Nightly Brief

Your Friday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including President Donald Trump revealing a major White House shakeup on Twitter Friday afternoon, announcing he’s named Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly as White House chief of staff; Russia seized two diplomatic properties on Friday and ordered the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to cut its staff by September in retaliation for pending new American sanctions; Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe defended a company’s right to scrape data from LinkedIn at an injunction hearing Thursday, saying barring it would be no different than barring speakers from a public square, and more.

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**1.) In National news President Donald Trump revealed a major White House shakeup on Twitter Friday afternoon, announcing he’s named Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly as White House chief of staff.

2.) The government’s former top ethics chief sounded the alarm Friday, saying the first eight months of the Donald Trump administration have been “an absolutely shock to the system” that has plunged the nation into “an ethics crisis.”

3.) Russia seized two diplomatic properties on Friday and ordered the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to cut its staff by September in retaliation for pending new American sanctions over the Kremlin’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election and its invasion of Ukraine.

4.) Senate Republicans could not muster enough support for a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the early morning hours Friday, with Arizona Sen. John McCain dramatically casting the decisive vote against the plan.

5.) The Federal Aviation Administration must go back to the drawing board to address what one appeals court judge on Friday called “The Case of the Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat.”

**6.) In Regional news Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe defended a company’s right to scrape data from LinkedIn at an injunction hearing Thursday, saying barring it would be no different than barring speakers from a public square.

7.) Cook County’s new tax on sugary beverages will soon take effect after a state judge on Friday ended a month-long court battle to block it.

**8.) From the world of Science  comes news that DNA samples have shed light on the Canaanites, a mysterious and diverse group that created the first alphabet and who escaped extermination though God ordered it in the Old Testament.