Quick Hits

*** Leaders of the federal health and science community are looking to establish a health-based research agency, with the same flexible and nimble approach to innovation and experimentation as the Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

*** Mantech has won a protest in a $4 billion classified security contract with the U.S. Air Force. Washington Technology has more on this story.

*** Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawai'i) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) led a group of lawmakers in a letter to Senate appropriators seeking a $335 million increase in the Census Bureau's budget account to modernize the agency's data infrastructure and improve several existing Census survey products.