Pentagon fires intelligence agency chief after Iran attack assessment
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Pentagon's intelligence agency chief, just weeks after a White House rebuke of a review assessing the impact of American strikes on Iran, BBC reported.
Lt Gen Jeffery Kruse will no longer serve as head of US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon said in a statement. Two other senior military commanders have also been ousted by the Pentagon.
The defence department has not offered any immediate explanation on the firings, according to BBC.
In June, President Donald Trump had pushed back strongly on a leaked DIA report that found that attacks on Iran had set back its nuclear programme by months only. The White House declared the agency's assessment "flat out wrong".
UK agrees to pay Kenyans affected by military fire
The UK government has agreed to pay compensation to thousands of Kenyans who were affected by a fire caused by a British military training exercise four years ago, BBC reported.
The out-of-court settlement follows a lengthy legal battle in which 7,723 claimants said they had lost property and suffered health complications because of the 2021 fire in the Lolldaiga conservancy in Kenya's Rift Valley.
A spokesperson from the British High Commission in Nairobi said the UK "accepts responsibility for the fire and that is why compensation has been paid", adding "it is the right thing to do".
The British government has not confirmed how much was paid out, but the lawyer in the case told the BBC it was £2.9 million, according to BBC.
How researchers recreated faces of 2,500-year-old skulls found in India
In a modest-sized university lab in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, researchers are using a tiny drill to scrape away enamel from a 2,500-year-old tooth, BBC reported.
Researchers at Madurai Kamaraj University say the tooth belongs to one of two human skulls that they have used as models to digitally reconstruct faces to understand what the region's early inhabitants might have looked like.
The skulls, both belonging to men, were excavated from Kondagai, an ancient burial site about 4km (2.5 miles) from Keeladi - an archaeological site that has become a political flashpoint in India.
Tamil Nadu state department archaeologists say an urban civilisation dating back to 580BC existed in Keeladi, a claim that adds a new dimension to the story of the Indian subcontinent, according to BBC.
North Korean leader oversees new missile test, state media says
North Korean state media has said two new air defence missiles have been fired in a test overseen by the country's leader Kim Jong Un, BBC reported.
The weapons had "superior combat capability" and used a "unique technology", the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, without adding details.
The launches, carried out on Saturday, "proved that the technological features of two types of projectiles are very suitable for destroying various aerial targets" including drones and cruise missiles, KCNA said.
The test comes hours after South Korea confirmed it fired warning shots on Tuesday at North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the countries, according to BBC.
