Federal Newscast

The Postal Service strikes a labor deal with another one of its unions. USPS reached a tentative agreement with the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, which represents more than 130,000 rural letter carriers. NRLCA members must vote to ratify the contract before it’s approved. Letter carriers represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers voted against a tentative contract ea...

A group of bipartisan senators is asking President Donald Trump to reconsider his broad cancelation of federal collective bargaining agreements. In a letter sent to the President on Thursday, four senators say they are concerned that his recent executive order will impede efforts to make the government more efficient. Trump eliminated most agencies’ union contracts last month, citing national secu...

Agencies who handle the federal permitting process for roads, bridges and other infrastructure programs are on the hook to modernize the technology that runs these systems and share data more easily. President Donald Trump's latest executive order says the Council on Environmental Quality has 45 days to develop a Permitting Technology Action Plan that will include initial technology and data stand...

The PACT Act has reportedly made determining when veterans' benefits payments should be issued more difficult. The Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general says about a quarter of all PACT Act related claims it reviewed over a year were issued incorrect effective dates, resulting in nearly $7 million in improper payments. The IG says a lack of training is mainly to blame and recommended cr...

The Department of Veterans Affairs is starting its search to fill two leadership roles. The VA is looking for candidates that President Donald Trump can nominate as the next under secretary for health and undersecretary for benefits. VA’s Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence will oversee the search. Both roles face major projects, from rolling out a new Electronic Health Record, to processing a record v...

Lawmakers are calling on the National Archives to  investigate the use of unauthorized communications platforms by top government officials. Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee say the reported use of Signal and Gmail by national security officials creates major cybersecurity risks. They also point out that it could violate federal record laws. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz...

President Donald Trump seeks to ease the foreign arms sales process for U.S. defense companies. Trump signed an executive order aimed at reducing rules and regulations governing military equipment sales to other countries. Both industry and foreign nations have long complained about the process that has been plagued by bureaucratic delays and lengthy approval procedures. Trump instructed Defense S...

Just over 7,800 federal employees retired in March, almost 2,000 less than who left in February. The Office of Personnel Management says the claims backlog also dropped to about 16,500, which is the lowest its been in 2025. The time to process retirement claims also ticked back up to average about 50 days in March. But OPM says the average time to process a claim for all of 2025 dropped one day to...

The acting head of the IRS is stepping down in the aftermath of a new data sharing agreement between the agency and Customs and Border Protection. Multiple sources tell the Associated Press that Melanie Krause resigned because of the new development on Tuesday. The agreement will allow ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants inside the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification again...

The US DOGE Service's claims that it is saving more than 140 billion dollars by cancelling contracts is overstated. New analysis from the American Enterprise Institute finds the savings are much closer to about 10 billion dollars. Nat Malkus, the deputy director of Education Policy Studies at AEI, reviewed the contract data DOGE posted to highlight the amount of money agencies obligated versus how...

Despite reducing its workforce by thousands of employees, the General Services Administration is ready to hire new employees once again. The Federal Acquisition Service put out job postings for contract specialists and supervisory contract specialists. The contract specialists would be at the GS-12 and 13 pay scales, while the supervisory positions would be at the GS 14-15 levels. All positions ar...

DoD's acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins will review Defense Secretary’s Pete Hegseth’s use of the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss operational details of airstrikes in Yemen. Stebbins said the review will “determine the extent to which the defense secretary and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for offic...

A federal union’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program is resurfacing. That’s after at least seven agencies have renewed their “fork in the road” offers to federal employees, ahead of reductions in force. In response, the American Federation of Government Employees has amended its initial complaint. The union argues that the deferred resignation offer is unlawful...

The Thrift Savings Plan stumbles in March. The only funds to post positive returns were the G, F and I funds. The government securities G fund posted the highest returns for the month, at zero-point-three-seven percent. The small cap stock index investment S fund posted the lowest return, at negative seven-point-nine-three percent. The Lifecycle funds all posted negative returns as well. Year to d...

Junior enlisted troops will see a pay bump this month as the Defense Department introduces a targeted pay hike this month aimed at improving service members’ quality of life. Congress approved a significant pay raise for active-duty service members ranks E-1 through E-4 which is set to go into effect. Service members already received a 4.5% pay raise in January, but junior enlisted service members...

In today's Federal Newscast, federal unions have been quick to push back against President Trump’s move canceling many collective bargaining agreements. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In today's Federal Newscast, the Trump administration's contracting freeze has caused several contractors to go out of business. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In today's Federal Newscast, House Democrats are looking into whether Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem uses the Signal app for official business. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In today's Federal Newscast, GOP lawmakers are looking to expand the president’s authority for fast-tracking agency reorganizations. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

On today's episode of the Federal Newscast, the Government Accountability Office will open an investigation into the impact of the Trump administration’s firing of probationary employees on the health and safety of the American people. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In a letter to President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a group of lawmakers is urging the Defense Department to 'immediately reverse policies' that they say attempt to erase records of troops' historic accomplishments. The four lawmakers signed onto the letter are veterans who serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The lawmakers said content about record-breaking combat f...

The Defense Department says “in rare cases” it has “deliberately or mistakenly” removed certain content as part of its efforts to erase diversity, equity and inclusion pages from its website after a webpage dedicated to Jackie Robinson's service was suddenly gone. Robinson’s webpage, along with content about the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee airmen, and the Marines at Iwo Jima, was initially r...

Labor rallies are popping up across the country this week to call attention to the Trump administration’s recent upheavals of the federal workforce. In Atlanta, Georgia, employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are pushing back against the Trump administration’s recent actions. Transportation Security Administration workers in San Diego, California, are calling for the revival...

Federal contractors no longer have to pay a minimum wage of almost $18 per hour for employees under certain types of contracts. President Donald Trump rescinded the executive order from April 2021 establishing higher hourly pay for hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers. The Biden administration raised the minimum wage for specific covered government contracts like those for concessions or t...

The Social Security Administration continues to try to set the record straight about the accuracy of its Death Master File. After repeated false claims by the White House and DOGE that SSA is paying tens of thousands of people who are more than 100 years old, the agency says less than one-third of one percent of all deaths are erroneously reported and need to be corrected. SSA says it's confidence...