Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Trump to host first post-impeachment inquiry rally in Democratic stronghold

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday will hold his first campaign rally since Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry against him, choosing a large arena in a Democratic stronghold in Minnesota to mount his latest public defense. Supporters of the Republican president will gather inside the 20,000-seat Target Center in Minneapolis for the 7 p.m. CDT rally, while protesters promise to voice their opposition outside. Republican Gowdy, who pushed Obama on Benghazi, joins Trump impeachment defense

Former U.S. Representative Trey Gowdy stepped into a familiar role on Wednesday when President Donald Trump tapped him to join his outside legal team to help battle a Democratic-led impeachment inquiry: conservative battering ram. It is also a trip through the looking glass for the South Carolina Republican, who will go from demanding information on Congress' behalf to backing a White House that said it would refuse to cooperate with what it called an "illegitimate, unconstitutional" congressional inquiry. Bernie Sanders: Will not scale down campaign after heart attack - NBC interview

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said on Wednesday he does not intend to scale back his presidential campaigning after a heart attack, saying he had not intended to give the impression he was slowing down. "I misspoke the other day. I said a word I should not have said and media drives me a little bit nuts to make a big deal about it," Sanders said in an interview with NBC News. "We're going to get back into the groove of a very vigorous campaign. I love doing rallies and I love doing town meetings." Running the roadblock: House Democrats seeking way around White House on impeachment

Facing a White House vowing to block the U.S. House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry, Democratic congressional leaders on Thursday were plotting the next moves in their probe of President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine. Two days after the administration abruptly blocked the U.S. ambassador to the European Union from testifying to three House committees, lawmakers were negotiating how to secure testimony from the U.S. intelligence officer whose whistleblower report on Trump's call with the Ukrainian president sparked the furor. Texas man to be arraigned in El Paso mass murder, accused of targeting Mexicans

The Texas man accused of deliberately targeting Mexicans in a shooting spree at an El Paso Walmart store that killed 22 people is due in court on Thursday for his arraignment. Patrick Crusius, 21, was indicted last month for capital murder and will face the death penalty if he is convicted, the El Paso County District Attorney Jaime Esparza said. Democrat Warren swears off high-dollar fundraisers if she gets presidential nomination

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren vowed to abstain from high-dollar fundraisers if she becomes the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020, extending into the general election campaign her promise not to hold such events during the primary season. Warren told CBS News in an interview posted online on Tuesday that she would skip big-money fundraisers, regardless of how much Republican President Donald Trump raises for his reelection campaign. California set to end private prisons and immigrant detention camps

America's largest state prison system is moving to quit the practice of farming out inmates to lockups run under contract by private companies, following a nationwide decline in the for-profit incarceration business. California Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign legislation this week designed to effectively ban private, for-profit corporations from running prisons or immigration detention facilities. U.S. arrests counterterrorism analyst over leaks to journalists

A counterterrorism analyst with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency was arrested on Wednesday over charges he leaked classified materials about a foreign country's weapons system to two journalists in 2018 and 2019, the U.S. Justice Department said in federal court filings on Wednesday. Information that 30-year-old Henry Kyle Frese passed to the journalists appeared in at least eight different news stories, the Justice Department alleged in an indictment unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Power cut to millions as California faces heightened wildfire risks

Electricity was shut off to nearly 750,000 California homes and workplaces on Wednesday as Pacific Gas and Electric Co (PG&E) imposed a string of planned power outages of unprecedented scale to reduce wildfire risks posed by extremely windy, dry weather. The power cut knocked out traffic signals, forced school closures and shut businesses and government offices across northern and central California, said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Services. U.S. Army vows more funds, measures to fix housing hazards

Pledging to overcome a housing crisis on its installations, the U.S. Army is outlining new steps it is taking to provide better housing for families of service members while demanding accountability from private landlords and Army commanders. In an interview, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said private real estate firms operating housing on military bases have already committed some $500 million to address substandard conditions like those documented in a Reuters series, Ambushed at Home.

Also Read: US Senator Bernie Sanders hospitalized; campaign events canceled