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Peltola campaign’s alleged Dan Sullivan spoiler plot takes new turn as DOJ faces major legal hurdle

October 28, 2026 2:40pm EDT | Fox News

Legal experts question whether statistical analysis of anonymous ballots can demonstrate voters were misled by similar names

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Heritage Foundation senior fellow Don Palmer explains what it would take for the DOJ to successfully block Alaska’s Senate election.

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The Department of Justice faces an uphill legal battle in Alaska, where it is trying to convince a federal court that confusion between two Senate candidates with nearly identical names could be enough to delay certification of the election results.

Roughly two weeks before Election Day on Oct. 22, the DOJ filed a federal lawsuit seeking to delay certification if Sen. Dan Sullivan loses and votes cast for another candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan could have changed the result, pending an investigation into whether voters mistakenly selected the wrong candidate.

The DOJ’s complaint stems from a controversy in Alaska where two individuals by the name of Dan Sullivan, one a retired schoolteacher and the other the state’s incumbent senator, appear alongside each other on the state’s ballots. Although Alaska has traditionally been a Republican stronghold in Senate elections, the state’s race could carry greater national significance this year as Republicans seek to defend their narrow Senate majority.

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The New York Times reported Wednesday that the campaign of Mary Peltola, the Democrat running for Senate in Alaska, reportedly worked with operatives to recruit another Dan Sullivan to run for Alaska’s Senate seat, hoping voter confusion would draw support from the incumbent Republican senator. Citing interviews, text messages and documents prepared for a potential lawsuit, the Times reported that the effort also targeted other potential spoiler candidates, despite the Peltola campaign’s repeated denials of involvement in the second Sullivan’s candidacy.

TODD BLANCHE CHALLENGES DANA BASH FOR ONLY CITING PART OF CONSTITUTION DURING HEATED ELECTION CLASH

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Newly-introduced Senate candidate Dan Sullivan, left, pictured alongside Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, right.(Sullivan for U.S. Senate; Brandon Bell-Pool/Getty Images)

On Sunday, Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee filed a proposed motion to dismiss the Justice Department’s lawsuit, arguing that the federal law cited by the DOJ governs voter registration, not candidate eligibility or ballot design. They also urged the court to resolve the case before Election Day.

Conservatives have argued that two similar names on the same ballot could possibly lead to voters who would prefer to reelect the state’s Republican senator accidentally voting for the retired school teacher. Opponents of the effort to remove Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot argue that sharing a name with an incumbent is not grounds for disqualification and that Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system allows voters to rank both candidates, potentially limiting the effects of mistaken selections.

Alaska’s Division of Elections initially sided with conservatives, disqualifying Sullivan the schoolteacher by finding that his candidacy was not a genuine, good-faith bid for office but instead was designed to confuse voters into mistaking him for the senator. Alaska Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews overturned the decision in June, holding that the Division of Elections had no authority to void a candidacy on that basis.

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Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and former Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska.(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; Nathaniel Wilder/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Alaska’s general election ballot identifies the incumbent as “Sullivan, Dan S.,” with Republican and incumbent designations, while listing the other candidate as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.,” without a party affiliation, a measure some argue is enough to clear up potential confusion. Lawyers at the Justice Department, however, remain unconvinced.

Although Attorney General Todd Blanche has suggested that officials could examine ranked-choice ballot patterns for signs of confusion, the Justice Department has not explained how those patterns could establish that individual voters mistakenly selected the wrong candidate. Voter privacy protections pose a major obstacle to a potential federal case, as it would be nigh impossible to tie specific voters to specific ballots to serve as evidence of confusion.

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ALASKA HAS A VOTING SYSTEM LIKE NO OTHER STATE; REPUBLICANS WORRY IT COULD COST THEM IN NOVEMBER

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Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, stands in the Senate Subway of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 2026.(Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg)

“This is just the stuff that is just impossible to measure after the fact,” Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller said of the DOJ’s plan to infer voter intentions from anonymous ballots.

Blanche, in interviews with the press, has provided some insight into how he would like the DOJ to go about solving this problem.

“So, because of rank-based voting, voters… they write not just one, not just two, but multiple names on the ballot. And so there are a number of scenarios where it could be obvious that a voter was confused by the way they wrote down candidates,” Blanche told CNN’s Dana Bash.

Blanche’s comments suggest that the Justice Department could examine ranked-choice ballot patterns for potential signs of confusion, although such patterns alone would not establish whether voters intended to support a different candidate.

“It will be obvious from the results and from the ballots that voters were confused, and that could be obvious from the way that they rank the Dan Sullivans or not including a Dan Sullivan on the ballot,” he said in a later interview with CBS.

ALASKA REPUBLICANS SCRAMBLE TO EDUCATE VOTERS ON SUSPECTED DEM PLANT AS ‘BALLOT FATIGUE’ THREATENS RACE

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Dan J. Sullivan, who has filed to run for U.S. Senate in Alaska, poses for a photo in Petersburg, Alaska, on June 26, 2026.(Katie Holmlund/Associated Press)

Don Palmer, senior legal fellow for election integrity at the right-of-center Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that he feels the Justice Department might have a case if the agency’s lawyers construct it properly. Statistical analysis of ballots alone, he maintains, will likely not be sufficient to convince a judge of the administration’s position.

“You’ll have the opportunity to interview witnesses, do some statistical analysis, and make a decision whether or not the campaign wants to contest the results of the election,” Palmer said. “So it’s actually quite a high standard where you have to bring in witnesses. You can’t generally just prove it with some statistical analysis… the campaign would have to show to the court through statistical and expert testimony, plus witness testimony, plus affidavits, that enough voters were confused, that they made inaccurate choices on what they intended to do. Then and only then could the court determine whether the race should be overturned.”

“If voters voted for the non-Republican Dan Sullivan as their first choice, but voted down ballot for Republicans as their first choice otherwise, that could indicate patterns of confusion whereby voters were looking to vote straight Republican as their first choice and were prevented from doing so because the inclusion of Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot confused matters,” a spokesman for the America First Policy Institute told Fox News Digital.

Ben Hovland, a senior fellow at the left-of-center Center for American Progress and an expert on elections, was more bearish on the DOJ’s prospects.

SEEING DOUBLE: SECOND DAN SULLIVAN ADVANCES, SETTING UP BIZARRE ALASKA SENATE BALLOT

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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears before a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for his nomination to be attorney general at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., on July 15, 2026.(Anadolu via Getty Images)

“You’ve never seen a claim like this made under the National Voter Registration Act,” he told Fox News Digital. “This is not a matter of federal law. This is a state ballot qualification issue and the Alaska Supreme Court addressed this issue months ago. For the Department of Justice to step in at this point and sort of make this claim, you know, doesn’t appear to be about winning in a lawsuit because it doesn’t seem like there’s any scenario where [they win], this is clearly about trying to sow confusion or sow doubt or set the stage to undermine the results of the election if the administration doesn’t like what the voters will have to say.”

Walter Olson, a senior legal fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, also isn’t convinced that the Justice Department will be able to get its case off the ground.

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“I wouldn’t expect Blanche’s local allies to get very far in this effort unless a federal court rules in favor of his theory that Alaska violated federal (as opposed to state) law by letting the schoolteacher stay on the ballot,” Olson told Fox News Digital. “I think the state is likely to beat Blanche in federal court on that point, and that should end the case.”

Alaska has already moved to have the DOJ’s case dismissed.

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The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment when reached by Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

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DOJ fires back at Dem AG over Election Day guidance telling officials when to call cops on federal agents

Jones’ 10-page directive advises local officials to call police when federal agents approach polling places

By Charles Creitz / Fox News
Published October 28, 2026 1:44pm EDT

National Fraud Enforcement Division Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald discusses the Justice Department’s crackdown on alleged election fraud and warns of what he calls ‘severe’ vulnerabilities in voter registration systems. McDonald also addresses disputes with states over access to data from federal benefit programs, including SNAP, on ‘The Big Weekend Show.’

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The Justice Department blasted Virginia Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones’ Election Day guidance as “bluster and political posturing,” pushing back against his 10-page directive advising local election officials to call police when federal agents approach polling places and to document their activities.

The Oct. 15 bulletin, jointly issued by Jones’ office and the Virginia Department of Elections, outlines how officials should respond to federal agents, scrutinize requests from DOJ election monitors and prepare for potential federal demands for ballots and voting equipment.

The dispute comes as conservative litigation firm America First Legal pursues records concerning the state’s warnings about potential federal election interference, which Fox News Digital has learned.

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Democrat House candidate hit with felony summons at campaign event

Lakesha Womack is challenging Rep Tim Moore in North Carolina and faces charges over a rental car

By Elizabeth Elkind Fox News

Published October 28, 2026 1:55pm EDT

A Democratic candidate running for the U.S. House of Representatives said she is facing criminal charges and that she was hit with a police summons while at her own campaign event this month.

Lakesha Womack, who is running to represent North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District, which is currently held by Rep. Tim Moore, R-N.C., said in a Facebook video she was confronted by police about felony charges related to failure to pay for a rental car in 2019 when she arrived to a campaign event in Polk County, N.C., on Oct. 11.

Womack claimed she was first made aware of the felony case just days before despite records showing it had been opened in January 2020.

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Moore’s campaign said the incident “raises serious questions” and that “she owes voters an explanation, especially since her court date is one week after the election.”

DEM HOUSE CANDIDATE SETTLES YEARS-LONG $55K DEBT FIGHT WITH FORMER MOTHER-IN-LAW WEEKS BEFORE ELECTION

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Rep. Tim Moore, R-N.C., at the National Guard Armory polling location during the North Carolina primary election in Gastonia, N.C., March 3, 2026.(Cornell Watson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“How is she going to be an advocate for our community when she can’t manage her own personal affairs? As an attorney for over 30 years, I think everyone should be held to the same standard of justice, and this situation is no different. Free legal advice: When the rental agreement ends, so does your right to keep the car,” Moore’s campaign told Fox News Digital.

The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to Fox News Digital that Womack was served a criminal summons for felony failure to return a hired motor vehicle on Oct. 11 by a deputy with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. It did not confirm that it took place at a campaign event.

DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE SEEN SOBBING, PRAYING IN PATROL CAR AFTER DUI ARREST: VIDEO

Womack recalled being told about her criminal charges days before the campaign event during a conversation with Gastonia, North Carolina’s NAACP branch. In 2019, she said she was homeless with little money when she had a medical incident that sent her to the intensive care unit (ICU). During that time, her son was placed into foster care with no one immediately able to look after him.

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LaKesha Womack is running for Congress in North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District, challenging incumbent Rep. Tim Moore, R-N.C.(LaKesha Womack campaign)

After retrieving her son, Womack said, “I’m living in a hotel and, you know, scraping together, you know, dollars to buy food from Dollar Tree, to like, buy dinner for him every night. And I had a rental car. Couldn’t afford the rental car, and they came and got it. And, so, I never knew that, you know, they have filed, you know, I guess that it was a pending felony.

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DEM HOUSE HOPEFUL ALLEGES SHE WAS BRUTALLY ATTACKED DURING 2 AM CAMPAIGN ERRAND

“I didn’t post that I was gonna be in Polk County, but they knew exactly what car I was driving. And as soon as I parked, they pulled up behind me and served my papers with my address from 2019. So, y’all hadn’t looked for me in the past seven years, but now all of a sudden, you know exactly what car I drive and where I’m going to be,” Womack said.

She did admit in an Oct. 9 video addressing the charges that she did owe fees, “but I just want you all to know that, you know, I do owe them people some money.” She said in the same video that she thought she previously “had resolved the issue, but it’s not resolved.”

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Womack said in that video that she could not receive the January 2020 criminal summons at the time because she was homeless and therefore did not have a stable address.

That video appears to have since been deleted from her campaign Facebook page. Womack said in later videos that she could not discuss an active case.

If found guilty, she could face between four and 24 months behind bars or community service for that duration.

North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District is located in the western part of the state and spans from the suburbs of Charlotte to more rural areas in the North Carolina foothills.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Womack’s campaign for comment.

Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.

Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com

Federal judge who oversaw Maduro, Trump cases dead at 92

Judge Alvin Hellerstein died of natural causes, the court said

By Anders Hagstrom, Fox News
Published October 28, 2026 1:33pm EDT

Nicolas Maduro’s trial date set for June 1, 2027
Fox News national correspondent Bryan Llenas reports on the charges and the defense’s expected plans on ‘America Reports.’

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Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was overseeing the case against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, died at the age of 92 on Tuesday.

Hellerstein had served as a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York since 1998, after being appointed by then-President Bill Clinton. He had also presided over President Donald Trump’s attempts to move his New York criminal case from state courts to federal courts.

The court said Hellerstein died of natural causes just short of his 93rd birthday.

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TRUMP PICKS JAMES MCDONALD TO LEAD POWERFUL SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK AFTER JAY CLAYTON’S DEPARTURE

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U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein presides at the Manhattan Federal Court in a June 27, 2023, courtroom sketch.(REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg)

Hellerstein earned his J.D. and bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, according to the Federal Judicial Center. He served in the U.S. Army, JAG Corps from 1957-1960 before 38 years of private practice prior to his judicial appointment.

DENVER MAN’S ESCAPE EXPOSES CHILLING TREN DE ARAGUA KIDNAPPING PLOT THAT LANDS TRIO IN PRISON

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Alvin Hellerstein.(Photo by Owen Hoffmann/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

A new judge is set to be randomly assigned to handle the Maduro case following Hellerstein’s passing.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are both charged with conspiracy to commit torture against Americans and others to stay in power, according to a superseding indictment filed in early October.

Maduro’s government, according to the indictment, “presided over a system of repression that relied on violence against political opposition, arbitrary detention, and the torture of detainees, including United States citizens.”

The torture included “electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture, such as threats to harm and kill victims’ families, including children,” the indictment read.

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MADURO ALLY DEPORTED TO US OVER ALLEGED BILLION-DOLLAR CORRUPTION SCHEME TIED TO OIL, FOOD PROGRAM

The charge carries a maximum of life imprisonment if any of the alleged torture resulted in death, and a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if not.

The indictment alleges Maduro and Flores “inflicted severe physical and mental pain and suffering to repress and punish political opposition, silence dissent and perceived dissent, preserve and protect the power and authority of the members of the conspiracy, and intimidate, harass, and neutralize their opponents, including through kidnappings.”

MADURO’S ALLEGED ‘BAG MAN’ ALEX SAAB ARRESTED LESS THAN 3 YEARS AFTER BIDEN PARDON: REPORT

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Former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, appear before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Federal Court in New York on July 22, 2026.(Christine Cornell)

The pair, who face numerous other charges, were arrested in Venezuela in January during Operation Absolute Resolve. Maduro was originally charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices in a 2011 indictment that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice unsealed in 2020.

Flores was then charged in a superseding indictment in January with cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. They have pleaded not guilty, and a trial is scheduled for June 2027.

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Flores appeared in court earlier this month for a bond hearing on her motion for release from jail. Her lawyers were requesting home confinement with GPS tracking, citing a heart condition and arguing she does not pose a danger to the community. Hellerstein denied the request.

Fox News’ Robert McGreevy contributed to this report.

Anders Hagstrom is a reporter with Fox News Digital covering national politics and major breaking news events.

Manhunt underway for violent illegal immigrant who was released under NYC sanctuary policies

ICE says Alpha Bah from Guinea remains at large after Queens Central Booking ignored two federal detainer requests

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Published October 28, 2026 1:43pm EDT

NYC DAs accused of reducing charges to limit deportations, report says

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin joins Bill Hemmer to discuss a new House GOP report on New York City’s sanctuary policies alleging officials downgraded charges to avoid deporting illegal immigrants.

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FIRST ON FOX: New York City’s sanctuary policy is again coming under fire after authorities released an illegal immigrant accused of assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon without notifying or cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent repeated requests for federal officials to detain Alpha Bah, an illegal immigrant from Guinea, after he was arrested on charges of aggravated assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and intent to obtain transportation without paying, Fox News Digital has learned.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged a detainer request with Queens Central Booking on Oct. 7, 2026. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) ignored the detainer and released Bah without notifying ICE.

“This is the vision of sanctuary politicians in a nutshell: the open-border policies of the Biden Administration let this criminal into our country, and then sanctuary politicians in New York released him after arresting him without notifying ICE,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News Digital.

Bah’s release is just one of many examples of sanctuary cities in the U.S. allowing illegal immigrants back into the U.S. following their arrest, and it flies in the face of the Trump administration’s crackdown on allowing people without legal status to remain in the country.

HOUSE REPORT SAYS NYC PROSECUTORS TAILORED PLEA DEALS TO SHIELD ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM DEPORTATION

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The Department of Homeland Security is calling on sanctuary politicians to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the repeated release of an illegal immigrant, Alpha Bah, who remains at large.(DHS/ICE)

“This illegal alien from Guinea was arrested for assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon. Despite these violent charges, New York City sanctuary politicians refused to honor ICE’s detainer and RELEASED him back onto the streets, and he remains at large,” Mullin said in a statement.

He added, “DHS is calling on Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani to knock it off with these evil sanctuary policies before another American gets hurt, or worse.”

ICE has now twice requested that Bah be held in custody. He was previously charged with intent to obtain transportation without paying in June 2026. ICE lodged a detainer with Manhattan Central Booking, but the NYPD also released him following that arrest.

Bah entered the United States illegally in November 2023. He resided in Arizona before being arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol.

He was also arrested in January 2025 for criminal trespassing but was released before ICE was able to request a detainer on him under Biden-era policies, according to DHS.

HOCHUL REMAINS DEFIANT AFTER SHERIFFS SUE OVER LAW BANNING COOPERATION WITH ICE: ‘BRING IT ON’

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul listens as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during the annual New York State Financial Control Board meeting on Aug. 12, 2026, in New York City.(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Bah’s release has prompted DHS to call on all pro-sanctuary politicians, not just Hochul and Mamdani, to reconsider policies that restrict cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., has been a large proponent of implementing policies that place restrictions on state and local law enforcement cooperating with federal immigration authorities. In May, she signed legislation that imposed laws blocking New York’s law enforcement agencies from entering into official agreements with ICE.

New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani has similarly supported sanctuary policies in the city, signing an executive order to “reaffirm the city’s commitment to being a sanctuary for all New Yorkers.”

The order made it more difficult to access data of illegal immigrants, restricted federal immigration enforcement on city property and put in place an audit to check that city agencies are complying with sanctuary policies.

MAMDANI MESSAGE TO RESIDENTS ON HOW TO DEAL WITH ICE RESULTS IN VIRAL INTERNET BACKLASH: ‘TREASON’

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Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) New York field office on Sept. 1, 2026, in New York City, New York.(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

“The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) partnerships with local law enforcement are key to removing criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists from American communities,” DHS said in a statement responding to the introduced policies. “7 of the 10 safest cities in the U.S. cooperate with ICE.”

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Neither Hochul’s nor Mamdani’s offices immediately replied to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Hannah is a Production Assistant for the Politics team at Fox News Digital.

Dolores Huerta, labor activist and civil rights icon, dies at age 96

October 28, 2026 / 2:36 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Dolores Huerta, the labor activist and civil rights leader who co-founded with Cesar Chavez the group that later became the United Farm Workers, has died, her family said in a statement posted to social media. She was 96.

Huerta’s family said in a statement through her Bakersfield, California-based foundation that she died Wednesday at home.

“As you can imagine, this is an incredibly difficult time for us, and we ask for privacy as we grieve this incredible loss to our family,” the family said. “We know that many of you around the world share in our mourning.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who considered Huerta a close friend, ordered flags be flown at half-staff in her honor.

“Dolores represented the best of us,” Newsom said in a statement. “California — and the United States — would not be what we are today without her resolute spirit, her passion for justice and fairness, and her commitment to those overlooked and forgotten.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass described Huerta’s legacy as “proof of what ordinary people can accomplish when they organize.”

“Dolores reminded us that no matter the odds, no matter the obstacle, we can build a greater life for ourselves, our community, our city, and our country,” Bass said in a statement. “She never, never stopped working. She was fighting for civil rights every day, into her nineties. Those who knew her, worried about her, but the intensity of her fight continued on.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco in Congress, called Huerta a dear friend who led with courage and determination.

“We all responded to her rallying cry, ‘Sí se puede,’ which inspired generations of Americans to believe in the power of collective action,” Pelosi said in a statement, referring to Huerta’s three-word Spanish-language slogan, which translates to “Yes, it can be done.”

Huerta kept a busy schedule, marching in protests and speaking in cities across the country about race, poverty, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights on behalf of her foundation.

Huerta’s resolve cemented her place in history as one of the nation’s most influential labor leaders, civil rights icons and feminist activists.

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Dolores Huerta attends La Cena Los Angeles: Celebration of Latino Culture on Feb. 21, 2025. Presley Ann/Getty Images

Her work over the decades earned her a number of accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. When then-President Barack Obama presented the award in 2012, he praised Huerta as a tenacious leader and joked that he had stolen her slogan for his 2008 campaign.

This year, Huerta sent shockwaves through the Latino community when she revealed that she was sexually abused in the 1960s by Chavez, leading to the birth of two children, a secret she kept for 60 years and long after he died.

From the early 1970s on, Huerta’s life partner was Richard Chavez, César’s brother, and together they had four kids. She also had seven children from two earlier marriages.

Huerta said she had kept silent for so long because she feared that coming forward would compromise her life’s work and unravel all the progress made for workers.

When asked during a 2026 interview with the news organization Latino USA about keeping the secret, Huerta said: “It was my personal pain, it was my personal problem and, you know, I think it was worth it because it was my cross to bear. I’ll say it that way.”

Homegrown activism

Huerta was born Dolores Clara Fernandez in 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico. Her father was a miner and union activist who went on to win a seat in the state Legislature. Her parents divorced when she was 3, and her mother took her and her brothers to California.

Immersed in a melting pot of Mexican, Filipino, African American, Japanese and Chinese working families, Huerta learned from her mother — who owned a restaurant and hotel — about independence, compassion and activism.

Huerta was a young, energetic elementary school teacher in the farm-rich San Joaquin Valley when she decided to answer another calling after growing frustrated by her students’ poor living conditions.

“I couldn’t stand seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes,” she said in a 2017 PBS Independent Lens documentary on her life. “I thought I could do more by organizing farmworkers than by trying to teach their hungry children.”

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Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers group, is seen with a union flag in the 1970s. Cathy Murphy/Getty Images

Huerta’s early work with a civil rights group in Stockton resulted in her meeting Chavez. The two wanted to focus more on the plight of farmworkers, so in 1962 they started the National Farm Workers Association, which became United Farm Workers of America a few years later. She was a key leader and negotiator for the union for years.

She was among those who joined Filipino grape pickers on the picket line in what became the five-year “Delano Grape Strike.” With Chavez, she negotiated collective bargaining agreements and contracts with big growers, winning the first health and benefit plans for farmworkers.

Chavez, who died in 1993, once described her as fearless, committed to the cause and tough when it came to negotiations.

On the campaign trail

She met U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York during his visit to Delano in 1968 and became a volunteer on his presidential campaign, registering Mexican Americans in California to vote. Huerta was onstage with Kennedy after he won the California primary and he publicly thanked her moments before he was shot.

The assassination devastated Huerta, but she kept organizing for farmworkers’ rights.

Huerta was jailed 22 times for union demonstrating. In 1988, she was seriously injured while protesting Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush’s opposition to the UFW grape boycott during his visit to San Francisco.

Caught in a crowd, she was struck by a police officer’s baton, suffered three broken ribs and a pulverized spleen, and required more than a dozen blood transfusions. She reached a settlement with the city to resolve her claims.

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United Farm Workers’ leader Dolores Huerta at the UFW headquarters in San Francisco on March 8, 1989. Mike Maloney/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

After a long recovery, Huerta shifted focus and hit the road to campaign for women’s rights and encourage Latinas to run for office.

She also campaigned for Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Obama and Joe Biden.

Clinton called Huerta a “stalwart champion of working Americans” in a statement praising her contributions to the country.

“To see her in action was to witness a living legend who never stopped pushing for progress and seeing every new obstacle as a fresh opportunity to educate, to organize, and to uplift — even as those efforts sometimes brought her grave consequences,” Clinton said.

Fueled by courage

Emilio Huerta, one of Dolores’ 13 children, once pointed to his mom’s courage during an interview, saying it was one of the most significant drivers of her life’s work.

“To dedicate your life to building a dream of a union for farmworkers, to take on agriculture, which to this day is still a powerhouse. … That took a lot of guts,” he said.

Huerta learned the art of lobbying politicians. She secured financial aid for the unemployed and disability insurance for California farmworkers. She spoke out against toxic pesticides, pushed for amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally and fought federal guest worker programs.

By directing nationwide boycotts of grapes and lettuce in the early 1970s, she helped to create the economic pressure and political climate necessary for California to pass what would be the first state law recognizing farmworkers’ right to collective bargaining.

Her work earned her many accolades. She was the first Latina to be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and she’s received nine honorary doctorates from U.S. universities.

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Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, receives an honorary degree from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, May 12, 2023. Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images

Schools are named in her honor in California, Texas and Colorado. Her image graces many murals, and streets bear her name, but she didn’t always win favor with more liberal activists.

In 2016, when she endorsed Hillary Clinton instead of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the presidential Democratic primary, actor Rosario Dawson — a Sanders supporter who played Huerta in a 2014 movie about Cesar Chavez — said Huerta had become “an instrument of the establishment.”

Dawson and Huerta eventually reconciled.

Guitarist Carlos Santana later oversaw a documentary based on Huerta’s life after the pair had a late-night conversation about music while in Hawaii. Santana, a Miles Davis fan, discovered Huerta was a huge fan of bebop legend Charlie Parker.

“I even met Charlie Parker. That’s my claim to fame,” Huerta joked during an interview with The Associated Press when she was 87.

It was her work as a leader within the labor movement that reverberated through the U.S. and beyond, making her name synonymous with civil rights.

In the 2025 documentary “Seeds of Change: The Life and Legacy of Dolores Huerta,” she recounted her decades-long journey in activism and talked about the inspiration she drew from the women’s movement during the 1970s, saying it provided validation that she too could stand on the stage with other labor leaders.

“I hope that my legacy will be one of an organizer that organized to fight injustice,” she said in the film. “We want to give our children an inheritance of justice, right, not jewels or property or money because they’ll just fight over it. So the main thing to do is to give them this love for justice — and that is the greatest gift I think that any of us can have.”

Treasury sanctions 10 North Koreans and Russians over IT worker fraud scheme

October 28, 2026 / 12:31 PM EDT / CBS News

The Treasury Department has sanctioned 10 North Koreans and Russians powering Pyongyang’s sprawling IT worker fraud enterprise — a state-run operation that churns out stolen identities, fake résumés and fake IT employees who infiltrate legitimate businesses. The hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds are then used to fund North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.

The scheme is simple: North Korean operatives pose as legitimate IT professionals, secure jobs at unwitting U.S. and allied companies, and funnel the majority of their pay back to the regime. Once inside corporate networks, these workers can also access sensitive data, deploy malware and even extort their employers.

In diving into the global web of handlers, financial intermediaries and money launderers bolstering the fake identities, investigators discovered key parts of that machinery operating in Russia. Among those designated Wednesday is Russian national Vitold Viktorovich Obertas, an intermediary who has facilitated financial transactions for North Korean officials. Since January 2025, Obertas has processed nearly $2 million in cryptocurrency conversions and at least $1.25 million in additional currency transactions for DPRK officials.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also sanctioned North Korean national Kim Ki Hyok, who leads an IT worker delegation in Russia and is responsible for monitoring the group’s personnel and ensuring they meet financial targets. Since 2024, he has transferred nearly $500,000 in cryptocurrency on behalf of the delegation.

The Treasury also sanctioned the Russia-based, North Korean-controlled First Financial and Technical Development Center, which has generated millions for the regime by procuring highly trained IT workers for jobs in the U.S. and worldwide and operating cryptocurrency transfers behind the scenes. Six of its own operatives were designated alongside the organization.

All U.S.-linked property and interests in property of the designated persons have now been blocked, and Americans and U.S. residents are generally prohibited from engaging with them. The action goes beyond targeting individual fraudsters — it’s an effort to begin dismantling the machinery that converts fraudulent employment into illicit revenue — and ultimately into funding for North Korea’s weapons programs.

This story published first on CBS News at 12:31 p.m. on Oct. 28, 2026.