Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Waters, deputy assistant secretary of State for China and Taiwan who leads the department's recently created China House policy division, announced his intention to leave his post at a staff meeting on Wednesday, according to the four sources. Ron DeSantis jumps into White House race but Twitter launch marred by glitches Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Wednesday he would seek the 2024 Republican nomination for president, but an audio interview on Twitter meant to showcase his entry into the race instead drew attention for technical snafus.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Analysis-Now that he's in 2024 race, DeSantis needs more than anti-Trump voters

If Ron DeSantis hopes to defeat Donald Trump and win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he will ultimately have to bring every possible anti-Trump voter he can into the fold. But even that likely will not be enough, political analysts say.

DeSantis will also have to pull some supporters away from Trump — and that could make for a tricky balancing act that DeSantis is already struggling with.

Biden renews call for assault weapons ban a year after Uvalde massacre

President Joe Biden renewed his call for a ban on assault weapons as he and his wife Jill held a White House event on Wednesday to mourn the 21 victims shot dead at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, one year ago. The May 24, 2022, massacre, in which an 18-year-old gunman opened fire with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle inside Robb Elementary School, killing 19 children and two teachers, marked the deadliest U.S. school shooting in almost a decade.

Winds intensify as Super Typhoon Mawar batters Guam

The most powerful typhoon to hit Guam in years slowly passed over the Western Pacific island on Thursday after battering the U.S. territory with intensifying wind gusts of up to 150 miles per hour (240 km per hour) and torrential rain. Early reports following daybreak on Thursday had yet to show any deaths or serious injury, but news was slow to come in after power was knocked out for all but 1,000 of the island's 52,000 homes and businesses, according to the Guam Power Authority.

US State Department's top China policy official to step down –sources

The U.S. State Department's top China policy official Rick Waters is set to step down, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, at a time of fraught relations between Washington and Beijing. Waters, deputy assistant secretary of State for China and Taiwan who leads the department's recently created China House policy division, announced his intention to leave his post at a staff meeting on Wednesday, according to the four sources.

Ron DeSantis jumps into White House race but Twitter launch marred by glitches

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Wednesday he would seek the 2024 Republican nomination for president, but an audio interview on Twitter meant to showcase his entry into the race instead drew attention for technical snafus. DeSantis made his announcement in a video ahead of joining Twitter CEO Elon Musk on the platform. The broadcast of the interview, which had been intended to be the formal launch for the DeSantis campaign, at times lost sound and some users were either unable to join or were dropped. It was an inauspicious start for a campaign predicated on the governor's executive competence.

Biden's nominee for Kansas federal judge post asks to withdraw

Jabari Wamble, U.S. President Joe Biden's pick for a federal judgeship in Kansas, asked on Tuesday to have his nomination withdrawn from consideration in the Senate, a letter obtained by Reuters showed. He became the second Biden judicial nominee to drop out in as many weeks. Michael Delaney, a former New Hampshire attorney general selected by Biden for a spot on the Boston-based 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, last week asked to withdraw amid bipartisan criticism in the Senate.

Chinese hacking group spying on U.S. critical infrastructure, Western intelligence agencies say

A state-sponsored Chinese hacking group has been spying on a wide range of U.S. critical infrastructure organizations, from telecommunications to transportation hubs, Western intelligence agencies and Microsoft said on Wednesday. The espionage has also targeted the U.S. island territory of Guam, home to strategically important American military bases, Microsoft said in a report, adding "mitigating this attack could be challenging."

White House, advocates slam Florida school's 'censorship' of inauguration poem

The White House and advocates on Wednesday decried a Florida school's decision to remove the poem that celebrated author Amanda Gorman recited at President Joe Biden's inauguration from the elementary school portion of its library, calling the move censorship. The poem by Gorman, who is Black and became the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history when she gave her stirring reading of "The Hill We Climb," offers a hopeful vision for a deeply divided country, praising a United States that is "bruised, but whole."

US colleges game out a possible end to race-conscious student admissions

In 1998, the year a voter-approved measure barring the use of race-conscious admissions policies for public colleges and universities in California took effect, the percentage of Black, Hispanic and Native American students admitted at two of the state's elite public schools plummeted by more than 50%. Those figures for UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley offer a cautionary tale as administrators at schools around the United States await a Supreme Court decision due by the end of June that is expected to prohibit affirmative action student admissions policies nationwide.

Republicans, White House see progress in US debt ceiling talks

Negotiators for Democratic President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy held what both sides called productive talks on Wednesday to try to reach a deal to raise the United States' $31.4 trillion debt ceiling and avoid a catastrophic default. After a four-hour White House meeting, U.S. House Speaker McCarthy said negotiations had improved and would continue in the evening. He predicted the two sides would reach an agreement, though several issues remain unresolved.

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