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Citizenship bellwether, Coinbase hack and a gene-editing milestone

 
Today's LEGAL story

Supreme Court weighs court limits amid birthright ban

What happened
The Supreme Court yesterday appeared inclined to limit federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions against presidential orders but was divided on how to do so and seemed uncomfortable with the implications for the order at hand, President Donald Trump's unilateral attempt to end birthright citizenship. Three federal judges have blocked that order. In an emergency appeal, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to eliminate universal injunctions but not consider the merits of Trump's birthright order. 

Who said what
During two hours of oral arguments, conservative justices "focused on the growing modern-day approach" of single judges blocking presidential policies, a practice that has raised bipartisan hackles, The Wall Street Journal said. "Liberals suggested the danger would be allowing the government to violate rights on a massive scale with no effective judicial remedy" and no mechanism to get a case before the Supreme Court. 

Ending nationwide injunctions would create a "catch me if you can" justice system "where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people's rights," Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said. In the birthright case, "all of those individuals are going to win," Justice Elena Kagan told Solicitor General John Sauer, and then "it's up to you to decide whether to take this case to us" on appeal. "If I were in your shoes, there is no way I'd approach the Supreme Court with this case," she added.

None of the justices "spoke up in defense of the order's legality," Politico said, "and several suggested that the order is almost surely unconstitutional." Several of the justices who "expressed concern" about the "proliferation" of nationwide injunctions also "appeared sympathetic" to arguments that allowing a patchwork of citizenship rules would prompt chaos, The Washington Post said, and "seemed open to a middle ground that would permit judges to issue universal orders in limited circumstances."

What next?
Trump's executive order remains blocked nationwide until the Supreme Court issues its decision. That might not happen "until late June or early July," The New York Times said, but the "unusual posture of the case could prompt quicker action."

 
 
Today's FINANCE story

Crypto firm Coinbase hacked, faces SEC scrutiny

What happened
Coinbase, the largest U.S-based cryptocurrency exchange, said yesterday that cybercriminals had hacked the company, stealing sensitive user data for a scheme to rob customers of crypto assets and extort the company. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating Coinbase for allegedly overstating its active users in securities filings, The New York Times reported yesterday.

Who said what
Coinbase said in an SEC filing that an undisclosed number of user names, addresses and government ID images were stolen by someone paying multiple now-fired "contractors or employees working in support roles outside the United States." It estimated it would have to spend $180 million to $400 million to fix the situation and reimburse customers. 

The stolen data allowed the hacker to "conduct social engineering attacks" on users to "try to trick them into sending their funds," CEO Brian Armstrong said. Coinbase said the hackers had demanded $20 million in bitcoin to not release the user data, but the company instead would offer that same amount for information about the criminals. "We will prosecute you and bring you to justice," Armstrong said. "You have my answer."

What next?
The ongoing SEC investigation is a rare crypto probe that "began during the Biden administration and has continued" under President Donald Trump, the Times said. Since Trump took office, "the SEC has dropped more than a dozen lawsuits and investigations targeting crypto firms," including a separate 2023 case against Coinbase, and "largely disbanded its specialized crypto unit."

 
 
Today's MEDICal rESEARCH Story

Breakthrough gene-editing treatment saves baby

What happened
A team of doctors and scientists has used a tailor-made gene-editing therapy to treat an infant with a rare genetic condition, a medical first that opens the door to a new era of individualized medicine, especially for people with uncommon diseases, the researchers reported yesterday in The New England Journal of Medicine. "This is the future of medicine," said study coauthor Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a gene-editing expert at the University of Pennsylvania.

Who said what
KJ Muldoon was diagnosed with CPS1 deficiency, which causes toxic levels of ammonia in the blood, soon after his premature birth in Philadelphia last August. He had "perhaps as few as six months before a mounting risk of severe brain damage or death," The New York Times said. Instead, he "made medical history."

KJ's diagnosis launched an "all-out six-month sprint" by a network of researchers and companies to develop a therapy, "vet its safety and use it to fix an errant gene" in his liver, The Washington Post said. They used the gene-editing tool CRISPR to create an enzyme that "flips the mutated DNA 'letter'" to the "correct type" to process ammonia, The Associated Press said. KJ got his first injection in February, then lower doses in March and April.

What next?
"We’re still very much in the early stages of understanding what this medication may have done for KJ," said Dr. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, his doctor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a study coauthor. "But every day, he's showing us signs that he's growing and thriving." He is expected to go home in a few weeks.

 
 

It's not all bad

A U.S. team studying dolphin communication won the $100,000 Coller-Dolittle Prize yesterday for its ground-breaking research into the marine mammal's whistles. Led by Laela Sayigh and Peter Tyack, the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program has spent more than 40 years decoding bottlenose dolphin sounds. Using non-invasive tools, it identified whistles that may signal alarm or surprise. Judges praised the vast dataset and ethical methods, saying the work could one day lead to real communication between humans and dolphins.

 
 
Under the radar

Scorpions are "taking over" Brazil's cities, scientists warn in the journal Frontiers in Public Health. And this "silent and escalating" crisis includes a huge rise in stinging incidents, some of them fatal.

The deadly stings are often from Brazilian yellow scorpions, known for their extremely toxic venom. The exploding scorpion population is tied to climate change and unchecked human development, and the infestation might already be impossible to stop.

More than 1.1 million scorpion stings were recorded in Brazil between 2014 and 2023, with the reported stings jumping by 155% over that decade, the researchers said. The surge in numbers is "driven by rapid, unplanned urbanization," said The Guardian. The sprawl of "high-density housing" encroaches on scorpions' natural habitats in the wild and "poor waste disposal" creates new environments where they can "thrive."

The Brazilian government seems "ill-equipped" for the "Herculean, if not downright impossible" task of tackling the infestations, with no plan other than "tepid" efforts to train health officials in "scorpion risk," Hamilton Coimbra Carvalho, a researcher at the University of São Paulo, said at The Conversation in 2019. He predicted it was probably already "too late" to stop the spread of scorpions across Brazil's cities.

But the arachnids are "not our enemies," Manuela Berto Pucca, from São Paulo State University, told The Guardian. As "part of the natural world," they play "essential ecological roles," from "controlling pest populations to maintaining biodiversity." And, crucially for the humans who live alongside them, they "act defensively, not offensively."

 
 
On this day

May 16, 1868

The U.S. Senate failed to convict President Andrew Johnson by a single vote in his impeachment trial, allowing him to remain in office. Johnson became the first president to be impeached. This was followed by the impeachments of Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2019 and again in 2021.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Tariffs to hit shoppers' wallets" as Walmart says it's "raising prices because of Trump's trade war," the Los Angeles Times says on Friday's front page. "Walmart price increases set stage for others," The Wall Street Journal says. "GOP tax bill on track to add trillions to U.S. debt," The Washington Post says, while the price for "June D.C. parade" could "reach $45 million." The "border buildup Trump ordered keeps growing," says The New York Times.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

The cat with a golden smile

Clarrisse Bosman spent $5,000 on a gold tooth for her cat, Tofu, after the feline gnawed on a wooden music box and needed dental work. When deciding between extracting the tooth or doing a root canal and adding a gold-alloy crown, the Denver resident opted for the golden grill. "RIP my bank acc," Bosman wrote on TikTok over photos and videos of Tofu’s gilded fang. The $5,000 bill covered the tooth, root canal, lab work and related expenses.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Chas Newkey-Burden, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Drew Angerer / AFP via Getty Images; Ahmet Serdar Eser / Anadolu via Getty Images; Jonathan Wiggs / The Boston Globe via Getty Images; Will Figueiredo / Shutterstock