Acquisition
Pentagon heightens scrutiny on IT, management consulting contracts
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's newest directive for the department zeroes in on providers of “system IT integration, implementation, or advisory services."
People
Intelligence agency employee arrested for trying to share classified info with foreign government
Nathan Vilas Laatsch was allegedly disgruntled by the Trump administration and willing to share sensitive data with the foreign country. The FBI set up a dead drop operation to intercept the classified materials.
Cybersecurity
Senators urge DHS to reinstate disbanded cyber review board
The board — which was dismissed at the start of the Trump administration — has been viewed as a well-intentioned but imperfect tool for reviewing significant cybersecurity events.
Emerging Tech
NVIDIA to keep Shanghai operations despite lawmaker concerns
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said that the chip company will continue its longstanding China-based operations, but more chip plants are set to be in the U.S.
Emerging Tech
Energy, NVIDIA and Dell unveil new planned supercomputer
The latest public-private sector collaboration brings the new Doudna supercomputer to Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California to pursue advancements across emerging tech and scientific fields.
People
Here's where the State Department is planning its layoffs and changes
Various national security offices, as well as units that cover Asia and the Middle East, will be consolidated or slashed. Thousands of employees across divisions are targeted for cuts.
Ideas
Helping DOGE break down data silos
COMMENTARY | By adopting modern data architectures like enterprise data lakes, agencies can dismantle these silos.
Acquisition
The acquisition rule (re)writers really want you to have your say
Industry will get visibility into and be able to weigh in on efforts by the GSA, Defense Department and NASA to reform the Federal Acquisition Regulation.
People
Fired GSA 18F employees appeal to have jobs reinstated
The Trump administration has endeavored to streamline the agency’s contracting and procurement processes while putting in mechanisms to shed its workforce.
People
Trump cyber nominees expected to testify next week, people familiar say
An unreleased telecom vulnerabilities report is being used as leverage to block one of the nominees from full confirmation in the Senate.
Ideas
Legacy government systems enter the AI era
COMMENTARY | How Federal agencies can transform decades-old code while strengthening security and compliance.
People
VA-based DOGE associate gets ‘the boot’ after publicly discussing his work
Sahil Lavingia detailed in a personal blog how the reality of hunting inefficiencies at the Department of Veterans Affairs was not what he had expected.
Defense
Pentagon orders civilian employees to submit money-saving ideas
It’s the last step in the "5 bullet points" weekly email exercise.
Defense
For DOD, the future of large language models is smaller
Everyone loves big AI, but “maybe there is a smaller-parameter model that could run on a laptop.”
People
Top CISA division chiefs depart amid broader agency reduction plans
The staffing shake-up comes as former officials argue that diminishing staff at the government’s primary cybersecurity agency is ill-advised given today’s escalating threat landscape.
Modernization
Labor cancels unemployment modernization grants for states
The grant dollars — which the agency has been doling out since Congress allocated funding for fraud and access work in 2021 — don’t align with department priorities anymore, Labor says.
Cybersecurity
China-linked ‘Silk Typhoon’ hackers accessed Commvault cloud environments, person familiar says
The hacking unit previously infiltrated Treasury Department networks and compromised some of the agency’s most sensitive systems.
Updated
People
Booz Allen plans 7% workforce cut
The civil business is where Booz Allen will focus most of these layoffs as part of broader “resetting and restructuring” of that business, the company's CEO and finance chief told investors.
Ideas
GSA has been given more of the government’s contracting authority
COMMENTARY | Folding SEWP and CIOSP into GSA may unbalance the system.
People