• Close to 5,000 more Thrift Savings Plan participants have joined the club of so-called TSP millionaires. As of Jan. 1, nearly 195,000 TSP participants now have accounts totaling over $1 million. That represents about 2.7% of all TSP accounts. The pace of growth appears to be slowing down, though. In the previous fiscal quarter, the number of TSP millionaires rose by about 19,000.
  (Participant report by account balance - Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board)
• The Defense Department has tapped Owen West, a former energy trader at Goldman Sachs and the Department of Government Efficiency staffer, to lead its Defense Innovation Unit. West will take over the organization in March. Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for researching and engineering and the Defense Department’s chief technology officer, has led the unit in an acting capability since Doug Beck’s unexpected resignation in August. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said West will ”bring a warfighter’s mentality to DIU’s core mission of transitioning technology to our troops.”
  (Hegseth taps DOGE official to lead Defense Innovation Unit - Social media platform X)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has gone nearly one year without a permanent leader. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump re-nominated Sean Plankey to serve as CISA director. Plankey was first nominated last March. His nomination was held up by multiple procedural holds. His nomination is widely supported by the cybersecurity industry. Plankey is a Coast Guard veteran who led Energy Department cyber efforts during the first Trump administration. His nomination is widely supported by the cybersecurity industry.
  (Nominations sent to the Senate - White House)
• The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog said DHS needs to improve its hiring practices. DHS law enforcement components are looking to recruit thousands of officers in the coming years. But the department’s inspector general said DHS’s fragmented and inconsistent hiring practices could trip up those efforts. In a new report, the IG warns that a lack of centralized hiring at DHS results in duplicative efforts, higher costs and slower onboarding. The report comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and the Secret Service are all undertaking their own recruiting blitzes.
  (Watchdog urges DHS to address ‘fragmented’ law enforcement hiring - Federal News Network)
• When Congress authorized over $5 trillion in pandemic-era relief programs, fraudsters cashed in with bogus claims. But now, data from these pandemic-era relief programs is being used to train artificial intelligence-powered tools meant to detect fraud before payments go out. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee built an AI-enabled “fraud prevention engine” that’s trained on over five million applications for pandemic-era relief programs. It can review over 20,000 applications for federal funds per second and can flag suspected fraud before issuing payments.
  (Pandemic watchdog builds AI fraud prevention ‘engine’ trained on millions of COVID program claims - Federal News Network)
• More than half of the Social Security Administration's frontline employees are earning less than a living wage, according to a new report. In a survey of 800 SSA employees, 17% of respondents told the Strategic Organization Center that they are working a second job. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said they were struggling to provide at least one necessity for their families. The recent government shutdown only deepened those financial problems. The release of the report coincides with a "national day of action" organized by the American Federation of Government Employees.
  (Majority of frontline Social Security employees earn less than a living wage, study finds - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Department is overhauling its innovation ecosystem. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the system “remains a tangle of overlapping organizations." Under a new directive, the Pentagon will consolidate its innovation efforts under the control of DoD's chief technology officer. Hegseth designated the Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit and Strategic Capabilities Office as the department’s “field activities” under the CTO supervision. Hegseth said the DIU director will continue to report directly to him. The defense secretary also disbanded the Defense Innovation Steering Group, the Defense Innovation Working Group and the CTO Council as part of the overhaul.
  (Hegseth overhauls DoD innovation offices, centralizes authority under CTO - Defense Department)
• Agencies have some new resources to help them jumpstart the “rule of many” in federal hiring. The Office of Personnel Management is answering common questions on how the new “rule of many” aligns with existing recruitment standards, like veterans’ preference and skills-based hiring. The new resource document comes after OPM’s recent finalization of the “rule of many,” which has been in the works for years. The new rule will change the way agencies rank potential job candidates, allowing them to select from a larger pool of applicants.
  (Reinvigorating merit-based hiring through candidate ranking - Office of Personnel Management)

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• The Thrift Savings Plan's I fund continued its year-long positive run in December, posting a month-over-month increase of more than 3%. That, by far, was the best performing TSP fund in the final month of 2025. For the year, the I fund saw a return of more than 32%, which was more than 10% higher than any other account. Overall in December, 13 of 15 funds came back in the black. Only the F and S funds posted negative returns in December as compared to November. For the year, 12 of 15 TSP funds returned more than 11%.
  (TSP's I fund remains top performer for 2025 - Thrift Savings Plan)
• New data shows just how many employees left the Agriculture Department in the first part of 2025. The Forest Service lost more than 5,800 employees in the first six months of 2025. USDA's office of the secretary lost the highest percentage of employees, about 67%, from January to June 2025. These are among the findings from the Agriculture Department's inspector general in a new report detailing the impact by bureau, office and state of more than 20,000 employees leaving the agency. Of those employees who left USDA, 15,000 left via the Deferred Resignation Program. Texas, California and Washington, D.C. were the places hardest hit by employee attrition with more than 1,000 employees leaving USDA offices in each of those areas.
  (More than 20,000 employees left USDA in the first 6 months of 2025 - USDA IG)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is under scrutiny for using technology that's inaccessible for people with disabilities. In a new letter to the VA, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked how the agency plans to improve its procurement of accessible IT systems. The letter references a recent inspector general finding that out of 30 critical IT systems at the VA, only four met accessibility requirements. The IG report found there was inadequate coordination between different VA offices and a lack of Section 508 training for agency acquisition professionals.
  (Sen. Gillibrand letter to VA on Section 508 - Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.))
• Insurance options for plan year 2026 are now in effect for the Federal Employees Health Benefits program. FEHB enrollees who made changes to their health plans during Open Season will now see those changes reflected in their benefits. FEHB participants are also facing an average of a 13% premium increase in the new year. Any enrollment changes for dental, vision and Postal insurance options are also now in effect for all program participants.
  (2026 plan options now in effect - Federal Employees Health Benefits program)
• The Department of Health and Human Services needs to collect better data on how well people with disabilities can access health care. That’s according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. Currently, GAO said people with disabilities face barriers in health care technology, communication and facilities. Once HHS starts collecting data on those barriers, GAO said the department should then create a plan to address the challenges.
  (Health care accessibility: Further efforts needed to address barriers for people with disabilities - Government Accountability Office)
• The Department of Homeland Security has a new human capital leader. Jason Nelson is joining DHS as deputy chief human capital officer. Nelson was previously associate administrator of human capital at the Transportation Security Administration. He also has previous experience at the Federal Highway Administration. Nelson joins DHS’s human capital office in the middle of a major recruiting campaign for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement positions.
  (New chief human capital officer at DHS - LinkedIn)
• The Army is creating a dedicated artificial intelligence and machine-learning career field for officers. The service will roll out the new career field in phases. Army officers interested in transferring will be able to apply through the service’s Voluntary Transfer Incentive Program, beginning Jan. 5. Selected officers are expected to formally transfer into the new career field by October 2026. Selected officers will undergo graduate-level training and “gain hands-on experience in building, deploying and maintaining” the service’s AI-enabled systems. The Army is also considering expanding the specialty to include warrant officers in the future.
  (Army launches AI and machine-learning career path for officers - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Department is expanding secure methods of authentication beyond the traditional Common Access Card, giving users more alternative options to log into its systems when CAC access is “impractical or infeasible.” A new memo, titled “Multi-Factor Authentication for Unclassified and Secret DoD Networks,” lays out when users can access DoD resources without CAC and public key infrastructure. The directive also updates the list of approved authentication tools for different system impact levels and applications. While the new memo builds on previous DoD guidance on authentication, earlier policies often did not clearly authorize specific login methods for particular use cases, leading to inconsistent implementation across the department.
  (DoD expands login options beyond CAC - Federal News Network)

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