Water has been discovered for the first time in the atmosphere of an exoplanet with Earth-like temperatures that could support life as we know it, scientists revealed Wednesday.

A four-and-a-half-year-old girl was raped allegedly by a teenage boy in Gauripur upazila of Mymensingh on Monday, while a court sent three men to jail yesterday on charge of gang-raping a teenage girl in Shayestaganj upazila of Habiganj.

Three more people, including two schoolchildren, died of dengue fever in Chattogram and Barishal in the last two days. With them, the unofficial death toll from the disease this year now stands at 147 against the official figure of 60.

An additional public prosecutor of Bogura’s Additional Sessions Judge Court-2 has been withdrawn on charges of making recommendtions to the court in favour of an absconding murder accused in exchange for financial benefits.

Some 1,484 children suffered various forms of violence in the last eight months across the country, said Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF), a platform campaigning for child rights.

Several hundred workers of a readymade garment factory yesterday blocked the capital’s Satrasta intersection for over two hours, protesting the dismissal of some 66 of their colleagues.

A lighter vessel with around 1,100 tonnes of coal sank in the Bay of Bengal yesterday morning. All 12 members of the crew were rescued by a fishing boat, said Ataul Karim, joint secretary of Water Transport Cell, a private organisation that allocates lighter vessels.

A Chinese woman who stirred fears of espionage when she entered President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort carrying multiple mobile phones and a malware-spiked thumb drive was found guilty of trespassing and lying in a Florida court Wednesday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday apologised for her party’s handling of an alleged sexual assault, as a top ally was forced to resign. In the most serious scandal Ardern has faced since she took office in late 2017, the centre-left leader admitted “mistakes were made”

Heatstroke has killed two people in Japan, officials said yesterday, as nearly half a million homes struggled with electricity outages after a powerful typhoon battered Tokyo and the surrounding area.

Scientists on Tuesday unveiled a new species pterosaur, the plane-sized reptiles that lorded over primeval skies above T-rex, Triceratops and other dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous.

The seventh edition of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) will be held from the scheduled date of December 6, but not in a franchise-based system, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan revealed yesterday.

A Bogura court sent an arrestee to jail yesterday, a day after he was picked up by police from Dhunat upazila on charges of raping four schoolgirls. Eight more people were held over rape allegations in five other districts on Monday and Tuesday.

Rab yesterday arrested six people in connection with making fake documents for getting passports for “Rohingya refugees” at Jhalkuri area of Narayanganj’s Shiddhirganj.

A police officer in Pabna allegedly arranged a marriage between a gang-rape victim and one of the alleged rapists in an attempt to cover up the crime, the woman’s family members and rights activists in the district said.

Arab states, the United Nations and the European Union condemned a plan by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex parts of the occupied West Bank as “aggression” undermining any chances of a peace settlement with the Palestinians.

Divided after their failed 2017 secession bid, Catalonia’s separatists were set to hold a rally in Barcelona yesterday that will test their strength before a Spanish court in October serves verdicts against the leaders of the independence push.

Inertia at the international level has removed pressure on Myanmar and its allies and enabled impunity despite the country’s military being accused of crimes against humanity and genocide, said UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on the rights of the Rohingya in a report published on Tuesday.

A Dhaka court yesterday recorded statements of Nusrat Jahan Rafi’s mother and brother in connection with a case filed against Moazzem Hossain, former officer-in-charge of Sonagazi Police Station.

A student of Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology was killed when a microbus hit his motorcycle in the capital’s Demra area last night. Kamrul Hassan Sunny, 22, was a masters’ student of the university.