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      Tuesday briefing: Bombshell leak that could indicate the end of Roe v Wade

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      Tuesday briefing: Bombshell leak that could indicate the end of Roe v WadeIn today’s newsletter: seismic news from the US which could mean 50 years of the right to an abortion are at an end

      Sign up here for our new daily newsletter, First Edition
      Good morning. A truly seismic story has broken in the US overnight: the leak of a draft majority opinion which appears to show that the supreme court has privately voted to overturn half a century of protection for abortion rights.The leak, to the Politico website, was immediately the subject of intense textual and legal analysis by US journalists and experts trying to corroborate its authenticity. It would be the worst security breach in the court’s history.Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am.But while caution is obviously the right approach on such a momentous story, there was every sign – from the document’s formatting and footnotes to the distinctive tone of conservative author Justice Samuel Alito – that it is legitimate. There was no comment from the supreme court itself.The court could still vote the other way. But if the end of Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which enshrined the constitutional right to an abortion, does happen, it would be news of generational significance for American women and a huge blow for supporters of reproductive rights around the world.With protesters immediately descending on the supreme court building to voice their fury over the news, today’s newsletter explains what’s at stake, and what happens next. That’s right after the headlines.Five big stories
      Asylum | Priti Patel may face a class action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of Ukrainians stuck in a “chaotic” visa backlog as they seek to come to the UK. Only 15% of the 74,700 Ukrainians to apply under the sponsorship route have made it to Britain.
      Politics | Councillors in the UK face abuse, threats and intimidation as part of a “truly toxic” atmosphere that discourages new candidates, local government bodies have warned.
      Housing | The government could revive Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme to make up to 2.5m households eligible to buy their homes at a 70% discount. Housing experts said the proposals risked reducing the stock of affordable homes.
      Suisse Secrets | Swiss politicians are to debate the country’s controversial banking secrecy law amid ongoing pressure to scrap rules allowing the prosecution of whistleblowers. The debate follows a leak of data on potentially criminal Credit Suisse clients to a consortium of outlets including the Guardian.
      Theatre | The curtain will come down on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End musical Cinderella less than a year after its opening, causing dismay among some cast members who had no notice of the closure. The show has suffered heavy losses during its lockdown-affected run.
      In depth: the end of the US right to an abortion?What happened?A draft supreme court opinion, apparently by conservative justice Samuel Alito, was leaked to Politico in a story published late Monday night. It appears to show that the court is preparing to rule in favour of Mississippi in a case over whether the state can outlaw nearly all abortions at and after 15 weeks gestation – a direct challenge to the guarantee of abortion rights enshrined in Roe v Wade.The 98-page document, which includes 118 footnotes and a 31-page appendix on historical state abortion laws, was published in full. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” it says. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”It says Roe v Wade “must be overruled” and goes on: “It is time to heed the constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”What is Roe v Wade?Roe v Wade is the court decision which protects the right to an abortion in the US up to the point a foetus can survive outside the womb, widely regarded as 24 weeks gestation. A full term pregnancy is 39 weeks gestation. The 1973 ruling is among the most controversial in American history and has been subjected to many legal challenges over the year – but survived until now.For more details on the challenge to the law currently under consideration, take a look at Jessica Glenza’s explainer from December.What does the leak tell us about the court’s decision?While the opinion is purportedly a draft, it would have been written following a vote on the question at hand by the court – and indicates that a majority of justices reached the same view as Alito. Politico reported that four other Republican-appointed justices supported the decision, meaning a total of at least five votes on the 9-member court.After such a vote, a justice is assigned the majority opinion and then writes a draft, which is then circulated and subject to edits. It is possible for changes to be made to the opinion, or even for votes to change, before the court’s final ruling, which is expected in the next couple of months.How significant is a leak of a draft supreme court ruling?The Guardian’s Washington correspondent David Smith called the leak “stunning and unprecedented” and said it would be “the worst security breach” in the court’s history. Theories abounded over the likely source of the leak, from a clerk for a liberal justice hoping to raise public pressure on the court before it publishes its decision to a conservative who wants to soften the impact of the decision when it comes – in other words, nobody knows.A tweet from Scotusblog, a respected news and analysis site, said that it was “impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the Justices and staff. This leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin.”How did reproductive-rights advocates react to the news?With fury. A BuzzFeed reporter posted a video of about 200 protesters outside the court chanting slogans like “abortion is healthcare” and “my body, my choice”. Another video showed somebody urging attendees: “If you feel like fucking screaming, then just scream”.What about politicians?Democrats said that overturning Roe v Wade would be a catastrophe. They were led by House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who issued a joint statement saying such a move would be “an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history”.They also immediately sought to make Roe v Wade an issue for crucial upcoming midterm elections: Christie Roberts, Democratic senatorial campaign executive director, said that “At this critical moment, we must protect and expand Democrats’ Senate majority with the power to confirm or reject supreme court justices”. Republicans by turns praised the apparent vote and condemned the leak itself.Now what?It is worth reiterating that it is still possible that votes could change and mean that the apparent draft opinion remains just that – a draft. But if the supreme court does rule along the lines suggested by the leaked document, the consequences will be rapid and hugely consequential.Because the US congress has never enshrined the right to terminate a pregnancy, the overturning of Roe v Wade would mean individual states can immediately make their own decisions over the way forward. Twenty-six of them would be expected to move quickly to do so, with many having “trigger” laws on the books which would automatically come into effect in those circumstances. That means that women in those states would immediately face severe restrictions on their ability to have an abortion, and the US would become one of only four countries to curtail that right in nearly 30 years.What else we’ve been reading
      If you’re working your way through Netflix’s final dump of Ozark episodes, you’ll enjoy Stuart Jeffries’ farewell to “some of the most rewarding TV around”. And if you didn’t spend half the weekend gorging the lot of it, rest assured: it sticks the landing.
      As the question of how the war in Ukraine will end becomes more pressing, Orysia Lutseyvych of Chatham House argues that “a long-term simmering conflict that locks Ukraine in a grey zone of instability” is no better than defeat.
      Simon Hattenstone spoke to Graham Nash – as in, Crosby, Stills and … – about sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, and why he’d kill Vladimir Putin given half a chance. Too many amazing quotes to list, so click here instead.
      Tens of thousands of people have faced deportation from the US over convictions which were later overturned. Sam Levin’s piece on Sandra Castaneda, who spent 19 years in prison for a murder she didn’t commit and is still facing deportation, justifies the term ‘Kafkaesque’.
      Why is it so hard to give up sugar? This long read by Raj Telhan, a doctor, is both absorbing personal history and examination of the roots of our obsession.
      Sport
      Snooker | Ronnie O’Sullivan beat Judd Trump 18-13 to win the snooker world championship. O’Sullivan overcame a spirited comeback from Trump to go level with Stephen Hendry’s record of seven world titles.
      Football | Russia’s bid to host the men’s European Championship has been rejected and their team will be replaced by Portugal in the women’s tournament this summer, Uefa said.
      Athletics | Sir Mo Farah said his career as an elite athlete is “for sure” over after a shock defeat by a club runner in a 10,000 metre race on Monday. The amateur who won, Ellis Cross, had been turned down for an elite spot in the race.
      The front pagesThe Guardian leads with “Patel faces mass legal action from Ukrainians stuck in visa backlog”. The Telegraph also focuses on the war in Ukraine with “Johnson: Ukraine is ready for its finest hour”. The Mail has “Where have our GPs gone?”, while the Times goes with “Rising inflation to blow £7,000 hole in pensions”. The i newspaper has “Tories hit by infighting on eve of election” and the Daily Express leads with “Boris’ right to buy plan is a vote winner”. The Mirror reports on the Madeline McCann disappearance with “Maddie prime suspect ‘a danger to society’”. The Financial Times has “Johnson enlisted for last-ditch bid to wrestle Arm into listing”. And the Sun says “Queen’s guards let fake priest stay night”.Today in FocusThe Wagatha Christie case – part twoAs the so-called ‘Wagatha Christie’ trial approaches, neither side is backing down from a case that has legal fees running into the millions, says media editor Jim Waterson.Cartoon of the day | Martin RowsonThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badGood news has been thin on the ground in Ukraine these past few months – but one bright spot has been the generosity of those horrified by the actions of Russia and what it has meant for the citizens of the country. Take this story about a nursing home in Donbas that the Guardian first wrote about in April – that story inspired a Ukrainian expat in New Orleans to raise the funds necessary to rehome the elderly residents in a disused school. “The biggest chunk of the money will go towards making the accommodation suitable for the old people,” said the nursing home’s director, Ievhen Tkachov.Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayTopicsAbortionFirst EditionRoe v WadeUS politicsUS supreme courtHealthLaw (US)newslettersReuse this content More

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      The supreme court’s coming abortion ruling may spark a new era of US unrest | Stephen Marche

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      The supreme court’s coming abortion ruling may spark a new era of US unrestStephen MarcheThere’s a strong risk that the case will spark anger and violence – whether the court overturns Roe v Wade or not Civil wars don’t always begin with gunfire. Sometimes civil wars begin with learned arguments. In April 1861, Confederate forces shot on Fort Sumter, but at the time even Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, had doubts about whether the event mattered all that much. It was, he claimed, “either the beginning of a fearful war, or the end of a political contest”; he could not say which. During the decades that preceded the assault on Fort Sumter, complex legal and political fissures had been working their way through the United States, slowly rendering the country ungovernable and opening the path to mass violence.The US is the middle of another such legal crackup, this time over the question of abortion. The courts today face the crisis American courts faced in the 1850s: is there any way to make laws for a country with furious and widening differences in fundamental values?Tell us: have you had to travel to another US state for an abortion? Read moreThis summer, when the US supreme court makes its long-expected decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it will inevitably alienate half the country. In anticipation of the overturning of Roe v Wade, several states have passed draconian anti-abortion laws, in the expectation that they won’t be challenged. Idaho has already imitated the Texas law which allows private citizens to sue anyone who helps a woman procure an abortion, a law that the supreme court has refused to overturn.Two American blocs are emerging. In the south and parts of the west and midwest, abortion laws are about to return to where they were in the 1950s. The rest of the country has already set itself in opposition to these laws. The division will not stay considerate and respectful, particularly in areas where liberal and conservative states neighbour one another. In anticipation of a post-Roe world and a flood of out-of-state patients, abortion providers have established a series of abortion clinics in Illinois, across the river from more conservative Missouri. Oregon recently invested in a $15m fund for medical refugees traveling from Idaho for abortions.There are, right from the beginning, two reactions to the new division. The first is the use of force, as in the case of a 26-year-old Texan woman, Lizelle Herrera, who was recently arrested for murder for allegedly self-inducing an abortion. The local district attorney’s office ultimately released her without charge, explaining that “in reviewing applicable Texas law, it is clear that Ms Herrera cannot and should not be prosecuted for the allegation against her”. To be clear, current applicable Texas law doesn’t apply to Herrera’s case. When it does, they will charge people like her with murder. How far will the forces opposing abortion take a custodial approach? Do they want to set up a DEA-style birth police? Any enforcement mechanism will also probably be highly ineffective. After billions of dollars spent on the war on drugs, the average price of a hit of heroin on the street is between $5 and $20. Women with means who want abortions are going to get them.Texas advocates file new legal challenge to near-total abortion ban Read moreThe second reaction to an America divided along abortion lines will be interstate conflict. Missouri is leading the way here. A recent bill proposed a travel abortion ban, explicitly focused on clinics in Illinois. This looks, on the face of it, like a straight violation of the 14th amendment, but the supreme court is a partisan institution and interpretation of the constitution now follows the partisan affiliation of the justices. They’ll come up with something.No matter what decision the supreme court makes, civil unrest will follow. Anti-abortion activists will feel that their political system has failed them no matter what the court does. They have sacrificed everything – the dignity and integrity of their party, the value of their national institutions – in the name of getting enough justices on the court to enact this one legal change. If the court upholds Roe v Wade, they will quite naturally feel betrayed. If the court overturns Roe v Wade, they will discover a fact the new Texas law has inadvertently revealed: that the criminalization of abortion doesn’t work. Their basic assumption, that the government can outlaw abortion, is simply untrue. At first, the Texas law appeared to cause abortions to decline by half. But quickly the numbers reasserted themselves. The decline is less that ten percent. Women went out of state or bought chemical abortions. The overturning of Roe v Wade will makes women’s medical treatment more difficult and impersonal and humiliating. It won’t change the abortion rate significantly.Meanwhile, from the other side, an overturning of Roe v Wade will be experienced as oppression pure and simple, especially given the number of justices appointed by presidents who did not receive the popular vote. In November 1860, five months before Fort Sumter, in the immediate aftermath of Lincoln’s election, a judge in South Carolina announced that the state would no longer register indictments in federal court. Andrew Magrath, in a deliberate act of rejection, removed his judicial robe and folded it over his chair. He would now serve as a justice of his state, not his country. The audience recognized the gravity of the act. As one commentator at the time noted: “Here was a great political movement precipitated, not by bloody encounters in the street or upon the field, but by a deliberate and reasoned act in the most unexpected and conservatives of all places – the United State courtroom.” From that moment on, there were two legal systems. All that remained was the war. A similar breakdown in the legal system of the United States is already apparent.Needless to say, this entire conflict is futile and stupid. Abortion in the United States is in rapid decline without the negligible effects of criminalization. The number of procedures dipped 19% between 2011 and 2017. If activists want fewer abortions, there are plenty of strategies that are vastly more effective than making them illegal. Canada, which has no federal laws of any kind on abortion, has a fraction of the abortion rate of the US.But that’s not really the point. Abortion is only a stand in for a fundamental conflict in political vision: morality against policy, community values against personal agency. There are two countries, at least, in the United States. The legal system is only catching up.
      Stephen Marche is the author, most recently, of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future
      TopicsRoe v WadeOpinionAbortionUS politicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)commentReuse this content More

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      ‘No sign Putin is serious’ about Ukraine negotiations, says Blinken – as it happened

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      US politics liveUS politics‘No sign Putin is serious’ about Ukraine negotiations, says Blinken – as it happened
      Senators question secretary of state
      Kamala Harris tests positive for Covid
      White House unveils latest Covid-19 strategies
      Supreme court justices hint at support for Biden immigration policy
      Russia-Ukraine war – follow live updates
      Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by email
       Updated 39m agoRichard LuscombeTue 26 Apr 2022 16.13 EDTFirst published on Tue 26 Apr 2022 09.42 EDT01:03Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyFrom More

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      Overcoming Trumpery review: recipes for reform Republicans will never allow

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      Overcoming Trumpery review: recipes for reform Republicans will never allow The depth of Trump’s corruption is familiar but still astonishing when presented in the whole. Alas, his party shares itThe great abuses of power by Richard Nixon’s administration which are remembered collectively as Watergate had one tremendous benefit: they inspired a raft of legislation which significantly strengthened American democracy.The Presidency of Donald Trump review: the first draft of historyRead moreThis new book from the Brookings Institution, subtitled How to Restore Ethics, The Rule of Law and Democracy, recalls those far-away days of a functioning legislative process.The response to Watergate gave us real limits on individual contributions to candidates and political action committees (Federal Election Campaign Act); a truly independent Office of Special Counsel (Ethics in Government Act); inspector generals in every major agency (Inspector General Act); a vastly more effective freedom of information process; and a Sunshine Law which enshrined the novel notion that the government should be “the servant of the people” and “fully accountable to them”.Since then, a steadily more conservative supreme court has eviscerated all the most important campaign finance reforms, most disastrously in 2010 with Citizens United, and in 2013 destroyed the most effective parts of the Voting Rights Act. Congress let the special counsel law lapse, partly because of how Ken Starr abused it when he investigated Bill Clinton.The unraveling of Watergate reforms was one of many factors that set the stage for the most corrupt US government of modern times, that of Donald Trump.Even someone as inured as I am to Trump’s crimes can still be astonished when all the known abuses are catalogued in one volume. What the authors of this book identify as “The Seven Deadly Sins of Trumpery” include “Disdain for Ethics, Assault on the rule of law, Incessant lying and disinformation, Shamelessness” and, of course, “Pursuit of personal and political interest”.The book identifies Trump’s original sin as his refusal to put his businesses in a blind trust, which led to no less than 3,400 conflicts of interest. It didn’t help that the federal conflict of interests statute specifically exempts the president. Under the first president of modern times with no interest in “the legitimacy” or “the appearance of legitimacy of the presidency”, this left practically nothing off limits.The emoluments clause of the constitution forbids every government official accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State” but lacks any enforcement mechanism. So a shameless president could be paid off through his hotels by everyone from the Philippines to Kuwait while the Bank of China paid one Trump company an estimated $5.4m. (As a fig leaf, Trump gave the treasury $448,000 from profits made from foreign governments during two years of his presidency, but without any accounting.)Trump even got the federal government to pay him directly, by charging the secret service $32,400 for guest rooms for a visit to Mar-a-Lago plus $17,000 a month for a cottage at his New Jersey golf club.The US Office of Special Counsel catalogued dozens of violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activity by federal officials. Miscreants included Peter Navarro, Dan Scavino, Nikki Haley and most persistently Kellyanne Conway. The OSC referred its findings to Trump, who of course did nothing. Conway was gleeful.“Let me know when the jail sentence starts,” she said.There was also the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, addressing the Republican convention from a bluff overlooking Jerusalem during a mission to Israel. In a different category of corruption were the $43,000 soundproof phone booth the EPA administrator Scott Pruitt installed and the $1m the health secretary Tom Price spent on luxury travel. Those two actually resigned.The book is mostly focused on the four-year Trump crimewave. But it is bipartisan enough to spread the blame to Democrats for creating a climate in which no crime seemed too big to go un-prosecuted.Barack Obama’s strict ethics rules enforced by executive orders produced a nearly scandal-free administration. But Claire O Finkelstein and Richard W Painter argue that there was one scandal that established a terrible precedent: the decision not to prosecute anyone at the CIA for illegal torture carried out under George W Bush.This “failure of accountability” was “profoundly corrosive. The decision to ‘look forward, not back’ on torture … damaged the country’s ability to hold government officials to the constraints of the law”.However, the authors are probably a little too optimistic when they argue that a more vigorous stance might have made the Trump administration more eager to prosecute its own law breakers.The authors point out there are two things in the federal government which are even worse than the wholesale violation of ethical codes within the executive branch: the almost total absence of ethical codes within the congressional and judicial branches.The ethics manual for the House says it is “fundamental that a member … may not use his or her official position for personal gain”. But that is “virtually meaningless” became members can take actions on “industries in which they hold company stock”.Dignity in a Digital Age review: a congressman takes big tech to taskRead moreThe Senate exempts itself from ethical concerns with two brilliant words: no member can promote a piece of legislation whose “principal purpose” is “to further only his pecuniary interest”. So as long as legislation also has other purposes, personal profit is no impediment to passage.The authors argue that since the crimes of Watergate pale in comparison to the corruption of Trump, this should be the greatest opportunity for profound reform since the 1970s. But of course there is no chance of any such reform getting through this Congress, because Republicans have no interest in making government honest.Nothing tells us more about the collapse of our democracy than the primary concern of the House and Senate minority leaders, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. Their only goal is to avoid any action that would offend the perpetrator or instigator of all these crimes. Instead of forcing him to resign the way Nixon did, these quivering men still pretend Donald Trump is the only man qualified to lead them.
      Overcoming Trumpery is published in the US by Brookings Institution Press
      TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsUS political financingUS voting rightsUS constitution and civil libertiesreviewsReuse this content More

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      US supreme court rules against air force officer who refused Covid vaccine

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      US supreme court rules against air force officer who refused Covid vaccine Majority of court sides with Pentagon over challenge by lieutenant colonel who cited religious grounds for refusal to get vaccine The supreme court has allowed the US Department of Defense to take disciplinary action against an air force lieutenant colonel who refuses to get a Covid-19 vaccine.In a brief, two-sentence ruling on Monday, a majority of the court sided with the Pentagon. Three justices in the conservative majority – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – dissented.The ruling was merely the court’s latest on challenges to Covid-19 vaccine mandates.In January, the court blocked a Biden administration requirement that employees of large businesses be vaccinated and wear masks on the job.The court ruled in March that the US navy had the authority to determine the job assignments of 35 service members who refused to get vaccinated.The case in question on Monday involved Lt Col Jonathan Dunn, previously commander of a 40-member squadron in California, according to court documents filed by the US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar.Prelogar argued that while Dunn cited religious grounds for his refusal to get vaccinated, he did not “assert that the Covid-19 vaccine or compulsory vaccination in general is inconsistent with his Christian faith”, noting that he has received other vaccinations without objection.Dunn instead cited a speech given by Joe Biden that led him to conclude that “the vaccine ceased to be merely a medical invention and took on a symbolic and even sacramental quality”.His religion, he said, forbade him from participating in such “religious ritual”.Upon denial of his exemption request, Dunn sent to a major general “a one-word memorandum that simply read: ‘NUTS!’”.Prelogar noted that while Dunn maintains he meant no disrespect, “NUTS!” has a “well-known ‘military historical connotation’”.She cited the case of Anthony McAuliffe, a key US military officer in the second world war who responded to a German message requesting American surrender with the one-worded answer. The American officer who delivered McAuliffe’s message to German officers clarified that, “If you don’t understand what ‘nuts’ means, in plain English, it is the same as ‘Go to hell.’”The court documents say that the air force took disciplinary action against Dunn, including his removal from command and non-punitive disciplinary measures, citing his commanding officer who said he had “lost trust in [Dunn’s] leadership and judgment” due to the memorandum and that he displayed a “pattern of a lack of respect for military authority”. Prelogar said that Dunn’s actions independent of his refusal to be vaccinated warranted the measures against him.The US solicitor general also said that Dunn’s unit has to be ready to be deployed anywhere in the world with as little as three days’ notice, including countries that require proof of vaccination for entry. Prelogar also noted that the military has a long history of requiring vaccinations and currently requires nine vaccinations for service members.The deadline for air force members to get vaccinated was 2 November. In December, an air force spokesperson told NBC News that the military branch discharged 27 active-duty members who refused to get the vaccination and were not exempted. The US military that same month said 97% of its service members had received the Covid-19 vaccine.TopicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)CoronavirusUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Mood as light as spring air as Ketanji Brown Jackson delivers words to remember

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      Mood as light as spring air as Ketanji Brown Jackson delivers words to remember After 232 years, a Black woman is on the supreme court – and the atmosphere on a sunny Washington day was celebratoryThey could all feel the weight of history. Yet the mood was as light as spring air when Ketanji Brown Jackson looked out at the crowd of smiling faces.‘It means the world to us’: Black lawmakers’ euphoria greets Jackson confirmationRead more“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the supreme court of the United States,” the judge said in bright sunshine. “But we’ve made it!”The audience on the South Lawn of the White House rose and clapped and hollered with a rare purity of emotion.Jackson added: “We’ve made it – all of us. All of us. And our children are telling me that they see now more than ever that here in America anything is possible.”It felt like the culmination of a journey. A day earlier, Jackson was confirmed by the Senate as the first African American female supreme court justice. In moving remarks on Friday, she spoke not only of her journey but that of her ancestors: the 400-year story of African Americans meeting slavery and segregation with resilience, creativity and hope.The atmosphere at the White House was joyful and celebratory – not a sentence there has been much cause to write over the past five years. No doom and gloom over Donald Trump’s lies, the deadly pandemic or the war in Ukraine. Instead, the marine band played songs from the shows, including West Side Story. (“I like to be in America…”)And after a week of sombre grey skies, lashing rain and surging coronavirus, the White House looked a little more majestic than usual in radiant sunlight. Fifty Stars and Stripes flags fluttered in a row. Birds could be heard singing. The relaxed, jovial crowd of hundreds erupted as Joe Biden, wearing shades, Vice-President Kamala Harris and Jackson strode to the podium, to the strains of “Hail to the chief”.But it was Jackson’s grace note at the end of the 45-minute pageant that will linger in the memory – and the heart – and be studied by future historians and, she evidently hoped, generations yet unborn.The 51-year-old invoked figures such as Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader, Thurgood Marshall, the first Black supreme court justice, and her “personal heroine”, Judge Constance Baker Motley, a former district court judge and New York state senator.“They and so many others did the heavy lifting that made this day possible. And for all the talk of this historic nomination and now confirmation, I think of them as the true path-breakers. I’m just the very lucky first inheritor of the dream of liberty and justice for all.”Becoming tearful, putting a tissue to her nose, Jackson continued: “To be sure, I have worked hard to get to this point in my career and I have now achieved something far beyond anything my grandparents could have possibly ever imagined. But no one does this on their own.“The path was cleared for me so that I might rise to this occasion, and, in the poetic words of Dr Maya Angelou, I do so now, while ‘bringing the gifts my ancestors gave’.”There was applause and she took a deep breath.“‘I … I am the dream and the hope of the slave’.”It was a quotation from Angelou’s poem Still I Rise.A shiver of emotion ran through the crowd, which rose as one. It included Jesse Jackson, 80, a civil rights veteran who was there when King was assassinated.Her voice quivering with feeling that seemed to match the enormity of the moment, Jackson, watched by her parents, husband and daughters, went on.“So as I take on this new role, I strongly believe that this is a moment in which all Americans can take great pride.“We have come a long way toward perfecting our union. In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the supreme court of the United States.”It was hard to believe this was the same country that less than two years ago staged a similar outdoor event for the justice nominated before Jackson, Amy Coney Barrett.On that grey day, Trump gloated at the prospect of tipping the court firmly in conservatives’ favour. The audience was appreciably less than diverse than for Jackson. It also proved to be a Covid super-spreader event. Time will tell if Friday goes the same way.Ketanji Brown Jackson brings a personal narrative no other justice can matchRead moreJackson is replacing the retiring Stephen Breyer, 83, and so liberals will remain firmly in the minority when, from October, she begins hearing vital cases on affirmative action, gay rights and voting rights.This week, Mitch McConnell refused to say whether he would even grant another Biden pick a hearing if Republicans regain the Senate majority. Friday’s heady euphoria was only a brief respite from demands for structural reform to restore balance to the court.But what a respite it was. Trump presented one vision of America, infused with white identity politics and great men of history. This presented another, more generous in spirt, more authentic to the nation’s true origin story.Biden said: “This is not only a sunny day. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. This is going to let so much sun shine on so many young women, so many young Black women, so many minorities that it’s real. It’s real! We’re going to look back – and nothing to do with me – we’re going to look back and see this as a moment of real change in American history.”TopicsKetanji Brown JacksonThe US politics sketchUS politicsDemocratsUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)RacenewsReuse this content More

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      Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmed as first Black woman on US supreme court – as it happened

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      White House: Jackson confirmation ‘a tremendously historic day’

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      Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to US supreme court

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      How the supreme court confirmation vote will work

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      Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to US supreme court

      The US Senate has voted to confirm Joe Biden’s pick Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to a seat on the US supreme court.
      The historic vote makes her the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court.
      Full story here:

      Updated
      at 2.06pm EDT

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      Closing summary

      We’re closing down the blog now after a day dominated by the historic confirmation by the US Senate of the first Black judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to a seat on the US supreme court.
      Please join us again tomorrow, when Joe Biden will talk about Jackson’s confirmation from the White House, and for what will surely be another busy day in US politics.
      Remember you can continue to follow developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict on our live blog here.
      Here’s where else our day went:

      The New York attorney general Letitia James filed for a contempt order against Donald Trump for his refusal to cooperate with her inquiry into his business dealings.
      The House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she had tested positive for Covid-19.
      The justice department blocked the House 6 January inquiry from accessing 15 boxes of Trump’s White House records, according to reports.

      3.56pm EDT

      15:56

      One other issue to emerge from this afternoon’s White House press briefing: the Biden administration dismissed as “a publicity stunt” a declaration by the Texas governor Greg Abbott that he was going to bus undocumented migrants to Washington DC.
      Abbott floated the plan as his response to the upcoming termination of Title 42, a Trump-era immigration policy blocking migrants at the US southern border because of Covid-19. Critics of the administration, and the homeland security department, predict a surge of migrants when the program ends next month.
      “I’m not aware of any authority the governor would be doing that under,” Psaki said.
      “I think it’s pretty clear this is a publicity stunt, his own office admits that a migrant would need to voluntarily be transported and he can’t compel them to because enforcement of our country’s immigration government lies with the federal government, not a state.”

      3.47pm EDT

      15:47

      Inevitably, questions in the White House briefing room turned to Covid-19 and the announcement earlier today that the House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was twice in Joe Biden’s close company without a mask in recent days, had tested positive.
      Psaki said the administration was not concerned for the 79-year-old president’s age because, under centers for disease control and prevention (CDC) guidelines, the two are not considered “close contacts.”
      “It’s not arbitrary. It’s not something made up by the White House,” Psaki said of the guidelines. “They define it as being within six feet for a cumulative total of 15 minutes over a 24 hour period that they were not.
      “In terms of additional testing or anything along those lines, those assessments would be made by the president’s doctor. He was tested last evening and tested negative.
      “We have incredibly stringent protocols at the White House that we keep in place to keep the president, to keep everybody safe. Those go over and above CDC guidelines, and that includes ensuring that anyone who is going to be around the president is tested.”

      3.39pm EDT

      15:39

      Over at the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki has been answering questions about US arms shipments to Ukraine, given military leaders’ assessments that the war against Russia could take years.
      “There are transfers of systems nearly every single day,” Psaki said, hours after the Ukraine defense minister Dymtro Zulebi told journalists in Brussels that there were only three items on his country’s wish list for the US and its allies: “Weapons, weapons and weapons.” More