Top Eight

Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top eight CNS stories for today including a conservative group asked a Wisconsin judge to find the state’s elections board in contempt for refusing to remove thousands of people from voter rolls; Senator Bernie Sanders ended the final quarter of the decade by reporting $34.5 million in campaign contributions; Austria’s young conservative leader is joining forces with the left-wing Greens only months after his first government coalition with a far-right party fell apart, and more.

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National

1.) Touting a reputed small-donor record, Senator Bernie Sanders ended the final quarter of the decade by reporting $34.5 million in campaign contributions, comfortably leading Democratic pack in fundraising a month ahead of primary votes.

2.) Former U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro officially dropped out of the presidential race Thursday, ending a year-long progressive campaign that struggled to break through to voters.

3.) Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren kicked off 2020 by releasing a plan she said would protect the rights and equality of the 61 million Americans who live with disabilities.

4.) A judge in San Diego vindicated 22 Jane Does by awarding them nearly $13 million in damages over the rights to videos they’d sought from adult film purveyor GirlsDoPorn following a months-long civil fraud trial which garnered international attention.

5.) White evangelical Protestant voters distinguish themselves from other religious and nonreligious groups by approving of abortion restrictions and disapproving of workplace protections for LGBTQ people, according to a poll released Thursday.

Regional

6.) A conservative group asked a Wisconsin judge Thursday to find the state’s elections board in contempt for refusing to update voter rolls and remove thousands of people who may have moved in the critical battleground state.

7.) “Affluenza” killer Ethan Couch is back in a Texas jail Thursday on claims of a failed drug test, two years after he was released for fleeing to Mexico with his mother from an earlier parole violation.

International

8.) Austrian political leader Sebastian Kurz, one of Europe’s youngest and most closely-watched conservatives, is seeking a new political formula for staying in power: He’s joining forces with the left-wing Greens only months after his first government coalition with a far-right party fell apart.

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