US News Roundup: Fay weakens to tropical depression; concerns about reopening schools and more

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

Fay weakens to tropical depression over southeastern New York, NHC says

Fay weakened to a tropical depression over southeastern New York state early on Saturday and was expected to become a post-tropical low-pressure system later in the morning before dissipating on Sunday, the U.S National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. The storm prompted the White House to postpone a campaign rally that President Donald Trump had planned to hold in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Saturday night. The event will take place in "a week or two," the White House said on Friday.

'It just doesn't feel safe:' U.S. parents, teachers worry about reopening schools

Brenda Del Hierro was not so thrilled with distance learning when her kids were sent home in March to when the novel coronavirus pandemic hit, yet the Los Angeles mom said she was not convinced it would be safe to send them back to the classroom this fall. Del Hierro said she backs a call by teachers unions in Los Angeles and nationwide to hold off re-opening schools until the latest intense surge of coronavirus cases fades and plans are in place to safely reopen.

As Disney World prepares to reopen, Florida posts another daily surge in COVID-19 cases

Florida confirmed its place as an emerging epicenter of the COVID pandemic in the United States on Friday by reporting its second sharpest daily rise in cases, while Walt Disney Co. prepared to reopen its flagship theme park in Orlando to the chagrin of some employees. Florida recorded 11,433 new coronavirus cases, the state health department said, more evidence that the virus is still spreading largely unchecked throughout parts of the country.

Ghislaine Maxwell seeks bail, citing coronavirus, and denies Jeffrey Epstein charges

Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, on Friday forcefully denied charges she lured underage girls for him to sexually abuse and said she deserves bail, citing the risk she might contract the coronavirus in jail. Maxwell, 58, filed her request in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, eight days after being arrested in New Hampshire, where authorities said she had been hiding at a sprawling property she bought while shielding her identity.

Trump's planned order on 'dreamers' will not include amnesty, White House says

U.S. President Donald Trump's planned executive order on immigration will not include amnesty for migrants who are in the United States illegally but arrived in the country as children, a White House spokesman said on Friday. "This does not include amnesty," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement after Trump said in a television interview his planned order would include a road to citizenship for such immigrants, known as "Dreamers."

California to release 8,000 prisoners to slow pandemic

California will release up to 8,000 inmates early from state prisons to slow the spread of COVID-19 inside facilities, state authorities said on Friday. Several California prisons have suffered large coronavirus outbreaks and the state corrections department said inmates could be eligible for release by the end of August.

'A free man': Trump commutes longtime adviser Roger Stone's prison sentence

President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of his longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone on Friday, sparing him from prison after he was convicted of lying under oath to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump's decision to commute Stone's sentence days before he was due to report to prison marked the Republican president's most assertive intervention to protect an associate in a criminal case and his latest use of executive clemency to benefit an ally. Democrats condemned Trump's action as an assault on the rule of law.

Prosecutors may not get Trump tax records until after election, experts say

New York City prosecutors are very likely to obtain President Donald Trump's tax returns after a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling, but it may not happen before the Nov. 3 election if he argues in lower courts as expected that their request was too broad and made in bad faith, legal experts said. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is seeking eight years of Trump's business and personal tax returns and other financial documents as part of a criminal investigation involving a grand jury into the Republican president and the Trump Organization, his family's real estate business.

Goya chief executive sparks backlash over praise for Trump

Goya Foods Inc, the largest Hispanic-owned U.S. food company and a popular brand among Latino Americans, became the target of a boycott campaign on social media on Friday sparked by its CEO effusively praising President Donald Trump at the White House. The hashtags #Goyaway and #BoycottGoya began trending on Twitter after Robert Unanue, chief executive officer of the New Jersey-based company, appeared with Trump on Thursday for the signing of an executive order creating an advisory panel aimed at spurring Hispanic prosperity.

Special Report: How the Trump administration secured a secret supply of execution drugs

If the Trump administration carries out the first federal execution since 2003 on Monday, as scheduled, it will mark the culmination of a three-year campaign to line up a secret supply chain to make and test lethal-injection drugs, a Reuters investigation has found. Intent on enforcing the death penalty, President Donald Trump's Department of Justice had started building the network of contractors it would need by May 2017, federal procurement records show. Since then, it has pursued a new drug protocol that could survive legal challenges through firms whose identities it has fought to keep hidden. Without the secrecy, the government has argued in court filings, its ability to procure the drugs would be "severely impaired" because the companies are not willing to supply or test execution drugs if they are publicly identified.