case

WASHINGTON — A man charged with attacking the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner is seeking to disqualify top Justice Department officials from direct involvement in prosecuting him because they could be considered victims or witnesses in the case, creating a potential conflict of interest.

Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro were attending the April 25 event at the Washington Hilton when Cole Tomas Allen allegedly ran through a security checkpoint and fired a shotgun at a Secret Service officer.

In a court filing late Thursday, Allen’s attorneys argued that it creates at least the appearance of a conflict of interest for Blanche and Pirro to be making any prosecutorial decisions in the case.

“As this case proceeds closer to trial, the country and the world will continue to wonder — how can the American justice system permit a victim to prosecute a criminal defendant in a case involving them?” defense attorneys Eugene Ohm and Tezira Abe wrote.

Ohm and Abe, who are assistant federal public defenders, suggested that the appointment of a special prosecutor might be warranted. They urged U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump nominee assigned to Allen’s case, to disqualify Pirro, Blanche and possibly other Justice Department officials from direct involvement in the investigation and prosecution.

“Both heard gunshots, which presumably forced them to duck below the tables with the rest of the occupants. They were quickly evacuated. Shortly thereafter, they learned that law enforcement believed the target was certain administration officials,” Ohm and Abe wrote.

Pirro said her office will respond to the defense lawyers’ arguments in its own court filing.

“We will not tolerate people who come to the District of Columbia to engage in antidemocratic acts of political violence; and we will prosecute all such acts to the fullest extent of the law,” Pirro said in a statement.

Allen is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on charges in an indictment handed up Tuesday by a grand jury in Washington.

The charges include attempting to assassinate President Trump, who is a longtime friend of Pirro’s. Blanche served as a personal attorney for Trump before joining the Justice Department last year.

Blanche, through a spokesperson, referred a request for comment to Pirro’s office.

Allen also is charged with assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon and two additional firearms counts. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination charge alone.

The Secret Service officer who was shot once in a bullet-resistant vest fired his own weapon five times without hitting anybody. Allen, 31, of Torrance, was injured but was not shot.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.

The court ruled that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.

“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” the court said in its opinion.

Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia’s redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans’ congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year’s midterm elections.

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade after each census to account for population changes. But Trump started an unusual flurry of mid-decade redistricting last year when he encouraged Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts in a bid to win several additional U.S. House seats and hold on to their party’s narrow majority in the midterm elections.

California responded with new voter-approved districts drawn to Democrats’ advantage, and Utah’s top court imposed a new congressional map that also helps Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans stand to gain from new House districts passed in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. They could add even more after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, which has prompted some other Republican states to consider redrawing their maps in time for this year’s elections.

Virginia currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts could have given Democrats an improved chance to win all but one of the state’s 11 congressional seats.

Under the Demcoratic-drawn map, five districts would have been anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia, including one stretching out like a lobster to consume Republican-leaning rural areas. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads would have diluted the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia would have lumped together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.

The state Supreme Court’s seven justices are appointed by the state legislature, which has toggled back and forth between Democratic, Republican and split control over recent years. Legal experts say the body doesn’t have a set ideological profile

The case before the court focused not on the shape of the new districts but rather on the process the General Assembly used to authorize them.

Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.

The legislature’s initial approval of the amendment occurred last October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded on the day of the general election. The legislature’s second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January. Lawmakers also approved a separate bill in February laying out the new districts, subject to voter approval of the constitutional amendment.

Judicial arguments focused on whether the legislature’s initial approval of the amendment came too late, because early voting already had begun for the 2025 general election.

Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature’s first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, argued that an “election” should be interpreted to cover the entire period during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, he told justices, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution.

In January, a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia, ruled that lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session last fall. Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. also ruled that lawmakers failed to initially approve the amendment before the public began voting in last year’s general election and that the state had failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law. As a result, he said, the amendment is invalid and void.

The Virginia Supreme Court placed Hurley’s order on hold and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

Lieb writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON  — Louisiana’s state attorneys on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to stand aside for now and to uphold an appeals court ruling that would stop the mailing of abortion pills nationwide.

They blamed former President Biden for undermining the state’s strict bans on abortion and the Trump administration for slow-walking a study on the federal regulations that permit sending the pills through the mail.

The justices are likely to act soon on emergency appeals filed by two makers of mifepristone. They argued the pills have been shown to be safe and effective for ending an early pregnancy.

But last week, the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled for Louisiana and revived an earlier regulation that would require women to obtain the pills in person from a doctor.

The three-judge panel also took the unusual step for putting its order into effect immediately. On Monday, Justice Samuel A. Alito, who oversees the 5th Circuit, issued an administrative stay that will keep the case on hold through Monday.

The justices have to decide whether Louisiana had standing to sue over the federal drug regulations, and if so, whether judges have the authority to overrule the Food and Drug Administration.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court by a 9-0 vote dismissed a similar challenge to the abortion pills that came from the 5th Circuit. And Chief Justice John G. Roberts has said in the past that judges should usually defer to the federal agency that is responsible fo regulating drugs.

In response to anti-abortion advocates, Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. agreed to have the FDA review the safety record of mifepristone.

It was approved in 2000 as safe and effective for ending early pregnancies. And in the past decade, the agency had relaxed earlier restrictions, including a requirement that pregnant women visit a doctor’s office to obtain the pills.

But the FDA said last month its review is far from complete.

In October, Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill decided to bypass the FDA review and went to federal court seeking a ruling that would prevent the pills being sent by mail.

A federal judge refused to decide on the issue while the FDA was undertaking its review. But the 5th Circuit chose to act now. The Louisiana state attorney put the focus on the Biden administration.

When the Supreme Court was considering the Dobbs case, which overruled Roe vs. Wade and the right to abortion, “the Biden Administration was preparing a plan that predictably would undermine that decision,” she wrote in Thursday’s response.

“Although Louisiana law generally prohibits abortion and the dispensing of mifepristone to pregnant women, out-of-state prescribers—freed from the in-person dispensing requirement — are causing approximately 1,000 illegal abortions in Louisiana each month by mailing FDA-approved mifepristone into the state,” she said.

The Trump administration has yet to tell the court of its views on this case.

Seoul appeals court cuts ex-prime minister’s prison sentence from 23 years to 15.

A South Korean appeals court has reduced the sentence of former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo by eight years for crimes relating to ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law.

The verdict was issued in the South Korean capital, Seoul, on Thursday.

Yoon’s decree in December 2024 briefly suspended civilian government and plunged South Korea into chaos, but it only lasted about six hours as opposition lawmakers moved quickly to overturn it in a vote.

A lower court had sentenced Han in January to a heavier-than-expected jail term of 23 years for engaging in the insurrection, as well as on related charges of perjury and falsifying an official document.

But the appeals court in Seoul cut that by eight years on Thursday, with the presiding judge announcing: “We sentence the defendant to 15 years in prison.”

The court still maintained most of Han’s convictions but lessened the penalties after taking into account his “more than 50 years as a public official prior to the martial law declaration”.

“The records also make it difficult to find evidence showing that the defendant participated more actively in the insurrection, such as by conspiring in advance or systematically leading the operation,” the judge said.

However, he said Han had “abandoned the grave responsibilities arising from the authority and position entrusted to him and instead sided with those participating in the acts of insurrection”.

Han, wearing a white shirt and a dark suit with no tie, listened to the verdict without showing much emotion.

The 76-year-old has been imprisoned since his original sentence in January.

Han had denied wrongdoing on all charges except perjury, saying in November that while he regretted not being able to stop Yoon from declaring martial law, he “never agreed to it or tried to help”.

Han is an experienced technocrat, who served in senior posts under five presidents.

He became the acting president after Yoon was impeached, before his own impeachment on accusations of having aided Yoon in the martial law declaration.

The Constitutional Court overturned Han’s impeachment, restoring his powers to serve as leader before he resigned from the post to run in a snap election in June.

He ended his bid for the presidency following rifts among conservatives.

Yoon, who faces eight separate trials, was handed a life sentence in February on charges of “masterminding an insurrection”.

Yoon, a former career prosecutor, denied the charges, arguing he had presidential authority to declare martial law and that his action was aimed at sounding the alarm over opposition parties’ obstruction of government.

He has apologised for the “frustration and hardship” brought upon the people by his martial law decree, but said in a statement after the sentencing that he stood behind the “sincerity and purpose” behind his actions.

On one of her previous visits to Los Angeles, Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel found herself having a smoke on Hollywood Boulevard.

There, while she stepped over the famous concrete-embedded stars, an unhoused man struck up a conversation with her.

“He kept explaining to me that he was poorly dressed because he was currently living on the street after someone robbed him, but he had written a screenplay,” Martel, 59, recalls in Spanish over coffee on a morning in April at a West Hollywood hotel.

“He told me they had stolen a watch from him — not a Rolex but a known brand,” she continues. “The whole time he was trying to convince me he was a millionaire who just so happened to be on the street because of random circumstances.”

One of Latin America’s most indispensable storytellers, Martel is fascinated by how prevalent that dream still is in L.A. — that movies can change your life overnight.

“That particular fantasy is par for the course in this city,” she says, though she’s not above it. It’s the reason she’s back to promote her first documentary, “Our Land,” out Friday.

Unhurried when it comes to her output, Martel has only made four fiction features, among them 2001’s “La Cienaga” and 2008’s “The Headless Woman” (returning to theaters this month in a new 4K restoration). Her biting and formally audacious narratives examine class, politics and — a speciality — the interiority of women through enigmatic portraits of psychologically complex individuals.

“Our Land,” a piercing indictment of the enduring wounds of colonialism, chronicles the murder of Indigenous Argentine activist Javier Chocobar in 2009 and the prolonged trial of the perpetrators in 2018.

Chocobar was shot during a confrontation with armed men over land in the Tucumán province of Argentina where the Chuschagasta Indigenous community has lived for many generations. Martel explores the killing not as an isolated event in her country’s recent past but as part of a long history of dispossession.

“Racism is a foundational element,” she says of her homeland. “The only consistent thing in Argentina, from the country’s birth to the present day, is the rejection of Indigenous people.”

In Argentina, Martel explains, public education has indoctrinated the population into believing Indigenous people no longer exist. Yet many Argentines proudly claim a connection to the Europeans, Italians in particular, who arrived in the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“When giving speeches, our presidents always say, ‘We are a country of immigrants,’ or ‘We came from the boats,’” says Martel. “They use metaphors like these because deep down Argentines feel much more indebted to European immigration than to our Indigenous population. But more than half of the people in Argentina have Indigenous ancestors.”

In 2020, Chocobar’s three convicted murderers appealed their guilty verdicts and were set free. “Our Land” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2025, which brought renewed attention to the case. A month later, the sentence was upheld and two of the men returned to prison (one died in the interim).

Martel believes that outcome was a response to her film. “Communities wage the fight but cinema helps,” she says.

“I believe that we must use cinema for its enormous power to alter perception and not soothe the rich,” Martel says. “It’s not about delivering a message but rather about showing how an idea functions.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

For over 14 years, Martel worked on “Our Land” on and off. This time included periods when she focused on 2017’s “Zama,” her masterful period piece following a Spanish official in 18th century Argentina “who doesn’t want to be American,” she says, referring to the continent. In her mind, both “Zama” and “Our Land” come from the same impulse to dissect colonialism.

As part of her research process, Martel and her team created a detailed archive of documents related to the case that the Chuschagasta community now has at its disposal. Over the years, Delfín Cata, one of the Indigenous men present during the attack, would call Martel. He never asked about how her film was going, but the director sensed he was tacitly checking in on her progress, hoping that she was not losing faith.

“That was a confirmation that, beyond my own interest, there were people who needed this film,” she says. “I felt the immense satisfaction of knowing I was doing something that would be concretely useful.”

For Martel, the question of whether she was the right person to make this film (one she got in Venice) seems unfair. “It’s wrong to prevent a human being from speaking about their own history because they are not a woman, because they are not Black, or because they are not Indigenous,” she says. “It’s better to make mistakes trying to understand something than not to try at all. The chances of making a mistake are enormous in a film, no matter how good your intentions are.”

A key piece of evidence in the Chocobar case, prominent in the film, is a video that one of the attackers filmed, presumably expecting the Indigenous community to react violently, to justify firing his gun at them. The Chuschagasta men that faced them weren’t armed. As used by their aggressors, the camera functioned as a weapon.

Hollywood feels incompatible with Martel’s sophisticated, confrontational movies rooted in her country’s troubles. By Martel’s own admission, it doesn’t feel like a fit for her.

“I would have to force myself to create something outside my own country, outside my own language,” she says. “And that doesn’t really appeal to me.”

Still, Marvel Studios famously asked to meet with her when seeking a director for 2021’s “Black Widow.” Martel says she was among many directors they contacted, but she was curious to take the meeting even if she knew nothing would come of it.

“They wanted to do it over Zoom and I happened to be here in Los Angeles,” she remembers. “I told them I could come in, because I wanted to see what the whole process was like.”

Martel describes the month she spent in L.A. — an eye injury prevented her from flying home sooner — as a “lot of fun in the end,” even if no blockbuster emerged from it. More recently, another Hollywood offer did tempt her, but she ultimately passed.

“It was a good book suggested to me by an actress of undoubted talent,” Martel shares, careful to avoid names. “I considered it, but you very quickly have to picture yourself spending three years or at least a year and a half living in the United States making a movie. I have a thousand things in Argentina to worry about.”

Still, Hollywood, and its significance to moviemaking, has a singular, unnerving allure on her. Two of Martel’s favorite movies set in L.A. are David Lynch’s nightmarish “Mulholland Drive” and Robert Aldrich’s psychodrama “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”

“There is something ruthless and utterly devoid of sanity at the heart of this film industry, and I’ve never felt that darkness as clear as in ‘Mulholland Drive,’” she says. “How can an industry that handles so many millions [of dollars] and such impeccably dressed famous people be so full of lunatics? That film captures that perfectly.”

And occasionally, she thinks, a big production breaks the mold, such as Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 when Martel served as jury president — a controversial choice.

“It certainly had an impact on me,” says Martel. “I didn’t vote for it, though. I had another favorite, a Chinese film that stood no chance of winning.”

Phillips, she thinks, created a premonition for what was to come. “For me, the real killer clowns are Trump, Milei or Orbán,” Martel says, referring to polarizing leaders. “They expose themselves to ridicule and spout all sorts of nonsense. Those are clowns. And I think that movie captured that.”

Not one to mince words, Martel elaborates on the relation of Joaquin Phoenix’s social outcast turned supervillain and President Trump.

“The origin of the Joker is social resentment,” she says. “Trump holds no resentment toward society because the system gave him everything. But he has exploited the people who do harbor resentment. That is where you see the kind of clown he is, one who knows how to use people.”

Artificial intelligence, far-right ideologies, voracious capitalism — all of it makes Martel alarmed, seeing it as pushing us collectively to the brink of collapse. But there is hope, she thinks.

“What we have invented is very dangerous but we can dismantle it,” she says. “That is the only thing I’m betting on, that, at some point, a consensus will emerge and we’ll go, ‘Let’s not do this.’”

“I believe that we must use cinema for its enormous power to alter perception and not soothe the rich,” she says. “It’s not about delivering a message but rather about showing how an idea functions.”

She points to one of her subjects in “Our Land,” an Indigenous man who told her he loves the 1959 Charlton Heston epic “Ben-Hur,” a passion she does not share but understands.

“That’s a blow for all of us who make auteur cinema,” Martel says with a laugh. “That feeling that ‘Ben-Hur’ evoked gave him the strength to continue fighting for his community’s territory.”

The night before our interview, Martel rode around L.A. on a scooter holding onto a friend. These days she uses a cane to help her with mobility. “The city has great light,” she says, still open to being surprised by it.

Not too long after Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened at Disneyland in 2019, the land brought me to tears.

It was a summer weekend evening, and I was strolling the 14-acre area, mainly to people watch. I caught a commotion in the crowd out of the corner of my eye, and decided to follow the activity.

There, crouched along one of the walls of the fictional town of Black Spire Outpost, was an actor playing the role of Rey, the hero of the most recent trilogy of “Star Wars” films. Behind her was a crowd of more than a dozen, many of them young children. Rey turned to tell them to be quiet. They followed her as she shuffled along the walls, decoratively designed to look decades old and scarred with blaster fire and cracks.

They turned a bend and came upon two Stormtroopers, who jumped in surprise, and signaled that Rey was the person they were after. That’s when Rey held out her hand, palm up, to the troopers. She instructed those with her to do the same and to repeat after her. She and the crowd, now quickly growing, were collectively using the Force.

The “Star Wars” character of Rey leads guests in using the Force at Disneyland in the summer of 2019.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

The Stromtroopers turned, muttered that there was nothing to see here, and walked away. Rey faced her audience and begin hugging and shaking hands with those closest to her. This is when I welled up.

The promise of Galaxy’s Edge was tremendous. Audiences were invited to pretend, to become a hero or perhaps a rogue in a land designed to facilitate interactivity, and most importantly play. That a crowd was able to become a little silly, be a bit vulnerable and share a collective moment with a gaggle of strangers reinforced to me the importance of theme parks as communal spaces, ones that can get us out of our head, our struggles and our stressors.

As of last week, Galaxy’s Edge forever changed. I still love the land, and believe it one of the triumphs of Walt Disney Imagineering. But I mourn what it once was and never came to be.

A change in the Force

Leia and Han are now meeting with guests at Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in an effort to infuse more classic characters into the land.

(Christian Thompson / Disneyland Resort)

Galaxy’s Edge has shifted its timeline. Out is Kylo Ren, and in is Darth Vader. Also new to Galaxy’s Edge are Han and Leia. Luke is there, too, returning after a limited run last year. The arrival of the so-called “classic” “Star Wars” characters will in fact breathe new life into Galaxy’s Edge. Already, they are pleasing crowds, as the Disneyland faithful last week cheered Vader’s entrance, heard now to a score of John Williams’ ominous “Imperial March.”

Rey still makes appearances, but when she does she is stationed near showcase attraction Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Ahsoka Tano, as well as the Mandalorian and Grogu, are among the other characters who will meet with guests in various spots throughout the area.

Galaxy’s Edge will now become what it was never built to be: a hodgepodge of “Star Wars” characters and nods to past works rather than undiscovered tales. While many saw the absence of the most recognizable “Star Wars” figures as a flaw, it was part of its intended design. For the land’s creators, it was a tradeoff they were willing to make, a bet guests would be active archetypal “Star Wars” tourists rather than spectative consumers. It was a grand theme park experiment.

“It was not an immediately intuitive decision,” Scott Trowbridge, the key Imagineer behind the land’s ideals, told me in 2022 when asked about the choice to set the land in the timeline of the most recent “Star Wars” films.

Said Trowbridge: “Luke’s story, or Leia’s story, that we saw 10, 20, 40 years ago, we know those stories. We love those stories. But there’s not room for us in that world. We wanted to make sure we were leaving room for you and your friends.”

When Galaxy’s Edge opened, we heard the roar of spaceships and musings of war. Traditional theme park trappings — character meet-and-greets, passive rides and musical scores — weren’t found. It was instead designed as an invitation, a new, unknown location filled with lesser-known characters like rebel spy Vi Moradi, meant to serve as a living playset for guests to create their own tales. I saw this happen, too. Once, when strolling the land with my former partner, she turned to me and lightly punched me in the arm, saying, “What’s a respectable guy like you doing with a scoundrel like me?” That was the moment I knew I would fall in love with her, and it was facilitated by Galaxy’s Edge.

A failed dream

The centerpiece of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is the Millennium Falcon.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

If I’m being honest, I am aware that Galaxy’s Edge seldom lived up to this promise. Imagineers teased many characters — a bounty hunter, for instance, who would hang in the cantina — who never appeared. In order to play, we need people to play with, and this playland often felt empty. Droids, for instance, would show up, but often only for a limited time. Teased features, such as Bluetooth technology that would allow the land to track a guest’s reputation, courtesy of missions they completed in the Play Disney Parks mobile app, never reached their fruition. That game itself, which is still available, thus lacks any meaningful payoff.

Galaxy’s Edge was a theme park risk, asking how deeply guests would want to engage in physical spaces. But it came with challenges, namely that as these lands grow, the level of activity needed to maintain the illusion increases. A promised dinner theater was never built, and a stage for a special effects-laden stunt show has largely sat barren. Disney also relied not on actors but its retail staff — cast members, in park parlance — to do the heavy lifting when it came to performing.

I wrote in 2019 that Galaxy’s Edge may, in fact, be too ambitious for the Walt Disney Co. I’m bummed that I was right.

Many on social media are musing that Disney is now fixing Galaxy’s Edge. Let’s be clear, Galaxy’s Edge was never broken. It just needed Disney to be a better steward and to fully support the ambitions of its Imagineers.

Last week at Disneyland, when Darth Vader walked on a Galaxy’s Edge stage through a smattering of smoke, the crowd erupted as if at a sporting event. It was fun, and clearly something some fans had been craving.

So bring on Darth Vader and the rousing music of Williams, I reluctantly say. Disney should do what it does well, and that is to create memorable character experiences. Operationally, the park had abandoned the initial goals of Galaxy’s Edge long ago, and the presence of Han, Luke and Leia will excite guests and at last give attendees more characters to interact with. It will be a busy, bustling place, and that I do applaud.

The week in SoCal theme parks

Changes have been reported at Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin.

(Christian Thompson / Disneyland Resort)

• You can now get a “Star Wars” ID card in Downtown Disney. Located inside the Star Wars Trading Post shop is a plastic ID-making machine (similar to the fake driver’s license one can get in the queue for Autopia) that will take your photo and allow you to pick a role in the “Star Wars” universe (bounty hunter, fighter pilot, etc.). It looks neat. I want one, even though I don’t know what I would do with it, but so far, lines have averaged 90 minutes to two hours or more.
• Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin has lost its spin. Disneyland removed the ability for guests to twist and turn their cars, an operational-driven-tweak, as the ride now allows for lap seating for younger guests and will allow for more to experience the attraction. While I can see how some may miss the spinning feature, I often tried to keep the car steady to soak up the environment, so my initial reaction leans positive, especially if it improves a family’s Disneyland day.
• Celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first “Harry Potter” film in an all-encompassing environment. Inglewood’s Cosm isn’t a theme park, but its dome-like screen offers a theme park-like experience (think the golden days of Circle-Vision). Opening Thursday is a re-imagined “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” with newly added environmental effects. The core film remains untouched, but the screen surrounding you aims to come alive with enchanting movement.
• Magic Bands will soon disappear from Disneyland shelves. Disney reporter Scott Gustin, a friend of Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride, recently noted that Disneyland will not be replenishing its stock of the Magic Band+ once it sells through the remaining inventory. Those who have them (hand raised) needn’t worry, according to Disneyland officials, as Magic Band+ functionality, including the game Batuu Bounty Hunters in Galaxy’s Edge, won’t cease. But Magic Band+ has limited use cases at Disneyland, and never quite caught on here in the same way the wristbands have at Walt Disney World.
• Happy birthday to the Great American Revolution. Magic Mountain’s classic coaster turns 50 this week, having opened on May 8, 1976. As part of the anniversary festivities, the park has restored its original name of the Great American Revolution (it was recently operating as the New Revolution). The ride is known for being the first modern looping coaster with a tubular steel track, earning it landmark status from American Coaster Enthusiasts.

The best thing I ate at the parks

A scallop appetizer at Carthay Circle. Go easy on me, I’m not a food photographer.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

No churros or treats for me this week. I hadn’t had a chance yet to check out the spring menu at the lounge at Carthay Circle, Disney California Adventure’s fine dining restaurant, so I made my way there Friday afternoon. Carthay Circle is always a welcome respite, a calming, relaxing environment where the theme park day tends to slow down.

I was after the scallops appetizer. Now, priced at $16, I knew this wouldn’t be a large portion, but I was longing for something light and breezy and this plate of six small scallops in a sea shell delivered. Drizzled with macadamia nuts, the citrus-forward dish is designed to bring out contrasts in texture. Overall, it’s a little zesty, a little nutty, and as a seafood person I’m happy an affordable, delicate dish exists at the resort. If you’re really hungry, though, you’ll need a second item.

Ride report

Space Mountain has begun its yearly, temporary overlay as Hyperspace Mountain.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

It’s “Star Wars” season at the Disneyland Resort, which means Space Mountain has been remade into Hyperspace Mountain. Now, generally speaking, this is my rule when it comes to ride overlays: The original is almost always better. That’s the case for Space Mountain as well, as the 1977 classic still thrills, its near pitch-blackness keeping you guessing while its uplifting score seems to capture the exhilaration and optimism of space flight.

But Hyperspace Mountain has its charms. The projections of lasers and X-wings look great in the darkness, and the sudden dips and turns work well for the dogfight atmosphere. The John Williams score brings the energy, and there’s the right amount of chaos and shifts in direction to make us feel as if we’re in a “Star Wars” battle. I’m just relieved, however, it doesn’t stick around too long, as the original is such a magnificent coaster.

Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.

Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.

Ride on,

Todd Martens

P.S.

Love Soarin’ Over California? Then I point you to this piece from former Times staffer Sammy Roth, an environmental reporter who also appreciates Disney theme parks. Here, Roth goes scene-by-scene, looking at how Soarin’ represents a snapshot in time and analyzing how its locations have been touched by climate change.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have reached an agreement to resolve their legal dispute, bringing an abrupt end to a high-profile and increasingly contentious battle that had been set to go to trial in two weeks.

“The parties in the Blake Lively and Wayfarer Studios litigation have reached an agreement to resolve the matters,” lawyers for both sides said in a joint statement Monday in a case that has drawn outsized attention for more than a year.

“The end product — the movie ‘It Ends With Us’ — is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors — and all survivors — is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard. We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”

The statement did not disclose the terms of the agreement.

The bitter dispute, which grew out of the production of the 2024 romantic drama “It Ends With Us,” had sprawled over months into a series of lawsuits, countersuits and public claims, with both sides offering sharply different accounts of what took place during and after filming.

Lively sued Baldoni, his production company Wayfarer Studios and others in December 2024, alleging sexual harassment, retaliation and other claims tied to her experience on the film. Baldoni denied the allegations and pushed back in court filings, arguing that the dispute had been mischaracterized.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman dismissed most of Lively’s claims, including her sexual harassment allegations, significantly narrowing the case ahead of a trial that had been scheduled to begin May 18 in New York.

The remaining claims, centered largely on alleged retaliation, had been expected to be the focus of the trial, which was likely to last two to three weeks and risked reputational damage to both parties.

It was not immediately clear whether the court had formally vacated the trial date.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave students their biggest free speech victory in decades, ruling that a disappointed high school cheerleader could not be punished for a social media post on Snapchat that included profane words.

In an 8-1 decision, the justices said a Pennsylvania school district violated the 1st Amendment when it suspended Brandi Levy from the cheerleading team in response to her post.

The court in an opinion by Justice Stephen G. Breyer said her words may have offended school officials, but they did not otherwise disrupt the school. And he said courts should be skeptical of efforts to discipline students for what they say or post on their own free time.

“It might be tempting to dismiss B. L.’s words as unworthy of the robust 1st Amendment protections discussed herein. But sometimes it is necessary to protect the superfluous in order to preserve the necessary,” he wrote in Mahanoy School District vs. B.L.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented and said he does not believe students and children have such protected rights.

American Civil Liberties Union lawyers who represented Levy welcomed the outcome.

“Protecting young people’s free speech rights when they are outside of school is vital, and this is a huge victory for the free speech rights of millions of students who attend our nation’s public schools,” said David Cole, legal director of the ACLU.

The incident in this case occurred in May 2017, when Levy was in ninth grade. She graduated in 2020 and is now a freshman in college.

“The school went too far, and I’m glad that the Supreme Court agrees,” Levy said in a statement. “I was frustrated. I was 14 years old, and I expressed my frustration the way teenagers do today. Young people need to have the ability to express themselves without worrying about being punished when they get to school. I never could have imagined that one simple snap would turn into a Supreme Court case, but I’m proud that my family and I advocated for the rights of millions of public school students.”

Her case posed a question that has divided courts in recent decades. Are students entirely free to say what they wish on social media — even if it includes vulgar, harassing or racist comments — or can they be disciplined by school officials?

During the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that students retained their free speech rights when they went to school, so long as their protests did not cause “substantial disruptions” there. But that landmark ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines has provided little guidance for how to view a student’s posts on social media.

Breyer’s opinion did not set a clear rule or say students are always protected for what they post. But he said those from “off-campus will normally fall within the zone of parental, rather than school-related, responsibility. …When it comes to political or religious speech that occurs outside school or a school program or activity, the school will have a heavy burden to justify intervention.”

The case began when Levy learned she had been passed over for the varsity cheerleading team.

On a Saturday afternoon, she took a photo of herself and a friend with their middle fingers raised and posted it on Snapchat. She included a caption repeating the F-word for “school … softball … cheer … everything.”

The post could be seen by 250 of her friends, including other cheerleaders, and they in turn showed it to the two cheerleading coaches for Mahanoy High School in central Pennsylvania.

They decided she had violated team rules that required showing “respect” to others and avoiding “foul language,” and they suspended her for the year from the junior varsity squad.

She and her parents appealed the decision to school officials and the school board. And when that failed, they sued in federal court, alleging a violation of her 1st Amendment right to the freedom of speech.

A federal judge ruled for Levy, who said her Saturday afternoon posting did not disrupt her school. The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia agreed and ruled the school’s authority did not extend to off-campus speech.

May 1 (Asia Today) — South Korean police have taken custody of a man suspected of supplying drugs to a major narcotics figure, following his arrest in Thailand, authorities said Friday.

The suspect, identified only by his surname Choi, 51, is accused of smuggling and distributing about 22 kilograms of methamphetamine, valued at roughly 10 billion won ($7.4 million), into South Korea since 2019.

Police said Choi, who allegedly operated under the aliases “Cheongdam” or “Cheongdam Boss” on the messaging app Telegram, was identified as a key supplier to drug trafficker Park Wang-yeol, often referred to as a “drug kingpin.”

The National Police Agency’s drug and organized crime unit said it received custody of Choi from Thai authorities and has launched a full investigation into his activities and connections.

Investigators began tracking Choi while probing Park, who was previously arrested in the Philippines. Authorities combined five outstanding cases involving Choi and designated the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency as the lead investigative body.

Although no official departure record for Choi had been found since 2018, police developed intelligence suggesting he was living in Thailand. Working through liaison officers stationed in both countries, South Korean and Thai police coordinated the operation.

Authorities located Choi in Samut Prakan province, about an hour from Bangkok, and conducted a three-day joint surveillance operation before arresting him on April 10 on charges of illegal stay.

Police said the suspect was apprehended within seven days of the formal request for cooperation, and repatriated to South Korea about three weeks later with assistance from the South Korean Embassy in Thailand and related agencies.

Items seized at the time of arrest, including a passport under another person’s name and electronic devices, will undergo digital forensic analysis to determine links to Park and to identify additional accomplices and distribution networks.

Police said the investigation will expand to include possible conspiracy with Park, violations of passport laws and broader drug trafficking activities. Authorities are also pursuing asset recovery tied to alleged criminal proceeds.

Acting National Police Commissioner Yoo Jae-sung said interagency cooperation – including coordination with customs, financial regulators, tax authorities, the food and drug safety agency and the National Intelligence Service – has been mobilized to track and dismantle transnational drug networks.

“This case sends a clear message that drug criminals will be pursued and apprehended to the ends of the earth,” Yoo said.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260501010000003

When a federal judge shot down a Trump administration policy of holding immigrants without bond last December, it seemed like a serious blow to the president’s mass deportation effort.

Instead, a top Justice Department official insisted the ruling wasn’t binding, and the administration continued denying detainees around the country a chance for release.

By February, the district court judge, Sunshine Sykes, was fed up. Sykes, a nominee of President Biden, accused Trump officials in a ruling that month of seeking “to erode any semblance of separation of powers,” adding that they could “only do so in a world where the Constitution does not exist.”

Hardly isolated, the case illustrates a broader pattern of defiance of lower court decisions in President Trump’s second term.

The failure of Trump officials to follow court orders has been highlighted most notably in individual immigration cases. But a review of hundreds of pages of court records by the Associated Press also shows an extraordinary record of violations in lawsuits over policy changes and other moves.

In the administration’s first 15 months in office, district court judges ruled it was violating an order in at least 31 lawsuits over a wide range of issues, including mass layoffs, deportations, spending cuts and immigration practices, the AP’s review of court records found. That’s about 1 out of every 8 lawsuits in which courts have at least temporarily blocked the administration’s actions.

The Trump administration’s power struggle with federal courts — which is testing basic tenets of U.S. democracy — reflects an expansive view of executive authority that has also challenged the independence of federal agencies, a president’s ethical obligations and the U.S. role in the international order.

Widespread noncompliance found

The Trump administration violations in the 31 lawsuits are in addition to more than 250 instances of noncompliance that judges have recently highlighted in individual immigration petitions — including failing to return property and keeping immigrants locked up past court-ordered release dates.

Legal scholars and former federal judges said they could recall at most a few violations of court rulings over the full four-year terms of other recent presidential administrations, including Trump’s first time in office. They also noted previous administrations were generally apologetic when confronted by judges; the Trump administration’s Justice Department has been combative in some cases.

“What the court system is experiencing in the last year and a half is just qualitatively completely different from anything that’s preceded it,” said Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University who studies federal courts and is tracking litigation against the Trump administration.

Though Trump officials eventually backed down in about a third of the 31 lawsuits, legal experts say their treatment of court orders poses serious dangers.

“The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law in this country,” said David Super, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University. “When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country.”

The White House’s aggressive policy moves have prompted a barrage of lawsuits — more than 700 and counting.

Higher courts boost Trump efforts

The AP’s review also found that higher courts, including the Supreme Court, overruled the district courts and sided with the White House in nearly half of the 31 cases. Critics say those decisions are emboldening the administration to ignore judges’ orders.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the higher courts had overturned “unlawful district court rulings.” The administration will “continue to comply with lawful court rulings,” she added in a written statement.

“President Trump’s entire Administration is lawfully implementing the America First agenda he was elected to enact,” the statement said.

Among other instances of noncompliance, judges found the White House defied rulings when it deported scores of accused gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador, withheld billions of dollars in foreign aid and failed to restore programming at the Voice of America. The three cases date to the first few months of the new administration, but judges have continued to find violations since then, including in two cases in April.

“The danger is that this gets normalized,” said JoAnna Suriani, counsel at the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy, which is tracking noncompliance cases. The group is also involved in litigation against the administration.

‘Ham-handed,’ ‘hallucinating’

In October, U.S. District Judge William Smith took little time to conclude Homeland Security officials were flouting one of his orders. Smith, a nominee of President George W. Bush, had blocked them from making billions of dollars in disaster relief funding to states contingent on cooperation with the president’s immigration priorities.

The Department of Homeland Security responded by keeping the immigration requirement on some grants, but making it contingent on a higher court overriding Smith’s injunction. The judge called the move “ham-handed” and said the agency was trying to “bully the states.”

In a case over the suspension of refugee admissions, U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, a Biden nominee, accused the Justice Department last May of “hallucinating new text” in an appellate court order and “rewriting” it to achieve the government’s preferred outcome.

In four additional cases the AP reviewed, judges stopped short of a clear written finding of noncompliance but still criticized the administration’s response to their orders.

Of the judges who have confirmed violations, 22 were appointed by Democratic presidents and seven by Republican presidents.

Former federal judges Jeremy Fogel and Liam O’Grady said jurists are losing trust in the integrity of the Department of Justice.

That’s making them “more aggressive in accusing the government of bad faith,” said O’Grady, who along with Fogel is part of the nonpartisan democracy group Keep Our Republic.

Fogel said judges are also getting frustrated.

“They make orders and the orders don’t get complied with, and then they have to inquire why the orders are not being complied with, and that’s where it gets very mushy and very political,” he said.

Education case raises alarms

In Eureka, Calif., school administrator Lisa Claussen is worried about the impact on her students’ mental health if a judge does not find the Education Department in violation of a court order on federal grants.

Grant money allowed the school district in the poor coastal community in Northern California to hire more than a dozen psychologists and social workers to help students struggling with drug use and suicidal thoughts.

Education officials in the Trump administration told schools in California and other states last year that it was discontinuing the grants; the administration opposed diversity considerations in the grant process.

U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson blocked the move permanently in December, but California and 15 other states now say the administration is making an end run around her injunction by imposing new rules, including an initial limit of six months of funding.

Attorneys for the Education Department said they wanted to see whether schools were making progress on performance goals before releasing additional funds. The judge’s order did not block the six-month limit, they added in a court filing.

Evanson, a Biden nominee, has yet to rule.

In the absence of a one-year funding guarantee, Eureka City Schools and other districts say they have already issued layoff notices to mental health providers or eliminated positions.

“We have many kids who don’t trust adults for very good reason, and to be able to just swipe this grant like they’re doing … ,” Claussen said in a phone interview, her voice trailing off. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

Justice Department response

In court filings, Justice Department attorneys have generally disputed accusations that the government was not complying. They have argued over the meaning of words, cited favorable appellate court rulings and said they were acting outside the scope of the court’s order, among other legal maneuvering.

Outside of court, Trump and White House officials have railed against federal judges. Vice President JD Vance has even suggested the president could ignore court orders.

Will Chamberlain, senior counsel with the conservative legal advocacy group the Article III Project, said many of the judges who have found violations are ignoring laws that clearly prohibit their rulings.

Trump officials are “generally complying, appealing and winning,” he said. “If they were defying orders left and right, they’d be losing them.”

A justice’s rebuke

In March, a federal appeals court ruled Sykes, the judge in California, had probably exceeded her authority in requiring bond hearings nationwide and blocked her February decision.

The outcome was not unusual.

In 15 of the 31 lawsuits the AP reviewed, an appellate court or the Supreme Court either allowed the administration’s underlying policy, limited the district court’s efforts to correct or punish the noncompliance, or both.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized her fellow justices after one such ruling.

“This is not the first time the Court closes its eyes to noncompliance, nor, I fear, will it be the last,” she wrote in June in a dissent joined by the court’s two other liberal justices. “Yet each time this Court rewards noncompliance with discretionary relief, it further erodes respect for courts and for the rule of law.”

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

A child sexual assault case filed against Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler will proceed to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The singer is accused of grooming, sexually assaulting and impregnating 16-year-old Julia Misley in the 1970s. The suit, first filed in 2022 in Torrance, claims he “used his role, status, and power as a well-known musician and rock star” to exploit Misley. The complaint also argues Tyler admitted to the alleged crimes in his own memoir, “Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?,” where he refers to her as his “teen bride.”

Earlier this week, a judge dismissed most of the case, citing the statute of limitations in Massachusetts, where the pair lived during their three-year relationship. But they allegedly crossed state lines while Tyler toured the country with his band, including to California, according to the complaint. Because of California’s Child Victims Act — a 2020 statute that allowed a “lookback window” where alleged victims can file lawsuits regardless of a statute of limitations — a portion of the case will still be tried.

“This is a massive win for Steven Tyler. Today, the Court has dismissed with prejudice 99.9% of the claims against Mr. Tyler in this case,” Tyler’s lawyer, David Long-Daniels, said in a statement to The Times. “The court has decided that only one night, 50-plus years ago, out of a three-year relationship is allowed to remain.”

New York has a similar statute that was recently employed by singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in her case against Sean Combs. She filed a sex-trafficking and sexual assault lawsuit against the music mogul in 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, just days before the expiration of a lookback window.

The lawsuit against Tyler, who previously appeared as a judge on “American Idol,” claims he and Misley first met at an Aerosmith concert in 1973. According to the document, he “performed various acts of criminal sexual conduct upon Plaintiff that night.” At the time, Tyler was in his mid-20s and Julia was 16.

The alleged encounter was the first of many, the lawsuit claims. In 1974, Tyler was named Misley’s legal guardian and took her on tour with the band.

According to the complaint, he described the nature of the relationship in his 2011 memoir, writing, “She was 16, she knew how to nasty … with my bad self being twenty-six and she barely old enough to drive and sexy as hell, I just fell madly in love with her. … She was my heart’s desire, my partner in crimes of passion. … I was so in love I almost took a teen bride. I went and slept at her parent’s house for a couple of nights and her parent’s fell in love with me, signed paper over for me to have custody, so I wouldn’t get arrested if I took her out of state. I took her on tour with me.”

The lawsuit also describes Misley’s alleged pregnancy with Tyler’s child, which ended in a “pressured” abortion.

In previous court documents, Tyler has denied the allegations and attempted to get the case dismissed.

“This reflects years of resilience and courage by Ms. Misley, driven by an unwavering pursuit of truth and justice. It is time for justice and for Tyler to be held accountable by a jury,” Misley’s attorney, Jeff Anderson, said in a statement.

The trial is scheduled for August.

MIAMI — A former Miami congressman and longtime friend of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was convicted Friday in connection with a secret $50-million lobbying campaign on behalf of Venezuela during the first Trump administration.

Jurors found Republican David Rivera and an associate, Esther Nuhfer, guilty on all counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of their work for former President Nicolás Maduro’s government.

The seven-week trial offered a rare glimpse into Miami’s role as a crossroads for foreign influence campaigns aimed at shaping U.S. policy toward Latin America, one highlighting the city’s reputation as a magnet for corruption and anti-Communist crusaders among its sizable exile population.

It included testimony from Rubio, Texas Congressman Pete Sessions and a top Washington lobbyist — all of whom testified that they were shocked to learn belatedly of Rivera’s consulting contract with a U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.

In an 11-count indictment unsealed in 2022, prosecutors alleged that Rivera was tapped by then Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela’s acting president — to work Republican connections from Rivera’s time in Congress to get the first Trump administration to abandon its hard-line stance and ease crippling sanctions on Venezuela.

As part of the charm offensive, prosecutors alleged, Rivera and Nuhfer, a political consultant, manipulated influential friends, including Rubio and Sessions, like “pawns on a chess board.” The goal: to try to normalize relations with the new Trump administration at a time when the Maduro government was buffeted by serious accusations of human rights violations.

“As long as the money kept coming in, they didn’t care from where,” prosecutor Roger Cruz said of the defendants during closing arguments.

‘Massive secret’ threatened to damage Rivera’s political career

But the two held onto the “massive secret” and didn’t disclose their lobbying work as required, for fear it would have ended Rivera’s political career as an anti-Communist stalwart, Cruz said.

To hide his work, prosecutors allege, Rivera also set up an encrypted chat group called MIA — for Miami — with his main conduit to the Maduro government: Venezuelan media tycoon Raúl Gorrín, who was subsequently charged in the U.S. with bribing top Venezuelan officials.

Members of the group used playful code words to discuss their activities: Maduro was the “bus driver,” Sessions “Sombrero,” Rodríguez “The Lady in Red,” and millions of dollars “melons,” according to copies of text messages presented to the jury.

“It was all about la Luz,” Cruz said, referring to the Spanish word for light, which Rivera and others repeatedly used to discuss payments from Caracas.

Attorneys for Rivera and Nuhfer said the two acted in good faith and believed they were under no requirement to disclose their work. The three-month, $50-million contract with Rivera’s one-man consulting firm, they say, was focused exclusively on luring oil giant ExxonMobil back to Venezuela — commercial work that is generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Wholly distinct from that consulting work, they say, were Rivera’s meetings with Rubio and Sessions, which occurred after the consulting contract had expired and was focused on ushering in leadership in Venezuela that would be less hostile to the U.S.

“He was working every possible angle to get Nicolás Maduro out,” defense attorney Ed Shohat said during closing arguments. “There was not a word in the chats about normalizing relations.”

Nuhfer’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, likened the government’s case to the 17th century Salem witch trials, presuming ill intent that was belied by the flimsiest of evidence.

“My client does not have a dark heart,” he said.

Exxon meetings for Rodríguez

Prosecutors said Rivera used the contract with New York-based PDV USA as cover for illegal lobbying.

Once exposed, the partners tried to hide the work — backdating documents and coming up with sham agreements like one to justify a wire transfer of $3.75 million to a South Florida company that maintained Gorrín’s luxury yacht.

The political activity included setting up meetings for Rodríguez in New York, Caracas, Washington and Dallas. As part of the effort, the two roped in Sessions, who later tried to broker a meeting for Rodríguez with the CEO of ExxonMobil that had succeeded Trump’s then-secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. After a secret meeting in Caracas with Maduro, Sessions also agreed to deliver a letter from the Venezuelan president to Trump.

The outreach quickly unraveled, however. Within six months of taking office, Trump sanctioned Maduro and labeled him a “dictator,” launching a “maximum pressure” campaign to unseat the president.

However, nearly a decade later, Rodríguez has emerged as the second Trump administration’s trusted partner after the U.S. military’s ousting of Maduro.

Before being elected to Congress in 2010, Rivera was a high-ranking Florida legislator. During that time, he shared a Tallahassee home with Rubio, who eventually became the Florida House speaker.

Rivera has previously faced controversy, including allegations that he secretly funded a Democratic spoiler candidate in a 2012 congressional race. Last year, federal prosecutors dropped the case after an appeals court threw out a sizable fine imposed by a lower court. Rivera was also investigated — but never charged — for alleged campaign finance violations and a $1-million contract with a gambling company while serving in the Florida legislature.

Goodman writes for the Associated Press.

Evidence in the murder case against the singer D4vd — who is charged with the brutal killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez — will not become public until at least late next month, after his defense attorneys pumped the brakes on a preliminary hearing that was scheduled to take place this Friday.

David Anthony Burke, 21, was charged with murder, continuous sex abuse of a minor and mutilating a corpse earlier this month after Los Angeles police stormed a Hollywood Hills home and arrested him. He pleaded not guilty last week.

The singer has long been linked to Hernandez’s disappearance and death, after her badly decomposed body was found in the trunk of a Tesla he owned at a Hollywood tow yard last September. Authorities said Hernandez was last seen at Burke’s Hollywood residence on April 23, 2025.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said last week that Burke killed the 14-year-old because she threatened to expose the fact that he’d been sexually abusing her for nearly a year. An autopsy report made public last week revealed Hernandez died from a pair of stab wounds. Her body was dismembered when police found it in the trunk and two of her fingers had been amputated, the report said.

Burke’s lead defense attorney, Blair Berk, said she does not believe the prosecution’s case can hold up to scrutiny and pushed for an immediate preliminary hearing during his initial court appearance. Defendants have a right to a preliminary hearing, in which a judge determines whether prosecutors have enough evidence to bring a case to trial, within 10 business days. In Burke’s case, that would have put the preliminary hearing on track for May 1.

But on Wednesday afternoon, attorney Marilyn Bednarski asked that the hearing be pushed back to May 26, citing the voluminous amount of discovery in the case. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo agreed there was “good cause” to delay the hearing a few weeks.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman expressed some annoyance at Bednarski and Berk’s change of heart, noting she’d already warned the defense team that prosecutors had a trove of evidence to turn over.

Silverman said last week that discovery materials would include the results of a wiretap and searches of Burke’s cellphone and iCloud accounts, which prosecutors allege turned up “a significant amount of child pornography.” Law enforcement executed 54 search warrants in the case, according to court records.

The medical examiner’s report detailing how Hernandez died was not available to the defense until last week. Prosecutors also convened three secret grand juries between November 2025 and February 2026 to collect evidence against Burke, according to Silverman. Transcripts from those hearings were under seal as of last week.

Bednarski said Wednesday she needed “additional time to review the discovery we either just got, or are about to get, in order to have a full and free preliminary hearing.”

“We told them that this was what was going to be coming,” Silverman argued in reply. “As I said in my brief, we sent out subpoenas, we’ve been preparing, we’ve been telling witnesses to cancel planned vacations.”

Berk also sought to have Olmedo seal a filing that Silverman submitted early Wednesday that laid out evidence she plans to present at a preliminary hearing.

“The prosecution has appeared to file a rather unusual pre-preliminary hearing brief that appears to be a very one-sided view of what is anticipated as the evidence in this case. But no evidence has been presented by the prosecution in a courtroom. Certainly there has been no adjudication of the admissibility of that evidence,” Berk said, expressing worry that the publication of such materials would taint future jury pools.

Prosecutors normally file such briefs ahead of trial, which include a list of witnesses they plan to call and a summary of arguments they will make. Olmedo rejected Berk’s request to seal the motion. A copy of the document was not immediately available for review at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse.

According to Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and other top administration officials, the U.S. Secret Service did a fine job protecting President Trump and Cabinet members from the gunman who breached the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner Saturday.

“That horrible act was stopped because of the courage and professionalism of law enforcement — the officers who responded without hesitation and did their jobs as they were trained to do,” Blanche said Monday.

However, according to a detailed accounting filed Wednesday by federal prosecutors in the criminal case against suspect Cole Tomas Allen, the performance of the nation’s preeminent protection agency was marred by inattentiveness and misfires and saved by “extraordinary good fortune” and the gunman falling to the ground.

“The defendant, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, a .38 caliber pistol, two knives, four daggers, and enough ammunition to take dozens of lives, was apprehended by [Secret Service] officers mere feet away from the ballroom where his primary target was located, along with other members of the Cabinet,” prosecutors wrote Wednesday, in a filing arguing for Allen to be held in detention pending trial on one charge of trying to kill the president and two firearms charges.

Contradicting a prior claim by Blanche that officers had “promptly tackled and detained” Allen, prosecutors wrote that the 31-year-old tutor from Torrance simply “fell to the ground” after blowing past a team of agents just two open flights of stairs from the ballroom.

They wrote that one officer fired at Allen five times, but never hit him.

The same officer saw Allen fire his shotgun “in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom,” prosecutors wrote, and officers later discovered “one spent cartridge in the barrel and eight unfired cartridges in the magazine tube.”

Prosecutors said nothing about the Secret Service officer who Blanche said was shot in his ballistic vest during the incident — adding to speculation that the officer may have been shot not by Allen, but by a fellow officer, or not at all.

Agency critiqued before

In all, the court filing brought further into focus a chaotic Secret Service response that appeared flawed from the start, including in a video Trump posted shortly after the incident in which agents appeared to be idling around an unobstructed entrance when Allen ran past them.

It added to concerns that law enforcement, security experts and members of Congress had raised about the performance of an agency that has been repeatedly called on to improve after previous attempts on Trump’s life. At a 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pa., a gunman fired a bullet that grazed Trump’s ear, and that same year, another assailant prepared to shoot him from the unsecured perimeter of a Florida golf course.

Robert D’Amico, a former FBI deputy chief of operations for hostage rescue teams who is now a security consultant, said the security failures he saw in the Secret Service’s preparation for Saturday’s dinner — including its failure to set up basic barriers to prevent people from sprinting into the secured area — were stunning, especially given the past threats and the fact the nation is at war with Iran.

“It’s for a person like Trump, who’s had two assassination attempts before and is at war with Iran, which has terrorist training and proxies up, and you still don’t have the basics?” D’Amico said. “It’s unfathomable.”

Other concerns have been voiced by members of Congress, including Republicans.

The House Oversight Committee has requested a briefing from the Secret Service, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has called for a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which also investigated the Butler incident.

In a letter urging the hearing, Hawley said the latest incident “raises questions about presidential security arrangements, potential resource needs, and the degree to which reforms previously proposed by Congress have been adopted.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Fox News that from “a layman’s perspective,” event security “looked a little lax in terms of getting into the building,” and that it “doesn’t sound like it was sufficient.”

Sean M. Curran, director of the Secret Service, has been on Capitol Hill in recent days briefing lawmakers.

He told CBS News that agents did a “great job,” but also that the incident remains under review. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles would be leading discussions on potential updates to Secret Service plans for securing the president.

Fear of graver threats

Blanche has argued that proof of the Secret Service’s effectiveness at the press gala was in the result: Allen was stopped, Trump and other officials were unharmed and no one was killed, despite Allen’s alleged intent.

However, the concerns being raised have to do with the vulnerabilities that were exposed as much as those that were exploited.

Because the dinner was not designated a major “national special security event” — such as a political convention — there were no trained counterassault agents on standby to prevent a breach or to take down a person with a weapon, officials have said.

Law enforcement experts said that was clearly a mistake given so many top officials — Trump, Johnson, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among others — were in the room.

Such a gathering could have been targeted by foreign adversaries or others with far more experience, less regard for human life and much greater firepower than Allen, experts said.

“Most of my military friends are all saying the same thing,” said D’Amico, who is also a former infantry platoon commander in the U.S. Marines. “If you had had a team of three or four [gunmen], they would have gotten to [Trump].’”

In the initial criminal complaint against Allen, prosecutors included the text of an email Allen sent to family just as he was preparing to rush the security perimeter, in which he allegedly wrote that he had chosen to use buckshot in order to “minimize casualties” and prevent bystanders from being wounded by more powerful bullets penetrating walls.

He also allegedly wrote that he was willing to “go through most everyone” at the event to get to top administration officials, but that guests and hotel staff were “not targets at all.”

In Wednesday’s filing, prosecutors describe Allen’s actions as “premeditated, violent, and calculated to cause death,” and say he was “laden with weapons” as he breached security. But none of those weapons included assault-style rifles that can fire multiple bullets rapidly and have been used to kill civilians in mass shootings across the country for years.

The filing described Allen — a Caltech graduate and high school tutor — not as some trained tactical expert, but as an ideologue who spent part of his Amtrak journey from California to Washington waxing poetic about the landscape around him, describing Pennsylvania’s woods as “vast fairy lands filled with tiny trickling creeks in spring.”

Could have been worse

D’Amico said he and other Marines learned early on in Iraq that entrances to secured locations have to be designed in a “serpentine” fashion, forcing anyone approaching to move more slowly through the area and giving security officers more time to assess their intentions. And at an event the size of the correspondents’ dinner, with so many top officials gathered in a public hotel, you would want to make entrances “even more difficult.”

And yet no barriers seemed to be in place at the event, he said — something anyone trained more than Allen could have capitalized on.

“If they just had come through in a team of three or four who were coordinated and trained, there absolutely would have been penetration into the ballroom,” D’Amico said. “It would have been a gunfight.”

Allen himself questioned the security at the event, according to court records, allegedly writing that he had walked into the Washington Hilton with multiple weapons and no one considered “the possibility that I could be a threat.”

He wrote that if he “was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen,” he “could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed” — referring to a powerful machine gun.

“It is fortunate he was only armed with what he had,” said Ed Obayashi, a California law enforcement expert on use of force.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former FBI Director James Comey appeared in court on Wednesday, kick-starting a criminal case against him that legal experts say presents significant hurdles for the prosecution and will likely be a challenge for the Justice Department to win.

Comey, who didn’t enter a plea, was indicted in North Carolina on Tuesday on charges of making threats against President Trump related to a photograph he posted on social media last year of seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47.” The Justice Department contends those numbers amounted to a threat against Trump, the 47th president. Comey has said he assumed the numbers reflected a political message, not a call to violence against the Republican president, and removed the post as soon as he saw some people were interpreting it that way.

The indictment is the second against Comey, a longtime adversary of Trump dating back to his time as FBI director, over the past year. The first one, on unrelated false-statement and obstruction charges, was tossed out by a judge last year. Now prosecutors pursuing the threats case face their own challenge of proving that Comey intended to communicate a true threat or at least recklessly discounted the possibility that the statement could be understood as a threat.

The indictment accuses Comey of acting “knowingly and willfully,” but its sparse language offers no support for that assertion. Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche declined to elaborate at a news conference on what evidence of intent the government has. But broad 1st Amendment protections for free speech, Supreme Court precedent and Comey’s public statements indicating that he did not intend to convey a threat will likely impose a tall burden for the government.

“Here, ‘86’ is ambiguous — it doesn’t necessarily threaten violence and the fact that it was the FBI Director posting this openly and notoriously on a public social media site suggests that he didn’t intend to convey a threat of violence,” John Keller, a former senior Justice Department official who led a task force to prosecute violent threats against election workers, wrote in a text message.

The case was charged in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the location of the beach where Comey has said he found the shells. He is set to make his first court appearance Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., the state where he lives.

What the law says on threats

The Supreme Court has held that statements are not protected by the 1st Amendment if they meet the legal threshold of a “true threat.”

That requires prosecutors to prove, at a minimum, that a defendant recklessly disregarded the risk that a statement could be perceived as threatening violence. In a 2023 Supreme Court case, the majority held that prosecutors have to show that the “defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements.”

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has found that hyperbolic political speech is protected. In a 1969 case, the justices held that a Vietnam War protester did not make a knowing and willful threat against the president when he remarked that “If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J,” referring to President Lyndon B. Johnson. The court noted that laughter in the crowd when the protester made the statement, among other things, showed it wasn’t a serious threat of violence.

Regarding the current case, Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by the Associated Press, says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” It notes: “Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of ‘to kill.’ We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”

Comey deleted the post shortly after it was made, writing: “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence” and “I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

What the government will try to prove

John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney in the Western District of Virginia, said the government will likely try to prove that Comey should have known better as a former FBI director.

“I think they’re going to try to circumstantially say that you were head of the FBI, you knew what these terms meant and you said them out to the whole world as a threat to the president,” Fishwick said, though he noted that such an argument would be challenging in light of Comey’s obvious 1st Amendment defenses.

Comey was voluntarily interviewed by the Secret Service last year, and the fact that he was not charged with making a false statement suggests that prosecutors do not have evidence that he lied to agents, Fishwick said.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday that “despite being one of Comey’s longest critics, the indictment raises troubling free speech issues. In the end, it must be the Constitution, not Comey, that drives the analysis and this indictment is unlikely to withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

“If it did,” he added, “it would allow the government to criminalize a huge swath of political speech in the United States.”

Tucker, Richer and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press. Kunzelman reported from Alexandria, Va.

Welcome to the first edition of Mr. Todd’s Wild Ride, a weekly newsletter all about theme parks.

Theme parks, I’ve long believed, are art. Here in Southern California, they are institutions.

And here at The Times, I have been writing about theme parks for more than a decade. As a journalist but also as a fan, even attempting to analyze my own love for these spaces and why I keep going back.

My entry to theme parks were trips to Florida’s Walt Disney World. These vacations were the highlight of my youth, helping a shy, awkward kid get out of his shell and discover a safe world of play. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see parks as places that reflect our popular myths back to us, allowing us to live inside them and define a role for ourselves. I still insist on riding Pirates of the Caribbean each Disneyland visit, just as my father used to. It’s the second-greatest ride at the park, after all.

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That’s not to say theme parks are perfect. They are crowded, they are expensive and increasingly they separate the haves and the have-nots. We’ll talk about some of that here, too, in addition to theme park history, theme park artistry, SoCal theme park news and how to maximize your day. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the ride.

Take on a character and quest at Universal Studios

I am standing in front of a makeshift cemetery. On the paths between gravestones are colored footprints, as if left by cartoon characters. These are the trails of a suspect. Purple imprints are what I’m seeking.

I am on the case, and the Scooby-Doo gang is here to help: Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy and, of course, Scooby-Doo himself. Left in the thorny bushes of the graveyard is a clue. Once the latter is discovered, I am one step closer to solving the mystery, one that has unleashed a host of Universal’s classic movie monsters on the ol’ Europe section of the studio’s backlot.

A mash-up of Universal’s classic monsters and “Scooby-Doo!” characters is featured in a game-like experience at Fan Fest Nights.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Can I and a few hundred strangers restore order and save the day?

Universal’s Fan Fest Nights is in its second year, and after a mixed debut last spring, the after-hours, specially-ticketed event has hit its stride. The centerpiece of the fest, which runs on select nights through May 16 with tickets starting at $74, is a mash-up of “Scooby-Doo!” and Universal’s Monsters, a lengthy game-focused quest with escape room-worthy puzzles.

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The experience, as well as those focused on the worlds of “Harry Potter,” “Dungeons & Dragons” and anime sensation “One Piece,” are hefty, limited-time installations that would be worthy of including in a theme park’s daily operations, as the best of them experiment with character interactions and role play.

While exploring these pop-up worlds, I couldn’t help but think about how stagnant Disney’s own specially-ticketed events have become. Fan Fest and Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights change yearly, yet Disneyland’s popular Oogie Boogie Bash has become repetitive and its other themed nights are too reliant on photo ops and traditional character meet-and-greets.

Taken as a whole, Fan Fest resets expectations for what an after-hours, theme park event should be.

Here there are photo ops and limited-run food, sure (and I highly recommend the graham cracker-like Scooby Snack cookies), but Universal’s live theatrical team has placed the emphasis on exploratory attractions. Actors abound, allowing guests to lean in and take on an active role.

A “Harry Potter” experience at Fan Fest Nights is a walk through a fantastical forest looking for a magical creature.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

In the Potter-focused “Forbidden Forest: Search for the Hippogriff,” we are amateur wizards on the prowl for a magical creature, in this case a majestic, oversized puppet. It reminded me of being a young Boy Scout and going on evening hikes into the woods with a guide regaling us with mysterious tales. In “Dungeons & Dragons: Secrets of Waterdeep,” a returning experience from last season, we are alternately adventurers and thieves.

And in the Scooby gang’s “The Case of the Phantom Director,” we are cast as extras in a film production. The Scooby Doo quest, the heart of the night, comes complete with a 14-page manual full of character bios, clues and missions. You’ll have to read, but it’s a bet that today’s guests are craving personal and interactive attractions that pull as much from immersive theater as they do classic theme parks. I applaud this sort of tinkering with the formula, even as I wonder how attendees will take to having to complete actual brain-teasers in a theme park. At least there is a payoff with a mini show (you do not need to complete the challenges to see the finale).

It took my friend and me more than an hour to solve the Scooby game, and, I confess, we didn’t complete one of the four mini-puzzles. While none of the head-scratchers individually are all that stressful, they are more complex than typical theme park fare and require guests to get out of a mindset of rushing from event to event. (Another friend of mine declared herself too “stupid” to complete the missions, but Scooby fans may simply enjoy living in the make-believe world and playing with the actors).

More of this kind of playful inventiveness, please. Magic isn’t always a fancy animatronic. Sometimes it’s just personalization.

A “One Piece”-inspired stunt show is a popular offering at Universal’s Fan Fest Nights.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The week in SoCal theme parks

• Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge will roll out some major changes on Wednesday. Out with Kylo Ren and in with Darth Vader (and Luke, Han and Leia). I’ll have more on this next week.
• It’s your last chance to meet a Wall-E and Eve robotic figure at the Pixar Place Hotel. Wednesday is the final day currently on the schedule. This has been a popular meet and greet at the Disneyland Resort, so give yourself at least an hour, maybe more, to stand in line if it’s a priority for you.
• Looking for a Disneyland deal? If you can get there midweek, single-day, single-park tickets can be had for $104 on Wednesday and Thursday. The friendlier price is also available next week, on May 5-6.
• Universal Fan Fest Nights returns Friday through Sunday and while I clearly had a positive experience, if you’re considering going, be prepared for lines. The “Harry Potter” walk-through was a two-hour wait most of the evening. Queue up early, too, for the crowd-pleasing “One Piece” stunt show, as there were only three performances on opening night.
• Disneyland has announced a host of new food options coming to the park this week, including blueberry cobbler doughnuts at Lamplight Lounge and a Philly cheesesteak at Pym Test Kitchen.
• Facial recognition is now being used widely at Disneyland entrance gates. Disney isn’t the first theme park or major SoCal venue to utilize such technology, but Times news writer Hannah Fry spoke to guests about its implementation and delved into the ethical concerns surrounding it.

The best thing I ate at the parks

Universal Studios’ Scooby Snacks cookies are a delightful treat.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

I mention this above, but as part of Fan Fest, Universal Studios has released a box of “Scooby Snacks.” They come in bundles of four, packaged in cute purple and green Girl Scout-inspired boxes. They are a delight, and only about $10. The honey & cinnamon dog tags also make a fine coffee accompaniment with breakfast as these are slightly oversize, graham cracker-style cookies. The only negative is you’ll need a Fan Fest ticket to snare them.

Ride report

There was recently a tweak to Universal Studios’ tram tour.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The past couple weeks I’ve spent a significant amount of time at Universal Studios, partly in prep for Fan Fest and the arrival of the Fast & Furious coaster this summer, but I also wanted to take in its studio tram tour (officially designed as the World Famous Studio Tour). Aside from being a historic attraction, there was recently a change to its “King Kong” section. Namely, 3-D glasses are no longer required. As someone prone to motion sickness, this is a welcome change and I’m pleased to report it looks spiffy. Now if we could just do something about that stomach-churning “The Simpsons” ride.

Tell us your stories. Ask us your questions.

Have a theme park tale to share? Whether it was a good day or less-than-perfect day, I would love to hear about it. Have a question? A tip? A fun photo from the parks to share? Email me at todd.martens@latimes.com. I may feature your note in an upcoming newsletter.

Ride on,

Todd Martens

P.S.

I often work remotely from theme parks — find me on my laptop at Flo’s V8 Cafe at Disney California Adventure, near the Calico Saloon at Knott’s or out in back of the Three Broomsticks at Universal Studios. But even when I’m in a normal office, I still like to write with a bit of theme park optimism. So I turn to music.

My favorite bands (Wilco, the Clash, Sleater-Kinney) will distract, so lately I’ve been seeking instrumental fare. And Disneyland Paris has just released a gem of a work soundtrack. It re-imagined its second park as Disney Adventure World, and while I’m confused as to why my editor didn’t send me to Paris to review it (nudge, nudge), I’ve been consoling myself with the “Adventure Way Symphonic Suite” from the London Symphony Orchestra and French composer Philippe Rombi. It’s calming, a bit majestic, and reminds me of early days music at Florida’s Epcot. That is, it’s music that aims to conjure wonder.

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned whether the state’s Democrat-led legislature complied with constitutional requirements when it sent a congressional redistricting plan to voters, in a case that could help decide the balance of power in the U.S. House.

The new districts, which could net Democrats four additional seats, won narrow voter approval last week. But a Republican legal challenge contends the General Assembly violated procedural rules by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week’s statewide vote meaningless.

The Virginia court proceedings mark the latest twist in a national redistricting battle between Republicans and Democrats seeking an advantage in a November midterm election that will determine whether Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House.

President Trump kicked off a tit-for-tat round of gerrymandering last summer when he urged Texas Republicans to redraw districts to their favor in an attempt to win several additional House seats. That set off a chain reaction of similar moves in other states, leading to the voter approval last week of Virginia’s new map.

Next up is Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has included congressional redistricting on the agenda for a special session of the GOP-controlled Legislature beginning Tuesday.

Virginia arguments focus on what counts as an `election’

During Monday’s arguments, the Virginia Supreme Court focused on whether the new congressional districts should be invalidated because of the process used by lawmakers. The justices issued no immediate ruling.

Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.

The legislature’s first vote occurred in October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded on the day of the general election. Judicial questioning focused on whether that was too late, because early voting already had begun.

Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature’s first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.

But an attorney arguing for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, said “election” means the entire period during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution, he said.

Attorneys argue over the rights of voters

The purpose of Virginia’s two-step amendment process, with an intervening election, is so voters can know whether legislative candidates support or oppose a proposed constitutional amendment, McCarthy said.

He pointed to the case of Democratic voter Camilla Simon, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit alongside Republican state lawmakers, who cast an early vote last fall for Democratic Del. Rodney Willett. After she voted, Willett sponsored the Democratic redistricting amendment, and Simon wished she could have undone her vote, McCarthy said.

“None of these voters had any idea this was coming, and that’s not how this process is supposed to work,” McCarthy told the justices.

Those defending the Democratic redistricting plan also contend that the voters’ will should be respected.

The people voted to ratify the constitutional amendment, “and the challengers are asking to overturn that democratic result,” Seligman told reporters after the arguments.

Nationwide redistricting battle has no clear winner so far

So far, the two major parties have battled to a near draw in the states that have redrawn their congressional maps for this year’s midterms.

Republicans think they could win up to nine more seats under revised districts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. Democrats think they could win as many as 10 additional seats under new districts in California, Utah and Virginia. But legal challenges remain in both Virginia and Missouri.

Virginia currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts, which narrowly won voter approval on April 21, could give Democrats an improved chance to win 10 districts.

Some candidates already have begun campaigning based on the new districts in advance of the state’s Aug. 4 primary election.

More court battles could remain in Virginia

In January, a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia, ruled that lawmakers failed to follow their own rules for adding the redistricting amendment to a special session last fall. Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. also ruled that lawmakers failed to initially approve the amendment before the public began voting in last year’s general election and that the state had failed to publish the amendment three months before the election, as required by law. As a result, he said, the amendment is invalid and void.

The Virginia Supreme Court placed Hurley’s order on hold and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.

During Monday’s arguments, justices also raised questions about the ability of lawmakers to expand the agenda for their special session and whether the three-month public notice requirement was important enough to thwart a voter-approved amendment.

Republicans have filed at least two additional legal challenges, which also are winding their way through the courts.

Robertson and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Mo. AP writers Allen G. Breed in Richmond and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

The only thing that would make the job JJ Redick is doing better is if he were wearing a suit.

If the Lakers’ coach looked the part.

The part of a lawyer, walking down his opposition in the open court. He delivered an airtight opening argument that was stunning for how much stronger it was than opposing coach Ime Udoka’s. And evidence of how far Redick has come.

Now, look, your honor: The short-on-star-power Lakers winning both games at home to take a 2-0 series lead over the heavily favored Houston Rockets in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs? That’s a compelling start.

But Redick, James and Associates are only halfway there; they’re still proving their case.

They still need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their top role players can perform as persuasively on the road as they have at home.

And they’ll probably have to prove they can effectively rebut the Rockets’ adjustments, though those are merely conceptual at this point, they’re so overdue.

Two games into this series it looks to us, the members of the jury, as though Redick has taken this allegedly open-and-shut case, this slam dunk of a trial — and thrown down a reverse.

The Lakers look like the better team. Like the better-constructed team, even. And that’s without injured stars Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, who are hustling back as fast as their bodies will let them from hamstring and oblique injuries, respectively.

They look like the better-coached team.

It’s the opposing counsel who looks dressed for the part, Udoka in a sweatsuit like a dad at a Saturday morning youth league trying to get his players to get along, with just one play in his pocket: Give the ball to Kevin.

Meanwhile, the legal team minding the game in the Lakers’ huddle is running laps around the guys on the other bench.

Coach JJ Redick and forward LeBron James have helped the Lakers earn a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven playoff series agains the favored Rockets without injured guards Luke Doncic and Austin Reaves.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Exhibit A: One of the game’s greatest scorers, Kevin Durant, has been forced by his own team to do a lot of ballhandling chores too. So the Lakers have been double-teaming and blitzing Durant all over the court, compelling him into nine turnovers in Tuesday’s 101-94 Game 2 victory at Crypto.com Arena. Using the same strategy, they’ve turned him over 20 times in his last three meetings with the Lakers, going back to the regular season.

Exhibit B: By playing drop, hedge, man and mixing zone defenses, the Lakers also have been, according to Marcus Smart’s postgame testimony, “throwing different packages” at the Rockets. It’s working: Houston has failed to score 100 points in either game of the series.

Exhibit C: The Lakers are putting the ball in Smart’s hands, using him in a way that forces the Rockets to defend honestly, instead of sagging off him. They’ve also been intentional with how they leverage Luke Kennard, running actions that overrule his reluctance to shoot. It should please the court to see the man shooting 65.4% (17 for 26) from the field in the first two games!

With these tactics and others, the Lakers seem almost to be creating new precedent for the laws of basketball, because what do you mean the Rockets have taken 44 more shots but have been outscored by 16 points?

What makes it so wildly impressive is that before the Lakers brought this thing to trial, it looked as though it would be thrown out on the grounds of insufficient star power.

With just 41-year-old LeBron James to carry them without Doncic and Reaves, Houston seemed so much stronger. Physically, on the boards, in just about every way — except in terms of chemistry, camaraderie and communication.

Even Udoka’s record seemed superior. In 2021-22, his first (and only) season as the Boston Celtics’ coach, he led them to the NBA Finals.

Redick, in his first playoffs as a coach last year, showed such contempt for his own team and made an absolute mockery of the game plan that got the Lakers to the postseason in the first place. Remember how he panicked, refusing even to approach the bench to give his preferred five a breather for a full losing half in Game 4 against the Minnesota Timberwolves? The little tantrum he threw when asked about it before the Game 5 finale?

The Duke graduate and self-proclaimed “basketball sicko” has appeared much more prepared this time, much more composed.

He seems to be in his element, problem-solving alongside his former podcast host, James, who has stepped right up with 47 points, 20 assists and 16 rebounds — including some highlight-reel dunks and passes — through the first two games. We are all witnesses.

Still, this thing is going to last at least two more games, and possibly more, before we get a verdict.

And if it goes the Lakers’ way?

Congratulations, JJ, you will have earned the reputation as a coach who can take on the toughest cases and win them. And do we have an impossible challenge for you next on the docket.

The top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder are young, deep, and up 2-0 in their first-round series against the Phoenix Suns. The defending-champion Thunder have run the Lakers out of court in every meeting this season, beating them by an average of 29 points. And they’re clever too; referees — those judges on the court — always seem so sympathetic to OKC.

Would the Lakers have any chance? Redick is proving he might be able to make a case.

April 23 (Asia Today) — A former Samsung Electronics manager was sentenced to 6 years and 4 months in prison on Thursday in a retrial over charges that he leaked key semiconductor technology to a Chinese competitor.

The Seoul High Court also fined the former manager, identified by his surname Kim, 200 million won ($145,000).

The ruling came after South Korea’s Supreme Court sent the case back for a new trial, saying lower courts had wrongly treated some acts involving trade secret disclosure as part of a single offense rather than separate crimes.

Kim was accused of illegally leaking Samsung Electronics’ 18-nanometer DRAM process technology, classified as a national core technology, to Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies, also known as CXMT. He was indicted and detained in 2024. He was also accused of leaking technical data belonging to another company.

The appeals court said Kim had illegally acquired Samsung trade secrets and used them in China, calling the offense extremely serious.

The court said violations involving industrial technology, trade secrets and national core technologies waste the massive time and money invested in developing DRAM technology, severely undermine fair business order and could damage national competitiveness.

Two other defendants tried in the same case also received sentences after parts of the earlier acquittals were overturned. A former executive at a partner company was sentenced to three months in prison, while a company employee received a two-month prison term suspended for one year.

In the first trial, Kim was sentenced to seven years in prison after the court found him guilty on most charges related to trade secret leaks. The second trial upheld much of that reasoning but reduced the sentence to six years, citing findings that he had not directly participated in leaking some of Samsung’s core technology.

The Supreme Court later reversed that judgment and ordered a retrial. It said obtaining or disclosing trade secrets among accomplices during the process of leaking technology overseas should be treated as distinct crimes.

The court said South Korea’s unfair competition law defines the acquisition, use and disclosure of trade secrets to third parties as independent offenses, and separately punishes the knowing use of such secrets.

On Tuesday, another former Samsung employee charged in a related case was sentenced to seven years in prison. Authorities said that case was uncovered during an additional investigation into Kim.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260423010007596

In the aftermath of a recent data breach that saw hackers make off with a vast trove of confidential police records, Los Angeles leaders have sought an explanation from the city’s top lawyer, whose office was targeted.

What they have gotten so far, according to Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, are answers that only leave more questions.

In an interview, Jurado said she had expected City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to appear before the Government Operations committee this week, but instead had received an internal report offering a “high level view” of the breach that left many key details unaddressed.

“When did the city attorney’s office become aware, what actions were taken, and why were city officials not notified promptly?” Jurado said. “Right now, we’re still left to question and trying to assemble the information.”

The Times reported the existence of the hack last week, prompting further scrutiny by public officials — some of whom, like Jurado, said they hadn’t previously been informed. Since then, The Times has reviewed an inventory of 337,000 files that were compromised.

The documents amount to millions of pages, and appear to mostly come from civil lawsuits against the city that have been resolved in court. They range in nature from trip-and-fall cases to police excessive force.

During a brief discussion at the council committee Tuesday morning, Jurado said she had received information that an internal link used by the city attorney’s office to access the files had been clicked at least 5,000 times on the first day of the breach, which is thought to have occurred sometime in March.

The files were not secured by a password, according to sources who spoke previously with The Times and requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation. A senior police official last week assured the department’s civilian bosses, the Police Commission, that none of the department’s own systems had been compromised.

Jurado said she wanted answers for why and how the city had managed to leave exposed sensitive records, such as medical reports, autopsy photos and witness names.

“It’s just horrific to think that that was out there,” Jurado said.

The city attorney’s office responded to questions from The Times by referring to a public report issued April 17, which said a preliminary investigation indicated that “the incident was contained to that third-party environment, and that no other City applications, systems, or department records were accessed or affected.”

The report noted that the hackers teased “small samples” of the data on its dark web site over a week starting March 20, before publishing the whole thing on March 27. The data were taken down after about eight hours, and then reappeared again twice in early April, the report said.

In a separate letter to the police union, the office said it would begin notifying people whose information was compromised “without unreasonable delay.”

The inventory reviewed by The Times shows personnel files for LAPD officers who were accused of using excessive force against a Black military veteran during a traffic stop in 2021. Another file included the identities of witnesses who saw a man die after LAPD officers knelt on him during an arrest, the records reviewed by The Times showed.

Thousands of hours of uncut body camera footage were released. There were also medical records from thousands of cases in which police and other city employees were accused of misconduct. At least 1,060 of the files are labeled as confidential, the inventory says.

The city attorney’s office has said that it alerted senior LAPD officials and the city’s IT department as soon as they discovered the leak, and has in the weeks since been in regular contact with other city departments to assess the scope of the leak. The FBI has begun investigating the matter.

The situation has already cost Feldstein Soto, who is up for reelection, the endorsement of the powerful union for the LAPD’s rank-and-file officers, which withdrew its support after accusing the city attorney of failing to disclose the full extent of the breach.

The leak follows Feldstein Soto’s efforts to weaken the state’s public records law after the release of many police officer photos and other materials, which she demanded be returned.

Several attorneys whose cases were included in the list of compromised files told The Times they have not yet heard from city officials. Some said they could foresee the records leaked being used as justification to reopen old cases — or initiate new ones.

“I’m curious to know what exactly it is that the city attorney’s office had that they may not have disclosed to us in discovery,” Arnoldo Casillas, an attorney for the family of Eric Rivera, a 20-year-old man whose family sued after he was killed by police in Wilmington in 2017 and whose files are among those included in the leak, according to the inventory reviewed by The Times.

The case was later dismissed, but the family has filed an appeal.

Other attorneys whose lawsuits against the city and LAPD were listed among the hacked materials said they wanted to know exactly what was included in the files.

Robert Glassman, who successfully sued for $18 million last year on behalf of two elderly brothers who were badly injured when a speeding LAPD squad car broadsided their vehicle, said he also hadn’t heard from the city attorney’s office.

“You’d think that they would notify [the affected parties] and tell them that they’re working to get their information back,” he said.

Experts said similar cyberattacks on government offices across the country have shown it can take months or years for the dust to fully settle and the full scope of the damage to emerge.

James E. Lee, president of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit organization that provides advice and assistance related to identity theft, said last year alone the center documented an all-time high of 3,322 hacks.

That’s almost certainly an undercount, given the number of cases that go undetected or unreported, Lee said. Of the recorded incidents, roughly 165 targeted government agencies — up from 47 in 2020, he said.

In the past, according to Lee, many attacks of government entities were carried out by state-sponsored actors, but the emergence of AI-powered hacking tools have allowed everyday people to carry off such incursions.

“They want data that they can repurpose: anything that’s going to have financial information, anything that’s going to have driver’s license information is going to be very valuable to them,” he said.

Matthew McNicholas, a lawyer who has represented many officers in their lawsuits against the city, said he has fielded numerous calls from clients worried their personnel and medical records were exposed.

The leaked records, the inventory shows, include a case in which McNicholas sued the city on behalf of a victim who said they’d been sexually molested as a minor by an employee at a city-run recreational center.

McNicholas said he is worried that the leak will expose the private information of police whistleblowers who came forward to reveal discrimination and other misconduct.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Riverside County has been ordered to pay $2.25 million to a former sergeant who said he was pressured into early retirement in retaliation for reporting workplace harassment by a superior.

Sgt. Frank Lodes was forced to leave the job he loved in 2022 — penning a resignation letter in a Del Taco parking lot — while a high-ranking department official threatened him with mounting investigations, according to the complaint. On Tuesday a civil jury concluded that Lodes resigned involuntarily due to his reporting of a hostile workplace and was awarded the multimillion-dollar payment as compensation for his emotional damages.

Lodes’ attorney Bijan Darvish said the award was a “significant number” that adequately represents the harm inflicted on Lodes, noting that the period since his forced retirement has been the “darkest four years” of Lodes’ life.

He said that his client did not wish to comment on the verdict as discussing the events remained painful. The Sheriff’s Department and the county did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Being a cop was his life; he lived and breathed it 24/7,” Darvish said. “It was his entire identity, and that’s why it was so difficult for him when it was taken away.”

The jury award comes amid a rare wide-open governor’s race that includes the head of the Sheriff’s Department, Chad Bianco, who is a leading GOP candidate for the seat. Bianco has staked his campaign on his lengthy career in law enforcement, which spans more than three decades, including serving as the elected sheriff of Riverside County since 2019.

Although high-ranking Sheriff’s Department officials were involved in Lodes’ case, Darvish said there was no evidence presented at trial that Bianco had direct knowledge of his client’s mistreatment. Bianco was not a defendant in the lawsuit. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Darvish argues that the case points to a departmental culture of covering up allegations of misconduct.

“When there’s a harassment complaint made against the captain and they never investigated, and they pressure someone to resign and withdraw the complaint,” he said, “then that’s a systemic issue.”

The retaliation began after Lodes, a 25-year veteran of the department, formally reported workplace harassment with human resources in March 2022, according to the complaint.

Lodes had been called mentally ill in front of his peers by a captain during a promotability meeting around October 2021. A few months later, he found degrading posters of his head on a child’s body shoved inside his uniform pockets and gun holster and plastered over the station walls, according to the complaint.

The department responded to his harassment report by launching an investigation into Lodes unlawfully using informants and threatening him with possible criminal prosecution, according to Darvish.

The jury agreed that these allegations were a manufactured excuse to cover up unlawful retaliation.

Within days of filing the workplace harassment complaint, a Internal Affairs sergeant packed Lodes’ personal belongings in a box and drove them to his house, according to the complaint. The sergeant spent hours pressuring Lodes, then 47, to accept early retirement.

The following day, Lodes was told to meet with a high-ranking official in the Sheriff’s Department in a Del Taco parking lot who instructed him to resign immediately and withdraw his harassment complaint.

The $2.25-million award in the civil case will come from the county’s coffers.

The award casts renewed scrutiny on Bianco’s Sheriff’s Department two weeks before primary election ballots land in Californians’ mailboxes.

He was also in the spotlight in March after seizing more than 650,000 ballots from the November election as part of an investigation to determine if they were fraudulently counted. He put the investigation on hold shortly before the California Supreme Court halted it pending further review.

Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has subpoenaed several witnesses to testify before a federal grand jury in Washington as part of its investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan, three people familiar with the matter said Monday.

The subpoenas were issued in recent days and represent an effort by the Justice Department to press forward with the investigation even as a Florida-based career prosecutor who’d been helping lead the inquiry left the case after expressing doubts about the legal viability of a potential prosecution.

A former Justice Department lawyer who served as a top prosecutor in the 1980s and later supported legal efforts by President Trump to overturn his 2020 election loss has since been sworn in to serve as a special counselor to the attorney general, and is expected to work on the investigation.

The months-old Brennan investigation is one of several criminal probes the Justice Department has opened over the last year against Trump’s perceived adversaries. It centers on one of the Republican president’s chief grievances — a U.S. intelligence community finding that Russia interfered on his behalf during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.

The subpoenas were described by people with knowledge of them who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. At least three were said to have been issued, said two of the people. CBS News earlier reported the issuance of subpoenas.

Brennan served as CIA director under President Obama and was in that role when the intelligence community in January 2017 published an assessment detailing Russian interference aimed at helping Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. An investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III concluded that Russia meddled on Trump’s behalf and that his campaign welcomed the assistance, but it did not find sufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy.

The Justice Department last year received a criminal referral from Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, alleging that Brennan made false statements before the panel in 2023 about the preparation of the intelligence community assessment. Brennan and his lawyers have vigorously denied any wrongdoing.

The investigation has been unfolding for months in Florida, with investigators having lined up interviews and issued subpoenas for records. The latest subpoenas seek grand jury testimony in Washington, an indication that prosecutors expect they would have to bring any criminal case in Washington since that is where Brennan’s testimony took place.

On Friday, it was revealed that a key national security prosecutor in Florida who’d been handling the investigation, Maria Medetis Long, left the case. She expressed doubts about the case and was removed, another person familiar with the matter said.

The Justice Department since then has tapped Joseph diGenova, 81, a Trump loyalist who served as the U.S. attorney in Washington for part of the 1980s, to serve as a special counselor to the attorney general. He was sworn in Monday in Florida and is expected to work on the Brennan investigation.

DiGenova supported Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He made headlines that year when he said Chris Krebs, a top Trump administration cybersecurity official who said the election was not tainted by fraud, should be killed. DiGenova later apologized and a lawsuit filed against him by Krebs was withdrawn.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.