Alva Review-Courier -

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans and Democrats are scrambling in the final days of 2017 to establish an enduring narrative on multiple Russia investigations and the integrity of the investigators, a partisan messaging battle that has intensified as s...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-led Congress narrowly passed a temporary spending bill Thursday to avert a government shutdown, doing the bare minimum in a sprint toward the holidays and punting disputes on immigration, health care and the budget to...

CHICAGO (AP) — Scott Judd trained his camera lens on the white dot in the distance. As he moved up the Lake Michigan shoreline, the speck on a breakwater came into view and took his breath away: it was a snowy owl, thousands of miles from its A...

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A former Marine who was deported to his birth country of Mexico 15 years ago because of a conviction for a minor offense returned to the United States on Thursday after winning his battle to regain permanent U.S. residency. Marco C...

HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. government official who oversees the agency sheltering immigrant minors says abortion and rape are both forms of "violence" in a memo released Thursday that explains why he won't allow abortions even for teenagers who have b...

NEWKIRK, Okla. (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday it is suspending plans to conduct bioterrorism drills near the Kansas-Oklahoma border over concerns about their impact on grounds Native American tribes consider sacred b...

Nearly 300 people have died in train crashes that could have been prevented if railroads across the U.S. implemented critical speed-control technology that federal safety investigators have been pushing for close to five decades, according to rail cr...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on a secret visit to Afghanistan on Thursday that the U.S. is "here to see this through" as they discussed a newly announced U.S. strategy to break the stalemate i...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a remarkably strong show of consumer demand, nearly 9 million people signed up for "Obamacare" next year, as government numbers out Thursday proved predictions of its collapse wrong yet again. The Centers for Medicare and M...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis chose an unusual site Thursday to begin a pre-holiday tour of military bases, urging troops on this Navy base to set a good example for politically divided Americans and be always r...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The vice chair of the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents announced Thursday he would resign after an uproar over a comment on public affairs television that appeared to liken gay people to pedophiles. Following a two-hour c...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Thursday to denounce President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, largely ignoring Trump's threats to cut off aid to any country that went against him. The...

With Congress sending President Donald Trump a tax overhaul, state and local governments are preparing for some fallout. A look at some of the ways it might affect them: FEDERAL-STATE CONNECTIONS The federal tax overhaul will force officials in most...

UKHIA, Bangladesh (AP) — For six hours he hid in an upstairs room, listening to the crackle of gunfire and the screams of people being slaughtered outside his Myanmar home. With every footstep that drew near, every cry that pierced the air, 5...

SYDNEY (AP) — The family of an Australian woman who was fatally shot by a Minnesota police officer in July demanded a more rigorous probe Thursday after a prosecutor cast doubts on the investigation. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman faulted i...

NEW YORK (AP) — Arguably the biggest thing that came from Hollywood this year wasn't a movie or a TV show. It had heroines and villains, but no script. And it went viral despite having no big publicity machinery behind it. The women who initially s...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a solid 3.2 percent annual rate from July through September, slightly slower than previously estimated but still enough to give the country the best back-to-back quarterly growth rates in three years. The f...

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (AP) — The owner of two Guinness World Record-holding cats says the animals died in a fire that destroyed their suburban Detroit home last month. Will Powers says in a statement that the remains of Arcturus and Cygnus were f...

NEW YORK (AP) — The wave of sexual misconduct allegations that toppled Hollywood power brokers, politicians, media icons and many others was the top news story of 2017, according to The Associated Press' annual poll of U.S. editors and news d...

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Donald Trump completes his first year in office, Americans are increasingly concerned about health care, and their faith that government can fix it has fallen. A new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public A...

WASHINGTON (AP) — You wouldn't know it from President Donald Trump's rhetoric, but the tax overhaul coming into effect is heavily tilted to the rich. It also leaves "Obamacare" in place, despite his assertion that the tax plan repeals the health c...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean soldiers fired 20 warning machine gun rounds Thursday, turning back North Korean soldiers apparently pursuing a comrade who had earlier dashed across the rivals' shared border, officials said. It is the f...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The longtime chairman of the Pennsylvania Board of Education has resigned amid accusations that he pursued sexual relationships with teenage girls more than 35 years ago, when he was in his late 20s and early 30s and a u...

The Trump administration has halted an independent scientific study of offshore oil inspections by the federal safety agency created after the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine was told to...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council has scheduled a vote Friday on proposed new sanctions against North Korea, including sharply lower limits on its oil imports, the return home of all its overseas workers within 12 months, and a c...