US news

The Department of Justice has moved to dismiss charges against a prominent California union leader who was arrested while protesting against an immigration raid in Los Angeles last year, in the latest US government case against protesters to fall apart.

David Huerta, the president of Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West, was arrested at a June 2025 demonstration and has been fighting the charges ever since. On Monday, the US attorney’s office in LA filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.

Huerta was initially charged with “conspiracy to impede an officer”, a serious felony, though prosecutors earlier this year downgraded those charges to a misdemeanor of “obstruction, resistance, or opposition of a federal officer”. The misdemeanor is now on track for dismissal.

The justice department in Los Angeles has aggressively prosecuted immigrants and protesters for “impeding” and “assaulting” immigration officers, but many of those cases have collapsed in court, with prosecutors facing a stunning streak of losses when the charges have gone to trial.

“This means the government is finally admitting what we knew from day one and what was obvious to anyone who saw the videos: the charge against me was baseless, meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out, organize, or demand justice,” Huerta said in a statement on Monday. “There was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights.”

A new analysis of Black voters in the south indicates that Republican attempts to dilute their political power is driving them to the polls in larger numbers and shifting their counties further left.

After the supreme court effectively gutted section 2 of the Voting Rights Act protections in late April, Republican legislatures across the south rapidly pushed to disenfranchise Black voters by redrawing congressional maps. Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama all immediately worked to pass new maps, while the Mississippi governor has said that he wants legislators to redraw maps before the upcoming midterm elections.

The analysis by VoteHub, a data-focused election organization, indicates that the efforts have only motivated Black voters in the 78 Black belt counties it tracked. All but one shifted left in partisan turnout compared with 2024. Further, majority-Black counties that voted after Louisiana v Callais, the landmark supreme court decision that triggered the Republican-led redistricting efforts, had a surge in voter participation.

Still, Lily added: “I will not back down from this fight. I know I’m in a horrible position, but there are so many people out there in Nebraska, Idaho, Texas or Florida who are in so much worse positions than me.”

Sullivan’s decision follows a ruling by US district judge Indira Talwani last week, in which the NAACP had also challenged the executive order. Talwani blocked the administration’s plan for mail-in voting across 23 states and the District of Columbia, which sued the administration to stop the proposed rule. The latest order appears to extend this injunction nationwide, as it is meant to enforce an agreement that bound the postal service as an agency until 2028.

The Trump administration agreed on Monday to keep flying a rainbow Pride flag at the Stonewall national monument, reversing course after removing the banner in February.

The government revealed the decision as it seeks to settle a lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ and historic preservation groups who had sought to block the removal. A judge must still approve the agreement.

“The one thing we can do is make sure the American people know what they’re doing in our name and with our tax dollars,” the congressman said. “We should do that because what they have pulled off here is a potential template for other betrayals of public trust that they and maybe future generations will attempt if we don’t challenge them.”

In June, the Trump administration abandoned an effort to try to halt all wind projects and leases across the US, giving up a challenge in court to a judge tossing Trump’s executive order to freeze all permitting and leasing for wind projects.

Public opposition to the Project Cosmo mega datacenter was already growing before the bacteria incident.

The Cowboy State Daily reported in May on pushback to projects in Cheyenne and elsewhere in Wyoming, including environmental questions about the safety and integrity of so-called closed loop cooling systems used by Meta and their tech company rivals pushing the artificial intelligence revolution.

After his failure to appear at trial, Wilson found Byrne to be in default as a sanction for what the judge described as “repeated, intentional disobedience of court orders and unceasing efforts to delay proceedings”.

The judge on Friday wrote that “the evidence is clear and convincing that defendant has engaged in intentional misrepresentation with conscious disregard towards plaintiff’s rights” – and he awarded Biden $1 in nominal damages along with $1.7m in punitive damages.

Wilson also ordered Byrne to pay Biden about $35,000 in court sanctions.

The attorney general of New Jersey on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the private company operating the Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, demanding access for health officials amid allegations of “inhumane and unsanitary conditions”.

Immigrants locked up at the federal detention center in Newark began a hunger and labor strike more than 10 days ago to protest against conditions, while demonstrations built up outside that veered into violent scenes after dark.

Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed by Jennifer Davenport, the state’s attorney general, asks the state superior court in Newark to order the private operator, the Geo Group, to grant the New Jersey department of health full access to the facility to conduct inspections.