The Brief

This report includes descriptions of physical and sexual violence.

After six weeks, federal prosecutors rested their case Tuesday (June 24) against hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, also known as Diddy or Puff Daddy. Here's an overview of the evidence and witnesses that the Southern District of New York has presented against Combs — materials and statements that they hope will persuade the jury to convict him of sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering.

It's been a wild month and a half outside of the actual courtroom proceedings. Neither the media nor the public are allowed to bring any electronics into court, so dozens of reporters and many fans have been handwriting hundreds of pages of notes apiece during the trial. There are scores of TikTokers and YouTubers attending the proceedings each day — many sitting in the overflow courtroom that offers a live video feed of the main courtroom — and then stampeding outside during breaks to stream hot-take videos for their followers. Diddy superfans and manosphere influencers proclaim their allegiances aloud in the overflow room (and in the actual courtroom as well). Each day, there are curious international tourists who stop by to take in a thoroughly American celebrity trial. There was even a brief appearance by the musician now known as Ye. Starting in the pre-dawn hours every weekday, there are scrums of camera crews who spend hours lurching across lower Manhattan's Pearl Street in hopes of grabbing shots of the extended Combs clan, including many of the tycoon's sons and daughters and his flamboyantly dressed mother, Janice Combs.

The scene inside the courthouse is often no less intriguing, and sometimes feels nearly as chaotic. On June 16, Judge Arun Subramanian dismissed one of the jurors, who gave inconsistent answers about whether he lives in New York City or in New Jersey. The judge agreed with the prosecution's concerns that the juror was potentially looking for a way to be part of a high-profile criminal trial. Last week, the judge also questioned another juror about potentially improper conversations he may have had with a former colleague. In mid-June, Subramanian chastised both the prosecution and defense teams about a leak of sealed evidence to TMZ and The Daily Mail. "Someone is lying here," Subramanian said.

As the prosecution's case drew to a close on Monday, defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo told Subramanian that his team did not plan to call any witnesses on Combs' behalf. Instead, the defense will present evidence that they hope persuades the jury that the women involved with Combs were not victims but willing participants.

The charges against Combs, who has pleaded not guilty, are vast. Over the month and a half the federal prosecutors spent presenting their case, their narrative against Combs has been rather meandering — and it's unclear whether that was an intentional strategy or simply a matter of managing witnesses' schedules and needs. One of their prime witnesses, Combs' ex-girlfriend Casandra "Cassie" Ventura, was noticeably pregnant when she took the stand, and delivered her baby just two weeks after stepping down. Additionally, many of the roughly 30 witnesses and much of the evidence the prosecution has presented to the jury cover multiple elements of the government's accusations.

Within that densely knotted web, it's often been hard to tease out which elements of evidence and statements from the stand prosecutors hope to align with which of their accusations. Here's a look at the charges and what the government has presented to the jury.

Sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution

The charges include two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion as well as bringing people across state lines to engage in prostitution.

Both alleged victims named in the criminal proceedings — Cassie Ventura and "Jane" — described very similar situations and environments surrounding the so-called "freak-offs, "hotel nights" or "wild king nights," which allegedly included taking drugs and performing sexually with male sex workers in front of Combs for many hours at a time, with Combs directing their specific activities while filming them.

Wearing headphones, the jury also viewed video clips and screengrabs of some of these sex sessions; those videos were presented under seal, so that neither the public nor the media would be able to see or hear the material. The defense maintains that the sexual encounters in this footage were entirely consensual.

Over four days of testimony, Ventura — who filed the first prominent civil suit against Combs (which was settled a day later for $20 million) — alleged that he had physically assaulted her on numerous occasions, raped her, trafficked her and sought to control every aspect of her personal and professional life. Ventura testified that she loved Combs deeply, but that their relationship was built on control, power imbalances, coercion and physical abuse, and that he would allegedly threaten to blackmail her with the videos of the sexual encounters. She also said that on a widely seen surveillance video from 2016, in which Combs violently attacked her in a California hotel hallway, she was trying to leave a freak-off. The jury also saw photos of Ventura's bruises and injuries from other alleged physical incidents.

The prosecution offered both witnesses and written evidence that attempted to confirm that Combs had brought sex workers, Ventura and Jane across state lines to participate in the freak-offs. Jurors have also viewed receipts, phone records and texts referring to some of those interstate trips. Additionally, they heard testimony from government agents with Homeland Security Investigations, who raided Combs' properties and found guns, drugs and thousands of bottles of baby oil and lubricant allegedly used in the freak-offs.

The jury has also heard first-person testimony from some of the sex workers, including Daniel Philip and Sharay Hayes, who used the nickname "The Punisher." Many other witnesses said that they either saw Combs physically assault Ventura, or that they knew about the alleged extortion attempts.

During her six days of testimony, Jane said that in the course of her relationship with Combs, he promised a romantic relationship with her in the form of dates and quality time, but instead pressured her into sex marathons. Like Ventura, Jane said that preparing for and recuperating from Combs' sex marathons took up so much of her time that her career took a backseat, leaving her financially dependent on Combs. She also said that the hotel nights were so frequent that she often developed urinary tract and yeast infections.

After she read Ventura's civil lawsuit against Combs in November 2023, Jane texted him: "I feel like I'm reading my own sexual trauma." Prosecutors also showed texts and notes entries she wrote to Combs over a three-year period saying that she did not want to have sex with other men, and that the hotel nights made her feel humiliated. The jury also saw texts from Combs' employees that implied hiring male sex workers had become a running joke among his staff.

Combs' defense team has argued that while the rapper and producer has "unconventional" sexual preferences that include a "swinger lifestyle," he is not a sex trafficker, and that the sex marathons were all consensual encounters. It also pointed to texts in which both Ventura and Jane expressed love for Combs, and helped him plan and coordinate these marathons, suggesting that they were in fact willing participants.

Racketeering conspiracy

This is the RICO charge that alleges Combs used his business empire — and his employees — to hide criminal activities. According to the indictment, those "members and associates engaged in, and attempted to engage in, among other crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice." Within those charges, the government does not have to prove that Combs committed any of the acts himself, but show the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that such acts were committed to ultimately benefit Combs and fulfill his wishes.

Some former Combs employees whose names came up again and again on the stand did not testify for the prosecution. They include Kristina Khorram, Combs' former chief of staff, who witnesses accused of helping Combs obtain the footage from the 2016 California hotel incident; assisting Combs in transporting illegal and prescription drugs across state lines; and monitoring Ventura's activities and whereabouts for Combs. The jury has viewed texts sent by Khorram in which she described various activities she undertook on Combs' behalf, including obtaining drugs for her boss and taking them across state lines.

The jury has also viewed texts between Kristina Khorram and Jane, in which Jane told Khorram that Combs had threatened to release sex tapes of her, indicating that Khorram knew about an alleged blackmail attempt. The jury has also seen texts between Khorram and Ventura discussing an alleged episode in Los Angeles in September 2016 in which a friend of Ventura, Bryana Bongolan, says that an enraged Combs dangled her over a balcony.

The jury also heard recorded phone calls between Khorram and Jane made after Ventura filed her lawsuit, in which Jane told Khorram that she felt used and exploited — but that Khorram continued to book hotel rooms and travel for Jane to participate in the hotel nights.

Several former assistants testified that they set up or cleaned hotel rooms for the freak-offs or picked up or bought drugs for Combs as part of their jobs. But many of them also spoke highly of Combs and his business acumen. One, George Kaplan, testified that he quit after witnessing Combs behave violently toward Ventura and another girlfriend — but also called him "a god among men."

The government also showed hotel invoices and flight records from accounts owned by Combs and his companies that confirmed payment for travel and hotel rooms and for extensive damages to those rooms, including from baby oil.

Forced labor

In addition to the freak-offs and the alleged coercion of Combs' girlfriends into de facto sex work, several former employees of Combs testified about how the hip-hop tycoon mistreated them as staffers.

During her three days on the witness stand, a former employee testifying under the pseudonym Mia said that Combs often asked her to work 20-hour days, on one occasion kept her from sleeping for several days and refused to pay her overtime. Mia also testified that Combs physically and sexually assaulted her multiple times over the eight-year span she worked for him, but said that she stayed in the job because she was "brainwashed" to believe that the work environment was acceptable if she wanted a bigger career in the entertainment industry. The defense called out dozens of social media posts in which Mia lavishly praised Combs. "The highs were very high and the lows were very low," she said repeatedly.

Kidnapping

Capricorn Clark, a former Combs employee, testified that she had been kidnapped by people associated with Combs in 2004 after Combs suspected her of stealing high-end jewelry. She said that associates of Combs locked her into a dilapidated office building for five days, subjecting her to numerous lie detector tests. Additionally, she said that her interrogator told her that if she failed the tests, she would be "thrown into the East River"; the tests were inconclusive. She says she was fired when she reported the alleged kidnapping to executives at Combs' Bad Boy Records. She later received a settlement from Combs after she accused him of wrongful termination.

Clark later returned to working for Combs, after being unable to secure any other job in the music industry. Again in his employ and under his control, she said that Combs kidnapped her once more in 2011, after he learned that Ventura had been dating the musician Kid Cudi and that Clark knew about it.

Arson

Musician Scott Mescudi, who records as Kid Cudi, took the stand to testify that in December 2011, while he was romantically involved with Cassie Ventura, there was a break-in at his home. On the stand, he said he and Ventura ended their relationship because he was concerned for his personal safety: "I knew Sean Combs was violent," he testified.

The following month, someone set fire to Mescudi's Porsche, which was parked just outside of his home; years later, he said Combs pulled him aside at an event and apologized for "everything."

The prosecution also called officers from the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department whose testimony aligned with Mescudi's about the break-in and arson. LAFD arson investigator Lance Jimenez said that the fire was caused by a Molotov cocktail in what he opined was a "targeted" incident. LAPD officer Christopher Ignacio testified that while responding to a call about a possible break-in at Mescudi's residence, he observed a Cadillac Escalade in front of the home, and that the Escalade was registered to Combs' recording label.

While she was on the stand, Clark said Combs forced her to accompany him to Mescudi's house, saying "We're going to go kill him." She also testified that Combs threatened to kill her if she went to the authorities, and that he said he would kill her, Mescudi and Ventura if Mescudi told police he suspected Combs of having been in his home. Additionally, she said she witnessed Combs brutally beating Ventura after he learned of her relationship with Mescudi.

Bribery

On June 3, Eddy Garcia, a former security supervisor at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles, testified that Combs bribed him and his colleagues with $100,000, delivered in a paper bag, in exchange for the 2016 hotel security video. Garcia also testified that he signed a nondisclosure agreement that called for the destruction of evidence and for Garcia's silence. (Nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, do not prevent people from testifying truthfully in legal proceedings.)

According to Garcia, Kristina Khorram was also involved in that negotiation for the security tape, buttressing the prosecution's claims of racketeering. The jury also viewed texts between Ventura and Khorram, in which Ventura wrote "no one deserves to get dragged by their hair."

Mia also testified that she believed a former security employee nicknamed D-Roc tried to bribe her after Ventura filed a civil lawsuit against Combs; the jury saw a blizzard of texts and phone calls that Diddy, Khorram and D-Roc sent Mia in that time period, including one in which D-Roc wrote: "I know u didn't ask for anything, but I can send my sister a gift."

Obstruction of justice

Cassie Ventura's mother, Regina, testified that her family paid Combs $20,000 in 2011 to prevent him from releasing sexually explicit videos of Cassie after Combs learned that she had begun dating Mescudi. (She testified that Combs paid her back days later.) Her testimony was supported by that of former Combs Enterprises chief financial officer Derek Ferguson, who confirmed that he had seen a payment of $20,000 from the Ventura family to Combs.

A former stylist for both Combs and Ventura named Deonte Nash also buttressed Regina Ventura's testimony. Nash testified that along with witnessing Combs physically attacking Cassie Ventura, he also witnessed Combs threatening to release sex tapes of her, including sending them to the places her parents worked in order to get them fired.

During the course of the trial so far, the jury has heard many other allegations against Combs — including many episodes of physical abuse perpetrated against girlfriends and employees and rampant drug use. The defense has maintained that while Combs may be an abuser and involved in "toxic" and "jealous" relationships, and while the jury may not agree with his lifestyle, none of those accusations are charges against him in this federal trial.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Before taking his last steps on the moon, NASA astronaut Gene Cernan made sure to scratch his young daughter's initials into the lunar dust.

He had some parting thoughts for the rest of humanity, too.

"We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind," the Apollo 17 commander said before departing for Earth.

That was December 1972. Now, more than half a century later, NASA may be about to fulfill Cernan's wishes.

Watch the launch live stream, set to start at 12:50 p.m. Eastern time, here.

As early as Wednesday at 6:24 p.m., an Orion capsule seated atop a 322-foot rocket will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If all goes according to plan, the capsule will carry four astronauts around the moon and back — sending humans the farthest they've ever been from our home planet.

The mission will be the first launch in the Artemis moon program to include a crew. It follows the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022, which sent an empty Orion capsule on a three-week ride around the moon before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

This time, the Artemis II astronauts will first orbit Earth to check out key systems on the spacecraft, and then trace a figure-eight path around our lunar neighbor and back. The entire journey is expected to take just under 10 days.

This mission is a crucial step toward NASA's goal of once again setting foot on lunar soil, and eventually establishing a permanent lunar presence — including a moon base — with the help of international partners.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, Mark Burger, launch weather officer with the Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron, said there was an 80% chance of favorable conditions for launch day, though they were keeping a close eye on the weather.

Jeff Spaulding, senior NASA test director, is a veteran of many launches. He said that for his part, the reality that humans would soon be flying to the moon would probably set in during the final minute before ignition.

"That's when it really starts to hit home that, you know, we really got a shot at making it today," Spaulding said at the briefing. "And I know a lot of people are thinking the same thing, because you can hear a pin drop in that firing room as you count from 10 down to T-zero."

"After that, though," he said with a smile, "it may get a little bit noisier."

Copyright 2026 NPR

President Trump is set to address the nation on the Iran war at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday night, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying he would be providing "an important update," without providing further details.

On Tuesday, Trump said he expected the conflict to be over in two to three weeks, adding, "we'll be leaving very soon," and promising gas prices would then "come tumbling down."

Trump shrugged off what would happen to the blockaded Strait of Hormuz – which has cut off one fifth of the world's oil supply – saying, "we're not going to have anything to do with it." He said that it wouldn't affect the U.S. and would be something for other countries to deal with.

"They'll be able to fend for themselves," he said, having previously told European allies who have refused to enter the war to "go get your own oil!"

The assertion to wrap up the war quickly comes just days after Trump threatened to up the ante if there was no deal and Tehran didn't reopen the strait. He said he could seize Iran's oil and blow up all of their Electric Generating Plants and desalinization plants. He also said he was considering an invasion of Iran's key oil export terminal, Kharg Island.

But on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed his boss's latest comments on the war being over in a matter of weeks, saying the main goal of preventing Iran from being able to build a nuclear weapon had been achieved.

Rubio has expressed frustration in recent days over news reports accusing the administration of lacking clear objectives in Iran.

He said the objectives were: the destruction of Iran's air force, the destruction of its navy, the "severe diminishing" of its capability to launch missiles, and the destruction of its factories.

Regime change, previously touted by the administration as a goal, was not mentioned. Earlier this week Trump said he considered regime change had been achieved, despite the fact that it remains a hardline theocracy led by the son of the previous ayatollah.

Here are more updates on day 33 of the Iran war:

Fighting overnight | World leaders | Iran | American journalist kidnapped| Hegseth visits troops | Aid hold up | Peace plan

Regional Fighting overnight

The Israel Defense Forces said they hit 230 targets in Tehran while also widening an invasion into Lebanon. Meanwhile, Iran is striking back at Gulf neighbors, especially military bases used by the U.S. this week. One of those attacks injured as many as 20 U.S. service members in Saudi Arabia.

Since the war began over a month ago, 13 U.S. service members have been killed. Iran says more than 1,700 people have been killed in Iran.

People take cover in a bomb shelter as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strikes in Bnei Brak, Israel, Wednesday, April 1, 2026.

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Also overnight Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed missile attacks on Israel, which the Israeli military intercepted. The Houthis have vowed an "escalation" in attacks.

Israel's emergency services reported Iranian missiles fired at central Israel had injured 14 people, including children.

At Kuwait's international airport, Iranian drones hit fuel depots, causing a huge fire, a day after a Kuwaiti oil tanker off Dubai was hit.

In Qatar on Wednesday, a missile launched by Iran hit an oil tanker leased to QatarEnergies, which said no one was injured and reported no environmental impact.

UK, Australia leaders speak

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer addressed the nation on Wednesday about how the rising cost of living caused by the conflict will affect British citizens and what his government is doing to try to mitigate that.

He repeated a previous vow that the U.K. will only take "defensive" action against Iranian attacks in the Middle East and would not get drawn into the war. He also announced his foreign secretary would organize an international summit on the Strait of Hormuz aimed at restoring freedom of navigation.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also gave a national address on the war on Wednesday.

Earlier this week Albanese announced his government would halve the fuel tax for three months to give Australians some respite from the rising costs.

He urged Australians to use public transport and not to hoard fuel. He also warned that "the reality is, the economic shocks caused by this war will be with us for months."

'Hospitality' is over, says Iran

Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee, said on X in a message to Trump that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen "but not for you."

People sift through rubble in the aftermath of a drone attack on a residential building in which one civilian was killed on March 31, 2026 in eastern Tehran, Iran.

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Referring to the period since Iran's 1979 revolution, he added: "47 years of hospitality are over forever."

Iran this week approved a bill to charge vessels for crossing the vital economic waterway.

"Trump has finally achieved his dream of 'regime change' — but in the region's maritime regime!" Azizi said.

It's not just vessels that are now trapped near the Strait of Hormuz.

An estimated twenty thousand seafarers are onboard — in an active warzone — and the U.N. is trying to extricate them.

Most seafarers are from the Philippines, Bangladesh and India and some vessels are reportedly running low on food and water.

The U.N.'s International Maritime Organization is negotiating with all sides to try to evacuate them.

American journalist kidnapped in Iraq

American freelance reporter Shelly Kittleson was kidnapped in Baghdad Tuesday, according to Al-Monitor, a Middle Eastern news site for which she has written.

Iraqi security forces said they intercepted a vehicle that crashed and arrested one of the suspected kidnappers, but are still searching for the kidnapped journalist and other suspects.

U.S. officials say they're working to get her released.

"The State Department previously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them and we will continue to coordinate with the FBI to ensure their release as quickly as possible," Dylan Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, said on social media.

He said Americans, including media workers, have been advised not to travel to Iraq and should leave the country. The statement did not condemn the kidnapping or express concern.

Johnson said Iraqi authorities apprehended a suspect associated with Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, believed to be involved in the kidnapping.

Press freedom organizations expressed deep concern. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on "Iraqi authorities to do everything in their power to locate Shelley Kittleson, ensure her immediate and safe release, and hold those responsible to account."

Based in Rome, Kittleson has reported on Iraq, as well as Syria and Afghanistan, for years, according to Al-Monitor.

Reporters Without Borders said she is "very familiar with Iraq, where she stays for extended periods."

"RSF stands alongside her loved ones and colleagues during this painful wait," the organization said.

Al-Monitor said in a statement it is "deeply alarmed" by her kidnapping. "We stand by her vital reporting from the region and call for her swift return to continue her important work," it said.

U.S. defense secretary visits troops

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made an undisclosed trip to the Middle East to visit troops on military bases over the weekend. He did not divulge the location for the troops' safety.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to members of the media during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, March 31, 2026.

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"I spoke to Air Force and Navy pilots on the flight line who every day both deliver bombs deep into Iran, but also shoot down drones defending their base. Many had just returned from the skies of Iran and Tehran," he told reporters in a briefing Tuesday.

He said he "witnessed an urgency to finish the job" and tried to draw a comparison with America's earlier drawn-out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said the U.S. is improving bunkers and layered air defenses as a priority to protect troops and aircraft.

This comes after more than a dozen U.S. service members were injured, several severely, and U.S. aircraft were damaged in Iranian strikes on a base in Saudi Arabia last Friday. The Pentagon says 13 U.S. service members have been killed and 300 wounded in what it calls Operation Epic Fury.

He repeated the administration's assertion that the U.S. is negotiating with Iran, despite Iranian officials' denial that talks are happening.

Aid hold up

The World Food Program says tens of thousands of tons of food aid are stuck in ports as a consequence of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

The WFP says there is a whole disruption in the global supply chain with carriers not able to use the Strait of Hormuz and choosing not to use the Suez Canal through Egypt out of concerns of attacks there, too.

The agency says this is adding a month to shipping time and costing more because of spikes in fuel prices from the war. It noted that as people around the world pay more for fuel, more families will struggle to put food on the table.

Some 45 million additional people will fall into acute hunger around the world if current conditions continue through June- reaching 363 million globally, the WFP said.

Pakistan, China release statement

Pakistan's and China's foreign ministers issued a joint statement on Tuesday calling for talks to the war on Iran as part of a broader peace plan. The statement called for a halt to fire, an end to attacks on civilian infrastructure, and reopening of the State of Hormuz.

For days Pakistani officials had said they hope to help mediate talks to end a war that has seized up the global economy, pushed up the price of fossil fuels, and key commodities like fertilizer — and that has killed thousands of people, mostly Iranians and Lebanese.

The joint statement with China came after high-ranking Pakistani officials led a flurry of meetings with regional powers. China is Iran's biggest customer for oil — and it's seen as sympathetic to the country.

Jane Arraf in Amman, Jordan, Diaa Hadid in Mumbai, Quil Lawrence in New York, Giles Snyder, Michele Kelemen in Washington, Emily Feng in Van, Turkey, Aya Batrawy in Dubai, and Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg contributed to reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

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The Supreme Court chamber will be packed on Wednesday, as the justices hear arguments in a case that almost certainly will result in a historic ruling. At issue is President Trump's challenge to a constitutional provision that has long been interpreted to guarantee American citizenship to every child born in the United States.

Listen to arguments and live NPR special coverage beginning at 10 a.m. ET:

Trump has long maintained that the Constitution does not guarantee birthright citizenship. So, on Day 1 of his second term, he issued an executive order barring automatic citizenship for any baby born in the U.S. whose parents entered the country illegally or who were here legally, but on a temporary, or even a long-term visa.

"We are the only country in the world that does this with birthright," Trump said as he signed the executive order. "And it's absolutely ridiculous."

That actually is not true. There are nearly 33 countries, mainly in North and South America, that have birthright citizenship — including, among others, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

Can't see the video above? Watch it here.

D-Day for Trump's attack on birthright citizenship

But Trump has long been determined to rid this country of its longstanding protection for birthright citizenship. Wednesday is D-Day in that effort, and to understand the issues, it's worth taking a stroll through American history.

While citizenship was not defined at the nation's founding, the colonists were largely pro-immigrant, according to University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost, author of American Birthright: How the Citizenship Clause made America American, due out in September.

The founders "wanted to populate this mostly empty continent," she observes, adding that, in fact, one of the complaints against the British king in the Declaration of Independence was that the British "were discouraging immigration."

Indeed, she notes, after the Revolutionary War, even those who had been loyal to the king but wanted to stay in America were granted U.S. citizenship.

Trump's view of the 14th Amendment

Birthright citizenship didn't make it into the Constitution, though, until after the Civil War, when the nation enacted the 14th Amendment to reverse the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision — a ruling that in 1857 declared that Black people, enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States.

To undo that decision, the post-Civil War Congress passed a constitutional amendment that defines citizenship in broad terms. It says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

President Trump, however, maintains that the constitutional amendment was intended to be more limited than it has been in practice. "This was meant for the slaves … for the children of slaves," Trump said last January. "I'm in favor of that. But it wasn't meant for the entire world to occupy the United States." 

But as the University of Virginia's Frost notes, the framers of the 14th Amendment had more than one explicit purpose. They wanted a clear, bright line definition of citizenship; they wanted the former slaves and their children to be citizens, and they wanted to include immigrants, many of whom were the targets of great hostility.

"I like to remind my students that between 1845 and 1855, approximately 2 million people from Ireland fled to the United States," Frost observes. They were fleeing from famine and harsh British rule. And while "there certainly was some prejudice and discrimination and xenophobia," she says, "their children soon would automatically become American citizens" when born on U.S. soil after enactment of the 14th Amendment.

Trump's interpretation of the 14th Amendment is avowedly far more restricted. What's more, it has not been embraced by the courts or the legal norms of the country for 160 years.

The counterargument

"The president's executive order is attempting a radical rewriting of that 14th Amendment guarantee to all of us," says Cecillia Wang, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Indeed, even as both Republican and Democratic administrations have sought in modern times to deport large numbers of individuals who have entered the country illegally, the notion of birthright citizenship has remained so entrenched that during World War II when Japanese citizens were held as enemy aliens in U.S. detention camps, their newborn children were automatically granted American citizenship because they were born on U.S. soil. And Congress later codified that understanding in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

At the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the justices are likely to focus on some of the key court decisions that have protected birthright citizenship during the past century and a half. Perhaps most important among these is the case of Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese immigrants who ran a small business in the city. Back then, immigrants like Wong's parents were largely free to enter the U.S. without any documentation, but his parents eventually returned to China. And after their son visited them in 1895, officers at the port in San Francisco refused to allow him back into the United States, contending that he was not a qualified citizen.

Wong challenged the denial and, in 1898, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. By a 6-2 vote, the justices interpreted the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to mean that all children born in the U.S. were automatically granted citizenship. The court noted that only three exceptions were specified in the amendment: The children of diplomats were not deemed to be U.S. citizens because their allegiance was to another country; the children of occupying armies were similarly excepted, as were the children of Native American tribes. Of these three exceptions, the only one that still applies is to the children of diplomats, as there are no invading armies, and Native Americans were granted automatic citizenship in 1924.

The Trump administration, however, argues that Wong Kim Ark's situation was very different from many of the children who become automatic American citizens today, because Wong's parents, though undocumented, were here legally, by virtue of having a permanent residence in the U.S. And the Trump administration points to language in the 1898 Supreme Court opinion that assumes the parents had legal status in the country because they had a permanent residence in San Francisco.

The Trump administration makes an even broader argument. "An individual who is naturally born in the United States is only considered a citizen if their parents have allegiance to the nation," says Daniel Epstein, vice president of America First Legal, the organization founded by the architect of Trump's immigration policies, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff. "It is a misdemeanor to come into the United States without authorization. That is a crime," he says. "That is strong evidence that you don't kind of meet the traditional notion of allegiance."

"We do not punish children for the sins of their parents"

Countering that argument, the ACLU's Wang will tell the Supreme Court that the men who wrote the 14th Amendment deliberately chose to confer automatic citizenship on the child, not the parent.

"And the idea — that actually goes back to the founding — is that in America we do not punish children for the sins of their fathers, but instead we wipe the slate clean. When you're born in this country, we're all Americans, all the same," Wang says.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is supporting the president's position, along with 11 other GOP senators, and 16 House members, who signed on to the America First brief.

"As a policy matter, birthright citizenship is stupid," Cruz says, "because it incentivizes illegal immigration. It makes absolutely no sense that someone breaks the law and they get rewarded with a very, very, precious gift, which is American citizenship."

Can an executive order trump a constitutional amendment?

The ACLU's Wang counters that Trump is trying, by executive order, to change the meaning of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, a measure that was approved overwhelmingly by the Congress in 1866 and, after a great public debate, ratified by more than three-quarters of the states. She argues that the consequences of such a dramatic change by executive fiat would have untold consequences.

"What will immediately happen is that every month, tens of thousands of U.S.-born babies will be stripped of their citizenship. They may be stateless because their parents' country of nationality may not consider them to be citizens. And so you'll see a permanent underclass of people who have no nationality, who are living in the United States, who can't pass on their nationality to their children born in the U.S.

In a separate brief, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops stresses the problems that would be created by generation after generation of children who are stateless, with no country to call home, and no citizenship to pass on to their children.

"The children … would be the ones to bear the brunt of this," says Bishop Daniel Flores, vice president of the bishops conference. "I have people asking this now in my diocese. 'Bishop, am I going to get into trouble if I give food to somebody that I'm not sure of their documentation? … Can we help these people? Because we think we need to, because they're people and they were born here."

The Trump administration counters that birthright citizenship raises two other problems: a generic potential threat to national security and the problem of so-called "birth tourism."

In fact, even birthright defenders concede that a cottage industry has long existed in which women pay money to come to the U.S. and have their children here. But the numbers are consistently very small. Even the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors limited immigration, estimates only 20,000 to 26,000 birth tourism children are born in the U.S. each year, compared to the overall birth count of 3.6 million babies born each year.

Daniel Epstein of America First Legal contends that numbers are not important. "I view just one illegal act as illegal, and birth tourism is illegal and it's against the law, and the law matters."

Population experts say that if automatic birthright citizenship were to be voided, the consequences would be profound — and counterintuitive. The Population Research Institute at Penn State, for instance, estimates that a repeal of birthright citizenship would result in 2.7 million more people living here illegally by 2045, people who previously would have been entitled to birthright citizenship, but now have no such citizenship for themselves or to pass on to their children or the generations thereafter.

Also likely to come up at today's Supreme Court argument are practical questions, like those raised by Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year in a related case. How would a hospital know that the parents of a child are illegally in the country? What would hospitals do with a newborn? What would states do? The answer from Trump's solicitor general, D. John Sauer, was "Federal officials will have to figure that out."

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With the exception of a stray morning shower here and there, Southern California is in for a dry and sunny afternoon.

The afternoon sun will warm up the area a few degrees today. For the coasts, we're looking at highs around 67 degrees and up to the low 70s for the inland coast.

The valleys will see similar temperatures with highs from 68 to 74 degrees. The Inland Empire, meanwhile, will be cooler with highs around 63 degrees.

In Coachella Valley, temps will reach 81 to 86 degrees.

A wind advisory still is in effect for the San Bernardino, Riverside County mountains, including Coachella Valley, until 11 p.m. Thursday. The Antelope Valley will see some gusty winds later this afternoon as well.