As The Chinese Fleet Gathers, Taiwan Deploys Drones And Ship-Sinking F-16s

The Chinese navy finally is mobilizing for its much-ballyhooed naval war game in the South China Sea. A war game that could include both of the fleet’s aircraft carriers and might, among other scenarios, simulate an amphibious assault on a Taiwanese island outpost.

Taiwan for months has been preparing for the exercise. The Taiwanese marine corps sent reinforcements to a strategic island group. The Taiwanese air force began loading live Harpoon anti-ship missiles on some of its F-16 fighters. Now F-16s are staging at one island outpost while a contingent of naval drones has arrived at another island base.

The motivation behind Taipei’s response is obvious. A Chinese war game could, in an instant, turn into an actual invasion of Taiwan. And even if it doesn’t, the upcoming concentration of Chinese forces represents a rare opportunity for Taiwanese intelligence to register Chinese ships and their capabilities.

The drones could detect signs that the Chinese war game is transforming into an actual invasion—and then feed targeting data to Taiwanese forces attacking the invaders. If the exercise remains an exercise, the UAVs could stay busy inspecting the potentially dozens of PLAN ships that might gather for the training.

If the simulated war does turn into a real war, Taiwan’s first line of defense could be its F-16 fighters with their Harpoon anti-ship missiles. F-16s have deployed to Penghu to replace the F-CK-1 fighters that were on the island.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/08/27/as-the-chinese-fleet-gathers-taiwan-deploys-drones-and-ship-sinking-f-16s/#16ff79fe5a51

Federal contractor taps Google Cloud AI and ML to inspect US Navy vessels

Google on Thursday announced that it will be working with a federal government contractor to help the US Navy modernize the way it maintains and repairs its vessels and facilities. More specifically, the contractor, Simple Technology Solutions (STS), will use Google Cloud's AI and machine learning technologies to analyze drone-captured images of vessels and facilities.

STS is a small business that specializes in building multi-cloud systems for the federal government. It won the deal with the US Navy through the Small Business Innovation Research program, which is open to US businesses with no more than 500 employees.

Google declined to say how much the deal was worth to STS or to Google. However, it noted that the Navy currently spends billions per year on maintaining and repairing its fleet of vessels and other platforms like aircraft and facilities.

During the first phase of the project, STS will use Google Cloud AutoML to build models to identify corrosion on vessels. They'll use tens of thousands of images from the public domain as well as images captured by drones. Then, STS will work with corrosion experts within the Navy to label and train data using Google Cloud's AI Platform Data Labeling Service. From there, STS will iteratively train, validate and improve the models using custom inspection drone flight data. It plans to use Google Cloud Storage for processing the data.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/federal-contractor-taps-google-cloud-ai-and-ml-to-inspect-us-navy-vessels/

Luftwaffe Bombardier Global 5000 out of Toronto Pearson

Reg.:14+02

Country:Germany

Type code:GL5T

Type Desc.:L2J

Squawk:0501

Speed:521 kt

Altitude:29,000 ft

Vert. Rate:-64 ft/min

Track:147.0°

Pos.:41.963°, -78.887°

Distance:618.6 NM

Portuguese monitoring something over there airport using UAV

Speed:74 kt

Altitude:950 ft

Vert. Rate:64 ft/min

Track:148.9°

Pos.:39.091°, -8.965°

Distance:3532.7 NM

These 19- and 21-year-old women trafficked girls for sex, prosecutors say

Two young women posted nude photos of underage girls on websites in order to sell the children for sex, and rented Airbnbs almost a dozen times so that clients and victims could meet, prosecutors say. When one victim didn’t want to participate, they allegedly plied her with pills.

The age of the two alleged madams? 19 and 21.

Kiara Nunez, 21, of Hollywood, and Alexandra Ramirez, 19, of Coral Springs, appeared Wednesday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale to face charges of child sex trafficking.

The government accuses the pair of selling two girls, one as young as 15, for sex at hotels and Airbnbs across South Florida between October 2019 and February 2020.

Both of the children had been reported missing by their families.

Authorities initially became suspicious of Nunez and Ramirez after they conducted a sting operation at a Fort Lauderdale hotel on Jan. 29.

In that encounter, an undercover officer attempting to purchase sex via an online advertisement contacted Nunez by telephone and negotiated a “two-girl special,” according to a criminal complaint

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/fl-ne-two-young-broward-women-charged-sex-trafficking-minors-20200827-l5wbvwpmgzfcbk4daa2kp2xwpa-story.html'

Suspect on FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives for murder of daughters captured in Texas

A Texas taxi driver wanted for the brutal murder of his two teenage daughters was captured “without incident” Wednesday after 12 years on the run.

Yaser Abdel Said, the 63-year-old Egyptian man who has been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since December 2014, was taken into custody in Justin, Texas, the FBI’s Dallas Field Office announced.

On New Year’s Day, 2008, Said convinced his estranged daughters — Amina, 18, and Sarah, 17 — to let him take them out for a meal, according to the FBI. Instead, Said allegedly picked them up in his taxi and drove them to a remote location, then shot each girl multiple times.

One sister was able to make a 911 call during the brutal bloodshed and “was heard screaming for help, saying she and her sister were being shot by their father,” according to the FBI.

Their bodies were discovered inside the cab outside a hotel in Irving, Texas.

A day later, a warrant was issued for Said’s arrest, but he was already gone.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-20200827-f4v6q7l2wbffnofqattzyl7cfu-story.html