Tensions between poachers and conservationists in the Gulf of California escalated over the weekend after a fisherman shot down a drone being used to monitor illegal activities. The drone belonged to the U.S. conservation group Sea Shepherd, which has two ships in the northern part of the Sea of Cortez as part of an effort to save the critically endangered vaquita porpoise. The vaquita have been inadvertently caught in nets that poachers use to catch the endangered totoaba fish. Fishermen can make huge sums on the black market for dried totoaba swim bladders, which are sold in China for their supposed medicinal properties. The environmental group has been searching for nets and pulling them from the water.

The child endangerment charges were filed because Baldassarre's 9-year-old girl lived in the home, where police said they found syringes and drugs believed to include methamphetamine, LSD-laced candy and powdered fentanyl.

At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you'll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projects out there -- alongside some real gems. We've cut through the fidget spinners and janky iPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project -- even the best intentioned -- can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams. We love the idea behind everyday carry kits, but finding the right balance between compact and useful is often easier said than done.

The Federal Aviation Administration has a few words of warning for anyone who unwrapped a drone this holiday season. Drones were a popular holiday gift this year -- Statista estimates that Americans spent $1.2 million on the airborne machines in 2017 -- but they're also prone to crashes and accidents in the hands of amateur pilots. The FAA set out to curtail those mishaps with a video posted on Monday. If you receive a #drone this #holidayseason, you're now part of the #aviation community. Learn how to be a #safe #drone #pilot with these basic #FAA safety tips.

PARACHINAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suspected U.S. drone attack along the Pakistani-Afghan border killed an Islamist militant commander and one of his associates on Tuesday, a Pakistani official in the remote area said.

JOHANNESBURG – A group that monitors extremist organizations says the Islamic State group has posted what is thought to be the first video from IS-affiliated fighters in Somalia. The video posted online Monday calls on supporters to "hunt down" what it calls nonbelievers and attack churches and markets. The SITE Intelligence Group says the video urges supporters to take advantage of people's "drunkenness" over the holiday season to attack. The United States last month launched its first drone strikes against Islamic State group-affiliated fighters in Somalia. The Horn of Africa nation has a small but growing presence of the fighters, many of them defectors from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group.

The United States last month launched its first drone strikes against Islamic State group-affiliated fighters in Somalia. The Horn of Africa nation has a small but growing presence of the fighters, many of them defectors from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group.

About this course: How can we create agile micro aerial vehicles that are able to operate autonomously in cluttered indoor and outdoor environments? You will gain an introduction to the mechanics of flight and the design of quadrotor flying robots and will be able to develop dynamic models, derive controllers, and synthesize planners for operating in three dimensional environments. You will be exposed to the challenges of using noisy sensors for localization and maneuvering in complex, three-dimensional environments. Finally, you will gain insights through seeing real world examples of the possible applications and challenges for the rapidly-growing drone industry. Mathematical prerequisites: Students taking this course are expected to have some familiarity with linear algebra, single variable calculus, and differential equations.

With gifts given and Christmas Day drawing to a close, drone expert Faine Greenwood is taking up a different kind of holiday tradition: rounding up all the spectacular drone crashes and accidents that take place mere hours after the airborne presents are unwrapped. Greenwood, an assistant researcher in the signal program on human security and technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, is compiling some of the best drone accident tweets of the day, and tagging them #DroneCrashmas. The mishaps are as frequent as they are varied, with drones falling victim to everything from 30-miles-per-hour gusts of wind to bodies of water to trees to innocent bystanders. My brother flew his drone into my sisters hair pic.twitter.com/B647NF6s6u RIP to my dad's new luxury drone who after two min of glorious flight now rests at the bottom of the vermillion river:( So, maiden voyage was successful.

This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE. A video created by advocates of a ban on autonomous weapons would have you believe this dystopian future is right around the corner if we don't act now. The short video, called "Slaughterbots," was released last month coinciding with United Nations meetings on autonomous weapons. The UN meetings ended inconclusively, but the video is getting traction. It's gotten over 2 million views and has sparked dozens of news stories.