Attorneys and volunteers with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project used to go into Vermont's prisons and meet with every immigration detainee, using their phones and computers for language interpretation, according to Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the organization.

But they say that access changed this fall after Jon Murad took over as interim commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections. Since then, attorneys with the organization said the department has made it harder to meet and work with their clients, citing language barriers and lack of meeting space.

Murad denies those claims and says he has merely enforced policies that predate his time as commissioner, cutting off practices that shouldn't have been allowed under his predecessor.

Federal immigration authorities use Vermont prisons to hold often more than a dozen immigration detainees at a time per a contract agreement with the federal government. Though detainees can be held in any Vermont prison, they're most commonly brought to two facilities: Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington and Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans Town.

As President Donald Trump has ramped up his mass deportation campaign, federal immigration authorities often swiftly shuffle people they detain around the country. And the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project has been the main organization routinely providing legal services to all immigration detainees in Vermont.

"I think it's really important to capitalize on this opportunity that Vermont can be where we disrupt this arrest-to-deportation pipeline that is happening across this country," said Hillary Rich, an attorney at the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The issue has raised the eyebrows of legislators focused on the state's prison system and prompted them to write the Corrections Department a memo directing its officials to develop a memorandum of understanding with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project to guarantee cooperation between the organization and the department.

A judge has rejected a request for a new trial for a Venezuelan man convicted of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration.

Lawyers for Jose Ibarra argued his constitutional rights were violated when the judge declined two defense motions before trial. One was a request to delay the trial to give an expert witness time to review and analyze DNA data. The other would have excluded some cellphone evidence.

Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who presided over the trial, wrote in an order Monday that the evidence of Ibarra's guilt presented by the state was "overwhelming and powerful." After Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial, Haggard found him guilty of murder and other charges during the November 2024 trial and sentenced him to life in prison. A spokesperson for Ibarra's attorneys said they plan to file an appeal.

Ibarra, 28, had entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was allowed to stay while he pursued his immigration case.

Prosecutors said Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Feb. 22, 2024, and killed her during a struggle. Riley was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) east of Atlanta.

Ibarra's trial attorneys had asked the judge to delay the trial after a DNA expert said she would need six weeks to review evidence analyzed using TrueAllele Casework, software used to interpret DNA and assist the defense. The judge wrote in his order Monday that Ibarra's lawyers "effectively challenged the TrueAllele DNA evidence at trial" and concluded that Ibarra was not harmed by the denial of a delay.

The DNA expert testified during a January hearing on the motion for a new trial, and the judge wrote that he did not find her opinion to be persuasive or credible and that it would not have changed the trial outcome.

Ibarra's attorneys also had challenged the seizure of two cellphones from his apartment, saying they were not listed on the search warrant, and sought to exclude evidence pulled from them. Haggard wrote that there were "exigent circumstances authorizing the seizure of the cellphones" and that the phones were not searched until after warrants were issued authorizing the search of the contents of the phones.

The Supreme Court said that it will hear from oil and gas companies trying to block lawsuits seeking to hold the industry liable for billions of dollars in damage linked to climate change.

The conservative-majority court agreed to take up a case from Boulder, Colorado, among a series of lawsuits alleging the companies deceived the public about how fossil fuels contribute to climate change.

Governments around the country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars, arguing it's necessary to help pay for rebuilding after wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms worsened by climate change. The lawsuits come amid a wave of legal actions in states including California, Hawaii and New Jersey and worldwide seeking to leverage action through the courts.

Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil appealed to the Supreme Court after Colorado's highest court let the Boulder case proceed. The companies argue emissions are a national issue that should be heard in federal court, where similar suits have been tossed out.

President Donald Trump's administration weighed in to support the companies and urge the justices to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision, saying it would mean every locality in the country could sue essentially anyone in the world for contributing to global climate change.

Trump, a Republican, has criticized the lawsuits in an executive order, and the Justice Department has sought to head some off in court.

Attorneys for Boulder had agued that the litigation is still in early stages and should stay in state court.

A man accused of killing 15 people in a mass shooting at a Jewish festival on Sydney's Bondi Beach appeared in court Monday for the first time since his release from the hospital.

Naveed Akram appeared in Sydney's Downing Center Local Court via a video link from the maximum security Goulburn Correctional Center 200 kilometers (120 miles) away.

He did not enter pleas to the charges against him, including murder and committing a terrorist act. The brief court appearance focused on extending a gag order that suppresses the identities of victims and survivors of the attack who have not chosen to identify themselves publicly.

Defense lawyer Ben Archbold told reporters outside court that Akram was doing as well as could be expected and it was too early to indicate any intention of pleas.

Akram, 24, was wounded and his father Sajid Akram, 50, was killed in a gunbattle with police after the attack on a Hanukkah celebration at the beach Dec. 14.

The younger Akram is next scheduled to appear in court April 9.

The police investigation is one of three official inquiries examining Australia's worst alleged terrorist attack and the nation's worst mass shooting in 29 years.

One involves the interactions between law enforcement and intelligence agencies before the attack that was allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group.

A royal commission, the highest form of public inquiry, will investigate the nature, prevalence and drivers of antisemitism generally as well as the circumstances of the Bondi shooting.