Russia's civil aviation authority quickly pointed to a bird strike as a possible cause of the crash-landing, which killed 38 of the 67 people on board, including both pilots.
Aviation experts had been skeptical of the Russian government's bird crash explanation due to the plane's erratic course and the holes in the plane's fuselage and tail section.
Azerbaijani sources confirmed that the investigation found an air defense missile fired by Russian Pantsir-S struck the Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft, the New York Times and the Euronews TV network reported Thursday.
Ukraine was quick to put the blame on Russia.
On Wednesday, Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, said in an X post that the plane was "shot down by a Russian air defense system."
Others have also suggested that Russian air defenses likely played a role as images of the crash and the plane's flight track emerged.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm, said in a critical alert sent to its clients and shared with Business Insider that the flight was "likely shot down by a Russian military air-defense system of unspecified type/variant over the North Caucasus Federal District."
The firm cited video of the wreckage, Ukraine's official statement, and the "circumstances around the airspace security environment in southwest Russia."
It also said that "incidents of civilian airliners being misidentified and shot down by air-defence systems are not unprecedented in the region."
It pointed to examples such as Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in eastern Ukraine in 2014 after reportedly being hit by a Russian-made missile.
Matthew Borie, Osprey's chief intelligence officer, told BI that the firm was in the process of raising its risk ratings for that portion of Russian airspace to its highest level.
"We have a portion of Russian airspace within 300 kilometers of the Ukrainian border, we have at extreme, we'll be expanding that out to about 600 kilometers from the Russian border now," he said, equivalent to 373 miles.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight was en route to Grozny, which Ukrainian drones have targeted in recent attacks.
The governor of the Russian region of North Ossetia said in a Telegram post that there were Ukrainian drone attacks carried out on Wednesday in a number of regions of the North Caucasus Federal District, which includes Grozny and the surrounding area.
The governor's post specifically mentioned a drone being taken down in Vladikavkas, which is about 70 miles away from Grozny.
Sources familiar with Azerbaijan's investigation into the crash told The Wall Street Journal that Russia redirected the Embraer-made aircraft from its airspace and jammed the GPS system.
Flightradar24, a live flight tracking website, said in a post on X that the plane was "exposed to GPS jamming and spoofing near Grozny."
Oliver Alexander, an independent OSINT analyst, told BI that "all the evidence I have seen points to the aircraft being hit by shrapnel from an air defense missile, which severely damaged the elevator and rudder controls."
In a thread on X, which cited post-crash footage, he wrote that "every single piece of debris that hit the aircraft had enough kinetic to punch through the skin and not just dent it."
Alexander also dismissed the preliminary information from Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, which suggested that the plane diverted after a bird strike, causing an onboard emergency.
He told BI that a bird strike would produce "a lot of blood" and "a lot of denting," neither of which seemed apparent in footage and images from the crash site.
"The location of the damage is all focused around the tail section," he added, "which would be very unlikely for a bird strike."
Subkhonkul Rakhimov, one of the surviving passengers, told RT, the Russian state-owned news network, that he had heard an explosion in the tail of the aircraft.
He also told TASS state news agency that he had seen the plane make three attempts to land the plane in Grozny.
Russia has cautioned against drawing conclusions.
On Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it "would be wrong to put forward any hypotheses" until the investigation into the crash is concluded.
Azerbaijan Airline's president, Samir Rzayev, told reporters Wednesday that the plane's black box had been recovered and its analysis was being "conducted in line with international aviation standards."
The country's president, Ilham Aliyev, said in a statement that while there are videos of the crash online, the cause was still unknown.
However, on Thursday, unnamed Azerbaijani government sources told Euronews that a preliminary investigation had found that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the crash.
According to Euronews, the sources said that shrapnel from the missile hit the plane after it exploded during drone activity above Grozny.
Azerbaijan's Foreign Affairs department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
An Azerbaijan Airlines flight from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny in Russia crashed landed.
Issa Tazhenbayev/Anadolu via Getty Images
An Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38, including both pilots.
Remarkably, nearly half the passengers β 29 people β survived.
The airline's president praised the "heroism" of the pilots and crew while speaking to reporters.
The president of Azerbaijan Airlines praised the pilots of flight J2-8243 after the plane, carrying 67 people, crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Although both pilots were among the 38 fatalities reported by Kazakh authorities, nearly half the passengersβ 29 people βsurvived.
Samir Rzayev, who heads up the airline, also known as AZAL, told reporters on Wednesday that the two pilot's "heroism will never be forgotten."
"While this tragic accident brought a significant loss to our nation, the crew's valiant dedication to their duties until the last moment and their prioritization of human life have immortalized their names in history," Rzayev said, according to the Azerbaijani news agency Report.
Rzayev said the pilots collectively had over 15,000 flight hours and that the plane had recently passed a technical inspection.
"Despite these measures, the causes of the incident are still under investigation," Rzayev added.
The Associated Press posted a video of the crash showing some passengers being pulled from the aft section of the aircraft, an area which is traditionally safer in a crash.
Per a 2015 analysis byΒ Time Magazine of US federal data from 1985 to 2000, the seats in the back of the plane had a fatality rate of 32%, compared to 39% in the middle and 38% in the front. The back middle seats had the lowest fatality rate, at 28%.
Still, the circumstances of the crash play a bigger role, like how a jet lands and the actions of its pilots.
The Embraer 190 jet had departed from Baku, Azerbaijan, early Wednesday, bound for Grozny, Russia.
Adverse weather conditions led to a diversion, the airline told BBC News. The flight-tracking website Flightradar24 shows that the plane made a crash-landing at about 06:28 local time near Aktau, Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan's Senate Chairman Ashimbayev Maulen told Reuters on Thursday that the cause of the crash remains unknown.
Preliminary information from Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, suggested that the plane diverted after a bird strike caused an onboard emergency, according to AP.
However, Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, put the blame on Russia. On Wednesday evening, he claimed in an X post that the commercial airline was "shot down by a Russian air defense system."
In the post, he said there is video footage from inside the plane, showing "punctured life vests and other damage."
Others have also suggested Russian involvement.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm, told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that the plane may have been damaged by a Russian anti-missile system. The firm cited footage of the crash, the apparent damage to the aircraft, and recent military activity in the area.
"Incidents of civilian airliners being misidentified and shot down by air-defence systems are not unprecedented in the region," a critical alert issued by Osprey and provided to Business Insider said.
Oliver Alexander, an OSINT analyst, said in a message to BI that "at this point, I don't think there is enough available evidence to conclusively say what exactly happened (type of missile etc)."
But he added that "all the evidence I have seen points to the aircraft being hit by shrapnel from an air defense missile which severely damaged the elevator and rudder controls."
Ukrainian drones have targeted Grozny in recent weeks, and the governor of the Russian region of North Ossetia said in a Telegram post on Wednesday that there were Ukrainian drone attacks carried out in a number of regions of the North Caucasus Federal District that day.
The district includes Grozny and the surrounding area.
The post specifically mentioned a drone being taken down in Vladikavkas, about 70 miles west of Grozny.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in a statement: "There are videos of the plane crash available in the media and on social networks, and everyone can watch them. However, the reasons for the crash are not yet known to us."
This wouldn't be the first time Russia was blamed for the shooting down of a passenger aircraft.
In 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was hit by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard. Investigators said the missile system used originated in Russia and was launched from a part of Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed forces.
Russia has denied involvement in the MH17 crash.
Azerbaijan Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Rzayev, the airline's president, told reporters that the plane's black box had been recovered and that "its analysis is being conducted in line with international aviation standards."
Embraer, which built the aircraft that crashed Wednesday, said in a statement that it was "deeply saddened" by the crash and was working closely with relevant authorities to support the investigation.
Spain has some of the oldest moms, with 11% of women having kids post-40, compared to 4% in the US.
Financial insecurity and settling down later in life play a notable role.
But Spain's accessible fertility treatments and excellent public healthcare are also factors.
Monica Cruz-Lemini, a 46-year-old obstetrician living in Spain, had her first child at 44.
While pregnancies after 35 are considered "advanced maternal age," Cruz-Lemini's experience is far from unusual in Spain, where more than 10% of all births involve mothers 40 or older.
"I think there's a growing pool of women in recent years β and I've seen it both professionally and personally β who are a bit like me," Cruz-Lemini told Business Insider.
Spanish moms are among the oldest
According to Eurostat's latest data, Spain had the second-highest average age of women at childbirth in Europe in 2022, at 32.6 years, as well as the second-oldest average age for first-time mothers, at 31.6 years.
Spain also ranked second for the share of births to women aged 40 or older; 11% of live births in the country were to mothers in their fifth decade or beyond.
In comparison, only about 4% of live births in the US were to women over 40, according to data from the US National Center for Health Statistics, compiled by nonprofit group March of Dimes.
(Comprehensive global data isn't readily available, but Ireland came top in the most recent European stats.)
Financial insecurity
Delaying motherhood is a growing trend across Europe and beyond, not just in Spain.
However, Juan GarcΓa-Velasco, chief scientific officer for IVIRMA Global, which operates a network of fertility clinics, highlights "a combination of factors" that help explain Spain's particularly high ranking.
Sarah Richards, a Barcelona-born mother of two who had her second child at 40, said that people want to be financially secure and own their own house before starting a family, "so that's going to happen a lot later here than it would in the UK, where salaries certainly are higher."
Property prices in cities and coastal areas also make it harder for many to afford a home, with Spain having one of the highest average ages in Europe for young people leaving the family home β at just over 30.
"You can't buy there, and the rents are just out of control," Richards said. "You either have a very good job, or you have a rich family that can help you and help with childcare."
Fertility treatments
Waiting longer often leads to a growing reliance on treatments like IVF, and Spain is a leader in Europe in IVF success rates, according to the global fertility agency International Fertility Group.
While a like-for-like comparison between Spain and the US isn't available β as different countries and clinics measure success rates differently β Spain remains a popular destination for Americans exploring international fertility treatment options.
GarcΓa-Velasco said this may be why it may feel less risky for some women in Spain to leave trying for kids until later in life. "As the outcome is good, this reduces the pressure and the fears," he said
IVF is also widely accessible in Spain and is free for women 40 and under, including those who are single or in same-sex relationships.
"The more facilities that are offered to become a mother later in life, the easier it's going to be," saidPauline Bronkurst, who had her second child this year at the age of 43.
"In our case," Bronkurst added, "both of our babies were conceived through IVF, so that definitely played a role."
But Bronkhurst emphasized the importance of Spain's public healthcare system, which was particularly beneficial after her second child was born with a genetic condition.
While getting pregnant at an older age can increase the likelihood of complications, Bronkhurst said that in countries with universal healthcare and a high standard of medical care, the perceived risk of advanced-age pregnancy is significantly lower.
"I think that plays into the whole thing of waiting longer," she told BI.
Slow to settle down
Another major factor contributing to delayed motherhood in Spain is that people are simply settling down later in life.
The average age of first marriage among men in Spain is 36.8, the highest in Europe, while for women it's 34.7, also the highest, according to the latest Eurostat data.
Stephanie Galavodas, who had her son three years ago aged 41, told BI she waited until her 40s to have a child because she was "saying yes to things in life when I didn't have the partner to build a family."
After years of pursuing degrees, traveling, and establishing her career, she eventually met her partner, with whom she had her child.
"I always knew that I would have kids someday," she said, "and so it felt fine to me to kind of go out in the world and experience things instead of rushing to have a child first."
GarcΓa-Velasco said the fastest-growing group seeking fertility treatment at his clinics in Spain are single mothers who have decided to raise a child on their own.
This trend is not unique to Spain. A 2020 study published in Fertility and Sterility found a significant rise in the number of single women undergoing IVF in the US over the preceding 12 years.
In Spain, GarcΓa-Velasco said that many single mothers pursuing fertility treatment cite a "lack of adequate partner" as their primary motivation for going solo.
For Cruz-Lemini, the doctor who had her child at 44, this was the reality. "I'm a single mom by choice," she told BI.
Cruz-Lemini was occupied with studies, training, and then work as a doctor, but, she said, "You get to be around 40 years old and then suddenly you realize that it might be your last chance or chances to have a child."
She found a sperm donor and pursued IVF. A little over two years ago, she gave birth to her daughter.
Sometimes, she said, "you have to do it by yourself because you don't have time to get into a relationship."
The Fruitport Township Police Department said in a news release that the president of the manufacturing company Anderson Express Inc. was stabbed at about 9:20 a.m. on Tuesday at the company's address in Muskegon, about 35 miles northwest of Grand Rapids.
The police said a preliminary investigation found that a 32-year-old male employee stabbed Erik Denslow, the company president, in the side with a knife.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Denslow was said to be out of surgery and in serious but stable condition.
Anderson Express did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
The police said the suspect fled the scene in his vehicle before being stopped and taken into custody about 15 minutes later. They identified him as Nathan Joseph Mahoney.
Speaking with local media, the police said Mahoney had worked at the company for only about two weeks. The news release said fellow employees described him as having a "quiet demeanor."
Muskegon County Sheriff's Office records show Mahoney is being held on a more than $500,000 bond. He was arraigned Wednesday and charged with assault with intent to commit murder. Amy P. Campanelli, who is listed as Mahoney's attorney in charging documents, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Denslow has been president of Anderson Express for a little under two years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Authorities are searching for a motive, including whether the attack was inspired by the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO, who was fatally shot earlier this month, leading to a widely publicized manhunt and the subsequent arrest of a suspect.
"We haven't ruled out copycat motive in regards to this," Fruitport Township's deputy police chief, Greg Poulson, told the local outlet News 8 on Wednesday.
He added: "We're going through all his social accounts, all his electronic media, and trying to determine a motive for this act."
Poulson also told News 8 that threatening CEOs and high-profile businesspeople "seems to be a popular thing in this day and age."
Correction: December 20, 2024 β An earlier version of this story misstated the location of Muskegon, Michigan. It's northwest, not northeast, of Grand Rapids.
Victoria Hughes worked at IHOP for more than a decade.
Don and Melinda Crawford/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A Florida IHOP worker says she was fired for feeding a homeless man.
The worker, Victoria Hughes, says she was told she was violating company policy.
IHOP's corporate office tried to reverse the decision after media coverage.
A longtime worker at a Florida IHOP was fired for feeding a homeless man, although the company later tried to reverse course by offering her job back.
Victoria Hughes worked for over a decade at an IHOP in Lakeland, Florida.
Late last month, however, her job was terminated after she said she decided to feed a man who appeared to be homeless and hungry.
Hughes said to WFLA, "He stated to me and the host that he was hungry."
She added, "Without a second thought, I bought the stack of pancakes and made him a water."
Hughes told the local broadcaster that she informed her manager of the good deed but received an unexpected response.
"He told me the reason behind him being upset because it could cause a loitering issue, was that things like that are a safety issue for customers," Hughes said in her WFLA interview.
According to WFLA, the situation escalated when the man returned with a family for another meal at a later date.
Then, Hughes told WFLA that she received a phone call from her manager telling her she was being fired.
She said she was told it was company policy.
Although Hughes was left without a job, she told the local broadcaster that she had no regrets and would help someone in need again.
Following local media coverage, Hughes said IHOP's corporate office called her and offered her her job back, along with compensation for the missed days of work and a "healthy" donation to a charity of her choice.
In a statement provided to Business Insider by IHOP, Dan Enea of Sunshine Restaurant Partners, an IHOP franchisee, did not dispute any of Hughes' allegations.
Enea said: "We took immediate action to investigate the situation and have implemented training for our employees on addressing issues relating to food insecurity."
Enea added that the company will support efforts to address food insecurity by partnering with Feeding America and by making donations to local charities.
At this time, Hughes has declined the job offer.
In a GoFundMe page started at the event of November, Hughes said she was "publicly humiliated for feeding a homeless man."
In her fundraiser, she asked for a "little bit of help to get me through the holiday season. " She has since raised over $3,000.
Hughes did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Last week, South Korea's president, Yoon Suk-yeol, declared martial law in the country in a surprise announcement, citing the need to eliminate "anti-state" forces.
The unexpected decision was met with widespread protests, and hours later South Korea's parliament voted down the measure. Yoon's government quickly rescinded it.
In an article published by North Korea's state-run KCNA news agency on Wednesday, the situation in South Korea was characterized as "pandemonium."
It referred to Yoon as a "puppet" who proclaimed martial law "in a bid to escape from the worst ruling crisis."
Kim Jong Un exerts near-total control over North Korea's population, using extensive surveillance, state-run media, suppressing dissent, and offering no real choice in elections.
The article also criticized South Korea as a "fascist dictatorship," which it said was under the watch of the international community.
In reality, North Korea is widely regarded as a global pariah due to Kim's authoritarian governance, whereas South Korea is recognized as a democratic nation.
But over the weekend an attempt to impeach Yoon narrowly failed after many lawmakers from his ruling People Power Party boycotted the vote. The main opposition party is expected to continue its impeachment efforts.
During the political chaos that rocked South Korea last week, there were concerns that North Korea might exploit the turmoil, using a moment of weakness to its advantage.
Business Insider reported that this could take the form of propaganda designed to erode trust in democracy in South Korea.
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 β rightfully imprisoned β 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
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 10extradition 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].
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 β a Maryland state legislator and a cousin of Mangione's β 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.
NYPD released images of the person of interest in Brian Thompson's killing.
DCPI/NYPD
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.
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 β 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 β where he was set to speak at UnitedHealth Group's investor conference β 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.
Surveillance images show the suspected shooter in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
NYPD via AP
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."
The organizers described the musical, which was due to debut over the weekend, as a "parody exploration of a breakdancer's journey to the 2024 Paris Olympics."
Raygun, an academic and lecturer, became one of the standout stars of the Olympics this summer, though not for her sporting prowess.
In August, her routine at the round-robin stage of the women's breaking competition, which included unconventional moves inspired by kangaroos, scored zero points.
Gunn said the scrutiny she faced had been "really upsetting" and "impossible to process."
She told 2DayFM, a Sydney radio station, "I still dance, and I still break, but that's like, in my living room with my partner."
Steph Broadbridge, a comedian and the creator of 'Raygun: The Musical,' announced its cancellation in an Instagram video, saying the show's venue had received a legal notice from Gunn's lawyers.
Kinselas, the venue, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
In the video post, Broadbridge said: "Raygun's lawyers got in touch with the venue and threatened legal action, so we will be refunding everyone their $10 or comp ticket back for that."
She said that the legal team was "worried that I was damaging her brand, which I would never do."
"She doesn't need me to do that," Broadbridge added.
The comedian also said in the post that the lawyers had instructed her not to do the "kangaroo" dance because Gunn "owns" it.
Gunn's representatives did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
However, the retired breakdancer's legal and management team confirmed in a statement provided to The Guardian that they had intellectual property rights concerns.
"The use of the 'Raygun' name by a comedian without approval has caused confusion among the public, potentially leading them to believe that 'Raygun The Musical' had Rachael's endorsement or approval," they said.
"This misuse of intellectual property is not only misleading but also jeopardises Rachael's other commercial ventures, which rely on the integrity of her brand," they added.
The team told the outlet that they had "immense respect" for the work that went into developing the show, but that their actions were to "safeguard Rachael's creative rights and the integrity of her work."
Tokyo is introducing a four-day workweek to help boost fertility rates and support women.
It's also rolling out a policy to allow parents to sacrifice salary in exchange for shorter days.
Japan faces a declining fertility rate. It had just 758,631 births last year, a record low.
As Japan grapples with a record-low fertility rate, Toyko's government is trying new strategies to try to encourage women to have more children.
The capital's government is introducing a four-day workweek starting in April next year, in effect offering state employees a three-day weekend.
The policy applies to the more than 160,000 employees of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, one of Japan's largest employers.
"We will continue to review work styles flexibly to ensure that women do not have to sacrifice their careers due to life events such as childbirth or child-rearing," Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike said in a speech on Wednesday, according to a translation by the Japan Times.
The local government also said that it would allow parents with children in grades one to three of elementary school to sacrifice some of their salaries in order to finish work early each day.
The Japan Times said this would allow parents to reduce their working hours by up to two hours a day.
The measures intend to ease the burden of child-raising for working mothers.
"Empowering women, a goal that has lagged far behind the rest of the world, has been a long-standing issue in our country," Koike said, per the Japan Times.
Japan is one of the oldest countries in the world, with its population rapidly aging due to a combination of long life expectancies and low fertility rates.
Japan's fertility rate sank to a record low of 1.2 in 2023, far below the global replacement rate of about 2.1.
The replacement level is generally required to sustain a population over time, barring massive fluctuations in mortality rates or large-scale immigration.
According to Japan's Health and Welfare Ministry, 758,631 children were born in the country last year, the eighth consecutive year of decline.
The International Monetary Fund said in May that many reasons contributed to the decline in fertility rate and births, including later and fewer marriages, as well as the high cost of living, a large gender wage gap, and expensive childcare.
Japan's government has spent billions on initiatives aimed at reversing these trends, such as improving access to childcare services and promoting egg freezing.
The local government in Toyko announced earlier this year the launch of a dating app that requires users to verify their income and desire to get hitched, in the hope of fostering more marriages.
A new image released by the NYPD showing the shooting suspect in a taxi.
NYPD/X
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 β which has been described by police as a targeted attack β 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.
The NYPD released another image of the suspect.
NYPD/X
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.
NYPD released images of the suspect in Brian Thompson's killing.
DCPI/NYPD
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 β 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.
UnitedHealth Group canceled its investor day shortly after reports of the shooting broke.
Paul Squire/ BI
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 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.
The police marked evidence at the scene of the shooting.
Laura Italiano/BI
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."
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 β just a decent, hardworking Midwest guy."
"Whoever did this is a coward and a loser," El-Kasaby said.
Correction: December 4, 2024 β 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.
Floods devastated Valencia and other parts of Spain in October 2024.
AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti
Spain has approved a law granting employees up to four days of paid climate leave.
It aims to ensure workers aren't penalized for staying home during climate disasters.
The law follows criticism of companies during the devastating floods in Valencia last month.
Spain is enacting a new law granting employees up to four days of paid climate leave following last month's devasting floods, which killed more than 200 people.
The legislation comes after several companies in Spain received criticism for making employees work amid the torrential rain and subsequent floods in Valencia and surrounding areas, which caused widespread devastation.
The protection seeks to ensure that workers are not penalized for staying at home during extreme weather conditions, and will continue to be paid.
In a video shared with local media, Yolanda DΓaz, Spain's Minister of Labour and Social Economy, described the move as historic.
"For the first time, Spain will have paid climate leave for working people," she said.
Spain's Council of Ministers approved the legislation on Thursday, and it is expected to come into effect on Friday.
In an interview with Spanish broadcaster RTVE, DΓaz said the paid leave will be relevant whenever an authority issues a climate-related alert that advises people to stay at home for safety reasons.
She told RTVE that it aims to ensure that "no worker must run the risks" of facing off with a climate emergency just to get to their workplace.
There were reports of restaurant workers in a Valencia shopping center working through the first hours of the floods last month and hundreds of workers getting trapped in business parks, according to Spanish newspaper PΓΊblico.
Speaking on Thursday, Esther Lynch, the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, said: "This was a climate disaster that turned into a labor disaster because of the negligence of employers and the Valencian government."
Lynch added: "Bosses who put workers' lives at risk by ignoring health and safety rules should face the full force of the law."
Spain's economy minister, Carlos Cuerpo, said on Thursday that the paid leave applies when employees cannot safely reach their workplace or work remotely, Euronews reported.
He added that workers can opt for a reduced working schedule if more days off are required.
The legislation also mandates that companies implement specific risk-prevention measures for climate emergencies and inform their employees of these.
Usha Vance has been tight-lipped about her political beliefs but has long supported her husband's ambitions.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Since law school, JD Vance's wife has been tight-lipped about her political beliefs.
Usha Vance was a registered Democrat until 2014 and worked at what some consider a progressive law firm.
Vance has said she has "not given a ton of thought" to the issues she'd focus on as second lady.
Usha Vance's classmates at Yale Law School didn't know much about her politics. Weeks before she becomes second lady, the nation doesn't know much, either.
"She was more tight-lipped, at least in my experience, with her political views," said Marvin Lim, a Democrat in the Georgia House of Representatives who also graduated in 2013. He wasn't close with either of the Vances, but said that they "certainly communicated a great deal."
"I don't remember ever having a political conversation with Usha," Elliot Forhan, a Democrat representative in Ohio who took a small class with Usha but wasn't close friends with her, said. "She just didn't really show her cards with respect to the political stuff."
Vance, 38, will make history as the nation's first Indian American and first Hindu second lady. She'll also be the second-youngest person to fill the role, after Jane Hadley Barkley, wife of former Vice President Alben Barkley in 1949.
Usha Chilukuri met JD Vance while at Yale Law School. The two were in the same small group of approximately 15 students who take all of their classes together, the New York Times reported. They got married in 2014, one year after graduating, and Lim said that their affection for each other was obvious. Less obvious, however, is Usha Vance's political orientation and relationship to the newfound national spotlight.
Vance grew up in a suburb of San Diego, raised by a mechanical engineer and a biologist. One of her family friends, Vikram Rao, told The Times that she was a natural and kind leader, selecting what games they played and setting the rules by age five.
After getting her undergraduate degree from Yale, she studied copyright law at Cambridge. In February of 2006, a campus tabloid magazine at Yale described her "as "of the leftish political persuasion," but noted that she opted for romantic partners who are "tall, handsome, and conservative."One of her friends at Cambridge, Gabriel Winant, said that her social circle was left of center and even dotted with the occasional leftist, the Times reported.
While her political views weren't recognizable to casual peers at Yale Law School, her leadership was evident. Both Forhan and Lim said that she wasn't particularly loud in class, but didn't fade into the background, either. Her drive didn't seem to extend to politics.
"She didn't express political ambitions, but she did have ambition," Lim told Business Insider, noting that she went on to have prestigious judicial clerkships after graduation. "We knew those were things she wanted to do, but not political ambitions."
A representative for Usha Vance declined to comment for this story.
From a 'woke' law firm to conservative clerkships, Vance's political orientations remained murky after law school.
After graduating from law school, Vance clerked for a pre-SCOTUS Brett Kavanaugh from 2014-2015 and Chief Justice John Roberts from 2017-2018. In addition, she worked at the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, but resigned on Monday when her husband became the GOP nominee for vice president. The law firm has since removed her biography, and with it all of her past cases, though the website used to describe her as "a skilled litigator specializing in higher education, local government, and technology sectors."
The magazine The American Lawyer described Munger, Tolles & Olson as "cool, woke" in 2019, with a "radically progressive" policy on gender and racial diversity in hiring, Vanity Fair reported. Despite his wife's workplace environment, JD Vance championed the "Dismantle DEI Act" in June, 2024, calling the DEI agenda "destructive." In 2022, two colleagues at the firm described Usha Vance as liberal or moderate to The Times.
To make her political affiliations even murkier, Vance was a registered Democrat until 2014, The Times reported. Yet she shifted to the right alongside her husband β in 2021, Federal Election Commission records reveal that she donated to Blake Masters, a conservative Senate candidate in Arizona backed by tech billionaire Peter Thiel. And Thiel has known JD Vance since at least 2011, when the tech magnate spoke at Yale. In 2024, Thiel was instrumental in cementing Vance's spot on the Trump ticket.
Vance hasn't always seemed eager to be center stage.
When JD Vance was himself running for Senate, Usha Vance appeared in his very first campaign ad, sitting in front of a bookshelf and talking about their three children. In an interview with Newsmax during the campaign, she said that her husband has not changed in the many years of their relationship.
After her initial appearance, Vance largely faded out of her husband's campaign, but became more active as voting day neared. The same was true of this year's presidential election: Vance introduced her husband at the Republican National Convention, but didn't speak at other public campaign events, ABC reported. She helped behind the scenes, assisting with debate prep and offering feedback on rallies, according to NBC News.
In an interview on Fox & Friends in June, Usha Vance seemed ambivalent about taking on a public political role. During the conversation, she didn't wholly embrace the possibility of becoming the second lady.
"I don't know that anyone is ever ready for that kind of scrutiny," she said. "I'm not raring to change anything about our lives are right now, but I believe in JD and I really love him, so we'll just sort of see what happens."
She declined to specify what issues she would tackle in the White House, saying that "we might be getting a little ahead of ourselves."
Vance has consistently defended her husband in the face of controversy, like when she called his infamous childless cat ladies comment a "quip."
As the election inched closer, Vance remained vague about her personal political plans.
"This is such an intense and busy experience that I have not given a ton of thought to my own roles and responsibility," she told NBC News in late October when asked what she'd focus on as second lady. "It's just something that I've never really βΒ it's not something I'm terribly familiar with."
Vance went on to say that she'd "collect some information" and circle back to the question after November 5, depending on the election results. With the results in, she has yet share any specific plans.
While Usha Vance's political orientations and interest in life as a national figure remain foggy, her devotion to her husband has seemed strong since her days at Yale Law School.
"In terms of political beliefs, she held that close to her chest, but in terms of being supportive of JD, that does not surprise me," Lim said.
Workers clean snow in front of the statue of King Sejong at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, South Korea.
AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
A snowstorm blanketed South Korea's capital on Wednesday and Thursday, photos show.
The snowstorm was the heaviest in the month of November since records began in 1907.
The severe weather resulted in at least five deaths and led to transportation chaos.
Heavy snow continued to blanket South Korea's capital for a second day running on Thursday, following a record-breaking snowstorm in Seoul the previous day.
Visitors enjoy the snow at the Gyeongbok Palace, one of South Korea's well-known landmarks, in Seoul.
AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
Photos of the snowfall show South Koreans enjoying the unusual winter wonderland, the first snow of the season.
However, the severe weather also resulted in a number of deaths and led to travel chaos.
Seoul, South Korea, after Wednesday's snowfall.
Park Jintaek/Xinhua via Getty Images
According to Reuters, at least five people died as a result of the adverse weather, with four fatalities due to structures collapsing under the weight of the snow, and one person dying in a traffic accident due to icy roads.
On Wednesday, 11 people were injured after 53 cars were involved in a pile-up in the city of Wonju, about 70 miles east of Seoul, amid the snowy conditions, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
The snow caused travel chaos and road closures in South Korea.
AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
The news agency said the snow caused trees and branches to buckle and collapse across Seoul and the surrounding regions, which led to authorities blocking entry to some roads, power lines snapping, and delays on some subway lines.
Yonhap also reported that more than 140 flights, the majority of them international, were canceled due to the weather.
More than 140 flights were canceled because of the snow.
JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images
Wednesday's snowfall in Seoul brought about 6.5 inches of snow to the city and surrounding areas, making it the heaviest snowfall in November since records began in 1907,Β per the Yonhap News Agency.
The previous record, set in 1966, saw considerably less snowfall, at about 3.7 inches, per CNN.
A worker shovels snow near a monument at the Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul.
AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
Data from the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) showed 11.3 inches of snow in Seoul at 8 a.m. local time on Thursday, close to the overall record of 12.2 inches recorded at a Seoul weather station in March 1922.
According to the KMA, Suwon, a city about 25 miles from Seoul, received almost 17 inches of snow on Thursday morning.
However, regional security experts say a provision bringing the US β as well as France β on board to monitor potential violations could complicate matters.
During the coming weeks, the cease-fire deal requires a halt to hostilities, as well as Hezbollah fighters retreating from the Israeli border and Israeli military forces on the ground in Lebanon withdrawing.
Despite these provisions, "the underlying challenges are enormous," said Fawaz A. Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, adding that the outcome largely depends "on the will of the combatants."
Gerges said that the inclusion of the US in the cease-fire monitoring process "complicates" matters.
US troops will not be deployed in the area, but the US and France will join a pre-existing mechanism between United Nations peacekeeping forces and the Lebanese and Israeli armies, known as the tripartite mechanism.
The US will chair the group.
An uncertain neutrality
Gerges expressed doubts about how neutral the US would be in the process, pointing to Washington's track record of supporting Israel.
If the US proclaims a Hezbollah violation, Israel has assurances from the US that it can respond. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed this in a statement, saying: "If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack."
However, Gerges said he thinks it is highly unlikely the reverse β the US declaring an Israeli violation β would happen.
As such, Hezbollah likely views the inclusion of the US in the monitoring process with suspicion, he said, adding that he thinks Hezbollah believes that "the US will do Israel's bidding."
Paul Salem, vice president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute, told BI that, in his opinion, the US is absolutely not neutral. "They are, in a sense, representing Israel, so that's why Israel trusts them."
Salem added that if Hezbollah is really going to implement its part of the agreement, then America's role is not going to be that difficult or controversial.
"The challenge would be, for the Americans, is if Hezbollah is not implementing the agreement," he said. "Then, Americans are not going to fix it. Americans are not going to send troops to fight over it."
"Then the whole thing will collapse right away and Israel will resume the war," he said.
Hassan Fadlallah, an MP in Lebanon and senior official for Hezbollah, said Tuesday that the group reserves the right to defend itself should Israel attack, according to The Guardian.
More robust than in the past
Burcu Ozcelik, a Middle East research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said in an email to BI that the enforcement mechanism appears to be "more robust" than past efforts, but there is a "high level of risk attached to the implementation of the cease-fire."
"This is now when the hard work begins to ensure that violations are not committed by either party," she said.
However, Ozcelik continued, "The question is how committed the US-led effort will be to police the agreement, to remain steadfast in its own role to ensure enforcement."
Shortly after Hamas' terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began attacking Israel in solidarity.
Since October 2023, Israel says about 60,000 of its residents have been displaced by Hezbollah's rocket attacks, while Lebanon says more than one million of its residents have had to leave their homes, and thousands have died.
The cease-fire agreement will not stop the fighting in Gaza, though President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the US will make "another push" to broker a deal there.
"It was my understanding that you guys wanted to do a bunch of the larger, more popular, not specifically political podcasts," Pfeiffer said.
He asked why that may not have happened, citing "Hot Ones" as an ideal fit for the vice president.
"Never in time has there been a candidate better suited for a podcast than Kamala Harris on 'Hot Ones,'" he said.
The show, which has over 14 million YouTube subscribers, involves celebrities eating increasingly spicy wings as they discuss their lives and careers.
Recent guests include Bowen Yang, Paul Mescal, and Jimmy Fallon.
Stephanie Cutter, who spearheaded the campaign's media strategy, said: "I think if I remember correctly, on 'Hot Ones,' they didn't want to delve into politics."
She later elaborated, saying: "'Hot Ones,' which is a great show, they didn't want to do any politics, they weren't going to take us or him," referring to now-President-elect Donald Trump.
BuzzFeed, the owner of First We Feast, which produces "Hot Ones," declined to comment.
In its history, the show has never featured a political candidate.
Trump appeared on Rogan's podcast in October and talked with him for three hours.
Harris campaign officials said that Rogan wanted to conduct the interview in Texas, but logistically it was too difficult to make it happen in such a short race.
"What's clear is we offered to do it in Austin, people should know that," Plouffe said on the podcast. "It didn't work out."
This year's presidential election shone a light on a growing trend: politicians moving their fight to new media battlegrounds, everything from podcasts and gaming streams to Substacks and TikTok debates.
Trump pursued an unorthodox media strategy, which involved sitting down for many podcasts and YouTube shows as a way to target a key demographic β undecided and politically disengaged young men.
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File
A Russian deserter who was an officer at a top-secret nuclear weapons facility spoke with the BBC.
He described an atmosphere of paranoia, with personnel subjected to lie-detector tests.
The deserter said his job involved making sure his subordinates didn't bring phones onto the base.
A Russian deserter who once served as an officer at a top-secret nuclear weapons facility in Russia said everybody at the base was regularly subjected to lie-detector tests.
The deserter, identified only as Anton for his protection, disclosed little-known details about guarding Russian nuclear weapons to BBC News.
The media outlet said it verified his unit, rank, and base using official documents.
"There are constant checks and lie-detector tests for everyone," Anton said, offering rare insight into the pervasive paranoia and surveillance on a Russian nuclear base.
Anton recounted that on the day Russia invaded Ukraine, his unit was placed on combat alert and that, "in theory," his base was ready to carry out a nuclear strike.
Anton told BBC News his unit was "shut inside the base" from day one of the invasion, going on to describe life there as regimented and heavily monitored.
"It was my responsibility to ensure the soldiers under me didn't take any phones onto the nuclear base," he said, adding that no strangers were allowed on-site and that even parental visits required clearance from Russia's Federal Security Service at least three months in advance.
The Federation of American Scientists estimated that as of March, Russia's military stockpile included about 4,380 nuclear warheads, along with some 1,200 retired warheads waiting to be dismantled.
Anton told BBC News he carried out his duties guarding nuclear weapons at the start of the full-scale invasion, but things changed when he was asked to deliver lectures to his troops.
Using specific written guidelines, he said, he was told to characterize Ukrainian civilians as "combatants" that should be "destroyed."
"That's a red line for me β it's a war crime," Anton told BBC News. "I said I won't spread this propaganda."
In response, Anton said, senior officers ordered him to be transferred to a regular assault brigade, preparing him to be deployed to the front lines.
But before being sent to fight, Anton signed a document refusing to participate, and a criminal case was opened against him, BBC News reported.
The outlet said it reviewed documents confirming both his unit transfer and the criminal case.
Anton managed to escape Russia with the help of an organization of deserters. He told BBC News this was only possible because he was no longer stationed at the high-security nuclear base.
He said he believed security forces were still searching for him and was taking precautions to avoid appearing on any official systems.
He also said he'd had to cut off contact with all of his former colleagues. "They must take lie-detector tests," he said, "and any contact with me could lead to a criminal case."
A TikTok influencer was arrested following an incident involving the theft of $500 worth of items from Target.
Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
A TikTok influencer was arrested after an incident involving the theft of $500 of goods from Target.
Police say they identified Marlena Velez, who has 360,000+ TikTok followers, through a video she posted.
The video showed her at Target, wearing the same outfit as in the security footage, police said.
A TikTok influencer with over 360,000 followers who posts aspirational videos of her life as a stay-at-home mom has been arrested after police accused her of stealing about $500 worth of items from Target.
Authorities said the momfluencer later posted a video of the 'shopping' haul to her followers, which they said helped to identify her.
According to a news release,Β the Cape Coral Police Department in Florida responded to a report last Wednesday about a theft at a Target store in Cape Coral that occurred on October 30.
Target's loss prevention team said that an unidentified woman entered the store, selected items, and scanned false barcodes with lower prices instead of the items' actual barcodes at a self-checkout register.
Police said the woman stole 16 items, including household goods and clothing, worth $500.32.
The Cape Coral Police Department shared photographs of the woman on social media to help identify her.
According to the press statement, an anonymous tip received in response to the photos provided officers with information on 22-year-oldΒ social media influencerΒ Marlena Velez and directed them to herΒ Instagram handle.
It said that officers subsequently found Velez's TikTok account, which included a video showing Velez wearing the same outfit and glasses as the woman in the photos.
In the video, which is no longer available on her TikTok account, police said it showed Velez going to Target, selecting items, and loading them into her car before leaving.
Mercedes Phillips, a Cape Coral Police Department spokeswoman, said in a subsequent video that: "Everything was documented, even the outfit that she wore."
Phillips added, "It shows her getting ready with the outfit, and even her glasses, and all of that matches in her TikTok with the attempt-to-identify photo that we put out."
Velez did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Lee County Sheriff's Office records show that a woman identified as Marlena Valez, with a different spelling but the same birthdate, was booked last Thursday morning.
Records show that she was released later that day on a cash bond of $150.
In South Korea, able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 35 are expected to serve at least 18 months.
JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images
A South Korean man was given a one-year suspended sentence for evading military service.
He was found guilty of intentionally putting on weight to get out of a combat role.
This is just the latest example of South Korean men going to extreme lengths to try to avoid serving.
A South Korean man was found guilty of evading military service by deliberately putting on weight.
A court in Seoul sentenced the 26-year-old man, whose name was not publicly disclosed, to a year in prison, suspended for two years, according to The Korea Herald.
He was convicted of violating the country's Military Service Act, which requires all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 35 to serve at least 18 months.
While most South Korean men are expected to serve for at least a year and a half, shortly after finishing high school, the conscription law has a number of exceptions.
Additionally, exemptions may be granted to individuals who are deemed incapable of serving because of illness, or mental or physical inabilities, which can include those who are obese.
The Korea Herald reported that the defendant gained substantial weight by doubling his daily food intake and drinking large amounts of water immediately before his physical.
According to the newspaper, the man received a Grade 2 assessment at his initial physical examination in October 2017, which is the second-highest grade and would have qualified him to serve in combat.
But he received a Grade 4 assessment on his examination in June 2023, which disqualified him from a combat role, instead allowing him to serve in a non-combat position.
The Korea Herald said he weighed more than 16 stone in that examination. At about five feet and five inches tall, this made his BMI 35.8, making him clinically obese.
The incident is not an isolated one.
In a 2017 Military Service Statistics report published by the Military Manpower Administration, a South Korean government agency that facilitates conscription, 37% of the 59 draft-dodging cases detected that year involved the deliberate gaining or loss of weight.
This was the most common method in attempting to evade military service, with the second most common being faking a mental illness, with others falsely registering as disabled, and one internationally breaking a bone.
That same year, South Korean prosecutors said they had indicted 137 people on charges of evading conscription or aiding such offenses, accusing them of working with local military brokers to fake disabilities.
In this latest incident, a friend β who was sentenced to six months in prison for aiding and abetting β provided the man with specific plans on how to put on weight, according to The Korea Herald.
The friend denied the charges, saying he didn't think the defendant would go through with it.
A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house near Lithuania's Vilnius airport.
The plane was a Boeing 737 aircraft en route from Leipzig, Germany.
At least one person was killed in the crash, according to reports.
A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house near Lithuania's Vilnius airport, killing at least one person and injuring three others.
The plane, a Boeing 737 aircraft en route from Germany, crashed outside Vilnius International Airport at around 5:30 a.m. local time, the airport said on Facebook.
"We can confirm that today at around 4:30 am CET an aircraft of Swift Air, a third-party carrier operating under contract for DHL, which was on its way from LEJ Airport (Leipzig, Germany) to VNO Airport (Vilnius, Lithuania), made a forced landing about one kilometer from VNO Airport," a DHL spokesperson told BI.
The spokesperson added that four people were onboard and that the cause of the incident was not known.
At least one crew death resulted from the crash, the Associated Press and Reuters reported.
According to surveillance video seen by AP, the plane descended normally as it approached the airport, but then exploded in a huge ball of fire out of sight behind a building.
The mayor of Vilnius, Valdas Benkunskas, told Business Insider that as of Monday morning, three crew members were still being treated in a hospital.
All 12 residents of the house that was crashed into are safe and have been evacuated, Reuters reported, citing information from a police press conference.
Benkunskas told BI that the residents, including two children, have been accommodated in a hotel and are "completely safe."
Benkuskas told BI that the crash narrowly avoided being more deadly.
"Very near that place, we have another block of houses with many people," he said. "And 300 meters away, we have a logistical center, which is full of employees, so I believe that we could have had much more consequences in that case."
The mayor said the city is safe, adding that a "good illustration of this is that even after such a tragic event, flights from the airport were only suspended for about an hour."
Renatas PoΕΎΔla, the head of Lithuania's firefighting and emergency services unit, said the plane fell a few kilometers before the airport. "It just skidded for a few hundred meters, its debris somewhat caught a residential house," he said, per AP.
"Residential infrastructure around the house was on fire, and the house was slightly damaged, but we managed to evacuate people," he added.
On Monday, Lithuania's police chief, ArΕ«nas Paulauskas, told reporters that a terrorist attack could not be ruled out.
"This is one of the versions that needs to be investigated and verified. There is still much work ahead of us," Paulauskas said, according to German press agency DPA.
However, according to CNN, Paulauskas noted that a "technical fault or a human error" was more likely.
The police chief said the fact-finding mission could take a week or even longer, per DPA, adding: "These answers will not come so quickly."
Benkuskas, the mayor, told BI that "it's important to follow the reliable information sources and not to give into the panic."
He added, "We need an investigation. I believe we will find out why we have this tragedy very soon."
