Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Delta crew failed to warn controllers about Los Angeles fuel dump - FAA

A Delta Air Lines flight crew that dumped fuel on several Los Angeles area schools before making an emergency landing, causing minor injuries to schoolchildren, did not inform air traffic controllers it planned to do so, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Wednesday. Delta Flight 89, which was turned back for an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport after departing for Shanghai, dumped fuel on the playgrounds of at least four elementary schools in its flight path, causing minor injuries to at least 44 children and adults on the ground, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said on Twitter. Warning of 'serious threats' Virginia governor bans weapons at gun-rights rally

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam on Wednesday said he would ban all firearms and other weapons around the state capitol building this weekend, ahead of a major gun-rights demonstration expected to draw thousands of people. Northam, who is leading the push for stronger gun laws in his state, said he wants to avoid a repeat of violence that erupted at a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, when a march by white nationalists erupted and led to the death of a counterprotester. Jeffrey Epstein's estate is sued by U.S. Virgin Islands over alleged widespread sex abuse

Jeffrey Epstein's estate was sued on Wednesday by the U.S. Virgin Islands, which claimed that the late accused sex offender raped and trafficked in dozens of young women and girls on a private Caribbean island he owned. The complaint filed by Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George significantly broadens the scope of the financier's alleged misconduct, saying it spanned from 2001 to 2018 and targeted girls who appeared to be as young as 11 or 12. Democratic senators seek to force vote to block Trump border wall funding plan

Senior Democratic senators said on Wednesday that they would try to force another vote to stop U.S. President Donald Trump from taking billions of dollars from the Department of Defense budget to pay for a wall on the border with Mexico. According to multiple media reports this week, Trump plans to divert $7.2 billion from military construction and other projects to build his wall, far more than the $1.375 billion for the barrier Congress allotted in a spending bill passed last year. Florida agrees to buy swath of Everglades to protect it from oil drilling

The state of Florida has reached a deal with a private real estate firm to buy a large swath of environmentally sensitive wetlands in the heart of the Everglades to spare the tract from oil drilling, the governor announced on Wednesday. Florida's agreement to purchase 20,000 acres (8,094 hectares) of land from Kanter Real Estate LLC, if consummated, would mark the largest wetlands acquisition by the state in a decade, Governor Ron DeSantis said in a statement. Lawyers in Weinstein rape case begin questioning potential jurors

More than 100 potential jurors in the rape trial of Harvey Weinstein were expected in Manhattan criminal court on Thursday as lawyers strive to choose 12 impartial New Yorkers to decide the former film mogul's fate. The potential jurors, who have passed an initial round of pre-screening, include supermodel Gigi Hadid, who said she had met Weinstein before but could nonetheless be fair. Trump antagonist Avenatti's bail is revoked; unhappy NY judge delays Nike extortion trial

A federal judge on Wednesday revoked Michael Avenatti's bail after the celebrity lawyer and critic of U.S. President Donald Trump was accused of hiding money from creditors, triggering a delay in a separate trial where Avenatti is charged with trying to extort Nike Inc. U.S. District Judge James Selna remanded Avenatti to federal custody at a hearing in Santa Ana, California, where prosecutors had charged him last March with stealing millions of dollars from clients, defrauding a bank and lying to the Internal Revenue Service and a bankruptcy court. Georgia man to be executed for killing store clerk in $38 robbery

A Georgia man faces execution on Thursday, three decades after he was convicted of fatally shooting a convenience store clerk and stealing $38 after he and two friends went bar hopping. Jimmy Fletcher Meders, 58, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson at 7 p.m. EST for the 1987 murder of Don Anderson. U.S. debate mystery solved: Warren told Sanders he called her a liar on national TV

The mystery of what presidential rivals Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders said to each other in a heated exchange after Tuesday night's Democratic debate has been solved, with debate host CNN revealing that Warren accused Sanders of calling her a liar on national television. In an exchange caught on camera after the debate but unable to be heard by the television audience, Sanders responded to Warren that it was she who had called him a liar. Moments earlier Warren had refused to shake Sanders' hand. With rivals stuck in impeachment trial, Biden and Buttigieg to barnstorm Iowa

Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg will blitz Iowa before the state kicks off the party's nominating contest on Feb. 3, while their key rivals will be largely unable to campaign because they must sit as Senate jurors in Republican President Donald Trump's impeachment trial. Aides to Biden and Buttigieg, locked in a tight four-way battle with U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, would not comment on the unprecedented advantage next week’s Senate trial presents them.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)