Health security

Blood Clot Removal Could Help More Stroke Victims, Study Finds

The window for helping certain stroke patients with a potentially life-saving blood clot removal surgical treatment may be longer than previously thought, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Traditionally stroke is treated with medications that stabilize or diminish blood clots in the brain. In select patients surgical intervention to remove the clot may be possible to mitigate effects of the stroke.

Currently, the American Stroke Association advises that blood clot removal for some patients -- an emergency procedure called endovascular thrombectomy recently developed and increasingly used in addition to medical therapies -- should be done within six hours afterstroke symptoms to lower the amount of disability patients will face later. But this analysis showed that the time for treatment could be slightly longer -- up to 7.3 hours.

Electoral battles

Transcript of the First Debate

The participants tonight are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. This debate is sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. The commission drafted tonight’s format, and the rules have been agreed to by the campaigns.

The 90-minute debate is divided into six segments, each 15 minutes long. We’ll explore three topic areas tonight: Achieving prosperity; America’s direction; and securing America. At the start of each segment, I will ask the same lead-off question to both candidates, and they will each have up to two minutes to respond. From that point until the end of the segment, we’ll have an open discussion.

The questions are mine and have not been shared with the commission or the campaigns. The audience here in the room has agreed to remain silent so that we can focus on what the candidates are saying...

Cybersecurity

Windows 10 will soon run Edge in a virtual machine to keep you safe

Microsoft has announced that the next major update to Windows 10 will run its Edge browser in a lightweight virtual machine. Running the update in a virtual machine will make exploiting the browser and attacking the operating system or compromising user data more challenging.

Called Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge, the new capability builds on the virtual machine-based security that was first introduced last summer in Windows 10. Windows 10's Virtualization Based Security (VBS) uses small virtual machines and the Hyper-V hypervisor to isolate certain critical data and processes from the rest of the system. The most important of these is Credential Guard, which stores network credentials and password hashes in an isolated virtual machine. This isolation prevents the popular MimiKatz tool from harvesting those password hashes. In turn, it also prevents a hacker from breaking into one machine and then using stolen credentials to spread to other machines on the same network.

Biosecurity

Multistate E. coli outbreak leads to meat recall

Beef products are probably the cause of an E. coli outbreak that has sickened seven people in four states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From June 27 to September 4, seven people ages 1 to 74 from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts contracted E. coli O157:H7. No deaths have been reported, but five of the seven have been hospitalized, the CDC reported.The CDC, the Department of Agriculture and multiple states are investigating the outbreak, which was traced to the Adams Farm Slaughterhouse in Athol, Massachusetts.

Two to eight days after consuming contaminated meat, patients with E. coli infections typically have symptoms of dehydration, bloody diarrhea and stomach cramps. Most E. coli victims recover in about a week. In rare cases, the infection can cause kidney failure. This occurs most often in young children and older adults, and is evident by easy bruising, pallor and low urine output. People with these symptoms should seek medical help immediately.

Wildlife trafficking

Revealed: the criminals making millions from illegal wildlife trafficking

A major investigation into global wildlife crime today names for the first time key traffickers and links their illegal trade to corrupt officials at the highest levels of one Asian country.

The investigation, published by the Guardian, exposes the central role of international organised crime groups in mutilating and killing tens of thousands of animals and threatening to eliminate endangered species including tigers, elephants and rhinos.

The in-depth reporting identifies suspected traders across several continents, from South Africa to Thailand and in the markets of China, where animal parts are used in traditional medicines.

Counterterrorism

McCaul Unveils Counterterrorism Strategy, Including TSA Overhaul; Lawmakers Advance TSA and Counterterrorism Measures 

On Tuesday, September 20, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) unveiled a counterterrorism strategy containing over 100 policy prescriptions and principles designed to combat the rise of global terrorism. The 35-page document, “A National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror,” follows on a number of recent terrorism scares, including a stabbing spree in St. Cloud, Minnesota, for which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

The strategy criticizes the Obama Administration’s approach to counterterrorism and describes an increasingly severe terror threat environment facing the United States. The document cites a “decline in U.S. leadership on the world stage,” suggesting its proposed response would “keep pace with an evolving enemy.” 

Climate security

GOP chairman presses for national security, climate change plan

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, is asking the Obama administration for more information about its push to write a climate change-focused national security plan. 

In a letter to Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, Smith requested a meeting with a top White House official to “better understand the development and content of the report,” which Obama directed security agencies to write. 

“It is necessary for us to better understand the science that underpins the studies, climate models, reports and conclusions that the Administration will use as the basis of its analysis and national security policy development,” Smith wrote in his Monday letter to Rice.

Defense

Cost of modernizing U.S. nuclear weapons to fall to next president

The most vulnerable elements of the modernization plans are a long-range standoff weapon, or LRSO – a nuclear-capable cruise missile launched from an aircraft – and new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Ten U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, called on President Barack Obama in July to cancel the LRSO, saying it "would provide an unnecessary capability that could increase the risk of nuclear war."

Some Pentagon officials and defense experts have said the cruise missile would be a hedge against improved air defenses that are difficult for even a stealthy bomber to penetrate.

A Clinton or Trump administration also could cut the number of land-based ballistic missiles below the 400 currently planned or delay a new missile by extending the life of the current Minuteman IIIs, which each carry a warhead with an explosive yield of at least 300 kilotons, 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which killed an estimated 140,000 people.

The United States is one of five nuclear weapons states allowed to keep a nuclear arsenal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The others are Russia, Britain, France and China.

Statecraft

President's role in a nuclear world

Trump should be more careful in what he says, but I don’t believe he’s a wild-eyed maniac bent on nuclear holocaust. We need to understand that the world is dangerous and some unstable countries possess nuclear weapons, especially North Korea and Pakistan, and perhaps in a decade, Iran. I believe Trump will no doubt be very circumspect and serious about national security when he’s fully briefed on our emergency war order execution plans.

Without divulging classified information, our posture today is much more passive than in the 1950s when we flew nuclear-loaded B-52 bombers around the globe or when we had positive target sets for other weapons systems. In fact our strategic bomber force is no longer on quick reaction alert. For full details on our nuclear weapons history, I recommend the book “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser.

Nuclear security

NATO is reviewing ‘nuclear playbook’ to deter ‘terrible attacks’ by Russia – Pentagon chief

The Pentagon chief put Russia on par with North Korea when he spoke about threats faced by the US and its allies, and the need to invest billions into refreshing NATO’s nuclear playbook to integrate conventional and unconventional deterrence methods.

TrendsRussia-NATO relations

Addressing US servicemen, missile units and B-52 crews at Minot Base, Defense Secretary Ash Carter stated that the US and its allies had not built any new nuclear weapons or delivery systems in the last 25 years – and said that American nuclear forces must be ready to engage in a possible nuclear confrontation with Russia.

“Russia has long been a nuclear power, but Moscow’s recent saber-rattling and building of new nuclear weapons systems raises serious questions about its leaders’ commitment to strategic stability, their regard for long-established accords of using nuclear weapons and whether they respect the profound caution that Cold War era leaders showed in respect to brandishing their nuclear weapons,” the Pentagon chief claimed.

Whistleblowing

Wells Fargo fired the whistleblowers who reported massive fraud, and that's a crime

CNN Money has found multiple whistleblowers from Wells Fargo who were willing to go on the record and report that they were fired in retaliation for coming forward to report the massive fraud in which Wells Fargo employees opened up 2,000,000 fake accounts in their customers' names, raiding their real accounts to open them, then racking up fees and penalties, and trashing their customers' credit ratings.

CNN also spoke to a former Wells Fargo HR manager who explained how the retaliatory firings worked: employees who blew the whistle would be monitored closely for minor infractions (e.g. being two minutes late for work), then fired "with cause."

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in the wake of the Enron fraud, makes it a jailable, criminal offense to fire whistleblowers; it also makes the CEO and CFO personally, criminally liable for failures to create secure means by which whistleblowers can come forward without fear of retaliation.

Criminal investigation

Former NSA analyst: FBI may reopen investigation if Clinton loses

The FBI could reopen its investigation into Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information if she fails to win the November election, according to a former National Security Agency analyst, especially in light of revelations made public in a Friday document dump by the agency. "The FBI completely ignored the appearance of highly classified signals intelligence in Hillary's email, including information lifted verbatim from above-Top Secret NSA reports back in 2011," John Schindler, a security expert and former analyst for the agency, wrote in a Sundaycolumn for the Observer, noting the agency revealed on Friday that it never questioned Clinton about the issue.

Immigration security

Ahead of debate, Trump endorsed by U.S. immigration officers

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump picked up the endorsement on Monday of the union representing 5,000 federal immigration officers, a boost of support for his immigration policy ahead of his first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump has laid out a hardline position on illegal immigration, proposing to build a wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico and take other steps to crack down on the flow of undocumented people crossing into the United States.

With immigration likely to be discussed at the debate, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, a union representing 5,000 federal immigration officers and law enforcement support staff, announced it would support Trump, in what was described as its first endorsement of a candidate for elected office.

Navy

Russian Pacific Fleet reinforced with newest nuclear-powered submarine

Russia’s newest nuclear-powered submarine The Vladimir Monomakh (project 955) has arrived at its permanent base Viliuchinsk in the Kamchakta Peninsula.

"The submarine force of the Pacific Fleet has been reinforced by the newest strategic nuclear-powered submarine of project 955 The Vladimir Monomakh. The submarine has completed its voyage from the Northern Fleet to the Pacific Fleet to arrive at the permanent base Viliuchinsk, in the Kamchakta Peninsula," the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.

The Vladimir Monomakh is a third nuclear-powered submarine of project 955 Borei armed with the inter-continental ballistic missiles Bulava. The submarine began to be built in 2006. It has handed over to the Russian Navy at the end of 2014.

Poll results

Exclusive–Caddell: Breitbart/Gravis National Security Poll Shows Americans Feel Obama Made America Less Safe, Reluctant to Protect Us

Respondents were asked about the new normal in the poll, which was conducted Sept. 20 with of 1,503 registered voters. “Do you agree or disagree that the incidents of domestic terrorism we are experiencing this week in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota are the new normal and we are going to have to accept that,” they were asked.

Sixty-five percent of Americans disagree that these incidents represent a new normal which they must accept; 47 percent disagreed strongly, while 30 percent agreed. Only 7 percent agreed strongly.

“That question on the new normal–that Americans should just accept it–the answer is very simple: We will not,” said Caddell. “We are not Europeans.”

The next question in the poll asked if the Obama administration was reluctant to take action to stop and defeat these attacks.

Navy

Full Speed Ahead for Navy Expeditionary Fast Transports

Last year, we made quick mention of the Navy's new designation for its JHSV class of vessels -- now called Expeditionary Fast Transports (but confoundingly abbreviated EPF). Designed as hulking catamaran "tin cans," with a thin aluminum shell wrapped around four powerful engines, and perched atop two runners, these vessels offer the Navy the ability to move simply massive numbers of troops and supplies at very high speeds, and at an affordable cost to boot.

And now the Navy is building more of them.

Austal shifts into high gear

As of the end of last year, the Navy had acquired about a half dozen EPFs for the Military Sealift Command. More are on the way, however, and soon. We know this because last week, in its daily digest of contracts awarded, the Pentagon announced that it has hired Australian shipbuilder Austal (NASDAQOTH:AUTLY) to produce two more EPFs, which will be Nos. 11 and 12 out of an anticipated purchase of 22 ships total.

Aerospace

Next-gen US military helicopters prepare for 2017 flights

The US Army's Joint Multirole-Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD)/Future Vertical Lift (FVL) effort is moving towards first flights in 2017, but meanwhile is focused on crucial system architecture demonstrations.

Dan Bailey, the army's programme director for JMR/FVL, said the effort is demonstrating the platform and, perhaps more importantly, its mission system architecture.

US Army and US Navy planners hope to eventually replace a variety of aircraft via FVL. Among other initial parameters, the government is seeking a platform to carry 4 crew and 12 or more troops, self-deploy out to 2,100 n miles, and fly at up to 230 kt or more.

"We're into the second of our mission system architecture demonstrations," Bailey said during 23 September comments at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

Military

Can testosterone boost combat performance? Pentagon studies hormone's role in fitness

The Defense Department is studying whether a boost of testosterone can keep military muscle and brains operating in top form during long periods of combat. 

When troops are engaged in prolonged physical activity like war and contingency operations, they are unable to consume the calories needed to sustain high physical and mental function, according to medical researchers. 

The calorie deficit -- sometimes as much as 50 percent to 60 percent below the needed amount -- can result in muscle loss, fatigue, cognitive decline and, in men, a drop in testosterone, leaving them vulnerable to injury, illness, wounds or death. 

Scientists at Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Facility and the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine are conducting a study to see if maintaining normal testosterone levels during periods of calorie restriction will improve performance, or at least minimize negative consequences. 

Electoral battles

US 2016 election debate: Your guide to 'the mother of all job interviews'

The debates are the last, best chance for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to make their case to the nation.

Neither candidate will be able to command the attention of the American public the way they will in the three upcoming presidential debates. And no debate will have as large an audience, or do as much to shape public perceptions of the candidates, as this first one.

There's a good chance Monday night's affair will break the record of 80 million Americans who watched incumbent Jimmy Carter face-off against Ronald Reagan in 1980.

In an election cycle that's measured in months and even years, this debate gives Americans a real, unscripted opportunity to see how the would-be presidents might handle the intense stresses of the Oval Office. It's the mother of all job interviews.

Immigration security

Defeating Terrorism, Human Trafficking Crucial for Addressing Huge Migratory Flows into Europe, Speakers from Continent Stress as General Debate Continues

With 65 million people displaced and on the move, several European countries discussed myriad ways to deal with the unprecedented phenomenon by defeating terrorism, bringing human traffickers to justice, while others called on Member States to make the better choice between engagement and isolation as the General Assembly continued its annual debate today.

Péter Szijjártó, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, said it was important to address the root cause of what was uprooting so many from their homes. As long as terrorism existed so would the migration pressure on Europe, and while the right to a safe life was a fundamental human right, choosing a State where one wanted to live was not. Migratory policies that considered all migrants refugees and that had taken in thousands against the wishes of their own people had failed. Uncontrolled and unregulated migratory patterns were a threat to peace and security.