A deal to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “is still very, very far away,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding that he believed Ukraine’s long-term partnership with the U.S. was strong enough that American support would continue despite recent fraught relations with U.S. President Donald Trump.

“I think our relationship (with the U.S.) will continue, because it’s more than an occasional relationship,” Zelenskyy said late Sunday, referring to Washington’s support for the past three years of war.

“I believe that Ukraine has a strong enough partnership with the United States of America” to keep aid flowing, he said at a briefing in Ukrainian before leaving London.

Zelenskyy publicly was upbeat despite the recent heated Oval Office blow up with Trump and Vice President JD Vance during which they accused him of being “disrespectful” and said he should show more gratitude for America’s help. The turn of events is unwelcome for Ukraine, whose understrength army is having a hard time keep bigger Russian forces at bay.

The Ukrainian leader was in London to attend U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s effort to rally his European counterparts around continuing — and likely much increased — support for Ukraine from the continent amid political uncertainty in the U.S., and Trump’s overtures toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Asked by a reporter to comment about the outlines of a new European initiative to end Russia’s war, Zelenskyy said: “We are talking about the first steps today, and therefore, until they are on paper, I would not like to talk about them in great detail.”

“An agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet. The peace that we foresee in the future must be just, honest, and most importantly, sustainable,” he added.

Trump slammed Zelenskyy later Monday for suggesting that the end of Russia’s war against Ukraine is still far off.  “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. — Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia,” Trump added in his post. “What are they thinking?”

The White House wants Zelenskyy to show more openness to potential concessions in order to bring the fighting to an end, but Zelenskyy resisted that idea while pressing for security guarantees from Washington during last Friday’s meeting.

Friedrich Merz, Germany’s likely next leader after the recent election, said Monday that he didn’t think last Friday’s Oval Office blow-up was spontaneous.

He said that he had watched the scene repeatedly. “My assessment is that it wasn’t a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskyy, but apparently an induced escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office,” Merz said.

He said that he was “somewhat astonished by the mutual tone,” but there has been “a certain continuity to what we are seeing from Washington at the moment” in recent weeks.

A Michigan woman is asking a judge to declare her three missing sons dead, nearly 15 years after their father didn’t return them after Thanksgiving. The disappearance has tormented a small town near Ohio and remains unsolved.

Authorities believe the brothers are deceased and they clearly suspect John Skelton is responsible, though he has not been charged with killing his sons. By November, he is expected to complete a 15-year prison sentence for his failure to give the boys back to Tanya Zuvers, the sole conviction in the saga.

A Lenawee County judge will begin hearing testimony Monday at an unusual hearing. The witness list includes Zuvers, as well as police investigators who will publicly discuss the yearslong effort to find any trace of Andrew, Alexander and Tanner Skelton.

Since November 2010, Zuvers has prayed someone “would cure her broken heart” with news about their whereabouts or that John Skelton would explain what really happened, attorney R. Burke Castleberry said in a court filing.

“Heartbreakingly, none of that has occurred,” he wrote.

Nathan Piwowarski, a lawyer in Cadillac, Michigan, who specializes in probate and estate law, said there can be many reasons to have someone declared dead, including “personal closure for the family.”

A court declaration also could “give someone authority to pursue a wrongful death claim or other civil claim,” said Piwowarski, who is not involved in the case.

Castleberry declined to comment ahead of the hearing. Skelton, 53, did not respond to an email sent to him in prison about the petition filed by Zuvers.

The brothers, ages 9, 7 and 5, lived in Morenci, a small community next to the Ohio border, 100 miles (161 kilometers) southwest of Detroit. Zuvers was seeking a divorce from Skelton in fall 2010 and the boys were with him, a few doors away, on Thanksgiving.

They were supposed to return to Zuvers the next morning. Instead, they were gone. Police later determined Skelton’s phone was in Ohio at 4:30 a.m. before it was turned off and then turned back on at 6 a.m. in Morenci.

Skelton denied harming his sons and said they were with an underground group for their safety, among other murky explanations, according to investigators.

People spent weeks searching woods and waters in Michigan and Ohio. While in prison, Skelton told authorities that a man who helps people leave Amish communities might know about the boys, but Castleberry said it was “another lie.”

Investigators at the court hearing “will detail the farfetched, unfathomable yarns John Skelton spun, leading authorities on one wild goose chase after another,” Castleberry said.

President Donald Trump signed on Saturday an executive order designating English as the official language of the United States.

The order allows government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in language other than English.

It rescinds a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organizations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.

“Establishing English as the official language will not only streamline communication but also reinforce shared national values, and create a more cohesive and efficient society,” according to the order.

“In welcoming new Americans, a policy of encouraging the learning and adoption of our national language will make the United States a shared home and empower new citizens to achieve the American dream,” the order also states. “Speaking English not only opens doors economically, but it helps newcomers engage in their communities, participate in national traditions, and give back to our society.”

More than 30 states have already passed laws designating English as their official language, according to U.S. English, a group that advocates for making English the official language in the United States.

For decades, lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to designate English as the official language of the U.S., but those efforts have not succeeded.

Within hours of Trump’s inauguration last month, the new administration took down the Spanish language version of the official White House website.

Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion and frustration at the change. The White House said at the time it was committed to bringing the Spanish language version of the website back online. As of Saturday, it was still not restored.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message about whether that would happen.

Trump shut down the Spanish version of the website during his first term. It was restored when President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021.

A group of American citizens and immigrants is suing the Trump administration for ending a long-standing legal tool presidents have used to allow people from countries where there’s war or political instability to enter and temporarily live in the U.S.

The lawsuit filed late Friday night seeks to reinstate humanitarian parole programs that allowed in 875,000 migrants from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who have legal U.S. resident as sponsors.

President Donald Trump has been ending legal pathways for immigrants to come to the U.S. and implementing campaign promises to deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally.

The plaintiffs include eight immigrants who entered the U.S. legally before the Trump administration ended what it called the “broad abuse” of humanitarian parole. They can legally stay in the U.S. until their parole expires, but the administration stopped processing their applications for asylum, visas and other requests that might allow them to remain longer.

None are identified by their real names because they fear deportation. Among them are Maksym and Maria Doe, a Ukrainian couple; Alejandro Doe, who fled Nicaragua following the abduction and torture of his father; and Omar Doe, who worked for more than 18 years with the U.S. military in his home country of Afghanistan.

“They didn’t do anything illegal. They followed the rules,” Kyle Varner, a 40-year-old doctor and real estate investor from Spokane, Washington, who sponsored 79 Venezuelans and is part of the lawsuit, told The Associated Press. “They have done nothing but work as hard as they can. ... This is just such a grave injustice.”

Almost all of the immigrants sponsored by Varner have lived in his house for some time. He paid their plane tickets. He helped them learn English and get driver’s licenses and jobs. He had 32 applications that were awaiting approval when the Trump administration ended the program in January.

Other plaintiffs include two more U.S. citizens who have sponsored immigrants, Sandra McAnany and Wilhen Pierre Victor, and the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a California-based organization that assists immigrants with legal advice.

“The Trump administration is trying to attack parole from all angles,” said Esther Sung, an attorney from the Justice Action Center, which filed the lawsuit with Human Rights First in federal court in Massachusetts and provided the AP a copy in advance. “The main goal, above all, is to defend humanitarian parole. These have been very, very successful processes.”

The U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Parole authority began in 1952 and has been used by Republican and Democratic presidents to admit people unable to use standard immigration routes because of time pressure or because their home country’s government lacks diplomatic relations with the U.S.

A lawsuit filed by 17 states challenging federal rules entitling workers to time off and other accommodations for abortions may proceed, a federal appeals court ruled.

The Eighth Circuit Court’s decision on Thursday reverses Eastern District of Arkansas U.S. District Judge D.P. Marshall, Jr.'s dismissal of the case in June after he found that the states lacked standing to sue. Eighth Circuit Chief Judge Steven M. Colloton, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2003, wrote in Thursday’s opinion that the states do have standing since they are subject to the federal rules.

Led by Republican state attorneys general in Tennessee and Arkansas, the 17 states sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April challenging its rules on how to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a 2022 bipartisan law requiring employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant or postpartum employees.

In addition to more routine pregnancy workplace accommodations like time off for prenatal appointments, more bathroom breaks, or permission to carry snacks, the rules say that workers can ask for time off to obtain an abortion and recover from the procedure.

“The Biden-era EEOC’s attempt to turn a good law into an ideological weapon to force broad elective abortion accommodations is illegal,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in an emailed statement. “The EEOC’s unlawful regulations undermine the constitutional authority of the people’s elected representatives and we are vindicated by the Court’s decision to let our suit proceed.”

The lawsuit — joined by state attorneys in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia — is one of several legal challenges to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act rules. One case in Texas seeks to overturn the law in its entirety.

The Eighth Circuit Court’s decision to revive the case comes after a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling opened the door to state abortion bans, and as bills to track and charge women who get abortions with murder have gotten attention in Missouri, North Dakota and Oklahoma state legislatures this month.

The EEOC, which enforces U.S. anti-discrimination laws, during former President Joe Biden’s administration published regulations that provide guidance for employers and workers on how to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. In them, the agency said that workers can ask for time off to obtain an abortion and recover from the procedure, along with pregnancy-related medical conditions like miscarriage, stillbirth and lactation. Citing numerous court rulings, the EEOC in its regulations said it was conforming to decades of legal precedent establishing that pregnancy-related discrimination laws include abortion.

But many Republican lawmakers, including Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who co-sponsored the bill, were furious when the EEOC stated that the law covered abortions. Both Republican EEOC commissioners voted against the rules at the time. A spokesperson for the EEOC said the agency will “refrain from discussing litigation” but referred The Associated Press to Acting Chair Andrea Lucas’ position on the Commission’s PWFA regulations, which she voted against.

“I support elements of the final rule. However, I am unable to approve it because it purports to broaden the scope of the statute in ways that, in my view, cannot reasonably be reconciled with the text,” she wrote in a statement at the time explaining her decision to vote against the rules.

The EEOC has undergone significant change since President Donald Trump took office last month. After naming Lucas, a Republican, as acting chair, Trump fired two Democratic commissioners of the five-member bipartisan EEOC before their terms expired in an unprecedented move. Had the commissioners been allowed to carry out their terms, the EEOC would have had a Democratic majority well into Trump’s term. The administration also dismissed Karla Gilbride as the EEOC’s general counsel, replacing her with Andrew Rogers as acting counsel.

Without a quorum, the EEOC cannot rescind its own rules, although Lucas in the statement said she intends for the EEOC to reconsider portions of the rules she believes are unsupported by law once a quorum is re-established.

The Department of Justice represents the EEOC in court, and under Trump, it remains to be seen whether it will continue to fight the states’ lawsuit.

The Trump administration said it is eliminating more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world, putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad.

The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles with the administration.

The Trump administration outlined its plans in both an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press and filings in one of those federal lawsuits Wednesday.

The Supreme Court intervened in that case late Wednesday and temporarily blocked a court order requiring the administration to release billions of dollars in foreign aid by midnight.

Wednesday’s disclosures also give an idea of the scale of the administration’s retreat from U.S. aid and development assistance overseas, and from decades of U.S. policy that foreign aid helps U.S. interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances.

The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.” More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”

President Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk have hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their push to cut the size of the federal government. Both men say USAID projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money.

Trump on Jan. 20 ordered what he said would be a 90-day program-by-program review of which foreign assistance programs deserved to continue, and cut off all foreign assistance funds almost overnight.

The funding freeze has stopped thousands of U.S.-funded programs abroad, and the administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams have pulled the majority of USAID staff off the job through forced leave and firings.

Widely successful USAID programs credited with containing outbreaks of Ebola and other threats and saving more than 20 million lives in Africa through HIV and AIDS treatment are among those still cut off from agency funds, USAID officials and officials with partner organizations say. Meanwhile, formal notifications of program cancellations are rolling out.

In the federal court filings Wednesday, nonprofits owed money on contracts with USAID describe both Trump political appointees and members of Musk’s teams terminating USAID’s contracts around the world at breakneck speed, without time for any meaningful review, they say.

“‘There are MANY more terminations coming, so please gear up!’'' a USAID official wrote staff Monday, in an email quoted by lawyers for the nonprofits in the filings.

The nonprofits, among thousands of contractors, owed billions of dollars in payment since the freeze began, called the en masse contract terminations a maneuver to get around complying with the order to lift the funding freeze temporarily.

So did a Democratic lawmaker.

The administration was attempting to “blow through Congress and the courts by announcing the completion of their sham ‘review’ of foreign aid and the immediate termination of thousands of aid programs all over the world,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A coalition representing major U.S. and global businesses and nongovernmental organizations and former officials expressed shock at the move. “The American people deserve a transparent accounting of what will be lost — on counterterror, global health, food security, and competition,” the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition said.

The State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had reviewed the terminations.

In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multiyear USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion.

The State Department memo, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administration’s monthlong block on foreign aid funding.

As President Donald Trump moves to overhaul the federal government with astonishing speed, he has wreaked havoc on one agency long known for its nonpartisanship and revered for its mission: the National Archives and Records Administration.

The independent agency and its trove of historic records have been the subject of Hollywood films and the foundation of research and policy. It also holds responsibilities in processes that are crucial for democracy, from amending the Constitution to electing a president. As the nation’s recordkeeper, the Archives tells the story of America — its founding, breakdowns, mistakes and triumphs.

Former employees of the agency now worry it’s becoming politicized.

Earlier this month, the Republican president abruptly fired the head archivist. Since then, several senior staffers at the Archives have quit or retired. An unknown number of staffers at the agency also have accepted government-offered deferred resignations, often known as buyouts, or been fired because of their probationary status.

Everything that happens in the government, domestically and internationally, generates records. The National Archives is their final landing spot.

Among those are the nation’s precious founding documents, including the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The collection also includes military personnel files that allow veterans to get benefits, employment and tax records, maps, drawings, photographs, electronic records and more.

The archivist of the United States is the steward of those billions of records, which belong to the American people, said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association.

Besides its museum in Washington, the agency manages field offices and presidential libraries around the country. It also authenticates and certifies new constitutional amendments and houses the Office of the Federal Register, which, among other things, verifies electoral certificates during presidential elections.

The president didn’t give a public reason for firing archivist Colleen Shogan, but he has long held a grudge against the agency for notifying the Justice Department of his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office following his first term.

That 2022 referral led to an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and a federal indictment against him. A federal judge dismissed the case last year.

Shogan wasn’t working for the agency at the time. Still, Trump fired her abruptly on Feb. 7 without giving her a reason, she said in a social media post.

The Society of American Archivists said its leadership was alarmed by the news and said the firing with no stated cause “does harm to our nation and its people.”

The president is allowed to dismiss the head of the agency, but none has done so quite as brazenly as Trump. The closest historical precedent was in 2004, when archivist John Carlin resigned and revealed in a letter to a U.S. senator that he had been asked to do so by President George W. Bush’s Republican White House.

The president is required by law to notify Congress of the reasons for the firing, but he isn’t bound to any timeline. House and Senate leaders didn’t respond to The Associated Press’ inquiries about whether Trump had shared that information. The Senate committee that has appropriations jurisdiction over the Archives was not told of Shogan’s firing beforehand, nor has it been told of any replacement, a congressional staff member said.

In a federal courtroom Monday afternoon, a significant legal battle unfolded as The Associated Press (AP) pressed its case against three staff members of President Donald Trump's administration. The news agency is seeking to reverse the Trump administration’s decision to bar AP journalists from attending presidential events, including access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other areas traditionally part of the White House press pool.

The crux of the dispute lies in the AP's refusal to adopt President Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America." The AP insists on using the traditional "Gulf of Mexico" terminology, explaining that its audience is global and that the body of water extends beyond U.S. territory. Nonetheless, the news agency has acknowledged Trump's renaming, emphasizing its stance as a matter of journalistic integrity and global relevance.

At the heart of the AP’s argument is a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which safeguards freedom of speech. The White House, on the other hand, contends that access to the president is a privilege, not a right. Trump himself told reporters just last week, "We're going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it's the Gulf of America."

AP’s legal team claims that the ban, which appears to have originated directly from President Trump, is an infringement on their First Amendment rights. Gabe Rottman, a senior attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the AP, described the situation as "viewpoint discrimination." He further emphasized that this type of discrimination is particularly prohibited under the First Amendment, calling it “poison to a free society."

Judge McFadden, who presided over the hearing, expressed significant concern, raising several questions that pointed to the fact that the ban could indeed be seen as an infringement on freedom of speech, making the case a landmark one for press freedom.

Billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk violated the law with his weekend demand that federal employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired, attorneys for the workers said Monday in a lawsuit.

The updated lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California and was provided to The Associated Press, is trying to block mass layoffs pursued by Musk and President Donald Trump, including any connected to the email distributed by the Office of Personnel Management on Saturday. The office, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, said employees needed to detail five things they did last week by end of day on Monday.

“No OPM rule, regulation, policy, or program has ever, in United States history, purported to require all federal workers to submit reports to OPM,” said the amended complaint, which was filed on behalf of unions, businesses veterans, and conservation organizations represented by the group State Democracy Defenders Fund. It called the threat of mass firings “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”

Musk, who’s leading the Republican president’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government, continued to threaten federal workers Monday even as confusion spread through the administration and some top officials told employees not to comply.

“Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career elsewhere,” Musk posted on X, his social media platform.

He also escalated Trump’s demand for employees to stop working remotely, saying those who fail to return to the office will be placed on administrative leave.

The latest round of turmoil began over the weekend, when Trump posted on his social media website: “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.”

Musk followed by saying “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.” He claimed “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The directive echoed how the entrepreneur has managed his own companies.

The Office of Personnel Management sent out its own request afterward.

“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” the message said. However, it said nothing about the potential for employees being fired for noncompliance. The deadline was listed as 11:59 p.m. EST Monday.

There was swift resistance from several key U.S. agencies led by the president’s loyalists — including the FBI, the State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon — which instructed their employees over the weekend not to respond. Lawmakers in both major political parties said Musk’s mandate may be illegal, while unions threatened to sue.

One message Sunday morning from the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its 80,000 employees to comply. That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to. And by Sunday evening, agency leadership issued new instructions that employees should “pause activities” related to the request until noon Monday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insists President Donald Trump ’s abrupt firing of the nation’s senior military officer amid a wave of dismissals at the Pentagon wasn’t unusual, brushing aside outcry that the new administration is openly seeking to inject politics into the military. He also suggested more firings could come.

“Nothing about this is unprecedented,” Hegseth told “Fox News Sunday” about Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. being removed Friday night as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The president deserves to pick his key national security advisory team.”

Hegseth said “there are lots of presidents who made changes” citing former commanders in chief from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama, who the defense secretary said “fired or dismissed hundreds” of military officials.

Months into his first term, Obama relieved Army Gen. David McKiernan as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Trump, however, vowed while running for his second term to eradicate “woke” ideologies from the military and moving swiftly to dismiss so many top leaders means keeping a campaign promise.

Hegeseth and Trump have made no secret about focusing on pushing aside military officers who have supported diversity, equity and inclusion in the ranks. The administration says its is on better fortifying a lethal fighting force.

Brown was just the second Black general to serve as chairman. His 16 months in the post were consumed with the war in Ukraine and the expanded conflict in the Middle East. Trump in 2020 nominated Brown as Air Force’s chief of staff.

Trump wants to replace Brown Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, who retired in December. It is unclear what recalling Caine to active-duty service will require. The position requires Caine to be confirmed by the Senate.

Hegseth said Friday’s dismissals affected six three- and four-star generals and were “a reflection of the president wanting the right people around him to execute the national security approach we want to take.”

He called Brown “honorable” but said he is “not the right man for the moment,” without citing specific deficiencies. After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, Brown in a video spoke of his experience as a Black pilot, apparently making him fodder for the Trump administration’s wars against inclusion initiatives in the military.

Of Caine, the Defense secretary said that Trump “respects leaders who untie the hands of war fighters in a very dangerous world.”

Retired Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. and multinational forces in Iraq from 2004 to 2007 under Republican President George W. Bush, called the firings “extremely destabilizing.” He also noted that the Trump administration can change Pentagon policy without changing personnel, but added, that what happened is “”within the president’s prerogative.”

“That’s his prerogative,” Casey told ABC’s “This Week.” “He is the commander in chief of the armed forces.”

Still, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee told ABC that the firings were “completely unjustified” and that “apparently, what Trump and Hegseth are trying to do is to politicize the Department of Defense.”

Hegseth was also asked on Fox News about officials potentially compiling lists of more defense officials they plan to fire. He said there was no list but suggested that more dismissals could indeed be coming.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been given little more than 48 hours to explain what they accomplished over the last week, sparking confusion across key agencies as billionaire Elon Musk expands his crusade to slash the size of federal government.

Musk, who serves as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting chief, telegraphed the extraordinary request on his social media network on Saturday.

“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk posted on X, which he owns. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

Shortly afterward, federal employees — including some judges, court staff and federal prison officials — received a three-line email with this instruction: “Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”

The deadline to reply was listed as Monday at 11:59 p.m., although the email did not include Musk’s social media threat about those who fail to respond.

The latest unusual directive from Musk’s team injects a new sense of chaos across beleaguered multiple agencies, including the National Weather Service, the State Department and the federal court system, as senior officials worked to verify the message’s authenticity Saturday night and in some cases, instructed their employees not to respond.

Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforce — either by being fired or offered a buyout — during the first month of Trump’s administration as the White House and Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency fire both new and career workers, tell agency leaders to plan for “large-scale reductions in force” and freeze trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.

There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but The Associated Press has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington. The cuts include thousands at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Parks Service, among others.

Labor union leaders quickly condemned the ultimatum and threatened legal action.

AFGE President Everett Kelley called the new order an example of Trump and Musk’s “utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people.”

“It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life,” Kelley said. “AFGE will challenge any unlawful terminations of our members and federal employees across the country.”

Musk on Friday celebrated his new role at a gathering of conservatives by waving a giant chainsaw in the air. He called it “the chainsaw for bureaucracy” and said, “Waste is pretty much everywhere” in the federal government.

McLaurine Pinover, a spokesperson at the Office of Personnel Management, confirmed Musk’s directive and said that individual agencies would “determine any next steps.”

What happens if an employee is on leave or vacation? Again, she said individual agencies would determine how to proceed.

In a message to employees on Saturday night, federal court officials instructed recipients not to respond.

“We understand that some judges and judiciary staff have received an email ... directing the recipient to reply with 5 accomplishments from the prior week. Please be advised that this email did not originate from the Judiciary or the Administrative Office and we suggest that no action be taken,” officials wrote.

Judges around the country got emails from Musk’s team in late January, apparently by mistake, U.S. District Judge Randolph Daniel Moss said earlier this month. Moss said he’d also gotten a message and ignored it.

The National Weather Service leadership acknowledged some confusion in a message to its employees late Saturday as well.

The chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court announced Wednesday that she is stepping down from the court by the end of April, opening the door for the court to have a 6-1 majority of Democratic-backed justices.

Elizabeth Clement did not give a reason for her upcoming resignation.

“Leading our state’s highest court has been an opportunity to continue a proud record of independence, fairness, and commitment to the rule of law,” Clement said in a statement. “I am thankful to my colleagues for their support and friendship, as well as for their willingness to seek common ground in serving the people of Michigan.”

Michigan’s justices are technically nonpartisan, but they are nominated by parties or appointed by the governor in the case of a vacancy. The court currently has a 5-2 majority of justices backed by Democrats after picking up a seat in the November election.

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has the opportunity to appoint a justice to fill Clement’s vacancy and create a 6-1 majority of Democratic-backed justices. Whoever fills the vacancy must run for retention in 2026 for a full eight-year term.

Clement was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court in 2017 by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. She secured a full term in the 2018 general election and her term was set to end in 2026. In November 2022, she was chosen to serve as Chief Justice.

“Going forward, my plan is to continue working to find ways to bring people together, to put data to work, and to make a difference in the lives of people so that interactions with our justice system result in safer communities and stronger families,” Clement said in the statement released by the court.