CHICAGO — Dennis Hastert, the nation’s longest-serving Republican House speaker, who helped turn much of President George W. Bush’s agenda into law before his own political legacy was forever fouled by allegations that he molested high school athletes when he was a wrestling coach, died over the weekend, a coroner said Monday. He was 84.
Hastert, who was speaker from 1999 until 2007, died of natural causes at his home, according to Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell.
When he was sentenced in 2016 to more than a year behind bars, the former history teacher became one of the highest-ranking American politicians ever ordered to prison.
In the late 1990s, Hastert was a little-known Illinois lawmaker with a reputation for congeniality that had helped him ascend the ranks of congressional leaders. When Newt Gingrich lost support because of ethics violations and the GOP’s poor showing in an election, Republicans elected Hastert to succeed him. In his first weeks on the job, he presided over the House while the Senate conducted Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
After the GOP reclaimed the White House, Hastert took much of what Bush proposed and steered it to passage, including massive tax cuts and a measure that amounted to a huge expansion of prescription drug benefits — the biggest change in Medicare in decades.
His legacy was suddenly thrown into doubt in 2015, when he was accused of evading banking regulations as part of a plan to pay hush money to conceal unspecified “prior misconduct.” Nearly a year later, prosecutors filed papers that described what media reports had suggested for months: Hastert’s misconduct involved the sexual abuse of teenage boys on his wrestling team in the small town of Yorkville, west of Chicago.
During a 16-year coaching career, he led his team to a state championship and was named national coach of the year in 1976. But behind the accolades, prosecutors said, Hastert sexually abused at least four team members from 1965 to 1981.
The person Hastert was paying, identified in court papers only as Individual A, said the abuse occurred in a motel room when he was 14 on the way home from wrestling camp. Hastert allegedly touched other wrestlers in a locker room after saying he would give them massages. Two wrestlers said Hastert performed sex acts on them.
Prosecutors also described a recliner where Hastert often sat in the locker room with a direct view of the stalls where the boys showered.
Hastert agreed to plead guilty to evading banking laws. In all, he paid more than $1.7 million out of $3.5 million that he had promised to Individual A, sometimes in lump sums of $100,000 cash.
At the sentencing hearing where he received 15 months behind bars, the visibly angry judge called Hastert a “serial child molester.” A former wrestler struggled with his emotions as he told the court about his “dark secret” from adolescence.
In his own statement, Hastert said he was “deeply ashamed” and admitted that he “mistreated” some of his athletes. But he never referred directly to sexual abuse.
The public knew nothing about Hastert’s past when Republicans lost seats in the 1998 midterm elections. Hastert confronted Gingrich about dissatisfaction in the GOP ranks, saying it was unlikely Gingrich could hold his post, Hastert wrote in “Speaker: Lessons from 40 Years in Coaching and Politics.”
“Well, I’ll make them support me,” he quoted Gingrich saying of the GOP rebels. Told that was unlikely, Gingrich asked Hastert what to do.
“Do what you have to do,” he replied. The next day, Gingrich stepped down as speaker and left the House.
Hastert’s path to the speaker’s office was cleared when Louisiana Rep. Bob Livingston, who was considered a lock to replace Gingrich as speaker, resigned after acknowledging several extramarital affairs.
In January 1999, Hastert broke with tradition by delivering his acceptance speech from the House floor and by allowing Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat, to briefly preside over the day’s proceedings.
“Solutions to problems cannot be found in a pool of bitterness,” Hastert said in his speech. “They can be found in an environment in which we trust one another’s word, where we generate heat and passion, but where we recognize that each member is equally important to our overall mission of improving the life of the American people.”
Hastert was aware of the personal pitfalls of holding the powerful position.
“You know, in this business, especially in a job like this, you can get your head someplace where it shouldn’t be,” Hastert said in a 1999 interview with The Associated Press. “But you come back home, and you’re home. You’re back where you’ve always been, and your feet are back on the ground.”
He was generally viewed as a friendly, even-tempered lawmaker. His wrestling experience followed him to Washington, with GOP colleagues often calling him “coach.”
Hastert said he lacked the appetite for higher office.
As the recount of the 2000 presidential election dragged on, Hastert’s aides briefed him on the possibility that he might become acting president in the event of an Electoral College deadlock.
“I really didn’t want to be president, temporary or otherwise,” he wrote in his book. But he decided that he would not pass the office to the constitutional officer next in line if an Electoral College deadlock extended beyond Inauguration Day. In the end, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling ended the recount, and Bush moved into the White House.
Hastert’s journey to Congress from his boyhood farm appeared to be the result of fate and luck.
In 1980, he finished third in an Illinois House primary. But the incumbent became fatally ill, and GOP leaders chose Hastert to take his place on the November ballot, where he won in a traditional GOP stronghold.
Hastert became a congressional candidate in 1986, when local Republican leaders put him on the primary ballot, replacing freshman Rep. John Grotberg, who was battling cancer. Hastert went on to beat the Democrat with 52 percent of the vote, his smallest margin of victory in a congressional race.
In Washington, Hastert served quietly in House leadership, working closely with Gingrich and then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay after Republicans took control in 1995. Several years later, DeLay was the force driving Clinton’s impeachment and was simply too toxic to seek the speaker’s chair.
Hastert’s tenure was marked by a shift of power from committee chairmen to GOP leaders, fealty to the Bush administration and an explosion of congressional pet projects known as earmarks. Democrats fumed that he weakened the ethics process that ensnared DeLay, who left Congress under a cloud of criminal charges in 2006.
Hastert became wealthy largely through a complex web of transactions that coincided with one of his own highway earmarks increasing the value of land he had purchased in his district.
He was forced to step down as speaker in 2007, when Democrats gained control of the House, and he resigned his seat later that year. In 2008, he joined the Washington lobbying firm of Dickstein Shapiro as a senior adviser, specializing in government law and strategy.
Born in Aurora, Illinois, Hastert earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wheaton College in 1964 and a master’s in education from Northern Illinois University in 1967.
In 2007, Wheaton named its newly created public policy center the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government and Public Policy. After Hastert’s indictment, the school removed his name in 2015. Other organizations abandoned associations with Hastert, and his portrait was removed from a hallway outside the House chamber.
Hastert lived his entire life in Chicago’s suburbs, primarily in the Yorkville area. While growing up, he helped his father with the family feed business.
Survivors include his wife, Jean, and two adult sons.
Tarm and McCann write for the Associated Press. Tarm and McCann are former Associated Press reporters.
Warner Bros. could face loss of at least $150 million on ‘Digger’ after tepid box office
The Tom Cruise-led “Digger” is poised for a massive loss after ticket sales for the political satire fell 60% in its second weekend in theaters in the U.S. and Canada.
The Warner Bros. film made just $3.2 million in those theaters over the weekend, according to a studio estimate. Its opening weekend brought in $8 million, Cruise’s lowest opening as a leading man since 2007’s “Lions for Lambs.” Global ticket sales for “Digger” were only $35.3 million.
The tepid box-office returns mean the studio is now expected to lose at least $150 million on the film, including ancillary revenue streams such as premium video-on-demand and streaming, industry sources said. Historically, a film has typically needed to make 2½ to three times its budget to recoup its costs.
A Warner Bros. spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s a tough result for the film, which stars Cruise as an aging oil tycoon whose company sets off an environmental catastrophe. Analysts have said that the film was challenging to market, given a major twist in the plot, and that Cruise’s nearly unrecognizable appearance could have dissuaded his fan base from coming out to support the film.
The film suffered from polarizing critical reviews, notching a 53% on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Opening-night audiences gave it a C+ on CinemaScore, a grade that typically points to weak word of mouth and steep drops in the weeks that follow.
The budget for “Digger” raised the stakes. Warner Bros. has said the film cost $125 million to produce, though some industry experts and trade reports have estimated the cost was at least $160 million, citing production delays.
That figure also doesn’t include marketing costs, which sources said could have increased in the days after the film’s opening since Warner Bros. began using the divided reviews in social media and TV ads to encourage people to see the film for themselves.
The film will have value to Warner Bros. — and Skydance, the newly combined company that now owns it — beyond its theatrical reception. “Digger” probably will make money through downstream revenue sources such as streaming. If Cruise wins his first competitive Oscar, that also would be a plus for the film.
But a film’s domestic reception, and to some extent, its international box office revenue, does play a role in the value of those downstream revenue opportunities, experts said.
“Even with respectable ancillary income based on the film’s pedigree, the movie is going to lose a lot of money,” David A. Gross wrote in his FranchiseRe movie industry newsletter shortly after the film’s opening.
The reception for “Digger” comes during a tough time for Warner Bros.
The film opened Oct. 2, the same day the studio’s film chiefs, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, departed. Four days later, Paramount completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, and the combined company took the name Skydance.
The studio has had a string of disappointments this year, including Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” and DC Studios’ “Supergirl.” None of its 2026 releases has crossed $100 million at the domestic box office.
But the prospects for Warner Bros. should improve next year, according to the research and brokerage firm Bernstein. Skydance has said it will keep the Warner Bros. and Paramount studios distinct, though Paramount Pictures chiefs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein are expected to oversee both. Bernstein expects the Warner Bros. film and TV studios to amass $11.7 billion in revenue, driven by strong titles that include the sequel to “Minecraft” and a new “Lord of the Rings” movie.
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Tom Cruise film Digger could lose $245m as The Social Recknoning also struggles at box office
Tom Cruise’s latest film Digger is expected to lose around $245m (£185m), Hollywood analysts have said, after the film’s continuing poor performance in cinemas.
Ticket sales for the satirical black comedy, which stars Cruise as oil magnate Digger Rockwell, dropped by around 60% in the movie’s second weekend.
It brings Digger’s total box office takings to around $35m (£26m) globally so far. The film is estimated to have cost its studio Warner Bros around $280m (£211m) to make and market.
But Cruise said last week, external that he “never thought of movies when I’m making them [in terms of] opening weekend,” adding he was instead focused on making films that “hopefully will translate, last and evolve”.
The film’s takings relative to its budget mean it could become one of the biggest film flops in Hollywood history.
Digger’s performance is in sharp contrast to the success of IP-driven hits starring Cruise in recent years, such as new instalments of the Top Gun and Mission: Impossible franchises.
Digger is directed by Alejandro G Iñárritu, best known for films such as Birdman, Babel and The Revenant.
Hollywood trade publication Variety said Digger was expected to end its box office run with around $50m (£38m) worldwide.
The film would need around $350m (£264m) to break even, due to its budget, marketing costs, the portion of ticket sales that go to theatres and the likely spend on an awards season campaign.
However, a Warner Bros spokesman pushed back slightly on the figure, telling Variety the film’s break even point was $300m (£227m).
Digger was the last standalone release for the studio before its recent takeover by Paramount.
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New Foreign Office Thailand alert to UK holidaymakers
Foreign Office issues updated Thailand travel guidance for Brits on Monday
11:12, 12 Oct 2026Updated 14:38, 12 Oct 2026
Thailand is hugely popular among UK holidaymakers(Image: ANDREY DENISYUK via Getty Images)
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has revised its travel guidance for those planning a trip to Thailand.
The South East Asian destination is growing increasingly popular with British holidaymakers, with over a million making the journey every year. On top of this, tens of thousands of UK nationals live, work, or retire in Thailand – in locations such as Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hua Hin, and Phuket. To enter Thailand as a tourist, your passport must have an ‘expiry date’ at least 6 months after the date you arrive and have at least one blank page.
The FCDO warns: “You will be denied entry if you do not have a valid travel document or try to use a passport that has been reported lost or stolen.” As of September 15, 2026, if you enter Thailand on a British passport, under the visa exemption scheme, you can stay for up to 30 days for tourism only.
This does not extend to business travel, including attending conferences, meetings or other business activities. Those travelling for business purposes should secure the appropriate visa prior to departure.
New Foreign Office Thailand alert issued
New FCDO Thailand advice, issued on Monday, reads: “Visa-exempt entry for tourism through land-border immigration checkpoints is normally limited to two entries per calendar year. This restriction does not generally apply to arrivals by air.
“If you frequently enter Thailand as a tourist, immigration officials may ask for evidence of your onward travel, accommodation, or sufficient funds, and may refuse entry if they believe you are not a genuine visitor.”
All overseas nationals travelling to Thailand, whether by air, land or sea, are required to complete a digital arrival card online prior to their arrival. Travellers are able to register for an arrival card up to three days before they land.
Should you overstay your visa, you face a penalty of 500 Thai baht (around £11) per day, rising to a maximum of 20,000 baht (around £449). You also risk being detained, deported at your own cost, and banned from returning to Thailand for as long as 10 years.
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‘Other Mommy’ tops weekend box office with $27M, domestic ticket sales cross $8B (SKYD:NYSE)
Amy Sussman/Getty Images Entertainment
Universal Pictures’ (CMCSA) supernatural horror thriller “Other Mommy” scared up an estimated $27.5 million in domestic ticket sales over the weekend, leading the North American box office as moviegoing revenue for 2026 surpassed $8 billion.
The film, starring Jessica Chastain and
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Backlash to Trump, RFK Jr. has scientists seeking office
FOOTHILL FARMS, Calif. — As a California state lawmaker, Richard Pan authored some of the strongest vaccine laws in the country.
His reward — and part of the backlash, on top of death threats — was being physically assaulted outside the Capitol in Sacramento and spattered with blood thrown from the gallery.
Now, a few years removed from the state Senate and teaching health policy at UC Davis, Pan is running for Congress, in part to fight an old nemesis, the terminally misguided Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and to arrest the Trump administration’s sledgehammering of the nation’s public healthcare system.
“We need people in Congress who have the background, the training, the knowledge to basically hold this administration accountable,” Pan said last week on a baking 100-degree day in the Sacramento suburbs.
“I know what it’s like to be on the front lines,” said Pan, who spent a dozen years teaching and practicing pediatrics before being elected to the Assembly in 2010. “I’ve seen measles, right?”
In fact, his push to toughen vaccination requirements was spurred by a 2014-15 measles outbreak at Disneyland, which, at the time, was one of the largest and most significant epidemics to arise after the disease was supposedly eliminated from the U.S. in 2000.
Little did we know.
Every action has an equal and opposition reaction, a law of physics that’s equally applicable to the realm of politics.
Pan is part of a wave of doctors and scientists running for office this November — for school boards, city councils, state legislatures, the House and U.S. Senate — owing in good part to Kennedy’s quackery and the hollowing out of such vital health and research agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
The political organization 3.14 Action — its name a decimal approximation of pi — has recruited and helped elect hundreds of candidates from STEM backgrounds (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and endorsed more than 500 of those running this year, including Pan in his race in Sacramento and in neighboring Placer and Yolo counties.
Dr. Richard Pan meets Dr. Teah Harris-Johnson and her daughter before participating in a roundtable discussion at Liberty Towers Church in Sacramento.
(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)
Shaughnessy Naughton, a chemist who worked on drug discovery and breast cancer research, founded 3.14 Action in 2016 after two unsuccessful tries for a congressional seat in the Philadelphia suburbs. When she started the organization, Naughton noted, there were more talk radio hosts on Capitol Hill than scientists and engineers. (Nearly two dozen doctors and nurses currently serve in Congress. More than 30 have run this election cycle.)
“There isn’t an issue that doesn’t benefit by having fact-based decision-makers, people that will go into office as problem-solvers,” Naughton said from Pennsylvania, which is in the throes of the nation’s worst measles outbreak in more than three decades. Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy has downplayed the severity, even as the incidence of other vaccine-preventable diseases is rising.
“That’s essentially what scientists and physicians are,” Naughton said. “They are problem-solvers. and clearly our country is facing a lot of problems.”
Among those she cited was “the arsonist in charge of HHS.”
Pan has a history with Kennedy, who has long reigned as one of the country’s preeminent anti-vaxxers.
In 2015, he helped summon hundreds of demonstrators to Sacramento to protest Pan’s legislation tightening vaccination requirements. (Kennedy later apologized for using the word “holocaust” to condemn the proposed law, though he revisited the Nazi analogy during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
In 2019, Kennedy returned to Sacramento to oppose another bill Pan authored, this one tightening the rules for vaccination exemptions. Again, he was joined by an army of protesters. Tensions peaked when a demonstrator threw a cup of blood from the spectators’ gallery onto the Senate floor, halting business for several hours before the bill passed.
Dr. Richard Pan sits between Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood and Sean Frame, a candidate for state Senate, at the maternal health roundtable.
(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)
Pan’s opponent in November is Rep. Kevin Kiley, a conservative Republican running as an independent.
Seeking election in a Democratic-tilting district drawn under Proposition 50, the voter-passed gerrymander, Kiley has sought to distance himself from Trump and the MAGA movement, saying he would not caucus with GOP lawmakers if he returned to Washington.
Like his jury-rigged political persona, Kiley seems to want it both ways on vaccines.
Before going to Congress, while serving in the Assembly, Kiley voted against Pan’s legislation cracking down on fraudulent vaccine exemptions. He’s described vaccines as a vital public health tool, but condemned government mandates and suggested vaccination should be a matter of parental choice. He claims Pan has eroded public trust by politicizing the issue.
As for Kennedy, Kiley told the San Francisco Chronicle a lot of things “that I don’t agree with,” though he’s never called out the secretary for his cuckoo-land theories — vaccines cause autism, the fluoride in public water supplies is making Americans “stupider,” and many more — or denounced his destructive policies.
That passivity, Pan said, amounts to complicity.
“It’s not just simply a talking point,” Pan said of public health policy. “It’s reality and we need to have policy based on what’s really happening, not on some ideological conspiracy theory.”
Dr. Richard Pan participates in a discussion during a Black maternal health roundtable last week at Liberty Towers Church in Sacramento.
(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)
Pan’s campaign is focused on more than vaccines and RFK Jr.
Like most Democrats, he’s made affordability a key part of his candidacy, citing higher gas and grocery prices and, inevitably, the rising cost of healthcare and the roughly $1-trillion cut from Medicaid under last year’s Big Sop To Billionaires Bill.
The super-wealthy got tax cuts, Pan told a silver-haired audience at a 55-and-older community in Roseville, while the bill will make healthcare less accessible for millions and undermine both Medicare and Social Security. Kiley supported the legislation, the centerpiece of Trump’s second term. As a doctor and state lawmaker, Pan said, he worked to expand healthcare and address the needs of his community.
“We don’t pass laws to make lives harder,” Pan said. “That’s what he’s done.”
Later, at a forum on Black maternal health, Pan said Trump’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and the so-called war on woke ignores glaring disparities in the treatment of Black women versus other patients. “The data is there,” said Pan, speaking before a banner decorated with purple butterflies and the proclamation, “Black Mothers Matter.”
“The facts are there,” Pan went on. “It’s a very, very real problem and it needs to be addressed and it needs to be solved.”
He brought up, somewhat sheepishly, his campaign.
“That’s why I’m running,” Pan said, to “have another person in Congress … who’s going to tell the administration we are not going to bury DEI. We’re not going to bury disparities. These are real problems.”
As is the assault on science, the undermining of research and the promotion of nutty nostrums by those at the highest levels of the federal government.
Hopefully, the midterm election will begin the healing process.
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Singapore Grand Prix: Max Verstappen builds major momentum as ‘no-one very happy’ at McLaren after bad day at office
If that is not a major concern for Antonelli, it certainly is for McLaren.
They had their own purple patch in the summer, when Lando Norris took consecutive wins in Hungary and the Netherlands, and would have won in Madrid had it not been for the unfortunate timing of a virtual safety car.
But the world champions have slipped from competitiveness in recent races, and before the Singapore Grand Prix they lie in third place in the constructors’ championship, only 11 points ahead of Red Bull.
Saturday in Singapore was a bad day at the office for McLaren.
Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were heading for fourth and fifth places in the sprint when Norris made a dive down the inside of his team-mate at Turn Five on the final lap.
This is not a common overtaking spot and from a McLaren point of view it was a move with no reward, only risk.
The move might have made sense if it had come earlier in the race and enabled Norris to challenge Leclerc, struggling in front of them, for third.
But on the last lap, Norris was not going to have a go at Leclerc even if he had got through – the only remaining overtaking place was at the end of the following straight into Turn Seven.
If the McLaren drivers swapped places, it would make no difference to the team in terms of a collective points haul, but if it went wrong, the cost could be high.
And so it did. Norris was in a position to make a legitimate move, but they came together, pirouetted in tandem, Piastri into the barriers and out of the race and Norris slipping down to eighth. Nine points had become one.
The stewards took no action, feeling that “both drivers had contributed to the incident”.
Piastri had explained in the hearing that he did not expect Norris to try a move there, and attempted to leave space when he saw him.
Norris argued that his his car was in a position that, according to the rules, entitled him to make an overtaking attempt, so expected to be left space and had braked and gone over the kerb when he realised he was not going to get as much as he expected.
He said: “There are two sides, one is what the stewards say and that’s a fair reasoning, no-one’s to blame. But I did apologise because it was still me attacking, as I had the right to do. If I just sat there and was boring like I should be, nothing would have happened. So really it’s still my fault but I deserved to go for the space and I still believe I had the right for it.”
Norris added: “As you probably expect, no-one’s very happy. I’m not happy, Oscar isn’t happy. None of us wanted it to go that way. There was things both of us could have done better and, yeah, we spoke about it and we moved on.”
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Police lawsuits have cost L.A. $480 million since 2019, new data show
The LAPD’s legal bills keep piling up.
The city of Los Angeles has shelled out nearly $480 million over the last five and a half years to end legal disputes involving the Police Department, including claims of excessive force, litigation over traffic accidents and cases filed by employees who allegedly faced retaliation after reporting misconduct.
The soaring legal costs have come under greater scrutiny in recent years as Los Angeles’ financial problems have gotten worse. The city faced a $1-billion budget shortfall in 2025 but, after various cost-cutting measures, managed to set aside funding for the LAPD to hire more than 500 new officers in the coming year.
The LAPD’s annual lawsuit costs more than doubled from 2019 to 2025. The payouts peaked in 2024, when the city spent $178.6 million to resolve more than 300 police-related lawsuits and civil claims, before dropping to just over $100 million in 2025, according to a Times analysis of city attorney’s data.
The Times reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents and analyzed data from the city attorney’s office released through a public records request showing nearly 2,000 payouts dating to January 2019.
Through the first six months of this year, the city has paid out $20.3 million in legal settlements and court judgments involving LAPD officers. Several recent big-dollar verdicts aren’t included in that tally because they hadn’t yet been approved by the City Council.
The surging cost of LAPD payouts depriving the cash-strapped city of money for pressing needs such as fixing roads and sidewalks, according to City Controller Kenneth Mejia.
“There’s a reason why your streetlights are out and they’re not fixed for a year, there’s a reason why your sidewalk won’t get fixed or your animal shelters are understaffed or underfunded,” said Mejia, whose office is conducting an audit of the city’s risk management strategies, the results of which will be released this year.
Experts are still untangling the reasons for the explosion of legal payouts involving police — which stretches far beyond L.A.
This year, a legal defense organization found that New York City has paid more than $796 million since 2019 to settle lawsuits involving accusations of police misconduct — including $117 million in 2025. In Chicago, the city is on track to blow past the $252 million spent last year to resolve police lawsuits, mostly involving plaintiffs who went to prison based on faulty evidence, according to local news reports.
In Los Angeles, the surge has come under the watch of City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, who has blamed the rising costs on the way the office handled litigation of all kinds before her administration — as well as a national legal trend of so-called nuclear verdicts.
“The system is getting inflated in a way that is unhealthy and it creates, I think, incentives to sue and to do pie-in-the-sky settlements,” Feldstein Soto said in interview with The Times earlier this year. She said her office evaluates each claim case by case, deciding when it makes more sense to settle rather than go to trial, at which juries can issue decisions based on emotion or differing perceptions of what occurred. Feldstein Soto has lobbied for years to change state law to limit “non-economic” damages.
Feldstein Soto’s critics contend that she has pursued a hard-line approach in recent years, refusing to settle except in cases where it is clear the city is likely to lose in court.
That tough stance has led to mixed results. The city has lost some jury verdicts that could have been avoided if it had been willing to settle. It has also prevailed in several high-profile cases, including this year when a jury ruled that an officer was not liable for the 2021 death of a 14-year-old girl killed by a wayward bullet fired during a hasty confrontation with a suspect at a North Hollywood department store.
The city attorney’s office said in a statement to The Times that while it is proactively working to curb rising litigation costs “by every means possible,” it could not “control the number, timing or claimed damages of lawsuits filed against the City.”
“Nor does the Office have control over the alleged root causes of these liabilities: the City Attorney’s Office is not responsible for LAPD policies or personnel,” said the statement, adding that the number of lawsuits filed against the city has risen by roughly 20% in each of the last four budget years, straining the office’s resources.
Zachary Powell, an associate professor of criminal justice at Cal State San Bernardino, said that although data suggest that use of force by police has decreased since 2020, the public has become “much more aware of police abuses and conduct than they ever were before.”
“I think people also ask a lot more questions in a jury setting,” he said.
Other explanations, he says, are the passage of statewide police accountability measures and the fact that a backlog of cases from the pandemic years are finally coming due.
The Times’ analysis found that hundreds of legal battles involving officer-involved traffic incidents make up nearly a quarter of all payouts. Since 2019, the city has paid $125 million for the thousands of accident claims, just under a third of which stemmed from cases in which officers were found to have failed to stop or yield at crossings before crashing into another vehicle or a pedestrian. Pursuit-related claims and suits stemming from cases in which officers made improper left turns have also cost the city millions.
Other legal costs date back years — and in some cases decades.
The city is still paying $7,410 a month to Clarence Chance, who in the early 1990s was awarded a large payment over a wrongful arrest that led him to spend 17 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Nearly $40 million has gone to people whose homes were damaged after the LAPD bomb squad botched the detonation of seized fireworks and leveled part of a city block in 2021.
One of the biggest payout categories was $104.6 million spent since 2019 on claims related to police shootings — more than three-fourths of which involved people who were reported to be under the influence of a substance or in the midst of a mental health crisis, according to The Times’ analysis. Roughly $38.4 million was paid out after police shot someone wielding an edged weapon, such as a knife, the analysis found. Shootings involving gang officers cost the city nearly $4 million in that span.
Dozens of lawsuits remain pending, including claims related to the handling of mass pro-immigration protests since last year, likely putting taxpayers on the hook for more large payouts in the future. Police use of hard foam projectiles, house-mounted officers and other tactics against crowds have already cost the city at least $22 million in the last seven and a half years — just over half of which stemmed from the department’s response to the 2020 mass protests over the murder of George Floyd.
Such totals may not always include lawyer fees that are negotiated after a settlement is reached — or if a case is appealed.
Jonathan Evans, a civil rights attorney who has sued the department, thinks the big payouts show that greater public awareness of mental health issues is a factor. Recognizing this, he said, municipalities are agreeing to higher settlements than in years past.
“The decision to use lethal force is being more heavily scrutinized,” he said.
Tens of millions of city dollars have in recent years gone to disgruntled police officers who sued over workplace injustices such as sexual harassment, racial discrimination and retaliation. Since 2019, at least 27 LAPD employees have won million-dollar-plus jury verdicts or settlements from the city; many more have seen five- or six-figure paydays.
To clamp down on future legal costs, the department last year brought back a former senior official, Arif Alikhan — at a monthly salary of $20,000, paid for by a private donation — to study how to reduce the number of costly lawsuits. Alikhan did not respond to a call requesting comment.
The department maintains an early intervention system that flags officers based on risk factors, such as a relatively high volume of civilian complaints, frequent use force, and involvement in preventable traffic collisions or pursuits. The system is used to determine whether they need additional training or should be reassigned or placed on a performance improvement plan.
Within the LAPD, some officers and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the rank-and-file union, argue that the city should fight back harder against claims with no credibility, instead of settling. They say officers who are most often sued tend to come from specialized units that do the type of proactive policing that the department and most of of the public wants: targeting gangs, drugs and guns.
Attorneys who represent officers that have sued the department over whistleblower retaliation dismiss the claim by Chief Jim McDonnell and others that some cops are exaggerating their claims in pursuit of a big payday. If anything, they contend, the continued large payouts are a product of entrenched racial and gender bias and inconsistent discipline — and the LAPD’s unwillingness to learn its lessons from past lawsuits.
Greg Yacoubian, a labor attorney, said there is little incentive for the current system to change because the costs of lawsuits are passed on to taxpayers — not the officers involved in misconduct and their bosses.
“The person responsible for the error never feels the pinch,” Yacoubian said.
Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.
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L.A. County supervisors call for improvements to restraining order system
Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath presented a motion Tuesday calling for “bold action” to better protect victims of domestic violence and stalking, seeking to help them more effectively navigate the county’s restraining order system and obtain court-ordered protection.
Horvath cited recent Los Angeles Times reporting on the challenges victims face when obtaining and enforcing restraining orders as an inspiration for the Board of Supervisors motion, which was co-authored by board chair Hilda Solis. The supervisors are scheduled to consider the measure during the board’s Nov. 10 meeting.
“A recent story from the L.A. Times spoke to the process of domestic violence restraining orders and the work done and not being done across the county to support survivors in need of this critical support,” Horvath said.
The Times’ reporting identified at least 63 women killed in 2024 and 2025 in L.A. County whose cases involved a former partner or close relative arrested or charged with their murder. The deaths accounted for more than 40% of the 156 women killed during that period. At least 10 of those women had filed for restraining orders.
In July 2024, the county Department of Public Health’s Office of Violence Prevention issued a report with more than a dozen recommendations for reducing domestic violence homicides by improving access to restraining orders. Today, most of those recommendations have not yet been implemented.
The office said the delay was the result of insufficient funding and challenges with coordinating between the many agencies responsible for the county’s restraining order system.
If passed, the motion would mandate reports from the county’s chief executive, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and the departments of Public Health, Mental Health, Consumer and Business Affairs, Public Social Services, and Homeless Services to assess current efforts, improvement plans and additional funding needs.
“We know that domestic violence restraining orders protect survivors and I believe the board must take every step possible to better support and protect our survivors,” she said. “The county,” she added, “must step up and lead in this space.”
The motion calls for allocating millions of dollars annually to fully fund nine county-run self-help legal centers that assist people navigating the restraining order process.
It would also officially identify “Gender-Based Violence and Intimate Partner Violence” as a priority for the Board of Supervisors, and require a presentation from the Sheriff’s Department on how the agency plans to improve its handling of restraining orders.
The Office of Violence Prevention would be required to develop a plan for a “peer navigator model” to guide survivors through the restraining order system.
The Department of Homeless Services and Housing would be asked for an assessment of what additional resources would be necessary to provide emergency beds for all people fleeing intimate partner violence.
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Dennis Hastert, longtime Republican House speaker who went to prison, dies at age 84
CHICAGO — Dennis Hastert, the nation’s longest-serving Republican House speaker, who helped turn much of President George W. Bush’s agenda into law before his own political legacy was forever fouled by allegations that he molested high school athletes when he was a wrestling coach, died over the weekend, a coroner said Monday. He was 84.
Hastert, who was speaker from 1999 until 2007, died of natural causes at his home, according to Kendall County Coroner Jacquie Purcell.
When he was sentenced in 2016 to more than a year behind bars, the former history teacher became one of the highest-ranking American politicians ever ordered to prison.
In the late 1990s, Hastert was a little-known Illinois lawmaker with a reputation for congeniality that had helped him ascend the ranks of congressional leaders. When Newt Gingrich lost support because of ethics violations and the GOP’s poor showing in an election, Republicans elected Hastert to succeed him. In his first weeks on the job, he presided over the House while the Senate conducted Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
After the GOP reclaimed the White House, Hastert took much of what Bush proposed and steered it to passage, including massive tax cuts and a measure that amounted to a huge expansion of prescription drug benefits — the biggest change in Medicare in decades.
His legacy was suddenly thrown into doubt in 2015, when he was accused of evading banking regulations as part of a plan to pay hush money to conceal unspecified “prior misconduct.” Nearly a year later, prosecutors filed papers that described what media reports had suggested for months: Hastert’s misconduct involved the sexual abuse of teenage boys on his wrestling team in the small town of Yorkville, west of Chicago.
During a 16-year coaching career, he led his team to a state championship and was named national coach of the year in 1976. But behind the accolades, prosecutors said, Hastert sexually abused at least four team members from 1965 to 1981.
The person Hastert was paying, identified in court papers only as Individual A, said the abuse occurred in a motel room when he was 14 on the way home from wrestling camp. Hastert allegedly touched other wrestlers in a locker room after saying he would give them massages. Two wrestlers said Hastert performed sex acts on them.
Prosecutors also described a recliner where Hastert often sat in the locker room with a direct view of the stalls where the boys showered.
Hastert agreed to plead guilty to evading banking laws. In all, he paid more than $1.7 million out of $3.5 million that he had promised to Individual A, sometimes in lump sums of $100,000 cash.
At the sentencing hearing where he received 15 months behind bars, the visibly angry judge called Hastert a “serial child molester.” A former wrestler struggled with his emotions as he told the court about his “dark secret” from adolescence.
In his own statement, Hastert said he was “deeply ashamed” and admitted that he “mistreated” some of his athletes. But he never referred directly to sexual abuse.
The public knew nothing about Hastert’s past when Republicans lost seats in the 1998 midterm elections. Hastert confronted Gingrich about dissatisfaction in the GOP ranks, saying it was unlikely Gingrich could hold his post, Hastert wrote in “Speaker: Lessons from 40 Years in Coaching and Politics.”
“Well, I’ll make them support me,” he quoted Gingrich saying of the GOP rebels. Told that was unlikely, Gingrich asked Hastert what to do.
“Do what you have to do,” he replied. The next day, Gingrich stepped down as speaker and left the House.
Hastert’s path to the speaker’s office was cleared when Louisiana Rep. Bob Livingston, who was considered a lock to replace Gingrich as speaker, resigned after acknowledging several extramarital affairs.
In January 1999, Hastert broke with tradition by delivering his acceptance speech from the House floor and by allowing Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat, to briefly preside over the day’s proceedings.
“Solutions to problems cannot be found in a pool of bitterness,” Hastert said in his speech. “They can be found in an environment in which we trust one another’s word, where we generate heat and passion, but where we recognize that each member is equally important to our overall mission of improving the life of the American people.”
Hastert was aware of the personal pitfalls of holding the powerful position.
“You know, in this business, especially in a job like this, you can get your head someplace where it shouldn’t be,” Hastert said in a 1999 interview with The Associated Press. “But you come back home, and you’re home. You’re back where you’ve always been, and your feet are back on the ground.”
He was generally viewed as a friendly, even-tempered lawmaker. His wrestling experience followed him to Washington, with GOP colleagues often calling him “coach.”
Hastert said he lacked the appetite for higher office.
As the recount of the 2000 presidential election dragged on, Hastert’s aides briefed him on the possibility that he might become acting president in the event of an Electoral College deadlock.
“I really didn’t want to be president, temporary or otherwise,” he wrote in his book. But he decided that he would not pass the office to the constitutional officer next in line if an Electoral College deadlock extended beyond Inauguration Day. In the end, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling ended the recount, and Bush moved into the White House.
Hastert’s journey to Congress from his boyhood farm appeared to be the result of fate and luck.
In 1980, he finished third in an Illinois House primary. But the incumbent became fatally ill, and GOP leaders chose Hastert to take his place on the November ballot, where he won in a traditional GOP stronghold.
Hastert became a congressional candidate in 1986, when local Republican leaders put him on the primary ballot, replacing freshman Rep. John Grotberg, who was battling cancer. Hastert went on to beat the Democrat with 52 percent of the vote, his smallest margin of victory in a congressional race.
In Washington, Hastert served quietly in House leadership, working closely with Gingrich and then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay after Republicans took control in 1995. Several years later, DeLay was the force driving Clinton’s impeachment and was simply too toxic to seek the speaker’s chair.
Hastert’s tenure was marked by a shift of power from committee chairmen to GOP leaders, fealty to the Bush administration and an explosion of congressional pet projects known as earmarks. Democrats fumed that he weakened the ethics process that ensnared DeLay, who left Congress under a cloud of criminal charges in 2006.
Hastert became wealthy largely through a complex web of transactions that coincided with one of his own highway earmarks increasing the value of land he had purchased in his district.
He was forced to step down as speaker in 2007, when Democrats gained control of the House, and he resigned his seat later that year. In 2008, he joined the Washington lobbying firm of Dickstein Shapiro as a senior adviser, specializing in government law and strategy.
Born in Aurora, Illinois, Hastert earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wheaton College in 1964 and a master’s in education from Northern Illinois University in 1967.
In 2007, Wheaton named its newly created public policy center the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government and Public Policy. After Hastert’s indictment, the school removed his name in 2015. Other organizations abandoned associations with Hastert, and his portrait was removed from a hallway outside the House chamber.
Hastert lived his entire life in Chicago’s suburbs, primarily in the Yorkville area. While growing up, he helped his father with the family feed business.
Survivors include his wife, Jean, and two adult sons.
Tarm and McCann write for the Associated Press. Tarm and McCann are former Associated Press reporters.
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Tom Cruise-led ‘Digger’ tanks at the box office
The Tom Cruise-led movie “Digger” cratered at the box office this weekend, limping to a fifth-place finish with $8 million in the U.S. and Canada in its theatrical debut.
The Warner Bros. film was expected to do poorly after polarizing reviews from critics and a challenging marketing campaign. The film had a production budget of about $125 million. Worldwide, the film brought in just $20 million in its opening weekend, meaning the studio will probably post a significant loss from the release.
A representative of Warner Bros. did not respond to a request for comment.
Amazon MGM Studios’ “Verity,” starring Anne Hathaway, easily lapped “Digger,” coming in first at the domestic box office with a haul of $32.6 million. The film made $62.5 million worldwide.
The underwhelming performance from “Digger” marks a rare misfire from the usually bankable Cruise and adds to a difficult year for Warner Bros.’ film studio, whose lineup of movies has struggled to connect with audiences. That’s in stark contrast to 2025, when the studio ran up a string of hits such as “Sinners” and “Weapons.”
It also comes as Paramount Skydance’s $111-billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is set to close Tuesday. As part of the merger, there have already been several management shake-ups, including the exit of Warner Bros. film chiefs Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca. The duo oversaw the studio for the last four years, providing a mixed bag of hits and misses for the Burbank-based studio.
The deal is expected to dramatically reshape Hollywood by combining two of the major studios, a move that is expected to lead to massive layoffs. Paramount has already told Wall Street that it’s planning $6 billion in cost cuts.
“Digger” is the result of nine years of work, as director Alejandro González Iñárritu started on the project before the pandemic. The film is a satire about an impending climate change apocalypse that’s triggered by the drilling operations of oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, played by Cruise, who looks nearly unrecognizable clad in prosthetics and graying hair.
In a post-screening, onstage discussion last week, Cruise noted the carefully handcrafted props and sets.
“Everything is practical,” he said. “It was so beautiful, and I just have to say … AI can’t do that.”
Sony Pictures’ “Resident Evil” came in second at the box office this weekend with $12.5 million in its third weekend in theaters. Paramount’s “Heart of the Beast” ($11 million) and A24’s “Primetime” ($8 million) ranked third and fourth.
As of last week, Warner Bros.’ domestic box-office haul this year was $437.7 million, representing about 5.6% of the total theatrical revenue in the U.S. and Canada, according to Rentrak data.
Last year, Warner Bros.’ total at this time was $1.8 billion, aided by back-to-back successes starting with “A Minecraft Movie,” which went on to become the highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office during that calendar year.
The studio does not have any film in the top 20 of domestic box-office earners this year, with Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” ranking at 21 with $84 million. Bets on films such as Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” cratered, while DC Studios’ “Supergirl” misfired.
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Pete Hegseth creates a Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to him
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is launching an office of religious affairs, the latest of his faith-related reforms at the Pentagon.
He announced in a speech Wednesday that the office will help offer “first-class religious support” and will report directly to him.
“Our department is, you might say, putting on the full armor of God, because while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual,” he said.
Hegseth has infused his evangelical Christianity into his leadership of the Pentagon, hosting Christian worship services for employees and often speaking of the United States as a Christian nation.
The Office of Religious Affairs, or ORA, will advocate for military chaplains and religious support “at the highest level of the Department,” according to a Pentagon statement. It will not “compel religious participation, favor one faith, or diminish the rights of personnel of any faith or lack thereof.”
Some criticism of the initiative surfaced quickly.
The Pentagon “owes it to the nation’s service members to defend religious freedom,” said Rachel Laser, head of Americans United for Separation of Church, which has sued the Pentagon over its worship services. “Hegseth’s latest announcement violates that promise by elevating Christianity to an even higher role in shaping U.S. military policy.”
Other federal agencies have had religious or faith-based offices, which were established under President George W. Bush and were continued in different forms under the Obama and Biden administrations. President Donald Trump established a White House Faith Office and had a similar effort during his first term.
Shaun Casey, a religion scholar, led the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs during the Obama administration. The office did not promote religion or spiritual well-being, he said. “It was there to understand what were the political implications of lived religion in the various hot spots around the world.”
The leader of the new office has not been named. A Pentagon memo said the religious affairs director will coordinate spiritual resources, including “faith-based homeschool support for military families.” Hegseth has also pushed the military school system to introduce more coursework that draws from conservative and Christian influences.
The memo mentions “faith-based initiatives supporting Department-wide suicide reduction.” In recent years, the military has become increasingly dependent on chaplains to help address the growing numbers of troops in mental health distress. Hegseth has said he wants chaplains to focus more on God and less on therapeutic “self-help and self-care.”
The secretary has pushed other changes within the military’s chaplain corps, which provides spiritual care to troops. He ordered chaplains, who are commissioned officers, to no longer wear their rank on their uniform but instead be identified by religious insignia.
The Defense Department also slashed the number of religious affiliations it officially recognizes, down to 31 from more than 200 previously recognized traditions. The list no longer includes atheists, Unitarian Universalists, pagans and Wiccans.
Hegseth spoke directly to chaplains in his address Wednesday at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Using Christian-inflected language, he said: “Live your calling. Stand firm. Preach truth. Minister to the flock.”
He then quoted from the Bible: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do unto me?”
Stanley writes for the Associated Press.
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‘Digger’ could add to Warner Bros.’ box office problems
Tom Cruise is one of the bankable stars in Hollywood. But his pull may not be enough to lift his upcoming film “Digger” from a likely hard fall at the box office this weekend.
That would be unwelcome news for Warner Bros., whose movies have largely struggled to connect with audiences this year, in contrast to 2025, when the studio ran up a string of hits such as “Sinners” and “Weapons.”
All of this comes as the studio braces for an uncertain future with Paramount Skydance’s $111-billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery set to close on Tuesday.
“No single film is going to capsize the boat,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. “However, it’s coming at a precarious time because it follows a series of less-than-successful releases at the very moment when the Warner Bros.- Paramount deal has been greenlit, and everybody — no matter how high up — is terrified for his or her job.”
Matching the success of the 2025 film slate was always going to be a tall order, particularly when so many of Warner Bros.’ movies that year overperformed.
So far this year, the studio’s domestic box office haul is $437.7 million, representing about 5.6% of the total theatrical revenue in the U.S. and Canada, according to Rentrak data.
Last year, Warner Bros.’ total at this time was $1.8 billion, aided by back-to-back successes starting with “A Minecraft Movie,” which went on to become the highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office during that calendar year.
The studio currently does not have any film in the top 20 of domestic box office earners this year, which includes some holdovers from 2025, with Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” ranking at 21 with $84 million. Bets on films like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” cratered, while DC Studios’ “Supergirl” misfired.
“Digger” is unlikely to turn things around.
The satire from director Alejandro González Iñárritu about an impending climate change apocalypse has divided critics, yielding very mixed reviews. Tracking predictions for the film’s debut have steadily trended downward and settled between $15 million and $19 million.
That would be a major miss, given the film’s production budget was about $125 million (not counting marketing costs).
“Digger” faces several hurdles. For one, the film has a major twist, which complicates its marketing and makes it difficult to tell audiences what it’s about.
Then there’s Cruise’s nearly unrecognizable performance as Digger Rockwell, an eccentric oil tycoon whose drilling operations have led to the unfolding climate disaster. Clad in prosthetics with a head full of graying hair, Cruise is far from his usual stunts-heavy, bravado-filled roles, which could make his typical audience less likely to come out to theaters, analysts said.
“It has a lot of question marks,” said David A. Gross, who writes the movie industry newsletter FranchiseRe. “It doesn’t look like it’s heading for financial success.”
The film will have value to Warner Bros. beyond its theatrical reception. “Digger” probably will also make money through ancillary revenue streams such as premium video on demand and streaming, industry experts said. And if Cruise wins his much-coveted Oscar for his role as Digger, that is also a plus, Galloway said.
Beyond the fate of “Digger,” Warner Bros.’ theatrical business will be of prime importance to the combined Paramount-Warner company.
Last year, Warner’s studio business, which includes both film and television production, brought in $12.6 billion in revenue. This year, it’s projected to generate $11.1 billion, according to market expectations. On a positive note, Warner Bros. still has its animated “The Cat in the Hat” film releasing in November and the popular “Dune: Part Three” at the end of the year.
The prospects for Warner Bros. should improve next year, when the film and TV studios are expected to amass $11.7 billion in revenue, driven by strong titles including the sequel to “Minecraft” and a new “Lord of the Rings” movie, according to Bernstein research.
Aside from theatrical revenue, Warner Bros.’ film and TV properties have been key drivers of business to HBO Max and will also provide valuable content to Paramount+, particularly as the linear cable networks continue to decline.
“I would argue the studios are the very reason Paramount Skydance is buying Warner Bros.,” said Laurent Yoon, senior analyst at Bernstein. “Everything starts with the studios.”
The combined company is also legally required to release at least 30 films a year as part of a settlement agreement over antitrust claims with 12 state attorneys general, including California’s Rob Bonta. Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison has previously said the two studios would each release 15 films a year.
But the type of content the studios release could change after the merger is completed. Under film chiefs Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca, Warner Bros. developed a reputation for auteur-driven, original stories, particularly after the success of the 2025 slate. Ellison’s slate has trended toward blockbuster fare.
The combined company will also face a massive debt load of more than $80 billion after the merger closes, meaning there may be greater pressure for future films to be hits.
“Ellison is primarily in the business of delivering blockbusters,” Galloway said. “That’s going to be even more important as he tries to right the ship of his debt.”
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D.C. judge permanently dismisses case charging ex-Olympian with vandalizing Reflecting Pool
WASHINGTON — A judge in the nation’s capital agreed on Thursday to permanently dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a move that could prevent federal prosecutors from reviving the case under political pressure from President Trump.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ordered the dismissal of David Hearn’s case with “prejudice,” which would block U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office from refiling the felony charge against him. The judge ruled nearly a month after hearing attorneys’ arguments.
Hearn’s lawyers say Trump administration officials have continued to falsely accuse the Maryland resident of vandalizing the reflecting pool despite Pirro’s decision to drop the case on July 31. Trump responded by saying Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella.”
In a court filing in July, Pirro said new evidence produced by the Interior Department showed Hearn wasn’t responsible for damage to the pool’s lining. Pirro’s office attributed the damage instead to a botched installation by a contractor as well as a rush to complete the project in time for this summer’s America 250 celebration in Washington.
Pirro’s admission was an embarrassing setback for the White House. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has backed Trump’s claims that vandals damaged the pool.
Hearn has said he was on a bike ride on June 19 when he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool. But he said he obeyed a park worker’s command to let go of it.
Hearn was charged with one count of property destruction, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. His lawyers questioned whether prosecutors properly presented the grand jury with adequate evidence to support the charge and the amount of damage alleged by the government.
Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish, ninth, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.
Trump, a Republican, appointed Pirro, a former Fox News host, to serve as the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia. Edelman was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama.
Hearn’s attorneys said the ruling is “a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice” and allows Hearn to “move forward with his life as he deserves.”
“This administration chose to pursue an unjust prosecution against Mr. Hearn. It should not get repeated chances to wield the power of criminal prosecution against someone who should never have been prosecuted,” the lawyers said in a statement.
Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.
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Subpoena records offer clues about federal probe of L.A. County voters
Federal investigators have sent Los Angeles County elections officials at least five grand jury subpoenas for individual voter records as part of a criminal investigation into illegal voting, according to partially redacted records reviewed by The Times.
The subpoenas — released in response to a public records request — appear related to a nationwide effort by the Trump administration to identify noncitizens who have illegally cast ballots in U.S. elections.
The subpoenas were issued in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. They were sent to L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan’s office at the request of prosecutors in the office of First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli.
“The enclosed subpoena has been issued in connection with an official criminal investigation being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations,” Assistant. U.S. Atty. Michael Wheat — based out of the district’s Orange County office — wrote in a letter accompanying a Sept. 10 subpoena.
Wheat wrote that a custodian of records from Logan’s office must either appear before the grand jury to present the records or deliver the materials to a special agent from Homeland Security Investigations.
Four of the subpoenas — one issued on July 13 and three on Sept. 10 — request “any and all original and non-redacted voter records” from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present for a list of individual voters stretching across two pages. The lists were redacted by Los Angeles County officials, and it is unclear how many individuals each list contained.
Each of those subpoenas notes that records to be produced include information on individual voters, such as their “registration file” and “addresses listed, history and method of voting, [and] any and all attestation regarding citizenship status.”
A fifth subpoena, issued July 31, appears to request similar information for a single voter, and notes that the voter’s “ballot content or vote selections” should not be included.
Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for Essayli’s office, declined to comment on the investigations Monday.
The Times first reported the existence of the subpoenas, but not details from the records themselves, last week, after Logan confirmed that his office was complying with the federal inquiry despite having concerns that investigators may be using incorrect or outdated information to produce their lists of voters to investigate.
“We’re responding appropriately as directed through a subpoena, but that doesn’t afford the dialogue for us to get the background on what they’re looking for and how they came up with the names that they did,” Logan said. “There’s really no information being provided to us on that.”
President Trump has alleged for years that illegal voting by noncitizens is widespread, though experts say the problem — which they acknowledge occurs — is exceedingly rare. Homeland Security officials have been leading a campaign in recent months to identify such fraud nationwide, and the subpoenas received by L.A. County appear to match others received by elections officials elsewhere in the country.
Essayli — a Trump loyalist who has not been confirmed to lead the Los Angeles prosecutor’s office by the U.S. Senate and whose de facto leadership has been contested in court — has been vocal about his office’s pursuit of voter fraud, including by noncitizens.
His office has announced two voter fraud cases in recent weeks, including one involving the arrest of 30-year-old Honduran national on two felony charges of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship and fraudulently registering to vote. That man, Darwin Jonathan Rivera-Flores, has pleaded not guilty and is out on bond pending trial.
Rivera-Flores and his attorney declined to comment.
The Justice Department also recently announced it had charged 16 noncitizens in six other states with illegal voting and other election-related crimes.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin publicly claimed in July — without providing evidence — that there may be more than 190,000 such voters on California rolls, a claim California officials dismissed as baseless.
Three of the five subpoenas received by Logan’s office ask that the voter information be shared with Al Rossi, the acting assistant head of Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles.
Reached by phone, Rossi referred questions to an agency spokesperson, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Wheat had asked that the subpoenas be kept secret, so as not to impede an open investigation. Logan’s office released the records in accordance with California public records law, but redacted the names of voters on the grounds that doing so “protects those individuals from undue attention, harassment, intimidation, or possible harm” and “protects the integrity” of the investigation.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld Trump’s expanded use of government data to search for noncitizens who are registered to vote. A lower court order had blocked use of the data over concerns — shared by the Supreme Court’s liberal wing — that the data are error-prone.
Voting rights experts have expressed concern that misuse of the data could lead to legitimate voters being purged from rolls.
States across the country, including California, have successfully fought off lawsuits from the Trump administration demanding the states’ complete voter rolls.
It is unclear why a subpoena for a single voter’s information would come between subpoenas for information on longer lists of voters. But it lines up with the case against Rivera-Flores.
In an affidavit filed with a criminal complaint against Rivera-Flores, Special Agent Christopher Kuzma — the same agent listed on the July 31 subpoena requesting a single voter’s information — said he received a series of texts he believed were from Rivera-Flores, who had previously been issued a misdemeanor citation on suspicion of disrupting immigration law enforcement operations at the federal building in Camarillo.
One text sent in April 2026 stated, “Your not the good guy I can’t wait until the mid terms you dont have qualified immunity then we can start and indict all you guys one bye one.”
Kuzma said in his affidavit that he took the message to mean Rivera-Flores “has both an interest in the voting process and an intent to participate in the election process.”
According to the affidavit, Kuzma said he conducted several record checks through public databases, including on the California secretary of state’s website, which “disclosed an online voter registration record” for a “Darwin Rivera” at Rivera-Flores’ address.
In July 2026, Kuzma said in the affidavit, he reviewed records from California Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office for “Darwin J Rivera,” which showed the applicant had checked a box stating he was a U.S. citizen.
Kuzma’s affidavit said in August 2026 he received certified voter registration records from Los Angeles County.
The spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not respond to a question about whether Kuzma’s July 31 subpoena was specific to Rivera-Flores, but the office has previously said Wheat is prosecuting the case.
When Rivera-Flores’ arrest was announced, Essayli said it was “the first of many to come.”
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Newsom signs bills aimed at protecting LGBTQ people
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills Saturday that increases protections for LGBTQ people in California, saying the legislation was needed because of recent moves by the Trump administration that threaten that support.
One of the six bills would provide housing, employment and other help to service members discharged from the U.S. military as a result of President Donald Trump’s efforts to ban transgender people from serving.
“I’m grateful to Governor Newsom for signing this legislation and proud that California is standing with the veterans who were unjustly forced out of uniform,” said Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego), the author of Assembly Bill 1775.
Other bills Newsom signed create stronger privacy protections by limiting the sharing of sexual orientation and gender identity, while also requiring healthcare providers to notify the California Attorney General when they receive a subpoena regarding healthcare activities the state protects.
Another new law will enhance access to drugs known as PrEP and PEP, which are aimed at preventing HIV.
“The Trump administration has launched an all-out assault on the LGBTQ community, using medical records to target U.S. servicemembers and civilians alike, hurting countless people and betraying hard-won trust,” Newsom’s office said in a press release. “California will not stand for it.”
The bills Newsom signed Saturday were priority bills of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus.
Since taking office in 2019, Newsom has signed dozens of bills adding protections for LGBTQ people.
The governor’s office noted that this year’s state budget included $66 million to help people get access to gender-affirming care and abortion.
“I’m proud of the work our Caucus has done to advance legislation that meets the real needs of our community, and I thank Governor Newsom for signing these important bills,” said state Senator Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), who is chair-elect of the LGBTQ Caucus.
“This progress reflects what we can accomplish when we work together to build a California where LGBTQ+ people and their families can live with greater safety, opportunity, and dignity,” Cervantes said.
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Poll shows Roy leads in L.A. city attorney race — with most undecided
California Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy has a lead in the race to replace Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, who lost her seat in a historic primary rout this spring, new polling shows.
Among likely Los Angeles voters, Roy leads by 10 percentage points over her rival, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney, following the pair’s shocking electoral upset in June, according to a poll released last week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.
The spread closely mirrors City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s breakaway lead in her bitter fight to unseat Mayor Karen Bass, who has outraised her for months.
But that’s where the similarities end.
The mayor’s contest has been called a “knife fight” for its no-holds-barred campaigning. It has also drawn sustained — and occasionally sensational — national attention since Raman’s buzzer-beating entrance in February.
By contrast, the city attorney’s race remains all but unknown: More than two-thirds of likely voters are still undecided, versus about a third who remain uncommitted in the mayor’s contest, polling showed.
L.A.’s top litigator commands a budget of nearly $200 million, plays a role in shaping city ordinances, and wages court battles on behalf of the public. The city attorney also prosecutes misdemeanors — a job most other cities keep separate. Each year, the office weighs some 120,000 violations, deciding whether to file charges and how to pursue them.
More recently, city attorneys across the country have championed activist litigation, spearheading suits against the Trump administration, among others.
Yet, few local voters know the job exists, and fewer still know the candidates by name.
Seventy percent of likely voters said they had no opinion of either McKinney or Roy — a fairly typical result for a down-ballot race, experts note.
Still, new data about voter priorities could signal how those undecideds might shake up the race in its final weeks.
Roughly a third of L.A. voters rank “moving homeless people indoors” and “crime and public safety” as top priorities, respectively; just slightly less say “fixing streets, sidewalks, streetlights and other city infrastructure” is essential.
McKinney, 58, pitches himself as a law-and-order moderate with plans to use the city attorney’s prosecutorial power to reduce disorder and move unhoused people off the streets. He manages more than 300 people at the district attorney’s office and spent decades in the courtroom securing high-profile convictions — advantages that he contends outweigh his lack of civil litigation experience.
Roy, 34, campaigns with an aura of sunny progressive pragmatism, arguing that the city can rein in ballooning liability in part by tackling its vexing infrastructure issues. She nods to the recent $17-billion settlement with Meta — a case her team at the attorney general’s office led — as evidence of the kind of ambitious, public interest litigation a large municipal attorney’s office could join.
Those disparate visions — along with crucial endorsements and influxes of cash — helped the pair define clear brands and constituencies going into the primary.
Both also got a boost from nationwide anti-incumbent fervor, staking sides across a mutual opponent whose name recognition had turned sour while rarely taking aim at each other.
But the general election is a different animal.
Although the Los Angeles electorate has been moving leftward for years, primary voters typically skew older and more conservative than those who show up for the general election, experts said.
Polls suggest that fact could create an uphill battle for McKinney, whose sway is biggest among conservatives, about 19% of the city’s electorate.
Some 21% of Republicans and nearly 30% of self-identified MAGA voters favored McKinney in the most recent poll, while Roy is favored by 25% of Democrats and by 3 in 10 voters who identify as progressive or democratic socialists.
By contrast, about a quarter of Republican voters now say they favor Bass for mayor, while Raman has a 14-point lead among Democrats. (Both are about equally underwater with MAGA voters.)
Like Raman, Roy has deep ties to the city’s insurgent democratic socialist political machine and hard-won endorsements from its progressive clubs. She has also successfully courted L.A.‘s influential unions and got an early boost from the L.A. County Democratic Party when it endorsed her this spring.
McKinney is endorsed by the city’s powerful police union and championed by L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman.
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Trump claws back nearly $1 billion in funding approved by Congress
By Kevin Freking and Jonathan J. Cooper
WASHINGTON — President Trump is canceling nearly $1 billion in spending approved by Congress, the White House announced Friday, using a rare and contested power to axe funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives.
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget described the funding cut as focused on “the most harmful government spending.”
Most of the cuts are focused on Health and Human Services programs that serve refugees and unaccompanied minors accused of being in the country illegally. The administration says the funds are no longer necessary because illegal border crossings have diminished considerably.
Also targeted for cuts were a Department of Education program for migrant students, a Department of Justice office focused on reducing racial tensions, a business development initiative for minority entrepreneurs, housing counseling services from the Housing and Urban Development Department and a series of grants from the Health and Human Services Department that the administration called “outright harmful and blatantly ideological.”
A White House news release announcing the funding rescission notes that some of the organizations are led by people who worked in the Obama administration.
Trump’s move was condemned by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican in a tough reelection campaign and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Collins said in a statement that the action came without warning or consultation. She also said she would work to address with colleagues “these illegal actions.”
“Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”
Under federal law, Congress has 45 days to review the president’s proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year and the House out of session through the November election. The Government Accountability Office, which is an arm of Congress, says the maneuver known as a “pocket rescission” is illegal.
Collins called it the latest attempt by OMB to “undermine Congress’s Constitutional power of the purse.”
A year ago, Trump issued a pocket rescission for the first time in nearly 50 years by blocking $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block that rescission, saying that Trump’s authority over foreign affairs weighed heavily in its decision. This year, Trump is targeting domestic spending.
The use of a pocket rescission fits into a broader pattern by the Trump administration to exert greater control over the U.S. government, eroding Congress’ power.
What was essentially the last pocket rescission occurred in 1977 when President Carter rescinded it, and the Trump administration argues it’s a legally permissible tool, despite some murkiness, since Carter had initially proposed the claw-back well ahead of the 45-day deadline.
The administration has also fired federal workers, imposed a historic increase in tariffs, and started the war in Iran without going through Congress, putting the burden on the judicial branch to determine the limits of presidential power.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the lead Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, described the White House action as “theft from the American people, plain and simple.”
“These are funds Congress has delivered on a bipartisan basis and should be helping people — not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families,” Murray said.
Murray said that in recent spending negotiations, Democrats fought to include language to prevent the administration from usurping Congress’ power on spending decisions, but Republicans have declined to go along.
“While Trump spends tax dollars on ads promoting himself” — a reference to a taxpayer-paid TV spot that has drawn bipartisan rebuke — “Congress needs to reassert its powers to help people, and it’s past time Republicans join us in that fight,” she said.
In addition to immigrant services, the White House said it was rescinding $70 million for what it called “woke” international education programs, $28 million in grant funding for Health and Human Services research programs, and $9 million in debt relief for foreign countries that fund climate change policies. An additional $10 million was being withheld from a minority business development program.
Freking and Cooper write for the Associated Press.
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New Jersey’s lieutenant governor resigns after harassment complaints
By Mike Catalini and Philip Marcelo
TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey ’s Democratic lieutenant governor has resigned after the governor demanded he step down over sexual harassment allegations and ethical lapses involving his relationships with women.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill had given Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell an ultimatum that he resign by Friday, though she lacked the power to remove him if he said no. Sherrill announced the resignation at a news conference that afternoon.
“His decision will allow us to move forward with important work serving the people of our state,” she said. “In my administration we are committed to doing what is right, not what is politically expedient.”
Sherrill picked Caldwell, a Methodist pastor and former president of Centenary University, to be her running mate last year. They were elected together and took office in January, but within four months, Caldwell had become the subject of an anonymous complaint about his behavior with women.
In New Jersey, a governor can’t fire the lieutenant governor, as the post is independently elected. But lieutenant governors can be impeached and removed from office by the Legislature. A governor can strip a lieutenant governor of nearly all duties and responsibilities, effectively sidelining them from the administration.
Sherrill hired the law firm of a former New Jersey attorney general, Christopher Porrino, to investigate.
In a report released Thursday, the lawyers said Caldwell had committed several violations of state policy. It said Caldwell, 66, had made an advance toward a staff member’s friend and when he was rebuffed told the staffer, “you young women are looking for young sperm.”
The report also said Caldwell had tried to get a promotion for a state employee he was dating and brought personal guests to the opera and other ticketed events without paying for them, as required by ethics rules.
Caldwell denied any misconduct and said in a letter included in the report that he suspected his relationships with women were being subjected to extra scrutiny because he was a single Black man.
His lawyer, Thomas Calcagni, said Caldwell never made the sperm statement or used his position to further his romantic life. Caldwell did recommend a female friend for a promotion, Calcagni said, but only because he thought she would be a good candidate for the job. Caldwell denied ordering anyone to promote her or knowingly violating ethics rules by failing to disclose their personal relationship when he recommended her.
Sherrill had said Caldwell needed to resign because he committed “serious, repeated violations of state policy,” despite multiple warnings and trainings.
Besides being the first in line to become governor if Sherrill were to die, be removed from office or become incapacitated, Caldwell also had served as New Jersey’s appointed secretary of state. In that role, he had a supervisory role over the state’s elections.
In neighboring New York, a similar impasse has played out over the last year between Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and her estranged Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who launched a caustic primary challenge to unseat her only to withdraw from the race as the election neared.
Hochul is running for reelection in November with Adrienne Adams, the former speaker of the New York City Council, as her replacement lieutenant governor nominee.
Catalini and Marcelo write for the Associated Press. Marcelo reported from New York.
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Foreign Office ‘not worth the risk’ warning to UK holidaymakers
The Foreign Office is urging UK travellers to ‘avoid’
11:03, 25 Sep 2026Updated 11:07, 25 Sep 2026
UK travellers continue to be warned(Image: Daniel Garrido via Getty Images)
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has issued a stark warning to British holidaymakers, urging travellers to stay safe while abroad.
In a recent update on X, formerly Twitter, the FCDO said: “Free drinks aren’t worth the risk. To help reduce the risk of methanol poisoning abroad, avoid free cocktails or shots, unlabelled bottles, and unusually cheap or discounted drinks claiming to be brand-name alcohol.”
The FCDO is raising awareness following the deaths of several British travellers who consumed alcohol contaminated with methanol while overseas.
Simone White, 28, was among six fatalities following the consumption of free shots at the Nana Backpacker Hostel in Vang Vieng, Laos, in November 2024. Cheznye Emmons, 23, lost her life to methanol poisoning in April 2013 after unknowingly drinking tainted counterfeit gin in Bukit Lawang, northern Sumatra, Indonesia.
Kirsty McKie, 38, died in 2022 after inadvertently ingesting the substance while at home with a friend in Bali, where she had lived for eight years. As little as 10ml of methanol can result in blindness, while 30ml can prove fatal.
TravelAware warns: “In some parts of the world methanol products are sometimes illegally mixed with ‘real’ alcohol such as spirit-based drinks and cocktails.”
Holidaymakers are advised only to buy alcoholic drinks from licensed venues, bars and hotels, to avoid homemade alcoholic beverages, check bottle seals haven’t been tampered with, and look out for poor quality labels or spelling errors.
You should also get urgent medical help if you or anyone in your travel group falls ill after drinking alcohol. Early symptoms of methanol poisoning include impaired judgement, loss of balance, and drowsiness.
Between 12 and 48 hours after consumption, you may suffer abdominal pain, dizziness, hyperventilation, breathlessness, blurred vision and/or blindness, coma, and seizures. If you or anyone travelling with you experiences these symptoms, seek urgent medical attention.
Visual problems are a particularly significant warning sign, especially blurred vision, sensitivity to bright lights, and in some cases complete blindness. “Snowfield vision” (seeing snowy static resembling an old television) or tunnel vision may also occur.
If you experience any of these symptoms, seek urgent medical help.
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Spurs legend Gregg Popovich marries former assistant’s ex-wife
Gregg Popovich coached the San Antonio Spurs from 1996 to 2025, winning a league-record 1,390 regular-season games, 170 postseason games and five NBA championships.
For four of those championships and quite a few of the other victories, one of Popovich’s assistant coaches was his new wife’s ex-husband.
Popovich, 77, married Mary Barth Budenholzer on Sept. 16, the Bexar County, Texas, clerk’s office has confirmed.
Budenholzer is a 61-year-old native of Corpus Christi, according to multiple media outlets, and was once married to Mike Budenholzer, who was a Spurs assistant coach under Popovich from 1996 to 2013. He went on to become the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns, winning an NBA championship with the Bucks in 2021.
The Budenholzers are said to share four children and to have divorced in 2016.
Popovich was married to Erin Popovich for four decades until her 2018 death at age 67. They have two children and multiple grandchildren.
On Nov. 2, 2024, Popovich suffered a stroke before a game at Frost Bank Center, the Spurs’ home arena. Assistant coach Mitch Johnson was named interim coach. That title became permanent on May 2, 2025, when Popovich stepped down after 29 years as San Antonio’s coach.
A member of the Spurs’ front office since 1994, Popovich currently serves as the team’s president of basketball operations. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.
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