Alva Review-Courier -

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A judge has ruled that a 37-year-old Kansas woman charged in the decapitation death of her ex-boyfriend's mother is competent to stand trial. Rachael Hilyard, of Wichita, is charged with first-degree murder in the April 2017 d...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The FBI says two juveniles and 35 adults in the greater Kansas City area were rescued from alleged commercial sex trafficking operations as part of a nationwide roundup. The FBI coordinated the national effort throughout J...

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Sedgwick County sheriff's deputy who was arrested twice in the same day last year has lost his license to be an officer. The Wichita Eagle reports the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers' Standards and Training revoked the l...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — After dozens of people, including toddlers and teenagers, were gunned down in separate mass shootings at a church Sutherland Springs and a high school in suburban Houston, Texas Republicans came to the Capitol this year with t...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Government meteorologists say this year's hurricane season may be busier than initially expected now that summer's weak El Nino has faded away. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center said T...

GENEVA (AP) — Human-caused climate change is dramatically degrading the Earth's land and the way people use the land is making global warming worse, a new United Nations scientific report says. That creates a vicious cycle which is already making f...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) As an environmental scientist, I’ve done plenty of hiking in the western U.S. – always with a map, water bottle and l...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) There’s just something thrilling about traveling at high speeds. Throughout history people have always pushed t...

PHOENIX (AP) — Alex Kack remained mystified Thursday as to how he became an internet sensation when all he did was laugh at a city council meeting in Arizona. "Everyone else was doing something far more active than me honestly. I was just laughing,"...

LOGAN, Utah (AP) — Swarms of green stink bugs have welcomed customers at a Utah gas station. The Herald Journal reported Wednesday that hundreds of the insects known as Say's stink bugs were reported by residents and travelers at a Chevron gas s...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shifting the gun violence debate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday he now wants to consider background checks and other bills, setting up a potentially pivotal moment when lawmakers return in the fall. The R...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A day after Puerto Rico got its third governor in less than a week following angry street protests, top officials from new leader Wanda Vázquez's own party talked openly Thursday about their desire to see a fourth ta...

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (AP) — A gang member who killed four people and wounded two others in random stabbings across two Southern California cities has a violent past, police said Thursday, and court records show he was free on bail for a charge last m...

MORTON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi residents rallied around terrified children left with no parents and migrants locked themselves in their homes for fear of being arrested Thursday, a day after the United States' largest immigration raid in a d...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a frequent target of President Donald Trump's ire, sued the FBI and the Justice Department on Thursday over his firing. The lawsuit, the second this week from an ex-FBI official c...

In the aftermath of the back-to-back massacres in Texas and Ohio, the debate over gun control has returned to the National Rifle Association and its immense power to stymie any significant legislation on the issue. The man largely responsible for the...

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Michael Brown's death at the hands of a white Missouri police officer stands as a seismic moment in American race relations. The fledgling Black Lives Matter movement found its voice, police departments fell under intense s...

AGAT, Guam (AP) — Walter Denton wanted to grow up to be just like Father Tony Apuron, until the night he says the parish priest raped him in a church rectory. The pastor sent the sobbing 13-year-old altar boy away with a warning: "If you say a...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The United States often takes a leading role in calling out the world's most dangerous places, warning its people about the risks of traveling to countries that are at war, under terrorist threats, experiencing civil u...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hundreds of people attended Thursday's funeral of an 18-year-old Israeli soldier who was found dead hours earlier with stab wounds near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the killing as...

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The growing memorial for victims of the El Paso massacre reflects the city's deep roots in Catholicism: A painting of the Virgin Mary sits among teddy bears and candles embellished with religious imagery. White crosses are a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. long-term mortgage rates fell sharply this week, with the benchmark 30-year loan touching its lowest level since November 2016. Financial markets around the globe have been whipsawed by anxiety over the U.S.-China trade war, s...

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WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — Police bomb squads have converged on a Massachusetts church after hand grenades were found in a pile of donated back-to-school items. Explosives experts with the Worcester police, Massachusetts State Police and the federal B...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first black woman to serve as American University's student government president has won a lawsuit against a neo-Nazi website operator who orchestrated an online harassment campaign against her. A federal judge granted d...