Rep. Candice Miller, vice chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and chair of the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, is urging caution in U.S. policy on refugees fleeing violence in Syria. Miller is cosponsoring the Refugee Resettlement Oversight and Security Act, legislation that grants Congressional oversight of the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Program. Read More »

Officials with LGS Innovations, a provider of next-generation networking and communication solutions for the U.S. national security, defense and advanced research communities, announced Sept. 28 it acquired Axios Inc. “Axios has a high caliber of project performance, corporate culture and outstanding people,” LGS Innovations Chief Executive Officer Kevin Kelly said. Read More »

The Defense Health Agency (DHA), a joint effort between the various U.S. armed services to provide medical services to Combatant Commands in both peacetime and wartime, became fully operational on Oct. 1. Read More »

The final report of the U.S. Homeland Security Committee’s bipartisan Foreign Fighter Task Force was released late last week at a press conference. Read More »

Coalition forces have been flying airstrikes against ISIS terrorists in an effort to support an offensive from the Iraqi Kurdish army, the Peshmerga, that began last week west of Kirkuk, Iraq.Peshmerga fighters successfully penetrated ISIS defensive positions, clearing Islamic State fighters and liberating eight villages. Read More »

Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-TX), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said negotiators have reached an agreement on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (NDAA). Read More »

The U.S. House is set to vote on the oil-export-ban repeal bill, H.R. 702, introduced by U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, (R-TX), by the end of this week. Despite opposition from both the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, the bill has the support of House GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is  seen as the leading candidate to replace departing Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Read More »

A medical team assigned to the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort recently performed its first mobile interventional radiology (IR) procedure at a medical site established at the Admiral Killick Coast Guard Station as part of Continuing Promise 2015 (CP-15) in Port au Prince, Haiti. Read More »

The Defense Intelligence Agency has awarded the national security engineering solutions company Leidos a prime contract to provide enhanced solutions for information technology (IT) requirements; the agreement covers multiple contract awards with indefinite delivery and quantity specifications, with the contracts having a one-year base period of performance with four more one-year options. Read More »

U.S. Reps. Kay Granger (R-TX) and Steve Womack (R-AR) sent a letter to the National Commission on the Future of the Army (NCFA) Chairman Carter Ham and Vice Chairman Thomas R. Lamont, expressing concerns over the Army's future. The Army’s Aviation Restructure Initiative will remove the National Guard's attack aviation capability in order to provide the active Army with it. Read More »

The U.S. Navy has teamed up with defense contractor Raytheon for successful tests showing that a Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile can take a reconnaissance photo inflight and then follow orders to re-target; during the test, a missile launched from the USS Gridley guided missile destroyer used an onboard camera to capture battle damage indication imagery and then to transmit the image back to fleet headquarters via its two-way UHF SATCOM datalink. Read More »

The U.S. Naval Reactors Program awarded BWXT the contracts. Read More »

Vets4Energy, a U.S. military veterans group advocating for energy policies to sustain the country's national security, met Oct. 1 with dozens of legislators to promote Senate action to lift the ban on U.S crude oil exports. The group stressed the significance of sound energy policies to boost national security in meetings with 50 U.S. Senators and dozens of House members. Read More »

U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, made a statement on Thursday to open the committee's hearing on Afghanistan. "Fourteen years ago, America's longest war began," Thornberry said. Read More »

Senate's passage of defense policy bill shows that the tide is turning against Obama administration Read More »

Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas swore in the newest members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council at a meeting that discussed a range of homeland security-related issues. The HSAC is a federal advisory committee that works with the Department of Homeland Security to provide the department’s secretary with informed recommendations and advice. Read More »

The Terror Threat Snapshot for October released by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said efforts to stop Americans and others from traveling to join jihadists overseas have largely failed, among other conclusions. The report is a monthly assessment of the committee’s effort to highlight the growing threat from ISIS and other Islamist terrorists. Read More »

The littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth completed its first-ever Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise recently with Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal. "The sea phase of CARAT Bangladesh was short, but filled with a large number of naval war fighting core competencies that advanced our navies' interoperability," Cmdr. Christopher Brown, commanding officer of the Fort Worth, said. Read More »

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released an update on how it’s enforcing the REAL ID Act passed by Congress in 2005, an act that establishes a procedure and standards for identification that can be used for official purposes at the federal level; the law’s enforcement started being implemented in stages last year, and the DHS has promised updates on the process throughout. Read More »

This week, coalition military forces continued to attack ISIL insurgents in Syria and Iraq as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, which is the name of the ongoing military operation that is part of an international effort to hit ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq in order to limit the group's capabilities, with coalition nations that include Australia, Canada, France, Jordan, Netherlands, the U.K., the U.S., Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Read More »