NPR News: 08-14-2026 8PM EDT
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Who is Luigi Mangioni and what crimes did he plead guilty to?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. Luigi Mangioni, the man accused of killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk in twenty twenty four, pleaded guilty today to federal stalking charges. He also admitted to shooting and killing Thompson, as NPR's Brian Mann reports.
Mangioni, who's twenty-eight years old, appeared today in what looked like a tan prison uniform, and his face showed no emotion, and with Brian Thompson's family sitting right there in court, he voiced no remorse. I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died, Mangioni said. I knew what I was doing. Under questioning by federal judge Margaret Garnett, Mangioni described crafting a gun using a 3D printer which he equipped with a silencer. Mangioni did talk briefly about his motives.
How did Mangioni describe building a 3D‑printed gun and his motives?
He said he experienced pain from a back injury and he grew frustrated with America's health care and insurance system.
NPR's Brian Mann reporting the Department of Transportation and Federal Railroad Administration are investing five point three billion dollars in rail projects across the country. From member station WVXU Tana Weingartner reports, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made the announcement in Cincinnati's historic union terminal.
With his voice echoing through the train station's rotunda, Duffy said the dollars will fund closing thirty grade crossings and upgrading more than a thousand more.
Nationally, there are more than two thousand accidents a year and two hundred deaths a year at these uh at grade rail crossings.
The funding will also pay for forty three new made in the US Amtrak trains and to overhaul forty one locomotives serving Amtrak's Midwest and Pacific routes. The money comes from previous administration grants to build high speed rail in California, which the Trump administration canceled last year. For NPR News, I'm Tannel Weingartner in Cincinnati.
Five years ago, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, vanquishing Western backed Afghan forces as US forces withdrew nearly two decades after it first invaded.
What federal rail investment was announced and how will it improve safety?
The Taliban's unexpectedly swift seizure of Afghanistan hastened the US withdrawal, leading to thousands of Afghans trying to flee. Afghanistan is now far more peaceful, but desperately poor. Some half of the population of forty million people need aid, millions are hungry, but the US and much of the West have dramatically reduced aid. And hundreds of health clinics have shuttered this year, meaning women and babies are now more likely to die. The Taliban have imposed increasingly hardline rules. Most girls cannot attend school after grade six, cannot work in most professions, and have little right to leave a violent spouse. Adding to the crisis, Iran and Pakistan have expelled some six million Afghans, overwhelming services in an already devastated country.
Americans unexpectedly cut their spending in July by the biggest drop since May twenty twenty five. That raises doubts about consumers who kept spending and powering the economy despite rising daily expenses.
What is the current humanitarian situation in Afghanistan under Taliban rule?
It's NPR. A suspect has been arrested and will be charged in connection with putting bubbles in the fountain of the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. Melissa L. Ferris will be charged with depredation against property of the United States and destruction of veterans' memorials. The offenses carry penalties of up to ten years in prison. At Big Bend National Park in Texas, federal contractors are bulldozing through a wildlife habitat as part of the Trump administration. administration's plan for border security infrastructure, the work has prompted backlash, as Carlos Morales reports.
In this pocket of the Texas Mexico border, the latest plans from the federal government call for vehicle barriers, surveillance technology, and two hundred miles of new patrol roads across the rugged and awe-inspiring terrain of Big Ben National Park. The Big Ben region as a whole sees the fewest illegal crossings in the state, and a local advocacy group says within the national park, that number is even lower.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Who is Luigi Mangioni and what crimes did he plead guilty to?
0:00–0:47
2
How did Mangioni describe building a 3D‑printed gun and his motives?
0:47–2:02
3
What federal rail investment was announced and how will it improve safety?
2:02–2:59
4
What is the current humanitarian situation in Afghanistan under Taliban rule?
2:59–3:53
5
Why did U.S. consumer spending fall sharply in July and what does it signal?
3:53–4:38
6
What are the environmental concerns over the new border security projects in Big Bend National Park?
4:38–5:03