US Domestic News Roundup: Insurance claims for latest California wildfires top $9 billion; No evidence for Trump claim on 'terrorists'

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

United Airlines to add international routes from San Francisco

United Continental Holdings Inc said on Wednesday it would add flights to New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne from San Francisco, as the No. 3 U.S. airline looks to tap higher-paying international routes. The airline also plans to start a second daily flight between San Francisco and Seoul as well as new year-round nonstop flights between the U.S. city and Auckland, Tahiti and Amsterdam in 2019.

Insurance claims for latest California wildfires top $9 billion

Insurance claims from the recent spate of California wildfires, including one ranked as the most deadly and destructive in state history, have topped $9 billion and are expected to grow, the state insurance commissioner reported on Wednesday. The Camp Fire, which erupted on Nov. 8 and quickly incinerated most of the Sierra foothills town of Paradise, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco, has accounted for the bulk of the claims, just over $7 billion of the total.

Texas executes man convicted of 1993 murder

The state of Texas on Tuesday executed an inmate convicted of murdering a man and sexually assaulting his newlywed wife at a Dallas-area community college more than two decades ago. Alvin Braziel, 43, was pronounced dead at 7:19 p.m. local time, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He was put to death by lethal injection in the state's death chamber in Huntsville.

Chicago mayor pushes bond sale, constitutional change to aid pensions

Mayor Rahm Emanuel laid out a multi-pronged plan on Wednesday to tackle Chicago's huge pension burden, urging the city council to approve the issuance of $10 billion of bonds to boost funding for the city's four retirement systems. Emanuel, who leaves office in May after declining to run for a third term as mayor, also called for changing the Illinois Constitution and earmarking new revenue from a possible casino and legalized marijuana for pensions.

Trump administration asks top court to restore asylum order

President Donald Trump's administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to let his order barring asylum for immigrants who enter the United States illegally take effect even as litigation over the matter proceeds. The U.S. Justice Department asked the court to lift a temporary restraining order against the asylum rules issued by San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar. Trump has taken a hard line toward legal and illegal immigration since taking office last year.

Opioid maker Insys paid kickbacks to physician assistant, jury hears

A former Insys Therapeutics Inc sales representative now married to the drugmaker's ex-CEO said on Wednesday she arranged to have a physician assistant in New Hampshire receive kickbacks to prescribe patients its addictive fentanyl spray. The testimony came at the start of the trial in federal court in Concord, New Hampshire, of Christopher Clough, a physician assistant who prosecutors say accepted nearly $50,000 from Insys in exchange for prescribing its powerful opioid pain drug, Subsys.

West Virginia mine explorers still missing as rescuers dig deeper

Rescue teams in West Virginia have gone some 11,000 feet into an abandoned coal mine in the Appalachian Mountains without finding three people who have been lost inside for four days, law enforcement officials said on Monday. Erica Treadway, 31, Kayla Williams, 25, and Cody Beverly, 21, have been stranded deep inside the Rock House Powellton mine near the town of Clear Creek since they crawled through a ventilation shaft into the caverns on Saturday after riding to the site on all-terrain vehicles.

U.S. Commerce Sec. Ross unaware of any planned warning for China travel

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday downplayed talk that President Donald Trump's administration is poised to warn Americans against traveling to China. "I'm not so sure what provoked the rumor about the travel advisory," he said in an interview with CNBC, but thought China's detention of a former Canadian diplomat might have spurred discussion of a warning. "We haven't made any announcement and as far as I know haven't made any decision about changing travel advisory."

No evidence for Trump claim on 'terrorists': government sources

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that U.S. authorities had "caught 10 terrorists," citing it as a reason for why the United States should build a wall on its Mexican border, but four government sources said there was no recent evidence of terrorism suspects being caught along the border. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said: "We do not have evidence of known or suspected foreign terrorist organizations trying to infiltrate the southern U.S. border."

U.S. probe cites 'ineffective' safeguard in Husky oil refinery blast

An "ineffective" safeguard failed to prevent an explosive mixing of air and fuel at a Husky Energy refinery in Superior, Wisconsin, leading to a blast and fire in the plant's gasoline-producing unit in April, a U.S. industrial safety group said on Wednesday. Air seeped through a hole in a valve within a fluidic catalytic cracking unit (FCCU), the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) said, causing an April 26 explosion that led to a massive fire and a 24-hour-long evacuation of residents living within miles of the plant.

(With inputs from Reuters)