Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Coronavirus talks in Congress face timeline as Trump ponders his own action Congressional Democratic leaders and White House officials were set to resume negotiations on coronavirus relief legislation on Wednesday, with the administration officials aiming for an agreement by Friday.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Facebook removes Trump post over coronavirus misinformation

Facebook Inc on Wednesday took down a post by U.S. President Donald Trump, which the company said violated its rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus. The post contained a video clip, from an interview with Fox & Friends earlier in the day, Trump claimed that children are "almost immune" to COVID-19. Coronavirus talks in Congress face timeline as Trump ponders his own action

Congressional Democratic leaders and White House officials were set to resume negotiations on coronavirus relief legislation on Wednesday, with the administration officials aiming for an agreement by Friday. After more than a week of talks and few signs of progress, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer were said to be aiming for a deal that could be passed by Congress next week. Biden-allied groups stockpile $294 million for battle with Trump

Democrat Joe Biden's presidential campaign and closely tied groups said on Wednesday they have gathered $294 million as they head into the final months of their election showdown with Republican President Donald Trump. Biden, who faces a well-financed sitting president in the Nov. 3 election, raised a near-record $140 million in the typically slow fundraising month of July. 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. Fauci says regulators promise politics will not guide vaccine timing

U.S. regulators have assured scientists that political pressure will not determine when a coronavirus vaccine is approved even as the White House hopes to have one ready ahead of the November presidential election, the country's leading infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday. "We have assurances, and I've discussed this with the regulatory authorities, that they promise that they are not going to let political considerations interfere with a regulatory decision," Dr. Fauci told Reuters in an interview. Teens with AK-47 arrested after fleeing onto Trump's Mar-a-Lago

Police in Florida said three teenage boys were arrested after they entered U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort with an AK-47 in a backpack. Palm Beach Police Spokesman Michael Ogrodnick said the three 15-year-old boys jumped a wall at Mar-a-Lago while fleeing a police officer late last Friday. Metropolitan Museum of Art cuts 350 staff amid coronavirus outbreak

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is cutting a further 353 staff as the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll on museums around the world due to restrictions on movement and concerns about public gatherings. The reduction will come through a combination of the elimination of positions, voluntary retirements and furloughs, a spokeswoman for the museum said in an emailed statement. Trump campaign wants presidential debate in early September

President Donald Trump's re-election campaign is seeking to add a debate with Democratic candidate Joe Biden in early September, arguing that millions of voters may have already cast ballots in early voting by the time the first of three scheduled debates occurs. In a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates, which organizes the events, Trump's personal lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, asked either for a fourth debate to be scheduled for the first week of September or for the first debate to be moved from Sept. 29. Trump says legal for him to use White House for Republican nomination speech

President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his suggestion of giving a speech from the White House accepting the Republican Party's presidential nomination, after lawmakers and ethicists said it was inappropriate and possibly illegal to use a nonpartisan, public site as a venue for a political address. "Well, it is legal," Trump said when asked about his speech plans at a press briefing, arguing that the Hatch Act prohibiting leaders from trading on public goods for political gains does not apply to him. "If I use the White House, we save tremendous amounts of money for the government in terms of security, traveling." Pelosi confident of U.S. coronavirus agreement, but won't discuss timing

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she was confident lawmakers and the Trump administration could reach an agreement on another coronavirus aid plan, but she declined to say whether that could happen this week. "I'm confident that we will have an agreement. The timing of it I can't say, because I don't know," Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC. She added that President Trump cannot use executive orders - instead of relying on legislation - to implement coronavirus aid, although a moratorium on evictions may be able to be extended that way.