watchdog

Body finds that chatbots provide biased advice, including by leading voters to the hard-right Party for Freedom.

The Netherlands’s data protection watchdog has cautioned citizens against consulting with artificial intelligence on how to vote, warning that popular chatbots provide a “highly distorted and polarised view” of politics.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority said on Tuesday that an increasing number of voters were using AI to help decide who to vote for, despite the models offering “unreliable and clearly biased” advice.

The watchdog issued the warning as it released the results of tests conducted on four popular chatbots – ChatGPT, Gemini, Mistral, and Grok – in the run-up to parliamentary elections on October 29.

The research found that the chatbots more often recommended parties on the fringes of the political spectrum when asked to identify the three choices that best matched the policy preferences of 1,500 fictitious voter profiles.

In more than half of cases, the AI models identified the hard-right Party for Freedom (PVV) or left-wing Green Left-Labour Party as the top choice, the watchdog said.

Parties closer to the political middle ground – such as the right-leaning People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy and the centre-left Democrats 66 – were recommended much less often, according to the watchdog.

Meanwhile, some groupings, including the conservative Christian Democratic Appeal and left-leaning Denk, were “almost never suggested”.

Monique Verdier, deputy chair of the authority, said that voters who turned to AI risked being encouraged to vote for parties that do not align with their preferences.

“This directly impacts a cornerstone of democracy: the integrity of free and fair elections. We therefore urge voters not to use AI chatbots for voting advice because their operation is neither transparent nor verifiable,” Verdier said in a statement.

“Additionally, we call on chatbot providers to prevent their systems from being used as voting guides.”

The October 29 election comes after the PVV, led by anti-immigration firebrand Geert Wilders, pulled its support for the government after its coalition partners refused to back a 10-point plan to radically curtail immigration.

Wilders’s PPV, which scored one of the biggest upsets in Dutch political history by winning the most seats in the 2023 election, has consistently led opinion polls before next week’s vote.

While the PPV is on track to win the most seats for a second straight election, it is all but certain to fall far short of a parliamentary majority.

The other major parties in the Netherlands, which has been governed by coalition governments without interruption since the 1940s, have all ruled out supporting the PPV in power.

In the late 1990s and early aughts, the conservative Parents Television Council struck fear in the hearts of network TV executives for its high-profile campaigns against shows it deemed too raunchy.

The watchdog group, founded by conservative commentator L. Brent Bozell III, railed against Fox’s “Melrose Place” and “Family Guy”; NBC’s “Just Shoot Me”; and the CW’s “Gossip Girl.” It also singled out CBS following the infamous Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake “nipplegate” controversy during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show when the singer’s breast was briefly exposed.

But the Parents Television Council Inc. — whose members lodged thousands of indecency complaints with the Federal Communications Commission — has folded. Earlier this month, the Burbank-based nonprofit filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Delaware court, saying it had $284,823 in liabilities, which include staff member salaries, insurance payments and credit card debt. The filing lists $91,874 in assets.

The group’s demise reflects broad cultural changes, including a fractured media environment and consumers’ shift to streaming and social media apps such as TikTok for entertainment. Parents also have tools, including the ability to configure settings on streaming accounts to try to shield children from inappropriate content.

The PTC’s power came, in large part, from its ability to flood the FCC with indecency complaints. But the FCC, which licenses broadcasters, does not regulate streaming services, YouTube or TikTok.

The council had clout with advertisers, which put pressure on network programmers to minimize shows that would raise the group’s ire and threats of boycotts.

“I’m disappointed but I’m still very proud of what we did and what we achieved,” Tim Winter, former president of the group, said Friday. “We were able to raise awareness about so many important issues — issues that are still out there.”

“Like most businesses, it came down to money,” said Winter, who retired three years ago. “It’s just a slog out there to fundraise.”

Decades ago, the group hauled in millions of dollars in donations. The PTC boasted more than 653,000 members and supporters by 2000. However, in 2023, the most recent year of available tax reports, the Parents Television Council raised just $1.6 million, down from $4.7 million in 2007.

The group, which also went by Parents Television and Media Council, was formed in 1995 by Bozell as the Hollywood arm of his Virginia-based Media Research Center.

Bozell, long a booster of President Trump, now serves in his administration as ambassador to South Africa.

One of the PTC’s early efforts was to urge broadcasters to reserve the 8 p.m. hour for family-friendly fare. That was the custom of the networks in the 1970s; but two decades later, there was a rise in sexually suggestive content.

Over the years, the group hired analysts to monitor TV programming, published detailed reports and TV show rankings. Winter testified before a U.S. Senate committee hearing in 2007 on the impact of media violence on children.

Advertisers were sensitive to the PTC’s warnings.

“We were able to redirect tens of millions of dollars away from more explicit programming and into more family-friendly shows,” Winter said.

The PTC also spoke out against media consolidation, which accelerated in the 1990s, “the problem of having too few voices hold the microphone,” Winter said.

While it initially focused on broadcast shows, the group went after others, including Netflix when it offered the show “13 Reasons Why,” based on a book about a 17-year-old girl who died by suicide. The PTC, and other organizations, decried the series, fearing it would encourage more deaths.

Netflix responded by deleting a graphic suicide scene, and the show was later canceled.

“The media culture is no less toxic than it was years ago. And in some ways, it is more toxic,” Winter said, adding that other organizations will have to carry the mantle. “The mission is more important than ever.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday that will allow police oversight officials investigating misconduct to access confidential law enforcement personnel records, a change that watchdogs have argued will increase accountability for officers who break the rules.

Los Angeles County advocates and members of the county’s Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission pushed for months in support of AB 847. The legislation comes in response to what proponents have described as efforts by the sheriff’s departments in L.A. and other counties to stymie access to sensitive records.

When it takes effect on Jan. 1, the new law will “grant access to the confidential personnel records of peace officers and custodial officers … to civilian law enforcement oversight boards or commissions during investigations” into officers’ conduct, according to the bill’s legislative summary.

Hans Johnson, the chair of L.A. County’s Civilian Oversight Commission, said it’s a much-needed change.

“I’m pleased because this has been a long road,” he said in a phone call Monday night. “Tonight is a moment of vindication.”

The Sheriff’s Department wrote in a statement that “the passage of AB 847 provides clarity to a long-standing legal issue that has been the subject of contention between the Department and its Civilian Oversight Commission (COC) since its inception.” It added that the “Department will work with County Counsel, labor representatives, and the COC on the implementation of this new law.”

Some law enforcement unions and advocacy groups criticized the law.

Lt. Steve Johnson, president of the L.A. County Professional Peace Officers Assn., said in an email that his organization “fully understand[s] the intent to enhance civilian oversight,” but when “access to confidential records isn’t safeguarded with precision and responsibility, it opens the door to real dangers. Transparency must never come at the cost of personal safety or public trust.”

Newsom’s office did not immediately provide a comment Monday.

Johnson said the bill’s signing is an especially meaningful victory for the families of people such as Joseph Perez and Emmett Brock, who were beaten by L.A. County sheriff’s deputies in 2020 and 2023, respectively. He also cited the case of Andres Guardado, who was shot to death by deputies in 2023, “and others who were the subjects of efforts by our commission to get records disclosed to us under subpoena about sheriff deputies’ encounters and beatings.”

In a phone call Monday night, Vanessa Perez, Joseph’s mother, called the law’s signing a “big victory not just for Joseph, but for all families impacted by the Sheriff’s Department.”

Perez said she expects the new law will allow the Civilian Oversight Commission to review previously off-limits records about the deputies who beat her son and redacted portions of other documents.

She and other members of the general public will not be able to access the records, as the law requires “oversight boards to maintain the confidentiality of those records, and would authorize them to conduct closed sessions, as specified, to review confidential records,” according to its legislative summary.

Still, Perez is hopeful her son’s case will benefit from the additional disclosure now allowable under AB 847.

Robert Bonner, a former federal judge and former chair of L.A. County’s Civilian Oversight Commission who has said he was abruptly removed from that post earlier this year, praised the bill’s signing in an email Tuesday.

The law “will be essential to holding accountable those who use excessive force against members of the public,” Bonner wrote. “This is a big deal. This is a quantum leap forward for civilian oversight commissions.”

It’s hard to imagine a stranger twist to the MAGA’s “war on woke” than FBI Director Kash Patel’s announcement that the Bureau is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In a social media post, Patel wrote that the agency won’t partner with “political fronts masquerading as watchdogs”. The decision came after right-wing backlash over the ADL’s inclusion of Turning Point USA and its late leader, Charlie Kirk, in its “glossary of extremism”.

Not surprisingly, the organisation, with whom the FBI had collaborated on issues related to tracking anti-Semitism and other forms of extremism for well over half a century, quickly declared much of its “research” “outdated” and began scrubbing its websites of criticism of conservative figures and organisations.

Patel is certainly not wrong that the ADL is a deeply political organisation. Although it was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all”, since the 1970s, the organisation has focused ever more intently on shielding Israel from criticism. In parallel, it has also monitored right-wing racist and anti-LGBTQ+ extremism so that it could remain solidly within the liberal Jewish fold in the US.

Today, the ADL claims to be one of the country’s leading organisations fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of hate. But in fact, its primary mission continues to be to protect Israel from any criticism by using its considerable resources to ensure that any serious, systematic criticism of its policies, even by Jews, be considered – and when possible, punished – as anti-Semitic.

The ADL was a close partner to the Joe Biden administration in its campaign against pro-Palestinian mobilisation on university campuses, and until last week, it was a close partner to Donald Trump’s administration, as well. It is under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism on campuses that the organisation has contributed to the massive assault on freedom of dissent and freedom of thought in US higher education.

When pro-Palestinian demonstrations broke out at Columbia University in 2024, triggering a wave of similar protest action across the country, the ADL led the charge against the university, calling for “swift action” on “virulent antisemitism” on college campuses. For the Biden administration, a quick and harsh crackdown on campus protests was critical to enable it to pursue its policy of unconditional support for Israel’s ever more violent prosecution of the war in Gaza without major public backlash.

For the Trump administration, the ADL and other pro-Israel Jewish organisations served another purpose: their relentless focus on the “new anti-Semitism” that overlapped seamlessly with anti-Zionism and that was allegedly infecting higher education, was the perfect cudgel with which to bludgeon universities into submission.

By working closely with the government, the ADL was able to engage in the classic “arsonist and fireman” scam: accusing universities across the country of anti-Semitism, and then offering itself as the organisation that could put out the anti-Jewish fire.

How does the trick work? The ADL continuously puts out statements criticising universities for enabling or doing nothing to combat anti-Semitism on campus. In particular, its Antisemitism Report Card – which has faced strong criticism for its flawed methodology – grades schools across the country on the prevalence of anti-Semitism on their campuses.

Similar to the US News and World Report college rankings, a bad ADL “grade” can tarnish a school’s reputation with an important segment of the college-aged population. Accusations of anti-Semitism would then motivate leading university donors to threaten to withdraw their support.

Given its access to centres of political power – at least until now – the ADL has been suitably positioned to collaborate on addressing alleged anti-Semitism on university campuses and reassuring donors and the government.

And so, for example, in July, Columbia announced it was partnering with ADL to create programmes aimed at combating anti-Semitism.

How much is the ADL paid for this and other collaborations? Calls and emails to the ADL requesting comment were not returned, but from its own statements, it is clear that the organisation has “collaborations” and “partnerships” with a large number of universities across the country through various programmes – the exact number is not public.

To cite one in-house statistic, the ADL boasted that “over 56,000 faculty, staff, administrators and students on 900 college and university campuses nationwide have participated” in its Campus of Difference programmes, although it seems the programme, similar to the “glossary of extremism”, was pulled offline since Trump returned to power, possibly because it used terms like “diversity” and “inclusion”.

The ADL has not been the only one benefitting from whipping up the anti-Semitism campaign on university campuses.

Brown University, which also reached an agreement with the Trump administration earlier this year, has made a pledge to increase cooperation with Hillel. So did UPenn, which now allows donations to Hillel to be made directly through the university. Most damning for me as a University of California faculty member is UCLA’s recent pledge of $2.3m to “eight organizations that combat antisemitism,” including the ADL and Hillel. All eight are unremittingly pro-Israel.

With all this, the ADL, along with other pro-Israel organisations, have played a central role in the coup-de-grace against academic freedom and shared governance, forcing university leaderships to pivot to the right in order to maintain tens of billions of dollars in mostly science funding. They have facilitated the larger project of remaking the university as a system for regenerating mindless conservatism throughout society.

The question that has arisen with the sudden frontal assault by senior Trump administration officials and conservative figures is whether, having played their role all too well, these pro-Israel organisations are no longer needed, and the markedly increasing anti-Israel – and anti-Semitic – rhetoric among Trump’s base will now have freer rein. In hindsight, the ADL’s obsequious support for Elon Musk after his Nazi salute and anti-Semitic comments may well be owed to a sense among the leadership that it would be on shakier ground with Trump than it was with Biden.

Another hint at this realisation comes from ADL’s claim in a newly released report to care for “Jewish faculty under fire” from colleagues and protesters who portray themselves as “anti-Zionist, but [are] truly anti-Semitic”.

This kind of whingeing at a moment when pro-Israel forces had unprecedented support at the highest levels of power reveals a discourse of infantilisation of Jews that is damning in its own right, but also likely indicative of a growing insecurity within the pro-Israel establishment. Suddenly the victim of conservative ire, it needs Jews to feel even more afraid to maintain already fraying support within the community.

Yet an unintended consequence of the ADL being on the outs with Trump and his forces would be to give Jewish faculty and students more room to breathe and to understand the relative privilege, and responsibility, of our position today. It certainly would be welcome.

Seventy years ago, my mother was refused entry to Columbia because of an openly acknowledged Jewish quota. Thirty years later, when I attended the City University of New York, accusations by some CUNY faculty that Jews predominated in the slave trade were mixed with Black-Hasidic violence in Brooklyn and the growing popularity of the Nation of Islam to create an ostensibly toxic brew for Jewish students attending an urban public college.

The ADL was around then, but was focusing on spying on the anti-Apartheid movement – a policy it continues today with progressive activists – and defending Israel against the incipient movements against the occupation. We, Jewish college students, were largely and thankfully left to our own devices. Like every other – far more oppressed – minority, we learned what to ignore and what to learn from, when to stand our ground or fight, and when to let things go. In other words, how to navigate and deal with the discomforts of life as an adult.

The Trump-MAGA slapdown of ADL might well open space for the growing criticism of Israel and for everyone to grow up just a bit when it comes to debating Palestine-Israel. Whether university leaderships seize the opportunity to assert more independence and defend academic freedom or continue to sell out and name names remains, tragically, an open question.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Conservatives like billionaire Elon Musk had criticised the Southern Poverty Law Center for its criticism of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States has announced that the bureau will end its partnership with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), as it seeks to distance itself from organisations it accuses of political bias.

On Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on social media that “all ties with the SPLC have officially been terminated”.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” Patel wrote.

He reserved criticism for the centre’s interactive “hate map”, which identifies groups associated with hate and antigovernment activity and maps their bases of operation.

“Their so-called ‘hate map’ has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence. That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership,” Patel said.

Patel’s announcement marks the second time this week the FBI has severed ties with a group that seeks to track threats to civil rights.

On Thursday, the FBI also cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), accusing the Jewish advocacy group and anti-Semitism watchdog of spying on conservatives.

The announcements amount to a dramatic rethinking of longstanding FBI partnerships with prominent civil rights groups, at a time when Patel is moving rapidly to reshape the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.

Over the years, both organisations have provided research on hate crime and domestic extremism; law enforcement training; and other services. But they have also been criticised by some conservatives for what they claim is an unfair maligning of their viewpoints.

That criticism escalated after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Outrage after Kirk’s shooting brought renewed attention to the SPLC’s characterisation of the group Kirk founded, Turning Point USA.

For instance, the SPLC included a section on Turning Point in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as a “case study in the hard right”.

Prominent figures including Elon Musk lambasted the SPLC this week about its descriptions of Kirk and the organisation.

“Incitement to violence by evil propaganda organisations like SPLC is unacceptable,” Musk wrote. He added, “This is getting innocent people killed,” without elaborating further.

A spokesperson for the SPLC, a legal and advocacy group founded in 1971, did not directly address Patel’s comments in a statement Friday.

But the spokesperson said the organisation has shared data with the public for decades and remains “committed to exposing hate and extremism as we work to equip communities with knowledge and defend the rights and safety of marginalised people”.

Criticism from the far-right of the SPLC stretches back well before Patel’s announcement.

Republican lawmakers have long accused the SPLC of unfairly targeting conservatives. In October 2023, Senators James Lankford and Chuck Grassley urged the FBI to cut ties with the group, calling it biased and unreliable for labelling faith-based and conservative organisations as “hate groups”.

They argued that the SPLC was not a neutral civil-rights watchdog, but a partisan actor whose data must be banned from official use.

An oversight body that has documented and exposed substandard jail conditions for decades would cease to exist if the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors moves forward with a cost-cutting plan.

L.A. County could save about $40,000 a year by eliminating the Sybil Brand Commission, according to an August report prepared for the supervisors by the board’s Executive Office.

The Sybil Brand Commission’s 10 members serve a key oversight role, regularly conducting unannounced inspections of county jails and lockups.

Named for a philanthropist and activist who worked to improve jail conditions for women in L.A. starting in the 1940s, the commission’s findings were recently cited in a state lawsuit over what Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called a “humanitarian crisis” inside the county jails.

“In June 2024, the Sybil Brand Commission reported that multiple dorms at Men’s Central were overcrowded with broken toilets … and ceilings that had been painted over to cover mold,” Bonta’s office wrote in its complaint, which seeks to compel reforms by the county and sheriff’s department.

The recommendation to “sunset” the commission comes amid a spike in in-custody deaths with 38 so far this year, which puts the county on track for what Bonta’s office said would mark at least a 20-year high.

The Executive Office for the Board of Supervisors responded to questions from The Times with a statement Friday that said its report’s “purpose was not to eliminate oversight or input,” but to demonstrate “where responsibilities overlap and where efficiencies could strengthen oversight and support.”

The unattributed statement said the report found issues with “commissioner availability” that led to meeting cancellations and put “limits on their ability to conduct inspections.”

The Sybil Brand Commission took up the possibility of elimination at its meeting earlier this month, when commissioners and advocates railed against the proposal as a shortsighted way to cut costs that will leave county inmates more vulnerable to mistreatment and neglect.

In a separate move, the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors is reassigning or eliminating a third of Inspector General Max Huntsman’s staff, slashing funding to the watchdog that investigates misconduct by county employees and the sheriff’s department, according to Huntsman.

“At the back of all this is the fundamental question of whether the board wants oversight at all,” Eric Miller, a Sybil Brand commissioner, said in an interview.

Miller added that the “sunsetting of Sybil Brand seems to be part of a persistent attempt to control and limit oversight of the sheriff’s department.”

The report from the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors said its recommendation to do away with the jail oversight body came after a review of “225 commissions, committees, boards, authorities, and task forces” funded by the county. The proposal would “sunset” six commissions, including Sybil Brand, and “potentially merge” 40 others.

The report noted that “jail and detention inspection duties are also monitored by the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission.”

But that commission, which was established less than a decade ago, takes on a broader range of issues within the sheriff’s department, from deputy misconduct to so-called deputy gangs. Unlike Sybil Brand, its members do not go on frequent tours of jails and publish detailed reports documenting the conditions.

The Executive Office’s statement said “unannounced jail inspections would continue, either through a COC subcommittee or coordinated oversight structure.”

Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the proposal to get rid of the commission is the latest in a recent succession of blows to law enforcement accountability.

That list includes the ousting of former Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission chair Robert Bonner earlier this year, and the introduction last week of a county policy requiring oversight bodies to submit many of their communications to the county for approval.

Eliasberg said losing the Sybil Brand Commission would be a major setback.

“Sybil Brand has been incredibly effective in shining a really harsh spotlight on some terrible things going on in the jails,” he said. “Sybil Brand, I think, has done some really important work.”

Huntsman, the inspector general, said during a Probation Oversight Commission meeting Monday that his office expects to lose a third of its staff. The “current plan proposes to eliminate 14 positions including vacancies,” according to the Executive Office statement.

Huntsman told the commission that the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors informed him on Sept. 11 that “a number of positions in my office will be taken away from me and moved to the Executive Office and will no longer be available for independent oversight.”

The inspector general added that “there’s a group of staff that have been specifically identified by the Executive Office and taken away, and then there are positions that are curtailed. So the end result is we have a third fewer people, which will impact our operations.”

The Executive Office’s statement said the changes would “save more than $3.95 million” and avoid “deeper cuts” elsewhere.

“We remain confident that the OIG’s remaining staffing levels will allow the OIG to fulfill its essential duties and carry out its mandate,” the statement said.

Late Friday afternoon, Edward Yen, executive officer for the Board of Supervisors, sent out an email “retracting” the new county policy that required many communications by oversight bodies to undergo prior approval.

“While the intent of the policy was to provide long-requested structure and support for commissions and oversight bodies,” Yen wrote, “we recognize that its rollout created confusion and unintended consequences.”

L.A. County’s watchdogs suddenly need to ask permission before barking to the press and public.

County oversight officials and civil rights advocates are raising concerns about a new policy they say improperly limits their rights to communicate — including with other members of local government.

The policy, enacted Sept. 11, requires oversight officials to send many types of communications to the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors for approval.

The policy says “press releases, advisories, public statements, social media content, and any direct outreach to the BOS or their staff” must be “reviewed, approved and coordinated” before being released publicly or sent to other county officials.

The policy says the change “ensures that messaging aligns with County priorities, protects sensitive relationships, and maintains a unified public voice.”

Eric Miller, a member of the Sybil Brand Commission, which conducts inspections and oversight of L.A. County jails, said the policy is the latest example of the county “attempting to limit the oversight of the Sheriff’s Department.” He said he made the remarks as a private citizen because he was concerned the new communications policy barred him from speaking to the media in his role as an oversight official.

Michael Kapp, communications manager for the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors, said in an email that he personally drafted the policy shortly after he started in his position in July and discovered there “was no existing communications guidance whatsoever for commissions and oversight bodies.”

“Without clear guidance,” he said, “commissions and oversight bodies – most of which do not have any communications staff – were developing their own ad hoc practices, which led to inconsistent messaging, risks of misinformation, and deeply uneven engagement with the Board, the media, and the public.”

Although it is increasingly common for government agencies to tightly restrict how employees communicate with the press and public, L.A. County oversight officials had enjoyed broad latitude to speak their minds. The watchdogs have been vocal about a range of issues, including so-called deputy gangs in the Sheriff’s Department and grim jail conditions.

Some questioned the timing of the policy, which comes after a recent run of negative headlines, scandals and hefty legal payouts to victims of violence and discrimination by law enforcement.

Long-time Los Angeles Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission Chair Robert C. Bonner presides over the commission‘s meeting at St. Anne’s Family Services in Los Angeles on June 26, 2025. Bonner says he has since been forced out of his position as chair.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Longtime Los Angeles Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission chair Robert Bonner said he was ousted this summer as he and his commission made a forceful push for more transparency.

In February, former commission Chair Sean Kennedy resigned after a dispute with county lawyers, stating at the time that it was “not appropriate for the County Counsel to control the COC’s independent oversight decisions.”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced this month that his office is suing L.A. County and the Sheriff’s Department over a “humanitarian crisis” that has contributed to a surge in jail deaths.

Kapp said the policy came about solely “to ensure stronger, more effective communication between oversight bodies, the public, and the Board of Supervisors.”

Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, called the policy “troubling” and said it appears to allow the county to tell “Sybil Brand you’ve got to tone it down, or telling COC this isn’t the message the board wants to put out.”

“I learn about this policy right around the same time the state attorney general sues the county over horrific conditions in the jails,” Eliasberg said.

“There’s a ton of stuff in that lawsuit about Sybil Brand and Sybil Brand reports,” he added, citing commission findings that exposed poor conditions and treatment inside county jails, including vermin and roach infestations, spoiled food and insufficient mental health treatment for inmates.

Some current and former oversight officials said the new policy leaves a number of unanswered questions — including what happens if they ignore it and continue to speak out.

Kapp, the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors official who drafted the policy, said in his statement that “adherence is mandatory. That said, the goal is not punishment – it’s alignment and support.”

During the Civilian Oversight Commission’s meeting on Thursday, Hans Johnson, the commission’s chair, made fiery comments about the policy, calling it “reckless,” “ridiculous and ludicrous.”

The policy “represents one of the most caustic, corrosive and chilling efforts to squelch the voice of this commission, the office of inspector general and the Sybil Brand Commission,” Johnson said. “We will not be gagged.”

Times staff writer Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.

The IAEA has urged Syria to cooperate fully over allegations it had been building a covert nuclear reactor at the site – allegations Syria denies.

The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has said its inspectors discovered uranium particles at a site in Syria it suspects was once used as part of a clandestine nuclear programme run by the former government of Bashar al-Assad.

Last year, inspectors visited and took environmental samples at “three locations that were allegedly functionally related” to the remote desert site Deir el-Zour, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesman Fredrik Dahl said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Analysis revealed a significant number of anthropogenic natural uranium particles in samples taken at one of the three locations. Some of these uranium particles are consistent with the conversion of uranium ore concentrate to uranium oxide,” said Dahl. This would be typical of a nuclear power reactor.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi reported these findings to the agency’s board of directors on Monday in a report on developments in Syria.

The report also stated that “the current Syrian authorities indicated that they had no information that might explain the presence of such uranium particles.”

The IAEA urged Syria on Tuesday to cooperate fully over allegations that it had been building a covert nuclear reactor at Deir Az Zor.

Syria has repeatedly denied these allegations.

The Deir Az Zor site only became public knowledge after Israel – which is the Middle East’s only state with nuclear weapons, although it has not declared its own programme – launched air strikes in 2007, destroying the facility. Syria later levelled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions.

An IAEA team visited some sites of interest last year while al-Assad was still in power. After al-Assad’s fall last December in a rebel offensive on the capital Damascus, the new government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa agreed to cooperate with the agency and again provided inspectors access to the site where the uranium particles had been found.

They took more samples there and “will evaluate the results of all of the environmental samples taken at this location and the information acquired from the planned visit to the site, and may conduct follow-up activities, as necessary”, Dahl said on Tuesday.

In an interview with The Associated Press news agency in June during a visit to Damascus, Grossi said al-Sharaa had expressed an interest in pursuing nuclear energy for Syria in the future. The IAEA said Syria granted its inspectors access to the location for a second time to gather more samples.

A number of other countries in the region are pursuing nuclear energy in some form. Grossi said Syria would most likely be looking into small modular reactors, which are cheaper and easier to deploy than traditional large ones.

He also said the IAEA is prepared to help Syria rebuild the radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and oncology infrastructure in a health system severely weakened by nearly 14 years of civil war.

Commissioner’s recommendations for tech companies include measures that have been criticised on privacy grounds.

Australia’s internet watchdog has accused tech giants including Google and Apple of failing to take action against child sex abuse on their platforms.

In a report released on Wednesday, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said tech platforms were failing to implement various measures to protect children, including scanning cloud services for known abuse material and using language analysis tools to detect attempted sexual extortion in messaging services.

Grant said that Apple and YouTube, which is owned by Google, also failed to track reports of child sex abuse and could not say how long it took them to respond to the reports they received.

“It shows that when left to their own devices, these companies aren’t prioritising the protection of children and are seemingly turning a blind eye to crimes occurring on their services,” Grant said in a statement.

“We need to keep the pressure on the tech industry as a whole to live up to their responsibility to protect society’s most vulnerable members from the most egregious forms of harm and that’s what these periodic notices are designed to encourage.”

Grant added that the companies had taken few steps to improve their efforts since being asked three years ago, “despite the promise of AI to tackle these harms and overwhelming evidence that online child sexual exploitation is on the rise”.

“No other consumer-facing industry would be given the licence to operate by enabling such heinous crimes against children on their premises, or services,” she said.

Google disputed the report’s findings, saying they were rooted in “reporting metrics, not online safety performance” and that more than 99 percent of abuse material on YouTube is automatically removed before being flagged.

“Child safety is critical to us,” a Google spokesperson said.

“We’ve led the industry fight against child sexual abuse material since day one, investing heavily in advanced technology to proactively find and remove this harmful content.”

Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Snap, and Discord, which were also included in the report, did not respond to requests for comment.

Tom Sulston, head of policy at Digital Rights Watch, said that while it was important for authorities to take action against online child abuse, some of the tools supported by the internet watchdog would raise serious civil liberties and privacy concerns.

Sulston said that scanning live calls and private messages would require platforms to abandon end-to-end encryption, which prevents communications from being viewed by anyone apart from the sender and receiver.

“That’s a gross invasion of privacy for all of the people making perfectly innocent and reasonable use of the service,” Sulston told Al Jazeera.

“It also has dangerous knock-on effects where the users of that service would be subject to surveillance from hostile actors – foreign governments, criminals, hackers. That’s a huge risk for civic society, activists, journalists and anyone who communicates on the internet.

Breaking encryption would be “disproportionate and dangerous,” Sulston added.

“We don’t expect the post office to open all letters and read them for illegal content – in fact, most countries have laws specifically against this,” he said.

It was just past 12:30 a.m. on June 9 when Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a burglary in progress at a home in Lynwood.

Upon arrival, according to the department’s incident summary, they saw Federico Rodriguez, 45, through a window, holding what appeared to be a pair of scissors.

Hearing screams inside, deputies forced a door open and entered the home, where they found Rodriguez repeatedly stabbing a woman. Sgt. Marcos Esquivel immediately drew his handgun, footage from his body-worn camera showed, and fired multiple shots that killed Rodriguez.

The incident was the fifth of six fatal shootings by deputies that the sheriff’s department has reported so far this year.

The woman Rodriguez was stabbing survived. But despite the apparently life-saving actions of the deputies, two days later the case became a point of controversy in a broader dispute between the department and L.A. County’s Office of Inspector General, which investigates misconduct and the use of deadly force by law enforcement.

The inspector general’s office sent a letter on June 11 to the County Board of Supervisors raising concerns that officials have been blocked from scenes of shootings by deputies and deaths in county jails.

Inspector General Max Huntsman said his office interprets the state law that led to its creation over a decade ago as giving him and his staff the authority to conduct meaningful on-site investigations, with state legislation approved in 2020 strengthening that power.

Inspector General Max Huntsman listens to testimony in the Robinson Courtroom at Loyola Law School in 2024.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Huntsman said allowing his staff to tour scenes of shootings and receive information directly from homicide detectives and other sheriff’s department personnel while the dead bodies have yet to be removed is essential for proper oversight.

But the sheriff’s department has repeatedly denied or limited access, Huntsman said. The June 11 letter announced the “indefinite suspension of Office of Inspector General regular rollouts to deputy-involved shootings and in-custody deaths.”

Huntsman said the decision to halt the rollouts was a response to a persistent lack of transparency by the sheriff’s department.

“The purpose of going there is to conduct an independent investigation. If all we’re doing is standing around being fed what they want us to know, that is not an independent investigation,” he told The Times. “We’re not going to pretend to be doing it when we only get to peek under the curtain.”

At the Civilian Oversight Commission meeting on July 17, Sheriff Robert Luna said his department “will now have a process in place” to allow officials responding to shooting scenes to contact an assistant sheriff to ensure “a little more oversight” over the process.

An interior view of the Altadena Sheriff Station in January.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Luna called Huntsman’s June 11 letter “alarming,” but disputed how many times officials had been turned away, saying he was only aware of it happening “once — at least in the last five years.”

Commissioner Jamon Hicks inquired further, asking whether the department could be incorrect about the number of times access has been restricted or denied, given that the inspector general’s office alleges it has been a recurring issue.

“It could be, and I’d love to see the information,” Luna said. “I’ve been provided none of that to date.”

Huntsman told The Times that officials from his office were “prohibited from entering” Rodriguez’s home on July 9, as were members of the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. It was at least the seventh time the sheriff’s department had improperly limited access since 2020, he said.

In a statement, the sheriff’s department said the “claim that the OIG was denied access on June 9 at a [deputy-involved shooting] scene in Lynwood is inaccurate.”

“An OIG representative was on scene and was given the same briefing, along with the concerned Division Chief, Internal Affairs Bureau, Civil Litigation Bureau, Training Bureau, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office,” the statement said.

An exterior view of the hiring banner outside the Altadena Sheriff Station in January.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The statement went on to say that the department is “only aware of one incident on February 27, 2025,” in which the OIG was denied access to a deputy-involved shooting scene.

“The Sheriff’s Department remains firmly committed to transparency in law enforcement and continues to work closely and cooperatively with all oversight bodies,” the statement said.

During the July 17 meeting, Dara Williams, chief deputy of the Office of Inspector General, said the office’s personnel often arrive at shooting scenes hours after deputies have pulled the trigger because of the logistical challenges of traveling across the county. Sheriff’s department homicide detectives typically present preliminary findings and offer tours of the scenes.

But on several occasions, the watchdogs have been denied access entirely, leaving them to rely solely on whatever information the sheriff’s department chooses to release, Williams said.

Hans Johnson, the Civil Oversight Commission’s newly elected chair, said investigators can’t do their jobs properly without being able to scrutinize homicide scenes.

“We count on you, in part, as eyes and ears in the community and in these high-value and very troubling cases of fatalities and deaths,” he said at the July 17 meeting.

Williams said the the sheriff’s department has also been “painfully slow” responding to requests for additional information and records following homicides by deputies. She said that in one particularly egregious example, “we served a subpoena in October of last year and we are still waiting for documents and answers.”

Responding to Huntsman’s letter on June 16, Luna wrote to the Board of Supervisors that the department’s Office of Constitutional Policing “has assisted the OIG by providing Department information to 49 of 53 instances” since January. “Suffice it to say,” he added later in the letter, “robust communications take place between the OIG and the Department. Any assertion to the contrary is false.”

Luna said sometimes access could be restricted to preserve evidence, but Williams said she does not “think it’s fair to say that we were excluded” for that reason.

Williams told the commission she was not allowed to tour a scene earlier this year that Huntsman later told The Times was a Feb. 27 incident in Rosemead.

The sheriff’s department’s incident summary stated that Deputy Gregory Chico shot Susan Lu, 56, after she refused commands to drop a meat cleaver and raised the blade “toward deputies.” Lu was taken to a hospital and declared dead later that day.

In his June 16 letter, Luna wrote that “the OIG, Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB), other Department units, and executives were denied access … due to concerns regarding evidence preservation, given the confined area and complexity of the scene layout.”

Williams told the commission “there was a narrow hallway but the actual incident took place in a bedroom, so I don’t know why we couldn’t have walked down that narrow hallway to just view into the bedroom” where the homicide took place.

“The bottom line,” she added later, “is we don’t want to mislead the public to give them the idea that this is actually effective oversight because, once again, we’re just getting the information from the department.”

June 29 (UPI) — Iran likely can resume uranium enrichment to make a nuclear bomb in a few months, despite damage to nuclear facilities by United States and Israel airstrikes, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief said.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was a “very serious level of damage” to the nuclear facilities during an interview with CBS News on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. airstrikes on June 21 “obliterated” the facilities, including Fordo, which is underground in a mountain. Initial intelligence assessments suggested that the strikes were successful but set back Iran’s program by months — not years.

“It can be, you know, described in different ways, but it’s clear that what happened in particular in Fordo, Natanz, Isfahan, where Iran used to have and still has, to some degree, capabilities in terms of treatment, conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important degree,” Grossi said. “Some is still standing. So there is, of course, an important setback in terms of those of those capabilities.”

He explained what remains.

“The capacities they have are there,” Grossi said. “They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”

He wants International Atomic Energy officials to be able to return sites for an assessment.

“Although our job is not to assess damage, but to re-establish the knowledge of the activities that take place there, and the access to the material, which is very, very important, the material that they will be producing if they continue with this activity,” Grissi said. “This is contingent on negotiations, which may or may not restart.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said the facilities were “seriously damaged,” posted on X on Friday that “Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent.”

Israel was fearful that Iran was nearly ready to have a nuclear bomb within months, and began airstrikes on June 13. Israel relied on American B-2 fighter jets that can send bombs deep into the ground.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran amassed enough 60% enriched uranium to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.

Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, nuclear deal, which was negotiated by Iran, the United States and the EU, Iran wasn’t permitted to enrich uranium above 3.67% purity, which is the level need to fuel commercial nuclear power plants. Iran also was not allowed to carry out any enrichment at the Fordo plant for 15 years.

In 2018, President Donald Trump abandoned the agreement among world powers, and instead reinstated U.S. sanctions in an attempt to stop Iran from moving toward making a bomb. Iran resumed enrichment at Fordo in 2021.

On Friday, the IAEA said radiation levels in the Gulf region remain after the bombings.

Grossi, citing regional data through the 48-nation International Radiation Monitoring System, said the “the worst nuclear safety scenario was thereby avoided.”

The main concern IAEA had was for the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and the Tehran Research Reactor because strikes to either facility, including off-site power lines, would have cause some type of radiological accident felt in both Iran and neighboring nations, but “it did not happen,” he said.

Grossi noted that the airstrikes would have caused localized radioactive releases inside the impacted facilities and localized toxic effects, based on the roughly 900 pounds of enriched uranium Iran is thought to have had before the attacks.

Trump has said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again if intelligence found that it could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

Constitutional panel ratifies bill to cease cooperation with IAEA after US and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Iran’s Guardian Council has ratified a parliament-approved legislation to suspend Tehran’s cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, after the war with Israel and the United States.

Iranian news outlets reported on Thursday that the appointed council, which has veto power over bills approved by lawmakers, found the parliament’s measure to “not to be in contradiction to the Islamic principles and the Constitution”.

Guardian Council spokesperson Hadi Tahan Nazif told the official state news agency, IRNA, that the government is now required to suspend cooperation with the IAEA for the “full respect for the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

Nazif added that the decision was prompted by the “attacks … by the Zionist regime and the United States against peaceful nuclear facilities”.

The bill will be submitted to President Masoud Pezeshkian for final approval and would allow Iran “to benefit from all the entitlements specified under … the Non-Proliferation Treaty, especially with regard to uranium enrichment”, Nazif said.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf suggested that the legislation is now binding after the Guardian Council’s approval.

“Continued cooperation with the agency, which plays a role as a protector of anti-human interests and an agent of the illegitimate Zionist regime through the pretext of war and aggression, is not possible until the security of our nuclear facilities is ensured,” Ghalibaf said in a social media post.

However, the IAEA said on Thursday that it had not received an official communication from Iran regarding the suspension.

Iranian officials have been decrying the IAEA’s failure to condemn Israeli attacks on the country’s nuclear facilities.

Before the war started, Tehran claimed to have obtained Israeli documents that show that the IAEA was passing off information to Israel about Iran’s nuclear programme – allegations that were denied by the agency.

Israel is widely believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, but its nuclear programme has not been monitored by the UN watchdog.

For years, Iranian nuclear sites have been under strict IAEA inspection, including by constant video feed. But it appears that Iran moved its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium from the facilities before they were bombed by Israel and the US during the recent war, putting them out of the view of UN observers for the first time.

US and Israeli officials have argued that the military strikes have set back Iran’s nuclear programme for years. But suspending cooperation with the IAEA could escalate the programme, although Tehran insists that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that Moscow was “interested in Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA continuing”.

“We are interested in everyone respecting the supreme leader of Iran, who has repeatedly stated that Iran does not and will not have plans to create nuclear weapons,”  Lavrov said.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also told journalists that Berlin “urges the Iranian government not to go down this path” and cease cooperation with the board.

On June 13, Israel launched a surprise bombing campaign against Iran, striking residential buildings and nuclear sites and military facilities, killing top commanders and scientists as well as hundreds of civilians.

Iran responded with barrages of missiles that left widespread destruction in Israel and killed at least 29 people.

On Sunday, the US joined Israel and launched unprecedented strikes on Iran’s Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites.

Following Iran’s retaliatory attack on a US military base in Qatar, a ceasefire was reached between the countries.

Both Israel and Iran declared victory after the war.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi says Iran has reported no elevated radiation levels after Israel’s attack on the Natanz nuclear facility. He warned of risks to public safety and urged all sides to avoid further escalation.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

IAEA resolution passes with 19 votes in favour , three against and 11 abstentions, diplomatic sources say.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors has approved a resolution declaring Iran is not complying with its commitment to international nuclear safeguards, diplomatic sources told Al Jazeera.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors resolution passed on Thursday with 19 votes in favour, three against and 11 abstentions.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Vienna, said that Russia, China and Burkina Faso were among the members of the 35-seat board to vote against the resolution.

A text of the resolution seen by Reuters news agency said that “Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019” to provide IAEA “with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations constitute non-compliance with its obligations” under its agreement with the UN agency.

Ahelbarra described passage of the resolution as a “significant diplomatic development”, noting that it was the first time in almost 20 years that the IAEA had accused Iran of breaching its non-proliferation obligations.

“Iran has a very small window to answer the resolution. Otherwise, it will face, massive, massive repercussions including the potential of further isolation and wide-range of sanctions.”

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said that Iran will likely have a “tough response” to the IAEA resolution, adding that the upcoming talks between the US and Iran on Sunday would be “highly-influenced” by the vote in Vienna.

Iran’s Press TV quoted the foreign ministry as saying that the board resolution “has no technical and legal basis.”

May 31 (UPI) — Iran has increased production of highly enriched uranium, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog, as the nation conducts talks with the United States on a nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the Middle East country now possesses more than 408.6 kilograms, or 900 pounds, of uranium enriched to 60% purity as of May 17, according to a confidential report obtained by the BBC and Al Jazeera.

That’s a nearly 50% increase since February.

In December, the IAEA said Iran was rapidly moving closer to the 90% threshold needed for weapons-grade material.

This is enough for about 10 nuclear weapons if further refined.

Iran is the only non-nuclear-armed state producing uranium at this level.

“The significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran … is of serious concern,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said.

IAEA concluded that Tehran conducted nuclear activities at three previously unknown sites: Lavisan-Shian, Varamin, Turquzabad.

And IAEA stated said it “cannot verify” the development of nuclear weapons, citing Iran’s refusal to grant access to senior inspectors and not answer questions about its nuclear history.

The IAEA board plans to meet in the coming days to discuss next steps.

Iran has long said its nuclear enrichment is for peaceful purposes.

“If the issue is nuclear weapons, yes, we too consider this type of weapon unacceptable,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a televised speech. “We agree with them on this issue.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday in a statement that Iran is “totally determined” to acquire nuclear weapons.

“Such a level of enrichment exists only in countries actively pursuing nuclear weapons and has no civilian justification whatsoever,” Netanyahu’s office said.

U.S. officials estimate Ian could produce weapons-grade material in less than two weeks and potentially build a bomb within months.

Since talks began in April, both sides have expressed optimism but are divided over key issues, including whether Iran can continue enrichment under any future agreement.

Two of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei‘s advisors — Ali Larijani and Kamal Kharazi — have suggested Iran might reconsider building nuclear weapons if international pressure mounts.

The IAEA findings could be a negotiation tool for Iran, Hamed Mousavi, professor of political science at Tehran University, told Al Jazeera.

“I think both sides are trying to build leverage against the other side,” he said. “From the Iranian perspective, an advancement in the nuclear program is going to bring them leverage at the negotiation table with the Americans.

“Enriching up to 60% – from the Iranian perspective – is a sort of leverage against the Americans to lift sanctions.”

He said the U.S. could threaten more sanctions and refer the situation to the U.N. Security Council for its breach of the 2006 non-proliferation agreement.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he sees a nuclear deal with Iran that would allow the destruction of labs and inspections. Iran has rejected inspections.

He said a deal is “very strong, where we can go in with inspectors. We can take whatever we want. We can blow up whatever we want. But nobody getting killed.”

In 2018, Trump unilaterally exited the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and reimposed harsh sanctions.

In 2015, Iran reached a deal with the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China and the European Union.

Some sanctions on Iran were lifted for limits on its nuclear development program.

After one of her first visits to L.A. County’s juvenile hall in Sylmar, Efty Sharony filed a report that said she witnessed conditions worse than anything she’d seen in “over 20 years of experience visiting every level of carceral facility in California.”

Teens housed in the county’s Secure Youth Treatment Facility could be heard screaming throughout the building, slamming their bodies against doors, crying and howling, she wrote in a 2023 report to the state’s Health and Human Services secretary at the time, Dr. Mark Ghaly.

Urine flowed from beneath cell doors housing youths who had been held in isolation for more than 18 hours during a lockdown, according to Sharony’s report. The unit, at the time, held dozens of youths who had been convicted of serious and violent crimes.

The conditions at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall were exactly the kind of problems Sharony hoped to help solve as part of a broader effort led by Gov. Gavin Newsom to ensure humane treatment amid a remaking of the state’s youth prison system. In her role as the ombudswoman for the state’s Office of Youth and Community Restoration, Sharony said supervisors told her she was supposed to be “the only teeth” the agency had.

Weeks after Sharony sounded the alarm bells about Nidorf, an 18-year-old housed there died of a drug overdose. The California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered the hall closed the same day.

But instead of encouraging her to keep digging, Sharony alleges her bosses soon told her to stop investigating juvenile halls.

Three months later, she was fired and replaced by an attorney who had previously worked for the Newsom administration but had no prior experience with juvenile justice, according to a whistleblower complaint Sharony filed last year.

“It became clear that Efrat’s superiors were more interested in creating the illusion of addressing the many crises in the state’s juvenile facilities rather than doing anything about it,” the complaint read.

A spokeswoman for the state department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on confidential personnel matters, but said the agency remains committed to promoting “trauma responsive, culturally informed, gender honoring, and developmentally appropriate services for youth involved in the juvenile justice system.”

That approach, the statement said, includes giving the ombudsperson “full authority” and “sole direction” to investigate complaints from detained youths.

“Ensuring every complaint is thoroughly investigated is critical to protecting youth across the state and a primary goal of OYCR,” the spokeswoman said.

Sharony’s attorney, Matthew Umhofer, said he has not received any response to the whistleblower complaint, which is a precursor to a lawsuit.

“Efty was fired in retaliation for doing her job. She was fired because her findings about the deplorable conditions in juvenile facilities didn’t align with the state’s political narrative. That’s illegal,” he said. “We’ve given the state every opportunity to right the wrong here, but if they don’t, we’re prepared to fight for Efty in court.”

Sharony’s allegations that state officials have little appetite to fix chronic issues in L.A.’s juvenile halls echo other recent concerns about flagging efforts to improve the county’s crumbling youth facilities.

Faced with questions about his office’s failure to enforce a four-year-old court settlement mandating reforms in the halls, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said earlier this month that he is considering placing them in “receivership,” essentially wresting local control of the facilities away from the L.A. County Probation Department.

The California Board of State and Community Corrections also ordered another L.A. facility, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, shut down last year, but the Probation Department ignored the order for months without consequence. A judge finally intervened last month, and roughly 100 youths will be relocated from Los Padrinos to other facilities under a plan made public by the Probation Department earlier this month.

Sharony’s firing infuriated local officials who have watched the situation at the halls deteriorate for years.

Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Panorama City), who authored a bill to revoke probation departments from overseeing how juveniles are housed, said Sharony’s firing was a colossal mistake.

“I was livid that they fired someone that was passionate, who had experience in this space, and they brought in somebody from the inside,” Menjivar said. “How are you going to have accountability when you hire somebody who is already on the team?”

Efty Sharony, the former ombudswoman for the state Office of Youth and Community Restoration, a role in which she investigated conditions at L.A. juvenile halls.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Sharony — who previously worked as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School’s Juvenile Innocence & Fair Sentencing Clinic and oversaw prisoner reentry programs under former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti — said she believed the ombudswoman’s post would allow her to be part of the state’s reimagining of the juvenile justice system.

Newsom announced his intentions in 2019 to shut down the state’s youth prison system, which formerly housed juveniles convicted of serious crimes such as murder until they turned 25. The Office of Youth and Community Restoration was created by the Legislature in 2021 in part to oversee conditions at the local juvenile halls that would receive the state’s youngest prisoners.

Sharony said her oversight role allowed her to drop in on juvenile facilities with just 48 hours notice to conduct spot checks and review conditions identified in a complaint. It didn’t take long, she claims, for those visits to ruffle feathers.

When she left business cards with youths at a Contra Costa facility while investigating concerns about access to mental health services, Sharony said the department chief called her supervisors within the Office of Youth and Community Restoration to complain.

After she documented the squalid conditions at Nidorf, local officials again allegedly tried to go over her head and voice frustrations, said Sharony. In the whistleblower complaint, Sharony said “her colleagues vocally prioritized political relationships over the timeliness of their investigations.”

The HHS spokeswoman declined to comment on Sharony’s specific allegations.

A spokesperson for the Contra Costa County Probation Department said they had “never filed a complaint with OYCR and would not characterize any of our conversations with OYCR as a complaint.”

“Our relationship and interactions with OYCR are consistent with how we engage with any state agency or oversight body,” the department said in a statement. “We work within the processes and policies established to maintain a constructive and professional relationship.”

Sharony said in her whistleblower complaint that her reports out of Los Angeles went ignored by state officials.

“She was left in the dark, confused about why she was suddenly removed from conversations regarding the serious findings of her initial investigation,” the complaint read.

An HHS spokeswoman said the Office of Youth and Community Restoration did not have the authority to investigate whether a Secure Youth Treatment Facility complex was in compliance with state regulations. Sharony said in an interview that didn’t preclude them from acknowledging concerns about conditions there.

In an email attached to the whistleblower complaint, Sharony’s bosses said they were pausing her in-person visits “as we make final adjustments to our Policies & Procedures and continue to hire and onboard new staff. It’s expected that field visits will resume in the next few weeks.”

But then, in June 2023, Sharony was fired. She said she was never given a reason for her termination.

She was replaced by Alisa Hart, a former deputy legal secretary in Newsom’s office who helped work on the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and had previously worked with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She also previously worked as a staff attorney with the pro bono civil rights firm Public Counsel. Sharony contends Hart’s lack of experience working in the juvenile justice system made her less qualified for the ombudswoman’s post.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Youth and Community Restoration said the agency “hires the most qualified candidate when filling a vacant position,” but declined to answer specific questions about Hart other than to point to her biography on a state website. A spokeswoman for Newsom said the governor had no hand in her hiring.

Kate Lamb, the HHS spokeswoman, said the ombudswoman’s office received 49 complaints from Nidorf and Los Padrinos juvenile halls last year. Investigations into 22 of those complaints have not been completed, Lamb said.

An aerial view of Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

In 2023, when Sharony worked in the ombudswoman role for half of the year, the office received twice as many complaints and all have since been closed out, according to Lamb. Some of those complaints were handled after Sharony had exited the agency.

Those who frequent L.A.’s juvenile halls said Sharony’s removal is just one indication that state officials are not taking the county’s youth justice crisis seriously.

“The first ombudsperson was someone who was widely known and respected as a veteran stakeholder in the juvenile system here in L.A.,” said Jerod Gunsberg, a veteran criminal defense attorney who represents juveniles. “Then after that, the ombudsperson is removed from her position, and we’ve never heard anything again here in L.A.”

May 14 (UPI) — A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced well-known election watchdog Grigory Melkonyants to five years in prison after it found him guilty of allegedly working for a so-called “undesirable” organization.

“Don’t worry, I’m not despairing,” Melkonyants was quoted telling supporters after the sentence was handed down by Moscow’s Basmanny District Court in a latest blow to free speech in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

“You shouldn’t despair either!” he reportedly stated.

Melkonyants, who has been in custody since his August 2023 arrest, co-founded Russia’s most respected and prominent election monitoring group which in 2013 was designated as a “foreign agent” by Russian authorities.

The charge stems from alleged ties to the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, which was declared “undesirable” by the Russian state in 2021.

Melkonyants has denied the allegations.

Three years later, Golos — which means “vote” in Russian — was liquidated as a non-governmental organization but despite court orders, continued to publish reports on Russia’s local and national elections, which international experts contend were not free or fair.

“Grigory Melkonyants has committed no crime,” Marie Struthers, Amnesty International‘s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said Wednesday in a statement in calling for his “unconditional” release.

Struthers says his only “offense” was “defending the right to free and fair elections,” and that Russian authorities “instigated this criminal case in order to silence one of the country’s most respected election observers.”

The election monitoring group was long-accused by Russian officials of multiple violations and for allegedly being tainted by money it received from the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“Golos gave rise to a massive election monitoring movement in Russia in 2011, then the protests began which gave Putin quite a scare,” according to Leonid Volkov, a close associate of late Russian political opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

“So many years have passed, and he still seeks revenge,” he wrote on social media.

Melkonyants expressed worry for the group’s 3,000 election monitors during Russia’s 2011 elections as it came under fire while Putin, then prime minister, was ultimately re-elected to succeed then-President Dmitry Medvedev for another term.

Meanwhile, the Britain-headquartered Amnesty International considers him a “prisoner of conscience” who was prosecuted and imprisoned solely for peaceful activism.

“The international community cannot remain silent,” Amnesty’s Struthers added Wednesday.

“Neither on this appalling verdict nor on the outrageous assault on civic space that is taking place in Russia.”