Russia's Defence Ministry said on Friday that its forces had taken control of the strategic coal-mining city of Toretsk in eastern Ukraine, but Ukraine's military denied the city had been captured and reported heavy fighting in and around it.

A federal judge on Thursday pushed back to Monday a deadline for U.S. government employees to opt into the Trump administration's "deferred resignation" program offering workers nearly eight months of pay and benefits to leave their jobs.

A judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s buyout offer to federal civilian employees from taking effect Thursday, hours before the deadline the administration set for more than 2 million employees to decide whether to take resignation packages with pay through September.