Nightly Brief

Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

Top CNS stories for today including President Donald Trump pardoning conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud; the largest federal employee union claiming in court that President Trump is unlawfully restricting the amount of time government workers can devote to union activity; a federal judge upholds a U.S. government ban on the use of Kaspersky Lab cybersecurity products in government networks; in the third installment of a four-part series on the effort to overturn a 150-year old law in Florida that strips felons of their voting rights for life, a proposal to dramatically change the law goes before voters in November; the Ninth Circuit panel rules a relative of an Egyptian composer lacked legal standing to bring a copyright infringement claim against rapper and business mogul Jay-Z; the European General Court rules EU parliament officials were wrong to fine a far-right member for saying within the span of a year that migrants were “human garbage” and that that men are intellectually superior to women, and more.

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**National **

1.) President Donald Trump on Thursday pardoned conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud.

2.) The largest federal employee union claims in court that President Donald Trump is unlawfully restricting the amount of time government workers can devote to union activity.

3.) A federal judge has upheld a U.S. government ban on the use of Kaspersky Lab cybersecurity products in government networks,  dismissing two lawsuits the Moscow-based antivirus company brought challenging the constitutionality of the ban.

4.) The Secret Service overpaid by $3.9 million for seats on the charter flights of four presidential candidates during the 2016 campaign, according to a report a government watchdog released Thursday.

**Regional **

5.) In the third installment of a four-part series on the effort to overturn a 150-year old law in Florida that strips felons of their voting rights for life, a proposal to dramatically change the law goes before voters in November.

6.) A Latino civil rights organization and an Iowa State University student filed a lawsuit calling the state’s new voter ID law unconstitutional and particularly burdensome for minority, disabled and elderly voters.

7.) A Ninth Circuit panel ruled Thursday the relative of an Egyptian composer lacked legal standing to bring a copyright infringement claim against rapper and business mogul Jay-Z, affirming a federal judge’s ruling that composers’ “moral rights” protecting their works are not transferable to their heirs.

8.) After losing an initial challenge in February to the Interior Department’s decision to set aside land for a tribal casino, a nonprofit scored a rare court victory that will allow it to assess whether the government wrongly withheld documents from the court record.

**Science **

9.) New images of Pluto’s surface reveal dunes that scientists say are likely to have been formed of methane ice grains released into its low-pressure atmosphere.

**Research & Polls **

10.) More teens say they use social media like YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram “almost constantly,” according to a new Pew Research Center survey released Thursday.

**International **

11.) Parliament officials were wrong to fine a far-right member, the European General Court ruled Thursday, for saying within the span of a year that migrants were “human garbage” and that that men are intellectually superior to women.

12.) Romania and Lithuania must pay more than $100,000 to two men who were tortured at CIA black sites that the countries hosted, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday.

13.) A Catholic hospital in Germany failed to persuade an EU magistrate Thursday that it was justified in firing a doctor because of his divorce.