Lawyers for the unions hail ruling as ‘important initial victory’

Welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the second Donald Trump administration and US politics.

Labor unions were celebrating after a federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ordering the US defense department and other agencies to carry out the mass firings.

The Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency.

The Trump administration has taken down the online application form for several popular student debt repayment plans, causing confusion among borrowers and likely creating complications for millions of Americans with outstanding loans.

The US justice department has released additional files related to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

New laws in Florida impose harsher penalties for offenses committed by people illegally in the US than for everyone else, with an automatic death sentence for anyone who is in the US illegally and is convicted of first-degree murder.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected in Washington DC later today, where he and Donald Trump are expected to hold a joint press conference.