By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Monday said she will hold a short hearing in the next two weeks on procedures that police said allowed them to seize and look through Luigi Mangione’s backpack when he was arrested in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

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U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said the hearing in the death penalty case will be limited to just one witness: an officer from the police department in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Mangione was arrested in December 2024.

The officer, she said, must have “sufficient authority and experience to testify about the established or standardized procedures in use” at the time of Mangione’s arrest “for securing, safeguarding, and, if applicable, inventorying the personal property of a person arrested in a public place.”

She ordered prosecutors to confer with Mangione’s lawyers on a suitable hearing date, putting him back in court sooner than a scheduled Jan. 30 conference. Because the hearing will focus on procedures, the officer being called as a witness “need not have had any personal involvement” in Mangione’s arrest, Garnett said.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges, which carry the possibility of life in prison.

Mangione’s lawyers want Garnett to bar prosecutors from using certain items found in the backpack, including a gun police said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which Mangione purportedly described his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive. Echoing their arguments at a recent state court hearing, they contend the search was illegal because police had not yet obtained a warrant.

Officers began searching the backpack at the McDonald’s restaurant where Mangione was arrested while eating breakfast on Dec. 9, 2024, five days after Thompson was killed as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Altoona is about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

Prosecutors say officers searched the bag legally because Altoona police protocols require promptly searching a suspect’s property at the time of arrest for dangerous items and police later obtained a warrant. Among the items found at the McDonald’s, according to officer testimony at a recent court hearing, was a loaded gun magazine.

Officers continued searching the bag at a police station and found the gun and silencer. They performed what’s known as an inventory search and found the notebook and other notes, including what appeared to be to-do lists and possible getaway plans, according to testimony. That search, which involves cataloging every piece of a suspect’s seized property, is also required under Altoona police policy, prosecutors said.

Laws concerning how police obtain search warrants are complex and often disputed in criminal cases.

As part of her inquiry, Garnett ordered federal prosecutors to provide her with a copy of the affidavit submitted to obtain a federal search warrant in the matter. Mangione’s lawyers contend that searching the backpack before getting a warrant may have influenced how the affidavit was written, but prosecutors say no specific details about items, such as the notebook writings, were mentioned in the document.

By EILEEN NG and EDNA TARIGAN, Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, as concerns grew among global authorities that it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images.

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The moves reflect growing scrutiny of generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text and concern that existing safeguards are failing to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children.

Last week, Grok limited image generation and editing to paying users following a global backlash over sexualized deepfakes of people, but critics say it didn’t fully address the problem.

An emailed request for comment by The Associated Press to xAI resulted in an automated reply from the media support email address which stated, “Legacy Media Lies.” This was the same message received from a different email when asked for comment regarding the global backlash.

Regulators in the two Southeast Asian nations said that existing controls weren’t preventing the creation and spread of fake pornographic content, particularly involving women and minors. Indonesia’s government temporarily blocked access to Grok on Saturday, followed by Malaysia on Sunday.

“The government sees nonconsensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity and the safety of citizens in the digital space,” Indonesian Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement Saturday.

The ministry said the measure was intended to protect women, children and the broader community from fake pornographic content generated using AI.

Initial findings showed that Grok lacks effective safeguards to stop users from creating and distributing pornographic content based on real photos of Indonesian residents, Alexander Sabar, director-general of digital space supervision, said in a separate statement. He said that such practices risk violating privacy and image rights when photos are manipulated or shared without consent, causing psychological, social and reputational harm.

In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission ordered a temporary restriction on Grok on Sunday, after what it said was “repeated misuse” of the tool to generate obscene, sexually explicit and nonconsensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors.

The regulator said that notices issued this month to X Corp. and xAI demanding stronger safeguards drew responses that relied mainly on user reporting mechanisms.

“The restriction is imposed as a preventive and proportionate measure while legal and regulatory processes are ongoing,” it said, adding that access will remain blocked until effective safeguards are put in place.

Investigation launched in U.K.

Launched in 2023, Grok is free to use on X. Users can ask it questions on the social media platform and tag posts they’ve directly created or replies to posts from other users. Last summer, the company added an image generator feature, Grok Imagine, that included a so-called spicy mode that can generate adult content.

The Southeast Asian restrictions come amid mounting scrutiny of Grok elsewhere, including in the European Union, the United Kingdom, India and France.

On Monday, the U.K.’s media regulator said that it launched a formal investigation into whether Grok “complied with its duties to protect people in the U.K. from content that is illegal.”

The regulator, Ofcom, said that Grok-generated images of children being sexualized or people being undressed may amount to pornography or child sexual abuse material.

“The content created and shared using Grok in recent days has been deeply disturbing,” Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said.

___

Edna Tarigan reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV met with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado in a private audience at the Vatican on Monday.

This image released by Vatican Media shows Pope Leo XIV meeting with Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado of Venezuela, right, inside his private library at the Vatican, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Vatican Media via AP, HO)

The meeting, which hadn’t been previously included in the list of Leo’s planned appointments, was later listed by the Vatican in its daily bulletin, without adding details.

Machado is touring Europe and the United States after she reemerged in December after 11 months in hiding to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.

Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, has called for Venezuela to remain an independent country after U.S. forces captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from his compound in Caracas and flew him to New York to face federal charges of drug-trafficking.

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Leo had said he was following the developments in Venezuela with “deep concern,” and urged the protection of human and civil rights in the Latin American country.

Venezuela’s opposition, backed by consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations in the U.S., had vowed for years to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But U.S. President Donald Trump delivered them a heavy blow by allowing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume control.

Meanwhile, most opposition leaders, including Machado, are in exile or prison.

After winning the 2025 Nobel Prize for Peace, Machado said she’d like to give it to or share with Trump.

Machado dedicated the prize to Trump, along with the people of Venezuela, shortly after it was announced. Trump has coveted and openly campaigned for winning the Nobel Prize himself since his return to office in January 2025.

The organization that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize — the Norwegian Nobel Institute — said, however, that once it’s announced, the prize can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others.

“The decision is final and stands for all time,” it said in a short statement last week.

By ELAINE KURTENBACH and MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writers

U.S. futures sank Monday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.

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Futures for the S&P 500 declined 0.5% before the opening bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7%. Nasdaq futures slid 0.8%.

The threat of a criminal indictment over Powell’s testimony about the Fed’s building renovations is the latest escalation in President Donald Trump’s feud with the Fed. Trump has criticized the $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings as excessive.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Powell and the Fed for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight is expected to rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.

Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.

In a brief interview with NBC News Sunday, Trump insisted he didn’t know about the investigation into Powell. When asked if the investigation is intended to pressure Powell on rates, Trump said, “No. I wouldn’t even think of doing it that way.”

Powell’s term as chair ends in May, and Trump administration officials have signaled that he could name a potential replacement this month. Trump has also sought to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook.

The renewed attacks on the Fed’s independence, and Powell’s full-throated defense, reignite what had appeared to be a dormant battle between Trump and the chair he appointed in 2017. The subpoenas will renew fears that the Fed’s independence from day-to-day politics will be compromised, which could undermine global investors’ confidence in U.S. Treasury securities.

Treasurys were modestly weaker early Monday following Powell’s video statement, with yields for the 2-year and 10-year both ticking up a couple of basis points.

Bank and credit card stocks tumbled in premarket after Trump said in a social media post that he wanted a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates.

The hardest hit were Capital One Financial and Sychrony, which each fell more than 8% in premarket. Visa and Mastercard each retreated around 2%.

Shares of Wells Fargo and Bank of America were off close to 2%, while JPMorgan lost 2.8% and Citigroup slid 4%. Those big U.S. banks also report their latest financial results this week.

Trump was not clear whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, but that he hoped the rule would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is expected from Wall Street and the credit card companies, which donated heavily to Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Shares of ExxonMobil inched down after Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep the U.S. oil giant out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday that he didn’t like ExxonMobil’s response. “They’re playing too cute,” Trump said.

Shares of Chevron and ConocoPhillips were both up modestly in early trading Monday.

Investors will also be analyzing a several important economic reports this week, including an update on U.S. inflation at the consumer level on Tuesday, followed by a report on wholesale prices on Wednesday. New data on retail sales and the housing market also come this week.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday the CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.1% and Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.1% higher. Germany’s DAX was up 0.5%.

In Asian trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.4% to 26,608.48, while the Shanghai Composite index jumped 1.1% to 4,165.29 after reports that Chinese leaders were preparing more help for the economy.

Tokyo’s markets were closed for a holiday.

In South Korea, the Kospi added 0.8% to 4,624.79, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5% to 8,759.40.

Taiwan’s Taiex gained 0.9%.

U.S. benchmark crude oil gave up early gains, falling 20 cents to $58.91 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, shed 17 cents to $63.17 per barrel.

The price of gold rose 2.2% and the price of silver jumped 6%. Copper was up 1.4%.