Villain or hero? Everyone has thoughts on alleged healthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione – and it’s not all negative
Consider one view outside the George Washington University Hospital in Washington DC.
“I think we need to paint a mural to Luigi, what do you think?” said one passer-by, with a smile.
“I don’t endorse murder but I think it’s a good thing if CEOs are a little bit nervous.”
Everyone has a thought for the alleged assassin, Luigi Mangione, and it’s not all negative.
Villain or hero? It’s a question dividing America, and not necessarily down the middle.
A quick trawl through the internet reveals Luigi merchandise, Luigi tattoos, “Free Luigi” posters and a fundraiser for Luigi’s legal defence – which has raised $157,225 (£125,492).
Part of the murder response is all about Luigi – the part that bypasses due sympathy for the family and friends of Brian Thompson, the 50-year-old father-of-two gunned down in the street.
He was charged with first-degree murder – later modified to murder as an act of terrorism – after a manhunt that lasted five days.
If the motive was anger with the US health insurance industry, then it’s a sentiment shared.
A quick trawl through the internet reveals merchandise and tattoos supporting Luigi
Americans have long been ground down by the cost of private insurance to gain access to healthcare and the struggle that many face to secure payments.
Claims denied by insurance companies are typically made by people in their darkest hour of urgent medical need. Stories of emotional and financial trauma are legion.
Not that any of that justifies the murder of a healthcare executive on a New York street. Or does it?
I put that question to Sam Beard, organiser of the December 4th legal committee which is raising funds for Luigi Mangione’s legal defence.
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Luigi Mangione extradited to New York
He said this: “As a moral matter, it’s a difficult thing to tease out because the same logic has to apply both ways.
“A CEO had his life, tragically and surprisingly to all of his loved ones, cut short, but he was considered an effective CEO exactly because he profited from denying peoples’ claims which cut their lives short.”
“From a simple moral rule, we can’t just apply it without acknowledging that we’re in an immoral system that degrades the value of some human lives while uplifting the value of others. So when we treat this only as a moral act we are plugging our ears to its larger political meaning.
“I’m not in favour of anybody having their life tragically cut short but what I do see as undeniable is that this privatised healthcare system that does cut the lives short of hundreds of thousands of Americans every few years, may be finally getting its reckoning.”
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What we know about Luigi Mangione
The adulation attracted by Mangione troubles the authorities in New York, who fear copycat attacks.
Business executives and employees in health insurance have reported being threatened and harassed. “Wanted” posters have also been put up around New York, featuring the CEOs of at least two health insurance companies.
When the indictment against Mangione was unveiled earlier this week, New York City’s Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch emphatically denounced the adulation he has enjoyed.
“This was a senseless act of violence,” she said. “We don’t celebrate murders and we don’t lionise the killing of anyone.”
There’s no doubting the anger felt at the reaction in his favour – but there’s no denying it either.
Former US president Joe Biden has had surgery for skin cancer, his spokesperson has said.
It’s unclear when he had the procedure, but video from late August showed him leaving church in Delaware with a large, fresh scar on his head.
The spokesperson told Sky’s US partner, NBC News, that he was recovering well.
Mr Biden had Mohs surgery, which involves removing a layer of tissue, examining it under a microscope to see if any cancer cells remain, and repeating if necessary.
The 82-year had a basal cell carcinoma, one of the two most common skin cancer types, removed from his chest in 2023.
His doctor said at the time that all the cancerous cells had been removed.
The same year, Mr Biden’s wife, Jill, had two basal cell carcinomas removed from near her eye and on her chest.
The former president also revealed this May that he had stage-four prostate cancer – with the disease having spread to his bones and having a Gleason score of nine.
Such a score means the disease is “likely to grow quickly”, according to Cancer Research UK.
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His office said the prostate cancer was discovered when Mr Biden visited a doctor for urinary symptoms and that he was considering “multiple treatment options”.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” said a statement.
Officers detained 475 people during an immigration raid on a Hyundai factory for electric vehicles in Georgia.
The majority of those detained at the 3,000-acre site west of Savannah are from South Korea, according to Steven Schrank, special agent in charge at Homeland Security Investigations.
Mr Schrank said the raid was the “largest single-site enforcement operation” in the history of the agency and followed an investigation of several months, which involved leads from community members and former workers.
The spokesman for the South Korean foreign ministry, Lee Jaewoong, said there was a “large” number of South Koreans among those detained in the raid, but did not provide an exact number.
A ‘large’ number of those detained were from South Korea
He said the detained workers were part of a “network of subcontractors” and that the employees worked for several different companies on the Georgia site.
Mr Lee said South Korea’s foreign ministry is dispatching diplomats from its embassy in Washington and consulate in Atlanta to the site, and plans to form an on-site response team centred on the local mission.
“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of US law enforcement,” Mr Lee added.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that agents executed a search warrant “as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes”.
The manufacturing site, which employs about 1,200 people, has been hailed as the largest economic development project in the state’s history by Governor Brian Kemp and other officials.
The Hyundai Motor Group plant in Georgia. File pic: AP Photo/Mike Stewart
Hyundai Motor Group, the biggest automaker in South Korea, started manufacturing electric vehicles at the $7.6bn (£7.4bn) site a year ago and partnered with LG Energy Solution to build an adjacent battery plant, which is set to open in 2026.
ICE spokesman Lindsay Williams confirmed the raid and said agents were focused on the construction site for the battery plant.
LG said in a statement that it was “closely monitoring the situation and gathered all relevant details”. The firm said it couldn’t immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.
“Our top priority is always ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and partners. We will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities,” LG said.
Hyundai and LG’s battery joint venture, HL-GA Battery Company, said in a statement that it’s “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities” and paused construction of the battery site to assist the investigation.
Operations at Hyundai’s electric vehicle manufacturing plant weren’t interrupted, plant spokesperson Biance Johnson said.
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The raid is the latest in a series of sweeping ICE operations as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which saw immigration officers raid farms, construction sites, restaurants and auto repair shops.
The US labour force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July, which includes legal and illegal immigrants, according to the Pew Research Centre, citing preliminary census data.
Mark Zuckerberg – not that one – is suing Meta, the owner of Facebook.
After years of putting up with people mistaking him for the founder of Facebook, the Indiana bankruptcy lawyer has had enough.
Between 2022 and 2025, Mr Zuckerberg paid over $11,000 (£8,160) to Meta to advertise his law business, in an attempt to draw new clients to his law practice.
His adverts, however, were repeatedly removed for “impersonating a celebrity” or using an inauthentic name, according to the legal filing.
It was the final straw for a man who had been dealing with sharing the name of one of the world’s most powerful men for well over a decade.
He has documented the struggles of being Mark S Zuckerberg (rather than Meta’s Mark E Zuckerberg) on his website, in a list entitled: “Things that have happened to me because my name is Mark S Zuckerberg (I give it Zero likes)”.
Mark S Zuckerberg is suing Meta, the owner of Facebook. Pic: Mark S Zuckerberg
Meta chief and Facebook founder Mark E Zuckerberg. File pic: AP
According to the list, he was mistakenly sued by the State of Washington who thought he was the Meta owner.
He said his Facebook account is “constantly hacked”, businesses refuse to take his bookings as they think it is a prank and on the family tree website 23andMe, he has more than 753 people claiming to be relatives who “immediately request money”.
While speaking at a Las Vegas event, he said “a limo-driver was waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator with a sign saying ‘Mark Zuckerberg’, causing chaos as a large disappointed crowd had been waiting”.
During an email exchange he shared between himself and Meta employees after his account was deactivated again, he said: “If you happen to run into the younger, richer Mark Zuckerberg, tell him I say hi and he causes me great aggravation each day.”
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The Indiana lawyer has spent years in communication with Facebook and verified his identity using government-issued ID and other documents, according to the emails, but his accounts were still repeatedly deactivated.
Meta employees would then have to reinstate his accounts, according to the emails, and mark the pages as “verified” to stop it from happening again.
In one email asking for help, he said to Meta: “I don’t want to make waves or cause problems, I just want my account to be reactivated and [be] left to play on the social media in peace.”
Now, however, he says he has lost thousands of dollars in advertising fees and is suing the company.
“It’s not funny,” he said to Indianapolis news channel WTHR. “Not when they take my money. This really pissed me off.”
“It’s like buying a billboard on the side of the highway, paying the people for the billboard and then they come and put a giant blanket over it and you don’t get the benefit of what you paid for,” he said.
He is accusing Meta of attempting to prevent him from having “full use, benefit and enjoyment” of his own legal name, which he was given before the celebrity Mark Zuckerberg was even born.
A Meta spokesperson told Sky News it has reinstated Mark Zuckerberg’s account, “after finding it had been disabled in error”.
“We appreciate Mr. Zuckerberg’s continued patience on this issue and are working to try and prevent this from happening in the future.”
The case has been lodged in Indiana’s Marion Superior Court.
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