US Domestic News Roundup: U.S. appeals court delays legal challenge to Texas abortion law; Texas synagogue hostages had offered their captor tea and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

U.S. appeals court delays legal challenge to Texas abortion law

A U.S. appeals court on Monday handed a defeat to abortion clinics by delaying a legal challenge to a Texas law banning most abortions in that state. In a 2-1 ruling, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Texas Supreme Court should address enforcement questions related to the law before the Texas clinics' challenge could resume.

Texas synagogue hostages had offered their captor tea

Worshippers invited a stranger into a Texas synagogue when he knocked on their door and offered him tea before he brandished a gun and held them hostage in a 10-hour siege the FBI called a "terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted." Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who was among the four congregants taken captive on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, told CBS on Monday that he and others managed to escape after he threw a chair at the hostage-taker and then rushed for an exit door.

U.S. Senate panel to debate app store reform bill

A U.S. Senate panel is set on Thursday to debate a bill that aims to rein in app stores of companies that some lawmakers say exert too much market control, including Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google. U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn said on Monday the Senate Judiciary Committee would consider the Open App Markets Act is backed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

Snowstorm strands motorists, grounds planes in eastern U.S., Canada

A winter snowstorm creeping up the East Coast of the United States into Canada on Monday was expected to dump more than two feet (60 cm) of snow in some areas, grounding planes and stranding motorists. More than 4,200 flights in the United States were canceled or delayed on Monday, according to FlightAware. Nearly 90,000 homes and businesses between Georgia and Maine lacked electricity, according to PowerOutage.US.

Texas synagogue gunman was known to British intelligence - BBC

The suspected gunman who took four people hostage at a Dallas-area synagogue and was himself killed was known to British intelligence and assessed to no longer be a threat at the time he travelled to the United States, the BBC reported. "Malik Faisal Akram, the Texas synagogue hostage-taker, was known to MI5 and was investigated in 2020. He was assessed to be no longer a risk at the time he flew to US at New Year," Frank Gardner, BBC Security Correspondent, said in a tweet.

How the White House hopes to save Biden's spending bill

The White House is preparing an alternative to its $1.75 trillion spending bill that will keep climate change measures but pare down or cut items like the child tax credit and paid family leave, hoping to appeal to U.S. Senator Joe Manchin and other Democrats as soon as this week, said two people working on the plan. President Joe Biden's administration is expected to pivot from a long-shot attempt to pass voting rights legislation through the Senate on Tuesday, then renew talks in earnest with lawmakers on a slimmed-down version of the Build Back Better bill, the sources said.

Drugmaker Endo signs $65 million opioid settlement with Florida

Drugmaker Endo International plc said on Tuesday it had agreed to pay up to $65 million to resolve claims by the state of Florida and local governments that the drugmaker helped fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic. The deal is the latest in a string of settlements that Endo has struck in recent months to resolve similar cases, including a $63 million settlement with Texas in December.

U.S. Democrats to start voting rights showdown with no clear path to victory

President Joe Biden's Democrats will bring their push to protect U.S. voting rights to the floor of the Senate this week, where it is roundly expected to fail in the face of united Republican opposition. The vote, which could come in days or weeks, may be the last chance for Biden to secure a new federal law to counter an onslaught of state limits to poll access before Republicans possibly capture one or both houses of Congress in elections in November.

Explainer-Do 5G telecoms pose a threat to airline safety?

The chief executives of major U.S. passenger and cargo airlines have warned of a "catastrophic" aviation crisis this week as AT&T and Verizon deploy new 5G services. They said the new C band 5G service set to begin on Wednesday could render a significant number of aircraft unusable, causing chaos for U.S. flights and potentially stranding tens of thousands of Americans overseas.

MLK family, Vice President Harris urge U.S. Senate act to bolster right to vote

The family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and their supporters, some shouting, “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Voter suppression has got to go,” marched in Washington on Monday urging passage of a law to protect voters from racial discrimination. As part of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day D.C. Peace Walk, the King family and more than 100 national and local civil rights groups strode across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge calling on President Joe Biden's Democrats to pass a bill in the U.S. Senate.

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