AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Supreme Court moves right, but how far, how fast?

WASHINGTON (AP) — The moment conservatives have dreamed about for decades has arrived with Brett Kavanaugh joining the Supreme Court. But with it comes the shadow of a bitter confirmation fight that is likely to hang over the court as it takes on divisive issues, especially those dealing with politics and women’s rights.

With Kavanaugh taking the place of the more moderate Anthony Kennedy, conservatives should have a working majority of five justices to restrict abortion rights, limit the use of race in college admissions and rein in federal regulators.

The newly constituted court also might broaden gun rights, further relax campaign finance laws and halt the expansion of the rights of LGBT people, who three years ago won the right to marry nationwide with Kennedy in the majority.

Yet Kavanaugh may have a hard time putting behind him the tumultuous confirmation process, which ended with the Senate voting 50-48 to confirm him Saturday, the narrowest margin of victory for a Supreme Court nominee in 137 years.

“In the public mind, there will always be this dark cloud hanging over the court, even if Kavanaugh is eventually embraced by all his colleagues on the court,” said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the liberal constitutional Accountability Center.

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McConnell says Senate ‘not broken’ after Kavanaugh fight

WASHINGTON (AP) — Picking up the pieces after a contentious nomination battle, the Senate’s majority leader said Sunday that the chamber won’t be irreparably damaged by the wrenching debate over sexual misconduct that has swirled around new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

While Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Kavanaugh’s confirmation was a shining moment for the GOP heading into next month’s pivotal elections, GOP Gov. John Kasich of Ohio predicted “a good year” for Democrats and said he wonders about “the soul of our country” in the long term after the tumultuous hearings.

McConnell, in two news show interviews, tried to distinguish between President Donald Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh this year and his own decision not to have the GOP-run Senate consider President Barack Obama’s high court nominee, Merrick Garland, in 2016. McConnell called the current partisan divide a “low point,” but he blamed Democrats.

“The Senate’s not broken,” said McConnell. “We didn’t attack Merrick Garland’s background and try to destroy him.” He asserted that “we simply followed the tradition of America.”

The climactic 50-48 roll call vote Saturday on Kavanaugh was the closest vote to confirm a justice since 1881. It capped a fight that seized the national conversation after claims emerged that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted women three decades ago. Kavanaugh emphatically denied the allegations.

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20 dead in crash of limo headed to a birthday celebration

SCHOHARIE, N.Y. (AP) — A limousine carrying four sisters, other relatives and friends to a birthday celebration blew through a stop sign and slammed into a parked SUV outside a store in upstate New York, killing all 18 people in the limo and two pedestrians, officials and victims’ relatives said Sunday.

The weekend crash was characterized by authorities as the deadliest U.S. transportation accident in nearly a decade. The crash turned a relaxed Saturday afternoon to horror at a rural spot popular with tourists viewing the region’s fall foliage. Relatives said the limousine was carrying the sisters and their friends to a 30th birthday celebration for the youngest.

“They were wonderful girls,” said their aunt, Barbara Douglas, speaking with reporters Sunday. “They’d do anything for you and they were very close to each other and they loved their family.”

Douglas said three of the sisters were with their husbands, and she identified them as Amy and Axel Steenburg, Abigail and Adam Jackson, Mary and Rob Dyson and Allison King.

“They did the responsible thing getting a limo so they wouldn’t have to drive anywhere,” she said, adding the couples had several children between them who they left at home.

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Brazil’s far-right candidate falls short of election stunner

SAO PAULO (AP) — A far-right former army captain who expresses nostalgia for Brazil’s military dictatorship won the first round of its presidential election by a surprisingly large margin Sunday but fell just short of getting enough votes to avoid a second-round runoff against a leftist rival.

Jair Bolsonaro, whose last-minute surge almost gave him an electoral stunner, had 46.7 per cent compared to 28.5 per cent for former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal said after all the votes were counted. He needed over 50 per cent support to win outright.

Polls predicted Bolsonaro would come out in front on Sunday, but he far outperformed expectations, blazing past competitors with more financing, institutional backing of parties and free air time on television. Despite the sizable victory, polls show the two candidates are neck-and-neck for the Oct. 28 runoff, and much could shift in the coming weeks.

Ultimately, Bolsonaro’s strong showing reflects a yearning for the past as much as a sign of the future. The candidate from the tiny Social and Liberal Party made savvy use of Twitter and Facebook to spread his message that only he could end the corruption, crime and economic malaise that has seized Brazil in recent years — and bring back the good old days and traditional values.

“This is a victory for honest people, who want the best for Brazil,” said Bianca Santos, 40-year-old psychologist, who added Bolsonaro would end high crime rates.

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A look at the election proposals made by Brazil’s Bolsonaro

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Far-right congressman Jair Bolsonaro won the first round of Brazil’s presidential race Sunday, doing far better than polls predicted and coming just shy of an outright victory. In the weeks ahead of an Oct. 28 runoff against former Sao Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad, Bolsonaro’s main proposals are sure to come under much scrutiny.

Here is a look at what Bolsonaro has promised to do if elected.

PRIVATIZATIONS

Bolsonaro has promised to carry out widespread privatizations in Latin America’s largest economy aimed at giving a boost to recovery from one of the nation’s worst recessions in decades. Bolsonaro has also said privatizations are necessary to eradicate the kind of state graft that has been rife in recent years. While the business community has largely coalesced around Bolsonaro because of these proposals, detractors have noted that as a congressman he often voted and espoused views that were the exact opposite.

SPENDING AND TAXES

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UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning

WASHINGTON (AP) — Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge.

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea.

In the 728-page document, the U.N. organization detailed how Earth’s weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if the world’s leaders could somehow limit future human-caused warming to just 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (a half degree Celsius) from now, instead of the globally agreed-upon goal of 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C). Among other things:

— Half as many people would suffer from lack of water.

— There would be fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases.

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Pro-Russian Serb leader wins seat in Bosnia’s presidency

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Pro-Russia Serb leader Milorad Dodik won a race to fill the Serb seat in Bosnia’s three-member presidency Sunday, deepening ethnic divisions in the country that faced a brutal war some 25 years ago.

Preliminary official results from the election gave Dodik 56 per cent of the vote and his main opponent, Mladen Ivanic, 42 per cent. The projections were made with 44 per cent of ballots counted.

“The will of the people leaves no doubt what they want,” Dodik said, adding that voters “punished” his opponent for his “servile policies toward the West.”

Ivanic conceded defeat. Complete official returns were expected Monday.

Dodik advocates the eventual separation of Serbs from Bosnia. His election to the three-person presidency, which also has a Muslim member and a Croat member, deals a blow to efforts to strengthen unity in the country, where ethnic divisions fueled the 1992-95 war that killed 100,000 people and left millions homeless.

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Wife says Interpol officer sent knife image as danger signal

LYON, France (AP) — The wife of Interpol’s president made an impassioned plea Sunday for help in bringing her missing husband to safety, saying she thinks he sent an image of a knife before he disappeared in China as a way to warn her he was in danger.

Grace Meng detailed the last messages she exchanged with her husband, Interpol President Meng Hongwei, to reporters as part of her unusual appeal. Meng is China’s vice minister for public security, and regularly travelled between Beijing and Lyon, France, where Interpol is based.

His wife’s plea underscored how China’s system of shady and often-arbitrary detentions can ensnare even a senior public security official with international standing, leaving loved ones uninformed and in a panic.

In news that could confirm her fears: China announced less than an hour after she spoke Sunday that Meng was under investigation on suspicion of unspecified legal violations, making him the latest high-ranking official to fall victim to a sweeping crackdown by the ruling Communist Party.

Interpol then announced that Meng had resigned as president, effective immediately. It did not say why, or provide details about Meng’s whereabouts or condition. He was elected to lead the international police agency in 2016 and his term was not set to end until 2020.

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Missing Saudi journalist once a voice of reform in kingdom

BEIRUT (AP) — Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who disappeared last week after a visit to his country’s consulate in Turkey, was once a Saudi insider. A close aide to the kingdom’s former spy chief, he had been a leading voice in the country’s prominent dailies, including the main English newspapers.

Now the 59-year-old journalist and contributor to The Washington Post is feared dead, and Turkish authorities believe he was slain inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, something Saudi officials vehemently deny.

The U.S.-educated Khashoggi was no stranger to controversy.

A graduate of Indiana State University, Khashoggi began his career in the 1980s, covering the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the decade-long war that followed for the English-language daily Saudi Gazette. He travelled extensively in the Middle East, covering Algeria’s 1990s war against Islamic militants, and the Islamists rise in Sudan.

He interviewed Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before al-Qaida was formed, then met him in Sudan in 1995. Following bin Laden’s rise likely helped cement Khashoggi’s ties with powerful former Saudi spy chief, Turki Al-Faisal.

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Taylor Swift breaks political silence, backs Tennessee Dems

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Music superstar Taylor Swift announced Sunday she’s voting for Tennessee’s Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen, breaking her long-standing refusal to discuss anything politics.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post .

Swift has faced criticism for not speaking about political issues despite having a global platform. Yet in 2017, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine as one of the “silence breakers” for her countersuit against a radio DJ who was fired after allegedly groping her before a concert. Swift won the lawsuit in a verdict that awarded her $1, which according to the suit served “as an example to other women who may resist publicly reliving similar outrageous and humiliating acts.”

The pop star — a Tennessee native — also slammed Republican candidate and U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn in her lengthy post on Sunday, citing Blackburn’s opposition to certain LGBTQ rights and voting against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013.

“As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me,” Swift wrote.