The New York police department (NYPD) has warned US healthcare executives of a heightened risk to their lives after identifying an online “hitlist” posted in the wake of last week’s assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson.

Corporations have scrambled to give their senior figures added protection against the threat of copycat killings following Thompson’s murder, which has been celebrated in some quarters of social media.

The NYPD’s warning came in a bulletin, which highlighted viral posts publicising the names and salaries of several other health insurance executives. In addition to the social media posts, multiple “wanted” signs featuring corporate chief executives have been posted throughout Manhattan, according to the bulletin, which was first reported by ABC.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A federal congressman was assassinated late on Monday in Mexico's Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, the latest killing in an outbreak of political violence in the country.

The Veracruz attorney general's office confirmed the death of Benito Aguas, a member of the leftist government's ruling coalition in the 500-member lower house of Congress, in a post on social media.

Another man identified as Agustin Linares was also found dead at the scene, according to the attorney general's office, adding that an investigation into the suspected murders was ongoing.

Local media reported that Aguas was shot multiple times in the mountainous municipality of Zongolica in central Veracruz and died later from his wounds.

"We trust that the relevant investigations will be carried out so that justice prevails," lower house leader Ricardo Monreal wrote in a post on social media.

Aguas was a member of Mexico's Green Party, part of the ruling coalition led by the Morena Party of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office in October.

"In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint. I understand people have real frustration with our healthcare system, and I have worked to address that throughout my career.

"But I have no tolerance, nor should anyone, for one man using an illegal ghost gun to murder someone because he thinks his opinion matters most. In a civil society, we are all less safe when ideologues engage in vigilante justice.

“In some dark corners, this killer is being hailed as a hero. Hear me on this: he is no hero.”

Answering follow-up questions from reporters, Shapiro added: “Violence can never be used to address political differences, or to address a substantive difference, or to try and prove some ideological point. That is not what we do in a civilized society.

“That was true in Butler, it was true in new york city, and it’s true anywhere. that is not how you make progress in this country.”

His X account is rife with mostly right-leaning, slightly nihilistic, tech bro-y takes concerning AI, mental health, altruism, ancient history, and society in general. Mangione follows Ezra Klein, Sam Altman, AOC, Edward Snowden, and Robert F. Kennedy, among others.

In April, he posted that “modern Japanese urban environment is an evolutionary mismatch for the human animal. The solution to falling birthdates isn’t immigration. It’s cultural.” He reshared another video from June of Republican megadonor Peter Thiel talking about people with Asperger’s running start-ups. He reposted a pseudo-motivational quote, “Netflix, door dash, and true crime podcasts have stolen more dreams than failure ever will.” And he reposted several messages railing against “wokeism.”

His Goodreads is also of interest. He reviewed the Unabomber’s book, writing that “when all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution. Fossil fuel companies actively suppress anything that stands in their way and within a generation or two, it will begin costing human lives by greater and greater magnitudes until the earth is just a flaming ball orbiting third from the sun.”

The results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election rattled the country and sent shockwaves across the world — or were cause for celebration, depending on who you ask. Is it any surprise then that the Merriam-Webster word of the year is “polarization”?

“Polarization means division, but it’s a very specific kind of division,” said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement. “Polarization means that we are tending toward the extremes rather than toward the center.”

The election was so divisive, many American voters went to the polls with a feeling that the opposing candidate was an existential threat to the nation. According to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters, about 8 in 10 Kamala Harris voters were very or somewhat concerned that Donald Trump’s views — but not Harris’ — were too extreme, while about 7 in 10 Trump voters felt the same way about Harris — but not Trump.

The Merriam-Webster entry for “polarization” reflects scientific and metaphorical definitions. It’s most commonly used to mean “causing strong disagreement between opposing factions or groupings.” Merriam-Webster, which logs 100 million pageviews a month on its site, chooses its word of the year based on data, tracking a rise in search and usage.

A man in Altoona, Pennsylvania, is being held for questioning in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

The man has a similar gun as the one used in the assassination-style killing, the sources said.

The NYPD is sending detectives to Altoona, the sources said. Altoona is in central Pennsylvania, about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh.

New video obtained by ABC News shows the killer waiting for Thompson moments before the shooting outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel last week. The video shows others pass by, and then, when the masked gunman sees Thompson, he runs across the street and opens fire.

Washington — A federal appeals court upheld a law that would force TikTok's Chinese parent company to divest or face a ban in the U.S., dealing another setback to the widely popular video-sharing app in its battle with the federal government.

A panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously sided with the Justice Department in declining to review the petition for relief from TikTok and ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, saying the law is constitutional.

"We conclude the portions of the Act the petitioners have standing to challenge, that is the provisions concerning TikTok and its related entities, survive constitutional scrutiny," Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion. "We therefore deny the petitions."

Congress approved a foreign assistance package in April that included provisions giving TikTok nine months to sever ties with ByteDance or lose access to app stores and web-hosting services in the U.S. President Biden quickly signed the bill into law, and it is set to take effect on Jan. 19, with the possibility of a 90-day delay granted by the president if a sale is in progress by then.

Syrian rebels have driven government forces from Hama, a major city that the country’s regime had held over more than a decade of civil war, further weakening President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on the nation.

The Syrian military said on Thursday that it had to withdraw from the strategically important hub of Hama after the rebels “penetrated several parts of the city.”

The rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), said they freed hundreds of those “wrongfully detained” from the city’s central prison.

Hama is the second major city the rebels have captured in their week-long offensive, which has thrown the Assad regime’s forces into disarray. After capturing Aleppo last week, the rebels swept south to Hama – and now are setting their sights on Homs, the next city south on the highway to the Syrian capital of Damascus.