US News Roundup: Supreme Court to hear insurers' bid; U.S. records 33 new measles cases

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Ex-Venezuelan oil minister asks U.S. court to set aside $1.4 billion judgment

Former Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez asked a federal judge in Houston on Monday to set aside a $1.4 billion default verdict against him in a fraud suit brought by a defunct Houston oil company, according to court documents. Ramirez, who was Venezuela's oil minister for 12 years and later served as its foreign minister and U.N. ambassador, said Harvest Natural Resources Inc and HNR Energia BV had failed to properly serve him notice of the lawsuit.

Supreme Court to hear insurers' bid for $12 billion in Obamacare money

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether insurers can seek $12 billion from the federal government under a program set up by the Obamacare law aimed at encouraging them to offer medical coverage to previously uninsured Americans. The justices will hear an appeal by a group of insurers of a lower court's ruling that Congress had suspended the government's obligation to make such payments. The insurers have said that ruling, if allowed to stand, would let the government pull a "bait-and-switch" and withhold money the companies were promised.

Truck driver in deadly New Hampshire crash arrested on negligent homicide charges

The driver of a pickup truck who crashed into a group of motorcyclists near New Hampshire's White Mountains, killing seven of them, was arrested on Monday and charged with seven counts of negligent homicide, officials said. Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, was driving a company vehicle hauling a trailer on a highway in Randolph, police said, when he slammed into a group of 10 motorcyclists. State authorities described the wreckage as the worst they had ever seen.

Judge allows Missouri's only abortion clinic to stay open for at least five more days

A Missouri judge ruled on Monday the state's only abortion clinic can remain open for at least five more days, but he ordered Planned Parenthood to take its fight against closure to a state arbiter. Missouri health officials on Friday refused to renew the St. Louis clinic's license on the grounds that it failed to meet their standards.

U.S. records 33 new measles cases, mostly in New York State

Thirty-three new measles cases were recorded in the United States last week, most of them in New York, federal health officials said on Monday, bringing the number of confirmed cases this year to 1,077 in the worst U.S. outbreak of the virus since 1992. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the cases of the highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease rose 3% in the week ended June 20 from the prior week. The 2019 outbreak, which has spread to 28 states, is the worst since 1992, when 2,126 cases were recorded.

Jury convicts Illinois man of Chinese graduate student's kidnap-murder

An Illinois man prosecutors described as obsessed with serial killers was found guilty on Monday of kidnapping and the decapitation murder of a Chinese graduate student two years ago and could now face the death penalty. A U.S. District Court jury in Peoria deliberated for less than two hours before convicting Brendt Christensen, 29, of all charges in the disappearance and death of Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Parents of girl from India who died in U.S. desert 'desperate' for asylum

The parents of a 6-year-old migrant girl from India who died of heat stroke in an Arizona desert said they sought asylum in the United States because they were "desperate." "We wanted a safer and better life for our daughter and we made the extremely difficult decision to seek asylum here in the United States," said the girl's mother, Ms. Kaur, 27, and her father, Mr. Singh, 33, in a joint statement released through the U.S. Sikh Coalition that did not give their first names.

Democratic Mayor Buttigieg faces growing fallout over police shooting in his city

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Sunday faced growing fallout over a fatal police shooting in South Bend, an incident that has exposed simmering racial tensions in the Indiana city where he is mayor and which is complicating his presidential ambitions. Buttigieg answered questions at a frequently raucous and angry meeting with South Bend residents in which he was heckled, booed and screamed at by a minority of audience members. He admitted efforts to make the city's police force more diverse had failed, "and I take responsibility for that."

Supreme Court strikes down stiff firearms penalties

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch sided with the U.S. Supreme Court's four liberal members on Monday in striking down as unconstitutionally vague a law imposing stiff criminal sentences for people convicted of certain crimes involving firearms. In the 5-4 decision, the court ruled against President Donald Trump's administration in declaring that the federal law in question was written too vaguely and thus violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of due process. The court's four other conservative justices dissented, including Brett Kavanaugh, who like Gorsuch was appointed by Trump.

Bernie Sanders calls for canceling $1.6 trillion in student loan debt

U.S. presidential contender Bernie Sanders proposed a plan on Monday to cancel $1.6 trillion in student loans and pay for it with a tax on Wall Street, elevating the issue in the 2020 debate and going beyond proposals from his Democratic White House rivals. Sanders, an independent U.S. senator from Vermont, said his plan would wipe out college debt for 45 million Americans and be funded with a tax on stock, bond and derivatives transactions that would raise about $2.2 trillion over 10 years.