Ken Stanford

Israel dramatically escalated its aerial assault targeting hundreds of Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip Thursday as Palestinians reported the strikes also hit a home and a beachside cafe, raising the total number of people killed in this week's offensive to at least 85.

Worries about the soundness of a European bank pushed U.S. stocks lower Thursday and sent global investors hunting for less risky assets.

Seven people died in a fast-moving Massachusetts apartment fire in the pre-dawn hours Thursday, officials said.

Authorities say a gunman who killed four children and two adults in suburban Houston has been charged in their deaths.

Germany took the dramatic step Thursday of asking the top U.S. intelligence official in Berlin to leave the country, following two suspected cases of American spying and the yearlong spat over eavesdropping by the National Security Agency.

When the State Board of Pardons and Paroles commuted the death sentence of a Dawson County murderer to life in prison Wednesday, it was only the fifth death sentence commuted by the board since 2002.

At a time when election officials are struggling to convince more Americans to vote, advocates for the disabled say thousands of people with autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy and other intellectual or developmental disabilities have been systematically denied that basic right in the nation's largest county.

Officials closed the House side of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday because of an industrial spill.