Many Feds Face Furloughs Twice
Lawmakers Push Retroactive Furlough Pay
How Long Has the Shutdown Lasted?
In Focus: Who Faces Furloughs?
No TSP Contributions During a Shutdown
How Contractors Might Weather a Shutdown
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Pentagon Equips Kenya, Uganda Against WMD Threats
July 24, 2013 WASHINGTON -- The United States is training elite Kenyan and Ugandan forces to respond to WMD attacks and similar incidents, a move one expert said could be a hedge against the possibility that regional extremists will turn to such arms for future acts of terrorism. The provision of defensive supplies ...
Contractors Slammed for Uranium Project's Ballooning Expense
July 15, 2013 When U.S. government contractors designing a $500 million nuclear-weapon facility last year said they would have to raise the roof, they didn’t exactly mean it was time to pump up the music. An update to plans for the future Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 national security complex in Oak ...
Experimental Drug Could Treat Child Bioterrorism Victims
May 28, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The United States on Friday announced a $17.7 million push to secure federal licensure of an experimental antibiotic officials believe could treat young victims of anthrax or tularemia bacteria. Announcement of the two-year research and development deal with a North Carolina pharmaceutical firm came weeks after congressional investigators warned that ...
HHS Bets on New Model to Fund Biodefense Drug Development
May 24, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The Obama administration on Wednesday said it is putting down $40 million on a first-of-its-kind plan for a major drug maker to pursue an assortment of experimental bioterrorism antibiotics, drawing from a single funding pool as it studies newly discovered formulations and abandons any found to show little promise. The ...
Study Points to Faster Acting Anthrax Vaccine
May 13, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
A new anthrax vaccine additive could help to guard people exposed to the lethal bacteria with fewer shots than a widely used formulation delivered in five doses over a year and a half, according to a new study made public on Friday. Vaccine with the "CPG 7909" adjuvant prompted a ...
East Coast 'Well Protected' Without Proposed Antimissile Site, Official Says
May 10, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The eastern United States is already "well protected" against long-range missile threats without a new interceptor site pushed by some GOP lawmakers, a senior Defense Department official told lawmakers. The United States is covered by 30 silo-based ballistic missile interceptors at two existing locations, and 14 more are slated for ...
Lawmakers Fault Pre-Boston Attack Intel Sharing
May 9, 2013 An early dissection of what federal authorities learned in past years about the accused perpetrators of last month's Boston Marathon bombings reveals how far the United States still has to go in sharing and making sense of leads on suspected terrorists, current and former lawmakers said on Thursday. Russia warned ...
Days After Ricin Mailings, Pentagon Says it Wants a Vaccine
April 30, 2013 The United States needs a vaccine to protect troops against ricin, the Defense Department said in an announcement issued days after envelopes filled with the deadly toxin were mailed to President Obama and two Mississippi public officials. No antidote or means of prevention yet exists for ricin, which can be ...
Tired, Poorly Trained Guard Dogs Could Endanger Nuclear Arms Site
April 29, 2013 A U.S. nuclear arms site in Tennessee could be working its guard dogs to exhaustion during vehicle checks and skipping steps in their training, raising the risk that intruders or explosives could slip into the facility unnoticed, the Energy Department inspector general said in a recent report. "We found that ...
How Pressure Cookers Get Classified as a WMD
April 23, 2013 Accusing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of carrying out a WMD strike at the Boston Marathon could offer prosecutors a clear route to a conviction, even though the two pressure-cooker devices used in last week's attack do not fit the accepted definition of a "weapon of mass destruction," academics and former federal prosecutors ...
