By OLIVIA DIAZ

A federal judge has ruled that a Georgetown scholar’s petition challenging the constitutionality of his arrest should be heard in Virginia, denying the Trump administration’s request to move the case to Texas.

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U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said she would hear arguments in mid-May on whether Badar Khan Suri should be returned to Virginia while his deportation case proceeds in Texas, where he’s now detained. His next hearing in the immigration case is in June.

The judge’s late Tuesday memo says that by swiftly moving Khan Suri from Virginia to Louisiana and then Texas within days of his arrest, the government appeared to be trying to thwart his lawyers’ efforts to challenge his detention in the jurisdiction where it happened.

Khan Suri’s lawyers went to court the day after masked, plain-clothed officers arrested him on the evening of March 17 outside his apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia. Officials said his visa was revoked because of his social media posts and his wife’s connection to Gaza as a Palestinian American. They accused him of supporting Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.

By the time Khan Suri’s petition was filed, authorities had already put him on a plane to Louisiana without allowing him to update his family or lawyer, Khan Suri’s attorneys said. A few days later, he was moved again to Texas.

“This atypical movement would make it difficult for any diligent lawyer’s filings to ’catch up’ to their client’s location,” and followed a pattern now evident in multiple efforts to deport students based on their speech, Giles wrote.

 

A supporter of Badar Khan Suri holds a sign saying “It’s the 1984 George Orwell Warned Us About!,” while attending a rally in opposition to the Georgetown University scholar’s arrest and detention, outside of the courthouse, at the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, Va., Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The judge noted that Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record who was detained in March over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations was moved within 48 hours of his arrest in Manhattan through lockups in New York, New Jersey, Texas and, then, Louisiana.

She also cited the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student who was arrested in a Boston suburb, driven New Hampshire and then Vermont, and then flown to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered ICE to return Ozturk to Vermont.

Each scholar “was arrested on different days and in different regions,” Giles wrote. “What is similar? … the Government attempted to move each outside of their jurisdictions to Louisiana or Texas.”

Unlike the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the courts in Texas and western Louisiana are dominated by Republican-appointed judges, and any appeals go to the reliably conservative 5th Circuit, where 12 of the 17 full-time appellate judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including six by President Donald Trump.

Khan Suri came from India to the U.S. in 2022 on a J-1 visa. A visiting scholar and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown, he taught a course on majority and minority human rights in South Asia, and lived with his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and three children.

U.S. attorneys argued that Khan Suri was quickly moved because a facility in Farmville, Virginia, was overcrowded and a nearby detention center in Caroline County had “no available beds and only had limited emergency bedspace.”

But the judge observed that for weeks thereafter, Khan Suri had to sleep on a plastic cot on the floor of an overcrowded detention center in Texas, and that according to his attorneys, he now sleeps on a bed in an overcrowded dormitory with about 50 other people. The government’s representations, she wrote, “are plainly inconsistent and are further undermined by the fact that Prairieland Detention Center, where Petitioner (Khan Suri) is currently held, is overcrowded.”

By LISA MASCARO and AMANDA SEITZ

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans appear to be backing off some, but not all, of the steep reductions to the Medicaid program as part of their big tax breaks bill, as they run into resistance from more centrist GOP lawmakers opposed to ending nearly-free health care coverage for their constituents back home.

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This is as a new report out Wednesday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that millions of Americans would lose Medicaid coverage under the various proposals being circulated by Republicans as cost-saving measures. House Republicans are scrounging to come up with as much as $1.5 trillion in cuts across federal government health, food stamp and other programs, to offset the revenue lost for some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks.

“Under each of those options, Medicaid enrollment would decrease and the number of people without health insurance would increase,” the CBO report said.

The findings touched off fresh uncertainty over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to pass what President Donald Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill” by a self-made Memorial Day deadline.

Lawmakers are increasingly uneasy, particularly amid growing economic anxiety over Trump’s own policies, including the trade war that is sparking risks of higher prices, empty shelves and job losses in communities nationwide. Central to the package is the GOP priority of extending tax breaks, first enacted in 2017, that are expiring later this year. But they want to impose program cuts elsewhere to help pay for them and limit the continued climb in the nation’s debt and deficits.

Johnson has been huddling privately all week in the speaker’s office at the Capitol with groups of Republicans, particularly the more moderate GOP lawmakers in some of the most contested seats in the nation, who are warning off steep cuts that would slash through their districts.

Democrats, who had requested the CBO report, pounced on the findings.

“This non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis confirms what we’ve been saying all along: Republicans’ Medicaid proposals result in millions of people losing their health care,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who sought the review with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

House Republican lawmakers exiting a meeting late Tuesday evening indicated that Johnson and the GOP leadership were walking away from some of the most debated Medicaid changes to the federal matching fund rates provided to the states.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., said those Medicaid changes “are dead.”

Republican Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, reminded that Trump himself has said he would oppose Medicaid cuts. Instead, he said the growing consensus within the Republican ranks is to focus the Medicaid cuts on other provisions.

Among the other ideas, LaLota said, are imposing work requirements for those receiving Medicaid coverage, requiring recipients to verify their eligibility twice a year instead of just once and ensuring no immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal standing are receiving aid.

But the more conservative Republicans, including members of the House Freedom Caucus, are insisting on steeper cuts as they fight to prevent skyrocketing deficits from the tax breaks.

Medicaid is a joint program run by states and the federal government, covering 71 million adults.

Republicans are considering a menu of options to cut federal spending on the program, including reducing the share that the federal government pays for enrollees health care — in some cases it is as much as 90%.

They are also considering and setting a cap on how much the federal government spends on each person enrolled in Medicaid, though that idea also appears to be losing support among lawmakers.

While those changes would bring in billions of dollars in cost savings, they would also result in roughly 10 million people losing Medicaid coverage, the CBO said.

They appear to be off the table.

But other proposed Medicaid changes are still in the mix for Republicans, including imposing new limits on a state’s tax on health care providers that generate larger payments from the federal government. That would bring in billions in savings, but could also result in some 8 million people losing coverage, the report said.

After police arrested a 14-year-old in a fatal St. Paul stabbing last month, a 17-year-old now is also accused, according to court documents filed this week.

Jay’Mier K. Givens, 19, of St. Paul, was killed in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood in March. An autopsy found he’d been stabbed 22 times, with most of the wounds to his back and one to his neck.

Officers responded about 11:30 p.m. March 31 to Sixth Street near Birmingham Street. Givens was found collapsed near an address he wasn’t connected with, police have said.

Investigators talked with Givens’ family and they said he came home about 9 p.m. on March 31, and left later in the evening “to smoke” with friends who were said to be “Jeremy” and another teen, according to a juvenile petition filed Monday against the 17-year-old.

Police were also told the two teens stayed at a residence a few blocks from where Givens was found. They identified Jeremy Joe Davila and a 14-year-old as residents of the address.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged Davila with aiding and abetting intentional second-degree murder, not premediated. Davila turned 17 on March 31, the day of the homicide.

Teen says they texted victim to meet

Givens’ cellphone showed he received a call at 10:04 p.m. on March 31. There were also multiple text messages between 10:07 and 10:34 p.m., during which someone from the number said they had a stolen Kia vehicle and wanted Givens to come “smoke n chill.”

After police arrested the 14-year-old for a second time, he said they’d texted Givens and “fabricated the story about the stolen Kia … because they knew it would interest” Givens. He stated, “that was a coverup” and “there was no car.”

The mother of Davila, who was also the foster mother of the 14-year-old, told police she hadn’t seen either teen since April 1, the day that Davila told the family they needed to leave “because it was not safe” and saying something about retaliation, according to the petition.

Investigators interviewed the 14-year-old’s girlfriend, who first said she only “knew of” Givens. She later told police that Givens threatened over Snapchat to kill her 1½-year-old son, according to the petition.

The 14-year-old told police that on March 31 — when he, Davila and Givens had met up and were smoking marijuana — he asked Givens “why he said that stuff” about his girlfriend’s son, who he regarded as his “stepson.”

He said Givens pulled a knife on him. Davila, who the 14-year-old said always carried a knife, pulled a knife “and stepped in to protect” him, the petition said of the teen’s account.

The 14-year-old said Davila stabbed Givens, which caused Givens to drop his knife, the petition continued. He said he took Givens’ knife and also stabbed Givens.

Knives, clothing found in basement rafters

Police located surveillance footage in a large perimeter around the crime scene. Three people were seen walking in the area starting at 10:51 p.m. on March 31. At 11:08 p.m., surveillance footage showed three people coming from a wooded area west of Harding High School and crossing over Sixth Street to the area where Givens was later found unresponsive. At 11:10 p.m., surveillance video showed two people running from the area.

On April 8, police carried out a search warrant at the address linked to Davila and the 14-year-old on Margaret Street between Hazelwood and Germain streets. They found two knives hidden in basement rafters. The knives have been submitted to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for forensic analysis.

Police located two sets of clothing hidden in the rafters, and they matched the clothing that the two people were seen wearing in surveillance footage.

Police arrested the 14-year-old at his school on April 8. He said he and Davila met Givens between their homes on March 31, but had gone their separate ways.

The 14-year-old was released without charges on April 11, before he was arrested again last Thursday.

On April 30, Davila’s mother turned him over to law enforcement on a previously issued “probable cause pick-up and hold.” She said she hadn’t seen or heard from her son between April 1 and April 29.

14-year-old’s journal described murder, officials say

Davila told police various accounts of what happened on March 31 and none initially involved Givens. He later said he and the 14-year-old met with Givens that night; he said he didn’t remember how he got home. He also said he didn’t know anything about the knives that were found in the rafters.

When police went to arrest the 14-year-old last Thursday at his temporary foster home, his foster parents said he’d “grown anxious in recent days” and they provided him with a notebook so he could write his thoughts. Police obtained a search warrant and found the notebook.

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The petition said there were “multiple pages of writing describing the circumstances” of Givens’ murder, including the words, “Why you aint fight for yo life when I poke u wit dis knife.”

When investigators were talking to the 14-year-old, he asked to call his biological mother. Police called her on speakerphone. She asked her son about the passages in the notebook and he said, “I wrote what I think happened” and told investigators that it “wasn’t supposed to play out like that,” according to the petition.

Davila remains in custody and the county attorney’s office is seeking to have his case moved to adult court. His attorney did not immediately return a message seeking comment Wednesday.

A Ramsey County Attorney’s Office spokesman said he couldn’t provide information about the 14-year-old due to Minnesota data privacy laws.

By ADRIAN SAINZ

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Three former Memphis were acquitted Wednesday of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop in 2023.

A jury took about 8 1/2 hours over two days to find Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith not guilty on all charges after a nine-day trial in state court in Memphis.

The three defendants still face the prospect of years in prison after they were convicted of federal charges last year.

Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, fled a traffic stop after he was yanked out of his car, pepper-sprayed and hit with a Taser. Five officers who are also Black caught up with him and punched, kicked and hit Nichols with a police baton, struggling to handcuff him as he called out for his mother just steps from his home. Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating.

Former Memphis officer Desmond Mills Jr., who was also charged in Nichols’ death, testified as a prosecution witness.

Mills and another officer involved in the beating, Emmitt Martin, have agreed to plead guilty to the state charges and are not standing trial under deals with prosecutors. They also pleaded guilty in federal court, where sentencing for all five officers is pending.

The officers had been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Jurors deliberated for a second day on Wednesday in the trial of three former Memphis police officers charged with murder in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols.

The 12-person jury began deliberating Tuesday in the trial of Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, who have pleaded not guilty to state charges including second-degree murder. They already face the possibility of years in prison after they were convicted of federal charges last year.

Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, fled a Jan. 7, 2023, traffic stop after he was yanked out of his car, pepper-sprayed and hit with a Taser. Five officers who are also Black caught up with him and punched, kicked and hit Nichols with a police baton, struggling to handcuff him as he called out for his mother near his home.

Footage of the beating captured by a police pole camera also showed the officers milling about, talking and laughing as Nichols struggled. His death led to nationwide protests, calls for police reforms in the U.S., and intense scrutiny of police in Memphis, a majority-Black city.

The jury for the state trial was chosen in Hamilton County, which includes Chattanooga, after Judge James Jones Jr. ordered the case be heard from people outside of Shelby County, which includes Memphis. Defense lawyers for the officers had argued that intense publicity made seating a fair jury difficult.

The officers are charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Jurors can also decide to convict on lesser charges.

Demetrius Haley, left, Tadarrius Bean, and Justin Smith, Jr., rear, three former Memphis Police Department officers charged with fatally beating Tyre Nichols in 2023, sit in the courtroom during their trial, Tuesday, May 6, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, Pool)

Prosecutors have argued that the officers used excessive force in trying to handcuff Nichols and were criminally responsible for each others’ actions. The officers also had a duty to intervene and stop the beating and tell medical personnel that Nichols had been struck in the head, but they failed to do so, prosecutors said.

Former Memphis officers Desmond Mills Jr. and Emmitt Martin also were charged in the case. They have agreed to plead guilty to the state charges and are not standing trial. They already pleaded guilty in federal court, where sentencing for all five officers is pending.

During the trial, defense attorneys refuted accusations that the officers used unnecessary force to subdue Nichols. They argued that Nichols was actively resisting arrest by running away and failing to give his hands to officers so that he could be handcuffed. They also say their use of force complied with police department policies.

Mills testified that he regrets his failure to stop the beating, which led to Nichols’ death three days later from blunt-force trauma. Dr. Marco Ross, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, testified that Nichols suffered tears and bleeding in the brain.

Defense attorneys have said the officer who acted with the most violence was Martin, who kicked and punched Nichols several times in the head but is not standing trial.

Mills said Nichols was actively resisting arrest and not complying with orders to present his hands to be cuffed. But Mills also admitted Nichols never punched or kicked any officers.

The five officers were part of a crime suppression team called the Scorpion Unit that was disbanded after Nichols’ death. The team targeted drugs, illegal guns and violent offenders to amass arrests, while sometimes using force against unarmed people

The trial comes months after the U.S. Justice Department said in December that a 17-month investigation found that the Memphis Police Department uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people.