Luigi Mangione, accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, pleaded not guilty on Dec. 23 in a Manhattan courtroom to multiple charges, including murder as an act of terrorism. Mangione, 26, also faces federal charges of murder and stalking that could carry the death penalty. For the state charges, the maximum sentence is life in prison without parole. Images appearing to be Mangione’s New York City Police Department (NYPD) mugshot went viral online amid his New York court appearance. Mangione was arrested by Altoona, Pennsylvania, police on Dec. 9 and was extradited to New York on Dec. 19 to face prosecution. Social media users sharing the image were critical of the NYPD because it appears like it was taken by a professional using “ photo shoot lighting .” Others questioned if it is real. This Threads post says , “NYPD official mug shot ARE WE KIDDING HERE ?!? Does Annie Liebovitz [sic] moonlight for the NYPD ?!?” Leibovitz is a famous portrait photographer. THE QUESTION Is the image of Mangione a real NYPD mugshot? THE SOURCES Statement from the New York Police Department (NYPD) Review of NYPD press releases and social media accounts 2019 Report to the New York Governor and State Legislature Booking photos released by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Maria Bivens, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spokesperson VERIFY analysis of the viral fake mugshot RevEye , a reverse image search tool THE ANSWER No, the image of Mangione is not a real NYPD mugshot. WHAT WE FOUND The image circulating as an official NYPD mugshot of Luigi Mangione is fake and was likely created using artificial intelligence (AI). VERIFY reviewed the NYPD’s social media accounts and website and found no evidence the image was ever posted on official channels. While the NYPD has posted recent images of Mangione, such as his arrival in New York , they have not released any official booking or arrest photos. “The NYPD does not disseminate arrest photos unless we are attempting to locate an individual,” the department said in an email to VERIFY. It is unclear if Mangione even had a booking photo taken upon his arrival in New York. A 2019 New York state law prohibits the release of arrest or booking photos unless their disclosure serves as a specific law enforcement purpose. If an NYPD booking photo of Mangione exists, it likely would not have been made public. The only official booking photos of Mangione released so far were by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections on Dec. 9 and Dec. 10 . Maria Bivens, the spokesperson with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, confirmed to VERIFY that the viral image was not distributed by their department. Using RevEye, a reverse image search tool, VERIFY found the viral image has never been published by credible news outlets as an official booking photo. It was also not published by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office , which is prosecuting the case, or the Department of Justice , which brought the federal charges. There are clues that suggest the image was generated with AI. For instance, the mole on Mangione’s right cheek is misplaced in the fake image, and the white undershirt disappears entirely on one side of his neck. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Related Articles Online manifesto appearing to be penned by Luigi Mangione is fake Why we can’t VERIFY a chart showing UnitedHealthcare denies more claims than other insurers No, the McDonald’s worker who identified Luigi Mangione won’t automatically get paid the $60K reward The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter , text alerts and our YouTube channel . You can also follow us on Snapchat , Instagram , Facebook and TikTok . Learn More » Follow Us YouTube Snapchat Instagram Facebook TikTok Want something VERIFIED? Text: 202-410-8808
TORONTO — Canada's main stock index moved lower Monday, led by losses in technology and utilities stocks, while U.S. stock markets were also down. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 66.38 points at 25,625.42. In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 240.59 points at 44,401.93. The S&P 500 index was down 37.42 points at 6,052.85, while the Nasdaq composite was down 123.08 points at 19,736.69. “It started pretty positive in the morning. It's just been slowly, slowly grinding down ever since,” said Michael Currie, senior investment adviser at TD Wealth. Some of the market direction Monday was driven by two separate news stories out of China, he said. “The (Chinese) central bank says they're starting to buy gold again, and they're looking to loosen their monetary policy a bit. So that helped oil a lot, helped gold a lot,” said Currie. China also said it’s investigating semiconductor giant Nvidia over suspected violations of anti-monopoly laws, which sent the company’s stock lower. Nvidia’s share price was down 2.6 per cent Monday at US$138.81. Otherwise, “it’s all about interest rates today,” said Currie. In the U.S., investors are awaiting the latest update on inflation later in the week. However, given that the slowing job market is more of a concern for the U.S. Federal Reserve at this point, the data is unlikely to change what investors currently expect from the Fed next week, said Currie: a quarter-percentage-point cut. “Unless there's something really crazy out of the inflation numbers, there’s no reason to expect anything different is going to happen next week,” he said. In Canada, where the central bank is gearing up for a rate decision Wednesday, a larger half-point cut is more likely, he said. Expectations for a bigger cut rose after last week’s jobs report, which saw the unemployment rate jump to 6.8 per cent in November. “The more we're cutting rates, especially the accelerated rate compared to the States, the more that just keeps beating up our dollar,” said Currie. He expects more buzz in the coming months about the divergence between interest rates in Canada and the U.S. as the loonie continues to weaken. “We're seeing it already, and as the gap gets bigger, it'll become more of a story.” However, Currie noted the TSX briefly touched an all-time high earlier in the day. “Basically since the US election, it's just been a non-stop rally,” he said. The Canadian dollar traded for 70.77 cents US compared with 70.74 cents US on Friday. The January crude oil contract was up US$1.17 at US$68.37 per barrel and the January natural gas contract was up 11 cents at US$3.18 per mmBTU. The February gold contract was up US$26.20 at US$2,685.80 an ounce and the March copper contract was up eight cents at US$4.28 a pound. — With files from The Associated Press This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2024. Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD) Rosa Saba, The Canadian PressUnion home minister Amit Shah asks IB to stay ready for 'challenges of future'
(TNS) — A first-of-its-kind audit showed a nearly identical match to the election night count by using technology to read the text on all 5.3 million Georgia ballots. The audit — required by state law to of voting machines — revealed just 87 discrepancies from all races. Almost all the inconsistencies were caused by unclear marks on absentee ballots that required human review, according to an released Monday. “The ballot image audit shows again that the votes in Georgia were counted accurately, securely and quickly,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “The image audit shows that our system works accurately and can be trusted.” The recheck of the results scanned the names of every candidate in all 1,955 races and added up vote totals. Then the compared its count with the totals from election night, which relied on ballot scanning machines that tabulate votes from QR codes printed on ballots. It was the largest ballot image audit ever conducted, according to Enhanced Voting, the company hired to perform the review after it won a . Ballot images are available for on the secretary of state’s website. “There were zero differences found between the tabulation based on the human-readable text and the tabulation based on the QR codes generated by the Dominion ImageCast X ballot marking devices,” Enhanced Voting’s audit report states. “In every instance, the human-readable text on the paper ballots matched the votes represented in the QR code on that ballot.” Georgia’s voting system uses a combination of touchscreens and printers to create a paper ballot for in-person voters. About 5% of voters returned absentee ballots, which are filled in by hand and then scanned. Just one discrepancy occurred on ballots submitted through touchscreen, and the error was traced to a human error in counting a write-in vote, according to Enhanced Voting. The remaining 86 vote discrepancies were resolved by a human review of bubbled-in ovals on absentee ballots that couldn’t be interpreted by machines, such as a checkmark, dot or scribbled-out choice. In each county, adjudication panels reviewed and counted those ballots before results were certified. In the presidential race, the audit five fewer votes for Republican Donald Trump and 14 fewer for Democrat Kamala Harris. showed that Trump won the race by 115,100 votes, a 2.2 percentage point margin of victory. The latest audit, which used optical character recognition technology, followed a hand-count audit completed last week. The showed 11 more votes for Trump and six fewer for Harris out of nearly 750,000 ballots reviewed. Raffensperger said the difference was largely caused by human error during the hand-counting process. Critics of Georgia’s voting technology say it to potential malware or hacks that could change results. Marilyn Marks, who leads an election security organization that advocates for hand-marked paper ballots, said the review doesn’t solve the problems of encoding votes by machines. “Image audits cannot be relied on, although they are helpful in locating discrepancies but should not be considered the ground truth,” said Marks, executive director for the Coalition for Good Governance. Tight margins in Georgia’s closest races remained the same in the audit, including a race for the state House separated by just , where Democratic Rep. Mack Jackson defeated Republican Tracy Wheeler for a Sandersville seat. The audit was completed before Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp Friday. But the details of its findings weren’t released until a report was completed Monday. Soon, winning candidates will take office across Georgia and the country. For the presidential race, Congress meets on Jan. 6 to count electoral votes, and then Trump will be inaugurated Jan. 20. ©