Bill named after Laken Riley is first to be passed in US House this year

WASHINGTON — The first bill approved by the U.S. House this year is named after the nursing student killed on University of Georgia’s campus last year.

The Laken Riley Act would allow law enforcement agencies to detain and begin deportation procedures for unauthorized immigrants accused of theft or burglary. Current law only allows this for people charged with violent crimes like rape or murder.

The measure was approved on the House floor Tuesday by a bipartisan vote of 264-159, which included U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath and 47 other Democrats. McBath, a Marietta Democrat considered a potential candidate for Georgia governor in 2026, did not immediately say why she decided to support the bill. Her office did not respond to an email and text messages seeking comment.

Riley, 22, was found dead Feb. 22 in a wooded area near the University of Georgia’s intramural fields after she went out for a morning jog.

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Idaho lawmakers move to restore ‘natural definition’ of marriage, bring back same-sex ban

BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho House committee will consider a formal statement asking the U.S. Supreme Court to end same-sex marriage nationwide and allow the state to restore its ban on such unions.

State Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, proposed the measure that calls the 2015 decision from the nation’s highest court to legalize same-sex marriage an “illegitimate overreach.” It asked the court to reinstate the “natural definition of marriage” — between one man and one woman.

The court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges was a landmark decision that allowed gay couples to wed across the country, even in states that still banned unions of people from the same gender. The ruling also was widely recognized as a turning point in Americans’ views on same-sex marriage, which have become much more favorable over the last two decades, according to national polling from the Pew Research Center.

But the Supreme Court’s decision came by a 5-4 vote, and three new conservative justices have since been appointed by Republican President Donald Trump, shifting the court to the right. Two of the court’s most hard-line conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, have previously written that the Obergefell decision should be reconsidered.

—Idaho Statesman

2 found dead in JetBlue landing gear at Fort Lauderdale airport. Expert says they likely froze to death

MIAMI — Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport became the site of a grim discovery late Monday night when two people were found dead in the landing gear of a JetBlue carrier that had arrived from New York, according to officials.

Deputies from the Airport District responded to the call around 11:30 p.m. Paramedics from Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue also arrived on the scene, where both individuals were pronounced dead, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

The circumstances surrounding the bodies remain unclear. BSO’s Homicide and Crime Scene units are actively investigating, working to piece together how the two wound up in the aircraft’s landing gear compartment, which holds the wheels for takeoff and landing.

“This information should be considered preliminary, and as with any developing situation, the details may change,” BSO said in a press release on Tuesday.

—Miami Herald

Jean-Marie Le Pen, architect of France’s far right, dies at 96

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s National Front who ran for president five times and lived to see his anti-immigrant rhetoric go mainstream, has died. He was 96.

Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally, the successor party to the National Front, confirmed his death on X. Le Pen died in Garches, France, after having been admitted to a care facility several weeks ago, according to the news service AFP, citing a statement from his family.

Le Pen stunned the world when he made it to the runoffs of the presidential election in 2002, 30 years after establishing the National Front. By the time he passed the party leadership to his daughter, Marine Le Pen, in 2011, it was one of France’s largest political movements based on the popular vote, a position it has maintained ever since.

Jean-Marie Le Pen courted controversy throughout his career, from street brawls with leftists in his youth to comments seen as downplaying the Holocaust or insulting Arabs, for which he was convicted several times in French and European courts.

—Bloomberg News