President Donald Trump on Monday signed into law legislation that requires the Office of Management and Budget to establish a governmentwide system for reporting data on grant awards and recipients, Federal Times reported Thursday.

The Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency Act also calls for agencies to make information submitted by grantees publicly available through a single website.

Reps. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., and Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., sponsored the GREAT Act in a push to increase transparency in the federal grantmaking process and congressional oversight of awards from the executive branch.

Data Coalition CEO Nick Hart said the new law encourages the use of data standards and quality improvements  to address reporting burdens on grant awardees.

Defense Secretary and 2019 Wash100 award winner Mark Esper said approximately 4K U.S. troops have been placed on alert in response to recent actions by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

“If we get word of attacks, or some kind of indication, we will take pre-emptive action as well to protect American forces, protect American lives,” Esper told reporters Thursday. “So the game has changed, and we are prepared to do what is necessary to defend our personnel or our interests and our partners in the region.”

Four U.S. warfighters were wounded and a U.S. contractor was killed after the militia Kataib Hezbollah launched an attack against a military installation near Kirkuk, Iraq. That attack was followed with an attempt to make a foray against a U.S. embassy in Baghdad Tuesday.

The U.S. responded with airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, resulting in the death of more than 24 militia members. U.S. troops also flew Apache helicopters in response to the embassy siege.

The U.S. has already fielded about 750 troops to Kuwait and Esper said the soldiers would be on standby should the security situation in Baghdad worsen.

Jake Taylor, assistant director for quantum information science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, discussed several developments in the field of quantum computing in 2019 and one of those is the implementation of the National Quantum Initiative Act, Nextgov reported Thursday.

“That really was the capstone of an effort to codify a big expansion in quantum information science, which includes sensors, networking and computation,” Taylor said of the law. “It was a strong bipartisan-supported bill run through the House and Senate and signed by the president to say that the nation as a whole needs to do more in this space, we need to in a coordinated manner and that civilian agencies will take a leadership approach—and in the course of the last year, we went from having a legislated mandate to do this, to implementing the main tasks of that effort.”

Taylor said the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation are the implementing agencies of the law and have been advancing quantum computing-related initiatives.

He cited OSTP’s release in November of an update to the national strategic computing initiative with insight from OSTP Director Kelvin Droegemeier. “In the last year we have seen tremendous change in the high-performance computing landscape and with [Droegemeier] on board we went back and looked at what are the directions we need to go to ensure that the nation is a leader in HPC—and the future of computing,” Taylor said. 

The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation into drones that were spotted flying in Colorado and Nebraska, CNN reported Wednesday. Northeastern Colorado authorities have sighted over 16 unmanned aerial systems that flew 150 to 200 feet from buildings, people and controlled airspace.

Todd Combs, a Sherriff from Yuma County in Colorado, said in a Facebook post that the drones operate in compliance with federal guidelines but are making locals "very nervous and anxious."

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., noted in a tweet that he has coordinated with the FAA and is “encouraged that they've opened a full investigation to learn the source and purpose of the drones."

The FAA investigation comes after the agency announced plans to require remote identification for UAS seeking to operate within national airspace.

The U.S. Army has stopped using TikTok for recruiting activities after the Department of Defense's declaration of the entertainment mobile app as a cyber threat, Military.com reported Monday.

A DoD cyber awareness message orders defense personnel to uninstall the China-based app from their mobile devices due to potential cyber risks.

The message also warns DoD employees of the applications downloaded into phones and advises to take caution on unusual messages.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have also prohibited the app's use in government-issued devices and blocked TikTok-connected phones from the service branches' intranet.

Authority only allows DoD to block the app on government devices, but officials advise personnel to be cautious of unusual texts.

TikTok allows users to create short-form videos via mobile devices. ByteDance, a Chinese company, owns and operates TikTok.

President Donald Trump has placed his signature on a bill that aims to address bot-based scam calls via various implementations across industry and government, Nextgov reported Tuesday.

The Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence, now signed into law, would direct phone service providers to offer free call-blocking services to customers.

TRACED also tasks carriers to implement call-authentication technology that works to determine a call's legitimacy.

The bill also directs the Department of Justice to impose larger penalties against bot-generated calls, with a focus on those that threaten health care.

The Federal Communications Commission would also receive increased authority to deal with robocall cases.

“This bill represents a unique legislative effort that is not only bipartisan at its core, but it’s nearly unanimously supported in Congress,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said in December.

The Senate approved the TRACED bill last month.

The fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act has earmarked $10M for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity to conduct competitions focused on 5G and “deepfake” technology research, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

IARPA will get $5M in prize funding to promote “research, development, or commercialization” of technologies that will automatically identify deepfake media, or machine-manipulated videos that could exacerbate disinformation campaigns. The NDAA also mandates the director of national intelligence to report cases of foreign entities using deepfake technology for election interference to Congress.

Additionally, IARPA will receive $5M to “carry out a program to award prizes competitively” to support R&D efforts of 5G or fifth-generation technology.

The agency seeks input from interested participants in the academic and private sectors.