US Domestic News Roundup: Prosecutors charge Hanukkah stabbing suspect with hate; Five people killed in plane crash, Louisiana and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Prosecutors charge Hanukkah stabbing suspect with hate crime, citing journals

Federal prosecutors on Monday filed hate crime charges against a man accused of going on a stabbing rampage during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi's home north of New York City, saying the suspect kept journals containing references to Adolf Hitler and "Nazi Culture." The United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York filed the charges. A day earlier the suspect, Grafton Thomas, was arraigned on five counts of attempted murder in a state court in the town of Ramapo.

Five people, heading to college football game, killed in plane crash in Louisiana: local media

Five people heading to a college football game in Atlanta were killed on Saturday when their small plane crashed just after it departed from a regional airport in southern Louisiana, local media and authorities reported. Six passengers were on board the Piper fixed-wing aircraft when it crashed shortly after 9 a.m. local time into a U.S. Post Office parking lot in Lafayette, Louisiana, police and fire officials told KATC news, a local ABC affiliate.

Judge tosses ex-White House aide's lawsuit over impeachment testimony

A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by former White House aide Charles Kupperman seeking guidance on whether he needed to comply with a congressional subpoena in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington said Kupperman's lawsuit was "moot" because a U.S. House of Representatives committee withdrew a subpoena seeking his testimony.

Sarah Palin says NY Times editor's animosity led to defamation

Sarah Palin said in an amended defamation lawsuit against the New York Times on Monday that the deep-seated "animosity and ill-will" of the newspaper's editorial page editor toward her motivated him to falsely link her to a mass shooting. Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, and former Alaska governor made her claim against the editor, James Bennet, nearly five months after the federal appeals court in Manhattan revived her lawsuit, saying it had been wrongly dismissed by the trial judge.

U.S. lawmaker and civil rights hero John Lewis has pancreatic cancer

Democratic Representative John Lewis, a hero of the U.S. civil rights movement, said on Sunday he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Lewis, 79, who endured beatings by white police and mobs during the 1960s civil rights movement and won further respect as a foremost black member of the U.S. Congress for more than three decades, said he was "clear-eyed" about the severity of his diagnosis.

Christianity Today's split with Trump highlights deeper issue in white evangelical America

After evangelical publication Christianity Today published a blistering editorial on what it called Donald Trump's "grossly immoral character", some church leaders and the U.S. president himself denounced the criticism as elitist and out-of-touch. The Dec. 19 editorial sparked a Christmas holiday debate over religion in U.S. politics and posed new questions about the close alignment between white evangelical voters and Trump, who has given their beliefs strong political support.

Single-shot by church security head felled gunman who killed two

A volunteer security member fired a single shot in taking down a gunman who opened fire during church services on Sunday, fatally wounding two before dying himself, state officials said on Monday. A live stream video caught the terrifying moment when the gunman, wearing a dark hood, stood next to the pews and started firing a long gun at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, a suburb northwest of Fort Worth. Security team leader Jack Wilson immediately responded, felling the gunman, identified as Keith Thomas Kinnunen of River Oaks, Texas, state Attorney General Ken Paxton told a news conference.

Shooter among two dead in Texas church attack

A gunman who opened fire in a Texas church, killing one person and leaving another in critical condition, died after parishioners at the Sunday morning service shot him in response, authorities said. The Fort Worth Fire Department said three people, including the person who they believed to be the shooter, were transported from the scene in critical condition. The scene was secure, they added.

U.S. presidential candidate Sanders given clean bill of health after October heart attack

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders passed a stress test this month after a heart attack required him to have two stents inserted in an artery in October, doctors to the Democratic presidential candidate said on Monday. Sanders' campaign released letters from his main doctor and two heart specialists, who all gave the 78-year-old White House hopeful a clean bill of health after physical exams, electrocardiogram monitoring, and a treadmill stress test.