Around 7,000 employees of the Internal Revenue Service of the United States are set to lose their jobs starting Thursday. The fresh round of layoffs are set to affect probationary workers who have been in the agency for one year or less.

Russia could agree to using $300 billion of sovereign assets frozen in Europe for reconstruction in Ukraine but will insist that part of the money is spent on the one-fifth of the country that Moscow's forces control, three sources told Reuters.

A tearful executive at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service told staffers on Thursday that about 6,000 employees would be fired, a person familiar with the matter said, in a move that would eliminate roughly 6 percent of the agency’s workforce in the midst of the busy tax-filing season.