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Top Eight

Top eight stories for today including the World Health Organization urged richer nations to not worsen the pandemic by hoarding and fighting over vaccines; Johnson & Johnson announced that a single shot of its Janssen vaccine is effective enough to go to market; A Virginia judge is weighing whether actress Amber Heard can rely on a law aimed at deterring speech-chilling litigation to fend off defamation claims brought by her ex-husband Johnny Depp, and more.

Your Friday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top eight stories for today including the World Health Organization urged richer nations to not worsen the pandemic by hoarding and fighting over vaccines; Johnson & Johnson announced that a single shot of its Janssen vaccine is effective enough to go to market; A Virginia judge is weighing whether actress Amber Heard can rely on a law aimed at deterring speech-chilling litigation to fend off defamation claims brought by her ex-husband Johnny Depp, and more.

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National

1.) Soon to be another weapon in the arsenal against the Covid-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson announced Friday that a single shot of its Janssen vaccine is effective enough to go to market.

This Sept. 2020, photo provided by Johnson & Johnson shows a clinician preparing to administer the investigational Janssen Covid-19 vaccine. (Johnson & Johnson via AP)

2.) Waves from the huge splash caused by retail investors’ run on GameStop shares continued throughout Wall Street on Friday, causing analysts to split on how long the phenomenon will last.

Pedestrians pass a GameStop store on 14th Street at Union Square, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021, in the Manhattan borough of New York. Robinhood and other online trading platforms are moving to restrict trading in GameStop and other stocks that have soared recently due to rabid buying by smaller investors. GameStop stock has rocketed from below $20 to more than $400 this month as a volunteer army of investors on social media challenged big institutions who has placed market bets that the stock would fall. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

3.) The D.C. Circuit agreed with conservationists Friday that the Clean Air Act contained several illegal loopholes that let states manipulate clean air requirements. 

Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner train rumbles over a trestle at Gaviota State Park, California, around sunset in September 2020. The line departs from the Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego, zips through Anaheim and Hollywood before heading west to the Santa Barbara Coastline and then north, where it becomes the Coast Starlight at San Luis Obispo, home to California Polytechnic State University. Visitors are treated to views of bustling downtowns, rolling hills and beautiful coastline with sandy beaches. (Courthouse News photo / Chris Marshall)

Regional

4.) A Virginia judge is weighing whether actress Amber Heard can rely on a law aimed at deterring speech-chilling litigation to fend off defamation claims brought by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. 

Actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard arrive for the London premiere of their film “The Rum Diary” in November 2011. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)

5.) Environmentalists urged the Third Circuit on Friday to expand the reporting duties owed by U.S. Steel after harmful emissions lingered in a Pennsylvania town for three months following a plant fire.

Mon Valley Works is an integrated steelmaking operation under the U.S. Steel umbrella that includes the Clairton Plant, Edgar Thomson Plant, Irvin Plant and Fairless Plant. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Steel)

6.) The state of Kentucky argued on Friday before an appeals court panel that an advertisement for an adult bookstore on the side of a tractor-trailer violates state law and must be removed.

International

7.) One year after it declared the novel coronavirus an international health emergency, the World Health Organization on Friday urged richer nations to not worsen the pandemic by hoarding and fighting over vaccines.

An employee of the Municipal Health Service GGD administers a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a health care worker at a coronavirus vaccination facility in Houten, central Netherlands, Friday, Jan. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

8.) Oil giant Shell is liable for oil leakages in the Niger Delta and must compensate farmers whose livelihoods have been destroyed by pollution, a Dutch appeals court ruled on Friday. 

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