• Donald Trump said Saturday he offered UFC CEO Dana White the job of White House press secretary.
• The president said the "violent fighter" was needed to defend against the "radical left."
• The offer comes weeks after Katie Zacharia was hired for the role, only to be ousted days later.

President Donald Trump says he's offered UFC CEO Dana White the job of White House press secretary.

The offer to the world-famous fight wrangler comes days after a bruising midterm election for Trump's party, during which the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress and a handful of key governorships.

"I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.

In the same post, Trump also said he requested White bring some of his "assistants," who are all mixed martial artists, "even though some are not from our country."

"We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left. Dana, please take the job!" the president wrote.

White nor the White House immediately responded to a request for comment. White posted to his Instagram story Saturday afternoon a photo of himself behind the White House press room lectern with the caption, "Onto the next chapter."

The offer comes weeks after Katie Zacharia replaced Karoline Leavitt as press secretary, only to be forced out five days later in what was the shortest tenure for the role on record, beating Anthony Scaramucci's famously short stint of 11 days.

Trump and White have a decadeslong friendship that dates back to the early 2000s, when Trump, then a casino magnate, offered the UFC his Taj Mahal as a venue. In the 1990s, the UFC had been run out of Las Vegas for being too violent.

UFC's new owners appointed White the organization's president a month before the Trump-hosted fight in Atlantic City. "Nobody took us seriously," White has said. "Except Donald Trump."

White has been a vocal and financial supporter of Trump's political campaigns ever since. Most recently, Trump hosted a UFC fight on the White House lawn in June, during which UFC fighter Josh Hokit thanked the president for "having the balls to put some shit like this on."

• I'm raising two kids in the Hamptons, where luxury homes and expensive cars are everywhere.
• We're not wealthy, so I teach them about money and why we can't always buy what they want.
• I want them to value practical skills, hard work, and experiences over expensive possessions.

I live in the Hamptons year-round, and my children are growing up in a place often associated with wealth, status, and luxury. They see beautiful homes, boats in the harbor, expensive cars, and designer shops lining the streets.

My children have many luxuries surrounding them, but our family is not rich.

As a parent, I'm very conscious of teaching them that happiness does not come from expensive things, exclusive places, or what other families may have. I want them to know how to live with comparison without feeling ashamed of what they do not have or entitled to have.

Everything is expensive

Every day prices can make that lesson difficult. At Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton, two eggs currently cost $10.95, and pancakes are $12.95. Elsewhere, a smoothie can cost more than $30 (including my favorite spot for that Mint Chip Smoothie in Sag Harbor). Even taking two children for ice cream adds up quickly once everyone chooses a cone and toppings (on average, it costs $28 for two frozen yogurt sundaes).

I don't want my children to think these prices are standard, or that every trip outside the house should include an ice cream or a visit to the card shop. I will tell them in advance, "If you want candy or cards today, bring money from your piggy bank." This gives them a choice while helping them understand that money is finite.

At the same time, I don't believe that raising grounded children means never going out or enjoying what is around us. Alongside the designer stores are nostalgic places such as Kites of the Harbor and The Wharf Shop, where casually browsing the toy collection, sterling silver jewelry, and handmade home decor can feel like a part of childhood. It is important to experience these places and find a balance.

We talk openly about finances

We openly discuss savings and finances to a degree they can understand. I don't burden them with adult worries, but I don't pretend that everything is affordable. When they spend their own money, they look at prices differently. They weigh how much they want something and whether it is worth giving up something else later.

I try to show them that some of the best experiences here cost nothing. The library offers an abundance of free in-person and online classes, activities, tutoring resources, reading programs, children's fairs, and museum passes. Their camp has family fun days, and their school holds heritage fairs. We go to the beach, spend time in nature, and watch the sailboats in the harbor, identifying the different types. I take them paddleboarding and crabbing, and bring them back to my roots growing up in North Haven.

These activities help them see the Hamptons as a community and a home, not a backdrop for luxury. Interestingly, the area has a tremendous range of wealth. People from many different demographics live and work here, and my children's friends come from families with varied financial circumstances. The wealthiest residents do not always flash designer brands. In those moments, we are reminded that possessions do not necessarily tell you who a person is.

I'm teaching them skills

Resourcefulness is one of the most important things I can teach my children. We make homemade scrubs and find projects to do with what we already have. They learn practical skills: styling hair, sewing, building things, cooking, and fixing simple household problems. I have friends who are private chefs, and cooking with them shows my children that making something well is both creative and useful.

I also teach them to be organized and self-reliant at home, to know where their belongings are and take care of them, because things can pile up quickly.

I encourage my children to think about buying things that can generate income instead of things that will remain idle. I want them to ask: Can I make something with this? Can I use it to learn a skill? Could this help me earn money one day?

Both of my children ice-skate and play tennis. I explain that those are not just hobbies. Skills can eventually become work. Someone who understands tennis may learn to string racquets or work at a tennis shop. A strong skater may become an instructor or an ice-skating attendant. They do not need to choose a career at this young age. However, I do want them to recognize that ability, reliability, and hard work do create options.

Most of all, I want my children to leave home believing they can take care of themselves. I want them to be practical, to work hard, and to have a skill set that sets them apart. I want them to appreciate what they receive without expecting anything.

The Hamptons will always give them opportunities to compare. My job as a parent is to give them something stronger to measure their lives by: what they can make, what they can contribute, how they treat people, and how much joy they can find in what is already around them.

• Mariah Smith stopped letting her kids use the smart TV after her daughter saw a scary trailer.
• She replaced streaming with VHS tapes, DVDs, and old-fashioned technology like Game Boys.
• A year later, she says her kids watch less TV, argue less, and are more creative.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mariah Smith. It has been edited for length and clarity.

After my youngest child was born, we were all in survival mode, and it felt like the TV was always on to keep my older two kids entertained.

I knew I needed to do something about the amount of screen time they were having, but I was too exhausted to do much about it.

And then I didn't have a choice.

My 8-year-old found a horror film

We've got a smart TV, and when you turn on the menu, completely unwarranted advertisements for movies and shows pop up in the toolbar.

My 8-year-old managed to find a trailer for a horror film, something really scary about an exorcism. It was awful and led to her being frightened at night.

One night, I lay with her in bed as she cried and thought, "We're done with the TV."

I hid our remote the next day and told my two older kids it was broken until I could figure out what to do about screens. The first few days without TV weren't great. They were constantly asking to watch something.

But surprisingly, they adjusted much more quickly than I had imagined, and within a week, they rarely asked to watch a show.

We started watching VHS

I started looking for fun technology they could use instead. We got a boombox and CDs and started listening to the radio. I found my old Game Boys, and we played with those too.

The kids loved all of it. It felt like new technology to them, even though it was from two decades ago.

I remembered my parents had kept all of the VHS tapes we watched as kids, all the classics. After buying an old TV, I brought the tapes to our house, and we started watching TV the old-fashioned way.

They were fascinated.

It's been a year since we started using the little TV and VHS tapes, and I'm so pleased with the results.

I can leave them to watch stuff alone

As a mom trying to juggle three young kids and everything else life throws at me, I can't always sit down with my children to watch TV.

Now, I can leave them to watch something and trust that they'll be safe. Everything they watch has been vetted by me because I've seen all the films before. There won't be any age-inappropriate adverts popping up unexpectedly.

I feel like I have much more control over what they're watching, and that I'm able to keep them safer this way.

The kids argue with each other less and are nowhere near as agitated as they used to be.

Because the TV isn't always on anymore, my older two children have become more creative. My daughter has taken up embroidery and knitting.

I've noticed that, for some reason, the children disengage much more easily from this little TV with the VHS player than they did from our big smart TV. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the smaller screen or the slower-paced storylines. Either way, it's easier to turn off without a total tantrum.

They also can't choose to watch YouTubers like they can on streaming services. I don't want my children watching YouTubers, but I found it nearly impossible to remove that option from Netflix or Disney+.

Using VHS tapes creates a barrier of sorts to watching TV, so we watch a lot less of it now. It's not as simple as pressing a button and having thousands of options available. You have to make sure the tape has been rewound, sit through the trailers, watch the film, and then rewind it again afterward. Once the film is over, the TV goes off. It feels like a natural ending.

What has surprised me most is how my own body has reacted to less TV and less background noise. My nervous system doesn't feel as overwhelmed as it once did. I feel much calmer.

We've recently added DVDs to our collection because there's more variety available. My kids love Bluey, so we've bought DVDs with all the episodes.

Although it started as a quick decision to switch to VHS tapes, I'm incredibly grateful we did it. It's not that we've gone backward in time, but that we've found a slower, calmer way of living that works far better for our family.

• Director Alex Gibney has made documentaries about both Elon Musk and Elizabeth Holmes.
• He told Business Insider that Musk shares key similarities with the disgraced Theranos founder.
• He said both were able to "convince people of things that they knew not to be true."

If anyone could find a connection between Elon Musk and Elizabeth Holmes, it's director Alex Gibney.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker has made movies on both polarizing figures. In 2019, he made the Elizabeth Holmes documentary "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley." His latest doc is "Musk," a close-to-four-hour examination of the richest man in the world.

In a recent interview with Business Insider, Gibney explained how Musk's rise reminded him of Holmes, who came to prominence in the 2010s as the founder of Theranos, a health technology company that boasted it could run hundreds of medical and diagnostic tests using only a few drops of blood. She's currently in prison for defrauding investors.

"I think there is a similarity with Elizabeth Holmes," Gibney told Business Insider. "What was rattling around in my head through this was 'confidence man.' Musk, like Holmes, was able, through force of confidence, to convince people of things that they knew not to be true. That became a superpower."

See the full clip below:

Or read the full interview with Gibney.

• I live in California and love visiting new towns and cities off the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner route.
• One of my favorite places to visit is Ventura, a coastal city with great food and thrift shopping.
• I love how easy it is to get around Ventura without a car, and an Amtrak ticket from LA is just $22.

Given the opportunity, I'd happily travel everywhere by train. Luckily, I live in Southern California, where I can easily explore neighborhoods up and down the coast via the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner.

This beautiful coastal train runs all the way from San Diego to San Luis Obispo, and I've discovered tons of cool towns and cities simply by exploring the stops along the route. One of my favorites is the city of Ventura: It's an easy, $22 day trip from my nearest train station in Los Angeles.

Ventura is a historic beach town north of LA with a wealth of attractions, from relaxing, surfer-laden beaches to eclectic shopping and delicious food.

The train ride to Ventura is short and affordable

A one-way ticket from the Hollywood Burbank Airport station costs just $22 and gets me to Ventura within an hour and a half.

One of the perks of traveling by Amtrak, instead of by car or bus, is the café car experience. If I don't have time for Starbucks in the morning, I'll grab a coffee and a vegetarian breakfast burrito with cheese, eggs, and potatoes (and then douse it in hot sauce or ketchup).

I also love that Ventura's beach is just a block from the train station. This means I don't have to pay for parking or fight for a good beachside spot.

The beach is typically the first place I go upon arriving. I walk south toward the pier, down the paved promenade that runs along Surfers Point.

Sometimes, I'll roam the pier and get a fish taco or elote from Beach House Tacos. But usually, I just sit in the sand with a good book and lounge for an hour or so, relaxing in the sun.

Before I leave the beach, I like to indulge my inner child and use the swing at the small playground right on the sand. Swinging toward the ocean always makes me feel like I could soar right over the waves.

Downtown Ventura is full of thrift shops and quirky small businesses

One of my favorite reasons to take a day trip to Ventura at all (besides the beach) is to go thrifting. The downtown area, especially Main Street, has a plethora of vintage and thrift shops.

Coalition Thrift Store is always at the top of my list. It has an incredible, reasonably priced selection of both modern and vintage pieces. I run a vintage shop on Etsy and source some of my finds from there.

I'm also a huge bookworm, so the used bookstore, The Calico Cat Bookshop, and romance novel store Smitten are usually next on my list.

From award-winning fish tacos to tiki drinks, Ventura has a great food and drink scene

When hunger strikes, I'll usually grab some pub grub at one of the gastropubs in the area, like Finney's Crafthouse. I'm also a fan of Spencer Makenzie's, which has a fish taco that locals voted best in Ventura. Eating seafood when I'm next to the ocean is a must.

Depending on my mood later in the day, I'll either grab a fun drink at VenTiki Lounge to chill out or a vanilla chai from Palermo Coffee & Gifts as a pick-me-up.

My last stop of the day, however, is always Tony's Pizzaria, just a block from the train station. I'll grab a slice of cheese pizza for my trip home.

My favorite part is spending a day without driving

Ventura is such a great day trip because, unlike most of LA, it's easy to explore on foot. I can get my steps in, then relax with my feet up on the train ride home.

If I'm taking the train after 8 p.m., I might even treat myself to a cocktail during Amtrak's after-hours happy hour, something that's impossible to do while driving.

By the time I get back to LA, I've squeezed a beach day, some shopping, and plenty of good seafood into a 12-hour day trip — all without ever having to set foot in a car.

Looking to kick off your weekend with some top-tier wrestling action? Well, you're only a few clicks away from a huge dose of WWE wrestling live from the ANB Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We'll quickly run through your options on how to watch a Crown Jewel live stream from anywhere in the world.

Netflix has extensive international rights to these major WWE events outside the USA. The good news, though, is that if you already have a US Netflix subscription, you can get around geo-restrictions and use that existing account to watch by setting a VPN to a country like Canada or the UK to spoof your viewing location.

Or you can stick with the local US option via the ESPN Unlimited app, which will cost $31.99 a month. You might be tempted to spend an extra $4 to bolt on access to Hulu and Disney+ as well. It's an early start given the location, but the same viewing options below will let you watch it on-demand as well.

• See also: Where to watch UFC | How to watch NBA

How to watch WWE Crown Jewel from anywhere

WWE fans outside the location of their desired streaming service can still tune in with a VPN (virtual private network). VPNs are cybersecurity tools that enable people to alter their virtual locations. So if you're outside the UK or Canada at the moment, you can still watch on Netflix with a VPN. They're popular apps among those hoping to access their usual websites and apps while traveling abroad or boost their online privacy and security.

As far as VPNs go, our top recommendation for the best VPN services is consistently NordVPN. We've found that it unlocks international streaming better than anyone else and includes top-notch security features that can help boost your day-to-day privacy on the internet. Plus, it's a beginner-friendly option with a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can read more about it in our NordVPN review, and see below to learn how to use a VPN.

How to watch WWE Crown Jewel in the UK, Canada, and more

Netflix is the streaming home of WWE Crown Jewel in many countries outside the USA. Prices vary by region and depend on your subscription tier.

Crown Jewel 2026 is available on Netflix in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and the UK.

If you're not currently in one of those countries, you can still watch Crown Jewel on any Netflix account by changing your VPN settings to one of those countries before signing into Netflix and enjoying the action as detailed above.

How to watch WWE Crown Jewel in the US

If you're in the US and don't want the VPN/Netflix route mentioned above, you can find Crown Jewel on ESPN Unlimited. Unlike some other WWE PLE shows, the first hour of Crown Jewel will not be shown on ESPN's regular broadcast TV channels. So you'll need the Unlimited streaming service/app to watch. ESPN Unlimited subscriptions cost $31.99 a month, and you can cancel at any time.

Can I watch Crown Jewel 2026 on demand after?

Yes, on both the ESPN app (US) and Netflix (internationally). In the past, we've seen live event recordings appear by the morning after, sometimes even not long after the event finishes on the same day.

There's usually also an option to start a live broadcast from the beginning if you're joining a little after it's already started.

So whichever streaming service you're planning to use, you're all set, whether you're watching live or at your leisure later. Both should have plenty of past events available to watch on-demand as well.

Who is fighting at WWE Crown Jewel 2026?

Below you'll find the list of today's bouts in order of play. The only regular title belt on the line is the tag team championship despite a few big title holders going head-to-head, so nobody will be unifying anything today. That's an epic clash at the end, though, between Reigns and Zayn.

• World Tag Team Championship: Bron Breakker and Austin Theory vs. Penta and Je'Von Evans
• Last Man Standing match: Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton
• Women's Crown Jewel Championship: Chelsea Green vs. Liv Morgan
• Men's Crown Jewel Championship: World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns vs. Undisputed WWE Champion Sami Zayn

• Before having kids, my husband and I knew we wanted to keep screens at bay for as long as possible.
• Now that we have a child, we've mostly stuck to that plan, but it isn't always easy.
• Sometimes I'm a little envious of those who do allow screens, but I'm still happy with the decision.

Even before having a kid, my husband and I discussed our parenting values.

We knew we wanted our future child to grow up speaking English and my husband's native language of Dutch. Instead of expensive trips to Disney World, we agreed we would take our child to visit real castles in Europe. We were also aligned on delaying screen time as long as possible. For us, that meant our child wouldn't use cellphones, tablets, or watch television.

Now that we have a kid, our theoretical parenting philosophies have been tested against a real-world toddler. We've stuck to our guns, but sometimes we question whether parenting would be easier on us if we let our son have screen time.

We've held to our no-screen values, with a few exceptions

Our son is almost 3, and for the most part, he has an analog childhood, playing with blocks, cars, and coloring books instead of technology.

In practice, we've made a few exceptions for screens. Our son is allowed to have video calls with his grandparents. He can watch television with us if it's an educational or news program in Dutch or a cooking show.

We made temporary exceptions during the World Cup and the Olympics. But, when it's adult programming, my son tends to lose interest after a few minutes and then prefers to play with his toys.

We understand the temptation of letting a screen entertain a toddler

Our son has been on the move since he started crawling at 6 months old, and walking at a year old. Since he started crawling, he never stays in one place unless he's sleeping. For most day-to-day activities, we don't mind that our son is a busy, active toddler, but the one time we would really like a break is when we go out to eat. Occasionally my son will stay seated for a whole meal, but more often than not my husband and I take turns walking him around the restaurant. There have been meals when we didn't even get to sit together because our son was on the move the whole time.

We'll see other families at restaurants with their kids sitting quietly at the table. Not always, but more often than not, the kids' eyes will be transfixed by the soft glow of a cellphone or tablet. We'll see the parents have a peaceful meal, sitting down together the whole time and wonder, "Wow, what does that feel like?" We're not judging; we would love a peaceful dinner too. Our worry is that giving our son a cellphone as a distraction will open a one-way door that leads to him constantly asking to use it.

Another time we feel the temptation to plant him in front of cartoons is when day care is unexpectedly closed. This past winter, we had a snowstorm that took several days to clear the roads and sidewalks, and school was closed. My husband and I are fortunate to have the flexibility to work from home, but it's impossible to work with our son around.

Expectedly for a toddler, he demands our attention and can't entertain himself for more than 10 to 15 minutes. My husband and I tried to juggle him between us, but quickly realized neither of us was getting any work done, and our son was understandably frustrated by our inattentiveness and the lack of stimulating activities compared to what he's used to in day care. My husband and I ended up having to alternate days off so we could cover the childcare gap due to the snow.

There's never a dull moment, and that has led to some fun experiences

With an active toddler, there is seldom a relaxing moment, but we have had some fun experiences because of our son's gregariousness, which I partially attribute to his interacting with the world around him rather than being sucked into a screen.

Our son, and us by extension, have been invited to meet the chef at our favorite French restaurant. At our regular sushi place, the waitresses fuss over him and specially prepare orange slices for him.

On one occasion, our son waved to a police officer who let him sit in the driver's seat of the police car and play with the sirens. We've become friendly with one of the firemen at the local fire station, and he lets our son climb into the fire engine and play with the lights.

There are moments when it might be easier for us to let our son be distracted by technology. We don't give in because we cherish those moments where we see him engaged with the world around him, and we wouldn't trade it, even as tempting as it can sometimes be.

• Mathematicians are struggling as AI upends their field.
• One professor says that mathematicians need to develop better communication skills to stay relevant.
• Charisma can help scholars set themselves apart, he said.

AI is lowering the barriers to mathematical discovery.

One prominent math professor says that means hiring practices in academia need to get a whole lot more personal, and mathematicians need to get a whole lot more eloquent at communicating their ideas.

"I am looking for a narrative of where you want mathematics to go, the technical ability to explain why this may be possible," Frank Calegari, a math phenom at the University of Chicago, wrote in a recent essay about what he's looking for in a researcher.

At issue for Calegari is the distinct possibility that low-level researcher positions across academia will be filled by students who only got there by churning out AI-generated proofs.

A 30-minute discussion, though, would differentiate those slop-producers from promising candidates with a clear vision and a talent for communication.

"The hiring process is going to have to be much more about personal interactions than a paper file," Calegari said in his essay, which was posted on Terence Tao's blog.

Calegari slammed what he described as "lazy committees" that hired students based on a single paper or academic publication, which could now be sired by AI.

"Once we take this approach, we then have the responsibility to train our own graduate students to be better able to communicate mathematics, something that we should take much more seriously," he said.

Last month, Cornell professor Steven Strogatz remarked that mathematicians with "rizz," a slang term for charisma, had newfound stock because they could explain AI-generated results and turn them into new questions.

The brusque push by AI companies into mathematics has caused consternation and head-scratching among many a math geek, as the field ponders how to stay relevant while OpenAI floods the field with hundreds of proposed solutions to the world's most complex problems.

Some professors have sworn off AI altogether. Most, however, are trying to find ways to incorporate the technology into their work.

Students across the country are also struggling to adapt, demanding that their professors publish clear guidance on how to use AI, if at all.

"We are lacking high-level leadership from across the academic community," one student wrote in a recent MIT survey.

• I ordered a burrito bowl, chips, and spicy salsa at Chipotle and Qdoba to compare the chains.
• My meal was cheaper at Qdoba, mostly because the chain didn't charge extra for queso or guacamole.
• Both chains served hefty portions and OK salsa, but Chipotle was my winner for its burrito bowl.

Whether for guacamole, queso, or burritos, few things are more polarizing than Chipotle and Qdoba, two of the largest Mexican-inspired restaurant chains in the United States.

Compared to Chipotle, a massive publicly traded company with more than 4,000 locations worldwide, Qdoba is modest in size, operating 893 total locations across the United States, Canada, and Japan.

Qdoba is a privately owned chain that relies heavily on franchising, which makes up the majority of its locations. The chain reportedly had nearly $1.3 billion in systemwide sales in the US in 2025, according to Technomic data.

By comparison, Chipotle generated over $11 billion in systemwide sales in 2025, earning it a spot among the highest-grossing fast-food chains in the US. Another key distinction: the company owns and operates nearly all of its locations.

Even so, the chains have a few similarities. Both famously serve customizable cuisine and were founded in Denver in the 1990s.

Business aside, as a customer, I was curious which chain offered a better value and more flavorful options. So, I visited both and ordered a similar burrito bowl topped with seven key ingredients, plus a side of chips and spicy salsa.

Here's how my meals stacked up in taste, price, and value.

I started at Chipotle, where I'd eaten many times.

Chipotle was my lifeline in college, and I've been pretty loyal to it in recent years during the rare occasions I opt for fast-casual dining.

The chain is known for its made-to-order format, allowing customers to customize bowls, tacos, salads, and burritos. It also offers family meal deals, which are discounted bundles for four to six people.

Many fans also rave about its six-ingredient guacamole, which is said to be mashed up fresh every day.

Then I went to Qdoba, a chain I'd never tried.

I'd never visited a Qdoba before, but I was open to seeing if the underdog could become my new go-to.

Like Chipotle, Qdoba is recognized for its personalized fare. However, I find variety sets it apart.

Beyond the basics, Qdoba offers broader on-theme entreés like nachos, cheese-crusted quesadillas, and desserts. It also has combo deals and bundles for bigger groups.

Perhaps the biggest perk is free queso and guacamole with every build-your-own entreé. Both of these cost extra at Chipotle.

Chipotle's menu had its usual assortment, plus a few new items.

The Chipotle I visited had rows of metal containers filled with six proteins — including its newer pollo asado that, to my surprise, cost about $0.65 more than regular chicken — seven toppings, four salsas, and two types of rice and beans.

I kept my order simple (read: no fancy pollo asado), choosing regular chicken, white rice, black beans, pico de gallo, green salsa, queso, and guacamole.

The chicken bowl itself cost $9.50. Queso added $1.70 and guacamole a whopping $2.95, so my bowl came to $14.15. After adding chips and hot salsa for $2.30, my order totaled $16.45 before tax.

Qdoba's expansive selection blew me away.

At this location, metal containers showcased seven proteins, 13 toppings, six salsas, and two types of rice and beans. I also spotted two signature quesos: three-cheese and diablo.

Clearly, Qdoba upheld its reputation for extensive customization by offering more options than Chipotle.

I ordered a burrito bowl with chicken, white rice, black beans, pico de gallo, green salsa, three-cheese queso, and guacamole for $10.75. With chips and hot salsa added on for $3.45, my meal cost $14.20 before tax — $2.25 cheaper than Chipotle.

My Chipotle bowl seemed massive, tasty, and balanced.

Chipotle is usually generous with portions, in my experience, and this oval-shaped burrito bowl was no exception.

Rice and beans lined the bottom, followed by a moderate amount of chicken and proportionate toppings. I appreciated the heaping glob of guacamole, given that it cost nearly $3 extra.

The enormous bowl from Qdoba also looked delicious — especially the queso.

Weight-wise, the Qdoba bowl felt just as heavy as the Chipotle one, and copious queso instantly piqued my taste buds. Plus, the guacamole seemed almost as plentiful as Chipotle's — and it was free.

That said, I only noticed a few pieces of chicken at first glance. I figured the rest may be hiding underneath the blanket of queso.

It wasn't perfect, but the Chipotle bowl checked most boxes.

Chipotle's rice had a strong cilantro flavor and wasn't soggy at all. The pico de gallo also delivered on texture, thanks to the succulent tomato chunks and crunchy onion bits.

Unfortunately, inconsistent chicken pieces tanked this winning texture streak for me. Some were chewy and fatty, others were tender or juicy. The chicken itself had a nice grilled taste, but texture-wise, every bite felt like a gamble.

Thankfully, queso made up for it. Bursting with cheesy flavor, the creamy sauce cut the heat, spice, and intensity of the other ingredients. I also appreciated the slight kick at the end.

Speaking of creamy, Chipotle's guacamole was silky smooth with perfectly sized bits of cilantro and onion throughout. It certainly hit the spot, but honestly, I didn't find it worth the $2.95 markup.

The bowl's biggest surprise was the beans, which normally feel like a background element. Chipotle's black beans had an oddly craveable, mildly smoky taste that reminded me of baked beans. They caught me off guard in the best way.

Overall, the flavors melded beautifully, combining smoky, bright, rich, sharp, and spicy notes.

The Qdoba bowl paled in comparison — except for the guacamole.

I had high hopes for Qdoba. Unfortunately, it fell short for me.

Those who enjoy zesty, lime-forward notes would enjoy the white rice, but in my opinion, it overpowered the other ingredients. It probably didn't help that the portion of it seemed so large.

Speaking of excess — although I was initially thrilled about the extra queso and liked the silky texture, I didn't love the strong taste, which sort of reminded me of nacho or American cheese.

When reached for comment, chef Katy Velazquez, vice president of culinary innovation at Qdoba, said that the queso "draws inspiration from traditional Mexican flavors, with ingredients like roasted poblano peppers and fresh tomatoes that give it a more complex, distinctive flavor."

The bowl didn't come with much chicken after all, and I didn't mind. The pieces I ate were tough and springy, requiring more chewing than expected. Texture aside, the grilled chicken had a nice abodo flavor and a rich, roasted profile.

Like the chicken, Qdoba's pico de gallo missed the mark on texture for me. With a wet, soggy consistency, it felt anything but fresh. At least the black beans were solid.

In my mind, guacamole was the main redeeming element of this bowl. It tasted mild, velvety, and perfectly salted, and I enjoyed the small avocado chunks. It was even better because it was free.

Chips and salsa were cheap at both chains.

I couldn't believe how many chips came in the Chipotle and Qdoba bags. Spread out on plates, they towered above my entreés.

The chains seemed to provide me with nearly identical portions; although I paid $1.15 more at Qdoba, the price still felt reasonable for how many chips I got.

However, I'd skip chips and salsa next time.

For me, neither chain's hot salsa surpassed the jarred stuff. I didn't find Chipotle's spicy enough, and it tasted strangely sweet and almost bitter.

Qdoba's had some heat, but it leaned more toward tomato sauce than salsa to me. The runny texture didn't help.

As for chips, Chipotle's were crunchy and classic. Qdoba's also had some crunch, but I couldn't get behind the hefty dusting of salt.

Next time, I'd only get a burrito bowl at Chipotle.

Since Qdoba's burrito bowl was a few bucks cheaper, I wanted to like it more than Chipotle's. Guacamole aside, it didn't come close.

Plus, had I skipped queso and guacamole at Chipotle (which I occasionally do anyway), a basic chicken burrito bowl would actually be $1.25 cheaper than at Qdoba.

So, the best deal depends on what you typically order and how much you love your fixings.

Even though I wouldn't go back to Qdoba for a burrito bowl or chips, some of its other menu items caught my attention. I'm still thinking about that cheese-crusted quesadilla.

When it comes to burrito bowls, however, this taste test only reaffirmed my loyalty to Chipotle.

Chef Katy Velazquez, vice president of culinary innovation at Qdoba, also provided the following statement:

"…We're always listening to our guests and looking for opportunities to make the QDOBA experience even better. Guest feedback is an important part of how we think about what's next, from evolving existing offerings to developing new ones."

Business Insider reached out to Chipotle for comment.

• To save some money, I asked my friend Jennifer if she wanted to live with me and my two kids.
• We share household expenses, and she also contributes to my monthly mortgage payment.
• Not only has it been financially beneficial, but Jennifer has also become part of our family.

As a single mom, I always loved the idea of living with friends later in life. I pictured something like "The Golden Girls" — gray hair, grown children, and long days laughing with my closest companions.

I never expected that lifestyle to happen at 41, while I was still raising my kids on my own and figuring out what came next. But that all changed this past summer, when I texted my friend Jennifer and asked if she'd consider moving in with us.

Jennifer and I weren't very close before this. Sure, we checked in on each other from time to time, and would go to dinner or a movie together every few months, but that was it.

Even though we weren't best friends, I still thought she and I would be ideal roommates because we're both clean, organized, and responsible.

Plus, we were both looking for a financial reset. I'd been planning a move to Paris and had put my side hustles on the back burner, but when the move fell through, I was stretched thin as a single mom covering a mortgage alone.

Similarly, at 49, Jennifer was burned out from leading a media network and a mental-health nonprofit. She was also single, living alone in an apartment — since her kids are all grown — and shouldering all her expenses.

We realized that sharing a home could help us both save some money while we figured out our next steps. Because we weren't super close friends to begin with, we didn't have to worry about the arrangement infringing upon our relationship.

And as long as my two teenage kids were fine with it, I felt good about the decision. So, after two weeks of discussion, Jennifer moved in.

Sharing expenses made room for small joys again

The first weekend we lived together, I was surprised there wasn't any awkwardness. She fit right in, asking about our shower schedules, what time we woke up and went to bed, and the WiFi password.

Thankfully, our two-story home gave everyone enough privacy, with my room on the first floor and Jennifer's and my kids' rooms on the second, so we never felt like we were stepping on each other's toes.

Before long, we experienced the biggest payoff: financial relief. Within just a few months of living together, I was finally able to save money again.

It's often said that living alone is a flex, but living with my friend has given me financial breathing room I wouldn't have had otherwise.

My mortgage is around $2,000 a month, and Jennifer pays me $500 for rent. When my children and I are gone for long stretches, she offers to pay a portion of the electricity and water bills. Groceries are our own responsibility, but we share the cost for household items like paper towels and laundry detergent.

Now that I have a roommate who is contributing to the expenses, I can have dinner with girlfriends once a month or buy a book from the bookstore without feeling guilty.

I also can take my kids to lunch at a café or treat them to dinner without feeling panicked.

Plus, Jennifer is less stressed about finances now and can be more selective about the entrepreneurial projects she takes on.

Jennifer became more than a roommate to my kids and me

Beyond the financial benefits, welcoming Jennifer into our home has brought us closer together and made us feel like one large family.

She takes a vested interest in my kids' well-being — offers rides to and from school if they need them, shares her snacks with them, and talks to them about their creative dreams, goals, and projects they're working on.

Even in the simple moments of drinking our morning coffees together, we talk about everything from disappointing encounters with men to our hormones as we get older.

It's not unusual for our Sunday dinners to spill into the late evening with wine, pasta, and long, candlelit conversations around the dinner table.

We all love playing games, or simply sitting at the kitchen island while I read the newspaper, and Jennifer quotes a film nobody else has seen.

Although the arrangement has been beautiful, we've both had to give up some freedom. For example, we have a mutual rule that we don't bring men we're dating back to the house, out of our respect for each other and for my kids' safety.

We've learned to be more conscious of everyday habits, from remembering whose laundry is in the washer to keeping the noise down late at night.

I've also learned to be more intentional about keeping the common areas clean, since the space is no longer just for my kids and me.

Jennifer and I have been living together for six months, and even though I'm not moving abroad anytime soon, I am still very much in transition. I am picking up the pieces of a future I thought I'd have, re-imagining it, and changing direction. It's a relief to do that with someone helping me out.

At this time, we don't know how long we'll live together. Eventually, I would love to move to New York City to be closer to family, which means my time with Jennifer as my roommate would come to an end.

Regardless, both of us have said we'd do it again, and we'd choose this over moving in romantically with a man.

• Jillian Loustaunau was concerned when her beloved dog, Weasel, began to lose strength in his legs.
• The fitness instructor introduced him to Pilates moves to build muscle and improve his alignment.
• His improvement inspired her to launch "Pawlates 101," training other pets in the practice online.

This story is based on an interview with Jillian Loustaunau, 36, the owner of a Pilates studio in Kailua, O'ahu. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I never imagined that my efforts to help my beloved dog, Weasel, regain his mobility would a) be so successful and b) lead to the launch of my new business.

But here I am with a much healthier companion and an enterprise that encourages other animal lovers to help their pets in a similar way.

My dog couldn't walk in a straight line

Weasel, who turns 16 next month, has always been an active, energetic golden retriever. Before his red coat turned gray six years ago, people would ask me how old he was.

"Ten," I'd reply. They nearly always took it to mean 10 months because he looked and behaved like a puppy.

One day in May, however, he seemed really off. We were walking home from lunch, just around the block, and he couldn't walk in a straight line.

It was almost as if he were drunk, and I wasn't sure if I needed to carry him.

It was hard to get a formal diagnosis at the vet. A client at my Pilates studio, a surgical vet, took a look, as well. She did a test where she flipped Weasel's back paw under, and he kept it like that.

She said that a dog without neurological issues would want to flip the paw back and encouraged me to start acupuncture and physiotherapy. It was the best way to preserve the mobility he hadn't lost.

We got a little wagon for his back legs, but soon realized he needed to move on his own as much as possible. The PT made me laugh because he said he was going to show Weasel what a plank was.

I had the idea that we could use some of the Pilates equipment to help him

He didn't know that Weasel was already familiar with the move. He'd often do them alongside my clients, and I'd occasionally let him hop onto one of the machines, too.

The physiotherapy involved planking, turning sideways, and backward walking. At one point, I had the idea that we could use some of the Pilates equipment to help him.

It took a while for him to get used to it, but he started on the reformer, then the Cadillac, chair, CoreAlign, and ladder barrel. We saw results almost straightaway.

His stance and mobility improved dramatically, and he got his spark back. My friends and clients commented that he'd gone right back to being a puppy.

I began recording his progress for the PT and put the footage on my Instagram account. I wanted to tell people, "Hey, we do Pilates here. And if I could teach a dog, I could teach a human."

Before I knew it, Weasel and his rehab exercises had gone viral. I now have 29.1K followers. Many wanted to copy the techniques and apply them to their own dogs, especially senior ones.

You don't need specialist equipment

It seemed like a great business opportunity, and I launched "Pawlates 101." I did my first Zoom class in August, with 40 attendees from as far afield as Greece, England, and India.

I showed owners how you didn't need specialist equipment like mine, but could use something as simple as a bottom step for planking.

Since then, we've had monthly classes, attracting around the same number of pet owners. I charge $30 for the hourlong live session, when I demonstrate the moves on Weasel.

You also get access to a pre-recorded session that shows modifications and alternatives based on where your dog is in their rehab journey.

The success of the initiative has been a fun surprise, and I want to build on it. So many owners feel hopeless when their dog gets older. We're conditioned to believe that we should stop exercising them when they reach a certain age. The opposite is true.

I want to develop an app

I don't yet have a formal enterprise plan. My dream scenario is to develop an app that helps you choose which equipment you may prefer. It will gauge what you're looking for your dog to accomplish each day.

The app would also include elements like tracking their water intake, bathroom habits, and pet food supplements.

I'm excited — and so is Weasel. I get him, and he gets me. He's the best business partner I could ever wish for.

• Warren Buffett is no longer at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway, but you might not know it.
• Berkshire bought and sold few stocks last quarter, echoing Buffett's final years in charge.
• New CEO Greg Abel did ramp up stock buybacks to $9.6 billion worth, the highest figure in years.

Warren Buffett is no longer running Berkshire Hathaway, but you almost wouldn't know it.

The famed investor's conglomerate reported third-quarter earnings on Saturday, showing minimal stock buying and selling.

That was typical during the final years of Buffett's six decades in charge, as the bargain hunter struggled to find deals on stocks and businesses during a historic stock-market boom.

He stepped down as Berkshire's CEO at the end of 2025, and as chairman this September.

Under new CEO Greg Abel, Berkshire was a net seller of stocks last quarter, buying $2.4 billion and selling $2.8 billion. That's a striking slowdown from the second quarter, when it bought a net $20 billion of stocks.

Berkshire's cash pile shrank by around $8 billion, to $357 billion, after subtracting $20.5 billion in Treasury payables. It has still more than doubled in size since the end of 2023, reflecting Buffett's prolonged struggle to find value.

One of Abel's key changes, in consultation with Buffett, has been to accelerate buybacks. He repurchased $9.6 billion of Berkshire stock last quarter, marking the busiest period for buybacks in years.

That looks to have been a good call, as Berkshire stock has jumped from below $500 at the end of September to a record high above $570 this week.

The surge in buybacks was a "pleasant surprise," David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland and longtime Berkshire analyst, told Business Insider by email.

He said that Abel's decision to ramp up buybacks, while being a net seller of stocks last quarter, "indicates caution with respect to current market valuations other than Berkshire's."

Berkshire reported $12.7 billion of operating income, a 6% drop from the same quarter last year. That was fueled by what Kass described as a "disappointing" drop in insurance underwriting income, along with lower insurance investment income.

Those declines offset higher profits from BNSF Railway, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and the manufacturing, service, and retailing businesses.

Berkshire owns scores of businesses, including Geico, See's Candies, and Duracell, and also holds multibillion-dollar stakes in public companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, and American Express.

Shareholders will have to wait until next week, when it files its third-quarter portfolio disclosure, to learn what stocks it bought and sold last quarter.

Abel has hewed closely to Buffett's approach during his first year as CEO, appearing to follow some classic advice for successors: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

• Fashion has been big and bold in 2026.
• Florence Pugh, for example, has worn one daring look after another on red carpets.
• Katy Perry went a different route, taking her striking looks to the stage.

There have been more than a few memorable fashion moments in 2026.

We won't soon forget Zendaya's "The Odyssey" dress, Anne Hathaway's maternity looks, or Taylor Swift's Academy Museum Gala gown.

And that's not to mention all of the bold and sometimes shocking looks actors, musicians, and models have worn onstage and on red carpets.

These are some of the most daring looks we've seen celebrities wear this year.

Colman Domingo had fun with bright colors at the 2026 NAACP Image Awards.

Sergio Hudson designed his mustard-yellow suit, which comprised satin pleated trousers, a thick turtleneck top, and a floor-length trench coat.

The outfit alone was bold thanks to its vibrant color, but Domingo made it more so with fun accessories.

He wore patterned cowboy boots, brown-tinted sunglasses, diamond jewelry, and a teardrop-shaped brooch.

Sombr stood out in lace at the 2026 BRIT Awards.

The musician arrived on the red carpet wearing a custom Valentino look designed by Alessandro Michele. It included long black trousers, a red satin jacket with dramatic shoulders, and a black lace shirt with a high neckline.

The latter two pieces were especially bold.

The outerwear added bright color to the outfit, while his blouse showed plenty of skin thanks to its sheer fabric and keyhole cutouts.

Alessandra Ambrosio wore multiple daring fashion trends in one outfit at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

The Victoria's Secret model attended the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in a custom design from Sophie Couture.

The cream-colored piece was sleeveless, with a corseted bodice. The latter had a deep neckline that plunged beneath her chest, with bedazzled padding that extended upward to cover it.

The dress also had a see-through lace skirt embellished with transparent crystals.

Anne Hathaway put a unique twist on see-through fashion for the "Mother Mary" premiere.

Her custom Lever Couture dress looked more like an art piece. It was sleeveless and floor-length, with ruffled, gauzy fabric wrapped around her body.

The dress was also semi-sheer, with a slight metallic sheen visible in the light.

Hathaway wore it with silver pumps, diamond rings, and natural-looking makeup.

Rihanna arrived fashionably late to the 2026 Met Gala, but her metallic outfit was worth the wait.

The billionaire musician wore a sculptural, metallic gown that was custom-made by Maison Margiela.

It had a jewel-encrusted top with a high neckline and long sleeves, and a floor-length skirt that looked as if it were made of liquid gold.

And that's not to mention the gown's outer band, which wrapped around Rihanna's shoulders and circled her torso.

She completed the look with sandals, diamond jewelry, and gold hair accessories.

Chrissy Teigen brought back bubble skirts in an interesting way.

Teigen was photographed at the Gold Gala in a strapless dress from Aiste Hong.

The design was strapless up top, form-fitting across the body, and eye-catching at the bottom. From the thighs down, the dress bubbled into a thick white skirt with large pleats.

With minimal accessories and simple glam, Teigen let her daring dress do all the talking.

Katy Perry chose a costume-esque design to perform at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

She hit the stage in a unique Stella McCartney dress. The sleeveless piece, which extended into a wide skirt below the waist, was made from tinsel.

It was festive, fun, and certainly one of the most daring looks Perry (or any celebrity, really) has worn this year.

Cardi B proved her fashion skills at a Robert Wun runway show.

During Paris Fashion Week, Cardi B attended the Robert Wun runway show in one of the designer's bright-red ensembles.

It comprised a strapless top with a sculptural design, a mermaid skirt that flared above the ankles, long gloves, a ball-shaped purse, and a dramatic updo hairstyle.

Florence Pugh looked striking in yellow and gray at the "East of Eden" premiere.

Pugh has worn a multitude of daring looks in 2026, but the custom Vivienne Westwood Couture gown she wore at the "East of Eden" premiere might have been her best and boldest.

It had a yellow corseted top with silver sequin embellishments and a plunging neckline. The dress also featured a long, shiny, gray skirt and a bolero jacket with puffed sleeves.

Pugh completed the outfit with a statement gold necklace and a strong updo hairstyle.

Alexander Skarsgård promoted "Wicker" in a truly unique ensemble.

At a screening of the film in London, Skarsgård wore a gold Saint Laurent suit that shimmered in the light of the cameras. You couldn't miss it.

More daring than his outfit, though, were his shoes. He wore see-through dress shoes that revealed his feet.

Megan Thee Stallion made office attire bold at the InStyle Imagemakers Awards.

She attended the ceremony in a gray Robert Wun design. It featured a sleeveless collared top with an attached velvet corset, a mermaid skirt that bubbled around her ankles, and a long cape with pointed shoulders.

The musician also carried a purse shaped like a wolf's head. There's been nothing else quite like the outfit on red carpets this year.

Kim Kardashian attended the premiere of "All's Fair" season two while wearing a skin-baring gown.

She wore an off-white Schiaparelli gown that looked as if it were molded to the billionaire businesswoman.

The sleeveless dress had a deep neckline, a fitted waist, and a fringe skirt with a mesh lining beneath it.

Kardashian also went without accessories or dramatic makeup, which made her gown look more striking. It was one of her best looks of 2026 so far.

Heidi Klum took florals to new heights while visiting the Empire State Building.

She was photographed at the iconic building while wearing a Kilian Kerner design.

The eye-catching piece looked as though it had been assembled from massive white flowers, which covered the entire garment. The dress also had a deep neckline and a thigh-high slit.

Even for Klum, who regularly wears bold ensembles, the dress was daring and unexpected.

• Incomes have increased in nearly every state, but buying a home hasn't gotten any easier.
• The national median income is still $31,136 short of affording the median-priced home.
• Realtor.com data shows that the additional income needed to buy a home ranges from $2,287 to $98,469.

Nearly every state in the US experienced a bump in household income last year, yet it's still not enough to afford the typical home.

States like Rhode Island and Virginia saw fairly large increases in income from 2024 to 2025 — 9.02% and 7.85%, respectively — but an additional five figures is needed to afford a median-priced home in each state, according to data from the US Census and Realtor.com.

Realtor.com senior economist Hannah Jones said that even though households are bringing in more money, an increase in mortgage rates since last year isn't helping.

"Mortgage rates are more than one percentage point higher than a year ago, which cuts into buyer budgets and offsets the affordability gains from softening home prices and rising incomes," Jones said. "Nationally, the median household income is not enough to afford the median-priced home in any state."

The national median household income was $84,780 in 2025 — a roughly 3.8% increase from the previous year. However, with the national median listing price at $419,250 in September 2026, that's $31,136 short of the recommended income to buy, assuming a mortgage rate of 7.32% and a 10% down payment, according to Realtor.

Realtor calculated the additional amount needed above the median income to afford the typical home in each state, and found that some require a couple thousand dollars, while others require nearly six figures.

See how much more money you need to afford an average home in each state. States in ascending order of the additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home.

Iowa

Median household income: $76,483

2024-2025 change in income: 1.30%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $2,287

Illinois

Median household income: $86,676

2024-2025 change in income: 4.16%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $3,168

Ohio

Median household income: $74,804

2024-2025 change in income: 3.59%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $3,718

Pennsylvania

Median household income: $81,473

2024-2025 change in income: 5.07%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $3,961

Kansas

Median household income: $77,824

2024-2025 change in income: 3.06%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $4,015

Michigan

Median household income: $75,832

2024-2025 change in income: 4.76%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $7,086

Missouri

Median household income: $75,485

2024-2025 change in income: 5.44%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $7,460

Indiana

Median household income: $74,516

2024-2025 change in income: 3.55%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $8,153

Louisiana

Median household income: $65,139

2024-2025 change in income: 6.81%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $9,512

Maryland

Median household income: $107,700

2024-2025 change in income: 4.66%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $9,806

West Virginia

Median household income: $61,340

2024-2025 change in income: 0.89%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $10,545

Nebraska

Median household income: $81,614

2024-2025 change in income: 6.86%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $11,008

Minnesota

Median household income: $92,297

2024-2025 change in income: 5.95%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $12,739

Oklahoma

Median household income: $68,441

2024-2025 change in income: 3.47%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $13,576

Texas

Median household income: $82,625

2024-2025 change in income: 3.64%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $15,738

Kentucky

Median household income: $66,447

2024-2025 change in income: 2.98%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $18,648

North Dakota

Median household income: $81,545

2024-2025 change in income: 4.72%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $20,948

Mississippi

Median household income: $59,346

2024-2025 change in income: 0.37%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $21,457

Alabama

Median household income: $67,663

2024-2025 change in income: 1.51%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $22,194

Arkansas

Median household income: $65,588

2024-2025 change in income: 5.61%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $22,539

South Dakota

Median household income: $80,506

2024-2025 change in income: 4.72%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $23,176

Alaska

Median household income: $95,220

2024-2025 change in income: -0.47%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $25,051

South Carolina

Median household income: $73,672

2024-2025 change in income: 1.83%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $25,847

Georgia

Median household income: $81,847

2024-2025 change in income: 2.32%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $25,913

Virginia

Median household income: $99,322

2024-2025 change in income: 7.85%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $26,742

Wisconsin

Median household income: $80,213

2024-2025 change in income: 3.52%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $27,588

Florida

Median household income: $80,846

2024-2025 change in income: 4.00%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $32,499

North Carolina

Median household income: $77,638

2024-2025 change in income: 4.98%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $32,956

District of Columbia

Median household income: $109,505

2024-2025 change in income: -0.18%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $36,341

New Mexico

Median household income: $70,342

2024-2025 change in income: 3.72%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $40,107

Delaware

Median household income: $92,520

2024-2025 change in income: 5.70%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $41,574

Maine

Median household income: $81,760

2024-2025 change in income: 6.96%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $42,658

Tennessee

Median household income: $75,875

2024-2025 change in income: 5.39%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $42,861

Arizona

Median household income: $82,940

2024-2025 change in income: 1.78%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $44,215

Connecticut

Median household income: $100,056

2024-2025 change in income: 4.17%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $44,407

New Jersey

Median household income: $107,797

2024-2025 change in income: 3.36%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $46,896

Nevada

Median household income: $85,198

2024-2025 change in income: 5.01%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $47,515

Vermont

Median household income: $86,018

2024-2025 change in income: 3.97%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $52,072

Colorado

Median household income: $99,729

2024-2025 change in income: 2.69%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $56,208

New Hampshire

Median household income: $106,759

2024-2025 change in income: 6.99%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $56,367

Wyoming

Median household income: $80,894

2024-2025 change in income: 7.10%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $56,381

Utah

Median household income: $99,311

2024-2025 change in income: 2.74%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $60,774

Oregon

Median household income: $86,953

2024-2025 change in income: 2.03%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $65,113

Rhode Island

Median household income: $91,039

2024-2025 change in income: 9.02%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $66,529

Washington

Median household income: $101,946

2024-2025 change in income: 2.57%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $74,859

New York

Median household income: $89,210

2024-2025 change in income: 3.95%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $78,063

Idaho

Median household income: $84,234

2024-2025 change in income: 3.78%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $79,721

Massachusetts

Median household income: $106,539

2024-2025 change in income: 1.63%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $90,940

Hawaii

Median household income: $105,013

2024-2025 change in income: 4.24%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $97,498

California

Median household income: $102,159

2024-2025 change in income: 2.01%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $98,292

Montana

Median household income: $77,099

2024-2025 change in income: 2.33%

Additional household income needed to afford the median-priced home: $98,469

• Dolly Parton and her sister released a cookbook called "Good Lookin' Cookin'" in September 2024.
• It has an entire section with Thanksgiving recipes, including sweet potato casserole.
• I made the dish for Friendsgiving, and it was a huge hit.

Dolly Parton always loved whipping up feasts of Southern comfort food for her loved ones, including her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus.

The late country icon loved it so much that she even wrote a cookbook with her sister, Rachel Parton George, which came out in 2024.

My favorite section of "Good Lookin' Cookin': A Year of Meals" is dedicated entirely to Thanksgiving dishes. And the best recipe of the bunch is Parton's sweet potato casserole.

Here's how to make it.

Dolly Parton's sweet potato casserole has a nutty twist.

To make the sweet potato casserole at home, you'll need:

• 5 large sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 2 cups of miniature marshmallows
• ½ cup of chopped raw pecans
• ½ cup of light brown sugar, packed
• ½ cup (1 stick) of butter at room temperature, plus more for greasing
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

First, I preheated the oven and prepped my potatoes and baking pan.

I set the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and buttered a 9-inch-by-13-inch pan.

I also washed, peeled, and quartered my sweet potatoes.

I placed my sweet potatoes in a large pot and covered them with cold water.

I brought the pot to a boil over high heat, then lowered the heat to maintain a low boil for 20 minutes while the potatoes cooked.

You'll know they're ready when the potatoes are fork-tender.

I drained the potatoes, placed them in a large bowl, and added the butter and seasonings.

I threw in the brown sugar, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, and butter, adding the latter in knobs so it'd be easy to mix.

Then it was time to mash.

The recipe recommends using a potato masher to mix the ingredients until they're "well combined." I don't own one, so I simply used a big wooden serving fork — it worked like a charm!

I transferred my mashed sweet potatoes to the baking pan, smoothing the top.

I sprinkled the pecans on top, then evenly covered the casserole with my miniature marshmallows.

I covered my pan with aluminum foil and threw it in the oven.

The recipe says you should bake your sweet potato casserole for 20 minutes.

Once the 20 minutes were up, I baked the casserole uncovered for five additional minutes.

The marshmallows should turn golden brown, but mine were still white as snow after five minutes passed. So I turned on the broiler and baked the casserole for two additional minutes to give them some color.

I let my sweet potato casserole cool for 15 minutes before serving.

I was slightly disappointed when the sweet potato casserole came out of the oven. The marshmallows got a little overcooked by the broiler and now only covered half of the casserole. Next time, I think I'll just let the marshmallows cook uncovered the entire time.

Unphotogenic marshmallows aside, this sweet potato casserole was delicious. The crunchy pecans added a delightful twist, and the combination of brown sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon was well balanced. The texture was satisfyingly creamy, and the dish made my kitchen smell delicious.

I brought this to a Friendsgiving, and the pan was empty within minutes — despite having a lot of competition!

I'll definitely be missing Dolly during this holiday season. Serving up a casserole that's warm and sweet seems like a fitting tribute.

It's an absolutely packed Week 10 for college football, and the Hurricanes vs. Fighting Irish match-up is the can't-miss event of the weekend. We've compiled everything you need to know about how to watch Miami vs. Notre Dame, including global live streaming options.

Below, you can find all the details on tuning in from around the world. If you don't want to scroll any further, you can live stream the game on NBC via Peacock in the US and Sky Sports in the UK. Traveling from home? You can keep up with your usual services from anywhere with a VPN.

The No. 1 Miami Hurricanes head to Indiana to take on the No. 11 Notre Dame Fighting Irish this weekend. Miami, who lost the National Championship to Indiana last season, are looking to go all the way again. So far, they're off to a good start with an undefeated season, a streak that they kept after a tight 38-35 victory over UNC last weekend. Notre Dame has had a solid 7-1 start to the season, only dropping one game to BYU.

What channel is Miami vs. Notre Dame on?

Miami vs. Notre Dame airs on NBC in the US. The game will kick off on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET.

How to watch Miami vs. Notre Dame in the US

If you don't have cable or a good antenna, you'll need a streaming service to watch the game. Peacock is the cheapest way to live stream the game. Subscriptions start at $13 a month for Peacock Premium, but you can upgrade to Peacock Premium Plus for $20 a month to unlock a 24/7 live stream of NBC.

YouTube TV is another option. The live TV streaming service's Main plan carries NBC and 100+ other popular channels in its lineup. Subscriptions normally cost $83 a month, but new customers can get $15 a month off their first five months after a free trial.

Fubo is another solid option since the streaming platform regained the rights to carry NBC earlier this year. Fubo Pro offers 200+ channels for $89 a month, but new users can get $25 off their first month after a free trial.

How to watch Miami vs. Notre Dame in the UK

Miami vs. Notre Dame will be shown through Sky Sports in the UK. Sky packages with Sports vary in price by contract details, and you can learn more in our Sky TV deals and plans round-up.

How to watch Miami vs. Notre Dame from anywhere

If you're a football fan traveling away from home, you can keep up with your usual streaming options with the help of a VPN, or virtual private network. VPNs are cybersecurity tools that let people change their virtual locations. This way, their favorite websites and apps work from anywhere, just like they would back home, helping cut down on streaming interruptions. The services we've highlighted require country-specific payment methods, so this option will work best for those who are just traveling away from home.

NordVPN is our top recommendation when it comes to the best VPNs. It's fast, user-friendly, and has a 30-day money-back guarantee if you find that it's not what you're looking for. You can learn more in our NordVPN review.

• See also: How to watch college football | Best sports streaming services

Note: The use of VPNs is illegal in certain countries, and using VPNs to access region-locked streaming content might constitute a breach of the terms of use for certain services. Business Insider does not endorse or condone the illegal use of VPNs.

• I'm living in my parents' converted garage, which is roughly 150 square feet.
• I wanted help making the space work better for me, so I hired an interior designer.
• She helped me find storage solutions that I'm thrilled with.

After separating from my husband, I moved into my parents' converted garage, a roughly 150-square-foot casita. The bunk bed had to stay for future family visits, but I still needed the place to feel comfortable and functional.

Asking Alex Pevtsova, a local interior designer, for help felt a bit extravagant when I was trying to save as much as possible. I admired her work, though, and interior design has never been my strong suit.

She started with what was already working

Sending her photos and a video of the space had me biting my nails with nerves. I imagined her being horrified by the tiny room and existing furniture. Her first observation, though, was how functional it already was, which not only was a kind response but also made it easier to talk about the problems. The main thing we focused on was storage, and creating a dedicated space for many of my things.

My purse and keys needed somewhere to land, and my clothes needed more shelving. I also didn't have a spot for paperwork and filing. Then there was the question of where to keep tools and gift-wrapping supplies, the kinds of things I'd shove in a junk drawer. Talking through those needs helped explain why the space felt so overwhelming.

In a room this small, she explained, "It's important to reduce visual clutter when possible, and that's why storage solutions offer the best value."

My $600 budget took us to Ikea

When I told Pevtsova I wanted to spend around $600 and hoped she wasn't cringing at my minuscule supplies budget, she confidently suggested Ikea. We talked through my needs and looked around before designing a wardrobe with the store's planning software.

The cabinet we planned would hold clothes and bags, with a shelf around waist height for work papers and organizers. I liked that I could close the doors and put the mess out of sight.

When she asked what I liked visually, I said light wood, and she agreed it was a good choice for keeping things brighter. I felt more confident with every decision we made. Maybe my years of believing I had poor taste were just insecurity.

When we finished, the Ikea wardrobe came to about $650 with the shelving I needed, more than my entire shopping budget. We talked through ideas and found a similar wardrobe on Amazon for $229.10 and a $120 cube storage unit with fabric bins, which Pevtsova approved as I shared links later that day. Bathroom storage cost $43.63, bringing the total to $392.73.

Our roughly two and a half hours working together, including texts about Amazon finds, cost $375 at her $150 hourly rate. With my purchases, the mini redesign was about $768.

Pevtsova pointed out that buying something you hope will work can get expensive if you're replacing it a few months later. She saved me time and money by helping me figure out what I needed first.

It took time to put things together, but I'm thrilled

Going the more budget-friendly Amazon route had its drawbacks. The fit delivery driver couldn't get the boxes to our porch because they were so heavy. I couldn't carry them either, so I opened them outside and brought in the wooden pieces one by one.

My soon-to-be ex-husband is super handy, and I was pretty insecure about building something like this for the first time in so many years. The directions were terrible, but I kept going partly because I wanted to know I could figure it out, even when I realized it was taking an unreasonable amount of time.

It did take an entire Saturday, but I was so proud when I finally finished. There are a few imperfections, but I like how it looks in the space.

Once I could start putting things away, I removed the awkward hanging cloth shelf and moved so much clutter into the cube unit's bins. There's room for more storage on top of the wardrobe, too, and the space feels more open now.

My mom also removed the grommets from the existing curtains and closed the holes at no cost. I love how they look now, and they block more light when needed without those openings at the top.

Hiring a designer for such a small job might seem silly, but I needed that help getting started in this tiny space. The room works for what I need right now, and getting my belongings organized has brought some peace during a pretty chaotic time.

HOHENFELS, Germany — The US Army's Abrams tanks are built to charge into battle, using their heavy armor and powerful cannon to break through enemy defenses. But at a major training exercise in Germany, they were doing everything they could to stay out of sight.

Driving through the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, the Army's main overseas training facility, the presence of the 1st Armored Division's Abrams tanks was hard to miss. Mud tracks crisscrossed and meandered through the grassy hills, scarred by the treads of the heavy armored vehicles.

However, the tanks themselves were nowhere in sight. They were hidden along the treelines and deeper in the forest, careful not to reveal their positions to enemy reconnaissance drones.

For a vehicle built to deliver overwhelming firepower on the battlefield, concealment has become a matter of survival.

Drones filled the sky when Business Insider visited the Hohenfels training grounds in late October to observe Combined Resolve, a recurring exercise that pitted a rotational armor brigade against an opposition force simulating a US adversary.

The training environment was designed to resemble the battlefields in Ukraine, where heavy drone proliferation has made it extremely difficult for tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to move freely without being detected. Armored assets have taken heavy losses in the war, raising questions among some warfare experts about their continued relevance on a modern battlefield dominated by constant overhead surveillance and cheap precision strikes.

At the JMRC in Germany, Army officers insisted that tanks aren't dead. However, effectively keeping them in the fight means changing how armored formations operate, from the way tanks move and conceal themselves to how they refuel, communicate, and prepare for an attack.

"I don't see armor disappearing," said Sgt. Sean Brenna, an M1A2 Abrams tank gunner with the 1st Armored Division's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team (1/1 ABCT).

"A lot of people are like, 'Drones are the death of the tank,'" he said. "I don't see that. I see tanks evolving."

What Ukraine taught the US Army

Russia's full-scale invasion has dramatically upended perceptions of armored vehicles on the modern battlefield.

Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles were once seen as pillars of Ukraine's defense; in the early stages of the war, for instance, some of these systems — like the M1 Abrams and German-made Leopard tanks— were considered priority acquisitions for Kyiv.

But drones have made it much harder for armor to operate effectively.

Ukraine and Russia have lost multimillion-dollar armored vehicles to drones that cost a few hundred dollars. Both sides have tried to mitigate the risk by equipping tanks with added protection, such as cage armor, but it's far from a perfect solution.

Across much of the sprawling front line, dense minefields, entrenched defenses, artillery, and widespread drone surveillance have made large-scale maneuver increasingly difficult. Drones in particular have expanded the danger, creating a miles-wide "kill zone" where soldiers and their vehicles risk being spotted and targeted whenever they move.

At the Army's training grounds in the Bavarian hills outside Munich, the drone threat was impossible to ignore.

At one point during the exercise, soldiers clad in black, wearing baseball hats and camouflage vests, rushed out of a command post and across an uneven field to deploy a spy drone.

As they worked, a sudden buzz filled the air. Another drone, a small quadcopter, appeared almost out of nowhere and flew toward the team. A soldier raised his rifle and pulled the trigger. Jamming, it produced an impotent click.

The drone hovered briefly before flying off. It turned out to be a friendly asset, but had it belonged to the enemy, the soldiers could have found themselves facing an attack.

The US Army has increasingly been confronting these threats and related vulnerabilities in training, with Ukrainian soldiers helping expose just how dangerous the battlefield has become for American armored formations.

Like other NATO militaries, the US has leveraged Ukraine's experience and included its soldiers in major exercises across Europe.

During an iteration of Combined Resolve held earlier this year, Ukrainian soldiers from the 412th Unmanned Systems Brigade, an elite unit known as "Nemesis," served as an opposing force, challenging US armor. Nemesis helped to cause roughly 70% of the casualties suffered by a US armored brigade in the opening two days.

The Americans eventually improved, changing tactics, and the share of drone-related casualties dropped.

A source with knowledge of the exercise said the Ukrainian soldiers had the entire training area covered by their sensing and strike capabilities, turning practices considered safe in previous US military campaigns, such as clustering vehicles in rear areas to refuel, into large targets.

It was particularly eye-opening for soldiers to see that logistics and maintenance could no longer be done in the open, the source said, adding that the purpose of the exercise is to use these hard-learned lessons to inform future tactics.

Brig. Gen. Terry Tillis, the commander of the 7th Army Training Command, which operates under US Army Europe and Africa, said the April exercise raised a key question for officers and soldiers: how can they better protect armor from drones?

The answer, at least in part, is to rethink some of the most basic practices of armored warfare.

Reinventing the armored fight

For starters, it means decentralized logistics and using the terrain to avoid massive clusters. In the October iteration of Combined Resolve, this proved to be a work in progress.

In the middle of a field, an M1 Abrams sat powered down, its crew resting on top. Hours earlier, the tank had tried to refuel but was targeted by indirect fire, forcing it to disperse. The tank was eventually struck — what the crew called a mobility-firepower kill — and had to remain in position until it was allowed to rejoin the exercise.

The incident underscored how even routine tasks, such as refueling a tank, have become dangerous operations when enemy drones and other sensors can expose vehicles to attack.

Brenna, the Abrams gunner, said one of the biggest challenges of the exercise was learning how to handle drones as an armor crew. Reports of overhead activity were near-constant, and his crew spotted countless drones.

He and the rest of his crew have learned to adapt, he said. In some ways, the methods are rather basic, like using camouflage nets to cover their tank, but they are also overhauling how they maneuver, handle logistics, and communicate with the brigade.

It's an ongoing effort that involves experimenting with new tactics to gauge their effectiveness, such as hiding along the treelines and resupplying at night rather than during the day.

Brenna said that the crew is mainly trying to avoid remaining in the same place for too long because, during the exercise, the opposition force taught them that "hiding in a treeline might protect you from being spotted from a drone, but not forever. And the moment you do get spotted, it is best to relocate quickly."

The Army is working through those challenges while recognizing that survival is only one part of the equation in battle. Armored forces must also be able to maneuver, attack, and seize territory.

The Ukrainians recently demonstrated what that looks like in practice.

Ukraine's Third Army Corps, which has led a major counteroffensive in the embattled eastern Donetsk region, disclosed recently that it had executed two successful mechanized assaults behind Russian lines. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi, the corps' commander, said that he was initially skeptical it could be done.

While details remain limited, the general has revealed that armored crews had to undergo special training and that their vehicles were outfitted with additional equipment to support their push. Other armored endeavors have involved support drones operating in both surveillance and attack roles.

"Today, the use of armored vehicles is effectively a special operation. It requires extremely detailed planning and the coordination of a huge number of assets," Biletskyi recently told Militarnyi, a Ukrainian military news site.

Recent successes suggest that mechanized maneuver isn't necessarily a thing of the past, even if carrying it out on a drone-saturated battlefield has become far more difficult.

Why the tank still matters

The challenges that armored vehicles and mechanized infantry formations have faced in Ukraine "prompted some to prematurely declare the death of ground maneuver, claiming that a transparent battlefield defined by persistent observation, unmanned system proliferation, AI-driven targeting, and long-range strike made offensive ground movement obsolete," wrote Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the acting Army chief of staff, in an October document outlining how the service will fight its next war.

"These claims mistake tactical destruction for operational and strategic success," LaNeve said. "Long-range fires degrade enemy networks at range, but standoff alone rarely compels the enemy to surrender. Only ground maneuver can seize what the enemy holds and secure it against the enemy's will."

The argument is that while drones and long-range weapons can help destroy enemy forces, they cannot replace the ground troops needed to capture and hold territory. The Army sees armor as an essential part of that effort, even as the way it operates changes.

"Armor will always be present. It's always a necessity, right?" said Capt. Kevin Rincon, the troop commander of the multifunctional reconnaissance company, the brigade's action arm. "It's kind of like that shock force — the combination of the duo of infantry and armor."

To that end, the October exercise was designed to stress-test how the rotating armored brigade could use drones, electronic warfare, and other counter-drone technology to sense, track, and engage attacks from the opposing force. By the time Business Insider visited Hohenfels, near the end of the multi-day-long scenario, 1/1 ABCT was on the counteroffensive.

Tillis, the 7th ATC commander, said drones can help control terrain, but actually holding ground requires integrating emerging technologies with traditional armor.

Technologies like drones, counter-drone systems, and electronic warfare "are all enablers designed to facilitate combined arms maneuver," Tillis said. "We've got to be able to attack, seize, retain terrain, hold, and then, if need be, defend and do it again. You cannot take an objective without putting boots on the ground."

The challenge is figuring out how to make that kind of maneuver possible against an enemy that can watch and strike from overhead.

Brenna said he can envision a situation where armor plays a more "precise role" in the next US war.

For now, the American tank crews in Germany are learning that surviving long enough to fight may require staying hidden, moving carefully, and abandoning some of the practices that once defined armored warfare.

One thing is certain, Brenna said. "The army is definitely not giving up on tanks. That's for sure."

• At least 35 airplanes received bomb threats across Europe this week.
• The "malicious hoax threats" led to diversions, delays, and fighter jets being scrambled.
• Whether the threats are linked and who they came from aren't clear, but analysts have some ideas.

Fighter jets were scrambled as dozens of passenger flights were targeted by hoax bomb threats across Europe this week, from Ireland to Bulgaria.

Based on statements from airlines, airports, governments, and police forces, Business Insider confirmed 35 airplanes that were threatened.

There have likely been more, as some police statements cited unspecified numbers, and some reported incidents could not be immediately confirmed.

The first incident took place on Monday, when a Wizz Air flight from London to Sofia, Bulgaria, was diverted to Budapest, Hungary. An airline spokesperson said a bomb threat was received during the flight, and the plane landed safely before being searched.

On Tuesday, another seven flights were threatened. Although Wednesday then appeared quiet, at least 19 airplanes were targeted on Thursday.

They included four flights arriving at Prague, the Czech police said. And in Copenhagen, the Danish police said they searched two airplanes, where "nothing of interest" was found.

On Friday, both the police forces said they were also investigating further threats. Madrid Airport received another threat on Friday morning, affecting four flights.

Through the week, five flights diverted, but most continued to their intended destinations before being searched. Nobody has been reported hurt, and no bombs or other explosive devices have been reported found.

"We understand that these have been malicious hoax threats," Heidi Alexander, the British transport minister, said on Thursday.

The severity of the threats prompted several air forces to scramble fighter jets.

On Tuesday, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu ordered fighter jets to intercept an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin which had received a bomb threat, his office said in a statement.

The flight, which had 157 people on board and was destined for Rome, diverted to a French air base in Normandy.

Two days later, Bulgaria scrambled jets to intercept three Ryanair flights, one of which was diverted to Plovdiv, the country's second city. The Italian Air Force also sent Eurofighters to escort a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome.

"NATO continues to monitor the situation and continues to coordinate closely with Allies, who responded in a variety of ways to the potential threats these last few days, including by scrambling aircraft, some of which were transferred to NATO," said a senior NATO military official.

While a European Commission spokesperson told Business Insider on Tuesday that "it is too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked," some analysts have pointed to hybrid warfare — using covert means to disrupt societies and sow division.

Western officials have previously accused Russia of waging a hybrid war against Europe, blaming it for malign operations including attacks, sabotage, arson, drone incursions, and other actions across the continent in recent years. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement.

NATO leadership has said the hybrid war is meant to weaken support for Ukraine and undermine allies' resolve. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said last month that the campaign is escalating.

Analysts from Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation risk management firm, said in a Tuesday note that it is "likely" this week's bomb threats are "a coordinated campaign intended to disrupt aviation operations."

"While it is not always clear what drives coordinated campaigns, it is possible that the recent wave is linked to Russian state actors, or to individuals sympathetic to Russia," they added. "Demonstrating a willingness and capability to disrupt aviation is assessed to be consistent with Russia's hybrid campaign in Europe."

Ireland's Cork Airport told Business Insider that it received an anonymous phone threat about a specific flight. And Bulgaria's Border Police told the national news agency BTA that bomb threats were received by email.

It remains unclear who is behind the incidents.

The International Air Transport Association, the primary trade group for airlines, released a statement on Thursday, condemning the disruption.

"We urge the authorities to find the origins of these hoax threats," said Nick Careen, IATA's senior vice president for operations safety and security.

• A dispute between two cloud providers, Railway and Primcloud, is cracking open a big legal question.
• Primcloud's founder accused a Railway employee of trying to breach its infrastructure. The employee said it wasn't malicious.
• Lawyers told Business Insider that AI agents are complicating the application of hacking laws.

There's AI agent drama in startup land, and it poses a big legal question.

It started with an accusation from Josh Manders, founder of the cloud hosting platform Primcloud. Manders asked why Jake Runzer, an employee of Railway, a competing cloud provider, was "trying to breach" Primcloud's infrastructure.

Railway CEO Jake Cooper responded and tagged Runzer.

"That was indeed me," Runzer wrote, saying that no malice was intended. "I've been running some agents to do signups + agentic testing on similar platforms. Just halted the harness I was designing around this as it was definitely going off the rails and reaching too far."

Runzer's post quickly circulated across the web as X users questioned the legality of AI agents attempting to breach a company's infrastructure. Cooper apologized and said that Railway would ban any testing of the models on external organizations that wasn't performed manually.

The legal threat of the AI era

Runzer said that his agent went "off the rails." The drama drives at a key question of the AI age: If an agent gets in trouble, who could be held legally responsible?

It's a question that has challenged lawyers, especially after the OpenAI-Hugging Face hack. Since AI agents can operate autonomously, proving liability can be complicated.

Mark Rasch, the general counsel of threat advisory firm Unit 221B, said that prosecutors would have to prove two things: that the AI agent actually attempted to illegally access another computer, and that the user intended for it to do so.

That second part — proving the user's intent to illegally breach a system — is thorny. In the case of a bug bounty, or a deal offered from a company to security researchers who can find flaws in its system, users look for security vulnerabilities but have no intent to break the law. "The problem is that the AI agent, once they find a way to break in, might say: 'Huh, this might work, let me try it,'" Rasch said.

Then there's the question of negligence. Elimu Kajunju, a cybersecurity lawyer at Rimon Law, said defendants could try to shift blame onto the AI companies that built the agents.

Kajunju thought these cases were becoming harder to defend, because it's difficult to claim surprise. "This has happened multiple times now," he said, speaking generally. "We really can't say that anymore."

Both Rasch and Kajunju said that the legal precedent was still forming, making it a pressing question for lawyers and AI users alike.

Where the spat stands

Railway's CEO later posted a longer explanation of the incident.

Cooper said that an employee, on his own time, had created a tool for "proactive identification + reporting of bug bounties within the broader community," using an externally hosted service running on DeepSeek. The employee's tool was used only once, the CEO said, and the employee "halted it proactively within 15 minutes of starting."

"Railway does not condone these actions," Cooper wrote. "We create an environment where internal red teaming has strict guidelines, and when bug bounty disclosures must occur, we follow every letter of responsible disclosure. We have addressed this incident with the employee directly and have taken appropriate action. We are also reinforcing our expectations for employee conduct to help prevent similar situations."

Manders countered that he doesn't have a bug bounty program. Primcloud considers any attempt to "probe, scan or test" its vulnerabilities as a security violation in its acceptable use policy.

To further complicate Railway's week, the company sustained multi-day outages starting Wednesday. By Friday, it said that some customers' service had been restored.

It's not clear whether Manders will sue. Manders, Runzer, and Cooper did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Cooper had some thoughts on who was to blame.

"You operate the machinery, you are responsible for that what that machinery does," he wrote.

• Leela Rea wanted to use her property to earn more income, but didn't want to build a tiny home.
• She built a greenhouse instead and started renting it out for small events and photoshoots.
• It's turned into a full-blown business, and in most months she earns an average of $24,000.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Leela Rea, 37, who built a greenhouse in her California backyard. She now rents it out for small events and photo shoots, earning an average of $24,000 a month. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Our family would always drive by this beautiful house in Vista. It had 100-foot trees, eucalyptus, smilax growing down the hills, and hydrangeas. It didn't feel like it belonged in Southern California, but more like the middle of the European countryside.

My oldest daughter would always say, "Mommy, that's the princess house," or, "It's the Christmas house." It just had so much character.

In 2024, we saw that the home was up for sale. Even though we were a week away from a European vacation, I told my husband, "We're absolutely buying this house."

We closed escrow while we were in Switzerland and bought the house for about $1 million. Its interest rate is nearly 8%, and our monthly mortgage payment is about $7,000.

A couple of years earlier, my husband and I had sold our wedding-venue business. Living in Southern California is expensive, and we owned multiple properties, including a home in Carlsbad, which was our primary home at the time.

We wanted a way to increase our income without having to return to work full time. For a while, we rented out our Vista home, along with the lawn and backyard, on Airbnb. We also considered building an accessory dwelling unit on the property to rent out.

We consulted a contractor, who gave us a quote for a three-bedroom, two-bath accessory dwelling unit (ADU). All in — with permits and construction — he told us to budget between $500,000 and $600,000, with room for error.

I was like, "There's no way this thing is going to cost me $600,000 to build, and I'd be earning like $3,500 a month." I have three young children, too. Would I even be able to trust them to run around with a stranger living on our property?

My background in the wedding industry gave me an idea

Instead of an ADU or tiny home, my husband and I decided to build a greenhouse in the backyard.

I'm not going to pretend that I just landed on this idea. I knew what I was doing. I previously worked in the wedding industry and have a pretty good idea of what people are looking for.

In Southern California, there are many beautiful venues, but not a lot that are small and intimate. For example, there's a beautiful wedding venue about 15 minutes down the street, and it's an insane property. But they do four or five weddings a day there, and their food-and-beverage minimum is probably around $50,000 to $100,000.

If you're having a rehearsal dinner or a baby shower, you're not going to want to spend $50,000. That's where we come in. We're like, "We'll meet you right here."

I've had greenhouses on my Pinterest board for 10 years. We almost went with a company from England to build ours, but the quote was way over our budget. So I sketched out my own idea, and I reached out to a friend who's a welder.

I have applied for a patent for my greenhouse design. It cost us almost $200,000 to build, including electrical work, flooring, and a fireplace. To help finance construction, we sold a couple of our real-estate properties, though not our Carlsbad home. All in, it took about 10 months to build.

We live in such a social-media, content-creation world. You give something a bomb aesthetic, people are going to come, and they're going to pay — especially with the rise of AI, people are craving something real that stands out.

Our house is on a hill, and the greenhouse is down below. There are two seasonal creeks on each side of the greenhouse. When it rains, they get really full. There are massive trees everywhere. On one path, we have a lavender field with about 150 French lavender plants, and you just kind of walk into the greenhouse. It's so sweet.

The business has taken off

We've done a lot of proposals, and photoshoots are our bread and butter. But our highest revenue events are the intimate ones, like rehearsal dinners, bridal showers, and baby showers.

A lot of the time, guests get married at the courthouse and then have a stunning little 20-person reception in the greenhouse.

I think, in this post-COVID world, people are more attracted to intimate events with their nearest and dearest. Nobody really wants a Taylor Swift wedding. You can't splurge when you have that many people.

With smaller events, you have money for the flowers, candles, live musicians, and food. You can really stretch your budget.

At first, I was posting everywhere to promote the greenhouse. There are different platforms that charge insane commission fees, which worked for some time. But now we get enough inquiries through social media that it just doesn't make sense.

We don't do a lot of events each year — maybe 10 to 15 intimate events. But we do a lot of photoshoots and content-creation shoots. They make good money, and you don't have to do anything for them.

When we first started, we charged $3,000 for a day rental, whether it was a baby shower or an intimate event. Now, our minimum for any event is $7,500.

For photoshoots, the minimum is $375 per hour for photoshoots. We also offer a full buyout of the house — which we now live in full time — but only when we're traveling. It's not like, "Hey, I want to rent your whole house today." Never. We have to plan for it. And unless we're bringing in at least $30,000 for the weekend, I'm not packing up.

On average, we earn about $24,000 renting out the greenhouse. Some of that money goes back into maintaining the space.

For events, I always provide refreshments, paper towels, and trash bags, which cost between $200 and $350 a month. We also hire a cleaning company that charges between $350 and $500. I used to do a lot of the cleaning myself, but I've paid my dues.

We're building more greenhouses based on my design

We've had a lot of manufacturers reach out and say, "Let us build a greenhouse, and we'll split the profits." But I reached out to the friend who built ours, and I was like, "Let's engineer this properly and figure it out together."

We are manufacturing here in Southern California, and there will be three sizes. I'm going to put the smallest one in our old house in Carlsbad. We already have a couple of preorders, so I'm really excited to start seeing them pop up.

This project is going to change our whole family's life.

In the beginning, even my family was like, "Who would pay to rent out your house and little greenhouse?" And I was like, "Oh my gosh, let me show you."

Through renting out our greenhouse, my husband and I are grateful not to have to work full time. Some months, we're earning as much as some people make in a year. We're also able to spend more time together as a family.

Our parents' generation was always told that getting an education or working a job for 20 to 30 years was the best way to build wealth. But I don't think our generation thinks like that.

It's such a fun, interesting time to be alive. We have all these tools to market and sell our ideas in ways previous generations never dreamed of.

I feel like people need to think differently to start living differently. And I hope more moms know that they can bet on themselves. Why not?

• Full-size electric trucks were supposed to be a hit in America. They weren't.
• Detroit automakers spent billions on write-downs. And the Tesla Cybertruck is getting the ax.
• Now, there's a fresh EV bet in the making: small, low-cost electric trucks.

On paper, EV trucks made sense: Take America's longtime best-selling vehicles — the Ford F-150, Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, Ram 1500 — and replace the exhaust pipes with a charging port.

"All the capability, status, and desirability of a pickup truck minus that oftentimes poor fuel economy?" Robby DeGraf, the manager of product and consumer insights at AutoPacific, told Business Insider. "Sounds great, right?"

For many truck buyers, it wasn't.

Full-size electric trucks never caught on as automakers predicted, and they are falling even further behind this year. Cox Automotive data shows that the six EV pickups it tracks sold about 32,500 units through September, down 53% from the same period last year.

The retreat has left behind canceled trucks, production cutbacks, and billions of dollars in EV-related charges.

Since 2025, GM has paid nearly $11 billion in write-downs as it has slowed its EV-building pace; Ford discontinued its electric pickup and recorded a $19.5 billion charge; and the Ram REV never made it to production — but Stellantis still paid $26 billion in write-downs.

On Friday, the electric-truck industry took another major blow: Tesla said it will discontinue the Cybertruck.

So, what happened?

In the early 2020s, Detroit carmakers, inspired by Tesla's surprise success with the Model 3 and Model Y, wanted their own EV options.

Ford launched the all-electric F-150 Lightning in 2022; GM followed with the Silverado EV and Sierra EV for the 2024 model year; and Stellantis planned to release the Ram 1500 REV in early 2025. Even Tesla jumped into the full-size truck party, launching the Cybertruck in 2023.

Those trucks had to compete with cheaper, familiar gas-powered alternatives — and came with compromises.

"Pickup buyers have high expectations, and electrifying a large truck involves real trade-offs," Stephanie Valdez Streaty, the director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, said. "Buyers expect strong towing, payload, range, charging, and overall utility."

Large electric trucks need large, expensive batteries, she said, and towing can also sharply reduce their range.

Plus, "these full-size EV pickup trucks are and were pretty dang expensive," DeGraff added. The Sierra EV, for example, starts around $65,000.

An altogether new bet

Automakers have a new bet: smaller and cheaper electric trucks that aren't competing with the full-size workhorses.

Ford's entry to that market is the Fathom, the first vehicle on its universal EV platform. Ford says the midsize truck will be smaller and simpler to build than the F-150 Lightning, with a starting price under $29,000. It hasn't released key details — including trim levels and range figures — but production starts next fall.

Slate Auto is making an even more radical affordability play. Its bare-bones, two-seat Blank Slate pickup is expected to enter production this month and starts at $24,950.

Whether that formula works remains an open question.

"If a company can offer a smaller electric truck that has at least 300 miles of range, then I think it could work," Seth Goldstein, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar who covers the auto industry, said. "But it's going to be more difficult than building an SUV or a sedan where you don't need as much power."

Furnishing your home can get expensive, whether you've recently moved into a new place, are hoping to redecorate, or are an amateur interior designer after the thrill of a great find. The end of the year is a great time to save on these big-ticket items, and the Black Friday deals are starting earlier than ever, giving you the chance to save early and beat the end-of-year delivery rush.

As the home editor on BI's Reviews team, I've spent years covering Black Friday furniture deals. I love staying on top of the best places to buy furniture online and seeing who's besting their own previous offers. I spent hours combing through the early home sales to find the most enticing deals and seasonal offers.

The Black Friday furniture sales I'm shopping first that are live now:

• Branch: Branch is sponsoring your home office refresh with 20% off its best standing desks and office chairs, which is better than last year's promotion.
• Koala: This Australian furniture company makes one of the cutest, small-space-friendly sofabeds and more robust-sized modular couches, and their Black Friday Sale just kicked off with up to $1,500 off.
• Wayfair: In the lead-up to Black Friday, Wayfair's Daily Deals shift ever so slightly, but I know I'll find deep discounts across a broad selection of affordable furniture. If the choice feels too overwhelming, one of my Wayfair shopping tips is to browse Wayfair Verified for a more curated selection of vetted products.
• Ruggable: Washable rugs are a must-have for hosting. You don't have to fret if a guest leaves their shoes on or spills that glass of wine. Plus, if you like to swap out your rugs to match the festive season, several holiday styles are 40% off, and other collabs, like Jonathan Adler and Morris & Co., are in the 20% range.
• Serena & Lily: I love Serena & Lily's California cool luster. While these forever-style pieces are an investment for your home, the Sale of the Year sweetens the pot with up to 40% off almost everything, including the rattan Riviera chairs that are on my wishlist.

One thing to note is that some furniture, especially made-to-order items, can take a while to ship. It's important to check delivery dates if you need a piece to arrive before the holidays. Some retailers, like Crate & Barrel, are advertising a November 17 shipping cutoff for in-stock items to arrive before Thanksgiving.

Follow along with all the Black Friday deals we're tracking, from style and tech to the best mattresses on sale. We'll be updating this article as more furniture sales kick off.

Early Black Friday living room furniture deals

Early Black Friday bedroom furniture deals

Early Black Friday dining room furniture deals

Early Black Friday home office furniture deals

Black Friday rug deals

Black Friday furniture sales FAQs

Is Black Friday a good time to buy furniture?

Absolutely. Black Friday is a great time to buy new furniture; some may even say it's the best time of the year. Many retailers offer all-time low prices on sofas, bed frames, and dining tables. We've seen savings up to 80%. Other shopping holidays, like Labor Day and Memorial Day, can also have good deals, but they are often not as substantial as Black Friday.

How soon can I have my furniture delivered?

This depends on where you order from and the type of furniture you are purchasing. Custom and made-to-order pieces can take a few months to ship, while pieces from mass-market stores may arrive in just a few days. Pay attention to expected delivery timelines, which are often posted on each individual product page. If you're in a hurry to receive furniture, some brands also offer ready-to-ship sections to expedite delivery.

• Jacob Zuppke helped turn Whisker's self-cleaning litter box into a booming business with low-budget marketing.
• Whisker's provocative Litter-Robot ads helped fuel growth, even as some cat owners complained.
• It now has 70 engineers, and its litter boxes use cameras and AI to track cats' habits through an app.

Before "influencer" was a common job title, Jacob Zuppke enlisted 25 famous cats to promote self-cleaning litter boxes on Instagram for free.

It was 2015, and Zuppke had just joined Automated Pet Care Products, the Michigan-based company behind the Litter-Robot, as a digital-media consultant. Each day from December 1 through 25 that year, a different feline's account gave one of the products away to a follower, a promotion that helped sales nearly double by the end of 2016.

"They didn't charge for this," Zuppke told Business Insider, referring to the humans behind the Instagram accounts. Paid pet-influencer campaigns weren't "a thing yet."

Today, Zuppke is president and CEO of the company, which was founded in 2000 and is now called Whisker. The 38-year-old's ascent to the C-suite shows how a marketer's instincts helped turn an unglamorous chore into a big business. Whisker's overall revenue has soared 55-fold during his tenure to more than $1.5 billion in lifetime sales, a company spokesperson said. In addition to its Litter-Robot litter boxes, which retail for between $599 and $999, the company sells its own brand of litter and accessories.

Zuppke came to Whisker after selling his stake in a digital marketing agency he founded after college. A former business contact recruited him to help market the third-generation Litter-Robot. He moved into executive management and was named CEO in late 2021, succeeding founder Brad Baxter, who remains Whisker's chairman and chief inventor.

The making of "Don't Be a Scooper"

Zuppke said the success of the Instagram campaign convinced him that Whisker didn't need to outsource all of its marketing and could start making TV commercials in-house. He rented an Airbnb and brought six employees together for a writing retreat, in which their task was to dramatize a central downside to cat ownership: manually scooping a litter box.

After several pitches fizzled, Zuppke said Whisker's creative director won the room by remarking: "Do you smell that? That's cat shit, and it's all over your house." The team spent the next two days refining the idea into "Don't Be a Scooper," an ad that became Whisker's flagship spot for two years and the first of many to feature employees alongside professional actors. Zuppke said the company's revenue more than quadrupled over that period.

Not everyone loved the campaign, which conveyed the message: Use a Litter-Robot so you do not have to scoop by hand. In emails to the company, some cat owners objected to being called "scoopers," Zuppke said, while others complained about a scene in which a woman talks about scooping litter while licking chocolate icing with a finger. But he saw the response as evidence that the ad got people's attention.

"Don't be afraid to have a point of view that maybe not everybody resonates with," Zuppke said, adding that one of Whisker's newest TV commercials pokes fun at dog owners.

Zuppke said the same comfort with tension applies to how he leads. "I don't need everyone to be like me," he said. "I want people to disagree with me and bring their point of view."

Even as Whisker has expanded from about 25 employees when he joined to roughly 650 today, Zuppke said he maintains small, personal rituals. He sends messages to every employee on their birthday and work anniversary, and he takes staffers to lunch individually a few times a week. The meals benefit him, too, he said, giving him insight into the challenges his employees face and their ideas for the business.

Whisker is headquartered in a Detroit suburb, while its products are made in a warehouse in Juneau, Wisconsin, where sponsored signs read "Home of the Litter-Robot." Employees are welcome to bring their own cats (or dogs) to the Michigan office, while three rescue cats live in a separate, closed-off side of the building and are cared for by staff. Zuppke said the animals — both employees' pets and the rescue cats — do more than add personality. They also test Whisker products in development.

"We're watching them," he said. "I wish cats could talk. It would make our jobs a lot easier."

Building a smarter litter box

While Zuppke has helped grow Whisker's sales through low-budget marketing, he has also pushed the company to make its litter boxes more sophisticated. It now employs more than 70 engineers, up from just one in 2015, and its latest litter boxes use cameras, weight sensors, and machine learning to identify individual cats, track their bathroom habits, and flag changes that could signal health problems. An accompanying app lets owners monitor their pets' weight and bathroom routines and receive alerts when something seems amiss.

As Whisker has expanded its workforce, Zuppke's own job has become more challenging. Decisions can no longer be made one day and executed the next, and he has 11 direct reports, up from zero at the beginning. To help him navigate Whisker's next stage, Zuppke said he'll soon start meeting regularly with an executive coach.

"I think that's been my hardest thing to learn: How do I grow up as a CEO?" he said.

One impediment a coach can't solve for, though, is Zuppke's own cat allergy. While his two Siberians at home don't cause him to have itchy eyes, he said he has to be careful when petting other breeds.

"I just have to wash my hands a lot," said Zuppke.

• AI agents are tackling a growing number of tasks, including shopping.
• Abhishek Bora manages growth for a streetwear retailer, and says he's seeing bot traffic tick up.
• Bora shared his approach to getting ahead of what's shaping up to be the new way people shop online.

The agents are coming.

As AI chatbots and personal agents go mainstream, retailers large and small are rethinking how they present their products and prices in this shifting e-commerce landscape.

For streetwear retailer All Star Elite, which has about 60 US stores and a growing e-commerce operation, that means getting ahead of the bots. Digital sales represent about a quarter of the company's revenue.

Over the last month, about 1% of the site's traffic came from AI agents, Abhishek Bora, the company's head of growth, told Business Insider.

"It's not a lot, but I mean it was nowhere before," he said.

Shortly after Meta launched its personal AI agent, Muse, in September, Bora said he started seeing a few purchases a week originating from the bot. He said the company has also been getting more sales from traffic driven by ChatGPT.

"I know it's small, but we have been optimizing for it," he said of Muse visits.

With the busy holiday shopping season a few weeks out, now is a key time for companies like All Star Elite to have their AI commerce strategies nailed down.

AI traffic to US retail sites is expected to double on Black Friday and Cyber Monday compared with last year, according to Adobe, and AI traffic is already converting to sales at higher rates than non-AI visits.

Because bots process information differently than humans, Bora said his team has been layering on machine-readable information to its product listings. The new metadata is meant to help a retailer's product stand out with contextual details that go beyond a basic description and price.

That information, such as whether a sneaker is better for a marathon or a night out, can help a product appear more prominently when someone asks ChatGPT for a recommendation.

Bora also said his team now has to think differently about deals and discounts, which have typically been designed to capture a human's attention.

This year, retailers will have to consider how a bot will respond to their holiday promotions, which several experts told Business Insider is shaping up to be a key priority shoppers have for their AI assistants.

Larger retailers are tackling these emerging challenges in different ways.

Walmart last month rolled out a new batch of tools that are intended to make it easier for third-party AI agents to navigate its site and complete transactions on behalf of customers. Amazon has taken the opposite approach, blocking external agents like Muse in favor of nudging shoppers to use its own agent, Alexa.

And even though personal AI agents are more widely accessible than ever, Bora said All Star Elite's customers still largely prefer to use ChatGPT to discover items they can then purchase themselves.

"They're not as open to having ChatGPT or an AI or an agent do a transaction for them. They want to verify it," he said.

• Patrick Kelly, the founder of an FDE community, says demand for the role is growing.
• Kelly said that FDEs need to quickly master AI, software engineering, and new industries.
• Kelly offers tips on how to break into an FDE role, even if someone has little technical background.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Patrick Kelly, the Brooklyn-based cofounder and CEO of Port of Context, which helps companies connect AI to their existing systems. Kelly founded Forward Deployed Engineers of New York in June 2026, which frequently hosts events and has a list of FDE job openings on its website. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I was a forward-deployed engineer before I ever had the title.

I started out as a solutions engineer at a legal AI company, before large language models took off. I'd go into a big company, figure out where AI could help, and work with the people there to build something they could actually use.

When we started Forward Deployed Engineers of New York, a few friends left tech companies to work at fast-growing startups. There's a lot of pressure on you when you're the one going into a customer's business and figuring out what to build, and we thought people could use a place to trade notes.

When people talk about a tech job recession, we have actually seen the opposite in this specific role. Here are some of the latest hiring trends in FDE roles and how people of different backgrounds could all move into the job.

The job finally got a name everyone agrees on

Solutions engineer, solutions architect, customer engineer, implementation engineer, field engineer — I have a whole list of names of what this role used to be called.

While the job description did not change, the explosion in AI subscriptions helped make the job more visible. People started chatting with Claude and pretty quickly found out that getting from a chatbot to a system a business can trust to run on its own is hard. That's where an FDE comes in.

The role is different from that of a traditional software engineer. You go into a big company and figure out where AI could actually help. You work with the customer's engineers to get access to the systems and with the business team to figure out how you'll measure the value. You might spend a few weeks or a few months writing code and building the workflow, and then you hand it over before you leave.

New hiring trends in FDE

Many new opportunities and FDE-adjacent roles are opening up.

I have an analogy for FDEs: You have to be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of three. Those are AI, software engineering, and learning a new business domain fast. That last one is basically like being a McKinsey consultant. Each of those things could be a career on its own.

New York has AI companies hiring FDEs and has a whole lot of places to deploy them. Banks and other big companies have seen how the work gets done, so now some banks are building internal teams to run those projects themselves without relying on the AI companies.

Big consulting firms are also changing how they deliver AI projects.

I'm seeing very technical consultants from places like McKinsey and Bain find a path into forward-deployed engineering. There's also a role for people who haven't spent time as software engineers. At my company, we're pairing FDEs with deployment strategists, which is a role first invented by Palantir.

While the FDE does the coding and technical work, a deployment strategist works with the customer and keeps the technical project moving as a manager. You have to speak the language, understand the AI product, and be very good at delivering for clients.

Landing the job

If you're a software engineer who's never worked directly with a customer, think about a project you got off the ground inside your own company. Maybe you spotted a multimillion-dollar opportunity, figured out how long it would take, and pulled together the team to do it. That's a good story to tell in an interview.

It is also important to explain the project in terms the business cares about. What was the opportunity? How did you get people on board? What did the work deliver? If you can point to a return on the investment, bring that number.

Ultimately, the rise of FDE is a reflection of where the job market is going.

Agents are doing more of the coding now, and teams can deliver results faster. That puts more weight on deciding what to do and how to do it. Being able to explain what you chose to build, why it was worth doing, and what the business got out of it matters more than technical skills.

• Many dermatologists and skincare experts don't scrub their faces, or use a daily cleanser.
• Harsh scrubbing strips away the skin's protective barrier, and isn't needed most of the time.
• As winter approaches, experts say moisturizing is the essential step to prioritize.

When Ariel Ostad gets into the shower, he pretty much ignores his face. He'll soap up quickly in the "smelly" areas of his body, including his armpits and down there, and then he's done.

A board-certified dermatologist, he says if there's one simple move he'd implore you to try this winter, it would be this: Stop washing your face so often.

"Just rinse with water," said Ostad, who runs a cosmetic dermatology and surgery practice on New York City's Upper East Side, administering Botox, fillers, and treating acne, among other conditions. He says he gives patients this advice roughly "20 times a day" and sees so many with irritated skin who would do well to cut back on the daily face cleaning.

"You don't need these cleansers unless you're rolling in mud," he told Business Insider. "Honestly, I'm not using anything to scrub my face."

It's a hot take that many (but not all) dermatologists endorse. Everyone's skin glands are a little different, and some people probably need to wash their face more than others.

You certainly don't have to shun face soap altogether as Ostad does, but most people could benefit from a gentler cleansing routine. As winter approaches, Ostad and others say keep it simple: Spend less time scrubbing your face, and it will thank you.

America is obsessed with scrubbing itself clean

The US appetite for face cleaning is large and growing. Market intelligence firm Coresight Research estimates that Americans spend roughly $31 billion annually on face wash, when you add up spending on everything from cheap drugstore foams to specialty dermatological cleanser prescriptions and private-label washes.

The market is being propped up by millennials raised on splashy Neutrogena cleanser ads, and Gen Z-ers keeping track of multi-part cleansing, scrubbing, serum-ing, eye cream-ing, patching, and moisturizing routines on TikTok. Across US retail, facewash accounts for a whopping 42% of all skincare spending, Coresight reports.

Today, more consumers are shelling out for premium active ingredients in their cleansers, analysts note, as the face-cleaning market is growing at about 5-6% — outpacing growth in the broader skincare category, according to Bank of America Global Research. People who might've previously upgraded from the $8.99 bottle of translucent-orange Neutrogena acne wash to a $13.99 bottle of CeraVe foaming cleanser are now opting for niche brands with higher prices, milder soaps, and seemingly "clean" ingredients.

The American Academy of Dermatology recommends a very gentle approach to cleaning your face, saying to wash it no more than twice a day with a gentle, non-abrasive cleanser, and also after any hard, sweaty work or exercise.

"Resist the temptation to scrub," AAD says in its "Face Washing 101" tutorial.

Ostad advises that if you really must cleanse to remove dirt, sunscreen, or makeup, a brief 15-second soaping is "more than enough."

Stop scrubbing away the natural protection on your face

Any cleanser, no matter how gentle, is designed to strip away our skin's natural barrier. Even the gentlest of facial cleansers has surfactants inside that dissolve away the protective dead skin (and yes, also the dirt) on our faces.

America is especially harsh on our skin in this regard. In Korea, complex 10- and 12-step skincare routines typically focus more on hydrating than cleansing. In France, where the tap water can be especially hard and rich in minerals like calcium, World War I pharmacists developed gentle micellar water splashes and hydrating sprays to clean the skin without soap. To this day, many women skip some daily face-cleaning at the sink in favor of these gentler face splashes.

David Futoran, the founder of virtual dermatology clinic Honeydew, used to be one of those guys doing the most to get clear skin, including harsh benzoyl peroxide cleansers and sulfide wipes to clear away dead skin and oil. But since he partnered with his long-time dermatologist and opened up a telehealth practice for treating acne and other skin conditions, his own routine has gotten much, much simpler.

"Overall thesis: less is more," Futoran said. "The more products you have, the more likely you have something that you're irritated by. It becomes counterintuitive."

Both Futoran and Ostad say unless there's visible dirt or makeup on your face, a splash of water is fine.

"If I have dirt on my face, I will cleanse," Futoran said. "But daily, I don't do that. I found it really dries my skin.

As Futoran has learned more about skin health, he's started taking a far gentler approach to cleaning his face, and he feels that his skin is happier for it.

Ostad says many inflammatory skin conditions are due to, or exacerbated by, overcleansing, which strips away the natural protection we have against elements like wind, cold, and dry air.

"Patients with rosacea, they get aggravation of their rosacea, people with dry skin get eczema, people with acne, their skin produces more oil to combat the dryness," he said. "Especially as we get into the winter weather, people just wreak havoc on their skin," Ostad said.

Moisturizing is the step you should never skip

The most important step in your skin routine, both Futoran and Ostad emphasized, is moisturizing to replace the skin's lost barrier. It should be done as soon as you're out of the shower or after washing or rinsing your face.

"My favorite thing after a shower is putting on moisturizer," Futoran said. "I've just had water on my face, and the moisturizer locks it in."

That's a tried-and-true skin-quenching tip that skin experts have been recommending to Business Insider for nearly a decade.

When choosing your moisturizer, Ostad recommends trying face creams that contain moisturizing ingredients such as niacinamide or ceramides.

"The most important step is moisturizing," he said. "Cleansing is not actually that important. If anything, it's harmful."

• Batu Demir backpacked on the Peaks of the Balkans trail with 99 of his McKinsey colleagues.
• Demir, who is blind, was guided by his colleagues as he walked during the weeklong trip.
• Demir said he wanted to do the hike to challenge himself and others' expectations.

This is an as-told-to essay based on an interview with Batu Demir, an associate at McKinsey who went on an employee-run, weeklong backpacking trip along the Peaks of the Balkans trail with 99 of his colleagues in September. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

When I heard that a group of my McKinsey colleagues was planning a backpacking trip, I thought it was up my alley because I like to challenge myself. I also like to challenge other people's worldviews.

I was also scared. One thing that is different about me is that I was born blind.

I was nervous about signing up for the hike because it wasn't something I could do on my own, and I like to be independent. I would have to give that up to a group of essentially strangers, even though they were colleagues.

Often when I have conversations like this, people focus on asking, "How do you do X? How do you do Y?" But when I reached out to a colleague who was organizing the trip, his mindset was "How can we make this happen?" So that made me excited.

About 10 people on the trip volunteered to walk with me for part of the day. I wrote a guide on how to guide the blind and shared it with my colleagues so they could get some understanding of what it could look like. I knew they might be nervous too because they were also doing something for the first time.

A couple of things scared me going into it: I didn't want to be a burden, and I didn't want to feel like I was a burden. That was extremely important to me, but I never felt for one second like I was being a burden.

On the trail

Each day we would wake up early for breakfast at around 7 a.m. Then we would make our lunches, pack our bags, and fill our water. We were staying in mountain huts with five or six people in a room.

Throughout all this, someone in the group would help me. In a setting where I know what's where, I can be independent and walk from one place to another. But we were visiting these places for one night, so I would just walk with whichever colleague was going to breakfast at the same time.

On the trail, I would typically walk with one of the volunteers for two hours at a time and then switch. As we walked, I would hold onto their elbow, and they would be one step ahead of me. By feeling their elbow, I could kind of feel their steps. They would also call them out and say things like, "Step up. Step down. Rocks. Trees. Step over something. Stay to your right."

Everybody was such a great communicator, but we had funny moments too. One colleague would say, "There is something weird ahead." I'd say, "That doesn't help me." And we'd laugh.

We also had a lot of fun conversations while walking, and we didn't talk much about work. They would tell me stories about who they were and where they came from, and travel stories. Food was, of course, a huge part of the conversation because we were hungry.

Trusting my colleagues

Walking with guides was a huge matter of trust. If an instruction came one second too early, I could try to take a step that doesn't exist. One second too late, I could fall off the rock we were stepping down. I also had to trust my own body. Of course I had missteps. I stepped on a rock that I wasn't supposed to, and the rock started rolling, but I trusted my body to be alert and correct those steps instead of falling.

Often we see our colleagues at work in moments of building a document together, or a presentation, or a stressful delivery for a client. This helped me see a completely different side of the firm and helped me appreciate my colleagues and the company that we work for a lot more.

I'll always remember those colleagues who walked with me and who were kind to me. They didn't make me feel like they were doing something for me, but that it was something we were doing as a team and they were doing it with me.

I couldn't see the scenery, but I could use my other senses

The trip was also a great way to disconnect from the world. Some people ask me, "Why do you go on a hut hike, because you can't even see the scenery?" Yes, I can't see the scenery, but I can use my other senses.

We did 1,000 meters of ascent almost every day, and the end of those climbs always felt special. We would be in the open mountains. I could feel the wind on my face blowing sharply. My guide would give me such great descriptions of my surroundings. Those were my favorite moments on the trip.

There's a faint smell of the pine trees at times when you're around trees. I could hear basically nothing. That's the mountains. You don't hear anything if you're not talking. Sometimes when we weren't in conversation, we were just listening to the crunch of our boots.

Those moments are special because I remember them vividly. It gives you a chance to reflect on who you are and what you want to do in this world.

We all tell ourselves sometimes that, "Oh, this would be difficult because I have X. This would be difficult because I have Y." In this case, "Oh, this trip would be extremely difficult because I'm blind." I saw that when you actually reach out, people are willing to help.

It's great for us and for me to question my limits and ask myself every day: "What are some limits that I'm accepting without questioning, and what would be possible if I refuse to accept them?"

• Marc Pascarelli spent three decades working in film, television, and digital media production.
• At 55, he enrolled in trade school alongside students mostly in their late teens and early 20s.
• He now works on marine equipment in Miami and enjoys being outdoors instead of behind a screen.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marc Pascarelli, based in Miami, about his career pivot from white-collar media jobs to the marine mechanic trade. It's been edited for length and clarity.

Over three decades, my hands-on media career slowly shrank down to a single, glowing screen.

It didn't start out that way. I got a master's from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program in the late '90s. This was back when email was brand new and editing was an elite craft you learned by peering over someone's shoulder in a dark room.

Looking back, my early career feels like a fun movie montage.

I did it all in media

My first job in the 90s was duplicating tapes for executives at Miramax. I moved on to AMC, cutting promos for Elvis movie marathons. I took film production gigs and found that I liked the physicality — being on location, behind the camera, loading film.

In the mid-2000s, I opened my own postproduction shop in downtown Manhattan. Having a physical headquarters was awesome, but I got ahead of my skis financially. After the 2008 crash, I couldn't keep pouring money into rent on my freelance income.

Around 2010, my dad got sick, so I closed my New York shop and moved to South Florida. The next decade became a blur of corporate media pivots: a stint in digital cinema, running field production and editing for a Univision-Disney startup, and eventually getting swallowed by the daily cable news machine. By the time the pandemic hit, the network had restructured entirely, and all I did was re-edit the Spanish network's stories in English. The creative work I loved was gone.

The editing suite started to feel like a trap. I was stuck in a windowless room, endlessly recutting the Spanish network's political mudslinging into English. When they finally axed the English division post-COVID, my lack of fluent Spanish sealed my fate. I walked away with a buyout check in an unforgiving local media market.

I felt like I was too old in my mid-50s

By my early 50s, I was working remotely in 3D animation for major cable networks and creating digital graphics for documentaries. On paper, it was the dream remote gig. In reality: 10 hours a day staring at a screen in my home office, waiting on a 25-year-old coordinator in New York to approve a single frame. You'd get an email, followed by a Slack message asking if you saw the email, followed by a text asking if you got the Slack message. I'd be like "Yup, sure did. Googly eye emoji."

I'm not a "woe is me" type, but the circumstances were building a case I couldn't ignore. Tech neck. An aching back. Job postings offering less money for more responsibilities. And South Florida's media market is bilingual — without fluent Spanish, the doors close fast. At some point, you look in the mirror and ask: Who's dying to hire a 55-year-old video editor? Am I just going to rot in this chair?

So I started looking around my own neighborhood. Boatyards line US-1 all up and down South Florida. I researched yacht repairman salaries, and they weren't bad. I've always been mechanically minded; on film sets, I loved hauling gear as much as cutting footage. And I didn't want to spend my 50s whining about dwindling freelance rates.

The old-school move is: you get a degree. That's what I really needed — another diploma under the bed. So I enrolled in the Marine Service Technologies program at McFatter Technical College.

I went to trade school

Trade school at 55 is a masterclass in shedding your ego. About 90% of my classmates were 18 to 24 years old. I showed up with a graying beard and a ball cap, next to teenagers whose dads had boats in the canal behind their houses. When they wore a cap and gown at graduation, it was their first. It was my third.

Early on, kids joked, "What'd you play with as a kid, a wooden hoop and a stick?" But I rigged up an iPad with a professional shotgun mic — the same setup I'd used shooting field news — to catch every detail of lectures about marine engines. They started calling me "Microphone Man." By midterms, the same kids mocking the setup were asking, "Yo, Microphone Man, you uploading the study guide today?" I shared it with everyone, the professor included.

I also got a gig after class working the counter at West Marine — the Home Depot of boating supplies — learning the insider lingo one impatient boat owner at a time.

I have less screen time and more sun now

Near the end of the yearlong program, my instructor introduced me to a graduate running a business out of the Miami Beach Marina. The company sells, services, and teaches lessons on luxury yacht toys — among them eFoils, electric hydrofoil boards that don't so much ride the water as hover above it. Basically, flying surfboards.

I wasn't the young, flashy hire. But the owner actually valued my decades of professional reliability, my experience teaching snowboarding, and the technical know-how I'd picked up in college. Today, my job mixes hands-on mechanical work — servicing eFoil motors, replacing gaskets, greasing components — with taking clients out on Biscayne Bay for lessons.

Financially, I took a hit. I burned through savings for the year in school, though Florida's vocational aid covered most of the tuition. I make about $25 an hour at the marina, which is unsettlingly close to what I was making as a freelance editor.

But desk work has a hidden cost: when you work from home in media, you're never truly off the clock. Now my commute is a mile-long, sun-kissed scooter ride. And when my shift ends, my day is actually over. I'm outside on the water, moving my body, surrounded by people having a good time. I still take the occasional freelance editing gig on my days off, but my life doesn't revolve around an inbox anymore.

Starting over in your 50s is daunting, but doing nothing is worse. Media skills don't transfer easily to other corporate ladders, and nobody hands out second chances. You have to build them yourself. Making this pivot showed me that change is possible at any age. And I'd rather go down swinging in the Florida sun than fade away behind a monitor.

• AI stocks weathered a historic sell-off this week as investors panicked about about data centers.
• Fears the Democrats could slow data center development led to the Nasdaq 100's worst sell-off since 2020.
• Notable moves were seen in chips, oil, and Treasurys as markets swooned.

Thursday was the ugliest day for stock investors in recent memory.

Investors threw a tantrum this week as they digested the results of the midterms, and panicked at the idea that Democratic victories could lead to tighter regulation of AI and data centers.

It culminated in the worst sell-off the market has seen in over a year, with the major indexes bearing the deepest losses since President Donald Trump's tariffs sparked chaos for investors last April.

The pain was deepest in tech, but no sector was spared. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 1,800 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 shed more than 6%.

Hedge funds unwound their positions at the fastest pace in over 10 years, according to an analysis from Wells Fargo. It also marked the heaviest single day of selling for retail investors since the pandemic, per Vanda Research, which tracks retail flows into stocks and ETFs.

These four charts illustrate the market bloodbath.

1. The Nasdaq 100 loses more than $2 trillion

The Nasdaq 100 shed $2.3 trillion in market cap on Thursday. The broader S&P 500 saw $3 trillion in value slashed from the index.

Thursday marked the Nasdaq's worst decline since March 2020, when the pandemic caused stocks to crater.

2. Chips see their worst day in six years

Chipmakers, the centerpiece of the market's AI trade, were clobbered as investors sought to reduce exposure to AI hardware in light of fears that the infrastructure boom could slow. The iShares Semiconductor ETF dropped 11%, logging its worst day in six years.

Here were some of the sector's most notable moves on Thursday:

3. Oil prices cratered 21% from their latest peak

Adjacent to the price action in stocks, oil prices also plunged this week, a sign that investors see Democratic lawmakers bringing a quicker end to the US-Iran war.

Brent, the international benchmark, dropped as low as $93 a barrel on Wednesday, marking a 21% plunge from its recent peak of $118 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude dropped as low as $96 a barrel on Wednesday.

4. The 10-year was dragged lower over 50 basis points from its latest peak

The huge risk-off moved sparked a flight to safety. For investors, that meant piling into government bonds, which are now sporting yields that are the highest in about two decades.

Treasury yields fell across the board on Thursday. The move was also aided by the decline in oil prices, which soothed inflation fears.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield dropped nine basis points on Thursday to around 4.84%. The 10-year yield is down 51 basis points from its peak of 5.34% earlier this fall.

• Candace Walker opened a wine bar in 2021, which she balances with her full-time job.
• Her friends have covered shifts so she could sneak in naps, she said.
• She shared the surprising pivot that kept her business growing — and the hours that make it work.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Candace Walker, a 42-year-old small-business owner based in Atlanta. It's been edited for length and clarity.

The concept for my business, The Vibrary, began at the start of the pandemic, during Zoom calls with my friends. We would share what books we were reading while enjoying a glass of wine. These calls gave us a much-needed reprieve from the stress of COVID and allowed us to connect on a deeper level.

I felt that if I could do this for myself and my friends over Zoom, then I could do it for others in person by building a community space.

I grew up near Stone Mountain Village in Atlanta, which is now a historic district, and remember going there as a child to get funnel cake. One day in 2020, I drove down Main Street, and while much had changed since I was a child and many businesses were closed, there were a lot of people walking around. A new brewery was packed. I noticed a vacant space and called a real estate agent to inquire about it.

Someone had already signed the lease, but less than a week later, they rescinded their offer. I decided to take a chance on my idea, and I paid a deposit for the space at the end of 2020. I currently manage the day-to-day operations of the business while working a full-time job as a director of a crime lab.

I had to be mindful of the other businesses in the area

There were already restaurants in the area, so I knew I wanted my business to focus on wine rather than offer a full menu. I also wanted to make sure The Vibrary was a good fit for what was already at the Village and with what I heard was coming. I decided to open it as a wine-and-book bar.

But starting my first business came with a lot of bumps and bruises, especially with pandemic-related supply chain disruptions.

I planned to soft open July 16, 2021, and was up against a tight timeline. I had to get permits, find someone to do electrical and plumbing work, and buy furniture and appliances. I purchased three dishwashers, and the orders either were lost or canceled.

However, we made it to our soft opening on July 16 and held the official grand-opening ribbon-cutting that August.

How I balance my 9-to-5 with my business

I launched this business knowing the first five years would require sacrifice, but a close-knit group of friends made it possible for me to manage both.

In the first two years of operating, my friends would come and run the place for a couple of hours while I took a nap. I learned to adjust to the schedule, allow people to assist me, and manage my time. This does mean sacrificing time with my family and friends.

I also decided to be open three days a week, which is manageable for me since I balance this with my full-time job. We do some events on Sundays, but generally I like to rest on that day. That allows me to recoup from the week from both jobs and then start back fresh the next week.

We made some pivots to keep the business healthy

In year five of operating my business, The Vibrary still fits my original vision to create a third space for people to connect without having to drive all the way to downtown Atlanta or Decatur.

There have been small changes. I quickly discovered books were not a large part of my sales and pivoted. Also, the Village is now an entertainment district. Which means that as a participating business, I can provide a sticker that lets patrons walk around with their wine, which is great because there are sometimes outdoor festivals and concerts.

This designation is helping to revitalize the area. Other new businesses are still popping up, and that's a good sign. With more things to do, people'll stay longer, spend more, and it's overall good for the area.

I'm hoping to expand locations in the future

Right now, I just have to sacrifice time with friends and family to make this happen. There are also many sleepless nights.

The space is still growing. It's recommended by the community for private events and local author book signings, which have been great to host. I'm focused on generating enough revenue to expand my staff, step away from day-to-day operations, and grow the business, including opening more locations.

Do you have a story to share about your small business? Contact this editor, Agnes Applegate, at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

• Andrew Ringler planned to have a career in finance, but left his corporate job for the roofing industry.
• At first, the people in his life didn't understand his decision, but he found success in the industry.
• Ringler is now the co-owner of a roofing company and says he doesn't miss the corporate environment.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Andrew Ringler, 29, co-owner and director of finance at a Michigan-based roofing company. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I'd always thought I'd pursue a career in finance.

I graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in finance, and during my time there, I had a handful of internships. My goal was to do equity research for a large investment fund.

Now, I own my own roofing company.

I took on a roofing sales job while waiting to start my corporate role

Once I graduated in 2019, I got a consulting role which, for a lot of people in finance, would be a dream come true. However, I wasn't set to start the job until August, and I couldn't go three or four months without a job.

My college roommate — who's now one of my business partners — was working in the roofing industry doing sales, and was able to help me get a job with him for that summer. I was working hard; I don't have a lot of other hobbies, so I just put my nose to the grindstone.

A lot of times in the roofing industry, you don't get paid for a job you sold until it's complete and the payment is collected, sometimes months later.

After I started my corporate job, I started having a lot of my roofing commission payments come in at the end of September. I realized I was making more in roofing sales than I would be in my consulting job.

The roofing industry was starting to become more attractive

I was always in a cubicle at my consulting job. And while my official hours were 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., I'd often work 10-hour days because I was willing to work more and enjoyed what I was doing.

Meanwhile, as a 1099 employee in roofing sales, I was able to structure my days how I wanted to; I could be outside on a beautiful sunny day in June as opposed to showing up at the office when it was dark out and leaving when it was dark out.

I got approval to keep selling roofs on the side, and because I like to work a lot, it worked out well.

I took the leap and left finance

During the summer of 2020, I made the tough decision to leave my finance role.

I've read a lot of books about risk, finance, and business, and if there's a time to take a jump, it's when you're young. I didn't have a family or any big responsibilities, so it made sense for me. It felt like I had an opportunity to bet on myself.

For a lot of people in my life, it was shocking. Many of my friends and mentors were in finance, and they were like, "What are you doing? You're leaving a lot of people's dream company for the roofing industry. That seems super odd."

My dad is a CPA and a financial advisor, so I shared my goals and success in the roofing industry with him before I made the career change. Still, even he was a little hesitant at first. I was leaving a job that had security, benefits, and 401(k) matching — every parent's dream for their kid.

Over time, the people in my life became more understanding, but there was definitely a period of six months to a year when people were a bit judgmental about the career switch.

At times, I've felt that people viewed me differently because of my career choice, but I like to prove people wrong, and it's only fueled the fire to show everyone I made the right choice.

I thought I might go back to finance

During the first six months or so of working in roofing full-time, there was a thought in the back of my mind that I might just be in the industry for a year or two before pivoting back to the finance industry.

However, I continued to be successful at it year after year, so I continued.

I could work as much as I wanted to work — sometimes 80- to 90- hour weeks — and unlike with my finance job, my income reflected it. It also gave me an opportunity to learn leadership and mentoring at a young age.

I'm now the co-owner of a roofing company

Last year, I split off from the roofing company I was with for more than six years, and I now own Pilot Roofing with two other owners. We have three full-time employees and are recruiting more.

In finance, I did a lot of data analysis and looked at spreadsheets all day. I still do a lot of that as an owner, but a lot of my day-to-day work is now working with customers and having an impact on the community I grew up in. I get to treat everyone I interact with — customers, insurance adjusters, employees — as friends.

In the white-collar world, everything has to be so proper. It was hard, especially as I was starting my career, to build relationships; you don't know what you can or can't talk about or share.

In the blue-collar world, everything is much more casual. I get to talk to people about the Detroit Lions or their son's baseball team, and have more real-life, real-world connections.

I also have a more flexible lifestyle. I get to travel and to see my friends and family whenever I want.

In addition to the flexibility, though, there can also be a lot of unpredictability. Finance was a very structured and controlled environment, but in roofing there are a lot of variables outside my control, like weather, material availability, and material prices. There are constant obstacles — but it's what makes the work exciting.

I take pride in challenging the stigma around working in the trades

When I meet people and they ask what I do, there's less interest than when I previously told people I was a financial consultant. There's often an unfair stigma surrounding the roofing industry; people associate working in the trades with a lack of educational or professional success, but I take a lot of pride in challenging that stigma. Success isn't defined by working behind a desk or having a certain job title.

There's no doubt in my mind that I made the best decision for me. There's nothing I miss about being in a corporate environment. There's a certain level of prestige that comes with finance, but I've learned that prestige and personal fulfillment aren't necessarily the same thing.

Whether it's roofing, heating and cooling, or plumbing, these jobs will never go away. I think there's a large opportunity for young people getting into the trades who want to work hard. There are incredibly talented, hardworking, and successful people in the industry and I'm proud to be a part of it.

It's not for everybody, but for me, it's been very rewarding.

Do you have a story to share about pivoting from a corporate job to the trades? Contact this editor, Jane Zhang, at janezhang@businessinsider.com.

• Ibrahim Noon now works at a VC firm called Forerunner in San Francisco.
• His college career included a Wall Street role, two startups, and research-focused clubs.
• He said reciprocal relationships, over sheer numbers of LinkedIn connections, helped him most.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ibrahim Noon, 20, a San Francisco-based associate at venture capital firm Forerunner. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I was raised on a small farm in Pakistan. My father is a farmer, but a historian at heart, so I grew up reading about Alexander, Napoleon, Hannibal, and, later, Silicon Valley figures like Steve Jobs. I was always fascinated by how a few people end up shaping what comes next.

My first exposure to the US was a two-month remote research program with Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. I worked on augmented- and virtual-reality simulations designed to teach students environmental science. I came to the University of California, Berkeley, at 17 to study economics and data science.

During university, I interned at KPMG in carbon markets, then at a brokerage firm in Miami, and then did sales for Morgan Stanley in New York. I had been this tech-savvy person who was not very social or open, and the Wall Street experience helped me become more comfortable talking to people.

I left the internship early to work on two startups back-to-back. I didn't end up pursuing them long-term, but I learned so much from doing discovery calls with customers and building both products from scratch.

I wanted to be on the other side of the table

With the startups wrapped, I felt clueless about what I wanted to do.

I had a very broad interest toward venture capital. This was initially noticed by one of my professors at the entrepreneurship and technology center, and I was nicknamed "VC Noon" in my class, after my last name. A lot of my friends who were pitching to VCs would come to me for feedback and advice before going to them.

Throughout college, I had been building relationships with investors, just informally and without any incentive. While working on my first startup, I met people at Afore Capital and began sending them founders I met through clubs and classes. I liked being the bridge between ambitious people and the firms that could help them.

After graduating in May, I had a return offer from Morgan Stanley and was supposed to start this August. In mid-July, I saw that a tech VC firm called Forerunner had been hiring an associate, but the application had already been paused for more than two months. I was frustrated that I had found it late because it seemed like a great fit for me. But I thought: I need to get in front of them regardless.

I spent a full day on a thoughtful email, my résumé, and a one-page investment thesis on consumer AI, and wrote all of it without using any AI. I read Forerunner’s website and all of its published prospectuses and developed my own investment thesis.

The interview process made my network tangible

My first call with a Forerunner partner felt natural because I was mindful not to just list my accolades but to have a real person-to-person conversation. I met more of the investment team in person over the next few days and reached an interview round, which involved a case study walkthrough.

For that case study, I had to map my network: who I knew, what they were building, and how Forerunner could benefit from those relationships. My thesis was simple: the next generation of founders is increasingly young, and it helps to build a real relationship with them before they have a company or even a solid idea.

“I want to find people before they find themselves” was the way I put it. They may work at OpenAI, Anthropic, Cognition, or another ambitious company before starting their own company. The goal is to stay in touch so that, when they begin building, we are already among the first people they call.

I learned that it matters less to have thousands of LinkedIn connections than to keep the right relationships warm. I have about 6,000 connections, but that does not mean I can ask every person for a favor.

Looking back, what worked for me is being in the right spaces, trying to be genuinely useful to others, and following up. I'd suggest anyone else looking to get into the industry young go to events, hackathons, and big conferences and introduce yourself. One small thing I do is keep my LinkedIn QR code as my phone lockscreen because people are always in a hurry at events.

I've also learned not to be afraid of outreach. At my Wall Street internship, I sent 250 outbound messages a day, with most people not getting back, and I applied that to my life too.

I tell myself: "Worst-case scenario, they just won't text back — and that's totally fine."

• I put down a $100 deposit on Tesla's Cybertruck, but ultimately bought a Model 3.
• I believed its extraordinary design would win over enough buyers. I was wrong.
• As I bid it farewell, I'm mourning the truck and my own wounded pride.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of a remarkable creature.

The Tesla Cybertruck.

Born in 2023, taken from us far too soon. Elon Musk announced late Thursday night that production will end around the middle of next year, making way for the Cybercab.

Ashes to ashes. Rust to rust. Stainless steel to scrap.

I stand before you today with a heavy heart. For I knew the Cybertruck well. Indeed, I must confess something.

I loved it.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

In June 2022, I secretly placed a $100 deposit on this magnificent, angular beast. I devoured every photograph and video. When I finally saw one in person at Tesla's San Jose showroom, my heart skipped a beat.

My wife threatened divorce if I bought one. My daughters thought it was ridiculous. Friends recoiled in horror.

But love is blind, my brothers and sisters. And apparently shaped like a giant stainless-steel refrigerator.

I persevered. I defended the Cybertruck against the unbelievers. When sales surged in 2024, making it America's third-best-selling electric vehicle in one quarter, I covered it with gusto.

Hallelujah! The Cybertruck was rising!

Alas, pride goeth before destruction.

The warning signs were there. The price soared past $100,000. I canceled my reservation, choosing my children's college education over my automotive infatuation. Eventually, I bought a sensible Model 3.

Then came Musk's DOGE adventures. Public fury. Vandalism. Collapsing sales.

The Cybertruck, once destined to conquer America's pickup market, sold just 20,000 units last year. Tesla has shipped around 16,000 so far in 2026.

And now, the end.

Was I wrong about this vehicle's prospects? Yes, dear congregation. I was. I believed its extraordinary design would attract enough buyers to sustain a thriving business.

Instead, it became a spectacular commercial failure.

But as I stand here, wiping away a tear, I must ask myself: Am I mourning the Cybertruck? Or my own wounded pride?

Perhaps both.

Yet I refuse to repent entirely. The world needs dreamers willing to build something gloriously different, even when everyone else thinks they're mad.

The Cybertruck made me smile. It still does.

And that, surely, is worth something. Just not $100,000.

Rest in peace, my beautiful, ridiculous friend.

May your batteries forever be charged, your panels forever aligned, and your resale value forgiven.

Amen.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com

• Property taxes were on the ballot across this country this midterms cycle.
• Florida homeowners voted to give themselves a big tax break.
• The property tax break might inspire copycats across the country.

On Election Day, real estate agent Christopher Wands got a $2.3 million offer on a luxury condo in Miami.

It came from a Chicago family interested in relocating to Florida. They wanted an answer that night and had a condition: They needed to close in 30 days.

There was one surprising factor in the family's rush to close — this week's midterm elections and a big change to how Florida taxes homes. "They want to achieve the exemption," Wands said.

Florida passed a property tax exemption Tuesday night that applies to people who were state residents in 2026; move to Florida after that and you'll have to wait five years for a tax break.

Florida's Amendment 3, which passed by a wide margin, doubled the homeowner tax exemption to $100,000. It'll grow to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028. However, for those who buy next year, that larger exemption only applies once they've been in their houses for at least five years, with newer owners getting a smaller break.

"Think of Amendment 3 as a big coupon," Wands said. "It doesn't matter how rich you are. People like to save money."

The Florida amendment is the latest move in a generational game of tax hot potato. Across the country, America's homeowners, who are generally older, have voted to give themselves property tax breaks. State and local governments will need to either make up the lost revenue by raising sales, income, and other taxes, or cut services such as education or fire coverage. Younger workers and renters would likely feel the burden of those non-property taxes more than entrenched older homeowners.

Voters across several states said "no" to raising taxes on their real estate. In North Carolina, voters gave the state assembly power to limit property tax increases, and Louisiana voters opted to give older residents property tax breaks. Tennessee will amend its state constitution to prevent the legislature from imposing a property tax, and Texas municipalities rejected billions in new property taxes.

In Florida, homestead property taxes are the largest source of revenue for local governments, according to the Tax Foundation; Amendment 3 is projected to cost them $4.9 billion in its first year, per the Tax Foundation's analysis, and could become an $8.7 billion hit when the exemption is increased in its second year. In 2025, school districts, counties, and municipalities collected more than $59 billion in property taxes, according to the Florida Department of Revenue.

"Over time, this reduces the amount that Florida can collect from homeowners, particularly from long-time homeowners who also get the benefit of Florida's Save Our Homes assessment limit, which reduces the taxable value of their property," Jared Walczak, a senior fellow at the Tax Foundation, said of Florida's new tax regime. "This shifts much more of the burden to newer homes, newer homeowners, to renters, to commercial property."

He also expects that Florida's move will create copycats.

"The fact that it passed in Florida, where a lot of people are paying attention, is likely to mean that lawmakers and organizations may try to get similar measures either before legislatures or on ballots in other states," Walczak said. "But I think voters overall across the country struck a tone of caution."

But changing tax burdens may not move the needle on Florida's home prices, said Peggy Olin, CEO of Florida brokerage OneWorld Properties.

"I wish real estate worked that way," Olin said. "But let us keep it in perspective: nobody with any sense buys a home for a tax break."

• A report from UNLV's Lied Center for Real Estate shows housing permits are stalling across America.
• Some states are seeing increases, while others lag behind, which might impact future housing supply.
• States like South Carolina, Idaho, and North Carolina lead in permits that may further ease prices.

The US housing pipeline is stalling — an indicator that affordable housing may remain hard to find nationwide.

From January to August 2026, housing permits remained "essentially flat" nationwide, with a 0.05% increase since 2025, but a 4.1% drop since 2023, according to an October research report from the Lied Center for Real Estate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"We are doing a terrible job building housing," said Nicholas Irwin, coauthor of the report and research director at the Lied Center for Real Estate. "Some states are doing better than others, but across the nation, there are a lot of places that are really falling behind."

States like New York have seen an increase in permits; others like Nevada have fallen:

Business Insider has reported on how Americans are finding it increasingly hard to afford housing. Tracking permit growth helps estimate how much housing might become available across the country in the coming years.

"If we don't have that housing available for people to absorb as new households form, then that is going to be a serious drag on affordability and future economic growth," Irwin said.

Some states are doing better than others

A total of 968,187 permits were issued nationwide from January to August 2026, according to the report. This is about 2.83 permitted units per 1,000 residents in the US. Permits for single-family homes account for 64%, and 32% are for multifamily homes.

Yet, a few states continue to approve housing permits at higher rates.

South Carolina, Idaho, and North Carolina have the highest permit rates per 1,000 residents, at least double the national average.

Irwin noted that those states could see a slowdown in prices in the longer run.

"That means hopefully, as wages continue to grow year over year, and the amount of building you're doing is putting downward pressure on housing prices, housing naturally becomes more affordable," he said.

On the other end of the scale, Alaska, Connecticut, and Illinois had the lowest rates of permits per capita among the states:

The report also compared the income required to afford each state's median-priced home with the median income of homeowner households. California saw the biggest gap: Median homeowner income is at $138,800, $84,900 short of what is needed to afford a California median-priced home.

Meanwhile, in other states like Iowa, the typical homeowner earns $22,300 above the required income to access a median-priced home. In 31 states, the median homeowner earns less than what is needed to afford a median-priced home, the report said.

Irwin said states should continue building all types of housing to boost affordability. One way to do that is to provide incentives through local policy, considering every state is different.

"All of our individual states are laboratories for democracy, as the saying goes," he said. "Some states have taken a much different approach to how they allow the building of housing and how involved local governments can be in blocking housing."

• When my second marriage fell apart, I picked up cross-stitching to distract myself.
• When I made an error, I wanted to give up rather than unravel hours of work.
• More than 2,000 hours into my hobby, I learned that moving on doesn't always mean undoing mistakes.

When my second marriage fell apart, I became obsessed with what I could have done differently. Alone in a deafeningly quiet house that had once been filled with my husband and three stepchildren, I replayed conversations and glaring warning signs.

My best friend brought me a beginner's cross-stitching kit. It seemed the worst possible match for my mental state: an exacting, painstakingly slow process of impaling an open-weave cloth in fussy X-shapes where a single miscounted thread can ruin the entire pattern hundreds of hours later.

But I was desperate for something to occupy my mind other than the dissolution of my family. I gave it a try.

This hobby requires painful precision

While my friend sat on the couch next to me making progress on an elaborate winter scene, I clumsily punched my needle through the fabric with an overhead light blaring down so I could see clearly. I counted once, then twice, then checked a third time just to make sure I wouldn't make a mistake.

My little scene that said "Happy Camper" came into view as I moved between a pine tree, lettering, and a small camping vehicle. Within a couple of hours, I was finished and proud of the small accomplishment that had effectively distracted me from my otherwise sullen state of mind.

I soon moved on to a more advanced project featuring a map of the United States, each state represented by a different pattern. Texas was a collage of flowers in pinks and teals whose intricate pattern tripped me up on multiple occasions.

Sometimes I'd spend hours stitching before realizing I'd miscounted. I'd take scissors to the back, unravel my work, and frustratingly start again.

Every time I discovered a mistake, I wanted to give up altogether. I could spend an entire evening undoing a few misplaced stitches, convinced that anything less than perfect would ruin the whole project.

Concurrently, I did the same thing with my marriage as I mentally retraced my decisions as though I could somehow go back and change the outcome. I struggled to accept that some things couldn't be fixed, regardless of how much effort I put in.

I learned that not every mistake can be undone

Eventually, I moved on to an outdoor scene and made a huge error that took me weeks to notice. By the time I discovered it, I'd already stitched so much of the surrounding pattern that unraveling the entire section seemed impossible. I momentarily considered abandoning the project altogether.

Instead, I surgically removed a whole section of the fabric and stitched in a clean piece of cloth. I worried the repair would be conspicuous — like a permanent reminder of how badly I'd screwed up — but as I continued working, I could barely detect the seam.

I hadn't considered the possibility that I could still end up with something beautiful, even if it was technically flawed. It was a lesson I desperately needed outside the confines of my embroidery hoop.

The mistakes I couldn't erase became part of the picture

After more than 2,000 hours of cross-stitching, my nightly ritual has given me an unexpected framework for navigating life after divorce. I began to recognize the difference between mistakes worth correcting and imperfections I could simply learn to live with.

There is a counterintuitive psychological comfort in practicing an unforgiving hobby while trying to forgive myself. I can't undo two failed marriages, but I can decide how much time and energy to spend dwelling on what had gone wrong.

I credit my creative pastime with laying the groundwork for a healthy relationship with my partner, Jason, that's going strong for five years. The other night I sat next to him on the couch and unfurled my canvas, to which he commented, "Your creativity is still one of my favorite things about you."

It's now easier to see the whole beautiful picture.

The holiday shopping season is just around the corner, and every year, the best Black Friday streaming deals have thoroughly impressed us. While most of the major limited-time deals don't get underway until closer to Thanksgiving, you can still cut costs while cutting the cord with these early deals.

Our team is constantly hunting for deals using our rigorous vetting process, so you can rest assured that we'll keep this page updated as soon as new streaming deals launch. If you can't wait until later this month, there are a few stellar streaming sales you can shop right now, which we've rounded up below.

Best early Black Friday streaming deals

YouTube TV has consistently offered the best live TV deals throughout the year, and the ongoing sale is no exception. New users can get $15 a month off their first five months of service with the Main plan. This offer brings monthly subscription prices from $83 a month down to $68 a month for five months, or $75 in total savings. You'll need to click through our link to find the full five-month offer, which runs until Thanksgiving Day.

If you're interested in live TV platforms but want something other than YouTube TV, Fubo is one of the best live TV streaming services we've tested, especially for international sports fans or those seeking a massive number of channels. First-time customers can get $25 off their first month of the Pro plan (normally $89 a month) or $30 off their first month of the Elite plan (normally $99 a month).

Other ways to save on streaming services

Most Black Friday streaming deals haven't launched yet, but opting for an annual plan or a bundle is an easy way to score savings right now. The prices below show how much you'd save with an annual plan each year compared to paying for 12 months of a monthly plan, or how much you'd save with a bundle each month compared to paying for the two services separately.

Disney Plus offers some of the best Black Friday deals each year, and we're hoping the streaming platform will participate again in 2026. While the platform doesn't usually launch its deals until much closer to the shopping holiday, you can save some money right now by opting for a Disney Plus annual plan or by bundling monthly service with Hulu and ESPN Unlimited, ESPN Select, or HBO Max.

If the Disney Plus and Hulu bundles aren't quite your speed, but you're still interested in ESPN or HBO Max, you can also save some money by giving one of the stand-alone annual plans a go. Likewise, ESPN Unlimited can be bundled with FOX One or NFL Plus Premium at a lower price than paying for two services separately each month.

Paramount Plus is another frequent Black Friday participant, and we're hoping that the streaming service drops a deal later this month. In the meantime, you can save by signing up for annual versions of the Essential or Premium tier.

Even Apple TV got in on the Black Friday action last year, and we'll see if the streaming platform decides to play ball once again. You can already save big-time on a yearly basis by signing up for an annual plan.

If you don't want to commit to an annual plan, there are also some monthly savings opportunities when you sign up for one of the Apple TV and Peacock bundles, compared to what you'd pay if you subscribed to them separately. Last year, Peacock didn't participate in Black Friday, despite doing so in the past, so we're curious to see if they get back into the deals game in 2026. Like Apple TV, you can save money on a yearly basis by subscribing to a Peacock annual plan.

Crunchyroll is the top anime streaming service out there, and last year, the platform offered $20 off the Mega Fan annual membership fee on Black Friday. While the streaming service hasn't rolled out any limited-time deals yet, you can save right now with an annual plan compared to what you'd pay after 12 months of a monthly plan.

YouTube TV and Fubo are running some of the best live TV introductory offers right now, but DirecTV and Sling TV are two other popular options we've enjoyed that also have some deals. DirecTV is running intro offers on all of its Signature plans, as well as a few genre packs. While Sling TV doesn't have any notable introductory offers, you can get the Sling Orange + Blue combo plan for less than subscribing to Sling Orange and Sling Blue separately, since both plans have some channel overlap.

FAQ

When do Black Friday streaming deals typically launch?

We've found that if a streaming service is going to launch a special limited-time deal, they'll do it by Black Friday and not wait until Cyber Monday (although the sales usually extend until then, which you can read more about below). This year, Black Friday is on November 27, 2026. Oftentimes, a streaming platform will kick off the deal beforehand.

In 2025, services like Apple TV and Prime Video launched their deals about a week before Black Friday. HBO Max launched its deal on the Monday of Thanksgiving week, and the Disney Plus and Hulu bundle deals launched that Tuesday, although early access was available the day before for the ad-supported version. Last year, Paramount Plus also launched its monthly promos on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week.

When do Black Friday streaming deals end?

Black Friday streaming deals rarely end on Black Friday. Instead, these limited-time discounts usually turn into Cyber Monday deals, and occasionally extend beyond that. This year, Cyber Monday falls on November 30 (not December!), so we recommend signing up by the end of the day on Cyber Monday. When these deals launch, we'll comb through the fine print and identify the exact end date so that you don't have to.

If you're interested in the YouTube TV deal we've highlighted today, you'll want to cash in before Black Friday since the offer ends on November 26, 2026. There's a chance YouTube TV will extend the offer or launch another deal in its place, but if you're keen to sign up for this particular deal, it might be a good idea to do it by Thanksgiving.

Check out our best streaming services guide for more information on these services. If you're planning to wait for official Black Friday deals, check out our piece on why you might want to cancel your services before then.

• PSI said it used an unreleased Anthropic AI model to solve a quantum computing question.
• The Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture concerns the speed of quantum vs. classical computers.
• The proof marked the latest breakthrough in AI's disruption of mathematics.

AI just helped work out one of quantum computing's biggest open questions.

Physical Superintelligence Inc., or PSI, said Friday it used an unreleased model from Anthropic to prove the Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture, a long-standing problem in quantum computing.

The physics research lab said the conjecture, which is essentially an educated guess that has not yet been proven, has been open since 2008 and concerns determining when quantum computers can be significantly faster than regular computers.

The lab developed a research system that included the Anthropic model. The system was able to prove the conjecture within three days, "settling one of the most fundamental questions in quantum computing," PSI said.

"Quantum computing still has plenty of mysteries, but now there is one fewer," the lab said.

The announcement marked the latest breakthrough in mathematics achieved with the help of AI. In September, OpenAI said it had solved a 90-year-old math problem, the Navier-Stokes equations, calling it "one of the deepest problems at the frontier of mathematics."

The AI disruption of mathematics has led many in the field to speculate what it will mean for their futures. Terence Tao, a prominent mathematics professor at UCLA, said last month that math's "romantic era" was over, adding, "We are entering an era where exciting new things are possible, but some things are being lost."

Math students are also reconsidering their careers. MIT researchers who polled grad students and postdocs found 76% reported they were unlikely to stay in academic math after graduating, while the same amount said AI developments had made them less motivated to do research.

David Turturean, a member of the technical staff at PSI, developed the research system that used the unreleased Anthropic model to prove the Aaronson-Ambainis conjecture.

It's not clear what unreleased model PSI used. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment.

The proof, PSI said, shows that certain exponential advantages of quantum computing require special patterns or structures, meaning quantum computers have limits, which was long suspected (though they'd still be a major upgrade for some tasks). While quantum computers exist, they are still in the early stages of development.

Researchers who had previously worked on the problem said the proof was a "huge result" that resolved a decades-old question.

"Everything is brought together in a rather magical way," Guy Blanc, Jordan Docter, Carmen Strassle, and Li-Yang Tan of Stanford University said of the proof, according to PSI's announcement.

Cable's reign on popular culture might be winding down, but live TV streaming services are becoming more necessary than ever, especially for fans of network TV shows, sports, and news. While these packages can get pricey, YouTube TV is currently offering 18% off the first five months of service.

YouTube TV normally costs $83 a month, but new users can get $15 a month off their first five months of streaming after a free trial. The discount is available until November 26, 2026, which means that you have a few more weeks to cash in. The offer is only available if you click through our YouTube TV link (otherwise, you'll just see a two-month deal).

We spend our days tracking deals and vetting them to see if they're actually worth it, and not just a flashy "sale" tag. The top subscription deals offer deep discounts spread over a long period of time. With a total of $75 in savings over five months, the deal on YouTube TV's Main plan does exactly that. This is one of the best early Black Friday streaming deals we've spotted, and the best sale we've seen on a live TV service so far this year.

We're fans of YouTube TV because of its impressive channel selection, user-friendliness, and suite of other key features, including unlimited cloud DVR, multiview, and up to three simultaneous streams (and up to six household accounts).

The streaming platform carries 100+ channels in its Main plan, including both cable favorites and local network affiliates. Subscribers can access everything from ESPN, FS1, CNN, and Bravo to ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. The service has also integrated ESPN Unlimited content directly into YouTube TV.

FAQ

How long has the YouTube TV deal been around?

The YouTube TV deal first launched on January 1, 2026, and has been extended a few times. The current offer is scheduled to conclude on November 26.

How long is the YouTube TV free trial?

YouTube TV offers a free trial for new users, so you can try out the service for multiple days before you're charged for your first month, giving you time to decide whether it's a good fit. YouTube TV's free trial varies in length, so you should check to see what's available to you when you go to sign up. We've seen trials ranging from two to 21 days.

What channels are available with YouTube TV?

As we mentioned above, pretty much every channel you'd find in a standard cable package is available through a YouTube TV subscription. That includes robust local channel coverage (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) and cable networks.

In YouTube TV's Main plan, some of the most notable channels available include AMC, Bravo, CNN, Disney Channel, ESPN, FS1, FS2, Fox News, FX, MTV, NFL Network, TBS, TNT, truTV, and USA.

Are there other YouTube TV plans?

While the Main plan is YouTube TV's flagship subscription option, the streaming platform has also introduced other cheaper, genre-specific packages, including Sports + News.

Does YouTube TV have add-ons?

While YouTube TV's Main plan offers most popular channels, you might find that one or two niche favorites are missing. Fortunately, you can add select channel options for an extra monthly fee. One of the most popular add-ons is NFL RedZone with Sports Plus for $10.99 a month. This add-on includes the Tennis Channel, Willow, and beIN Sports, among other niche networks.

The $29.99 a month Entertainment Plus add-on includes HBO Max, Paramount Plus with Showtime, and STARZ, and all of their related channels. 4K Plus, HBO Max Standard, Spanish Plus, and AMC Plus are among the many other add-ons.

How do you sign up for the YouTube TV deal?

Signing up for the YouTube TV deal is a simple process. For the main plan, just make sure to click through one of our YouTube TV links to ensure you're accessing the full five-month offer (navigating to the YouTube TV sign-up page through other means, like Google, will only show you a two-month offer).

Once you click through, you can check the plans and channels that are available to you in your ZIP code. You can start the sign-up process by clicking the big blue "Try It Free" button, which will prompt you to choose a Google account to sign in with.

For the latest buying advice updates, follow us on Instagram and WhatsApp. Check out our guides to the best Early Black Friday sales and Black Friday TV deals for even more discounts.

Stores are kicking off Black Friday sales earlier than ever this year. Brands across style, furniture, tech, streaming, beauty, and travel are all trickling in with shocking discounts before the inevitable flood of markdowns arrives the week of Thanksgiving. So if a November birthday, a broken vacuum, or a lost earbud has you browsing now, don't fret: you can take advantage of these early Black Friday deals.

As someone who has been covering Black Fridays for over a decade, I'm not exaggerating when I say that the deals are pretty ripe for the picking already. While some retailers are holding out for the holiday to drop their best discounts, offers like $15 Mint Mobile and $1,500 off at Koala are already the lowest drops we're likely to see. If you can wait until the big day, do so — but you can shop worry-free with the deals our team has gathered below.

• Read our editors' early Black Friday roundups: Streaming services | TVs | Headphones | Verizon

• Read our editors' early Black Friday roundups: Mattresses | Coop Sleep Goods | Saatva | Koala | Rifle Paper Co. | Pet carriers | Litter boxes

• Read our editors' early Black Friday roundups: Shoes | Luggage | Alo | Vuori | Lilysilk | Spanx

When is Black Friday?

Black Friday 2026 lands on November 27, the day after Thanksgiving. The following Monday, November 30, will be Cyber Monday. As you can see above, though, many stores have started their sales early, hoping to steal a march on the competition.

For the latest buying advice updates, follow us on Instagram and WhatsApp.

• The White House salary report shows its top-paid staffers earn up to $197,200 annually.
• Senior advisors, legal counsel, and policy directors are among the highest earners listed.
• Government salaries can fall below private sector pay but far exceed the national average income.

Working at the White House might be one of the most exclusive and prestigious jobs in the US, but you'd be surprised by how much some of the people around the president make each year.

For starters, having the top job — that is, being the president of the US — brings in a salary of $400,000, which some independently wealthy presidents, such as John F. Kennedy, Herbert Hoover, and Donald Trump, have chosen to donate instead.

While the figure is significantly higher than what the average American makes — $72,800 in 2025, according to the Social Security Administration — it's also less than you would need to be in the top 1% of earners across all US states.

In 2025, the top 1% of earners in Maryland and Virginia, which border the District of Columbia, earn $677,543 and $701,792 annually, respectively.

Government salaries often lag behind what professionals earn in the private sector, since serving the public isn't as lucrative as maximizing shareholder value. Still, to say that those working at the White House are underpaid would be an overstatement.

On July 1, the White House shared with Congress the salaries of all employees inside the White House Office, including aides, advisors, and staff leaders, as it is legally required to.

Some of the highest-compensated workers around the president include policy advisors and legal counsel, while others are responsible for the president's communications and personnel management. Lower-paid roles include research assistants and press assistants.

Other notable names, like Marco Rubio and David Sacks, declared a $0 salary from the office of the president, either forgoing their salary or receiving compensation from other branches of government.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

See the 34 highest-paid White House staffers listed in the July 2026 report. Some staffers, including Susie Wiles and Karoline Leavitt, have since changed roles or left the White House.

Gary Barnett

Role: Senior policy advisor

Salary: $197,200

Scott Brady

Role: Executive director of the Anti-Fraud Task Force

Salary: $197,200

Lucas Croslow

Role: Senior policy advisor

Salary: $197,200

Blake Deeley

Role: Deputy executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council

Salary: $197,200

Harry Jung

Role: Deputy director of the Presidential Council of Advisors for Digital Assets

Salary: $197,200

Peter Lake

Role: Senior advisor

Salary: $197,200

James "J.C." Miller

Role: Senior policy advisor

Salary: $197,200

Joseph Simonson

Role: Senior policy advisor

Salary: $197,200

Nick Stewart

Role: Policy advisor

Salary: $197,200

Jarrod Agen

Role: Executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council

Salary: $195,200

Brittany Baldwin

Role: Senior policy advisor

Salary: $195,200

Walker Barrett

Role: Assistant to the president for policy

Salary: $195,200

Meghan Bauer

Role: Cabinet Secretary

Salary: $195,200

James Braid (former role)

Role: Director of legislative affairs

Salary: $195,200

James Braid left his role as the White House director of legislative affairs in early October. Katie Bailey succeeded him.

Steven Cheung

Role: Director of communications

Salary: $195,200

John Coale

Role: Deputy assistant to the president and deputy special envoy to Ukraine

Salary: $195,200

Coale has since been appointed special envoy to Belarus. He was also nominated by Trump in October 2026 as the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, though he has not yet been confirmed.

Joshua Fisher

Role: Director of management and administration and director to the Office of Administration

Salary: $195,200

Shawn Flynn

Role: Associate counsel

Salary: $195,200

Vince Haley

Role: Director of the Domestic Policy Council

Salary: $195,200

Hayley Harrison

Role: Chief of staff to the first lady

Salary: $195,200

William 'Beau' Harrison

Role: Deputy chief of staff for operations

Salary: $195,200

Kevin Hassett

Role: Assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council

Salary: $195,200

Anne Hawkins

Role: Senior policy advisor

Salary: $195,200

Tom Homan

Role: Border czar

Salary: $195,200

Karoline Leavitt (former role)

Role: White House press secretary

Salary: $195,200

Karoline Leavitt left her role as the White House press secretary in August. She was briefly replaced by Katie Zacharia. Trump has not yet announced a replacement.

Stephen Miller (former role)

Role: Deputy chief of staff for policy and Homeland Security advisor

Salary: $195,200

Miller was promoted to chief of staff after Susie Wiles' exit on November 6. Trump described him as "one of my most trusted advisors." He starts on November 9.

Peter Navarro

Role: Senior counselor for trade and manufacturing

Salary: $195,200

Daniel Scavino

Role: Deputy chief of staff director of the Office for Presidential Personnel

Salary: $195,200

Will Scharf

Role: Staff secretary

Salary: $195,200

Courtney Stecker

Role: Senior policy advisor

Salary: $195,200

David Warrington

Role: Counsel to the president

Salary: $195,200

Susie Wiles (former role)

Role: Chief of staff

Salary: $195,200

Susie Wiles left her role as the White House chief of staff on November 6, Trump announced on Truth Social. He said she "has done an outstanding job." Trump named Stephen Miller as her replacement.

Patrick Witt

Role: Executive director of the Presidential Council of Advisors for Digital Assets

Salary: $195,200

Ross Worthington

Role: Director of speechwriting

Salary: $195,200

Editor's Note: This article was first published in October 2022 and most recently updated in November 2026.

I review TVs year-round, so I know just how expensive top models can be. That's why I'm excited to see so many great early Black Friday TV deals available right now. The main event is still a few weeks away, but some of my favorite TVs from Samsung, LG, TCL, Hisense, and Sony are at all-time low prices.

The Samsung S90H OLED is an especially good value. It's my pick for the best TV overall, combining pixel-level contrast with an impressive anti-glare screen that significantly reduces reflections. The 65-inch size is down to a record-low of $1,398 on Amazon. But if you're on a tighter budget and after a smaller screen, I highly recommend the TCL 55-inch QM6K, which is 20% off on Amazon, bringing it down to $478. The QM6K is my pick for the best budget TV, and it stands out from a lot of entry-level rivals by offering Mini LED local dimming and a high 144Hz refresh rate.

Though I anticipate even bigger savings on some TVs once Black Friday officially arrives, all of the early TV deals I've included below represent good discounts on each model's typical street price. I'll be keeping an eye on more TV deals throughout the holiday shopping season, so be sure to check back for the latest discounts.

The best early Black Friday Samsung TV deals

Some of the best Samsung TVs are on sale in the lead-up to Black Friday. Most notably, the S90H and S95H OLEDs are getting excellent discounts, with some sizes down to the lowest prices I've seen so far. The S90H is the brand's most versatile set and a top value for most needs, while the S95H delivers industry-leading OLED brightness. You can learn more in our Samsung S90H TV review and Samsung S95H TV review.

The best early Black Friday TCL TV deals

TCL's TVs are known for competitive pricing, and these early Black Friday deals only sweeten the pot. In addition to excellent discounts on the entry-level QM6K, I recommend the step-up QM8L and QM7L, which offer brighter panels and a wider color range. In particular, those with larger budgets who want a massive screen should check out the 98-inch QM8L, which is $3,000 off right now, which matches its Prime Day price. Check out my guide to the best TCL TVs for more details.

The best early Black Friday Hisense TV deals

Like TCL, Hisense has some of the most competitive TV pricing on the market, and several of its top displays are getting excellent early deals. Most notably, Hisense's 2026 U7SG and U6SF Pro are both great values for anyone looking for an affordable TV suited to a bright room. Both are getting great discounts and feature anti-glare screens (in sizes under 100 inches). That's a rarity for TVs at such budget-friendly prices. For more details, see our guide to the best Hisense TVs, and check our full review of the Hisense U6SF Pro.

The best early Black Friday LG TV deals

LG makes some of my favorite OLED TVs, and its C6 and C6H are both getting excellent discounts. The C6H is my go-to recommendation for anyone who wants an extra-large OLED. This model is only sold in 77- and 83-inch sizes, and it delivers a noticeably brighter image than the standard C6, which is available in smaller sizes. The 83-inch C6H is at a record low of $3,300 on Amazon. Though that's still a big investment, it's one of the lowest prices I've ever seen for an OLED this large and this bright. For more info, head over to my LG C6H TV review and guide to the best LG TVs.

The best early Black Friday Sony TV deals

Though Sony makes some of the most impressive TVs on the market, its top models often carry a premium over similar offerings from other brands. But right now, you can snag one of the company's most advanced TVs for a surprisingly competitive deal price. The Bravia 7 II True RGB TV is up to $1,000 off in various sizes. For the money, the Bravia 7 II is the best RGB TV I've tested, and it's my pick for the best Sony TV for most needs. It features the brand's new True RGB backlight system, which uses separate red, green, and blue LEDs to produce a richer, purer range of colors than a standard QLED or Mini LED set.

TV deal FAQs

When is Black Friday?

In 2026, Black Friday will be on November 27. Cyber Monday will follow on November 30. I'll be tracking deals on TVs and other tech products throughout the sale, so check back for more coverage.

How do we pick TV deals?

I’ve been covering TVs for over 10 years and follow the market year-round, which means I keep close tabs on price changes. To vet each discount, I compare the advertised sale price against a TV’s usual street price and its original launch MSRP using price-tracking tools such as CamelCamelCamel and Keepa.

Not every deal above matches a record low, but each one offers meaningful savings compared with what that TV typically costs.

What type of TV is best for you?

The TV industry is packed with marketing jargon, but terms like LED, QLED, Mini LED, OLED, and RGB LED do translate to meaningful differences in performance. Your best choice will depend on your budget, the amount of light in your room, and what you watch most often. Here’s a quick breakdown:

• OLED TVs: OLEDs, including QD-OLED and tandem OLED models, offer the best all-around picture quality on the market. Because each pixel can control its own light, they produce perfect black levels, an infinite contrast ratio, and very wide viewing angles — all of which make them especially well-suited to home theaters. The downsides are their higher cost, especially for larger sizes, lower peak brightness than top Mini LED/RGB LED/QLED sets, and a small risk of burn-in. For a deeper dive, see our OLED vs. QLED comparison.
• QLED TVs: QLED TVs, including newer SQD models, use LED backlights and quantum dots to create bright, rich colors. Top models work particularly well in sunny rooms, are available across a broad range of screen sizes and price points, and aren’t susceptible to burn-in. The best models also use Mini LED local dimming to enhance contrast, but they still fall short of OLED in black levels and off-center viewing.
• LED TVs: Basic LED TVs are usually the cheapest option on the market, especially if you're looking to upgrade to a larger screen size on a very tight budget. They can get the job done for everyday viewing, but they often lack features like quantum dots, local dimming, and wide-color support, which limits their overall picture performance. Most notably, entry-level LED TVs are dim and produce cloudy black levels that look washed out in a dark room.
• RGB LED TVs: Sometimes called Micro RGB, RGB Mini LED, or True RGB, these newer TV models use individual red, green, and blue LEDs in their backlight to achieve a wider range of colors than any other type of TV. The potential is exciting, but there are only a few options, and OLED still offers better contrast and viewing angles. Learn more in our RGB LED vs. Mini LED comparison.

What size TV should you buy?

The ideal TV size depends on your room, viewing distance, and budget. A 65-inch screen is a good baseline for general home theater use, as it's typically a sweet spot for most living rooms. Smaller sets are better for compact rooms and apartments, while going beyond 65 inches can make sports, movies, and games feel even more immersive. However, a large screen doesn't automatically mean good picture quality.

When looking through Black Friday TV deals, it’s easy to get drawn to a low-priced giant TV. But in many cases, spending the same amount on a smaller, higher-tier model will get you better brightness, color, contrast, and overall image quality. Consider the screen size alongside the display technology and picture features to find the best match for your space and budget.

Shopping for more discounts today? Check out our deals homepage for more savings across tech, home, kitchen, style, streaming, pets, and more.

As we come to a close on the first week of November, even more Black Friday deals have started to arrive early. I owe some of my coziest in-flight outfit moments to Vuori, and while there's no Black Friday sale live yet, it currently has plenty of in-season clearance items at up to 50% off.

Last year on Black Friday, Vuori ran a promotion deal for a free zip pouch or tote with a minimum purchase. But to me, Black Friday isn't about freebies. I'm more interested in how much I can save on sweats I'll wear all winter.

Until Black Friday does hit, Vuori's bestsellers from past seasons will gradually run out of stock. Popular sizes and colorways are the first to go, so it's wise to look at what's left before your preferred ones are gone.

• Shop Vuori's early Black Friday deals for men and women

The best early Black Friday Vuori deals

Since there was no actual Vuori Black Friday sale last year, and we don't yet know whether that's about to change, now's the time to secure savings on Vuori's comfortable, upscale loungewear.

From the best travel pants for women to soft hoodies and polished base layers, here's what I'd buy while it's discounted right now at Vuori. See our full Vuori review to learn which styles we like best. There you'll also find detailed fit guidance to help you choose the right size.

• See the full list of all women's sale styles at Vuori.

The best early Black Friday Vuori deals for men

Among the most comfortable men's athleisure we tested, Vuori's sweats and track jackets have come in clutch during pre- and post-workout routines. The Sunday Performance Joggers in particular feel as "smooth-as-silk" with a tapered fit that's "just right — not too loose, not too tight," says our men's style contributor Mark Marino.

• See the full list of all men's sale styles from Vuori.

FAQs on early Black Friday Vuori deals

When is the Vuori Black Friday sale?

It's not yet known whether the brand will have deals. This year, Black Friday falls on November 27. Last year Vuori ran a promotion offering a free tote or pouch instead of a sitewide sale.

What are the best Vuori clothing on sale right now?

While our fitness gear experts prefer other workout clothing brands for their performance, Vuori does excel at comfortable, stylish basics for travel and casual errand days. The Halo Essential Wideleg Pant deal is our standout pick. See our full Vuori travel loungewear review and learn more about how the Reviews team tests clothing at BI.

Does Vuori have free shipping and returns?

Returns are free. Ground shipping is free for orders over $75. For anything less, the standard shipping rate costs $6.

• Tesla's Cybertruck is getting the ax after 3.5 years of production.
• The electric pickup has had several iconic moments.
• Those moments gave the Cybertruck unique salience in pop culture — but didn't generate volume sales.

The Tesla Cybertruck is getting the ax.

On Friday morning, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on X that the silver-clad, angular EV truck will wind down production until the "middle of next year." The EV maker delivered an estimated 76,000 units in all over the past three years, according to Cox Automotive data — far below its original lofty sales expectations.

It marks the end of the line for perhaps the strangest-looking car on American roads today.

"The design generated tremendous attention," Stephanie Valdez Streaty, a director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, told Business Insider, but the weird looks "also narrowed its appeal."

Still, the Cybertruck occupied a large role in American culture and politics, even if it didn't sell a lot of units.

Here are some of the Cybertruck's most iconic moments, in images:

2019: Cybertruck's unveiling

The Cybertruck was revealed to the world on a cloud-filled stage at Tesla's design center in Hawthorne, California, in November 2019.

The "Blade Runner" inspired truck was supposed to start at $39,900, Musk predicted. He said the truck would start production in late 2021 — and that Tesla was hoping for three trims with 250-, 300-, and 500-mile ranges.

2019: Windows demo goes awry

At the reveal event, Musk said the car's steel skin could shrug off bullets from a 9mm handgun. Then, Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla's chief designer, threw a metal ball at the driver's window to test its ruggedness.

The driver's window shattered on contact.

"Well, maybe that was a little too hard," Musk said before they decided to throw the ball at the rear-seat window — which also shattered. "It didn't go through!"

Musk said that 146,000 paid $100 to reserve a Cybertruck after the event.

2019: A tug-of-war with Ford

Days after the Cybertruck's 2019 unveiling, Musk posted a tug-of-war video on X (then called Twitter) between the Tesla and America's best-selling pickup, the Ford F-150.

The stunt was meant to demonstrate the Cybertruck's brute strength — but critics questioned whether it was a fair matchup: The F-150's rear tires spin in the footage, and some suggested Tesla had pitted an all-wheel-drive Cybertruck against a two-wheel-drive Ford.

2021: Production delays, a few public sightings

Tesla's original plan to deliver the Cybertruck to customers by late 2021 was delayed by pandemic-related supply chain snags.

The EV maker still captured attention by displaying the truck's prototype at its dealerships — including in May 2021, when one landed at Tesla's New York City retail store in the Meatpacking District.

2023: Workers surround the first Cybertruck

After two years of delays, production Cybertrucks started rolling off Tesla's assembly lines in mid-2023.

2023: Cybertruck races a Porsche — while towing a Porsche

Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck to the first batch of customers in November 2023.

During the delivery event, Tesla showed a video of the Cybertruck in a drag race with a Porsche. The pickup reached the finish line before the German sports car — while it was towing a Porsche.

Tesla didn't specify which Porsche model it raced against.

2023: Alexis Ohanian takes delivery

Multiple people picked up their Cybertruck during a livestreamed delivery event — the biggest name was Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian.

2024: Pharrell Williams struggles to parallel park

In the months after the Cybertruck's release, several A-list celebrities were spotted with the electric pickup — including Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, and Justin Bieber.

No celeb spotting was more consequential than Pharrell Williams's.

The singer-songwriter and Louis Vuitton creative director was pictured struggling to parallel park the giant truck in Miami in January 2024. Eventually, a valet driver took over.

"That truck was never going to fit," Roxana Gonzalez, a bystander who watched the parking attempts, told Business Insider at the time.

2024: A snowy driveway

Despite Musk's statements about the Cybertruck's ruggedness, viral videos after the truck's launch painted a very different picture.

In late 2023 and early 2024, social media lit up with videos of Cybertrucks struggling to traverse snow.

2024: The recalls start

So far, the Cybertruck has been recalled 11 times.

In April 2024, Tesla recalled nearly 3,900 early trucks because a loose accelerator pedal pad could cause the car to accelerate rapidly.

More recalls followed, including windshield wiper issues, loose exterior trim, delayed rear-camera images, potential power loss, and body panels that could detach while driving.

2025: Tesla protests

As President Donald Trump reclaimed the White House — with the strong backing of Musk — the Cybertruck became a political object, fused with MAGA.

In early 2025, as Musk began his government role as the public face of DOGE, protests outside Tesla dealerships began. The Cybertruck was common poster board material.

2025: The Cybertruck at the White House

On March 11, 2025, Trump turned the White House South Lawn into a Tesla showroom.

He and Musk held a press conference in front of five models — including a Cybertruck — as the president praised the cars and planned to buy a red Model S.

"Everything's computer," the president famously said as he got into the sedan.

The photo op made the political association surrounding Tesla impossible to miss.

2025: Partnerships with SpaceX

SpaceX, Musk's space exploration and AI company, reported in its S-1 in May that it spent $131 million to buy Cybertrucks from Tesla in 2025.

Depending on the unit price, that amounts to roughly 1,200 to 1,800 vehicles.

Black Friday is still a few weeks away, but Alo's sale section is already well stocked. The brand has marked down hundreds of women's and men's styles — including leggings, tennis dresses, cozy layers, trousers, and jackets — by 20% to 40%.

Alo can get expensive, so this is a smart time to shop if you've been eyeing its activewear or cold-weather layers. Most of the strongest discounts are 30% off, though a few women's styles are 40% off. Sizes and colors tend to sell out quickly in the sale section, so I wouldn't wait until Black Friday itself if you spot something you actually want.

Alo deals on women's clothing

The brand has tons of women’s styles marked down, including leggings, tennis dresses, cozy layers, outerwear, and pieces that look more like real clothes than gym gear.

Alo deals on men's clothing

There are also more than 100 men’s Alo styles on sale, including long-sleeve tees, sleek trousers, jackets, and elevated sweats.

Alo sale FAQs

Does Alo have an early Black Friday sale?

Alo hasn't announced a sitewide Black Friday promotion yet, but its women's sale and men's sale are already stocked with hundreds of marked-down styles. Current discounts range from 20% to 40% off.

Will Alo's Black Friday sale be better?

Alo's Black Friday sale was 30% off sitewide last year, so its current markdowns — which range from 20% to 40% off — are already competitive, especially on the styles discounted by 30% or more.

Can you return Alo sale items?

Yes — Alo's sale items can generally be returned within 30 days for a refund, exchange, or store credit as long as they're unused, in sellable condition, have their original tags, and include proof of purchase. The exception is anything explicitly marked Final Sale, which cannot be returned, exchanged, or credited.

• Famed attorney Alex Spiro said AI could cut the "fat in the middle" from the legal industry.
• AI tools could make it easier for lawyers to decide whether a case is worth trying, he said.
• Spiro has represented high-profile clients including Elon Musk, Alec Baldwin, and Jay-Z.

High-profile attorney Alex Spiro said artificial intelligence could strip much of the "fat in the middle" out of the legal industry, pushing more cases toward either quicker settlements or all-out trials.

Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan's New York office and Elon Musk's go-to attorney, said during a Thursday appearance on the tech talk show TBPN that AI tools could help make it easier for lawyers to decide whether a case is worth taking to trial.

"I think AI will eliminate a layer of a lot of things, including my day job. And by eliminating that layer, it allows you to get to the truth and synthesize it faster," Spiro said. "If you can do that, then I think you can make quicker decisions on, this is something to resolve or this is something to go all the way on."

Spiro, who has represented actor Alec Baldwin, rapper Jay-Z, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and ex-New York City Mayor Eric Adams, said this could mean fewer cases languishing in costly, drawn-out litigation.

"Maybe the way it'll work is a lot of the fat in the middle is going to be cut out," Spiro said. "Cases will settle quickly or go to trial, and there won't be as much in-between litigation that is pointless and sort of ebbing between the two."

Ultimately, the use of the technology could lead to more trials by helping attorneys analyze cases more quickly and identify which cases are worth fighting.

"Maybe there are more trials, frankly, because people just say, 'Okay we just did an analysis of these 10 cases. These nine should settle. This one shouldn't. We're going all the way,'" Spiro said. "And then people don't get that nervousness that they get where some companies they'll think in their mind, 'Okay, these three are going to have to be tried,' but then they end up caving because they're too risk averse."

Still, Spiro said AI would not change his strategy.

"I haven't changed my approach to trying cases or how to present in front of a jury in 20 years," said Spiro, adding, "There are argumentative techniques that work and some that don't."

Jurors, he said, "are not changing based on AI."

"So I'm going to talk to them exactly the same way," Spiro said. "It just may be that the people that get me the information that I distill into my arguments, there needs to be fewer of them, or they have a simpler, more linear path in getting me that information because they have technological tools that make it faster, sleeker."

Asked whether AI could make clients overly confident in their own legal judgment, Spiro quipped that he was already familiar with that dynamic.

"I represent almost exclusively clients that think that they know more about the law," said Spiro. "It's my specialty."

• Abdulrahman Alfozan was an engineer at OpenAI before he was accused of bugging the startup's office.
• He's charged with intercepting oral communications and was previously denied release.
• Alfozan entered a not-guilty plea on Friday in San Francisco's federal courthouse.

Abdulrahman Alfozan, the OpenAI engineer fired and arrested last month on accusations that he'd bugged the company's office, pleaded not guilty on Friday.

He entered the plea in San Francisco's federal courthouse, a few weeks into his detention. A judge at a prior hearing deemed the Saudi a flight risk and declined his request for bond.

Federal agents arrested Alfozan on October 9 and charged him with one count of intercepting oral communications. Prosecutors say the 35-year-old engineer hid a recording device wrapped in toilet paper behind a television in an OpenAI conference room. They also alleged that his wife's chatbot history showed multiple prompts about building, testing, and hiding an audio recorder.

On Friday, Judge Peter Kang reminded Alfozan of his rights to remain silent and to an attorney.

Alfozan's lawyer, David Rizk, waived the reading of Alfozan's indictment and entered a not-guilty plea.

Alfozan and his wife lived in Millbrae, California. Neighbors told Business Insider that the couple largely kept to themselves, though they would occasionally host parties. Before OpenAI, Alfozan worked at Facebook, a Y Combinator-backed startup called Nash, and as a venture capital investor for a Saudi firm.

He's lived in the US since college. His previous lawyer said he had a green card, making him a permanent legal resident, and had been weeks away from a naturalization interview before his arrest.

Alfozan's next hearing is scheduled for November 17.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at scouncil@businessinsider.com, or over text, Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 415-757-8198. Use a personal email address, a non-work WiFi network, and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• "I Play Rocky" tells the behind-the-scenes story of how "Rocky" was made.
• The movie features Anthony Ippolito's spot-on performance as Sylvester Stallone.
• Here's how the cast compares to the real-life people they play.

If you thought "Rocky" was a remarkable underdog story, wait until you learn how it was made.

"I Play Rocky," from director Peter Farrelly ("Green Book"), recounts the story of how Sylvester Stallone got his start in Hollywood. As a struggling actor in the 1970s, Stallone wrote the "Rocky" screenplay as a way to give himself a starring role. After gaining the attention of producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, who had a first-look deal with MGM, Stallone then had to battle the producers and the studio to allow him to play Rocky Balboa.

"Rocky" would go on to win the best picture Oscar and launch a massive franchise, and Stallone went from an unknown to a global superstar overnight. But as Farrelly chronicles in his movie, the making of "Rocky" was far from smooth sailing: it was shot on a shoestring budget, and Stallone suffered injuries throughout the production.

"I Play Rocky" is heightened by top-notch performances from Anthony Ippolito as Stallone, Anna Sophia Robb as Stallone's first wife, Sasha Czack, and Matt Dillon as Stallone's father.

Here's how the actors compare to the real-life people they play in "I Play Rocky."

Anthony Ippolito plays Sylvester Stallone.

Stallone was the lifeblood of "Rocky." He wrote the script and would only agree to sell it to Winkler and Chartoff on the condition that he played Balboa, turning down over $200,000 for him to sell the script without starring in it. By betting on himself, he would make not just Balboa a household name but himself, as well.

Ippolito is a 27-year-old from Long Island who is just beginning his career in Hollywood. Before "I Play Rocky," his biggest credit was playing Al Pacino in the 2022 Paramount+ miniseries "The Offer," which chronicled the making of "The Godfather."

From his voice to the way he moves on screen, his performance as Stallone is astoundingly accurate.

AnnaSophia Robb plays Sasha Czack, Stallone's first wife.

Czack dated Stallone back when he was a struggling actor. They married in 1974, two years before "Rocky" was released and became a sensation. Czack was also the still photographer on the "Rocky" set. She and Stallone divorced in 1985.

Robb has been acting since she was a child. She played Violet Beauregarde in Tim Burton's 2005 "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Other credits include "Soul Surfer" (2011), "The Way, Way Back" (2013), and "Rebel Ridge" (2024).

She portrays Czack as Stallone's emotional rock and biggest cheerleader. She types out Stallone's handwritten pages of the "Rocky" script and keeps him upbeat throughout the challenging "Rocky" shoot.

Matt Dillon plays Frank Stallone Sr., Sly's father.

Frank Stallone Sr. was a barber and aspiring actor. His only acting credit was playing the timekeeper in the boxing match between Balboa and Apollo Creed at the end of "Rocky."

Dillon is an acclaimed actor whose credits range from classics like "The Outsiders" (1983), "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989), and "Wild Things" (1998) to modern auteur movies like "Crash" (2005"), "The House that Jack Built" (2018), and "Asteroid City" (2023). This is not his first time working on a Peter Farrelly movie. He starred in the 1998 comedy classic "There's Something About Mary," which Farrelly made with his brother, Bobby.

Dillon plays Stallone Sr. as a tough father who often talks down to his son. Sylvester has said his relationship with his father was fraught, and revealed in his 2023 Netflix documentary, "Sly," that his father was "physical" toward him and his older brother.

P.J. Byrne plays "Rocky" producer Irwin Winkler.

Winkler is a Hollywood producer who formed the production company Chartoff-Winkler Productions with Robert Chartoff. The company made hit movies like "Point Blank" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" in the 1960s. After winning the best picture Oscar for "Rocky," they produced "Raging Bull" (1980) and "The Right Stuff" (1983) before dissolving their company in 1985, though they were both producers on all the "Rocky" sequels. Since then, Winkler has produced "Goodfellas" (1990) and "The Irishman" (2019).

Byrne has played memorable roles in "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013), "Rampage" (2018), and the current TV series "The Rainmaker."

He portrays Winkler as a tough but fair producer who isn't immediately sold on Stallone playing Balboa, but when he finally comes around, he's loyal to Stallone.

Toby Kebbell plays "Rocky" producer Robert Chartoff.

Chartoff is the other half of Chartoff-Winkler Productions. After the company dissolved in 1985, Chartoff's credits included "The Tempest" (2010) and "Ender's Game" (2013). He died in 2015.

Kebbell is an English actor who has worked steadily in Hollywood since the early 2000s. His credits include "War Horse" (2011), "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" (2014), "Ben-Hur" (2016), and "Kong: Skull Island" (2017). He played Dr. Doom in the ill-fated "Fantastic Four" (2015).

Kebbell plays Chartoff as the softer half of the Chartoff-Winkler duo. He's the one who suggests they lower the film's budget so they can have final say on casting.

Stephan James plays Carl Weathers, who starred as Apollo Creed in "Rocky."

Before his acting career, Carl Weathers was a football player who signed with the Oakland Raiders in 1970 and played seven games. After a short stint playing in the Canadian Football League in 1973, he retired from football.

Playing the bombastic Creed in "Rocky" was Weathers' breakout role. He would go on to enjoy a long acting career, starring in three "Rocky" sequels, hits like "Predator" (1987) and "Happy Gilmore" (1996), and "The Mandalorian" TV series, for which he was nominated for an Emmy. Weathers died in 2024.

James is best known for starring in the acclaimed 2018 movie, "If Beale Street Could Talk."

James plays Weathers with a lot of bravado, though it's eventually revealed he has as limited a boxing ability as Stallone.

Jay Duplass plays "Rocky" director John G. Avildsen.

Avildsen won the best director Oscar for "Rocky." He went on to direct "The Karate Kid" (1984) and the next two sequels. He also returned to the "Rocky" franchise to direct "Rocky V" (1990). Avildsen died in 2017.

Jay and his younger brother Mark started their careers as major figures in the "mumblecore" indie film movement, a DIY style that often featured non-actors and non-traditional plots. Jay's acting credits include "The Mindy Project," "Transparent," and "Industry."

Duplass portrays Avildsen as a fast-talking, fast-moving filmmaker who is determined to make "Rocky" less a boxing story and more a character study.

Kiki Seto plays Talia Shire, who starred as Adrian in "Rocky."

Shire was one of the few established actors on the "Rocky" set. She had played Connie Corleone in "The Godfather" (1972) and "The Godfather Part II (1974), which earned her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. She would go on to earn an Oscar nomination for best actress for playing Adrian and would reprise the role in four more "Rocky" sequels.

"I Play Rocky" marks Seto's first feature film role.

Seto has limited scenes, but makes the most of them. Seto's highlight in the movie is when she reveals to Stallone and Avildsen before a scene at an ice rink that she doesn't know how to ice skate.

"I Play Rocky" is in theaters now.

• After my second child was born, I couldn't justify spending half my wages on childcare.
• I left my job of 17 years and started earning money through several small businesses.
• I now earn up to $2,000 a month while working fewer hours and spending more time with my kids.

After having my second child, I quit my job of 17 years because I couldn't justify sacrificing half my wages for childcare.

Instead, I'm running multiple side hustles that rarely require me to be away from my kids. And, no, I'm not getting rich playing games or taking surveys on my phone. I'm trying to replace the income I previously earned without giving up the flexibility I want as a mom.

Right now, I bring in $1,400 to $2,000 a month. Some hustles have clear pros and cons. Some are more convenient, lucrative, or glamorous, whereas others I may need to consider dropping altogether.

Turo is the closest thing to passive income

I was hesitant to rent my beloved Toyota Tacoma to strangers. But it's paid off, I'm not commuting anymore, and we have access to my husband's vehicle.

In the nine months it's been listed on Turo this year, the truck averages $400 a month in earned and projected income. The app handles most of the process, and renters treat it respectfully.

The biggest inconvenience is coordinating pickup and drop-off, especially airport runs. Occasionally, I need help from others. Still, compared with the almost nonexistent time I spend managing it, Turo is my easiest yes.

The photo booth has the best earning potential

For a decade, I've been a photo booth attendant for a local event company. I typically make $200 for a three-hour event, although drive time, setup, and teardown make for longer evenings.

Recently, my husband and I bought our own mirror photo booth and started our Phoenix-based company, True Reflections Photo Booth Co. Since most of the gear was secondhand or discounted, the upfront costs were under $ 5,000.

Our typical event charges $600. If my husband or I run it, we keep the profit and skip the middleman. In theory, we can recoup our investment in fewer than 10 events.

Of course, now we're responsible for insurance, software, equipment, marketing, storage (our garage), and taxes. We've had one gig so far and have two more lined up, but need to get booking ASAP.

I didn't have to worry about networking as a hired hand, but, to me, that's half the fun. Either way, this is a lucrative hustle I never refuse.

Freelance writing is the hardest hustle for me to quit

Despite having an English degree and maintaining my own lifestyle blog, landing paid assignments can feel impossible.

Freelance writing requires ridiculous persistence. Rejection is common, even for veterans.

I've written for $10 and even for free to get noticed. When a pitch finally convinces an editor, though, I earn $125 to $250 for an 800- to 1,000-word article.

If it weren't my longest-running passion, this tumultuous gig isn't always worth it as a momtrepreneur. Alas, I continue to pitch and sometimes get lucky.

Cleaning pays well, but only thanks to free childcare

Through Care.com, I found a weekly housekeeping and meal-prep job that pays $25 an hour, or about $300 a month. I also occasionally clean a friend's Airbnb for $150, usually in three hours.

The money-to-time ratio is solid. I enjoy the physicality and catching up on audiobooks.

But family watches my kids for free. If I had to pay for childcare so I could clean someone else's house, the math really wouldn't add up.

My simple syrup business is small, inexpensive, and fun enough to keep

I started making homemade coffee syrups to avoid overspending on artificial drive-thru coffee. This summer, I joined Arizona's Cottage Food program and began selling them.

An 8.5-ounce bottle sells for $12, and my margin is about 70%. The ingredients are inexpensive, and I've streamlined my process enough that production only takes a few hours each week, including managing my Hotplate storefront.

My toddler and I occasionally run a driveway coffee stand to highlight flavors. He gets the cash tips.

Since I make these for my own home café anyway, this microbusiness is worth growing for now.

Print-on-demand has potential, but not worth the effort right now

My husband is a designer, and we run a Shopify store using Printify for shirts, mugs, hats, and other merchandise.

Unfortunately, it isn't profitable yet.

Original, non-AI designs take time. Uploading them to various products is tedious. Then comes SEO, advertising, and social media — all the work required to persuade strangers that the products exist.

A $60 hoodie sounds promising until nobody buys it.

We haven't shut the store down, but it's on the back burner until we can devote creativity and time toward it without compromising quality.

I've learned flexibility has value, too

In the past, I read tons of articles that claimed extra income is a cinch. Clearly, it's not; I don't always reap as much as I sow. But it can be done, and there are endless options.

My side hustles aren't as consistent as my prior job. Every month looks different; managing multiple small businesses means wearing many hats and constantly balancing my calendar.

But I'm earning close to my old paycheck while spending more time at home with my boys. I used to work about 70 hours a month; now I only work half that amount.

Time is truly my favorite currency.