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Two weeks after a group of drone manufacturers, users, and other organizations appealed to the White House for a collaborative approach to accelerating the development of drone technology, President Donald Trump on Oct. 25 signed a memo aiming to accelerate low-altitude testing of package delivery and other advanced applications. AOPA was among the 29 organizations signing the Oct. 11 appeal to ease some of the regulatory obstacles to developing a technology that has the potential to create jobs and spur an industry with multibillion-dollar potential. The executive memorandum directs Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao to create a program to...

Mexican police discovered four men carting a kamikaze drone equipped with an IED and a remote detonator last week, in what analysts say is an example of cartels figuring out how to weaponizing UAVs. The disturbing development is a manifestation of something top American security chiefs warned Congress about earlier this year, when they said they feared terrorists would begin to use drones to attack targets within the U.S.

The 3-1 vote was met by jeers from dozens of people who crowded the Police Commission’s meeting room, many of whom repeatedly urged the civilian oversight panel to reject the proposal. “Shame on you!” some shouted. “Shame on you!” That frustration spilled outside the LAPD’s downtown headquarters as protesters settled in the middle of 1st and Main streets, chanting and holding signs as they denounced the decision. Officers ultimately led four people away in handcuffs. Drones have been hailed by law enforcement across the country as a valuable technology that could help find missing hikers or monitor armed suspects without...

Las Vegas Shooter Targeted Secret Government Planes In Addition To Victims Stephen Paddock ‘might have held anti-American views,’ expert says. By Radar Staff Posted on Oct 5, 2017 @ 13:27PM Las Vegas Shooter Targeted Secret Government Planes In Addition To Victims thumbnail Las Vegas madman Stephen Paddock not only targeted innocent concertgoers — but also seemingly the hanger for the U.S. government’s super secret JANET airlines. Law enforcement sources exclusively told RadarOnline.com that just afield of the two massive, circular fuel tanks at which Paddock fired, lies the shadowy terminal for JANET. “JANET is essentially an airline that doesn’t exist,”...

The US Navy has launched its first ever squadron of unmanned undersea vehicles to assist them in battle. The Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron (UUVRON) will likely be the first of many military units to make use of robots under the sea, according to reports. While there is a fleet of underwater robots put to use by the Navy, they serve a scientific, survey purpose and are operated by the Military Sealift Command for the Naval Oceanographic Office. UUVRON 1 will take on different duties that include a supportive role with US Navy warships and submarines. According to a Discovery magazine...

Daniel Parfitt thought he’d found the perfect drone for a two-day mapping job in a remote patch of the Australian outback. The roughly $80,000 machine had a wingspan of 7 feet and resembled a stealth bomber. There was just one problem. His machine raised the hackles of one prominent local resident: a wedge-tailed eagle.

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Congress on Wednesday that terrorist groups are looking to use drones to wage attacks in the U.S. “I think we do know that terrorist organizations have an interest in using drones,” Wray testified in a hearing for the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. “We’ve seen that overseas already with growing frequency. I think the expectation is that it’s coming here imminently. I think they are relatively easy to acquire, relatively easy to operate, and quite difficult to disrupt and monitor,” Wray added.

The Secret Service is facing a "grave" threat to President Trump from a new wave of high-tech weapons including armed drones, plastic guns made on 3-D printers and even sophisticated IEDs, according to a new alert issued by a former agent. "This threat is grave," Dan Bongino told Secrets. The author of a new book on the Secret Service that calls for a seismic change of thinking at the agency, Bongino said terrorists are eager to unleash an attack on their "ultimate prize." New age threats include weaponized drones delivered in "swarms" that could attack the White House or any...

Predator C Avenger Drone (Image: General Atomics) India has plans to buy 100 jet propelled Avenger predator drones from the US costing an estimated $8 billion for the Indian Air Force (IAF). Besides joint projects under the bilateral Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), in her first major engagement with a foreign counterpart, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman talks on September 26 with the US officials will focus on India-US defence cooperation, maritime security, avenger predator drones, counter-terrorism and other major issues of mutual concern, the sources added. Issues related to American defence companies seeking guarantees of retaining control of propriety...

For the first time in history, investments in drones--those buzzy airborne gadgets that used to be called UAVs--have crossed a billion dollars. $1.2 billion has already been invested in unmanned aerial tech in 2017 so far, according to CB Insights. When I invested in a drone startup last year, there was only about $600 million in venture capital deployed. Drone pilots still had to be licensed like fixed-wing aircraft. "In the past several years, the drone space has crossed the threshold from being driven by hobbyists and experimentalists to being largely enterprise-dominated," says John Frankel, founder at FFVC, a New...

Tanzania’s government is working with U.S. logistics company Zipline to launch what they call the world’s largest drone delivery service for emergency medical supplies. In the first quarter of 2018, Tanzania’s government will begin using drones to make up to 2,000 deliveries per day to more than 1,000 health facilities, Zipline said in a statement Thursday. The service will be crucial in times of unexpected demand or bad weather and for small but critical orders, said Laurean Bwanakunu, director-general of Tanzania’s national medical stores. Since October 2016, Zipline has been operating a similar drone delivery service in Rwanda for emergency...

A US Air Force MQ-1 Predator drone has crashed in southeast Turkey, the Incirlik Air Base has confirmed. This is the second drone crash in four days involving Predators flown from the joint US-Turkish base near the Syrian border. Monday’s crash happened around 11:50 am local time (0850 GMT), the 39th Air Base Wing said in a statement. No further information about the incident was made available. Another Predator crashed shortly after taking off from Incirlik on Thursday evening, ending up in a field near the city of Adana. That drone was retrieved by US and Turkish officials, the 39th...

The US decision to sell 22 Sea Guardian drones to India at an estimated cost of $2 billion will create around 2,000 jobs in the US and “cement” bilateral ties, an American executive involved in the deal has said. “This should be viewed as a significant step in cementing the US-India bilateral defence relationship,” Vivek Lall, chief executive US and international strategic development, General Atomics, told the Atlantic Council on Friday. Lall echoed Senator John Cornyn, Co-Chair of the Senate India Caucus, who tweeted, “Drone Sale Would Cement US-India Ties.” The announcement in this regard was made by Trump in...

Military drones such as the U.S. Predator and Reaper have soared above battlefields for more than a decade. But small consumer drones that anyone can buy online have also begun to make their presence felt in modern battlefields. The militant group Islamic State has begun turning such small drones into flying bombs in their battles across Syria and Iraq. Islamic State has used ordinary camera-carrying drones for surveillance and to film their suicide car bomb attacks for years. But the militants have more recently begun weaponizing the small drones by packing them with explosives, according to the New York Times....

The laser, known as the Laser Weapons System (LaWS), may seem as though it were pulled straight from a James Bond movie, but it's entirely functional and can shoot with stunning accuracy, the U.S. Navy told CNN. The LaWS is currently deployed aboard the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport ship, in the Persian Gulf. "Operationally, it works just like a laser pointer," Lt. Cale Hughes, a LaWS officer, told CNN. "There's a chamber inside with special materials that release photons." ... The $40 million system requires a team of three to operate it and a small generator to power its...

WASHINGTON – It used to be that firefighters’ biggest worries in a wildfire might be unpredictable winds, rocky terrain and scorching heat. That was before the advent of affordable, readily available aerial drones. Firefighters battling the Goodwin Fire in central Arizona had to suspend operations twice in one week after drones flew into airspace over the blaze, incursions that one official called “extremely unusual” but which he fears is the beginning of a “very disturbing trend.” Drone incursions into airspace that is restricted to helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes, which drop water and fire-retardant chemicals, forces them to be grounded to...

One of the drone companies whose representatives met with President Donald Trump at the White House last week is optimistic that regulations will be created that will help the drone industry take off in the United States. Measure CEO and co-founder Brandon Torres Declet joined CEOs of large corporations and startups at the White House on June 22 in what the company characterized as an open and constructive conversation about drones and the future of the industry. Leaders from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile also took part in the meetings last week. The drone industry is in that peculiar position...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wants drones regulated, and she wants them regulated now. And, along with strong bi-partisan support, the goal is to have them primarily regulated at the state and local level. It won’t happen in Washington. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled last month the Federal Aviation Authority lacks authority to regulate drone use by hobbyists or to require they register their drones in a national database, and legislation the senator introduced to regulate drones in the last Congress went nowhere. So she has opted for another approach. She has joined forces with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.,...

The best medicine for a person who goes into sudden cardiac arrest is an electric shock. That jolt temporarily stops the heart, along with its rapid or erratic beat. When the heart starts itself up again, it can revert to its normal rhythm and resume pumping blood to the brain and the rest of the body. The sooner this happens, the better.

In Urgent Request, US Special Ops Adds 350 Kamikaze Drones to Fight ISIS And that's not all. The command is also opening a drone-hacker lab to help keep up with ISIS weaponeers. TAMPA, Florida — Here’s how Mad Max the situation in Iraq is right now. Earlier this year, the military put out an urgent request for inexpensive kamikaze drones that special operations troops could fire from handheld bazooka-like launchers against ISIS, according to documents obtained by Defense One. It’s another sign that drone warfare is changing far faster than traditional military equipping can keep up, a fact reinforced this...