US Domestic Round-up: Police officers killed, Gun control bills into law, US judge strikes

California Governor Jerry Brown signed several gun control bills into law on Friday, including one measure that raises the minimum age for buying rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21.

Two Mississippi police officers killed in gunfight with man

Two police officers were shot and killed in a southern Mississippi town during a gunfight with a 25-year-old man before dawn on Saturday, officials said. The officers from Brookhaven, less than 60 miles (100 km) south of Jackson, had gone to a house to respond to a report that shots had been fired, Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said in an email.

Survivors feel both hope and fear after Kavanaugh hearing, advocates say

For sexual assault survivors, Christine Blasey Ford emerged as a new hero on Thursday, triggering a surge in calls to a national rape hotline as she told senators that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were teenagers. But even as many saw her nervous yet assured testimony as a landmark moment for the #MeToo movement, the scepticism, indifference and even scorn she faced, both from Republican senators and online critics, was disturbing to victims and their advocates.

Kavanaugh accuser Ramirez contacted by FBI: lawyer

The attorney for the second woman to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct said on Saturday that FBI agents assigned to investigate the allegations have contacted her. The announcement by Deborah Ramirez's lawyer John Clune indicates that the FBI probe of Kavanaugh, ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday, will look beyond separate allegations of attempted rape levelled against the conservative federal appeals court judge by Dr Christine Blasey Ford at a dramatic Senate hearing this week.

California governor signs gun control bills into law

California Governor Jerry Brown signed several gun control bills into law on Friday, including one measure that raises the minimum age for buying rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21. The new laws come seven months after a gunman opened fire with a semiautomatic assault-style rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 14 students and three adults, the second-deadliest mass shooting at a public school in U.S. history.

U.S. judge strikes down Kentucky abortion restriction

A federal judge on Friday struck down a Kentucky law requiring abortion providers to sign advance agreements with hospitals and ambulance services for emergency patient care, in a ruling that keeps the state from revoking the license of its only remaining abortion clinic. U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers in Louisville sided with the EMW Women's Surgical Center and Planned Parenthood in challenging a law that threatened to make Kentucky the first U.S. state without a single legal abortion provider.

Under pressure, Trump orders FBI Kavanaugh probe, causing week delay

President Donald Trump, under intense pressure from moderates in his own party over his Supreme Court nominee, on Friday ordered an FBI investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh at the request of Senate Republicans, a move that will delay the contentious confirmation process by a week. The key player in a day of dramatic and unexpected developments was Senator Jeff Flake, a moderate Republican retiring from the Senate in January who provided the decisive vote to approve Kavanaugh's nomination in the Judiciary Committee and send the matter to the full Senate.

'How We Mourned' memorializes Las Vegas mass shooting

The teddy bears belonged in a child's bedroom, the votive candles in a local church. Instead, they were among the thousands of items left by the grieving near the site of the largest mass shooting in modern American history. They are now part of "How We Mourned," a sombre exhibit at the Clark County Museum that helps mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 1, 2017 shooting spree that killed 58 people and wounded over 800 at an outdoor festival on the Las Vegas Strip.

Trump heads on five-state rally blitz amid Supreme Court chaos

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday kicks off a week of rallies in five friendly places around the country, seeking to shore up support ahead of congressional elections even as the fate of his pick to fill a Supreme Court vacancy remains unclear. Republicans are at risk of losing control of Congress in the Nov. 6 elections, which could impede Trump's goals to clamp down on immigration, cut taxes, approve new bilateral trade deals, and invest in infrastructure.

Indicted California Republican blasts House rival's family history

When a Democrat with Palestinian-Mexican ancestry who had never before run for office was picked to challenge a Republican incumbent in a staunchly conservative southern California congressional district, few gave him much of a chance. But five-term U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter, who has been criminally charged with misusing campaign funds, is concerned enough about Ammar Campa-Najjar to issue a YouTube ad accusing his rival of trying "to hide his family's ties to terrorism," a reference to his Palestinian grandfather, who led a 1972 plot to kill Israeli athletes at the Olympics.

At U.S. Marine base, families plead for housing help after Florence

Two weeks after Hurricane Florence devastated parts of the U.S. Southeast with raging waters and dangerous winds, some military families at the region's largest Marine Corps base say they are still residing in unlivable conditions and awaiting help from the base's private housing manager. Some, like Jennifer Maher, said they feel unsafe in their Camp Lejeune homes but were told they will not be moved because assessment crews determined their houses are habitable.