Top Eight

Top eight CNS stories for today including the Senate approved a more than $480 billion package to replenish a federal small business loan program and provide money for hospitals and testing amid the coronavirus pandemic; The Environmental Protection Agency eliminated critical pollution rules that had safeguarded at-risk ecosystems and drinking water; Protesters gathered at the Missouri State Capitol demanding an end to the governor’s stay-at-home order, and more.

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National

1.) After lengthy negotiations between the White House and congressional Democrats, the Senate approved a more than $480 billion package to replenish a federal small business loan program and provide money for hospitals and testing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Dirksen Senate Office Building. (Photo by JACK RODGERS/Courthouse News Service)

2.) Pulling the plug on the eve of Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency eliminated critical pollution rules from the Obama era that had safeguarded at-risk ecosystems and drinking water across the country.

3.) Record-breaking drops in oil futures spurred investors to continue their sell-off Tuesday, while lawmakers are unsure how to react.

Gas USA is selling gas for 97.9 cents a gallon, Monday, March 30, 2020, in Cleveland. Oil started the year above $60 and has plunged on expectations that a weakened economy will burn less fuel. The world is awash in oil, meanwhile, as producers continue to pull more of it out of the ground. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Regional

4.) Making good on recent promises, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature asked the state’s highest court on Tuesday to block an emergency order extending the governor’s safer-at-home order until Memorial Day weekend.

The Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison. (Photo via Vijay Kumar Koulampet/Wikipedia Commons)

5.) Echoing cries from across the country, protesters gathered at the Missouri State Capitol on Tuesday demanding an end to Governor Mike Parson’s stay-at-home order aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

Susan Bushman and Dave Sincovic were among the protesters demonstrating against stay-at-home orders at the Missouri State Capitol on Tuesday, April 21, 2020. (Courthouse News photo/Joe Harris)

6.) A day after crude oil prices entered into negative territory, regulators in Texas expressed concern about facing legal action if they acted too quickly to slow production.

Oil tank train cars sit idle Tuesday, April 21, 2020, in East Chicago, Ind. The world is awash in oil, there's little demand for it and we're running out of places to put it. That in a nutshell explains this week's strange and unprecedented action in the market for crude oil futures contracts, where traders essentially offered to pay someone else to deal with the oil they were due to have delivered next month. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

International

7.) The Netherlands Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a landmark euthanasia ruling in the case of a doctor charged with murder for performing euthanasia on a patient with severe dementia.

An exterior view of the Supreme Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, April 21, 2020. The Netherlands' highest court ruled Tuesday that doctors can carry out euthanasia in patients with advanced dementia if the patient has earlier made a written directive. The Supreme Court ruling solidifies in law a practice that already was being carried out on rare occasions in the Netherlands. (AP Photo/Mike Corder)

8.) President Donald Trump recently has taken to calling the United States the “king of ventilators,” ready to service Covid-19 patients domestically and internationally, but federal records show the royal line of succession runs through Europe.

FILE - In this March 28, 2020, file photo, staff work in a ventilator refurbishing assembly line at Bloom Energy in Sunnyvale, Calif. The COVID-19 outbreak has prompted companies large and small to rethink how they do business. Bloom Energy in San Jose, Calif., makes hydrogen fuel cells. But recently, they have been refurbishing old ventilators so hospitals can use them to keep coronavirus patients alive. (Beth LaBerge/KQED via AP, Pool, File)

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