Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Biden's immense economic challenge: Putting 10 million people back to work President Joe Biden pushed for more fiscal support Friday to address one of the greatest challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic - how to get millions of out-of-work Americans back on the job.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Biden says he does not expect minimum wage hike to be in COVID-19 relief bill

U.S. President Joe Biden said in an interview released on Friday he does not expect his proposal for a hike in the minimum wage to $15 an hour to be included in his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill because of Senate rules. "My guess is it will not be in it. But I do think that we should have a minimum wage, stand by itself, $15 an hour," Biden said in an interview with the CBS Evening News. Biden administration suspends Trump asylum deals with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras

The Biden administration said on Saturday it was immediately suspending Trump-era asylum agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, part of a bid to undo his Republican predecessor's hardline immigration policies. In a statement, State Department Secretary Antony Blinken said the United States had "suspended and initiated the process to terminate the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as the first concrete steps on the path to greater partnership and collaboration in the region laid out by President Biden." Fired Ohio policeman pleads not guilty in Andre Hill's killing, bond set at $3 million

A former Ohio police officer pleaded not guilty on Friday to murder and other charges in the shooting death of an unarmed Black man, the latest in a series of killings that have raised questions of racial injustice in U.S. law enforcement. At the hearing in Franklin County court, Judge Elizabeta Saken agreed to release the former officer, Adam Coy, a 19-year-veteran of the Columbus police force, on $3 million bail. 59.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed, 39 million administered: U.S. CDC

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had distributed 59,304,600 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the United States and that 39,037,964 doses had been administered as of Saturday morning. The tallies are for both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, vaccines as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Saturday, the agency said. Biden's immense economic challenge: Putting 10 million people back to work

President Joe Biden pushed for more fiscal support Friday to address one of the greatest challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic - how to get millions of out-of-work Americans back on the job. The labor market regained some minor ground in January when the economy added 49,000 jobs, according to a report released Friday by the Labor Department. But the report showed labor market growth is stalling, doing little to close the huge gap created by the pandemic. Chicago teachers, district talks in stalemate over COVID re-opening plan

Talks between Chicago teachers and the mayor on a plan to reopen the third-largest U.S. school district during the pandemic were deadlocked on Friday after the union signaled that it would not accept her "last, best and final offer." The union representing 28,000 public school educators in the Chicago Public Schools district said Mayor Lori Lightfoot and district leaders "have walked away from the bargaining table" after submitting their latest proposal. U.S. Senate passes budget plan to advance Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID aid package

The U.S. Senate early on Friday passed a budget plan that would allow for passage of President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package in coming weeks without Republican support. Vice President Kamala Harris broke a 50-50 tie by casting a vote in favor of the Democratic measure, sending it to the House of Representatives for final approval. U.S. halts asylum-seeker pact with Guatemala, says Guatemalan government

The U.S. government has ended a controversial deal with Guatemala that sent asylum-seekers processed at the U.S.-Mexico border to the Central American country to await hearings, Guatemala's foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday. The ministry said it had been informed by U.S. officials of the cancellation of the program that was negotiated under the administration of former President Donald Trump. Biden's Homeland Security czar vows to fight domestic terrorism

U.S. Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas, who last week became the first Latino and immigrant to hold the post, on Saturday reaffirmed his resolve to fight domestic terrorism, one of the greatest threats to the United States. Mayorkas, who served as deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under President Barack Obama, was sworn after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of outgoing Republican President Donald Trump. Biden to raise current U.S. refugee cap from historic lows

U.S. President Joe Biden plans to raise the refugee cap for the current fiscal year to 62,500, a sharp increase from the 15,000 set by former President Donald Trump, two people familiar with the move told Reuters on Friday. The allocations will create spots for 22,000 refugees from Africa, 6,000 from East Asia, 4,000 from Europe and Central Asia, 5,000 from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 13,000 from South Asia, the people said. Another 12,500 unallocated spots will also be available.