National & World Headlines

  • Nigerian police shot and killed a suspect yesterday after an attack on a busy shopping plaza approximately four miles from the US Embassy in Abuja. One witness told the Associated Press a bomb was dropped at the entrance to the mall by a motorcyclist. The attack happened during the Nigeria/Argentina World Cup match. This is the second time in a week that an attack thought the be launched by the terror group Boko Haram has taken place during a World Cup match.

    June 26, 2014
  • As the military opens more key roles to women, there's one glaring problem: the pipeline. Military academies don't have a lot of female students. West Point has struggled more than the others, but change is on the horizon. Of the nearly 1,200 cadet candidates reporting next week, 22 percent will be women. That's a record number. Col. Deborah McDonald is director of admissions at West Point. She joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to discuss the latest numbers.

    June 26, 2014
  • Lt. Gen. Robert Ferrell, the Army's CIO/G6, said the service now is requiring all enterprise software titles to be modernized, virtualized and migrated to an approved data center.

    June 26, 2014
  • After a failed attempt to build a shared system with VA, the Defense Department is in a hurry to replace its aging health IT system. DoD says the final product will be an off-the-shelf commercial solution with as few changes as possible.

    June 26, 2014
  • Cutting the budget and cutting infrastructure is usually a recipe for frustration. The Defense Logistics Agency is using those concepts to improve its service and meet other operational goals. Jeff Curtis is executive director of the logistics support directorate at Defense Logistics Agency Logistics Operations. He explained the scope of what DLA's up against on In Depth with Francis Rose.

    June 25, 2014
  • Ninety of the 300 U.S. military advisers and special operations forces going to Iraq are in Baghdad. The Pentagon says they will begin to do three things: assess the strength of Iraqi forces, gauge the skill of The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and determine if it's viable to send more US advisory teams to Iraq.

    June 25, 2014
  • Some changes are coming at the top of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with new leader coming in for the Veterans Health Administration next Wednesday. VA's General Counsel Will Gunn plans to resign early next month. The changes appear to be the result of a trust issue at the agency. Bob Tobias is director of Key Executive Leadership Programs at American University. He said on In Depth with Francis Rose that performance issues are in the public spotlight because of the problems at Department of Veterans Affairs, but the problem actually goes way beyond the VA.

    June 25, 2014
  • Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson announced Friday the nomination of Carolyn Clancy as interim undersecretary for health in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

    June 25, 2014
  • The Veterans Affairs Department recently revealed that none of its senior executives had gotten a rating below fully successful in the past four years. While that may seem shocking, the VA is not that out of the ordinary. Sub-par ratings for SES members are not common and firing them is even less common, says former CHCO Jeff Neal.

    June 25, 2014
  • The Veterans Affairs Department is reeling from allegations, made by its own staff, that it has mistreated patients. More employees are coming forward to report what they see as systemic wrongdoing. The Office of Special Counsel is looking at 50 cases right now, and one of them is the case of Valerie Riviello. She is a nurse at the Samuel Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany, New York. Cheri Cannon of the law firm Tulley Rinckey is handling her case. They joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to discuss why Riviello decided to blow the whistle.

    June 25, 2014
  • The Defense Intelligence Agency will inaugurate its new Open Innovation Gateway on Wednesday, as part of its strategy to bring new technologies into the intelligence community from non-traditional vendors, and to buy new capabilities within weeks instead of years.

    June 25, 2014
  • Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) investigation into Veterans Affairs hospitals reveals widespread manipulation, criminal activity and poor management.

    June 25, 2014
  • Pentagon's most senior contract policy official is set to retire soon, but schedule is uncertain.

    June 25, 2014
  • Defense acquisition may be squeezed, but a larger percentage of Pentagon dollars are going to foreign contractors. That is according to a new compilation of the numbers by Bloomberg Government. Senior Defense Analyst Rob Levinson joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to go through the numbers from the top 10 foreign contractors.

    June 24, 2014