Tuesday morning news - October 13, 2020

Lawmakers begin questioning in Barrett confirmation hearing » Lawmakers will begin questioning Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett this morning on day two of her confirmation hearing.  

Barrett once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia and on Monday, she said his legal reasoning helped to shape her own. 

BARRETT: His judicial philosophy was straightforward: a judge must apply the law as it is written, not as she wishes it were.

She said the court’s role is vital but limited, and that the Judicial Branch should not attempt to make or reshape public policy. 

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee again voiced their concerns that Barrett may hold pro-life views and that she could cast the deciding vote to strike down Obamacare.

And Senator Dianne Feinstein insisted…

FEINSTEIN: We should not be moving forward on this nomination. Not until the election has ended and the next president has taken office. 

Noting that the GOP-led Senate did not vote on President’ Obama’s high court nominee in 2016, Democrats called the hearing “hypocritical” and even “illegitimate.” 

Republican Senator Mike Crapo fired back saying the Senate has handled this scenario the same way since the 1800s. He pointed out that 29 times a president has named a Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year. 

CRAPO: 19 of those 29 times, the parties of the president and the Senate majority were the same. And 17 of those 19 nominees were confirmed. 

In contrast, he said when different parties controlled the White House and the Senate—the Senate hasn’t filled an election year vacancy in more than a century. 

India on track to surpass U.S. in confirmed coronavirus cases » New COVID-19 cases are rising once again in America and around the world. And one country is on track to surpass the U.S. total in confirmed cases with new infections rising at twice the rate of the United States. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: India’s confirmed coronavirus toll crossed the 7 million mark this week. That trails only the United States, which has 8 million official cases. 

But U.S. testing capacity is far greater—with 118 million tests conducted so far. That’s nearly one test for every three people in the country. 

In contrast, Indian health officials have tested 88 million people. That’s roughly one test for every 16 citizens. 

That means India is likely already the hardest hit nation in the world. And several other countries, including Brazil and Peru, likely have higher totals per capita than the United States. 

Meantime, Iran broke its single-day record for COVID-19 deaths on Monday for a second straight day. The country reported 272 deaths and more than 4,000 new cases, though the true totals are likely much higher. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin. 

Two Americans win Nobel Prize in economics » Two American economists won the Nobel Prize on Monday for improving how auctions work.

HANSSON: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has today decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences jointly to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson.

Academy secretary-general Goran Hansson heard there. 

The Nobel Committee said the work of the economists underlies much of today’s economy—from the way Google sells advertising to the way telecom companies acquire airwaves from the government.

Milgrom, 72, and Wilson, 83, both of Stanford University tackled some tricky problems with auctions. 

One of those issues was what Wilson called the “snake in the grass strategy.” That’s where a company hides its interest in the item up for bid until the last minute. Wilson said “It’s like sniping” at the very end of an eBay auction.

The pair designed rules that force bidders to reveal their interest earlier on.

The Nobel Committee said their work has “benefitted sellers, buyers, and taxpayers around the world.”

Roberta McCain, John McCain’s mother, dies at 108 » Roberta Wright McCain, the mother of the late Sen. John McCain died Monday at the age of 108. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has that story. 

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: Many voters got to know Roberta McCain during her son’s presidential campaign in 2008. At 96, she became the Republican senator’s secret weapon at campaign stops, helping convince voters they shouldn’t worry about her son’s age. He was 71 when he launched his White House bid. 

Roberta married Senator McCain’s father, John McCain Jr., in 1933 at the age of 20. Her husband would later retire from the U.S. Navy as a four-star admiral. 

The senator said in 2008 that his “father was often at sea, and the job of raising my brother, sister, and me would fall to my mother alone.”

Senator John McCain’s widow, Cindy McCain, posted a statement Monday saying “I couldn’t have asked for a better role model or a better friend.”

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones. 

Big league Hall of Famer Joe Morgan dies » Hall of Fame second baseman Joe Morgan died this week. 

Morgan was the spark plug for the Cincinnati Reds teams of the 1970s, known as “The Big Red Machine,” playing alongside Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, and others. 

He was a 10-time All-Star and won five Gold Gloves. 

In a 2016 interview, he said his greatest baseball memory was winning the World Series with the Reds in 1975. 

MORGAN: We’d been knocking on the door for three or four years, and all of a sudden we are world champions. So I was still pinching myself when I went back into the locker room, you know, before I got in the shower. You know, is this real? 

The Reds won the World Series the following year as well. Morgan was league MVP both years.  

A family spokesman said Joe Morgan died at his home Sunday in Danville, California. He was 77.

(Alex Edelman/Pool via AP) Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is sworn in during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monday, Oct. 12, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. 

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