Reuters US Domestic News Summary

08/11/2016 8:57

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

FCC votes to keep most media ownership rules

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday voted to retain nearly all rules limiting cross-ownership of newspapers, radio and TV stations in the same market, a source familiar with the vote said. The decision is a blow to struggling newspaper companies that have long pushed for the FCC to relax the restrictions. A spokesman for FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler did not immediately comment.

Destructive California fire was started by faulty hot tub wiring

The third most destructive wildfire in California's recorded history, which killed four people and destroyed more than 1,300 homes and buildings, was started by a spark from an improperly wired hot tub, state fire officials said on Wednesday. The so-called Valley Fire charred more than 76,000 acres (30,756 hectares) in California's storied wine country in Napa and Sonoma Counties north of San Francisco last fall, killing among others an elderly disabled woman trapped in her home, injuring four firefighters and costing $56 million to suppress.

New York's use of tolls to maintain canals unconstitutional: judge

A federal judge on Wednesday said the New York State Thruway Authority's practice of diverting toll revenue it collects from commercial truckers to maintain upstate canals is unconstitutional. Chief Judge Colleen McMahon of the federal court in Manhattan agreed with the American Trucking Associations trade group that the authority unlawfully burdens interstate commerce by contributing more than $61 million annually, or roughly 10 percent of toll revenue, to maintain the canals.

Seven missing, dozens injured in Maryland explosion, fire

Rescue workers searched on Thursday for as many as seven people who were missing after an explosion and fire torched an apartment building in a Washington, D.C. suburb, injuring dozens, including three firefighters, authorities said. The blast tore through the four-story building shortly before midnight in Silver Spring, Maryland, said Pete Piringer, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service.

'Grim Sleeper' killer sentenced to death for LA murders

A former sanitation worker was sentenced to death on Wednesday for murdering nine women and a teenage girl as the "Grim Sleeper," a serial killer who preyed on prostitutes and drug addicts in a Los Angeles crime spree dating back three decades. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy condemned Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 63, to execution by lethal injection, as recommended in June by jurors who chose capital punishment over life in prison without parole.

Man scaling Trump Tower in New York City wanted meeting with nominee

A 20-year-old Donald Trump supporter who scaled the Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday for three hours using suction cups and a climbing harness was pulled inside through a window by police who had tried to coax him into the building throughout the escapade. The man reached the 21st story of the 58-story tower on Fifth Avenue which is headquarters for the election campaign of Donald Trump, the U.S. Republican presidential nominee.

Michigan seeks to reinstate ban on straight-ticket voting for fall election

Michigan's attorney general has asked a federal appeals court to reinstate a law banning straight-ticket voting - the practice of using one mark to vote for all candidates from one party - in time for the November general election. The law, passed by Michigan's majority Republican legislature and signed by Republican Governor Rick Snyder, was temporarily suspended in federal district court last month. A coalition of civil rights and labor groups had argued that it would keep African-Americans from voting.

Official: No formal Secret Service discussions with Trump camp on remark

A federal official on Wednesday said the U.S. Secret Service had not formally spoken with Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign regarding his suggestion a day earlier that gun rights activists could stop Democratic rival Hillary Clinton from curtailing their access to firearms. Following Trump's comment at a rally on Tuesday in which he suggested that gun rights activists could stop Clinton from appointing liberal anti-gun justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal official familiar with the matter told Reuters that there had been no formal conversations between the Secret Service and the Trump campaign.

U.S. to allow more marijuana research: sources

The U.S. government will announce on Thursday that it will allow more research into marijuana but has rejected requests to relax the classification of the substance as a dangerous, highly addictive drug with no medical use, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. The decision is the Drug Enforcement Administration's response to a 2011 petition by two former state governors who had urged federal agencies to re-classify marijuana as a drug with accepted medical uses, the two sources said on Wednesday. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Valeant under criminal investigation over Philidor ties: WSJ

U.S. prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc over whether it hid from insurers its relationship with a specialty pharmacy that helped boost its drug sales, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Lawyers at the U.S. Attorney's Manhattan office are trying to gauge whether concealing those ties may have amounted to defrauding insurers, the Journal report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

08/11/2016 8:57