: Funeral ceremony is held for people, who lost their lives following the attacks launched by the US and Israel against Iran on February 28, at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran, Iran on March 9, 2026. (Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. has intercepted encrypted communications believed to have originated in Iran that may serve as “an operational trigger” for “sleeper assets” outside the country, according to a federal government alert sent to law enforcement agencies.
The alert, reviewed by ABC News, cites “preliminary signals analysis” of a transmission “likely of Iranian origin” that was relayed across multiple countries shortly after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, was killed in a U.S.-Israeli attack on Feb. 28.
The intercepted transmission was encoded and appeared to be destined for “clandestine recipients” who possess the encryption key, the kind of message intended to impart instructions to “covert operatives or sleeper assets” without the use of the internet or cellular networks.
It’s possible the transmissions could “be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country,” the alert said.
“While the exact contents of these transmissions cannot currently be determined, the sudden appearance of a new station with international rebroadcast characteristics warrants heightened situational awareness,” the alert said.
While the alert is careful to say there is “no operational threat tied to a specific location,” it does instruct law enforcement agencies to increase their monitoring of suspicious radio-frequency activity.
If the contents of the alert prove true, it would confirm the fears expressed by law enforcement officials after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran that sleeper cells deployed around the West could be used for retaliation.
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24,2022 during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 05, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Defense attorneys alleged prosecutors failed to disclose that a former Robb Elementary School teacher changed her original account of the shooting during testimony in the long-anticipated trial.
Judge Sid Harle excused the jury and canceled the trial for Wednesday, and instead scheduled a special hearing for Wednesday afternoon to determine how the case could proceed in the wake of Tuesday’s events. Harle offered no indication of how he might rule, though he told the court there are several possibilities after defense attorneys suggested they could ask for a mistrial.
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb. Investigations faulted the police response and suggested that a 77-minute delay in police mounting a counterassault could have contributed to the carnage that day.
Gonzales, who was one of nearly 400 law enforcement officers to respond to the scene, was charged with 29 counts of child endangerment for allegedly ignoring his training during the botched police response. Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his legal team maintains he’s being scapegoated. This case marks the second time in U.S. history that prosecutors have sought to hold a member of law enforcement criminally accountable for their response to a mass shooting.
The legal dispute on Tuesday stemmed from the testimony of former teacher Stephanie Hale, who told jurors she saw the shooter, Salvador Ramos, firing toward her and her students near the playground.
“As we were all running into the classroom, I saw the — I don’t know if you call him — horrible person, walking,” she testified. She said she sheltered with her students in a classroom and armed themselves with safety scissors.
Defense attorneys immediately objected, arguing that in an interview with state investigators four days after the shooting, Hale didn’t mention seeing the shooter or being shot at.
In a remarkable turn of events, the judge allowed defense lawyers to question District Attorney Christina Mitchell under oath in open court about the issue. Mitchell confessed that she was not aware the teacher’s testimony had changed. Prosecutors acknowledged that she mentioned seeing the shooter in interviews with investigators ahead of trial.
While witnesses sometimes change their accounts of traumatic events without casting doubt on their entire testimony, prosecutors are under a legal obligation to turn over ahead of trial notes of their meetings with witnesses, experts say. Defense lawyers argue they did not receive any notes showing the change in testimony, which, they argue, is vital to their defense.
Hale is the only witness so far who has placed the shooter on the south side of the school and in range of Gonzales.
“If she did report these things to the prosecution, we were entitled to that to prepare for this. And this is a trial by ambush,” defense attorney Jason Goss said.
Gross was pointed in his questioning of the district attorney, saying, “Neither the prosecutor nor anyone in the room thought to ask her, ‘Where did you see the shooter?'”
“You know, you’re getting very nitpicky. … When we were prepping these witnesses, I was running a law office,” Mitchell responded. “I was in and out of interviews, so I can’t say that … ‘Oh my God,’ you know, it wasn’t that type of reaction for me.”
Harle is set to decide the next steps during Wednesday afternoon’s hearing.
In an interview with reporters outside court on Tuesday, lead defense attorney Nico LaHood declined to say whether he would ask for a mistrial, though he noted the option was on the table.
Local attorneys who spoke with ABC News described Hale, the judge overseeing the case, as a well-experienced jurist known for setting high standards for the lawyers who practice before him. The Texas law that requires prosecutors hand over witness statements to defense attorneys — known as the Michael Morton Act — stemmed from a case in which Harle, himself, exonerated a man wrongly accused of killing his wife.
“He’s not going to do any favors,” Gerry Goldstein, an attorney for Morton, said of Harle. “He will call orders as he sees them.”
Demonstrators against the ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deployment march during a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (Jaida Grey Eagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(MINNEAPOLIS) — A federal judge heard arguments Monday on the state of Minnesota’s request for a temporary restraining order to halt the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operation in the state.
The hearing came two days after the death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti in what was the second shooting of a U.S. citizen this month by federal immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis.
An attorney representing the state said in Monday’s hearing that the enforcement action, dubbed “Operation Metro Surge,” is the nation’s single largest escalation of immigration enforcement, despite Minnesota not having the largest number of non-citizens with criminal convictions.
“Yet the federal government has sent an unprecedented force of thousands of masked agents armed with assault rifles to spread through our region in roving patrols that are racially profiling and inflicting violence on people,” argued state attorney Lindsey Middlecamp.
Brian Carter, another state attorney, argued that there’s a lack of precedent because “the conduct [from the federal government] is so outrageously unlawful we’ve never seen it before.”
“In the 250 years of this nation’s history, we have never seen a federal government attack states based on personal animosity,” Carter argued.
“Well, we’ve seen the federal government take very robust responses to states that aren’t yielding to federal authority,” U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez interrupted.
“Absolutely, but that’s based on the rule of law,” Carter responded.
When Judge Menendez asked what exactly the state wants her to do, Carter said, “End Operation Metro Surge.”
“The whole Operation Metro Surge is an illegal means to an illegal end, so just ending the whole thing is the appropriate remedy there,” Carter said.
“You understand the federal government has a lot of power in this area, so I’m trying to figure out what principle you’re asking me to apply that will sort out legal federal law enforcement from this 10th Amendment argument,” Judge Menendez said.
An attorney representing the federal government called the state’s request to end Operation Metro Surge “staggering.”
“The effect of their requested relief would be essentially removing the officers whom the president has concluded should be there to enforce federal immigration law,” said attorney Brantley Mayers. “It’s pretty staggering.”
Mayers argued that the requested relief should be subject to “a heightened standard.”
“They’re challenging one law enforcement initiative,” replied Judge Menendez. “They’re not challenging the enforcement of immigration law writ large.”
Mayers said that if the judge issues an order to end Operation Metro Surge, it “would be very difficult to implement.”
“If it’s difficult to implement, does that mean I can do nothing?” Judge Menendez asked.
Mayers responded by saying such an order would create a “very difficult separation of powers problem.”
The judge also said she is “grappling” with the alleged illegalities identified by the state, pointing to other lawsuits filed in Minnesota.
“Isn’t the answer to the flood of illegality to fight each illegal act?” Judge Menendez asked, noting that the conduct of federal agents is already the subject of separate litigation.
Menendez also questioned how she should draw the line between legitimate federal pressure and illegal coercion.
“How do I decide when a law enforcement response crosses the line from a legitimate response to one that violates the 10th Amendment?” she asked.
Carter argued that there are “4,000 masked, armed federal agents engaged in systemic, pervasive, and illegal violent behavior” that is “so far out on the other side of the line.”
“We’ve got retaliation, we’ve got racial profiling, we’ve got warrantless entries into homes,” Carter said.
Middlecamp said that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s letter to Gov. Tim Walz Saturday in which she sought information about the state’s voter rolls and records on Medicaid and Food and Nutrition Service programs as a condition for ICE agents pulling back on enforcement, “can only be described as a ransom note.”
“President Trump himself took to social media last night to reaffirm those very purposes. Their message is clear,” Middlecamp said. “Minnesota can either change its laws and policies or suffer an invasion of masked armed forces. This is precisely the type of coercion and commandeering that violates the 10th Amendment.”
Middlecamp argued there has been “excessive force and unsupported detentions and arrests of legal observers” and said that DHS agents have been collecting photos and license plates of observers so they can confront them.
“Even though they are not charged with a crime or reasonably suspected of a crime, there has been indiscriminate use of chemical irritants,” she said.
The attorney argued that Operation Metro Surge is having “clear impacts on the sovereign interest to create and protect public safety, public health, and public education.”
Sara Lathrop, an attorney for the city of Minneapolis, said the weekend’s shooting “demonstrated in a terrifying way that the current situation is absolutely untenable.”
“The relief we need needs to be ordered now to take down the temperature,” Lathrop said.
In response, Judge Menendez said that “not all crises have a fix from a district court injunction.”
Carter, the state attorney, wrapped up arguments by saying the state came to the court to “protect its sovereignty.”
“The state of Minnesota comes here today to protect its sovereignty, to stop the harm to its sovereign rights under the Constitution that sets states up as independent sovereigns,” Carter said. “If we can’t come to the court and vindicate those rights, where else does a state go?”
Judge Menendez did not issue an order immediately following the hearing.
“I do not intend in any way for the depth of my analysis or whatever time I take to write to be seen as a belief that this is unimportant,” she said. “It’s because it’s extremely important that I’m doing everything I can to get it right,” the judge said.
Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey speaks with a constituent at a campaign event on October 26, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
(MINNEAPOLIS) — A shooting involving an Immigration and Customs Enforcementagent occurred in Minneapolis on Wednesday, according to the city’s mayor.
“The presence of federal immigration enforcement agents is causing chaos in our city,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said on social media regarding the shooting. “We’re demanding ICE to leave the city immediately. We stand rock solid with our immigrant and refugee communities.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said his office is working to “gather information on an ICE-related shooting this morning.”
“We will share information as we learn more. In the meantime, I ask folks to remain calm,” he posted on X.
The city of Minneapolis said it is “aware of a shooting involving federal law enforcement” near East 34th Street and Portland Avenue while urging people to avoid the area.
A large law enforcement presence could be seen at the scene.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
