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Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Connor Sheets and Sandra McDonald, giving you the latest on city and county government.

We’ve reached the point in L.A.’s city election season where a juicy piece of news is popping off every day.

With a little over two weeks until the June 2 election, the campaigns’ remarks are getting more scathing, the spending more expensive and the scramble by supporters to get their chosen candidates into the top two more intense.

Like everyone else, we’re struggling to keep track of it all. In the meantime, here are a few of the more unusual moments from the past week:

The police union targets fifth-place candidate Rae Huang

You’ve probably heard about the digital attack ads put out by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor warning voters that reality TV personality Spencer Pratt is “the LAST thing Los Angeles needs.”

Savvy political players said it wasn’t an attack ad at all, but rather a thinly veiled bid by the County Fed, a group that supports Mayor Karen Bass, to boost Pratt’s chances of making the Nov. 3 runoff election. Those observers say the mayor and her allies would rather run against Pratt, a Republican in a heavily Democratic city, than Raman during the campaign’s second round.

Now, another ad is up. But this time it’s from the Los Angeles Police Protective League, another union that is backing Bass’ reelection.

The league reported Wednesday that it’s spending about $100,000 on digital ads against mayoral candiate Rae Huang, who has been polling in the single digits.

Like the County Fed ad focused on Pratt, it’s not so much a lacerating attack as it is a list of the candidate’s beliefs.

“She supports the anti-business Green New Deal to increase taxes on corporations to provide free public transportation,” the digital ad says.

Once again, political sophisticates see a ruse, saying the police union is trying to lift Huang’s profile among voters, helping her pull support away from one of Bass’ top rivals, Councilmember Nithya Raman. Such a scheme, if successful, would ensure that Pratt ends up in the top two.

Asked about its new ad, league spokesperson Tom Saggau said the union is alerting voters that Huang “hates cops, corporations and real estate developers and voters should be aware.”

“It’s extremely important for voters to know about Rae Huang’s reckless plans to dismantle the police department and blow the city budget with free public transportation and other giveaways,” he said.

Huang said on social media that the police union is going after her because “they know change is possible.” At the same time, she acknowledged the ads were somewhat flattering.

“I think LAPD’s a little scared of me because they just spent over $100,000 in attack ads against me,” she said in a campaign video. “But they’re making me look good, so … thank you!”

Rob Quan, who is part of the advocacy group Unrig LA, replied to Huang at one point on X.

“They aren’t trying to stop you they are trying to boost you,” he wrote.

Raman backers really want Huang to drop out

With the primary campaign nearly over, impatient Raman supporters have been taking matters into their own hands, calling on Huang to drop out and ensure that Bass faces an opponent to her left.

Evan Goodrich, a Raman voter who lives in Echo Park, said he wants Raman in the top two. Voters shouldn’t squander their chance at getting a progressive mayor and creating change at City Hall, he told The Times.

Goodrich, 31, was more blunt on social media.

“Your campaign is broke, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning, and you’re costing us the most progressive viable candidate we have. It’s time to drop out!!!” he wrote, in a response to a Huang post.

Huang, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, said she’s not going anywhere.

During a Q-and-A posted on Reddit, she pushed back at the idea that her campaign is splintering the progressive vote, arguing that she views Raman as “neoliberal,” not progressive.

Raman has shifted her positions on police hiring, anti-encampment laws and Measure ULA, the tax on high-end real estate sales, Huang’s campaign said.

“I would not consider Nithya to be a progressive candidate, full stop. I do see her as being continuing to be a part of the establishment,” Huang said.

Huang did acknowledge that she sees Raman as being to the left of Bass.

Raman accuses Bass of ‘pay-to-play’ politics

As she battles to get into the top two, Raman launched a broadside against Bass this week, accusing her of engaging in multiple “pay-to-play” deals.

In a burst of social media posts, she accused Bass of negotiating “a sweetheart LAPD Union contract that bankrupted the city and a convention center expansion that will cost us over $4 billion after debt payments.” Special interests that supported those deals are now reciprocating, Raman said, by campaigning for the mayor.

Raman offered what she said is a fresh example of pay-to-play politics: the mayor’s push to allow owners of second homes to rent those places out on Airbnb or other short-term platforms, a practice currently prohibited by city law.

The Central City Assn., which supports the move, announced plans this week to spend $1 million on a campaign supporting Bass. A large part of its funding is coming from Airbnb, which also favors the idea. The downtown-based business group also supported Bass on the Convention Center.

“This is what pay-to-play politics looks like,” Raman said.

Bass has been defending her policy moves, saying the police raises were needed to keep officers from taking more lucrative jobs in other cities. The Convention Center expansion will boost tourism and a struggling downtown, Bass said.

The mayor also reiterated her support for the vacation rental policy, saying it would only be temporary, generating additional taxes for the city while ensuring more beds are available for the 2028 Olympic Games.

Bass campaign spokesperson Alex Stack called the allegations “another conspiracy theory from a failing candidate who is grasping at straws after her debate disasters and polling showing she won’t make the runoff.”

“The City should absolutely be exploring every way to maximize the economic benefit from the Olympics and to generate revenues paid by visitors, not Angelenos,” he said in a statement.

Nella McOsker, who heads the CCA, struck a similar note, praising Bass for supporting pro-business policies and calling Raman’s assertions “ridiculous.”

Wait, there’s a sheriff’s race?

If the mayor’s race has been blowing up, the contest for Los Angeles County Sheriff has been downright sleepy.

Sheriff Robert Luna, now seeking a second 4-year term, holds a substantial financial edge over the rest of the field, according to the most recent batch of fundraising reports.

In mid-April, Luna had more than $738,000 cash on hand, compared to about $114,000 for former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who is attempting a comeback. Each of the other challengers had less than $50,000, spending reports show.

Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Bornman, one of the eight candidates running to unseat Luna, said the campaign had a single candidate forum in Compton, and that neither Luna nor Villanueva took part.

State of play

— BERN NOTICE: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Friday he is endorsing a handful of council candidates: Eunisses Hernandez on the Eastside, Hugo Soto–Martínez in Hollywood, Faizah Malik on the Westside and Estuardo Mazariegos in South L.A. Sanders is also backing Deputy Atty. Gen. Marissa Roy in her bid for city attorney.

— HITTING THE MOTHERLODE: You can’t put a price on a mother’s love. Or can you? The independent expenditure committee working to elect city controller candidate Zach Sokoloff, bankrolled by his mother Sheryl Sokoloff, continued its campaign spending spree this week, reporting it had paid out nearly $4.8 million by Thursday. The latest tranche of money went toward attack ads against City Controller Kenneth Mejia.

— WAGE WARS: The City Council took the first step Wednesday toward scaling back a planned $30 hourly minimum wage for hotel and airport workers, in the hope of persuading business leaders to drop a planned ballot measure to repeal the city’s business tax. Under the plan, the hourly wage would reach $30 in 2030, instead of summer 2028. The move is not final and more deliberations are planned next week.

— OLYMPIC ANGST: State lawmakers pressed organizers of the 2028 Olympic Games about the effort to secure federal funding, pointing to Trump’s animosity toward California. Joey Freeman, vice president of state affairs for the LA28 Organizing Committee, assured legislators that his committee has a “wonderful working relationship” with the Trump administration. L.A. is on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars if the games lose serious money.

— POLL POSITION: A new voter survey showed Bass continuing to lead the pack of candidates in the mayor’s race, with Pratt in second and Raman third. Paul Mitchell, vice president of voter data firm Political Data Inc., questioned the poll’s accuracy, saying it oversampled Latinos and undersampled people over 50.

— DUMPING THE DEBATE: The FOX11 mayoral debate that had been planned for this week was canceled after Bass and Raman pulled out. Pratt had already declined to attend the event.

— TARGETING TAXES: L.A. County voters historically have been generous about sales tax hikes, signing off on increases to pay for public transit and homeless servcies. But with the public reeling from soaring gas prices and other rising costs, some are wondering if they will get behind Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax hike to pay for healthcare programs.

— DIGITAL FIRST: TV ads used to dominate in L.A. mayoral campaigns. But this year, candidates have been relying heavily on social media, posting snappy, off-the-cuff videos in the hope of going viral.

— REALITY, STARS: Songwriter/producer David Foster and his wife Katharine McPhee held a star-studded fundraiser for Pratt at their home, one that featured McPhee singing a parodied version of Tina Turner’s “The Best,” according to a video posted on X. Pratt has been scooping up donations from a number of Hollywood players, including Universal Music Group chief executive Lucian Grainge and Sandra Rebish, also known as TLC’s Dr. Pimple Popper.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness went to Boyle Heights this week, tackling encampments at Hollenbeck Park and at the entry to the Sixth Street Bridge. The area is represented by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado.
• On the docket next week: The council meets Tuesday to take another stab at renegotiating the terms of the $30-per-hour wage hike for airport and hotel workers.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Iranian media outlets are reporting that a port on Iran’s largest island in the Strait of Hormuz came under attack. However, details are scant at the moment and no images have emerged to support the claims. We have reached out to U.S. Central Command for more information. The reports come as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran to end the war have been ongoing during a fragile ceasefire that would be further imperiled by a new round of fighting.

This story has been updated with new information from CENTCOM that it attacked Iranian targets in response to U.S. Navy destroyers being fired on by Iran.

“FARS investigations in Bandar Abbas show that during the exchange of fire between the Iranian armed forces and the enemy, parts of the commercial area of Bahman Qeshm pier were targeted,” the official Iranian FARS news outlet reported on Telegram.

Emma Raducanu is targeting a return to the WTA Tour in Strasbourg in two weeks’ time following her withdrawal from the Italian Open on health grounds.

The British number one is, however, reliant on a wildcard having missed the entry deadline.

Raducanu, 23, was granted a wildcard for last year’s WTA 500 event and beat top 20 player Daria Kasatkina, before losing to American Danielle Collins.

The tournament, which starts on 17 May, has not yet confirmed whether a wildcard will be forthcoming.

Russia has continued heavy attacks on Ukraine for the past 24 hours, with several coming overnight on Thursday and in the early hours of Friday. At least one person has been killed and several have been injured.

A Russian drone attack overnight damaged port infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region and wounded two people in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said on Friday morning.

Two high-rise residential buildings were damaged in the attack, which destroyed apartments and caused fires, Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“This night, Russia again massively attacked the civilian infrastructure of the Odesa region: two people were injured,” he said.

Kiper noted that two multistorey residential buildings in Odesa were damaged by drone strikes. Apartments were destroyed and fires broke out at the sites of the hits, and all necessary assistance was being provided to the victims.

The Russian army also attacked the Black Sea shipbuilding town of Mykolaiv with drones, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych reported on Facebook.

“As a result of the impact, there is damage in the private sector, and a fire also broke out,” he wrote. He warned residents that the threat is ongoing and urged people to remain sheltered.

On Thursday night, Ukraine launched its fourth drone attack in the past week on Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse, as it continues to target Russian energy infrastructure in a bid to halt oil revenues.

“In Tuapse, as a result of a drone ⁠attack by the ⁠Kyiv regime, a fire broke out on the territory ⁠of the seaport ⁠terminal,” the General ⁠Headquarters in the Krasnodar Region reported on Telegram. It ‌added that emergency crews were working at ‌the ‌site.

Russia hits central Ukraine

The Russian army attacked three districts of the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine “almost 20 times” with drones and artillery, the head of the Regional Military Administration (OVA), Oleksandr Ganzha, wrote on Telegram.

Ganzha reported that infrastructure was damaged in Kryvyi Rih, where one person was injured.

Ukraine’s news outlet Interfax reported that there were strikes on the Synelnyky district, the Dubovykivska and Petropavlivska communities, where a garage and a car were burned, and residences were damaged.

In the Nikopol district, communities in Nikopol, Marhanetska and Chervonohryhorivska have been affected. A private house was occupied and infrastructure, a petrol station, an administrative building and buses were damaged, Interfax reported.

In Kherson, attacks by drones have continued for the past 24 hours in Kherson, Zymivnyk, Komyshany and Zelenivka.

The head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, Yaroslav Shanko, wrote on Telegram: “Over the past day, 4 settlements in the Kherson community have been subjected to enemy attacks. As a result of Russian attacks in the Kherson community, 1 person was killed and 8 were injured.”

Private houses and multistorey buildings, an administrative building, warehouses, buses and civilian cars have been damaged.

The most decorated American Olympian in athletics, Felix won her only solo gold in the 200m at London in 2012, but also topped the 4x400m relay podium at every Games between 2008 and the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games.

She also won 4x100m relay titles in 2012 and 2016, and took 200m silver in 2004 and 2008, along with 400m silver and bronze in Rio and Tokyo respectively.

The LA native also won a record 20 medals at the World Championships, the most for any woman or man, including 14 titles.

Felix, who also has a daughter born in 2018, attended the 2024 Paris Olympics as a spectator and said she experienced “mixed emotions”.

“There were moments where I was like, ‘Oh, this is so great. It’s so exciting to be in the stands and on the other side,'” Felix told Time magazine, external.

“And then there were moments where I was, ‘You know, I miss this feeling’.”

Felix, a member of the athletes commission for the 2028 LA Olympic organising committee, said she is realistic about her comeback.

“I know, at 40, I am not at my peak. I have no illusions about that,” she added. “I’m very clear in what it is and what I want to see. And so I hope it’s seen that way.

“When I was competing, you just heard this roar for host-country athletes at the Olympics. I would love to experience that.

“I would probably be upset at myself if I just didn’t give it a try. However it turns out, I’ll still be there with my kids, hanging out and cheering everybody on.”

April 14 (Asia Today) — Circle is stepping up efforts to expand its stablecoin footprint in South Korea, aiming to challenge the dominance of Tether through a dual strategy focused on trading and payments.

Tether currently accounts for more than 80% of stablecoin transactions in South Korea and over 60% globally, according to industry data. Circle’s USD Coin, or USD Coin, holds a much smaller share in Korea, at around 10%.

Industry officials said Circle recently met with major South Korean exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb and Coinone, to expand USDC trading and improve accessibility. The move is aimed at securing liquidity in one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency markets.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire visited South Korea this week and signed agreements with local exchanges and fintech firms to promote stablecoin adoption.

With Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, Circle is working on initiatives focused on regulatory compliance, transparency and user education. With Bithumb, the companies agreed to explore integration of multi-chain digital asset infrastructure and stablecoin technologies. Promotions such as fee discounts and airdrops are also being used to boost USDC trading on platforms like Coinone.

Beyond exchange trading, Circle is also expanding its payment infrastructure. The company is promoting its proprietary network to support real-world payments and cross-border transfers, including partnerships with South Korean fintech firm Hecto Financial.

Analysts say this reflects a broader strategy to compete with Tether not only in trading volume but also in real-world financial use cases.

USDC is backed by cash and U.S. Treasury assets and publishes regular disclosures, a structure that has made it attractive to financial institutions. It also operates across multiple blockchain networks, offering flexibility in transaction speed and fees.

Data suggests USDC has gained traction in payments and transfers. According to industry estimates, its on-chain transaction volume reached about $17 trillion last year, exceeding Tether’s roughly $12.9 trillion, indicating stronger usage in real-world transactions rather than exchange trading.

Experts say competition between the two stablecoins is shifting from market share to function.

“Stablecoin competition is no longer about issuance volume but about use cases,” said Gautam Chughani of CoinShares, adding that USDC is expanding rapidly in payments and institutional finance.

Analysts say Tether is likely to maintain its strength in trading liquidity, while USDC could gain ground through integration with the broader financial system.

Circle said it does not plan to issue a Korean won-pegged stablecoin directly, signaling instead that it may participate as a technology provider in a future bank-led consortium structure.

— 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=20260415010004432