Washington
Democratic lawmaker asks judge to take Trump’s name off Kennedy Center
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic lawmaker is asking a federal judge to force the Kennedy Center to block and reverse efforts to attach President Donald Trump’s name to the historic performing arts venue.
In a motion filed Wednesday, Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio argues that Congress was clear in its intent that the Kennedy Center is named for the late President John F. Kennedy — and no one else.
“Renaming the Kennedy Center for President Trump — without any authorization from Congress — undermines the Center’s raison d’être, and frustrates its purpose as the only memorial to President Kennedy in Washington, D.C.,” the motion argues.
Trump’s handpicked board of directors voted in December to rename the venue as the Trump-Kennedy Center, arguing the Republican president deserved the recognition for his efforts to renovate the institution, which was named for the Democratic president assassinated in 1963. But the move immediately drew protest from Democrats and some in the Kennedy family along with questions from scholars and historians about whether the move was legally permissible.
Beatty’s motion argues that lawmakers have made clear at various points throughout the Kennedy Center’s history that no other name should appear on the building.
“Congress was particularly sensitive that no other names appear on the Center’s exterior walls, other than the signage designating the institution as a memorial for President Kennedy,” according to the motion.
A day after the board’s December decision, Trump’s name was added to the Kennedy Center’s facade, an iconic part of Washington’s cityscape that rests on the banks of the Potomac River. The name change has also been reflected on the Kennedy Center’s website and social media channels.
“We are asking the court to enforce the law and reverse this illegal renaming,” said Beatty’s lawyers, Norm Eisen, a board member at Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky, senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group, in a statement. “This abuse of power is an attack on the rule of law and the memory of John Kennedy and cannot stand.”
A central part of the capital’s arts scene since it opened in 1971, the Kennedy Center is being closed by Trump this summer for a renovation that’s expected to last for about two years. That is the subject of a separate legal effort as a coalition of eight cultural and historic preservation groups is suing to block further physical changes to the Kennedy Center.
Through her position in Congress, Beatty is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that she could participate in a board meeting but didn’t force the board to allow her to vote on the closure.
Missouri
U.S. appeals court sides with Trump administration on detaining immigrants without bond
The U.S. can continue to detain immigrants without bond, an appeals court ruled on Wednesday, handing a victory to the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
The opinion from a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis overturned a lower court ruling that required that a native of Mexico arrested for lacking legal documents be given a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
It’s the second appeals court to rule in favor of the administration on this issue. The 5th Circuit in New Orleans ruled last month that the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested across the country was consistent with the Constitution and federal immigration law.
Both appeals court opinions counter recent lower court decisions across the country that argued the practice is illegal.
In November, a district court decision in California granted detained immigrants with no criminal history the opportunity to request a bond hearing and had implications for noncitizens held in detention nationwide.
Under past administrations, most noncitizens with no criminal record who were arrested away from the border had an opportunity to request a bond hearing while their cases wound through immigration court. Historically, bond was often granted to those without criminal convictions who were not flight risks, and mandatory detention was limited to recent border crossers.
In the case before the 8th Circuit, Joaquin Herrera Avila of Mexico was apprehended in Minneapolis in August 2025 for lacking legal documents authorizing his admission into the United States. The Department of Homeland Security detained Avila without bond and began deportation proceedings.
He filed a petition seeking immediate release or a bond hearing. A federal judge in Minnesota granted the petition, saying the law authorized detention without bond when a person seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to being admitted. The judge found this was not the case for Avila because he had lived in the country for years without seeking naturalization, asylum or refugee status and thus wasn’t “seeking admission.”
Circuit Court Judge Bobby E. Shepherd wrote for the majority in a 2-1 opinion that the law was “clear that an “applicant for admission” is also an alien who is “seeking admission,” and so Avila couldn’t petition on these grounds.
Circuit Court Judge Ralph R. Erickson dissented, saying that Avila would have been entitled to a bond hearing during his deportation hearings if he had been arrested during the past 29 years. Now, he wrote, the Circuit Court has ruled that Avila and millions of others would be subject to mandatory detention under a novel interpretation of “alien seeking admission” that hasn’t been used by the courts or five previous presidential administrations.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Avila, didn’t immediately return an email message seeking comment.
Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the ruling, writing in a social media post: “MASSIVE COURT VICTORY against activist judges and for President Trump’s law and order agenda!”
At question is the issue of whether the government is required to ask a neutral judge to determine whether it is legal to imprison someone.
It’s based on the habeas corpus, which is a Latin legal term referring to the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government.
Immigrants have filed more than 30,000 habeas corpus petitions in federal court alleging illegal detention since Trump took office, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Many have succeeded.
California
Woman pleads not guilty to attempted murder of Rihanna and to assaulting the superstar’s family
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman from Florida pleaded not guilty Wednesday to attempted murder of Rihanna, and a newly public police report revealed that the shots she is alleged to have fired from an AR-15 style rifle hit an Airstream trailer while the singing superstar and her partner A$AP Rocky were inside.
Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, of Orlando, who had no prior police record, also pleaded not guilty through her attorney to more than a dozen other felony counts in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Hours after her arrest on March 8, Ortiz told detectives she would not answer questions without a lawyer, but spoke up once, according to the Los Angeles police report made public in a court filing Tuesday.
“Can I say one sentence?” she said. “I would like to say that I wasn’t attempting murder. But that’s all I wanted to say.”
Police and prosecutors said that Ortiz, 35, pulled up in a white Tesla to the home Rihanna and Rocky share with their three young children in the Beverly Hills area, pointed the rifle out the window and sprayed at least 20 bullets toward the property and a neighboring home. No one was injured.
Rihanna told detectives in an interview that Rocky was sleeping in the rear of the trailer that was parked in the driveway next to the home’s garage and she was sitting at a window seat when she heard about 10 loud sounds like something banging on metal. She pulled back a curtain and saw bullet holes in the Airstream’s front window, according to the report. She pulled him out of bed and both of them got on the floor before running into the main house to check on the people inside, which included the kids, her mother, and staffers.
Rocky, identified in the report as “a famous rapper,” told police that Rihanna shouted that someone was shooting at them as she woke him.
Two bullets hit the double-paned window of the Airstream, but did not go through it, the police report said. A third appeared to have hit the trailer’s side.
A bullet hole was found on the exterior wall of the home’s second-floor nursery where the three kids were with their nanny. The nanny told police that she heard the shots but hadn’t believed they were gunfire initially.
Three bullet fragments were found in the home’s front porch area while at least 10 bullet holes were identified in the property’s gates and walls. Shots also hit a neighboring home.
Ortiz is charged with 10 counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, one for each of the people on the two properties. She’s also charged with three counts of shooting at an occupied vehicle or dwelling for the trailer and the two neighboring homes. She could get life in prison if convicted on all charges.
Ortiz appeared behind glass Wednesday in a custody area, wearing yellow jail clothes with her blond hair in braids. She spoke only to agree to waive her right to a speedy preliminary hearing, the next phase of the case where evidence is presented to determine whether a trial is warranted.
Her lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Derek Dillman, asked that her bail be reduced from $1.9 million to $70,000 based on her ability to pay. Judge Theresa McGonigle declined the request.
The prosecutor said she’s a major risk to the community and would likely flee if she made bail.
“This case involves a dangerous, deliberate shooting into occupied homes,” Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott said. “This is the kind of conduct that could easily have resulted in multiple homicides.”
When Ortiz was arrested hours after the shooting, she was alone in her car with the rifle, more rounds and a wig she was using as a disguise, Bott said.
Public records show Ortiz has been a licensed speech pathologist for more than a decade. McGonigle ruled that she should be prevented from practicing in California. The move came at the request of the state attorney general, whose motion included the police report, making it public.
Neither side spoke to reporters outside the courthouse.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman has declined to discuss a motive or describe any connection between Ortiz and Rihanna, saying all were under investigation. He also said his office was investigating social media posts from Ortiz from the days leading up to the gunfire.
A nine-time Grammy Award winner, Rihanna has 14 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “We Found Love,” “Work,” “Umbrella” and “Disturbia.” She founded the makeup brand Fenty Beauty in 2017.
She and A$AP Rocky announced the birth of their third child, a girl named Rocki Irish Mayers, in September. They also have sons ages 2 and 3.
Democratic lawmaker asks judge to take Trump’s name off Kennedy Center
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic lawmaker is asking a federal judge to force the Kennedy Center to block and reverse efforts to attach President Donald Trump’s name to the historic performing arts venue.
In a motion filed Wednesday, Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio argues that Congress was clear in its intent that the Kennedy Center is named for the late President John F. Kennedy — and no one else.
“Renaming the Kennedy Center for President Trump — without any authorization from Congress — undermines the Center’s raison d’être, and frustrates its purpose as the only memorial to President Kennedy in Washington, D.C.,” the motion argues.
Trump’s handpicked board of directors voted in December to rename the venue as the Trump-Kennedy Center, arguing the Republican president deserved the recognition for his efforts to renovate the institution, which was named for the Democratic president assassinated in 1963. But the move immediately drew protest from Democrats and some in the Kennedy family along with questions from scholars and historians about whether the move was legally permissible.
Beatty’s motion argues that lawmakers have made clear at various points throughout the Kennedy Center’s history that no other name should appear on the building.
“Congress was particularly sensitive that no other names appear on the Center’s exterior walls, other than the signage designating the institution as a memorial for President Kennedy,” according to the motion.
A day after the board’s December decision, Trump’s name was added to the Kennedy Center’s facade, an iconic part of Washington’s cityscape that rests on the banks of the Potomac River. The name change has also been reflected on the Kennedy Center’s website and social media channels.
“We are asking the court to enforce the law and reverse this illegal renaming,” said Beatty’s lawyers, Norm Eisen, a board member at Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky, senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group, in a statement. “This abuse of power is an attack on the rule of law and the memory of John Kennedy and cannot stand.”
A central part of the capital’s arts scene since it opened in 1971, the Kennedy Center is being closed by Trump this summer for a renovation that’s expected to last for about two years. That is the subject of a separate legal effort as a coalition of eight cultural and historic preservation groups is suing to block further physical changes to the Kennedy Center.
Through her position in Congress, Beatty is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that she could participate in a board meeting but didn’t force the board to allow her to vote on the closure.
Missouri
U.S. appeals court sides with Trump administration on detaining immigrants without bond
The U.S. can continue to detain immigrants without bond, an appeals court ruled on Wednesday, handing a victory to the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
The opinion from a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis overturned a lower court ruling that required that a native of Mexico arrested for lacking legal documents be given a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
It’s the second appeals court to rule in favor of the administration on this issue. The 5th Circuit in New Orleans ruled last month that the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to deny bond hearings to immigrants arrested across the country was consistent with the Constitution and federal immigration law.
Both appeals court opinions counter recent lower court decisions across the country that argued the practice is illegal.
In November, a district court decision in California granted detained immigrants with no criminal history the opportunity to request a bond hearing and had implications for noncitizens held in detention nationwide.
Under past administrations, most noncitizens with no criminal record who were arrested away from the border had an opportunity to request a bond hearing while their cases wound through immigration court. Historically, bond was often granted to those without criminal convictions who were not flight risks, and mandatory detention was limited to recent border crossers.
In the case before the 8th Circuit, Joaquin Herrera Avila of Mexico was apprehended in Minneapolis in August 2025 for lacking legal documents authorizing his admission into the United States. The Department of Homeland Security detained Avila without bond and began deportation proceedings.
He filed a petition seeking immediate release or a bond hearing. A federal judge in Minnesota granted the petition, saying the law authorized detention without bond when a person seeking admission is not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to being admitted. The judge found this was not the case for Avila because he had lived in the country for years without seeking naturalization, asylum or refugee status and thus wasn’t “seeking admission.”
Circuit Court Judge Bobby E. Shepherd wrote for the majority in a 2-1 opinion that the law was “clear that an “applicant for admission” is also an alien who is “seeking admission,” and so Avila couldn’t petition on these grounds.
Circuit Court Judge Ralph R. Erickson dissented, saying that Avila would have been entitled to a bond hearing during his deportation hearings if he had been arrested during the past 29 years. Now, he wrote, the Circuit Court has ruled that Avila and millions of others would be subject to mandatory detention under a novel interpretation of “alien seeking admission” that hasn’t been used by the courts or five previous presidential administrations.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Avila, didn’t immediately return an email message seeking comment.
Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the ruling, writing in a social media post: “MASSIVE COURT VICTORY against activist judges and for President Trump’s law and order agenda!”
At question is the issue of whether the government is required to ask a neutral judge to determine whether it is legal to imprison someone.
It’s based on the habeas corpus, which is a Latin legal term referring to the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government.
Immigrants have filed more than 30,000 habeas corpus petitions in federal court alleging illegal detention since Trump took office, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Many have succeeded.
California
Woman pleads not guilty to attempted murder of Rihanna and to assaulting the superstar’s family
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman from Florida pleaded not guilty Wednesday to attempted murder of Rihanna, and a newly public police report revealed that the shots she is alleged to have fired from an AR-15 style rifle hit an Airstream trailer while the singing superstar and her partner A$AP Rocky were inside.
Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, of Orlando, who had no prior police record, also pleaded not guilty through her attorney to more than a dozen other felony counts in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Hours after her arrest on March 8, Ortiz told detectives she would not answer questions without a lawyer, but spoke up once, according to the Los Angeles police report made public in a court filing Tuesday.
“Can I say one sentence?” she said. “I would like to say that I wasn’t attempting murder. But that’s all I wanted to say.”
Police and prosecutors said that Ortiz, 35, pulled up in a white Tesla to the home Rihanna and Rocky share with their three young children in the Beverly Hills area, pointed the rifle out the window and sprayed at least 20 bullets toward the property and a neighboring home. No one was injured.
Rihanna told detectives in an interview that Rocky was sleeping in the rear of the trailer that was parked in the driveway next to the home’s garage and she was sitting at a window seat when she heard about 10 loud sounds like something banging on metal. She pulled back a curtain and saw bullet holes in the Airstream’s front window, according to the report. She pulled him out of bed and both of them got on the floor before running into the main house to check on the people inside, which included the kids, her mother, and staffers.
Rocky, identified in the report as “a famous rapper,” told police that Rihanna shouted that someone was shooting at them as she woke him.
Two bullets hit the double-paned window of the Airstream, but did not go through it, the police report said. A third appeared to have hit the trailer’s side.
A bullet hole was found on the exterior wall of the home’s second-floor nursery where the three kids were with their nanny. The nanny told police that she heard the shots but hadn’t believed they were gunfire initially.
Three bullet fragments were found in the home’s front porch area while at least 10 bullet holes were identified in the property’s gates and walls. Shots also hit a neighboring home.
Ortiz is charged with 10 counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, one for each of the people on the two properties. She’s also charged with three counts of shooting at an occupied vehicle or dwelling for the trailer and the two neighboring homes. She could get life in prison if convicted on all charges.
Ortiz appeared behind glass Wednesday in a custody area, wearing yellow jail clothes with her blond hair in braids. She spoke only to agree to waive her right to a speedy preliminary hearing, the next phase of the case where evidence is presented to determine whether a trial is warranted.
Her lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Derek Dillman, asked that her bail be reduced from $1.9 million to $70,000 based on her ability to pay. Judge Theresa McGonigle declined the request.
The prosecutor said she’s a major risk to the community and would likely flee if she made bail.
“This case involves a dangerous, deliberate shooting into occupied homes,” Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott said. “This is the kind of conduct that could easily have resulted in multiple homicides.”
When Ortiz was arrested hours after the shooting, she was alone in her car with the rifle, more rounds and a wig she was using as a disguise, Bott said.
Public records show Ortiz has been a licensed speech pathologist for more than a decade. McGonigle ruled that she should be prevented from practicing in California. The move came at the request of the state attorney general, whose motion included the police report, making it public.
Neither side spoke to reporters outside the courthouse.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman has declined to discuss a motive or describe any connection between Ortiz and Rihanna, saying all were under investigation. He also said his office was investigating social media posts from Ortiz from the days leading up to the gunfire.
A nine-time Grammy Award winner, Rihanna has 14 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “We Found Love,” “Work,” “Umbrella” and “Disturbia.” She founded the makeup brand Fenty Beauty in 2017.
She and A$AP Rocky announced the birth of their third child, a girl named Rocki Irish Mayers, in September. They also have sons ages 2 and 3.
