probe

The A-10 may be in the twilight of its career, but that doesn’t mean it’s done proving new capabilities, some of which could impact the USAF’s larger tactical airpower force. In particular, it just tested one capability we have been highlighting as a huge opportunity and potential necessity for a future fight in the Pacific.

A test A-10, looking like it borrowed its nose from an A-6 Intruder, flew for the first time equipped with a refueling probe in place of its nose-mounted aerial refueling receptacle earlier this week. The program has been ongoing for some time. Within days of that first flight, the test ‘Hog’ successfully plugged into a C-130 equipped with aerial refueling drogues. An image, circulating on social media, shows the A-10 in question connected to a drogue trailing behind a Hercules.

The implications of this test go beyond the A-10. We had previously made the case, in detail, how USAF fighters equipped with probes would be of extreme use during a crisis in the Pacific. We also have made the case for smaller tactical tankers supporting these operations and how they could be essential to the USAF’s success in such a conflict.

The ability for fighters to launch with heavy loads from short runways, even those that have been battle damaged, and immediately tank-up on gas before heading deeper into enemy territory would be a huge plus for the USAF. Currently, all of its tactical jets use the receptacle and boom mode of aerial refueling, where a jet tanker plugs into them, usually at high altitudes, for refueling. This makes the USAF’s Agile Combat Employment strategy, where fighters will hop from one austere forward airfield to another in order to stay ahead of the enemy’s targeting cycle, and stay within range of being combat relevant, somewhat problematic. Jet tankers require long runways and do not refuel at very low altitudes. The ability for USAF fighters to utilize MC-130s and HC-130s, or even Marine KC-130s, as well as standard C-130Js modified for aerial refueling, would drastically change this equation, operating from shorter fields alongside fighters with far more flexibility.

CN21 Agile Combat Employment with F-35A Lightning IIs at Northwest Field, Guam, Feb. 16, 2021.

22nd Air Force: C-130 Lands on Wyoming Highway

In addition, refueling at altitude, even what is considered low altitude by special operations focused jet tankers in the USAF’s inventory, which you can read all about here, still is many thousands of feet in the air. This leaves them and their ‘customers’ vulnerable to long-range detection and increasingly far reaching air defenses. This is especially true for an adversary like China, that is investing very heavily into its anti-access/area-denial strategy, which will make normal combat operations far more dangerous much farther from a tactical jet’s target area than in past conflicts. So getting far lower, below the radar horizon, for refueling would go a long way in mitigating this growing threat.

With this in mind, we will likely see aerial refueling by the USAF’s jet tankers, KC-135s and KC-46s, drop lower and new training and procedures will be needed to support this. Risks also increase at these lower altitudes, especially considering that weather can be far more of a factor and aircraft handling changes in the thick air. But even if the USAF adapts its existing jet tanker force to lower altitude refueling operations, they still will not be able to operate out of the airstrips that C-130s can. The USAF also already has many C-130s to leverage for this role, leaving the jet tankers for more traditional, longer-range support missions, which they will be overtaxed with during a major fight in the Pacific to begin with, before even having to support ACE operations.

Thus, giving the A-10, as well as other fighters, like F-16s and F-15s, the ability to be equipped with a probe and pairing them with C-130 tankers, could drastically change the USAF’s ACE equation, and make it far more tactically relevant than it currently is. The C-130s could also work as transports to support small groups of fighters hopping around the Pacific, while also providing tanker support for kinetic sorties.

It’s also worth noting that the USAF is now interested in the exact purpose-built aircraft we originally posited for this mission, but procuring an entirely new type, while sticking to the boom and receptacle concept, is a much bigger ask than adapting the force it already has. Arguably, there would be a place for both concepts in the USAF’s portfolio if it really doubles down on its ACE vision and the boom-equipped tactical tanker could also service probe-equipped fighter aircraft.

For the A-10, the addition of a probe makes even more sense, as these aircraft have the combat search and rescue ‘Sandy’ mission, where they directly escort and provide close air support for special operations helicopters working to pluck personnel out of highly contested territory. This same mission set has been highlighted like nothing in recent memory just today over Iran. The HC-130s and MC-130s are already equipped to provide fuel to rotary-wing aircraft during these operations. They could also support A-10s with aerial refueling, as well. This would extend the endurance and range of the A-10’s Sandy mission set.

It will be interesting to see if the program moves beyond this demonstration and if this capability gets eyed for more of the USAF’s tactical jet force. It was in the works for some time and appears to have been put into purgatory due to the A-10’s pending retirement, before being put back on a fast track recently. This is at least a sign that the USAF sees major merit in the concept.

As for how the USAF’s fighters could be equipped with a probe, multiple solutions exist, including installing them on drop tanks and conformal fuel tanks, to bolting them onto the empennages of the aircraft. Future F-35As could be equipped with both a receptacle and a refueling probe as the latter option is installed on the B and C model.

Regardless of what’s to come, this is an encouraging sign that the USAF at least appears to be questioning its ACE dreams and trying to see how relatively simple alterations to it could make it more operationally realistic. If anything else, the Warthog getting this option could help enhance its CSAR capabilities and open the aperture to what tankers can provide gas to it for other operations. Considering the major challenges of future CSAR operations the USAF is facing, where range will be a huge problem, letting the A-10 tank from the same assets as their rotary-wing brethren would be a huge win.

Contact the author: Tyler@Twz.com

MIAMI — A leading member of Congress said Wednesday he is seeking a Justice Department investigation of a Utah-based group of “tough love” schools, in which he believes the health and welfare of hundreds of American children may be in jeopardy because of “an extensive and consistent pattern of abuse.”

Rep. George Miller of the Northern California city of Martinez, the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, has asked Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft to investigate allegations of child abuse, human rights violations, deceptive advertising, fraud and unjust enrichment under the Internal Revenue Code at the 11 schools belonging to the World Wide Assn. of Specialty Programs and Schools, headquartered in St. George, Utah. The privately owned schools for troubled teens have facilities in the United States and overseas.

“We just continue to get reports from various organizations and individuals and media about mistreatment of children, about parents in many cases who are in very desperate situations trying to get suitable care for their children,” Miller said in a telephone interview from Washington. “They are lured into these programs with promises of care and treatment and professional standards, and then find none of this exists.”

At WWASPS schools, the congressman said, there “is a very long laundry list of abuse toward children: deprivation of food, deprivation of contact with their peers, physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse.” In a letter he sent Monday to Ashcroft, a copy of which was provided to The Times, Miller referred to “allegations that hundreds of children have been mistreated.”

Miller wrote: “We believe that the Department of Justice should investigate whether federal laws concerning child abuse and neglect, interstate commerce or unfair or deceptive advertising have been broken by WWASPS or those operating these facilities.” He asked Ashcroft to report in writing by Nov. 17 on what actions the government would take.

Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez said Wednesday evening that the department will review the letter and “determine whether any federal action is warranted.”

Interviewed after learning of Miller’s request, WWASPS President Ken Kay said no one had presented proof of wrongdoing.

“Where is the evidence?” Kay asked by telephone from St. George. “Our schools have been investigated by government officials, law enforcement, parents, educational consultants, accrediting authorities, child protective services — and there is no proof.”

Currently, 2,200 children are enrolled in the 10 WWASPS schools that are open in locations from New York state to the Caribbean island of Jamaica. “Overall, the one encapsulating term is, the schools … are in the business of saving lives,” Kay said.

In July, The Times published a story that detailed claims from parents and former students that boys and girls enrolled in the schools were subjected to brutal discipline, filthy living conditions and physical abuse by staff members who frequently lacked professional qualifications. Similar allegations were reported in the New York Times.

Last May, police in Costa Rica raided Dundee Ranch Academy, a WWASPS school, after reports that the human rights of students there were being violated. Kay said the school’s operator has voluntarily closed the facility while authorities in the Central American country conduct an investigation.

In his letter to Ashcroft, Miller said that no fewer than seven facilities affiliated with WWASPS or its marketing arm, Teen Help, had been shut since 1996 after running afoul of the law, including schools in Mexico, Utah and Western Samoa. In September, Bell Academy in Terra Bella, Calif., closed after failing to meet state licensing requirements, Miller said.

The congressman, who has long been active in children’s issues, estimated that parents pay WWASPS schools between $30,000 and $50,000 in yearly tuition and fees. “Big money is being paid for services not rendered,” Miller said. Because hundreds of minors may be at risk, he said, the government needs to intervene.

“These kids are obviously crossing state boundaries, international boundaries,” Miller said. “They [WWASPS schools] are really trafficking in these kids for profit.”

Kay responded: “If he had concerns, he could at least have had someone contact me or our schools. I checked, and none of them has any record of being contacted by him.”

A PLAQUE dedicating a service station bridge to shamed radio presenter Scott Mills has been removed.

It was put up in 2016 after a light-hearted campaign with his then-Radio 1 co-star Chris Stark — but a customer noticed it had gone this morning.

They said: “I had seen the stories about the bridge with Scott Mills’ name.

“I never really come to this service station but today I did and the plaque has been taken away.

“I’m not surprised really.

“The thing was right by the loos so everyone walking past could have seen it.”

MILLS SAGA

Outgoing BBC boss says it became ‘very clear’ that Scott Mills had to be sacked

on air

Scott Mills’ ‘work wife’ Tina Daheley will return to Radio 2 & reveals exact date

It is believed to have been taken down by Welcome Break, which manages Fleet Services on the M3.

Radio 2 breakfast show star Mills, 53, was sacked by the BBC last week.

It emerged a male he was questioned about by police in 2018 was under 16 at the time of alleged historic sex offences.

Outgoing BBC director general Tim Davie said: “We’re trying to act fairly.

“It was new information that made it very clear about the decision we had to make.”

Welcome Break declined to comment on the plaque.

SCOTT Mills was first investigated over sex offences against a teenage boy seven years ago – but only now the BBC has acted.

In a sensational move the BBC pulled Mills off air last Tuesday – with it emerging days later that the axing was linked to a complaint about the 2018 probe into the 53-year-old.

Mills was questioned over allegations of “serious sexual offences” against a boy who police confirmed was under 16 at the time of the allegations.

The case – said to have taken place between 1997 and 2000 – was later dropped in full due to a lack of evidence.

Last night we revealed that BBC bosses had known Mills was being investigated in 2018, Mills informed the corporation but denied the allegations.

And, in March that year The Sun on Sunday revealed how a probe was being carried out into an unnamed radio presenter.

DARK DAYS

Scott Mills’ troubled Radio 1 years that saw star go on-air drunk after tragedy

SCOTT SHOCK

Teen boy at centre of Scott Mills ‘sex offences’ probe was under 16, cops say

Officials decided to keep Mills on air for seven years after he informed them of the investigation before suddenly dismissing him on Monday.

It was only after a complaint was made regarding the police probe that Beeb bosses gave Mills the boot.

Mills’ £360,000 a year contract was terminated within five days of the complaint being made.

But the BBC has since apologised for not taking action on an allegation against Scott Mills raised last year. So, as the scandal unfolds, here is what was known and when.

1997 – 2000

The alleged “serious sexual offences” against a boy under 16 take place with Scott Mills joining the BBC in 1988.

Mills initially joined the corporation as a presenter on BBC Radio 1, presenting the early morning slot before earning his own namesake programme The Scott Mills Show.

December 2016

The Metropolitan Police launch a probe into allegations regarding Scott Mills.

The investigation, which related to allegations of serious sexual offences, followed a referral from another police force.

July 2018

Mills is questioned by police under caution about historical sexual offences against a teenage boy.

The former BBC Radio 2 star told the corporation about the investigation and denied the allegations.

May 2019

After it was decided there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges against Mills the investigation is closed.

The case was dropped in full.

October 2022

Mills moved from BBC Radio 1 and joined BBC Radio 2, taking over the coveted afternoon slot from Steve Wright.

January 2025

Mills then moves on to take over the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, where he would stay until he was dismissed.

The former presenter took over after Zoe Ball stepped down — calling the role his “dream job”.

March 24, 2026

Mills signs off his show with “see you tomorrow” with his slot taken over the next day by Gary Davies.

Davies would continue to fill in for Scott after being named as the interim breakfast show host.

March 25, 2026

A BBC investigation is launched following a complaint regarding Scott Mills and the historic police probe.

March 30, 2026

In a sensational story, it is announced Mills had been sacked by the Beeb.

BBC Director of Music Lorna Clarke circulates an internal letter to staff informing them of the sacking.

March 31, 2026

The Metropolitan Police confirm that the teen boy at the centre of the allegations was under 16 years old at the time of the alleged offences.

April 1, 2026

The Sun reveals that the BBC was aware of the investigation as far back as 2018.

We revealed how Mills told the corporation in 2018 but was kept on air for another 7 years before suddenly being fired.

Interior minister says ‘vigilance at high level’, after police arrest suspect before setting off explosive device outside US bank’s headquarters.

French authorities have opened an investigation into a foiled ⁠attack targeting Bank of America’s Paris headquarters after police detained one suspect who was allegedly attempting to ignite an explosive device outside the building.

In a social media post on Saturday, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the swift intervention by police had “thwarted a violent terrorist attack” in the French capital the previous night.

French newspaper Le Parisien cited a police source as saying the suspect was arrested at about 3:25am local time (02:25 GMT) outside the bank’s local headquarters in the city’s 8th arrondissement as he tried to light a device consisting of a five-litre (1.3-gallon) container filled with an unidentified liquid and an explosive charge made up of about 650 grams (23 ounces) of powder.

The suspect was taken into custody, while a second individual who was present fled the scene and remains at large. The device was taken to the Paris police’s forensics lab for full analysis.

The National Terrorism Prosecution Office told the Reuters news agency the suspected offences included attempted destruction by fire or other dangerous means in connection with a “terrorist plot”, as well as ⁠the making, possession ⁠and transport of an incendiary or explosive device with intent ⁠to carry out dangerous damage.

The probe ⁠also includes a ⁠charge of participation in a “terrorist” criminal association, covering potential ‌links to accomplices or a broader network, it said.

“Vigilance remains at a very high level,” said Nunez on X, thanking “security and intelligence forces, who are fully mobilised under my authority” in what he called the “current international context”, seemingly with reference to the escalating situation in parts of the Middle East amid the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Earlier in the week, Nunez had said that authorities had stepped up the personal protection of some figures from the Iranian opposition and increased security around sites that risked being targeted, including sites linked to US interests and to the Jewish community.

A spokesperson for Bank of America told Reuters the organisation was “aware of the situation” and “communicating with the authorities”.

The feud between California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has escalated after Bonta asked a court to stop Bianco’s investigation into alleged election fraud.

In a 70-page petition filed with the Fourth Appellate District Monday, Bonta wrote that “the Sheriff’s misguided investigation threatens to sow distrust and jeopardize public confidence” in upcoming elections. The investigation, which he also called “sweeping and unprecedented,” is an abuse of the criminal process, he wrote.

Bianco, who is a leading Republican candidate for governor, last month seized more than 650,000 ballots cast in Riverside County in the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.

The sheriff has said that his investigators are looking into allegations by a local citizens group that “did their own audit” and found that the county’s tally was falsely inflated by more than 45,000 votes — a claim that local election officials have emphatically rejected.

Bianco has described his probe as a “fact-finding mission” to determine if votes were fraudulently counted. He has accused the attorney general, a Democrat, of improperly interfering with what he says is a lawful criminal investigation.

In Riverside County, the proposition passed by more than 82,000 votes. Statewide, it passed with about 64% of the vote and a margin of more than 3.3 million ballots.

“Well, well, well, the political corruption in California just gets bigger and bigger,” Bianco said in a social media video Monday night in response to Bonta’s petition.

“Why in the world would Rob Bonta want that count stopped unless he was afraid of what that count would uncover?” he added. “We have an extremely politically biased appeals court, so this is going to be interesting.”

Political observers have said that Bianco, an outspoken supporter of President Trump, appears to be vying for attention from Trump, who has called on the federal government to “nationalize” state-run elections, remains fixated on his 2020 election loss and has falsely claimed widespread fraud.

Kim Nalder, a political science professor and director of the Project for an Informed Electorate at Sacramento State, said that Bianco’s investigation appears to be “an electoral ploy.”

“At this stage in the election, most voters haven’t really tuned into the gubernatorial race, and there are a ton of candidates,” she said. “People who don’t know his background will know now. This is clear signaling.”

The sheriff has denied the probe has anything to do with his campaign.

A poll released last week by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times showed Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton leading the crowded field of gubernatorial candidates by slim margins, with the Democratic vote split among multiple candidates in a left-leaning state.

Bonta’s office said in a statement Monday evening that it was asking the court to pause the investigation “while we work to understand its basis.”

Bonta’s petition revealed that — in addition to warrants issued on Feb. 9 and 23 — the sheriff obtained a third warrant from the Riverside County Superior Court on March 19 to restart a paused recount of the ballots. The warrants now are under seal.

Bonta’s office called the warrants and the affidavits supporting them legally deficient because “the Sheriff has not identified any particular crime that may have been committed by anyone — a necessary predicate to obtain a criminal search warrant.”
Bonta had earlier questioned whether Bianco had concealed important information from the magistrate judge who approved the warrants.

In his petition, Bonta wrote that the sheriff’s department had planned to assign “12 employees working four days a week, five to seven hours each day” to count the votes.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former senior trial attorney overseeing voting enforcement for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, agreed with Bonta’s assessment that the sheriff’s probe is a legally deficient “fishing expedition.” He questioned how Bianco got a judge to sign off on three warrants.

“You can’t use a warrant as a PR tool, as something to help your political campaign,” Becker said. “You have to meet certain standards in order to obtain a warrant, because a warrant is extraordinary. A warrant is saying we believe there is probable cause to seize evidence, and we need it now.”

Bianco said in a news conference Friday that a Riverside County Superior Court judge had ordered the appointment of a special master to oversee the count. His investigators had already begun counting, but the tally would start over under the court’s guidance, Bianco said.

“This isn’t about counting yes and no votes,” Bianco said in his social media video Monday. “This is simply counting the total ballots and comparing that total with the number of votes. … Plain and simple. Common sense.”

March 23 (Asia Today) — People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk on Sunday criticized a parliamentary probe plan led by the ruling party, along with the government’s real estate policy and its response to the Iran crisis.

Speaking at a party leadership meeting at the National Assembly, Jang questioned the need for an investigation into alleged prosecutorial misconduct during the previous administration.

“If a fabricated indictment can be proven through a parliamentary probe, it would be much faster to obtain an acquittal in court,” he said. “The investigation will ultimately only confirm that the prosecution and trial were justified.”

Jang also invoked remarks previously made by President Lee Jae-myung, saying, “If a president commits a crime, he should go to prison,” adding that he was “returning those words as they are.”

The conservative party boycotted the National Assembly plenary session a day earlier and held a protest rally outside the chamber. A brief confrontation occurred with ruling party lawmakers after the probe plan passed.

Jang criticized the government’s real estate policy, accusing the president of centralizing decision-making while excluding public officials from the process.

“By that logic, the president, who is facing multiple trials, should step away from judicial policy,” he said.

He also warned against expanding fiscal spending in response to the Iran crisis, citing concerns over inflation, exchange rates and rising oil prices.

“With a triple shock of high exchange rates, inflation and oil prices, releasing an additional 25 trillion won, about $18.7 billion, would push prices and the currency higher,” he said. “This is not the time for cash handouts but for stabilizing the economy.”

Floor leader Song Eon-seok echoed the criticism, accusing the administration of attempting to consolidate power and warning against what he described as excessive control over parliamentary committees.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260323010006783

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department sent a subpoena to former FBI Director James Comey as part of an investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials waged a years-long conspiracy against President Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

The grand jury subpoena was issued last week by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida, according to the people, who asked not to be identified speaking about an ongoing investigation.

The subpoena seeks information about Comey’s role in putting together an intelligence assessment about Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to the people.

The U.S. attorney’s office has previously sent subpoenas to other former U.S. officials. The office is conducting a sweeping investigation into whether former U.S. officials allegedly took actions to sabotage Trump starting in 2016 through his indictment over the handling of classified documents in 2023.

The new subpoena, reported earlier by Axios, marks an escalation of Justice Department efforts targeting Comey in particular, who Trump has repeatedly said should be investigated.

Comey was previously indicted by a grand jury at the request of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for allegedly lying to senators during a congressional hearing — a claim that Comey has denied. The indictment was dismissed after a federal judge ruled that the U.S. attorney was unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department is appealing the ruling.

A lawyer for Comey declined to comment Thursday. The U.S. attorney’s office in Miami didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump and Comey have had a contentious relationship. Trump fired Comey as FBI director in 2017 during his first term as president. Since then, Comey and Trump have publicly criticized each other.

Strohm writes for Bloomberg News.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, left state service with two things: a federal corruption investigation and more than $50,000 in pay for vacation time she accrued but never took.

State payroll records reviewed by The Times show Williamson used approximately $30,000 in unused vacation time to remain on California’s payroll through Jan. 31 — seven weeks after Newsom’s office indicated she had departed — before collecting an additional $22,000 lump-sum payout for the hours she had left.

Large cash-outs for departing state workers with hundreds of hours of time off on the books have been a recurring issue in California. The state’s unfunded liability for vacation and other leave owed to employees has ballooned in recent years to $5.6 billion, fueled by generous time-off provisions and a long-standing failure to enforce policies that cap most employees’ vacation balances at 640 hours.

Many state workers accumulate large balances of unused vacation after decades of being on the government payroll. The typical public employee retires with more than two decades in public service, according the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. Their unused time off is paid when they leave state employment at their final rate of pay.

Williamson, however, amassed 462 hours of unused leave in less than two years on the job. She earned $19,612 a month as the governor’s chief of staff.

John Moorlach, director at the conservative think tank the Center for Public Accountability at the California Policy Center, said that a job like Williamson had probably involved incredibly long workdays but that the pace in which employees accumulate days off is a major financial burden.

“A normal blue-collar worker would say, ‘Really? Really?“” said Moorlach, a former Republican state senator from Orange County. “You don’t find this perk in the private sector.”

Williamson notified Newsom in November 2024 that she was under federal investigation and was put on paid administrative leave through Dec. 16, the governor’s office said.

Federal charges against Williamson, which were filed in November 2025, allege she siphoned $225,000 out of a dormant state campaign account belonging to gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra and illegally claimed $1 million in luxury handbags and travel as business expenses on her tax returns. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A status conference in Williamson’s case was moved to April 16 after she recently underwent a successful liver transplant and due to the large volume of discovery — more than 280,000 pages so far — according to court records filed last month.

Williamson’s attorney, McGregor Scott, did not respond to a request for comment.

State payroll records show Williamson earned $40,000 in regular pay in 2025, which the state controller’s office said included her December 2024 and January 2025 paychecks. The governor’s office said Williamson’s December 2024 paycheck included 11 days of paid administrative leave, and the remainder of both paychecks was covered by her unused leave.

With her final cash-out of $22,000 in remaining time off, she made a total of $62,000 last year — all tied to administrative leave and unused vacation time rather than time worked.

“That’s shocking, honestly,” said Assemblyman Josh Hoover (R-Folsom), adding that stockpiled vacation time overall is something the state Legislature should look into.

The state paid $453 million in unused leave benefits to state workers in 2025. That was an average of more than $20,000 to the 21,000 employees who received a lump-sum check. The amount paid to departing or retiring state workers has steadily increased each year. In 2024, the state paid $413 million for unused time off.

“Obviously, employees are an important part of our state and they accrue vacation time,” Hoover said. “But, if this is something being used to pad people’s salaries … we need to look into that and possibly reform that.”

Last year, 80 state employees took home at least $250,000 in unused time off, and 1,081 employees were paid more than $100,000. Those numbers have been increasing each year. For example, the state paid 16 state workers more than $250,000 for unused time off in 2010, and 309 employees were paid more than $100,000.

In 2024, the state paid out a record $1.2 million to a prison supervising dentist for unused time off. Last year, the top amount paid for unused leave was about $650,000 to an assistant fire chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The state owed nearly $5.6 billion to state workers for unused vacation and other leave benefits in 2024, according to the most recent financial accounting report issued by the state controller’s office. Although that unfunded liability held steady when compared with 2023, it has risen sharply from pre-pandemic amounts.

In 2019, the state owed $3.9 billion for employees’ unused time off before COVID-19 curtailed travel and work-from-home policies resulted in fewer workers taking time off. State employees have argued that under-staffing at state agencies can make it difficult to take vacations.

Nick Schroeder, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office, said the state has plans to reduce unfunded liabilities for pensions and retiree healthcare, but that isn’t the case with unused time off.

“There isn’t a plan to address it,” Schroeder said.

When an employee retires with a large leave balance, the department where that person worked last is on the hook for the amount.

“It can be a big effect on that individual department’s budget,” Schroeder said.

During budget deficits — including in the current fiscal year — the state has cut employee pay or deferred annual raises in exchange for additional days off, a strategy that helps balance budgets but also adds to workers’ growing vacation balances.

In Newsom’s January budget proposal, which estimated a $3-billion deficit, the governor recommended providing $91 million in ongoing funding to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to help the prison system pay departing employees for their unused time off. The department said that from 2020 to 2025, it paid about $130 million annually on average to employees leaving state service, according to a Legislative Analyst’s Office report.

When employees cash out banked leave, the state pays them not only for the hours they have accumulated, but also for the additional vacation and holidays they would have earned had they taken that time off.

That means a person with 640 hours of vacation would also be paid for all of the vacation and holidays they would have earned had they taken those 80 days off. Each hour of leave is paid based on an employee’s final salary — not what they were earning when the time was accrued.

Most private-sector employers cap vacation accrual between 40 and 400 hours and stop employees from earning additional time once they reach those limits. Some companies have moved in the opposite direction, adopting “unlimited paid time off” policies. Under those systems, employees do not accumulate vacation days that can be banked or cashed out, but critics say the policies can lead to workers taking less time off because there is no guaranteed number of days and employees may feel pressure not to appear absent.

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., said there appears to be little appetite in the state Capitol to address California’s burgeoning vacation liability.

“This problem is systemic within California government and no one seems willing to take it on,” Coupal said. “At the same time, they are clamoring that there is a budget crisis. I suspect they will continue to kick the can down the road.”

Washington, DC – In September, the United States began launching dozens of deadly military strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific.

Nearly half a year later, remarkably little is known about the strikes. The identities of the nearly 157 people killed have not been released. Any purported evidence against them has not been made public.

But a group of United Nations and international law experts are hoping to change that on Friday, when they testify at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

The international hearing will be the first of its kind since the strikes began on September 2, and rights advocates hope it can help lead to accountability as individual legal cases related to the strikes proceed.

Steven Watt, a senior staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s human rights programme, said the goal of the hearing will be threefold.

“Our ask will be to conduct a fact-finding investigation into what’s going on,” Watt said.

The second aim, he continued, would be “to assert or to arrive at a conclusion that there is no armed conflict here”, in what would be a rebuke to US President Donald Trump’s previous claims.

Finally, Watt said, he hopes the proceedings will yield long-sought transparency from the Trump administration on “whether or not they have a legal justification for these boat strikes”.

“We don’t think there are any,” Watt added.

‘We don’t know the names’

The experts set to testify at Friday’s hearing said the IACHR has a unique mandate to uncover the truth behind the US strikes.

The commission, based in Guatemala City, Guatemala, is an independent investigative body within the Organization of American States, of which the US was a founding member in 1948.

While the Trump administration has claimed it has a right to carry out the deadly attacks as part of a wider military offensive against so-called “narco-terrorists”, rights groups have decried the campaign as a series of extrajudicial killings.

They argue that Trump’s deadly tactics deny those targeted of anything that approaches due process.

Legal experts have also dismissed Trump’s claims that suspects in drug-related crimes are equivalent to “unlawful combatants” in an “armed conflict”.

Few details have emerged from the air strikes. Several families have come forward, however, to informally identify the dead as their loved ones.

Victims are said to include 26-year-old Chad Joseph and 41-year-old Rishi Samaroo, who were sailing home to Trinidad and Tobago when they were killed in October, according to relatives.

A complaint filed against the US government said both men travelled often between the islands and Venezuela, where Joseph found work as a farmer and fisherman, and Samaroo laboured on a farm.

The family of Colombian national Alejandro Carranza, 42, have also said he was killed in September when the US military attacked his fishing boat off the country’s coast.

The US has yet to confirm the victims’ identities, and only two survivors have ever been rescued in the 45 reported strikes.

A clearer picture of what happened will be a significant step towards accountability, according to experts like Watt.

“[The IACHR] is uniquely positioned to identify who all these persons are,” Watt said. “We just know the numbers from the United States. We don’t know the names or the backgrounds of these people.”

The IACHR has launched a range of human rights investigations in recent decades, including probes into the 2014 mass kidnapping of 43 students in Iguala, Mexico, and a series of murders in Colombia from 1988 to 1991 dubbed the Massacre of Trujillo.

The commission has also examined US policies, including extrajudicial detentions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during its so-called “global war on terror”.

The IACHR has the power to seek resolutions to human rights complaints or refer them for litigation before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Just last week, the court ordered Peru to pay reparations to the family of a woman who died during a government-led forced sterilisation campaign in the 1990s.

The Carranza family has filed its own complaint to the IACHR, and the families of Joseph and Samaroo have also lodged a lawsuit against the US in a federal court in Massachusetts.

Angelo Guisado, a senior staff lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), said a fuller accounting of the US actions is needed to prevent future abuses. He is among the experts testifying on Friday.

“You can’t normalise assassinating fishermen off the coast of South America,” Guisado told Al Jazeera. “That’s just sadistic and an abomination to the rules-based order that we’ve created.”

“So we hope that the commission can do some investigation.”

A war against ‘narco-terrorists’?

One of Guisado’s goals for Friday’s hearing will be to unpack the Trump administration’s argument that the attacks are necessary from a national security standpoint.

Even before the US strikes began, the Trump administration began framing the Latin American drug trade as an existential threat to the US.

As part of that re-framing, the administration borrowed messaging from its “global war on terror”, taking the unorthodox approach of labelling several cartels “foreign terrorist organisations”.

Speaking last week at a meeting of Latin American leaders, White House security adviser Stephen Miller maintained there is no “criminal justice solution” to drug cartels.

Instead, he affirmed that the US would use “hard power, military power, lethal force, to protect and defend the American homeland”, even if that meant carrying out deadly operations throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Guisado, however, noted that the administration has admitted that the targeted boats were largely carrying cocaine, not the highly addictive fentanyl responsible for the majority of US drug overdoses.

He explained that the administration has done little to prove its claims that drug traffickers are part of a coordinated effort to destabilise the US.

Such hyperbolic language, Guisado added, could be used as a smokescreen to conceal illegal actions.

“When you invoke national security interest, it seems as if scrutiny and any legitimate analysis or condemnation gets pushed to one side in favour of an ersatz martial law,” Guisado said.

“The idea that you could just proclaim anyone a narcoterrorist and do whatever you want with them is just so repugnant to our system of fairness, justice and law.”

Watt, meanwhile, said he hopes the IACHR will draw a clear “line in the sand”, separating drug crimes from what is conventionally considered an armed conflict.

He also would like to see the IACHR clearly outline the US’s human rights obligations.

“But even if there was an armed conflict — of which there isn’t — the laws of war would prohibit the type of conduct that the United States is engaging in here,” Watt explained.

“It would be an extrajudicial killing. It would be a war crime.”

Transparency or accountability

Friday’s hearing will only be an initial step towards accountability, and critics question how effective the IACHR will ultimately be.

The US has regularly shrugged off human rights probes at international forums, and it is not party to entities like the International Criminal Court in The Hague, raising barriers to the pursuit of justice.

Despite being a member of the OAS, the US has also not ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, one of the organisation’s founding documents.

It is, therefore, unclear how binding any IACHR decisions could be, although Watt argued that it is “longstanding jurisprudence of the commission that the declaration imposes obligations on non-ratifying member states”.

Still, legal experts said Friday’s hearing may yield clarity on the Trump administration’s legal argument for the boat strikes.

The IACHR has said US government representatives are set to appear at the hearing.

To date, the US Department of Justice has not released the Office of Legal Counsel’s official reasoning for the boat strikes, considered the foundational legal document for the military actions.

A separate memorandum from that office addressed the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, which it framed as a drug enforcement action.

That memo touched on the boat strikes, but it only served to raise further questions about Trump’s rationale.

“This will be an opportunity for the United States to put its case before the commission,” Watt said.

“But of course, it depends on US cooperation,” he continued. “They’re going down there, but it’ll be interesting to see what they actually say”.

A video circulating online appears to show signature collectors paying people to sign initiative petitions under other people’s names, according to officials, and now the state has opened an investigation.

The video, filmed by videographer JJ Smith, shows a long queue leading to a table set up at 6th and Mission streets in San Francisco. A man in line says they are being offered $5 to sign petitions. At the table, where there are lists with the information of apparent registered voters, a woman confirms the payment and — using a highlighter — instructs a person on the name and address that she is supposed to use.

“I get $5 too?” the videographer asks.

“Yeah,” says the woman.

“And what is it?”

“Just sign it,” she says.

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Petitions connected to at least three ballot campaigns — including the billionaire-backed effort to thwart California’s proposed billionaire tax — appear in the video.

“I approached some people and asked them what they were there for,” Smith told The Times. “They told me they didn’t know what they were signing for, that they just wanted the $5.”

Smith said he watched the scene for hours and estimated that a few hundred people cycled through the line over roughly two hours.

Those running the table did not ask for anyone’s identification and gave no explanation of what was actually being signed, he said.

The video showed voter data from San Luis Obispo County that was both visible and, as details were spoken aloud, audible in the footage.

The county acted immediately after becoming aware of the video and initiated an investigation through the fraud unit of the California secretary of state’s office, said Erin Clausen, public information officer for the San Luis Obispo county clerk’s office.

Clausen noted that, although voter registration data can be legally requested from county election offices, the data in this case may have been used inappropriately. The county is also planning on reaching out directly to voters who were specifically mentioned or identified in the video, according to Clausen.

“The activity shown in the video, if verified, would violate California election law,” County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano said in a formal statement released Wednesday morning.

The secretary of state’s office confirmed it had opened a formal investigation.

“Under California law, it is illegal to give money or other valuable consideration to another in exchange for their signature on an initiative petition,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “ Those who abuse our system will be held accountable.”

The office is working with local officials and encouraged anyone with information to file a complaint.

One political committee, Californians for a More Transparent and Effective Government, confirmed its petitions were among those whose signature gatherers were allegedly paying people to sign and moved quickly to distance itself from the activity.

“Under no circumstance do we tolerate this type of activity in the signature gathering process,” said spokesperson Molly Weedn. “We’ve taken immediate action and have demanded that the signature gathering firm identify these circulators and reject their petitions.” Weedn said the collectors were subcontractors, not campaign employees, and that attorneys were contacting authorities.

That committee is funded by another group, Building a Better California, which was also among campaigns that appeared in the video. The other was for a proposed initiative called the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act of 2026. Representatives for the latter two have not responded to requests for comment.

Smith said this was not the first time he had witnessed this type of activity in the area.

“I saw something similar with ballots three days ago,” he said.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information can submit a complaint to the Office of the California Secretary of State or contact their local county elections office.

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

March 11 (UPI) — The British Cabinet Office has released files from its investigation into former ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson on Wednesday as it digs into his ties to deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The first batch of documents revealed that Mandelson may have been briefed on classified information before being given security clearance when he was appointed as ambassador. They also show that he requested a large government payout when he was terminated last year.

Mandelson was arrested and then released last month in London over suspicion of misconduct in public office. The allegation stems from emails released in the Epstein files in which Mandelson appears to be sharing market-sensitive confidential information with Epstein.

Documents released by the Cabinet Office share some details after his appointment as ambassador in December 2024. Within days of his being appointed, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office offered to brief Mandelson on highly classified information while he was still being vetted.

Emails about the briefing were shared Dec. 23, 2024, about three days after the announcement of Mandelson’s appointment. It was not until Jan. 30, 2025, that Mandelson received an email confirming that he had cleared the vetting process.

It was in this email that he received a formal offer of employment.

When Mandelson was terminated from his position in September, he requested to be paid the full amount on his contract — more than 500,000 euros or $578,625. Instead, he was paid 75,000 euros or $86,793.75 to terminate the contract.

“As the documents show regarding his severance payment, Peter Mandelson initially requested a sum that was substantially larger than the final payment, not just two or even three times, but more than six times the final amount,” said Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister at the Cabinet office.

“Despite the fact that he was withdrawn from Washington because he had lost the confidence of the prime minister, the government obviously found that to be inappropriate and unacceptable.”

PHOENIX — The Republican leader of Arizona’s state Senate said Monday that he has handed over records related to the 2020 presidential election to the FBI in the latest sign that the Trump administration is acting on the president’s long-standing falsehoods about a race he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Senate President Warren Petersen said in a social media post that he complied “late last week” with a federal grand jury subpoena for records related to a controversial audit of the election in Maricopa County that had been ordered by legislative Republicans.

“The FBI has the records,” Petersen said.

He did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment, and a spokesperson for Senate Republicans said in an email that Petersen “does not have anything to add outside of his X post at this time.” The FBI office in Phoenix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It marks the second time this year that the FBI has obtained records related to the 2020 election from the most populous county in a presidential battleground state, both of which Trump lost as he sought reelection. In January, the FBI seized ballots and other records from Georgia’s Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, after the Justice Department sought a search warrant from a judge. The search warrant affidavit showed that the request relied on years-old claims, many of which had been thoroughly investigated and found to have no connection to widespread fraud.

Arizona Atty. Gen. Kris Mayes, a Democrat, issued a scathing statement in response to Petersen’s post, noting that multiple audits, independent investigations and legal challenges related to the 2020 presidential election found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have affected the outcome.

“Warren Petersen knows all of this. He has known it for years. He spread false stories of election fraud in 2020, and he remains an unrepentant election denier,” Mayes said. “What the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now is not a legitimate law enforcement inquiry. It is the weaponization of federal law enforcement in service of crackpots and lies.”

A firm hired by Republican lawmakers spent six months in 2021 searching for evidence of fraud in the previous year’s presidential election, a process experts said was marred by bias and a flawed methodology. It explored outlandish conspiracy theories, such as dedicating time to checking for bamboo fibers on ballots to see if they were secretly shipped in from Asia.

The audit ended without producing proof to support former President Trump’s false claims of a stolen election — and in fact found that Biden received 360 more votes than stated in the certified results for Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.

The firm, Cyber Ninjas, also acknowledged that there were “no substantial differences” between its hand count of the ballots and the official count.

Previous reviews of the 2.1 million ballots by nonpartisan professionals who followed state law found no significant problem with the 2020 election in Maricopa County, which was run by Republicans then and now. Biden won the county by 45,000 votes and went on to win Arizona by 10,500 votes.

Federal officials took different routes to obtain election records in the two states. The Georgia case involved a judicially approved search warrant that required the FBI to articulate grounds that probable cause exists to believe a crime was committed. In Arizona, the FBI relied on subpoenas, a law enforcement maneuver that does not require judicial sign-off or prosecutors’ assertion there’s probable cause of a crime.

The investigations into the 2020 election come as the Justice Department has clashed with a number of states, including some controlled by Republicans, over access to detailed voter data that include names, dates of birth, addresses and partial Social Security numbers. Election officials have expressed concerns that providing the information would violate both state and federal data privacy laws, and that it could be used to remove people from state voter rolls.

Arizona is among the states the Justice Department has sued to obtain the voter information. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, suggested that at least some Maricopa County voter files could be among the records Petersen gave the FBI. In a statement Monday, Fontes said his office was considering legal options “to secure personal voter information in the 2020 data that was shared.”

Calli Jones, a spokesperson for the secretary of state, said the office is assessing what was released to the FBI.

“This could be an end run by the Department of Justice to obtain unredacted voter files,” she said.

Kelety writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.