Republican Mitt Romney performed strongly Wednesday in his first presidential debate, putting a more passive Barack Obama on the back foot as he reignited hope in his flagging campaign.

Needing a good showing to turn around poor poll numbers, the former Massachusetts governor went on the offensive from the get-go, hammering the president for economic policies he said had "crushed" America's middle class.

The U.S. military and intelligence agencies are compiling detailed dossiers on those believed to have attacked the U.S. consulate in Libya ahead of possible retaliation, the New York Times reported.

Citing U.S. officials, the Times reported late Tuesday that the top-secret Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was collecting information on the deadly attack last month that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

A United States border agent on patrol along Arizona's border with Mexico was shot dead and another was wounded on Tuesday, officials said.

"One agent died from his injuries and another, who sustained non-life threatening wounds, was airlifted to a hospital," a spokesman with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency told AFP.

U.S. Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney attacked President Barack Obama's Middle East policy late Sunday, stepping up the pressure after a wave of anti-U.S. protests in the Islamic world.

In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Romney said of recent "disturbing" developments in the Middle East that the United States "seems to be at the mercy of events rather than shaping them.

Senator John McCain joined other top Republicans on Sunday in attacking Washington's shifting explanations of the September 11 assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

McCain, interviewed on CNN's "State of the Union" show, hinted at "certain political overtones" in the initial claim by President Barack Obama's administration that the assault was part of a spontaneous anti-American demonstration.

White House hopeful Mitt Romney renewed his attacks on Barack Obama's foreign policies Saturday, blaming the president's "passivity and denial" for sewing chaos in the Middle East.

The Republican nominee took Obama to task for saying unrest and violence were "bumps in the road," adding that such a "casual assessment of shocking events reveals that the president really doesn't understand the gravity of the challenges that we face in the broader Middle East."

The United States warned on Saturday that U.S. women Christian missionaries in mainly Muslim Egypt face threats of terror attacks and urged vigilance.

"The embassy has credible information suggesting terrorist interest in targeting U.S. female missionaries in Egypt," the American mission in Cairo said in a statement on its website.

A joke by the satirical newspaper The Onion appears to have gotten lost in translation.

An Iranian news agency picked up — as fact — a story from the paper about a supposed survey showing an overwhelming majority of rural white Americans would rather vote for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than President Barack Obama. But it was made up, like everything in the just-for-laughs newspaper, which is headquartered in Chicago.

U.S. tough guy actor Samuel L. Jackson has made an expletive-laden video warning apathetic Americans to "Wake the Fxxx Up" and vote for President Barack Obama in November's election.

The "Pulp Fiction" star, known for playing bad-ass characters and who voiced a spoof audio book "Go the Fuck to Sleep" last year, is shown warning a family of the dangers of letting Mitt Romney into the White House by inaction.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to set a "clear red line" on Iran's controversial nuclear program in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly later Thursday, an Israeli official said.

"In his speech, the prime minister will set a clear red line" on Iranian nuclear activities, a senior Israeli official told reporters traveling with Netanyahu as his plane arrived in New York.