GUILTY AS CHARGED: Twenty-eight-year-old Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty yesterday to federal charges of interstate stalking resulting in the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who Mangione admitted shooting with a gun he made on a 3-D printer.

  “I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan,” Mangione told the judge in his allocution, a formal admission of guilt. “I understood that my actions would place him in fear of death or bodily injury,” he said. “I knew what I was doing was illegal.”

  Mangione is eligible for a life sentence and Judge Margaret Garnett told him he could expect to serve 85 percent of whatever sentence she gives him in December.

  Mangione shot Thompson, a husband and a father of two from Minnesota, at dawn outside the Hilton hotel on West 54th Street in Manhattan on December 4th, 2024, as he was arriving for an investor’s day conference. The shooting was caught on a security camera, although Mangione was not immediately recognizable.

  Mangione was arrested five days later eating at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. 

  A man with an exclusive prep school Ivy league education, Mangione told the court that after years of suffering pain from a back injury, he decided to kill Thompson. Immediately after he was arrested he became an internet phenomenon, supported by Americans who hate their health care and insurance companies.

  Mangione still faces murder charges in a trial next month in New York state court unless his lawyers are able to successfully argue that he would be subjected to double jeopardy.

INFINITE SCROLL:

— President Trump asked the Supreme Court to approve his building a White House ballroom and military fortress that continues under construction. The 90,000 square foot ballroom would cost at least $400 million that Trump says will be paid by donors, although that is not entirely true.

  The question is whether Trump has the authority to order such a drastic alteration to the people’s house, where the East Wing was abruptly destroyed at his command.

  The structure already reaches five stories deep and parts are 70 feet high.

  In a classic argument made by people who do things without permission,  Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that the project was already 65 percent complete and that it’s too late to stop. 

— President Trump yesterday dismissed concerns about  conditions and morale aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, which has been deployed without relief or shore leave for nearly nine months in support of the war against Iran.

  Asked by a reporter about deteriorating conditions for the crew on board, Trump denied that families are concerned. “No, they’re not,” he said. Asked whether he thought the deployment was too long, Trump said, “No. No. No. Not nearly long enough.”

 Keep in mind, this is a man who feels confined in the White House and flies to Florida to play golf every weekend.

— The case against six Nevada Republicans accused of submitting a bogus certificate naming themselves as electors and falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election was dismissed this week.

  The defendants had argued that their action was merely “political theater” and not meant to be taken seriously. The judge agreed and dismissed.

IT’S POLITICAL: Mary Peltola, the Democrat running for Senator from Alaska, declined help from former Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost her 2024 bid for the presidency. Harris lost Alaska by 14 percentage points.

  Harris had sent out a fund-raising appeal asking supporters to give money that would be split between Peltola and Harris’s own political action committee.

  After Republicans tried to tie Harris to Peltola, the Alaskan issued a statement saying,  “Mary isn’t seeking endorsements from anyone from the Lower 48 — her focus is and always will be Alaska,”

THE OBIT PAGE: Jason Arday, the British scholar accused of plagiarism and fabrications in a scandal that has occupied the country’s tabloids, was found dead at home. He was 41.

  Arday had a quick rise to academic stardom at Cambridge University and a stunning fall amid accusations that he had plagiarized parts of his academic papers, embellished elements of his recently published memoir, and made up elements of his life story. He resigned from Cambridge last week.

  “Jason was subjected to a campaign of sustained abuse” in the years since he accepted a role at Cambridge, his family wrote in a statement. “The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone.”

  Arday was the son of Ghanaian  immigrants and grew up in a working-class quarter of South London. He wrote in his memoir that he could not speak until age 11 and couldn’t read until 18, but remarkably went on to earn  a PhD.

THE SPIN RACK: A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early today, collapsing buildings and killing at least 38 people. — Heavy construction equipment has moved into Big Bend National Park in West Texas and begun clearing land for an extension of Donald Trump’s border wall. The construction is opposed by environmentalists, outdoor enthusiasts, and local business. Even local law enforcement say the wall is not necessary because the terrain is too harsh for migrants to cross into the US. — About 16,000 more people than usual died during the June heat wave, according to an analysis by the European Mortality Monitoring Network. 

BELOW THE FOLD: President Trump declared at a rally on Long Island yesterday that after the Iran War is over he would declare the contested Strait of Hormuz a US territory. “After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated — pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said. 

  The very badly defeated Iran has not surrendered.