Legitimacy of the US Supreme Court tested as Senate confirms Brett Kavanaugh on knife-edge vote. President Trump’s appointee stands accused of sexual assault by multiple women, one of whom, Dr Christine Blasey Ford, testified under oath before Congress. A limited, week-long FBI investigation found “no corroborating evidence” of the allegations, claimed Senator Susan Collins, whose swing vote helped push Kavanaugh’s nomination across the line. Senator Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican not to support Mr Kavanaugh’s confirmation, citing his highly partisan testimony as disqualifying for an impartial Supreme Court justice. Protestors – men and women – descended on the steps of the Court over the weekend. “I don’t know what you were doing when those voices were shouting — and screams and, I’m sure, tears,” Senator Murkowski told reporters, according to the New York Times, “but I was closing my eyes and praying, praying for them and praying for us and praying for the country. We need prayers. We need healing.”

Theresa May re-asserts her leadership as Brexit negotiations enter final phase. Shimmying onto the conference stage to ABBA’s Dancing Queen, the Prime Minister urged her party to unite behind her Chequers Plan – without referring to it by name. The previous day Boris Johnson had told a fringe event to “chuck Chequers,” saying the proposals would amount to “forfeiting control.” Theresa May didn’t mention the former Foreign Secretary, but rebuffed his argument: “The people we serve are not interested in debates about the theory of Brexit – their livelihoods depend on making a success of it in practice.” In Brussels, Jean-Claude Juncker said the “potential (for a deal) between both sides has increased in recent days.” His optimism comes amid reports that the UK government is drafting a new text of the backstop proposal – to the notable concern of the DUP.

Russian spies implicated in botched cyber-attack in the Netherlands. It emerged this week that four men, identified as spies working for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, were caught back in April trying to hack into the network of the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). “They were clearly not here on holiday,” said the head of the Dutch intelligence service, pointing to their possession of sophisticated surveillance equipment. OPCW inspectors had determined that Novichok was used in the deadly Salisbury chemical attack. Meanwhile, The Sunday Times has reported that UK defence chiefs have ‘war-gamed’ a cyber-attack on Moscow in the event of a conventional military attack by Russia, “after concluding that the only other way of hitting back would be to use nuclear weapons.”

Civil rights march commemorated in Derry, 50 years on. The demonstration on 5 October 1968 had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), but was banned by the then unionist government and met with force by the RUC. President Michael D Higgins said the march “galvanised the movement for civil rights in Ireland.” He paid tribute to John Hume, one of the leading activists of the time, and praised his “vision of a shared Ireland, one that recognises the unionist and nationalist traditions, one that is capable of reconciling communities, one that, North and South, preserves human dignity and vindicates and expands fundamental human rights.” Despite being absent from the gathering in Derry’s Guildhall due to ill-health, Hume received a standing ovation from the audience. Sinn Féin took part in the commemoration, but has been criticised for attempts to revise its role in 1968. Eamonn McCann, who was part of the protest, warned: “They would have you believe that it all happened in the interests of equality. It did not. The IRA were fighting to get the British out of Ireland.”

RHI inquiry hears 100thday of evidence. The occasion got off to a light-hearted start with the unveiling of a cake baked by staffers. “It’s amazing how time passes so quickly when you’re enjoying yourself,” quipped Sir Patrick Coghlin, the inquiry chairman. Proceedings otherwise took a far more serious tone this week, not least when Michael Doran, chief executive of the environmental charity Action Renewables, told the inquiry that he was aware of major flaws in the green energy scheme as early as 2012, but that he did not alert policy-makers. The commercial arm of the charity handled hundreds of applications for RHI, generating £400,000. Sam McBride of the News Letter, who has been closely following the inquiry since the beginning, described Mr Doran’s as “some of the most shocking evidence yet.” The panel also heard evidence from the head of energy regulator Ofgem, which failed to pass on warnings of serious abuse of the RHI scheme in other parts of the UK to officials in Northern Ireland.

Also published on Medium.