Nightly Brief

Top CNS stories for today including the House Intelligence Committee voted to send transcripts from the panel’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to Special Counsel Robert Mueller; On the heels of a similar controversy embroiling the governor’s office, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring admitted that he wore blackface in 1980 in an attempt to imitate a rapper; Venice, a world-famous Italian city strained by mass tourism and a loss of residents, plans to begin charging tourists an entry fee this year and in the future could even ask visitors to book their trips in advance, and more.

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National

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, exits a secure area to speak to reporters as the GOP majority prepares to end its participation in the Russia probe, officially shutting down the panel’s investigation, on Capitol Hill in Washington, on March 22, 2018. Schiff said the Democrats are prematurely ending the investigation and plan to continue the effort. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

1.) The House Intelligence Committee voted Wednesday to send transcripts from the panel’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In this Friday, April 27, 2018 photo, electioneers greet voters outside the Hamilton County Government Center during early voting in Noblesville, Ind. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is facing a backlog of requests for comprehensive cybersecurity reviews of state election systems. Among those still waiting is Indiana, which is one of four states with primaries on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

2.) Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle raised their voices Wednesday over whether a sweeping election reform bill proposed by Democrats would drain or fill the Washington swamp.

This image shows a page of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s 1984 yearbook from Eastern Virginia Medical School. The page shows a picture, at right, of a person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood next to different pictures of the governor. It's unclear who the people in the picture are, but the rest of the page is filled with pictures of Northam and lists his undergraduate alma mater and other information about him.

3.) On the heels of a similar controversy embroiling the governor’s office, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring admitted Wednesday that he wore blackface in 1980 in an attempt to imitate a rapper.

In this July 27, 2018 photo, the Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun in Glenrock, Wyo. The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed a major rollback of Obama-era regulations on coal-fired power plants, striking at one of the former administration’s legacy programs to rein in climate-changing fossil-fuel emissions. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

4.) Earth as we know it will look far different in a generation because of climate change and the future is bleak without bipartisan action by lawmakers to slow greenhouse gas emissions and overhaul the nation’s energy infrastructure, environmental experts told Congress on Wednesday.

5.) The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday rejected a class action seeking to hold National Football League teams liable for conspiring to push painkillers on hurt athletes to get them back on the field, finding the claims time-barred.

FILE- In this Aug. 9, 2018, photo a manager of a financial services store in Ballwin, Mo., counts cash being paid to a client as part of a loan. The nation's federal financial watchdog has announced its plans to roll back most of its consumer protections governing the payday lending industry. It's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's first rollback of regulations under its new Director, Kathy Kraninger, who took over the bureau late last year. (AP Photo/Sid Hastings, File)

6.) The federal financial watchdog on Wednesday proposed overhauling Obama-era consumer protection rules designed to protect payday loan borrowers from ballooning debt and soaring interest rates.

International

Boats in Venice, Italy. (Walt Girdner/CNS)

7.) Venice, a world-famous Italian city strained by mass tourism and a loss of residents, plans to begin charging tourists an entry fee this year and in the future could even ask visitors to book their trips in advance.

8.) Recommending the dismissal of an unusual case between EU member states, a magistrate said Wednesday that Austria cannot support discrimination claims over a new highway tax in Germany.

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