Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

U.S. ban on smoking in public housing is upheld

A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld a ban on smoking in federally subsidized public housing. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) properly enacted a 2016 rule requiring state and local public housing agencies to ban cigarettes, cigars and pipes inside housing units and indoor common areas, and outside within 25 feet of those spaces.

Accused ringleader in NBA health care fraud pleads guilty

The accused ringleader of a scheme involving at least 19 former National Basketball Association players to defraud a league health plan into paying millions of dollars for bogus medical procedures pleaded guilty on Friday over his involvement. Terrence Williams, who played for the New Jersey Nets and three other teams from 2009 to 2013, entered his plea to conspiracy and identity theft charges before U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan.

New Mexico man accused of planning Islamic State training center

A New Mexico man was charged with attempting to set up a training center for people wishing to fight for Islamic State, the Department of Justice said on Friday. A federal grand jury on Aug. 23 charged Herman Leyvoune Wilson, 45, of Albuquerque, with trying to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization by setting up an “Islamic State Center” in New Mexico, according to a DOJ statement.

U.S. Justice Dept. says Trump papers included material on intelligence, sources

The U.S. Justice Department on Friday disclosed that it was investigating former President Donald Trump for removing White House records because it believed he illegally held documents including some involving intelligence-gathering and clandestine human sources - among America's most closely held secrets. The department released a heavily redacted affidavit that underpinned the FBI's extraordinary Aug. 8 search of Trump's Florida residence in which agents seized 11 sets of classified records including some labeled "top secret" as documents that could gravely threaten national security if exposed.

Ex-congressman's arrest ended UAE push to get him named U.S. envoy, prosecutors say

An effort by the United Arab Emirates to convince the United States with the help of a wealthy real estate investor to name former congressman Stephen Stockman as U.S. ambassador to that country during Donald Trump's presidency unraveled with the lawmaker's 2017 arrest on fraud charges, prosecutors said. U.S. prosecutors made the statement in a filing late on Thursday in Brooklyn federal court ahead of next month's scheduled criminal trial of Tom Barrack, a billionaire real estate investor and fundraiser for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Barrack, charged with acting as a UAE agent without notifying the U.S. attorney general as required, has pleaded not guilty.

Sept. 11 victims not entitled to seize Afghan central bank assets -U.S. judge

A U.S. judge on Friday recommended that victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks not be allowed to seize billions of dollars of assets belonging to Afghanistan's central bank to satisfy court judgments they obtained against the Taliban. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan said Da Afghanistan Bank was immune from jurisdiction, and that allowing the seizures would effectively acknowledge the Islamist militant group as the Afghan government, something only the U.S. president can do.

Exclusive-Pennsylvania candidate Mastriano posed in Confederate uniform at Army War College

Three years before retiring from the U.S. Army in 2017, Donald Trump-backed Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano posed in Confederate uniform for a faculty photo at the Army War College, according to a copy of the photo obtained by Reuters. The previously unreported photo, released by the War College to Reuters after a request under the Freedom of Information Act, showed Mastriano in a 2013-14 portrait for the Department of Military Strategy, Plans, and Operations, where he worked.

MAGA Republican actions fit 'definition of fascism,' White House says

The actions of some Republicans allied to former President Donald Trump fit the definition of fascism, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday, a day after President Joe Biden said they edged toward "semi-fascism." “I was very clear when laying out and defining what MAGA Republicans have done and you look at the definition of fascism and you think about what they're doing in attacking our democracy. ... That is what that is. It is very clear," Jean-Pierre told a press briefing.

Migrants bused to U.S. capital from Texas struggle to secure housing, medical care

Nearly a month after arriving with their 1-year-old daughter on a bus sent by the governor of Texas to Washington, D.C., Colombian couple Noralis Zuniga and Juan Camilo Mendoza are unsure how long they will be allowed to stay in their city-funded hotel room. The couple, who said they left Colombia in May after their house in Medellin collapsed due to heavy rains, have tried unsuccessfully to find medical care for their baby, Evangeline. She has welts on her skin since the family's arduous 10-day trek on foot through the Darien Gap, a mountainous jungle between Colombia and Panama.

'Women's Equality Day' at White House focuses on abortion rights

U.S. President Joe Biden and White House officials marked Women's Equality Day on Friday by meeting state and local leaders to discuss ways to safeguard access to abortion, amid a flurry of legal challenges led by Republicans across the United States. Biden, Gender Policy Council co-head Jen Klein, and intergovernmental affairs director Julie Rodriguez met elected officials from Kansas, New York, Maryland, North Carolina and Delaware and a Texas judge at the White House.