Jury selection for Luigi Mangione’s federal trial to begin in September
Luigi Mangione appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 9, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Jury selection for Luigi Mangione’s federal trial will begin on Sept. 8, Judge Margaret Garnett said on Friday.
If the judge excludes the death penalty as a possible sentence, the trial will begin on Oct. 13. If the judge allows the case to proceed as a capital case, the trial will begin on Jan. 11, 2027.
Mangione is accused of shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan in December 2024. He was arrested days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges.
Garnett is considering a defense request to take the death penalty off the table.
Luigi Mangione appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 18, 2025 in New York City. (Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Luigi Mangione should stand trial in State Supreme Court in New York starting July 1, at least three months ahead of when the accused killer could stand trial in federal court, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a letter Wednesday.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges stemming from the assassination-style killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan in December 2024.
Federal judge Margaret Garnett said Mangione would stand trial in October if she eliminates the death penalty as a possible sentence, as the defense has sought. Otherwise, she said at a hearing last week, Mangione would stand trial in January. Either way, she set jury selection for Sept. 8.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said there are “significant state interests” in putting Mangione on trial sooner.
“This heinous crime happened in midtown Manhattan, one of the busiest commercial areas in this County and spread fear and shock throughout Manhattan. New York State unquestionably has a deep interest in, upholding the fundamental right to life, maintaining public order, and delivering justice for a murder committed in its jurisdiction,” assistant district attorney Joel Seidemann wrote.
“Federal law supports our request that we proceed first and our right to a speedy resolution of this case would be severely compromised should the federal trial proceed first,” he said.
Judge Gregory Carro, the judge for the state case, is weighing a defense request to suppress evidence pulled from Mangione’s backpack, including the alleged murder weapon, a notebook and writings. After a three-week hearing, the judge said he would accept written submissions by March and issue a ruling in May.
The district attorney’s office told Carro the case is otherwise ready for trial.
“It is entirely natural then that the state case would proceed to trial prior to the federal case,” Seidemann’s letter said. “And, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York has said that it expects the State case to proceed to trial first.”
Mangione has been held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his return to New York from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested at an Altoona McDonald’s following a five-day manhunt.
Defense attorneys have said police waited too long to read Mangione his rights and unlawfully searched his backpack without a warrant. Prosecutors have argued the Altoona police officers were justified in searching the bag because the search pertained to a lawful arrest.
In a screen grab from a video released by Secretary Kristi Noem, the US Coast Guard apprehends an oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela, on Dec. 20, 2025. (@Se_Noem)
(WASHINGTON) — A U.S. official tells ABC News that the U.S. Coast Guard is “in active pursuit of a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion.”
“It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order,” the official added.
The action comes after the U.S. Coast Guard seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Saturday, just ten days after the seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker.
Unlike that first vessel seized, the tanker seized Saturday is not on any sanctions list maintained by the U.S., EU, U.K. or U.N., according to Kpler, a data firm that tracks transportation and logistics networks.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed Saturday’s operation in a post on social media, saying that the Coast Guard “apprehended” the tanker with support from the Department of Defense in a pre-dawn action. She said the tanker had last made port in Venezuela.
“The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region,” Noem said in the post. “We will find you, and we will stop you.”
Last week, President Trump threatened to impose what he called “a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers” traveling to and from Venezuela – a move that could devastate the Venezuelan economy, since oil exports are the lifeblood of President Nicholas Maduro’s regime.
In response to Trump’s announcement, Maduro said Venezuela would continue to trade oil and that Trump’s “intention” is regime change.
“This will just not happen, never, never, never – Venezuela will never be a colony of anything or anyone, never,” Maduro said.
The U.S. has amassed the largest military presence in the Caribbean in decades, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier.
The Pentagon also has so far struck 28 alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing at least 100 people, without providing any public evidence that the boats were carrying illegal drugs or identifying those killed.
People walk along snow covered streets as snow falls during a blizzard on February 23, 2026 in the Flatbush neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A quick-moving storm is making its way into northern Minnesota and Wisconsin from Canada on Tuesday and is expected to hit the Great Lakes dumping between 3 to 6 inches in the region.
The brief storm is expected to move into the Northeast around midnight on Wednesday and reach Pittsburgh around 1 a.m. followed by Philadelphia and New York City by around 5 a.m.
Snow will end for Philadelphia and New York City a few hours later at approximately 11 a.m. on Wednesday, while snow should end around 1 p.m. in Boston with a few lingering snow showers will last through the night over interior New England.
All three cities should expect no more than an inch of snow to accumulate, including Rhode Island as they continue to dig out of their 2.5 feet of snow from Monday.
Further inland, however, 1 to 3 inches of snow could be possible with higher elevations in the Northeast seeing up to 3 to 6 inches of snow.
Elsewhere, a storm currently in the Pacific Northwest will move across the country in the coming days and is expected to be shoved south by high pressure over the northern U.S. as it moves east.
This will lead to rain over the upper South on Thursday morning, with heavy rain possible for Kentucky and Tennessee and east through North Carolina.
On Thursday evening, that rain could be heavy over Tennessee as the storm moves north along the mid-Atlantic into Virginia, Delaware and Maryland.
By about 9 p.m. on Thursday, there is a chance this moisture is in line somewhere between Washington, D.C. and New York City with the potential of a wintry mix that could make roads slick.
If temperatures drop low enough, snow is also possible Thursday night for the region between Washington, D.C. to New York City. This could lead to a few inches of wet snow for the New York area, northern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania by Friday morning.
The system is expected to move out of the area by midday on Friday and, by the afternoon, the weather could warm up a bit, with highs in the upper 30s.
Temperatures will reach the upper 30s and lower 40s this week in New York City and Boston as well, meaning some of the snow that has blanketed the region could begin to melt with some refreezing possible overnight.
