Rep. Eric Swalwell is threatening to sue FBI Director Kash Patel if Patel complies with a request to send the so-called Fang files to the Trump White House. The files are part of a long-secret trove of documents showing Chinese infiltrations into American politics and elections dating back more than a decade.
The same congressman who spent years demanding the release of every document even tangentially related to Donald Trump now wants these particular files locked away. The reason isn't hard to guess. They include him.
Swalwell, a top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and now a candidate for California governor, learned last week that the Trump White House might release the files. His attorneys, Norm Eisen and Sean Hecker, fired off a letter to Patel that read less like a legal argument and more like a warning shot:
"The Congressman has never been accused of wrongdoing in that matter and your attempt to release the file is a transparent attempt to smear him and undermine his campaign for Governor of California."
The letter went further, promising consequences:
"Your actions threaten to expose you, others at the FBI, and the FBI itself to significant legal liability."
Swalwell's office and Eisen did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News on Sunday.
At the center of this is Christine Fang, also known as "Fang Fang," a suspected Chinese intelligence asset who, according to a 2020 report by Axios citing U.S. intelligence officials, conducted an extensive political influence operation between 2011 and 2015 on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
According to Just the News, Fang reportedly helped Swalwell with fundraising and placing an intern in his office during the 2014 campaign cycle. Federal agents carrying out a counterintelligence investigation into Fang alerted Swalwell to their concerns and provided him with a defensive briefing in 2015, according to Axios. Fang soon left the United States in the summer of 2015.
The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into Swalwell in April 2021. By May 2023, the committee sent a letter closing the matter:
"The Committee on Ethics informed you that it had determined to investigate allegations raised in the complaint that you may have violated House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct in connection with your interactions with Ms. Christine Fang."
The committee said it would "take no further action in this matter." Swalwell has consistently denied any wrongdoing in his dealings with Fang.
That's the end of the formal inquiry. But it's not the end of the story, because the files themselves remain unseen by the public. And Swalwell clearly wants to keep it that way.
The hypocrisy here isn't subtle. It's structural. Swalwell built a significant chunk of his political career on the principle that the American public deserves full transparency into government investigations, particularly when those investigations touch powerful people. He just never imagined that principle would come for him.
Start with the Mueller report. In March 2019, Swalwell declared:
"Congress and the American public must see every single word of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. And we should see it at the same time as President Trump, a subject of the investigation, sees it. Nothing less than the rule of law in our country is on the line. Congress must also hear from Mueller himself to make sure that we have received the whole, unvarnished truth. No President is above the law."
Every single word. The whole, unvarnished truth. No exceptions.
Then there was September 2019, when Swalwell appeared on Fox News and accused the Trump White House and the Department of Justice of "an ongoing cover-up." He complained that transcripts with the Ukrainian president "were moved into a top secret covert action system" and called it "consciousness of guilt."
Swalwell also talked openly with liberal talk show host Rachel Maddow about investigating former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was targeted by a secret FISA warrant. Page was never charged with wrongdoing. Special Counsel John Durham ultimately concluded there was no basis for the FBI to even open a probe into Russia collusion and target Page with a FISA warrant. Multiple probes found significant evidence of wrongdoing in that FBI investigation, including the false submission of a court filing.
Swalwell's own congressional website still carries a post about Page's 2016 trip to Moscow to deliver a speech, noting that "the Trump campaign approved this trip" and that Page "criticized American foreign policy as being hypocritical." The post treats a speech in Moscow as inherently suspicious. Bill Clinton did the same thing.
Then came the Epstein files. Swalwell relentlessly pressed to release all the Jeffrey Epstein files, even if innocent people were implicated. He dismissed concerns by the DOJ that the names of innocent Americans should be redacted. When the files weren't moving fast enough, he suggested penalties, including contempt charges and reduced DOJ funding for violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In a tense exchange at a congressional hearing late last year, Swalwell confronted Patel directly:
"Every member of the Judiciary Committee, every Republican, every Democrat voted to release these documents and to have them in our hands."
"Where the hell are these files? And why are you keeping Donald Trump's name, to the degree that you are, out of them?"
No redactions for the innocent. No patience for process. Full transparency, immediately, regardless of who gets caught in the blast radius.
Unless, of course, the blast radius includes Eric Swalwell.
The New York Post editorial board called him out last week with characteristic directness:
"Eric Swalwell wants the Jeffrey Epstein files released — just not the Fang Fang files."
"Now, all of a sudden, Swalwell doesn't like the idea of the FBI releasing files."
The Post noted the obvious: "this time, the files involve documents about Christine Fang, or Fang Fang, an alleged Chinese spy who reportedly had a relationship with Swalwell."
Swalwell's response to all of this has been to frame himself as a political target. He posted on X:
"The reason Trump is so desperately trying to stop me is not because I'm running for Governor of California, but because now I'm the favorite."
That's the move. When transparency threatens someone else, it's a sacred democratic principle. When it threatens you, it's a political attack.
Here is the standard Eric Swalwell established with his own words and actions over the past six years:
Every single one of those principles now applies to him. And he wants none of them enforced.
Swalwell himself, in an exchange with Patel about the Epstein files, asked the question that now echoes back at him with uncomfortable precision:
"If the president is not implicated, then why not release everything?"
If the congressman is not implicated, then why threaten to sue?
Syed Hammad Hussain, a 40-year-old Pakistani finance and IT professional, was beaten, strangled, and left dead inside his first-floor apartment at The Zenith, an upscale condominium in Washington, D.C.'s Logan Circle neighborhood. Police say he made the fatal mistake of holding the door open for his killers, believing they were fellow residents.
Two men have been charged with first-degree murder. The building's surveillance cameras captured nearly everything. And one of the suspects was already in police custody on unrelated charges when authorities came to arrest him.
That last detail tells you most of what you need to know.
The timeline, reconstructed from surveillance footage and court documents, is straightforward and brutal. In the early hours of February 11, Hussain left his building to get food. Rico Rashaad Barnes, 36, and another man allegedly followed him for several blocks on his way back. Surveillance footage shows Hussain entering The Zenith around 1:35 a.m.
Moments later, one of the suspects banged on the building's glass door. Hussain let him inside. A second suspect and a third man then entered as well. An argument broke out in the hallway and spilled outside, where Hussain was punched and collapsed. The third man left at that point.
The two remaining suspects allegedly carried Hussain back into the building and into his apartment. By about 2:40 a.m., surveillance video captured both men leaving. Less than an hour later, emergency crews responding to reports of smoke found Hussain's body face down in his living room, his hands and feet loosely tied with neckties. Court records describe multiple skull fractures and signs that he had been strangled and burned. Two 25-pound metal dumbbells were found near his body. The apartment had been ransacked, with items missing, as The Independent reports.
Interim Metropolitan Police Department Chief Jeffrey W. Carroll described Hussain plainly:
"He was going out to get food and going back home."
That's it. That was the entirety of what Hussain did to cross paths with his killers. Carroll added that there is no known relationship between Hussain and the men who took his life.
"They just took advantage of him."
Barnes has been charged with first-degree murder. Authorities later also charged Alphonso Walker, 39, of Northwest Washington, with first-degree murder. A third man who was present during part of the encounter later cooperated with investigators.
Walker was already in police custody on unrelated charges at the time of his arrest for Hussain's murder. The source material does not elaborate on what those charges were, but the fact sits there, heavy and familiar. A man already in the system's grip, already known to law enforcement, allegedly participated in the savage killing of a stranger whose only crime was holding a door open.
This is the pattern that drives ordinary Americans to fury, not because they lack compassion, but because they can see what's happening. Repeat offenders cycle through a justice system that treats public safety as a secondary concern. Prosecutors defer. Judges release. And someone like Syed Hammad Hussain pays the price.
The Zenith sits in Logan Circle, described as a typically low-crime neighborhood. Hussain lived in an upscale building with surveillance cameras and secured entry points. He did everything a person is supposed to do: live in a safe area, choose a secure building, and go about their business.
None of it mattered.
The locked glass door, the cameras, the neighborhood reputation: all of it dissolved the moment a predator banged on the glass, and a decent man assumed the best about a stranger. Americans are told constantly that the answer to crime is better infrastructure, more cameras, and smarter design. But no amount of architecture compensates for a justice system that fails to keep dangerous people off the streets.
Carroll called Hussain "an innocent person." That phrase should be unremarkable. It isn't. In a city where political leaders routinely redirect sympathy away from victims and toward systemic explanations for criminal behavior, the simple act of naming innocence matters.
A family member, Syed K. Hussain, spoke about the man they lost:
"He lived his life. He was happy."
The family has vowed to follow the trial. They shouldn't have to. A man should be able to walk home from getting food at 1:30 in the morning in the nation's capital without being stalked, beaten, strangled, and set on fire in his own apartment.
Washington, D.C., has spent years debating policing, incarceration, and criminal justice reform in the abstract. Syed Hammad Hussain is what the concrete looks like. A 40-year-old professional, dead on his living room floor, hands tied with his own neckties, was killed by men who followed him home because he looked like an easy target.
The cameras caught everything. The question is whether the system will do anything with it.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Friday shut the door on the Justice Department's bid to revive two grand jury subpoenas aimed at the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell, writing in a six-page ruling that prosecutors "did not come close" to persuading him he got it wrong the first time. The decision keeps the subpoenas dead, for now, and sets up what promises to be a bitter appellate fight over the reach of federal prosecutorial power and the independence of the central bank.
Boasberg, the chief judge of Washington's federal trial court, had quashed the subpoenas last month after finding "abundant evidence" they were part of a pressure campaign against Powell rather than a legitimate criminal inquiry. The Justice Department asked him to reconsider. He declined.
The ruling lands at the intersection of two questions that matter to every American with a paycheck, a mortgage, or a retirement account: Can the executive branch use a grand jury to lean on the Fed chairman over interest-rate policy? And does the judiciary have any business stepping in to stop it? Boasberg answered both, and the answers will not satisfy the prosecutors who brought the case.
The subpoenas grew out of a Justice Department investigation, launched earlier this year, into the Federal Reserve's renovation of its headquarters, specifically the Marriner S. Eccles and Federal Reserve Board East buildings in Washington. Powell had testified before the Senate Banking Committee in June about a critical need for updates to both structures. The project was initially estimated at $1.9 billion but swelled to $2.5 billion after design changes, rising costs, and what the Fed described as "unforeseen conditions."
Cost overruns on a government building project are hardly novel. But the timing of the investigation raised eyebrows. As The Hill reported, President Trump had attacked Powell and other members of the Fed's board for months, specifically for refusing to lower interest rates, before the Justice Department opened its probe. Two subpoenas were then served on the Fed's board of governors seeking records tied to the renovation.
Boasberg framed the legal question plainly: Was the "dominant purpose" of those subpoenas to pursue a legitimate investigation because the facts suggested wrongdoing, or to pressure Powell into cutting rates or stepping aside?
He chose the latter. And on Friday, he said nothing the government offered in its motion for reconsideration changed his mind.
The judge's language was pointed. In his original ruling, Boasberg wrote that the government had "produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime," as Breitbart reported. On reconsideration, Boasberg said the DOJ offered "no new evidence" and identified "no material error" that would justify reversing course.
In his six-page opinion, Boasberg drew a sharp line between two distinct issues, one the government kept raising, and one it kept ignoring:
"The Government has missed this distinction. It makes arguments and cites cases about its broad subpoena power and insists that it does not need evidence, but it ignores the fact that its total lack of a good-faith basis to suspect a crime is relevant to the second, separate question of the subpoenas' true purpose."
Put differently: prosecutors kept insisting they had wide authority to issue subpoenas. Boasberg did not dispute that general principle. What he disputed was whether that authority can be wielded when the evidence points not toward a crime but toward political coercion. "The subpoena power 'is not unlimited' and may not be abused," he wrote.
The AP reported that Boasberg found "abundant evidence that the subpoenas' dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will." That finding, left undisturbed by Friday's ruling, is the core of the case going forward.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who oversees the District of Columbia office that brought the investigation, did not take the ruling quietly the first time around. After Boasberg's initial decision last month, she held a press conference and called him an "activist judge" who had "neutered" her office's authority.
Friday brought a similar tone. Timothy Lauer, a spokesperson for Pirro, said the office "will absolutely appeal the judiciary's interference with our access to the grand jury." That appeal will move the fight to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a venue where the legal arguments over prosecutorial power and judicial oversight will be tested at a higher level.
The question of whether a federal judge can quash a grand jury subpoena on the grounds that it serves an improper purpose is not a trivial one. Grand jury proceedings are ordinarily secret, and courts have historically given prosecutors wide latitude. Boasberg's willingness to look behind the subpoenas and evaluate their motive is itself a contested legal move, one the appellate court will have to weigh carefully.
Pirro's critics, including some Republican senators, see the investigation differently. The Washington Times reported that Sen. Thom Tillis wrote on X that the ruling "confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is, and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence." Tillis had previously said he would block the confirmation of Kevin Warsh, Trump's nominee to succeed Powell as Fed chair, until the probe was resolved.
That confirmation fight adds a practical dimension to the legal dispute. Powell's term as Fed chair is set to end, and Trump has nominated former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh to replace him. But as Fox News reported, the ongoing investigation has complicated the Senate math. Tillis indicated that continuing the appeal would only delay Warsh's path to the chairmanship, creating an odd dynamic in which the administration's own legal strategy may be undermining its preferred personnel outcome.
For conservatives who want a new direction at the Fed, this is worth pausing over. The investigation into a building renovation, one that has produced, in the judge's words, "essentially zero evidence" of a crime by Powell, has become a procedural roadblock to installing the very person the administration wants running monetary policy.
The broader legal landscape around the Fed is already volatile. The Supreme Court is currently weighing whether Trump had the authority to fire Fed board member Lisa Cook despite long-standing legal protections for governors, a decision expected by summer. That case could reshape the boundaries of presidential power over the central bank for a generation. Readers following that dispute will recall that the Supreme Court agreed to review Trump's authority over the Federal Reserve earlier this year.
The Cook case and the Powell subpoena fight are legally distinct, but they share a common thread: the tension between executive power and institutional independence at the Fed. How the courts resolve both will shape the relationship between the White House and the central bank for years to come.
Boasberg is no stranger to political crossfire. His name has appeared repeatedly in high-profile clashes between the judiciary and the executive branch. The "activist judge" label Pirro applied is one that has been leveled at other federal judges who have blocked administration policies, sometimes with more justification than others.
In this case, the charge carries a specific sting because Boasberg did not merely rule on a procedural technicality. He made a factual finding, that the subpoenas were pretextual, and then held firm when asked to revisit it. Whether that finding survives appeal will depend on the standard of review and the appellate panel's appetite for second-guessing a trial judge's assessment of prosecutorial motive.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court hearing on the Cook dispute continues to draw attention from Fed watchers and legal scholars alike, adding another layer of uncertainty to an already fraught institutional moment.
As Just The News reported, Boasberg wrote in his original ruling that "there is abundant evidence that the subpoenas' dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will." That sentence will be the battleground on appeal.
The appeal is coming. Pirro's office has made that clear. The D.C. Circuit will decide whether Boasberg overstepped by evaluating the government's motive behind otherwise facially valid subpoenas, or whether he correctly applied the principle that prosecutorial power has limits.
For the administration, the stakes extend beyond this one case. If the appellate court upholds Boasberg, it will establish a precedent that federal judges can look behind grand jury subpoenas and block them when the evidence suggests political rather than criminal intent. That would be a significant check on executive power, one that future administrations of either party would have to live with.
If the court reverses, prosecutors get their subpoenas back, and the investigation into the Fed's $2.5 billion renovation project moves forward. Powell would face the prospect of producing records in a probe that, at least so far, has not identified a specific crime he is suspected of committing.
The Supreme Court's posture on protecting Fed officials from executive removal adds yet another variable. A ruling in the Cook case that reinforces the independence of Fed board members could undercut the legal and political logic of an investigation that Boasberg has already called pretextual.
Either way, the central question remains: Was this investigation about a building, or about a chairman who wouldn't bend? Boasberg has answered twice now. The appeals court gets the next word.
Body camera footage from a Martin County, Fla., deputy captures Tiger Woods ending a phone call and telling the officer, "Yeah, I was just talking to the president," moments before his arrest on DUI charges following a March 27 rollover crash near his home on Jupiter Island.
The footage, obtained Thursday by multiple outlets, shows Woods wrapping up a call with the words, "Thank you so much. All right. You got it. Bye. Thank you," before the deputy asks him to stay put. It was unclear whether Woods was in fact speaking with President Trump, as audio from the other end of the call was unavailable. The White House did not return a request for comment.
What is clear: the 50-year-old golfer told authorities he was looking at his phone and changing the radio station when his Land Rover clipped the back end of a pickup truck and flipped. Deputies found two white pills at the scene, according to WFLA. After conducting a sobriety test, Martin County Deputy Sheriff Tatiana Levenar delivered the verdict:
"I do believe your normal faculties are impaired, and you're under an unknown substance, so at this time you're under arrest for DUI."
Woods has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
On Tuesday, Woods announced he was temporarily stepping away from golf. He had been expected to return to the Masters tournament in Augusta, Ga., this week. Instead, he issued a statement saying the break was necessary "to seek treatment and focus on my health," The Hill reported.
"This is necessary in order for me to prioritize my well-being and work toward lasting recovery."
For a man who has defined American athletic greatness across three decades, that sentence carries enormous weight. Woods isn't some flash-in-the-pan celebrity spiraling on a reality show. He is a generational talent, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and someone whose struggles with injury and personal turmoil have played out on one of the most public stages in the world.
That doesn't excuse driving impaired. It does contextualize the stakes.
President Trump, an avid golfer who awarded Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his first term, spoke to Reuters on Wednesday about Woods's decision to seek treatment. His tone was one of loyalty and confidence.
"It's a good thing that he's doing, but he's going to end up being terrific. He's a great guy."
"He's one of the greatest people I've known. He's a great champion … he'll be fine."
Whatever the nature of the phone call captured on the body camera, Trump's public posture toward Woods has been consistent: support for the man, encouragement toward recovery. That kind of personal steadiness from a president matters more than the media's inevitable effort to turn a friendship into a scandal.
The body camera video is going to generate days of coverage, most of it fixated on the presidential name-drop. Cable news will loop the clip. Pundits will speculate about what was said on the other end of that call. Social media will do what social media does.
None of that changes the core facts:
The legal process will sort out the charges. The more interesting question is whether Woods can actually do what he says he's going to do. Recovery is not a press release. It's not a well-crafted statement from a PR team. It is daily, grinding, unglamorous work that most people never see.
There is a predictable pattern when famous people face moments like this. The left-leaning entertainment press will oscillate between performative sympathy and voyeuristic glee. The recovery industrial complex will offer Woods as a mascot. And somewhere in the noise, the actual human being at the center of it all will either do the work or he won't.
Conservatives have always understood that personal responsibility is not a slogan. It is the operating system. Woods broke the law. He is facing the legal consequences. He says he is seeking help. Those are the facts, and they deserve to be treated with the seriousness that any DUI warrants, regardless of the defendant's fame or friendships.
Trump called Woods "a great champion." Champions are defined not by the absence of failure but by what they do after it. The footage from Martin County is difficult to watch. What comes next will determine whether it's a chapter or a conclusion.
The world's oldest known tortoise is not dead. Jonathan, the roughly 193-year-old giant tortoise who lives on the grounds of Plantation House on the remote island of St Helena, is alive and well, despite a viral social media post that convinced multiple major news outlets otherwise.
An X account purporting to belong to Joe Hollins, a vet who has previously cared for Jonathan, posted that it was "heartbroken to share" that the tortoise had died. The BBC, USA Today, and the Daily Mail all ran with the story. There was just one problem: none of it was true.
The real Joe Hollins set the record straight with USA Today:
"Jonathan the tortoise is very much alive."
Nigel Phillips, the governor of St Helena, confirmed as much in an email to the BBC. The correction, dated April 2, arrived after the damage was already done.
The timing, right around April 1, gave the hoax a convenient cover story. But Hollins made clear this wasn't someone's idea of a seasonal gag. The fake account was soliciting cryptocurrency donations under his name, the BBC reported.
"I believe on X the person purporting to be me is asking for crypto donations, so it's not even an April Fool joke. It's a con."
So a scammer impersonated a veterinarian, fabricated the death of a beloved animal, and monetized the grief of strangers on the internet. And newsrooms helped spread it for free.
This is a story about a tortoise, and no one was physically harmed. But the mechanism should alarm anyone who pays attention to how information moves. A single unverified social media post, from an account no one apparently bothered to authenticate, triggered published reports across three major international outlets.
No one called the governor's office first. No one reached Hollins before running the story. The post said something sad; it came from an account that looked official enough, and that was sufficient. Publish now, verify later.
This is the same institutional media that lectures the public about misinformation. The same outlets that demand platform censorship to protect people from "dangerous" content. They couldn't pick up the phone before declaring a 193-year-old tortoise dead.
If this is the standard of verification applied to a feel-bad animal story, imagine what gets through when the stakes are actually high.
Jonathan's story, the real one, is remarkable enough without fabrication. A photograph from 1882 shows him fully grown when he was first brought to St Helena, and experts suggest he was about 50 years old by that time. He has lived through the reigns of at least eight British monarchs.
In 1947, he met both George VI and the future Elizabeth II during their visit to the island. In 2024, he met Sir Lindsay and was presented with a Guinness World Record certificate recognizing him as the oldest known land animal in the world.
Hollins, who clearly has genuine affection for the animal, described him in a 2016 BBC interview as "a 450lb crusty old reptile that I'm very fond of."
Jonathan has outlasted empires. He will probably outlast the scammer's X account, too.
The crypto angle is the part that deserves lingering attention. Social media scams are not new, but they are evolving. The impersonation of a real person, tied to a real and emotionally resonant story, designed to extract cryptocurrency donations before anyone could verify the claim: that is a sophisticated grift. And it worked, at least long enough for major outlets to amplify the lie without spending a dime of their own credibility budget to check it.
Every institution involved here failed at the one job it was supposed to do. The platform failed to catch the impersonation. The newsrooms failed to verify. And by the time the correction landed, the scammer had already gotten what they wanted: attention, emotion, and presumably wallets.
Jonathan, for his part, remains unbothered. He's survived since before the American Civil War. A fraudulent tweet was never going to be what got him.
Al-Monitor announced Tuesday that Shelly Kittleson, an award-winning American journalist and freelance contributor to the outlet, has been kidnapped in Iraq. Her whereabouts and condition remain unknown.
The State Department quickly pointed to a familiar villain. Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson posted on X that a suspect with ties to Kataib Hizballah, an Iranian-aligned militia group, has been taken into Iraqi custody in connection with the abduction.
Iraq's Interior Ministry confirmed that a foreign journalist was kidnapped on Tuesday, though it has not confirmed Kittleson's identity. The ministry reported that authorities had intercepted a vehicle believed to belong to the abductors, which flipped over as they tried to flee. Security forces are working to track down the unidentified perpetrators.
Johnson's statements, to which the State Department directed Fox News Digital, revealed a striking detail: the government had already warned Kittleson she was in danger.
"The State Department previously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them, and we will continue to coordinate with the FBI to ensure their release as quickly as possible."
That sentence carries weight. The State Department knew enough about the threat environment surrounding Kittleson to issue a specific warning. Iraq sits at a Level 4 Travel Advisory, the highest the department issues, meaning Americans are advised not to travel there for any reason and to leave immediately if already present.
Johnson made the point explicitly:
"Iraq remains at a Level 4 Travel Advisory and Americans are advised not to travel to Iraq for any reason and to leave Iraq now. The State Department strongly advises all Americans, including members of the press, to adhere to all travel advisories."
That language is not diplomatic boilerplate. It is a blunt directive aimed at every American still operating inside Iraq, journalists included.
The involvement of someone tied to Kataib Hizballah should surprise no one who has watched Iran's proxy network operate across the Middle East. Kataib Hizballah is not a rogue outfit. It is an Iranian-aligned militia with deep roots in Iraq's security landscape, one of several groups that have made the country a staging ground for Tehran's regional ambitions.
An American journalist kidnapped by actors linked to an Iranian proxy is not merely a crime story. It is a geopolitical provocation. Iran's network of militias has spent years consolidating power across Iraq, embedding itself within the country's political and military structures in ways that make clean accountability nearly impossible. When an American citizen is grabbed off the street by someone connected to that network, the question is not just who did it. The question is, who allowed the conditions for it to happen?
Kittleson herself was no stranger to the region's fault lines. She has reported from war zones for years, spending time in Afghanistan and Syria before Iraq. Her recent work for Al-Monitor included coverage of Iraqi Shiite political rivalries and Iran's influence in the country, including a piece headlined "On eve of Iran's Pezeshkian visit, Iraq jostles for Shiite space amid rivalries." That kind of reporting, deep inside the power dynamics Tehran prefers to keep obscured, makes a journalist a target.
Al-Monitor issued a direct call for Kittleson's release:
"We are deeply alarmed by the kidnapping of Al-Monitor contributor Shelly Kittleson in Iraq on Tuesday. We call for her safe and immediate release. We stand by her vital reporting from the region and call for her swift return to continue her important work."
Former Pentagon official Alex Plitsas confirmed the news on X, calling himself Kittleson's designated U.S. point of contact and noting that her whereabouts and condition were unknown.
The State Department is coordinating with the FBI. Iraqi authorities have a suspect in custody and a flipped getaway vehicle. Those are early steps, not conclusions.
Every few years, Iraq reminds the world that it remains a country where basic security for Westerners cannot be guaranteed. The Level 4 advisory exists for a reason. The State Department's warning to Kittleson before her kidnapping existed for a reason. The pattern is consistent: Iran-backed groups operate with enough impunity that an American citizen, a journalist with years of experience in conflict zones, can be snatched in broad daylight, and Iraqi authorities must scramble to address after the fact.
The Iraqi government's response will matter. A suspect is in custody, but the full network behind this abduction is not. Whether Baghdad treats this as a serious sovereignty issue or a diplomatic inconvenience will say more about Iraq's trajectory than any communiqué.
Kittleson is an American citizen based in Rome who chose to report from one of the most dangerous countries on earth. That takes courage. It also carries a risk that no travel advisory can fully convey. The priority now is her safe return. Everything else, the diplomatic maneuvering, the proxy accountability, the broader Iran question, follows from that.
An American is missing in Iraq. The people connected to Iran's militia network are the ones who took her.
Los Angeles police arrested 74 people for allegedly failing to disperse after Saturday's "No Kings" demonstration in downtown Los Angeles turned from a peaceful march into a confrontation outside a federal detention center, with some protesters hurling chunks of concrete at officers and a masked demonstrator spray-painting "Kill Your Local ICE Agent" on a nearby surface, Fox LA reported.
The arrests, 66 adults and eight juveniles, came after hours of warnings, a citywide tactical alert, and what the LAPD described as non-lethal crowd-control measures deployed by federal authorities near the intersection of Alameda and Temple streets. One additional person was arrested on suspicion of possessing a dirk or dagger.
The rally had started peacefully enough. Tens of thousands gathered at Gloria Molina Grand Park, across from City Hall, around 2 p.m. Saturday. A roughly 1.5-mile march kicked off at 3 p.m. from Spring Street. But by late afternoon, a faction of demonstrators peeled away from the main crowd and headed for the federal detention center, and the tone changed fast.
Around 5:10 p.m., the LAPD's incident commander declared a citywide tactical alert after a group of demonstrators began kicking a fence in front of the federal detention center at Alameda and Temple. The LAPD posted on social media that protesters "have been warned multiple times by federal authorities to not attempt to tear down the gate and not throw items."
Federal authorities then used what the LAPD described as "non-lethal measures to move crowd back." The Washington Times reported that the Department of Homeland Security said some protesters threw rocks, bottles, and broken concrete blocks at officers, injuring two who received medical attention.
By around 7:25 p.m., the LAPD posted that "multiple arrests being made" were underway. The tactical alert was canceled at 8:03 p.m.
Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, did not mince words on social media:
"To those who were smashing concrete blocks and throwing them at our officers, we have you on video. We will find you and arrest you too. You've been warned."
Earlier Saturday, Essayli had posted a sharper warning still, writing that his office had "authorized immediate arrests for anyone assaulting law enforcement. You will be arrested and charged with a federal felony." He also shared a video showing a masked demonstrator spray-painting the threatening phrase near the Metropolitan Detention Center, called it "a federal crime," and posted the DHS tip line number, 866-347-2423, asking the public for help identifying the individual.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass weighed in on social media with a statement that read more like a greeting card than a response to concrete being thrown at federal officers. "Peaceful protest is our constitutional right," Bass wrote. "When people come together to make their voices heard, that is democracy in action. Please stay safe and look out for one another."
What Bass did not address: the violence, the graffiti calling for the killing of ICE agents, or the 74 arrests. Her statement made no mention of the demonstrators who tried to tear down a fence at a federal facility, nor the officers struck by debris. The gap between her words and the evening's events speaks for itself.
The Washington Examiner reported that authorities declared an unlawful assembly after a group of roughly 150 to 200 protesters allegedly threw rocks, bottles, and concrete at Department of Homeland Security officers. At least two officers were struck by concrete and needed medical care. The Examiner's count put total arrests at 75, one higher than the LAPD figure reported by City News Service.
The administration's handling of arrest-related public communications has itself become a flashpoint. Federal judges have recently clashed with the DOJ over social media posts publicizing arrest photos, a sign that law enforcement transparency in politically charged cases is under growing judicial scrutiny.
The Los Angeles demonstration was the largest flashpoint in what organizers called a nationwide day of action against the Trump administration. The group 50501 claimed more than 3,300 events across all 50 states, with at least eight million participants, a figure it called "the largest single-day nationwide demonstrations in US history." That claim has not been independently verified.
Newsmax reported that organizers said more than 3,100 events were registered, with demonstrations also held in Europe and other countries. Most were described as peaceful. Los Angeles was the notable exception.
Within Los Angeles County alone, at least 40 separate demonstrations took place Saturday, with events in Burbank, Culver City, Hollywood, Long Beach, Malibu, Venice, Woodland Hills, and Rancho Palos Verdes, where a protest was held outside Trump National Golf Club. More than a dozen additional events were held across Orange County, in cities including Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Santa Ana, and Westminster.
In Malibu, Doug Emhoff, husband of former Vice President Kamala Harris, spoke at a rally held near their home. Comedian Kathy Griffin and actor Sam Elliott also attended. The downtown Los Angeles event featured scheduled speakers including actress Jodie Sweetin and Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, which bills itself as the nation's largest union representing public school teachers and other education personnel.
Organizers framed the day in sweeping terms, stating: "As unconstitutional deportations and inhumane treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers continue across the United States, and as illegal and unauthorized wars are perpetrated around the globe, Los Angeles unites in solidarity with a peaceful march and rally." That framing sat uneasily beside the evening's images of torn fencing, thrown concrete, and tear gas.
Andre Andrews Jr., a Navy veteran and independent journalist who was present, drew a clear line between the marchers and the agitators. As Breitbart reported, Andrews said: "The peaceful protest was good for the cause. You have the right to do that. But the other people, they were definitely causing problems."
That distinction matters. Tens of thousands of people showed up, marched, and went home. A smaller group chose a different path, one that led to a federal detention center, a torn fence, and felony warnings from a U.S. Attorney's office.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson dismissed the protests entirely. She told the New York Times that "the only people who care about these Trump derangement therapy sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them." Whether that framing holds when two federal officers are receiving medical treatment for concrete impacts is another matter.
Several questions remain open. What specific criminal charges, if any, will be filed against the 74 arrestees beyond failure to disperse? How many of the arrests were tied to alleged violence versus simply remaining in the area after the dispersal order? Were any protesters injured? The LAPD has not publicly detailed the non-lethal measures used, and the specific federal agency whose officers were targeted with thrown debris has not been identified.
Caltrans had anticipated trouble. Crews placed security gates along on- and off-ramps to the Hollywood (101) Freeway in the downtown area on Friday, a day before the rally. Streets in the Civic Center area, including sections of Broadway and Spring Street, were blocked Saturday. The city knew what was coming. The question is whether it did enough to prevent the predictable escalation.
The broader pattern is hard to miss. When defendants in politically charged cases test the boundaries of legal accountability, and when federal agencies face internal upheaval over investigations with political overtones, the public's confidence in equal enforcement of the law erodes. What happened outside that detention center Saturday evening was not a gray area. Throwing concrete at officers is a crime. Spray-painting threats against federal agents is a crime. Essayli said as much plainly.
The right to protest is not in question. The First Amendment protects speech, assembly, and the airing of grievances, even loud, angry ones. What it does not protect is assaulting federal officers, attempting to breach a detention facility, or painting messages inciting violence against law enforcement.
Mayor Bass chose to celebrate "democracy in action" while saying nothing about the violence. Organizers chose to frame the day as peaceful solidarity while a faction of their crowd threw concrete. The gap between the rhetoric and the record is wide enough to drive a Caltrans truck through.
When leaders refuse to name what went wrong, they guarantee it will happen again. And the people left to deal with the consequences, the officers, the taxpayers, the residents whose streets were blocked and whose city was vandalized, deserve better than platitudes about democracy in action.
A Los Angeles Unified School District IT employee allegedly told the CEO she was funneling millions to him, claiming she had "broken all the law" for him, according to incriminating text messages now at the center of a $39 million fraud case that has rocked the nation's second-largest school district.
Hong "Grace" Peng is charged with two felonies: money laundering and having a financial interest in a contract made in an official capacity. Gautham Sampath, CEO of Texas technology company Innive, faces four felony counts, including money laundering and aiding and abetting a government official to have a financial interest in a contract. Both face seven years in state prison if convicted.
LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman says Peng conspired with Sampath in a pay-to-play scheme where Peng fed more than $22 million in contracts to Sampath's company from 2018 to 2022. Sampath then routed and laundered more than $3 million in kickbacks back to Peng through various intermediaries, Hochman alleges. In total, Innive received over $39 million in payments from LAUSD between 2017 and 2023.
A text chain between Peng and Sampath, reported by the New York Post, reads less like a conversation between a public employee and a vendor and more like a heist script written by people who forgot to whisper.
Sampath opened the bidding, so to speak, with a question that prosecutors say reveals the scheme's scope:
"What r the other opportunities in LAUSD. That we can exploit."
Peng was happy to oblige. In a text later in 2018, she laid out the strategy with remarkable candor:
"Let's grab these money first.. Its already in the pocket. Low hanging fruits… let's get these money… It'll be good for us."
By June 2018, the scheme was apparently humming along. Peng described her method for inflating the take:
"I have a way to get those money. Can load them up more work, then charge more hours."
She also reminded Sampath exactly who was making all of this possible. When Sampath asked why Innive was "lucky," Peng did not mince words:
"Because you have me… I broke all law for you already lol."
The "lol" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
What makes these messages particularly damaging is not just the admissions. It is the awareness of wrongdoing paired with the refusal to stop. As early as February 18, 2018, Sampath texted Peng with instructions to destroy evidence:
"Delete all watsup chats… if anyone sees the text about these internal things it will be a prb."
Evidently, they did not delete all the chats.
Sampath also discussed setting up shell companies to launder the kickbacks. He told Peng they would need "at least 3-4 companies "to take out the money, adding that "close to a million will be transferred to you," but that it would be "easy to track unless we are very careful." Peng, for her part, floated the idea of creating companies in Hong Kong, China, or Singapore to further distance the funds from scrutiny.
Meanwhile, Peng signed a contract integrity certification, a document meant to confirm that no conflicts of interest existed. Her response on the form: "No."
The charges land at a moment when LAUSD can least afford another scandal. Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho was relieved of his post following an FBI raid last month. The details surrounding that raid remain sparse, but the timing paints a picture of an institution where oversight was either absent or actively circumvented at multiple levels.
This is a school district. The $39 million that flowed to Innive was public money, taxpayer dollars earmarked for educating children in Los Angeles. Every inflated invoice, every fabricated work hour, every laundered kickback was money that did not go toward classrooms, teachers, or students. The people who suffer most when a public institution is looted from the inside are always the people it was supposed to serve.
The broader question conservatives have raised about massive public school bureaucracies finds fresh evidence here. LAUSD is not a small operation. It is a sprawling, multi-billion-dollar enterprise. And yet a single IT employee allegedly steered $22 million in contracts to one company over four years without triggering a single alarm. Sampath's firm collected $39 million over six years. The scheme, according to prosecutors, involved:
None of this was subtle. These were people texting each other about "exploiting" opportunities and "grabbing" money that was "already in the pocket." If the system cannot catch theft this brazen, it raises serious questions about what else is slipping through.
This is what happens when institutions grow so large and so insulated from accountability that the people inside them stop believing anyone is watching. Peng and Sampath allegedly operated for years, cycling tens of millions through a scheme they discussed openly on their phones. The district's internal controls either failed or did not exist in any meaningful form.
Conservatives have long argued that simply pouring more money into public education without structural accountability produces waste, not results. LAUSD just handed them $39 million worth of proof.
The children of Los Angeles deserved better. They got "lol."
Henry Davis told his wife he didn't want the house, the apartment, or custody of his children. Then he turned his spare bedroom into a home office.
Belle Burden, a New York heiress and daughter of Vanderbilt descendant Carter Burden and prominent urban planner Amanda Burden, recounted the dissolution of her 20-year marriage in her memoir, "Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage," released in January 2026. The portrait she paints of Davis is not one of a man who fought bitterly over custody or assets. It's one of the men who simply walked offstage.
According to Burden, Davis wanted a divorce after she discovered he'd been having an affair. His terms were blunt:
"You can have the house and the apartment. You can have custody of the kids. I don't want it. I don't want any of it."
He eventually moved into a two-bedroom apartment block away. The spare bedroom, the one that might have belonged to his daughter, became a home office. His 12-year-old had no room in her father's new life, literally or otherwise.
Burden had her lawyer send Davis a custody agreement proposing a 50/50 split. What came back was a document stripped of all his time. He included only dinner on Thursday nights. He told Burden flatly that he was "done with that stage of his life where he would parent a child."
Six words from Davis summarized the new arrangement:
"I don't do bath, bed or homework."
Burden was careful, during a podcast conversation with hosts Sims and Emese Gormley, to note that Davis wasn't absent. He lives blocks away. He keeps in touch. When their son had surgery, he showed up. But the daily work of raising children, the college applications, the homework battles, the bedtime routines, all of it landed squarely on her, as Fox News reports.
"He was very clear that he was not going to do the day-to-day, apply to college, all that kind of thing. And that really was like a switch going off."
For bigger moments, Davis appeared. For everyday issues, Burden said, he responded with irritation.
About a year after the split, Burden texted Davis late one night, looking for some explanation, anything that might make sense of a man who had been "all in" and then simply wasn't. His answer was spare:
"I wish I had an answer for you. It's not your fault. Something broke in me."
That's the most she's ever gotten. Burden described it on the podcast as the place where her "head has to rest," whether she likes it or not.
She offered her own interpretation of the switch. Davis had played the role of husband and father willingly, even enthusiastically. And then, like an actor on a stage, he decided he was done with the role, took off the costume, and left. Not gracefully. Just completely.
What stands out in Burden's account is not bitterness toward Davis but a kind of clear-eyed grief about what her children have had to learn far too young. She described them as "amazing" in how they manage the relationship with their father, reaching out to him for things within his comfort zone, like going to a hockey game.
"For me as a mother, I think the biggest challenge for me is to acknowledge their reality, to say 'this is what's happening, this is unusual, that you do not live with your dad.'"
She told her 12-year-old daughter directly that her father couldn't create a home for her right now, and that it had everything to do with him and nothing to do with her. That's a conversation no parent should have to initiate. But someone had to say it, and Davis wasn't going to.
There's a reason this story resonates beyond the Upper East Side. The specifics are unusual: the Vanderbilt lineage, the memoir, the podcast circuit. But the dynamic is not. Fathers who reduce their presence to Thursday dinners and occasional hockey games are not rare. What's rare is someone naming it publicly.
Burden observed that Davis didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with the narrative. As she put it, he seemed to believe that being a man entitled him to leave in this way. That framing deserves scrutiny, not because it's wrong, but because it points to something broader. A society that has spent decades dismantling expectations of male duty and fatherly obligation shouldn't be surprised when some men take the invitation.
Conservatives have long argued that family structure matters, that fatherhood is not optional, and that children pay the highest price when adults treat commitment as a role to be shed rather than a vow to be honored. The Burden-Davis story is that argument in miniature. Wealth doesn't insulate children from the consequences of abandonment. A two-bedroom apartment blocks away is no substitute for a father who shows up for homework.
Podcast host Sims told Burden that, as she put it, "the whole world, every woman in America hates you," referring to Davis. Perhaps. But hatred doesn't fix what's broken, and Davis himself reportedly admitted the book doesn't cast him in a favorable light.
"He said, 'I don't think I come off well in this.'"
He doesn't. But that's not the memoir's doing. That's the facts.
Burden admitted she's heard Davis is "not happy." There's no satisfaction in her voice when she says it, at least not in how it reads. The story she tells isn't a revenge narrative. It's a record of what happens when one parent decides that parenthood is a chapter rather than a lifetime.
Her children are older now. Her daughter is 21. They've learned to meet their father where he is, which is to say, at arm's length. They are, in Burden's words, "wonderful in navigating that."
Children shouldn't have to be wonderful at navigating their father's absence. That's not resilience. It's an adaptation to a wound that didn't have to be inflicted.
Ashley Fisler, a 36-year-old former New Jersey middle school teacher, is behind bars after being arrested and charged in connection with allegations that she sexually assaulted a student in 2021, including alleged sex acts in her classroom and in her car.
The New York Post reported that according to court documents obtained Friday, the allegations include claims that Fisler had sex with the minor student twice and performed a sex act four times. The court paperwork also states that text exchanges included “multiple nude photographs” of Fisler.
Fisler appeared for a brief video court hearing on Friday, where a judge read her the charges she is facing and set a bail hearing for April 1. She will remain behind bars until then.
Prosecutors charged Fisler with six counts of first-degree sexual assault of a minor, one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, and one count of second-degree official misconduct.
The top charges carry a maximum of 20 years in prison. Both second-degree charges carry a maximum of 10 years.
The allegations center on Orchard Valley Middle School in Washington Township, Gloucester County, where the now-adult victim was a student in Fisler’s social studies class. Court filings describe the victim as between 13 and 16 years old at the time.
There is no way to dress this up. If these allegations are true, a public trust was not merely violated; it was exploited.
Court materials state that Fisler denied the allegations during a March 19 interview with Washington Township police.
Her lawyer, Rocco Cipparone, told The Post on Friday that he plans to “aggressively present a defense to those charges.” He also argued against a request to hold Fisler without bail.
“She has no prior criminal record, she has been a lifelong resident of New Jersey, she is a property owner, her entire family is here, [and] she is not a risk of flight,”
Cipparone also pointed to the time elapsed between the alleged misconduct and the current case activity.
“These allegations go back five years. You have this five-year gap where now all of a sudden they are going to say she is a danger to the community,”
And he said he expects to win her release.
“I’m optimistic, and I think I have strong reasons to have her released.”
The bail hearing is scheduled for April 1. Until then, the court has made the basic judgment that caution comes first.
Washington Township School District Superintendent Eric Hibbs said Fisler’s employment ended in April 2023. In a statement, Hibbs said the district takes “matters involving the safety and well-being of our students extremely seriously,” and is “fully cooperating with law enforcement.”
Those lines are necessary, but they are not enough to settle the question parents inevitably ask in cases like this: what was seen, what was reported, and when?
The source material does not answer those questions. That silence is not proof of anything by itself, but it is the vacuum that forms when institutions speak in approved phrases rather than concrete timelines.
In 2019, district social studies supervisor Jeff Snyder told NJ.com that Fisler was a “great teacher.” He went further, praising her approach to students.
“Not only does she make her lessons interactive and engaging, but she also prides herself in making personal connections with all her students,”
That same year, an eighth-grade student wrote an essay praising Fisler as a “hero” who had a “lasting impact on kids.”
In normal times, educators want to be remembered like that. But “personal connections” can become a slogan that hides risk when the adults charged with oversight treat a classroom like a private kingdom.
Schools cannot run on vibes and accolades. They have to run on boundaries, reporting, and a culture that does not flinch from scrutiny.
The allegations have also dragged Fisler’s husband, Paul Fisler, into public view. He could not be reached for comment, according to the source material.
Relatives offered conflicting impressions of what happens next. Paul Fisler’s stepbrother suggested he would not remain in the marriage if the allegations are true.
“He’s a good, upstanding guy. He has morals and everything — he wouldn’t be the type to stay with her if he found out.”
The stepbrother also said the public exposure alone might be decisive.
“Especially since this is already making the news, I feel like that’s enough backlash to be like, ‘All right, maybe we shouldn’t be together anymore.’”
Another relative said, “As far as I know, they’re married and happy together.”
Whatever becomes of that family, the larger moral fact remains: when an adult is accused of exploiting a child, the child is the one who carries the weight longest.
The criminal process will play out in court, beginning with the April 1 bail hearing. But the broader community interest is straightforward and legitimate.
Parents are owed clarity on how a teacher-student relationship is monitored and policed. Taxpayers are owed a school culture that treats professional boundaries as nonnegotiable. Students are owed adults who keep their roles clean, not adults who blur them and then hide behind institutional press releases.
For now, the alleged victim is an adult, but the allegations point back to 2021, to a classroom, to a car, and to a child between 13 and 16 years old. That is the reality this case forces a community to face.
Some lines are not complicated. They are supposed to be unbreakable.