Nightly Brief

Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen accepting a plea deal and telling a federal judge the president’s inner circle pursued a Moscow real estate project well into the 2016 campaign season; the Senate pushes back a vote on a nominee to a North Carolina federal court who worked to defend a state voting law that a federal appeals court found targeted African Americans; five states approved ballot initiatives this year which aimed to take redistricting out of the hands of partisan legislators and put it into the hands of nonpartisan committees; the Seventh Circuit says an Illinois law prohibiting retailers from shipping liquor to in-state consumers “smacks of protectionism” and may not be lawful under the constitutional amendment that repealed Prohibition; Pabst Brewing Co. and MillerCoors, two household names in beer, reach a settlement over Pabst’s claims that MillerCoors breached a brewing contract; a new study finds that mother jumping spiders lactate and care for their young into adulthood – behaviors previously associated only with mammals, and more.

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National

1.) Pleading guilty to a new charge of having lied to Congress, ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told a federal judge Thursday morning that the president’s inner circle pursued a Moscow real estate project well into the 2016 campaign season.

2.) The Senate on Thursday pushed back a vote on a nominee to a North Carolina federal court who worked to defend a state voting law that a federal appeals court found targeted African Americans with “almost surgical precision.”

3.) Five states had ballot initiatives this year which aimed to take redistricting out of the hands of partisan legislators and put it into the hands of nonpartisan committees. And in all five states, the initiatives won.

4.) Unseating a Trump-supporting congresswoman, a grueling focus on absentee ballots led Democrat Anthony Brindisi to declare victory Wednesday in a Republican-majority district of upstate New York.

5.) The 2018 midterms saw record spending by candidates of both parties, but it also broke records for a new kind of campaign funding scheme: gaming campaign finance reporting data to delay the release of donors until after the race ends.

Regional

6.) A judge’s stark warning that natural wonders have no right to exist under federal law unsettled a group of conservationists fighting a proposed highway project through a majestic grove of ancient redwood trees in Northern California.

7.) The cost to prevent Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes has nearly tripled to $778 million since last year, according to the final plan from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

8.) The Third Circuit appeared critical Wednesday that a Kinder Morgan subsidiary should rely on federal law to pay less than fair-market value for land it seized via eminent domain to build an interstate pipeline.

9.) In a victory for out-of-state alcohol sellers, the Seventh Circuit said Wednesday an Illinois law prohibiting those retailers from shipping liquor to in-state consumers “smacks of protectionism” and may not be lawful under the constitutional amendment that repealed Prohibition.

Science

11.) Mother jumping spiders lactate and care for their young into adulthood – behaviors previously associated only with mammals and long-lived vertebrates like whales and elephants, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

International

12.) An EU magistrate was critical of Belgium on Wednesday for not conducting an environmental study before it waylaid its commitment to going nuclear-energy free.

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