Federal firings

  Washington Post - The Social Security Administration this week announced it was closing its Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, where about 150 people worked investigating civil rights complaints, preventing harassment and ensuring accommodations for people with disabilities, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Leaders at the Labor Department are planning to cut by 90 percent the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which for decades has worked to ensure government contractors took affirmative action to end discrimination at their firms, documents obtained by The Washington Post show. The Federal Trade Commission, meanwhile, has halved its internal equal employment opportunity office to three employees from six, and similar moves have taken place at NASA, where most information about how to file complaints has been removed from its websites. 

CNN - FBI New Director Kash Patel wants to quickly start moving up to 1,500 agents out of DC as soon as Friday. FBI officials told him that was not possible. Questions about whether the US will pay for relocation, for instance. More.

Axios - The cuts of about 800 probationary employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sliced deep into the agency tasked with a range of safety missions.  The cuts spared "only some" specialists at its National Weather Service, according to a congressional aide speaking on condition of anonymity.Layoffs at NOAA, a top weather and climate agency, come as climate change causes more intense and frequent weather and climate extremes.   More

CNN -  The Trump administration on Thursday fired hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and sources say more layoffs are possible today. The cuts are a blow to the understaffed weather and environmental agency as climate change crises and severe natural disasters become more frequent. Meanwhile, a federal judge on Thursday found that the mass firings of probationary employees were likely unlawful, granting temporary relief to a coalition of labor unions and organizations that sued to stop the Trump administration's massive overhaul of the federal workforce. It remains to be seen whether the order will put a hold on the mass firings of federal probationary workers.