US Domestic News Roundup: Severe storms, tornado kill at least six in Oklahoma and Texas; More U.S. states make plans to reopen; California holds firm and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

With reopenings in U.S. South, some merchants lay out welcome mat, others fearful

Angie Bullman plans to reopen her suburban Atlanta hair salon on Friday after closing a month ago to comply with state orders. She and her co-owner husband, also a stylist, are already fully booked for the weekend. Salon de la Vie's five other stylists, massage therapist and esthetician will come back to work on May 1, when the state's stay-at-home order will lift.

Severe storms, tornado kill at least six in Oklahoma and Texas

Severe storms and a tornado swept through the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Texas, killing at least six people and injuring dozens, officials said on Thursday. Three people died and at least 20 were injured when a tornado touched down in Onalaska, Texas, on Wednesday, emergency officials said. Onalaska is about 90 miles north of Houston.

U.S. judge dismisses actor Jussie Smollett's lawsuit alleging malicious prosecution

A U.S. federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett who accused the city of Chicago of malicious prosecution in concluding that his claim to having been the victim of a racist and homophobic beating was a hoax. U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said in the ruling, published on the court's website, that Smollett "cannot bring a state malicious claim until proceedings against him have been terminated."

Burping bags and dancing raisins: Tricks for teaching science during a pandemic

Texas science teacher Avri DiPietro has a secret weapon in her tool kit to help keep her students engaged now that the coronavirus pandemic has forced them to stay home indefinitely. It's a home experiment known as "the burping bag." The assignment calls for her sixth graders to combine vinegar and baking soda in a plastic bag, either in their kitchens or backyards. If all goes as planned, burps and belches will ring out across the small southeastern Texas town where DiPietro teaches, as the acidic vinegar meets the sodium bicarbonate, releasing gas from the bag.

More U.S. states make plans to reopen; California holds firm

More states in the U.S. South and Midwest signaled readiness on Wednesday to reopen their economies in hopes the worst of the coronavirus pandemic had passed, but California's governor held firm to sweeping stay-at-home orders and business closures. The patchwork of still-evolving orders across the 50 states meant some Americans were still confined indefinitely to their homes, unable to work, while others began to venture out for the first time in weeks.

Coronavirus school shutdowns threaten to deepen U.S. 'digital divide'

Liz Peasley, a special education aide in the rural Grand Coulee Dam School District in Washington State, drives 10 miles from her home on the Colville Indian Reservation just to get a workable cellphone signal. Now, with schools shut down until the fall because of the coronavirus pandemic, Peasley – who doesn't own a computer or tablet – is confronting the same dilemma millions of others in the United States are facing: How to ensure kids trapped at home receive some version of an education if they can't get online.

Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force

On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China. Alex Azar, a 52-year-old lawyer and former drug industry executive, assured Americans the U.S. government was prepared. "We developed a diagnostic test at the CDC, so we can confirm if somebody has this," Azar said. "We will be spreading that diagnostic around the country so that we are able to do rapid testing on site."

In Texas, a coastal city tries to test its way out of coronavirus pandemic

Each day, hundreds of residents of Galveston County, Texas, are tested for the new coronavirus. Free diagnostic tests are being offered to anyone over the age of seven and the county has enough test kits to last a month. Few U.S. counties are testing for the coronavirus as aggressively as Galveston, a county nearly as big as Rhode Island that stretches along the Texas Gulf Coast southeast of Houston. Health experts say residents there are being tested at a rate three times the national average.

Americans too scared to go to work risk losing unemployment aid, experts say

U.S. workers who refuse to return to their jobs because they are worried about catching the coronavirus should not count on getting unemployment benefits, state officials and labor law experts say. Workers in a handful of U.S. states will face this situation this week, as state officials hope to revive economies paralyzed by shutdowns related to the epidemic.

U.S. House to pass nearly $500 billion more in coronavirus relief

Hundreds of members of the U.S. House of Representatives will gather in Washington on Thursday to pass a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill, bringing the unprecedented total of funds approved for the crisis to nearly $3 trillion. The measure is expected to be approved with solid bipartisan support in the Democratic-led House, but opposition by some members of both parties forced legislators to return to Washington despite stay-at-home orders intended to control the spread of the virus.