Bedugul Coffee: Tuesday Morning Briefing: Brett Kavanaugh gets to work at Supreme Court

Highlights

Just three days after he was narrowly confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court despite facing allegations of sexual assault, Brett Kavanaugh is set to take his seat on the bench on Tuesday morning, solidifying a conservative majority for years to come.

Hurricane Michael was expected to strengthen in the Gulf of Mexico, taking aim at the Florida panhandle, where residents were implored to get out of harm’s way ahead of life-threatening waves, winds and rains.

Trump will seek to lift a federal ban on summer sales of higher-ethanol blends of gasoline, a senior White House official said, delivering on a move long-sought by anxious Midwest farmers ahead of November’s elections.

World

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has invited Pope Francis to visit Pyongyang in a gesture designed to highlight peace efforts on the Korean peninsula, South Korea’s presidential office said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on Riyadh to prove its claim that Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has been missing since last week, left the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, while the Washington called on Saudi Arabia to support an investigation into his disappearance.

Rescue workers in Indonesia stepped up their search for victims of an earthquake and tsunami, hoping to find as many bodies as they can before this week’s deadline for their work to halt, as the official death toll rose to 2,010.

Commentary: Iran is sending stark signals that escalating U.S. sanctions will not push Tehran to change its foreign policy, writes Maysam Behravesh, a journalist at the TV channel Iran International and an affiliated researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Recent Iranian missile strikes in Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, along with last week's International Court of Justice ruling in Iran's favor, "will likely encourage the Iranian leadership to stay its defiant course."