No scene has dominated U.S. politics since 2015 quite like Donald Trump on stage, waxing on for an hour-plus in front of a chorus of red "Make America Great Again" hats.

The stream-of-consciousness routine, the interrupting one of his thoughts with the next, is not a polemic Cicero or Lincoln would recognize. The former president and Republican nominee calls his style of speech "the weave," whipsawing from dystopian warnings to light-hearted storytelling to policy pronouncements.

The question posed to Vladimir Putin in September about the U.S. election drew a wry smile and an arched eyebrow from the Russian president.

Asked whether he preferred Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, Putin caught listeners up short with his teasing reply that also included a gentle jab at President Joe Biden.

Many American voters are concerned that the ongoing Middle East conflict will escalate into an all-out regional war, a new poll finds. About half of voters are "extremely" or "very" worried about the possibility of a broader war in the region.

Though there is concern about the conflict growing, according to the survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, fewer voters — around 4 in 10 — are concerned that the United States will be drawn into a war in the Middle East. This poll was conducted prior to Israel's strike on military bases in Iran on Friday.

Iran said Wednesday that there had been "no interruption" in its production of missiles after Israel said its strikes on Iran last week hit missile production facilities.

"There has been no interruption in the process of producing offensive systems such as missiles," Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh told reporters.

CNN has banned conservative writer Ryan Gidursky from the network following a contentious on-air exchange where he told panelist Mehdi Hasan that "I hope your beeper doesn't go off."

"Did you just say I should die?" Hasan said, responding to Gidursky's apparent reference to September's attack where pagers used by hundreds of Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria exploded simultaneously. The attack was widely believed to be carried out by Israel.

North Korea said Tuesday its top diplomat is visiting Russia, in another sign of their deepening relations as rival South Korea and Western nations say the North has sent thousands of troops to support Russia's war in Ukraine.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said a delegation led by Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui departed for Russia on Monday, but didn't specify the purpose of the visit. In a closed-door hearing at South Korea's parliament, the South's spy agency said Choe may be involved in high-level discussions on sending additional troops to Russia and negotiating what the North would get in return, according to Lee Seong-kweun, a lawmaker who attended the meeting.

With the U.S. presidential election just a week away, the Biden administration is not giving up hope for short-term deals for cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon.

But U.S. officials are mindful that political uncertainty in the United States has made the sides reluctant to commit to any significant agreements before it is clear who has won the White House.

Iran on Tuesday accused European countries of "hypocrisy" after remarks by EU chief Josep Borrell saying the bloc was "considering measures in response" to the execution of Iranian-German Jamshid Sharmahd.

"Europe only stands for hypocrisy," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X, accusing the EU of failing to "end the killing of more than 50k Palestinians in Gaza" or "to allow 1.5m refugees in Lebanon to return to their homes".

Bowls of labneh and platters of za'atar bread covered the tables in a Lebanese restaurant near Detroit, yet no one seemed to have much of an appetite.

On one side were Kamala Harris ' top emissaries to the Arab American community. On the other were local leaders who were explaining — once again — why many in the community couldn't vote for the vice president because of the war in Gaza.

Voters in this year's presidential election are choosing between two conflicting visions of the United States offered by Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. The outcome will affect how the country sees itself and how it's viewed across the world, with repercussions that could echo for decades.

Since replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, Harris has pledged to blaze her own path forward. But many of the vice president's ideas are well trod by Biden: middle-class tax cuts, tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, a restoration of abortion rights, a government that aggressively addresses climate change. and a commitment to uphold democratic values and the rule of law.