Reuters US Domestic News Summary

In a lawsuit https://tmsnrt.rs/3nR28M2 filed in federal court in Los Angeles, the publisher Junior Shooters and groups including the Second Amendment Foundation argued that the law violated their free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Oprah Winfrey's father dies days after family celebration Oprah Winfrey's father, Vernon, has died, the doyenne of daytime talk said on her Instagram account on Saturday, just days after she said the family was able to honor her father.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

U.S. considering range of options for ConocoPhillips' Willow drilling project

The Biden administration on Friday unveiled an environmental analysis for ConocoPhillips' planned $6 billion Willow oil and gas project in Alaska and outlined several options for the development, including not building it at all. The release of the document has been highly anticipated by the oil and gas industry and environmental groups since last year, when a federal judge in Alaska reversed the Trump administration's approval of the massive project and said federal agencies must reconsider their environmental analysis.

U.S. agency to open probe into fatal Florida Tesla crash

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Friday it will open a special investigation into a Florida crash on Wednesday that killed a 66-year-old Tesla driver and a 67-year-old passenger. A 2015 Tesla rear-ended a parked tractor-trailer in the Gainesville area at a rest area off Interstate 75, the Florida Highway Patrol said. Both people in the Tesla, who were from Lompoc, California, were pronounced dead at the scene. A patrol spokesman said it was unclear if Autopilot was in use.

Man arrested over alleged threat to Colorado's top election official

Colorado state police arrested a man accused of threatening the state's top election official, court records showed on Friday, the first such detention since authorities began strengthening laws on election-related threats last year. Kirk Wertz, 52, was arrested on Wednesday night and placed in Denver's jail, the records show. He faces a felony charge of "retaliation" against an elected official.

Oath Keeper brought explosives to D.C. ahead of Jan. 6 attack, prosecutor says

A member of the Oath Keepers extremist group brought explosives to the Washington, D.C., area ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, according to the U.S. Justice Department. In a court filing, federal prosecutors alleged that Jeremy Brown, an Oath Keepers member from Florida, drove explosives to a Virginia hotel in his recreational vehicle on Jan. 6. A second member of the group, Thomas Caldwell, was later found in possession of a "death list" that included the name of a Georgia election official, according to the document.

At CIA headquarters, Biden lauds U.S. intelligence for Putin warnings

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday thanked staff at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency for warning the world about Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to invade Ukraine, and hailed what he called the "quiet bravery" of America's spies. Marking the CIA's 75th anniversary, Biden said he had been involved with the agency for 52 of those years, first as a junior senator on a 1975 committee set up to investigate mind control experiments and other abuses by the agency.

Native American boarding school survivors tell of abuses

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Saturday met with elderly survivors of Native American boarding schools, her first stop on a year-long tour to hear first-hand accounts of widespread abuses committed at those institutions. Haaland met with survivors at the Riverside Indian School, the nation's oldest federally operated boarding school for Native Americans, collecting oral histories of the atrocities they faced.

Biden signs executive order on abortion, declares Supreme Court 'out of control'

U.S. President Joe Biden said the Supreme Court decision overturning the right to an abortion was an exercise in "raw political power" and signed an executive order on Friday to ease access to services to terminate pregnancies. Biden, a Democrat, has been under pressure from his own party to take action after the landmark decision last month to overturn Roe v Wade, which upended roughly 50 years of protections for women's reproductive rights.

Gun groups challenge California ban on firearms marketing to kids

The publisher of a youth shooting magazine and several gun-rights groups filed a lawsuit on Friday challenging a recently enacted California law banning the marketing of guns to minors by manufacturers and others in the firearms industry. In a lawsuit https://tmsnrt.rs/3nR28M2 filed in federal court in Los Angeles, the publisher Junior Shooters and groups including the Second Amendment Foundation argued that the law violated their free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

Oprah Winfrey's father dies days after family celebration

Oprah Winfrey's father, Vernon, has died, the doyenne of daytime talk said on her Instagram account on Saturday, just days after she said the family was able to honor her father. "Yesterday with family surrounding his bedside, I had the sacred honor witnessing the man responsible for my life, take his last breath. We could feel Peace enter the room at his passing," Winfrey wrote in the post.

Abbott says it has reopened Michigan baby formula plant

Abbott Laboratories has reopened its Sturgis, Michigan baby formula plant, which was shut last month due to heavy rains, a company spokesperson told Reuters on Saturday. Abbott resumed operations on July 1 and has started producing specialty baby formula EleCare.

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