Reuters US Domestic News Summary

The Squad in the spotlight: AOC, progressive peers face primary challenges of their own Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's stunning upset over a member of the Democratic congressional leadership in 2018 made her a household name and inspired similar insurgent campaigns around the United States.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Man charged in pipe bomb ambush of deputies, wrote far-right phrase in blood

A U.S. Air Force sergeant is accused of shooting dead a Sheriff's deputy in California's Santa Cruz mountains last week, throwing lit pipe bombs and shooting at other deputies and planning to kill more, court papers say. Steven Carrillo, 32, an active duty sergeant at Travis Air Force Base, was charged Thursday with 19 felonies including one count of murder, eight counts of attempted murder, making and detonating pipe bombs, according to a 14-page indictment filed in the Superior Court of Santa Cruz. Fears of second U.S. coronavirus wave rise on worrisome spike in cases, hospitalizations

About half a dozen states including Texas and Arizona are grappling with a rising number of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds, fanning concerns that the reopening of the U.S. economy may spark a second wave of infections. The rally in global stocks came crashing down on Thursday over worries of a pandemic resurgence. The last time the S&P 500 and Dow fell as much in one day was in March, when U.S. coronavirus cases began surging. Trump on Juneteenth rally: 'Think about it as a celebration'

President Donald Trump defended his decision to resume campaign rallies next week on a day marking the end of U.S. slavery and at the site of a black massacre 100 years ago, saying it would be a celebration. The Republican president drew criticism for scheduling the rally on June 19, known as Juneteenth, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where white mobs attacked black citizens and businesses in one of the country’s bloodiest outbreaks of racist violence. Knocked off their perch: protesters target empire builders, Confederate symbols

Once feted as pioneers, some of the architects of Europe's empire building now face a backlash: anti-racism protesters are demanding their legacies be revisited and their often imposing statues be torn down and consigned to the trash heap of history. From Cecil Rhodes in England and Captain James Cook in Australia to Christopher Columbus in the United States and King Leopold II in Belgium, the imperialists are under attack, sometimes from the descendants of those they once colonised. The Squad in the spotlight: AOC, progressive peers face primary challenges of their own

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's stunning upset over a member of the Democratic congressional leadership in 2018 made her a household name and inspired similar insurgent campaigns around the United States. Now the democratic socialist from New York City, best known by her initials AOC, must survive her own challenge from within the party in a June 23 primary election. Two other members of "the Squad" – four women of color who, in their first terms, have become the face of the U.S. House of Representatives' liberal wing – also face primary challengers. Exclusive: Most Americans, including Republicans, support sweeping Democratic police reform proposals - Reuters/Ipsos poll

Most Americans, including a majority of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, support sweeping law enforcement reforms such as a ban on chokeholds and racial profiling after the latest death of an African American while in police custody, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Thursday. The national survey on June 9-10, shows the public broadly on the side of Democratic lawmakers, who proposed a series of changes to police departments (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-congress/u-s-democrats-pledge-transformative-change-with-police-reform-bill-idUSKBN23F2OI) in the United States as protesters gathered nationwide to condemn the death of George Floyd and racism. 'This is about livelihoods': U.S. virus hotspots reopen despite second wave specter

Facing budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment, governors of U.S. states that are COVID-19 hotspots on Thursday pressed ahead with economic reopenings that have raised fears of a second wave of infections. The moves by governors of states such as Florida and Arizona came as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the United States could not afford to let the novel coronavirus shut its economy again and global stocks tanked on worries of a pandemic resurgence. Ex-Trump adviser Flynn, Justice Department to push appeals court to drop lying charge

President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and the Justice Department will team up on Friday in an unprecedented legal battle to force a federal judge to dismiss a criminal charge of lying to which Flynn has already pleaded guilty. Lawyers for the Justice Department and Flynn will each argue before a federal appeals court that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan had trampled on the executive branch's powers by refusing to grant their request to dismiss the case. Exclusive: Trump aims to sidestep another arms pact to sell more U.S. drones

The Trump administration plans to reinterpret a Cold War-era arms agreement between 34 nations with the goal of allowing U.S. defense contractors to sell more American-made drones to a wide array of nations, three defense industry executives and a U.S. official told Reuters. The policy change, which has not been previously reported, could open up sales of armed U.S. drones to less stable governments such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates that in the past have been forbidden from buying them under the 33-year-old Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), said the U.S. official, a former U.S. official and one of the executives. It could also undermine longstanding MTCR compliance from countries such as Russia, said the U.S. official, who has direct knowledge of the policy shift. Seattle mayor says illegal for Trump to send military to clear protesters

The mayor of Seattle said on Thursday it would be unconstitutional and illegal for U.S. President Donald Trump to send military forces into the city to clear protesters occupying a neighborhood, as he has suggested. But Mayor Jenny Durkan, speaking at an afternoon press conference, did not say how or when authorities would remove the roughly 500 demonstrators who have established a makeshift encampment behind barricades in the Capitol Hill district.