U.S. service members transitioning out of the military will now be able to access ChatGPT Plus for a year under a new offer from OpenAI that’s aimed at helping them with their job hunt. The new offer, announced Monday ahead of Veterans Day, is available to service members who are within 12 months of separation or retirement, and any veteran within their first year of leaving service. Katrina Mulligan, OpenAI for Government’s head of national security partnerships, said on a call with reporters ahead of the announcement. “We know that nearly 70% of veterans say finding employment is their biggest challenge, and we want to make that transition a little bit easier by providing support that’s available anytime.” Mulligan said the idea for the offer started with OpenAI’s own veteran employees who used the platform for their own career navigation. “They urged us to make these tools available to others going through the same experience, and we were really glad to support it,” she said.Through the new offer, eligible service members and veterans are able to access ChatGPT Plus — which is typically a $20 per month subscription, and boasts faster response time as well as priority access to new features — as well as some personalized content for veterans. That includes a “getting started” video targeted toward veterans, and over 100 example chats that Mulligan said were developed by veterans based on real tasks during a transition. The offer is not a direct partnership with the U.S. government via the Department of Veterans Affairs or Department of Defense — which the Trump administration calls the Department of War — but such collaboration isn’t out of the question.
The Department of Energy officially installed Dawn Zimmer as its chief information officer Friday, putting a pause — for now — on the revolving door at the agency’s IT leadership office. According to an internal email obtained by FedScoop, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that Zimmer had been named Energy’s permanent CIO. Her appointment comes after the installation — and subsequent departures — of two other permanent CIOs during the Trump administration. Zimmer joined Energy in 2024 as principal deputy CIO and has been serving as the acting IT chief between the appointments of permanent officials throughout this year. She was acting CIO before SpaceX engineer Ryan Riedel was named to the role and briefly took over in an acting capacity again when he left after one month. Days later, Google and Twitter alum Ross Graber was named CIO, but he left after less than two months in the role. That has left the agency without a permanent official since the end of April. Wright said in the email that “Dawn will continue her stellar oversight of the Department’s information technology and cybersecurity initiatives, ensuring that our systems are secure, efficient, and innovative.”
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U.S. service members transitioning out of the military will now be able to access ChatGPT Plus for a year under a new offer from OpenAI that’s aimed at helping them with their job hunt. The new offer, announced Monday ahead of Veterans Day, is available to service members who are within 12 months of separation or retirement, and any veteran within their first year of leaving service. Katrina Mulligan, OpenAI for Government’s head of national security partnerships, said on a call with reporters ahead of the announcement. “We know that nearly 70% of veterans say finding employment is their biggest challenge, and we want to make that transition a little bit easier by providing support that’s available anytime.” Mulligan said the idea for the offer started with OpenAI’s own veteran employees who used the platform for their own career navigation. “They urged us to make these tools available to others going through the same experience, and we were really glad to support it,” she said.Through the new offer, eligible service members and veterans are able to access ChatGPT Plus — which is typically a $20 per month subscription, and boasts faster response time as well as priority access to new features — as well as some personalized content for veterans. That includes a “getting started” video targeted toward veterans, and over 100 example chats that Mulligan said were developed by veterans based on real tasks during a transition. The offer is not a direct partnership with the U.S. government via the Department of Veterans Affairs or Department of Defense — which the Trump administration calls the Department of War — but such collaboration isn’t out of the question.
The Department of Energy officially installed Dawn Zimmer as its chief information officer Friday, putting a pause — for now — on the revolving door at the agency’s IT leadership office. According to an internal email obtained by FedScoop, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that Zimmer had been named Energy’s permanent CIO. Her appointment comes after the installation — and subsequent departures — of two other permanent CIOs during the Trump administration. Zimmer joined Energy in 2024 as principal deputy CIO and has been serving as the acting IT chief between the appointments of permanent officials throughout this year. She was acting CIO before SpaceX engineer Ryan Riedel was named to the role and briefly took over in an acting capacity again when he left after one month. Days later, Google and Twitter alum Ross Graber was named CIO, but he left after less than two months in the role. That has left the agency without a permanent official since the end of April. Wright said in the email that “Dawn will continue her stellar oversight of the Department’s information technology and cybersecurity initiatives, ensuring that our systems are secure, efficient, and innovative.”
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Thousands of federal passwords exposed since early 2024
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Thousands of federal passwords exposed since early 2024
A new report from the password management company NordPass is challenging the idea that federal institutions are more secure than local governments against cybersecurity threats. The study, conducted by NordPass and threat exposure management platform NordStellar, found a total of 53,070 passwords belonging to U.S. civil servants were exposed in public sources since the beginning of 2024. Of the impacted institutions, NordPass found the Department of Defense had 1,897 total exposed passwords, 222 of which were unique. The State Department had 15,272 total exposed passwords, 190 of which were unique, while the U.S. Army had 1,706 exposed passwords, 167 of them unique. The Department of Veterans Affairs also ranked among the top five most-affected institutions, with 1,331 total password exposures, 53 of which were unique. Seven passwords of White House employees were also compromised, according to the study. A State Department spokesperson told FedScoop the agency is “committed to cybersecurity across the department.” They said the agency has instituted multi-factor authentication and regularly rotates credentials.
A Biden-era director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy slammed the Trump administration’s cuts to research and development funding Wednesday, warning of adverse effects to areas such as artificial intelligence. Arati Prabhakar said during a panel held by Harvard’s Kennedy School: “Today what we are in the middle of is an assault on the public investment in research unlike anything we have seen in our country’s history.” Prabhakar specifically pointed to the Trump administration’s moves to withdraw support from certain projects, its removal of federal workers at research agencies, its attacks on universities, reversal of immigration policies that bring talent to the U.S., and the administration’s budget proposal that sought to cut federal R&D spending by roughly $44 billion.
The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon.
If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
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U.S. service members transitioning out of the military will now be able to access ChatGPT Plus for a year under a new offer from OpenAI that’s aimed at helping them with their job hunt. The new offer, announced Monday ahead of Veterans Day, is available to service members who are within 12 months of separation or retirement, and any veteran within their first year of leaving service. Katrina Mulligan, OpenAI for Government’s head of national security partnerships, said on a call with reporters ahead of the announcement. “We know that nearly 70% of veterans say finding employment is their biggest challenge, and we want to make that transition a little bit easier by providing support that’s available anytime.” Mulligan said the idea for the offer started with OpenAI’s own veteran employees who used the platform for their own career navigation. “They urged us to make these tools available to others going through the same experience, and we were really glad to support it,” she said.Through the new offer, eligible service members and veterans are able to access ChatGPT Plus — which is typically a $20 per month subscription, and boasts faster response time as well as priority access to new features — as well as some personalized content for veterans. That includes a “getting started” video targeted toward veterans, and over 100 example chats that Mulligan said were developed by veterans based on real tasks during a transition. The offer is not a direct partnership with the U.S. government via the Department of Veterans Affairs or Department of Defense — which the Trump administration calls the Department of War — but such collaboration isn’t out of the question.
The Department of Energy officially installed Dawn Zimmer as its chief information officer Friday, putting a pause — for now — on the revolving door at the agency’s IT leadership office. According to an internal email obtained by FedScoop, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that Zimmer had been named Energy’s permanent CIO. Her appointment comes after the installation — and subsequent departures — of two other permanent CIOs during the Trump administration. Zimmer joined Energy in 2024 as principal deputy CIO and has been serving as the acting IT chief between the appointments of permanent officials throughout this year. She was acting CIO before SpaceX engineer Ryan Riedel was named to the role and briefly took over in an acting capacity again when he left after one month. Days later, Google and Twitter alum Ross Graber was named CIO, but he left after less than two months in the role. That has left the agency without a permanent official since the end of April. Wright said in the email that “Dawn will continue her stellar oversight of the Department’s information technology and cybersecurity initiatives, ensuring that our systems are secure, efficient, and innovative.”
The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon.
If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
