Farmers in China have caught up with the country's booming drone trend and started using unmanned aircraft to spray pesticide onto the fields. Not only that, a team of villagers in central China recently bought 30 of these bug-zapping vehicles in hope of turning it into a new business. Zhu Xiwang and his neighbours said they hoped their squad of agri-drones to could help them start a pest-killing service, according to Huanqiu.com, an affiliation to People's Daily Online. This £24.8K flat pack folding home takes just SIX HOURS to build Pictures show the 30 drones lining up on a field, ready to take off. The unmanned aircraft, known by its model name MG-1S, is produced by Shenzhen-based Da Jiang Innovation, one of the largest drone manufacturers in China.

To its devotees, it is an ancient practice used successfully for centuries to find water. And while sceptics say there is no scientific proof dowsing works, at least one important group of experts appears to be prepared to give it a try – Britain's water companies. They admit they still allow their engineers to use rods to divine for mains pipes. A Severn Trent water company technician was spotted using dowsing rods as a means to locate underground water. It has emerged many companies' engineers also use the method One company even said that'the older tried and tested methods are just as effective' as modern techniques using drones and satellites.

The deadliest animal on Earth, by far, is the mosquito. Millions of people die annually from mosquito-borne illnesses, and many of those diseases can't be cured with drugs. It's best to avoid being bitten in the first place, but this is becoming more difficult as the insects expand their range, migrating north with warming climates. For decades, government agencies and nonprofit organizations have tried to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne diseases in developing countries by spraying large areas with insecticides. But that process is expensive, especially as mosquitoes develop resistance to commonly used chemicals. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has begun to look for other mosquito control methods.

Drone footage has captured the scale of a 5,000 barrel oil leak in North Dakota.

DJI is inviting state, local and tribal governments to consider partnering with the company as they apply to take part in the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) new UAS Integration Pilot Program. According to DJI, the program smartly provides opportunities for government and industry to experiment with advanced drone operations and test new forms of airspace management. The company notes it is pleased that the program will also help inform policymakers on regulatory approaches to safe drone adoption. "DJI has worked for years with government officials around the world to help develop reasonable, safety-enhancing public policies while keeping open the pathways to innovation," says Brendan Schulman, DJI's vice president of policy and legal affairs. "We would very much value the opportunity to work with U.S. state, local and tribal governments to develop smart and comprehensive strategies for expanding how drones can benefit their constituents while properly managing their integration into the airspace."

The Libyan National Army has been battling ISIS in the cities of Sirte and Benghazi. The U.S. military has launched airstrikes this month in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Friday, for the first time since September, in Libya. According to a defense official, the drone strike in the desert of central Libya Friday killed "several" ISIS militants in a sign the Pentagon may be ramping up pressure on terror groups in Africa. The most recent strike comes a year after the military launched nearly 500 airstrikes against ISIS in the coastal city of Sirte, located halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi. The September strike killed 17 ISIS fighters.

Widespread devastation in Athens, Greece, was depicted Thursday in new drone footage following heavy flooding and violent storms. The destruction has left many surrounding areas underwater in what Mandra Mayor Yianna Krikouki called a "biblical" flood. Several regions in Greece have faced inclement weather for about a week. The situation escalated when heavy rain resulted in severe flooding Wednesday night. The death toll has risen to at least 16, and at least four civilians are reportedly still missing.

Hamas has blamed the Israeli national intelligence agency Mossad for the assassination of one of its Tunisian members after conducting an 11-month-long investigation. The Palestinian group said Mohammed al-Zawari, a commander of its armed wing the Qassam Brigades since 2006, was fatally shot outside his home multiple times while in his car near Sfax, 270km southeast of Tunis, on December 15, 2016. Hamas had set up an investigative committee in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. Speaking at a press conference in Beirut on Thursday, Mohammed Nazzal, Hamas politburo member, called the Mossad operation a "terrorist act". "Mossad is officially accused of being behind the assassination, which is not only a terrorist act, but a violation of state sovereignty," he said.

"We are really working on issues that policy makers have never tackled before," Mr. Kratsios, the U.S. deputy chief technology officer, told The Wall Street Journal in his first major interview since his appointment in March. "It's just a question of putting smart people around a table and trying to come up with an innovative approach to regulating" new technologies, he said. To do that, he will need to work closely with the science and tech communities--some of the staunchest critics of Mr. Trump's policies. Leading scientists and tech executives have abandoned White House advisory councils and complained that the president's policies in areas like climate change and immigration threaten to reverse years of economic and social progress. It may help that Mr. Kratsios, 31 years old, hails from the world of technology, having spent seven years as an executive at venture-capital firms founded by Silicon Valley luminary Peter Thiel.

So you want to be a professional drone racer? To coincide with the game's official launch, watchmaker Swatch has announced it's sponsoring tryouts for the 2018 season, where top prize is a spot in the 2018 DRL Allianz World Championship Season and a $75,000 contract. We've seen this type of thing with Gran Turismo before but it'll never not feel kind of Last Starfighter-y. The simulator is pretty much a 1:1 translation of official courses, and because of that, the skills apparently directly translate from the game to real-world racing. The DRL found its first racer via the game earlier this year, Jacob "Jawz" Schneider.