The official defense fund for Luigi Mangione, the suspect accused of assassinating a UnitedHealthcare executive in December, soared past $1 million on Tuesday, which also happened to be his 27th birthday.

The fundraiser, which is still live on the platform GiveSendCo, has raked in more than $1.04 million, all of which will go toward covering expenses associated with the three pending criminal cases against Mangione in New York and Pennsylvania.

Organizers said the financial milestone marked “a step forward in pursuing justice for Mr. Mangione,” who is currently behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., for allegedly fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Thompson had been visiting the city from Minnesota for an investor conference sponsored by the Eden Prairie-based insurance giant at The Residences by Hilton Club, where he was supposed to give a speech. Police said he was walking toward the venue the morning of Dec. 4 when he was ambushed by a masked gunman near West 54th Street and Sixth Avenue. He was pronounced dead a half hour later. Thompson, 50, lived in Maple Grove.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges.

Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., after days of dodging law enforcement. Police said he had a silencer and 3D-printed gun on him at the time matching three shell casings found at the murder scene.

The ammo had been marked with the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” — a reference to the insurance industry’s tactics for delaying claims and maximizing profits.

In the months he has spent in custody, Mangione has been inundated with letters from supporters all around the world.

The massive pot of donations for his defense fund is made up of contributions from some 28,000 people, with a median offering of $20. Organizers said it “shows how the fund has become one of the few uncensored public forums for people in America to share their grievances with our lethal for-profit health care system and the indefensible economic and political order that has imposed it upon us.”

Trump: Only 21 Israeli hostages still alive

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that three hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, leaving only 21 believed to be still living.

“As of today, it’s 21, three have died,” Trump said of the hostages being held by Hamas, noting until recently it had been 24 people believed to be living. He did not elaborate on the identities of those now believed to be dead, nor how he had come to learn of their deaths. “There’s 21, plus a lot of dead bodies,” Trump said.

One American, Edan Alexander, had been among the 24 hostages believed to be alive.

Separately, the State Department said Tuesday that the U.S. embassy helped 17 U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents leave Gaza on Monday.

“We thank our partners in the Israeli and Jordanian governments who made this departure possible,” the department said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Monday in Washington.

Former Ohio speaker’s conviction upheld

A federal appeals court upheld the racketeering convictions of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and an ex-lobbyist on Tuesday in a $60 million bribery scandal described as the largest corruption scheme in state history.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati represented a win for the Department of Justice, which had secured the convictions in March 2023 after a yearslong investigation. Householder, a Republican, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and lobbyist and former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Borges was sentenced to five years in prison.

Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly A. Norris said the appeals panel’s unanimous decision “affirmed the strength of the government’s evidence, the correctness of the jury instructions, and the fairness of the proceeding.”

Householder was convicted of masterminding a $60 million bribery scheme funded by Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. to elect allies, secure power, pass a $1 billion bailout of two of its affiliated nuclear plants and then defend the bill, known as House Bill 6, from a repeal effort.

Prosecutors had described Borges’ primary role in the scheme as working to thwart a ballot campaign aimed at repealing the tainted legislation. Specifically, he was accused of paying $15,000 to someone who was helping spearhead the effort in order to get inside information. The referendum ultimately failed to make the ballot.

Smokey Robinson accused of sex assault

Four former housekeepers of Smokey Robinson allege in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that the Motown music luminary repeatedly sexually assaulted and raped them while they worked for him.

The suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court seeks at least $50 million in damages over the alleged as

saults, which the women say took place between 2007 and 2024, and labor violations including a hostile work environment, illegally long hours and lack of pay.

A message seeking comment from a representative for the 85-year-old Robinson was not answered.

The four women each say that Robinson would wait until he was alone with them in his Los Angeles house then sexually assault and rape them over their objections. All said they eventually quit over the assaults, though in some cases it took several years. And all said they feared coming forward over fears of retaliation, public shame and possible effects on their immigration status

All four women withheld their legal names citing privacy concerns and are identified as Jane Does in court documents.

The lawsuit also names Robinson’s wife Frances Robinson as a defendant, alleging that she enabled his behavior despite knowing about past sexual misconduct. It also blames her for the hostile work environment, saying she berated them with language that included ethnic slurs.

Five Maduro opponents released from Embassy

Five Venezuelan opposition leaders who had been trapped inside the Argentinian Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, have been rescued and are now safely in the United States, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday night.

“The U.S. welcomes the successful rescue of all hostages held by the Maduro regime at the Argentinian Embassy in Caracas,” Rubio said in a statement on X. “We extend our gratitude to all personnel involved in this operation and to our partners who assisted in securing the safe liberation of these Venezuelan heroes.”

The rescued individuals — Magallí Meda, Claudia Macero, Omar González, Pedro Urruchurtu, and Humberto Villalobos — are prominent collaborators of opposition leader María Corina Machado. They had sought asylum in the Argentinian Embassy residence in August 2024 amid escalating political persecution.

Columbia, hospital settle abuse case

Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian have agreed to pay $750 million to hundreds of women who were sexually abused by a former doctor who preyed upon patients at prestigious New York hospitals for two decades.

The agreement brings to roughly $1 billion the amount paid for the wrongdoing of the doctor, Robert A. Hadden, coming after earlier settlements in which his former employers agreed to pay victims more than $200 million.

Hadden was convicted of sex crimes in 2023.

NewYork-Presbyterian referred messages seeking comment to Columbia, which said in a statement that the settlement announced this week was “another step forward in our ongoing work and commitment to repair harm and support survivors” of Hadden’s abuse.

— From news services