The newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has already fulfilled one of his promises.

After weeks of contentious hearings, the Senate voted to confirm the polarizing nominee Saturday evening. And Kavanaugh was already on the job Sunday morning with the court's first-ever all-women team of law clerks by his side, The New York Times reports.

Even before sexual assault allegations rocked his confirmation process, concerns swirled around Kavanaugh's stance on women's right. Specifically, Democratic senators feared he would provide the court with a conservative majority that could facilitate the rolling back of Roe v. Wade. Kavanaugh tried to counter those concerns at his first round of confirmation hearings, touting how "no federal judge ... has sent more women law clerks to clerk on the Supreme Court than I have." He also said he had four female law clerks ready to work for him "on a moment's notice," which would make him "the first justice in the history of the Supreme Court to have a group of all-women law clerks."

Those four women — Kim Jackson, Shannon Grammel, Megan Lacy, and Sara Nommensen — were at the Supreme Court on Sunday, aiding Kavanaugh ahead of his first case hearings this week, the Times details. Jackson will become one of three black law clerks working at the Supreme Court this term. She has previously worked for Kavanaugh, along with one of the other black clerks, per The Washington Post.

Kavanaugh will kick off his Supreme Court career Tuesday with a case about crimes involving firearms. Kathryn Krawczyk

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads President Trump by 11 percentage points, 53 percent to 42 percent, in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News national poll of registered voters released late Wednesday. That's an improvement for Trump from the last WSJ/NBC poll earlier this month, which found him behind by 14 points, but it's larger than the 8-point lead Biden had in September.

Biden's 11-point lead is a little higher than his polling average — 10.2 points at FiveThirtyEight and 9.2 points at RealClearPolitics — but it points to a steep climb for Trump three weeks before Election Day. "The president may have recovered from COVID-19, but there is no experimental cocktail that can cure his standing with voters," said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who conducted the survey with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. Still, he said, "there are signs that the race could still tighten."

For instance, Trump's job approval rating, 44 percent, is higher than his vote share of 42 percent. And voters give Republicans a 13-point lead on handling the economy, the top issue in the race. But Democrats are up 17 points on handling the coronavirus and 18 points on health care, and voters said they planned to vote for congressional Democrats over Republicans by 8 points. An impressive 50 percent of voters say their families are better off than they were four years ago, but 58 percent said the U.S. is worse off and 60 percent said the country is headed in the right direction.

NBC News reminds readers that Trump was down 11 points to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the WSJ/NBC News poll in October 2016, "but what's different from four years ago is just how stable Biden's national lead has been over the past year, including among key voting subgroups like women, voters of color, seniors and independents."

The poll was conducted by Hart Research Associates (D) and Public Opinion Strategies (R) Oct. 9-12 among 1,000 registered voters contacted by landline and cellphone. Its margin or error is ± 3.1 percentage points. Peter Weber

Two U.S. citizens and the remains of a third American were released by Houthi rebels in Yemen on Wednesday in a surprise exchange that sent about 250 Yemeni militants back to the country. Sandra Loli, a U.S. aid worker held hostage for three years, and businessman Mikael Gidada, detained for a year, were flown to Oman, along with the remains of Bilal Fateen. Between 240 and 283 Yemeni rebels stuck in Oman for several years were flown to Sanaa, Yemen's capital, with reluctant agreement from Saudi Arabia. The deal also included medical aid for Yemen, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Saudi Arabia, which has been battling the Iranian-backed Houthis in a bloody civil war since 2014, was "especially concerned about three dozen Houthi fighters being sent back to Yemen who they said had received specialized training in Iran on drones and missiles," the Journal reports. "The U.S.-backed deal between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia includes the largest known agreement to allow armed adversaries of the U.S. and its allies to return to an active conflict zone."

President Trump has emphasized the return of U.S. hostages held abroad. "We will not rest until those held are home with their loved ones," said national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Trump's former lead hostage negotiator. Senior Houthi political leader Muhammad Ali al-Houthi was also pleased with the exchange. "We congratulate the wounded on their return to the homeland after a long wait that was supposed to not happen because of the criminality of the Saudi American aggression," he said.

Houthi told The Washington Post that negotiations had been underway for months and speculated that "the American administration wants to benefit from the delay by, on one hand, demonizing the Yemeni people and, on the other hand, highlighting a success for it in its upcoming election campaign." The White House called that claim "patently and categorically false" and also denied Houthi's suggestion that the American hostages had been detained for suspicious or unlawful activity.

The proxy war in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and Iran has killed more than 112,000 people and spawned one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. There is bipartisan opposition in Congress to U.S. military support for the Saudi offensive, and Trump vetoed a bill that would have ended that support. Peter Weber

A stuffed animal accidentally left on a bench had quite the adventure before being reunited with its owner.

Earlier this month, a boy in Standish, Maine, forgot to grab his companion, and the stuffed dog was found by groomers from the Lavish Dog Day Spa. They wanted the young owner to know his pup was in good hands and well taken care of, so they posted photos online showing the colorful stuffed animal getting a bath, having his hair brushed, and receiving a new bow.

On Sunday, the boy picked up his dog from the spa, CBS Boston reports, and his mom wrote on Facebook that they were grateful to the groomers for keeping a close eye on the puppy. Her son, she added, " was so happy to be reunited" with his pal. Catherine Garcia

President Trump declared during a rally in Des Moines on Wednesday night that the United States needs an intelligent leader who is able to keep up with the likes of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"President Xi of China, he's 100 percent," Trump said. "Putin of Russia, 100 percent. Kim Jong Un of North Korea, 100 percent. These people are sharp and they're smart. Joe has lost it. In his best days he wasn't a smart man, and everybody knows it." Trump was referring to former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president.

Polls show a tight race in Iowa, a state Trump won easily in 2016. Trump brought up a new poll by Focus on Rural America that has him leading Biden 50 percent to 44 percent, and while this should have Trump feeling better than the polls showing the two effectively tied, he told the crowd, "For me to only be up six, I'm a little bit concerned, I'll tell you that. Because nobody's going to do for Iowa what I did for Iowa."

The rally was held at the Des Moines International Airport, with thousands of people standing next to each other, many of them not wearing masks. Nearby, a digital billboard showed the message "Trump Covid Superspreader Event," with an arrow pointing toward the airport. While Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) issued a proclamation that states people must stay at least six feet apart at social gatherings, she used her Twitter account to encourage people to attend the event, the Des Moines Register reports, and spoke before Trump took the stage.

After throwing MAGA hats into the crowd, Reynolds told the audience, "The momentum, the enthusiasm, the energy is on our side. Don't believe the polls, don't believe what the media is telling you. Up and down the ticket, people are fired up for Republican victories on Nov. 3." Catherine Garcia

President Trump's economic advisers met privately at the White House with the board of the conservative Hoover Institution in late February, and their assessment of the economic fallout from the nascent COVID-19 pandemic spurred one attendee, veteran hedge fund consultant William Callanan, to warn of coming economic tumult in a memo that was then circulated among a small group of elite investors, The New York Times reports.

When Callanan sent the memo to the founder of Appaloosa Management and a top lieutenant on Feb. 25, the U.S. had just 17 known COVID-19 cases and Trump and the White House were publicly saying the virus was completely under control. "Stock market starting to look very good to me!" Trump said Feb. 24, the same day his White House economic advisers were meeting with the Hoover board members. "What struck me," Callanan wrote in his memo, according to the Times, was that nearly every official he heard from raised the coronavirus "as a point of concern, totally unprovoked."

"To many of the investors who received or heard about the memo, it was the first significant sign of skepticism among Trump administration officials about their ability to contain the virus," the Times reports. "Traders spotted the immediate significance: The president's aides appeared to be giving wealthy party donors an early warning of a potentially impactful contagion at a time when Mr. Trump was publicly insisting that the threat was nonexistent." Some investors told the Times they used the warning to their financial advantage.

Callanan told the Times his memo, which quickly spread to a small circle of well-connected investors without his knowledge or consent, contained "personal and professional views based on extensive research and publicly available information." This doesn't appear to be a legally problematic use of insider information, according to legal experts. Read more at The New York Times. Peter Weber

President Trump told a crowd in Iowa on Wednesday night that his youngest son, Barron Trump, recovered quickly from COVID-19, and that's one reason why schools must reopen soon.

Earlier in the day, first lady Melania Trump revealed that Barron, 14, had the coronavirus. He is a "strong teenager and exhibited no symptoms," she said, and he has since tested negative.

While at a rally in Des Moines, Trump said Barron had COVID-19 for "such a short period of time. I don't even think he knew he had it because they're young and their immune systems are strong and they fight it off — 99.9 percent. And Barron is beautiful and he's free, free."

Teachers have been apprehensive about returning to in-person learning amid the pandemic, as they don't want to catch the virus and they don't want it to spread among their students, either. Trump, however, said that after his son tested positive, "within, like, two seconds, it was Barron is just fine now. He's tested negative, right? Because it happens. People have it and it goes. Get the kids back to school." Catherine Garcia