Lawmakers still want additional information, despite the White House’s claim that drones flying over New Jersey and New York don’t represent a public safety risk. According to the corporation, UnitedHealthcare never had insurance for the suspect in CEO Brian Thompson’s death. Additionally, following an NBC News exposé, a couple’s $92,000 medical debt is erased.
What to know today is as follows.
Lawmakers demand more information about mysterious drones
The White House is downplaying recent enigmatic drone sightings in New Jersey and New York. A White House National Security official is adamant that there is currently no proof that the reported sightings are related to foreign countries or pose a threat to public safety or national security. Still, important senators and members of the House are calling for clarification.
Residents have been seeing and recording drones for weeks; officials have explained that these are not your average hobby drones, but rather commercial-grade gadgets. Officials and eyewitness accounts attest to the drones’ up to 6-foot diameter. The public grew more alarmed this week when Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey suggested on Fox News that the drones were coming from an Iranian mothership off the East Coast. The claims have been denied by the Defense Department.
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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson stated that he anticipates getting a confidential briefing regarding the drones shortly. Democrats Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand of New York, along with Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Whitaker, requesting a briefing.
I don’t believe there are any urgent dangers to public safety, said Intelligence Committee member Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who claimed he was briefed on the drones last week and this week. However, the public is entitled to additional information.
Answers have also been sought by local authorities.
Go here to read the entire story.
More politics news:
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Mark Zuckerberg s Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp,
has donated $1 million
to Trump s inaugural fund.
-
Trump acknowledged it will be
hard to bring down grocery prices
, despite making it a key tenet of his 2024 campaign. The comments were part of an interview with Time magazine, which named him person of the year.
-
Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth are among vulnerable Trump Cabinet picks who have
softened their past statements
as they face contentious confirmation fights.
-
President Biden has
pledged to veto a bipartisan bill
passed in Congress that would create dozens of new judgeships.
-
Some House Republicans representing high-tax states
want to see an increase
to the federal deduction for state and local taxes, also known as SALT, in order to support an extension of Trump s 2017 tax law.
-
The FBI
failed to take a basic step
when gathering intelligence ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a new Justice Department watchdog report found.
-
Biden is
on track to appoint
more federal judges of color than any president before him.
Mangione wasn t insured by UnitedHealthcare, company says
According to UnitedHealthcare’s parent firm, the man suspected of killing CEO Brian Thompson was not covered by the company’s insurance. According to UnitedHealth Group, there is no documentation indicating that Luigi Mangione was ever covered by the insurance provider.
The murder is still being looked into by authorities. Mangione’s writings and social media accounts, however, provide some potential clues. According to Joseph Kenny, chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, Mangione claimed to have suffered a severe, life-altering back injury. Thompson has been singled out by Mangione due to UnitedHealthcare’s size. Although he mentions that UnitedHealthcare is the fifth-biggest corporation in America, which would make it the largest health care organization in America, we don’t have any proof that he was ever a client of the company, Kenny said.
The next hearing for the allegations against Mangione is set for December 30 in Pennsylvania, where he is now being held. Mangione will be returned to New York to face a murder charge, according to New York police.
A simple device could help prevent accidental shootings. Why don t more guns have it?
A thirteen-year-old Chicago kid. In Florida, a former Marine. A granddad in Texas. Since the magazine has been taken out, each believes the gun in their hands is unloaded. They raise the gun and pull the trigger without realizing there is a cartridge in the chamber.
Gun manufacturers have long recognized this risk, and there appears to be a straightforward solution: A magazine disconnect is a tiny metal mechanism that prevents a pistol from discharging in the event that the magazine is removed. However, manufacturers of firearms are not required to incorporate it, thus they typically do not.
According to an NBC News investigation, at least 277 individuals have died in these kinds of accidents since 2000, which is most likely an underestimate. At least 42 persons lost their lives in 2021, the most recent year for which federal statistics is available. According to one proponent of gun safety, that would constitute a design flaw in any other product. This is unacceptable in a toaster.Go here to read the entire story.
Research clarifies timeline of human evolution
A little fragment of Neanderthal DNA that has survived tens of thousands of years after the extinction of the species is hidden in the genetic codes of many humans, posing a conundrum that has long fascinated scientists. The majority of non-Africans can trace between 1% and 2% of their DNA back to Neanderthal ancestors, which is connected to characteristics including metabolism, immunological response, and skin pigmentation.
According to two recent research, Neanderthals and ancient humans may have interbred for a brief time after humans left Africa. The new data indicate that this wave of interbreeding occurred more recently than some earlier estimates indicated, approximately 43,500 to 50,500 years ago. Identifying this evolutionary event changes and reduces the range of time that humans may have moved to regions like modern-day Australia and China. It also explains the historical period during which humans interbred with another extinct species and the importance of fossilized human remains found in Europe. There are still important questions in spite of the fresh data from these investigations.
Read All About It
-
More than 3,000 Malibu residents
were allowed to return
home as firefighters made progress containing the Franklin Fire in California.
-
Family and friends of Travis Timmerman, the Missouri man who was imprisoned in Syria for months,
hailed his unexpected recovery
as a Christmas miracle.
-
A UCLA student alleges she was
wrongly diagnosed with gender dysphoria
and then fast-tracked for treatments, according to a lawsuit filed against multiple California health care providers and hospitals.
-
Country music star Morgan Wallen was
sentenced to seven days incarceration
and two years probation for throwing a chair from a rooftop bar in Nashville, Tennessee.
Staff Pick:
$92,000 debt forgiven after NBC News report
It’s similar to being released from prison. When Donna Lindabury and her husband Gary found out that a $92,000 medical debt owing to Atrium Hospital in North Carolina had been forgiven, they claimed that’s how they felt. Gary’s 2009 emergency heart surgery was the cause of the debt. The hospital system put a lien on their house because things went so bad.
However, after an NBC News exposé on medical debt in America, Advocate Health, a nonprofit organization with 69 hospitals spread across six states, said in September that it was canceling over 11,500 former patients’ bills. I rarely witness this kind of impact from my profession as a financial writer, so sharing the Lindaburys story was a pleasure.Gretchen Morgenson, NBC News Investigations’ senior financial reporter
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