Fox News Flash top headlines for Dec. 31 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com One day after Colorado and western Nebraska counties reported a series of mysterious, nocturnal drone flights, the Federal Aviation Administration is promoting a rule change last week that requires most drones to be identifiable remotely, a report said Monday. The rule change, announced Thursday, have been in works for more than a year, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said in an email to the Denver Post Monday. Under the legislation, law enforcement, federal security agencies and the FAA would be allowed to identify drones flying through their jurisdiction, the FAA said.

Fox News Flash top headlines for Dec. 30 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com A squadron of drones flying over the Midwest every night for nearly two weeks have left both residents and officials wondering who's flying them and what purpose they are serving, a report said Sunday. In the past week, three more rural counties have experienced nightly flyovers from the northeast corner of Colorado to at least one county in neighboring Nebraska, the Denver Post reported. Sheriffs in Lincoln, Washington and Sedgwick counties say their offices have been inundated with calls this week about the devices, the newspaper reported.

WASHINGTON: How big a difference does it make when you reinforce foot troops with drones and ground robots? You get about a 10–fold increase in combat power, according to a recent Army wargame. "Their capabilities were awesome," said Army Capt. Philip Belanger, a Ranger Regiment and Stryker Brigade veteran who commanded a robot-reinforced platoon in nearly a dozen computer-simulated battles at the Fort Benning's Maneuver Battle Lab. "We reduced the risk to US forces to zero, basically, and still were able to accomplish the mission."

ISIS is quickly recruiting to supplant existing al-Shabab fighters in Somalia to declare a more entrenched presence in the horn of Africa. Three drone airstrikes on Sunday against the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabab in Somalia killed four militants, according to the U.S. military. U.S. Africa Command officials said an initial assessment concluded that two airstrikes killed two militants and destroyed two vehicles in Qunyo Barrow, and the third airstrike killed two militants in Caliyoow Barrow. The precision airstrikes, which were in coordination with the Somali government, came a day after a truck bombing in Somalia's capital killed at least 78 people. People salvaging goods after a car bomb destroyed shops in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Saturday.

If I had told you in 2010 that one day you'd be able to take photos and videos with a flying camera that would take off from the ground, follow your directions as it soared into the skies and miraculously returned back, you might have thought I was pretty crazy. As did an app that could sense where you were and get a car to you within minutes for a ride. And a small box that connected to the TV and changed how we view entertainment forever. Yup, the "10s" were pretty mind-blowing for tech. So enjoy, as we run them down in the final 2019 edition of the Talking Tech newsletter.

WASHINGTON – All but the smallest civilian drones would have to broadcast radio tracking data to ensure greater safety and prevent terrorism under a sweeping proposal unveiled by U.S. regulators Thursday. The long-awaited draft rules call for a massive new tracking network for everything from toys to larger commercial drones so that law enforcement can spot the devices flying anywhere, from congested urban areas to the most rural zones. The controversial measure by the Federal Aviation Administration, which is subject to public comment and could change before it becomes final, is a key foundation to advance drone-driven commerce, including deliveries of consumer goods by companies such as Alphabet Inc.'s Wing and Amazon.com The rules would come into full force three years after being finalized. "Remote ID technologies will enhance safety and security by allowing the FAA, law enforcement and federal security agencies to identify drones flying in their jurisdiction," Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said in a press release.

A shepherd is out tending a flock when a presence appears above. It descends from the sky and communicates vital information. It may sound like a nativity scene, but for an increasing number of farmers it's a daily occurrence – and that celestial being is a drone. Corey Lambeth, a New Zealand farmer, originally purchased a drone for photography, but he quickly realised the device had more practical applications. "I thought'I'll just give it a nudge on the sheep and see what that goes like' and it actually worked out quite well," he says.

Modern agriculture involves fields of mind-boggling size, and spraying them efficiently is a serious operational challenge. Pyka is taking on the largely human-powered spray business with an autonomous winged craft and, crucially, regulatory approval. Just as we've seen with DroneSeed, this type of flying is risky for pilots, who must fly very close to the ground and other obstacles, yet also highly susceptible to automation; That's because it involves lots of repetitive flight patterns that must be executed perfectly, over and over. Pyka's approach is unlike that of many in the drone industry, which has tended to use multirotor craft for their maneuverability and easy take-off and landing. But those drones can't carry the weight and volume of pesticides and other chemicals that (unfortunately) need to be deployed at large scales.

WASHINGTON: How big a difference does it make when you reinforce foot troops with drones and ground robots? You get about a 10–fold increase in combat power, according to a recent Army wargame. "Their capabilities were awesome," said Army Capt. Philip Belanger, a Ranger Regiment and Stryker Brigade veteran who commanded a robot-reinforced platoon in nearly a dozen computer-simulated battles at the Fort Benning's Maneuver Battle Lab. "We reduced the risk to US forces to zero, basically, and still were able to accomplish the mission."

PARIS – France's defense ministry announced Monday it had carried out its first armed drone strike, killing seven Islamic extremists in central Mali over the weekend. France joins a tiny group of countries that use armed drones, including the United States. The drone deployment came nearly one month after two French helicopters collided in Mali, killing 13 soldiers in the deadliest military loss for France in nearly four decades. A defense ministry statement said the drone strike took place Saturday while French President Emmanuel Macron was visiting neighboring Cote d'Ivoire, where France has a military base. Macron already had announced that French forces had killed 33 extremists that day.