Kaitlin Marie Armstrong (shown), suspected in the fatal shooting of professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson at an Austin home, has been arrested in Costa Rica, the U.S. Marshals Service said Thursday.
(Image credit: U.S. Marshals Service via AP, File)
Ketanji Brown Jackson has officially become the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court
Ketanji Brown Jackson has officially been sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, replacing Stephen Breyer, who is retiring after almost 28 years on the bench, and becoming the first black woman to sit on the court on Thursday.
Jackson thanked her new colleagues for their “warm and gracious welcome,” singling out Breyer, for whom she clerked for a year in 1999, as “a personal friend and mentor of mine for the past two decades.” Like Breyer, she is expected to fill out the court’s liberal wing alongside Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The 51-year-old justice was previously a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, a role she was appointed to in 2021 after nine years as a district court judge for the US District Court for DC. Earlier, she was vice chair of the US Sentencing Commission, tasked with judging whether federal sentences were just. She also worked in private practice and as a public defender.
While Biden made it clear while searching for a replacement for Justice Breyer that race and gender were key hiring factors in her selection, Jackson insisted when she was being questioned during confirmation hearings for her previous position that she would be “methodically and intentionally setting aside personal views” and “any other inappropriate considerations.”
“I would think that race would be the kind of thing that would be inappropriate to inject in an evaluation of a case,” she said.
Jackson was also interviewed in 2016 by then-president Barack Obama when he sought to replace deceased justice Antonin Scalia. Obama ended up selecting Merrick Garland, whose nomination the Senate controversially refused to vote on and who was ultimately appointed Attorney General under Biden.
The Harvard Law grad assumes her role in the midst of a tumultuous time for the Supreme Court, which last week repealed federal abortion protections in a ruling that reversed 1973’s Roe v Wade decision. The ruling was met with waves of protest across the country, and one man was arrested for allegedly plotting to kill conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Ukraine’s southern forces have been striking the island in recent days to take out Russian outposts. Russia’s defense ministry said its troops left as a “goodwill gesture.”
The decision by Israeli MPs paves the way for a fifth election in the Jewish state in less than four years
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted to dissolve itself on Thursday, meaning the Jewish state will hold its fifth election since 2019 later this year.
The 92-0 vote ended the premiership of Naftali Bennett, which became one of the shortest in the country’s history. He was only sworn in as prime minister on June 13, 2021.
From midnight, Bennett will be replaced as prime minister by foreign minister and alternate prime minister, Yair Lapid. The two ruling coalition partners symbolically switched their seats in the Knesset after the vote.
The new legislative election has been scheduled to take place in Israel on November 1, a date preferred by the government.
Bennett had already announced on Wednesday that he wasn’t going to run for re-election, saying it was “time to step back a little” for him and “look at things from the outside.”
The lawmakers decided to disperse last week, but it took the coalition and the opposition time to agree on a date for the new vote and the fate of some key pieces of legislation.
Eventually, they couldn’t find common ground on the subject of a subway system for Tel Aviv and another draft bill, which is crucial for advancing Israel on its way to obtaining visa-free travel to the US.
The coalition of eight political parties of various views, including the pro-Palestinian United Arab List (UAL or Ra’am), joined forces last year to depose long-time right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
However, working together effectively as a government turned out to be problematic for them. And, last week, Bennett and Lapid announced plans to dissolve the cabinet.
The decision was triggered by the failure of the Knesset in early June to pass a bill that would extend legal rights to settlers in the occupied West Bank for another five years. Two coalition members joined the opposition in refusing to support the bill to expedite the dissolution, putting Israel at risk of an unprecedented legal debacle.
The dissolution of parliament now means Israeli legal rights for settlers will be automatically extended for another six months.
The coalition government will continue to execute its duties until the election, in which Netanyahu will be favorite to become prime minister, according to polls.
A survey published by Radio 103 FM on Tuesday suggested that the opposition leader and his bloc would win 59 of 120 seats in the Knesset. This would make Netanyahu the winner, but still wouldn’t be enough for him to gain a majority and form a government.
