A federal judge in Massachusetts today temporarily barred the Trump administration from offering about two million federal workers the chance to leave their jobs in exchange for seven months of pay. The offer, which had a deadline of midnight tonight, was part of a sweeping effort by President Trump and Elon Musk to drastically cut the size of the federal work force.
Judge George O’Toole Jr., a Clinton appointee, paused the deadline until at least Monday, when the court would consider a legal challenge. It is not clear how the delay will affect the more than 40,000 federal employees who had already signed up to resign through the program.
The Trump administration has been pressuring workers for the last week to accept the offer, while the biggest government unions have been urging them to decline.
The judge’s decision appeared unlikely to end the broader effort by Trump and Musk to sharply reduce the size and cost of the federal government. The administration is planning to reduce the number of workers at the U.S. foreign aid agency from more than 10,000 to about 290 positions. Officials at the agency were also told that about 800 awards and contracts administered by U.S.A.I.D. were being canceled.
Already, cuts at U.S.A.I.D. have resulted in the freezing of dozens of clinical trials, leaving people with experimental drugs and medical products in their bodies and cut off from the researchers who were monitoring them.
New Orleans is rattled but ready for the Super Bowl
Security was always going to be tight for this weekend’s Super Bowl, which attracts attention and enthusiasm unlike almost anything else. But after New Orleans, the game’s host, suffered a deadly New Year’s Day ramming attack, officials decided to add new security measures.
Perhaps the most visible change is the “enhanced security zone” around Bourbon Street. Law enforcement officers were granted permission to search the bags of people entering the area and deny entry to anyone who refused.
The first big trend of the season
There are several good reasons to pay attention to ready-to-wear fashion season, which began today in New York and will soon roll on through London, Milan and Paris. For one, there will be a handful of designer debuts that could change the way we dress.
But the first major trend of the year is already clear, our fashion critic Vanessa Friedman pointed out: Big-name fashion houses are combining their men’s and women’s shows into one huge event. Vanessa has more on what to expect.
One early shock: Gucci’s designer is leaving.
The solitary Wanderer arrives at the Met
For the first time, Caspar David Friedrich’s circa 1817 painting “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” will be displayed in the U.S. this weekend. The artwork epitomizes German Romanticism, and its subject, the Wanderer, has become a metaphor for Germany itself.
But the exhibition at the Met offers much more than just one painting, as our critic Jason Farago explains. It’s a historic showcase of Friedrich’s art, which gives us a blueprint for how to think and feel in a changing environment.
Whales sing the way we speak
English speech follows a pattern: The most frequently used word (“the”) is used about twice as often as the second most common (“of”) and three times as much as the next (“and”). The pattern is called Zipf’s law, and it’s universal across human languages.
Now, researchers say the law also applies to the long, elaborate songs made by humpback whales. Recordings from 2010 identified groan-groan-moan as the most common “word” among a group of whales, appearing about twice as often as the next most common sequence, which was a moan followed by three ascending cries.
Have a melodious evening.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Matthew
Sean Kawasaki-Culligan was our photo editor today.
We welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@nytimes.com.
