• Gary Binkow was an Emmy award-winning and Academy Award-nominated movie producer.
• He left his multimillion-dollar career in Hollywood to pursue a new job in the longevity industry.
• Binkow now makes less than he did working in Hollywood but says he's happier and wouldn't go back.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gary Binkow, a former Hollywood producer who gave up his multimillion-dollar career to start a new business in the longevity industry. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I got into the movie business because my one talent as a kid was that I was really good at watching TV and movies — I mean, I just inhaled everything I could.

The way my brain works is that I would watch TV shows and movies and try to unravel what it was about them that moved me and how the storytelling worked. And so then, when I found out you can go major in moviemaking, I decided to do that. I went to Columbia University and majored in film because, frankly, I thought it would be easy. I'm always looking for the path of least resistance.

I started working for MTV in New York in 1980 and, after moving to California, worked my way up from an assistant working at 20th Century Fox to a development executive, then eventually a producer, mainly based at Miramax Films.

I had a long career in Hollywood. I made about 30 films on the independent side and had a successful run at Miramax. At the top of my career, I produced a movie called "Finding Neverland," which came out in 2004, won a bunch of awards, and got nominated for several Oscars.

Even though I had been successful, I still found my creative ideas blocked by industry gatekeepers like Harvey Weinstein, who repeatedly passed on them even though they'd made millions with other studios.

I decided I didn't want to be in a system where I couldn't control my own destiny and realized I was really an entrepreneur. When you make 30 independent movies, you are essentially building 30 independent companies. So, I decided to use those skills to start my own company in 2005, Collective Digital Studios, a new media company offering services like content production, brand management, and distribution.

Everybody in the movie business told me I was an idiot and crazy for leaving. But in the early 2000s — the early days of internet virality — we worked with content creators and comedians like Logan Paul and King Bach before they'd made it big and created a massive platform leveraging their expertise in hooking audiences with short video clips. As we expanded, we helped Katt Williams license his iconic comedy special "The Pimp Chronicles" to HBO in 2006 and produced thousands of YouTube videos, driving strong profits — but something felt like it was missing.

I decided I'd rather do something more powerful. I was good at helping people connect with audiences and telling better stories, but I wanted to do it with a purpose and a mission. So I left. In 2019, we sold the company, which is now known as Studio71, for a healthy exit to ProSieben, and I decided I wanted to use the same skill set in health and wellness.

So, my partner and I moved out of Los Angeles and onto an organic avocado farm in the beach town of Carpinteria, California. We've been working to rehabilitate it, and in 2020, I started The Swell Score, a membership-based online marketplace for holistic and clean supplements and other household products.

I've been interested in holistic health for my whole life. I'm always looking for more natural ways to stay healthy and out of the sick-care system. But there is a lot of misinformation and skepticism in the wellness space — and I understand that because I'm just as skeptical. So, at The Swell Score, we partner with medical experts to review wellness and beauty products and work with customers to teach them how to improve their health and live longer, happier lives.

The Longevity Lab, which I opened in October in Carpinteria, is an expansion of that. It's a retail space where you can buy these products and see the difference for yourself. We offer everything from non-toxic mattresses and housewares to wellness supplements, beauty products, and bath items.

So far, the wellness space has been good to me — it's not nine-figures good yet, but I have no interest in going back to Hollywood; the movie-making business is totally broken. I plan to keep building in this industry, and people have been really responsive. I think part of that is because I took some of the tactics of storytelling and brand building that I learned from the other company and applied them to health and wellness.

Now, when I get asked to advise people and help them hone their business stories and strategies, the one thing I tell anybody who's getting started is that I would think of yourself as a media company first, not a product company. You know, with just one video, you could create your billion-dollar business.

• An F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft was shot down in an apparent case of friendly fire, CENTCOM said.
• The incident occurred after the missile cruiser USS Gettysburg mistakenly fired on the craft.
• Both pilots were safely recovered, with one sustaining minor injuries, per CENTCOM.

An F/A-18 Super Hornet jet was shot down in an apparent case of friendly fire, CENTCOM said in a statement late Saturday.

The incident occurred over the Red Sea in the early hours of Sunday morning local time. The two US Navy pilots involved in the incident both survived.

"The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG 64), which is part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18, which was flying off the USS Harry S. Truman," CENTCOM's statement reads. "Both pilots were safely recovered. Initial assessments indicate that one of the crew members sustained minor injuries."

An investigation into the incident is underway.

Several hours before the incident, in a separate statement about its operations, CENTCOM said US Central Command forces had conducted "precision airstrikes against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis within Houthi-controlled territory in Sana'a, Yemen." It is unclear if the friendly fire incident was related to those strikes or another operation.

The Boeing-built Super Hornet is a supersonic, twin-engine fighter aircraft "able to perform virtually every mission in the tactical spectrum," according to the manufacturer.

The cost of a new Super Hornet craft has been rising rapidly, Forbes reported last year. The outlet reported that the last set of 20 jets was purchased from Boeing for $55.7 million per aircraft.

CENTCOM did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Blake Lively has sued "It Ends with Us" costar and director Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment.
• The 40-year-old actor and filmmaker is best known for his role on the show "Jane the Virgin."
• Baldoni cofounded Wayfarer Entertainment, the production studio behind "It Ends with Us."

Blake Lively on Saturday filed suit against her "It Ends with Us" costar and director, Justin Baldoni, for sexual harassment after months of reports that the two feuded on set.

Here's what we know about the 40-year-old actor and filmmaker.

The son of Sharon and Sam Baldoni, Justin Baldoni was born in 1984 in Los Angeles and raised in Medford, Oregon. His mother is a Feng Shui designer, according to her Instagram, and his father, before taking on a producer role for his son's projects, including "My Last Days" and "Clouds," was chairman and CEO of Baldoni Entertainment, an entertainment marketing firm.

Baldoni is a devout follower of the Baháʼí faith and has, on several occasions, shared social media posts related to his belief in the religion.

After getting his acting start in a 2004 episode of the soap opera "The Young and the Restless," the younger Baldoni went on to take roles on "Heroes," "The Bold and the Beautiful," and developed a male empowerment talk show called "Man Enough."

Baldoni married Swedish actor Emily Foxler in 2013. She now goes by the name Emily Baldoni in her credits on film and TV projects such as "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "NCIS: Los Angeles." She also appeared in "It Ends With Us" alongside her husband and Lively, portraying Doctor Julie.

Baldoni and his wife both have credits on the satirical telenovela "Jane the Virgin," the television show in which Baldoni is best known for his role as Rafael Solano during its 2014-2019 run.

According to the company's LinkedIn page, Baldoni co-founded the production studio Wayfarer Entertainment in 2013, which later produced "It Ends With Us."

The "It Ends With Us" production, based on the novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover, was plagued with rumors that Lively and Baldoni had developed a feud while on set. Business Insider reported that Baldoni had been largely absent from press events with other cast members, and the pair were not photographed together during the film's premiere.

Lively faced significant backlash amid the rumored feud, with fans turning on the "Gossip Girl" star and suggesting she was unlikeable and difficult to work with, Business Insider reported.

In her lawsuit, Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, retaliation, and breach of contract, saying the actor inflicted "emotional distress" and conspired to damage her public reputation in the wake of the film's release. Baldoni's attorney has called the claims made in the complaint "completely false" and "intentionally salacious."

• Boeing is having a rough year.
• The company has faced mechanical problems, lawsuits, a leadership shake-up, and layoffs.
• Here's a breakdown of how Boeing's year has gone from bad to worse.

Boeing has been going through it this year.

From losing a door plug on an Alaska Airlines flight, causing a side panel to blow out in midair, to an exodus of corporate executives, the company has faced a litany of crises in 2024. The company's stock has fallen about 35% this year.

In a message to employees during the company's third-quarter earnings call, Boeing CEO Kely Ortberg said the company was at a "crossroads."

"My mission here is pretty straightforward," she said. "Turn this big ship in the right direction and restore Boeing to the leadership position that we all know and want."

Here's how Boeing's year went from bad to worse.

Emergency on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282

The problems began almost immediately this year when, on January 5, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 lost a door plug midair, blowing a hole in the side of the plane. While no one died in the incident, several passengers were injured, and the pilots were forced to make an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon.

In the aftermath of the incident, the FAA temporarily grounded over 170 of Boeing's 737 Max 9 planes until they could complete safety inspections.

The Justice Department opened an investigation into Boeing shortly after, and the FBI told passengers aboard the flight that they might have been victims of a crime.

Ongoing litigation

Boeing was hit with multiple lawsuits this year.

Passengers from the Alaska Airlines flight filed a class action suit against the company just days after the incident.

"Passengers were shocked and confused, thrust into a waking nightmare unsure if these were their last seconds alive," the lawsuit said.

Boeing's shareholders filed a separate class action suit against the company in January, stating that it had prioritized profit over safety, Reuters reported.

Separately, in July, Boeing struck a plea deal related to two 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. If a judge had approved the deal, it would have allowed Boeing to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud, avoid a trial, pay a fine of about $244 million, and invest at least $455 million in safety and compliance measures.

Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion in 2021 in a deal with the federal government to avoid prosecution for the crashes, but Justice Department officials said in May that Boeing had violated portions of the deal, putting a trial back on the table. Relatives of the deceased passengers asked a Texas judge in October to throw out the agreement, which they called a "sweetheart" deal. The families have previously called for the company to pay a fine amounting to nearly $25 billion.

In December, the judge rejected the deal. A lawyer representing families who lost people in the 2019 crash told BI that they "anticipate a significant renegotiation of the plea deal that incorporates terms truly commensurate with the gravity of Boeing's crimes."

FAA audit of Boeing's safety procedures

The Federal Aviation Administration commissioned a report into Boeing following the fatal 2018 and 2019 crashes — and the results published in February weren't good news for the company.

The FAA report found 27 insufficient areas in Boeing's safety procedures, including no clear system for employees to report safety concerns, confusing management structures, and poor communication with employees about safety procedures.

The latest statement from the FAA about Boeing's compliance to remedy the safety issues was published in August. It said the agency continues "actively monitoring Boeing's progress in a variety of ways," including regular reviews by FAA experts of Boeing's safety procedures and issuing airworthiness certificates for every newly produced Boeing 737 Max. 

The FAA itself has faced scrutiny for its oversight of Boeing. A report from the Department of Transportation's Office of the Inspector General in October found the agency's checks were insufficient.

Exodus of Boeing executives

In March, Boeing announced a leadership shake-up.

CEO Dan Calhoun said he would step down. Stan Deal, the CEO of the company's commercial airplanes division, said he would retire. In the same announcement, board chair Larry Kellner announced his plan not to seek reelection.

Stephanie Pope, the company's COO, was promoted to replace Deal shortly after his departure. At the end of July, Kelly Ortberg was named the company's new CEO.

Ted Colbert, who headed Boeing's defense, space, and security division, became the first prominent executive to leave the company after Ortberg took over. Colbert's departure was announced in September.

Stranded astronauts

The aerospace company faced another high-profile problem in June when NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams traveled to the International Space Station on Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spaceship. It marked the first time Boeing flew astronauts to space.

The astronauts left Earth on June 5 and were supposed to return after eight days, but issues with Starliner's thrusters and helium leaks caused delays. NASA and Boeing began troubleshooting the problems to bring Wilmore and Williams back home. However, in late July, the two astronauts were still stuck at the International Space Station.

NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, Steve Stich, said in a press briefing that month that Elon Musk's SpaceX could bring home the astronauts if needed. After working with Boeing to determine whether the two astronauts could safely return to Earth on Starliner, NASA announced in August that it chose SpaceX to do the job instead.

"Spaceflight is risky," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference. "Even at its safest. Even at its most routine. A test flight, by nature, is neither safe nor routine. So, the decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station, and bring the Boeing Starliner home un-crewed, is a result of a commitment to safety."

The decision was a major blow to Boeing, which spent $4.2 billion developing Starliner. Wilmore and Williams' flight was the final step Boeing needed to clear for NASA to certify Starliner for human spaceflight. It highlighted just how far Boeing lags behind its competitor, SpaceX.

Wilmore and Williams are now expected to return to Earth in 2025 on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship, which launched for the International Space Station in September. The astronauts were initially set to return home in February, but NASA announced they would be delayed until March as SpaceX readies its spaceship.

Union strike

Thousands of unionized Boeing employees walked out in September after contract negotiations broke down.

The strike began despite a promising pay package proposal, which would have raised wages by more than 25% over the contract period for more than 32,000 employees in the Pacific Northwest.

Ultimately, union workers denied the proposal and voted to initiate a strike, which is costing the company about $50 million a day.

Negotiations stalled, with both sides filing National Labor Relations Board violations accusing the other of negotiating in bad faith.

Boeing and union leaders reached a tentative deal on October 19 that included a 35% general wage increase spread over four years and a one-time ratification bonus of $7,000.

However, striking Boeing employees rejected the deal on October 24.

"After 10 years of sacrifice, we still have ground to make up. We hope to resume negotiations promptly," the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said on X.

The 53-day strike ended in early November when workers approved a new contract.

Layoffs

Boeing began furloughs of white-collar workers in mid-September after the strike began. Select employees were required to take one week off every four weeks on a rolling basis.

Ortberg, in a staff memo, also announced that executive leadership would take a "commensurate pay reduction for the duration of the strike," though details of the pay reduction remain unclear.

Layoffs began several weeks later. In mid-October, Boeing announced plans to lay off about 10% of its 170,000-member workforce.

In a memo to employees, Ortberg said Boeing was in a "difficult position" and that "restoring our company requires tough decisions."

The company also delayed production of its 777X twin-engine jet and discontinued production of its 767 cargo plane, the memo noted.

Production delays with the Boeing 777X plane

The experimental 777X is Boeing's newest widebody plane, banking 481 orders from more than a dozen global carriers even though regulators have not yet approved it to fly passengers.

But the aircraft has been riddled with production problems — like supply chain issues, design troubles, and now the ongoing strike — which have already put it five years behind schedule and set Boeing back $1.5 billion.

That hole will likely deepen with the latest entry delay to 2026, further eroding the industry's trust in Boeing's 777X program. It could also push carriers to choose Boeing's European rival Airbus and its already-in-service Airbus A350.

The aircraft is still uncertified but started certification flight testing in July. Testing was halted in August due to a problem with a key part that connects the engine to the aircraft, CNBC reported.

Production troubles with Boeing's 737 MAX aircraft

The FAA announced in January that it would not grant any production expansions of Boeing's MAX aircraft, including the 737 MAX 9, following the emergency on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.

"The Jan. 5 Boeing 737-9 MAX incident must never happen again," the FAA said in a press release said.

FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said Boeing would not be cleared to expand production or add additional production lines for the 737 MAX "until we are satisfied that the quality control issues uncovered during this process are resolved," according to the press release.

Boeing held a three-hour meeting with the FAA in June to address safety and quality concerns. Afterward, Whitaker spoke at a press conference, where he told a reporter that expanding production of 737 MAX planes was still up in the air.

The FAA told Business Insider, "This is about systemic change, and there's a lot of work to be done. Boeing must meet milestones, and the timing of our decisions will be driven by their ability to do so."

The agency added: "Boeing has delivered a roadmap to change its safety culture, and the FAA will make sure Boeing implements the changes they have outlined. We will not approve production increases beyond the current cap until we're satisfied they've followed through on implementing corrective actions and transforming their safety culture."

Boeing restarted production of the 737 Max in December following the strike's conclusion.

Whistleblowers report problems at Boeing

Sam Salehpour, a Boeing engineer, testified at an April Senate hearing that the company ignored his reports on safety concerns, that his boss retaliated against him, and that he received threats against his physical safety.

The Senate subcommittee investigating Boeing's safety and quality practices released a 204-page report in June. The report included accounts from several whistleblowers.

Sam Mohawk, a Boeing quality assurance inspector, said the company lost track of hundreds of bad 737 parts and instructed employees to conceal improperly stored plane parts from FAA inspectors.

Another whistleblower, Richard Cuevas, wrote in a June complaint to the FAA that holes were being incorrectly drilled on Boeing's 787 Dreamliner planes.

Money woes

In a sign of how Boeing's problems have hurt its bottom line, the company said in a regulatory filing to the SEC in October that it had entered a $10 billion credit agreement with four major banks: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citibank.

The company also filed a prospectus saying it might sell up to $25 billion in securities.

"These are two prudent steps to support the company's access to liquidity," Boeing said in a statement.

While workers were on strike, Bank of America analysts estimated that the work stoppage cost Boeing $50 million a day.

To save money, Ortberg, the company's CEO, instructed top executives to stop flying private jets and instead fly economy on commercial flights.

• Google on Friday proposed possible remedies to resolve an antitrust case over its search business.
• Last month, the DOJ suggested that the judge force Google to sell its Chrome browser.
• Judge Amit Mehta is expected to rule on the final remedies by August 2025.

Google on Friday proposed limitations to its search partnerships as a potential remedy to resolve antitrust violations in its search business.

The proposal would allow Google to continue partnering with third-party companies like Apple in revenue-sharing deals that make Google the default search engine on their devices, unlike the Justice Department's proposal. However, Google's proposal would make the deals non-exclusive, the company said in its filing.

"We don't propose these changes lightly," Google said in a blog post about the proposal. "They would come at a cost to our partners by regulating how they must go about picking the best search engine for their customers. And they would impose burdensome restrictions and oversight over contracts that have reduced prices for devices and supported innovation in rival browsers, both of which have been good for consumers."

Last month, the Justice Department and a group of states asked Judge Amit Mehta to force Google to sell its Chrome browser to resolve the case. They also asked that Google be stopped from entering default search agreements with Apple and other companies and that Google should open its search engine results to competitors.

Industry experts previously told Business Insider that selling Chrome off would open up the browser market and would likely be cheered on by search rivals and advertisers, though it remains unclear how a possible Chrome spinoff might work.

Both sides will present arguments for their proposals at a hearing scheduled for April. The judge is expected to rule on the final remedies by August.

Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, previously said the company intends to appeal the judge's ruling, potentially delaying a final decision by several years.

Representatives for the Justice Department's antitrust division did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Starbucks' largest workers' union announced that it would begin an escalating strike on Friday.
• The union first announced a work stoppage in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Chicago before expanding.
• The union said it was protesting Starbucks' labor practices and wages.

Starbucks' largest workers union announced that it would go on strike in cities nationwide, including Seattle, where it is headquartered, just days before Christmas.

Baristas from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle were the first to announce their strike. On Saturday, a union representative confirmed to Business Insider that additional workers from Columbus, Denver, and Pittsburgh had joined the labor stoppage.

"We've been in contract negotiations with Starbucks for several months now, and things have been going smoothly up until this point — when they have now refused to offer us a viable economic package," Shay Mannik, a barista in Denver who is on strike after working at Starbucks for two years, told Business Insider. "They just have not been offering us anywhere close to a living wage."

In a statement made on the union's X account, Starbucks Workers United said the strike would "escalate each day through Christmas Eve... unless Starbucks honors our commitment to work towards a foundational framework."

On Wednesday, the union told BI that it would strike to protest what it described as the company's failure to negotiate a sufficiently comprehensive pay package and hundreds of unresolved cases related to labor disputes.

"Starbucks baristas are going on five days of escalating ULP strikes in response to the company backtracking on our promised path forward, starting tomorrow in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle," Starbucks Workers United said in Thursday statements.

It added that the strikes would soon be "coast-to-coast."

The union said the strikes could reach hundreds of stores unless the company works to achieve collective bargaining agreements.

The company has 11,161 self-operated stores and 7,263 licensed stores in North America. As of October, about 500 — or about 4.5% — of all stores were unionized.

"It's been really reassuring seeing a lot of our community members and the customers coming to support us," Diego Franco, a barista in the Chicago area who has worked at the coffee giant for over five years, told BI. "We've had a lot of our regulars come by, drop off supplies, drop off food, and stuff to help keep us warm."

In a Thursday post on Instagram, the union said, "Since February, Starbucks has repeatedly pledged publicly that they intended to reach contracts by the end of the year - but they've yet to present workers with a serious economic proposal."

Starbucks said in a public statement that the union delegates "prematurely ended" the bargaining session this week and that it was "disappointing they didn't return to the table given the progress we've made to date."

"We are ready to continue negotiations to reach agreements," the company wrote. "We need the union to return to the table."

A spokesperson for Starbucks told BI in a statement that the company "offers a competitive average pay of over $18 per hour, and best-in-class benefits."

The spokesperson said Starbucks also offers competitive benefits, including "health care, free college tuition, paid family leave, and company stock grants."

"No other retailer offers this kind of comprehensive pay and benefits package," the spokesperson added. "Workers United proposals call for an immediate increase in the minimum wage of hourly partners by 64%, and by 77% over the life of a three-year contract. This is not sustainable."

The union, which represents more than 10,000 baristas, said on Tuesday that 98% of its member baristas had voted to authorize the strike.

News of the strike came just days after CEO Brian Niccol announced a change in the company's parental leave policy for US store employees.

Starting in March, Starbucks will offer up to 18 weeks of paid leave for birth parents and up to 12 weeks for nonbirth parents. The company currently offers US store employees six weeks of paid parental leave and up to 12 weeks unpaid. The increased benefit will apply to employees averaging at least 20 weekly work hours.

• Dozens of unidentified aircraft have been spotted over military bases, airports, and cities in the US.
• The Pentagon said Monday that DoD has "no evidence" the drone sightings pose a threat.
• A White House spokesperson said the sightings include a mix of commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones.

US officials said on Monday that the mystery drones flying over US military bases, airports, and cities don't pose a threat.

On Monday, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that more than 5,000 drone sightings have been reported in recent weeks, but only about 100 required further investigation.

He said the sightings have included a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as some crewed aircraft and stars mistaken for drones.

The House Intelligence Committee was expected to receive a classified briefing on Tuesday over the issue, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The drones have been seen flying at night over New Jersey and other East Coast states since mid-November, sparking concern and speculation from officials and citizens.

Kirby told reporters that "our assessment at this stage is that the activity is lawful and legal,"

The federal government has sent advanced technology and additional personnel to assist local authorities and state officials investigating the sightings, Kirby said.

He stressed that the government does not believe the drones represent a threat to national security.

"There are more than one million drones lawfully registered with the FAA here in the US and there are thousands of commercial hobbyists and law enforcement drones that are lawfully in the sky on any given day," Kirby said.

Kirby spoke to reporters on Monday after the Pentagon indicated, drawing an analogy to vehicles that approach the base, it wouldn't shoot at something unless it presented as a "clear and present danger."

The Department of Homeland Security echoed Kirby's statement in a post to X late on Monday.

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the Defense Department has "no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus."

"We'll continue to do everything possible to investigate reports of concerning activity," he told reporters Monday. "But given how many drones are lawfully in our skies every day, we need to be careful to avoid assuming malintent or malicious behavior."

President-elect Donald Trump accused the US government on Monday of withholding information about the drones.

"The government knows what is happening," he said during public remarks at Mar-a-Lago. "And for some reason, they don't want to comment. I think they'd be better off saying what it is. Our military knows, and our president knows, and for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense."

"Something strange is going on," Trump said of the recent developments. "For some reason, they don't want to tell the people."

Mayors of 21 towns in New Jersey sent a letter Monday to the state's governor, Phil Murphy, demanding more transparency.

"Despite inquiries made to relevant authorities, we have yet to receive satisfactory answers about the purpose, operators, or safety protocols governing these flights," the letter says.

Where have residents reported seeing drones and unidentified aircraft?

Residents and officials have reported spotting unidentified aircraft, believed to be drones, flying above New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in recent weeks.

Murphy, the New Jersey governor, said late Monday that he had received a briefing from FBI Newark on their investigation.

"We are ready to assist the federal government in getting to the bottom of this," he added.

Murphy told reporters on Monday that some of the suspected drones spotted over his state are "very sophisticated" and can "go dark" the "minute you get eyes on them." Others have described the flying objects as bigger than normal hobby-style drones and able to avoid detection.

"This is something we're taking deadly seriously and we've gotten good cooperation out of the feds, but we need more," Murphy said.

Drones have been spotted near Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, both military bases in New Jersey, and an airport in New York serving the public and the military.

However, officials have stressed such sightings are not necessarily unusual.

"This is not a new issue for us. We've had to deal with drone incursions over our bases for quite a time now," the spokesperson for the Joint Staff said Saturday. "It's something that we routinely respond to in each and every case when reporting is cited."

There have also been reports of suspected drones following a US Coast Guard vessel, as well as local police statements on the presence of unidentified aircraft near critical infrastructure.

US Northern Command, which is responsible for overseeing the protection of the US homeland, said over the weekend it was "aware and monitoring the reports of unauthorized drone flights in the vicinity of military installations in New Jersey."

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio acknowledged that drone activity near the base led officials there to close its airspace for several hours late Friday night and into Saturday.

A recording of a controller from the Wright-Patterson air traffic control tower that was shared by The War Zone, which first reported the incursions, urges an aircraft to "use extreme caution for heavy UAS movement on the base."

What are officials saying about these mystery drones?

Trump said Friday on Truth Social that there are mystery drones being sighted all over the country. "Can this really be happening without our government's knowledge," he wrote. "I don't think so!"

He suggested that they be shot down. Other officials have expressed concern about shooting them down due to the threat to local populations of falling debris. Neither kinetic nor electronic warfare methods are particularly ideal near civilian areas.

New Jersey State Assemblyman Brian Bergen told CNN News Central's Sara Sidner on Monday that "we shouldn't be shooting things down right now."

"Look, I was an attack helicopter pilot in the US Army. I flew overseas. I have seen bullets fly through the sky. It's not a great idea to do over the United States," he said. "Things should not be shot out of the sky. That is a very dangerous thing to do."

The FBI and New Jersey State Police issued a joint statement on Monday warning of "a concern with people possibly firing weapons at what they believe to be a UAS," as well as increased incidences of pilots being dazzled by lasers.

There could be "deadly consequences" of these actions, they said.

Amid the confusion on the drones, there has been a lot of speculation, including from officials.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey said on Fox News last Wednesday that the drones came from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States, citing "very high sources."

Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh rejected the congressman's claim in a press conference later that day, saying "there is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there's no so-called mothership launching drones toward the United States."

Singh said that the Pentagon has no evidence that the reported drone sightings are the work of a foreign adversary. While Iran does have vessels that can carry drones, they were spotted off its southern coast as recently as Thursday — debunking Van Drew's claims.

He doubled down on Thursday, saying the government isn't telling the truth. The congressman said it could be another ship belonging to another foe. A Department of Homeland Security official said Saturday that there is no evidence of any foreign-based involvement in sending drones ashore from vessels in the area.

"We're doing our best to find the origin of those drone activities," an FBI official told reporters Saturday. "But I think there has been a slight overreaction."

Local officials, meanwhile, have been calling for additional information.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Saturday called for increased federal oversight of drones and said runways at Stewart International Airport in Orange County were shut down for an hour due to unidentified drone activity. "This has gone too far," she said.

Hochul called on Congress to strengthen the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of drones and provide counter-unmanned aircraft equipment to local law enforcement. On Sunday, she posted to social media that the federal government was sending a "drone detection system" to her state.

Previous unidentified flying objects and drone sightings

There have been a number of sightings of suspected drones and other unusual flying objects over or around military installations in recent years.

In February 2023, for example, the United States shot down three unidentified objects flying over American airspace over the course of three days. The incidents were part of a saga that followed the US takedown of a spy balloon off the coast of North Carolina the government said came from China.

As for drone activity, The Wall Street Journal reported in October that drones had been spotted over a military base in Virginia and the Energy Department's Nevada National Security Site the year prior. Retired US Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, until March of this year the head of Air Combat Command, said that he learned about the sightings in December 2023, when officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia reported seeing dozens of drones flying over the base at night. It's unclear who was behind those incidents.

While the federal government says that the latest sightings are not the work of adversaries or a public security threat, multiple recent incidents near bases have raised national security concerns.

For instance, federal authorities on Monday charged a Chinese citizen residing in California, Yinpiao Zhou, with failure to register a non-transportation aircraft and violation of national defense airspace. The Justice Department accused Zhou of using a drone to photograph Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County on November 30.

Police arrested Zhou at the San Francisco International Airport before he boarded a China-bound flight.

And another man, Fengyun Shi, a Chinese national, was sentenced to six months in federal prison in October for photographing US Navy ships with a drone in Virginia. Fengyun, a student at the University of Minnesota, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of unauthorized use of aircraft for the unlawful photographing of a designated installation.

The FBI official who spoke to reporters on Saturday said of the most recent sightings: "We are doing everything we can, alongside our partners, to understand what is happening and whether or not there is more nefarious activity that we need to explore."

• Billionaire businessman Frank McCourt has made a $20 billion bid to buy TikTok without its algorithm.
• He told Business Insider the path toward a sale is murky since ByteDance isn't entertaining talks.
• TikTok has vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court to stop its looming ban in US app stores.

Frank McCourt, the billionaire businessman who wants to buy TikTok, told Business Insider that, despite a Friday court ruling allowing the TikTok ban's looming January 19 deadline to proceed if the company isn't sold, the path to a sale remains unclear because "we don't know what ByteDance is selling."

McCourt is among a small handful of investors, including former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and the former chief executive of Activision, Bobby Kotick, who've publicly said they want to buy TikTok.

Through his nonprofit, Project Liberty, McCourt, the former Dodger's owner and real estate developer, has put together a bid worth over $20 billion to purchase TikTok and usher in what he calls the dawn of an "alternative, upgraded internet" that allows users more control of their own personal data.

However, he said, "It's very, very difficult to have precision" regarding the specifics of a potential sale because "let's be clear, we don't know what ByteDance is selling."

ByteDance, TikTok's China-based parent company, has so far refused to entertain talks over a potential sale, McCourt said.

The company's apparent reluctance to negotiate comes despite a December 6 court ruling upholding a law that requires the app be banned from the US in January if it is not sold to a non-Chinese entity. The divest-or-ban legislation aimed to address years of concerns from critics that the influential short-form video social media app could be used as a propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.

On Friday, Reuters reported that the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied TikTok's emergency bid to stop the ban from taking effect on January 19.

When reached by Business Insider, a TikTok spokesperson declined to comment on the terms of any potential sale, instead saying the company plans on appealing the case to the Supreme Court under the grounds that a potential ban is a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.

"The voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world will be silenced on January 19th, 2025 unless the TikTok ban is halted," the TikTok spokesperson said.

Representatives for ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Just because they're not talking about the specifics of a deal "doesn't mean they won't eventually come to that," McCourt said.

And when ByteDance is ready to talk, so is he, he said.

McCourt's TikTok purchase project, which he calls "The People's Bid" has secured the backing of Guggenheim Securities, an investment banking firm, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law firms.

Rather than recreate the app's algorithm and continue business as it currently operates, McCourt hopes to acquire and use TikTok as a large-scale example of a decentralized social media app that allows users more control over their personal data.

"Imagine you're signing on to the internet. You don't have 50 passwords. You're not the IP address of a device anymore — you're actually a person on the internet, and you have the IP address, so when you sign on the internet, you have access to all the apps that are built on the same core-level protocol," McCourt said. "Now imagine all your data is yours, and you permission its use, so the apps that are built in this new world are clicking on your terms and conditions of use for your data."

The momentum behind decentralized social media — and the internet more broadly — has, in recent years, been gaining steam. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, says he is partially to blame for helping to "centralize" the internet and that he regrets it. He's since shifted his focus to building decentralized tech solutions.

Others, such as Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst sentenced to 35 years in prison over her 2010 leak of classified government information, publicly promote decentralized security solutions to enhance user privacy amid concerns about cyber surveillance.

While some users are increasingly interested in decentralized social media, it is difficult for new sites to break through the centralized landscape and siphon off enough users from giants like Meta and Elon Musk's X to get to scale.

Smaller platforms often fail to achieve the positive feedback loop known as the network effect, which entices new users to join based on the positive experience of the existing user base.

If McCourt is able to acquire TikTok, the platform's existing 170 million users would come with the brand — and he's not worried that ByteDance has reportedly shut down any talks of selling the app's signature algorithm, declaring it integral to its internal operations; he wouldn't want to buy it if it did.

"There'd probably be more buyers if the algorithm was available, or at least more buyers kicking the tires," McCourt said. "But we don't want the algorithm. If someone offered TikTok to me with the algorithm, I wouldn't take it because I'm against the architecture, the design that preys on people and takes advantage of people. I think it's incongruent with our democratic principles."

• On a podcast, Marc Andreessen said he has spent half his time at Mar-a-Lago since Election Day.
• He said he regularly discusses tech and economic policy with President-elect Donald Trump.
• Andreessen donated millions to the pro-Trump super PAC "Right for America" and other GOP candidates.

Marc Andreessen said in a recent podcast appearance that since Election Day, he has spent roughly "half" his time at Mar-a-Lago discussing policy issues with President-elect Donald Trump.

Speaking with Bari Weiss for an episode of her "Honesty" podcast, the venture capitalist and vocal Trump supporter said he's "not claiming to be in the middle of all the decision-making" but is trying to help shape policy in a second Trump administration.

"I've been trying to help in as many ways as I can," Andreessen said. "Trump brings out a lot of feelings in a lot of people. People have very strong views. And then there are many political topics that, you know, we're very deliberately not weighing it on."

He added that he's "Not Mr. Foreign policy, or Mr. Abortion policy, or guns" because he's "not an expert on those things," but has instead focused his input on issues he does have experience in, like technology and economics.

"When I talk about these things, it's around tech policy, business, economics, and then, you know, the health of the country, the success of the country," Andreessen said.

Representatives for Andreessen and Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Andreessen was a vocal supporter of Trump's reelection bid. Business Insider previously reported he donated millions of dollars to a pro-Trump super PAC called "Right for America," and available data from OpenSecrets shows numerous donations to other Republican candidates and causes, such as the Republican Party of Michigan, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin, in the most recent election cycle.

Last month, Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the founders of the pair's powerful venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, celebrated Trump's win during an episode of their podcast, "The Ben and Marc Show."

"It felt like a boot off the throat," Andreessen said of Trump's reelection. "Every morning I wake up happier than the day before."

• Some Spotify users this year lambasted the music streaming app's popular year-end round-up, Wrapped.
• A former Spotify engineer described what was different about Wrapped this year.
• Despite the negative reception, this year's Wrapped was the biggest the company has seen.

When Spotify dropped its viral year-end musical round-up Wrapped earlier this month, the disappointment online was palpable.

"I'm not usually one to complain but this was one of the most boring Spotify Wrapped recaps I've been a part of and I've been a member since 2017," Business Insider reported a Reddit user said.

"Spotify wrapped flopped this year so bad like where are the music cities, the playlists, the top genres or the listening auras… all that wait for WHAT," a user on X wrote.

Spotify superfan Sydney Brown told The New York Times her annual Wrapped release is "like my Super Bowl," but this year, she felt like her round-up was "a homework project that was turned in late."

While the company said a record number of users checked out their Wrapped this year, an engineer who once worked on the feature said he understands why many online were disappointed.

Glenn McDonald is a former Spotify software engineer who worked on projects including Wrapped for over a decade before being caught in one of several rounds of sweeping layoffs that saw a 25% staff reduction.

This year, Wrapped "didn't give me any context," McDonald told Business Insider.

"It didn't connect me to communities or the world, or put my listening in relationship to anything," he said. "So, for me, it misses the important potential of a streaming service where everybody is listening together and just treats it as if each individual listener is listening by themselves."

The Wrapped 2024 round-up skipped the genre stories and cultural comparisons found in previous editions, instead creating an AI "podcast" of computer-generated voices talking through users' listening stats and briefly describing what emotional "era" their listening habits might suggest.

While some users called it a flop, a Spotify spokesperson told Business Insider it was the biggest year yet for the music streaming app's year-end round-up.

"In the first 12 hours this year's Wrapped was the biggest we've seen, up over 26% compared to day one in 2023," the Spotify spokesperson told BI. And while the company tracks user reactions on social media — both negative and positive — internal engagement statistics showed a record number of individual shares "and the biggest volume we've ever seen across the entire experience."

A missed bet on the cutting-edge

Spotify wanted to embrace the cutting-edge features that AI has made possible, the spokesperson said. Still, it did not intend to diminish the humanistic elements of the Wrapped experience that users love.

In prior years, McDonald was on the team that brought Spotify users Wrapped features, including a Myers-Briggs-style description of the way users listen to music, comparisons of their music tastes to cities around the world, and genre stories that revealed the top types of music users were listening to.

He said those cultural elements weren't a priority this year, and the company leaned too much into "AI that doesn't really add anything to your life."

McDonald, a proponent of artificial intelligence who now works for an AI startup, said Spotify has always treated Wrapped primarily as a marketing exercise meant to go viral as users share their results. While he was at the company, he had to push for more community-focused features, he told BI.

"It's sort of hard to try to infuse humanity into a marketing exercise. It's not easy, and you're not always thanked for it," McDonald said.

He pointed to last year's layoffs as one reason remaining engineers may not have felt motivated to go the extra distance this year: "It doesn't surprise me that maybe anybody the following year looking at what happened last year goes, 'maybe I won't stick my neck out,'" he said.

While Spotify hasn't decided what future editions of Wrapped may include, the spokesperson said its features change each year to give users more of what they want.

• Luigi Mangione has been charged with murder in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's killing.
• Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy family, left an online trail before his arrest.
• He founded an app, talked about AI on X, and read the Unabomber Manifesto.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate charged with murder in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has a vast online trail.

Police arrested Mangione in Pennsylvania on December 9. He initially faced local gun and forgery charges. He's expected to be extradited to New York.

New York court documents show that in addition to one count of murder, he also faces two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a firearm.

Here's what to know about Mangione.

Mangione attended elite schools

Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.

He achieved a Bachelor of Science in engineering with a major in computer science and a minor in mathematics. He also received a Master of Science in engineering the same year with a major in computer and information science, a university spokesperson told Business Insider.

Before that, he attended Gilman School, an elite all-boys preparatory school in Baltimore. His yearbook entry, obtained by BI, says he was involved in robotics and Model United Nations.

In his valedictorian speech, Mangione praised classmates for "challenging the world" and thanked parents for sending their children to the fee-paying school, which he described as "far from a small financial investment."

He favorably reviewed the Unabomber Manifesto

On Goodreads, Mangione reviewed Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" book, also known as The Unabomber Manifesto, in early 2024. He gave it four out of five stars.

"He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people," Mangione wrote. "While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary."

Mangione's review of the manifesto also quoted another online comment about the book, which appears to have originated on Reddit, praising the use of violence "when all other forms of communication fail."

"'Violence never solved anything' is a statement uttered by cowards and predators,'" Mangione quoted.

He founded an app and worked in tech

In 2015, while in high school, Mangione founded a company called AppRoar Studios. AppRoar released an iPhone game called "Pivot Plane" that's no longer available, but a reviewer in 2015 said it was "a fun little arcade game brought to you by 3 high school juniors."

He lived in a co-living space in Hawaii as recently as 2023.

He posed for photos indicating he participated in Greek life at the University of Pennsylvania.

The fraternity chapter represented in his photos couldn't be reached for comment.

A blog post on the University of Pennsylvania's website that was removed on December 9 said he cofounded a video game design club there.

Stephen Lane, a professor of video game design at the Ivy League university who didn't advise the club, told BI that "the fact he took the initiative and started something from nothing, that means at least in the context of Penn, that's a pretty good thing." He added, however, that Thompson's shooting was "obviously not a good thing."

Mangione's LinkedIn page says he worked as a data engineer at the vehicle shopping company TrueCar starting in 2020.

A TrueCar spokesperson told BI that Mangione hadn't worked for the company since 2023.

Online breadcrumbs and roommate say he dealt with back pain

At the top of Mangione's profile on X — formerly Twitter — is a triptych of three images: a photo of himself, smiling, shirtless on a mountain ridge; a Pokémon; and an X-ray with four pins or screws visible in the lower back.

The Pokémon featured in his cover image is Breloom, which has special healing abilities in the games.

Some of the books reviewed on Mangione's Goodreads account are related to health and healing back pain, including "Back Mechanic: The Secrets to a Healthy Spine Your Doctor Isn't Telling You" and "Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery."

R.J. Martin, the founder of the co-living space in Hawaii, told the Honolulu Civil Beat that Mangione had suffered back pain from a misaligned vertebra that was pinching his spinal cord.

Martin told CNN that after leaving Hawaii, Mangione texted him to say he'd undergone surgery and sent him X-rays.

"It looked heinous, with just, giant screws going into his spine," Martin told the outlet.

It's not immediately clear whether the surgery was related to UnitedHealthcare.

Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for the co-living space founder, told The Wall Street Journal that Mangione stopped replying to texts about six months ago and "sort of disappeared."

A YouTube spokesperson said that the platform had terminated Mangione's three accounts, adding that they had not been active for about seven months.

A senior police official told NBC New York on December 12 that Magione was never a UnitedHealthcare client and may have targeted Thompson because of the insurer's large size and outsize power. That same day, The Wall Street Journal reported that a company spokesperson said Magione was not a client.

Mangione was interested in AI

On his X account, Mangione posted and amplified posts about technological advances such as artificial intelligence. He also posted about fitness and healthy living.

He frequently reposted posts by the writer Tim Urban and the commentator Jonathan Haidt about the promise and perils of technology.

He also appeared to be a fan of Michael Pollan, known for his writing about food, ethics, and lab-grown meat.

On Goodreads, he praised Urban's book "What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies," describing it as "one of the most important philosophical texts of the early 21st century."

Urban posted to X on December 9: "Very much not the point of the book."

He was previously accused of trespassing

Before his arrest, Mangione had at least one encounter with the legal system. Hawaiian court records indicate that in 2023, he was accused of entering a forbidden area of a state park.

Mangione appears to have paid a $100 fine to resolve the matter.

Mangione comes from a wealthy and influential Baltimore family

Mangione is one of 37 grandchildren of the late Nick Mangione Sr., a prominent multimillionaire real-estate developer in Baltimore who died in 2008, The Baltimore Banner reported. Nick Mangione Sr. had 10 children, including Louis Mangione, Luigi Mangione's father.

Members of the Mangione family own the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Hayfields Country Club in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

One of Luigi Mangione's cousins is the Republican Maryland state legislator Nino Mangione, the Associated Press reported.

Representatives for Nino Mangione's office, in a statement to BI, declined to comment on the news of Luigi Mangione's arrest.

"Unfortunately, we cannot comment on news reports regarding Luigi Mangione," the statement read. "We only know what we have read in the media. Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest. We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news."

The Mangione family has donated more than $1 million to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where all of Nick Mangione Sr.'s grandkids, including Luigi Mangione, were born, the Banner reported.

A public filing from 2022 for the nonprofit Mangione Family Foundation lists Louis Mangione as vice president.

He was arrested while on his laptop at a McDonald's, the police said

When the police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, responded to a McDonald's after a call about a suspicious person, they found Mangione sitting at a table looking at a silver laptop and wearing a blue medical mask, a criminal complaint said.

The complaint said that when asked for identification, Mangione gave police officers a New Jersey driver's license with the name "Mark Rosario."

When an officer asked Mangione whether he'd been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the complaint said.

It added that Mangione correctly identified himself after officers told him he could be arrested for lying about his identity.

When asked why he lied, Mangione replied, "I clearly shouldn't have," the complaint said.

His motive is still not known, but police are analyzing his so-called manifesto

An internal NYPD report obtained by The New York Times said Mangione "likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices."

Mangione "appeared to view the targeted killing of the company's highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and 'power games,' asserting in his note he is the 'first to face it with such brutal honesty,'" according to the NYPD report by the department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, the Times reported.

Moments before the December 10 extradition hearing began, Mangione, handcuffed and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, shouted out to the press as Pennsylvania police escorted him into the courthouse.

Mangione yelled out something partially unintelligible, saying something was "completely out of touch" and "an insult to the American people." He also shouted that something was a "lived experience" as a group of officers led him into the courthouse.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told NBC New York that Mangione had prior knowledge that UnitedHealthcare would be having its annual conference in New York City.

Mangione has retained a high-profile New York attorney

Thomas Dickey emerged as Mangione's attorney in Pennsylvania after his arrest in Altoona on December 9.

During a December 10 hearing at Pennsylvania's Blair County Courthouse, Dickey told the judge that Mangione was contesting his extradition to New York City.

Dickey later told reporters that Mangione would plead not guilty to all the charges in Pennsylvania. During an interview with CNN, Dickey said he expected Mangione to plead not guilty to the second-degree murder charge in New York and that he hadn't seen evidence that authorities "have the right guy."

Karen Friedman Agnifilo will represent Mangione in New York, a representative for Agnifilo Intrater LLP confirmed to Business Insider on Sunday.

Friedman Agnifilo worked as the chief assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office from 2014 to 2021. She pivoted to private practice in 2021.

Do you know Luigi Mangione? Have a tip? Reach out to [email protected].

• UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot outside a Manhattan hotel on December 4.
• Police arrested Luigi Mangione, who now faces a murder charge for the killing.
• Mangione has hired prominent New York lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo to defend him.

Luigi Mangione, the man police say murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has hired high-profile attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo.

Friedman Agnifilo is married to Marc Agnifilo, lead lawyer defending Sean "Diddy" Combs against federal sex-trafficking charges.

The Combs and Mangione cases will be handled by the same Manhattan law firm, Agnifilo Intrater LLP, and can be expected to dominate legal news headlines in the coming year.

In getting retained, Friedman Agnifilo bested some half-dozen other prominent attorneys who had been interviewed by the Mangione family last week, according to multiple sources who asked not to be named due to their connection with the case.

Friedman Agnifilo last week left her previous law firm, Perry Law, to join her husband's firm as counsel, representatives for both firms told Business Insider.

Friedman Agnifilo had been a CNN commentator as recently as Wednesday, when she suggested that an insanity defense would be Mangione's best bet.

She told journalist Kaitlan Collins, "It looks like to me there might be a 'not guilty by reason of insanity' defense that they're going to be thinking about because the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that he did what he did."

On Friday night, Collins broke the news that Friedman Agnifilo had been hired by the Mangione family.

Friedman Agnifilo worked as the chief assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for seven years before pivoting to private practice in 2021.

Mangione faces a second-degree murder charge in New York for the fatal December 4 shooting of Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two from Minnesota. That charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

(A charge of first-degree murder is reserved for those accused of killing a law enforcement official or witness of a crime, or for when a murder is committed during the commission of another high-level crime, including robbery, rape, or kidnapping.)

Mangione is fighting extradition to New York City. The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate appeared for a hearing on December 10 at Pennsylvania's Blair County Courthouse, where a lawyer, Thomas Dickey, told the judge that Mangione was contesting his extradition. Police arrested Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on December 9 on local charges and later arraigned. Mangione made a bail request, which the judge denied during the hearing.

The suspect will remain at Pennsylvania's Huntingdon State Correctional Institution during the extradition proceedings. Dickey told reporters on December 10 that Mangione would plead not guilty to all the charges in Pennsylvania.

In an interview with CNN that evening, Dickey also said that he anticipates Mangione would plead not guilty to the murder charge in New York and that he hadn't seen any evidence that officials in New York "have the right guy."

Mangione also faces four other charges related to the killing of the insurance CEO: two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second-degree, one count of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the third-degree.

A gun found on Mangione matched the three shell casings found at the site of the shooting, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said during a December 11 press conference.

Tisch added that the suspect's fingerprints also matched those found on a water bottle and snack bar wrapper discarded near the crime scene.

During Mangione's arrest, officers found a three-page handwritten document "that speaks to both his motivation and mindset," Tisch said at a separate press conference on December 9.

An internal NYPD report obtained by The New York Times gave the clearest view of the potential motive yet. Based on the so-called manifesto discovered, Mangione "likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices," the NYPD report said, as reported by the Times.

Mangione "appeared to view the targeted killing of the company's highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and 'power games,' asserting in his note he is the 'first to face it with such brutal honesty,'" according to the NYPD report by the department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, the Times reported.

In a statement to Business Insider, representatives for Nino Mangione — a Maryland state legislator and a cousin of Mangione's — declined to comment on the news of Mangione's arrest.

"Unfortunately, we cannot comment on news reports regarding Luigi Mangione," the statement read. "We only know what we have read in the media. Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest."

Recognized at a McDonald's

Mangione was eating in an Altoona McDonald's when an employee recognized him from the several surveillance images that authorities released in the aftermath of Thompson's killing and called the police, New York police said at the December 9 press conference.

Altoona police found Mangione in the McDonald's with multiple fake IDs and a US passport, as well as a firearm and a suppressor "both consistent with the weapon used" in the shooting of Thompson in the heart of Manhattan, Tisch, the NYPD commissioner, said.

The gun appeared to be a "ghost gun" that may have been made on a 3-D printer. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at the press conference that such a gun could fire a 9-millimeter round.

A Pennsylvania criminal complaint filed against Mangione said officers found a black 3-D-printed pistol and 3-D-printed silencer inside the suspect's backpack.

When Altoona officers asked Mangione if he had been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the criminal complaint said.

Clothing, including a mask, was also recovered "consistent with those worn" by the suspect wanted for Thompson's killing, along with a fake New Jersey ID matching the ID that the murder suspect used to check into a Manhattan hostel before the attack, Tisch said.

Based on the handwritten document that police found on Mangione, according to Kenny, "it does seem that he has some ill will toward corporate America."

During a December 10 interview on NBC's "Today" show, Tisch said the "manifesto" revealed "anti-corporatist sentiment" and "a lot of issues with the healthcare industry."

"But as to like particular, specific motive that'll come out as this investigation continues to unfold over the next weeks and month," the NYPD commissioner said.

NBC News and The New York Times, each citing an unnamed senior law enforcement official, reported that the handwritten document read in part: "These parasites had it coming."

"I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done," it added, according to the reports.

Police believe that Mangione acted alone.

NYPD investigators traveled to Altoona last week to interview Mangione after Altoona officers took him into custody.

Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks said at Mangione's Pennsylvania arraignment that Mangione was carrying $10,000 in cash, including foreign currency, according to the Associated Press.

Mangione disputed the amount in court.

Mangione was active on social media

Mangione posted and amplified posts about technological advances like artificial intelligence on X. He also posted about fitness and healthy living.

He frequently retweeted posts by the writer Tim Urban and commentator Jonathan Haidt about the promise and perils of technology. He also appeared to be a fan of Michael Pollan, known for his writing about food and ethics.

Other deleted social media posts showed support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and expressed skepticism toward both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump.

At the top of his profile was a header image with three images: a photo of himself, smiling, shirtless on a mountain ridge, a Pokemon, and an x-ray with four pins or screws visible in the lower back.

Mangione founded a company called AppRoar Studios in 2015 while still in high school. AppRoar released an iPhone game called Pivot Plane that is no longer available.

The two other cofounders of AppRoar could not be reached for comment.

Mangione's X account has been deactivated. A spokesperson for YouTube said his three accounts on the platform were also terminated, but that they had not been active for about seven months.

A manhunt

Mangione's arrest followed a nearly week-long manhunt.

According to police, Manigone was born and raised in Maryland, and has ties to San Francisco, California. His last known address was in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The New York Post, citing law-enforcement sources, reported that Mangione's mother reported him missing in mid-November.

Law-enforcement sources told ABC News that FBI agents and members of the NYPD spoke to the mother a day before Mangione's arrest, following a tip, and that in the conversation she indicated that the person in the surveillance photos could be her son.

Kenny, the NYPD's chief of detectives, said that Manigone has no prior arrest history in New York and no known arrests in the US.

A Luigi Mangione with a matching birthday and address received a citation for simple trespass for entering a forbidden area of a state park in Hawaii in November 2023. He pleaded no contest and paid a $100 fine.

"For just over five days, our NYPD investigators combed through thousands of hours of video, followed up on hundreds of tips, and processed every bit of forensic evidence — DNA, fingerprints, IP addresses and so much to tighten the net," Tisch said at Monday's press conference announcing the arrest of Manigone.

Thompson was shot multiple times on a Midtown sidewalk as he was walking toward the Hilton hotel. He was steps away from a side entrance to the hotel — where he was set to speak at UnitedHealth Group's investor conference — when a hooded gunman opened fire on him from behind.

The chief executive of the nation's largest health insurer was struck at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf, police said.

Surveillance footage showed the gunman firing his weapon as Thompson, wearing a blue suit jacket, walked several feet in front of him.

The gunman fled the scene, first on foot and then on an electric bike, which he rode into Central Park before ultimately escaping from New York City, police said.

Shell casings and bullets found at the scene had the words "deny," "defend," and "depose" written on them, according to multiple reports citing unnamed sources. BI couldn't independently confirm these details.

In the aftermath of the attack, the NYPD offered a $10,000 reward for tips leading to the gunman's arrest, with the FBI offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

A spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, reacted to news of Manigone's arrest in a statement to BI, saying: "Our hope is that today's apprehension brings some relief to Brian's family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy. We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask that everyone respect the family's privacy as they mourn."

• Jay-Z was named in a new filing stemming from a lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs.
• The alleged incident occurred in 2000 following MTV's Video Music Awards.
• The victim, who is not named, said she was underage when she was drugged and raped by both men.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, has been accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in a new court filing stemming from a lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs.

The amended complaint, filed Sunday, says Combs and Carter assaulted the girl at an after-party following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.

"Another celebrity stood by and watched as Combs and Carter took turns assaulting the minor," the amended complaint, which modifies an original complaint filed in October against Combs, reads. "Many others were present at the afterparty, but did nothing to stop the assault."

Carter was identified in the original complaint as "Celebrity A," the suit reads.

Before the filing of the amended complaint, Tony Buzbee, an attorney for the plaintiff — who is unidentified in the filing — had sent a letter to Carter requesting he and the plaintiff engage in mediation, Buzbee told Business Insider.

"Jay-Z responded to said letter by not only filing an utterly frivolous lawsuit, but by also orchestrating a conspiracy of harassment, bullying and intimidation against Plaintiff's lawyers, their families, employees and former associates in an attempt to silence Plaintiff from naming Jay-Z herein," the complaint reads.

"This effort was meant to scare Plaintiff and to discredit her counsel. That effort failed. Indeed, Plaintiff chose to file this amendment as a result of the egregious conduct perpetuated by Carter."

Buzbee told BI, "The pleading speaks for itself. This is a very serious matter that will be litigated in court."

Carter has been a longtime friend of Combs. Combs faces a series of sexual assault allegations, civil lawsuits, and federal sex trafficking charges and has previously vehemently denied the allegations against him.

On Sunday, after the allegations became public, Carter, through the X account of Roc Nation, his entertainment company, said in a statement that his lawyer was sent "blackmail" to pressure him into settling out of court for an undisclosed amount. Carter said the move had the "opposite effect" and instead made him want to expose his accusor "in a VERY public fashion."

"So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!" Carter's statement reads. "These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree? These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case."

Buzbee told Business Insider that the victim never demanded a penny from Carter.

"Instead, she only sought a confidential mediation," Buzbee said. "Since I sent the letter on her behalf, Mr. Carter has not only sued me, but he has tried to bully and harass me and this plaintiff. His conduct has had the opposite impact. She is emboldened. I'm very proud of her resolve."

The two hip-hop moguls, both 55, have created business empires, including Carter's label Roc-A-Fella Records and the streaming service Tidal, Combs' label Bad Boy Records, and partnerships with Cîroc vodka and DeLeón tequila.

Carter has an approximate net worth of $2.5 billion, Business Insider previously reported. Combs' business partnerships have dried up after the allegations against him, with Forbes estimating his net worth now to be about $90 million.

Attorneys for Carter and Combs did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• The US Appeals Court upheld a decision forcing the sale of TikTok lest it be banned in the US.
• Several investors, philanthropists, and tech giants are interested in buying the company.
• Here's what they've said they'd do with the short-form video platform if they bought it.

On Friday, a panel of three judges from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a law that will ban TikTok from app stores in the United States if the social media platform's parent company, the China-based ByteDance, doesn't sell its stake in the app by January 19.

In a statement about the decision, TikTok said it would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.

"Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed, and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people," TikTok's statement read. "The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025."

With the app's uncertain future in the United States, a slate of ultrawealthy investors has expressed interest in buying the social media platform.

Big-name buyers, from Kevin O'Leary of "Shark Tank" to former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, have said for months that they are prepared to step in if ByteDance changes its mind or the Supreme Court decides the ban can proceed.

Here's what those who've said publicly that they want to buy TikTok would do with the platform if they acquired the app.

Representatives for TikTok did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Kevin O'Leary

In March, the "Shark Tank" mogul told CNBC he wanted to assemble a syndicate of investors to purchase the platform for about $20 to $30 billion — a fraction of its $220 billion valuation in its last funding round.

"It's the largest entertainment and business network in America as it stands today, so it's of great interest and great value," he told the outlet.

However, O'Leary said a sale likely wouldn't include TikTok's signature algorithms, so he or another purchaser would have to "re-emulate" the app's algorithms and act as a "steward" to transform the platform from "TikTok China to TikTok U.S.A."

It's unclear exactly how O'Leary might change TikTok's algorithms; however, similar short-form video services exist elsewhere on social media with their own proprietary algorithms, and he said a new version could be created under the existing TikTok brand.

Representatives for O'Leary did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Steven Mnuchin

The former treasury secretary in March said he was putting together an investor group to try to purchase TikTok, CNBC reported.

Mnuchin didn't specify any other potential investors involved in the bid or the dollar amount they planned to offer for the social media site. In a May interview with Bloomberg Television, he said he'd replicate the app's signature algorithm to continue the service.

"My plan, if we were to purchase, it would be to rebuild the technology under US leadership, make sure that it's all disconnected from ByteDance going forward, and that it is very robust and secure," Mnuchin said.

Representatives for Mnuchin did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Bobby Kotick

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the former chief executive of Activision was considering bidding for TikTok. The outlet reported the exact amount of his proposal was unspecified but would likely be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Journal reported Kotick approached OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other possible investors during a dinner at an Allen & Co. conference, discussing a potential deal that could allow OpenAI to train its artificial intelligence models on the data gathered from the app.

A spokesperson for Kotick told Business Insider, "Mr. Kotick has always believed a comprehensive reciprocal trade framework is preferable to singling out an individual company, and he still does."

Frank McCourt

The former Dodgers owner and former CEO of McCourt Global has turned democratizing and improving the internet into a major philanthropic focus through his Project Liberty project. The company announced in March that McCourt had put together a bid to purchase TikTok.

McCourt, during a December 8 appearance on CBS News, said he had "circled over $20 billion" for the potential sale.

"We're very serious about raising whatever capital is required to buy the platform and to be clear, we're looking to move the 170 million users over to a new protocol where the individuals will own and control their identity and their data," McCourt said. "We're not looking to replicate the existing version."

The billionaire businessman has titled his TikTok purchase project "The People's Bid." He has secured the backing of Guggenheim Securities, an investment banking firm, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law firms.

McCourt told CBS that the People's Bid aims to protect user privacy and move users to "a new stack where you can't harvest without permission, so individuals will own and control their identity and their data" to promote an internet service that respects its users "as opposed to exploits them."

A spokesperson for McCourt directed Business Insider to a public statement by the billionaire following the Appeals Court decision upholding the law which could force the sale of the app.

"Now that the Court has spoken, The People's Bid is prepared to move forward with our bid for TikTok," McCourt's statement reads. "We are going to rebuild TikTok and prove that it's possible to enjoy the internet without sacrificing our privacy and safety."

Other possible investors

Other big names have previously shown interest in buying TikTok, including Microsoft, which in 2020 tried and failed to acquire the platform when, during his first administration in August 2020, President Donald Trump, citing concerns about ByteDance's ties to Beijing, issued executive orders forcing ByteDance to sell its TikTok US operations to an American company.

Walmart and the software company Oracle also assembled a bid to buy TikTok in 2020, but TikTok ultimately defeated Trump's orders in court and the acquisition plans did not materialize.

The companies have not publicly said whether they would make another offer now. Walmart, Oracle, and Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent over the weekend.

• On Saturday, some users of Elon Musk's X saw Grok running a new image generator called Aurora.
• The new model appears to have more photorealistic generations than the prior Flux model.
• Aurora hasn't been widely released, though reports indicate it has few limits on what it creates.

For a few hours on Saturday, some users of Elon Musk's X reported having access to Aurora, a new, more photorealistic image generator powered by Musk's artificial intelligence model, Grok.

While Aurora has not been widely released — and some users who reported having access to it later said their Grok had reverted to its older model, Flux — the brief glimpse at the newer model offered the first insight into how it compares to its predecessor and competitors.

Aurora's detailed generations are a notable improvement from Grok's Flux model and appear to rival the output of other models such as OpenAI's DALL·E 3.

TechCrunch reported Aurora's beta version — like Flux's — appears to have few creative limitations, and in brief tests created images of copyrighted characters like Mickey Mouse and public figures, including a depiction of a "bloodied Donald Trump," but "stopped short of nudes." In tests by Business Insider, Grok's Flux version also created images of Mickey Mouse but refused to create any violent imagery.

On X, users with access to the model shared photos of Aurora's creations, including images of Ray Romano and Adam Sandler on a sitcom set and Musk boxing with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

While the images gained praise online for their quality and realism, there was still some evidence that they were AI-generated, such as unusual proportions in the arms and hands and an uncanny smoothness to some facial and skin features.

"X AI casually releasing one of the best image models on a Saturday at 2am... @xai y'all are built different," Guillaume Verdon, the founder of AI startup Extropic and of the effective accelerationism movement, which supports AI growth and development without guardrails or regulation, wrote in a post tagging xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence company that created Grok.

Musk replied to Verdo, who goes by Based Beff Jezos online, saying, "Just the beta version, but it will improve very fast."

Representatives for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has resigned and fled his country.
• Rebel forces said they seized control of the capital, Damascus.
• The collapse of Assad's government could have major global implications.

Syrians around the world celebrated as rebels, after more than a decadelong fight, finally toppled the country's longtime leader, Bashar Assad, on Sunday.

The Russian foreign ministry said on Sunday that Assad had resigned from his position as Syrian president and left the country. Russian state news reported that Assad had arrived in Moscow, where he's been granted asylum.

Syrian anti-government forces announced early on Sunday morning that they had advanced into Damascus, Syria's capital.

In a post on social media, rebel commander Hassan Abdul-Ghani said: "We declare Damascus free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad."

"Today 8-12-2024 Syria is officially free," he added in a later post.

Hassan Akkad, who fled Syria in 2015 and is now based in the UK, posted to X, "Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free. Syria is free."

World leaders react

President-elect Donald Trump said on Truth Social on Sunday that Assad had "fled his country" after losing Russia's support.

"Assad is gone," Trump wrote. "His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer."

In a press briefing on Sunday, President Joe Biden called the fall of Assad's government "a fundamental act of justice" and "a moment of opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country."

Biden said the US would support Syria's neighbors Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel "should any threat arise from Syria during this transition." Biden said the United States would also "maintain our mission against ISIS" inside the country, referring to the terrorist group operating in the region.

The US military conducted at least a dozen airstrikes inside Syria on Sunday, "targeting ISIS camps and ISIS operatives," Biden said.

The United States will also support Syria through the United Nations to create a new government through a process determined by the Syrian people, Biden said.

"The United States will do whatever we can to support them, including through humanitarian relief, to help restore Syria after more than a decade of war and generational brutality by the Assad family," Biden said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a Sunday statement, echoed the president's sentiment, saying the US "will support international efforts to hold the Assad regime and its backers accountable for atrocities and abuses perpetrated against the Syrian people, including the use of chemical weapons and the unjust detention of civilians such as Austin Tice."

The Syrian people, Blinken added, "finally have reason for hope."

Kaja Kallas, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, called Assad's resignation "a positive and long-awaited development."

"It also shows the weakness of Assad's backers, Russia and Iran," Kallas said in a statement. "Our priority is to ensure security in the region. I will work with all the constructive partners in Syria and in the region."

Geir Pedersen, the UN's Special Envoy for Syria, said in a statement, "Today marks a watershed moment in Syria's history."

How rebels took control of Aleppo

In late November, the coalition of rebel groups launched a surprise offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which traces its origins to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. It has more recently promoted more moderate views.

The rebels quickly took control of Aleppo, one of Syria's largest cities, Hama, and the strategic city of Homs, which sits at an important crossroads linking Damascus to the coast.

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of HTS, is a Syrian who fought against US occupation in Iraq with Al Qaeda. He is believed to have cut ties with the terrorist organization in 2016 but is still designated a terrorist by the US, which has placed a $10 million bounty on his head.

Al-Jolani has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader and promoted messages of religious and ethnic inclusivity as HTS pushed toward Damascus. Still, HTS has a reputation as a hardline Islamist faction.

"This victory, my brothers, is a victory for the entire Islamic nation," Al-Jolani said in a speech to his followers this weekend, per a translation by CNN. "This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of the region."

What Assad's ousting means for Russia and Iran

The collapse of Assad's government could have significant global implications, especially for Russia and Iran, which have been two of Assad's strongest allies.

Moscow operates two major military facilities in Syria — the Hmeimim airbase and the Tartus naval base — which have given its forces crucial access to the Mediterranean Sea and a base to launch operations into Africa.

Losing access to these bases would scupper many of Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans in the region, Zineb Riboua, a research fellow and program manager at the Hudson Institute's Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, wrote on X: "Without a strong Russian military base in Syria, all of Putin's plans collapse."

While Russia intervened to prop up Assad in 2015, its priorities have since shifted to the war in Ukraine, and it had appeared reluctant to divert any significant resources to help Assad this time around.

On Sunday, Russia's foreign ministry said there was no security threat to its military bases in Syria but that they were on high alert.

For Iran, Syria has been part of an important land corridor stretching from Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut, helping it support key regional proxies such as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

"For Iran, Syria is absolutely essential in order to maintain its proxy network," Natasha Hall, a senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, previously told Business Insider.

But Tehran, too, has been distracted by its conflict with Israel, while Hezbollah has been left in disarray after Israel killed its longtime leader and wounded thousands of its fighters with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies.

In a separate post on TruthSocial on Saturday, Trump called on the United States to stay out of the situation in Syria, writing: "Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!"

This story is being updated as the situation unfolds.

• Disneyland is again offering special pricing for Southern California residents to lure in locals.
• The lower pricing tier — a 3-day, 1 park-per-day ticket for $199 — is available through March.
• The promotion comes as the park faces criticism over its large crowds and long wait times.

Disneyland is bringing back a special ticket pricing tier for Southern California residents to lure in locals, even as the park deals with criticism over its large crowds and long wait times.

The lower pricing tier — available for people who live in select zip codes in California — offers a 3-day, 1 park-per-day ticket for $199 or Park Hopper passes starting at $289. That's compared to 1-day, 1-park tickets, which start at $104 for non-peak dates and can reach over $200 for peak dates like the week of Christmas.

The tickets at the lower pricing tier are now available for reservations from January through March. It is unclear whether the promotion will continue beyond March, but it has been discontinued and reinstated several times since the park stopped offering a lower-price annual pass for Southern California residents.

The promotional rate comes as the Anaheim theme park faces criticism over its large crowds and long wait times. In August, the Disney fan publication Inside The Magic reported wait times at the Princess Pavilion in Fantasyland, where guests can greet actors dressed as their favorite characters, skyrocketed to 300 minutes and that the sheer volume of guests at the park was "beyond manageability."

The company said its California-based theme parks saw increased guest spending and attendance growth at the beginning of 2024 but had less favorable results in the second quarter. By the third quarter, operating income at Disney's domestic parks and experiences was down.

Hugh Johnston, the company's chief financial officer, said Disney's Experiences sector — which includes its theme parks and cruise ships — had a "slight moderation in demand" during the company's third-quarter earnings report. The report said the Experiences sector's operating income decreased 3% to $2.2 billion.

"But overall, I would just call this as a bit of a slowdown that's being more than offset by the Entertainment business," he said.

CEO Bob Iger said the company's Experiences sector rebounded during its latest earnings call in November.

"In domestic, we certainly feel like the consumer is strengthening," Iger said. "As I mentioned earlier, we obviously saw growth in domestic parks and certainly feel very positively about that. And that's our expectation going forward, is a gradual strengthening in the consumer."

Disney recently unveiled a series of new rides for Disneyland. During the D23 event in August, Disney said it is adding new attractions based on Marvel and that the Avengers Campus would be expanding. Disneyland will also build new attractions based on James Cameron's Avatar franchise.

• UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in New York City on Wednesday, the police said.
• The NYPD said Thompson, 50, appeared to be killed in a targeted attack.
• Police on Monday arrested a "person of interest" identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione.

Police in Pennsylvania on Monday arrested a "person of interest" in connection to the fatal Midtown Manhattan shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The 26-year-old man, identified as Luigi Mangione, was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and charged with local gun and forgery charges, New York Police Department officials said during a press conference.

Mangione was arraigned on Monday evening and charged on five counts, including two felonies: forgery, carrying a firearm without a license, tampering with records or identification, possessing instruments of crime, and false identification to law enforcement, according to a criminal complaint viewed by Business Insider. He was ordered held without bail.

Mangione was arrested after an employee at a McDonald's recognized him from the surveillance photos circulated by law enforcement and called the police. The complaint said Mangione was wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a laptop when Altoona police arrived.

Mangione had fake IDs, a US passport, and a gun and silencer "consistent with" the one thought to have been used by the gunman who killed Thompson, police said. The criminal complaint said the gun and silencer had been 3-D-printed.

NYPD officials said Mangione was also found with a three-page handwritten document that suggested "he has some ill will toward corporate America."

Mangione is expected to be extradited to New York to face additional charges, NYPD officials said.

The manhunt for Thompson's killer

The NYPD had released more than a half-dozen surveillance images of the man suspected to be the shooter in the December 4 attack in the hopes that tips from the public could help authorities track him down.

The latest photos of the man suspected of the shooting — which has been described by police as a targeted attack — included one showing him in the back of what appears to be a taxi, wearing a blue medical mask and a dark hood. Another image showed the man standing outside the vehicle's window wearing a mask, hood, and dark puffer jacket.

Moments after shooting Thompson dead in the heart of Manhattan Wednesday, police say the gunman fled the scene, first on foot and then on an electric bike, which he rode into Central Park. Police believe the shooter ultimately escaped New York City by bus.

Investigators believed the gunman caught a cab on Manhattan's Upper West Side and directed the driver to a bus station as he made his getaway following the shooting, Bloomberg reported.

Police officials told CNN they believed the man left New York City via the Port Authority's George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Washington Heights.

"We have video of him entering the Port Authority bus terminal. We don't have any video of him exiting, so we believe he may have gotten on a bus," NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said in a December 6 interview. "Those buses are interstate buses. That's why we believe he may have left New York City," Kenny said.

NYPD divers were seen over the weekend searching the waters in Central Park for any evidence in the shooting.

A law-enforcement source told CNN that investigators had found a backpack in Central Park that they believed belonged to the gunman. The backpack contained a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and Monopoly money, CNN reported, citing law-enforcement officials and sources.

It was not immediately clear if other items were found in the backpack.

Kenny said on December 6 that officials were investigating the possibility that the gunman may have used a veterinary gun, used on farms to euthanize large animals quietly, in the shooting, CNN reported.

A law-enforcement source previously told BI that the gun used by the shooter appeared to be equipped with a silencer, according to surveillance footage of the attack.

Most of the images that police have released of the man wanted in the shooting show him with a mask covering the bottom half of his face, except a set of two, which NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch called the "money shot," that showed the clearest images yet of the suspect unmasked.

"He's been traveling and walking around the streets of New York City largely in a mask, with his face covered. We had to go through lots of video evidence to get that one money shot with the mask down," Tisch told CNN in a December 6 interview.

Tisch said that police released the photos of the man not wearing a mask because they wanted a "wider audience to see the picture outside of New York City."

"We are right now processing a tremendous amount of evidence in this case," the NYPD commissioner told the news outlet, adding that authorities already have "lots of forensic evidence," including fingerprints and DNA evidence.

Police have called the killing of Thompson premeditated

Police have described Thompson's killing as "a brazen, targeted attack."

Thompson was set to speak at UnitedHealth Group's 8 a.m. investor conference on December 4 when a hooded gunman opened fire from behind, striking him at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf, the police said.

"Every indication is that this was a premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack," Tisch told reporters at a press conference hours after the shooting.

"It appears the suspect was lying in wait for several minutes," Tisch added.

The NYPD offered a $10,000 reward for tips leading to the gunman's arrest, and the FBI said it was also offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the gunman's arrest and conviction.

Multiple reports said that authorities conducted forensic tests on a discarded cellphone, protein bar wrapper, and water bottle.

How the suspect arrived in New York is also becoming clearer.

Authorities believe he may have traveled to the city 10 days before the shooting on November 24 on a bus that originated in Atlanta and dropped him off at Manhattan's main bus depot, the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It was not yet clear where along the route he boarded the bus.

The Atlanta Police Department announced Friday that the NYPD contacted it and will provide assistance in the investigation as needed.

The unmasked images of the wanted man released by police were captured at a hostel on New York City's Upper West Side, a law enforcement official told CNN, when an employee asked the man to lower his face mask.

The Times, citing a senior law enforcement official, previously reported that the suspect in the shooting used a fake New Jersey ID to book a room at the hostel he was staying at in the days before the attack.

Retired NYPD homicide detective Salvatore Tudisco previously told BI that the photos showing the man's face were likely to speed up the manhunt.

Tudisco led the city's last big manhunt for a murdered CEO, Gokada founder Fahim Saleh, whose killer was captured in three days by traces on credit card, cellphone, and surveillance camera evidence.

"That's the best option — to send it across the country, and someone will know him," the ex-detective said of the latest images.

He added that a facial-recognition trace would be less of an option because the hostel surveillance images do not show the man's full face.

Investigators can still try to run the photo through state driver's license and arrest databases, Tudisco said. However, some states require a judge to issue a warrant before state driver's licenses can be used as evidence in an arrest and beyond.

Shooter was 'proficient in the use of firearms,' police said

Kenny said at the NYPD's press conference in the aftermath of the shooting that the gunman arrived on 6th Avenue about five minutes before Thompson. The shooter's weapon appeared to jam during the attack, he added.

"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.

Surveillance footage captured the incident, showing the gunman firing his weapon as Thompson, wearing a blue suit jacket, was walking several feet in front of him.

A law-enforcement source, who is not authorized to talk to the press, told Business Insider that the gun appeared to be equipped with a silencer. The source added that the gunman "definitely knew" where Thompson was going to be.

The police said officers found Thompson unconscious and unresponsive two minutes after the shooting. Emergency responders rushed him to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:12 a.m.

Police have not identified a motive

The shooting occurred blocks from Midtown holiday tourism landmarks, including Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center, whose Christmas tree lighting took place on December 4.

In the aftermath of the shooting, six evidence cups were visible on the taped-off section of the sidewalk where the attack occurred.

"That's covering the shell casings," an officer at the scene told BI, declining to give their name because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

UnitedHealth Group canceled its "investor day" conference shortly after reports of the shooting broke.

Investigators have not yet determined a motive for the killing.

Kenny said investigators were combing through Thompson's social media and interviewing employees and family members and would be talking to law enforcement in Minnesota, where Thompson lived and where UnitedHealth Group and UnitedHealthcare are based.

Thompson's wife, Paulette Thompson, previously told NBC News in an interview that her husband had been receiving threats.

"Basically, I don't know, a lack of coverage?" she said. "I don't know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him."

The police department in his hometown of Maple Grove, Minnesota, told BI it hadn't been notified of any threats he might have received. Theresa Keehn, the Maple Grove police administrator, initially said Maple Grove had no record of calls for service to his house. Still, the department later said it had responded to a 2018 call from Paulette Thompson. An incident report said she had been walking to bed when she saw the front door deadbolt turn and grew afraid someone was inside the house. The police did not find anyone inside the home.

An unnamed senior law enforcement official told NBC News that shell cases found at the scene were inscribed with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose." BI has not independently confirmed the description of the evidence, and an NYPD spokesperson didn't return a request for comment.

Jay M. Feinman, an author and legal professor specializing in insurance law, torts, and contract law, wrote a similarly titled book "Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It."

The book is dubbed an exposé of insurance injustice and explains how people can be more careful when shopping for insurance policies and what to do when pursuing a disputed claim.

The NYPD said Thompson arrived in New York City on Monday and was staying at a hotel across the street from where he was shot.

Police in Maple Grove, Minnesota, told BI homes of Thompson and his wife in a suburb outside Minneapolis were targeted with fake bomb threats Wednesday evening, more than 13 hours after the shooting.

Thompson was remembered as a 'hardworking Midwest guy.'

Thompson spent 20 years at UnitedHealth Group and was CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the health-benefits unit, since April 2021.

While announcing his promotion, the company said Thompson would "drive continued growth across the global, employer, individual, specialty, and government benefits business while continuing the company's focus on ensuring access to high-quality, affordable healthcare."

Leaders in the healthcare industry shared their condolences in the hours after Thompson's death.

UnitedHealth's shares were broadly unchanged after the shooting. They've gained about 12% in the past 12 months, less than the 32% increase in the S&P 500, but outperforming competitors, including CVS Health, Humana, and Elevance Health. During its third-quarter results in October, it gave what UBS called a "more conservative than usual" outlook for fiscal 2025. Ahead of Wednesday's investor day, it gave more detailed guidance for next year, forecasting revenue of $450 billion to $455 billion and adjusted earnings of $29.50 to $30 a share. The company also suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted pharmacy deliveries earlier this year.

By the afternoon of the shooting, UnitedHealth Group had removed the names of its executives from its website, an archived version of its site shows. Some executives also appeared to have deleted their LinkedIn profiles, though it's unclear when.

Thompson had previously served as CEO of the group's government programs, running its programs for Medicare and Medicaid recipients.

Thompson's former brother-in-law, Bassel El-Kasaby, told Business Insider that Thompson was "a good guy, very successful and very humble — just a decent, hardworking Midwest guy."

"Whoever did this is a coward and a loser," El-Kasaby said.

Correction: December 4, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Thompson's work history at United Health. He worked at the company for 20 years but was not an executive there for 20 years.

Update December 9, 2024: This story was updated with details on the arrest of a "person of interest" in the shooting.

• Kyle Leahy, the CEO of Glossier, took over the beauty company amid weak sales and layoffs.
• Leahy told Inc. Magazine listening to customers on three key issues helped her turn the brand around.
• By offering customers more selection and wider distribution, Glossier is profitable and expanding, she said.

Kyle Leahy, the new CEO of Glossier, described her secret for overhauling the cult-favorite beauty company's strategy and driving up profits after several years of turmoil for the brand: listen closely to your customers.

Leahy took over as chief executive of Glossier in May 2022, stepping into the role previously held by the company's founder, Emily Weiss. The transition came as the billion-dollar beauty brand's sales were plunging, forcing staff cuts.

With Weiss shifting to become the company's executive chair focused primarily on product, Leahy aimed to preserve the image of the baby pink brand while overhauling its strategy, she said in a recent interview with Inc. Magazine.

Leahy explained why listening to the brand's customers on three key issues has been key to her success.

First, customers wanted more new products — so she said Glossier overhauled 90% of their product team. Customers will also tell you when they liked an old version of a product better, Leahy added, so the brand restored the original formula for its Balm Dotcom lip balm in May this year.

"I often say to our team, if you step back and you look at the brand, it's up and to the right, but when you zoom in, it's always a bunch of up-and-down volatility," Leahy told the magazine. "We tried to relaunch it with the humility and transparency of, 'We made a mistake, and that's OK.' Brands are going to make mistakes."

Customers also wanted to buy Glossier products at familiar, ubiquitous beauty retailers like Sephora and Ulta, so the brand became available in 650 third-party stores in North America.

And finally, their loyal buyers — who The National Retail Federation reported have propelled Glossier to become the top-searched beauty brand within Sephora — also wanted to be able to get Glossier products overseas, so the company expanded international distribution.

Earlier this year, Glossier's viral "You" perfume spread wildly across TikTok and caused sales to jump by 10 times, Business Insider previously reported.

In the last three years, the brand's sales have increased by 80%, the chief executive said, and brought the company back from what Redditors once described as its "flop era."

Representatives for Glossier did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• South Korea's president, Yoon Suk Yeol, declared martial law in a shock address on Tuesday.
• He expressed frustration with paralyzing opposition forces within the government.
• After hours of civil unrest, Yoon rescinded the order, but many are calling for his resignation.

In a stunning move that threw the nation into turmoil, South Korea's president, Yoon Suk Yeol, invoked martial law on Tuesday, only to reverse course six hours later.

The decree, which brought temporary military control and the suspension of civilian government activities and civil liberties, marked South Korea's first declaration of martial law since the country's democratization in 1987.

The last time that a South Korean leader declared martial law was in 1979, in the aftermath of the assassination of the president.

The resulting turmoil in this instance could be felt for some time.

Calls are growing for the president's resignation. All six opposition parties filed an impeachment motion on Wednesday, with a vote set for Friday or Saturday, according to the Yonhap news agency.

After Yoon ordered martial law, South Korea's parliament voted unanimously to block the decree, declaring the move invalid, but martial law remained in effect.

Yoon announced he would lift martial law and withdraw troops the following day. The Joint Chiefs of Staff then said that the deployed troops had returned to their original units. In the aftermath, Yoon's cabinet approved the reversal.

But the reversal of the order wasn't enough to stymie economic anxieties that arose out of the unrest. On Wednesday, South Korea's Kospi Index closed 1.4% lower. The won fell to its lowest level since October 2022 but trimmed losses in Asian hours.

Companies in the country, including South Korea's SK Group, a conglomerate of semiconductor and energy businesses, and Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai, were hosting emergency executive meetings in the early morning hours on Wednesday, per Bloomberg.

"We are concerned that these events could impact South Korea's sovereign credit rating, although this is uncertain at this stage," wrote Min Joo Kan, ING Economics' senior economist in Seoul, in a research note.

The leader of Yoon's party said that the ruling party feels "deeply sorry to the public," adding that "the president must directly and thoroughly explain this tragic situation" and that those who called for martial law should be held accountable.

Yoon's entire cabinet and all of his aides have offered to resign, according to local reports.

Meanwhile, the country's largest labor union, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, is on indefinite strike, demanding Yoon's resignation, which could hurt production.

On Wednesday, thousands gathered for protest rallies across the country, including outside South Korea's national assembly.

Why did Yoon declare martial law?

Yoon indicated the move was necessary to counter North Korea, but the move appears to be at least partly political.

In a televised address, he spoke of "anti-state forces," saying martial law was necessary to eliminate them quickly and "normalize the country." He also criticized the country's opposition politicians, responding to a series of political setbacks that have frustrated his agenda.

Yoon has suffered from low approval ratings this year and has been described by critics as a "lame-duck president," as he holds the nation's highest office without having a majority in its legislature.

Yoon's conservative People Power Party lost a general election in April, in which the rival Democratic Party of Korea took 175 of the 300 seats in the National Assembly.

The opposition majority in parliament last week voted to cut almost $3 billion from Yoon's 2025 budget, undermining his plans. They have also tried to impeach three top prosecutors, The Associated Press reported.

Even as he reversed his martial law decision, Yoon continued to criticize those he saw as frustrating his agenda, requesting in a later address that the National Assembly "immediately stop its reckless actions that paralyze the functions of the state through repeated impeachment, legislative manipulation, and budget manipulation."

The decision to invoke martial law led to parliamentary activity being prohibited, according to the country's government-funded Yonhap news agency. Anyone who violated the rules could have been arrested without a warrant.

The outlet also said that media and publishers fell under the control of South Korea's military.

The provisions of martial law also allowed for the suspension of certain civil liberties.

What has been the political reaction?

Yoon's late-night announcement prompted protests outside parliament, with some trying to climb its walls. There was also intense criticism of Yoon for short-circuiting the country's democracy.

Han Dong-hoon, the leader of the ruling People Power Party, said imposing martial law was "wrong" and that he would "stop it with the people."

South Korea's main opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, described the move as unconstitutional.

Yoon was already an unpopular leader in Korea. Gallup's latest poll, released last week, showed his approval rating falling to 19%, per a poll of 1,000 adults.

The unexpected declaration of martial law was also said to have caught the Biden administration by surprise.

South Korea is a key US ally in the Indo-Pacific region and is a base for roughly 28,500 American service members, as well as numerous civilian workers and dependents.

"We continue to expect political disagreements to be resolved peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement after the martial law was rescinded.

How has the economy been affected?

Markets reacted immediately to South Korea's political crisis, with US-listed Korean stocks and the South Korean won taking a hit in overnight trade.

While shares of Samsung Electronics, the country's largest company, dropped 3% before paring losses, South Korea's Kospi Index fell 2.2% and closed 1.4% lower on Wednesday.

South Korean authorities have rushed to reassure investors.

The country's finance ministry said on Wednesday it was standing ready to deploy all necessary measures to stabilize the financial markets.

"We will inject unlimited liquidity into stocks, bonds, short-term money market as well as forex market for the time being until they are fully normalised," the ministry said in a statement.

On Wednesday, Kim Byung-hwan, the chairman of South Korea's Financial Services Commission, said the government was ready to activate a $35.4 billion stock market stabilization fund immediately and take other measures to address market concerns if needed.

But Rhee Chang-yong, governor of the Bank of Korea, told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday evening local time that South Korea's financial markets were stabilizing quickly and that the impact on markets was short-lived.

He added that he believed South Korea's economic dynamics can be separated from its political dynamics.

Even so, a few hours later, the OECD lowered South Korea's 2025 growth economic outlook to 2.1%, from 2.2%.

One notable stock surge amid all the turmoil: Kakao, and subsidiaries Kakaopay and KakaoBank, were up on Wednesday. Billionaire founder Brian Kim was arrested in July on charges of manipulating a major K-pop agency deal last year.