Reuters US Domestic News Summary

The bill mandates the teaching of a unit of Asian-American history in public elementary and high schools starting in the 2022-2023 school year. U.S. administers nearly 333 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines - CDC The United States had administered 332,966,409 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 386,058,070 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Florida condo death toll rises to 79 after another body is found

The death toll in the collapse of an Miami-area condominium tower rose to 79 on Friday after workers extracted 14 more bodies from the ruins and said they had reduced the pile of debris down nearly to ground level. The recovery left 61 people still missing and feared dead in the concrete and steel rubble of the 12-story oceanfront building in Surfside, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told an afternoon news conference.

Biden fires Trump-nominated Social Security commissioner

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a holdover from the Trump administration, but Saul told the Washington Post he plans to be at work on Monday morning because his term isn't over. "Andrew Saul refused to resign as requested, and he was notified his employment as Commissioner was terminated immediately," said a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

After hottest June ever, U.S. braces for new heatwave in West

Western states are bracing for more scorching weather this weekend after the hottest month of June on record in the United States killed scores of people, strained electric grids and depleted reservoirs. The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning for much of the West through Monday evening, predicting "dangerously hot conditions" including temperatures up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius) in Death Valley, California.

U.S. judge ends Amazon challenge to $10 billion cloud contract after Pentagon cancellation

A U.S. judge on Friday dismissed Amazon.com's legal challenge to the Defense Department's 2019 decision to award a $10 billion JEDI cloud-computing project to rival Microsoft Corp after the Pentagon canceled the contract. Amazon.com had accused then-President Donald Trump, alleging that the former president exerted improper pressure on military officials to steer the contract away from Amazon. The Pentagon said on Tuesday it expected the new multi-billion dollar contract would be split between Amazon and Microsoft.

Biden signs order to tackle corporate abuses across U.S. economy

President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order on Friday to promote more competition in the U.S. economy, urging agencies to crack down on anti-competitive practices in sectors from agriculture to drugs and labor. If fully implemented, the effort will help lower Americans' internet costs, allow for airline baggage fee refunds for delayed luggage, among other steps.

Illinois becomes first U.S. state to require Asian-American history in schools

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill on Friday requiring public schools to teach Asian-American history, the first such step by a U.S. state amid rising concerns about violence against people of Asian descent. The bill mandates the teaching of a unit of Asian-American history in public elementary and high schools starting in the 2022-2023 school year.

U.S. administers nearly 333 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines - CDC

The United States had administered 332,966,409 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Friday morning and distributed 386,058,070 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Those figures are up from the 332,345,797 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by July 8 out of 385,495,790 doses delivered.

U.S. CDC updates school guidance to emphasize in-person learning

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday updated its guidance for U.S. schools reopening in the fall, recommending masking indoors for everyone who is not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and three feet of distance within classrooms. The agency said school administrators can require indoor mask use even for students and educators who are vaccinated, depending on the needs of the community. Reasons would include schools with children under age 12, who are not currently authorized to receive COVID-19 vaccines, or high rates of COVID-19 transmission in the region.

Fencing around U.S. Capitol coming down six months after Jan. 6 attack

Workers began to remove the last of the high-security fence around the U.S. Capitol on Friday, more than six months after former President Donald Trump's supporters launched a deadly assault on the home of the U.S. Congress. The eight-foot-high (2.4-m) black mesh fencing at one point surrounded several blocks of Capitol Hill, interfering with pedestrian and vehicle traffic. The remaining sections, enclosing just the white-domed Capitol complex, will take about three days to remove, according to U.S. House of Representatives Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker.

'Like a rebirth': Americans pack reopened concert halls for a summer of music

Pamela Pickens swayed her hips as her husband Tom led her in an impromptu dance to the strumming of guitarist Studebaker John at Chicago's famed blues bar, Kingston Mines. The couple, wearing fedora hats and wide smiles, had driven five hours from their home in southeast Indiana to visit their favorite blues club, which had recently reopened for live performances after a year of shutdown due to COVID-19.