- The Federal Aviation Administration has employed over 2,000 new air site visitors controllers, all with a shared ardour: videogames. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says in a latest on-line publish that the FAA hiring initiative centered on avid gamers, launched in April, has met 94% of its hiring objective. Duffy says that is the highest-ever variety of hires at FAA in a 12 months. The hiring surge comes as FAA has struggled with workforce shortages lately.
- The MeansOne program is dealing with new scrutiny over the place it buys its merchandise from. The General Services Administration is directing the MeansOne Commission to do a “comprehensive review” of all of its merchandise on the market by way of GSA contract automobiles to make sure they’re compliant with the Buy American Act. GSA can be asking the fee to establish all Countries of Origin (COO) of its merchandise within the Federal Acquisition Service Verified Product Portal. The overview, partially, stems from GSA discovering a number of examples of MeansOne-associated expertise merchandise labeled on GSA procurement platforms as “Country of Origin: USA” which might be, in reality, from China and different international nations. GSA desires the fee to submit its overview by November 12.
- Approximately 17,000 IRS workers who took deferred resignation gives retained entry to the company’s programs. That’s in line with a brand new report out from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that decided the large lapse offered a “potential security risk for unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information.” On high of that, TIGTA discovered that some former workers nonetheless had entry to IRS amenities and programs as a result of their private id verification playing cards weren’t initially disabled. The report was centered on assessing how properly the company was controlling entry to its IT programs and checked out information accessible up till June 2025.
- Two Senate lawmakers are as soon as once more urgent Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about cuts to the Pentagon’s unbiased weapons testing workplace. The Government Accountability Office lately discovered that deep staffing cuts on the workplace final 12 months have left the group with fewer specialists who are actually overseeing applications exterior their areas of experience, which will increase the danger that issues with new weapon programs may go undetected earlier than they attain troops. DoD additionally eliminated its unclassified annual experiences on weapons testing from its web site. The lawmakers mentioned the choice to purge the workplace has “created significant and unnecessary risk that jeopardizes readiness, service member safety, acquisition reform and taxpayer dollars.” They urged the protection secretary to reverse the cuts in addition to instantly restore public experiences which have been faraway from the web site.
- The Defense Department is altering the way it determines eligibility for transitional well being care advantages for reserve part service members who’re separating from energetic responsibility. Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata mentioned reservists not must reveal that their interval of energetic responsibility service was “substantively connected in some way to a war, a contingency operation or a national emergency” to qualify for the Transitional Assistance Management Program. The change follows a category motion lawsuit introduced by National Guard and Reserve service members who allege that the Pentagon unlawfully conditioned eligibility for TAMP primarily based on standards not licensed by regulation. TAMP gives eligible service members and their households with 180 days of premium-free medical and dental protection after their active-duty orders finish.
- The Environmental Protection Agency would have extra oversight of water sector cybersecurity beneath a brand new invoice within the Senate. The Water Shield Cyber Act would authorize the EPA to conduct cybersecurity evaluation of water utilities. It would additionally authorize a further $300 million annually for the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds devoted to cybersecurity enhancements. The invoice, launched final week by Senate Democrats, comes after water utilities throughout a number of states skilled cyber incidents in latest weeks.
- The Trump administration’s transfer to unleash personal sector hackers raises loads of questions on authorities oversight and extra. President Donald Trump has directed the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to supervise a program that permits personal corporations to conduct offensive cyber operations. Private sector members would solely be capable to go after international prison hackers with the federal government’s approval. But Trump’s order doesn’t say something about legal responsibility protections for taking part corporations. And consultants say international governments may take into account these corporations reliable hacking targets for being concerned as properly.
- The Defense Department is increasing its overview technique of sole supply or non-competitive contracts for contractor facilitization prices. These are each direct and oblique bills for long-term, non-recurring investments in bodily belongings to enhance, increase or keep operational capability or enhance manufacturing amount. In a brand new memo, DoD now says contracts value between $50 million and $500 million will comply with a streamlined peer overview course of specializing in key pricing parts to incorporate prime and main provider historic prices incurred, and realized income on prior efforts. For contracts value greater than $500 million however lower than $1 billion, DoD will comply with the present course of outlined in its acquisition rules.
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