US Domestic News Roundup: Trump says immigration raids coming 'fairly soon'; Florida blast rocks shopping center and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Trump says immigration raids coming 'fairly soon'

President Donald Trump said on Friday mass deportation roundups would begin "fairly soon" as U.S. migrant advocates vowed their communities would be "ready" when immigration officers come. Trump, who has made a hardline immigration stance a key issue of his presidency and 2020 re-election bid, postponed the operation last month after the date was leaked, but on Monday he said it would take place after July 4.

Recount in New York City Democratic primary to begin Tuesday

A recount will begin on Tuesday in the Democratic primary race for district attorney in the New York City borough of Queens, a contest that drew national attention, an official said on Friday. Tiffany Caban, a progressive Democrat endorsed by U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, declared victory last week, but her rival, Melinda Katz, did not concede.

Oregon state senator faces hearing on 'heavily armed' comment

An Oregon state senator who was among Republican lawmakers who fled the Capitol last month to scuttle a vote on a bill to fight climate change faces a conduct hearing over remarks tinged with threats of violence about any efforts to force the senators to return. Senator Brian Boquist, who is a former U.S. Army special forces officer, ahead of the Republicans' departure said on June 19 to the state Senate's Democratic president: "If you send the State Police to get me, hell is coming to visit you personally."

Pope moves America's 'first televangelist' closer to sainthood

The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen, a charismatic figure of U.S. Roman Catholicism in the 20th century and a pioneer in using media for religious purposes, is one step closer to sainthood. A Vatican statement on Saturday said the pope had approved a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to Sheen's intercession, meaning he will be beatified. No date for the ceremony was given.

U.S. demands $12.7 billion in judgment against 'El Chapo'

U.S. authorities said on Friday they were seeking a court order requiring Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to forfeit $12.7 billion following his conviction for racketeering and drug trafficking crimes earlier this year. The sum represents the total amount of cocaine, marijuana and heroin that a jury found Guzman to have trafficked, multiplied by the average prices of those drugs, according to a filing by prosecutors in Brooklyn federal court.

House panel chair asks watchdog for probe of Homeland Security leaders

The chairman of a U.S. House panel asked an internal watchdog on Friday to investigate whether top officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. border service knew about a Facebook group where agents posted racist and misogynistic comments. "Such vile and threatening behavior from agents of the United States government is entirely unacceptable" and "should be grounds for immediate dismissal," Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a letter to the DHS's acting inspector general.

Trump presses for contentious census citizenship question despite legal uncertainty

The Trump administration on Friday refused to back down over its bid to put a contentious citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. census, meaning a court case will move forward over whether officials were motivated by racial bias in seeking to add it. The Department of Justice told Maryland-based U.S. District Judge George Hazel it has not made a final determination on whether to add the question even as President Donald Trump told reporters he was considering issuing an executive order to do it.

Florida blast rocks shopping center, 21 hurt; ruptured gas line eyed

An explosion obliterated a vacant restaurant at a shopping center in South Florida on Saturday, injuring at least 21 people and showering the parking lot with debris. Firefighters found a ruptured natural gas line, but authorities said the cause of the explosion in Plantation, Florida, about six miles west of Fort Lauderdale, was still under investigation.

Biden apologizes for touting past work with segregationist senators

Seeking to put to rest a weeks-old controversy that has dogged his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden apologized on Saturday for touting his past record of working civilly with segregationists serving in the U.S. Senate in the 1970s. Biden, who served as vice president under the first black U.S. president Barack Obama, had until now pointedly resisted apologizing for the remarks he made on June 18 that had drawn criticism from Democratic rivals, exposing racial and generational tensions among the candidates.

California desert braces for aftershocks from major 7.1 quake

Emergency officials in Southern California's high desert braced for strong, potentially dangerous aftershocks from a major earthquake that damaged buildings, ruptured gas lines and sparked numerous fires near the quake's remote epicenter. The powerful magnitude 7.1 tremor rocked the Mojave Desert town of Ridgecrest near Death Valley National Park as darkness fell on Friday night, jolting the area with eight times more force than a 6.4 quake that had struck the same area 34 hours earlier.

(With inputs from agencies.)