US Domestic News Roundup: Biden tours flood-hit areas; calls climate change 'existential threat'; Ethel Kennedy opposes parole for husband RFK's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, and more

For months beginning in mid-2018, college admissions consultant William "Rick" Singer allowed the FBI to record his calls with clients who, prosecutors say, sought his help to fraudulently obtain slots for their children at elite universities. Virginia to remove statue of Confederate hero Robert E.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Biden tours flood-hit areas; calls climate change 'existential threat'

President Joe Biden on Tuesday toured sites of deadly floods in the Northeast and said Hurricane Ida demonstrated the ravages of climate change as he pressed for investments to boost infrastructure and fight global warming. "Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy, and the threat is here. It's not going to get any better," Biden said after touring neighborhoods in New Jersey and New York City's Queens borough that were hurt by the storm. "We can stop it from getting worse."

Ethel Kennedy opposes parole for husband RFK's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan

Robert F. Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy, voiced opposition on Tuesday to a California review panel's recommendation that the man serving a life term for assassinating her husband during his 1968 presidential campaign be released from prison on parole. "Our family and our country suffered an unspeakable loss due to the inhumanity of one man," Kennedy, 93, wrote. "We believe in the gentleness that spared his life, but in taming his act of violence, he should not have the opportunity to terrorize again."

Nobelist, senior Democratic economist Stiglitz says Fed's Powell should go

For U.S. President Joe Biden to be true to his agenda he should not renominate Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair, Nobel prize-winning economist and longtime Democratic adviser Joseph Stiglitz said in an interview that laid out the case for a remake of the Fed's leadership. "People have given Powell a lot of kudos because he has supported the economy through the pandemic...On one hand, I agree with that," Stiglitz, now a Columbia University professor, said in a Friday phone interview with Reuters.

Idaho man accused of attacking police in U.S. Capitol riot pleads guilty

An Idaho man accused of attacking police officers guarding the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot on Tuesday entered guilty pleas to two riot-related criminal charges. Duke Wilson, 67, of Nampa, Idaho, pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding police and to obstructing an official proceeding.

Prosecution may not call star witness in 1st trial in U.S. college admissions scandal

One key face could be missing from the first trial beginning this week in the U.S. college admissions scandal that ensnared dozens of wealthy corporate executives and Hollywood actresses - the scheme's mastermind who helped prosecutors build the case. For months beginning in mid-2018, college admissions consultant William "Rick" Singer allowed the FBI to record his calls with clients who, prosecutors say, sought his help to fraudulently obtain slots for their children at elite universities.

Virginia to remove a statue of Confederate hero Robert E. Lee on Wednesday

A Virginia statute of Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee, a focus of protests over racial injustice, is scheduled to be removed on Wednesday after a year-long legal battle over its future. Crews are due in the morning to begin taking down the 21-foot (6.4-meter) bronze statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, a former Confederacy capital, state officials said in a statement. The figure depicts Lee in military attire atop his horse.

NASA rover Perseverance collects first Martian rock sample

NASA's Mars science rover Perseverance has collected and stashed away the first of numerous mineral samples that the U.S. space agency hopes to retrieve from the surface of the Red Planet for analysis on Earth. Tools attached to Perseverance and operated by mission specialists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles drilled a rock core slightly thicker than a pencil from an ancient Martian lake bed, then hermetically sealed it in a titanium specimen tube inside the rover.

From Shanksville's scorched woods, two arborists emerged as unsung heroes of 9/11

The hemlock grove where United Airlines Flight 93 hurtled to the ground in rural Pennsylvania still haunts Mark Trautman and Ben Haupt 20 years later. Before the al Qaeda attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the local arborists climbed trees only to take down branches. When the hijacked airliner slammed into the soil in a fiery explosion, turning the woods near Shanksville into a gruesome crime scene suspended above the ground, the two men would be called in for a task that transformed their lives.

In surprise move, Britney Spears' father asks for conservatorship to end

Jamie Spears, the father of Britney Spears, on Tuesday, asked a Los Angeles court to end the pop singer's 13-year conservatorship, saying circumstances have changed in recent months. In an unexpected development, Jamie Spears, who in 2008 set up the court-sanctioned arrangement that governs the singer's personal and business affairs, said in a court filing that he believed the judge should "now seriously consider whether this conservatorship is no longer required."

U.S. House panel sets debate on its portion of $3.5 trillion bill

A U.S. House of Representatives committee this week will attempt to advance sweeping legislation to expand healthcare benefits for the elderly and other social services as part of Democrats' $3.5 trillion domestic investment plan. The House Ways and Means Committee plans to debate a wide-ranging measure on Thursday and Friday. The package is expected to draw lock-step opposition from Republicans, and also faces uncertain support from Democrats with key Senate moderate Joe Manchin objecting to its large size.