IRS is planning to recommit to its partnership with tax prep companies to offer most Americans free options. The program has been vastly underused, with many Americans paying companies for tax help instead. www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

Trying to do my job reporting on the federal government.... not being able to access watchdog reports because their websites are dark after OMB withheld their funding

SCOOP: Direct File is officially dead. The IRS emailed states yesterday telling them that the free, online tax filing service won't happen next year and has no future launch date. Republicans and tax prep companies both opposed the service. www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

NEW: DHS moved today to allow ICE and CBP to collect biometrics from children under 14. This is part of a proposed rule to dramatically expand the biometrics required for immigration benefits, requiring "continuous vetting" of immigrants until they're naturalized. www.nextgov.com/policy/2025/...

President Donald Trump has come under fire after he hosted a "Great Gatsby"-themed Halloween party just hours before millions of Americans lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. abcnews.go.com/Politics/tru...

JUST IN: Courts ordered SNAP payments to restart, and the Trump administration said Monday the food benefits would be half the normal payment. About 1 in 8 U.S. residents get an average of $187 a month per person on SNAP.

ICYMI: The Secret Service is going door-to-door physically checking for skimming devices that transnational crime rings are using to steal SNAP benefits -- because the cards used to deliver them are so old. It's "absurd," said @repdangoldman.bsky.social. "It could be easily resolved."

SNAP is in the news right now as it runs out of money. But hundreds of thousands beneficiaries have been losing their benefits to transnational crime rings for years—because the cards used to deliver food aid are so outdated. By @almsnatalie.bsky.social.

SNAP is in the news right now as it runs out of money. But 100's of thousands beneficiaries have been losing their benefits to transnational crime rings for years already --- because the cards used to deliver food aid are so outdated. More here: www.nextgov.com/modernizatio...

NEW: Last week, I did a ride along with a Secret Service operation, going door-to-door to look for skimmers used to steal SNAP benefits. It's one of the oddest fronts against transnational crime — and one that would be greatly reduced if governments would update EBT cards.

This is a story that got missed, about how the White House is using the shutdown as an excuse to eliminate accountability. It has shut down Inspectors General websites, meaning that lots of reports about failures have disappeared from govt websites. www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

Source call: I'm looking for someone who has experience SNAP EBT theft to speak with me for a story on skimming. Happy to protect their identity. Find me at [email protected] if you can help. Thanks!

👀 There’s one agency left that can push back against Trump during the government shutdown. Trump is about to pick its new leader. Meet the Government Accountability Office, the only folks left who can take Trump to court over spending issues. 🎁 Learn more, gift link: wapo.st/48P18Rk

NEW: CBP is expanding its use of facial recognition at ports of entry in the name of immigration enforcement. www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

NEW: CBP is expanding its use of facial recognition at ports of entry in the name of immigration enforcement. www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

A career official answered: Less humanitarian aid would mean more people would die. “You could say that about any of these cuts,” Russ Vought replied. A person familiar with the meeting described his reaction as “blasé.” www.propublica.org/article/russ...

Here's who's in the Pentagon's new "press corps," covering world's most powerful military: Out: New York Times, Washington Post. In: Tim Pool's Timcast, Gateway Pundit, the MyPillow guy's LindellTV. wapo.st/49iiXbn @scottnover.bsky.social

NEW: Salesforce isn’t promoting that its agents should be used to replace human employees as the Trump admin shrinks the govt workforce. But “if this administration does not have a desire to bring more people on board, they can use it for that purpose too," one exec told me. 👇

Dems on House Judiciary are maintaining hotline information for over 20 OIGs as watchdogs scramble to set up temporary websites after OMB withheld funding from a central OIG group, causing at least 15 OIG websites to go dark. www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

NEW: A significant gap in weather balloon coverage in western Alaska, caused by Trump admin cuts to NOAA/NWS, may have hurt the forecast accuracy for the deadly storm there over the weekend. www.cnn.com/2025/10/14/w...

NEW: Labor is planning to pilot to take unemployment claims centrally, instead of states, soon after it said it was considering creating a national claims database. “Would the Trump Administration share this with ICE or use it to otherwise surveil Americans," said one expert 👇

The shutdown is already impacting delivery of nutrition aid to low-income moms and babies. Trump officials said tariff revenue would fund WIC until the government reopens, but the money hasn’t started flowing yet.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted “no one has died” as a result of U.S. foreign aid cuts. In Myanmar, the grieving father of a 2-year-old boy who died after their food rations were cut calls such claims a lie.

NEW: Scott Kupor, Trump's senior HR official, says the federal government has a shortage of technology talent - even as techies are among the 300,000 feds leaving govt this year. Have the last 9+ months hurt the pitch for new talent at all? "The answer is unequivocally no." 👇

"At least 15 government oversight websites were down—and with them, access to watchdog reports and required hotline and whistleblower links—as of Wednesday evening. That's not due to the federal shutdown that began at midnight; it's a deliberate move by the White House." @almsnatalie.bsky.social

DOJ's internal watchdog warns about conditions at Terre Haute federal prison, in a document that they can't post to the interwebs because of the government shutdown. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

Trump administration knocks out at least 15 oversight websites, saying IGs 'lied to the public' www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

If anyone needs an old watchdog report and is having trouble accessing it with so many IG websites down, the Payment Integrity Alliance has archived all reports from Oversight. gov from 2010 up through Sept. 26 here: programintegrity.org/search/

My count of now unaccessible watchdog websites is now up to 16 after OMB witheld funds from a central watchdog council that operates many OIG websites. This means the reports housed on these websites aren't accessible, nor are links for whistleblowers.

NEW: At least 10 watchdog websites are dark after OMB withheld funds from a watchdog council, removing access to thousands of watchdog reports and required whistleblower links. OMB's move to withhold funds - which has received Republican pushback - is separate from the shutdown.

If top Republicans in the Senate aren't successful in their aim for the White House to reverse a decision to effectively shutter the independent watchdog entity, CIGIE, the website I check daily for new oversight reports will go dark tomorrow. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/u...

The White House Office of Management and Budget is piecing together guidance on AI to prevent "woke AI" in the federal government. This comes as agencies are getting blowback from contracting with xAI after it called itself "MechaHitler." www.nextgov.com/artificial-i...

Now on the Energy Dept’s banned words list: “Climate change,” “green” and “emissions.” subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...

NEW: The Interior Department is moving forward planning for layoffs that could, along with other staffing losses, shrink the department by over a third since Trump took office. Interior is using AutoRIF for the layoffs, & those working on them have been forced to sign NDAs 👇

WHO rejects Trump’s claims of link between Tylenol and autism

NEW: The IRS is phasing out paper checks for tax refunds next week. It's still working on the guidance for waivers to the requirement www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

The State Department is building beyond genAI towards "AI agents that will take actions for humans," its tech head said yesterday. Still, it's had trouble getting pickup for its existing genAI bot, which only about half of its workforce uses. www.nextgov.com/artificial-i...

go Deacs!

Sen. Warren, Rep. Stansbury and six other lawmakers want to know if White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks has overstayed his 130 day limit as a special government employee. Sacks remains "deeply invested in the crypto and AI companies," they say. www.nextgov.com/people/2025/...

The data at the center of a recent whistleblower complaint hasn't been "accessed, leaked, hacked, or shared in any unauthorized fashion," the SSA Commissioner says in response to Republican oversight. The whistleblower resigned last month, saying his position was "untenable."

NEW: Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, the co-chair of the congressional Department of Government Efficiency Caucus, says that DOGE is pushing forward. www.nextgov.com/modernizatio...

The Agriculture Department has installed a new DOGE associate as the head of its technology, sidelining its longtime CIO to a new role www.nextgov.com/people/2025/...

NEW: Stephen Ehikian - the DOGE-affiliated former head of the General Services Administration - says he left GSA in a better position than it was in when he started. Feds who left GSA are in "higher productive use in the private sector." GSA can now "build back," he said. 👇

EXCLUSIVE: @bloomberg.com has obtained more than 100 previously undisclosed emails between UK Ambassador Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein from 2005 through 2010 that reveal Mandelson's steadfast support for Epstein after Epstein was charged with sex crimes 🎁 www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

A third of jobs related to race, diversity, and equality that were created in U.S. newsrooms since 2020 are gone as of this summer. 
 @hanaatameez.bsky.social with a months-long investigation and new data on American journalism's turn away from DEI initiatives. www.niemanlab.org/2025/09/from...

Mike Crapo - Senate Finance chairman and Republican - wants information from SSA about the recent whistleblower allegations that DOGE uploaded the confidential information of hundreds of millions of Americans into an insecure cloud server. 👀 t.co/dtwAUoiCIt

NEW: Stephen Ehikian - the DOGE-affiliated former head of the General Services Administration - says he left GSA in a better position than it was in when he started. Feds who left GSA are in "higher productive use in the private sector." GSA can now "build back," he said. 👇

NEW: Ignoring urgently needed reforms in favor of fruitlessly trying to find evidence of fraud, DOGE descended on the Social Security Administration “thinking it should work like a McDonald’s,” the agency’s former acting chief reveals to ProPublica.

The Social Security Administration's newly announced communications lead comes from a 13 year stint at the National Rifle Association. He's one of many on the agency's new leadership roster with no govt experience: www.nextgov.com/people/2025/...

The Office of Personnel Management’s top tech official, Greg Hogan, has left the job he’s held at the agency since day two of the Trump administration. OPM'S handling of data has been at the center of several lawsuits. Hogan's signature on a key document is relevant in one.