President Trump has signed two new executive orders aiming to restrict birthright citizenship. The move comes months after the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s earlier effort to abolish birthright citizenship — a right that’s enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. White House adviser Stephen Miller spoke at the signing ceremony.

Stephen Miller: “The president is using his authority as commander-in-chief to sign, first, an executive order, using the new ruling the Supreme Court issued, to expand the definitions of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship. That includes, for example, alien enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist organizations and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments.”

A second executive order targets so-called birth tourism. The American Civil Liberties Union blasted Trump’s move, saying, “Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution. No additional executive order can change the meaning of the Constitution.”

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has announced she will vote against Todd Blanche to be attorney general. His confirmation now hinges on the vote of Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whom Trump helped defeat in a primary. Earlier this week, Republican Senator Susan Collins said she would vote against Blanche.

In a statement, Murkowski said, “I take issue with the handling of the release of the Epstein files; the sweeping immunity protections granted to the President, his family, and their businesses; the statements that have been made to anti-abortion groups; and the repeated targeting of individuals ranging from former administration staff to sitting U.S. Senators.”

Blanche is Trump’s former personal attorney. Even if the Senate does not confirm Blanche, he could stay in his current role as acting attorney general. We will have more on Blanche after headlines.

The Washington Post is reporting President Trump clashed with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week during a meeting at Camp David. The Post reports Trump wanted to know why he had apparently been misled about how the war in Iran led to the Pentagon facing extreme munitions shortages, particularly in long-range guided missiles and air-defense interceptors. On Monday, Trump publicly denied the U.S. was facing a munitions shortage, but at the same time he called for “long term jail sentences” for those suspected of leaking information about U.S. weapon supplies.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan have signed a joint defense agreement stating that “any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif traveled to Mecca to sign the agreement with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The deal comes at a time when Iran is threatening more attacks on energy infrastructure in the region if Gulf leaders don’t use their leverage to press President Trump to end the war on Iran.

In Israel, the head of the Mossad has fired two top officials at the spy agency over a failed plan to topple Iran’s government. One of the fired officials headed Mossad’s intelligence directorate, the other was the head of the agency’s Iran division.

In news from Yemen, Houthi fighters killed at least 30 Yemeni forces aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-backed government. The deaths occurred when the Houthis launched missile and drone attacks on Yemeni military camps. Al Jazeera described the attack as the fiercest military escalation in Yemen since 2022.

Three human rights groups say Israel committed a war crime by intentionally targeting and killing Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil in April. Her colleague and photojournalist Zeinab Faraj was also critically injured in the same strike. On Thursday, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Lebanese rights group The Legal Agenda released separate investigations into the attack. The reports found Israel had knowledge that the journalists were civilians and that Israeli forces deliberately obstructed Lebanese medical teams from reaching them for hours — at one point firing stun grenades on Lebanese Red Cross workers. Click here to see our coverage of this case.

President Trump’s so-called Gaza Board of Peace has issued its first construction contract: for a military outpost in Gaza to house 150 Moroccan troops. Meanwhile, UNICEF reports at least 300 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since Israel agreed to a so-called ceasefire that began in October. UNICEF’s regional director in the Middle East said, “A ceasefire that leaves an average of one child dead each and every day is failing children.” Earlier this week, a sixth grader in Gaza named Khaled Al-Ashram was reportedly struck by direct fire from Israeli troops while he was sitting at his school desk. A bullet pierced his hand and wrist.

In Tennessee, two-term Republican Representative Andy Ogles has lost his House primary in a major upset. Former state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher won the race with 53% of the vote. Ogles lost despite being backed by Trump.
Meanwhile, in Memphis, state Representative Justin Pearson easily won the Democratic House primary after running a campaign focused in part on opposing the construction of large artificial intelligence data centers.

A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to pay $567 million into a fund aimed at addressing the social media giant’s role in a worsening mental health crisis among teens and children. This comes in addition to the $375 million that a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay in the same case. In March, the jury found the company had knowingly harmed children and concealed child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Click here to see our coverage of the case.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee led by Rand Paul has voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress. During a recent hearing, Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times when questioned about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origins of the coronavirus. Senator Paul has said he may send the contempt resolution directly to the Justice Department. Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire criticized the move to hold Fauci in contempt.

Sen. Maggie Hassan: “The goal was to wait for Dr. Fauci to make any kind of misstatement, and then have a weaponized Department of Justice file criminal charges for that new statement that would not have been covered by the pardon, leaving Dr. Fauci little choice but to invoke his constitutional right to not walk directly into a trap.”

The Trump administration has announced plans to overhaul Head Start, the nation’s early education and nutrition program for children living in poverty. The proposed measure would rescind hundreds of federal regulations overseeing Head Start, including mandates to provide assistance for parents of children with disabilities. Advocates warn the move will completely gut the program, which was first enacted over 60 years ago under the Health and Human Services Department — now run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Annually, Head Start serves more than 700,000 children from birth to age 5.

The Federal Communications Commission has voted to repeal the national cap on television station ownership in a move that could lead to greater media consolidation. The media group Free Press has announced plans to challenge the FCC’s move. Jessica González is co-chair of Free Press.

Jessica González: “The FCC does not have authority to do this, because that statute was set by Congress, and only Congress can change a law. So, Free Press and allies plan to sue the FCC to halt this blatant attempt to hand over more media into the hands of Trump’s oligarch cronies, and we believe that we will win.”

In a victory for academic freedom, the University of Minnesota has paid a $250,000 settlement to the Israeli American historian Raz Segal after rescinding an offer to lead the university’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Two years ago, the school had hired Segal to lead the center but rescinded the offer under pressure from donors who objected to Segal’s accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. In a statement, Segal said, “This settlement represents a successful refusal to accept the world of lies that blur an ongoing genocide, and a commitment to continue the intertwined struggles for truth, justice, and accountability — in Palestine and on our campuses.”