News

Alito and Thomas Staying Put, for Now

In Washington, the loudest Supreme Court news is often the news that does not happen. Multiple sources now indicate that Justice Samuel Alito is not expected to step down this term. The term lasts until the Court’s new year begins in October. Alito, who is 76, has already hired all four law...

Navy Seizes Iranian Ship in the Strait: War Powers and the Escalation Risk

The Strait of Hormuz is not just a narrow stretch of water. It is a pressure point where global commerce, regional rivalries, and U.S. constitutional limits collide. On April 19, 2026, U.S. Central Command released video showing the destroyer USS Spruance firing on an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel...

When Schools Keep Gender Identity Secret From Parents

Across the country, families are learning a hard civics lesson: the most emotional school debates are often the ones with the most complicated lines of authority. Who decides what a school can keep from parents about a child’s gender identity? When does student privacy matter most? And where,...

SCOTUS Curbs Climate Lawsuits Against Oil Companies

A growing number of climate activists and state and local governments have tried to use the courts to pressure oil and gas companies, not only through regulation, but through lawsuits that seek massive financial liability. The basic theory is straightforward: if a judge or jury can be persuaded...

New Hampshire’s Campus Carry Fight

New Hampshire just shoved a hard question back onto the table: when you step onto a college campus, do you step out of your constitutional rights? A campus carry bill, HB 1793 , has cleared the New Hampshire House and now heads to the state Senate, where lawmakers will weigh it next. The bill is...

Is the AR-15 Constitutionally Protected?

The Second Amendment debate has a bad habit of turning into a shouting match about modern politics instead of a serious argument about constitutional limits. This week, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon tried to drag it back to first principles, at least in the legal...

Trump’s Truth Social Blitz and the Politics of Sacred Imagery

President Trump used Truth Social the way some presidents used the Oval Office microphone: to define enemies, project command, and compress complicated disputes into sharable certainty. This week’s flare-ups moved on two tracks at once, a public dispute with Pope Leo XIV and a backlash over an...

The EPA Case That Could Revive Nondelegation

Congress passes a law. An agency fills in the operational details. The public feels the impact. And somehow, no one can quite identify the moment when elected lawmakers made the big choice. That, in plain English, is the constitutional itch behind a new push to get the Supreme Court to take a case...

Kentucky’s Gun-Maker Shield and the Price of Lawsuits

Kentucky is in the middle of a familiar American argument: who gets to set the rules when a national controversy lands on a statehouse desk? This time the spark is HB 78 , a bill the legislature passed and Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed on April 6, 2026 . The National Association for Gun Rights is urging...

Harvard Sues Over International Student Ban

The federal government has significant power over the people and institutions it regulates. Often, that power shows up as forms, compliance checks, and rules that can change over time. Occasionally, it shows up as a ban. Harvard is suing the Trump administration after it banned the school from...

Resignations, Not Expulsions

The House of Representatives is not a courtroom. It is not a human resources department, either. But it is a constitutional body with one glaring obligation that rarely gets tested in earnest: the duty to discipline its own members. This week, that duty collided with political reality. Rep. Tony...

Virginia Gun Sales Spike Ahead of New Controls

One of the easiest ways to see how law influences everyday behavior is to watch what happens right before a rule changes, or might. In Virginia, gun retailers say that is exactly what is happening now: as a slate of proposed gun controls moves through the legislative process, customers are rushing...

Massachusetts and the Quiet Squeeze on Section 230

Section 230 is famous for what it says in plain English: if you run a website that hosts user content, you usually are not treated as the “publisher or speaker” of what your users post. That protection is not a courtesy. It is the legal architecture that made comment sections, reviews, social...

Birthright Citizenship and the Sovereignty Question

Every generation finds a new way to ask an old question: who is an American ? Sometimes the question comes dressed as a moral argument. Sometimes it shows up as a budget argument. Lately, it shows up in court as a sovereignty argument, the claim that the United States can only remain a nation if it...

Trump’s DOJ Keeps a Biden Gun Rule

Presidents campaign like they can flip Washington like a light switch. New team in, old rules out. That story sells. It is also often false. On April 10, the Trump Justice Department kept a Biden-era gun rule in place. Whatever people expected from a change in administration, the immediate result...

Can the Government Unmask Anonymous Critics?

Anonymous speech is not a loophole in the First Amendment. It is one of its oldest habits. That is why a recent effort to force Reddit to identify a user who criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not just a platform privacy story. It is a stress test for a constitutional principle:...

WATCH: Rex Heuermann Pleads Guilty to Killing 8 Women

Rex Heuermann admitted in court that he killed eight women as he changed his plea to guilty on April 9, 2026, in the Gilgo Beach murders case in New York. For many people following a case like this, a guilty plea can feel like the end of the story. In reality, it is more like a hinge in the...

FISA 702 and Warrants for Americans’ Data

Every few years, Congress faces the same uncomfortable question: how much surveillance power should the federal government have in the name of foreign intelligence, and what protections do Americans get when their messages get caught in the net? That question is back because Section 702 of the...

Melania Trump, Epstein, and the Public’s Right to Know

When powerful people get mentioned in the orbit of a notorious criminal, the public instinct is simple: Tell us everything. But the American system was not designed to satisfy curiosity. It was designed to allocate power, constrain government, and protect individual rights, including the rights of...

ICE, Graphite Spyware, and the Fourth Amendment

Americans like to tell ourselves a comforting story about modern surveillance. If your message is encrypted, it is safe. If the government wants what is on your phone, it needs a warrant. If an agency crosses the line, the Constitution snaps back like a rubber band. That story is getting harder to...