US Domestic News Roundup: Kim's letter to Trump, Kavanaugh drama

Two Mississippi police officers killed in a gunfight with a 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.

'We fell in love:' Trump swoons over letters from North Korea's Kim

U.S. President Donald Trump took his enthusiasm for his detente with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to new heights on Saturday, declaring at a rally with supporters that "we fell in love" after exchanging letters. Trump and Kim have said they want to work toward denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, holding an unprecedented meeting earlier this year in Singapore to discuss the idea.

Overshadowed by Kavanaugh drama, new Supreme Court term looms

The U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term on Monday in an awkward position, down one justice as the fierce fight unfolds in the Senate over the confirmation of President Donald Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime job as a justice. With eight justices rather than the usual nine, the court was set to hear arguments in two cases as it opens its nine-month term, according to tradition, on the first Monday of October.

Hurricane Rosa loses strength as it spins toward California

Hurricane Rosa dwindled to a Category 1 storm as it spun in the Pacific Ocean towards Baja California early Sunday and was forecast to become a weaker tropical storm later in the day, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Rosa, with maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (140 kph), dropped down from a Category 2 storm overnight, coming down another notch on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

A search continues in Alaskan waters for helicopter crash victims

The U.S. Coast Guard continued its search overnight and into early Sunday for three missing people from a helicopter crash in the frigid waters near Lituya Bay, about 116 miles northwest of Juneau, Alaska. A 14-year-old boy was found alive Friday, a few hours after the wreck, suffering from mild hypothermia, but otherwise, in good condition, Coast Guard spokesman Nate Littlejohn said.

FBI contact the second accuser of court nominee Kavanaugh

FBI agents investigating U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have contacted the second woman to accuse him of sexual misconduct, her attorney said on Saturday. The announcement by Deborah Ramirez's lawyer John Clune indicates that the FBI probe of Kavanaugh 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.

Trump uses Kavanaugh delay as a rallying cry for midterm elections

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday used the stalled nomination of his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a rallying cry for Republican voters in November congressional elections. At a West Virginia rally, Trump did not say a word about the testimony of university professor Christine Blasey Ford who detailed her sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh at an extraordinary hearing on Thursday.

'Terrorism' ad by indicted Republican roils California election

When a Democrat with Palestinian-Mexican ancestry who had never before run for office was elected 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 Democratic rival of trying "to hide his family's ties to terrorism."

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.

(With inputs from Reuters)