Nightly Brief

Your Wednesday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including President Donald Trump denying Russia is still targeting elections in the United States, a claim sharply at odds with recent warnings from his top intelligence chief. The White House later said the president was misunderstood; alleged Russian Agent Mariia Butina learning she will remain in custody until her trial on charges of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government; the Senate narrowly confirms an attorney in the Texas governor’s office to a position on the Fifth Circuit; incumbent Congresswoman Martha Roby tromps former Congressman Bobby Bright in the Republican primary runoff in Alabama’s Second Congressional District; New York City agrees to pay its nurses and midwives over $20 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit; a new study says air pollution may be keeping people away from national parks; Google is hit with a record $5 billion fine by European antitrust regulators who said it abused its market dominance in search and web-browsing tools on its Android mobile operating system, and more.

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National

1.) Speaking during a photo op at the end of a Cabinet meeting Wednesday President Donald Trump denied Russia is still targeting elections in the United States, a claim sharply at odds with recent warnings from his top intelligence chief.

2.) Alleged Russian Agent Mariia Butina will remain in custody until her trial on charges of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Regional

5.) Incumbent Congresswoman Martha Roby tromped former Congressman Bobby Bright on Tuesday in the Republican primary runoff in Alabama’s Second Congressional District.

6.) This feature was supposed to be about a backpacking trip in Yosemite National Park with a federal judge who has a deep and abiding love of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Instead, a juvenile rattlesnake intervened to make this tale about something else entirely – or almost entirely.

7.) A Monsanto scientist on Tuesday tried to rebut a dying groundskeeper’s allegation that he failed to tell him whether the company’s Roundup weed killer had caused widespread skin rashes later diagnosed as terminal lymphoma, possibly resulting in the disease’s progression while he continued to use it.

8.) New York City will pay its nurses and midwives over $20 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit, the U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of New York announced Wednesday.

Science

9.) Fishermen and beachgoers alike have long viewed sharks with something less than admiration, but advances in technology have proven they are deeply valuable, scientists told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday Yet that value could be lost if climate change and overfishing continue to threaten the predator and its habitat.

10.) Air pollution may be keeping people away from national parks, according to a new study of ozone levels in some of our most popular public treasures.

Research & Polls

11.) Despite this week’s Helsinki summit, where President Donald Trump said he did not believe in U.S. intelligence agencies’ reports of Russian interference in 2016 U.S. elections – or perhaps may have just misspoke – a whopping 71 percent of Republicans say they still approve of the way he’s handling Russia.

International

12.) Google was hit Wednesday with a record $5 billion fine by European antitrust regulators who said it abused its market dominance in search and web-browsing tools on its Android mobile operating system.

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