Top eight today

Top eight stories for today including a federal judge dealt a major blow to Apple’s business model; New research shows unvaccinated Americans are 11 times more likely to die of Covid-19; The Sixth Circuit upheld an injunction against a Tennessee law banning abortions as early as six weeks, and more.

Your Friday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

National

1.) In a major blow to Apple’s business model, a federal judge ruled Friday that the technology giant can no longer stop app developers from telling users how to sidestep its App Store and pay developers directly for subscriptions and other services.

An Apple store employee wearing a face shield. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

2.) A trio of studies released Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer new insights into the benefits of being fully vaccinated against Covid-19, a timely update as schools open across the country and infections in children reach new heights.

U.S. Army Capt. Corrine Brown, a critical care nurse, administers an anti-viral medication to a Covid-19 patient at Kootenai Health regional medical center in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, on Sept. 6, 2021. (Michael H. Lehman/DVIDS U.S. Navy/via AP)

3.) The pipe and drum bands of emergency services that responded to the plane crashes at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, have held weekly tribute at the national memorial since 2014.

Brian Ahern, pipe major of the Port Authority police band, plays a tribute to the victims of 9/11 at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City on Sept. 1, 2021. (Daniel Jackson/Courthouse News)

4.) Weeks ahead of an October criminal trial in New York federal court for some of the former partners with whom he was charged, a second businessman linked to Rudy Giuliani pleaded guilty Friday to a campaign finance crimes.

Lev Parnas first met Mübariz Mansimov in Kyiv on December 5, 2016, at Buddha-Bar, a Kyiv nightclub co-owned by his business partner Igor Fruman. From left: Fruman, Mansimov, Turkish businessman Fikret Orman, and Parnas. (Image courtesy of Lev Parnas via Courthouse News)

Regional

5.) The Sixth Circuit on Friday upheld a federal judge's decision to block a Tennessee law banning abortions as early as six weeks.

6.) Abortion rights advocates in the Lone Star State watched this year as a West Texas city criminalized the procedure — and now a more extreme version of that law has gone into effect statewide.

Anti-abortion demonstrators gather in the rotunda of the Texas State Capitol in Austin on March 30, 2021, as state senators debate abortion bills. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP, File)

7.) With a warrant in hand to conduct a raid on a Maryland judge suspected of secretly recording minor boys in his shower, FBI agents found the man dead in his Henderson home Friday from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot.

Jonathan Newell was an administrative judge at the Caroline County Circuit Court, in Maryland's 2nd Judicial Circuit, since August 2, 2016. (Photo courtesy of Maryland Courts via Courthouse News)

8.) One of two Wisconsin teenagers who attempted to murder their friend in 2014 while under the sway of a fictional online boogeyman will be released from a mental health facility on Monday.

Anissa Weier listens at her release hearing in Waukesha, Wis., on Friday. (Screenshot from FOX6 Milwaukee video)

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