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With a focus on biological threats to the United States and a new, public-private effort to counter them, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense will host its first public meeting in New York City this week.
Their main topic of discussion will be ‘A Manhattan Project for Biodefense’ -- a... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized 20 tons of cocaine last month at the Port of Philadelphia and seized the vessel July 4.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued a seizure warrant for the vessel, MSC Gayane, after an application was filed by the U.S.... Read More »
A Houston man pleaded guilty to attempting to join and provide information to the terrorist organization the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).
Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya, 20, attempted to join and support ISIS, the U.S. Justice Department claims. He provided information to other ISIS... Read More »
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials said a pair of recent Laredo enforcement operations yielded narcotics seizures worth a combined estimated street value exceeding $4.1 million.
“I congratulate our officers for their dedication which has prevented these dangerous narcotics from... Read More »
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Safeguards Statement for 2018 recently determined that the amount of nuclear material subject to IAEA safeguards is continuing to rise.
“Since 2010, the amount of nuclear material under safeguards has increased by 24 percent,” Massimo Aparo,... Read More »
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a $3.15 million grant to scientists at Portland State University (PSU) to fuel research into a pill-based cure for malaria.
The funding will go to advance the research toward clinical trials. The study is built on the back of a compound created... Read More »
South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases, in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other global agencies, held a workshop last month addressing biosecurity and biosafety gaps.
More than 50 experts from the Southern African region met in... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is holding a competition where teams use robots to navigate and search dark, dangerous, and unpredictable underground tunnels.
The Virtual Tunnel Circuit competition features nine teams vying for prizes totaling $500,000. The competition... Read More »
Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) personnel recently joined a series of partners in addressing the increasing risks of a catastrophic biological event.
Citing such factors as rapid technological advances, an increasingly interconnected world with health security challenges, ongoing global... Read More »
House officials said language from Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) Counterintelligence Accountability Act bill has been incorporated in the 2019 Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA).
The IAA ensures the Intelligence Community has the necessary resources, funding, and authorities to protect and... Read More »
A shipment of malangas -- a starchy root vegetable common in South America -- from Mexico to Florida’s Port Manatee was found to contain a rare, aggressive and highly destructive type of New World army ant known as Eciton.
The discovery, made in June, was conducted by U.S. Customs and Border... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) announced last week that several key provisions that he worked to advance were included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The Taking Back Congressional Authority Over War Authorization amendment prohibits the United States from spending funds that could... Read More »
The Department of Justice said an electrical engineer has been found guilty of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and faces a maximum prison sentence of 219 years.
After a six-week trial, Yi-Chi Shih, 64, a part-time Los Angeles resident, was found guilty of... Read More »
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) officials said the 2019 Indianapolis 500 aided the department’s nuclear, biological and chemical threat detection process.
During the event, an advanced network of sensors kept continued vigilance, providing security real-time awareness of any... Read More »
In testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Dr. Helen Boucher -- treasurer for the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) -- called for action to circumvent the growth of antimicrobial resistance.
“While bacteria develop resistance in nature,... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently reviewed reports issued from December 2009 through March 2019 on various biological threats and biodefense efforts.
The agency concluded many challenges remain.
GAO concluded in 2011 that there was no broad, integrated national strategy and... Read More »
The International Atomic Energy Agency recently confirmed Iran violated the restrictions on stockpiling enriched uranium specified in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
In response, three Republican senators sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging the administration to put... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published guidance for first responders and emergency managers on how to respond in the first minutes of a radiological dispersal device (RDD), or “dirty bomb.”
The guidance was developed by the DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T)... Read More »
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said an agency waiver would expedite construction of three miles of a new border wall system in the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector.
The work would be located west of Roma near Fronton, in Starr County, Texas, with the waiver... Read More »
Immigration and Custom and Enforcement (ICE) Executive Associate Director Nathalie R. Asher recently offered an assessment of the agency’s January-March 2019 enforcement statistics, citing a commitment to arresting unlawfully present aliens.
“During this time period, more than 85 percent of... Read More »
Dr. Baozhang Wang -- an associate professor in Georgia State University’s Institute for Biomedical Sciences -- received $3.26 million in federal funding this week to help develop a universal flu vaccine over the next five years.
"A novel approach to fighting the flu is needed because there are... Read More »
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories recently discovered a vulnerability in a standard open-source software for genomic analysis DNA-based medical diagnostics.
Such a vulnerability leaves the software open to cyberattacks.
Researchers found a weak spot while studying the software’s... Read More »
Since the U.S. Army discovered in 1904 that mosquitoes were transmitting yellow fever, malaria, and other diseases, they have been working on ways to protect themselves.
Even in modern times, US troops, deployed to mosquito-infested areas, have been using basic or crude protections.... Read More »
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is encouraging Florida League of Cities and Florida Association of Counties officials to take advantage of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) resources to bolster cybersecurity efforts.
Rubio recently forwarded correspondence to both organizations in response to... Read More »
A group of lawmakers recently introduced legislation designed to direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to conduct an annual study of deepfakes and other types of similar content.
Deepfakes are hyper-realistic, digital manipulations of real content depicting events that did not... Read More »
The Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Association (DARPA) established a program to deliver powerful new defenses against public health and national security threats.
The program -- called the PReemptive Expression of Protective Alleles and Response Elements (PREPARE) –... Read More »
Scientists at UC Riverside are celebrating a discovery about 30 years in the making: a neurotoxin component of a bacteria with the potential to kill malaria-bearing Anopheles mosquitoes, without risk to humans.
The scientists said the neurotoxin poses no risk to any living thing beyond these... Read More »
House lawmakers have advanced an emergency spending package containing a provision restoring a robust Customs and Border Protection (CBP) presence along the northern border.
“Restoring hours at these ports is critical to commerce, emergency medical services, and to everyone who lives and... Read More »
A new study built on machine learning recently identified four bat species that have the potential to spread Nipah virus in India, which was hit by a virus outbreak in 2018.
The study, published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, claims that its findings could help guide surveillance and... Read More »
The healthcare community needs to address antimicrobial resistance, or future generations will be at risk, a leading health expert said at the first-ever joint meeting of G20 Finance and Health Ministers in Osaka, Japan last week.
Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi,... Read More »
Dr. Asha George understands firsthand the threats biological agents can cause. George, who is executive director of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, served in Operation Desert Storm. She knows what it’s like to be standing on the battlefield wondering whether antimicrobial resistant... Read More »
New legislation, recently introduced by U.S. Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI), Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), seeks to increase vaccination rates through a campaign of awareness, grants, and research support.
Primarily, under the VACCINES Act, the Centers for Disease Control and... Read More »
Three government agencies are partnering with national and international first responders to address the problem of fires in the wildland-urban interface (WUI).
The WUI is an area between the undeveloped land and urban areas. Fires in the WUI spread quickly and cover acres. Homes in the WUI are... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is acting upon GAO recommendations offered to enhance airport screening tests while also addressing vulnerabilities.
In order to test screening at airports, TSA personnel regularly covert tests to... Read More »
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently launched a large clinical trial to investigate the drug delamanid, understanding its safety and efficacy in regards to multidrug-resistant strains of tuberculosis (TB).
Throughout the study, MDR-TB will be compared to the older isoniazid in... Read More »
