Raytheon awarded more than $600 mln to upgrade Patriot Integrated Air and Missile Defense System
An undisclosed party of the 13-nation ownership group which operates the Patriot Integrated Air and Missile Defense System recently awarded Raytheon Company a direct commercial sales contract worth more than $600 million to bring its system configuration up to date. The contract was awarded on... Read More »
Border Patrol Agents rescue undocumented migrants in freezing weather conditions
El Paso Border Sector Patrol Agents assigned to the Forward Operating Base Bounds in Lordsburg, New Mexico rescued a group of undocumented migrants last week after they were abandoned during freezing weather conditions. The migrants, consisting of six adults and twelve children, told the... Read More »CDC grants $10 million to four Florida-based universities for Zika-related research initiatives
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently awarded a $10 million grant to four Florida-based universities to collaborate on a newly-formed research center that will focus on combating diseases such as the Zika virus. The facility, called the Southeast Regional Center of... Read More »WHO releases final trial results for promising Ebola vaccine
According to a recently published study, an experimental Ebola virus vaccine, called rVSV-ZEBOV, was highly protective against the deadly virus in a major trial that took place in Guinea. The study was conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), along with Guinea’s Ministry of Health,... Read More »FBI, DHS launch campaign to raise public awareness of border corruption
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), recently launched a campaign to raise awareness about the problems with border corruption so that citizens and government employees who see misconduct or suspicious activity can report... Read More »
Researchers identify three-dimensional shapes of two enzymes needed for Zika virus replication
A research team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai recently published two studies that identify the three-dimensional shapes of two enzymes critical to replication and survival of the Zika virus. The first study, published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, examined... Read More »
CBP awards technology innovation contracts to address various border security challenges
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, recently awarded a series of contracts for various technology initiatives related to border security. DHS first awarded $162,302 to Tamr, a Cambridge,... Read More »
Navy awards Raytheon $32 million contract for next-generation encryption systems
The U.S. Navy recently awarded a $32 million production contract to Raytheon Company for next-generation encryption systems to safeguard tactical military data transmissions across air, surface, subsurface and group assets. Raytheon’s Link Level Communication Security 7M encryptor (LLC 7M)... Read More »
CDC awards $184 million to combat spread of Zika virus
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently awarded $184 million in funding to states, territories, local jurisdictions and universities to support initiatives to protect Americans from the spread of Zika virus. The awards are part of the $350 million in funding provided... Read More »Bosnian national arrested for fraudulently obtaining citizenship
Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit apprehended this week a resident of Crown Point, Indiana after being indicted on a felony charge of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship after emigrating from Bosnia and Herzegovina.... Read More »
Report: Encryption for public safety must be a joint effort between law enforcement, intelligence communities
A bipartisan coalition of House members of the encryption working group recently released a year-end report, which details observations from the current state of encryption services and what the next steps should be to improve them for public security. For the past year, the group has worked... Read More »
Man sentenced to more than 7 years in prison for providing material support for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs announced this week that Irfan Demirtas, a Dutch-Turkish dual citizen, was sentenced to 88 months in prison after providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).... Read More »
Soligenix partners with IDT Biologika to manufacture ricin toxin vaccine
Soligenix, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing products to treat rare diseases, recently extended its collaboration with IDT Biologika for the manufacture of RiVax, Soligenix’s proprietary heat-stable ricin toxin vaccine. Ricin toxin is a by-product of castor oil... Read More »Terrorism Financing Task Force Releases Investigation Findings
The United States House Financial Services Committee’s Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing released the results this week of a two-year investigation into terror financing and the threat it poses to the U.S. financial system. “Combating terror financing is a significant and often... Read More »