A US judge has denied a request for defence materials by Indian national Nikhil Gupta, charged by federal prosecutors in a murder-for-hire plot to kill a Khalistani separatist on American soil.

The US and British militaries bombed more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen on Thursday, in a massive retaliatory strike using warship- and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, US officials said. The military targets included air defence and coastal radar sites, drone and missile storage and launching locations, they said.

San Francisco: Google has laid off hundreds of employees working on its hardware, voice assistance and engineering teams as part of cost-cutting measures.

Israel will defend itself in the United Nations' highest court starting Thursday against allegations that its military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 struck Afghanistan on Thursday with tremors rippling through parts of north India, the National Centre for Seismology said.

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned attacks by Houthi rebels on merchant and commercial vessels in the Red Sea since November 2023, saying these impede global commerce and undermine navigational rights.

The US government has objected to providing defence materials to Indian national Nikhil Gupta, detained in a Czech prison on murder-for-hire charges in a foiled assassination attempt on a Khalistani extremist, saying it will provide the information only upon his appearance in a New York court and arraignment in the case.

2023 was a year of record-breaking heat, devastating storms and floods, deepening droughts and raging wildfires. These events showed how climate change is affecting the global water cycle and our livelihoods.