Happy Thursday! Finland, whose capital is currently experiencing below-freezing temperatures expected to last for weeks, was just ranked the world’s happiest country for the eighth consecutive year. Color us skeptical.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday it had begun targeted ground operations in central and southern Gaza. The maneuvers, aimed at creating a security perimeter between Gaza and Israel, coincided with Israel’s ongoing airstrikes against Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip following the breakdown of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire early Tuesday morning. In a Wednesday video statement addressing Gazans directly, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called for the release of hostages and the removal of Hamas from power. “The Air Force strikes against Hamas terrorists were just the first step,” he said. “Things will become much more difficult, and you will pay the full price.”
- The U.S. military continued its aerial attacks on Houthi sites across Yemen on Wednesday, targeting command centers, training facilities, and weapons stockpiles used by the Iranian-backed militia. Calling on Iran to halt its support for the group in a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump vowed the Houthis would be “completely annihilated” by the bombing campaign that began over the weekend. Meanwhile, the Houthis claimed responsibility for an intercepted ballistic missile launched at Israel early Thursday morning—the second such attack since the end of the ceasefire in Gaza.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday agreed to a proposal in which both Ukraine and Russia would halt attacks on energy infrastructure for 30 days. The White House said the partial ceasefire—which was raised by President Donald Trump during a Wednesday call with Zelensky, the two leaders’ first conversation since their combative Oval Office meeting last month—would mark the “first step” toward a more robust deal to end the war. But it’s unclear when the energy truce would take effect; Zelensky on Wednesday suggested that strikes by both sides would continue until an “appropriate document” outlining the terms is produced. Ceasefire negotiations led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz are scheduled to begin in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday.
- The Pentagon is considering a major reorganization of its command structure, NBC News reported Tuesday, including halting modernization plans for U.S. Forces Japan and relinquishing America’s longtime role as NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, or SACEUR—the military alliance’s top command position. But the changes are likely to face congressional pushback. In a joint statement Wednesday, the respective Republican chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees—Sen. Roger Wicker and Rep. Mike Rogers—urged the Trump administration against unilaterally altering the military structure. “We will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress,” the lawmakers wrote.
- Justice Department lawyers argued Wednesday that U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg should end his “continued intrusions” into the executive branch’s authority, as the federal judge demanded that the government provide more information about flights that deported Venezuelan nationals from the U.S. in possible defiance of a court order. In a written filing ordered by Boasberg, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office director Brandon Cerna said that two of three planes in question departed the U.S. before Boasberg issued a written order blocking the deportations at 7:25 p.m. on Saturday. The third flight left after the court order, but Cerna argued the removal of its passengers from the U.S. wasn’t based on President Trump’s executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to accelerate deportations—the authority with which Boasberg took issue in his Saturday injunction.
- A federal judge on Tuesday issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a ban on transgender troops serving in the U.S. military, writing that the move violated the Fifth Amendment. “The law does not demand that the Court rubber-stamp illogical judgments based on conjecture,” U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes wrote in an accompanying opinion, rebutting the government’s claim that courts defer to military judgment. In the January executive order declaring that transgender people would be barred from serving in the armed forces, Trump had declared that identifying as a different gender than one’s biological sex conflicted “with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
- The environmental activist group Greenpeace must pay $660 million in damages related to its attempts to block the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, a jury in North Dakota decided Wednesday. The judgment came in response to a suit brought by Energy Transfer—a Texas-based company that runs the 1,200-mile pipeline—accusing Greenpeace of trespassing, defamation, and nuisance along with other actions. A representative for Greenpeace, meanwhile, announced plans to appeal the decision, which she said ran afoul of the First Amendment.
- The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday, though indicated it would probably reduce rates later this year. Officials also projected that the U.S. economy would grow 1.7 percent this year, down from its 2.1 percent projection in December. “Uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased,” the Federal Open Market Committee noted in its policy statement. Stocks rallied after the decision. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday that Fed officials “really can’t know” if inflation caused by tariffs will be transitory or longer lasting.
A Looming Constitutional Crisis?
We’re two months into President Donald Trump’s second term and nearly as long into the constitutional crisis watch, as the administration’s blitz of executive actions clashes with judges who question their legality.
For now, the White House appears to have stopped short of openly defying courts. But legal analysts argue it has come alarmingly close to crossing that line in recent days, as the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration agenda pits it against judges dubious of the executive branch’s authority to carry out sweeping deportations.
On Saturday, Trump issued a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798, a rarely used wartime authority that allows the executive to remove “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects” of a country or government at war with the U.S. or engaged in “invasion or predatory incursion,” provided the individuals are not younger than 14 or naturalized citizens. In his proclamation, Trump claimed the law applied to members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which ...
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. You can read our 1,527-word item on the possibility of a constitutional crisis in the members-only version of TMD.
Today’s Must-Read
A lot of the messaging parents hear about their decisions involving their children is designed to remove parental choice—to say, effectively, that it may look like there are multiple child-rearing options, but one of them is so horrible that only someone who doesn’t care at all about their child would make that choice. Go ahead and send your child to day care, just do so knowing that it’s likely to lead them to a terrible life. The message takes a potential array of choices about how to care for a young child and instead presents the issue as a false choice.
Toeing the Company Line
- Last call to sign up for the TMD March Madness pool and fill out your bracket! To join nearly 1,200 of your fellow readers (so far), just click here (you will need a free ESPN account) and select “Join Group.” The password is “TMD2K25!” and your bracket must be submitted by 12:15 p.m. ET on Thursday. If you want to be eligible for prizes—including a year of premium Dispatch membership, TMD merch, and more—fill out this form so we can connect you with your ESPN entry.
- In a similar vein, Round 1 voting is now live for our inaugural March Madness Dispawtch Bracket that will determine the best quadruped featured in Jonah’s G-File over the past year. Oh, who are we kidding—they’re all the best!
- We’re thrilled to announce that Jesse Singal, Emily Oster, and Charles Fain Lehman are joining The Dispatch as contributing writers. Expect to read and hear more from them in the coming months—but you can start with their various pieces on the site today!
Cheap Talk on Cheap Stuff
Trade has made onetime luxury items common and, yes, ‘cheap’—while raising living standards along the way.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
In which Jonah proves he does not have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Funding With Strings Attached Risks Strangling Academic Freedom
Universities must have the ability to teach what they want without fear of government punishment.
Columbia University Has the Free Speech Problem, Not the Trump Administration
The administration’s actions are about protecting free speech, a duty Columbia has abdicated.
J.D. Vance Secures an Inside Lane to 2028
Vance becomes the first sitting VP to helm his party’s fundraising.
On the Baltic Front
Ukraine’s neighbors and allies struggle against Russian hybrid warfare tactics.
Mending the Bootstraps
Complexity is a subsidy.
Do You Have ‘Parental Rights’?
Plus: Justice Roberts’ ‘fine wine’ of a statement.
Worth Your Time
- Writing for The Atlantic, Annie Lowrey examined how the market for credit cards has become a reverse Robin Hood, as poor Americans with bad credit subsidize bonuses for wealthier cardholders. “High costs are weighing down working-class families, while driving big rewards to rich ones. Over the past few decades, the credit-card market has quietly transformed into two credit-card markets: one offering generous benefits to wealthy Americans, the other offering expensive debt to the poor, with the latter subsidizing the former. While balances are compounding at the highest average APR in decades, a brutal 21.5 percent, the haves are not just pulling away from the have-nots. The people swiping their cards to pay for food and gas are also paying for wealthy cardholders’ upgrades to business class,” she wrote. “A strong economy with a brutal cost-of-living crisis is a great economy for the credit-card industry, it turns out. The average balance carried over month-to-month has risen; interest rates have risen; and card issuers have pushed their APRs far beyond prime rates. As a result, the revenue credit-card firms make from interest payments has ballooned from $76 billion in 2020 to $170 billion in 2024, and rewards cards have gotten more rewarding.”
Presented Without Comment
Defense One: China is Practicing ‘Dogfighting’ in Space, Space Force Says
Also Presented Without Comment
Los Angeles Times: Jackie Robinson’s Army Story Restored to Defense Department Site After Removal in DEI Purge
In the Zeitgeist
Charley Crockett, a Texas-born country singer-songwriter, released his new album Lonesome Drifter on Friday. Our favorite song from the record has to be this cover of George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning.”
