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

• A new report from the Veterans Affairs Department’s Inspector General says the agency handed out millions of dollars in unjustified incentives. The IG investigation found that over $30 million of the $66 million VA spent on recruitment, relocation and retention incentives in 2014 were either unjustified or unauthorized. The report says a lack of oversight of the program is to blame. (Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General)

• A group of Democrats in the House and Senate want the President and Vice President to disclose and put any potential financial conflicts of interest in a blind trust. They introduced the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act. It would also apply to the President and Vice President’s spouses and children. This comes as the Office of Government Ethics recently said it wants more feedback from legal experts on the matter. (Federal News Radio)

• President-elect Donald Trump reportedly asked Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work to stay on in his administration. Fox News said concerns over North Korea and other foreign adversaries testing the new administration are the main reason Trump’s team wants Work to serve under Defense Secretary nominee James Mattis. Work has been at the Pentagon since April 2014. (Fox News)

• The Defense Innovation Board wants the Pentagon to create a more stable cyber career path for Defense Department civilians and service members. That is just one of 11 recommendations the group made to DoD. The board, headed by Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt, suggests DoD should create a center of Artificial intelligence and improve access to system source code. (Federal News Radio)

• The Army launched a new crackdown on data centers. Two years after the Army’s undersecretary urged commanders to consolidate and close 1,200 data centers, not much progress has occurred. A new directive from the Army secretary gives top officials a fresh data center consolidation to-do list. It names specific data centers to close by 2018. It envisions a future in which the Army will run just 10 regional data centers and send many applications to cloud environments run by industry or the Defense Information Systems Agency. (Federal News Radio)

• The Office of Management and Budget is giving the incoming Trump administration a technology to-do list. OMB Director Shaun Donovan wrote as part of his exit memo that the next administration should take four steps to continue to make progress in modernizing federal systems and infrastructure. First, the administration should hire executives who understand technology. Second, they should continue to build up digital services expertise across government. Third, they should aggressively continue technology procurement and workforce reforms. Finally, the new administration should change policy, governance and budgeting to support continuous IT improvements. (White House)

• U.S. Special Operations Command awarded Maryland-based firm AAI Corporation a large contract for drone intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The IDIQ contract has a maximum value of $475 million and an estimated completion date of July 2022. AAI beat out seven other bidders. (Department of Defense)

• A new deputy general counsel was appointed at the U.S. Copyright Office. Acting Register of Copyrights Temply Clagget said Regan Smith is a talented lawyer who will bring a wealth of experience to her new role. A Harvard Law graduate, Smith joined the Copyright Office in 2014 as an assistant general counsel. (U.S. Copyright Office)

• The Patent and Trademark Office launched online account management to help applicants track their paperwork. Borrowing a term from Social Security, the new online portal is called My USPTO. Chief Information Officer John Owens said it gives people a single place to check progress on their patent or trademark applications. They can sign up to receive email notifications if there’s a change. The Patent Office uses ideascale to seek feedback on the new site. (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)

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