Reuters US Domestic News Summary

A team including the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Maryland announced crews had cleared a channel with a depth of 14 feet (4.3 meters), similar to the 11-foot channel opened on the opposite side of the wreckage on Monday. Trump leads Biden in battleground US states, WSJ poll finds Republican Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden in six battleground states in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, according to a Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday that cited concerns about the economy and Biden's performance.

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Trump loses bid to delay hush money trial until US Supreme Court review

A New York judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump's bid to delay his April 15 trial on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star until the U.S. Supreme Court reviews claim to presidential immunity in a separate criminal case. The Court is scheduled to hear the former U.S. President's arguments that he is immune from federal prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Democratic President Joe Biden on April 25.

Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders push companies to cut cost of asthma inhalers, prescription drugs

President Joe Biden hosted a White House event with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday to tout their fight against high prescription drug prices and push companies to cut the cost of inhalers for asthma sufferers. Biden said prescription drugs made by the same pharmaceutical company cost at least two to three times more in the U.S. than it does in developed countries such as Canada, Italy and France. He did not name the company.

Second channel opens around collapsed Baltimore bridge, but not for shipping

Recovery teams opened a second channel enabling smaller vessels to navigate the Port of Baltimore on Tuesday but most commercial shipping remains blocked by the collapsed bridge and stranded container ship that brought the structure down a week ago. A team including the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Maryland announced crews had cleared a channel with a depth of 14 feet (4.3 meters), similar to the 11-foot channel opened on the opposite side of the wreckage on Monday.

Trump leads Biden in battleground US states, WSJ poll finds

Republican Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden in six battleground states in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, according to a Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday that cited concerns about the economy and Biden's performance. Trump garnered a lead of between 2 and 8 percentage points among voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina on a ballot that included third-party and independent candidates, the Journal said. The results were similar in a one-on-one matchup with Biden, it said.

US pushes back on judge over Trump claim that classified records he kept were personal

The U.S. prosecutor leading the case against Donald Trump for retaining classified documents after leaving office pushed back on a federal judge after she signaled she may accept the former president's claim that the records were his personal property. U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith said in a court filing late on Tuesday that his office would appeal any decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that would instruct jurors in the case to consider what he called Trump's "fundamentally flawed legal premise."

Biden's campaign says he can win Florida, after abortion ruling

President Joe Biden's reelection campaign team said it believes he can win in Florida this year after the state Supreme Court cleared the way for a Republican-backed law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Republican candidate Donald Trump won Florida in both the 2016 and 2020 elections but Biden's team said it believes that opposition to tight abortion restrictions have put the Southeastern state back in play.

Trump campaign, RNC triple fundraising in March to $65.6 million

The election campaign of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee said on Wednesday they raised over $65.6 million in March, more than three times the amount raised in February. WHY IT IS IMPORTANT

Bird flu hits Texas dairy cows, hens, human as ducks migrate

Migratory waterfowl are to blame for widening avian-flu outbreaks in Texas cows and poultry, and wild birds carrying the virus should be heading north soon, state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said. The U.S. government since last week has reported cases of the disease in seven dairy herds in Texas and one person who had contact with cows, making it the state most affected by the country's first-ever outbreaks in cattle. Texas is the biggest U.S. cattle producer.

Son of prominent Dominican politician shot dead in Texas

The son of a Dominican lawmaker was fatally shot at a gas station in Houston, Texas, according to police, who said on Wednesday they were searching for four men wanted for what they called a targeted killing. The Houston Police Department identified the victim of the shooting, which took place on Monday evening, as Luis Alfredo Pacheco Rojas, the son of Alfredo Pacheco, who oversees the lower house of the Dominican Republic's legislature.

Trump calls migrants 'animals,' intensifying focus on illegal immigration

Donald Trump called immigrants illegally in the United States "animals" and "not human" in a speech in Michigan on Tuesday, resorting to the degrading rhetoric he has employed time and again on the campaign trail. The Republican presidential candidate, appearing with several law enforcement officers, described in detail several criminal cases involving suspects in the country illegally and warned that violence and chaos would consume America if he did not win the Nov. 5 election.

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