FORTE GLOW

FBI Director Kash Patelhas vehemently denied—and threatened a lawsuit over—a new reportfromThe Atlanticthis week, which alleges excessive drinking and unexplained absences during his tenure as bureau chief.

In onepost on X, Patel told the outlet and author of the report: “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court,” calling the piece a “legal layup.”

“Memo to the fake news - the only time I’ll ever actually be concerned about the hit piece lies you write about me will be when you stop,” Patel added in another poston XSaturday morning. “Keep talking, it means I’m doing exactly what I should be doing. And no amount of BS you write will ever deter this FBI from making America safe again and taking down the criminals you love.”

Thearticle, published Friday evening, cites more than two dozen people, including unnamed current and former FBI officials, alleging several episodes described as “freak-outs” from the 46-year-old former public defender. These allegations of erratic behavior and excessive drinking are indicative of what they describe as poor and even absent leadership of the agency, which hasabout 38,000 employees.

Several officials cited in the piece say that Patel is known for "obvious intoxication" at private clubs in Washington and in Las Vegas, forcing his staff to move early morning meetings to later in the day as he recovered. Justice Department and White House officials also described instances in which aides or security personnel had difficulty waking him. In one case, members of his security detail were unable to reach him behind locked doors, prompting a request for “breaching equipment” typically used by tactical teams. If substantiated, such conduct would violate the Department of Justice’sethics standards, which prohibit habitual intoxication.

Officials also said it had raised concerns about public safety, with some wondering how Patel would handle a domestic terrorist attack. “That’s what keeps me up at night,” one official toldThe Atlantic, adding that concerns have grown in the weeks since the United States beganmilitary operations against Iran.

The article also alleges that many staffers are just “waiting” for the notice that Patel will be fired from his position, despite President Donald Trump havingpreviously defendedthe FBI director. Officials cited in the report pointed to his unreachability and impulsivity in response to high-stakes situations.

In response to the allegations, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told the magazine that “crime across the country has plummeted to the lowest level in more than 100 years and many high profile criminals have been put behind bars. Director Patel remains a critical player on the Administration’s law and order team.”

The report comes weeks after Iran-linked hackers calling themselves Handala claimed to have breached Patel’s personal email andpublished photographsand documents online, according to Reuters.

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Past controversies

The report adds to the mounting questions over Patel’s leadership of the U.S.’s principal federal law enforcement agency and is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding him.

In September 2025, Pateldrew criticismamong lawmakers across the political aisle over his handling of the manhunt for right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk’s killer, especially after heprematurely announcedthat the authorities had detained a suspect.

At the time, Patel said in an interview that he had “no regrets” about the social media post, claiming that he was acting in the interest of transparency.

“Mr. Patel was so anxious to take credit for finding Mr. Kirk’s assassin that he violated one of the basics of effective law enforcement: At critical stages of investigation, shut up and let the professionals do their job,” Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois,saidin an FBI oversight hearing at the time.

Read more:After Missteps, Kash Patel Faces Questions Over His Leadership of Charlie Kirk Investigation

In December last year, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committeereleased a letterdemanding answers after reports emerged that Patel used a government aircraft on a “date night” with his country singer girlfriend, to go see her perform in Pennsylvania, and for trips to places like Texas and Scotland. Patelcalledthe accusations “baseless rumors” at the time.

Then, this February, he once againcame under firefor traveling to the Milan-Cortina Olympics to watch the U.S. men’s hockey team win the gold medal. Videos shared on social media after the game showed Patel chugging a beer, wearing a gold medal, and dancing and singing with the team.

An FBI spokesperson later defended Patel in aposton X. “No, it’s not a personal trip. Director Patel is on a trip that was planned months ago.”

The White House did not immediately respond to TIME's request for comment.

DNA analysis has identified theremains found in a carin the Columbia River as those of an Oregon family that went missing in 1958 while on a trip to find Christmas greenery, authorities said Thursday.

The state medical examiner's office has identified parents Kenneth and Barbara Martin and their daughter Barbie from remains located in the river within the wreckage of the car, the Hood River County Sheriff's Officesaid. The sheriff's office said it concluded its investigation and found no evidence of a crime.

The Ford station wagon thought to belong to the family was found in 2024 by Archer Mayo, a diver who had been looking for it for several years. Authorities pulled part of the car from the river the following year.

The family vanished in December of 1958. The bodies of two of the family's children were found months after the disappearance, but the other members never turned up.

The search for the Martin family was a national news story at the time and led some to speculate about the possibility of foul play, with a $1,000 reward offered for information.

"Where do you search if you've already searched every place logic and fragmentary clues would suggest?" an Associated Press article asked in 1959, months after the disappearance.

Only the frame and some attached components were retrieved from the water because of the "extent to which the vehicle had been encased in sediment," the sheriff's office said. Analysis of those items allowed investigators to conclude that it was indeed the Martin family's car.

Later in 2025, Mayo located human remains that were ultimately turned over to the state medical examiner's office.

Scientists developed DNA extracts from the remains and generated a profile that was compared with relatives of the Martin family, allowing for the identifications, authorities said.

Othram, a DNA lab in Texas,did forensic analysis on the remains, which ultimately led to the positive identification.

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Othram's Colby Lasyonetold CBS affiliate KOIN-TVthat more than a dozen experts worked on the case, noting they extracted a bone sample and used advanced techniques to isolate and analyze the DNA. DNA comparisons with a living relative positively identified Kenneth Martin.

"Skeletal remains that have been submerged in water for decades can be particularly challenging to work with," Lasyone said. "Unfortunately, the skeletal remains for the other individuals were too degraded and couldn't be worked with."

Mayo also found remnants of a shoe and a camera case with Kenneth's name and address, seat belt buckles and camera film, KOIN-TV reported.

"Maybe there'll be pictures published one day of what that is, because that's a pretty cool piece to a mystery," he told the the station.

Mayo told KOIN-TV he was gratified the case was finally solved.

"It's not going to get more resolved than it is now and so that feels good," he told the station. "And that really lets us write the last chapter of that book."

In 2020,KOIN-TV did a four-part podcast on the case.

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By Humphrey Malalo

Kenya court fines Chinese national Zhang Kequn U.S. dollars 7,746 and a one year jail term for illegal possession of garden ants

NAIROBI, April 15 (Reuters) - A Kenyan court on Wednesday ordered a Chinese man to pay a fine of ‌1 million shillings ($7,746) and gave him a 12-month jail term ‌for trying to smuggle live ants out of the country.

The magistrate in the case ​said a stiff sentence was needed as a deterrent given a spate of cases in Kenya of ant-trafficking.

It serves markets, such as China, where enthusiasts have paid large sums to maintain ant colonies in large ‌transparent vessels known as ⁠formicariums that allow them to study the species' complex social structures and behaviours.

Chinese national Zhang Kequn was arrested ⁠last month at Nairobi's main international airport with more than 2,200 live garden ants in his luggage.

Zhang's lawyer said he would appeal against his ​sentence.

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He initially ​pleaded not guilty to charges ​including dealing in live wildlife ‌species but later changed his plea to guilty.

"Noting the increasing and rising cases of dealing in large quantities of garden ants and the negative ecological side effects of massive harvesting, there is a need for a stiff deterrent," magistrate Irene Gichobi said.

A Kenyan man, Charles Mwangi, ‌was also charged in the case, ​accused of supplying the ants to Zhang.

Mwangi ​has pleaded not guilty and ​is out on bail. His case was not ‌before the court on Wednesday.

Last year ​four men were ​fined 1 million shillings each for trying to traffic thousands of ants. Wildlife experts said at the time that the case ​signalled a shift in ‌biopiracy from trophies like elephant ivory to lesser-known species.

($1 = 129.1000 ​Kenyan shillings)

(Writing by Vincent Mumo Nzilani and Elias Biryabarema;Editing ​by Alexander Winning and Barbara Lewis)

Bob Odenkirk knows what kind of action star he is — and, maybe more importantly, isn't.

At 63, less than five years removed from a heart attack that nearly ended his life, the actor understands exactly what his body is capable of. He can't do high spinning kicks or elaborate gymnastics. He can't dodge 30 punches in a row. He's the same age as Tom Cruise but you're not going to see him hanging off the wing of a plane or sprinting across rooftops "Mission: Impossible"-style.

"Tom Cruise is just in better shape than me," Odenkirk says over Zoom from New York in the gravelly, matter-of-fact Midwestern cadence that has carried him from his ’90s alt-comedy sketch series "Mr. Show" through hisEmmy-winning turn as Saul Goodmanon "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" and into films like"The Post"and "Nebraska." "I mean, he can do things I can't sell."

What Odenkirk can sell, as his unlikely turn as a suburban dad with a violent past in the2021 sleeper hit "Nobody"and last year's sequel "Nobody 2" made clear, is something more specific and, in its way, a lot more interesting. He can show you what it looks like when your neighbor — a guy who could be teaching an intro to business class at a night school — is capable of lethal violence. And he can be likable and funny while doing it.

Read more:What's harder: weapons or improv training? Bob Odenkirk has the answer

"There's a certain kind of fighting that I can do that fits my face and my body type," Odenkirk explains. "I can play a guy who is just going to wear the other person down. He's going to do the simplest moves he can find and they're going to be hard and they’re going to hurt. That's what I can do."

If it wasn't already clear that Odenkirk isn't your conventional action star, his new film "Normal" should seal the deal. In theaters Friday after a strong reception at SXSW last month, the genre-scrambling, darkly comic neo-western casts him as Ulysses, a principled small-town sheriff who takes a temporary posting in a sleepy corner of Minnesota called Normal. Haunted by a failed marriage and a past case that ended badly, he arrives hoping for a quiet stint and instead stumbles into a mystery involving his dead predecessor and a town whose friendly residents are suspiciously armed to the teeth and sitting on an enormous amount of wealth. As he starts to pull at the thread, Ulysses finds himself up against not just the entire community but — improbably, given the setting — the yakuza.

Indie distributor Magnolia's biggest theatrical push to date (opening on approximately 2,000 screens), "Normal" has enough over-the-top violence and elaborately choreographed kills to satisfy anyone coming for carnage. But for Odenkirk, it was the prospect of a slow burn that appealed to him, with a first stretch that plays closer to "Fargo" before the mayhem ramps up to almost cartoonish proportions.

"This one had, like, one-and-a-half acts of mystery and a humorous look at small-town people," he says. "That was the part where I was like, I want to dothat. Because, you know, otherwise, you don't need me — get Jason Statham.”

Setting the film in the Midwest helped tune it to Odenkirk's particular temperament. The actor, who was born and raised in Illinois, developed the story with "Nobody" screenwriter Derek Kolstad, best known for creating the "John Wick" franchise, and the two quickly bonded over a shared sensibility.

"Bob immediately leaped into this idea because he grew up in Naperville," Kolstad says. "I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and we totally understood the mentality of small towns and how you can have the onion of a deep, dark secret. We love small towns. We're not making fun of them."

The character they built for "Normal" was intentionally less mythic and more grounded than the former government assassin Odenkirk plays in "Nobody."

"He is much more scrappy and internal and less about male rage," says the film's English director Ben Wheatley, best known for genre-bending fare like 2015's "High-Rise" and 2016's"Free Fire,"who drew on influences ranging from westerns to Hong Kong action films to the slapstick of the Three Stooges and "Evil Dead II." "Ulysses can fight, but it's not about him becoming this kind of revengeful wraith moving through the movie dispatching people. It's action, but with empathy."

For Odenkirk, part of the appeal was the opportunity to play someone closer to where he is now, not just physically but emotionally. "I love the chance to play someone who is my age, who maybe was proud and full of himself when he was younger and then made some bad choices and feels a little lost," he says. "The older you get, the more you realize you don't know what’s going on. I like playing a person who has that level of experience of the world."

Since survivinghis "widowmaker" heart attackon the New Mexico set of "Better Call Saul" in 2021 — an event that left him unconscious for a day and with no memory of the following week — Odenkirk has little interest in projecting invincibility. If anything, the experience reinforced the value of the kind of work he's been doing.

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"The truth is, the action movie helped save my heart," Odenkirk says, noting that the two years of intense training he did for "Nobody" helped build up the blood flow that kept his heart from sustaining lasting damage.

The aftermath of his near-death experience, he says, was just as profound. "The biggest thing was just this appreciation for being alive," Odenkirk recalls. "Those first couple weeks, I woke up without any worry in my mind. I just rediscovered the world every morning and loved it. That feeling has faded — it's not as complete and pure as it was. But I know it's there."

That shift has carried into Odenkirk's approach to his work. In recent years, he has moved more freely between film, television and the stage, including a Tony nomination last year for his performance as washed-up real estate salesman Shelley Levene in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's play"Glengarry Glen Ross,"choosing roles less for how they fit together than for how far they take him from what he's done before.

"I think he does it to surprise himself," says his "Normal" co-star Henry Winkler, who befriended the actor years ago when they met at a taping of "Late Night With Seth Meyers." "When you choose this profession, you don't just say the words. The fun is making somebody come alive that you don't necessarily identify with."

What comes next is, by Odenkirk's own admission, still taking shape. At this stage, the actor, who has a home in New York but lives primarily in L.A., is deliberately prioritizing the things he actually wants to do rather than rushing to line up the next job. He recently climbed Machu Picchu with his longtime friend and "Mr. Show" co-star David Cross, filming the trip for a documentary, and has been helping his son — one of two adult children he shares with his wife Naomi, a producer, whom he married in 1997 — develop a television pilot.

"I'm not racing to get my dance card full," he says, almost as an aside. "I might be retired." After letting the thought hang a moment, he smiles and shakes his head. "I don't think so. Nobody quits show business."

There's a version of Odenkirk's next phase that's easy to imagine: a late-career run of durable, increasingly grim action roles, the kind that has kept actors like Liam Neeson working steadily into their 70s. But Odenkirk sounds less interested in settling into that groove than in reshaping it. "I understand that the audience goes to see weapons and death and gore," he says. "But for me, I've got to be careful how much of that I put into the world."

One possibility he's been actively discussing with Kolstad pushes in almost the opposite direction, inspired by a mutual love of Jackie Chan. "Those early Jackie Chan films are really Buster Keaton–ish — very likable, not bloody," he says. "This would be PG, essentially. You could even say G-rated. There would be no blood in it. It's doing clever fighting that makes you smile and laugh."

And if "Normal" succeeds at the box office, he's already thinking about where Ulysses might go next. Odenkirk and Kolstad have begun kicking around ideas for extending the character into an ongoing franchise. "There is no character I've ever done that I feel as close to," he says. "With Saul and even with 'Nobody,' slipping into that guy's skin is a little challenging. This guy is a lot less challenging and I like playing him. So I can imagine resuming his story."

A little later in our conversation, he pulls out his phone, scrolls for a second, then hits play. What comes through the speaker is a demo he recorded singing a Tom Lehrer-style satirical show tune: "It's a New York night and it feels so right / The New York lights are shining bright … in Chicago."

The song is part of an album he’s recording called "Odenkirk Sings Nutter," featuring comedy numbers written by writer and playwright Mark Nutter, a longtime friend. Nutter, he explains, has spent years writing sharp, absurdist songs and musicals that have remained largely under the radar. The album is an effort to change that.

"Like with doing an action movie, it's this notion of: If I can do this even respectably, I'm going to blow everyone’s mind," he says. "They're gonna be like, 'Are you kidding?' If I have any dream, it would be somebody listens to it and says, 'Who is this guy? Why don't we take some of these songs or one of his musicals and get people who actually can sing to do them?' "

He smiles, more at the attempt than the outcome.

"My whole career has felt like risk and danger and potentially being very deeply embarrassed on a world stage," Odenkirk says. "Some part of me says I don't give a s— and that it's fine if I'm embarrassed. I don't know if that’s true. But I'm willing to risk it."

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This story originally appeared inLos Angeles Times.

A federal judge on Thursday issued a new order halting construction of President Donald Trump's much-touted new White House ballroom, finding the administration was using fancy footwork to try to sidestep his previous ruling.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon had previouslyissued an orderhalting the $400 million project until the White House got it approved by Congress, with an exception for "actions strictly necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House and its grounds.” That specifically includes an underground bunker and security measures being put in place at the site under the former East Wing structure.

Trump argued that the exception also meant the whole 90,000-square-foot ballroom could be built, because the entire project is necessary for the safety and security of the White House. Leon disagreed.

“Defendants argue that the entire ballroom construction project, from tip to tail, falls within the safety-and-security exception and therefore may proceed unabated. That is neither a reasonable nor a correct reading of my Order!” Leon,a noted fan of exclamation marks, wrote. “It is, to say the least, incredible, if not disingenuous, that Defendants now argue that my Order doesnotstop ballroom construction because of the safety-and-security exception!”

"I cannot possibly agree," Leon added.

National security, Leon writes, “is not a blank check to proceed with otherwise unlawful activity.”

The order does not take effect for seven days, which gives the government time to appeal.

Leon also clarified "the scope of the injunction" he issued last month, as a federal appeals court hadordered him to dolast week.

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The order “does not prohibit below-ground construction, including below-ground construction of national security facilities, as well as above-ground construction short of constructing the proposed above-ground ballroom that is strictly necessary to cover, secure, and protect such national security facilities, provided that any such construction will not lock in the above-ground size and scale of the ballroom,”Leon wrote.

The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The plaintiff in the case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, had filed suit seeking to block the president's pet project until he received congressional approval, because the massive project exceeded his authority.

Leon agreed and issued a preliminary injunction, which the administration appealed.

The Justice Department adapted an argument that Trump made after the ruling — that the whole project could proceed because it's necessary for national security.

Administration lawyers asked the judge to adopt their position, and “clarify that under the safety-and-security exception, Defendants may proceed with construction of the East Wing project as scheduled because the entire project advances critical national-security objectives as an integrated whole.”

That’s because “a bunker or bomb shelter cannot serve its purpose without adequate above-ground cover," they argued.

The preservation groupargued in responsethat the administration’s position was a “brazen contortion of the laws of vocabulary,” and noted the administration had previously contended the bunker and underground facilities that were being built were separate from the ballroom.

That position changed after the judge’s ruling, the group said. “Bunkers, apparently, are only as good as the 90,000-square-foot, 40- foot-ceiling ballrooms on top of them,” the trust said. The group had objected to the underground work.

The daughter of a woman who remains missing in the Bahamas lashed out against her stepfather after arriving on Great Abaco Island Thursday.

Karli Aylesworth previously slammed her stepfather, Brian Hooker, who was the last person to see her mother, Lynette Hooker, alive on April 4. Brian said Lynette fell overboard from their dinghy around 7:30 p.m. as the pair motored toward their sailboat, which was anchored off Elbow Key.

Brian was arrested by the Royal Bahamas Police Force April 8 and spent five days behind bars whilepolice investigated Lynette's disappearance. He was released Monday night without being charged with a crime.

On Tuesday morning, he told several news outlets he wouldremain in the island nationto search for Lynette but jetted off Wednesday for the United States, landing in Atlanta in mid-afternoon, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital.

Coast Guard Opens Criminal Investigation Into Missing Woman Last Seen In Bahamas

"I think it shows his character. He somehow lost my mom at sea and cries on camera saying he’ll never stop searching, then leaves the next day," Aylesworthtold the New York Postupon her arrival to the town of Marsh Harbour, close to where her mother went missing.

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She deplaned at the tiny Leonard Thompson International Airport in Marsh Harbour with her boyfriend, Steve Hansen. They were reportedly met by a uniformed police officer before taking off in a taxi.

Hooker's attorney, Terrel Butler, said he was going to visit Hooker's mother.

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"Following his release from custody without charge, Mr. Hooker is now facing another emergency. In addition to the trauma of his wife of 25 years being missing, Mr. Hooker has received urgent word of his mother’s grave illness," Butler toldNBC News.

"He has traveled to [the] United States of America to be at her bedside during this critical time."

After her mother's disappearance, Aylesworth told Fox News Digital she was aware of "prior issues" with Brian's behavior.

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"There have been prior issues brought to my attention, which may be important for anythorough investigation. If this truly was an accident, I can understand and live with it," Aylesworth said. "However, there needs to be an intensive review of the facts and circumstances of this tragic incident before that can be determined."

Missing American’s Husband Had 'Spotty' Cell Service During 8-Hour Trek To Report Disappearance: Telecom Boss

Aylesworth said she has been "privy to very little information," adding her "sole concern is to find out what happened to my mother and make sure afull and complete investigationis performed into her disappearance."

She also told"Fox and Friends"that something "doesn't add up" with her mother's disappearance, and accused Brian of having a "history of domestic violence" and anger issues.

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Meanwhile, Bahamian police said theirsearch for Lynette was comingto an end as early as Thursday after analyzing "tide, drift and wind" and deciding there was nowhere else to look. A U.S. Coast Guard investigation remains ongoing.

Brian has maintained he had nothing to do with Lynette's disappearance and that it was purely an accident driven by windy conditions and choppy seas.

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Before he was jailed, he saidhe was "heartbroken" over Lynette'sdisappearance.

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"I am heartbroken over the recent boat accident in unpredictable seas and high winds that caused my beloved Lynette to fall from our small dinghy near Elbow Cay inthe Bahamas," he wrote.

"Despite desperate attempts to reach her, the winds and currents drove us further apart. We continue to search for her, and that is my sole focus."

Original article source:Daughter of missing American woman touches down in Bahamas, slams stepdad after he fled amid investigation

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Around 15 people deported from the United States landed in Congo’s capital Kinshasa in the early hours of Friday, one of their lawyers told The Associated Press.

It was the latest example of the Trump administration using agreements with African countries to accelerate migrant removals under controversial circumstances that have raised questions about respect for the migrants' rights.

An official at the Congolese migration agency confirmed the arrivals but didn’t provide details.

The deportees are all from Latin America and the Congolese government plans to keep them in the country for a short period, said U.S. attorney Alma David, who represents one of the deportees and has been speaking with her client since arriving in Kinshasa.

All the deportees are believed to have legal protection from U.S. judges shielding them against being returned to their home countries, David said. The deportees are believed to be staying at a hotel in Kinshasa.

The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations-affiliated agency, will be involved to offer “assisted voluntary return,” David told AP.

“The fact that the focus is on offering them ‘voluntary’ return to their home country when they spent months in immigration detention in the U.S. fighting hard to not have to go home is very alarming,” she said.

The IOM didn't immediately respond to AP's request for comment.

Congo's Ministry of Communications said in a statement earlier this month that itwill receive some migrants as part of a new dealunder the Trump administration’s third-country program.

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It described the arrangement as a “temporary” one that reflects Congo’s “commitment to human dignity and international solidarity.” It would come with zero costs to the government with the U.S. covering the needed logistics, it said.

The statement said no automatic transfer of the deportees is planned, adding: “Each situation will be subject to individual review in accordance with the laws of the Republic and national security requirements.”

The U.S. has struck such third-country deportation deals with at least seven other African nations, many of them among countries hit the most by the Trump administration’s policies that have restricted trade, aid and migration.

The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a report released recently by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Lawyers and activists have raised questions over the nature of the deals with countries in Africa and elsewhere. Several of the African nations that have signed such deals have notoriously repressive governments and poor human rights records — including Eswatini, South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.

This story has been corrected to show that Alma David is one of several lawyers representing the deportees.

Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Saleh Mwanamilongo in Bonn, Germany contributed to this report.