Countermeasures
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded a 12-month, $26 million contract to Emergent BioSolutions on Wednesday for the continued supply of Vaccinia Immune Globulin Intravenous (VIGIV) to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).
Emergent BioSolutions developed VIGIV,... Read More »
An effort to ban the sale, transfer, manufacture, and importation of military-style assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines alike has been introduced to the U.S. Senate, and Democrats appear to be aligning behind the effort.
Introduced by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),... Read More »
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Amtrak are currently testing new technology that detects suicide vests and other improvised explosive devices (IED) concealed beneath travelers’ clothing at New York’s Pennsylvania Station.
The standoff explosive detection unit sounds an... Read More »
The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Kenya reported 453 cases, including 32 laboratory-confirmed cases and 421 suspected cases, of chikungunya from Mombasa County from mid-December 2017 through Feb. 3.
Based on reports from peripheral health facilities, the outbreak spread to the six sub-counties... Read More »
Senior justice and law enforcement officials and their diplomatic counterparts from approximately 90 countries and organizations met in Washington, D.C. this week to discuss the evolving threats posed by ISIS.
The U.S. Department of State, the International Criminal Police Organization... Read More »
Individuals who are on the “no fly list” maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center would be barred from purchasing firearms under a bill introduced by a bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday.
The Terrorist Firearms Prevention Act would enable the attorney general to deny firearms sales... Read More »
Twelve A-10s that were delivered to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in January have primarily been used to target Taliban revenue streams like narcotics trafficking, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Gen. Joseph Votel testified before a House panel on Tuesday.
January marked the first time in... Read More »
With biological threats to America and its interests overseas increasing, waiting any longer to commit federal funds to national biodefense would not be in the best interests of the health and well-being of United States’ citizens, nor the country’s security, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on... 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 »
Local school districts would have access to federal grant funding to install metal detectors under a bill announced by U.S. Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) on Monday to help secure schools.
The bill would require school districts that receive grant funding to limit the number of school entrances to... Read More »
Deportation officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested 145 individuals in South and Central Texas during a seven-day enforcement action, which ended Feb. 16.
Of the 145 arrested, 86 had criminal convictions. Thirty-nine were... Read More »
Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health recently developed an improved system for predicting the geographic spread of seasonal influenza in the United States.
According to a paper published in the journal PNAS, the forecasting system can accurately predict local... Read More »
The State Department and Department of Defense (DoD) signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday that will operationalize the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which will be tasked with coordinating the U.S. government’s counter-propaganda efforts.
GEC was established under a provision of... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) lauded new sanctions announced against shipping companies and vessels tied to North Korea on Friday as a necessary move to compel North Korea to engage in “a credible diplomatic process” with denuclearization as the ultimate goal.
The Treasury Department’s... Read More »
Counterfeit goods entering the United States pose challenges for consumers and businesses that need to be addressed by federal agencies that enforce intellectual property rights (IPR), according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Counterfeit goods are hard to spot and, with the... Read More »
A union of Emergent BioSolutions Inc. and Valneva SE has led to the initiation of a Phase 1 clinical trial for a Zika virus vaccine candidate in the United States.
The purified inactivated vaccine candidate, VLA1601, has been developed using the same manufacturing platform as Valneva’s... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers in New England, Boston Field Office arrested three subjects in a 24-hour period in two separate instances for narcotics possession and an active warrant.
At the Port of Houlton in Maine, CBP officers encountered two 42-year old male U.S. citizens... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently reviewed the implementation of Next Generation 911 (NG911), which provides improved capabilities over the legacy 911 system.
The GAO report examines state and local progress, challenges in implementing NG911 and federal actions to address... Read More »
Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives on Friday aims to improve information sharing and engagement among the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) fusion centers, which collect and share information on threats with federal, state, local and private partners.
The DHS Field... Read More »
The Treasury Department announced a sanctions package on Friday that targets 27 entities and 28 vessels tied to North Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and four additional countries violating earlier U.S. sanctions by engaging in trade with North Korea.
The Treasury Department’s... Read More »
Low flu shot counts this year in Europe have worried prompted worries among regional health experts and prompted a joint study from the Italian National Research Council and the European Commission Joint Research Centre that showcases the efficacy of vaccination efforts.
The focus of this study... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced that its Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) program has all performer institutions under contract and working to developing technology that can quickly prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
P3 was launched last year in... Read More »
More than 50 groups marshalled by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) seek an act of Congress to rush urgently needed new antimicrobial drugs to market that protect America’s national security and the health of its citizens against biothreats posed by antimicrobial resistant (AMR)... Read More »
The 2018 Joint Civil & DoD CBRN Symposium presented by the Defense Strategies Institute will take place on March 5-6 at the Mary M. Gates Learning Center in Alexandria, Virginia. The event will provide a forum for members of the Department of Defense, federal government, private industry, academia,... Read More »
A multi-agency team of 30 law enforcement officers recently conducted an active shooter drill at an elementary school in Erie County, Pennsylvania.
Marine Interdiction Agents assigned to Air and Marine Operations’ Erie Marine Unit, agents from U.S. Border Patrol’s Fairview Station and... Read More »
A new saliva-based diagnostic test for Zika virus is being developed by researchers at New York University College of Dentistry, in collaboration with Rheonix, Inc., and allows test results to be delivered in minutes rather than hours or days.
Current Zika testing is conducted using blood... Read More »
Researchers at MIT have discovered the means of growing their own dormant malaria parasites, granting them the ability to study how it operates, its vulnerabilities, and how it seemingly resurrects itself.
All of this is housed in engineered human liver tissue. With the malaria parasite so... Read More »
Citing North Korean ballistic missile threats, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called on the Department of Defense (DoD) to include development and deployment of space-based missile defense in the 2018 Missile Defense Review (MDR).
In a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis, Cruz highlighted... Read More »
International researchers recently launched an online, open-access database that pools emerging data from a wide range of fields — ranging from economic modeling to weather surveillance to genomic medicine — to improve collaboration on epidemiological research.
A single epidemiological... Read More »
More than 80 percent of cybersecurity professionals believe that their employer will experience a “catastrophic” data breach within the next three years, and 66 percent believe that it could “seriously diminish” shareholder value, according to a global study released on Wednesday.... Read More »
A clinical trial has begun on a new generation of typhoid vaccines and, in a major step, the first African child has been vaccinated.
The trial revolves around a typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV) and is being run by Professor Melita Gordon of the University of Liverpool, in conjunction with the... Read More »
A new x-ray image analysis training system that tracks the eye movements of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers as they conduct visual searches of travelers is currently being tested at airports across Oregon.
Known as ScreenADAPT, the technology is being developed by the... Read More »
U.S. Congressman Scott Peters (D-CA), whose 52nd District in San Diego County encompasses a large military presence that partners in strategic national defense, thinks it’s important the United States find smart solutions to biothreats that include preparedness for any catastrophic biological... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) will use a new Cyber-Digital Task Force to assess its current efforts to combat global cyberthreats and identify areas of improvement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Tuesday.
The deputy attorney general will appoint a senior department official... Read More »
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are currently exploring the potential use of “collaborative autonomy” to creates a network of autonomous machines and humans that could be used by first responders.
The research team is developing a coordinated and distributed... Read More »
