Nightly Brief

Your Wednesday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including a federal judge warning the lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels that his attacks against the president’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, could interfere in Cohen’s rights to a fair trial; a federal judge blocks Education Secretary Besty DeVos’ plan to force more than 60,000 defrauded students to repay loans some describe as worthless; setting the stage for a two-month trial, a federal judge rules Wednesday that the same law that bars the harassment of women seeking abortion services also applies to practitioners of the Chinese spiritual practice Falun Gong; in the second of a four-part series, Courthouse News finds Florida has been tenacious in its effort to block felons from having their right to cast a ballot restored; new evidence goes a long way to debunking the longstanding theory of when and how people first came to the Americas, and more.

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**National **

1.) A federal judge warned the lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels on Wednesday that his attacks against the president’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, could interfere in Cohen’s rights to a fair trial.

2.) A federal judge has blocked Education Secretary Besty DeVos’ plan to force more than 60,000 defrauded students to repay loans for education programs that some borrowers describe as “worthless.”

3.) With two weeks to go before its membership conference, the American Civil Liberties Union pushed a federal judge to get its advertising campaign going on Washington-area public transit.

4.) Setting the stage for a two-month trial, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that the same law that bars the harassment of women seeking abortion services also applies to practitioners of the Chinese spiritual practice Falun Gong.

5.) On Tuesday the Department of Interior and the National Park Service awarded more than $60 million in historic preservation grants to states and tribes. Since 1977, Congress has allocated money raised from oil and natural gas leasing contracts to fund to fund the grant program and preserve cultural heritage that might otherwise be lost.

**Regional **

6.) In the second of a four-part series, Courthouse News finds Florida has been tenacious in its effort to block felons from having their right to cast a ballot restored.

8.) After 24 years since Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s suicide, his wife Courtney Love is accused of ordering the kidnapping and attempted murder of her former son-in-law in an effort to reclaim Cobain’s most famous guitar, according to a recent lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

**Science **

9.) New evidence goes a long way to debunking the longstanding theory of when and how people first came to the Americas.

10.) A bipolar frenemy that protects you from skin cancer but damages your lungs and makes you sluggish when exercising outside on hot summer days, ozone is oxygen’s enigmatic cousin.