CARACAS, Venezuela – President Nicolas Maduro has accused two opposition legislators of having roles in the drone attack that Venezuelan officials have called an assassination attempt on the leader, and his allies are moving against the accused. The head of Venezuela's pro-government constitutional assembly said he would have the body take up a proposal Wednesday to strip the lawmakers of their immunity from prosecution. During a national television broadcast Tuesday night, Maduro said statements from some of the six suspects already arrested in the weekend attack pointed to key financiers and others, including Julio Borges, one of the country's most prominent opposition leaders who is a lawmaker but is living in exile in Colombia. "Several of the declarations indicated Julio Borges. The investigations point to him," Maduro said, though he provided no details on Borges' alleged role.

Critics of Maduro's socialist government had said immediately following Saturday evening's attack that they feared the unpopular leader would use the incident as an excuse to round up opposition politicians as he seeks to dampen spreading discontent over Venezuela's devastating economic collapse.

Each week, we spotlight a cool innovation recommended by some of the industry's top tech writers. This week's pick is a new, intuitive way to pilot drones. Researchers at Switzerland's E cole Polytechnique Fe de rale de Lausanne have built a system that lets drone pilots steer their vehicles by just turning and twisting their torsos, said Megan Scudellari at IEEE Spectrum. The new technique turns out to be both more precise and more intuitive than using a joystick. In tests, researchers found that it "requires less mental focus from pilots and frees up their head and limbs."

BOGOTA/CARACAS – A former Venezuelan municipal police chief and anti-government activist says he helped organize an operation to launch armed drones over a military rally on Saturday that President Nicolas Maduro has called an assassination attempt. In an interview, Salvatore Lucchese, a Venezuelan activist who was previously imprisoned for his role in past protests, told Reuters he orchestrated the attack with a loose association of anti-Maduro militants known generally in Venezuela as the "resistance." The "resistance" referred to by Lucchese is a diffuse collection of street activists, student organizers and former military officers. It has little formal structure, but is known in the country mostly for organizing protests in recent years in which demonstrators have clashed with police and soldiers. Reuters could not independently verify Lucchese's claims about the attack, in which drones flew over the rally in central Caracas.

Drone industry and law-enforcement officials are struggling to find common ground over expanding flights and protecting public safety, a debate thrust into the public spotlight by a reported assassination attempt on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Federal Aviation Administration is projecting a fourfold increase, from more than 110,000 currently, in the number of commercial drones flying in U.S. skies in the next five years. U.S. law-enforcement officials, however, want to delay widespread operations until reliable defensive systems are developed. Saturday's attack with unmanned aircraft in Caracas was a reminder for the drone industry and U.S. government officials over the potential security threats even readily available commercial drones can pose. Venezuelan authorities said a pair of explosive-laden drones carrying a total of about 4 pounds of plastic explosives were part of an unsuccessful assassination attempt during an outdoor ceremony in Caracas, with one of the vehicles detonating after government jamming devices knocked it off course.

Bird strikes on aircraft may be rare, but not so rare that airports shouldn't take precautions against them. But keeping birds away is a difficult proposition: how do you control the behavior of flocks of dozens or hundreds of birds? Perhaps with a drone that autonomously picks the best path to do so, like this one developed by CalTech researchers. Right now airports may use manually piloted drones, which are expensive and of course limited by the number of qualified pilots, or trained falcons -- which as you might guess is a similarly difficult method to scale. Soon-Jo Chung at CalTech became interested in the field after seeing the near-disaster in 2009 when US Airways 1549 nearly crashed due to a bird strike but was guided to a comparatively safe landing in the Hudson.

In 2017, the Australian military drone-racing team made its competitive debut during the Australian Drone Nationals. Given the technology's long history within the military, you might think they would have an edge. But that's not what happened. Drone racing is a fairly new sport that merges video game racing with real-life drone flying. Racers put on a pair of first-person view (or FPV) goggles, which allow them to see exactly what they would if they were sitting in the teeny-tiny cockpit.

Which brings us back to the idea of hype. Maybe not everyone understands what AI truly is, but the effects of it are everywhere, and are very likely to change just about everything we know about society. We are beginning to see self driving cars and automated drone deliveries. We're going to see a lot more robots, drones and self-driving cars on the streets. The tech behind these, particularly related to interaction with humans, is developing much more quickly than predicted, and that's down to machine learning helping to accelerate innovation.

The Venezuelan government's account of Saturday's attempted assassination-by-drone of President Nicolás Maduro has raised more questions than it has answered. Here's what we know: A video of the event shows the chaos that ensued when the drones exploded, with Maduro abruptly stopping his speech and soldiers in the crowd fleeing. The president was unharmed, but seven National Guard soldiers were injured. Hours later, Maduro appeared on national television to accuse the outgoing Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, and far-right elements in the U.S. of plotting the alleged attack. A little-known group called "Soldados de Franelas" claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. The group regularly posts anti-Maduro content but little else is known about them.

Maduro, whose approval ratings hover around 25 percent, with opponents blaming his policies for worsening an economic meltdown, has called government supporters to unite in the face of what he described as right-wing plots led by the neighboring Colombian government and exiles in the United States.