U.S.

April 3 (UPI) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was taken to a Philadelphia hospital after a Federalist Society dinner in his honor last month, the court confirmed Friday.

Alito “felt ill during an event in Philadelphia” on March 20, a Supreme Court spokesperson said in a statement to the media.

“Out of an abundance of caution, he agreed with his security detail’s recommendation to see a physician before the three-hour drive home,” spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said. “After that examination and the administration of fluids for dehydration, he returned home that night, as previously planned. Justice Alito was thoroughly checked by his own physician, and he returned to work the following Monday for oral argument.”

Alito, 76, is the court’s second-oldest justice. He was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005.

Sources told ABC News that those who saw him at the event said he looked tired and was not as engaging as usual. They said he stayed seated when people came by to greet him during the dinner.

The dinner capped off a daylong symposium by the society titled, “An Examination of the Jurisprudence of Samuel Alito,” which featured several of his former law clerks, law professors and attorneys who practice before the court. It was at the University of Pennsylvania law school.

Alito was not there during the day, as he was driving from Washington. The court was in session to hand down opinions, but Alito was on the road.

April 3 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has requested that Congress increase the Pentagon’s budget by $1.5 trillion for fiscal year 2027 on Friday.

The additional funding the president is asking for is a 40% increase over the current budget. At the same time he is requesting a 10% decrease in all non-defense spending, cutting about $73 billion from domestic programs.

Some of the programs that Trump is proposing to reduce funding to include environmental, renewable energy, transportation and infrastructure programs. About $1.6 billion would be eliminated from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research programs.

The budget request is being led by White House Budget Director Russell Vought, the author of Project 2025.

“The 2027 budget builds on the president’s vision by continuing to constrain non-defense spending and reform the federal government,” Vought wrote in a message to Congress. “A historic paradigm shift in the budget process is occurring and is producing real results for the American public. Fiscal futility is ending. Together, we will achieve significant budgetary savings for the American people while implementing the president’s bold vision.”

The request comes on the heels of Trump’s speech on Wednesday, in which he said the United States cannot “take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all of these individual things.” Instead, the United States must focus on war.

“Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care,” Trump said Wednesday. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care.”

Fiscal year 2027 begins in October.

The White House published a top-line fact sheet summarizing the request for more defense spending on Friday, along with additional documents highlighting the president’s spending goals. It outlines Trump’s wish to “reinvigorate” the military.

Trump is calling on Republicans in Congress to approve $350 billion in additional funds through reconciliation for obtaining munitions and expanding the defense industry.

By taking $350 billion in additional funding through the budget reconciliation process, Republicans could avoid the Senate filibuster and the need to negotiate with Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Trump is also requesting $40.8 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Justice, a $4.7 billion increase over its current budget. The White House says this is to continue the Trump administration’s efforts to “stop the migrant crime epidemic.”

Another $1.47 billion is being requested for the Department of Defense to add resources to the southern border, including sensors and surveillance technology.

NEW YORK — This is not the run up to the midterm elections that Republicans wanted.

A year and a half after winning the White House by promising to lower costs and end wars, Donald Trump is a wartime president overseeing surging energy costs and an escalating overseas conflict that many in his own party do not like.

He offered little clarity to a nation eager for answers this week during a prime-time address from the White House, his first since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran more than a month ago, simultaneously suggesting that the war was ending and expanding.

“Thanks to the progress we’ve made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly,” Trump said. “We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.”

Trump’s comments come roughly six months before voters across the nation begin to cast ballots in elections that will decide control of Congress and key governorships for Trump’s final two years in office. For now, Republicans, who control all branches of government in Washington, are bracing for a painful political backlash.

“You’re looking at an ugly November,” warned veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “At a point in time when we need every break possible to hold the House and Senate, our edge is being chipped away.”

Republicans confront evolving political landscape

It’s hard to overstate how dramatically the political landscape has shifted.

At this time last year, many Republican leaders believed there was a path to preserve their narrow House majority and easily hold the Senate. Now they privately concede that the House is all but lost and Democrats have a realistic shot at taking the Senate.

Republicans are also struggling to coalesce around a clear midterm message on Iran.

The Republican National Committee has largely avoided the war in talking points issued to surrogates over the last month. The leaders of the party’s campaign committees responsible for the House and Senate declined interview requests. Many vulnerable Republican candidates sidestep the issue, unwilling to defend or challenge Trump publicly.

The president remains deeply popular with Republican voters, and he has vocal supporters like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

“That was the best speech I could’ve hoped for,” he wrote on social media after Trump’s address on Wednesday evening. Graham said Trump “gave the American people a clear and coherent pathway forward.”

Trump made little effort to sell the conflict to Americans before the initial attack. Five weeks later, at least 13 U.S. service members have been killed and hundreds more injured. Thousands more troops have converged on the region, and the Pentagon requested $200 billion in new funding.

The Strait of Hormuz, a key passage for a fifth of the world’s oil, remains closed. The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. was $4.08 on Thursday, according to AAA, almost a full dollar higher than on President Joe Biden’s last day in office.

On Wednesday, Trump insisted that gas prices would fall quickly once the war concluded but offered no solution for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, he invited skeptical U.S. allies to do it themselves.

He insisted that the war would be worth it.

“This is a true investment in your grandchildren and your grandchildren’s future,” Trump said. “When it’s all over, the United States will be safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before.”

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who was once among Trump’s most vocal allies in Congress, lashed out against his Iran policy.

“I wanted so much for President Trump to put America First. That’s what I believed he would do. All I heard from his speech tonight was WAR WAR WAR,” she wrote on social media. “Nothing to lower the cost of living for Americans.”

Time is not on Trump’s side

About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say the U.S. military action in Iran has “gone too far,” according to AP-NORC polling from March. Roughly a third approve of how he’s handling Iran overall.

The possibility of sending U.S. forces into Iran also appears politically unpalatable.

About 6 in 10 adults are “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed to deploying U.S. troops on the ground to fight Iran. That includes about half of Republicans. Only about 1 in 10 favor deploying troops.

At the same time, Trump’s approval ratings have remained consistently weak. About 4 in 10 Americans approve of how he’s handling the presidency, roughly in line with how it’s been throughout his second term.

Republican strategist Ari Fleischer, a senior aide in former President George W. Bush’s administration, acknowledged that Trump has not received the polling bump in this war that Bush got after invading Iraq.

Bush, of course, worked to build public backing for the Iraq War before going in. Immediately after the 2003 invasion, Bush’s popularity soared, as did the stock market.

Public sentiment and the economy soured only after the conflict stretched on. It ultimately spanned more than eight years, spawning a generation of anti-war Republicans — and sowing the seeds of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.

“My hope is that the Trump experience is the exact opposite of the Bush experience,” Fleischer said.

He said Trump must win the war decisively and quickly to avoid a further backlash, saying there could be a “very significant political upside if things end well, oil comes down and markets rally.”

Fleischer added that Trump’s actions will matter much more than his words.

“Ultimately, he is not going to get judged on his persuasion or his explanations or his assertions, he’s going to get judged on results,” he said.

Peoples writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.

April 3 (UPI) — NASA’s Artemis II crew left Earth orbit Thursday evening en route for the moon, marking a milestone not reached in more than 50 years.

The Orion spacecraft began a scheduled 5-minute, 50-second burn at 7:49 p.m. EDT, successfully propelling it and its four-person crew out of Earth orbit.

“Nominal translunar injection burn complete. The Artemis II crew is officially on the way to the moon,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced on social media.

“America is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon. This time, farther than ever before.”

The crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen launched Wednesday evening from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

It is the first crewed mission to travel farther than low-Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The long-awaited exit from Earth orbit signaled that humankind is now on a trajectory to its closest celestial body, the moon at an average of 238,855 miles away.

“I got to tell you, there is nothing normal about this: sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a Herculean effort, and we are just realizing the gravity of that,” Reid said in a press conference after exiting orbit.

Asked what they are most excited about when they near the moon, Koch simply said it was views.

“Having just experienced incredible views of planet Earth and seeing the entire planet out the window in one pane, knowing that we’re about to have some similar views of the moon in that same way is definitely getting me more excited for it,” she said.

“I knew that that is what we would see, but there is nothing that prepares you for the breathtaking aspect of seeing your home planet both lit up bright as day and also the moon glow on it at night with the beautiful beam of the sunset and knowing we are going to get similar views of the moon, I’m just really excited for that.”

The Orion spacecraft is now on its way to the moon where the crew will perform a flyby, during which they will take high-resolution photographs and provide personal observations of the lunar surface, including the far side of the moon, NASA said.

After the flyby is completed, the four-person crew will begin their return to Earth, completing their 10-day deep-space journey with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on April 10.

The mission, in essence, is a crewed rehearsal for a future lunar landing, targeted for early 2028.

April 2 (UPI) — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth asked the Army chief of staff to step down from the position he has held for two years and retire immediately.

Gen. Randy George will be replaced by Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who is currently the Army’s vice chief of staff, as acting chief until an official replacement is confirmed by the Senate.

George, who had about one and a 1/2 years left in his four-year term as chief of staff, is the latest high ranking military leader to have been fired by Hegseth since his confirmation as Secretary of Defense.

The Army confirmed to CBS News and The Washington Post that Hegseth had asked George to retire immediately.

“General Randy A. George will be retiring from is position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement posted on X.

“The Department of Defense is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation,” he said. “We wish him well in his retirement.”

George became the Army chief of staff in September 2023 after then-President Joe Biden nominated him for job, which usually carries a four-year term.

Last year, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, the head of the U.S. Navy, the commandant of the Coast Guard, the vice chief of staff for the Air Force, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Air Force chief of staff all were fired or told to retire.

The change at Army chief of staff comes days after Hegseth in a post on X lifted a suspension of the aircrew that flew an Apache helicopter past Kid Rock‘s estate last weekend.

“No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots,” Hegseth said in the post.

The Apache crew was on a training mission, and the investigation was to look into why it was flown near Rock’s property and a nearby No Kings protest.

Rock, whose real name is Bob Ritchie, on Saturday posted a photo to his Instagram of the U.S. Army helicopter hovering near a pool as he waved to the pilots, which triggered the suspension and investigation.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George, to step down, the Pentagon said Thursday, as the United States wages a war against Iran.

A Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, confirmed that George has been asked to take early retirement from the post of Army chief of staff, which he has held since August 2023.

The ouster of George is just the latest of more than a dozen firings of top generals and admirals by Hegseth since he first took office last year.

CBS News was first to report the ouster.

George is a graduate of West Point Military Academy and an infantry officer who served in the first Gulf War as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. He also served as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s top military aide from 2021 to 2022, during the Biden administration, before taking on top leadership roles in the Army.

George survived the initial round of firings last February, which saw the removal of top military leaders, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, and Gen. Jim Silfe, the No. 2 leader at the Air Force, by Hegseth. President Donald Trump also fired Gen. Charles “C.Q.” Brown, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same time.

Since then, more than a dozen other top military generals and admirals have either retired early or been removed from their posts.

Among these departures was George’s deputy, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. James Mingus, who was in the post for less than two years when Trump suddenly nominated Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve for the position. LaNeve was then serving as Hegseth’s top military aide, having been plucked for that post from commanding the Eighth Army in South Korea after less than a year in the job.

Toropin writes for the Associated Press.

April 2 (UPI) — A Colorado appeals court on Thursday threw out the sentence of Tina Peters, a former elections clerk, who was convicted in an election data case.

Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison in August 2024 on seven of the 10 counts for which she was charged.

She allowed an unauthorized person to make copies of voting machine hard drives that included classified information. The data from those drives was then leaked online by conspiracy theorists who falsely said it proved President Donald Trump correct in his assertion that the 2020 election was “stolen.”

Trump later pardoned Peters, but Colorado officials said he has no power to do so because she was convicted by the state. He has since pressured Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to pardon her.

The judges of the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that District Judge Matthew Barrett wrongfully used Peters’ beliefs and promotion of election fraud conspiracy theories in his sentencing.

“We reverse her sentence because it was based in part on improper consideration of her exercise of her right to free speech,” the court wrote, sending her case back to the trial judge. Now Barrett must re-sentence Peters without using her beliefs to make the decision, the appeals judges said.

At the sentencing, Barrett said Peters had no remorse and called her a “charlatan” who abused her position to “peddle snake oil.”

“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could,” The Hill reported Barrett said. “You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen.”

In its decision, the appeals court said her beliefs shouldn’t color the sentencing.

“Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud. Indeed, under these circumstances, just as her purported beliefs underlying her motive for her actions were not relevant to her defense, the trial court should not have considered those beliefs relevant when imposing sentence.”

The appeals court did not overturn Peters’ conviction and formally said Trump doesn’t have the power to pardon a person for state law offenses.

“The crux of Peters’ argument is that the phrase ‘Offences against the United States’ includes an offense against any of the states in the union,” the court wrote. “We join what appears to us to be every other appellate court that has addressed the issue and reject such an expansive reading of the phrase.”

Peters served as a clerk in Mesa County, Colo., whose county seat is Grand Junction, in western Colorado.

She was convicted on three counts of attempting to influence a public servant and one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with the requirements of the secretary of state.

April 2 (UPI) — The Artemis II astronauts have completed their perigee raise burn as part of a planned orbital adjustment and are headed back into a four-hour rest period, NASA said.

After an earlier rest period, the astronauts were awakened at 7:06 a.m. EDT for the perigee burn. NASA played the song “Sleepyhead” by Young and Sick to wake them up.

In the perigee burn, the spacecraft lit its main engine for 43 seconds, which raised the lowest point of its orbit. This helps prevent the craft from re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It also refines the trajectory of the craft as it circles Earth. It put Orion into a stable high-Earth orbit, which aligns with its path to the moon.

The crew will now have another four-and-a-half-hour rest period, then they will be awakened to start their first full day in space.

Later today, the mission management team will have its first meeting of the mission to assess the spacecraft’s systems and will give its approval for the upcoming translunar injection burn. That burn will send astronauts out of Earth’s orbit and toward the Moon for the first time in 50 years. It will last just over six minutes and will speed the craft to escape Earth’s gravitational pull.

The launch on Wednesday evening began at 6:35 p.m. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Soon after launch, Wiseman told operators on the ground, “We have a beautiful moonrise, we’re headed right at it.”

There was a small glitch in the craft’s space toilet, Space.com reported.

“The toilet fan is reported to be jammed,” NASA spokesperson Gary Jordan said during live mission commentary. “Now the ground teams are coming up with instructions on how to get into the fan and clear that area to revive the toilet for the mission.”

NASA Director of Flight Operations Norm Knight told reporters that the problem was a controller issue on the toilet in urine collection. The astronauts were able to use a backup system until the engineers fixed the problem before their first rest period.

About 9 minutes after the launch, the crew entered Earth’s orbit, traveling about 15,000 mph. They are expected to enter the moon’s orbit in about six days, travel around it and then return to Earth.

The four-person crew are: NASA’s Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen.

WASHINGTON — President Trump signaled Wednesday that the United States is eyeing an offramp in its war with Iran, as he also raised the possibility of a major shift in U.S. alliances, including the potential withdrawal from NATO.

Trump indicated in a social media post that Iran’s president wanted a ceasefire, and that the United States would be open to doing so, if Iran agrees to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route that has been affected during the monthlong conflict.

“Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” Trump wrote.

The remarks appeared to outline a possible diplomatic opening with Tehran, but hours later Iranian officials said that Trump’s claims about being close to a deal were “false and baseless” and that the waterway remained “firmly and decisively under the control” of the Islamic Republic’s forces.

“The strait will not be opened to the enemies of this nation through the ridiculous spectacle by the president of the United States,” the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wrote in a statement.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday also wrote a public letter denouncing what he described as a “flood of distortions and manufactured narratives” about the war from the U.S., arguing that Iran is not a threat and had only defended itself against American aggression.

He called on the American people to “look beyond the machinery of disinformation” to reach their own conclusions about the war and its purpose.

“Is ‘America First’ truly among the priorities of the U.S. government today?” he wrote, echoing recent complaints from Trump’s own base about the president’s commitments to his campaign promises.

The dueling messages underscored the uncertainty about how much longer the conflict in the Middle East will last and whether the United States will be able to achieve its main goal of preventing Iran from ever producing a nuclear weapon.

Trump, who on Tuesday said he expects the U.S. will leave Iran within three weeks, was poised to address the nation Wednesday night about the war. The White House said the president’s address would formally outline the objectives of Operation Epic Fury, whose mission has at times been convoluted even as Trump administration officials maintain their explanations for waging the war have been “clear and unchanging.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Trump’s speech late Tuesday, after Trump downplayed remarks made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about Iran’s lingering military capabilities.

In the lead-up to those remarks, Trump told Reuters that he was looking to pull American forces from the region “quickly” with the possibility of returning to Iran periodically for “spot hits” when necessary.

The president, who said he believed the U.S. military is close to ensuring Iran loses its ability to possess a nuclear weapon in the future, did not seem too worried about Iran having highly enriched uranium in its stockpiles.

“That’s so far underground, I don’t care about that,” he told Reuters, adding that the U.S. military will be “watching it by satellite.”

Trump, however, remained focused on having Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz, an oil route through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows.

He said this week that he may pull American forces from the region and leave other countries to deal with the hurdles of reopening the waterway. But on Wednesday, he seemed to walk back that stance, and said a key part of the ongoing negotiations hinged on Iran ending the de facto blockade on the strait.

It remains unclear whether Israel, which began bombing Iran alongside the U.S. on Feb. 28, would agree to the same terms as Trump and stop hostilities against Iran.

Talks about the potential end of the conflict led stocks to rise Tuesday, but it remains unclear whether higher food prices could persist for months or longer. It is also uncertain when U.S. gas prices — which jumped past an average of $4 a gallon this week for the time since 2022 — would go lower.

NATO becomes a factor in the war

As Trump considers pulling out of Iran, he is also weighing a withdrawal from NATO, telling Reuters that fellow member states’ lack of support during the war has him “absolutely” considering withdrawing from the security alliance, which was ratified by the Senate in 1949.

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is planning to “reexamine” its relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and whether it makes sense to be part of a “one-way-street” alliance.

“Why are we in NATO?” Rubio said. “Why do we send trillions of dollars and have all of these Americans stationed in the region, if in our time of need, we are not going to be allowed to use those bases?”

Rubio’s comment marks a notable evolution from his position in Congress. As senator in 2023, Rubio helped spearhead legislation that said the president “shall not suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw the United States” from NATO unless the Senate agrees by a two-thirds vote to do so.

On Wednesday, Rubio told CBS that he maintains Congress should play a role on whether the U.S. should withdraw from NATO. He added that he does not believe Trump “will remove us from NATO,” but he does believe the president will demand that NATO allies “do more.”

In a joint statement Wednesday, Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) said that the United States will remain in the treaty and that the Senate “will continue to support the alliance for the peace and protection it provides America, Europe and the World.”

Although Trump has previously threatened to end U.S. membership in NATO, his most recent remarks have put added pressure on European allies to revisit the terms of their relationship.

In a post on X, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said he had a “constructive discussion” with Trump on Wednesday about NATO.

“Problems are there to be resolved, pragmatically,” Stubb wrote.

Their conversation came after Trump and Hegseth complained that European countries have been hesitant to help the U.S. in its war against Iran. Just this week, Italy and Spain refused to allow U.S. warplanes from landing at their military bases before flying to the Middle East.

Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, defended NATO on Wednesday, saying it was the “single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen” and, more broadly, said he would not cave to pressure to join the Iran war.

“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I’m going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions that I make,” Starmer told reporters. “That’s why I’ve been absolutely clear that this is not our war, and we’re not going to get dragged into it.”

As diplomatic efforts continue, the Trump administration has increased its military presence in the Middle East, with thousands of U.S. troops arriving in the region as ground operations in the war remain an option.

The U.S. military buildup in the Mideast came as fighting continued to escalate in the Persian Gulf region on Wednesday.

Iran hit an oil tanker off Qatar’s coast, prompting the evacuation of 21 crew members. In Bahrain, there were alerts for incoming missiles, while Kuwait’s state-run news agency KUNA reported that a drone hit a fuel tank at Kuwait International Airport. Meanwhile, Jordan’s military intercepted a ballistic missile and two drones fired by Iran, and an airstrike in Tehran appeared to have hit the former U.S. Embassy compound.

Additionally, Israeli strikes killed at least five people on a Beirut neighborhood. Israel invaded southern Lebanon in March after the Iran-linked militant group Hezbollah began launching missiles into northern Israel.

This article includes reporting from the Associated Press.

April 1 (UPI) — President Donald Trump told the nation Wednesday night that the U.S. military was close to achieving its goals in the war against Iran and would bomb the nation “back to the stone ages where they belong” over the next two weeks to finish the job.

In the nearly 20-minute, prime-time address to the nation, Trump repeated claims of military successes in the war, while offering little new information about the progress of Operation Epic Fury.

He said U.S. forces “have delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield” and “never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks.”

“Our enemies are losing and America, as it has been for the five years under my presidency, is winning and now winning bigger than ever before,” he said.

Trump offered no specifics on how or precisely when the war will end, while claiming the military objectives he announced shortly after the war began in late February were “nearing completion.”

“We’re going to finish the job. And we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close,” he said.

In his early Feb. 28 address, he said the military goals were to defend the American people by eliminating threats posed by Iran; ensure its proxy militias no longer destabilize the region and attack U.S. forces; destroy its missile capabilities, missile industry and navy; and ensure the Iranian regime does not obtain a nuclear weapon.

His first address notably encouraged regime change, urging Iranians to “take over your government.”

In his address Wednesday night, Trump claimed regime change had occurred, though there has been no clear indication Iran is under fundamentally different leadership.

Democrats were quick to criticize Trump over what they called shifting military objectives and for failing to lay out an exit plan.

“This war of impulse & illusion is plagued by confused, chaotic & contradictory objectives — none seem to have been achieved,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said in a statement.

Trump also said the U.S. military was fighting the war to help its allies, while calling on those who receive oil that transits through the important Strait of Hormuz chokepoint to “take care of that passage.”

Iran has been maintaining a blockade of the important trade route through which 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas flow by attacking tankers that attempt passage.

The near halt in energy deliveries through the route has drive up gas prices at pumps in the United States and across the world but also the price of oil on the markets to $106.05 a barrel for Brent crude, compared to about $72 before the war.

He instructed those nations reliant on the Hormuz Strait to seize it from Iran.

“They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it,” he said. “They can do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.”

But even if they do not act, “when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally,” he said. “It’ll just open up naturally.”

While briefly touching on the economic effects of the war on Americans, he blamed Iran for attacking tankers and Persian Gulf countries while assuring them that the economic situation would have been worse if they hadn’t attacked Iran and allowed it to secure a nuclear weapon.

“This is yet more proof that Iran can never be trusted with nuclear weapons. They will use them and they will use them quickly,” he said. “It would lead to decades of extortion, economic pain and instability worse than you can ever imagine.”

Threats against Iran were also made. Despite ssaying the U.S. military will “hit them extremely hard over the next two weeks,” American forces will attack key oil and electric generating plants if Iran does not reach an agreement with the United States, seemingly to end the war.

Trump late last month offered Iran an ultimatum to reach an agreement with the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or have its energy facilities obliterated. He gave them an April 6 deadline.

On Tuesday, the president told reporters that a deal with Iran was unnecessary.

In concluding his address Wednesday night, he referred to the war as “a true investment in your children and grandchildren’s future.”

“Tonight, every American can look forward to a day when we are finally free from the wickedness of Iranian aggression and the specter of nuclear blackmail,” he said.

WASHINGTON — In his first formal address to the nation since launching a war on Iran more than a month ago, President Trump on Wednesday night repeated a familiar list of claimed successes — and brushed aside setbacks — while providing little clarity on a clear path to ending the conflict.

“We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast. We are getting very close,” the president said from the White House.

Trump said Iran is “no longer a threat,” yet spoke of potentially needing to escalate the conflict and increase bombings on Iran’s energy and oil infrastructure if it continues to fight back.

“If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants, very hard and probably simultaneously,” he said. “We have not hit their oil, even though that’s the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit it, and it would be gone, and there’s not a thing they could do about it.”

Trump earlier this week said he expects to pull American forces from Iran within three weeks, and emphasized that the United States does not have to be in the Middle East but that it is only there to “help our allies.”

In his speech, Trump did not lay out a specific timeline for an exit strategy, but said the the U.S. is “on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly.”

“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,” he said. “In the meantime, discussions are ongoing.”

He also repeated his assertions, made for weeks, that the U.S. has basically already defeated Iran and won the war, which he characterized as a “decisive, overwhelming victory.”

He also stressed that it is “very important that we keep this conflict in perspective,” before listing out — by month and day — the length of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.

Prior to Wednesday night’s formal address, Trump had only spoken of the war — which U.S. and Israel launched against Iran on Feb. 28 — in less formal settings, during media gatherings and other public events.

The speech was a key messaging moment for the president, who, 33 days into the war, has struggled to clearly explain the scope and objectives of a conflict that has killed thousands of people in Iran and neighboring countries and disrupted global markets.

Trump repeatedly insisted that the U.S. is doing great, is “in great shape for the future,” and doesn’t need the oil that Iran has put a stranglehold on in the Strait of Hormuz, ignoring the clear effects of the war and those disruptions on the U.S., including on gas prices.

Those effects are already contributing to fractures within Trump’s base. Some have expressed frustration with the administration’s decision to enter a new conflict in the Middle East, concerns that could become a political liability for Republicans ahead of the high-stakes midterm elections in November.

In his remarks, Trump appeared to be speaking to those who have criticized him for deviating from his campaign promises by entering the war, saying he had promised to never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon “from the very first day” he announced his first presidential campaign in 2015.

Trump has repeatedly downplayed the economic pressure the war has placed on Americans, including rising gas prices, arguing that the short-term financial strain is necessary for national security. He has also promised that gas prices will “come tumbling down” when the conflict ends.

“Gas prices will rapidly come back down,” Trump repeated on Wednesday. “Stock prices will rapidly go back up. They haven’t come down very much. Frankly, they came down a little bit, but they’ve had some very good days.”

Trump appeared less energetic during his evening speech than during some of his previous daytime events, where he has consistently maintained an upbeat tone about the war, while offering inconsistent accounts of what his administration aimed to achieve, or how long and what it would take to meet those objectives.

Those inconsistencies were evident even hours ahead of the address. In an interview with Reuters, he said he was not concerned about the enriched uranium held by Tehran — a statement that appeared to undercut a central justification for the war.

“That’s so far underground, I don’t care about that,” Trump said, adding that the U.S. military will be “watching it by satellite.”

In public remarks ahead of the address, Trump said the war was launched to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but also that the U.S. had completely obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities months prior, in separate attacks over the summer. He also said he was worried about Iran’s enriched uranium, wanted the U.S. to take it, and would even consider sending U.S. forces inside Iran to collect it.

There have also been mixed messages about the U.S.’s intentions for Iran’s leadership since Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed at the start of the conflict, leaving a leadership vacuum that was filled by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a 56-year-old hard-line cleric who Trump initially called an “unacceptable choice.”

As Iran’s clerical rulers maintained a firm grip on the country, Trump administration officials, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, argued that U.S. war objectives had “nothing to do” with Iran’s leadership. But Trump in recent days has repeatedly talked about how “regime change” was achieved.

On Wednesday, Trump said a deal remained within reach with Iran’s new leaders, who he called “less radical and much more reasonable.”

Hours before Trump was to deliver his speech, Rubio posted a video which he began by saying, “Many Americans are asking, ‘Why did the United States have to attack Iran now?’” — an apparent acknowledgment that Trump’s own answers to that question in recent days may have failed to resonate.

Rubio also pushed another rationale for the war that the administration has floated on and off for the past month — saying Iran was building up an arsenal of missiles and drones to shield its nuclear ambitions, and that the war was the “last best chance” for the U.S. to eliminate those weapons capabilities before it was too late.

“We were on the verge of an Iran that had so many missiles and so many drones that nobody could do anything about their nuclear weapons program in the future,” Rubio said. “That was an intolerable risk.”

Others also tried to frame the war narrative Wednesday.

Prior to Trump’s speech, Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a public letter denouncing what he described as “a flood of distortions and manufactured narratives” from the U.S., and arguing Iran is not a threat and has only ever defended itself against U.S. aggression.

He called on the American people to “look beyond the machinery of misinformation” from the Trump administration and reach their own conclusions about the war and its purpose, at one point echoing a question also being asked by some in Trump’s base: “Is ‘America First’ truly among the priorities of the U.S. government today?”

He noted Iran was in the midst of nuclear negotiations with the U.S. when the U.S. attacked it “as a proxy for Israel,” and accused U.S. leaders of committing a “war crime” by targeting Iran’s energy and industrial facilities.

“Exactly which of the American people’s interests are truly being served by this war?” he asked.

April 1 (UPI) — NASA launched its most powerful rocket yet, the Space Launch System, on Wednesday to send the crewed Artemis II mission to the moon, the first in more than five decades.

The mission had liftoff around 6:35 p.m. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Within minutes of liftoff, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman told operators on the ground, “we have a beautiful moonrise, we’re headed right at it.”

The four-person crew — which also includes NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen — is expected to enter the moon’s orbit in about six days. The spacecraft won’t land on the moon, but will orbit around it before returning to Earth.

The 2-hour launch window for Artemis II began around 6:24 p.m., and most of the pre-flight checks were successfully.

Shortly after the crew members boarded the craft, though, NASA officials had to address a pair of issues.

Derrol Nail, of NASA, said officials fixed a problem with the Space Launch System rocket’s flight termination system.

Later, there was a problem with the battery on the launch abort system on Orion. This system ejects the capsule away from the rocket in case there’s a problem with the rocket during flight. NASA detected issues with temperature readings on the battery but had resolved the issue before schedule launch.

The 10-day trip will be the first crewed flight to the moon in more than 50 years and the farthest distance from Earth traveled by humans.

About 9 minutes after the launch, the Artemis crew entered orbit, traveling about 15,000 mph. During Earth orbit, the crew has a series of tasks to complete before they’re able to make their way to the moon.

The Artemis I mission in 2022 flew around the moon but didn’t have a crew aboard.

April 1 (Asia Today) — Samsung Heavy Industries has joined a U.S. Navy vessel development project, marking another step forward for South Korea’s shipbuilding industry in the American defense market following similar moves by Hanwha.

Samsung Heavy Industries said Wednesday it has begun conceptual design work for the Navy’s Next-Generation Logistics Support Ship program in partnership with U.S. shipbuilder General Dynamics NASSCO and Korean engineering firm DSEC. The project is scheduled to run through March 2027.

The program involves developing small, highly maneuverable vessels to support the Navy’s distributed maritime operations strategy, which emphasizes dispersed forces and flexible logistics. More than 13 ships are expected to be built under the initiative.

Samsung Heavy Industries will focus on hull design and technical support, using a 400-meter test tank at its research facility to improve efficiency and performance.

The announcement follows a move by Hanwha’s shipbuilding unit, which recently confirmed its participation in a separate U.S. Navy program. Industry analysts say a broader Korea-U.S. shipbuilding cooperation framework is beginning to take shape as major South Korean companies expand their presence in U.S. defense projects.

A company official said the NGLS program will serve as a foundation for expanding cooperation with the U.S. partner shipyard and accelerating efforts to secure tangible results in the American market.

In parallel with the design project, Samsung Heavy Industries is preparing to bid jointly with a U.S. shipyard for maintenance, repair and overhaul contracts. The company is also pursuing certification under the Navy’s ship repair agreement program, which would allow it to compete for future maintenance work.

The company is further strengthening collaboration in advanced manufacturing technologies, including artificial intelligence-based automation and robotics, through a research center established with San Diego State University. Plans include expanding cooperation to build a shipbuilding supply chain in the United States and train skilled workers.

The latest developments suggest South Korea’s shipbuilders are moving beyond commercial vessels into defense-related projects in the United States, broadening their global footprint and deepening bilateral industrial ties.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260401010000142

April 1 (UPI) — A federal judge ruled that a civil suit against President Donald Trump for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, can continue.

District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled Tuesday that Trump’s speech on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 was not covered by the Supreme Court‘s immunity ruling, meaning it could not be considered a core presidential act.

The suit was brought by several Democratic lawmakers and Oakland, Calif., Mayor Barbara J. Lee. The American Civil Liberties Union is also helping with the case.

“President Trump has not shown that the Speech reasonably can be understood as falling within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duties,” Mehta wrote in his decision. “The content of the Ellipse Speech confirms that it is not covered by official-acts immunity.”

Trump has tried to get the case thrown out by claiming presidential immunity for his actions on that day and in the weeks before it.

But Mehta said, “Nearly all the individuals who ran the nuts and bolts of the operation [the Jan. 6 rally] were former Campaign officials, paid staff or consultants, who had concluded their formal work for the Campaign within the 60 days prior to January 6. In fact, on January 4, the President met with [Katrina] Pierson, still a senior campaign advisor only four days prior, in the White House to discuss the Rally’s production elements and speaker list. She — not White House officials — communicated the President’s wishes back to Rally organizers.”

Mehta also declared that Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” more votes “can only reasonably be viewed as the act of an office-seeker” and was an effort “to alter the outcome of Georgia’s election, not those of an incumbent President acting in his official capacity.”

Joseph Sellers, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he welcomed the ruling.

“We’re very pleased that the court recognized that President Trump cannot avoid accountability for his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021,” Sellers said in an interview with Politico. “This decision, if it holds up, is going to pave the way to a trial in federal district court on these claims.”

In a statement, Trump’s legal team disputed the judge’s conclusion.

“The facts show that on January 6, 2021, President Trump was acting on behalf of the American people, carrying out his official duties as President of the United States,” Politico reported the statement said. “President Trump will continue to fight back against the Democrat Witch Hoaxes and keep delivering historic results for the American People.”

“Donald Trump thinks he can get away with murder,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

“This lawsuit is long overdue for his hand in the destruction of our Capitol and the attack on our democracy on January 6. This case is for my colleagues, the brave Capitol Police officers, Americans everywhere, and the future of our nation. Those who incited and fueled the violence must be held responsible. I’m thankful that we will get some accountability and some measure of closure from that dark day. And that finally, the truth will come to light. We deserve it,” Swalwell said.

April 1 (UPI) — April’s full pink moon, the first full moon of spring, will be visible Wednesday night.

Peak viewing will be around 10:11 p.m. Wednesday.

Despite the colorful name, the moon will appear in its normal gray cast. It’s hued name is a tribute to the early bloom of Phlox subulata, a wildflower species native to eastern North America. It’s also known as the Paschal Moon because it happens after the spring equinox, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. It’s also known as the Breaking Ice Moon and the Budding Moon of Plants and Shrubs.

The next full moon will be on May 1 and is known as the Flower Moon. There will be two full moons in May, a phenomenon commonly known as a “blue moon.”

The moon may still appear full on Thursday, Noah Petro, chief of NASA’s planetary geology, geophysics and geochemistry laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told CNN. He suggests finding a place to view the moon away from trees and buildings. The darker the environment, the more you can enjoy the event, he said.

Indigenous peoples call April’s full moon different names, including “kawohni,” meaning flower moon to the Cherokee; “kwiyamuyaw,” meaning moon of windbreak to the Hopi; and “tabehatawi,” meaning frog moon to the Assiniboine, CNN reported.

NASA’s Artemis II launch could also happen Wednesday evening, giving the astronauts a special view of the pink moon.

“When you look at this full moon, the crew may be on their way. They may have just launched,” Petro told CNN. “This will be the last full moon in the pre-Artemis II era, and it will look different not only to the four crew members but to all of us who journey along with them.”

LONDON — President Trump has said he is strongly considering pulling the U.S. out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European allies and exposing a wider rift in the transatlantic alliance — this time over America’s war alongside Israel against Iran.

While Trump’s talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet — suggesting the fracture has deepened perhaps to a point of no return.

Asked whether he would reconsider U.S. membership in the alliance after the war on Iran ends, Trump replied: “Oh yes, I would say (it’s) beyond reconsideration.”

Contacted by The Associated Press, NATO did not provide an immediate comment.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, asked about the comment, said Britain was “fully committed to NATO” and called it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.”

Many European leaders have felt political pressure over the war, which faces opposition in their countries and has sent petroleum prices soaring as Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.

“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I am going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions I make,” Starmer said Wednesday.

Long-simmering tensions within the alliance have bubbled up again over the war. As energy prices have spiked, Trump has been desperate to get countries to send their ships to the Strait. He’s called his NATO allies “cowards,” pulling at any rhetorical lever he can to get help with the fallout of a war that no ally was consulted on or asked to take part in.

For years, Trump has berated America’s European allies, urging them to assume greater responsibility for their own security and spend more on defense. He has argued that the U.S. has done more for them than the other way around.

A U.S. pullout would essentially spell the end of NATO, which flourished for decades under American leadership.

On Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump lashed out at countries “like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran,” and suggested they buy U.S. oil or go to the Strait of Hormuz themselves “and just take it.”

He also wants allies to help fix damage from the war that they had no part in starting.

The U.K. is working on plans that could help assuage Trump.

On Thursday, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a virtual meeting of 35 countries that have signed up to help ensure security for shipping in the Strait after the war. Starmer said military planners will also work on a postwar security plan for the strait.

The backdrop: NATO not on board to join U.S. in war

NATO is built on Article 5 of its founding treaty, which pledges that an attack on any one member will be met with a response from them all.

As the Iran war has spread, missiles and drones have been fired toward NATO member Turkey and a British military base on Cyprus, fueling speculation about what might prompt NATO to trigger its collective security guarantee and come to their rescue.

The alliance has not intervened or signaled any plan to. Secretary-General Mark Rutte — who has voiced support for Trump and America’s role in the alliance — has been focusing mostly on Russia’s war against Ukraine, which borders four NATO countries.

NATO operates uniquely by consensus. All 32 countries must agree for it to take decisions, so political priorities play a role. Even invoking Article 5 requires agreement among the allies. Turkey or the U.K. cannot trigger it alone.

In the Mideast war, Trump has bristled at the across-the-board rejection from European and other allies, and even rival China, to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.

Many European Union and NATO member country leaders have fumed since the war’s outset on Feb. 28 because they weren’t informed ahead of time, seen as a break with precedent.

Trump insisted he needed the element of surprise, and he spoke out about possible military action and visibly built up U.S. forces in the region in the run-up to the war.

Rising voices, and tougher action, from Europe over the Mideast war

European leaders have called for the war to stop and want the United States and Iran to return to negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, which America and Israel see as a threat.

The vocal opposition in Europe to Trump’s war against Iran has started to turn into action.

Spain — the most vocal critic in Europe — on Monday said it closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the Iran war.

Early last month, France agreed to let the U.S. Air Force use a base in southern France after receiving a “full guarantee” from the United States that planes not involved in carrying out strikes against Iran would land there.

Other countries have spoken out against it: Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s largely ceremonial president, last week called the aggression against Iran a “dangerous mistake” in violation of international law.

U.S. relations with Europe had already soured in recent months over Trump’s call for Greenland — a semiautonomous territory of stalwart NATO ally Denmark — to become part of the United States, prompting many EU countries to rally behind Copenhagen.

Lawless and Keaten write for the Associated Press. Keaten reported from Geneva. AP writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

April 1 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in a case on Wednesday that could reshape what it means to be a U.S. citizen.

The case, Trump vs. Barbara, is over President Donald Trump‘s Jan. 20, 2025, executive order “Protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship,” which seeks to change the application of the Citizenship Clause, ending birthright citizenship.

In his executive order, Trump argued that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution “has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”

The law of the land, as it has been recognized since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, has been that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Trump’s executive order remains blocked from taking effect, with lower courts affirming that his attempt to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional. In December, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case, beginning with oral arguments starting on Wednesday.

U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer will argue on behalf of the Trump administration.

“If the Trump executive order is upheld, it would mark an enormous change in how the United States understands who is a citizen and who is not,” Kate Masur, John D. MacArthur Professor of History at Northwestern University, told UPI.

Masur filed an amicus brief supporting a challenge to Trump’s executive order.

“There’s certainly never been a president who issued an executive order trying to undermine birthright citizenship in this way,” Masur said. “Congress has repeatedly, through legislation, affirmed birthright citizenship and the Supreme Court has also affirmed birthright citizenship.”

The Trump administration’s argument against birthright citizenship hinges on its interpretation of the term “jurisdiction” in the context of the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

In an amicus brief by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and other Republican lawmakers, they contest that the authors of the 14th Amendment could have written “subject to the laws.” Instead, the use of the term “jurisdiction” requires “allegiance” to the United States.

“Allegiance is also a reciprocal relationship. The person must be present with the consent of the sovereign, a factor on which this Court extensively relied in United States v. Wong Kim Ark,” the Republican lawmakers argue. “But illegal aliens and their children are present in the United States without consent, i.e., only by defying its laws.”

The lawmakers also argue that their interpretation of total allegiance looks to “early English caselaw.”

The challenges to birthright citizenship by Republicans are not new, Masur said.

The Wong Kim Ark case that the Republican lawmakers referred to affirmed birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment. The case was brought on when the U.S. government denied the son of Chinese Immigrants, Wong Kim Ark, re-entry into the United States.

Ark, who was born in San Francisco, had taken a trip to China and was detained upon his return to the United States. The case took place in 1898, more than a decade after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese workers from seeking citizenship in the United States.

Since Wong Kim Ark, there have continued to be opponents of birthright citizenship, though the immigrant groups their movements targeted have changed. Since the 1990s, immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries have largely been the central focus of those seeking to end birthright citizenship.

Former Sen. Steve King, R-Iowa, repeatedly introduced legislation on Capitol Hill trying to end birthright citizenship. His most recent effort was in 2015. In 2019, King was removed from all committee assignments after defending white supremacy and white nationalism, following years of racist comments throughout his 17-year career.

“The thing that these movements have in common over time is their desire to limit who among people born in the United States gets to be a citizen,” Masur said. “Usually it is driven by various anti-immigrant sentiments.”

Daisy Hernandez, author of Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth, told UPI that there are modern examples of what happens when birthright citizenship is taken away.

The Dominican Republic amended its constitution in 2010 to remove birthright citizenship for Haitians in the country. In 2013, it made the law retroactive to 1929, removing the citizenship of an estimated 200,000 people overnight.

“That is an example of what would happen in the United States. However, for us it would happen in terms of millions of people,” Hernandez said.

Children of immigrants who have their citizenship revoked become stateless, Hernandez explained. With no country to call home, they are left adrift without the right to exist anywhere.

“Statelessness means that you have no government which you can turn to in any way,” she said. “It means you do not have any documentation of any kind. You don’t have documentation that you have a right to be anywhere. The philosopher Hannah Arendt said ‘citizenship is the right to have rights.’ You need a government to recognize that you have rights.”

There are more than 4 million children in the United States who have parents who are undocumented immigrants.

If Trump’s executive order is allowed to stand by the Supreme Court, Hernandez and Masur said the United States could return to an era of the 19th century when citizenship varied from state to state.

“It is really jarring to remember once upon a time certain states within the United States recognized the citizenship and humanity of Black Americans and we had other states that did not,” Hernandez said. “So are we going to end up in a situation where a child born to an undocumented parent is recognized as a citizen as long as they stay within the state of New York or of Massachusetts but would then become stateless if they crossed into Connecticut or further south or further west?”

Most countries in the Western Hemisphere recognize birthright citizenship. The Dominican Republic and Colombia are rare exceptions.

“We have always understood being American as being very closely tied with birthright citizenship,” Hernandez said. “It would be a collapse of how we understand American identity in the United States.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Tuesday that he expects the United States to end its involvement in the war with Iran within three weeks, declaring there probably will be “no reason” for American forces to stay in the region even as top defense officials maintain Tehran’s military capabilities have not been fully eliminated.

Trump told reporters during an Oval Office event that he is confident the U.S. objectives in the conflict will be largely achieved by then, whether Iran makes a “deal” with the United States or not.

“If they come to the table that will be good, but it doesn’t matter whether they come or not,” Trump said. “We’ve set them back. It will take 15 to 20 years to rebuild what we have done to them.”

Trump added that he believes the threats to the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil route, will be “all cleared up” by the time the U.S. leaves the region. But if issues remain, he said, that will not be a problem for the United States.

“That’s not for us,” he said. “That will be for whoever is using the strait.”

Trump’s comments came hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that, a month into the war, Iran still has the ability to launch offensive missiles, despite ongoing U.S. and Israeli efforts to weaken Tehran’s military capabilities and weapons programs.

“Yes, they will shoot some missiles, but we will shoot them down,” Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon briefing, acknowledging the remaining threat.

The comment, made during the first public briefing on the conflict in nearly two weeks, underscored that despite weeks of intensive U.S. military operations and repeated assertions by Trump that Iran’s military has been “obliterated,” the threats posed by Iranian forces have not been fully eliminated.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the briefing that the U.S. military remains focused on “interdicting and destroying” Iran’s weapons warehouses and facilities.

“We’ve continued to do the work against Iran’s missile, drone and naval production facilities,” Caine said.

Although air and naval strikes have been the primary focus so far, U.S. officials have not ruled out the possibility of ground operations as thousands of American soldiers and Marines have begun arriving in the Middle East.

Hegseth said it is up to Trump to determine whether ground operations in Iran will become the next phase in the conflict, which the president has said he is open to ending through diplomatic talks.

Trump repeated over the weekend that Iran is “begging to make a deal” to end the war, but on Monday, the president threatened to target Iran’s power-generating plans and oil wells and even desalination plants if a “deal is not shortly reached.”

President Trump speaking Tuesday in the Oval Office.

(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday that the administration will “operate within the confines of the law,” when asked about Trump’s threat to target infrastructure that would potentially harm civilians.

Caine told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. would only “strike lawful targets” when asked about American military considerations for civilian targets.

“We are always thinking about those considerations and developing options to be able to mitigate those risks,” Caine said.

Since the start of the war, Iranian officials have condemned a series of U.S. military attacks that have hit schools, including a Feb. 28 strike at an elementary school that killed at least 175 people, many of them children.

As Trump issues a new wave of threats on key infrastructure, he has at the same time touted ongoing diplomatic talks with Iran and reportedly told aides he’s willing to end the war without resolving Iran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz that has rattled global energy markets.

Americans have also felt the financial pinch because of the war when it comes to energy prices. Gasoline prices in the United States reached an average of $4 a gallon Tuesday, a price that Trump says Americans are willing to pay to endure because “they are also feeling a lot safer.”

“All I have to do is leave Iran, and I will be doing that very soon and, [prices] will come tumbling down,” Trump said.

Hegseth, for example, said those diplomatic talks are “very real,” but stressed that the military pressure will continue alongside those negotiations and that ground operations remain an option.

“Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we can come at them with boots on the ground. And guess what? There are,” Hegseth said. “If we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the president of the United States and this department, or maybe we don’t have to use them at all. Maybe negotiations will work.”

He said the goal was to remain “unpredictable.” Caine added that the presence of U.S. ground forces in the region can serve as a “pressure point” as diplomatic efforts continue.

As the hostilities continued in the region on Tuesday, the State Department warned American citizens in Saudi Arabia that U.S. officials were “tracking reports of threats against locations where American citizens gather.

“We advise U.S. citizens that hotels and other gathering points including U.S. businesses and U.S. educational institutions may be potential targets,” officials wrote in a new warning.

And in Rome, Pope Leo XIV told reporters that he hopes Trump is “looking for an offramp” to end the war in Iran and made an appeal to “decrease the amount of violence,” according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have faced challenges in securing support from some U.S. allies, an issue that Hegseth and the president have publicly pointed out.

On Tuesday, Trump complained that countries have “refused to get involved” in the war and efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. allies’ access to oil has been affected by Iran’s chokehold on the key waterway as a result of the joint operation launched by U.S. and Israel. But now, Trump wants those countries to deal with the strait.

“All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT,” Trump wrote on his social media website.

Trump added that countries will have to “start learning how to fight” for themselves.

“The U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us,” Trump wrote. “Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”

In a separate post, Trump singled out France for barring Israeli military planes from flying over its airspace.

“The USA will REMEMBER!!!” Trump posted on his social media website.

On Tuesday, the Italian and U.K. governments reportedly restricted U.S. warplanes from landing in their military bases.

At the Pentagon, Hegseth acknowledged that the U.S. military has faced “roadblocks or hesitations” from U.S. allies when asking for assistance or use of their bases — and said the president is simply noting that “we don’t have much of an alliance.”

“A lot has been shown to the world about what our allies would be willing to do for the United States of America when we undertake an effort of this scope on behalf of the free world,” Hegseth said.

April 1 (UPI) — A federal judge has blocked construction of President Donald Trump‘s $400 million White House ballroom, ruling the New York real estate developer does not have congressional authorization to continue the project.

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon for the District of Columbia wrote in the ruling.

Trump has said building a White House ballroom had been a dream of his since before he was president. Construction of the 90,000-square-foot building began with the demolition of the East Wing of the White House in October. Initially said to cost $200 million, the ballroom’s price tag has since doubled. Trump has said it will be financed by private donors.

In December, the National Trust for Historic Preservation sued the Trump administration to halt construction, arguing the project has not been authorized by Congress as required by U.S. law.

In response, the Trump administration has claimed Congress has already given him authority to construct the project, pointing to a statute that Leon, a President George W. Bush appointee, said only permits the president “to conduct ordinary maintenance and repair of the White House.”

Leon said the Trump administration’s understanding of the law assumes Congress has granted “nearly unlimited power to the President to construct anything, anywhere on federal land in the District of Columbia, regardless of the source of funds.”

“This clearly is not how Congress and former Presidents have managed the White House for centuries, and this Court will not be the first to hold that Congress has ceded its powers in such a significant fashion,” he said in the 35-page ruling.

For Trump to continue with the project, he can ask Congress to either appropriate the funds or approve of another funding scheme, he said.

“Unfortunately for Defendants, unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!”

In awarding the National Trust for Historic Preservation an injunction, Leon delayed its enforcement for 14 days in acknowledgment that the Trump administration intends to appeal his decision and that stopping an ongoing construction project may raise logistical issues.

“We are pleased with Judge Leon’s ruling today to order a halt to any further ballroom construction until the Administration complies with the law and obtains express authorization to go forward,” Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the nonprofit organization, said in a statement.

“This is a win for the American people on a project that forever impacts one of the most beloved and iconic places in our nation.”

Trump lambasted the decision on his Truth Social platform.

“He is WRONG! Congressional approval has never been given on anything in these circumstances, big or small, having to do with construction at the White House,” he said in a statement.

In an earlier statement issued after the ruling was made, Trump insulted the National Trust for Historic Preservation as “a Radical Left Group of Lunatics.”

According to the White House Historical Association, Congress has long been responsible for appropriating funds for the care, repair, refurnishing and maintenance of the White House, and Congress approved the Truman-era reconstruction project from 1948 to 1952.