Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Inner strength and luck: Abduction survivors reflect on Wisconsin girl's ordeal

Some abduction survivors think of their family to get through their ordeal, while others rely on their faith in God. All of them need inner strength and a great deal of luck, according to survivors and experts who have worked with such victims. Surely, Jayme Closs had her own well of fortitude, they said on Friday, celebrating the 13-year-old girl's escape from captivity three months after her parents were murdered in northwestern Wisconsin and she disappeared.

Government shutdown becomes longest in U.S. history

A partial U.S. government shutdown over President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border entered its 22nd day on Saturday, making it the longest shuttering of federal agencies in U.S. history, with no end in sight. The closure broke a decades-old record set by a 1995-1996 shutdown under former President Bill Clinton that lasted 21 days.

Snow storm marches towards Washington, after pummeling Midwest

A winter storm that dumped heavy snow on the U.S. Midwest, stranding some motorists in Missouri and cancelling dozens of flights, marched east toward Washington on Saturday. The weather system is forecast to affect an 1,800-mile (2,900 km) corridor of the United States from Colorado to the mid-Atlantic. It started as rain from Mexico and turned to snow as it met icy air.

Amtrak works to modernize, speed up trains in busiest U.S. rail corridor

Amtrak is gearing up to introduce new high-speed Acela trains as it plans to spend billions of dollars in upgrades on the busiest U.S. rail corridor. The national U.S. passenger railroad on Friday gave reporters a tour by train of the busy northeast corridor from Washington to New York, showing off places where the rail system needs upgrades, including an 1873 Baltimore rail tunnel with water infiltration issues that will cost $4.5 billion to replace and the 1906 Susquehanna River Bridge whose replacement is estimated to cost $1.7 billion.

'Jayme is the hero' sheriff says of Wisconsin girl who escaped captor

A 13-year-old girl's escape from a rural home where she was held captive for three months by a Wisconsin man charged with murdering her parents helped break the case and she should be treated as a hero, the local sheriff said on Friday. Jayme Closs is with her aunt after her rescue on Thursday and has been reunited with the rest of her family and her dog, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald told reporters.

California police use genealogy websites to arrest suspect in 1990s rapes

A California man has been arrested in connection to rapes committed in the 1990s after his DNA was linked to the crime scenes through commercial genealogy websites, which initially turned up the both the suspect and his twin, police said on Friday. Kevin Konther, 53, was taken into custody on Thursday at his home in Southern California and booked on suspicion of rape, kidnapping and child sexual abuse, Orange County Sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Braun said. One of the victims was nine years old at the time of the attack.

House Democrats eye reported FBI probe of Trump

A U.S. House of Representatives committee will look into a newspaper report that the FBI investigated whether President Donald Trump has been working on behalf of Russia, against U.S. interests, the panel's Democratic chairman said on Saturday. The New York Times reported that the probe began in the days after Trump fired James Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in May 2017 and said the agency's counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether Trump's actions constituted a possible threat to national security.

Texas tent city that holds migrant teens to close

A tent city in Texas for migrant teens will close, the U.S. government said on Friday, and the children held in what had become a controversial symbol of President Donald Trump's migration policy will be transferred to sponsors or other shelters. The shelter in Tornillo, Texas opened in June to house migrant children, many of whom were Central Americans who crossed the border alone. Immigration advocates raised concerns about how long the minors were staying in the tents and some protesters had set up camp near the facility.

Florida governor suspends sheriff for response to school massacre

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday suspended the local sheriff criticized for the police response to last year's mass shooting that left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. DeSantis said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel showed leadership failures in the shooting that left 14 students and three adults dead at the hands of a lone gunman on Feb. 14, 2018.

U.S. medic declared Ebola-free, leaves Nebraska quarantine

A U.S. healthcare worker who was being monitored for the Ebola virus after treating patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo was released from a Nebraska hospital on Saturday after doctors said they had seen no signs of the deadly disease. The individual, whose name was not released for privacy reasons, did not develop Ebola symptoms during 21 days of monitoring at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, the center said in a statement.