Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is poised Thursday to make history, becoming the first Black woman to join the U.S. Supreme Court. Jackson is scheduled to be sworn in during a ceremony at the court at noon Eastern time, just minutes after Justice Stephen G. Breyer makes his retirement official. Biden’s nominee was confirmed by the Senate in April but has been waiting for Breyer to conclude his tenure.


Vice President Kamala Harris triggered new questions Wednesday about President Biden’s 2024 election plans — saying she wanted to walk back a remark indicating that Biden had already decided to run for a second term.

The Jan. 6 committee’s hearings have a lot in common with scripted TV mini-series: narrative, editing — even surprise reveals, as when the committee sprang a bonus episode, featuring Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, on a day’s notice.

One thing the hearings do not have, however, is episode titles. But if they did, it would be hard to resist calling this jaw-dropping installment “The Beast.”

As White House watchers know, “The Beast” is a nickname for the presidential vehicle. It also evokes the mayhem that Ms. Hutchinson described inside the vehicle as the attack began. Recounting a story she said she was told by a member of President Donald J. Trump’s security detail, Ms. Hutchinson said Mr. Trump grabbed at the steering wheel after being told he couldn’t join the mob at the Capitol and lunged at the throat of his own Secret Service agent. (Secret Service officials later denied that Mr. Trump assaulted an agent or reached for the wheel, but did not deny that he wanted to go to the Capitol.)