Some of the 75,000 U.S. federal workers who the Office of Personnel Management says accepted a resignation buyout offer were ready to retire anyway. Others were motivated by looming federal workforce cuts or an order to return to the office.
President Donald Trump's drive to shake up the U.S. government drove out a rising star in conservative legal circles: A career federal prosecutor who once clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's attention-grabbing overseas debut may have irritated some key Republicans and alienated allies in Europe, where his statements on Ukraine and NATO went down like a lead balloon.