The State Department is retroactively promoting hundreds of additional Foreign Service employees, after unilaterally changing the criteria and the panels of individuals who oversee this process.

The American Foreign Service Association said the department recently carried out these retroactive promotions, as part of “targeted administrative actions.”

Earlier this year, the State Department eliminated an employee’s contributions to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) goals from the criteria for promotion within the Foreign Service. Instead, the department said it would vet Foreign Service employees on their “fidelity” to the Trump administration’s policies.

AFSA President John Dinkelman said the State Department retroactively promoted 200 Foreign Service employees, based on these new criteria.

In a departure from past practice, Dinkelman said the State Department isn’t sharing the names of employees receiving these promotions, or the names of those who served on Foreign Service promotion boards.

“We have no idea who made these decisions,” Dinkelman said, adding that the State Department made these “unprecedented changes to the process” without consulting AFSA.

Dinkelman said that the level of transparency is important to ensure the promotion recommendations are unbiased.

The State Department’s inspector general’s office reported in May 2022 that human resources employees frequently gave spots on Foreign Service promotion boards to family members and friends. According to the report, several employees raised concerns that certain board selections amounted to “nepotism and favoritism.”

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement that the Biden administration “imposed ideological litmus tests on civil servants, penalizing competent and deserving government employees in the process.”

“Under President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the State Department rewards excellence, which is the right thing to do for our workforce, for our country, and for the American people,” Pigott said.

In July, the State Department unveiled new criteria for promotions and career advancement in the Foreign Service. Among the changes, the department will assess employees on their “fidelity” to the Trump administration’s policy goals.

The department’s newly released “core precepts” for tenure and promotion will grade Foreign Service on five criteria — fidelity, communication, leadership, management and knowledge.

Previous versions of this scorecard placed greater emphasis on subject matter expertise and assessing an employee’s contributions to DEIA goals.

“The derivative effects of this mean that some poor individual, who actually played by the rules and who fairly demonstrated their adherence to principles that are now distanced by the government, was not promoted, and somebody else has been now placed in front of them in the line,” Dinkelman said.

The department no longer recognizes AFSA as a union, following executive orders that scaled back collective bargaining rights for a majority of the federal workforce.

The State Department’s human resources bureau releases new precepts every three years, outlining the most important qualities Foreign Service officers must demonstrate to advance to higher ranks.

As part of a newly added “fidelity” standard, Foreign Service employees across all ranks will be evaluated on their contributions to “protecting and promoting executive power.”

The fidelity portion of the scorecard links to a White House webpage listing President Donald Trump’s executive orders and presidential actions.

The Bureau of Global Talent Management says that mid-level Foreign Service officers should be able to demonstrate how they are “zealously executing” U.S. government policy.

AFSA also raised concerns in August, when the State Department promoted several Foreign Service officers who received reduction-in-force notices earlier that summer.

The union said the promotion of laid-off diplomats suggested the department may have dismissed some of its top performers.

The State Department sent RIF notices to nearly 1,350 employees in July.

Of those, nearly 250 were Foreign Service officers currently stationed in the U.S. A federal judge in San Francisco has temporarily blocked the State Department from officially separating these employees.

Shortly after sending those layoff notices, the Foreign Service resumed hiring. By the end of January, the Foreign Service will have made enough hires to replace those who received RIF notices.

In September, it brought on a class of more than 100 new Foreign Service officers. This month, another 70 new hires were brought on to serve a five-year appointment as non-career consular fellows.

In January, the Foreign Service is scheduled to hire another class of 160 new Foreign Service officers.

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The Department of Homeland Security is again moving to rescind a collective bargaining agreement with Transportation Security Administration employees, despite an ongoing court case over DHS’ prior move to eliminate the TSA union agreement.

In a Dec. 12 press release, TSA announced that a new “labor framework” would be implemented starting Jan. 11, 2026. The framework rescinds the 2024 CBA between TSA and the American Federation of Government Employees, the agency said.

TSA said the decision is based on a Sept. 29 determination by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, “Eliminating Collective Bargaining at TSA Due to its Incompatibility with TSA’s National Security Mission and its Adverse Impact on Resources, Flexibility, Mission Focus, Security Effectiveness, and Traveler Experience.”

TSA said Noem’s determination — which it did not release — “establishes that employees performing security screening functions … have a primary function of national security and shall not engage in collective bargaining or be represented for any purposes by any representative or organization.”

Noem also determined that collective bargaining for TSA officers “is inconsistent with efficient stewardship of taxpayer dollars and impedes the agility required to secure the traveling public,” according to the agency statement.

“Our Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) need to be focused on their mission of keeping travelers safe not wasting countless hours on non-mission critical work,” Adam Stahl, senior official performing the duties of TSA deputy administrator, said in the press release. “Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, we are ridding the agency of wasteful and time-consuming activities that distracted our officers from their crucial work.”

AFGE quickly criticized TSA’s announcement. AFGE represents approximately 47,000 airport screeners under the CBA.

“Merely 30 days ago, Secretary Noem celebrated TSA officers for their dedication during the longest government shutdown in history,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said as part of a statement. “Today, she’s announcing a lump of coal right on time for the holidays: that she’s stripping those same dedicated officers of their union rights.”

AFGE noted that a federal judge earlier this year blocked DHS from dissolving the collective bargaining agreement. The union had brought the lawsuit in response to a previous determination issued by Noem that sought to dissolve the CBA.

In granting the preliminary injunction in June, the judge presiding over the case wrote that Noem’s previous attempt to dissolve the CBA “appears to have been undertaken to punish AFGE and its members because AFGE has chosen to push back against the Trump Administration’s attacks to federal employment in the courts.”

That ongoing case is currently scheduled to go to trial next September.

Kelley said AFGE “will continue to challenge these illegal attacks on our members’ right to belong to a union.” He also urged the Senate to pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act “immediately.”

TSA staff don’t have the same statutory rights as other federal employees under Title 5 of U.S. Code. But in response to longstanding concerns about TSA attrition, then-TSA Administrator David Pekoske in 2022 issued a determination that expanded collective bargaining at the agency to mirror the bargaining rights under Title 5.

TSA and AFGE then negotiated and signed a seven-year collective bargaining agreement last year. The agreement established a streamlined process for grievance and arbitration, expanded official time, fewer restrictions on sick leave, increased uniform allowances and opportunities for local collective bargaining.

In a statement today, AFGE Council 100 President Hydrick Thomas called the decision to revoke the CBA a “slap in the face” to TSA employees

“Prior to having a union contract, many employees endured hostile work environments and workers felt like they didn’t have a voice on the job, which led to severe attrition rates and longer wait times for the traveling public,” Thomas said. “Since having a contract, we’ve seen a more stable workforce, and there has never been another aviation-related attack on our country.”

In its statement, TSA said that agency policy will govern “employment matters previously addressed by the 2024 CBA, and TSA policy will provide for alternative procedures to ensure that employee voices are heard and that legitimate concerns are resolved quickly.”

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With the popularity of AI coding tools rising among some software developers, their adoption has begun to touch every aspect of the process, including the improvement of AI coding tools themselves.

In interviews with Ars Technica this week, OpenAI employees revealed the extent to which the company now relies on its own AI coding agent, Codex, to build and improve the development tool. “I think the vast majority of Codex is built by Codex, so it’s almost entirely just being used to improve itself,” said Alexander Embiricos, product lead for Codex at OpenAI, in a conversation on Tuesday.

Codex, which OpenAI launched in its modern incarnation as a research preview in May 2025, operates as a cloud-based software engineering agent that can handle tasks like writing features, fixing bugs, and proposing pull requests. The tool runs in sandboxed environments linked to a user’s code repository and can execute multiple tasks in parallel. OpenAI offers Codex through ChatGPT’s web interface, a command-line interface (CLI), and IDE extensions for VS Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.

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• Federal retirement numbers at the Office of Personnel Management are continuing to skyrocket. In November, OPM took in another 23,000 applications from retiring employees. That’s on top of more than 20,000 that entered OPM’s systems in October. Together, those numbers mean retirement applications are triple the volume they were at this time last year. In total, OPM’s retirement inventory is now closing in on 50,000 applications that are still awaiting finalization.
  (November 2025 retirement processing report - Office of Personnel Management)
• A group of lawmakers found the Pentagon has diverted at least $2 billion intended for barracks repairs, school upgrades and training programs to support the southern border mission. The department shifted approximately $1.3 billion to pay for the deployment of troops to the border. About $420 million was moved to assist with immigration detention operations and over $40 million was used to pay for military deportation flights. The diverted funds were meant to support projects including elementary schools at Fort Knox, an ambulatory care center and dental clinic, a jet-training facility in Mississippi and Marine barracks in Japan. DoD also sent the 10th Mountain Division, which was trained to conduct large-scale combat operations, to the border.
  (DoD diverts over $2 billion to fund border mission, lawmakers say - Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.))
• Next week marks the busiest week of the year for the Postal Service. USPS said it’s prepared to handle millions packages and pieces of mail during its peak season. But it’s also setting deadlines to ensure delivery before Christmas. USPS generally recommends sending first-class mail and Ground Advantage packages no later than Dec. 17 to ensure delivery by Dec. 25. USPS said customers should also allow addition time for shipping to or from Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and U.S Territories.
  (The Postal Service Is ready for the busiest week of 2025 - U.S. Postal Service)
• The Defense Department is accelerating its preparation for post-quantum cryptography. The Pentagon's CIO is preparing a new requirement for all military services and defense agencies to identify, inventory and report all cryptography used in any type of system. But before the CIO releases that policy, Katie Arrington, who is performing the duties of the DoD CIO, said in a new memo that each component must identify key personnel who will be responsible for migration to PQC and associated coordination. These leads will oversee the creation and maintenance of the system inventory, as well as several other responsibilities including PQC acquisition requirements within the component, quantum-attack risk management plans and the tracking of all tests, evaluation and PQC readiness efforts relevant to the component's systems.
  (DoD CIO tells services, agencies how to get ready for post-quantum cryptography - Defense Department)
• Tenable became the third contractor to sign a OneGov agreement with the General Services Administration this month. Under the deal announced yesterday, Tenable will offer its cloud security enterprise solution to agencies at a 65% discount off its list price on the GSA schedule. The prices are good through March 2027, but agencies would see 3% annual increase in their prices on multiple-year task orders. GSA also signed OneGov deals with Palo Alto Networks and SAP in December. In all, 17 vendors now have OneGov deals.
  (Tenable becomes third vendor to sign OneGov deal this month - General Services Administration)
• A bill to restore collective bargaining for federal employees has cleared the House. All House Democrats, along with 20 Republicans, voted in favor of the Protect America’s Workforce Act, resulting in a vote of 231-195 to pass the legislation. If enacted, the bill would nullify President Donald Trump’s executive orders to cancel collective bargaining agreements at most agencies. Federal unions are now urging the Senate to take up the companion bill.
  (House passes bill to restore collective bargaining for federal employees - Federal News Network)
• Service members will see a 4.2% average increase in their basic allowance for housing in 2026. But the actual increases military households will receive will vary depending on where they are stationed and their pay grades. The calculation of the allowance is built to cover approximately 95% of average costs for off-base housing and utilities, leaving a roughly 5% out-of-pocket expense for service members. In 2026, these amounts range from $93 to $212. The new housing allowance rates will take effect Jan. 1, 2026. The department estimates it will pay $29.9 billion in housing allowances to approximately one million service members.
  (Service members will receive a 4.2% boost in housing allowance in 2026 - Federal News Network)
• Hundreds of federal office space leases were terminated this year, but still far from targets set by the Department of Government Efficiency. GSA carried out 260 lease terminations, saving about $112 million in annual costs. That’s about 30% of the approximately 900 lease terminations it sent to landlords earlier this year. GSA began its mass termination of governmentwide leases in the early days of the Trump administration. But by March, the agency began walking back hundreds of them. Former DOGE leader Elon Musk said in a recent interview that DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts were “somewhat successful.”
  (GSA terminated hundreds of federal office space leases, but far less than DOGE targets - Federal News Network)

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Interview transcript

Terry Gerton It has been a tough year for the federal workforce. I don’t think that’s an understatement, but here on the Federal Drive, we focused a lot on the impacts on individuals. And with you I want to take it up a level and really talk about leaders and managers. What have been the biggest challenges for federal managers throughout this year?

Laurin Parthemos I would say without a doubt, it’s the uncertainty that people are seeing within the day to day. As a leader, having to navigate a field where you don’t know what is going to come next is increasingly difficult, especially in times where you don’t have necessarily the number of resources that you truly need to get the job done. And we’re seeing that really play out in terms of both performance, in terms of how things are getting produced, how quickly they’re getting produced, but also just on the health from a psychological standpoint of the individual employees that are within the workforce and especially on the federal side. And how do we really make sure that we create, as leaders, a space where we can allow them to thrive as much as possible in this particular scenario? And how do we suppress that survive response to all the uncertainty and all of the nuance that is happening in the day to day that we’re seeing?

Terry Gerton We have talked a lot here about organizational health and how organizational health depends on individual worker health and how that health often depends on mental health. Seems like all of those connection points are under a lot of stress.

Laurin Parthemos I, Yeah, unequivocally agree with that. Realistically speaking, at Kotter, our research validates that point that organizations that are anchored in adaptability and resilience are those ones that outperform. And as we see, especially in the federal space, it’s difficult to build that resiliency consistently because of the amount of uncertainty that we’re seeing. And so because there’s that pull dragging people down, the level of anxiety, the lack of ability to actually meet your day to day needs as we’re seeing shutdowns happen, there’s an end-level performance there that’s happening at the department and agency level that as leaders, it’s [about] trying to figure out how we can give as much stability as possible to our teams without necessarily knowing what we’re capable of promising. And how do we make sure that we’re communicating in a way that we’re not just waiting until we have a definitive answer, but we’re walking alongside our team saying, I also don’t know. But here’s what we’re going to do.

Terry Gerton You mentioned a term earlier, psychological safety. Can you break that out for us and tell us what it means both from the employee perspective and the leader-manager perspective?

Laurin Parthemos Absolutely. From that psychological safety perspective, we see the massive erosion in the sense that as people are showing up to work, what was once seen as an incredibly stable job and a mission-driven job working for the federal workforce. Some of those tenets about why people joined the service are no longer there because that stability is no longer there. Don’t know if layoffs are coming. We don’t know if we’ll be in another shutdown. And what that really boils down to is how do I feed my family? How do I make sure that I can pay my own bills? And without that level of safety, of knowing that I have stability in my job and I can think through how do I perform and I can think through creative, innovative ways to get things done. Without that, you won’t see any level of performance. And it’s really been a sticking point for many people that I’ve been speaking to within the agencies.

Terry Gerton  Are you seeing that agencies have groups of employees maybe pitted against each other? We had furloughed and accepted folks. So many people worked but without pay and others didn’t work and, you know, are there internal issues that leaders and managers are going to need to deal with?

Laurin Parthemos None that anyone has openly admitted to me. I will leave it at that. But it is a natural feeling to say, if we’re working on a skeleton crew, so to speak, and some of our team is furloughed while others are not, what does that look like when we all rejoin together? There’s going to be those who are frustrated because they’ve had to work so hard during that furlough time without pay. There’s those that are — that were not furloughed that had to depend on each other that maybe their teammates weren’t showing up in a way that they necessarily resonated with because they might not have been giving their full selves because of the frustration of what they were dealing with. So I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily that people are pitted against each other, but more so that there’s an understandable level of frustration given the ecosystem that they were subjected to. And how do you work through that as a leader saying, for this time, we are all together. There is a potential that we will be in another shutdown. And what does that look like? And how can you really work with your team to make sure that you’re front-running any of those issues and thinking through the scenario planning to make sure that you have what you need and your team members understand the purpose and what we’re really trying to accomplish at its core so you can prevent any of those frustrations as they bubble up.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Laurin Parthemos. She’s a principal and public sector lead at Kotter. Laurin, the shutdown has come up a couple of times in our conversation. We’re deep into the holiday season that comes with its own kind of stress. And when everybody’s sort of fully back in January, they’ll be staring potentially at another shutdown across several agencies. So if you’re a leader in this scenario, maybe what’s on your New Year’s resolution list to think about how do you reset for the work beginning in January?

Laurin Parthemos I think that’s a great question because as I’ve talked to many leaders throughout this time, a lot of people are talking through what does Q1 look like or what does it immediately look like for what I need to accomplish? But we really need to be thinking longer term than that. And we really need to be thinking through what are our priorities and what are we deprioritizing? Because as we think about the impact that the shutdown had, I believe it was the Professional Services Council that has a statistic that it takes three to five days, not business days, but days to reset for each day of shutdown in terms of an agency’s performance, considering that it was 43 days. That’s up to seven months in order to get back to a stable state. So we’re going to be working in an environment that is over capacity and behind with significant backlog. So making sure that if you’re anchoring on a, why are we doing what we do, what is our goal as a team and anchoring each task underneath that to that why, it will help prioritize what needs to be accomplished while simultaneously actively advocating for what no longer needs to be done during this time of prioritization. And that act of advocating needs to happen within your own team. Across teams and also going up the chain as well to make sure that there’s a consistent understanding of what are we trying to accomplish? Because if you only focus on one small group, there’s going to be a lack of understanding more broadly. And that will help teams as they go into January with the potential of another shutdown. So knowing what are we trying to accomplish, what happens if we do, what happens if we do not shut down? And how can we come together to make sure that despite the headwinds, we are going to accomplish whatever we can. And I will say a key for this is it’s not just the priorities that we need to accomplish, but it’s also how do we, as leaders, implant short-term wins, as we like to call them at Kotter. So what are some small things to show that we’ve accomplished something? We’ve been successful. No matter how big or small, it does not matter, but it’s something that you can celebrate around and rally around to get people energized. So it’s not just a heavy weight of a continual backlog, but saying we did something and we’re making progress.

Terry Gerton  What might be one or two things that a team leader or a mid-level manager could actually do to get their team refocused on the why, on the priorities, on the outcomes? Should they have a potluck? Should they like have a team day? What are some things that you recommend, actual steps?

Laurin Parthemos What I would say is it’s very team dependent, to be quite honest with you, because you could say, let’s do a pizza party. And that will resonate so well with some groups, and others will see it as tone-deaf in a way, saying, that’s great that there’s food here, but do you not see what’s happening around us? And so I would say, first and foremost, as you’re thinking about the state that individuals are in, it’s that heavy survive of freeze, likely. And it’s making sure that as you think through what state these individuals are in, you’re going on a listening tour, so to speak, to figure out what they actually need and want and then respond in kind to the culture of that particular group. So it very much could be a potluck. It could be that part of your planning as you’re thinking about going into January, you know your team will have heavy amounts of furloughs. And realistically speaking, the median federal employee only has about a week of pay in their bank account. So is it that we know this team is going to be furloughed? So let’s think about meal trains. Let’s think about how we can support each other in ways that are not just from a work perspective, but from a human element, because we are here for a mission. You’re not joining the federal service to become the most rich and famous. You’re doing it because you believe in the cause. So come together around that cause and find ways to truly support your people in the ways that you’ve find that they need to be supported as a leader.

Terry Gerton  I’ve been speaking with Laurin Parthemos. She’s a principal and public sector lead at Kotter. Laurin, thanks so much for grounding us back in what’s really important. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. We’ll post this interview at federal newsnetwork.com slash Federal Drive. Listen to the Federal Drive on your schedule and on your device. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

 

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L3Harris Technologies has delivered the first production Meadowlands Counter Communications System to the U.S. Space Force Combat Forces Command’s Mission Delta 3 – Space Electromagnetic Warfare unit. According to a statement from the company, the delivery is intended to support Space Force units tasked with electromagnetic warfare missions by providing mobile jamming capabilities that can […]

As they work to fend off the rapidly expanding number of attempts by threat actors to exploit the dangerous React2Shell vulnerability, security teams are learning of two new flaws in React Server Components that could lead to denial-of-service attacks or the exposure of source code.

The post React Fixes Two New RSC Flaws as Security Teams Deal with React2Shell appeared first on Security Boulevard.

If you ever wish that reading the system logs, optimizing music metadata, and checking battery health were easier on Linux, I've got recommendations. With your spare time this weekend, you may find an app that makes your Linux PC just a little bit more powerful.

Participants earned rewards at the hacking competition for Grafana, Linux Kernel, Redis, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL vulnerabilities.

The post $320,000 Paid Out at Zeroday.Cloud for Open Source Software Exploits appeared first on SecurityWeek.

A bill to restore collective bargaining rights for a majority of federal employees cleared the House in a floor vote Thursday afternoon.

House lawmakers voted 231-195 to pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act. The entire Democratic Caucus, along with 20 Republicans, voted in favor of the legislation.

The bill’s passage this week came after a discharge petition on the legislation reached the required 218-signature threshold in November, forcing the House to hold a floor vote on the bill. On Wednesday, the legislation cleared an initial voting hurdle, teeing it up for its final passage Thursday afternoon.

The Protect America’s Workforce Act, led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine), aims to nullify two of President Donald Trump’s executive orders this year that called for most agencies to end their union contracts. The legislation, if enacted, would restore collective bargaining for tens of thousands of federal employees.

“This is a bipartisan effort to protect federal workers in this country,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Thursday on the House floor. “We’re talking about our federal nurses, our firefighters, law enforcement, medical professionals, the men and women that are working across our airports, that are taking care of our nuclear reactors in this country. They deserve the right to organize.”

In March, Trump ordered most agencies to cancel their agreements with federal unions, on the grounds that those agencies work primarily in national security. The president signed a second executive order in August, expanding the number of agencies instructed to bar their unions from bargaining on behalf of federal employees.

Combined, Trump’s two orders impact an estimated two-thirds of the federal workforce.

Prior to Thursday afternoon’s vote, several Republicans spoke on the House floor in opposition to the legislation.

“The president has been fighting back against the deals that public sector unions have negotiated for themselves, at the expense of the American taxpayer, by invoking an existing legal authority,” said Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the Oversight committee. “[This bill] directly threatens that progress by overturning the president’s executive order that exercises one of the few tools available to him under the law to more effectively manage the federal workforce.”

Many federal unions, however, have called Trump’s orders nixing collective bargaining illegal. A union coalition, led by the American Federation of Government Employees, sued the Trump administration earlier this year over its rollback of collective bargaining rights. The lawsuit alleges that the administration took an overly broad interpretation of agencies that work primarily in national security, and argues that many of the agencies impacted by Trump’s orders have nothing to do with national security.

Following AFGE’s lawsuit, a federal judge in April blocked the administration from enforcing the executive order. An appeals court later overturned that decision, allowing agencies to move forward with “de-recognizing” their unions. Several agencies have since rescinded their collective bargaining agreements.

Federal unions, including the National Federation of Federal Employees, lauded the House’s passage of the bill on Thursday.

“This is an incredible testament to the strength of federal employees and the longstanding support for their fundamental right to organize and join a union,” said Randy Erwin, NFFE’s national president. “In bipartisan fashion, Congress has asserted their authority to hold the president accountable for the biggest attack on workers that this country has ever seen.”

Despite the House’s passage of the legislation, it would still require approval in the Senate to be enacted. The companion bill for the Protect America’s Workforce Act, first introduced in September by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), has one Republican cosponsor, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

“We need to build on this seismic victory in the House and get immediate action in the Senate,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said Thursday. “And also ensure that any future budget bills similarly protect collective bargaining rights for the largely unseen civil servants who keep our government running.”

The post House passes bill to restore collective bargaining for federal employees first appeared on Federal News Network.

© AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

Service members will see a 4.2% average increase in their basic allowance for housing in 2026 — a smaller boost than the 5.4% increase they received in 2024 and 2025. 

But the actual increases military households will receive will vary depending largely on where they are stationed and their pay grades. While the increase is higher in some areas, the rates decrease in several areas, including Phoenix, Arizona, and Brownsville, Texas. Service members stationed in areas where rates go down are protected and get to keep their existing BAH. 

Look up your 2026 BAH rate here.

The Defense Department calculates the annual rates based on surveys of rental costs and utilities in each market. Data sources include Census Bureau surveys, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, commercial subscription rental cost databases, major online rental listing websites, and input from the services and local installation housing offices.

The calculation of the allowance is built to cover approximately 95% of average costs for an off-base housing and utilities, leaving roughly a 5% out-of-pocket expense for service members. In 2026, these amounts range from $93 to $212. 

Since the annual rates are based on 2025 data, they may not fully reflect rapid increases in actual rental costs.

The new housing allowance rates will take effect Jan. 1, 2026.

The department estimates it will pay $29.9 billion in housing allowances to approximately one million service members in 2026.

Basic Allowance for Housing is one of the largest components of cash compensation for service members, second only to basic pay. The fiscal 2026 defense policy bill, passed by the House on Wednesday, requires the Defense Department to “conduct a study to improve the calculation of BAH to ensure it keeps up with rising rental costs.” The bill also extends the Defense Department’s authority to issue temporary increases to BAH for one more year in areas hit by disasters or where housing costs differ from current rates by more than 20%.

The 2026 BAH increase comes as service members are also poised to receive a pay raise — the legislation approved a 3.8% increase in basic pay for service members. The must-pass legislation now heads to the Senate. The bill will then go to President Donald Trump for his signature. 

In 2023, BAH rates went up an average of 12.1% after housing costs had spiked the previous year.

The post Service members are set to receive a 4.2% boost in housing allowance in 2026 first appeared on Federal News Network.

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On Me raises $6 million for its digital gift card platform that lets users purchase cards categorized by interests rather than being restricted to specific retailers.

While many Linux users like to try out new distros, especially those new to Linux, Debian and its derivatives have consistently given me what I need. Here are the reasons I've never felt the need to distro-hop.

The terminal looks like an unassuming (sometimes intimidating) black box and feels like it’s only meant for pros or experts. It’s not as inscrutable as it seems though. Anybody can learn to use it and get stuff done. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll often find yourself launching a terminal instead of opening a new browser tab. That’s because the terminal is faster, reliable, and never shows ads.

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is one of the greatest ideas ever conceived, and we all rely on and benefit from it every day of our lives. Whether you're using a FOSS app for your own benefit directly or using a service that's built on FOSS, it affects us all.

Overview On December 10, NSFOCUS CERT detected that Microsoft released the December Security Update patch, which fixed 57 security issues involving widely used products such as Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange Server, Azure, etc., including high-risk vulnerability types such as privilege escalation and remote code execution. Among the vulnerabilities fixed by Microsoft’s monthly update this […]

The post Microsoft’s December Security Update of High-Risk Vulnerability Notice for Multiple Products appeared first on NSFOCUS, Inc., a global network and cyber security leader, protects enterprises and carriers from advanced cyber attacks..

The post Microsoft’s December Security Update of High-Risk Vulnerability Notice for Multiple Products appeared first on Security Boulevard.

More than a dozen federal statistical agencies are falling behind on producing high-quality data sets that impact the U.S. economy and government policy.

An annual report from the American Statistical Association finds widespread staffing and spending cuts across the federal government, along with policy changes under the Trump administration, have led to certain public-facing data sets being delayed, suspended or canceled.

Experts who led the report are also concerned by a decline of public trust in federal government data sets.

Former Chief Statistician of the United States Nancy Potok, a co-author of the report, said in a call on Wednesday that “we saw a severe decline in the agency’s ability to meet their missions,” and that the “status quo was no longer satisfactory.”

“What most people noticed was that many statistical products just disappeared. They either were eliminated, in terms of no data collection taking place, because contracts were cut or funding was cut or people weren’t there, or because of the lack of staff and resources,” Potok said.

The association’s annual report found that most statistical agencies lost 20% to 30% of their staff this year, and the Trump administration is pursuing further workforce cuts at these agencies.

The Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics lost nearly all its employees this year, as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing plans to dismantle the department and reassign its programs to other federal agencies. The statistics office currently has three employees.

President Donald Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics this summer after the agency produced a monthly jobs report that showed hiring had slowed.

The Social Security Administration’s former chief data officer left the agency after filing a whistleblower complaint alleging that the Department of Government Efficiency improperly put the sensitive data of more than 300 million Americans at risk of exposure.

In May, the DOGE posted on X that the Census Bureau conducts more than 100 additional surveys beyond the decennial population count. DOGE wrote that many of those other surveys are “obsolete,” and that the results are “not being used to drive any action.” DOGE said the Census Bureau has terminated five “wasteful surveys.”

“Some of the existing guardrails are really at risk of being pushed and potentially ignored,” Potok said.

The association’s report last year found that federal statistical agencies are having a harder time producing quality data. Part of the problem is that fewer individuals are filling out the surveys that power this data. A national decline in trust in government corresponds with lower response rates for federal statistical surveys.

Potok said the ASA’s report last year found that “status quo is going to deteriorate over time, and something needs to be done.” However, she said those problems have only gotten worse.

“This is an immediate kind of crisis situation that we have found,” Potok said.

Mike Calabria, the current chief statistician of the U.S., said in a keynote address last month that his priorities are strengthening data security at statistical agencies and reversing a “long-term decline in response rates” for statistical surveys.

“People are going to be more reluctant to respond if they don’t believe that their data is going to be secure and protected,” Calabria said on Nov. 6 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I’m a very big privacy advocate, and I want to make sure that whatever we do collect does not get hacked or breached, or that people feel confident that the data they give the government is not going to be shared in ways that they haven’t consented to.”

A  senior administration official told Federal News Network that the report’s findings amount to “typical swamp lobbying.”

Potok said the Trump administration has taken some steps to support statistical agencies, “but it was far outweighed by the things that happened that weakened them.”

The administration, she added, has exempted the Census Bureau from a governmentwide hiring freeze that ran through Oct. 15. Now that the freeze is over, agencies have been instructed to only hire one new federal employee for every four that leave.

Connie Citro, former director of the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, said that these agencies produce “bedrock statistics that the financial world, and in general, the world looks to,” and that budgets are not keeping up with demand for data, which has only accelerated with the rise in artificial intelligence tools.

“These weakened resources weaken the ability for agencies to modernize mentor staff, engage with data users and communicate with stakeholders, and all this is essential to set priorities for innovation and move forward,” Citro said.

Since fiscal 2009, eight of the 13 statistical agencies have lost at least 16% of purchasing power, but have been expected to produce more data.

“While there are strong supporters of federal statistics in Congress, we do not have any vocal champions on the Appropriations Committee,” Steve Pierson, ASA’s director of science policy, said on the call.

The report finds the administration has left key leadership unfilled and pursued “disruptive agency relocations” and eliminated statistical products without input from Congress or the public.

“These losses have affected agency work and undermined innovation, modernization, and communication with data users, leaving agencies struggling to meet expanding demands for data that are more granular, timely, and responsive to policymakers’ needs,” the report states.

The report also cites declining public trust in the data these agencies produce. The percentage of U.S. adults who trust federal statistics fell from 57% in June, to 52% in September, according to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

The percentage of people agreeing or strongly agreeing that they can trust federal statistical agencies to keep information about them confidential declined by six percentage points, from 31% to 25%.

Last month, a federal judge blocked the IRS from sharing data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There are several other pending federal lawsuits challenging similar data-sharing agreements with ICE.

The post ‘Bedrock’ federal data sets are disappearing, as statistical agencies face upheaval first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson is setting aside $350,000 from an economic development fund to support Portal Space Systems’ expansion into a new 50,000-square-foot satellite manufacturing facility in Bothell, Wash.

Ferguson announced today that he’s directing the state Department of Commerce to award funds from the Governor’s Economic Development Strategic Reserve Fund to Economic Alliance Snohomish County. The funding will help Portal transition from testing and development to scalable production, with a goal of building four spacecraft a month by 2027.

The expansion is expected to create more than 100 jobs in the next two years, and more than 700 jobs by 2030.

“Strategic Reserve Funds are targeted investments that create good paying jobs and spur innovation across Washington,” Ferguson said in a news release. “This project not only achieves those goals, it also reaffirms our state’s role as a leader in the space industry. I am proud to support pioneering projects like this in Washington.”

Portal already operates an 8,000-square-foot facility in Bothell, where it’s been developing the hardware for its flagship Supernova in-space mobility platform and a smaller spacecraft dubbed Starburst. Supernova will feature an innovative solar thermal propulsion system, which uses concentrated sunlight as a heat source for its thrusters. Both spacecraft are designed to provide greater mobility for commercial and government payloads in orbit.

“We’ve spent the last year proving what’s possible. Now we’re scaling to deliver it,” Portal co-founder and CEO Jeff Thornburg said. “This support from Washington isn’t just about growth. It’s about building a strategic capability for the nation and doing it right here in Bothell.”

Revenue for the Strategic Reserve Fund comes from unclaimed lottery prize money. The funds are intended to attract and retain jobs and economic investment in Washington, limited to highly strategic projects that deliver significant job creation and capital investment. These projects are considered in partnership with local associate development organizations, such as Economic Alliance Snohomish County. The governor determines awards based on recommendations from the Department of Commerce.

“Portal Space Systems represents the kind of bold, future-facing innovation we’re proud to see growing in Washington,” said Commerce Director Joe Nguyen. “With the governor’s new investment, Portal is better equipped to scale up its cutting-edge operations. This strengthens Washington’s position as a hub for world-class talent and national space infrastructure.”

Grants from the Strategic Reserve Fund must be accompanied by private investment. Since its founding in 2021, Portal has raised more than $22 million in venture capital financing and grants, and received a commitment of $45 million in public-private funding through the U.S. Space Force’s STRATFI program.

Five standout holiday Apple deals from major US retailers: AirPods 4, MacBook Air M4, MacBook Pro M5, Apple Watch Series 11, and the AirTag 4-pack.

The post Best Apple Deals for Holiday Shopping appeared first on TechRepublic.