Nightly Brief

Your Friday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including election contests in several states remaining too close to call or in dispute, including two high-profile Senate races, in Arizona and Florida, and for governor, in Georgia; court records in more than 10 lawsuits show that acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker may have profited handsomely from his former role as a board member of the scam patent firm that was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission; after leveling nearly an entire town of 27,000 in a matter of hours, the Camp Fire in Northern California turned its sights to the college town of Chico, where authorities alerted the nearly 90,000 residents to be prepared to flee; scientists say they’ve found that exposure to the pesticide imidacloprid produces complex changes in the social behaviors and activities of bumblebees – a very bad thing for creatures who rely on their colonies to survive; the Satanic Temple files a $50 million copyright lawsuit, claiming Netflix and Warner Brothers used its copyrighted depiction of the androgynous goat-headed deity Baphomet to represent evil antagonists in the series “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina," and more.

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National

1.) As civil litigation over the now-defunct World Patent Marketing trudges on, court records in more than 10 lawsuits show that acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker may have profited handsomely from his former role as a board member of the scam patent firm that was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission.

2.) Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has taken a slim lead over Republican Martha McSally — 9,610 votes out of 1.85 million ballots cast in Arizona’s Senate race — and the Republican Party sued the secretary of state to try to stop verification of ballots.

3.) The battle over Florida’s disputed election results deepened Friday with a flurry of lawsuits and emergency hearings held in courtrooms in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

4.) Republican former Secretary of State Brian Kemp may have declared himself the winner of Georgia’s contentious gubernatorial race Wednesday evening, but Democrat Stacey Abrams refuses to back down, maintaining that uncounted ballots could force a runoff in the race.

Regional

6.) After leveling nearly an entire town of 27,000 in a matter of hours, the Camp Fire in Northern California turned its sights to the college town of Chico on Friday, where authorities alerted the nearly 90,000 residents to be prepared to flee.

7.) As election officials continue to count vote-by-mail ballots trickling into registrar offices up and down California, some of the most competitive races have been decided while several still hang in the balance. But one thing is clear: the blue wave seen in the Northeast all but evaporated in the West.

8.) Families and neighbors of those affected by Wednesday night’s mass shooting at a Western-style bar in California that killed a dozen people gathered Thursday morning at a reunification site to learn the fate of their loved ones.

9.) In a $50 million federal copyright suit Thursday, the Satanic Temple says Netflix and Warner Brothers used their copyrighted depiction of the androgynous goat-headed deity Baphomet to represent evil antagonists in the series “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.”

Science

10.) Scientists said Thursday they’ve found that exposure to the pesticide imidacloprid produces complex changes in the social behaviors and activities of bumblebees – a very bad thing for creatures who rely on their colonies to survive.

International

11.) The split outcome of the U.S. midterm elections is leaving many European analysts, diplomats and politicians pessimistic: To their disappointment, President Donald Trump didn’t suffer a shellacking – far from it – and a Democratic House may end up pushing the American leader into quarrels overseas.

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