New York
Judge bars federal prosecutors from seeking death penalty against Luigi Mangione
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a judge ruled Friday, foiling the Trump administration’s bid to see him executed for what it called a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge against Mangione, finding it was technically flawed. Garnett left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges. The state charges also carry the possibility of life in prison.
He is due back in court later Friday morning for a conference in the case. His lawyers didn’t immediately comment on the decision but might do so during the conference or afterward.
Jury selection in the federal case is scheduled to begin Sept. 8. The state trial hasn’t been scheduled yet. On Wednesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office sent a letter urging the judge in that case to set a July 1 trial date.
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
Following through on Trump’s campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors last April to seek the death penalty against Mangione.
It was the first time the Justice Department was seeking to bring the death penalty in President Donald Trump’s second term. He returned to office a year ago with a vow to resume federal executions after they were halted under his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
Garnett, a Biden appointee, ruled after a flurry of court filings in the prosecution and defense in recent months. She held oral arguments on the matter earlier this month.
Florida
Third execution set up in 2026 as Florida leads death penalty surge in the U.S.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of fatally shooting a police officer with his own service weapon during a traffic stop is set to be Florida’s third execution of 2026, keeping the state on pace to match or possibly exceed last year’s record 19 executions.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant Thursday for Billy Leon Kearse, 53, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection March 3 at Florida State Prison.
DeSantis, a Republican, oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.
Two executions have already been scheduled for next month. Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, is scheduled to die on Feb. 10, and the execution of Melvin Trotter, 65, is scheduled for Feb. 24, exactly one week before Kearse.
Kearse was initially sentenced to death in 1991 after being convicted of first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm. The Florida Supreme Court found that the trial court failed to give jurors certain information about aggravating circumstances and ordered a new sentencing. Kearse was resentenced to death in 1997.
According to court records, Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish pulled over Kearse for driving the wrong way on a one-way street in January 1991. When Kearse couldn’t produce a valid driver’s license, Parrish ordered Kearse out of his vehicle and attempted to handcuff him.
A struggle ensued, and Kearse grabbed Parrish’s sidearm, prosecutors said. Kearse fired 14 times, striking the officer nine times in the body and four times in his body armor. A nearby taxi driver heard the shots and used Parrish’s radio to call for help.
Parrish was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died from the gunshot wounds, officials said. Meanwhile, police used license plate information that Parrish had called in before approaching Kearse to identify the attacker’s vehicle and home address, where Kearse was arrested.
Attorneys for Kearse are expected to file appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Forty-seven people were executed in the U.S. in 2025, the highest total since 2009. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis.
DeSantis explained the unprecedented number of executions last year by saying his goal is to bring justice to victims’ families who have waited decades for the death sentences to be carried out.
“Some of these crimes were committed in the ‘80s,” the governor said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly. If I honestly thought someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger.”
Florida executions are all conducted via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
Washington
Trump sues IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over leaked tax info
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is suing the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion, as he accuses the federal agencies of a failure to prevent a leak of the president’s tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020.
The suit, filed in a Florida federal court Thursday, includes the president’s sons Eric Trump and, Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump organization as plaintiffs.
The filing alleges that the leak of Trump and the Trump Organization’s confidential tax records caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”
In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn of Washington, D.C. — who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm — was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about Trump and others to news outlets.
Littlejohn, known as Chaz, gave data to The New York Times and ProPublica between 2018 and 2020 in leaks that appeared to be “unparalleled in the IRS’s history,” prosecutors said.
The disclosure violated IRS Code 6103, one of the strictest confidentiality laws in federal statute.
The Times reported in 2020 that Trump did not pay federal income tax for many years prior to 2020, and ProPublica in 2021 published a series about discrepancies in Trump’s records. Six years of Trump’s returns were later released by the then-Democratically controlled House Ways and Means Committee.
Trump’s suit states that Littlejohn’s disclosures to the news organizations “caused reputational and financial harm to Plaintiffs and adversely impacted President Trump’s support among voters in the 2020 presidential election.”
Littlejohn stole tax records of other mega-billionaires, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
The president’s suit comes after the U.S. Treasury Department announced it has cut its contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, earlier this week, after Littlejohn, who worked for the firm, was charged and subsequently imprisoned for leaking tax information to news outlets about thousands of the country’s wealthiest people, including the president.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the time of the announcement that the firm “failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service.”
Representatives of the White House, Treasury and IRS were not immediately available for comment.
New Mexico
Man could avoid more prison time with guilty plea in Navajo woman’s disappearance
EDGEWOOD, N.M. (AP) — A man charged in connection to the 2021 disappearance of a Navajo woman pleaded guilty Thursday to robbery, marking the latest turn in a case that been emblematic of the epidemic of killings and disappearances in Native American communities.
Preston Henry Tolth appeared before a federal judge in Phoenix. Tolth, who has been in custody since 2023, will not spend any additional time in prison if the court accepts the terms of the plea agreement reached with prosecutors.
Prosecutors allege that Tolth assaulted Ella Mae Begay, stole her Ford F-150 pickup truck and drove it across state lines. In the plea agreement, he admitted to punching Begay in the face several times and leaving her on the side of the road before selling her truck for money and drugs.
Begay’s case helped bring national attention to the high rate of violence faced by Native people, providing fuel for tribal leaders and victim advocates as they continued pushing for law enforcement resources and more cooperation for investigation across jurisdictional lines.
There have been marches, listening sessions and congressional hearings in recent years, and federal authorities have funneled more investigators and prosecutors to field offices in key locations around the United States in hopes of solving cases and prosecuting offenders.
Still, Begay has never been found and her family remains heartbroken.
Known in her community as a master rug weaver, Begay lived in Sweetwater, Arizona, a town on the Navajo Nation not far from the Four Corners Monument. Gerald Begay, the eldest of her three children, remembered his mother as someone who was always willing to lend a hand, even to a stranger.
Gerald Begay listened to Thursday’s court proceeding via phone from Denver. He called the plea deal a “slap on the wrist” for Tolth and said mistakes made by law enforcement during interrogations cost his family a just outcome.
Gerald Begay called on authorities to find his mother’s remains.
“She belongs in the community where she resided,” he said. “If I could bring my mother home, I could at least have some closure.”
Timothy Courchaine, the interim U.S. Attorney for the district of Arizona, declined a request by for an interview.
Attorneys representing Tolth did not respond to a request for comment.
Tolth initially entered a plea of not guilty to assault and carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury — charges that carry a maximum penalty of 10 and 25 years in prison, respectively.
In August 2025, a federal appeals court ruled that a confession made by Tolth was not admissible in court because officers did not honor his decision to stop speaking during the interrogation and instead persuaded him to waive his right to remain silent.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 9 in Phoenix.
Judge bars federal prosecutors from seeking death penalty against Luigi Mangione
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a judge ruled Friday, foiling the Trump administration’s bid to see him executed for what it called a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge against Mangione, finding it was technically flawed. Garnett left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges. The state charges also carry the possibility of life in prison.
He is due back in court later Friday morning for a conference in the case. His lawyers didn’t immediately comment on the decision but might do so during the conference or afterward.
Jury selection in the federal case is scheduled to begin Sept. 8. The state trial hasn’t been scheduled yet. On Wednesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office sent a letter urging the judge in that case to set a July 1 trial date.
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
Following through on Trump’s campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors last April to seek the death penalty against Mangione.
It was the first time the Justice Department was seeking to bring the death penalty in President Donald Trump’s second term. He returned to office a year ago with a vow to resume federal executions after they were halted under his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
Garnett, a Biden appointee, ruled after a flurry of court filings in the prosecution and defense in recent months. She held oral arguments on the matter earlier this month.
Florida
Third execution set up in 2026 as Florida leads death penalty surge in the U.S.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of fatally shooting a police officer with his own service weapon during a traffic stop is set to be Florida’s third execution of 2026, keeping the state on pace to match or possibly exceed last year’s record 19 executions.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant Thursday for Billy Leon Kearse, 53, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection March 3 at Florida State Prison.
DeSantis, a Republican, oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.
Two executions have already been scheduled for next month. Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, is scheduled to die on Feb. 10, and the execution of Melvin Trotter, 65, is scheduled for Feb. 24, exactly one week before Kearse.
Kearse was initially sentenced to death in 1991 after being convicted of first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm. The Florida Supreme Court found that the trial court failed to give jurors certain information about aggravating circumstances and ordered a new sentencing. Kearse was resentenced to death in 1997.
According to court records, Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish pulled over Kearse for driving the wrong way on a one-way street in January 1991. When Kearse couldn’t produce a valid driver’s license, Parrish ordered Kearse out of his vehicle and attempted to handcuff him.
A struggle ensued, and Kearse grabbed Parrish’s sidearm, prosecutors said. Kearse fired 14 times, striking the officer nine times in the body and four times in his body armor. A nearby taxi driver heard the shots and used Parrish’s radio to call for help.
Parrish was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died from the gunshot wounds, officials said. Meanwhile, police used license plate information that Parrish had called in before approaching Kearse to identify the attacker’s vehicle and home address, where Kearse was arrested.
Attorneys for Kearse are expected to file appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Forty-seven people were executed in the U.S. in 2025, the highest total since 2009. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis.
DeSantis explained the unprecedented number of executions last year by saying his goal is to bring justice to victims’ families who have waited decades for the death sentences to be carried out.
“Some of these crimes were committed in the ‘80s,” the governor said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly. If I honestly thought someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger.”
Florida executions are all conducted via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
Washington
Trump sues IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over leaked tax info
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is suing the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion, as he accuses the federal agencies of a failure to prevent a leak of the president’s tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020.
The suit, filed in a Florida federal court Thursday, includes the president’s sons Eric Trump and, Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump organization as plaintiffs.
The filing alleges that the leak of Trump and the Trump Organization’s confidential tax records caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”
In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn of Washington, D.C. — who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm — was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about Trump and others to news outlets.
Littlejohn, known as Chaz, gave data to The New York Times and ProPublica between 2018 and 2020 in leaks that appeared to be “unparalleled in the IRS’s history,” prosecutors said.
The disclosure violated IRS Code 6103, one of the strictest confidentiality laws in federal statute.
The Times reported in 2020 that Trump did not pay federal income tax for many years prior to 2020, and ProPublica in 2021 published a series about discrepancies in Trump’s records. Six years of Trump’s returns were later released by the then-Democratically controlled House Ways and Means Committee.
Trump’s suit states that Littlejohn’s disclosures to the news organizations “caused reputational and financial harm to Plaintiffs and adversely impacted President Trump’s support among voters in the 2020 presidential election.”
Littlejohn stole tax records of other mega-billionaires, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
The president’s suit comes after the U.S. Treasury Department announced it has cut its contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton, earlier this week, after Littlejohn, who worked for the firm, was charged and subsequently imprisoned for leaking tax information to news outlets about thousands of the country’s wealthiest people, including the president.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the time of the announcement that the firm “failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service.”
Representatives of the White House, Treasury and IRS were not immediately available for comment.
New Mexico
Man could avoid more prison time with guilty plea in Navajo woman’s disappearance
EDGEWOOD, N.M. (AP) — A man charged in connection to the 2021 disappearance of a Navajo woman pleaded guilty Thursday to robbery, marking the latest turn in a case that been emblematic of the epidemic of killings and disappearances in Native American communities.
Preston Henry Tolth appeared before a federal judge in Phoenix. Tolth, who has been in custody since 2023, will not spend any additional time in prison if the court accepts the terms of the plea agreement reached with prosecutors.
Prosecutors allege that Tolth assaulted Ella Mae Begay, stole her Ford F-150 pickup truck and drove it across state lines. In the plea agreement, he admitted to punching Begay in the face several times and leaving her on the side of the road before selling her truck for money and drugs.
Begay’s case helped bring national attention to the high rate of violence faced by Native people, providing fuel for tribal leaders and victim advocates as they continued pushing for law enforcement resources and more cooperation for investigation across jurisdictional lines.
There have been marches, listening sessions and congressional hearings in recent years, and federal authorities have funneled more investigators and prosecutors to field offices in key locations around the United States in hopes of solving cases and prosecuting offenders.
Still, Begay has never been found and her family remains heartbroken.
Known in her community as a master rug weaver, Begay lived in Sweetwater, Arizona, a town on the Navajo Nation not far from the Four Corners Monument. Gerald Begay, the eldest of her three children, remembered his mother as someone who was always willing to lend a hand, even to a stranger.
Gerald Begay listened to Thursday’s court proceeding via phone from Denver. He called the plea deal a “slap on the wrist” for Tolth and said mistakes made by law enforcement during interrogations cost his family a just outcome.
Gerald Begay called on authorities to find his mother’s remains.
“She belongs in the community where she resided,” he said. “If I could bring my mother home, I could at least have some closure.”
Timothy Courchaine, the interim U.S. Attorney for the district of Arizona, declined a request by for an interview.
Attorneys representing Tolth did not respond to a request for comment.
Tolth initially entered a plea of not guilty to assault and carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury — charges that carry a maximum penalty of 10 and 25 years in prison, respectively.
In August 2025, a federal appeals court ruled that a confession made by Tolth was not admissible in court because officers did not honor his decision to stop speaking during the interrogation and instead persuaded him to waive his right to remain silent.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 9 in Phoenix.
