Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. U.S. Treasury backs away from plan for Harriet Tubman on $20 bill next year

The U.S. Treasury will not introduce a redesigned $20 bill picturing escaped slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman next year as planned, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday. In 2016, the Treasury Department said it would replace former President Andrew Jackson's image on the front of the bill with that of Tubman by 2020, along with redesigns of the $5 and $10 bill. Judge rules against Trump, paves way for banks to provide his business records to Congress

U.S. President Donald Trump, three of his children and the Trump Organization on Wednesday lost their bid to block Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp from providing financial records to Democratic lawmakers investigating Trump's businesses. In a decision read from the bench after hearing arguments, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos in New York said Congress has the legal authority to demand the records, clearing the way for the banks to comply with subpoenas issued to them by two U.S. House of Representatives committees last month. Trump torpedoes meeting with Democrats, blasts Pelosi's 'cover-up' accusation

President Donald Trump on Wednesday abruptly cut short a White House meeting with Democratic lawmakers on infrastructure, then ripped into them over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's accusation that he is engaged in a cover-up and asserted that he could not work with them unless they dropped multiple investigations. "I don't do cover-ups," the Republican president, clearly agitated, told reporters at a previously unscheduled Rose Garden appearance after his brief meeting with Democratic congressional leaders that Pelosi described as "very, very, very strange." Pilot reports flash just before fatal mid-air Alaska plane collision

The surviving pilot in last week's fatal mid-air plane collision in Alaska saw a flash just before the two planes collided with a "large, loud impact," according to a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report issued on Wednesday. Six people died in the May 13 crash near Ketchikan, Alaska. The colliding planes, a De Havilland Otter operated by Ketchikan-based Taquan Air, and a De Havilland Beaver operated by Ketchikan-based Mountain Air Service, were ferrying cruise ship passengers back from a sightseeing trip to Misty Fjords National Monument in the Tongass National Forest. Trump administration holds off redirecting California's high-speed rail money

The Trump administration on Wednesday agreed not to immediately redirect nearly $1 billion it is withholding from California's high-speed rail project, one of several disputes between Republican Trump and the Democratic-controlled state. In exchange, the state dropped its plans to ask a court to at least temporarily halt any planned shift in funds, California Governor Gavin Newsom's office said. Republican senator wants U.S. Census to ask about criminal records

The U.S. census should include questions about criminal records to help policymakers get former convicts back into the workforce, a Republican lawmaker said on Wednesday. Senator Mike Lee of Utah suggested the idea at a hearing about the economic impact of the Census. It may add a new layer to a political battle over what questions the U.S. Census Bureau should include on its decennial survey of U.S. residents. U.S. Navy SEAL appears in court for hearing in war crimes case

A decorated Navy SEAL platoon leader charged with war crimes in Iraq appeared in a San Diego military court on Wednesday for a hearing focused on allegations by his attorneys that prosecutors engaged in illegal snooping on the defense team and journalists. The hearing comes less than a week before Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher is scheduled to go on trial in a court-martial charging him with murdering a helpless, wounded Islamic State fighter in his custody and shooting unarmed civilians. Former U.S. Army soldier indicted for planning to bomb rally: Justice Department

A U.S. combat veteran was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday for allegedly planning to bomb a rally in Long Beach, California, last month, the Justice Department said. Mark Steven Domingo, 26, of Reseda, California, who served with the Army in Afghanistan, was arrested over the plot to bomb a white nationalist rally last month. 'American Taliban' to be released from prison Thursday

John Walker Lindh, the American captured in Afghanistan in 2001 fighting for the Taliban and vilified as a national traitor, is to be released early from a federal prison on Thursday while some U.S. lawmakers worry he still poses a security risk. Lindh, photographed as a wild-eyed, bearded 20-year-old at his capture, will leave a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana on probation after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, according to a prison official. U.S. election cybersecurity agency staff 'strained to the breaking point'

As the U.S. government prepares to defend the 2020 presidential election from cyber threats, the federal agency charged with helping administer elections, the Election Assistance Commission, says it is “strained to the breaking point,” according to Chairwoman Christy McCormick. “Obviously we’re a very small agency and quite under funded,” McCormick said on Wednesday during a House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing. “We’re stretched very thin.”