• The new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is putting a hold on hundreds of millions of dollars for the State Department and the US Agency for International Development. Chairman Brian Mast said the agencies are rushing to spend the money on projects before the start of the Trump administration. Mast said those projects include studying climate change in the Middle East and LGBTQ awareness programs in Zimbabwe.
  (Mast Places Hold on Wasteful State Department Spending - House Foreign Affairs Committee)
• Federal firefighters will see more types of cancer covered by workers’ compensation. The Department of Labor has updated its list of covered cancers to include ones that disproportionately affect female firefighters. That list now includes breast, uterine and ovarian cancers. The Labor Department initially expanded the workers’ compensation list in 2022. But at the time, didn’t include several types of cancers impacting women federal firefighters. The agency’s latest update comes after many advocacy groups called for an expansion of presumptive cancer coverage. Labor Department leadership said the addition is an important step in addressing gender-specific health risks in high-risk professions.
  (Updating procedures to protect female federal firefighters and their families - Department of Labor)
• Experts in product management, software engineering and design have until Jan.13 to apply to be a member of the US Digital Corps. This is the fourth round of hiring under the fellows program that aims to bring technology talent to agencies for two years to work on an assortment of projects. Fellows have the opportunity to convert to a full‑time career position upon successful completion of the program. GSA, which runs the program, said applications for cybersecurity and data science closed already. In the first three cohorts, GSA hired 150 experts who worked with 25 agencies.
  (Applications for U.S. Digital Corps are open through Jan. 13 - General Services Administration)
• Top House lawmakers want a review of the Transportation Security Administration’s use of artificial intelligence and biometrics. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green and his colleagues are asking the Government Accountability Office to review TSA’s emerging technology uses. That includes TSA’s growing use of facial recognition. The technology is now at ID checkpoints at more than 80 airports across the country. The lawmakers want GAO to review the cost savings associated with TSA’s use of AI and biometrics as well as whether the technology is making TSA more efficient.
  (Lawmakers request GAO review of TSA’s biometrics, facial recognition use - Federal News Network)

        Join us Jan. 27 for our Industry Exchange Cyber 2025 event where industry leaders will share the latest cybersecurity strategies and technologies.

• The Department of Homeland Security has a new guide for deploying generative artificial intelligence inside government. DHS published the Gen AI playbook for the public sector this week. It builds on lessons learned from DHS’ generative AI pilot projects. Department leaders said successful deployments depend on a strong foundation of AI-enabling skills and technologies. That includes human-centered design, agile software delivery, and data management. And DHS’ playbook makes clear that Gen AI is not the only kind of AI worth pursuing.
  (DHS playbook for public sector generative artificial intelligence deployment - Department of Homeland Security )
• A major small business update to federal acquisition regulations is final after a four-year process. Starting later this month, small businesses will be required to recertify their size and/or socioeconomic status at the task order level for most unrestricted multiple award contracts. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council finalized a rule to implement SBA's change from 2020. The new requirements, which do not apply to GSA's schedules program, aims to help agencies ensure they are not awarding small business set-aside contracts to firms who do not qualify. The FAR Council estimates that this rule will apply to more than 4,100 small firms a year. This rule goes into effect Jan. 17.
  (FAR Council finalized small business representation rule - Federal Register)
• Most participants in the Thrift Savings Plan will not need to check the mail for their annual statements this year. TSP participants who have given their email address to the TSP will instead get an electronic copy of the annual statement. They can access the document once logged into TSP’s My Account platform. Participants without an email address on file will still get their statements in the mail. Those delivery settings can be changed at any time in participants’ My Account profiles. Most participants have already been receiving quarterly TSP statements electronically. But this is the first year that the annual statement will be virtual.
  (Annual statements to be delivered electronically in 2025 - Thrift Savings Plan)
• The Defense Department has taken another big step toward updating the service records of veterans who were kicked out of the military under DoD’s former “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Defense officials have agreed to settle a class action lawsuit filed by former military members whose records still say they received less than honorable discharges because of their sexual orientation. A federal judge gave preliminary approval to the settlement yesterday. Under the agreement, DoD will create a streamlined process to remove indicators of sexual orientation from discharge records, and members of the class involved in the litigation will be able to apply for changes as a group. Last year, DoD conducted a “proactive review” of its own that updated the records of nearly 900 people discharged under the policy.
  (DoD to update service records of veterans who were kicked out of the military under “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. - U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is meeting with the Trump transition team weeks out from the new administration. The VA is preparing the incoming Trump administration to handle its day-to-day operations, at a time when the department is seeing record demand for its health care and benefits. VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the department has met with the transition team more than 20 times and has completed nearly half of the team’s 150 requests for information. “They have the tools they need to hit the ground running on day one, and to make sure they have what they need to deliver for veterans,” McDonough said.
  (VA prepares Trump administration for ‘seamless’ transition, amid record demand for its services - Federal News Network )
• There’s a new price tag for the Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan: about $40 billion per year between now and 2054. That’s according to the Congressional Budget Office, which was required by law to estimate the costs of the plan Navy officials sent to Congress last October. CBO’s estimates are about 17% higher than the Navy’s own projections. According to the analysis, the service’s budget would need to increase from about $255 billion per year to $340 billion in order to afford the additional shipbuilding, which would increase the size of the fleet from 296 ships to 390 over the next three decades.
  (New price tag for the Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan - Congressional Budget Office)

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