Monday Afternoon Federal Newscast

Open season is fast approaching, and some of you will have no choice but to choose new health plans. Fourteen plans are leaving the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and 18 are reducing coverage. The Office of Personnel Management has encouraged agencies to be liberal in accepting late changes. Read more here.

If your agency plans to hire Presidential Management Fellows, you need to let the Office of Personnel Management know by the end of this month. OPM director John Berry sent a memo to agency Chief Human Capital Officers asking for details on their department’s hiring estimates and preferred graduate degree programs. Berry says there are more than 300 fellows with graduate degrees who are ready to be placed in business, finance, and other programs. The fellows program has been in place for more than 30 years. Read more here.

The State Department hopes to tweet and friend democracy to new levels in the Middle East and North Africa. The diplomatic agency is giving out $5 million to expand social networking in those regions. The goal of the pilot program is better citizen engagement and civic participation.

The new chief of the Patent and Trademark Office is taking aim at their 700,000 patent application backlog. The Wall Street Journal reports Director David Kappos has scrapped the old rules that would’ve limited the number of patent claims companies can file; now he’s working to overhaul the process. The Obama administration has pledged to help push through legislation to overhaul the patent process this year. The patent office is working with a $200 million dollar funding shortfall.

David Gompert has been nominated to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said earlier today in a press release. He was a Senior Fellow at the RAND Corporation and served as the Senior Advicsor for National Security and Defense for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He was actually nominated in August, but his hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is scheduled for tomorrow.

Other News Links

Generals want faster, focused procurement (Congress Daily/GovExec)

Control systems cited in unmanned aerial vehicle crashes (GCN)

Both workplace benefits and demands exceed the norm at NRC (GovExec)

First wave from states will test Recovery.gov’s stimulus reporting mettle (FCW)

DHS Web sites vulnerable to hackers, IG says (FCW)

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