Government
Top members of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) met with multiple members of Congress at their congressional offices in Washington D.C. last week to discuss the critical role fire departments play in local response across the country.
A delegation including Fire Chief Rhoda... Read More »
The United States House of Representatives passed U.S. Rep. Candice Miller’s (R-MI) Border and Maritime Coordination Improvement Act, H.R. 3568, on Thursday.
The bills seeks to streamline the logistics and coordination of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) diverse operational... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Wednesday released a report entitled “Emergency Management: Improved Federal Coordination Could Better Assist K-12 Schools Prepare for Emergencies.”
The report was jointly requested by U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Martha McSally (R-AZ), Dan... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Thursday released the results of a critical study of the country’s biodefense enterprise and their ability to defend the county in the case of crisis.
“The biodefense enterprise is fragmented and does not have strategic oversight to promote... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions, Inc., submitted a supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday for the approval of the manufacture of BioThrax (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed) in the company’s large scale Building 55 manufacturing... Read More »
The Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, chaired by U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA), held a hearing entitled “Blackout! Are We Prepared to Manage the Aftermath of a Cyber-Attack or Other Failure of the Electrical Grid?” on Thursday to examine the... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its medical countermeasures initiative (MCMi) fiscal year 2015 update on Thursday as required by the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013.
The FDA laughed the MCMi in 2010, building on the substantive medical... Read More »
The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday to authorize the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department to develop open-source software designed to screen travelers by cross referencing law enforcement databases and terrorist watch lists.
The Enhancing Overseas... Read More »
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the States and High-Risk Urban Area Working Group Act, H.R. 4509, on Wednesday.
The legislations requires decision makers involved in disaster response planning to work together to gain a complete understanding of a community’s vulnerabilities so that... Read More »
The U.S. Navy announced on Thursday that it has awarded Raytheon a $1 billion sole source contract for engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) for increment 1 of the next generation jammer (NGJ).
The NGJ is an advanced electronic attack technology that combines high-powered, agile,... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) introduced an amendment on Tuesday that requires the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to establish a pilot program to improve the physical layout of security screening operations at airports.
“The recent attack in Brussels raised... Read More »
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) released a European terror threat snapshot on Tuesday.
The snapshot represents a periodic committee assessment of potential Islamist terror threat environments across Europe.
“The United States and our allies face an... Read More »
INTERPOL announced on Wednesday that it apprehended seven internationally wanted terror suspects with the cooperation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as part of Operation Sunbird II.
Operation Sunbird II spanned all 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) nations... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) chaired a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday to address the federal perspective on the state of U.S. biodefense preparedness.
“Today, we look forward to learning the perspective of federal agencies on the state of our... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), along with senior U.S. Navy officials, christened the agency’s new anti-submarine warfare continuous trail unmanned vessel (ACTUV) program on Monday.
The ceremony took place in Portland, Oregon, and marked the transition from a DARPA-led... Read More »
President Barack Obama signed the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Modernization Act of 2015, S.1180, into law on Monday to modernize the nation’s public alert and warning system.
The bipartisan legislation was introduced by U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Claire McCaskill... Read More »
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday to add the Zika virus to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Priority Review Voucher Program.
The legislation, the Adding Zika Virus to the FDA Priority Review Voucher Program Act, S. 2512, would add Zika virus to the... Read More »
The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) El Paso Sector arrested a wanted burglary suspect, two known sex offenders and recovered a stolen vehicle last week.
CBP agents working at the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint near Alamogordo, New Mexico, flagged a suspicious looking... Read More »
The United States Army announced a collaboration on Monday between two agencies to combine their efforts to develop new vector surveillance methodologies to detect emerging infections in local mosquito populations and to develop a near real-time recording system to combat such threats.
The two... Read More »
As part of the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) plans to protect the nation against threats to the public health, the organization recently released a Community Planning Framework that addresses major areas that are crucial in any community’s response to abnormally occurring diseases.
The... Read More »
U.S. Reps. Michael Burgess (R-TX) and John Ratcliffe (R-TX) held a joint hearing in Sherman, Texas, on Wednesday entitled “Cyber Preparedness and Response at the Local Level.”
Burgess is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade.... Read More »
Leidos Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Roger Krone joined a group of senior officials from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on Thursday to christen the prototype vehicle from DARPA’s anti-submarine warfare continuous trail unmanned vessel (ACTUV) program.
Leidos was... Read More »
Sam Greif, fire chief of the Plano (Texas) Fire Department, told a Congressional panel on Wednesday that it is vital that fire and EMA departments stay aware of emerging cybersecurity threats and develop close working relationships with local law enforcement and emergency managers.
Greif... Read More »
Founded in 2001 to train professionals in biosecurity and disaster preparedness, the Institute for Biosecurity at Saint Louis University’s College for Public Health and Social Justice recently told Homeland Preparedness News that the United States needs to continuously improve on its... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced this week that its Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) research effort recently conducted its first successful flight tests.
The new system is a shoebox-sized, plug-and-play system designed to enable manned and... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on Tuesday regarding various elements of the Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) and their responsibilities during cyber incidents.
According to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) 2013 Strategy for Homeland Defense and... Read More »
At an industry day hosted by U.S. Army Cyber Command as part of the Army's Cyber Innovation Challenge last week, officials engaged tech industry vendors and assessed technology solutions and prototypes that could potentially increase the Army’s ability to combat threats to cyber security, as well... Read More »
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of California Los Angeles recently released information on a collaborative project regarding the viral mechanisms of infection by creating screening libraries based on CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)... Read More »
Speaking at the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS), INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock emphasized that international law enforcement is the most important line of defense in the struggle against nuclear terrorism.
The 2016 NSS took place from last week in Washington, D.C. It served as the... Read More »
The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) held a three-day meeting last week discussing how to better coordinate various agencies in combating worldwide cybercrime.
The meetings included 67 participants from 30 different countries, including 10 private sector companies.
A... Read More »
Speaking at a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services expert consultation on Zika Virus in the Americas in Washington on Thursday, Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) addressed the current state of Zika surveillance in the Americas.
While the ability to... Read More »
The United States is increasingly turning to biodefense as threats against the homeland continue to grow, but the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey's Dr. Raymond Zilinskas recently warned that the larger problem remains that no one knows the true state of American... Read More »
The Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday detailed the valuable work its crisis communicators do during disease outbreaks, natural disasters, biological threats and other disaster-related incidents.
Crisis communicators work primarily through detailed plans and outlined goals, all of which... Read More »
The RAND Corporation released a new report on Thursday that highlights new counterterrorism tactics and technologies to help prevent potential disasters in various cities throughout Europe.
The new report illustrates the essential role of counterterrorism technologies used by diverse... Read More »
The World Health Organization (WHO) released the findings on Tuesday of its ninth meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the WHO director-general under the International Health Regulations regarding the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa.
The findings from the meeting were mostly... Read More »
