The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the updated National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP) – the nation’s roadmap to ensuring emergency communications interoperability at all levels of government. The NECP was updated to address the current gaps within emergency communications, reflect new and emerging technological advancements, and provide guidance to drive the nation towards a common end-state for communications.
The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) has designated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Center for Global Health as a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for Biosafety and Biosecurity. The CDC will assist PAHO/WHO in their efforts to help countries safely handle and contain dangerous diseases, such as Ebola, influenza, and polio.
FLIR Systems Inc. announced the FLIR MUVE™ C360, the industry’s first multi-gas detector specifically built for unmanned aerial systems (UAS). The MUVE C360 will transform how emergency response teams approach chemical, industrial, or environmental incidents by providing a new level of safety, dramatically reducing time to action, and delivering a more complete assessment in situations where every second counts.
The President signed an executive order modernizing and expanding sanctions to combat terrorism. This executive order – the most significant update of terrorism designation authorities since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks – enhances the United States’ ability to target and deprive terrorists and their enablers of financial, material, and logistical support worldwide.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a new type of sensor that uses atoms to receive commonly used communications signals. This atom-based receiver has the potential to be smaller and work better in noisy environments than conventional radio receivers, among other possible advantages.
A recent action by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will help the military treat severely injured warfighters suffering from traumatic bleeding on the battlefield. The FDA granted a variance request for the use of cold stored platelets in theater for the Department of Defense.
The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate is working with industry to improve security systems – whether at airports, government facilities, border checkpoints, or public spaces like arenas – to work faster and smarter. The second annual Biometric Technology Rally brought together subject matter experts, industry partners, security stakeholders, and volunteers to test new and emerging automated biometric technology systems for high-throughput use cases.
Princeton researchers combined storm surge, sea-level rise, and the predicted increased occurrence and strength in tropical storms and hurricanes to create new maps of flood-hazard possibility along the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico. They find 100-year floods could become annual occurrences in New England; and happen every 1 to 30 years along the southeast Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico shorelines.
In support of the U.S. government’s policy to maintain a stockpile to be able to protect every American from smallpox, Emergent BioSolutions Inc. announced a contract award by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the continued supply of ACAM2000® (Smallpox [Vaccinia] Vaccine, Live) into the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile.
In June 2019, the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), in coordination with the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom, organized a trilateral exercise aimed at testing the robustness of the Science Advisory Guide for Emergencies (SAGE), a supplemental tool that provides up-to-date scientific and technical support for homeland security threats, emergencies, and major disasters.
