Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh seems assured of confirmation as key holdout senators on Friday declared their support. The final vote is expected late this afternoon. Thousands of protesters descending on the Senate this week and multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, which opponents maintain were not properly examined by FBI investigators, failed to derail the mainly partisan proceeding. “We are confident Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed,” White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec said. The key declarations yesterday came from Sens. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat facing a conservative electorate.

He should have de-escalated the situation. That was at least one juror’s take on a Chicago cop convicted Friday of second-degree murder in a Black teenager’s 2014 shooting that ignited protests. Officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times, and jurors also handed Van Dyke an aggravated battery count for each bullet. Crowds cheered outside the courthouse, chanting “Justice for Laquan!” and new demonstrations erupted as the city’s police union called the proceeding a “sham trial” orchestrated by “political operatives.” The officer’s lawyer said he will appeal.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is returning to Pyongyang on Sunday amid concerns the momentum for the North’s denuclearization is slowing. It’s been nearly four months since President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore to talk peace. And Kim has since become impatient without sanctions relief or support for a formal end to the Korean War. Meanwhile, Washington wants to see a weapons inventory and the dismantling of the Yongbyon nuclear site — while backing away from an earlier goal of disarmament by 2021.

Like the Hollywood heist saga, this elaborate scheme allegedly managed to extract $500 million from Angola’s central bank. But documents show that a bank teller in London smelled something fishy and blew the caper apart. Four suspects were arrested in what looks like a common get-rich-quick investment scam scaled way up. The new president’s anti-corruption effort and the teller’s sharp eye helped recover the bulk of the money. But two other principals kept millions, one of them posting a selfie on social media, lighting a cigar.

The Week Ahead: On Sunday, right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro appears likely to win the first round of Brazilian elections over corruption-tainted ruling leftists. The Nobel Prize for economics will be announced on Monday. And the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday on whether suspected illegal immigrants should be detained indefinitely without a hearing.

Know This: The Russiagate investigation is attempting to confiscate presidential ex-campaign chief Paul Manafort’s Trump Tower condominium. U.S. unemployment is at its lowest level since 1969. And a top EU official says there’s a better chance that the bloc can reach a deal for Britain’s exit, perhaps by November.

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His loyalties are divided. On the one hand, the congressman from California’s San Joaquin Valley is President Trump’s Capitol Hill hatchet man. On the other hand, his much-touted family dairy farming business reportedly relies on undocumented laborers — whom his president wants deported. And then there’s the fact that 12 years ago, the valley farm he often invokes among his down-home credentials was sold and restarted in Iowa. There, Trump-supporting farmers fear that immigration raids will destroy their livelihoods, while a nosy journalist gets tailed by Nunes’ kin.

Out of many, one. Radio telescopes around the world have combined to comprise one giant, Earth-sized observatory. With this Event Horizon Telescope — said to have the highest resolution of any astronomical instrument ever created — astronomers have collected signals from Sagittarius A*, also known as the black hole at the center of the galaxy. That was done back in April 2017, but data’s still being crunched. In a few months, if all goes well, astronomers and humankind may get to see the silhouette of the phenomenon for the first time.

There may not be any Emmanuel juniors, but French President Macron insists he understands parenthood and promises to extend the right to in vitro fertilization to lesbian and single women — an idea endorsed last week by the republic’s highest court. Currently French women who can’t get IVF go to Spain or Belgium. While pushback’s expected in a society rooted in Catholicism, the plan is to begin parliamentary debate on liberalization later this year. Even if fertilization restrictions are lifted, it appears surrogacy will need more time to gain acceptance. 

The birthplace of generations of the world’s most beloved children’s characters is losing its footing. India’s ChuChu TV YouTube channel already beats out Sesame Street — by 14 billion views — and other U.S. fare. The Chennai-based startup now employs more than 200 people creating viral content aimed at children. ChuChu’s founder says he hasn’t cracked the code to viral success; rather his company is focused on producing content that children all over the world can enjoy. Now creators from Romania to Russia are looking to cash in, while Americans struggle to catch up.

The underbelly of Cuban recruitment for American baseball might soon see the light. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating operations tied to the shady practice, which can involve buscones (street-level agents), Caribbean smugglers and stash houses in Haiti and Mexico. And according to a dossier provided to the FBI, some MLB personnel were privy all along. Evidence shows emails from Los Angeles Dodgers execs rating the “level of egregious behavior” of their employees in Latin America; five received a “criminal” rating. But there’s more — much more — and soon it might all be public.