Nightly Brief

Your Friday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including a federal judge calling Exxon’s scorched-earth legal offensive of its climate change denials a “huge waste” of time and money; a conservative voter-fraud watchdog claims Texas’ most populous county is violating federal law by refusing to let it inspect the county’s voter rolls for people who aren’t U.S. citizens; a Florida jury acquits Noor Salman of charges she that she helped her husband prepare for his 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando; a new study finds that a newly designed surface inspired by rice leaves and pitcher plants outperforms cutting-edge liquid-repellent surfaces in water-harvesting applications; in his latest dispatch, Courthouse News’ western bureau chief ruminates on the supposed healing power of vortices in breathtaking Sedona, Arizona, and more.

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National

**1.) ** Refusing to let Exxon sue over state fraud probes of its climate change denials, a federal judge called the oil giant’s scorched-earth legal offensive Thursday a “huge waste” of time and money.

2.)  An elections law watchdog on Friday filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission claiming incoming National Security adviser John Bolton’s political action committee may have broken the law by illegally communicating with beleaguered data firm Cambridge Analytica during a 2014 senatorial campaign.

**3.) ** Coffee giant Starbucks and other coffee retailers received an eye opener on Wednesday after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge told them to post cancer warnings for coffee sold in California.

Regional

**4.) ** In his latest dispatch, Courthouse News’ western bureau chief ruminates on the supposed healing power of vortices in breathtaking Sedona, Arizona.

**5.) ** A conservative voter-fraud watchdog claims Texas’ most populous county is violating federal law by refusing to let it inspect the county’s voter rolls for people who aren’t U.S. citizens.

**7.) ** A federal judge issued an injunction against Sibley, Iowa, ordering it to stop threatening to sue a local man who runs a website saying the city smells like “horrible rotten blood and stale beer.”

**8.) ** Dozens of public school students can proceed with their constitutional challenges to New York’s teacher-tenure system, a state appeals court ruled.

Science

**9.) ** A newly designed surface inspired by rice leaves and pitcher plants outperforms cutting-edge liquid-repellent surfaces in water-harvesting applications, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

International

**10.) ** In a trial more than three decades in the making, New York prosecutors will lead victims of Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos who are fighting to collect artwork by modern masters and $15 million in cash seized from Marcos and his wife, Imelda.