Carel Aaron Van Der Merwe immigrated to US at 14 and has been waiting seven years for asylum case to be heard

A Wisconsin state patrol trooper, whom federal immigration agents detained on Thursday at an airport, has been released from their custody.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents approached Carel Aaron Van Der Merwe, a South African national, as he waited to board a domestic flight, according to his law firm Christopher & De León.

Major shake-up as LA councilmember, once considered long shot, ousts Democratic rival she had once endorsed

• Who is Nithya Raman, Los Angeles’s next mayor?

Nithya Raman was elected to serve as the mayor of Los Angeles, defeating incumbent Karen Bass in a major political shake-up that reflects the growing dissatisfaction with the direction of the city.

The progressive urban planner had served on LA’s city council since 2020. She caused a stir when she entered the race earlier this year hours before the filing deadline – and shortly after endorsing Bass for re-election – and her campaign was once viewed as a long shot.

Amendment 81 would have required law enforcement to notify federal agents if people accused of violent crimes were not lawfully present in US

Colorado voters have spurned a conservative group’s effort to force police and prosecutors to aid the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.

Amendment 81, which failed to receive 55% of the vote on Tuesday, would have required Colorado’s law enforcement agents to notify federal immigration authorities if individuals accused of violent crime were not lawfully present in the US or if their legal status was undetermined.

State representative Rosenthal’s win comes after national backlash to French’s social media remarks targeting south Asian Americans

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Jon Rosenthal has won a seat on the Texas railroad commission, a powerful state regulatory agency, beating out two challengers including the controversial Republican nominee Bo French whose campaign ignited a firestorm over his bigoted remarks.

Rosenthal, a Democrat, will join the three-member body that Democrats have been shut out of for decades. The state agency is charged with regulating Texas’s multibillion oil and gas industry, and has not had railroad oversight since 2005.

US voters elected the first black female governor and the first Muslim to the Senate on a night of history

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The US midterm elections have ushered in a slew of historic wins, shattering racial and gender ceilings, among other barriers, for races at the state and national level.

Here are some of the ways winning candidates are making history:

Case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, in Los Angeles comes four months after first trial ended with a hung jury

A 30-year-old man accused of starting the deadly Palisades fire is being retried for arson this week, four months after his first trial ended with a hung jury.

Federal prosecutors say Jonathan Rinderknecht, a former Uber driver, is responsible for the January 2025 wildfire, which killed 12 people and ravaged thousands of buildings in the Pacific Palisades.