Explosions heard in Tehran and Jerusalem on fifth day of war

Explosions sounded in Tehran Wednesday as Iran’s war with the U.S. and Israel entered a fifth day following earlier strikes on an Iranian nuclear site and retaliatory strikes by the Islamic Republic across the Gulf region.

The explosions around Tehran came at dawn, according to Iran state television, while Israel’s military said its air defenses had been activated to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.

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An Iranian flag is placed among the ruins of a police station struck Monday during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Firefighters inspect the rubble as smoke rises from a building hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Jewish men covered in prayer shawls pray in an underground parking garage as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

A coffin is carried during the funeral of mostly children killed in what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-U.S. strike Feb. 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)

A coffin is carried during the funeral of mostly children killed in what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-U.S. strike Feb. 28 at a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)

A man takes shelter in an underground metro station as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Ramat Gan, Israel Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Five days into a war that U.S. President Donald Trump suggested could last a month or longer, nearly 800 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.

Explosions also hit Lebanon, where Israel said it is retaliating against Hezbollah militants. Lebanon’s state-run media reported that at least four people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a residential complex in the city of Baalbeck.

Here is the latest:

Strikes hit Lebanon overnight, including in several towns and on a hotel in a suburb right next to the capital.

Beirut woke up to the sounds of drones whizzing overhead.

The Israeli military warned residents in a southern suburb to flee ahead of a morning airstrike, as more displaced people fleeing the conflict pour into the capital seeking shelter.

Overnight Israeli strikes on towns near Beirut have killed at least six people, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said early Wednesday.

Israel struck the towns of Aramoun and Saadiyat just south of Beirut’s international airport, killing six and wounding eight others.

It also struck a hotel in the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh. No casualties were immediately reported there.

The strikes came without warning and the Israeli military did not immediately disclose the targets.

The Israeli military said Wednesday it conducted a series of strikes across Iran’s capital targeting its security forces.

It said it hit buildings associated with the Basij, the all-volunteer force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that conducted the bloody crackdown on protesters in January that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained in the country.

The Israeli military also said it hit buildings associated with Iran’s internal security command, which also has suppressed demonstrations in the past.

Israel and the U.S. have said they want to see the Iranian public overthrow its theocracy.

Strikes against counterprotest forces likely are part of that effort.

An Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq said it fired drones toward Jordan.

The group, Saraya Awliya al-Dam, said that drones were aimed at “a vital target” in the kingdom.

Earlier Wednesday, Jordan’s state-run television reported that sirens sounded across the country.

Iraqi militants on Tuesday threatened to target Jordan over allegations that U.S. aircraft that bombed their facilities took off from a Jordanian air base.

A building associated with the clerical panel that will pick Iran’s next supreme leader came under attack in an airstrike in the holy seminary city of Qom, semiofficial media reported.

The attack Tuesday hit the building in the Resalat neighborhood of Qom.

The semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, linked the building to Iran’s Assembly of Experts and said there was no meeting ongoing there at the time of the attack.

Fars further went on to say the assembly is meeting remotely, without elaborating.

It added that meetings over naming a new leader are ongoing — suggesting there could be an announcement by Iran in the coming days over who will replace the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike at the start of the war Saturday.

There was no report on if anyone was hurt in the strike.

Israel’s public broadcaster KAN said Israel carried out the attack, though there’s been no confirmation from its military.

The Assembly of Experts is an 88-member panel which “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.

The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog.

The death toll from the strike on a residential complex in Baalbeck, Lebanon, rises to five, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Fifteen others were wounded and three are missing, it said.

Sirens have sounded Wednesday morning across Jordan, the kingdom’s state television reported.

An Israeli airstrike hit a hotel outside of Beirut, Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.

The strike came in Hazmieh, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) southeast of downtown Beirut.

The report from Lebanon’s National News Agency said ambulances had been dispatched to the scene.

It did not elaborate in its short report.

Asian shares tumbled Wednesday, with South Korea’s benchmark plunging as much as 11%, while oil prices climbed even higher.

Worries over the widening conflict with Iran have hammered most world markets.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 shed 3.4% to 54,346.73.

Japan, like South Korea, depends heavily on imports of oil and natural gas from the Middle East that are now stranded in the Persian Gulf.

The price of U.S. benchmark crude oil climbed 1.2% to $75.46 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 1.5% to $82.61 per barrel.

Higher oil prices and how much they might worsen inflation are spooking investors worried that more spikes for oil prices may grind down the global economy and sap corporate profits.

DALLAS (AP) — Longtime Sen. John Cornyn and MAGA favorite Ken Paxton are heading to a May runoff in Texas’ Republican Senate primary, setting up what’s expected to be a nasty and expensive second round and a renewed push to win the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

On the Democratic side, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico were in a close race, competing for their party’s nomination and the right to face the winner of the Cornyn-Paxton runoff in November.

Texas, along with North Carolina and Arkansas, kicked off midterm elections with control of Congress at stake and against the backdrop of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Cornyn is seeking a fifth term but facing a tough challenge from Paxton, the state attorney general. He hopes to avoid becoming the first Republican senator in Texas history to seek reelection and not be renominated.

The GOP contest also featured U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished a distant third and conceded. But him making it a three-way race made it tougher for any candidate to reach the 50% vote threshold needed to win the nomination outright and avoid the May 26 runoff.

All three campaigned on their ties to Trump, who did not make an endorsement in the race. Now both Cornyn and Paxton will again fiercely compete to curry the president’s favor.

Cornyn was facing a tough enough battle that he didn’t hold an election night party. Instead, in comments to reporters in Austin, he sought to make the case that a runoff win by Paxton would leave “a dead weight at the top of the ticket for Republicans.”

“I’ve worked for decades to build the Republican Party, both here in Texas and nationally,” Cornyn said. “I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton to risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years.”

Addressing supporters in Dallas, Paxton made a point of saying he felt like he had during a recent trip to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate. He also proclaimed: “We proved something they’ll never understand in Washington.”

“Texas is not for sale,” he said.

A jubilant Talarico told supporters in Austin, “We are not just trying to win an election. We are trying to fundamentally change our politics. And it’s working.”

“This is proof that there is something happening in Texas,” he said, adding that the state “gave this country a little bit of hope.”

Crockett’s campaign said she planned to sue over voting issues in Dallas, and the congresswoman said she would not make any public appearances until later Wednesday.

Cornyn’s cool relationship with Trump is part of what made him vulnerable. He and allied groups spent at least $64 million in television advertising alone since July to try stabilize his support.

Paxton, who began campaigning in earnest only last month, has made national headlines for filing lawsuits against Democratic initiatives. He remained popular in Texas despite a 2023 impeachment trial on corruption charges, of which he was acquitted, and accusations of marital infidelity by his wife.

Senate GOP leaders, who are backing Cornyn, worry that Paxton’s liabilities would make it harder to defend the seat if he is the nominee — and require significant spending that could be better used elsewhere.

In the Democratic campaign, Crockett and Talarico each argued that they would be the stronger general election candidate in a state that backed Trump by almost 14 percentage points in 2024 and where no Democrat has won a statewide race in over 30 years.

Voting was extended in Dallas County and Williamson County, outside Austin, after voters reported being turned away and directed to different voting precincts because of new primary rules. Paxton’s office later challenged a decision keeping the polls open longer, and the state Supreme Court ruled that ballots cast by people not in line by 7 p.m. should be separated from others.

It was not immediately clear how the court’s action would be carried out or how many eligible ballots remained to be counted in Dallas County, Crockett’s home base. Crockett said she’d seek legal action after voting was concluded.

Crockett and Talarico waged a spirited race as Democrats look for their first Senate win in Texas since 1988.

Talarico, a seminarian who often references the Bible, held rallies across the state including in heavily Republican areas. Crockett has built a national profile for zinger attacks on Republicans and focused on turning out Black voters in the Dallas and Houston areas.

Dallas voter Tanu Sani said she cast her ballot for Talarico because he “really spoke to me in the way he tries to unify.”

Tomas Sanchez, a voter in Dallas County, said he supported Crockett because “she cares about immigrants, she cares about the American people in a way that a lot of the Republicans have proven they haven’t.”

Talarico outspent Crockett on television advertising by more than four to one as of late February. He got a burst of attention — and campaign contributions — last month from CBS’ decision not to air his interview with late-night host Stephen Colbert, who said the network pulled the interview for fear of angering Trump’s FCC.

Texas’ races also featured new congressional district boundaries that GOP lawmakers — urged on by Trump — redrew to help elect more Republicans. The result matched several Democratic incumbents in primary fights and set up new general election battlegrounds.

In the 34th District, former Rep. Mayra Flores was attempting a comeback but was defeated by Eric Flores, a lawyer endorsed by Trump, for the nomination to run against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez. Mayra Flores made history in a 2022 special election as the first Republican to win in the Rio Grande Valley in 150 years but lost her bid for a full term later that year.

In the 23rd District, Rep. Tony Gonzales is considered vulnerable after an alleged affair with a staffer who killed herself. He faced a challenge from gun manufacturer and YouTube influencer Brandon Herrera, who calls himself “the AK guy.” The district includes Uvalde, site of a deadly 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School.

Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw lost his primary to state Rep. Steve Toth, who was endorsed by Sen. Ted Cruz.

Former Major League Baseball star Mark Teixeira clinched the Republican primary to succeed GOP Chip Roy in southwest Texas’ 21st District.

Democrat Bobby Pulido, a Latin Grammy winner, won his party’s primary in South Texas’ 15th District against physician Ada Cuellar. Pulido will face two-term Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz.

In the 33rd District, Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson faced former Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker and 2024 Senate nominee.

Democratic Rep. Al Green was fighting to stay in office after his Houston-based 9th District was drawn to lean Republican. Green, 78, ran in a newly drawn 18th District against Democratic Rep. Christian Menefee, 37, who won a January special election for the current 18th District.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott easily won his primary and will face Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa. Roy advanced to a primary runoff with Mayes Middleton for attorney general.

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Sara Cline and Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed.