US Domestic News Roundup: Majority of registered voters oppose U.S. election delay;Republican senator gives Trump 'big stick' to carry as election near and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Four killed as Tropical Storm Isaias pounds U.S. Northeast

Tropical Storm Isaias killed at least four people on Tuesday as it made its way up the U.S. Atlantic Coast, including two deaths at a North Carolina trailer park that was struck by a tornado spun off by hurricane-force winds. The storm knocked out power to more than 2.8 million homes and businesses from New York to North Carolina, according to electric companies.

Special Report: Local governments 'overwhelmed' in race to trace U.S. COVID contacts

The soaring number of COVID-19 cases in the United States has far outstripped many local health departments’ ability to trace the contacts of those infected, a step critical in containing the virus’ spread. With the pandemic claiming about a thousand American lives a day, many city and county departments say they lack the money and staff to expeditiously identify people who have been exposed, according to a Reuters survey of 121 local agencies, as well as interviews with dozens of state and local officials, epidemiologists and tracers.

Republican senator gives Trump 'big stick' to carry as election nears

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, who ran unsuccessfully for the White House in 1996 and 2000, handed Donald Trump a 5-foot walking cane after a White House event on Tuesday, saying the Republican president might just need a "big stick" this fall. Alexander, a former Tennessee governor, presented Trump with the decades-old "mountain man stick" after the president signed into law a major bipartisan conservation bill.

White House, U.S. Congress Democrats to continue effort on coronavirus aid

Top White House officials and Democratic leaders in the U.S. Congress will try again on Tuesday to narrow gaping differences over a fifth major coronavirus-aid bill to help stimulate the economy and possibly dispatch new aid to the unemployed. Several days of closed-door negotiations have so far yielded few results, according to the participants.

Stacey Abrams warns not to expect a U.S. presidential winner on Election Night

Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams warned Americans on Tuesday not to expect to learn the winner of the White House on Election Night Nov. 3, as problems delivering and counting an expected flood of mail-in ballots prompted by the coronavirus pandemic could delay the result and draw a flurry of legal challenges. "The sheer volume of people who will be voting by mail is going to preclude the ability to count those ballots and adjudicate the outcome of the election by 11 p.m. on Election Night," Abrams, a Democrat and former leader in Georgia's state legislature, said in a virtual Reuters Newsmaker event.

Trump says he may suspend payroll tax himself: Fox News interview

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he may suspend the payroll tax himself as part of his administration's efforts to help the economy after the coronavirus shutdown, after the idea faced opposition in Congress in talks on the next relief bill. "Well I may do it myself," Trump said in an interview with Fox News. "I have the right to suspend it, and I may do it myself - I have the absolute right to suspend the payroll."

Majority of registered voters oppose U.S. election delay: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Two thirds of registered American voters oppose delaying the Nov. 3 presidential election due to the coronavirus pandemic, and more than half think President Donald Trump floated the idea of postponing it last week to help himself politically, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling released on Wednesday. The national public opinion poll was conducted from July 31 to Aug. 4, shortly after Trump said without providing evidence that a surge in mail-in voting would lead to widespread voter fraud and suggested the election be delayed. The idea was immediately rejected by Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who have sole authority to change the election date.

U.S. lawmaker Marshall beats Trump ally Kobach in Kansas primary race

U.S. Representative Roger Marshall won the Kansas Republican primary for the Senate on Tuesday, defeating anti-immigration firebrand Kris Kobach with the help of the party establishment, which feared Kobach would hurt Republican chances in the fall. The race was among a number of Congressional primary contests in five U.S. states on Tuesday. In Missouri, incumbent Representative William Lacy Clay was ousted by progressive challenger Cori Bush in the Democratic primary. Bush, a nurse, became a community activist after Black man Michael Brown was fatally shot by police in 2014.

Small but mighty, a Washington florist battles back in the pandemic

The bloom is back at Lee's Flower and Card Shop in Washington's historic U Street neighborhood, with an added touch: Blue, green, yellow and white origami cranes spelling out the words "Black Lives Matter" on the storefront window. The signs reflect a slow return to normalcy as life and business adapt to the coronavirus pandemic and racial justice movement that both erupted in the first half of 2020.

'It came alive:' Astronauts recount wild ride home on SpaceX's Crew Dragon

U.S. astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, home two days from a landmark mission as NASA's first crew to fly a privately built vehicle into orbit, recounted on Tuesday the loud, jarring ride they experienced through Earth's atmosphere before a safe landing at sea. Their splash-down on Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida - a mode of return for human spaceflight last used by NASA 45 years ago - capped the first launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in nine years.

(With inputs from agencies.)