Nightly Brief

Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including a federal grand jury returned 17 additional charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for his alleged complicity in former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning’s leak of classified U.S. military documents; A lawyer for the House of Representatives argued before a federal judge that President Donald Trump’s reallocation of money in the defense budget for a wall at the Southern border violated congressional authority; Voting began in elections that will determine the makeup of the European Parliament, and more.

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National

1.) A federal grand jury returned 17 additional charges Thursday against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for his alleged complicity in former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning’s leak of classified U.S. military documents.

2.) A federal indictment unsealed Thursday against Federal Savings Bank founder and CEO Stephen Calk says the ex-economic adviser to the Trump campaign tried to bribe his way into a senior position in the administration.

3.) Urging a federal judge to freeze funds earmarked for a wall at the Southern border, a lawyer for the House of Representatives argued Thursday that the president’s reallocation of money in the defense budget violated congressional authority.

4.) Despite the party’s current 2020 frontrunner being 76 years old, a survey released Thursday found that nearly half of Democratic voters say they would prefer a candidate in their 50s and age is more important to them than sex or race.

International

5.) At a moment of public dissatisfaction with the European Union and rejection of its pro-business and pan-European policies, Europeans began voting Thursday in elections that will determine the makeup of the European Parliament and, by extension, who will lead the EU’s powerful institutions, chief among them the executive branch.

6.) Nigel Farage, the controversial far-right politician known as Mr. Brexit for having led the campaign to leave the European Union, is on track for another stunning election victory as his newly formed Brexit Party appears set to win European elections that the United Kingdom was not supposed to participate in.

Science

7.) Survival will favor small birds and mammals who can live on insects and thrive in a wide range of changing habitats even as larger animals die off over the next hundred years, according to a team of researchers who predict future extinctions will not be random.

8.) Why don’t big fish pick on someone their own size? Because little larvae are tasty and abundant. Research published in Science on Thursday highlights the enormous role tiny cryptobenthic fish and their larvae play in sustaining the coral reef food web.

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