Top Eight

Top eight CNS stories for today including California health officials announced a limited curfew beginning this weekend for 41 of its 58 counties amid a dangerous spike in Covid-19 cases; President Trump’s reelection campaign voluntarily dismissed its federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Michigan election results; French bird hunters that use a controversial technique to trap wild birds with glue won a legal victory, and more.

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National

1.) Nearly half of the lower 48 states are in some level of drought, according to federal climate scientists who aren’t optimistic about winter rains improving the situation — particularly in the hard-hit American West.

2.) As the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday asked Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving and only celebrate with people they live with.

Volunteers prepare individual Thanksgiving meals for seniors in Hawthorne, N.J., on Nov. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Kathy Young)

3.) Just a day after the American death toll due to Covid-19 climbed to 250,000, senators spent more than two hours Thursday debating the wisdom in deploying an anti-malarial drug in the virus war.

A Senate panel hears from medical experts on the efficacy of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19. (Screenshot via Courthouse News)

Regional

4.) California health officials have announced a limited curfew beginning this weekend for 41 of its 58 counties amid a dangerous spike in Covid-19 cases and ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

5.) President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign voluntarily dismissed its federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Michigan election results Thursday based on the inaccurate claim that officials in Detroit refused to certify the results.

Wayne County Board of Canvassers Chair Monica Palmer, left, talks with Vice Chair Jonathan Kinloch before the board's Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020 meeting in Detroit. Michigan's largest county has unanimously certified election results showing Democrat Joe Biden defeating President Donald Trump, hours after Republicans first blocked formal approval of voters' intentions. (Robin Buckson/Detroit News via AP)

6.) An Ohio philosophy professor punished for his refusal to call a transgender student by her preferred pronouns asked a Sixth Circuit panel Thursday to revive his First Amendment lawsuit against the school and its trustees.

Students walk on the campus of Miami Dade College in Florida on Oct. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

International

7.) French bird hunters that use an old, but controversial, technique to trap wild birds with glue won a legal victory on Thursday when a European magistrate found the practice acceptable on cultural grounds.

A common blackbird in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain. (Photo by Juan Emilio, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Courthouse News)

8.) CBD is not a narcotic, the EU’s high court ruled Thursday, finding a French ban on the hemp plant extract illegal.

Muscle Joint & Relief Cream is displayed at the Cannabis World Congress & Business Exposition trade show, Thursday, May 30, 2019 in New York. The non-prescription cream is marketed by Green Roads of Deerfield Beach, Flor. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

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