Dayton Webber is seen in this undated booking photo. (Charles County Sheriff’s Office)
(LA PLATA, Md.) — An attorney for a quadruple amputee cornhole champion who has been charged with murder says the Maryland man acted in self-defense when he shot and killed his friend last month.
Dayton James Webber, 27, is accused of fatally shooting the victim during an argument in Webber’s vehicle on March 22 in La Plata, Maryland, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim — 27-year-old Bradrick Michael Wells, who was sitting in the front seat of the car — was found dead in a yard in Charlotte Hall, Maryland, according to the sheriff’s office.
Webber was later located in a hospital in Virginia and taken into custody, authorities said. He has been charged with first- and second-degree murder, as well as assault and firearm charges. He has not yet entered a plea.
Following Webber’s extradition from Virginia, a judge ordered him held without bond during a hearing in Charles County on Wednesday. Prosecutors argued he was a danger to society and a flight risk, according to WJLA, the ABC affiliate for the Washington, D.C., area.
Two people who were in the back seat of the vehicle witnessed the deadly shooting, the sheriff’s office said. Deputy State’s Attorney Karen Piper Mitchell said Wednesday that, according to the witnesses, a friend of Wells’ allegedly stole a weapon from Webber, and Webber was upset the two were still friends and shot Wells in anger, WJLA reported.
Defense attorney Andrew Jezic claimed that Webber acted in self-defense.
“He was 100% justified in defending his life from an immediate lethal threat,” Jezic told reporters outside the courthouse on Wednesday. “Dayton was terrified of being killed. Dayton knew that he had to shoot or be killed.”
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for May 6.
The two witnesses reported the shooting shortly before 10:30 p.m. on March 22, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office. Webber allegedly asked them for their help in disposing of the body, but they refused, got out of the car, left the scene and ultimately flagged down officers with the La Plata Police Department, authorities said.
Nearly two hours later, the victim’s body was found in a yard in Charlotte Hall, according to the Charles County Sheriff’s Office.
An officer with the Albemarle County Police Department subsequently located Webber’s vehicle at a gas station in Charlottesville, Virginia, authorities said. The suspect was then found at a nearby hospital seeking treatment for an unspecified medical issue and taken into custody, authorities said.
Webber is a notable professional cornhole player who was profiled by ESPN in 2023. He was crowned the best cornhole player in Maryland in 2020 and competed in the American Cornhole League World Championships the following year, according to ESPN.
Webber called cornhole his “calling” in the ESPN feature. He became a quadruple amputee after contracting a bacterial infection that led to sepsis at 10 months old, according to ESPN.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced on Wednesday the Republican-controlled Congress “in the coming days” will fully fund the Department of Homeland Security through both the appropriations process and reconciliation process.
“In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited,” the top Republicans said in a statement.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
A man sweeps up debris near a residential building that was hit in an airstrike in the early hours of March 27, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kicked off their joint military campaign against Iran in late February, urging the fall of the Islamic Republic.
“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” Trump said, addressing Iranians in announcing the start of “major combat operations.”
A month of unrelenting combined U.S.-Israeli strikes appears to have significantly eroded Iran’s military capabilities and killed many of its most senior leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who died alongside dozens of top Iranian officials in a series of airstrikes on his official residence in Tehran in the opening salvos of the war.
But despite Trump’s assertion that the “war has been won,” Iranian forces continue to launch attacks on Israel, regional U.S. bases and American partners across the Middle East, while commercial shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz remains constrained, with large numbers of cargo vessels in limbo on either side of the narrow waterway at the southern entrance to the Persian Gulf.
Trump has also asserted that there had been “complete regime change,” with the leaders the U.S. is now dealing with in recently announced negotiations “more moderate” and “much more reasonable,” the president told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl.
Trump named Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the powerful speaker of the Iranian parliament, as the direct U.S. negotiating partner, though Ghalibaf has denied the assertion.
But in Tehran, the cadre of officials – Ghalibaf among them – emerging to take the reins of power appear as committed as the slain figures they are replacing, many of them veterans of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), analysts have said.
The regime in Tehran, according to Danny Citrinowicz – the Israel Defense Forces’ former top Iran researcher, now at the Institute for National Security Studies think tank in Israel – “is weaker than it was before the conflict, but it is also more radical. The IRGC has further consolidated its influence over decision-making, eroding what little internal balance once existed within the regime.”
The war appears to have given Tehran long-term leverage over the Strait of Hormuz – a “weapon of mass disruption,” as described by Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group during an online briefing hosted by the think tank this week.
If the Islamic Republic survives the war, and its immediate aftermath by suppressing simmering anti-regime movements, its new leaders may be emboldened to retain perceived strategic advantages, chief among them control of the Strait of Hormuz, analysts who spoke to ABC News said.
That regime sentiment seems to be crystalizing. Ghalibaf, for example, told the IRNA state news agency that Iran’s strategy now rests on its control of three pillars: “missiles, the streets, and the Strait.”
Inside Iran, some sense that shift. Darius – who did not wish to use his real name for fear of reprisal – told ABC News from Tehran of a growing sentiment that “the source of legitimacy for the Islamic republic is shifting” from the clerical establishment to the IRGC.
“Now, the de facto leaders of the country are the generals in the IRGC. And they are actually running the show at the moment,” Darius said.
IRGC ascendant
The IRGC was formed shortly after the Iranian Revolution by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, ultimately emerging as the new Islamic Republic’s primary tool for projecting its ideology and influence beyond its own borders.
The IRGC entrenched and expanded its power during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. With its battlefield exploits and ideological zeal, the IRGC came to embody the wartime concept of “sacred defense,” Johns Hopkins University professor Vali Nasr wrote in his recent book, “Iran’s Grand Strategy.”
Observers have long considered the IRGC to be the most powerful military, political and economic institution in Iran.
Even before the most recent U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, many experts warned that decapitation strikes or a push for regime change risked empowering the IRGC to seize the state’s other mechanisms of power – though others suggested the force had no need to openly seize control, given its de facto hold over the country.
The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei, served in an elite IRGC unit during the Iran-Iraq War, and analysts have suggested his candidacy was strongly supported by the force.
Mojtaba Khamenei’s newly appointed military adviser, Mohsen Rezaei, was drawn from the senior ranks of the IRGC, as was the new secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who was selected to replace Ali Larijani when the latter was killed by Israeli airstrikes in mid-March.
Meanwhile, IRGC veteran Ghalibaf – who has reportedly long been close to Mojtaba Khamenei – remains alive and appears to be in a position of influence, one of the few top prewar officials to have survived the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
Inside Iran, some sense that shift. Darius told ABC News from Tehran of a growing sentiment that “the source of legitimacy for the Islamic republic is shifting” from the clerical establishment to the IRGC.
“Now, the de facto leaders of the country are the generals in the IRGC. And they are actually running the show at the moment,” Darius said.
Reading the ‘mosaic’
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi credited a “mosaic defense” strategy with enabling the Iranian military to launch retaliatory strikes despite the killing of so many senior military officials in the opening hours of the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
That decentralized approach also appeared to cause some tactical confusion. Araghchi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, for example, both denied Iranian responsibility for several reported Iranian drone and missile attacks in the region in the days after the war erupted.
A decapitated regime in Tehran may pose challenges to American negotiators seeking a peace deal, Citrinowicz said, telling ABC News that the killings have created a “worse” strategic situation by dispersing power.
The centralized decision-making power enjoyed by Ali Khamenei is no more, he said. “Now, how are you going to work with them? It’s going to be very hard to reach an agreement with them,” Citrinowicz said, referring to the newly emergent group of leaders.
Trump himself appeared to acknowledge a diffusion of power in Iran as a result of the American-Israeli assassination campaign. “We have nobody to talk to, and you know what, we like it that way,” the president said earlier this month.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told “Good Morning America” this week there are “fractures” within the Iranian leadership, though he would not say with whom the administration is in contact.
Yossi Kuperwasser – the former head of the IDF’s military intelligence research division – told ABC News that the emergence of hardliners “was to be expected.”
“Once you eliminate Khamenei, he’s not going to be replaced by some wishy-washy character, but somebody who is committed to the cause and the IRGC is going to be in charge,” Kuperwasser said.
But Kuperwasser also noted that figures currently touted as Iranian negotiators, such as Ghalibaf, might not live to see the end of the war. Indeed, Larijani was often noted as among the prime negotiating candidates before his killing. “I’d guess there are going to be more eliminations,” Kuperwasser said.
As the war progressed, both U.S. and Israeli officials have distanced themselves from earlier suggestions of regime change. Instead, officials refocused the strategic narrative on their ambitions to degrade Iran’s conventional military – especially ballistic missile – and nuclear programs.
These targets, according to Kuperwasser, were always the Israeli priority.
“Simultaneously, we are trying to weaken the regime so as to create the conditions that can be used by the people of Iran in order to promote something that can bring about the removal of the regime from power,” Kuperwasser said. But that will not necessarily occur in the short term, he added.
‘Missiles, the street, the strait’
Citrinowicz said that whatever structure emerges to negotiate with the Trump administration will likely be influenced toward more hardline demands by the killing of its predecessors.
On the nuclear file, too, “it goes without saying” that Tehran’s outlook will have shifted, Citrinowicz said. Before the war, Iranian leaders had already publicly committed not to pursue nuclear weapons, though Tehran was refusing to accept Trump’s demands of zero enrichment. Now, Citrinowicz said, the new Iranian leadership “might find themselves rushing toward a bomb.”
Iran also has more leverage in the Strait of Hormuz than it did before the conflict, even with the significant military degradation that the U.S. and Israel appear to have inflicted. Officials in Tehran have suggested that Iranian control over the strait – and the requirement for those transiting it to coordinate with Tehran and pay tolls – is the new baseline.
Rubio hinted at long-term disruption in the Persian Gulf last week. “Immediately after this thing ends, and we’re done with our objectives, the immediate challenge we’re going to face is an Iran that may decide that they want to set up a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz,” Rubio said.
Hamidreza Azizi of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs think tank said during the Crisis Group briefing that Tehran will be set on a conclusive settlement, not merely a ceasefire that would allow the U.S. and Israel to rearm and resume the conflict at a later date, as was the case after the 12-day conflict in June.
“Deep inside Iran’s strategic thinking, there is an understanding that ceasefires are only a means for the United States and Israel to buy time,” Azizi said. While before the conflict, Tehran appeared willing to make concessions on the nuclear file and other issues, now Iranian leaders see an opportunity to achieve what they were unable to across years of negotiations.
The endgame, Azizi said, could be one in which Iran preserves “some sort of leverage” over the Strait of Hormuz or secures “substantial sanctions removal.”
For its part, Citrinowicz said the U.S. appears to be scrambling. “There are so many people in the U.S. that understand this regime, but the administration is behaving like it’s Venezuela. It’s crazy,” Citrinowicz said, referring to the American operation in January to seize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and support his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, as Maduro’s successor.
Last week, the U.S. delivered 15-point plan to end the war, which was widely interpreted as a blueprint for Tehran’s capitulation. Iranian demands are likewise maximalist, calling for reparations and for the U.S. to abandon its regional bases.
“Nobody’s getting their wish list,” Dalia Dassa Kaye of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations said during this week’s Crisis Group briefing.
In the meantime, the battlefield costs will rise and geopolitical implications deepen across the Middle East. “Even if this ends tomorrow,” Kaye said, the costs have already been paid. “It’s going to take years to recuperate the damage.”
“This is not something you put back in a box,” he added.
ABC News’ Desiree Adib and Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
A view of gigantic poster as daily life continues despite the ongoing conflict in Tehran, Iran on April 1, 2026. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — President Donald Trump is set to address the nation on Wednesday evening with an “important update” on the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which was launched on Feb. 28.
ABC News has collated a timeline of the key events in the conflict to date.
Feb. 28: Combined U.S.-Israeli airstrikes began, with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed alongside dozens of senior political and military leaders in strikes on his office in Tehran. Iran immediately began retaliatory attacks targeting Israel, U.S. facilities and allies across the Middle East.
The opening salvo of strikes targeted Iranian government and military sites across the country, but there were allegations of collateral damage. The most significant was an airstrike on a girls’ elementary school in the southern city of Minab, which Iranian state media said killed 168 people.
March 1: Six American troops were killed in an Iranian drone strike on a U.S. base in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait — the first U.S. personnel to be killed in the conflict. Three U.S. F-15 fighter jets are also shot down by friendly fire from Kuwaiti air defenses.
The first commercial tankers were struck by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, marking the beginning of Iran’s efforts to choke the flow of shipping through the strategic chokepoint.
March 2: The Iran-aligned Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon launches attacks into northern Israel, framing them as retaliation for several months of Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon. Israel responded by intensifying its campaign — including with fresh strikes in Beirut — and launching new ground operations along the shared border.
March 4: The Iranian IRIS Dena frigate was sunk by a U.S. submarine off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing at least 104 crew members, according to the Iranian military.
The Israeli military issued an “urgent warning” to all residents of southern Lebanon located south of the Litani River ahead of intended strikes, ordering them to immediately evacuate and head north of the river — highlighting a vast area.
March 8: Mojtaba Khamenei was selected by Iran’s Assembly of Experts as the country’s next supreme leader, succeeding his father who was killed on Feb. 28. Mojtaba Khamenei’s candidacy was reportedly backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in which the new leader once served.
March 12: A U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft went down over western Iraq, killing six airmen. Another aircraft involved in the incident was damaged but able to land safely.
March 17: Ali Larijani, the influential secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was killed in an Israeli strike in Tehran.
March 18: The Israeli military strikes the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, which is shared by Iran and Qatar. The attack signaled a move toward the targeting of energy and critical infrastructure targets, prompting Tehran to warn it would target energy targets across the Gulf.
March 20: Iran is accused of launching a missile attack targeting Diego Garcia, a U.S.-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean, around 2,500 miles from Iranian territory. The U.S. and Israel said the attacked showed that the range of Iranian missiles was longer than Tehran previously admitted.
March 22: Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face punishing strikes on critical energy infrastructure. The president later extended his deadline.
March 24: Airstrikes targeted three major Iranian steelworks, reflecting an apparent shift in U.S.-Israeli strategy toward degrading Iran’s economic base.
Iranian drones and missiles targeted the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, damaging several American aircraft — among them an E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft — and wounding multiple service members.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli military will destroy homes in southern Lebanon, just as it did in the war-torn Gaza Strip, in a continued effort to eliminate Hezbollah militants from the area. Israel will implement “the Rafah and Beit Hanoun models,” Katz said, referring to two Gaza border towns that Israel destroyed in its offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
March 28: The Iran-aligned Houthis rebels in Yemen fired a ballistic missile toward Israel, marking their first involvement in the conflict.
March 28: U.S. Central Command announces the arrival of some 3,500 U.S. sailors and Marines in the Middle East aboard the USS Tripoli, amid reports of a possible American ground operation against Iran. Around 1,500 soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division are also expected in the region.
March 30: Trump again demanded the end of Iranian harassment of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to broaden U.S. strikes to target Iranian energy facilities and desalination plants.
March 31: Katz says Israeli forces will occupy Lebanese territory up to the Litani River — around 18 miles north of the Israeli border — and block the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced residents.
April 1: Trump prepares for an “important” address to the nation related to the war in Iran.
U.S. Supreme Court building on March 31, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — As President Donald Trump looked on during an unprecedented visit to the Supreme Court, a majority of justices appeared skeptical of his administration’s bid to end birthright citizenship during arguments in the landmark case Wednesday.
Most of the court’s conservatives and all three liberal members raised doubts about the constitutionality of Trump’s Day 1 executive order that would limit American citizenship at birth only to those born to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
It would also impose sweeping changes for all new parents and current American citizens going forward, requiring a new system to verify a person’s citizenship beyond a simple birth certificate.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, says all “persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. Congress later codified the same language in federal citizenship law in 1940 and again in 1952.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” applies only to children whose parents have “allegiance” to the U.S., which he said is determined by being “domiciled” in the country.
The meaning of ‘domiciled’
The 1898 landmark Supreme Court decision in U.S. v Wong Kim Ark, widely considered to be the precedent affirming birthright citizenship, concluded, “The [14th] Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.”
Sauer said “domiciled” means living in the U.S. lawfully with “intent to stay.”
But many of the court’s conservatives questioned how that definition was derived and whether it aligned with the views of the framers of the 14th Amendment and members of Congress who codified the citizenship clause.
Trump — the first sitting president to attend the high court’s arguments — was seated in the front row of the public gallery alongside White House Counsel David Warrington, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
As Sauer parried with the justices, Trump sat attentive and expressionless. His presence in the chamber was not publicly announced or acknowledged by any of the justices on the bench. While Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Brett Kavanaugh, and Elena Kagan were most immediately in his line of sight, it was not clear whether any justice on the bench made eye contact with him. Trump also did not engage with anyone seated beside him or in the chamber.
Trump departed the chamber as ACLU Legal Director Cecilia Wang was in the middle of delivering her opening statement, in which she argued that the principle of birthright citizenship was enshrined in the Constitution to prevent government officials from stripping citizenship away.
“Ask any American what our citizenship rule is, and they’ll tell you, everyone born here is a citizen alike,” Wang said. “That rule was enshrined in the 14th Amendment to put it out of the reach of any government official to destroy.”
“If you credit the government’s theory, the citizenship of millions of Americans past, present and future could be called into question,” Wang said.
‘Very quirky arguments’
Sauer got a somewhat frosty reception from at least two key Supreme Court Justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch — during his arguments, in which he contended that the longstanding understanding of the 14th Amendment is incorrect.
“The citizenship clause was adopted just after the Civil War to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile. Here, it did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens who have no such allegiance,” Sauer said.
Roberts noted that the Trump administration is relying on “very quirky” arguments, saying they are using “narrow exceptions” to claim that a much broader class of people should be ineligible for birthright citizenship.
“You know, children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships, and then you expand it to the whole class of illegal aliens here in the country — I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples,” said Roberts.
Gorsuch also remarked that the Trump administration seems to be relying on outdated “Roman law sources” and court precedents that do not work in their favor.
“I’m not sure how much you want to rely on Wong Kim Ark,” Gorsuch remarked about the landmark 1898 case that enshrined birthright citizenship.
Justice Elena Kagan similarly voiced concerns about the sources cited by the Trump administration.
“You’re using some pretty obscure sources to get to this concept,” she said.
‘Illegal immigration’
Justice Samuel Alito initiated a discussion on “illegal immigration” by noting that it was “something that was basically unknown” at the time when the 14th amendment was adopted in the 1860s.
“What we’re dealing with here is something that was basically unknown at the time when the 14th Amendment was adopted, which is illegal immigration,” Alito said. “So how do we deal with that situation when we have a general rule?”
Sauer responded by agreeing with Alito, saying that “illegal immigration did not exist [then],” and “the problem of temporary visitors didn’t exist.”
Sauer pointed to “commentators” from 1881 to 1922 who, he claimed, were “uniformly saying the children of temporary visitors are not included.” He argued that this logic “naturally extends” to those who enter the country illegally.
Justice Kagan challenged Sauer’s argument on immigration, saying his arguments in his brief did not focus on “illegal immigration.”
“Most of your brief is about people who are just temporarily in the country where there was quite clearly an experience of an understanding that there were going to be temporary inhabitants,” Kagan said. “And your whole theory of the case is built on that group.”
“You don’t get to talking about undocumented persons until quite later, and at much lesser … I think it’s like 10 pages to three pages or something like that,” she said.
When asked about how the Trump administration would apply their birthright citizenship executive order, pointed to a guidance document from the Social Security Administration issued last year.
“How does this work? Are you suggesting that when a baby is born, people have to have documents present in the delivery room?” Justice Jackson asked.
“I think that’s directly addressing the SSA guidance that cited in our brief, what SSA says,” Sauer responded.
Justice Jackson appeared skeptical of that response, pressing Sauer about the steps of the process and whether a parent could challenge a final decision.
“We’ll give you a social security number, provided that there’s the system [that] automatically checks the immigration status of the parents — which there are robust databases for — and then it appears no different to the vast majority of birthing parents,” Sauer said.
Birth tourism
In his opening statements, Sauer laid out one of the Trump administration’s key arguments about why birthright citizenship should not be extended to the children of undocumented immigrants, claiming that if it remains “unrestricted” it will continue to be a “pull factor for illegal immigration” and would “reward” immigrants who violate immigration laws.
“It has spawned a sprawling industry of birth tourism as uncounted thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile nations have flocked to give birth in the United States in recent decades, creating a whole generation of American citizens abroad with no meaningful ties to the United States,” Sauer said.
The Trump administration has often claimed that birth tourism — the idea that foreign nationals travel to the U.S. with the sole purpose of having a child here — poses a national security risk and undermines birthright citizenship.
Justice Roberts pressed Sauer to explain how common the problem is, but Sauer was unable to give a clear answer.
“No one knows for sure. There’s a March 9 letter from a number of members of Congress to DHS saying, ‘Do we have any information about this?’ The media reports indicate estimates could be over one million, or 1.5 million from the People’s Republic of China alone. The congressional report that we cite in our brief talks about certain hotspots, like Russian elites coming to Miami through these birth tourism companies,” Sauer said.
Sauer went on to claim that media reports indicate there are 500 “birth tourism companies” in China, prompting Justice Roberts to interject to ask if Sauer agreed that had “no impact on the legal analysis before us.”
“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 child who is a U.S. citizen,” Sauer added later.
In a statement Wednesday morning, ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero addressed Trump’s attendance at the proceedings, saying Trump would “watch the ACLU school him in the meaning of the Constitution and birthright citizenship.”
“Any effort to distract from the gravity and importance of this case will not succeed. The Supreme Court is up to the task of interpreting and defending the Constitution even under the glare of a sitting president a couple dozen feet away from them,” he said.
Wednesday’s arguments concluded after about two hours. A ruling in the case isn’t expected until the end of June.
US President Donald Trump departs the North Portico of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, a historic first for a sitting president, as the justices considered his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
No cameras were allowed inside the courtroom. Trump’s motorcade arrived outside the building on Wednesday morning shortly before arguments began. His motorcade later departed the court after Solicitor General John Sauer’s presentation on behalf of the government.
After the hearing concluded, Trump wrote in a social media post that the U.S. is “stupid” to allow the practice.
“We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright’ Citizenship!” Trump posted.
According to the Pew Research Center, 32 other countries, most of them in the Western Hemisphere, have laws similar to the U.S. guaranteeing citizenship to children born in the country.
Trump, who entered the court at 9:47 a.m. wearing a red tie and blue suit, was seated in the front row of the public gallery alongside White House Counsel David Warrington, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
As Sauer parried with the justices, Trump sat attentive and expressionless. His presence in the chamber was not publicly announced or acknowledged by any of the justices on the bench. Trump did not engage with anyone seated beside him or in the chamber.
Trump previously floated attending arguments last year when the court took up his global tariff policy, but ultimately he did not attend.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Supreme Court in the wake of the ruling invalidating most of his tariffs, including two justices he appointed, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
“I love a few of them, I don’t like some others,” Trump said on Tuesday when asked which justices he would be listening for most closely.
Trump is asking the justices to uphold his Day 1 executive order eliminating birthright citizenship under a novel interpretation of the 14th Amendment and requiring parents to prove their own legal status before citizenship is granted to their children.
Lower courts have struck down Trump’s executive order.
American Civil Liberties Union Legal Director Cecillia Wang argued on behalf of the class of plaintiffs. Wang herself is a birthright citizen, born in Oregon to Taiwanese parents.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero addressed Trump’s attendance, saying he will “watch the ACLU school him in the meaning of the Constitution and birthright citizenship.”
“Any effort to distract from the gravity and importance of this case will not succeed. The Supreme Court is up to the task of interpreting and defending the Constitution even under the glare of a sitting president a couple dozen feet away from them,” he said.
King Charles III speaks on March 27, 2026 in Oxford, England. (Kate Green/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — King Charles III will address a joint meeting of Congress on April 28 as part of his upcoming state visit to the U.S., according to a joint statement issued by Congressional leaders on Tuesday.
The address, the statement said, “celebrates the 250th anniversary of American independence and the enduring special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.”
The statement was issued by House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“This year, the United States will mark the 250th anniversary of its independence. As we celebrate this historic milestone and recommit ourselves to the principles upon which our nation was founded, we also recognize that the American experiment endures in no small part because of the British tradition from which it sprang,” the statement said.
“We believe an address to Congress will provide a unique opportunity to share your vision for the future of our special relationship and reaffirm our alliance at this pivotal time in history,” it added.
Johnson posted about the invitation on X, noting the U.S. and U.K. “share one of the most consequential partnerships in history.”
President Donald Trump said that the state visit will take place from April 27 until April 30.
Preparations for the visit come at a tense moment between the Trump administration and NATO, of which Britain is a member, over the reluctance of allies in the intergovernmental military alliance to join the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. On Wednesday, Trump said in an interview that he is considering pulling the U.S. out of NATO.
In a press conference on Wednesday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the U.K. is fully committed to NATO and that he isn’t going to change his position on the war.
“I have to act in our national interests,” Starmer told reporters. “This is not our war,” he continued, noting “a good deal of pressure on me to change my position in relation to joining the war. I’m not going to change my position on the war.”
In 2023, Congress passed legislation requiring any presidential decision to leave NATO to have two-thirds approval in the Senate or be authorized through an act of Congress.
Luigi Mangione appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 16, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday pushed back Luigi Mangione’s federal trial from September to October, giving an additional month’s separation between his state and federal trials.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said the federal trial jury selection will begin Oct. 5, with the presentation of evidence beginning Oct. 26.
“Whether we like it or not, we are somewhat at the mercy of events in the state case,” Garnett said, noting Mangione’s state trial is scheduled for June 8.
“What is happening at 100 Centre [the state courthouse] inevitably affects how we structure things here so the defendant can get a fair trial,” Garnett said.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges after he was arrested for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan in December 2024.
Mangione, 27, faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s convicted in either case. Garnett previously threw out the federal charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty and the judge overseeing the state prosecution, Gregory Carro, previously tossed out an enhancement to the state murder charges that said Mangione’s alleged conduct amounted to terrorism.
(WASHINGTON) — Solicitor General D. John Sauer got a somewhat frosty reception from at least two key Supreme Court Justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch — as oral arguments in the Supreme Court’s landmark birthright citizenship case got underway Wednesday.
President Donald Trump arrived at the Supreme Court Wednesday morning, making him the first sitting president to attend the high court’s arguments.
Trump is asking the justices to uphold his Day 1 executive order eliminating birthright citizenship under a novel interpretation of the 14th Amendment and requiring parents to prove their own legal status before citizenship is granted to their children.
Roberts noted that the Trump administration is relying on “very quirky” arguments, saying they are using “narrow exceptions” to claim that a much broader class of people should be ineligible for birthright citizenship.
“You know, children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships, and then you expand it to the whole class of illegal aliens here in the country. I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples,” said Roberts.
Gorsuch also remarked that the Trump administration seems to be relying on outdated “Roman law sources” and court precedents that do not work in their favor.
“I’m not sure how much you want to rely on Wong Kim Ark,” Gorsuch remarked about the landmark 1898 case that enshrined birthright citizenship.
Justice Elena Kagan similarly voices concerns about the sources cited by the Trump administration.
“You’re using some pretty obscure sources to get to this concept,” she said.
Justice Samuel Alito initiated a discussion on “illegal immigration” by noting that it was “something that was basically unknown” at the time when the 14th amendment was adopted in the 1860s.
“What we’re dealing with here is something that was basically unknown at the time when the 14th Amendment was adopted, which is illegal immigration,” Alito said. “So how do we deal with that situation when we have a general rule?”
Sauer responded by agreeing with Alito, saying that “illegal immigration did not exist [then],” and “the problem of temporary visitors didn’t exist.”
Sauer pointed to “commentators” from 1881 to 1922 who, he claimed, were “uniformly saying the children of temporary visitors are not included.” He argued that this logic “naturally extends” to those who enter the country illegally.
Justice Elena Kagan challenged Sauer’s argument on immigration, saying his arguments in his brief did not focus on “illegal immigration.”
“Most of your brief is about people who are just temporarily in the country where there was quite clearly an experience of an understanding that there were going to be temporary inhabitants,” Kagan said. “And your whole theory of the case is built on that group.”
“You don’t get to talking about undocumented persons until quite later, and at much lesser … I think it’s like 10 pages to three pages or something like that,” she said.
Sauer began his arguments by arguing that the longstanding understanding of the 14th Amendment is incorrect.
“The citizenship clause was adopted just after the Civil War to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile. Here, it did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens who have no such allegiance,” he said.
In his opening statements, Sauer laid out one of the Trump administration’s key arguments about why birthright citizenship should not be extended to the children of undocumented immigrants, claiming that if it remains “unrestricted” it will continue to be a “pull factor for illegal immigration” and would “reward” immigrants who violate immigration laws.
“It has spawned a sprawling industry of birth tourism as uncounted thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile nations have flocked to give birth in the United States in recent decades, creating a whole generation of American citizens abroad with no meaningful ties to the United States,” Sauer said.
In a statement this morning, ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero addressed Trump’s attendance at the proceedings, saying he will “watch the ACLU school him in the meaning of the Constitution and birthright citizenship.”
“Any effort to distract from the gravity and importance of this case will not succeed. The Supreme Court is up to the task of interpreting and defending the Constitution even under the glare of a sitting president a couple dozen feet away from them,” he said.
Although the proceedings should provide a sense of how interested the judges are in Trump’s reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, a ruling in the case isn’t expected until the end of June.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
US President Donald Trump departs the North Portico of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is attending oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, a historic first for a sitting president, as the justices consider his executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
“I’m going,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
No cameras are allowed inside the courtroom. Trump’s motorcade was seen arriving outside the building on Wednesday morning.
Trump previously floated attending arguments last year when the court took up his global tariff policy, but ultimately he did not attend.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Supreme Court in the wake of the ruling invalidating most of his tariffs, including two justices he appointed, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
“I love a few of them, I don’t like some others,” Trump said on Tuesday when asked which justices he would be listening for most closely.
Solicitor General John Sauer is arguing for the government, asking the justices to uphold Trump’s Day 1 executive order eliminating birthright citizenship under a novel interpretation of the 14th Amendment and requiring parents to prove their own legal status before citizenship is granted to their children.
Lower courts have struck down Trump’s executive order.
American Civil Liberties Union Legal Director Cecillia Wang is arguing on behalf of the class of plaintiffs.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero addressed Trump’s attendance, saying he will “watch the ACLU school him in the meaning of the Constitution and birthright citizenship.”
“Any effort to distract from the gravity and importance of this case will not succeed. The Supreme Court is up to the task of interpreting and defending the Constitution even under the glare of a sitting president a couple dozen feet away from them,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
