Investigation

MIAMI — Dodgers owner Mark Walter and multiple insurance companies he owns have been sued, alleging they failed to disclose an ongoing federal probe to customers while directing policyholders’ money into Walter’s other companies.

The lawsuit lists Walter, Delaware Life Insurance Co., Clear Spring Life and Annuity, TWG Global Holdings and Walter’s Guggenheim Partners investment firm as defendants.

Ira Rosner, a 67-year-old Florida man, brought the class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Miami on Wednesday. He purchased a policy from Delaware Life in April and he had until late May to withdraw his money without penalty. However, the company did not disclose the investigation to him until June,

Rosner is seeking a jury trial in the lawsuit that seeks damages for negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract and aiding and abetting fraud.

TWG Global didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Walter has been under investigation since last year by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and the Securities and Exchange Commission following a whistleblower complaint regarding alleged misrepresented loans made between companies within his business portfolio.

TWG Global Holdings is the holding company through which Walter controls Delaware Life, Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co. and his stake in Guggenheim Partners. TWG Global denied any wrongdoing involving the probe in a statement last month.

Walter and co-owner Todd Boehly sold their stakes in English Premier League club Chelsea this week. Last month, Walter agreed to sell the Lakers in a surprise move less than a year after buying the NBA franchise from the Buss family. The deal is under review by the league.

The Dodgers have been adamant that Walter has no plans to sell the baseball team.

The ex-Oklahoma state trooper’s nomination had stalled in the Senate as ICE faced growing scrutiny over its operations.

The White House has withdrawn the nomination of former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to lead United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), without giving a reason for the decision.

The withdrawal was announced on Thursday. Schroyer, a senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, was nominated by President Donald Trump in June but had yet to receive a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who chairs the committee, had refused to hold a hearing until the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided information he had requested about civilian deaths during ICE enforcement operations.

“I don’t have a concern with who the nominee was. I had asked them to give me an update on the internal investigation into civilian deaths,” Paul told The Associated Press news agency.

Paul said he had intended to hold a hearing on Schroyer’s nomination but learned that it had been withdrawn when the White House made the decision public.

ICE remains under scrutiny

Schroyer had little experience in immigration and had not previously worked at ICE or led a major law enforcement agency. Two US officials told the Reuters news agency when he was nominated that he had been a surprise choice for the position.

When announcing Schroyer’s nomination in June, Trump said on Truth Social that he had “firsthand experience getting Illegal Aliens OFF our streets” and called on the Senate to confirm him “IMMEDIATELY”.

The withdrawal comes as ICE remains under scrutiny over its enforcement operations as the Trump administration carries out its immigration crackdown.

Critics have raised questions about how the agency has recruited and trained officers as it rapidly expanded its workforce. Federal immigration officers have also shot and killed multiple people during enforcement operations, including two US citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.

ICE arrests have continued to increase, reaching nearly 51,000 in August, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second administration.

ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2017. David Venturella is serving as acting director after Todd Lyons resigned earlier this year.

The White House has not indicated when it might announce another nominee to lead the agency.

The ChatGPT creator says it is introducing a public reporting framework to share unexpected AI behaviour, admitting the industry has not solved safety challenges yet.

OpenAI says it has identified additional incidents of its AI models allegedly acting deceptively and taking unsanctioned actions during internal training and testing.

Alongside these disclosures on Wednesday, the creator of ChatGPT stated it was introducing a public reporting framework intended to frequently share instances of what it termed as unexpected or misaligned AI behaviour.

In a post on its website, OpenAI claimed that under the newly outlined framework, it will publish updates on concerning model behaviour on an ongoing basis rather than delaying disclosures to group multiple incidents into larger, periodic reports.

The company said the initiative aims to increase industry transparency around troubling model activities in the absence of standardised safety disclosure norms.

The announcement comes amid broader calls from prominent technology leaders urging a slowdown in frontier AI development over concerns that rapid scaling could outpace human oversight and control.

Last week, Anthropic claimed to have thwarted multiple malicious operations using its Claude models, ranging from cyber-espionage and weapons design to mass surveillance campaigns.

“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in an essay published on Saturday. “Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”

However, United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed back against calls to limit the industry, arguing that maintaining the US’s technological edge over international rivals remains paramount.

Responding to slowdown proposals, Trump described critics as “very negative forces” raising exaggerated scenarios that “won’t happen”.

Escalating debate on alignment

Despite political resistance to statutory slowdowns, OpenAI signalled agreement with its industry rival regarding alignment pressures.

“As AI systems grow more advanced and more widely deployed, we need to build a broader and better-informed consensus on the progress of alignment research,” the company stated in the post.

OpenAI added that it does not believe the AI industry has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer, emphasising that decisions about future AI development need to draw on evidence that external observers can examine independently.

According to the company, safety teams observed what they categorised as “misaligned behaviour” across six specific circumstances over the past six months during training and evaluation runs.

However, OpenAI maintained that these reports document individual, rare instances rather than frequent operational failures across deployed products.

The reported incidents allegedly included unreleased research models concealing mistakes in task summaries, unauthorised file uploads to the internet to generate citation links, and agents sharing files across public servers or internal repositories to bypass local boundaries.

OpenAI further stated that its future reports will detail observed behaviours, severity, setting, discovery dates, and the specific models involved, adding that it remains committed to disclosing complex cases requiring longer investigation or third-party coordination.

Prosecutors said that the group worked on behalf of Russian intelligence services to carry out attacks and murders around the world.

Five people have been charged over alleged Russian intelligence-linked plots involving surveillance, recruitment and planned killings, according to an indictment unsealed by the United States Department of Justice.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday that the group worked on behalf of Russian intelligence services to carry out attacks and murders internationally, including within the US, and that all five remain at large.

The defendants were identified as Russian national Yuri Khrameev, 63, his son Kirill Khrameev, 27, Cubans Oemis Romagoza Durruthy and Yaidel Delgado Suarez, both 35, and 22-year-old Venezuelan Angel Eduardo Castro.

All five were charged with conspiring to finance terrorism, while Khrameev, Suarez and Castro face additional charges of conspiring to commit murder for hire.

At a news conference, Attorney General Todd Blanche said the plots included attempts to kill a Russian dissident believed to be living in the Washington, DC area.

Justice Department officials said the network had recruited several people in the US to carry out surveillance on Russian dissidents, targeting individuals both domestically and in Lithuania.

In one instance, a recruit was reportedly promised $40,000 to make a US-based target “disappear”. A separate recruit was allegedly offered $25,000 the previous year to kill someone in Lithuania.

Russia’s embassy in the US has not commented on the case. Moscow has consistently rejected accusations that it has orchestrated assassination operations on foreign soil, including in the US.

Rescuers continue searching for survivors as the government scales back operations in open waters.

At least one person has died and more than 30 remain missing after a ferry sank off the coast of Vanuatu, Prime Minister Jotham Napat’s office has said in a statement.

The MV Matui, an inter-island ferry, sank in bad weather on Friday while sailing between the islands of Ambae and Santo, in Vanuatu’s north, according to New Zealand’s public broadcaster RNZ.

Of the dozens of crew members and passengers on board, 15 have been accounted for alive, Napat’s office said in a statement posted on Facebook, with search and rescue operations continuing.

The Pacific nation’s government said search efforts “in open waters” were being scaled back “whilst efforts move toward a search along the south-east coast, where currents may have carried survivors”.

It said the sinking “appears to be the result of strong winds and marine warnings not being heeded, and possibly of negligence including overloading of the vessel”, adding that a full investigation would follow to establish the facts and prevent a repeat.

Vanuatu police, the country’s Maritime Safety Authority and the ferry’s operator, Tui Shipping Agency, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the Reuters news agency reported.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo XIV has named Father Mario Leon Dorado as a successor-in-waiting to the current archbishop of Rabat, Cardinal Cristobal Lopez Romero, who is being investigated over accusations of sexual assault revealed by AFP.

A statement from the Vatican on Saturday said Dorado was made the Moroccan archdiocese’s “coadjutor archbishop,” a title for a church official appointed to assist a sitting archbishop which also confers automatic succession in the event the incumbent retires or dies.

Dorado, a 52-year-old Spanish priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, had been serving in Western Sahara for nearly 25 years, ultimately becoming apostolic prefect there.

In August he was named Rabat’s apostolic administrator, an official tasked with provisionally governing a diocese whose sitting bishop is “impeded or suspended,” after the accusations against Romero came to light.

On July 8, AFP revealed that at least five women were accusing Romero — who was among the prominent cardinals considered in 2025 as potential successors to Pope Francis — of sexual violence and inappropriate behavior.

No complaint has yet been filed with the Moroccan judiciary, the prosecutor’s office and police told AFP recently.

In response to AFP inquiries, Romero has said he “committed neither assault nor violence nor sexual harassment,” while announcing that he was stepping aside pending a Vatican investigation.

Romero’s mandate as archbishop of Rabat is officially due to end in 2027.

After Dorado was named apostolic administrator, two Vatican investigators went to Rabat to speak to some of Romero’s alleged victims and members of the diocese.

SACRAMENTO — SEIU United Healthcare Workers West President Dave Regan allegedly tried to “extort” an SEIU state council endorsement of the billionaire tax ballot measure from other California union leaders, according to an investigation commissioned by Service Employees International Union.

The investigation and a second inquiry conducted on behalf of SEIU California found that Regan allegedly threatened and intimidated women who worked for the state council, and in one instance, physically assaulted a former executive director of the labor organization.

Regan, in an interview with The Times, denied the allegations that he attempted to extort from union officials. He also denied assaulting the executive director and said he did not threaten female labor leaders. He repeated a counterclaim he made to the union: The allegations against him are retaliation for his advocacy for Proposition 40, the proposed wealth tax that will be on the Nov. 3 ballot.

“They are internally contradictory, they are fundamentally biased, and maybe most importantly, they are politically motivated,” Regan said about the probes.

The law firm hired by the national union investigated Regan’s claim of retaliation but found the allegation could not be substantiated.

David Huerta, the president of SEIU United Service Workers West, and three other labor leaders filed a rare formal union charge against Regan in February.

The national union of SEIU has ultimate authority to resolve charges filed under its constitution and hired the New York labor law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon to independently investigate the claims. The firm interviewed 18 current and former SEIU leaders and others in the California labor movement over nearly three months, according to its report.

The law firm’s report, reviewed by The Times, supported Huerta’s claim that on Dec. 3 Regan suggested the state council could be investigated for “governance issues” if the council did not endorse the billionaire tax on the November ballot. Huerta was then president of SEIU California.

“During the investigation, Huerta reported that he left the conversation with Regan feeling ‘extorted’ and believing that Regan might report unspecified governance concerns to the U.S. Department of Labor, which is known to be unfriendly to labor unions under the Trump administration, if state council did not support the billionaire tax,” the report said.

The law firm’s investigation substantiated an allegation that on the same day, Regan threatened Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California, over the council’s position on the ballot measure. The SEIU probe found an allegation that Regan also assaulted one of Orr’s predecessors in the job, Courtni Pugh, in 2009, to be credible.

“SEIU California leaders filed charges against Dave Regan alleging a pattern of bullying, threats, abuse, harassment, physical violence and attempted extortion,” Christopher Calhoun, a spokesperson for SEIU California, said in a statement. “Initial investigations pertaining to these charges substantiated most of SEIU California leaders’ allegations.”

State union officials have temporarily banned Regan from the offices of SEIU California, a council of union leaders that coordinates political operations for all SEIU-affliated unions in the state, to protect female employees, according to the state council’s report.

Democratic National Committee delegate Courtni Pugh speaks at the California Democratic Party breakfast in Chicago on Aug. 20, 2024.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“Sufficient evidence was also found to substantiate that Regan has engaged in a pattern of subjecting former and current SEIU California female directors to intimidating and threatening physical behavior and verbal abuse,” the report commissioned by the state council said.

Leaders and workers within the labor movement describe Regan’s alleged behavior as an open secret at SEIU, which represents more than 2 million members nationwide and is the largest union in California.

The law firm hired by SEIU submitted its investigation report on July 28. Regan remains in his job as an administrative process moves forward with hearings. Regan will get a chance to make his case before SEIU determines any appropriate disciplinary action.

SEIU President April Verrett has the power to temporarily suspend Regan as the process plays out.

“SEIU is deeply committed to the safety and well-being of all people, including our members, staff, and the public, and takes these matters seriously,” said Dan O’Sullivan, a spokesperson for SEIU. “As soon as these concerns were raised, we initiated a deliberate and thorough process and retained independent, outside investigators to look into these allegations. Our process is active and ongoing, and the next steps include appointing a hearing officer and holding an evidentiary hearing through which all parties will be afforded due process.”

At a California Federation of Labor event on Dec. 3, Regan told Orr that “state council better endorse this measure by Jan. 1 or I’m coming for you,” she told investigators in both probes.

Regan rode to the airport with Orr and sat next to her on the plane “as part of a continued effort to intimidate her into providing state council’s support for the billionaire tax,” Orr told the investigators. As they left, Regan tapped his watch to suggest her time was running out, the report stated.

Regan told investigators that he learned last year that Orr was working behind the scenes to undermine his billionaire tax proposal. If approved by voters, the measure will retroactively apply a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of billionaires who were residing in California as of Jan. 1, 2026.

Regan denied that he threatened Orr, calling the claims “completely fabricated.”

“And again, the source of that is somebody who is not in favor of Proposition 40, and somebody who has not been leading the state council with practices of good governance,” Regan said in an interview.

Regan also denied intimidating Orr to investigators hired by the national union, but offered a different perspective on the SEIU California executive director. He said he traveled with Orr as a friend that day, had previously supported her professionally and offered her a job, according to the report.

The law firm said Orr believed that Regan was a “bully” who mistreated women of color and made it difficult for them to do their jobs at SEIU and had even “fought someone” when he didn’t “get his way.” Regan denied those allegations, including that he mistreated women of color.

“Orr therefore took Regan’s statement that he was ‘coming for’ her as a threat to her job security and her physical safety. She contemporaneously shared this fear with a colleague. Moreover, her response to Regan’s statement is reasonable because three interviewees — both current and former employees of state council — corroborated that Regan has verbally berated and at times physically intimidated or assaulted former state council executive directors,” the report stated.

The investigation commissioned by the national union concluded that UHW then launched a “fishing expedition” into the state council’s finances under Orr’s leadership, but did not substantiate a claim that Regan defamed her to allies of the labor movement.

The SEIU investigators also wrote that the claim that Regan assaulted Pugh was substantiated.

Pugh told investigators that Regan kicked open her office door and “jacked” her against the wall, according to the investigative report. While she was “pinned,” Regan pressed his finger into her chest and screamed that she was a “dumb ass,” the report said.

When he left her office, Pugh fell to the ground and began to hyperventilate, according to the report. Two colleagues found her, helped her breathe into a paper bag and walked her home, the report said.

Regan denied the allegation.

“It is a complete fabrication and a fiction made by somebody who has all of the incentive possible to critique or trash or criticize UHW generally, and me specifically, and no, there was no mention of it for 17 years,” he said.

The report also concluded that Regan recently threatened to sue SEIU Local 221 President Crystal Irving in an attempt to silence her from warning others about the alleged assault against Pugh.

Regan said the national union’s investigation was “fundamentally flawed” because it stated that Pugh “had nothing to gain from sharing her story” with Irving. Pugh, now a political consultant, has worked against the billionaire tax ballot measure, something Regan said gave her a reason to lie about him.

Pugh called Regan’s response “offensive to the women” who she said objected to his behavior. She said she detailed the alleged incident at the time to board members who oversaw her work and SEIU leadership. The encounter, she said, was well-known.

“I told my colleagues and organization leaders when it occurred,” Pugh said in a statement. “I was asked to participate in the later investigation because so many people had heard about the 2009 incident over the years. I chose to participate in the investigation because I saw that his behavior had continued and in hopes that no one else would have to endure this kind of treatment from him.”

Regan, in his interview with The Times, also denied the allegation that he attempted to force the state council to support the billionaire tax.

David Huerta, president of SEIU-USWW, speaks during a Memorial Day action in Los Angeles on May 21.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“Huerta then asked Regan if it was his intention to initiate an investigation,” according to the report. “Regan replied, ‘I don’t have to; there are others who would.’ In that conversation, Regan demanded a full endorsement of the billionaire’s tax initiative measure by the state council by Jan. 1.”

Regan told investigators he raised governance issues with Huerta and could not remember if he demanded the council’s support for the billionaire tax during the conversation, though he said he had been seeking the endorsement for months, according to the national union’s report.

“The investigation found that Regan likely suggested he would cause the DOL to investigate state council,” the report said. “According to Regan, he did discuss with Huerta that an investigation was possible.”

The executive board of SEIU California later voted in July to remain neutral on Proposition 40, marking a blow to Regan’s efforts to overcome an onslaught of opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, billionaires and liberal groups concerned that the measure could backfire and reduce state tax revenue collected from the ultra wealthy.

Regan filed a counterclaim with SEIU in April, alleging that the state council initiated the complaint and launched its own investigation into him as a retaliatory “character assassination” for his advocacy for the billionaire tax, something the SEIU report said was not substantiated.

The investigative report submitted to the national union raised questions about Regan’s tactics to earn support for his causes.

Investigators said their probe “revealed that Regan has been associated with similar extreme efforts to secure political endorsements in the recent past.”

The firm reported that it reviewed text and email messages in which a representative for Regan offered to drop part of his counterclaim “in exchange for the state council’s endorsement of Tom Steyer for governor.”

“In an email response to that offer, a State Council representative stated they have ‘no interest in a behind-the-scenes trade involving dropping internal charges of misconduct in exchange for the making of a political endorsement.’”

The person working with Regan who sent the offer denied to the law firm that the conversation constituted extortion.

“This denial is not credible,” the firm wrote in the report. “The Regan Offeror stated that they were ‘extremely careful’ with their language when conveying Regan’s offer, as they were aware that what they said could be misconstrued as extortion. That the Regan Offeror took such care suggests that the offer was likely extortion.”

Regan also denied the claim, which he called a “complete fabrication.”

A second investigation by the Los Angeles law firm Barboza & Associates, which was hired by SEIU California, found sufficient evidence to substantiate a complaint that Regan bullied Jessica Bartholow, the council’s government relations director.

Bartholow reported to her superiors at SEIU California that Regan stood uncomfortably close and hovered over her at the bar at a fundraiser for the state Senate leader in San Diego in March as tensions flared over the billionaire tax. He then screamed an expletive at her in front of a crowd of lawmakers and lobbyists when she walked away from him, according to the state council’s report.

“Bartholow was scared and her heart was pounding,” investigators wrote in the report for the state council that was reviewed by The Times. “Bartholow had heard that Regan could be violent, and she did not know what he was going to do.”

Regan told investigators and The Times that he swore at Bartholow but denied that he physically intimidated her. Regan said he was upset with her over an allegation that she previously threw “four staff members of UHW out of the state council office.” The report commissioned by the state council discredited his claim and said “Bartholow did not throw UHW staff out of the SEIU California office or treat them rudely or disrespectfully.”

Lawyers hired by the state council said Regan intimidated another woman within the union during their investigation.

The state council investigation included an allegation that Regan physically and verbally intimidated Susan Li, an assistant director of external organizing for SEIU Local 721, on April 30 after a meeting with the Assembly Speaker’s Office and the California Primary Care Assn. Regan was allegedly upset with David Green, president of SEIU Local 721 who had just left for the airport, and began randomly screaming at Li, according to the investigative report on the probe commissioned by the state council.

Regan described the encounter as a conversation and said he did not scream at Li.

The state report said Regan “attacks female staff members instead of taking his concerns to the individuals who had the authority to make decisions.”

“Time and again, Regan unleashed his hostility toward the women who worked for SEIU California, and one from Local 721, in a physically intimidating and verbally abusive manner,” the report concludes.

Regan vigorously denied this assertion.

The state council report said Regan often berated Pugh when she worked at SEIU.

“Every week it was, ‘What the f— were you doing in this meeting? Why did you say that? You dumb ass bitch,’” the SEIU state report said. “Every time Regan called Pugh, she put him on speaker phone so everyone could hear him call her a f—up and tell her to f— off. Not one person said anything.”

Pugh told investigators hired by the national union that Regan continued to belittle her in meetings until she eventually resigned from the state council. She said she believed he formed a coalition to force her out of her job and that she would have been fired if she had not stepped down.

Terry Brennand, director of pensions, revenue and budget at SEIU California, told investigators that he and Mary Gutierrez, now deceased, heard Pugh sobbing in her office after Regan allegedly assaulted her.

“Brennand believed Pugh was in shock and traumatized,” the state SEIU report stated. “Pugh seemed frozen, terrified and not quite clear-headed. It was not the usual Pugh, who was direct, thoughtful and expressive. She was shaking and clearly traumatized.”

Three current and former SEIU California executive directors, all women of color, told Brennand that Regan had bullied them, the report said.

“That’s his forte,” Brennand said to investigators. “That’s his wheelhouse.”

Regan denied that he has a problem with women, or women of color.

“It is 100% false,” he said.

Lorena Gonzalez, president of California Labor Federation, said Regan’s union is overwhelmingly composed of women and women of color, who just reelected him to a position he’s held for 16 years.

“Ultimately they have the ability to make this determination of whether he’s an appropriate leader, which they just made again,” she said. “I think what’s most important is that we have to keep our eyes on the fact that Medi-Cal is being cut and we have no solution but the billionaire’s tax to fill that cut.”

Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — Labor leader Dave Regan claimedFriday that he was the victim of a “smear” campaign orchestrated in part by wealthy Californians and said he has been falsely accused of attempting to “extort” an endorsement of the billionaire tax ballot measure and of physically assaulting a female union leader.

Investigations commissioned by the Service Employees International Union and SEIU California, and conducted by outside law firms, determined the allegations against Regan were credible, along with reports that he threatened and intimidated other female labor leaders. Regan, who is president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, vehemently denied the allegations, which were first reported by The Times Friday morning.

During a video news conference hours after the allegations were published, Regan claimed the probes were launched by opponents of Proposition 40 — the billionaire tax measure he helped place on the Nov. 3 ballot — as well as members of the SEIU California labor council with whom he had clashed in the past.

Regan, joined by other SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West union leaders and members, also criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom for opposing the proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ assets.

Newsom is “trying to curry favor with the richest people in the state to fund [his] presidential campaign,” Regan said. “That is shameful behavior.”

Newsom and other opponents of the measure, including Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and the California Teachers Assn., have expressed concern that Proposition 40 could push many of the state’s biggest taxpayers to relocate and destabilize state finances.

“The Governor supports a national tax on billionaires and is proud to stand with teachers, firefighters, reproductive health clinics, and others in opposing this poorly written state measure that will harm California,” said Newsom’s spokesperson Izzy Gardon.

Regan also criticized The Times’ reporting on the allegations, and an editorial opposing Proposition 40. He alleged that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Times’ owner, influenced coverage about the measure because he is a billionaire.

“We stand by our reporting,” said a Times spokesperson.

David Huerta, president of SEIU-United Service Workers West, and three other labor leaders filed a rare formal union charge against Regan in February. The SEIU investigation report, which was reviewed by The Times, supported Huerta’s claim that in December, Regan suggested the state council could be investigated for “governance issues” if the council did not endorse the proposed billionaire tax. Huerta was then president of SEIU California, which along with their national arm, did not endorse Proposition 40.

In July, the executive board for SEIU California voted to take a neutral position on the proposed wealth tax.

The investigation and a second inquiry conducted on behalf of SEIU California substantiated allegations that Regan threatened and intimidated women who worked for the state council. The investigation also determined an allegation that Regan physically assaulted a former executive director of the state labor organization, Courtni Pugh, in 2009, was credible.

Regan called the allegation that he assaulted Pugh a “complete fabrication.” Regan and other SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West members downplayed Pugh’s allegations against him because of her political consulting firm’s role opposing Proposition 40.

Pugh called his remarks “offensive” to the women who participated in the independent investigation.

“My testimony and the testimony of the other women were substantiated by investigators,” she said. “His claims were not.”

Regan remains in his job as the SEIU administrative process moves forward with hearings. Regan will get a chance to make his case before SEIU determines any appropriate disciplinary action.

Times Staff Writer Phil Willon contributed to this report.

CAIRO: An Iraqi military commander was dismissed early on Saturday ‌after ‌investigations confirmed the ‌latest drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia originated from Iraq, according to ‌a statement ‌by Iraq’s ‌prime ‌minister’s office.

The commander led operations ‌in Maysan province in southern Iraq, according to the statement.

LONDON: British police said Wednesday that they have opened a criminal investigation into allegations that anti-immigration party Reform UK broke rules barring foreign donations.

Last week, Channel 4 broadcast an undercover investigation in which two senior Reform UK officials appeared to discuss ways money from an American financier could be channeled through his U.K.-based son to get around the rules.

U.K. electoral law says parties can only accept donations from British voters or U.K.-registered businesses.

The Metropolitan Police said that after the broadcast, the force “received a number of reports relating to donations and polling involving a political party.

“Detectives have assessed the information provided and determined that there are potential offenses requiring investigation,” it said.

Reform UK said it “denies any wrongdoing and will fully cooperate with the investigation.”

The party suspended Dan Jukes, a longtime adviser to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and party policy chief James Orr, after the documentary was aired. But Farage denied that there was any breach of electoral law.

The program showed two men purporting to be a U.S. financier and his U.K.-based son discussing with Jukes, in the presence of Farage, how 500,000 pounds ($675,000) could be donated to the party through the son. The “son” was actually a reporter from investigative group Verbatim, and the “father” an actor.

In separate footage, Orr, a Cambridge University theologian, appeared to discuss getting the U.S. donor to pay for opinion polls commissioned by Reform UK.

In a speech to the party’s conference on Friday, Farage insisted Reform UK hadn’t broken any rules or accepted “dodgy money.” He accused “foreign-funded hard-left activists” of being behind what he called “entrapment.” Verbatim is an offshoot of the Center for Climate Reporting, a nonprofit investigative group that says it’s funded by grants and donations.

Reform UK was facing questions about its funding even before the broadcast. Farage is being investigated by Parliament’s standards watchdog over an undeclared 5 million-pound ($6.7 million) gift he received from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire in 2024.

Police said Wednesday that the potential offenses raised by the TV program “are similar in nature to matters already under investigation by the Met’s Special Enquiry Team relating to donations made to the same political party. As a result, these matters will form part of that ongoing investigation.”

Founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party to push for a hard break from the European Union, Reform UK has grown rapidly in membership and support since changing its name in 2021 and honing its anti-establishment, anti-immigration message.

Though it holds just eight of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, it has often led opinion polls and was the big winner in local elections in May, a result that helped spur a panicky Labour Party to replace then-leader Keir Starmer with new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

In July, Farage quit his House of Commons seat in protest of the parliamentary standards investigation, saying he would run for reelection and let voters be his judge. He easily won the August election, which was dismissed as a stunt by his critics and boycotted by all the other main parties.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is demanding testimony before a Florida grand jury in an investigation aiming to establish an intelligence community conspiracy against President Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

New subpoenas being issued to former government officials represent an escalation in the yearlong investigation as the Justice Department pursues a loosely defined theory that members of the intelligence community who scrutinized Trump over the last decade, including over Russian interference in the 2016 election, conspired against him and violated his rights.

Investigators in recent days contacted some defense lawyers for witnesses advising them of forthcoming grand jury subpoenas. It was not clear how many, as of Tuesday, had received a subpoena or were still waiting to receive one, and the identities of the witnesses receiving subpoenas were also not immediately clear. The people who confirmed the subpoenas spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a secretive grand jury investigation.

The investigation has focused in large part on the Trump-Russia probe

The contours of the conspiracy investigation aren’t fully known, but agents and prosecutors over the last several months have focused intensely on one of Trump’s chief grievances: the U.S. government response to Russian interference in 2016 and an intelligence community assessment that Moscow meddled on Trump’s behalf at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump, who spent much of his first term shadowed by an investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to sway the outcome of the election, has for years lashed out at the intelligence community finding and cast it as a “deep state” conspiracy to undermine the legitimacy of his win.

Investigators searching for potential crimes in connection with the intelligence community response have conducted numerous voluntary interviews, but the subpoenas prepared for witnesses in recent days represent an apparent effort to lock down sworn testimony before a grand jury.

It remains unclear whether anyone will be charged or for what offense, though lawyers for former CIA Director John Brennan have said they have been informed that he is a target as investigators examine whether he falsely testified to Congress — something he has repeatedly denied. The Justice Department last spring subpoenaed witnesses before a Washington grand jury as part of an investigation into Brennan but swiftly withdrew the subpoenas in favor of voluntary interviews.

The investigation is being run out of Florida, with the Justice Department in April bringing back into government service a top prosecutor from the Reagan administration, Joe diGenova, to serve as a counselor to the attorney general and help lead a team of agents and prosecutors.

DiGenova, who had previously asked then-Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to appoint him to the job and has openly and repeatedly claimed Trump was the victim of an intelligence community conspiracy, declined to comment Wednesday when reached by the Associated Press.

In an indication of the wide-ranging nature of the investigation, the AP reported last month that DiGenova’s team has sought interviews with law enforcement officials involved in the 2022 FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Fla., which recovered a trove of classified documents.

Concerns from defense lawyers about a ‘favored’ judge

Investigators have set up shop in Fort Pierce, Fla., the home court of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed jurist who repeatedly appeared skeptical of the classified documents case against him and ultimately dismissed it after concluding that the prosecutor who filed the charges was illegally appointed.

Lawyers for Brennan last year asked the chief judge of the federal court in Florida to prevent the investigation from being steered to Cannon, whom they described as a “favored” Trump judge. They have since sued the Trump administration, demanding a court order requiring prosecutors to preserve records from the investigation so that Brennan could challenge any potential prosecution of him as vindictive.

Trump came to office in 2017 under scrutiny from the intelligence and law enforcement community about whether his successful campaign had colluded with Russia, which stole politically damaging Democratic emails and orchestrated their release through WikiLeaks as part of a wide-ranging interference scheme.

The FBI and Justice Department investigated but found insufficient evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign, though investigators did find the campaign eagerly hoped to benefit from Moscow’s help.

Subsequent investigations by an inspector general and Justice Department prosecutors identified errors by agents who conducted the Russia probe but found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by senior law enforcement officials or an anti-Trump conspiracy like what prosecutors are now hoping to prove.

Deeply frustrated by those outcomes, Trump has amplified his demands for retribution, which the Justice Department heeded last year by directing that prosecutors utilize a grand jury. Last year, Bondi directed prosecutors to put evidence before a grand jury after the release of documents aimed at calling into question the legitimacy of the Trump-Russia inquiry.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.