Happy Thursday! A recent study shows that roughly one out of three sharks examined off the coast of the Bahamas carried traces of cocaine, caffeine, and analgesics in their bloodstream.
Expect a heated bidding war for the film rights between Steven Spielberg and the producers of Cocaine Bear.
Quick Takes: Today’s Leading Stories
Supreme Court Takes Up Arguments on Birthright Citizenship
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. The order decreed that citizenship could only be granted to people born in the U.S. to at least one legal permanent resident or U.S. citizen, a change from the existing practice of granting citizenship to almost all people born on U.S. soil. The challengers to the order, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, contend that the order conflicts with more than 120 years of legal precedent, the text of the 14th Amendment itself, and federal law passed by Congress. Many justices in the court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical of Solicitor General John D. Sauer’s arguments. To learn more about the case and the oral arguments, keep reading today’s TMD.
- Trump attended for part of the proceedings, the first time in U.S. history that a president has been present for Supreme Court arguments.
Artemis II Takes Off
NASA’s Artemis II mission launched from Florida yesterday carrying four astronauts, marking the first step in America’s return to the moon. The crew—which included NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—rode in the NASA Orion crew capsule, attached to the top of the agency’s Space Launch System rocket. During their 10-day flight, the Artemis II team will fly past the moon at a distance of roughly 4,000 miles from the lunar surface, then turn back toward Earth. If the mission goes as planned, it will carry the crew farther from Earth than any humans have traveled before, surpassing the Apollo 13 record set in 1970. The mission will help prepare NASA to return astronauts to the moon’s surface in two years, for the first time since 1972, by testing launch, transportation, steering, and life support systems.
- The initial stages of the flight experienced no significant malfunctions, other than the onboard toilet failing to work.
- Artemis IV, scheduled for flight in 2028, will be NASA’s first planned, crewed lunar landing under the Artemis program, using lunar landers developed with private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin.
- NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, appointed by Trump last year, restructured the Artemis program’s timeline in part to keep pace with China’s planned 2030 lunar landing.
Israel Pressures Shiite Residents to Leave Southern Lebanon Towns
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Israeli military officials have privately pressured Christian and Druze leaders in southern Lebanon to expel Shiite Muslims who sought shelter in their communities, while assuring those non-Shiite towns they would be permitted to remain in the evacuation zone Israel designated across the south. Leaders of at least eight villages said they received calls from Israeli officials with the directive, and all complied, fearing their towns would be targeted if they refused. Human Rights Watch said the policy could amount to forced displacement on sectarian grounds, since the expulsions target civilians from the same sect as Hezbollah rather than individuals with any demonstrated connection to the group. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has previously said Shiites specifically would not be permitted to return to their homes in the south and likened Israel’s strategy in Lebanon to its approach in Gaza.
- The directive has also deepened sectarian fault lines within Lebanon: Displaced Shiites who were turned away from Christian towns reportedly issued veiled threats of post-war retaliation, while some Christians have begun to view a prolonged Israeli occupation of the south more favorably as a result.
- Israeli strikes on the coastal outskirts of Beirut killed seven people on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Meanwhile, 13 people were injured in Israel—including an 11-year-old girl—after Iranian forces fired cluster bombs at the center of the country.
- The Israeli military also announced Wednesday that it had killed Hajj Yusuf Ismail Hashem, Hezbollah’s commander in southern Lebanon, in an overnight naval strike on Beirut.
Trump Says Iran Wants a Ceasefire; Iran Denies It
In a national address on Wednesday night, Trump claimed the United States was nearing the achievement of its core strategic objectives in the confrontation with Iran and signaled continued strikes over the next two to three weeks, threatening Iran’s power facilities if a deal is not reached. Earlier, Trump asserted that Iran’s president had requested a ceasefire—describing Masoud Pezeshkian as a “new regime” despite Pezeshkian having led the country since July 2024. In a Truth Social post, he stated that a deal would be considered “when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” Iran, whose leaders have repeatedly denied any talks are taking place, again insisted that no such request had been made.
- Arab officials told the Wall Street Journal that the United Arab Emirates was preparing to join the military effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, which would make it the first Gulf state to join the war against Iran. Bahrain is sponsoring a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing military action against Iran, with UAE support.
- The U.S. aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush deployed Tuesday, along with three destroyers, and plans to sail to the Middle East to join the USS Abraham Lincoln. Nearly 10,000 airborne troops and Marines are either already present or arriving.
- The USS Gerald Ford, damaged by an onboard fire while participating in the war, is currently docked in Croatia for repairs.
House Moves Forward with Shutdown-Ending Bill
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, both Republicans, announced Wednesday that they would move forward with a government funding framework that House Republicans rejected last week, and that Johnson had called a “joke.” The bipartisan deal would fund the Department of Homeland Security through September 30, but without additional funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, which are largely responsible for enacting Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. Both agencies would still be funded through legislation already passed by Congress last year.
- The plan does not make any of the reforms to immigration enforcement demanded by Democrats, such as abandoning the widespread practice of agents wearing masks.
Since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, it has been understood that any child born to U.S. citizens or born in American territory was an American citizen. A few narrow exceptions apply, and the path hasn’t always been smooth: Some Native American tribes were denied birthright citizenship until Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. But the courts have now repeatedly affirmed that, under the 14th Amendment, if you are born in U.S. territory, you are one of its citizens.
President Donld Trump so strongly disagrees with that interpretation that on Wednesday he became the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court for Trump v. Barbara—the case that could decide the issue once and for all.
Today’s Must-Read
In Other News
Today in the United States
- The CDC paused diagnostic lab testing for more than two dozen infectious diseases, including monkeypox and rabies.
- The Treasury removed sanctions on acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, and lifted sanctions on three Russian cargo ships.
- A federal district judge ruled that the Department of Housing and Urban Development could not impose new conditions on grants awarded to nonprofits to build accommodations for the homeless, describing the move as a “slapdash imposition of political whims.”
- Federal officials charged a man who allegedly stored at least 25 homemade explosive devices in his apartment in White Plains, New York.
- According to the U.S. Embassy in Havana, an FBI technical team arrived in Cuba to conduct an “independent investigation” of an alleged violent incursion attempt by 10 Cuban exiles.
Around the World
- A whistleblower from Hungary’s National Bureau of Investigation accused a government intelligence agency of manufacturing a child pornography case to spy on the Tisza Party, the leading opposition to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian elections are on April 12.
- British police arrested three more suspects linked to what is believed to have been an antisemitic arson attack on emergency service vehicles operated by a Jewish nonprofit.
- Amid continued fighting, Pakistani and Afghan officials discussed peace negotiations in China, which is working to mediate a resolution.
- The Italian Coast Guard said that 19 migrants died and 58 were rescued while attempting to travel from Libya to Europe aboard a boat, which ran into distress during the journey.
- India’s Navy chief revealed the country was “minutes away” from launching strikes against Pakistan from the sea during Operation Sindoor last May, before Islamabad sought a halt to hostilities.
On the Money
- U.S. retail sales rose 0.6 percent in February, beating expectations.
- Private sector hiring totaled 62,000 in March, above the 39,000 forecast, though health care and construction accounted for nearly all the gains while trade and transportation shed 58,000 jobs.
- U.S. regulators approved Eli Lilly’s oral weight-loss drug Foundayo, a cheaper and easier-to-take GLP-1 pill that will compete with the tablet version of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy.
- South Africa slashed fuel taxes for one month to cushion consumers from the Iran-driven oil price surge, a move that will cost the government roughly $350 million in revenue.
- More than 100 Chinese Baidu robotaxis froze across Wuhan after a system failure, the first mass shutdown of autonomous taxis reported in China.
Worth Your Time
- “Apple at 50: The Roots of a Tech Revolution” (Financial Times)
- Patrick McGee (again) on Apple’s complicated privacy record. (The Free Press)
- Benjamin Ryan reports on the groupthink, political coordination, and systematic marginalization of cautious voices at WPATH (the leading professional body for transgender medicine), courtesy of nearly 500 previously unseen conference videos. (Compact)
- Maibritt Henkel on new polling of young men, finding they are more progressive on gender norms than their older counterparts, and more aligned with young women than discourse suggests. (The Argument)
- Noah Smith reflects on how Japan has changed over the past 20 years, for better and worse. (Noahpinion)
- Melisa Seah released a digital archive of the best tech advertisements. (Ad Archive)
Presented Without Comment
From the oral arguments of Trump v. Barbara, during questioning about birth tourism:
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, it certainly wasn’t a problem in the 19th century.
SAUER: No, but, of course, we’re—we’re in a new world now, as Justice Alito pointed out to, where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a—a child who’s a U.S. citizen.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, it’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.
Also Presented Without Comment
Guinness World Records: Goldfish Drives Own Car Thanks to Dutch Computer Engineer’s Record-Breaking Invention
Also Also Presented Without Comment
New York Times: Migrating American Woodcocks Set Off a Birding Frenzy in Bryant Park
