Office

Animated movie “Zootopia 2” hopped to the top of the box office in a big weekend for family-friendly films.

The sequel to the 2016 film from Walt Disney Co. brought in $156 million in the U.S. and Canada over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, according to studio estimates. The film’s production budget was estimated at $175 million to $200 million.

In total, “Zootopia 2” collected $556 million in global box office revenue, including $272 million in China, a once-massive market for Hollywood films that has cooled in recent years. The haul for “Zootopia 2” in China marked that country’s highest opening ever for a non-local, animated movie.

The movie likely benefited from its strong franchise recognition in China — Disney opened a “Zootopia”-themed land at Shanghai Disneyland in 2023 and embarked on an extensive marketing campaign before the film’s release. The original film had a total box office haul in China of $236 million.

Universal Pictures’ “Wicked: For Good” came in second at the domestic box office with a five-day total of $93 million.

The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas has traditionally been an important time for studios and theaters to attract moviegoers with family-friendly fare or big blockbusters, which can provide a big bulk of the year’s box office revenue.

“Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good” were seen as two of the major films released toward the end of the year that could drive massive ticket sales. The third — Disney’s 20th Century Studios’ “Avatar: Fire and Ash” — will be released in theaters next month.

The reception for “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good” also points to the demand for family films. Though the overall box office has been uneven this year, films geared toward children and families have largely performed.

Disney’s live-action adaptation “Lilo & Stitch” brought in more than $1 billion in global box office revenue and Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie” wasn’t far behind, with nearly $958 million.

A wealthy young Silicon Valley venture capitalist hopes to recruit statewide and congressional candidates and launch an affordable-housing ballot measure in 2018 because he says California’s leaders are failing to address flaws in the state’s governance that are killing opportunities for future generations.

Sam Altman, 32, said in May that he was considering a run for governor. But he said in an interview with The Times this week that he has no plans to run for office — at the moment — and will instead roll out an effort Wednesday to enlist candidates around a shared set of policy priorities — including tackling how automation is going to affect the economy and the cost of housing in California — and is willing to put his own money behind the effort.

“I think we have a fundamental breakdown of the American social contract and it’s desperately important that we fix it,” he said. “Even if we had a very well-functioning government, it would be a challenge, and our current government functions so badly it is an extra challenge.”

Altman is the president of Y Combinator, a technology incubator that has provided start-up funding to hundreds of Silicon Valley companies, notably Airbnb, Dropbox and Stripe. He first made his mark by co-founding a social media app called Loopt when he was 19 that later sold for $43 million.

He said he hopes to recruit a slate of four candidates to run for office — possibly for governor, lieutenant governor, mayor of a major city in California and Congress — and could provide technology platforms and seed money for their campaigns.

Though Altman said he is not specifically targeting Democratic politicians, he made clear he is not happy with incumbents such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein or the current gubernatorial field, which includes Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

“I’m not satisfied with the current choices,” Altman said. “I don’t want to make this about dumping on specific people, [but] I don’t think any of the current candidates are the best we could do.”

He would not be the first wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur to try to shake up California politics based on his tech resume. Among them are former eBay chief Meg Whitman, who spent $144 million of her own money on an unsuccessful gubernatorial run in 2010, and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, who ran for Senate in 2010 before running for president in 2016.

In recent years, tech industry executives have played notable roles helping candidates get elected to top office, including Google parent company Alphabet Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt, who backed former President Obama, and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who supported President Trump.

Altman declined to say how much he was willing to spend on his effort but said he would prefer to invest heavily on a cause rather than underwriting individual campaigns.

“That’s always felt gross to me,” he said. “I’m happy to spend a lot of money supporting the movement.”

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Over the years, Altman has been registered as a Democrat and as having no party preference, and his political donations swing between liberal and center-left.

Last year, he donated $100,000 to a San Francisco group working to elect moderates to the county Board of Supervisors, and $50,000 to an Airbnb committee that backed an increase in the city sales tax. He has also spent thousands of dollars backing Obama and national and local Democratic groups, as well as congressional, legislative and local candidates.

On a website that launches Wednesday, Altman lays out his concerns and policy goals. He argues that the state’s priorities have become unbalanced, resulting in inequality, stalled growth and declining opportunity. And it will only become worse because of an upcoming economic shift driven by automation, he says.

“We need to figure out a new social contract, and to ensure that everyone benefits from the coming changes,” Altman writes on the site.

Altman lays out 10 principles including lowering the cost of housing, creating single-payer healthcare, increasing clean energy use, improving education, reforming taxes and rebuilding infrastructure.

He has few specific policy edicts, and floats proposals that will generate controversy, such as creating a universal basic income for all Americans in an effort to equalize opportunity, public funding for the media and increasing taxes on property that is owned by foreigners, is unoccupied or has been “flipped” by investors seeking a quick return on an investment.

Altman said he recognizes he faces an uphill battle.

“Maybe this will go nowhere,” he said. “There’s always the possibility I put this out and there’s exactly one person who believes in this stuff and it’s me.”

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For the latest on national and California politics, follow @LATSeema on Twitter.

Updates on California politics

The Foreign Office has issued a warning to Brits who are planning on heading to a popular European winter holiday spot in the coming weeks, as they could be at risk of hospitalisation or even death

British holidaymakers planning their dream winter getaway in the coming weeks face potential hospitalisation or even death, according to Foreign Office warnings. More than 20 million people flock to the European destination each year, with over one million of those being UK travellers.

Renowned for its tranquil landscapes and stunning mountain views, Switzerland remains a favoured destination for those keen on winter sports, including skiing, snowboarding, and hiking. However, the Foreign Office has warned that some Brits may be engaging in ‘risky’ activities that might not be covered by their insurance policies.

Being inadequately prepared could result in serious consequences for both your well-being and your finances, particularly if you haven’t been careful about selecting the right insurance cover for your trip. In certain circumstances, you might find yourself liable for more than £3,000 if you lack proper travel insurance protection, and that’s excluding medical expenses and hospital bills.

Foreign Office guidance warns: “Adventure sports can be risky. British nationals in the Swiss Alps have been involved in accidents and have been hospitalised or died. Check the company you are using is well-established and that your travel insurance covers any specific activity.

“For sports activities like skiing, potholing and mountaineering, and for sports classed as particularly dangerous (for example, off-piste skiing, mountain biking, climbing, paragliding or BASE jumping), you could get into difficulty and need emergency rescue. Adventure sports can be risky. British nationals in the Swiss Alps have been involved in accidents and have been hospitalised or died.

“Check the company you are using is well-established and that your travel insurance covers any specific activity. For sports activities like skiing, potholing and mountaineering, and for sports classed as particularly dangerous (for example, off-piste skiing, mountain biking, climbing, paragliding or BASE jumping), you could get into difficulty and need emergency rescue.”

Making sure you’ve got the right cover for your winter holiday

If you’re planning a trip to a ski resort this winter, it’s crucial to make sure any activities you intend to participate in are covered by your travel insurance. When sorting out your policy, ensure you’re fully clued up on any exclusions included in the policy and when you won’t be protected.

It’s also vital to consider medical costs, and when your insurance policy will foot the bill for you, especially if you plan on using rental gear, as this likely won’t be covered. Moreover, those hitting the slopes off-piste without a guide may not typically be covered by their insurance.

According to SOS 144, a helicopter rescue in the Swiss Alps can cost as much as 3,500 CHF (£3,293).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The spokesperson said other regional offices were expected.

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

Political newcomer Jeff Hall has run a discreet campaign trying to unseat an incumbent on an obscure Riverside County water board. He hasn’t posted any signs, didn’t show up to a candidates forum and lists no occupation on the November ballot.

But Hall is well-known as a white supremacist.

As California director of the National Socialist Movement — the nation’s largest neo-Nazi group — Hall has helped lead demonstrations in Riverside and Los Angeles, where white supremacists waved swastika flags, chanted “white power” and gave stiff-armed Nazi salutes surrounded by hundreds of counterprotesters.

Hall’s bid for a seat on the board of directors of the Western Municipal Water District has drawn outcry from community groups dismayed that a neo-Nazi who has held racist rallies at a day laborer center and a synagogue wants to administer their water — or at least gain publicity in the quest to do so.

“It looks like he’s hoping to get a certain percentage of the vote as an anonymous anti-incumbent and then claim that some percentage of the electorate support the Nazis,” said Kevin Akin, a member of Temple Beth El in Riverside, where Hall and other neo-Nazis have demonstrated. “He apparently intended to do nothing, just to be a stealth candidate.”

Not so, said Hall, a 31-year-old plumber who in a phone interview Monday called for water conservation and affirmed his belief that all non-whites should be deported.

“I want a white nation,” he said. “I don’t hide what I am, and I don’t water that down.”

Hall has been campaigning by handing out business cards, he said, but turned down an invitation to a candidates forum because it was sponsored by the League of Women Voters and a Latino community group.

He is not the only known white supremacist running for office in Southern California this fall.

Dan Schruender, a member of the Aryan Nations, known for distributing racist fliers in Rialto, is seeking a seat on that city’s school board.

Neo-Nazis have periodically sought a platform for their views by running for local office, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

“We see this from time to time. They push things like school boards — local elections that kind of slip under the radar,” Levin said. “It gives them publicity, it gives them a foothold and it gives them an anchor to spew their bigoted opinions in other forums.”

Hate group experts say Hall’s bid for the water board is a reminder to be careful when deciding whom to vote for, because some candidates’ beliefs lie well outside the norm.

The platform of the National Socialist Movement, for instance, advocates limiting citizenship to those of “pure White blood” and deporting people of color.

It is the largest such group in the nation and has been expanding its activity in California over the last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Even with its growth, it’s still quite small, said Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research for the ADL.

“We’re talking about a couple dozen people in the most populous state in the country,” he said.

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In a fiery rebuttal to allegations he’d criminally misrepresented facts in his mortgage documents, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) sued Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte on Tuesday — accusing him of criminally misusing government databases to baselessly target President Trump’s political opponents.

“Pulte has abused his position by scouring databases at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — two government-sponsored enterprises — for the private mortgage records of several prominent Democrats,” attorneys for Swalwell wrote in a federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. “He then used those records to concoct fanciful allegations of mortgage fraud, which he referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.”

They said Pulte launched his attack on Swalwell at a particularly inopportune time, just as Swalwell was launching his campaign for California governor.

Pulte’s attack, Swalwell’s attorneys wrote, “was not only a gross mischaracterization of reality” but “a gross abuse of power that violated the law,” infringing on Swalwell’s free speech rights to criticize the president without fear of reprisal, and violating the Privacy Act of 1974, which they said bars federal officials from “leveraging their access to citizens’ private information as a tool for harming their political opponents.”

Pulte, the FHFA and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Pulte has previously defended his work probing mortgage documents of prominent Democrats, saying no one is above the law. His referrals have exclusively targeted Democrats, despite reporting on Republicans taking similar actions on their mortgages.

Swalwell’s lawsuit is the latest counterpunch to Pulte’s campaign, and part of mounting scrutiny over its unprecedented nature and unorthodox methods — not just from targets of his probes but from other investigators, too, according to one witness.

In addition to Swalwell, Pulte has referred mortgage fraud allegations to the Justice Department against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who have all denied wrongdoing and suggested the allegations amount to little more than political retribution.

James was criminally charged by an inexperienced, loyalist federal prosecutor specially appointed by Trump in Virginia, though a judge has since thrown out that case on the grounds that the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed. The judge also threw out a case against former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump opponent.

Cook’s attorneys slammed Pulte in a letter to the Justice Department, writing that his “decision to use the FHFA to selectively — and publicly — investigate and target the President’s designated political enemies gives rise to the unmistakable impression that he has been improperly coordinating with the White House to manufacture flimsy predicates to launch these probes.”

Schiff also has lambasted Trump and Pulte for their targeting of him and other Democrats, and cheered the tossing of the cases against James and Comey, calling it “a triumph of the rule of law.”

In recent days, federal prosecutors in Maryland — where Schiff’s case is being investigated — have also started asking questions about the actions of Pulte and other Trump officials, according to Christine Bish, a Sacramento-area real estate agent and Republican congressional candidate who was summoned to Maryland to answer questions in the matter last week.

Pulte has alleged that Schiff broke the law by claiming primary residence for mortgages in both Maryland and California. Schiff has said he never broke any law and was always forthcoming with his mortgage lenders.

Bish has been investigating Schiff’s mortgage records since 2020, and had repeatedly submitted documents about Schiff to the federal government — first to the Office of Congressional Ethics, then earlier this year to an FHFA tip line and to the FBI, she told The Times.

When Trump subsequently posted one of Schiff’s mortgage documents to his Truth Social platform, Bish said she believed it was one she had submitted to the FHFA and FBI, because it was highlighted exactly as she had highlighted it. Then, she saw she had missed a call from Pulte, and was later asked by Pulte’s staff to email Pulte “the full file” she had worked up on Schiff.

“They wanted to make sure that I had sent the whole file,” Bish said.

Bish said she was subsequently interviewed via Google Meet on Oct. 22 by someone from the FHFA inspector general’s office and an FBI agent. She then got a subpoena in the mail that she interpreted as requiring her to be in Maryland last week. There, she was interviewed again, for about an hour, by the same official from the inspector general’s office and another FBI agent, she said — and was surprised their questions seemed more focused on her communications with people in the federal government than on Schiff.

“They wanted to know if I had been talking to anybody else,” she said. “You know, what did I communicate? Who did I communicate with?”

Schiff’s office declined to comment. However, Schiff’s attorney has previously told Justice Department officials that there was “ample basis” for them to launch an investigation into Pulte and his campaign targeting Trump’s opponents, calling it a “highly irregular” and “sordid” effort.

The acting FHFA inspector general at the time Bish was first contacted, Joe Allen, has since been fired, which has also raised questions.

On Nov. 19, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) — the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — wrote a letter to Pulte denouncing his probes as politically motivated, questioning Allen’s dismissal and demanding documentation from Pulte, including any communications he has had with the White House.

Swalwell’s attorneys wrote in Tuesday’s lawsuit that he never claimed primary residence in both California and Washington, D.C., as alleged, and had not broken any laws.

They accused Pulte of orchestrating a coordinated effort to spread the allegations against Swalwell via a vast network of conservative influencers, which they said had “harmed [Swalwell’s] reputation at a critical juncture in his career: the very moment when he had planned to announce his campaign for Governor of California.”

They said the “widespread publication of information about the home where his wife and young children reside” had also “exposed him to heightened security risks and caused him significant anguish and distress.”

Swalwell said in a statement that Pulte has “combed through private records of political opponents” to “silence them,” which shouldn’t be allowed.

“There’s a reason the First Amendment — the freedom of speech — comes before all others,” he said.

Elphaba and Glinda have changed the box office, at least for this weekend.

“Wicked: For Good” — the conclusion to Universal Pictures’ two-part film franchise — hauled in an estimated $150 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, marking the second-highest domestic opening this year, trailing only blockbuster hit “A Minecraft Movie.” Globally, the film grossed about $226 million.

The opening weekend audience for “Wicked: For Good” skewed even more female (69%) than the first film, which counted 61% of its viewers as women, according to data from EntTelligence.

Lionsgate’s “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” came in a distant second at the domestic box office with $9.1 million. The third installment of the illusionist franchise has now brought in a cumulative $36.8 million in the U.S. and Canada and a total of $109.4 million globally across its two weekends.

Disney’s 20th Century Studios’ “Predator: Badlands,” Paramount Pictures’ “The Running Man” and “Rental Family” from Searchlight Pictures rounded out this weekend’s top five.

The Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande-led film was bolstered by a massive marketing push that began early last year before the first “Wicked” movie debuted. Though the films are based on the hit Broadway play, Universal wanted to expand awareness of the story to markets that had been less exposed to the theatrical show.

As a result, the franchise has partnered with more than 100 brands, including toy companies like Lego and Mattel as well as more unexpected firms such as household goods giant P&G and online Asian supermarket Weee!, where director Jon M. Chu serves as chief creative officer.

The film’s opening weekend success also points to a demand for female-focused franchises.

After 2023’s “Barbie” grossed $1.4 billion at the global box office, there were countless calls for more films geared toward women. But this year, many of the big-budget movies were male-leaning, and the narrower returns at the box office have prompted questions about whether films were reaching all possible demographics.

“Women continue to be a really underserved audience,” said Shawn Robbins, director of movie analytics at Fandango and founder of the website Box Office Theory. “In terms of large blockbusters, it’s been a minute since there’s been a female-skewing movie on the scale of ‘Wicked’ or ‘Lilo & Stitch.’”

MINNEAPOLIS — Since it was created in 2018, the federal government’s cybersecurity agency has helped warn state and local election officials about potential threats from foreign governments, showed officials how to protect polling places from attacks and gamed out how to respond to the unexpected, such as an election day bomb threat or sudden disinformation campaign.

The agency was largely absent from that space for elections this month in several states, a potential preview for the 2026 midterms. Shifting priorities of the Trump administration, staffing reductions and budget cuts have many election officials concerned about how engaged the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will be next year, when control of Congress will be at stake in those elections.

Some officials say they have begun scrambling to fill the anticipated gaps.

“We do not have a sense of whether we can rely on CISA for these services as we approach a big election year in 2026,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who until recently led the bipartisan National Assn. of Secretaries of State.

The association’s leaders sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February asking her to preserve the cybersecurity agency’s core election functions. Noem, whose department oversees the agency, replied the following month that it was reviewing its “funding, products, services, and positions” related to election security and that its services would remain available to election officials.

Simon said secretaries of state are still waiting to hear about the agency’s plans.

“I regret to say that months later, the letter remains very timely and relevant,” he said.

An agency in transition

CISA, as the agency is known, was formed under the first Trump administration to help safeguard the nation’s critical infrastructure, including dams, power plants and election systems. It has been undergoing a major transformation since President Trump’s second term began in January.

Public records suggest that roughly 1,000 CISA employees have lost their jobs in recent years. The Republican administration in March cut $10 million from two cybersecurity initiatives, including one dedicated to helping state and local election officials.

That was a few weeks after CISA announced it was conducting a review of its election-related work, and more than a dozen staffers who have worked on elections were placed on administrative leave. The FBI also disbanded a task force on foreign influence operations, including those that target U.S. elections.

CISA is still without an official director. Trump’s nomination of Sean Plankey, a cybersecurity expert in the first Trump administration, has stalled in the Senate.

CISA officials did not answer questions seeking specifics about the agency’s role in the recently completed elections, its plans for the 2026 election cycle or staffing levels. They said the agency remains ready to help protect election infrastructure.

“Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, CISA is laser-focused on securing America’s critical infrastructure and strengthening cyber resilience across the government and industry,” said Marci McCarthy, CISA’s director of public affairs.

She said CISA would announce its future organizational plans “at the appropriate time.”

Christine Serrano Glassner, CISA’s chief external affairs officer, said the agency’s experts are ready to provide election guidance if asked.

“In the event of disruptions or threats to critical infrastructure, whether Election Day-related or not, CISA swiftly coordinates with the Office of Emergency Management and the appropriate federal, state and local authorities,” she said in a statement.

States left on their own

California’s top election security agencies said CISA has played a “critical role” since 2018 but provided little, if any, help for the state’s Nov. 4 special election, when voters approved a redrawn congressional redistricting map.

“Over the past year, CISA’s capacity to support elections has been significantly diminished,” the California secretary of state’s office said in a statement to the Associated Press. “The agency has experienced major reductions in staffing, funding, and mission focus — including the elimination of personnel dedicated specifically to election security and foreign influence mitigation.

“This shift has left election officials nationwide without the critical federal partnership they have relied on for several election cycles,” the statement said.

CISA alerted California officials in September that it would no longer participate in a task force that brought together federal, state and local agencies to support county election offices. California election officials and the governor’s Office of Emergency Services did what they could to fill the gaps and plan for various security scenarios.

In Orange County, Registrar of Voters Bob Page said in an email that the state offices and other county departments “stepped up” to support his office “to fill the void left by CISA’s absence.”

Neighboring Los Angeles County had a different experience. The registrar’s office, which oversees elections, said it continues to get a range of cybersecurity services from CISA, including threat intelligence, network monitoring and security testing of its equipment, although local jurisdictions now have to cover the costs of some services that had been federally funded.

Some other states that held elections this month also said they did not have coordination with CISA.

Mississippi’s secretary of state, who heads the national association that sent the letter to Noem, did not directly respond to a request for comment, but his office confirmed that CISA was not involved in the state’s recent elections.

In Pennsylvania, which held a nationally watched retention election for three state Supreme Court justices this month, the Department of State said it is also relied more on its own partners to ensure the elections were secure.

In an email, the department said it was “relying much less on CISA than it had in recent years.” Instead, it has begun collaborating with the state police, the state’s own homeland security department, local cybersecurity experts and other agencies.

Looking for alternatives

Simon, the former head of the secretary of state’s association, said state and local election officials need answers about CISA’s plans because officials will have to seek alternatives if the services it had been providing will not be available next year.

In some cases, such as classified intelligence briefings, there are no alternatives to the federal government, he said. But there might be ways to get other services, such as testing of election equipment to see if it can be penetrated from outside.

In past election years, CISA also would conduct tabletop exercises with local agencies and election offices to game out various scenarios that might affecting voting or ballot counting, and how they would react. Simon said that is something CISA was very good at.

“We are starting to assume that some of those services are not going to be available to us, and we are looking elsewhere to fill that void,” Simon said.

Karnowski and Smyth write for the Associated Press. Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.

As California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta ponders a run for governor, he faces scrutiny for his ties to people central to a federal corruption investigation in Oakland and payments to private attorneys.

Bonta has not been accused of impropriety, but the questions come at an inopportune time for Democrat, who says he is reassessing a gubernatorial bid after repeatedly dismissing a run earlier this year.

Bonta said the decisions by former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla not to seek the office altered the contours of the race.

“I had two horses in the governor’s race already,” Bonta said in an interview with The Times on Friday. “They decided not to get involved in the end. … The race is fundamentally different today, right?”

Bonta said he has received significant encouragement to join the crowded gubernatorial field and that he expects to make a decision “definitely sooner rather than later.” Political advisors to the 54-year-old Alameda politician have been reaching out to powerful Democrats across the state to gauge his possible support.

Historically, serving as California attorney general has been a launching pad to higher office or a top post in Washington. Harris, elected to two terms as the state attorney general, was later elected to the U.S. Senate and then as vice president. Jerry Brown served in the post before voters elected him for a second go-around as governor in 2010. Earl Warren later became the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Bonta, the first Filipino American to serve as the state’s top law enforcement official, was appointed in March 2021 by Gov. Gavin Newsom after Xavier Becerra resigned to become U.S. Health and Human Services secretary. Bonta easily won election as attorney general in 2022.

Bonta was a deputy city attorney in San Francisco and vice mayor for the city of Alameda before being elected to the state Assembly in 2012. During his tenure representing the Alameda area, Bonta developed a reputation as a progressive willing to push policies to strengthen tenants’ rights and to reform the criminal justice system.

In his role as the state’s top law enforcement official, Bonta has aggressively fought President Trump’s policies and actions, filing 46 lawsuits against the administration.

Bonta also faced controversy this past week in what Bonta’s advisers say they suspect is an attempt to damage him as he considers a potential run.

“Political hacks understand it’s actually a badge of respect, almost an endorsement. Clearly others fear him,” said veteran Democratic strategist Dan Newman, a Bonta adviser.

On Monday, KCRA reported that Bonta had spent nearly $500,000 in campaign funds last year on personal lawyers to represent him in dealings with federal investigators working on a public corruption probe in Oakland.

On Thursday, the website East Bay Insider reported that as that probe was heating up in spring 2024, Bonta had received a letter from an Oakland businessman warning him that he might soon be subject to blackmail.

The letter writer, Mario Juarez, warned Bonta that another businessman, Andy Duong, possessed “a recording of you in a compromising situation.”

Duong was later indicted, along with his father David Duong and former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, on federal bribery charges. All have pleaded not guilty. An attorney for David Duong this week said that Juarez, who is widely believed to be an informant in the case against the Duongs and Thao, was not credible. Juarez could not be reached for comment.

Bonta said his legal expenditures came about after he began speaking with the U.S. Attorney’s office, who approached him because prosecutors thought he could be a victim of blackmail or extortion. Bonta said the outreach came after he already had turned over the letter he had received from Juarez to law enforcement.

Bonta said he hired lawyers to help him review information in his possession that could be helpful to federal investigators.

“I wanted to get them all the information that they wanted, that they needed, give it to him as fast as as I could, to assist, to help,” Bonta said. “Maybe I had a puzzle piece or two that could assist them in their investigation.”

He said he may have made “an audible gasp” when he saw the legal bill, but that it was necessary to quickly turn over all documents and communications that could be relevant to the federal investigation.

“The billing rate is high or not insignificant at private law firms,” Bonta said. “We were moving quickly to be as responsive as possible, to be as helpful as possible, to assist as as much as possible, and that meant multiple attorneys working a lot of hours.”

Bonta said the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission also has alerted him that it received a complaint against him. Bonta and his advisers believe is about the use of campaign funds to pay the legal expenses and suspect it was filed by the campaign of a current gubernatorial candidate.

“We’re not worried,” Bonta said. “That’s politics.”

Asked whether these news stories could create obstacles to a potential gubernatorial campaign, Bonta pushed back against any assertion that he may have “baggage.” He said he was assisting federal prosecutors with their investigation with the hopes of holding people accountable.

“That’s what I would expect anyone to do, certainly someone who is committed as I am to public safety.,” he said. “That’s my job, to assist, to support, to provide information, to help.”

Los Angeles County prosecutors moved to drop manslaughter charges Friday against two Torrance police officers who shot and killed a Black man in 2018, attempting to end a seven-year saga that saw the case rejected and then reexamined by three different district attorneys.

Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez were indicted in 2023 for the shooting death of Christopher Deandre Mitchell, a 23-year-old car theft suspect who was in possession of an air rifle at the time he was killed.

Michael Gennaco, a special prosecutor hired earlier this year by Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman to review the case, filed a motion to dismiss charges late Thursday, saying he did not believe prosecutors could prove voluntary manslaughter at trial. Attorneys for the officers filed a joint motion in agreement, they said in court Friday.

But in a surprising move, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta declined to rule on the motion Friday, because the case is currently under the jurisdiction of the California Supreme Court. Concannon’s attorneys had previously filed a writ of habeas corpus after Ohta rejected a motion to dismiss the charges.

“I am not going to rule on this because it would be inappropriate for me to do that at this point. The Supreme Court has to tell us its decision,” Ohta said.

One of Concannon’s attorneys, Matthew Murphy, said he felt Ohta was punishing the defendants for exercising their right to challenge Ohta’s prior ruling. Ohta slapped that argument down, pointing out it was the defense team who put the case before the California Supreme Court.

Ohta signaled he wouldn’t decide the motion until the case was withdrawn from the Supreme Court, and even then, he would need time to review the filings.

Ohta said he was “surprised” that the motion was filed at 3 p.m. on Thursday, giving him little time to digest it ahead of Friday’s 8:30 a.m. appearance.

“It’s going to be a lot of work. I’m not just going to orally say yes go ahead and dismiss the case, case dismissed,” the judge said.

Murphy said he would move to withdraw the habeas filing.

Chavez and Concannon were among those investigated in 2021 when the district attorney’s office uncovered a thread of racist text messages sent by members of the Torrance Police Department. The Times has never seen evidence that either of the two officers sent racist messages, but the scandal infuriated community activists, who have long called for them to face justice for killing Mitchell.

Jeff Lewis, a civil attorney for Concannon, said his client “never sent or replied to any racist messages.”

The shooting incident occurred when officers approached Mitchell while he was seated in the car in a Ralph’s parking lot. They said they spotted what was later revealed to be a “break barrel air rifle” between his legs.

Concannon told authorities he saw Mitchell reaching for what he believed to be a real firearm and opened fire, according to the district attorney’s office. Chavez fired two rounds immediately after. The two officers then retreated and waited for backup.

Nearly 30 minutes elapsed before anyone checked on Mitchell, who was then pronounced dead of gunshot wounds, according to court records.

Concannon and Chavez were initially cleared of all wrongdoing by then-Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey. But when George Gascón swept into office on a police accountability platform and ousted Lacey in 2020, he hired a special prosecutor to reexamine several cases Lacey declined to prosecute, including Mitchell’s death.

But Lawrence Middleton, the special prosecutor brought on by Gascón, did not obtain an indictment in the case until 2023, more than two years after he had been hired to reconsider charges in shootings by police.

The statute of limitations for involuntary manslaughter, an easier case to prove than the voluntary manslaughter charges that Middleton brought, expired in late 2021. Concerns about the timeline Middleton would face to pursue the cases Gascón targeted were raised almost immediately after he joined the D.A.’s office.

Middleton appeared in the courtroom Friday morning and sat beside Mitchell’s mother and a number of activists who have long monitored the trial. All declined to comment.

Middleton previously argued the officers “created the jeopardy that led to the shooting,” by needlessly confronting Mitchell when he was not a threat and had no means of escaping arrest as the car was parked facing a wall, according to grand jury transcripts. But Ohta disallowed that evidence after a hearing in late 2023. The shooting happened in 2018, two years before a change in California law modified the threshold by which fatal uses of force are judged.

Hochman fired Middleton shortly after ousting Gascón in the 2024 election cycle, a move which drew praise from one of Concannon’s attorneys at the time. Gennaco was hired a short time later. He also declined to comment on Ohta’s refusal to rule on the dismissal motion.

In an interview, Hochman said that while he did not believe the officers were “innocent” he also did not think prosecutors could meet the legal bar needed to prove voluntary manslaughter. He said Gascón and Middleton bungled the case.

Hochman questioned Middleton’s attempt to argue that the officers executed the arrest of Mitchell so poorly that they caused the situation that required the use of deadly force.

That evidence of so-called “officer-created jeopardy” was deemed inadmissible by Ohta last year.

The evidence might have been admissible under a change in California law passed in 2020, which lowered the standard for charging officers in fatal use-of-force cases, but it did not apply retroactively, Hochman said.

“These are difficult cases. The fact that they’re difficult doesn’t mean we won’t bring them when they are appropriate,” Hochman said. “I’d say we probably spent hundreds of hours on the 12 seconds that were involved in the case.”

Hochman would not say directly if he believed the officers should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

“What we’re saying is this would have been a potential charge for the grand jury to consider. I can’t tell you how the grand jury would have come out on it,” he said. “It certainly would have been something that was up for consideration.”

Chavez is no longer employed by the Torrance Police Department. Concannon remains on administrative leave. An agency spokesman declined to comment.

In the 2021 scandal, The Times uncovered messages that were replete with racial slurs and descriptions of violence against Black men and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

In one string of messages, officers used the N-word to describe Mitchell’s relatives and joked about what would happen after Concannon and Chavez’s names were made public.

“Gun cleaning Party at my house when they release my name??” one officer asked, according to a summary of the text messages made public in a 2022 court filing, which redacted the names of the officers sending the messages.

“Yes absolutely let’s all just post in your yard with lawn chairs in a [firing] squad,” another replied.

Lewis said in a letter to The Times that Concannon was “never a part of any text thread where an N-word was used to describe Mitchell’s family.”

Concannon and Chavez are the last officers connected to the scandal with pending cases.

Cody Weldin and Christopher Tomsic — whose criminal case led to the exposure of the scandal — struck a plea deal earlier this year to vandalism charges for spray painting a swastika on a car towed from a crime scene.

David Chandler, another officer investigated as part of the scandal, pleaded no contest earlier this month to assault charges for shooting a Black suspect in the back. Chandler will eventually see his case dismissed under the terms of the agreement.

All three officers had to give up their rights to be peace officers in California under the terms of their plea deals.

The Torrance Police Department and the California Attorney General’s office entered into an “enforceable” agreement to reform earlier this year.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta spent nearly half a million dollars in campaign funds last year on personal attorneys to represent him as he spoke to federal investigators about alleged corruption in Oakland.

Bonta paid about $468,000 to law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati last year from his 2026 reelection campaign, according to campaign finance disclosures filed with the state.

Bonta political consultant Dan Newman said the attorney general was approached by federal investigators because he was viewed as a “possible victim” in the alleged corruption case involving a former Oakland mayor and Bay Area business owners.

Newman said “the sole role was to assist by providing information that would be helpful to the investigation.”

“This was all completed in 2024, over a year ago, and the AG’s involvement is over,” Newman said.

Bonta’s payments to the legal team were first reported by Sacramento’s KCRA-TV.

The U.S. Department of Justice in January charged former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao in an alleged bribery scheme involving local businesspeople David Trung Duong and Andy Hung Duong.

Thao ran for Oakland mayor in 2022 and was recalled from office by city voters in 2024 after growing voter frustration over crime and the city’s budget woes. She was arrested in early 2025 by the FBI.

According to the indictment, Thao, then a mayoral candidate, engaged in a quid pro quo scheme with the Duong brothers in which she promised to take official actions as the mayor to help their recycling and modular homes businesses.

The Duong brothers and Thao have pleaded not guilty.

The San Jose Mercury News reported in January 2025 that campaign finance regulators had also been closely scrutinizing Andy Duong. The Duong family viewed Bonta as a political ally, according to the newspaper.

Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021 selected Bonta, then an Assembly member representing the Oakland area, as the attorney general to serve the remaining term of Xavier Becerra, whom President Biden nominated to become the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.

Bonta has emerged as a key player in California’s battle against President Trump, filing dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Bonta eventually returned $155,000 in campaign contributions from the Duong family after the federal investigation became public, according to multiple news reports.

Newman, Bonta’s consultant, said that the attorney general was ultimately found not to be a victim in the case. When asked why so much money was spent on attorneys, he said that multiple lawyers worked over a period of several months.

A representative for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on Newman’s assertions.

SACRAMENTO — Current and former members of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration were among the dozens of Sacramento insiders who received FBI letters in recent days notifying them that their phone calls, texts or other electronic communications had been intercepted as part of the federal corruption case tied to Dana Williamson and two other longtime Democratic operatives.

The notifications are routine in wiretap investigations once surveillance ends, but the letters set off a wave of panic across California’s political power structure. The letters are signed by Sacramento Field Office Special Agent in Charge Siddhartha Patel and began arriving in mailboxes from Sacramento to Washington, D.C., last week, according to copies of the communications shared with The Times.

The legal notifications, under the terms of the 1968 Federal Wiretap Act, are sent out routinely to people whose private communications have been captured on federal wiretaps.

A Newsom spokesperson said the governor’s office is aware that a limited number of the letters were sent to current and former members of the administration. The spokesperson said that the letters were expected given federal law requires parties to be notified. Newsom’s office said the governor did not receive a letter.

Newsom’s office said the governor is not involved in the case against Williamson. None of the charging documents released in the cases against the three aides mention Newsom.

Copies of the letters, which were provided to The Times by individuals who asked to remain anonymous, indicate the period of time the communications were intercepted ranged from May 2024 to the end of July of 2024.

“This letter does not necessarily mean you were the target of the investigation or that any criminal action will be taken against you,” Patel wrote in the letter. “Rather, the purpose of this letter is to notify you that some of your communications may have been intercepted during the course of the investigation.”

Williamson, known as one of California’s toughest political insiders who previously worked as chief of staff to Newsom, was arrested last week on federal charges that allege she siphoned $225,000 out of 2026 gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra’s dormant state campaign account. She also was accused of spending $1 million on luxury handbags and high-flying travel and illegally declaring them as business expenses on her tax returns.

According to the 23-count indictment, Williamson conspired with Becerra’s former chief deputy in the California attorney general’s office and ex-chief of staff Sean McCluskie, along with lobbyist Greg Campbell to bill Becerra’s dormant campaign account for bogus consulting services.

Williamson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The highly publicized indictment against Williamson was sprinkled with references to her phone calls and text messages, indicating that federal investigators were likely relying on wiretapping. But the letters informing a wide swath of political insiders, from lobbyists to other operatives, is causing widespread anxiety across the Capitol.

The exact number of letters sent by the FBI is unknown, but political insiders say they’ve heard dozens of people have received one.

“It sends a chill up your spine, and everybody is worried,” said Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, who said he did not receive a letter. “They can’t remember what they said to whom, about what. It could be anything. I think most people think this could be the tip of the iceberg. They are very concerned about where all these roads might lead.”

The UK’s Foreign Office has issued an update

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has changed its travel guidance for a destination popular with British travellers. People are being warned airports and other transport operators could be affected amid industrial action.

In a new alert on Wednesday, November 19, the FCDO said: “Strikes are planned for Monday 24, Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 November. This is expected to affect airports, public transport and some public services, including schools.

“Public transport will be affected from 10pm on Sunday 23 November. A demonstration is planned for central Brussels on Wednesday 26 November. Strike action is an ongoing issue that can cause travel disruption.

“General strikes took place on 31 March, 29 April and 14 October. Strike action may be announced at short notice. Monitor local news and check with your provider regarding potential delays and closures.”

Hundreds of thousands of people from the UK travel to Belgium each year. Further FCDO advice reads: “Strike action is an ongoing issue that can cause severe travel disruption across the country and affect international travel.

“For regular updates on any disruption, check local news and follow advice given by your travel provider.”

According to The Bulletin, this industrial action is “the latest and largest in a series of actions in response to the new federal government’s planned austerity measures, which unions say threaten Belgium’s social safety net”. Action will begin with a 72-hour rail transport strike, commencing at 11pm on November 23.

On 25 November, the movement “will spread to public administrations: municipalities, hospitals, administrative services, as well as the education sector, which has been invited to join the strike”.

The Foreign Office put out a ‘serious illness’ alert on Tuesday

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has issued an urgent warning for Brits travelling to a hugely popular holiday destination. Nearly a million UK visitors are thought to travel to India each year, and on Tuesday, November 18, the FCDO updated its travel advice for those heading to the South Asian country.

Those travelling to India are now being cautioned: “There has been an increase in cases of serious illness caused by alcoholic drinks containing methanol in popular travel destinations around the world. Even small amounts of methanol can kill. It is not possible to identify methanol in alcoholic drinks by taste or smell.”

Additional guidance on the Government’s Travel Aware website states: “Methanol is toxic even in small amounts. It is an industrial alcohol made from distilling wood and can be found in many commercial products, like antifreeze, fuel and paint thinners. In some parts of the world methanol products are sometimes illegally mixed with ‘real’ alcohol such as spirit-based drinks and cocktails.”

Identifying methanol poisoning can prove challenging as initial symptoms mirror those of regular alcohol consumption. However, early warning signs include vomiting, impaired judgement, loss of balance and drowsiness.

Between 12 and 48 hours after having a drink, you might experience symptoms such as stomach pain, dizziness, rapid breathing, shortness of breath, blurred vision or even blindness, falling into a coma, or having seizures. If you or anyone you’re travelling with starts to show any of these signs, it’s crucial to seek immediate medical help.

According to Government advice, problems with your sight are a major warning sign and can also occur 12-48 hours after your first drink. Methanol poisoning can lead to blurry vision, difficulty looking at bright lights, and in some cases, total loss of sight.

If you start seeing “snowfield vision” (like the snowy static on an old telly) or tunnel vision, it’s vital to get urgent medical assistance.

Other countries where the FCDO has issued warnings about methanol poisoning are Ecuador, Kenya, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Uganda, Russia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Turkey, Costa Rica, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Fiji.

Anya Garnis, who shares two young children with her husband Sunna Van Kampen, recently tried to rent a property in Devon, but she was rejected from doing so because of a Home Office blunder

Former Strictly star Anya Garnis fears she may be left homeless after a Home Office blunder rejected her right to live in Britain.

The Russian-born Latin dancer started dancing at the age of 10 and began competing professionally with her dance partner, Strictly’s Pasha Kovalev, in 1998. The pair moved to the US in 2001 to start her professional dancing career.

They reached the final of the US Open Ballroom Championship on a number of occasions and have also appeared in US series So You Think You Can Dance. Anya, who is a US citizen, has performed at the Emmys and the Oscars and even headlined the Broadway show Burn The Floor.

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The 43-year-old, who shares two young children with her husband Sunna Van Kampen, recently tried to rent a property in Totnes, Devon, but she was rejected from doing so because of a Home Office blunder.

Baffled by the situation Anya investigated and discovered the Home Office’s landlord checking system suggested she did not have permission to live in the country, despite being here since 2013.

The Home Office said her application for leave to remain may have been lost – rendering her ‘illegal’. Speaking to the MailOnline she said: “I was absolutely shocked and devastated. We have to leave the place we’re living now in a couple of weeks, but have been told we can’t rent or buy anywhere else.

“In effect, this will leave us homeless in Britain. If we leave the country, my visa application will be dismissed entirely, but we may have no choice.”

Anya came to the UK on a temporary UK visa in 2013 to work for Strictly. She married Mr Van Kampen in 2017 and they later had two children, now aged three and one.

Since 2013 Anya has lived in the UK on rolling temporary visas without any major issues until she applied to renew her permission last September.

After applying she heard nothing for months so chased her application up on the Home Office website which suggested her application was being processed. When she tried to call, they told her they couldn’t discuss individual cases on the phone.

Home Office guidelines state that applicants have automatic leave to remain while their applications are being processed, so she thought nothing of it. After applying again she was shocked to still be turned down by the LCS.

She said: “I can’t buy or rent a property, but I also can’t leave the country while I’m waiting for a decision. I know highly skilled Americans who have been forced to give up on a life in Britain and move back home because of this catch.”

The Home Office said it would not comment on an individual case.

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump indicated Sunday that he plans to meet with New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and said they’ll “work something out,” in what could be a detente for the Republican president and Democratic political star who have cast each other as political foils.

Trump has for months slammed Mamdani, falsely labeling him as a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his hometown, New York, if the democratic socialist were elected. He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen, and to pull federal money from the city.

Mamdani rose from an obscure state lawmaker to become a social media star and symbol of the resistance against Trump during his mayoral campaign. He ran on an array of progressive policies and a message that was stark in its opposition to the aggressive anti-immigrant agenda Trump has pursued in his second White House term.

The 34-year-old appealed to a broad cross-section of New Yorkers and defeated one of its political heavyweights, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, by nearly 9 percentage points.

In his election night victory speech, Mamdani said he wanted New York to show the country how to defeat Trump. But the day after, while speaking about his plans for “Trump-proofing” New York once he takes office in January, the incoming mayor also said he was willing to work with anyone, including the president, if it can help New Yorkers.

Representatives for Mamdani did not have an immediate comment Sunday night on the president’s remarks, but a spokesperson pointed to the mayor-elect’s remarks last week when he said he planned to reach out to the White House “because this is a relationship that will be critical to the success of the city.”

Trump expressed a similar sentiment Sunday.

“The mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us. We’ll work something out,” Trump told reporters as he prepared to fly back to Washington after spending the weekend at his Florida estate.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified shortly afterward that Trump was referring to Mamdani, who assumes office in January, and said no date had been set for such a meeting.

“We want to see everything work out well for New York,” Trump said.

Trump’s comments came as he also said the U.S. may hold discussions soon with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, after a military buildup near the South American country: “I’ll talk to anybody,” Trump said.

Price and Megerian write for the Associated Press and reported from Washington and West Palm Beach, respectively. AP writer Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.

ATLANTA — The fate of the Georgia election interference case against President Trump and others is now in the hands of a new prosecutor who has to decide how he is going to move forward with the sprawling indictment.

After courts removed Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had chosen to lead the case, it was up to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to name someone to take over. Council Executive Director Pete Skandalakis said Friday that he would handle the case himself after he was unable to find anyone else willing to do it.

The indictment against Trump and 18 others was returned by a grand jury in August 2023 and uses the state’s anti-racketeering law to allege a wide-ranging conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia in the 2020 election.

Here are some things to know about Skandalakis and what might come next for this prosecution.

How did Skandalakis end up with this case?

When a prosecutor recuses or is removed from a case in Georgia, the executive director of the nonpartisan Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council steps in to appoint a substitute prosecutor. Skandalakis, who has led the agency since January 2018, said in an emailed statement that he contacted several prosecutors about taking over the election interference case and they all declined.

The judge overseeing the case had said that if a new prosecutor wasn’t appointed by Friday, he would dismiss the case. Skandalakis said that while he could easily have let the judge’s deadline pass without appointing anyone and allowed the case to be dismissed, he “did not believe that to be the right course of action.”

He acknowledged that he had not had a chance to fully review the case, having only recently received from Willis’ office 101 boxes of documents and an eight-terabyte hard drive with the full investigative file. Appointing himself to the case, he said, “will allow me to complete a comprehensive review and make an informed decision regarding how best to proceed.”

Prior to his time at the council, Skandalakis spent about 25 years as the elected Republican district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit, southwest of Atlanta. But former Gwinnett County Dist. Atty. Danny Porter, who has known Skandalakis for more than 40 years, said they shared a philosophy that the district attorney’s office should be nonpartisan.

“I wouldn’t put too much weight on the fact that he ran as a Republican,” Porter said. “I feel certain that he’s going to do what he said he’s going to do and give it a fair and transparent review and come to conclusions based on the law and the facts.”

Skandalakis is no stranger to sensitive high-profile cases. He took on the investigation into the June 2020 shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man, by a white police officer after Willis recused her office from the case. He ultimately decided that the two officers involved had acted reasonably, and he declined to pursue charges.

What happens next?

Skandalakis will continue to review the case file to decide how he wants to proceed. The judge has set a Dec. 1 status hearing and said the prosecution should be prepared to say at that time whether it intends to seek a new indictment.

Skandalakis has declined to comment beyond the statement he released Friday. But Porter, who has served as a substitute prosecutor, said the first step is generally to get the case filed, which Skandalakis has done. Then, Porter said, it is not improper to have a discussion with the removed prosecutor about their summary of the case, but that should be the last contact between the two prosecution teams about the case.

Then the substitute prosecutor would start from scratch, figuring out how the case is organized, determining the budget and resources needed and figuring out how to handle it.

The size of this case makes all that a “nearly impossible task for one person to do,” Porter said. While Skandalakis has a “great staff” with some really talented prosecutors, they all have other cases on their plates.

The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council has a tight budget, and the state Legislature is dominated by Republicans, many loyal to Trump, who are unlikely to grant any special appropriations for this prosecution. But Skandalakis could look for money elsewhere to hire contract attorneys and cover other expenses, Porter said.

Then Skandalakis will have to decide whether he wants to continue on the course that Willis had charted, pursue only some of the charges or dismiss the case.

“I think the case as it’s indicted is completely untryable,” Porter said, adding that he would try to slim it down, either by seeking a new indictment or asking the judge to sever some counts to break it down into smaller cases, Porter said.

What is in the indictment?

The indictment includes charges related to a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which Trump urged the state’s top elections official to help him “find” the votes he needed to win. Other charges have to do with a getting a slate of Republican electors to falsely declare that Trump won the state, allegations of harassment of a Georgia election worker and a breach of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county.

Four of the 19 people charged pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors in the months following the indictment. Trump and the other 14 people charged have all pleaded not guilty. It seems unlikely that any action against Trump could proceed while he is in office — given U.S. Justice Department policy and a Supreme Court ruling that shield a president from prosecution — but the others do not have that protection.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s problems with fixing the high cost of living might be giving voters a feeling of deja vu.

Just like the president who came before him, Trump is trying to sell the country on his plans to create factory jobs. The Republican says he wants to lower prescription drug costs, as did Democratic President Biden. Both tried to shame companies for price increases.

Trump is even leaning on a message that echoes Biden’s assertions in 2021 that elevated inflation is a “transitory” problem that will soon vanish.

“We’re going to be hitting 1.5% pretty soon,” Trump told reporters Monday. ”It’s all coming down.”

Even as Trump keeps saying an economic boom is around the corner, there are signs that he has already exhausted voters’ patience as his campaign promises to quickly fix inflation have gone unfulfilled.

Voter frustration

Voters in this month’s elections swung hard to Democrats over concerns about affordability. That has left Trump, who dismisses his weak polling on the economy as fake, floating half-formed ideas to ease financial pressures.

He is promising a $2,000 rebate on his tariffs and said he may offer 50-year mortgages — 20 years longer than any available now — to reduce the size of monthly payments. On Friday, Trump scrapped his tariffs on beef, coffee, tea, fruit juice, cocoa, spices, bananas, oranges, tomatoes and certain fertilizers, acknowledging that they “may, in some cases,” have contributed to higher prices.

But those are largely “gimmicky” moves unlikely to move the needle much on inflation, said Bharat Ramamurti, a former deputy director of Biden’s National Economic Council.

“They’re in this very tough position where they’ve developed a reputation for not caring enough about costs, where the tools they have available to them are unlikely to be able to help people in the short term,” Ramamurti said.

Ramamurti said the Biden administration learned the hard way that voters are not appeased by a president saying his policies would ultimately cause their incomes to rise.

“That argument does not resonate,” he said. “Take it from me.”

Biden on inflation

Biden inherited an economy trying to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, which had shut down schools and offices, causing mass layoffs and historic levels of government borrowing. In March 2021, he signed into law a $1.9-trillion relief package. Critics said it was excessive and could cause prices to rise.

As the economy reopened, there were shortages of computer chips, kitchen appliances, autos and even furniture. Cargo ships were stuck waiting to dock at ports, creating supply chain issues. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 pushed up energy and food costs, and consumer prices reached a four-decade high that June. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rates to cool inflation.

Biden tried to convince Americans that the economy was strong. “Bidenomics is working,” he said in a 2023 speech. “Today, the U.S. has had the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic.”

Though many economic indicators compared with those of other nations at the time largely supported his assertions, his arguments did little to sway voters. Only 36% of U.S. adults in August 2023 approved of his handling of the economy, according to a poll at the time by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump on inflation

Republicans made the case that Biden’s policies made inflation worse. Democrats are using that same framing against Trump today.

Here is their argument: Trump’s tariffs are getting passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices; his cancellation of clean energy projects means there will be fewer new sources of electricity as utility bills climb; his mass deportations made it costlier for the immigrant-heavy construction sector to build houses.

Former Biden administration officials note that Trump came into office in January with strong economic growth, a solid job market and inflation declining close to historic levels, only for him to reverse those trends.

“It’s striking how many Americans are aware of his trade policy and rightly blame the turnaround in prices on that erratic policy,” said Gene Sperling, a senior Biden advisor who also led the National Economic Council in the Obama and Clinton administrations.

“He is in a tough trap of his own doing — and it’s not likely to get easier,” Sperling said.

Consumer prices had been increasing at an annual rate of 2.3% in April when Trump launched his tariffs, and that rate accelerated to 3% in September.

The inflationary surge has been less than what voters endured under Biden, but the political fallout so far appears to be similar: 67% of U.S. adults disapprove of Trump’s performance, according to November polling data from AP-NORC.

“In both instances, the president caused a nontrivial share of the inflation,” said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank. “I think President Biden didn’t take this concern seriously enough in his first few months in office and President Trump isn’t taking this concern seriously enough right now.”

Strain noted that the two presidents have even responded to the challenge in “weirdly, eerily similar ways” by playing down inflation as a problem, pointing to other economic indicators and looking to address concerns by issuing government checks.

White House strategies

Trump administration officials have made the case that their mix of income tax cuts, foreign investment frameworks tied to tariffs and changes in enforcing regulations will lead to more factories and jobs. All of that, they say, could increase the supply of goods and services and reduce the forces driving inflation.

“The policies that we’re pursuing right now are increasing supply,” Kevin Hassett, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, told the Economic Club of Washington on Wednesday.

The Fed has cut its benchmark interest rates, which could increase the supply of money in the economy for investment. But the central bank has done so because of a weakening job market despite inflation being above its 2% target, and there are concerns that rate cuts of the size Trump wants could fuel more inflation.

Time might not be on Trump’s side

It takes time for consumer sentiment to improve after the inflation rate drops, according to research done by Ryan Cummings, an economist who worked on Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers.

His read of the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment is that the effects of the post-pandemic rise in inflation are no longer a driving factor. These days, voters are frustrated because Trump had primed them to believe he could lower grocery prices and other expenses, but has failed to deliver.

“When it comes to structural affordability issues — housing, child care, education and healthcare — Trump has pushed in the wrong direction in each one,” said Cummings, who is now chief of staff at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

He said Trump’s best chance of beating inflation now might be “if he gets a very lucky break on commodity prices” through a bumper harvest worldwide and oil production continuing to run ahead of demand.

For now, Trump has decided to continue to rely on attacking Biden for anything that has gone wrong in the economy, as he did last week in an interview with Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“The problem was that Biden did this,” Trump said.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

An indictment unveiled this week charging Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff with political corruption threw California’s top political circles into chaos — and stirred speculation in the state capital about what triggered the federal investigation.

Authorities have not revealed any targets beyond Dana Williamson and two other influential political operatives associated with the state’s most powerful Democrats, all of whom are accused of fraud and siphoning campaign funds for personal use.

But details contained in the indictment and other public records indicate that the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice had a keen interest in Williamson and other operatives’ involvement in the handling of a legal case involving “Corporation 1.” The facts revealed about “Corporation 1” match details of a controversial sex discrimination investigation that the state of California led into one of the world’s largest video game companies, Santa-Monica based Activision Blizzard Inc.

Williamson — an influential deal-maker and one of the state’s premier Democratic political consultants before and after she ran Newsom’s office — was arrested on corruption charges Wednesday. Two longtime associates, lobbyist Greg Campbell, a former high-level staffer in the California Assembly, and Sean McCluskie, a longtime aide to former state Atty. Gen. and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, have agreed to plead guilty to related charges.

After Williamson pleaded not guilty in a tearful court appearance Wednesday, her attorney, McGregor Scott, said that federal authorities had charged his client only after first approaching her to seek help with a probe they were conducting into Newsom, the nature of which remains unclear. Williamson declined to cooperate.

The governor has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Still, Republicans already are using the indictments to attack Newsom, who has openly said he is considering a run for president in 2028.

Williamson’s attorney did not offer any specifics on what federal officials may have been investigating.

But numerous threads in the indictment echo details in the Activision saga.

Williamson and Campbell both worked as advisors to Activision Blizzard, according to financial disclosures on file with the state. Williamson reported receiving income from the company prior to her appointment in Newsom’s office, state records show. According to records first filed earlier this year, Campbell disclosed that his lobbying firm started being paid by Activision around the time Williamson joined the governor’s office. Activision reported paying $240,000 to his firm in 2023 and 2024. The amount Williamson was paid from Activision was not disclosed.

Activision officials did not respond to emails requesting comment. Lawyers for Williamson, Campbell and McCluskie also did not respond or declined to comment.

The state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing in 2021 sued Activision Blizzard, which distributes video games such as “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush,” alleging that company officials discriminated against women, paid them less than men and ignored reports of egregious sexual harassment.

The complaint alleged that the company: “fostered a pervasive “frat boy” workplace culture that continues to thrive. In the office, women are subjected to “cube crawls” in which male employees drink copious amounts of alcohol as they “crawl” their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees. Male employees proudly come into work hungover, play video games for long periods of time during work while delegating their responsibilities to female employees, engage in banter about their sexual encounters, talk openly about female bodies, and joke about rape.”

Activision officials denied the allegations.

The allegations also were investigated by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Activision Blizzard agreed to a consent decree, approved in March 2022, with the agency that required the company to set up an $18-million fund for employees who experienced sexual harassment or discrimination, pregnancy discrimination or retaliation.

Just weeks later, the case drew national attention again when the lawyer overseeing the case for the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Janet Wipper, was fired by the Newsom administration, and her chief deputy resigned and alleged that she was doing so to protest interference of Newsom’s office in the investigation.

“The Office of the Governor repeatedly demanded advance notice of litigation strategy and of next steps in the litigation,” the deputy, Melanie Proctor, wrote to her colleagues. “As we continued to win in state court, this interference increased, mimicking the interests of Activision’s counsel.”

A member of Activision’s board of directors contributed $40,200 for Newsom’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign, and an additional $100,000 to a committee opposing the 2021 recall campaign against Newsom — an effort that failed.

Newsom’s office denied it was meddling. “Claims of interference by our office are categorically false,” Erin Mellon, Newsom’s then-communications director said at the time.

As case continued to grind through Los Angeles Superior Court, the company stepped up its lobbying presence in Sacramento, according to disclosures filed with the state. Documents show Activision began paying Campbell starting in late 2022 to lobby on its behalf.

Around this time, Newsom announced that he was hiring Williamson to be his chief of staff.

In December 2023 the state announced it had reached a settlement agreement with Activision for $54 million, with the bulk of the funds going to compensate women who had been underpaid. The company did not admit any wrongdoing.

The FBI has made inquires about the Activision settlement, though the focus of the inquiry is unclear. When reached last week, Calabasas attorney Alan Goldstein, who handled a sexual harassment suit against Activision, said he received call from an FBI agent looking to probe California’s settlement — but that he couldn’t recall a “substantive conversation.”

Federal investigators were also looking at how Campbell, Williamson and another Sacramento political consultant, Alexis Podesta, conducted their affairs. In unveiling their charges this week, the U.S. Attorney’s office said the investigation began more than three years ago. All three consultants were members of the Sacramento-based Collaborative, a cooperative of top Democratic political operatives.

Podesta from 2017 to 2020 served as secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, which included the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing — the agency that launched the investigation of Activision in 2018.

Williamson received a federal subpoena for information about her handling of a government loan her business had received during the pandemic, according to details in the indictment. The indictment accused Williamson of spending vast sums on luxury items — including a Gucci bag, Chanel earrings and a $150,000 Mexican birthday vacation and party, plus yacht rental and private jet travel — and then claimed them as business expenses on her taxes.

She and Campbell had also allegedly conspired with McCluskie to siphon money from Becerra’s dormant campaign account to pay McCuskie’s wife for a fake, “no-show” job working for Williamson. When Williamson went to work for Newsom, the indictment alleges, Podesta took over handling the pass through payments.

By June 2024, someone in the circle was cooperating with federal investigators and wearing a wire, recording Williamson’s private conversations, according to transcripts included in the indictment.

On Nov.14, 2024, according to the indictment, FBI agents interviewed Williamson, questioning her about the Becerra campaign funds and about the pandemic funds.

Investigators also asked her about her actions “while serving in public office to influence the litigation involving the State of California and a former client –Corporation 1,” according to the indictment. The indictment doesn’t identify Corporation 1., but details match the Activision litigation. The indictment notes that Corporation 1 was Williamson’s former client and that it was involved in settlement discussions over a lawsuit with the state in 2023. It also references a state lawyer who had been fired in connection with the litigation.

Williamson, according to the indictment, told the FBI she did not pass any inside information to Campbell or other associates outside the government. But based on their recorded conversations, the indictment said, investigators believed that was not true.

They alleged that in January 2023, Williamson, shortly after starting as Newsom’s chief of staff, revealed to Podesta that she had “told a high level government attorney to … get [the case] settled.”

The indictment notes that “Corporation 1” was not only Williamson’s former client, but also now Podesta’s current client.

In June 2024, Williamson complained to Podesta that someone had submitted a California Public Records Act request seeking information about meetings and communications between Newsom officials and the company, according to the indictment.

Proctor, the state attorney who resigned in 2022 and had alleged that the Newsom administration was meddling in the Activision case, posted on her Bluesky social media account in July that she had submitted a public records request on May 29, 2024. She also posted the response from Newsom’s office, showing a meeting in January 2024 in the governor’s office between Williamson, Podesta, and Robert Kotick, the former Chief Executive of Activision.

In their June conversation, according to the indictment, Williamson told Podesta “I just wanted to alert you to the PRAS that we’re starting to get,” the indictment stated. (PRAs refer to public records requests.)

“Yeah. Ugh. F— her. They really don’t know who they are messing with,” Podesta responded.

“They really don’t,” Williamson said.

Podesta, who is identified in the indictment as “Co-Conspirator 2” was not charged. On Thursday she sent a message to numerous associates offering her take on the situation.

“While I cannot discuss the details of the ongoing investigation, I want to state plainly that I have always conducted myself –and my business–with integrity.” She also said that she continued to “cooperate fully with federal authorities.”

On Friday afternoon, McCluskie and Campbell appeared in federal court in Sacramento to be arraigned on conspiracy charges in back-to-back proceedings.

Both men had previously reached plea agreements with prosecutors, and will be back in court to enter those pleas, Mcluskie in late November and Campbell in early December.

Prosecutors did not seek detention for either man, but they were ordered to surrender their passports and avoid associating with other co-conspirators.

In brief remarks to reporters, Campbell’s attorney, Todd Pickles, said that his client “takes full accountability for his actions” and would “in appropriate time further discuss the charges.” But, Pickles noted, those charges “do not include Mr. Campbell engaging in advocacy or lobbying on behalf of any client.”

Times staff writers Katie King and Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.

NEWARK, N.J. — A man has been arrested after federal officials alleged that he destroyed property while trying to confront President Trump ally and New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, Alina Habba.

The FBI arrested Keith Michael Lisa, 51, agency spokesperson Emily Molinari confirmed Saturday.

Molinari did not say when or where Lisa was arrested, what charges he might face, whether he was in jail or when he might go before a judge. It’s unclear whether Lisa is represented by a lawyer. The federal public defender in Newark, N.J., didn’t immediately respond to an electronic message Saturday asking whether it was representing Lisa.

The FBI on Friday had offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information about Lisa, saying he was wanted on charges of destroying government property and possession of a dangerous weapon inside a U.S. court facility. That bulletin said he tried to enter a federal office building in downtown Newark on Wednesday with a bat and was turned away. Lisa returned without the bat, the bulletin said, and was admitted. He then went to the U.S. Attorney’s office, where Habba works, and destroyed property, the bulletin said.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi wrote in a post on X on Saturday that the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security Investigations had worked together to arrest Lisa.

“No one will get away with threatening or intimidating our great U.S. attorneys or the destruction of their offices,” Bondi wrote.

Habba was previously Trump’s personal lawyer, representing him in various cases and acting as his spokesperson on legal matters. She served as a White House advisor briefly before the president named her interim U.S. attorney in March.

“We got him,” Habba wrote on X on Saturday. “This Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi and our federal partners will not tolerate any acts of intimidation or violence toward law enforcement. So grateful to the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations for their tireless work to capture him. Now justice will handle him.”

Bondi had vowed that federal officials would find and prosecute the perpetrator, writing earlier that “any violence or threats of violence against any federal officer will not be tolerated. Period.”

Trump formally nominated Habba as New Jersey’s permanent U.S. attorney on July 1, but the state’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, opposed it, stalling the confirmation process.

A few weeks later, as Habba’s 120-day interim appointment was expiring, New Jersey federal judges moved to replace her with her second in command. Bondi then fired that prosecutor and renamed Habba as acting U.S. attorney.

Last month, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in a case challenging Habba’s appointment. It hasn’t ruled.