'White Widow' Sally Jones reportedly killed in U.S. drone strike; Trace Gallagher reports from Los Angeles. When it came to recruiting foreigners to flee the comforts of home for the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, ISIS succeeded like no other -- encouraging more than 40,000 fighters from more than 110 countries to travel to the fighting fray both before and after the declaration of the "caliphate" in June 2014. Subsequently, authorities have warned about the threat of returning jihadists to their homeland and since the falls of Mosul, Raqqa and the rapidly receding footprint of ISIS, such fears have come to the forefront. According to a new report, "Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees," released this week by the Soufan Center -- a Washington-based security intelligence consultancy -- there are now at least 5,600 citizens or residents from 33 countries who have returned home -- accounting for about 15 percent of the fighters. FILE - In this file picture taken on Friday, July 21, 2017, Kurdish soldiers from the Anti-Terrorism Units, carry a blindfolded an Indonesian man suspected of Islamic State membership, at a security center, in Kobani, Syria.

As far as video games go, Operation Overmatch is rather unremarkable. Players command military vehicles in eight-on-eight matches against the backdrop of rendered cityscapes--a common setup of games that sometimes have the added advantage of hundreds of millions of dollars in development budgets. Overmatch does have something unique, though: its mission. The game's developers believe it will change how the U.S. Army fights wars. Overmatch's players are nearly all soldiers in real life.

The Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Summit will bring together technology leaders and top policymakers to explore the state of artificial intelligence and discuss the implications of the AI revolution on global security. Past industrial revolutions led to changes in the balance of power between nations and even the fundamental building blocks of power, with coal- and steel-producing nations benefitting and oil becoming a global strategic resource. The AI revolution has similar transformative potential to alter power dynamics, the character of conflict, and strategic stability among nations and private actors. The United States must anticipate these changes and capitalize on opportunities to stay ahead of competitors. To anticipate these challenges, CNAS' all-day summit will explore technology trends, uncertainties, and possible trajectories for how AI may affect global security.

For centuries, following bloody conflicts, military leaders acknowledged that some weapons were simply too awful to be used, but those same militaries generally continued to use them. The first world war (WWI) saw the successful deployment of chemical weapons on a massive scale for the first time. The horror of millions of dead soldiers, in trenches and on battlefields, shocked nations into signing the Geneva Protocol pledging to refrain from the use of chemical and biological weapons in future wars. Over the past century, the weapons that cause "unjustifiable" suffering in an indiscriminate and "unpredictable" manner have been subject to multilateral treaties that aim to disarm countries that possess them and control or ban the use of these weapons altogether. While some may feel sceptical that these efforts to disarm the world are effective, and challenges to disarmament remain, the disarmament treaties serve a key role in the regulation and reduction in stockpiles, as well as in the testing and use of certain weapons in conflicts.

In the world of state and local government, emerging technologies are always a hot topic. Steve Towns and Joe Morris are two of our content and research experts and they have decided to cover these technologies and more in a recurring video series. The topics of discussion this week are blockchain and artificial intelligence. Think we're hearing a lot more talk about those. We just did some research around that.

Amazon's drone delivery dream is edging closer with a new US program to expand when and how the devices can be tested. President Donald Trump is giving local governments more authority to allow drone tests over crowds, at night, and out of sight of operators, the White House said. In an announcement on Wednesday, the administration said it wants to free up new commercial uses for the craft and create jobs. Amazon and Google's parent company Alphabet are among a growing number of firms hoping to make package delivery by drones a reality. Amazon and Google's parent company Alphabet are among a growing number of companies hoping to make package delivery by drones a reality.

Whatever Americans think about drones filling the big blue skies of these United States, the president is jazzed about the idea of increasing air traffic--and he's working to make it happen. On Wednesday, Donald Trump signed a memo directing the Department of Transportation to create a plan to make it easier to fly a drone for commercial purposes in US airspace. Other countries have pushed ahead with national drone networks, and professional operators in the US have longed yearned to follow them up, up, and away. To that end, the feds are indulging them with a new effort: the Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Pilot Program. This new initiative will likely excite companies like Amazon and 7-Eleven, but this is bigger than getting quick delivery of Soylent or Slurpees.

Consumer enthusiasm for both emerging technology and resilient mature categories is exceeding expectations – driving the U.S. consumer technology industry to an estimated 3.2 percent revenue growth in 2017, earning $321 billion in retail revenues ($251 billion wholesale), according to new research from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). The latest edition of CTA's semi-annual industry report, U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts, also projects drones, OLED TV and virtual reality (VR) technology will each cross the $1 billion revenue milestone for the first time this year. "Driven by consumer demand for the products we already know and love, as well as new, innovative technologies, revenue growth in the consumer technology industry is exceeding expectations," said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. "Not only are breakthrough technologies changing our lives for the better – such as drones delivering medical supplies to remote areas or the use of VR in patient care – tech is also a key driver of the U.S. economy, outpacing GDP growth, and reinforcing America's role as a global leader in innovation." CTA's semi-annual report serves as a benchmark for the consumer technology industry, charting the size and growth of underlying product categories.

Fast-food workers, cashiers, cooks, delivery people and their supporters held a rally outside New York City Hall on May 24, 2017.Erik Mcgregor/Pacific Press/Zuma From the window of his university office in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, philosophy professor Philippe Van Parijs--considered by many to be Europe's most prominent advocate for the idea that the state should provide a regular income to every citizen--can see the mailbox where he sent off invitations to the first "basic income" conference more than 30 years ago. "I'm quite amazed by the seed we threw on the ground now," he says. After decades of obscurity, the idea is suddenly in fashion. Politicians around the world are interested and a handful of governments, such as Finland and the Canadian province of Ontario, are planning or considering basic-income pilot projects. But the idea of basic income has been around for more than 200 years, rising on waves of political and economic turmoil only to disappear in calmer times.

Roundup Welcome to our roundup of major AI news from the past two weeks. Machine learning is so hyped right now, it doesn't help when companies such as Intel and Nvidia announce new chips and reveal little information about the specs, but make lofty claims of increased speed and precision. It's also difficult to keep track of all the different software frameworks and hardware options. Outfits like ARM, AMD, Amazon and Facebook are aware of this and are trying to make it easier to transfer models written in one language to another and optimize the models across various chips. Google's'surprise' Pixel 2 chip It's the first smartphone chip Google has ever designed, and it wasn't announced during the launch of the Pixel 2, which features the new silicon, because, er, it isn't enabled nor supported by applications yet.