Nightly Brief

Top CNS stories for today including the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the nominations of 44 of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, resuming the efforts of the Republican-controlled Senate to stock the federal judiciary with Trump selections; William Barr got a step closer to confirmation as U.S. attorney general morning with a 12-10 endorsement from the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines; A federal judge ordered prosecutors to release redacted copies of the search warrants justifying the raids on President Trump’s prison-bound former attorney Michael Cohen, and more.

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National

1.) The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced the nominations of 44 of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, resuming the efforts of the Republican-controlled Senate to stock the federal judiciary with Trump selections.

Attorney General William Barr, then a nominee, speaks to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 15. (AP file photo/Carolyn Kaster)

2.) William Barr got a step closer to confirmation as U.S. attorney general on Thursday morning with a 12-10 endorsement from the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines.

FILE - In this Monday, June 18, 2018 file photo, Akemi Vargas, 8, cries as she talks about being separated from her father during an immigration family separation protest in front of the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. District Court building in Phoenix. Child welfare agencies across America make wrenching decisions every day to separate children from their parents. But those agencies have ways of minimizing the trauma that aren't being employed by the Trump administration at the Mexican border. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

3.) Had they known that the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy would involve separating families, a high-ranking government official told lawmakers Thursday that neither he, nor anyone he knew at other federal agencies, would have endorsed it.

Michael Cohen arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 19, 2017. A secret recording between Donald Trump and Cohen discussing payments to a Playboy model has brought renewed attention to the question of whether the candidate and his lawyer sought to stymie politically damaging stories from women ahead of the 2016 presidential election. But it’s not clear that the brief recording, on its own, creates additional legal problems for either man. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

4.) Siding with major news outlets, a federal judge ordered prosecutors on Thursday to release redacted copies of the search warrants justifying the raids on President Donald Trump’s prison-bound former attorney Michael Cohen.

International

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street, in London, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, travelling to join an EU meeting in Brussels. Theresa May plans to meet with European leaders in Brussels on Thursday seeking changes to the so called Irish backstop, before Britain leaves the EU on upcoming March 29. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

5.) With 50 days to go, the deadline for Great Britain’s departure from the European Union is fast approaching and the atmosphere hanging over the fraught negotiations over its withdrawal threatens to become toxic.

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks on his cellphone at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 29, 2011. Saud Al-Mojeb, Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor, is recommending the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. Al-Mojeb told a press conference in Riyadh Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, that Khashoggi’s killers had been planning the operation since September 29, three days before he was killed inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

6.) Returning from her fact-finding mission to Turkey, a U.N. investigator concluded Thursday that Saudi officials likely perpetrated the “brutal and premeditated killing” of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Located on Inns Quay in Dublin, Ireland's main courts building, the Four Courts, is home to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court and the Dublin Circuit Court.

7.) Chiding Ireland for withholding three years of family benefits from an unemployed Romanian immigrant, Europe’s highest court ruled Thursday that the law makes no demand on employment status to award such aid.

Science

8.) Researchers are hopeful they can lessen the spread of mosquito-borne diseases after identifying drugs that reduce the insect’s hunger for blood, according to a study released Thursday in the journal Cell.

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