Countermeasures
U.S. Sens Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Cory Gardner (R-CO) recently introduced the Wildfire Management Technology Advancement Act of 2017, which seeks to modernize fire departments by requiring the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior to provide GPS locators for crews fighting... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently announced that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has failed to verify some licenses for radiological shipments through U.S. airports.
Warning that such material as contained within these shipments could be used by terrorists to make... Read More »
National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists recently conducted a small clinical trial at the NIH Clinical Center of an experimental treatment for Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus infection in which the treatment was well tolerated by healthy volunteers.
SAB Biotherapeutics... Read More »
A bill introduced in the House of Representatives Wednesday would authorize construction of a border wall, invest in new technology and expand ports of entry, and add 5,000 Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents.
The Securing America's Future Act would also require the use of a biometric... Read More »
Smiths Detection announced Wednesday that it will supply a full range of security scanners, a total of 91 X-ray inspection systems, for the new passenger Terminal B and Cargo Complex LLC at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport.
The airport is building the new facilities to help handle... Read More »
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) recently gleaned new understanding into how an antibody neutralizes the Marburg virus, a pathogen with no known treatment that holds the same pandemic potential as the Ebola virus.
Previous research indicated that an antibody known as MR191... Read More »
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) took part in a field training exercise earlier this month with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to test the agencies’ response to radiological or nuclear incidents.
If an... Read More »
U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), and the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD) recently intercepted two vessels carrying 40 undocumented aliens from the Dominican Republic and Haiti attempting to illegally enter Puerto Rico near the island’s west coast.
“Sustained collaborations... Read More »
The number of wireless network outages increased from 189 in 2009 to 1,079 in 2016, making safety-related communications like calling 911 and receiving weather alerts increasingly unavailable to the public, a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) review found.
The increase in wireless... Read More »
The government’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) recently awarded a contract to Battelle to develop software to evaluate threats posed by the creation of dangerous organisms through synthetic biology and genetic engineering.
Thanks to recent advances in biotechnology,... Read More »
A working group consisting of government officials, private-sector representatives, academics, and veterinarians would be formed to develop standards for breeding and training dogs to detect explosives under a bill that the House of Representatives approved on Tuesday.
The Domestic Explosives... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security would be directed to draft best practices for using biographic traveler information and information about reservations and itineraries for counterterrorism screening under a bill introduced in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The Screening and Vetting... Read More »
During a visit to the plague-shaken nation of Madagascar, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), called for a $4 million investment to effectively combat the biological threat.
The most recent outbreak of pneumonic and bubonic plague in-country left... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers from the Area Port of Philadelphia recently seized 709 pounds of cocaine, the largest local cocaine load in 10 years, which they found concealed inside cabinets shipped from Puerto Rico.
The cocaine load, which has an estimated street value of... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) selected Tucson-based Raytheon Company Monday to complete development of software that enables unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to leverage collaborative autonomy to perform long-distance engagements in contested battle spaces.
After successful flight... Read More »
El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Highway 111 checkpoint recently discovered 6.44 pounds of methamphetamine with an estimated street value of $22,540 strapped to a 14-year-old girl’s chest.
The girl, an American citizen, arrived at the checkpoint as a passenger in a vehicle... Read More »
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers at eight ports of entry extending from Brownsville to Del Rio, Texas, seized $12.1 million in narcotics, arrested 80 fugitives and blocked more than 3,500 inadmissible entries due to immigration law violations over the holiday season.
From Dec. 15 to... Read More »
The FCC’s forthcoming proposal to improve wireless emergency alerts will focus on making geographical targeting more precise so alerts can be used more effectively in local emergencies and disasters, the commission announced on Monday.
The FCC’s full proposal to revamp the wireless... Read More »
A request for innovators (RFI) has been released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), officially beginning the search for partners on emergency response technology development by 2020.
There are three projects on which the department is... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently released an update to its directive regarding border searches of electronic devices, which was designed to enhance the transparency, accountability, and oversight of the searches.
CBP currently searches the electronic devices of fewer than... Read More »
Researchers at the University of Queensland recently “supercharged” an old antibiotic by modifying its membrane-binding properties to successfully attack deadly antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, or superbugs.
Mark Blaskovich and Matt Cooper of the University of Queensland’s... Read More »
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened a record number of passengers during the 2017 holiday travel period, Dec. 15, 2017, through Jan. 2, 2018.
TSA officers screened 42 million passengers and more than 30.6 million checked bags screened nationwide. Dec. 22 was the busiest day... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched a new program last week that aims to predict and prevent cross-species transmission of viral diseases to bolster military readiness.
The program, called Preventing Emerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT), will explore how pathogens... Read More »
Four U.S. citizens were arrested and charged with providing material support to ISIS in December, marking an uptick in the number of cases of homegrown terrorism, according to an assessment released by the House Homeland Security Committee on Friday.
The Terror Threat Snapshot indicates that... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport recently seized more than 65 pounds of liquid methamphetamine with an estimated value of $297,000.
The shipment was sent from China to Memphis, Tennessee, and was destined for Fort Worth,... Read More »
Scientists at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have developed predictive, end-to-end modeling capabilities that can differentiate between conventional high explosives weapons tests and non-nuclear explosives tests that are part of a nuclear weapons program.
Developed by the... Read More »
The Arkansas National Guard recently held a cyber training exercise at the Little Rock Air Force Base, which involved uncovering potential cybersecurity susceptibilities in critical infrastructure within a simulated city.
Along with members of the state’s Army National Guard and Air National... Read More »
U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) made the case last Thursday that North Dakota should serve a hub for federal efforts to integrate more unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into northern border security.
In a meeting with officials from the Department and Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border... Read More »
Five businesses tied to Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group (SBIG), which plays a key role in Iran’s ballistic missile program, were sanctioned last week by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
The five businesses — Shahid Kharrazi Industries, Shahid Sanikhani... Read More »
North Korea denies claims made in the Trump administration’s recently released National Security Strategy that it “has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons” nor that it has researched “chemical and biological weapons which could be delivered by... Read More »
The parasite Leishmania may be getting aided by viruses in its infection of invertebrates, as well as causing significantly worse disease than those without, according to a new evolutionary study.
The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, comes from the head of... Read More »
An enzyme that makes pandemic cholera resistant to last-line antibiotics acts on a different mechanism than similar proteins in bacteria, researchers at the University of Georgia reported last month.
Cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAMPs), which naturally produced by both bacteria and human... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers from the Champlain Port of Entry and U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Champlain Station recently intercepted a human smuggling operation.
The incident resulted in the arrest of one subject for criminal alien smuggling and two subjects for... Read More »
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently prequalified the first typhoid conjugate vaccine on Wednesday that’s been shown to boost immune response typhoid in infants as young as six months old.
Prequalification of the typhoid conjugate vaccine, called Typbar-TCV, allows procurement... Read More »
More than 4,735 pounds of cocaine was intercepted in the Caribbean Sea over a three-day period in December as part of Operation Full Court Press, which is being led by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO).
Operation Full Court Press is an interagency effort to... Read More »
