Ohio's plan to use unclaimed funds to help fund construction of a new domed stadium for the Cleveland Browns has been temporarily blocked in court. A judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit was substantially likely to win on the merits. A $60 billion budget took $1 billion from the state’s Unclaimed Funds Account to pay for the stadium. The lawsuit argues provisions of the budget violate constitutional prohibitions against taking people’s private property for government use, as well as citizens’ due process rights. Monday's ruling pauses the plan while the case is heard.

Today is Sunday, March 8, the 67th day of 2026. There are 298 days left in the year. Daylight saving time returns at 2 a.m. local time.

The House and Senate fight over war powers and Congress' role in Iran is just the latest wrangling in a constitutional tug of war. Through World War II, Congress declared war 11 times across five wars. But they haven't done so since. Instead, Congress has used authorizations of force and presidents have asserted their authority as commander in chief. Most recently, both chambers declined to attempt to limit Donald Trump’s war-making powers in Venezuela. Some experts — and plenty of lawmakers — say the balance of power has long been tilted away from what the Constitution requires.

Key members of Congress are demanding a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain President Donald Trump’s military attack on Iran. Democrats and some Republicans argue the president must seek approval from Congress for what they warn is a potentially illegal campaign that risks pulling the United States into a deeper Middle East conflict. Both the House and Senate had already drafted war powers resolutions long before the strikes Saturday against Iran. The GOP leadership largely backs Trump's decision. Any war powers vote would largely be symbolic because Trump could veto such a resolution. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war.

Lawyers for imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell are fighting the requested release of 90,000 pages related to Jeffrey Epstein, saying a law used to force the recent public release of millions of documents is unconstitutional. The lawyers filed papers Friday in Manhattan federal court to try to block the release of documents from a since-settled civil defamation lawsuit brought by late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell. The lawyers say the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed by Congress in December violates the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine. Giuffre, who alleged sex abuse by several men who knew Epstein, took her own life last year.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for a Louisiana law requiring displays of the Ten Commandments in public classrooms to take effect. The full court voted 12-6 to lift a block placed on the law that a lower court first issued in 2024. In the opinion released Friday, the court said it was too early to make a judgment call on the constitutionality of the law. But the six judges who voted against the decision wrote a series of dissents, some saying that the law exposes children to government-endorsed religion in a place they are required to be, presenting a clear constitutional burden.