Top eight today

Your Wednesday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

National

1.) The Fourth Circuit on Wednesday upheld Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof's murder conviction and death sentence, pointing out he confessed to the killings with little sign of remorse.

Regional

2.) A Republican congressman’s district is expected to be eliminated when Illinois legislators vote to redraw the boundaries of the state's legislative and congressional districts next week.

3.) South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg will likely plead guilty to misdemeanor traffic charges in a hit-and-run case resulting in the death of a man who was walking alone along a rural road at night. 

4.) In a case that swayed back and forth through the appeals process, the Eighth Circuit on Wednesday upheld an Arkansas law regulating interdistrict school transfers.

5.) The Sixth Circuit ruled Wednesday that a Michigan city's policy of chalking the tires of parked cars is not covered by the Fourth Amendment's administrative search exception.

6.) An 11th Circuit panel heard arguments Wednesday heard over whether a golf coach’s kidney disease was directly caused by a drug company’s failure to provide physicians instructions on how to safely use a medication.

7.) Rejecting speedy trial and due process claims, a Texas appeals court ruled Wednesday that an ex-nurse convicted last year of killing a second young child in the 1980s was not unfairly charged and convicted.

International

8.) Scientists and the World Health Organization on Wednesday said studies into the origins of the deadly coronavirus pandemic must pick up steam to resolve a mystery that has become poisoned by political rivalry between the United States and China.

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