Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Trump, Biden focus their campaigns on U.S. West wildfires The U.S. presidential race on Monday turned its focus to the wildfires sweeping the Pacific Northwest, with President Donald Trump set to visit California after blaming the blazes on poor forest management and Democratic challenger Joe Biden speaking about the role of climate change in stoking the fires.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Trump, Biden focus their campaigns on U.S. West wildfires

The U.S. presidential race on Monday turned its focus to the wildfires sweeping the Pacific Northwest, with President Donald Trump set to visit California after blaming the blazes on poor forest management and Democratic challenger Joe Biden speaking about the role of climate change in stoking the fires. The Republican president, seeking re-election on Nov. 3, is due to meet with firefighters and emergency officials in Northern California after facing criticism from Democrats for remaining mostly silent on the largest wildfires in state history, except for seeking to blame the blazes on failures by the state government. Tropical Storm Sally's winds and rains begin to drench U.S. Gulf Coast

Louisiana and Mississippi residents were under evacuation orders on Monday as Tropical Storm Sally churned across the Gulf of Mexico towards a slow-motion landfall on the U.S. coast and was expected to bring high winds and floods from Louisiana to Florida. The second storm in less than a month to threaten the region, Sally is forecast to strengthen on Monday and bring heavy rains and winds of up to 85 miles per hour (137 km/h). Top U.S. health agency spokesman Caputo accused scientists of 'sedition': NYT

The top communications official at the U.S. cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus told his followers in a Facebook Live session that government scientists were engaging in "sedition" in their handling of the pandemic, the New York Times reported https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/caputo-virus.html on Monday. Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said, without evidence, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was harboring a "resistance unit" determined to undermine President Donald Trump, according to the newspaper. U.S. court allows Trump to phase out immigrant humanitarian protections

A U.S. appeals court on Monday sided with President Donald Trump over his administration's decision to end humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of whom have lived in the United States for decades. In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of three judges in the California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision that had blocked Trump's move to phase out so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan. U.S. Justice Department launches internal inquiry into Stone sentencing

The U.S. Justice Department has launched an internal inquiry into circumstances surrounding the decision to ease sentencing recommendations for President Donald Trump's long-time friend Roger Stone, a spokeswoman confirmed. "We welcome the review," Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. Rochester mayor fires police chief over handling Daniel Prude's death

Rochester, New York, Mayor Lovely Warren on Monday fired Police Chief La'Ron Singletary and suspended two city officials over the handling of the asphyxiation death of Daniel Prude in police custody. Video footage, released by Prude's family, showed officers using a mesh hood and pinning the 41-year-old Black man to the pavement during the March arrest. Trump visits California, Biden talks climate change as wildfires shift campaign focus

President Donald Trump will travel to California on Monday to be briefed about its devastating wildfires while Democratic rival Joe Biden plans a speech on the matter from Delaware, bringing climate change to the forefront of the presidential campaign. Trump, a Republican who pulled the United States out of the Paris accord on global warming because he found it too costly, has blamed poor forest management for the fires that are raging around the West Coast but has authorized federal disaster aid. Shooting of 27-year-old man under investigation in Pennsylvania

The mayor of Lancaster, Pennsylvania on Monday called for an overhaul of how the city responds to mental health situations after a police officer shot and killed a 27-year-old man who ran at him, allegedly threatening him with a knife. The shooting on Sunday sparked sometimes-violent protests overnight, turning the city of about 60,000 people into the latest flashpoint in a summer of civil unrest across the United States over racism and use of force by the police. U.S. voting officials scramble in wake of 'misleading' USPS mailer

A voter-outreach effort by the U.S. Postal Service drew a growing backlash on Monday as election officials in several states warned voters that the embattled agency was providing inaccurate information about how to vote in the Nov. 3 election. The statements by officials in West Virginia, Maryland, Utah and Washington state come after a federal judge in Colorado on Saturday ordered the Postal Service to cease delivery of postcards he said contained "false or misleading information" about how to cast ballots by mail. Wisconsin's high court will not order mail ballots reprinted, averting potential chaos

Wisconsin's highest court rejected a third-party candidate's bid to join November's presidential ballot, a move that would have invalidated tens of thousands of ballots already mailed to voters and potentially thrown the election process into chaos. The court ruled that the Green Party's presidential slate could not be added to the ballot because the party's candidates waited too long to challenge the elections commission's decision to exclude them due to discrepancies in their paperwork.