Oregon
Judge limits federal officers’ tear gas use at Portland ICE building protests
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Oregon on Monday restricted federal officers from using tear gas at protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists.
U.S. District Judge Michael Simon issued the preliminary injunction after a three-day hearing in which the plaintiffs — including a demonstrator known for wearing a chicken costume, a married couple in their 80s and two freelance journalists — testified about having chemical or projectile munitions used against them.
The lawsuit, whose defendants include the Department of Homeland Security, argues that federal officers’ use of such munitions is a retaliation against protesters that chills their First Amendment rights.
“Plaintiffs provided numerous videos, which were received in evidence and unambiguously show DHS officers spraying OC Spray directly into the faces of peaceful and nonviolent protesters engaged in, at most, passive resistance and discharging tear gas and firing pepper-ball munitions into crowds of peaceful and nonviolent protestors,” Simon wrote, using the term OC Spray to refer to pepper spray.
“Defendants’ conduct — physically harming protestors and journalists without prior dispersal warnings — is objectively chilling.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In previous statements, it said federal officers followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary.
Simon had previously issued a temporary restraining order similarly limiting federal agents from using chemical munitions during protests at the ICE building. His preliminary injunction is the second in recent days restricting agents’ tear gas use at the facility, following that of a federal judge overseeing a separate case brought by the residents of an adjacent affordable housing complex.
Federal officers’ aggressive crowd-control tactics are causing concern as demonstrators in cities across the country have protested the immigration enforcement surge spearheaded by President Donald Trump’s administration.
In his Monday order, Simon limited federal agents from using chemical or projectile munitions such as pepper balls and tear gas unless someone poses an imminent threat of physical harm. He also ordered agents not to fire munitions at the head, neck or torso “unless the officer is legally justified in using deadly force against that person.”
Additionally, officers cannot use pepper spray against a group in an indiscriminate way that would affect bystanders; they must only target people who are engaging in violent unlawful conduct or actively resisting arrest, or use it “as reasonably necessary in a defensive capacity,” Simon wrote. He specified that trespassing, refusing to move and refusing to obey an order to disperse are acts of passive, not active, resistance.
Simon also granted provisional class certification, which means his order covers a broader group of all those who have peacefully protested or reported on demonstrations at the ICE building in recent months.
The preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the lawsuit proceeds.
Ohio
Judge pauses state’s plan to fund new Browns stadium with unclaimed funds
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s plan to use unclaimed funds to help fund construction of a new domed stadium for the Cleveland Browns was temporarily blocked in court on Monday.
In her preliminary injunction, Franklin County Magistrate Jennifer Hunt found that plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann are substantially likely to win their case on the merits. Her order pauses the plan while the case is heard.
The class-action lawsuit argues that provisions of Ohio’s two-year, $60 billion budget that took $1 billion from the state’s Unclaimed Funds Account to pay for the stadium that Haslam Sports Group is planning for suburban Brook Park, south of Cleveland, violate constitutional prohibitions against taking people’s private property for government use, as well as citizens’ due process rights.
The strategy was among several hotly debated topics during Ohio’s budget planning last year.
Dann and former state Rep. Jeffrey Crossman, both Democrats, filed the legal action on behalf of three named Ohio residents, as well as all other individuals whose unclaimed funds were being held by the state as of June 30, 2025.
The litigation challenges specific budget provisions that diverted more than $1 billion in unclaimed funds to create an Ohio Cultural and Sports Facility Performance Grant Fund and designate $600 million for the Browns as its first grant.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office said it was reviewing the decision and determining next steps.
Before ending his bid for governor last year, the Republican spoke out against using unclaimed funds for such a purpose, having gone so far as to urge DeWine to veto it. However, the state’s top lawyer has further said that he believed the plan was legally sound.
Washington
Virginia boater sues water utility for the Potomac River sewage spill
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Virginia boater is suing a Washington water utility for negligence in the collapse of a pipe that leaked millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River.
The class action lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, comes weeks after a January sewage pipe collapse, shooting wastewater out of the ground and into the river in an area just north of Washington, D.C. The spill is seen as a serious environmental blight and became the focus of political bickering between President Donald Trump and Democratic-led Maryland, where the leak occurred.
Dr. Nicholas Lailas, M.D., the plaintiff, is a Virginia resident and recreational boat user on the Potomac who is seeking compensation for people “whose property interests in and use and enjoyment of the Potomac River ... have been impaired by Defendant’s conduct.”
The lawsuit alleges that it was DC Water’s responsibility as the owner and operator of the ruptured pipe, known as the Potomac Interceptor, to maintain it in a “reasonably safe condition and to prevent foreseeable harm to persons and property.”
The lawsuit said that preliminary data indicates that there are thousands of people who own property or vessels in the affected parts of the Potomac.
Andrew Levetown, an attorney for the plaintiff, said in an interview Monday that it will take time to get the full breadth of the class, with business owners, property owners and recreational users all having interest in the potential damages caused by the Jan. 19 collapse and leak.
“You’re going to have businesses who lose business because instead of sitting next to the Potomac, their clients are sitting next to the open sewer,” he said.
The suit did not specify a damage amount. DC Water spokesperson John Lisle said in a statement that the collapse of the Potomac Interceptor was “a serious and unexpected event, and our teams remain focused on the response, environmental protection, and restoration efforts. Because this matter is currently subject to ongoing litigation, it would not be appropriate for us to comment further at this time.”
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser declared an emergency Feb. 18 and requested that President Donald Trump provide federal resources to help the city fight the leak that dumped 250 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River in its early stages. The president approved the emergency assistance days later to help the city address the emergency.
DC Water said it knew the pipe, first installed in the 1960s, was deteriorating, and rehabilitation work on a section about a quarter-mile (400 meters) from the break began in September and was recently completed. The pipe that ruptured was scheduled for repair this summer.
DC Water’s updates say the emergency repairs are beyond the halfway point and there are no flows into the river.
At a public briefing last week, officials with the utility said they were assessing the cause of the rupture, including whether the way the pipeline was initially constructed contributed to the emergency. David Gadis, the CEO of DC Water, said at that briefing that while it was too early to say definitively, “we are seeing indication that this incident may have been highly unusual.”
Georgia
No new trial for man convicted of killing nursing student Laken Riley
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has rejected a request for a new trial for a Venezuelan man convicted of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration.
Lawyers for Jose Ibarra argued his constitutional rights were violated when the judge declined two defense motions before trial. One was a request to delay the trial to give an expert witness time to review and analyze DNA data. The other would have excluded some cellphone evidence.
Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who presided over the trial, wrote in an order Monday that the evidence of Ibarra’s guilt presented by the state was “overwhelming and powerful.” After Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial, Haggard found him guilty of murder and other charges during the November 2024 trial and sentenced him to life in prison.
Attorneys for Ibarra did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment on the judge’s denial of the motion for a new trial. Ibarra has 30 days to file a notice of appeal.
Ibarra, 28, had entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was allowed to stay while he pursued his immigration case.
Prosecutors said Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Feb. 22, 2024, and killed her during a struggle. Riley was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Atlanta.
Ibarra’s trial attorneys had asked the judge to delay the trial after a DNA expert said she would need six weeks to review evidence analyzed using TrueAllele Casework, software used to interpret DNA and assist the defense. The judge wrote in his order Monday that Ibarra’s lawyers “effectively challenged the TrueAllele DNA evidence at trial” and concluded that Ibarra was not harmed by the denial of a delay.
The DNA expert testified during a January hearing on the motion for a new trial, and the judge wrote that he did not find her opinion to be persuasive or credible and that it would not have changed the trial outcome.
Ibarra’s attorneys also had challenged the seizure of two cellphones from his apartment, saying they were not listed on the search warrant, and sought to exclude evidence pulled from them. Haggard wrote that there were “exigent circumstances authorizing the seizure of the cellphones” and that the phones were not searched until after warrants were issued authorizing the search of the contents of the phones.
Judge limits federal officers’ tear gas use at Portland ICE building protests
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Oregon on Monday restricted federal officers from using tear gas at protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists.
U.S. District Judge Michael Simon issued the preliminary injunction after a three-day hearing in which the plaintiffs — including a demonstrator known for wearing a chicken costume, a married couple in their 80s and two freelance journalists — testified about having chemical or projectile munitions used against them.
The lawsuit, whose defendants include the Department of Homeland Security, argues that federal officers’ use of such munitions is a retaliation against protesters that chills their First Amendment rights.
“Plaintiffs provided numerous videos, which were received in evidence and unambiguously show DHS officers spraying OC Spray directly into the faces of peaceful and nonviolent protesters engaged in, at most, passive resistance and discharging tear gas and firing pepper-ball munitions into crowds of peaceful and nonviolent protestors,” Simon wrote, using the term OC Spray to refer to pepper spray.
“Defendants’ conduct — physically harming protestors and journalists without prior dispersal warnings — is objectively chilling.”
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In previous statements, it said federal officers followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary.
Simon had previously issued a temporary restraining order similarly limiting federal agents from using chemical munitions during protests at the ICE building. His preliminary injunction is the second in recent days restricting agents’ tear gas use at the facility, following that of a federal judge overseeing a separate case brought by the residents of an adjacent affordable housing complex.
Federal officers’ aggressive crowd-control tactics are causing concern as demonstrators in cities across the country have protested the immigration enforcement surge spearheaded by President Donald Trump’s administration.
In his Monday order, Simon limited federal agents from using chemical or projectile munitions such as pepper balls and tear gas unless someone poses an imminent threat of physical harm. He also ordered agents not to fire munitions at the head, neck or torso “unless the officer is legally justified in using deadly force against that person.”
Additionally, officers cannot use pepper spray against a group in an indiscriminate way that would affect bystanders; they must only target people who are engaging in violent unlawful conduct or actively resisting arrest, or use it “as reasonably necessary in a defensive capacity,” Simon wrote. He specified that trespassing, refusing to move and refusing to obey an order to disperse are acts of passive, not active, resistance.
Simon also granted provisional class certification, which means his order covers a broader group of all those who have peacefully protested or reported on demonstrations at the ICE building in recent months.
The preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the lawsuit proceeds.
Ohio
Judge pauses state’s plan to fund new Browns stadium with unclaimed funds
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s plan to use unclaimed funds to help fund construction of a new domed stadium for the Cleveland Browns was temporarily blocked in court on Monday.
In her preliminary injunction, Franklin County Magistrate Jennifer Hunt found that plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann are substantially likely to win their case on the merits. Her order pauses the plan while the case is heard.
The class-action lawsuit argues that provisions of Ohio’s two-year, $60 billion budget that took $1 billion from the state’s Unclaimed Funds Account to pay for the stadium that Haslam Sports Group is planning for suburban Brook Park, south of Cleveland, violate constitutional prohibitions against taking people’s private property for government use, as well as citizens’ due process rights.
The strategy was among several hotly debated topics during Ohio’s budget planning last year.
Dann and former state Rep. Jeffrey Crossman, both Democrats, filed the legal action on behalf of three named Ohio residents, as well as all other individuals whose unclaimed funds were being held by the state as of June 30, 2025.
The litigation challenges specific budget provisions that diverted more than $1 billion in unclaimed funds to create an Ohio Cultural and Sports Facility Performance Grant Fund and designate $600 million for the Browns as its first grant.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office said it was reviewing the decision and determining next steps.
Before ending his bid for governor last year, the Republican spoke out against using unclaimed funds for such a purpose, having gone so far as to urge DeWine to veto it. However, the state’s top lawyer has further said that he believed the plan was legally sound.
Washington
Virginia boater sues water utility for the Potomac River sewage spill
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Virginia boater is suing a Washington water utility for negligence in the collapse of a pipe that leaked millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River.
The class action lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, comes weeks after a January sewage pipe collapse, shooting wastewater out of the ground and into the river in an area just north of Washington, D.C. The spill is seen as a serious environmental blight and became the focus of political bickering between President Donald Trump and Democratic-led Maryland, where the leak occurred.
Dr. Nicholas Lailas, M.D., the plaintiff, is a Virginia resident and recreational boat user on the Potomac who is seeking compensation for people “whose property interests in and use and enjoyment of the Potomac River ... have been impaired by Defendant’s conduct.”
The lawsuit alleges that it was DC Water’s responsibility as the owner and operator of the ruptured pipe, known as the Potomac Interceptor, to maintain it in a “reasonably safe condition and to prevent foreseeable harm to persons and property.”
The lawsuit said that preliminary data indicates that there are thousands of people who own property or vessels in the affected parts of the Potomac.
Andrew Levetown, an attorney for the plaintiff, said in an interview Monday that it will take time to get the full breadth of the class, with business owners, property owners and recreational users all having interest in the potential damages caused by the Jan. 19 collapse and leak.
“You’re going to have businesses who lose business because instead of sitting next to the Potomac, their clients are sitting next to the open sewer,” he said.
The suit did not specify a damage amount. DC Water spokesperson John Lisle said in a statement that the collapse of the Potomac Interceptor was “a serious and unexpected event, and our teams remain focused on the response, environmental protection, and restoration efforts. Because this matter is currently subject to ongoing litigation, it would not be appropriate for us to comment further at this time.”
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser declared an emergency Feb. 18 and requested that President Donald Trump provide federal resources to help the city fight the leak that dumped 250 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River in its early stages. The president approved the emergency assistance days later to help the city address the emergency.
DC Water said it knew the pipe, first installed in the 1960s, was deteriorating, and rehabilitation work on a section about a quarter-mile (400 meters) from the break began in September and was recently completed. The pipe that ruptured was scheduled for repair this summer.
DC Water’s updates say the emergency repairs are beyond the halfway point and there are no flows into the river.
At a public briefing last week, officials with the utility said they were assessing the cause of the rupture, including whether the way the pipeline was initially constructed contributed to the emergency. David Gadis, the CEO of DC Water, said at that briefing that while it was too early to say definitively, “we are seeing indication that this incident may have been highly unusual.”
Georgia
No new trial for man convicted of killing nursing student Laken Riley
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has rejected a request for a new trial for a Venezuelan man convicted of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration.
Lawyers for Jose Ibarra argued his constitutional rights were violated when the judge declined two defense motions before trial. One was a request to delay the trial to give an expert witness time to review and analyze DNA data. The other would have excluded some cellphone evidence.
Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who presided over the trial, wrote in an order Monday that the evidence of Ibarra’s guilt presented by the state was “overwhelming and powerful.” After Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial, Haggard found him guilty of murder and other charges during the November 2024 trial and sentenced him to life in prison.
Attorneys for Ibarra did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment on the judge’s denial of the motion for a new trial. Ibarra has 30 days to file a notice of appeal.
Ibarra, 28, had entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was allowed to stay while he pursued his immigration case.
Prosecutors said Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Feb. 22, 2024, and killed her during a struggle. Riley was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Atlanta.
Ibarra’s trial attorneys had asked the judge to delay the trial after a DNA expert said she would need six weeks to review evidence analyzed using TrueAllele Casework, software used to interpret DNA and assist the defense. The judge wrote in his order Monday that Ibarra’s lawyers “effectively challenged the TrueAllele DNA evidence at trial” and concluded that Ibarra was not harmed by the denial of a delay.
The DNA expert testified during a January hearing on the motion for a new trial, and the judge wrote that he did not find her opinion to be persuasive or credible and that it would not have changed the trial outcome.
Ibarra’s attorneys also had challenged the seizure of two cellphones from his apartment, saying they were not listed on the search warrant, and sought to exclude evidence pulled from them. Haggard wrote that there were “exigent circumstances authorizing the seizure of the cellphones” and that the phones were not searched until after warrants were issued authorizing the search of the contents of the phones.
