her condition worsened quickly, requiring emergency care at the Michigan State University (MSU) Veterinary Medical Center. Despite intervention, her symptoms progressed, and she was euthanized within four days. Postmortem testing confirmed she had contracted bird flu.Two other cats lived in the same household. One exhibited mild symptoms, which the owners attributed to allergies, and they ceased communication with public health officials. Among the household members, the farm worker declined testing, while an adult and two adolescents tested negative for bird flu.- Unpasteurized milk connection -Days later, a second case involving a six-month-old male Maine Coon was brought to the university. The cat exhibited symptoms including anorexia, lethargy, facial swelling, and limited movement, and died within 24 hours. This cat lived with another feline that remained unaffected.The Maine Coon’s owner regularly transported unpasteurized milk from various Michigan farms, including those confirmed to have infected dairy cattle. The owner reported handling raw milk without protective gear, frequently getting splashed in the face, eyes, and clothing, and failing to change work clothes before entering the home. Notably, the sick cat frequently rolled in the owner’s contaminated work clothes, whereas the unaffected cat did not.The owner also experienced eye irritation before the cat fell ill but declined testing for bird flu.”Farmworkers are encouraged to consider removing clothing and footwear and to rinse off any animal byproduct residue (including milk and feces) before entering households,” the CDC researchers advised.Since the US outbreak began in 2024, 69 human cases of bird flu have been officially reported in the US, though the true number may be significantly higher due to limited testing among farm workers. One person has died.Experts warn that as the virus continues to circulate widely among mammals and birds, it could eventually mix with seasonal influenza, potentially mutating into a strain capable of efficient human-to-human transmission.Newly confirmed US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he wants the government to pivot away from infectious disease research and cast doubt on whether germs actually cause illness.He has also for decades questioned the use of vaccines — seen as key to containing bird flu if it does become a pandemic — and has promoted the consumption of raw milk, a known vector for bird flu.

Is NASA still Moonbound, or will the next giant leap mean skipping straight to Mars?Speculation is mounting that the Trump administration may scale back or cancel NASA’s Artemis missions following the departure of a key official and Boeing’s plans to lay off hundreds of employees working on its lunar rocket.Late Wednesday, NASA abruptly announced the retirement of longtime associate administrator Jim Free, effective Saturday.No reason was given for Free’s departure after his 30-year rise to NASA’s top civil-service position. However, he was a strong advocate for Artemis, which aims to return crews to the Moon, establish a sustained presence, and use that experience to prepare for a Mars mission.Though Artemis was conceived in President Donald Trump’s first term, he has openly mused about bypassing the Moon and heading straight to Mars — a notion gaining traction as Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and SpaceX’s owner, becomes a key ally and advisor.Musk’s SpaceX, founded to make humanity a multiplanetary species, is betting heavily on its prototype Starship rocket for a future Mars mission.Trump has also tapped private astronaut and e-payments billionaire Jared Isaacman, a close Musk ally who has flown to space twice with SpaceX, as his next NASA chief.Boeing this month told employees it could 400 jobs from the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket program to “align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectation.””This will require 60-day notices of involuntary layoff be issued to impacted employees in coming weeks, in accordance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act,” the aerospace giant told AFP.Boeing “saw the writing on the wall,” Keith Cowing, a former NASA scientist and founder of NASA Watch, told AFP. To date, SLS has flown just one mission — 2022’s uncrewed Artemis 1 — and has proven exceedingly costly. It’s “likely to fly only one or two missions, or they’ll cancel it outright,” Cowing added.- Reform or scrap? -Skepticism about the exceedingly expensive SLS and the Orion crew capsule — whose heat shield issues delayed future Artemis missions — is widespread among space watchers. Still, many advocate reform, not repeal.”We need to stick with the plan we have now,” Free said at an American Astronautical Society meeting in October.”That doesn’t mean we can’t perform better… but we need to keep this destination of the Moon from a human spaceflight perspective. If we lose that, I believe we will fall apart and wander, and other people in this world will pass us by.”Space policy analyst Laura Forczyk noted Free had been in line to become NASA’s interim administrator before being passed over in favor of another official, Janet Petro.She warned that eliminating the Moon would remove a crucial testbed for technologies needed to ensure a safe Mars journey.While Musk has called Artemis a “jobs-maximizing program” and said “something entirely new is needed,” the initiative enjoys strong congressional backing. It supports tens of thousands of jobs in states including Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, with support from key Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz.Abandoning the Moon would also leave China unchallenged to plant its flag on the lunar south pole with a planned 2030 crewed mission.Forczyk believes Artemis is more likely to be reformed than scrapped, with SLS potentially limited to one or two flights before private companies — such as SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin — assume key roles.”However, the Trump administration is unpredictable, and we really cannot get in the minds of Donald Trump or Musk,” she told AFP.Another looming uncertainty has been how Trump’s broader effort to downsize the federal government could affect NASA.A NASA spokeswoman told AFP on Thursday that about five percent of the workforce had accepted a “deferred resignation” offer allowing them to remain on administrative leave while continuing to receive pay until September.