The Brief

Andrew Do has resigned as Orange County supervisor and agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy to steal millions of dollars meant to feed needy seniors, following a months-long LAist investigation and federal probe.

The criminal charges and plea deal were announced Tuesday morning by U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada at a news conference in downtown Santa Ana. Out of $9.3 million in taxpayer dollars that were supposed to feed people, only 15% went to people in need, Estrada said.

“Mr. Do and his co-conspirators stole money from the poor,” said Estrada, who called the conspiracy “Robin Hood in reverse.”

Do agreed to plead guilty and signed a plea agreement to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and faces a possible five year prison term. He accepted over $550,000 in bribes for directing and voting in favor of more than $10 million in COVID funds to a charity affiliated with his daughter Rhiannon Do, according to a U.S. attorney's office news release.

In what that office described as a “package deal,” Rhiannon Do admitted to filing a falsified mortgage application that disguised her use of taxpayer dollars in the purchase of a house in Tustin. The deal calls for Rhiannon Do, a 23-year-old law student, to be placed on three years’ probation through a pretrial diversion program. Do admitted in his plea agreement that $381,500 in public funds were transferred to an escrow company and used by his daughter Rhiannon Do to purchase the home in Tustin for $1,035,000.

Through the investigation, Estrada said, investigators seized more than “$2.4 million in illicit proceeds generated in the scheme.” Andrew Do, he said, has agreed to forfeit his rights to any of that as well as “forfeit two properties, one in Santa Ana and one in Tustin, related to the scheme to purchase using proceeds from the scheme.”

Andrew Do will also forfeit his pension accrued from June 2020 when the scheme began.

O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do at the county Board of Supervisors meeting on Jan. 23, 2024.

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Nick Gerda

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LAist

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'Media reports' led to federal investigation

Estrada said the U.S. attorney’s office began their investigation when they saw media reports about how then-Supervisor Do had directed money to Viet America Society. LAist was the first to report on how Andrew Do directed the money to the nonprofit, without disclosing his familial ties. That report last November has been followed by a series of exclusive investigative pieces into alleged misuse of public funds in Orange County.

“We take action when we see those reports," Estrada said. "We brought our federal partners into the case to fully investigate, and we discovered this extensive and very troubling bribery."

Orange County DA Todd Spitzer echoed the seriousness of the findings.

The money “was literally stolen out of the mouths of our most vulnerable residents,” Spitzer said.

Spitzer said the charges marked the first time in 50 years that an O.C. supervisor faced criminal conviction.

Following the money: Credit card payments, property taxes

According to Spitzer, Rhiannon Do received around $8,000 a month in taxpayer money while Andrew Do’s other daughter, who was not named at the news conference, received over $100,000 funneled through COVID federal funds.

“The monies were used to pay off American Express cards, Mr. Do's American Express card, pay the property taxes of their home in Westminster and the home in North Tustin,” Spitzer said.

Spitzer was also sharply critical of the Orange County Board of Supervisors for allowing the allocation of tens of millions of dollars in COVID relief money to be distributed outside of public view. That lack of transparency, Spitzer said, allowed Andrew Do to "fill the pockets of insiders, himself and his loved ones — his family members” instead of helping the public.

"This was while Do was bragging about [providing] 2,700 meals a week, meanwhile the elderly were dying," Spitzer said.

Attorneys Paul S. Meyer and Craig Wilke, who represented former Anaheim Mayor Sidhu on federal corruption charges, are now representing Andrew Do.

Meyer said in the statement Tuesday: “Out of respect for the legal process, no statement is appropriate at this time. However, it is appropriate to convey Andrew Do’s sincere apology and deep sadness to his family, to his constituents in District One and to his colleagues.”

They previously said that the former supervisor looked "forward to a thorough and fair investigation.”

David Wiechert, an attorney for Rhiannon Do, reached Tuesday said they have no comment.

Andrew Do’s wife is O.C. Superior Court Assistant Presiding Judge Cheri Pham. Spitzer said she is entitled to a thorough investigation and she’s “entitled to a presumption of innocence.”

Last week, Andrew Do’s Chief of Staff Chris Wangsaporn resigned from his role.

Chris Wangsaporn, chief of staff to O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do, at the O.C. Board of Supervisors meeting on Dec. 19, 2023.

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“I can only say that there's an ongoing investigation with respect to Mr. Wangsaporn and his wife,” Spitzer said.

LAist reported earlier this month that Wangsaporn’s then-girlfriend, now wife, Josie Batres, was hired by a nonprofit, Mind OC, to carry out a $275,000 mental health contract funded by the county. County officials told LAist the county paid out the full contract, but none of the required work turned in to the county. Batres and Wangsaporn got married about one year into the two-year contract.

“This is like a spiderweb of involvement and so it's going to take time. We know a lot,” Spitzer said. “We obviously have a lot of documents, we've seized a lot of information from homes, we have a lot of electronic data that's being analyzed that we do not have all the results.”

Do submitted his resignation on Tuesday to O.C. Supervisors Board Chair Don Wagner, according to a county spokesperson who provided the resignation letter to LAist. Wagner will oversee District 1 duties until a new supervisor is elected in the upcoming elections, according to a county spokesperson.

LAist's investigation

The former supervisor's funding of Viet America Society — and the lack of answers about what happened with the funds — has been the focus of nearly a year of investigative articles by LAist.

Starting last November, LAist reporting uncovered millions of taxpayer dollars then-Supervisor Do directed to his daughter’s nonprofit without disclosing the family relationship, and that have gone unaccounted for.

In all, LAist’s investigation reported Andrew Do directed more than $13 million to the group using a process outside of public view, which was not illegal at the time. (Those laws are now changing, under recently signed legislation introduced in response to LAist’s reporting on Do’s awarding of the funds.)

LAist also revealed in December that the group failed to submit required audits showing whether the money was spent appropriately.

Read the U.S. Attorney's allegations

Read Andrew Do's plea agreement

Listen

What do other supervisors say now?

In a joint statement, the four remaining board members reacted separately to their colleague's resignation and plea agreement.

Board Chairman Donald P. Wagner thanked federal investigators and added that the county's lawsuits remain active.

"The County remains committed to continuing its civil lawsuits in order to hold all responsible parties accountable and to recover misused public funds," Wagner said.

Supervisor Doug Chaffee called it "a troubling moment for our County. It's disheartening to witness a betrayal of public trust by someone in a position of responsibility. This highlights the critical need for ethical leadership. The Board remains dedicated to serving the people with integrity."

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento underscored that investigations must continue.

"The unsealing of the indictments demonstrates years of unethical and illegal acts that directly harmed the most vulnerable in our County," he said. "We must not discontinue the investigations until all parties involved are brought to justice, and the systemic problems that led to these abuses are reformed."

And Supervisor Katrina Foley expressed disgust at what she called "the staggering level of corruption, greed, and deception described in the unsealed federal indictment."

"Andrew Do and his associates carried out an overt scheme to enrich themselves off our hard-earned tax dollars, "Foley said. "Andrew Do must pay for his crimes. This Board is united in continuing to do the people's business of governing and moving forward from this dark day in Orange County."

The backstory

Law enforcement searched the Tustin home of Rhiannon Do, on Aug. 22, 2024.

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Jason Armond

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FBI agents outside of Andrew Do and Cheri Pham's home in Orange County on Aug. 22, 2024.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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In August, federal agents searched homes owned by Andrew Do and his wife — Assistant Presiding Judge Cheri Pham of O.C. Superior Court — and their daughter, Rhiannon Do. That same day, agents also searched a home owned by Viet America Society founder Peter Pham, a restaurant that received millions from VAS and another home associated with Peter Pham.

From left supervisors: Don Wagner, Doug Chafee, Andrew Do, Vicente Sarmiento and Katrina Foley.

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For almost a decade, Do had been one of the most powerful government officials in Orange County. For years during his time on the Board of Supervisors, he’s had a key role in overseeing how billions of dollars in funding were spent to address homelessness and mental health.

He’d been one of the five elected county supervisors since winning a 2015 special election by a razor thin margin of 43 votes, and ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2022. Prior to resigning, Do already was termed out of office this December.

He was also one of the highest ranking Vietnamese American officials in Orange County, home to one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the United States.

The week before the federal searches in August, county officials sued the nonprofit Viet America Society (VAS) and its leaders, including Rhiannon Do — accusing them of an “illegal and fraudulent scheme” to divert federal COVID dollars then-Supervisor Do directed to the group. The nonprofit’s leaders also were accused by the county of using the money to purchase homes in Orange County and converting the taxpayer dollars to cash through “voluminous, unaccounted for” ATM withdrawals.

Andrew Do has not returned dozens of requests for comment from LAist since last November asking about his funding of his daughter’s group. In a Vietnamese-language radio broadcast in August, a few hours after the county sued his daughter, Do defended his family and Viet America Society from accusations of wrongdoing. He said the nonprofit was complying with the law, and that allegations otherwise are “slander.”

Rhiannon Do’s attorney, David Wiechert, previously told LAist she’s a "very honest, law-abiding, hardworking young woman" before declining to comment Tuesday.

"It’s our intention to demonstrate to the government the error of their ways if they think she’s done something wrong,” he said.

Judge Pham has previously declined to comment through the court’s spokesperson, citing a statewide ethics rule barring judges from commenting on cases or issues that are likely to come before the courts.

FBI agents carry material out of a home owned by Supervisor Andrew Do and his wife Orange County Superior Court Assistant Presiding Judge Cheri Pham during searches in August.

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Since the federal searches in August, Do faced increasing calls to resign from his elected position. That includes calls from two of his four colleagues on the Board of Supervisors and six of the seven city council members in Huntington Beach, the largest city in his district. Until Tuesday, he'd given no public indication he’d considered doing so.

He had not attended a county supervisor meeting in the two months since the federal searches.

In early September, his four fellow supervisors unanimously voted to strip Supervisor Do of all his committee assignments, including to the high-profile governing board of the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Two weeks later, all four of his colleagues voted to publicly condemn Supervisor Do with a censure. It cites “reckless judgment and favoritism he has demonstrated in directing millions of dollars” to “organizations with no proven track record,” while not disclosing his family ties.

Catch up on LAist’s investigation so far

In November 2023, LAist began investigating how millions in public taxpayer dollars were spent. In total, LAist obtained and reported public records showing more than $13 million in public money that was approved to a little-known nonprofit that was led on and off by Rhiannon Do, the now 23-year-old daughter of former Supervisor Do.

Most of that money was directed to the group by Andrew Do outside of the public’s view and never appeared on public meeting agendas. He did not publicly disclose his family ties. The law at the time didn’t require it. Much of the known funding came from federal coronavirus relief money.

• Read the first article in LAist’s investigation: Top OC official helped direct millions to his daughter’s center without disclosing family connection  
• LAist also reported that VAS was two years overdue in completing a required audit into whether the meal funds were spent appropriately.
• And LAist reported, based on county records we obtained, that the amount of taxpayer money directed to the nonprofit was much larger than what appeared on public agendas.. It totals at least $13.5 million in county funding — tallied from government records obtained and published by LAist. 
• After our reporting, O.C. officials wrote demand letters to the nonprofit saying millions in funding were unaccounted for. They warned it could be forced to repay the funds.
• LAist found government records and reported that the nonprofit went on to miss multiple deadlines set by county officials to provide proof about how funding for meals were spent.
• On Aug. 2, LAist reported O.C. officials were demanding the refund of more than $3 million in public funds awarded by Do to VAS and another nonprofit, Hand to Hand.
• Six days later, LAist reported Orange County officials had expanded demands for refunds of millions in tax dollars from the nonprofits and threatened legal action.
• On Aug. 15, LAist reported O.C. officials sued VAS and its key officers and associated businesses, including Rhiannon Do. The lawsuit alleges that county money was illegally used to purchase five homes and was converted into cash through ATM transactions. 
• Then, on Aug. 19, LAist reported O.C. officials had announced a second lawsuit against Hand to Hand and its CEO to recover millions of taxpayer dollars that were directed by Andrew Do.
• LAist broke the news on Aug. 22 that federal agents were searching Rhiannon Do's home in Tustin. Later that day, Andrew Do's home, and other properties, were also searched by the FBI and IRS.
• On Sept. 10, the O.C. Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to remove then-Supervisor Do from his committee assignments, including his role as a board member for the Orange County Transportation Authority.
• Later in September, three bills inspired by LAist’s investigation that will increase public transparency were signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
• On Oct. 16, LAist reported that the wife of Andrew Do's top aide was hired for a $275,000 contract. County officials say the work was never turned in.

How to watchdog local government

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention.

Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The next scheduled board meeting is Tuesday, Oct. 22. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.

Listen to Imperfect Paradise for the story on how the LAist investigation unfolded...

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An LAist investigation uncovered more than $13 million in public funds directed by Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do to Viet America Society (VAS) without disclosing his daughter was a leader at the nonprofit. County officials now allege that money was “brazenly plundered” for personal gain. Imperfect Paradise host Antonia Cereijido speaks with LAist correspondent Nick Gerda, who broke the story, about the ongoing investigation.

OC Supervisor Andrew Do to plead guilty to corruption charge following LAist investigation

An LAist investigation uncovered more than $13 million in public funds directed by Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do to Viet America Society (VAS) without disclosing his daughter was a leader at the nonprofit. County officials now allege that money was “brazenly plundered” for personal gain. Imperfect Paradise host Antonia Cereijido speaks with LAist correspondent Nick Gerda, who broke the story, about the ongoing investigation.

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California Republicans have an unusual shot of claiming an upset victory in the governor’s race this year — but to win, neither of their candidates can get too far ahead of the other just yet.

With eight major Democratic candidates splitting the liberal vote, both Republican candidates, former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, could come in first and second in the June 2 primary and move on to the November ballot.

That would shut out Democratic general election candidates, an extraordinary event that pollsters and strategists of both parties agree is the only viable chance for a Republican to become governor. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one in California and the GOP hasn’t won a statewide race in two decades.

Both Republicans can only advance to November if they split the Republican vote essentially evenly, giving each enough to surpass their Democratic opponents. That’s thanks to California’s top-two primary system, in which the two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election regardless of their party.

Democrats insist it won’t happen, though they face mounting pressure over the risk in a year when the party is hoping to turn out liberal voters for U.S. House races in November.

And neither Republican is strategizing to shut the Democrats out. Instead of trying to keep the other alive through the primary, Hilton and Bianco are running campaigns like any other candidate: seeking to defeat each other. Hilton has spent the past few months attempting to consolidate Republican support by attacking Bianco, who has been happy to return the ire.

“There’s an amazing irony there, that they need to beat each other but they both need to succeed at the same time,” GOP strategist Rob Stutzman said. “It cuts against human nature and cuts against the way you put together campaigns.”

An intra-Republican primary

Despite very different backgrounds, Hilton and Bianco are running on similar policies.

Hilton is a British political strategist who’s written extensively about populism, reducing bureaucracy and decentralizing power, and Bianco is a bombastic local sheriff who is pushing the boundaries of police authority over elections.

Both are pushing a deregulation agenda, railing against Democratic-backed environmental policies they blame for raising the state’s cost of living. Their targets include the landmark California Environmental Quality Act, which requires environmental reviews for new construction.

Both Republicans also want to reverse prison closures, boost oil production to lower gas prices and reduce or eliminate the 61-cents-a-gallon gas tax.

Hilton wants to shield the first $100,000 of earnings from the state income tax (a goal Democrat Katie Porter shares) and significantly lower taxes on higher earners by cutting 18% of the state budget, including areas he claims are fraudulent or wasteful such as using cannabis tax revenue to support substance abuse programs. Bianco also wants to cut, and bring in oil revenues to eliminate the income tax entirely.

Hilton, one of the race’s top fundraisers, has raised more than $6.6 million so far, exceeding Bianco’s haul by more than $2 million. The two are second and third to Democratic former Rep. Katie Porter in the total number of campaign donors — one measure of popular support.

Polls show they remain neck-and-neck at or near the top of the pack, with one survey released last week by the California Democratic Party showing Hilton and Bianco statistically tied with 16% and 14%, respectively. To be competitive, they each need to win over independent and undecided voters, some of whom lean Republican and most of whom are fixated on the state’s cost of living crisis. The California Republican Party is slated to take an endorsement vote at its convention next weekend.

Each has tried to outrank the other on conservative credentials.

Hilton has attacked Bianco for having “too much baggage” related to liberal causes, pointing to a video showing the sheriff kneeling during the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests, as many police officers did then to de-escalate crowds, and later describing his actions as praying. Under Trump, the FBI this year fired several agents who had done the same.

“It’s a question of character and honesty and judgment,” Hilton said in an interview.

Bianco pointed to the two Republicans’ continued tie in the polls as proof Hilton can’t carry the party. He’s called Hilton, who worked for the conservative U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, “a fraud amongst Republicans” in part because a political crowdfunding startup Hilton co-founded in 2013, Crowdpac, later rebranded to exclusively support Democrats.

And each has aimed to align himself with Trump without saying the president’s name directly. While both are vocal fans of the president, nearly three-quarters of California voters disapprove of him, and Democratic voters in particular are motivated this year to vote against the president’s agenda. Hilton and Bianco have both blasted Democrats for linking the gubernatorial race to Trump.

Hilton, who once called for an audit into Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, is promoting “CalDOGE,” a program to look into reports of fraud and waste in California government. It’s a nod to Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency that slashed federal spending and employment last year. So far, as part of the project, Hilton has held press conferences criticizing state grants to nonprofits with advocacy wings that support liberal causes, like stricter environmental laws and holding voter registration drives; he’s vowed to cut them as governor.

Bianco, who endorsed Trump’s 2024 re-election by saying America should “put a felon in the White House,” told KTLA last fall if he had the president’s support he’d downplay it on the campaign trail. Asked last week if he’s seeking the president’s approval, he said he instead wants “the endorsement of every single person in this country.”

“You have an entire Democrat field trying to label me as Donald Trump, and the reason why is because they have absolutely nothing to run on,” he said in an interview.

He has embarked on an unprecedented effort in Riverside County to recount ballots from last year’s special election based on what local elections officials say is inaccurate and flawed raw ballot data, a move that mirrors the Trump administration’s seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia. But Bianco has insisted it’s not political. The investigation, he said this week, is on hold amid legal challenges.

Who is Bianco?

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks with the press after announcing his bid for governor at Avila’s Historic 1929 Event Center in Riverside on Feb. 17, 2025.

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The ballot seizure is one of the many ways Bianco has courted controversy as county sheriff, a seat to which he was first elected in 2018 with hefty campaign contributions from the union that represents sheriff’s deputies.

The three-decade law enforcement officer and one-time member of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers gained attention in 2020 for fighting state orders to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, refusing to enforce masking or stay-at-home rules or to mandate vaccination for deputies. He also opposes school vaccination laws.

He’s often criticized the state’s sanctuary law that limits police cooperation with federal immigration agents, simultaneously insisting he’ll do everything he legally can to help immigration agents but clarifying to Riverside County residents that deputies do not enforce immigration laws and take reports of crimes from anyone. He’s presided over a spike in deaths in county jails that he’s attributed to fentanyl and suicides, though the state attorney general’s office has opened an investigation.

He has ties to an evangelical pastor in Temecula who helps elect Christian conservatives and is pushing to increase the influence of Christianity in government.

His pitch to voters is that he’s an outsider — and he’s prone to using hyperbole to prove it, calling environmental activists who sue to stop development “terrorists,” promising to “completely destroy special interests” and saying if elected he’d “take a nuclear bomb” to the decisions made in California government.

He’s running, he said, to offer a change from the “crime and corruption” he says has defined state politics and claims he’s the only candidate with strong executive experience (though several Democratic opponents have led state or federal agencies, or major cities.)

He’s endorsed by several law enforcement groups, some of which have also jointly endorsed a Democrat, and funded by campaign contributions from dozens of officers and police chiefs, various business owners and the powerful Peace Office Research Association of California, a special interest with outsize influence at the Capitol. The law enforcement association extends to his title as Riverside sheriff on the ballot, which will give him an edge over Hilton, GOP strategists say.

“Every other person in this race is nothing but a career politician,” he said. “We're over career politicians, millionaires, billionaires, bright, shiny objects and career politicians and strategists. California is sick of that.”

Who is Hilton?

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks at a press conference outside the California attorney general’s office in Sacramento on Aug. 5, 2025. Hilton announced legal action to stop Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta from pursuing mid-decade redistricting.

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Hilton, meanwhile, is making lofty promises like $3-a-gallon gas and halving electricity bills, and says he has experience from London to achieve such cuts.

The son of Hungarian immigrants to Britain, Hilton got his start in the Conservative Party there before moving to the private sector and returning to politics as Cameron’s director of strategy from 2010 to 2012.

The British press noted Hilton’s penchant for casual dress and credited him as the ideological force pushing the party to loosen workplace regulations, cut welfare, shrink the size of government, lower taxes and withdraw from the European Union. Hilton was disillusioned with Cameron’s progress, the Washington Post reported, when he left his team after two years to join his wife, tech executive Rachel Whetstone, in California and take a sabbatical at Stanford. The couple still maintain several properties in central London.

“The government has lost its ultimate radical,” The Economist declared of his departure from 10 Downing Street in 2012. “In his visceral disdain for the state, reverence for local communities and commitment to enterprise, he might be the most deeply conservative figure at the very top of this government.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks at a press conference outside the California attorney general’s office in Sacramento on Aug. 5, 2025. Hilton announced legal action to stop Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta from pursuing mid-decade redistricting. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters He founded Crowdpac in 2013 with two partners, a Stanford professor and a Google executive, with the stated goal of getting more people engaged in politics by using software to match their views with candidates they could support financially. The platform, he highlighted at the time, was used by a Black Lives Matter leader to crowdfund a run for Baltimore mayor and by anti-Trump Republicans hoping for a Paul Ryan presidential run. In 2015, he wrote a column in the Guardian supporting a higher minimum wage in Britain and walking back his own prior campaigns against one.

Years later, Hilton left the platform when Crowdpac, having mostly been used by Democrats, stopped helping Republican candidates in what executives called “a stand against Trumpism.” It later shut down and relaunched again as a Democrats-only platform. By then, Hilton had already endorsed Trump for president in 2016 and landed a weekly Fox News show, which ran from 2017 to 2023. He’s now returned fully to his conservative roots, pushing to “massively reduce spending” and regulation the same way he did in the U.K.

“I have a very clear message of change that's practical and positive and not ideological,” he told CalMatters.

Hilton has raised the third most in the race, behind Democrats Tom Steyer, a self-funding billionaire, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who has pulled in millions of dollars primarily from Silicon Valley. Hilton has put $200,000 of his own money into his campaign, and counts among his supporters Uber, Fox Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch and tech executives who have also supported Democrats: Google founder Sergey Brin and Ripple executive Chris Larsen.

Will Democrats really be shut out of the race?

Experts say a Democratic shutout is unlikely, unless the field remains entrenched.

“It depends upon those two Republican candidates who are splitting the Republican vote fairly evenly right now, doing that, and then having more than a half a dozen Democrats with no one that is a leading favorite, which is what we've seen so far,” said Mark Baldassare, director of polling at the Public Policy Institute of California. “But one thing I would say is it’s still early.”

Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks has also used that reasoning. He has started an incremental public pressure campaign to prompt lower-polling Democratic candidates to drop out, but the candidates have resisted so far.

Hilton, too, dismissed analyses that both Republicans must advance for either to have a shot of winning the seat, calling it a hypothetical exercise from GOP strategists.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about, I mean these are the kinds of people who have been losing for 20 years,” he said. “The idea that the Democratic Party is just going to concede California is obviously ridiculous. … It’s going to be a Republican against a Democrat.”

Bianco said he’s running against Hilton, whom he called a “career strategist,” as much as any of the Democrats. He said he hasn’t thought too much about who his opponent would be in a general election.

“It really doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I’m not doing this for Republicans. I’m not doing it for Democrats, independents, anything like that.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

FIFA is once again raising prices for a substantial number of games in the upcoming World Cup tournament that will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.

The price increases took place in FIFA's latest sales window that kicked off on Wednesday, with 40 out of 104 games now costing more than in the last sales window, according to an NPR examination of prices.

The hikes can be stark. The most expensive "Category 1" tickets for the final will now cost $10,990, a broad area that covers most of the lower two bowls of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where the last game of the tournament will be held in July.

That's significantly more than the nearly $8,700 at which these tickets were priced in FIFA's previous sales window earlier this year — and much higher than the $6,370 at which they were priced when sales kicked off last year.

The increases come even after FIFA has faced heavy criticism about the record prices being charged and its adoption of dynamic pricing for the first time. A group representing European fans and consumers called FIFA's prices "exorbitant" and filed a formal complaint this month with the European Commission in a bid to get the soccer body to lower prices.

Meanwhile, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to FIFA accusing the organization of "price gouging at the expense of the people who make the World Cup the most-watched sporting event in the world."

FIFA has not replied to NPR's queries. But previously FIFA has justified its prices citing strong demand for tickets as well as noting it's adapting its pricing to the North American market. FIFA has also repeatedly said it's a non-profit that steers the vast majority of revenue from the World Cup to grow soccer around the world.

Price increases cover a wide range of games

Most of the price increases in the initial stage of the tournament were for teams that tend to draw more fans such as Brazil, Argentina, England and Germany — as well as co-host Mexico.

Although price hikes tended to be of less than $100, they still mark a substantial escalation from the initial prices at which FIFA started selling those tickets. Some increases were quite big though. Mexico's opening game against Saudi Arabia now costs as much as $2,985, up from $2,355 in FIFA's last sales window and up from its initial price of $1,825.

Most of the knockout games also increased in price, including the one being held in Philadelphia on July 4th — and the hikes tend to get more substantial for match-ups later in the tournament.

For example, the two semi-finals of the tournament also saw hefty price hikes. The game that will be held in Dallas in July will now cost as much as $3,710, up substantially from $3,295 in the last sales window.

The current sales window will last all the way through the tournament. FIFA has not said how many tickets are left to sell, only that it will continue to drop tickets periodically, including potentially for games that appear to be sold out.
Copyright 2026 NPR

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Why now: HMC StratCap notified the city on Tuesday that it was pulling its proposal to build a data center in a local business park after months of pressure from residents and advocates who raised concerns about pollution, energy use and health risks. The parent company of the developer — DigiCo Infrastructure REIT — said that HMC sought to "work with the City to establish productive land uses" for its Saturn Street property "that are supported by the broader community." Representatives for HMC StratCap have not responded to requests for comment.

Why it matters: For people pushing back on data centers in the region, Monterey Park is shaping up as a test case for how local organizing can stop them. The developer’s decision to withdraw its application comes ahead of a June 2 special election on Measure NDC. If approved at the ballot box, Monterey Park would be the first to ban data centers by public vote. The developer, which had threatened legal action against the city for data center restrictions, now says it will not contest the proposition.

The backstory: The data center proposal had been moving through the city's planning pipeline for two years before it started showing up on the City Council's agendas and coming to the attention of residents, who were outraged the plans had not been well-publicized by the city. Hundreds of people flooded City Hall during council meetings over the last several months, demanding the city heed their concerns. In response, the council approved a temporary moratorium on data center development, put the issue on the ballot and will consider a separate ordinance banning data center development altogether.

What’s next: Members of groups like No Data Center MPK and San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action are celebrating the application's withdrawal, but say they will continue to advocate for Measure NDC and the data center ordinance, which the City Council is expected to vote on in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, organizers are joining the effort to stop a proposal to build a battery energy storage system in the City of Industry, which they see as laying the groundwork for a data center.

Go deeper: How Monterey Park residents pushed back on a data center — and changed the course

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out from the top job at the Justice Department. Her departure comes amid simmering frustration over her leadership and her handling of the Epstein files.

In social media post, Trump called Bondi "a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year."

"Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900," Trump said. "We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future."

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney, will step in to serve as acting attorney general, the president said.

Bondi, a longtime Trump loyalist, is the second member of the president's Cabinet to be forced out. Her departure comes almost one month after Trump fired Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security.

Bondi leaves after a tumultuous 14 months in charge that critics say damaged the Justice Department's credibility, hollowed out the career ranks and undermined the rule of law.

Under Bondi, the department jettisoned its decades-old tradition of maintaining independence from the White House, particularly in investigations and prosecutions, to insulate them from partisan politics.

Instead, she used the department's vast powers to go after the president's perceived foes. That includes the high-profile cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, which were brought after Trump publicly called on Bondi to prosecute them.

A federal judge later tossed both cases after finding the acting U.S. attorney who secured the indictments was unlawfully appointed.

Other political opponents of the president or individuals standing in the way of his agenda also have found themselves under DOJ investigation, including Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, and former Obama-era intelligence officials James Clapper and John Brennan.

Bondi also oversaw sweeping changes to the career workforce at the department. The agency fired prosecutors and FBI officials who worked on Capitol riot cases or the Trump investigations.

The elite section that prosecutes public corruption was gutted; the Civil Rights Division, which protects the Constitutional rights of all Americans, experienced a mass exodus of career attorneys who say the division is being turned into an enforcement arm of the White House.

Political firestorm over Epstein files

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, has defended her actions. She has portrayed the firings as a necessary house cleaning of politicized career officials. She's also tried to focus on what she views as major accomplishments during her tenure: targeting drug cartels, cracking down on violent crime, and helping in immigration enforcement.

But ultimately, the department's handling of the files related to the investigations of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein played a large role in her downfall.

Early in her tenure, Bondi told Fox News that she had Epstein's client list "sitting on my desk right now to review." A few months later, the Justice Department and the FBI said there was no client list and that no additional files from the Epstein investigation would be made public.

That touched off a political firestorm and ultimately led Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all of the Epstein files in its possession.

The department failed to meet the Act's 30-day deadline to release the materials, fueling frustrations on Capitol Hill, before eventually releasing millions of pages of files. Democratic and Republican lawmakers also expressed concerns about heavy redactions that were made to many of the documents.

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