WASHINGTON – The Pentagon says a U.S. airstrike in Syria last month killed what the Defense Department describes as a senior al-Qaida leader who once had ties to Osama bin Laden. Jeff Davis, identifies the target as Haydar Kirkan. The spokesman says Kirkan oversaw the planning of attacks against Western targets outside of Syria, including in Turkey. Davis says a U.S. drone carried out the airstrike Oct. 17 in the vicinity of Idlib, in western Syria. The U.S. has previously announced that in the week after that airstrike, it hit al-Qaida targets in Yemen and Afghanistan.

Cybersecurity companies are increasingly looking to artificial intelligence tech to improve defense systems and create the next generation of cyber protection. These trends are driving demand for automated cybersecurity, i.e. AI-driven software that can use machine learning and other technologies to differentiate benign or harmful activity on a system or network. We used CB Insights data to understand when artificial intelligence began to be linked to cybersecurity, and we identify 13 companies to watch at the intersection of AI and security. To inform our analysis in the charts below, we used the Trends tool on the CB Insights Platform, which analyzes millions of media articles to track technology trends.

Using Azure, gave them an immediate global reach in a way unthinkable just a few years earlier. Their mission is to bring big data analytics to utilities and smart cities, and one of their focus areas is electric utilities and smart grids. It is a story that combines drones with intelligent software to prevent power blackouts, or as eSmart puts it "making Azure intelligence mobile". The economic impact of blackouts is massive, and the scale of power grids is huge. According to Grid Resilience Report, US Department of Energy, 2011, the average annual cost of power outages caused by severe weather in the USA is anywhere between $18-33 billion.

There is no shortage of attention lately on the "Internet of Things". As a case in point, see the "Developing Innovation and Growing the Internet of Things Act" or "DIGIT Act", i.e., S. 2607, a bill introduced in the Senate on March 1, 2016 and amended on September 28, 2016, "to ensure appropriate spectrum planning and inter-agency coordination to support the Internet of Things" – A companion bill, H.R. 5117, was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 28, 2016. However, since there is no "internet" dedicated to "things", it is fair to state that the Internet of Things does not exist as such. We are left with a definitional vacuum, but it is hammering the obvious to acknowledge that there is no dearth of attempts around the world to fill the gap. Perhaps as a helpful shortcut, we could view the expression as a metaphor that captures the arrival of almost anything and everything, until now out of scope, into the communications space.

They don't experience any emotions at all, really, but on the battlefield, it's the lack of fear that stands out. When ISIS captured Mosul in 2014, they did so with just 2,000 fighters, taking a city of 2 million from a defensive force of 30,000 Iraqi Security Forces. ISIS took Mosul with speed, and they took it with fear. Iraq's armed forces in 2014, especially those guarding Mosul, were under-trained and ill-equipped, and nowhere near as strong as a 15-to-1 numerical advantage suggests. Troops never trained to fire a gun fled, fearing what reprisal from a victorious ISIS insurgent state would mean to themselves and their families.

A special team of analysts has been activated to sort and sift through the cache of newly discovered emails that kick-started the dormant Hillary Clinton email probe, two intelligence sources confirmed to Fox News. The sources say the multi-agency task force was re-engaged over the weekend, with analysts working overlapping shifts covering 16 hours a day to identify new classified material. The objective is to gain more clarity on the records recovered from ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner's computer -- to assess if intelligence sources and methods were compromised and to inform FBI Director James Comey in case he faces more pressure for answers on the state of the investigation. Comey's announcement Friday that the bureau was reviewing newly discovered emails in the Clinton case – discovered during the separate sexting probe of the disgraced former congressman and estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin – drew criticism from Clinton allies who accused him of meddling in the election.

WASHINGTON – Donald Trump blames Mexico and China for stealing millions of jobs from the United States. Despite the Republican presidential nominee's charge that "we don't make anything anymore," manufacturing is still flourishing in America. Problem is, factories don't need as many people as they used to because machines now do so much of the work. America has lost more than 7 million factory jobs since manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Yet American factory production, minus raw materials and some other costs, more than doubled over the same span to $1.91 trillion last year, according to the Commerce Department, which uses 2009 dollars to adjust for inflation.

A battle between the U.S. government and China is now brewing in the market for semiconductors, the foundation of electronics. The U.S. alleges that China is rigging the semiconductor market in its favor by indulging in unfair trade practices. "This unprecedented state-driven interference can distort the market and undermine the innovation ecosystem," Penny Pritzker, U.S. secretary of commerce, said during a Wednesday event organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Chinese government is using its own resources to artificially reduce chip prices, which is hurting global competition, the U.S. alleges. Pritzker called on China to play fair and in accordance with "global trading rules," with healthy competition and free and fair trade, not through state investments aimed at distorting global markets.

The Marine Corps is in the hunt for a mega-drone that can take off and land vertically and deploy aboard ship -- all while carrying a serious amount of firepower. The service is asking a lot as it develops its MUX platform, short for Marine air-ground task force unmanned expeditionary capabilities, with plans to reach initial operational capability by 2026. The Corps' deputy commandant for aviation, Lt. Gen. Jon "Dog" Davis, said Wednesday at the Unmanned Systems Defense conference in Arlington, Virginia, that this future platform -- a Group 5, the largest class of military drone -- will be equipped to fight from sea as well as land. "I would say we're very aggressive with what we want that Group 5 to be," Davis said. "I want my airplane to go off a seabase and, frankly, I think the Group 5 [unmanned aircraft system] for the Marine Corps will have [AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile] on there, will have AIM-9X [Sidewinder missile], will have all the weapons that an F-35 will carry, maybe even the sensors the F-35 will carry."

Carnegie Mellon University announced Wednesday that it's receiving a $10 million endowment from global law firm K&L Gates LLP to establish a new research center focused on the ethics of artificial intelligence. The K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies will support a senior professor and a junior professor, both in ethics and computational technologies. The endowment will also support three doctoral students whose studies relate to the field of ethics and computational science and technology. It will also be used to endow two funds for undergraduate students and to host a biennial conference on the subject. The new endowment comes at a time when the tech community is starting to grapple with the impact that emerging technologies could have on society.