The world is waiting to assess the impact of the next wild turn in the politics of the United States, a power that has tried to guarantee global stability for decades, but whose domestic politics are increasingly turning it into a force of unpredictability and disruption.   

  Tuesday’s election results will be available overnight US time on CNN, CNN International and CNN.com.  (Watch live here.)   

  Meanwhile, here are the latest five other consequential global news stories worth paying attention to as the US midterm elections race to their toxic conclusion.   

  President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine is getting more brutal.  Its siege against the neighboring country’s infrastructure, including the use of deadly Iranian drones, is causing deep distress to the city’s residents.  In Kyiv, power outages last up to 12 hours a day, roads are pitch black and Mayor Vitali Klitschko has warned that residents could face a winter without electricity, heating or water.  “Generally, they all want us dead,” he said.   

  Putin hopes to break the will of the Ukrainian people after their resistance has humiliated his forces on the battlefield.  So far, there’s no sign of that — although a post-midterm Republican House may not want to continue spending billions of dollars on military aid to Ukraine.  The most tangible signs of faltering morale are actually on Moscow’s side – this week, some Russian soldiers complained in a letter that they were being sent into an “incomprehensible battle” in the Donetsk region, where Ukraine says its enemy has suffered heavy casualties. losses.   

  Iran’s ties to Russia are a growing concern in the United States.  At home, the Islamic Republic is facing an unprecedented popular uprising, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, after she was arrested by the country’s so-called “morality police”.   

  More than 220 members of Iran’s parliament have now called for protesters to be taught a “good lesson” by the clerical leadership, to deter others who threaten its rule.  Iran has charged at least 1,000 people in Tehran province alone with nationwide protests, the biggest such show of dissent in years, state news agency IRNA reported.   

  In Pakistan, former prime minister Imran Khan says he has inside knowledge of the apparent assassination attempt that led to his shooting last week, and three bullets in his leg.  Khan has accused senior government members of planning the attack – something they and Pakistan’s intelligence agency vehemently deny.   

  “I have connections with the intelligence services, the various services that work.  How did I get the information?  Through the intelligence services.  Why;  Because most people are horrified by what’s happening in this country,” the former cricket legend told CNN’s Becky Anderson.

  Political unrest is escalating ahead of the World Cup finals in Qatar starting this month as players, FIFA officials and experts struggle to answer questions about the Gulf country’s human rights record and the deaths of foreign workers while building the stadiums for the world football show.   

  Their suffering will be compounded by a comment by FIFA World Cup ambassador and former footballer Khalid Salman that homosexuality is “damage to the mind”, in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF.   

  Salman said being gay was “haram” or forbidden in Islamic law.  “It’s brain damage,” he continued, adding that there was a need to “talk about gay people” ahead of the tournament.  The interview, filmed in Doha less than two weeks before the start of the tournament, was immediately interrupted by an employee of the World Cup organizing committee.   

  To be honest, it was a close call whether to put this next story on your radar as worth watching.  World leaders are burning huge amounts of jet fuel to gather in Egypt for this year’s COP27 climate summit.  The urgency of the issue is clear – this year we have seen abundant evidence from floods in Pakistan to massive wildfires in the United States to vicious heatwaves in Europe that global warming is accelerating.  But will another climate summit achieve anything significant in meeting missed targets for reducing carbon emissions?   

  A big question at the conference is whether there will be agreement on loss and damage – the principle that rich countries responsible for decades of carbon emissions should spend money to help developing ones, which bear the brunt of the top consequences.   

  “It just keeps getting pushed back,” former White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy told CNN.  “There is a need for some real accountability and some concrete commitments in the short term.”