A California nurse who never forgot a premature baby she cared for early in her career has been reunited with her patient – now a doctor at the same hospital where he was born 28 years ago.
Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, in a post that exploded on Facebook, says Vilma Wong recognized pediatric resident Brandon Seminatore’s name when he was performing rounds at the hospital in San Jose.
Seminatore was born at the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, 29 weeks into his mother’s pregnancy. He weighed a little more than two pounds.
“Fast forward nearly 30 years, and Vilma recognized Brandon’s name while he was rounding at our hospital. What a memory!” the Facebook post exclaims.
Wong, 54, told The Mercury News she saw someone visiting with patients who had not checked in at the nurse station. She asked him who he was and thought his name sounded familiar. She pressed him, and he said he was born, a preemie, in the same hospital.
She thought she remembered him, and asked him whether his father was a police officer.
“There was a big silence,’’ she said, “Then he asked if I was Vilma.’’
Seminatore spent 40 days in NICU as an infant, checking out a healthy 5 pounds and 2 ounces. Today he is bigger and stronger, but Wong says he has the same dark eyes and alert expression.
Wong says she loves her work and has no plans to retire. Having the opportunity to meet a baby she nurtured later in life makes the job even better, she said.
“As a nurse,’’ she said, “it’s kind of like your reward.’’
The hospital’s Facebook post drew more than 700 comments, hundreds of them from parents and fellow health care professionals lauding Wong’s skill and dedication.
“Vilma was my daughter’s primary nurse, I just simply love her!!!” said Monica Rodriguez Regalado. “She has a very special place in our hearts!!!”
Seminatore told the Mercury News he doesn’t know for sure whether his rocky early weeks played a role in his decision to become a healer. But he was impressed by Wong.
“Meeting Vilma was a surreal experience,’’ he said. “She cares deeply for her patients, to the point that she was able to remember a patient’s name almost three decades later.’’
Alastair Cook has scored 32 centuries in 160 Tests – both England records
Players like Alastair Cook do not come around very often.
To play for so long and achieve so much says everything about his fitness, concentration, discipline and skill.
He has shown how far determination, hard work, guts and no little talent can take you.
When Cook retires from international cricket after the fifth Test against India at The Oval, he will leave with the most of everything for England – caps, runs, hundreds, catches and wins. His contribution to English cricket has been immense.
Having said that, it does feel like right time for the opener to call time on his career. He has struggled for form, averaging only 18 with the bat this year. It has felt like this moment has been approaching.
I saw Cook on Thursday evening, the first night of the fourth Test in Southampton. We had dinner and he told me of his plans.
This is not something that has come about quickly. He has thought very carefully about it and he is completely at ease with what he has decided.
Opening the batting in Test cricket, facing up to fast bowlers looking to do their worst with a new, hard ball is incredibly tough. You have to be brave, single-minded and prepared to work very, very hard.
Over his long career, Cook has set himself high standards, standards that he was no longer living up to. It would take a massive effort to get back to the level he wants to be at.
Instead, he feels like he is spent. When you have given as much as he has, over such a period of time, it is hardly surprising that he has run out of steam.
There was a time when we felt like Cook might go on and on, maybe even threatening Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most runs in Test history.
Remember, he is leaving the international game aged only 33. He will continue playing for Essex, but we thought he might still be in the England team at the age of 36, 37 and beyond.
After he gave up the captaincy at the beginning of 2017, he indicated that the 2019 Ashes were in his sights. Then, over the past winter, he started to talk about his career being on a game-by-game basis.
The old player in me can certainly sympathise with how your targets change because you simply do not know what is around the corner.
When talking of Cook the captain, it is hard not think of the tough times he went through – the 5-0 whitewash in Australia, all the Kevin Pietersen fallout that followed and the summer of 2014 when he came under immense pressure to stand down.
As people became entrenched in their views on whether Pietersen should have been discarded or not, Cook became a target of online abuse from some quarters. In a lot of cases, what was said about him was pretty outrageous.
In that sense, Cook was the first England captain that had to put up with life in the digital, social media age. It was probably a good thing for Cook that he has never signed himself up to Twitter.
There have, though, been many more highs than lows. Cook led England to two Ashes wins and a historic series win in India.
The hundreds he made in that series in India stand out, but my personal favourite memory is his epic 235 not out to save the first Ashes Test in Brisbane in 2010-11.
If England had lost that match, I doubt they would have gone on to secure that incredible series win. Instead, Cook went on to score 766 runs across the five Tests, making the biggest contribution to what will probably be a high point for everyone connected to English cricket for a long time to come.
Throughout it all, the ups and downs, Cook’s wife Alice has been a source of tremendous support.
He is a family man, with his third child due very soon. He has often escaped the game to his father-in-law’s farm, where he is another one of the lads when it comes to looking after the sheep. That is quite a contrast to having Mitchell Johnson fizz the ball around your ears.
Cook has a sharp sense of humour and is never shy of pulling my leg on how the game has changed from my day. He is the choirboy who turned into a fiercely competitive sportsman, one who will end his career by playing a remarkable 159 consecutive Test matches.
That he has managed such longevity, avoiding any sort of injury, is owed to his immense fitness. On tour, I have been in the embarrassing situation of being on the next treadmill to Cook. While I have plodded along, he has been like the Road Runner. By the time he has finished, there is steam coming off the machine.
Cook will leave Test cricket with the most caps, runs, hundreds, catches and wins for England
When Cook made his Test debut in 2006, the first edition of the Indian Premier League was still two years away. In the time since, the game has changed immeasurably – players not only want to succeed in Test cricket, but also make themselves appealing to T20 franchises.
In that context, it feels like Cook’s retirement could be the end of an era not just for England, but also for the game itself.
Will there be another batsman of Cook’s type? A red-ball specialist, playing all those Tests and scoring that many runs? I hope so, because without the likes of Alastair Cook standing up to opening bowlers in trying conditions, Test cricket will be a poorer (and much shorter) game.
And so to the The Oval, where Cook deservedly gets the chance to say goodbye and where the rest of us get to give him the send-off that his achievements warrant. His family will be watching as he takes the field in a Test for England for the 161st and final time.
Cook is the finest batsman of his type that I have seen. I hope he bows out with one last big score.
Jonathan Agnew was speaking to BBC Sport’s Stephan Shemilt.
Interracial marriages between Chinese and Africans are on the rise as a direct result from China‘s increasing investment in, and trade with, Africa .
More than a million Chinese migrants now work and live on the African continent, while the number of Africans in China is thought to be around half that.
But those mixed marriages are still a novelty.
In the 70s, there were no interracial marriages registered in the country, according to government figures.
Public displays of affection were inconceivable, and marrying a foreigner extremely difficult.
“Forty years ago it was all but impossible for a foreign man or woman to live in China, let alone marry a Chinese,” Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown reported.
“But today, marriages like this are no longer exceptional… marrying a foreigner is no longer regarded as marrying down in the way it perhaps once was here,” he added.
Sandra Made, from Cameroon, and Zou Qianshun married in 2017 after returning to his village near Dandong in north east China.
And as their marriage still remains a curiosity, they have decided to stream their day-to-day lives on social media.
The stream can be a profitable business; in a good month they can make $1,000 in advertising revenue.
“I adore China. Everyone is envious of me. Everyone likes to see me happy. Everyone likes to see me dancing… they are all my friends. I am missing nothing,” Made said.
China’s relationship with Africa
China’s economic courtship of Africa began twenty years ago, and one of the consequences is a new generation of mixed race children.
“Nowadays there are more and more international marriages in China, even some of [my] friends also married foreigners,” Qianshun explains.
“Chinese have become more accepting to intermarriage,” he added.
However, it has not been easy for the couple. At the start Qianshun’s parents were not accepting.
“How can Chinese marry a black woman? She can leave at any time. That’s why at the beginning, both my husband and I said NO to this marriage,” Zhao Fu Qing, Qianshun’s mum, explained.
But their will prevailed, and now they form a family with one child.
For many African’s in China, the weather has also represented a challenge, as winters are harsh with the temperature dropping to minus 20C in some parts.
But the couple has succeeded, and today Made is popular on social media, having mastered enough Mandarin to thank her followers in songs.
For the 50th anniversary of Don Freeman’s children’s book, the Oscar-winning actress signed on to write an original book about the beloved ursine. Alongside veteran Corduroy author B.G. Hennessy (A Christmas Wish for Corduroy), Davis conceived a story that was close to her heart: Corduroy Takes a Bow, a story which finds the eponymous bear exploring the theater and all of its machinations for the first time. Navigating the exciting chaos behind-the-scenes, he begins to whether there may be a place for him onstage, too. (Spoiler: The book’s title may provide a hint.)
Imaginatively illustrated by Jody Wheeler, it’s a sweet, touching addition to the venerable children’s series. But more than that, it has the feel of a personal work. In speaking with EW about writing Corduroy Takes a Bow, Davis confirmed exactly why: Not only was she writing the book for her daughter, but as she dug deeper into her imagination and memories, she found she was doing it for herself, too — remembering what it was about theater that first grabbed her, like she was experiencing it all over again. “I explored every bit of the theater that has left an imprint on me,” she says.
Davis goes into her process writing the book, why she leapt at the opportunity to do it, and much more in our conversation, which you can read in full below. Corduroy Takes a Bow publishes Tuesday, and is available for pre-order.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start at the beginning: How did you wind up writing a Corduroy book? VIOLA DAVIS: It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. With my daughter, when she was a baby, that was the book that she just loved the most. You read so many different books to your child, and there are certain ones that just stick — where they literally enter the story, from the moment you begin. Perhaps it was Lisa and the fact that she was an African-American; maybe it gave her a sense that she was a part of it. But that was the story that stuck. It’s just close to my heart. Certain characters stay with you, and that’s Corduroy.
Did you have a personal relationship to it, growing up? I remember it when I was a kid. I’m a completely different generation though: I was going to the library at 5, 6 years old. I think I was 5 because I was in kindergarten; I would walk from the school to the library by myself. That was back in the day when you could go by yourself. [Laughs] I do remember that book. But when I started reading the book, it was one of several books that I was in love with; it was just the library itself that totally captured me. The smell of the pages. Certainly, Corduroy was a part of that adventure, a bigger part of my escape.
So what is it about Corduroy? I keep going back to the fact that Lisa was African-American. It wasn’t like she had to be empathized. That it was trying to make any kind of statement. She simply was a part of the story. That was a big thing for me when I was growing up, and it’s a bigger thing with my daughter. No matter what story you tell her, she always wants to be a part of it. She says, “Make me the hero mommy. Put me in the story mommy. Just put me in the story.”
Children’s books leave such an impact, as you say with its impact on your daughter. How did that inform the way you wrote it? Absolutely. With Corduroy, I love the fact that he’s curious. He’s not punished for being curious. I love the fact that he’s an inanimate object that comes to life. I love that he is in the life of Lisa, who loves him, who injects him with that personality. Who protects him. But also, the backdrop of the theater — which is a magical, sacred place. The theater is the greatest imagination playground. It’s a place where you can explore your imagination as a space of magic, of fun. It’s a place that certainly transformed me. This was a regurgitation of everything that saved me, in my life. It was a combination of all of that. The gift that was given to me by being introduced to the theater, I wanted to give to kids. That’s my gift.
Theater has so many moving parts, and you really conjure that chaos in the book. Corduroy is discovering it for the first time. As mysterious as it is, there is a fun in the discovery of it. If it were a haunted house [Laughs], there’s no magic or discovery there — it’s dark and scary. I’d turn around and go back home and be perfectly fine! But the mystery of the theater — no matter what corner you turn in the theater, there’s something new to discover, that keeps you exploring, that keeps you going deeper and deeper into it. Once it has you in its web, it’s got you. It’s why in the theater, it doesn’t matter — you could be the jock, you could be the nerd, you could be the goth queen — it captures everybody. And that’s why I really wanted to end it with him taking a bow. It’s an acceptance. That’s what it is. Theater is a space of belonging. So taking a bow is the ultimate act of saying, “I belong. I’ve been accepted, and I’m being seen.”
Did you rediscover that magic of theater, yourself, as you wrote the book — of seeing and exploring it for the first time? Yeah. I was exploring my first love of theater while I was writing Corduroy — through a bear! We kept talking about what I remembered. Like the ushers: They were always dressed up and they had the programs in their hands, and the first thing they’d do was give you the program and turn on the flashlight and show you to your seat. And that’s when your heart starts palpitating. And then the curtain goes up. That’s a big thing from my childhood when I went to the theater, too — seeing those big velvet curtains and the ropes as the stagehands were working them as it was about to begin. And that’s when the set was revealed. You’d just be in awe of what you saw. And then the props table: That was a huge thing for me. Every time I’ve ever done a play, I just love it; I like putting my hands on things and seeing how they’re made, and the different prosthetics. And the dressing rooms? Forget it — especially on Broadway. And the smell of the theater. And of course, the final curtain call, which is always so exciting. Are people going to stand for you? How long will the applause last?
It’s a lot to think about! I explored every bit of the theater that has left an imprint on me. That’s what I did while I was writing this book. Sometimes you forget that stuff. Sometimes, you need the imagination of a child to come back to life again. To remember why you fell in love with anything.
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Brent Musburger, now Raiders play-by-play voice, welcomes AJ McCarron’s ‘beautiful’ wife
Musburger channeled his 2013 self with a welcome tweet to AJ McCarron and his wife, Katherine, whom he fawned over during a live broadcast.
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SportsPulse: Tony Romo has proven he has a knack for seeing into the future, so Trysta Krick sat down and asked him to predict five outcomes heading into the NFL season. USA TODAY
Veteran broadcaster Brent Musburger channeled his 2013 self on Sunday night with a welcoming tweet to newly acquired Oakland Raiders quarterback AJ McCarron and his wife, Katherine, whom Musburger fawned over during a live broadcast that went viral.
“Welcome A.J. McCarron to the Raider family. Can’t wait for the ‘beautiful’ Mrs. McCarron to join us in Oakland,” the 79-year-old tweeted Sunday.
“You see that lovely lady there, she does go to Auburn, but she’s also Miss Alabama and that’s (then-‘Bama QB) AJ McCarron’s girlfriend,” he said. “You quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman. Wow.”
Fast forward to 2018 and Musburger has transitioned into a role as the radio play-by-play announcer for the Raiders. McCarron, meanwhile, has become a backup NFL quarterback and married Webb-McCarron; the two have a son together with another one on the way.
The McCarrons have laughed off the incident in the past, and Webb-McCarron even sent Musburger well wishes before his final college basketball broadcast back in 2017.
Tropical Storm Gordon spun up early Labor Day just south of Florida, the National Hurricane Center said, and is forecast to move toward the Louisiana Gulf Coast over the next two days.
Tropical storm warnings have been posted for portions of South Florida and the Florida Keys, as well as portions of the northern Gulf Coast. Strong wind gusts, battering waves, above-normal tides, minor coastal flooding, flash flooding and a couple of isolated tornadoes and waterspouts will be the main threats from the storm, AccuWeather said.
As of 8 a.m. ET, Gordon had winds of 45 mph and was moving to the west-northwest at 17 mph. The center of the storm was located about 20 miles west of Key Largo, Florida.
On it current forecast track, the center of Gordon will move over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Monday afternoon and evening and reach the warning area along the central Gulf Coast by late Tuesday or Tuesday night, the hurricane center said.
Parts of the northern Gulf Coast could see 3 to 6 inches rainfall Tuesday into Wednesday, from southeast Louisiana into far southern Mississippi and far southern Alabama, according to the Weather Channel. Localized totals of 6 inches or more are possible in some areas.
The storm should make landfall with winds of about 60 mph. However, it could still reach hurricane status, which would be 74 mph, AccuWeather said.
“Any strong tropical storm has the potential to strengthen to a hurricane even when that storm may only spend a day or two over warm waters,” according to AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.
Gordon is the seventh named tropical storm or hurricane to form in the Atlantic basin this year.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Florence continues to spin in the central Atlantic Ocean, about 2,700 miles from Miami. Florence will rotate harmlessly in the central Atlantic this week but could pose a threat to Bermuda and/or the U.S. East Coast in the next six to 12 days, according to Weather Underground meteorologist Bob Henson.
And in the eastern Pacific, neither Hurricane Norman nor Tropical Storm Olivia is forecast to affect any land areas.
A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for southeastern Louisiana, coastal Mississippi and surrounding marine areas. This means tropical storm conditions are EXPECTED within the next 36 hours or less. #lawx#mswxpic.twitter.com/M6NaGJCmTL
Lando Norris, pictured in first practice for the Italian Grand Prix on Friday, won the European Formula Three championship in 2017 and this year sits second in the Formula Two championship, the feeder series to F1
British teenager Lando Norris is to replace Stoffel Vandoorne at McLaren after the Belgian driver announced he is to leave at the end of the season.
Norris, 18, has been the team’s reserve driver and took part in first practice sessions in Spain and Hungary in 2018.
He will partner Renault’s Carlos Sainz, who will replace Vandoorne’s retiring team-mate Fernando Alonso.
“This is a special moment, one I could only hope would become reality,” said Norris.
“To be announced as a race driver for McLaren is a dream come true.”
Norris is a title challenger in the Formula 2 feeder series this year, sitting second in the championship having won on his debut from pole position.
Since joining McLaren’s Young Driver Programme in early 2017, Norris has conducted race simulation work for the team in addition to participating in testing.
“For the remainder of 2018, my focus remains firmly on the Formula 2 championship,” he said.
“My objective is to win the title before joining McLaren full-time, which will be tough, but I will fight as hard as I can for the remaining four races.
“I’ll also be working closely with McLaren at every opportunity to learn as much as possible from the drivers, engineers and mechanics to give myself the best preparation.”
Vandoorne, 26, is 16th in the championship and has no points from his past 10 races. He finished 12th in Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix.
“The past two seasons we didn’t achieve the success we’d hoped, but I want to thank everyone for the opportunities they gave me,” said Vandoorne.
“I intend to give it my all for the remaining seven races of this season, and will announce my plans for next season in due course.”
McLaren team boss Zak Brown added: “It’s clear we haven’t provided Stoffel with the tools to show his true talent.”
Analysis
Chief F1 writer Andrew Benson
The departure of Vandoorne from McLaren at the end of this season is no surprise in one sense – he has failed to match up to team-mate Fernando Alonso since joining the team in 2017.
But it is in another – Vandoorne was one of the most successful drivers in recent years in junior categories before his graduation and was widely regarded as one of the most promising new talents around.
So, the question remains: have his difficult two seasons at McLaren proved he was not quite up to the job, or is Alonso just that good?
Alonso is an all-time great and remains at the top of his game. And Vandoorne has been much closer to the two-time champion on pace than many of the Spaniard’s former team-mates, including Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen.
And the past two years at McLaren, with a difficult car and the end of an engine partnership with Honda and start of a new one in Renault, have not been easy. The team are in crisis – there is no other way of putting it.
It’s quite possible that Vandoorne is better than a number of drivers on the grid but has just not been in a position to show it. As such, some in the paddock believe he deserves another chance.
Opportunities for 2019 are limited but they are there – at Toro Rosso and Sauber in particular.
When 27-year-old student and refugee Ananya Azad heard that he had been selected for a scholarship to attend Central European University (CEU) in Hungary, he quit his job in Germany and gave notice on his flat.
He had been chosen as a part of an initiative to provide education to migrants and asylum seekers in Europe.
A blogger and published author who fled from Bangladesh, Azad had hoped to use develop his expertise on the right to freedom of speech when the academic year begins on Monday.
But last week, CEU was forced to suspend the programme after a new law went into effect imposing a hefty “immigration surtax”, equal to 25 percent of the entire budget of institutions that in any capacity directly or indirectly promotes immigration.
For Azad and dozens of other students who had benefited from the programme, it is a devastating blow in a region with few options for refugees and migrants wishing to pursue higher education.
“This is very difficult for me. I don’t know this language and now I am having to do this totally alone,” he said. “I think this world is for humans and we should respect all of them.”
Wafa, 52, a doctor from Yemen currently residing in Budapest, joined the programme for a year in 2016.
She said that she had planned to rejoin the school, but is now unsure where to go to continue her work.
“Many of us will complain about this. Many refugees depend on this university to study or get work,” she said.
The government says that a pro-migrant stance is not in the best interests of Hungarians.
“The issue of migration is an issue of European democracy; there is a gap between the utopian, pro-immigration concept of left-wing elites and the interests of the people,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said in a statement on Tuesday.
Hungarian-born American billionaire George Soros, who funds the programme, has been a persistent target of the nationalist government led by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“The programmes have provided educational training only for persons legally admitted to Hungary. We are proud of this work and of our research on refugee and migration issues in Europe and will seek all possible ways to continue this work in the future,” CEU says on ts website.
‘We may see more projects fold’
In June, parliament overwhelmingly passed a package of legislation known as the “Stop Soros” bill that would allow for the imprisonment of anybody aiding migrants, despite pleas from international bodies including the European Union and United Nations not to do so.
The latest bill which has drawn similar criticism from rights organisations, is the most recent attack on migrants and civil society actors attempting to help asylum seekers fleeing from war-torn countries.
It comes as pressure mounts on the European Union to impose sanctions on the straying member state.
“Unless EU institutions make it clear to the Hungarian government that taxing and criminalising work with asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees is unacceptable and an affront to EU laws and values, we may see more valuable programmes and projects fold,” Lydia Gall, an Eastern Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Wednesday.
The bill has also been criticised for being intentionally vague, forcing CEU to close its migrant programme while it seeks tax advice, the university wrote in a statement on August 28.
“This is a law that has to be seen in two contexts; one as a part of a series of punitive measures against asylum seekers and refugees in Hungary, and secondly as a part of the famous illiberal turn, so [my] feeling is one of frustration,” said Prem Kumar Rajaram, a volunteer and administrator of the programme.
Petra Bard, an expert on EU constitutional law and EU criminal justice and visiting professor of the Central European University (CEU), said that while the government has continued to repress the rights of migrants, Prime Minister Orban is clamping down on education in general to stamp out any curriculum that could be seen as a breeding ground for liberal thought.
Last month, the government moved to ban gender studies at universities on the basis that it served to no benefit among employers looking to hire students.
“One way to control people is to not grant them access to education,” Bard said.
WASHINGTON – Brett Kavanaugh’s substantial record as a federal appeals court judge over the past 12 years has taken a back seat to other issues since President Donald Trump nominated him on July 9. Here are the five major controversies:
Most important seat
This isn’t just any Supreme Court seat. It’s Anthony Kennedy’s. The retired justice represented the swing vote on key issues, often siding with the court’s four liberal justices. In the past three years alone, that included abortion rights, affirmative action and same-sex marriage.
“The rhetoric is now overheated because we are talking about replacing Justice Kennedy,” says John Malcolm, vice president at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which helped assemble Trump’s list of 25 potential nominees. “From the Democrats’ perspective, this matters more.”
Kavanaugh’s years investigating President Bill Clinton as part of independent counsel Ken Starr’s team and working in the White House for President George W. Bush represent an unusually partisan background for a judge. But, despite the release of hundreds of thousands of pages, much of it remains under wraps
“We have lawyers going over these documents day and night and weekends. They are so redacted,” says Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice. She says Republicans have tried to “hide any information that might be damaging.”
Missing documents
As a deputy White House counsel and Bush’s staff secretary from 2001-06, Kavanaugh was involved in myriad policy decisions and political disputes. That translates into the biggest paper trail for any high court nominee, but most of it has not been released because Senate Republicans claim it’s irrelevant.
“We go into this hearing with a cloud over the proceedings because of the way that the Republican majority in the Senate has thumbed its nose at an attempt to get a complete record,” says Elizabeth Wydra, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center.
Ongoing investigations
Unlike Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first nominee who was confirmed in April 2017, Kavanaugh has emerged amid criminal probes into Russian interference and campaign finance violations during the 2016 election. That increases the likelihood the high court may stand in judgment of the president – and Kavanaugh has said presidents shouldn’t be questioned while in office.
“The translation of this is, Trump is picking his juror,” says Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress.
Upcoming elections
The midterm elections on Nov. 6 offer Democrats a slim chance of winning a Senate majority, in which case they could defeat Kavanaugh’s nomination and any other Trump nominee. Republicans will have a 51-49 majority going into the confirmation vote, once Sen. John McCain’s replacement is named.
“The thing that makes this the most challenging is the thin margin in the Senate,” says Carrie Severino, policy director at the conservative Judicial Crisis Network.
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