Monday - Friday, 6-10 a.m.

Hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp bring you the latest news affecting the federal community each weekday morning. Be up-to-date before you step in the office.

NNSA CIO Osborn retiring

Bob Osborn, the National Nuclear Security Administration's chief information officer, is leaving the government after more than 36 years of service.

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DHS's Locatis leaving after only 9 months

Mike Locatis, the DHS Assistant Secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications, is returning to Colorado after serving in the federal government for more than two years.

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Obama will nominate prosecutor to lead of ATF

President Barack Obama will nominate B. Todd Jones as the next director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, selecting the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota who has already been serving as the agency's acting head for more than a year.

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Federal Drive Interviews -- Jan. 17, 2013

Michael Daniel, White house cybersecurity coordinator, talks about the new national strategy for information sharing and safeguarding. Brian Friel of Bloomberg Government examines what new regulations mean to the bottom line of some contractors. Charles Crum of the Postal Service's IG office discusses how USPS is embracing the Internet. Michael Nugent of the Defense Language and National Security Education Office talks about a new language program of feds going overseas.

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Space station to get $18 million balloon-like room

NASA is partnering with a commercial space company in a bid to replace the cumbersome "metal cans" that now serve as astronauts' homes in space with inflatable bounce-house-like habitats that can be deployed on the cheap.

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Thursday morning federal headlines - Jan. 17, 2013

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air. In today's news, OPM Director John Berry has some tough words for federal managers reluctant to work with employee unions.

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OPM: D.C. feds can take unscheduled leave, telework Thursday

Federal workers in the Washington D.C. region can take unscheduled leave or telework Thursday, the Office of Personnel Management announced. A Winter Storm Watch will remain in effect for the D.C. region through much of the day Thursday.

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Pentagon issues dire warning to Congress about budget cuts

The nation's top military leaders warned Congress in unusually stark terms that its failure to pass a 2013 defense budget - coupled with the threat of automatic budget cuts - has pushed the Pentagon to the brink of a crisis.

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AFGE vice president Bowman dies

Dwight Bowman, the national vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees' 14th district, died suddenly Wednesday morning, the union announced.

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GI's motive barely admissible in WikiLeaks case

A military judge's ruling on Wednesday tightly limited an Army private's ability to argue he had good reasons for allegedly sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

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House bill blocks pay increase for feds

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) introduced a bill that would block a 0.5 percent pay raise for federal workers slated to go into effect March 27. In an executive order issued late last month, President Barack Obama mandated a 0.5 percent pay increase.

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Smithsonian to reopen 1 of Mall's oldest buildings

The Smithsonian Institution announced plans Wednesday to create an innovation pavilion with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in one of the oldest buildings on the National Mall.

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Army unveils massive solar-powered energy system

The $16.8 million array includes nearly 15,500 sun-tracking solar panels spread across 42 acres. It will be capable of producing 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, enough to meet about 10 percent of the need of the missile range.

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Begin saving cash now, Air Force tells commanders

The Air Force orders commanders to start cutbacks in advance of the next budget emergency.

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Federal Drive Interviews -- Jan. 16, 2013

Cindy Auten of the Telework Exchange talks about a new report on BYOD. Robert Khuzami explains why he is stepping down as the SEC's enforcement director. Peter Schroeder of The Hill newspapers discusses the looming debt-ceiling showdown.

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Salazar to step down as Interior secretary

Ken Salazar, a former Colorado senator and attorney general, handed in his resignation as secretary of the Interior to President Barack Obama, according to a department spokesman. Salazar joined the administration in 2009, when Obama assumed his office.

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Wednesday morning federal headlines - Jan. 16, 2013

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air. In today's news, the Justice Department is considering joining a lawsuit against Lance Armstrong.

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Ex-FEMA official pleads guilty in conflict case

The former director of human resources at the Federal Emergency Management Agency pleaded guilty Tuesday to negotiating a job for himself at the Gallup Organization while he was supervising Gallup's multimillion-dollar contract with FEMA.

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Agencies tackle cloud, mobile, big data convergence

OMB and NIST are seeking help from industry and academia on how to integrate cloud computing and the large amount of information that is created from mobile computing. The goal is not just to know what data agencies have, but the value the data brings. With all this focus on cloud and big data integration, could agencies be on the hook for a new "big data" strategy?

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House rejects agency budget cuts in Sandy relief bill

The House soundly rejected an amendment to the Superstorm Sandy aid bill that would have required an across-the-board 1.63 percent cut to agency spending to offset the emergency funding. Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) introduced the amendment last week along with a separate proposal to revoke a mass-transit subsidy for federal workers.

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