• The Navy is sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz — and the rest of its strike group — to Guam, to help with recovery efforts after the island suffered the worst typhoon it has seen in decades. Officials said the ships will arrive within three to four days. National Weather Service officials, at the local forecast office, said areas that used to be jungles now look like “toothpicks,” after the typhoon’s passage. Besides the damaging winds, some parts of the U.S. territory saw two feet of rain in the span of a day. That has caused flooding in many areas, including at the island’s international airport.
  (After Typhoon Mawar battered Guam, ‘what used to be a jungle looks like toothpicks’ - Associated Press)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to bring its employees back into the office more regularly this fall. VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the department will require employees with telework agreements in the National Capital Region to work a minimum of five days in the office each two-week pay period. The new requirements go into effect in early fall, and ensure VA employees are working in the office at least as much as they are working from home. McDonough said more in-office time will benefit the agency, but acknowledged not everyone will be happy with the change. “I think we will have some of our workforce who are disappointed," McDonough said.
  (VA sets higher in-office work requirements for teleworking employees this fall - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Homeland Security has published its first departmentwide body-worn camera policy. Homeland Security agencies will have to equip their law enforcement officers with body-worn cameras under a new DHS policy released this week. It said body-worn cameras should be used for emergency calls, pre-planned arrests, or during execution of a search or seizure warrant or order. The DHS policy stems from President Joe Biden’s executive order on accountable policing. Customs and Border Protection has already issued 7,000 cameras to its workforce under a pilot project started in August 2021. DHS encompasses nine law enforcement agencies with nearly 80,000 officers and agents across the country.
  (DHS announces first departmentwide policy on body-worn cameras - DHS)
• The end of the public health emergency means a few changes for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. FEHB carriers must still cover COVID-19 test kits, but they are now able to charge out-of-pocket costs for participants who want to get tested. And FEHB carriers are still required to cover vaccinations, but they can stop offering out-of-network coverage. These are just a few of the changes from the Office of Personnel Management that took effect May 15. OPM said carriers should communicate specific coverage changes with participants and FEHB enrollees can check carriers’ websites for more details.
  (FEHB COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Transition - Office of Personnel Management)

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• The Postal Service’s financial losses are deepening for the fiscal year. USPS tells its regulator it saw a $641 million net loss in April, and a more than $4 billion net loss so far in fiscal 2023. That is more than double what USPS projected it would lose at this point in the year. In April, USPS saw a more than 9% decrease in first-class mail volume, and a nearly 5% decrease in package volume, compared to the same period last year.
  (USPS financial information (April 2023) - Postal Regulatory Commission)
• Republicans are once again trying to block the Thrift Savings Plan from investing in Chinese companies. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said his reintroduced bill, the Taxpayers and Savers Protection (TSP) Act would boost national security. But if the bill passes, it would likely mean the end of TSP's mutual fund window. The TSP board said it would be unable to monitor every single stock within the 5,000 mutual funds currently available to TSP participants. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) introduced a separate bill in the House to bar BlackRock, one of the TSP’s asset managers, from voting on TSP’s investment choices. Buck and Republican co-sponsors of the bill pointed to concerns about the TSP’s investments in environmental, social and governance securities.
  (Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) - Taxpayers and Savers Protection (TSP) Act; Stop TSP ESG Act)
• A new business agreement under the Defense Production Act will jumpstart production of electronics critical for use in the aerospace industry. The $10 million agreement between the Defense Department and electronics company Six Sigma will help the company produce integrated circuitry in its California facility. The electronics produced at the plant have a high-reliability value critical to space programs operating in extreme thermal and vibration environments. A spokesperson for the Space Development Agency said Wednesday the agreement addresses an urgent supply chain demand for high reliability components.
  (DoD announces $10 million Defense Production Act Title III agreement - Defense.gov)
• The Army is ready to tackle one of the most difficult cyber problems it faces: implementing strong identity control and access management at the tactical edge. The service plans to release a call for white papers through the C-5 consortium for ICAM at the tactical edge. The Army will issue the other transaction authority opportunity in the coming month. Over the course of three years, the Army expects to develop ICAM capabilities and then integrate them into its new unified network operations effort .
  (Army TEMS X event - U.S. Army)
• The IRS finally has the contract in place to accelerate the modernization of more than 400 systems in its application development portfolio. Through the enterprise development, operations services (EDOS) blanket purchase agreement, four vendors will compete for task orders to modernize existing systems, build out analytics and improve cybersecurity. EDOS is a seven-year contract with a ceiling of $2.6 billion. The IRS will look to Accenture Federal Services, Maximus Federal Services, IBM and Booz Allen Hamilton to compete for task orders for an assortment of support services ranging from project and program management to surge support to enterprise and managed services.
  (IRS EDOS contract - GovTribe.com)
• Agencies looking to root out cyber vulnerabilities on their networks get some important new guidance. The National Institute of Standards and Technology published Recommendations for Federal Vulnerability Disclosure Guidelines this week. The document provides agencies with tips and guardrails for setting up a vulnerability disclosure program, including processes for receiving vulnerability information from outside researchers and other groups and what to do with disclosures about potential bugs in their networks. Congress directed NIST to publish the guidelines as part of the Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020.
  (Recommendations for federal vulnerability disclosure guidelines - NIST)
• After a successful launch of its commercially made low earth orbit satellites in April, the Space Development Agency will move forward with launching more communication satellites. Bids were due back today for the second tranche of the satellite program, with an award expected this summer. While this year's launches were meant to demonstrate the satellite's capabilities, the agency plans for future tranches to field fully operational satellites. Tranche two will include close to 300 satellites. The program demonstrated the ability to acquire satellites in a two-year time frame by buying small, commercially designed equipment.
  (Defending space systems: Current and future priorities of the United States - AFCEA)

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