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Kennedy's shift to the left of the Supreme Court

Although a Reagan appointee, Anthony Kennedy is ending his tenure in the Supreme Court on the liberal side of the ideological spectrum. Each line in the chart below tracks the ideological lean of a Supreme Court justice over the past 80 years, and shows how Kennedy swung left during his last couple of years on the bench.

Why it matters: Whoever President Trump appoints to replace Kennedy will likely be more conservative than Kennedy, and will reshape the Supreme Court.

Expand chart
"Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953-1999, " Andrew D. Martin and Kevin M. Quinn. Get the data. Chart: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

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U.S. ambassador to Russia will return home briefly: State Department

John Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Russia, during a briefing in Moscow in 2015. Photo: Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS via Getty Images

The State Department said Monday that the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, will now be returning to the United States this week before returning to Moscow "in the coming weeks."

Why this matters: The statement, from a State Department spokesperson, comes just hours after Axios reported that Sullivan had indicated he intended to stand his ground and stay in Russia after the Kremlin “advised” him to return home to talk with his team.

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