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WASHINGTON — New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia defended her legal background and justified her truncated inaugural briefing as she navigates a rocky first week as the president’s chief spokeswoman.

Zacharia sat down for an interview Thursday with the conservative Human Events outlet. In it, she said she did not have time to get fully prepared ahead of her first briefing on Tuesday and that it was always the plan to keep it short because President Trump would field questions from journalists later that morning.

“It was absolutely my goal to keep it short, considering he is his own best spokesperson, and he would love — and does love — gaggling with the media as he goes to Marine One,” Zacharia said. “So I wanted to give ample deference and not barge into his time.”

The initial briefing materials were given to Zacharia on Monday evening, then completed on Tuesday at 8 a.m., less than two hours before she would appear before the White House press corps. She had been up since 3 a.m. preparing, Zacharia said.

“I never had a full briefing beforehand, and I went out and I effectuated the briefing,” she said.

As for her legal background, Zacharia said she was preparing to take the bar exam in California at a time that she had just gotten married and was readying a move to China to join her new husband, who had been working in private equity in Beijing.

“I was obviously incredibly distracted and overwhelmed and excited for finally being married to someone who I’d been long distance from for at least a year,” Zacharia said.

She said the results of the bar exam, which she did not pass, were “somewhat inconsequential” because she would not need to be a barred attorney while living in China.

Zacharia, who has been under scrutiny for calling herself a “lawyer,” said she consulted several legal experts to ensure that title was accurate when offering legal analysis.

“It’s unfortunate that people dub this as some kind of conspiracy or want to put me in a camp. The truth is, I was very careful how I executed this, and I never came across as someone who was an attorney-at-law.”

She will not weigh in on legal matters in her White House capacity, Zacharia said.

She also divulged details of how she went about securing the White House press secretary job. Zacharia stressed that she did not want to be seen as lobbying for the position, left vacant when Karoline Leavitt announced she would depart the administration to spend more time with her family.

Zacharia, who was a communications advisor for the company that runs Truth Social, said she closely monitored the president’s social media posts to determine what was top of mind for him, then would go on air to talk about those topics.

“My philosophy is, I’m on TV enough where if he sees me and he likes me, then I will be recruited for the job. I do not believe that lobbying for that job would have been successful, and I wanted to work for it. I wanted to audition for it.”

Then on Oct. 7, as Zacharia was preparing to take one of her children to a pumpkin patch, she received a phone call from Trump about the press secretary position.

She promptly flew out the next day from her home in California to Washington, met with the president about the job on Friday and formally accepted the position later that day.

Kim writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 14, 2026 10:49 AM PT

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook’s lawyers say that a committee set up by the White House last week to investigate an accusation against her is “demonstrably biased,” though they did not close the door on the possibility that she would appear before the panel.

Lawyer Abbe Lowell also said in a letter Tuesday that Cook would not be able to participate in a hearing Nov. 5 because she “will be executing her official duties as Governor at financial and monetary policy meetings in Europe.”

The earliest that Cook could appear before a “committee of inquiry” that the White House set up last Friday would be after the Fed’s policy meeting Dec. 8-9, the letter said. The letter was sent to William Scharf, a counsel to President Trump.

Lowell’s comments are the latest turn in the Trump administration’s extended efforts to fire Cook from her position as one of seven members of the Fed’s board of governors. Trump has accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud in 2021, before she joined the board, a claim she has denied. No criminal charges have been filed.

No president has fired a Fed governor before, a reflection of the Fed’s traditional independence from politics. Yet Trump, who has repeatedly demanded that the central bank lower its key interest rate, has taken numerous steps that economists say have threatened that independence. The Justice Department earlier this year sought to investigate then-Chair Jerome Powell over brief testimony he had given about an extensive building renovation, though a judge threw out subpoenas in the case and it was later dropped.

Cook was appointed by former President Biden and is the first Black woman on the Fed’s board.

Trump first tried to fire Cook in August 2025, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year she could remain in her position while litigation continued. The court also suggested, in a footnote to the ruling, that Trump could try again to fire her if the administration provided her adequate notice and an opportunity to respond. The committee of inquiry announced by the White House last Friday is an effort to meet those conditions.

Under the law governing the Fed, the president can only fire a Fed governor “for cause,” but the Supreme Court didn’t address whether Cook’s actions met that standard. The committee of inquiry will ultimately recommend whether there is cause to fire Cook, a White House memo last week said.

Lowell also said in the Tuesday letter that “we have significant concerns regarding the objectivity and fitness of the committee for its assigned purpose.”

One of its three members, Kevin Hassett, a top economic adviser to Trump, has already said the president has “cause” to fire Cook, the letter noted. The other two members — Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling and chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Andrea Rich — are also Trump appointees.

“A hearing with demonstrably biased members, unspecified additional allegations, and an unclear schedule for the disclosure of any additional evidence – with no explanation for why it was not previously produced – is not a process that respects the appearance or history of independence,” Lowell’s letter said.

Rugaber writes for the Associated Press.

When Marco Silva was appointed Fulham boss in 2021 he brought a stability to the club that ensured they were competitive in the Premier League, without ever really being in danger of being relegated.

Silva departed in the summer to become head coach of Benfica and in appointing Arbeloa as his replacement, Fulham were undoubtedly taking a bit of a gamble.

The former Liverpool and Real Madrid player arrived with limited managerial experience at senior level, having had a brief spell in charge of Real Madrid from January until May this year.

The biggest problem Fulham have had under him is conceding late goals, with his side having let in goals in the final 15 minutes in four of their six Premier League matches.

Despite that, Arbeola was defiant after the Ipswich defeat, insisting he is right man for the job at Fulham, and he can handle the pressure of needing to turn things around.

“Maybe you don’t know me but I played for the best team in world. I have coached the best team in the world,” he said.

“Maybe you don’t know, but just to let you know, that pressure is part of my life since I was a kid.

“So, it is normal in football. It is normal for players, it is normal for coaches and everybody that is around a team.

“I think pressure is something that is important for me and I like it.”

The role has been vacant since former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt left in August.

Conservative commentator Katie Zacharia has been picked to be US President Donald Trump’s next press secretary.

A White House source told Al Jazeera on Friday that the position has “been offered” to Zacharia.

The role has been vacant since former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt left in August.

This story is developing…

Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, still among the most prestigious prizes any movie can claim, “Fjord” aims for both a quiet, subtle power and the directness of a sledgehammer. It speaks to the skill of Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu, along with the star power and acting prowess of its leads, Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, that the film achieves those goals, creating a mix of feelings including ambivalence, shock and dismay over what people will do to one another in the name of a common good.

Having recently moved from Bucharest to a remote village in Norway, a conservative, devoutly Christian couple and their five young children have begun to insert themselves into the fabric of their new community. Mihai, the Romanian father (Stan), is a little intense and gloomy; Lisbet (Reinsve), a Norwegian, is shy but kind, and their focus seems clearly on what they see as a warm, loving homelife.

But when their children are suddenly taken into protective custody over allegations of abuse, they find their world turned upside down. Eventually, the father asks a prosecutor with equal parts anger and exasperation, “Am I on trial for my beliefs?”

The official answer to that question, more or less, is both no and yes. The government’s position is that the children cannot be placed back into a home where they will be harmed, whether that means physical violence or indoctrination in ideology counter to that of the state’s, such as no dancing, no internet and that being gay is wrong.

Based on actual events involving a Romanian family in Norway in 2015, “Fjord” is purposefully designed to make a viewer — any viewer — question their assumptions and predispositions regarding the relationship between personal liberty and state power. While this may all sound a bit reactionary or like shooting fish in a barrel, Mungiu wisely complicates matters.

The filmmaker, a previous Palme winner for his 2007 abortion drama “4 Weeks, 3 Months and 2 Days,” presumably knows that the majority of the audience for his international art-house domestic drama will be more aligned with the liberal, progressive politics of the Norwegian state than the religious, conservative couple at the story’s center. So most audiences will automatically be put into the purposefully uncomfortable position of siding with people they would never see themselves inclined to agree with. It is Mungiu’s sharpest and most illuminating maneuver.

Once the story moves to the courtroom, “Fjord” begins to resemble 2023’s “Anatomy of a Fall” — another Cannes-winning champ released in the U.S. by boutique distributor Neon — for the way in which it allows American viewers a glimpse into another country’s legal system. It comes off as more conversational and slightly more chaotic than what we are used to in our own domestic courtroom procedurals. As the government prosecutor, Norwegian actor Christian Rubeck gives a smug and condescending tone to nearly every word out of his mouth, becoming the closest thing the movie has to a villain.

Having previously appeared together in the offbeat comedy “A Different Man,” Stan and Reinsve keep the story from feeling like a dour exercise. As Mihai, Stan puts across a low-simmering rage at being put in the position of defending himself at all, while grappling with how to maintain what he sees as his natural role of patriarchal control. Reinsve, known for more outwardly dynamic roles in “The Worst Person in the World” and “Sentimental Value,” here conveys a subdued nuance as Lisbet struggles with understanding her place between her husband and her children.

The moment when the couple’s infant child is taken from them by the authorities is devastating, each of them capturing a sense of helpless isolation from themselves, their community and each other.

Special mention should also go to the performances by Vanessa Ceban and Jonathan Ciprian Breazu as the couple’s teenage children, also to Henrikke Lund-Olsen as a neighbor girl who becomes close to them. These young performers are the film’s secret weapon, since in practical, lived terms they bear the brunt of the existential hand-wringing on the part of all the adults. And too often they become an afterthought.

The poster and key image from the film is a smiling snapshot of Mihai and Lisbet with their children, a seemingly happy family. Or are they? For a movie so steeped in ambiguity and nuance, it also often states its case quite plainly, such as when the couple’s lawyer says no one can really know what goes on in another family. The film asks one to look closer, not just at others but also at one’s own accepted opinions, assumptions and preconceptions. But it ends up with an outcome that feels as sadly inevitable as it is heartbreaking — an ethical knot that cannot be undone.

SEATTLE — A judge on Thursday overturned President Trump’s decision to fire the court-appointed top U.S. prosecutor in Seattle, the latest development in a legal tug-of-war over the administration’s efforts to control who occupies the powerful Justice Department posts.

The 17 active and senior judges in the Western District of Washington unanimously named Roger Rogoff, a former judge and veteran prosecutor, U.S. attorney in July, after Trump failed to fill the post with a nominee confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The president fired Rogoff less than an hour later. Rogoff sued, and in a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian found the termination unlawful and reinstated him.

Bastian noted that when presidents fail to fill a U.S. attorney post with a nominee confirmed by the Senate, federal law authorizes the judges of that district to appoint someone “until the vacancy is filled.”

“It does not say ‘until the president fires the person selected,’” Bastian said.

He concluded: “Mr. Roger Rogoff is the United States attorney for the Western District of Washington and has been the rightful holder of that office since July 15, 2026, when he took the oath of office.”

The Justice Department said in a written statement it disagreed with the decision and would appeal.

Rogoff is the latest in a series of judicially appointed U.S. attorneys to be ousted by the Trump administration, and he is believed to be the first to sue over the removal, setting up a direct legal battle over the issue.

Presidents normally appoint U.S. attorneys, the top federal prosecutor in each judicial district. The positions require Senate confirmation, except in temporary appointments, which can last up to 120 days. When temporary appointments expire before a nominee is confirmed, the judges in a judicial district can name a U.S. attorney.

But under Trump, the Justice Department has sought to leave unconfirmed prosecutors in their positions indefinitely, often through novel personnel maneuvers. Trump named Charles Neil Floyd, who previously served as an immigration judge, interim U.S. attorney in Seattle in October 2025 but never forwarded his nomination to the Senate.

When Floyd’s time as interim U.S. attorney expired, Trump simply shifted his title, a tactic the administration has also tried in other federal judicial districts: It named him first assistant U.S. attorney, while leaving the top post empty.

Trump last month nominated Pete Serrano, the first assistant U.S. attorney in eastern Washington, to be the U.S. attorney in Seattle. But Serrano has not been confirmed, and his nomination is opposed by Washington’s senior Democratic senator, Patty Murray.

“Today’s ruling is an important victory for the rule of law and the people in Western Washington who deserve a U.S. attorney that answers to the law, not Donald Trump,” Murray said in a written statement Thursday.

Bastian is the chief judge in eastern Washington. He heard the case because the judges in western Washington were recused.

In December, Alina Habbaresigned as the top federal prosecutor for New Jersey after an appeals court said she had been serving in the post unlawfully.

Lindsey Halligan, who pursued indictments against a pair of Trump’s adversaries, left her position as an acting U.S. attorney in Virginia after a judge concluded her appointment was unlawful and that indictments she brought against James and former FBI Director James Comey must be dismissed.

The judges there named James Hundley, who had handled criminal and civil cases for more than 30 years, but the administration fired him. It also fired a court-appointed U.S. attorney in northern New York.

Johnson writes for the Associated Press.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a landmark bill that would give a financial boost to California’s struggling newsrooms.

Assembly Bill 2222 will create refundable tax credits for California local news organizations based on the number of journalists they employ. It passed through both houses. It marks an innovative yet controversial attempt to slow the decline of local journalism.

The bill, called the Community Newsroom Employment and Workforce Sustainability Act, works by assigning a “job retention credit” of $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, and after that $15,000 for every additional journalist. Part-time positions will be awarded half-credits. It also stacks an additional $15,000 credit for each new hire, to incentivize expanding journalist head counts.

Before signing the bill Wednesday morning, Newsom spoke about what he called the “assault on the free press and the First Amendment..coming from Washington D.C. and Donald Trump.”

“It’s journalists that need to report those stories and local journalists that need to uncover and sort of peel back the facade if democracy is going to survive, let alone thrive,” Newsom said.

The bill was supported by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member and a wide range of other community news boosters. Backers said it could be a lifeline to local news organizations, many of which have struggled to maintain staffing levels over the past two decades.

California has lost more than 12,000 of its local journalists since 2002, according to nonprofit advocacy group Rebuild Local News. And almost 40% of all local U.S. newspapers have vanished, according to an annual report on the state of local news put out by Northwestern University’s Medill journalism school.

To pay for the credits, the bill would amend California’s tax code to align with a little-discussed component of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful” tax bill that expanded taxes on some companies by eliminating a deduction for executive salaries of over $1 million annually.

It is common practice for the state to consider aligning its tax code with the federal structure to make filing taxes easier and administering them more cheaply. But California has not yet sought to adopt this federal tax change, a move which would increase tax revenues to the state.

The California Taxpayers Assn. and groups representing business interests such as the California Chamber of Commerce oppose the bill because it raises taxes on employers that they argue already face billions of dollars in new taxes.

They contend that the higher costs will be passed along to consumers.

The governor’s finance office issued an analysis opposing the bill for not including a cap on the tax credits, thus creating “unlimited fiscal liability to the state,” and argued the bill mainly subsidizes existing activity rather than encouraging the creation of new jobs.

While speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Newsom acknowledged some of the concerns that have been raised about those who will receive benefits from the bill’s funds, specifically hedge funds and billionaire owners and outlets who he says spread propaganda.

“It does subsidize those that don’t need to be subsidized,” he said. “We have hedge funds in this space. We have billionaires in this space. We have people that are profiteering in this space by gutting the newsrooms and extracting value out of the space that also are the beneficiaries.”

Newsom said he chose not to veto the bill because he believes its benefits outweigh the liabilities. He added that he hopes the legislature and next governor can work to narrow down who benefits most from the legislation.

“We should not be subsidizing hedge funds,” he said. “We should be focused on where the need is the greatest, in my humble opinion, and I do think when you have no cap, the limitlessness of this…to some of the most well-heeled organizations, where now they simply could pull from this bill the benefits that they didn’t even ask for or need, is self-evident.”

Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego), who authored the bill, said the governor’s signature shows California’s commitment to the free press at a time when newsrooms are shrinking and misinformation is rampant.

“Local journalism is the backbone of an informed democracy, and today California made clear that the people doing this essential work are worth investing in,” Ward said in a statement. “This historic investment will help keep reporters in our communities, strengthen nonprofit and public media, and ensure Californians continue to have access to trusted, fact-based local news.”

In signing the bill, Newsom emphasized the role of journalism in uncovering scandal and wrongdoing.

“The L.A. Times to their credit did a big investigative piece on Bell, and people getting paid a million dollars in some cases, local government officials, a million damn dollars a year. No one would have known had it not been for local journalism. How many more Bells are out there, not just in this state, but all across the country?”