Your Wednesday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News
Top CNS stories for today including the intelligence community told Congress that the world will face many ethical climate quandaries in coming years; Government scientists will no longer conduct medical research using human fetal tissue under a policy shift announced by the Trump administration; An updated set of European Union rules encourage the burning of wood in power plants and claim it’s “carbon neutral” under the assumption that trees grow back, and more.
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National
1.) Injecting the stratosphere with chemicals so that humans can alter the effects of climate change sounds like a scheme from a disaster flick. But as the Earth warms and endures the effects of rising seas, temperatures and storms, the intelligence community told Congress Wednesday that scenario is just one of many ethical climate quandaries the world will face in coming years.
2.) Government scientists will no longer conduct medical research using human fetal tissue, following a policy shift announced Wednesday by the Trump administration.
3.) Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations early Wednesday morning, Washington Governor Jay Inslee brought a message more rousing than the coffee: The Earth is rapidly becoming uninhabitable, and only a concerted national effort to prioritize averting climate catastrophe can save it.
4.) Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke released a comprehensive new voting rights plan Wednesday that aims to increase voter turnout, secure U.S. elections from foreign interference and crack down on voter suppression laws.
Regional
5.) Three politically active sisters, one a former Pennsylvania senator and another a former state Supreme Court justice, challenged their corruption convictions Wednesday at the Third Circuit.
6.) Former Parkland, Florida, school deputy Scot Peterson’s attorney says state officials were engaged in a “veiled attempt at politically motivated retribution” when they slapped Peterson with child-neglect charges for not confronting an assault rifle-wielding teenager during his attack on a local high school.
International
7.) It’s the rave in Europe: Instead of burning coal and fossil fuels to generate heat and electricity, wood chips and pellets are being fed into Europe’s boilers. In what critics consider a dangerous sleight-of-hand and act of political greenwashing, an updated set of European Union rules encourage the burning of wood in power plants and claim it’s “carbon neutral” — meaning it won’t add to the planet’s warming — under the assumption that trees grow back.
8.) A U.K. judge who says she faced retaliation after blowing the whistle on toxic management styles pushed the country’s Supreme Court on Wednesday to rule that judges qualify as workers.
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