Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Wisconsin man admits kidnapping Jayme Closs, 13, after killing her parents

Jake Patterson pleaded guilty in a Wisconsin court on Wednesday to kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents in a case that sparked a months-long search for the girl and ended with her escape and his arrest. Patterson, 21, who told authorities that he randomly decided to abduct Closs after watching her board a school bus, tearfully responded "guilty" to the judge's reading of the charges of two counts of first-degree murder in the killings of James and Denise Closs and the kidnapping of Jayme, which will likely result in a life sentence. Luxembourg court delivers setback to 9/11 families' Iran claims

A Luxembourg court refused on Wednesday to enforce a U.S. ruling that would have helped families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks claim Iranian assets held with a Luxembourg-based clearing house. The court ruled that there were no grounds in international law to uphold in Luxembourg a U.S. court decision in 2012 to strip Iran of sovereign immunity. Gunman in 2012 shooting rampage at California college dies in prison

A former California nursing student who killed seven people in a 2012 shooting rampage at a Christian college in the Bay Area city of Oakland, California, has died behind bars, state prison officials said on Wednesday. One Goh, 50, died on March 20 at the California State Prison, Sacramento, Vicky Waters of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told Reuters in an email. Trump requests reform plans for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Wednesday directing federal agencies to develop a plan to overhaul the U.S. housing finance system, the White House said. The document directs the Treasury Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development to propose reforms for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and related programs, and deliver them "as soon as practicable." U.S. border agents redeployed to handle migrant humanitarian needs

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will pull around 750 officers off ports of entry and redeploy them to process record numbers of migrant families entering the United States at the Mexico border, the head of the agency said on Wednesday. The agency is also redirecting service personnel and expanding food, transportation and medical contracts to meet migrants' humanitarian needs while maintaining border security, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said at a news conference in El Paso, Texas. U.S. judge blocks Medicaid work requirements in Kentucky, Arkansas

A federal judge on Wednesday overturned the Trump administration's approval of plans by the states of Kentucky and Arkansas to impose work requirements on people seeking to obtain benefits from the Medicaid health insurance program. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington ruled that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had failed to adequately consider the extent to which the Republican-led states' plans would cause significant numbers of people to lose coverage. Chicago mayor demands answers after Smollett hoax charges dropped

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Wednesday he wanted to "find out what happened" to cause prosecutors to abruptly drop charges against "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of staging a hoax hate crime to boost his career. The saga began in January when the actor, who is black and gay, said two men had attacked him on a Chicago street, putting a noose around his neck and shouting racist and homophobic slurs. Trump-Russia probe is over, but prosecutor says grand jury lives on

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election has ended, but the grand jury that he convened to examine the issue is still alive and well, a federal prosecutor said in court on Wednesday. Prosecutor David Goodhand told Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court in Washington during a hearing that the grand jury is "continuing robustly," according to two lawyers representing the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press who were present, Theodore Boutrous and Katie Townsend. U.S. Supreme Court leans toward limiting federal agency power

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday expressed skepticism toward the wide latitude courts give federal agencies to interpret their own regulations in a case that could bolster President Donald Trump's push toward curbing agency power. The case, involving a Vietnam War veteran's fight with the Department of Veterans Affairs over retroactive disability benefits, focuses on whether the high court should overrule its own precedents dating back to 1945 that call for judges to defer to administrative agencies' views on what their own regulations mean. Killer of Heather Heyer pleads guilty to hate crimes tied to Virginia riot

Self-described neo-Nazi James Fields, who was convicted of killing Heather Heyer by ramming his car into a crowd protesting a white supremacist rally in a Virginia college town in 2017, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in his federal hate crimes case. Fields, 21, pleaded guilty to 28 federal counts of hate crime acts causing bodily injury and involving an attempt to kill, and one count of a hate crime act that resulted in the death of Heyer during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville.