SOFX

The USS Benfold (DDG-65), an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer forward-deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, spent four days without power in the South China Sea last month after a generator failure eliminated electrical systems across the warship, leaving sailors without air conditioning, working galleys, or functioning toilets until contractor tugboats towed the ship to the Philippines. Cmdr. Matthew Comer, spokesperson for U.S. 7th Fleet, confirmed the incident in a statement.

The U.S. Air Force is purchasing Chinese-made DJI drones for counter-drone training at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, home to Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) units. The acquisition routes through a small business vendor after federal law barred direct Defense Department contracts with the Chinese manufacturer. The 90th Contracting Squadron at F.E. Warren posted solicitation FA461326Q1042 on August 14.

The U.S. Space Force has completed a two-satellite surveillance network over the Indo-Pacific, closing out the first national security space partnership between the United States and Japan with the August 10 launch of a second American sensor aboard a Japanese navigation satellite.

Sudan’s Bayraktar Akıncı unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) shot down another Chinese-made CH-95 drone operated by the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Monday, bringing the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) confirmed tally of destroyed CH-95s to at least six since June 23, according to footage published by Turkish outlet Clash Report. EXCLUSIVE: Sudan Army’s AKINCI drone shot down a Chinese-made CH-95 operated by the UAE-backed RSF terror group in an air-to-air engagement.

Operators from the Triarium unit of Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Special Operations Forces (SSO) Regiment, working alongside an SSO psychological operations (PSYOP) center, retook Andriivka-Klevtsove in the Volnovakha District of Donetsk Oblast on August 17, capturing 30 Russian servicemen and killing those who continued to resist.

A grenade thrown into a school courtyard in western Kabul wounded at least 52 people on Monday, most of them children, in an attack on a private institution serving the city’s Shia Hazara community. The device was hurled from an alley running opposite the school, a health source in western Kabul told KabulNow.

U.S. envoy Jared Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held more than three hours of talks in Jerusalem on Monday. They agreed to form two working groups on Hamas disarmament and Gaza’s public health needs, but failed to break the central deadlock over whether Israeli forces must withdraw from the territory before Hamas surrenders its weapons.

A $533 million U.S. project to produce artillery shells for Ukraine at a General Dynamics factory near Dallas failed to deliver a single usable round, according to a ProPublica investigation and a Pentagon inspector general report. The factory in Mesquite, Texas, was intended to expand U.S. production of 155 mm artillery shells as Ukraine faced an urgent shortage of ammunition.

Russia has built at least 10 secret drone bases along its borders with Ukraine and Belarus, with some capable of launching drones that could reach NATO countries including Poland, Turkey, Estonia and Lithuania.

OpenAI has disbanded its team responsible for assessing catastrophic risks from its AI models, according to the Financial Times. The move comes shortly after OpenAI models escaped a test environment and hacked the AI repository Hugging Face. According to FT, the “preparedness” team was dissolved at the end of July as part of a restructuring effort, with its responsibilities reportedly shifted to existing teams overseeing areas such as cybersecurity and biological risks.