Nightly Brief

Your Tuesday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including the Supreme Court shielding Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from having to testify about why he is adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census; President Donald Trump calls Senator Ted Cruz's Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke a “stone-cold phony” who “wants to take away your guns”; In Georgia, Stacey Abrams, candidate for governor, seeks to explain flag-burning protest of the Georgia state flag 25 years ago; a judge blocks New Hampshire’s voter-identification law; the Ninth Circuit says Nestle and Cargill must face claims they approved the use of child slaves on Ivory Coast plantations; a new study explains the calming effects of lavender; the Greens are making a comeback in Europe, and more.

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National

1.) Extending a stay, the Supreme Court shielded Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Monday night from having to testify about why he is adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

2.) In Houston Monday night to support Ted Cruz’s campaign to retain his seat in the U.S. Senate, President Donald Trump called Cruz’s Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke a “stone-cold phony” who “wants to take away your guns.”

3.) Before she was the Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, Stacey Abrams participated in a flag-burning protest of the Georgia state flag, which featured a prominent Confederate symbol, more than 25 years ago.

4.) Special Counsel Robert Mueller pushed back Tuesday against the Russian company in his crosshairs for alleged interference in the 2016 election, telling a federal judge in Washington that the conspiracy charges he filed against the firm aren’t dependent on prosecutors proving its election interference was a crime.

Regional

5.) The United States has brought a forfeiture action to reunite the heirs of a renowned Jewish art collector with a Dutch portrait seized by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

6.) Blocking New Hampshire’s voter-identification law with less than two weeks until midterm elections, a judge said Monday that an injunction is the only way to prevent the threat of disenfranchisement.

Science

10.) Purple and pleasant, lavender has long been used by folk medicine to induce calmness. Now, a study published Tuesday in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience offers new insight into how linalool, one of the relaxation-inducing components found in lavender, works.

International

11.) For more than a year, many in Europe have despaired as far-right parties in Italy, Germany and elsewhere have picked up votes and power. But another, albeit smaller, wave is being felt too: a comeback in Northern Europe by the Greens, adherents of an ecological left-wing political movement born out of the radical student protest movements of the 1960s.

12.) After weeks of leaked details and Saudi denials, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to reveal on Tuesday the “naked truth” behind the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As to how much detail comes to light, however, experts from three countries told Courthouse News the key lies in behind-the-scenes geopolitical bargaining.

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