Penguins' captain Sidney Crosby breaks Lemieux's franchise record for assists
Gap Inc. Reports Third Quarter Fiscal 2024 Results, Raises Full Year Outlook
Take a seat, Josh Allen, there's no more need to play in the regular season You wouldn’t expect to use as a reference point for a potential NFL Most Valuable Player, but this is 2024 and, well, things are weird. Barely a day after Miami’s Cam Ward opted to sit for the second half of the Pop-Tart Bowl to protect his future options, Buffalo’s Josh Allen faces a similar question in Week 18 of the NFL regular season. No, Allen isn’t trying to protect his NFL standing; he’s got that pretty well locked down. Allen is chasing two career-defining milestones, an MVP award and a Lombardi trophy. Buffalo’s Week 18 game against the Patriots might help him burnish his chances at the former, but it will do absolutely nothing for the latter quest. Allen led Buffalo to a 40-14 annihilation of the New York Jets that was as thorough and merciless as anything short of a stadium demolition. Allen wasn’t spectacular – 16 of 27 for 182 yards and two touchdowns, plus another on the ground — but he didn’t need to be. Buffalo led 40-0 deep into the fourth quarter, and the destruction was so complete that even Mitchell Trubisky got some run at quarterback for the Bills. Next week, he ought to get a whole lot more. The only regular-season game left on Buffalo’s slate is a road contest against New England, and there’s absolutely nothing at stake for the Bills — or, for that matter, for the Patriots, who were eliminated from the playoff hunt back around the Fourth of July. Buffalo is locked into the second spot in the AFC playoffs, meaning the Bills are going to welcome the Chargers, Steelers or Broncos to chilly Orchard Park, New York, in a couple weeks. There’s no outcome of the Patriots game that changes Buffalo’s seeding. And there isn’t even any “best effort”/fair play concern for the Patriots, since there’s no scenario where that game means anything to the final teams in the hunt for the last AFC playoff spot. The Bills, in fact, have been playing with house money for awhile now. Buffalo clinched the AFC East with five weeks remaining in the year, the first team since the 2009 Colts to grab a divisional championship that early. (In a good omen for Buffalo, that Colts team would go on to reach the Super Bowl; in a familiar omen, the Colts lost that Super Bowl to New Orleans.) In other words, from a team perspective, there’s no reason for Allen to play next week. From an individual perspective ... maybe? Allen is, by all accounts and metrics, the runaway favorite to win his first MVP. BetMGM has him listed at -350, with Lamar Jackson well behind at +250 and Saquon Barkley at +2500. Yes, — two passing TDs, one rushing TD — and has a chance to prettify his stats even further with a regular season finale against the Browns. But is it worth risking Allen’s health on the road in search of an award he may already have won? After Sunday’s game, Bills head coach Sean McDermott stated his case succinctly and effectively: “I think Josh Allen continues to show why he should be the MVP.” McDermott declined to say whether Allen would play in Week 18, instead indicating that the team would discuss how to handle rest later this week. Allen, for his part, punted like it was fourth-and-long, saying of the decision to play, “That’s up to coach. I’ll do whatever is asked of me.” That’s the right answer from a political perspective, but from a Super Bowl-chasing one, there’s an obvious play here. It’s time for Allen to watch Buffalo-New England from the closest spot in Gillette Stadium. For him and Buffalo, there’s plenty of work left to do after Week 18.Jordan Sears scores 25 points, Jalen Reed has double-double and LSU outlasts UCF 109-102 in 3OT
Published 5:13 pm Saturday, November 23, 2024 By Staff Reports Ranked squads will be on Sunday’s college basketball schedule in three games, including the Pittsburgh Panthers taking on the Wisconsin Badgers. See the article below for picks against the spread. Place your bets on any men’s college basketball matchup at BetMGM. Sign up today using our link. Bet on the Georgia-St. John’s spread—or any other NCAA men’s basketball matchup—with BetMGM ! Bet on the Kennesaw State-Rutgers spread—or any other NCAA men’s basketball matchup—with BetMGM ! Bet on the Wisconsin-Pittsburgh spread—or any other NCAA men’s basketball matchup—with BetMGM ! Not all offers available in all states, please visit BetMGM for the latest promotions for your area. Must be 21+ to gamble, please wager responsibly. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, contact 1-800-GAMBLER .
December 18, 2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked preprint trusted source proofread by Alex Shipps, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Try taking a picture of each of North America's roughly 11,000 tree species, and you'll have a mere fraction of the millions of photos within nature image datasets. These massive collections of snapshots—ranging from butterflies to humpback whales—are a great research tool for ecologists because they provide evidence of organisms' unique behaviors, rare conditions, migration patterns, and responses to pollution and other forms of climate change. While comprehensive, nature image datasets aren't yet as useful as they could be. It's time-consuming to search these databases and retrieve the images most relevant to your hypothesis. You'd be better off with an automated research assistant—or perhaps AI systems called multimodal vision language models (VLMs). They're trained on both text and images, making it easier for them to pinpoint finer details, like the specific trees in the background of a photo. But just how well can VLMs assist nature researchers with image retrieval? A team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), University College London, iNaturalist, University of Edinburgh, and UMass Amherst designed a performance test to find out. Each VLM's task: Locate and reorganize the most relevant results within the team's "INQUIRE" dataset, composed of 5 million wildlife pictures and 250 search prompts from ecologists and other biodiversity experts. In these evaluations, the researchers found that larger, more advanced VLMs, which are trained on far more data, can sometimes get researchers the results they want to see. The models performed reasonably well on straightforward queries about visual content, like identifying debris on a reef, but struggled significantly with queries requiring expert knowledge, like identifying specific biological conditions or behaviors. For example, VLMs somewhat easily uncovered examples of jellyfish on the beach, but struggled with more technical prompts like "axanthism in a green frog," a condition that limits their ability to make their skin yellow. Their findings, in an article now posted to the arXiv preprint server, indicate that the models need much more domain-specific training data to process difficult queries. MIT CSAIL Ph.D. student Edward Vendrow, who co-led work on the dataset, believes that by familiarizing with more informative data, the VLMs could one day be great research assistants. "We want to build retrieval systems that find the exact results scientists seek when monitoring biodiversity and analyzing climate change," says Vendrow. "Multimodal models don't quite understand more complex scientific language yet, but we believe that INQUIRE will be an important benchmark for tracking how they improve in comprehending scientific terminology and ultimately helping researchers automatically find the exact images they need." The team's experiments illustrated that larger models tended to be more effective for both simpler and more intricate searches due to their expansive training data. They first used the INQUIRE dataset to test if VLMs could narrow a pool of 5 million images to the top 100 most relevant results (also known as "ranking"). For straightforward search queries like "a reef with manmade structures and debris," relatively large models like "SigLIP" found matching images, while smaller-sized CLIP models struggled. According to Vendrow, larger VLMs are "only starting to be useful" at ranking tougher queries. Vendrow and his colleagues also evaluated how well multimodal models could rerank those 100 results, reorganizing which images were most pertinent to a search. In these tests, even huge LLMs trained on more curated data like GPT-4o struggled: Its precision score was only 59.6%, the highest score achieved by any model. The researchers will present these results at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems ( NeurIPS 2024 ) in December. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matter— daily or weekly . Inquiring for INQUIRE The INQUIRE dataset includes search queries based on discussions with ecologists, biologists, oceanographers, and other experts about the types of images they'd look for, including animals' unique physical conditions and behaviors. A team of annotators then spent 180 hours searching the iNaturalist dataset with these prompts, carefully combing through roughly 200,000 results to label 33,000 matches that fit the prompts. For instance, the annotators used queries like "a hermit crab using plastic waste as its shell" and "a California condor tagged with a green '26'" to identify the subsets of the larger image dataset that depict these specific, rare events. Then, the researchers used the same search queries to see how well VLMs could retrieve iNaturalist images. The annotators' labels revealed when the models struggled to understand scientists' keywords, as their results included images previously tagged as irrelevant to the search. For example, VLMs' results for "redwood trees with fire scars" sometimes included images of trees without any markings. "This is a careful curation of data, with a focus on capturing real examples of scientific inquiries across research areas in ecology and environmental science," says Sara Beery, MIT Homer A. Burnell Career Development Assistant Professor, CSAIL principal investigator, and co-senior author. "It's proved vital to expanding our understanding of the current capabilities of VLMs in these potentially impactful scientific settings. It has also outlined gaps in current research that we can now work to address, particularly for complex compositional queries, technical terminology, and the fine-grained, subtle differences that delineate categories of interest for our collaborators." "Our findings imply that some vision models are already precise enough to aid wildlife scientists with retrieving some images, but many tasks are still too difficult for even the largest, best-performing models," says Vendrow. "Although INQUIRE is focused on ecology and biodiversity monitoring, the wide variety of its queries means that VLMs that perform well on INQUIRE are likely to excel at analyzing large image collections in other observation-intensive fields." Taking their project further, the researchers are working with iNaturalist to develop a query system to better help scientists and other curious minds find the images they actually want to see. Their working demo allows users to filter searches by species, enabling quicker discovery of relevant results like, say, the diverse eye colors of cats. Vendrow and co-lead author Omiros Pantazis, who recently received his Ph.D. from University College London, also aim to improve the reranking system by augmenting current models to provide better results. University of Pittsburgh Associate Professor Justin Kitzes highlights INQUIRE's ability to uncover secondary data. "Biodiversity data sets are rapidly becoming too large for any individual scientist to review," says Kitzes, who wasn't involved in the research. "This paper draws attention to a difficult and unsolved problem, which is how to effectively search through such data with questions that go beyond simply 'who is here' to ask instead about individual characteristics, behavior, and species interactions. "Being able to efficiently and accurately uncover these more complex phenomena in biodiversity image data will be critical to fundamental science and real-world impacts in ecology and conservation." Serge Belongie, Pioneer Center for Artificial Intelligence Director and University of Copenhagen professor, notes that INQUIRE reveals the current limits of multimodal models in understanding scientists' search queries. "This work is both a huge step forward in our understanding of multimodal models for scientific inquiry, and a sobering, inspiring reminder of just how difficult the text-to-image retrieval task remains when the details matter," says Belongie, who wasn't involved in the paper. More information: Edward Vendrow et al, INQUIRE: A Natural World Text-to-Image Retrieval Benchmark, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2411.02537 Journal information: arXiv Provided by Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUS effort to curb China's and Russia's access to advanced computer chips 'inadequate,' report finds
Nate Johnson scores 25 as Akron defeats Alabama State 97-78WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. (AP) — Jordan Sears scored 25 points, Jalen Reed had 21 points and 13 rebounds, and LSU defeated UCF 109-102 in triple overtime on Sunday to take third place at the Greenbrier Tip-Off. LSU trailed by 18 points early in the second half, then failed to hold a lead at the end of regulation and each of the first two overtime periods. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Get any of our free email newsletters — news headlines, obituaries, sports, and more.
GeoVax, SIGA Jump After WHO Extends Mpox Public Emergency Status: Here’s What Retail ThinksToast: Fantastic Performance, Terrible Price (Rating Downgrade)PITTSBURGH (AP) — Penguins captain Sidney Crosby is alone at the top. Crosby broke Mario Lemieux's franchise record for most assists in team history during a 3-2 win against the New York Islanders on Sunday. “I want to congratulate Sid on setting the team's assist record,” Lemieux said in a statement released by the team. “He's an amazing player and we're so fortunate to have him in Pittsburgh. I look forward to even more great things from him.” Crosby was behind the net in the second period when he sent a backhand feed to Michael Bunting, who buried a power-play goal behind Marcus Hogberg at 1:36, putting the Penguins ahead 2-0. After the goal was announced, play briefly stopped as Crosby received a standing ovation and waved his glove to acknowledge the hometown crowd. “As the years go on, I think you appreciate those kinds of things a little bit more,” said Crosby, who said he plans to give the puck to his father. “It's not why you play by any means, but to get (the record) and to get that kind of reception, it means a lot.” Crosby now has 1,034 assists, good for 12th in NHL history. Only three players — Ray Bourque, Wayne Gretzky and Steve Yzerman — have more assists with a single team. The 37-year-old Crosby has played 1,310 regular-season games. Lemieux played 915. “I have a lot of appreciation for what the guys have done on that list, especially Mario and what he means to the city and the organization,” Crosby said. “All the guys who have played prior to me, it's just really nice to be part of that company.” Crosby scored a goal and added three assists to tie the record during a 7-3 home win Monday against Philadelphia. Crosby thought he broke the mark during a road loss on Saturday against the Islanders, but the assist was taken away. “It was a little weird the way it went down,” Crosby admitted. Lemieux, who finished his Hall of Fame career with 1,723 points, led Pittsburgh to its first two Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992 as a player. Lemieux owned the team when Crosby captioned the Penguins to championships in 2009, 2016 and 2017. “The accomplishment, the milestone he's reached, this is just one more,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “It's more evidence of an amazing career. He's one of the best players to ever play.” AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
US News Today Live Updates on November 23, 2024 : Wicked audience review: Stunning visuals, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s magical performances feast for the eyesSaudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup. But when exactly?Türkiye calls for urgent support for Gaza, Lebanon at D-8 summit in Cairo
Tua Tagovailoa's strong play has helped keep the Dolphins' playoff hopes aliveJimmy Carter's love of tennis intersected with his presidencyMISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — Marcus Adams Jr.'s 25 points helped CSU Northridge defeat Utah Tech 89-79 on Sunday night at the Stew Morrill Classic. Adams added five rebounds for the Matadors (4-1). Keonte Jones added 23 points while shooting 8 of 15 from the field and 5 for 10 from the line while they also had nine rebounds and three blocks. Scotty Washington had 19 points and went 7 of 14 from the field (3 for 6 from 3-point range). The Trailblazers (1-5) were led by Hakim Byrd, who posted 23 points. Utah Tech also got 15 points from Noa Gonsalves. Samuel Ariyibi finished with 14 points and three blocks. The Matadors play Denver and Utah Tech takes on Montana when the event wraps up on Monday. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .
CLEVLEAND — Shane Bieber's comeback with Cleveland has double meaning. The former Cy Young winner re-signed with the Guardians on Wednesday, a reunion that seemed unlikely when he became a free agent. However, the 29-year-old Bieber decided to stay with the AL Central champions after making just two starts in 2024 before undergoing Tommy John surgery. Bieber agreed last week to a one-year, $14 million contract. The deal includes a $16 million player option for 2026. It seemed like a long shot that Bieber, who is 62-32 with a 3.22 ERA in 132 starts, would return to Cleveland. He had turned down long-term offers in the past from the club, and it was expected he would sign with another contender, likely one on the West Coast. But the California native has a special connection with the Guardians, who selected him in the fourth round of the 2016 draft. Bieber, who won the AL Cy Young in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, threw only 12 innings last season before lingering issues with his elbow forced him to have surgery. He is expected to join Cleveland's rotation at some point in 2025. A two-time All-Star, Bieber was named MVP of the midsummer event in 2019 when it was held in Cleveland. He has the highest strikeout ratio per nine innings (10.2) and third-highest winning percentage (.660) in the franchise's 124-year history. Bieber is one of just three Cleveland pitchers to start five season openers, joining Stan Coveleski (1917-21) and Corey Kluber (2015-19). While Bieber had some elbow issues in the past, he didn't show any issues before being shut down. He struck out 11 in six scoreless innings against Oakland on March 28, and followed that up with six more shutout innings at Seattle on April 2. Pitchers dominate Rule 5 draft DALLAS — Pitchers again dominated the big league phase of the Rule 5 draft at the winter meetings, comprising 11 of the 15 unprotected players who were picked Wednesday. The 121-loss Chicago White Sox had the first pick and selected 24-year-old right-hander Shane Smith from the Milwaukee Brewers organization. Smith was an undrafted free agent out of Wake Forest when he was signed by Milwaukee in July 2021. The 6-foot-4, 235-pounder has gone 13-7 with a 2.69 ERA and 203 strikeouts over 157 innings in 19 starts and 54 relief appearances over three minor league seasons. There were 14 teams who made picks in the major league portion of the Rule 5 draft of players left off 40-man rosters after several minor league seasons. Only Atlanta made two selections, after making none since 2017. Atlanta chose right-hander Anderson Pilar from the Miami Marlins with the 11th pick, and then took infielder Christian Cairo from the Cleveland Guardians with the 15th and final pick in the MLB portion. The 26-year-old Pilar was original signed by Colorado as a minor league free agent in 2015 and has pitched in 213 minor league games that included 17 starts. He is 28-20 with a 2.86 ERA. Teams pay $100,000 to take a player in the major league portion. The players must stay on the big league roster all of next season or clear waivers and be offered back to their original organization for $50,000. Six of the 10 players selected during the Rule 5 draft last December — five of them right-handed pitchers — remained last season with organization that selected them. Two of the four position players taken Wednesday by other teams came from the Detroit Tigers organization: catcher Liam Hicks and third baseman Gage Workman. Miami drafted second after Colorado passed making a selection, and took Hicks. Workman was taken by the Chicago Cubs with the 10th pick. Baltimore lost two right-handed pitchers on back-to-back picks, Juan Nunez to San Diego with the 12th pick before Connor Thomas went to Milwaukee. Hamilton wins Frick Award DALLAS — Tom Hamilton, who has called Cleveland games on the radio for 35 seasons, won the Hall of Fame’s Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting on Wednesday. Hamilton, 70, joined the team's broadcast in 1990, when he was with Herb Score in the booth and part of the coverage of their World Series appearances in 1995 and 1997. Hamilton became the voice of the franchise when Score retired after that second World Series. Hamilton will be honored during the Hall of Fame’s induction weekend from July 25-28 in Cooperstown, New York. He was selected the hall's Frick Award 16-member committee as the 49th winner. There were 10 finalists on this year's ballot, whose main contributions came as local and national voices and whose careers began after, or extended into, the Wild Card era. The other nine were Skip Caray, Rene Cardenas, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Ernie Johnson Sr., Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Dave Sims and John Sterling. Marlins send Burger to Rangers DALLAS — The Texas Rangers acquired slugging corner infielder Jake Burger from the Miami Marlins on Wednesday in a trade for three minor league players. Burger hit .250 with 29 home runs and 76 RBIs in 137 games for the Marlins last season, with 150 strikeouts in 535 at-bats with 31 walks. He started 59 games at third base and made 50 starts at first. Five days of service time short of being eligible for salary arbitration this offseason, he will be eligible next winter and can become a free agent after the 2028 World Series. Miami got infielders Max Acosta and Echedry Vargas and left-handed pitcher Brayan Mendoza. The acquisition of Burger comes about a month after the Rangers hired former Marlins manager Skip Schumaker as a senior adviser for baseball operations. Luis Urueta, Miami's bench coach the past two seasons, also was added recently to manager Bruce Bochy's on-field coaching staff for 2025. Mike Tauchman is switching sides in Chicago. The White Sox announced a $1.95 million, one-year contract for the outfielder. Tauchman, 34, grew up in Palatine, Illinois, about 35 miles northwest of Chicago, and played college ball for Bradley in Peoria, Illinois. He spent the previous two seasons with the Cubs. All-Star left-hander Garrett Crochet was acquired by the Boston Red Sox from the Chicago White Sox for four prospects. Catcher Kyle Teel, infielder Chase Meidroth, right-hander Wikelman Gonzalez and outfielder Braden Montgomery are headed to Chicago.NEW YORK -- A person of interest is in custody following the targeted attack of Brian Thompson, the CEO of major insurance group UnitedHealthcare who was fatally shot outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel ahead of an investor conference, police said Monday. VIDEO: Latest in arrest of person of interest in CEO shooting 'Strong' person of interest identified A "strong person of interest" has been located in Pennsylvania, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said during a press briefing on Monday. The individual -- identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione -- was brought in for questioning after an employee at a McDonald's in Altoona recognized him from the wildly circulated images of the suspect in the shooting and called police, authorities said. Mangione was eating at the establishment, police said. He matches the description of the suspect being sought in the shooting, Adams said. He was carrying a firearm and suppressor "both consistent with the weapon used in the murder," NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during the press briefing. He also had "multiple fraudulent IDs," including a fake New Jersey ID matching the ID the suspect used to check into his New York City hostel before the shooting incident, Tisch said. Police also recovered clothing, including a mask consistent with those worn by the wanted individual, as well as a "handwritten document that speaks to both his motivation and mindset," she said. Mangione was arrested on unrelated charges Monday, police said. He was in possession of a ghost gun capable of firing a 9mm round and will face gun charges in Altoona, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters during the briefing. The NYPD is sending detectives to Altoona to interview him and are going through the recovered writings and his social media, police said. VIDEO: UnitedHealthcare CEO killing timeline: What we know so far "It does seem that he had some ill will toward corporate America," Kenny said. Mangione was born and raised in Maryland and has ties to San Francisco and Honolulu, Kenny said. He has no prior arrest history in New York, Kenny said. Police have said the suspect appeared to be lying in wait outside the Hilton hotel on Wednesday in what they said was a "premeditated" attack. The shooter arrived at the scene about five minutes before Thompson before shooting the victim in the chest around 6:40 a.m., police said. The suspect is believed to have left New York City following the shooting, police said. Mangione is a graduate of Penn Mangione is graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a university spokesperson told WPVI-TV. He majored in computer science and graduated in May 2020. New photos released NYPD officials released new images this weekend of the suspect being sought in the shooting in the back of a taxi, where he could be seen peering through the open slider in the partition between the seats. Backpack contained Monopoly money Police found a backpack believed to belong to the suspected shooter in Central Park on Friday evening, police sources told ABC News. The backpack contained fake money from the game Monopoly and a Tommy Hilfiger jacket, sources said. The backpack was found after NYPD deployed an army of officers and drones to conduct a grid search, police sources said earlier. As of Saturday, three days after the shooting, sources close to the investigation told ABC News the New York Police Department is making progress toward identifying the gunman but, as of now, still has not done so. On Friday, police said they believed the gunman left New York City following the shooting -- ditching his bike on the Upper West Side and taking a taxi to a Port Authority bus facility at 178th Street. Police said they believe he boarded a bus there because they did not see him on video leaving the facility. Suspect stayed at hostel The NYPD released on Thursday new photos of the suspect, seen without a mask, while asking for the public's help in identifying him. The images were taken from a surveillance camera at the HI New York City Hostel on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Police had obtained a warrant to search after coming to believe the suspect stayed there, sources told ABC News. Police were able to find an image of the suspect without his face mask because he was flirting with the woman who checked him into the hostel, police sources told ABC News. As he stood at the check-in desk, the sources said the woman asked to see his smile. The suspected shooter obliged, pulling down his mask long enough for the surveillance camera to capture his face. It appears the suspect shared a room with two other men, according to police sources. The suspect likely checked into the hostel on Nov. 24, checked out and then checked back in again on Nov. 30, according to sources. It's not clear when the surveillance image was captured. The suspected shooter checked into the hostel using a New Jersey license that wasn't his own, according to police sources. Detectives ran the name and found it did not resemble any known photos of the suspect or other evidence amassed so far, the sources said. Suspect arrived in NYC 10 days before shooting: Sources The suspect came to New York City on Nov. 24 on a Greyhound bus, when a surveillance camera at Port Authority Bus Terminal caught his arrival at 9 p.m., law enforcement sources told ABC News. The inbound bus originated in Atlanta but it was not immediately clear where the suspect boarded. The sources said he was spotted on board in Washington, D.C., so he boarded there or somewhere between D.C. and Atlanta. Both Greyhound and the parent company of the hostel, Hostelling International USA, said in a statement that they are "fully cooperating with the NYPD" but cannot comment further due to the active investigation. The 10-day period has been the focus of investigative efforts. Police have collected a lot of video of the suspect all over the city -- in the subway, in cabs, in a McDonald's, according to sources. Each place he paid with cash and he made sure to keep his mask on, according to sources. Whereabouts day of the shooting Police have released photos of the suspect in a mask, captured at a Starbucks near the hotel before the shooting, according to New York ABC station WABC. He was described by police as wearing a light brown or cream-colored jacket, a black face mask, black and white sneakers and a "very distinctive" gray backpack. Sources told ABC News the suspected shooter was also seen on video much earlier, at 5 a.m. the day of the shooting, near the hostel carrying what appears to be an e-bike battery. New cleared CCTV video shows a man who appears to be the suspect walking west on 55th Street at 6:19 a.m. The video shows him stoop down as he appears to momentarily drop an object on the garbage before continuing to walk. Writing discovered on shell casings Detectives later discovered writing on the shell casings found at the scene where Thompson was gunned down, police sources told ABC News. Detectives were working to determine whether the words were meant as a message from the shooter and a hint at his motive. Written on the shell casings were the words "deny," "defend" and "depose," according to sources. Other evidence: cellphone, water bottle, candy wrapper After the shooting, the suspect fled on foot into an alley, where a phone was recovered, according to Kenny. He then fled on an e-bike and he was last seen riding into Central Park at 6:48 a.m., police said. Police released photos of the suspect holding a firearm and on a bike. Detectives have also retrieved a water bottle and candy wrapper from the area where he was apparently waiting, law enforcement sources said. After analysis, NYPD investigators believe the cellphone, candy wrapper and water bottle are linked to the shooter, police sources said. Investigators believe they were able to score DNA samples from several pieces of the evidence, law enforcement sources told ABC News on Friday. The samples are currently at the NYC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to be run through databases for a possible match, the sources said. That process could take a couple days. At the same time, NYPD detectives are working with the U.S. Marshals Service to try and track down the shooter along with the FBI, which has the most sophisticated technology for retrieving usable data from cellphones, sources said. Professional killer appears unlikely The victim's hotel room has already been accessed by investigators, whose top priority is determining Thompson's most recent conversations and movements, sources said. The working theory among detectives right now is that the shooting was carried out by someone who is not a professional killer because too many "mistakes" were made, sources said. Hitmen typically don't carry cell phones to their hits and the shots were fired from a distance that would be considered "too far" away from the victim, the sources said. Another photo appeared to show the man walking by the window of a cab. At this point, detectives are trying to determine whether Thompson was targeted because of some type of personal conflict or as a result of his work as an insurance executive, sources said. The killer apparently had some knowledge of Thompson's schedule on Wednesday and the fact that he would be arriving at the Hilton well before the company meeting was to begin, the sources said. Police are interviewing Thompson's colleagues and family about any potential specific threats, Kenny said. What we know about the victim Thompson, 50, was in New York City for the UnitedHealthcare investors conference, which was scheduled to start at 8 a.m. The conference was being held at the Hilton outside of which he was shot, but he was not staying there, police said. UnitedHealthcare's parent company, UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in the world, said in a statement, "We are deeply saddened and shocked at the passing of our dear friend and colleague Brian Thompson." "Brian was a highly respected colleague and friend to all who worked with him," the company said. "We are working closely with the New York Police Department and ask for your patience and understanding during this difficult time. Our hearts go out to Brian's family and all who were close to him." Police and the FBI urge the public to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS or 1-800-CALL-FBI with any information. A $50,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.
WEST ISLIP, N.Y. -- A New York high school basketball team was subjected to racial slurs at a rivalry game on Long Island, according to the school's athletic director. The incident at the game between Patchogue-Medford High School and West Islip High School in Suffolk County is under investigation. "Some fans directed taunts and racial slurs at our players, an act that is both unacceptable and deeply troubling," Patchogue-Medford High School's athletic director wrote in a letter to parents after the game at West Islip. "These are extremely concerning allegations and the district is taking this matter very seriously," West Islip's superintendent said in response. Both schools' communities expressed deep disapproval at the allegations. "I think it's very sad," Suffolk County Legislator Jason Richberg said. "This is a good conversation for the school districts and us personally to have in our homes about what language is appropriate and what language is not." Nearly one-third of high schoolers across the U.S. said they experienced racism in school in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With discrimination on the rise, experts say the research points to the need for schools to alter focus. Charvon Davis-Pierce, a former Suffolk varsity high school cheerleader, says she was a victim of discrimination during a game in 1986. "During that game, while we were cheering on the floor during the halftime, racial epithets were spewed at us, things were thrown at us," Davis-Pierce said. She has since joined the Parent Equity Team, which involves school districts across the county pledging to work together to promote respect and sportsmanship on and off the court. During her decades-long career, Jennifer McLogan has been recognized for her coverage of breaking news and live reporting on major stories.Claims of improved water use efficiency by Alberta oil sands companies under scrutinyUS effort to curb China's and Russia's access to advanced computer chips 'inadequate,' report finds