Alva Review-Courier -

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Roman Catholic Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, with many millions going to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or s...

Small businesses have, like much of the U.S. economy, been walloped by the coronavirus. In response, Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program to infuse small businesses — which typically have less access to quick cash and credit — with hun...

One store advertised hand sanitizer at $60 a bottle. Another was accused of hawking it at $1 a squirt. Chain stores offered $26 thermometers and face masks at the "everyday low price" of $39.95 a pair, while a convenience store touted toilet paper...

Security companies spent years pushing schools to buy more products — from "ballistic attack-resistant" doors to smoke cannons that spew haze from ceilings to confuse a shooter. But sales were slow, and industry's campaign to free up taxpayer money f...

Congress has asked its watchdog agency to investigate the Pentagon's handling of child-on-child sex assaults on U.S. military bases following reporting by The Associated Press that detailed how failures of justice leave victims with little support...

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military officials have sought to ward off congressional efforts to address child-on-child sexual assaults on bases, even as they disclose that the problem is larger than previously acknowledged. Members of Congress e...

The family of the man suspected of planting the bombs this month that killed two people and injured four others in the Texas capital expressed shock, saying they don't know what could have motivated him. "I mean this is coming from nowhere. We just...

Senior members of Congress have called for investigations and a hearing in response to an Associated Press report that details how the U.S. military frequently fails to protect or provide justice to the children of service members when they sexually...

The three military fathers sat at the commander's conference table on the U.S. Army base in Germany, pleading for help. They told the commander that their daughters were among a half-dozen girls sexually assaulted by a boy in their first-grade class...

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (AP) — A decade after the Pentagon began confronting rape in the ranks, the U.S. military frequently fails to protect or provide justice to the children of service members when they are sexually assaulted by other children on b...

DALLAS (AP) — Tests detected toxic substances in soil, water and ash samples taken from residents' property miles away from a Houston-area chemical plant that flooded during Hurricane Harvey, caught fire and partially exploded, according to a c...

HOUSTON (AP) — Thick black smoke and towering orange flames shot up Friday after two trailers of highly unstable compounds blew up at a flooded Houston-area chemical plant, the second fire there in two days. Arkema says Harvey's floodwaters e...

HOUSTON (AP) — At least 2 tons of highly unstable chemicals used in such products as plastics and paint exploded and burned at a flood-crippled plant near Houston early Thursday, sending up a plume of acrid black smoke that stung the eyes and l...

HOUSTON (AP) — Thick black smoke and towering orange flames shot up Friday from a flooded Houston-area chemical plant where highly unstable compounds blew up a day earlier after losing refrigeration. It was the second day that flames and smoke c...

Houston's mayor kept facing questions Tuesday about his decision not to order an evacuation of the notoriously flood-prone city ahead of Harvey's arrival, even as overflowing reservoirs led several suburbs to move people out. Instead, Mayor...

HOUSTON (AP) — Hector and Itza Ayala sat in a conference room at Houston's prestigious performing arts high school, clutching a document they hoped would force administrators to investigate their 15-year-old daughter's claim of a classroom sex a...

The children who sexually assault other children may be the popular jocks, the loners or anyone in between. There is no typical attacker, no way for schools to predict who might inflict that kind of torment on a classmate. Thousands of school-age...

HOUSTON (AP) — Hector and Itza Ayala sat in a conference room at Houston's prestigious high school for the performing arts, clutching a document they hoped would force administrators to investigate their 15-year-old daughter's claim of a classroom s...

The Georgia school district said it was investigating the baseball players for "misbehavior" and "inappropriate physical contact." What it didn't reveal was that a younger teammate had reported being sexually assaulted. Even after players were later...

Unlike colleges and universities, there are no national requirements for U.S. elementary and secondary schools to track student sexual assaults. But 32 states and the District of Columbia do maintain information, though it is inconsistent and...

The true extent of student-on-student sexual assault in elementary and secondary schools is unclear. There are no national requirements for schools to track and disclose such incidents, as there are for colleges and universities, and sexual violence...

The children were confused, scared and hurt. In their own words, they did their best to convey what other students had done to them in the school restroom, the gym and the bus. What their families learned left them shaken and set up an unexpected,...

BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) — Chaz Wing was 12 when they cornered him in the school bathroom. The students who tormented him were children, too, entering the age of pimples and cracking voices. Eventually, he swore under oath, the boys raped him and left h...