Apple delivered an earnings beat on both the top and bottom lines for its fiscal third quarter on Thursday, but its stock sank 7% after CEO Tim Cook warned that its supply chain was facing "very significant constraints."

Apple's services business, iPad segment, and China sales all came in below Wall Street's estimates. The company's revenue growth guidance for the current quarter came in below Wall Street estimates.

The company's all-important iPhone sales came in slightly above estimates, at $109.4 billion for the quarter, compared with $108.85 billion. Earnings per share were $2.02, beating analysts' estimates of $1.89. Mac revenue smashed expectations, coming in at $10.35 billion compared to estimates of $8.62 billion.

This marks CEO Tim Cook's final earnings cycle as CEO, with "product guy" and hardware boss John Ternus taking over on September 1st. Cook will remain on as executive chairman.

Ternus is inheriting the helm as Apple's stock has been the best performer in the elite group of mega-cap tech names this year, up 25%. The company surpassed a $5 trillion market cap for the first time earlier this week, then fell slightly.

But Apple's analyst call made it clear the incoming CEO will face supply chain challenges, an area that has been Cook's specialty.

Apple raised hardware prices in June in a move it said would help offset rising memory costs amid a global shortage. Cook said it was too early to know the impact of the price hikes, which have not yet included the iPhone.

"The primary issue is advanced nodes that we run our SOCs on," Cook said on the analyst call, referencing supply constraints of its system-on-a-chip silicon. "That's the primary supply constraint now, and the root cause of it is not a regular supply issue. It's a demand forecast issue."

"We've been pulling supply ahead, and at some point, there's a limit to that, and so we've got a quarter that we're going to be scrambling on the supply side, essentially," Cook said.

Scroll on for the complete play-by-play of Apple's earnings call:

That's a wrap! Apple's stock is trading down 6.7% after hours as the analyst call concludes.

Thanks for joining — see you next quarter!

Apple CFO walks through gross margin impacts

Apple's gross margin at the company level for fiscal Q3 was 48.1% after adjusting for the tariff refund, compared to 49.3% in the prior quarter. Apple's CFO chalked up that decrease mostly to rising memory costs.

"While FX was a factor, really the main driver was really the memory cost impact," he says. "And as Tim outlined earlier, when we talked a bit about you know the dynamics around the memory costs, we did see some partial offsets from things like the benefit of carrying inventory reduction in non-memory component costs, and some favorable mix."

Cook's final earnings question as CEO: What to do in the EU?

For his final investor call as Apple CEO, Cook's last question is about the company's plans around the globe. Siri AI is not currently coming to Europe, he highlights, unless there are regulatory changes.

"If you look at the EU, we're working closely with the Commission," Cook says. "Obviously, our complete desire is to launch everything everywhere at the same time. That's always the philosophy that we have. We have not been able to do that in the European Union, but we're working closely with them to try to get to something that would allow us to offer Siri AI there."

Apple's incoming CEO speaks!

We just got our first — very brief — response from incoming CEO, John Ternus, on this call. He was asked about Apple's growing competition from OpenAI and SpaceX.

"I would just say reiterate what Tim said," Ternus says. "There is so much opportunity for us with everything that's happening in this space, and we're just really focused on our plans and very excited about it."

The impact of Apple's recent price hikes is inconclusive so far, Cook says

Cook says of the recent Mac and iPad price hikes: It's "just too early to come to a definitive conclusion of what happens there." He says Apple is waiting to see how the supply chain and consumers respond before locking in the pricing changes for good.

A theme on this analyst call? Lots of congrats to Tim Cook.

Nearly every analyst has begun their questions in the live Q&A by congratulating Cook ahead of his coming departure from the CEO role. We haven't heard from incoming CEO John Ternus yet.

Tim Cook talks about Apple's "competitive weapon" in AI.

Cook hypes up the new Siri AI, and "where it is going," and says early feedback has been strong. Being able to run "some percentage" of AI requests on-device is "strategic" and a "competitive weapon."

Apple CFO says foreign exchange will "continue to be a headwind."

"This is a theme that's impacting the services business more so than the total company," Apple's CFO says. "We expect foreign exchange to drive about a five percentage point headwind to the year-on-year growth rate from the March to September quarter."

Apple's price hike "reluctance"

Cook says Apple "reluctantly raised prices" on its Macs and iPads. He again called recent memory constraints a "100-year flood"- type event.

Cook says there's a "limit" to how much supply you can pull ahead.

"The primary issue is advanced nodes that we run our SOCs on," Cook says, referencing system-on-a-chip silicon. "That's the primary supply constraint now, and the root cause of it is not a regular supply issue. It's a demand forecast issue."

"We've been pulling supply ahead, and at some point, there's a limit to that, and so we've got a quarter that we're going to be scrambling on the supply side, essentially," Cook says.

Cook: "This isn't a partner or supplier issue"

Talking about silicon supply constraints, Cook emphasizes that the "incredibly strong" iPhone and Mac product supply cycle is at the crux of the supply constraints, not an issue with a particular partner or supplier.

Apple is working through its compute plan for Siri AI

AI is expensive. That's a new challenge for an AI-powered Siri. "In terms of what it means for compute cost, it's obviously early going for us, and so I don't want to say that we have a complete plan for that," Cook says.

Apple's guidance for the current quarter underwhelms Wall Street

Wall Street is balking at Apple's guidance color for the current quarter, which ends in September. Apple expects total revenue growth of 9% to 11% year over year — that's below Wall Street's estimate of 12.1%.

Apple says that it will be affected by two main factors.

"First, when we look at kind of going from the June quarter to September quarter, we expect foreign exchange to be a sequential headwind of around two and a half percentage points to the year-over-year total company growth rate," Cook says.

"And then the second impact is that the impact in supply constraints is we expect that to increase significantly when we go sequentially from June to September, and that projected supply constraint in the September quarter will affect the iPhone, Mac, and the iPad, and really, when you combine those two factors, we get pretty close to the June overall total company growth rate."

Cook wants more DRAM suppliers

The US only has three DRAM suppliers, Cook points out. That gives those producers a lot of pricing power in the market. "If there were more suppliers, that would be good, and it would help us on the supply side and perhaps the pricing side," he says.

The stock is down over 7% after hours after Apple flags "very significant constraints."

Apple famously doesn't provide full revenue estimates for the year, but it shares tidbits about what it's watching in future quarters. The main worry for the next three months that Apple is highlighting is the ability to build enough iPhones.

Apple says there are "very significant constraints" that impact iPhone, iPad, and other devices.

Cook is really emphasizing Apple's worries about memory shortages. He reiterates that iPhone production could be constrained. That's important because Apple hasn't yet raised iPhone prices (unlike the Mac).

Tim Cook says the CEO transition is going "seamlessly."

Cook thanks the analysts and investors. He calls incoming John Ternus "one of a kind" and says that he couldn't be more confident in his leadership.

Apple CFO talks services milestone: 1.5 billion in paid subscriptions

While Apple's services business came in below Wall Street's estimates, Apple CFO Kevan Parekh says the company is feeling some momentum. "Our services continue to attract more customers, and we have now surpassed one and a half billion in paid subscriptions," he said.

Apple CFO: Disney is increasingly using Macs to save on AI token costs.

"More companies are choosing Mac for on-device AI advantages, including lower costs, better performance, and enhanced privacy and security," Parekh says.

"At Disney, creative teams are increasingly turning to Mac for on-device AI workflows that reduce overall cloud token costs and keep their IP secure."

Apple's CFO is up next, going over the past quarter's numbers.

We might hear from incoming CEO John Ternus after CFO Kevan Parekh finishes his prepared remarks.

Cook: "I've never been more confident that the best is yet to come"

In closing his prepared remarks, Cook projects optimism about the company's direction. "I couldn't be more excited to watch our phenomenal story of innovation continue to unfold, and I've never been more confident that the best is yet to come."

Apple's tariff refunds are a "re-investment," Cook says

Cook is talking about Apple's plans to manufacture device parts and chips in the US. It comes as the company just received a major financial boost from tariff refunds, which Cook says it will reinvest in the US.

President Donald Trump has previously said he would keep track of companies that didn't apply for tariff refunds even though they could. Apple's saying its tariff refunds will be reinvested in the US is an example of Cook's political maneuvering. He's known as Apple's "Trump whisperer."

Tim Cook is taking a victory lap, hot on the heels of Apple TV award nominations

"It was wonderful to see Apple TV earn the industry's top honors, adding Tony Awards this year to its Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar wins," Cook says. "We reached that milestone faster than any streamer in history."

He also shouts out Apple's Emmy nominations.

"Widows Bay also stands out as the year's most nominated new program, earning 19 Emmy nominations," he adds.

Ted Lasso is coming back

Cooks is highlighting the forthcoming season of Apple TV's breakaway show, Ted Lasso.

Siri AI is getting lots of love from Cook

Cook keeps talking about how much better the new Siri AI will be. The voice assistant's fall update will be "intuitive and useful, while also deeply integrated in a way that's personal and private," he says. The new Siri will publicly launch in September alongside the new iPhone lineup.

Cook touts blowout Mac sales

"Mac delivered its best June quarter yet with $10.4 billion in revenue, growing an impressive 29% from a year ago, despite significant supply constraints," the CEO says.

Cook says Macs are great AI machines too.

"We're seeing customers increasingly put those capabilities to work, from using Mac Mini as a powerful platform for agentic AI to deploying clusters of Mac Studio systems to run frontier-class models locally, across the lineup. Customers continue to embrace the Mac family," Cook says.

The iPhone is on a tear

Sales of the iPhone are up everywhere around the globe, Cook says. He said it's because the phone is the "most powerful and most popular iPhone lineup we've ever had."

Tim Cook is "thrilled" about the new Siri AI, which is currently in beta but launches in September.

Cook says he's excited about the early response to the newly overhauled Siri. He's called it an "overwhelmingly positive reaction."

Tim Cook begins his (final) prepared remarks by shouting out the June quarter revenue record.

For his final earnings call as CEO, Tim Cook is taking a victory lap. He's highlighting new revenue records of various Apple segments.

Update: Incoming CEO John Ternus is on the call.

We'll hear from him shortly. First up is Tim Cook.

And we're off! Apple's analyst call begins.

Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook will be on the call (his last as chief executive). So will CFO Kevan Parekh. One question is how much we'll hear from incoming CEO John Ternus…

Apple CFO touts record install base

"We are very pleased with our record business performance during the quarter, which set new June quarter records for both EPS and operating cash flow," Apple CFO Kevan Parekh said in the release. "Our installed base of active devices also reached a new all-time high across all major product categories and geographic segments."

Apple's China sales come in below estimates

Apple's China revenue was lower than Wall Street expected, coming in at $18.8 billion, while analysts had expected more than $19 billion. Still, it's a massive bump compared to last year's $15 billion in the same quarter.

Wall Street doesn't like the results

Apple's stock continues to slip in after-hours trading, now down over 4% ahead of the 5 p.m. ET analyst call.

Cook touts "strongest June quarter ever."

"Today, Apple is proud to report our strongest June quarter ever, with double-digit revenue growth across iPhone, Mac and Services, and in every geographic segment," CEO Tim Cook said in the earnings release. "At WWDC26, we were thrilled to introduce the all-new Siri AI, alongside all of Apple's latest software innovations and important new child safety features."

APPLE EARNINGS ARE OUT: The key numbers

• Revenue: $109.4 billion vs. $108.85 billion estimate
• EPS: $2.02 vs. $1.89 estimate
• iPhone revenue: $54.3 billion vs. $53.6 billion billion estimate
• Services revenue: $30.74 billion vs. $31.36 billion estimate
• Mac revenue: $10.35 billion vs. $8.62 billion estimate
• iPad revenue: $6.2 billion vs. $6.89 billion estimate
• Wearables, home, and accessories revenue: $7.88 billion vs. $7.87 billion estimate
• China revenue: $18.81 billion vs. $19.58 billion estimate
• Gross margin: 50.1%

We're about 15 minutes out from Apple's earnings release…

The stock closed down 1.4% but is trading up less than 1% in after-hours trading.

Tim Cook gets ready to say goodbye (kinda)

Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO effective September 1, making Thursday's earnings call his last as the company's chief executive. John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take over as Cook will become executive chairman of Apple's board of directors.

We heard briefly from Ternus on last quarter's earnings call — he might take on a larger role on today's call. During the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Cook called his time as CEO the "honor of a lifetime."

Cook will continue to be involved in Apple's business to some extent. In the press release announcing the decision, Apple highlighted that Cook, who has maintained a close relationship with President Donald Trump, will continue "engaging with policymakers around the world."

Siri is (finally!!!) getting an overhaul

After years of delays and criticism, Apple finally unveiled its rebuilt version of Siri at its annual developer conference in June. It'll get a new name: Siri AI. The company says Siri AI will hold more natural conversations, understand what users are viewing onscreen, draw on information from their emails and messages, and complete tasks across multiple apps.

Some users have started using the beta version of Siri AI. So far, they're largely saying it's a massive improvement over the current versions. A full launch is expected in the fall via a September software update. The big question: will it boost iPhone sales?

Apple is suing its AI partner, OpenAI, over trade secrets

Apple and OpenAI have a deal that makes ChatGPT available in iOS and Siri. They're also quickly becoming hardware rivals.

Apple sued the ChatGPT maker in July, accusing OpenAI and former Apple employees of stealing trade secrets. OpenAI has denied having any interest in Apple's confidential information. It comes as OpenAI is racing to build its own physical consumer products to support its AI business — a product that, if successful, could challenge the iPhone's dominance.

There are several Apple vets who now call OpenAI their employer, chief amongst them former Apple design boss Jony Ive. Don't expect Apple to get into the details on its earnings call, but there could be a question from Wall Street analysts about the competitive landscape of AI devices.

Apple never made its own car. Now, it's providing software brains to Ford.

Apple's plan to build its own car was famously put on ice, but the tech company still has an important role in Detroit. Last week, Apple and Ford announced a partnership to integrate Apple Maps into the automaker's next-generation electric vehicles, starting with its coming $30,000 pickup truck.

Apple's software will run natively through the vehicle and communicate with certain components, including the battery charging system and self-driving capabilities. That's a big change for Ford.

The car company's CEO, Jim Farley, told the "Decoder" podcast in 2025 that he wasn't impressed with Apple's CarPlay updates, called Ultra, which moved the software beyond phone mirroring and into a car's climate controls and odometer. "We don't like the execution in round one of Ultra, but we're very committed to Apple," Farley said at the time. "I've talked to Tim many times about this."

BofA sees Apple's lease program as bullish

In a note on Tuesday, Bank of America highlighted Apple Upgrade, which Apple announced earlier this week. The new offering allows customers to lease products such as iPhones, Apple Watches, and iPads on a monthly payment plan.

"In our view, Apple Upgrade is directionally positive, with potential upside from lower affordability friction, premium mix, faster replacement cycles, greater direct engagement and residual-value monetization," Wamsi Mohan, an analyst at the bank, said in a July 28 note.

Look for Apple to offer any clues on the program's potential on Thursday.

Bank of America has a "Buy" rating on Apple, and a price objective of $380 a share, implying about 11% upside from current levels.

You can now lease your iPhone like a car

Earlier this week, the company launched a new program called Apple Upgrade in partnership with Klarna that allows shoppers to lease iPhones, Watches, Macs, and iPads. It acts like a car lease, but for new tech, and offers lower monthly payments than financing a new iPhone.

A base iPhone 17e leased through Apple Upgrade is $17.99 a month, while financing the same phone costs $24.95 a month.

At the end of the term, customers can return the device, trade it in for a newer model, or pay the remaining balance to keep it.

Goldman eyes services-fueled growth for years

Goldman expects Apple to post 18% year-over-year revenue growth, beating Wall Street's 15% estimate, thanks in part to strong iPhone and Mac sales. The bank reports an earnings beat of $1.93 per share, versus the $1.89 consensus.

Goldman has a "Buy" rating on the stock and said it expects the company's service offerings, such as iCloud+ and AppleCare+, to be a leading driver of its growth going forward.

"The majority of gross profit growth over the next 5-years should be driven by Services, which should mark an inflection point in the Services investment narrative and support AAPL's premium multiple," Michael Ng, an analyst at the bank, said in a July 27 note.

The bank's price target for the stock is $370 a share.

Earnings arrive shortly after price hikes

Apple increased prices across its Mac and iPad lineups on June 25, but has — so far — spared the iPhone from similar hikes. Analysts expect the tech company to raise the iPhone 18's prices at the September launch. CEO Tim Cook or CFO Kevan Parekh might field questions on potential iPhone price hikes on the analyst call.

The increases stem from a memory crunch that's making it harder to build tech hardware.

Those price hikes will have a negligible impact on this quarter's earnings. Thursday's call only covers until June 30. Moving forward, that will likely drive up the average sale price of its hardware.

Still, we're keeping an eye on how Apple sells these price hikes to investors.

Apple's memory crunch

The tech industry is racing to secure memory chips — and the squeeze is driving up Apple's costs.

AI data centers are consuming enormous quantities of high-end memory, prompting chipmakers to devote more of their production capacity to the booming market. That has tightened supplies and raised prices for the memory and storage chips used in consumer devices such as iPhones, Macs, and iPads.

Tim Cook has likened that upheaval to a "100-year flood."

As those components become more expensive, Apple has begun passing some of the costs on to shoppers — a move the company rarely makes. In late June, Apple raised prices across much of its Mac and iPad lineups, with increases ranging from roughly $100 to more than $1,000 on certain models and configurations.

Apple is scheduled to release the iPhone 18 in September. Analysts predict it will carry higher prices than the current model.

AI strategy still in question, Morningstar says

Dave Sekera, Morningstar's chief US market strategist, said in an email that Apple would be the "least interesting" of all the mega-cap firms this earnings season, as they've largely stayed out of the AI conversation.

He said the main questions around the firm would be how they can offset rising memory costs and whether their higher iPhone 18 prices will cause a spike in iPhone 17 sales.

But Sekera still wants to hear from the company on its AI strategy.

"With Apple, I think we need a better discussion of what they think AI use cases are going to be," he said. "Apple has steered clear of capex spending on the AI buildout boom, which I think will probably serve them well over the longer term, but for now, we're still not really understanding Apple's killer case for AI that will drive a lot of new economic value for individual users."

Jefferies is cautious ahead of results

Jefferies thinks Apple's stock has downside over the next 12 months, with its base-case price target of $308.92 a share, implying about 10% downside.

The bank said it expects Apple to have missed on gross margins last quarter and that memory costs will be a problem for margins going forward.

"Although AAPL's premium iPhone roadmap and ability to raise prices would partly offset higher memory costs, margin is on the downside," said Edison Lee, an analyst, in a July 27 client note.

Wall Street expects Q3 revenue of $108.85 billion, EPS of $1.89

Third quarter

• Revenue estimate $108.85 billion (Bloomberg Consensus)
• Products revenue estimate $77.25 billion
• iPhone revenue estimate $53.6 billion
• Mac revenue estimate $8.62 billion
• iPad revenue estimate $6.89 billion
• Wearables, home, and accessories estimate $7.87 billion
• Services revenue estimate $31.36 billion
• Greater China rev. estimate $19.58 billion
• Americas rev. estimate $45.42 billion
• Europe revenue estimate $27.58 billion
• Japan revenue estimate $7.49 billion
• Rest of Asia Pacific revenue estimate $8.71 billion
• EPS estimate $1.89
• Total operating expenses estimate $18.96 billion
• Research and development operating expenses estimate $11.57
  billion
• SG&A operating expense estimate $7.38 billion
• Gross margin estimate $52.13 billion
• Cash and cash equivalents estimate $53.15 billion
• Cost of sales estimate $56.45 billion
• Total current assets estimate $153.38 billion

Total current liabilities estimate $138.32 billion

Fourth quarter

• Capital expenditure estimate $3.56 billion
• Operating expense estimate $19.14 billion
  
  Year
• Capital expenditure estimate $12.33 billion

Source: Bloomberg

Bathing your dog offers many benefits. It removes dirt and grime from fur and skin, eliminates odors, and can help deepen the bond between you two. The best medicated dog shampoos also offer additional benefits for dogs with skin allergies or infections. One of the best medicated dog shampoos tailored to their specific needs can help treat their condition, soothe irritation, and support healthier skin.

As a veterinarian, I know how complex skin conditions in dogs can be. For this guide, I evaluated 15 over-the-counter (OTC) medicated dog shampoos using criteria informed by the veterinarians I interviewed and my own knowledge. While the products in this guide can help manage a variety of skin conditions, it's important to consult your veterinarian before using a medicated shampoo. Your vet can diagnose your dog's condition, determine whether a medicated shampoo is appropriate, and recommend the right type. In some cases, a prescription shampoo may be more effective than an OTC formula. Always follow your veterinarian's instructions when using any shampoo. If your dog doesn't need a medicated product, you can find excellent options for everyday bathing in my guide to the best dog shampoos.

Read more about how Business Insider Reviews tests and researches pet products.

Our top picks for the best medicated dog shampoos

Best overall: Veterinary Formula Clinical Care Antiparasitic and Antiseborrheic Medicated Shampoo - $10 at Chewy

Best for bacterial infections: Veterinary Formula Clinical Care Antiseptic and Antifungal Medicated Shampoo - $10 at Chewy

Best antifungal dog shampoo: Pet MD Topical Shampoo with Colloidal Oatmeal - $21 at Chewy

Best for skin allergies: 4-Legger Natural Organic Lemongrass, Aloe, and Coconut Oil Shampoo- $18 at Chewy

Best for fleas and ticks: Adams Plus Flea and Tick Shampoo with Precor - $11 at Chewy

Best overall

Skin problems can cause irritation that leaves dogs feeling miserable, so it's important to resolve them quickly and effectively. "A medicated shampoo is used to treat numerous skin conditions, such as bacterial and fungal infections and allergic disease," says Dr. Joya Griffin, a board-certified veterinary dermatologist at Animal Dermatology Clinic. However, it's not enough to simply treat the condition. The skin also requires moisturizing to fully recover.

My top pick for the best medicated dog shampoo overall is Veterinary Formula Clinical Care Antiparasitic and Antiseborrheic Medicated Shampoo. The reasonably priced shampoo treats multiple skin conditions and also helps heal the skin. It treats parasitic and fungal infections, seborrhea (greasy, flaky, itchy skin), and general dermatitis (skin inflammation). Oatmeal and allantoin are added to soothe, hydrate, and promote healing.

The ingredients salicylic acid, coal tar, and micronized sulfur work together to treat skin infections and alleviate seborrhea symptoms. "Shampoos that contain sulfur or salicylic acid can be used for seborrheic conditions," Griffin says. However, she cautions that salicylic acid can cause dryness and irritation.

This shampoo is free of soap and dyes and safe for puppies at least 12 weeks of age. Another plus is that it does not remove topical forms of the best flea and tick treatments for dogs.

Best for bacterial infections

Bacterial skin infections, called "pyoderma," have several potential causes. These include broken skin from injuries or frequent scratching, a change in the skin's normal bacterial balance, and excess moisture on the skin.

Veterinary Formula Clinical Care Antiseptic and Antifungal Medicated Shampoo contains benzethonium chloride, an antibacterial agent that targets bacterial skin infections, as well as ketoconazole to combat fungal infections. Many medicated dog shampoos formulated to treat skin infections include both antibacterial and antifungal ingredients.

This shampoo is our top choice for treating bacterial infections for several reasons. First, it effectively treats both bacterial and fungal infections. In addition, it contains lanolin to reduce skin itching and flaking, as well as aloe vera to soothe and heal itchy and irritated skin. Finally, it doesn't remove topical flea and tick medications. With all these benefits, it's impressive that the shampoo costs less than $10 for a 16-ounce bottle.

Although it doesn't lather as thickly as some other shampoos, it has a mild, non-medicinal scent and rinses out easily. It is safe for puppies 12 weeks and older.

Best for fungal infections

While fungal skin infections, like ringworm and yeast dermatitis, are less common than bacterial infections in dogs, they can also be treated with a medicated shampoo. For fungal infections specifically, my top pick is Pet MD Topical Shampoo with Colloidal Oatmeal. It contains ketoconazole, an effective antifungal agent, along with colloidal oatmeal and aloe vera to soothe and moisturize itchy, irritated skin.

The shampoo also contains chlorhexidine, an antibacterial agent that helps treat skin conditions like bacterial dermatitis. Chlorhexidine also has antifungal effects, giving the shampoo a slight edge in combating fungal infections compared to the Veterinary Formula Clinical Care Antiseptic and Antifungal Medicated Shampoo I recommend for targeting bacteria. In addition, chlorhexidine can help treat minor skin injuries, such as those caused by superficial cuts and insect bites.

This shampoo is safe for puppies at least 12 weeks of age. Its pleasant peppermint scent can last long after the bath. If you have a white dog, be aware that it may cause fur discoloration.

Best for skin allergies

Skin allergies are common in dogs and can occur year-round or only during warmer seasons. Allergies can be triggered by various environmental substances, such as pollen and dust. These irritants collect on a dog's skin and can cause persistent itchiness. If left unmanaged, they can lead to serious skin issues that may require intensive veterinary care.

Dog shampoos for skin allergies, also known as hypoallergenic shampoos, are free of ingredients and fragrances that could worsen or trigger the allergies. 4-Legger Natural Organic Lemongrass, Aloe, and Coconut Oil Shampoo is the best medicated dog shampoo for skin allergies. As a USDA-certified organic product, it is free of synthetic ingredients. Its natural ingredients, including aloe vera and essential oils, work together to provide effective relief for itchy and irritated skin caused by allergies. It also contains lemongrass, which has natural antimicrobial activity.

The shampoo is safe for puppies and adult dogs and has a light, non-medicinal scent. Although pricey, it's well worth its higher price tag ($18 for 16 ounces), given that it contains 100% natural ingredients and has the added antimicrobial activity provided by lemongrass. The other shampoos I evaluated for this category do not contain ingredients that can also treat skin infections. 

Best for fleas and ticks

Flea and tick control is a cornerstone of responsible pet ownership. The best way to prevent these troublesome parasites is by using veterinarian-prescribed flea and tick preventatives, which should be the primary method of protection for your pet.

Flea and tick shampoos do have their benefits, though. Dr. Tierra Price, a community medicine veterinarian in Los Angeles and founder of BlackDVM Network, says these shampoos can be very effective at killing adult fleas and ticks. However, veterinarians agree that flea and tick shampoos are not good for prevention. "Flea and tick shampoos have very little residual activity and are not effective in preventing infestations," Griffin says.

With this in mind, I evaluated several flea and tick shampoos that can complement prescription preventatives. Adams Plus Flea and Tick Shampoo with Precor topped this list thanks to its powerful antiparasitic agents, natural moisturizing ingredients, and refreshing coconut scent.

This shampoo uses the synthetic pesticides S-methoprene and pyrethrins to kill fleas at all life stages for up to 28 days. The formula is also effective against other parasites, including ticks and lice. Meanwhile, natural oatmeal helps moisturize skin that's irritated and itchy from scratching. This shampoo can wash off topical flea treatments, so it's recommended to wait 48 hours before applying a topical medication after bathing.

Adams Plus Flea and Tick Shampoo with Precor is safe for puppies 12 weeks of age and older. However, some of its ingredients, like pyrethrin, are toxic to cats. If you have a cat in the house, it's best to choose another option from our guide to the best flea shampoos for dogs.

Our top picks compared

How we chose medicated dog shampoos

I consulted two veterinarians who shared their clinical knowledge on medicated dog shampoos. They provided insights on when to use a medicated shampoo and explained how the active ingredients in these shampoos work to treat different canine skin conditions.

I also researched essential information on common skin conditions in dogs, including infections, allergies, and parasitic infestations, such as mites, fleas, and ticks.

Here are the selection criteria I used to evaluate products and make my recommendations for the best medicated dog shampoos.

Ingredients: I reviewed each shampoo's ingredient list to identify the active ingredients and prioritized shampoos that also include natural ingredients for soothing and healing the skin.

Safe for puppies: Since a puppy's skin is more sensitive than an adult dog's, I focused on shampoos that were gentle enough for puppies. Shampoos received higher ratings if they were safe for puppies, while those indicated only for adult dogs or lacking an age or life stage indication on the label were rated lower.

Ease of use: I read customer reviews to assess ease of use in real-life situations. Shampoos that pet parents found easy to use received higher ratings, while those with common complaints, such as poor lathering, were rated lower.

Effectiveness: I assessed each shampoo's ingredient list to determine whether the active ingredients were effective for the shampoo's intended purpose. Shampoos received higher ratings if their active ingredients were veterinarian-recommended for treating specific skin conditions, such as bacterial or fungal infections.

Scent: Shampoos with pleasant, non-medicinal scents were rated more highly than those with odors that might be off-putting to pet owners.

Glossary

A pet owner's ability to clearly describe a dog's skin condition helps a veterinarian diagnose the problem and develop an effective treatment plan. "A pet owner may come in and say, 'My dog has a rash,' which is not very helpful in diagnosing the condition," Price says. The following skin-related terms can be useful for pet owners to understand.

Antimicrobial: an agent that kills or stops the growth of microorganisms

Atopy: skin allergies

Chlorhexidine: antimicrobial agent

Crusts: scabs, which can be composed of dried blood, pus, and serum

Dermatitis: skin inflammation

Discharge: fluid

Ketoconazole: antifungal agent

Miconazole: antifungal agent

Papules: small, raised bumps on the skin

Seborrhea: overproduction of sebum from the skin's sebaceous glands, causing the skin to become greasy, scaly, flaky, red, and itchy

Medicated dog shampoo FAQs

Will an over-the-counter medicated shampoo treat my dog's skin infection?

Most over-the-counter (OTC) medicated dog shampoos don't contain the same active ingredients found in prescription formulas that effectively treat skin infections, Griffin says. "Without clinical studies to back up the efficacy of OTC medicated dog shampoos, these shampoos can be a 'hit or miss' regarding having the right combination of active ingredients to be effective," Price says.

Will an anti-itch shampoo work for my dog?

Most OTC anti-itch shampoos don't include the most effective ingredients for combating itchiness, such as hydrocortisone and pramoxine, Griffin says. They also don't offer long-lasting relief, so you may need to bathe your dog more frequently to keep itching under control.

Will a flea and tick shampoo for dogs prevent fleas and ticks?

Flea and tick shampoos can kill live fleas and ticks currently on your dog, but they won't protect against new infestations in the future.

How often should I bathe my dog with medicated shampoo?

Griffin says it's a common misconception that dogs should be bathed infrequently, such as once a month. You can actually bathe a dog several times a week or even daily if needed. As long as a shampoo contains the right ingredients, like those highlighted in this guide, frequent bathing can speed up therapeutic results without drying out the skin.

How long should I leave a medicated shampoo on my dog during a bath?

To get the full benefits of a medicated shampoo, you should leave it on your dog's skin for 5 to 10 minutes. Griffin recommends applying the shampoo all over, focusing closely on problem areas. After the recommended time, rinse thoroughly with clear, lukewarm water.

How will I know if a medicated dog shampoo is working?

Even the best medicated dog shampoos rarely provide immediate results and are most effective when used as directed by a veterinarian. "Consistency is key in achieving therapeutic benefit," Griffin says. Price says that it may be necessary to use the shampoo for one to two weeks before significant improvements are seen, such as healed skin lesions and reduced redness and itchiness. If your dog's skin condition doesn't improve or gets worse, Price recommends stopping the shampoo and contacting your veterinarian.

Can I use the medicated dog shampoo instead of expensive medication?

It depends on the condition. "In some conditions, such as seborrheic skin problems, a medicated shampoo can be used alone to provide therapeutic benefit," Griffin says. For deep skin infections, severe inflammatory responses, and chronic skin conditions that cause persistent inflammation, Price says additional medication is necessary.

• Amazon's stake in Anthropic is paying off big time.
• Amazon said most of its other non-operating pre-tax income was due to its Anthropic holdings.
• Amazon has previously invested $13 billion in Anthropic.

Amazon's stake in Anthropic is proving to be a massive boon to the world's largest online retailer.

In its latest quarterly earnings report, Amazon reported non-operating pre-tax other income of $53.4 billion, "primarily from our investment in Anthropic."

According to previous financial filings, Amazon has invested $13 billion in Anthropic with the potential for up to $20 billion more.

In June, Anthropic announced that it confidentially filed for an initial public offering, taking the first step toward a highly anticipated IPO. In late May, Anthropic said that it had completed a Series H funding round that valued the company at $965 billion.

Amazon isn't the only Big Tech name sharing in Anthropic's success.

On Wednesday, Microsoft reported its investment in Anthropic had netted a $3.2 billion gain. Microsoft previously invested $5 billion in Anthropic.

Anthropic has seen its valuation skyrocket as the popularity of its Claude family of models pushes the overall generative AI race.

• A Y Combinator-backed startup is catching heat for a stunt involving company-logo tattoos.
• LemonLime offered those who got a logo tattoo at its Startup School after-party an "instant interview."
• Cofounder Jordan Zietz has since apologized. He said it was a case of "poorly exercised judgment."

Tattoos, company logos, and deleted apologies — oh my.

A Y Combinator-backed startup founder is in hot water after saying his company would offer job interviews to anyone who got a tattoo of its logo at a party in San Francisco last weekend.

Jordan Zietz, the cofounder of the small AI automation startup LemonLime, wrote about the stunt in a since-deleted X post on Tuesday.

"7 people left with new ink," Zietz wrote on X. "That's how you get a job in 2026."

He wrote a longer post on LinkedIn, also since deleted, that featured a photo of a woman getting a tattoo on her right arm. That woman was Dimple Amitha Garuadapuri, who told Business Insider it was posted without her consent. She asked Zietz to take it down.

"By the time he had responded, multiple trending screenshots were already circulating on X with hundreds of thousands of views," Garuadapuri wrote.

Zietz has since posted and deleted multiple apologies. In his most recent one, he wrote that the company "messed up."

"I should have understood the pressure and power dynamic created by connecting tattoos to hiring," he wrote.

When Business Insider asked Zietz whether he offered interviews to the tattoo recipients, he responded, "Yes, we did." He later did not show up for an interview and did not respond to a list of questions.

Tattoo fallout

Zietz's startup is small. Founded this year, it was part of YC's Summer 2026 batch. It has five employees and no open listings on public job boards.

The backlash to Zietz's posts, however, was big. A screenshot of his posts circulated on the subreddit r/LinkedInLunatics, where commenters called the offer "Orwellian" and "dystopian." An X post lamenting that the "job market cannot be this cooked" got 13,000 likes.

It also drew responses from some big Silicon Valley names, like Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey, who said Zeitz shouldn't apologize.

"The critics will never be satisfied," he wrote.

Over the next 48 hours, Zietz posted at least two apologies online.

"We owe everyone an apology," Zietz wrote at the beginning of an X post that has also since been deleted, adding that the move was "reckless."

Zietz followed that post up with another one, which he didn't delete. He called the "company stunt" a case of "poorly exercised judgment."

"We've taken the posts down and have spoken to everyone who participated. We're also ready to cover associated removal costs with anyone facing any delayed regret," he said.

In that apology, Zietz wrote that no one at the party was asked to get a company logo tattoo.

Garuadapuri told Business Insider that the event's tattoo artist told her she "had to get one of the approved designs." (Garuadapuri said she "went out of my way to ask to get something personal.")

"All of the designs in front of the tattoo artist were of lemons and limes," Garuadapuri wrote. "While I was there, two people got Lemonlime tattoos and one other person got a personal tattoo."

LemonLime threw the July 25 party as an unofficial after-party to YC's Startup School. Billed on Luma as "YC x LemonLime — Calling All Crazy Builders," it sold out and drew 173 people.

The listing promised everyone would leave "with a surprise" and warned that the hosts "might not be allowed to host this ever again." It did not mention tattoos.

Photographs shared with Business Insider show the company's offer printed on posters taped to the venue walls. A second poster offered another incentive: The people behind the three most-liked LinkedIn posts about LemonLime by 10 p.m. could join the team on a skydiving trip.

As startups compete in an increasingly crowded AI market, many are turning to social media stunts. While some garner interest, others receive blowback. The New York subway ads made by Friend, an AI wearables company, are a classic example.

"There's no clever explanation here," Zietz wrote in his apology. "I got carried away, and I was wrong."

• Patreon has ramped up its RTO requirements from two to three days a week.
• The company said time in office builds "stronger connections across teams."
• Patreon laid off 20% of its staff last week as its CEO pushed for "increased agility."

Patreon slashed its workforce by 20% last week — and wants its remaining staffers to come into the office more.

The company informed workers that it is increasing its return-to-office (RTO) requirement from two to three days a week for staff who commute to Patreon's three offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Porto, Portugal, a company spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider.

Staffers at the company, which runs a platform where creators can sell memberships and offer subscriber-only perks to fans, learned of the change a day after a layoff round that affected 93 employees. The updated RTO policy will go into effect in the "coming months," the spokesperson said, and it will not affect workers already classified as remote employees.

"Since returning to two days a week in-office, we've been able to build stronger connections across the team," the Patreon spokesperson said. "We're making this change to spend more intentional in-person time together to continue strengthening the feeling of community and togetherness we have at Patreon."

RTO has become a priority at many tech and media companies as executives look to revamp in-office culture following a multi-year pandemic hiatus. For example, Instagram asked its workers to begin coming into the office five days a week in February. TikTok, which last year required five days of in-office attendance for select teams like e-commerce, is also looking to bring more workers back in person this year.

Patreon's implementation of RTO, which it refers to internally as "Time Together," had been relatively lenient, one former staffer said.

Patreon requires employees to be present on 75% of in-office days, meaning they could skip out once every four days.

Some employees have also been classified as remote employees even if they live within commuting distance, and are exempt from RTO.

Patreon's in-office push comes at a moment when it's flattening its organization to refocus teams on its top priorities, and evolve key aspects of its operations to make the company "faster at adapting to change," CEO Jack Conte said in a memo last week.

"AI has fundamentally transformed the tech industry, the pace of change has never been more intense, and I expect it to get even faster," Conte wrote, noting that Patreon would need "increased agility" to compete.

Patreon's desire to move faster comes as competition heats up in its core creator-subscription business. Newsletter platforms like Substack and Beehiiv are signing up writers and podcasters in droves, while large social apps like TikTok and YouTube are rolling out paid, exclusive membership programs for creators.

Have a tip? Contact Sydney via email at sbradley@businessinsider.com or Signal at @sydneykbradley.123. Contact Dan at dwhateley@businessinsider.com or Signal at @danwhateley.94. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

Noah Kahan has gone from playing small venues to selling out arenas, thanks to the breakout success of Stick Season and a catalog of heartfelt folk-pop songs that have resonated with fans around the world. His live shows are known for their singalong moments, intimate storytelling, and loyal crowds, making tickets among the toughest to score.

Whether you're hoping to hear hits like "Stick Season," "Dial Drunk," "Northern Attitude," or newer material, demand for Noah Kahan tickets tends to stay high long after they go on sale. Popular dates can sell out quickly, sending many fans to the resale market in search of seats.

If you're planning to see Noah Kahan live, we've rounded up everything you need to know about buying tickets, including where to find available seats, how resale prices compare, and which marketplaces are worth checking before you buy. Head to StubHub and Vivid Seats to secure your spots once you're ready to buy.

Noah Kahan 2026 tour schedule

• July 30, 2026 - Arlington, TX at Globe Life Field
• August 2, 2026 - St. Louis, MO at Busch Stadium
• August 5, 2026 - Minneapolis, MN at Target Field
• August 8, 2026 - Denver, CO at Coors Field
• August 9, 2026 - Denver, CO at Coors Field
• August 15, 2026 - Pasadena, CA at Rose Bowl Stadium

• August 17, 2026 - San Diego, CA at Petco Park
• August 19, 2026 - Phoenix, AZ at Chase Field
• August 21, 2026 - San Francisco, CA at Oracle Park
• August 25, 2026 - Sandy, UT at America First Field
• August 28, 2026 - Vancouver, BC at BC Place
• August 30, 2026 - Seattle, WA at T-Mobile Park
• August 31, 2026 - Seattle, WA at T-Mobile Park

• September 25, 2026 - Melbourne, Australia at Rod Laver Arena
• September 26, 2026 - Melbourne, Australia at Rod Laver Arena
• September 28, 2026 - Melbourne, Australia at Rod Laver Arena
• September 29, 2026 - Melbourne, Australia at Rod Laver Arena
• October 2, 2026 - Sydney, Australia at Qudos Bank Arena
• October 3, 2026 - Sydney, Australia at Qudos Bank Arena
• October 5, 2026 - Sydney, Australia at Qudos Bank Arena
• October 6, 2026 - Sydney, Australia at Qudos Bank Arena
• October 9, 2026 - Auckland, New Zealand at Spark Arena
• October 10, 2026 - Auckland, New Zealand at Spark Arena
• November 5, 2026 - Glasgow, Scotland at OVO Hydro
• November 6, 2026 - Glasgow, Scotland at OVO Hydro
• November 9, 2026 - Manchester, England at AO Arena
• November 10, 2026 - Manchester, England at AO Arena
• November 13, 2026 - London, England at The O2
• November 14, 2026 - London, England at The O2
• November 17, 2026 - London, England at The O2

• November 19, 2026 - Dublin, Ireland at 3Arena
• November 21, 2026 - Dublin, Ireland at 3Arena
• November 22, 2026 - Dublin, Ireland at 3Arena
• November 25, 2026 - Zürich, Switzerland at Hallenstadion
• November 26, 2026 - Cologne, Germany at LANXESS Arena
• November 28, 2026 - Copenhagen, Denmark at Royal Arena
• November 29, 2026 - Stockholm, Sweden at Avicii Arena
• December 1, 2026 - Amsterdam, Netherlands at Ziggo Dome
• December 2, 2026 - Amsterdam, Netherlands at Ziggo Dome
• December 4, 2026 - Munich, Germany at Olympiahalle
• December 7, 2026 - Paris, France at Accor Arena

How much are Noah Kahan concert tickets?

Noah Kahan tickets vary widely by city and date, but resale inventory is available on both StubHub and Vivid Seats. On StubHub, the lowest-priced tickets currently start at about $127 before fees for select tour stops, while the highest premium floor and VIP listings climb to more than $10,000 for the most in-demand shows, including multi-night runs in Boston and New York.

Vivid Seats offers similar pricing at the low end, with tickets starting at $166 before fees. Premium inventory for the biggest dates can exceed $12,000, particularly for front-row and VIP seats at stadium shows. Prices fluctuate by venue and demand, with Noah Kahan's Boston, Chicago, and New York performances generally commanding the highest resale prices, while later summer dates often offer better value.

Noah Kahan's The Great Divide Tour setlist

While some concert attendees may like to be surprised by an artist's setlist, others love planning ahead for songs they know. Based on fan reports from the tour thus far, here's a list of songs you can expect Noah to perform at his remaining tour dates:

• "American Cars"
• "Doors"
• "All My Love"
• "Deny Deny Deny"
• "Staying Still"
• "Haircut"
• "She Calls Me Back"
• "Dashboard"
• "Dial Drunk"
• "Orbiter"
• "The View Between Villages"
• "Northern Attitude"
• "The Great Divide"
• "New Perspective"
• "End of August"
• "Homesick"
• "Stick Season"

Actual songs may be subject to change based on specific location and date.

See more: Is StubHub legit? | Las Vegas Sphere tickets | Zach Bryan tickets | Lorde tickets

Follow our Instagram page and WhatsApp channel for more deals and buying guides.

• Some tech companies are conducting layoffs or restructuring teams as they double down on AI spend.
• Amazon grew by around 20,000 employees in the past quarter, while Meta shrank by over 2,000.
• Check out these charts to see how head count is changing at Big Tech companies.

As companies pour eye-watering sums into AI while automating more work, one question remains: How will it affect the number of tech jobs available?

Much has been said about whether AI will lead to leaner teams with fewer layers of management. In the past year, a number of prominent tech companies have conducted layoffs and restructuring — with some leaders explicitly tying those cuts to AI.

"The intelligence tools we're creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company," Block CEO Jack Dorsey wrote on X in February, when the company nearly halved its workforce.

Some leaders, like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, have said AI could lead to "significant enduring job loss." Others, like AWS CEO Matt Garman, have said doomsday AI predictions about jobs are way overblown.

The future remains murky. As companies report earnings, some will disclose updated employee counts. Read on to see how head count has changed across Big Tech:

Google

On July 22, Google's parent company Alphabet revealed in its blockbuster earnings report that it had increased head count by 11,830 employees, from 187,103 to 198,933, between June 2025 and June 2026.

The chart below shows how Alphabet's workforce has grown from the end of the first quarter of 2025 through the end of the second quarter of 2026.

The biggest jump in Alphabet's staff numbers in the last couple of years came in the second quarter of 2026, when it added more than 4,000 workers, accounting for over one-third of net hiring over the past year.

Google laid off around 12,000 employees in 2023 and has since made several smaller rounds of cuts, impacting thousands of employees in total.

Meta

Meta's head count shrank by over 2,000 employees between the first and second quarters of 2026, based on its latest earnings report released on July 29. As of June 30, Meta employed 75,472, a 1% year-over-year decrease.

The chart below shows how its workforce has changed over the last year.

Meta added in the report that the head count figure includes approximately 8,000 employees affected by its most recent layoff in May. The majority of those workers will not be reflected in its head count by the end of the third quarter of 2026, the company said.

In an email to laid-off staff at the time, the social media giant said the layoffs were part of a "continued effort to run the company more efficiently" and to help offset other investments.

The May layoffs also occurred amid organizational restructuring. Meta said at the time that it would be moving over 7,000 employees to new initiatives centered on AI.

Meta is spending billions in the AI race. In April, the company forecasted its 2026 capital expenditures to range from $125 billion to $145 billion. It updated that estimate in its July earnings to a range of $130 billion to $145 billion.

Microsoft

On July 29, Microsoft shared that it had approximately 223,000 full-time employees as of June 30. That's 5,000 fewer employees than it had in June 30, 2025.

The tech giant announced plans to lay off roughly 4,800 employees earlier in July, following the launch of a voluntary retirement program that offered buyouts to some employees. About one-third of the nearly 9,000 eligible employees took the buyout, allowing Microsoft to cut a lower percentage of its workforce.

Microsoft's Xbox division also announced plans to cut 20% of its workforce this fiscal year.

The tech giant is spending heavily in AI. It's faced investor concerns that AI could upend traditional software, which helped pull Microsoft's stock down 18% in June to its worst monthly performance since the dot-com era.

Amazon

Amazon shared in its most recent earnings release on July 30 that it employed approximately 1,595,000 full-time and part-time workers. That's around 20,000 more employees than it had last quarter. It also represents a 3% year-over-year increase.

The updated number comes as Amazon has overhauled its AI strategy to concentrate engineering talent and computing resources on its biggest priorities.

The company recently conducted layoffs of its Artificial General Intelligence organization and shut down its AGI Lab. Those cuts follow roughly 30,000 layoffs that happened across October and January. In March, the company also eliminated a small number of roles in its robotics division.

Apple

Apple most recently reported approximately 166,000 full-time equivalent employees as of September 27, 2025.

Unlike its Big Tech peers, Apple has taken a more modest approach to AI spending. The company has prioritized shareholder returns while relying on its strong cash flow and pricing power.

Apple has also cut fewer workers than other tech giants in recent years. In 2024, Apple slashed 600 employees related to screens and its electric car. It has done small cuts since, totaling several hundred employees.

Finding the best bridal shoes means balancing style, comfort, and practicality — because your wedding shoes need to look beautiful in photos, work with your dress, and still feel good after hours of standing, walking, and dancing. You might want sky-high heels with delicate straps or sparkly details, but you also need a pair that won't leave you counting down the minutes until you can take them off.

Luckily, bridal shoes have come a long way from stiff satin pumps that only look good under a dress. Our team tested more than 50 pairs of shoes, including platforms, pumps, sandals, slingbacks, flats, and dance-floor-ready sneakers, to find the styles that actually deliver on both looks and comfort.

Whether you're looking for simple white heels, romantic embroidered pumps, sparkly ballet flats, or something a little edgier for a second look, these are the best bridal shoes for every dress, venue, and wedding-day plan.

And for more of our rigorously tested guides to the best footwear, see our articles on the most comfortable heels, the best flats, the best travel sandals, and more.

If this sounds like you…

• You want a tall, glamorous platform that still feels steady and walkable: Inez Camilla
• You want a cool, sculptural sandal that pairs with a modern gown: Nomasei Baghera Sandals
• You want a reliable and affordable open-toe heel that you can wear for hours of standing, walking, and dancing: Naturalizer Joy Dress Sandal
• You want a romantic stiletto with delicate bridal details that can peek out from under your dress: Eve Ivory Butterfly Heels
• You want a timeless pointed-toe pump, but you need more comfort, support, and toe room than that silhouette usually offers: Scarlett 75 Pumps
• You want a sparkly, elegant slingback that still feels supportive, secure, and easy to walk in: Inez Mia
• You want a comfortable flat for dancing, changing into after the ceremony, or wearing all day: Everlane Day Mary Jane

How I evaluated each bridal shoe

• Comfort: For the purposes of testing, I stood and walked around in each pair for at least four hours, including a little dancing. This helped me determine whether the style was comfy enough to wear for an entire ceremony and reception.
• Fit & Support: I also assessed each shoe's supportive features, such as heel stability, arch support, and cushioning. Additionally, I considered how each shoe style might fit a range of feet, from narrow to wide.
• Versatility: In order to determine how versatile each shoe is and what types of celebrations they might be best-suited to, I tested them out on a range of surfaces. This included my home tile and carpet, as well as concrete and grass outside.
• Visual Appeal: The design and shape, quality of the materials, and unique details are just a few factors that can contribute to the visual appeal of a bridal shoe. I took these into consideration when evaluating the photo-readiness of each style.
• Break-in Time: Not every bride has time to "break in" their shoes before the big day. I made sure to take note of whether or not each style was comfortable right off the bat, or needed a little initial wear.
• Rewearability: Many brides would rather invest in a pair of shoes they'll be able to wear again after the big day. So, I also took into account whether each style might work for other post-wedding occasions.

Best overall: Inez Camilla

Who it's perfect for: The Inez Camilla is for brides who want the big, glamorous high-heel moment without spending the whole day thinking about their feet. The silver metallic and cream satin finishes feel festive and bridal, the block heel keeps you steady, and the platform makes the 3.9-inch height feel way less scary than it sounds.

Who should skip it: Skip these if you have extra-wide feet or bunions, since the toe strap doesn't have much stretch, and this style doesn't come in Inez's roomier widths.

Inez is already a favorite with the Business Insider Reviews style team, and the Camilla is one of the best examples of why. Style editor Samantha Crozier has worn her pair to three weddings so far, and writes in her Inez review, "I can't say enough great things about these platform heels. They tower at 3.9 inches, but the platform keeps the pitch shallow and the weight off of your toes." She also said that when she wore the Camilla to a wedding, "I was able to wear them for the full five hours of the ceremony and reception. This included a standing cocktail hour and a full two hours of dancing. At the end of the night, my feet were totally fine — not a blister or an ache to be felt."

Senior associate style editor Gabrielle Chase had a similarly strong first impression. "After breaking mine in on a night out in New York (with no blisters!), I've decided these are the pair I'm bringing to a Rhode Island wedding next month (and the many more nuptials sure to follow)," she writes in her Inez Camilla review. That kind of repeat-wear potential is exactly what makes the Camilla such a strong bridal pick: They're special enough for the aisle, but not so precious that you'll never wear them again.

A lot of the comfort comes down to the Camilla's shape. Its platform and gentler slope keep your foot from being pushed into an extreme angle, so your weight is more evenly distributed rather than concentrated on the balls of your feet.

The Camilla still feels like a real high heel, not a sneaker in disguise. Gabrielle said that after seven hours, "the cushioning isn't as responsive as the Vivaia heels I've tried," so these aren't completely pain-proof. But for something this tall, shiny, and wedding-worthy, it's impressively wearable — and that's why I'd make it the best overall bridal shoe.

Best slingbacks: Inez Mia

Who it's perfect for: Brides who love the elegance of a slingback but need more comfort and security than the average pair provides. The elasticized ankle strap helps create a flexible fit, while the plush insole, arch support, grippy sole, and 2.8-inch heel make these feel polished without being punishing.

Who should skip it: Anyone who wants a flat, a true low heel, or an adjustable strap.

Inez has impressed me time and again — and I'm not alone. Not only has the brand made our list of the most comfortable heels, but it also happens to offer some of the best ankle boots, too. So, needless to say, I wasn't surprised to find that Inez makes one of the most beautiful bridal shoes I've ever laid eyes on. It's glamorous but understated, covetable but comfortable.

I'm a big fan of slingbacks, but what makes these special are the elasticized ankle straps that stretch for a flawless, personalized fit. The Mia also boasts a proprietary plush insole with arch support to stave off aches. And did I mention that 2.8 inches is my new not-too-high but not-too-low Goldilocks heel height? It flatters my legs without making my feet cranky. Finally, the leather sole with rubber insert provides ample grip on basically any flooring.

Personally, I adore the silver woven version, which is sparkly without being too showy or over the top and has a glam old Hollywood vibe. These accommodate my wide feet nicely, but I'm confident they would fit and flatter narrower feet just as well.

Read our full Inez review.

Most elegant: Bella Belle Eve Ivory Butterfly Heels

Who it's perfect for: These are for the bride who wants their shoes to have a real moment. The butterflies, embroidery, mesh, and delicate pointed toe are incredibly romantic, especially if your dress has a slit or a shorter hemline where the shoes will actually show.

Who should skip it: They're probably not the pair for someone who wants the most practical or secure shoe possible. The heel is thin and 3.5 inches high, and the ankle strap may need additional holes for a tighter fit. They're beautiful, but they're definitely a style-first pick.

If you're in the market for delicate, romantic heels that are specifically designed for stylish brides, you have to check out Bella Belle. All the heels are beautifully designed and bridal-specific — think pearl motifs, satin bows, and sparkly straps.

"I opted to test their Eve Ivory Butterfly Heels; with a thin, 3.5-inch stiletto, these seemed like the riskiest pair. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that neither the height nor the thinness of the heel was an issue. I walked a mile in them to test, and while I felt a little bit of soreness, the shoes are so cute that I'd wear them anyway.

I love the fluttery 3D chiffon butterflies and embroidered florals. The pointed toe is elegant, and the mesh material is a style detail that I love. In fact, this is a pair that I'm considering for my own wedding next year.

Being really nitpicky, I wish the vamp were a little higher so it fully covers the toe cleavage. I also needed to use a leather puncher to create more holes to really secure the straps around my ankle. But all in all, these are a pair of truly stunning shoes that would look beautiful peeking out from underneath a wedding dress." — Samantha Crozier, style editor, Business Insider Reviews.

Best sculptural sandal: Nomasei Baghera

Who it's perfect for: These are perfect for someone who wants a cool, sculptural sandal that still feels wearable for hours. The soft leather, memory-foam padding, and sturdy block heel make them a great option for weddings where you'll be standing, dancing, and maybe moving between indoor and outdoor spaces.

Who should skip it: Skip these if you really need the locked-in feel of an ankle strap. The V-shape is flattering and leg-lengthening, but it won't feel as secure around the ankle as a traditional strapped sandal.

"The day my best friend got married, I wanted to wear shoes that I could feasibly stand and dance in for at least six hours, and ended up choosing these gold, goddess-like sandals from mid-range luxury brand Nomasei. I risked wearing them right out of the box before I could break them in, and packed six Band-Aids assuming I'd need them all. Reader, I'm happy to report that I shuffled and slid to my heart's content and only sustained one tiny heel blister the entire night.

Their V-shape creates a leg-lengthening effect, which I found more flattering than any sandal with a ankle strap. They're made with a leather that's so soft and flexible that they felt like a second skin. Thanks to the memory-foam padded insoles, I could walk comfortably without getting the metatarsal pain I usually get when I wear heels for too long. Another bonus: when the wedding moved outdoors, their block heels were sturdy enough for grass and too thick to get caught in the slats of the patio, as I saw happening with some of the stiletto-clad guests.

The elegant Baghera sandals pair perfectly with a bridal gown or wedding guest dress, but I loved them so much that next I'm excited to dress them down with some ragg socks and jeans." — Gabrielle Chase, senior associate style editor, Insider Reviews

Best mule: Dolce Vita Nandy Confetti Heels Ivory Sequin

Who it's perfect for: This is the pair for brides who want their wedding shoes to feel celebratory and fashion-forward rather than traditional. The ivory sequins add plenty of sparkle, while the sleek mule silhouette and architectural heel keep them looking modern rather than overly ornate.

Who should skip it: Skip these if you want a true bright-white shoe or need a heel you can comfortably dance in all night. The color is distinctly ivory, and these mules weren't among the most comfortable wedding shoes I've tested, so you may want to pack a second pair for the reception.

Dolce Vita is one of the best places to shop for wedding shoes that feel fresh, trendy, and a little unexpected. The brand does details like rhinestones and sequins especially well, making them feel stylish rather than overly traditional. The Nandy Confetti Heels are a perfect example: the ivory sequins shimmer with every step, but the contemporary square toe and sculptural heel keep the overall look elegant.

The slip-on mule design also has a leg-lengthening effect. Because there's no ankle strap visually cutting across your leg, they create a clean, uninterrupted line that would look especially striking with a shorter wedding dress, reception mini, or high slit.

Just keep in mind that these are ivory, not bright white, which could make a noticeable difference depending on your dress's undertone. The sequins make them feel especially fitting for a wedding, but I would compare them with your gown in natural light before committing.

Comfort-wise, these weren't the easiest mules I've tested. Without an ankle strap, your foot has to work a little harder to keep the shoe secure, and I wouldn't necessarily choose them for hours of dancing. They're a gorgeous option for the ceremony, portraits, and dinner, but I'd have a softer second shoe ready once the dance floor opens.

Best pump: Scarlett Chase Scarlett 75 Pump

Who it's perfect for: This is the pair for brides who want a classic pointed-toe pump, but don't want their toes to suffer for it. The toe box is a little roomier than most pointy pumps, and the cushioned footbed gives them more support than they look like they'd have. They're polished, timeless, and easy to picture with almost any wedding dress.

Who should skip it: Skip these if you're trying to keep your shoe budget low, or if you know you'll want something strappy, flat, or super soft right out of the box. They started off a little snug before molding to the foot.

You can never go wrong with a 3-inch pointed-toe pump — and these timeless beauties would work for a wide variety of wedding dresses, from all-lace mermaid styles to silky slips and full-skirted princess-style ball gowns. While I tested them in a blush pink patent, they also come in other bridal-ready options like a gorgeous bone croc and versatile nude nappa.

When I first slipped the Scarlett 75 Pumps on, they felt a tad snug — but miraculously, within minutes of standing and walking in them, it felt like they expanded and molded to my feet for a flawless fit. Whereas most pointy pumps squeeze my toes, these are thankfully made with a slightly wider toe box.

Scarlett Chase shoes are handmade in Italy, so you know the quality is on point — but what really sets them apart is the thoughtfully designed built-in support system. That includes a patent-pending, orthotic quality cushioned footbed for maximum comfort. The shoes are engineered to distribute weight and pressure more evenly, and I could definitely feel the difference during testing — my feet weren't nearly as miserable as they would normally be after a few hours of wear.

I also love that the heel strikes a nice balance between a streamlined stiletto and a chunky block heel — it looks sleek while still feeling practical.

Best open-toe: Naturalizer Joy Dress Sandal

Who it's perfect for: This is the safe bet in the best way. It's a comfortable open-toe block heel with a padded, supportive footbed and enough stability for a long wedding day. It also comes in a ton of colors, so it's great if you're hunting for a very specific bridal shade.

Who should skip it: Skip it if you don't like open-toe shoes or want something that feels more delicate or formal. The heel is also 3.5 inches, so even though it wears comfortably, it's still not a low heel.

These open-toe heels got the hard-won top spot in our guide to the most comfortable heels. They beat out almost every other pair because of their padded footbed, stable heel, versatile style, and huge variety of colors. If you're looking for a specific shade, make sure to check all the links above, since you can often find unique, wedding-ready colorways like a pastel lilac or metallic tones.

Here's what style editor Samantha Crozier said about them: "You can see how thick the padding is by just looking at it. The insole is contoured to your foot, providing arch support and taking pressure off the balls of your feet. The heel itself is a whopping three-and-a-half inches, but they absolutely do not feel that high when you wear them.

I've recommended these to tons of friends as the perfect wedding guest (or even wedding day!) shoes, and have gotten countless post-event texts about how amazingly painless these are. I've personally danced the night away in these heels at least half a dozen times."

Best budget: ISNOM Bow Knot Heeled Sandals

Who it's perfect for: This is the affordable pick that still feels fun and festive. The bow detail makes it feel party-ready, and the low block heel keeps it practical.

Who should skip it: Skip it if you want a luxury shoe or something very sleek and minimal. The bow gives them a sweeter look that may not work with every dress.

If you're on a tight budget or you already splurged on your dress, rest assured, you don't need to spend a lot on bridal shoes — these ultra-affordable block heel sandals are a stellar option. They come in a number of wedding-appropriate hues, like white, nude, and gold; they're surprisingly well made, and they only cost $50. I bought these in blue for my recent baby shower, but they could also easily serve as your "something blue" on the big day (though they also come in white, gold, and other traditional bridal colors).

Even while wearing these Bow Knot Heels for five hours on a hot and humid day at seven months pregnant, my feet remained happy — and if that's not a testament to the comfort, I don't know what is. The organza fabric and cross-knot bow design give these a party-ready flair, but they're also sensible, too, thanks to the block heel, which is a sensible 2.36 inches, and an adjustable ankle strap. I found that they fit true to size, and I got a ton of compliments on them.

Best flats: Everlane Day Mary Jane

Who it's perfect for: This is the shoe for brides who refuse to be uncomfortable, especially for dancing. It's soft, secure, and easy to wear straight out of the box, with enough cushioning and traction to get through a long night. It's also a strong second-look shoe if you want to change out of heels later.

Who should skip it: Skip it if you want a traditional bridal heel or something sparkly and formal. These are chic and comfortable, but they lean casual compared with the rest of the list.

Everlane's line of Day Gloves has long been our holy grail of comfortable flats. They won our top overall award for the best flats, and nearly everyone on our team swears by them.

Executive Editor Sally Kaplan is so devoted to them that she wore the Day Mary Janes to her wedding. In her Everlane Mary Jane flats review, she wrote about how these were a godsend for post-ceremony dancing and celebrations.

She writes: "I ended up dancing the night away in these with no discomfort, and I've worn them so many times since with casual jeans and T-shirts. The insoles have a little bit of cushioning, and the strap across the midfoot keeps the shoes secure on your feet.

The backs of the heels are soft enough that they won't cause blisters, even when worn straight from the box. The soles are made of rubber with a lot of traction, which makes them great for walking, and I had zero break-in period for these shoes — they went from the packaging to the dance floor without a single sore spot!"

Though Everlane no longer stocks the specific blue velvet color that Sally wore to her wedding, you can get the Day Buckle Mary Jane in wedding-ready colors like blue and pink satin. Or stick to the original Day Mary Jane, which you can get in white.

Best platforms: Margaux The Platform Sandal

Who it's perfect for: This is for brides who want height without feeling like they're balancing on stilts. The platform makes the 3.5-inch heel feel lower, and the block heel plus ankle strap help with stability. It's also especially good if you need narrow, medium, or wide width options.

Who should skip it: Skip it if you don't like the look or feel of platforms, or if you want a closed-toe shoe. The open-toe style feels more spring/summer than winter wedding.

As a general rule, I don't tend to bother investing in heels that are higher than 3 inches (at least not since I turned 35). That said, I couldn't resist testing the Margaux Platform Sandal — even though the heel is 3.5 inches, it feels a lot more like 2.5-inch heels thanks to the 1-inch platform. I was truly blown away at how comfortable these are, and not just because of the platform. They also feature a 5-millimeter layer of foam on the insole, which makes wearing these feel like walking on a cloud.

Margaux's shoes are nothing if not high-quality, and like their other products, these are made with premium Italian nappa leather. I tried the sandals in gold nappa, but they also come in a stunning rose nude and classic ivory. The best part? These shoes are available in three different widths — medium, narrow, and wide — so you can get the best fit for your foot shape. I felt incredibly stable walking around in these, in part because of the block heel and thick adjustable ankle strap.

Due to the open-toe style, I'd say these are a great pick for spring and summer weddings. These also get points for versatility: They're a perfect shoe for vacation dinners, date nights, and cocktail parties alike.

Style writer Jada Wong wore the slightly lower version of these shoes to her wedding. She writes in her City Sandal Review: "I wore the Margaux City Sandal right out of the box for my wedding, and even after 10 hours, my feet didn't hurt or get any blisters."

Best second look shoe: Vivaia Square-Toe Lace-Up Sneakerina (Cristina)

Who it's perfect for: This is perfect for brides who want a cute, comfortable backup shoe — or who just don't want to wear heels at all. It has the ease of a sneaker with the softness of a ballet flat, and the ribbon laces make it feel more elevated than a regular sneaker.

Who should skip it: Skip it if you want your wedding shoe to feel formal, structured, or traditionally bridal. These are stylish and comfortable, but they're still much more relaxed than a pump, sandal, or embellished flat.

If a sneaker and a ballet flat had a lovechild, it would be the Vivaia Christina. And with a breathable mesh upper, this particular iteration is ideal for carrying you through a sweltering summer reception or epic dance battle. The Cristina is proof that you don't have to sacrifice style for the sake of comfort: The lace-up style feels laidback while the sheer ribbon gives these shoes an elevated, elegant edge.

I've consistently been impressed by Vivaia's shoes when it comes to comfort, and this particular style is no different. The square toe box is plenty roomy, the elastic back wards off blisters, and the suede-like integrated insole feels like a dream underneath my feet. I can — and have — worn these all day into the night with no issues whatsoever.

That said, they're also a perfect pair to keep on hand if you plan to change out of heels after your ceremony. You can dance the night away without a care in the world. We love the white mesh, but there are also fun satin shades like light pink, blue, ivory, and yellow for a pop of color under your dress.

And while this probably goes without saying, their versatility is practically unmatched. The Cristina is a phenomenal travel shoe, and works equally well to dress down suiting as it does to dress up a distressed pair of jeans.

Read our full Vivaia shoes review and check out more of our favorite ballet sneakers.

A guide for defining your wedding day needs

Before you shop, it's a good idea to consider your wedding's specific demands:

• Venue: At your ceremony and reception, will you be walking on gravel, grass, hardwood, or sand? The surface can help dictate what type of shoe makes the most sense: A wedge, block heel, or flat is better for sand, grass, and gravel, whereas tile and wood flooring can accommodate a slimmer heel.
• Schedule: Do you plan to wear the same shoes from your ceremony to your reception? Or might you want to slip into something a little comfier to dance the night away? We have options that allow you to do both.
• Dress Length: Keep in mind that a floor-length gown won't offer much visibility for your shoes, whereas an ankle-length, tea-length, or shorter style will put your footwear prominently on display. As such, you might go for a statement shoe if your dress is on the shorter side.
• Personal Priorities: Are you most concerned with getting epic detail shots of your bridal look? Or is lasting for several hours on the dancefloor more important to you? Asking yourself these questions can help you narrow down your shoe search.

How to find the perfect wedding day shoe

• Start breaking in your shoes before the big day: At least about two weeks or so before the wedding, you may want to start wearing your bridal shoes around the house. This will help you to figure out whether or not you can realistically wear them for the entire wedding (or need a second pair to change into after the ceremony). It also helps you break in the shoes so you can avoid blisters. Wearing them with thick socks can help to stretch out any areas that are pinching.
• Bring your shoes to fittings: It can be helpful to buy your bridal shoes sooner rather than later once you've chosen your dress, and then bring them with you to every fitting. This way, whoever is in charge of alterations can get a more accurate idea of how much, if at all, the length needs to be adjusted. Not to mention, the height and style of shoes you're wearing can change your posture and the way you walk, which can inform other adjustments the seamstress may need to make.
• Don't be afraid of a little color: Who says bridal shoes have to be white? Blush pink and baby blue can add some playful visual intrigue to an otherwise white ensemble.
• You can't go wrong with a platform: If you love the way high heels look but not the way they feel, a platform offers the perfect solution — giving you additional lift while also helping to ensure more even weight distribution on your feet.
• Have a plan B: Particularly if you're planning an outdoor wedding where conditions depend on the weather, or if you're hoping to stay on the dance floor for the entirety of your reception, you may want to have a more practical backup pair of bridal shoes you can change into — say, some fun sneakers or flats.

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced price cuts at the company on Thursday.
• OpenAI said it was lowering the cost of using two of its latest models.
• "We want to offer the best price/intelligence tradeoff at every level," Altman wrote on X.

OpenAI has laid down the latest marker in the AI pricing war.

On Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman touted the company's "major price cuts," which came in the form of cheaper usage of GPT-5.6 Luna and Terra, two of the company's latest AI models.

"We want to offer the best price/intelligence tradeoff at every level," Altman wrote on X.

OpenAI said that Luna would cost 80% less to use and Terra would cost 20% less.

"These lower prices for Luna and Terra are also reflected in how usage is counted against paid subscriptions when using Codex and ChatGPT Work," the company said in the announcement.

EMARKETER senior analyst Jacob Bourne said the announcement was another sign that "the era of tokenmaxxing is over."

"Enterprises have figured out how easy it is to burn tokens without getting value back, and they're pushing back on those increasing AI bills," Bourne told Business Insider, which is a sister company to EMARKETER.

OpenAI said the improvements come from its focus on everything from the model itself to harnesses, an industry term for the software around the AI model that connects it to things like tools. The company and much of the industry have also worked on routing to ensure they use their available compute more efficiently.

"Our efficiency edge comes from improving the models, the inference systems that run them, and the agentic harness that connects them to tools and context," the company said in a statement. "Better routing keeps hardware productive, optimized production software generates tokens more efficiently, and smarter context management helps agents avoid repeating completed work."

GPT-5.6-Sol, OpenAI's current frontier model, was not included in the announcements. OpenAI rolled out the 5.6 series of models roughly three weeks ago after pausing a broader rollout at the US government's request.

Pricing remains one of the biggest topics hanging over AI. Moonshot AI's recent release of the open-weight Kimi K3 model has increased pressure on closed-model makers like OpenAI. At the same time, other competitors like Anthropic are trying to strike a balance between subscription and usage-based pricing and a finite amount of available compute.

"For buyers, this represents a pivotal moment to extract more value from their AI partnerships as up to this point, negotiating pricing and commercial provisions with Frontier AI labs had been notoriously difficult," Arun Chandrasekaran, a distinguished vice president analyst at Gartner, told Business Insider.

Chandrasekaran said OpenAI's price cuts signaled "that Frontier AI vendors are moving from rigid pricing schemes, strict controls to more flexible approaches."

"This price competition may serve as an early test of the business models of Frontier AI labs ahead of hotly anticipated public listings, particularly as OpenAI recently filed confidentially for an IPO," he said.

Altman and other AI CEOs have said they constantly hear from companies about whether they are getting a sufficient return on their AI investment.

Other companies have made similar pushes. Many in the industry expect token prices to decrease in the long run.

Google has recently touted the cost efficiency of its models. During a quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella repeatedly stressed that "cost efficiency" was at the core of its MAI-Thinking-1 model.

"We are building a new model system where the harness, context, memory, and action space are separate from any one model family, thereby moving the frontier on the cost to outcome curve," Nadella said.

• Microsoft's earnings were a best-case scenario of strong cloud growth and restrained AI spending.
• The company was rewarded with a 16% stock spike that was its biggest since 2008.
• Microsoft's success sets a blueprint that other hyperscalers would be wise to follow.

It's hard to imagine Microsoft turning in a better earnings report.

Not only did the tech giant post strong growth in its AI-powered Azure cloud-computing business, it also refrained from raising its capex-spending forecast.

Investors went nuts over the report, pushing Microsoft shares up 16%, their biggest single-day jump since 2008.

Microsoft's market success did well to lay out a blueprint for hyperscalers hoping to get investors excited again: Show that you're starting to monetize AI, and don't revise your spending projections upward. If you do that, investors will reward you.

It also reinvigorated a market that sold off sharp on Wednesday following Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's post-FOMC address. Here's a rundown of the gains across the market:

• S&P 500: 7,438.72, up 1.7%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 52,209.57, up 1.2%
• Nasdaq 100: 28,106.35, up 3.4%

The chipmaking sector — which has been the foremost lightning rod for AI-spending jitters — got a particularly big boost. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index soared 8%, while Micron, Intel, and AMD each spiked double digits.

Microsoft's market-moving earnings report contrasted sharply with that of its fellow hyperscaler Meta.

Meta issued a disappointing sales forecast while simultaneously raising capex projections. Its stock fell 8%.

Meta-specific concerns aside, Microsoft may have just shown the market that there's a fine line hyperscalers can walk in their spending strategy, one that allows them to both remain competitive and project at least some image of capital discipline.

Jeff Fratarcangeli, the managing principal of Fratarcangeli Wealth Management, told Business Insider earlier this week that it's a line he hopes to see more companies walk in the future. While he doesn't think it's prudent for companies to pull back on capex, he said firms can acknowledge investors' concerns.

"I kind of want to see them play both sides of that," Fratarcangeli said.

"They can say things in a fashion that doesn't necessarily irritate the investors," he continued, "yet still say they're going to be competitive."

• Zohran Mamdani said his efforts to protect delivery workers on Uber Eats and DoorDash were working.
• He said tips for delivery workers increased by $104 million after the city's crackdown.
• Mamdani said the win was "only the beginning."

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani isn't done going after delivery apps.

Mamdani on Wednesday touted a new city report that found the crackdown on what it called "deceptive tipping practices" by food-delivery platforms has resulted in an additional $104 million in tips for delivery workers since January.

"Uber Eats and DoorDash hid tip buttons and set default tips below 10%. As a result, tips for delivery workers fell 79%," Mamdani wrote on X. "In January, we made these corporations change their apps."

"This is only the beginning," he added, suggesting the city would continue to address the experience of workers on delivery apps.

The city said tips have doubled since the tipping protections took effect in late January, and that the 70,000 delivery workers in the city were on track to each earn, on average, an additional $2,287 in tips annually.

"Today's $104 million victory is part of city hall's larger effort to hold delivery apps and mega corporations accountable," Mamdani said at a press conference, noting a settlement the city reached in January requiring Uber Eats and other delivery apps to pay more than $5 million, some of which went to delivery workers.

He also said the city increased funding for the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection by over $4 million in June to increase staff and enforcement of these laws intended to protect New Yorkers.

"The days of city hall accepting corporate abuse as the cost of doing business here in New York City are over," Mamdani said, adding, "I am confident that more wins are on the way."

DoorDash and Uber did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The tipping laws that took effect in January required delivery apps to display the option to tip at checkout, rather than after, and set a minimum recommended tip of 10%.

John Horton, head of North America public policy at DoorDash, previously told Business Insider that the city's findings about its tipping practices were "flat out wrong."

"Moving tipping to after checkout isn't novel or nefarious," he said. "It's how tipping works in many areas of life."

DoorDash and Uber sued the city over the tipping laws in December, arguing they violated federal and state law and would pressure customers into tipping.

Update: July 30, 2026 — This story has been updated to include a statement from DoorDash.

• I took a round-trip Amtrak journey from New York City to Rochester.
• I rode coach on the way there and business class on the way back so I could compare the two.
• I don't think my $180 business-class ticket was worth it for my trip upstate.

In May of 2025, I was feeling a little stir crazy in New York City. I decided to take a quick break from the city's hustle and bustle to check out life upstate in Rochester, New York.

Rather than schlepping to the airport, I took a more relaxing mode of transportation: an Amtrak train. I'm not an Amtrak newbie, but the ride upstate would be my longest to date. My journey to Rochester was scheduled to take seven hours, and the return was nine hours.

As I prepared to book my tickets, I thought about all the hype I'd heard about business- and first-class experiences and wondered whether an upgrade would make the long ride more comfortable.

I decided to check out both. I bought a coach ticket for my journey to Rochester and a business-class seat for my return trip to see which was better.

Next time, I'll save the money and stick to coach.

My journey to Rochester started bright and early at Penn Station.

I booked a coach seat on a 7:15 a.m. train from New York City to Rochester for $69, hoping to spend some time upstate before nightfall.

I left my apartment in Brooklyn just before 6 a.m. on the Thursday my train was scheduled to leave, ensuring I would arrive at Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station with time to spare.

I sleepily got off the subway and made my way into Penn around 6:40, thrilled I had time to grab a coffee and a breakfast sandwich before boarding.

As I sipped on my iced latte, that excitement faded. Amtrak delayed the Maple Leaf train I was set to board by 10 minutes at a time for the next hour. I ended up idling in the hall for the full hour, checking the boards every few minutes and standing awkwardly with my luggage, because I was afraid of missing an update.

I finally boarded the train at 8:10, my coffee dripping condensation on my hand as I lined up with the other coach passengers to get our tickets scanned.

Once I got on the train, I quickly claimed a two-seater.

I easily found open rows of seats in the car at the front of the train.

I popped my roller bag on the shelf atop my seat, dropped my backpack into the chair closest to the aisle, and settled into a window seat.

Looking around the car, I estimated it was about 60% full. I saw other solo travelers like me taking two seats, and pairs of passengers sitting together. The car was mostly quiet, with people snoozing and speaking in hushed tones.

The calm, quiet space was a welcome respite from the chaos of Moynihan.

The two seats had everything I needed, but the views weren't the best.

I was able to put my backpack under the seat next to me, and I loved having the free legroom under my own chair. I even rested my legs on the empty seat next to me for some of the ride.

The tray table was convenient, as I could use it to rest my Kindle or laptop, and I was grateful for the outlet right under the window.

I was excited to have a window seat to check out the New York landscape during the ride, but the views were a bit of a letdown because I was sitting on the right side of the train. I only caught glimpses of the Hudson River if I craned my neck to look at the window across from me.

I'd definitely sit on the left side if I could redo the trip.

I was far from the café car but didn't mind stretching my legs.

I spent my first few hours on the train catching up on some work on my laptop and listening to music in my seat.

I got up a few times to go to the restroom and fill up my water bottle, but I didn't venture out of my car until a little after noon when my grumbling stomach got too loud to ignore.

The café car was at the back of the train, so I walked through several cars to find it. It was nice to have a reason to move my legs after four hours of sitting in the same position. I also had fun peeking at the other cars, walking past groups of people dining at the handful of tables in the café car.

I quickly ordered a $9.50 Caesar salad and a $2.50 bag of chips. Because the café was in the caboose, it was bumpier than the rest of the train, so I held onto a railing in the car while I waited for my food.

Little did I know that those bumps would be a harbinger of what was to come on my return journey.

I had a row to myself for the entirety of my ride to Rochester.

The rest of my trip was uneventful and peaceful. My car stayed pretty quiet throughout the journey, and even as people got on and off, it never got too crowded, so I was able to keep my row to myself.

I spent the afternoon binge-watching a show on Netflix, and before I knew it, I was arriving in Rochester.

Overall, I liked my experience in coach. It felt similar to riding in economy on an airplane, with more legroom and space to walk around.

I upgraded to business class for my return trip to New York City.

A business-class ticket on the Maple Leaf from Rochester to New York cost me $180.

My business-class ticket included a larger reclining seat with a footrest, extra legroom, and a free non-alcoholic drink. An Amtrak representative also told Business Insider that business-class tickets are refundable and that purchases are eligible for a 25% point bonus on Amtrak Guest Rewards.

I arrived at the Louise M. Slaughter Rochester Station on Friday at 1 p.m. for my 1:30 p.m. train. When it was time to board, I found the business-class car at the back of the train, connected to the café, which seemed convenient.

There was only one seat left in the business class car when I boarded the train.

The Maple Leaf starts its journey to New York from Toronto and makes stops in Niagara Falls and Buffalo before arriving in Rochester. The train's singular business-class car also has only six rows of seats, with one side featuring single seats rather than pairs. Given all of that, it wasn't a huge surprise that only one seat was open by the time I boarded.

The lone remaining seat at the front of the car was the accessible seat, so it lacked a footrest and a traditional tray table. A conductor told me no one had reserved the seat for this trip, but I still felt uneasy sitting there, looking around every few minutes for anyone who might need the accommodations the seat provided.

As I settled into the comfortable, singular seat, I noticed the car seemed louder than the coach car I had been sitting in during the journey there, likely because of its smaller size.

The location of the business-class car wasn't my favorite aspect of the ride.

Because the business-class car was in the caboose, it offered a noticeably bumpier ride than the coach car at the front of the train. My seat jostled more easily, and I felt a little nauseated when I looked at my phone screen for too long.

My seat was also right in front of the archway leading to the café, so I could hear everything happening there and in the smaller business-class area.

I was glad I had charged my AirPods ahead of the journey.

Things got a little quieter — and bumpier — when a free seat opened up at the back of the car.

After about an hour and a half, another single seat opened up at the very back of the car, so I gathered my belongings and relocated there.

The train was quieter when I moved because some passengers had gotten off, and I was further from the café. I was happy for the lower volume, swapping my headphones for my Kindle so I could read.

I was also glad to have a back-of-seat tray table again and to use the footrest attached to the chair in front of me, one of the main perks of a business-class ticket. The layout was particularly comfortable when I leaned back a bit in my chair.

However, my new seat was even bumpier than the first chair since it was at the very end of the train. I don't usually sleep on transportation anyway, but I definitely wouldn't have been able to snooze with the jolts from the tracks.

The train had an extended stop in Albany, which made me miss my coach seat even more.

Around 6 p.m., the train rolled into the Amtrak station in Albany, and the conductor announced we would be stopping there until 7:40 so a train from Ontario could connect to ours. The café car closed a few minutes before the stop, and it wouldn't reopen until we were running again.

The extended stop was frustrating, as I was eager to get back to Manhattan. Plus, the lights and AC weren't on most of the stop, so it got hot and stuffy on board.

While we were stopped, most passengers got out to wander around the platform. I used the time to grab some food from a restaurant at the station.

After I ate a subpar chicken wrap, a bag of Skinny Pop, and a granola bar, I spent the rest of the hour walking back and forth across the platform.

I was happy to walk around after sitting for so long, but I would have liked the option to nap on a row of seats, as I did on my journey to Rochester. My time in the coach seating was looking better and better as time went on.

I had my free drink when the train resumed its journey.

Once the café car opened for the final leg of my journey back to New York, I popped over to grab a ginger ale as my complimentary beverage.

It was my only visit to the café during the ride, and I thought the beverage was a nice perk. I had to hold it still because the car was so bumpy, so I downed it quickly to free up my hands.

I also heard an announcement that the train was full after we departed Albany, which made me grateful for my solo business-class seat. Coach probably wouldn't have been as fun if I'd had to sit with someone I didn't know for so many hours.

The views were my favorite part of the return journey.

I could see more of the New York scenery on my way back to Manhattan than I could on the journey to Rochester.

I saw quaint towns, stunning views of the Hudson River, and purple wildflowers lining the tracks. My eyes tracked a man kayaking across the river before the sun set, and I spotted a deer and her fawn grazing in a field, seemingly oblivious to the train a few hundred yards away from them.

I finally made it back to Penn Station around 10:40 p.m., smiling as I thought about the sights I had seen on my journey home.

I liked both train rides, but I wouldn't splurge on business class for a trip upstate again.

I had a pleasant experience on my round-trip ride from Rochester to New York, but I think a coach ticket is the way to go for a trip upstate.

The business-class ticket didn't offer enough perks to justify the extra cost, and sitting in the caboose for nine hours wasn't fun.

It also seemed like the Maple Leaf only gets crowded in coach between Albany and Manhattan, so even if you have to share a row of seats for some of the ride, you'd still have a good chance of sitting alone for part of the journey.

I'll save my business-class tickets for longer rides or Amtrak routes that offer full meals. Until then, you can find me in coach.

Samsung has finally announced its newest generation of foldables, including a brand new Galaxy Z Flip 8. The nostalgically styled flip phone brings a classic silhouette to modern smartphone tech, now with a stronger processor, more camera features, a new fingerprint scanner, a thinner design, and more. If you're hoping to get one for yourself, learn how to preorder a Galaxy Z Flip 8 below.

Not only is the device now up for purchase, but Samsung is also offering limited-time trade-in, carrier, and freebie promotions. Shoppers without an old device to trade in should also consider Amazon's preorder offer: a free $200 gift card. I've rounded up the details for scoring the best Z Flip 8 deal.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 preorder deals

While the phone is still up for preorder, Samsung is offering sweet deals to make buying a Z Flip 8 more value-packed for shoppers. Specifically, trading in an old smartphone or device can earn you up to $600 in trade-in credit; skipping the trade-in can instead earn you $150 in Samsung credit toward a future purchase.

Alternatively, Amazon is offering a free $200 Amazon Gift Card with preorders, no trade-in or carrier commitment required. It's a sweet deal, especially if you have nothing to trade in.

If you're planning to bring the phone straight to your major carrier of choice, you can also save hundreds through one of Samsung's carrier deals without even having to go directly to the carrier website.

• Verizon: Get up to $900 off with an eligible trade-in.
• AT&T: Get up to $1,000 off with an eligible trade-in via monthly bill credits.
• T-Mobile: Get up to $1,100 off with trade-in credit via monthly bill credits.

To opt for one of these promotions, just be sure to select your preferred carrier on the Z Flip 8 product page, since the default is "Unlocked."

Galaxy Z Flip 8 preorder freebies

That's right, by ordering your device early through Samsung, you're guaranteed a set of free perks, mostly including subscription services that would otherwise cost monthly fees.

• 2 months of Adobe Lightroom
• 3 months of Amazon Music Unlimited
• 30-day free ArcSite trial
• 6 months of Google AI Pro
• 30-day LumaFusion Creator Pass subscription
• Up to 6 months of Sirius XM
• 30-day Samsung Health powered by iFit trial

What's new in the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8

Smaller but no less mighty, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 comes with a set of new features to improve on its predecessors.

• New chip, more power: The Flip 8 comes equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy processor. What that fancy name means is a stronger chip that allows for more multitasking and graphically intensive games without your phone freezing up.
• Better camera: The Flip has had a 50MP wide lens and a 12MP ultra-wide lens for generations, but now it offers 10X digital zoom plus 2X optical zoom.
• Improved cover display: The phone's internal display remains the same, but the cover display has been upgraded with this new gen. Specifically, it's now an FHD+ (Full High Definition) display with 2600 nits of brightness, for better visibility no matter where you are.

Galaxy Z Flip 8 colors

The new Galaxy Z Flip 8 comes in four colors, one of which is an online and Samsung Experience Store exclusive:

• Pink
• Cream
• Graphite
• Mint (exclusive)

When is the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8's release date?

Though it's up for preorder now, the smart flip phone isn't available just yet. It will officially release on August 7, after which point shoppers can have the phone in hand. Preordering early is important if you'd like to be one of the first to get your device — as stock dwindles, shipping dates will be pushed further out.

What is the best Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 case?

You have a lot of choices when shopping for a Z Flip 8 case. From budget-friendly options like the Spigen Nano Pop Case to Samsung-branded decorative shells, there's something for every kind of user. Check out my guide to the best Samsung Z Flip 8 cases to see the full roundup.

Follow us on Instagram and WhatsApp for the latest deals, reviews, and buying guides.

• Ken Griffin's Citadel bought some of Situational Awareness' public stock after losses.
• Leopold Aschenbrenner's hedge fund has suffered alongside an AI-market downturn and stock sell-off.
• The situation highlights the risks of leveraged investments, which are impacting Aschenbrenner's fund.

Leopold Aschenbrenner is one of the most knowledgeable people in AI. But he was just schooled on a fundamental Wall Street truth: Being the smartest person in the room doesn't stop you from getting your face ripped off. In fact, sometimes it helps get you there.

On Thursday, Ken Griffin's Citadel bought a portion of the public stock portfolio owned by Aschenbrenner's hedge fund, Situational Awareness, after the fund suffered steep losses during the recent selloff in AI stocks. Situational Awareness is keeping its private investments, including a stake in Anthropic, but a chunk of its public equity portfolio is now in Citadel's hands.

Traders really do call it "getting your face ripped off." Griffin was the one doing it this time. I would not have wanted to be on that call. Ouch.

This is an extraordinary reversal for a fund that was riding high just a couple of months ago.

Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher, became famous after publishing Situational Awareness, a 165-page essay, in 2024. He argued that artificial intelligence would transform the economy far faster than most people expected.

He predicted trillion-dollar investments in AI computing, huge new data centers, and growing government involvement in the race to build powerful AI systems. Those predictions now look remarkably accurate.

His hedge fund was built around that same conviction, grounded in deep AI knowledge and a network of technical experts he knows across Silicon Valley. The investments concentrated on companies that stood to benefit from the AI boom, from memory-chip makers to infrastructure companies and cloud computing businesses.

The strategy worked spectacularly well. According to the Financial Times, the fund returned 439% during the first half of this year.

Then the market turned. That doesn't necessarily mean Aschenbrenner's ideas are wrong. History suggests something much more uncomfortable.

LTCM's Russia lesson

Wall Street has a long record of punishing investors who were fundamentally right, and believed in their vision intensely, but couldn't survive long enough to prove it.

The classic example is Long-Term Capital Management. This hedge fund was run by some of the smartest people in finance, including Nobel Prize-winning economists. It built sophisticated trades based on the belief that certain price differences in markets would eventually disappear. The logic behind many of those trades was sound.

Then Russia defaulted on its debt in 1998. Markets stopped behaving the way the models expected. Long-Term Capital Management had borrowed heavily to increase its returns, and those borrowings became its downfall. As losses mounted, lenders demanded more cash. Other traders realized the fund would eventually be forced to sell and traded against its positions. The fund ultimately required a rescue organized by the Federal Reserve to prevent broader financial damage.

The market didn't stop to ask whether the fund's ideas were clever. It simply asked who needed to sell first.

Clarium's oil lesson

Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital tells a similar story. In the mid-2000s, his hedge fund built large positions around a bold view that oil prices were headed much higher. For a time, that looked like a brilliant call. Then energy markets reversed. Thiel suffered huge losses and his fund shrank dramatically.

Like Long-Term Capital Management before it, Clarium discovered that a strong investment thesis is not the same thing as a winning trade. If markets move against you before your ideas play out, conviction becomes a liability instead of an advantage.

Situational Awareness now joins that list. According to the Financial Times, the fund used borrowing to increase the size of its bets, a common hedge-fund strategy that boosts returns in good times, but magnifies losses when markets fall.

One theory

The immediate trigger for the recent selloff may have had little to do with Aschenbrenner's long-term vision for AI.

Here's one potential theory. Memory-chip stocks in South Korea were hit by heavy selling starting in June, which triggered margin calls. A margin call happens when investors borrow money to buy stocks and those investments fall so much that lenders demand either more cash or the sale of assets to repay part of the loan.

Many Korean traders had bought AI stocks on margin, so this created a vicious cycle. Investors sell to meet the margin call. Prices fall further. More investors receive margin calls. They sell too. Before long, the selling spreads well beyond the original stocks and starts pulling down anything that looks similar.

Many of the AI stocks owned by Situational Awareness sat squarely in that part of the market. Whether Aschenbrenner remained convinced about AI no longer mattered. Traders had to sell on the market's timetable.

This forced selling may have hit some of Aschenbrenner's holdings. When the fund suffered big losses, he may also have been forced to sell to unwind the leverage he'd been using. This ultimately ended with a massive sale of its book of public stock to Citadel. A spokesman for Aschenbrenner didn't immediately comment on the record.

Tuesday's market action suggests this is exactly what happened. After news broke that Citadel had acquired much of Situational Awareness' public portfolio, several AI-related stocks linked to the fund rallied sharply, including Sandisk and Nebius. Investors appear to have concluded that one of the biggest forced sellers has finally disappeared.

Ironically, some of Aschenbrenner's favorite stocks may now recover after he has been forced out of them.

That's one of the cruelest features of financial markets. You can correctly identify one of the biggest fundamental shifts of your generation. You can understand an industry better than almost anyone else. You can even build exactly the right portfolio. But if you add enough leverage and enough conviction, the market eventually stops judging your ideas. It starts judging your ability to survive.

Long-Term Capital Management learned that lesson. Clarium learned it. Now Situational Awareness has learned it, too.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• I'm recently retired and on a budget, so I rely on Trader Joe's for meals that last weeks.
• For quick dinners, I love the store's kung pao chicken and cheese-filled fiocchetti.
• I always stock up on easy breakfast options like the spicy spuds or baingan bharta.

Cooking used to be one of my favorite activities. However, now that I'm newly retired, single, and living on my own, making intricate and time-consuming dishes is too much for me to do every day.

Lucky, shopping at Trader Joe's is the best hack for newly retired seniors like me, and is a great way to have delicious meals in a flash — without breaking the bank.

With a little planning and strategy before hitting the store, I'm able to squeeze out multiple meals from any of Trader Joe's frozen items. Here are the products I always grab from the store.

Prices may vary depending on location.

I think Trader Joe's kung pao chicken is better than takeout.

A bag of Trader Joe's kung pao chicken costs roughly $5.50 and is one of my go-to weeknight meals.

The chicken comes with an enclosed packet of chiles and peanuts, but I also love adding some garlic, cilantro, peppers, and green onions to create a delicious stir-fry.

I typically serve it with Trader Joe's organic brown rice, resulting in a filling meal that lasts for days.

Trader Joe's Mandarin orange chicken is easy to make.

Trader Joe's Mandarin orange chicken, which costs just under $6, is another one of my favorite quick meals that tastes amazing.

All I do is bake the chicken in the oven, stir-fry some vegetables on the stovetop, and add some frozen ginger, fresh garlic, and green onions on top before serving.

I love pairing it with Trader Joe's brown or jasmine rice, both of which can be heated up in the microwave.

Dinners are easy when I have Trader Joe's frozen bagged pasta on hand.

Whenever I heat up one of Trader Joe's frozen pastas, I know I'll have leftovers for the rest of the week.

Right now, I love the cheese-filled fiocchetti, which is only $4.80. I like to cook it with some fresh shallots and Trader Joe's organic baby spinach to add some color to the dish.

When I need an effortless breakfast, I reach for Trader Joe's spicy spuds.

Trader Joe's spicy spuds, priced at $4.50 a bag, are always in my freezer for quick weekday breakfasts at home.

To elevate these potatoes even more, I like to add some green onions or top them with Trader Joe's cheddar Gruyère melange.

I also love Trader Joe's baingan bharta in the morning.

Another one of my go-to breakfast items is Trader Joe's baingan bharta.

This roasted eggplant curry, which only costs $3.50, heats up quickly in the microwave and tastes great poured over some toasted bread and a fried egg.

I love Trader Joe's take on an ice-cream sandwich.

Trader Joe's brownie-crisp coffee-ice-cream sandwiches are so delicious and always end up in my cart.

In my opinion, the flavors of the espresso grounds in the ice cream and the crispy texture of the brownies pair so well together.

Plus, each box of these sandwiches only costs $4.80, satisfying both my wallet and my sweet tooth.

Want to know what other shoppers purchased? Keep reading our Trader Joe's diaries here.

LG is well known for its OLED TVs, which routinely deliver some of the best picture quality on the market. That said, not every LG display is created equal. I review TVs year-round, so I know exactly what separates a good display from a mediocre one. To make shopping easier, I've rounded up the best LG TVs you can buy right now, with picks for different budgets.

For most people, the LG C5 OLED is the model to buy. It hits an excellent sweet spot between price and performance, with the rich contrast and impressive image quality LG's OLEDs are known for, without the premium cost of a flagship set. But home theater enthusiasts who want an even brighter and more refined picture should step up to the LG G5 OLED, one of the most striking TVs I've tested.

LG also offers a new Micro RGB TV with enhanced color, along with lower-priced LED TVs that use more basic backlighting. However, those models face stronger competition from similarly priced TVs made by other brands. After testing displays across the market, I think LG is at its best with OLED, so I've prioritized those models in this guide.

Our top picks for the best LG TVs

Best overall: LG C5 OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best high-end: LG G5 OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best budget OLED: LG B5 OLED 4K TV - See at Walmart

Best overall: LG C5

What we love: It's the best LG TV for overall value, balancing price and performance better than any other model in the brand's lineup, and it's available in many sizes.

Drawbacks: It's not as bright or colorful as some competing OLEDs.

The C5's image quality is fantastic for the money, delivering pixel-perfect contrast and deep black levels thanks to its OLED panel. Standard LED and QLED panel types are prone to uneven brightness, which can lead to elevated black levels and halos around bright objects. But the C5 is completely free of backlight inconsistencies because OLED tech doesn't need a backlight. It boasts an infinite contrast ratio, resulting in exceptional image quality with inky shadows that disappear into a dark room. You can learn more about OLED technology in our OLED vs. QLED comparison.

Peak brightness is good, though not as high as pricier models. Our reviewer measured a max of around 1,174 nits, which is enough to deliver solid impact in specular highlights (such as explosions) when watching high-dynamic-range (HDR) content. The C5 can produce a wide range of colors, but very bright colors aren't as vivid as on some competing Samsung OLED TVs.

The C5 offers wide viewing angles, so contrast and colors shift only slightly when viewed from off-center positions. This makes the C5 a great choice for rooms where you can't always sit directly in front of the TV.

It's also a good gaming TV thanks to its 144Hz refresh rate, which provides smooth motion. However, some TVs can support a higher 165Hz refresh rate, which could be beneficial for dedicated PC gamers.

Note: A 2026 version of this TV, the C6, is also available. The new model is very similar, except for the 77- and 83-inch sizes. Those larger sizes use a noticeably brighter screen. You can learn more in my LG 2026 OLED TV roundup. While it's still available at a lower price, the C5 is the better value for most needs.

Read our full LG C5 4K TV review.

Check out our guide to all of the best smart TVs.

Best high-end: LG G5

What we love: It's one of the best premium OLEDs I've reviewed, with nearly unmatched image quality, a fast 165Hz refresh rate, and the ability to hang flush on your wall.

Drawbacks: It's pricey and doesn't include a traditional pedestal stand, and the 97-inch size uses a dimmer panel.

The G5 has a much brighter screen than cheaper LG OLEDs, helping it deliver some of the best picture performance on the market. It achieves this boost in quality by using a more advanced OLED panel that LG calls "Tandem" or "four-stack" OLED. I measured a peak brightness of around 2,400 nits using an industry-standard 10% test pattern. That's one of the highest readings I've ever recorded on an OLED TV, enabling the G5 to deliver exceptional HDR performance that surpasses dimmer models like the C5.

The G5's higher brightness is impressive, but it only matters when watching certain content. Many modern movies and TV shows are mastered at a peak of 1,000 nits. Since the step-down C5 can handle 1,000 nits, that kind of material won't look much different on the G5 than it would on the C5. But studios are producing an increasing number of HDR titles with higher luminance, and these videos absolutely stun on the G5.

For instance, "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Aquaman" are both mastered for brightness well beyond 1,000 nits, allowing the G5 to unleash its full potential. "Fury Road," in particular, is packed with intense explosions and shimmering reflections that pop from the screen. Meanwhile, "Aquaman" is full of vivid, highly saturated colors. Both of these titles look noticeably more impactful on the G5 than they would on the C5.

The G5 also outpaces LG's C- and B-Series in refresh rate. Cheaper sets typically max out at 120Hz or 144Hz, but the G5 can handle up to a 4K/165Hz signal when paired with a gaming PC. This allows it to display smoother motion, provided your PC can render at high frame rates.

The G5's handsome "Gallery" design is also a standout. This allows it to be hung flush on a wall with its included mount. That said, the TV does not come with a traditional pedestal stand, so you'll need to buy one separately if you don't want to mount it. The G5 is sold in 55-, 65-, 77-, 83-, and 97-inch sizes. However, the 97-inch model doesn't use a four-stack OLED panel, so it can't reach the same brightness as the smaller models.

Typical viewers will be satisfied with the cheaper C Series, but the G5 is the best LG TV for home theater fans willing to splurge on industry-leading image quality.

Note: A newer 2026 edition of this set, the G6, is now available. I got a side-by-side look at the G5 and G6, and the new model offers better handling of reflections and improved processing. That said, it costs about $1,000 more than the G5 sells for. Big enthusiasts may want to consider paying extra for the G6, but most people are better off saving with the G5.

Read our full LG G5 4K TV review.

Check out our guides to the best OLED TVs and the best TVs for picture quality.

Best budget OLED: LG B5

What we love: It's LG's most affordable OLED, yet still delivers the same pixel-level contrast and deep black levels as pricier models.

Drawbacks: It's dimmer than the brand's step-up models, has a lower refresh rate, and is in limited supply.

The B5 is about as close to budget-friendly as OLED TVs get. It offers an infinite contrast ratio, true black levels, and wide viewing angles, just like LG's pricier OLEDs. However, the B5 does have some drawbacks compared to LG's step-up models. Most notably, its brightness and refresh rate can't match those of its pricier siblings.

The B5 is dimmer than other OLEDs, with a peak brightness of around 700 nits. That's a respectable number, but it's below the 1,000-nit standard that a lot of HDR material is designed for. This means that some high-dynamic-range content may appear dimmer on the B5 than the filmmakers intended. Likewise, the TV's lower brightness makes it less effective at overcoming reflections in rooms with a lot of ambient light.

The TV's refresh rate maxes out at 120Hz, which is solid, but not on par with LG's step-up models. The C5 and G5 can support 144Hz and 165Hz, respectively. A 120Hz refresh rate is still high enough to unlock the smoothest gameplay modes on a PS5, Xbox, or Switch 2, but PC gaming enthusiasts may want to spend extra to get a TV with a higher refresh rate.

But even with those shortcomings, the B5 still offers much better picture quality than any of LG's QNED, Mini LED, and standard LED displays. The B5 is available in 48-, 55-, 65-, 77-, and 83-inch sizes. However, inventory has grown limited, so I recommend snagging it while it's still in stock. A newer 2026 model, the B6, is now available, but it costs more and doesn't offer a substantial upgrade.

Check out our guide to all of the best budget TVs.

What else we considered

Though the models highlighted above are our top picks for the best LG TVs, the brand also offers several other worthwhile displays. Here's a rundown of a couple of other LG TVs we tested, along with details on why they didn't quite meet the criteria for this guide.

LG 95B Micro RGB 4K TV - See at LG
The 95B is LG's first Micro RGB TV. Instead of a white or blue backlight, it uses red, green, and blue diodes. In our testing, this enabled a wider, brighter color range than other display types, including LG's OLEDs. However, the 95B's contrast control left a bit to be desired, as our reviewer noticed some blooming and crushed shadow detail. Its viewing angles are also mediocre compared to OLEDs. This is still an impressive TV, especially if you prioritize bright colors over contrast, but it's hard to fully recommend when most G-Series OLEDs are less expensive and offer better overall image quality. You can learn more about RGB technology in our RGB LED vs. Mini LED comparison.

Read our LG 95B Micro RGB TV review.

LG C6H OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon
The C6H is a new submodel in LG's 2026 C6 Series lineup. It's only available in 77- and 83-inch screen sizes, and it can get much brighter than its smaller counterparts. The C6H wowed us during our full review, delivering picture quality that comes close to matching LG's step-up G Series. The only reason the C6H doesn't have a spot in our guide is because you can still find the 77- and 83-inch G5 for around the same price or less. Since the G5 performs slightly better, we give it the edge. However, this will change as the C6H price drops throughout the year. When that happens, it will become the best big-screen OLED value in LG's lineup.

Read our LG C6H TV review.

LG StanbyME 2 TV - See at Amazon
The StanbyME 2 is a unique portable 27-inch TV with an integrated battery and rollable stand. We reviewed the original first-gen model, but it has since been replaced by a second-gen version with a slightly higher-resolution screen, longer battery life, and quick detachability for tablet-like use. It's a cool fit for people who want a space-saving TV that's easy to move from room to room. However, it's expensive for such a small screen, and its use cases are limited to very specific kinds of buyers.

Read our LG StanbyME TV review.

Why don't we recommend LG LED TVs?

In addition to OLED and Micro RGB TVs, LG also offers several TV models that use traditional LED backlights, including standard LED, QNED, and Mini LED options. Though these TVs have their benefits, they generally fall behind similarly priced alternatives from brands like TCL, Hisense, and Samsung. For instance, we previously included an entry-level LG LED TV as a budget pick in this guide, but recent price fluctuations make it hard to recommend over better-performing models from other companies. If you favor the LG brand, we generally recommend sticking to their OLED TV models since that's where the company excels over rivals.

For LED TV recommendations from other companies, check out our other brand-specific TV guides:

• Best Hisense TVs
• Best Sony TVs
• Best TCL TVs
• Best Samsung TVs
• Best Roku TVs

How we test LG TVs

We selected the best LG TVs based on extensive hands-on experience with a range of LG models. We've been reviewing home entertainment products for over a decade, and used that expertise to vet our recommendations and build our testing methodology.

Our review process focuses on key performance metrics, including brightness, color coverage, contrast, black levels, viewing angles, design, and overall value. We also test LG's webOS interface to gauge navigation speed and general smoothness of operation.

When recording a TV's brightness and color, we use a colorimeter with a pattern generator, test patterns from the Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark 4K Blu-ray disc, and Calman calibration software. That said, test patterns can only reveal so much, so we place a heavy emphasis on watching real-world content on each LG TV we review to see how the displays perform with various types of videos in both bright and dimly lit rooms. We've curated a selection of scenes from movies and TV shows to assess HDR highlight quality, shadow detail, posterization, color fidelity, and fine details, using a mix of 4K, high-definition (HD), and standard-definition (SD) samples. We also use a PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch to test gaming performance.

For our guide to the best LG TVs, we paid careful attention to how each LG model performs relative to other TVs in the brand's lineup and to the best TVs from competing brands. This enables us to highlight key benefits and limitations across the company's entire collection.

For more information on our review methodology, check out our breakdown on how we test tech products.

Meet the expert behind this guide:

Steven Cohen, senior tech editor: I've spent more than a decade reviewing home entertainment gear, and my team and I get our hands on the latest TVs year-round. I also attend LG's annual reviewer workshops, so I get an early look at the company's newest video and audio tech before it hits stores. I studied film production, which basically means I'm a stickler for picture accuracy, wanting movies and shows to look the way their creators intended. Beyond lab testing with calibration tools and benchmark discs to measure brightness and color, I live with every LG TV I review. That means real-world streaming, movie nights, gaming marathons, and regular channel surfing. My goal is to cut through the jargon and help you find the best LG TV for your budget.

Learn more about the Reviews team at Business Insider.

LG TV FAQs

What smart TV interface does LG use?

LG TVs use the brand's proprietary webOS smart TV interface. Versions of webOS have been used on LG TVs since 2014. The latest iteration is webOS 26, which debuted with the brand's latest 2026 TV models.

Although older versions of webOS used a pop-up menu, newer versions have transitioned to a full-screen homepage design. This homepage is similar to a lot of other smart TV interfaces, with access to streaming apps and various rows of content recommendations.

In general, webOS is a solid smart TV system that supports all the best streaming services, though it's not quite as smooth or intuitive as Google TV or Roku OS. The platform's organization places a bit too much emphasis on sponsored content and shopping recommendations, but we do like that you can disable most of these ads via a toggle in the settings menu.

The best LG TVs with the latest version of webOS also support various AI features, including an AI Concierge search function and personalized picture and sound optimizations based on your viewing preferences. Although we generally recommend leaving these functions off to achieve the most accurate image and audio, they're worth experimenting with if you're unhappy with how the TV looks or sounds. Google Gemini and Microsoft CoPilot AI are also available on newer models.

Top webOS TVs come with LG's Magic Remote, which supports traditional button navigation as well as motion controls that let you move a virtual cursor on-screen by pointing the remote at the display. However, we don't love that LG cut dedicated mute and input buttons from its newest remotes.

What TV sizes does LG offer?

LG offers a wide range of TV models in sizes from 27 to 115 inches. For TV recommendations specific to certain sizes, check out our size-specific buying guides:

• Best 100-inch TVs
• Best 85-inch TVs
• Best 75-inch TVs
• Best 65-inch TVs
• Best 55-inch TVs
• Best 50-inch TVs
• Best 43-inch TVs

Are LG TVs better than Samsung TVs?

LG and Samsung are both reliable brands that make several excellent TVs. In most respects, it's hard to say that one is definitively better than the other. Instead, each has strengths and weaknesses across its lineup.

LG was the first TV brand to bring 4K OLED displays to the mass market, and it offers a comprehensive collection of OLED models in many sizes. Meanwhile, Samsung entered the 4K OLED market much later and initially had a more limited lineup. This has changed over the last couple of years, though, and Samsung now offers a similar selection of sizes and performance tiers. However, LG is still the only brand that sells a 97-inch OLED.

Both companies use WOLED panels in certain models, while Samsung also uses QD-OLED screens in some sizes. QD-OLED panels have an edge in color and brightness, but WOLED panels offer deeper black levels in rooms with ambient light. LG also utilizes a four-stack OLED panel in its high-end G Series OLEDs, which can rival the brightness of Samsung's QD-OLEDs.

Both companies also sell LCD-based TVs, with entry-level options that use standard LED panels and more advanced models with QLED screens, local dimming, and Mini LED backlights. LG brands its more advanced LCD TVs as QNED and NanoCell, while Samsung brands its high-end LCD TVs as Neo QLED. Though LG's newest QNED TVs have gotten a lot better, Samsung's Neo QLEDs generally offer superior backlight control.

In 2026, both brands have also released Micro RGB TVs that use red, green, and blue LEDs in their backlights to deliver better color capabilities. It remains to be seen whether one company has an edge over the other in Micro RGB performance.

LG and Samsung both use their own proprietary smart TV interfaces and support Xbox Game Pass streaming and similar AI features. That said, LG's remotes stand out for their motion controls, and Samsung's for their SolarCell technology, which works without a battery.

Another important distinction between the two brands is that LG supports Dolby Vision HDR on its mid- and high-end TVs, while Samsung supports the competing HDR10+ format. These formats offer similar performance, but Dolby Vision content is more widely available across streaming services and 4K Blu-ray discs. You can learn more in our HDR TV guide.

• Blackstone is bringing Jersey Mike's public today in the biggest restaurant IPO in 20 years.
• Since 2024, Blackstone has turned the founder-run sandwich chain into a professional corporation.
• It's also the first time Blackstone has brought its broad-based employee ownership strategy public.

Today, Jersey Mike's moves from slinging subs to also slinging stock as it goes public at a roughly $7 billion valuation.

The company's newly available shares fell slightly in volatile early trading after pricing in the middle of the IPO range. The debut marks the culmination of a years-long process to grow the company's value.

It's been 51 years since 17-year-old Peter Cancro took out a loan to buy the Jersey Shore sandwich shop where he worked, and not even two years since Blackstone acquired a controlling stake in the chain.

In that short time, the world's largest private equity investor has transformed how the sandwich chain is run, bringing in outside professional managers, establishing a corporate board, and giving employees a stake in the business's equity. It'll be Blackstone's public market debut of private equity's newly popular profit-sharing strategy.

For all that rapid change, the one thing the firm hasn't touched is the sandwiches themselves. Other than adding new ones like the Hot Italian, it kept the portions the same and sliced the deli meat fresh. According to a source with direct knowledge of Jersey Mike's operations, the restaurant's suppliers have not changed since the acquisition.

Here's what Blackstone has changed at the Jersey Shore sandwich shop, and what's stayed the same across nearly 3,300 stores.

From the Shore to the boardroom

Over the nearly five decades that Cancro was the sole owner and executive decision-maker, he grew that one sandwich shop into a nationwide business, hiring family members and paying some of them tens of millions of dollars.

Before he sold a majority stake to Blackstone for $8 billion in debt and equity in 2024, it still operated like a family-run business. As part of the deal, Cancro stepped down as CEO and became a board member. The deal gave Blackstone an 80% stake and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority a 10% stake in the business, with Cancro's share down to 10%.

Cancro wrote in the firm's S-1 that he decided to sell to Blackstone because of the firm's strong experience in franchise businesses, most famously with the ultra-profitable Hilton acquisition.

Cancro was replaced as CEO by Charles Morrison, a longtime industry vet who took Wingstop public in 2015 and was most recently the CEO of Salad and Go.

The sandwich shop's first board included Nigel Travis, former longtime CEO of Dunkin', serving as its chairman, Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Fran Horowitz, former AutoNation CEO Cheryl Miller, and three more Blackstone executives.

Rounding out the executive level are a suite of new hires, including Michele Allen, former CFO of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, at CFO, and Stacy Peterson, former CEO of Jeni's Ice Cream, at COO.

Spread the wealth

With this IPO, Blackstone is doubling down on the idea that executives and workers who are incentivized to see the company do well are more likely to stay and do their best work.

It's offering a shared ownership plan in the form of bonuses to the firm's corporate employees, who work in suburban New Jersey. Blackstone announced in 2024 that all of its future US private equity deals would include these programs, which have become widespread in the industry.

Jersey Mike's bonuses will be funded by Blackstone's own payout, can be either cash or equity, and can range from 0% to 200% of an employees' eligible compensation. The final payout is based on Blackstone's return on its original investment and can also be prorated by an employee's tenure at the company.

Direct employees who don't participate in the other equity incentive programs — and have been at the firm for at least a year when Blackstone is no longer in control of the company — will get a payout. Franchisees, their sandwich-making employees, and employees of corporate-owned stores are not eligible for the ownership plan.

As is more standard, executives will also get stock grants, aligning their interests with the firm's investors.

This will be Blackstone's first time bringing one of these broad ownership plans public. Other examples of an IPO involving one of these plans come from industry shared-ownership evangelist KKR: Gardner Denver, now Ingersoll Rand, and Lineage Logistics. The Jersey Mike's filing is unique in that it exposes the nuts and bolts of how their plan will work.

But it is much smaller than other examples: Jersey Mike's had 293 corporate personnel as of the end of last year, while Ingersoll Rand said it has granted equity to more than 28,000 employees since 2017. Blackstone-owned Copeland, which confidentially filed for an IPO at the end of last year, has 18,000 employees eligible for similar ownership benefits.

Big subs, bigger business

Expansion has remained central to Blackstone's investment thesis. The total number of stores is only up about 8.4% from when Blackstone purchased the chain. The firm is likely doubling down on Jersey Mike's franchisee development pipeline of 1,600 potential new stores, 90% of them from existing franchise owners.

Jersey Mike's is now taking its first continental leap to the UK and Ireland, with Peter Cancro signing a master franchise deal to open up to 300 stores in Ireland. It had already been launched in Canada the year Blackstone purchased it.

Blackstone also used its financial heft to help Jersey Mike's refinance much of its debt earlier this year in a $760 million whole-business securitization. This has resulted in debt levels that are high relative to franchised peers, although the company's profit margins are generally superior, according to the Wall Street research firm Gordon Haskett.

The most obvious signs that expansion is the long-term plan are the specifics of the deal. Blackstone may be bringing Jersey Mike's public less than two years after buying it, but it's doing so at roughly the same valuation, inclusive of debt, that it paid. That implies that Blackstone will hold onto its shares for a while, waiting for its plan to fully pay off. Blackstone has historically held shares of firms it IPOed for years after a transaction, including Hilton, which it held for more than 4 years after the IPO.

They are, of course, recouping some of their costs. For one, the recent debt raise included a dividend for Blackstone, and the firm is selling the lion's share of the IPO offering, at more than 26 million shares. Still, it will retain about two-thirds of the company's voting power. The IPO will also mint nearly 14 million new shares.

In other words, they're going to be in the driver's seat for a while. And with a projected future of 7,500 US restaurants and 15,000 globally, that may be a very lucrative position.

Correction: July 30, 2026 — An earlier version of this story named the wrong company that granted equity to more than 28,000 employees since 2017. It was Ingersoll Rand.

• Starbuck is testing new carbonated versions of its popular refresher drinks in select markets.
• Non-coffee drinks are playing a key role in Starbucks growth, especially among younger customers.
• The company said its refreshers line is delivering double-digit year-over-year growth.

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol is ready for some fizz.

The company is testing a carbonated version of its Refreshers, which are iced juice and tea drinks often mixed with fruit pieces, that have become one of Starbucks' biggest beverage businesses since launching in 2012.

"I'm really excited that we're getting ready to go test sparkling. We're calling it Spritzers," he told investors on the company's third quarter earnings call Wednesday. The company delivered net sales of $9.3 billion for the period, with global comparable sales growth of 7.9%.

Of course, sparkling drinks have been a fast food chain staple since the beginning of the industry. After all, what's a Big Mac without a Coke?

But lest you think the Seattle coffee giant is apparently just now getting the memo on soda, Niccol says his baristas are taking a distinctive approach to bubbles.

"Our team does a great job on getting to the delicious flavors that are relevant for the customer. So it's been a really strong platform for us, and over the last quarter, really continued to perform," he said.

Starting this week, the company said it was testing out the spritz concept at about 100 stores in Austin, San Antonio, and St. Louis.

The category expansion for Starbucks follows new Energy refreshers and Blended refreshers options rolled out earlier this summer. It also comes after nearly two years of a Niccol-led focus on fundamentals, like craft coffee and quicker, friendlier service.

One goal of the change is to increase business during the afternoon, once the morning coffee rush has subsided. The non-coffee flavors also help attract younger customers to the brand.

The sparkling flavor lineup includes a coffee and citrus combo, a peach and passion fruit tea, and a strawberry matcha mashup.

"It's been a platform, frankly, that we kind of got a little complacent on in the past, and now we are reinvigorating," Niccol said on the earnings call. "Whether it's fully decaffeinated or whether it's fully boosted, those are the different occasions that people want Refreshers, whether it's in the morning or the afternoon, and whether you're young or old, the platform is resonating."

• I booked a 225-square-foot sea terrace room on an adults-only Virgin Voyages cruise in 2023.
• For $844 a night, the room had a queen-size bed that transformed into a couch and a balcony.
• It had luxury details like a rainfall shower and smart controls for mood lighting and entertainment.

My 225-square-foot home for seven days of cruising the Mediterranean Sea felt bigger than I expected.

When I booked the sea terrace room with the adults-only cruise line Virgin Voyages in 2023, I was prepared to feel cramped in the tiny space, especially since I was traveling with someone else.

I'm glad I was wrong.

My cabin on Virgin Voyages' Valiant Lady ship had a starting rate of $5,910 for a weeklong stay for two people, though Business Insider paid a media rate for the cruise.

The cruise sailed round-trip from Barcelona to ports in Italy and France, including one overnight stay in Ibiza. I spent more time in my room than I thought I would because it was so comfortable and luxurious. Here's a look at every detail that made it worth the price.

Virgin Voyages' Valiant Lady ship has 1,408 cabins and suites. My room was toward the back of deck 12.

I booked a third-tier stateroom with a balcony — a step above sea-view cabins, which have only a window, and two steps above an interior room with no view.

The room was 225 square feet, including the balcony. I thought the cabin efficiently used the tiny space without sacrificing luxury details.

Inside was a queen-size bed, a desk, a bathroom, and plenty of hidden storage compartments. Considering the room's small size, I was surprised by the ample floor space. I never felt too confined in my cabin.

At the front of the cabin, the bathroom was stocked with toiletries and storage spaces to keep the counter clutter-free.

The bathroom felt luxurious thanks to a rainfall showerhead. Wall shelving made it easy to keep the space looking tidy.

Across from the bathroom, an iridescent curtain hid the closet.

Inside, I spotted a shelf with two empty bins for extra storage and a cabinet holding emergency life vests, towels, a safe, and drawers I filled with clothing.

Next to the closet, the desk against the wall had an ottoman tucked underneath it. I thought this made the room feel bigger.

Beneath the desk, I spotted a hidden mini fridge, which I used to keep my drinks cold.

I thought the vibrant, round mirror above the desk added a unique touch of luxury.

At the back of the room, there was a comfortable queen-size bed. Next to it, a thin nightstand was light enough to move around the room as needed.

I learned from the Virgin Voyages app that crew members could transform the bed into a couch upon request. This made the cabin feel more like a living room during the day.

The cabin also had an in-room tablet with entertainment and smart controls.

I didn't have to leave my bed to change the lighting or close the curtains.

From "hangover" to "photo shoot," different tablet settings changed the mood lighting throughout the room.

The best part of the cabin was the balcony. It had a table, chairs, and a large, netted hammock.

I spent a lot of time on my balcony during the voyage. With the fresh air and sunset views, I thought it was worth the upgrade for a private outdoor space.

With multipurpose furniture and plenty of storage, I thought the 225-square-foot room was big enough to keep two people comfortable.

I'd definitely book a sea terrace cabin with Virgin Voyages again. And I'd recommend it to adult travelers who want to feel wrapped in luxury at sea.

• Anne Hathaway announced on Instagram in June that she's pregnant with her third child.
• She's since worn an array of stunning maternity looks, including minidresses and multi-piece sets.
• The actor first showed her strong maternity style in 2016 and 2019.

You can call her Andy Sachs, the princess of Genovia, or a soon-to-be mom of three.

Anne Hathaway announced on Instagram in June that she and her husband are expecting their third child.

Since then, "The Odyssey" actor has graced red carpets, photo shoots, and the streets of New York with glamorous fashion.

Here are the best maternity looks she's ever worn, from a ruffled minidress to showstopping event gowns.

Anne Hathaway glimmered in gold at the 2016 Vanity Fair Oscars party.

Naeem Khan designed her two-piece gown, which featured a strapless black garment that hugged her body beneath a mesh overlay.

The latter was embellished with gold beads and sequins in asymmetrical stripes.

The outfit was memorable and styled perfectly with gold earrings, dramatic makeup, an updo, and a gold clutch.

Hathaway was pregnant with her first child at the time.

While pregnant with her second child, Hathaway wore a fuchsia midi dress.

The Brandon Maxwell design was as fun as it was daring, with a sleeveless bodice and waist cutouts. Inside the dress was a custom tag that read "Anne + 1."

She wore it to attend the opening night of "Sea Wall/A Life" on Broadway.

This year, after announcing her latest pregnancy, the actor stepped out in red.

She was photographed in Tribeca wearing a red jumpsuit from the New York fashion label Ashlyn.

The long-sleeved piece had a peplum waist, flowing capris, and a scoop neckline. Vogue later reported that Hathaway had worn the outfit backward, as the latter was meant to be scooped at the back.

Hathaway completed the vibrant outfit with red peep-toe heels from Aquazzura, thick gold Bvlgari jewelry, and statement Krewe sunglasses.

She then showed off her maternity street style.

For another New York City outing, Hathaway paired oversize blue trousers from La Ligne with a black ATM shirt and a knit Brunello Cucinelli blazer.

The variety of textures made for an eye-catching outfit. Her accessories, which included mesh Alaïa flats, a black Ferragamo purse, and Bvlgari sunglasses, tied it all together.

The actor embraced summer fashion with a yellow, floral gown.

Her stunning, strapless dress was designed by Lela Rose. It was made from vibrant velvet and stamped with floral shapes across its bodice.

Hathaway wore it with gold Bvlgari bracelets, a matching choker necklace, and brown-tinted Krewe sunglasses.

Hathaway later proved that you can never have too many accessories.

Ahead of a photocall, the actor was photographed leaving a hotel in a ruffled white minidress by Blumarine.

It was a statement on its own, but Hathaway made it look even better with suede Gianvito Rossi knee-high boots, a heart-shaped Chanel handbag, Bvlgari jewelry, and white Trussardi sunglasses.

She looked like a princess at "The Odyssey" premiere in London.

Her strapless, blue gown was custom-made by Jonathan Anderson for Dior. It had delicate pleats, a floor-length skirt, and a floral appliqué attached at the waist.

Hathaway wore it with simple jewelry, her hair down, and a red lip.

The same could be said when she attended a photocall in Paris.

Still on "The Odyssey" press tour, Hathaway stepped out in Paris for a photo event wearing a custom Prada look.

The navy-blue dress had a strapless neckline, a floor-length skirt, and a dark tulle cape that extended across the front of Hathaway.

The latter also extended to the floor and was decorated with gold pieces.

Hathaway stunned at the New York City premiere of "The Odyssey" in a pleated and sequined gown.

Once again, Prada designed her custom look. Its halter top was decorated with silver sequins and a triangle cutout. Its lengthy skirt, on the other hand, was pleated and made from silk.

Hathaway completed the look with an updo hairstyle and diamond jewelry.

She looked like she was ready for a summer in Greece while visiting New York City.

She was photographed walking around town in a blue Alaïa dress. It had straps in place of sleeves, a rounded neckline, and a pleated skirt that ended just above her gold sandals.

She also wore a thick gold choker necklace, a matching bracelet, and dark sunglasses.

• We asked interior designers for their best tips on furniture and decor shopping at thrift stores.
• They said bringing a tape measure and physical color swatches will make shopping easier.
• One expert warned against purchasing anything that requires expensive repairs.

Although thrift stores can be a great place to find the perfect piece of furniture or decor, it's also easy to waste money on low-quality items if you don't know how to shop smart.

So, Business Insider asked interior designers to share the mistakes they see people make when shopping at secondhand stores.

Here's what they said.

Skipping great frames because of ugly art

Cara Newhart, an interior designer and the host of the "Make Space" podcast, told BI that shoppers should never skip buying a high-quality frame just because the art isn't their style.

"Even if you don't like the art, you can save the frame and swap it out for a print that's a perfect fit for your space," Newhart said.

Forgetting to measure a room before shopping for furniture

Interior designer Veronica Sanders said it's crucial to measure your space before heading to a thrift shop.

"Not measuring the dimensions of your space is such a common mistake," Sanders said. "Write them down so you can compare the size of the furniture with the space you have available."

Remember to bring a tape measure so you can assess the dimensions of any prospective purchases. 

Underestimating the cost of repairs

Although it's normal to find fixer-uppers in a thrift store, Newhart cautioned against taking on a project that can take up too much time or budget.

"I'd avoid buying pieces that need to be fully reupholstered, totally refinished, or otherwise made over — unless you have the money or serious DIY skills required," Newhart said.

Visiting only one thrift shop

Every thrift store has different stock, so don't limit your shopping to just one. 

If you're intent on hunting down the very best buys, try hitting multiple consignment shops in different parts of town or visiting a local flea market.

"Never make the mistake of thinking that one thrift shop has everything you need," Sanders said. "You could be missing out on the perfect piece at another store."

Trying to haggle using negativity

Secondhand-item and consignment dealers typically spend a great deal of time and energy acquiring pieces. So, it's important to show respect while shopping.

If negotiating is welcomed, be sure to show your enthusiasm for a shop owner's goods before venturing to make a deal.

"Negative comments like, 'You can't be serious,' or, 'It isn't worth that much,' are unlikely to result in a bargain," Kimberley Seldon of Kimberley Seldon Design Group said.

Trying to recall colors from memory

Designers know it's almost impossible to accurately recall colors from memory. That's why it's helpful to bring a physical sample of any hues you're trying to match.

"Always shop with fabric or paint swatches to make your decisions easier," Seldon told BI.

Passing on quality wooden pieces

Thrift stores are often filled with particleboard or faux-wood furniture, but they're also a great place to find deals on high-quality pieces.

"A good, sturdy piece of wood furniture can be hard to find, so when you stumble upon a gem, it may be worth the splurge," Sanders said.

She said old wooden dressers, coffee tables, and stools can be given new life with a fresh coat of paint or stain and a new cushion.

Shopping alone if you live with others

Going thrift shopping for furniture or decor can lead to household tension if you share your space with roommates or a partner.

"You may love that bright-red sofa, but it may be a total eyesore for your partner," Sanders said. "It's good to get second opinions and input from those you live with."

Bringing your housemates along is even more important when shopping for big-ticket items or bulky pieces that may be difficult to get rid of or resell.

This story was originally published on March 24, 2022, and most recently updated on July 30, 2026.

• The US Army is deciding what worked and what failed in a major test of its new command system.
• The parts that worked will now be rolled out to more units for further testing and training.
• Some systems did not hold up in the desert heat, with parts overheating during recent testing.

The US Army put its prototype command-and-control system to the test in the desert. Now, it's sorting out what performed well enough to be scaled across the service — and what should be cut.

The Army has been developing Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, alongside industry partners like Anduril and Palantir, and at a recent exercise at Fort Irwin, California, the service put it to work in a large-scale desert combat scenario.

Project Convergence Capstone brought together nearly 10,000 Army soldiers, close to 100 new technologies, and forces from several allied and partner nations. It was the largest demonstration yet of NGC2, building on 10 months of testing at events like Ivy Sting and a broader trial, Ivy Mass, at Fort Carson, Colorado.

For the Army, this exercise offered critical insight into what's working with NGC2. "As we move NGC2 into additional units, we're going to be bringing the data layer, the applications, as well as the infrastructure, the transport," said Joe Welch, an Army senior civilian executive overseeing NGC2's development.

Those parts make up the core of NGC2, which is designed to streamline the flow of battlefield data and communications and use artificial intelligence to assist with information processing and battlefield planning.

This command-and-control system is intended to help the Army track and stay connected with distributed assets, be they soldiers or weapons, and use apps for functions such as calling in fires or tracking levels of fuel, water, and ammunition.

Army officials expect the NGC2 testing and training for additional units will be shorter because of the lessons that have been learned during its development. They say test data and feedback from soldiers should help future units adopt the system more quickly.

At the same time, the Army acknowledged that parts of NGC2 did not perform as expected during the exercise.

"We're gonna have some failures out here in the desert, and that's good," said Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army vice chief of staff. "If there is something out here that's not living up to what has been advertised, we're going to walk away from that."

The Army cited examples like applications that fulfilled duplicative functions, as well as pieces of hardware that didn't perform well. Specifically, the heat of the Mojave Desert proved to be a challenge, causing some pieces of commercial technology to overheat. Soldiers sometimes improvised their own fixes.

"Soldiers figured out that by soaking a T-shirt in ice water, you could put it on top of some of the antennas and cool them off enough for them to function," said Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, commander of the 4th Infantry Division.

There were other lessons learned from the exercise, including which apps were most useful for specific personnel and operational missions, and how NGC2's user interface could be modified to better fit an individual user's needs.

The Army is asking for nearly $4 billion to continue developing NGC2 in its latest budget request. Army officials have said the system, together with the service's approach to bringing in vendors and using commercial technology, marks a shift in how it does business with the defense industry.

Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisitions, logistics, and technology and the Army's acquisition executive, said the effort shows "how the Army is changing" the way it acquires and fields new technology while making better use of systems already in its formations.

• Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness was forced to sell a bulk of its public equities book to Citadel.
• The firm was facing margin calls on various AI-connected positions that had tanked in recent weeks.
• Situational Awareness did not sell its private book, which includes a large holding in Anthropic.

Even in a meltdown, Leopold Aschenbrenner was able to retain his best asset.

The 25-year-old founder of artificial-intelligence-focused investor Situational Awareness was forced to sell a majority of his public equity holdings to Ken Griffin's $71 billion hedge fund Citadel on Wednesday, several people familiar with the situation confirmed to Business Insider. Outlets, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and CNBC, had previously reported on the once-$20 billion fund's rapid unwind.

The people confirmed that Situational Awareness did not sell its private portfolio of AI companies, which includes a significant stake in Anthropic, which is expected to go public in the next few months and was last valued at $965 billion in a Series H funding round in May. Aschenbrenner's fiancée also works for the leading AI company.

There were other bidders for the firm's public equities book, which included large positions in AI hardware stocks such as Nebius and Sandisk. Citadel rival Millennium and Situational Awareness investor Jane Street both put in their own offers, people familiar with the situation said.

The firms mentioned declined to comment.

Aschenbrenner was forced to sell to Griffin due to margin calls on positions that the firm had levered up — or borrowed money from banks to juice returns — that had fallen. When positions fall, bank partners ask for additional collateral to protect their investments, news of which can lead to stocks falling further, creating a self-perpetuating downward spiral.

While the high-flying fund, which had returned more than 400% in the year before July, has been humbled, a person close to the fund said the manager will still trade public equities and has kept a small chunk of its book.

Now, though, the fund that was once closely watched by retail traders trying to make a fortune by copying trades will be mostly in private companies, including the gem of its portfolio, Anthropic.

Aschenbrenner, who graduated as the valedictorian from Columbia University at 19, burst on the AI scene when he published a manifesto on the future of AI in the summer of 2024 after he was fired from OpenAI, where he was a researcher. The essay, titled Situational Awareness, predicted the imminent arrival of superintelligence and a potential war with China if the US didn't lead the way.

He decided to start an asset manager focused on the sector, despite having no professional investment experience, launching with less than $1 billion. The fund quickly scaled, counting Silicon Valley bigwigs like Stripe cofounders Patrick and John Collison, former Y Combinator partner Daniel Gross, and onetime GitHub CEO Nat Friedman as original backers.

Correction: July 30, 2026 — An earlier version of this story misstated when Aschenbrenner was fired from OpenAI. It was before he wrote the essay, not after.

• Lucy Postins started cooking for her own dog, turned the recipes into a business.
• She says that the US encourages success more than her native England.
• She stepped down as CEO to spend more time with her kids but remains deeply involved.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lucy Postins, founder and Chief Integrity Officer at The Honest Kitchen. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Back in 2001, my dog, Mosi, kept getting ear infections. I was working for a pet food company at the time in product development. At home, I started preparing raw-food meals for Mosi. It helped with the ear infections almost immediately, but it was messy, time-consuming, and destroyed my kitchen.

I thought dehydrated dog food would be a cleaner option. When I mentioned it to a friend who owned a pet supply store, she encouraged me. That was the push I needed to commercialize.

It took some time to find a co-packer who understood that I wanted to produce human-grade food for dogs. Finally, I found one who believed in me and set up my website. When I placed my first test order, I realized a customer had beaten me to it. I didn't even have a shipping account set up yet, but I had my first sale.

Dog food was a common dinner table conversation in our home

My business, The Honest Kitchen, grew steadily after launching in 2002. Some of the early years are a blur. My first daughter was born in 2004, and her sister followed three years later. I was trying to follow up with every customer while also raising babies. The years went by so incredibly fast.

My husband at the time also worked for The Honest Kitchen, so we were constantly talking about work. One day at the dinner table, my daughter said, "Can we please not talk about dog food tonight?"

That was a bit of a wakeup call: the business was taking over a lot of our lives. Yet, I was proud that my kids were seeing me succeed.

I'm focused on the moral and ethical direction of the company

By 2011, we had enough sales that we were able to take outside investment. Having other people put their money behind my idea was a real moment of validation.

I had been running the company, traveling two or three times a month in my role as CEO. When my older daughter turned 9, it struck me that she was halfway to 18. I wanted the flexibility to chaperone her field trips or take her to riding lessons.

I spoke with the investors about stepping down as CEO. After about two years of transition, the then-president of the company became CEO, and I became chief integrity officer. It's the role I'm most passionate about. Sometimes it involves tasting dog food (yes, really) to make sure our product meets our standards. Mostly, it's about ensuring that the company grows in a way that aligns with my morals and ethics.

I've benefited from American culture around entrepreneurship

When I immigrated to the US from London after college, I never imagined I'd be living the American dream. The US has a real culture of wanting people to do well and celebrating success. I'm grateful I was able to come here on a work visa, eventually get my citizenship, and now employ 69 people.

In England, entrepreneurship isn't celebrated the same way. My mom and sister have never discussed my company's sales or its success with me.

There's an element of loneliness to being an entrepreneur. Not many people can relate to founding a company, and sometimes I hold back on sharing successes with friends because I don't want to sound like I'm bragging. Connecting with other founders through my investors has helped: I've been able to have conversations with them that I can't have with my immediate circle.

Despite that, many of my friendships have endured. One of my good friends, who helped me set up QuickBooks in the early days of my business, is flying in for my wedding this spring. Our relationship works because, really, I'm still the same person I was when I founded the company.

• LinkedIn is trying to fix its "AI slop" problem.
• Users can now flag a post if it "seems like AI slop."
• The company's product chief said dealing with the issue is a top priority.

Is your LinkedIn feed filthy with AI slop? Have you read enough generic ChatGPT broetry to make you want to log off and open a real book?

LinkedIn has a solution.

The company is introducing a new feature this week that lets users flag when a post in their feed "seems like AI slop."

When you tag a post as sloppy, it will disappear from your feed. LinkedIn is also testing a method of privately notifying the poster in their account dashboard that their words "may have come off as inauthentic," according to the company's chief product officer, Hari Srinivasan, who wrote about the feature on Thursday.

The company doesn't want to be the arbiter of what is good or bad AI content, he said, because "AI and slop are not the same thing."

"We want members to get feedback from real humans on what sounds authentic — not just have an AI detector review it and get it wrong," he continued.

AI-generated content has run rampant on LinkedIn in recent months. Like its social-network peers TikTok and Instagram, the company is reckoning with a wave of artificially made posts as generative AI tools like Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 make it much easier to spin up content quickly.

LinkedIn has developed its own particular brand of AI slop, as corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and job hunters flood the feed with generic, AI-generated thought leadership and business truisms. The AI detector company Pangram recently estimated that 41% of long LinkedIn posts and 30% of shorter posts were AI-generated.

Other media platforms have been testing ways to cut down on poorly written AI content. The newsletter app Substack recently announced a partnership with Pangram to let users scan for AI, for example. In November, TikTok began testing the ability to let users toggle how much AI content appears in their feeds.

Cracking down on unwanted AI could be critical for the platforms as they look to avoid alienating users.

"AI slop is a top priority for all of us," Srinivasan wrote in his post. "We really care about this. People come to LinkedIn to connect with real people and share their real perspectives, ideas and expertise."

• I traded ballpark hot dogs for an upscale steakhouse inside Citi Field.
• Pat LaFrieda's Chop House felt worlds away from typical stadium food.
• The meal, including a $215 Tomahawk steak, was pricey, but the elevated experience impressed me.

When most people head to a baseball game, they expect to fill up on concession-stand hot dogs or a bucket of popcorn, washed down with an overpriced beer.

However, during a recent visit to Citi Field, I skipped the concession stands and booked a reservation at Pat LaFrieda's Chop House, the full-service steakhouse tucked inside the ballpark.

The meal cost far more than the typical game-day fare, but it also offered an experience that felt worlds away from eating in the stadium seats.

"We're slinging chicken tenders, and we have to make sure the hot dogs are good," Citi Field senior executive chef Jason Eksterowicz told Business Insider.

"Those items are what keep the lights on," he said. "But this menu really separates us from the rest of the pack."

From a $215 dry-aged Tomahawk steak to white-napkin service, here's what it was like to trade a classic baseball dinner for one of the most upscale meals you can have at a Major League ballpark.

Portions of the meal were provided by Pat Lafrieda's Chophouse, while Business Insider paid for the remaining items and the gratuity.

Pat Lafrieda's Chop House is inside the Clover Club, an exclusive, premium seating area at Citi Field.

The full-service restaurant is located inside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda near the main entrance, making it easy to visit before first pitch.

I booked a reservation at Pat LaFrieda's Chop House on a recent gameday in early July. Reservations can be made online through OpenTable or by calling the restaurant.

It's only open to premium ticket holders, including those with access to the Delta Sky 360 Club, Clover Suites, Hyundai Club, Metropolitan Platinum, Gold, and Silver, plus Field Gold and Silver seat holders.

Pat LaFrieda's Chop House is run by one of New York's most famous butchers.

The steakhouse is operated by Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors, a family-owned company that has supplied premium beef to New York restaurants for generations and has partnered with Citi Field for years.

My reservation fell during the game, so I was curious to see whether one of the ballpark's most upscale dining experiences would actually be worth the price, and missing the game in person.

Walking in, it felt much more like a Manhattan steakhouse than a sports venue.

The dark wooden tables were set with cloth napkins, place settings, and wine glasses, creating an elegant atmosphere.

It was brighter than many steakhouses I've dined at, but it still felt upscale compared to other dining options inside the stadium.

Thankfully, I could still keep up with the game while I ate.

Televisions throughout the restaurant made it easy to follow every inning while enjoying dinner. Unlike at a traditional concession stand, I never felt like I had to rush through my meal to miss the action.

The slower pace made the experience feel more like dinner at a restaurant than grabbing food during a baseball game. It struck a nice balance between fine dining and game-day excitement.

The menu featured classic steakhouse favorites.

The menu featured dry-aged steaks, seafood, salads, burgers, and appetizers, along with an extensive wine list.

Although there were plenty of familiar steakhouse dishes, there were also lighter options for anyone not looking to order a massive steak, like sandwiches and salads.

Prices were significantly higher than traditional stadium food, but comparable to those at upscale steakhouses in New York City. I appreciated that there was something for nearly every appetite.

I started with one of the Mets' signature cocktails.

Before ordering dinner, I tried one of the restaurant's themed cocktails: the Queens Quencher ($27.89), served in a souvenir Mets glass and made with blue curaçao.

It was refreshing, lightly sweet, and a fun way to lean into the ballpark atmosphere.

While the drink was certainly priced like stadium food, it helped make the meal feel like a special occasion. If you're already splurging on dinner, I'd recommend starting with a cocktail.

My server also started me off with some complimentary popcorn before I ordered.

Instead of bread, servers brought out bowls of freshly popped popcorn to snack on before the meal arrived.

It was a clever nod to classic baseball food while still feeling a bit more elevated than concession-stand popcorn. The popcorn was buttery, surprisingly addictive, and immediately reminded me that I was still dining inside a ballpark in a fun, but not corny, way.

The chopped salad was fresh and satisfying.

To start my meal, I ordered the chopped salad ($20), which was prepared with gorgonzola cheese, applewood-smoked bacon, plum tomatoes, red onion, and blue-cheese ranch dressing.

It was a simple salad done well.

Every bite had a little bit of everything, making it flavorful without feeling heavy. The ingredients tasted fresh, and the dressing was well-balanced. It was a refreshing way to begin what would be a very rich meal.

My only complaint was that the salad was a little too wet for my tastes — but, if you're a fan of dressing, this might be right up your alley.

The crispy rice with tuna was one of my favorite dishes.

Typically available on the restaurant's dinner menu, the crispy rice ($28) came with tuna tartare, avocado, spicy mayo, candied lemon, and scallions.

Each piece was beautifully plated and packed with flavor, despite its small size.

This appetizer felt like something I'd expect to find at a trendy sushi restaurant rather than inside a baseball stadium. Of everything I tried before the steak, the crispy rice impressed me the most.

The tuna was unbelievably fresh, the spicy mayo packed the right amount of kick, and the dish came together nearly flawlessly.

I thought the rice cakes could have been a bit crispier. The consistency was closer to flattened balls of sticky rice than to crispy rice.

The Tomahawk steak was the star of the meal.

For my entrée, the restaurant brought out its unbelievably massive Tomahawk steak for two ($215), one of its signature dishes.

It arrived beautifully presented with a deep crust on the outside and a perfectly pink center. The beef was rich, juicy, and incredibly tender, making it clear why Pat LaFrieda has built such a strong reputation among steak lovers in New York City and beyond.

Although it was expensive, it lived up to its price tag.

When it came down to flavor, I was blown away.

The steak had a thick, peppery crust that gave way to melt-in-your-mouth medium-rare meat. Paired with chimichurri sauce and caramelized onions, this meal was a far cry from anything I've ever eaten at a stadium before.

This meal reminded me more of a Vegas resort than a baseball stadium. According to Chef Eksterowicz, that's intentional.

"This stadium is designed more along the lines of a resort," Eksterowicz, who spent much of his career at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas before joining Citi Field in 2017, told me.

"Instead of a big pool, it's a baseball field."

The Tomahawk would easily feed two or even three people, especially with appetizers and sides.

Ordering it family-style is probably the best value if you're dining with a group. While the price is steep, splitting the cost makes the experience much more approachable.

For one of the most memorable meals you can have at Citi Field, the price didn't seem too outlandish to me.

My Pat Lafrieda steakhouse dinner changed how I think about ballpark food.

After dinner, I understood why Citi Field has earned a reputation for having some of the best food in Major League Baseball.

While Pat LaFrieda's Chop House is far more expensive than grabbing a hot dog in the concourse, it delivers a genuinely upscale dining experience that still lets you enjoy the game in a more relaxed setting, without the need for a black-tie dress code or over-the-top presentation.

If you're celebrating a special occasion, attending a game with colleagues or clients, or simply want to splurge while at Citi Field, I think it's one of the most unusual ways to experience the stadium.

• Bryan Johnson says he is having second thoughts about his antiaging experiment.
• In an X post, the famous biohacker said he might have taken the "whole longevity thing" too far.
• Johnson was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease this year. He also took shrooms twice.

Longevity evangelist Bryan Johnson says he is having second thoughts.

The tech entrepreneur, who has transformed his body into a highly measured experiment in antiaging, is now expressing some doubts about his famous work.

"Been thinking things over and wonder if I've taken this whole longevity thing too far," Johnson wrote on X on Thursday.

For someone who has so enthusiastically devoted so much time and money to this experiment, it was easy to wonder whether he had been hacked. A day earlier, he said people may live to be 500 years old.

Johnson spoke at Business Insider's Long Play event in April. He laid out some of his top tips for living longer, which included no drinking and lots of sex. He criticized Silicon Valley's "monk mode" culture, in which founders like to say they will forgo dating "until Series B."

"What founders don't realize is when you don't take care of your health, you are shitty code," Johnson said.

It's been an eventful year in Johnson's campaign against aging. Earlier this month, he said he had been diagnosed with gastritis — an autoimmune condition in which the immune system attacks the stomach lining — that had gone undetected for years despite his extensive health testing. After the diagnosis, he said he would try to reverse what is considered by doctors to be an incurable condition.

He also took a healthy dose, twice, of psilocybin mushrooms, which, rather famously, can impact how one sees the world. He livestreamed his experience while taking almost 5 grams of the B+ strain of Psilocybe cubensis.

After analyzing the data, Johnson said the mushrooms offer "a compelling case for longevity potential."

"Psilocybin calmed my body and mind," he added.

Since selling the payments company Braintree, Johnson has spent millions a year in a regimented program to reverse aging. He officially launched Project Blueprint in 2021.

His protocol has included an early bedtime, a tightly controlled diet, daily exercise, supplements, prescription drugs, frequent bloodwork, scans, an omnipresent team of doctors, and experimental treatments. He has described himself as perhaps the most biologically measured person in history.

• I moved from the US to a small Italian town 12 years ago. Raising kids here has been surprising.
• In our town, kids seem to be way more independent and woven into adults' social lives.
• Ultimately, we're trying to keep some of our American values while adapting to the local culture.

When my family moved from the United States to a small town in Southern Italy 12 years ago, I expected our children to grow up speaking another language and experiencing a different way of life.

I didn't fully anticipate how much the move would challenge my ideas about parenting (in a good way).

I was born and raised in Cleveland and attended Ohio State University, so my instincts were influenced by life in and around large American cities. I was accustomed to parents closely supervising where their children went, organizing their schedules, and treating late evenings as adult territory.

In our part of Southern Italy, Mormanno, a mountain town in the Calabria region with a population of less than 3,000 people, many of those assumptions do not apply.

Over the years, I have had to decide which local customs to embrace, which American values to preserve, and how to raise children who understand both cultures without feeling that they must choose between them.

Children here are typically given more freedom in public

One of the first differences I noticed was how independently children move around town.

In the small community where we live, it's not unusual to see kids walking through the town center, visiting friends, or spending time outside without a parent or adult directly beside them.

Older children and teenagers tend to remain outside much later than I would have considered normal growing up in Cleveland, too.

At first, this felt shocking and made me uncomfortable. My American instincts told me that children needed much closer supervision, particularly after dark.

But the environment is different from the one that birthed my expectations. Crime here in our town is extremely rare, and local families often know one another across generations.

A child may be outside without a parent, but that does not necessarily mean no adult is paying attention. Neighbors, relatives, shopkeepers, and family friends are often nearby.

The freedom children receive reflects both the community's safety and the trust created by living in a place where people recognize one another.

It took me time to understand that independence here can exist within a strong communal safety net.

Kids seem to be included in adult social life more often

I was also surprised by how naturally children are woven into social life here.

In the US, many parents arrange babysitters for late dinners or adult gatherings. We also tend to distinguish between spaces that are meant for children and those intended primarily for adults. Even at family events, kids may be given a separate table or activity area.

Where we live in Italy, children are usually part of the gathering. It's not unusual for families to bring young children to restaurants, cafés, celebrations, and evening events, sometimes quite late at night.

What Americans might call a bar is often also a neighborhood café where people drink coffee, eat pastries, and socialize with their families.

The expectation is not necessarily that every environment must be specially designed for children. Instead, kids gradually learn how to exist within the broader social world of the family and other adults.

That approach can make evenings feel less structured than what many American parents are accustomed to. Strict bedtimes and carefully planned routines may give way to long dinners, spontaneous visits, and children falling asleep nearby while the adults continue talking.

I still value routine, particularly because every child responds differently to changes in sleep and structure. But I have come to appreciate a culture in which parenthood does not seem to automatically exclude families from so much of community life.

Independence means something different in each culture

Perhaps the most interesting contrast is that Italian children can appear more independent when they are young but remain more closely connected to their families as they grow older.

American culture often defines independence as separation. Young people are encouraged to earn their own money, move out, and build lives apart from their parents. Living at home well into adulthood can sometimes be interpreted as a failure to progress.

In Southern Italy, independence seems less connected to leaving the family unit. Adult children may live with their parents longer, remain heavily involved in family decisions, or depend on relatives for practical support. In return, they are also expected to remain available to help parents, grandparents, and siblings.

Some of this is cultural, and some is connected to economic realities and limited job opportunities. To me, it also reflects a more interdependent idea of family life. Adulthood does not necessarily mean needing one another less.

That has challenged some of my American assumptions. I still want my children to become capable, responsible adults, but I no longer believe autonomy has to mean distance.

Ultimately, we are doing our best to raise our children between cultures

I do recognize that much of what I've experienced here is probably very similar to how life is in small rural cities in the US. For me, however, it was like a whole new world.

Our greatest challenge has been helping our children participate fully in Italian life without losing their American identity or their identity as African Americans.

We want them to speak the language, understand local customs, and appreciate the community in which they are growing up. We also want them to know the history, traditions, and experiences that connect them to their family and culture in the US.

After 12 years, I no longer see Italian and American parenting as a contest in which one approach must be better than the other. Each reflects different ideas about safety, family, community, and what children need in order to thrive.

Raising our kids here has required constant negotiation. We have adopted some Italian habits, held firmly to some American ones, and created others that belong specifically to our family.

Our children are not growing up exactly as I did, but they are learning how to belong to more than one place. That may be the most unexpected part of raising them abroad, and perhaps the most valuable.

Flip phones are so back, and just like the early 2000's, cases are all the rage. Not only is it important for decorative purposes, but a case is the best way to prolong a phone's lifetime and prevent dings, scratches, and shattering. With that in mind, I've gathered all of the best Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 cases below to help you find the right choice for your new foldable.

Unlike the new Samsung Fold smartphones, the Flip 8 has no shortage of cases to choose from, thanks to its accessory-like form factor. From artist collaboration exclusives from Samsung to affordable clear cases from Spigen, you really can choose from a variety of options, finishes, and materials. All of the brands and options below are highlights from brands we've personally tested and loved.

The best Galaxy Z Flip 8 Ultra Cases

• Browse more cases at Amazon | Dbrand | Samsung

What is the best Galaxy Z Flip 8 case?

Smartphone owners prone to drops should consider a more protective case, such as the premium brand OtterBox or budget-friendly Spigen, for their new Z Flip 8. Alternatively, fans of unique designs may prefer Samsung's exclusive art cases, featuring Esther Bunny, Pingu, and Kakao Friends.

Do Galaxy Z Flip 7 cases fit the Galaxy Z Flip 8?

Due to its smaller size and thinner overall build, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 is a completely different shape from its predecessor, the Flip 7. Cases designed for earlier generations won't fit the latest phone.

What screen protector should I get?

A screen protector is always a great idea, especially with external screens and lenses at risk on foldable phones. For the Galaxy Z Flip 8, I recommend checking out Spigen's screen protectors and camera lens shields for the job.

Haven't ordered your device yet? Check out the best Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 deals in our guide.

Follow us on Instagram and WhatsApp for the latest deals, reviews, and buying guides.

• A health coach tested four fitness wearables to compare data on sleep, steps, and recovery.
• Each brand had pros and cons, but one stood out as reliable and good value.
• He said to be wary when wearables overwhelm you with data but don't help you change any habits.

Every morning for two weeks, health and performance coach Dan Go woke up and checked his fitness wearable. And then checked again. And again. And again.

Go, 46, was wearing four different devices at once, his latest self-experiment to find optimal strategies for health and fitness.

"I've always wanted to do this test for my own curiosity, so I could see which one came out on top," he told Business Insider.

Go, who is based in Toronto, has been a trainer for over a decade, mainly working with entrepreneurs to improve their work and home lives by optimizing their health.

His clients are very interested in picking the right wearable.

To compare factors such as accuracy and convenience, Go tried an Apple Watch, a Whoop, an Oura Ring, and a Fitbit Air simultaneously. He had tried them before, but never head-to-head.

While two weeks is a very short window for a health experiment, Go said it was enough time for him to determine his pick for overall performance and which device he prefers for himself, day to day.

Here's what he chose, and what he recommends to clients seeking sustainable fitness.

He tried 4 wearables that track performance, health, and sleep

Go said each device had unique advantages and tradeoffs:

• He found the Apple Watch ($249-799) was most accurate for step count (compared with a pedometer), but it had the shortest battery life and needed to be charged daily.
  
  For sleep, Go couldn't independently verify the accuracy of his score, so he compared it with how he felt and referenced a Wall Street Journal experiment conducted in a Stanford sleep lab, which found the Apple Watch to be more accurate than other devices.
• The Whoop band ($199-$359 per year) had the best user app experience, he said, with an extensive diary to track daily routines from supplement use to specific workouts, but Go said it was less accurate on metrics like steps.
• The Oura Ring ($349-499 for ring; $5.99-$69.99 per year membership) offers solid tracking, especially for sleep, and good battery life with a unique format in the app, with three daily scores, but Go said he felt the ring can be clunky to wear during activities like lifting weights or washing dishes.
• The Fitbit Air ($99.99) is more affordable (no subscription required), reliable for metrics like daily steps, and comfortable to wear, but per the Journal, it is less accurate for sleep tracking.

Apple and Fitbit declined to comment on Go's specific choices. Oura did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Go tells his clients to keep it simple

Go said the Oura Ring is a strong contender. The first time he tried it, before this head-to-head experiment, the data inspired him to drastically improve his sleep habits. The data was clear, encouraging, and not overwhelming.

"I improved my sleep, going from someone who had trouble going to sleep to someone who went straight to sleep and was able to stay asleep throughout the entire night," he said.

He doesn't recommend it, though, because he found himself taking the ring off too often.

Instead, his pick — and the one he recommends to clients — is the Apple Watch. While it's a bit more expensive up front, it doesn't require an ongoing subscription to use like Oura or Whoop.

Go found it to be the most reliable of the four devices: The step count tracked closely with the pedometer, and it tended to match his subjective sense of being rested (or not).

"Apple Watch was the most accurate in terms of comparing how I felt to the metrics I was getting," he said.

The surprising difference between fitness wearables

Go said that while he expected some variability between devices, they were a lot less consistent than he expected.

"One of the most surprising things to me was that the Whoop was over-exaggerating the amount of steps I was taking," he said.

For sleep, Go didn't test the devices in a sleep lab where they can control for various factors to come up with an evidence-based verdict.

Instead, he used his Apple Watch score as a benchmark, based on the Journal's study that found it to be the most accurate. Compared to the Apple Watch, he found that the Whoop sleep score exaggerated how poorly he slept.

Emily Capodilupo, senior vice president of research at Whoop, told Business Insider that the company is continually working to improve the device's algorithms and hardware.

"Our sleep algorithms have been evaluated against the clinical gold standard of polysomnography, and we're proud of the accuracy we've achieved across sleep and other key health metrics," Capodilupo said.

Even with some variability, though, wearables can still be useful for most people because they help identify patterns of change over time. Unless you're a pro athlete, you probably don't need precise numbers to tell if you're making progress.

"The average person that's going to use these things is a weekend warrior," Go said. "They're not necessarily trying to eke out the last percentile of their potential. You just need the general direction of where these numbers go."

He also wasn't too concerned with the devices' recovery scores — a rough estimate of how well the body is handling stress and physical strain, estimated with data like resting heart rate — because they rarely matched how he actually felt.

Unless the devices showed a drastic change, he didn't let a low score derail his day, and would finish a planned workout even if a device recommended that he rest instead.

"Something that we have to realize about the human body is that it is so resilient," he said.

The takeaway: Check your data, but don't obsess

Go said he plans to forgo the devices for the foreseeable future, since he felt all the self-tracking data was becoming more stressful than helpful. He already tested a wearable-free life for a couple of weeks earlier this year, and didn't miss them, so he now wants to try it out long-term.

"I'm going back to using no wearable because the constant attack of being told…, 'This is how you should feel. This is how you should perform.' It actually does have an outsize impact on my psychology," Go said.

His advice for clients: Try whichever wearable best fits your priorities, based on the above criteria, and use it for four to eight months to notice some patterns. Then, ditch the device and focus on listening to your body.

"I am not anti-wearable. I will still wear them from time to time," he said. "But at some point, you have to be able to let go of the training wheels. Once you have the data and you have a good handle on it, then you will want to evolve toward how you feel."

• There's one consequence from AI people may be overlooking: that the tech could eat into worker pay.
• Roles with a high exposure to AI have seen sharp declines in wage growth in recent years, Apollo said.
• In a new paper, the asset manager laid out the jobs that have seen the steepest wage decreases.

AI isn't coming for your job — it's coming for your paycheck.

That's the conclusion of a new white paper from Apollo Global Management, which measured the observed impacts of AI adoption on wage and employment across various jobs in the US.

The paper, which tracked wage and employment data for 321 occupations, found that jobs with the highest exposure to AI saw an average 6.7% decline in real wage growth after 2023, around the time ChatGPT first went viral.

Yet, AI's effects on overall employment were not "detectable," Sania Edlich, an analyst, and Torsten Sløk, the chief economist at Apollo, wrote in a report. Put differently, the takeaway is that AI won't steal your job but it might cost you a raise.

AI cut most into the wage growth of the lowest earners, the paper added. Service workers saw an average 24.3% decline in earnings growth since 2023, while workers in the bottom 25% of earners saw wages decline by 10.7% over that period. There was no "significant effect" observed among the highest-paid workers, the paper said.

The paper said it examined occupational and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and acknowledged several "challenges" in analyzing that data over time, such as changes in how different jobs and industries may be classified, and how data is collected. It used Anthropic's Economic Index, which gauges which jobs are the most exposed to AI, given the percentage of related tasks that have been observed to be performed using Anthropic's AI tools.

Here are some of the occupations with the highest exposure to AI that have already seen large changes to real wages, per Apollo's comparison of BLS data from 2022 to 2024:

Some roles saw larger wage declines, which appeared to be triggered by broader industry factors. Broadcaster announcers and radio DJs, who had a relatively low exposure to AI per Anthropic's Index, saw real wages crater by 52% over the two-year period.

Additionally, some occupations saw a large increase in real wages, despite moderate exposure to AI. For instance, personal finance advisors, whose roles have more than a third of tasks that are exposed to AI, saw wages grow 8.4%. Administrative law judges, adjudicators, and hearing officers, whose roles have 30% of tasks exposed to AI, saw wages surge 17.5% over the same timeframe.

Around 5.8 million workers have roles that are highly exposed to AI, the paper estimated.

"As AI adoption deepens across corporate America, this figure is likely to grow substantially, with significant implications for income inequality and labor market policy in the years ahead," Edlich and Slok said.

The idea that AI will destroy jobs has faced more pushback this year, but the evidence is growing that widespread use of the technology could cut into some workers' income, particularly as the labor market evolves to prioritize different skills.

Ioana Marinescu, a UPenn economist, previously told Business Insider that wages could begin to take a hit once roles see around 37% of intelligence tasks being automated.

Historically, workers who have been displaced from "technology-disrupted occupations" took an average real pay cut of around 3% compared to other workers upon finding new employment, and saw real earnings grow an average of 10 percentage points less over the next decade, one Goldman Sachs analysis found.

• Meta said its future lease obligations, tied largely to AI data centers, swelled to $279 billion.
• That figure, disclosed in a Thursday securities filing, represents a 53% jump from three months earlier.
• Meta said it signed another $68 billion in AI data center leases after the quarter ended.

Meta has more than a quarter trillion dollars in future lease obligations — largely tied to AI data centers — as the tech giant races to build out its artificial intelligence infrastructure, a new regulatory filing shows.

In its quarterly securities filing released a day after its earnings report, Meta said it had approximately $278.99 billion in operating and finance leases that have not yet begun and were not yet included on its balance sheet.

The lease agreements cover "data centers, colocations, and certain network infrastructure" and were scheduled to begin between the remainder of the year through 2036, Meta said in the filing. The lease terms range from more than one year to 30 years.

The nearly $279 billion figure represents a roughly 53% jump from the $182.88 billion in future lease obligations Meta reported in its first-quarter filings three months earlier.

Meta said in its latest securities filing that in July, after the quarter ended, it entered into additional data center leases with commitments of about $68 billion. Those leases are expected to begin in 2027 and 2028 with lease terms of 18 to 20 years, the company said.

The disclosures offer another glimpse into the extraordinary scale of Meta's AI infrastructure push.

Earlier this month, the owner of Facebook and Instagram announced plans to expand what was already expected to be its largest AI data center. Meta said that the Louisiana data center, known as Hyperion, will grow to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, bringing the project's anticipated cost to more than $50 billion.

On Meta's second-quarter earnings call Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said a "significant portion" of the company's computing capacity will be used to train its AI models, power AI agents, and support its core business. Zuckerberg added that Meta also expects to "grow a large business serving large customers as well."

Separate from its future lease obligations, Meta reported $349.31 billion in non-cancelable contractual commitments comprising both short-term and long-term arrangements.

"These commitments mostly relate to third-party cloud capacity arrangements and investments in servers and network infrastructure, data centers, and consumer hardware products in Reality Labs, with approximately $53.52 billion and $81.65 billion due in 2026 and 2027, respectively," Meta said in its filing.

Meta also said it has contingent obligations to purchase up to $14.72 billion of cloud capacity over the next five years. Those commitments "may be reduced if the cloud service provider is able to sell such capacity to other customers," Meta said.

• Microsoft updated its insider trading policy to call out prediction markets.
• The tech giant says that employees who have confidential information can't use it for such trades.
• Companies are beginning to crack down on prediction markets.

Microsoft wants its employees to know that it considers prediction markets to fall under its insider trading policy.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft included an updated copy of its "General Insider Trading Policy," which now mentions both "prediction markets and events contracts."

"If you are in possession of such material, nonpublic information the securities laws and/or Microsoft prohibit you from trading in (or gifting) the securities of that company or engaging in other transactions that provide economic exposure to such company, including through prediction markets or event contracts," the policy reads.

It's not clear when exactly the tech giant updated its policy. A spokesperson for Microsoft declined to comment beyond confirming the policy's existence. Previous versions of the policy filed with the SEC did not mention prediction markets or event contracts. An event contract is the formal term for the financial stake a trader takes in a real-world outcome.

Both Kalshi and Polymarket, two leading prediction markets, offered trades on which words or phrases Microsoft officials would say during the company's quarterly earnings call on Wednesday. Kalshi's market attracted over $165,000 in total trades.

Prediction markets have exploded in popularity recently. Kalshi said it recorded more than $27 billion in trades related to the 2026 World Cup.

Microsoft's policy does not go as far as some Wall Street banks. Reuters previously reported that Goldman Sachs sent a memo to employees banning workers from participating in contracts linked to financial markets or political events that could create the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Still, Microsoft's policy is broad enough in scope that it could presumably cover markets for companies like OpenAI and Anthropic if an employee were to obtain private information about them. The policy also applies to information about competitors, which, given Microsoft's diverse interests ranging from gaming to cloud computing, could encompass an even larger universe of potential bets.

"You may not participate in third-party platforms, 'prediction markets,' or similar platforms to bet, wager, or establish positions in event contracts when such activity is based on, or involves the use of, confidential information about Microsoft or any other company (including customers, vendors, or partners of Microsoft or an economically-linked company such as a competitor of Microsoft) obtained through your position at Microsoft," the policy reads.

Federal regulators and the Department of Justice have begun cracking down on suspected insider trading on prediction market platforms. In May, a Google software engineer was charged with violating the Commodity Exchange Act, wire fraud, and money laundering after prosecutors said he used confidential Google information to make more than $1 million on Polymarket.

A Google spokesperson previously told Business Insider that Google's marketing material was accessed using a tool available to all employees, but that using confidential information to place bets is a "serious breach" of Google's policies.

More recently, a White House teleprompter operator was put on leave after he reportedly netted more than $100,000 on Kalshi. The Associated Press reported this week that the employee, Gabriel Perez, was out of his job.

Kalshi and Polymarket prohibit the use of nonpublic information to inform trades and have systems in place to flag suspicious usage to detect any such trades.

Correction: July 30, 2026 — A section of this story has been updated to reflect that Microsoft employees cannot use insider information on prediction markets.

• Newly filed court documents reveal how MrBeast pitched brands and what his rates were in years past.
• They show how the YouTuber has become a marketing machine for brands.
• We broke down the takeaways of proposals for Slack, Sony, and Walmart.

How much does it cost to advertise with MrBeast, the world's top YouTuber?

Newly filed court documents offer a glimpse into the content creator's ad rates and pitches to brands as he expanded his business and prepared to launch the first season of his Amazon Prime Video show "Beast Games."

In early 2024, when MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, had about half the subscribers he has today, a 30- to 45-second sponsored segment on his main channel cost around $2.5 million, according to a company rate card shared as part of an ongoing lawsuit with his food-industry business partner.

Buying a TikTok or YouTube shorts video to accompany a main-channel ad would cost another half a million bucks, while using the MrBeast branding on a company's website would run as much as $1 million a month, per the rate card.

With hundreds of millions of subscribers, MrBeast has built a marketing machine for brands. In the middle of 2024, the company said in board meeting documents that it had contracted $91 million in deals with brands heading into 2025, including $15 million from T-Mobile for four video promotions and $12.5 million from Amazon for five main-channel ads. An exact timeframe wasn't specified.

Business Insider sifted through hundreds of documents related to MrBeast's court battle to learn more about how he works with companies on partnerships. In addition to uncovering deal rates, we reviewed pitches to Walmart, Slack, and Sony.

The MrBeast team emphasized the global size of his audience and his stunty videos in pitches. MrBeast himself is prominent in the pitches, though the company has recently been trying to diversify away from his image as it grows.

The proposals are ambitious — one pitched Slack on a $15 million, 12-month program — and show how the company was positioning itself to compete with traditional entertainment giants like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery for ad budgets. That push has continued under MrBeast's current leadership, as shown by a recent TV upfronts week breakfast for brands.

Bryce Adams, the US influencer lead for WPP's influencer agency, The Goat Agency, said the pitches show MrBeast's company positioning itself as a large-scale media company, as if to say, "You should look at us like we're an NBC."

The pitches also matched MrBeast's spectacle-style content. In a sponsorship proposal from late 2022, his team asked Walmart for $8 million to $10 million to fund a video in which Donaldson would try to buy everything in a Supercenter. MrBeast hasn't made the video, though a February 2023 board meeting presentation showed that MrBeast expected to earn $8 million in revenue from Walmart that year.

He pitched Slack on a marketing partnership in 2023, which may have planted the seeds for a Super Bowl spot three years later, in which contestants used Slackbot to solve clues in a digital treasure hunt.

Imogen Coles, head of influence in EMEA for Ogilvy, said the proposals stood out for their detail on growth and readability.

"Not every creator makes costs and deliverables so clear — they often want more information from the brand first, which can derail a conversation," she said.

Here are four takeaways from the documents, which we've also posted in full below:

1. MrBeast pitches his scale

Front and center in MrBeast's pitches is his massive audience.

His proposals tout how he's the most-followed creator on the planet, with hundreds of millions of followers on YouTube and other platforms.

The decks are light on detail about how the audience differs by platform and geography, data points that are important to marketers and that they might expect up front from smaller creators who have more to prove.

2. 'Jimmy' is central to the campaigns

Donaldson figures prominently in the decks, and they emphasize how he can help brands achieve their business goals.

By partnering with MrBeast, brands will benefit from the trust he's built with his audience, the pitches say. The Slack pitch said that the creator's own team used the workplace platform and that the "super-influencer" could get other creators to sign up, too. It said creators are small businesses that Slack should have on its radar.

"This immediately bridges the gap: why MrBeast and why Slack," said Jo Wong, GM of Pop.Store, an AI commerce company that helps creators build online businesses.

Big marketers are increasingly treating creators as ongoing partners, a shift the deck nods at.

"Fortune 500 companies are finally recognizing the value MrBeast brings to brands. MrBeast serves as a trusted voice and helps translate brand messaging into digestible concepts to the everyday consumer," the Sony pitch said. The deck goes on to quote Sony's then-CEO, who said he wanted the company to be chosen by creators.

3. MrBeast reaches young people who don't watch TV

The creator makes the point that young people aren't watching traditional TV — and brands that want to reach them need to get aboard the creator train.

"Next gen consumers have dramatically shifted to digital media — and specifically digital creators," the Slack proposal said.

The Slack deck argues that partnering with MrBeast is an investment in the future, even if the typical MrBeast viewer isn't running an enterprise today.

"Your Next 100M Customers Watch MrBeast Right Now," it said.

4. He promises results

The proposals highlight brand attributes that could be worked into a campaign, including Slack's productivity tools and Sony's headset features for chatting with other gamers.

The Slack deck also includes examples of how previous MrBeast campaigns drove actions for other companies, like the Brawl Stars mobile game and the Shop app.

The Sony proposal emphasized how MrBeast's online popularity translated to real-life actions, including attracting more than 25,000 people to his first brick-and-mortar MrBeast Burger restaurant.

Overall, a main takeaway of the proposals was that MrBeast's trust with viewers can help translate brand messages to consumers.

"What he's saying is, combining my identity with yours is going to give you reach you're not going to get anywhere else," Adams said.

The full pitches are included below:

Slack: 21 pages

Sony: 27 pages

Walmart: 41 pages

• Taco Bell had a strong Q2, but the start of Q3 was dented by the cyclosporiasis outbreak.
• Taco Bell's US same-store sales fell 2% from from the start of Q3 through to July 27.
• The CFO of Yum! Brands said the impact on sales peaked on July 18, and it's now recovering.

The parasitic diarrhea outbreak took a bite out of Taco Bell's July sales, but it expects a solid recovery.

Chris Turner, the CEO of Yum! Brands, which owns Taco Bell, acknowledged the "current public health issue" without naming the outbreak during Thursday's Q2 earnings call.

"We expect the sales impact to be temporary and are encouraged by a few factors," Turner said. "Elevated uncertainty initially weighed on consumer demand. And since then, consumers have become increasingly aware that this is an industry-wide issue, not an issue specific to Taco Bell."

Since the start of the third quarter through to July 27, Taco Bell's US same-store sales fell 2%, Ranjith Roy, the CFO of Yum! Brands, said on the earnings call.

Taco Bell's sales had steadily improved over the previous 10 days, Turner said, adding that its most recent Tuesday Drops — where the chain offers first-come, first-served deals — was its highest-performing in its history.

The outbreak came after a strong Q2 earnings period, during which same-store sales at the Mexican-inspired fast-food brand increased 7%.

Shares in Yum! Brands were up about 3.5% in early Thursday trading.

Cyclosporiasis summer

This summer, Taco Bell found itself at the center of a major outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a parasite that can cause explosive diarrhea. The cyclospora season typically lasts between May and August, according to the CDC, but rarely at this scale.

On July 16, the FDA said that shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia was linked to at least 1,644 cyclosporiasis cases between May 13 and July 13. Taylor Farms supplied the lettuce to Taco Bell, and subsequently recalled affected lots.

On July 28, the CDC said 6,707 cyclosporiasis cases had been reported nationwide.

On the earnings call, Roy said the peak impact on sales was on July 18. He said average sales for the last four days, including the weekend and the first two days of the week, were " halfway back to sales levels of the prior year."

Turner added on the earnings call that measures of social sentiment toward the brand had returned to pre-outbreak levels.

• After visiting all 63 major US national parks, I think some are best experienced in the summer.
• Although certain parks are more crowded in the summer months, many are also much more accessible.
• Without snow coverage, parks like Kenai Fjords, Glacier, and Grand Teton are easier to explore.

I would argue that there is no bad time of year to visit the US national parks. But after visiting all 63 of them, I've found that some particularly shine in the summer months.

Although summer is peak vacation and road trip season — which can lead to crowding at some iconic landmarks within the national park system — there are plenty of reasons to explore the parks at this time of year, from better weather to more active wildlife.

Here are the five I always recommend.

Alaska's Kenai Fjords National Park is easier to explore in the summer.

In my opinion, Alaska's Kenai Fjords National Park is home to some of the most breathtaking and dramatic scenery in the country.

However, if you're driving there, you'll only be able to enter through Exit Glacier Road, which typically closes from late-October to Mid-May due to snow. Better accessibility, combined with warmer weather and longer days, make summer the best time to travel to this bucket-list park.

Because most of Kenai Fjords is only accessible by water, I suggest taking a boat tour or kayaking with one of the many local vendors.

Isle Royale National Park in Michigan is only open seasonally.

Due to harsh weather conditions and its remote location in the middle of Lake Superior, Isle Royale National Park is only open from April 16 through October 31 each year.

The park is also only accessible via seaplane or ferry, and service on the latter is sporadic after early September. That's why the summer months are the perfect time to visit the island.

While there, I recommend hiking to the Minong Ridge and Grace Creek Overlooks.

Summer is a great time to explore Denali National Park in Alaska.

There are many sights in the national parks that are considered bucket-list worthy, and in my opinion, seeing Mount McKinley firsthand is absolutely one of them.

The 20,310-foot peak is the highest in North America, and on a clear day, it can be seen from miles away.

Although the park is technically open year-round, some of the roads, visitor centers, campgrounds, and transportation services shut down after the summer months.

For the best experience, I recommend taking a summer bus tour on Denali Park Road for incredible views of the park and its wildlife.

Montana's Glacier National Park is spectacular in the summer.

If you've ever seen a photo or video of a dramatic mountain road on social media, there is a high likelihood that it was the iconic Going-To-The-Sun Road in Glacier National Park.

The roughly 50-mile road makes its way through some of the most photographed spots in the park. However, due to heavy snow, parts of the road are typically closed until at least late-June. So, for the best experience, I suggest visiting in the summer.

Plus, the warmer weather means the chance to take a dip in one of the beautiful mountain lakes, and longer days give visitors plenty of time to explore.

Grand Teton in Wyoming is my favorite national park.

Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming is my favorite national park in any season, but I think summer is the best time to visit.

The park is known for its jagged peaks and ample lakes, which become perfect for hiking, boating, and even swimming in the warmer summer months.

I love taking a scenic boat ride on Jenny Lake, hiking the Taggart Lake trail (parts of which are currently under construction), and swimming or picnicking at Colter Bay Swim Beach.

Like others on this list, the park is open year-round, but the incredibly scenic Teton Park Road, which leads to many of the park's most well-known areas, is only open seasonally from May 1 to October 31.

This story was originally published on June 10, 2026, and most recently updated on July 30, 2026.

• Retail traders sold a net $243 million of single stocks on Wednesday, the biggest one-day outflow since COVID.
• Net selling is something that didn't happen at all in 2021, 2024, and 2025, according to Vanda Research.
• It's just one of a series of signals showing that retail investors are getting more cautious.

The signs keep piling up that retail traders aren't feeling particularly gung-ho about the stock market in 2026.

The latest signal came on Wednesday, when retail sold a net $243 million of single stocks, its largest one-day outflow since the COVID era, according to data from Vanda Research. The selling coincided with a sharp dip in US stock indexes.

It marks the ninth day of net selling for retail traders so far this year — something that never happened for a single day in 2021, 2024, and 2025 combined, Vanda found.

The increased magnitude and frequency of selling is notable. Add to this the fact that average daily buying has declined, and dip-buying has waned for stocks like Nvidia, and you have a retail-investor base that seems less unabashedly bullish than before.

One major shift that's occurred as single-stock net selling has accelerated is a pickup in ETF investing. On Wednesday, as investors dumped single equities, they actually bought $388 million of ETFs, according to Vanda.

Considering that ETFs offer more diversification than single stocks, this is another indication of a retail-trader shift towards a more cautious market stance.

As for which stocks have been sold, Wednesday saw a disproportionate offloading of memory names like Micron, Sandisk, Seagate Technology and Western Digital.

"Retail aren't leaving the market — they're turning far more discerning," Vanda added. "The bigger shift is that retail appear increasingly willing to reduce single name risk while favouring ETFs, a behavioural change that could still leave popular momentum names vulnerable if earnings disappoint."

• President Donald Trump is reshaping Washington, DC, from the White House to federal buildings.
• A proposed 250-foot triumphal arch celebrating America's anniversary would be the world's largest.
• The administration announced a proposed renovation to the city's Dulles airport on Wednesday.

A new ballroom, a 250-foot arch, a memorial garden, and now, a proposed $22.5 billion renovation at Washington Dulles International Airport: During his second term, President Donald Trump is leaving an increasingly visible mark on Washington, DC, from department name changes to 30-foot-tall banners of his portrait.

To commemorate his 80th birthday and America's 250th anniversary earlier this month, the president built a ginormous, eight-sided fighting cage on the White House South Lawn in collaboration with the UFC, which hosted a primetime event outside the executive mansion.

The Trump administration also announced that its renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was completed in June. The $16 million project included sealing and painting the bottom of the pool "American flag blue." The pool was drained again later in July and is now undergoing repairs.

They're the latest on Trump's long list of changes to America's capital. Reasons given for the projects include government efficiency, beautifying the city, enhancing the airport experience, and marking America's 250th birthday.

While many remain ongoing or in legal limbo, the changes the president has already made to the White House and its surrounding areas have altered the face of the nation's capital.

See some of the ways in which Trump has remodeled the White House, US government buildings, and beyond during his second term, so far.

The shuttering of USAID was one of the first physical signs of the Trump administration's remodeling of the nation's capital.

Shortly after taking office, Trump's Department of Government Efficiency spearheaded a sweeping dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, or USAID.

The department froze the agency's foreign aid, slashed its staff and programs, and ultimately moved to dismantle much of the agency's operations and shift remaining functions to the State Department.

Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush joined critics in condemning the move, with Obama calling it a "travesty."

Administration officials framed it as a cost-cutting and accountability effort, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying USAID had "strayed from its original mission" and that "the gains were too few and the costs were too high" around the time of its effective shuttering.

The agency, founded in 1961 to counter the influence of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, was housed in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in DC, alongside other government agencies.

Following the agency's formal folding into the State Department on July 1, 2025, its staff, offices, and signage were removed from the building that once housed it.

In May 2025, the US Department of Agriculture debuted banners showing Trump alongside Abraham Lincoln.

By the first spring of his second term, Trump's portrait started appearing on government buildings, with the first being the US Department of Agriculture building, the Jamie L. Whitten Building, in the National Mall.

The 31-foot-tall banners, which were installed to honor USDA's 163rd birthday, cost the department an estimated $16,400, the Washingtonian reported.

They "acknowledge the vision and leadership of USDA's founder, Abraham Lincoln, and the best advocate of America's farmers and ranchers, President Trump," USDA's then-director of communications, Seth W. Christensen, told The Washington Post in May 2025.

There is little modern precedent for the banners, which raised concerns about the politicization of federal buildings. Instead, the norm is for presidential portraits to be displayed inside government buildings and updated between administrations.

The Department of Labor building also features portraits of Trump alongside Theodore Roosevelt.

In August 2025, the US Department of Labor debuted its own Trump banners, initially to commemorate Labor Day but kept up throughout the nation's 250th anniversary celebrations after receiving a "tremendous positive response," a department spokesperson told The New York Times.

The Department of Labor's banners read "American Workers First" and depict the president alongside Theodore Roosevelt, who helped lay the groundwork for the modern Labor Department.

A September report by Sen. Adam Schiff of California also mentioned that the US Department of Health and Human Services had solicited 88-foot-tall banners promoting health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr's "Make America Healthy Again" slogan at an estimated cost of $33,726.

In February, a similar banner was hung at the Department of Justice's building.

The Department of Justice, which has traditionally operated somewhat independently of the White House to curb political influence, was another federal agency that showcased the president's portrait.

The banner, hung in February, features the president's portrait and reads "Make America Safe Again."

Among its critics, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the display "beyond parody," while New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim wrote on X, "The Department of Justice is supposed to work for and represent you, not him."

A DOJ spokesperson said, "We are proud at this Department of Justice to celebrate 250 years of our great country and our historic work to make America safe again at President Trump's direction."

The Kennedy Center board voted in December to add Trump's name to the institution.

In December, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts was renamed by its board to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

The name change came after a unanimous vote by the center's board of trustees, which the president had largely reshaped.

"I was honored by [the renaming]," Trump said in the days following the name change. "It's board, it's a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country. And I was surprised by it."

Renaming the center, created by Congress as a memorial to US President John F. Kennedy, requires congressional approval. The board's decision to rename it faced criticism at the time, including from some members of the Kennedy family. Some performers canceled booked appearances in the center, while legal battles emerged as Democratic members of Congress sought to block the name change.

In March, the center announced it would undergo renovations starting this summer, during which it would temporarily pause operations, with work expected to last two years.

But on May 29, a federal judge ruled that Trump's name had been added illegally to the center and blocked the planned summer closure.

A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center said that the administration would be "complying with the court's order while evaluating all legal options to preserve this revitalization and recognize President Trump's leadership," the Associated Press reported.

Trump's name was removed from the building's facade on June 13, and the Kennedy Center is continuing its operations while the administration evaluates its legal options.

The US Institute of Peace building also had Trump's name added to it in December.

The US Institute of Peace was another DC institution that saw Trump's name added to it.

The Congress-funded, nonprofit think tank was renamed by the administration in a State Department announcement that described Trump as "the greatest dealmaker in our nation's history," per a social media announcement.

"Marco named it after me," the president said at a Board of Peace meeting in February, referring to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. "I had nothing to do with it, I swear I didn't. I swear. I had no idea."

Rubio showed his support on X, posting, "President Trump will be remembered by history as the President of Peace. It's time our State Department display that."

The president has announced plans to build the world's largest triumphal arch.

In October, Trump first proposed the building of a monumental arch, dubbed the "Independence Arch," to commemorate America's 250th anniversary.

The arch, proposed to be 250 feet tall, would sit across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial on the Memorial Circle roundabout near Arlington National Cemetery.

While construction on the arch has not yet begun, surveying of the land plot has started, even amid an ongoing lawsuit in which a group of Vietnam veterans sued to block the administration from building the monument.

The group argued that the structure "would dishonor their military and foreign service and the legacy of their comrades and other veterans buried at Arlington National Cemetery," per the lawsuit.

In response to a legal challenge from congressional Democrats, a White House spokesperson told The Washington Post of the structure, "It will enhance the visitor experience at Arlington National Cemetery for veterans, the families of the fallen, and all Americans alike, serving as a visual reminder of the noble sacrifices borne by so many American heroes throughout our 250 year history so we can enjoy our freedoms today,"

In May, the Trump-appointed US Commission of Fine Arts approved the arch's design, partly clearing the way for its construction.

The approved revised design for the arch — which some have nicknamed "Arc de Trump" — features a figure reminiscent of Lady Liberty atop the structure, gilded eagles, gold-lettering inscriptions, and a 360-degree observation deck open to visitors.

The arch, which would be nearly half as tall as the Washington Monument obelisk, would dwarf France's historic Arc de Triomphe, the world's most famous triumphal arch, and be the tallest triumphal arch in the world.

A preliminary assessment by the National Park Service, released on June 8, estimated that the project would require year-round, 20-hour-a-day construction to be completed within a three-year timeframe.

On July 9, the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal agency overseeing planning in the nation's capital, voted 8-1 to give the project preliminary approval and requested additional information, including an analysis of how federal height restrictions apply to the project, before issuing a final review expected later this year.

The demolition of the East Wing began to give the People's House a new face.

In October 2025, the White House's East Wing was demolished, leaving only rubble behind and clearing the way for the president's 90,000-square-foot, $400 million ballroom project.

Previously, the largest event space in the White House was the East Room, which had a capacity of around 200 people. For larger events, tents were erected on the South Lawn.

"For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc.," Trump wrote on Truth Social in October. "I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway — with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!"

The president has said the project will be funded by private donors, including Big Tech companies and wealthy individuals.

The demolition of the wing, originally added in the early 20th century and expanded in 1942, altered the facade of the president's mansion and forced the relocation of the first lady's staff offices.

It was met with criticism from preservationists, who said the president needed to obtain congressional approval for the project.

"It's not his house. It's your house. And he's destroying it," former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wrote on X after photos of the demolition emerged.

Trump has defended the project by pointing to past presidents' renovations, expansions, and modernizations of the White House, and by emphasizing the ballroom's importance for hosting large events. The administration has also dismissed criticism of the construction as "manufactured outrage."

When completed, the president's proposed ballroom will further transform the White House.

The ballroom will be the largest change Trump has made to the White House — others include Rose Garden renovations, new marble floors, and gold embellishments. The new ballroom will also impede the South Lawn's historic driveway, making it no longer circular.

The project was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on March 31, who ruled that the president must seek congressional approval before proceeding with the renovation.

A federal appeals court later paused the judge's order, allowing construction to continue while the case proceeds.

As of May, the ballroom construction was projected to be completed by September 2028, the president told reporters.

Renovations to the Rose Garden have already changed the White House's exterior.

In summer 2025, the president renovated the White House's Rose Garden, which is often used for press conferences and larger gatherings.

The renovation paved over the grass with light-colored stone while keeping the garden's namesake rose bushes, citing the foot traffic during events as the main reason for the project. Most recently, new statues have been added to the Rose Garden.

It wasn't the first time the Rose Garden had changed looks, as it famously did under the Kennedy administration, when roses, magnolia trees, and other perennial and annual flowers were added.

In 2020, Melania Trump oversaw a garden renovation that included the addition of limestone walkways along the open lawn.

In the Tidal Basin of the Potomac River, Trump has pushed changes to the East Potomac Golf Links.

Also on the Potomac River is the East Potomac Golf Links, a public golf course that the president has set his sights on for a potential takeover.

In December 2025, the Trump administration issued the National Links Trust — a nonprofit that operates and maintains public golf courses in Washington, DC, under a 50-year lease with the National Park Service — with a termination notice, The Athletic reported.

The National Links Trust said it was "devastated" by the decision, saying it "has consistently complied with all lease obligations as we work to ensure the brightest possible future for public golf in DC."

Of Trump's involvement with public golf courses, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Golf Digest, "As a private citizen, President Trump built some of the greatest golf courses in the world, and he is now extending his unmatched design skills and excellent eye for detail to D.C.'s public golf courses."

In May, the Trump administration and the National Links Trust reached a deal keeping the nonprofit in charge of DC's three municipal golf courses while clearing the way for the renovations at East Potomac, Golf Digest reported.

During the demolition of the White House East Wing and the construction of the new ballroom, locals have reported that the park has been turned into a dump for construction rubble and debris.

A lawsuit filed in February sought to restrict Trump's takeover of the golf courses. It said that dumping the rubble on the course grounds is "unlawful and possibly hazardous" due to the possible presence of asbestos.

Testing results later released by the National Park Service found that the debris dumped on the fields contained harmful chemicals such as lead, chromium, PCBs, pesticides, and petroleum byproducts, though the agency concluded that the measured levels did not pose a public health risk.

Preservationists have sought independent testing. As of late July, the fenced rubble mound remained on the course, and Trump said renovations would begin in September.

Directly north of the White House, Lafayette Square was fenced off in January for a renovation project.

Lafayette Square, a 7-acre public park directly north of the White House, has also seen changes during the second Trump administration.

The park is a popular attraction for visitors thanks to its views of the People's House, but in recent months it has undergone a makeover.

In late January, the Washington Post reported that the park had been fenced off as part of an improvement project and that it had been designated a National Historic Landmark since 1970.

The work, initially expected to last through May, focused on fixing fountains, sprinklers, benches, and curbs. It is part of a broader initiative undertaken by the National Park Service to "beautify," restore, and upgrade public parks in the nation's capital.

The New York Times also reported that the president was interested in replacing the park's brick walkways with granite to prevent protesters from removing bricks and throwing them.

By April 21, local news outlet DC News Now reported that the park's fountain was back in operation.

In July, the administration unveiled plans to build permanent fencing around the park to enhance safety operations near the White House complex, though critics have said that such fencing could undermine the park's long history as a gathering place for tourists and protesters alike.

A statue garden dedicated to American heroes is planned to take over West Potomac Park.

West Potomac Park, located just west of the Jefferson Memorial along the Potomac River, serves as a public multipurpose field, where locals often organize sports and other events.

Trump's Garden of Heroes, a planned 250-statue monument commemorating American icons, is another of the president's many projects around Washington, DC.

In May, the president announced that the riverside park would soon be the location of the Garden of Heroes, despite lingering questions about project approval, timeline, and costs.

Trump described the existing park as a "totally BARREN field of Prime Waterfront Real Estate along our Mighty Potomac River" on a post on Truth Social.

A group of preservation and cultural organizations filed a federal lawsuit in June seeking to block the project, alleging that the administration had bypassed required approval, preservation, and environmental procedures.

The administration, which has repeatedly said the work is moving forward, hit back at the lawsuit.

"It is beyond comprehension why anyone would sue over an exhibition that celebrates American greatness by highlighting some of the most pivotal figures in our nation's history," Katie Martin, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, said in a statement, The Washington Post reported.

A sudden repainting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool also raised legal concerns.

In April, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which stretches between the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial, started undergoing a makeover that was completed in June.

The renovation involved resurfacing the pool, which has long had leaks and algae blooms, with a waterproof compound and painting the formerly gray pool an "American flag blue," as the president described the color.

The administration defended the renovation as an expedited repair ahead of America's 250th anniversary celebrations, with a Department of the Interior spokesperson saying that the blue surface "will enhance the visitor experience by making the pool reflect the grand Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument."

There were questions about the cost and process of the project, reportedly awarded under a no-bid contract. The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a DC-based preservation nonprofit, sued the administration days after the project began, alleging that the renovation was conducted without completing the proper reviews required under federal preservation law.

The renovation, initially described as a $1.8 million project, has since been reported to have contracts exceeding $16 million.

An Interior Department spokesperson told the Times that the higher price tag "reflects the effort necessary to expedite the timeline of completing the leak prevention coating project — more people, more materials, more equipment, and longer hours ahead of our 250th."

By June, the project was announced as complete, and the updated color could be seen in satellite images (above). However, within weeks, the pool had started turning green again, and sections of the new surface had started peeling. It was drained later in July and continues to undergo repairs.

A UFC fighting cage temporarily transformed the White House South Lawn.

A 4,000-seat arena was erected on the White House South Lawn for a UFC fighting event. The structure was built to host the "UFC Freedom 250" event on June 14, commemorating the nation's 250th anniversary and Trump's 80th birthday.

The 30-foot-wide, 600-ton steel cage featured a 92-foot canopy — nicknamed "The Claw" — covering the fighting octagon ring.

An additional stage with large screens was also built in the adjacent Ellipse, a park south of the White House, where over 120,000 members of the public attended, organizers said. That's on top of 4,000 spectators surrounding the ring, which included at least 1,200 active-duty members of the armed forces as well as administration officials and other VIP guests.

A lawsuit filed by two Virginia residents against the National Park Service sought to block the event, alleging that the agency unlawfully authorized the administration's use of the South Lawn.

Over $60 million was spent by UFC and affiliated groups on funding the event and building the structure. The National Park Service court filing added that seven federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, had also "allocated significant resources and manpower."

Trump later compared the fighting cage to France's Eiffel Tower, which was constructed as a temporary installation for the 1889 World's Fair and has remained in place since.

"We're building something in front of the White House that's quite attractive to a lot of people," the president said on a video posted to his TikTok account. "And I'm looking at it, and maybe we'll never ever take it down."

By June 20, workers had begun taking apart the structure and removing it from the White House grounds.

The administration has announced a plan to overhaul the area's main international airport, Dulles.

On July 29, the administration unveiled a $22.5 billion renovation plan for Washington Dulles International Airport.

It would expand the airport by 5 million square feet, add gates, create parking spaces closer to the airport entrance, expand international customs facilities, and enhance walkability within the airport, which is often criticized for its complicated design, according to the announcement.

It would also eliminate the airport's "people movers," bus-like shuttles that have connected the main terminals and gates since 1962, and create a U-shaped underground AeroTrain connecting the concourses.

The new design would work with United Airlines' existing infrastructure at the airport — one of the company's main hubs — and would also include a larger United Polaris business-class lounge.

"This transformation builds on United's long-term investment in our hub to deliver the world-class airport experience our employees, customers, and millions of travelers deserve," United CEO Scott Kirby wrote in the Department of Transportation's press release.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said construction could begin in spring 2027.

• Every summer for the last 30 years, my family has vacationed in Ocean City, New Jersey.
• All 14 of us — ranging in age from 2 to 75 — stay together in one house.
• The trip gives my family time to connect, and I hope the tradition continues for many years.

Driving southbound on the Garden State Parkway on a Saturday morning in July isn't necessarily what I'd call a happy experience — but it's worth it.

Although the traffic can be grueling, something exciting awaits: an exit ramp leading to sun-drenched beach days in Ocean City, New Jersey. Making the drive is a tradition my family has upheld for 30 years.

Growing up, both of my parents' families summered at the Jersey Shore, and soon after I came along, my mom and aunt were determined to keep the tradition alive. So, they started renting a beach house each summer in Ocean City.

Even though we visit the same place every year, the trip is always exciting

Every summer, all 14 of us stay in one big house with a front porch close to the ocean.

Since it takes time for a group this big to pinpoint a week that works for everyone, we end up in a different house each year.

The advantage of this? We've stayed all along Ocean City's coastline and have experienced different parts of the city each time. Plus, it keeps things feeling new and exciting, even though we're always visiting the same place.

Although our home base changes, our routine stays the same — grabbing morning coffees from Aneu, savoring homemade sticky buns from Mallon's, and taking leisurely bike rides along the coast.

Each one of us — ranging in age from 2 to 75 — looks forward to strolling the boardwalk, where the little ones rush toward the Ferris wheel, arcade, and mini golf, while the adults shop for cozy sweatshirts and souvenirs.

We all end the evening with Kohr Brothers frozen custard, a tradition every generation loves.

However, we don't need to be out and about to enjoy ourselves. Part of the charm of the trip is that we can have just as much fun kicking back on the beach or gathering around the table to enjoy my mom's homemade sauce and meatballs.

No matter how we spend the evening, we always return to the house for late-night rounds of Catch Phrase or UNO. The only difference over the years is that we've calmed down the competitive plays since the grandchildren are now part of the mix.

The trip gives my family much-needed time to connect

No matter how busy our lives become, our shore vacation is the one week everyone makes a priority. It's a reunion of sorts that's filled with meaningful conversations and endless laughs all week long.

The size of our group has gradually grown over the years, so aside from Thanksgiving, it's challenging to plan quality time together throughout the rest of the year.

Although our family group chat is always active, this trip gives us the opportunity to share life updates in person. And, of course, we spend lots of time reminiscing on past summers.

What started as my cousins and me digging holes on the beach and diving into the waves has turned into watching the next generation do the same. It's moments like these that I cherish and hope will continue for many years to come.

• My family of five spent a month in Europe with one backpack each, thanks to these packing tips. 
• Use all of the space you have by using packing cubes and clipping items to the outside of your bag.
• Make a capsule wardrobe, try everything on, and do a packing trial run before you have to leave.

When my family started planning our monthlong, dream European adventure, I challenged myself to pack as light as possible.

I have three young kids, so I knew limiting us to one backpack per person would make navigating airports, trains, and cobblestone streets so much easier. Now I don't think I'll ever overpack again.

Read on for some of my top packing tips.

Plan all the aspects of your trip before you pack

If you're looking to pack as light as possible, planning is so important.

Think about the length of your trip, different climates and temperatures, and the types of activities you'll be doing, so you can get an idea of everything you'll need. 

It's important to do this before you even start laying out clothes you may want to bring on your trip.

I found it especially helpful to start writing a list of everything I needed to pack long before our departure. This way, I could gradually gather items and set them aside weeks in advance (when possible).

As I thought of things, I just added them to the list to make sure I didn't forget them.

Create a capsule wardrobe that can be mixed and matched

I knew I had to be strategic with how I packed, especially for our clothes.

For each family member, I created capsule wardrobes, mostly consisting of neutral items that were easy to mix and match.

I also focused on layering, which helped us get the most use out of the items we brought.

Schedule a try-on day to make sure everything fits comfortably

Creating a capsule wardrobe can be tricky, but for us, the key was trying it all on before we left. This was especially helpful for packing for my three young kids.

To ensure everything I packed got worn, I made sure all the items fit and that my kids were comfortable in them and liked wearing them.

Practice packing before the day of the trip

A week before the trip, I did a practice run of the pack.

This helped me visualize what we needed, pare down things we could do without, and identify any last-minute items I needed to pick up to make sure our trip ran smoothly.

This is also an opportunity to weigh your bags if you're working with a suitcase and are concerned about extra fees.

Make sure all your non-clothing items have a place

In addition to packing clothes for my family, I had to gather toiletries, games, snacks for the plane, electronics, and more.

I made sure everything had its own place by assigning storage bags for things like chargers, masks, and important documents, which made packing and unpacking simple and stress-free.

Use the outside of your bag for items you want easy access to

Don't be scared to use the outside of your bag for extra space. Carabiners can be handy for this.

You can clip things like hats and neck pillows to handles and zipper pulls so you don't take up valuable packing space inside your bag.

Test out different bags to see which is most comfortable for travel

Since you'll be wearing the bags through airports and in destination cities, you want to make sure you find something comfortable.

I had my girls test out a few different styles and sizes before picking them out, and I ended up preferring a weekender bag over a traditional backpack.

Make the most of your space with packing tricks and accessories

I used packing cubes and different folding techniques to help make the most of my space and keep my bag organized.

I measured each item against the height of the cube and folded it flat to sit upright, which helped me squeeze in as much as possible and made the items easy to see. This way, I also didn't have to destroy the entire pack to find specific items later on.

Wear your bulkiest items on travel days

If bag space is limited, wear bulky items like sneakers, sweaters, and jackets on travel days. Not only will it save you space, but you'll also be extra comfortable (and warm) for your travels.

My usual travel outfit includes jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie, sweatshirt, or jacket.

Pack an extra, multifunctional bag 

One unexpected item that really came in handy throughout our travels was the extra canvas bag we packed.

We used it to hold extra food and souvenirs. It was also a lifesaver when we needed a place for dirty clothes before laundry days.

The best part is that it was able to fold up small or lay flat in our bags until we needed it.

This story was originally published on November 3, 2021, and most recently updated on July 30, 2026.

• Bond yields rose to new heights following the Fed's latest policy meeting.
• The 30-year US Treasury spiked beyond 5.2%, its highest level in nearly two decades.
• It's a sign investors are doubting the Fed's credibility on inflation after it held rates steady.

The bond market is sending another warning on inflation. This time, it's directed at Kevin Warsh.

The newly appointed Fed Chair struck a dovish tone following the central bank's July policy meeting on Wednesday, announcing that the Fed would keep interest rates unchanged, and would continue withholding forward guidance on where rates were headed through the end of the year.

It was the last thing investors wanted to hear, causing a sell-off in US Treasurys to accelerate as the market fretted about inflation running out of hand.

The 30-year US Treasury yield, a reflection of the market's long-term rate expectations, spiked as high as 5.24% Thursday morning, its highest level in 19 years. Since May, the yield has hovered around its highest level since 2007, and remained above the critical 5% threshold.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield also jumped post-presser, rising as high as 4.71%. The yield has remained above the key 4.5% threshold for most of the last month.

Stock investors also weren't happy. All three major indexes sank in the red, with the Nasdaq 100 closing more than 10% off from its record-high. It marked the sixth-straight day of losses for the index, its longest losing streak since 2022.

The market's logic goes something like this: investors are concerned that rates may not be restrictive enough to contain inflation. That could push price growth swiftly higher — something that would lead to higher rates in the long run.

It's a sign, in other words, that investors are no longer feeling so confident that the Fed has a firm grip on inflation, especially considering that oil prices reclaimed the critical $100-a-barrel mark earlier this month as conflict heated back up in the Middle East.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, briefly surged to $92 a barrel on Thursday as the US retaliated against Iran's latest attacks on American forces in Jordan. West Texas Intermediate crude also briefly ticked up to $85 a barrel before giving up its gains.

Warsh reiterated the Fed's 2% price target, but seemed to offer "little explanation as to why the Committee chose not to raise rates," Seema Shah, the chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said.

"This disconnect — between the Fed's stated commitment to price stability and its decision to remain on hold — has raised questions about the consistency of the policy message. Market reaction reflected this uncertainty," she wrote in a note.

Markets are likely taking issue with some of Warsh's comments in the post-meeting presser, such as his suggestion that markets have already tightened monetary policy on their own, Aditya Bhave, an economist at Bank of America, wrote in a client note on Thursday.

Higher yields in themselves tighten financial conditions, which can help tame inflation, though the jury is still out on whether the tightening effect of higher rates is enough, given inflationary pressures in the economy.

"Markets responded by questioning the Fed's credibility," Bhave said. "Ironically, we think the need to re-establish credibility increases the probability that the Fed will hike in September, all else being equal."

The odds that the Fed will hike rates 25 basis points ticked up to 59% Thursday morning, up from a 57% chance priced in yesterday, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Kevin Warsh looked like he failed his first "credibility test," the market veteran Ed Yardeni wrote in a client note Wednesday evening.

"Once again, the Bond Vigilantes are pushing bond yields higher," the Yardeni President said, referring to investors who stage a sell-off in government bonds to protest inflationary or fiscally lenient policies. "In effect, they are saying that if the Fed won't be vigilant about inflation, then they will have to maintain law and order in the economy."

Investors remain acutely aware of the parallels to the 1970s, when oil prices spiked and sent inflation spiraling out of control. Around the time inflation hit its 1974 peak, the Fed cut rates prematurely to boost economic growth, leading price growth to heat up again and hit a higher peak in 1980.

"We believe Fed Chair Warsh is experimenting with 'Odyssean' loose forward guidance: loosely promising rate hikes later in exchange for disinflationary effects today," researchers at BNP Paribas wote in a note on Thursday. "Without a suggestion of imminent action on rate hikes, we think this credibility will keep getting priced out of markets."

• Dr. Art Ulene climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and reached the top on his 90th birthday.
• The nonagenarian completed the challenge to inspire older people to reach their full potential.
• He shared his longevity secrets with Business Insider.

Soon after Dr. Art Ulene reached the top of Kilimanjaro on his 90th birthday, he applied to Guinness World Records to check whether he was the oldest person to conquer the mountain.

He had already received recognition from the Tanzania National Park Service. However, he wanted to know if the title was official.

"I didn't do the climb with an award in mind," he told Business Insider. "But it would be nice to have it — at least until someone beats it."

The retired OB/GYN, who reached the summit, 19,341 feet above sea level, on July 13, was presented with a celebratory cake by his guide and 22-person support team.

"If I close my eyes, I can still see myself standing on top of the mountain looking down at the roof of the clouds," he said. "The view was stunning."

It took him 15 days

He said his entourage made for joyful company during the 15-day trek, singing and dancing as he slowly but surely made his way from one camp to the next.

The group, which carried a foldable chair so he could sit and take breaks, respectfully and affectionally called him "Babu," the Swahili word for grandfather.

Ulene's achievement, in partnership with CareScout, which helps older adults and families navigate aging, marked his third summit of the peak in 15 years.

He turned back at 17,000 feet during a previous attempt at age 85, saying, "I didn't feel well and was not going to let my ego get in the way of my health."

The former TODAY show medical correspondent said his recent ascent of Kilimanjaro would be his last. Still, the experience would help him tackle the challenges other seniors may face.

"I'm not telling them to climb Kilimanjaro, I'm urging them to climb 'Mount Metaphor,'" he said. "The peaks and valleys apply to life."

Here are three of Ulene's longevity tips for getting the most out of your later years.

Prioritize exercise, sleep, and nutrition

The father of three, born in 1936, said that he smoked until the age of 33 and only started to exercise seriously at 50.

However, he has more than made up for it by going to the gym three or four times a week, where he uses strength training machines.

He developed the leg strength and stamina for Kilimanjaro by climbing 50 flights of stairs in his hiking boots.

"I don't like exercise when I'm doing it, but love the way I feel afterward, " he said. "I never remember the exertion, much as I've pretty well forgotten the pain of the climb."

He combines physical activity with good nutrition — mostly by eating plant-based foods and "watching fats."

Getting enough sleep is another key factor. "I never slept so well as I did in my tent on the mountain," he added.

Appreciate your worth

"People talk about natural resources, saying, 'we're trying to mine them now,' but the world's greatest resource is above the ground," Ulene said.

"It's the intelligence, the experience, the knowledge, and wisdom of tens of millions of older people."

He said that business and industry often ignore the benefits of having mature adults in the workplace and buy into the notion that they're in decline.

It's a myth, he said, and those of advanced age should take pride in themselves, adding. "If you internalize the stereotype, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. My new motto is to live up to your potential, not your age."

Keep socially active

Ulene said the last thing he wanted to do in his advanced years was sit in an armchair and isolate himself.

"The aging period should be a time of growth," he said, questioning the narrative that it's when you can rest on your laurels.

He referenced his wife, Priscilla, three years his junior. She is on a monthlong solo tour of contemporary and modern art museums across America.

Meanwhile, he said that it's important for him to mix with younger people. "My support team on Kilimanjaro consisted of young men," he said. "They were like family to me.

"I have seven grandchildren here in the US, but I have two sets of grandchildren. I have American ones and Tanzanian ones."

As for the future, Ulene is planning a December return with his youngest grandchildren — age 15 and 13 — to Tanzania.

They hope to camp in the foothills of Kilimanjaro and join a safari.

"I've traveled all over the world with my kids and grandkids," Ulene said. And he doesn't intend to stop anytime soon.

• Hyperscalers like Google and Meta have a tricky dilemma: how much compute should they sell?
• There's not enough compute to go around, but the tech giants need it to keep powering AI.
• Mark Zuckerberg said it would be "foolish" to give too much away.

As tech giants aggressively build out compute to meet the demands of the AI boom, some face a tricky dilemma: how much should they hoard and how much should they sell?

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the issue on the company's Q2 earnings call this week. While Meta doesn't currently have a business selling compute — the data center processing power used to run AI — to customers, Zuckerberg has said it's on the cards.

Zuckerberg said that a "significant portion" of its compute will go toward training Meta's AI models, powering agents, and growing its core business. "But we also expect to grow a large business serving large customers as well," he said.

Tech giants are racing to build out more compute to power soaring demand for artificial intelligence. Google and Meta both just slightly raised their capex forecast for the year, and Google signaled 2027 will likely be even bigger (in a rare move, Microsoft held the line on its capex projections).

All that spending is now showing up in the financials: Google's cash flow went negative in Q2 for the first time in the company's history, and Meta's plunged 91% from the previous year.

Selling compute is one way to offset that cash problem, but it also comes with an opportunity cost. The common refrain from execs across the companies is that there simply isn't enough compute to go around. These companies are racing to stay ahead in the AI race, and employees sometimes compete for access to compute.

It's a conundrum for Microsoft, too. As Business Insider's Dan DeFrancesco put it earlier this week: "Does it cash in on demand today or focus more on its long-term goals?"

On Wednesday's earnings call, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said that "customer demand continues to exceed available capacity" for its cloud business.

'Foolish' to take a short-term profit

Zuckerberg returned to this problem later in the call on Wednesday. "Obviously, a common trade-off that we need to make is around how much do you monetize something today versus develop future assets for the future?" he said.

"It would be foolish to basically just sell all of the compute and take a short-term profit," he said, adding that improved intelligence would compound the value of the compute.

Hoarding too much compute could also be bad for the lucrative cloud businesses of hyperscalers like Google. "If you don't have enough compute for enterprises, they'll go right back to Amazon or Microsoft," said Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik in a research note on Google last week.

Last week, Google said it would buy more third-party compute to satisfy customer demand as it builds out more internal compute for itself.

Google is also building its own chips, known as tensor processing units, or TPUs, which it is putting into other data centers with partners to unlock more capacity.

"Our first priority is making sure we are allocating what we need to compete at the frontier in terms of AGI development," said CEO Sundar Pichai on last week's earnings call, referring to how Google is using TPUs. "That is the foundation for everything we do."

While Google leans on its cloud business to boost growth, it also needs to hold enough compute for itself to protect its moat around Search, Shmulik said in last week's note.

Oh, and it also needs to keep developers happy and locked into its ecosystem, which means allocating — you guessed it — more compute.

• I cooked bacon using my stove, oven, air fryer, and microwave to see which had the best results.
• A pan on the stove may be the classic approach, but it was messy, and the bacon seemed extra greasy.
• The oven is great for big batches of bacon, but the air fryer created the perfect taste and texture.

I cook a lot of bacon — maybe about a pound a week.

Historically, my preferred way to prepare it is by cooking a large batch in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. When it's done, I'll chop up the fatty meat into bits and store it in the freezer for breakfast omelets.

However, when bacon is front and center rather than a mere part of a larger meal, I'm not sure the oven is the best way to go.

To find the best cooking method, I made bacon using my oven, stove, air fryer, and microwave to see which appliance came out on top.

I used three different types of bacon to ensure my tests were thorough.

To make sure I gave each cooking method a fair look, I used three different kinds of bacon across all four appliances.

I bought cherry-smoked, uncured bacon from Porter Road, sugar-free organic applewood-smoked uncured bacon from North Country Smokehouse, and Alewel's Country Meats "Sweet & Sassy Bacon," which was part of Harry & David's All About the Bacon Sampler.

I preheated my oven and air fryer, placed a large pan on the stove, and lined a large plate with paper towels before digging into the packs.

I already knew what to expect from oven-cooked bacon.

Since I cook bacon in the oven all the time, there was no guesswork here. I preheated my oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, then placed strips of bacon on a sheet pan covered in parchment paper.

I let them cook for a bit longer than I usually would for omelets, since they wouldn't get any extra time in a frying pan.

I ended up pulling the pan out after 13 minutes.

If you're cooking for a crowd, the oven is probably the best option.

I don't like crispy or crunchy bacon. The oven is great for my tastes because the meat cooks gradually and rests in plenty of grease that helps prevent any singeing.

That said, oven-cooked bacon is often a bit, shall we say, floppier than one (even I) might like.

Cooking the bacon on a wire rack inside a sheetpan can help up the crisp factor, though. That way, the bacon won't sit in grease as it cooks.

Ultimately, the baked bacon turned out just fine. Since you can make a lot at once, I think this method is handy if you need a lot of bacon for a recipe or are serving multiple people.

Cooking bacon in a pan was a surprising letdown.

I find it best to start with a cold pan when cooking bacon on the stove. This lets the fats slowly break down into grease rather than burning the meat.

There's no need for oil or cooking spray; the fat has you covered there.

I brought the burner to medium-high heat, and within 30 seconds or so, the bacon started to sizzle — which smelled great.

After about four minutes, the rashers started curling, so it was time to flip them. I was a bit frustrated by how much effort it took to get each one lying relatively flat again without all of them falling on top of each other.

A couple of minutes later, the bacon was done, and I was so over the method.

Once the bacon was cooked, there was grease spattered across my stove and countertop.

Although one of the strips came out perfectly, most of the bacon was seared beyond my liking and was very greasy.

The stovetop is a classic way to fry bacon, but I don't think it was worth the effort and mess.

Microwaved bacon is so quick that it’s easy to forgive it being the worst method.

I used to cook bacon in the microwave often enough in my apartment days, but it's been a while. The one thing I remember clearly is that paper towels are key.

I laid out six strips of bacon on my lined plate, added another layer of paper towel on top (to avoid any grease splatters), and popped the plate into the microwave.

For a standard microwave, four minutes is the perfect amount of time for my texture preferences. I grabbed the plate (with an oven mitt) and pulled off the top layer of paper towels.

I quickly remembered remember why I stopped cooking bacon like this.

The microwaved bacon didn't look appetizing, especially with all the drippings running off the paper towels and onto the plate.

The strips were curled up — crisped in parts and soft in others — and there was a notable sheen of grease.

When I took a bite, I was met with more chewiness than tenderness, but I had to admit the flavor was all there. If you only have five minutes to get out the door, I guess microwaved bacon is better than no bacon at all.

The air fryer quickly became my favorite way to cook bacon.

Like many people, I went on an air-fryer kick a few years back. But lately, ours has largely sat at the back of a shelf.

After digging it out and preheating it to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, I popped in the strips of bacon and set the timer for eight minutes (which many articles and videos on the internet seemed to agree was best).

The taste, texture, and grease level were all perfect.

The air-fried bacon was tender with a hint of crispiness that even I could appreciate. It wasn't bordering on crunchy and was remarkably low in grease.

The strips also didn't curl up nearly as much as with the microwave or pan. They held their shape, resulting in better-looking bacon. Looks don't matter as much as taste here, but I can appreciate a well-plated meal nonetheless.

It's safe to say we'll be using our air fryer more often again.

I’ll still cook bacon in the oven for ease, but the air fryer produced the best results.

There's no doubt I'll stick with the trusty oven method for our everyday bacon needs so that I can make big batches. However, the air fryer was the clear winner when it came to fewer strips.

Considering most air fryers heat up in less than a minute and the cooking time was under 10, it's not even a time suck.

As for the microwave, that approach is only worth considering when time is the main factor, since bacon can be ready in five minutes.

If you prefer pan-fried bacon, I wish you all the best. I acknowledge it's a classic approach, but it's the one method I'll be avoiding from now on.

This story was originally published on June 12, 2024, and most recently updated on July 30, 2026.

• Tax proposals in New York and California aim to increase taxes on the wealthiest residents.
• A SmartAsset study calculated how much of each state's federal income taxes was paid by the top 1%.
• The top 1% of earners make 19% of incomes in the US but pay 37% of all federal income taxes.

Tax proposals targeting wealthy residents have renewed debate in states including New York and California about how much the rich should be paying in taxes. But just how much do the top 1% already pay?

While state and local taxes vary widely across states, from high-tax states like California to no-state-income-tax states like Florida and Nevada, federal income tax rates are the same across all US states.

A recent SmartAsset study examined the total federal individual income tax paid by residents of each state and calculated the share paid by the state's top 1% of households.

Individual income taxes are the largest source of revenue for the federal government. That tax revenue helps fund government programs and services, as well as interest on the national debt.

For tax year 2026, federal marginal income-tax rates range from 10% on taxable income of up to $12,400 for single filers and $24,800 for married couples filing jointly, to 37% on taxable income above $640,600 for single filers and $768,700 for married couples filing jointly.

Across the country, the top 1% of earners made an average of 19.5% of all income but paid 37% of federal individual income taxes, SmartAsset found.

SmartAsset ranked all 50 states by the percentage of federal income tax collected that is paid by the top 1% of earners, using the most recent personal income tax return data from the IRS covering the tax year 2022. SmartAsset treated each return as one household.

See where each state ranked.

50. Alaska

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 26.37%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $1.02 billion

Number of top 1% households: 3,223

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.25 million

49. West Virginia

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 30.28%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $1.65 billion

Number of top 1% households: 7,316

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $908,389

48. Oregon

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 30.37%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $6.77 billion

Number of top 1% households: 19,053

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.43 million

47. Delaware

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 30.38%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $1.65 billion

Number of top 1% households: 4,726

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.36 million

46. Maryland

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 30.45%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $12.68 billion

Number of top 1% households: 29,040

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.65 million

45. Maine

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 30.48%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $1.98 billion

Number of top 1% households: 6,618

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.23 million

44. Vermont

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 32.04%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $1.08 billion

Number of top 1% households: 3,123

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.39 million

43. Washington

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 32.06%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $20.01 billion

Number of top 1% households: 35,597

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.19 million

42. New Mexico

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 32.3%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $2.38 billion

Number of top 1% households: 9,310

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.05 million

41. Minnesota

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 32.64%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $11.52 billion

Number of top 1% households: 26,423

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.66 million

40. Virginia

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 32.94%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $19.24 billion

Number of top 1% households: 39,103

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.9 million

39. Iowa

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 33.16%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $4.81 billion

Number of top 1% households: 13,821

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.41 million

38. Hawaii

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 33.57%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $2.46 billion

Number of top 1% households: 6,472

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.53 million

37. Rhode Island

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 33.58%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $2.15 billion

Number of top 1% households: 5,224

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.61 million

36. New Jersey

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 33.78%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $26.9 billion

Number of top 1% households: 43,042

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.28 million

35. Kentucky

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 34.26%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $5.45 billion

Number of top 1% households: 18,395

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.2 million

34. North Dakota

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 34.41%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $1.52 billion

Number of top 1% households: 3,431

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.71 million

33. Colorado

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 34.51%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $14.89 billion

Number of top 1% households: 27,685

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.07 million

32. Ohio

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 34.6%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $18.84 billion

Number of top 1% households: 53,103

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.39 million

31. Michigan

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 35.01%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $16.65 billion

Number of top 1% households: 45,218

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.5 million

30. Pennsylvania

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 35.09%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $26.13 billion

Number of top 1% households: 58,541

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.73 million

29. North Carolina

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 35.28%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $19.04 billion

Number of top 1% households: 46,525

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.59 million

28. New Hampshire

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 35.41%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $3.95 billion

Number of top 1% households: 6,796

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.27 million

27. Indiana

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 35.52%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $10.52 billion

Number of top 1% households: 30,120

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.39 million

26. Wisconsin

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 35.54%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $11.02 billion

Number of top 1% households: 27,293

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.57 million

25. Kansas

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 35.79%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $5.07 billion

Number of top 1% households: 12,643

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.58 million

24. Alabama

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 36.15%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $6.78 billion

Number of top 1% households: 20,185

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.4 million

23. Nebraska

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 37.03%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $3.7 billion

Number of top 1% households: 8,660

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.71 million

22. South Carolina

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 37.05%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $8.87 billion

Number of top 1% households: 23,203

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.5 million

21. Missouri

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 37.16%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $10.48 billion

Number of top 1% households: 26,898

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.54 million

20. Oklahoma

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 37.8%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $5.62 billion

Number of top 1% households: 16,106

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.42 million

19. Arizona

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 38%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $14.44 billion

Number of top 1% households: 31,872

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.79 million

18. Massachusetts

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 38.19%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $26.65 billion

Number of top 1% households: 32,795

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.97 million

17. Idaho

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 38.2%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $3.39 billion

Number of top 1% households: 8,145

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.74 million

16. Mississippi

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 38.29%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $3.3 billion

Number of top 1% households: 11,731

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.15 million

15. Georgia

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 38.31%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $21 billion

Number of top 1% households: 46,220

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.76 million

14. Illinois

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 38.39%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $32.68 billion

Number of top 1% households: 56,794

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.13 million

13. California

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 38.6%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $122.45 billion

Number of top 1% households: 175,045

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.6 million

12. Louisiana

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 38.72%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $6.81 billion

Number of top 1% households: 18,593

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.41 million

11. South Dakota

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 40.46%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $2.02 billion

Number of top 1% households: 4,062

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.02 million

10. Tennessee

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 41.04%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $14.55 billion

Number of top 1% households: 30,531

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.85 million

9. Utah

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 41.16%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $7.48 billion

Number of top 1% households: 13,991

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.21 million

8. Arkansas

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 42.22%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $4.81 billion

Number of top 1% households: 12,198

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $1.7 million

7. Montana

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 42.92%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $2.69 billion

Number of top 1% households: 5,101

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.13 million

6. Connecticut

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 43.85%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $16.28 billion

Number of top 1% households: 16,917

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $3.43 million

5. Texas

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 44.52%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $81.99 billion

Number of top 1% households: 128,130

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.4 million

4. New York

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 46.26%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $79.49 billion

Number of top 1% households: 91,840

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $3.13 million

3. Nevada

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 51.12%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $11.01 billion

Number of top 1% households: 14,754

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $2.99 million

2. Florida

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 53.62%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $96.26 billion

Number of top 1% households: 105,101

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $3.53 million

1. Wyoming

Share of income taxes paid by the top 1%: 54.67%

Total income tax paid by the top 1%: $2.46 billion

Number of top 1% households: 2,611

Average adjusted gross income per top 1% household: $4.08 million

• Russia hunts drone pilots, so Ukraine is pulling them farther from the fighting with new technology.
• Ukraine can now fly some drones from greater relative safety, hundreds of miles from their launch sites.
• But support troops still need to get close to danger to transport, prepare, and launch the drones.

New technologies are allowing Ukrainian drone operators — who are high-priority targets — to control drones from relatively safer locations hundreds or even thousands of miles away. But human soldiers often still have to go to risky locations to transport, prepare, and launch these aircraft.

Ukrainian interceptor drone and other uncrewed aerial system operators are increasingly using satellite connections that allow them to operate far from the launch site — potentially even from another country. The makers describe these capabilities as a key way to protect the pilots in Russia's crosshairs.

The aircraft, however, often still need to be brought to a launch site and prepared, meaning soldiers are still needed closer to the danger, at least for now.

Ukrainian drone maker Wild Hornets, for instance, has developed technology that allows pilots to fly the company's interceptor drones from hundreds of kilometers away. The company told Business Insider that ground forces still transport and prepare the aircraft, though.

With satellite communications technology for combat drone operations, "we are able to put our pilots in any place when there is a stable internet connection for them," Dmytro "Liber" Zhluktenko, a former drone operator who now serves as a lessons-learned analyst with Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment "RAID," told Business Insider.

"But this doesn't remove the need for the ground groups, people who actually attach the explosive, put the drone outside of the bunker, et cetera," he said.

Remote piloting removes the operator from the launch point, but not necessarily the rest of the support crew. Troops may still need to transport the drones, unload and assemble them, attach explosives and communications equipment, and position them for launch. There are efforts underway to leverage other uncrewed systems, such as ground robots, for launching interceptors and first-person-view drones, but these robotic motherships aren't yet ubiquitous along the front lines.

New technology is moving some people to safer locations, but protecting everyone involved in a drone operation by keeping them far from the fighting is "impossible so far," Zhluktenko said.

Trying to get troops out of harm's way

Ukraine is doing what it can to keep as many soldiers as safe as possible, but there are limitations. Forces are still needed at the front for a range of missions even as robotic systems become increasingly prolific.

On more traditional missions with drones controlled by radio frequency connections, operators generally need to remain closer to their drones. But units are trying to, when possible, move "our drone operators further to give them more safety," Zhluktenko said.

They do this "even if it comes at the expense of our capabilities, because these are our people and we value them so much."

"The first principle, the first rule, is the safety of them, but it's a very tough balance. We want to keep them extremely safe, but, at the same time, there is some work to be done. So it's a very tough, tough balance thing."

Keeping drone operators safe is critical for Ukraine because Russia often treats them as top targets, according to soldiers, drone operators, and military officials.

Ukraine's drones destroy more Russian targets than any other weapon, and pilots are force multipliers. One operator can fly repeated missions to collect intelligence and launch attacks.

That makes technology that separates pilots from launch sites particularly valuable.

Then-defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in April that "the pilot is no longer tied to the position. The drone is in the sky, while control takes place from a protected environment in Kyiv, Lviv, or even abroad."

"This increases interception effectiveness, minimizes risks to operators, and makes it possible to scale capabilities without being tied to the front," he said.

Ukraine is investing heavily in technology designed to keep its soldiers farther from the intense fighting, including drones, ground robots, AI, and autonomous systems that enable weapons to detect, target, and strike with little to no human involvement.

Ukraine wants to replace certain human tasks, such as front-line logistics, with fully robotic systems, both to protect lives and to offset Russia's manpower advantage.

Ukraine's defense ministry has said, for instance, that "the primary task of ground robots is to bolster our units and replace soldiers in the most dangerous areas."

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made that goal explicit in April when he said Ukraine's ground robot force had carried out more than 22,000 front-line missions over the previous three months.

That meant "lives were saved more than 22,000 times when a robot went into the most dangerous areas instead of a warrior," he said.

Then Commander-in-Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said in October that Ukraine was prioritizing "high-tech systems that will help reduce the presence of soldiers directly on the battlefield."

Ukraine's ultimate goal is "to have less people on the direct battlefield and at direct risk, Zhluktenko said. For now, at least, human beings are still in the mix. It's not total robotic warfare.

• A Russian missile violated Polish airspace on Thursday, a NATO official told Business Insider.
• Ukrainian jets tried to destroy the Russian missiles before any crossed into Poland, Warsaw said.
• The missile flew for six minutes before crashing roughly 60 miles deep into Poland.

Ukrainian fighter jets tried to shoot down Russian missiles near the border with Poland on Thursday; however, at least one breached Polish airspace, Western officials said.

US Army Col. Martin O'Donnell, a spokesperson for NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, told Business Insider NATO and Poland activated their air and ground defenses "in response to a Russian missile of currently unknown type that entered Polish airspace" and crashed inside the country.

O'Donnell said two Polish F-16s, a NATO A330 refueling aircraft, a Polish Saab 340 airborne early warning plane, and a Polish Mi-24 helicopter were all scrambled in response.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at the weapon's crash site that, per the "military's assessment regarding the missile fragments, everything points to the fact that it was a Russian Kh-101 missile."

He said there is no indication to suggest that Poland was deliberately attacked. He added that Ukrainian fighter jets had tracked and attempted to destroy Russian missiles up to the border.

The Kh-101, known by NATO as the AS-23 Kodiak, is an air-launched cruise missile with a maximum speed of around 600 mph that Russia frequently uses in large-scale attacks against Ukraine. Russia launched over 60 Kh-101s as part of an overnight barrage, the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement.

Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine's foreign minister, said a Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Poland, "violating NATO airspace" during the attack.

Earlier on Thursday, the Polish military said that radars recorded at least a dozen missiles above western Ukraine. One "object" came within a few miles of the border at roughly 3:30 a.m. local time, but changed directions and headed east.

10 minutes later, at 3:40 a.m., an "unidentified object" was detected inside Polish airspace heading west, but it then disappeared from radars at 3:46 a.m. before it could be identified, the military said. It located "the probable crash site" near Tarnawa-Kolonia in southwestern Poland. The site is 60 miles from the border.

Tusk later said that the munition left a 10-meter-wide, 5-meter-deep crater that was consistent with the explosive payload of a Kh-101.

Neither Russia's defense ministry nor its embassy in the US responded to a request for comment on the Polish and Ukrainian assessments.

Russian drones have crossed into Polish airspace repeatedly since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, including dozens of aircraft in a September 2025 incident that prompted NATO to surge air defense assets to the Eastern flank. However, it is much rarer for a Russian missile to violate Polish airspace. Previous incidents were also much closer to its border with Ukraine.

O'Donnell said that NATO "is in close contact with the Polish authorities about the violation of Poland's airspace."

This latest incident comes amid a string of NATO airspace violations. Last weekend, Russian drones crossed into Romania several days in a row, and F-16 fighter jets were scrambled each time to intercept them.

Russia launched more than 70 missiles — including 61 Kh-101 cruise missiles — and nearly 300 drones as part of the massive overnight attack on Ukraine, which intercepted most of the munitions. At least eight people across the country were killed, though.

• This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.
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Meta's message to investors: The AI spending will continue until returns improve.

Investors' response: No thanks.

AI spend was the big focus during Meta's Q2 earnings report. And the pitch wasn't convincing enough to stop an after-hours selloff.

Meta was happy to credit AI with helping its advertising business (its bread and butter) rise 27%. And it wasn't just pure growth. Ad impressions grew 14%, while the average price per ad climbed 12%.

There's just one catch. Meta is still spending an incredible amount — $31.1 billion, roughly double what it spent last year — on its AI bets. That's eating up a significant portion of its free cash flow, which went from $8.55 BILLION to $784 MILLION. One analyst said the AI strategy is like "throwing spaghetti at the wall."

Investors were unimpressed, with Meta's stock falling nearly 10% at one point after the bell.

Compare that to another tech giant that reported yesterday: Microsoft. It logged wins in Azure and Microsoft 365 Copilot, which Microsoft CFO Amy Hood touted in her quarterly memo to employees viewed by BI's Ashley Stewart. Perhaps more importantly, its AI budget forecast didn't budge.

Investors noticed. Microsoft's stock jumped almost 8% in after-hours trading.

The difference between the two is clear: AI spending is fine … as long as there is a direct and measurable return.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the case for why Meta's AI bets might need more time.

A lot of the most immediate use cases for AI are for developers. Just look at the boom in vibe coding. "Building for consumers is a little bit different," Zuckerberg said during Wednesday's earnings call, but it's also a "massive market opportunity."

And who better to serve that market than the king of all social networks? Between Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, Meta has billions of users across its platforms. Zuckerberg said Meta's making a big bet on AI agents.

That all tracks with one small exception: A lot of Americans are really nervous about AI.

Meta has tried to ease those fears with a big AI PR push, including a Zuckerberg op-ed and some interviews with reporters. (The request to speak to BI Today must have got caught in my spam inbox. I'm happy to chat, Mark. Sounds like you have a really cool gym.)

BI's Peter Kafka has an idea about how Meta could better convince people to get on board with AI. (Hint: It's green.)

Whatever the plan is, Meta had better figure something out fast. Investors are running out of patience.

• Tama Phelps, 64, cares for her disabled daughter, affecting her financially and emotionally.
• Phelps also manages her father's care while facing personal marital challenges.
• Her daughter's care costs are high, and family pressures weigh on Phelps' mental health.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tama Phelps, 64, who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and has cared for her adult daughter with physical disabilities since she was born 39 years ago. Phelps retired early to care for her full-time but said doing so has been a financial hit. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I was raised in Ann Arbor by two fabulous parents. I married my high school sweetheart. I worked for the University of Michigan. I was 25 when my daughter was born with spina bifida. She just turned 39. I have a son who is 33, and he's able-bodied and married on his own.

I had to maintain my daughter's insurance eligibility by keeping a job at the University of Michigan. I worked as an equipment manager at a recreational sports facility. As long as I was able to show that she had a disability, I was still able to cover her under my insurance. When she turned 18, I made sure she signed up for government aid. She is a college graduate with a psychology and communications degree

My husband and I worked split shifts so someone could be with her at all times. For about 15 years, I worked five days a week, four hours a day. My husband works as a manager for a company sharpening blades for print services and hockey arenas.

My daughter is now bedridden and has breathing issues.

My daughter had been having issues with headaches. She's also shunted because she was hydrocephalic, which comes with spina bifida. She ended up having two vertebrae removed from the back of her neck. Since then, she has had no speech, hearing, or vision. She is a wheelchair user. She also had to have a new bladder reconstructed due to cancer, and she has severe tremors.

She had a G-tube put in that goes into her stomach. She is extremely unhappy now. The only way we can communicate is via text, and she has a hard time seeing her phone. Her quality of life is zero.

She still has a sense of pride, and her mind is totally fine. However, she's in a body that does not function. It sucks to be in that position, and that's one of the reasons I keep trying to help her.

I take care of my dad, too.

My mom died about 16 years ago from a glioblastoma. It took a hit on my dad's financials. He realized the need for getting insurance for hospice or palliative care, so he's picked up that cost for himself, looking forward. He dealt with some heart issues and had a TAVR procedure done. He fell and broke a cheekbone a few years ago. Otherwise, he's been healthy.

He's 89, and I've been taking care of him. I'm his only daughter, and he pays for his own care. He fell and broke a hip back in December, but he lives less than five miles away. He walks with a cane and has two bad knees, but he still drives, and his mind is good. I spend time with him while my husband cares for our daughter, but when he goes to work, I come back here. I go back and forth, and it feels like a tidal wave.

I've also started the legal procedure to get a divorce filed, though I put that on hold. My husband would have gotten the house, and I would have needed to get another place within the city because there would have been transportation issues getting her to and from the hospital.

I retired at 60.

I ended up working for the university for 40 years before retiring at 60 to care for my daughter full time. My insurance covers her over $1,000 monthly cost for her catheterization. I would guess, though, that I've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars caring for her due to her therapies and a new wheelchair, which cost as much as a car.

I talked to her social worker, who said that if we were able to find a facility that would take her, they would take the money that she gets from the state and put it toward her cost of living.

However, we'd have to pay out of pocket for the rest, and she was quick to tell us that we would get what we paid for. I don't have that kind of money. $7,000 a month is not something I can afford, especially for a place that won't address her needs.

My daughter does not want to go into a facility.

I know the responsibility will continue to fall on us, but you do what you have to for your kids. However, it's getting to the point where I can't physically lift her anymore. She weighs more than I do, so it's going to come down to us eventually not being able to provide care.

My family, who all live nearby, tries to keep pushing me to put her in a home, but they don't have as much of an idea about the cost or psychological issues it involves. My daughter has alienated most of her family because she doesn't want them to see who she's become.

I'm mentally overwhelmed.

I only stay home and take care of her. I have no life. I've been a gym rat since I was 18, but I haven't been to the gym in over two years. My social circle is very small. My husband still plays golf and keeps up his life. He does take care of some things for her, but I'm her primary caregiver. I can't be bitter about anything because it's just a matter of fact.

I'm very fortunate that my brother is a financial advisor, so he's helped me through the years. He makes suggestions and moves my money around to make sure I have enough. I'm sitting on a pretty nice nest egg. I have not signed up for Social Security yet because I'm not 65 yet. I also have a full pension from the university. Whatever my daughter needs, I pay for it.

I want my life back. I did not retire in order to take care of people, but you man up and take care of what needs to be taken care of. People don't realize it's not just baby boomers who require care. I wish there were some kind of facility that would help families get a reprieve. I'd be a much better parent if I could come home at night knowing she's cared for toward the end of her life.

• Consulting firms have gone all in on AI.
• Their consultants, however, are not all comfortable with that.
• Some consultants are leaving the big firms for roles in AI safety and governance.

As consulting firms rapidly remake themselves to leverage AI, a small but growing number of consultants are leaving to rein it in.

Instead of joining the broader exodus to tech, these consultants are focusing on the risks that AI systems, from chatbots to agents, pose to society.

Namaan Mian, the chief operating officer of Management Consulted, a company that trains and prepares students and others for careers in consulting, said his firm has been tracking where former consultants land after leaving the industry. Roles in software development, operations at startups, IT, and, increasingly, venture capital and private equity remain primary destinations for former consultants, he said.

While moves into nonprofit and government roles, or smaller startups focused on regulating the technology, haven't appeared in the data yet, Mian said that "anecdotally," the field is gaining popularity.

Sarah Pomeranz, a former Accenture consultant, is now the founder and CEO of Consultants for Impact, a nonprofit that helps consultants transition into careers focused on pressing global problems. Pomeranz said that AI safety, governance, and policy accounted for roughly 4 in 10 of the high-impact career moves her organization has supported. That was about twice the share moving into global health and development, the next-largest category.

Pomeranz said former consultants have landed at organizations like the UK AI Safety Institute, RAND, European Union institutions, and policy teams at frontier AI labs.

"A lot of these ex-BCG and McKinsey consultants are staffing the institutions that are, in many ways, governing," she said.

The consultants who have made the leap

Business Insider spoke to former consultants who left consulting to take up roles at AI safety nonprofits, policy organizations, government roles, and research institutes. They've helped governments design AI rules and managed researchers studying how advanced systems could cause catastrophic harm.

"There's more and more of a need for generalists — just really good operators who actually know how to run an organization, make it grow, have good management practices," said Lucas Le Merlus Schmuck, a former Bain consultant who now works on the technical AI safety team at the nonprofit Coefficient Giving.

Schmuck, who spent a year and a half at Bain before pursuing a master's degree in public policy focused on AI governance, said moving directly from consulting into an AI safety nonprofit remains relatively rare. He said consultants generally need to first build familiarity with the field through courses and independent research.

"You usually need to acquire a little more context about the space," he said. "You want to make sure that people are mission-aligned with what the organization wants to do."

Peter Wallich, a former BCG consultant, now works as a senior research program manager at the Constellation Institute, where one of his tasks is to help run programs to bring more researchers into AI safety. The role involves a mix of management and coaching — a natural fit, he said, for the skills he developed in consulting.

He said BCG had been valuable early in his career, but he believed consulting firms had underestimated both AI's transformative potential and its most severe risks.

"I wish that they took a more proactive stance on risks that they don't have strong commercial incentives to work against," he said. "I don't have ill will for the firm, and I am grateful for my experience."

The ratio of people pushing for returns from AI still vastly outnumbers those working on its potential for harm. For "every hundred people that are trying to push the frontier, trying to build AI that can outperform humans, there is one person trying to prevent catastrophes resulting from that," Wallich said.

But those working on AI safety say they increasingly encounter former colleagues who have made the switch.

David Conrad, who worked at BCG in Australia, said he first entered consulting because he was unsure what he wanted to do and saw the firm as a professional "finishing school." Now, he runs a nonprofit that trains people for AI policy and governance jobs across Europe.

"It definitely feels like I very regularly come across consultants in AI safety and AI policy," he said. "It feels that there's a disproportionate number of consultants here."

AI safety organizations compete with well-funded labs for technical talent, so salaries can be unusually high for the nonprofit sector, Schmuck said. The trade-off is probably more significant for principals and partners.

"If you exit at a consultant or associate consultant level, sometimes it's not even a pay cut," Schmuck said. "Sometimes it's the same or a pay bump."

Pomeranz also said that AI may be making traditionally secure paths feel less certain. As firms freeze hiring, cut roles, and automate more junior work, joining a nonprofit, startup, or smaller organization may no longer seem like a leap into uncharted waters.

"It changes the calculus when the safe options are also not sure things," she said.

Do you work in consulting and have a story to share? Email Lakshmi Varanasi at lvaranasi@businessinsider.com from a non-work email and device or contact her on Signal at lvaranasi.70.