SEOUL (AFP) – Samsung Electronics co-CEO Han Jong-hee, credited with boosting the South Korean tech giant’s television business on the global stage, died of a heart attack Tuesday aged 63, the company told AFP.
“He died from cardiac arrest today,” a Samsung spokesperson said, adding that Han was survived by his wife and three children.
Han joined Samsung in 1988 and was seen as having played a key role in getting its high-end TV sets noticed worldwide.
“Han was central in the unveiling of Samsung’s world-class LED TVs,” the firm said in a company biography published earlier this month.
“His numerous other innovations enabled the company to continually demonstrate its technology leadership,” it added.
Han was credited by the company with taking Samsung televisions “to the pinnacle of the global market” — and keeping them there.
(FILES) Samsung Electronics vice chairman and CEO Jong-Hee Han delivers a keynote address at CES 2022 at The Venetian Las Vegas on January 4, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. PHOTO: AFP
Samsung Electronics is the flagship subsidiary of South Korean giant Samsung group, by far the largest of the family-controlled conglomerates that dominate Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Han was not part of the Samsung family, which still dominates the company, with third-generation leader Lee Jae-yong the current chief of Samsung Electronics.
Han’s death comes as the world’s largest memory-chip maker faces business headwinds in its race to produce chips used in artificial intelligence.
The company has been seen as struggling to meet Nvidia’s requirements, while rival SK hynix has become the US giant’s main supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for its AI graphics processing units.
The challenging conditions prompted chairman Lee Jae-yong to declare that the company must adopt a “do-or-die” mindset to confront the challenges posed by AI, according to media reports last week.
Samsung acknowledged in October that it was facing a “crisis”, admitting that questions had arisen about its “fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company”.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli settlers beat up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land ” on Monday in the occupied West Bank before he was detained by the Israeli military, according to two of his fellow directors and other witnesses.
The filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was one of three Palestinians detained in the village of Susiya, according to attorney Lea Tsemel. Police told her they’re being held at a military base for medical treatment and she said she hasn’t been able to speak with them.
Basel Adra, another co-director, witnessed the detention and said around twenty settlers — some masked, some carrying guns, some in Israeli uniform — attacked the village. Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers kept throwing stones.
“We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us,” Adra told The Associated Press. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”
The Israeli military reported detaining three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a “violent confrontation” between Israelis and Palestinians — a claim witnesses interviewed by the AP disputed. The military said it had transferred them to Israeli police for questioning and had evacuated an Israeli citizen from the area for medical treatment.
“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. Ballal and Adra, both from Masafar Yatta, made the joint Palestinian-Israeli production with Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
Salem Adra, left, brother of Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who won Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars for “No Other Land” talks with a local Palestinian shepherd as they stand near an Israeli settlers’ outpost at the West Bank village of Tuwani, Monday, March 3, 2025. PHOTO: AP
Adra said that settlers entered the village Monday evening shortly after residents broke the daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A settler — who according to Adra frequently attacks the village — walked over to Ballal’s home with the military, and soldiers shot in the air. Ballal’s wife heard her husband being beaten outside and screamed “I’m dying,” according to Adra.
Adra then witnessed the soldiers escort Ballal, handcuffed and blindfolded, from his home into a military vehicle. Speaking to the AP by phone, he said Ballal’s blood was still splattered on the ground outside his own front door.
Some of the details of Adra’s account were corroborated by another eyewitness, who requested to remain anonymous due to concerns about retaliation.
A group of 10-20 masked settlers with stones and sticks also assaulted activists with the Centre for Jewish Nonviolence, smashing their car windows and slashing tires to make them flee the area, one of the activists at the scene, Josh Kimelman, told the AP.
Video provided by the Centre for Jewish Nonviolence showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night. The activists rush back to their car as rocks can be heard thudding against the vehicle.
Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land”, is detained by the Israeli military from his home in the Israeli military from his home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Monday, March 24, 2025. PHOTO: AP
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
HO CHI MINH CITY (AFP) – The appeal of a Vietnamese property tycoon convicted of money laundering began on Tuesday, three months after she lost a challenge against the death penalty in a separate case.
Property developer Truong My Lan was found guilty in April 2024 of stealing money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) and sentenced to death for fraud amounting to USD27 billion.
Lan appealed against that verdict and the court said there was no basis to reduce her sentence, but ruled that she could still escape the death penalty if she returned three quarters of the stolen assets.
Now she is appealing against the verdict from a second trial in October, in which she was sentenced to life in prison for three crimes.
On Tuesday Lan, now accustomed to high-profile hearings, chatted with police officers and looked relatively relaxed as she waited for the court to start in Ho Chi Minh City.
Her niece, who was handed a five-year prison term in October for fraudulent appropriation of property, sat behind her, flanked by officers.
Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan (C) looks on at a court in Ho Chi Minh city on March 25, 2025. PHOTO: AFP
It is the first time Lan is in the dock without her husband, Chu Nap Kee, who is not challenging a two-year sentence he was handed for money laundering in October.
The appeal will last until April 21 and Lan will be defended by eight lawyers, according to state media.
The 68-year-old was found guilty of laundering USD17.7 billion and illegal cross-border trafficking of USD4.5 billion.
She was also found guilty of bond fraud to the tune of USD1.2 billion.
The court determined that Lan was “the mastermind, committed the crime with sophisticated methods, many times, causing especially serious consequences”.
Thirty-three other defendants were also sentenced at the court in Ho Chi Minh City and given terms ranging from two to 23 years in prison.
Twenty-seven of them are appealing against their sentences, state media said.
During her first trial in April, Lan was found guilty of embezzling USD12.5 billion but prosecutors said the total damages caused by the scam totalled USD27 billion — equivalent to around six per cent of the country’s 2023 GDP.
Lan owned just five per cent of shares in SCB on paper but at her trial the court concluded that she effectively controlled more than 90 per cent through family, friends and staff.
Tens of thousands of people who had invested their savings in the bank lost money, shocking the communist nation and prompting rare protests from the victims.
TOKYO (AFP) – A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded USD1.4 million in compensation, an official said Tuesday.
The payout represents JPY12,500 (USD83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last.
The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others.
The Shizuoka District Court, in a decision dated Monday, said that “the claimant shall be granted JPY217,362,500,” a court spokesman told AFP.
File photo shows former Japanese professional boxer Iwao Hakamada and his sister Hideko leaving after a press conference in Tokyo. PHOTO: AFP
The same court ruled in September that Hakamada was not guilty in a retrial and that police had tampered with evidence.
Hakamada had suffered “inhumane interrogations meant to force a statement (confession)” that he later withdrew, the court said at the time.
The final amount is a record for compensation of this kind, local media said.
But Hakamada’s legal team has said the money falls short of the pain he suffered.
Decades of detention — with the threat of execution constantly looming — took a major toll on Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers have said, describing him as “living in a world of fantasy”.
Hakamada was the fifth death row inmate granted a retrial in Japan’s post-war history. All four previous cases also resulted in exonerations.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, USA (AP) — The Webb Space Telescope has captured a plume of gas and dust streaming from a star in the making, with a spiral galaxy as a stunning backdrop.
The composite image makes it look as though the overflow of stellar material is the billowing contrail of a rocket on its way to the galaxy. NASA and the European Space Agency released the photo on Monday.
An undated image from NASA’s Webb Space Telescope shows an outflow from a nearby still-forming star in infrared light, with a spiral galaxy off in the distance. PHOTO: NASA via AP
The outflow is about 625 light-years from Earth in one of the closest star-forming regions of our Milky Way galaxy, according to NASA. A light-year is equivalent to almost 6 trillion miles.
Launched in 2021 as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb observed the scene in the infrared. NASA said in a statement it was “a lucky alignment” of the two unrelated objects.
NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope captured the same shot in 2006, with scientists then dubbing the stellar jet “the cosmic tornado.” But it was too fuzzy to make out the background galaxy and other details. Webb is the largest and most powerful observatory ever launched into space.
ISTANBUL (AP) — A media union said Turkish authorities arrested several journalists at their homes in a crackdown Monday, amid growing protests over the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor.
A court on Sunday formally arrested Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and ordered him jailed pending a trial on corruption charges. His detention on Wednesday sparked the largest wave of street demonstrations in Turkiye in more than a decade.
The Disk-Basin-Is media workers’ union said at least eight reporters and photojournalists were detained in what it called an “attack on press freedoms and the people’s right to learn the truth.” It called for their immediate release.
The social media platform X said it was objecting to multiple court orders from Turkish authorities to block more than 700 accounts, including of news organisations, journalists and political figures in Turkey.
Hundreds of protesters detained
A total of 1,133 people have been detained since the mayor was arrested at his home, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. As many as 123 police officers were injured in the protests, he said, adding that materials such as acid, firebombs and knives were seized.
“Some circles have been exploiting the right to assemble and demonstrate, attempting to disrupt public order, incite street unrest and attack our police,” Yerlikaya said on social media.
Riot police officers use pepper spray to clear a protester during a protest after Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested and sent to prison, in Istanbul, Turkiye, Sunday, March 23, 2025. PHOTO: AP
The minister said some of the detained were identified as having ties to groups listed as terrorist organisations and others had criminal records.
Hundreds of thousands of people have come out for the largely peaceful protests across Turkey in support of the mayor. There has been some violence, with police deploying water cannons, tear gas and pepper spray and firing plastic pellets at protesters in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Some protesters hurled stones, fireworks and other objects at riot police.
Mayor urges more rallies
In a message on social media, Imamoglu urged people to rally outside city hall and other locations for a sixth night on Monday. He also called on youths to avoid clashes and asked police to treat demonstrators with kindness.
“I’m working hard, I will work even harder. Where I am does not matter,” he said.
The mayor’s jailing is widely regarded as a political move to remove a major challenger to Erdogan from the next presidential race, scheduled for 2028. Government officials reject the accusations and insist that Turkey’s courts operate independently.
Imamoglu was jailed on suspicion of running a criminal organisation, accepting bribes, extortion, illegally recording personal data and bid-rigging — accusations he has denied. A request for him to be imprisoned on terror-related charges was rejected although he still faces prosecution.
The Interior Ministry later said Imamoglu had been suspended from duty as a “temporary measure.” The municipality previously appointed an acting mayor from its governing council.
Erdogan says opposition to be held to account for protests
In a televised address following a Cabinet meeting, Erdogan accused the opposition party’s chairman Ozgur Ozel, who has called for peaceful protests, of disturbing public order instead of addressing the alleged corruption. He also said he would be held to account for the protests.
“I have made this call several times before, and today I am repeating it: Stop disturbing our citizens’ peace with provocations. If you have the courage, account for the corruption, theft, bribes taken, and irregularities committed,” Erdogan said.
University students march across Galata bridge during a protest after Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested and sent to prison, in Istanbul, Turkiye, Monday, March 24, 2025. Lights on top of the Yeni mosque reads in Turkish: “Don’t forget your afterlife”. PHOTO: AP
Erdogan said: “of course, there will be political accountability for these actions in parliament and legal accountability in court.”
Addressing demonstrators outside city hall for a sixth consecutive night, Ozel urged supporters to boycott a number of pro-government companies and television stations. He also challenged Erdogan and the Istanbul chief public prosecutor to broadcast Imamoglu’s trial live on state television, to allow the jailed mayor to respond to the allegations and “expose their lies.”
About 15 minutes after Ozel addressed the crowd, police intervened with tear gas and plastic pellets to disperse the demonstrators.
Imamoglu was taken to Silivri prison, west of Istanbul, as more than 1.7 million members of his opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, held a primary election, endorsing him as its presidential candidate. Millions of non-members also cast votes in a “solidarity ballot,” the party said.
Alongside Imamoglu, 47 other people were also jailed pending trial, including a key aide and two district mayors from Istanbul. One was replaced with a government appointee. A further 44 suspects were released under judicial control.
Standoff between protesters and police
Thousands of protesters rallied outside Istanbul’s city hall to voice anger over what they see as a crackdown on democratic freedoms. Tensions remained high as police fired rubber bullets and tear gas minutes after opposition leader Ozel’s daily address concluded.
Protesters, many young and masked to avoid identification, hurled harsh words to the police and Erdogan and booed those in their ranks who threw bottles and flares at security forces to avoid elevated violence akin to Sunday’s police interventions.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 43 protesters were detained Monday, and condemned what he called “vile insults” toward Erdogan and his late mother, vowing not to tolerate “such indecency.”
Ali Mahir Basarir, a legislator from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, told the AP that the authorities used “pre-determined provocateurs” to justify crackdowns.
“They start attacking the protesters before the rally is over,” he said. “All they want is a good future. They are exercising their constitutional rights.” and urged the police to not mistreat protesters.
Ankara municipality also under scrutiny
Meanwhile, authorities were investigating the office of Ankara’s mayor, another popular opposition figure, over the alleged misuse of public funds concerning the organisation of 33 concerts, the municipality said Monday.
Imamoglu was elected mayor of Turkiye’s largest city in March 2019, in a major blow to Erdogan and the president’s Justice and Development Party, which had controlled Istanbul for a quarter-century. Erdogan’s party pushed to void the municipal election results in the city of 16 million, alleging irregularities.
The challenge resulted in a repeat of the election a few months later, which Imamoglu also won. The mayor retained his seat following local elections last year, during which the CHP made significant gains against Erdogan’s governing party.
LONDON (AP) — You can have your cake and eat it too — just do it slowly.
Experts typically focus on the kinds of foods you can eat to improve your health. However, the speed at which you consume your dinner is equally important. Eating too quickly comes with risks — think food getting stuck and the potential to overeat before your brain tells you to stop. (Inhaling your food also risks annoying your slower-paced dining companions or the person who took the time to cook your meal.)
Here are some tips from scientists on how to slow down and take a more mindful approach to consuming your diet.
How fast is too fast?
If you’re the kind of person who can regularly polish off breakfast, lunch or dinner in less than 20-30 minutes, you are eating too fast.
“It takes about 20 minutes for the stomach to communicate to the brain via a whole host of hormonal signals that it’s full,” said Leslie Heinberg, at the Centre for Behavioral Health at the Cleveland Clinic. “So when people eat rapidly, they can miss these signals and it’s very easy to eat beyond the point of fullness.”
Why is that a problem?
People who eat quickly are likely to swallow more air, Heinberg said, which could lead to bloating or indigestion. Not chewing your food properly can also hinder digestion, meaning you won’t get all of the nutrients from your food. Unchewed pieces of food may also get stuck in your esophagus.
Some previous studies have indicated that people who eat quickly face the greatest risk of obesity, while the slowest eaters were the least likely to be obese.
How can you slow down when eating?
For starters, turn off the TV and put down your phone.
“If you’re eating while you watch TV, people tend to eat until there’s a commercial or the show is over,” Heinberg said, adding that people are less inclined to pay attention to the body’s own signals that it’s full. “When we do things while we’re eating, we’re eating less mindfully. And that often causes us to eat more.”
She said that when people concentrate solely on eating, they generally enjoy the meal more and consume less.
Salmon poached in green salsa and topped with baked chips are displayed for a photo in Concord, New Hampshire. PHOTO: AP
Heinberg also acknowledged the pace at which you eat is frequently an ingrained habit, but said change is still possible. She proposed actions like using your non-dominant hand to eat, trying utensils you might not ordinarily use like chopsticks or taking a deliberate break to drink water when your plate is partially empty.
If you have a busy life, it might be unavoidable to eat lunch at a work meeting or snack while running errands. But Sarah Berry, chief scientist at the British nutritional company ZOE, said when possible, “be mindful of what the food tastes and feels like.”
“If we’re not fully present, it’s very easy to eat more quickly and not notice how much we’ve consumed,” Berry said.
Chew your food, just like mom told you to
One of the simplest things to do is to increase the number of bites you take, said Helen McCarthy, a clinical psychologist with the British Psychological Society.
“If you chew each mouthful a little bit longer, that will slow down your eating,” she said.
The type of food you eat can also impact the situation, highlighting that it’s simpler to eat ultraprocessed or fast foods quicker due to their typically softer texture.
“It’s hard to eat vegetables and protein at the same rate as something that’s highly processed and requires less chewing,” McCarthy said.
Some of her patients also reported an unintentional side effect once they began eating more slowly, referencing one woman who often ate a tube of potato chips every evening. When McCarthy told her to slow down and eat every single chip individually, her patient told her “it was like having a mouthful of claggy chemicals.”
“She didn’t find (the chips) enjoyable anymore,” McCarthy said.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean firefighters on Tuesday appeared closer to containing the largest wildfires in the country’s southeastern regions, after the blazes fueled by dry winds burned more than 36,300 acres of land across the country in the past five days.
Thousands of firefighters, along with hundreds of vehicles and more than 100 helicopters, were deployed to battle the fires in Sancheong county, the neighboring town of Uiseong and Ulsan city, according to the Korea Forest Service.
Around 90 per cent of the fires in Sancheong and Uiseong and more than half of the blaze in Ulsan were extinguished as of Tuesday morning, officials said, but firefighters were also responding to several other fires in the country’s southern regions.
Four firefighters and government workers were killed in Sancheong on Saturday after being trapped by fast-moving flames driven by strong winds. At least 11 other people have been injured by wildfires around the country since last Friday that forced more than 5,400 to evacuate from their homes and damaged or destroyed more than 150 buildings, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
A road is closed as a wildfire fueled by strong winds spreads in Uiseong, South Korea, Monday, March 24, 2025. PHOTO: AP
The national government designated the hardest-hit southeastern regions as disaster zones to focus resources and accelerate recovery efforts.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, serving as the country’s acting leader following President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment over a December martial law decree, vowed an all-out effort to contain the wildfires during a government meeting on Tuesday. He also urged public vigilance as dry spring weather persists.
Government officials suspect that several of the recent wildfires, including those in Uiseong and Ulsan, were caused by human error, possibly due to the use of fire to clear overgrown grass in family tombs or sparks from welding work.
SEOUL (ANN/THE KOREA HERALD) – Hyundai Motor Group has pledged USD21 billion in new investments in the United States over the next three years — its largest-ever commitment there — as the Korean auto conglomerate seeks to navigate the Trump administration’s intensified tariff policies.
“A key part of this commitment is our USD6 billion investment to strengthen the US supply chain, from steel and parts to automobiles,” Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun said after being introduced to the podium by US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.
“We are especially excited about Hyundai Steel’s multibillion investment in a new facility in Louisiana, which will create 1,300 American jobs and serve as the foundation for a more self-reliant and secure automotive supply chain in the US.”
Trump touted the announcement, highlighting that it will be “Hyundai’s first-ever steel mill in the United States … supplying steel for its auto parts and auto plants to Alabama and Georgia, which will soon produce more than 1 million American-made cars every single year.”
Hyundai Motor and its sister affiliate Kia have been running a plant in Alabama and Georgia, respectively. The Korean automaker is set to officially open the Hyundai Motor Group Manufacturing America, a USD7.6 auto plant in Georgia, on Wednesday.
Chung also unveiled that Hyundai Motor Group will purchase USD3 billion worth of US liquefied natural gas to support America’s energy industry and enhance the conglomerate’s energy security.
“This investment is a clear demonstration that tariffs very strongly work,” said Trump.
“Hyundai will be producing steel in America and making its cars in America. As a result, they will not have to pay any tariffs.”
(From left) Hyundai Motor Group executive chairman Chung Eui-sun speaks as US President Donald Trump, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and Hyundai Motor Company CEO Jaehoon (Jay) Chang look on in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, March 24, 2025. PHOTO: ANN/AFP/THE KOREA HERALD
However, it remains unclear whether Trump was referring to Hyundai’s production in the US or its imported products for the tariff exemption.
Hyundai’s investment announcement came as Hyundai Motor has been bracing for the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs, to be announced on April 2, on its US businesses.
Chung invited Trump to visit one of Hyundai Motor Group’s manufacturing facilities in the US and see the Korean company’s commitment to the US and its workers during his remarks but Trump did not respond to the invitation immediately.
According to Hyundai Motor, of the announced USD21 billion investment, USD8.6 billion will go toward the expansion of HMGMA to increase its annual production capacity to 500,000 units from the current 300,000 units, and toward modernizing equipment at the automakers’ existing plants in the US.
As for Hyundai Steel’s new site in Louisiana, USD6.1 billion has been allocated to build a steel plant using the electric arc furnace production with a 2.7 million-metric-ton annual output capacity.
The other USD6.3 billion will be spent on expanding US partnerships in autonomous driving, robotics, artificial intelligence and advanced air mobility technologies, and accelerating the commercialisation of Hyundai Motor Group’s relevant US units such as Boston Dynamics, Supernal and Motional.
The Korean conglomerate announced that Hyundai Engineering will join forces with US’ Holtec International to push for the construction of small modular reactors in Michigan at the end of this year.
According to Hyundai Motor Group, it has invested over USD20 billion since entering the US in 1986 and now supports more than 570,000 jobs there.
Earlier this year, the auto giant announced that it would invest KRW24.3 trillion (USD16.6 billion) in Korea this year, its largest-ever domestic injection, to bolster its future competitiveness.
NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione is asking for a laptop in jail, but just for legal purposes — not for communicating with anyone — as he awaits trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO.
In a court filing made public late Monday, Mangione’s lawyers proposed that he get a laptop configured solely to let him view a vast amount of documents, video and other material in the case surrounding the shooting of Brian Thompson. Similar limited-laptop provisions have been made for some other defendants in the federal lockup where Mangione is being held.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting Mangione on a rare New York state charge of murder as an act of terrorism, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. According to Mangione’s lawyers, prosecutors are frowning on the laptop request, saying that some witnesses have been threatened.
Defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo wrote that there’s “no connection to Mr. Mangione for any of said alleged threats.”
Mangione, 26, is accused of gunning down Thompson in December outside a Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealthcare was about to hold an investor conference. Thompson, who was 50 and had two children in high school, worked for decades within UnitedHealthcare and its parent company.
FILE – Luigi Mangione , accused of fatally shooting the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City and leading authorities on a five-day search is scheduled, appears in court for a hearing, Feb. 21, 2025, in New York. PHOTO: AP
Mangione, an Ivy League computer science graduate from a Maryland real estate family, has pleaded not guilty to the New York state charges. He also faces a parallel federal case that carries the possibility of the death penalty. He hasn’t entered a plea to the federal charges or to state-level gun possession and other charges in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested days after Thompson’s death.
Thompson’s killing alarmed the corporate world, where some health insurers hastily switched to remote work or online shareholder meetings.
But at the same time, the case channeled some Americans’ frustrations with health insurance companies. Mangione’s writings and words on bullets recovered from the scene reflected animus toward health insurers and corporate America, authorities have said.
Some people have lionised the accused killer, donated money to his defense and even flocked to his court appearances. Others, including elected officials, have deplored the praise for what they cast as ideological violence and vigilante justice.
Through his lawyers, Mangione has released a statement thanking supporters.
If he does get a laptop, it would be unable to connect to the internet, run video games or play movies or other entertainment, his lawyers said in Monday’s filing. But it would let him examine, from his jail cell, more than 15,000 pages of documents and thousands of hours of video that prosecutors gathered and were required to turn over to his attorneys.
Otherwise, he can view the material when meeting with his lawyers. But they say there aren’t enough visiting hours in the day for him to do that and properly help prepare his defense.
