Jared Kushner has responded angrily to CNN after the network examined potential ethical concerns surrounding his international investments and his role in Donald Trump’s administration.

CNN reported that Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and an unpaid outside negotiator, may face questions about a possible conflict of interest. He has been involved in the administration’s Gaza policy while holding investments in Israeli companies whose financial performance could be influenced by related negotiations.

Because Kushner serves as an external adviser rather than a formal government employee, he is not subject to the same financial disclosure requirements and scrutiny applied to many officials.

At the center of the controversy is Affinity Partners, the private equity firm founded by Kushner. Affinity is the biggest shareholder in Phoenix Financial, a major Israeli financial services company valued at more than $100 billion that manages pensions, insurance products and savings for millions of people.

After reviewing Israeli public filings, CNN reported that Phoenix has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest defense manufacturer, which itself holds interests in several other military companies.

Some of those defense businesses have publicly pointed to the Gaza war as a factor that benefited their operations.

Critics have consequently accused Kushner of benefiting improperly. CNN, however, said it “found no indication that Kushner’s actions as a diplomat directly affected the investments reviewed.”

“For the last 10 years, I have ignored false and misleading stories about me and focused on the work,” Kushner, who rarely posts online, wrote in a forceful statement.

“But the cycle has gotten out of control where old lies get repeated as fact, new ones get added, and the record becomes increasingly distorted. So from time to time, I’m going to respond, not to every allegation.”

In another post addressing the report, Kushner called the CNN story “deeply misleading” and insisted that Affinity “does not own the defense companies highlighted in CNN’s story.”

His decision to serve as a volunteer envoy, rather than take an official government position, has allowed Kushner to avoid the more extensive financial disclosures that would normally be required of a federal employee.

According to CNN, Affinity first acquired part of Phoenix in 2024 and nearly doubled its investment shortly before Trump returned to office in January 2025.

By July 2025, Affinity’s stake was valued at more than $1 billion. The firm later sold part of its holding for more than $340 million, reportedly generating a substantial profit.

Kushner said on social media that Phoenix should be understood primarily as a financial services company, not a defense business.

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“Think of Phoenix as the Israeli equivalent of Vanguard or Fidelity. It manages the retirement savings of millions of Israelis. The savers don’t choose the individual investments, and neither do I.”

“I have no role in deciding what Phoenix buys or sells. It has performed very well for Affinity and our investors, up more than five times since our initial investment,” the president’s son-in-law added.

Serving as a negotiator for the White House, Kushner has been deeply involved in Gaza discussions since last spring. He has advised Trump on the US-Israel relationship and the future of Gaza. 

Many administration officials have lauded Kushner as fundamental in landing the Israel-Gaza ceasefire last fall. 

The private equity boss has also proposed plans to rebuild Gaza and make it a destination for tourists. 

Democratic lawmakers have vowed to investigate Kushner and his business dealings should they take control of Congress in the midterms. 

Maryland Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin has said the mix of private business and public diplomacy is ‘completely irreconcilable and unethical.’

The White House and a representative for Kushner were contacted for comment. 

CNN has been a frequent target of President Trump and the White House. 

Trump exploded at CNN star Kaitlan Collins as he arrived alongside Melania at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September. 

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ the president told the journalist after the administration barred CNN from White House access on Friday.

‘It’s an honor to be here, I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me,’ Trump said as Collins questioned him on the Iran war. ‘You said you weren’t gonna cover me, you shouldn’t be covering me.’

The president said ‘we’re making a lot of progress, our country is doing really, really well’ before he walked off with Melania. 

The ferocious exchange came after the Trump administration barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House over coverage Trump branded ‘fake news.’

The impasse tghen escalated as the three outlets sued the administration alleging the ban breached their First Amendment rights, while the TV pool, made up of ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN and NBC, said that they would boycott White House events in solidarity.

The price of this sandwich is no joke — it’s total baloney!

A New York City deli unveiled a sandwich named for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman on Friday, as the candidate promised to tackle the steep cost of lunch if elected.

“The Blakeman,” sold at Mario’s Meats & Gourmet Deli in Queens, features freshly roasted turkey, shredded lettuce, an oil-and-vinegar vinaigrette and spicy deli mustard piled onto a hero roll.

The sandwich currently sells for $15, but Blakeman said he would lower the price to $12 if voters elect him governor on November 3.

“When I become governor it’ll be $12,” he said at the deli. “Gotta make it affordable.”

Blakeman played up the sandwich-themed event as a way to “highlight how much more expensive it has become to operate a neighborhood deli and put a sandwich on the counter compared with five years ago when [Gov.] Kathy Hochul took office,” according to a press release from his campaign.

Joe Digangi, owner of the Flushing deli, said Blakeman’s focus on cutting costs resonates after a summer marked by punishing fuel bills.

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“My whole thing is with the prices of electric and gas. The summer was ridiculous for us. We were making money, yes, but it was going in one hand and out the other,” he said.

“So, he’s big on energy costs, big on trying to help us out with knocking out those energy costs… And I have a lot of refrigerators, a lot of air conditioners in here, so it’s just a constant, you know, $4,000, $5,000 bill every month,” he said.

Blakeman’s press release said small businesses such as delis are facing steep expenses for taxes, electricity, labor, insurance and rent — costs that “ultimately affect the prices customers see at the register.”

Addison Dick, a spokesperson for the New York State Democratic Party, countered that Blakeman should back up his criticism with action.

“New Yorkers know baloney when they see it – Blakeman still has no beef with Trump’s tariffs that are sending grocery prices skyrocketing and forcing New Yorkers to spend all their bread on basic necessities,” Dick said.

When asked why his namesake sandwich features turkey, Blakeman pointed to his wife.

“My wife wants me to eat healthy,” he said. “What can I tell ya? You gotta follow orders.”

— Additional reporting by Vaughn Golden

FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau has undertaken a sweeping modernization of its technology and cybersecurity operations to counter the malicious use of artificial intelligence by adversarial countries, including China and Russia—moving beyond the temporary fixes favored by previous leadership.

Speaking to News Media, Patel said the FBI was forced to rebuild its aging technological infrastructure from the ground up.

“Everybody that looks at the bureau thinks they must have the best tech and technology in the world,” Patel said. “We didn’t because prior leadership, all they did for decades was put a band-aid over a band-aid over a band-aid and never took the time to fix it.”

Artificial intelligence now plays a growing role in the FBI’s operations.

Patel said the bureau uses AI to search vast databases and rapidly sort through tips submitted by the public, helping agents respond more quickly to potential terrorist threats and school shootings. He stressed that the technology is intended to augment human decision-making rather than take the place of FBI personnel.

“We get tips from our private sector partners and American citizens, and those tips come into our database now finally,” said Patel. “Instead of an old game of telephone where 50 people have to call 50 people, and it takes three days to get us the information, it’s ingested immediately. It’s analyzed.”

After the information is analyzed, leads are distributed to FBI field offices, headquarters in Washington, D.C., is alerted, and agents are assigned to investigate, Patel said.

When Patel became FBI director, he said the agency had developed only two or three experimental AI applications throughout its history. That figure has since climbed beyond 140 use cases.

Calling AI a technology that “is here to stay” at the FBI, Patel said the bureau will continue operating within the law, preserve legal safeguards, and work with private-sector partners as its capabilities expand.

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has drawn increased scrutiny as lawmakers debate how to regulate the industry. Earlier this week, dozens of technology executives attended a White House summit with President Donald Trump and signed a voluntary, “morally binding” agreement centered on self-regulation.

“I think I’m seeing tremendous self-policing. And they understand that they have to self-police,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu news conference outside the West Wing.

OpenAI recently dismissed three researchers who allegedly shared confidential company information with an outside AI safety organization, according to reports.

The terminations followed disclosures by OpenAI and other major AI developers about incidents involving rogue models that behaved unexpectedly or attempted to hack the systems of other companies.

Dr. Mark Fowler, the physician overseeing the failed execution of convicted murderer and accused Satanist Christa Pike, has been photographed at his secluded family home less than a day after the procedure went wrong.

Fowler, 69, answered the door at the four-bedroom property near Union City, Tennessee, but declined to comment on Pike’s survival after two syringes of the purportedly fatal drug pentobarbital were administered.

“Thank you for coming. I have nothing to say,” he told reporters from behind the screen door of the home, which sits on 1.5 acres.

The physician lives about 160 miles northwest of Nashville’s Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where Pike, 50, was subjected to seven needle insertions on Wednesday night, according to her attorney, Randy Spivey.

Pike remains alive in critical condition at an off-site medical facility. Local television station WSMV identified the hospital as Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The case is Tennessee’s second botched execution this year—both carried out under Fowler’s supervision.

In May, Fowler oversaw the execution of triple murderer Tony Carruthers, who survived 90 minutes of failed attempts by the medical team to establish an intravenous line for the lethal drugs.

A complaint filed with the Tennessee Department of Health by Carruthers’ sister, Dr. Tonya Hervey, alleges that Fowler took over efforts to locate a vein about 40 minutes into the procedure. According to the complaint, he then said he would insert a central line—a large, flexible tube placed into a vein in the chest.

The complaint claims the needle attached to the tube was pushed into Carruthers’ chest while he was conscious and “groaned in agony.”

Hervey also alleges that Fowler was not qualified to perform the procedure because he acknowledged in a deposition that he had not inserted a central line in more than 10 years.

The filing further alleges that Carruthers suffered a stroke during the failed execution and was left partially paralyzed.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee later halted the execution and granted Carruthers, 58, a one-year reprieve. He was convicted in connection with the 1984 kidnapping and murders of Frederick Tucker, Marcellos Anderson and Anderson’s mother, Delois.

Fowler could face formal disciplinary action if the Tennessee Department of Health determines that he violated professional rules.

He has previously declined to address the complaint and its allegations. In comments to NBC, however, he said: “Every attempt was made to minimize the defendant’s discomfort in the case at hand.”

Fowler’s LinkedIn profile says he earned a law degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1984. He worked as a public defender for three years before retraining as a doctor in 1996.

He has since worked as an emergency-room physician and family doctor and is reportedly a medical director for several organizations.

He began as an ER physician at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Covington, Tennessee in 2008. Since November 2012 he has held the role of ‘corporate medical director, director regulatory affairs’ at Interstate Blood Bank, according to his LinkedIn profile.

On Facebook, the doctor describes himself as ‘Right of Center… a writer and avid outdoorsman.’

He is reportedly paid $3,000 to oversee each Tennessee execution and was also involved in the controversial execution of Byron Black in August of 2025 – described by the killer’s attorney Kelley Henry as ‘100 percent botched.’

Black reportedly cried out in pain and shouted ‘I can’t do this’ and ‘it hurts so bad’ while repeatedly lifting his head, according to Newsweek. He was declared dead ten minutes later.

Details of Fowler’s history of cases have come under renewed scrutiny ever since Pike, who was slated to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, somehow managed to survive. 

President Donald Trump was among those to blast Tennessee officials over the failure to execute her. 

‘How does that happen?’ Trump said on Thursday. ‘Should be easy to do. It shouldn’t be very difficult.’ 

Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her Knoxville Job Corps classmate Colleen Slemmer, was taken to a hospital on Wednesday night after surviving a double dose of the drug Tennessee uses to execute prisoners. 

It was not immediately clear what went wrong.

Pike’s attorneys said the execution team had worked for an hour to administer the lethal drugs as they struggled to locate a vein. 

Spivey, one of her attorneys, said he counted at least seven needles in Pike’s left arm. 

Pike was singing, cackling and blessing those people in the spectators’ room after she had received the first dose that should have killed her, her attorney said. 

The scene became even more bizarre when, after the second failed dose, Pike started snoring.  

Soon after, witnesses were escorted from the area as Pike was rushed to the hospital, according to her attorney. 

More than 24 hours later, Pike’s attorneys said she was still in critical condition and receiving ‘lifesaving care.’

‘We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment,’ Spivey told reporters. 

‘But we know she is alive right now.’

The failed execution led Republican Gov. Bill Lee to order a review – calling what happened ‘deeply disturbing’ and indefinitely postponing Pike’s execution, as well as another one scheduled for later this year. 

Meanwhile, Pike’s lawyers now want her death sentence to be commuted.

Pike and her boyfriend had both been convicted of the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer three decades ago. 

The killing stoked fears of Satan worship at the time because of a pentagram carved on Slemmer’s body. 

Pike, for her part, never disputed that she helped kill Slemmer, but supporters argued her mental illness and allegations of severe sexual abuse should be considered. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder shortly after the killing.

‘It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done,’ Pike once said.

Three masked men attacked a shopper outside a fashionable West Hollywood boutique in broad daylight, knocking him to the ground before one suspect allegedly opened fire during a robbery captured on surveillance video.

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the suspects—wearing black hoodies and masks—jumped from a silver car and surrounded the man, who was dressed in red pants. The attack happened around 5:30 p.m. Thursday outside Fugazi, a clothing and footwear store in the 8700 block of Holloway Drive near Hancock Avenue.

The violent confrontation unfolded within seconds. Surveillance footage appeared to show the three men surrounding the victim and struggling with him as they forced him toward the ground.

One suspect then appeared to shoot at the shopper before all three men ran back to the silver vehicle and sped away.

Deputies who arrived at the scene found the victim suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital, but his condition was not immediately available, KTLA reported.

A witness told the outlet that they heard approximately five or six gunshots during the attack.

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The shooting left behind a chaotic scene. Video showed a bullet hole in a storefront window, while shell casings were scattered around the area where the alleged robbery occurred.

As the suspects fled, they also crashed into a nearby black Ferrari, authorities said.

Two people inside the luxury sports car were innocent bystanders caught in the collision. Authorities said neither person was injured.

The masked suspects were last seen traveling east on Holloway Drive in the silver vehicle, prompting a search by authorities.

Officials have not disclosed a motive for the shooting and have not identified the suspects.

The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Kenan “Ken” Urker, Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s partner, was found dead inside his Louisiana home Thursday after family members and friends requested a welfare check.

According to an incident report, Anita Blanchard told authorities that she and her husband—Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s half-brother—went to Urker’s home and saw the 34-year-old lying unconscious through a window.

A man who accompanied the couple entered the residence through a window and found Urker unresponsive, not breathing and cold to the touch, the report stated.

Investigators found syringes and a spoon near a brown, powdery substance in the bathroom. A handgun, two shot glasses and another syringe were also located on a nightstand beside the bed, according to the report.

Deputies wrote that Urker “appeared to have been there for an extended period of time.”

Anita Blanchard told investigators that Urker had attended church with her and her husband the previous evening at about 8:45 p.m. During the visit, he reportedly said he was feeling depressed and upset.

“They advised he made a TikTok live video at approximately 2300 hours,” deputies wrote. “They advised that he just had the video going while he was driving without him saying anything.”

Urker had more than 36,000 followers on TikTok.

When Urker did not report to work the next day, Anita Blanchard and his employer agreed to check on him. Their concern ultimately led them to contact law enforcement.

The sheriff’s office told News Media that the investigation is ongoing and that there were “no signs of foul play.” Urker was found on his 34th birthday.

“If that would change at any point, or there would be any major update in this investigation, we would issue a new statement,” the sheriff’s office said.

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Gypsy Rose Blanchard was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder for her role in the fatal stabbing of her mother, Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard. She committed the crime with her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, and the case later inspired Hulu’s 2019 series “The Act.”

Godejohn received a sentence of life in prison without parole. Blanchard was released on parole in December 2023 after serving 85% of her sentence.

Urker and Gypsy Rose Blanchard became engaged in 2018 while she was incarcerated, though they later separated. They reunited after her first marriage, and the couple welcomed their daughter, Aurora, on Dec. 28, 2024.

In a statement to PEOPLE, Blanchard said she believes Urker died from a drug overdose.

“I don’t know if it was intentional or not,” Gypsy Rose Blanchard told the outlet. “He was not in a good state of mind lately.”

She shared a photo of Urker on Instagram Friday, writing, “You will always be my greatest love story. You will be remembered and loved forever.”

Blanchard also addressed Urker’s reported struggle with cyberbullying in an Instagram Story.

“Ken endured an unimaginable level of public scrutiny and relentless cyberbullying across social media platforms, including TikTok and Reddit,” she wrote. “The cruelty directed toward him was something no human being should have to endure. I believe the tremendous weight of that scrutiny and harassment had a profound impact on him, and I hope his passing serves as a reminder that there is a real person behind every screen, every headline, and every comment.”

“I will make sure [Aurora] grows up knowing how deeply her father loved her and who he was beyond what strangers on the internet chose to say about him,” she added.

The post, shared with her one million followers, garnered nearly 100,000 likes within hours.