A ruinous conflict raging for about a year between rival generals in Sudan risks creating the world's largest hunger crisis, the top U.N. food official warned Wednesday as the global attention has been focused on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Program, said the fighting in Sudan, which pits the country's military against a violent paramilitary group, has shattered the lives of millions across the northeastern African nation.

Top European Union officials on Tuesday outlined ambitious plans to boost its defense industry at an unprecedented pace as the bloc seeks to respond to the threat posed by Russia's war on Ukraine and a trans-Atlantic partner that could be wavering on its commitments to Europe.

For decades, EU nations have slumbered under the protective nuclear cover of the United States through the NATO alliance while their defense spending and crisis preparedness withered.

North Korea called the ongoing South Korean-U.S. military drills a plot to invade the country, as it threatened Tuesday to take unspecified "responsible" military steps in response.

The North's warning came a day after the South Korean and U.S. forces kicked off their annual computer-simulated command post training and a variety of field exercises for an 11-day run. This year's drills were to involve 48 field exercises, twice the number conducted last year.

On the day that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was laid to rest in Moscow, Russian state media leaked an audio recording of German military officers discussing the hypothetical use of Taurus long-range missiles in Ukraine.

The conversation on a sensitive subject was never meant to be public, and the leak embarrassed Germany and raised concerns about the security of its communications.

Turkish police on Tuesday detained seven more people suspected of selling information to the Israeli spy agency Mossad, authorities said, the latest in a wave of such arrests in Turkey.

The suspects were taken into custody during simultaneous raids in Istanbul, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. The raids were a joint operation with Turkey's National Intelligence Organization.

Ukraine said Tuesday it had damaged a Russian military patrol boat on the Black Sea near the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia 10 years ago.

Ukraine's military intelligence said maritime drones struck the ship near the Kerch Strait, causing "sustained damage to the stern, starboard and port sides."

He's argued his four criminal indictments and mug shot bolstered his support among Black voters who see him as a victim of discrimination just like them.

He's compared himself to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison imprisoned by Vladimir Putin, and suggested that he is a political dissident, too.

The Kremlin on Monday said the content of leaked conversations between German officials discussing potential strikes on Crimea proved Western countries were participating in the conflict in Ukraine.

The leaks came as an embarrassment for Berlin, which is under pressure to supply Taurus missiles to Kyiv struggling with ammunition shortages.

A poll finds that a growing share of U.S. adults doubt that 81-year-old President Joe Biden has the memory and acuity for the job, turning his coming State of the Union address into something of a real-time audition for a second term.

Roughly 6 in 10 say they're not very or not at all confident in Biden's mental capability to serve effectively as president, according to a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That's a slight increase from January 2022, when about half of those polled expressed similar concerns.

Iranian hard-line politicians dominated the country's vote for parliament, results released Monday showed, maintaining their hold on the legislature in a vote that saw calls for a boycott and an apparently low turnout.

Authorities still have not released turnout figures for Friday's vote, nor given any reason for the delay. Turnout is suspected to be low after polling stations in the capital, Tehran, saw few voters.