Investigators search Indonesian free meals agency after its leader was fired

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian investigators searched the National Nutrition Agency’s offices Wednesday a day after the president fired the head of the agency responsible for his troubled free meals program.

It wasn't clear whether the search by agents of the Attorney General’s Office was tied to a criminal investigation.

The program delivered on a campaign promise of President Prabowo Subianto and aimed to fight malnutrition by feeding nearly 90 million children and pregnant women. But it has come under steep criticism due to high costs and cases of food poisoning among schoolchildren who ate the meals.

Prabowo fired the agency’s chief Dadan Hindayana on Tuesday evening and replaced him with Nanik S. Deyang, who was the deputy of the chief.

“Some issues relate to discipline in following standard operating procedures, while others relate to discipline in implementing governance, including discipline in maintaining food quality as stipulated by the National Nutrition Agency,” Minister of the State Secretariat Prasetyo Hadi said.

He emphasized the government was committed to the free meals program despite the leadership transition. "Services to the public must not be disrupted in any way,” Hadi told reporters Tuesday after the firing.

The investigators from the Attorney General’s Office searched the agency’s office building through the day Wednesday, locking out its employees.

“We are still in the process of searching at the National Nutrition Agency,” said Mochamad Jeffry, the office's acting spokesperson. He did not disclose what case was being investigated in connection with the search.

The meals program is expected to cost $28 billion through 2029. Prabowo aimed to fight malnutrition and help farmers by purchasing their harvests, but critics had questioned whether the program was affordable and logistically possible in a vast archipelago of more than 282 million people.

Former deputy head of Indonesia's National Nutrition Agency Sony Sonjaya, center, is escorted by prosecutors to a waiting detention car after being named as a corruption suspect, at the Attorney Genera's Office in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

Former head of Indonesia's National Nutrition Agency Dadan Hindayana, center, is escorted by prosecutors to a waiting detention car after being named as a corruption suspect, at the Attorney Genera's Office in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

Former deputy head of Indonesia's National Nutrition Agency Lodewyk Pusung, center, is escorted by prosecutors to a waiting detention car after being named as a corruption suspect, at the Attorney Genera's Office in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

Former head of Indonesia's National Nutrition Agency Dadan Hindayana sits inside a detention car after being named as a corruption suspect, at the Attorney Genera's Office in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

People walk past the office of the National Nutrition Agency as it is being searched by prosecutors, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

An employee leaves the office of the National Nutrition Agency as it is being searched by prosecutors, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Employees wait outside the office of the National Nutrition Agency as it is being searched by prosecutors, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Security personnel guard the entrance of the office of the National Nutrition Agency as it is being searched by prosecutors, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Actor Shia LaBeouf pleaded guilty Wednesday to three counts of simple battery for punching people outside a New Orleans bar in February during Mardi Gras.

Sentencing details were not immediately available in online court records. An attorney and a manager for LaBeouf did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Video of the Feb. 17 encounter shows a shirtless LaBeouf shoving one person to the ground and hitting another person in the face, “causing his nose to possibly dislocate,” according to a New Orleans police report.

Jeffrey Damnit, a well-known local entertainer who police identified as Jeffrey Klein in the incident report, said he was one of the people attacked by LaBeouf.

“He hit me, he connected a few times with punches, he pushed me a few times,” Damnit told The Associated Press earlier this year.

LaBeouf “just got nuts” trying to start fights and telling the entertainer and others that he would beat them up, Damnit said. He added that LaBeouf had pushed him from behind at the bar earlier in the night, shouting homophobic slurs and threatening his life.

Damnit and others subdued LaBeouf and tried to get him to leave the area, but he would not leave and became more aggressive, according to Damnit and the police report.

LaBeouf has had several run-ins with the law during his career, including a 2017 New York City arrest on suspicion of assault that happened during a livestream.

FILE - Shia LaBeouf poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'The Phoenician Scheme' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 18, 2025. (Photo by Lewis Joly/Invision/AP, File)