Free Republic

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....

Fierce battles have raged in and around the city since May, when Russian forces launched a surprise attack across the border, opening a new front. -snip- The soldier was injured by a sniper and found himself holed up in the basement of a bombed-out building with other men from his unit, sheltering from persistent drone attacks. The only route to safety was along a 50-metre path under the fire control of Ukraine's army. "Fifty metres, no more say those who managed to cross that distance in our direction," he wrote in his blog. "The path is blocked by debris, construction...

Retired NYPD officer James Smith watched a drone show of 2,977 lights recreate the Twin Towers to honor every single person killed in the September 11 attacks, including his wife Moira Smith.

McAllen, Texas — Less than two weeks after the military first used a high-energy laser weapon system to down suspicious drones, military officials told CBS News there has been a roughly 75% decrease in the number of drones probing the southern border in the Rio Grande Valley. The system made its debut by taking down three drones on Aug. 25 and 26 after months of training, including an episode that caused the Federal Aviation Administration to briefly shut down El Paso's airport earlier this year. Since then, military officials told CBS News there is regular coordination with the FAA to...

🚨 WOW! There has been a -75% DROP in drone activity along the US-Mexico border Rio Grande Valley after the US military deployed a "high-energy LASER WEAPON SYSTEM" — CBS Many of these same drones are linked to the CARTELS Bad*ss 🔥🔥 The first use of this weapon to down drones was less than 2 weeks ago. The drones plummeted after that SecWar Pete Hegseth and President Trump are MILITARIZING our border after Democrats opened the floodgates for 4 years 👏🏻 I voted for every second of this.

YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CAbZRpy4tQ Excellent interview of Palmer Luckey.

BERLIN—Germany accused Russia of being behind a plot to send explosive drones to a German airport last month and pledged to retaliate against Moscow, a rare public attribution of blame in the widening campaign of incursions and sabotage across NATO territory. “We do not consider ourselves at war but we are the daily target of hybrid warfare,” said German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, announcing the findings Tuesday from an investigation into the incident at Germany’s Leipzig airport last month, for which he said Russia was responsible. The drone incident marked a serious escalation in what European security and military officials...

On Dec. 13 last year, a stranger in a Brown University bathroom noticed a man dressed head to toe in black, wrong for the weather, mere hours before that same man opened fire on Brown University’s campus, killing two and wounding eight before vanishing. Investigators had almost nothing: no name, no plate, just a tip describing a gray Nissan with Florida plates. But that was enough: Providence police ran it through a network of more than 70 Flock Safety cameras, which reached back through 30 days of history, and found the car had passed 14 times since Dec. 1. “We...

The U.S. military this week used a laser to shoot down three drones along the U.S.-Mexico border that were allegedly operated by drug cartels, the Pentagon said Thursday. The three unmanned aircraft systems were shot down late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning using an "Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser system," according to U.S. Northern Command, which is responsible for overseeing certain military defense operations in North America. The drones were downed by the U.S. military's southern border Joint Task Force, a unit of USNORTHCOM, which did not specify exactly where the drones were shot down, or which cartels they...

Residents of Kyiv are sleeping once again in overcrowded metro stations or in cars in underground garages. Above, the air war is turning into a turkey-shoot. Russia is bombarding the city with ever more ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Ukraine, which had previously thwarted most such attacks with Patriot anti-missile batteries, is “going Winchester”—military jargon for running out of ammunition. Ukraine’s plight is the most acute sign of the West’s shortage of interceptors. America’s depleted arsenal also helps explain why President Donald Trump has repeatedly retreated from threats to return to war with Iran. America’s allies are alarmed. Switzerland expects its...

TAMPA, Fla. — On Aug. 13, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced efforts to establish the first-ever multi-domain, multinational attack drone task force. The unit, called Task Force Falcon Strike, will employ one-way attack drones consisting of unmanned systems from above, on, and below the sea operated by military support staff from the United States and regional partners. Falcon Strike’s launch occurs nine months after CENTCOM established Task Force Scorpion Strike, the U.S. military's first dedicated one-way attack drone squadron in the Middle East. Scorpion Strike rapidly achieved key operational milestones, including the first-ever launch of an aerial attack drone from...

U.S. Central Command has unveiled Task Force Falcon Strike, a new multinational attack drone force for the Middle East. This unprecedented initiative integrates U.S. and regional militaries to deploy unmanned one-way attack systems across air, surface, and sub-surface environments. The move comes amid rising Iranian and Houthi drone attacks, prompting CENTCOM to seek a unified, multi-domain deterrent. Allies are being invited to join this coalition, which builds upon earlier U.S.-only efforts like Task Force Scorpion Strike. Falcon Strike will utilize advanced autonomous systems, including USVs, UUVs, and UAS, marking a significant shift towards a more aggressive, collective defense posture in...

Grok Summary of Video Transcript:Summary of MaxAfterBurner's Breaking News Video on B-52 Bombers and Venezuela TensionsIn this YouTube video dated around November 20, 2025, former fighter pilot Ryan (MaxAfterBurner) provides a real-time briefing on U.S. B-52 Stratofortress bombers reportedly heading south toward the Caribbean, potentially as a show of force amid escalating tensions with Venezuela's Maduro regime. He speculates on their mission, flight path, and role in a possible conflict, while analyzing target packages briefed to President Trump on November 18. The tone is informal, speculative, and pro-U.S. intervention, emphasizing regime change over endless war.Key Developments and ContextB-52 Deployment: Two...

Russian soldiers are operating drones over Venezuela as part of a search operation for members of a paramilitary force that led a botched invasion this week, local media reported on Friday, citing deleted tweets from a state military command centre. At least eight Russian special forces members will be “operating drones to run search and patrol operations” near La Guaira, the coastal state just north of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, according to a report from local news outlet El Nacional. It posted a screenshot of a tweet it said was later deleted on Thursday from the profile of the military command,...

The UK Ministry of Defense has discovered that the Royal Navy’s new fleet of spy drones, being operated by elements of the Royal Marines since March, have been secretly transmitting information from the drone’s primary camera to China, according to an investigation from The Telegraph. Components of the camera on the K3 Scout, a 27-foot-long multirole uncrewed surface vessel (drone boat) built by Kraken Technology in the United Kingdom, were produced in and secretly transmitting data to a device in China. An investigation into the drones revealed that the cameras were transmitting “heartbeat communications” – data to confirm they were...

With shark sightings on the rise along much of the Northeast coast this summer, the New York Police Department (NYPD) is using drones to patrol city beaches, giving lifeguards an aerial view to spot sharks before they get too close to swimmers. The NYPD’s Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) uses drones for a wide range of public safety missions — from rescuing distressed swimmers and assisting search-and-rescue operations to monitoring crowded beaches and tracking sharks offshore. Working alongside lifeguards, officers in the specialized, high-tech unit patrol the skies above city beaches, providing a precautionary aerial line of defense against the...