The head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says the boom in drone popularity is'a huge game changer' similar'to powered flight or jet engines.' In an Associated Press interview Tuesday, Michael Huerta said'the growth of this industry and how it's evolving is something that all of us in aviation need to pay a lot of attention to.' Huerta spoke on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show, where drones of all kinds were being displayed. Michael Herta, the head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, speaks at the Paris Air Show on Tuesday, June 20, 2017. In an Associated Press interview, Huerta called the rapid development of the drone industry'a huge game-changer' for aviation. For the industry, their popularity begs a vital question: how do you make sure that swarms of new machines don't endanger each other, other users of the skies and people on the ground as they do everything from patrolling traffic blackspots to, possibly, delivering your burger and fries?

A U.S. aircraft shot down an armed Iranian drone advancing on coalition forces in southern Syria on Tuesday, Fox News confirmed. The armed pro-regime Shaheed-129 UAV was shot down by a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle about 12:30 a.m. after it displayed hostile intent and advanced on Coalition forces. This is the second the U.S. shot down an Iranian drone in less than a month. The coalition forces were manning an established combat outpost to the northeast of At Tanf where they are training and advising partner ground forces in the fight against ISIS. This is the same location where another pro-regime UAV dropped munitions near Coalition forces before it was shot down on June 8. The F-15E intercepted the armed UAV after it was observed advancing on the coalition position.

A defense official says the drone was approaching a military camp near the Syria-Jordan border. That is where U.S. forces have been training and advising local Syrian Arabs for the fight against Islamic State militants.

A US jet has shot down an Iranian-made drone operated by forces backing the Syrian government in the south of the country, American officials say. The F-15 plane downed the drone around 00:30 on Tuesday (21:30 GMT Monday) north-east of Tanf, according to a US military statement. The drone was thought to be armed and threatening US troops on the ground, officials said. Tanf, near the borders with Iraq and Jordan, is home to a coalition base. If confirmed, it is the second downing of a drone this month.

Democrats tie up Senate floor to protest Republicans' secrecy in writing healthcare bill Senate Democrats take to the chamber floor to decry the GOP's secret talks on healthcare bill President Trump's lawyer insists Trump is not under investigation, despite president's own tweets Trump and the Goldwater Rule: Should mental health pros weigh in on the president? Often seen but not heard, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner speaks at White House tech event. Senate Democrats take to the chamber floor to decry the GOP's secret talks on healthcare bill President Trump's lawyer insists Trump is not under investigation, despite president's own tweets Trump and the Goldwater Rule: Should mental health pros weigh in on the president? Often seen but not heard, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner speaks at White House tech event. U.S. forces shoot down Iranian drone over Syria as fighting escalates A U.S. fighter jet Tuesday shot down an armed Iranian drone supporting Syrian government forces in southern Syria, marking the third American air-to-air shoot-down this month.

How far are you willing to go to get the ultimate selfie? Maria Mercedes Galuppo (@mariamgaluppo) has more. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. How far are you willing to go to get the ultimate selfie?

With drones getting more and more commonplace and the growing importance of regulating them, The European Commission recently proposed to put clear regulations in place for the use and ownership of drones within two years. "Drones mean innovation, new services for citizens, new business models and a huge potential for economic growth. We need the EU to be in the driving seat and have a safe drone services market up and running by 2019. The EU needs to take a leading role worldwide in developing the right framework for this market to flourish, by unleashing the benefits for key economic sectors," EU Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, said in the press release. The regulations, which will be worked out by the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research Joint Undertaking, will be employed across state lines and will apply to the European Union as a whole.

In case you were looking for a new sport to follow now that the NBA and NHL seasons have ended, ESPN is giving something different a shot, and it's not esports. The second season of the Drone Racing League -- now branded Allianz World Championship Series -- is about to get started Tuesday night at 8PM ET, with pilots directing identical Racer3 aircraft through larger courses than last year. The drones themselves are more powerful and rugged enough to possibly survive a collision, which DRL head of product Ryan Gury explained "also makes it a much more sexy and attractive drone." Of course, if you're spending this week tuned in to draft / free agency news, the entire broadcast schedule is included below.

The US recently flip-flopped on whether people have to register their non-commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with the FAA at all, while China made it mandatory to register drones heavier than 0.55 pounds. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is working with member states and the industry to come up with safety rules that are as all-encompassing as possible, and will include the EU's basic aviation safety regulations. The European Commission will also finance the integration of drones into the existing aviation system, while a group of experts will be assembled to weigh in on future policy recommendations. The Commission proposes to have the systems for registering drones and drone operators, e-identification and geo-fencing up by 2019.

Last month, we wrote about ETH Zurich's Omnicopter, a flying cube with rotors providing thrust in lots of different directions that allow the drone to translate and rotate arbitrarily. This is very handy, for lots of different reasons, but the Omnicopter itself is rather bulky and seems destined to live out its life in a Swiss laboratory. A team of undergrads at ETH Zurich has taken the idea behind the Omnicopter and designed an even more versatile flying robot. Voliro offers the same kind of decoupled position and attitude control, except that instead of a cube full of rotors oriented in different directions, this drone uses rotating nacelles that can turn it from a traditional hexcopter into something much more versatile and acrobatic. Voliro is part of a focus project at ETH Zurich's Autonomous Systems Lab that's intended to give students in the last year of their undergraduate degrees "the opportunity to design a complete system from scratch," which seems like a fantastic way of making the transition into graduate school with some practical robotics experience. The disadvantage of Voliro over a drone like the Omnicopter is complexity: Those rotating nacelles add more degrees of freedom (and more points of failure) to the overall design.