Andrea Hsu
Andrea Hsu is NPR's labor and workplace correspondent.
Hsu first joined NPR in 2002 and spent nearly two decades as a producer for All Things Considered. Through interviews and in-depth series, she's covered topics ranging from America's opioid epidemic to emerging research at the intersection of music and the brain. She led the award-winning NPR team that happened to be in Sichuan Province, China, when a massive earthquake struck in 2008. In the coronavirus pandemic, she reported a series of stories on the pandemic's uneven toll on women, capturing the angst that women and especially mothers were experiencing across the country, alone. Hsu came to NPR via National Geographic, the BBC, and the long-shuttered Jumping Cow Coffee House.
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More than 10,000 federal employees who had yet to complete their probationary periods have been fired by the Trump administration, including those who work to protect American agriculture. -
Ryan Dowdy, a former NASA food scientist, won a USDA innovation grant to further develop a meal replacement bar for first responders. Trump's freeze on government awards has jeopardized those plans. -
Federal agencies continued to lay off workers Friday. The cuts come after President Trump signed an executive order this week directing agencies to prepare for "large-scale" reductions in force. -
Liz Goggin, a social worker with the Veterans Health Administration, took the offer to resign in exchange for pay and benefits through September. Then she learned her position was exempt. -
Employees across several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Education and Department of Energy, have all been affected, with many being given notice Thursday. -
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration's offer to federal employees to resign now in exchange for pay and benefits through September can go forward. -
After a hearing on Monday, a federal judge in Boston extended a stay on the deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration's resignation offer while he considers the arguments. -
Jocelyn Samuels was Trump's pick in 2020 to fill a Democratic seat on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was fired in January, accused of embracing "radical" ideology. -
The Trump administration had given more than 2 million federal employees until today to decide whether to stay or go. A federal judge in Massachusetts has paused the effort until Monday. -
Federal agencies are sending out sample contract agreements to their employees in what appears to be an effort to alleviate doubts. But some of the language differs from the original offer.
