Nightly Brief

Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including a Republican plan to end the government shutdown with $5.7 billion to fund a border wall and a competing Democratic proposal both failed in the Senate; The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Michael Cohen one after he said he did not want to testify because of intimidation from the president; A European court ruled American former student Amanda Knox is entitled to damages for unfair treatment at the hands of Italian police before being cleared of a murder charge, and more.

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National

President Donald Trump, center, speaks in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington on Jan. 23, 2019, as he hosts a roundtable with conservative leaders to discuss the security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

1.) Voting on two plans to end the partial government shutdown, but falling short of a 60-vote threshold, a Republican plan with $5.7 billion to fund a border wall and a competing Democratic proposal failed Thursday.

A polar bear wearing a GPS video-camera collar lies on a chunk of sea ice in the Beaufort Sea on April 15, 2015. A tiny Alaska Native village has experienced a boom in tourism in recent years as polar bears spend more time on land than on diminishing Arctic sea ice. Alaska's Energy Desk reports more than 2,000 people visited the northern Alaska village of Kaktovik on the Beaufort Sea in 2017 to see polar bears in the wild. Jennifer Reed of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge says the village had less than 50 visitors annually before 2011. (Anthony Pagano/USGS via AP)

2.) Climate change and military presence at the Arctic Circle dominated testimony Thursday at a Senate committee’s first meeting of the year on the future of energy expansion in the rapidly warming region.

Michael Cohen, left, walks out of federal court with his attorney, Guy Petrillo on Nov. 29, 2018, in New York. The former attorney to President Donald Trump pleaded guilty this morning to lying to Congress about work he did on an aborted project to build a Trump Tower in Russia. He told the judge he lied about the timing of the negotiations and other details to be consistent with Trump's "political message." (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

3.) The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Michael Cohen on Thursday, a rep for the former Trump lawyer said, one day after Cohen said he did not want to testify because of intimidation from the president.

4.) The en banc Seventh Circuit ruled that the protections of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act apply only to current employees, not to job applicants.

FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2018 file photo, a job applicant talks with company representatives at a JobNewsUSA job fair in Miami Lakes, Fla. Jobs report on Friday, Dec. 7, for November is expected to point to a solid economy for most Americans, with steady hiring, a low unemployment rate and faster wage gains. If so, it would provide a dose of welcome news after this week’s frantic financial market gyrations, which have been driven by concerns that the U.S.-China trade war could escalate and weaken a U.S. economy already facing higher interest rates and slowing global growth. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

5.) In another good sign for the U.S. job market, the Labor Department said Thursday that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits dropped to the lowest level in nearly 50 years.

Science

NASA's Opportunity rover snapped this photo of the rim of Endeavor Crater in January 2018, on its 4,959th Martian day on the Red Planet. The rover celebrated 15 years on Mars on Jan. 24, 2019. (NASA/JPL)

6.) NASA’s Opportunity Rover marked its 15th anniversary on Mars Thursday, though the space agency hasn’t heard from the intrepid explorer since a months-long dust storm covered its power-grabbing solar panels last year.

International

FILE - In this Friday, March 27, 2015 file photo, Amanda Knox, left, talks to reporters as her mother, Edda Mellas, right, looks on outside Mellas' home in Seattle. Europe's human rights court has ordered Italy to pay Amanda Knox around 18,000 euros ($20,000) in financial damages for police failure to provide legal assistance and a translator during questioning following the Nov. 1, 2007 killing of her British roommate. The European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, France, has ruled on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019 that Italy must pay Knox 10,400 euros damages plus 8,000 euros for costs and expenses. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, file)

7.) Amanda Knox, an American at the center of a sensational murder case in Italy, suffered unfair treatment at the hands of Italian police and is entitled to damages, a European human rights court ruled Thursday.

In this undated photo provided by Iranian state television's English-language service, Press TV, American-born news anchor Marzieh Hashemi, right, smiles as she stands with her son in Tehran, Iran. The elder son of Hashemi says his mother is being held in the United States, but has not been charged with anything. Hussein Hashemi says she was detained Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019, as she was leaving St. Louis for Denver. He says she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary in St. Louis after visiting family in New Orleans. (Press TV via AP)

8.) Apparently satisfied with her cooperation, the United States released a prominent Iranian television anchor Wednesday night following a 10-day detention related to an unspecified criminal case.

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