accuses

SACRAMENTO — In a rare action, a legislative staff member has filed a complaint charging Democratic Assemblyman Roderick Wright of Los Angeles with assaulting him and threatening to break his jaw in an alleged dispute over a gun bill.

Staffer Geoff Long filed the charge with the Assembly Rules Committee on Thursday night against Wright, a freshman legislator who represents a district in South-Central Los Angeles.

Capitol veterans said the formal complaint may be the first of its kind filed with the committee.

Long, chief consultant to the Assembly Appropriations Committee and a legislative employee for 15 years, said Wright pushed him by the shoulders against a wall Wednesday and then threatened three times to break his jaw.

The altercation occurred after a Wright bill on gun safety was defeated by the Appropriations Committee, which attached amendments to the measure. The amendments came from the committee’s staff and Wright was apparently angered by them, Long said.

In an interview several hours before the complaint was filed, Wright refused to say whether he and Long had a confrontation. “If Mr. Long has a grievance, he should file it,” Wright said.

Wright insisted he never “‘confronted” Long and said, “There is nothing that has occurred, that I am aware of, that I would call physical.”

Wright did not return calls Friday seeking comment.

Long said Wright “erupted” when he attempted to discuss the defeat of the bill, which dealt with safety standards for firearms.

“Shut up or I’ll break your [expletive] jaw. I will. I will do it,” Long said Wright told him.

Long said the incident occurred in a hallway near the Assembly chambers and was witnessed by Betty Yee, also a committee staffer, who filed a statement with the Rules Committee in support of Long’s complaint.

Jon Waldie, chief administrative officer of the Assembly Rules Committee, which governs internal affairs of the lower house, confirmed that Long had filed a complaint. But Waldie declined to make the document public, saying the dispute is a confidential personnel matter.

Waldie said he was uncertain how to proceed because no one could recall a similar case.

Another woman came forward Tuesday to describe rape allegations against Rep. Eric Swalwell, who announced his resignation from Congress on Monday amid a torrent of sexual misconduct accusations.

Lonna Drewes said at a news conference called by her attorneys that she was drugged and raped by Swalwell (D-Dublin) in 2018 while she was working as a model in Beverly Hills.

Drewes said she met Swalwell three times as she was growing her fashion software company and toying with the idea of a political career.

On the third occasion, she said, she believed he drugged her glass of wine. She said they were supposed to go to a political event and they stopped by his hotel room to retrieve some paperwork.

She said she found herself incapacitated despite having had only one drink.

“He raped me and he choked me and while he was choking me I lost consciousness and I thought I died,” she said. “I did not consent to any sexual activity.”

Swalwell’s attorney Elias Dabaie did not immediately respond to a call or email requesting comment. Swalwell has previously denied allegations against him, while acknowledging undefined “mistakes.”

Swalwell and his team threatened legal action against several individuals over the claims, Dabaie previously confirmed to The Times.

Lonna Drewes, left, says she met Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) on three occasions in Beverly Hills in 2018. She says he sexually assaulted her on the third occasion.

(Myung J Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Drewes said she didn’t undergo a rape kit test, but disclosed the assault to people close to her and described it in her calendar. She did not have contact with Swalwell again, one of her attorneys said.

Drewes said she had no interest in Swalwell romantically and was drawn to his friendship, she said, in part because he touted connections that she believed could help her grow her businesses. She was in a relationship at the time, and he had a pregnant wife, she said.

The alleged rape had a severe impact on her mental health, causing her to self-medicate, she said. She said she also went to therapy sessions at a sexual assault center.

“I did not want to live anymore,” she said. “I cried all the time for years.”

She said she’d been considering a run for Beverly Hills City Council at the time. After the incident, she said, she feared a political backlash and felt like she had no choice but to remain silent.

Lonna Drewes walks behind her lawyer Arick Fudali during a news briefing in Beverly Hills on Tuesday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt,” she said. “I have never doubted what happened.”

The L.A. County Sheriffs Department said Tuesday that it is investigating the case.

“The investigation remains in its preliminary stages and is ongoing,” the department said. “Investigators are in the process of gathering information, reviewing available evidence and conducting follow-up inquiries as part of a comprehensive investigative process.“

A spokesperson for the L.A. County district attorney’s office said the Sex Crimes Division had been assigned to work with law enforcement partners in an unfolding investigation.

Arick Fudali, one of the attorneys representing Drewes, said he hoped his client’s account would encourage other women to come forward.

“This is not about Democrat versus Republican,” Fudali said. “This is about accountability versus silence.”

“Lonna deserves what all women deserve — autonomy over her own body,” said attorney Lisa Bloom.

Bloom is well-known for representing high-profile victims of sexual misconduct, including women in cases against actor Bill Cosby and commentator Bill O’Reilly. Bloom said they would be providing text messages, journal entries and photographs to the police. Those include a photo of Drewes and Swalwell at the opening of a restaurant called Avra that was displayed Tuesday for reporters.

Bloom said she wanted to assist with an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney, who has opened a case into allegations against Swalwell. She said three other women have reached out to her.

Swalwell, who has served in the House of Representatives since 2013, has said he plans to fight the “serious, false” allegations made against him.

“However, I must take responsibility and ownership of the mistakes I did make,” Swalwell wrote in a statement Monday.

Bloom called Swalwell’s recent statements about the accusations against him “blather and spin” and a “slap in the face” to victims.

“Stop it,” she said. “Own your behavior.”

Swalwell had been a Democratic front-runner in the hotly contested and crowded race to be California’s next governor. Then in two bombshell reports in the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN on Friday, women accused the congressman of sexual assault and misconduct.

Candidates in the California gubernatorial race reacted to the new allegations with horror.

“The level of my disgust and outrage just continues to grow,” former state Controller Betty Yee told The Times after a business forum in Sacramento. “The fact that this is still being uncovered, that it could be bigger than what we already know?”

Swalwell said he would resign from his congressional seat under intense pressure from lawmakers of both parties. The resignation came on the heels of the House Ethics Committee opening an investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations and bipartisan threats to expel him from the House if he did not resign as women continued to come forward.

One woman told CNN that after messaging with Swalwell about her interest in Democratic politics last year, she met him for drinks and tried to deflect his advances without jeopardizing potential job opportunities. She said she began to feel “really fuzzy” and intoxicated and later found herself in his hotel room with no memory of how she got there.

Another woman, a former staff member who accused Swalwell of rape, told CNN she met him for drinks in 2019, blacked out and awoke naked in his hotel bed and could tell she had had intercourse. She said that in a separate encounter years later, he forced himself on her while she was too intoxicated to consent and despite her protests.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday called a special election for Swalwell’s Alameda County seat on June 16, two weeks after the state’s regularly scheduled primary. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote, a second special election will be held on Aug. 18.

The June 2 regular primary and Nov. 3 general election will decide who will represent the recently reconfigured district for the next term, starting in January 2027. The special election decides who will represent the district for the remaining months of Swalwell’s term.

Times staff writers James Queally, Dakota Smith and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

The Democratic representative from California has resigned his seat in Congress over multiple sexual misconduct allegations.

Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell has resigned from the United States Congress, amid mounting allegations of sexual misconduct.

On Tuesday, a fifth woman came forward to accuse Swalwell of unwanted sexual contact, saying the Democratic lawmaker drugged and raped her during an encounter in 2018.

“My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt – fear of his political power,” Lonna Drewes said during a news conference in Los Angeles.

Drewes’s lawyer, Lisa Bloom, said her firm would be filing a police report with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office.

Swalwell has denied allegations of wrongdoing. But on Monday, he announced he would resign from Congress, one day after suspending his gubernatorial campaign.

Polls had shown the 45-year-old leading the race to replace Gavin Newsom as governor of California.

But his campaign imploded last week after reports from the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN detailed allegations of sexual misconduct from several women.

One woman, identified as a former staffer, told CNN that Swalwell raped her in a New York City hotel in 2024, an encounter that left her bleeding and bruised.

Three other women told US news outlets that they had received inappropriate messages from Swalwell on the app Snapchat, which automatically deletes interactions.

The accusations quickly prompted backlash to Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign. Supporters withdrew their endorsements, and a handful of bipartisan lawmakers said they would push for a vote to expel Swalwell from Congress.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office also announced on Saturday that it is investigating the sexual assault allegations.

In a statement on Monday, Swalwell apologised to his family, staff and constituents for what he called “mistakes in judgment”.

Although he confirmed he would resign his seat in Congress, he nevertheless criticised his colleagues for seeking his expulsion.

“I will fight the serious, false allegations made against me,” Swalwell wrote.

“I am aware of the efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong.”

Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna had said she would withdraw her motion to expel Swalwell once he stepped down, and she confirmed on Tuesday that he had submitted a resignation letter, “effective immediately”.

Republican Representative Tony Gonzales also announced on Monday that he would retire from Congress amid calls for his expulsion over allegations of sexual misconduct.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Crude prices continue to climb as world faces its biggest energy crisis in decades.

Oil prices have surged to their highest level in nearly two weeks amid escalation on multiple fronts of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose more than 3 percent on Monday morning to top $116 a barrel.

The latest climb took the global benchmark to its highest point since March 19, when it briefly touched $119 a barrel.

The surge came after Iran said it was prepared for a US ground invasion, with the speaker of the country’s parliament warning that Tehran was waiting for the arrival of US troops to “set them on fire” and “punish” their regional allies.

Tehran’s warning came as the conflict deepened over the weekend, with the Iranian-backed Houthis launching missiles at Israel for the first time in the war, and Israel expanding its invasion of southern Lebanon.

Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the US-Israel war has disrupted about one-fifth of global oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) supplies, plunging the world into its biggest energy crisis in decades.

Oil prices have risen nearly 60 percent since the start of the war, driving up fuel prices worldwide and forcing numerous countries to adopt emergency measures to conserve energy.

Analysts have warned that oil prices are likely to keep rising unless maritime traffic returns to normal levels in the strait.

Greg Newman, the CEO the Onyx Capital Group, which began as an oil derivatives trading house, said that energy markets were only beginning to feel the fallout of the turmoil.

“Physical oil moves around the world in loading cycles , and Europe has taken around three weeks to really start feeling the effects of the oil shortage,” Newman told Al Jazeera.

“Brent is starting to reflect the reality, and we think it’s a steady rise from here towards $120 and beyond.”

Newman said the scale of the disruption had yet to be fully appreciated.

No one in the market has ever seen the outages we are now suffering from – physical premiums are the highest ever. There is still a sense that the macro world is not taking this seriously enough, but it is worse than anything that has come before it,” he said.

“The reality will come out in the economic numbers over the coming months.”

More to follow…

Iran’s parliament speaker has accused the United States of plotting a ground attack despite publicly pushing for a negotiated deal, as the US deploys thousands of military personnel to the Middle East.

“Our men are waiting for the arrival of the American soldiers on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional allies once and for all,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a statement on Sunday, carried by the official IRNA news agency, as Iran struggled with power cuts amid escalating Israeli attacks on central and western areas of the country.

Iran’s Ministry of Energy reported power outages in the capital, Tehran, its surrounding region and neighbouring Alborz province on Sunday, “following attacks on electricity industry facilities”. The Fars news agency reported later that the outages were being resolved.

It was unclear whether the attacks were related to US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike Iranian power stations and other energy infrastructure if Tehran did not agree to a deal to end the war. Trump extended his deadline by 10 days through April 6 as Washington presented a 15-point plan for peace that critics described as “maximalist”.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said that authorities had activated substations to restore power. “This gives an indication of how much they’ve been also preparing for such situations,” he said.

Ghalibaf’s comments on Iran’s readiness for a ground assault came as The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon was preparing for weeks of limited ground operations in Iran, potentially including raids on Kharg Island, a crude export hub, and coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz shipping chokepoint.

As the US-Israel war on Iran stretches into its fifth week, the Trump administration is also planning to send thousands of soldiers from the army’s 82nd Airborne to the region, following a US Central Command (CENTCOM) announcement Saturday that about 3,500 military personnel had arrived in the Middle East on board the USS Tripoli.

IRGC threatens retaliation after university attacks

The Israeli military said it dropped more than 120 munitions on sites used for research, development, and production of weaponry in Tehran on Sunday.

Iran’s Ministry of Health reported that 2,076 people had been killed since the start of the war, including 216 children.

Among the deaths, six people were killed in a US-Israeli attack on a residential area in the Iranian village of Osmavandan, according to the Mehr news agency, which added that five houses were destroyed and 22 were severely damaged.

A university in Iran’s central city of Isfahan said it was hit by US-Israeli air strikes on Sunday for the second time since the war erupted, leaving four university staff members wounded.

The strike followed an attack the previous day on Iran’s University of Science and Technology. After that attack, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it would target two Israeli or US universities in the region in retaliation, according to Iranian state television.

Hossein Sadeghi, head of the Information and Public Relations Center at Iran’s Ministry of Education, told the IRNA news agency that at least 250 students and teachers have been killed amid strikes on 600 educational facilities across Iran since the war began.

Also on Sunday, a commercial building housing Qatar’s Al-Araby TV in Tehran was hit, with video footage showing walls and windows blown out of the multistorey block. “It was a real miracle we survived,” said Al Araby camera operator Mohammadreza Shademan. “There was no military target here”.

As the civilian cost of the war mounts, Iran is demanding compensation in a five-point plan presented to the US.

That plan also includes a halt to killings of Iranian officials, an end to hostilities, safeguards against the outbreak of more war, and Iran’s “exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz”.

Iran, Hezbollah launch attacks

Israel’s military said on Sunday evening that it had detected seven new incoming missile salvoes fired from Iran during the day. These coincided with Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel, with sirens triggered in more than 100 towns.

Israel’s ADAMA, a pesticide maker in the Neot Hovav industrial zone, located 9km (6 miles) south of the city of Beersheba, said its Makhteshim plant was hit either by an Iranian missile or debris ⁠from a missile. No casualties were reported, and no leak of hazardous materials was found.

Reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said it was “an incident that raises a lot of alarms”.

“This industrial zone has about 19 different factories, including a bromide factory and some pharmaceutical factories. But it’s also home to the main hazardous disposal sites in Israel. So a lot is at stake here,” she said.

Another missile hit open ground near homes in Beersheba, injuring 11 people.

Israeli media reported that missile fragments fell on the northern port city of Haifa after missiles launched by Iran and Hezbollah were intercepted.

Houthis enter fray amid talks

As the war raged on, foreign ministers from Pakistan, Turkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia met in Islamabad, looking to de-escalate the conflict, which has also ensnarled Gulf nations hosting US military assets.

Across the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted 16 ballistic missiles and 42 drones launched from Iran, while Saudi Arabia reported downing 10 drones. Sirens sounded in Kuwait and Bahrain.

The Iranian army said it had targeted US forces based in Jordan, launching drones on the living quarters and military equipment sites at the Muwaffaq Salti airbase in Azraq, the ISNA news agency reported.

Meanwhile, readying itself for attacks amid the US military build-up, an Iranian naval commander, cited by state media, said Iran had complete control of waters near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil.

He said Iran was waiting for US forces to come within range, warning they could be targeted with coastal missile systems.

As oil prices shoot up and the world’s economy slides, the arrival of Yemen’s Houthis into the conflict, with Saturday’s strikes on Israel, further complicates matters, raising fears that the Yemeni group could block the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Houthi attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza upended commercial traffic worth about $1 trillion a year.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for governor of California, has accused President Trump of trying to sway the election following reports that FBI Director Kash Patel may release documents from a decade-old investigation into the congressman’s ties to a suspected Chinese spy.

According to a report by the Washington Post, Patel has directed agents in the bureau’s San Francisco office to redact the case files for public release. According to the outlet, it’s highly unusual for the FBI to release case files tied to a probe that did not result in criminal charges.

The investigation centered on Swalwell’s ties to a suspected intelligence operative, Christine Fang, or Fang Fang, who worked as a volunteer raising money for his congressional campaign. Swalwell cut off ties to Fang in 2015, after intelligence officials briefed him and other members of Congress about Chinese efforts to infiltrate the legislative body.

Swalwell was not accused of impropriety.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Through great reporting, we now know the outrageous ends the White House will go to target political opponents,” Swalwell said in a prepared statement Saturday, calling the decade-old story “nonsense.”

“Donald Trump is targeting me. He’s trying to influence the election,” Swalwell said in a post on X. “There is only one reason why: he’s scared.”

Swalwell accused Trump of “desperately trying” to stop him, because he’s now the favored candidate for California governor.

“What Trump wants the most is to have a Western White House. An enabler on the opposite coast,” he said. “A lot of people have bent the knee to this administration. But I will not. And neither will the people of California.”

It’s not the first time Swalwell has accused the administration of targeting Trump’s political opponents.

Last year, Swalwell sued Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, accusing him of criminally misusing government databases to target Trump’s political opponents. Pulte had accused Swalwell of mortgage fraud and referred him to the Justice Department for a potential federal criminal probe. Swalwell dropped that suit this month.

Swalwell, a former prosecutor who ran for president in 2020, announced his bid for California governor in November. Swalwell said his decision was driven by the serious problems facing California and the threats posed to the state and nation with Trump in the White House.

U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who has endorsed Swalwell for governor, shared the Post story on X Saturday, saying, “This abuse of the FBI is as dangerous as it is unlawful.” Schiff served with Swalwell on the House Intelligence Committee, where they riled Republicans by investigating President Trump during his first term.

Schiff served as the lead manager of Trump’s first impeachment and Swalwell as a manager of Trump’s second impeachment.

“Time and again, the President and his appointees have weaponized the Department of Justice against those who dare stand up to Trump,” Schiff wrote. He added that there was no doubt that Trump and Patel “will stop at nothing to try to tell Californians who their next governor should be.”

The Post story unleashed a flood of critiques from California politicians, including Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. On X, Gomez accused Patel of “wasting resources” on a “closed, decade-old case where Swalwell cooperated with the FBI and was found innocent of any wrongdoing.”

“Reopening it now, right as he leads in the polls and ballots are about to drop, is a political hit-job!” Gomez said. “Trump and Kash Patel are weaponizing the FBI against people they deem political enemies.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, released a statement accusing Patel of working at “the behest of the White House” and “wasting the resources of the FBI and perhaps violating the Hatch Act by ordering agents to spend hours preparing a political smear file for a personnel vendetta.”

According to the Associated Press, Fang came into contact with Swalwell’s campaign as he was first running for Congress in 2012. She also participated in fundraising for his 2014 campaign and helped place an intern in his office, the report said. Federal investigators alerted Swalwell to their concerns — and briefed Congress — about Fang in 2015, at which point the California Democrat says he cut off contact with her, the AP reported in 2021.

In 2023, the House Ethics Committee closed a two-year investigation into the allegations of his ties to Fang.

In closing the probe, the ethics committee wrote in a letter to Swalwell that it had “previously reviewed allegations of improper influence by foreign agents and in doing so, cautioned that Members should be conscious of the possibility that foreign governments may attempt to secure improper influence through gifts and other interactions.”

Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.

Rescuers are combing through the wreckage of a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul where Afghan officials say a Pakistani strike has killed at least 400 people.

Women and children were among those killed in the attacks, according to the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has accused Pakistan of targeting civilian homes in overnight air attacks in the capital Kabul and the southern province of Kandahar, as fighting between the two neighbours entered its third week, overshadowed by the United States-Israel war on Iran igniting the middle East.

Women and children were among those killed in the attacks, according to the Taliban.

Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X Friday that Pakistan’s aircraft also struck fuel depots belonging to the private airline Kam Air near Kandahar airport.

There was no immediate comment from Pakistan’s military or government.

Calls for restraint from the international community have gone unheeded by both sides.

On Thursday, the Taliban government said four members of the same family, including two children, were killed by Pakistani artillery and mortar fire in eastern Afghanistan.

The deaths reported on Thursday brought the toll to seven people killed in Afghanistan since Tuesday in cross-border clashes, according to authorities in Kabul. That could rise with the latest attacks on Friday.

Fighting between the two countries intensified on February 26 when Afghanistan launched an offensive along their shared border in retaliation for earlier Pakistani air attacks on the Pakistan Taliban, just two days before the US and Israel attacked Iran, starting a sprawling regional war.

Pakistan maintains that it does not target civilians, and casualty claims from both sides are difficult to verify independently.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters from the Pakistan Taliban, which has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks inside Pakistan, and from the ISIS (ISIL) affiliate in Khorasan province. Afghan authorities deny the charge.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has said 56 civilians have been killed there, including 24 children, by Pakistani military operations from February 26 to March 5.

Pakistani officials have confirmed about 12 soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in the latest bout of fighting, while the Taliban claims to have killed more than 150.

About 115,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, according to the UN.