Your Friday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News
Top CNS stories for today including the much vaunted House memo on supposed FBI bias in the Russia investigation meeting with lukewarm reception Friday; a dramatic downsizing of national monuments took effect on Friday, coinciding with Trump administration announcements about increasing energy development on public lands that drew heavy rebuke from environmentalists; seeking to set himself apart from his chief rival in the race for California governor, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa decried “Davos Democrats” who pander to rich liberals but neglect the middle class; the International Court of Justice fined Nicaragua more than $378,000 on Friday for its intrusion into Costa Rican territory involving ecologically sensitive, disputed wetlands, and more.
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National
1.) The much vaunted House memo on supposed FBI bias in the Russia investigation met with lukewarm reception Friday, but contains an odd disclosure about how the probe began.
Regional
6.) A father of three girls sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar lunged at the disgraced former sports doctor during a sentencing hearing Friday but was quickly wrestled to the ground by sheriff’s deputies and detained.
7.) Seeking to set himself apart from his chief rival in the race for California governor, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday decried “Davos Democrats” who pander to rich liberals but neglect the middle class.
Science
8.) A new study suggests that modeling sports helmets after the skulls of woodpeckers may not be the whole answer to protecting athletes’ brains from injury.
9.) California’s fertile Central Valley farm soil – and not the tractors and trucks working it – may hold the key ingredient of the state’s notoriously smoggy air, according to a University of California, Davis report.
International
10.) The International Court of Justice fined Nicaragua more than $378,000 on Friday for its intrusion into Costa Rican territory involving ecologically sensitive, disputed wetlands.
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