Today’s quick stories

🙏 Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot outside a NYC hotel. Authorities said Thompson, 50, was shot early yesterday morning as he walked alone to the New York Hilton Midtown from a nearby hotel, in what officials described as a “brazen, targeted attack.” Police said the shooter appeared to be a man based on surveillance video of the incident; no motive has been publicly identified as of this writing. The suspect remained at large as of Wednesday evening, sparking a city-wide search that included police drones, helicopters, and dogs. Thompson’s wife told NBC News he had received threats in recent weeks, and suggested they may have involved issues with insurance coverage. UnitedHealthcare, the insurance arm of UnitedHealth Group, is America’s largest health insurer by market share, and has been led by Thompson since 2021.

🇫🇷 France’s government collapsed after PM Michel Barnier lost a no-confidence vote. The no-confidence measure passed with 331 votes in France’s lower house of Parliament (out of 577 possible), well above the required 288-vote majority, forcing PM Michel Barnier to resign in the near future. It marks France’s first successful no-confidence vote in 60+ years, and made Barnier’s three-month-old government the shortest in the history of France’s Fifth Republic (since 1958). President Emmanuel Macron, France’s top leader, will remain in power following the vote, but must name a new prime minister who will be tasked with forming a governing coalition in Parliament.

💉 The great weight-loss battle: Zepbound outperformed Wegovy in a new head-to-head study. Pharma giant Eli Lilly, who performed the study, said patients taking its weight-loss drug Zepbound for 72 weeks lost an average of 20.2% of their weight, compared to 13.7% for Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy. Eli Lilly also said more patients achieved at least 25% weight loss when taking Zepbound than Wegovy. Lilly’s results are similar to those from separate studies used in the FDA’s approval process for each drug, which found Zepbound helped patients lose 21% of their weight on average compared to 15% for Wegovy.