UnitedHealthcare CEO killing latest: Mangione’s mother filed November missing report

(LOS ANGELES) — The man accused of hijacking a Los Angeles Metro bus, fatally shooting a passenger and leading police on an hourlong chase last week is now facing a slew of charges, including murder and kidnapping, prosecutors announced Monday.

Los Angeles County DA George Gascon announced 12 counts against the suspect, 51-year-old Lamont Campbell.

The charges include murder, carjacking, kidnapping during carjacking, assault with a semiautomatic weapon, attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, felony evading and felon in possession of a firearm, according to the DA’s office.

Campbell faces a maximum sentence of 90 years in prison.

The incident began at approximately 12:46 a.m. on Sept. 25 when the Los Angeles Police Department received radio calls about a disturbance on a bus in the area of Manchester Street and Figueroa Street in southern Los Angeles, Deputy Chief Donald Graham said in a briefing last week.

“The officers quickly learned from the passengers that there was an armed suspect on the Metro bus. They attempted to stop the bus but were unsuccessful, later discovering that the armed suspect had instructed the driver not to stop,” Graham said.

Multiple spike strips were deployed by officers during the pursuit, deflating several tires on the bus and ultimately causing it to stop, according to LAPD.

“SWAT personnel quickly observed that a victim was down inside the bus, formulated a tactical plan, and made entry without delay. The suspect was taken into custody without further incident,” authorities said.

Officers immediately began to render medical aid to the victim who was suffering from gunshot wounds. The male victim was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Campbell is being held at a local jail in lieu of $2 million bail.

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(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Inflation has fallen over the final months of the presidential campaign, carrying potential implications for a tight race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

More than half of adults list inflation as a top issue for the country, making it the highest-ranking concern by a wide margin over issues like immigration, crime and abortion, according to an Ipsos poll conducted late last month.

Price increases nationwide have largely returned to normal. However, the presidential race is widely expected to hinge on the results in seven closely contested battleground states, placing importance on where inflation stands in those key locations.

An analysis by ABC News found that inflation rates vary significantly across four major cities situated in battleground states: Detroit, Michigan; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In each of those states, the average polling margin between the two candidates is no more than two percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Here’s what to know about what inflation looks like in swing-state cities and what that means for the election:

Detroit, Michigan

Consumer prices rose 3.5% in Detroit over the year ending in August, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That figure stands a percentage point above the national average and marks the highest inflation rate of the four cities examined by ABC News.

The surge in prices has stemmed in large part from rapidly rising housing costs, Gabriel Ehrlich, an economist at the University of Michigan, told ABC News. The trend marks a recent turnabout from sluggish housing prices that had taken hold in the city in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession.

Back then, a crisis in the auto industry caused rising unemployment, an exodus from Detroit and diminishing demand for homes. As Detroit has since improved its economic performance, however, the population has begun to grow and housing prices have started to soar. Housing costs climbed 6.2% in Detroit over the year ending in August, which stands more than a percentage point higher than the national average.

Even if the improved economic performance has contributed to the rise in housing prices, that silver lining offers little solace for city residents paying high costs, Ehrlich said.

“That’s a hard sell,” he added.

Phoenix, Arizona

In Phoenix, the inflation rate clocks in at 2.3%, according to BLS data for August, the most recent month on record. That pace of price increases is slightly lower than the national average.

Like Detroit, housing prices play a significant role in the dynamic behind costs in Phoenix – but it’s for the opposite reason. Housing prices there are rising at a pace of 3.5%, well below the national average of more than 6%.

The moderate pace of current housing price increases in Phoenix marks welcome relief after a bruising stretch of skyrocketing costs, Lee McPheters, director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University, told ABC News. Since 2017, housing prices in the Phoenix area have doubled, he added.

The price increases have slowed, however, as Phoenix has made a concerted effort to ramp up home construction and address its dearth of supply.

Phoenix is expected to build roughly 20,000 apartments in 2024, granting it the fourth-highest apartment construction rate of any U.S. city, a RentCafe study in August found. That total would amount to a 88% increase from the apartment construction rate achieved two years prior, according to the Maricopa Association of Governments.

“There’s of course been the same housing shortage issues in Phoenix that you see across the country,” McPheters said. “The difference here is that Arizona responded.”

Atlanta, Georgia

As of August, the inflation rate in Atlanta stands at 1.7%, which clocks in nearly a percentage point lower than the national average and is the lowest pace for any of the swing-state cities examined by ABC News.

Prices in Atlanta have risen at a slower pace than the national average for a range of essential products, including housing, meat, poultry, fish and eggs.

Gasoline prices have dropped nationwide over the past year but they’ve fallen even more in Atlanta. The same trend applies to the price of new and used cars, the latter of which has fallen a staggering 11% over the past year.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Consumer prices in the Philadelphia area climbed 3.4% over the year ending in August, BLS data showed. The city’s inflation rate registers nearly a percentage point higher than the national average.

In Philadelphia, prices for many food and beverage products are rising faster than the national average. Over the past year, prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs have climbed at more than twice the national average pace. Cereal and bakery products have surged 2.5% over the past year in Philadelphia, even though prices for such goods have fallen by 1% nationwide.

The prices for nonalcoholic beverages in Philadelphia have climbed more than six times faster than the national average over the past year.

Erasmus Kersting, a professor of economics at Villanova University, said the sharp increase in prices for some food items may owed to a lack of competition among grocery stores in Philadelphia. In the absence of fierce competition, grocery stores retain the latitude to raise prices without fear of a rival offering a better deal on comparable products, Kersting explained.

Two supermarket chains, Giant and ShopRite, accounted for 56% of the local grocery market in 2022, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal.

“Grocery store prices have gone up a lot,” Kersting told ABC News. “Some of this has to do with market structure. How many competitors do grocery stores have?”

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(NEW YORK) — East Coast residents and lawmakers are again demanding answers after another slew of drone sightings in the region, with the origins of the alleged craft still unclear.

Matthew Murello, the mayor of Washington Township in New Jersey, told “Good Morning America” on Monday that he believes “something’s going on,” expressing concern and frustration at the lack of answers from federal authorities.

“I’m not trying to stir anything up, but we all know — if you just turn on the television — that drones can be used in an aggressive fashion,” Murello said. “They can carry payloads. They can be used for all kinds of really aggressive-type things.”

White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said Thursday that “many” of the reported drone sightings appear to be lawfully operated manned aircraft, adding there was “no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus.”

But Murello said those living under the drones are not reassured.

“That’s a wonderful thing to tell your residents,” he said when asked about Kirby’s assurances. “That’s fantastic, until it’s not.”

“Nobody knows what these things are doing,” Murello added. “Best case scenario, they’re just getting video of us. Again, I don’t know why out here. We’re nothing but farm country. If you want videos of cows, I’ll be happy to send you some.”

Murello cast doubt on the official statements suggesting “no perceived threat.”

“We’ve heard that before from our federal government — ‘We’re not looking, we’re not watching you, we’re not watching your calls, we’re not doing everything and don’t worry — we’re here and we’re here to help you’,” he said.

Murello was among a group of New Jersey mayors who wrote to Gov. Phil Murphy asking for more information. The mayors were subsequently invited to a meeting, but Murello said the governor did not attend.

Instead, state police told the mayors they had little information on the drones. Authorities, Murello said, could not explain why some drones are being flown without emitting radio frequencies or using transponders — both of which are required by law when a drone is used at night.

Murello said he had personally seen “a couple” of drones “around my town.” He disputed Kirby’s statement that many of the reported sightings were of misidentified manned aircraft.

“I have no way of telling you how big it was, but I can sure as heck can tell what they sound like,” the mayor said. “And I know that they are not. What Adm. Kirby said — which is a manned aircraft — that just isn’t right.”

“I’ve seen multiple rotor, helicopter-type aircraft hovering above the tree line,” Murello said, recalling one police official who said the drones can be up to 6 feet in diameter. The fact that most are spotted at night makes it “very difficult to kind of get an idea on them,” Murello added.

Reports of drone activity forced the temporary closure of runways at New York’s Stewart International Airport on Friday. The potential danger to aircraft is causing concern on the East Coast, Murello said.

“If pilots don’t see these things and they’re 6 foot in diameter and they hit an airplane — that is not going to end well,” he said.

Senators are also pushing federal agencies for more information. Last week, New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim wrote to the heads of the FBI, Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Homeland Security requesting meetings.

“We write with urgent concern regarding the unmanned aerial system activity that has affected communities across New York and New Jersey in recent days,” the letter said, requesting a briefing “as soon as possible on how your agencies are working with federal and local law enforcement to identify and address the source of these incursions.”

The mystery has caught the public’s attention, with photos and videos of alleged sightings proliferating across social media. One FBI official told reporters Saturday that out of the nearly 5,000 tips the agency had received, less than 100 generated credible leads for further investigation.

As the search for answers continues, Murello said he sees “only two logical conclusions.”

“One is somebody knows something and they’re just not willing to tell us,” the mayor said, suggesting potential national security sensitivities around the Morristown Airport and President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf course.

“If this is an area that needs to be surveilled in the eventuality that the incoming president is going to spend a lot of time here, you know what? I’m fine with that. Just simply say it’s an issue of national security,” he said.

An “even scarier” explanation is that “we’re the greatest nation in the world with the most technologically advanced military on the planet earth, and we don’t know what the hell these things are,” Murello added. “That’s scary.”

The DHS and FAA have both warned against attempting to shoot down a suspected drone, citing the danger of falling debris and ammunition.

It is illegal to shoot down a drone. Anyone who does so could be fined up to $250,000 and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

Murello said he would “definitely” not advise anyone to try to down a drone. “You also don’t know if you do hit it, where it’s going to come down and where are the rounds of ammunition going to land,” he said.

“But I will say that, speaking with friends of mine that are current and former state troopers, we have the technology to be able to bring a drone down,” Murello added, suggesting it was “absolutely silly” that law enforcement authorities are not authorized to down drones unless they are deemed a threat by the federal government.

“We don’t need to bring all of them down, we need to bring one of them down,” Murello continued. “We bring one down, we figure out what’s going on.”

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