Nightly Brief

Your Friday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including accountant Cindy LaPorta, the first witness granted immunity from prosecution to testify at the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, conceding possible wrong-doing; earlier, a former Manafort tax preparer, Philip Ayliff, said he and his firm received multiple emails from the former Trump campaign chairman and his business associate, Rick Gates, assuring them they had no foreign bank accounts; hundreds of fathers are on a hunger strike and their sons are staging their own action at the Karnes immigration Detention Center in Texas, “as a last resort to implore U.S. officials to expedite their cases”; defending a decision by American regulators to deviate from cancer-risk assessment guidelines in evaluating the controversial active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer, a Canadian toxicologist testifies that the guidelines aren’t the “Ten Commandments”; police announce that a man suspected of killing George H.W. Bush’s former doctor to avenge his mother’s death on an operating table 20 years ago was found dead of an apparent suicide; the socialist government in Spain wants to remove Franco’s remains from the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum, and more.

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National

1.) On a day heavy with testimony about financial records and transactions, accountant Cindy LaPorta became the first witness granted immunity from prosecution to testify at the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

2.) Philip Ayliff, a tax preparer for Paul Manafort, testified Friday that he and his firm received multiple emails from the former Trump campaign chairman and his business associate, Rick Gates, assuring them they had no foreign bank accounts.

3.) Rather than pick a veteran of the state’s political scene, Republicans in Tennessee’s Thursday primaries voted for businessman and political neophyte Bill Lee to be the party’s candidate for Tennessee governor.

4.) A new abstinence focus at the White House inspired pushback from Planned Parenthood this year, but numerous affiliates of the organization learned Thursday afternoon that they made the list for upcoming Title X grants.

Regional

5.) Hundreds of fathers are on a hunger strike and their sons are staging their own action at the Karnes immigration Detention Center in Texas, “as a last resort to implore U.S. officials to expedite their cases,” the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services announced by Twitter Thursday afternoon.

6.) Defending a decision by American regulators to deviate from cancer-risk assessment guidelines in evaluating the controversial active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer, a Canadian toxicologist testified Thursday that the guidelines aren’t the “Ten Commandments.”

International

10.) Spain’s left-wing government is seeking to remove the body of dictator Francisco Franco from a fascist-era monument near Madrid and set up a commission to investigate crimes committed during Spain’s civil war and military dictatorship, a move strongly opposed by retired military officers and others.

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