Federal Newscast

The Defense Department is bringing in industry experts to help overhaul its acquisition process. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the new Business Operators for National Defense program, or BOND, has already engaged over 100 industry experts, including dozens of former CEOs, COOs and CIOs already advising senior Pentagon officials. “BOND embeds elite private sector patriots, leaders with decade...

The IRS pulled the plug on its free, online tax filing platform. Members of the Senate say the agency's partnership with tax filing companies hasn’t stepped up. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Angus King (I-Maine) are asking the IRS what it’s doing to promote its Free File program with tax-preparation companies. The program saw a peak of about five million taxpayers in 2004, but has s...

The Space Force has surpassed its fiscal 2026 recruiting goal just five months into the year. The service has already exceeded its recruiting goal by 25% for recruits who have shipped to basic military training or entered the delayed entry program. Despite that progress, service officials warn the current force is too small to meet growing national security demands. Chief Master Sergeant of the Sp...

A federal employee union head is stepping down after leading it for more than 14 years. Lee Saunders is retiring as president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Despite the name, it also represents federal employees in the departments of Justice, Transportation, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs as well as the Library of Congress. Saunders will step...

Veterans Affairs is exploring hundreds of potential uses for artificial intelligence. More than half of them would impact its health-care mission. The VA says AI-assisted colonoscopies are leading to better detection of tumors. It also says AI helps mitigate the risk of opioid overdose and suicide among patients. The department says more than 130 use cases are currently being deployed across its o...

Senator Ron Wyden is pledging to keep his hold on the nominee to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Wyden says he will continue to object to Sean Plankey’s nomination until CISA releases a 2022 report on security flaws in the U.S. telecommunications system. Wyden previously held up Plankey’s nomination for much of last year over the same issue.  See Privacy Policy at h...

The Defense Department says it’s cutting ties with Harvard University. The Pentagon says this will be the final school year for its graduate level professional military education programs affiliated with the university. DoD’s Harvard fellowships and certificate programs will end too. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he made the decision because of what he calls “globalist and radical ideologies...

About 17 veterans died by suicide each day in 2023. That’s nearly 6,400 for the entire year. An annual report from the Department of Veterans Affairs shows overall veteran suicides are decreasing. More than half of veterans who died by suicide did not receive VA health care in the last year of their life. Suicide rates are elevated for veterans ages 18 to 34 and those experiencing homelessness, he...

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a fiscal watchdog group, says the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative could cost as much as $3.6 trillion over the next 20 years, far exceeding the White House’s projected $175 billion. The group also argues the effort faces “insurmountable” technical hurdles that could prevent it from reliably defending the United States against nuclear threat...

Law enforcement staffing at federal agencies varied between fiscal years 2020 and 2024. But a new Government Accountability Office report shows the Veterans Health Administration saw a major uptick in law enforcement staffing during that period, going from 4,699 officers in 2020 to 6,281 by the end of 2024. VHA was an outlier as most other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies either h...

The I fund in the Thrift Savings Plan continues to outpace every other investment account. In January, the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board says the I fund increased by almost 6% as compared to December. No other TSP fund increased by more than 3.11%.  Overall, every TSP fund saw a month over month increase in January. For the past 12 months, the I fund increased by over 35%, w...

A bill in the House to reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency now has more than 50 co-sponsors. The Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act has 35 Republicans and 21 Democrats signed onto the bill. The legislation has been steadily gaining co-sponsors as uncertainty swirls around the future of FEMA under the Trump administration. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee...

Both of Virginia's senators want an investigation into how the Department of Homeland Security uses sensitive personal data. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner this week requested that DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari look into that issue. They pointed to reports that DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are tapping into tools ranging from facial recognition and license plate...

Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security will testify in front of the House next month. Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow are all slated to testify February 10 in front of the Homeland Security Committee. They’ll face a barrage of que...

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee want answers from the Social Security Administration about DOGE sharing its data. Chairman Mike Crapo and Ranking Member Ron Wyden are asking SSA what agency data was shared with outside groups. The Justice Department recently told a federal court that DOGE staffers at the agency discussed sharing agency data with an advocacy group looking to “overturn elect...

The IRS says it’s ready for an increased workload after the start of this year’s tax filing season on Monday. The agency expects to receive 164 million individual income tax returns with most taxpayers filing electronically. The agency lost about a quarter of its workforce last year. Last week the IRS announced a last-minute shakeup of its executive leadership. Taxpayers have until April 15 to fil...

A top House Republican is calling on Department of Homeland Security officials to testify in front of Congress. Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino formally requested testimony from the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Garbarino says he wants to make sure those agencies are effectively usin...

The House on Thursday passed the final group of spending bills needed before the January 30th funding deadline. In a vote of 341 to 88, lawmakers approved fiscal 2026 funding for the departments of Defense, Labor, Education, Transportation and Health and Human Services. But due to Democratic opposition over ICE funding, the spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security passed with a much n...

Lawmakers are still waiting for the Defense Department to provide details on how it plans to spend $23 billion already approved for the Golden Dome effort. Congressional appropriators say the Pentagon has not provided key budget information such as deployment schedule, cost, schedule and performance metrics, as well as a finalized system architecture. The White House has estimated the project coul...

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul is facing calls to ramp up oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats on the committee are calling on him to investigate the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations. They say Paul should issue subpoenas if necessary and have senior officials like Homeland Security Secretary K...

The Justice Department recovered more money through the False Claims Act in fiscal 2025 than ever before. New data says DoJ won $6.8 billion in settlements for healthcare, procurement and tariff fraud. A significant amount of those cases were driven by whistleblowers. DoJ says there were 1,297 qui tam lawsuits filed last year, the highest number in a single year, and the government opene...

The Coast Guard has a new leader. Admiral Kevin Lunday officially assumed command of the service on Thursday during a ceremony at Coast Guard headquarters. The Senate confirmed Lunday last month after his nomination was temporarily delayed due to a controversy over the service’s policy regarding hate symbols. He had been serving as acting commandant since January, following the dismissal of Admira...

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is at the center of new calls to replace Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. In a letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, 14 House Democrats say Trump should fire Noem over what they say are damaging cuts to FEMA’s workforce. They also say Noem’s policy of signing off on all spending over $100,000 is slowing down FEMA’s disaster response efforts....

Close to 5,000 more Thrift Savings Plan participants have joined the club of so-called TSP millionaires. As of January 1st, nearly 195,000 TSP participants now have accounts totaling over $1 million. That represents about 2.7% of all TSP accounts. The pace of growth appears to be slowing down though. In the previous fiscal quarter, the number of TSP millionaires rose by about 19,000. See Privacy P...

The secretive National Reconnaissance Office has announced a new top official. William Adkins was appointed principal deputy director of the NRO on Monday. Adkins previously served as professional staff on the House Appropriations Committee. He’s also a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and had been detailed to the NRO to manage technology development projects in the late 1990’s.&nbs...