Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Biden unaware of Pentagon chief's prostate cancer until today U.S. President Joe Biden did not learn that his defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, had prostate cancer until Tuesday, the White House said, minutes after it was disclosed to the public along with an infection that was also kept under wraps.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Biden unaware of Pentagon chief's prostate cancer until today

U.S. President Joe Biden did not learn that his defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, had prostate cancer until Tuesday, the White House said, minutes after it was disclosed to the public along with an infection that was also kept under wraps. Austin, who is 70, has been hospitalized since Jan. 1 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center -- a fact that the Pentagon had kept from the public, the White House and Congress for much of last week, triggering a major political backlash.

Oregon schoolteacher finds missing Boeing plane part in backyard trees

Schoolteacher Bob Sauer said he took a flashlight to his tree-filled backyard on Sunday evening on the small chance he might find a plane part that had torn off an Alaska Airlines jet on Friday at an altitude of about 16,000 feet (4,877 m). U.S. authorities investigating the incident on the Boeing 737 MAX 9 that depressurized the plane, leading to an emergency landing, had asked people in the Cedar Hills suburb of Portland, Oregon to look out for the missing door plug as a vital piece of evidence.

Massive winter storm batters US, knocks out power ahead of brutal freeze

A massive winter storm moving across the eastern half of the U.S. on Tuesday knocked out power to over 418,000 homes and businesses in 12 states ahead of a brutal freeze expected to blanket the region starting this weekend. The hardest hit states so far were Florida with over 102,000 power outages, Georgia with over 62,000 outages and North Carolina with over 44,000 outages, according to data from PowerOutage.us.

Q&A: Dean Phillips says Biden 'likely to lose' election to Trump

Congressman Dean Phillips, a wealthy Democrat from Minnesota who is running for president in 2024, is betting it all on New Hampshire's Democratic primary on Jan. 23, where incumbent Joe Biden will not officially be on the ballot. Phillips, 54, shelved a potential fourth term in Congress for a self-funded challenge to Biden, 81. He lags far behind Biden in national and New Hampshire polls.

Investor Ackman backs bid by dissidents for Harvard board seats

Billionaire hedge fund manager William Ackman, who joined other Harvard graduates in successfully calling for the university's president Claudine Gay to resign, is pressing forward with his efforts to reshape the Ivy League school's governance by backing a bid by four dissident alumni to join its board of overseers. The development represents a new challenge to the board, whose 30 members are typically nominated by the university's alumni association. Ackman's endorsement of the four write-in board candidates echoes his playbook as an activist shareholder, pursuing board seats at companies to push for changes.

US congressional panel seeks documents from Harvard in antisemitism probe

A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Tuesday asked Harvard University for a list of documents in relation to a probe on antisemitism at the school, and gave Harvard two weeks to produce the records. Republican Representative Virginia Foxx, who chairs the House Education and the Workforce Committee, sent a letter to Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker and interim President Alan Garber requesting the documents.

White House reviews protocol for delegating authority after Austin hospitalization

The White House is conducting a review of Cabinet protocols for delegating authority, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients said in a memo on Tuesday, in the aftermath of the hospitalization of U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Austin's failure to disclose his hospitalization last week has led to a political furor, with even President Joe Biden unaware his defense secretary was in the hospital for several days. Austin's role means that he is supposed to be available at a moment's notice in the case of a national security emergency.

With Trump and DeSantis off the election trail, Haley plows on in snowy Iowa

Nikki Haley got a late Christmas present on Tuesday morning: the state of Iowa free of her main rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination just six days before the party's first nominating contest. With one stuck in court and another tending to his day job back home, Haley made her pitch to about 100 voters who braved snow-blanketed roads to attend a rally at Mickey's Irish Pub in Waukee, a suburb of the state capital Des Moines.

US Senate Republicans say stopgap needed to avert shutdown, potential problem for Johnson

U.S. Senate Republicans said on Tuesday that a short-term funding measure will be needed to avert a partial federal government shutdown beginning in 10 days - a notion Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson could have trouble swallowing. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that lawmakers will "obviously" need a short-term continuing resolution, or "CR," to allow bipartisan negotiators from both chambers time to agree on full-year 2024 spending bills and for Congress to enact the legislation.

Judges skeptical of Trump's immunity claim in election subversion case

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday questioned Donald Trump's claims that he is immune from criminal charges for trying to overturn the 2020 election, and the former president threatened to prosecute Joe Biden if he returns to the White House. Trump looked on as his legal team sought to convince a panel of three judges that former presidents should not be prosecuted for actions they took in office. Trump is due to go to trial in March on federal charges of election subversion.