U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker responds to the'reckless threatening' on'Fox & Friends First' amid a rush to transfer patriot missiles to Ukraine. Days ahead of the U.S. preparing harsh new sanctions tied to the war in Ukraine, Russian Vladimir Putin, whether intentionally or just carelessly, has tested the political will of NATO's collective defense guarantee, Article 5. In recent days, drones launched from the Russian-aligned state of Belarus have pierced Lithuanian airspace, drawing alarms from the region's political and military leaders. One drone traversed approximately 100 kilometers, loitered ominously over Vilnius carrying two kilograms of explosives and ultimately crashed inside a military training zone. Earlier in July, another drone forced the evacuation of high-level officials when it crashed near the Šumskas border crossing.

It took just minutes for a new Greek-made anti-drone system to show what it is capable of. On its first test run with a European Union patrol in the Red Sea a year ago, the Centauros system detected and swiftly brought down two aerial drones launched by Yemen's Houthis, who have been attacking merchant vessels in the busy shipping lane. Another two drones swiftly retreated: Centauros had jammed their electronics, said Kyriakos Enotiadis, electronics director at state-run Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI), which produces the anti-drone system.

Russian artillery shelling on a car belonging to Ukraine's state emergency services killed three people, including an emergency worker, and injured four others in the southeastern Ukrainian town of Nikopol, the regional governor, Serhiy Lysak, said. Dozens of Russian drones attacked a gas pumping station in southern Ukraine, part of an LNG imports scheme from the United States and Azerbaijan, Ukraine's Ministry of Energy said. Russia struck a gas facility in Ukraine's southern Odesa region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, as Ukraine's gas reserves are now at their lowest in 12 years, with storage facilities currently less than a third full, according to analysis firm ExPro. Russian artillery shelling on a car belonging to Ukraine's state emergency services killed three people, including an emergency worker, and injured four others in the southeastern Ukrainian town of Nikopol, the regional governor, Serhiy Lysak, said. Dozens of Russian drones attacked a gas pumping station in southern Ukraine, part of an LNG imports scheme from the United States and Azerbaijan, Ukraine's Ministry of Energy said.

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content. New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's past stances on policing are a legitimate reason for New Yorkers to be concerned, despite his recent walkbacks, according to a New York City crime expert who spoke to Fox News Digital. "I think what scares a lot of New Yorkers about the policy positions taken by Zohran Mamdani over the years is that he has exhibited not just a lack of appreciation for the men and women that stand on that [police] line, but a visceral disdain for them, which has led him to push for things like defunding and dismantling the police," Rafael A. Mangual, senior fellow and head of research for policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital, shortly after a gunman killed four people in midtown Manhattan, including a NYPD police officer. "It's not so much as just that he said, well, I wanna allocate some of this money to other places. He has gone so far as to say that we should dismantle the entire department."…READ

Russia hit pipelines in Ukraine, sparking bright flames and plumes of smoke seen from Romania. Russia narrowly avoided an armed skirmish with Romania, a member of the NATO alliance, after striking just a half mile from its border. Romanian defense officials believe the new law passed by parliament explicitly allowing its armed forces to shoot down Russian drones that fly over its territory prevented the Kremlin from incurring on its territory. Russia struck a gas distribution center in the Ismail Area of Ukraine with Shahed kamikaze drones on Tuesday and Wednesday, so close to Romania's border that Bucharest deployed F-16 aircraft to monitor. No unauthorized intrusions were reported.

Retired Charlottesville Fire Chief Charles Werner joins'Fox & Friends First' to discuss drones being used as first responders as Energy Sec. Sean Duffy highlights U.S. drone dominance. Delivery drones could soon take to the skies in full force, following a landmark proposed rule by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The long-anticipated rule is aimed at allowing drones to operate beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) -- a move designed to counter China's dominance in unmanned aviation. Currently, operators must obtain individual FAA waivers -- only 657 issued so far -- to fly drones beyond where they can physically see them, hampered by months of delay and bureaucratic setbacks. "Because of that complication, I don't think we saw the innovation that we should have in America," said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Tuesday.

Russia hit pipelines in Ukraine, sparking bright flames and plumes of smoke seen from Romania. Romania was forced to scramble F-16 jets after Russia carried out a strike just half a mile from the NATO nation's territory. The country's Ministry of National Defense (MApN) confirmed in a post on X that Russia carried out a drone attack near its border. "On the night of August 5-6, the Russian forces launched a massive drone attack on the civilian infrastructure in the Ismail area, Ukraine, in the vicinity of the border with Romania," Romania's defense ministry wrote in a post on X. "The radar systems of the MApN detected air targets in Ukrainian space, close to Tulcea County. At 1:10a.m., the population in the north of the county was warned via RO-Alert," the ministry added.

TASS also reported that a 30-year-old man was killed and a 51-year-old woman was injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on a car near the Russian-occupied village of Nyzhnia Duvanka in the Svatovsky district on Monday. Ukraine's military intelligence claimed that Ukrainian forces killed 334 Russian troops and wounded more than 550, in a failed attack on Ukraine's Sumy region. Al Jazeera was not able to verify the report. Ukraine's presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram that Kyiv has found components from India in Russian drones used for attacks on Ukraine. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the information.

The exponential growth in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) usage underscores the critical need of detecting them at extended distances to ensure safe operations, especially in densely populated areas. Despite the tremendous advances made in computer vision through deep learning, the detection of these small airborne objects remains a formidable challenge. While several datasets have been developed specifically for drone detection, the need for a more extensive and diverse collection of drone image data persists, particularly for long-range detection under varying environmental conditions. We introduce here the Long Range Drone Detection (LRDD) Version 2 dataset, comprising 39,516 meticulously annotated images, as a second release of the LRDD dataset released previously. The LRDDv2 dataset enhances the LRDDv1 by incorporating a greater variety of images, providing a more diverse and comprehensive resource for drone detection research. What sets LRDDv2 apart is its inclusion of target range information for over 8,000 images, making it possible to develop algorithms for drone range estimation. Tailored for long-range aerial object detection, the majority of LRDDv2's dataset consists of images capturing drones with 50 or fewer pixels in 1080p resolution. For access to the complete Long-Range Drone Detection Dataset (LRDD)v2, please visit https://research.coe.drexel.edu/ece/imaple/lrddv2/ .

The integration of Automated Delivery Robots (ADRs) into pedestrian-heavy urban spaces introduces unique challenges in terms of safe, efficient, and socially acceptable navigation. We develop the complete pipeline for a single vision sensor based multi-pedestrian detection and tracking, pose estimation, and monocular depth perception. Leveraging the real-world MOT17 dataset sequences, this study demonstrates how integrating human-pose estimation and depth cues enhances pedestrian trajectory prediction and identity maintenance, even under occlusions and dense crowds. Results show measurable improvements, including up to a 10% increase in identity preservation (IDF1), a 7% improvement in multiobject tracking accuracy (MOTA), and consistently high detection precision exceeding 85%, even in challenging scenarios. Notably, the system identifies vulnerable pedestrian groups supporting more socially aware and inclusive robot behaviour.