- Jill Biden announces $500 million for women's health research
- Injured All Blacks centre Jordie Barrett out of Australia Test
- 'Lead the future': youth challenge world leaders at UN
- Goosebumps and stars as Paris Fashion Week kicks off
- Boeing boosts pay offer in effort to end strike
- Global markets inch higher on hopes of further rate cuts
- Amazon forest loses area the size of Germany and France, fueling fires
- 'Curious' Dupont eyes position change after claiming Top 14 award
- Man Utd stadium regeneration could add £7.3bn to British economy
- At COP16, Colombia seeks to lead by example on biodiversity
- Dupont caps off Olympic gold season with Top 14 player award
- Leeds to expand Elland Road to 53,000 capacity
- Mysterious 18th century diamond necklace set for auction
- World's oceans near critical acidification level: report
- California sues oil giant Exxon over plastic recycling 'myth'
- As wars rage, UN's critics say global body is failing its mission
- Amazon forest has lost an area the size of Germany and France
- Nadal, Alcaraz and Sinner in Davis Cup finals teams
- Telegram's Durov announces new crackdown on illegal content
- African players in Europe: Ice-cool Jackson strikes twice
- Man City's Rodri 'out for season' after ACL injury: reports
- Venezuelan court issues arrest warrant for Argentina's Milei
- Arsenal not yet a match for Man City-Liverpool rivalry, says Silva
- Iran's new president calls Israel warmonger as he seeks talks with West
- Berlin warns UniCredit against Commerzbank takeover attempt
- Black Eyed Peas star harnesses AI for novel radio product
- England cricket captain Knight reprimanded over 'blackface' photo
- Barca goalkeeper Ter Stegen set to miss season after knee operation
- 'I lived a lie', tearful witness tells French mass rape trial
- 274 dead in Israeli strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon
- Gunman revealed Trump plot months before golf course arrest: DOJ
- Trial opens in Italy student murder case that opened eyes to femicide
- Iran president accuses Israel of seeking conflict, says opposes war
- Swedish battery maker Northvolt to slash 1,600 jobs, quarter of staff
- Joshua says boxing career 'far from over' after Dubois defeat
- Stock markets inch higher on rate hopes
- 182 dead in Israeli strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon
- Friedkin Group reach deal to buy Everton
- UniCredit ups stake in Commerzbank to 21 percent
- Big rate cut was 'appropriate' first step: Fed official
- Stock markets diverge as eurozone economy struggles
- Lebanon says 100 dead in Israeli strikes on Hezbollah strongholds
- Man City's Akanji sends defiant title message after Arsenal battle
- Madrid's 'many styles' key to unbeaten streak: Ancelotti
- UK's Labour pledges economic rebuild amid free gifts row
- Barca goalkeeper Ter Stegen to undergo knee operation
- French mass rape trial moves on to new defendants
- Israel warns Lebanese as intense strikes target Hezbollah
- UK's Labour looks to be more cheerful despite gifts and welfare row
- Eurozone business activity slumps after Olympics boost
Biden eyes political rebound after historic Supreme Court triumph
The Thursday confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court marks an undeniable success for Joe Biden, with the American president in dire need of fresh political uplift months before midterm elections.
The 79-year-old Democrat has made clear he intends to thoroughly capitalize on the historic appointment, which fulfills a top campaign promise: placing a Black woman for the first time onto the nation's highest court, a nine-justice bench where America's most pressing social debates are decided.
Biden hosted the highly respected judge at the White House on February 25 when he unveiled her as his nominee. Then he made it publicly known he called her up to offer encouragement ahead of marathon US Senate confirmation hearings before the judiciary committee that he himself once chaired as a senator.
On Thursday the White House ushered photographers into a room in the presidential mansion where they found Biden and Jackson watching the Senate confirmation vote live on television.
If that wasn't enough, Biden posted a selfie of the occasion on the presidential Twitter account.
- Reception -
Finally, on Friday Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will fete Jackson at an event on the White House lawn.
With the rapid approach of the midterm elections, traditionally difficult for the incumbent president's political party, Biden is desperate to build some political momentum.
His administration may be highlighting the US economy's rapid rebound and a booming job market following coronavirus pandemic doldrums, but none of that is working.
American households see only their hard-earned dollars being swallowed up at the gas pump and the supermarket checkout counter due to galloping inflation.
The president's job approval rating is hovering around 41 or 42 percent -- dismal, with little signs of improvement.
If there was a slight uptick after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, which saw Biden take the reins of the Western response, it hardly lasted, with the nation's partisan divides pushed to breaking point by previous president Donald Trump.
Such division played out during the Jackson hearings, even as the nominee herself has proven popular with the public.
"The Republicans want to win back the majority (in Congress), and so they were asking a lot, I think, of irrelevant questions," said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias.
He also noted that while three Republicans broke ranks and voted to confirm Jackson, it was nothing like the bipartisan mood that surrounded Stephen Breyer, the justice whom Jackson is replacing.
He was confirmed 87-9 by the Senate in 1994; Biden's nominee earned a 53-47 vote.
- Rejuvenation -
If he cannot jolt large swaths of voters to his side, Biden can at least hope the Jackson confirmation lights a fire under a crucial slice of the electorate: African Americans.
He owed them for the 2020 election, not just for getting him into the White House, but for securing a razor-thin Senate majority, after intense fieldwork by Black community leaders in Georgia helped wrest two seats away from Republicans.
But after the euphoria of those victories ebbed, many activists criticized Biden for abandoning some promises he made to minority voters, notably on addressing police brutality and defending voting rights.
Jackson's appointment to the court could at least temporarily assuage the sting of previous disappointments. She has been praised by luminaries including former first lady Michelle Obama, as well as Martin Luther King III -- son of the slain civil rights icon -- and Stacey Abrams, the charismatic Black candidate for governor in Georgia.
In the end though, what really could spoil Friday's party at the White House is Covid-19; infections have exploded in recent days in Washington and its small world of politics and media.
K.Thomson--BTB