President Biden has selected Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to the Supreme Court, according to a source who has been notified about the decision, setting in motion a historic confirmation process for the first Black woman to sit on the highest court in the nation.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed that whoever Biden nominates will be confirmed with “all deliberate speed.”

In the 50-50 Senate, all Democrats will need to stay united to confirm Biden’s nominee, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a potential tie in the event no Republicans break ranks.

Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., is cautioning that a major cyberattack against Ukraine could have possible ripple effects on nearby NATO members – and force NATO allies to come to their defense.

Warner made the comments Thursday afternoon in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered.

“If you shut down Polish hospitals because they can’t get power to take care of their people, you’re rapidly approaching what could be viewed as an Article 5 violation of NATO, which basically says if you attack one NATO nation – and Poland is a NATO nation – all of the remaining 29 nations need to come to their assistance,” he said. “We are in an uncharted territory.”

Warner said he believed the Ukrainian people would continue to fight back against the Russian invasion and form an “insurgency,” which would be harder for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces to counter.

“It’s again one thing to knock out a government. It’s another thing to fight an insurgency led by the Ukrainian people across all of this captured territory,” he said.

U.S. lawmakers are condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine overnight.

This morning on Twitter, Governor Glenn Youngkin says Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an assault on a sovereign nation and will have devastating consequences for Ukrainian citizens.

Senator Tim Kaine who serves as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) released the following statement:

“Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine is an unacceptable affront to Ukraine’s sovereignty and to democracies everywhere. This is a crisis of Putin’s own making.

The United States and the international community have offered Putin every opportunity to de-escalate diplomatically. Instead, he chose a path of conflict, risking the lives of citizens in both Ukraine and Russia.

America’s commitment to Ukraine is absolute and has the steadfast, bipartisan support of Congress. Make no mistake: Russia’s aggression will continue to have significant consequences, including through additional crippling economic sanctions.”

Finally, Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger says we must be united in condemning Putin’s war and act of aggression that serves only the irrational self-interest of one man.

President Joe Biden announced a second and larger sanctions package on Russia, punishing Vladimir Putin for ordering a full-scale invasion of Ukraine but stopping short of targeting some critical sectors of his nation’s economy.

Speaking in generalities from the White House, Biden said his administration would stunt the Russian military’s ability to finance and grow its force; freeze U.S. assets held by Russian banks, including VTB; target elites and members of Putin’s inner circle; and curtail Russia’s high-tech imports in a way that could damage Moscow’s aerospace industry.

Minutes later, the White House and Treasury Department released fact sheets detailing the moves: cutting off Sberbank from the U.S. financial system; placing full blocking sanctions on VTB and three other Russian financial institutions; imposing new debt and equity restrictions on 13 enterprises and entities; targeting seven Russian elites and their families; and hitting 24 Belarusians for supporting Russia’s invasion.

A proposal to let Virginia voters self-impose photo ID rules for their own ballot failed in the state Senate Tuesday along with every other Republican effort to reinstate mandatory photo ID in state elections.

In a meeting Tuesday afternoon, the nine Democrats on the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee repeatedly overruled six Republicans to kill the first batch of GOP-sponsored voting bills coming over from the House of Delegates.

In addition to blocking several photo ID bills, the committee defeated efforts to cut the early voting window from 45 days to 14 days, repeal the same-day voter registration system set to be implemented this year and ban absentee drop boxes.

As a result of those votes, all bills to bring back photo ID, a policy priority for Gov. Glenn Youngkin, are dead for the year. Though most Virginia voters still show a photo ID before casting their ballot, Democrats changed the law in 2020 to allow voters without ID to sign a form affirming their identity.

That includes the unconventional approach suggested by Del. Amanda Batten, R-James City, who said she filed her bill creating an opt-in photo ID system in response to an elderly constituent concerned about identity theft who “wanted to ensure that every time they were asked to purchase anything or vote that they would have to show a photo ID.”

“It would be required so that no one else would be able to act in their stead,” Batten said.