US Domestic News Roundup: Biden digs in on U.S. public lands nominee as Republican opposition mounts; New York Governor Cuomo to be deposed in sexual harassment probe -NYT and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Biden digs in on U.S. public lands nominee as Republican opposition mounts The White House on Friday backed President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the nation's public lands bureau, pushing back against growing calls to withdraw the nomination from key Republican lawmakers.


Reuters | Updated: 17-07-2021 18:41 IST | Created: 17-07-2021 18:34 IST
US Domestic News Roundup: Biden digs in on U.S. public lands nominee as Republican opposition mounts; New York Governor Cuomo to be deposed in sexual harassment probe -NYT and more
US President Joe Biden. Image Credit: ANI

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Biden digs in on U.S. public lands nominee as Republican opposition mounts

The White House on Friday backed President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the nation's public lands bureau, pushing back against growing calls to withdraw the nomination from key Republican lawmakers. Earlier, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined calls by several Republican Senate colleagues for Biden to withdraw the nomination of Montana conservationist Tracy Stone-Manning to run the Bureau of Land Management due to her ties to a decades-old tree-spiking incident. Tree spiking involves hammering a metal rod into a tree to prevent logging.

Biden says Facebook, others 'killing people' by carrying COVID misinformation

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday said social media platforms like Facebook "are killing people" for allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on its platform, as the administration continued criticizing the company. "They're killing people. ... Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they're killing people," Biden told reporters at the White House when asked about misinformation and what his message was to social media platforms such as Facebook Inc's.

New York Governor Cuomo to be deposed in sexual harassment probe -NYT

Investigators for the New York state attorney general's office are expected to take a deposition from Governor Andrew Cuomo on Saturday as part of a sexual harassment probe, the New York Times reported. Cuomo, 63, had been riding high last year after public praise of his daily news conferences during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. But he then suddenly faced calls to resign following a flurry of accusations of sexual harassment or misconduct and revelations that his administration under-reported nursing home deaths from COVID-19.

The Warthog and the senator: The politics of retiring a warplane

The U.S. Air Force is desperate to get rid of some of its fleet of expensive, slow and outdated A-10 Warthog airplanes, but politicians have blocked the move, aiming to keep the local dollars flowing. President Joe Biden wants to retire dozens of the 40-year-old warplanes to free up funding to modernize the military. But within weeks of the release of his proposed defense budget, Democrats drafted a law to keep the planes, many of which are based in Arizona, where Senator Mark Kelly is up for re-election in 2022.

The Tenacious Unicorn Ranch made a transgender haven. Then the violent threats began

The ranch hand walks along rocky ground, the beam of her flashlight cutting through the moonlit night. She holds a shotgun loosely at her side during her patrol of an alpaca ranch founded as a haven for transgender and non-binary people. Penny Logue, who grew up on a farm, started the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch in Colorado in 2018. It had been two years since Logue had begun her transition and the U.S. Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, had just declared 2017 the deadliest documented year so far for members of the trans and gender non-conforming community, with 31 people killed.

Biden taps former senator Udall as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand

President Joe Biden will nominate Tom Udall, a former U.S. senator who represented New Mexico, to be his ambassador to New Zealand, the White House said on Friday. The decision comes as Biden works to shore up alliances in the Asia-Pacific to present a united front on what he has described as Washington's key foreign policy challenge: China.

Sprawling Oregon wildfire, largest of dozens in U.S., continues to grow

A sprawling wildfire raging mostly unchecked for over a week in southern Oregon forced firefighters into retreat for a fourth straight day as it expanded to become the state's fifth largest blaze in more than a century, forestry officials said on Friday. The Bootleg fire, the biggest among dozens of wildfires flaring across the tinder-dry landscape of the Western United States, has scorched more than 241,000 acres - an area exceeding the land mass of New York City.

Alaska Supreme Court says recall campaign to oust governor can proceed

Political foes of Alaska's Republican governor have legally sufficient grounds to pursue their campaign to oust him from office through a recall election, the state’s highest court ruled on Friday. The campaign to recall Governor Mike Dunleavy, who has about 17 months left in his term, is legal and may proceed, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled.

First case of monkeypox detected in Texas resident

A rare case of human monkeypox was detected in Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday, making it the first case of the virus seen in the state.

The viral illness was found in a U.S. resident, who recently traveled from Nigeria to the United States and is currently hospitalized in Dallas.

Mexico regrets U.S. judge's decision on DACA - ministry

The Mexican government regrets the decision by a U.S. judge that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program violated U.S. law when it was created, a senior foreign ministry official said on Friday. The judge's decision blocked the U.S. government from approving any new DACA applications.

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

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