Omar Jamal, a Somali community advocate and Ramsey County sheriff civilian officer, has been released from federal custody about a month after he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Jamal, 52, was released from the Freeborn County jail in Albert Lea after federal officials agreed to restore “the prior legal status quo” and “implicitly acknowledging that there is no current legal basis for his removal from the United States,” his attorneys Abdiqani Jabane and Nico Ratkowski said Tuesday in a statement, which didn’t give a date he was set free.

Omar Jamal speaks at a news conference at the state Capitol in St. Paul on Jan. 27, 2005. (John Doman / Pioneer Press)

Jamal was picked up by ICE agents on Aug. 29 in Minneapolis, 20 years after he was convicted in federal court in Tennessee on immigration fraud and sentenced to a year of probation.

Jamal’s attorneys filed a federal lawsuit against the ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Sept. 21, asking a judge to immediately review the legality of Jamal’s detention. They contend an immigration judge in 2005 granted Jamal withholding of removal to Somalia after finding his life or freedom would be threatened there.

The court file shows that U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge for the district of Minnesota, issued an order on Monday dismissing the lawsuit without prejudice and remanding the matter to ICE.

“While we maintain that Mr. Jamal should not have been arrested in the first place,” his attorneys’ statement read, “we commend and thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office and ICE for their cooperation in swiftly correcting the error and facilitating his release.”

Jamal joined the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office as a civilian community service officer in 2020 and had the support of Sheriff Bob Fletcher, who provided an affidavit in which he said Jamal “has played an integral role in helping liaison with the Somali community in Minnesota.”

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By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger downplayed the Trump administration’s climate skepticism Tuesday and threw his weight behind the Vatican’s environmental initiative, saying individual choice, local regulations and the Catholic Church’s moral leadership were far more important to “terminate” global warming.

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Schwarzenegger was at the Vatican to headline a three-day climate conference marking the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ landmark 2015 environmental encyclical, Laudato Si (Praised Be). The document, one of Francis’ main legacies, cast saving God’s creation as an urgent moral imperative and launched a broad, grassroots movement that Pope Leo XIV has fully embraced and made his own.

Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California, has devoted time to environmental causes since leaving political office in 2011. His Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative is one of the backers of the Vatican conference, which is being held at the Holy See’s newly inaugurated environmental educational center in Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.

At a news conference, Schwarzenegger was asked about President Donald Trump’s recent comments to the U.N. General Assembly, where he falsely said that climate change was a “con job.” Trump has long been a critic of climate science and policies aimed at helping the world transition to green energies like wind and solar. His administration has rolled back landmark regulations, withdrawn climate project funding and instead bolstered support for oil and gas production in the name of an “American energy dominance” agenda.

“Don’t use the federal government as an excuse,” Schwarzenegger told the Vatican briefing. “It’s an easy way out.”

He recalled his legal battles with the Bush administration over California’s environmental regulations when he was governor, and a particular victory where “we said ‘Hasta la vista, baby,’” Schwarzenegger said, quoting his famous line from “Terminator 2.”

Schwarzenegger said far more important were individual choices about turning off lights when you leave a room and state policies promoting solar power. With its 1.4 billion people, 400,000 priests the Catholic Church also has a critical mass of people who can back environmental initiatives, he said.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Riding high on the success of the single “Takedown” from the “K-Pop Demon Hunters” soundtrack, South Korean pop group Twice will hit the road for a North American arena tour that hits St. Paul’s Grand Casino Arena on April 12.

Tickets go on sale at 3 p.m. Oct. 9 through Ticketmaster. Fans who sign up at livemu.sc/twice by 6 p.m. Oct. 6 have access to a presale that starts at 11 a.m. Oct. 9. The concert will be performed on an in-the-round stage, allowing seats to be sold around the entire arena.

Twice emerged from a 2015 competitive reality television show “Sixteen,” which saw 16 young women — from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Canada and the United States — assessed for their singing and dancing abilities as well as their charisma and personality. Producers whittled the contestants down to the nine women who now make up the group.

The group’s sophomore single “Cheer Up” hit No. 1 on the Korean charts, as did the eight singles that followed. They found similar success in Japan and, later, around the world.

Twice scored their first U.S. success with the 2021 single “The Feels.” By 2024, they became the first female K-Pop group to headline both MLB and NFL stadiums, selling out Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium and New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. Their 2024 tour drew a total of more than 1.5 million fans across 51 shows in 27 cities worldwide. This year, they also became the first female K-Pop group to headline Lollapalooza, where they drew one of the festival’s largest crowds.

More recently, Twice’s song “Takedown” was used in the Netflix film “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” which now stands as the most-watched original film in the company’s history.

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President Donald Trump’s administration said Tuesday that the state of Minnesota and its governing body for high school sports are violating a key federal law against sex discrimination by allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports.

The ruling came from the civil rights offices at the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. The agencies said the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League are violating Title IX “by allowing males to compete in female sports and occupy female intimate facilities.”

The agencies said they found that the league has allowed transgender athletes to compete in girls Alpine and Nordic skiing, girls lacrosse team, girls track and field, girls volleyball and girls fastpitch softball.

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“The Trump Administration will not allow Minnesota or any other state to sacrifice the safety, fair treatment, and dignity of its female students to appease the false idols of radical gender ideology,” Craig Trainor, the federal Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.

Trump’s administration initiated its investigation after he issued an executive order in February giving the federal government wide latitude to pull funding from entities that “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities” by allowing transgender athletes to participate.

The Minnesota State High School League said in response back then that it would follow state law — not the executive order — and continue to allow transgender athletes to compete in prep athletics. Associations in some other states signaled they also might defy the president’s order, but others took a wait-and-see approach.

The federal agencies gave the state and league 10 days to voluntarily accept a list of conditions to reverse their policies or risk imminent enforcement action.

The state Department of Education said in a statement it is “reviewing the letter and remains committed to ensuring every child has the opportunity to thrive in a safe and supportive school community.”

The league did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has launched over two dozen investigations of transgender policies in schools and colleges, including access to sports, locker rooms and bathrooms, according The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization. The U.S. Education Department said in August that Denver schools violated Title IX by creating all-gender bathrooms.