The Defense Department is getting tough on contractors that fail to maintain adequate controls against waste, fraud and abuse. In a draft rule posted Friday in the Federal Register, Defense proposed allowing contracting officers to withhold payments from companies with certain deficiencies in their business systems. A clause would be added to contracts requiring firms to certify that they have no ...

The House on Thursday took a major step toward wrapping up the fiscal 2010 appropriations process when it approved, 221-202, a nearly $450 billion spending package that includes a 2.0 percent pay raise for civilian federal employees. Rejecting President Obama's recommendation to freeze locality pay at 2009 rates, the House allocated 1.5 percent of the 2.0 percent raise to base pay ...

Local governments across the country are facing an intensifying fiscal crisis that is forcing them to make deep cuts in personnel and services just as more hard-pressed residents are seeking their help, according to a report released Tuesday. These cities and counties -- which have cut jobs significantly since the start of the downturn -- could slash as many as 500,000 ...

As the United States withdraws its combat forces from Iraq, the government is hiring more private guards to protect U.S. installations at a cost that could near $1 billion, according to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. On Sept. 1, the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) awarded contracts expected to be worth $485 million over the next two years to five firms ...

WASHINGTON — With the sputtering job market flashing an encouraging sign — unemployment claims at their lowest point since January — the White House announced a summit Thursday to try to speed the day when hiring finally starts again. While President Barack Obama called the new jobless figures hopeful, economists think claims will probably stay too high to indicate even a ...

Jurors in the theft trial of Sheila Dixon convicted the Baltimore mayor Tuesday on a single charge of taking gift cards intended for the city's poor. Although Dixon was acquitted of a felony theft charge, her conviction could force her from office. Jurors deliberated more than six days after hearing the Democrat was accused of using or keeping $630 worth of ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A Republican state lawmaker from Southern California was ousted Wednesday from two legislative committees after he was caught on tape bragging about having sex with female lobbyists. Assemblyman Mike Duvall of Yorba Linda made the comments to another man during a break in a committee meeting at the Capitol over the summer, and they were caught on ...

Furloughs at the Department of Transportation have come to an end and employees are to return to work Wednesday. In a press release Tuesday evening, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, "I am pleased that the Senate has acted to break its logjam and extend the Highway Trust Fund for another 30 days. This means that our valued employees may return to ...

Congressman Jason Chaffetz wants federal employees who don't pay their taxes to be fired. The Republican from Utah introduced a bill Wednesday and will offer it as amendment to legislation focused on vendors Thursday during a markup by the House oversight and Government Reform Committee. "We have about 100,000 federal employees how are seriously delinquent and have tax debt that is ...

WASHINGTON -- It wasn't a state dinner, and they didn't crash it on purpose. Still, a Georgia couple who showed up at the White House a day early for a tour somehow wound up at an invitation-only breakfast with President Barack Obama and the first lady. It left the White House once again explaining how people who were not on an ...

Many federal service contractors could see their jobs brought back in-house if provisions in the House and Senate Defense authorization bills are passed into law, according to an industry group. The House version of the policy measure includes an amendment sponsored by Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., that would give "special consideration" to federal employees for any function that has been performed ...

Why isn't our government doing more to put people back to work? Mass unemployment is a human and national calamity. It destroys families, crushes hopes. The longer it lasts, the more it cripples economic recovery and undermines democracy. Nearly 27 million Americans are unemployed or can't find more than part-time work. Yet legislators are reacting to this reality somewhat like the ...

Federal employee groups on Monday questioned the accuracy of a recent news report that claimed from 2007 to 2009 the number of government workers earning more than $100,000 per year spiked. Based on an analysis of federal data, a Dec. 10 USA Today story, said the number of federal workers earning more than $100,000 per year rose from 14 percent in ...

WASHINGTON - There will be no cost-of-living increase for more than 50 million Social Security recipients next year, the first year without a raise since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. Blame falling consumer prices. By law, cost-of-living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which is negative this year because of lower energy costs. Social Security payments, however, do not go down ...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- In a letter posted on the Internet, the software engineer who slammed his plane into an office building housing federal tax employees Thursday expressed his anger at the government, specifically the Internal Revenue Service. A U.S. law official says investigators are looking at an anti-government message on the Web linked to Joseph Stack. By Thursday afternoon, ...

OSLO (AP) -- President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism. Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two ...

Dismantling the embattled Defense personnel system could spark a reinvention of performance management across government. When President Obama signed legislation that repealed the National Security Personnel System, on a warm day in late October, the Rose Garden celebration seemed like a bit of a letdown. The rollback of the controversial Defense Department pay program was just one of many federal employee ...

JACKSONVILLE, FLA. — Jobless since January, Donald Money has already moved in with his elderly parents, stopped going to the movies and started using less of his prescription medication so it will last longer. This month, something else will fall by the wayside: Money's unemployment check. The 43-year-old former printing press operator is among the more than 1.3 million Americans whose ...

DALLAS (AP) -- Scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug rose from his childhood on an Iowa farm to develop a type of wheat that helped feed the world, fostering a movement that is credited with saving up to 1 billion people from starvation. Borlaug, 95, died Saturday from complications of cancer at his Dallas home, said Kathleen Phillips, ...

SEATTLE — The new top federal prosecutor in Seattle knows the significance her role carries for many people: She's apparently the nation's first openly gay U.S. attorney. But as a daughter of privilege — her dad was a powerful Democratic state senator, and she had all the benefits of a comfortable upbringing and a good education — Jenny Durkan also recalls ...