Nightly Brief

Your Monday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including a federal judge killed a lawsuit brought by blue states challenging a cap on tax deductions passed by Republican lawmakers in 2017; Three House committees subpoenaed President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani for documents related to his involvement in the president’s efforts to have the Ukrainian government investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son; California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill to allow college athletes to hire agents and make money from endorsement deals, and more.

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National

1.) Blue states like New York were some of the first to feel the bite of a cap on tax deductions passed by Republican lawmakers in 2017. On Monday a federal judge killed their lawsuit that contested the move as unconstitutionally coercive.

2.) Three House committees on Monday subpoenaed President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, seeking documents related to his involvement in the president’s efforts to have the Ukrainian government investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

3.) Wildfires are burning across the globe with more frequency and intensity, creating ecological and economic damage and claiming the lives of an increasing number of victims. An environmentally benign gel may be the way to tame them.

4.) It wasn’t the first lawsuit over Jimi Hendrix’s old guitars, and it’s unlikely to be the last. A federal judge in Manhattan ruled that twin brothers who played in Hendrix’s band have no ownership or rights to two guitars they say Hendrix gifted them and which they later sold to his family’s company for $30,000 when they needed the cash.

Regional

5.) In a move that could change amateur sports and is sure to draw legal challenges, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday to allow college athletes to hire agents and make money from endorsement deals.

6.) Prosecutors derided fired Dallas cop Amber Guyger’s claims of self-defense as “ridiculous” and “absurd” during closing arguments Monday in her murder trial, arguing she unreasonably shot and killed an unarmed black man in his apartment that she mistook for her own.

International

7.) French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire spent a busy weekend defending the government’s 2020 budget aimed at combating climate change, while some environmental advocates say it doesn’t go far enough.

8.) Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s young conservative leader whose first government was brought down by a video scandal involving his far-right coalition partners, easily won a parliamentary vote on Sunday, and now faces a politically risky decision over whom to choose to form a new government.