Best Of The Week

NEW YORK — Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot outside a hotel in midtown Manhattan where he was scheduled to speak at an investor meeting Wednesday morning, according to a person briefed on the investigation. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the investigation. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Police did not release the victim’s name, but said a 50-year-old was shot around 6:45 a.m.

The end of the year is near, and the 2024 edition of Spotify Wrapped is here. The annual recap of what music you listened to most, which began in 2016 as a marketing tactic, has since become a pop-culture staple mimicked by rival streaming platforms like Apple Music and Amazon Music as well as other services like Duolingo and Reddit. Spotify’s personalized insights are presented in fun, share-worthy graphics, and the package includes several unique features—from video messages from artists to “Your Music Evolution,” which analyzes how your tastes have transformed throughout the year, and even some new artificial intelligence twists. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] With the launch on Wednesday of this year’s Wrapped, here’s what to know. How can users access their Spotify Wrapped for 2024? Subscribed Spotify users—even if they don’t have Premium—can access their personalized Wrapped experience in the mobile or desktop app (make sure to have the latest version downloaded).

Heading into the 2024 campaign, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen exhorted political reporters to resist the lure of horse race coverage and shift their focus: “Not the odds, but the stakes.” It became a mantra (and scorecard) among critics hoping for substantive coverage of the choice that Harris v. Trump 2.0 presented— “Not who has what chances of winning,” Rosen said, “but the consequences for American democracy.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The prospect of a new Trump Administration calls for the next injunction, as transition reports ricochet between outlandish cabinet picks, mass deportation plans, crushing tariff schedules, cronyism, and enemies’ lists.

November 2024 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Paul Chalfin, a queer artist and visionary who helped build Villa Vizcaya (today known as Vizcaya Museum and Gardens), an Italian-style palazzo located on the shores of Miami’s Biscayne Bay. It is one of the city’s most visited landmarks and the host of many community events—from farmers’ markets to garden tours to musical performances.

Authorities fear a grandmother in western Pennsylvania who disappeared while looking for her cat may have been swallowed by a sinkhole. Crews lowered a pole camera with a sensitive listening device into the hole on Tuesday but no sound was detected, while a second camera lowered down showed what could be a shoe. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Police say Elizabeth Pollard’s relatives called police at about 1 a.m.

On Sunday, February 25, 2024, in the middle of the night, I finally found the North Carolina plantation that my ancestors were enslaved on: Midway Plantation. I stared at my laptop, completely in awe of the fact that all the puzzle pieces were starting to fit together after I had spent years tracing my roots. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] I had read that the North Carolina State Capitol officially launched an ongoing digital humanities project that names more than 130 enslaved Black men who built and maintained the State Capitol between 1833 and 1865.