Alleged CEO assassin remains in PA prison fighting extradition

Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, is fighting extradition to New York, and will remain in custody in Pennsylvania, reported the Pennsylvania Capital Star. 

Mangione, 26, was charged late Monday in Manhattan with second-degree murder, forgery and three gun charges. He was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona on Monday and was arraigned Monday evening at the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg on charges of carrying a firearm without a license, forgery, records or identification tampering, possession of instruments of crime and presenting false identification to law enforcement. 

Police said they found a 3D-printed pistol loaded with nine rounds of 9 mm ammunition and a loose hollow-point round in Mangione’s backpack. The gun was with a silencer that had also been 3D printed, police said.

Blair County Common Pleas Judge David Consiglio ordered Mangione held without bail at SCI-Huntingdon pending an extradition hearing. The Associated Press reported that Mangione shouted about an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” as he arrived at the courthouse on Tuesday.

Thompson, 50, was shot and killed outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4. He had been CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest for-profit health insurance providers, for nearly three years.

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Pope Francis prays for commutation of federal death sentences

'Wink-Wink' fellow Catholic President Joe Biden

Pope Francis prayed that the sentences of inmates on death row in the United States be commuted or changed, reported Vatican News.

His prayer during the Angelus address comes as US President Joe Biden has the authority to commute the sentences of people on federal death row before he leaves office in January 2025.

“Today, I feel compelled to ask all of you to pray for the inmates on death row in the United States,” the Pope said. “Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.”

“Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.”

Anti-death penalty activists and associations have been imploring President Biden to use his clemency powers before he leaves office to spare the lives of about 40 federal death row inmates who are at peril of imminent execution when the next president takes office.

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Sentencing for Jan. 6 insurrectionist: 'Trump’s gonna pardon you . . . Donald’s got you'

A federal judge appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan said recently that the public discourse about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — and the cases against Donald Trump supporters prosecuted because they committed crimes in support of the once and future president — had been distorted, reported NBC News.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said that while the events of Jan. 6 may be a “distant, hazy memory” for many Americans, there were many who suffered that day who never forget the attack. Emphasizing that “truth and justice, law and order” are bedrock principles of the judicial system, Lamberth said that the jurors who heard the cases “know how perilously close we came to letting the peaceful transfer of power, that great cornerstone of the American republican experiment and perhaps our foremost contribution to posterity, slip away from us.”

Lamberth — who previously said the “preposterous” claims Republican politicians were making about the Capitol attack “could presage further danger to our country” — made his comments during the sentencing of a man who ran for a congressional seat previously held by former Rep. George Santos.

Philip Grillo had been convicted of a felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding, but after the Supreme Court this summer ruled against the use of that charge in Jan. 6 cases, Grillo filed a motion for acquittal on that count, which the government did not oppose. So on Friday, Grillo was sentenced to a year in prison on the remaining misdemeanor counts.

“We f---ing did it, you understand? We stormed the Capitol,” Grillo said in a video he took of himself in the Capitol, according to the Justice Department. “We shut it down! We did it!”

Lamberth, who sentenced Grillo to 12 months behind bars, had rejected Grillo’s argument to delay his sentencing due to the possibility that Trump might pardon some or all of the Jan. 6 rioters. He ordered Grillo to be stepped back, or taken into custody immediately, rather than be allowed to self-surrender.

“Trump’s gonna pardon you,” said one of Grillo’s supporters in the courtroom galley. “Donald’s got you, Phil.”

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A legacy of honor: Today marks the 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor

Only 16 Pearl Harbor survivors remain. Read their stories of heroism on CNN

White supremacists flourish on Elon Musk's X

 Under owner Elon Musk, the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, has become a hotbed of white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. A recent headline in the Atlantic doesn’t mince words: “X is a white supremacist site,” reported the Texas Observer.

Musk has allowed formerly banned far-right and neo-Nazi accounts back on the platform, and, in some instances, he’s directly responded to accounts that traffic in white supremacist and neo-Nazi rhetoric. Meanwhile, anonymous accounts that regularly promote racial hate on the platform have seen their follower counts grow substantially as Musk has taken a more hands-off approach to moderation compared to the social media network’s prior owners. 

Anonymity has long been a tactic used by extremists to spread their ideology while avoiding consequences, from Klansmen hoods to online pseudonyms. With such ideas spreading rapidly on X, the Texas Observer has identified the operators of four anonymous accounts that regularly share racist, antisemitic, and neo-Nazi content on the platform. Three of the operators appear to live or have claimed to own property in Texas, where X moderation operations are based and Musk resides.

Through reviewing posts on X, web archives, leak databases, and other social media profiles, the Observer identified the following individuals as the anonymous operators of neo-Nazi X accounts, which had a collective 500,000 followers at their peak: Cyan Cruz, a 40-year-old marketing professional who appears to have lived in Austin and Amarillo and operates the X account TheOfficial1984; Michael Gramer, a 42-year-old retired mechanical engineer who has lived in New Hampshire, operates the X account 9mm_SMG, and has claimed to have a house in Galveston and to be spending time in Dallas; Robert “Bobby” Thorne, a 35-year-old vice president at JP Morgan Chase in Plano, who operates the account Noble1945 and previously operated the account Noble_x_x_; and John Anthony Provenzano, a 30-year-old who appears to live in Virginia, operates the account utism_ (formerly known as JohnnyBullzeye), and, according to a tip and a records request response from the U.S. Navy, works at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, Maryland—where the Navy manufactures explosive ordnance.

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Mangino discusses CEO assassination in NYC on Court TV

Watch my interview on Court TV discussing the shocking assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

Missouri executes man for rape and murder of 9-year-old girl

 The 23rd Execution of 2024

Missouri executed death row inmate Christopher Leroy Collings on December 2, 2024, 17 years after he confessed to raping and killing his friend's 9-year-old stepdaughter, reported the USA TODAY.

Collings, 49, was executed by lethal injection as the mother of his victim, 9-year-old Rowan Ford, watched him die, along with other witnesses in the death chamber at the Potosi Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri.

Collings, himself a father of two now-grown daughters, was convicted of killing Rowan on Nov. 3, 2007, in the tiny southwestern Missouri village of Stella. He confessed to police that he kidnapped a sleeping Rowan from her bedroom and took her to his trailer, where he raped and strangled her, according to court records.

Collings became the 23rd inmate executed in the U.S. this year and the fourth in Missouri, one of the most prolific death penalty states in the nation.

Here's what you need to know about Collings' execution.

In his last words, which he wrote out ahead of his execution, Collings said that "right or wrong, I accept this situation for what it is."

He also apologized.

"To anyone that I have hurt in this life I am sorry," he wrote. "I hope that you are able to get closure and move on."

He continued, saying that "regardless which side of this situation that you are on, you are in my prayers and I hope to see you in heaven one day."

It wasn't immediately clear Tuesday night whether he spoke those words aloud in the death chamber, but death row inmates are typically given time to deliver their last words out loud.

Collings' attorneys, at least one of whom witnessed the execution, said in a statement afterward that "Chris was taken too early from this Earth."

"We share Chris' desire that that his death will provide a measure of closure for the victim's family and that the people hurt by him will be able to carry on," the team said. "What occurred today, though, was an act of vengeance, but will not define Chris, nor will it be how we remember him."

On the night of Nov. 2, 2007, Collings was drinking heavily with two friends. One of the friends, David Spears, had a 9-year-old stepdaughter named Rowan Ford, whose mother was working her overnight shift at Walmart.

At some point that night, the men left Rowan home alone and started hanging out at Collings’ trailer. As the third friend drove Spears home on back roads to avoid getting pulled over, Collings later told police that he raced to Spears’ home and kidnapped a sleeping Rowan, put her in his truck and took her to his trailer, according to court records.

Once there, he raped her, police say he told them. After that, he said he intended to take her home but "freaked out" when she recognized him in the moonlight. That's when he strangled her, court records say.

Collings said he then dumped her body in a cave. She was found on Nov. 9, about a week after her disappearance triggered an Amber Alert and intensive search.

Spears also confessed to police, saying he raped Rowan and strangled her, while Collings denied that Spears was involved, the Missouri attorney general's office said in court documents. Spears ultimately was convicted of child endangerment and hindering prosecution, and got out of prison in 2015. USA TODAY could not find a phone number for Spears.

"I am so proud of the girl that she was turning out to be," Rowan's older sister, Ariane Macks, told USA TODAY this week. "A part of me died when my sister died. I did lose my ray of sunshine. ... She was very shy, but when she opened up, it's like the whole room lit up. Rowan, she was something very special."

The morning before Rowan's funeral, teachers and students at Rowan's school planted a pink dogwood tree in her honor and released purple balloons with notes from her classmates attached. A concrete angel was placed in the spot, as well as a marker reading April 11, 1998, for the day she was born and Nov. 9, 2007, as the day her body was found.

Macks, now 35 and living in Lineville, Alabama, said Collings deserved to be put to death for her sister's killing but that lethal injection falls short.

"I wanted him dead. I still do ... but they could have done something better than lethal injection because he's going out easy," she said. "I cannot even imagine the pain when (Rowan) was strangled. Chris being so tall and so big compared to my little sister, she didn't have a fighting chance."

Collings was a problem child who never formed an emotional attachment to anyone because he experienced severe neglect from his birth parents and several traumas after he was placed in foster care, including at least two rapes, his attorneys argued during his trial.

Collings and his five older siblings ended up in the system − and separated from each other − because their parents "were involved in a lot of crime, involved in a lot of substance abuse," his attorney at the time, Charles Moreland, told jurors, adding that "the evidence will also show that there are seeds of redemption within Christopher Collings."

Collings eventually became a father to two daughters but struggled with an alcohol and marijuana addiction, court records say. Macks recalled Collings' drinking problem, saying he became a different person while drunk, 

In its statement following the execution, Collings' legal team described him as standing at 6 feet, 8 inches tall, "but (he) was truly a gentle giant."

"His booming voice followed by a wide grin would greet you whenever he entered the room," they said. "Chris dismissed our offers for a handshake and would always pull you in for a warm hug."

They added that Collings "loved and cherished his children more than life itself."

"He constantly talked about his daughters and his regrets for not being a part of their lives when they were growing up," they said. "He worked for years to develop a relationship with his daughters and those efforts paid off in recent years. Chris spent hours talking with his daughters, and those moments provided him with hope and satisfaction knowing they had grown into successful young women."

In his arguments for Collings' life to be spared, Weis raised questions about his client's confession, saying it wasn't recorded and was given to then-Wheaton Police Chief Clinton Clark, who had four convictions for absence of office without leave and should never been allowed on the force. He emphasized Spears' own confession to the crime, saying it indicated even further doubt that Collings' alleged confession is the truth, as well as pointed out the extreme disparity in the two men's sentences.

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