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(NEW YORK) — The chances of an asteroid striking Earth within the next decade has doubled in a matter of weeks, according to NASA astronomers.

The asteroid, discovered just after Christmas and named 2024 YR4, could strike the planet in December 2032 as it approaches during another journey around its orbit, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies.

When the detection of the asteroid was announced last month, NASA predicted just a 1.3% probability of it hitting Earth. The likelihood has increased to 2.1%.

The overall probability may be low, but a 2% chance of an asteroid strike is “uncommon,” Davide Farnocchia, navigation engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told ABC News.

“Getting something with a probability this high, like 2%, which is high for us,” he said.

On the Torino scale — the method for categorizing the impact hazard associated with near-Earth objects — 2024 YR4 is ranking at three out of 10, Farnocchia said, adding that most space objects rank at a zero.

The object was discovered in late December as it made a close approach towards Earth, but it is now moving away, Farnocchia said.

The elongated shape of the orbit takes the asteroid around the sun and into Earth’s vicinity before it ventures far out between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Because of the unusual orbit, the asteroid will disappear starting in April until 2028, according to NASA.

The uncertainty surrounding this space rock is still prominent as astronomers race to find out as much as they can about the asteroid before they lose sight of it.

“We don’t want to take any chances,” he said.

The asteroid measures between 130 feet and 330 feet in diameter and large enough to potentially cause localized damage were it to strike a populated city, according to NASA.

In 1908, the Tunguska asteroid, which was a similar size, flattened trees over an area of about 1,250 miles after it exploded in the skies over Siberia.

The worldwide astronomy community is paying close attention to this asteroid and any others that could potentially impact the planet using multiple telescopes as well as measurements to detail the objects’ positions in space, Farnocchia said.

“We are tracking this object every night,” he said.

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(BOSTON) — A federal judge in Boston said Monday he will continue to pause the Trump administration’s plan to offer a deferred resignation buyout to tens of thousands of federal employees until he issues a ruling on a preliminary injunction.

Three federal employee unions — with the support of 20 Democratic attorneys general — have argued that the Office of Personnel Management’s deferred resignation offer is an “unlawful ultimatum” to force the resignation of government workers under the “threat of mass termination.”

The pause, ordered by U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., came just hours ahead of the program’s midnight deadline, which itself was extended by four days following a temporary restraining order that continues to remain in effect.

During an hour-long hearing Monday, a lawyer for the Department of Justice framed the deferred resignation offer as a “humane off-ramp” for federal employees before President Donald Trump enacts sweeping changes to “rebalance and reorganize the federal workforce.”

“President Trump campaigned on a promise to reform the federal workforce,” DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton said, outlining Trump’s plan to reduce the size of the federal government and his return-to-office executive order. “We understand these announcements may have come as a disappointment for some in the federal workforce.”

Hamilton argued that any further delay of the buyout would cause irreparable harm because the Trump administration plans to enact the next steps of reshaping the federal government as soon as the buyout window closes.

Elena Goldstein, a lawyer representing the unions that brought the challenge, hammered the Trump administration for attempting to enforce an “unprecedented program” with a “slapdash exploding deadline”

“For the last two weeks, confusion has rained for millions of career civil servants,” Goldstein said. “This is a program of unprecedented magnitude that raises questions about the rationality of OPM’s decision-making.”

The buyout offer, part of Trump’s effort to trim the size of government through billionaire Elon Musk’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, was sent out two weeks ago in an email with the subject line “Fork in the Road” — the same language Musk used when he slashed jobs at Twitter after taking over that company in 2022.

The offer, from the Office of Personnel Management, offered full pay and benefits until September for any federal employee who accepted a deferred resignation by Feb. 6, with no obligation to work after they accepted the agreement.

While Goldstein acknowledged that Trump has the right to downsize the federal government, she emphasized that OPM has not gone through any of the steps necessary to carry out such a sweeping move — including analyzing the cost and benefits of their approach, evaluating its impact on the government’s function, and accessing potential conflicts of interest for Musk. She added that the exact terms of the buyout are “shifting” for thousands of employees who have gotten inconsistent guidance from their agency.

“OPM appears to be making this up as they are going along,” she said. “When the government wants to decide, there are ways to do this correctly … none of that happened here in the two weeks since they enacted this program.”

Arguing for the government, Hamilton criticized the plaintiffs’ argument as “legally incoherent and at odds with their theory of the case,” because a further delay of the buyout would “insert more uncertainty” into the lives of federal employees.

While the plaintiffs raised concerns that the buyout program violates federal law by using money that Congress never appropriated, Hamilton attempted to push back on the claim that the buyout changes the government’s financial obligations.

“Nothing about the voluntary resignation changes anything about the federal government’s financial obligations. It just changes what employees are expected to do and not do during their period of employment,” Hamilton said.

Goldstein argued that a preliminary injunction is necessary to prevent what she said was an unlawful offer to reshape the federal government while the Trump administration continues to “put additional pressure on employees.”

“This is an unprecedented action taken on an unprecedented timeline,” she said.

Just hours ahead of Thursday’s original deadline for employees to accept the offer, Judge O’Toole — who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton — temporarily blocked the offer until Monday so he could consider issuing a temporary restraining offer pausing the order.

“I enjoined the defendants from taking any action to implement the so-called ‘Fork Directive’ pending the completion of briefing and oral argument on the issues,” Judge O’Toole said in his ruling. “I believe that’s as far as I want to go today.”

The Trump administration, in response, “extended” the deadline for the offer, which more than 65,000 federal employees have already taken.

“We are grateful to the judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the Administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week.

The unions who brought the lawsuit argued that Trump exceeded his authority as president with the offer, which they described as a “slapdash resignation program.”

According to the plaintiffs, Trump’s offer violates federal law, lacks congressionally appropriated funding, and does not offer employees reassurance that the president would follow through with the offer. Their claim in part relies on a federal law from the 1940s called the Administrative Procedure Act that governs how federal agencies create and enforce rules.

“In the tech universe, ‘move fast and break things’ is a fine motto in part because they’re not playing with the public’s money, and it’s expected that most initiatives are going to fail,” Loyola Marymount law professor Justin Leavitt told ABC News. “Congress knows that, so in 1946 they basically said, ‘When agencies do stuff … they have to be careful about it. They’ve got to consider all aspects of the problem.”

The plaintiffs also argued that the buyout is unlawful because it relies on funding that Congress has yet to appropriate, violating the Antideficiency Act.

“Defendants’ ultimatum divides federal workers into two groups: (1) those who submit their resignations to OPM for a promised period of pay without the requirement to work, and (2) those who have not and are therefore subject to threat of mass termination,” the lawsuit said.

Lawyers for the federal government have pushed back on those claims, arguing that Trump has the legal authority to provide the buyout for employees within the federal branch, and that any further delay would do more harm than good.

“Extending the deadline for the acceptance of deferred resignation on its very last day will markedly disrupt the expectations of the federal workforce, inject tremendous uncertainty into a program that scores of federal employees have already availed themselves of, and hinder the Administration’s efforts to reform the federal workforce,” DOJ attorney Joshua E. Gardner wrote in a filing last week.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge will hear arguments Monday on efforts by a group of California public university students to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing highly sensitive federal student loan records maintained by the Department of Education.

An organization representing more than 200,000 students enrolled in California’s public universities has brought suit seeking a temporary restraining order to block DOGE from accessing the student loan records as part of its effort to slash government spending.

The lawsuit, one of several that DOGE is facing, alleges that individuals associated with DOGE are illegally attempting to access the personal and financial information of the more than 42 million borrowers — accounting for more than 12% of the U.S. population — who have federal student loans.

A handful of people working with DOGE were spotted at the Department of Education last week and some now have access to the agency’s records and files, according to sources familiar with the matter.

“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is enormous and unprecedented,” the lawsuit said, alleging that Musk’s team could access the bank account numbers, income information, dates of birth, and social security numbers of millions through the Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid.

DOGE workers are now listed in the Department of Education’s email directory, meaning they were hired as employees, sources also told ABC News.

The Department of Education is the smallest cabinet-level agency, with 4,400 employees. Some 1,400 employees work in the department’s FSA office, which distributes money — including loans and grants — for students to pursue higher education.

The University of California Student Association lawsuit, filed against Acting Secretary of Education Denise Carter, alleged that DOGE has engaged in a “systematic, continuous, and ongoing violation of federal laws” meant to protect the security of data held by the federal government.

“People who take out federal student loans to afford higher education should not be forced to share their sensitive information with ‘DOGE.’ And federal law says they do not have to,” the lawsuit said. The lawsuit also raised concerns with the lack of transparency surrounding DOGE, which they alleged might share the sensitive information with third parties.

“Because Defendants’ actions and decisions are shrouded in secrecy, individuals do not have even basic information about what personal or financial information Defendants are sharing with outside parties or how their information is being used,” the lawsuit said.

Last week, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote a letter to Carter requesting information about whether Musk and his team have been provided access to National Student Loan data, among other sensitive borrower information.

“There are over 40 million federal student loan borrowers in the United States,” the senators, along with 14 others, wrote. “It is not at all clear that DOGE officials meet the strict criteria that would allow them to access this sensitive information protected by federal law–or whether DOGE officials have gained access to other sensitive ED databases as part of their efforts to “reform” the agency,”

The senators also asked Carter to describe what safeguards are in place to ensure that student loan data is not misused. The letter urged Carter to ensure that Musk and his team have not been provided access to any other databases managed by the department.

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(ALBANY, N.Y.) — New York government employees are barred from downloading DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence application onto state devices due to security concerns, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday.

The DeepSeek chatbot, known as R1, responds to user queries just like its U.S.-based counterparts, such as the popular ChatGPT. But the China-based DeepSeek has code hidden in its programming that has the built-in capability to send user data directly to the Chinese government, experts told ABC News.

“Public safety is my top priority,” Hochul said in a statement. “New York will continue fighting to combat cyber threats, ensure the privacy and safety of our data, and safeguard against state-sponsored censorship.”

Last year, Hochul issued guidance for the “responsible use of AI” in New York’s government to help improve operations while “protecting privacy, managing risk and promoting accountability, safety and equity,” according to the governor’s office.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC News he thinks DeepSeek should be banned “from all government devices immediately.”

“No one should be allowed to download it onto their device. And I think we have to inform the public,” he said.

Gottheimer and Darin LaHood, R-Ill., introduced a bipartisan bill to ban DeepSeek from all government devices last week.

“The Chinese Communist Party has made it abundantly clear that it will exploit any tool at its disposal to undermine our national security, spew harmful disinformation, and collect data on Americans. Now, we have deeply disturbing evidence that they are using DeepSeek to steal the sensitive data of U.S. citizens. This is a five alarm national security fire,” Gottheimer said in a statement.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott banned DeepSeek on government devices, the first states to do so, on Jan. 31.

President Donald Trump was asked on Friday whether he believed DeepSeek was a national security threat, to which he replied, “No, I mean, I think it’s happening. It’s a technology that’s happening. … It’ll be a lot less expensive, the AI, we’re talking about, will be a lot less expensive that people originally thought. That’s a good thing. I view that as a very good development, not a bad development.”

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