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Los Angeles County leaders are pushing forward a measure for the November ballot that would remove their ability to have final say on one of the costliest decisions they make: How much to pay firefighters and sheriff’s deputies.

The supervisors voted 4 to 0 on Tuesday to have their lawyers draft a ballot measure that would give final decision-making power in contract disputes regarding pay and working conditions for public safety workers to a three-person panel, a practice known as binding arbitration.

Supporters say the proposal, which the supervisors are pushing to get on the November ballot, would offer a new tool to smooth over disputes and provide a “reset” after recent tumultuous contract negotiations.

“It incentivizes both parties to come to a fair agreement,” said Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who introduced the measure along with Supervisor Hilda Solis.

The supervisors are expected to vote again on the proposal in the coming months before putting it on the ballot.

Currently, if contract talks hit an impasse, the five county supervisors can, after a complex mediation process, impose a final offer. Public safety workers, who are not allowed to strike, say they have no leverage with which to fight back, giving the county final word.

Under the new proposal, the power dynamics would shift. An arbitration panel would instead make the final decision on some contract disputes for public safety employees, including firefighters, sheriff’s deputies and county lifeguards. The panel would have one arbitrator chosen by the county, one chosen by the union and one agreed to by both sides.

It’s rare for labor negotiations to get to this point. The county said it has imposed contract terms after reaching impasse over negotiations twice since 2001, once with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists in 2001 and Supervising Deputy Probation Officers in 2024.

“The goal is to never have to get to that step,” Horvath said.

Unions say the measure would give them needed leverage and remove political pressure from the thorniest contract questions. Critics say it shifts financial control away from politicians and into the hands of unaccountable arbitrators, which could lead to bloated labor costs.

“Arbitrators aren’t elected, they’re not required to weigh countywide trade-offs like homeless services, healthcare, capital improvements, all of those things,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, the only supervisor to abstain from the vote.

Interim County Executive Officer Joseph M. Nicchitta said he viewed it as a potential “seismic change” in how the county handles labor negotiations.

“Because the arbitrators ‘pick a winner’ as between the parties’ final offers, the decision will no longer be a compromise. One side will win,” Nicchitta wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to the board.

Substantial raises mandated by arbitrators, he wrote, “could, among other things, materially and detrimentally increase the County’s day-to-day operating costs, lead to workforce reductions and program curtailments, balloon our unfunded pension liabilities, and damage the County’s credit ratings.”

The decision of who gets final say over wage increases will become increasingly important as county leaders try to steer the government through financial tumult brought on by federal cuts, booming labor costs and billions in sex abuse payouts. Last week, the supervisors unanimously approved $200 million in homeless service cuts to close the budget gap.

Horvath said more than 20 jurisdictions in California use binding arbitration for public safety workers, including the counties of San Francisco and Sacramento.

Public safety unions are simultaneously gathering signatures to get the proposal on the ballot in case the board decides against moving forward. A coalition of public safety unions has started a campaign arguing that binding arbitration would “remove politics from pay decisions” and leave “pay decisions in the hands of neutral experts.”

“They have every intention and probably all of the resources needed to collect signatures to put something on the ballot that gets them this,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said. “This makes sense to work on something that we can have some input in.”

PM calls for civil debate as government faces backlash over efforts to roll back policies to support Maori community.

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has rejected criticism of his claims that colonisation was positive for the country’s Indigenous Maori population.

Dozens of people started booing and shouting when Seymour stood on Friday to offer a prayer during a dawn service at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where New Zealand’s founding document was signed in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and more than 500 Maori Indigenous chiefs, setting out how the two sides would govern the country.

Seymour made his controversial comments that colonisation had been an overall positive experience for Indigenous people on Thursday during a speech to mark national Waitangi Day, an annual political gathering that gives Indigenous tribes a chance to air grievances.

“I’m always amazed by the myopic drone that colonisation and everything that’s happened in our country was all bad,” said Seymour, who is leader of the right-wing ACT Party and a member of the Maori community.

“The truth is that very few things are completely bad,” Seymour had said, according to local online news site Stuff.

Describing his hecklers on Friday as “a couple of muppets shouting in the dark”, Seymour said the “silent majority up and down this country are getting a little tired of some of these antics”.

Following Seymour’s prayer on Friday, left-wing Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins was also loudly jeered by those in attendance.

On Thursday, Indigenous leader Eru Kapa-Kingi told parliamentarians “this government has stabbed us in the front,” and the previous Labour government had “stabbed us in the back”.

Seymour’s government has been accused of seeking to wind back special rights given to the country’s 900,000-strong Maori population, who were dispossessed of their land during British colonisation and remain far more likely to die early, live in poverty or be imprisoned compared with the country’s non- Indigenous population.

Controversial legislation that was tabled last year seeking to reinterpret the treaty’s principles and roll back policies designed to address inequalities experienced by Indigenous people led to protests and failed after two of the three governing parties did not vote for it.

Speaking on Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called for national unity and for steps to address challenges faced by the Maori community.

Luxon also said the national debate over the legacy of British colonisation should remain civil.

“We don’t settle our differences through violence. We do not turn on each other; we turn towards the conversation. We work through our differences,” Luxon said in a social media post.

Denial about the destructive legacy of colonialism and its connection to contemporary challenges faced by Indigenous communities remains a frequent subject of contentious debate in former colonies around the world, including Australia and New Zealand.

Reporting from Washington — The FBI office that handles employee discipline has recommended firing the bureau’s former deputy director over allegations that he authorized the disclosure of sensitive information to a reporter and misled investigators when asked about it — though Justice Department officials are still reviewing the matter and have not come to a final decision, a person familiar with the case said.

The recommendation from the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility is likely to add fuel to the political fire surrounding former deputy director Andrew McCabe, who abruptly stepped down from his post earlier this year but technically remained an FBI employee.

McCabe was hoping to retire in days, when he becomes eligible for his full benefits. If he is fired, he could lose his retirement benefits. President Trump has long made McCabe a particular target of his ire, and the recommendation to fire the former No. 2 FBI official could give him new ammunition.

Through a representative, McCabe declined to comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman said in a statement: “The Department follows a prescribed process by which an employee may be terminated. That process includes recommendations from career employees, and no termination decision is final until the conclusion of that process. We have no personnel announcements at this time.”

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has for some time been working on a report that blasts McCabe for allowing two high-ranking bureau officials to sit down with the Wall Street Journal as the news outlet prepared a story in 2016 on an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s family foundation, then misleading the inspector general’s team about his actions. A person familiar with the matter said Horowitz’s findings are what sparked the Office of Professional Responsibility’s recommendation, which was first reported by The New York Times. Horowitz’s report has not yet been released.

McCabe, 49, had long been expected to retire March 18, though he abruptly left his post earlier this year after his boss, FBI Director Christopher Wray, was told of what the inspector general had found.

The situation now seems fraught for all involved. If the Justice Department does not move on the recommendation, conservatives might view officials there as unfairly protecting McCabe. Trump — who already has a strained relationship with Justice Department leaders — might be particularly displeased.

But if the FBI fires McCabe with just days to go before his retirement, it could be viewed as bending to the will of a vindictive president. Trump has previously suggested McCabe was biased in favor of Clinton, pointing out that McCabe’s wife, who ran as a Democrat for a seat in the Virginia Legislature, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the political action committee of Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia and a noted Clinton ally. The president remarked in December that McCabe was “racing the clock to retire with full benefits.”

The inspector general has since last January been investigating the FBI and Justice Department’s handling of the politically charged probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, which is separate from the foundation inquiry. McCabe represents but a piece of that work.

Horowitz is also examining broad allegations of misconduct involving former FBI Director James Comey, including the public statement he made recommending that the Clinton email case be closed without charges and his decision 11 days before the election to reveal to Congress that the FBI had resumed its work. McCabe briefly took over as the FBI’s acting director after Trump fired Comey in May.

The story for which McCabe authorized FBI officials to discuss came just as the bureau announced it was resuming its look at Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, though it focused more on a different case involving her family’s foundation.

The story presented McCabe as a complicated figure — one who lower-level officials felt was stymieing their work, even though it detailed McCabe pushing back against Justice Department officials so the case could move forward.

The inspector general was interested in McCabe’s role in authorizing officials to talk about the matter, people familiar with the case said, because the story detailed ongoing criminal investigative work, which law enforcement officials are not normally allowed to discuss.

The Wall Street Journal story was written by Devlin Barrett, who is now a reporter at the Washington Post. Recently released text messages show that Barrett had talked with the FBI’s top spokesman, Michael Kortan, and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who worked for McCabe, two days before it was published.

Background briefings with reporters are common in Washington, particularly when reporters have information that officials feel compelled to respond to or add context. In this instance, though, it might have been viewed as inappropriate because the discussion was focused on an ongoing criminal investigation.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed Saturday by Border Patrol officers, federal officials said Friday.

“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a news conference. “That’s like any investigation that the Department of Justice and the FBI does every day. It means we’re looking at video, talking to witnesses, trying to understand what happened.”

There are thousands of instances every year when someone is shot by law enforcement, Blanche said, but not all are investigated by federal authorities.

“There has to be circumstances or facts or maybe unknown facts, but certainly circumstances, that warrant an investigation,” he added.

The Department of Homeland Security also said Friday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation will lead the federal probe.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem first disclosed the shift in which agency was leading the probe during a Fox News interview Thursday evening. Her department said earlier this week that Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within the department, would be heading the investigation.

“We will continue to follow the investigation that the FBI is leading and giving them all the information that they need to bring that to conclusion, and make sure that the American people know the truth of the situation and how we can go forward and continue to protect the American people,” Noem said, speaking to Fox host Sean Hannity.

Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed Friday that the FBI will lead the Pretti probe and that HSI will support them. Separately, Customs and Border Protection, which is part of DHS, is doing its own internal investigation into the shooting, during which two officers opened fire on Pretti.

DHS did not immediately respond to questions about when the change was made or why. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was also not immediately clear whether the FBI would now share information and evidence with Minnesota state investigators, who have thus far been frozen out of the federal probe.

In the same interview, Noem appeared to distance herself from statements she made shortly after the shooting, claiming Pretti had brandished a handgun and aggressively approached officers.

Multiple videos that emerged of the shooting contradicted that claim, showing the intensive care nurse had only his mobile phone in his hand as officers tackled him to the ground, with one removing a handgun from the back of Pretti’s pants as another officer began firing shots into his back.

Pretti had a state permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. At no point did he appear to reach for it, the videos showed.

“I know you realize that situation was very chaotic, and that we were being relayed information from on the ground from CBP agents and officers that were there,” Noem said during the interview with Hannity on Thursday. “We were using the best information we had at the time, seeking to be transparent with the American people and get them what we knew to be true on the ground.”

The change comes after two other videos emerged Wednesday of an earlier altercation between Pretti and federal immigration officers 11 days before his death.

The Jan. 13 videos show Pretti in a winter coat, yelling at federal vehicles and at one point appearing to spit before kicking out the taillight of one vehicle. A struggle ensues between Pretti and several officers, during which he is forced to the ground. Pretti’s winter coat comes off, and he either breaks free or the officers let him go and he scurries away.

When he turns his back to the camera, what appears to be a handgun is visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun, and it is not clear whether federal agents saw it.

Steve Schleicher, a Minneapolis-based attorney representing Pretti’s parents, said Wednesday the earlier altercation in no way justified officers fatally shooting Pretti more than a week later.

In a post on his Truth Social platform early Friday morning, President Trump suggested that the videos of the earlier incident undercut the narrative that Pretti was a peaceful protester when he was shot.

“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump’s post said. “It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”

Biesecker and Santana write for the Associated Press. AP reporters Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington.