House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced she has tested positive for Covid-19, this just having appeared next to President Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and other senior figures at a bill signing.
Ms Pelosi’s diagnosis means that three of the top 10 people in the presidential line of succession are currently known to be infected with the virus. The speaker’s team say she is currently asymptomatic.
Meanwhile, Mr Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is expected to be confirmed today by a vote on the Senate floor. Having garnered the support of three Republican senators – Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney – she is also expected to have the support of all 50 Democrats, setting her up to become the court’s first Black woman justice.
The vote comes after a seven-week nomination process that saw her heavily criticised by Republicans who focused on her supposed record of leniency towards sexual offenders who targeted children. That criticism was in turn widely rejected as a distortion of her past decisions.
