The federal government shutdown has entered its 16th day. On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily halted the Trump administration from laying off 4,000 government workers across eight agencies, siding with unions. In her ruling, Judge Susan Illston wrote that the White House budget office and Office of Personnel Management 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 and they can impose the structures that they like.” The ruling came as the Senate failed to pass a funding bill for the ninth time on Wednesday.