(Bethel, AK) –Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a favorable opinion for the State of Alaska in ConocoPhillips Alaska v. Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC), agreeing that State laws requiring disclosure of oil well data are not preempted by federal law.

“Alaska relies heavily on our resources and resource development,” said Acting Alaska Attorney General Cori Mills. “We are also stewards of those resources for the citizens of Alaska. Alaska’s law both allows resource development now, and encourages further development and exploration in the future. We’re pleased that the Ninth Circuit recognized that federal law has not overridden Alaska’s balanced approach.”

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulates oil and gas operations throughout Alaska, including within the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPR–A). Under Alaska law, companies need permits from the AOGCC to drill and must submit well data. The AOGCC is required to keep well data confidential for 24 months.

ConocoPhillips drilled several wells on lease holdings within the NPR–A and submitted data to the AOGCC. When the 24-month period expired, the AOGCC notified ConocoPhillips of the upcoming well data disclosure. ConocoPhillips sued in federal court to stop the disclosure process claiming that the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act, the federal law allowing private exploration in the NPR–A, preempted Alaska’s 24-month disclosure law. The federal district court found Alaska law preempted, and the AOGCC sought appellate review by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the AOGCC. The federal Production Act does not preempt state law. The Ninth Circuit therefore reversed the district court’s holding to the contrary.

“The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is pleased with the court’s decision upholding Alaska law,” said AOGCC Commissioner Jessie Chmielowski in a declaration filed in the litigation court. “Alaska’s balanced approach to well data confidentiality leads to increased exploration activity, not less. Alaska law allows for a two-year confidentiality period on exploration well data to leverage a company’s investment in drilling. Thereafter, making the data public has incentivized exploration on the North Slope. Placing well data in the public record allows competing companies to evaluate different exploration concepts or interpretations based on seismic data that, without well data, are just educated guesses.”

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The Arizona man known as the “QAnon Shaman” said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s new Anti-Weaponization Fund is an abuse of power by a would-be “king.”

Jacob Angeli-Chansley – the face of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot with his red, white and blue face paint and horned fur headdress – denounced the $1.776 billion program as a “slush fund” for Trump to reward his loyalists.

The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday as part of a settlement with Trump, who had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. The settlement included an assurance that the IRS will drop all audits and claims for back taxes against Trump, his family and businesses.

“You think I’m gonna take a f—ing dime from Trump and the government after he’s using this thing to cover him and his family in perpetuity for all of their crimes?” he told Cronkite News by phone. “You think I’m gonna take a dime of that blood money?”

Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot the day he returned to the White House in January 2025. Many had been convicted of assaulting police officers.

Cronkite News reached out to 17 of those defendants with Arizona ties. None besides Angeli-Chansley responded.

Thirteen were convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes related to the attack. Four of the cases were dismissed after the pardon. The charges included assault on federal agents, physical violence at the Capitol and seditious conspiracy.

See our previous coverage of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and “QAnon Shaman” in the video player above.

Angeli-Chansley pleaded guilty to a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. He served 27 months of a 41-month sentence. He was released from federal prison in March 2023.

During the riot, he carried an American flag fastened to a spear and used a bullhorn to call other rioters to the dais in the Senate chamber.

“He stated that ‘Mike Pence is a f—-ing traitor’ and wrote a note on available paper on the dais, stating, ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming,’” according to prosecutors.

At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the compensation fund, saying it will be open to anyone victimized by a politically motivated prosecution, not just Jan. 6 defendants.

“It’s not limited to Republicans. … It’s not limited to the Biden weaponization. It’s not limited to, in any way scope or form, January 6 or to (targets of special counsel) Jack Smith. There’s no limitation on the claims,” Blanche said. 

He rejected Democrats’ assertions that the fund is a massive, taxpayer-funded attempt by Trump to whitewash the assault on democracy.

“I think it’s telling that everybody on the left and … the liberal side of the media immediately says it’s a slush fund for President Trump’s friends,” Blanche said. “If anything else, that’s an outright admission that they know that the people that really had this Department of Justice weaponized against them were President Trump and his friends. But … that is not what the AG order that I signed yesterday says.”

Blanche, who served as Trump’s private attorney in several cases – prosecutions over election interference and classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and allegations of hush money paid to an adult actress ahead of the 2016 election – faced strong criticism from Senate Democrats.

“You are acting today like the president’s personal attorney and that’s the whole problem,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who also noted that a huge banner with Trump’s portrait was draped over the front of the Department of Justice building in February.

At a homeland security committee meeting Tuesday, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego called for legislation barring establishment of a fund of the sort proposed by the Trump administration.

He called it outrageous to provide compensation to “traitors who attacked the Capitol.”

“No president, Republican or Democrat, should be able to use the federal treasury as a personal checkbook,” he said.

Angeli-Chansley now refers to himself as the “American Shaman.” He was heavily involved in the QAnon movement, which centered on a conspiracy theory that Trump was fighting a cabal of Satan worshippers who engage in child sex trafficking.

He was a strong MAGA supporter when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, interrupting congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

Angeli-Chansley has since become disenchanted with Trump. He has also repudiated the QAnon movement.

In a rambling phone conversation with Cronkite News, he repeatedly cited Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial for trafficking young women and girls for sex.

He reiterated his anger with Trump for resisting the release of the Epstein files.

And he criticized Trump for attacking Iran and supporting Israel, among other things.

Angeli-Chansley sued Trump for $40 trillion in September 2025, asserting he is the true leader of the free world and vowing to use the sum to wipe out the national debt. The lawsuit was dismissed. He later filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, World Bank and others in Maricopa County.

He urged fellow Jan. 6ers to “reject that … money.”

If courts allow the fund to operate, Angeli-Chansley said, it would mean that Trump “can do whatever it is that he wants.”

A 40-year-old Los Angeles man was charged with murder after allegedly killing his girlfriend and kidnapping their young child before fleeing to Mexico, according to authorities.

Ruben Fregosojuarez has been charged one count of murder and one misdemeanor count of child abuse under circumstance or conditions other than great bodily injury or death, according to a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office news release. Authorities first identified him as Ruben Fregoso but Los Angeles County prosecutors listed him as Ruben Fregosojuarez.

On Monday around 12:39 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a welfare check in the 2600 block of South Alsace Avenue in West Adams, police said in a news release.

Officers found a woman dead inside the home “as a result of violence” and the woman’s daughter missing, police said. On Monday night, the California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert for the child, Daleza.

Photos obtained by NBC4 appear to show Fregosojuarez in a parking garage in San Ysidro with the girl on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol has listed her age as 4 years old but Los Angeles police say the girl is 5. She is also described as the suspect’s daughter.

The alert said that the girl was last seen with Fregosojuarez, who allegedly abducted her in a 2019 Land Rover Discovery, on Sunday at about 4 a.m.

The CHP posted in an update that the vehicle was found but that the child and man were still missing. The girl is described as 3 feet tall, 45 pounds, and having black hair and brown eyes.