allegations

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday sharply criticized “fake MAGA-manufactured outrage” over his comments about his low SAT score in Atlanta Sunday during his national book tour.

Conservative commentators, Trump loyalists and right-wing media outlets accused the California governor and potential 2028 presidential candidate of disparaging Black Americans when he was discussing his struggles with dyslexia.

“First MAGA mocked his dyslexia and now they’re calling him racist for talking about his low SAT scores,” said Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom, in a statement. “The governor has said this publicly for years — including with [the late conservative commentator] Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences.”

During a conversation with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who is a Black politician, Newsom was asked what he wanted the audience and readers to know about him. The governor, in a long-winded response, said he wasn’t trying to impress anyone, but “press upon you I’m like you.”

“I’m no better than you,” Newsom said. “I’m a 960 SAT guy.”

The governor continued to discuss his dyslexia and struggle to read.

Right-wing personalities pounced.

President Trump’s political operation accused Newsom of calling “black people dumb.” Former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly declared that the comment would “haunt him forever,” and Republican Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rick Scott of Florida belittled the governor. Rapper Nicki Minaj, an outspoken Trump supporter, criticized him too.

“@GavinNewsom Thinks a 960 SAT Makes Him ‘Like’ Black Americans. Let That Sink In,” Fox News commentator Sean Hannity posted on the social media platform X.

Newsom offered a profanity-laced retort to Hannity, accusing him of long ignoring President Trump’s racist remarks and social media posts, then feigning outrage at Newsom’s remarks.

“You didn’t give a shit about the President of the United States of America posting an ape video of President Obama or calling African nations shitholes — but you’re going to call me racist for talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia?” Newsom posted on X. “Spare me your fake fucking outrage, Sean.”

Gardon pointed out that Newsom was speaking to a mixed-race audience during the conversation with Dickens.

Dickens also rejected the allegations that Newsom was being racist.

“Take it from someone who was actually in the chair asking the questions: context matters more than a headline,” Dickens said on Instagram. “The conversation around his new book included him speaking about his own academic struggles, including not doing well on the SAT. That wasn’t an attack on anyone. It was a moment of vulnerability about his own journey.”

Sunday’s event wasn’t the first time Newsom has mentioned his SAT score. The governor has cited his performance on the test many times in conversations about his dyslexia and issues with self-esteem growing up, including during an interview with The Times about his new memoir “Young Man in a Hurry” earlier this month.

“Come on, I’m a 960 SAT guy, governor of the fourth largest economy in the world,” Newsom told The Times. “I’m a guy, you know, with sweaty hands as described in the book, you know, who can’t read a speech, and I’m governor. I’m talking to you. Come on, the whole thing is sort of fascinating.”

Newsom used the low score as an example of the grit and resilience he learned from his mother.

The governor is accustomed to sparring with Republicans on social media. Ring-wing furor over his remarks, whether justified or politically motivated, is likely to continue as he flirts with a 2028 presidential run.

“We’ve gotten so used to loud, chest-pounding politics that when someone speaks about shortcomings, people try to twist it into something else,” Dickens, said in his post on Instagram. “Let me be clear though. This is Atlanta. We don’t need anyone to tell us when to be offended. And history has shown… when we are, you’ll know.”

Peru’s Congress has ousted President Jose Jeri just four months into his term over multiple corruption allegations. The decision was made just weeks before a general election.

Two of curling’s best men’s teams, Sweden and Canada, involved in fiery and controversial match at Winter Olympics.

The often sedate world of curling has gotten heated at the Winter Olympics as cheating allegations and audible swear words overshadowed a feisty match between two of the best men’s teams.

Canada’s Marc Kennedy got offended when he was accused by Swedish rival Oskar Eriksson of “double-touching” – essentially, touching the rock again after initially releasing it down the sheet of ice – during Canada’s 8-6 win in round-robin play late on Friday.

Kennedy repeatedly used expletives to deny he broke any rules. The match came to a brief standstill as fingers were pointed and Kennedy argued with members of the Swedish team across the ice.

“I don’t like being accused of cheating after 25 years on tour and four Olympic Games,” the 44-year-old Kennedy said.

“So,” he added, “I told him where to stick it. Because we’re the wrong team to do that to.”

Eriksson said he simply wanted everyone to “play by the same rules”.

“We want a game that is as sportsmanlike, honest and clean as possible,” he said, “so we call it out as soon as I see that the Canadian No 2 is, in my eyes, there poking the stone.”

The rules state that a stone must be delivered using the handle that sits on top of the rock and that it must be released from the hand before it reaches the hog line. At the Olympics, that is the thick green line at each end.

Replays appeared to show Kennedy releasing the stone using the handle, then touching it again with an outstretched finger as it approached the hog line.

In the early ends of the match, Sweden notified the officials of their complaints. An official then remained at the hog line to monitor Canada’s curlers, and no action was taken. Curling does not use video replays.

World Curling did not take any action against either team.

EL TORO — In an extraordinary step, Brig. Gen. Wayne T. Adams has permanently banished from local Marine bases the man he fired as his chief of staff, refusing him access to the officers’ club, the golf course and other facilities usually open to retired personnel.

Col. Joseph E. Underwood, 51, was fired from his post earlier this year and later retired amid allegations that included using base planes for golfing jaunts. Adams decided last week that, because of the charges, the colonel could no longer use the air bases at El Toro or Tustin, his spokesman, Maj. Jim V. McClain, said Monday.

“He’s debarred from this base–period,” McClain said. “He is not allowed to come aboard this base,” except for medical care and commissary visits with his wife, who is ailing, he added.

“The commanding general made the determination that, by the nature of the offenses, Col. Underwood’s presence on the El Toro and Tustin bases was prejudicial to the good order and discipline and proper functioning of these two bases,” McClain said of Adams’ decision.

Adams himself is under investigation by the Marine Corps inspector general’s office for his own use of military planes during trips to Florida, Big Bear and elsewhere.

McClain would not elaborate on what caused Underwood’s banishment. Underwood, however, said he believes that it came as a result of statements he made in an article two weeks ago in The Times Orange County Edition in his first interview since his disciplining.

“It’s so petty. Why don’t they just let it go away?” Underwood complained. “They’ve already killed Col. Sabow–what do they want from me?”

Col. James E. Sabow was the assistant chief of staff at El Toro who killed himself in January, after being suspended also in connection with allegations of misuse of base planes. Underwood and Sabow’s family have charged that what they characterize as the military’s mishandling of the investigation drove Sabow to suicide.

Military officials have vigorously disputed that assertion. McClain on Monday would not discuss Underwood’s claims that he was being “harassed” in the same way that Underwood said Sabow was or that his debarment was spurred by his comments in the Times article.

Underwood, known as “the mayor” of the El Toro base during a sometimes stormy four-year stint as chief of staff, asserted in the article that he had not done anything wrong in his use of base C-12 Beechcraft planes and that Adams had reneged on promises to end the matter quietly.

Underwood also asserted that Adams himself had once ordered a plane to pick him up from a family emergency, even after Underwood had specifically told him that doing so was against regulations.

The Marine Corps is now investigating whether Adams improperly mixed personal and business trips in that case and at least four other flights he took around the country.

In the newest step of that investigation, Adams is to meet in Washington today with the Marines’ inspector general, Maj. Gen. Hollis Davison, officials said.

In his position as commander of the Marines’ western air bases, Adams maintains authority over who can and cannot use government facilities. It was with this authority that he barred Underwood, a move that officials said probably cannot be appealed through the military.

McClain said 175 people–both military and civilian–have been barred from western air bases in the last five years. He did not have a breakdown of these people by rank, but Underwood and three other military officials, in Washington and on the West Coast, said debarments of officers–much less of a colonel–are extremely rare.

“It’s an extraordinary measure for someone of his rank and time of service to be debarred from a base–it’s just not done,” said one high-ranking officer close to the case.

Underwood, a veteran of three decades’ service, said that during his time at El Toro, there were debarments “many times for criminals–drug dealers, thieves, wife beaters, attempted rapists. . . . But how many colonels have ever been barred from a base? The answer I’m sure is zero. . . .”

While Underwood was visiting the East Coast last week, the El Toro command went so far as to boot the tires on his two cars on the base to ensure that he would see the base provost marshal and pick up the letter informing him of his debarment. The letter activates the order.

Since his firing earlier this year, Underwood had been staying in base officers’ quarters for about $5 a day, and he had planned to return there when he gets back to El Toro in mid-May. As a result of his banishment, he will have to find other temporary housing until he joins his wife in a few months to begin a vacation.

He also will not be able to attend official base functions or use facilities such as the officers’ club, the golf course and other recreational sites open to retired officers. He can only use the commissary when accompanied by his wife, McClain said.

One source close to the case said that Underwood’s debarment came in part because of prodding from the Marine Commandant’s office in Washington.

The banishment had been discussed in February at the time Underwood pleaded guilty to charges against him and agreed to pay fines and restitution before his retirement. The ban was not carried out at that time. But later, people from Washington “had seen him on the golf course at El Toro” and it angered them, the source said.

Harassment claims were made against the peer in 2013, but in 2014 a barrister appointed by the party to investigate the allegations concluded that whilst the accounts of the four women were “broadly credible,” they could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Writer Neil Gaiman denied sexual misconduct allegations first brought forth against him over a year and a half ago in a statement released Monday.

Gaiman, the bestselling fantasy author behind “The Sandman” comic books, and novels and shows “American Gods” and “Good Omens,” called the allegations, which emerged in the summer of 2024, a “smear campaign” that are “simply and completely untrue.”

“These allegations, especially the really salacious ones, have been spread and amplified by people who seemed a lot more interested in outrage and getting clicks on headlines rather than whether things had actually happened or not,” Gaiman wrote.

Five women first accused the 65-year-old British author of sexual misconduct in the summer of 2024, appearing in the Tortoise Media podcast “Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman.” The women claimed Gaiman had them call him “master” during their alleged sexual encounters.

Eight women then accused the author of assault, abuse and coercion in an article published by New York magazine just over a year ago.

Scarlett Pavlovich, Gaiman’s former nanny, filed a lawsuit against the author and his estranged wife Amanda Palmer, almost exactly a year ago, accusing the couple of human trafficking. She alleged that she was brutally and repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by Gaiman while working for the couple without pay.

“Gaiman repeatedly physically and emotionally abused Scarlett, raping her vaginally and anally, humiliating her, forcing her into sexual conduct in front of Gaiman’s child, and forcing her to touch and lick feces and urine,” the complaint states. Gaiman called Pavlovich “slave” and ordered her to call him “master,” the complaint states.

The abuse took place while Pavlovich was providing babysitting services for the couple in New Zealand in 2022, according to the suit.

All other allegations against the author stemmed from the 1990s to 2022, when he was living in the United States, Britain and New Zealand.

The author has sold more than 50 million copies of his books worldwide, and many have received film and television adaptations over the years. His work drew a large female readership, typically uncommon for comic-book writers. The allegations clashed with the self-proclaimed feminist writer’s public persona.

Gaiman has spent the last year out of the spotlight, after publishing company Dark Horse Comics cut ties with him shortly after the New York magazine article was published. Gaiman was also dropped from various film and TV adaptations of his work, including the final season of Amazon’s “Good Omens” and the streamer’s new “Anansi Boys” TV series.

He was also left out of press for the final season of Netflix’s “The Sandman” last year and Disney halted development of “The Graveyard Book” months after the initial allegations.

The author last publicly addressed the allegations a day after the New York magazine article was released, and wrote he had stayed quiet “both out of respect for the people who were sharing their stories and out of a desire not to draw even more attention to a lot of misinformation.”

At the time, Gaiman wrote that he “could have and should have done so much better,” admitting that he “was obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings, and that’s something that I really, deeply regret. It was selfish of me. I was caught up in my own story and I ignored other people’s.”

Gaiman’s most recent statement comes just days after an unidentified Substack user who goes by TechnoPathology posted the latest in a series of articles over the last year defending the fantasy author.

Gaiman claimed he hasn’t been in contact with the anonymous poster but would “like to thank them personally for actually looking at the evidence and reporting what they found, which is not what anyone else had done.”

He said “the actual evidence was dismissed or ignored” by most reporting, including “mountains” of “emails, text messages and video evidence that flatly contradict” the claims.

The author also announced in the statement that he’s been working on a book throughout the “strange, turbulent and occasionally nightmarish year and a half.” The project is his longest since the 450-plus-page “American Gods,” he said.

“It’s a rough time for the world,” Gaiman wrote. “I look at what’s happening on the home front and internationally, and I worry; and I am still convinced there are more good people out there than the other kind.”

SACRAMENTO — The year opened with President Trump declaring that “the fraud investigation of California has begun,” a move that quickly set off a barrage of allegations from his administration and Republican allies questioning the integrity of state programs and the leadership of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The accusations, amplified across social media and conservative outlets, have pushed California and its Democratic leadership to the center of a broader national political fight over waste, fraud and abuse.

Newsom has dismissed the claims as politically driven, arguing that the administration is singling out Democratic-led states while ignoring similar problems elsewhere. The governor also responded by highlighting fraud cases in Republican-led states and by criticizing Trump’s own record and business dealings.

Against that backdrop, it has become increasingly difficult to separate substantiated fraud from fabricated or recycled claims, to distinguish old findings from newly raised allegations and to determine who can credibly claim credit for uncovering wrongdoing — all amid a toxic and deeply polarized political climate.

Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley, said allegations of malfeasance in California is a particularly ripe target for Republicans because Democrats have controlled the state Legislature and governor’s office for years.

Democrats hold a supermajority in both the Assembly and the Senate, meaning they hold at least two-thirds of seats in both houses, and not a single Republican has been elected to statewide office in California since 2006, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner were reelected.

“There is no shared responsibility here for Republicans,” Schnur said. “If you had a state in which Republicans were actually competitive, they would bear some responsibility for these problems.”

Audits and prosecutions show that California has experienced its share of fraud, particularly in complex programs involving emergency aid, healthcare and unemployment insurance. The state paid out billions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the California State Auditor has issued repeated warnings about state agencies that are “at high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement.”

Along with recycling a barrage of years-old allegations of financial malfeasance in California and other Democratic states, the Trump administration elevated claims of child-care fraud in Minnesota last month, prompting Gov. Tim Walz to drop his reelection plans to focus on the growing political crisis in his state.

Fraud allegations are increasingly being deployed as a political weapon against Newsom, a leading Trump critic and a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender. Politicians have always railed against government waste, fraud and abuse, but now those issues are being “weaponized into a partisan issue,” Schnur said.

For the public, it can be hard to discern the truth. Here is a look at three of the central fraud allegations — and what the evidence shows.

Child-care funding

President Trump used his social media platform, Truth Social, to accuse California of widespread fraud last month, drawing a link between his administration’s investigation into child-care spending in Minnesota and programs in the Golden State, and announcing a major federal “fraud investigation” into the state’s actions.

“California, under Governor Gavin Newscum, is more corrupt than Minnesota, if that’s possible???” wrote Trump, using a disparaging nickname for the governor.

The Trump administration then moved to freeze $10 billion in federal funding for child care in five Democrat-led states — California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota — over “serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

In a trio of Jan. 6 letters addressed to Newsom, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it was concerned there had been “potential for extensive and systemic fraud” in child care and other social services programs that rely on federal funding, and had “reason to believe” that the state was “illicitly providing illegal aliens” with benefits.

The letters did not detail evidence to support the claims. The governor’s office dismissed the accusation as “deranged.”

A federal judge subsequently blocked the Trump administration temporarily from freezing those funds. In that ruling, U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick said he didn’t understand why the government was making it harder for states to access child-care money before any wrongdoing had been discovered.

“It just seems like the cart before the horse,” he said.

Hospice funding

Days after Trump’s social media post about alleged corruption under Newsom’s watch, Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, held a joint news conference on public benefits fraud, but offered few details about the scope of their investigation.

The officials accused “foreign actors” of draining billions from public healthcare programs in California, referencing bogus hospice providers first exposed by The Times in 2020 and later investigated by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta.

Essayli placed the blame for bad actors squarely on Newsom, calling him “the fraud king.”

Weeks later, Oz released a video of himself walking in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Van Nuys as he questioned why dozens of alleged hospices were operating along four blocks. He blamed the “Russian Armenian Mafia” and made his remarks while pointing to an Armenian bakery, prompting accusations of racism from the Armenian community.

Newsom’s office last week hit back by highlighting state efforts to fight fraud, while pointing to a 2025 Axios story on the Trump administration’s decision to pause a federal program to crack down on bad hospice operators.

Bonta’s office said it has filed criminal charges against 109 individuals over hospice fraud-related offenses and launched dozens of civil investigations.

Newsom, speaking at a Bloomberg event Thursday in San Francisco, said the allegations have been recycled and misrepresented. Later that day, he filed a civil rights complaint against “baseless and racist allegations against Armenian Americans in California” made by Oz.

“Hospice, we’ve been after that for years and years before Oz was even on the scene,” Newsom said. “In 2021, we did a moratorium on new hospice programs, 280 we shuttered.”

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services said earlier this year that — in addition to California — Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Ohio and Georgia are being monitored following allegations of fraud and waste.

EDD fraud

The state’s Employment Development Department, known as EDD, reported in 2021 that approximately $20 billion was lost due to fraud, largely in the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.

While unemployment fraud was rampant across country during the pandemic as governments rushed to provide support, California’s problems stood out.

The state itself admitted in 2021 that it failed to take precautions that had been implemented in other states, including using software to identify suspicious applications and cross-checking benefit claims against personal data on state prison inmates.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) said department mismanagement and fraud often overlap and cited EDD as a prime example.

“When there is a lack of internal controls, a lack of diligence of how funds are used, that makes it easier for those who want to take advantage of the system to profit,” Kiley said.

EDD’s own tracker said the state has recovered more than $6 billion in stolen funds and opened more than 2,300 unemployment fraud investigations since the pandemic began, leading to nearly 1,000 arrests and more than 670 convictions.

The department said it has expanded fraud enforcement through partnerships with law enforcement, new identity-verification technology and a dedicated fraud task force.

But, reports of mismanagement at EDD have continued. A recent audit also found EDD wasted $4.6 million by paying monthly service fees for more than 6,200 cellphones that went unused for at least four consecutive months between November 2020 and April 2025 — including some devices that were inactive for more than four years.

At the same time, “EDD continues to have high rates of improper [unemployed insured] payments, including fraudulent payments, and it needs to improve the customer service it provides to UI claimants,” another report found.

What’s next?

Newsom said there is a reason the Trump administration is not pointing to fraud in Republican-led states.

“This is about polarization, politicalization, weaponization,” Newsom said Thursday.

Asked what the Trump administration will discover in probing California for fraud, Newsom said investigators will find a state “taking that issue very, very seriously.”

“We absolutely are here to be a partner, to go after waste, fraud and abuse,” Newsom said.

State audits show vulnerabilities persist. The California State Auditor has repeatedly flagged Medi-Cal eligibility discrepancies that have exposed the state to billions of dollars in questionable payments, while also warning that weaknesses in information security across state agencies remain a high-risk issue.

Curtailing waste could be particularly important during the upcoming year as California and its state-funded programs head into a period of volatile fiscal uncertainty, driven largely by events in Washington and on Wall Street. Newsom’s own optimistic budget proposal projects a $3-billion state deficit for the next fiscal year despite no major new spending initiatives.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warned in November that California faces a nearly $18-billion budget shortfall.

It will also be a key issue in upcoming elections. A group of Republicans running for statewide offices, including California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, pegged that the state’s annual estimate of fraud, waste and abuse across state programs at $250 billion, an estimate that includes unverified public tips submitted to a campaign-run website.

The group cited the estimate as justification for creating their own “California Department of Government Efficiency,” or CAL DOGE, a nod to a similarly named federal initiative promoted by Elon Musk that generated headlines but has not produced documented savings or formal audit findings. CAL DOGE is not currently a state department, despite its name.

Who deserves credit when fraud is prosecuted has also become a point of contention. After a man was arrested last month for fleecing L.A.’s homeless services program for $23 million, critics of Newsom were quick to blame the governor. Newsom responded by saying the case was uncovered by local investigators working with law enforcement, which he added is “exactly the kind of accountability and oversight the state has pushed for.” (The Los Angeles district attorney’s office ran a parallel, independent investigation.)

Essayli responded on social media by saying no one made an arrest until Trump and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi “appointed me to investigate and charge fraud offenses in California.”

Kiley, the California Republican congressman, said despite the partisan fighting over fraud, the issue should rally both parties.

The “easiest” way to solve the state’s budget problems and improve government services for taxpayers is to “minimize and eventually eliminate fraud,” said Kiley.