US Domestic News Roundup: Bullet-riddled U.S. flag that survived D-Day comes home 75 years later; Four Chicago police officers fired

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

FBI documents point to Trump role in hush money for porn star Daniels

FBI documents unsealed on Thursday suggest that Donald Trump was actively involved in engineering a hush-money payment shortly before the 2016 election to a porn actress who said she had a sexual encounter with him, as his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, the campaign team and others scrambled to head off a scandal. The documents, released on the orders of U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan, were used by law enforcement officials to obtain a 2018 search warrant that led to FBI raids on Cohen's home and office.

Financier Epstein to remain jailed until sex trafficking trial

American financier Jeffrey Epstein will remain behind bars while he awaits trial on charges of sex trafficking dozens of underage girls, a U.S. judge ruled on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman rejected Epstein's request to pay for armed guards to be under house arrest in his New York mansion valued at $77 million. Epstein has pleaded not guilty.

Illinois jury to decide death or life in prison for man convicted of beheading Chinese student

An Illinois jury of five women and seven men will continue deliberations on Thursday to decide if a man convicted of abducting and beheading a Chinese scholar will face a death sentence or spend the rest of his life behind bars. Jurors deliberated for three hours on Wednesday without deciding the fate of Brendt Christensen, 29, in the U.S. District Court in Peoria, Illinois, about 165 miles (265 miles) southwest of Chicago.

Fort Lauderdale suffers water shortage after a construction mishap

Faucets in the Florida city of Fort Lauderdale began running dry on Thursday after a construction firm damaged a water main, forcing the closure of City Hall and a number of businesses on a hot summer day as officials pledged to solve the problem. Residents of Fort Lauderdale, which is 20 miles (30 km) north of Miami, and surrounding areas risked being without water service until Friday, officials said on the city's website.

U.S. House Democrats to focus Mueller testimony on Trump's conduct

When former U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears in Congress on Wednesday, House Democrats will try to focus his testimony on clear examples of conduct by President Donald Trump that would lead to criminal charges against any other American. The strategy, described by Democratic congressional aides at a briefing for reporters on Thursday, is intended to build support among Americans for an investigative agenda that Democrats plan to advance, possibly leading to impeachment proceedings.

Four Chicago police officers fired for cover-up in Laquan McDonald killing

A Chicago police panel on Thursday fired four officers over the shooting death of a black teenager, Laquan McDonald, in 2014, a case that highlighted racial tension in the United States' third-largest city. The release of dashboard video of the shooting in November 2015 ignited many protests in the city, and calls for the resignation of then Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

More Puerto Rico protests planned as governor resists calls to resign

Massive and at times violent protests in Puerto Rico showed no sign of stopping as labor unions on Thursday organized a Friday march to keep up pressure on the governor to resign, while dozens of guns were stolen in a raid on police firearms center. Thousands of protesters have jammed streets in San Juan since Saturday, calling on Governor Ricardo Rossello to step down after the leak of a raft of controversial and vulgar text messages between him and his closest allies. The scandal comes on the heels of a federal probe into government corruption on the bankrupt island.

Trump's attacks on congresswomen could boost Biden campaign

As U.S. President Donald Trump intensifies his efforts to brand four progressive congresswomen as the new face of the Democratic Party, its presidential front-runner, Joe Biden, has been quietly reminding voters in Iowa there remains a middle ground. Trump's vilification of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, in which he said the minority lawmakers were hostile to America and should "go back" where they came from, has largely left Biden out of this week's political conversation.

Illinois to defy Trump administration's abortion referral 'gag rule'

Illinois will defy enforcement of the Trump administration's rule barring federally subsidized family planning clinics from making abortion referrals, the governor said on Thursday, vowing the state would step in to fund most of those clinics itself. Illinois' action comes a week after a federal appeals court cleared the way for the administration to cut off Title X grants for reproductive healthcare and family planning for low-income women at clinics that refer patients to abortion providers.

Bullet-riddled U.S. flag that survived D-Day comes home 75 years later

Shot through by German machine gun bullets and tattered by the wind, an American flag that flew on the first U.S. invading ship on D-Day came home on Thursday in a White House ceremony. The flag handover was a main part of the visit to the White House by Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands, who held Oval Office talks with President Donald Trump.

Also Read: UPDATE 1-Financier Jeffrey Epstein to remain jailed until sex trafficking trial