FCW.com: “The Federal Aviation Administration will give commercial drones more freedom to operate over people and grant longer flight times under proposed new rules. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced the proposals at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting on Jan. 14. The initiatives include a draft rule proposal to allow drones to fly at night and over people without requiring operators to get a waiver, if certain conditions are met. It is unclear when the new rules will appear in the Federal Register and how the commenting process will be managed because the Department of Transportation is currently operating in shutdown mode due to the partial lapse in appropriations. Chao only said the proposals are available in draft form on the FAA website and will be published “as soon as possible.” Chao also said that three drone flight research operators were selected as FAA traffic control test sites: Northern Plains UAS Test Site in North Dakota, Nevada’s Unmanned Aircraft System Test Site and the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership at Virginia Tech University…”