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President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Ed Martin, a hardline, socially conservative activist and commentator, to serve as the next chief of staff at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). As CNN first reported in July, Martin has publicly advocated for a national abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest and has raised imposing criminal penalties on women and doctors involved in abortions. Martin is a former chair of the Missouri Republican Party chair and former radio host, and served as one of the leaders of the 2024 Republican National Convention’s platform committee, which shaped the party’s official stance on key issues. He is the current president of socially conservative group Phyllis Schlafly Eagles. The OMB plays a key role in shaping the president’s economic and legislative agenda by reviewing funding proposals and ensuring they align with the administration’s policy priorities. Martin’s role at OMB could have a potential impact on how federal funds are allocated for programs related to women’s health or reproductive rights. CNN first reported Martin’s comments about potentially jailing women for abortions when he was named deputy policy director for the Republican National Convention’s platform committee. Ultimately, at Trump’s request , the platform softened its language on abortion to remove support for a national ban. A Pew Research Center survey from May 2024 showed that 63% of US adults believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Martin didn’t respond to CNN’s requests for comment on the initial story or this one. During his radio show in May 2022, Martin repeatedly discussed the prospect of imprisoning women who undergo abortions, stating, “If you believe it’s a baby – I do – then you have to do something to protect the baby.” Martin has also urged anti-abortion activists to frame the debate in terms of protecting the unborn rather than adopting the framing used by abortion rights advocates about being about a women’s choice. He argued that if the discussion focuses on a woman’s right to choose, it becomes politically difficult to justify criminal penalties for women who get abortions. However, by shifting the argument to focus on the life of the baby, the possibility of punitive measures for women and doctors becomes open. “The late Phyllis Schlafly, whom I worked so closely with, used to say, ‘If you get to claim and frame the argument, you almost certainly get to win,’” Martin said. “In other words, if you take their framing, it’s a woman’s right. Are you gonna put women in jail? No. It’s about a baby. Now, what do we do? Frame the argument. Own the argument.” At the OMB, Martin will report to incoming director Russell Vought, another staunch conservative who previously served in the role during Trump’s first term. Martin and Vought also served together on the platform committee. In the days after a draft opinion striking down Roe v. Wade was leaked in May 2022, Martin first discussed on his radio show possible prison sentences for women and doctors who perform abortions. “If you ban abortion in Louisiana, is a doctor who has an abortion breaking the law? Yes. Should he be punished? Yes – I think that seems obvious. What is the punishment? Not sure yet. Could be criminal, could be a jail sentence, I suppose,” he said. Trump praised Martin in a Truth Social post announcing the selection, writing, “Ed is a winner who will help Make America Great Again!” Martin has also opposed exceptions for abortions to save the life of the mother, calling it “an absolute scientific fact that no abortion is ever performed to save the life of the mother. None, zero, zilch.” According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists , complications during pregnancy can pose life-threatening risks, sometimes requiring an abortion to preserve the mother’s life. Abortions may be necessary to save the life of the mother suffering from pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia or an ectopic pregnancy. “The true bane of the pro-life movement is the faction of fake pro-lifers who claim to believe in the sanctity of human life but are only willing to vote that way with a list of exceptions,” Martin said on another radio show in June 2022 – days after Roe v. Wade was struck down. His hardline views contrast with Trump’s recent efforts to moderate his rhetoric on abortion, as the issue has become politically challenging for Republicans following the overturning of Roe v. Wade . Trump has advocated for exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and the health of the mother and said that the issue of abortion should largely be left to the states. Still, Martin has continued to push for absolute restrictions on abortion, rejecting exceptions of any kind, including, as he said in July 2022, the rape of a 10-year-old Ohio girl. “Don’t tell me to stop talking about abortion,” Martin said in April 2024 on his radio show. “Don’t tell me that because you don’t think it’s a winner politically, I’m supposed to stop talking about abortion.”After upset win, Penn State out to extend Rutgers' woes

Cardinals' sudden 3-game tailspin has turned their once solid playoff hopes into a long shotBenching To Love Bombing, 7 Online Dating Terms That Ruled 2024

Quick! Shark's 2-in-1 robot vacuum and mop is 50% off in Amazon's Black Friday saleArm CEO has a unique, bird’s eye view of the tech industry. His company’s chip designs are in the majority of devices you use on a daily basis, from your smartphone to your car. The SoftBank-backed company he leads is worth almost $150 billion, which is now considerably more than Intel. With the news earlier this week that Intel CEO “retired” and Intel is evaluating its options for a possible spinoff or outright sale, I wanted to hear what Haas thought should happen to his longtime frenemy. There were reports that he approached Intel about buying a big chunk of the company before Gelsinger was ousted. At the same time, Arm is also rumored to be eyeing an expansion into building its own chips and not just licensing its designs. Haas and I touched on all that and more in an exclusive interview earlier today, which will air in full on a future episode of (You can listen to my episode about AI spending in the enterprise that just came out as well.) In the meantime, I wanted to give subscribers the first peek at the highlights from my conversation with Haas. As someone who has been in the industry my whole career, it is a little sad to see what’s happening... Intel is an innovation powerhouse. At the same time, you have to innovate in our industry. There are lots of tombstones of great tech companies that don’t reinvent themselves. I think Intel’s biggest dilemma is how to disassociate being either a vertical company or a fabless company, to oversimplify it. That is the fork in the road that they’ve faced for the last decade. had a strategy that was very clear that vertical was the way to win. In my opinion, when he took that strategy on in 2021, that was not a three-year strategy. That was a five-to-10-year strategy. He’s gone and there’s a new CEO to be brought in and the decision has to be made. My personal bias says that vertical integration is a pretty powerful thing. If they could get that right, I think they would be in an amazing position. But the cost associated with it is so high that it may be too big of a hill to climb. I’m not going to comment on the rumors that we wanted to buy them. But I think, again, if you’re a vertically integrated company and the power of your strategy is in the fact that you have a product and you have fabs, inherently, you have a potential huge advantage in terms of cost versus the competition. When Pat was the CEO, I did tell him more than once, “You ought to license Arm because if you’ve got your own fabs, fabs are all about volume and we can provide volume.” I wasn’t successful in convincing him to do that. If you’re defining a computer architecture and you’re building the future of computing, one of the things you need to be very mindful of is that link between hardware and software in terms of really understanding where the tradeoffs are being made, where the observations are being made, what are the ultimate benefits to consumers from a chip that has that type of integration. That is easier to do if you’re building something than if you’re licensing IP... If you’re building something, you’re much closer to that interlock, and you have a much better perspective in terms of the design tradeoffs to make. So, if we were to do something, that would be one of the reasons. The current update is that it plans to go to trial on December 16th, which isn’t very far away. I can appreciate — because we talk to investors and partners — that what they hate the most is uncertainty. But on the flip side, I would say the principles as to why we filed the claim are unchanged. I know he has his own definitions for AGI and his reasons for those definitions. I don’t subscribe so much to what is AGI versus ASI [artificial superintelligence]. I think more around when these AI agents start to think and reason and invent. To me, that is a bit of a “cross the Rubicon” moment... If you would have asked me this question a year ago, I would have said it’s quite a ways away. You ask that question now, [and] I say it is much closer. Kudos to him. I think that’s a pretty good thing. It’s quite fascinating that if you go back eight years to Trump 1.0, in terms of where we were in December as he was starting to fill out his Cabinet choices and appointees, it was a bit chaotic. At the same time, there wasn’t a lot of representation from the tech world. This time around, whether it’s , whether it’s , whether it’s — I know has been very, very involved in terms of discussions with the administration — I think it’s a good thing. Having a seat at the table and having access to policy, I think, is really good. Big leadership changes hit Samsung Electronics this week, per an internal memo I’ve obtained. North America CEO is out and has been replaced by , a 33-year company veteran. now solely oversees the mobile business while former co-head is heading to Brazil to run sales there. And now runs the following divisions: Home Entertainment, Display, and Digital Appliance. There were a bunch of other shuffles at the C-level, but those are the highlights. Samsung has been restructuring across the board for months now and did layoffs in Choi’s division at the end of September, so this week’s news isn’t really a surprise. Perhaps the company hasn’t announced this news externally yet because its Korean investors will be meeting in the US next week (a company rep didn’t have a comment by press time). “Our sales have been down, especially in consumer electronics,” one company insider tells me. “My guess is that we’re just not hitting our targets quarter-over-quarter and so he [Choi] had to go.” It was fascinating to be in the audience at the DealBook Summit for the first public interview has done in years. While I maybe should have been expecting it, I was still shocked at how much he gushed about and his archnemesis for Blue Origin, . Another part of the interview that stood out was when Bezos said he is spending a lot of time at Amazon, “95-percent” of which is focused on AI. This week, Amazon announced its Nova family of foundational AI models at AWS re:Invent — a project I first scooped in this newsletter earlier this year. Amazon is obviously still playing catch-up in the AI race, but it seems to have closed meaningful ground with Nova. If anything, this week shows how quickly the AI race is still shifting. It feels like any of the big players could leap ahead at any moment. Even if you’re an AI skeptic, that’s pretty exciting. If you aren’t already getting new issues of , don’t forget to subscribe to , which includes unlimited access to all of our stories and an improved ad experience on the web. You’ll also get full access to my archive, featuring scoops about companies like Google, Meta, OpenAI, and more. As always, I want to hear from you, especially if you have a tip or feedback. Respond here, and I’ll get back to you, or ping me securely on Signal. I’m happy to keep you anonymous. Thanks for subscribing.NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams met with President-elect Donald Trump's incoming “border czar” on Thursday, with the Democratic mayor expressing an enthusiasm to work with the incoming administration to pursue violent criminals in the city while Trump promises a mass deportation strategy. The mayor's meeting with Tom Homan, who will oversee the southern and northern borders and be responsible for deportation efforts in the Trump administration, came as Adams has welcomed parts of the president-elect's hardline immigration platform. Adams told reporters at a brief news conference that he and Homan agreed on pursuing people who commit violent crimes in the city but did not disclose additional details or future plans. “We’re not going to be a safe haven for those who commit repeated violent crimes against innocent migrants, immigrants and longstanding New Yorkers. That was my conversation today with the border czar, to figure out how to go after those individuals who are repeatedly committing crimes in our city,” Adams told reporters. In the weeks since Trump's election win, Adams has mused about potentially scaling back the city’s so-called sanctuary policies and coordinating with the incoming Trump administration on immigration. He has also said migrants accused of crimes shouldn't have due process rights under the Constitution, though he later walked back those comments. The mayor further stunned Democrats in the city when he sidestepped questions in two televised interviews last week on whether he would consider changing parties to become a Republican, telling journalists that he was part of the “American party.” Adams later clarified that he would remain a Democrat. For Adams, a centrist Democrat known for quarreling with the city's progressive left, the recent comments on immigration follow frustration with the Biden Administration over its immigration policies and a surge of international migrants in the city. He has maintained that his positions have not changed and argues he is trying to protect New Yorkers, pointing to the law-and-order platform he has staked out throughout his political career and during his successful campaign for mayor. At his news conference Thursday, Adams reiterated his commitment to New York’s generous social safety net. “We’re going to tell those who are here, who are law-abiding, to continue to utilize the services that are open to the city, the services that they have a right to utilize, educating their children, health care, public protection,” he said. “But we will not be the safe haven for those who commit violent acts.” While the education of all children present in the U.S. is already guaranteed by a Supreme Court ruling, New York also offers social services like healthcare and emergency shelter to low-income residents, including those in the country illegally. City and state grants also provide significant access to lawyers, which is not guaranteed in the immigration court as they are in the criminal court. Still, Adams’ recent rhetoric has been seen by some critics as an attempt to cozy up to Trump, who could potentially offer a presidential pardon in his federal corruption case. Adams has been charged with accepting luxury travel perks and illegal campaign contributions from a Turkish official and other foreign nationals looking to buy his influence. He has pleaded not guilty. Homan, who was Trump’s former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, also met this week with Republicans in Illinois, where he called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, to start negotiations over how Trump's mass deportation plans, according to local media. Separately, New York City officials this week announced continued efforts to shrink a huge emergency shelter system for migrants because of a steady decline in new arrivals. Among the planned shelter closures is a massive tent complex built on a federally owned former airport in Brooklyn, which advocates have warned could be a prime target for Trump's mass deportation plan. Elsewhere, Republican governors and lawmakers in some states are already rolling out proposals that could help him carry out his pledge to deport millions of people living in the U.S. illegally. Izaguirre reported from Albany, N.Y.

Kia, South Korea's second-largest carmaker, is set to launch its compact SUV 'Syros' in India next year. Kia, the maker of K5 sedans and Sorento SUVs, unveiled the new model for the first time in India on Sunday.The Syros SUV will be available in two trims, one with a 1.0-liter gasoline turbocharged engine and the other with a 1.5-litre diesel engine, as per the company's press release. The company's strategy doesn't stop at India. Following its sales in India, Kia plans to introduce the compact car in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, and the Middle East. This move is seen as a strategic expansion of the company's footprint in emerging markets. The Syros SUV comes equipped with safety features such as front collision avoidance, lane-keeping assistance, surround view monitor, and driver awareness warning systems. However, the company has not yet disclosed the vehicle's price. In related news, Kia India has announced a price hike of up to 2 percent across its entire lineup, effective from January 1. This decision is primarily due to rising commodity prices and escalating supply chain-related costs. Hardeep Singh Brar, senior vice president, sales and marketing, Kia India, stated, "At Kia, we are committed to delivering exceptional, technologically advanced vehicles of the highest quality to our valued customers. However, due to the persistent rise in commodity prices, unfavorable exchange rates, and increased input costs, a necessary price adjustment has become unavoidable." Despite these challenges, Kia is absorbing a significant portion of the cost increase, minimizing the financial impact on its customers. This move is seen as a strategic decision to ensure that customers can continue enjoying their favorite Kia vehicles without a major dent in their pockets. Kia's sales figures have been impressive, with 1.6 million units sold in India and overseas markets combined to date. Its best-selling innovation, Seltos, has surpassed 670,000-unit sales, followed by Sonet with over 480,000 units, Carens with 214,400 units, and Carnival with over 15,000 units. The auto industry has been witnessing a trend of price hikes. Other carmakers like Citroën and Jeep have also announced a price hike of up to 2 percent from January. Stellantis India, the parent company of Citroën and Jeep, has offered an opportunity to benefit from the existing pricing structure and attractive end-of-the-year offers until December 31, 2024. Tata Motors, another major player in the Indian auto industry, has also announced a price hike from January 2025. The company recorded total retail sales of 42,176 units in November 2024, marking a decline of 12,747 units as compared to November 2023. The auto industry is also witnessing a significant shift towards electric vehicles. The new car market is changing significantly, with more electric cars gradually growing their market share while petrol and diesel cars are reducing in number. This shift is being forced by the government's zero-emission vehicle mandate, which sets minimum targets for electric vehicles from all major car brands. Maruti Suzuki India achieves 2 million units in a calendar year for 1st time Hyundai AutoEver teams up with MapmyIndia to launch Navigation Mapping Venture Binoj Melath Nalinakshan Nair: Driving Innovation with Microservices, Automation, and AI Excellence

AP News Summary at 5:10 p.m. ESTTaurean Consiglio, defense power Bishop Guilfoyle to PIAA 1A title over Port Allegany

I think it is safe to say Trisha Paytas has nearly done it all. She started as a YouTuber, then appeared in reality TV and music videos , later releasing her own singles and albums . Currently, Trisha has over 20 million followers across her social channels and hosts her own podcast called Just Trish . She recently posted a TikTok of herself attending the Wicked premiere , and that video alone has nearly 3 million views. People love Trish; you get it. So, it's no surprise that clips of her recent SNL appearance have been circling TikTok this entire week, garnering well over 30 million views on the platform. However, if you search "Trisha SNL" on TikTok, you will see several viral videos featuring an old clip of Frenemies , which was a podcast hosted by Trisha and YouTuber Ethan Klein from 2020 to 2021. In the clip, Ethan first talks about how he doesn't want to be on SNL because it "would be a lot of work." To that, Trisha happily shares that she would love to. This is when Ethan says, "If you go on Saturday Night Live ...I will cut my arm off." Trish responds, saying, "Okay, I don't want you to cut your arm off, Jesus." Ethan then reiterates that he will cut his arm off if she ever gets on SNL . Fast-forward to this past Saturday, three years after the arm-cutting statement, when Trisha made her first SNL appearance in a Spotify Wrapped skit, featuring host for that night, actor Paul Mescal. The SNL sketch features fake artist Satoshi Gutman (played by Bowen Yang), who happens to be Paul's character's number-one artist on Spotify Wrapped. "Thank you from the bottom of my ass for being one of my top listeners of 2024. Now, let's hear my hit 'Y'all Made Me Celabite': 'I was normal, but then y'all made me celibate. I was a nympho, y'all asses made me celibate.' Loving life for the New Year, baby," says Satoshi in the clip. The characters end up watching a clip of one of Satoshi's podcast episodes featuring Trisha Paytas. And Trisha — who is playing herself in this fake podcast clip — excitedly greets listeners with, "Hey, bastards!" Followed by a line with Satoshi, "The best bussy is celibacy." Satoshi and Trisha end up at the house, and the gang dances to Satoshi's song together. Besides people acknowledging how iconic Trisha's appearance was... Commenters started to recall Ethan's comment about amputating his arm if this ever happened. Ethan ended up making a response video , joking that one of his crew members was going to cut his arm off and he was going to mail it to her. And this has now opened a broader discussion about how unique Trisha's career is. First of all, people are saying that Trisha playing herself on SNL says a lot about her popularity. In fact, appearing on the Just Trish podcast this week, actor, comedian, and SNL writer Bowen Yang said, "I love you...I have followed you from the beginning," before calling her a comedic genius. Many of them mark SNL as a big moment for Trish, especially since sharing how living online has affected her mental health . Trisha is often praised for her continuous interaction and honesty with her fans, no matter how big she has gotten. In fact, it was just announced that she is releasing a music video where her fans voted on key elements like the production vibe and lyrical themes. It comes as no surprise it is called "Mother" — a name that has been coined to her by fans — and is set to drop Dec. 17 on her Patreon for free . Lastly, people are saying this is just plain proof of manifestation. Especially after she made a video of herself pretending to be on SNL back in 2020. Well, Trish is clearly manifesting more because she will be ON BROADWAY in February . Doing big things, and we love to see it!

Ajax coach Francesco Farioli feels they caused Lazio more problems than anyone this season and deserved more, but he is ‘happy they are representing Italian football’ in the Europa League. It was quite an achievement for the Aquile to conquer the Johan Cruijff ArenA, especially considering the Dutch giants had won their last three European home fixtures with 12 goals scored and zero conceded. Bertrand Traore cancelled out the Loum Tchaouna opener, but Fisayo Dele-Bashiru and a Pedro curler into the top corner “We saw a lot of Lazio games and this was probably the one where they suffered the most,” “They are a team in a moment of great confidence and form, their organisation is remarkable, their quality and physicality, but my lads dominated both with and without the ball. There are regrets over the result and we certainly deserved more.” Lazio are no fluke, winning 14 of their last 17 competitive matches between Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the Europa League. Ajax had an Expected Goals score of over 2 tonight, but apart from rattling the crossbar a couple of times, Christos Mandas was not forced into as many saves as Remko Pasveer. “We lacked precision in our finishing. Lazio are in a magical period of form and everything is going their way at the moment. They all feel positive, are fighting for the maximum result in every game and are competitive on three fronts,” added Italian tactician Farioli. “I congratulate them and am happy that Lazio are representing Italian football around Europe.” with 10 points from six games, so are they on track for this term? “I think we are in fact doing much better than anyone expected at this stage. The last two years have been very complicated, we were unable to bring any new players in and had to only sell, so the priority is to balance the books,” explained Farioli. “Unfortunately, and it’s the first time since the start of the season, we are without a win in three, but overall we are heading in the direction where we want to be.”

The masked gunman who stalked and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel used ammunition emblazoned with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” a law enforcement official said Thursday. The gunman is still at large and a manhunt is underway. Here's the latest: Just minutes before the shooting, the suspect was seen on surveillance footage purchasing the two items from a nearby Starbucks. Both the water bottle and protein bar wrapper were later recovered from a trash can in the vicinity of the killing, according to a police spokesperson. They’ve been sent to the city’s medical examiner for expedited fingerprint testing. As the suspect remained at large Thursday afternoon, New York police were sorting through a growing number of leads coming in through a public hotline. Many have been unfounded, including a tip from a commuter who claimed to have spotted the shooter on a Long Island Rail Road train Wednesday evening. Police searched the train, but found no sign of the gunman. Members of the public have also provided police with several different names of people who bear a resemblance to the gunman — though they have yet to confirm the shooter’s identity. NYPD spokesperson Carlos Nieves urged anyone with information to contact the department “even if it seems trivial.” “We ask you to call the tip line because that little piece of information could be the missing piece of the puzzle that ties everything together,” he said. Users’ reactions — and in many cases jokes — populated comment sections teeming with frustration toward health insurers broadly and UnitedHealthcare in particular. “I would be happy to help look for the shooter but vision isn’t covered under my healthcare plan,” one comment read on Instagram. “Thoughts and prior authorizations!” wrote another user. Images released by police of a person they say is wanted for questioning in connection with the shooting match the lobby of the HI New York City hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Both feature a black-and-white checkered floor and a distinctive bench in the shape of a semicircle. Matheus Taranto, a guest at the hostel who’s visiting from Brazil, says he saw police at the lodging Wednesday evening. He said an officer wouldn’t let him access a bathroom where he wanted to brush his teeth. “I asked why, he was like, no, nothing happened,” said Taranto, 24. He didn’t connect the dots with the shooting until later. In Minnesota, police in the Minneapolis suburb of Maple Grove, where Thompson lived, said Thursday they believe a bomb threat on Wednesday night was a hoax. Maple Grove police put out a statement Thursday saying a “suspected swatting investigation” was underway. The department said it received a report of a bomb threat directed at two addresses around 7 p.m. CT Wednesday. The Minneapolis Bomb Squad and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office assisted, but investigators found no suspicions devices or other items. “The case is considered an active investigation, while the incident appears to be a hoax. No further comments will be made at this time,” the police statement said. Police reports provided to The Associated Press by the department show that officers made contact with family members at one of the homes and were told they had seen nothing suspicious and had received no direct threats. Back in Thompson’s home state of Minnesota, authorities were investigating a bomb threat that reportedly was made against his home Wednesday night, after his death. It was first reported by TMZ. City Prosecutor Andrew Draper confirmed to The Associated Press via email Thursday that he received an email Wednesday night “regarding a bomb threat. I reported it to the Maple Grove Police Department and do not have any additional information.” Maple Grove police officials did not immediately respond to requests for details Thursday. Local ATF spokesperson Ashlee Sherrill said: “ATF was made aware of the incident in Maple Grove last night, but no ATF resources were deployed. We are unable to confirm any further details.” A local FBI spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for information on the FBI’s involvement in the investigation. The words emblazoned on the ammunition used in the shooting – “deny,” “defend” and “depose” – were written in permanent marker, according to a law enforcement official. The official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. — Jake Offenhartz As of Thursday morning, police were still searching for the shooter. They released new photos of a person they said is wanted for questioning in connection with the shooting. The images match the lobby of the HI New York City hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, including its black-and-white checkered floor and a distinctive bench in the shape of a semi-circle. An employee at the hostel said police had visited but declined to provide further information. Danielle Brumfitt, a spokesperson for the lodging, said in an emailed statement that they are cooperating with the NYPD but can’t comment due to the active investigation. According to the official who spoke to AP about the ammunition messaging, investigators are running DNA and fingerprint analysis on items found near the shooting, including a water bottle, that they believe the suspect may have discarded. Additionally, they’re looking into whether the suspect had pre-positioned a bike as part of an escape plan. Doctors and patients have become particularly frustrated with prior authorizations, which are requirements that an insurer approve surgery or care before it happens. UnitedHealthcare was named in an October report detailing how the insurer’s prior authorization denial rate for some Medicare Advantage patients has surged in recent years. The report from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also named rivals Humana and CVS. Insurers say tactics like prior authorization are needed to limit unnecessary care and help control spiraling medical costs. Frustrations extend beyond the coverage of care. Expensive breakthrough medications to slow Alzheimer’s disease or help with obesity are frequently not covered or have coverage limits. In the U.S. health care system, patients get coverage through a mix of private insurers such as UnitedHealthcare and government-funded programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. That can prove particularly frustrating for doctors and patients because coverage often varies by insurer. Polls reflect those frustrations with the U.S. health care system in general and insurance companies in particular. About two-thirds of Americans said health insurance companies deserve “a lot of blame” for high health care costs, according to a KFF poll conducted in February . Thompson’s wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News that he told her “there were some people that had been threatening him.” She didn’t have details but suggested the threats may have involved issues with insurance coverage. Eric Werner, the police chief in the Minneapolis suburb where Thompson lived, said his department had not received any reports of threats against the executive. A message left at the scene of an insurance executive’s fatal shooting — “deny,” “defend” and “depose” — echoes a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims. The three words were emblazoned on the ammunition a masked gunman used to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson , a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday. They’re similar to the phrase “delay, deny, defend” — the way some attorneys describe how insurers deny services and payment, and the title of a 2010 book that was highly critical of the industry. Police haven’t officially commented on the wording or any connection between them and the common phrase. But Thompson’s shooting and the messages on the ammunition have sparked outrage on social media and elsewhere, reflecting a deepening frustration Americans have over the cost and complexity of getting care. ▶ Read more about the messaging left behind by the shooter The New York Police Department released photos Thursday morning, asking for the public’s assistance in identifying the individual pictured. Police say the person is wanted for questioning in connection with the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. A Senate panel has been investigating how frequently three major insurers, including UnitedHealthcare, deny care to patients who are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. It has also investigated the use of artificial intelligence in deny those claims. Medicare Advantage is the private version of Medicare, which provides health insurance to millions of older Americans. The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee’s report released earlier this year found that as UnitedHealthcare relied more on its automated system to review claims denials increased for post-acute treatment, which includes nursing home or rehabilitation care. The insurer denied nearly a quarter of claims, a rate that doubled over just a two-year period from 2020 to 2022. Joseph Kenny, the NYPD chief of detectives, says the shooter wore a black face mask, black-and-white sneakers and a distinctive gray backpack. He arrived outside the hotel about five minutes before UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson did, then waited and ignored other pedestrians before he approached Thompson from behind. After the assailant began to fire, his 9 mm pistol jammed but he quickly fixed it and kept firing, Kenny said, another sign of the shooter’s professionalism. “From watching the video, it does seem that he’s proficient in the use of firearms as he was able to clear the malfunctions pretty quickly,” Kenny said. The hostels were on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and police were following a tip that the suspect may have stayed at one of the residences, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The official requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the ongoing search. According to an employee of Kama Central Park, two detectives arrived at the hostel at 7 a.m. Thursday with a photo of the shooter and asked staff if they recognized the man. They did not, the employee said, and the detectives left soon after. An employee at the nearby HI New York City hostel also confirmed that police had visited the location Thursday, but declined to provide further information. — Jake Offenhartz New York Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday the shooter used a silencer — something he’d never encountered in his 22 years as a police officer. “In all of my years in law enforcement I have never seen a silencer before,” Adams, a retired NYPD captain, said in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And so that was really something that was shocking to us all.” The masked gunman used ammunition emblazoned with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” a law enforcement official said Thursday. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The words on the ammunition may have been a reference to strategies insurance companies use to try to avoid paying claims. Investigators recovered several 9 mm shell casings from outside the hotel, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny had said earlier. — Mike Balsamo, Jake Offenhartz and Michael R. Sisak The chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest insurers, was killed Wednesday in midtown Manhattan in what police described as a targeted attack by a shooter outside a hotel where the company was holding a conference. ▶ Read more about the key things to know about the fatal attack

Best TV of 2024: A modestly better lineup than usual, but why didn’t it feel that way?Denver Shines Brightly this New Year's Eve

NASA's stuck astronauts hit 6 months in space. Just 2 more to goOne of my top shows of 2024 actually premiered in 2021. That’s because it took a couple of years for the Australian series “The Newsreader” to make its way Stateside. Alas, it was only legal to stream in the U.S. for a handful of weeks in September and then — pffft! — it was gone before most people had even heard of it. Well, I have great news. The show will be available once again, this time via Sundance Now (accessible through the AMC+ streaming platform), which has licensed the first season. Premiering Dec. 19, it stars Anna Torv (“Fringe”) and Sam Reid (“Interview with the Vampire”) as TV reporters in Melbourne, circa 1986. At the outset, Reid’s character exudes big loser energy, which is such an amusing contrast to his work as Lestat. The show is unexpectedly funny and terrifically Machiavellian in its portrayal of small-time office politics, and I’m thrilled audiences in the U.S. will get another shot at watching it. Overall, 2024 offered a modestly better lineup than usual, but I’m not sure it felt that way. Too often the good stuff got drowned out by Hollywood’s pointless and endless pursuit of rebooting intellectual property (no thank you, Apple’s “Presumed Innocent” ) and tendency to stretch a perfectly fine two-hour movie premise into a saggy multi-part series (“Presumed Innocent” again!). There were plenty of shows I liked that didn’t make this year’s list, including ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and CBS’ “Ghosts” (it’s heartening to see the network sitcom format still thriving in the streaming era), as well as Netflix’s “A Man on the Inside” (Ted Danson’s charisma selling an unlikely premise) and Hulu’s “Interior Chinatown” (a high-concept parody of racial stereotypes and cop show tropes, even if it couldn’t sustain the idea over 10 episodes). Maybe it just felt like we were having more fun this year, with Netflix’s “The Perfect Couple” (Nicole Kidman leading a traditional manor house mystery reinterpreted with an American sensibility) and Hulu’s “Rivals” (the horniest show of 2024, delivered with a wink in the English countryside). I liked what I saw of Showtime’s espionage thriller “The Agency” (although the bulk of episodes were unavailable as of this writing). The deluge of remakes tends to make me cringe, but this year also saw a redo of Patricia Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley” on Netflix that was far classier than most of what’s available on the streamer. Starring Andrew Scott, I found it cool to the touch, but the imagery stayed with me. Shot in black and white, it has an indelible visual language courtesy of director of photography Robert Elswit, whether capturing a crisp white business card against the worn grain wood of a bar top, or winding stairways that alternately suggest a yawning void or a trap. As always, if you missed any of these shows when they originally premiered — the aforementioned titles or the Top 10 listed below — they are all available to stream. Top 10 streaming and TV shows of 2024, in alphabetical order: The least cynical reality show on television remains as absorbing as ever in Season 4, thanks to the probing questions and insights from the show’s resident therapist, Dr. Orna Guralnik. Everything is so charged. And yet the show has a soothing effect, predicated on the idea that human behavior (and misery) isn’t mysterious or unchangeable. There’s something so optimistic in that outlook. Whether or not you relate to the people featured on “Couples Therapy” — or even like them as individuals — doesn’t matter as much as Guralnik’s reassuring presence. Created by and starring Diarra Kilpatrick, the eight-episode series defies categorization in all the right ways. Part missing-person mystery, part comedy about a school teacher coming to grips with her impending divorce, and part drama about long-buried secrets, it has tremendous style right from the start — sardonic, knowing and self-deprecating. The answers to the central mystery may not pack a satisfying punch by the end, but the road there is as entertaining and absorbing as they come. We need more shows like this. A comedy created by and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez (of the antic YouTube series “The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo”), the show has a sensibility all its own, despite a handful of misinformed people on social media calling it a ripoff of “Abbott Elementary.” There’s room enough in the TV landscape for more than one sitcom with a school setting and “English Teacher” has a wonderfully gimlet-eyed point of view of modern high school life. I’m amused that so much of its musical score is Gen-X coded, because that neither applies to Alvarez (a millennial) nor the fictional students he teaches. So why does the show feature everything from Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” to Exposé’s “Point of No Return”? The ’80s were awash in teen stories and maybe the show is using music from that era to invoke all those tropes in order to better subvert them. It’s a compelling idea! It’s streaming on Hulu and worth checking out if you haven’t already. A one-time tennis phenom accuses her former coach of coercing her into a sexual relationship in this British thriller. The intimacy between a coach and athlete often goes unexplored, in real-life or fictional contexts and that’s what the show interrogates: When does it go over the line? It’s smart, endlessly watchable and the kind of series that would likely find a larger audience were it available on a more popular streamer. There’s real tenderness in this show. Real cruelty, too. It’s a potent combination and the show’s third and strongest season won it an Emmy for best comedy. Jean Smart’s aging comic still looking for industry validation and Hannah Einbinder’s needy Gen-Z writer are trapped in an endless cycle of building trust that inevitably gives way to betrayal. Hollywood in a nutshell! “Hacks” is doing variations on this theme every season, but doing it in interesting ways. Nobody self-sabotages their way to success like these two. I was skeptical about the show when it premiered in 2022 . Vampire stories don’t interest me. And the 1994 movie adaptation starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt wasn’t a persuasive argument to the contrary. But great television is great television and nothing at the moment is better than this show. It was ignored by Emmy voters in its initial outing but let’s hope Season 2 gets the recognition it deserves. Under showrunner Rolin Jones, the adaptation of Anne Rice’s novels is richly written, thrillingly inhabited by its cast and so effortlessly funny with a framing device — the interview of the title — that is thick with intrigue and sly comedy. I wouldn’t categorize the series as horror. It’s not scary. But it is tonally self-assured and richly made, rarely focused on the hunt for dinner but on something far more interesting: The melodrama of vampire existence, with its combination of boredom and lust and tragedy and zingers. Already renewed for Season 3, it has an incredible cast (a thrilling late-career boost for Eric Bogosian) and is well worth catching up with if you haven’t already. It’s been too long since the pleasures of banter fueled a romantic comedy in the spirit of “When Harry Met Sally.” But it’s all over the place in “Nobody Wants This,” one of the best shows on Netflix in recent memory. Renewed for a second season, it stars Kristen Bell as a humorously caustic podcaster and Adam Brody as the cute and emotionally intelligent rabbi she falls for. On the downside, the show has some terrible notions about Jewish women that play into controlling and emasculating stereotypes. You hate to see it in such an otherwise sparkling comedy, because overall Bell and Brody have an easy touch that gives the comedy real buoyancy. I suspect few people saw this three-part series on PBS Masterpiece, but it features a terrific performance by Helena Bonham Carter playing the real-life, longtime British soap star Noele “Nolly” Gordon, who was unceremoniously sacked in 1981. She’s the kind of larger-than-life showbiz figure who is a bit ridiculous, a bit imperious, but also so much fun. The final stretch of her career is brought to life by Carter and this homage — to both the soap she starred in and the way she carried it on her back — is from Russell T. Davies (best known for the “Doctor Who” revival). For U.S. viewers unfamiliar with the show or Gordon, Carter’s performance has the benefit of not competing with a memory as it reanimates a slice of British pop culture history from the analog era. The year is 1600 and a stubborn British seaman piloting a Dutch ship washes ashore in Japan. That’s our entry point to this gorgeously shot story of power games and political maneuvering among feudal enemies. Adapted from James Clavell’s 1975 novel by the married team of Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, it is filled with Emmy-winning performances (for Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada; the series itself also won best drama) and unlike something like HBO’s far clunkier “House of the Dragon,” which tackles similar themes, this feels like the rare show created by, and for, adults. The misfits and losers of Britain’s MI5 counterintelligence agency — collectively known as the slow horses, a sneering nickname that speaks to their perceived uselessness — remain as restless as ever in this adaptation of Mick Herron’s Slough House spy novels. As a series, “Slow Horses” doesn’t offer tightly plotted clockwork spy stories; think too deeply about any of the details and the whole thing threatens to fall apart. But on a scene-by-scene basis, the writing is a winning combination of wry and tension-filled, and the cumulative effect is wonderfully entertaining. Spies have to deal with petty office politics like everyone else! It’s also one of the few shows that has avoided the dreaded one- or two-year delay between seasons, which has become standard on streaming. Instead, it provides the kind of reliability — of its characters but also its storytelling intent — that has become increasingly rare. Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

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NoneBest TV of 2024: A modestly better lineup than usual, but why didn’t it feel that way?

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