Your Monday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News
Top eight CNS stories for today including California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a plan to further loosen restrictions and predicted professional sports would soon begin playing without fans; Three Wisconsin voters and two advocacy groups brought a federal lawsuit seeking proactive changes to election procedures; The Treasury Department has not doled out any of the money set aside to help airlines and certain other industries ride out the coronavirus pandemic, and more.
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National
1.) In a remarkable turnaround for Wall Street, investors rallied Monday around news of a potentially successful vaccine for Covid-19.
2.) Despite its status as the fastest-growing sector in the U.S., the solar energy industry has been thrown onto its heels by the coronavirus, with 65,000 workers losing their jobs since late February, according to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association.
3.) A congressional panel overseeing a $500 billion economic relief fund said Monday the Treasury Department has not doled out any of the money set aside to help airlines and certain other industries ride out the coronavirus pandemic.
4.) Though it is unproven as a preventative measure against Covid-19 and authorities have warned against using it outside of a clinical setting for fear of heart arrhythmia or even death, President Donald Trump said Monday he has been taking the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine for weeks.
Regional
5.) California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a plan Monday to further loosen restrictions, particularly for counties and regions that were spared large outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, and predicted professional sports would begin playing without fans in roughly two weeks.
6.) Three disenfranchised Wisconsin voters and two local advocacy groups brought a federal lawsuit against the state elections commission Monday, seeking proactive changes to election procedures for the state’s remaining 2020 elections to ensure people can safely and effectively vote during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
7.) Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s emergency closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic were briefly up in the air Monday when a county judge pronounced them unconstitutional. But Brown vowed to appeal “within hours,” keeping her orders intact.
International
8.) In an escalating fight with China, the United States on Monday attacked the World Health Organization for what it called failures that “cost a lot of lives,” an accusation that cast a shadow over a global health assembly seeking to bring countries together as the world tackles the coronavirus pandemic.
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