U.S., IRAQIS TEAMING AGAINST ISIS AGAIN

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is resuming operations against Islamic State militants in Iraq and is working to soon restart training Iraqi forces, U.S. officials said Wednesday, despite deep divisions over the American drone strike that killed a senior Iranian commander in Baghdad and the resulting missile attacks by Iran on Iraqi bases. One official said some joint operations between the U.S. and Iraqi forces have already begun.

Mich. lawmaker apologizes for remark to female reporter

LANSING, Mich. — A Republican state lawmaker should be subject to a sexual harassment investigation for telling a young female reporter she could have “a lot of fun” with a group of high school boys visiting the Michigan Capitol, legislative leaders said Wednesday.

State Sen. Pete Lucido, 59, of Macomb County’s Shelby Township, issued a brief apology earlier Wednesday, after the Michigan Advance journalist published a report detailing their interaction outside the Senate chamber on Tuesday.

Allison Donahue, 22, said she asked Lucido for an interview to discuss his participation in a controversial Facebook group. He said he could talk after honoring roughly 30 students from De La Salle, an all-boys Catholic high school in suburban Detroit from which Lucido graduated.

“You should hang around! You could have a lot of fun with these boys, or they could have a lot of fun with you,” he said. The teens laughed, according to Donahue’s first-person account in the Advance.

She wrote that his comments were “belittling and came from a place of power.”

“I apologize for the misunderstanding yesterday and for offending Allison Donahue,” Lucido said in a Wednesday statement.

Virginia nears ERA approval

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia on Wednesday moved to the brink of becoming the crucial 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in what was seen as a momentous victory for the women’s rights movement. Whether the ERA will go on to become the 28th Amendment may have to be decided in court because the deadline set by Congress for ratification of the ERA ran out in 1982 and because five states that approved it in the 1970s have since rescinded their support.