Top eight

Your Thursday night briefing from the staff of Courthouse News

National

1.) Ahead of arguments this fall on the state's ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Mississippi submitted a brief to the Supreme Court late Thursday that says even if a fetus is not viable, meaning it is not developed enough to survive outside the womb, lawmakers have the power to ban its abortion.

2.) President Joe Biden on Thursday condemned the mass detention of antigovernment protesters in Cuba, slapping sanctions on an agency and an official deemed responsible for suppressing the demonstrations.

Regional

3.) A Seattle-area church won an appeal at the Ninth Circuit that will allow it to litigate its claims that a Washington state law that requires employers to provide insurance coverage for abortion procedures is unconstitutional.

4.) In a new effort to challenge a Florida law requiring felons to pay fines, fees and restitution before they can regain their right to vote, an attorney for two Sunshine State felons told an 11th Circuit panel Thursday that the law violates the 19th Amendment by placing an undue burden on low-income Black women.

5.) FirstEnergy Corp., accused of conspiring with Ohio Republican lawmaker Larry Householder to pass a $1 billion bailout of two failing nuclear power plants, agreed Thursday to pay a $230 million fine in exchange for delayed prosecution on federal wire fraud charges.

International

6.) Ukraine committed human rights violations when it fired all of its Supreme Court judges during judicial reforms following the so-called Euromaidan protests, Europe’s top rights court held Thursday. 

7.) Georgian authorities were wrong to fine a condom company for putting religious and historical jokes on its packaging, according to Europe’s top rights court. 

8.) Under attack for allegedly targeting journalists with Israeli spyware and on the eve of a gay pride march in Budapest, far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is escalating his fight with European Union leaders by announcing his country will hold a referendum on whether minors should be shielded from seeing gay content.