☕ The birthright citizenship case, explained

Good morning!

Presenting your website of the day: this live tracker of the Artemis II, which took off from the Kennedy Space Center yesterday. It’s currently tracking at a velocity of 3,825 miles per hour - that’s damn quick.

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Some headlines from this morning:

• Foreign ministers from 35 countries are holding a virtual summit today to discuss diplomatic options for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route connecting the Persian Gulf to global oil markets. The summit follows a joint statement in which the nations said they were willing to support "appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage" through the strait. Iran has said the route remains closed to "enemies of the nation." The U.S. is not participating. Military planners are separately meeting to discuss de-mining and safe navigation after fighting ends.

• The U.S. military has begun negotiations with Denmark on Wednesday to expand its presence in Greenland, opening talks on access to 3 additional bases on the island, including 2 previously held and abandoned by the U.S. General Guillot, head of U.S. Northern Command, told a Congressional hearing in March that expanded access was necessary given "the increasing threat and the strategic importance of Greenland." The talks come months after President Trump's threats to seize the island drew widespread international condemnation.

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new oral weight-loss pill yesterday, clearing Eli Lilly's Foundayo for mass distribution. It is only the second weight-loss pill in FDA history, following Novo Nordisk's Wegovy - approved in December - which was the first oral GLP-1 (a class of metabolic drugs) weight-loss medication approved in the U.S. GLP-1 drugs have grown rapidly in popularity but have largely remained injection-based. Eli Lilly said the pill can "help level the playing field for those living with obesity."

• NASA launched its Artemis II mission on Wednesday, sending 4 astronauts - including three making history - on a flight around the moon aboard the agency's most powerful rocket. Victor Glover becomes the first Black man to fly a lunar mission, Christina Koch the first woman, and Jeremy Hansen the first non-American. The crew will take several days to reach the moon, then loop around it and return to Earth. NASA is also planning Artemis IV, which would send 2 astronauts to spend a week conducting experiments on the lunar surface.

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President Donald Trump addressed Americans on Wednesday night, threatening further strikes against Iran and signaling the war would be over "very soon." Here's what you need to know.

The speech

In a 20-minute speech delivered 32 days after the U.S. and Israel first launched strikes against Iran, Trump outlined his justification for the conflict.

"We are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly… we're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks," Trump said. He added: "Thanks to the progress we've made, I can say tonight that we are on track and the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat."

Trump did not announce any U.S. action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz (a narrow waterway in the Persian Gulf that controls a major share of global oil traffic), which Iran closed in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes, causing global fuel shortages.

Instead, he suggested other countries buy oil from the U.S., or "build up some delayed courage" and take control of the Strait themselves.

How did markets and lawmakers react?

U.S. markets reacted poorly to the speech. Oil prices rose back above $100 per barrel after briefly falling below that level earlier this week for the first time in two weeks.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat) questioned whether there had "ever been a more rambling, disjointed, and pathetic presidential war speech." Republicans and administration officials praised the address. Senator Lindsay Graham said the President had offered a "compelling explanation" for U.S. actions against Iran's "evil regime."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump had made four goals clear: destroying Iran's weapons factories, its navy, its air force, and its capacity to develop a nuclear weapon.

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The Supreme Court began hearing arguments this week in a landmark case that could end birthright citizenship - the right to U.S. citizenship for anyone born on American soil. Here's what you need to know. 

What is birthright citizenship?

Birthright citizenship is the legal principle that any person born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen, regardless of their parents' nationality or immigration status.

It is grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." The right was originally developed to apply to freed slaves after the Civil War. The 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark extended it to anyone born in the U.S., regardless of race or parental status.

What’s the background?

On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order declaring that children born to undocumented immigrants - and some born to temporary non-residents - are not entitled to citizenship. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU, a nonprofit legal organization focused on civil liberties) immediately challenged the order.

A court-imposed freeze on the order remains in place while the Supreme Court decides the case. President Trump attended day one of arguments, becoming the first sitting president known to attend Supreme Court oral arguments in history.

What did each side argue?

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Saur argued that the Fourteenth Amendment "presupposes domicile," meaning it was not intended to apply to people without a permanent home in the U.S. He argued that undocumented migrants are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. as the amendment requires.

ACLU defense lawyer Cecillia Wang pushed back, arguing: "We can't take the current administration's policy considerations into account to try to re-engineer and radically reinterpret the original meaning of the 14th Amendment." When the ACLU's arguments began, President Trump left the court.

What did the Supreme Court say on day one?

The majority of justices expressed skepticism toward the Trump administration's arguments. Chief Justice Roberts called the government's argument "very quirky," while Justice Kagan said the government relied on "pretty obscure sources." Justice Kavanaugh said it would be a "short opinion" if the court sides with the plaintiff's reading of United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

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