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SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Wednesday from firing thousands of government workers based on the ongoing federal shutdown, granting a request from employee unions in California.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the temporary restraining order after concluding that the unions “will demonstrate ultimately that what’s being done here is both illegal and is in excess of authority and is arbitrary and capricious.”

Illston slammed the Trump administration for failing to provide her with clear information about what cuts are actually occurring, for repeatedly changing its description and estimates of job cuts in filings before the court, and for failing — including during Wednesday’s hearing in San Francisco — to articulate an argument for why such cuts are not in violation of federal law.

“The evidence suggests that the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, and the Office of Personnel Management, OPM, have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them anymore,” Illston said — which she said was not the case.

She said the government justified providing inaccurate figures for the number of jobs being eliminated under its “reduction in force” orders by calling it a “fluid situation” — which she did not find convincing.

“What it is is a situation where things are being done before they are being thought through. It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs,” she said. “And it has a human cost, which is really why we’re here today. It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”

Illston also ran through a string of recent comments made by President Trump and other members of his administration about the firings and their intentionally targeting programs and agencies supported by Democrats, saying, “By all appearances, they’re politically motivated.”

The Trump administration has acknowledged dismissing about 4,000 workers under the orders, while Trump and other officials have signaled that more would come Friday.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said Wednesday on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that the number of jobs cut could “probably end up being north of 10,000,” as the administration wants to be “very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding,” and the shutdown provided that opportunity.

Attorneys for the unions, led by the American Federation of Government Employees, said that the figures were unreliable and that they feared additional reduction in force orders resulting in more layoffs, as promised by administration officials, if the court did not step in and block such actions.

Illston, an appointee of President Clinton, did just that.

She barred the Trump administration and its various agencies “from taking any action to issue any reduction in force notices to federal employees in any program, project or activity” involving union members “during or because of the federal shutdown.”

She also barred the administration from “taking any further action to administer or implement” existing reduction notices involving union members.

Illston demanded that the administration provide within two days a full accounting of all existing or “imminent” reduction in force orders that would be blocked by her order, as well as the specific number of federal jobs affected.

Elizabeth Hedges, an attorney for the Trump administration, had argued during the hearing that the order should not be granted for several procedural reasons — including that the alleged harm to federal employees from loss of employment or benefits was not “irreparable” and could be addressed through other avenues, including civil litigation.

Additionally, she argued that federal employment claims should be adjudicated administratively, not in district court; and that the reduction in force orders included 60-day notice periods, meaning the layoffs were not immediate and therefore the challenge to them was not yet “ripe” legally.

However, Hedges would not discuss the case on its actual merits — which is to say, whether the cuts were actually legal or not, which did not seem to sit well with Illston.

“You don’t have a position on whether it’s OK that they do what they’re doing?” Illston asked.

“I am not prepared to discuss that today, your honor,” Hedges said.

“Well — but it’s happening. This hatchet is falling on the heads of employees all across the nation, and you’re not even prepared to address whether that’s legal, even though that’s what this motion challenges?” Illston said.

“That’s right,” Hedges said — stressing again that there were “threshold” arguments for why the case shouldn’t even be allowed to continue to the merits stage.

Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the unions, suggested the government’s positions were indefensible and directly in conflict with public statements by the administration — including remarks by Trump on Tuesday that more cuts are coming Friday.

“How do we know this? Because OMB and the president relentlessly are telling us, and other members of the administration,” Leonard said.

Leonard said the harm from the administration’s actions is obvious and laid out in the union’s filings — showing how employees have at times been left in the dark as to their employment status because they don’t have access to work communication channels during the shutdown, or how others have been called in to “work without pay to fire their fellow employees” — only to then be fired themselves.

“There are multiple types of harm that are caused exactly right now — emotional trauma. That’s not my word, your honor, that is the word of OMB Director Vought. Let’s cause ‘trauma’ to the federal workforce,” Leonard said. “And that’s exactly what they are doing. Trauma. The emotional distress of being told you are being fired after an already exceptionally difficult year for federal employees.”

Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of Democracy Forward, which is co-counsel for the unions, praised Illston’s decision in a statement after the hearing.

“The statements today by the court make clear that the President’s targeting of federal workers — a move straight out of Project 2025’s playbook — is unlawful,” Perryman said. “Our civil servants do the work of the people, and playing games with their livelihoods is cruel and unlawful and a threat to everyone in our nation.”

Illston asked the two parties to confer on the best date, probably later this month, for a fuller hearing on whether she should issue a more lasting preliminary injunction in the case.

“It would be wonderful to know what the government’s position is on the merits of this case — and my breath is bated until we find that,” Illston said.

After the hearing, during a White House news conference, Trump said his administration was paying federal employees whom “we want paid” while Vought uses the shutdown to dismiss employees perceived as supporting Democratic initiatives.

“Russell Vought is really terminating tremendous numbers of Democrat projects — not only jobs,” Trump said.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is making this government shutdown unlike any the country has ever seen, enabling his budget office a rare authority to pick winners and losers — who gets paid or fired — in an unprecedented restructuring across the federal workforce.

As the shutdown enters its third week, the Office and Management and Budget said Tuesday it’s preparing to “batten down the hatches” with more reductions in force to come. The president calls budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper” who’s seized on the opportunity to fund Trump’s priorities, paying the military while slashing employees in health, education, the sciences and other areas with actions that have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges.

“Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” OMB said in a social media post.

With Congress at a standstill — the Republican-led House refusing to return to session and the Senate stuck in a loop of failed votes to reopen government as Democrats demand health care funds — the White House’s budget office quickly filled the void.

From Project 2025 to the White House

Vought, a chief architect of the conservative Project 2025 policy book, is reshaping the size and scope of federal government in ways similar to those envisioned in the blueprint. It is exactly what certain lawmakers, particularly Democrats, feared if Congress failed to fund the government.

Trump’s priorities — supporting the military and pursuing his mass deportation agenda — have been kept largely uninterrupted, despite the closures. But employees in health, education, the sciences and other federal departments are among those being laid off. As many as 750,000 workers are being furloughed.

“Donald Trump and Russ Vought and all of their cronies are using this moment to terrorize these patriots,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., standing with federal workers Tuesday outside the White House budget office.

Van Hollen said it’s “a big fat lie” when Trump and his budget director say that the shutdown is making them fire federal workers. “It is also illegal and we will see them in court,” Van Hollen said.

Shutdown grinds into a third week

Now on its 14th day, the federal closure is quickly becoming among the longest government shutdowns. Congress failed to meet the Oct. 1 deadline to pass the annual appropriations bills needed to fund the government as the Democrats demanded a deal to preserve expiring health care funds that provide subsidies for people to purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday said he has nothing to negotiate with the Democrats until they vote to reopen the government.

The Republican speaker welcomed OMB’s latest actions to pay some workers and fire others.

“They have every right to move the funds around,” Johnson said at a press conference at the Capitol. If the Democrats want to challenge the Trump administration in court, Johnson said, “bring it.”

Typically, federal workers are furloughed during a lapse in funding, traditionally with back pay once government funding is restored. But Vought’s budget office announced late last week the reductions in forces had begun. More than 4,000 workers received layoff notices over the weekend.

Military pay, deportations on track

At the same time, Trump instructed the military to find money to ensure service personnel wouldn’t miss paychecks this week. The Pentagon said over the weekend it was able to tap $8 billion in unused research and development funds to make payroll.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her agency was relying on Trump’s big tax cuts law for funding to make sure members of the Coast Guard, which falls under the department, are also paid.

“We at DHS worked out an innovative solution to make sure that didn’t happen,” Noem said in a statement. Thanks to “the One Big Beautiful Bill,” she said, “the brave men and women of the US Coast Guard will not miss a paycheck this week.”

In past shutdowns, the Office of Management and Budget has overseen agency plans during the lapse in federal fundings, ensuring which workers are essential and remain on the job. Vought, however, has taken his role further by speaking openly about his plans to go after the federal workforce.

As agencies started making their shutdown plans, Vought’s OMB encouraged department heads to consider reductions in force, an unheard of action. The budget office’s general counsel, Mark Paoletta suggested in a draft memo that the workforce may not be automatically eligible for back pay once government reopens.

‘Grim reaper’ replaces Elon Musk’s chainsaw

Trump posted an AI-generated video last week that portrayed Vought dressed with cloak and dagger, against the backdrop of the classic rock staple “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.”

“Every authoritarian leader has had his grim reaper. Russell Vought is Donald Trump’s,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, the senior Democrat from Maryland.

Hoyer compared the budget chief to billionaire Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw earlier this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s slashing of the workforce “Vought swings his scythe through the federal government as thoughtlessly,” he said.

In many ways, the “Big, Beautiful Bill, Act” as the law is commonly called, gives the White House a vast new allotment of federal funding for its priority projects, separate from the regular appropriations process in Congress.

The package unleashed some $175 billion for the Pentagon, including for the Golden Dome missile shield and other priority projects, and another $175 million to Homeland Security largely for Trump’s mass deportation agenda. It also included extra funds for Vought’s work at OMB.

Trump’s big bill provides billions

Certain funds from the “big bill” are available to be used during the shutdown, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

“The Administration also could decide to use mandatory funding provided in the 2025 reconciliation act or other sources of mandatory funding to continue activities financed by those direct appropriations at various agencies,” according to CBO.

The CBO cited the Department of Defense, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Management and Budget as among those that received eligible funds under the law..

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — It has been four months since Elon Musk, President Trump’s bureaucratic demolition man, abandoned Washington in a flurry of recriminations and chaos.

But the Trump administration’s crusade to dismantle much of the federal government never ended. It’s merely under new management: the less colorful but more methodical Russell Vought, director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.

Vought has become the backroom architect of Trump’s aggressive strategy — slashing the federal workforce, freezing billions in congressionally approved spending in actions his critics often call illegal.

Now Vought has proposed using the current government shutdown as an opportunity to fire thousands of bureaucrats permanently instead of merely furloughing them temporarily. If any do return to work, he has suggested that the government need not give them back pay — contrary to a law Trump signed in 2019.

Those threats may prove merely to be pressure tactics as Trump tries to persuade Democrats to accept spending cuts on Medicaid, Obamacare and other programs.

But the shutdown battle is the current phase of a much larger one. Vought’s long-term goals, he says, are to “bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will” and “deconstruct the administrative state.”

He’s still only partway done.

“I’d estimate that Vought has implemented maybe 10% or 15% of his program,” said Donald F. Kettl, former dean of the public policy school at the University of Maryland. “There may be as much as 90% to go. If this were a baseball game, we’d be in the top of the second inning.”

Along the way, Vought (pronounced “vote”) has chipped relentlessly at Congress’ ability to control the use of federal funds, massively expanding the power of the president.

“He has waged the most serious attack on separation of powers in American history,” said Elaine Kamarck, an expert on federal management at the Brookings Institution.

He’s done that mainly by using OMB, the White House office that oversees spending, to control the day-to-day purse strings of federal agencies — and deliberately keeping Congress in the dark along the way.

“If Congress has given us authority that is too broad, then we’re going to use that authority aggressively,” Vought said last month.

Federal judges have ruled some of the administration’s actions illegal, but they have allowed others to stand. Vought’s proposal to use the shutdown to fire thousands of bureaucrats hasn’t been tested in court.

Vought developed his aggressive approach during two decades as a conservative budget expert, culminating in his appointment as director of OMB in Trump’s first term.

In 2019, he stretched the limits of presidential power by helping Trump get around a congressional ban on funding for a border wall, by declaring an emergency and transferring military funds. He froze congressionally mandated aid for Ukraine, the action that led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Even so, Vought complained that Trump had been needlessly restrained by cautious first-term aides.

“The lawyers come in and say, ‘It’s not legal. You can’t do that,’” he said in 2023. “I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office over whether something is legal.”

Vought is a proponent of the “unitary executive” theory, the argument that the president should have unfettered control over every tentacle of the executive branch, including independent agencies such as the Federal Reserve.

When Congress designates money for federal programs, he has argued, “It’s a ceiling. It is not a floor. It’s not the notion that you have to spend every dollar.”

Most legal experts disagree; a 1974 law prohibits the president from unilaterally withholding money Congress has appropriated.

Vought told conservative activists in 2023 that if Trump returned to power, he would deliberately seek to inflict “trauma” on federal employees.

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work.”

When Vought returned to OMB for Trump’s second term, he appeared to be in Musk’s shadow. But once the flamboyant Tesla chief executive flamed out, the OMB director got to work to make DOGE’s work the foundation for lasting changes.

He extended many of DOGE’s funding cuts by slowing down OMB’s approval of disbursements — turning them into de facto freezes.

He helped persuade Republicans in Congress to cancel $9 billion in previously approved foreign aid and public broadcasting support, a process known as “rescission.”

To cancel an additional $4.9 billion, he revived a rarely used gambit called a “pocket rescission,” freezing the funds until they expired.

Along the way, he quietly stopped providing Congress with information on spending, leaving legislators in the dark on whether programs were being axed.

DOGE and OMB eliminated jobs so quickly that the federal government stopped publishing its ongoing tally of federal employees. (Any number would only be approximate; some layoffs are tied up in court, and thousands of employees who opted for voluntary retirement are technically still on the payroll.)

The result was a significant erosion of Congress’ “power of the purse,” which has historically included not only approving money but also monitoring how it was spent.

Even some Republican members of Congress seethed. “They would like a blank check … and I don’t think that’s appropriate,” said former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

But the GOP majorities in both the House and Senate, pleased to see spending cut by any means, let Vought have his way. Even McConnell voted to approve the $9-billion rescission request.

Vought’s newest innovation, the mid-shutdown layoffs, would be another big step toward reducing Congress’ role.

“The result would be a dramatic, instantaneous shift in the separation of powers,” Kettl said. “The Trump team could kill programs unilaterally without the inconvenience of going to Congress.”

Some of the consequences could be catastrophic, Kettl and other scholars warned. Kamarck calls them “time bombs.”

“One or more of these decisions is going to blow up in Trump’s face,” she said.

“FEMA won’t be capable of reacting to the next hurricane. The National Weather Service won’t have the forecasters it needs to analyze the data from weather balloons.”

Even before the government shutdown, she noted, the FAA was grappling with a shortage of air traffic controllers. This week the FAA slowed takeoffs at several airports in response to growing shortages, including at air traffic control centers in Atlanta, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

In theory, a future Congress could undo many of Vought’s actions, especially if Democrats win control of the House or, less likely, the Senate.

But rebuilding agencies that have been radically shrunken would take much longer than cutting them down, the scholars said.

“Much of this will be difficult to reverse when Democrats come back into fashion,” Kamarck said.

Indeed, that’s part of Vought’s plan.

“We want to make sure that the bureaucracy can’t reconstitute itself later in future administrations,” he said in April in a podcast with Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was slain on Sept. 10.

He’s pleased with the progress he’s made, he told reporters in July.

“We’re having fun,” he said.

NEW YORK — President Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

Both of Trump’s Democratic rivals, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, made the far-right wish list a centerpiece of their campaigns, and a giant replica of the book featured prominently onstage at the Democratic National Convention.

“Donald Trump and his stooges lied through their teeth about Project 2025, and now he’s running the country straight into it,” said Ammar Moussa, a former spokesperson for both campaigns. “There’s no comfort in being right — just anger that we’re stuck with the consequences of his lies.”

Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Biden, said the administration had clearly been following the project’s blueprint all along.

“I guess Democrats were right, but that doesn’t make me feel better,” she said. “I’m angry that this is happening after being told that this document was not going to be the centerpiece of this administration.”

Asked about Trump’s reversal, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “Democrats are desperate to talk about anything aside from their decision to hurt the American people by shutting down the government.”

Project what?

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

Trump administration uses the shutdown to further its goals

Since his swearing in, Trump has been pursuing plans laid out in Project 2025 to dramatically expand presidential power and reduce the size of the federal workforce. They include efforts like the Department of Government Efficiency and budget rescission packages, which have led to billions of dollars being stalled, scrapped or withheld by the administration so far this year.

They are now using the shutdown to accelerate their progress.

Ahead of the funding deadline, OMB directed agencies to prepare for additional mass firings of federal workers, rather than simply furloughing those who are not deemed essential, as has been the usual practice during past shutdowns. Vought told House GOP lawmakers in a private conference call Wednesday that layoffs would begin in the next day or two.

They have also used the shutdown to target projects championed by Democrats, including canceling $8 billion in green energy projects in states with Democratic senators and withholding $18 billion for transportation projects in New York City that have been championed by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in their home state.

Dreaming of this moment

The moves are part of a broader effort to concentrate federal authority in the presidency, which permeated Project 2025.

In his chapter in the blueprint, Vought made clear he wanted the president and OMB to wield more direct power.

“The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind,” he wrote. Vought described OMB as “a President’s air-traffic control system,” which should be “involved in all aspects of the White House policy process,” becoming “powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Fox News Channel that Vought “has a plan, and that plan is going to succeed in further empowering Trump. This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed that message, insisting the government shutdown gives Trump and his budget director vast power over the federal government and the unilateral power to determine which personnel and policies are essential and which are not.

Schumer has handed “the keys of the kingdom to the president,” Johnson said Thursday. “Because they have decided to vote to shut the government down, they have now effectively turned off the legislative branch … and they’ve turned it over to the executive.”

Young said the Constitution gives the White House no such power and chastised Republicans in Congress for abandoning their duty to serve as a check on the president.

“I don’t want to hear a lecture about handing the keys over,” she said. “The keys are gone. They’re lost. They’re down a drain. This shutdown is not what lost the keys.”

Colvin writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The White House is telling agencies to prepare large-scale firings of federal workers if the government shuts down next week.

In a memo released Wednesday night, the Office of Management and Budget said agencies should consider a reduction in force for federal programs whose funding would lapse next week, are not otherwise funded and are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.” That would be a much more aggressive step than in previous shutdowns, when federal workers not deemed essential were furloughed but returned to their jobs once Congress approved government spending.

A reduction in force would not only lay off employees but eliminate their positions, which would trigger yet another massive upheaval in a federal workforce that has already faced major rounds of cuts this year due to efforts from the White House’s cost-cutting team the Department of Government Efficiency, and elsewhere in the Trump administration.

Once any potential government shutdown ends, agencies are asked to revise their reduction in force plans “as needed to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions,” according to the memo, which was first reported by Politico.

This move from OMB significantly increases the consequences of a potential government shutdown next week and escalates pressure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The two leaders have kept nearly all of their Democratic lawmakers united against a clean funding bill pushed by President Trump and congressional Republicans that would keep the federal government operating for seven more weeks, demanding immediate improvements to healthcare in exchange for their votes.

In statements issued shortly after the memo was released, the two Democrats showed no signs of budging.

“We will not be intimidated by your threat to engage in mass firings,” Jeffries wrote in a post on X. “Get lost.”

Jeffries called Russ Vought, the head of OMB, a “malignant political hack.”

Schumer said in a statement that the OMB memo is an “attempt at intimidation” and predicted the “unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back.”

OMB noted that it held its first planning call with other federal agencies earlier this week to plan for a shutdown. The budget office plays point in managing federal government shutdowns, particularly planning for them ahead of time. Past budget offices have also posted shutdown contingency plans — which would outline which agency workers would stay on the job during a government shutdown and which would be furloughed — on its website, but this one has not.

The memo noted that congressional Democrats are refusing to support a clean government funding bill “due to their partisan demands,” which include an extension of enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, plus a reversal of Medicaid cuts that were included in Republicans’ big tax and spending cuts law.

“As such, it has never been more important for the Administration to be prepared for a shutdown if the Democrats choose to pursue one,” the memo reads, which also notes that the GOP’s signature law, a major tax and border spending package, gives “ample resources to ensure that many core Trump administration priorities will continue uninterrupted.”

OMB noted that it had asked all agencies to submit their plans in case of a government shutdown by Aug. 1.

“OMB has received many, but not all, of your submissions,” it added. “Please send us your updated lapse plans ASAP.”

Kim writes for the Associated Press.