The Pentagon has gone on the record in dismissing Russia’s denial that it launched a missile attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, earlier that killed at least 50 people.
“Our assessment is that this was a Russian strike and that they used a short-range ballistic missile to conduct it,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in an afternoon briefing from the defense department.
“It is, again, a piece of Russian brutality in the prosecution of this war and their carelessness for trying to avoid civilian harm.”
An anonymous defense department official said, unofficially, earlier in the day that the Pentagon believed Russian forces used an SS-21 Scarab missile in the strike, but that the motivation for the attack was not clear.
“We are not buying the denial by the Russians that they weren’t responsible,” the official said.
At least 50 are dead, including four children, and another 87 wounded after the “monstrous” strike on about 4,000 civilians at the railway station as they waited for trains to evacuate them from the city in eastern Ukraine.
Read more here:
Updated
One other snippet from this afternoon’s White House press briefing: the Biden administration says it is seriously mulling a federal gas tax holiday to help bring down prices at the pump.
“It is certainly on the table, and certainly something we continue to consider,” press secretary Jen Psaki said.
“We have seen a number of states do that and it can have an impact about 18 cents [per gallon] I believe. Our primary focus to date has been taking steps to increase supply and get more supply into the global marketplace. It remains an option under consideration.”
The president ordered the largest release of oil reserves in US history last month to try to bring gas prices down, but critics say gas companies were slow to pass savings on to consumers.
On Friday, the average national cost of a gallon of gas was $4.14 , according to the AAA, barely three cents lower than one month ago.
Psaki divulged that she and other Biden administration officials were “ugly crying” on the south lawn at this afternoon’s White House reception for the new supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“I was with [the president] before when he was doing his final review of his remarks and what he was reflecting on was the number of people, whether people who work at the White House, people who are part of his every day, stewards or others who have commented to him how significant this moment is,” she said.
“History can be heartbreaking and many days it has been. History can be exhausting, and many days it has been. And history can be joyful. Today was a joyful day in history. And that’s certainly how the president was.”
As for her own tears, Psaki said she would try to avoid a repeat in the briefing room in answering a question about Biden’s demeanor ahead of the celebration.
“I’m going to try not to ugly cry about this day, which we were all doing on the south lawn,” she said.
Updated
The missile attack on a railway station in Ukraine, which killed at least 50, is “another horrific atrocity committed by Russia,” the White House says.
Press secretary Jen Psaki made the statement at her afternoon briefing, saying the attack on the station in Kramatorsk fitted a pattern of indiscriminate aggression from Russian president Vladimir Putin’s military.
“What we have seen over the course of the last six weeks, or more than that, has been what the president himself has characterized as war crimes, which is the intentional targeting of civilians,” Psaki said.
“This is yet another horrific atrocity committed by Russia, striking civilians who are trying to evacuate and reach safety. We’re going to support efforts to investigate the attack as we document Russia’s actions [and] hold them accountable.
“Obviously the targeting of civilians would certainly be a war crime and we’ve already called a range of the actions we’ve seen to date a war crime, but we’re going to be supporting efforts to investigate exactly what happened here.”
Two acquitted of plot to kidnap Michigan governor Whitmer
A federal jury has acquitted two men of conspiring to kidnap the Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, and was deadlocked on the same charges for two other men.
The four were charged in a plot prosecutors said was inspired by their fierce opposition to pandemic-related restrictions put into place by her office.
According to Reuters:
The 12-member panel in Grand Rapids, Michigan, found Adam Fox and Daniel Harris not guilty of kidnapping conspiracy charges. The jury was not able to agree on a verdict for Brandon Caserta and Barry Croft Jr.
Harris was also found not guilty of knowingly conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against persons or property for allegations of plotting to use explosives to blow up a bridge after abducting the governor. The jury was not able to reach a verdict against Fox and Croft for the same charge, resulting in a mistrial. Caserta did not face the weapons charge.
The case stands one of the most high-profile prosecutions of alleged members of right-wing organizations that have sprung up in the years since former President Donald Trump’s election in 2016. It also highlights the extent to which the pandemic and government efforts to control it have become a wedge issue in US politics.
Read more about the case here:
Russia used ballistic missile in rail station strike on civilians - US official
The US believes Russia used a short range ballistic missile to strike a railway station in east Ukraine on Friday, a senior US defense official said on Friday, Reuters reports.
Ukraine said at least 50 people were killed and many more wounded in a strike on a station in the city of Kramatorsk that was packed with civilians hoping to flee the threat of a major Russian offensive.
The US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Pentagon believes Russian forces used an SS-21 Scarab missile in the strike but that the motivation for the attack was not clear.
The SS-21 is the name used by the NATO military alliance for a type of missile known as the Tochka in former Soviet states.
The United States was still analyzing the strike and it was unclear whether cluster munitions were used, the official said.
We are not buying the denial by the Russians that they weren’t responsible,” the official said.
The Russian defense ministry was quoted by RIA news agency as saying the missiles said to have struck the station were used only by Ukraine’s military and that Russia’s armed forces had no targets assigned in Kramatorsk on Friday.
Videos posted on social media in recent weeks, which Reuters could not independently verify, appear to show Russian forces in or near Ukraine transporting Tochka missile launchers.
The U.S. defense official said Russia’s combat power in Ukraine continued to decline and was somewhere between 80% and 85% of its pre-invasion levels.
The United States has estimated Russia assembled more than 150,000 troops around Ukraine before its invasion on February 24.
The official said the United States now had indications Moscow has started mobilizing some reservists and could be looking to recruit more than 60,000 personnel.
For all the details on the Ukraine crisis, around the clock, please follow our global live blog, here.
Citing “no time for complacency,” Joe Biden has ordered the deployment of a US Patriot air defense system to Slovakia to replace a similar missile system that country has donated to Ukraine.
Biden hailed the swap deal between the allies in a statement from the White House released on Friday lunchtime.
The Ukraine president Volydymyr Zelenskiy and his defense officials have been vocal in their requests for western military equipment to help repel Russia’s invasion.
The White House statement reads:
Since the outset of my administration, the United States has placed the highest priority on delivering critical military capabilities to Ukraine so it can defend itself against Russian aggression. The entire world has now witnessed the effectiveness of those weapons, as courageous Ukrainian forces have used them to repel the Russian attack on Kyiv, keep the skies of Ukraine contested, and deliver severe blows to the Russian military.
In addition to US-produced weapons, we have also worked to facilitate the transfer of capabilities from our Allies and partners around the world. I want to thank the Slovakian government for providing an S-300 air defense system to Ukraine, something President Zelenskyy has personally raised with me in our conversations. To enable this transfer and ensure the continued security of Slovakia, the United States will reposition a US Patriot missile system to Slovakia.
Now is no time for complacency. The Russian military may have failed in its objective of capturing Kyiv, but it continues to inflict horrific acts of brutality on the Ukrainian people. As the Russian military repositions for the next phase of this war, I have directed my Administration to continue to spare no effort to identify and provide to the Ukrainian military the advanced weapons capabilities it needs to defend its country.
Jackson invoked a number of historical civil rights figures as she closed her moving address to the attendees on the White House south lawn.
“I am also ever buoyed by the leadership of generations past who helped to light the way, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Justice Thurgood Marshall [the first Black supreme court justice] and my personal heroine, Judge Constance Baker Motley [a former district court judge in New York and 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.”
Breaking down in tears, she acknowledged the power of the moment:
“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 Maya Angelou, I do so now while ‘bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave. I am the dream and the hope of the slave’,” Jackson said, quoting Angelou’s famous poem Still I Rise.
“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 is the honor of a lifetime for me to have this chance to join the court, to promote the rule of law at the highest level and to do my part to carry our shared project of democracy and equal justice under law forward into the future.”
"In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States" -- that was an amazing speech from Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson pic.twitter.com/gElMUgzPqN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 8, 2022
'We have made it': Ketanji Brown Jackson honored to become first Black female justice
An emotional Ketanji Brown Jackson said: “We have made it,” as she acknowledged the honor and responsibility of becoming the first Black woman justice to serve on the US supreme court.
“It’s been somewhat overwhelming, in a good way, to recently be flooded with thousands of notes and cards and photos, expressing just how much this moment means to so many people,” she said.
“The notes that I’ve received from children are particularly cute and especially meaningful because more than anything, they speak directly to the hope and promise of America.
“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. But we’ve made it. We’ve made it all of us, and our children are telling me that they see now, more than ever, that here in America anything is possible.”
Jackson said she also appreciated the responsibility she has been handed:
“They also tell me that I’m a role model, which I take both as an opportunity and as a huge responsibility,” she said.
“I am feeling up to the task primarily because I know that I am not alone. I am standing on the shoulders of my own role models, generations of Americans who never had anything close to this kind of opportunity. But who got up every day and went to work, believing in the promise of America, showing others through their determination and yes, their perseverance, that good things can be done in this great country.”
Updated
Ketanji Brown Jackson is pledging to defend the constitution and uphold the rule of law when she succeeds the retiring liberal supreme court justice Stephen Breyer this summer.
Pausing sporadically to dab at tears, she said her decades of experience would guide her in her new role.
“I’ve dedicated my career to public service, because I love this country and our Constitution and the rights that make us free,” she said.
“I also understand from my many years of practice, as a legal advocate as a trial judge, and as a judge on a Court of Appeals, that part of the genius of the constitutional framework of the United States is its design, and that the framers entrusted the judicial branch with a crucial but limited role.
“In every instance, I have done my level best to stay in my lane and to reach a result that is consistent with my understanding of the law and with the obligation to rule independently, without fear or favor.
“I am humbled and honored to continue in this fashion as an Associate Justice of the supreme court of the United States, working with brilliant colleagues supporting and defending the constitution and steadfastly upholding the rule of law.”
Ketanji Brown Jackson: ‘This is the greatest honor of my life’
Ketanji Brown Jackson says her confirmation to a US supreme court seat is “the greatest honor of my life.”
The newest justice began her remarks with thanks to Joe Biden, the president who nominated her, the vice-president Kamala Harris, and the senators who supported her.
But she said she was also “truly blessed” to have the support of those closest to her.
“It is the greatest honor of my life to be here with you at this moment, standing before my wonderful family, many of my close friends, your distinguished staff and guests, and the American people,” she said, turning to Biden.
“I have come this far by faith and I know that I am truly blessed. To the many people who have lifted me up in prayers since the nomination, thank you. I am very grateful.
“Thank you as well, Mr President, for believing in me and for honoring me with this extraordinary chance to serve our country.”
Updated
Biden is warming to his theme of a moment in history.
“We can turn our children and grandchildren to say, ‘I was there. I was there at one of these moments’,” he said.
“My fellow Americans, today I’m honored to officially introduce to you the next associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.”
The president was also full of praise for the new justice, her qualifications, and her poise through a torrid confirmation process.
“After more than 20 hours of questioning, nearly 100 meetings, she made herself available. Every single senator wanted to speak to her and spoke for more than just a few minutes, answer their questions in private as well as before the committee,” he said.
“We all saw the kind of justice she’ll be: fair and impartial, thoughtful, careful, precise, brilliant, a brilliant legal mind with deep knowledge of the law. And the judicial temperament, which was equally important in my view. That’s calm and in command.
“So many Americans can see that Ketanji Brown Jackson brings a rare combination of expertise and qualifications in the court. A federal judge who has served on the second most powerful court in America behind the supreme court, a former federal public defender, the ability to explain complicated issues and the law in ways all people expected.”
Biden also paid tribute to Mitt Romney, and his two fellow Republican senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who also voted for Jackson to make her confirmation a bipartisan event.
Biden: Jackson confirmation 'a moment of real change in American history'
Joe Biden is now at the podium, hailing Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation as: “A moment of real change in American history.”
“This is going to let so much sunshine on so many young women, so many young black men, so many minorities, it’s real,” Biden said.
“We’re going to look back and see this is a moment of real change in American history.
“Yesterday, we all witnessed a truly historic moment, presided over by the vice-president. There are moments that people go back in history. And they’re literally historic, consequential, fundamental shifts in American policy,” Biden added.
“Today we’re joined by the First Lady, the second gentleman and members of the Cabinet, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and so many who made this possible.
“Today is a good day, a day that history is going to remember. They’re going to be proud of what we did.”
Updated
'Today is a wonderful day': Kamala Harris celebrates Jackson confirmation
The White House celebration for Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the US supreme court is under way, with vice-president Kamala Harris making the opening remarks.
“Today is indeed a wonderful day as we gather to celebrate the confirmation of the next justice of the United States supreme court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson,” she said.
Flanked by Jackson and president Joe Biden, Harris recalled the first president George Washington, whom, she said, “once referred to America as a great experiment, a nation founded on the previously untested belief that the people we the people could form a more perfect union.
“And that belief has pushed our nation forward. For generations. And it is that belief that we learned yesterday.”
To cheers and applause, Harris added: “Judge Jackson, you will inspire generations of leaders. They will watch your confirmation hearings and read your decisions in the years to come. The court will answer fundamental questions about who we are and what kind of country we live in. Will we expand opportunity or restricted? Will we strengthen the foundations of our great democracy? Or let them crumble? Will we move forward or backward?
“The young leaders of our nation will learn from the experience the judgment, the wisdom that you, Judge Jackson will apply in every case that comes before you.”
Updated
Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation vote came on a rain-drenched Capitol Hill on Thursday. A day later, the good news for those gathering at the White House for the outdoor formal celebration is that it’s a beautiful April afternoon.
Reporters assigned to the White House pool today note that, as the media sets up to cover the event, there are already hundreds of people milling about, chatting and taking pictures of themselves on the south lawn with the flag-bedecked south portico behind them.
There are also a few dozen flags lined up in the driveway and four sections of folding white chairs about 8-12 rows deep arrayed in front of the presidential lectern, which looks to be positioned about 150 feet from the door to the south portico, Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau said.
The Marine band is seated on the east side of the lawn and playing. It’s a pretty perfect April day out here, 58 degrees and sunny with an almost cloudless sky.
Democrats are capitalizing on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s supreme court confirmation to attempt to recruit Black voters in several battleground states ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The Democratic senatorial campaign committee (DSCC) says the group is targeting local Black media outlets in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by placing advertisements on several newspapers’ homepages today: “highlighting Senate Republicans’ opposition to Jackson’s historic nomination.”
“If Senate Republicans had their way, Judge Jackson, an exceptionally qualified jurist and the first Black woman to serve on the supreme court, wouldn’t have even been given a hearing,” DSCC spokesperson Freedom Alexander Murphy said.
Black voters were crucial to Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, and he campaigned partly on a pledge to seat the first Black woman on the supreme court, if given the opportunity.
The White House celebrated the achievement yesterday as “a fulfillment of a promise the president made to the country.”
Black lawmakers are hailing the “historic pick” of Ketanji Brown Jackson for the US supreme court.
Among them are the Florida congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who represents parts of Miami where Jackson attended high school, and has known the newly confirmed justice’s parents for decades.
“Her father was the first Black school board attorney when I was serving on the school board. Her mother was a principal when I was a principal … so [for] the Black people in Miami, you can imagine what’s happening now as we watch this,” Wilson told the Guardian.
“Young kids know her name, and they’re talking about her in schools. They’re talking about her in barbershops,” she said.
“This was a young lady who grew up with people telling her you can be anything you want to be.”
Read more here:
Updated
A 17-second viral tweet of the moments on the US Senate floor following Ketanji Brown Jackson’s supreme court nomination provides a telling study of the contrasting moods in the chamber.
To the left is the Utah senator Mitt Romney, one of three Republicans to support Jackson with Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, standing alone and applauding.
Beside and behind him, Republicans including the Texas senator Ted Cruz, slink away quietly, even as the applause spreads and the cheering grows louder.
The tweet, posted by the Twitter celebrity and self-declared “internet hooligan” Acyn, had been viewed more than 100,000 times by mid-morning Friday.
Some Republicans walk out during the applause. Mitt Romney stays and continues to clap pic.twitter.com/b9z8huQQIY
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 7, 2022
Here are a few images from Washington DC following the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the US supreme court on Thursday.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus celebrated at the Capitol:
Supporters gathered outside the Capitol building:
And back inside:
Oath Keepers and Proud Boys 'coordinated 6 January attack', House panel believes
The House select committee investigating January 6 appears to believe the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault perpetrated by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys militia groups that sought to physically stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
The panel’s working theory – which has not been previously reported though the justice department has indicted some militia group leaders – crystallized this week after obtaining evidence of the coordination in testimony and non-public video, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Counsel on the select committee’s “gold team” examining Donald Trump, the “red team” examining January 6 rally organizers, and the “purple team” examining the militia groups, are now expected to use the findings to inform the direction for the remainder of the investigation, the sources said.
The panel has amassed deep evidence about the connections between the connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys in recent weeks after it obtained hours of non-public footage of the leaders of the militia groups in Washington ahead of the Capitol attack, the sources said.
And the select committee has also now heard testimony from award-winning documentary film-maker Nick Quested on Wednesday about contacts between the militia group leaders, far-right political operatives and the Save America rally organizers, the sources said.
Read more here:
Anthony Fauci, the White House medical adviser, has been talking to Bloomberg TV, and warning that he thinks a new surge of Covid-19 infections is “likely” to occur across the US in the fall.
His comments come as the highly transmissible BA.2 coronavirus subvariant begins to take hold in the country, accounting for three out of every four new cases, according to Reuters. But numbers of deaths and hospitalizations are still far below those of the Covid-19 peak in January.
In his interview with Bloomberg, Dr Fauci said he expected the trend to continue in the coming weeks and months. But he said there was “a significant amount of background immunity” that could help the country avoid the worst outcomes of previous surges, including Omicron and Delta:
I think we should expect over the next couple of weeks we are going to see an uptick in cases and hopefully there’s enough background immunity so that we don’t wind up with a lot of hospitalizations. The best way to avoid that is to get more people vaccinated, and if you’re vaccinated, then wind up making sure you get boosted when your time comes up.
It is likely that we will see a surge in the fall. These are uncharted waters for us with this virus than... flu or other infections in which you have decades and decades of experience. You can predict with some degree of accuracy what you might see. We should expect that we are going to see some increase in cases as you get to the colder weather in the fall.
Updated
The White House is billing as a “celebration” its event on the south lawn later today when Joe Biden welcomes the newly-confirmed US supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Jackson, who will become the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest judicial panel, was confirmed 53-47 in an historic vote in the US senate on Thursday.
She will join Biden, the president who nominated her, and vice-president Kamala Harris in speaking about her lifetime appointment at the event scheduled to begin at 12.15pm.
The celebration comes with a note of caution: several government officials have tested positive for Covid-19 this week, prompting memories of Donald Trump’s nomination reception for his final supreme court pick Amy Coney Barrett at the White House in September 2020, which became a super-spreader event.
But the White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who called Jackson’s confirmation “a tremendously historic day” in her briefing on Thursday, also brushed off those concerns.
“At that point in time, vaccines were unavailable. People were not vaccinated,” she said of the Barrett reception. “It certainly puts us in a different space.”
We’re going to bring you more analysis, reaction and images from Jackson’s confirmation day here in the blog as we wait for the White House event to begin.
Let’s start with this look at what Jackson’s confirmation means for the future of the supreme court, written by Guardian US chief reporter Ed Pilkington:
Updated
Ketanji Brown Jackson celebrates historic confirmation
Good morning and welcome, Friday blog readers. Thanks for joining us today, when the newest US supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will join Joe Biden at the White House to celebrate her historic confirmation.
We’ll bring you their comments, and those of the vice-president Kamala Harris, when they speak at lunchtime.
The Russian war on Ukraine continues, and you can follow all the developments in the conflict on our live 24-hour blog here.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
- Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, is warning that a new surge of Covid-19 in the US is “likely” in the fall.
- Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, will deliver her final briefing of the week to reporters at 2pm.
- The House of Representatives and US senate are not in session today, probably a good thing as senators Susan Collins of Maine and Raphael Warnock of Georgia have joined a growing number of politicians testing positive for Covid-19.
