By MICHAEL R. SISAK, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — As the first anniversary of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killing looms this week, the man charged in his death will be in court fighting to prevent prosecutors from using evidence they say links him to the crime.

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Luigi Mangione, 27, is set for hearings starting Monday on his bid to block the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from showing or telling jurors about items seized during his arrest at a yet-unscheduled state murder trial .

Those items include a 9 mm handgun that prosecutors say matches the one used in the Dec. 4, 2024, killing and a notebook in which they say he described his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive.

After getting state terrorism charges thrown out in September, Mangione’s lawyers are now zeroing in on what they say was unconstitutional conduct that tainted his arrest and threatens his right to a fair trial.

They contend that the gun and other items should be excluded because police lacked a warrant to search the backpack in which they were found. They also want to suppress some of his statements to police, such as allegedly giving a false name, because officers started asking questions before telling him he had a right to remain silent.

Eliminating the gun and notebook would be critical wins for Mangione’s defense and a major setback for prosecutors, depriving them a possible murder weapon and evidence they say points to motive.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has quoted extensively from Mangione’s handwritten diary in court filings including his praise for Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

In it, prosecutors say, Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and said killing an industry executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming.”

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The state charges carry the possibility of life in prison, while federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Mangione’s lawyers want to bar evidence from both cases, but this week’s hearings pertain only to the state case. The next hearing in the federal case is scheduled for Jan. 9.

Court officials say the hearings beginning Monday could take more than a week. If that holds, Mangione is almost certain to be in court on the anniversary of Thompson’s death on Thursday.

Defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo told a judge in an unrelated matter last week that Manhattan prosecutors could call more than two dozen witnesses.

Thompson was killed as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

Prosecutors in the state case have not responded to the defense’s written arguments.

An officer searching a backpack found with Mangione was heard on a body camera recording saying she was checking to make sure there “wasn’t a bomb” in the bag. His lawyers argue that was an excuse “designed to cover up an illegal warrantless search of the backpack.”

Federal prosecutors, fighting similar claims in their case, have said in court filings that police were justified in searching the backpack to make sure there were no dangerous items. His statements to officers, federal prosecutors said, were made voluntarily and before he was taken into police custody.

By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — As Missouri launches sports betting Monday, people will be able to wager on how many points a particular athlete will score in a game — so long as it doesn’t involve a Missouri college or university.

Advertisements for sports betting apps are seen in downtown Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

The restriction on ” proposition bets,” though less sweeping than in some states, highlights an area of rising concern as legal sports betting spreads to its 39th state in a steady expansion since the Supreme Court cleared the way for it in 2018.

In the weeks leading up to Missouri’s betting debut, one scandal after another has rocked the sports world. Two Cleveland Guardians pitchers were charged with taking bribes to throw certain pitches. An NBA player was arrested over an alleged scheme to provide inside information to gamblers. And the NCAA revoked the eligibility of six men’s college basketball players accused of manipulating their performance in games.

All centered around the outcome of prop bets, a popular type of wager often focused on what individual players will do in a game — like achieving a certain number of strikeouts in baseball, racking up a certain amount of points and rebounds in basketball, or surpassing a particular passing yardage in football.

For bettors, a lot can ride on one player, putting those athletes at risk of threats or enticements to rig their performance.

A growing proposition in sports betting

Sports betting operators took in over $11 billion through the first three-quarters of this year, up more than 13% from the same span last year, according to the American Gaming Association, which represents the industry.

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Though national data is lacking about the prevalence of prop bets, they are “an increasingly popular way in which to provide for engagement for any type of fan,” said Joe Maloney, the association’s senior vice president of strategic communications.

West Virginia, which was among the first to allow sports betting after the court ruling, now is collecting a trove of data from the industry. During a roughly one-month period this summer, prop bets comprised more than half of all wagers made through one of the largest sports betting platforms, said Brad Humphreys, an economics professor and director of the Center for Gaming Research and Development at West Virginia University.

Additionally, he said, almost all bets involved parlays, where two or more wagers are grouped together under the umbrella of a larger bet. To win, a person must be right on each prong in the bet, making the odds of success longer and the potential payout larger.

Because prop bets “speed up the ability to make multiple bets,” they carry a higher risk of developing addictive behavior for some bettors, said Rachel Volberg, a research professor of epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has spent decades studying gambling.

Most states provide some money for problem gambling services. Missouri’s new sports betting program allots at least $5 million annually for that purpose.

No national standard for prop bets

Prop bets on professional athletes are currently allowed in every state that has legalized sports betting, though legislation proposed in New Jersey would ban them. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has urged state regulators to end player-specific micro betting and told The Associated Press recently he regrets signing the law that legalized sports gambling in his state.

States have widely differing rules for bets on college athletes. More than a dozen states place no limits on collegiate prop bets while an equal number prohibit all such bets. Other states fall somewhere in between. Missouri is one of over a half-dozen states with a prop bet prohibition pertaining only to games involving college teams from their states.

Missouri’s restriction was included in a constitutional amendment authorizing sports betting that won narrow voter approval last year after a state-record $43 million campaign funded almost entirely by DraftKings and FanDuel, the two predominant sports betting sites.

Advertisements for sports betting apps are seen in downtown Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

“We thought this was a good middle ground that had worked in other states and that would uphold the integrity of the games here,” said Jack Cardetti, a spokesperson for the Sports Betting Alliance, an industry group that supported Missouri’s amendment.

A blanket ban on prop bets likely would drive people to illegal and unregulated sportsbooks, placing bettors at greater risk and making it harder to flag problems, the Sports Betting Alliance said.

Others doubt that Missouri’s narrowly tailored prop bet restrictions will have much impact in an Internet-connected society where people can easily bet on athletes playing anywhere in the U.S.

“That’s going to be a Band-Aid on a dam that’s breaking here,” said Nathan Novemsky, a professor of marketing and psychology at Yale University, “because folks will just make those bets on other teams.”

Placing a bet with no drive time

The Missouri Gaming Commission has three employees focused on regulating sports betting and is looking to hire a fourth, said commission chair Jan Zimmerman.

But the job of detecting fraudulent bets falls largely to sports betting operators working with sports leagues and law enforcement agencies. After the recent indictment of two Guardians pitchers, Major League Baseball announced an agreement with leading sportsbooks to cap bets on individual pitches at $200 and exclude them from parlays.

The criminal charges, player penalties and policy changes involving prop bets are “a demonstration that the market is really working as intended,” Maloney said.

The scandals aren’t deterring some Missouri residents who have been eagerly waiting for sports wagering.

Brett Koenig, who lives in suburban St. Louis, has occasionally crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois to legally bet on sports. Others who live in the Kansas City area have driven across the border into Kansas, pulling over at the first exit to place bets from smartphones. The drive allows bettors to get around geolocation technology that blocks bets from people in states where it’s not legal.

Koenig said he plans to bet on Monday night’s NFL game without leaving his home. He might place some type of prop bet, if he likes the odds.

“It’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time,” said Koenig, who used social media to push for legalized sports betting. “I’m ecstatic to have the opportunity to do it, and to not have to drive 45 minutes across the river.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’ll release the results of his MRI test that he received in October.

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“If you want to have it released, I’ll release it,” the Republican president said Sunday during an exchange with reporters as he traveled back to Washington from Florida.

He said the results of the MRI were “perfect.”

The White House has declined to detail why Trump had an MRI during his physical in October or on what part of his body.

The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has said that the president received “advanced imaging” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center “as part of his routine physical examination” and that the results showed Trump remains in “exceptional physical health.”

Trump added Sunday that he has “no idea” on what part of his body he got the MRI.

“It was just an MRI,” he said. “What part of the body? It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test and I aced it.”

LONDON (AP) — Airbus said that most of its fleet of 6,000 A320 passenger jets have received an update to fix a software glitch that could have affected flight controls.

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Travelers had faced minor disruptions heading into the weekend as airlines around the world scrambled to push the software updates out to the widely used commercial jetliner. Airbus warned of the problem Friday with U.S. millions of passengers in transit for the Thanksgiving holiday, the busiest travel time in the United States.

The European planemaker said in an update Monday that the “vast majority” of the short-haul passenger jets in service “have now received the necessary modifications.”

“We are working with our airline customers to support the modification of less than 100 remaining aircraft to ensure they can be returned to service,” Toulouse, France-based Airbus said.

“Airbus apologises for any challenges and delays caused to passengers and airlines by this event,” it said.

Airbus said it discovered that “intense solar radiation” could corrupt data that’s critical to the functioning of flight controls.

The problem is suspected of contributing to a sudden drop in altitude of a JetBlue planefrom Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey on Oct. 30, that injured at least 15 passengers, some of them transported to hospitals for medical care.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency required airlines to address the issue with the software update. More than 500 U.S.-registered aircraft were impacted, including jets flown by American Airlines and Delta.

Japan’s All Nippon Airways, Air India and Germany’s Lufthansa were also affected. The Airbus A320 family of single-aisle aircraft is the primary competitor to Boeing’s 737.