Judge nixes latest policy requiring 7 days’ notice for Congress members to visit ICE facilities

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By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed on Monday to temporarily suspend the latest version of a Trump administration policy that requires members of Congress to provide a week’s notice before they can visit immigration detention facilities.

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U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington ruled that a group of Democratic lawmakers is likely to succeed in showing that the seven-day notice requirement is illegal and exceeds the government’s statutory authority.

The judge said the Republican administration hasn’t cited any “concrete examples of safety issues posed by congressional visits without advanced notice.”

Thirteen House members sued to challenge the Jan. 8 policy issued by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Cobb had blocked a previous version of the policy in December. She ruled that it’s likely illegal for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to demand a week’s notice from members of Congress seeking to visit and observe conditions in ICE facilities.

“Plaintiffs are undoubtedly frustrated with Defendants’ repeated attempts to impose a notice requirement,” Cobb wrote. “But in taking further action, Defendants are required to abide by the terms of the Court’s order and act consistently with the legal principles announced in this opinion.”

However, Noem secretly reinstated another notice requirement one day after an ICE officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis. It was nearly identical to the version that Cobb blocked in December.

Three days after the deadly shooting, three Democratic members of Congress from Minnesota were stopped from visiting an ICE facility near Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security didn’t disclose the new version of the policy until after U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig initially were turned away from the facility, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.

A law bars the government from using appropriated general funds to prevent members of Congress from entering DHS facilities for oversight purposes. Cobb found that it’s “highly likely” that President Donald Trump’s administration used restricted funds to promulgate and enforce the new policy.

Cobb was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Federal court rejects Trump administration attempt to slow tariff refund process

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By PAUL WISEMAN and MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to slow the process of refunding billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs the Supreme Court struck down as illegal last month.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit started the next phase in the refund process by sending it to a lower court to sort out.

In a court filing Friday, Trump’s Justice Department had urged the Federal Circuit to proceed cautiously and hold off for 90 days. But the judges refused.

The Supreme Court ruled Feb. 20 that Trump’s sweeping tariffs on most countries in the world were illegal, clearing the way for the importers who paid them to seek refunds.

The government had collected more than $130 billion from the tariffs by mid-December, and could ultimately be on the hook for refunds worth $175 billion, according to calculations by the Penn Wharton Budget Model.

But the Supreme Court offered no guidance on refunds; its decision did not even mention them. Now the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York will decide how the complicated refund process should proceed.

“I would expect the Court of International Trade to quickly issue an order requesting a status update from the government on their plans with respect to refunds (or expedited briefing),” said trade lawyer Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official. “I expect the court to take an aggressive posture, asking the government to justify how they intend to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling.”

Siddartha Rao, a partner at law firm Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney, said he has been getting a lot of calls from clients with questions.

“We are somewhat in uncharted territory,” he said.

The Trump administration has been reaching for new tariffs to replace the ones the Supreme Court struck down.

One question, he said, is how the government might actually pay for these refunds.

“Everyone is sort of cognizant of the fact that it’s not like there’s over a hundred billion dollars sitting in, you know, in a room somewhere to just cut checks,” Rao said. “So, you know, this is a Treasury problem, and it may very well be that the administration is reimposing tariffs for the reasons that it’s cited … it’s important for strategic trade agreements and for bargaining power and all of that. But it also might be that they need to raise revenue to pay out refunds.”

Mae Anderson reported from New York.

AP Writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this story.

Gunman who opened fire on crowded Texas bar was not on FBI radar before attack, authorities say

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By JIM VERTUNO and LEKAN OYEKANAMI

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The gunman who opened fire outside a Texas bar and killed two people in an attack that wounded 14 others was not on the radar of authorities before the attack, federal and local investigators said Monday.

Both the FBI and police in Austin said Monday that it’s too soon to identify the motive behind the mass shooting early Sunday.

The FBI has said it’s investigating the shooting as a potential act of terrorism, coming after the U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran.

“Our ultimate goal in everything we do is to determine the motive,” Alex Doran, the acting agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio office, said during a news conference.

Police identified the gunman as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne. He was wearing clothes with an Iranian flag design and bearing the words “Property of Allah” during the attack, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

Investigators are poring over thousands of hours of video and police said there are more than 150 witnesses to interview.

A map showing the location of the shooting in downtown Austin. (AP Digital Embed)

The gunman legally bought the weapons used in the attack several years ago in San Antonio, said Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis.

She identified the two victims as 24-year-old Savitha Shan and 22-year-old Ryder Harrington.

Harrington was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Texas Tech University, his fraternity said in an Instagram post.

Diagne was originally from Senegal, according to multiple people briefed on the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.

He first entered the U.S in 2000 on a B-2 tourist visa and became a lawful permanent resident six years later after marrying a U.S. citizen, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The shooting erupted outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden along Sixth Street, a nightlife destination filled with bars and music clubs close to the University of Texas at Austin.

The gunman drove past the bar that was packed with students before circling back and firing the first shots from his SUV at people on the sidewalk and inside the bar, police said.

Inside the bar and across the street next to a food truck, some students dove for cover while others were motionless, trying to understand what was happening.

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The shooting stopped for a moment.

The suspect parked, got out with a rifle and began shooting at others before officers rushed to the intersection and shot him, the police chief said.

University of Texas at Austin President Jim Davis said Sunday that some of those affected included “members of our Longhorn family.”

The FBI said just hours after the shooting that they found “indicators” on the gunman and in his vehicle leading them to look into the possibility of terrorism.

Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Eric Tucker and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed.

Iranian drones buzz across the Persian Gulf after their pivotal use by Russia in Ukraine

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By The Associated Press

The distinctive buzz of Iranian-designed drones has become a familiar sound in Ukraine over the past four years. Now, it’s increasingly heard across the Persian Gulf as Tehran strikes back with the cheap but effective weapons following the attack by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.

The Shahed drones have made a transformative impact on modern warfare, with Russia sending swarms of the deadly weapons into the skies above Ukraine on nightly missions.

While ballistic and cruise missiles fly much faster and pack a bigger punch, they cost millions and are available only in limited quantities. A Shahed drone costs only tens of thousands of dollars — a tiny fraction of a ballistic missile.

Available in big numbers, the drones have shown their capability to oversaturate air defenses and inflict painful damage at a very low cost.

The debut in Ukraine

After Russia’s botched attempt to capture the Ukrainian capital after its full-scale invasion with tanks, troops and missiles in February 2022, the fighting has turned into a war of attrition that has been increasingly shaped by drones.

While swarms of small drones have played a decisive role on the battlefield, both Russia and Ukraine also have increasingly relied on longer-range drones to attack deep into each other’s territory.

After reaching a deal with Tehran to import Shahed drones early in the war — Shahed means “witness” in Farsi — Russia localized their production. Russian engineers have increased its altitude, made it more jamming-resistant and fitted it with more powerful warheads.

The Russian replica of the Shahed — called “Geran,” or “geranium” — has been put in production at a plant in the Russian province of Tatarstan that has exponentially increased output. Since then, Russia has battered Ukraine with hundreds of drones in a single night – more than were used during some entire months in 2024.

By using large numbers in a single attack, Moscow’s strategists seek to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses and distract them from engaging more expensive cruise and ballistic missiles that Moscow often uses alongside the drones to hit high-value targets.

And while it flies slow at 180 kph (just over 110 mph), it can range as far as 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) and carry a relatively big load of 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of explosives. Ukrainians have dubbed them “mopeds” for their distinctive buzz.

Ukraine has relied on mobile teams armed with machine guns as a low-cost response to the drones to spare using more-expensive Western-supplied air defense missiles. It also has developed interceptor drones and is working to scale up production, but the steady rise in Russian attacks has strained its defenses.

Attacks in the Gulf and beyond

Following the weekend U.S. and Israeli attacks, Iran has struck Israel and also unleashed a barrage of hundreds of missiles and drones on multiple targets in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

They included U.S. bases, ports, airports, oil facilities and oil tankers, as well as some high-rise buildings.

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Officials in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates said Sunday that air defenses had dealt with 165 ballistic missiles, two cruise missiles and more than 540 Iranian drones over two days. While officials said they intercepted all air attacks Saturday, debris from the knocked-down weapons sparked blazes at some of Dubai’s most iconic locations.

Some Iranian drones flew as far as a U.K. military base in Cyprus. The runway at the Royal Air Force base in Akrotiri was struck by an Iranian drone Sunday, according to U.K. officials, and sirens blared there again Monday when two more drones heading toward the base were intercepted.

State-of-the-art U.S. and Israeli air defense assets have proven efficient in intercepting most of Iran’s ballistic missiles launched at Israel. But the attacks using large numbers of cheap drones hit some softer targets lacking the same level of protection.

Patrick Bury, a professor of security issues at the University of Bath, said drones have transformed warfare, thanks to the combination of “the persistent surveillance and the high-precision strike” coupled with improved targeting systems and artificial intelligence.

He noted the Shahed drones can be easily hidden in the back of a truck.

“What’s taken people by surprise … is the ferocity and the scale with which Iran has retaliated this time,” compared with its response to the June 2025 U.S. and Israeli attacks, Bury told The Associated Press. “What the U.S. and the Israelis are hoping, I think, and calculating, that they can degrade that enough to basically then take some of the steam out.”

Many observers noted the U.S. and its allies could tap the experience that Ukraine gained in dealing with Russian drone attacks.

“Our military must do more ASAP to institutionalize defensive lessons from Ukraine,” said Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, posting on X.

Jill Lawless in London contributed.