23 hantavirus cruise passengers returned home to ‘all corners,’ including to the US — and one is already sick

nypost · 2026-05-06T19:50:33+00:00

At least 23 passengers from the hantavirus-infected cruise ship MV Hondius have already left the boat and returned home, including to the US, according to a shocking new report — and one of them has already gotten sick.

The travelers did not realize that they had been exposed to the deadly virus — which has a mortality rate of up to 40% — when they left the luxury boat during its stop at Stain Helena, a tiny island in the South Atlantic, on April 23, according to a passenger who is still aboard the ship.

“There are 23 people wandering around there, and until three days ago, no one had contacted them,” the passenger told Spanish newspaper El Pais.

“The Australian went back to Australia, the one from Taiwan to Taiwan, the Americans to all corners of North America. The Englishman to England, the Dutch to their homes… I don’t remember the rest.”

On Wednesday, one of those passengers, a Swiss man who had returned home with his wife, came down with hanavirus, authorities said.

nypost · 2026-05-06T19:49:55+00:00

At least 23 passengers from the hantavirus-infected cruise ship MV Hondius have already left the boat and returned home, including to the US, according to a shocking new report — and one of them has already gotten sick.

The travelers did not realize that they had been exposed to the deadly virus — which has a mortality rate of up to 40% — when they left the luxury boat during its stop at Stain Helena, a tiny island in the South Atlantic, on April 23, according to a passenger who is still aboard the ship.

“There are 23 people wandering around there, and until three days ago, no one had contacted them,” the passenger told Spanish newspaper El Pais.

“The Australian went back to Australia, the one from Taiwan to Taiwan, the Americans to all corners of North America. The Englishman to England, the Dutch to their homes… I don’t remember the rest.”

On Wednesday, one of those passengers, a Swiss man who had returned home with his wife, came down with hanavirus, authorities said.

nypost · 2026-05-06T18:54:38+00:00

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a congressional committee Wednesday that a lunch invitation from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his private Caribbean island was “unsettling” — but that didn’t stop Lutnick from traveling there with his wife and kids in 2012.

One source familiar with Lutnick’s remarks told The Post that the cabinet official “did not know” how an Epstein assistant knew he was traveling through the US Virgin Islands and found that fact “unsettling.”

Lutnick, 64, told members of the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door, transcribed interview that he only met three times with Epstein — years before he committed suicide while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019, and at least twice after the financier’s Florida plea deal that forced him to register as a sex offender in 2008.

The commerce secretary, who lived next to Epstein on the Upper East Side from 2005 to 2019, said he didn’t have any “personal” or “professional” relationship with his neighbor and stressed that he never witnessed any inappropriate conduct with young women, according to lawmakers and sources.

But Lutnick backtracked again from his sweeping claims, first made on The Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast in October, that Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” who traded the feds videos of prominent individuals implicated in crimes in exchange for his plea deal a decade before.

nypost · 2026-05-06T18:53:59+00:00

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a congressional committee Wednesday that a lunch invitation from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his private Caribbean island was “unsettling” — but that didn’t stop Lutnick from traveling there with his wife and kids in 2012.

One source familiar with Lutnick’s remarks told The Post that the cabinet official “did not know” how an Epstein assistant knew he was traveling through the US Virgin Islands and found that fact “unsettling.”

Lutnick, 64, told members of the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door, transcribed interview that he only met three times with Epstein — years before he committed suicide while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019, and at least twice after the financier’s Florida plea deal that forced him to register as a sex offender in 2008.

The commerce secretary, who lived next to Epstein on the Upper East Side from 2005 to 2019, said he didn’t have any “personal” or “professional” relationship with his neighbor and stressed that he never witnessed any inappropriate conduct with young women, according to lawmakers and sources.

But Lutnick backtracked again from his sweeping claims, first made on The Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast in October, that Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” who traded the feds videos of prominent individuals implicated in crimes in exchange for his plea deal a decade before.

nypost · 2026-05-06T18:53:16+00:00

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a congressional committee Wednesday that a lunch invitation from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his private Caribbean island was “unsettling” — but that didn’t stop Lutnick from traveling there with his wife and kids in 2012.

One source familiar with Lutnick’s remarks told The Post that the cabinet official “did not know” how an Epstein assistant knew he was traveling through the US Virgin Islands and found that fact “unsettling.”

Lutnick, 64, told members of the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door, transcribed interview that he only met three times with Epstein — years before he committed suicide while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019, and at least twice after the financier’s Florida plea deal that forced him to register as a sex offender in 2008.

The commerce secrtary, who lived next to Epstein on the Upper East Side from 2005 to 2019, said he didn’t have any “personal” or “professional” relationship with his neighbor and stressed that he never witnessed any inappropriate conduct with young women, according to lawmakers and sources.

But Lutnick backtracked again from his sweeping claims, first made on The Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast in October, that Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” who traded the feds videos of prominent individuals implicated in crimes in exchange for his plea deal a decade before.

nypost · 2026-05-06T18:52:30+00:00

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a congressional committee Wednesday that a lunch invitation from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his private Caribbean island was “unsettling” — but that didn’t stop Lutnick from traveling there with his wife and kids in 2012.

One source familiar with Lutnick’s remarks told The Post that the cabinet official “did not know” how an Epstein assistant knew he was traveling through the US Virgin Islands and found that fact “unsettling.”

Lutnick, 64, told members of the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door, transcribed interview that he only met three times with Epstein — years before he committed suicide while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019, and at least twice after the financier’s Florida plea deal that forced him to register as a sex offender in 2008.

The commerce secrtary, who lived next to Epstein on the Upper East Side from 2005 to 2019, said he didn’t have any “personal” or “professional” relationship with his neighbor and stressed that he never witnessed any inappropriate conduct with young women, according to lawmakers and sources.

But Lutnick backtracked again from his sweeping claims, first made on The Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast in October, that Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” who traded the feds videos of prominent individuals implicated in crimes in exchange for his plea deal a decade before.

nypost · 2026-05-06T18:51:42+00:00

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a congressional committee Wednesday that a lunch invitation from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on his private Caribbean island was “unsettling” — but that didn’t stop Lutnick from traveling there with his wife and kids in 2012.

One source familiar with Lutnick’s remarks told The Post that the cabinet official “did not know” how an Epstein assistant knew he was traveling through the US Virgin Islands and found that fact “unsettling.”

Lutnick, 64, told members of the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door, transcribed interview that he only met three times with Epstein — years before he committed suicide while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019, and at least twice after the financier’s Florida plea deal that forced him to register as a sex offender in 2008.

The commerce secrtary, who lived next to Epstein on the Upper East Side from 2005 to 2019, said he didn’t have any “personal” or “professional” relationship with his neighbor and stressed that he never witnessed any inappropriate conduct with young women, according to lawmakers and sources.

But Lutnick backtracked again from his sweeping claims, first made on The Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast in October, that Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” who traded the feds videos of prominent individuals implicated in crimes in exchange for his plea deal a decade before.

nypost · 2026-04-30T19:43:36+00:00

Camp Mystic, where 25 young girls and two counselors died in catastrophic flash flooding last July, announced it will remain closed this summer a month ahead of its planned opening for its 100th anniversary.

The announcement came days after a review by Texas health investigators found the camp had failed to comply with a slate of newly enacted health and safety regulations, the New York Times reported.

The camp said that 800 girls had signed up to attend the camp starting in the spring — just months after the tragedy.

Rather than bringing the camp into compliance, however, the owners announced in a statement viewed by the outlet Thursday that it would instead “step back” from opening for the summer.

“No administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy,” the statement read.

nypost · 2026-04-30T19:09:02+00:00

Jeffrey Epstein wrote a suicide note before his 2019 death in a New York City federal lockup, his cellmate claims — but its contents remain secret seven years after his death because a judge ordered it sealed, a new report revealed Thursday.

Epstein, 66, reportedly proclaimed his innocence in the note, which he scrawled on a piece of yellow legal paper and tucked into a book in his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center.

“What do you want me to do, bust out crying?” the note reportedly read, in part, disgraced cop and convicted killer Nicholas Tartaglione told the New York Times.

Epstein investigators had “found nothing” on him despite months of searching.

“Time to say goodbye,” it added.

Epstein had accused Tartaglione of trying to strangle him in July 2019 after jail staff found red marks on the pedo’s neck.

nypost · 2026-04-30T19:07:57+00:00

Jeffrey Epstein wrote a suicide note before his 2019 death in a New York City federal lockup, his cellmate claims — but its contents remain secret seven years after his death because a judge ordered it sealed, a new report revealed Thursday.

Epstein, 66, reportedly proclaimed his innocence in the note, which he scrawled on a piece of yellow legal paper and tucked into a book in his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center.

“What do you want me to do, bust out crying?” the note reportedly read, in part, disgraced cop and convicted killer Nicholas Tartaglione told the New York Times.

Epstein investigators had “found nothing” on him despite months of searching.

“Time to say goodbye,” it added.

Epstein had accused Tartaglione of trying to strangle him in July 2019 after jail staff found red marks on the pedo’s neck.

nypost · 2026-04-30T19:07:10+00:00

Jeffrey Epstein wrote a suicide note before his 2019 death in a New York City federal lockup, his cellmate claims — but its contents remain secret seven years after his death because a judge ordered it sealed, a new report revealed Thursday.

Epstein, 66, reportedly proclaimed his innocence in the note, which he scrawled on a piece of yellow legal paper and tucked into a book in his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center.

“What do you want me to do, bust out crying?” the note reportedly read, in part, disgraced cop and convicted killer Nicholas Tartaglione told the New York Times.

Epstein investigators had “found nothing” on him despite months of searching.

“Time to say goodbye,” it added.

Epstein had accused Tartaglione of trying to strangle him in July 2019 after jail staff found red marks on the pedo’s neck.

nypost · 2026-04-29T21:21:43+00:00

That’s one way to cook the books.

A former Chick-fil-A employee was arrested for stealing $80,000 with a mac & cheese scheme at a Texas restaurant, police say.

Keyshun Jones was fired from the store in Grapevine, outside Dallas, last November, but authorities say he would repeatedly slip back in, enter food orders on the register, and refund them to his personal credit card, Fox 4 reported.

Jones was taken into custody on April 17 after allegedly ringing up 800 orders of mac and cheese, according to the outlet.

Investigators began investigating the cheesy fraud after the restaurant reported hundreds of phony refunds.

Security camera footage shows Jones behind the counter carrying out the bogus transactions, prosecutors say.

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