A three-phased election for choosing a local government in Indian-controlled Kashmir opened early Wednesday in the first such vote since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government stripped the disputed region of its special status five years ago.

Authorities deployed thousands of additional police and paramilitary soldiers in the region's seven southern districts where over 2.3 million residents are eligible to cast their votes and chose 24 lawmakers out of 219 candidates in the first phase of the polling.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday decried Republican Donald Trump for inflammatory rhetoric about migrants in Springfield, Ohio, and on other topics, saying voters should make sure he "can't have that microphone again."

Sitting down for a rare extended campaign interview Tuesday with a trio of journalists from the National Association of Black Journalists, Harris said her heart breaks after threats of violence have disrupted the city following comments amplified by Trump and his running mate alleging, without evidence, that immigrants are kidnapping and consuming people's pets.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen put women in many of the top roles on her new team for her next five-year tenure at the head of the bloc on Tuesday, despite the reluctance of many EU member states to give in to her demand for gender parity.

Von der Leyen put only two men in her top echelon with four women as vice presidents, including Kaja Kallas as foreign policy chief. Kallas was already agreed on by government leaders.

Ryan Wesley Routh portrayed himself online as a man who built housing for homeless people in Hawaii, tried to recruit fighters for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, and described his support and then disdain for Donald Trump — even urging Iran to kill him.

"You are free to assassinate Trump," Routh wrote of Iran in an apparently self-published book in 2023, "Ukraine's Unwinnable War," which described the former president as a "fool" and "buffoon" for both the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the "tremendous blunder" of leaving the Iran nuclear deal.

Chinese warplanes tailed a U.S. military aircraft through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, China's military said.

The U.S. aircraft was a P-8A Poseidon patrol and reconnaissance plane, capable of conducting long-range anti-submarine warfare, according to a statement by the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command.

Iran's new reformist president has insisted that Tehran didn't want to enrich uranium at near-weapons grade levels but had been forced to by the U.S. withdrawal from its nuclear deal with world powers.

The comments by President Masoud Pezeshkian, in response to a question by The Associated Press at his first news conference, underlines a campaign promise he made to try to see international sanctions on the Islamic Republic lifted. However, it remains unclear just how much room for negotiation Pezeshkian will have — and just who will be in the White House come next year.

The embattled U.S. Secret Service has defended its role a day after a gunman managed to lie in wait for Donald Trump, as another apparent assassination attempt heightened fears of election violence.

U.S. media named Ryan Wesley Routh, whom AFP interviewed in Kyiv in 2022 where he had traveled to support the war effort, as the suspected would-be assassin of Donald Trump.

Three Americans, two Spaniards and a Czech citizen were detained in Venezuela on suspicion of plotting to destabilize the country, the government said Saturday, as the United States denied Caracas's allegations it was involved.

Pope Francis on Friday accused both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris of being "against life" as he returned to Rome from an epic 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific.