UNITED STATES: The crew of a freight train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, had little warning before dozens of wagons left off the track and there is no indication that they did anything wrong, federal investigators said in a preliminary report published on Thursday.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made his first visit to the crash site and hit back at former president Donald Trump, who had visited the day before and criticised the federal response to the derailment. 

UNITED STATES: A Los Angeles judge sentenced movie magnate Harvey Weinstein to 16 more years in prison on Thursday after a jury convicted him of the rape and sexual assault of an Italian actor and model.

The prison term, along with the 23 years he received in 2020 for a similar conviction in New York, probably amounts to a life sentence for the 70-year-old.

GUANTANAMO BAY: US officials returned two Pakistani brothers, Abdul and Mohammed Rabbani, to their home country on Thursday after they had been held for two decades without charge.

The brothers were the latest detainees to be freed as the US moves toward closing down the prison camp on occupied Cuban soil.

The brothers have alleged that they were tortured while in CIA custody before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2002. 

NORTH KOREA: The government said today that had it test-fired long-range cruise missiles off the country’s eastern coast the day before.

The latest of a string of weapons tests took place as the United States and South Korea held war simulations in Washington in response to nuclear threats by Pyongyang.