Countermeasures
An outbreak of yellow fever is ravaging Brazil, driven by mosquitoes that are now reaching popular tourist destinations typically removed from such outbreaks, and prompting a warning call from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC warns that travelers should be... Read More »
KBR, Inc. announced Monday that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) awarded its global Government Services business, KBRwyle, a $34.1 million task order to provide analytical and engineering weapons systems support to assist with air traffic safety and cyber threats.
KBRwyle will support the USAF's Life... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Laredo Port of Entry implemented several new measures to prepare for increased travel during the week before Easter.
CBP introduced a designated lane, electronic tourist permits, expanded processing hours and a satellite, off-site tourist... Read More »
As the spring tourism season looms, members of Washington State’s congressional delegation called on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Monday to deploy five temporary passenger screening canine teams to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac).
In a letter to TSA... Read More »
In response to reports that Cambridge Analytica exploited the private information of more than 50 million Facebook users during the 2016 presidential campaign, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called for an official investigation by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.
Feinstein,... Read More »
A trio of lawmakers recently requested funds for the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, which provides cybersecurity network enhancement.
Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), Jim Langevin (D-RI), and Will Hurd (R-TX) recently forwarded correspondence... Read More »
Cooperation between international law enforcement agencies has led to the downfall of an encrypted network the FBI says was used by drug traffickers and criminal organization leaders for secure communications.
Phantom Secure was, until recently, a Canada-based service that bought and stripped... Read More »
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the National Committee for the Prohibition of Weapons (NCPW) of Qatar recently held a chemical safety and security seminar in Doha, Qatar, for OPCW Member States in the Asian Region.
Fifty-three participants from government, the... Read More »
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced a new program that aims to develop high-resolution neural interfaces for use by able-bodied service members.
DARPA has been involved in research and development of in-brain communication systems that use invasive techniques to... Read More »
Federal penalties for distributing fentanyl would be stepped up to curb the nationwide opioid epidemic under a forthcoming bill that was previewed on Friday by U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Under the bill, lower amounts of fentanyl would be required to trigger... Read More »
Amid reports that the U.S. State Department has not designated $120 million in funds appropriated by Congress to counter disinformation and propaganda from foreign governments, a group of six bipartisan senators pushed for an explanation on Friday.
The lawmakers also wrote they are “gravely... Read More »
A pair of clinical trials sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will test an experimental vaccine to prevent influenza caused by an H7N9 influenza virus.
Officials said the Phase 2 studies would test different dosages of the inactivated influenza vaccine... Read More »
A study published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases highlighted a 50 percent lower mortality rate in patients with drug-resistant infections who see infectious diseases (ID) specialists compared with those who do not.
The study was single-center and retrospective, focusing on records from 2006... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced a new program that seeks to develop software that would help decision-makers better understand gray-zone action, subtle conflicts that fall somewhere between peace and conventional warfare.
This gray zone conflict is not... Read More »
A recent statement from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) describes the progress the U.S. Border Patrol has made and the challenges it has faced in securing the Southwest Border.
The statement addresses DHS efforts to deploy and measure the effectiveness of surveillance technologies.... Read More »
During a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on the president’s $33.25 billion funding request for border security on Thursday, U.S. Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) warned about consequences of a “piecemeal” approach to border security and blasted “partisan politics.”
President Donald... Read More »
A resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday condemns Russia’s recent chemical weapons attacks in the United Kingdom and calls for the United States to take “additional measures” to ensure that there are consequences for the use of chemical weapons.
U.K.... Read More »
Responding to the public health emergency over Zika, labs at Inserm and REACting set about studies of the fetal and neonatal complications linked to the disease and, in the process, have determined a 7 percent rate of neurological abnormalities.
While this figure is significantly lower than... Read More »
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) first responders recently expanded their chemical incidents training acumen in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The training was jointly run by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Bangladesh National Authority for... Read More »
A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report recommended the creation of a finalized interagency approach to the post-core management of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), the information system used for import processing.
The study recommended that the Secretary of Homeland... Read More »
Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) introduced on Wednesday legislation that would incentivize states to adopt gun licensing standards similar to those in Massachusetts, which has the lowest gun death rate in the nation.
Markey’s legislation, the Making America Safe and Secure (MASS) Act, would... Read More »
As cyber threats to military networks become more persistent and sophisticated, military leaders provided an update to a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday about recent efforts to bolster the military’s cybersecurity capabilities.
In testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee,... Read More »
The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy considered four bills on Wednesday that address energy supply emergencies and cybersecurity threats to the electric grid, pipelines, and other areas of the energy sector.
During its third hearing on efforts to modernize the U.S.... Read More »
Scientists at the Center for Sepsis Control and Care at the University Hospital Jena and Friedrich Schiller University are currently developing a new, rapid test of antibiotic resistance.
Existing diagnostics for such infections can take up to 72 hours to get results. Time can be a crucial... Read More »
Florida Border Patrol agents recently arrested a gang member with an extensive criminal history during an immigration inspection at a Fort Lauderdale bus station.
Officials said agents identified a suspicious passenger while conducting inspections and learned the man was from Honduras and not in... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced this week that it is working to create standards for air surveillance, known as DHS (Interim) Strategic Air Surveillance Requirements, or (I)SASR.
DHS S&T is working with the Federal Aviation... Read More »
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is partnering with private-sector users of radioactive sources to encourage them to transition to more secure technologies that do not rely on radioactive sources.
Radioactive sources are used in a range of commercial, medical and research... Read More »
Two Chicago men were indicted on federal drug charges on March 7 for allegedly conspiring with others to ship a fentanyl derivative from China to 19 addresses in the Chicago area.
Sanchez Lackland, 35, of Hazel Crest, Illinois, and Jermol Mixon, 35, of Orland Park, Illinois, were both charged... Read More »
Homeland Security Director Kirstjen Nielsen noted that a border wall is only “one of the tools” required to secure the border following an operational briefing on border wall prototypes with President Donald Trump in San Diego on Tuesday.
Nielsen and Trump were joined by acting Border... Read More »
The DoD Information Warfare Symposium presented by the Defense Strategies Institute will take place on March 28-29 at the Mary M. Gates Learning Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Designed for members of the Department of Defense, federal government, private industry, academia, and other stakeholders,... Read More »
In a recent study published in the journal Human Gene Therapy, researchers put the effectiveness of ZMapp antibodies on display and found they could achieve 100 percent protection against Ebola infection in mice.
To test this, scientists administered both individual ZMapp antibodies and greater... Read More »
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) maintains the nation’s military needs to be rebuilt.
“Almost a decade under the Obama administration, during which the military was simply not a top priority, left major gaps in the readiness of our Armed Forces,” Ryan said. “Funding for modernizing the... Read More »
Four individuals were arrested recently and charged with the alleged sale of counterfeit male enhancement pills, weight loss pills, condoms, and cosmetics.
Carlos Enrique Velázquez-Gines, Mayra Evelise Gines-Otero, Noriam Ivette Flores-Deleon, and Vanessa Marrero-Hernández were charged with... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) released Monday two new guides that outline the S&T’s cybersecurity research portfolio and describe research and development (R&D) efforts that are at or nearing the transition phase.
The two publications, the... Read More »
Bipartisan legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate on Monday would direct the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to consider opioid diversion, public health, and overdose deaths when setting opioid production quotas to help address the nationwide opioid epidemic.
The DEA currently... Read More »
