US Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, who has displayed a cool demeanor and a sense of humor during her Senate confirmation hearing, is expected to move one step closer today to becoming the fourth woman to serve on the nation’s highest court.
Kagan maneuvered carefully on Tuesday through tough Republican questioning on military recruitment at Harvard Law School, gun owners’ rights and free speech, giving little ground to critics and drawing strong praise from Senate Democrats who command the votes to confirm her.
US President Barack Obama’s nominee soldiered through her second day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee apparently in good shape to win Senate approval — barring a major gaffe — in time to take her seat before the court opens a new term in October. If confirmed, Kagan, 50, would succeed retiring liberal Justice John Paul Stevens.
Republicans who oppose her nomination will need to resort to a filibuster — a legislative maneuver to delay a final confirmation vote, a prospect that seems less and less likely.
Minority Republicans were intent on Tuesday on portraying Kagan as too liberal and inexperienced — having never been a judge — to serve on the Supreme Court, an ideologically divided nine-member panel that interprets the US Constitution, its founding legal document.
However, Kagan tried to assure conservatives that her work as a Clinton White House aide and as Obama’s solicitor general wouldn’t make her a partisan justice.
“It’s all about law when you put on a judge’s robes,” Kagan said. “It’s not about politics, it’s not about policy. It’s all about law and making your best judgment about what the law requires. And that is the pledge that I said is the only pledge I would make yesterday and I’ll make it again now.”
Some Republicans didn’t seem convinced. In a heated back-and-forth, Senator Jeff Sessions accused Kagan of defying federal law by barring military recruiters from Harvard Law School’s career services office because of her strong opposition to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning openly gay service members.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
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