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By Dan Diamond, Olivia George and Annie Gowen Washington Post BALTIMORE – Luigi Mangione was a young prince of this city, his family’s name emblazoned on the walls of buildings and civic institutions. Teachers at his elite prep school described him as a student leader, on his way to an Ivy League education. Classmates called the valedictorian, athlete and budding engineer an inspiration, someone focused on society’s future. More accolades followed at college in Philadelphia. Then came worsening back pain, time abroad and a period of discontent. Friends said they lost track of the 26-year-old this year, struggling to confirm his participation in a wedding; his mother filed a missing-person report. As Mangione’s once-charmed life seemed to be crumbling, Brian Thompson’s fortunes appeared to be climbing. The 50-year-old executive, from a small town in Iowa, was entering his fourth year as CEO of the nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, where he was well-liked by employees and respected in the industry – even as some patients complained about the company’s practice of denying care. “I feel really good,” Thompson told investors on a January call. “Very optimistic about UnitedHealthcare ... a lot to look forward to here in the year.” The two men’s paths collided on a Manhattan sidewalk early the morning of Dec. 4, according to police charging documents, with Mangione accused of standing in wait for Thompson in what authorities are calling a targeted shooting. Police who arrested Mangione on Monday in Pennsylvania found a handwritten manifesto that blamed “parasites” and that reportedly railed against UnitedHealth Group – the parent organization of UnitedHealthcare and the nation’s largest health-care company. Mangione appeared in court Tuesday as prosecutors sought to extradite him to New York to face five charges, including second-degree murder, in connection with Thompson’s death. Separately, he faces five counts in Pennsylvania, including presenting false identification to the police officers who arrested him. Ahead of Tuesday’s court hearing, Mangione appeared to struggle with officers and seemed to shout toward a throng of journalists about “an insult to the intelligence of the American people.” Mangione was denied bail. The extradition process to New York, which he is fighting, could take weeks. The developments have staggered people who watched Mangione’s early rise and are trying to reconcile the promising high school and college student with the man now sitting in a Pennsylvania prison cell. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being publicly linked to Mangione or the shooting of Thompson. “That’s not the boy I know,” said one of Mangione’s former teachers at Gilman School, the all-boys private school in Baltimore where Mangione was the top graduate in 2016. Other teachers and students at Gilman discussed his humility, kindness and affability; classmates from the University of Pennsylvania similarly described a well-liked engineering student and fraternity brother who graduated from the school in 2020. Related Articles What radicalized Mangione and fixated him on the health insurance industry is not fully known, though clues exist in his personal health history and in a trail he appears to have left online. Friends said Mangione struggled with years-long back problems, worsening his quality of life; he moved to Hawaii after college in pursuit of getting healthy. An X-ray he posted on social media appears to depict a person suffering from spondylolisthesis, a spinal condition in which a vertebra slips out of place and can cause chronic pain, physicians said. “When my spondy went bad on me last year (23M), it was completely devastating as a young athletic person,” read a post left by a Reddit account that had previously linked to Mangione’s personal programming site and offered personal details that match Mangione’s. Reddit declined to confirm whether the account, which was deactivated this week, belonged to Mangione. Friends said the pain hampered Mangione’s social life and culminated in major surgery last year. The X-ray posted by Mangione shows a “lumbar spine with posterior spinal instrumentation, possible fusion” – a procedure that involves screws or rods to stabilize the spine, said Zeeshan Sardar, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Columbia University Medical Center who reviewed the post at the request of The Washington Post. While patients are warned that spinal surgeries may worsen a person’s condition, the Reddit account linked to Mangione last year described the surgery as a success. Mangione also was long focused on what he saw as societal decay, posting commentary online that sometimes summarized his reading, including on the popular review website Goodreads. In his 2021 review of the Unabomber’s manifesto – written by an anonymous killer terrorizing the United States from the 1970s into the 1990s with meticulously crafted pipe bombs – Mangione awarded it four stars and shared a comment he attributed to another person: “When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution.” Selections he made for a book club he started in Hawaii in 2023 began to alarm others, said Sarah Nehemiah, a 27-year-old producer and researcher who met Mangione the prior year and moved into his co-living space after Mangione had left. “Several members left due to discomfort in his book choices,” she said. “The Unabomber manifesto is what really pushed people over the edge.” Investigators are trying to piece together what led Mangione to allegedly fixate on Thompson. UnitedHealthcare, which provides coverage to roughly 1 in 7 Americans, declined to comment on whether Mangione or his family were customers of the health insurance company. UnitedHealth Group has been the focus of congressional oversight, watchdog groups and patient complaints that say the sprawling company’s subsidiaries have wrongly denied patients’ claims, sometimes by using artificial intelligence. The company and its largest subsidiary, UnitedHealthcare, have become proxies for many Americans’ broader complaints about health care, a phenomenon crystallized by the outpouring of complaints and mockery since Thompson’s shooting. UnitedHealth Group has defended its practices. In Baltimore on Tuesday, as fog blanketed the city, residents said they were still wrestling with the revelation that Thompson’s alleged killer is a member of the well-respected Mangione family, which is prominent in the region and has long-standing ties to Little Italy, the neighborhood just east of the Inner Harbor. The family owns Lorien Health Systems, a network of skilled nursing and assisted-living facilities, where Luigi Mangione volunteered in high school, and has founded or acquired golf and country clubs that attract top local players. A Baltimore art museum, university and a now-defunct opera company have been among the civic institutions that have benefited from Mangione philanthropy. Greater Baltimore Medical Center, a hospital long affiliated with the Mangione family, boasts a “Mangione Family Center” in the soaring atrium where obstetrics patients enter the building; a placard in another part of the hospital thanks the Mangione Family Foundation for donating more than $1 million. “You would not truly think that a member of the Mangione family would be accused of this,” said Thomas J. Maronick Jr., a criminal-defense attorney in Maryland who knows several of the suspect’s relatives. The family released a statement Monday night saying they were “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.” “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news,” the Mangione family said in its statement. – – – A star student and engineer The Luigi Mangione whom teachers saw growing up was a builder. A video posted by Gilman in 2016 shows him at the center of a robotics competition, manipulating a robot and helping lead the school’s team to success in a tournament. The prep school charges nearly $38,000 for a year of high school tuition, according to its website, and many students come from some degree of wealth. But far from bragging about his family’s local prominence, Mangione was viewed as self-effacing and accessible – a volunteer who coached other students on their essays in the school’s writing center. Then came Penn, the Ivy League university, where again Mangione found himself in leadership roles, such as helping to found a video game development club. A Penn-affiliated news outlet in December 2018 reported that the club had grown to 60 members. “Passion is what we’re looking for,” Mangione said in an interview, adding that the club didn’t turn away people who lacked programming experience. Mangione graduated from Penn with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in four years. He went to work as an engineer for TrueCar, a web platform for people to shop for automobiles. The company, which instituted broad layoffs in 2023, has said Mangione has not been employed by it since that year. Mangione spent early 2022 at Surfbreak HNL, a shared living space tucked along Oahu’s south shore and about a mile from Waikiki Beach, a former resident told The Post. Mangione arrived in January 2022 and left by mid-April, said Nehemiah, who has remained close with other residents, some of whom were hesitant to speak publicly about their interactions with Mangione but authorized her to speak on their behalf. Surfbreak, which sits on the 40th floor of a Honolulu high-rise, boasts floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the water and bills itself as the “the first co-living and co-working penthouse for remote workers in Hawaii” on its website. Monthly rent for a twin bedroom starts at $1,605, while “king corner” rooms command up to $3,305, according to the Surfbreak website. Nehemiah and her friends at Surfbreak believed Mangione had left “due to a lifelong back injury that was exacerbated by surfing and hiking,” she told The Post. “To our knowledge, nearly all members of Surfbreak from his tenure lost contact with him after he left.” Posts circulating on social media and conversations with those who knew him indicate Mangione withdrew and dropped out of touch with friends this year. In since-deleted posts this July on X, one person tagged an account that appears to be Mangione’s and said he hadn’t heard from Mangione in months. “Hey man I need you to call me ... [You] made commitments to me for my wedding and if you can’t honor them I need to know so I can plan accordingly,” the person wrote. In another post from the same account, posted in November, just two weeks before Mangione was taken into custody, the person wrote: “Thinking of you and prayers every day in your name. Know you are missed and loved.” It appears that Mangione spent time in Japan this year. In a post Monday on X, Japanese professional poker player Jun Obara recounted a chance encounter with him in a Tokyo restaurant after a photo of them posted to the platform in February circulated online. Former classmates said they couldn’t square this new, darker portrait of Mangione with the person who was once so optimistic. “I can’t help but feel sorry for Luigi and really the American people – that he had so much to offer, to innovate and create for the world and wound up so damaged that he did the unthinkable instead,” said a former Gilman student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “As I knew him, he was a creator, not a taker of life.” On social media, Mangione in 2022 posted excerpts from a speech he delivered to high school classmates – part of a tradition in which Gilman seniors have long been allowed to deliver a speech to the assembled high school on any topic of their choosing. Mangione chose to discuss the arc of human progress, warning that the audience might think he was “crazy.” “We may have been born into one of the most exciting times on earth,” Mangione said in his prepared remarks, talking about the arrival of artificial intelligence and other technological breakthroughs that could even lead to immortality. “We might not recognize it in our day-to-day lives, but the world is changing fast.”Kylian Mbappe misses penalty and Real Madrid loses ground in Champions League
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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg snapped back Thursday at criticism from airline executives who say the Biden administration over-regulated them, pointing out that some of those airlines are making large profits despite new passenger-protection rules. Buttigieg said the rules his department has imposed, including automatic cash refunds after flights are canceled, enjoy broad public support and “will stand the test of time.” The comments came after the CEOs of Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines said they hoped the government will be more pro-business when President-elect Donald Trump returns to office. Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the Trump administration will be “a breath of fresh air” for his industry. “I know that some airline CEOs have expressed hopes that the next administration will be less passenger-friendly and more corporate-friendly than this administration,” Buttigieg responded during a news conference to discuss Thanksgiving travel. “The passenger protections that we have put in place deservedly enjoy broad public, bipartisan support. I just don't run into a lot of people who are against the idea that you ought to get an automatic refund without any hassle, for example.” Buttigieg argued that strong passenger protections are good for the airline business. “Some of these companies have been showing very healthy profits even at this new and higher level of consumer protection, demonstrating to me that these things can travel together,” he said. It appeared to be a reference to Delta, the most profitable U.S. airline in recent years. Delta earned $2.6 billion in the first nine months of this year and $4.6 billion last year. The airline industry has opposed many consumer-protections written by the Biden administration, even suing the Transportation Department to kill a rule requiring greater transparency over fees that airlines charge their passengers. Airlines also oppose a current department inquiry into their frequent-flyer programs. Bastian, the Delta CEO, said he expected the Transportation Department under Trump to “take a fresh look at the regulatory environment, the bureaucracy that exists in government, the level of overreach that we have seen over the last four years within our industry.” Southwest Airlines CEO Robert Jordan said last week, “We are hopeful for a DOT (Department of Transportation) that is maybe a little less aggressive in terms of regulating or rule-making.” Buttigieg noted that his department extracted a $140 million settlement from Southwest over widespread flight cancellations in December 2022 and is conducting a similar investigation into Delta, which canceled about 7,000 flights after a technology outage in July. He suggested airline CEOs should spend more time thinking about passengers and less about their regulator.None
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Florida State pounds Charleston Southern for second victory of season
( MENAFN - AFP) Asia Stocks mostly fell in thin holiday trade on Monday after tech losses killed off the traditional year-end lift on Wall Street at the end of last week. The "Santa Claus rally" got off to a good start but US stocks then fell across the board on Friday, with the S&P 500 and the nasdaq both dropping more than one percent. Tech stocks led the way, with Elon Musk's electric car giant Tesla closing around five percent lower and AI chipmaker Nvidia shedding around two percent. Weighing on investor sentiment were worries about the pace of US interest rate cuts and possible higher import tariffs under incoming US president Donald Trump. "As US stock markets concluded with a downturn on Friday, Asia-Pacific markets are bracing for a slippery penultimate trading day of 2024," said Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management. "With US (bond) yields climbing and liquidity essentially non-existent, there's always the potential for outsized moves. This comes during a critical phase of year-end rebalancing, intensified by hefty equity positions across portfolios," Innes said in a note. In Tokyo, the Nikkei was down 0.75 percent at 40,020.00 points on the last day of trading until January 6. The yen was little changed after hitting 158.08 against the dollar on Thursday, the lowest in almost six months. That came after Bank of Japan governor Kazuo Ueda failed to give a clear signal on a possible interest rate increase next month. In Seoul, Jeju Air shares tumbled more than eight percent after one of its planes crashed in South Korea on Sunday, killing all but two of the 181 people on board. South Korea's transport ministry said on Monday it was "reviewing plans to conduct a special inspection on (Boeing) B737-800 aircraft" after the crash. South Korea was also hit with further political turmoil, with authorities issuing an arrest warrant for suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol. Yoon briefly imposed martial law this month and was then impeachment by parliament. Lawmakers also impeached his acting successor Han Duck-soo last week. Chinese stocks also opened lower on Monday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 0.09 percent at 3,397.12. China's purchasing managers' index (PMI) for manufacturing was due on Tuesday. The reading was expected to stay at 50.3, above the 50 line dividing expansion and contraction, according to Bloomberg. - Key figures around 0300 GMT - Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.75 percent at 40,020.00 points Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.40 percent at 20,001.00 Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.1 percent at 3,397.12 Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0423 from $1.0429 on Friday Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2577 from $1.2579 Dollar/yen: DOWN at 157.82 yen from 157.89 yen Euro/pound: UP at 82.88 pence from 82.87 pence West Texas Intermediate: UP at $70.63 per barrel Brent North Sea Crude: UP at $74.23 per barrel MENAFN29122024000143011026ID1109040187 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.
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In-Depth Analysis Of The Monoethanolamine Market: Key Drivers, Trends, Growth Opportunities, And Forecast 2024-2033
Prime Minister leads tributes to former US president Jimmy CarterNo. 24 Illinois stuns Rutgers on Bryant's 40-yard TD reception with 4 seconds leftNone
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) leads her closest opponent in New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial primary by 13 percentage points in an internal poll obtained by HuffPost that highlights her strong position in the Garden State’s June primary. In the campaign’s poll, Sherrill, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor with a mainstream liberal voting record, has the support of 24% of likely Democratic primary voters, compared with 11% for former state Senate President Steve Sweeney, 9% each for Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, 5% for teachers union leader Sean Spiller, and 4% for Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop. There is a limit to what can be extrapolated from the survey’s findings, which Sherrill’s campaign shared with stakeholders on Wednesday afternoon. The live phone poll of 800 likely Democratic primary voters — conducted by Global Strategy Group from Nov. 20 to 24 — also found that 38% of likely primary voters were still undecided, suggesting the race is wide open. The poll’s margin of error is 3.5 percentage points under or over. But the internal poll ’s results are consistent with a survey conducted by the Laborers’ International Union of North America, which is backing Sherrill, that showed her ahead of Baraka by 12 points. A July poll conducted by a super PAC supporting Baraka found Sherrill leading the Newark mayor by a more modest six points. In the Global Strategy Group survey for Sherrill’s campaign, her support also corresponds with a net-positive favorability rating of 35 points, compared to 20 points for Gottheimer and 17 points for Baraka. That advantage is largely due to Sherrill’s higher level of name recognition, which contributed to a 41% nominal favorability rating with just 6% of those polled registering an unfavorable impression of her. In addition, the poll found that Sherrill’s numbers grew more than her rivals when respondents were given positive information about each of the candidates. The positive profile of Sherrill says her “entire life has always been about service — to our country, the Constitution, and the people of New Jersey,” while mentioning her Navy service and prosecutorial work. “Now she’s running for governor to bring new leadership to Trenton so we can reduce costs and help families get ahead, expand opportunity, and protect our rights and freedoms,” the biographical information concludes. A similar profile of Gottheimer, who many insiders see as Sherrill’s toughest rival, says he has “always put getting things done for New Jersey first, which is why he leads the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. Josh has always focused on Jersey Values like lowering costs, lowering taxes, and protecting freedoms while getting money back from the moocher states.” To test the other candidates’ strength against a fundraising advantage Gottheimer is expected to develop (which would also enable him to communicate more), the pollsters provided half of the respondents with a second positive message about Gottheimer that emphasizes his New Jersey upbringing and specific ways in which he worked to lower costs for the state’s families. After that introduction, Sherrill’s support rose to 32%, Gottheimer’s rose to 18%, Baraka’s rose to 13%, Fulop’s and Spiller’s support rose to 6% each, and Sweeney remains the same. Finally, the poll tested negative messages against all candidates but provided one twice as long about Sherrill. In that scenario, Sherrill retained 30% of support, compared to 15% each for Gottheimer and Baraka, and 5% for Fulop. Meanwhile, Sweeney’s support grew from his original 11% to 14%, and Spiller’s support grew from his original 5% to 7%. Don't let this be the end of the free press. The free press is under attack — and America's future hangs in the balance. As other newsrooms bow to political pressure, HuffPost is not backing down. Would you help us keep our news free for all? We can't do it without you. Can't afford to contribute? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read. You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again . We view our mission to provide free, fair news as critically important in this crucial moment, and we can't do it without you. Whether you give once or many more times, we appreciate your contribution to keeping our journalism free for all. You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again . We view our mission to provide free, fair news as critically important in this crucial moment, and we can't do it without you. Whether you give just one more time or sign up again to contribute regularly, we appreciate you playing a part in keeping our journalism free for all. Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages. The 2025 contest to succeed term-limited New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) is sure to be closely watched following November election results that revealed a much more divided New Jersey electorate than was previously thought. Vice President Kamala Harris defeated President-elect Donald Trump in the state by less than 6 percentage points, a close margin for a reliably Democratic state. From 2020 to 2024, New Jersey moved more toward the Republican presidential nominee than any other state besides New York. Gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia have also typically been seen as a bellwether of political trends one year into a president’s new term. In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin took over the governorship in Virginia, and Murphy defeated a Republican challenger by just three points . The following year, however, Democrats outperformed expectations of a midterm blowout, holding onto the Senate and losing the House only narrowly. Related From Our Partner
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President Bola Tinubu is due to arrive at the Presidential Wing of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at 10.00 p.m. The President departed Galeao Air Force Basa (SBGL) Airport, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Saturday, for Abuja after attending the 19th G20 Leaders Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Tinubu had attended the G20 Leaders Summit where he endorsed the global alliance against hunger and poverty, which he said was pivotal. The President also held bilateral talks with Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who commended his administration’s economic reforms and their positive indicators. While in Rio de Janeiro, Tinubu also expressed Nigeria’s readiness to represent Africa in the United Nations Security Council. The President urged the council to reflect global diversity by allocating two permanent seats to Africa, as Nigeria “stands ready and willing to serve as a representative of Africa in this capacity.” Also, he presided over the signing of a $2.5 billion Letter of Intent between the Nigerian government and JBS S.A., a Brazilian company and one of the top three largest meat processing companies globally. Tinubu left Abuja for Brazil last Sunday, November 17, after hosting the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on a state visit to Nigeria. He was accompanied on the official trip to Brazil by top government officials. Among those on the trip is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, Ministers of Livestock Development, Idi Mukhtar Maiha, Art, Tourism, Culture and Creativity, Hannatu Musawa, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi and the Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Mohammed Mohammed.‘People can be pushed only so far’: Warren reacts to killing of health care CEO
Soccer-Juventus deal Man City huge Champions League blow with 2-0 victoryTrue freshman Luke Kromenhoek threw three touchdown passes and Caziah Holmes ran for two more as host Florida State routed Charleston Southern 41-7 on Saturday afternoon in Tallahassee, Fla. The Seminoles (2-9) convincingly snapped a six-game losing streak and ensured that the Buccaneers (1-11) would finish theirs on a 10-game skid. Florida State has not had much to celebrate during one of its worst seasons in program history. But on Saturday, the Seminoles overcame a rough start and put together one of their more complete efforts of the season. Florida State had not scored more than 21 points in a game prior to Saturday's contest and its 175 rushing yards more than doubled its average (80.5 per game) this season. No single runner had over 40 yards, but seven rushers combined for that output on 34 attempts. The Seminoles entered the game ranked 130th out of 133 FBS teams in rushing offense. Holmes, a senior, finished with three carries for 38 yards, including touchdown runs of 3 and 18 yards. Kromenhoek gave Florida State a sliver of hope for its quarterback future as he completed 13 of 20 passes for 209 yards and no interceptions. He threw TD passes for Amaree Williams, Ja'Khi Douglas and Hykeem Williams. The highlight was a 71-yard touchdown pass to Douglas on the first play from scrimmage of the second half to put the Seminoles ahead 24-0. Douglas finished with 82 yards receiving on three catches, and 10 different Florida State players caught passes for 240 total yards. The Seminoles went 6 of 10 on third downs after averaging only a 25 percent conversion rate all season. Their defense held Charleston Southern to 275 total yards (57 rushing) and forced two turnovers. Florida State was unable to hang on to the shutout, however, as Bucs quarterback Kaleb Jackson found Landon Sauers for a 7-yard touchdown pass with 57 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Jackson completed 22 of 32 passes for 218 yards, one touchdown and one interception. The Bucs defense recorded three sacks led by Davion Williams, who had eight tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and one sack. The Seminoles will conclude their season next Saturday at home against rival Florida. --Field Level Media
By Dan Diamond, Olivia George and Annie GowenWashington Post BALTIMORE – Luigi Mangione was a young prince of this city, his family’s name emblazoned on the walls of buildings and civic institutions. Teachers at his elite prep school described him as a student leader, on his way to an Ivy League education. Classmates called the valedictorian, athlete and budding engineer an inspiration, someone focused on society’s future. More accolades followed at college in Philadelphia. Then came worsening back pain, time abroad and a period of discontent. Friends said they lost track of the 26-year-old this year, struggling to confirm his participation in a wedding; his mother filed a missing-person report. As Mangione’s once-charmed life seemed to be crumbling, Brian Thompson’s fortunes appeared to be climbing. The 50-year-old executive, from a small town in Iowa, was entering his fourth year as CEO of the nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, where he was well-liked by employees and respected in the industry – even as some patients complained about the company’s practice of denying care. “I feel really good,” Thompson told investors on a January call. “Very optimistic about UnitedHealthcare ... a lot to look forward to here in the year.” The two men’s paths collided on a Manhattan sidewalk early the morning of Dec. 4, according to police charging documents, with Mangione accused of standing in wait for Thompson in what authorities are calling a targeted shooting. Police who arrested Mangione on Monday in Pennsylvania found a handwritten manifesto that blamed “parasites” and that reportedly railed against UnitedHealth Group – the parent organization of UnitedHealthcare and the nation’s largest health-care company. Mangione appeared in court Tuesday as prosecutors sought to extradite him to New York to face five charges, including second-degree murder, in connection with Thompson’s death. Separately, he faces five counts in Pennsylvania, including presenting false identification to the police officers who arrested him. Ahead of Tuesday’s court hearing, Mangione appeared to struggle with officers and seemed to shout toward a throng of journalists about “an insult to the intelligence of the American people.” Mangione was denied bail. The extradition process to New York, which he is fighting, could take weeks. The developments have staggered people who watched Mangione’s early rise and are trying to reconcile the promising high school and college student with the man now sitting in a Pennsylvania prison cell. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being publicly linked to Mangione or the shooting of Thompson. “That’s not the boy I know,” said one of Mangione’s former teachers at Gilman School, the all-boys private school in Baltimore where Mangione was the top graduate in 2016. Other teachers and students at Gilman discussed his humility, kindness and affability; classmates from the University of Pennsylvania similarly described a well-liked engineering student and fraternity brother who graduated from the school in 2020. What radicalized Mangione and fixated him on the health insurance industry is not fully known, though clues exist in his personal health history and in a trail he appears to have left online. Friends said Mangione struggled with years-long back problems, worsening his quality of life; he moved to Hawaii after college in pursuit of getting healthy. An X-ray he posted on social media appears to depict a person suffering from spondylolisthesis, a spinal condition in which a vertebra slips out of place and can cause chronic pain, physicians said. “When my spondy went bad on me last year (23M), it was completely devastating as a young athletic person,” read a post left by a Reddit account that had previously linked to Mangione’s personal programming site and offered personal details that match Mangione’s. Reddit declined to confirm whether the account, which was deactivated this week, belonged to Mangione. Friends said the pain hampered Mangione’s social life and culminated in major surgery last year. The X-ray posted by Mangione shows a “lumbar spine with posterior spinal instrumentation, possible fusion” – a procedure that involves screws or rods to stabilize the spine, said Zeeshan Sardar, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Columbia University Medical Center who reviewed the post at the request of The Washington Post. While patients are warned that spinal surgeries may worsen a person’s condition, the Reddit account linked to Mangione last year described the surgery as a success. Mangione also was long focused on what he saw as societal decay, posting commentary online that sometimes summarized his reading, including on the popular review website Goodreads. In his 2021 review of the Unabomber’s manifesto – written by an anonymous killer terrorizing the United States from the 1970s into the 1990s with meticulously crafted pipe bombs – Mangione awarded it four stars and shared a comment he attributed to another person: “When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution.” Selections he made for a book club he started in Hawaii in 2023 began to alarm others, said Sarah Nehemiah, a 27-year-old producer and researcher who met Mangione the prior year and moved into his co-living space after Mangione had left. “Several members left due to discomfort in his book choices,” she said. “The Unabomber manifesto is what really pushed people over the edge.” Investigators are trying to piece together what led Mangione to allegedly fixate on Thompson. UnitedHealthcare, which provides coverage to roughly 1 in 7 Americans, declined to comment on whether Mangione or his family were customers of the health insurance company. UnitedHealth Group has been the focus of congressional oversight, watchdog groups and patient complaints that say the sprawling company’s subsidiaries have wrongly denied patients’ claims, sometimes by using artificial intelligence. The company and its largest subsidiary, UnitedHealthcare, have become proxies for many Americans’ broader complaints about health care, a phenomenon crystallized by the outpouring of complaints and mockery since Thompson’s shooting. UnitedHealth Group has defended its practices. In Baltimore on Tuesday, as fog blanketed the city, residents said they were still wrestling with the revelation that Thompson’s alleged killer is a member of the well-respected Mangione family, which is prominent in the region and has long-standing ties to Little Italy, the neighborhood just east of the Inner Harbor. The family owns Lorien Health Systems, a network of skilled nursing and assisted-living facilities, where Luigi Mangione volunteered in high school, and has founded or acquired golf and country clubs that attract top local players. A Baltimore art museum, university and a now-defunct opera company have been among the civic institutions that have benefited from Mangione philanthropy. Greater Baltimore Medical Center, a hospital long affiliated with the Mangione family, boasts a “Mangione Family Center” in the soaring atrium where obstetrics patients enter the building; a placard in another part of the hospital thanks the Mangione Family Foundation for donating more than $1 million. “You would not truly think that a member of the Mangione family would be accused of this,” said Thomas J. Maronick Jr., a criminal-defense attorney in Maryland who knows several of the suspect’s relatives. The family released a statement Monday night saying they were “shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.” “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news,” the Mangione family said in its statement. – – – A star student and engineer The Luigi Mangione whom teachers saw growing up was a builder. A video posted by Gilman in 2016 shows him at the center of a robotics competition, manipulating a robot and helping lead the school’s team to success in a tournament. The prep school charges nearly $38,000 for a year of high school tuition, according to its website, and many students come from some degree of wealth. But far from bragging about his family’s local prominence, Mangione was viewed as self-effacing and accessible – a volunteer who coached other students on their essays in the school’s writing center. Then came Penn, the Ivy League university, where again Mangione found himself in leadership roles, such as helping to found a video game development club. A Penn-affiliated news outlet in December 2018 reported that the club had grown to 60 members. “Passion is what we’re looking for,” Mangione said in an interview, adding that the club didn’t turn away people who lacked programming experience. Mangione graduated from Penn with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in four years. He went to work as an engineer for TrueCar, a web platform for people to shop for automobiles. The company, which instituted broad layoffs in 2023, has said Mangione has not been employed by it since that year. Mangione spent early 2022 at Surfbreak HNL, a shared living space tucked along Oahu’s south shore and about a mile from Waikiki Beach, a former resident told The Post. Mangione arrived in January 2022 and left by mid-April, said Nehemiah, who has remained close with other residents, some of whom were hesitant to speak publicly about their interactions with Mangione but authorized her to speak on their behalf. Surfbreak, which sits on the 40th floor of a Honolulu high-rise, boasts floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the water and bills itself as the “the first co-living and co-working penthouse for remote workers in Hawaii” on its website. Monthly rent for a twin bedroom starts at $1,605, while “king corner” rooms command up to $3,305, according to the Surfbreak website. Nehemiah and her friends at Surfbreak believed Mangione had left “due to a lifelong back injury that was exacerbated by surfing and hiking,” she told The Post. “To our knowledge, nearly all members of Surfbreak from his tenure lost contact with him after he left.” Posts circulating on social media and conversations with those who knew him indicate Mangione withdrew and dropped out of touch with friends this year. In since-deleted posts this July on X, one person tagged an account that appears to be Mangione’s and said he hadn’t heard from Mangione in months. “Hey man I need you to call me ... [You] made commitments to me for my wedding and if you can’t honor them I need to know so I can plan accordingly,” the person wrote. In another post from the same account, posted in November, just two weeks before Mangione was taken into custody, the person wrote: “Thinking of you and prayers every day in your name. Know you are missed and loved.” It appears that Mangione spent time in Japan this year. In a post Monday on X, Japanese professional poker player Jun Obara recounted a chance encounter with him in a Tokyo restaurant after a photo of them posted to the platform in February circulated online. Former classmates said they couldn’t square this new, darker portrait of Mangione with the person who was once so optimistic. “I can’t help but feel sorry for Luigi and really the American people – that he had so much to offer, to innovate and create for the world and wound up so damaged that he did the unthinkable instead,” said a former Gilman student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “As I knew him, he was a creator, not a taker of life.” On social media, Mangione in 2022 posted excerpts from a speech he delivered to high school classmates – part of a tradition in which Gilman seniors have long been allowed to deliver a speech to the assembled high school on any topic of their choosing. Mangione chose to discuss the arc of human progress, warning that the audience might think he was “crazy.” “We may have been born into one of the most exciting times on earth,” Mangione said in his prepared remarks, talking about the arrival of artificial intelligence and other technological breakthroughs that could even lead to immortality. “We might not recognize it in our day-to-day lives, but the world is changing fast.”Top SEC QB Announces Return For One More Season
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