As the Trump administration continues to withhold billions of dollars for climate and clean energy spending — despite two federal judges ordering the money released — concerns are growing that the United States government could skip out on its legal commitments.

Typically, when the federal government spends money through a grant or a loan program approved by Congress, it signs a legally binding agreement, known as an obligation, to deliver the money. Companies, states and other recipients often spend millions of dollars to buy equipment, hire workers, build facilities and more, fully expecting that the federal government will make good on its promise to reimburse the funds.

That expectation has been upended by the new administration.

Following an order by President Trump, federal agencies, including the Energy Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture Department, have paused funding for a wide range of obligated grants related to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, sweeping laws that provided billions for climate and energy programs.

In just a few weeks, the consequences have begun to be felt nationwide. School districts that planned to use promised federal dollars to buy electric school buses have seen their accounts frozen. Farmers and store owners that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money to replace old refrigeration systems or install solar panels are finding their requests for reimbursements delayed.

Two federal judges have explicitly ordered the Trump administration to end its freeze and let the money flow again. On Monday, one of those judges, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court, said the White House was defying his order by withholding funds.

Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at the George Washington University Law School, said the administration’s actions had jeopardized the integrity of federal contracting.

“They’ve taken a process that is longstanding, stable and reliable and turned the government into an unreliable business partner,” Ms. Tillipman said. “Who wants to do business with an individual or entity that doesn’t pay its bills, that doesn’t pay for work already performed and, in some instances, completely ceases communications?”

Lawsuits filed in recent days have challenged the Trump administration’s actions, with companies arguing that the government freeze has hurt their businesses.

On Monday, the sustainable development company Chemonics International sued the federal government alongside other plaintiffs for freezing its work with the U.S. Agency for International Development. The company said in a court filing that the agency owed roughly $103.6 million in outstanding invoices for work performed last year. In a statement, Chemonics said it had been forced to furlough more than 600 staffers in the United States and reduce the hours of 300 employees.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

While some agencies have said that the pause is temporary and that they are reviewing funds approved by the Biden administration to make sure they comply with the law, others have gone further.

On Wednesday, Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, said in a video posted on X that $20 billion in agency funding meant to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in low-income communities were a “rush job with reduced oversight” under the Biden administration. Mr. Zeldin suggested he would try to claw back money that had already gone out the door.

Mr. Zeldin appeared to be referring to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program established by Congress in 2022. Under the program, the Biden administration had awarded $20 billion to eight organizations and deposited the money in Citibank accounts, with legal limits on how it could be used. In the video, Mr. Zeldin said, “The financial agent agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated.”

“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” Mr. Zeldin said.

Zealan Hoover, who directed the implementation of Inflation Reduction Act programs at the E.P.A. under the Biden administration, said that the arrangement with Citi had been thoroughly vetted by the agency’s inspector general at the time, and that the federal government has been using private banks as financial agents since the 1800s.

If either E.P.A. or Citi cuts off access to the funds, that could trigger further lawsuits. Some of the program’s recipients have already made their own agreements to lend money to other organizations for clean energy and energy efficiency projects.

Mr. Hoover said that the fact that agencies were defying courts on the spending freeze — and threatening to claw back obligated funding — was a “major area of concern.”

“It really calls into question the full faith and credit of the U.S. government as a counterparty to financial agreements,” he said.

Aram Gavoor, a law professor at George Washington University, said many of the questions being argued in the courts aren’t clear-cut.

“There isn’t an immediate Supreme Court case or series of circuit cases that are recent that make it very clear what the outcome of litigation will be,” he said, adding that the administration’s actions and resulting lawsuits had “injected a strong degree of regulatory uncertainty” into federal contracting.

At the Energy Department, officials have ordered an internal review of potentially billions of dollars worth of climate and infrastructure spending that was awarded by the Biden administration after the Nov. 5 presidential election, according to a memo sent to agency staff.

The memo, dated Feb. 7, says that all Energy Department actions during the “transition period” before President Trump’s inauguration would be reviewed, and that financial transactions that used funds from the Inflation Reduction Act or bipartisan infrastructure law would have to be “reviewed and approved” by senior political appointees.

Christopher S. Johns, the agency’s deputy chief financial officer, wrote in the memo that this review process followed recent district court orders on federal funding. But the document, which was first reported by E&E News, did not say what would happen if political appointees reviewed certain transactions and did not approve of them.

It is not uncommon for a new administration to review existing programs, experts said. But it is unusual for agencies to halt a wide swath of obligated grants.

Republicans criticized those moves at the time. Vivek Ramaswamy called the Rivian loan a “shot across the bow” to Tesla, a rival electric carmaker owned by Elon Musk. In December, three House Republicans sent a letter urging the Energy Department to “cease its campaign to quickly distribute federal funding before the incoming administration takes office.”

Experts said it wouldn’t be easy for a new administration to revoke loans that have been closed. Under the Biden administration, the Energy Department’s loan office closed roughly $60.6 billion in loans and financial guarantees, while another $47 billion were conditional commitments that still need final approval.

Kennedy Nickerson, a former policy adviser to the loan office and now a vice president for energy at Capstone, a research firm, said it would be “legally challenging and time-consuming” for the Trump administration to try to cancel final loan agreements.

Attempts to go after finalized loans could deter companies from doing business with the federal government, former agency officials said. Companies typically spend millions of dollars to go through an exhaustive vetting process by the loan program office.

“If we get to conditional commitment with a loan program recipient, that’s the government’s credibility,” David Turk, the deputy secretary of energy during the Biden administration, said in a statement. “That’s the American people’s credibility on the line to follow through and make sure that we are providing that certainty for investment.”

Mr. Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, has said that he wants to use the hundreds of billions of dollars in remaining loan authority to advance the president’s agenda of affordable, reliable electricity.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, Mr. Wright was asked whether he might cancel loans that were already in place. “We will follow the law,” he replied.

At least one project was exempted from the administration’s freeze.

Montana Renewables had secured a $1.67 billion loan guarantee from the Biden administration to expand a plant in Great Falls, Mont., that converted vegetable oils and fats into diesel and jet fuel. Initially, the Trump administration had blocked the first scheduled $782 million payment while it reviewed the loan.

But Senator Steve Daines, Republican of Montana and an ally of President Trump, said in a statement that he had pressed the White House to approve the payment because the project would “provide high-paying jobs, boost our economy and provide efficient biofuel production.”

Energy Department officials didn’t explain why they allowed the Montana Renewables loan to go forward. Montana Renewables also declined to comment.

“The Department of Energy is continuing to conduct a departmentwide review of all funding, including grants and loans, to ensure all activities are consistent with the law and in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders and priorities,” said Andrea Woods, an agency spokeswoman. “As part of this review process, the Department approved the scheduled disbursement of a loan for the expansion of a biofuels facility in Great Falls, Montana.”

Fewer than 6,000 people live in Trevethin and Penygarn, a gritty, deindustrialized district amid the hills and valleys of South Wales, and not many expected drama when a vote was called to elect a member of the local municipality, one of the lowest tiers of British government.

But as one candidate, Stuart Keyte, a member of the populist anti-immigration party Reform U.K., campaigned outside Trevethin’s small supermarket on Wednesday, a volley of eggs rained down on him from behind a van parked nearby.

Sidestepping quickly, Mr. Keyte, who happens to be a former member of Britain’s elite Parachute Regiment, avoided the worst of the barrage from the unknown assailant, then drew on his military experience. “The closer you get to the target, the more flak you get,” he said as he inspected the egg yolk splattered on his shoes.

He hit his target on Thursday, when he became the first member of Reform U.K., the upstart party led by Nigel Farage, the Brexit campaigner and ally of President Trump, to win an election in Wales.

Turnout was low, as it usually is in municipal elections: just 973 people (less than a quarter of those eligible) voted in the contest for a council seat in Torfaen (pronounced Tor-vai-uhn) municipality, which remains under Labour control and includes Trevethin and Penygarn. Mr. Keyte won 457 votes.

But Reform is riding high in national opinion polls, and Thursday’s victory, and others in municipal elections elsewhere, underscore the threat the party poses to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party. In last year’s general election Reform, formerly known as the Brexit Party, secured 14 percent of the national vote and won five parliamentary seats. It also finished second in 89 Labour seats.

Reform’s new strategy is to target regions that are struggling economically, campaigning on local issues and exploiting the frustration of voters who feel failed by the main political parties.

Mr. Keyte, 64, said he had knocked on doors every day for the last two weeks but barely mentioned Mr. Farage — his party’s divisive yet effective leader — or immigration.

“I am sure those issues are very important to the locals, it’s not something I’ve discussed with them,” he said, adding that he talked instead of smashed car windows, litter, dog mess and faulty street lighting.

Council members are the backbone of British politics and are often the people who campaign at street level. Nationwide, Reform holds just 72 such seats as of Friday. (Although the party already had three council members in Torfaen, all had been elected for other parties or were independent before defecting to Mr. Farage’s party.)

But Reform thinks it has momentum, and Wales, which voted in favor of Mr. Farage’s marquee policy of Brexit in 2016, is a crucial battleground for the party.

Reform strategists are eyeing next year’s elections for the Welsh Parliament, or Senedd, under a proportional voting system that is much more favorable to small parties than the one used for British general elections.

With Labour running the British government in Westminster, the Senedd in Cardiff and Torfaen Council, some residents have plenty to complain about.

Outside his home, Christopher Jennings, 70, a retired bus driver and former Labour voter, said he would support Reform, criticizing Mr. Starmer’s decision to limit payments to retirees for heating costs.

“I’ve always had it since I was 65, had it every year and all of a sudden I can’t have it anymore,” he said of the tax-free handout, which will now only be available to the very poorest retirees. He added that the government was somehow still finding money to house asylum seekers in hotels.

Community spirit is strong here but the region was battered by the loss of jobs in traditional industries, a process that is still underway at Port Talbot, a large steel making plant 50 miles away.

“After they shut the pits and the steel works, there is nothing here for us now or for the kids,” Mr. Jennings said.

Paul Jones, 42, who runs a business offering pet services including dog walking, said he favors Reform because he wants lower immigration. “People are starting to change their outlook, especially when it comes to Labour. It’s time for change,” Mr. Jones said as he complained about the difficulty of getting doctor appointments.

The center of the nearby town of Pontypool was “dead, finished,” he added.

Some parts of Pontypool certainly look that way. Several pubs, cafes and businesses were shuttered and foliage sprouted from the roof of an elegant but derelict department store building awaiting redevelopment.

Around the corner in the town hall, Anthony Hunt, the Labour leader of the Torfaen municipal council, said the municipality had invested in schools and was the last line of defense during years of budget cuts under the previous Conservative government.

“We do need to listen,” he said. “My fear is that Reform typify a type of politics that doesn’t seek to solve problems — it seeks to make people angry, and I would ask what their policies are both locally and nationally to make things better.”

The campaigning had raised tensions in the area, he argued. Folk in Trevethin “feel that the circus has come to town a little bit, that people have come in from outside,” and that Reform’s campaigners have been “upping the temperature,” he said. Certainly the contest has been full of incident.

David Thomas, a formerly Labour council member who now represents Reform, was the subject of news articles earlier this week after LBC, a radio station, identified him as “DJ Dowster,” reporting that he had posted songs online with misogynistic and offensive lyrics. The Reform party said they were not his creations and that the lyrics were samples taken from other songs.

At Evermore Tattoo Collective in Trevethin, Robby Taylor, 44, said before the vote that he was undecided on whether to vote at all. “I don’t know what’s right for the area,” he said adding that he loved living there, despite a lack of amenities.

It was the resignation of a Labour council member, Sue Malson, that precipitated Thursday’s election.

At the busy charity shop she runs in Trevethin, she described the community as “like a family.” But she resigned because her work as a council member led to attacks on her home and on the horses she keeps, she said.

Ms. Malson described herself as the most outspoken member of the local Labour Party and said she had clashed with Mr. Thomas in council meetings.

Speaking outside Trevethin’s supermarket, David Nutt, 78, a farmer and former miner, said he was unimpressed by Reform. “They say a lot of things people want to hear,” he said, adding that “Farage, himself, is a very dangerous fellow.”

Still, Mr. Nutt, a longstanding Labour supporter, said the party doesn’t “listen to the voters enough,” and planned to vote for an independent candidate.

He named three pubs that had closed over the years. Then, as he lamented the changes he had seen over six decades, a commotion broke out behind him.

A young man in a gray track suit dashed out of the supermarket, pursued by a shop worker, who was just too late to stop him shoplifting. By the time Mr. Nutt looked around to see what was happening, the figure in gray had disappeared around the corner.

Archaeologists have unearthed the foundations of London’s first public building.

Excavating under the basement of a commercial building in the city’s financial district, they encountered what they believe are the roughly 2,000-year-old remains of a basilica from Roman London.

The basilica was part of London’s Roman forum, or public square, and was “effectively the first town hall,” said Sophie Jackson, a director at the Museum of London Archaeology.

The archaeologists first found the remnants over the summer and completed their investigation a few weeks ago, Ms. Jackson said. They began work after planning permission was granted to demolish a commercial building at the site and replace it with a 32-story mixed-use office tower.

They unearthed “massive foundations and walls made of flint, ragstone and Roman tile,” the museum said in a statement announcing the discovery on Thursday. In some areas, these remnants were more than 33 feet long, three feet wide and 13 feet deep, the statement said.

Their size and scope indicates that the basilica, which must have been the city’s biggest structure at the time, was three stories high and built atop a hill, Ms. Jackson said in a phone interview on Thursday. She added that it was probably a place where administrative matters were resolved and money may have been stored.

Archaeologists also believe that the site that was excavated was a designated area inside the basilica called a tribunal, where magistrates sat on a raised platform and made judgments on court cases and important decisions about the government, Ms. Jackson said.

“This was a clear symbol of Roman power and authority,” the museum said.

Archaeologists had known of the existence of the basilica, but they did not know how much of it had survived underneath the streets of London, nor did they expect such a high level of preservation.

The remains were found in the center of a bustling metropolis, in an area of London that essentially has the same function now as it did thousands of years ago under Roman rule. The Museum of London Archaeology said the basilica was “once the beating heart of Roman London.”

“Trying to understand Roman London is a puzzle,” Ms. Jackson said, and “most of the pieces have been lost.”

The Romans conquered Britain in 43 A.D. and established London, then known as Londinium, about five years later. The city at that point was an industrial port with a quickly growing transportation network. Thirteen years into the founding of Londinium, British tribes led a rebellion against the Romans and destroyed most of the city.

Roughly 15 years later, in the late 70s or 80s A.D., the Romans rebuilt the city, including the recently unearthed basilica. The Romans also built a bath house and an amphitheater in the same area around the same time.

Ron Hertshten, the chief executive of Hertshten Properties, the company that is redeveloping the site, said that “the discovery of the remains under our building has caused us to significantly revise our plans.” The company, he said, planned to incorporate the remains into a public display that would be open to the public.

Archaeologists hope that the revelation of the remains will lead to more discoveries about Roman London. After the existing building is demolished, they will be able to do a full excavation, Ms. Jackson said. “We’ll find out so much about the origin of London and the lives of the first Londoners,” she said.

The remains of the basilica are hardly the first significant archaeological discovery in London. In 2022, archaeologists dug up two extremely well-preserved Roman mosaics. In 2017, when Bloomberg completed a large office building in the City of London, it incorporated the 2,000-year-old Temple of Mithras, another relic of London’s days under Roman rule that was first discovered in the 1950s, into its design.

It was not even the first time that Roman ruins had been found on the same street.

“A Roman mystery has sent London citizens scurrying to the scene of recent excavations,” The New York Times reported in February 1926, when remnants of the forum were discovered during the construction of a Barclays Bank building on Gracechurch Street, about 350 feet from the site of the recent basilica discovery.

“Only two or three pieces of it will be preserved,” The Times reported. “The remainder will once more be lost sight of, to offer no doubt a puzzle to future generations rearing habitations undreamed of by this one.”

At the tail end of her 30s, Elizabeth Day found herself divorced and single after a string of long-term relationships. Ms. Day, a British writer and podcaster, entered a world of dating she had never encountered, not having been single since the advent of dating apps.

“It was such a jungle out there,” Ms. Day, 46, said in a video interview. Her experiences in the dating world — which ultimately led to her meeting her husband on the dating app Hinge — gave her the idea to start “How to Date,” a new limited series and an offshoot of her popular podcast “How to Fail,” which is in its 20th season.

Ms. Day hosts the podcast with Mel Schilling, a dating coach who serves as an expert on the reality television show “Married at First Sight,” in which couples — you guessed it — meet each other and marry on the same day.

Both women met their husbands online when they were 39, and have been, by their own accounts, “through it.”

“I want to teach the world how to date,” Ms. Day said. “I really would have liked to have a podcast to turn to that could’ve guided me through.”

While the landscape of dating podcasts is vast, Ms. Day said she hoped that “How to Date” would stand out as a mixture of expertise and entertainment, with just a bit of voluntary homework. Each episode prompts listeners to do exercises and comes with work sheets.

“I think there are so many people out there dating and just feeling isolated and lonely or completely confused and overwhelmed,” Ms. Schilling said in a phone interview. The podcast, she added, will “hopefully help them feel less alone.”

Here are some of the duo’s biggest lessons.

First, date yourself.

Before you can date someone else, you have to get to know yourself. Often, people start dating shortly after a terrible heartbreak, she said, instead of giving themselves time to process the loss of their prior relationship.

After her own breakup, Ms. Day said, she allowed herself time to process what she had lost, which helped her “to remind myself what I enjoyed doing when I was on my own.” (For example, going to the movies by herself.)

“It’s really important to spend that time nurturing yourself, to know who you are and to know what you want,” she said.

Have an open mind.

Some people keep very rigid lists of what they want — or do not want — in romantic partners. Those kinds of restrictions can be very limiting, Ms. Schilling said, and are often based on previous romantic experiences that did not turn out well.

Instead, you should decide what values matter to you most, and what criteria are nonnegotiable. “People need to be less scared about being real early on,” Ms. Schilling said. Sure, you may scare some people off, she added, but those people were not going to be aligned with your lifestyle.

Rejection is inevitable.

Unfortunately, living through at least some disappointment is virtually a guarantee for those looking for a significant other.

“Every failed date, I came to realize, was data acquisition about what to do differently next time,” Ms. Day said. “Someone who isn’t right for you is bringing you one step closer to the person who might be right.”

Chemistry isn’t always instant.

One of the lessons that Ms. Schilling said she took away from working on “Married at First Sight” is that couples can build chemistry over time. “That’s something I didn’t understand before,” she said. “Now I understand, and see it. I reassure people all the time.”

It is, of course, also possible that there is simply no chemistry, in which case kindness and direct communication are paramount, according to Ms. Day and Ms. Schilling. “Don’t ghost!” Ms. Day said, admitting she did disappear on a romantic partner once and still felt guilty. “Communicating kindly is just invaluable,” she said.

Have patience.

That’s often easier said than done, and is something Ms. Day said she herself had struggled with. “I was single in my late thirties and I wanted a child,” she said. “In that situation, it can feel very difficult to be patient.”

Life does not always turn out the way you think it should, and patience pays off.

“I now don’t have a child, and I am at peace with that,” she said. “My past self would be reassured by my future self saying, ‘Listen, it’s not going to work out the way you think you can control, and it’s going to be so much better than that.’”

It’s OK to take a break.

Dating can be overwhelming. Make sure to shut off those apps when you need to.

When Ms. Schilling got together with her husband in 2011, online dating was different than it is now, she said. “It’s definitely more of a disposable dating culture now because there is so much choice,” she said. Periods without dating can be helpful and serve as a reset.

Dating can be tiring, Ms. Day said, “it’s like having another job.”

Enjoy Valentine’s Day.

If you are single on Valentine’s Day, do something that you like and lean into the enjoyment of being single, Ms. Day advised. “Valentine’s Day is just a day,” she said. “It’s a commercial invention from a capitalist society that wants to sell you stuff.”

But do not mistake that for cynicism. “If you want to meet someone, ultimately you will,” Ms. Day said. But, she added, imparting one last lesson, “they might not come in the package you expect.”