Bhinneka News Online: Tuesday Morning Briefing: FBI talks with school friend of Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh

Tuesday, 2 October 2018

Tuesday Morning Briefing: FBI talks with school friend of Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh

Highlights

Days after being ordered to look into sexual misconduct allegations against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the FBI has talked with his high school friend Mark Judge, but the interview is not complete, his attorney said.

Commentary: Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the United States Supreme Court is in question due to allegations of sexual assault made by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor and high school acquaintance of Kavanaugh’s. On Friday, Senate Republicans agreed to delay the vote by one week in order to make time for an FBI investigation into Ford’s claims. Amy Steigerwalt, a Georgia State University political science professor whose research focuses on the federal judicial selection process, as well as the influences on courts’ operations and decision-making, spoke with Reuters’ Helen Coster.

Amazon said it is raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour for all U.S. employees including full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees, starting November 1.

Indonesia Earthquake

Indonesian President Joko Widodo called for reinforcements in a desperate search for survivors of a devastating earthquake and tsunami on Sulawesi island, as the official death toll rose above 1,200 and looting fueled fears of lawlessness.

Indonesia, which sits on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire, is all too familiar with earthquakes and tsunamis. A quake off Sumatra island in 2004 triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean that killed 226,000 people. A series of earthquakes in Lombok in July and August killed more than 500 people. The map below shows significant earthquakes in Indonesia since 1980.

World

Some of the actions Aung San Suu Kyi has taken as Myanmar’s civilian leader are “regrettable” but her Nobel Peace Prize will not be withdrawn, the head of the Nobel Foundation told Reuters in an interview in Stockholm. “We see what she’s been doing in Myanmar has been questioned a lot and we stand for human rights, that’s one of our core values,” Lars Heikensten said. For the latest updates on Reuters journalists imprisoned in Myanmar.

Britain cannot leave the European house but keep the key and the right to swing by anytime, a top European Union official told London as Brexit negotiations are entering their final stretch.

A trio of American, French and Canadian scientists won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics for breakthroughs in laser technology that have turned light beams into precision tools for everything from eye surgery to micro-machining.

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