Federal trial will decide whether military academies can use race in admissions

• A federal trial underway in Baltimore this week may help settle the question of whether military academies will still be able to use race as a factor in their admissions decisions. The Supreme Court banned race-conscious admissions practices for most schools in a landmark case last year but left a possible national security exception for military academies. Government attorneys are arguing that the military is a stronger fighting force when it’s racially diverse at all levels, and admissions into the officer corps need to be allowed to take that into account. The trial is expected to wrap up late this week.
• Federal judges can opt into home security systems paid for by the Justice Department but more than a quarter of them choose not to. The US Marshals Service is seeing more judges enroll in its Home Intrusion Detection System program. But about 28% of federal judges don’t participate including more than 200 judges who dropped out of the program. An inspector general report finds the Marshals Service didn’t know why judges weren’t participating in the program and only recently attempted to gather that data.
• House lawmakers have a new bill aimed at combating Volt Typhoon and other China-linked hackers. Republican members of the Homeland Security Committee introduced the “Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act” yesterday. The legislation would set up an interagency task force led by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI. The task force would evaluate efforts to root out nation state hackers from critical U.S. infrastructure like water utilities and power grids.
• The Postal Service is offering a reprieve from higher mail prices. But not for long. The Postal Service won’t raise prices on its monopoly mail products in January. But USPS tells its regulator it plans to set higher prices in July 2025 and every January and July through 2027. USPS is now delivering about half the mail volume it did 15 years ago. But mail still accounts for more than 50 percent of its total revenue. USPS saw major declines in mail volume with the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Participants’ satisfaction with the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is now at 84%, according to the results of the latest survey from the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. The finding amounts to a 2% increase since last year’s survey results. But it’s a few percentage points below the satisfaction rate the TSP had in 2022. TSP board officials credit the rebound to modest satisfaction increases across most of the TSP’s features, as well as relatively positive market performance this year.
• The vendor behind a worldwide IT outage said it’s making big changes to prevent a similar incident in the future. Cybersecurity vendor Crowdstrike is no longer automatically pushing software updates to all of its customers at once. One of Crowdstrike’s software updates in July inadvertently crashed more than 8 million computers across the world impacting businesses, airports and multiple federal agencies. But Crowdstrike’s Adam Meyers, testifying the House Homeland Security Committee yesterday, said the company has introduced phased software updates to give customers more options. “We’ve put a lot of time and effort into making sure that phased approach will ensure customers have the ability to choose when and how they received those updates,” Meyers said.
• The Space Force’s Space Systems Command has selected four companies to help enhance the resilience of the Global Positioning System (GPS) through its Resilient Global Positioning System (R-GPS) program. This initiative aims to bolster both military and civilian GPS services by augmenting the existing satellite constellation with small satellites transmitting a core set of widely utilized GPS signals. The selected companies represent a mix of traditional and non-traditional defense contractors. The program leverages the Quick Start authority, which allows the service to speed up its acquisition process. The service will produce and launch up to eight satellite vehicles at a time.
• A new artificial intelligence tool is helping the Army refine its recruitment process. The new tool allows recruiters to analyze large data sets — it combs through over 30 million applicant files and uses 1,700 different variables to generate highly refined prospect lists. The goal is to sift through data and identify prospects who have already shown a propensity for or interest in joining the service. Recruiters can now shift away from traditional cold-calling techniques that often yield low success rates and use that time to engage more with prospects who are more likely to enlist.
• A vague policy for disqualifying TRICARE providers is leading to challenges in the Defense Department’s health care program. A new report from the Government Accountability Office rooted out six TRICARE providers who were ineligible to participate in the program. Another nine current providers had previously had their participation in TRICARE revoked. GAO is telling the Defense Health Agency, which runs TRICARE, to improve how it monitors and manages contractors. In response, DHA said it’s planning to update its disqualification policy for TRICARE to exclude providers with previously revoked privileges.

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