Your Monday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News
Top eight stories for today including California lawmakers hope to fight climate change and increase recreation opportunities for disadvantaged communities by preserving large swaths of land; The EPA announced the nation’s first-ever limits on a super-pollutant; The World Health Organization called on rich nations to fund a global Covid-19 vaccination campaign, and more.
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National
1.) The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced the nation’s first-ever limits on a super-pollutant that is thousands of times more potent at heating up the planet as compared with carbon dioxide.
2.) Justice Clarence Thomas balked Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider whether the prestigious military academy West Point negligently handled a cadet’s rape claim.
Regional
3.) Looking to create a flood of new outdoor recreation opportunities in California’s majestic redwood forests and foothills, the state’s new U.S. Senator Alex Padilla on Monday unveiled plans to protect over 1 million acres of undeveloped federal land.
4.) At a Monday hearing in a federal courtroom in Montgomery, a three-judge panel seemed reluctant to wade into the rollout of the census data states will eventually use to redraw their political boundaries, questioning whether Alabama even has standing to bring the case.
5.) The en banc Fourth Circuit seemed unlikely Monday to side with a disgraced former member of the West Virginia Supreme Court who claims a juror’s use of Twitter impacted his 2018 trial on fraud charges.
6.) In a test case for how much control local governments can have over the burgeoning marijuana industry, the Massachusetts high court struggled Monday to figure out if cities and towns can require some dispensaries to operate as nonprofits.
7.) Over a year into a deadly pandemic that made New York City an early hotspot, a group of landlords made to hold off rent collection indefinitely urged the Second Circuit on Monday to revive their case.
International
8.) The World Health Organization on Monday issued a new plea calling on rich nations to fund a two-year, $60 billion global vaccination campaign to put an end to the coronavirus pandemic.
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