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Israeli air strikes shook Gaza every few minutes on Wednesday, and militants kept up rocket fire at Israel's heartland in intensifying warfare that Palestinian officials said has killed at least 53 people in the Hamas-dominated enclave. Missiles from Israel's Iron Dome defense system shot into the sky to intercept rockets launched, for the second straight day, at Tel Aviv, the country's commercial capital. Some were also aimed at Israel's Dimona nuclear plant, 80 km (50 miles) from Gaza, but were either shot down or landed in open country. With cries of "Allahu akbar" (God is Greatest), Palestinians in the Gaza Strip cheered as rockets streaked overhead toward Israel, in attacks that could provide a popularity boost for Islamist Hamas, whose rift with neighboring Egypt's military-backed government has deepened economic hardship. Dimona, desert site of a nuclear reactor and widely assumed to have a role in atomic weaponry, was targeted by locally made

A state judge struck down Colorado's gay marriage ban on Wednesday, saying the prohibition violated constitutional rights, but put his ruling on hold pending appeal. It was the latest of several decisions by state and federal judges to strike down state bans on same-sex nuptials and then stay their rulings pending challenges to higher courts. Adams County District Court Judge C. Scott Crabtree said in his decision that Colorado's prohibition, approved by voters in 2006, conflicted with the fundamental right to marry. "The Court rejects the State's attempt to too narrowly describe the marital right at issue to the right to marry a person of the same sex," Crabtree wrote. There are 19 states, plus the District of Columbia, where same-sex marriage is now legal. Several other same-sex marriage lawsuits are moving toward the U.S. Supreme Court. Two other lawsuits, testing bans in Oklahoma and Virginia, have already been heard by appeals courts. The attorney gen

President Barack Obama rejected demands from Texas Governor Rick Perry and others that he visit the border where a child migrant crisis is unfolding and said his critics should get behind his request for $3.7 billion if they want to solve the problem. "Are folks more interested in politics or are they more interested in solving the problem," Obama said he told Perry. "If they are interested in solving the problem then this can be solved. If the preference is for politics then it won’t be solved." Obama visited Texas for the first time since the influx of child migrants from Central America overwhelmed border resources. He had talks with Perry aboard his Marine One helicopter and in a group meeting with local officials that Obama called constructive. In a brief news conference after the meeting, Obama dismissed criticism from Perry, a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, that he should personally visit the border region for a first-hand look. "

Japan on Thursday denied as "sheer misreporting" a front page newspaper story that North Korea had provided a list of some 30 Japanese survivors still living in the isolated country, including known victims of state-sponsored kidnapping. _0"> The Nikkei business daily said North Korea produced the list at a July 1 meeting in Beijing to discuss North Korea's plan to resume investigations into the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 80s. North Korea agreed in May to reopen the probe, prompting Japan to ease some sanctions. "I'm aware of the report, but nothing like that happened during the meeting or during a recess," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference. "It's sheer misreporting." The Nikkei, citing sources, said Tokyo had matched about two-thirds of the names on the list with domestic records of missing persons. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made the abduc

Three Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 27 wounded in clashes with pro-Russian separatist rebels in the east of the country, the military said on Thursday. _0"> Government forces have recently gained the upper hand in the three-month conflict against separatists in the Russian-speaking eastern regions in which more than 200 government troops have been killed as well as hundreds of civilians and rebel fighters. But though government forces pushed the rebels out of a stronghold in Slaviansk at the weekend, the heavily armed separatists have dug in in Donetsk, a city of 900,000 people, and remain active in and around Luhansk on the Russian border. The government's "anti-terrorist operation" said that one soldier was killed late on Wednesday when rebels fired machine-guns at a truck carrying soldiers at Muratova near Luhansk. "The vehicle was ambushed. In the course of the fighting one serviceman was killed and three were wounded," it said in a s

A surge of Republican pressure is bringing the Federal Reserve's long-held independence into question again, as conservative lawmakers seek to place the U.S. central bank under tougher scrutiny. With Democrats controlling the Senate since the 2008 financial crisis, the bank and its supporters have had the luxury of shrugging off Fed-related laws from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. But a Republican takeover of the Senate in November's midterm elections would increase the chances of some of those measures hitting the Senate floor, and changing the way the Fed functions. Two Republican congressmen proposed a new bill on Monday that would force the Fed to disclose information it has historically kept private. That bill will be discussed at a hearing on Thursday by the House Financial Services Committee, which is convening a panel to discuss reforming the Fed. "I think there's a chance of legislation that affects us," Richmond Fed President J

Iraqi security forces found 53 corpses, blindfolded and handcuffed, south of Baghdad on Wednesday as Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders traded accusations over an Islamist insurgency raging in the country's Sunni provinces. Officials said dozens of bodies were discovered near the mainly Shi'ite Muslim village of Khamissiya, with bullets to the chest and head, the latest mass killing since Sunni insurgents swept through northern Iraq. "Fifty-three unidentified corpses were found, all of them blindfolded and handcuffed," Sadeq Madloul, governor of the mainly Shi'ite southern province of Babil, told reporters. He said the victims appeared to have been killed overnight after being brought by car to an area near the main highway running from Baghdad to the southern provinces, about 25 km (15 miles) southeast of the city of Hilla. The identity and sectarian affiliation of the dead people was not immediately clear, he said. Sunni militants have been carrying out att