Senate confirms Barrett

WASHINGTON—The Senate on Monday approved the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement on the Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48, nearly along party lines. Only Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, switched sides to vote against President Donald Trump’s third high court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Clarence Thomas administered the Constitutional Oath to Barrett at a special ceremony in the White House on Monday night. She became just the fifth female justice in the court’s history and, at 48 years old, the youngest since Thomas in 1991.

Which cases will she hear first? Barrett could cast the deciding in Republican appeals of orders extending the deadlines for absentee ballots in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The justices also are weighing Trump’s emergency plea for an injunction to keep the Manhattan district attorney from acquiring his tax returns. On Nov. 10, the court is expected to hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

Dig deeper: Read Harvest Prude’s comparison of Barrett’s and Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s roads to Senate confirmation.