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A Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security report commissioned by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) released this week showed the foundations for responding to a high-impact respiratory pathogen pandemic could use some work the world over.
A high-impact respiratory pathogen... Read More »
Reps. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) and Daniel Webster (R-FL) introduced legislation Tuesday designed to enhance extreme weather events preparedness by establishing best practices to protect communities while saving taxpayer money.
The PREPARE Act would create an interagency council to provide... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) inquired about the information security practices of U.S. Customs and Border Protection contractors following a cyberattack that resulted in the theft of thousands of facial images of U.S. travelers.
The June attack led to the theft of at least 100,000 traveler ID... Read More »
The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, the newly renamed biodefense study panel group, more accurately reflects the earnestness and importance of the five-year-old organization’s mission, group leaders said today.
“We do not simply study the problem,” said Dr. Asha George, executive... Read More »
Joined to fight the threat of malaria, the governments of Kenya, Ghana, and Malawi have launched a landmark vaccine pilot program known as RTS,S.
Malaria is estimated to kill a child every two minutes and is a leading killer of children in Kenya. As such, a major goal of the new vaccine is its... Read More »
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the FY2020 funding bill for the Department of Defense by a narrow 16-15 margin.
The $694.9 billion funding bill includes an increase of $20.5 billion above FY2019. The recommendation consists of $622.5 billion in base funding, $70.7 billion for... Read More »
The U.S. Senate recently advanced a bill that seeks to make air travel more convenient for transportation industry workers.
The TSA Credential and Endorsement Harmonization Act of 2019 is designed to reduce the number of duplicate screenings by expanding TSA PreCheck to those who have already... Read More »
A U.S. House committee hearing on Wednesday focused on how to strengthen a federal program that protects high-risk chemical facilities from terrorist attacks.
“High-risk chemical facilities hold large stores of industrial chemicals that pose a safety and security risk to the American people... Read More »
The number of people apprehended or found to be inadmissible at the Southern U.S. border declined by 22 percent in August, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The number apprehended or turned away was 64,006 in August, down from 82,055 in July. The August totals mark a 56 percent... Read More »
On the eve of the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, experts testified to U.S. Congress that while Islamic jihadists remain a threat to the security of the United States, so to do domestic terrorists in the form of white supremacists and other radical right-wing groups.
During a House... Read More »
Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) is lauding the Department of Defense’s (DOD) recent decision to temporarily establish U.S. Space Command in Colorado, noting it harnesses the state’s existing military assets.
Gardner, an advocate for the initiative, said the temporary establishment at Peterson Air... Read More »
New York State will provide $10 million in grant funding to strengthen local emergency response operations across the state.
"New York remains steadfast in our commitment to providing our first responders with the tools they need to respond quickly and efficiently to emergencies," Gov. Andrew... Read More »
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has awarded a contract with a potential value of $17 billion to Huntington Ingalls Industries to provide varied analytic and operational support services.
“Critical readiness of our defense intelligence enterprise demands unique expertise and advanced... Read More »
A new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal concluded that Ebola patients might face an increased risk of death for an entire year after being released from the hospital.
Conducted on 1,130 members of the Guinean populace that survived the 2013-2016 West African Ebola... Read More »
Legislation to modernize the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics Mitigation (CDM) program was introduced in the House this week.
The Advancing Cybersecurity Diagnostics and Mitigation Act, introduced by Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), seeks to... Read More »
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance last week announced a $7.4 billion fundraising drive among its donors to immunize another 300 million children to 18 diseases in developing countries by 2025.
Their calculations show that such an ambitious goal could save as many as 8 million lives between 2021 and... Read More »
An Ebola outbreak that has ravaged the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since August last year and sparked fears of a global health crisis reached a deadly new milestone last week when officials noted 3,000 cases underway and 2,000 deaths.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services... Read More »
Two cooperative research and development agreements, between the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the First Responder Network Authority and more than 75 industry partners, have made emergency service communication easier.
Network towers generally can support approximately 600... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) worked alongside colleagues in the United Kingdom and Canada in June to test the latest iteration of the Science Advisory Guide for Emergencies (SAGE).
SAGE is a supplemental tool that maintains scientific... Read More »
Intellisense Systems was awarded a grant of $3.2 million from the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to develop a network of flood inundation sensors.
The technology will be used to monitor flood-prone areas in real time to alert first responders, government... Read More »
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Congress and the Trump Administration must address the expiration of the UN arms embargo on Iran.
The UN arms embargo on Iran and the travel ban on Qasem Soleimani, the chief of Iran's Quds force, are set to... Read More »
The Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) recently announced that the New York City area would receive $178.8 million in federal funding to help prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism.
The funding includes an $11.09 million Nonprofit Security Grant... Read More »
A group of 18 U.S. senators recently urged the Senate Armed Services Committee to include three nuclear weapons provisions in the final National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020.
The provisions were included in the House-passed version of the bill.
The first provision would ban... Read More »
Jack Gumtow, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s chief information officer, and Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley, Jr., the agency’s director, opened the Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems Worldwide Conference on Tuesday in Tampa.
The theme of this year’s conference is how... Read More »
The danger of malaria is growing worldwide, according to Dr. Mark Travassos, assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), and that demands greater access for those with serious cases to intravenously-administered (IV) drugs.
At present, access to... Read More »
U.S. Sens. Todd Young (R-IN) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) recently introduced legislation to significantly increase U.S. efforts in prevention, research, and technology development to help end the global tuberculosis epidemic.
The End Tuberculosis Now Act of 2019 would alter the existing Foreign... Read More »
The First Responder Network Authority passed an $82 million budget for Fiscal Year 2020, which includes funding for future investments in the nationwide public safety broadband network.
“The FirstNet Authority is an organization solely focused on public safety’s critical communications needs... Read More »
U.S. Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) is asking U.S. Attorney General William Barr to investigate federal criminal and hate crime charges people who doused police officers with buckets of water.
In July, police officers in New York City were drenched with buckets of water and one officer was hit on the head... Read More »
The Strategies to Address Antibiotic Resistance (STAAR) Act was reintroduced to the Senate this week, raising the issue of what to do in the face of growing antibiotic resistance.
The legislation was introduced by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in an attempt to increase data collection,... Read More »
Smallpox, eradicated globally in 1980, is on the cusp of a comeback thanks to advances in synthetic biology. Residual immunity in individuals who were previously vaccinated could mitigate the impact of a smallpox outbreak, but “a high degree of uncertainty” exists regarding the duration and... Read More »
In a study published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, a scientific team reported that continued resistance to two critical antibiotic types that are still widely distributed in Southeast Asia is raising the risk of untreatable infections.
Carbapenems and polymyxins are being... Read More »
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chairman of House Homeland Security Committee, met with Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan this week to discuss the threat of domestic terrorism following recent shootings in Gilroy, Calif., El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
The Aug. 13 meeting took place in... Read More »
U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders have written to the U.S. Comptroller General requesting that the Government Accountability Office examine the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new biodetection technology system known as BioDetection 21.
The BioDetection 21 pilot program... Read More »
The Florida Department of Health (DOH) in Miami-Dade County has issued mosquito advisories this week after confirmation of a locally acquired case of dengue virus in the region.
As the DOH-Miami-Dade, Miami-Dade County Mosquito Control and Habitat Management Division continues surveillance and... Read More »
The Sabin Vaccine Institute and GSK announced this week exclusive agreements for Sabin to advance the development of three GSK candidate vaccines against Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, and the Marburg virus.
“These agreements with the Sabin Vaccine Institute are an important next step in the fight... Read More »
