Police, fire, and search-and-rescue teams putting drones to work when minutes matter.
Several San Diego County cities are putting police drones in the air this Fourth of July weekend to enforce a fireworks ban and catch the people who ignore it. Oceanside, Escondido, and Carlsbad updated their ordinances this year to pair steep fines with drone-and-ground patrols, following California cities like Chino and San Bernardino that tried…
Javeayah Harris, a 4-year-old girl, has been missing from Aiken County, South Carolina since the night of June 30, and the search for her now covers more than 3,000 acres. She was last seen around 8:15 p.m. near Hillsboro Street and Ridgecrest Road, wearing Minnie Mouse pajamas with pink beads in her braided hair. Drones…
Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. I have four stories for you this week. First up, the EFF is warning about arming police drones. Then a JetBlue pilot reporting a drone strike at 3,000 feet over JFK. Also, another JFK drone sighting that turns out to be just normal operation. And then lastly, we…
Redmond, Oregon, is replacing its DJI police drones with six Skydio aircraft, and paying for them the way a city buys a fleet of patrol cars: on a five-year financed contract. The city council approved the $410,762 deal with Axon on June 23. The department calls its old fleet obsolete, but the bigger force behind…
A London think tank has assembled the fullest picture yet of the drone incursions that rattled European airbases, airports and nuclear sites since late 2024, and its central claim is serious: Russian intelligence ran a coordinated surveillance campaign launched from vessels in Moscow’s sanctions-dodging “shadow fleet.” The 144-incident dataset is real, the pattern is unsettling,…
Santa Maria’s police department is getting its drone-as-first-responder program off the ground with money raised at a charity gala, not a line in the city budget. The Santa Maria Police Council, a nonprofit booster group, pulled in about $95,000 at its annual fundraiser and is handing the department a $97,869 donation to buy the aircraft.…
Two California cities moved to put police drones in the air the same week, and both ran straight into residents who don’t want them there. West Hollywood launches a sheriff-run drone program by the end of July. Berkeley opens bidding on a public safety package that bundles drones with license plate readers and cameras. DroneXL…
DJI will announce a new enterprise drone on July 8, 2026, at 8 AM EDT. The teaser, published by DJI Enterprise on July 2 under the tagline “For the Priceless Below,” shows a darkened silhouette of a quadcopter with extended landing gear, a gimbal payload slung under the body, and what appears to be a…
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