The Justice Department has moved to dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Government lawyers said in a 20-page court filing Friday evening that information provided since the indictment of David Hearn shows that the damage was the result of a “flawed installation by the contractor” as well as “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.” Hearn’s lawyers say the case against him should never have been brought.

Migrant children who came to the U.S. alone could soon face immigration court without legal representation. The Trump administration is allowing a contract with legal service providers for these children to end. Friday marks the last day of the contract, which supports roughly 20,000 children. Providers warn that without lawyers, children are more likely to be deported. They say the government has withheld payments for over six months, demanding client information they can't ethically provide. The Health and Human Services Department, responsible for these children, didn't respond to requests for comment.

The parents of four teenagers who died by suicide are suing Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube. They claim the platforms caused “years of escalating harms” leading to their deaths. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Delaware. The Social Media Victims Law Center represents the families from Texas, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Tennessee. The teens reportedly suffered from social media addiction, sleep deprivation, depression, and anxiety. The complaint alleges the companies knew they were causing harm. Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and Snap face numerous lawsuits over harms to minors.

The last person known to have seen a Navajo elder alive has been arrested in an unrelated incident, raising questions about whether he will be sent back to federal prison. Preston Tolth is the only person ever charged and convicted in connection with the 2021 disappearance of Ella Mae Begay. He was released early from federal prison in June and was on supervised release at a transitional housing facility in Phoenix. According to court records, Phoenix police arrested him this week, and he faces a home burglary charge. Under the terms of his federal plea agreement, he is not to commit any additional crimes. Tolth's federal public defender didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday from The Associated Press.

A federal appeals court says the Trump administration cannot deny immigrants detained inside the United States a chance for release on bond. The 2-1 decision Thursday by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals deepens a split between federal appeals courts over the administration’s mandatory detention policy. Under previous administrations, most noncitizens without a criminal record who were arrested inside the U.S. were allowed to seek a bond hearing while their immigration cases were pending. Last July, immigration officials issued guidance expanding mandatory detention to immigrants in the U.S. interior. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement it was confident in its legal position regarding mandatory detention.

Bullets recovered from two bystanders killed during a shootout at a Seattle festival last weekend do not appear to have come from the gun that a 15-year-old arrested at the scene was firing, police said in court documents filed Wednesday. The King County prosecutor’s office filed charges of first-degree assault with a firearm enhancement as well as unlawful possession of a handgun by someone under 18. In a statement supporting the charges, police said the teen was seen firing an untraceable ghost gun into a crowd, but preliminary testing of bullets recovered from two bystanders killed showed they did not match that weapon. Shell casings found at the scene of Sunday’s shooting indicate four weapons were fired during the shootout.

A man has been convicted of federal terrorism charges in the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie. A jury delivered its verdict Wednesday in Buffalo, New York. Jurors found Hadi Matar guilty of all the charges against him, including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism. The 28-year-old had pleaded not guilty. Matar already is serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence on an attempted murder conviction in the August 2022 attack. Rushdie has faced a decades-old death threat over his novel “The Satanic Verses.”