Clergy groups in Minnesota are asking a federal judge to order ICE to allow in-person pastoral visits for immigrants held in a Minneapolis federal building. Judge Jerry Blackwell is to hear arguments Friday on access to the building in Minneapolis. Lutheran, United Church of Christ, and Catholic leaders say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has blocked clergy from providing sacraments and other spiritual care. They say the restrictions violate the Constitution and a federal religious freedom law. The government says the enforcement surge officially ended in February and restrictions have eased since. ICE calls the building a short-term holding facility, and not the kind of long-term detention center where more clergy visits are allowed.

The Vatican has released details of Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming four-nation Africa tour. The itinerary suggests Christian-Muslim relations, comforting victims of violence and encouraging the Catholic community in former European colonies will be key themes. The April 13-23 trip begins in Algeria, which has never before welcomed a pope. Leo stops in northwest Cameroon and will visit an important Marian shrine in Angola. He finishes the trip praying at a memorial to victims of a 2021 blast in Equatorial Guinea that killed more than 100 people and was blamed on negligence. Leo will also hold private talks with the four nations’ leaders, two of whom have been in power for decades.

A Palestinian woman who was the last person still in immigration detention after the Trump administration’s 2025 crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists has been released. Leqaa Kordia is a 33-year-old from the West Bank who has lived in New Jersey since 2016. She had been held in a U.S. immigration detention center in Texas since last March. Kordia was among roughly 100 people arrested outside Columbia University during protests at the school in 2024. She had twice been ordered released on bond by an immigration judge but the government has challenged those rulings. She was freed Monday after a judge earlier ordered her released on bond.

The man who opened fire in a classroom at Virginia’s Old Dominion University completed a drug treatment program that allowed him early release from federal prison, even though he was convicted of a terrorism charge that should have disqualified him from that benefit. Mohamed Bailor Jalloh was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2017 to providing material support to the Islamic State group. Prison records show he was released about 2½ years early. The federal Bureau of Prisons said Friday that Jalloh was released in 2024 because of a loophole in a legal provision that allows some inmates to shave time off their sentences by completing a substance abuse treatment program.

Eight people accused of antifa ties convicted on terrorism charges over shooting at a Texas immigration detention center.

Cuba’s government says it will release 51 people from prisons in an unexpected move. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the release in the upcoming days stems from a spirit of goodwill and close relations with the Vatican. The government did not identify who it would release, except to say that “all have served a significant part of their sentence and have maintained good conduct in prison.” In 2025, prominent dissident José Daniel Ferrer was part of a release that included more than 500 prisoners following talks with the Vatican. Ferrer left Cuba and is now in the United States. It wasn’t immediately known if any people set to be freed in the latest release are political prisoners.

Cuba says it will release 51 people from the island’s jails in an unexpected move.

The Israeli military says it is dropping charges against five soldiers who were accused of sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee in an encounter partially caught on camera. The army announced the decision at a time when time when much of the country’s attention is focused on the war with Iran. The leaked video of the abuse was aired last year by Israel’s Channel 12 and purported to show an incident in which the soldiers sodomized the Palestinian detainee from Gaza. Israel’s move to arrest the soldiers in 2024 prompted fury from hard-line ultranationalists. Members of Israel’s far-right government called the investigation into their conduct an affront to their service.

Israeli military drops charges against soldiers accused of sexually abusing Palestinian detainee in notorious prison.

Authorities say a Florida woman has been charged with attempted murder and other felonies over gunshots fired at Rihanna's Los Angeles home last weekend. District Attorney Nathan Hochman said that the singing superstar, her partner A$AP Rocky, and their three small children and her mother were all on the property at the time. Court records showed 35-year-old Ivanna Lisette Ortiz was charged Tuesday with one count of attempted murder as well as 10 counts of assault on a person with a semiautomatic firearm and other felonies. Ortiz appeared in court Tuesday as her public defender entered a not guilty plea for her but then withdrew it in favor of postponing arraignment until March 25. Bail was set at $1.8 million.