The NYPD is breaking new ground for local police with authority to disable drones at the U.S. Open, which runs through Sept. 13. Previously, local police could track drones but generally needed federal agents to hijack them in flight. That changed with December 2025’s Safer Skies Act. Now, trained NYPD personnel can electronically take control of drones and land them safely.

Police are using more drones, but tariffs, procurement systems and privacy concerns are shaping how agencies adopt them. The U.S. administration this month imposed tariffs of up to 100 percent on some drone imports. Separately, state and local agencies are being onboarded to a counterdrone marketplace built by Kaizen Laboratories. In Apex, North Carolina, residents’ privacy concerns prompted the town council to delay a five-year Axon drone package and send it for further review.

Forensic Labs

Anthropic, one of the major U.S. AI firms, is trying to standardize AI interaction with laboratory equipment. Yesterday, the company released its Model Hardware Standard, which lets an agent discover and coordinate instruments from different vendors, from microscopes to liquid handlers to robotic arms. Anthropic’s YouTube releases on the technology show automated microscope handling, among other uses.

MHS is brand new, but forensic labs are already looking at modernizing workflows. Michigan’s crime lab recently called its male-DNA screening workflow on swabs from sexual assault kits “fully automated,” while Idaho is building a $29 million lab with stated plans for whole-genome sequencing, an intensive process usually outsourced to third-party labs. Neither project uses Anthropic’s system, but the prospect of agent-controlled instruments promises to cut down on integrations with myriad lab vendors.

Compliance

One of the country’s leading cybersecurity verifiers for state and local government vendors has opened a faster route to approval. GovRAMP will now let software companies deploy their products inside approved accelerator environments, beginning with Knox Systems and Second Front Systems, and inherit much of the security work already completed there while receiving separate product listings.

Second Front is already using this approach with Cohere AI, an enterprise AI company that builds models and software for businesses and governments. Cohere has a separate entry in GovRAMP’s directory, but the provider is listed as Second Front Systems. GovRAMP’s accelerator program is brand new, its selection process is unexplained, and each government still decides for itself what the resulting credential means.