United States

Update: After weeks of endless rhetoric and party bickering over the controversial usage of the 'nuclear option', Neil Gorsuch has officially been confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States with a largely partisan vote of 54-45.

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Following a series of procedural votes yesterday to invoke the so-called 'nuclear option', the Senate is expected to vote shortly to confirm Neil Gorsuch as the 113th justice to serve on the Supreme Court.  

If Trump wanted to provoke the Kremlin - an odd decision considering all the daily "press coverage" that the Kremlin controlled the president - he has achieved just that: Russia said it will reinforce Syria's air defences and, as reported previously, is sending a missile carrying warship to the eastern Mediterranean in response to a US cruise missile strikes on a Syrian government airbase.

Eleven weeks into his administration, Trump's Syrian airstrikes appear to have achieve what until last night appeared impossible: unite much of Congress in support of a Trump decision.

As Bloomberg report, U.S. lawmakers mostly expressed support for Trump’s strike against a Syrian airfield in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack, though some cautioned that Congress needs to be consulted on a comprehensive strategy if the strike is a harbinger of things to come.

After initially tumbling in the aftermath of the U.S. missile attack on Syria which jolted financial markets, boosting haven assets and temporarily shifting investor focus from today's jobs data , S&P futures have managed to recoup all losses (the Nikkei closed up 0.4% after sliding earlier in the session), with Europe also just fractionally lower and climbing fast.

Responding to Trump's unexpected military attack on Syria in which 59 cruise missiles were launched (of which only 23 allegedly hit their target), Russian President Vladimir Putin "regards the strikes as aggression against a sovereign nation,” his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, noting that the president believes the strikes were carried out “in violation of international law, and also under an invented pretext.”