Walmart is expanding its drone delivery program from one pocket of the Dallas-Fort Worth area to millions of people in 30 municipalities in the area, Chief Executive Doug McMillon announced Tuesday at CES 2024. The retailer will use drone delivery systems operated by startup Zipline and by Alphabet subsidiary Wing, companies that have made hundreds of thousands of deliveries in recent years. They each recently obtained FAA clearance to fly their drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) -- in other words, out of the eyesight of a human operator -- which makes large-scale drone delivery operations more practical and economical. Delivery drones offer fast service, with Walmart packages arriving between 10 and 30 minutes after an order is placed from stores up to 10 miles away. Walmart touts the technology for people who need missing cooking ingredients, last-minute birthday gifts, over-the-counter medications or movie night snacks.

An artificial intelligence has consistently beaten champion drone pilots in races for the first time, achieving lap times no human was able to match. The technology could be used to speed up drones carrying out everyday tasks. The sport of drone racing involves humans piloting small quadcopters around a course at speeds of more than 100 kilometres per hour, with the vehicles subject to g-forces of up to 5 g.

Russian transport aircraft have been reported damaged in a drone attack on an airport in Russia's western city of Pskov – located near the borders of Latvia and Estonia – where explosions, a large blaze and gunfire were reported, a local official and state media said. Russia's state-run TASS news agency, quoting emergency services, said early on Wednesday morning that four Il-76 heavy transport aircraft, which have long been the workhorse of the Russian military, were damaged at the airfield in Pskov, located roughly 800km (some 500 miles) from the border with Ukraine. "The defence ministry is repelling a drone attack in Pskov's airport," the regional Governor Mikhail Vedernikov said on the Telegram messaging app, posting a video of a large fire, with sounds of explosions and sirens in the background. Vedernikov, who was at the scene of the attack, said that "according to preliminary information, there are no victims". The scale of the damage to the airport was being assessed, he said.

Russian air defences have shot down two armed drones headed for Moscow, the city's mayor said, the latest in a surge of drone attacks on Russia's capital city. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said early on Wednesday that one drone was downed in the Domodedovo area on the southern outskirts of the city, while the second was shot down in the Minsk highway area, west of the capital. "Two combat drones' attempt to fly into the city was recorded. Both were shot down by air defence," Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging channel, without naming an attacker. "At the moment, there is no information about victims of the fall of the wreckage," he said, adding that emergency services were on the ground.

Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, with at least 10 drones overnight, damaging a multistory administrative tower and other buildings, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday, as Moscow kept up the pressure on metropolitan centers far from the front lines. The officials said that Ukraine's air defenses had shot down all the drones aimed at Kyiv but that falling debris from the interceptions had caused damage. The State Emergency Service said that an administrative building had been hit, and the head of the Kyiv regional administration, Ruslan Kravchenko, said that a house, a garage and a car had caught fire. "Another mass attack of the enemy involving attack U.A.V.s," said a statement by the regional administration on the Telegram app, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles. "Groups of drones were flying toward Kyiv simultaneously from multiple directions," it added.

Russia has launched air attacks on targets in southern and eastern Ukraine using drones and possibly ballistic missiles, Ukraine's air force said. The southern port of Odesa and the Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions were all under threat of Russian drone attacks, the air force said on the Telegram messaging app in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Russia may also be using ballistic weaponry to attack the regions of Poltava, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kirovohrad, the air force added. Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region's military administration, said air defence systems there were engaged in repelling a Russian drone attack. "Several waves of attacks are likely," Kiper said on Telegram.

A congressional committee focused on national security threats from China said it had "grave concerns" about a research partnership between the University of California, Berkeley, and several Chinese entities, claiming that the collaboration's advanced research could help the Chinese government gain an economic, technological or military advantage. In a letter sent last week to Berkeley's president and chancellor, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party requested extensive information about the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a collaboration set up in 2014 with China's prestigious Tsinghua University and the Chinese city of Shenzhen. The letter pointed to the institute's research into certain "dual-use technologies" that are employed by both civilian and military institutions, like advanced semiconductors and imaging technology used for mapping terrain or driving autonomous cars. The committee also questioned whether Berkeley had properly disclosed Chinese funding for the institute, and cited its collaborations with Chinese universities and companies that have been the subjects of sanctions by the United States in recent years, like the National University of Defense Technology, the telecom firm Huawei and the Chinese drone maker DJI.

A congressional committee focused on national security threats from China said it had "grave concerns" about a research partnership between the University of California, Berkeley, and several Chinese entities, claiming that the collaboration's advanced research could help the Chinese government gain an economic, technological or military advantage. In a letter sent last week to Berkeley's president and chancellor, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party requested extensive information about the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a collaboration set up in 2014 with China's prestigious Tsinghua University and the Chinese city of Shenzhen. The letter pointed to the institute's research into certain "dual-use technologies" that are employed by both civilian and military institutions, like advanced semiconductors and imaging technology used for mapping terrain or driving autonomous cars. The committee also questioned whether Berkeley had properly disclosed Chinese funding for the institute, and cited its collaborations with Chinese universities and companies that have been the subjects of sanctions by the United States in recent years, like the National University of Defense Technology, the telecom firm Huawei and the Chinese drone maker DJI.

Ukrainian air defence units repelled a Russian drone attack for the third consecutive night in and around Kyiv as emergency workers said they were investigating damage caused by falling debris from the destroyed aerial weapons. Kyiv's military administration said early on Thursday morning that falling debris from the destroyed drones had struck Solomyanskyi district in the centre of the Ukrainian capital. At least two people were injured. Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said material from the downed drones had also damaged a residential building in Darnytskyi district and there were reports of injuries. In the city's Shevchenkivskyi district, a balcony had caught fire.

Russia unleashed another widespread missile and drone attack overnight on cities across Ukraine, including targeting the capital, Kyiv, for the 10th time this month, Ukrainian officials said on Friday. At least three cruise missiles and six attack drones managed to evade air defenses, according to Ukraine's Air Force. There was no immediate information on casualties or what was hit. The air force said in a statement that three cruise missiles and 16 Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones had been intercepted, and local officials in Lviv said that five of those were over their region, in western Ukraine. The attack drones came in "several waves" with short intervals in between, according to the city's military administration, which said all had been shot down.