Three weeks before the November 3 midterms, nearly all the coverage of American politics is about who wins. Very little of it is about what the winners inherit. That second question is the one CrossGov.com was set up to answer. The site covers US government at every level, mostly Washington and the federal agencies, with state and local government making up the rest, and it leans hard on the people who count things for a living: the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service and the inspectors general.

The latest report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office lands with a familiar thud but a sharper edge than before: the United States Postal Service is still running an unsustainable business model, and time is no longer a vague concept stretched over decades but a very real countdown measured in just a few fiscal years. Despite a sweeping ten-year strategy launched in 2021 and substantial congressional relief delivered through the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, the GAO concludes that the fundamentals remain stubbornly misaligned.

The GAO report titled “HAVANA SYNDROME: Better Patient Communication and Monitoring of Key DOD Tasks Needed to Better Ensure Timely Treatment,” released in July 2024, addresses the challenges faced by U.S. government employees and their families who have experienced anomalous health incidents (AHIs). These incidents, first observed among Department of State staff in Havana, Cuba, in 2016, have affected individuals across various federal agencies both overseas and domestically. Symptoms typically include head pain, tinnitus, vision problems, vertigo, and cognitive difficulties, often following a loud sound.