Nation in brief: GOP unlikely to filibuster Kagan

WASHINGTON – Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is unlikely to face a GOP filibuster but should expect difficult questions from lawmakers who will decide whether she deserves the lifetime appointment despite having no judicial experience, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican said Sunday.

“The filibuster should be relegated to the extreme circumstances, and I don’t think Elena Kagan represents that,” said Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he hoped to have Kagan on the bench this summer, succeeding retiring Justice John Paul Stevens well ahead of the new term that begins in October.

Kagan is now solicitor general, the top government lawyer who argues the administration’s cases before the Supreme Court, and was dean of Harvard Law School. But she has never been a judge.

“She has so little other record, this is going to be a big deal,” said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the committee’s top Republican. “It’s so important how she testifies.”

Police say girl, 7, shot during search

DETROIT – A sleeping 7-year-old girl was shot and killed when an officer’s gun went off while Detroit police were searching a duplex for a suspect in the slaying of a teenager, a police official said.

Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee said at a news conference Sunday that Aiyana Jones was hit in the neck by a single bullet and died at a hospital. Police said the girl was sleeping on a couch when she was shot.

Godbee said officers with the department’s Special Response Team set off a flash grenade as they entered the apartment with their guns drawn about 12:40 a.m. Sunday with a warrant to look for a suspect in the Friday slaying of a 17-year-old boy.

The lead officer encountered a 46-year-old woman in the front room of the house and “some level of physical contact” ensued during which the officer’s gun went off, Godbee said. The officers had identified themselves as police, he said.