Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Measuring Hurricane Ian's toll on Florida's 'forgotten' neighborhoods

Betty and Hubert Toney have lost count of all the hurricanes they've lived through since moving into their house in the modest Dunbar neighborhood of Fort Myers, Florida, in 1958. But they had never before experienced anything like Ian. The powerful Category 4 hurricane sheared the roof off the Toneys' green flat-top home, leaving the interior exposed to the torrential rain.

Biden, doctors say new abortion laws have chilling impact

U.S. President Joe Biden and top White House officials announced new guidelines and grants to protect abortion and contraception rights on Tuesday, and said women's rights have already been curtailed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade 100 days ago. Speaking at a meeting of the reproductive rights task force, with Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden said the decision that rescinded women's constitutional right to an abortion has had frightening ripple effects in some states, include restricting a teen's access to medicine she needed for arthritis. "We're not going to sit by and let Republicans throughout the country enact extreme policies," he said.

Biden approval slips to 40%, Reuters/Ipsos finds

U.S. President Joe Biden's public approval rating edged lower this week and was close to the lowest level of his presidency, with just five weeks to go before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Tuesday found. The two-day national poll found that 40% of Americans approve of Biden's job performance, down from 41% a week earlier.

Exclusive-Republican clerk could be charged in Michigan voting-system breach

A Michigan township official who promotes false conspiracy theories of a rigged 2020 election could face criminal charges related to two voting-system security breaches, according to previously unreported records and legal experts. A state police detective recommended that the Michigan attorney general consider unspecified charges amid a months-long probe into one breach related to the Republican clerk's handling of a vote tabulator, according to a June email from the detective to state and local officials. Reuters obtained the email through a public-records request.

Michigan judge drops charges against 7 ex-state and city officials in Flint water crisis

A Michigan judge on Tuesday threw out felony charges against seven former state and local officials in connection with the Flint water scandal, ruling that the indictments brought against the individuals were invalid due to a procedural error. Under state-appointed managers, the government of Flint, a majority-Black city, switched its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River to cut costs in 2014. Corrosive river water caused lead to leach from the pipes, exposing thousands of children to lead poisoning and leading to an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease.

Trump asks U.S. Supreme Court to intervene over seized classified records

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in his fight with the Justice Department over classified documents seized from his Florida home as part of a criminal investigation into his handling of government records. Trump filed an emergency request asking the justices to block part of a lower court's ruling that prevented an independent arbiter requested by Trump, known as a special master, from vetting more than 100 documents marked as classified that were among 11,000 records seized by FBI agents at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on Aug. 8.

Outside dollars help Republican U.S. Senate candidates close financial gap with Democrats

Republicans in the tightest U.S. Senate races are getting help from deep-pocketed allies who are unleashing a late advertising blitz, potentially neutralizing their Democratic rivals' fundraising advantage heading into the Nov. 8 midterm elections. Led by a fundraising group tied to Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, dozens of conservative organizations reported spending more than $104 million in September to help Republican candidates in seven Senate races widely seen as competitive, a Reuters analysis of federal disclosures found.

Oath Keepers leader said Trump 'will need us and our rifles', U.S. court hears

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told followers of his far-right group that Donald Trump "will need us and our rifles" just days after the then-Republican president lost the 2020 election, an FBI witness said in court on Tuesday. Rhodes and four co-defendants - Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs and Jessica Watkins - are on trial in federal court in Washington, accused of conspiring to prevent Congress from certifying the election victory of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in a failed bid to keep Trump in power.

Angelina Jolie accuses ex-husband Brad Pitt of abuse in court filing

Angelina Jolie detailed what she described as abusive behavior by ex-husband Brad Pitt in a court filing on Tuesday, escalating a legal battle over a French winery the former couple once shared and revealing new details about the dissolution of their marriage. The filing in a Los Angeles court alleges that Pitt sought to condition Jolie's sale of her stake in the winery on a nondisclosure agreement that would have barred her from publicly discussing "Pitt's physical and emotional abuse of her and their children."

Soccer-U.S. captain Sauerbrunn says responsible parties in NWSL abuse case must leave

United States captain Becky Sauerbrunn called for the removal of individuals at the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and U.S. Soccer who failed to protect players from abuse, after an inquiry found widespread misconduct in the professional league. U.S. Soccer brought in former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and King & Spalding LLP a year ago to conduct an independent investigation after a report in The Athletic outlined allegations of abuse in the NWSL, prompting a reckoning across the league.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)