Who brazenly killed a health insurance CEO in NYC? The search continues | The Excerpt
On Friday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: The search continues for the shooter in this week's brazen New York killing. Three U.S. Army soldiers stationed in Texas have been charged in an alleged human smuggling operation involving noncitizens. It's been a historic week for Bitcoin. Paste BN Personal Finance Reporter Daniel de Visé discusses what it really means to live paycheck to paycheck. China's ban on exports of gallium, germanium and more could cost the U.S. billions. Paste BN National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise talks about the return of wolves to California.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Friday, December 6th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, the latest following this week's shooting of a healthcare CEO. Plus, we check in with Bitcoin during a historic week for cryptocurrency. And wolves are making a big comeback in California.
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After UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot on a New York City sidewalk this week, police have still not found the shooter as of early this morning, but they did release photos yesterday of a person wanted for questioning. The two surveillance pictures show a person of interest without a face mask, wearing a hooded jacket, similar to one worn by the masked person captured on photos and videos from Wednesday morning's shooting outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
In a statement accompanying the photos made public yesterday, the New York Police Department wrote that, "The shooting does not appear to be a random act of violence, but rather a targeted attack." Near the hotel, investigators discovered a cellphone they'd begun to analyze forensically, as well as three bullet casings inscribed with the words, deny, defend, and depose, multiple news outlets reported yesterday. Those terms have been associated with insurance company strategies for rejecting claims, but police have said they're still working to determine the shooter's motive. For more on this story and a closer look at how the shooting took place, we have a link in today's show notes. And for all the latest on the search for the shooter, stay with usatoday.com.
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Three US Army soldiers stationed in Texas have been charged in an alleged human smuggling operation involving non-citizens from Mexico and Guatemala according to federal officials. Per a Justice Department news release, Emilio Mendoza Lopez, Angel Palma, and Enrique Jauregui are all US soldiers stationed at Fort Cavazos north of Austin. On November 27th, a US Border Patrol agent stopped a vehicle in Presidio, Texas, but the car fled as the agent approached the passenger side according to the Justice Department. The fleeing vehicle hit a Border Patrol vehicle subsequently injuring an agent inside, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Western District of Texas.
Mendoza Lopez and Palma are accused of traveling from Fort Cavazos to Presidio for the purpose of picking up and transporting undocumented non-citizens according to a news release. Jauregui is accused of being the recruiter and facilitator of the alleged human smuggling conspiracy, according to the US Attorney's Office.
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Bitcoin passed $100,000 yesterday for the first time, and then extended its all-time high to nearly 104,000 before dipping below 99,000 at the end of the day. The total value of the cryptocurrency market has almost doubled over the year so far. Bitcoin has more than doubled in value this year and is up more than 50% in the four weeks since Donald Trump's election victory. He also recently tapped pro-crypto Paul Atkins to run the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trump once labeled crypto a scam, but embraced digital assets during his campaign and promised to make the United States the crypto capital of the planet.
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While crypto may be seeing success, many folks are living paycheck to paycheck, and it's more common than you think. I caught up with Paste BN personal finance reporter Daniel de Visé for more. Hello, Daniel.
Daniel de Visé:
It's a pleasure.
Taylor Wilson:
Always a pleasure, Daniel. So, let's just start with a definition here if we have one. What does living paycheck to paycheck actually mean?
Daniel de Visé:
Well, to me, what it means is I've got a few thousand dollars in my checking account right now today, but by the end of next week, this is the actual truth, it'll be down to a few hundred bucks. And I'm one of these people who spends down my checking account, so it goes almost down to zero by the time I get paid the next time. And to a lot of people, that is what paycheck to paycheck means.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So, how many people do live paycheck to paycheck regardless of what definition they're putting on it?
Daniel de Visé:
Yeah, I think most people define it as I do. And I looked at two different good surveys. Bank of America found that about almost half of the people they surveyed think they're living paycheck to paycheck. And then NerdWallet, the personal finance folks, found that 57% in a Harris Poll they did, said, "We are living paycheck to paycheck." That's almost two thirds of the population.
Taylor Wilson:
Daniel, it seems like this is almost by definition a bad thing. It sounds bad, right? But not necessarily, as you write. How so?
Daniel de Visé:
Don't feel guilty if your checking account is always running down to zero. It's not necessarily bad. There's a lot of things that counterbalance that and can make you a stable person financially. So, for example, if when you get paid, let's say 8 or 10% of your pre-tax salary goes into a 401(k) and that account is going up in value every single month, that's a huge positive. If you have an emergency savings account stashed away somewhere that might cover a month or two or three of expenses, that's an enormous positive.
If you can say that your net worth is rising from month to month, by which I mean you have a little more assets and ideally a little less debts, you're paying down your credit cards or whatnot, that's all to your favor. And so, an economist would say that you are not then in any of those scenarios, you are not, in fact, living paycheck to paycheck. You're actually pretty stable.
Taylor Wilson:
Controversially, Daniel, is it possible to say a wealthy person, I thought this was interesting in the piece, lives paycheck to paycheck?
Daniel de Visé:
A lot of people who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in their household feel that they're living paycheck to paycheck. And this is because those hundreds of thousands of dollars vanish over the course of the month and the year. They hire gyms and personal trainers and house cleaners, and a lot of luxury services, and probably dry cleaners. I think that's still a thing. And they basically use up all of their income.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that even these wealthy people that they are actually living paycheck to paycheck because a lot of them have brokerage accounts, own stocks, have retirement accounts, have savings, have equity, have money they can get at. And so, the real, true definition of paycheck to paycheck if you ask a banker, is that you spend almost all of your money that you earn on essentials, right? Groceries, shelter, childcare. If that's the case, say 90, 95% of your income goes out the door on essentials, then you really are living paycheck to paycheck.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Interesting piece, as always, Daniel. Folks can find the full piece with the link in today's show notes. Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for Paste BN. Thanks, Daniel.
Daniel de Visé:
Until the next paycheck. See you.
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Taylor Wilson:
China banned exports of critical minerals, gallium, germanium, and antimony, elements considered essential by many tech and defense industries, to the US this week. The ban which applies only to the US market is China's response to expanded American restrictions on chip-related technology shipments to China. Under China's ban, the US GDP would lose an estimated $3.4 billion according to an economic model developed by the US Geological Survey last month. You can read more about the potential impacts with the link in today's show notes.
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Wolves are making a big comeback in California. I spoke with Paste BN national correspondent Elizabeth Weise to learn more. Beth, thanks for hopping on today.
Elizabeth Weise:
Happy to be here.
Taylor Wilson:
So, Beth, how are we seeing wolves make a comeback in California and really why did they disappear in the first place?
Elizabeth Weise:
Yeah, they disappeared because we killed them. So, the last one was shot in 1924, and basically it was part of the settling of the West. Wolves killed livestock. People felt they were dangerous to humans. They were systematically killed off across the lower 48. They survived in Alaska. There were once perhaps two million wolves across North America, and by 1930 they were all gone, except for a tiny remnant population in northern Minnesota.
Taylor Wilson:
Wow. It's a huge drop-off. So, what has allowed for this return to the population in California to happen? Is this a matter of happenstance or is this really an issue of policy?
Elizabeth Weise:
So, two things happened. President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, which went into place in 1974, and we stopped slaughtering wolves. I mean, there were bounties on wolves. If you brought in a wolf pelt, you would get paid for it because it was a good thing to kill wolves. And then, we said it was not a good thing to kill wolves, and we stopped killing them.
And it turns out that wolves are really smart. This is their ecosystem, and they just started reappearing in places they had been gone for a very long time. So, there was that little wolf population in Minnesota. There were wolves in Canada, and they started to move down. We reintroduced very small populations of wolves to Yellowstone National Park and a national park in Idaho. I mean, there was like 30 wolves in both. And once they were there, they did what wolves do, which is they find mates, they have pups, then the male wolves go off and look for a new pack, and then you get packs.
And then in 2011, the first wolf that we know of crossed into California from Oregon, and that was OR7 because it was the seventh wolf that had been radio-collared in Oregon. And it was a huge deal. I mean, I remember it. It was on the news, "There is a wolf in California. There hasn't been a wolf in California since 1924." There were books, there were documentaries. OR7 went back and forth across the border a couple of times and they could watch it because he was collared. He ended up finding a mate, having pups, and that started the first wolf pack in California. So, that was back in 2011. And it was actually, frankly, a number that surprised me because now we have nine packs. This is a good place to live if you're a wolf, and they are moving back.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. I know this is a really controversial issue. We'll get to some of those points in a second, but why do advocates really say this rebound is so important, maybe not just for the wolves themselves, but for others?
Elizabeth Weise:
So, their argument is that the wolves were here long before we were, this is their land and they are part of the natural ecosystem. Obviously, there's nothing natural about California's ecosystem compared to 400 years ago, but having wolves around brings other predator species back more in line, I mean, coyotes, bears, potentially deer and elk. Because they were here and this ecosystem evolved to have them present, and then they were gone.
Taylor Wilson:
I know they're still controversial. I mean, folks killed off wolves to begin with, I guess, for a reason. Not everyone's happy this time around. What are some of the concerns about this return?
Elizabeth Weise:
There's a reason that people got paid to kill off wolves because of concerns that they ate wildlife and that they were dangerous to humans. And when you talk to people in this field, they'll say, "Yeah, I mean, we have this very interesting relationship with wolves." I mean, wolves are scary. Truth be told, they're probably not that dangerous to humans because they kind of stay away from us. But boy, if you are a rancher, they like cattle. I mean, one of the guys from the California Fish and Wildlife said, "Listen, you're a wolf. You can go after an 800-pound elk with horns that could hurt you, or a nice slow-moving cow, or even better, her newborn calf. That's a much better dinner."
And UC Davis has done testing of wolf scat and yeah, they're eating a lot of calves and cows because we have a lot of cow-calf operations in California. And so, when you talk to the cattlemen, they say, "Effectively what we're doing is we are raising cattle to feed Americans, but also to feed wolves." And so, the state compensates them, not as much as they would like. You have to prove that you've got a wolf kill, and that's not an easy thing to do. So, there's probably a lot more cows and calves killed by wolves than they're able to prove.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, and as we know, they can cross state lines. So, I'm sure this will potentially impact other states down the road as well. Elizabeth Weise is a national correspondent with Paste BN. Beth, we're always smarter when you're on the show. Thanks so much.
Elizabeth Weise:
Thanks so much.
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Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.