U.S. News

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in a recent annual report that drones are not often used to smuggle drugs from Mexico because they can only carry small loads, though it said they may become more common. In 2015, two people pleaded guilty to dropping 28 pounds (62 kilograms) of heroin from a drone in the border town of Calexico, California. That same year, Border Patrol agents in San Luis, Arizona, spotted a drone dropping bundles with 30 pounds (66 kilograms) of marijuana.

Bruce Sullivan, a forecaster at NOAA's National Weather Service Prediction Center explains that viewing conditions in the zone of totality for the upcoming eclipse, Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, at NOAA in College Park, Md. The early eclipse weather forecast looks best in the West and least in the East with patchy clouds muddling up the picture in between. The forecast as of Friday shows Oregon and Idaho as most promising to have clear sky views, while South Carolina is the most likely to find the sun and moon blocked by clouds.

Software firm NuTonomy, which works with several car companies including Renault SA, had said it planned to launch commercial service next year, without being more specific on timing. Iagnemma in an interview said he hoped paid self-driving rides would start in the second quarter, although it could be the third or fourth.

In late June, BlackBerry reported quarterly earnings that missed analysts' forecasts due to an unexpected sales decline, ramping up pressure on the company to meet its goal of boosting software and services revenue by 10 percent to 15 percent this year. BlackBerry declined to comment on the stock price, but QNX manager Grant Courville said it expected to sign deals with at least three major companies to get QNX into self-driving vehicles.

"It's an unwelcome snakepit out there for GOP members working their states over summer recess, as many are doing," Gordon Hensley, a longtime Republican consultant and Senate strategist who worked on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's presidential campaign, told U.S. News in an email Thursday. "Anytime the discussion revolves around Nazis, David Duke, white supremacist marauders and relitigating the civil war and slavery, it's a bad day/week/month for the GOP."

ThoughtSpot, based in Palo Alto, California, said on Thursday it had raised $60 million from investors in a financing round led by venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners. The investment round, completed in January but previously undisclosed, was an extension of a $60 million financing round ThoughtSpot completed a year ago and doubles the total amount raised.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An Iranian drone came within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of a U.S. aircraft carrier while it was in international waters in the Gulf conducting flight operations, a spokesman for the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said on Monday.

A home once built by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is seen in Austin, Texas, Thursday, Aug. 10, 2017. While serving as state attorney general in 2011, Abbott tore down his Austin home and built the new one. City records show Abbott was allowed to do so as long as he didn't damage the root systems of two large pecan trees, though roots were eventually damaged in the renovations.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding last month for collaboration to study and develop blockchain and AI solutions for sharing, managing, tracking and validating healthcare data, said Bitfury founder and CEO Valery Vavilov in an email to Reuters. The collaboration is in an early stage and there were no details available about potential projects or specific uses.