Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News
Top CNS stories for today including the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nominations of 44 of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, resuming the efforts of the Republican-controlled Senate to stock the federal judiciary with Trump selections; William Barr got a step closer to confirmation as U.S. attorney general morning with a 12-10 endorsement from the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines; A federal judge ordered prosecutors to release redacted copies of the search warrants justifying the raids on President Trump’s prison-bound former attorney Michael Cohen, and more.
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National
1.) The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced the nominations of 44 of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, resuming the efforts of the Republican-controlled Senate to stock the federal judiciary with Trump selections.
2.) William Barr got a step closer to confirmation as U.S. attorney general on Thursday morning with a 12-10 endorsement from the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines.
3.) Had they known that the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy would involve separating families, a high-ranking government official told lawmakers Thursday that neither he, nor anyone he knew at other federal agencies, would have endorsed it.
4.) Siding with major news outlets, a federal judge ordered prosecutors on Thursday to release redacted copies of the search warrants justifying the raids on President Donald Trump’s prison-bound former attorney Michael Cohen.
International
5.) With 50 days to go, the deadline for Great Britain’s departure from the European Union is fast approaching and the atmosphere hanging over the fraught negotiations over its withdrawal threatens to become toxic.
6.) Returning from her fact-finding mission to Turkey, a U.N. investigator concluded Thursday that Saudi officials likely perpetrated the “brutal and premeditated killing” of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
7.) Chiding Ireland for withholding three years of family benefits from an unemployed Romanian immigrant, Europe’s highest court ruled Thursday that the law makes no demand on employment status to award such aid.
Science
8.) Researchers are hopeful they can lessen the spread of mosquito-borne diseases after identifying drugs that reduce the insect’s hunger for blood, according to a study released Thursday in the journal Cell.
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