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ALTOONA, Pennsylvania – New York prosecutors filed a murder charge against the suspect in the killing of a UnitedHealth executive, a brazen shooting that set off a five-day search that culminated in his capture in Pennsylvania earlier on Monday. The suspect, identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, was captured in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after he was spotted eating at a McDonald’s by a customer and an employee who believed he resembled the gunman, officials said at a news conference. When approached by two police officers inside the McDonald’s and asked if he had recently been in New York, Mangione began to shake and went quiet, one of the responding officers said at a press conference. He had been wearing a mask and sitting alone with a laptop and backpack. Source link

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is urging a working group within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to speed up discussions on introducing a selective dual surname system for married couples. “I will urge them to increase the frequency and maturity of discussions,” Ishiba told a parliamentary meeting Monday after Natsumi Sakai of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan called for the early introduction of such a system. On Monday, the parliament began deliberations on a ¥13.94 trillion supplementary budget bill for fiscal 2024 to finance the Ishiba administration’s first comprehensive economic policy package. The government and the ruling parties aim to get the budget bill enacted as early as Dec. 17. The supplementary budget “needs to be larger than last year’s to make steady progress toward overcoming deflation,” Ishiba said. The prime minister emphasized that the extra budget will help secure the necessary funds for aid to areas affected by the Noto Peninsula earthquake in January. Meanwhile, Ken Tanaka of the Democratic Party for the People demanded that the minimum annual taxable income be raised from the current ¥1.03 million in January 2025. In response, Ishiba only said that he wants tax panel chiefs from each party to deepen discussions on the issue. Source link

Los Angeles – The Los Angeles Dodgers expect two-way star Shohei Ohtani to be ready to hit when the 2025 season opens with two games in Tokyo, but manager Dave Roberts said Monday it’s unlikely that he will pitch in those games. “Very unlikely,” Roberts said at Major League Baseball’s winter meetings in Dallas in comments posted on MLB.com. “I just don’t see us starting the clock in March to then think that we would keep that continuously going through October. “Then that would call for a break or reprieve in the middle of the season, so I don’t know. I still think unlikely.” Source link

Los Angeles – Rupert Murdoch’s audacious bid to cement his eldest son’s control over one of the world’s most influential media empires has failed, a U.S. report said Monday. The first family of news — commanding a stable that includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and a host of British and Australian media — had been the inspiration for the hit TV series “Succession.” Like the fictional version, this real-life fight pitted the children of a powerful patriarch against one another for who should be the face and the voice of the empire after the old man dies. Source link

China has opened a probe into Nvidia over suspicions that the U.S. chipmaker broke anti-monopoly laws around a 2020 deal, taking aim at the artificial intelligence heavyweight as Washington ramps up sanctions. The State Administration for Market Regulation opened an investigation into the company’s recent behavior as well as the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, the government said in a statement on Monday. Beijing gave approval for the deal four years ago, on condition that Nvidia not discriminate against Chinese companies. The move against Nvidia is Beijing’s latest riposte to escalating U.S. technology curbs, coming just a week after the Chinese government banned exports of several materials with tech and military applications. Nvidia’s market value has ballooned this year on demand for chips that can run AI programs, making it one of the most valuable publicly traded companies and China’s largest corporate target in the tech trade war so far. Source link

Yurie Collins, 34, is a rising comedy star with a dedicated fan base — people approached her three times during her Japan Times interview to say hello or ask for a selfie. Disarmingly candid and unapologetically girly, the bilingual Japanese American comedian regularly sells out shows at Tokyo Comedy Bar and won the bar’s roast competition in September. 1. Can you sum up your year in three words? Healing, trust, love. 2. How was 2024 healing? Physically, I finished my healing process for my nose job that I got last year. Spiritually, I encountered some difficulties when I started doing more Japanese stand-up. I realized I maybe had some trauma from childhood, because I felt very stunted on stage in Japanese. I didn’t feel free like I do in English. So I did some work to figure out why. Source link

Oslo – Russian President Vladimir Putin does not truly understand the destructive power of nuclear weapons, a 92-year-old survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki said Monday, on the eve of his Japanese survivors’ group receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Terumi Tanaka was referring to threats made by Putin and other senior Russian officials to use nuclear weapons if necessary to counter what they see as an aggressive and hostile West as the war in Ukraine grinds toward its third anniversary. Last month Putin, whose country has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks. Source link

Seoul – “Squid Game” is back. Netflix’s most popular show ever, a dystopian South Korean vision of divided society, held the premiere to its highly anticipated second season on Monday as the country battles real-life political chaos. The show’s return comes just days after South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol triggered a national crisis by briefly declaring martial law, until he was forced into a dramatic reversal by determined lawmakers, who battled heavily armed soldiers in parliament to vote it down. Yoon remains in office having survived an impeachment bid, with his party accused of staging a “second coup” to cling on to power, the opposition vowing to try to remove him again, and massive street protests expected this weekend. Source link

BP and Japanese power generator JERA have agreed to form a standalone joint venture combining their offshore wind operations, a major step in CEO Murray Auchincloss’ efforts to reduce BP’s focus on renewables. BP’s retreat from offshore wind reflects a similar trend by rivals Shell and Equinor which are trying to boost near-terms profits by spending more on higher-return oil and gas operations. The 50-50 venture, called JERA Nex BP, will include operating assets and development projects with a potential generation capacity of 13 gigawatts, the two companies said in a statement. Source link

The number of corporate bankruptcies with liabilities of ¥10 million ($66,000) or more in Japan in November rose 4.2% to 841 from a year earlier as companies remained under pressure from higher prices amid a weak yen and soaring labor costs, Tokyo Shoko Research said Monday. The number of business failures grew for the third consecutive month. Bankruptcies caused by difficulties passing on higher costs to clients increased for the first time in four months. Total liabilities left by failed companies climbed 68.8% to ¥160 billion. There were two bankruptcy cases with liabilities of ¥10 billion or more. One of them was Nippon Denkai, which became the first publicly traded firm to go bankrupt this year. By industry, the service sector had 304 bankruptcies, up 2.7%. Construction firms logged a 4.8% increase to 152 cases, and manufactures posted 99 cases, a 4.2% increase. The cumulative number of corporate bankruptcies came in at 9,164 in the first 11 months of this year. The annual number may top 10,000 for the first time in 11 years, Tokyo Shoko Research said. “Companies are being hit by higher costs for everything, and more companies will collapse due to the burdens,” a Tokyo Shoko Research official said. Source link