Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News
Top eight CNS stories for today including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and county leaders said they will drop nightly curfew orders issued in response to protests that have roiled the region; China brushed off the threat that the United States will end a designation that gives Hong Kong’s special trading privileges; Nearly 2 million Americans reported that they were newly out of a job last week, and more.
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National
1.) States are easing lockdown rules even as Covid-19 cases and deaths climb across the country, and even as nationwide unrest threatens whatever gains were made, driving one of the country’s top health officials to call Thursday for greater U.S. investment in what lies ahead.
2.) China brushed off the threat that the United States will end a designation that gives Hong Kong’s special trading privileges, saying Thursday that such a sanction would violate World Trade Organization rules.
3.) Nearly 2 million Americans reported that they were newly out of a job last week, with about 14.8% of the country still collecting unemployment insurance benefits, the Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Regional
4.) Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and county leaders said Thursday they will drop nightly curfew orders issued in response to protests that have roiled the region, hours after Black Lives Matter and the ACLU sued claiming the orders were unconstitutional.
5.) After nearly a week of protests over the death of George Floyd, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced a plan Thursday morning to remove a massive statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Richmond’s historic Monument Avenue.
6.) The Fifth Circuit on Thursday rebuked a San Antonio federal judge in its unanimous order blocking an injunction that would have allowed any Texan to qualify for a mail-in ballot during the Covid-19 pandemic.
International
7.) The reality of life in Latin America in May was more unpleasant than anyone could have imagined. Just six months ago things were exponentially better. Today, battered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the poor have been beaten by loss of income and the need to violate quarantine merely to survive.
8.) An adviser to the European Union’s top court said Thursday it should reject a pharmaceutical company’s challenge to a penalty for paying to delay the sale of generic drugs, finding such deals violate EU competition rules.
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