• Female DNA found on Boston bomb fragments

    FBI investigators found female DNA on fragments from the bombs used in the Marathon attack. The finding was first reported in the Wall Street Journal. Mikhail Allakhrdov, a man who some of Tsarnaev’s family members and friends described as the mysterious “Misha” who radicalized Tamerlan, said that he had not been in contact with Tsarnaev for several years, and that he never encouraged him to take up violence. Allakhrdov, a Ukrainian Christian who converted to Islam, admitted that a few years ago he was Tsarnaev’s “spiritual tutor.”

  • Assessing security at schools, houses of worship

    The Office of Infrastructure Protection of DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate will be conducting a virtual roundtable on the topic of “Conducting Security Assessments: A Guide for Schools and Houses of Worship.”

  • U.K. businessman convicted of selling fake explosives detectors

    James McCormick, a British businessman, was convicted of having made millions in profits from selling fake bomb detectors to Iraq, Georgia, and several other countries. McCormick bought $20 golf ball finders in the United States, then sold the devices, which had no working electronics, for $40,000 each. The Iraqi government used more than $40 million in U.S. aid money to buy 6,000 of the devices, despite being warned by the U.S. military that the devices were a sham. The Iraqi military used the fake detectors at check-points, leading to scores of soldiers and civilians being killed by suicide trucks which went through the check points undetected. The police in Kenya says it will continue to use the devices.

  • California considering lead ammo ban

    Health and environmental advocates are trying to make California the first state to enforce a statewide ban on the use of lead bullets for hunting. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that there are 400,000 pieces of lead shot per acre in wild game territory which can be eaten or washed into rivers and waterways. The USGS also says that 60,000 metric tons of lead fired off last year is the second largest use of lead in the United States behind batteries. The CDC reports that lead is so abundant in meat harvested through hunting, that pregnant woman and children should never eat it. The NRA opposes the ban, saying it could possibly the end of hunting in California.

  • FBI looking for a “person of interest” who may have helped the Tsanaev brothers

    Lawmakers with knowledge of the investigation into the Boston marathon bombing said over the weekend that law enforcement agencies are looking for a “person of interest” who may have been involved with the Tsarnaev brothers in preparing the attack. The lawmakers highlighted the fact that law enforcement agencies are not convinced that the brothers acted alone, without any help of one or two more people.

  • Lawmakers renew effort to reach bipartisan gun control compromise

    Lawmakers have quietly begun discussions over gun control measures, with a bi-partisan group of senators trying to come up with a compromise to solve the differences that led to the failure two weeks ago of a comprehensive overhaul effort.

  • Jewish Security Summit discusses communal safety

    Leaders from the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) and other Jewish organizations gathered last week at the first Jewish Communal Security Summit in New York to strategize with top experts in the field how best to keep the community safe.Security providers from around the country had a chance to learn about best practices in threat assessment and response in the current climate.

  • Smartphone app locates gunfire source

    For the last decade, the Department of Defense has spent millions of dollars to develop sophisticated sniper location systems which are installed in military vehicles and require dedicated sensor arrays. Scientists have now developed a smartphone app that tracks gunfire and points in the direction the shot came from.

  • New fertilizer can be used to grow food – but not build bombs

    Ammonium nitrate fertilizer is used in agriculture, but when mixed with a fuel such as diesel, it is highly explosive. It was used in about 65 percent of the 16,300 homemade IEDs in Afghanistan in 2012.About 1,900 troops were killed or wounded in IED attacks in 2012, 60 percent of American combat casualties. There have been more than 17,000 global IED incidents in 123 countries in the past two years. Timothy McVeigh used ammonium nitrate in Oklahoma City in 1995. Scientists have developed a fertilizer that helps plants grow but cannot detonate a bomb.

  • Tamerlan Tsarnaev's name was on U.S. terror watchlist since 2011

    In March 2011, after being contacted by the Russian security services, the CIA added the name of Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. government’s terror watchlist. DHS secretary Janet Napolitano said that Tamerlan’s travel to Dagestan, and his arrival back in the United States, were “pinged” by the department. Leading lawmakers have raised questions about whether the U.S. intelligence community and law enforcement agencies have dropped the ball on the Tsarnaev brothers.

  • Critics say drones make little contribution to border security

    A new report says that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) drones are a wasteful giveaway to defense contractors and a threat to civil liberties. The report cites CBP own figures, the contribution drones make to border security is minimal. According to CBP calculations, drones have played a role in only 0.003 percent in drug seizure and 0.001 percent in illegal border crossing apprehensions.

  • Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had no firearms, explosives with him when captured

    More details have emerged to shed light on the last few hours before 19-year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured hiding on a boat in Watertown, Massachusetts. Tsarnaev had no weapons or explosives with him in the boat where he was hiding. Boston police officers say that the heavy fire directed at the boat was probably the result of chaos of the moment. In a tense and charged atmosphere, one accidental shot could have caused what police call “contagious fire.” Tsarnaev sustained severe injuries, some of them to his neck and lower jaw, preventing him from talking. This led to rumors in the press that he tried to take his own life, but failed. We now know that he could not have tried to take his life because he had no firearms with him on the boat.

  • Deportations go on while immigration reform debate continues

    The Obama administration has continued to deport illegal immigrants even as the fight over immigration reform goes on. President Obama has said his administration will not stop deportation orders until immigration reform has been passed, but immigration reform advocates say the administration should stop deporting immigrants who would be eligible for the path to citizenship under the terms of the Gang of Eight immigration overhaul bill.

  • Israel's military intelligence: Assad forces used chemical weapons

    Israeli military intelligence for the first time publicly said that the Syrian military used chemical weapons in an attack on civilians on 19 March. Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of AMAN’s (Israel’s military intelligence) research division, said that information gathered by Israel’s military intelligence, some of it pubic, some of it not, indicates that the weapon used in the attack outside Aleppo was sarin nerve gas. Brun said the Syrian regime has used sarin gas in several other small-scale attacks. Syria has the world’s largest arsenal of chemical weapons.

  • Improving emergency radio communication

    Radio communications can be unreliable in underground tunnels and other large, complicated structures, posing a safety hazard for emergency responders. New tests of wireless emergency safety equipment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have defined the challenges more precisely and suggest how emergency communications might be improved.