U.S. Attorney General William Barr has issued a guidance to the Department of Justice on the authorization of counter-unmanned aerial system activities under the 2018 Preventing Emerging Threats Act.

DOJ said Monday the guidance covers procedures related to the certification of C-UAS assets and facilities as well as limitations on the use of data obtained from C-UAS operations. Other activities covered by the guidance include acquisition, training and testing.

According to the DOJ, department components must coordinate with the Federal Aviation Administration and the transportation secretary in efforts to assess airspace and safety risks that may result from C-UAS activities.

Barr noted that the guidance serves as the result of “extensive collaboration” between the DOJ, FAA and Department of Transportation.

“The number of unmanned aircraft is increasing rapidly, as is their importance to the economy,” added Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. “By further enabling the Department’s efforts to mitigate threats posed by errant or malicious UAS, the Guidance helps to bring us closer to the larger objective of ensuring all forms of air traffic in the National Airspace System operate lawfully and safely.”

Babel Street, Inc., the world’s data-to-knowledge company, today announced a free tier of Babel Channels to provide support to the COVID-19 relief efforts, the company announced on Wednesday.

Under the new initiative, Babel Channels will provide streaming content of publicly available information (PAI) from curated, hyper-local sources from around the globe. With the solution, organizations can subscribe to up to five channels related to the coronavirus free of cost through June 30, 2020.

The automated solution will enable users to receive information related to COVID-19 in more than 200 languages as it is impacting the world, based on qualified locally-based sources. The solution will use hyper-local voices in more than 350 countries, states, territories and cities around the world.

Babel Channels’ customers will be better equipped to respond to the impacts related to the spread of the virus, misinformation campaigns, supply chain disruptions and counterfeit products. The PAI in Babel Channels includes data pulled from hyper-local news, police and emergency services, health care officials, transportation infrastructure, public utilities, government agencies and elected officials.

The tool will enable users to quickly understand the ground truth related to the coronavirus in a specific region and to gain more control of the situation as it impacts their organization and its people. Babel Channels users can also use Find X, Babel Street’s proprietary search engine that employs its multilingual and text analytics technology.

Current Babel Street customers are able to add seats to their subscription at no cost to keep their full teams up to speed on the global and local impact of the disease.

“Our world is facing unprecedented times with the coronavirus,” said Jeff Chapman, founder and CEO of Babel Street. “We are committed to doing our part in this battle by giving organizations our Babel Channels tool to easily understand ground truth and gain additional knowledge on the local impacts of the pandemic, from the safety of their homes.”

About Babel Street

Babel Street is the world’s data-to-knowledge company. The technology enables clients to identify, organize and analyze data, regardless of its location or language. Babel Street products streamline the process of turning data into knowledge by automatically converting client-selected data from over 200 languages to their native language. All publicly available or private data sources can be rapidly deciphered by Babel Street software and utilized to maximize the effectiveness of clients’ decision-making processes.

With the aid of Babel Street tools, analysts are able to easily filter information to be used in an endless number of ways; everything from deriving large consumer and social trends to identifying threats to a public location or a singular person’s life. The company provides organizations with the ability to activate relevant data and act on it faster than ever before. Babel Street is privately held and is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area, with offices in London and Canberra.

B&A has partnered with Grazie Grazie restaurant to launch its COVID-19 relief effort for the DMV community with the launch of its new meal donation program, B&A says ‘Grazie Grazie,’ providing meals to local healthcare workers in the D.C. area, the company announced on Wednesday.

The company has partnered with the Italian Deli Grazie Grazie to provide meals to local hospital healthcare workers as well as staff the restaurant, enabling it to stay busy enough to keep the kitchen open. The program will be led by Jonathan Evans, B&A president & CEO, and Casey Patten, owner of Grazie Grazie.

“Serving front line hospital workers, which in turn, is helping us keep our team employed during this time is incredible,” stated Patten. The program will stimulate the restaurant and healthcare community.

To determine the communities in need of the program’s services, Evans consulted the Hope for Henry Foundation to identify local hospitals that needed meals provided for their staff that have encountered long hours and contact with the virus firsthand. Since the program launched, the Children’s National Main Hospital ICU evening staff was the first to receive 200 meals on April 14, 2020.

B&A and ‘Grazie Grazie’ will continue to work with the Hope for Henry Foundation team to identify more local hospitals who can benefit from this program. B&A hopes to call on the support of their partners and the GovCon community to help support delivery of meals to other local DMV hospitals in the coming weeks.

“Thanks to the help of the Hope for Henry Foundation, we were able to provide the Children’s National evening ICU staff their first donated meal to kick-start this remarkable program,” said Evans.

For more information on joining the fight, visit B&A says ‘Grazie Grazie’.

About B&A and Grazie Grazie

Founded in 1988, B&A is headquartered in McLean, VA and is a leading information technology systems integrator providing person centric Innovative IT Solutions for the government and private sectors to secure our nation’s borders, facilitate commerce, and support Judiciary and Legislature operations.

Grazie Grazie is a Neighborhood Italian Deli located at 85 District Square SW, Washington, DC 20024 open 11AM-11PM