Billionaire Elon Musk has reignited a political row about gangs of men who groomed and sexually assaulted girls in Northern England over several decades. In the past week, President-elect Trump’s closest advisor has shared a flurry of posts on his social media platform X, accusing UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other senior politicians of covering up the scandal. Starmer defended his record and slammed those “spreading lies.” He has been trying to build a relationship with the incoming Trump administration, but will Musk come in the way of that? n18oc_world n18oc_crux

Iran’s military showcased its air defence weaponry on Tuesday (January 7) in demonstration exercises.Missiles and radars were on display at the drills in the southern province of Isfahan.The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, said it was necessary to test the weapons systems in an environment close to that of a real-world scenario.In October 2024, Israeli air forces successfully struck targets inside Iran. Israel claimed scores of its jets had penetrated Iranian air space to strike targets inside the country. n18oc_world n18oc_crux

The Centre has appointed V Narayanan as the new chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation and secretary, Department of Space. Mr Narayanan will take over from S Somanath, the current head of the organisation, on January 14.

In a notification on Tuesday, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet said Mr Narayanan, who is the head of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Valiamala, will have a tenure of two years.