next year

Despite complaints from customers about rising electric bills, the California Public Utilities Commission voted 4 to 1 on Thursday to keep profits at Southern California Edison and the state’s other big investor-owned utilities at a level that consumer groups say has long been inflated.

The commission vote will slightly decrease the profit margins of Edison and three other big utilities beginning next year. Edison’s rate will fall to 10.03% from 10.3%.

Customers will see little impact in their bills from the decision. Because the utilities are continuing to spend more on wires and other infrastructure — capital costs that they earn profit on — that portion of customer bills is expected to continue to rise.

The vote angered consumer groups that had detailed in filings and hearings at the commission how the utilities’ return on equity — which sets the profit rate that the companies’ shareholders receive — had long been too high.

Among those testifying on behalf of consumers was Mark Ellis, the former chief economist for Sempra, the parent company of San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas. Ellis estimated that the companies’ profit margin should be closer to 6%.

He argued in a filing that the California commission had for years authorized the utilities to earn an excessive return on equity, resulting in an “unnecessary and unearned wealth transfer” from customers to the companies.

Cutting the return on equity to a little more than 6% would give Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, SDG&E and SoCalGas a fair return, Ellis said, while saving their customers $6.1 billion a year.

The four commissioners who voted to keep the return on equity at about 10% — the percentage varies slightly for each company — said they believed they had found a balance between the 11% or higher rate that the four utilities had requested and the affordability concerns of utility customers.

Alice Reynolds, the commission’s president, said before the vote that she believed the decision “accurately reflects the evidence.”

Commissioner Darcie Houck disagreed and voted against the proposal. In her remarks, she detailed how California ratepayers were struggling to pay their bills.

“We have a duty to consider the consumer interest in determining what is a just and reasonable rate,” she said.

Consumer groups criticized the commission’s vote.

“For too long, utility companies have been extracting unreasonable profits from Californians just trying to heat or cool their homes or keep the lights on,” said Jenn Engstrom at CALPIRG. “As long as CPUC allows such lofty rates of return, it incentivizes power companies to overspend, increasing energy bills for everyone.”

California now has the nation’s second-highest electric rates after Hawaii.

Edison’s electric rates have risen by more than 40% in the last three years, according to a November analysis by the commission’s Public Advocates Office. More than 830,000 Edison customers are behind in paying their electric bills, the office said, each owing a balance of $835 on average.

The commission’s vote Thursday was in response to a March request from Edison and the three other big for-profit utilities. The companies pointed to the January wildfires in Los Angeles County, saying they needed to provide their shareholders with more profit to get them to continue to invest in their stock because of the threat of utility-caused fires in California.

In its filing, Edison asked for a return on equity of 11.75%, saying that it faced “elevated business risks,” including “the risk of extreme wildfires.”

The company told the commission that its stock had declined after the Jan. 7 Eaton fire and it needed the higher return on equity to attract investors to provide it with money for “wildfire mitigation and supporting California’s clean energy transition.”

Edison is facing hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims of the fire, which killed 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena. The company has said the fire may have been sparked by its 100-year-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon, which it kept in place even though it hadn’t served customers since 1971.

Return on equity is crucial for utilities because it determines how much they and their shareholders earn each year on the electric lines, substations, pipelines and the rest of the system they build to serve customers.

Under the state’s system for setting electric rates, investors provide part of the money needed to build the infrastructure and then earn an annual return on that investment over the assets’ life, which can be 30 or 40 years.

In a January report, state legislative analyst Gabriel Petek detailed how electric rates at Edison and the state’s two other biggest investor-owned electric utilities were more than 60% higher than those charged by public utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The public utilities don’t have investors or charge customers extra for profit.

Before the vote, dozens of utility customers from across the state wrote to the commission’s five members, who were appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking them to lower the utilities’ return on equity.

“A profit margin of 10% on infrastructure improvements is far too high and will only continue to increase the cost of living in California,” wrote James Ward, a Rancho Santa Margarita resident. “I just wish I could get a guaranteed profit margin of 10% on my investments.”

Following Monday afternoon’s practice at Howard Jones Field, USC coach Lincoln Riley addressed the media for the first time since the Trojans’ victory over crosstown rival UCLA on Nov. 29.

USC (9-3), ranked No. 16 in the AP poll, is preparing to play Texas Christian (9-4) on Dec. 30 in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. USC finished 7-2 in its second season in the Big Ten and won four of its last five games, the only setback during that stretch being a 42-27 loss to Oregon, which is the No. 5 seed in the College Football Playoff.

Riley announced that safety Kamari Ramsey, receivers Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane, tight end Lake McRee and linebacker Eric Gentry will not play in the Alamo Bowl. Lane declared for the NFL draft on Monday.

“Anthony Lucas and Bishop Fitzgerald want to play in the game but are dealing with injuries and trying to get back … we’ll see how that goes,” Riley said. “Kilian O’Connor and Elijah Paige and Jahkeem Stewart all had surgery and will be ready to roll.”

Asked about signing the No. 1 recruiting class for 2026, Riley said: “It was a great day. We tried to keep the focus on building next year’s team. The amount of guys that we signed is a big portion of it and as we start to look ahead … half of our day and maybe even more is pointing towards next year and coming years. Meanwhile, obviously getting ready for this bowl game. It was a lot of hard work to add talent and people who care about this place and starting to put next year’s team together has been exciting here these last few weeks.”

Riley has a 35-27 record in his four seasons at USC and is hoping to improve his bowl record to 3-1. He guided the Trojans to wins in the 2023 Holiday Bowl and 2024 Las Vegas Bowl.

Riley watched the CIF state Open Division bowl game between Santa Margarita (coached by former Trojans quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer) and De La Salle on Saturday and was impressed by the performance of USC commit Trent Mosley, who had 11 catches for 183 yards and two touchdowns and a rushing touchdown in the Eagles’ 47-13 win.

“He was someone we targeted very early on,” Riley said. “I thought he was super impressive and it was important. He’s one of the best receivers in the country. He’s proven that and he just played out of his mind. It’s a great family and he’s a really smart kid.”

Asked what advice he gives to players who are deciding what to do next in their careers, Riley said: “Yes, it’s an important decision. The guys that make the right decision no matter what it is get a leg up on the rest of their lives. Consequently, a wrong decision can be catastrophic. That’s the world we all live in. I just try to educate them on their options. I don’t like telling guys you should do this or you shouldn’t do that. It’s more about, here’s this option, this is what it would look like, here’s what you need to consider. Sometimes the decision’s pretty clear one way or another, other times it’s not. I try to give them as much guidance as I possibly can.”

Given that USC will be missing quite a few players who were key contributors throughout the season, Riley is not ruling out the possibility of younger players seeing action against TCU.

“There’s gonna be guys all over the place who are going to have opportunities,” Riley said. “All sides of the ball, all position groups, maybe it’s some of the guys you saw a little bit during the season and in some instances you’ll see guys get some burn in this game that haven’t played at all or very little. Bowl games are great, but days like this are the most valuable part of it because we’re just pouring reps into all of these guys, it’s super competitive and the energy level is just different. All these guys feel it’s their time.”

Riley admitted he and his staff had to make hard decisions based on the incoming freshmen, a majority of whom are spring enrollees.

“It’s huge, it’s a high, high number that are going to be here and it’s important,” he said. “We’ve had to make a bunch of roster decisions in the last couple of weeks. We have a large number of players who have already signed and some of the decisions we had to make were based on knowing what we have coming in, and when you sign as many as we did, you’re going to have tough decisions to make.”

Katie Pavlich, a longtime contributor to Fox News, is leaving the network to join NewsNation.

Pavlich, a conservative political analyst, will have a nightly 10 p.m ET program starting early next year, the Nexstar-owned cable news channel announced Monday.

Pavlich, 37, will replace Ashleigh Banfield, who held down the time period since 2021. Banfield will partner with the network to create digital true crime content, including a podcast.

Pavlich has spent the last 16 years as news editor of the conservative website Townhall.com. She appeared regularly on cable ratings leader Fox News since 2013, appearing as a guest co-host on “The Five” and a fill-in host on its prime-time programs.

Pavlich becomes the latest Fox News alum to join NewsNation. Leland Vittert, a former correspondent for the network, is NewsNation’s 9 p.m. Eastern host. Chris Stirewalt, who was fired from Fox after the 2020 presidential election, is politics editor for the network.

Veteran cable news host Ashleigh Banfield joined NewsNation in March.

(NewsNation)

NewsNation was launched in 2020 as an alternative to the three major cable news networks at a time when all leaned heavily into opinion programming in prime time. But the network has moved toward political debate since Chris Cuomo became its highest rated host in prime time.

An Arizona native who grew up as an avid hunter, Pavlich is a strong advocate of the 2nd Amendment. She poses with firearms in a number of photos on her Instagram.

Pavlich is the author of several books, including New York Times bestsellers “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal” and “Assault and Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women.”

FERNDALE, Calif. — Like many of California’s fairs, the one in Humboldt County is a cherished local institution, beloved for its junk food, adorable baby animals and exhibits of local arts and crafts. Rock star chef Guy Fieri, who grew up in town, even turns up to host the chili cook-off.

But along with its Ferris wheels and funnel cakes, the Humboldt County event shares something darker in common with a number of California’s 77 local fairs: It has been racked with fraud and mismanagement.

The fair’s former bookkeeper is due in federal court early next year after pleading guilty to stealing $430,000 from the fair, according to documents filed in federal court. Police had arrested her after catching up with her at a local casino.

Humboldt is hardly an outlier. A Los Angeles Times investigation has found that one-third of the state’s 77 fairs — hallowed celebrations of the state’s agrarian tradition — have been plagued by an array of problems. Workers from at least four fairs have been prosecuted in the last few years for theft, bribery or embezzlement, with more than $1 million stolen, according to a Times review of criminal court filings. State auditors have accused officials at dozens of other fairs of misspending millions more, according to a Times review. Ventura suffered a cash heist, Santa Clara a kickback scheme, and across much of California, public funds have been spent in violation of state rules, including on prime rib steaks and fancy wines while once-proud fairgrounds crumble into disrepair.

A great horned owl performs for visitors during the raptor show at the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Drawing on thousands of pages of court filings, audits and public records from more than three dozen counties, along with scores of interviews, The Times identified at least 25 fairs where prosecutors, state auditors or government officials have accused employees in the last decade of misusing taxpayer money, pressuring businesses for bribes or treating public resources as their own. At still more fairs, officials have been called out in government reports or lawsuits for glaring failures of good governance.

Collectively, the fairs bring in more than $400 million a year in revenue, and many fairgoers see them as priceless cultural events honoring California‘s agricultural heritage and their local communities.

But despite their crucial role, The Times found that the state and county leaders overseeing these fairs have often failed to step in — even when problems are glaring or have been denounced by auditors or judges. The state department of Food and Agriculture oversees 52 of the local fairs through district agricultural associations. An additional 22, plus the state fair and two citrus fairs, are in the state’s “network of fairs,” meaning they receive some state funding but are overseen by local governments and nonprofits.

“There needs to be more accountability,” said John Moot, a San Diego lawyer who represented a carnival company that has sued both the San Diego and Orange County fairs — both of which are overseen by the state.

Last year that carnival company, Talley Amusements, was paid $500,000 by the San Diego County Fair to settle a lawsuit that alleged fair officials had engaged in bid-rigging when they went to hand out a multimillion-dollar contract to run rides and games on the midway. A San Diego County judge wrote that the evidence he reviewed “supports an inference of ‘favoritism,’ fraud’ and ‘corruption’ as to the award of public contracts, although no such definitive findings are made herein.”

Local newspapers called on the state to do something. When asked about the case, California officials said only that they continue “to review the circumstances of this case to determine whether further guidance or compliance measures are warranted.”

State officials also took a tolerant stance toward problems that the California state auditor uncovered. In 2019, an audit found that top officials at the Kern County Fair and in the state had allowed “gross mismanagement to continue unchecked for years.” The audit revealed as well that the Kern district agricultural association’s board of directors, appointed by the governor, had feasted on lobster dinners and fine wines paid by fair funds but failed to provide effective oversight. Kern fair officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

County leaders and local nonprofits have not always been better stewards. Some have failed to notice or take action as fair officials stole money or allowed fairgrounds to fall into debt or disrepair — even when grand juries warned there were problems.

“Not surprised,” said David McCuan, a professor of political science at Sonoma State University who is well-versed in local fairs. “There are generations of farmers and generations of networks of neighbors, friends and family members [who run these fairs]. They help each other. How business is done is insular. It’s not open or transparent.” At the same time, he said, “fairs are big money.” Put all those things together, he said, and the conditions are ripe for mismanagement and corruption.

Although many county fairs operate without incident, scandals sometimes erupt from the most mundane of matters.

Last year, Shasta County agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a 9-year-old girl and her family after sheriff’s deputies seized her goat. The girl had raised the goat, a floppy eared brown and white guy known as Cedar, as part of the fair’s agricultural program, then changed her mind about watching a beloved animal turn into meat. But fair officials refused to allow her to back out; instead the county dispatched deputies across Northern California in pursuit of the animal, which was eventually butchered.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom said “the state recognizes the challenges facing some of California’s fairgrounds and takes concerns about governance and accountability very seriously.”

In a separate statement, the California Department of Food and Agriculture said that “the difficulties uncovered at some fairs” should not overshadow their larger contributions. “These institutions serve as vital community hubs that play a key role in emergency response, as they support local economies.”

Fairgrounds are becoming increasingly important in the state’s disaster planning. During many of California’s recent wildfires, local fairgrounds have served as staging areas for firefighters and other emergency responders. Displaced animals find refuge there. They’ve also served as crucial evacuation centers — about 600 people, for example, lived at the Butte County fairgrounds in Chico for months after the 2018 Camp fire. Fairgrounds have become so essential to disaster response that the state has recently awarded tens of millions of dollars to upgrade facilities such as showers and kitchens that could be used for evacuees.

Yet in many counties, fairgrounds are in a state of disrepair. The Times identified more than a dozen that are plagued by leaky roofs, corroded and unsafe electrical systems, faulty plumbing, dangerously dilapidated grandstands and other unsafe conditions. This is partly because of mismanagement, but also because state funding for fairs has declined in recent years. Fair finances have also been hard hit by the declining popularity of horse racing.

“I think back to how full the fair used to be,” said Jeannie Fulton, gesturing to Humboldt’s half-empty fairgrounds during the August celebration.

“County fairs are still really valuable, but they are mismanaged in a lot of ways. We all see the grounds just deteriorating,” added Fulton, who runs the Humboldt County Farm Bureau. “They need to be run better.”

Mindy Romero, director of USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy, said fair management may not be the most pressing issue facing state leaders but “there should be some accountability … these people are in charge of large amounts of money, and public trust and public resources.”

A judge, left, tries to decide which Boer goat has the best qualities and features during the Boer goat competition with 4-H club members, right, at the Humboldt County Fair.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

County fairs are “supposed to be a place where everybody can come together, family and friends and you bring the kids … it’s these rituals and communities that we really need to take care of. If a community hears that their local fair is stealing it can make [people] even more distrustful of government,” she said.

‘Capricious abuse of power’

California’s first fair was held in 1854, in what is now downtown San Francisco. It was so popular that the idea quickly spread, to Humboldt County in 1861, to San Diego in 1880 and to Orange County in 1890. (Los Angeles didn’t get in on the tradition until 1922.)

In 1887, the state Legislature, anxious to harness and regulate the explosion of fairs, created district agricultural associations, mini state agencies that manage the fairgrounds in each county and are run by boards appointed by the governor.

California is a dramatically different place than it was in 1887, but the governance structure of fairs largely remains. The 52 district agricultural associations each put on a fair, guided by boards appointed by the governor.

The 25 other fairs in the state’s network of fairs follow a similar program. The goal is for fairs to pay for themselves through admission prices, contracts with vendors and other sources of revenue, but they also receive state funding. District agricultural associations get about $2.6 million a year from the state’s general fund; an additional $5 million from sales tax revenue at the fairs is handed out each year to all 77 fairs in the network.

Each of the fairs strives to reflect its particular community. In Nevada County, the rides and food vendors set up beneath towering pine trees, and a central attraction this year was a model-train exhibit showcasing the historic derailment of circus cars. The Los Angeles County Fair, one of the state’s biggest, is known for its preposterous combination of junk food: deep-fried Oreos and pickles; corn wrapped in Cheetos; chicken sandwiches with funnel cake buns. The Calaveras County Fair features a frog-jumping contest, a nod to Mark Twain’s famous short story.

In small rural counties, said Jeff Griffiths, an Inyo County supervisor who is president of the California State Assn. of Counties, the fairgrounds serve as a “social and cultural hub” for the community all year.

“They are our event space,” he said. “We don’t have SoFi Stadium. Concerts, car shows, dances, on and on, they all happen at the fairgrounds.”

Lavish expenditures have for decades been part of the mix. A 1986 state audit blasted the entire fair system, detailing state funds spent on parties, meals and expensive custom belt buckles, along with other misuses of state funds. These include improper contracting — a problem that continues to plague many fairs.

Five years ago, Ventura Flores was pleased when the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds hired his firm — 4 Diamond Security — to provide security as public health officials ramped up a massive COVID-19 testing and eventually vaccination operation at the fairgrounds. It was the middle of the pandemic, and 4 Diamond had little other work.

A performer with Animal Cracker Conspiracy high-fives Ryder Lang, 7, next to his friend Abigail Fielding, 6, both from San José, after entering the Santa Clara County Fair in San José.

(Nhat V. Meyer / Bay Area News Group)

When he got the job, however, the fair’s event’s director, Obdulia Banuelos-Esparza, informed Flores that he would have to slip her cash in secret if he wanted to keep his contract, according to a statement of probable cause produced by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office.

After he refused, Flores said, Banuelos-Esparza began to complain about the work his guards were doing, accusing them of shirking their duties and sleeping on the job. Flores said he doubted the accusations but also feared he would lose the job if he didn’t pay, according to the statement of probable cause.

Flores, who did not respond to emails and calls from The Times, told investigators that he began giving Banuelos-Esparza between $2,500 and $4,000 a month, continuing for more than a year until sometime in the fall of 2021, when he said he stopped paying her. Then fair officials, who had told him they would be renewing 4 Diamond’s contract for another six months, instead terminated it, according to the statement of probable cause.

The Santa Clara County district attorney began investigating the scheme in 2023, following a whistleblower complaint. In 2024, after reviewing Banuelos’ bank records, the district attorney charged her with extortion and bribery, issuing a statement that the fairgrounds should be “where our community goes for fairs, festivals, and fun. Not felonies.”

Banuelos pleaded no contest to commercial bribery this summer, according to a news release from the Santa Clara County district attorney, and will pay restitution and serve felony probation, but avoided jail time. Reached by phone, she declined to comment.

There had long been warning signs: A 2019 Santa Clara County grand jury report uncovered “financial reports lacking in accuracy and transparency, violations of local bingo regulations, questionable tax reporting practices” and other problems. The grand jury also called out “a relaxed level of scrutiny and oversight” by the county.

After Banuelos’ conviction, the district attorney released another statement, declaring the midway now “free of corruption.”

“Ride the Ferris wheel, see the farm animals, eat the food and have fun knowing our fair is safe,” he said.

Santa Clara’s fair is not the only one that has strayed from accepted contracting rules. State audits in recent years have called out more than a dozen fairs, including those in Santa Barbara and Turlock, for violating state policies by handing out money without signed agreements or competitive bidding.

In Fresno, officials required some vendors doing business with the Big Fresno Fair to also make donations to a foundation associated with the fair, according to a 2022 state audit. The foundation then purchased more than $21,000 in gift cards that it gifted to fair employees, along with more than $68,000, according to the audit.

In a statement, fair officials said that the fair and its board of directors “took the findings of the audit very seriously” and made corrective actions that satisfied the state. The statement added that the fair plays a vital role in the community: in addition to the fair itself, the fairgrounds host 250 events each year and are used during fires and other emergencies.

In San Diego, after Talley Amusements filed its 2022 lawsuit alleging bid-rigging, several fair officials testified in sworn depositions that Talley had actually won the bid, but that a top fair official had pressured them to change the scores to award the contract to a different company. One fair official also testified that she had shredded the original scoring documents.

Fair officials, however, admitted no wrongdoing, with a spokesperson in 2023 calling the allegations of bid-rigging “hogwash.” In a counterclaim filed in San Diego Superior Court, the fair accused Talley of submitting “a sham bid” that might have compromised public safety. In a statement, fair officials said that they agreed to settle the suit only because it was cheaper to do so than litigating it in court.

An ‘inside job’ safe heist

Every year, local fairs in California handle millions of dollars in cash — sometimes without the most basic of safeguards.

In the summer of 2022, a man working at the Ventura County Fair gave some accomplices a hot tip: A safe in the fair’s office was packed with more than half a million dollars in cash.

Alexander Piceno, who worked at the Ventura County Fair, was arrested and charged and pleaded guilty — along with three burglars — to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

(Ventura County District Attorney’s office)

On the night of Aug. 10, Alexander Piceno, 30, who worked for a company processing cash for the fair, left the front door to the state’s 31st District Agricultural Assn. unlocked. He also left instructions on how to open the office safe, according to prosecutors. Two burglars walked in, loaded up $572,000 in paper bills (which weighed upward of 50 pounds), and jumped in a car headed back to Los Angeles.

Police quickly realized they were dealing with an inside job, and four conspirators including Piceno were later arrested and charged, and pleaded guilty to felonies, according to the district attorney. Most of the money, however, was never recovered; prosecutors said they seized $6,100 and a used pickup truck purchased with proceeds from the crime.

The Times, reviewing state audits, grand jury reports, lawsuits and criminal filings, found allegations of theft or inappropriate use of public resources at more than a dozen fairs, including those in San Joaquin, Monterey, Yolo, Inyo, Fresno and Tulare counties.

In Orange County, according to a 2018 state audit, officials at the 32nd District Agricultural Assn. caught an employee embezzling more than $9,000 in ticket sales but failed to report the crime to the state as required. The audit also noted that fair officials had spent more than $220,000 on catering without explaining a clear business purpose. In a statement, fair officials said that “issues cited” in the audit “have been addressed” and “new policies are in place regarding meals.” The statement added that all audits since have been “free of any issues.”

September 2022 photo of fairgoers on the opening day of the Tulare County Fair.

(Ari Plachta / Sacramento Bee)

In several cases, including in Stanislaus County, public money went for fancy meals for the board members who are supposed to be watching over the fair’s operations. State audits sometime read like restaurant menus, with references to prime rib, salmon, ribeye steak and fine wine. It is one of many perks board members enjoy, which also often include free tickets for themselves and friends to concerts, dinners and the fair itself.

State auditors also found plenty of gifts to staff, including bowling nights and credit card charges (with and without required receipts) for flowers, gift cards and even clothes.

One employee at the Stanislaus fair spent thousands of dollars on clothes, which he told state auditors he bought for himself and members of the maintenance staff to wear during fair events. But the audit also found that other members of the maintenance staff members “do not recall receiving these items.”

‘The fair got off scot-free’

September 2017 photo of turkeys competing in a race during the annual Kern County Fair in Bakersfield.

(Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images)

In Kern County, the state’s 15th Agricultural Assn. has put on a fair every year since 1916, except for two years during the Great Depression and in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Held in Bakersfield, in the heart of California’s farm belt, the fair has an operating budget of about $10 million and welcomes around 350,000 people each year, according to officials.

To pull it off, the fair has a permanent staff of about 20, and hires about 500 temporary employees during the season. But investigators from the state auditor’s office found that some of these workers appeared far from wholly committed to their fair duties.

In a 2019 audit, investigators found that several employees maintained second jobs — which they performed not in their spare time, but while clocked into their posts at the fair. “Several witnesses told us that Employee A and the other employees left work for almost the entire day nearly every day for weeks or even months at a time,” the audit said.

The fair’s board of directors and chief executive had their own issues, auditors found, among them a taste for expensive dinners and bottles of fine Cabernet, paid for with fair credit cards despite rules against it. In addition, auditors found that at least one of the dinners, which included six board members gabbing together across a table, may have violated the state’s open meeting law that forbids a quorum of a governing body without public notice. Over a three-year period, the audit found, the Kern County fair “spent $132,584 on credit card purchases for which [it] had no supporting receipts.”

Auditors reserved some of their harshest criticisms for the lack of oversight by state officials that they said had allowed all of these “improper governmental activities.”

The audit reported that the department’s Fairs and Expositions branch did not conduct a single compliance audit of the more than 50 fairs under its purview from 2011 to 2017.

The audit generated a series of outraged headlines in newspapers around the state, many of them focused on the fine food and wine that board members and the CEO, Michael Olcott, had feasted upon. Olcott did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The audit’s release did not bring about many substantive changes in the leadership at the Kern County Fair. Six years later, the CEO remains in his post, as do most of the board members who oversaw the fair back then. In a statement, state officials said they “worked with the fair’s leadership to implement corrective measures, including stronger financial controls, enhanced segregation of duties, and updated board and staff training on state contracting and accounting policies.” Officials also said they continue to “monitor the fair’s progress through periodic reviews and ongoing technical assistance.”

After the audit, the Kern County district attorney opened a case against the fair’s maintenance supervisor, accusing him of recycling scrap metal from the fair and pocketing the proceeds. The case is set to go to trial next year. The maintenance supervisor, Joe Hebert, maintains his innocence. He said that he is being scapegoated.

“Recycling scrap metal was part of my job and I had permission to do it,” Hebert said. “I could walk away and plead to a misdemeanor and I’m not going to do it,” he said.

Mark Salvaggio, a former Bakersfield City Council member who served on the Kern County fair board for several years ending in 2014, said he was outraged at the outcome of the audit. “The fair got off scot-free,” he said.

After the state auditor released its Kern County report, the California Department of Food and Agriculture threw its own auditing team into high gear. The division has released more than 15 audits since 2020 — after years of doing few or none.

A series of blistering reports have been issued, followed in some cases by radical changes in personnel.

In a statement, officials said they are “committed to ensuring transparency and accountability at California’s fairs.” Officials noted that audits check for compliance with state policies, and that the oversight program has been reestablished after being “drastically reduced” because of funding cuts during the Great Recession.

But some local officials say the audits, although they may be exposing examples of misspending, sometimes unfairly tarnish fair officials who often struggle to run vital community events with little training in government accounting and contracting rules.

“This is a very unique business that isn’t found anywhere else in state government,” said Corey Oakley, the CEO of the Napa Valley Expo. “We have live animals, corn dogs, flowers, drag queens, horse racing, tractors, destruction Derby …”

Griffiths of the California Assn. of Counties said he thinks the state should either fully fund fairs and “make them viable, or they should turn them over to local communities so we can run them.”

“They have to follow state requirements, but there is none of the benefit of state funding that comes with that,” he said. Meanwhile, he added, “the deferred maintenance on these things is outrageous. They’re falling apart.”

‘I pray we can keep this alive’

Bella Gantt uses her feet as she performs her blindfolded archery show for visitors at the Humboldt County Fair in Ferndale. Gantt is the only person in the world who performs a blindfolded archery show using her feet.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In Humboldt, where the fair is in the state’s network of fairs but not directly overseen by the state, Fair Board President Andy Titus said he is desperate to make sure his local fair survives. His is the oldest continuously operating festival in the state but is reeling from the double blow of embezzlement and the loss of horse racing. The fairgrounds are also in tough shape; in 2023 the fair had to perform emergency repairs to make its grandstands safe enough for people to sit in them.

“I’ve loved this fair since I was a little kid,” said Titus, a local dairy farmer who said he grew up showing animals at the fair and now helps his children do the same. “I pray we can keep this alive.”

The fairgrounds sprawl across a flat coastal plain near the Victorian-era town of Ferndale. A few miles away, the cliffs of California’s Lost Coast rise up and white-capped waves pound into miles of empty beach. In a county with more trees than people, many residents say their yearly visits to the fair help them gather as a community in a part of California known for its isolation.

Nina Tafarella stole more than $430,000 from the Humboldt County Fair, according to a federal criminal complaint, and has pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges.

(Humboldt County Sheriff )

But the beloved fair has not been well-run for some time, according to federal district court records in San Francisco. At the beginning of 2021, it was in “total chaos,” as one manager would describe to an FBI agent.

The organization was 15 years behind on auditing its books, and the state was threatening to cut off its funding. The fair also lacked a bookkeeper, a secretary and other assistance. Even the office itself was in disarray, with “approximately a year worth of backlogged mail and files on the floor,” an interim manager would later tell the FBI, according to an agent’s report of his interview with her filed in federal court.

The manager turned to Craigslist for a bookkeeper who could help make sense of the disorder, and found Nina Tafarella.

At this point in her life, Tafarella was recovering from an addiction to prescription painkillers, was drinking heavily and was in a state of stress and occasional seeming mania, according to a sentencing memo her attorney filed in federal court. She was also deep in the grips of a compulsive gambling problem, which got so bad that she started lying to her friends about how much time she was spending at casinos.

But she was cheerful and helpful and she was charging only about $35 to $40 an hour for her time, far less than a certified public accountant might have cost the fair. She was hired.

Fair officials did not check her references. If they had done a thorough background check, they might have learned that Tafarella had been accused of embezzling money from two previous businesses in Southern California where she worked as a bookkeeper. She had been fired, according to an account her own attorney filed in federal court, but the police and local district attorney had declined to file charges.

Tafarella was a friendly face in the office, bringing in coffee some days. But she also had some quirks: Her co-workers noticed that she did not reliably show up for work and she was “frequently observed at the casino” up the road from the fair office, according to an account her lawyer filed in federal court.

She was also using the fair’s financial software for her own gain. She created fake employee names — very similar to actual employees but often with the addition of the middle initial “J” — and began cutting huge checks to these fictional people, with the funds going right into accounts she controlled.

It all came crashing down at a nearby dance studio. Tafarella had also worked there and had stolen a little more than $20,000. But unlike the fair, the owner of the studio noticed and filed a police report.

After learning of that on Nov. 8, 2022, the fair called in an outside financial expert, who took a quick look at the books and discovered the ghost payroll scheme. Fair officials shut down Tafarella’s access to their bank accounts and by Nov. 15, when Tafarella was next due at work, an FBI agent was at the fair offices.

She did not show up. A short time later, a fair board member went up to the local Bear River Casino and found Tafarella at the gaming tables, according to a report from an FBI agent filed in federal court.

She was arrested and later pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud.

“Everybody was shocked,” Titus said. “She was always very friendly when you saw her.”

In filings to the judge overseeing her sentencing, Tafarella said she has now stopped drinking and gambling and that it “makes me sick” to think about what she has done. Still, in asking for a reduced sentence, her lawyer also argued that if the fair had been better run, it might have been able to protect itself from Tafarella’s schemes.

“Remarkably, the fair association’s own witnesses admitted that the Board was not financially savvy and had little to no idea about the state of the fair’s finances,” Tafarella’s lawyer wrote. Instead, “they solely entrusted Ms. Tafarella, who was suffering from visibly anxious, drinking too much, acting erratically, and reliably to be found at the casino, with the fair association’s finances.”

Titus, whose job at the fair is volunteer, said he has been working almost around the clock ever since to try to save the operation, which saw smaller crowds this year, partly because the lack of horse racing.

“It’s sad,” said Robin Eckerfield, a 72-year-old educator from Fortuna, who said she goes to the fair every year to sample the food, look at the crafts and catch up with old friends. She couldn’t help but notice the reduced offerings this year, a result of the fair’s dire circumstances.

The crowds were small enough that even on the day of the famous chili cook-off, celebrity chef Fieri could walk through the fair mostly unmobbed.

Fieri, who said he got his start as a chef with a pretzel cart at the fairgrounds as a kid, said he returns whenever he can to support it.

While handing out the trophies, Fieri delivered an impassioned speech to the paltry but enthusiastic crowd about the importance of supporting the annual event.

“We all love the fair,” he told the small crowd. “This is our fair. We have to keep it going. We have to keep it alive.”

What kind of team would commit $141 million to two closers?

The one that won last year. The one that won this year. The one that plans to win again next year.

“All I have to say to you,” Dodgers owner Mark Walter told fans at the team’s World Series championship celebration last month, “is we’ll be back next year.”

The Dodgers handed Tanner Scott $72 million last winter. It hasn’t worked out. So, on Tuesday, the Dodgers handed Edwin Díaz $69 million.

If the Dodgers are going to be Exhibit A for Walter’s rival owners to cry about how desperately they need a salary cap, bring it on. If Walter’s rival owners demand that players be locked out next winter and not be allowed back until they relent and accept a salary cap, well, bring that on too.

There is a sentence players are taught to utter: “I can’t worry about what I can’t control.” The Díaz signing is basically the Dodgers’ ownership saying the same thing: “We can’t worry about other owners pointing their fingers at us. We’re here to win. If the rules change, then we’ll worry about that.”

Or maybe not.

“Honestly, I think that we have an organization that, whatever rules or regulations or constructs are put in front of us,’’ Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Monday, “we’re going to dominate.”

In what they call their golden age, the Dodgers are chasing history. No team had won back-to-back championships in 25 years. Next up: tying the major league record of 14 consecutive postseason appearances, and becoming the first National League team ever to win the World Series in three consecutive years.

“What’s better than two?” Roberts hollered at the World Series celebration. “Three! Three-peat! Three-peat! Let’s go!”

It ain’t bragging if you can back it up. For the first time in what will be his third season with the Dodgers — and after winning consecutive most valuable player awards — Shohei Ohtani should be available to pitch and hit for the entire season.

“I’m ready to get another ring next year,” Ohtani said at the celebration.

Mookie Betts, the only active player to win four championships, will come off a Gold Glove-nominated year in his first full season at shortstop and, presumably, will not have to fight off an illness like the one that derailed his strength and hampered his offense at the start of last season.

“I got four,” Betts told the celebration crowd. “Now it’s time to fill the hand all the way up, baby. ‘Three-peat’ ain’t never sounded so sweet. Somebody make that a T-shirt.”

Roberts stirred some conversation last week when he told the Amazon Prime show “Good Sports” that he would support a salary cap.

“You know what? I’m all right with that,” Roberts said. “I think the NBA has done a nice job of revenue sharing with the players and the owners. But if you’re going to suppress spending at the top, I think that you’ve got to raise the floor, to make those bottom-feeders spend money, too.”

The owners of those bottom-feeders ought to be aware of that, because they would have to spend, and they would not be able to point their finger at the Dodgers. The owners, after all, are pitching a salary cap to the public as a cure for competitive balance.

The Dodgers would welcome that challenge. A salary cap would limit salaries, but it would not limit spending on coaching, analytics, biometrics, facilities, nutrition, team planes, and other areas in which the Dodgers’ owners have earned championship rewards for their significant investments.

For now, though, the Dodgers needed a closer. The Dodgers got the best one available in free agency, a guy who has struck out at least one-third of opposing batters in each of his past seven seasons and has limited opponents to a batting average under .200 in each of his past five seasons.

Would the Dodgers like to get younger? Yes. Did they field the oldest group of position players in the majors last year? Yes. Do the Dodgers now have Díaz and Scott for the next three years, and do both turn 32 next year? Also yes.

But, given where both the Dodgers and Major League Baseball are right now, this might be the more pertinent question for the Dodgers: Can Díaz become the first Dodgers reliever to close out a World Series clincher since Steve Howe in 1981? (Orel Hershiser did the honors in 1988, followed by Julio Urias in 2020, Walker Buehler in 2024 and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in 2025.)

If you believed the Dodgers were ruining baseball, then the signing of Díaz will only intensify that. After all, 11 teams did not open last season with a payroll of $141 million — the combined value of the Díaz and Scott contracts.

And, if enough owners believe the Dodgers are ruining baseball, then those owners can find a solution short of a salary cap — or they can set fire to the game, and to the momentum generated by a global superstar leading an internationally popular team, and an internationally popular World Series.

The Dodgers cannot resolve that by themselves. They can act in their best interest, and on Tuesday they did.

Former Rep. Colin Allred is ending his U.S. Senate campaign in Texas and instead will attempt a House comeback bid, potentially paving the way for Rep. Jasmine Crockett to enter the race for Democrats’ nomination in a state that is critical for the party’s long-shot hopes to reclaim a Senate majority in next year’s midterm elections.

Crockett, a high-profile House member who has sparred with President Trump, is expected to announce her decision on Monday, the final day of qualifying in Texas. Democrats expect she will enter the race for the seat now held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn. Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to wrest control from Republicans next November, and Texas, which Republicans have dominated for decades, is part of their ideal path.

Allred said in a statement Monday that he wanted to avoid “a bruising Senate primary and runoff” that could threaten Democrats’ chances in November. He said he would instead run for the House in a newly drawn district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which he previously represented in Congress before he won the Democrats’ Senate nomination in 2024 and lost the general election to Sen. Ted Cruz.

The former congressman did not name Crockett or state Rep. James Talarico, who has launched his Senate bid already, in his explanation. But Allred’s decision aligns with Crockett’s expected entry into the race. Her campaign has scheduled a “special announcement” in Dallas at 4:30 p.m. CST.

Republicans also expect a hotly contested primary among the incumbent Cornyn, state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

Allred says he wants to avoid a divisive Democratic primary

An internal party battle, Allred said, “would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers.”

Kamau Marshall, a Democratic consultant who has worked for Allred before and worked other campaigns in Texas, said Allred made the right call. But he said Talarico and Crockett both face distinct challenges and added that Democrats have work to do across the nation’s second-most populous state.

He said Crockett is a “solid national figure” who has a large social media following and is a frequent presence on cable news. That could be an advantage with Democratic primary voters, Marshall said, but not necessarily afterward.

“It’s going to be a sprint from now until the primary, but in Texas you have to think about the voter base overall in November, too,” Marshall said. “Who can do the work on the ground? After the primary, who can win in the general? … It’s about building complicated coalitions in a big state.”

Talarico, meanwhile, must raise money and build name recognition to make the leap from the Texas House of Representatives to a strong statewide candidate, Marshall said.

A winning Democratic candidate in Texas, Marshall said, would have to energize Black voters, mainly in metro Houston and Dallas, win the kind of diverse suburbs and exurbs like those Allred once represented in Congress, and get enough rural votes, especially among Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley.

Texas Democrats have big gaps to make up

The closest Democrats have come recently to a top-of-the-ticket victory in Texas elections was Beto O’Rourke’s challenge of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. O’Rourke campaigned in all 254 counties — a notable feat for Texas Democrats — and got 48.3% of the vote. But that was still a statewide deficit of 215,000 votes. Just four years later, O’Rourke was the gubernatorial nominee and lost to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott by more than 880,000 votes, a gap of nearly 11 percentage points. In 2024, Allred lost the Senate general election by nearly 960,000 votes or 8.5 points.

Allred’s new House district is part of the new congressional map that Texas’ GOP-run Legislature approved earlier this year as part of Trump’s push to redraw House boundaries to Republicans’ advantage. It includes some areas that Allred represented in Congress from 2019-25. Most of the district is currently being represented by Rep. Marc Veasey, but he has planned to run in a new, neighboring district.

A former professional football player and civil rights attorney, Allred was among Democrats’ star recruits for the 2018 midterms, when the party gained a net of 40 House seats, including multiple suburban and exurban districts in Texas, to win a House majority that redefined Trump’s first presidency.

Besides avoiding a free-for-all Senate primary, Marshall said Allred is helping Democrats’ cause by becoming a candidate for another office, and he said that’s a key for the party to have any shot at flipping the state.

“The infrastructure isn’t terrible but it clearly needs improvement,” he said. “Having strong, competitive candidates for every office is part of building that energy and operation. Texas needs strong candidates in House races, for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general — every office — so that voters are hearing from Democrats everywhere.”

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.

GENEVA — Public broadcasters in Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Slovenia on Thursday pulled out of next year’s Eurovision Song Contest after organizers decided to allow Israel to compete, putting political discord on center stage over a usually joyful celebration of music.

The walkouts came after the general assembly of the European Broadcasting Union — a group of public broadcasters from 56 countries that runs the glitzy annual event — met to discuss concerns about Israel’s participation, which some countries oppose over its conduct of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

At the meeting, EBU members voted to adopt tougher contest voting rules in response to allegations that Israel manipulated the vote in favor of their contestants, but took no action to exclude any broadcaster from the competition.

The feel-good pop music gala that draws more than 100 million viewers every year has been roiled by the war in Gaza for the last two years, stirring protests outside the venues and forcing organizers to clamp down on political flag-waving.

“It’s a historic moment for the European Broadcasting Union. This is certainly one of the most serious crises that the organization has ever faced,” said Eurovision expert Dean Vuletic. “Next year, we’re going to see the biggest political boycott of Eurovision ever.”

Vuletic, author of “Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest,” predicted “tense” weeks and months ahead as other countries contemplate joining the walkout and protests set to overshadow the contest’s 70th anniversary in Vienna next May.

A report on the website of Icelandic broadcaster RUV said its chiefs would meet Wednesday to discuss whether Iceland would take part: Its board last week recommended that Israel be barred from the event in the Austrian capital.

The broadcasting union said it was aware that four broadcasters — RTVE in Spain, AVROTROS in the Netherlands, RTÉ in Ireland and Slovenia’s RTVSLO — had publicly said they would not take part.

A final list of participating countries will be announced by Christmas, EBU said.

Controversy over Israel

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on social platform X that he was “pleased” Israel will again take part, and hoped “the competition will remain one that champions culture, music, friendship between nations and cross-border cultural understanding.”

“Thank you to all our friends who stood up for Israel’s right to continue to contribute and compete at Eurovision,” he added.

Austria, which is set to host the competition after Viennese singer JJ won this year with “Wasted Love,” supported Israel’s participation. Germany, too, supported Israel along with countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg, Vuletic said.

AVROTROS, the Dutch broadcaster, said the participation of Israel “is no longer compatible with the responsibility we bear as a public broadcaster.”

Spain’s RTVE said the situation in Gaza — despite the recent ceasefire — and “Israel’s use of the contest for political purposes, make it increasingly difficult to maintain Eurovision as a neutral cultural event.”

RTÉ said Ireland’s participation “remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza” and the humanitarian crisis there.

Some broadcasters — which run their country’s news programs and wanted Israel kept out — cited killings of journalists in the conflict in Gaza and Israel’s continued policy of denying international journalists access to the territory.

Israeli broadcaster KAN’s Chief Executive Golan Yochpaz questioned whether EBU members are “willing to be part of a step that harms freedom of creation and freedom of expression.”

KAN officials said the Israeli broadcaster was not involved in any prohibited campaign intended to influence the results of the latest song contest in Basel, Switzerland, last May — when Israel’s Yuval Raphael placed second.

Divided over politics

The contest pits acts from dozens of nations against one another for Europe’s musical crown. It strives to put pop before politics, but has repeatedly been embroiled in world events. Russia was expelled in 2022 after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The war in Gaza has been its biggest challenge, with pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating against Israel outside the last two Eurovision contests in Basel, Switzerland, in May and Malmo, Sweden, in 2024.

Opponents of Israel’s participation cite the war in Gaza, which has left more than 70,000 people dead, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government and whose detailed records are viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

Israel’s government has repeatedly defended its campaign as a response to the attack by Hamas-led militants that started the war on Oct. 7, 2023. The militants killed around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — in the attack and took 251 hostage.

A number of experts, including those commissioned by a U.N. body, have said that Israel’s offensive in Gaza amounts to genocide, a claim that Israel — home to many Holocaust survivors and their relatives — has vigorously denied.

A boycott by some European broadcasters could have implications for viewership and money at a time when many broadcasters are under financial pressure from government funding cuts and the advent of social media.

The pullouts include some big names in the Eurovision world. Spain is one of the “Big Five” large-market countries that contribute the most to the contest. Ireland has won seven times, a record it shares with Sweden.

The controversy over Israel’s 2026 participation also threatens to overshadow the return next year of three countries — Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania — after periods of absence because of financial and artistic reasons.

“Next year’s edition is certainly going to be one of the most politicized ever,” Vuletic said. “It’s the 70th anniversary. It was meant to be a big celebration, a big party, but it’s going to be shrouded in political controversy yet again.”

Keaten and Lawless write for the Associated Press. Lawless reported from London.