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Israeli strikes without warning in central Beirut kill at least 15 as diplomats push for cease-fire
Stock up on these popular board games for your next get-togetherNEW YORK (AP) — The man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was not a client of the medical insurer and may have targeted it because of its size and influence, a senior police official said Thursday. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told NBC New York in an interview Thursday that investigators have uncovered evidence that Luigi Mangione had prior knowledge UnitedHealthcare was holding its annual investor conference in New York City. Mangione also mentioned the company in a note found in his possession when he was detained by police in Pennsylvania. “We have no indication that he was ever a client of United Healthcare, but he does make mention that it is the fifth largest corporation in America, which would make it the largest healthcare organization in America. So that’s possibly why he targeted that company,” said Kenny. UnitedHealthcare is in the top 20 largest U.S. companies by market capitalization but is not the fifth largest. It is the largest U.S. health insurer. Mangione remains jailed without bail in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested Monday after being spotted at a McDonald's in the city of Altoona, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of New York City. His lawyer there, Thomas Dickey, has said Mangione intends to plead not guilty. Dickey also said he has yet to see evidence decisively linking his client to the crime. Mangione's arrest came five days after the caught-on-camera killing of Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel. Police say the shooter waited outside the hotel, where the health insurer was holding its investor conference, early on the morning of Dec. 4. He approached Thompson from behind and shot him before fleeing on a bicycle through Central Park. Mangione is fighting attempts to extradite him back to New York so that he can face a murder charge in Thompson's killing. A hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 30. The 26-year-old, who police say was found with a “ ghost gun ” matching shell casings found at the site of the shooting, is charged in Pennsylvania with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Mangione is an Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family. In posts on social media, Mangione wrote about experiencing severe chronic back pain before undergoing a spinal fusion surgery in 2023. Afterward, he posted that the operation had been a success and that his pain had improved and mobility returned. He urged others to consider the same type of surgery. On Wednesday, police said investigators are looking at his writings about his health problems and his criticism of corporate America and the U.S. health care system . Kenny said in the NBC interview that Mangione's family reported him missing to San Francisco authorities in November.
Fourteen months after Hamas’s October 7 pogrom in southern Israel, many Quebecers share with many other Canadians a weariness — if not stronger emotions — over anti-Israel protesters blocking streets, bellowing through megaphones, and harassing Jewish businesses and neighbourhoods. Some of us, for various reasons, are particularly put-off by the sight of the protesters kneeling in prayer in the streets en masse . The Quebec government and its counterparts in the Rest of Canada do not, thank goodness, share a proposed solution: Premier François Legault says he wants to ban all forms of public worship . Because people won’t get off the bloody road. “I think we have to make the difference between public places and praying in a church or a mosque,” Legault said. “You should pray in a place that’s for praying, but in public parks or public streets ... we’ll look at what we can do, but that’s not what we want.” This, he said, would “send a clear message to Islamists,” namely, that “we will fight for the fundamental values we have in Quebec, like the equality of men and women. We will never accept that people don’t respect these values.” The triggering event here wasn’t actually the anti-Israel protests, but rather further revelations — this time in La Presse — that certain Montreal schools have essentially been taken over by Arab Muslims. Sources told the newspaper that students pray during class time, including with teachers; that teachers speak Arabic to each other; that kids aren’t punished for being late after attending Friday prayers. A presentation about sexually transmitted infections and sexual consent allegedly went off the rails with students “throwing firecrackers, shouting (and) setting off alarms.” Homophobia is allegedly rampant and freely expressed. No other provincial premier would ever propose banning public prayer. It would be flamboyantly unconstitutional without use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause, which Legault has said he’s willing to use yet again in this regard. But in a way it’s a very Canadian solution. When certain laws aren’t enforced, our politicians have this quite irritating habit of making new, more specific laws that aren’t intrinsically any more likely to be enforced than the ones on the books. Right now, the rules of engagement in most Canadian cities call for de-escalation above all else. We’re well past that point, I think The classic example might have been during the 2019 CN rail blockade near Kingston, Ont. Blocking a rail line is already illegal. A judge issued an injunction demanding the blockade be cleared. Police ignored it . The federal Conservatives proposed a new law that would ban blocking critical infrastructure, even without a court injunction. There was no reason at all to think the police would have enforced the new law, either. That law, at least, would have targeted the actual villains. Legault’s secularism-related proposals rarely do. Quebec banned all forms of prayer in public schools last year — even individually, in a dedicated space, out of sight of others. Clearly it’s not being universally respected — and nor are existing laws against blocking streets and impeding access to public buildings being enforced. So now ... people can’t pray in parks? Ridiculous. None of this has anything whatsoever to do with one or two people (of any faith) praying unobtrusively in a public place, or a chaplain’s prayer at a Remembrance Day commemoration, or a menorah-lighting ceremony. And mass prayer that blocks streets for the Palestinian cause (or any other) has nothing to do with five students praying out of sight in a classroom at lunchtime. Generally speaking, with some notable exceptions , the Rest of Canada isn’t so jittery about private prayer in public schools. But a lot of us are well sick of those same anti-Israel protests, appalled that Canadian Jews feel threatened in their own country, all because of a conflict that no one in this country has any power to affect in any meaningful way. If we want to get serious about it, let’s actually get serious about it — not with new laws but with the ones we have. We have laws against blocking streets. We have laws against excessive noise. We have laws against impeding our fellow citizens’ lawful daily business. Right now, the rules of engagement in most Canadian cities call for de-escalation above all else, and that’s defensible up to a point. We’re well past that point, I think, and the police do, after all, work for us. No one’s fundamental freedoms need be sacrificed when we finally say enough is enough — not freedom of speech, not freedom of assembly, and certainly not freedom of religion. National Post cselley@postmedia.com Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here .
(Bloomberg) — Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was wrapping up a meeting of a special cabinet group on US relations on Monday evening in Ottawa when a fresh crisis emerged: Donald Trump made a tariff threat on social media. Soon after, Justin Trudeau was on the phone with Trump. The Canadian dollar was sinking — it hit a four-year low — in response to Trump’s post that he would impose 25% tariffs on all goods coming from Canada and Mexico unless those countries curb the flow of fentanyl and migrants into the US. The prime minister was trying to assure the president-elect he’d heard the message. “We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together. It was a good call,” Trudeau told reporters on Tuesday on his way into a cabinet meeting where Trump was again high on the agenda. “This is something that we can do — laying out the facts, moving forward in constructive ways.” The imminent return of Trump has upended Canadian politics and business, with most of the focus now turning to his plans to stifle trade in the region soon after he’s inaugurated in January. Trudeau re-established the special cabinet committee and stocked it with his most important ministers, led by Freeland and Dominic LeBlanc, a trusted ally who’s in charge of border security. Canada and Mexico are the two economies most at risk from a broader trade war, but problems at America’s northern border are of a different scale than those at the southern border. Encounters at the US-Canadian border totaled 198,929 during the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, compared with more than 2.1 million at the US-Mexico border, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection. Mexico’s early reaction to Trump’s pronouncement struck a notable contrast with Canada’s, with President Claudia Sheinbaum suggesting her country could respond with tariffs of its own. The largest numbers of encounters at the northern border in October were reported by the Buffalo, Seattle, Boston and Detroit offices, as well as stations in the so-called Swanton Sector, which covers the US-Canada border in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire according to CBP data. Marc Miller, Canada’s immigration minister, said the government has been considering a number of measures, “and this absolutely includes additional resources” for police who patrol border areas. “We have shared interests in here in making it something that is manageable and controlled — and those that are not authorized to cross the border are promptly returned,” Miller said. In the meantime, Trudeau has called a meeting of the country’s provincial leaders for Wednesday to discuss how to handle the incoming Trump administration. The country’s two largest provinces are most exposed: Ontario, the auto-manufacturing hub, and Quebec, a powerhouse of the aluminum and aviation industries, represent more than half of gross domestic product. Trump’s tariff comments have stirred some outrage — “This is no way to treat your closest ally,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday — but also a sense that it’s a negotiating position from a famously transactional president-elect. William Pellerin, an international trade lawyer and partner at McMillan LLP in Ottawa, said he was stunned by Trump’s announcement on Monday night. But while he interprets the threat as real, it’s also one that can be resolved through improved border security. “I think that’s what Trump has always done quite well, is impose the tariff and have everyone come hat in hand begging for their exclusion from the tariff,” Pellerin said. “Absolutely, there should be a way here to give Trump a win, save face, and not have that 25% tariff apply.” —With assistance from Randy Thanthong-Knight.North Dakota regulators OK underground storage for proposed Midwest carbon dioxide pipeline