Top Eight
Your Friday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News
Top eight stories for today including another billion-dollar California public works project is causing more problems than solutions; President Joe Biden told European leaders America is ready to work with Europe and other liberal democracies to fight against what he calls the autocratic threat of China and Russia; A federal judge blocked South Carolina’s ban on nearly all abortions, and more.
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National
1.) By invoking the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, the federal complaint against former President Donald Trump and his associates over the Capitol insurrection implicates far more reaching consequences than civil damages.

2.) No one has been appointed to a board that is supposed to facilitate the federal government’s release of records about civil rights-era cold cases. The students who helped write the law establishing the board hope a new administration will change that.

3.) Adding a second defeat this week to the pile of recent courtroom losses for Devin Nunes, a New York judge on Friday threw out the Republican congressman’s 2019 defamation suit against CNN.

Regional
4.) In the land of botched bullet trains, scrapped underwater tunnels and failed court docketing systems, another billion-dollar California public works project is causing more problems than solutions.
5.) Still sparring with lawmakers and unions over school reopening plans, California Governor Gavin Newsom said Friday the state will nonetheless start reserving 10% of future Covid-19 vaccines for teachers and child care workers.

6.) A day after South Carolina banned nearly all abortions, a federal judge on Friday suspended the new law for 14 days.

International
7.) In his first speech to European allies, President Joe Biden on Friday tried to dispel the cloud of uncertainty that descended during the Trump administration over the NATO and transatlantic alliances.

8.) Judges in The Hague heard an appeal Friday over the Netherlands’ nationwide curfew after a lower court struck down the coronavirus restriction just days before.
