Top Eight

Top eight stories for today including California fired back on the Trump administration’s eleventh-hour attempt to gut the Endangered Species Act before the president leaves office; A slew of nominees to critical positions in Joe Biden’s Cabinet came before Congress; Kansas asked a 10th Circuit panel to preserve a law specifically targeting individuals who lie to gain access to animal processing plants for undercover investigations, and more.

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National

1.) A dozen states and a coalition of environmental groups brought federal lawsuits Tuesday to halt the Trump administration’s parting shot at environmental protections for a thousand species of migratory birds.

FILE - This June 5, 2009, file photo shows a Redtail hawk feeding a snake to one of her young ones nested at the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City, Colo. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 is a vital tool for protecting more than 1,000 species of birds including hawks and other birds of prey. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)

2.) The soon-to-be 46th president of the United States is getting his administration off the ground Tuesday as a slew of nominees to critical positions come before Congress.

Former Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., greet each other before the confirmation hearing for President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for national intelligence director Avril Haines before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021, in Washington. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)

3.) On the last full day of his presidency, Donald Trump’s yearslong effort to shut down Obama-era clean air protections targeting power plants went up in smoke in the D.C. Circuit.

The Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun in Glenrock, Wyo., in 2018. (J. David Ake/AP)

Regional

4.) California fired back on the Trump administration’s eleventh-hour attempt to gut the Endangered Species Act before the president leaves office Wednesday.

FILE - This Sept. 27, 2011, file photo shows a gopher frog at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018 that a Louisiana-based federal appeals court must take another look at a federal agency’s designation of a tract of Louisiana timberland as “critical habitat” for gopher frogs, endangered frogs currently found only in Mississippi. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

5.) The state of Kansas asked a 10th Circuit panel on Tuesday to preserve a law specifically targeting individuals who lie to gain access to animal processing plants for undercover investigations.

FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2007, file photo, chickens appear at a chicken house near Livingston, Calif. If approved by voters in November, Proposition 12 would set size requirements on the coops and cages used to contain breeding pigs, veal calves and egg-laying hens. It would also require all egg-laying hens to be raised in cage-free conditions by 2022. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

International

6.) On its way out the door, the Trump administration on Tuesday accused the Chinese government of committing genocide, strongly denouncing its treatment of the Uighur people and other minorities.

FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 3, 2018, file photo, people line up at the Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center at the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region. The Associated Press has found that the Chinese government is carrying out a birth control program aimed at Uighurs, Kazakhs and other largely Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, even as some of the country's Han majority is encouraged to have more children. The measures include detention in prisons and camps, such as this facility in Artux, as punishment for having too many children. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

7.) A man convicted of fraud in the Netherlands should be given a new trial, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday, flagging the Dutch court’s bar against witness cross-examination.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. (Photo by CherryX from Wikipedia Commons via Courthouse News)

8.) The European Court of Human Rights told Russia on Tuesday that it’s inhuman and degrading to put prisoners in handcuffs when they are let out of their cells in maximum-security prisons.

The Shcherbinsky District Court is part of the Moscow City Court system. (Photo courtesy of the Moscow government via Courthouse News)

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