Your Tuesday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News
Top CNS stories for today including President Donald Trump announcing that the U.S. will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal; a Manhattan prosecutor confirms former N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman now faces a criminal inquiry; two legal challenges to a controversial natural gas pipeline are heard by the Fourth Circuit Tuesday; the Taiwanese humpback dolphin, one of the rarest dolphins in the world, gets federal protection; the European General Court chides regulators for shirking formal action in favor of a letter when they found that a French chemical company had not complied with the law, and more.
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National
1.) President Donald Trump followed through on campaign threat Tuesday, announcing that the U.S. will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Though widely expected, the move is considered a significant blow to U.S. allies, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, who had lobbied hard for the president to stay in the agreement.
2.) Senate Democrats appear to be just a single vote shy of forcing a showdown Wednesday on the Federal Communication Commission’s controversial repeal of net neutrality regulations.
3.) After domestic-abuse allegations sparked the resignation Eric Schneiderman, who had been at the helm of the Harvey Weinstein investigation in New York, a Manhattan prosecutor accused of soft-pedaling the same probe confirmed Tuesday that the outgoing New York attorney general now faces a criminal inquiry as well.
4.) Amid outrage over the Trump administration’s plans to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday threatened to subpoena a Justice Department official who did not appear to testify before the committee.
Regional
5.) Clashing with the Trump White House in one of his final acts in office, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman spoke out Monday against the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to limit the role of science in crafting policy.
6.) Two legal challenges to a controversial natural gas pipeline were heard by the Fourth Circuit Tuesday, the plaintiffs taking issue with how the pipeline will be constructed and its long-term implications for the environment.
7.) With a landmark climate change program collapsing, California’s Democratic governor was stuck. Needing just a handful of votes to save a sunsetting but lucrative emissions tax, Jerry Brown shrewdly appealed across the aisle to an up-and-coming Republican assemblyman to help rescue the staple of California’s global warming agenda.
Research & Polls
10.) President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. will withdraw from the 2015 Iran denuclearization agreement, but most Americans have only a hazy understanding of what the deal entails and many are skeptical of the president’s handling of the issue, according to a Pew Research Center study.
International
11.) The European General Court chided regulators on Tuesday for shirking formal action in favor of a letter when they found that a French chemical company had not complied with the law.
12.) Even after Belgium imposed bans against individuals who had applied for residency, the European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that the immigrants are entitled to reasoned decisions when they applied later for family reunification.
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