The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive.

• Former Marine Contracting Officer David Liu was sentence to 37 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to violate the Procurement Integrity Act. Justice officials said Liu worked with two government contractors to exchange protected procurement information of competitors to rig the bidding process for a multimedia services Navy contract in Somalia. (Justice Department)

• Customs and Border Protection officials have been told they goofed up the job changes for nearly 200 people. The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general said CPB converted 183 program specialists into criminal investigators, who received $3.1 million in premium pay. But it failed to first evaluate how many investigators it really needed. And it had no measures to see if its investigative operations were any good. CBP agreed with the report but questioned the timing. (DHS OIG)

• Three major contractors each received separate contracts to study the readiness feasibility for the development of an 11th GPS III space vehicle for the Air Force. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman were each awarded 26-month contracts worth a base value of $5 million, according to the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. The GPS III Space Vehicle 11 will add on features like a nuclear detonation detection system. (Air Force)

• As the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority announced its large maintenance plan starting next month, the Federal Transit Administration wants more from it. The FTA issued an emergency safety directive demanding new required actions to shore up emergency planning and reduce fire and smoke risks. The actions include reducing the number of rail cars as well as their speed to lessen the power load in high-risk areas. (Transportation Department)

• The Army Corps of Engineers is playing test pilot for several key IT initiatives for the Army. The corps will be among the first to move to Windows 10, test out Office 365 in the cloud and take advantage of the Joint Regional Security Stacks, or JRSS. For the Army Corps of Engineers, the biggest challenge may just be ensuring its applications are ready for both Windows 10 and the cloud. The corps is devising a plan to test applications and decide whether to move or update them to the new technologies. (Federal News Radio)

• The White House has told agencies how they’re expected to tag information to comply with the DATA Act. The orders come a week after the Treasury Department released the latest version of DATA Act standards. For example, ID numbers assigned to contract awards cannot exceed 30 characters. Agencies have until next May to begin reporting financial information in a uniform way. (Federal News Radio)

• The Air Force Reserve is playing catch-up on cyber training. The Defense Department’s demand for cyber trained service members is on the rise. That means reservists are waiting longer for training. The Air Force Reserve has set up a cyber training unit at Hurlburt Air Field in Florida to help ease the demand. Both part-time and full-time service members will be part of the unit. Air Force Reserve Chief James Jackson said Congress could help alleviate the training problem by allowing the reserve to accept outside cyber training certificates. (Federal News Radio)

• The Commerce Department has launched a new data training program for its employees. At least 3,500 employees signed up for the Commerce Data Academy so far. Commerce Deputy Secretary Bruce Andrews said the goal is to have all 47,000 employees take the training in the next two years. Andrews said finding new talent with digital expertise is one of the agency’s biggest challenges. (Federal News Radio)

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