Murder in NYC: CEO of UnitedHealthcare Shot Outside Hotel

Your weekly News Memo - a more human way to engage with the news.

+ GetSmart: Man Fends off Polar Bear to Save His Wife

What we’re listening to in podcasts this week:

• Pete Hegseth Interview on The Megyn Kelly Show - Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense (Pentagon), speaks with Megyn Kelly about the accusations against him and what he’d do to reform the U.S. military. (Spotify, YouTube)

  ---

---

Newsbites

Notre-Dame de Paris, the great cathedral that suffered a devastating fire in 2019, will reopen its doors on December 7, after five years of construction repairs. The French Cathedral was engulfed in flames collapsing the famous spire and nearly fully destroying one of the world’s great architectural structures. Around 50 heads of state, including President-elect Trump, will be in attendance at the re-opening, which will be under heavy security protocols.

More: Here is a first look inside the Cathedral before the official re-opening.

---

Conservative journalist Tucker Carlson traveled to Russia this week to speak with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about the war. (video) The interview comes just two weeks after President Biden gave approval for Ukraine to use long-range missiles against Russia. Lavrov said they are ready to use “any means necessary” to stop the U.S. from a “strategic defeat of Russia.” He also accused the U.S. of supporting Ukraine because they are interested in the rich minerals in the land.

More: In a video posted on X, Carlson said he has been seeking an interview with President Zelensky of Ukraine for over a year with no success. He accuses the U.S. government of interfering with that process.

---

President Trump has selected Kash Patel as Director of the FBI. In his announcement, Trump said Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.” During Trump’s first term, Patel served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. In an interview earlier this month, Patel said his personal recommendation for the bureau would be to “shut down the FBI headquarters building and open it up the next day as the Museum of the Deep State.” He also said he would want the thousands of FBI agents to “chase down rapists, chase down murderers, chase down drug traffickers and let the cops be cops on the streets across America.”

More: FBI heads serve a maximum of 10 years in their duty.

---

South Korea Martial Law: Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, abruptly declared martial law (rule by the military) on Tuesday (video), saying it was necessary to “protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces.” The military was called in and restrictions were imposed on the media and protest gatherings. However, parliament lawmakers defied the restrictions, fought through military blockades (video), and quickly assembled to vote that the declaration was unconstitutional. In response, Yoon backed down and revoked the martial law. (timeline) Lawmakers have since initiated impeachment proceedings against the president.

More: The declaration was a shock to citizens, as martial law has never been invoked since the country became a parliamentary democracy in 1987. In his speech, Yoon did not cite specifics regarding N. Korea and instead appeared to focus on the domestic political parties opposing him. Since being elected in 2022, his presidency has been hampered by corruption investigations, low approval ratings, and gridlock.

---

Lost Ballots in MN: A Minnesota House of Representative race is being challenged in court due to a 21 ballot discrepancy. The Democrat incumbent won the election by just 14 votes in Scott County (a suburb of Minneapolis). An audit of the results, however, found that 21 absentee ballots were not accounted for. 20 of the 21 missing ballots were from the same precinct, which the Democrat candidate won by a 731-534 margin. The County Attorney said the most likely explanation is that the 20 ballots were thrown away, adding that the votes “most likely will not be recovered” because they were probably already sent for shredding. MN Republicans are suing and calling for a do-over election.

More: The race holds increased importance as the MN House is deadlocked 67-67 between Republicans and Democrats (assuming the Democrat remains the winner of Scott County).

---

DOGE: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy went to Capitol Hill on Thursday to speak with Congress about their three-fold aim to reduce government spending, cut regulations, and shrink the headcount at executive agencies. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told reporters, “there won’t be a lot of detail for the press today, and that’s by design.” He added, “We need to make the government more efficient.”

More: Musk was seen entering the Capitol with his son X riding on his shoulders. (video) He told reporters, “I spend time with my kids whenever they want. I don’t impose my schedule on them.”

---

---

Murder in NYC: CEO of UnitedHealthcare Shot Outside Hotel

What happened?
Brian Thompson, the 50-year-old CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot in Manhattan at about 6:45 AM on Wednesday morning, in a targeted killing. Thompson was walking to a Hilton hotel at West 53rd Street and 6th Avenue in midtown Manhattan, where he was scheduled to speak at an annual investor meeting.

• UnitedHealthcare, a division of UnitedHealth Group (UHG), is the largest health insurance provider in the U.S. (headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota).

Video footage (warning: graphic content) shows the masked gunman stepping out from behind a car as Thompson walks by, and firing multiple shots from a pistol fitted with a silencer. Silencers are illegal in New York City. Thompson was hit in the leg and back. He was subsequently brought to a hospital, where he died shortly after.

• A witness was shown on video footage standing mere feet from the shooter, holding a coffee and standing outside the door of a building. After shots were fired, the witness fled.

After killing Thompson, the shooter fled down an alley and rode away on an e-bike. At the time of the shooting the suspect was wearing a hoodie sweatshirt and carrying a gray backpack. He was last seen in Central Park and remains at large. A cell phone was recovered in the back street along the shooter’s route of escape, which officials are examining.

• NYC Police released images of the suspect. Before the shooting, the suspect was captured on camera at a nearby Starbucks.

Authorities have said they believe the suspect rode a Greyhound bus that started in Atlanta, Georgia, to New York, some 10 days before the shooting. It’s not known when the suspect boarded the bus.

What was the motive?
Police have yet to offer a motive. However, they’ve said that the evidence indicates a targeted murder, as the suspect camped out for about 5 minutes before Thompson walked by.

Bullet shells recovered at the crime scene had words Sharpied on the casings - “deny” “defend” and “depose”. The words are similar to a common phrase used by lawyers and patient support groups that sue and oppose the insurance industry: “Delay, deny, defend.” It’s also the title of a book published in 2010 that attacked the insurance industry.

In a phone interview with NBC News, Brian Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said “There had been some threats…Basically, I don’t know, a lack of [insurance] coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him."

Brian and his wife lived in Maple Grove, a suburb of Minneapolis, although in separate homes less than a mile apart. The couple has two sons.

UnitedHealth Group executives faced lawsuits
Brian Thompson was one of three UnitedHealth Group executives subject to an ongoing federal lawsuit. The executives were accused of hiding a forthcoming antitrust investigation from investors while they sold stock (insider stock trading), totaling more than $120M. Thompson personally sold more than $15M in the months before the investigation was publicly announced.

Reactions on social media
In the wake of the killing, a sentiment on social media was disdain and hostility toward the health insurance industry, which is constantly battling lawsuits and consumer complaints for denying coverage to customers.

---

President Biden Grants Sweeping Pardon For Son, Hunter Biden, Before Leaving Office

What happened?
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, President Biden granted his son Hunter Biden a “full and unconditional” pardon for any federal crimes he committed from 2014 to 2024 (press release).

For years, President Biden promised he would not use presidential power to pardon his son. However, close aides to the president told The Wall Street Journal that he was planning to pardon Hunter while publicly he insisted the opposite.

Biden wrote, “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong.”

Hunter Biden, 54, was scheduled to be sentenced on December 12 for gun-related crimes that he was convicted of in June 2024. He also pleaded guilty to tax-related crimes in September 2024.

The pardon was made over Thanksgiving weekend at a family gathering that included Joe and Jill, their daughter Ashley Biden, Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen Biden.

In a break from normal process, the pardon was not submitted through an application and consultation with the Justice Department’s pardon office.

• Flashback: 9 minutes of the media and Biden saying he will not pardon Hunter. A compilation of all the times the White House Press Secretary responded to questions saying Biden would never pardon his son.

Why is this pardon unique?
Usually, pardons target specific legal charges to someone the president thinks was wrongly accused or treated unfairly. The pardon of Hunter Biden is different as it grants Hunter blanket immunity and innocence from anything between the years of 2014 to 2024.