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Threats
As San Antonio, Texas law enforcement returned or sought new homes for dogs from a shuttered dog training operation, one found a place with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
“It was a most unusual circumstance, and we were notified that there might be some dogs that met the... Read More »
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel at Washington Dulles International Airport recently used facial comparison biometric technology to foil an imposter’s effort to pose as a French citizen.
Officials said a 26-year-old man traveling from Sao Paulo, Brazil, presented a French passport... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Defense, along with the U.S. Air Force and Navy, completed a series of flight demonstrations last week of the Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD-X) missile.
The MALD-X missile is an air-launched decoy that mimics "friendly" aircraft to confuse enemy defensive systems. ... Read More »
Operation Darkness Falls, a joint operation targeting fentanyl and other drug distributors over the dark net, has resulted in several arrests associated to such bad actor behavior, including the most recent arrest of MH4Life, the fourth most prolific dark net fentanyl vendor in the world and the... Read More »
U.S. Border Patrol recently named Scott Luck as the agency’s new deputy chief.
Luck has been chief of the Law Enforcement Operations Directorate at the Border Patrol Headquarters in Washington, D.C., since 2014 and has served as the acting deputy chief since April 2017.
“I am deeply... Read More »
NATO announced this week that a new effort to provide air-to-ground precision-guided munitions to Allies has completed its first delivery.
Officials said NATO’s Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) received the first lot of Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs), which were acquired through a... Read More »
In an article written for the New England Journal of Medicine, field researchers from Central Africa pointed to rapid development as fueling disease outbreaks, due to a growing need for a robust, matching health care infrastructure.
While on the whole, such growth has been beneficial to the... Read More »
The strategy and national security development underway at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will now be lead by Chris Deeney, who joined the organization as its chief science and technology officer for national security matters.
A noted researcher and innovator in scientific... Read More »
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) component is aiding private business and academic partners transition from a reactive cyber defense approach to one that is collaborative, proactive and timely.
Officials said the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) could eliminate some of the manual... Read More »
In partnership with the Center for Cyber Safety and Education, Engility Holdings, Inc. awarded four scholarships for its CyberWarrior program this summer.
The awarded veterans come from various branches of the United States military -- Army, Air Force, and Navy -- and are currently located in... Read More »
A University of Texas--Arlington (UTA) researcher recently won a national grant award to continue his research on “superbugs” through mitochondria, discovering their defense mechanisms as well as new ways to boost immunity and improve infection resistance.
Over the next five years, UTA... Read More »
An amendment to the Defense-Labor-HHS appropriations bill would allow communities to utilize Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants to reinforce school safety infrastructure and technology.
“Americans have become all too familiar with the horror of school shootings,” U.S. Sen. Ted... Read More »
Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) obtained SAFETY Act liability protections from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for the deployment of security measures designed to detect, deter, and recover from acts of terrorism.
The New Jersey-based company is the first public utility... Read More »
Experts determined during a recently completed hypothetical bioterrorism scenario, which imagines a smallpox outbreak originating in Fiji, that ample preparedness and response capabilities dictate whether a local outbreak is containable or more likely to become a global pandemic.
“Smallpox is... Read More »
An Indiana man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in a planned terrorist attack as well as distributing information on explosives.
Authorities said Marlonn Hicks, 31, of Crown Point, Indiana, has also been handed down three years of supervised release following his sentence... Read More »
In an article published in Eurosurveillance, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) determined that while listeria outbreaks are clustering with many cases going undetected, implementing a whole genome sequencing method could speed up the detection process.
In a study... Read More »
Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have modeled the workings of a bacterial pump mechanism that aids in the resistance to antibiotics.
These pumps spit out antibiotics before they can do any harm to the offending bacteria. The pump... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently entered into a public-private partnership with Southwest Airlines Co. as part of the Donations Acceptance Program.
The program seeks tangible solutions to trade- and travel-enforcement challenges in both infrastructure and intellectual property... Read More »
DataRobot received Monday a $200,000 grant from the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to begin testing a machine learning platform for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Global Travel Assessment System.
DataRobot, based in Tysons Corner, Va.,... Read More »
Following an announcement this month that a company called Defense Distributed would begin publishing blueprints for 3D printable firearms online, a group of Democratic senators are urging tech companies to ban publication of firearm blueprints on their platforms.
While the opponents in court... Read More »
Over the last 40 years, the parasite-driven disease Chagas has breached the borders of what was once its traditional territory, spreading from Latin America into the United States and Europe, according to a new report from the American Heart Association (AHA).
There are an estimated 300,000... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture specialists at Washington Dulles International Airport recently discovered pork sausage links concealed in an El Salvadoran woman’s baby formula cans.
Swine meat from El Salvador is not allowed to enter the United States because of the... Read More »
A new trial underway from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is currently working towards a universal vaccine that would target both Zika and Dengue viruses.
The trial will consist of 28 non-pregnant adults between 18... Read More »
The Department of Defense (DoD) recently selected defense contractor SAP Concur to develop a business travel system prototype to replace the aging Defense Travel System.
Annually, the DoD spends $9 billion on travel. Approximately 70 percent of all department travel vouchers is temporary duty... Read More »
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Global Health Council, NTI Bio, and PATH hosted a simulation exercise for congressional staffers to demonstrate the need for congressional support and action to prevent infectious disease threats.
The exercise, called Clade X: A Global Health... Read More »
Profectus BioSciences, Inc. and Emergent BioSolutions Inc. acquired a contract for up to $36 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) this week to drive the creation of a Lassa virus vaccine.
The three parties are operating under a Framework Partnering Agreement... Read More »
Tucson Sector Border Patrol personnel recently touted the benefits of UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters toward the effort to bolster border security.
Officials said the detail was deployed last month to assist in Operation Guardian Support, aiding transport capabilities in remote areas of southern... Read More »
With concerns over security for the midterms persisting, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hosted a three-day exercise meant to help various agencies identify ways to improve cybersecurity, preparedness, identification, response, and recovery during elections.
The program, called... Read More »
Experts in the fields of biological weapons and related security, along with government officials from around the world, gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, this week for the 2018 Biological Weapons Convention Meeting of Experts.
Their attentions were focused on evolving global preparedness and... Read More »
President Donald Trump recently signed into law the NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act, which requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop and provide resources to protect small businesses’ digital assets from cybersecurity threats.
According to the bill,... Read More »
U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) hosted Wednesday a roundtable with local community leaders, law enforcement officials, and the leaders of Uber, among others, to discuss how to combat human trafficking.
The meeting, held at the Modesto Police Department in California, gave attendees an opportunity... Read More »
Last month the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) considered a proposed nationwide law change reflecting the impact of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.
A ULC committee considered the Tort Law Relating to Drones Act for adoption by state governments. The effort, which provoked controversy across... Read More »
Tuberculosis (TB) is becoming more resistant to antibiotics over time through genetic changes, but researchers at Colorado State University have discovered that a single mutation may affect strains of TB bacteria in different ways.
Specifically, this applies to isoniazid, one of the first-line... Read More »
Though President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2017 to restrict the issuance of visas and instigate changes to nonimmigrant visa (NIV) screening and vetting, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently found that 90 percent of visas remained unaffected by this change.
Of the... Read More »
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently began testing technology that can detect weapon and explosive device security threats, including suicide vests.
The portable technology, called a stand-off explosive detection unit, connects to a laptop and works by identifying objects... Read More »
