nightly brief

Top CNS stories for today including the Supreme Court justices appearing unlikely to overturn precedent that allows a person to face state and federal prosecution over the same criminal conduct; the outcome of North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District race remains shrouded by a cloud of doubt as both parties debate how to investigate absentee ballot inconsistencies in a rural county; a federal judge rules accused Russian spy Maria Butina is entitled to a public defender; burly, bearded wilderness personality Marty Stouffer sues National Geographic alleging it made copycats of his hit show “Wild America”; the Los Angeles Rams will pay up to $24 million to former personal seat license owners in St. Louis and another $7.4 million in attorney’s fees and expenses to settle a class action over the team’s relocation; the Sixth Circuit hears arguments from former and current juvenile inmates housed with adults who say they are exposed to an increased risk of sexual and physical assaults; Luxembourg is planning to become the first nation in the world to make all of its public transportation free, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including the biggest court in the nation, Los Angeles Superior Court, opening a media portal that gives journalists access to new court filings as soon as they are electronically received; an investigation into potential massive voter fraud in North Carolina throws the Election Day results of one of the nation’s last unresolved midterm congressional races into question; the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature passes a package of bills giving more power to lawmakers and weakening the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general; Republican former state Rep. Brad Raffensperger will become Georgia’s next Secretary of State; a new study of microorganisms on a 17th century Italian painting shows that while certain bacteria can destroy works of art, others might help to preserve them; a new study says surface ice melting from Greenland – one of the key drivers of global sea level rise – has shifted into overdrive; Europeans have a new topic to disagree about: wa legally nonbinding United Nations compact urging nations to do more to help and protect immigrants, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including the clash over border-wall funding threatening to end in a holly jolly government shutdown; President Donald Trump’s lawyers say adult film star Stormy Daniels should pay about $778,000 in attorney’s fees and sanctions; attorneys general for the District of Columbia and Maryland plan to file subpoenas demanding financial records tied to the Trump Organization; a year after President Trump signed a proclamation reducing the size of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly a million acres, scientists warn the reduction could have a serious impact on the area’s bee population; investment manager Jeffrey Epstein admits that he pursued a years-long frivolous civil case to stymie an attorney’s quest to hold him accountable for victimizing underage girls; the European Court of Human Rights blasts Hungarian courts for upholding a libel verdict against a news outlet whose only “crime” was linking to a YouTube video inside a news story, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including the Supreme Court ordering the U.S. solicitor general to offer input in two water cases, one involving a pipeline crack that caused an oil spill in South Carolina and the other involving Maui wastewater that drifts into the ocean; conspiracy theorist and conservative author Jerome Corsi files a complaint with the Justice Department alleging Special Counsel Robert Mueller has engaged in misconduct; the D.C. Circuit endorses a ban keeping Russian-made software out of U.S. government offices; Chicago’s school board claims in court that the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revoked $4 million in grant money based on incomplete investigations; the Pew Research Center finds that counting an uptick in the number of Americans who prefer to watch their news online, print remains out of favor while television still reigns supreme; the political crisis hanging over France continues unabated, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including prosecutors revealing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is considering filing new charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort after his plea deal fell apart; a federal judge says he’ll decide Monday whether to grant former FBI Director James Comey’s motion to quash a subpoena from House Republicans; in New York a federal judge rejected the government’s attempts to tie public-safety grants to immigration policy; the Trump administration authorizes the use of seismic air guns to find oil and gas formations deep underneath the Atlantic Ocean; the Arizona Supreme Court rules snow made from reclaimed wastewater for an Arizona ski resort won’t cause the Hopi Tribe any nuisance beyond what the general public would suffer despite the presence of sacred sites nearby; Italy passed a new law that critics say will drive many foreigners underground, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen accepting a plea deal and telling a federal judge the president’s inner circle pursued a Moscow real estate project well into the 2016 campaign season; the Senate pushes back a vote on a nominee to a North Carolina federal court who worked to defend a state voting law that a federal appeals court found targeted African Americans; five states approved ballot initiatives this year which aimed to take redistricting out of the hands of partisan legislators and put it into the hands of nonpartisan committees; the Seventh Circuit says an Illinois law prohibiting retailers from shipping liquor to in-state consumers “smacks of protectionism” and may not be lawful under the constitutional amendment that repealed Prohibition; Pabst Brewing Co. and MillerCoors, two household names in beer, reach a settlement over Pabst’s claims that MillerCoors breached a brewing contract; a new study finds that mother jumping spiders lactate and care for their young into adulthood – behaviors previously associated only with mammals, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including the Senate narrowly advancing the nomination of a lawyer up for a spot on a North Carolina federal court who helped defend a state voter identification law found to unfairly target African American voters; Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith becomes Mississippi’s first woman elected to Congress; the Supreme Court appears eager to make states comply with the constitutional bar against excessive fines; a portion of the Art Deco former headquarters of the Los Angeles Times inches closer to receiving cultural-historic landmark status; 21 inmates sue to block construction of a new, $444 million federal prison in a sensitive region of Appalachia; border agents in Greece, Hungary and Latvia experiment with artificial intelligence system designed to detect if a person is lying, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including environmental lawyers saying a comprehensive climate change report released by 13 federal agencies will provide substantial assistance to plaintiffs in major climate change litigation currently pending in the federal courts; consumer confidence slipped in November as expectations of softening economic growth next year begin to take hold; the Supreme Court deals a blow to a critically endangered species of frog by reviving a lawsuit brought by loggers; accused Russian spy Maria Butina asks a federal judge to move her out of solitary confinement; California Democrats will enter 2019 with the largest Assembly majority in the modern history of the Golden State; a new Gallup poll finds six in 10 Americans disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling his job; the Pew Research Center finds that for most Americans, the secret to happiness and purpose comes from family, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including attorney Alan Dershowitz, a frequent defender of President Donald Trump, saying Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election is likely to be “devastating” to the president; the Supreme Court appears sympathetic to a group of iPhone owners who accuse Apple of monopolizing the market for apps on its ubiquitous smartphones; California’s new delegation will feature a collection of freshmen Democrats who must try to find common ground with the Republican-controlled Senate to produce real change in Congress – particularly since they come from districts that can’t yet be called fully blue; on the 47th anniversary of the mysterious skyjacking done by a man known to the world as D.B. Cooper, investigators and enthusiasts gathed to discuss and debate the true identity of the subject of FBI’s most famous unsolved case; a new survey says the average American family wastes nearly a third of the food they buy; the European General Court rejects a challenge to Brexit by 13 British citizens who live in different member states around the EU, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including a team of engineers developing a first-of-its-kind silent, lightweight plane with no moving parts; President Donald Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts mix it up after Trump criticizes the 9th Circuit and “Obama judges”; Salt Lake City mayor Ben McAdams defeats Republican incumbent Mia Love by a slim margin in a hotly contested race for Utah’s 4th Congressional District; a federal judge strikes down Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of gestation; a new study finds the United Kingdom’s vote to withdrawal from the European Union has caused a spike in antidepressant prescriptions and more.

Top CNS stories for today including Democrats on a powerful House panel saying they plan to look into Ivanka Trump’s use of a personal email account to conduct White House business; a species of rainbow-colored fish and the streams it is found in across Virginia and West Virginia are both getting receive federal wildlife protections; as proposals to protect Southern Resident killer whales from extinction hit the desk of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, but a key member of the group behind the plan says the one action strong enough to give the whales a chance at survival was too politically charged to make the list; Florida’s midterm melee is over; the Ninth Circuit rules Los Angeles residents did not adequately show election districts were redrawn to benefit the LA City Council’s current president; a new study finds the belief that genetically modified foods are harmful to human health has increased over the last two years, and more.

Top CNS stories for today including three Senate Democrats claim in a federal ccourt that President Donald Trump circumvented the rigors of a Senate confirmation fight in the appointment of Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker; the White House fully restores the hard pass of CNN reporter Jim Acosta; a federal judge blocks the Trump administration from enforcing a policy that allegedly treats non-citizens in the military as “second-class recruits”; Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor team up for a dissent after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal over forensic witnesses in criminal trials; a Ninth Circuit panel sends a class action on the constitutionality of withholding bond hearings from immigrants back to the Southern California judge hearing the case; scientists say that 200 million cone-shaped termite mounds in northeastern Brazil can be seen from space, and more.