Hunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin in third day

Hunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin in third day.

World’s oldest known wild bird lays egg at age 74 .

S. Korea parliament to vote whether to impeach president after martial law declaration.

NATIONAL NEWS

It’s now been well over 48 hours since UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, was gunned down in front of a mid-Manhattan hotel. Police have not yet apprehended or identified the suspect. Experts say the first 48 hours is a key window beyond which apprehension becomes less likely. However, while police believe the suspect has left the city, some clues have been recovered that may be helpful in tracking him down.

Just before 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Thompson was arriving to prepare for a presentation at a major investor meeting. The gunman, wearing a distinctive gray backpack, had turned up about 5 minutes before Thompson, awaiting his arrival. He fired at Thompson at least three times in the back and leg, killing him. The killer then fled through an alley on foot before jumping on an e-bike and disappearing into nearby Central Park.

Police say they have discovered footage indicating he hopped in a cab which took him to the George Washington Bridge Port Authority bus terminal near 178th Street and Broadway. They have no footage of him exiting the terminal, so they believe he got on a bus. This terminal serves interstate buses, so they believe the gunman left the city. Authorities have not clarified whether this was on the day of the killing or perhaps the following day.

Multi-state manhunt

An unnamed source told CBS News that the suspect may have boarded a bus returning to Atlanta. The Atlanta Police Department says they have been contacted by the NYPD and are assisting. The suspect is believed to have paid cash for his tickets. Riders who pay cash aren’t required to show ID. It’s not clear if he arrived from and returned to Atlanta or somewhere else along the bus route.

Since the shooting, police have released several images of the man they believe is the killer. One still image shows the suspect wearing a mask while purchasing items at a Starbucks a few blocks from the scene of the crime. He then discarded some of those items in a trash bin, which police recovered.

Another image, taken on an unspecified day, shows the suspect unmasked and smiling at a female desk clerk at a hostel on the Upper West Side where he is believed to have stayed. NYPD interviewed the woman, who told the officer she asked to “see his pretty smile”.

Authorities believe the suspect arrived in New York City on a Greyhound bus originating in Atlanta about 10 days before the killing. He used a fake New Jersey ID to check into the hostel.

In the wind

While the police have found several important clues, they have not yet publicly identified a suspect. And there are several key items they have yet to recover. “They still haven’t recovered the gun, the bicycle, the backpack. The longer it takes, they can be losing vital pieces of evidence,” Felipe Rodriguez a former NYPD detective, told Reuters.

Since Rodriguez made this statement, authorities announced that they have indeed recovered the backpack following a sweep of Central Park. They did not reveal what the contents were, or whether there were any.

Police have also not zeroed in on a motive. However, shell casings at the crime scene or found to have the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” written on them, though some sources say they were carved into them. The words are similar to the title of a 2010 book titled, “Deny Delay Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It” by author Jay Feinman. UnitedHealthcare was the subject of thousands of complaints of wrongfully denied insurance claims.

Brian Thompson’s wife Paulette, who lives with the couple’s two children in a separate residence from Brian in Minnesota, spoke to NBC News on the day of the killing. She claimed that her husband had received threats about “a lack of coverage”. Despite this, Thompson appears to have had no security detail.

The company has not publicly confirmed whether or not they were aware of these threats. However, UnitedHealthcare and the insurance industry as a whole are rethinking their security strategies following the shooting.

Whodunnit?

There is ample speculation online, and in the media, as to the shooter’s motives. The killing has also prompted an outpouring of anger over denied insurance claims and the US healthcare system generally, with many on social media sharing their horror stories. However, media analysts also disagree as to whether the killer was someone acting out over such a grievance or was perhaps a hired gun.

Former NYPD detective Michael Alcazar told NBC News “Initially, I thought it might be a guy with a vendetta of some kind and it may still be, given the words that were found on the shell casings. But if you look at the video, there’s also a confidence there. He shoots. Then when it appears his gun has jammed, he calmly deals with that and start shooting again”. Alcazar said that he would not rule out the possibility that the suspect is a professional hitman, or at least someone with a high degree of familiarity with weapons, possibly with a military background.

Tom Verni, another retired NYPD detective, disagrees. “A professional hitman would have been more of a ghost,” Verni said. However, Verni also acknowledges that whoever the gunman was, his planning was meticulous. His level of planning has so far bought him over 48 hours to elude capture.

The gunman carried out his crime in broad daylight on a busy Manhattan street where, even at that early hour, there would likely be witnesses and multiple security cameras. This does seem to indicate that someone was trying to make a point. Of course, this could also be a bluff to disguise the true motive.

About 15 minutes before the shooting, the gunman was captured on camera making a phone call. At this point he was about 175 ft away from where Thompson was shot. The gunman appears to have known exactly where he needed to be and when he needed to be there. This could suggest that he had insider knowledge of Thompson’s movements.

World’s oldest known wild bird lays egg at age 74

Earlier this week, the Pacific Region of the US Fish & Wildlife Service announced that Wisdom, a 74-year-old Laysan albatross, has laid her first egg in 4 years at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean. According to USFWS, Laysan albatrosses mate for life. They return to the same nesting spot each year to reunite with their partners. If all goes well, they will lay an egg and take turns sitting on it, hopefully hatching a chick.

Wisdom has been making this journey every year since the Eisenhower administration. She was first identified and banded in 1956 after laying an egg. She would have been at least 5 years old at the time. Wisdom’s mate Akeakamai hasn’t been seen for several years, and she has not mated or produced an egg since his last appearance. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Laysan albatrosses typically live for about 68 years.

However, defying expectations, Wisdom has found a new mate, who it appears does not yet have a name. Wildlife officials do not know how old he is but have tagged him for future observation. Volunteers captured the touching moment when Wisdom’s mate began his first shift on egg-sitting duty. The birds rubbed heads and preened each other’s feathers affectionately.

Wisdom will go out to sea to feed and recuperate and should return to relieve her partner in a few weeks. USFWS is optimistic that the egg will hatch. Wisdom is estimated to have laid 50 to 60 eggs over her lifetime and to have mothered as many as 30 chicks.

Click here for the full story (opens in new tab).

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

South Korea: Parliament to vote whether to impeach president after martial law declaration

Tomorrow, South Korea’s Parliament will vote on whether to impeach South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol following his brief imposition of martial law earlier this week. Opposition parties hold 192 of the body’s 300 seats, just shy of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the motion. However, the leader of Yoon’s own People Power Party, signaled that his members could vote in favor of impeachment without breaking from the party. Han said that Yoon’s power should be suspended as Yoon might continue to “put South Korea and its people in great danger”.

If the motion passes, the Constitutional Court would have 180 days to decide whether to uphold the motion. Until a decision is made, Yoon’s powers would be suspended with the prime minister serving as acting president.

Yoon narrowly won the presidency in 2022. He has never been particularly popular, but in the last year, his approval ratings have hovered in the teens. Yoon has embraced regressive social policies and increased tensions with North Korea. He also set aside historical grievances over Japan’s past mass enslavement of the Korean people in an attempt to forge a closer military alliance with Tokyo. His hawkishness on North Korea and his willingness to build bridges with Japan earned Yoon a warm welcome in the Biden White House. The US has nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea and it has been a priority of successive administrations to shore up military and economic alliances in the region to counter China.

A short-lived coup

In 6 tense hours, the world witnessed a dramatic confrontation between President Yoon on one side and Yoon’s political opponents, many of his political allies, and much of South Korean civil society on the other. Around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening, Yoon declared martial law and, reportedly, ordered the arrests of Lee Jae-myung (leader of the liberal opposition Democratic Party), Han Dong-hoon (leader of Yoon’s own People Power Party), along with other opposition lawmakers, journalists, and jurists. Lawmakers say that the National Intelligence Service dismissed the directive as “ridiculous”.

Yoon also apparently failed to get key figures in the military on-side before launching his abortive coup. Military officers say that the news reports of Yoon’s surprise TV address was the first they had heard of any plan to declare martial law. This could account for Yoon’s failure in his goal to lock lawmakers out of the National Assembly building in order to prevent them from voting to overturn his martial law order.

Despite soldiers blocking the front gates and infiltrating the building through broken windows, 190 members of parliament were able to make it into the building by climbing over the surrounding 5 ft fence. The assembled lawmakers voted unanimously to invalidate the martial law declaration.

Since the crisis abated on Wednesday morning, several of Yoon’s close allies in the government have resigned, including his minister of defense. Yoon himself has apologized, but has rejected calls to step down.

Click here for the full story (opens in new tab).

Hunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin in third day – National & International News – FRI 6Dec2024

NATIONAL NEWS