Reuters US Domestic News Summary

09/08/2016 8:58

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Seeking escape from home, Kansas man robs bank, goes straight to jail

A Kansas man robbed a bank last week in order to go to jail and avoid his wife, court documents showed. Lawrence John Ripple, 70, told his wife following a fight on Friday that "he'd rather be in jail than at home."

Oakland moves to fire four officers, suspend seven over sex scandal

The mayor of Oakland, California, said on Wednesday she had moved to fire four police officers and suspend seven more in connection with a sex scandal that has roiled the department in recent months. The Oakland Police Department has been racked with problems, including the resignation of three police chiefs in quick succession after news of the scandal involving a teenage sex worker and police officers emerged in local media in June.

Mural depicts Maine governor as Klansman, Mickey Mouse

A graffiti artist lampooned Maine Governor Paul LePage in a mural depicting the two-term Republican wearing a Ku Klux Klan cape and hood, two weeks after he left a profane voicemail for a Democratic lawmaker he believed had called him a racist. The mural, which appeared over the weekend in Portland on a wall where graffiti is allowed by law, has been repainted to remove the reference to the white supremacist group, with the hood replaced with Mickey Mouse ears and a new caption "no hate" joining the existing "racist homophobe moron governor," in which the word "governor" was struck through.

Closing private detention centers for migrants would pose problems: U.S. agents

Federal immigration agents have raised concerns about the U.S. government possibly ending its use of private detention centers used to detain undocumented migrants, a potential policy shift that some say could damage the United States' capacity to enforce its immigration laws. In line with a Justice Department move to phase out privately managed federal prisons, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said last month it would consider a similar change for the centers where thousands of migrants are detained, including those who have entered the country illegally and those seeking asylum or some other protected status.

Ferguson, Missouri, protest leader found shot dead in burning car: police

Missouri detectives have not determined a motive or identified any witnesses in an investigation into the death of a man who led protests in the city of Ferguson following the fatal 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by a law enforcement officer, police said on Wednesday. Protest leader Darren Seals, 29, was found shot inside a burning car in the village of Riverview, about five miles east of Ferguson, early on Tuesday, St. Louis County Police said in a statement.

Party lines split U.S. on terror threat 15 years after 9/11: poll

With the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks nearing, Americans are sharply divided on party lines over the threat of a major terrorist attack on the United States, according to a poll released on Wednesday. Forty percent of Americans say the ability of terrorists to strike the United States is greater than it was at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to the Pew Research Center survey of 1,201 adults.

Oklahoma Sept. 3 earthquake was strongest recorded in state -USGS

An earthquake in Oklahoma on Sept. 3 was the strongest on record in the state and had a magnitude of 5.8, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Wednesday. The quake, felt in an area stretching from Texas to South Dakota, hit near the northern Oklahoma town of Pawnee. It fueled growing concerns about seismic activity linked to a decade-long boom in oil and gas production after advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

Expanded U.S. habitat protection ordered for rare lynx

A federal judge ordered U.S. wildlife managers on Wednesday to enlarge habitat protections in Idaho, Montana and Colorado for the Canada lynx, a rare wild cat that roams the Rockies and mountain forests of several other states. Chief U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula, Montana, ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service erred in 2014 when it revised its critical habitat designations for the lynx with little or no expansion beyond the original plan issued five years earlier.

Colorado couple accused of abusing emaciated, blind, autistic son

A Colorado couple has been jailed on suspicion of abusing their 17-year-old, blind and autistic son, who was hospitalized weighing just 88 pounds (40 kg) and whose condition a doctor likened to that of a concentration camp survivor, court records showed on Wednesday. Vanessa and David Hall, both 52, were arrested in the town of Longmont, about 35 miles (56.33 km) north of Denver, after the father took the emaciated and unconscious boy to a hospital last week, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed in the case.

Rabbi arrested in New York divorce scheme involving kidnapping, murder

A rabbi and another Orthodox Jewish man were arrested in New York in connection with a plot to kidnap and murder a man whose wife wanted to divorce him, federal officials said on Wednesday. Israel-based rabbi Aharon Goldberg, 55, and Shimen Liebowitz, 25, were taken into custody in Central Valley, New York, while meeting to discuss the plot on Tuesday, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

09/08/2016 8:58