US President Donald Trump has fired the two witnesses who provided damaging testimony during his impeachment probe.
The two men have been named as Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland.
Barely two days after President Trump was acquitted by the Senate on impeachment charges, Vindman was escorted out of the office building.
His lawyer, David Pressman, maintains Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth.
Shortly after Vindman's sacking, Sondland said he too had been fired from his post as US ambassador to the European Union.
The two men were important witnesses during the impeachment investigation last year.
Vindman's twin brother Yevgeny, who worked as a lawyer at the National Security Council, also was escorted out of the White House.
Trump maintains he is still angry with Democrats and government officials involved in the impeachment investigation despite being acquitted on Wednesday.
South Korea and the United States will cut short annual joint military drills to five days from 11 and scale back some field training, the allies said on Wednesday, after President Donald Trump ordered a substantial reduction in US participation.
At least 100 people were killed when a low-tech artisanal gold mine collapsed in the Central African Republic on Tuesday, a senior official at a local mining association said.
An Israeli airstrike killed nine Palestinians at a police station in Gaza on Wednesday, medics said, two days after US envoy Jared Kushner ended a trip to the region that failed to push forward Donald Trump's plan to end the war in the enclave.
Thai schools conducted active shooter drills on Wednesday, as authorities moved to strengthen security measures two weeks after a 14-year-old opened fire at a school and killed at least eight people.