• A new pilot program will try to pair active-duty military spouses in the Air Force and Space Force with potential job leads. The Global Military Spouse Connection program offers targeted outreach, networking opportunities, educational resources and direct contact with hiring managers, the Department of the Air Force said Monday. The pilot will start at Travis Air Force Base in California, Patrick Space Force Base in Florida, and Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Military spouses often struggle to find steady employment amid frequent moves, changing licensing requirements and tumultuous job markets.
• The Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Management and Budget have established standard definitions and structured attributes for the grants lifecycle. Under version 3.0 of the grants data standards, HHS and OMB say they are meeting the requirements outlined in the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency Act of 2019, or GREAT Act, and OMB memo 24-11. Among the updates are better data integration between USASpending.gov and Treasury's governmentwide data spending model. The new standards also call for agencies and grantees to use machine-readable, nonproprietary delivery of data via published JSON schemas.
• President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders Monday aimed at accelerating a governmentwide shift into the quantum computing era. One order directs the Energy Department to lead a national effort to create a quantum computer capable of leap-ahead scientific calculations. Trump’s second executive order focuses on security and directs federal agencies to migrate to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) by 2031. The Commerce Department is tasked with completing a PQC pilot project before 2028. And the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council will propose rules that ensure contractors meet PQC requirements.
• A new report urges Congress and the Trump administration to strengthen cyber requirements in government grant programs. The Institute for Security and Technology said Congress and agencies should ensure that critical infrastructure funded using federal dollars is built with cybersecurity in mind. In a policy memo, IST said recent infrastructure spending packages have missed opportunities to introduce stronger cyber standards for power, water and other critical infrastructure systems. The memo said a mix of agency-specific approaches and governmentwide award guidance could help bridge the cybersecurity gap in federally funded projects.
• A new Army command is launching to break down barriers between missions and speed up military operations across the Pacific. The Multi-Domain Command-Pacific brings together infantry and fires with more modern missions like space and electronic warfare for easier data sharing so soldiers can make decisions faster. Those units can also react to change more quickly, thanks to a central network that shares more information at once and allows them to better coordinate attacks. The Army tried out the new approach at a training exercise in December 2024 and sought to make it a permanent part of the force.
• The overhaul of acquisition regulations is taking a big step toward becoming final. The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council today issued proposed rules to update 17 parts of the Federal Acquisition Regulation to kick off the formal rulemaking process for the first update to acquisition regulations in 40 years. The council and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy are seeking feedback from the acquisition community on anything that they might have missed when developing the deviations or how to refine particular areas of the new regulations. Comments on the proposed rules are due in mid-July. The council will issue two more tranches in the coming months, with the goal of getting the entire new FAR rules finalized by the end of the calendar year.
• The Department of the Air Force has designated Air Forces Cyber, officially 16th Air Force, as a federal defense laboratory for technology transfer purposes. The designation gives the command new authorities to work more directly with industry and universities, expanding its ability to integrate commercial technologies into military operations. It allows the 16th Air Force to independently coordinate with academic institutions on research and innovation initiatives. Service officials said the command's elevation to a federal laboratory status will “fundamentally change” how it integrates academic expertise into its mission.
• The Army has established a common data layer baseline for its Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, effort following a series of operational exercises. Anduril Industries will lead the common data baseline initiative. It will also partner with Palantir and Raft to provide an edge-to-cloud data mesh, software deployment tools and data federation capabilities. The common data layer is informed by lessons learned from training exercises such as Ivy Sting, Ivy Mass and Lightning Surge. The 4th Infantry Division and 25th Infantry Division will now begin implementing the common NGC2 components as they continue operational training and prepare for Project Convergence Capstone 6 later this summer. Army officials said establishing a common data layer is a “major step forward as NGC2 evolves into a phase of continuous delivery.”

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