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.

In Lebanon, where Israel has been intensifying military operations against Hezbollah for the past month, U.S. officials allow that a short-term fix is probably unrealistic.

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".

Dany Alwan stood shaking as rescue workers pulled remains from piles of rubble where his brother's building once stood.

An Israeli airstrike destroyed the three-story residential building in the quiet Christian village of Aito a day before. His brother, Elie, had rented out its apartments to a friend who'd fled here with relatives from their hometown in southern Lebanon under Israeli bombardment.

Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted a ship traveling through the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Red Sea on Monday, though it escaped undamaged, authorities said.

The attack ended an 18-day lull in reported assaults attributed to the Houthis, who have been attacking ships traveling through the Red Sea corridor for nearly a year now over the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. The violence has disrupted international shipping through the region, once valued at $1 trillion in goods annually.

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.

An Israeli strike on a five-story building where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the northern Gaza Strip killed at least 60 people early Tuesday, according to health officials.

Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of the field hospitals’ department at the Gaza Health Ministry, announced the toll from Tuesday’s strike in the northern town of Beit Lahiya at a news conference. He says another 17 people are missing.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed his Lebanese counterpart to London on Monday and offered condolences for the deaths of citizens killed in Israeli attacks.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported that more than 2,700 people had been killed and nearly 12,600 wounded in a year of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. A quarter of those killed were women and children.

Israeli strikes killed at least 60 people and wounded 58 more in various locations in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley amid a surge of intensified airstrikes Monday, Lebanese state media reported.

The highest death toll was in the town of Sahl Allak in the Baalbek province, where 16 people were killed, according to the National News Agency, which listed deaths in 12 different locations in the Bekaa.