Thursday, December 5

Warning: This article contains content that may be inappropriate for young children.

The CEO of American health insurance company UnitedHealthcare was killed in a targeted shooting in midtown Manhattan yesterday morning, and police are currently conducting an intense manhunt throughout the city to find the shooter.

UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, is the world's largest health insurance company, insuring over 52 million people worldwide. UnitedHealth Group is the world's ninth-largest company by revenue and is the United States' fourth-largest public company, behind Walmart, Amazon, and Apple. The company is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, a western suburb of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, had held the position since early 2021, and leads a staff of around 140,000 of UnitedHealth Group's 396,000 employees.

Thompson, a 50-year-old man, was shot dead at around 6:45 am on Wednesday morning as he was entering the New York Hilton Midtown, in what was called a "brazen targeted attack" by local police commissioner Jessica Tisch. Video footage showed the assailant waiting outside the hotel for around five minutes. When Thompson approached the building, the gunman walked up to him from the back, firing several times. Police reported that he was shot at least once in the leg and once in the back before he turned around to get a good look at his attacker. The gunman continued firing until his gun seemed to jam, but he quickly fixed the issue and continued shooting before quickly walking away as Thompson collapsed onto the ground.

Thompson was heading into the hotel for an annual investor conference, which was taking place on the third floor. In fact, many of the executives at the meeting did not even know about the shooting until several minutes later, when people began looking out the window and seeing the swaths of police and news crews arriving at the scene.

Footage showed the gunman clothed in total black, including a black mask, and additional cameras displayed tapes of him fleeing the scene on an electric Citi Bike. However, police do not know where he is.

A manhunt has begun throughout New York City to search for the culprit, who is still at large. Prominent business figures in the area have also been warned, as there is a possibility that the gunman could be targeting other executives as well. Police are primarily utilizing the abundance of video cameras around a highly dense city like the Big Apple, which they are using to track the previous movements of the suspect to discover his motive, any accomplices he might have had, or how he obtained the gun. The New York Police Department (NYPD) have also announced a $10,000 reward for any citizens with useful information that could aid the police in the investigation.

Officials have not found out anything about the gunman's possible motive yet, but they do know that Thompson recently received several death threats from an unknown source. These threats are still being investigated. Curiously, despite these threats, Thompson did not seem to have any idea that danger was coming his way, as he did not have any guards with him at the time.

Nevertheless, his friends and family, along with the entire company, is mourning for him. Dozens of prominent executives within UnitedHealth Group have issued or posted statements regarding the loss of Brian Thompson, who was a good friend and a great leader. Officials from Minnesota, including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, have also expressed their shock over the "horrifying" incident.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): Sea otters have the thickest fur of any animal, with up to one million hair follicles per square inch. By comparison, the average human head has around 100,000 hair follicles. Due to their lack of blubber, sea otters stay warm in cold temperatures with their extremely thick fur.

Quote of the Day: Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

(Japanese Proverb)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Hoity-toity (adj)- Someone or something described as hoity-toity may also be called snooty or pretentious; hoity-toity people appear to think that they are better, smarter, or more important than other people, and hoity-toity places and things seem to be made for those same people. An informal word, hoity-toity is a synonym of pompous, fancy, and highfalutin.

In a Sentence: The guidance counselor emphasized that students do not need to go to a hoity-toity college to achieve success.