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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Top Eight

Top eight CNS stories for today including California’s pandemic-induced recession could lead to a record $54 billion budget shortfall; The 22.6 million Americans receiving unemployment insurance benefits represents 15.5% of the country’s workforce; The Oklahoma Senate voted along party lines to reinstate a requirement that absentee ballots must be notarized, and more.

Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top eight CNS stories for today including California’s pandemic-induced recession could lead to a record $54 billion budget shortfall; The 22.6 million Americans receiving unemployment insurance benefits represents 15.5% of the country’s workforce; The Oklahoma Senate voted along party lines to reinstate a requirement that absentee ballots must be notarized, and more.

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National

1.) The worst projections of the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 have been realized, according to the Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment report. The 22.6 million Americans receiving unemployment insurance benefits represents 15.5% of the country’s workforce. 

Colfax Avenue is the main street that bisects the metropolitan area in Denver, Colorado. Today many of the business that line the street are closed, part of a tapestry of millions of layoffs around the country. (Photo by AMANDA PAMPURO/Courthouse News Service)

2.) The steady drop-off in new unemployment claims likely does not paint an accurate picture of just how many people are jobless.

A woman wearing a mask walks with her groceries past a closed Lakeshore Cinema theatre, Wednesday, May 6, 2020, in Euclid, Ohio. With the economy paralyzed by business closures, the unemployment rate likely jumped to at least 16% — from just 4.4% in March — and employers cut a stunning 21 million or more jobs just in April, economists have forecast. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

3.) Companies that wrongfully took loans intended for small businesses ravaged by Covid-19 shutdowns have an extra week to return them, but banks likely are off the hook for any penalties.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., left, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Md., right, holds up the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act after Pelosi signed it on Capitol Hill, Friday, March 27, 2020, in Washington. The $2.2 trillion package will head to head to President Donald Trump for his signature. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Regional

4.) With millions already jobless, California’s pandemic-induced recession is on pace to shatter previous downturns and could lead to a record $54 billion budget shortfall, state officials warned Thursday.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference at the Governor's Office of Emergency Services in Rancho Cordova, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli,File)

5.) Only three days after it was struck down by the state’s high court, the Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate voted along party lines Thursday to reinstate a requirement that absentee ballots must be notarized.

In this May 21, 2018, photo, a roll of stickers awaiting distribution to early voters sits on a table. (AP Photo/Kelly P. Kissel)

6.) While New York and New Jersey continue to battle Covid-19 as the states worst hit by the deadly outbreak, they appeared to gain ground at the D.C. Circuit on Thursday in a fight to regulate smog carried downwind from neighboring states. 

International

7.) Albania’s system of compensating for its former communist regime’s land seizures won support Thursday from Europe’s top rights court, despite claims from the public that it’s inadequate.

An unidentified woman sits by a graves she attends a ceremony on the annual day to honor the missing, in the Grieving Valley where 19 years ago 376 Albanian civilians were killed by the Serb army, in the village cemetery of Meja, near Gjakova, Kosovo, Friday, April 27, 2018. There are still about 1,650 people unaccounted for since the 1998-99 war that left some 10,000 dead and ended after NATO intervened on behalf of the region's Albanian majority. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)

8.) The family members of more than 1,000 people killed in a 2006 Egyptian ferry disaster can sue for damages in Italy, where the vessel was certified as safe, Europe’s highest court ruled Thursday.  

The Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 in Genoa, Italy, in 2001. (Photo via Carlo Martinelli/Wikipedia Commons)
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