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Members of the New York police crime scene unit investigate bullets lying on the sidewalk at the scene outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan where Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot, on Dec. 4, in New York. Stefan Jeremiah/The Associated Press “Wanted” posters with the names and faces of health care executives have been popping up on the streets of New York. Hit lists with images of bullets are circulating online with warnings that industry leaders should be afraid. The apparent targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare UNH-N CEO Brian Thompson and the menacing threats that followed have sent a shudder through corporate America and the health care industry in particular, leading to increased security for executives and some workers. In the week since the brazen shooting, health insurers have removed information about their top executives from company websites, cancelled in-person meetings with shareholders and advised all employees to work from home temporarily. An internal New York Police Department bulletin warned this week that the online vitriol that followed the shooting could signal an immediate “elevated threat.” Police fear that the Dec. 4 shooting could “inspire a variety of extremists and grievance-driven malicious actors to violence,” according to the bulletin, which was obtained by the Associated Press. “Wanted” posters pasted to parking meters and construction-site fences in Manhattan included photos of health care executives and the words “Deny, defend, depose” – similar to a phrase scrawled on bullets found near Mr. Thompson’s body and echoing those used by insurance industry critics. Mr. Thompson’s wife, Paulette, told NBC News last week that he told her some people had been threatening him and suggested the threats may have involved issues with insurance coverage. Investigators believe the shooting suspect, Luigi Mangione , may have been motivated by hostility toward health insurers. They are studying his writings about a previous back injury, and his disdain for corporate America and the U.S. health care system. Mr. Mangione’s lawyer has cautioned against prejudging the case. Mr. Mangione, 26, has remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested Monday. Manhattan prosecutors are working to bring him to New York to face a murder charge. UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, said this week it was working with law enforcement to ensure a safe work environment and to reinforce security guidelines and building access policies, a spokesperson said. The company has taken down photos, names and biographies for its top executives from its websites, a spokesperson said. Other organizations, including CVS, the parent company for insurance giant Aetna, have taken similar actions. Government health insurance provider Centene Corp. CNC-N has announced that its investor day will be held online, rather than in-person as originally planned. Medica, a Minnesota-based non-profit health care firm, said last week it was temporarily closing its six offices for security reasons and would have its employees work from home. Heightened security measures likely will make health care companies and their leaders more inaccessible to their policyholders, said former Cigna CI-N executive Wendell Potter. “And understandably so, with this act of violence. There’s no assurance that this won’t happen again,” said Mr. Potter, who’s now an advocate for health care reform. Private security firms and consultants have been in high demand, fielding calls almost immediately after the shooting from companies across a range of industries, including manufacturing and finance. Companies have long faced security risks and grappled with how far to take precautions for high-profile executives. But these recent threats sparked by Mr. Thompson’s killing should not be ignored, said Dave Komendat, a former security chief for Boeing who now heads his own risk-management company. “The tone and tenor is different. The social reaction to this tragedy is different. And so I think that people need to take this seriously,” Mr. Komendat said. Just more than a quarter of the companies in the Fortune 500 reported spending money to protect their CEOs and top executives. Of those, the median payment for personal security doubled over the past three years to just below US$100,000. Hours after the shooting, Mr. Komendat was on a call with dozens of chief security officers from big corporations, and there have been many similar meetings since, held by security groups or law enforcement agencies assessing the threats, he said. “It just takes one person who is motivated by a poster – who may have experienced something in their life through one of these companies that was harmful,” Mr. Komendat said.
Photo: The Canadian Press Damien Steel, right, Deep Sky CEO and Isabelle Callaghan, Deep Sky Project Manager, are seen posing for a photo at Deep Sky's direct air capture test facility, which is currently under construction, in Innisfail, Alta., in a 2024 handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Deep Sky, A Canadian company that has received a US$40-million grant from Bill Gates' climate solutions venture firm says its Alberta test site will be removing carbon directly from the atmosphere as early as this spring. Montreal-based startup Deep Sky announced Wednesday it was awarded funding from the Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Catalyst to help finance what it calls its Deep Sky Alpha project. Construction work at the project site, located north of Calgary in the town of Innisfail, is already under way, Deep Sky CEO Damien Steel said in an interview. "This should be a proud moment for Canada. This facility in April of 2025 will be one of the first full-stack facilities in North America to actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere using renewable power, and store it underground in a deep saline aquifer," Steel said. Founded in 2023 by Frederic Lalonde — the Canadian entrepreneur who co-founded online travel company Hopper, Inc. — DeepSky aims to tackle the global climate crisis by building the world's first direct air capture carbon removal test hub and commercialization centre. It is the first Canadian company to receive an investment from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, which funds commercial projects for emerging climate technologies in an effort to accelerate their adoption and reduce their costs. "The world will ultimately need many approaches to carbon removal at prices far lower than is achievable today, but Deep Sky's platform will enable and accelerate the kind of real-world innovation that could make affordable (direct air capture) achievable," Mario Fernandez, head of Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, said in a release. Direct air capture is a term that refers to physically removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to slow global warming. It is different from carbon capture and storage, which refers to capturing carbon from smokestacks or other industrial emission points. Pulling carbon dioxide directly from the air is seen by proponents as a way to clean up historic emissions that have already escaped into the atmosphere, meaning it could potentially help reverse the damaging impacts of climate change. The technology typically involves the use of giant vacuums or fans to suck in air and then pass it through a filtration system to remove the CO2 for safe storage underground. Companies such as Canada's Carbon Engineering Ltd. — which was acquired by U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum for US$1.1 billion in 2023 — and Switzerland's Climeworks already have major projects in Texas and Iceland, respectively. But while the number of direct air capture pilot projects around the world is growing, the technology remains expensive and faces steep barriers to wide-scale deployment. "(Direct air capture) is much, much more difficult than (traditional carbon capture and storage) because the density of CO2 in the air is much lower than the density of CO2 in the chimney stack," Steel said. "(The industry) also has an energy problem. You need renewable power to run these devices and we just don't have enough renewable power on the planet." At its Innisfail site, Deep Sky says it will be piloting up to 14 direct air capture projects from companies around the world, in an effort to see which ones work best and could be commercialized. It has already signed contracts with eight companies to deploy their individual technologies at the site. "There are over 100 (direct air capture) companies in the world today, and we've met with every single one," Steel said. "We're looking for technologies that have a path to being very energy efficient, and we also look for technology that doesn't require any special type of feedstock and doesn't produce any crazy type of waste." Carbon dioxide captured at the Deep Sky site will be transported to an existing well at the Meadowbrook Carbon Storage Hub facility north of Edmonton, where it will be injected and stored two kilometres underground. The entire test hub will be powered by renewable energy, and Deep Sky intends to generate revenue by selling the carbon credits it earns. Deep Sky plans to invest over $100 million in the project over a 10-year period, and added the project will benefit from a federal investment tax credit that aims to incentivize the construction of carbon capture facilities in Canada. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has acknowledged that carbon dioxide removal at the scale of millions or even billions of tonnes will be necessary by 2050 in order to stabilize the planet's climate. That is a daunting task, Steel said, given only a small handful of projects currently exist worldwide. The largest, Climeworks' Mammoth facility in Iceland, has capacity to capture just up to 36,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. But Steel said he believes it is both possible and necessary to rapidly scale up the deployment of direct air capture technology. "What I love to tell people is, it's truly incredible what human beings can do when their backs are against the wall," he said.Orange High School senior Francesca Taracila honored by Kiwanis Club of Lander Circle
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NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange Thursday after being recognized for the second time by Time magazine as its person of the year. Watch Trump speak at the New York Stock Exchange in the player above. The honors for the businessman-turned-politician are a measure of Trump's remarkable comeback from an ostracized former president who refused to accept his election loss four years ago to a president-elect who won the White House decisively in November. READ MORE: Trump invites China's Xi to his presidential inauguration, even as he threatens Beijing with tariffs Before he was set to ring the opening bell at 9:30 a.m., a first for him, Trump spoke at the exchange and called it "a tremendous honor." "Time Magazine, getting this honor for the second time, I think it like it better this time actually," he said. Sam Jacobs, Time's editor in chief, announced on NBC's "Today" show that Trump was Time's 2024 Person of the Year. Jacobs said Trump was someone who "for better or for worse, had the most influence on the news in 2024." "This is someone who made an historic comeback, who reshaped the American presidency and who's reordering American politics," Jacobs said. "It's hard to argue with the fact that the person who's moving into the Oval Office is the most influential person in news." He added that "there's always a hot debate" at the magazine over the honor, "although I have to admit that this year was an easier decision than years past." In an interview with the magazine published Thursday, Trump spoke about his final campaign blitz and election win. "I called it '72 Days of Fury,'" Trump said. "We hit the nerve of the country. The country was angry." Trump was on Wall Street to mark the ceremonial start of the day's trading. The Time magazine cover featuring him was projected onto a wall at the stock exchange, flanked by American flags. Trump took the...Clark up for new challenge in Woods and McIlroy's indoor golf league
Google renews push into mixed reality headgearBOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Adam Jones ran for 197 yards and two touchdowns and Montana State ran over Montana 34-11 on Saturday to reclaim the Brawl of the Wild trophy. The Bobcats (12-0, 8-0 Big Sky Conference) wrapped up the 123rd meeting in this rivalry with 420 yards, 326 on the ground. Montana State capped its first unbeaten season and can match the school record for consecutive wins with a playoff win in two weeks. The Bobcats, ranked second in the FCS coaches poll, should be the top seed in the playoffs after top-ranked North Dakota State lost its finale to fifth-ranked South Dakota. Montana (8-4, 5-3), ranked 10th, is expected to add to its record 27 FCS playoff appearances but will not have a first-round bye in the 24-team bracket. Montana State quarterback Tommy Mellott was 6-of-12 passing for 94 yards with a touchdown in poor conditions and added 50 yards and a touchdown on the ground. He has helped the Bobcats score at least 30 points in every game this season Mellott had a 5-yard touchdown run on MSU's first possession and Mellott found Jones for a 35-yard touchdown early in the second quarter for a 14-3 lead. Myles Sansted had two field goals in the final two minutes, including a 49-yarder as time expired for a 20-3 halftime lead. Jones dominated the second half and scored two short touchdowns. Eli Gillman scored on a 1-yard run for Montana's touchdown between the Jones' touchdowns. The Grizzlies had just 234 yards and went 2 of 12 on third down. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football . Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://apnews.com/cfbtop25
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Some elite US universities favor wealthy students in admissions decisions, lawsuit allegesAir Products Files Investor Presentation Highlighting Successful Two-Pillar Strategy to Deliver Superior Shareholder ValueThe James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ) has just solved a 20-year-old mystery about how ancient stars could host massive planets. In the early 2000s, the Hubble Space Telescope observed the oldest planet ever , an object 2.5 times as large as Jupiter that formed in the Milky Way 13 billion years ago, less than a billion years after the universe was born. The discovery of other old planets soon followed. This puzzled scientists, as stars in the early universe should have consisted mostly of light elements like hydrogen and helium, with almost none of the heavy elements — things like carbon and iron — that make up planets. Astronomers believed that the disks of dust and gas surrounding these light-element stars should have been blown away by the star's own radiation, dispersing the disk within a couple of million years and leaving nothing behind to make a planet. The heavy elements needed to build a long-lasting planetary disk around a star weren't available until later supernova explosions created them , scientists thought. Related: James Webb telescope uncovers massive 'grand design' spiral galaxy in the early universe — and scientists can't explain how it got so big, so fast Now, though, the JWST has taken a close look at a modern-day proxy for these old stars and found that the Hubble was not mistaken. In new research published Dec. 16 in The Astrophysical Journal , researchers found that when there are few heavy, metallic elements, planetary disks can last much longer than previously believed. "We see that these stars are indeed surrounded by disks and are still in the process of gobbling material, even at the relatively old age of 20 [million] or 30 million years," study lead author Guido De Marchi , an astronomer at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, Netherlands, said in a statement . "This also implies that planets have more time to form and grow around these stars than in nearby star-forming regions in our own galaxy." James Webb's observations The JWST observed the spectra (a measurement of different wavelengths of light) of the stars in the star-forming cluster named NGC 346. Conditions in this cluster are similar to those in the early universe, with lots of light elements like hydrogen and helium and a relative dearth of metallic and other heavier elements. The cluster is in the Small Magellanic Cloud , a galaxy 199,000 light-years from Earth. Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. The light and electromagnetic waves coming off these stars and their surroundings revealed that they host long-lasting planetary disks. There are two ways this could work, according to Marchi and his colleagues. — Surprise discovery in alien planet's atmosphere could upend decades of planet formation theory — Bizarre 'runaway' planets discovered by James Webb telescope may be failed stars in disguise — Why is Pluto not considered a planet? The first is that stars made up of light elements do not host a lot of elements undergoing radioactive decay — those radioactive elements are all heavier. This lack of radiation means that the star has less power to push away the planetary disk, so it might last far longer than a disk around a star with more heavy elements. Another possibility is that a star formed from only light elements must form from a very, very large cloud of dust and gas. This extra-large dust cloud would also leave behind a huge disk around the newborn star, and that huge disk might take a very long time to blow away, even if light-element stars give off just as much radiation as heavier-element stars. "This has implications for how you form a planet, and the type of system architecture that you can have in these different environments," study co-author Elena Sabbi , chief scientist for the Gemini Observatory at the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab in Tucson, said in the statement. "This is so exciting."
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