Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. In U.S., pope's summit on sex abuse seen as too little, too late

In the study of his home outside Washington, victims’ advocate Tom Doyle searched a shelf packed with books to find the thick report that led him to stop practicing as a priest and devote himself to helping those who had been sexually abused by clergymen. The 1985 report was one of the first exposes in a sexual abuse scandal that has plagued the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has called senior bishops to meet for four days starting on Thursday to discuss how to tackle the worsening crisis. U.S. judge dismisses boys' lawsuit against Trump climate rollbacks

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by two Pennsylvania boys and an environmental group seeking to stop U.S. President Donald Trump from rolling back regulations addressing climate change, saying the court does not have power to tell the White House what to do. Disagreeing with a judge overseeing a similar case in Oregon, U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond in Philadelphia ruled on Tuesday that the Constitution does not guarantee what the boys and the Clean Air Council called a due process right to a "life-sustaining climate system." 'El Chapo' lawyers may challenge conviction over juror remarks

Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman may file a motion challenging his conviction on 10 criminal counts, after a juror told Vice News that jurors read media coverage of the case and discussed it with one another while the trial was going on, one of Guzman's lawyers said on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan had instructed jurors not to read media coverage of the case or discuss it with one another at the end of every day during the nearly three-month trial that led to Guzman's convictions in Brooklyn federal court last week. Snow, sleet threaten U.S. East Coast, hinder hundreds of flights

A winter storm bore down on the U.S. East Coast on Wednesday, threatening to snarl New York City's evening commute after hindering air travel along the East Coast and prompting the shutdown of federal offices in Washington. Snow turning to sleet slickened roadways in the New York metropolitan area by the early afternoon and was blamed for a rash of fender benders and traffic jams. Charter school battle extends West Virginia teacher strike

West Virginia teachers were on strike for a second day on Wednesday, canceling classes for about 270,000 students in a bid to defeat a bill that would allow the state's first seven charter schools to open. The state's educators, among the lowest-paid in the nation, sparked a wave of U.S. teachers' strikes last year when they walked off the job to demand higher pay. Their nine-day strike ended after West Virginia agreed to a 5 percent raise. Constitution's 'excessive fines' ban bolstered by U.S. high court

In a decision that may curb the rise of financial penalties and property seizures in the U.S. criminal justice system, the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the first time ruled that the U.S. Constitution's ban on "excess fines" applies to states as well as the federal government. The nine justices ruled unanimously in favor of an Indiana man named Tyson Timbs who argued that police violated his rights by seizing his $42,000 Land Rover vehicle after he was convicted as a heroin dealer. North Carolina Republican's son says warned father about operative's past

The son of the Republican candidate in a disputed congressional race in North Carolina said on Wednesday he warned his father to be suspicious of a political operative now accused of running an illegal ballot operation to sway the November 2018 election. A state probe into the election for the 9th Congressional District has uncovered the fraudulent scheme by a consultant working for the campaign of candidate Mark Harris. Trump 'fear-mongering' fuels rise of U.S. hate groups to record: watchdog

The number of hate groups operating in the United States rose 7 percent to an all-time high last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center said on Wednesday, attributing the increase largely to anti-immigrant rhetoric from President Donald Trump. The SPLC, which has tracked hate groups since 1971, found there were 1,020 operating in the United States in 2018, breaking the 1,018 record set in 2011. It marked the fourth consecutive year of growth. U.S. Coast Guard officer who planned mass attack arrested -prosecutors

U.S. authorities have arrested a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant who described himself as a white nationalist and had amassed a cache of weapons to "murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country," according to court documents. Christopher Paul Hasson, who is assigned to the Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington and lives in a Maryland suburb, was arrested on Friday on weapons and drugs charges, prosecutors said in court documents. New York City settles U.S. claims over Superstorm Sandy

New York City reached a $5.3 million settlement on Wednesday to resolve charges it improperly billed the U.S. government for damage to city vehicles caused by Superstorm Sandy in October 2012. The accord resolves claims that the city falsely certified to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in May 2014 that the storm had damaged Department of Transportation (DOT) vehicles beyond repair, entitling it to funds for replacements.