Reuters US Domestic News Summary

NHC says 60 percent chance of cyclone for storm approaching Bahamas

An upper-level trough and a weak surface low located over the northwestern Bahamas has a 60 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Wednesday.

In Baltimore, U.S. attorney general pledges to help police reform

New U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Tuesday met with Baltimore officials and the family of a 25-year-old black man who died of injuries sustained in police custody last month and vowed to help the city pursue police reform. Lynch visited Baltimore days after the city's chief prosecutor brought criminal charges, including one murder charge, against six officers involved in the April 12 arrest of Freddie Gray. He suffered a spinal injury and died in hospital a week later.

Police officer dies after shooting in north Idaho

A police officer died of his wounds after he was shot by a man he was trying to stop in northern Idaho on Tuesday, officials said. Coeur d'Alene police sergeant Greg Moore was making a suspicious person check on Tuesday morning when the man opened fire, said police.

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's lawyers aim to paint Tsarnaev as teen gone astray

Attorneys for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will call more witnesses on Wednesday as they seek to spare his life by painting him as a normal teen who went astray when he followed his older, domineering brother in carrying out the attack. Tsarnaev, 21, was found guilty last month of bombing the race'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.

Michigan voters reject $1.9 billion road repair measure

Michigan voters Tuesday rejected a ballot proposal to hike the state sales tax to pay for fixing the state's crumbling roads and bridges. The final vote reported by the Michigan Secretary of State's office was 80 percent opposed, and 20 percent in favor. Polls taken ahead of the vote had indicated the measure was headed for defeat.

Texas Senate passes measure to cut insurance payments for abortions

Health insurers would be prevented from covering the cost of abortions except in medical emergencies under a bill approved on Tuesday by the Republican-dominated Texas Senate. Private health insurance plans and those offered through the Affordable Care Act marketplace could still provide coverage for abortions in cases where the woman's life is at risk.

Chicago asks school teachers to take 7 percent pay cut: union

Three years after a public school strike, Chicago teacher contract talks are off to a rocky start, with the debt-burdened district demanding a 7 percent pay cut, union officials said on Tuesday. The Chicago Teachers Union said in a statement it was "highly insulted" by the district's demands, which include increases in health insurance premiums. The current contract expires on June 30.

Drought forces California into first mandatory rules to save water

California water regulators on Tuesday adopted the state's first rules for mandatory cutbacks in urban water use as the region's catastrophic drought enters its fourth year. The emergency regulations, which require some communities to trim water use by as much as 36 percent, were approved unanimously late Tuesday by the State Water Resources Control Board weeks after Democratic Governor Jerry Brown stood in a drying mountain meadow and ordered statewide rationing.

Elder Boston bomber was cruel, dominating, witnesses testify

The older of the two brothers in the Boston Marathon bombing was a controlling boyfriend who terrified his future wife's friends but held great influence in his family, witnesses testified as lawyers fought to save the younger brother's life. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died four days after the April 15, 2013 attack that killed three people and injured 264. His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, last month was convicted of carrying out the attack and could be sentenced to death.