Venezuelan President: U.S.-backed coup plot foiled

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says his government had blocked what he called a U.S.-backed coup plot that included plans to attack the presidential palace with a military jet. "It is the government of the United States that is behind the plans of destabilization and coups against Venezuela. I have come here to denounce it. ... We have dismantled a coup attempt against democracy, against the stability of our homeland," Maduro said in a televised address Thursday. "It was an attempt to use a group of officials from the air force to provoke a violent act, an attack." More…