Nightly Brief

Top CNS stories for today including legal experts warning the Senate about serious constitutional flaws that undermine their attempts at giving Special Counsel Robert Mueller some job security; Missouri’s Attorney General announcing he will hire an independent investigator to find out if his predecessor withheld evidence before Anthony Lamar Smith’s family settled a wrongful death lawsuit; London’s National Gallery told it need not surrender Henri Matisse’s 1908 oil painting “Portrait of Greta Moll” to Moll’s heirs, whose lawsuit failed at every point, and more.

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In this June 13, 2012, file photo then-FBI Director Robert Mueller listens as he testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

**1.) In National news legal experts warned the Senate on Tuesday about serious constitutional flaws that undermine their attempts at giving Special Counsel Robert Mueller some job security.

Jared Kushner. (AP file photo/Alex Brandon)

2.) The House Oversight Committee on Monday night requested more information on the use of private email account by President Donald Trump’s closest advisers, following multiple reports that White House staff members are using private email to conduct official business.

3.) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service illegally green-lighted destruction of thousands of acres of habitat for one of the last wild jaguars in the United States for an Arizona copper mine, the Center for Biological Diversity said in a federal lawsuit Monday.

FILE - In this Aug. 28, 2017 file photo, activists gather outside the St. Louis courthouse where former police officer Jason Stockley's murder trial was heard. The mayor of St. Louis says the city is "on edge" as it awaits a verdict in the first-degree murder trial of former police officer Stockley, in part because of a troubled history of justice in the region and nationwide. Activists have threatened civil disobedience if Stockley, who is white, is acquitted in the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black. (Jim Salter/AP)

**4.) In Regional news Missouri’s Attorney General will hire an independent investigator to find out if his predecessor withheld evidence before Anthony Lamar Smith’s family settled a wrongful death lawsuit in the case of the black man who was killed by the white policeman who was cleared of a murder charge this month.

**5.) ** Federal prosecutors vowed Tuesday to do better at retrial of former a New York senator and his son after Supreme Court precedent on corruption prosecutions upended the extortion convictions.

6.) The en banc Seventh Circuit heard arguments Tuesday over whether Brendan Dassey of “Making a Murderer” fame was coerced into confessing to the rape and murder of a Wisconsin woman a decade ago.

Evaporation-harvested energy can cut by half the water lost to natural evaporation, researchers say. Water-strapped cities with growing populations and energy needs could benefit most, including greater Phoenix, served by the above reservoir and irrigation system fed by the Colorado River. (Photo: Central Arizona Project)

**7.) From the world of Science comes word that evaporation could serve as a robust and bio-friendly option for energizing the United States and other nations, scientists reported Tuesday.

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