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Daily Archives: October 3, 2012

The Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program and Homeless Assistance

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CRS – The Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program and Homeless Assistance, Francis X. McCarthy, Analyst in Emergency Management Policy. October 5, 2012

  • “The Emergency Food and Shelter National Board (EFS) Program provides supplemental funding to homeless services providers across the nation. EFS was first authorized by P.L. 100-77, the Stewart B. McKinney-Bruce Vento Homeless Assistance Act (Title III, McKinney-Vento Act), which became law in 1987. Eligible services include the provision of overnight shelter and served meals, assistance to food banks and pantries, one month’s rental or mortgage assistance to prevent evictions, and one month’s utility payments to prevent service cut-offs. Since its inception, the program’s recipient organizations have provided over 2 billion meals, 241 million nights of shelter, 4.3 million rent and mortgage payments, and 5.9 million utility payments. The program is administered by the EFS National Board, which is chaired by the
    Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and is comprised of representatives from the American Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, the National Council of Churches, the Salvation Army, United Jewish Communities of North America, and United Way Worldwide. Two of the program’s distinguishing features are its focus on local decision-making, and its relatively modest administrative costs.”

    • Demystifying Big Data: A Practical Guide to Transforming the Business of Government

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    TechAmerica Foundation’s Big Data Commission report, Demystifying Big Data: A Practical Guide to Transforming the Business of Government “Big Data has the potential to transform government and society itself. Hidden in the immense volume, variety and velocity of data that is produced today is new information, facts, relationships, indicators and pointers, that either could not… Continue Reading

    FTC Halts Massive Tech Support Scams

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    News release: “The Federal Trade Commission has launched a major international crackdown on tech support scams in which telemarketers masquerade as major computer companies, con consumers into believing that their computers are riddled with viruses, spyware and other malware, and then charge hundreds of dollars to remotely access and “fix” the consumers’ computers. At the… Continue Reading

    New GAO Reports – Solar Energy, Batteries and Energy Storage, Ambulance Providers

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    Solar Energy – Federal Initiatives Overlap but Take Measures to Avoid Duplication, GAO-12-843, Aug 30, 2012 Batteries and Energy Storage – Federal Initiatives Supported Similar Technologies and Goals but Had Key Differences, GAO-12-842, Aug 30, 2012 Ambulance Providers – Costs and Medicare Margins Varied Widely; Transports of Beneficiaries Have Increased, GAO-13-6, Oct 1, 2012 Continue Reading

    The U.S. Department of Defense & Global Health

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    Kaiser Foundation, The U.S. Department of Defense & Global Health – September 2012: “This report provides the first comprehensive look at the department’s role in global health, examining its organizational structure, activities, strategy, policy, and budget for activities related to global health. The department has a long history of supporting health and medical activities internationally,… Continue Reading

    NASA map shows the major effects of this summer’s record droughts on vegetation across much of the U.S

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    Yale Environment 360: “A new NASA map shows the major effects of this summer’s record droughts on vegetation across much of the U.S., leaving a swath of parched earth that caused a shortage of food for wild and domesticated animals alike. In the map, which shows the contrast between plant health during August and the… Continue Reading

    The New Bank Resolution Regimes and “Too-Big-to-Fail”

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    The New Bank Resolution Regimes and “Too-Big-to-Fail”. Jennie Bai, Christian Cabanilla, and Menno Middeldorp, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, October 2012 “During the recent financial crisis, the absence of an orderly resolution regime forced governments of several countries to provide extraordinary support to a number of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) that were considered… Continue Reading

    DOE IG Audit of Nuclear Warhead Refurbishment Program

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    Follow-up Audit of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s W76 Nuclear Warhead Refurbishment Program, DOE/IG-0870, September 2012 “The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration is responsible for ensuring that the Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile continues to meet National defense requirements. As part of that effort, NNSA is refurbishing the aging W76 nuclear warhead with the… Continue Reading

    A New Heuristic Measure of Fragility and Tail Risks: Application to Stress Testing

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    Taleb, Nassim N., Canetti, Elie R.D., Kinda, Tidiane, Loukoianova, Elena and Schmieder, Christian, A New Heuristic Measure of Fragility and Tail Risks: Application to Stress Testing (August 2012). IMF Working Paper No. 12/216. Available at SSRN “This paper presents a simple heuristic measure of tail risk, which is applied to individual bank stress tests and… Continue Reading

    Google Launches Free Tag Manager

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    Google Analytics: “Over the past few years, we’ve seen massive improvements in digital marketing sophistication and capabilities. Today there’s a rich suite of tools allowing marketers to gain better insights, reach audiences in new ways, and develop improved marketing campaigns so users have better web experiences. Yet many modern marketing tools—like web analytics, conversion tracking,… Continue Reading

    Investigative Report Criticizes Counterterrorism Reporting, Waste at State & Local Intelligence Fusion Centers

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    News release: “A two-year bipartisan investigation by the U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has found that Department of Homeland Security efforts to engage state and local intelligence “fusion centers” has not yielded significant useful information to support federal counterterrorism intelligence efforts. “It’s troubling that the very ‘fusion’ centers that were designed to share… Continue Reading