AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
Justice Breyer to retire, giving Biden first court pick
WASHINGTON (AP) - Longtime liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring, numerous sources said Wednesday, giving President Joe Biden his first high court opening, which he has pledged to fill with the historic naming of the court's first Black woman.
Breyer, 83, has been a pragmatic force on a court that has grown increasingly conservative, trying to forge majorities with more moderate justices right and left of center. His retirement will give Biden the chance to name and win confirmation of a replacement before next fall's election when Republicans could retake the Senate and block future nominees.
Democrats are planning a swift confirmation, perhaps even before Breyer officially steps down, which is not expected before summer.
He has been a justice since 1994, appointed by President Bill Clinton. Along with the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he opted not to step down the last time the Democrats controlled the White House and the Senate during Barack Obama´s presidency. Ginsburg died in September 2020, and then-President Donald Trump filled the vacancy with a conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett.
Breyer´s departure won´t change the 6-3 conservative advantage on the court because his replacement will almost certainly be confirmed by a Senate where Democrats have the slimmest majority. It will make conservative Justice Clarence Thomas the oldest member of the court. Thomas turns 74 in June.
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At least 3 judges eyed as Biden mulls Supreme Court pick
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Joe Biden is eyeing at least three judges for an expected vacancy on the Supreme Court as he prepares to quickly deliver on his campaign pledge to nominate the first Black woman to the nation´s highest court, according to aides and allies.
With Justice Stephen Breyer planning to retire, early discussions about a successor are focusing on U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, according to four people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss White House deliberations. Jackson and Krueger have long been seen as possible nominees.
Since Biden took office in January 2021, he has focused on nominating a diverse group of judges to the federal bench, installing five Black women on federal appeals courts, with three more nominations pending before the Senate. Other possible candidates for the high court could come from among that group, Biden aides and allies said, especially since almost all of the recent Supreme Court nominees have been federal appeals judges.
"He has a strong pool to select a candidate from, in addition to other sources. This is an historic opportunity to appoint someone with a strong record on civil and human rights," said Derrick Johnson, the NAACP's president.
By the end of his first term, Biden had won confirmation of 40 judges, the most since President Ronald Reagan. Of those, 80% are women and 53% are people of color, according to the White House.
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US offers no concessions in response to Russia on Ukraine
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Biden administration and NATO told Russia on Wednesday there will be no U.S. or NATO concessions on Moscow´s main demands to resolve the crisis over Ukraine.
In separate written responses delivered to the Russians, the U.S. and NATO held firm to the alliance´s open-door policy for membership, rejected a demand to permanently ban Ukraine from joining, and said allied deployments of troops and military equipment in Eastern Europe are nonnegotiable.
"There is no change, there will be no change," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. Also not up for negotiation will be the U.S. and European response to any Russian invasion of Ukraine, he said, repeating the mantra that any such incursion would be met with massive consequences and severe economic costs.
The responses were not unexpected and mirrored what senior U.S. and NATO officials have been saying for weeks. Nonetheless, they and the eventual Russian reaction to them could determine whether Europe will again be plunged into war.
There was no immediate response from Russia but Russian officials have warned that Moscow would quickly take "retaliatory measures" if the U.S. and its allies reject its demands.
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Fed plans to raise rates as soon as March to cool inflation
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Reserve signaled Wednesday that it will begin a series of interest-rate hikes in March, reversing pandemic-era policies that have fueled hiring and growth - and stock market gains - but also high inflation.
Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference that inflation has gotten "slightly worse" since the Fed last met in December. He said raising the Fed's benchmark rate, which has been pegged at zero since March 2020, will help prevent high prices from becoming entrenched.
Powell said the central bank can manage the process in a way that prolongs economic growth and keeps unemployment low. "I think there is quite a bit of room to raise interest rates without threatening the labor market," he said.
The Fed´s rate hikes will make it more expensive, over time, to borrow for a home, car or business. The Fed´s intent is to temper economic growth and cool off inflation, which is at a 40-year high and eating into Americans´ wage gains and household budgets.
"The best thing we can do to support continued labor market gains," Powell said, "is to promote a long expansion, and that will require price stability."
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Situation 'dire' as Coast Guard seeks 38 missing off Florida
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) - The Coast Guard battled time and currents Wednesday as its planes and ships searched for 38 people missing off the coast of Florida, four days after a suspected human smuggling boat capsized in a storm.
The accident killed at least one person and left a single known survivor, and U.S. authorities launched a criminal investigation.
Capt. Jo-Ann F. Burdian said the survivor told rescuers that the boat capsized Saturday evening shortly after sailing from the Bahamas into a storm. The Coast Guard was alerted Tuesday morning after the crew of a merchant vessel spotted the man sitting alone on the overturned hull of the 25-foot boat. He was taken to a hospital with symptoms of dehydration and sun exposure and turned over to Homeland Security officials, who said he is "conscious and lucid."
Burdian said finding other migrants alive is urgent.
"With every moment that passes, it becomes much more dire and more unlikely" that survivors will be found, she told a news conference.
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Mississippi capital city struggles with aging water system
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The unreliable water system in Mississippi's capital city causes problems several times a year at Styles of Essence hair salon, where water service can suddenly get cut off as workers repair broken pipes nearby.
Owner and stylist Belinda Smith keeps more than a dozen jugs of water in the small shop in south Jackson, stashed under sinks and along the base of a wall painted with the slogan, "Jesus Is Lord." Even if water stops flowing from the city system, she needs to rinse chemicals off her customers' hair.
"I have been in here and they will turn off the water without letting me know," Smith said Wednesday. "You don´t want to get into a situation where you didn´t fill your bottles back up."
Jackson has longstanding, expensive-to-fix problems with its aging water system, and the EPA issued a notice Tuesday that the system violates the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The order directs the city to outline a plan to "correct the significant deficiencies identified" in an EPA report within 45 days.
Like many older cities around the U.S., Jackson faces more water system problems that it can afford to fix. The tax base of Mississippi's capital has eroded over the past few decades as the population has decreased - the result of mostly white flight to suburbs that began after public schools integrated in 1970. The city's population is now more than 80% Black, with about 25% of residents living in poverty.
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Vaccine mandate to kick in for first wave of health workers
Health care workers in about half the states face a Thursday deadline to get their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine under a Biden administration mandate that will be rolled out across the rest of the country in the coming weeks.
While the requirement is welcomed by some, others fear it will worsen already serious staff shortages if employees quit rather than comply.
And in some Republican-led states that have taken a stand against vaccine mandates, hospitals and nursing homes could find themselves caught between conflicting state and federal demands.
"We would like to see staff vaccinated. We think that it´s the safest option for residents, which is our biggest concern," said Marjorie Moore, executive director of VOYCE, a St. Louis County, Missouri, nonprofit that works on behalf of nursing home residents. "But not having staff is also a really big concern, because the neglect that happens as a result of that is severe and very scary."
The mandate affects a wide swath of the health care industry, covering doctors, nurses, technicians, aides and even volunteers at hospitals, nursing homes, home-health agencies and other providers that participate in the federal Medicare or Medicaid programs.
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Feds accuse Texas man of selling gun used to take hostages
DALLAS (AP) - A Texas man has been charged with a federal gun crime after authorities say he sold a gun to a man who held four hostages inside a Texas synagogue earlier this month before being fatally shot by the FBI, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
Henry "Michael" Williams, 32, was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm after authorities say he sold the weapon that Malik Faisal Akram used when he entered Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, on Jan. 15 and held the synagogue´s rabbi and three others hostage for hours.
The attorney listed for Williams in court records did not immediately respond Wednesday to a phone message and email seeking comment.
Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen, held hostages in the Dallas-area suburb while demanding the release of a federal prisoner. The standoff ended after more than 10 hours when the temple´s rabbi threw a chair at Akram and fled with the other two remaining hostages just as an FBI tactical team was moving in. None of the hostages were injured.
Prosecutors say Williams sold Akram a semi-automatic pistol on Jan. 13 - two days before the hostage-taking. The pistol was recovered from the scene.
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China 2008 vs 2022: Richer, stronger, more confrontational
BEIJING (AP) - China has undergone history-making change since the last time it was an Olympic host in 2008: It is richer, more heavily armed and openly confrontational.
As President Xi Jinping´s government prepares for February´s Winter Olympics, it has greater leverage to exert influence abroad and resist complaints from the United States and other governments over trade, technology theft and its treatment of Taiwan, Hong Kong and China´s Muslim minorities.
The economy is three times larger today. The ruling Communist Party is using that wealth to try to become a "technology power" and is spending more on its military than any country other than the United States.
"2008 was a turning point," said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, an expert on Chinese politics at Hong Kong Baptist University. "That was the beginning of China´s assertiveness."
As fireworks exploded over Beijing in August 2008, China was about to overtake Japan as the No. 2 global economy. The ruling party celebrated with the most expensive Summer Games to date.
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Hot stuff: Lab hits milestone on long road to fusion power
With 192 lasers and temperatures more than three times hotter than the center of the sun, scientists hit - at least for a fraction of a second - a key milestone on the long road toward nearly pollution-free fusion energy.
Researchers at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California were able to spark a fusion reaction that briefly sustained itself - a major feat because fusion requires such high temperatures and pressures that it easily fizzles out.
The ultimate goal, still years away, is to generate power the way the sun generates heat, by smooshing hydrogen atoms so close to each other that they combine into helium, which releases torrents of energy.
A team of more than 100 scientists published the results of four experiments that achieved what is known as a burning plasma in Wednesday´s journal Nature. With those results, along with preliminary results announced last August from follow-up experiments, scientists say they are on the threshold of an even bigger advance: ignition. That´s when the fuel can continue to "burn" on its own and produce more energy than what's needed to spark the initial reaction.
"We´re very close to that next step," said study lead author Alex Zylstra, an experimental physicist at Livermore.
