The Justice Department is preparing criminal charges in connection with an Iranian hack that targeted Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, two people familiar with the matter said Thursday.

It was not clear when the charges might be announced or whom they will target, but they would be the result of an FBI investigation into an intrusion that investigators across multiple agencies quickly linked to an Iranian effort to influence this year’s U.S. presidential election.

The prospect of criminal charges comes as the Justice Department has warned about countries including Russia and China seeking to meddle in the presidential election between Trump and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, including by hacking and using covert social media campaigns designed to shape public opinion.

The Trump campaign disclosed on Aug. 10 that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. At least three news outlets — Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post — were leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what it received.

Politico reported that it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account. The source — an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” — passed along what appeared to be a research dossier the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The document was dated Feb. 23, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.

The two people who discussed the looming criminal charges spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because they were not authorized to speak publicly about a case that had not yet been unsealed.

The FBI, the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency subsequently blamed that hack, as well as an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign, on Iran.

Ohio city named in debate is threatened

Officials in Springfield, Ohio, temporarily closed City Hall on Thursday because of bomb threats, the city said on its website.

The threats come amid increasing fear by Haitian immigrants of being targeted after former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, began promoting false claims about Haitians abducting neighbor’s pets in the community and eating them. Trump repeated the rumors during Tuesday’s presidential debate as if they were true.

The town’s city manager has said they have no reports corroborating the social media rumors that have found traction among Trump supporters, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The city said that the bomb threats were issued Thursday “to multiple facilities throughout Springfield,” and an online Haitian media outlet said the threats included schools frequented by Haitian children.

NYC’s top cop resigns amid larger probes

New York City Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned Thursday, one week after it emerged that his phone was seized as part of a federal investigation that touched several members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.

Caban, who had been in charge of the nation’s largest police department for about 15 months, said in an email to staff that he made the decision to resign after the “news around recent developments” had “created a distraction for our department.”

At a news conference Thursday, Adams praised Caban for “making our city safer” and said he had named Tom Donlon, a retired FBI official, as the interim police commissioner.

Caban’s resignation marks the first high-level departure from the Adams administration since federal investigators seized phones Sept. 4 from several members of the mayor’s inner circle.

The subject of the investigation, which is being led by U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, remains unclear, as does whether federal authorities were seeking information linked to one investigation or several.

Mexico’s states approve judicial overhaul plan

Mexico’s states swiftly moved to remake the country’s entire judicial system Thursday, approving an amendment to the Constitution that would be the most far-reaching judicial overhaul ever attempted by a large democracy.

The measure would replace the current, appointment-based system with one in which voters elect judges.

Proponents of the plan argue it would reduce corruption and give voters a greater role in a justice system widely regarded as broken. Critics of the overhaul accuse the Mexican government, which proposed and pushed for the changes, of endangering the rule of law by politicizing the courts, giving Mexico’s ruling party greater control over judges and eroding the country’s checks and balances.

The logistics alone are daunting: The country would need to implement new elections for thousands of judges, starting next year.

U.S. to sell $165M in weapons to Israel

The U.S. has approved $165 million in weapons sales to Israel to fund heavy-duty tank trailers, the State Department announced Thursday.

The systems include spare and repair parts, tool kits and technical and logistics support. They are not expected to be delivered until 2027.

Earlier this year, the U.S. announced a mammoth $20 billion weapons support package for Israel to include F-15 fighter jets. Like the tank trailers, those systems will not be delivered for several years and will not affect current Israeli military operations amid its 11-month-old war against Hamas militants in Gaza.

Weinstein to face additional charges

Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul whose conviction for sex crimes in New York was overturned in April, is facing a new indictment, Manhattan prosecutors said in a hearing Thursday.

Weinstein, 72, was not in court Thursday morning. He was still in Bellevue Hospital after being rushed from the Rikers Island jail complex for emergency heart surgery Monday morning, according to jail records.

The new indictment is still sealed and awaiting Weinstein’s recovery so he can be arraigned, prosecutors said.

‘Garden variety’ quake hits Los Angeles area

Los Angeles residents were rattled Thursday morning by an earthquake centered north of the coastal city of Malibu.

Preliminary estimates showed it was a magnitude 4.7 quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Quakes of that magnitude are often felt widely but tend to do only minor damage, if any.

Across the region, which has been shaken by several temblors in recent months, some residents still in bed were awakened just before 7:30 a.m. by an emergency alert on their phones that urged them to “drop, cover, hold on,” and protect themselves.

“It’s a garden-variety Southern California earthquake,” California Institute of Technology seismologist Lucy Jones said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it was centered 4 miles north of Malibu and was about 7 miles below the surface. The jolt was felt as far as 45 miles away in Orange County, where people reported items moving in their homes. It was followed by smaller aftershocks.

Tropical storm Ileana forming in Pacific

Tropical Storm Ileana formed Thursday off the Pacific coast of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said, and was heading on a path that would take it over or near the resort-studded area of Los Cabos, on the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula.

Ileana was centered about 240 miles south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas, the Miami-based center said. Maximum sustained winds were at 40 mph, and Ileana was expected to strengthen over the next day.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for portions of the Baja California peninsula, including Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo. Forecasters predicted 4 to 6 inches of rain would fall with Ileana, and up to 8 inches was possible for coastal areas of Michoacan, Colima, and Jalisco states through early Friday.

— From news services