Banned by Taliban, Afghan women’s voices increasingly dismissed abroad

SEATTLE: A federal judge who already questioned the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order is set to hear arguments Thursday over a longer-term pause of the directive, which aims to end citizenship for children born to parents not legally in the country.
US District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle has scheduled a hearing involving lawyers from the Trump administration, four states suing to stop the order, and an immigrant rights organization, which is challenging it on behalf of a proposed class of expectant parents.
The latest proceeding comes just a day after a Maryland federal judge issued a nationwide pause in a separate but similar case involving immigrants’ rights groups and pregnant women whose soon-to-born children could be affected.
Here’s a closer look at where things stand on the president’s birthright citizenship order.
Where do things stand on birthright citizenship?
The president’s executive order seeks to end the automatic grant of citizenship to children born on US soil to parents who are in the country illegally or who are here on a temporary, but lawful, basis such as those on student or tourist visas.
For now, though, it’s on hold. Two weeks ago, Coughenour called the order “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking its implementation. On Wednesday, US District Judge Deborah Boardman followed that up with an injunction keeping it on hold long-term, until the merits of the case are resolved, barring a successful appeal by the Trump administration.
Asked by Boardman if the administration would appeal, an attorney for the administration said he didn’t immediately have the authority to make that decision.
What’s happening in the latest case?
On Thursday, the birthright citizenship issue is back before Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee. During a hearing last month, he said the case stood out in his more than four decades as a federal judge. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is,” he told a Justice Department attorney.
His temporary order blocking the executive action was set to expire Thursday when he’ll hear arguments over whether he should issue an injunction similar to the one issued by the judge in Maryland.
What about the other cases challenging the president’s order?
In total, 22 states, as well as other organizations, have sued to try to stop the executive action.
The matter before the Seattle judge Thursday involves four states: Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington. It also has been consolidated with a lawsuit brought by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. Eighteen states, led by Iowa, have filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief supporting the Trump administration’s position in the case.
Yet another hearing is set for Friday in a Massachusetts court. That case involves a different group of 18 states challenging the order, including New Jersey, which is the lead plaintiff.
What’s at issue here?
At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which held Scott, an enslaved man, wasn’t a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.
The plaintiffs argue the amendment, which holds that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” are indisputably citizens.
The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.
“The Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to ... the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws,” the government argued in reply to the Maryland plaintiffs’ suit.
Attorneys for the states have argued that it certainly does — and that has been recognized since the amendment’s adoption, notably in an 1898 US Supreme Court decision. That decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, held that the only children who did not automatically receive US citizenship upon being born on US soil were children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the US during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.
The US is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.

PARIS: Last month was the hottest January on record, Europe’s climate monitor said Thursday, despite expectations that cooler La Nina conditions might quell a streak of record-breaking global temperatures.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said January was 1.75C hotter than pre-industrial times, extending a persistent run of history-making highs over 2023 and 2024, as human-caused greenhouse gas emissions crank up the global thermostat.
Climate scientists had expected this exceptional spell to subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in January 2024 and conditions gradually shifted to an opposing, cooling La Nina phase.
But the heat has lingered at record or near record levels ever since, sparking debate among scientists about what other factors could be driving heating to the top end of expectations.
“This is what makes it a bit of a surprise... you’re not seeing this cooling effect, or temporary brake at least, on the global temperature that we were expecting to see,” Julien Nicolas, a climate scientist from Copernicus, told AFP.
La Nina is expected to be weak and Copernicus said prevailing temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean suggested “a slowing or stalling of the move toward” the cooling phenomenon.
Nicolas said it could disappear completely by March.

Clear sign the limit was being tested

Last month, Copernicus said that global temperatures averaged across 2023 and 2024 had exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time.
This did not represent a permanent breach of the long-term 1.5C warming target under the Paris climate accord — but a clear sign that the limit was being tested.
Scientists warn that every fraction of a degree of warming above 1.5C increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events like heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts.
Copernicus said Arctic sea ice in January hit a monthly record low, virtually tied with 2018. Analysis from the US this week put it at the second-lowest in that dataset.
Overall, 2025, is not expected to follow 2023 and 2024 into the history books: scientists predict it will rank the third hottest year yet.
Copernicus said it would be closely monitoring ocean temperatures throughout 2025 for hints about how the climate might behave.
Oceans are a vital climate regulator and carbon sink, and cooler waters can absorb greater amounts of heat from the atmosphere, helping to lower air temperatures.
They also store 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by humanity’s release of greenhouse gases.
“This heat is bound to resurface periodically,” said Nicolas.
“I think that’s also one of the questions — is this what has been happening over the past couple of years?“
Sea surface temperatures have been exceptionally warm over 2023 and 2024, and Copernicus said readings in January were the second highest on record.
“That is the thing that is a little puzzling — why they remain so warm,” Nicolas said.

The culprit: burning fossil fuels
Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming, and that natural climate variability can also influence temperatures one year to the next.
But natural warming cycles like El Nino could not alone explain what had taken place in the atmosphere and seas, and answers were being sought elsewhere.
One theory is that a global shift to cleaner shipping fuels in 2020 accelerated warming by reducing sulfur emissions that make clouds more mirror-like and reflective of sunlight.
In December, another peer-reviewed paper looked at whether a reduction in low-lying clouds had let more heat reach Earth’s surface.
“It’s really still a matter of debate,” said Nicolas.
The EU monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.
Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data — such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons — allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.
Scientists say the period being lived through right now is likely the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.