Top security officials in the U.S. remain stumped after an unknown fleet of drones breached restricted military airspace for 17 straight days last December.

A new report, first detailed by the Wall Street Journal, says military personnel reported witnessing the mysterious fleet over a stretch of land at Langley Air Force Base along Virginia’s shore. The drones would appear in the sky about 45 minutes to an hour after sunset each night.

Former air force general Mark Kelly was first made aware of the drone sightings in December 2023, the outlet reports. They showed up for 17 consecutive days, with officials at the Pentagon suspecting they might have been deployed by Chinese or Russian agents to spy on the American military.

But because the drones did not pose an imminent threat, and officials at the time weren’t certain if they were being used for nefarious purposes or perhaps it was just wayward hobbyists, the military was prohibited from shooting them down, citing potential risks to troops and civilians.

The White House met with the Defense Department, the FBI and the Pentagon’s UFO office, as well as outside experts, to discuss what to do about the mystery formations, but several solutions, including shooting nets to catch the drones and using electronic signals to jam their navigation systems, also did not make the cut.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the phalanx of drones flew in a precise pattern along the same route each night.

Kelly described the first drone he saw as roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 kilometres an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Kelly said as many as a dozen more drones followed behind and said the drones looked like constellations in the night sky.

It was such an alarming breach that Langley officials cancelled their nighttime training missions and moved their F-22 fighter jets to another base.

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According to Fox News, two months before the fleet emerged over Langley, five mysterious drones reportedly breached restricted airspace over a government nuclear weapons experiment site in Nevada.

The outlet reports that four of the drones were detected by the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site outside Las Vegas, while the fifth was spotted by employees. The Defense Department has yet to publicly state who is behind these drones.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website, “reports of unmanned aircraft (UAS) sightings from pilots, citizens and law enforcement remain high.”

The FAA says it receives more than 100 UAS reports a month.

“The agency wants to send out a clear message that operating drones around airplanes, helicopters and airports is dangerous and illegal. Unauthorized operators may be subject to stiff fines and criminal charges, including possible jail time,” the website states, reminding drone operators to review the rules about where and when a drone is safe to fly.

From July to September of this year, the FAA recorded more than 400 UAS sightings.

&copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs was hit Monday with a new wave of lawsuits accusing him of raping women, sexually assaulting men and molesting a 16-year-old boy. It is the first time he’s been sued by a person alleging they were abused as a minor.

At least six lawsuits were filed against Combs in federal court in Manhattan, adding to a growing list of legal claims against the indicted hip-hop mogul, all of which he has denied. The lawsuits were filed anonymously to protect the identities of the accusers, two by women identified as Jane Does and four by men identified as John Does.

Some of the Does, echoing others who’ve accused Combs in recent months, allege that he used his fame and the promise of potential stardom to entice victims to lavish parties or drug-fueled hangouts where he then assaulted them. Some allege that he beat or drugged them. Others say he threatened to kill them if they didn’t do as he pleased or if they spoke out against him.

The lawsuits describe alleged assaults dating to the mid-1990s, including at Combs’ celebrity-studded white parties in Long Island’s Hamptons, at a party in Brooklyn celebrating Combs’ then-collaborator Biggie Smalls, and even in the storeroom at Macy’s flagship department store in midtown Manhattan.

The plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuits are part of what their lawyers say is a group of more than 100 accusers who are in the process of taking legal action against Combs following his Sept. 16 federal sex trafficking arrest. Plaintiffs’ lawyer Tony Buzbee announced the planned litigation at an Oct. 1 news conference and posted a 1-800 number for accusers to call.

In a statement, Combs’ lawyers slammed those tactics as “clear attempts to garner publicity,” and said the rapper and his legal team “have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone—adult or minor, man or woman.”

Combs, 54, has pleaded not guilty in his criminal case, which involves allegations he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.

Twice denied bail, the Bad Boy Records founder remains locked up at a Brooklyn federal jail while awaiting trial in May. Two judges have concluded that Combs would be a danger to the community if he is released. On Friday, an appeals court judge denied Combs’ immediate release from jail while a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weighs his bail request.

Before Monday’s raft of lawsuits, all of the accusers suing Combs had been adults at the time of their alleged abuse, although a Chicago record producer claimed in a February suit that he had “irrefutable evidence” of Combs sexually abusing minors.

In a lawsuit Monday, a John Doe alleged that Combs fondled his genitals when he was 16 at one of Combs’ white parties in 1998. The man, who now lives in North Carolina, alleges that Combs told him he had “the look” of a star and then abruptly ordered the then-teen to drop his pants.

According to the man’s lawsuit, Combs explained to him that it was a rite of passage to becoming a music star, at one point asking him: “Don’t you want to break into the business?” The man said he complied out of fear, anxiety and a power imbalance he felt with Combs, only realizing later that what he says happened was sexual assault.

Other lawsuits filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan include allegations of rape, forced oral sex and drugging to incapacitate victims.

One of the Jane Does alleges Combs raped her in a locked hotel room in 2004 after he invited her and a friend there for a party, gave them drinks and told them to snort cocaine. The woman, then a college freshman, alleges Combs also forced her friend to perform oral sex on him and threatened their lives if they didn’t comply.

Another Jane Doe alleged Combs violently attacked and raped her in a bathroom in 1995 at a party in Brooklyn for Smalls’ music video, “One More Chance.” Smalls, also known as the Notorious B.I.G., was killed two years later in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles.

According to the woman, Combs brought her into the bathroom to talk privately and started kissing her unexpectedly. When she tried pulling away, she alleges, he slammed her head against the wall, causing her to fall to the floor. She said she tried to escape, but Combs hit her again and raped her.

Afterward, according to the woman, Combs nonchalantly adjusted his clothing and told her: “You better not tell anyone about this, or you will disappear.”

The other John Doe lawsuits allege: Combs sexually assaulted a security guard at a 2006 white party after giving him a drugged beverage; forced a man working for a rival fashion brand to perform oral sex on him in the Macy’s stockroom in 2008; and sexually assaulted a man at a party in October 2021.

The latter man, who suspects a drugged beverage left him unable to fight back, recalls multiple men assaulting him and distinctly recalls seeing Combs above him, naked, at one point during the assault, his lawsuit said.

___

Associated Press journalists Andrew Dalton and Jonathan Landrum Jr. in Los Angeles contributed to this report. ___

This story has been corrected to show that the party celebrating Biggie Smalls was in 1995, not 2005, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

On Thursday night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk set his sights on the future as his sleek, self-driving Cybercab drove through a staged city street at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif. — but the flashy display wasn’t quite enough to truly woo investors.

The Cybercab, a robotaxi, is an autonomous, shiny, two-seater vehicle with double gull-wing doors and no steering wheel or pedals.

At Tesla’s invite-only “We, Robot” event, Musk estimated the consumer cost of a Tesla Cybercab would be about US$30,000 (C$41,250). The billionaire said the vehicle would “probably” be ready to purchase by 2027.

With the relatively low price tag, Musk said autonomous vehicles could be thought of as “individualized mass transit,” with a fuel cost of 20 U.S. cents a mile (12 U.S. cents a kilometre) over time.

The Cybercab’s charging will be inductive and does not require plugs, Musk advertised. (Inductive charging is wireless and uses electromagnetic induction to provide cordless electricity; for example, driving a car onto a charging station to fuel up.)

Despite Musk’s ambitious promises and the positive reaction of the event crowd, investors’ reaction was lukewarm.

Tesla shares fell six per cent before the bell on Friday. The stock, which has been pummelled in recent years — much to do with fears of rival electric vehicle brands eating into Tesla’s market share — has bumped up nearly 50 per cent since April, when Musk announced the shift to robotaxis.

Still, Tesla shares are down eight per cent over the last year, compared with a 33 per cent increase in the broad-market S&P 500 index.

Musk said the company has already produced 21 Cybercabs.

At Thursday’s big-budget event, he also unveiled Tesla’s new Robovan, a self-driving bus-like vehicle that can transport 20 people or a surplus of goods.

Musk imagined the Robovan being used to “solve for high density” transport, like ferrying an entire sports team.

He said the Robovan would also use inductive charging, but did not reveal when the vehicle would begin production, or how much one would cost.

“With autonomy, you get your time back,” Musk said.

He claimed his Cybercab would improve people’s lives by saving them time driving through traffic or looking for a parking spot.

“You can think of a car in the autonomous world being like a little lounge,” he said, adding that Tesla owners of the future could work, watch a movie or spend time on their phones, rather than drive attentively.

Beyond that, Musk boasted that self-driving cars would “save lives and prevent injuries.” He predicted autonomous vehicles would one day be 10 times safer than a human driver, but did not provide any additional information.

Musk did not specify where Tesla plans to produce its two new autonomous vehicle offerings.

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He did, however, predict launching unsupervised full self-driving (FSD) in California and Texas in the company’s Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles by next year. As of now, Tesla only offers a “supervised” version of FSD, which requires a human driver at the ready to steer or brake behind the wheel.

“You could fall asleep and wake up at your destination,” Musk said of full self-driving.

It is unclear if Tesla has already applied for or obtained proper permits to operate autonomous cars on public roads.

Beyond vehicles, Musk appeared excited to show off the company’s humanoid robots. A line of the robots, called Optimus, entered the event space on their own in a single-file line.

In an attempt to prove Optimus is not just a “canned video,” Musk told the crowd the Optimus robots, which served drinks during the event, will “walk among you.” He asked audience members to “be nice” to the robots.

Musk said Optimus could in the future be “something spectacular; something that anybody could own.”

He predicted an Optimus would one day cost “probably US$20,000 to $30,000, long term” (about C$27,500 to $41,250).

Tesla advertised Optimus as an “autonomous assistant” and “humanoid friend.”

“I think this will be the biggest product ever, of any kind,” Musk bragged.

Time will tell if Musk and Tesla are able to deliver on the ambitious promises made during Thursday’s flashy product launch. The company has in the past repeatedly missed deadlines set by Musk, including a 2015 claim that Tesla’s vehicle fleet would reach “full autonomy” within three years. In 2024, this is still not the case.

The Cybercab will be forced to compete with other autonomous vehicles, including the Alphabet-owned Waymo and other Chinese manufacturers. By pursuing a lower-cost technological path for Tesla’s self-driving vehicles, Musk believes the company will be able to scale up far quicker than rivals.

Tesla’s strategy is simpler and much cheaper than that of its rivals but has critical weaknesses. Chief among those is that the AI technology underpinning its self-driving system makes it nearly impossible to pinpoint why a crash or other failure occurred — something that could concern regulators.

Tesla’s rivals use similar AI and camera technology, but layer on so-called redundant systems and more expensive sensors as a safety precaution.

Shares of ride-hailing firms Uber and Lyft were up about four per cent in premarket action, in a sign that Musk’s announcements were not seen as a threat to the companies.

— With files from Reuters

Four cryptocurrency companies and 14 individuals have been charged in what U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday called the first criminal prosecution of financial services firms for market manipulation and sham trading in the crypto sector.

Federal prosecutors in Boston charged the firms Gotbit, ZM Quant, CLS Global and MyTrade and their leaders and employees in a case that also involved charges of people overseas. Five people have agreed to plead guilty or have already done so.

Prosecutors accused the defendants of engaging in the crypto equivalent of stock market “pump and dump” schemes that involved sham trades to artificially inflate the trading volume of various cryptocurrency tokens before selling them off.

Prosecutors said the largest of the companies involved in the various schemes, Saitama, at one point came to have a market value of $7.5 billion, after its leadership began manipulating the market for its tokens and secretly selling them.

Its chief executive, Manpreet Kohli, was arrested on Monday in the United Kingdom. Five other current or former employees were also charged, and three have pleaded guilty.

Others charged were Aleksei Andiunin, the chief executive of Gotbit, a cryptocurrency “market maker” who lived in Russia and Portugal. He was charged along with two of his company’s employees in Russia and could not be reached for comment.

Prosecutors said that from 2018 to 2024, Gotbit engaged in a form of market manipulation called “wash trading” on behalf of several cryptocurrency clients, earning tens of millions of dollars at the expense of investors. In wash trading, a financial asset is bought and sold for the express purpose of misleading the market.

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Prosecutors cited a 2019 interview Andiunin gave in a YouTube view in which he detailed how his business had developed a code to artificially inflate trading volume for tokens for the purposes of getting them listed on crypto exchanges.

Three other individuals residing overseas who worked at cryptocurrency “market makers” that prosecutors said advertised market manipulation services to clients were also charged.

They are Liue Zhou, the Chinese founder of MyTrade, who according to court papers has agreed to plead guilty; Baijun Ou of Hong Kong, who worked at ZM Quant, and Andrey Zhorzhes of the United Arab Emirates, an employee of CLS Global.

They could not be immediately reached for comment.

Others charged were Michael Thompson of Virginia, who worked at a cryptocurrency company called VVZZN founded by a former Saitama employee, and Bradley Beatty of Florida, who prosecutors said fraudulently promoted his crypto company, Lillian Finance.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)