MANHUNT ENDS: After nearly a week of mystery, police in Altoona, Pennsylvania detained 26-year-old Luigi Mangione in a McDonald’s restaurant as the suspect in the Manhattan sidewalk assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, and has lived in San Francisco and Honolulu, the police said.

  Police in New York said Mangione was sitting down eating when the Altoona cops arrived after being tipped to his presence.

 Mangione is reported to have been in possession of a gun with a silencer similar to the one used in the Thompson murder as well as false identification, a passport, and a two-page hand-written memo of complaints against the healthcare industry. One of the IDs, a New Jersey driver’s license, was used by a man who checked into the American Youth Hostel in Manhattan.

  Police said the weapon appeared to be a “ghost gun” partially made with a 3-D printer. They also found Mangione in possession of $8,000 in cash and $2,000 in foreign currency.

  New York police say a McDonald’s employee recognized Mangione from pictures released to news outlets and called 911. That employee might be eligible for $60,000 in rewards for information leading to the arrest.

  Mangione comes from a life of privilege and education. He was the valedictorian in the class 2016 at the all-boys Gilman school in Baltimore and he graduated from The University of Pennsylvania where he also earned a master’s degree.

  He had suffered a painful back injury and friends told reporters that in recent months he had gone off the radar. 

  The suspect’s hand written note condemns companies that “continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.”

  Brian Thompson was buried yesterday.

NOT GUILTY: A New York jury yesterday found  Daniel Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the chokehold death of 30-year-old homeless man Jordan Neely on a New York subway. The jury had previously deadlocked on manslaughter charges and the judges dismissed them.

  The case was a flashpoint in the conflicts of urban life, regular people vs. the homeless and mentally ill. Witnesses said Neely became threatening on the subway and Penny took him down, putting him in a chokehold that ultimately killed him. It was the testimony of fellow subway riders that made the difference for Penny.

  While Neely’s family outside the court cried injustice, anti-crime advocates praised the verdict. Vice President-elect JD Vance posted on social media, “Thank God justice was done in this case. It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”

KASHING IN: NBC News pored over 45 hours of a video podcast co-hosted by Donald Trump’s conspiracy-minded pick to run the FBI, Kash Patel, revealing a man who believes the agency he’s been picked to run is deep into nefarious deeds.

  Patel has said in the podcasts that “We’ve proven the illegitimacy of the FBI and its actions,” regarding Russian election influencing, the Hunter Biden laptop investigation, and how the FBI has become “completely politicized.”

  From 2021 to 2023, Kash Patel appeared in 79 episodes of the podcast “Kash’s Corner,” made under the aegis of  The Epoch Times, a right wing news organization known espousing conspiracy theories that is associated with the Chinese dissident religious group, Falun Gong.

  Patel said the FBI needed “a huge overhaul,” and accused its leadership with “going after political targets” and putting “the law second.”

  He has espoused the conspiracy theory that the FBI was somehow in on sparking the January 6^thinsurrection. 

  Among people he thinks should be investigated, Patel suggested that the first should be Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who directed much of the response to the Covid pandemic. “Fauci, I guess, is the one-word name that you can say is deserving of an entire investigation,” Patel said.

  President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday on NBC that, “I thought Kash may be difficult because he’s, you know, a strong conservative voice, and I don’t know of anybody that’s not singing his praises.” 

SUCCESSION: A Nevada probate commissioner rejected Rupert Murdoch’s bid to break his family trust to be able to install his right-wing son Lachlan as his successor over his media empire.

  Murdoch is worried that his three other children would have the voting power to moderate the conservative content of his news outlets. James Murdoch, in particular, is known to have a more liberal bent, but he and his siblings have not publicly objected to Lachlan succeeding their father.

  The case will go to a higher court.

THE SPIN RACK: A fast-moving brushfire is threatening Pepperdine University on the Pacific Coast prompting an evacuation advisory for the surrounding Malibu area. The fire is being pushed by warm Santa Ana winds up to 70 mph. — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday took the stand in the trial in which he is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The investigation began eight years ago and the trial started four years ago. “I have waited eight years for this moment — to tell the truth, the truth as I remember it,” Netanyahu told the court. “I am shocked by the magnitude of this absurdity,” he said. Sounds familiar. — The fall of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has renewed hope for the release of US journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in that country in 2012. — New York Yankee fans are reeling after slugger Juan Soto accepted a 15-year $765 million contract to jump over to the New York Mets. It’s the most lucrative contract in the history of sports.

BELOW THE FOLD: NPR reports that the demand for holiday greenery has spawned a black market in evergreen boughs. One man in Minnesota was charged with cutting the tops off 5,000 spruce trees on both public and private land. It’s the holiday spirit. 

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