Israel launched a missile strike on Iran less than a week after Tehran’s rocket and drone barrage, according to two U.S. officials.

An explosion was heard Friday in Iran’s central city of Isfahan, the country’s semi-official Fars news agency reported, as concerns mounted about Israeli retaliation.

Flights were suspended in Isfahan and ...Read more

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A top House Democratic leader took a first step Thursday toward expelling State Rep. Kevin Boyle from the state House, as the lawmaker faces criminal charges and his family says he’s suffering from a serious mental health condition.

Democratic House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, in response to Boyle’s situation, ...Read more

Airborne viruses will be called “pathogens that transmit through the air” under new terminology the World Health Organization hopes will end a scientific rift that hampered the early response to COVID-19.

After two years of consultations involving over 100 scientists, a WHO-led working group agreed to the term to describe diseases caused ...Read more

An explosion was heard early Friday in Iran’s central city of Isfahan, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing local sources.

The cause of the blast is unknown, according to the report. An Iranian army air base and Isfahan’s airport are reportedly close to the explosion site, Fars said. Global oil and gold prices rose.

...Read more

NEW YORK — The 12 New Yorkers who will decide whether or not Donald Trump is a felon before this year’s presidential election were seated during a dramatic day of proceedings Thursday, leaving the court to find five alternates before his historic hush money trial begins in earnest.

“We have our jury,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice ...Read more

DENVER — Colorado will distribute $24 million in one-time funding to public school districts and charter schools impacted by the unprecedented influx of immigrant students who arrived after the annual October headcount that determines districts’ state funding.

Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed the bipartisan bill, HB24-1389, authorizing ...Read more

BOSTON — Attorneys on Thursday selected two more in the third batch of potential jurors in the white-hot Karen Read murder case at Norfolk Superior Court, but didn’t get enough for trial and will have to interview at least one more batch.

Jury selection began Tuesday in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham with more than 90 candidates. ...Read more

CHICAGO — Anticipating Chicago will see a surge of buses bearing migrants from the southern border ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August, organizers say they’re relying on Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to come up with a plan to stave off any ensuing potential chaos.

So far, Johnson and Pritzker have ...Read more

A petition to protect reproductive freedoms in the Nevada Constitution can advance to the November ballot, the State Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Justices determined the District Court made errors in an earlier ruling saying, “the initiative petition has a single subject: the establishment of a fundamental right to reproductive freedom. All ...Read more

NEW YORK — NYPD officers arrested more than 100 Columbia University students Thursday after groups protesting the war in Gaza refused to take down a two-day encampment zone.

Hundreds of cops flooded the campus at the request of the university president, with buses on standby to transport demonstrators downtown for trespassing. Other students,...Read more

An Orange County, California, fertility clinic accidentally destroyed embryos after they came in contact with hydrogen peroxide while an employee was cleaning an incubator, according to a pair of lawsuits filed by two couples on Thursday.

The couples, who failed to become pregnant after the embryos were implanted in late January, accuse FPG ...Read more

OAKLAND, Calif. — Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price on Thursday announced criminal charges against three police officers involved in the 2021 death of Mario Gonzalez, who stopped breathing while being pinned to the ground by multiple officers.

Price is charging three Alameda Police Department officers — Eric McKinley, James ...Read more

A petition to protect reproductive freedoms in the Nevada Constitution can advance to the November ballot, the State Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Justices determined the District Court made errors in an earlier ruling saying, “the initiative petition has a single subject: the establishment of a fundamental right to reproductive freedom. All ...Read more

NEW YORK — The daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a vocal Democrat sharply critical of Israel, was among at least three students suspended Thursday over a pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University.

Omar, who made history as one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress and has been a sharp critic of the war in Gaza, ...Read more

FORT WORTH, Texas — Residents and members of local civil rights organizations gathered Thursday to denounce Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare’s recent treatment of Commissioner Alisa Simmons, which they described as racist, misogynistic, and publicly intimidating.

The news conference sprang from an exchange between O’Hare and Simmons at a...Read more

CHICAGO — Citing the changing needs of incoming migrants to Chicago, the Cook County Board of Commissioners Thursday approved a transfer of $70 million originally dedicated to providing them health care to instead cover costs of food service for new arrivals.

The funding represents the majority of the $100 million Board President Toni ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — More than three years after the Tampa City Council formally apologized for the city’s racist past, the body unanimously approved the formation of a committee tasked with examining and addressing persistent inequities in Florida’s third-largest city.

The 13-member Race Reconciliation Committee will make policy recommendations...Read more

WASHINGTON — When Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene used a typically under-the-radar legislative process to send political messages Wednesday about foreign aid funding bills, one of her Democratic colleagues decided to strike back.

Greene filed a flurry of amendments to the Ukraine aid bill with the House Rules Committee, ...Read more

DENVER — Wolves killed several yearling cattle in north-central Colorado this week, bringing the total number of wolf kills of livestock this month to six.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Thursday confirmed that wolves killed three yearlings on a Grand County ranch between Monday night and Tuesday morning. The carcasses were discovered ...Read more