Washington, DC - Hurricane Harvey and Irma have been bad news to all in their paths. Lives have sadly been lost, houses demolished and personal items blown or washed away. Such horrific acts of nature remind us that we are all fragile and vulnerable. The right wind and rain can wash everything away including us and people we love so much.

Norfolk, Virginia - The amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) and the amphibious transport dock ship USS New York (LPD 21) departed Naval Station Norfolk Sept. 8 to support possible humanitarian relief operations in the wake of Hurricane Irma.

Gaithersburg, Maryland - The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Football League (NFL), GE (NYSE: GE), and Under Armour (NYSE:UA, UAA), today announced that a collaborative team of materials designers led by Dynamic Research Inc. has been selected as the grand prize winner of Head Health Challenge III.

Washington, DC - If you have any influence over influencers, alert them to three developments, including the FTC’s first law enforcement action against individual online influencers for their role in misleading practices. According to the FTC, Trevor Martin and Thomas Cassell – known on their YouTube channels as TmarTn and Syndicate – deceptively endorsed the online gambling site CSGO Lotto without disclosing that they owned the company.

Vladivostok, Russia - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today joined leaders from Japan, South Korea, Russia, China and more than a dozen other countries at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia where he pushed businesses and governments to join forces not just on trade and investment but also on the decarbonization of the economy.

Washington, DC - U.S. cooperation with the European Commission, facilitated by the Department of State, allowed for rapid activation of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) over the Texas and Louisiana coasts affected by Category-4 Hurricane Harvey, the largest recorded rainstorms ever to hit the contiguous United States. This service has provided local, state, and federal disaster managers with free, real-time, all-weather radar satellite images of the affected areas; we are grateful to our European partners, including the European Space Agency and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, for their assistance during this challenging time.