US and Israel conduct strikes on Iran...

U.S. and Iranian officials held a last-ditch round of mediated talks in Switzerland on Thursday over Tehran’s nuclear program. But the talks ended without a breakthrough, apparently paving the way for the strike. Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, announced the strike in a statement, adding that the country would be under a state of emergency. The U.S. and Israeli officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters. Anticipating potential Iranian retaliation, the Israeli government announced that schools, workplaces, and the country’s international airspace would close, effective immediately. The crisis began after Trump vowed in early January to aid anti-government demonstrators in Iran. The Iranian government quelled those protests in a bloody crackdown that killed thousands, according to rights groups. Trump has since both threatened to attack Iran and sought to leverage the unrest in the country to reach a diplomatic solution. In exchange, the United States would agree to lift the punishing sanctions that helped tilt the Iranian economy into crisis. But the prospects for an immediate deal were always remote: U.S. officials said they were seeking not only tight restrictions on Iranian nuclear activities, but also limits on Iran’s ballistic missile program and an end to its support for proxy groups across the Middle East like Hamas and Hezbollah. Here’s what else to know: -- The United States bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities last June during a 12-day-war between Israel and Iran. While Trump initially said the Iranian nuclear program had been “obliterated” by those U.S. strikes, it later emerged that the effort had been degraded, not decisively destroyed. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.