Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Balfour Beatty unit appoints counsel to probe U.S. Air Force base allegations

A unit of British infrastructure group Balfour Beatty has appointed Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP to work with the U.S. Air Force and other authorities to investigate allegations that it falsified maintenance records at a U.S. Air Force base. The appointment of an outside counsel comes days after U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren called for an official inquiry and demanded answers from the Air Force and one of its top housing contractors about practices at the Tinker base in Oklahoma.

Trump administration erects another barrier to immigrants seeking U.S. asylum

The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a new rule to bar almost all immigrants from applying for asylum at the southern border, requiring them to first pursue safe haven in a third country through which they had traveled on the way to the United States. The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement issued with the Department of Justice, said the rule would set a "new bar" for immigrants "by placing further restrictions or limitations on eligibility for aliens who seek asylum in the United States."

Biden cancer group shuts down operations

The Biden Cancer Initiative, a non-profit organization started by former Vice President Joe Biden to support cancer prevention and research, said on Monday it suspended operations last week, two and a half months after Biden and his wife resigned from the group to focus on his presidential campaign. Biden, whose son Beau died from brain cancer in 2015, launched the group in 2017. He has said that he would like to president who presided over the end of cancer as we know it.

Trump may face more court battles over giving citizenship data to states

U.S. President Donald Trump's order that all federal agencies provide citizenship data to the Commerce Department could open a new legal front over whether states can redraw their voting maps based on citizenship status. Trump dropped the effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census on Thursday following a recent defeat in the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead, he ordered other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration, to provide relevant data.

Trump defiant as lawmakers blast his 'racist' attacks on four congresswomen

President Donald Trump doubled down on his attacks against four minority U.S. congresswomen on Monday and dismissed concerns that his comments were racist, prompting outrage from Democrats, who moved to condemn him in the House of Representatives. Speaking at the White House, Trump said people he described as critical of the United States should leave the country.

Biden healthcare plan draws contrast with White House rivals

Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden unveiled a $750 billion healthcare plan on Monday that he said would strengthen the Affordable Care Act, drawing a contrast with rivals who back a more sweeping "Medicare for All" government-run system. Biden portrayed White House rivals led by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who back a single-payer plan that eliminates private insurance, as a threat to former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, known as Obamacare.

Epstein's accusers urge U.S. judge to keep him jailed until sex trafficking trial

Two women who say they are victims of sexual misconduct by American financier Jeffrey Epstein on Monday urged a U.S. judge to keep him in jail while he awaits trial on charges of sex trafficking dozens of underage girls. "He's a scary person," one of the women, Courtney Wild, told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in federal court in Manhattan.

Neo-Nazi gets second life sentence in murder of protester in Virginia

A Virginia state judge on Monday sentenced a self-professed neo-Nazi to a second life prison term for killing a demonstrator when he drove his car into a crowd protesting against white supremacists in Charlottesville two years ago. Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore sentenced James Fields, 22, to life plus 419 years, as recommended by the jury that found him guilty last December of murder plus eight counts of malicious wounding and a hit-and-run offense.

With political power at stake, North Carolina gerrymandering trial begins

North Carolina's state legislative districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to entrench Republicans in power and must be thrown out, a lawyer for state Democrats and a good-government advocacy group told a panel of judges on Monday. The case is the first to reach trial since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that federal courts have no authority to curb partisan gerrymandering, the practice of drawing electoral maps to benefit one political party over another.

Trump says weekend deportation raids were 'very successful'

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that raids over the weekend aimed at immigrants who had been ordered deported were "very successful" even though much of the activity was not visible to the public. Trump had vowed to launch mass deportation roundups over the weekend, causing immigrants and their advocates to brace for large numbers of arrests, but by Sunday evening there were only reports of low-profile operations in a few cities.