The majority of affected beneficiaries already began receiving their increased monthly benefit amounts in April.

  • Public sector retirees impacted by the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset should see their benefits fully updated by November. The majority of affected beneficiaries already began receiving their increased monthly benefit amounts in April. But the Social Security Administration said it’s still working through some of the more complex cases. The Social Security Fairness Act, signed into law in early January, eliminated both the WEP and GPO. The two longstanding Social Security provisions had been reducing or eliminating benefits for many public sector annuitants.
  • Congressional Democrats are demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency reinstate a group of employees currently under investigation. Agency leaders are investigating 139 EPA employees, who are currently on administrative leave. Trump administration officials put the group of employees temporarily out of their jobs after the employees signed a “declaration of dissent,” warning that the agency’s new policies were undermining public trust and science. Now Democratic lawmakers, as well as the American Federation of Government Employees, are calling the EPA leaders’ actions both retaliatory and illegal and urging the agency to reinstate the employees and end the investigations.
  • The State Department more than tripled its passport call center workforce between 2020 and 2024. The department encountered several backlogs during this period. But the Government Accountability Office finds higher staffing generally led to improved customer satisfaction scores. The State Department also saw improved wait times. Callers waited an average of 45 minutes on hold in June 2023. But a year later that average fell to less than a minute.
  • The Department of Veterans Affairs briefly approved crisis line employees for deferred resignation before walking back approvals. Internal VA data shows nearly 30 Veterans Crisis Line employees applied for deferred resignation. VCL employees are exempt from the program but VA officials said they could still apply and that their applications would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Federal News Network spoke to two Veterans Crisis Line employees who said they were initially approved for deferred resignation but that the department eventually walked back that approval. A VA spokesperson said only VA employees whose departure will not negatively impact VA health care or benefits will be approved for deferred resignation.

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  • President Donald Trump seeks to fill two roles at the Pentagon’s research and engineering office. James Mazol, who previously served as acting under secretary of Defense for research and engineering, has been tapped to return as deputy. The President also tapped James Caggy to serve as assistant secretary of Defense for mission capabilities — former Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks created the position in 2023. If confirmed, Caggy would be the first Senate-confirmed official to hold the role. The White House announced the nominations on July 1st.
  • The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency has revamped one of its key directorates. DCSA’s Personnel Security Directorate has been reorganized into the Personnel Vetting Directorate. The new organization is being led by Assistant Director of Personnel Vetting Mark Sherwin. The directorate will focus on core vetting capabilities, including data collection, risk analysis, trust decisions, and operations management and control. It will also be involved in DCSA’s customer service efforts. The directorate will be at the center of major reforms to the governmentwide security clearance and vetting processes as part of the Trusted Workforce 2.0 initiative.
  • A top cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security is leaving government. Don Yeske announced his retirement on LinkedIn yesterday. Yeske serves as director of the National Security Cyber Division at DHS headquarters. His last day will be Friday. He previously served as chief solutions architect and chief technology officer for the Department of the Navy, among several other Defense Department positions. Yeske did not give a reason for his departure, but said he would share more about his next job soon.
  • A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing to give the Pentagon the right to repair its own equipment. The legislation, called the Warrior Right to Repair Act of 2025, seeks to prohibit the Defense Department from entering into contracts for goods unless the contractor agrees in writing to provide “fair and reasonable access” to parts, tools and information used to diagnose, maintain or repair those goods. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), who serve on the Armed Services Committee, introduced the bill on Tuesday. The bill is expected to be included in the upcoming annual defense policy bill. Warren introduced a similar bill in 2024, called the Service Members’ Right to Repair Act. But in recent months, the military right to repair has been gaining momentum both on the Hill and inside the Pentagon.
  • Federal employees face a renewed possibility of layoffs and other reductions in force after the Supreme Court lifted the temporary injunction imposed by a District Court in California. The nation’s highest court overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts. The Supreme Court, however, did not rule on whether the reorganization plans and RIFs were legal. The case remains before the district court to decide. In May, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston found that the Trump administration needs congressional approval to make sizable reductions to the federal workforce. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block Illston’s order, finding that the downsizing could have broader effects, including on the nation’s food-safety system and health care for veterans.

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