An arbitrator has sided with former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, saying in a preliminary ruling that he was not guilty of sexual assault against his former girlfriend and business partner Michelle Ritter.

The arbitrator, retired Washington State Judge Beth Andrus, recently ordered Ritter to pay $10.7 million in damages to Schmidt.

Ritter sued Schmidt in Los Angeles County Superior Court last September, accusing the billionaire tech mogul of “forcibly” raping her on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021. She also alleged Schmidt forced her to have nonconsensual sex at the Burning Man festival in 2023.

“I clearly told him ‘no’ and tried to get him to stop, but I had learned that attempting to resist physically would be futile and make things worse,” Ritter said in a legal filing.

Schmidt has denied the accusations under oath. The arbitrator said that Ritter did “everything she could possibly do” to avoid discussing the rape accusations under oath.

Ritter had a romantic relationship with the 71-year-old Schmidt after they met in 2020 while she was pursuing graduate degrees in law and business at Columbia University. He invested about $100 million in a joint venture with her that later fell apart.

The pair’s dispute stretches back to 2024 after their personal relationship unraveled and as they were negotiating a settlement of their Steel Perlot venture, a business accelerator that invested in artificial intelligence, crypto and other startups.

Ritter also accused Schmidt of stealing the joint venture from her, which he denied.

“One can also conclude that Ritter engaged in self-centered efforts to obtain revenge against Schmidt in a way that was more damaging than helpful to her cause,” Andrus wrote in her decision, which was recently made public. “I find that Ritter’s statement that she was raped by Schmidt to be false.”

Ritter, 32, alleged that a 2022 federal law inspired by the #MeToo movement intended to end forced arbitration of sexual assault and harassment claims allowed her to have her case heard in open court.

Superior Court Judge Michael Small disagreed, ruling that the law did not apply because a financial settlement and arbitration agreement Ritter and Schmidt signed in December 2024 was entered into after the alleged sexual wrongdoing — not before as legally required.

The judge sent the case to arbitration in March. Ritter filed a federal lawsuit in California in April challenging the arbitration. That litigation is pending.

Schmidt served as Google chief executive from 2001 to 2011 and later as the chairman of the Silicon Valley company and its parent, Alphabet Inc., until 2017.

Schmidt is worth about $52 billion, largely through his stock holding in Google’s parent company, Alphabet, according to Bloomberg.

Last year, Schmidt took a controlling interest in Relativity Space, a Long Beach rocket startup founded in 2015.

American Airlines is joining the list of airlines suspending flights to and from Los Angeles International Airport this summer.

It announced a temporary suspension of nonstop flight routes out of LAX to Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Washington Dulles airports. The suspension is set to last through August and September due to rising fuel prices resulting from the conflict in Iran.

American Airlines is not alone in this decision.

In April, Norse Atlantic Airways canceled all of its summer flights out of LAX to Europe, including destinations like London, Paris and Rome.

Allegiant Airlines also canceled its LAX operations in January, rerouting flights out of Hollywood Burbank Airport instead. To keep ticket prices down and align with its low-cost airfare model, Burbank was a better airport for the Los Angeles area due to lower operational costs than LAX.

With the conflict ongoing and the flow of oil uncertain, the cost of jet fuel could continue to rise, leaving more flight routes in jeopardy, especially in states like California.

Jet fuel prices in Los Angeles have jumped more than 40% since the conflict in the Middle East started. Airlines are adding baggage surcharges to cover fuel costs. Several routes leaving from smaller California hubs, including Sacramento and Burbank, have already been canceled.

As fuel supplies shrink, flight prices are rising.

The West Coast is a “fuel island” because it’s not connected by pipelines to the rest of the country, United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby said in an interview in March. That means oil and refined products have to be brought in by ships.

“Fuel price is more susceptible to supply weakness on the West Coast than anywhere else in the country,” Kirby said.

A statement from American Airlines said it will not be suspending any of these routes indefinitely, and service to these cities from LAX will still be available with American Airlines, but a connection will be required.

American Airlines shares, which have fallen more than 13% so far this year, fell 2% Thursday to $13.30.

California, the epicenter of the artificial intelligence boom, continues to grow its economy faster than the nation, but more people are losing their jobs and the cost of living remains high.

New economic indicators released this week show how the Golden State is grappling with the effects of the Iran war, as well as an AI explosion, which is driving huge investments as well as layoffs.

The state’s unemployment rate reached 5.3% in April, roughly 1 percentage point higher than the nation’s. California’s unemployment rate is expected to peak at 5.6% later this year, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast released this week.

The state outpaced the nation in economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2025. It probably continued to outgrow the country in the first three months of this year, the report said.

“Income and output will continue to grow faster than the U.S. even as employment growth is tepid,” senior economist Jerry Nickelsburg wrote in the forecast. “Once past the current weakness, expected by the middle of next year, a tech, durable goods manufacturing, and construction resurgence should lead to superior growth in both employment and income in the Golden State once again.”

The state’s growth is being bolstered by many local companies that are attracting and spending hundreds of billions of dollars in the race to build the software and infrastructure needed for AI. However, there are signs that the same race may be leading to fewer jobs in some sectors.

From January to May, U.S. tech employers announced 123,653 job cuts, up 66% from the same period a year earlier, according to a report Thursday by global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. California had close to 77,000 job cuts across all sectors, double the number of any other state.

Although AI was cited more often than any other reason for cuts, the layoffs haven’t been as bad as the pessimists feared, said Andy Challenger, a labor and workplace expert and chief revenue officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

“AI isn’t yet the jobpocalypse some predicted,” he said in a statement. “Like spreadsheets and email before it, the technology will ultimately make workers more productive.”

California has seen job growth in sectors including healthcare and social services. But entertainment, tech and manufacturing businesses have been cutting back.

UCLA’s outlook paints a mixed picture of California’s future, one filled with uncertainty as the Iran war pushes up fuel prices, inflation rises, government policy changes and tariffs disrupt supply chains.

The state is particularly vulnerable to the effect of the war on Iran because it uses pricey low-emissions gasoline, and California ports accept cargo on ships that require large amounts of more expensive oil, according to the forecast.

California also is more dependent on oil from outside the country than other states.

It’s still too early to predict the fallout from the war on Iran, but economists expect it to negatively affect employment by the end of this year and into 2027, the quarterly forecast from UCLA said. It projected that national real GDP growth would shrink from around 2.3% this year to 1.8% next year.

The UCLA report did not provide a state GDP forecast, but said early indicators suggest California continues to outperform the country. Last year, the national real GDP growth rate was around 2%, the report said. California’s was closer to 2.5%, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Some are concerned that AI could worsen what’s called a “K-shaped” economy, in which the rich see growth and most other people struggle with stagnating opportunities. In California, it could also lead to an “E-shaped” economy, in which low, medium and high-income people each see slight growth.

That depends on whether AI ends up helping workers or replacing them, economist William Yu said.

“If it’s labor substitution, we are going to see this [as] more of a K-shaped economy. If it’s more of labor augmentation, we’re going to see more of [an] E-shaped economy,” he said at a conference about the report.

Tech companies say they are using AI to do more with fewer people. Yu said a lot of the AI spending is going into building out AI data centers rather than hiring.

Citing data from job search website Indeed, AI appears to be slowing down growth in software, information technology, marketing and media job postings, he said. But demand for civil and electrical engineers remains high. AI might not be affecting those roles, or reindustrialization policies are boosting hiring in those areas.