What is Iran's Pickaxe Mountain? US soldier killed in Iraq during'controlled detonation' of Iranian drone The United States military has announced the death of another soldier, saying he was killed in northern Iraq "during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance" from a downed Iranian drone. In a statement on Sunday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the soldier died on July 18 and that a second service member suffered mild injuries during the detonation. The death on Saturday brought the number of US service members killed since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran to 17. The war began on February 28.

Trump is silent so far on Iran strategy as U.S. death toll hits 17 U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office on July 14. | Doug Mills / The New York Times If U.S. President Donald Trump knows where he wants to take the war in Iran, he's giving little sign of it publicly. The conflict continued to spiral over the weekend, with both sides trading attacks in the aftermath of an Iranian strike that killed two U.S. service-members in Jordan and injured others. Both Iran and the U.S. have largely abandoned the tentative peace deal the president had touted. The week of escalating missile and drone strikes underscored the risk that the conflict will reignite in full again even as the man who started it stayed silent, only acknowledging the U.S. troop fatalities in a brief conversation with a media outlet. U.S. Central Command announced Sunday that a third service member died the day before during an controlled detonation of an unexploded Iranian drone in northern Iraq. And the U.S. said unidentified remains of another victim in Friday's Jordan strike were being examined.

FIFA's World Cup Halftime Show Puts American-Style Spectacle on the World Stage Organizers want the show to be the most-viewed halftime show in history. Having Shakira, Justin Bieber, Coldplay, and BTS will surely help--but do soccer fans want it? It was all Chris Martin's idea. During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Coldplay frontman called Hugh Evans, the CEO of Global Citizen, for whom he curates the Global Citizen Festival, with something new to pitch. "Wouldn't it be incredible," Evans recalls Martin saying, "if we could do the first-ever halftime show for the World Cup?"

China's Moonshot plans IPO in six months after AI breakthrough A Kimi logo is pictured at the Moonshot AI stand, featuring the Kimi K3 model, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Saturday. Moonshot AI has told investors it's preparing to list in as early as six months, seizing the opportunity to tap capital markets after its latest model upended industry perceptions of China's burgeoning capabilities and sent global tech stocks reeling. The Chinese AI pioneer has officially distributed the shareholder resolution to its investors, seeking the blessing of its backers on a Hong Kong listing, people familiar with the matter said. The initiation of the notification process indicates an IPO could happen as soon as within the next six months. Moonshot is now in the process of wrapping a fundraising round that may value the three-year-old startup at more than $30 billion, the people said.

Russians are returning to cash, as mobile internet shutdowns disrupt card payments, and more businesses seek to dodge tax under mounting financial pressure more than four years into the war with Ukraine. Russia has added 1.56tn roubles (£14.8bn; The spike comes amid a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks, which have repeatedly led the Kremlin to shut down mobile internet across large swathes of the country, leaving many unable to pay by card. The government says the aim of the shutdowns is to counter the drone strikes. Having cash on hand gives you some sense of control and security, one woman in Moscow told the BBC on condition of anonymity.

Moonshot AI's Kimi upends conventional wisdom on U.S. lead over China People walk past the Moonshot booth promoting its Kimi K3 AI model, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Friday. At an event in Beijing earlier this year, some of China's top artificial intelligence leaders warned that the country remained meaningfully behind the U.S. in developing cutting-edge AI models, with one executive arguing that "the gap may actually be widening." Leading U.S. firms also appeared confident they were significantly ahead. As recently as last week, one executive at Anthropic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, mused that the Claude maker's technology was roughly six to 12 months ahead of Chinese rivals. The Chinese AI lab released Kimi K3, a more advanced open-weight model that it said outperforms all rivals except for Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 on overall capability.

Drone video shows the scale of a major wildfire in northern Spain where more than 150 square kilometres have burned across an 80-km perimeter. A seventh night of US strikes cuts water to villages in Iran's south

Fraud expert David Maimon warned Congress that criminals are using artificial intelligence to create deepfakes and fake documents to bypass government identity verification systems.

India has successfully tested its first private-sector orbital rocket, marking a milestone in New Delhi's ambition to become a major player in the global space economy. The three-stage 22-metre Vikram-1 was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota and deployed customer payloads into a 450km (280-mile) low-Earth orbit, making India the third country to achieve orbital launch capability through private enterprise. It also carried experimental equipment, a lab-grown diamond and a miniature 18-carat gold sculpture commemorating India's national space programme. India Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the achievement, saying that it will "encourage countless youngsters to dream bigger and innovate fearlessly". Founded in 2018, Skyroot is among a new generation of Indian space startups that have attracted backing from global investors following the sector's liberalisation.

Is the war entering a new phase? Ukrainian drone attacks in western Russia have killed at least eight people and wounded dozens, according to local officials, as Ukraine and Russia continue to exchange strikes. Tambov Governor Evgeniy Pervyshov said on Saturday that an attack on Kotovsk struck a warehouse owned by Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer. Another 25 people were wounded, including one person in critical condition and six seriously, with most of the injuries caused by shrapnel, he said. According to the governor, 28 drones had been intercepted.