Department

NEW ORLEANS — About 250 federal border agents are expected to launch a months-long immigration crackdown Monday in southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi.

The operation dubbed “Swamp Sweep,” which aims to arrest 5,000 people, is centered in liberal New Orleans and is the latest federal immigration enforcement operation to target a Democratic-run city as President Trump’s administration pursues its mass deportation agenda.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who has led aggressive operations in Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, N.C., is expected to lead the campaign.

Many in the greater New Orleans area, particularly in Latino communities, have been on edge since the planned operations were reported this month. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said he welcomes the federal agents.

Here’s what to know:

Border Patrol tactics criticized

Bovino has become the Trump administration’s go-to operative for leading large-scale, high-profile immigration enforcement campaigns. During his operation in Chicago, federal agents rappelled from a helicopter into an apartment complex and fired pepper balls and tear gas at protesters.

Federal agents arrested more than 3,200 immigrants during a surge in the Chicago area in recent months, but have not provided many details. Court documents on roughly 600 recent arrests showed that only a few of those arrested had criminal records representing a “high public safety risk,” according to federal government data.

The Border Patrol, which does not typically operate in dense urban areas or in situations with protesters, has been accused of heavy-handed tactics, prompting several lawsuits. A federal judge in Chicago this month accused Bovino of lying and rebuked him for deploying chemical irritants against protesters.

Bovino has doubled down on the efficacy of his agency’s operations.

“We’re finding and arresting illegal aliens, making these communities safer for the Americans who live there,” he said in a post on X.

Louisiana’s strict enforcement laws

The Department of Justice has accused New Orleans of undermining federal immigration enforcement and included it on a list of 18 so-called sanctuary cities. The city’s jail, which has been under long-standing oversight from a federal judge, does not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under most circumstances, and its Police Department views immigration enforcement as a civil matter outside its jurisdiction.

Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature, however, has passed laws to compel New Orleans agencies to align with the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration stance.

One such law makes it a crime to “knowingly” do something intended to “hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart” federal immigration enforcement efforts. Anyone who violates the law could face fines and up to a year of jail time.

Additionally, lawmakers expanded the crime of malfeasance in office, which is punishable by up to 10 years in jail, for government officials who refuse to comply with requests from agencies like ICE. It also prohibits police and judges from releasing from their custody anyone who “illegally entered” the U.S. “or unlawfully remained” here without providing advance notice to ICE.

New Orleans braces

In and around New Orleans, some immigration lawyers say they have been inundated with calls from people trying to prepare for the upcoming operation. One attorney, Miguel Elias, says his firm is conducting many consultations virtually or by telephone because people are too afraid to come in person.

He likens the steps many in the immigrant community are taking to what people do to prepare for a hurricane — hunker down or evacuate. Families are stocking up on groceries and making arrangements for friends to take their children to school to limit how frequently they leave the house, he said.

In the days leading up to Border Patrol’s planned operations, businesses have posted signs barring federal agents from entry and grassroots advocacy groups have offered rights-related training and workshops on documenting the planned crackdown.

New Orleans is famous for its blend of cultures, but only around 6.7% of its population of nearly 400,000 is foreign-born, rising to almost 10% in neighboring metro areas. That’s still well below the national average of 14.3%, according to U.S. census data.

The Latino population ballooned during rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now makes up around 14% of the city , according to figures compiled by the New Orleans-based Data Center.

The Pew Research Center estimates 110,000 immigrants who lack permanent legal status were living in Louisiana as of 2023, constituting approximately 2.4% of the state’s population. Most of them are from Honduras.

Amanda Toups, who owns the New Orleans Cajun restaurant Toups Meatery and runs a nonprofit to help feed neighbors in need, said she expects the federal operations will hurt the city’s tourism-dependent economy, which supports the rest of Louisiana.

“If you’re scaring off even 5% of tourism, that’s devastating,” she said. “You’re brown and walking around in town somewhere and you could get tackled by ICE and you’re an American citizen? Does that make you want to travel to New Orleans?”

Brook, Santana and Cline write for the Associated Press and reported from New Orleans, Washington and Baton Rouge, La., respectively.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday announced that the agency was opening regional field offices in California and Florida to investigate threats to members of Congress in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Threats against members of Congress have increased in recent years. As of Tuesday, total threats so far in 2021 were double what they were at this point a year ago, according to Capitol Police.

Home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and other prominent members of Congress, California gives the law enforcement agency a Western base to investigate claims of threats made against members. The state is also home to the nation’s largest congressional delegation.

Yogananda Pittman, the department’s acting chief, told lawmakers in March that the vast majority of the increased threats were from people who didn’t live near Washington..

The field offices will be in the Tampa and San Francisco areas, according to Capitol Police.

“At this time, Florida and California are where the majority of our potential threats are,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. “The field offices will be the first for the Department. A regional approach to investigating and prosecuting threats against Members is important, so we will be working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in those locations.”

The new field offices are among the changes made since the attack six months ago in which Capitol Police were quickly overwhelmed by thousands of pro-Trump supporters, hundreds of whom were able to break into the Capitol building, forcing members to temporarily halt certification of the 2020 election results and flee for safety. Capitol Police leaders told congressional committees investigating the incident that they had no information that the crowd would become violent.

Five people died in the melee or the days after. Two officers died by suicide, and more than 140 were injured — some permanently. More than 500 people have been charged for participating in the attack.

Other changes, spurred in part by congressional investigations and reports by the department’s internal watchdog, include increased training for officers alongside the National Guard, improved intelligence-gathering efforts and protocols for reporting sensitive information, and new equipment and technology for officers.

The police agency rarely provides information to the public on how it operates, citing security concerns and member safety. For example, unlike other government agencies, the internal watchdog’s reports are not publicly available.

A spokesperson did not answer questions Tuesday about how many staff would be hired or what the cost to taxpayers would be.

The spokesperson said other regional offices were expected.

Very few members of Congress are accompanied by security outside of the Capitol building, and it is unclear if the new offices will primarily investigate threats against members or also will help when security is needed in the state. The Capitol Police have jurisdiction to investigate all threats made against a member of Congress.

Nov. 27 (UPI) — The federal government will not participate in this year’s World AIDS Day, a decades-old event to mourn people who’ve died from the disease and raise awareness.

The State Department has directed employees and grant recipients not to use federal funding to commemorate the day, The New York Times reported Wednesday. While employees can still highlight their work on AIDS and other diseases, they should “refrain from publicly promoting World AIDS Day” in public-facing messaging, the Times reported.

“An awareness day is not a strategy,” Tommy Pigott, a spokesman for the department, told the paper. “Under the leadership of President Trump, the State Department is working directly with foreign governments to save lives and increase their responsibility and burden sharing.”

However, the Trump White House has issued other proclamations for commemorative days intended to raise awareness about autism, organ donation, cancer and others.

World AIDS Day has been observed every Dec. 1 since 1988. President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. head of state in 1993 to issue a proclamation on the deadly immune-deficiency disease.

The Trump administration froze foreign aid spending earlier this year. With the approval of Congress, it later slashed about $7.9 billion in international humanitarian aid programs. However, the cuts left funding intact programs that combat HIV and AIDS, as well as other infectious diseases.

An estimated 40.8 million people were living with HIV, the precursor to AIDS, worldwide in 2024, according to the World Health Organization. An estimated 1.3 million people acquired HIV last year.

However, the United Nations’ program on AIDS warned on Tuesday of international funding cuts and a waning resolve to address the virus.

A report from the U.N. program noted that some funding has been restored for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, an initiative started under George W. Bush that is credited with saving more than 25 million lives. However, the report stated that “service disruptions associated with these and other funding cuts are having long-lasting effects on almost all areas of the HIV response.”

“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve,” Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, said in a statement. “Behind every data point in this report are people-babies and children missed for HIV screening or early HIV diagnosis, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them.”

A high-ranking employee at the Department of Water and Power made staffers run personal errands for her, including purchasing tickets to a Snoop Dogg concert, according to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission’s director of enforcement.

Renette Anderson, who has worked as an executive assistant to the DWP’s general manager since 2002, asked subordinates to book a plane ticket for her personal travel, make physical therapy appointments for her, purchase party supplies for a non-work party at her home and make a service appointment at a Mercedes Benz dealership for her personal vehicle, wrote the enforcement director, Kenneth Hardy, in an accusation document dated Nov. 4.

Anderson’s requests to two DWP employees, Brian Johnson and Angenee Reygadas, were made during work hours in 2022 and 2023, and the employees used city resources to fulfill the requests, Hardy wrote.

On June 22, 2023, after the Snoop Dogg & Friends concert at the Hollywood Bowl was canceled, Anderson asked Johnson to request a refund, Hardy wrote.

Hardy accused Anderson of seven counts of misusing her city position to create a personal benefit for herself. If the parties do not come to an agreement, the Ethics Commission will hold a hearing and decide what penalties to impose. Each count comes with a potential $5,000 fine.

John Harris, an attorney for Anderson, did not respond to a request for comment.

Paola Adler, a spokesperson for the DWP, said the department cannot comment on personnel matters but that it takes accusations of unethical conduct seriously.

Anderson serves as director of Equal Employment Opportunity Services and reports directly to Chief People Officer Tracey Pierce. Anderson was appointed to her role by a previous general manager, not by Janisse Quiñones, who has been in the role since May 2024, the DWP said.

“She has been the primary voice on all matters related to Equal Employment Opportunity, workforce diversity, and the fair and equitable treatment of over 10,000 employees,” according to Anderson’s bio on the website of the Stovall Foundation, where she is a board member.

For Marina Lacerda, the upcoming publication of U.S. government files on Jeffrey Epstein represents more than an opportunity for justice.

She says she was just 14 when Epstein started sexually abusing her at his New York mansion, but she struggles to recall much of what happened because it is such a dark period in her life.

Now, she’s hoping that the files will reveal more about the trauma that distorted so much of her adolescence.

“I feel that the government and the FBI knows more than I do, and that scares me, because it’s my life, it’s my past,” she told the Associated Press.

President Trump signed legislation last week that will force the Justice Department to release documents from its voluminous files on Epstein.

“We have waited long enough. We’ve fought long enough,” Lacerda said.

It isn’t clear yet how much new information will be in the files, gathered over two decades of investigations into Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse of many girls and women.

Some of his accusers expect the files to provide a level of transparency they had hardly allowed themselves to believe would materialize, but the release of the documents will be a more complicated moment for others.

Two federal investigations cut short

The FBI and police in Palm Beach, Fla., began investigating Epstein in the mid-2000s after several underage girls said he had paid them for sex acts. He pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges including procuring a minor for prostitution, but a secret deal with the U.S. attorney in Florida — future Trump Cabinet member Alex Acosta — allowed him to avoid a federal prosecution. He served little more than a year in custody.

Jena-Lisa Jones says she was abused by Epstein in Palm Beach in 2002, when she was 14. She did not report the abuse to the police at the time, but she later became one of many accusers to sue the multimillionaire.

The Miami Herald published a series of articles about Epstein in 2018 that exposed new details about how the federal prosecution was shelved. A year later, federal prosecutors in New York, where Epstein owned a mansion, revived the case and charged him with sex trafficking.

Jones said she was interviewed during that federal investigation and was prepared to testify in court.

“It was very important for me to have my moment, for him to see my face and hear my words, and me have that control and power back,” Jones said.

But that day never came.

Epstein killed himself in a federal jail cell in New York City in August 2019.

In lieu of her day in court, Jones and others are hoping for a public reckoning with the publication of the government files on Epstein.

While the government only ever charged two people in connection with the abuse case — Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, who is in prison for her related crimes — at least one of Epstein’s accusers has claimed she was instructed to have sex with other rich and powerful men.

Jones didn’t make similar claims, but said she believes the documents could map out a “broad scheme” involving others.

“I’m hoping they’re shaking a little bit and that they have what’s coming for them,” Jones said.

Filling in the gaps

Lacerda, now 37, is also hoping the files will clarify her own personal experience, which is muddled by the pain she said she endured at that time in her life.

“I was just a child and it’s just trauma. That’s what trauma does to your brain,” Lacerda said.

An immigrant from Brazil, Lacerda said she was working three jobs to support herself and her family the summer before 9th grade when a friend said she could make $300 if she gave Epstein massages.

The first time she massaged Epstein, he told her to remove her shirt, she said.

Lacerda said she was soon spending so much time working for Epstein that she dropped out of school. The sexual abuse persisted until she turned 17, when Epstein informed her that she was “too old,” she said.

Lacerda wondered whether the files might include videos and photographs of her and other victims at Epstein’s properties.

“I need to know — for my healing process and for the adult in me — what I did as a child,” Lacerda said. “It will be re-traumatizing, but it’s transparency — and I need it,” she said.

Accusers wonder, why now?

For Lacerda, the elation around the upcoming release of the files gave way to familiar feelings for many women who survive abuse: fear and paranoia.

“In the heat of the moment, we were like, ‘Wow, this is like, everything that we’ve been fighting for.’ And then we had to take a moment and be like, ‘Wait a minute. Why is he releasing the files all of a sudden?’ ” Lacerda said.

The abrupt change in the political momentum made her uneasy. She wondered whether the documents would be doctored or redacted to protect people connected to Epstein.

Others echoed her concerns, and wondered if the government would sufficiently protect victims who have remained anonymous, who fear scrutiny and harassment if their names were to become public.

“For the rest of my life, I will never truly trust the government because of what they’ve done to us,” Jones said.

Haley Robson, who says she was abused by Epstein when she was 16, has the same concerns.

Robson was a leading voice in advocating for the Florida legislation signed in 2024 that unsealed the grand jury transcripts from the 2006 state case against Epstein.

She said the political maneuvering in recent months about the files led to nonstop anxiety, reminiscent of how she felt when she was abused as a teenager.

“I guess it really comes from the trauma I’ve endured, because this is kind of what Jeffrey Epstein did to us. You know, he wasn’t transparent. He played these manipulation tactics,” she said. “It’s triggering for anybody who’s been in that situation.”

Still, Robson said she is trying to savor the victory while she can.

“This is the first time since 2006 where I don’t feel like the underdog,” she said.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.

Back in 2024, Universal conjured a pink and green tornado that swept pop culture.

From themed drinks at Starbucks and dolls of Elphaba and Glinda, to joint appearances by stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande at the Olympics and throughout a heavily-publicized press tour, “Wicked” was everywhere.

As the conclusion of the two-part film franchise heads to theaters at the end of the week, the marketing for “Wicked: For Good” has accelerated.

There are still themed Legos, but now also Gain laundry scent boosters, Swiffers and Pottery Barn bedding. There was a “Wicked” night on rival network ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and a “Wicked: One Wonderful Night” musical event broadcast on NBC.

The complete takeover of culture was all part of Universal’s plan to build one of its biggest and most important franchises, which has already brought in nearly $759 million in worldwide box office revenue for the first film, not to mention the haul from merchandise sales, theme park tie-ins and other categories.

Beyond the immediate revenue, “Wicked” also gives Universal a rare, female-focused franchise, an underserved audience, particularly as so many recent films have been geared toward men.

The success of the Broadway play, which has run for more than two decades, gave Universal the confidence in its potential for the big screen, said David O’Connor, president of franchise management and brand strategy at Universal Pictures. He’s also been a fan of the stage production almost from the beginning — he watched a table reading on the Universal lot, saw the musical additions to the script and finally, its run in San Francisco.

“For us, you had this potential to really take the fanship and really make ‘Wicked’ into a cultural imperative,” he said in a call from New York ahead of the film’s premiere. “When you think about the characters, the two leads, the themes of friendship, identity and empowerment, and how that resonates universally, and then, of course, the fantastical worlds of Oz and Shiz and Munchkinland, it just seemed like such a great opportunity for us.”

“Wicked” has proved to be a key boost to Universal’s lineup of blockbuster franchises.

Though the studio boasts series like “Jurassic Park,” “Despicable Me” and “Fast & Furious,” it has lacked the deep roster of intellectual property that rivals like Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. have, said Brandon Katz, director of insights and content strategy at data firm Greenlight Analytics.

The series “has really emerged as a much-needed, fresh tentpole for Universal,” he said. “There’s such a waterfall of value that this two-part franchise creates that Universal will be banking out on this for years to come.”

The two films were shot back-to-back, with a combined production budget of $300 million, reportedly split evenly between the two.

So far, interest for the second film is high — as of Thursday, “Wicked: For Good” was the highest ticket pre-seller of the year, according to Fandango. It is also the highest PG-rated ticket pre-seller ever on the Fandango platform, passing 2017’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast,” 2019’s animated hit “Frozen 2” and the first “Wicked.”

The film is tracking to haul in $150 million to $160 million in its opening weekend, according to estimates from industry analysts.

And the film’s appeal to women is crucial, particularly in a year when there were few films geared toward female viewers. Despite the persistent debates about the dearth of female-focused films, there have been few big, recent hits, other than 2023’s “Barbie” and last year’s “Wicked.”

“Every three or four years, female audiences are rediscovered with some hit,” said Alisa Perren, professor in the department of radio-television-film at the University of Texas at Austin’s college of communication. “It’s kind of striking how little mainstream female [films] have been released.”

To court all audiences, including those who were familiar with the play as well as those new to the story, Universal leaned into its so-called Symphony program to leverage all arms of the company to promote a film.

The program has been used previously for films like “Despicable Me” and has become a critical part of the marketing campaign, O’Connor said.

One new strategy the company used for supporting this franchise was building a “Wicked” fair, which was held on set in 2023 in London and allowed more than 200 partners to get a feel for the story, see the filmmakers and actors and meet heads of departments, like costumes and props. The studio has done set visits in the past, but nothing like this.

That open house was pivotal in driving partnership agreements and started to fuel the franchise’s success, O’Connor said. One of those was Lego, which signed on with “Wicked” after the fair and has been a partner on both films with product lines and an episode of “Lego Masters.”

Because not all geographic markets had the same built-in awareness of the Broadway play, getting corporate brands on-board was key to increasing knowledge of “Wicked” around the globe, he said.

Though “Wicked: For Good” marks the conclusion to the two-film series, O’Connor was coy about what’s next for the franchise.

“Our focus remains on building experiences that will deepen that connection to ‘Wicked,’” he said. “And all I can say is, we are very committed to ‘Wicked,’ but it’s probably too early to share much more than that.”

Noah Zaitar allegedly ran a drug empire, producing and exporting narcotics, including the synthetic stimulant captagon.

The Lebanese army has detained the country’s most infamous drug lord, two years after he was sanctioned by the United States over suspected links to narcotics rings in Syria.

In a post on X on Thursday, the Lebanese army confirmed they had arrested a citizen with the initials “NZ”, and three security sources confirmed to the Reuters news agency that the individual in question was the fugitive Noah Zaitar.

Following a “series of precise security surveillance and monitoring operations”, security forces arrested Zaitar in an ambush in the city of Baalbek in Lebanon’s eastern Baalbek-Hermel governorate, the Lebanese military said.

“The detainee is one of the most dangerous wanted individuals, pursuant to a large number of arrest warrants, for crimes of forming gangs operating across numerous Lebanese regions in drug and arms trafficking, manufacturing narcotic substances, and robbery and theft by force of arms,” the military said.

“He had also previously opened fire on army elements and facilities, as well as citizens’ homes, and kidnapped individuals for financial ransom. The investigation has commenced with the detainee under the supervision of the competent judiciary,” it added.

Zaitar allegedly ran a drug empire in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley area near the Syrian border, producing and exporting drugs including the synthetic stimulant captagon.

A military tribunal sentenced Zaitar – who had evaded arrest for years while living in his home village of Kneisseh surrounded by armed supporters – to death in 2024 for killing a Lebanese soldier.

He was also named in US Department of State sanctions in 2023 against the regime of ousted Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad and individuals connected to his lucrative captagon trafficking network.

The State Department said Zaitar was a “known arms dealer and drug smuggler”, with close ties to the Fourth Division of the Syrian Arab Army – an elite unit once central to the captagon trade.

It also said Zaitar was wanted for having “materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services” to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

The arrest of Zaitar comes amid an ongoing crackdown by Lebanese authorities against drug traffickers in the country.

In a separate post on X on Wednesday, the Lebanese military said two soldiers, named as Bilal al-Baradi and Ali Haidar, were killed in clashes in Baalbek on Tuesday as they pursued fugitive narcotics suspects.

تنعى قيادة الجيش ـــ مديرية التوجيه، المعاون الأول الشهيد بلال البرادعي والعريف الشهيد علي حيدر اللذين استشهدا بتاریخ ١٨ /١١ /٢٠٢٥ نتيجة اشتباكات مع مطلوبين أثناء تنفيذ مديرية المخابرات سلسلة عمليات دهم بمؤازرة وحدة من الجيش في منطقة الشراونة – بعلبك.
وفي ما يلي نبذة عن حياة كل… pic.twitter.com/aIw9IjiuYi

— الجيش اللبناني (@LebarmyOfficial) November 18, 2025

Translation: The Army Command – Directorate of Orientation, mourns the First Assistant Martyr Bilal al-Baradi and Corporal Martyr Ali Haidar, who were martyred on 18/11/2025 as a result of clashes with wanted individuals during the execution by the Intelligence Directorate of a series of raids backed by an Army unit in the al-Sharawna area – Baalbek. 

The military said that another Lebanese citizen, referred to by the initials HAJ – and named by the local news outlet Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International as Hassouneh Jaafar – was shot and killed after opening fire on Lebanese security forces during that raid.

The fugitive was wanted in connection with the murder of four soldiers, as well as kidnapping, robbery, armed robbery and drug trafficking.

Lebanese authorities also arrested two other men – referred to only as FM and GQ – for “promoting drugs” and “possessing a quantity of weapons and military ammunition” in the Akkar governorate, north of Baalbek, close to the Syrian border.

Donald Trump has signed a law requiring the US Justice Department to release the remaining Epstein files within 30 days. The Attorney General said her department would comply – but hinted some documents could be withheld for legal reasons.

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday that the city’s current police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, has agreed to remain in the post, a major coup for the incoming mayor as he moves to assuage concerns over his past criticism of the police department.

For Mamdani, a democratic socialist who once called to defund the New York Police Department, the appointment seals one of the most consequential decisions of his nascent administration and provides further insight into the progressive’s looming stewardship of City Hall.

“I have admired her work cracking down on corruption in the upper echelons of the police department, driving down crime in New York City, and standing up for New Yorkers in the face of authoritarianism,” he said in a statement.

Tisch’s decision to remain commissioner could provide comfort to city business leaders and others who worried that Mamdani’s criticism of the department at the height of Black Lives Matter protests would translate into radical changes at the NYPD.

But the official announcement didn’t sit well with some progressives who helped elect the democratic socialist and wanted to see a bigger shake-up atop the nation’s largest police force.

Shared priorities, some disagreement

The appointment marked a budding political alliance between two leaders with starkly different backgrounds and some ideological differences.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who once called for defunding the police, has vowed to remake the department as mayor by shifting some responsibilities from the police to new mental health care teams. Tisch is the heiress to a multibillion-dollar family fortune and is considered a steady, establishment moderate with nearly two decades in public service.

She has been a fierce critic of the state’s bail reform laws, which Mamdani supports, and has called on the city to hire more officers. Mamdani has walked back his previous comments about defunding the police, but said he will keep the department’s headcount even.

In an email to officers Wednesday, Tisch acknowledged the different views she has with Mamdani but said a series of conversations with him had made her “confident” that she can lead the department under his mayoralty.

“In speaking with him, it’s clear that we share broad and crucial priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue driving down crime, and the need to maintain stability and order across the department,” Tisch wrote in the email, which was shared with The Associated Press.

Hours after the announcement, Mamdani and Tisch appeared together at a Manhattan memorial for officers who died in the line of duty. Both declined to answer questions about their past differences, with Tisch saying she wanted to “leave politics out of it today.”

Tisch’s tenure

Tisch was appointed to lead the department last November as current Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s police force were reeling from overlapping scandals.

In September, federal authorities seized phones from Adams and several high-level appointees, including the police commissioner, Edward Caban, who soon resigned. Agents then searched the home of his interim replacement, Thomas Donlon, just a week after he took over.

During her first weeks as commissioner, Tisch reassigned several top officials, including some seen as allies to the mayor. The department’s top uniformed official, a longtime friend of Adams, resigned in December amid harassment allegations.

Her tenure has coincided with a drop in shootings and several categories of major crime, earning praise from the business community and some police reform groups.

A mixed reception

The announcement of Tisch’s appointment drew split reactions among Mamdani’s left-leaning supporters. The Justice Committee, a police reform group, called the move “a rebuff of his promises to New Yorkers and a disturbing endorsement of NYPD’s ongoing violence and corruption.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, offered tepid praise for Tisch, while urging her to “join the Mayor-Elect in seeking to reduce the City’s misplaced demands on police to solve entrenched problems.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a moderate Democrat who endorsed Mamdani, called the appointment “a very good outcome” and said Tisch remaining in the job could help stave off a federal intervention in the city, as Republican President Trump has suggested could occur if Mamdani were elected.

“This is an important step to send a message to the Trump administration that, if you’re coming here on the pretext that we need the National Guard because crime is going up in the city, that is not the story being told here in New York. Not at all,” Hochul said at an unrelated news conference.

Since winning the election, Mamdani has moved to surround himself with a cast of seasoned officials as he prepares to enter City Hall while facing some concern that his limited public experience could create headaches once he assumes control of America’s biggest city.

He tapped a veteran budget official with deep experience in state and city government to be his first deputy mayor, and named a team that includes two former deputy mayors to help guide his transition into City Hall.

Tisch, a Harvard-educated scion of a wealthy New York family, previously led the city’s sanitation department, becoming TikTok famous for declaring “The rats don’t run the city, we do” in 2022.

Her first job in city government was in the NYPD’s counterterrorism bureau. She has helped shape post-9/11 security infrastructure in the city and, as deputy commissioner for information technology, spearheaded the use of body cameras and smartphones.

Izaguirre and Offenhartz write for the Associated Press.

The United States Department of Justice has acknowledged that the grand jury reviewing the case against James Comey, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), did not receive a copy of the final indictment against him.

That revelation on Wednesday came as lawyers for Comey sought to have the indictment thrown out of court.

At a 90-minute hearing in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, Comey’s lawyers argued that the case should be dismissed outright, not only for the prosecutorial missteps but also due to the interventions of President Donald Trump.

Comey is one of three prominent Trump critics to be indicted between late September and mid-October.

The hearing took place before US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, and Comey’s defence team alleged that Trump was using the legal system as a tool for political retribution.

“This is an extraordinary case and it merits an extraordinary remedy,” defence lawyer Michael Dreeben said, calling the indictment “a blatant use of criminal justice to achieve political ends”.

The Justice Department, represented by prosecutor Tyler Lemons, maintained that the indictment met the legal threshold to be heard at trial.

But Lemons did admit, under questioning, that the grand jury that approved the indictment had not seen its final draft.

When Judge Nachmanoff asked Lemons if the grand jury had never seen the final version, the prosecutor conceded, “That is my understanding.”

It was the latest stumble in the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute Comey for allegedly obstructing a congressional investigation and lying to senators while under oath.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to the two charges, and his defence team has led a multipronged effort to see the case nixed over its multiple irregularities.

Scrutiny over grand jury proceedings

Questions over the indictment — and what the grand jury had or had not seen — had been brewing since last week.

On November 13, US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie raised questions about a span of time when it appeared that there appeared to be “no court reporter present” during the grand jury proceedings.

Then, on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick took the extraordinary step of calling for the grand jury materials to be released to the Comey defence team, citing “a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps”.

They included misleading statements from prosecutors, the use of search warrants pertaining to a separate case, and the fact that the grand jury likely did not review the final indictment in full.

Separately, in Wednesday’s hearing, Judge Nachmanoff pressed acting US Attorney Lindsey Halligan about who saw the final indictment.

After repeated questions, she, too, admitted that only the foreperson of the grand jury and a second grand juror were present for the returning of the indictment.

Halligan oversaw the three indictments against the Trump critics: Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

All three have denied wrongdoing, and all three have argued that their prosecution is part of a campaign of political vengeance.

Spotlight on Trump-Comey feud

Wednesday’s hearing focused primarily on establishing that argument, with Comey’s lawyers pointing to statements Trump made pushing for the indictments.

Comey’s defence team pointed to the tense relationship between their client and Trump, stretching back to the president’s decision to fire Comey from his job as FBI director in 2017.

Comey had faced bipartisan criticism for FBI investigations into the 2016 election, which Trump ultimately won.

Trump, for example, accused the ex-FBI leader of going easy on his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, calling him a “slime ball”, a “phony” and “a real nut job”.

“FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds,” Trump wrote on social media in May 2017.

Comey, meanwhile, quickly established himself as a prominent critic of the Trump administration.

“I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president,” Comey told ABC News in 2018.

He added that a president must “embody respect” and adhere to basic values like truth-telling. “This president is not able to do that,” Comey said.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Comey’s defence also pointed to the series of events leading up to the former FBI director’s indictment.

Last September, Trump posted on social media a message to Attorney General Pam Bondi, calling Comey and James “guilty as hell” and encouraging her not to “delay any longer” in seeking their indictments.

That message was “effectively an admission that this is a political prosecution”, according to Dreeben, Comey’s lawyer.

Shortly after the message was posted online, Halligan was appointed as acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia

She replaced a prosecutor, Erik Siebert, who had reportedly declined to indict Comey and others for lack of evidence. Trump had denounced him as a “woke RINO”, an acronym that stands for “Republican in name only”.

Dreeben argued that switcheroo also signalled Trump’s vindictive intent and his spearheading of the Comey indictment.

But Lemons, representing the Justice Department, told Judge Nachmanoff that Comey “was not indicted at the direction of the president of the United States or any other government official”.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Justice Department acknowledged in court Wednesday the grand jury that charged former FBI Director James Comey was not presented with a copy of the final indictment, a concession that may further imperil a prosecution already subject to multiple challenges and demands for its dismissal.

The revelation is the latest indication of a troubled presentation of the case to the grand jury by an inexperienced and hastily appointed U.S. attorney named to the job just days earlier by President Trump.

Concerns about the process surfaced earlier in the week when a different judge in the case said there was no record in the transcript he had reviewed of the grand jury reviewing the indictment that was actually presented against Comey.

Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney in charge of the case, said under questioning that only the foreperson of the grand jury and a second grand juror were present for the returning of the indictment.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of making a false statement and obstructing Congress and has denied any wrongdoing.

The Justice Department has denied that the prosecution was vindictive or selective and insists that the allegations support the indictment.

Trump fired Comey as FBI director in May 2017 as Comey was overseeing an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign. The two have been publicly at odds ever since, with Trump deriding Comey as “a weak and untruthful slime ball” and calling for his prosecution.

Tucker and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” in the process of securing an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, a federal judge ruled Monday in directing prosecutors to provide defense lawyers with all grand jury materials from the case.

Those problems, wrote Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, include “fundamental misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to the grand jury that indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged communications during the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings.

“The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted,” Fitzpatrick wrote “However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.”

The 24-page opinion is the most blistering assessment yet by a judge of the Justice Department’s actions leading up to the Comey indictment. It underscores how procedural missteps and prosecutorial inexperience have combined to imperil the prosecution pushed by President Trump for reasons separate and apart from the substance of the disputed allegations against Comey.

The Comey case and a separate prosecution of New York Atty, Gen. Letitia James have heightened concerns that the Justice Department is being weaponized in pursuit of Trump’s political opponents. Both defendants have filed multiple motions to dismiss the cases against them before trial, arguing that the prosecutions are improperly vindictive and that the prosecutor who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed.

A different judge is set to decide by Thanksgiving on the challenges by Comey and James to Halligan’s appointment.

Though grand jury proceedings are presumptively secret, Comey’s lawyers had sought records from the process out of concern that irregularities may have tainted the case. The sole prosecutor who defense lawyers say presented the case to the grand jury was Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience who was appointed just days before the indictment to the job of interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In his order Monday, Fitzpatrick said that after reviewing the grand jury transcript himself, he had come away deeply concerned about the integrity of the case.

“Here, the procedural and substantive irregularities that occurred before the grand jury, and the manner in which evidence presented to the grand jury was collected and used, may rise to the level of government misconduct resulting in prejudice to Mr. Comey,” Fitzpatrick said.

The Justice Department responded to the ruling by asking that it be put on hold to give prosecutors time to file objections. The government said it believed Fitzpatrick “may have misinterpreted” some facts in issuing his ruling.

Fitzpatrick listed, among nearly a dozen irregularities in his ruling, two comments that a prosecutor — presumably, Halligan — made to the grand jury that he said represented “fundamental misstatements of the law.”

The actual statements are blacked out, but Fitzpatrick said the prosecutor seems to have ignored the fact that a grand jury may not draw a negative inference about a person who exercises his right not to testify in front of it. He said she also appeared to suggest to grand jurors that they did not need to rely only on what was presented to them and could instead be assured that there was additional evidence that would be presented at trial.

The judge also drew attention to the jumbled manner in which the indictment was obtained and indicated that a transcript and recording of the proceedings do not provide a full account of what occurred. Halligan initially sought a three-count indictment of Comey, but after the grand jury rejected one of the three proposed counts and found probable cause to indict on the other two counts, a second two-count indictment was prepared and signed.

But Fitzpatrick said it was not clear to him in reviewing the record that the indictment that Halligan presented in court at the conclusion of the process had been presented to the grand jury for its deliberation.

“Either way, this unusual series of events, still not fully explained by the prosecutor’s declaration, calls into question the presumption of regularity generally associated with grand jury proceedings, and provides another genuine issue the defense may raise to challenge the manner in which the government obtained the indictment,” he wrote.

The two-count indictment charges Comey with lying to Congress in September 2020 when he suggested under questioning that he had not authorized FBI leaks of information to the news media. His lawyers say the question he was responding to was vague and confusing but the answer he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee was true.

The line of questioning from Sen. Ted Cruz appeared to focus on whether Comey had authorized his former deputy director, Andrew McCabe, to speak with the news media. But since the indictment, prosecutors have made clear that their indictment centers on allegations that Comey permitted a separate person — a close friend and Columbia University law professor, Dan Richman — to serve as an anonymous source in interactions with reporters.

The FBI executed search warrants in 2019 and 2020 to access messages between Richman and Comey as part of a media leaks investigation that did not result in charges. But Fitzpatrick said he was concerned that communications between the men that might have been protected by attorney-client privilege — Richman was at one point functioning as a lawyer for Comey — were exposed to the grand jury without Comey having had an opportunity to object.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

CHICAGO — A Chicago day-care center employee who was detained by immigration agents at work as children were being dropped off last week has been released, according to her attorney.

Diana Santillana Galeano was detained Nov. 5 at the Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center on the north side of Chicago. A video showed officers struggling with her as they walked out the front door. Her attorneys said in a statement Thursday that she was released from a detention center in Indiana on Wednesday night.

“We are thrilled that Ms. Santillana was released, and has been able to return home to Chicago where she belongs,” attorney Charlie Wysong said in the statement. “We will continue to pursue her immigration claims to stay in the United States. We are grateful to her community for the outpouring of support over these difficult days, and ask that her privacy be respected while she rests and recovers from this ordeal.”

Her case reflects the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive enforcement tactics. But her detention at a day care was unusual even under “Operation Midway Blitz,” which has resulted in more than 3,000 immigration arrests in the Chicago area since early September. Agents have rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter in a middle-of-the-night apartment building raid, appeared with overwhelming force in recreational areas and launched tear gas amid protests.

“I am so grateful to everyone who has advocated on my behalf, and on behalf of the countless others who have experienced similar trauma over recent months in the Chicago area,” Santillana Galeano said in the same statement. “I love our community and the children I teach, and I can’t wait to see them again.”

The Department of Homeland Security said last week that the woman, who is from Colombia, entered the U.S. illegally in June 2023 but obtained authorization to work under the Biden administration. The department denied that the day care was targeted.

The Justice Department on Thursday sued to block new congressional district boundaries approved by California voters last week, joining a court battle that could help determine which party wins control of the U.S. House in 2026.

The complaint filed in California federal court targets the new congressional map pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in response to a similar Republican-led effort in Texas backed by President Trump. It sets the stage for a high-stakes legal and political fight between the Republican administration and the Democratic governor, who is seen as a likely 2028 presidential contender.

“California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in an emailed statement. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 50, a constitutional amendment that changes the state’s congressional boundaries to give Democrats a shot at winning five seats currentlyheld by Republicans in next year’s midterm elections.

The Justice Department is joining a case challenging the new map that was brought by the California Republican Party last week. The Trump administration accuses California of racial gerrymandering in violation of the Constitution by using race as a factor to favor Latino voters with the new map. It asks a judge to prohibit California from using the new map in any future elections.

“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Proposition 50 — the recent ballot initiative that junked California’s pre-existing electoral map in favor of a rush-job rejiggering of California’s congressional district lines,” the lawsuit says.

Proposition 50 was Newsom’s response to Trump’s maneuvers in Texas, where Republicans rejiggered districts in hopes of picking up five seats of their own ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when House control will be on the line.

Democrats need to gain just a handful of seats next year to take control of the chamber, a win that would imperil Trump’s agenda for the remainder of his term and open the way for congressional investigations into his administration. Republicans currently hold 219 seats, to Democrats’ 214.

The showdown between the nation’s two most populous states has spread nationally, with Missouri, Ohio and a spray of other states either adopting new district lines to gain partisan advantage or considering doing so.

The national implications of California’s ballot measure were clear in both the money it attracted and the high-profile figures who became involved. Tens of millions of dollars flowed into the race, including a $5-million donation to opponents from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super political action committee tied to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

Former action movie star and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opposed the measure, while former President Obama, a Democrat, appeared in ads supporting it, calling it a “smart” approach to counter Republican moves aimed at safeguarding House control.

The contest provided Newsom with a national platform when he has confirmed he will consider a White House run in 2028.

Richer and Blood write for the Associated Press. Richer reported from Chicago.

Valerie Valentine bought a triplex in South Los Angeles two weeks ago, and already she wonders whether she made a terrible investment.

Bills are immediately adding up for the small-time landlord, from $1,000 to get the water turned on to $6,000 in annual property taxes. She worries that the amount she collects in rent will not be enough to cover her expenses.

With the city on the verge of making the first major change to its rent stabilization ordinance since 1985, potentially capping annual rent increases at 3%, landlords such as Valentine fear that Los Angeles will become a hostile environment for them.

“It’s draconian,” said Valentine, who also owns a four-unit building in the Inland Empire. “Lowering the amount we can raise rent is a slap in the face. They are favoring one side of the aisle more than the other.”

On the other side, renters, who far outnumber landlords in the city, have turned out in force to City Council hearings to support the proposed 3% cap for units built before 1978, which house 42% of the city’s residents.

The current cap for rent-stabilized units is between 3% and 8%, depending on inflation, going up to 10% if landlords pay for utilities.

One tenant, Cindy Moran, 31, has lived in a rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Exposition Park with her parents since she was born. They are now fighting eviction, she said, with their landlord stating that he wants to move into the property.

Moran believes he is trying to turn the site into 120 units of affordable housing. She fears they will not be able to find another apartment as affordable as the $700 a month they pay.

“I meet people every day who pay $2,000 for a one bedroom. They can’t afford a 10% increase,” Moran said. “We need to think about the most vulnerable right now.”

The proposed update to the city’s rent stabilization ordinance, which has been on the books since 1979, would be a massive shift in favor of tenants. It comes as many parts of the country are struggling with a housing affordability crisis, and after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayor’s election on a pledge to “freeze the rent.”

Most Angelenos are renters, and more than half are rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent, according to the Los Angeles Housing Department. One in 10 Angelenos pays 90% of their income toward rent, the department said in a report this year.

Last week, the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee passed the 3% proposal, written by Councilmember Nithya Raman, in a 3-2 vote. It goes before the full council Wednesday.

Under Raman’s proposal, the annual rent increase would max out at 3%, or 60% of the consumer price index, whichever is lower.

The new floor on annual rent increases, now at 3%, would be 0%. That means that in years where there is no inflation, landlords would not be able to raise the rent at all.

“There is a need to reform it,” said Shane Phillips, housing initiative manager at UCLA’s Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, who wrote a 2019 report calling for reforms to the rent stabilization ordinance. He believes the cap should be around 5%, tied directly to inflation.

“I think this swings the pendulum too far in the other direction,” he said.

On top of making it harder for small landlords to turn a profit, some fear that Raman’s proposal would chill development in a city that desperately needs more housing.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman wrote the proposed rent cap that was passed by the Housing and Homelessness Committee in a 3-2 vote. It goes before the full council Wednesday.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

In L.A., a new building constructed on the site of one that was rent-stabilized is subject to the rent stabilization ordinance, unless 20% of the new units are affordable for lower-income households.

A lower cap on rent increases may cause developers to forgo building on those lots, said Zachary Pitts, the Los Angeles director of YIMBY Action, which advocates for more affordable housing.

“Such unintended consequences could undermine the City’s housing goals at a time when increasing supply is critical to affordability and homelessness prevention,” he said in a statement.

Raman said she “will work to ensure new production is not impacted by these changes.”

“Only increased supply can help reduce costs for everyone in this city,” she said in a statement.

The current cap on rent increases has helped Jenny Colon stay in her rent-stabilized apartment, a two-bedroom in North Hills, for more than 30 years. She was paying $981 a month but is moving out because of a dispute with her landlord. Her new apartment, outside the city, costs $1,600 a month.

“A low percentage of rent increase every year does really create a very steady and safe housing situation,” said Colon, who supports Raman’s proposal.

But some say that lowering the allowable rent increase could have a downside for tenants, as falling revenues could lead landlords to spend less on maintaining their buildings.

“Certain small mom and pop owners just won’t have that kind of money,” said Paul Jesman, a real estate agent and landlord. “They’re going to push this roof replacement to next year because they don’t have the money for it.”

Landlords also may be more motivated to evict long-term tenants who fall behind on payments, so they can charge market rates to new tenants, said Phillips of UCLA.

City law allows landlords to charge market rates to a new tenant, though the cap on increases kicks in for the tenant after that.

The city’s Housing Department had recommended a floor of 2% and a ceiling of 5%, both tied to the consumer price index. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield put forward a motion to the Housing and Homelessness Committee that aligned with that recommendation, but he was the only vote in favor of it.

A majority of California cities with rent-stabilized apartments set a ceiling of between 3% and 5%, the Housing Department said.

Raman argued that the department’s recommendations did not go far enough to deal with rents that have “skyrocketed.”

“I think what is before us is an opportunity to adjust costs for renters, that to me is long overdue,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it would investigate security at two liberal California bastions — the campus of UC Berkeley and the city of Berkeley — after multiple people were taken into custody following clashes as protesters tried to shut down a Turning Point USA event.

“I see several issues of serious concern regarding campus and local security and Antifa’s ability to operate with impunity in CA,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, posted on X.

Conflict erupted when a large group of anti-fascist protesters showed up Monday afternoon to voice opposition to the conservative group’s event at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, which sits on the campus’ famed Sproul Plaza, ground zero of the historic 1960s campus free speech movement.

The event was Turning Point USA’s first in California since Charlie Kirk, the group’s founder, was shot and killed at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. It was also the final stop on the group’s “American Comeback Tour.”

As Kirk’s killing has intensified concerns about how colleges balance free speech and safety in an era of rising political intolerance and violence, Turning Point seized on the Berkeley protests to present the college as a case study of illiberal, leftist extremism.

“UC Berkeley currently looks like a war zone,” Frontlines TPUSA, a video journalism offshoot of Turning Point USA, posted on X Monday evening as it shared footage of a protester lighting a flare outside the event.

It then posted a stream of videos of protesters jostling metal barricades, a woman hurriedly herding two young women past a screaming crowd, and a protester pointing to his neck — a reference to the part of Kirk’s body that was shot — as he held a sign that said “Freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequences.”

Dan Mogulof, a spokesperson for UC Berkeley, initially downplayed the conflict that occurred as about 150 protesters gathered outside the event on the edge of campus.

About 900 people attended the Turning Point event, Mogulof said, and four people were arrested. The Berkeley Police Department arrested two people who fought with each other off campus, he said, and an additional two arrests were made on campus by university police.

“At this point, we’re aware of a single incident of violence between two individuals who fought with each other,” Mogulof said Tuesday morning. “And that was the arrest made by the city that happened, not on the campus, but on the streets.”

According to Mogulof, university police arrested a 48-year-old with no affiliation to the school and booked him into the Santa Rita jail for willfully resisting, delaying or obstructing a public officer or peace officer and interfering with peaceful activities on campus. A 22-year-old current or former student was also cited for willfully resisting, delaying or obstructing a public officer or peace officer and refusing to leave private property.

“Nearly 1,000 people went to the event,” Mogulof said. “It occurred without disruption. We don’t have a single reported incident of any member of the audience being injured or prevented from attending.”

But later Tuesday, Mogulof updated his account and said an injury had taken place: a 45-year-old man who arrived at Berkeley to attend the Turning Point event reported being struck in the head with a glass bottle or jar.

“The victim suffered a laceration to his head and was transported to Highland Hospital for further treatment,” Mogulof said.

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Dhillon, an attorney who ran a San Francisco law practice focused on free speech before she was appointed by President Trump, has long complained of UC Berkeley’s liberal bias.

In 2017, Dhillon filed a lawsuit against the university on behalf of two conservative groups — Berkeley College Republicans and Young America’s Foundation — after the college placed restrictions on hosting conservative commentators Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos on campus, citing security concerns.

“We saw all of this at Berkeley back in 2017,” Dhillon said on X. “@UCBerkeley was sued, and settled the case.”

Frontlines TPUSA depicted Monday’s nights protests as chaotic and out of control.

“An ANTIFA member just lit off a flare resulting in TPUSA event attendees being rushed inside,” the group posted on X. “A car then comes and starts backfiring visibly scaring multiple attendees who feared they were hearing gunshots.”

On Tuesday, Dhillon took to social media to warn the university and the city of Berkeley that they should expect correspondence from the Justice Department.

“In America, we do not allow citizens to be attacked by violent thugs and shrug and turn our backs,” Dhillon posted on X. “Been there, done that, not on our watch.”

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi also weighed in, saying that the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating Monday night’s “violent riots.”

“Antifa is an existential threat to our nation,” Bondi said. “We will continue to spare no expense unmasking all who commit and orchestrate acts of political violence.”

Since Trump issued a September executive order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization, Bondi said, her agency has been working with law-enforcement partners to dismantle “violent networks that seek to intimidate Americans and suppress their free expression and 1st Amendment rights.”

Mogulof said the university would cooperate with any investigation but had yet to receive any communication from the Justice Department. He disputed Dhillon’s suggestion that the event was out of control.

“Was there a protest?” Mogulof added. “Yes, there was a protest. Were there isolated incidents of people misbehaving during the protest? Yes, there were. Did our police force react? Yes, it did.”

In the run up to the event, the anti-fascist group By Any Means Necessary handed out flyers dubbing Turning Point USA a “White Nationalist, Neofascist organization.”

“They have fooled people into thinking that what Charlie Kirk stood for was freedom of speech and open debate,” Haku Jeffrey, BAMN national organizer, said in a videotaped speech on Sproul Plaza ahead of the event. “But all Charlie Kirk and Turning Point stood for is organizing racist, bigoted violence to intimidate and bully us into silence. And we refuse to be silenced.”

As dusk fell Monday, Frontlines TPUSA posted footage of tense scenes on the edge of Berkeley’s campus.

In one video, a crowd banging pots and chanting “Fascists out of Berkeley” faced off with a line of police officers in helmets and wearing batons. A masked protester at the front of the crowd repeatedly veered toward the police line as he held up a placard.

Suddenly, the officers pulled the protester behind the police line. The crowd roared as they dragged the protester away.

Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, emphasized that a large group of conservatives defied the protesters to gather inside the Berkeley auditorium.

“Despite Antifa thugs blocking our campus tour stop with tear gas, fireworks, and glass bottles, we had a PACKED HOUSE in the heart of deep blue UC Berkeley,” Kolvet said. He shared a video on X of a crowd standing up, holding placards of Charlie Kirk’s face and chanting “Charlie Kirk! Charlie Kirk!”

Asked about reports of incendiary devices and the video showing protesters lighting flares outside the event, Mogulof said “the flames were not there for a long time.”

“The crowd was controlled, and the event happened without disruption,” Mogulof said.

Yet later Tuesday, Mogulof said that UC Berkeley would conduct a full investigation into the incident and work with the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force to identify “outside agitators” who tried to disrupt the event.

“There is no place at UC Berkeley for attempts to use violence or intimidation to prevent lawful expression or chill free speech,” Mogulof said in a statement.

Ultimately, Mogulof stressed, efforts to shut down Turning Point on campus did not succeed.

“The University remains steadfast,” he said, “in its commitment to uphold open dialogue, respect, and the rule of law.”

WASHINGTON — British political commentator Sami Hamdi is going to voluntarily leave the U.S. after spending more than two weeks in immigration detention over what his supporters say was his criticism of Israel. The Trump administration has accused him of cheering on Hamas.

Hamdi, who is Muslim, was on a speaking tour in the U.S. when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 26. He had just addressed the annual gala for the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the day before his arrest.

In a statement late Monday, the organization said Hamdi had “chosen to accept an offer to leave the United States voluntarily.”

“It is this simple: Sami never should have spent a single night in an ICE cell. His only real ‘offense’ was speaking clearly about Israel’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians,” said the chief executive of CAIR’s California chapter, Hussam Ayloush, in a statement.

Hamdi’s detention was part of broader efforts by the Trump administration to identify and potentially expel thousands of foreigners in the United States who it says have either fomented or participated in unrest or publicly supported protests against Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

Those enforcement actions have been criticized by civil rights groups as violations of constitutional protections for freedom of speech, which apply to anyone in the United States and not just to American citizens.

Zahra Billoo, executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco office, said Tuesday that the logistics of Hamdi’s departure were still being worked out but that it might happen later this week. Billoo said there were “no conditions to the voluntary departure” and that he’s not barred from seeking another U.S. visa in the future.

CAIR said Hamdi’s charging document in immigration court did not accuse him of criminal conduct or security concerns but only listed a visa overstay, which they blamed on the government revoking his visa.

Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in a statement Tuesday that Hamdi had requested voluntary departure and “ICE is happily arranging his removal from this country.”

The State Department said due to “visa record confidentiality,” it could not comment on specific cases.

CAIR has said that Hamdi, 35, was detained in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during a U.S. speaking tour.

The Department of Homeland Security said at the time of Hamdi’s arrest that the State Department had revoked his visa and that ICE had put him in immigration proceedings. Homeland Security later accused him of supporting the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel.

In a statement at the time, McLaughlin cited remarks he made in a video posted online shortly after the Hamas-led attack in which he asked: “How many of you felt it in your hearts when you got the news that it happened? How many of you felt the euphoria? Allah akbar.”

Hamdi said later his intent was not to praise the attacks but to suggest that the violence was “a natural consequence of the oppression that is being put on the Palestinians.”

The State Department has not said specifically what Hamdi said or did that initiated the revocation but in a post on X the department said: “The United States has no obligation to host foreigners” whom the administration deems to “support terrorism and actively undermine the safety of Americans. We continue to revoke the visas of persons engaged in such activity.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

For months, as victims pleaded for information, the Los Angeles Fire Department kept secret that its firefighters were ordered to stop mop-up operations on a small brushfire that continued to smolder and reignited days later into the massive Palisades fire.

At least one department official learned that a battalion chief had directed the firefighters to pack up their hoses and leave the scene of the Lachman fire Jan. 2, even though they complained that the ground was still smoking in places and rocks remained hot to the touch, according to a source who was briefed on the matter in June.

But the department did not include that finding, or any detailed examination of the reignition, in its after-action report on the Jan. 7 Palisades fire — or otherwise make the information public — despite victims demanding answers for months about how the blaze started and whether more could have been done to prevent it.

The report, which was released last month and intended to identify shortcomings in the LAFD’s preparedness and response, only briefly mentioned the prior blaze, even though its role in starting the Palisades fire was clear to firefighters. According to the report, on the morning of Jan. 7, an LAFD captain called Fire Station 23 — one of two stations in Pacific Palisades — to say that the Lachman fire had started up again.

Despite this, LAFD officials were emphatic early on that the Lachman fire was fully extinguished.

“We won’t leave a fire that has any hot spots,” Kristin Crowley, the fire chief at the time, said at a community meeting Jan. 16, after the Palisades fire killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

“That fire was dead out,” Chief Deputy Joe Everett said at the same meeting, adding that he was out of town but communicating with the incident commander. “If it is determined that was the cause, it would be a phenomenon.”

The Times reported late last month that a battalion chief had ordered firefighters to leave the scene of the Lachman fire the day after it broke out, rather than stay and make sure there were no hidden embers that could ignite a new fire, according to firefighter text exchanges. Mario Garcia, the battalion chief listed as being on duty the day that firefighters were ordered to leave the Lachman fire, said in an email that he was unable to comment due to “the ongoing investigation.”

Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva declined to be interviewed or answer questions about when top LAFD officials learned of the firefighters’ complaints about leaving the scene. Mayor Karen Bass also declined an interview request and did not respond directly to a question about whether she was informed of the firefighters’ complaints before The Times report and, if so, when.

After The Times published the story on the texts, victims of the Palisades fire expressed outrage, while Bass directed Villanueva to launch an investigation into the matter. Critics of Bass’ administration have asked for an independent inquiry. A spokesperson said Thursday that Bass’ selection for permanent fire chief, Jaime Moore, will lead the investigation, not Villanueva. Moore’s appointment still must be confirmed by the L.A. City Council.

Meanwhile, a federal grand jury subpoena was served on the LAFD for firefighters’ communications, including text messages, about smoke or hot spots in the area of the Lachman fire, according to a memo distributed to firefighters last week.

The source, a high-ranking fire official who works for a different agency in the L.A. region, told The Times that another LAFD battalion chief, Nick Ferrari, informed him in June that the department had learned of the Lachman firefighters’ account of being ordered to leave the burn site. The official asked not to be identified by name or the agency he works for because of the sensitivity of the LAFD finding.

The Times reviewed written notes that the official made shortly after the conversation, documenting what Ferrari had said about the firefighters’ complaints.

Ferrari works in the department’s risk management section, according to his LAFD email profile. That section typically conducts internal reviews of incidents such as the Palisades fire for potential liability. He did not respond to interview requests and an emailed list of questions. It is not clear what, if anything, Ferrari did with the information he shared with the official about five months ago.

Federal investigators say the Lachman fire was deliberately set and had burned underground in a canyon root system until high winds rekindled it on Jan. 7. Last month, an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives led to the arrest of former Pacific Palisades resident Jonathan Rinderknecht, who is accused of setting the Lachman fire shortly after midnight Jan. 1.

It is unclear from the internal LAFD memo whether the federal subpoena for firefighter texts is directly related to the case against Rinderknecht, who has pleaded not guilty.

In one text message reported last month in The Times, a firefighter who was at the Lachman scene Jan. 2 wrote that the battalion chief in charge had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of visible signs of smoldering terrain, which crews feared could start a new fire. “And the rest is history,” the firefighter wrote in recent weeks.

A second firefighter was told that tree stumps were still hot at the location when the crew packed up and left, according to the texts. And another firefighter said in texts last month that crew members were upset when directed to leave the scene, but that they could not ignore orders. That firefighter also wrote that he and his colleagues knew immediately that the Jan. 7 fire was a rekindle of the Jan. 1 blaze.

The firefighters’ accounts line up with a video recorded by a hiker above Skull Rock Trailhead about 11:30 a.m. Jan. 2 — almost 36 hours after the Lachman fire started — that shows smoke rising from the dirt. “It’s still smoldering,” the hiker says from behind the camera.

The LAFD previously said that officials did everything they could to ensure the Lachman fire was out.

In an interview with The Times last month, Villanueva — who came out of retirement to head the department in February, after Bass removed Crowley from the position — said that firefighters remained in the Lachman fire burn area for more than 36 hours and “cold-trailed” it, meaning they used their hands to feel for heat, dug out hot spots and chopped a line around the perimeter of the fire to ensure it was contained.

He said firefighters returned Jan. 3 for another round of cold-trailing after a report of smoke in the area, though the LAFD did not provide records that corroborated those actions.

Those documents are readily available for release, but the LAFD has required The Times to pursue them through an often lengthy process under the California Public Records Act. Bass’ office declined to order the LAFD to provide the records to the paper.

The Times in recent years has filed three lawsuits against the city for its failure to release documents under the records act. Two of the lawsuits involved alleged misconduct by LAFD employees, including accusations that a chief deputy appeared to be intoxicated while the department was battling a 2021 fire in the Palisades.

The now-retired chief deputy said he was off-duty at the time and did nothing wrong. The department took no action against him. A judge ordered the city to release the records in the case and pay The Times’ legal fees.

In the second case involving alleged misconduct, the city agreed to settle by producing the records and reimbursing the paper’s legal costs. In the third lawsuit, which is pending, The Times contends that the city has unlawfully deleted Bass’ text messages related to the Palisades fire.

Pringle is a former Times staff writer.

The Los Angeles Police Department took more than a year to begin fully disclosing domestic abuse allegations against officers after the state passed a law that mandates reporting and can trigger permanent bans from police work in California.

The revelation came out through testimony at an administrative hearing last month for a rookie LAPD officer who was fired after the department alleged she committed time card fraud and physically assaulted her former romantic partner, a fellow cop.

A sergeant from the LAPD’s serious misconduct unit testified in a proceeding against Tawny Ramirez, according to Ramirez’s attorney and evidence from the closed-door hearing reviewed by The Times. The sergeant said the department did not start reporting certain spousal abuse cases to the state until after Ramirez was terminated in early February 2024. That is more than a year after rules took effect requiring the LAPD and other police agencies to promptly report officers accused of “serious misconduct” to the state’s police accreditation body, which grants authorization to work in law enforcement.

Senate Bill 2, passed in 2021, made domestic violence one of the nine categories of “serious misconduct” — including excessive force, dishonesty, sexual assault and acts of bias on the basis of factors including race, sexual orientation and gender — that police agencies are obligated to report to the state’s Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training, or POST.

The LAPD sergeant testified that the reporting practices were based on guidance from POST’s former compliance director, who said at a training session that agencies did not have to “report first-time misdemeanor domestic violence,” according to Ramirez’s attorney Nicole Castronovo and the hearing evidence reviewed by The Times.

Ramirez appealed the basis for her firing and has maintained she did not commit any misconduct. She denied allegations she abused her former partner.

LAPD officials believed the partial POST reporting went “against best practices” and tried to get the directive in writing, the sergeant testified, but still went along with what the official advised, according to Castronovo and the hearing evidence.

When the department sought further clarification from the POST compliance director’s successor, officials were informed that nearly all domestic-related incidents must be reported, Castronovo said.

She said she tried to press the LAPD about how many of these cases may have gone unreported, but the department said it didn’t know.

When SB 2 took effect in January 2023, police agencies were supposed to start disclosing “serious misconduct” to POST within 10 days of learning of credible allegations.

The sergeant who testified declined comment and directed questions to the department’s press office, which in a statement said that at the time SB 2 was being rolled out the LAPD “consulted” with POST “to determine which misconduct types required reporting.”

“The Department was advised that first-time, non-aggravated domestic battery did not meet the reporting threshold,” the statement read. “The Department followed this guidance, reporting only those cases with aggravating factors. In 2024, the Department adopted a new standard of reporting all allegations of domestic battery, regardless of severity.”

Ramirez’s lawyer said the testimony raises questions about the LAPD’s compliance with the law — and whether it has gone back to report other officers’ past offenses.

“It’s very scary to think that that crime wouldn’t be reported,” Castronovo said.

The LAPD accused Ramirez of assaulting her ex, Jorge Alvarado, in May 2023 based on a texted photo he provided that showed yellowish bruising on his arm from where she had squeezed it, according to the hearing evidence. Ramirez maintains Alvarado was bruised during consensual sex and argued at her at an administrative hearing that the department was unwilling to consider emails, text messages and other evidence she tried to provide that cast doubt on her accuser’s account.

The couple started dating in 2022 while both were at the Police Academy, according to Ramirez. She claims she tried to end the relationship after a few months when Alvarado turned overbearing and possessive. A colleague from Topanga Division helped her fill out an application for a temporary restraining order, Ramirez said.

A judge denied the stay away order on the grounds that Ramirez wasn’t in imminent danger, and Alvarado did not face any charges.

Alvarado did not respond to a request for comment sent to his department email.

According to hearing evidence, Alvarado first disclosed the alleged abuse by Ramirez during an interview with LAPD Internal Affairs in January 2024. Ramirez was fired less than a month later — weeks shy of completing her 18-month probationary period — after the department alleged that she lied about her reason for taking time off from work.

Meagan Poulos, a spokesperson for POST, said she wasn’t familiar with Ramirez’s case but if anything, the state agency deals with police departments “over-reporting” misconduct. Poulos said data on serious misconduct reports from the LAPD were not immediately available for review.

She added that reporting is not mandatory for spousal abuse cases that are quickly deemed unfounded or that don’t prompt an Internal Affairs investigation, and suggested LAPD officials may have “misconstrued” that to mean they didn’t have to report any such cases.

“I don’t know if that’s the case in this particular case, but I can say that’s not something that POST would advise any agency to not do,” she said.

According to Poulos and data from the agency, in 2023 there were 250-plus law enforcement agencies — the vast majority of which have fewer than 50 officers — that didn’t report a single case of serious misconduct. She said the agency regularly sends out reminders about their obligations under SB 2.

Larger agencies like the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have their own coordinators or standalone units charged with referring qualifying cases to state authorities for consideration. In a brief statement, the Sheriff’s Department said it has been its “practice since the inception of SB 2 to report all allegations of acts that violate the law.”

POST revoked 57 officers’ certification this year, compared to 84 last year. Another 43 officers voluntarily surrendered their certifications, while 77 had theirs at least temporarily suspended.

A POST notification doesn’t automatically result in an officer losing his or her policing certificate. Cases are reviewed by a disciplinary board comprised of civilians with a professional or personal background related to police accountability. That board convenes every few months to review POST’s investigation of misconduct allegations and recommend whether the commission should seek decertification.

Ramirez told The Times the LAPD initially said domestic violence had nothing to do with her firing. She says she was unfairly accused of violating department policy during a 2023 incident in Canoga Park in which she and another officer used force while trying to take a man into custody. It was only later that the photos of Alvarado’s bruises were used against her, Ramirez said, along with an allegation of time card fraud — which she also denies.

The LAPD said Ramirez lied and told her supervisor she needed time off to take care her of her ailing brother when she actually went to apply for a job at the Beverly Hills Police Department.

Ramirez said she was a caregiver for her brother — who has since died — and that she was applying to the Beverly Hills job in an attempt to get away from Alvarado.

Alvarado was placed on administrative leave after Ramirez reported him but has since completed his probationary period and been elevated to the rank of Police Officer II.

A decision from the LAPD disciplinary review process on whether Ramirez can be fired remains pending. She thinks it’s unfair her ex has been allowed to return to work while she’s stuck in limbo.

“Here I am still trying to get my job back and he’s a happy officer, enjoying his benefits, while I’m living this nightmare,” she said.

Times staff writer Connor Sheets and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Officials announced Thursday that Los Angeles County has automated the process of notifying law enforcement agencies when people who violate restraining orders fail to comply with judges’ orders to hand their guns over to authorities.

Previously, court clerks had to identify which of the county’s 88 law enforcement agencies to notify about a firearm relinquishment by looking up addresses for the accused, which could take multiple days, Presiding Judge Sergio C. Tapia II of the L.A. County Superior Court said during a news conference.

Now, “notices are sent within minutes” to the appropriate agencies, Tapia said.

“This new system represents a step forward in ensuring timely, consistent and efficient communication between the court and law enforcement,” he said, “helping to remove firearms from individuals who are legally prohibited from possessing them.”

According to a news release, the court launched the platform, which the Judicial Council of California funded with a $4.12 million grant in conjunction with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office, and the L.A. Police Department and city attorney’s office.

The court also rolled out a new portal for law enforcement that “streamlines interagency communications by providing justice partners with a centralized list of relevant cases for review” and allows agencies “to view all firearm relinquishment restraining order violations within their jurisdiction,” according to the release.

The new digital approach “represents a major enhancement in public safety,” Luna said.

“Each of those firearms,” he said, “represents a potential tragedy prevented or a domestic violence situation that did not escalate, a life that was not lost to gun violence.”