Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Southwest reports progress on flights, refunds, White House watching

Southwest Airlines on Tuesday said it was making "solid progress" in efforts to return operations to normal after cancelling nearly 16,000 flights in the week ended Dec. 29 due to bad weather and meltdown of its crew scheduling system. The White House said Southwest "failed its customers" and added that the government would seek to fine the low-cost Texas-based airline if it does not appropriately reimburse customers for their losses.

Hardliner Jim Jordan emerges as a Republican alternative for U.S. House speaker

For much of the last 16 years Republican Jim Jordan's combative, in-your-face style of politics made the former college wrestler a constant source of trouble for his party's leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now his party is deciding whether the hardline co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus will lead the chamber in challenging Democratic President Joe Biden and the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate for the next two years.

The Republican wave that wasn't could dim Trump's White House hopes

The 2022 midterm vote in the United States was a story of great expectations. Given the public's sour mood over the direction of the country and with inflation rampant, Republicans had high hopes of seizing control of the U.S. Congress from Democrats, perhaps grabbing dozens of seats in a so-called "red wave" in the House of Representatives in the process.

Man who opened fire in Brooklyn subway pleads guilty to terrorism

The man who set off smoke bombs on a crowded New York subway train before shooting 10 people last April in one of the most violent attacks ever seen on the city's transit system pleaded guilty on Tuesday to terrorism and weapons charges. Frank James, 63, appeared in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn and read aloud from a short statement confessing to the attack on a Manhattan-bound N train on April 12, for which he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Doctoral student accused in Idaho college slayings agrees to extradition

The doctoral student accused in the November stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students will be transferred to Idaho to face murder charges there, after he agreed at a Tuesday court hearing in Pennsylvania not to fight extradition. Bryan Kohberger, 28, was taken into custody last week in Monroe County in eastern Pennsylvania, where he was visiting family. Kohberger has been working toward a criminal justice PhD degree at Washington State University, located near the University of Idaho campus.

Kevin McCarthy's hopes for U.S. House speaker wither in face of hardline opposition

Hardline Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday repeatedly blocked fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy's bid to become the chamber's powerful speaker, leaving the chamber leaderless and plunging their new majority into turmoil. In the first day of what could prove to be a brutal showdown between about 20 hardliners and the other 202 members of the Republican caucus, McCarthy failed in three ballots to achieve the 218 votes needed to become speaker, a role second in line to the Oval Office after the vice president.

New Year's Eve attack on New York police linked to Islamist extremism

The teenager accused of attacking three policemen with a machete on New Year's Eve near Times Square and charged with attempted murder was linked to Islamist extremism, a senior New York City Police Department official said on Tuesday. "He knew what he was doing. He knew why he was doing it and he thought he would die in the attack," Thomas Galati, the department's chief of intelligence and counterterrorism, told ABC News in an interview on Tuesday. "He did yell out 'Allahu Akbar.'" The Arabic expression means "God is Great."

Biden renominates stalled picks for key administration posts

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday renominated a number of stalled picks for a slate of federal posts including nominees to head the Internal Revenue Service, Federal Aviation Administration, ambassador to India and a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member, the White House said. The selections did not get approved by the U.S. Senate which was split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking ties. The new Senate convened on Tuesday.

First U.S. winter storm of 2023 brings snow, sleet and tornado threat

The first major U.S. winter storm system of the year dumped a frosty mix of snow, freezing rain and sleet from the Northern Plains to the Upper Great Lakes region on Tuesday while posing a tornado and flood threat to a large swath of the South.

The National Weather Service (NWS) forecast 1 to 3 inches of snow (2-1/2 to 7-1/2 cm) would fall an hour, accompanied at times by thunder, and more than a foot would accumulate in parts of Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota on Tuesday.

Former astronaut Cunningham, member of first crewed Apollo flight, dies at age 90

Former astronaut Walter Cunningham, who flew to space aboard Apollo 7 in 1968, part of the first crewed Apollo mission paving the way for 12 others to land on the moon in subsequent years, died on Tuesday at age 90, NASA said. Cunningham joined crewmates Walter Schirra and Donn Eisele for the successful 11-day mission, which was conducted in low-Earth orbit as the first human test flight of the new Apollo spacecraft that would later venture to the moon.