matter

Do you remember what you were doing when the infamous L.A. City Hall racist audio leak scandal broke four years ago?

I always will: I was naked.

Sunday morning, Oct. 9, 2022, around 8 a.m., I was about to take a shower when I decided to check my cellphone one more time. Thank God I did: If I hadn’t, I would’ve been half an hour late on assisting in one of the most explosive stories ever to hit L.A. politics.

Via Slack, Times assistant managing editor Steve Clow asked if I could serve as a second set of ears on audio that my colleagues had unearthed involving four of the most powerful L.A. políticos at the time: City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, and L.A. County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera. I was still in my birthday suit (sorry for the visual, gentle readers, but I’m sworn to report the facts on this job) when I played the snippet Clow shared: Martinez describing the Black son of then-Councilmember Mike Bonin as “su negrito” — his darky.

I put on my shorts and told my wife I wouldn’t be helping at her restaurant that day.

Clow sent me more clips over the next hour, each crasser than the other — I remember gasping audibly at the part when the four were laughing as Martinez referred to Oaxacans as “ugly.” That morning, my colleagues Benjamin Oreskes, Dakota Smith, Julia Wick and David Zahniser published their first story on the fiasco, which turned out to be a secretly recorded conversation from a year earlier that someone had posted on Reddit just the day before.

The scandal quickly became a national sensation, with even then-President Joe Biden weighing in. L.A. wretched in collective disgust and demanded action, which definitely came: Martinez and Herrera quickly resigned, while Cedillo — who had already lost his reelection bid — would stay on until his bitter end, and De León wouldn’t leave until challenger Ysabel Jurado destroyed him in his 2024 reelection bid. The electoral repercussions of the audio leak can still be felt four years later in this election, as Nithya Raman stages a strong challenge against incumbent Karen Bass — a sentence no one would’ve believed in the fall of 2022, when Bass was on the cusp of winning her first term, and Raman was the lone democratic socialist on the council.

I would’ve figured the anniversary of something as titanic as all of the above would’ve sparked more commemorations than just my columna this week. Nope! L.A. has moved on to the point that Cedillo wasn’t booted from a group photo that included current District 9 council candidate Jose Ugarte, former Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and current Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez — because even Chicanosauruses can survive a political asteroid, I guess?

Having political leaders spew racist, homophobic nonsense now seems like the good ol’ days in an era where infernos destroy or stink up swaths of L.A., immigration agents terrorize immigrants from Westwood to the Eastside, and a spokesperson for a sitting American president denies that the commander in chief suggested Iran bomb the City of Angels, even though he said it during a campaign rally.

I shouldn’t really be surprised, I guess: L.A. infamously loves to forget its own history. But I would urge all you readers to read the great, Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage my colleagues did in the aftermath of the audio leak scandal, because it captured the city at its worst — but also its finest as residents fought back and demanded politicians do better.

Four years later, we can only hope this upcoming election shows more of the same.

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices sounded wary Monday of state-by-state lawsuits that could impose huge damage verdicts on energy producers for the impact of global climate change.

Instead, several of them suggested these local and state claims may be blocked by the federal Clean Air Act.

“Interstate air and water pollution are matters for federal law,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. This kind of pollution is a federal matter unless Congress says otherwise.”

Justice Elena Kagan appeared to agree. State-by-state lawsuits “get in way of how Congress decided to regulate greenhouse gases,” she said.

At issue before the court was the question of whether cities and states may sue oil and gas producers for the damages inflicted by climate change.

California and nearly three dozen states and municipalities have filed such claims, but none have gone to trial.

Last year, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Boulder County may sue for damages in a local court.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from the oil industry backed by the Trump administration. Its lawyers argued that the Constitution and federal law do not allow for such claims to be resolved in local courts.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts sounded skeptical of opening the door to a wave of climate change lawsuits. “There will be 50 different cities. How would that work out?” he asked a lawyer representing Boulder.

For much of the two-hour argument, the justices struggled over whether federal law imposes a limit on such lawsuits, or instead whether states and their judges are free to seek damages for the harm they have suffered.

They did not signal a clear outcome but most of them sounded as though they leaned toward saying that federal law governs such far-reaching damage claims.

The energy producers turned to the Supreme Court after losing in state court.

They hope the high court will shut down more than three dozen lawsuits seeking damages for the impact of climate change.

So far, judges across the nation have been divided. Some have ruled that federal law preempts or blocks states and counties from suing under state law.

But others, including the Colorado Supreme Court, ruled the lawsuits may proceed under state law.

Justice Samuel A. Alito, a staunch conservative, said he is sitting out the case, presumably because he owns stock in oil companies that would be affected by a ruling.

If the court splits 4-4 and cannot rule, it would be major disappointment for the oil industry because it would allow all the climate-change suits to proceed, at least for now.

Oct. 2, 2026 9:11 AM PT

WASHINGTON — A Massachusetts man was arrested Thursday in a federal case alleging he cyberstalked conservative podcaster and former Trump administration official Katie Miller, targeting her dozens of times with menacing phone calls and messages, according to court papers.

Authorities say the man contacted Katie Miller at least 40 times over the course of several weeks, sometimes leaving disturbing voicemails and text messages about her and her husband, Stephen Miller, who serves as White House deputy chief of staff. He also sent messages to phone numbers for her parents, according to prosecutors.

John Anthony Proia III, 41, is charged with one count of cyberstalking. An attorney listed for him didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Thursday.

The court documents do not identify the victim by name, but a person familiar with the matter confirmed that it is Katie Miller. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss non-public parts of the investigation.

“Those who use technology to harass, intimidate or torment others should understand that attempts to anonymize their criminal conduct will not shield them from prosecution,” Leah Foley, the U.S. Aattorney for Massachusetts, said in an emailed statement. “We will find you, and we will hold you accountable.”

In a social media post Thursday, Katie Miller thanked Justice Department and FBI officials for keeping her and her family safe.

“Good to see a Boston grand jury indict this man,” she wrote.

The investigation contributed to upheaval inside the FBI’s Washington field office, where two top counterterrorism supervisors were recently reassigned by the office’s leader in part because of dissatisfaction over their handling of and approach to the Miller probe, according to multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss non-public personnel changes.

Darren Cox, the assistant director in charge of the Washington office, said in a statement that the reassignments were not ordered by Director Kash Patel and that the moves were a personnel decision “based on our constant evaluation of mission needs. Any suggestion otherwise is false.”

Richer and Tucker write for the Associated Press.