- Killing of Brian Thompson (Wikipedia)
On December 4, 2024, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed outside an entrance to the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan, New York City. He was in town to attend an annual investors meeting for UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare. Authorities believe the attack was not random and are investigating it as an assassination. The shooting occurred early in the morning and the suspect, described as a white man, fled the scene and as of December 6 has not been apprehended.
- Nazca Plate (Wikipedia)
The Nazca Plate or Nasca Plate, named after the Nazca region of southern Peru, is an oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin off the west coast of South America. The ongoing subduction, along the Peru–Chile Trench, of the Nazca Plate under the South American Plate is largely responsible for the Andean orogeny. The Nazca Plate is bounded on the west by the Pacific Plate and to the south by the Antarctic Plate through the East Pacific Rise and the Chile Rise respectively. The movement of the Nazca Plate over several hotspots has created some volcanic islands as well as east–west running seamount chains that subduct under South America. Nazca is a relatively young plate both in terms of the age of its rocks and its existence as an independent plate having been formed from the break-up of the Farallon Plate about 23 million years ago. The oldest rocks of the plate are about 50 million years old.