Countermeasures
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) recently visited McAllen, Texas, to assess the situation along the southern border, meeting with law enforcement officials, landowners, agriculture producers, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers.
Challenges and resources needed to secure the border in a... Read More »
A group of lawmakers recently questioned the Department of Defense's transfer of $1 billion in military personnel funding to an account designated for border wall funding.
Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on... Read More »
The White House appointed this week Hawaii Gov. David Ige as one of the two newest co-chairs of the Council of Governors.
Ige, along with his nine other council colleagues appointed this year, will serve a two-year term in their positions.
“Hawai‘i is home to the U.S. Indo-Pacific... Read More »
Huntington
Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding division recently received a $1.47
billion, fixed-price contract from the U.S. Navy for the design and
construction of another amphibious transport dock.
The ship will be
a San Antonio class vessel,
supporting Marine Air Ground Task Forces... Read More »
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen met this
week with senior officials from Mexico and other central American nations to
discuss border security and immigration.
On March 26, Nielsen met with Mexican Secretary of the
Interior Olga Sanchez Cordero and other senior Mexican... Read More »
Oshkosh Defense recently unveiled its L-ATV Ambulance at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Ala.
The ambulance enables Army medics and Marine corpsmen to keep up with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) while also offering protection for... Read More »
Recognizing the cybersecurity dangers posed by modern chip designs and accessible devices, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has created a new program dedicated to spreading scalable chip security through automation.
The Automatic Implementation of Secure Silicon (AISS)... Read More »
A bill recently
introduced in the U.S. House would provide blood testing for military
firefighters who were potentially exposed on the job to toxic chemicals.
The Protecting
Military Firefighters from PFAS Act would test for per- and polyfluoroalkyl
(PFAS) substances during annual physicals... Read More »
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency tested
two Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicles (EKV), which destroyed a threat representative
intercontinental ballistic missile during a test of the Ground-based Midcourse
Defense System (GMD).
One EKV intercepted the target and the
other gathered test data in what is... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO) and Coast Guard personnel recently thwarted an attempt to smuggle 2,513 pounds of cocaine valued at $28.5 million.
Authorities arrested three Dominican Republic aliens found operating the vessel. Bales of narcotics were... Read More »
An outbreak of Ebola that has raged through the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since last August has now passed more than 1,000 cases, making it the second largest outbreak ever recorded.
These figures come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA)
Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) system successfully
completed a mission objectives test in February.
The test included unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with
CODE, which allow teams of systems to autonomously share... Read More »
The U.S. Air Force launched a new Infrastructure Investment
Strategy (I2S) that marks a significant shift in the way the Air Force
maintains its facilities.
In this new approach, the Air Force is using new analytics
and practices that better predict when work must be done. In essence,... Read More »
The Norwich University Applied Research Institutes (NUARI) has received $5.9 million from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to bolster information infrastructure protection.
The effort would expand the Distributed Environment for Critical... Read More »
In an assessment of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) annually required reporting on 43 measures of border security effectiveness, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found data limitations and issues with statistical models.
It should be noted: most of what GAO... Read More »
A multi-agency examination
of shipping containers at the Area Port of Philadelphia discovered more than 1,100
pounds of cocaine on March 19.
The cocaine,
weighing 1,185 pounds, was discovered in a shipping container commodity of
natural rubber from Guatemala. The narcotics have a street value... Read More »
House Energy and Commerce Committee
leaders are asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) how it plans to protect consumer
privacy and increase data security enforcement activity.
Specifically,
they asked how the FTC would deploy resources if it received an additional funding
for... Read More »
As a means of bolstering forensics data gathering efforts, Marine Corps officials are updating the branch's Expeditionary Forensics Exploitation Capability (EFEC) with newer IT technology.
The EFEC, which is used to differentiate between friend or foe on the battlefield, also serves as a... Read More »
The County of Los Angeles Fire Department was recently commended for its use of three Sikorsky Firehawk helicopters to combat last November’s devastating Woolsey Fire.
Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, recognized the department, which operates eight multi-mission helicopters, including... Read More »
Within a few decades, the Lancet medical journal’s Commission on Tuberculosis (TB) believes that the disease could be eliminated if proper funding, increased research, and greater accountability mechanisms are provided.
Setting and reaching targets is crucial. The disease is already... Read More »
The First
Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) and University of Mississippi
Medical Center (UMMC) signed a memorandum this week to collaborate on emergency
medical care and response as well as mobile broadband for rural first
responders.
“Emergencies can
happen anywhere at any... Read More »
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
awarded BAE Systems a $3.1 million contract to continue developing autonomy software
for air mission planning for the military.
BAE Systems has created software called the Distributed,
Interactive, Command-and-Control Tool (DIRECT)... Read More »
A new global index offers an original way to monitor national-level preparedness for infectious disease, providing a holistic view of a country’s capacity to mitigate the spread of illness and pandemics.
Created by researchers at Metabiota, the Epidemic Preparedness Index (EPI) factors... Read More »
While addressing the recent Commander’s Training Symposium (CTS), Navy Vice Adm. Richard Brown urged leaders to transition readiness into lethality, reinvigorate mission command and drive toward a culture of excellence.
“Driving to a culture of excellence is not a top-down management... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science Technology Directorate (S&T) and the Office of SAFETY Act Implementation (OSAI) have helped develop guidelines to aid building owners with operations evaluations.
The entities have partnered with the National Institute of Building Sciences... Read More »
A new tuberculosis (TB) test developed by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) will be marketed and distributed by Advanced Biological Laboratories (ABL) under the terms of a licensing agreement reached between the two companies this week.
The test -- DeepCheck-TB -- is... Read More »
More than 80 local, state, and territorial health
officials met Wednesday with Congress members with the goal of advocating for
public health funding.
The officials told Congress members that investing in public
health agencies is critical to protect and promote health. Federal... Read More »
Following last week’s terrorist attack on two New Zealand
mosques where the shooter live-streamed it on social media, U.S. Rep. Bennie
Thompson (D-MS) is calling on the CEOs of four major social media companies to immediately
remove violent terrorist content.
The request was sent to the CEOs... Read More »
Air Force officials maintain training with the Air Mobility Command (AMC) expands the proficiency level of those who work with the CV-22 Osprey aircraft.
“We are very familiar with our own Air Force Special Operations Command counterparts and have a habitual relationship of getting fuel from... Read More »
Air and Marine Operations (AMO) personnel are being credited with intercepting an international cocaine smuggling attempt in which the narcotics were valued at over $76 million.
Authorities said officers patrolling the Eastern Pacific ocean aboard a P-3 aircraft detected suspects transporting... Read More »
A study conducted by Australia’s University of Queensland and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute recently uncovered the Zika virus’s evolutionary processes, allowing access to the genetic factors responsible for Zika’s dangerous spread.
The technique used in the study utilized... Read More »
Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen delivered Monday the 2019
State of Homeland Security Address, which included operational challenges, the ever-changing
security landscape and the department’s strategic plan.
The address also
included the department’s major... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions said on Tuesday it will begin a Phase 3 trial of a new anthrax vaccine it is developing.
The Phase 3 trial will evaluate the lot consistency, immunogenicity, and safety of the vaccine, called AV7909. AV7909 is designed to elicit a faster immune response than other anthrax... Read More »
A recent Senate Defense Appropriations Committee hearing explored the importance of updating the nation’s nuclear forces, developing pilot training programs and advancing the Arctic mission.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) reviewed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget with Air Force (USAF) Secretary... Read More »
The ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo was the topic of a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee this week, highlighting successes and failures in the fight against it.
Foremost, it was shown that the outbreak not only... Read More »
