Homeland Security News Wire - November 29, 2011

The Post Falls police department in Idaho is testing a new 911 system that would allow residents to report emergencies via text message or e-mail.

Police say it is not meant to replace phone calls, but is instead designed to provide residents with additional options to communicate with authorities.

Texting or e-mailing is particularly helpful for the hearing impaired or those with disabilities that make it difficult to communicate over the phone.

Charlene Holbrook, PFPD’s emergency communications supervisor, hopes that the new text-based 911 option will encourage young people to interact with the police more. 

“Texting allows them a method of communication with which most teens are comfortable,” Holbrook said. “Texting was the next logical step for us.”

“Whether you like it or not, it’s obvious that the future of communication is texting,” Chief Scot Haug added. “You look at young people today and that’s the method of communication. Text messaging is here, and everybody’s using it. We are just looking for new ways to get information to solve and reduce crime.”

The new system also allows photos to be sent to 911 dispatchers.

submitted by Kent Hoffman

(Sari Horwitz/The Washington Post) - Syrian activist Rami Nakhle said that after he set up an online newspaper and started blogging about human rights issues, Syria’s secret police began summoning him for regular interrogations that involved threats of torture and a day in solitary confinement.

By Sari Horwitz, Shyamantha Asokan and Julie Tate

The Washington Post - December 1, 2011

Welcome to the first Focus on Community Resilience newsletter. At RAND, we have been intensively studying the many cross-cutting issues related to how communities can withstand and recover from disasters and other conditions that affect community well-being. We are launching this newsletter to share research findings, resources, and tools with people like you who are working to help communities prepare for natural and manmade emergencies. We hope this newsletter will stimulate an exchange of ideas among community leaders and a forum to share lessons about resilience-building strategies and activities.

submitted by Samuel Bendett

December 13, 2011

by Jenna Wortham - The New York Times

Tyson Balcomb quit Facebook after a chance encounter on an elevator. He found himself standing next to a woman he had never met — yet through Facebook he knew what her older brother looked like, that she was from a tiny island off the coast of Washington and that she had recently visited the Space Needle in Seattle.

“I knew all these things about her, but I’d never even talked to her,” said Mr. Balcomb, a pre-med student in Oregon who had some real-life friends in common with the woman. “At that point I thought, maybe this is a little unhealthy.”

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

by Marisol Bello - USA Today

One in 45 children in the USA — 1.6 million children — were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness.

The numbers represent a 33% increase from 2007, when there were 1.2 million homeless children, according to a report the center is releasing Tuesday.

"This is an absurdly high number," says Ellen Bassuk, president of the center. "What we have new in 2010 is the effects of a man-made disaster caused by the economic recession. … We are seeing extreme budget cuts, foreclosures and a lack of affordable housing."

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

America's Youngest Outcasts 2010 (124 page .PDF file)

http://www.homelesschildrenamerica.org/media/NCFH_AmericaOutcast2010_web.pdf

by Henry Fountain - The New York Times - December 12, 2011

UNLOADING Workers disposing of hydraulic fracturing waste near Guy, Ark.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Until this year, this Rust Belt city and surrounding Mahoning County had been about as dead, seismically, as a place can be, without even a hint of an earthquake since Scots-Irish settlers arrived in the 18th century.

But on March 17, two minor quakes briefly shook the city. And in the following eight months there have been seven more — like the first two, too weak to cause damage or even be felt by many people, but strong enough to rattle some nerves.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Theresa Bernardo

Illustration by Martin Jarrie

by John Kania & Mark Kramer - Winter 2011

Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations. 

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - December 7, 2011

Following the lead of several other cities and federal agencies, the town of Wilton, Connecticut recently launched a Facebook page and Twitter account to help communicate with residents and share information during a disaster

Following the lead of several other cities and federal agencies, the town of Wilton, Connecticut recently launched a Facebook page and Twitter account to help communicate with residents and share information during a disaster.

Two major storms, including Hurricane Irene, left many Wilton residents without water or electricity for up to a week and sent a strong signal to emergency officials that they needed to improve disaster communications.

To that end, the town created an official Emergency Facebook Page as well as a Twitter account.

Speaking before the Wilton Board of Selectman, Fire Chief Paul Milositz, who is also the town’s emergency response director, said, “We have to get better at [communication with residents].”

(AP)

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday for the first time that fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.

The draft finding could have significant implications while states try to determine how to regulate the process. Environmentalists characterized the report as a significant development though it met immediate criticism from the oil and gas industry and a U.S. senator.

The practice is called hydraulic fracturing and involves pumping pressurized water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas to the surface.

CBS News - December 4, 2011

The Detroit skyline is seen in this 2008 file photo. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

(AP) 

DETROIT - The idea is extreme, even in a city accustomed to fighting for survival: Should the state of Michigan step in to run Detroit?

The governor has taken steps in that direction, proposing an unprecedented move that could give an appointed manager virtually unchecked power to gut union contracts, cut employee health insurance and slash services. But city leaders bristle at the notion. Said the mayor: "This is our city. Detroit needs to be run by Detroiters."

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Homeland Security News Wire - November 28, 2011

Mind-Alliance joins forces with the UN Disaster Risk Reduction partnership // Source: indiatimes.com

More than 200 million people are affected by disasters each year and in 2010 at least 300,000 people died in major disaster events; annual reported disaster losses now regularly exceed $100 billion; Mind-Alliance, a developer of Information Sharing Management software for homeland security, emergency preparedness, and business continuity professionals, has joined the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Private Sector Partnership

Roseland, New Jersey-based Mind-Alliance, a developer of Information Sharing Management software for homeland security, emergency preparedness, and business continuity professionals, announced that it has joined the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Private Sector Partnership to support work aimed at enhancing national and local resilience to disaster.

Los Angeles Times - November 27, 2011

As a midnight deadline loomed, more than 1,000 Occupy L.A. protesters and supporters crammed onto the City Hall lawn for what might be their last general assembly -- the nightly meeting of protesters.

A few climbed into trees while others stood or sat on the ground. For more than three hours, protesters stood up to make statements, lead chants and, in at least one case, sing a gospel song.

Some of the business related to the impending eviction: Speakers gave out the phone number for the National Lawyers Guild, which is providing legal support for any protesters arrested in the action, and directed the protesters to reassemble at Our Lady Queen of Angels church on North Main Street if police cleared the encampment at City Hall.

PHOTOS: Occupy L.A. eviction

Other issues ranged farther afield. Speakers urged the audience to go vegan, and the assembly passed a resolution supporting the repeal of "corporate personhood."

by Liz Szabo - USA Today - November 24, 2011

H1N1 strain of the swine flu virus Photograph: Photographer: C. S. Goldsmith an/AP

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed three cases of a new flu virus, which originated in pigs but apparently spread from person to person, in three Iowa children.

However, there's no reason to fear the beginning of a new pandemic, says Arnold Monto, a flu expert and professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

"I don't think this is anything to worry about for the moment," Monto says. "We have known that swine viruses get into humans occasionally, transmit for a generation or two and then stop. The issue is whether there will be sustained transmission (from person to person)- and that nearly never happens."

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Up until now solar panels have fallen a little flat, literally. Whether they're on a house or an industrial solar field in the desert, solar panels have always been one shape: flat. But the world's not and there's no reason why our solar panels should be either.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE AT WEB ADDRESS BELOW)

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/future-solar-power-134303743.html