Top 8 today

Top eight stories for today including retail sales in Europe fell despite cooling inflation; The EPA was sued for failing to release new national standards that would protect U.S. waterways from harmful vessel discharges; Colorado lawmakers advanced a bill to outlaw gambling on simulcast greyhound races, and more.

National

Neo-Nazi leader, Maryland woman charged with conspiracy to destroy energy facilities

Federal prosecutors announced charges Monday against the leader of a neo-Nazi group from Florida who they say had plotted with his girlfriend to destroy electrical substations in the Baltimore area.

The U.S. government's evidence against Sarah Beth Clendaniel includes this image of her wearing tactical gear that displays a swastika and holding a rifle with a pistol in a drop holster on her left leg. Clendaniel was arrested on Feb. 6, 2022, for plotting to attack parts of the Maryland power grid. (Justice Department via Courthouse News)

EPA slammed over lax standards for ship pollution

Environmentalists claim the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has failed to release new national standards that would protect U.S. waterways from harmful vessel discharges.

FILE- In this March 7, 2018, file photo, a pair of container ships make their way toward the Golden Gate Bridge and out to the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

Regional

High and low roads of access in Virginia attacked in First Amendment litigation

The fit between the 230-year-old Bill of Rights and the electronic age is at issue in an attack by news outlets on Virginia’s segregated system of access to court records, one for patricians with power and another for commoners with none.

Private autopsy shows ‘Cop City’ activist killed by police was shot 13 times

Civil rights attorneys and the family of Manuel “Tortuguita” Esteban Paez Terán, who was shot and killed by task force officers in Atlanta last month while demonstrating against a police training facility, are demanding more transparency from the ongoing investigation into his death.

A woman holds a photo of her slain partner, Manuel “Tortuguita” Esteban Paez Terán, in Atlanta on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/R.J. Rico)

Bill to ban betting on simulcast greyhound races advances in Colorado Legislature

A Colorado bill to outlaw gambling on simulcast greyhound races unanimously passed the House Finance Committee on Monday.

As greyhound racing is resumed, Im Sophie leads round a bend during the 10:21 race at Perry Barr Greyhound Stadium, near Birmingham, England. (PA via AP)

Limits on super PACs stump top Massachusetts court

The Massachusetts Supreme Court seemed flummoxed Monday by a proposed ballot question that would cap contributions to super PACs at $5,000 a year, with one justice calling it “an incredibly complex First Amendment case” and several seemingly looking for an excuse to avoid deciding it.

The John Adams Courthouse in Boston, home of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. (Photo by Swampyank from Wikipedia Commons via Courthouse News Service)

New York protections for rental tenants upheld at 2nd Circuit

Ruling against a coalition of landlords, the Second Circuit affirmed Monday the constitutionality of New York’s newly amended rent-stabilization law.

International

European retail sales drop despite cooling inflation

Fewer consumer purchases of food, drink and tobacco products helped influence a 2.7% monthly decrease in the volume of retail trade in the eurozone last December, according to a report released Monday by Eurostat.

Retail trade volume in the European Union has recovered after a plunge during the Covid-19 pandemic, but slumped again in the face of rising inflation in 2022. (Eurostat via Courthouse News)