The Senate Judiciary Committee is about to start Supreme Court docket affirmation hearings for President Joe Biden’s nominee, Decide Ketanji Brown Jackson, who (if confirmed) would change into the primary Black girl to serve on the excessive courtroom.
We have a particular morning version of OnPolitics with every part it’s essential to learn about Biden’s historic choose.
The hearings will probably be an examination of her file and an effort to foretell what sort of justice she can be if confirmed for a lifetime appointment on a courtroom that’s wrestling with points resembling abortion, voting rights, weapons and local weather change.
Some sharp questions concerning the 51-year-old set to switch Affiliate Justice Stephen Breyer have already been raised. Some critics have stated her brief tenure on the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has made it tough to find out how she thinks concerning the Structure. Others pointed to her felony protection work, together with her advocacy for a Guantanamo Bay detainee.
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Methods to watch: USA TODAY will probably be live-streaming the hearings right here all week. We’re additionally offering stay updates on the hearings, so you do not miss the most important moments. The nomination hearings will run from Monday via Thursday, March 24.
How does the affirmation course of work? On Feb. 25, Biden nominated Jackson to the Supreme Court docket after Affiliate Justice Stephen Breyer introduced he was stepping down later this 12 months.
Meaning each facet of Jackson’s private {and professional} life will probably be scrutinized by each the Senate and normal public. Senate staffers learn via all of her judicial selections, speeches, interviews and another data they will discover to arrange traces of questioning for the Senate Judiciary Committee listening to this week.
Although the Biden administration vetted Jackson earlier than nominating her, new data might emerge throughout the affirmation course of.
It is Amy and Chelsey along with your Supreme Court docket background briefing.
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Who’s Decide Ketanji Brown Jackson?
If confirmed, Jackson can be the 116th justice to serve on the nation’s highest courtroom and first Black girl seated on the courtroom in its 233-year historical past.
Biden repeatedly promised throughout his presidential marketing campaign to call a Black girl to the Supreme Court docket for the primary time in historical past if he acquired the prospect. The pledge was praised by these looking for extra range on the excessive courtroom, nevertheless it additionally uncovered the comparatively small pool of girls of colour serving as appeals courtroom judges throughout the nation.
Jackson has received Senate affirmation thrice, most not too long ago final summer season when Biden named her to the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Three Republicans – Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine – voted for her.
Earlier than that, the Miami native served as a U.S. District Court docket choose, nominated in 2012 by President Barack Obama.
Jackson is a former federal public defender, giving her work expertise hardly ever seen on the Supreme Court docket. She additionally served because the vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Fee in 2009. The fee retroactively diminished sentencing for crack cocaine offenses throughout her tenure.
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She studied authorities as an undergrad at Harvard and graduated from Harvard Legislation College in 1996. She clerked for Breyer on the Supreme Court docket from 1999 to 2000.
In her personal phrases: In preparation for this week’s hearings, USA TODAY reporters watched greater than 14 hours of Jackson’s videotaped speeches and occasions. The assessment additionally included studying greater than 2,000 pages of Jackson’s writings, talks and displays, in addition to her solutions throughout her earlier affirmation hearings.
Actual fast: Tales you may wish to learn
Jackson stands on the shoulders of different pioneers
Jackson has already damaged limitations to change into the primary Black girl nominated to the Supreme Court docket. Ought to she be confirmed, the federal appeals courtroom choose may face among the similar hurdles confronted by those that got here earlier than her.
In 1966, U.S. District Decide Constance Baker Motley turned the primary Black girl to preside over a federal courtroom.
Jackson, who shares a birthday with Motley, stated “I proudly stand on Decide Motley’s shoulders,” throughout a speech on the White Home in February when Biden introduced her nomination to the nation’s highest courtroom.
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Different ladies who blazed a path for Jackson embody Decide Jane Bolin, the primary Black girl to function a choose wherever within the nation, Decide Amalya Kearse, who in 1979 turned the primary Black girl named to a federal appeals courtroom and Affiliate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the primary Latina and first girl of colour seated on the Supreme Court docket in 2009.
Although a lot has modified since 1966, solely 70 of the three,843 individuals who have served as federal judges have been Black ladies, in keeping with the Pew Analysis Middle.
Specialists say Jackson will face a level of further scrutiny unfamiliar to her white, male counterparts. Republicans had been already evaluating Biden’s vow to appoint a Black girl to affirmative motion earlier than Jackson was named to switch Breyer.
“We’ve some work to do on this area for positive as a result of I am listening to the identical issues raised from some quarters,” stated Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Authorized Protection and Academic Fund. “We’re very clear that when it is an individual of colour, we establish the race or when it is a girl, we establish the gender. White males even have a race and gender that will have an effect on how they strategy explicit issues.”
Black ladies rally for Jackson: A whole bunch from organizations across the nation met in entrance of the Supreme Court docket earlier this month to name for assist for Jackson as she met with senators on Capitol Hill. The attendants additionally rallied for voting rights laws at present stalled within the Senate.
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In different information, March Insanity continues! Here is easy methods to benefit from the faculty basketball event all through the remainder of the month. — Amy and Chelsey
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
A rescue bid for French IT services group Atos led by its largest shareholder has collapsed, casting the future of the troubled group into doubt once again.
Atos said on Wednesday that the consortium led by Onepoint, an IT consultancy founded by David Layani, had withdrawn a proposal that would have converted €2.9bn of Atos debt into equity and injected €250mn of fresh funds into the struggling company.
“The conditions were not met to conclude an agreement paving the way for a lasting solution for financial restructuring,” Onepoint said in a statement on Wednesday.
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The decision by Onepoint comes less than a month after Atos had picked its restructuring proposal over a competing plan from Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínsky. Atos said on Wednesday that Křetínsky had already indicated he wanted to restart talks.
Once a star of France’s tech scene, Atos is racing to strike a restructuring deal by next month as it struggles under its €4.8bn debt burden. It has cycled through multiple chief executives over the past three years and its shares have collapsed. They were down 12 per cent in early trading on Wednesday.
Atos also said it had received a revised restructuring proposal from a group of its bondholders.
“Discussions are continuing with the representative committee of creditors and certain banks on the basis of this proposal with a view to reaching an agreement as soon as possible,” the company said.
Jean-Pierre Mustier, former chief executive of Italian lender UniCredit, was installed as chair in October 2023 and given the task of putting Atos on a stable footing for the future. Since his appointment, several efforts to stabilise Atos through asset sales have fallen apart.
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If talks with Křetínsky do restart, it will mark the Czech businessman’s third attempt to do a deal with Atos after an earlier plan to buy its lossmaking legacy business unravelled.
One of the people close to the talks said creditors had not necessarily become more receptive to Kretinsky’s plan given it cutting a larger chunk of the group’s debt.
The crisis at Atos has prompted the French government to intervene. It is currently seeking to acquire three parts of Atos that are deemed of importance to national security for up to €1bn.
Atos said on Wednesday it had concluded a deal with the French state that would give it so-called “golden shares” in a key Atos subsidiary, Bull SA. The agreement also gives the government the right to acquire “sensitive sovereign activities” in the event a third party acquired 10 per cent of the shares — or a multiple thereof — in either Atos or Bull.
An online gamer from New Jersey recently flew to Florida, broke into the home of a fellow player with whom he had feuded digitally but never met in person, and tried to beat him to death with a hammer, according to authorities.
The allegations leveled by the Nassau county, Florida, sheriff’s office against 20-year-old Edward Kang constitute an extreme example of a phenomenon that academics call “internet banging” – which involves online arguments, often between young people, that escalate into physical violence.
As Bill Leeper, the local sheriff, told it, Kang and the man he is suspected of attacking became familiar with each other playing the massively multiplayer online role-playing game ArcheAge.
The Korean game is supposed to no longer be available beginning Thursday, its publisher announced in April, citing a “declining number of active players”, as ABC News reported. But prior to the cancellation, Kang and the other player became locked in some sort of “online altercation”, Leeper said at a news briefing Monday.
Kang then informed his family that he was headed out of town to meet a friend he had made through gaming, Leeper recounted. The sheriff said Kang flew from Newark, New Jersey, to Jacksonville, Florida, and booked himself into a hotel near his fellow gamer’s home early Friday morning.
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He had allegedly bought a hammer and a flashlight at a local hardware store, receipts for which deputies later found in Kang’s hotel room.
By early Sunday, Kang purportedly had put on black clothes, gloves and a mask, and he went into his target’s home through an unlocked door. He waited for the victim to get up to take a bathroom break from gaming – and then battered him with the hammer, Leeper said.
The alleged victim managed to wrestle Kang to the ground while screaming for help. The victim’s stepfather woke up after hearing the screams, rushed to his stepson’s side, helped take Kang’s hammer away and restrained him until deputies were called and they arrived, according to Leeper.
Deputies found blood at the home’s entrance and in the bedroom of the victim, Leeper added. The sheriff said the victim was brought to a hospital to be treated for “severe” head wounds while deputies jailed Kang on counts of attempted second-degree murder and armed burglary.
Leeper accused Kang of telling deputies that he carried out the violent home invasion because he believed the target to be “a bad person online”. Kang also allegedly asked investigators how much prison time was associated with breaking and entering as well as assault.
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Attempted second-degree murder alone can carry up to 15 years. Leeper quipped that his only answer to Kang was: “It will be a long time before you play video games.”
Striking a more serious tone, Leeper urged people to be vigilant about and report to authorities any suspicious online behavior aimed at them. He also mentioned the importance of locking one’s home.
“This … serves as a stark reminder of the potential real-world consequences of online interaction,” Leeper said.