Investigators reportedly make strange discovery in suspected CEO killer’s backpack
The gray backpack linked to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which authorities found dumped in Central Park, has reportedly yielded a jacket, and some Monopoly money, but no gun.
The backpack, which was found in Central Park West on Friday, contained a jacket, according to Bloomberg. NBC News reported Saturday that Monopoly money was also found in the backpack.
The new information came as authorities began to wrap up day four of the hunt for Thompson’s assassin. The businessman was shot with a suppressed pistol at around 6:45 a.m. Wednesday outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
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Thompson was walking towards a Midtown hotel when the masked suspect opened fire from behind and then fled the scene. Police believe that the gunman left New York City on a bus the same day.
Police have not officially confirmed that the newly-found backpack was the same one that the suspect wore during the murder, which was captured by a surveillance camera.
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Retired FBI agent Scott Duffey told Fox News Digital it will be taken to a lab in Queens for forensic testing, where it will undergo trace evidence processing.
“[It’s] a process for hair, fibers [and] DNA,” Duffey explained Saturday. “If he holds his hand against the strap and tightens the buckle like most of us do, that is where DNA most likely can be found. And zippers.”
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Investigators are also analyzing clues that the suspect left, such as a water bottle at the scene and a discarded cellphone. Bullet casings with the words “deny,” “depose” and “delay,” written on them were also found.
Former Washington, D.C. homicide detective Ted Williams said the Monopoly money in backpack is the “killer playing games with the authorities. All part of a cat and mouse game,” he said.
“This killer knew they would more likely than not find the backpack, and he is leaving breadcrumbs to let [the] authorities know that he is in control, not them.”
Tech CEO warns United States has six months to cure ‘crisis’ — and DOGE could be the key
Politicians and industry leaders gathered at the 2024 Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday to address global threats and U.S. national defense in a time of transition.
While the U.S. has numerous international threats to address, one key stakeholder warned America is facing a “legitimation crisis.” Palantir CEO Dr. Alex Karp noted the incoming Trump administration has a “massive mandate” to correct this.
“What we have in this country is a legitimation crisis,” Dr. Karp said during a panel at the Reagan National Defense Forum moderated by CNN’s Abby Phillip.
“There is no one in this country, no expert, where they say something and the American people are going to say ‘I 100% believe that’s true.'”
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During the Reagan National Defense Forum, available to stream on Fox Nation, Dr. Karp argued the country has roughly six months to “cure” the crisis.
“The only thing that will cure a legitimacy crisis is measurement and that’s where we are in this country and anything else is a platitude,” the CEO said. “Because, honestly, and I tell this with great respect to experts: no one’s listening. Everyone thinks you have an agenda… My favorite example of this are analysts on Wall Street. The whole methodology they have is just a way of telling you if they like you.”
Dr. Karp pointed to President-elect Donald Trump’s new advisory body as a “crucial” element to restoring legitimacy and enabling the country to better address foreign threats. The Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] will be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
“This is why I think the DOGE is…crucial… We have to measure what it is being spent on. What is the output? Is the input less than the output? And then you have to explain, what is that output?”
By tackling the country’s “legitimation crisis,” he said the incoming Trump administration can restore America’s standing on the world stage.
“We need to stand up and those people need to be scared,” Dr. Karp noted, referring to the U.S.’s foreign adversaries.
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“We cannot have parity. Our adversaries do not have our moral compunction if it’s even. They will take advantage of our niceness, kindness, our desire to be at home in Nebraska or New Hampshire or wherever we live in our peaceful environments. And they need to wake up scared and go to bed scared.”
Dr. Karp, whose company builds the software that underpins much of the military’s technology prowess, emphasized his “version” of service is to help make U.S. soldiers “happier” and leave the nation’s enemies “scared.”
“My version of service is the soldiers are happier, the enemies are scared, and Americans go back to enjoying the fact that we’re the only one with a real Tech scene in this country, and we’re going to win everything.”
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Trump ‘back to dominating world leaders’ as handshake with French president goes viral
Social media users erupted over President-elect Trump’s “dominating” handshake with French President Emmanuel Macron at their meeting in Paris Saturday.
Trump traveled to France to attend the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, his first international trip since winning the 2024 presidential election. Ahead of the event, Trump met Macron, and the two shook hands in a gesture that quickly went viral online.
“President Trump is back to dominating world leaders with his handshake,” one user, George, wrote in a post on X. “Macron is going to need a hand massage after all that twisting and pulling Trump did to him.”
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“President Trump manhandles French President Emmanuel Macron with one of the most dominating handshakes I’ve ever seen,” said commentator Drew Hernandez. “We are so back.”
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Colin Rugg wrote, “7 years later and the handshake battle continues between Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron.”
During a meeting in 2017, during Trump’s first term in office, the two world leaders had a 29-second handshake and appeared to be tugging back and forth as they walked with their wives.
“The Trump-Macron handshake is hilarious,” author John Lefevre said in a post on X. “Because it happened twice. And you know Macron was told to prepare and probably practiced and then still got dominated.”
Trump’s handshakes with world leaders have gone viral over the years, including when he pulled in Russian President Putin’s arm during a handshake at the G-20 Summit in 2019.
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Trump attended the reopening ceremony alongside political figures, including first lady Jill Biden and Prince William.
Neil deGrasse Tyson floats idea for future of trans sports — Piers Morgan shuts him down
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and show host Piers Morgan argued over trans athletes in a heated debate this week over the future of competitive sports.
“What I see is sports is on the frontier of how to handle this frontier of people who are trans,” Tyson said on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” “It’s on the frontier of how to resolve that. And I’m making this up now: imagine the future of sports does not distinguish sex, it distinguishes and sorts people by hormone ratios.”
Tyson recently spoke with comedian Bill Maher on his show to discuss the role of scientists in discussing the inclusion of trans athletes in men’s and women’s sports.
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“I’m making this up, but imagine if that were the case,” he said. “That would be interesting. You get a hormone test, you’re in this range and then you compete against other people with the same range.”
“That’s ridiculous. Neil, that is ridiculous,” Morgan said.
“No, it’s not! I’ll tell you why it’s not,” Tyson said.
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“I say this respectfully because I love you, but it just seems to me like you’ve dug yourself into a slight hole on this issue and you’re trying to get out of it,” Morgan said. “And now you’re suggesting slightly mad cat theories, whereas the science, to me, is obvious. You’ve already given the best argument I’ve heard for why we separate the sexes.”
“You misquoted me in this very interview,” Tyson said.
Tyson argued that in competitive sports, men were on average faster and stronger than women.
“Across the board that is the case,” Tyson said. “There is no dispute there. That is just objective truth.”
“Now we have to ask: Why do we watch sports at all?” he continued. “We like the equality of the contest and not knowing who would win. That’s what makes sports fun.”
“If there’s a wave of trans women who dominate the sport against other women, all those sports will become less interesting based on how we all watch sports,” Tyson said, suggesting that the inclusion of trans athletes in sports may require rethinking how athletes are matched up against each other.
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Archie Manning reveals preferred NFL landing spot for Texas star grandson
Arch Manning went through a closely followed recruiting process before deciding on Texas.
The quarterback comes from a family synonymous with football. His uncles, Peyton and Eli Manning, and his grandfather Archie all spent their college football careers at Southeastern Conference schools before they made the leap to the NFL. Texas joined the SEC this year.
Arch saw limited action during his freshman year at Texas. He played more this season with a stint as a starter in place of an injured Quinn Ewers.
The 19-year-old Manning won’t be eligible to declare for the 2025 NFL Draft. But his grandfather appears to have already given some thought about where the Longhorns star could wind up should he make it to the professional ranks.
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While the former New Orleans Saints quarterback would like to see his grandson remain at the college level a couple more years, he prefers to watch Arch in a Dallas Cowboys uniform.
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“Nobody’s ever asked me that. Right off the bat, if somebody asked me, I’d say Cowboys,” Manning said, smiling in a video posted to TikTok Dec. 6.
Archie doesn’t have direct control over what would transpire in a draft class featuring Arch, but he has wielded influence in the past.
Eli Manning was drafted by the Chargers in 2004, but Archie and other members of the Manning family are believed to have cautioned the franchise against picking the quarterback. Eli was drafted by the Chargers and sent to the New York Giants via trade, a move many contended was a result of his family’s wishes.
The Cowboys have not advanced to a conference championship game since the 1995 season, but the franchise arguably remains the league’s most high-profile team.
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Manning has thrown for 939 yards this season. He also threw nine touchdowns and two interceptions in his seven appearances for the Longhorns. He has also shown an ability to use his legs, rushing for 95 yards and scoring four touchdowns on the ground in 2024.
Manning had one rushing attempt for five yards in Texas’ 22-19 overtime loss to Georgia in the SEC championship in Atlanta Saturday.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to sharp questioning on Friday from an Associated Press reporter after she had previously stated multiple times that President Biden would not pardon his son Hunter Biden.
Biden released a statement on Dec. 1 announcing that he would pardon his son, sparing Hunter from sentencing in two federal cases involving federal tax charges and felony gun charges. The pardon also covers all potential crimes Hunter “committed or may have committed” from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024.
“You were asked about the president pardoning his son and you said, ‘It’s a no. It will be a no. It’s a no,'” AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller said, recounting Jean-Pierre’s statements.
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“I’m wondering if you would like to explain to us, to the American people, really, why the information you provided turned out not to be true,” Miller said.
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“When you look at the statement, it’s pretty comprehensive,” Jean-Pierre said, referring to Biden’s full statement, adding that the “circumstances have changed.”
President Biden argued that Hunter was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” by members of Congress in a White House statement.
“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,” Biden said.
Miller also reminded Jean-Pierre of promises that she made when she first became White House press secretary.
“In your first briefing here as press secretary, you committed to speaking ‘in a transparent way, in a truthful way, and in an honest way,'” Miller told Jean-Pierre.
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Heartbreaking reason Elvis ‘didn’t like to be touched’ before death, according to bodyguard
The legendary music maker Elvis Presley served consumers of his original best-selling hits, including “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock,” with a mixture of country, rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll, and both his sound and charisma rewarded him with hysterical fans.
Presley was a pioneer of youth music at the same time as Patsy Cline produced a crossover between country and pop and Ray Charles bridged the gap for ground-breaking soul. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was a cultural icon in the 1950s in both the music and television industries.
In the months leading up to his sudden death on Aug. 16, 1977, Presley was reportedly in a lot of pain.
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“He was really heavy,” Ted Pryor, author and former bodyguard for Presley, told Fox News Digital.
“Elvis was at a point where he was so heavy he didn’t like to be touched, because he was constantly perspiring and hot,” he said.
Pryor, a super middleweight kick boxing champion, was hired to Presley’s team because of his world champion status.
“Elvis, when he was younger in the service, he learned a little bit of martial arts, and he was infatuated with it,” Pryor said. “Getting to bodyguard for ‘the King’ was pretty exciting for me.”
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Pryor and his friend Joe were training Florida law enforcement, FBI and DEA personnel on self-defense techniques to deploy in the field when they received a call from Presley’s team offering work as bodyguards while he toured the U.S.
“Unfortunately, no one knew it then, but he was broke,” Pryor told Fox News Digital.
“He had to start touring, because his manager gambled his money away,” he added of Presley’s then manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
The kickboxing duo traveled across the country from Tennessee and Florida to New York to California with “the King” but never internationally.
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“Elvis never traveled outside of the United States,” Pryor said. “Elvis’ manager, there was a reason why he kept him in the U.S., because he had a gambling problem.”
Despite Presley’s weight gain, which has been widely analyzed in the decades following his death, women flocked to the “It’s Now or Never” singer and maneuvered trickily through crowds to get to the stage.
“The women used to rush the stage,” Pryor told Fox News Digital. “It was interesting, because you’d have a chokehold around their waist. We would take them to the floor slowly, and our junior bodyguards would take them away.”
Pryor said the men would fend off three to four women at a time with takedown techniques and that one woman, who had been given a scarf by Presley himself, used the accessory to choke Pryor with it.
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“She was trying to get to Elvis,” he said. “She put it around my neck and started choking me.”
Pryor and Joe remained by his side for what would unknowingly be the final tour of his life until they received the sudden news that would go on to shock and devastate the world. Presley’s death was so shocking that former President Jimmy Carter issued a public statement regarding his passing in Memphis.
“It wasn’t a good call,” Pryor said. “I think the whole world was shocked when that happened.”
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Looking back on his time with Presley fondly, Pryor said that the vocalist treated his bodyguards “really well” and that despite being generally “sour,” he was “nice” to them.
“He lost his mom, he lost his wife, and he was sour toward women,” Pryor said.
Tom Selleck hints at return to his roots with ‘Yellowstone’ creator
Tom Selleck is looking toward the future as his hit show “Blue Bloods” comes to an end after 14 seasons.
During a new interview with Parade, the 79-year-old actor, who has played Commissioner Frank Reagan in the crime drama since 2010, revealed that he is not planning to retire anytime soon.
Selleck shared that he hopes to make a return to the Western genre in a project led by “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan.
“A good Western’s always on my list,” Selleck said. “I miss that; I want to sit on a horse again.”
Selleck, who lives on a 63-acre ranch in Ventura, California, previously starred in six Westerns.
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The actor first played a cowboy in the 1979 TV miniseries “The Sacketts,” starring opposite Sam Elliott, Jeff Osterhage, and Glenn Ford. The show was based on two of famed Western fiction writer Louis L’Amour’s books. The same year, Selleck teamed up with Jerry Reed in the TV movie “Concrete Cowboys.”
Selleck reunited with Elliott and Osterhage in 1982’s “The Shadow Riders.” In 1990, Selleck appeared in one of his best-known cowboy roles, starring as sharpshooter Matthew Quigley in the hit Australian Western “Quigley Down Under.”
During his interview with Parade, Selleck named Quigley as one of his favorite roles. “I’m very proud of ‘Quigley Down Under,’ which has passed the test of time and is still very, very popular,” he said.
“That was a big Western and he was clearly an iconic hero,” Selleck continued. “I don’t mind saying I was a little anxious to play a part that maybe John Wayne could have done better.”
“I want to sit on a horse again.”
In 1997, Selleck returned to the genre in the TV movie “Last Stand at Saber River,” which won the Western Heritage Awards Bronze Wrangler for television feature film. He went on to star in the TNT TV movie “Crossfire Trail,” which was based on L’Amour’s 1954 novel of the same name.
Selleck’s last cowboy role was in the 2003 television film “Monte Walsh,” which was set in the final years of the Old West.
While speaking with Parade, Selleck weighed in on the possibility of another on-screen reunion with Elliott, who starred in Sheridan’s hit “Yellowstone” spin-off series “1883.”
“Sam was great in [‘1883’],” he said. “Sam’s always great. We go way, way back. I love him dearly. I’d love to work with Sam.”
While Selleck quipped that offers for new acting roles aren’t “pouring in,” he added that “some people are thinking of me.”
“I don’t know where my next job will take me,” he said. “People ask, ‘What do you want to do next?’ I’m not sure. I don’t want to do Frank Reagan II.”
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Selleck later shared his thoughts on starring in a potential “Blue Bloods” spin-off, saying “I’m open to suggestions because I love Frank Reagan, but nobody’s really asked.”
“I don’t see him retiring and going off somewhere,” the actor added. “If he goes off to a small town, I’d rather do more ‘Jesse Stone’ movies.”
Selleck played police chief Jesse Stone in nine TV movies from 2005 to 2005. The films were based on Robert B. Parker’s “Jesse Stone” novel series.
During his interview with Parade, Selleck told the outlet that he wasn’t aware of plans for another “Jesse Stone” movie but didn’t rule out reprising the role in the future.
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“It would be an interesting challenge because Jesse is older now,” he said. “There’ve been quite a few years between shows. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a viable character. Everywhere I go one of the things I get asked is, “When can I see another ‘Jesse Stone’?”
Selleck admitted that coming to terms with the end of “Blue Bloods” has been difficult.
“The hardest part for me is we had the ‘Blue Bloods’ family and we had the actors’ family,” he said. “They’re all my pals. I miss them. It’s going to take a lot of getting used to.”
In an October interview with TV Insider, Selleck expressed his disappointment over “Blue Blood’s” cancelation. CBS announced in May that the show’s 14th season would be its last.
“I’m kind of frustrated. During those last eight shows, I haven’t wanted to talk about an ending for ‘Blue Bloods’ but about it still being wildly successful,” he said.
The actor went on to note that “Blue Bloods” ranked number nine out of 100 in the Top 100 Shows of 2023-2024.
“I’m not going to turn into a bitter old guy saying, ‘Get off my lawn!’” said Selleck.
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“I don’t believe in holding grudges, but if you were to say to the television network, ‘Here’s a show you can program in the worst time slot you got, and it is going to guarantee you winning Friday night for the next 15 years,’ it would be almost impossible to believe,” he added.
He continued, “My frustration is the show was always taken for granted because it performed from the get-go. So, how do I feel? It’s going to take a long time to sort all of this out.”
The second half of “Blue Blood’s” 14th season began airing in October and the final episode will be released on Dec. 13.