In the wind-swept prairie called Tornado Alley, the scene is eerily familiar: Homes smashed to splinters. Trees and telephone poles snapped like twigs. Piles of bricks, overturned cars and dazed survivors sifting through rubble in search of a precious photo or heirloom. A town in ruins.

A Utah Army veteran charged with killing a police officer and wounding five others in a shootout during a marijuana raid was found hanging dead in his cell early Friday.

All students at a Denver-area high school are safe after a report that a man with a rifle was seen near campus, police said Friday.

The lawyer for a Maine man charged with killing a 15-year-old girl wants a judge to keep affidavits and search warrants with details about the case under seal.

As authorities suggested residents of a northeastern North Dakota city flee their homes earlier this week in case a rain-swollen dam burst, Daryl Thompson hurriedly prepared meals at his Main Street cafe for the emergency workers who would stay behind.

Gun owners in the only state still banning concealed weapons would win that right under a plan approved by the Illinois House on Friday, but the governor and other powerful Democrats oppose the plan because it would wipe out local gun ordinances _ including Chicago's ban on assault weapons.

Many states get hit frequently with tornadoes and other natural catastrophes, but Oklahoma is Disaster Central.

New Jersey used a record-breaking gesture Friday to celebrate its recovery from a record-setting storm, proclaiming to the nation that the Jersey shore is back in business following Superstorm Sandy.

After lengthy and wrenching debate, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have voted to open their ranks to openly gay boys for the first time, but heated reactions from the left and right made clear that the BSA's controversies are far from over.

A truck hauling an oversized load of drilling equipment hit an overhead bridge girder on the major route between Seattle and Canada, sending a section of the interstate into the river below as the driver watched the structure collapse in his rearview mirror.

With a growing sexual assault epidemic staining the military, President Barack Obama urged U.S. Naval Academy graduates Friday to remember their honor depends on what they do when nobody is looking and said the crime has "no place in the greatest military on earth."

Four girls killed in an Alabama church bombing during the civil rights movement are receiving the highest honor Congress gives to civilians.

The last of the Arellano Felix brothers who founded an infamous Mexican drug cartel has pleaded guilty in San Diego to helping ship hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds from the United States.

An American man killed his uncle, aunt and cousins in the Czech Republic and then flew to the United States, where he was arrested at an airport, authorities said Friday.

A once-prominent swimming coach who trained thousands of children was sentenced to seven years in prison Thursday for sexually abusing one of the girls he instructed.

Authorities: Utah Army veteran charged with killing officer is found dead hanging in jail cell

After living nearly 20 years in their one-story brick home, Sherry and Larry Wells finally won the lottery _ for a state rebate on a home storm shelter, that is. A contractor finished installing the concrete bunker beneath the slab of their garage in early May. About three weeks later, the shelter saved their lives when a tornado that killed 24 people tore through their neighborhood.

The biographer whose extramarital affair with then-CIA director David Petraeus triggered his resignation says she regrets the relationship and the harm and grief it caused her family.

Craft breweries from around the country are toasting the troops with a beer aged with a unique ingredient that symbolizes America's pastime _ baseball bats.

A Utah Army veteran charged with killing a police officer and wounding five others in a shootout during a marijuana raid was found Friday hanging dead in his cell, authorities said.