Judge to hear arguments over whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being vindictively prosecuted
Kilmar Abrego Garcia (R) and his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura (L) attend a prayer vigil before he enters a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office on August 25, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in Tennessee will hear arguments Thursday over whether the government is being vindictive in pursuing a human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
The hearing comes after the judge, Waverly Crenshaw Jr., canceled the trial in the case in December and wrote in a court order that there was enough evidence to hold a hearing on the question of vindictive prosecution.
The government is currently blocked from deporting Abrego Garcia, who was released from immigration detention in December. In a separate case last week, a federal judge ruled that Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot re-detain him because his 90-day detention period had expired and the government lacked a viable plan for his deportation.
The Salvadoran native, who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution. The Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he and his attorneys deny.
He was brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, to which he pleaded not guilty.
After being released into the custody of his brother in Maryland pending trial, he was again detained by immigration authorities before being released in December.
US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins speaks at an event with US Vice President JD Vance and Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) at Ex-Guard Industries, a manufacturing facility on May 5, 2026, in Des Moines, Iowa. Vance is attending the event to support Nunn ahead of the state’s June 2 primary election. (Photo by Roberto Schmidt-Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A new federal lawsuit accuses Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins of proselytizing federal employees by frequently invoking Jesus Christ in work emails.
The National Federation of Federal Employees and a group of seven USDA employees filed the lawsuit in California, accusing Rollins of violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
“Secretary Rollins’s practice and policy of subjecting agency employees to proselytizing messages conveys the expectation that USDA employees share in the Secretary’s religious beliefs, even when doing so would betray an employee’s own beliefs,” the lawsuit said. “It is exactly the sort of government-sponsored religious coercion, religious sermonizing, and denominational preference that the Establishment Clause prohibits.”
The complaint listed a series of emails sent by Rollins to commemorate recent holidays, including crediting “gratitude towards a loving God” in her Thanksgiving email, writing that “God gave us the greatest gift possible” in her Christmas email, and describing the story of Jesus’ resurrection as the “greatest story ever told” in her Easter email. Rollins only acknowledged Christian holidays, according to the complaint.
“Our nation’s Founders — having learned from the harmful effects of past religious conflicts — adopted the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to safeguard against government promoting any favored religion or imposing its preferred religious practice on its citizens to protect religious freedom for all,” the lawsuit said.
While religious expression is protected under law and federal employees are permitted to engage in private religious speech, the Establishment Clause prohibits the government from establishing an official state religion, favoring one religion over another, or favoring religion over non-religion.
The federal employees who brought the lawsuit alleged that Rollin’s speech “indoctrinates USDA employees and has caused them to feel coerced, unwelcome, excluded, and like outsiders to the agency.”
One employee claimed in the suit that she was told it would “create trouble” for her if she asked to be removed from the email distribution list, and others said they feared retaliation if they complained about the messages.
Another employee said he “feels that the Secretary is conveying to him that he is unwelcome and ‘going to hell’ because he does not share the Secretary’s beliefs.”
In response to the lawsuit, a USDA spokesperson said in a statement, “While we do not comment on pending litigation, we will keep the plaintiffs in our prayers during this process.”
US President Donald Trump during a military Mother’s Day event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal court on Thursday concluded that President Donald Trump’s global 10% tariffs are unlawful, a decision that the Department of Justice quickly appealed.
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of judges on the Court of International Trade concluded that the Trump administration misread the law used to justify the sweeping tariffs.
The ruling marks the second time the president’s tariff regime has been found to be illegal, with the Supreme Court earlier this year affirming a decision from the Court of International Trade blocking Trump’s first round of tariffs.
Lawyers for the Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal at the Court of International Trade on Friday, signaling plans to challenge yesterday’s ruling.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., handles appeals from the Court of International Trade. The tariffs in question are set to expire in late July and it is unclear if the court will hear the case in time to meaningfully rule on the issue.
The immediate impact of Thursday’s ruling is also unclear. The court granted an injunction for two small businesses and the state of Washington; however, the judges dismissed the claims brought by the larger group of states because they lacked standing.
The dispute boiled down to the definition of the phrase “balance-of-payments deficits.” The Court of International Trade rejected the Trump administration’s argument that the term “balance-of-payments deficits” in Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 is the same as a “trade deficit.”
“It is clear that Congress was aware of the differences in the words it chose,” the majority wrote.
The judges acknowledged that the term “causes some confusion,” but concluded that the Trump administration’s interpretation was incorrect.
“The Government argues that in today’s world, the current account is the proper component for identifying a balance-of-payments deficit,” the majority wrote. “Problematically for the Government, and as discussed herein, Congress in 1974 identified the settlement, liquidity, and basic balance deficits as ‘balance-of-payments deficits.'”
The global 10% tariff took effect in February and by statute is set to expire in late July.
University Of Washington Campus, The Quad With Flowering Cherry Trees In Spring (Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(SEATTLE)– The transgender University of Washington student who was killed in a student housing building suffered over 40 stab wounds to the head, neck, shoulder, arms and hands, according to the probable cause statement.
Juniper Blessing, 19, was found covered in blood in the laundry room of the Nordheim Court building on Sunday night, according to court documents.
The suspect, 31-year-old Christopher Leahy, surrendered to police on Wednesday and was booked for first-degree murder, documents said.
“Our family has been shattered,” Blessing’s family said in a statement released by the Human Rights Alliance. “Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known — highly intelligent, extremely talented, and deeply sensitive to the needs of others. Juniper’s loss not only devastates us but diminishes the world.”
“A gifted singer with a transcendent voice, Juniper was admitted to New Mexico School for the Arts, where they studied from 2020 until 2024,” the family said. “Weather was a love of Juniper’s since early childhood, and at the University of Washington they intended to study Atmospheric Science while continuing to study voice and pursuing minors in Music and Philosophy. They loved Seattle and Santa Fe, where they worked as an usher during summers at the Santa Fe Opera.”
“Juniper was courageously living their life as who they were until it was cut tragically short,” the family said.
According to court documents, another Nordeim Court resident told police that shortly before 10 p.m. Sunday, a man followed her when she used her card to access the building and laundry room.
She said the man told her he was waiting for his laundry. Surveillance video shows them in the laundry room and the suspect “appears to be visually searching the room for cameras,” court documents said, before he left the room.
A video from 10 p.m. shows Blessing in the laundry room, and the suspect “comes back into the laundry room and stares directly into the camera,” documents said.
The suspect “appears to follow the path of the cord with his eyes and head from the camera around the wall above the doorway,” documents said. “He then turns to exit the laundry room, something clatters to the ground and he pauses. He continues out of the laundry room at 10:00:27 p.m.”
“Blessing is seen cleaning the lint tray, appears to add more time to the dryer, then stands up and deposits the lint into the garbage at the end of the bank of dryers. … The video stops at 10:01:01 p.m.,” documents said.
Seattle police released the images of the suspect in the laundry room, documents said. A man named Patrick Leahy contacted police saying the suspect in the image was “without a doubt” his brother, Christopher Leahy, according to the documents, and a friend also reached out to police identifying Christopher Leahy as the man in the photo.
Christopher Leahy’s attorney called the Bellevue Police Department on Wednesday night to say he was turning himself in, documents said. Christopher Leahy came to the department with his parents and was taken into custody, the documents said.
Christopher Leahy made his first court appearance on Thursday and is due back in court on Monday, according to ABC Seattle affiliate KOMO. He has not entered a plea.
