Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Former Navy SEAL sentenced to prison for investment scheme

A former U.S. Navy SEAL who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a scheme to defraud a dozen people out of nearly $1.2 million was sentenced on Wednesday to more than six years in prison. Jason Mullaney, who served in the Navy from 1993 to 2003 and spent much of his career on SEAL Team Five based in Coronado, California, pleaded guilty in September in San Diego Superior Court to three counts of grand theft and one count of securities fraud.

Lockheed F-35 gets first female pilot: Air Force

Lieutenant Colonel Christine Mau, a U.S. Air Force pilot who

was part of the first all-female combat sortie over Afghanistan in 2011, this week became the first woman to fly the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 jet, the Air Force said on Wednesday. Mau, deputy commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing Operations Group, on Tuesday completed her first training flight in the single-seat stealth fighter after 14 virtual training missions in a simulator, said spokeswoman Lieutenant Hope Cronin.

Father of Texas shooter says someone pushed him into crime: newspaper

The father of one of the two men killed after opening fire in a failed attack on a Texas exhibit of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad said someone coerced his son into committing the crime, the Dallas Morning News reported on Wednesday. U.S. officials were looking into claims made by the Syria- and Iraq-based Islamic State that "two soldiers of the caliphate" carried out the attack on Sunday in Garland, a suburb of Dallas.

Baltimore asks Justice Department to investigate police practices

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake asked the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday to investigate the city's police department for civil rights violations after the death of a black man from injuries sustained in police custody. The investigation will look into police practices such as frisks, street stops of suspects and arrests to see if they violate the U.S. Constitution, Rawlings-Blake said at a news conference.

U.S. probing Islamic State claims it was behind Texas cartoon attack

U.S. investigators were looking into claims by the Islamic State that it was behind a failed attack on a Texas exhibit of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in which two gunmen were killed, but officials said on Tuesday they doubted the militant group's direct involvement. The Syria- and Iraq-based Islamic State (IS) said on its official online radio station that "two soldiers of the caliphate" carried out the attack on Sunday in Garland, a suburb of Dallas.

Boston bomber volunteered as family fell apart, jurors told

Lawyers seeking to spare convicted Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from the death penalty called witnesses on Wednesday who described his volunteer work with disabled children, his respect for his older brother, and his father's mental illness in the years before the attack. Tsarnaev, 21, was found guilty last month of killing three people and wounding 264 others by bombing the marathon's crowded finish line on April 15, 2013, in one of the highest-profile attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. He was also convicted of killing a police officer three days later.

California city plans $16 minimum wage by 2019, highest in U.S

Emmeryville, a small city in the San Francisco Bay Area, has given initial approval to the nation's highest minimum wage by setting baseline pay at $16 an hour in 2019, with gradual increases leading up to that level. The 5-0 vote on Tuesday by the city council in Emmeryville, a community of about 10,000 residents, follows moves by several major U.S. cities to sharply raise their minimum wages.

New York jury to return for 17th day of deliberations in 1979 missing boy murder trial

A New York jury ended its 16th day of deliberations on Wednesday with no verdict in the murder trial of a former deli worker who confessed to the 1979 killing of Etan Patz, a 6-year-old whose disappearance changed the way the United States responds to reports of missing children. The jury has been struggling to weigh kidnapping and murder charges against Pedro Hernandez, 54. The panel in state Supreme Court in Manhattan has twice told Judge Maxwell Wiley it was deadlocked but both times was ordered to keep trying.

California approves new uniform rules for seawater desalination

California water regulators on Wednesday adopted a new uniform permitting process for seawater desalination projects expected to expand in number as the drought-stricken state increasingly turns to the ocean to supplement its drinking supplies. Action on the desalination rule, which puts key decisions for such plants in the hands of statewide regulators rather than regional boards, came a day after the same state body enacted sweeping cutbacks in water use by California's cities and towns.

Tornadoes hit southwest of Oklahoma City, airport evacuated

A series of tornadoes, including a major twister, touched down southwest of Oklahoma City on Wednesday as a storm system brought severe weather to several Great Plains states, officials said. There had been no immediate reports of injuries but some structures were damaged, officials said.