NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione’s federal trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson will now begin in January instead of the fall, a judge said Monday at a hearing that started late because Mangione got stuck in a courthouse elevator.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said she was postponing the federal trial so Mangione’s lawyers can focus on his state murder trial, which is scheduled to begin on Sept. 8.
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A woman wearing a "Free Luigi" pin talks to reporters outside a federal courthouse in New York, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Marc Agnifilo, center right, and Karen Friedman Agnifilo, center left, lawyers for Luigi Mangione, are surrounded by media as they leave a federal courthouse in New York, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Karen Friedman Agnifilo, center, and Jacob Kaplan, left, lawyers for Luigi Mangione, are surrounded by media as they leave a federal courthouse in New York, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Reporters and others wait outside of a federal courthouse during a hearing for Luigi Mangione in New York, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
FILE - Luigi Mangione appears for a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, on June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, Pool)
Jury selection in the federal case will begin on Jan. 5, instead of Oct. 13, followed by opening statements and testimony on Jan. 25, instead of Nov. 4, Garnett said at a hearing in Manhattan.
Garnett said she will not release the questionnaire that prospective jurors will be required to fill out until after the panel is chosen. Having it circulating online for months before jury selection “would only make what promises to be a difficult task more difficult,” she said.
Wearing a beige jail suit, Mangione looked bemused as a pair of deputy U.S. Marshals led him into the courtroom about 20 minutes after the hearing was supposed to start. He briefly gazed at the courtroom gallery, where about two dozen of his supporters were sitting.
“Mangione was late due to elevator problems,” the court said in a statement.
It was the second mishap involving Mangione’s arrival to a court hearing in recent weeks.
A June 16 hearing in the state case was delayed a day after prosecutors failed to inform his jail that he was needed in court.
Garnett said she had hoped “with perhaps undue optimism” to hold the federal trial in the fall but that “we can no longer wait to see what happens” in the state case.
“In my view it’s simply impossible to be moving through the jury selection process in this case while the defendant and his counsel are fully occupied by conducting the state trial,” Garnett said.
Mangione’s lawyers declined to comment to reporters afterward.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges in the Dec. 4, 2024, killing. He could spend his life in prison if convicted in either case.
The 28-year-old Ivy League graduate appeared energetic and engaged during Monday's brief hearing. He watched intently at times, knitting his fingers and resting his chin on them.
He spoke animatedly with his lawyers, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, before the proceeding began, gesturing with his hands as he sat between them at the defense table.
Mangione’s federal charges allege that he traveled across state lines by bus to stalk and kill Thompson. He's accused of using a cellphone, the internet and interstate highways, among other means, while planning and carrying out the attack, as well as staying at a hostel that serves out-of-state customers.
At a hearing in the state case in February, Mangione spoke out against the prospect of two trials, telling the judge: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”
Mangione’s lawyers had argued that back-to-back trials on a compressed timeline would violate his constitutional rights.
Thompson, 50, was killed as he walked to a 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 was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
In January, Garnett took the death penalty off the table but ruled that prosecutors could use items collected from Mangione’s backpack during his arrest as evidence against him.
They included a 3D-printed pistol that investigators said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to “wack” an insurance executive.
Earlier this month, Mangione’s lawyers said they would pursue a psychiatric defense in the state case, but reversed course a day later. The defense, involving claims that he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing, isn’t allowed in federal court.
Mangione has become a cause célèbre for people upset with the health insurance industry.
An online fundraiser for his legal defense fund has raised more than $1.5 million and his court appearances have attracted a cadre of supporters, some of whom have worn “FREE LUIGI” T-shirts and green clothing — the color worn by the Mario Bros. video game character Luigi.
A woman wearing a "Free Luigi" pin talks to reporters outside a federal courthouse in New York, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Marc Agnifilo, center right, and Karen Friedman Agnifilo, center left, lawyers for Luigi Mangione, are surrounded by media as they leave a federal courthouse in New York, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Karen Friedman Agnifilo, center, and Jacob Kaplan, left, lawyers for Luigi Mangione, are surrounded by media as they leave a federal courthouse in New York, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Reporters and others wait outside of a federal courthouse during a hearing for Luigi Mangione in New York, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
FILE - Luigi Mangione appears for a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, on June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, Pool)
President Donald Trump has won and lost some as the Supreme Court wraps its final week of a term focused on executive power.
The justices said Monday that Trump can fire leaders of independent agencies with one exception, ruling that central banker Lisa Cook can keep her job at the Federal Reserve for now.
The court said states can count late-arriving mailed ballots, rejecting a Trump-led challenge. It declined to consider Trump’s push to toss a $5 million jury verdict that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll. And it turned away Trump defender Alan Dershowitz ’s effort to rewrite the U.S. libel law standards.
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Duke Energy is the latest utility to bow to pressure from the Trump administration to cancel offshore wind leases in return for money.
The $129 million deal by the Interior Department brings the total amount spent on these agreements to about $2.7 billion. The Trump administration has been buying back the leases as it seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of more traditional energy sources such as natural gas, coal and nuclear power.
Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke said the deal will allow it “refocus” the money in range of ways, including new nuclear or natural gas generation, or grid enhancements to strengthen reliability.
French energy giant TotalEnergies, which had partnered with Duke on the North Carolina project, took a similar deal in March.
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said the Supreme Court Monday confirmed the right of states to administer elections.
Watson, a Republican running for lieutenant governor in Mississippi, was sued by the Republican National Committee in 2024 over Mississippi’s policy of counting absentee ballots received after Election Day. The justices in a 5-4 ruling sided with Watson.
Watson said in a statement after the decision that he opposed the practice of counting ballots received after Election Day, but deeply valued the rights of states to “govern themselves, including the administration of elections.”
He said the Supreme Court ruling confirms election policy is a “decision to be made by Congress or, in its absence, state legislatures.”
He said U.S. delegates had either just left or were getting ready to leave for negotiations to end the war with Iran. But he offered a lukewarm view of the talks.
“The meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not — we’re going to find out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.
Trump last week abruptly canceled a ceremony to sign the bill, saying he would not approve the bipartisan legislation aimed at lowering the cost of housing until Congress acts on legislation to require proof of citizenship to vote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said over the weekend he would send Trump the bill on Monday anyway. When asked by reporters about whether he’d sign it, Trump gave an exasperated response and drew out his words, saying, “I don’t knooow.”
He proclaimed to have more knowledge about housing than anyone in the history of the presidency, but said the bill was “so important” compared to the voting legislation.
“When I look at that bill, it’s a bill,” Trump said. “But when I look at the Save America Act, it’s about saving America.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has met with the son of a powerful Libyan warlord as signs grow that the U.S. is intensifying efforts to broker a unity agreement between the Libya’s fractured eastern and western factions.
Rubio met on Monday with Saddam Hifter, the deputy general commander of the self-styled Libyan national army, based in the east of the country. Hifter is the son of Khalifa Hifter, widely seen as the most powerful figure in eastern and southern Libya.
The two men “discussed ongoing Libyan-led efforts to unify the country’s military, economic, and political institutions” and “possible avenues for cooperation to advance unity and peace in Libya,” the State Department said.
The U.S. is reportedly pushing an initiative under which Saddam Hifter would head a presidential council in a new unified administration that would also include Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who runs the government in western Libya.
Monday’s meeting came after a senior official from Dbeibah’s defense ministry met with U.S. officials in Washington last week.
The U.S. president said he signed a memo to allow Americans to fix their own vehicles, saying that people had been arrested for trying to do so.
“It came to my attention because they noticed they were arresting people for fixing their car,” Trump said.
The president appeared to be referencing a diesel mechanic, Troy Lake, who violated the Clean Air Act by disabling emissions monitoring systems on trucks. Trump pardoned Lake last November.
The memo also addresses the use of aftermarket auto parts. It would supersede the ability of the California Air Resources Board to evaluate parts that affect vehicle emissions.
The top election officials in Washington and Oregon — states that conduct elections mostly by mail — commended Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing states to continue counting late arriving mail ballots.
Oregon allows mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and received in the seven days following to be counted. In Washington, mail ballots can be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received 21 days after a general election or 14 days after a primary.
“The decision is a win for voters, particularly for Oregon voters,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said in a phone interview.
“The ruling upholds our longstanding ballot return rules, which support accessible and fair elections,” Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a news release.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says the Supreme Court’s decision giving presidents free rein to fire agency heads at will gives Trump a “permission slip to turn independent federal agencies into members-only clubs for his golf buddies and cronies.”
The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump fired without cause despite a provision of federal law that requires a reason. The logic of the court’s decision extends to other agencies where Trump has fired board members.
Slaughter once served as Schumer’s chief counsel. Schumer says she was fired for no other reason than doing a good of a job protecting consumers.
“Instead of preserving independence intended to keep markets fair and protect consumers, Trump’s instead catering to fraudsters and monopolists. And the Supreme Court is giving him a green light to do it,” Schumer said.
California’s Secretary of State hailed Monday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court as a win for voters, the rule of law and democracy.
Shirley Weber, California’s first Black secretary of state, said in a statement the court “protected an important safeguard” that helps make sure voters are not disenfranchised by mail delays.
“This ruling makes one thing clear,” the Democrat said in a statement. “Our elections belong to the people, not to partisan agendas.”
Under California law, ballots received within seven days of an election are counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
Anna Gomez is one of the few Democrats who have held onto their seats at federal agencies after Trump fired most of them, partly because her presence allows for a quorum that allows Chairman Brendan Carr to enact his agenda.
She warned the Supreme Court’s ruling “puts at risk how Congress intended independent agencies to function in American democracy.”
“Those who argue these agencies are unaccountable misunderstand how they were designed, as the FCC answers to Congress, the democratically elected body that created it, through oversight, appropriations, and legislation,” she said in a statement following the Court’s ruling. “When commissioners can be removed for their policy views rather than for cause, the inevitable result is an agency that pulls its punches and defers to political winds rather than the record before it.”
She said consumers “will pay the price” in higher costs, fewer choices and slower progress toward connectivity.
RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said the court’s decision upholding state practices of accepting all ballots postmarked by Election Day is a reason to pass the president’s proposed elections bill that is stalled on Capitol Hill.
“If we want fair and secure elections, Election Day should mean exactly what it says, which is why this decision makes it even more imperative that Congress pass the SAVE America Act,” Gruters said.
RNC aides distributed the statement after Trump made the same argument Monday morning. Trump’s proposal would virtually eliminate absentee voting nationally, require voters to provide citizenship documentation to register and then present certain photo identification at polling places.
Gruters said Democrats “are inviting chaos at the ballot box by allowing elections to drag on.” He did not offer any examples of such chaos, and it was the original plaintiffs who wanted the court to overturn long-established rules months before November’s elections.
Federal law enforcement is preparing for one of the capital’s largest and most complex security operations as hundreds of thousands of people visit Washington for the 250th anniversary of the nation’s freedom.
The security challenge comes amid rising political violence, including recent incidents near the White House, and a president who enjoys being at the center of public pomp yet has repeatedly faced attempts on his life.
The nation’s capital “is a target-rich environment” on a normal day, said Darren B. Cox, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “We are prepared for any threats.”
The throngs will be joined by thousands of law enforcement officers and agents and 5,000 National Guard troops, along with military-style vehicles and other hardware not often seen on American streets.
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The president said in a social media post that it was “a Fake Case” brought against him by a woman he claims he never met.
“I will continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength,” Trump wrote.
He also said the case, in which a jury found that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in New York City in the 1990s and and later defamed her, is “really against the United States of America, and all it stands for.”
In a statement Monday, Carroll said the decision affirms the jury’s verdict will stand. “His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions,” she said.
Trump said he lost his effort to remove the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook “on a strictly procedural basis” and would still seek to remove the central bank governor.
The court ruled 5-4 that the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook can remain on the Fed board as she challenges the administration’s attempts to fire her over claims of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.
Trump said in a social media post that “we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”
Trump called a Supreme Court ruling that ballots postmarked by Election Day can be counted days after an election a “tremendous loss.”
Trump posted on social media that the decision makes it more important for his SAVE America Act to pass. The measure would require proof of citizenship and include a ban on mail-in ballots unless that person is sick, disabled, traveling or deployed by the military, Trump noted.
“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!” Trump said.
The president then called out Republican senators who have objected to the measure: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
The firing attempt “was never about mortgage documents signed years ago” but rather “was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure” from Trump, who has long sought lower interest rates from the central bank, Cook said in a written statement reacting to the court’s ruling.
Trump fired Cook last August, citing allegations that she had committed fraud in mortgage documents she signed in June and July of 2021. The Biden appointee sued to keep her job, and lower courts ruled she could remain while the case is litigated. The Supreme Court Monday upheld those rulings.
“Today’s ruling affirms a principle that has underpinned sound economic stewardship for generations: that the Federal Reserve must make all its policy decisions guided by evidence and independent judgment, free from political interference,” Cook’s statement said.
A majority of the justices ruled presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a previous court ruling from 91 years ago.
“It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers,” Trump posted on social media.
The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter. The decision’s logic extends to National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Trump did not acknowledge that the court recognized some limits on his authorities by also ruling 5-4 that Lisa Cook can remain a central bank governor while challenging unproven mortgage fraud allegations, which she has denied.
The Supreme Court on Monday dramatically expanded presidential power, upholding Trump’s firings of the heads of independent federal agencies with one important exception, the Federal Reserve.
The justices allowed Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her job while she fights the Republican president’s effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.
But other than at the nation’s central bank, with its role of setting interest rates, the court held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a 91-year-old decision that had limited executive authority. That decision, Humphrey’s Executor, was overturned.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that Steve Witkoff, who is the special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, are flying to Qatar to meet with the Iranians.
Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” that those talks would be “high level” and that technical negotiations would occur on the sidelines. Iran has denied that the talks are happening.
Trump accused Iran of violating the ceasefire by attacking a ship last week in Strait of Hormuz, but so far the interim deal for negotiations to take place appears to have held.
The Court said states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of Trump.
The decision Monday rejects a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
In just over half those states, the more forgiving deadlines apply only to ballots cast by military and overseas voters.
Trump has claimed most mail balloting breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and years of experience. He keeps repeating that fraud caused his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 even though more than 60 court decisions and his own attorney general said that argument had no merit.
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The Supreme Court refused Monday to revive the prominent attorney’s defamation lawsuit against CNN over its coverage of remarks he made while defending Trump during his 2020 impeachment.
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented from the majority decision, saying legal standards for public figures who claim defamation should be reconsidered.
Alan Dershowitz said the news network aired only part of a comment he made, distorting his meaning to make him look like he’d “lost his mind,” according to court documents.
The network said that multiple outlets had interpreted his remarks in a similar way, and Dershowitz couldn’t show CNN was trying to mischaracterize what he said.
Dershowitz had urged the justices to reconsider New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the landmark First Amendment case that made it harder for public figures to win libel lawsuits by requiring proof that an outlet either knowingly published something false, or showed a reckless disregard for the truth.
The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider a Republican push to enforce strict Arizona voting laws passed in the swing state after the 2020 election.
The high court has allowed some similar rules to take effect temporarily before, including Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement for state and local elections and a Virginia purge of voter rolls that the state said was aimed at keeping noncitizens from voting.
President Donald Trump’s Republican administration joined the appeal after lower courts found the measures violated federal voting laws.
The high court is expected to hear arguments in the fall and hand down an opinion after the midterm elections.
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FILE - E. Jean Carroll arrives at Manhattan federal court, Jan. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
President Donald Trump, from right, White House aide Natalie Harp and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum walk during a tour of the East Potomac Park golf course, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
A small motorboat passes anchored vessels in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Wednesday, June 17, 2026.(Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
FILE - Hannah Liu, 26, of Washington, holds up a sign in support of birthright citizenship, May 15, 2025, outside of the Supreme Court in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
President Donald Trump walks carrying an umbrella alongside Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, right, at East Potomac Park golf course, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
FILE - A demonstrator carries an American flag upside-down near the White House during a protest taking place on the day of a military parade commemorating the Army's 250th anniversary, coinciding with President Donald Trump's 79th birthday, June 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
