Sean Davis<\/a><\/p>\n\n September 15, 2026 3:43 pm <\/p>\n
< a min read<\/p>\n
The fewest number of federal employees submitted their retirement papers in August as compared to the rest of 2026. The Office of Personnel Managements says it received only 7,618 retirement claims last month. This is down from more than 10,000 claims OPM received in July. Additionally, OPM’s backlog of retirement claims is at the lowest of the year at just over 15,400. The average number of days to process a claim for August also dropped considerably: to 70 days for a digital claim, down from 98 days the month before, and to 79 days for all claims, down from 109 days in July.
\nFor the second time in a matter of weeks, the Justice Department won a major settlement from a federal contractor over allegations of violating the False Claims Act for failing to comply with anti-discrimination rules. Accenture will pay $25 million to resolve allegations that it discriminated against an employee or applicant for employment because of race or sex. Accenture’s settlement follows a similar one from Deloitte in late August. Deloitte agreed to pay $21.5 million to resolve comparable allegations.
\nA federal court has ruled that a plan for major staff reductions at the Federal Emergency Management Agency was unlawful. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston found that a plan to cut FEMA\u2019s workforce by up to 50% violated the law. In a late Friday ruling, Illston sided with arguments advanced by labor groups that had sued FEMA over the planned cuts. While FEMA did lay off some staff, the agency ultimately backed away from the steep cuts envisioned in the plan. The court ruling found Department of Homeland Security officials pushed for the FEMA cuts even though the agency\u2019s own supervisors objected. Illston found that violated post-Hurricane Katrina reforms that prohibit DHS from making substantial changes at FEMA.The number of veterans using Department of Veterans Affairs services has skyrocketed in 2026. The agency says more than 250,000 new veterans have enrolled in VA healthcare so far in 2026. It credits several reasons for this increase, including opening 41 new health care clinics since January 2025 and reducing by 70% the backlog of veterans waiting for benefits. Additionally, VA says another reason for this influx of veterans is the reduced average time for processing disability claims, which decreased by 46% since January 2025. Along with opening new facilities, VA also has spent nearly $5 billion this year to modernize, repair and improve health care facilities, which it says is the largest nonrecurring maintenance investment in the department’s history. ]]><\/p>\n
The Defense Department reinstated more than 500 service members discharged for refusing the COVID vaccine and issued more than $21 million in backpay, according to officials. Anthony Tata, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said the department will \u201ccontinue to reach back out to every veteran whose career was cut short.\u201d Last year, DoD launched a media campaign, sent letters of apology and issued a series of policies to reinstate service members who were booted from the military for refusing the COVID vaccine. Approximately 8,700 service members were forced out of the military for refusing the vaccine in 2021.Republican Sen. Deb Fischer said there is \u201ca lot of work that has to be done\u201d to build broad support in Congress for the Trump administration\u2019s ambitious Golden Dome missile defense system. Fischer said lawmakers still do not have any meaningful information about the system more than a year after President Donald Trump announced the initiative. \u201cThere’s not a clear understanding of this layered defense that we’re looking at when it comes to defending our homeland,\u201d Fischer said. Her comments come after a group of lawmakers sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in June calling on DoD to share its plans for the system before the department \u201cspends one more taxpayer dollar\u201d on the Golden Dome initiative.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency says AI can be used to pull off insider threat attacks. In updated insider threat guidance, CISA says organizations should consider how both trusted insiders and external actors could misuse an internal AI system to compromise security. Risks include data poisoning, AI model tampering and social engineering. CISA is urging organizations to train employees on AI usage, secure their existing AI tools and classify sensitive data. <\/p>\n
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