As U.S.-led warplanes pound jihadists in Iraq, prominent Sunni exiles say that empowering their marginalized minority will be more important than bombs and missiles in defeating the Islamic State extremist group.

Deadly sectarian tensions have riven Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein more than a decade ago, with Sunni anger at the Shiite-led authorities seen as a key factor behind the rise of IS.

An unmanned rocket owned by Orbital Sciences Corporation exploded Tuesday in a giant fireball and plummeted back to Earth just seconds after launch on what was to be a resupply mission to the International Space Station.

"The Antares rocket suffered an accident shortly after lift-off," NASA mission control in Houston said, describing the blast at Wallops Island, Virginia, as a "catastrophic anomaly."

North Korea has built a test facility that may be intended to develop a marine-based ballistic missile launch capability, using submarines or surface vessels, a U.S. think-tank said Tuesday.

While submarines carrying ballistic missiles could provide the North Korea with a survivable second-strike nuclear capability, the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University stressed that Pyongyang was likely "years" from achieving the required technology.

U.S. warplanes renewed air strikes against Islamic State jihadists near the Syrian town of Kobane, as Iraqi peshmerga soldiers prepared to reinforce their fellow Kurds in the border area, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

U.S. fighter jets and bombers on Tuesday and Wednesday carried out eight air raids near Kobane, targeting six vehicles, a building and several IS fighting positions over the past 24 hours, said the military's Central Command, which oversees the air war in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. cargo planes have parachuted aid to a beleaguered Sunni tribe in western Iraq, the Pentagon said Tuesday, in a sign Iraqi government forces remain in a tenuous position against Islamic State jihadists in Anbar province.

American C-130 aircraft carried out an airdrop of food near Al-Asad air base early on Monday at the request of the Baghdad government, Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters.

An Islamic State propaganda video featuring a British hostage playing the role of a field reporter in a disputed Syrian town a shows the "depravity" of the jihadists, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The U.S. military is assessing the video's authenticity but has no reason to suspect it is fake, spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters.

Seven in 10 Americans rate the economy poorly and nearly as many distrust government, giving Republicans the upper hand in the final week before midterm elections, a poll showed Tuesday.

An overwhelming majority of respondents in an ABC News-Washington Post poll see the country as severely off track.

For the 23rd straight year, the United Nations voted Tuesday in favor of lifting the U.S. embargo on Cuba, with Iran saying the ban was undeserved given Havana's help in fighting Ebola.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted the non-binding resolution on ending the five-decade embargo by a vote of 188 in favor, with two countries voting against: the United States and Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Tuesday that an election planned by separatists in eastern Ukraine would be unlawful, and that Moscow's recognition of the results violates international agreements.

"This will be a clear violation of the commitments made by both Russia and the separatists that it backs in the Minsk agreements," Kerry said during a visit to Ottawa.

A U.S. jury on Tuesday returned a second conviction over the 2013 Boston Marathon attacks, finding a friend of the prime suspect guilty of lying to investigators.

Robel Phillipos, 21, was convicted on two counts of making false statements to authorities after the twin bombings, which killed three people, a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors told Agence France-Presse.