Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Fleeing Honduras, family stakes its future on asylum in the U.S.

Seventeen-year old Carolina is putting on some snazzy shoes and make-up, talking excitedly to her friends on her phone, getting ready to go out for a party. The mobile home that she shares with her mother and two younger siblings in Texico, New Mexico, is hardly luxurious. But this town provides her with something that she did not have in her former home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras - safety. Trump set to declare border emergency, sign shutdown-averting bill

U.S. President Donald Trump was poised on Friday to declare a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, a move that Democrats vowed to challenge as an unconstitutional attempt to fund his proposed border wall without approval from Congress. Trump was also expected to sign a bipartisan government spending bill approved by Congress on Thursday that would prevent another federal shutdown by funding several agencies that otherwise would have closed on Saturday morning. Russia detains U.S. founder of Baring Vostok private equity group

Russia has detained the U.S. founder of the Baring Vostok private equity group in Moscow on suspicion of fraud, a spokeswoman for Moscow's Basmanny court told Reuters on Friday. Yunona Tsaryova, the spokeswoman, said Michael Calvey, also a senior partner at the fund, was detained on Thursday. Feeling unwelcome, Amazon ditches plans for New York hub

Amazon.com Inc abruptly scrapped plans to build a major outpost in New York that could have created 25,000 jobs, blaming opposition from local leaders upset by the nearly $3 billion in incentives promised by state and city politicians. The company said on Thursday it did not see consistently "positive, collaborative" relationships with state and local officials. Opponents of the project feared congestion and higher rents in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, and objected to handing billions in incentives to a company run by Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man. Colorado man who strangled mountain lion describes life-or-death struggle

A 31-year-old man who fended off and suffocated a mountain lion when it attacked him on a Colorado jogging trail last week described on Thursday how he killed the big cat by stepping on its throat during a life-and-death struggle. Speaking for the first time publicly since the Feb. 4 incident that left him with still-visible lacerations on his neck and face, Travis Kauffman described for reporters the harrowing three-minute encounter. Pineapple Express's biggest punch, set to hit water-logged California

The worst of the rain, snow, and winds carried by the so-called Pineapple Express, a river of warm air loaded with moisture, will hit California on Thursday and stick around at least through Friday, forecasters said. The weather system, headed east from near Hawaii, is the wettest storm on the U.S. West Coast this season. It has swamped cars, flooded vineyards and forced hundreds of Californians to evacuate their homes Wednesday to escape the threat of mudslides. After year of action, silence to mark Florida school shooting

One year after the Valentine's Day massacre inside a Florida school, students and families leading a nationwide push for gun safety will pause on Thursday for the anniversary of the deadliest U.S. high school shooting. Many students were expected to stay home from a shortened class day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a former student with an assault gun killed 17 people on Feb. 14, 2018. House passes border security bill, sends to Trump

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bipartisan border security bill aimed at averting a government shutdown and sent it to President Donald Trump, including new barriers for part of the U.S.-Mexico border but not the $5.7 billion he sought. The Democratic-run House backed the measure, a spending bill providing over $300 billion for several government departments and agencies, 300 to 128. It passed the Senate earlier on Thursday. The White House has said Trump will sign it into law, but will also attempt to use unilateral powers to obtain money for a wall. As Amazon drops New York City project, progressives claim a major coup

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wasted no time on Thursday in calling Amazon's decision to scrap plans to build a major New York outpost with nearly $3 billion in city and state incentives a big victory for progressive politicians. The democratic socialist congresswoman has become the face of the Democratic Party's ascendant left wing, thanks in part to her upset victory last year in a district near the proposed Amazon.com Inc development. U.S. sends first families to Mexico to await asylum, rights groups sue

The United States began sending Central American families seeking asylum back to Mexico this week, a Mexican immigration source said on Thursday, while U.S. human rights groups sued the Trump administration, saying the policy puts migrants in danger. Five families with a total of 16 people, including children from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, arrived in the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Wednesday, according to a person who works in migration for the Mexican government, who asked not to be named.