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Cans used for Lost Boy cider in Alexandria, Virginia, cost the small business more because of increased aluminum tariffs. Tristan Wright, founder and president of Lost Boy, stands near his production line on Feb. 6, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Customs and Border Protection tariff refund system went live Monday, marking what small business advocates call a “complex” first step for entrepreneurs to recoup $166 billion in import taxes accrued under President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February.  Importers and brokers can now upload a detailed list of each tariff paid under Trump’s now illegal order to charge duties under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA.  Customs officials estimate 330,000 importers paid the duties. Refunds are expected within 60 to 90 days, according to CBP. The Supreme Court’s 6-3  decision earlier this year found Trump’s steep glob...

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images) A federal judge has temporarily blocked an Arkansas law set to take effect Tuesday that would have restricted minors’ social media access.  Tech industry trade group NetChoice in January filed a lawsuit challenging Act 900 of 2025 , which sought to amend a 2023 law found to be unconstitutional.  The earlier law and the reworked version would have required age verification to create new social media accounts. A federal judge declared the 2023 law unconstitutional and permanently blocked it last year .  In Monday’s 24-page ruling , U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks said NetChoice was likely to succeed on its vagueness challenge to a provision of the law prohibiting social media platforms from engaging in “addictive practices.” Tech industry group seeks to block reworked Arkansas social media law Brooks, who was nominated to by former President Barack Obama, said NetChoice was also likely to succeed on its First Amendment challeng...

Kaitlyn Joshua, co-founder of Abortion in America and a resident of Baton Rouge, La., said she feared many patients would go without care after Planned Parenthood closed its only Louisiana health centers in response to a new federal rule included in the broad tax and spending measure President Donald Trump signed last summer. (Photo by Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator) A controversial rule enacted last year that denies federal Medicaid funding to abortion providers is likely to expire this summer, despite anti-abortion pressure on Republicans to renew it. Leaders in Congress in recent days have insisted that a new federal spending bill needs to be as stripped down as possible and focused on funding related to immigration enforcement amid a two-month partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. They also have suggested the rule could still be revisited in future legislation, but likely not before the current budget measure expires on July 4. The legislation Congress ...

Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, reaches into his pocket on the floor of the Alabama Senate on March 31. 2026 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. Elliott last week said if elected governor, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville would send the National Guard into Montgomery. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) Montgomery reported 61 homicides last year. That was the same as in 2024, but fewer than the 73 that occurred in 2023. To state the obvious, one homicide is one too many. The 61 lives taken in the capital city last year matter as much as  the 88 in Birmingham , the  32 in Mobile and the  21 in Huntsville . But Republicans are singling out Montgomery, a majority-Black city, as the target for their wildest fears and fantasies. Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, recently  said he tries to get rooms on the top floor of a hotel when he travels to Montgomery. “I hope that when the random gunfire from the street erupts below, that the trajectory of the bullet t...

Members of the National Guard patrol the entrance to the Union Station stop on Washington, D.C.'s Metro system, on March 25, 2026. President Donald Trump was appearing at a GOP event at Union Station that night. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom) The National Guard’s top general told Congress on Friday that it would follow the Constitution and the law when he was asked about the possibility President Donald Trump would order troops to polling places for the midterm elections. The remarks at a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee hearing came as Democratic lawmakers also voiced unease over the  continuing deployment of nearly 2,500 National Guard members  in Washington, D.C. Rep. Joe Morelle, a New York Democrat, asked Gen. Steven Nordhaus, chief of the National Guard Bureau, what assurances he could provide to Americans concerned about the deployment of troops at the polls.  “The National Guard, obviously, always follows the Constitution, law, policy and g...

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, in March visits a wastewater treatment facility in the city of Social Circle that the city says would be overwhelmed by plans to convert a warehouse to house up to 10,000 immigration prisoners. The city locked the facility's water meter, forcing the Department of Homeland Security to consider trucking out sewage and bringing in water. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock) Some of the Trump administration’s controversial new warehouse immigration detention centers are getting scaled back and postponed as states and cities fight back and new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reviews actions taken by his ousted predecessor, Kristi Noem. Some states and cities have seen more communication and compromise as Mullin takes over and the Department of Homeland Security faces a continued funding shutdown that has reached 60 days. That includes discussions about a proposed Arizona detention center where DHS agreed to ...