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Killing of insurance CEO reveals simmering anger at US health system

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The “brazen and targeted” killing of health insurance executive Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, outside a New York hotel this week shocked America. The reaction to the crime also exposed a simmering rage against a trillion-dollar industry.
“Prior authorisation” does not seem like a phrase that would generate much passion.
But on a hot day this past July, more than 100 people gathered outside the Minnesota headquarters of UnitedHealthcare to protest against the insurance firm’s policies and denial of patient claims.
“Prior authorisation” allows companies to review suggested treatments before agreeing to pay for them.
Eleven people were arrested for blocking a road during the protest.
Police records indicate they came from around the country, including Maine, New York, Texas and West Virginia, to the rally organised by the People’s Action Institute.
Unai Montes-Irueste, media strategy director of the Chicago-based advocacy group, said those protesting had personal experience with denied claims and other problems with the healthcare system.
What we know about NYC killing of healthcare executive
Who was Brian Thompson?
“They are denied care, then they have to go through an appeals process that’s incredibly difficult to win,” he told the BBC.
The latent anger felt by many Americans at the healthcare system – a dizzying array of providers, for profit and not-for-profit companies, insurance giants, and government programmes – burst into the open following the apparent targeted killing of Thompson in New York City on Wednesday.
Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the insurance unit of health services provider UnitedHealth Group. The company is the largest insurer in the US.
Police are still on the hunt for the suspected killer, whose motivation is unknown, but authorities have revealed messages written on shell casings found at the scene.
The words “deny”, “defend”, and “depose” were discovered on the casings, which investigators believe could refer to tactics which critics say insurance companies use to avoid payouts and to increase profits.

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International

Azerbaijan Airlines says plane crashed after ‘external interference’ as questions mount over possible Russian involvement

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Azerbaijan Airlines says the jet that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day experienced “physical and technical external interference,” according to an early investigation, as questions swirled about Russia’s possible involvement in the disaster.

At least 38 of the 67 people on board the plane were killed in the crash, Kazakh authorities confirmed, including two pilots and a flight attendant. People from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were among those on board, according to preliminary data from Kazakhstan’s transport ministry.

One passenger told Reuters in an interview on Friday that he didn’t think he would survive after he heard a loud bang and the plane started to “behave unnaturally.”

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FTX executives shave serious time off their sentences

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Ryan Salame and Caroline Ellison, FTX executives convicted for their roles in the notorious crypto fraud led by their former boss Sam Bankman-Fried, have both shaved time off their lengthy prison sentences.

Salame, a former top executive of FTX, the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency trading platform, pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges in September 2023, and was sentenced in May to 7 1/2 years in federal prison. He began his sentence in October. But the Federal Bureau of Prisons currently lists his release date as March 1, 2031, more than a year earlier than his initial release date in April 2032. Business Insider first reported Salame’s new release date.

Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend and the former CEO of FTX’s hedge fund arm, Alameda Research, was sentenced to 2 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to seven federal counts of fraud and conspiracy and was a key witness against Bankman-Fried. Her current release date is listed as July 20, 2025, three months earlier than her initial release date.

Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison, does not have a release date listed on the prisons website.

The Bureau of Prisons didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. However, in several past statements about early release dates, the bureau has told CNN that it does not comment on the conditions of any individual inmate, but inmates can earn good conduct time that is calculated into their projected release date.

Qualified inmates are currently eligible for up to 54 days of GCT time for each year of the sentence imposed by the court. Inmates have other ways of earning time credits while incarcerated, including participation in various prison programs.

FTX was a high-profile crypto startup that allowed people to buy and sell digital assets. It had its name emblazoned on an arena in Miami and on every Major League Baseball umpire’s jersey. The exchange had several celebrity endorsers and was widely believed to be a gold-standard for safety and security.

But FTX collapsed in November 2022 when customers pulled their funds as rumors spread about FTX’s unusually close ties to its founder’s crypto hedge fund, Alameda

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International

‘It’s a scary time’: US universities urge international students to return to campus before Trump inauguration

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Fear and uncertainty are spreading across many US college campuses ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, with some schools advising international students to return early from winter break amid promises of another travel ban like the one that stranded students abroad at the start of Trump’s last term.

In a country where more than 1.1 million international students enrolled in US colleges and universities during the 2023-24 academic year, the former president has pledged more hardline immigration policies upon his return to the White House, including an expansion of his previous travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries and the revocation of student visas of “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.”

International students generally have nonimmigrant visas that allow them to study in the US but don’t provide a legal pathway to stay in the country.

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