NEW YORK (AP) — Six weeks before UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down outside a Manhattan hotel in December, suspect Luigi Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and said killing the executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming,” prosecutors revealed Wednesday.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office quoted extensively from Mangione’s handwritten diary — highlighting his desire to kill an insurance honcho and praise for Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber — as they fight to uphold his state murder charges. They also cited a confession they say he penned “To the feds,” in which he wrote that “it had to be done.”
Mangione’s lawyers want the state case thrown out, arguing in court papers that those charges and a parallel federal death penalty case amount to double jeopardy.
They also want state terrorism charges dismissed, have asked for the federal case to go first and say prosecutors should be barred from using evidence collected during Mangione’s arrest, including a 9mm handgun, statements to police and the diary.
Manhattan prosecutors contend that there are no double jeopardy issues because neither case has gone to trial and because the state and federal prosecutions involve different legal theories.
His lawyers say that has created a “legal quagmire” that makes it “legally and logistically impossible to defend against them simultaneously.”
The state charges, which carry a maximum of life in prison, allege that Mangione wanted to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population,” that is, insurance employees and investors. The federal charges allege that Mangione stalked an individual, Thompson, and do not involve terror allegations.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty in both cases. No trial dates have been set.
Mangione’s “intentions were obvious from his acts, but his writings serve to make those intentions explicit,” prosecutors said in Wednesday’s filing. The writings, which they sometimes described as a manifesto, “convey one clear message: that the murder of Brian Thompson was intended to bring about revolutionary change to the healthcare industry.”
They quoted excerpts in which Mangione discussed options for the attack, such as bombing UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters, before deciding to target the company’s investor conference in Manhattan. He wrote about plans to “wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention” because it was “targeted, precise and doesn’t risk innocents.”
UnitedHealthcare, the largest U.S. health insurer, “literally extracts human life force for money,” Mangione wrote, envisioning the news headline, “Insurance CEO killed at annual investors conference.”
The company has said he was never a client.
Mangione is due back in state court June 26, when Judge Gregory Carro is expected to rule on his request for dismissal.
His lawyers asked Tuesday for his handcuffs and bulletproof vest to be removed during the hearing. They called him a “a model prisoner, a model defendant” and said the security measures would suggest to potential jurors that he is dangerous. Carro has not ruled on that.
Mangione’s next federal court date is Dec. 5, a day after the one-year anniversary of Thompson’s death.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind as he arrived for the conference Dec. 4 at the New York Hilton Midtown. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase commonly used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione was arrested Dec. 9 at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) to the west, and he is being held in a federal jail in Brooklyn.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has called the ambush “a killing that was intended to evoke terror.”
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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in April that she was directing federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for “an act of political violence” and a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
The killing and ensuing search for Mangione rattled the business community while galvanizing health insurance critics who rallied around him as a stand-in for frustrations over coverage denials and hefty bills. Supporters have flocked to his court appearances and flooded him with mail.
Mangione “demonstrated in his manifesto that he was a revolutionary anarchist who would usher in a better healthcare system by killing the CEO” of one of the biggest U.S. companies, prosecutors wrote. “This brutal, cowardly murder was the mechanism that defendant chose to bring on that revolution.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors started deliberating Thursday in Harvey Weinstein ’s New York sex crimes retrial, tasked with deciding — again — a case that encapsulated the #MeToo movement.
The seven-woman, five-man jury is considering two counts of criminal sex act and one count of rape, each relating to a different accuser and a different date. In this case, the criminal sex act charge is the higher-degree felony. The jury got the case after a juror was replaced by an alternate after she couldn’t come to court due to illness.
The New York conviction from 2020 was subsequently overturned, leading to the retrial before a new jury and a different judge.
Jurors heard more than five weeks of testimony, including lengthy and sometimes fiery questioning of Weinstein’s three accusers in the case.
Jessica Mann said he raped her in 2013, when she was trying to build an acting career. Miriam Haley accused him of forcibly performing oral sex on her in 2006, when she was looking for work in entertainment production.
Kaja Sokola, who wasn’t involved in Weinstein’s first trial, told jurors that he forced oral sex on her, too, during 2006. At the time, she was a teenage fashion model trying to break into acting.
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“They all had dreams of pursuing careers in the defendant’s world, the entertainment industry,” prosecutor Nicole Blumberg told jurors in her closing argument Tuesday. She contended that Weinstein let the women think he was interested in their careers when what actually interested him were their bodies, and “he was going to have their bodies and touch their bodies whether they wanted him to or not.”
Weinstein chose not to testify. His defense called other witnesses, including some former friends of Sokola’s and Mann’s.
Weinstein’s attorneys argued that all three accusers consented to Weinstein’s advances because they wanted help with their Hollywood aims. All three stayed on friendly terms with him afterward, a point the defense emphasized.
“It’s transactional, folks. Yes, he wants to fool around with them, and yes, they want something from him,” defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said in his summation Tuesday.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. Sokola, Mann and Haley have agreed to be named.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Governments of 12 countries whose citizens will be banned from visiting the United States beginning next week scrambled Thursday to understand President Donald Trump’s latest move to resurrect a hallmark policy of his first term.
The ban that Trump announced Wednesday takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, a cushion that may avoid the chaos that unfolded at airports nationwide when a similar measure took effect with virtually no notice in 2017. Trump, who signaled plans for a new ban upon taking office again in January, appears to be on firmer ground this time after the Supreme Court sided with him.
Some of the 12 countries also appeared on the list of banned countries in the Republican president’s first term. The new ban targets Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
There will also be heightened restrictions on visitors from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. North Korea and Syria, which were on the banned list in the first Trump administration, were spared this time.
While many of the banned and restricted countries send few people to the United States, Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela had been major sources of immigration in recent years.
Trump tied the new ban to Sunday’s terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. The suspect, who is accused of turning a makeshift flamethrower on a group of people, is from Egypt, which is not on Trump’s restricted list. The Department of Homeland Security says he overstayed a tourist visa.
The travel ban results from a Jan. 20 executive order Trump issued requiring the departments of State and Homeland Security and the director of national intelligence to compile a report on “hostile attitudes” toward the U.S. and whether entry from certain countries represented a national security risk.
Visa overstays
Trump said some countries had “deficient” screening for passports and other public documents or have historically refused to take back their own citizens. His findings rely extensively on an annual Homeland Security report of visa overstays of tourists, business visitors and students who arrive by air and sea, singling out countries with high percentages of those remaining after their visas expired.
Measuring overstay rates has challenged experts for decades, but the government has made a limited attempt annually since 2016. Trump’s proclamation cites overstay rates for eight of the 12 banned countries.
While Trump’s list captures many of the most egregious offenders, it omits others. Djibouti, for example, had a 23..9% overstay rate among business visitors and tourists in the 12-month period through September 2023, higher than seven countries on the banned list and six countries on the restricted list.
The findings are “based on sketchy data and a misguided concept of collective punishment,” said Doug Rand, a former Biden administration official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Reactions
Venezuela’s government had already warned its citizens against traveling to the U.S. A video released last week by the foreign ministry told Venezuelans the U.S. “is a dangerous country where human rights of immigrants are nonexistent.”
“If you are thinking about traveling, cancel your plans immediately,” it urged.
But the decision is a significant blow to Venezuelans, who were already limited in their U.S. travel plans since the governments broke off diplomatic relations in 2019.
The announcement stunned the family of María Aldana, who has long worked multiple jobs in Caracas to support her brother’s dream to study engineering in the U.S. The family has spent more than $6,000 to finance his goals.
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Aldana, 24, said her distraught brother, who enrolled at a Southern California university two years ago, called the family crying.
“We did it all legally,” Aldana said.
The African Union Commission, meanwhile, appealed to the United States to reconsider “in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa.”
International aid groups and refugee resettlement organizations took a harsher tone: “This latest proclamation is an attempt to further eviscerate lawful immigration pathways under the false guise of national security,” said Sarah Mehta, the American Civil Liberties Union’s deputy director of policy and government affairs for immigration.
Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired Cornell University Law School professor and expert in immigration law, said the ban is likely to withstand legal challenges, noting the Supreme Court eventually allowed a ban to take effect in Trump’s first term. Trump’s invocation this week of national security, along with exceptions for green-card holders, athletes and others, could also help the ban stand up in court.
Shock in Iran
The news came as a shock to many in Iran despite the decades of enmity between the two countries. Reports suggest thousands of university students each year travel to America to study, and others have extended families living in America, some of whom fled after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the shah.
“My elder daughter got a bachelor’s degree from a top Iranian university and planned to continue in the U.S., but now she is badly distressed,” Nasrin Lajvardi said.
Tensions also remain high because negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have yet to reach any agreement, but Tehran resident Mehri Soltani offered rare support for Trump’s decision.
“Those who have family members in the U.S., it’s their right to go, but a bunch of bad people and terrorists and murderers want to go there as well,” he said.
‘America has to cancel it’
Outside the former U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, a Taliban guard expressed his disappointment.
“America has to cancel it,” Ilias Kakal said.
Travel agents there said the ban would have little practical effect as Afghan passport holders have faced problems for years getting U.S. visas.
Since the Taliban took over the country in 2021, only Afghans with foreign passports or green cards were able to travel to the United States with any ease, they said, while even those applying for special visas due to their work with U.S. forces in Afghanistan were facing problems.
First term ban
During his first term, Trump issued an executive order banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. It was one of the most chaotic and confusing moments of his young presidency.
The order, often referred to as the “Muslim ban,” was retooled amid legal challenges, until a version was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Trump and others have defended the initial ban on national security grounds, arguing it was aimed at protecting the country and not founded on anti-Muslim bias. However, the president had called for an explicit ban on Muslims during his first campaign for the White House.
Amiri reported from the United Nations. Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano, Rebecca Santana, Jon Gambrell, Ellen Knickmeyer, Omar Farouk, Nasser Karimi, Elliot Spagat, Elena Becatoros and Danica Coto contributed to this report.
The raiders from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency had disposed of the U.S. Institute of Peace board, its acting president and its longtime outside counsel. But until 9:30 p.m. on Friday, March 28, there was hope the damage might somehow be limited.
Then termination notices started popping up in personal emails. That was only the start.
After ending his sojourn in Washington, Musk left behind a wounded federal government. DOGE’s playbook was consistent: Show up physically, take over the facility and information technology systems, fire the leadership and replace it with DOGE associates. Dismiss the staff. Move so quickly that the targets and the courts have little time to react, let alone reverse whatever damage has already occurred.
Thousands of workers across the federal government saw the playbook in action over the last four months. But the Institute of Peace, a small, 300-employee organization, is unique: The blitz during its takeover has been, for the moment, reversed in court. The headquarters taken away in a weekend of lightning moves is back in the hands of its original board and acting president.
The question they must answer now is a point that U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell made during one hearing: Even a win “makes no promises” about how difficult or possible it will be to put the Institute of Peace back together. “A bull in a China shop breaks a lot of things,” the judge said.
Nearly three weeks since the judge delivered a win, the institute is slowly trying to reboot. But there are barriers, and winning might not mean full restoration. For other agencies and departments fighting their own DOGE battles, it is a cautionary tale.
U.S. Institute of Peace employees hold an impromptu celebration on the steps of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Monday, May 19, 2025, in Washington, after federal district Judge Beryl A. Howell blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with dismantling the organization. (AP Photo/Gary Fields)
U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) acting President George Moose, left, and USIP acting counsel George Foote, right, walk back into the Institute following a news conference, Wednesday, May 21, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)
U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) acting President George Moose, left, and USIP acting counsel George Foote take part in a newss conference outside the Institute, Wednesday, May 21, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)
U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) acting President George Moose, second from right, and USIP acting Counsel George Foote, right, to talk to the press outside the Institute, Wednesday, May 21, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)
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U.S. Institute of Peace employees hold an impromptu celebration on the steps of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Monday, May 19, 2025, in Washington, after federal district Judge Beryl A. Howell blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with dismantling the organization. (AP Photo/Gary Fields)
The Institute of Peace was created by Congress in the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law in 1985. Described as an independent, nonprofit think tank funded by Congress, its mission has been to work to promote peace and prevent and end conflicts while working outside normal channels such as the State Department. When DOGE came knocking, it was operating in 26 conflict zones, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mali and Burkina Faso.
The institute was one of four organizations targeted by President Donald Trump’s Feb. 19 Executive Order 14217. The order said it was being enacted to “dramatically reduce the size of the federal government.”
The institute’s acting president, career diplomat and former Ambassador George Moose, and longtime outside counsel George Foote tried to explain to DOGE representatives that the institute was an independent nonprofit outside the executive branch.
That attempt was for naught. At 4 p.m. on March 14, most of the institute’s board was fired by email. The lone holdovers were ex officio — Cabinet members Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio and the National Defense University’s president, Vice Adm. Peter Garvin. Within minutes of the emails, DOGE staff showed up and tried to get into the building but failed over the next several hours during a standoff.
That, according to court documents, kicked off a weekend of pressure by the FBI on institute security personnel. DOGE returned the following Monday and got into the headquarters with help from the FBI and Washington police officers.
Foote thought the local officers were there to expel the DOGE contingent but learned quickly they were not. He, security chief Colin O’Brien and others were escorted out by local authorities. “They have sidearms and tasers and are saying you can’t go anywhere but out that door,” Foote said. “I had no choice. ‘You guys have the guns, and I don’t.’”
The board filed a lawsuit the following day and asked for a temporary restraining order. Howell expressed dissatisfaction with DOGE’s tactics but declined to restore the fired board members or bar DOGE staff from the headquarters.
By then a DOGE associate, Kenneth Jackson, had been named as acting president of the organization by the ex officio board members. Employees held out hope that the organization would not be disassembled because Jackson was asking questions as if he might do an assessment of the organization’s work, said Scott Worden, director of the Afghanistan and Central Asia programs.
The staff knew what he’d done as the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Now Jackson was at the Institute of Peace, but they were hopeful “we would have a process of explanation or review of our work,” Worden said.
Then came March 28. The notices came alphabetically. By the time it was finished, shortly before midnight, almost all the institute’s 300 employees had been let go.
The actions reverberated
The impact was “profound and devastating on a few levels,” Worden said. First, employees at the institute are not government employees so they got no government benefits or civil service protections. Insurance also was gone — critical for employees fighting health problems. Partners abroad also suddenly lost their support and contacts. It left “thousands of partners in a lurch,” he said.
The lawyers representing board members in their lawsuit asked for a court hearing as soon as possible to head off rumors of more mayhem to come. But when they walked into courtroom 26A of the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse at 10 a.m. on April 1, the headquarters and other assets were gone, too. It was, Howell said at the hearing, “a done deal.”
Over the weekend, as workers reeled, DOGE was making personnel changes of its own. Jackson had given way to DOGE representative Nick Cavanaugh, whose name was on the documents that allowed DOGE to take control of Institute of Peace assets and transfer the headquarters — built in part with private donations — to the General Services Administration.
Howell was incredulous that it had been accomplished in two days. In court, the Trump administration’s attorney, Brian Hudak, laid out the timeline, making clear that the newly named president of the institute had not only been authorized to transfer the property but also the request had gone through proper channels. For the second time, Howell refused to stop the actions.
Throughout hearings, Howell struggled with how to describe the institute — whether it was part of the executive branch and under the Republican president’s authority. That was central to the case. The government argued that it had to fall under one of the three branches of government and it clearly wasn’t legislative or judicial. Lawyers defending the government also said that because presidents appointed the board, presidents also had the authority to fire them.
The White House also maintained that despite decades of operation and an annual budget of around $50 million, the institute had failed to bring peace and was rightfully targeted.
Howell’s May 19 opinion concluded that the institute “ultimately exercises no Executive branch power under the Constitution but operates, through research, educational teaching, and scholarship, in the sensitive area of global peace.”
“In creating this organization,” the judge said, “Congress struck a careful balance between political accountability, on the one hand, and partisan independence and stability, on the other.”
She added that even if the organization was part of the executive branch, the law that created it set specific steps for firing the board members and none of those had been followed. Because the board was fired illegally, all subsequent actions — including replacing Moose, firing the staff and transferring the headquarters — were “null and void,” she said in her ruling.
The government filed a notice of appeal and asked Howell to stay her order. She said no. The government has requested a stay with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
What it looks like now
Two weeks later, about 10% of the people who would normally be inside the headquarters, about 25 people, are there, doing maintenance, getting systems running and trying to get to the institute’s funding.
Any physical damage comes more from inattentiveness than malice — food that spoiled, leaks that went unfixed, popup security barriers needing maintenance. Desks are empty but with paperwork and files strewn across them, left by the speed of the takeover.
O’Brien, the security officer, praised the General Services Administration and security managers who tried to keep the building going. But getting systems fully functioning will entail lots of work. “We’re the first ones to get behind the looking glass,” O’Brien said.
Foote said those returning continue to try to locate and access the institute’s funding. That includes funds appropriated for this fiscal year by Congress and the part of the endowment moved during the takeover. He said transferring funds within the federal government is “complicated.” The result: Workers are furloughed, and overseas offices will remain closed.
Nicoletta Barbera, acting director for the U.S. Institute of Peace’s West Africa and Central Africa programs, is one of the furloughed workers.
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“We had USIP representatives based in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger that, overnight, were left with no support system from anyone here in HQ,” she said. The programs were focused on preventing terrorism by supporting women and young people, to “identify signs of radicalization.”
Barbera said a recent attack in Burkina Faso ended with “hundreds of atrocities and deaths.”
“And I couldn’t just stop but think, what if I could have continued our work there during this time?” she said.
Moose has said the speed at which the organization gets back to work depends on numerous factors, including the appeals process. But, he said, there will likely be lasting damage — “the traumatic effects this has had on the people who have been impacted by it.”
“And, obviously, that includes our own … staff members,” Moose said, “but it also extends to the people with whom we collaborate and work all around the world. That’s going to be hard to repair.”
