- OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma City Police Department has placed officers on leave after reports of an April Fools’ Day prank that sent squad cars in pursuit of a baby being thrown out of a car before the call was revealed as a hoax. Oklahoma City Police Capt. Valerie Littlejohn confirmed Monday that an […]
- NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A U.S. Army staff sergeant is trying to halt his wife’s deportation after she was detained inside a Louisiana military base where the couple was planning to live together just days after their wedding. The effort to remove the soldier’s wife, who was born in Honduras and remained in a federal […]
- WASHINGTON (AP) — In his news conference Monday, President Donald Trump threatened to blow up every bridge and power plant in Iran, action that would be so far-reaching that some experts in military law said it could constitute a war crime. The issue could turn on whether the power plants were legitimate military targets, whether […]
- WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States relied on dozens of aircraft, hundreds of personnel, secret CIA technology and a dose of subterfuge to rescue a two-man fighter jet crew downed deep inside Iran, a risky mission that President Donald Trump and his top defense aides detailed Monday. U.S. forces rescued the pilot within hours of […]
- By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON, April 6 (Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure that gave him and other state officials the power to designate groups as “terrorist organizations” and expel students who support them, with rights groups saying the law will chill free speech. The law empowers the state’s chief of […]
- Oklahoma City police officers placed on leave over April Fools’ Day 911 call to dispatchers
on April 7, 2026 at 12:18 amOKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma City Police Department has placed officers on leave after reports of an April Fools’ Day prank that sent squad cars in pursuit of a baby being thrown out of a car before the call was revealed as a hoax. Oklahoma City Police Capt. Valerie Littlejohn confirmed Monday that an internal investigation was ongoing but would not say how many officers were placed on administrative leave or provide details of the accusations. “We are aware of a reported pursuit involving some of our officers that included serious claims, which has since been determined to be false,” Littlejohn said in a statement. “We take this situation seriously and are committed to ensuring a thorough review is conducted.” The investigation followed published police radio audio from the night of April 1, reported by Oklahoma City television station KFOR and other stations, in which a dispatcher says that the “city just advised that the suspect threw a baby out the window.” “The police officer that’s in pursuit does not have a radio. He’s just messaging his location,” the dispatcher says. After a number of officers responded to the report, a dispatcher can later be heard saying: “It was an April Fools’ prank.” Another dispatcher says: “Not funny.” A message left Monday with the president of Oklahoma City police union president seeking comment on the incident was not immediately returned. Oklahoma law makes it misdemeanor crime to report “knowingly false information which could result in the dispatch of emergency services from any public agency.” Punishment is a fine of up to $500 and an assessment for any costs associated with dispatching emergency personnel. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
- US soldier trying to halt wife’s deportation after she was detained on Louisiana military base
on April 6, 2026 at 11:18 pmNEW ORLEANS (AP) — A U.S. Army staff sergeant is trying to halt his wife’s deportation after she was detained inside a Louisiana military base where the couple was planning to live together just days after their wedding. The effort to remove the soldier’s wife, who was born in Honduras and remained in a federal immigration detention center Monday, has drawn backlash from military family advocates who called the detention demoralizing in a time of war and warned that deporting spouses could undermine recruitment. Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank said he brought his wife, Annie Ramos, 22, to his base in Fort Polk, Louisiana, last Thursday so that she could begin the process to receive military benefits and take steps toward a green card. The couple married in March. Federal immigration agents detained Ramos as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, which legal experts say has dispensed with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s practice of leniency toward families of military members. “I never imagined that trying to do the right thing would lead to her being taken away from me,” said Blank, 23, in a statement to The Associated Press. “What was supposed to be the happiest week of our lives has turned into one of the hardest.” Ramos’ detention was first reported by The New York Times. Ramos entered the U.S. in 2005, when she was younger than 2 years old. That same year, her family failed to appear for an immigration hearing, leading a judge to issue a final order of removal, according to DHS. “She has no legal status to be in this country,” DHS said in an emailed statement. “This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.” In 2020, Ramos applied to receive Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA, but her husband says her application has remained “in limbo” amid legal fights to end the Obama-era program. Last April, DHS eliminated a 2022 policy that considered military service of an immediate family member to be a “significant mitigating factor” in deciding whether or not to pursue immigration enforcement. The administration’s new policy states that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.” Prior to the Trump administration’s mass deportation push, DHS generally allowed the spouses of active-duty military members to gain legal status through policies like parole in place and deferred action that military recruiters promote, according to Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert. Ramos’ case would have been easy to resolve in the past, Stock said, but instead DHS now appears to be focusing on detaining members of military families whenever the opportunity arises — including when, like Ramos, they are attempting to apply for legal status. “It doesn’t make any sense — they’re going to get arrested for following the law? That’s stupid,” Stock said. “It’s bad for morale, it disrupts the soldiers’ readiness.” In September, more than 60 members of Congress wrote to DHS and the U.S. Department of Defense warning that arrests of military personnel and veteran’s family members was “betraying its promises to service members who play a key role in protecting U.S. national security.” The Pentagon declined to comment. Lydiah Owiti-Otienoh, who runs an advocacy group called the Foreign-Born Military Spouse Network, said she’s anecdotally seen an increase in cases where the lives of military families have been upended by tightening immigration restrictions. She believes the federal government is undermining its own interests by attempting to deport military spouses. “It just sends a really bad message — we don’t care about you, about your spouses, anything you are doing,” Owiti-Otienoh said. “If military families are not stable, national security is not stable.” Blank’s mother, Jen Rickling, told the AP in a statement that her daughter-in-law, a Sunday school teacher and biochemistry major, had been everything she hoped for — someone who “loves my son with her whole heart.” “We absolutely adore her,” Rickling said. “I believe in this country. And I believe we can do better than this — for Annie, for other military families, and for the values we hold dear.” Blank says he had been eager to start building a life and with Ramos on the base while he served his country. “I want my wife home,” Blank said. “And I will not stop fighting until she is back where she belongs, by my side.” ___ Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
- Trump’s threatened destruction of Iran’s power plants could be considered a war crime, experts say
on April 6, 2026 at 11:18 pmWASHINGTON (AP) — In his news conference Monday, President Donald Trump threatened to blow up every bridge and power plant in Iran, action that would be so far-reaching that some experts in military law said it could constitute a war crime. The issue could turn on whether the power plants were legitimate military targets, whether the attacks were proportional compared with what Iran has done and whether civilian casualties were minimized. Trump’s threat was so broad it did not seem to account for the harm to civilians, prompting Democrats in Congress, some United Nations officials and scholars in military law to say such strikes would violate international law. The president’s eventual actions often fall short of his all-encompassing rhetoric in the moment, but his warnings about the power plants and bridges were unambiguous both on Sunday and Monday as he set a deadline of Tuesday night for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday warned that attacking such infrastructure is banned under international law. “Even if specific civilian infrastructure were to qualify as a military objective,” Stephane Dujarric said, an attack would still be prohibited if it risks “excessive incidental civilian harm.” Rachel VanLandingham, a Southwestern Law School professor who served as a judge advocate general in the U.S. Air Force, said civilians are likely to die if power is cut to hospitals and water treatment plans. “What Trump is saying is, ‘We don’t care about precision, we don’t care about impact on civilians, we’re just going to take out all of Iranian power generating capacity,’” the retired lieutenant colonel said. Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows, has been all but halted, sending oil prices soaring and roiling the stock market. Trump said Monday that he’s “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes as he continues to threaten destruction. He also warned that every power plant will be “burning, exploding and never to be used again.” “I hope I don’t have to do it,” Trump added. When asked for further comment Monday, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said “the Iranian people welcome the sound of bombs because it means their oppressors are losing.” “The Iranian regime has committed egregious human rights abuses against its own citizens for 47 years, just murdered tens of thousands of protestors in January, and has indiscriminately targeted civilians across the region in order to cause as much death as possible throughout this conflict,” Kelly wrote in an email. As the conflict has entered its second month, Trump has escalated his warnings to bomb Iran’s infrastructure, including Kharg Island, central to Iran’s oil industry, and desalination plans that provide drinking water. In a Truth Social post on March 30, Trump warned that the U.S. would obliterate “all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’“ On Easter Sunday, Trump threatened in an expletive-laden post that Iran will face “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one,” while adding that “you’ll be living in Hell” unless the strait reopens. “This strikes me as clearly a threat of unlawful action,” said Michael Schmitt, a professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College and an international law professor at the University of Reading in Britain. A power facility can be attacked under the laws of armed conflict if it provides electricity to a military base in addition to civilians, Schmitt said. But the strike must not “cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population, and you’ve done everything to minimize that harm.” Harm does not include inconvenience or fear, said Schmitt, who has taught military commanders. But it does mean severe mental suffering, physical injury or illness. Schmitt said military commanders should consider alternatives, such as targeting a substation or transmission lines that feed electricity to a base, before destroying an entire power plant. “If you look at the operation and you’ve got a valid military objective, but it’s going to cause harm to civilians and you go, ‘Whoa, that’s a lot,’ then you should stop,” Schmitt said. “If you hesitate to take the shot, don’t take the shot.” Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said Monday that Trump is “absolutely not” threatening a war crime when he said he might bomb civilian infrastructure. The infrastructure is also used by the military, Ernst said, and “it’s an ongoing operation.“ “If he needs leverage, he’s using that leverage,” she said while presiding over a brief pro forma session of the Senate. But Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, also in the Capitol for the brief session, said it would be a “textbook war crime.” “If you target civilian infrastructure for the purposes the president was talking about, it clearly is a war crime,” Van Hollen said. Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said the question of whether attacks on civilian infrastructure would be considered war crimes would have to be decided by a court. However, Katherine Thompson, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said any accountability would more likely come from Congress. She said thinking otherwise would mean believing that the U.S. would allow its president to be held accountable by foreign entities. “This is the persnickety, inconvenient truth about international law: It only works if sovereign nations are willing to cede their sovereignty to a foreign body for accountability,” she said. But Congress would have to say the president has gone too far. And then both houses would have to take action and with enough support to overcome a presidential veto, a highly unlikely prospect. Trump also appears to have broad legal immunity under the Supreme Court’s ruling in the criminal case before his reelection, said VanLandingham. And the president could also grant preemptive pardons to top officials if needed. Even if technically justified under the law of war, strikes that bring harm to civilians could backfire for the U.S. long term, VanLandingham said. “There’s a lot of violence that can still be justified as lawful, but lawful can still be awful,” VanLandingham said. “How far did that get us in Iraq? How far did that get us in Afghanistan? How far did that get us in Vietnam?” Trump’s rhetoric risks spreading fear among regular Iranians and communicating that the U.S. isn’t worried about their well-being, VanLandingham said. The country’s leaders could use it as propaganda to create and harden opposition, contributing to a longer, tougher war. ___ Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Edith M. Lederer in New York and Mary Clare Jalonick and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
- Risky rescue of US crew downed in Iran relied on dozens of aircraft and subterfuge, Trump says
on April 6, 2026 at 10:18 pmWASHINGTON (AP) — The United States relied on dozens of aircraft, hundreds of personnel, secret CIA technology and a dose of subterfuge to rescue a two-man fighter jet crew downed deep inside Iran, a risky mission that President Donald Trump and his top defense aides detailed Monday. U.S. forces rescued the pilot within hours of the F-15E Strike Eagle going down late Thursday, surging helicopters, midair refuelers and fighter aircraft deep into Iran after confirming his location, Trump said in a valedictory news conference at the White House, describing the military operation in an unusual level of detail. The second aviator aboard the aircraft — the weapons systems officer — was rescued nearly two days later. Trump boasted of the military resources surged and coordination across U.S. agencies to pull off the daring mission to recover the troops in enemy territory, describing the shootdown of the jet by Iran as “a lucky hit” after claiming in a national address last week to have “beaten and completely decimated Iran.” The search and rescue operation began in daylight over Iran, with helicopters and other aircraft flying low for seven hours, “at times facing very, very heavy enemy fire,” Trump said. An A-10 Warthog, which was the attack aircraft primarily responsible for keeping in contact with the downed F-15 pilot on the ground, was hit by enemy fire while engaging Iranian forces, said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The A-10 was “not landable,” Caine told reporters, but the pilot continued fighting before flying to a friendly country and ejecting. He was quickly rescued and is doing fine. After rescuing the F-15 pilot, HH-60 Jolly Green II helicopters were “engaged by every single person in Iran who had a small-arms weapon, and one of the aircraft, the trailing aircraft, took several hits,” he said. The crew members received minor injuries and were going to be OK, Caine said. The rescue of the fighter jet pilot, who was flying under the call sign Dude-44 Alpha, occurred before the Iranians could marshal a comprehensive search of their own, but finding and bringing home the weapon systems officer was an even more complicated endeavor. An anchor on a channel affiliated with Iranian state television had been urging residents in the mountainous region of southwest Iran where the fighter jet went down to hand over any “enemy pilot” to police and promised a reward for anyone who did. The weapon systems officer, who rode in the backseat of the F-15 under the call sign Dude-44 Bravo, was injured but followed his training to get as far from the crash site as possible. “Bleeding profusely,” in Trump’s telling, the aviator managed to climb mountainous terrain and call for help Saturday using “a very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus.” When a plane crashes in hostile territory, “they all head right to that site, you want to be as far away as you can,” Trump said. CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the spy agency used “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service” possesses to locate the aviator. At the same time, the CIA mounted a deception operation to mislead Iranians who also were trying to find him. Ratcliffe said the search and rescue operation was “comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.” The CIA declined to respond to questions Monday about the kind of technology used to find the airman, but Trump colored in some details. He said intelligence officials noticed something moving in the dead of night, in the mountains where they were surveilling. Trump said officials kept a camera on the moving object for 45 minutes and when it was no longer moving, they thought maybe they had it wrong. But “it was the head of a human being,” the president said. “And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot, stood up, and they said, ‘We have him.’” He added, “And that was really at the beginning of something incredible.” Protected by an “air armada” of drones, strike aircraft and more, rescuers moved in on Sunday. Cargo planes flew in three small helicopters and assembled them near the patch of mountains where the missing airman was concealing himself inside a cave or crevice. But when it came time to leave, the cargo planes were too weighed down by equipment and personnel to take off from the sandy terrain. The downed airman and his rescue team were picked up by three “lighter, faster aircraft” and the equipment on the ground was blown up to keep it out of Iranian hands, Trump said. Many of the dozens of aircraft that were part of the operation were there for deception, Trump said. “We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge,” Trump said. “We wanted to have them think he was in a different location.” Back in Washington, national security officials coordinated on a call, keeping the phone line open for nearly two days straight. “From the moment our pilots went down, our mission was unblinking,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. “The call never dropped. The meeting never stopped, the planning never ceased.” As Trump detailed the operation, his penchant for boasting and flair for dramatic imagery bumped up against some of his aides’ instinct to protect military and intelligence secrets. At one point, Trump turned to Caine, his top military adviser, and asked, “How many men did you send altogether, approximately, for the operation?” Caine equivocated, responding, “Uhhh, I’d love to keep that a secret, Mr. President.” “OK, well, we are,” Trump continued. “But I will tell you — the number, I’ll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds.” ___ Cooper reported from Phoenix, and Amiri from New York. Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
- Florida governor signs ‘terrorist’ designation law, raises free speech and due process concerns
on April 6, 2026 at 10:10 pmBy Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON, April 6 (Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure that gave him and other state officials the power to designate groups as “terrorist organizations” and expel students who support them, with rights groups saying the law will chill free speech. The law empowers the state’s chief of domestic security, governor and cabinet to designate any organization they determine engages in extremist acts as a “terrorist organization.” After such a designation, the group can be forcibly dissolved and face a freeze on state funding, according to the legislation. It also says that students shall be expelled from their institution if they “promoted a domestic terrorist organization or a foreign terrorist organization.” DeSantis, a Republican, signed the law on Monday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the country’s most prominent Muslim rights groups, called the law “draconian” and unconstitutional in a Monday statement. Late last year, DeSantis signed an executive order designating CAIR as a “foreign terrorist organization.” CAIR sued over the designation and a judge eventually blocked the order. Free speech group PEN America says the measure signed by DeSantis “could chill free speech by placing unprecedented pressure on individuals to avoid speaking, organizing, or engaging with certain viewpoints.” In November, Texas also designated CAIR as a “terrorist organization,” alleging the rights group had ties to extremists. CAIR sued over that designation as well and dismissed the claims. Darryl Li, a legal scholar at the University of Chicago, and Shirin Sinnar, a professor of law at Stanford Law School, said in a joint piece in February that efforts by Texas and Florida towards such designations “could lay the groundwork for even more sweeping forms of authoritarianism.” Republican President Donald Trump’s administration and some Republican-governed states have cracked down against left-leaning organizations and pro-Palestinian groups that they cast as extremist, antisemitic and anti-American. Those groups dismiss the allegations and say the crackdown violates free speech and due process. They also say that those states and the Trump administration conflate pro-Palestinian advocacy with support for extremism, and criticism of U.S. ally Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism. Trump’s attempts to deport some protesters and freeze funds for universities where protests were held have faced judicial roadblocks. PEN America Florida Director William Johnson said the Florida legislation “opens the door for Florida students to face punishment for constitutionally protected speech.” DeSantis cast the legislation as a framework to combat extremism and have accountability in the education system. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
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