NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks rushed higher worldwide, and oil prices eased as hopes built that the war with Iran could end soon. The S&P 500 rose 0.7% and added to its leap from the day before, which was its best since last spring. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.2%.

Elmer Brown was following two friends on his four-wheeler last November, hunting caribou across a frozen channel in northern Alaska when the ice gave way. All three plunged into the frigid water. One friend drowned, and Brown, 45, later died of hypothermia, leaving behind five children.

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump sought on Wednesday to explain his rationale for the war against Iran at a pivotal moment at home and abroad, but he offered few new details as he amasses extraordinary executive authority to prosecute the military operation.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Every day more than $4 billion worth of goods cross the United States’ borders with Canada and Mexico – U.S. auto parts headed for car factories in northern Mexico, cartons of Mexican avocados bound for California supermarkets, Canadian aluminum destined to become cans of Campbell Soup.

President Donald Trump said U.S. forces will keep hitting Iran “very hard” in the next two or three weeks and bring the country “back to the Stone Ages,” even as he touted the success of U.S. operations and argued that all of Washington’s objectives have so far been met or exceeded.

YELLOWKNIFE, Northwest Territories (AP) – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday his government will spend billions on forward operating locations and infrastructure in the North to assert sovereignty over the increasingly contested region.

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

TORONTO (AP) – Another opposition lawmaker in Canada has defected to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s governing Liberals, all but assuring he will soon have a majority government.