Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Purdue Pharma agrees to $270 million settlement in Oklahoma opioid case

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and members of the wealthy Sackler family that own the company reached a $270 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit brought by the state of Oklahoma accusing the drugmaker of fueling an opioid abuse epidemic. The settlement unveiled by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter on Tuesday was the first to result from a wave of lawsuits accusing Purdue of deceptively marketing painkillers, helping create a deadly crisis sweeping the United States. Despite report findings, almost half of Americans think Trump colluded with Russia: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Nearly half of all Americans still believe President Donald Trump worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after Special Counsel Robert Mueller cleared Trump of that allegation. Americans did feel slightly more positive about Trump after learning the findings of the 22-month investigation into Russian meddling in the election, the national opinion poll released on Tuesday showed. Democrats pounce as Trump administration ratchets up attack on Obamacare

Top congressional Democrats on Tuesday attacked a legal move by the Trump administration to step up its assault on the Obamacare healthcare law, saying last November's elections showed Americans want them to protect the Affordable Care Act. The Justice Department, in a two-sentence letter to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals filed on Monday, said it backed a federal judge's ruling in December that the Affordable Care Act violated the U.S. Constitution because it required people to buy health insurance. Ex-Trump campaign aide Papadopoulos says applied for pardon

Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, the first person charged in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, said on Tuesday his lawyers have applied for a pardon and that he may withdraw his guilty plea. "My lawyers have applied for a pardon from the president for me," Papadopoulos said in an interview with Reuters, adding that the request was made a few days ago. "If I'm offered one I would love to accept it, of course." U.S. House fails to override Trump veto, upholding border wall emergency

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday failed to override President Donald Trump's first veto, leaving in place the "national emergency" he declared last month to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall that Congress has not funded. Democrats who control the House did not attract enough Republican support, falling some three dozen votes short of the two-thirds majority vote needed to overturn Trump's veto. Just 14 Republicans joined 234 Democrats in voting to override, one more Republican than had bucked Trump in a previous House vote on the border wall emergency. One Democrat and two Republicans did not vote. Unvaccinated children face public space ban in New York measles outbreak

A New York suburb has banned children not vaccinated against measles from public spaces, such as schools and shopping malls, as it fights the state's worst outbreak in decades of the potentially deadly disease. Rockland County declared a state of emergency on Tuesday and said the ban would remain in place for 30 days or until unvaccinated children get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot. Patriots owner Kraft wants jury trial in Florida prostitution case

Attorneys for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Tuesday filed court papers requesting a jury trial on solicitation of prostitution charges stemming from a sting operation at a Florida massage parlor. The documents also formally waive Kraft's right to an arraignment hearing and reiterate the not guilty plea he entered last month. After devastating floods, U.S. Midwest farms need more than 'paper towels' to recover

Missouri farmer Richard Oswald needs a lot of help to recover from flooding that left his home and farm looking like a manmade island in an inland sea. Relief groups are giving tetanus shots and handing out free meals and cleaning supplies near his farm in the Langdon-Rock Port area, about 100 miles (161 km) northwest of Kansas City. But what Oswald really needs is money. Jussie Smollett hoax charge dropped by Chicago prosecutors, prompting mayor's rebuke

Chicago prosecutors on Tuesday dropped charges accusing "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett of staging a phony hate crime, a stunning move that drew the fury of the city's police superintendent and mayor, who called the decision a "whitewash of justice." Smollett, who is black and gay, told reporters on Tuesday that he had always been truthful when he said two masked men threw a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressing support for U.S. President Donald Trump in January. U.S. Supreme Court divided on partisan electoral maps

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared divided along ideological lines again on whether the contentious practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries to entrench one party in power may violate the constitutional rights of voters, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh emerging as the potential deciding vote. More than two hours of arguments in major cases from North Carolina and Maryland on the practice known as partisan gerrymandering focused on whether courts should be empowered to block electoral maps when they are drawn by state legislators expressly to give one political party a lopsided advantage.