Budgets cuts in fiscal year 2013 have affected the federal workforce in all three branches of government. Among the hardest hit are the court system’s public defenders office. They’ve lost 10 percent of their employees in some instances. Cases are turned over to private attorneys and end up costing the federal court system more. Praveen Fernandes, director of Federal Affairs for Justice at Stake, offers an update.

Federal employees are seeing some signs of relief. The number of agencies handing out furloughs has decreased, and several of the 32,000 furlough appeals are being consolidated and heading into adjudication. Susan Tsui Grundmann is chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board. She talks about how her staff is handling all of the appeals now. Read related story.

The August recess is almost over and Congress is headed back to D.C. next week. With the end of the fiscal year and the unexpected expense of a possible strike on Syria upon us, the budget is a top priority. Dr. Philip Joyce is a professor of management, finance and leadership at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has just published a new version of its Cybersecurity Framework. The document contains a lot pertaining to both government and industry. Both have a role in protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure systems from cyber attacks. NIST holds workshops next week in Dallas where experts can delve into the framework. Adam Sedgewick is senior information technology policy advisor at NIST.

NASA is making final preparations to launch a probe. That launch is schedule for 11:27 p.m. And it will leave from our own back yard, NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. Pete Worden tells what’s going on. He is the director of the Ames Research Center where the space craft was tested and built.