The South Carolina senator is among several Republicans, including Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, who once vowed to block any Supreme Court nomination even if a Republican took office in November 2016. Graham on at least two occasions—once in March 2016 and again in 2018 during Brett Kavanaugh’s hearings—defended Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for blocking then-President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. Senate Republicans refused to call a vote or even hear discussion of Garland’s nomination after the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia....

Graham, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a close ally of President Donald Trump, has repeatedly raised concerns about the younger Biden’s foreign business dealings in Ukraine and China. The Biden transition team revealed on December 9 that the president-elect’s son is under federal investigation regarding his “tax affairs.” Before the election, Trump and GOP supporters repeatedly attacked the president-elect and his son about Hunter Biden’s business ties....

Animal enclosures at the Feldman Ecopark—in Lisne, an outer district of Ukraine’s second-biggest city—were badly damaged, Kharkiv Today reported on Tuesday. The frightened animals then escaped from the zoo. An escaped 7-month-old lion cub called Simba was found hiding in a stable not far from the zoo. A video posted to the Facebook page of Moldova’s Society for the Protection and Humane Treatment of Animals, which can be seen here, reportedly shows the cub on a lead being brought back to the zoo....

Especially in recent seasons, the now 35-year-old Messi has generated plenty of discussion as to where he will continue playing his club football if his two-year spell at PSG is up in the summer of 2023. Joining Barcelona in 2005 as a youth player from his hometown club Newell’s Old Boys, he remained at the Catalan club until his surprising departure in the summer of 2021 following the expiration of his contract....

We’ve seen it after those Barcelona UEFA Champions League collapses and Argentina near-misses. His face falls, he presses a palm into his features with such force and tension that he appears to be trying to lengthen his neck. Disappointment and defeat consume him as imposters in a way that the frequent formality of victory never seems to. It was supposed to be different this time, at this swansong World Cup with a Copa America medal finally in his back pocket and a resurgent Argentina on a 36-match unbeaten run....

Veteran running back Joique Bell and a group of teammates spent the day in London shopping, eating and exploring before Bell shelled out 166 pounds — equivalent to $253.84 — for an Uber ride back to the team’s facility Tuesday. MORE: Worst back-up to starter failures | Amari Cooper draws parallels to Jerry Rice “We went down to London,” Bell told reporters in England, via ESPN.com. “We went to Harrod’s....

James is 5 years old and lives in Boston and his favorite book is “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” by Judith Viorst. A fine book, I can attest. James’s mother was in jail when he was a baby and she doesn’t have much time for reading, so the book is read to him–endlessly, as any conscientious parent knows–by Shavon Lynch, a bright 21-year-old junior at UMass, Boston....

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Priscilla Presley, 77, Lisa Marie’s mother and Elvis’ ex-wife, said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press (AP) Thursday evening. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.” According to AP, paramedics were dispatched to a Calabasas, California, residence Thursday morning following a report of a woman “in full cardiac arrest....

Barack Obama phoned the U.S. Women’s national team to thank it for representing the country so well, winning its third FIFA World Cup title with a historic 5-2 win against Japan Sunday. MORE: Must-see photos from the championship rally | Relive the USWNT’s World Cup final win against Japan “So, I turn on the game and you guys kind of took the suspense out of it,” Obama told USWNT manager Jill Ellis, referencing the four goals the team scored early....

Yes, the Sporting News Podcast -- it's an actual thing. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, hosts Bill Voth (@billvoth) and Matt Lutovsky (@MLutovsky) break down the biggest stories and talk with Sporting News writers and guests from the world of sports and entertainment. And don't worry about the fact that you've never heard of Bill Voth and Matt Lutovsky – they're literate and generally likeable. In today's episode, Bill and Matt debate the end of the Syracuse-Duke game, wrap up the Winter Olympics, dish on the NFL Scouting Combine and talk with Sporting News' NASCAR writer Bob Pockrass about Dale Earnhardt Jr....

So that’s what he did Monday, making former Oklahoma QB Trevor Knight his starter. The Aggies open the season at Kyle Field against UCLA on Sept. 3. 2016 PREVIEWS: Baylor | Oklahoma | Ohio State | Michigan | LSU Knight completed 25-of-36 passes for 282 yards with TD passes of 9 and 12 yards with a 2-yard TD run in the Aggies spring game last Saturday. “His on-field performance this spring along with his leadership earned him the starting job,” Sumlin said....

With Ward lying in an open casket decorated with racing flags and piled with orange flowers, his family’s team colors, mourners shed tears and laughed at favorite stories about the boy who began racing when he was barely more than a toddler. The 90-minute service, a mix of tears and cheerful recollections of a young man who began racing at a young age, was held at the South Lewis Senior High School auditorium to accommodate crowds of people from the close-knit central New York racing community....

In an exhibition game played in an empty ballpark, the visiting Angels won against the home team Padres after a single run in the first inning. The exhibition game’s one run final score was secured when David Fletcher made it home from second base after pitcher Garrett Richards threw to second base but instead sent the ball into center field. The game was the first played in Petco Park in 2020....

UF head coach Mike White spoke with the media Monday for the first time since Johnson’s fall. “Keyontae Johnson is back with us and doing well,” White said on the SEC’s weekly teleconference. “He was at practice this morning and yesterday afternoon. He’s in good spirits, he’s helping us coach. He actually blew a whistle yesterday.” MORE: NCAA files trademark for “Mask Madness” Johnson collapsed during the first half of Florida’s Dec....

Driving around Los Angeles a few weeks back, Walter Mosley had every reason to be in a fine mood. His latest novel, “Black Betty” (255 pages. Norton. $19.95), was the one novel creating a big buzz in town at the American booksellers’ convention. Elsewhere in the city, Jonathan Demme was producing a film of his first novel, “Devil in a Blue Dress,” starring Denzel Washington as his detective hero, Easy Rawlins....

The rapper—whose real name is Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi—shared a moving tribute to the bulldog on Instagram, speaking of the joy his late pet brought him over the past decade, especially during some tough times. “I got some sad news yall. Freshie is gone. He left us a few days ago peacefully at home surrounded by people that love him. His family,” Cudi wrote in his caption. “I held his hand and whispered in his ear to let him know I was there while he slipped away....

In the weeks since the season 3 finale of HBO’s Succession left 1.7 million viewers grasping for any bit of information hinting at who might be next in line as CEO of Waystar Royco, the buzz surrounding the drama has grown to epic proportions. Between analysis of the shocking, season-ending cliffhanger that aired on December 12, to conversations about lead actor Jeremy Strong’s off-set clothing ensembles, Succession has ascended to the mainstream and could soon receive some historic hardware to show for it....

So it might seem odd to call North Korea the far greater threat to America and world peace. And yet that is plainly the case. The reason is, to use one of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s favorite words, capabilities. North Korea may have little, but everything it does possess goes toward Kim’s Stalinist military. And a fully armed Kim has far greater capability to wreak havoc today than the partially disarmed and semicontained Saddam....

Kim confirmed plans to initiate a five-year plan to recover “the national economy and solving the people’s food, clothing and housing problems,” according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The agency said Kim described the current state of the country as a “grim situation,” and admitted past economic plans had not succeeded. Kim said his party is determined to reach the economic goals in the newly issued development plans for the next five years and recover from the current “unprecedented difficulties,” according to the KCNA....

The case neatly encapsulates the confused tale of South Korean politics and business as the country recovers from the Asian financial crash. In the process, it is sometimes hard to disentangle important reforms to the nation’s business practices from an effort to muffle criticism of the government and settle old political scores–of which South Korea has many. Until now, President Kim Dae Jung has mainly targeted the chaebol, the huge conglomerates that borrowed and expanded blindly in the boom years....