标签： North America

Eighteen months after the high-profile assassination of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson that sent shockwaves across the United States, accused killer Luigi Mangione entered a New York federal courtroom Friday to formally admit his role in the killing, ending months of speculation and legal maneuvering. The 28-year-old defendant, clad in a standard-issue beige prison uniform over a plain white T-shirt, entered the room with shackles securing his ankles, his hands held behind his back without handcuffs per U.S. Marshals protocol.

The small courtroom was filled to capacity, with a cross-section of attendees including national reporters, self-identified supporters of Mangione, independent court observers, and a small group of court staff who won a public lottery to claim one of the limited public seats. In the front row, directly behind the prosecution team, sat members of Thompson’s family, who struggled to contain visible emotion as proceedings got underway. The hearing, originally scheduled to kick off at 11 a.m., started shortly after its planned start time, and opened with a dramatic announcement that set the tone for the day.

Lead defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo was the first to speak, informing Judge Margaret Garnett directly that her client was ready to enter a guilty plea. What followed was a period of quiet procedural checking, as Garnett walked Mangione through a series of standard questions to confirm he fully understood the ramifications of his decision, including queries about his personal background and any prescription medications he takes. Mangione responded to each question briefly but with clear resolve, confirming he understood the possibility of a life sentence for his crimes. Only when he began to read his prepared statement to the court did the defendant show visible nerves; his speech came quickly and was at times difficult to hear. After a gentle prompt from Garnett to move closer to the microphone, he regained his composure and continued to the end of his statement, where he explicitly admitted to killing Thompson.

Weeks leading up to the hearing, U.S. media outlets had reported that Mangione was expected to enter into a formal plea deal with prosecutors, but that did not come to pass. Instead, Mangione simply changed his original not guilty plea to a plea of guilty, laying out his own account of the planning and execution of the attack in open court for the first time.

Mangione told the court he had spent years living with chronic severe pain from a broken back, and had repeatedly clashed with the U.S. health insurance system over access to care. After learning that UnitedHealthcare planned to hold its annual conference in Manhattan in December 2024, he began to plan the attack. He conducted open-source online research on the event, and posed as an independent investor in an email to the company to obtain additional details about Thompson’s public schedule — a query that received a far quicker response than any of his past inquiries to insurers about his own medical care, he told the court. He added that he manufactured the firearm used in the attack using a 3D printer. On the morning of December 4, 2024, he carried out the shooting on a Manhattan street. “I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” he told the court plainly.

This hearing marked the first time Mangione has publicly recounted the details of the crime, which sparked a national media firestorm and drew international attention immediately after it occurred. After the statement was complete, Garnett asked Mangione to formally state his plea for the record. “Guilty,” he said clearly, leaning into the microphone. The judge formally accepted the plea.

Shortly after the ruling, Thompson’s family released a statement calling the day an important milestone in their quest for justice, as they remained visibly shaken in court during the admission. Mangione’s sentencing is scheduled for December 18 of this year. Each of the two stalking charges he faces carries a maximum possible sentence of life in prison, while prosecutors have formally recommended a 24 to 30 year prison term; final sentencing authority rests with Judge Garnett. A separate trial on state-level charges connected to Thompson’s killing is still on track to begin in September.

In a recent remark on the extended deployment of the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, former President Donald Trump stated that the current length of the vessel’s deployment is “Not nearly long enough.” The comment, which drew immediate attention from defense and political observers, comes amid ongoing discussions about force posture and deployment schedules for U.S. military assets around the globe. Beyond his stance on the deployment timeline, Trump also pushed back against reports claiming that family members of service members stationed aboard the carrier had raised concerns about the well-being and safety of their loved ones during the extended time at sea. The statement adds a new layer of public discourse around military deployment policy and the connection between political leadership and the welfare of enlisted personnel and their families, as stakeholders continue to debate the balance between strategic operational needs and the quality of life for service members.

What was originally planned as a Pacific Ocean patrol for the USS George Washington has taken an unexpected shift in course, with the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier now heading toward the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln’s deployment, which has stretched to nine months—three months longer than the typical six-month rotation—has sparked widespread public and political outrage after families of the 5,000 sailors onboard revealed severe living conditions, including crippling food shortages and deteriorating mental health among crew.

The USS George Washington departed its home base at Yokosuka, Japan’s naval facility in May to carry out scheduled patrols in the Indo-Pacific, but Pentagon officials confirmed last week it would be rerouted to the Middle East, according to reporting from CBS News, the BBC’s U.S. news partner. As of Thursday, the carrier was operating near Malaysian waters, and analysis from BBC Verify indicates that at its current cruising speed, it is on track to reach Duqm Port in Oman—roughly 500 miles from Iran’s coastline—by around August 22. Once the George Washington arrives in the region, it will join the USS George HW Bush, making three U.S. aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle East, and leaving no U.S. carrier strike groups patrolling the Pacific for the first time in recent years.

Tracking data from BBC Verify confirms the USS Abraham Lincoln has been continuously at sea since December 11 of last year, with its original end-of-deployment date pushed back from May. Multiple family members of sailors have come forward in recent days to share alarming accounts of life onboard the vessel. Reports from Military Times and Stars & Stripes first broke the story that multiple sailors had considered or attempted to jump overboard to escape the harsh conditions, which include broken plumbing systems, poor sanitation, extremely infrequent port stops, chronic crew exhaustion, and persistent shortages of fresh food and other critical supplies.

In an anonymous interview with the BBC, one relative of a Lincoln sailor said their family member has lost 29 kilograms (65 pounds) since deployment began, and suffers from constant exhaustion caused by unrelenting aircraft noise and ship vibrations. The source, who requested anonymity out of fear of professional retaliation against the sailor, confirmed multiple crew members had made attempts to jump overboard. Jefferson Kelly, father of sailor Jackson Kelly who is currently serving onboard the Lincoln, told CBS News that his family has grown increasingly desperate after nine months at sea, far longer than the standard deployment length.

“They should not be deployed this long,” Kelly said. “These are old ships. It’s not like they’re even state-of-the-art. And they take a lot of maintenance, a lot of work. It’s around the clock. I would get on a plane or helicopter tonight if it meant bringing him home to his mom and his siblings and his family.”

Family members have raised urgent alarms that the prolonged deployment and substandard conditions have triggered a widespread mental health crisis among the crew, but the U.S. Navy has pushed back against those claims. While service officials have acknowledged “supply challenges” onboard the Lincoln, they have repeatedly denied any rise in suicidal behavior or a broader mental health crisis. In a statement, the Navy noted that supply disruptions have been caused by ongoing combat-related activities linked to tensions with Iran. Top congressional Democrats have nonetheless joined families in calling for urgent action.

In a joint letter dated Wednesday sent to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said that credible reports of shortages and poor living conditions “warrant immediate attention.” The reports, Blumenthal added, also raise broader questions about whether the U.S. Navy can sustain the high operational tempo currently being demanded of its carrier fleet. Hegseth pushed back against the reporting during a press conference Thursday, claiming that many media accounts have been “completely misrepresented.” He told reporters that the U.S. government is committed to ensuring “every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment.”

A high-stakes legal battle over a $400 million unapproved ballroom construction project at the White House has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, as President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing emergency action to allow work to continue past an upcoming construction halt deadline.

The conflict dates back to October of last year, when the Trump administration moved forward with demolition of the White House East Wing to launch the project without securing required congressional authorization or completing mandatory federal historic and land-use review processes. The National Trust for Historic Preservation quickly filed a lawsuit challenging the project’s legality, arguing that skipping the mandatory review — which includes opportunities for public comment and approval from the National Capital Planning Commission and other regulatory bodies — violates federal law.

Last week, a federal appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling that ordered construction to pause pending congressional and regulatory approval, with the stop-work mandate set to take effect on August 21. Now, the Trump administration has submitted an emergency application to the Supreme Court, requesting that the construction halt be put on hold while the administration appeals the appeals court’s ruling.

In the emergency filing submitted Friday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that allowing the stop order to take effect when the project is already 65 percent complete would be deeply inequitable, and framed the paused construction as “dangerous.” Sauer also argued that forcing the president to seek congressional approval to upgrade White House security would give the legislative branch improper, dangerous leverage over executive branch safety. He described the impending halt as “construction-by-injunction,” writing that “With the dangerous injunction poised to take effect for the first time on August 21, its stop-work mandate is even more flagrantly inequitable, if not impossible.”

President Trump has defended the project from its launch, arguing that the White House currently lacks a sufficiently large venue to accommodate major national and international events, and that the expansion is critical to bolstering on-site national security. Beyond the ballroom, the administration says the project includes new national security and emergency infrastructure, including hardened bomb shelters and on-site medical facilities for use during crises.

The administration has also pushed back on legal challenges by claiming that no congressional approval is required because the entire $400 million price tag is being covered by private corporate donations, not taxpayer funds.

This ballroom project is not the only controversial infrastructure initiative tied to Trump’s broader plan to reshape Washington D.C.’s iconic cityscape. The president has also overseen a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and has proposed building a massive “Arc de Trump,” modeled after Paris’ iconic Arc de Triomphe. All of these projects have faced repeated allegations that the administration skipped legally required public comment and environmental and historic review processes, claims the president has consistently denied.

The high-profile case of Luigi Mangione, the man charged with the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Officer Brian Thompson on the streets of New York, has entered a critical new phase as legal observers closely examine what a potential guilty plea from the defendant could mean for the overlapping state and federal legal processes unfolding against him.

Mangione stands accused of carrying out the targeted killing of Thompson in mid-December 2024, an attack that sent shockwaves across the nation and sparked intense debate around healthcare access and violence against corporate executives. While prosecutors at both the state and federal level have brought charges connected to Thompson’s death, any negotiated plea agreement in the federal portion of the case could carry significant ripple effects for the separate murder prosecution being pursued by New York state authorities.

Legal experts note that plea deals in multi-jurisdiction cases often create complex procedural and strategic consequences. If Mangione enters a guilty plea in federal court, the admissions of fact he makes during that proceeding could be used as evidence against him in the subsequent state murder trial, eliminating much of the defense’s ability to challenge prosecution evidence. At the same time, a federal plea deal could also allow defense counsel to negotiate for a more lenient combined sentence, or avoid the possibility of a death sentence that remains on the table in New York’s state prosecution.

The overlapping dual charges in this case reflect the way that federal and state law enforcement often coordinate in high-profile violent attacks, but they also create a tangled legal pathway that will test the conventions of plea bargaining in modern American justice. As the case moves forward, all parties are acutely aware that Mangione’s decision to accept or reject a federal plea deal will fundamentally reshape the trajectory of the entire prosecution for Brian Thompson’s killing.

A new time-lapse video captured construction crews assembling scaffolding this week at Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, as preparations get underway for a contentious move that directly challenges a recent federal court order: reinserting former President Donald Trump’s name onto the iconic performing arts venue’s facade. The unexpected reversal comes just two months after a federal judge mandated the permanent removal of Trump’s branding from the national cultural landmark, reigniting a bitter legal and political battle over the future of the institution.

According to Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a sitting member of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, the panel voted along party lines Thursday to approve adding the phrase “Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump” to the center’s official public title. The current board is dominated by appointees loyal to Trump, who installed a slate of new trustees and appointed himself chairman of the institution in February 2025, shortly after he began his second presidential term.

Beatty condemned the board’s decision in sharp remarks following the vote, calling the move a blatant attempt to bypass the court’s binding order. “This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed,” she said. “I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument, which was created to honor the legacy of President John F. Kennedy, not advance the personal political brand of a sitting president.”

The BBC reached out to Kennedy Center leadership for additional comment on the vote and upcoming work, but had not received a response as of press time. White House spokesperson Liz Huston defended the board’s action in an official statement Thursday, framing the addition of Trump’s name as a recognition of the administration’s investment in the historic venue. “Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world,” Huston said.

Alongside voting to reintroduce Trump’s name, the board also approved moving forward with a planned two-year full closure of the center for a major renovation project — a proposal that the same federal judge had previously blocked earlier this year.

The conflict traces back to a May ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper, who found that Trump’s initial addition of his name to the Kennedy Center facade violated federal law. Cooper ruled that the venue, which is legally designated as a national memorial to John F. Kennedy, cannot be formally renamed without explicit approval from Congress. The judge ordered the immediate removal of Trump’s name, which was completed last month after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined to grant a last-minute emergency stay requested by the Trump administration to pause the work.

Trump’s legal team had argued that removing the name before the appeals process concluded would create unnecessary and lasting confusion if the administration ultimately won its legal challenge. Prior to Thursday’s board vote, the removal had proceeded as ordered, with the court’s ruling set to receive further full argument in the coming months.

The dispute is part of a broader set of rebranding measures rolled out by the Trump administration across Washington D.C. last year, which included adding Trump’s name to multiple public institutions and federal properties. Legal challenges have been mounted against several of those changes, arguing that they violate longstanding federal laws governing the naming of national memorials and public lands.