AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EST

Murky outlook for businesses after tariff ruling prompts countermoves by Trump

NEW YORK (AP) — Businesses face a new wave of uncertainty after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump under an emergency powers law and Trump vowed to work around the ruling to keep his tariffs in place.

The Trump administration says its tariffs help boost American manufacturers and reduce the trade gap. But many U.S. businesses have had to raise prices and adjust in other ways to offset higher costs spurred by the tariffs.

It remains to be seen how much relief businesses and consumers will actually get from Friday’s ruling. Within hours of the court’s decision, Trump pledged to use a different law to impose a 10% tariff on all imports that would last 150 days, and to explore other ways to impose additional tariffs on countries he says engage in unfair trade practices.

“Any boost to the economy from lowering tariffs in the near-term is likely to be partly offset by a prolonged period of uncertainty,” said Michael Pearce, an economist at Oxford Economics. “With the administration likely to rebuild tariffs through other, more durable, means, the overall tariffs rate may yet end up settling close to current levels.”

Efforts to claw back the estimated $133 billion to $175 billion of previously collected tariffs now deemed illegal are bound to be complicated, and will likely favor larger companies with more resources. Consumers hoping for a refund are unlikely to be compensated.

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The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs. Now comes the hard work of issuing refunds

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Donald Trump’s biggest and boldest tariffs. But the justices left a $133 billion question unanswered: What’s going to happen to the money the government has already collected in import taxes now declared unlawful?

Companies have been lining up for refunds. But the way forward could prove chaotic.

When the smoke clears, trade lawyers say, importers are likely to get money back — eventually. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride for awhile,” said trade lawyer Joyce Adetutu, a partner at the Vinson & Elkins law firm.

The refund process is likely to be hashed out by a mix of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, the specialized Court of International Trade in New York and other lower courts, according to a note to clients by lawyers at the legal firm Clark Hill.

“The amount of money is substantial,” Adetutu said. “The courts are going to have a hard time. Importers are going to have a hard time.’’

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Keeping calm and carrying on, the royal family weathers worst crisis in generations

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III’ s brother was under arrest. Police were searching two royal properties, and news commentators were endlessly discussing the details of a sex scandal with tentacles that stretched to the gates of Buckingham Palace.

So how did Britain’s royal family spend Thursday afternoon? The king sat in the front row on the first day of London Fashion Week. Queen Camilla attended a lunchtime concert, and Princess Anne visited a prison.

The decision to continue normal royal duties was more than just an example of British stoicism in the face of the monarchy’s biggest crisis in almost a century. It was the opening act of the House of Windsor’s fight for survival as the arrest of the former Prince Andrew threatens to undermine public backing for the monarchy.

After pledging to support the police investigation into his brother’s friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the king stressed his intentions.

“My family and I will continue in our duty and service to you all,” he said in a statement signed “Charles R.,” using the abbreviation for Rex, the Latin word for king.

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US military strikes another alleged drug boat in eastern Pacific, killing 3

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Friday that it has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” It said the strike killed three people. A video linked to the post shows a boat floating in the water before bursting into flames.

Friday’s attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats to at least 148 people in at least 43 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

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Court clears way for Louisiana law requiring Ten Commandments in classrooms to take effect

A U.S. appeals court has cleared the way for a Louisiana law requiring poster-sized displays of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms to take effect.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 12-6 to lift a block that a lower court first placed on the law in 2024. In the opinion released Friday, the court said it was too early to make a judgment call on the constitutionality of the law.

That’s partly because it’s not yet clear how prominently schools may display the religious text, if teachers will refer to the Ten Commandments during classes or if other texts like the Mayflower Compact or the Declaration of Independence will also be displayed, the majority opinion said.

Without those sorts of details, the panel decided it did not have enough information to weigh any First Amendment issues that might arise from the law. In other words, there aren’t enough facts available to “permit judicial judgment rather than speculation,” the majority wrote in the opinion.

In a concurring opinion, Circuit Judge James Ho, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump, wrote that the law “is not just constitutional — it affirms our nation’s highest and most noble traditions.”

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A mom wrote a book to help her kids process their dad’s death. Now she’s on trial for his killing

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A year after her husband died, a mother of three in Utah self-published a children’s book that she said helped her sons cope with the sudden loss. Kouri Richins promoted her book “Are You With Me?” on a local TV station and drew praise for helping young children process the death of a parent.

Weeks after the book’s publication in 2023, she was arrested in her husband’s death and charged with murder.

The arrest sent shock waves through her small mountain town just outside Park City, where a 12-person jury is set to decide her fate in a monthlong trial that starts Monday.

Richins, 35, faces nearly three dozen counts in connection with her husband’s death, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. She has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors say she killed her husband, Eric Richins, at their home in March 2022 by slipping fentanyl into a cocktail that he drank. They say she was deep in debt and killed him for financial gain while planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.

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In war-weary Kyiv, wounded Ukrainian veterans turn epic poetry into living testimony

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Sitting in a circle the day before opening night, Ukrainian war veterans and drama students took turns reading their lines from a script that traveled centuries to reach them.

At the center was Olha Semioshkina, directing the group through her adaptation of “Eneida” by Ivan Kotliarevskyi — an 18th-century Ukrainian reimagining of Virgil’s “Aeneid.” This production, though, had a modern-day message about resilience in the face of the war that’s nearing its fourth year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The actors — men and women in their 20s to 60s — included Ukrainian military veterans who had returned from the front with amputations, severe burns and sight loss. Others had endured war on the homefront. Many had never set foot on a stage before this play.

The production was created by Theater of Veterans, an organization founded by members of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces that provides theatrical training and stage opportunities for former service members as part of their reintegration and recovery.

It took more than a year to prepare for Thursday’s premiere at Kyiv’s National Academic Molodyy Theatre.

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Utah’s Supreme Court rejects appeal to overturn congressional map with Democratic-leaning district

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah’s Supreme Court rejected on Friday an appeal by Republican lawmakers and left in place a congressional map that gives Democrats a high chance of picking up one of the state’s four Republican-held U.S. House seats in the fall.

In the order signed by Chief Justice Matthew B. Durrant, the court explained that they do not have “jurisdiction over Legislative Defendants’ appeal.”

The lawmakers had appealed a decision in November in which a Utah judge adopted a congressional map creating a Democratic-leaning district over one poised to protect all four of the state’s U.S. House seats held by Republicans.

The map keeps Salt Lake County almost entirely within one district, instead of dividing the heavily Democratic population center among all four districts, as was previously the case.

Republicans have argued the court does not have legal authority to enact a map that wasn’t approved by the Legislature.

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Trump warns he’s considering limited strikes as Iranian diplomat says proposed deal is imminent

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump warned on Friday that limited strikes against Iran are possible even as the country’s top diplomat said Tehran expects to have a proposed deal ready in the next few days following nuclear talks with the United States.

In response to a reporter’s question on whether the U.S. could take limited military action as the countries negotiate, Trump said, “I guess I can say I am considering that.” A few hours later, he told reporters that Iran “better negotiate a fair deal.”

Earlier Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a TV interview that his country was planning to finalize a draft deal in “the next two to three days” to send to Washington.

“I don’t think it takes long, perhaps, in a matter of a week or so, we can start real, serious negotiations on the text and come to a conclusion,” Araghchi said on MSNOW’s “Morning Joe” show.

The tensions between the longtime adversaries have ramped up as the Trump administration pushes for concessions from Iran and has built up the largest U.S. military presence in the Middle East in decades, with more warships and aircraft on the way.

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Ramadan’s first Friday prayers are held at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered under heavy Israeli restrictions at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the first Friday prayers of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, including some who were allowed to enter from the occupied West Bank.

The Ramadan prayers at Al-Aqsa took place for the first time since a shaky ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect in October. It was the first opportunity many had to leave the West Bank and pray at the site in Jerusalem’s Old City since Ramadan last year.

Israel restricted the number of Palestinians allowed to enter from the West Bank to 10,000 on Friday, and only allowed men over 55 and women over 50 as well as children up to 12. It has imposed similar restrictions in the past, citing security concerns.

The hilltop, which Jews refer to as the Temple Mount, is the holiest site in Judaism and was home to the ancient biblical temples. Muslims call the site the Noble Sanctuary. Today it is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.

It has frequently been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.