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(WASHINGTON) — With the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer at the end of the current term, one name keeps rising to the top of the list of potential replacements: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson, whom President Joe Biden nominated to replace Merrick Garland on the high-profile D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals when he picked Garland for attorney general, is a Harvard Law graduate who served as a clerk to Breyer from 1999-2000 and interviewed with former President Barack Obama for former Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacancy in 2016.

After the Supreme Court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is the most important federal court in the country, with jurisdiction over cases involving Congress and the executive branch agencies.

Biden, who has said he would appoint the first African American woman to the Supreme Court because the court should “look like the country,” would be able to make good on that promise with a Jackson nomination. No Black woman has ever been nominated to the high court.

Other top contenders include Judge Leondra Kruger, of the California Supreme Court; Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner, of the US District Court Georgia; and Judge J. Michelle Childs, of the US District Court South Carolina.

Jackson was the first Black woman confirmed to an appellate court in a decade and is one of six Black female circuit court judges currently serving. She is also one of just 39 active Black female federal judges out of 793 total.

The 51-year-old also has some bipartisan appeal. She was confirmed 53-44 to her current seat in June 2021, drawing votes from three Republicans — Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

At the time, several Republican senators brought up the advocacy group Demand Justice, which has supported Jackson’s nomination and has called for expanding the Supreme Court.

“Demand Justice claims that the Supreme Court is broken,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. “Do you think the Supreme Court is broken?”

“Senator, I’ve never said anything about the Supreme Court being broken,” Jackson said in response. “Again, I’m not going to comment on the structure, the size, the functioning even, of the Supreme Court.”

Under questioning, she also characterized religious liberty as a foundational tenet of the U.S. government and said the Supreme Court has made clear that the government cannot infringe on religious rights.

She was also asked if she believed race would play a role in her decision making, if mandatory minimums were racist and the role of race in the judicial system.

Jackson repeatedly emphasized her belief in judicial independence.

Jackson grew up attending public schools in Miami and graduated from Harvard College. She has served as an assistant public defender and as vice chair and commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

The mother of two teenage daughters is related to former House Speaker Paul Ryan by marriage.

Ryan testified on her behalf when she was nominated to the district court in 2012, offering his “unequivocal” endorsement.

During her circuit court confirmation hearing, she offered a poignant response when Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., asked what the nomination meant to her.

“It is the beauty and the majesty of this country, that someone who comes from a background like mine could find herself in this position,” she answered. “And so I’m just enormously grateful to have this opportunity to be a part of the law in this way, and I’m truly thankful for the president giving me the honor of this nomination.”

ABC News’ Lauren Lantry and Adia Robinson contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — At the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine makers raced to design a shot that perfectly matched the new virus’s genetic code. Their efforts were successful, resulting in highly effective vaccines in record time.

But the virus has continued to evolve into new, concerning variants, each with a slightly different genetic code. Although current vaccines still work well against new variants, they are no longer a perfect match.

Vaccine makers like Pfizer and Moderna are now exploring tweaked booster shots to match the now-dominant omicron variant, but the U.S. government is aggressively pursuing a different approach: a pan-coronavirus vaccine that would work equally well against any COVID-19 variant.

“Since September of 2020 there have been five SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern — alpha, beta, gamma, delta and now, the current, omicron,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said at a White House task force briefing Wednesday. “So, obviously, innovative approaches are needed.”

Fauci, who heads up the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has issued $43 million in research grants across several academic institutions to support development of a pan-coronavirus vaccine, sometimes called a “universal” coronavirus vaccine.

The idea, scientists say, is to create a vaccine that works as as a generalist rather than a specialist. A pan-coronavirus vaccine will be designed using features of the virus’s genetic code that are shared universally across all different versions of the virus — and hopefully, any new versions that will emerge.

Several research groups are already working on a pan-coronavirus vaccine, including scientists at the California Institute of Technology, Duke University, University of Washington, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

But scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are arguably the furthest along. The Army vaccine appears to work well in monkeys, and is now being tested for safety in a phase 1 study in human volunteers.

In a rare look inside the Walter Reed laboratories last year, ABC News’ Bob Woodruff spoke to a team of Army scientists hopeful that their vaccine candidate would work not only against COVID-19 variants, but also against related coronaviruses, like those that caused the SARS-1 and MERS outbreaks in 2003 and 2012, respectively.

But designing a pan-coronavirus vaccine is no easy feat. Scientists say it could take months, even years, to find a vaccine that works equally well against multiple coronavirus strains.

“I don’t want anyone to think that pan-coronavirus vaccines are literally around the corner in a month or two,” Fauci said. Current vaccines dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization and severe illness, even against new variants like omicron. And crucially, they are available today.

“Do not wait to receive your primary vaccine regimen,” Fauci said. “If you are vaccinated, please get your booster if you are eligible.”

ABC News’ Matthew Seyler contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Officials at the Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled that they could “soon” raise interest rates for the first time in three years, as inflation concerns cast a shadow over the pandemic-battered economy.

The central bankers said in a statement Wednesday that they were leaving rates unchanged for now, at near-zero levels, but with a recovering labor market and the threat of inflation, this will likely change in the near future.

“With inflation well above 2 percent and a strong labor market, the Committee expects it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate,” the Fed said in a statement Wednesday.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said during his closely watched news conference Wednesday that the Fed’s “policy has been adapting to the evolving economic environment and will continue to do so,” alluding to the backdrop of elevated inflation and labor market gains.

“Economic activity expanded at a robust pace last year, reflecting progress on vaccinations and the reopening of the economy,” Powell said. “Indeed, the economy has shown great strength and resilience in the face of the ongoing pandemic.”

Powell said the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases associated with the omicron variant likely will weigh on economic growth in the short term, but he expressed hope, as health experts have suggested, that the omicron variant hasn’t been as virulent as previous strains, and that it’s expected for cases to drop off more rapidly.

Powell added that “inflation remains well above our longer run goal of 2%,” which it notably has for some time now. He attributed this largely to supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic and the reopening of the economy.

“These problems have been larger and longer lasting than anticipated, exacerbated by waves of the virus,” Powell said Wednesday. “While the drivers of higher inflation have been predominantly connected to the dislocations caused by the pandemic, price increases have now spread to a broader range of goods and services. Wages have also risen briskly, and we are attentive to the risks that persistent real wage growth in excess of productivity could put upward pressure on inflation.”

The Fed chair said that they expect inflation to decline over the course of the year, but signaled that the central bankers are taking this issue seriously — they’re very aware of the pain it causes for consumers and will be “watching carefully” to see how the economy evolves.

“We understand that high inflation imposes significant hardship, especially on those least able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation,” Powell added. “In addition, we believe that the best thing we can do to support continued labor market gains is to promote a long expansion and that will require price stability. We’re committed to our price stability goal.”

Powell continued: “We will use our tools both to support the economy and a strong labor market, and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.”

The Fed officials noted in their latest policy statement that indicators of economic activity and employment have continued to strengthen.

“The sectors most adversely affected by the pandemic have improved in recent months but are being affected by the recent sharp rise in COVID-19 cases,” the statement said. “Job gains have been solid in recent months, and the unemployment rate has declined substantially.”

Still, they noted that supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic and reopening of the economy “have continued to contribute to elevated levels of inflation,” and that much of the economic recovery still remains at the mercy of the virus.

The unemployment rate as of last month fell to 3.9%, only slightly above the pre-pandemic rate of 3.5% in February 2020.

Soaring inflation, however, has thrown a new wrench into the economic recovery. Government data released earlier this month indicated that consumer prices have jumped 7% over the last 12 months, the largest one-year increase since 1982.

The Fed officials also reiterated Wednesday that they expect to continue to taper their pandemic-era asset purchasing program meant to buoy the economy during the health crisis and end it completely by early March.

In previous projections released last month, Fed officials indicated that they anticipated as many as three interest rate hikes starting in 2022.

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