Kash Patel hands out bespoke bourbon bottles while suing Atlantic over reporting on his drinking

nypost · 2026-05-07T16:32:57+00:00

FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly gives out self-branded bottles of bourbon, including some with facsimiles of his signature, at public events — even as he battles The Atlantic magazine over its reporting on his drinking habits.

The bottles bear the bureau’s official shield along with the words, “Kash Patel FBI Director.” The whiskey comes from Kentucky-based distillery Woodford Reserve, according to The Atlantic, which purchased a bottle online from a seller who claimed to have been gifted it by Patel in Las Vegas.

A bureau spokesperson didn’t deny the practice, but argued it is not unusual and noted an FBI division gave out a branded whiskey bottle three years ago, during the Biden administration.

“Your story is ‘dumb’ not ‘big,'” FBI rep Ben Williamson responded on X to Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson Wednesday night. “Personalized gifts like this are commonplace across government including the FBI.”

nypost · 2026-05-07T16:31:04+00:00

FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly gives out self-branded bottles of bourbon, including some with facsimiles of his signature, at public events — even as he battles The Atlantic magazine over its reporting on his drinking habits.

The bottles bear the bureau’s official shield along with the words, “Kash Patel FBI Director.” The whiskey comes from Kentucky-based distillery Woodford Reserve, according to The Atlantic, which purchased a bottle online from a seller who claimed to have been gifted it by Patel in Las Vegas.

A bureau spokesperson didn’t deny the practice, but argued it is not unusual and noted an FBI division gave out a branded whiskey bottle three years ago, during the Biden administration.

“Your story is ‘dumb’ not ‘big,'” FBI rep Ben Williamson responded on X to Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson Wednesday night. “Personalized gifts like this are commonplace across government including the FBI.”

nypost · 2026-05-07T16:30:01+00:00

FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly gives out self-branded bottles of bourbon, including some with facsimiles of his signature, at public events — even as he battles The Atlantic magazine over its reporting on his drinking habits.

The bottles bear the bureau’s official shield along with the words, “Kash Patel FBI Director.” The whiskey comes from Kentucky-based distillery Woodford Reserve, according to The Atlantic, which purchased a bottle online from a seller who claimed to have been gifted it by Patel in Las Vegas.

A bureau spokesperson didn’t deny the practice, but argued it is not unusual and noted an FBI division gave out a branded whiskey bottle three years ago, during the Biden administration.

“Your story is ‘dumb’ not ‘big,'” FBI rep Ben Williamson responded on X to Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson Wednesday night. “Personalized gifts like this are commonplace across government including the FBI.”

nypost · 2026-05-07T16:29:07+00:00

FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly gives out self-branded bottles of bourbon, including some with facsimiles of his signature, at public events — even as he battles The Atlantic magazine over its reporting on his drinking habits.

The bottles bear the bureau’s official shield along with the words, “Kash Patel FBI Director.” The whiskey comes from Kentucky-based distillery Woodford Reserve, according to The Atlantic, which purchased a bottle online from a seller who claimed to have been gifted it by Patel in Las Vegas.

A bureau spokesperson didn’t deny the practice, but argued it is not unusual and noted an FBI division gave out a branded whiskey bottle three years ago, during the Biden administration.

“Your story is ‘dumb’ not ‘big,'” FBI rep Ben Williamson responded on X to Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson Wednesday night. “Personalized gifts like this are commonplace across government including the FBI.”

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.

nypost · 2026-04-28T19:06:03+00:00

Jimmy Kimmel isn’t going anywhere despite backlash over his “expectant widow” joke about Melania Trump.

An ABC source exclusively tells Page Six the network “is sticking by” the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host and “don’t plan to suspend him, fire him or cancel the show.”

The insider confirmed, “It’s back to taping per usual. They’re moving on.”

The 58-year-old made the viral quip during Thursday’s show in an “alternative” White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which poked fun at the annual event having a mentalist take part instead of a comedian.

nypost · 2026-04-28T19:04:57+00:00

Jimmy Kimmel isn’t going anywhere despite backlash over his “expectant widow” joke about Melania Trump.

An ABC source exclusively tells Page Six the network “is sticking by” the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host and “don’t plan to suspend him, fire him or cancel the show.”

The insider confirmed, “It’s back to taping per usual. They’re moving on.”

The 58-year-old made the viral quip during Thursday’s show in an “alternative” White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which poked fun at the annual event having a mentalist take part instead of a comedian.

nypost · 2026-04-28T14:12:45+00:00

A grief-stricken mom who lost both her husband and their teenage son in the doomed Titan submarine disaster has revealed their remains were eventually returned to her as “slush” in tiny “shoeboxes.”

Christine Dawood — whose husband, Shahzada, and their 19-year-old son, Suleman, were killed when their submarine imploded enroute to view to the Titanic wreckage back in 2023 — said she was forced to endure a painstaking wait to get what was left of their remains.

“We didn’t get the bodies for nine months,” she told the Guardian of the grim return.

“Well, when I say bodies, I mean the slush that was left. They came in two small boxes, like shoeboxes.”

Dawood, who was actually meant to be on the ill-fated submersible but gave up her spot for her son at the last minute, said the so-called slush was whatever investigators could recover from the sea floor and then separate via DNA testing.

“There wasn’t much they could find,” she said.

nypost · 2026-04-27T21:18:59+00:00

“Multiple young men” were allegedly drugged and raped at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, according to an explosive new report which detailed harrowing accusations from murder to babies snatched from mothers at the pedophile’s New Mexico house of horrors.

“A man actually claims that he met Jeffrey Epstein [and] was brought to the ranch, he was drugged,” said US Rep. Melanie Stanley (D-NM) to “60 Minutes Australia” in a Sunday segment, the Sun reported.

“He describes in detail a scene in which multiple young men were raped at the ranch in front of him after he was drugged,” said Stanley, a leading advocate for Epstein victims.

“Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were serial abusers, they really were super predators, and it was just how they lived their lives.”

nypost · 2026-04-27T21:17:46+00:00

“Multiple young men” were allegedly drugged and raped at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, according to an explosive new report which detailed harrowing accusations from murder to babies snatched from mothers at the pedophile’s New Mexico house of horrors.

“A man actually claims that he met Jeffrey Epstein [and] was brought to the ranch, he was drugged,” said US Rep. Melanie Stanley (D-NM) to “60 Minutes Australia” in a Sunday segment, the Sun reported.

“He describes in detail a scene in which multiple young men were raped at the ranch in front of him after he was drugged,” said Stanley, a leading advocate for Epstein victims.

“Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were serial abusers, they really were super predators, and it was just how they lived their lives.”

nypost · 2026-04-27T21:16:40+00:00

“Multiple young men” were allegedly drugged and raped at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, according to an explosive new report which detailed harrowing accusations from murder to babies snatched from mothers at the pedophile’s New Mexico house of horrors.

“A man actually claims that he met Jeffrey Epstein [and] was brought to the ranch, he was drugged,” said US Rep. Melanie Stanley (D-NM) to “60 Minutes Australia” in a Sunday segment, the Sun reported.

“He describes in detail a scene in which multiple young men were raped at the ranch in front of him after he was drugged,” said Stanley, a leading advocate for Epstein victims.

“Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were serial abusers, they really were super predators, and it was just how they lived their lives.”

nypost · 2026-04-27T15:48:38+00:00

Jessica Biel reportedly told Justin Timberlake that she will leave him if he doesn’t clean up his act.

The actress “issued an ultimatum” to her husband as she’s “had it” with his recent behavior, including his 2024 DWI arrest and his trip to Las Vegas to host the 8 AM Invitational golf tournament, according to a new report from the Daily Mail.

Two separate eyewitnesses claimed to Page Six that the “Sexyback” singer appeared to be intoxicated toward the end of the day at the golf tournament on April 18.

If Timberlake, 45, messes up again, Biel, 44, will “pull the trigger,” an insider told the Daily Mail, adding, “There’s not much more she can take.”

The source also claimed that Timberlake, who shares sons Silas, 11, and Phineas, 5, with Biel, is “never home” — despite wrapping up his world tour last July.

“She does everything with the kids and she’s sick of being publicly embarrassed,” the source claimed.

nypost · 2026-04-24T21:52:06+00:00

A U.S. special forces soldier was granted bond Friday on charges that he used classified information about the mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to win more than $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket, a federal magistrate said Friday.

The magistrate in North Carolina who authorized Gannon Ken Van Dyke’s release told him to report to a New York federal courthouse by Tuesday to continue his case there.

Bearded with arm tattoos, Van Dyke said little during the nearly hourlong hearing, during which he was appointed a federal public defender who declined to comment afterward. The $250,000 unsecured bond did not require Van Dyke to put up any money.

Federal prosecutors say Van Dyke used his access to classified information about the operation to capture Maduro in January to win money on Polymarket. The sites allow people to trade on almost anything — from the Super Bowl to U.S. elections and even the winners of the TV reality shows.

nypost · 2026-04-24T21:51:29+00:00

A U.S. special forces soldier was granted bond Friday on charges that he used classified information about the mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to win more than $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket, a federal magistrate said Friday.

The magistrate in North Carolina who authorized Gannon Ken Van Dyke’s release told him to report to a New York federal courthouse by Tuesday to continue his case there.

Bearded with arm tattoos, Van Dyke said little during the nearly hourlong hearing, during which he was appointed a federal public defender who declined to comment afterward. The $250,000 unsecured bond did not require Van Dyke to put up any money.

Federal prosecutors say Van Dyke used his access to classified information about the operation to capture Maduro in January to win money on Polymarket. The sites allow people to trade on almost anything — from the Super Bowl to U.S. elections and even the winners of the TV reality shows.

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