Free Republic

China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, known collectively as CRINK, are seeking to undermine U.S. leadership by weakening the rules-based international order. Human rights violations and trafficking at the Alabuga complex in the Russian town of Yelabuga illustrate the increasingly complex ties among the CRINK regimes. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 created a demand for drones that Moscow could not initially meet. Its answer was an arrangement to manufacture the Iranian-designed Shahed on Russian soil. This report contends that the burgeoning labor force that powers the Alabuga drone factory has become a site of gross human rights...

Carolyn Marvin was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after blocking the path of an Uber delivery robot and refusing to get out of the way. Marvin told Philadelphia’s ABC13 “I know they’re taking the jobs of human delivery workers and so, I have been protesting them whenever I saw them by standing in front of them and preventing them from going forward.” Police responded to the scene and asked Marvin to move out of the robot’s way. When she refused, they placed her in cuffs and arrested her. The incident was captured on video and has now garnered considerable...

Ukrainian attacks set an oil export terminal ablaze in St. Petersburg on Sunday, as Kyiv launched more than 1,000 drones across Russia in one of its largest ever aerial bombardments. The attack comes amid deepening tensions between Ukraine and Washington, with U.S. President Donald Trump criticizing Kyiv for its strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. One person was killed and five more were wounded in the attack, which sparked fires at both the Petersburg Oil Terminal and the city’s Ruchi oil depot, said local Gov. Alexander Beglov. A logistics center belonging to Russian retailer Ozon and a data center for local...

"The first shotgun we have is the Benelli M4 drone guardian. This shotgun is based on the famous Benelli M4, but what makes it special is the advanced impact barrel, which has a series of overboards, forcing cones, and extra-long choke tubes to maximize the velocity of our tungsten shot. This tungsten shot was specially designed for drone use. It's a very hard material, and it gives us that penetrating capability at about 100 meters. We can take down class one, class 2 drones at about 100 meters using the Benelli M4 with the Norma Adler shotgun shells. We also...

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A Center City woman was arrested after allegedly refusing to move out of the path of a delivery robot. The confrontation was captured on video and has since drawn online attention. Philadelphia police said officers responded to the 1200 block of Filbert Street after witnesses reported a disturbance involving Carolyn Marvin and an Uber delivery robot near Reading Terminal Market. According to police, Marvin repeatedly blocked the robot's path and ignored multiple commands from officers to move. She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Marvin tells Action News she was protesting the use of delivery robots...

A former Drug Enforcement Agency agent was indicted on federal charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel. Paul Campo, who was a DEA agent for nearly 25 years, his associate Robert Sensi, are accused in a new indictment unsealed Friday of converting cash into cryptocurrency to buy 220 kilograms of cocaine, worth $5 million, and launder $750,000 in proceeds from drug sales for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG. The State Department designated CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York allege...

ROWLETT, TX - Zipline, an American robotics company that designs, manufactures and operates the world’s largest autonomous delivery system, has expanded the number of brands available in Texas. Eligible customers near Rowlett, Texas, can now order food from 16 brands, including Walmart, Crumbl Cookies, Little Caesars Pizza, Popeyes, Blaze Pizza, and local favorites Village Coffee by Altara and Torta shell Taqueria.

Yemen-based Ansar Allah, widely known as the Houthis, continues to have a profound impact on global security. The group’s ongoing operations in the Red Sea affected an estimated US $1 trillion worth of maritime cargo between October 2023 and May 2024, and despite periodic kinetic attacks, its operations show no signs of abating. Moreover, evidence suggests the Houthis enjoy the financial and military backing of Russia and China, in addition to their established ties with Iran. This Insight explores the Houthis’ financing mechanisms, including leveraging technology to evade sanctions and the involvement of foreign facilitators with demonstrable and plausible ties...

FORT HUACHUCA - The Shadow RQ-7Bv2 unmanned aircraft which lost connectivity with the ground station here Jan. 31 was found today by a hiker in the mountains west of Evergreen, Colorado. No one was injured, but the aircraft has sustained damage. Soldiers from Fort Carson, Colorado, along with Clear Creek County and Jefferson County, Colorado, Sheriff Departments are currently assisting with security and recovery efforts. Search efforts were aided by the National Radar Forensics Team at 1st Air Force's Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, which specializes in tracking lost and/or downed aircraft. The team...

The FBI shared new information Friday pertaining to President Donald Trump's would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, releasing text messages he shared with an unidentified person related to a 3D printer he used to build a firearm. The information was released through a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act request and contained text messages the bureau determined were "pertinent" to the investigation.The 20-year-old fired on Trump in July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a presidential campaign speech, grazing his ear, and seen live on TV. An attendee at the rally was killed while attempting to shield his family. Crooks, who fired...

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI began examining Ellaboudy after receiving information that he had purchased precursor chemicals, components and other materials associated with improvised explosive devices. Investigators also found purchases of parts used to construct drones and remotely operated aerial systems. The complaint alleges that Ellaboudy took sick leave in December 2024 after claiming exposure to highly concentrated nitric acid, a chemical that can be used in explosive materials. In September 2025, prosecutors say, he used an official passport issued during earlier employment with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to travel from Washington state to...

A squad of Ukrainian “kamikaze ground robots” airdropped behind enemy lines have taken out 3,000 Russian soldiers and reclaimed 48 square miles of occupied territory in Donetsk, officials announced. The secretive mission, dubbed “Operation Vivaldi,” began in May and wrapped up last week, when the Third Army Corps of the Ukraine’s Armed Forces made details of the feat public. “An historic moment,” it boasted on Telegram Thursday. “The Third Army Corps has begun a new stage of the war with the landing of ground robots.” The operation recaptured five villages and three settlements in the contested region of Donetsk in...

It's the headline I've waited since I was probably seven years old to read: "US military spending $500M on ‘war-ready’ laser weapons — and zapping drones in Iran, along US border." That's 50 years, folks, and totally worth the wait.According to the New York Post — your go-to newspaper for words like "zapping" in the headline — "Iranian citizens have witnessed some dazzling laser shows recently," because "US military has been deploying lasers in the Strait of Hormuz to knock out regime hardware."The Department of War said this week that lasers disable "drones and incoming cruise missiles at a much...

The US has warned southern states of a possible Moscow attack that would see Russia fire 600 km-range drones from commercial ships at Spain, France and Italy. We examine what is known and how the threat is mounting. US intelligence services have shared a report with several European countries pointing to a possible Russian operation using drones against targets in Spain, France or Italy, according to Spanish media. The information was first revealed by journalist Xavier Colás — a former Russia correspondent — in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. It traces the origin of the alert to CIA director John...

Trump wants to preserve relations with Xi, but Iranian customs data show Chinese entities have made thousands of shipments of components used in drones and missiles This summer, when the U.S. and Iran signed a temporary truce, China touted its role in easing tensions in the Middle East. It said its foreign ministry made dozens of calls to nudge peace along, and that President Xi Jinping himself had intervened with suggestions to end the fighting.That same day, a plane from China landed in Tehran. It carried a shipment for Iran’s Ministry of Defense that included electronics components that can be...

Step outside in the right Richardson neighborhood and you will hear it before you see it: a high-pitched whirr cutting through the afternoon. Your neighbor just ordered something from Amazon, and it will arrive in 30 minutes. The sound, according to residents under the flight paths, does not stop after one delivery. Amazon's Prime Air drone program has moved well past the pilot stage in Richardson, Texas. The gap between the company's framing and what some residents describe living beneath it has become the defining tension of the rollout, according to New York Times reporting dated September 21, 2026. How...

President Trump said on Sunday that he has agreed to convert plans for a massive triumphal arch into a "top grade Military Complex," equipped with snipers and drone storage. "At the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch, planned since the Civil War Era many years ago, at the Receptive Circle adjoining the Arlington Memorial Bridge, into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch," Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Work on the 250-foot-tall arch was expected to begin this month, with plans to...

North Korea has been found to be dispatching workers to a drone factory in Russia to produce military drones for the country. The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT), comprising 11 countries including South Korea, the United States, and Japan, released a report today (September 16) titled "DPRK Sanctions Evasion and Violations of UN Security Council Resolutions: Overseas Labor." The MSMT was launched to fill the gap in monitoring sanctions against North Korea following the dissolution of the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea Panel of Experts in 2024, and this marks its third report. According to the report,...

From the gun cabinet of his shooting range, Volodymyr Sukhomlyn pulls out a semiautomatic shotgun. **SNIP** Not an easy target “But more recently it’s been bus drivers and cabbies buying them, too — anyone who is out on the streets a lot.” One FPV attack this month injured several people at a supermarket, leaving the floor stained with blood. Another ploughed into the upper floors of a government building downtown. “I heard it coming and we had to hide in a shop when it exploded,” said Julia Sologub, 31. “It used to be just a problem for soldiers — now...

An elite group of Ukrainian drone operators is hunting Russians from desert dugouts across Africa, as Kyiv wages a proxy war to bleed strongman Vladimir Putin’s global army. Moscow has deployed about 5,000 troops across Mali, Sudan and Libya to back coup-installed military dictatorships and warlords since 2020 — as Putin has tried to fill the void left by Western forces’ withdrawal and assert himself as a power player — often in exchange for lucrative mining rights. And Ukraine has worked alongside local rebels to fight off those same Russians forces in an effort to forge new alliances against Moscow....