Headline

Biden Nominates First Black Woman On US Supreme Court

Published

4 years ago

February 25, 2022

President Joe Biden picked Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday to be the first Black woman in US history to serve on the nation’s highest court.

“I’m proud to announce that I am nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the Supreme Court,” Biden said. “She is one of our nation’s brightest legal minds and will be an exceptional Justice.”

The president will officially unveil his decision later Friday at an appearance with Jackson, the White House said.

Jackson, 51, was appointed to the federal bench in 2013, and was backed by three Republican senators last year when she was elevated to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, seen as a staging ground for aspiring Supreme Court justices.

With one liberal justice replacing another the announcement will not reshape the ideological make-up of the court — but it is a huge moment for Biden personally and politically.

White House officials hope it will provide a few days of positive news coverage ahead of the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The pick presents an opportunity for the administration to pivot from a spate of bad news in recent months, with Biden’s domestic agenda stalled amid runaway inflation and plummeting poll numbers.

The announcement is a chance for Biden to show the Black voters who rescued his floundering 2020 primary campaign that he can deliver for them following the recent defeat of voting rights legislation.

“Ketanji Brown Jackson is an intellectual heavyweight and highly regarded jurist who has dedicated her life and career to the service of others,” said Mondaire Jones, one of the first Black openly gay congressmen.

– Political attacks –

Black Americans are among Biden’s strongest supporters, with two-thirds approving of his job performance, according to a CBS poll released last week.

His popularity among the key demographic however declined over the months following his inauguration and he has not recovered the lost ground.

In his first year in office, Biden nominated 62 women to the federal judiciary, including 24 Black women.

But there are still only a few dozen active Black female judges on the federal bench out of almost 800 total.

The president had promised during his successful 2020 White House run to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time in US history.

The pledge dismayed some Republicans who thought ruling out candidates of other backgrounds would further politicize the judiciary.

Dismissing the objections, Biden shortlisted a handful of top Black women to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, including southern jurists J. Michelle Childs and Leandra Kruger.

Reflecting Washington’s bitter political divisions, at least two top Republicans depicted his eventual nominee as the darling of what they called the American far left.

Lindsey Graham had argued that it was “about time” a Black woman sat on the bench but the senator went to bat for Childs, who is from his home state of South Carolina.

He complained that Biden’s choice of Jackson meant “the radical left has won President Biden over again.”

– Bumpy ride ahead? –

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell echoed Graham’s objection, saying Jackson was “the favoured choice of far-left dark-money groups that have spent years attacking the legitimacy and structure of the Court itself.”

But neither said outright they would oppose Jackson’s appointment.

Jackson will now go through weeks of hearings and meetings with senators before her nomination comes to the floor, likely in April.

Republicans cannot block a Supreme Court nomination as long as all 50 Senate Democrats stick together, but the comments by Graham and McConnell signal a bumpier confirmation process than had been expected.

But the party has shown little appetite for a fight, which they fear could backfire, and are trying to keep the focus on kitchen-table issues such as spiralling fuel and food costs.

The announcement also represents another first in US history.

Biden presided over Breyer’s confirmation to the Supreme Court as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1994, and has now named Breyer’s replacement.

Headline

Sweden To Charge 18-year-old Over IS Terror Plot

Published

5 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said Tuesday it intended to charge an 18-year-old man for planning a terrorist act in Stockholm on behalf of the Islamic State group.

According to prosecutors, the planning took place between August 2024 and February 2025.

“We believe the purpose of the preparations was to induce serious fear in the population, in the name of the Islamic State. The criminal act could have seriously harmed Sweden,” Deputy Chief Prosecutor Henrik Olin said in a statement.

Prosecutors did not provide details of the plan but said the man was also suspected of “preparation for serious crimes under the act on flammable and explosive goods and training for terrorism”.

Prosecutors said they planned to file the charges on Thursday and that a press conference would be held the same day.

The young man will also be charged alongside a 17-year-old boy with attempted murder in Germany in August 2024.

Both of them are also suspected of “participation in a terrorist organisation,” according to the statement.

The man was arrested in Stockholm on February 11 and has been in custody since then.

AFP

Headline

US Shutdown Hits 35 Days, Tying Longest In History

Published

5 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

The US government shutdown entered its 35th day on Tuesday, matching a record set during President Donald Trump’s first term, as lawmakers voiced hope over progress behind the scenes to end the dispute.

The federal closure appears almost certain to become the longest in history, with no breakthroughs expected before it goes into its sixth week at midnight — although there were fragile signs in Congress that an off-ramp is closer than ever.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune set the buoyant mood music on Monday when he told reporters he felt “optimistic” that newly energised talks between warring Republicans and Democrats could end in a deal before next week.

The government has been grinding to a halt since Congress failed to pass a bill to keep federal departments and agencies funded past the end of the last financial year on September 30.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think any of us expected that it would drag on this long. We didn’t believe, we couldn’t have imagined,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference arranged to mark the six-week milestone.

“It’s now tied for the longest shutdown in US history. And we didn’t think we’d have to come in here every single day — day after day after day — and repeat the obvious facts to the American people and to put on display every day what is happening here.”

Some 1.4 million federal workers — from air traffic controllers to park wardens — have been placed on enforced leave without pay or made to work for nothing, while vital welfare programs and even paychecks for active-duty troops are under threat.

Both sides remain dug in over the main sticking point — health care spending.

Democrats say they will only provide votes to end the funding lapse after a deal has been struck to extend expiring insurance subsidies that make health care affordable for millions of Americans.

But Republicans insist they will only address health care once Democrats have voted to switch the lights back on in Washington.

While both sides’ leadership have shown little appetite for compromise, there have been signs of life on the back benches, with a handful of moderate Democrats working to find an escape hatch.

A separate bipartisan group of four centrist House members unveiled a compromise framework Monday for lowering health insurance costs.

Democrats believe that millions of Americans seeing skyrocketing premiums as they enroll onto health insurance programs for next year will pressure Republicans into seeking compromise.

But Trump has held firm on refusing to negotiate, telling CBS News in an interview broadcast Sunday that he would “not be extorted.”

The president has sought to apply his own pressure to force Democrats to cave, by threatening mass layoffs of federal workers and using the shutdown to target progressive priorities.

Last week his administration threatened to cut off a vital aid programme that helps 42 million Americans pay for groceries for the first time in its more than 60-year history, before the move was blocked in court.

And the president has returned to a familiar playbook of demanding the elimination of the Senate filibuster — the 60-vote threshold for passing most legislation — so Republicans can pass government funding themselves.

“Terminate the filibuster now, end the ridiculous shutdown immediately, and then, most importantly, pass every wonderful Republican policy that we have dreamt of for years, but never gotten,” Trump fulminated in an all-caps social media post.

Preserving the filibuster — which senators say protects the voice of the minority — is one of the few issues on which Republicans are willing to defy Trump and radical reform seems highly unlikely.

“The votes aren’t there,” Thune told reporters on Monday.

AFP

Headline

China Backs Nigeria, Warns Against Foreign Interference

Published

5 hours ago

November 4, 2025

Editor

China has urged the international community to respect Nigeria’s sovereignty following a US threat of military action.

The Chinese government reiterated its support for President Bola Tinubu’s administration, commending the government for guiding the country along a development path tailored to its national conditions.

According to a report sourced from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China’s website, the Spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Mao Ning, stated this at a press briefing on Tuesday in Beijing.

She said, “As Nigeria’s strategic partner, China opposes any attempt by foreign powers to use religion or human rights as a pretext to meddle in another country’s internal affairs or impose sanctions and military threats.”

Recently, the US threatened Nigeria with possible military action due to the alleged persecution of Christians in the country.

The United States President, Donald Trump, had threatened to deploy military forces in Nigeria if the alleged genocide against Christians is not stopped in the country.