The first (and glitziest) golf major of 2026 has arrived in sunny Augusta, Georgia. We've gathered everything you need to know about how to watch the Masters Tournament, including free streaming options.

The four-day golf tournament brings together the best golfers in the world for a shot at the elusive Masters title and iconic green jacket. Rory McIlroy is the defending champion, with his 2025 victory sealing his career Grand Slam, following past wins at the PGA Championship, US Open, and Open Championship. Ludvig Åberg, Bryson DeChambeau, Max Homa, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, and Scottie Scheffler are among the top competitors participating in this week's event.

Keep reading to learn the best ways to tune into the 90th Masters Tournament, including broadcast and free streaming options. We've outlined coverage details for all four rounds.

• See also: Where to watch Monte Carlo Masters | Where to watch Champions League | Where to watch UFC

How to watch the Masters free from anywhere

If you're away from the US right now, you can still access the free live stream on the official Masters website with the help of a VPN to bypass geo-restrictions. Short for virtual private networks, VPNs are easy-to-use tech tools that allow people to temporarily alter the digital locations of their electronic devices. This way, they can access their favorite websites and apps from anywhere. They're especially popular apps for those looking to use their usual services while traveling abroad or improve their cybersecurity.

NordVPN is the best VPN we've tested. It's a user-friendly option with a 30-day money-back guarantee and a selection of cybersecurity perks (especially in the long-term plans). You can learn more about the service in our NordVPN review.

How to watch the Masters in the US

It's good news for US golf fans. The Masters Tournament is the rare golf major where coverage is available completely free online, in addition to the TV broadcasts. Fans can catch all of the action for free on the Masters website.

Coverage will also be available across ESPN, CBS and Paramount Plus, and Prime Video. On Thursday and Friday, Rounds 1 and 2 will be available on Prime Video from 1 to 3 p.m. ET and on ESPN from 3 to 7 p.m. ET. On Friday and Saturday, Rounds 3 and 4 will be available on Paramount Plus from 12 to 2 p.m. ET and on CBS (and Paramount Plus) from 2 to 7 p.m. ET. For early-morning coverage, your best bet is the ESPN app or the Masters website.

ESPN offers two tiers of service: ESPN Select and ESPN Unlimited. While some programming will be streaming exclusives, the best way to ensure you can see all of the ESPN action (including direct live streams of the flagship channels) is by subscribing to ESPN Unlimited for $30 a month.

Paramount Plus also offers two tiers of service: Essential and Premium. While Essential comes with some live sports, the only way to live stream the CBS channel directly is with Paramount Plus Premium. This tier costs $14 a month and comes with ad-free on-demand streaming, Showtime programming, and other perks.

If you already have an Amazon Prime subscription, you automatically have access to Prime Video. If you don't, you can sign up for Amazon Prime for $15 a month or Prime Video by itself for $9 a month. In addition to all Prime Video shows and movies, this also unlocks access to other select live sports, including Thursday Night Football, and games across the NBA, WNBA, and NWSL.

If you're hoping to catch all of the ESPN and CBS coverage in one place or you'd like a cable alternative service with additional channels, one of the best live TV streaming services we've tested might be of interest. Two of our favorite options, which are both CBS and ESPN-friendly, are DirecTV and Fubo.

You can get both of these networks, a nice selection of other channels, and access to ESPN Unlimited in DirecTV's MySports genre pack or Fubo's Sports + News package. DirecTV MySports costs $65 a month, but you can get your first two months for $45 a month after a five-day free trial. Fubo Sports + News costs $56 a month, but you can get your first month for $46 after a five-day free trial.

Where is the Masters Tournament held?

The Master Tournament takes place at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. The golf club has been home to the tournament every year since its inception in 1934 (excluding years when the tournament wasn't held).

Who are the most recent Masters winners?

Rory McIlroy is the most recent Masters champion, having won in 2025. Other recent winners include Scottie Scheffler (2024, 2022), Jon Rahm (2023), Hideki Matsuyama (2021), Dustin Johnson (2020), and Tiger Woods (2019).

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

• Mo Gawdat made predictions about AI in 2020 that seemed bold at the time.
• Today, they have already come true, he said, and it's reshaping society as we know it.
• We will likely see disruption before we reep the benefits of AI, he said.

"There's nothing sci-fi about AI. I think that's one of the biggest myths in our world today," Mo Gawdat said.

Gawdat spent decades working across IBM, Microsoft, and Google, and today is a prominent voice and author on AI safety.

In 2020, shortly after leaving his role as Google's chief business officer, Gawdat made several predictions about artificial intelligence based on patterns he was seeing inside the technology.

In a recent video interview with Business Insider, he said that three of those predictions have come true and described how they are beginning to shape the societal disruption that may come next.

Prediction 1: 'AI is inevitable'

"AI is inevitable," he said, adding that there will be "no way to stop it."

That momentum is already visible in how AI systems shape everyday behavior. "If anyone is watching that video that we're recording right now, it's because an AI recommended it to them," he said.

Once the technology proved useful, competition ensured its expansion. Gawdat described an AI "arms race," where nations and corporations push forward to avoid falling behind.

He said that dynamic could lead to a world where more decisions are handed over to machines as systems scale faster than humans can manage.

Over time, he suggested, that shift could redefine how power, competition, and coordination work at a global level.

"This is the very first time ever that the episode of history where humanity was the smartest being on the planet ends," he said.

Prediction 2: AI will become smarter than humans in everything

AI models already outperform humans in many specific tasks, from pattern recognition to strategic gameplay.

Gawdat referenced systems like AlphaGo Zero, which in 2017 learned to play the game Go without human input and surpassed top-performing predecessors within weeks.

Gawdat argued that modern AI can "reason now like humans can," drawing on vast datasets and neural networks that mirror aspects of the human brain.

The result, he suggested, could accelerate progress in ways that are difficult for humans to track or control. Systems that can learn, share knowledge instantly, and improve their own code may compress years of human work into a microsecond, he said.

Over time, that shift could reshape how expertise is defined.

As machines take over analytical and technical tasks, the remaining advantage for humans may center more on judgment, ethics, and interpersonal connection — areas Gawdat said AI is less likely to replicate in the same way.

Prediction 3: Some things will go wrong

Indeed, things have already taken a turn, with mass tech layoffs and power outages, including one that led to 120,000 lost Amazon orders. But he says this is just the beginning.

Gawdat described a period of instability ahead. He expects disruptions to labor markets, with up to "50% unemployment in certain sectors" as automation expands.

He also warned about the erosion of shared reality. "We're going to go through an erasure of reality and the ability to recognize what is true and what is fake," he said.

That breakdown could have ripple effects beyond the technology sector. If people struggle to agree on what is real, it may become harder to maintain trust in institutions, media, and even personal relationships.

At the same time, Gawdat suggested the disruption could force a broader reset.

As economic systems and information networks come under pressure, societies may need to rethink how work, value, and truth are defined in a world where machines can generate both output and influence at scale.

He connected that risk to human behavior rather than the technology itself. The near-term danger, he said, comes from how people use powerful systems — including for misinformation, surveillance, or conflict.

He also warned about the erosion of shared reality, where AI-generated content makes it harder to distinguish what is real from what is not.

Across all three predictions, Gawdat returns to the same theme: the challenge is not intelligence itself, but the context in which it is deployed.

The ultimate outcome, he said, will depend less on the technology and more on the decisions humans make while it evolves.

• I've been testing the Bear Elite Hybrid mattress for 10 months, and it consistently sleeps cool.
• It has stayed comfortable and supportive over time, with no noticeable sagging or heat buildup.
• One catch: bed frame slats must be no more than four inches apart, but most standard frames are six.

The Bear Elite Hybrid is a premium mattress that couples and hot sleepers should consider. Available in three firmness options, it offers excellent edge support, motion isolation, and cooling, copper-infused memory foam to keep you comfortable throughout the year.

This long-term Bear Elite Hybrid review details my experience using the medium mattress at home for the last ten months, covering both a particularly hot and humid summer and frigid winter nights.

10-month update: Does the Bear mattress still hold up?

After about 10 months of nightly use — including a move and a new setup — the Bear mattress has held up well overall, with no meaningful decline in comfort or support. Most issues I ran into were related to setup, not the mattress itself.

• Durability: No long-term concerns. I briefly noticed a spring pushing up slightly on one side, but it resolved on its own and hasn't returned. No sagging or structural issues since.

• Comfort and performance: Largely unchanged. Still supportive and comfortable, though it runs a bit firm for side sleeping. No new pressure issues or morning soreness.

• Cooling: Solid cooling for a hot sleeper. Even through humid NYC summer nights, it didn't trap excessive heat.

• Maintenance and real-world use: You can't rotate this mattress due to its zoned support design, so wear will stay concentrated. Using a mattress protector has kept the surface in excellent condition.

Final verdict: Would I buy it again? Probably — with caveats. The mattress itself has held up well and sleeps cool enough for this hot sleeper. But between the firmness (especially if you sleep on your side) and strict support requirements, it's not the easiest mattress to get right. If you're willing to dial in the setup, it performs reliably. If not, there are more forgiving options.

Construction

The Bear Elite Hybrid mattress blends the worlds of memory foam and traditional coil design for a feel of softness but with strong support underneath.

The surface is made with a luxuriously padded hand-quilted cushion layer that's cool to the touch without excessively wrapping around the body and causing you to overheat. The copper-fused memory foam layer directly beneath is an important feature, as copper draws heat away from the body and can help spread it out across the mattress instead. It's also an antimicrobial element that can add hypoallergenic properties and also helps to keep the mattress fresh and reduce the growth of bacteria, fungi, and odors. Remember that this is a thin layer of the mattress's construction - you still need to shower.

A thick layer of Dynamic Transition foam adds firmer support across the mattress, easing your weight onto the coils below. I couldn't feel any individual coils through it when lying down or forcing my hand into the mattress.

The coil size and placement design are carefully considered. With motion isolation in mind, all coils are individually cased. On the outside edges, they're wound more narrowly for stronger support. Coils toward the middle of the bed are thinner than the rest of the mattress to offer additional lumbar support.

One final layer of high-density support foam lies on the bottom for base support. However, it's not particularly hardy, and Bear does not recommend using the Elite Hybrid on a boxspring as you need something with a more evenly distributed support surface.

Our review of the Bear Elite Hybrid

Setup

The full-size Bear Elite Hybrid is delivered boxed and tightly rolled in multiple layers of plastic. While you can unbox it solo, you'll have an easier time with a second pair of hands, as unwrapping the clingy plastic requires some aggressive pulling to unravel it.

There are no markings to indicate which direction to point the mattress as you tug away, and it only starts unfurling after you have most of it off. When I realized the mattress was coming out sideways across the bed, I had to quickly spin it around before it finished erupting from its plastic cocoon, as it would have been difficult to move once it had laid itself out flat.

Some mattresses have a strong plastic or chemical odor at first. But this was closer to a nice "new carpet smell." Regardless, after unboxing the mattress in the morning, all traces of it had faded away by the time I went to bed that night.

Once the final loose layer of plastic was removed, the mattress promptly began to take its proper form, rapidly reaching its 14-inch thickness. Overall, the unboxing process took around five minutes.

Comfort and support

The Bear Elite Hybrid mattress is available in soft, medium, and firm variations, but on Bear's own scale of 1 (mushy) to 10 (rock), they rate those variations at 5, 6, and 7, respectively. That's not a huge difference, but the medium seems like a safe bet if you're mixing things up between side, back and some stomach sleeping or you and your partner prefer different positions.

I'm generally a side sleeper but sometimes lie on my back to read or watch TV, and both are comfortable once settled. If anything, I'd say the medium firmness option on the Elite Hybrid slightly favors back and stomach sleepers because I'd sometimes find myself fidgeting to "get right" at lights out. For reference, I'm around 5'7" and 150 pounds. Our reporter who wrote our guide to the best mattresses for stomach sleepers identified the medium Bear as a great option for front-facing sleepers with back pain, thanks to its ability to provide pressure relief and zone lumbar design where she needed it most. Though, heavier sleepers, especially stomach sleepers, might want to consider the firmer version of the Bear Elite Hybrid for extra support.

When on my side in a more upright position — think with your knees together or when closely spooning your partner — I found my lower back slightly uncomfortable. It didn't feel like I was aligned properly, when I checked my spine with the Mattress Checker app , which showed a 29-degree deviation between the base of my spine and the top of my neck.

However, if I sprawled out a bit more, half on my side, half on my stomach, and moved my top leg over in the same direction, I felt much more supported, and the discomfort in my lower back went away. My deviation degree here decreased to a much more acceptable 8.8 degrees, too. According to the app's developers, the ideal deviation is as low as possible, or under 7 degrees.

Edge support

When we refer to edge support, we're looking at how well weight is supported if sleeping close to the edge of the bed and basic requirements like sitting on the side and putting shoes on.

For the first couple of nights, I noticed that the edge support seemed a little soft, and I even seemed to dip inwards a little if lying back in the middle of the bed (not a usual sleeping position, I must say). However, after 48 hours, both issues had completely resolved themselves.

In fairness, Bear's website advises that a mattress might take 24-48 hours to fully decompress, but sleeping on it after it's had time to expand on that first day is fine. So, if you're having your old one removed from your home the same day the Bear Elite Hybrid arrives, you'll be fine to enjoy it on the first night.

In testing, I could lie right on the edge of the bed on my back or side without issue. I'd have to let myself lean a fair few degrees over before starting to fall. I also measured how far the mattress sunk on the side, bottom, and bottom corner when sitting on it like I might to put on my shoes, and it only went down by two inches. Anything under three inches is a good rating for edge support, so if you like to sleep dangerously on the edge, the Bear Elite Hybrid will embrace your daredevil dreams. This is especially handy if your partner is a sprawler (or maybe even a bit of an elbow swinger) or radiates too much heat, and you find yourself edging away a little.

Motion Isolation

To evaluate motion isolation, we dropped a 12-pound weight near a full soda can to see how many times it topples, and we found this would happen about 70% of the time. That doesn't sound great, as we've tested mattresses where the can survives at a higher rate, but I wouldn't go as far as to say the motion isolation is poor here.

Given that it's quite firm without being bouncy (I opted for Bear's medium-firmness mattress), I found I could toss and turn, fidget, and get out of bed without disturbing my partner, and I didn't feel any lurching or dipping movements when she did the same.

Cooling

The Bear Elite hybrid is a solid choice for those who sleep on the hotter side of the scale. After months of testing through a New York summer, I've found that it doesn't hold onto heat much at all. In the mornings, I'd measure the surface temperature with an infrared cooking thermometer, as 88 degrees Fahrenheit as soon as I woke up. Come back two minutes later, and that would have dropped to about 78 degrees on most days.

These cooling properties didn't betray me during the winter either, as a sensible level of body heat is maintained during the night without adding unnecessary chill to the surface, and I've not felt the need to turn the heating on in the room at all overnight despite it being the coldest room in the apartment. Picking up one of the best comforters won't hurt if you're fully revamping your sleep experience.

We've tested models that offer even cooler sleeps over on our guide to the best cooling mattresses, but don't forget your bedding can also be a major factor here, so it's not the end of the world if a mattress you like the look of might lose a couple of points for heat dissipation. Take a look at our guide to the best cooling sheets for hot sleepers to add a little extra chill comfort to your nights.

Trial period and warranty

You can try the Bear Elite Hybrid for up to 120 nights to determine if it works for you. You just need to sleep on it for 30 nights before it's eligible for a return, as Bear is confident that is the break-in period during which most buyers have been able to gel with it. Unlike some other brands, returns during this 120-night trial period are free, with no minimum shipping or restock fees to be concerned about.

However, items in closeout or clearance sales can not be returned, but these items should be clearly labeled as such in those sales. Also, if you're considering returning the mattress and picking up another Bear one, just be mindful that you cannot return the second one. You will still, of course, be able to enjoy the generous warranty offering on Bear's mattresses, though.

I've read through all of Bear's returns and warranty T&Cs, and it all looks pretty impressive. This mattress has a lifetime warranty, covering a range of defects, such as collapsing coils causing a visible indentation of 1.5 inches or more.

However, Bear's warranty won't cover you if you've been using a boxspring. They advise using a solid, flat surface with their mattresses, which makes sense given that they're on the heavier side. Adequate support is essential to keeping the mattress in strong condition for years to come. Normal wear and tear, misuse, and abuse are not covered.

Unlike returning the mattress during the trial period, you will have to initially bear the brunt of shipping it back to Bear. However, if they find a defect in the mattress, they will "assume all transportation costs associated with returning and replacing your mattress."

It all seems reasonable, with a few protections built in to protect them from fraudulent claims. If you'd like to comb through the details yourself, take a look at the warranty section on their site.

Cons to consider

This 14-inch mattress with coils and foam comes with considerable weight and awkwardness. Getting the bed set up is one thing, and a temporary problem for sure. But lifting the mattress corners to put on a fitted cover might be hard work for some, especially if the mattress is boxed into the corner of the room.

The heaviness issue is further compounded if you're moving house/redecorating and need to pick it up properly, as Bear has followed the irritatingly inconsiderate design flaw trend of only putting handles on the long sides of the mattress, with none on the shorter sides. If you've ever moved a heavy mattress in your life, you'll know what a pain this is as most people carry them lengthways (because doorways and stairs exist).

What are your alternatives?

Bear offers a few other less expensive mattresses, but they're only available in 'medium-firm.' Their Star Hybrid mattress is the next one down from the Elite and doesn't lose many features. The most notable difference is the lack of copper memory foam.

The Pro Hybrid and Bear Original models see further price drops, but hot sleepers in particular might want to take note, as the cooling isn't rated as highly on these models, and edge support isn't as strong on them either.

The Bear Original offers the biggest savings, especially compared to the Elite Hybrid, but the lack of coils in favor of an all-memory foam design won't be for everyone.

If you're looking for an option from a different brand, then the Leesa Sapira Hybrid is worth considering, as it's our No. 1 pick. They're very similar in nature — and made in the same mattress factory — , but if you're looking for a difference between the Leesa and the premium Bear Elite Hybrid, though, we'd argue the Bear has slightly better cooling and is better suited to hot sleepers.

The bottom line

The overall firmness won't be a match for all side-sleepers or those who prefer a super soft feel, but it's a very pleasing middle ground for couples wanting decent support. I've slept comfortably on my side for months with this mattress, and my partner rates it highly as someone who sleeps on her back and front a lot.

That cooling design and generous heat dissipation hold up well in hot and humid conditions. The firmer side of soft feel, combined with excellent edge support, makes the Bear Elite Hybrid one of the best mattresses for couples, both for sex and not feeling your partner tossing and turning or getting in/out of bed. I'm assuming that firm feel will hold up well over time, as I've not noticed any difference or degradation six months later.

Yes, all of this comes at a premium, but if you're spending this much on a mattress, it's reassuring to know it will last a long time. I'd go as far as to say that anyone looking for one of the best mattresses for couples or the best cooling mattress should surely have the Bear Elite Hybrid on their radar.

After ten months of daily use, the Bear Elite Hybrid mattress has proven to be durable and consistent where it counts — no sagging, no lasting structural issues, no real decline in comfort and cooling, even through hot, humid nights. But it's not a plug-and-play mattress. Its firmer feel may not suit dedicated side sleepers, and the strict support requirements (especially slat spacing) can create real challenges that could affect performance. If you're willing to get the foundation right, it's a reliable long-term pick. If not, you may run into frustrations.

• YouTube increased its Premium subscription prices on Friday.
• The individual plan is now $15.99, up $2 from $13.99.
• The family plan now costs $26.99, a $4 price increase.

YouTube Premium raised its US prices on Friday, marking the latest example of "streamflation."

The massively popular Google-owned video platform increased the price of its individual Premium subscription to $15.99 a month, up $2 from $13.99. The family Premium plan rose $4 to $26.99 a month, and the student plan rose $1 to $8.99.

"We're updating the price for YouTube Premium plans in the US for the first time since 2023 to continue delivering a high-quality experience that supports creators and artists on YouTube," a spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement.

"This change allows us to maintain the features our members value most: ad-free viewing, background play, and a massive library of 300M+ tracks on YouTube Music," they added. "We continue to offer several plans, ensuring subscribers can choose the option that works best for them."

Current subscribers can expect to receive an email from YouTube at least 30 days in advance confirming the updated prices.

YouTube isn't the only major streaming service to raise prices this year. Netflix, Paramount+, Crunchyroll, and Hulu all announced or implemented price hikes in 2026. Other streaming hubs like Disney+. HBO Max, Peacock, and Apple TV raised their prices in 2025.

• Ruchir Sharma says the Fed won't step in to rescue the US economy.
• Despite growth risks from the Iran war, the Fed has been dealing with above-target inflation for too long, he said.
• The US is unlikely to rush in with fiscal aid to help prop up economic growth either, he added.

Don't expect the Fed to rush to prop up the US economy if it runs into trouble, Ruchir Sharma says.

The famed investor and Rockefeller Capital Chairman said he believes the Fed's hands are tied when it comes to cutting interest rates to prop up economic growth. That's because — despite the risks to growth stemming from higher oil prices — the Fed has little room to ease monetary policy, considering that inflation has remained above the Fed's 2% price target for 60 months in a row, Sharma said.

Inflation clocked in at 3.3% annually in March, up from the 2.4% yearly increase in February. The increase largely stems from the 10.9% year-over-year growth in energy costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Inflation hasn't grown at or below a 2% pace since early 2021.

The Fed's stance on monetary policy now looks very different from several years ago, Sharma said, referring to the period when the central bank cut interest rates aggressively to bolster economic growth during the pandemic. That response — also called the "Fed put" in markets — is likely gone, he suggested.

"I think the Fed is out," Sharma said of rate cuts, speaking to CNN this week. "When you got any shock to the economy, central banks would rush to the aid of the economy at the slightest hint of trouble. I don't see that happening this time."

Investors have grown hopeful again about Fed rate cuts since the US announced a ceasefire with Iran, but markets are largely expecting the central bank to remain hawkish. Investors are pricing in just a 29% chance the Fed will issue more rate cuts this year, down from an 84% chance a month ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

The economy is also unlikely to get any fiscal support the longer the oil price shock goes on, Sharma said, referring to the Trump put — the idea that the administration will respond to an economic shock with stimulus to boost growth.

He pointed to the recent rise in bond yields, which suggests that markets are more concerned about the growing budget deficit, and that any further fiscal support could stoke a negative reaction in Treasurys.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield ticked up to 4.30% on Friday, up 34 basis points from where it was prior to the start of the Iran war.

"The bond markets this time aren't tolerating that," he said. "The doomsayers have been around a long time worrying about the debt and the deficits, and the question many people ask is, 'So what? The bond market is not really reacting to any of this.' That's changing now."

• When my kids turned 10 and got their first phones, my husband and I made them sign a contract.
• They're now teenagers, and that contract still works.
• The agreement was simple: the phone doesn't belong to them.

When my oldest daughter turned 10, many of her friends were already getting phones. At the time, I was working as a middle school teacher, and I had a front-row seat to what constant screen time was doing to my students. I saw rising anxiety, shortened attention spans, and social dynamics that played out more online than in real life. It made me pause.

My husband and I weren't against technology, but we knew we didn't want to rush into it. Instead, we decided to introduce it carefully and on our terms.

Before our daughter got a phone, we created a simple contract for her to sign, and when our son reached the same age two years later, we followed the same approach. They're now teenagers, and that contract still works.

The contract introduced phone expectations early on

On their 10th birthday, each of our children received their first phone. From the outset, they knew it came with expectations, and everything was laid out in a simple contract that they had to read, agree to, and sign.

The contract was simple and included rules that many families struggle to enforce consistently: phones don't go into bedrooms (unless it's FaceTime and the door stays open), devices are taken away between 8 and 9 p.m., and social media is limited until they're older. There are occasional exceptions for travel, sleepovers, or special events, but the structure has stayed the same for years.

What surprised me most was that the contract didn't just control screen time; it removed the daily arguments. The expectations were clear from the beginning, and because the kids signed it themselves, it felt less like punishment and more like an agreement. Now that they're teens, we still follow the same framework.

How framing the phone as a 'rental' changed our kids' mindset

Although we gave our children phones as gifts, we were clear about one thing: the phones were rentals. It belonged to my husband and me, not to them.

My husband and I agreed we would always have full access to the phones. We didn't want any confusion about ownership, and more importantly, we wanted to protect our kids as they began navigating the online world. Setting that expectation early helped us avoid arguments later.

When my daughter or son challenges me about access to their phone, I simply pause and remind them of the contract terms.

"Who does the phone belong to?" I ask, and they often fall silent, knowing I will follow through on taking away the privilege of a phone at any point.

Our children are surprisingly grateful not to have phones in their bedrooms

It's not often that our kids admit we're doing something right in real time, but this is one thing they both appreciate.

When my daughter came back from a sports camp, she told me she hadn't slept well because her phone was in her room. Even though she wasn't using it, she said its presence made it harder to relax.

My son has never asked to keep his phone overnight and values the structure around protecting sleep, especially since he plays travel ice hockey and is often exhausted after practice.

How the system evolved as our kids became teenagers

Like most parenting moments, curveballs are expected, so as my kids got older and we got busier, we became more relaxed about how long they could FaceTime their friends (especially during the pandemic and occasional later nights).

One change that made a big difference was introducing a lockbox. Instead of taking phones away each night, we lock them up. It removes the need for negotiation and helps everyone switch off.

In the morning, the phones stay locked away until basic routines are done, their beds made, breakfast eaten, and chores are complete. Then I unlock the box.

Becoming a low-screen family takes a lot of effort, but it's worth it

We know no system is perfect, but parenting in the modern world of phones means we are doing our best, knowing that there are so many variables in how our children grow up.

We're not a no-screen family, but we are intentional about being a low-screen one. We understand the benefits of technology, but we're also realistic about the downsides.

The contract gives our kids freedom within clear boundaries, like a river that stays on course. And years later, that balance still holds.

This season's best ballet flats tie comfort and sophistication together with a bow. As people who walk a lot, we require a lot from our ballet flats. So, we've gathered our favorite pairs that support you in each step. For years, our team has tested some of the best flats, including many that are distinctly ballerina-inspired.

Our top pick overall is the Margaux Demi Ballet Flat. "With all the walking I do, my feet end up swelling a bit, and the wide pair is more comfortable for long days out," says executive editor Sally Kaplan.

Another brand we recommend is M.Gemi, an Italian brand that specializes in high-quality leather footwear. Its Danzas and Unas are some of our favorites from its flats collection.

The top 3 ballet flats we tested:

Best overall: Margaux The Demi

The Demis are essential if you want to get a lot of wear from an archetypal leather ballet flat. Aside from looking prim and polished, they also score major points in the comfort department thanks to five millimeters of foam plush padding and a functional, adjustable cord bow that helps you get the perfect fit.

"As far as sizing and fit both go, I'd recommend going true to size since Margaux offers half sizes. And, possibly the best feature is the ability to choose your width (narrow, medium, or wide). I got the medium width and it was fine for my relatively average-width feet, but I also tried a wide pair later on and realized that's probably the size I'll opt for in the future. With all the walking I do, my feet end up swelling a bit, and the wide pair is more comfortable for long days out. They didn't make my feet look pancake-like, either — I still got that nice elongated silhouette you get from ballet flats." — Sally Kaplan, executive editor

Read more in our full Margaux Demi flats review.

Best ballet flats for standing all day: Frankie4 Trinity

"Frankie4 is an Australian footwear brand founded by two podiatrists who've created some of the most comfortable heels we've tested. Within the Trinity flats are its proprietary 'Sole Hero Footbeds,' which have three layers of padding — each with different levels of cushioning in the forefoot, arches, and heels. This design helps engage the parts of your feet that need extra support.

Even though they look flat, the subtle heel raise makes them feel anything but. It's a tiny detail that angles your feet out of the dead flat position, so your ankles are better aligned. You can also adjust the padding in the forefoot if the toe box feels too loose, since they come with extra gel cushions.

These run slightly small. If you're between sizes, the brand recommends going up a half size for its ballet flats. I'm a size 8 and they were a bit snug to get used to. The outer leather feels super luxe, and the lining inside is buttery smooth. My only regret is that this pair comes in just four colors — plus, the price is steep (but ultimately worth it). — Gabrielle chase, senior associate style editor, Insider Reviews

Best ballet flats for wide feet: FitFlop Delicato

"These FitFlop flats were among the lightest pairs I tested. The nappa leather is really smooth and unstructured, so much that they almost feel like rubber. They even squeaked a bit like rubber when I was breaking them in. Despite being so lightweight, these shoes are packed with lots of comfort features: a 'Dynamicush' footbed made from squishy foam, a roomy squared-off toe box, and a flexible collar that prevents any uncomfortable friction. I also like that the tread is really non-slip. I couldn't slide-step in these even if I tried.

I have to disagree completely with FitFlop's disclaimer that these run slim. They were actually quite loose across the toes and felt a whole size too big on me. This is great if you're wide across the forefoot, but if your heel is narrow, make sure you size down by at least half a size. Otherwise, they'll feel floppy in the rear." — Gabrielle chase, senior associate style editor, Insider Reviews

Read up on another standout pair from the brand in our FitFlop flip-flop review.

Best ballet flats for travel: Allbirds Tree Breezer Bow

"The wool inside has worn down to the shape of my foot with wear and the breathable material means they've transitioned from spring to summer to fall seamlessly," writes former reporter Mara Leighton in our Allbirds Tree Breezer flats review.

Allbirds makes the Tree Breezers with a bow accent and the same cushioned insoles, which you can replace whenever they need a refresh. We recommend these packable ballet flats for travel because they don't overheat or turn damp from sweat after long walks. Plus, they're easy to style with any outfit.

Read our full Allbirds review.

Best trendy: Freda Salvador Jada

Soft on the outside, even softer on the inside. Cow print is the latest trend in animal prints, and the calf hair uppers of these ballet flats is quite the literal translation. The Jadas are handcrafted in Spain with soft, flexible leather that molds to your feet with more wear — just beware that the heel counter may be stiff at first, so pack some BandAids during the break-in period. Once you've put in the work, you'll be rewarded with some smooth shoes that really pop against your favorite denim.

Best ballet flats with arch support: M. Gemi The Danza

If a totally flat shoe tends to irk your high arches, you'll appreciate a nifty feature from M. Gemi's Danzas: a small hidden wedge inside that adds arch support and makes them overall more comfortable than your average flat. Furthermore, they're made with soft Italian Nappa leather that molds to your feet for a glove-like fit. If you tend to slip out of ballet flats, round down a half size for this pair.

Best square-toe: Alohas Rosalind Ballet Flats

In my own experience with Alohas, I found their footwear to be high-quality, durable, and versatile. And if you like a bit of extra wiggle room for your toes, these stretchy, square-toe kicks might just be the top ballet flats for you. The Rosalind flats are crafted from soft leather with an elasticized back and have flexible soles that are easy on the feet.

Read our full Alohas review.

Best pointed-toe: Quince Italian Leather Pointed Bow Flat

In our Quince review, we came away impressed with nearly everything we tried from their cashmere collection to their washable silk line. Their luxury materials are competitively priced, but in our experience the quality is comparable to designer labels.

These pointy Italian leather flats are complete with padded OrthoLite insoles that give your feet extra cushioned arch support, so you can comfortably wear them for commuting or strolling around. In our experience Quince flats run slightly large, so we recommend sizing down if you're between sizes.

Best woven: Milaner The Woven Nicole Ballerina Flat

These handwoven ballet flats are crafted from buttery 100% sheepskin leather with genuine goat hide insoles that mold perfectly to your feet and get softer with each wear. These run true to size in whole sizes only, so we recommend those who are in between sizes should order a half size up.

Best velvet ballet flat: Birdies The Hummingbird

Birdies' velvet Hummingbirds flats are cute, festive, and the perfect shoes if you're handling a lot of errands during the holiday season. Inside, they're lined with satin over an extremely plush seven layers of padding, including shock-absorbing cushions and dual-layer high-density memory foam.

"My first word of advice when it comes to Birdies' flats is that they run large, so I recommend sizing down by half," says senior associate style editor Gabrielle Chase. "But the quilted footbed is undeniably comfortable, especially in its support around the heels."

Best foldable ballet flats: M.Gemi La Una

"M.Gemi has some of the best Italian leather footwear out there. All winter I've been wearing my cozy shearling-lined Felize loafers. But as soon as I put on these buttery-soft leather flats, I knew my new favorites for spring had arrived.

The Una is made with a thin, unstructured nappa leather that's extremely flexible and smooth. Inside around the heel is a layer of suede, so there's no chance of developing blisters. I don't recommend these for long walks, since they don't come with any padding or cushions. I wore mine on a stroll in the park and could feel the pavement underfoot.

Nevertheless, the main appeal of the Una is how soft and delicate they feel. They're designed with a stretchy criss-cross strap to keep them in place and a soft square toe, similar to a real ballet slipper. I got mine in the shade 'Butter,' and they come in 13 more colorways." — Gabrielle chase, senior associate style editor, Insider Reviews

Best ballet flats for narrow feet: Vionic Klara

Vionic's orthotic shoes come in wearable styles that may not be the pinnacle of fashion, but they're designed according to what a podiatrist considers important in footwear. People with narrow feet know that shoes made from leather and suede may fit at first, but wearing them in causes them to stretch and become loose. The Klara comes in narrow sizes, so even after breaking them in they'll fit snugly (and still feel flexible).

These ballet flats come with two pairs of removable insoles, so you can test out which makes your step feel the most stable. These are likely to take four to five wears to break in because of the stiff leather, but the process will help adjust the shoes to where you need the most support.

Best Mary Jane ballet flat: Loeffler Randall Leonie

These coquettish ballet flats come in a classic satin sheen we associate with genuine pointe shoes, as well as woven leather, mesh, and crochet knit versions. The Leonies have a padded leather footbed with Loeffler Randall's gold stamped logo, an almond toe, and an elastic bridge strap for added security.

Best luxury ballet flats: Mansur Gavriel Dream Ballerina

Though these are definitely a splurge, the $395 price tag on Mansur Gavriel's Dream Ballerina flats isn't so unreasonable when you compared to similar ballet flats from Chanel (starting at $750) or Louboutin (about $500).

What you're paying for: a buttery soft lambskin leather, cushioned insoles that make the shoes wear more like a loafer than a flat, just enough sole traction to keep you stable on slippery surfaces, and a classic look that can be worn with virtually anything in your closet.

"As far as sizing goes, I am usually somewhere in between a 7.5 and 8, and I ordered a size 38 (the European equivalent of an 8). Mansur Gavriel's site says to order a full size up from your usual size, but in my experience, it's better to opt for either your true size or one half size up if you sometimes find your true size to be tight in other brands." Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

FAQ

Are ballet flats comfortable for all-day wear?

Some are, but not all. The most comfortable ballet flats for long wear usually have cushioning, some arch and heel support, a roomy toe box, and enough structure to keep your foot stable; very flat, thin-soled styles tend to be less forgiving over time.

Are ballet flats bad for your feet?

Ballet flats are not automatically bad for your feet, but very flat, flimsy, or pointed pairs can crowd the toes and provide too little support for long walks or long hours standing. That is especially true if you already deal with foot pain, plantar fasciitis, bunions, or arch issues.

Do ballet flats need arch support?

They often do, especially if you have flat feet, high arches, or recurring foot fatigue. Podiatry guidance generally recommends matching support to your arch type, and insoles or orthotics can add cushioning and stability if a flat's built-in footbed is too minimal. Some picks with great arch support are the Frankie4 Trinity Ballet Flats or the M.Gemi Danza.

Are ballet flats good for standing all day?

They can work if they have real cushioning and support, but many minimal ballet flats are not ideal for all-day standing. Foot specialists generally recommend more structured, cushioned shoes for prolonged standing, especially for people with flat feet or recurring soreness.

How should ballet flats fit?

They should feel secure without pinching, with room for your toes to move and a heel that stays in place without slipping. A common fit guideline is about a half-inch, or roughly 1 centimeter, of space in front of your longest toe, plus adequate width so your foot does not spill over the insole.

Can you wear ballet flats if you have plantar fasciitis?

You can, but only if the pair has meaningful support. Cleveland Clinic advises looking for cushioning plus heel and arch support and notes that very flat shoes can worsen plantar fasciitis, so a slightly raised, supportive flat or one with room for orthotics is a better bet.

• My husband and I spent most of last year traveling around the United States.
• After visiting 29 states, I was pleasantly surprised by North Dakota's natural beauty.
• As a lover of both history and nature, I really enjoyed spending time in Georgia.

Last year, my husband Joey and I traveled across the US, visiting 29 states.

Although I thought I knew what to expect, a few states were filled with pleasant surprises, from fascinating hole-in-the-wall historic sites to stunning natural beauty.

Of all the places we visited, these four states surprised me most.

North Dakota is home to some stunning landscapes

I have to be honest — going into North Dakota, my hopes were not high. North Dakota isn't exactly at the top of most people's "must-visit" list.

In fact, the state has a tongue-in-cheek response to being a less-popular destination: when we visited the Fargo-Moorhead Visitors Center, my husband got a (surprisingly soft) T-shirt and certificate for "saving" North Dakota as his 50th state to visit.

However, there's one place that completely flipped my narrative on North Dakota: Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Located near the state's western border, this national park contains everything I seek out in a park experience: incredible wildlife, dramatic views, and a sense of solitude.

The animal sightings here were top-tier. We saw dozens of bison, including newborn calves, roaming all throughout the park. But even more exciting was seeing the elusive wild stallions.

There's something so fascinating about seeing a typically domesticated animal completely unrestrained.

We also spent some time cruising around the quaint town of Medora. The little shops have everything you'd expect to find in a Western town, like homemade jam and handmade leather jewelry.

Although I didn't spend much time exploring the rest of North Dakota, I think the western section is a well-deserved detour if you're visiting a surrounding state.

As a lover of both history and nature, I really enjoyed visiting Georgia

My husband and I really leaned into our inner history nerds last year as we traveled across the country.

We visited mainstream historic sites, like Gettysburg and the Statue of Liberty, but also broadened our search to more niche landmarks. During our two months in Georgia, we discovered a treasure trove of slightly offbeat historic sites.

One weekend, we ventured out to the Little White House — Franklin Delano Roosevelt's private retreat, where he sought treatment for his polio symptoms in the local hot springs.

We also checked out Plains, Georgia, the hometown of Jimmy Carter. On a warm December afternoon, we wandered around Carter's childhood farm and school.

Of course, we didn't spend all our time wandering around old buildings. We also checked out Georgia's beautiful nature and spent time lounging on the beach on Tybee Island (even spotting a few dolphins) and marveling at the live oaks in Wormsloe State Historic Site in Savannah.

I was shocked how much I enjoyed my time in Kentucky

For years, our friend group had discussed exploring the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. And last year, we finally did it. The only problem? I don't like bourbon.

I shrugged off this minor detail, happy to spend time with my friends and absorb a new experience. However, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed the rural areas of Kentucky, as well as Louisville and Lexington.

First off, I didn't expect the bourbon distilleries to be so picturesque. I found myself wanting to wander around the stunning grounds rather than sit through the tastings. Castle and Key Distillery, for example, is a literal castle that looks like it should be in Scotland instead of the Bluegrass State.

Between our visits to distilleries, however, the views didn't stop. On tiny backroads, we'd drive past sprawling ranches that were neat as a pin.

I was impressed by Minnesota's nature and charming towns

Growing up in Iowa, I only went to Minnesota once: to visit the Mall of America. So, last year, we decided to see what else the state has to offer.

We quickly discovered that its "Land of 10,000 Lakes" nickname is very appropriate. Even on rural highways, we found the prettiest little lakes, some untouched and others with small docks.

Just about 30 miles east of Minneapolis, we visited the small river town of Stillwater, which was jam packed with antique shops, book stores, and so many candy and ice cream shops that I became worried about the town's sugar intake.

We took the scenic byway north out of Stillwater, stopping at overlooks to watch the kayakers on the St. Croix River far below. It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon, and I can't wait to check out other natural areas on my next visit.

• Every state is home to at least one truly iconic movie.
• We used box-office success, awards, and pop-culture staying power to determine the most famous.
• Some states were no-brainers, while others had myriad options.

A movie doesn't need the backing of a major studio to become famous; a small-budget cult classic can be just as iconic — it just needs to speak to audiences and make them feel something.

Business Insider set out to name the most famous movie in every state, a challenging and subjective endeavor.

Some states were more obvious than others. While Iowa might be heaven, New York has inspired directors from Martin Scorsese to Rob Reiner, while John Hughes' entire filmography consists of Illinois movies.

To pick the most famous, we evaluated the state's prominence in the movie and considered whether it was filmed in that state or not. The movie's lifetime gross, its critical acclaim, and testimonials by our geographically diverse staff also influenced our decisions.

Here's our list of the most famous movie from every state.

An earlier version of this story was written by Melia Robinson and Frank Pallotta. Additional reporting by Melissa Stanger, Ian Phillips, and Kirsten Acuna.

ALABAMA: "Forrest Gump" (1994)

Even though "Forrest Gump" took Tom Hanks from Vietnam to the White House, home was always the fictional town of Greenbow, Alabama. Plus, Forrest was an All-American for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

ALASKA: "Into the Wild" (2007)

"Into the Wild" follows Chris McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch, as he heads to Alaska to find his place in the world. The journey would bring McCandless to many places, but his ultimate destination was the Land of the Midnight Sun.

Business Insider also named the book that inspired the movie, "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer, the most famous book set in Alaska.

ARIZONA: "Raising Arizona" (1987)

The Coen brothers' cult classic follows H.I. McDunnough, a Tempe native, and his wife as they attempt to have a baby, either naturally or through kidnapping.

The Coens made the pair all the more real by incorporating a vernacular that Joel Coen called "a mixture of local dialect and a vocabulary we imagined from the likely reading materials of the characters."

ARKANSAS: "Sling Blade" (1996)

"Sling Blade" tells the story of a man with a developmental disability, played by Billy Bob Thornton, an actual Arkansan, who was put away for killing his mother as a child. The film, set and shot in Arkansas, explores what it means to be redeemed in rural America.

CALIFORNIA: "Clueless" (1995)

The 1995 teen comedy may focus on the lifestyle of Beverly Hills' most rich and privileged, but it's as sunny as the Golden State itself. Led by Alicia Silverstone's Cher, "Clueless" showcases the ideal Californian lifestyle while never going below Sunset.

COLORADO: "The Shining" (1980)

Even though the movie was filmed in different states, "The Shining" takes place at the Overlook Hotel in the secluded Colorado mountains that could — once the long winter sets in — drive anyone as mad as Jack Nicholson's axe-wielding Jack Torrance.

CONNECTICUT: "The Stepford Wives" (1975)

The female residents of the small town of Stepford, Connecticut, seem too good to be true, and they are. The 1975 film, shot in Connecticut, shows that life in the suburbs may not be all it's cracked up to be.

DELAWARE: "Fight Club" (1999)

It's hard to tell that David Fincher's "Fight Club" was set in Delaware, but there are small hints. Addresses, license plates, and the original Wilmington location in the novel by Chuck Palahniuk make it easy to see that the state where you "don't talk about fight club" is Delaware.

FLORIDA: "Scarface" (1983)

Though shot in Los Angeles — Miami officials thought filming there would ruin tourism — "Scarface" is set during the wild 1980s in South Beach and explores the underbelly of the Sunshine State better than any other movie could.

GEORGIA: "Gone with the Wind" (1939)

From the Antebellum Era to Reconstruction, the events of Civil War-time Georgia are told through the love story of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara in this 1939 romance.

HAWAII: "Pearl Harbor" (2001)

The 2001 action drama depicts the attack on Pearl Harbor, a "day that will live in infamy," while employing a love story to explore the beauty of Hawaii.

IDAHO: "Napoleon Dynamite" (2004)

This 2004 cult classic, starring Jon Heder in the titular role, takes place in the town of Preston, Idaho, where Napoleon tries to get his buddy Pedro elected class president.

ILLINOIS: "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986)

Director John Hughes' love letter to Chicago sees Ferris Bueller and his buddies play hooky by exploring Wrigley Field, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other Windy City locales.

While many Hughes films — and other classic films — take place in Illinois, none represent the state better than "Ferris Bueller."

INDIANA: "A Christmas Story" (1983)

In early-1940s Indiana, Ralphie's pursuit of a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas makes this perennial holiday film a classic. The film also reminds viewers to never lick a metal pole outside in the middle of a cold Indiana winter.

IOWA: "Field of Dreams" (1989)

"Field of Dreams" captures the dreamy quality of the Hawkeye State when Kevin Costner's Ray builds a baseball field in the middle of his Iowa cornfield. The line "Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa" has since become one of the state's slogans.

KANSAS: "In Cold Blood" (1967)

No, it's not the most pleasant movie to watch, but it's based on one of the most (in)famous things to ever happen in Kansas: the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb by two ex-cons, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock.

KENTUCKY: "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1980)

"Coal Miner's Daughter" tells the story of country singer Loretta Lynn and how she went from the backwoods of Kentucky to the top of the charts. Sissy Spacek won an Academy Award for her portrayal of the singer.

LOUISIANA: "The Green Mile" (1999)

"The Green Mile" places Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan in a Louisiana prison. The film explores the soft sensibilities of the state through Hanks' kind prison officer and Duncan's Oscar-nominated performance as the magically healing John Coffey.

MAINE: "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)

Another Stephen King adaptation on the list, "The Shawshank Redemption" takes place in King's home state of Maine. Most of the film is set behind the bars of the fictional Shawshank Prison, but once Andy Dufresne escapes, he takes a moment to throw up his hands in the great Maine outdoors.

Honorable mention to almost every other King adaptation, most of which take place in Maine.

MARYLAND: "Hairspray" (2007)

"Hairspray" opens with Tracy Turnblad belting "Good Morning, Baltimore," and with that begins her dreamy journey to "The Corny Collins Show." The musical comedy shows Maryland to be a place of dreamers, doers, and dancers.

MASSACHUSETTS: "Good Will Hunting" (1997)

"Good Will Hunting" explores the heart of Boston through the eyes of Will Hunting (Matt Damon), a genius janitor trying to deal with his issues. Massachusetts natives and costars Damon and Ben Affleck won an Academy Award for the screenplay.

MICHIGAN: "American Pie" (1999)

The raunchy teen comedy follows four Michigan teenagers trying to lose their virginity before going to college. Writer Adam Herz grew up in Grand Rapids and based the film's script on his adventures growing up there.

MINNESOTA: "The Mighty Ducks" (1992)

Minnesota is known for its wildlife, but the most famous ducks from the Gopher State are the hockey players coached by Gordon Bombay.

The 1992 film takes place in Minneapolis, and later franchise installments feature Minnesota landmarks like the Mall of America.

MISSISSIPPI: "The Help" (2011)

Rightful criticisms about its portrayal of race aside, "The Help" was a phenomenon upon its release in 2011, with Octavia Spencer winning the Academy Award for best supporting actress, plus additional nominations for Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain, and best picture.

The film follows two Black maids living in Jackson, Mississippi, in the '60s, as they deal with systemic racism.

MISSOURI: "Gone Girl" (2014)

David Fincher's wildly entertaining adaptation of the novel of the same name uses suburban Carthage, Missouri, to capture a bizarre mystery and a crumbling marriage.

MONTANA: "Legends of the Fall" (1994)

An epic Western saga starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, and Aidan Quinn, "Legends of the Fall" follows three brothers and their father living in a remote part of Montana, depicting the events of World War I through Prohibition.

NEBRASKA: "Nebraska" (2013)

This one seems too obvious. Director Alexander Payne sets most of his films ("Election," "About Schmidt") in his home state of Nebraska, but we had to go with the titular movie. This film, shot in black and white, captures the surprisingly haunting beauty of the vast prairies of the Cornhusker State.

NEVADA: "The Hangover" (2009)

Set against the Vegas Strip and Nevada desert, "The Hangover" is an ode to one of man's rites of passage: a bachelor party in Sin City. The movie follows, as Alan puts it, "Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine."

NEW HAMPSHIRE: "Jumanji" (1995)

Robin Williams' fantasy-adventure flick "Jumanji" (the original) was set in the fictional town of Brantford, New Hampshire, and shot in the real town of Keene.

After filming, the crew left an advertisement for Parrish Shoes (the brand Alan's family owns) painted on a downtown brick wall, which can still be seen today.

NEW JERSEY: "Clerks" (1994)

Anyone from outside the state will tell you "Garden State" should be the winner here, but after consulting the many Jersey transplants at Business Insider, it's clear that "Clerks" is the favorite among homegrown audiences.

The low-budget cult classic was shot in a Leonardo, New Jersey, convenience/video store where director Kevin Smith worked in real life.

NEW MEXICO: "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" (1966)

Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach star in the title roles, respectively. The three gunslingers race to find a fortune in gold buried in the then-territory of New Mexico.

NEW YORK: "Taxi Driver" (1976)

No state had competition for this list quite like New York, with Woody Allen's most memorable films and a slew of Mafia flicks set in the state.

But none captures the grit of New York City in the 1970s quite like Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." Fans are still drawn to Robert De Niro's cabbie 40 years later, despite the unfathomable depths of his psychosis.

NORTH CAROLINA: "Bull Durham" (1988)

Set in (of course) Durham, North Carolina, "Bull Durham" is a love letter to minor league baseball, the state of North Carolina, and the crackling chemistry between Crash (Kevin Costner) and Annie (Susan Sarandon).

NORTH DAKOTA: "Fargo" (1996)

While most of the Coen brothers' "Fargo" takes place in Minnesota, the town of Fargo, North Dakota, became famous after the movie's lead, played by William H. Macy, travels there to hire two men to kidnap his wife and hold her hostage.

The movie has left such a lasting legacy on pop culture that it even spawned the critically praised drama of the same name. Like the film, the TV show keeps the same dark sense of humor and snowy landscapes.

OHIO: "Heathers" (1988)

While "Heathers" showed a high school unlike any we've ever been to, the killer comedy certainly captured the stereotypical conservatism of Ohioans at the time.

As Christian Slater's JD put it, "This is Ohio. I mean, if you don't have a brewski in your hand, you might as well be wearing a dress."

OKLAHOMA: "Twister" (1996)

Hardcore fans of the iconic natural disaster movie can make the pilgrimage to the "Twister" museum in Wakita, Oklahoma. During filming, the building that houses the museum served as the production studio's on-location office, dressing room, and art department.

OREGON: "The Goonies" (1985)

The band of teenage misfits who comprise "The Goonies" lives in the "Goon Docks" neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon.

The real-life town hosts the Walsh family's house — without the Rube Goldberg contraptions that operate the gate — the Clatsop County Jail, and the Flavel House Museum, where Mr. Walsh worked.

PENNSYLVANIA: "Rocky" (1976)

Two of the most famous tourist attractions in Philadelphia, according to the city's tourism website, are the Rocky Statue and the "Rocky Steps," better known as the Art Museum Steps.

The montage showing the Italian Stallion climbing all 72 stone steps is one of the most iconic movie scenes of all time.

RHODE ISLAND: "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987)

Based on the John Updike novel of the same name, "The Witches of Eastwick" takes place in the picturesque waterfront town of Eastwick and follows three women who accidentally summon the devil. It's inspired by the Rhode Island town of Wickford, which Updike visited once, falling in love with its charm.

SOUTH CAROLINA: "The Notebook" (2004)

"The Notebook" does Charleston justice like few movies have. Some of the most recognizable filming locations include the American Theater, where Allie and Noah have their double-date, and Cypress Gardens, the dreamlike swamp that Noah and Allie paddle through during the rainstorm.

SOUTH DAKOTA: "Dances with Wolves" (1990)

Located just 15 minutes from Mount Rushmore, the original buildings used in the Oscar-winning movie "Dances with Wolves" have been transformed into a museum.

According to its website, you can stand where Kevin Costner's character, John D. Dunbar, was given his new posting orders for Fort Hays.

TENNESSEE: "Nashville" (1975)

"Nashville" is widely regarded as one of the best films of all time. It tells a sprawling story of 24 main characters as they try to break into the country music industry (or struggle to maintain their success) during an action-packed 48 hours.

TEXAS: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974)

An over-the-top slasher movie that continues to influence the horror genre today, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was filmed mostly near Round Rock, Austin, with a budget of $60,000, which was raised by an Austin politician, per Texas Monthly.

UTAH: "127 Hours" (2010)

Shot on location in Utah's red-rock country, "127 Hours" depicts the remarkable true journey of hiker Aron Ralston through Bluejohn Canyon.

The Utah Office of Tourism released 127-hour itineraries, mapping excursions through filming locations and other parts of the state, to celebrate the movie's success.

VERMONT: "Super Troopers" (2001)

During its initial theatrical run, this comedy about Vermont state troopers didn't do so well at the box office. But thanks to strong home-video sales, "Super Troopers" has become a cult classic, and a sequel is on the horizon for 2026.

VIRGINIA: "Remember the Titans" (2000)

The pinnacle sports drama "Remember the Titans" is based on the real-life T.C. Williams High School football team, which forever changed their racially divided town of Alexandria, Virginia.

WASHINGTON: "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993)

After the death of his wife, Sam Baldwin, played by Tom Hanks, and his son relocate to Seattle, where he learns to love again. Their unusual home, a houseboat docked in Lake Union, can be viewed from a boat tour of the lake.

WASHINGTON, DC: "A Few Good Men" (1992)

This star-studded courtroom drama — with performances by Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, and Kiefer Sutherland — was filmed in DC locations recognizable to tourists and locals, such as the US Department of Commerce, Potomac Park baseball field, and Idle Time Books.

WEST VIRGINIA: "October Sky" (1999)

Going to work as a coal miner is just something you do in Coalwood, West Virginia. But Homer Hickam, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, defies his father by neglecting tradition and pursuing rocketry in the fall of 1957.

WISCONSIN: "Dawn of the Dead" (2004)

When the fictional town of Everett, Wisconsin, is overrun by zombies, a resilient group of human survivors bands together in the local mall to stay alive.

WYOMING: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977)

In Steven Spielberg's Academy Award-nominated sci-fi flick, a UFO transmits a set of geographical coordinates for Devils Tower National Monument near Moorcroft, Wyoming, where a team of investigators set up a top-secret landing zone for their otherworldly friends.

• Lauren Twigge, a registered dietitian and mom of two, doesn't obsessively count her protein intake.
• Instead, she aims for roughly 30 grams of protein per meal and 10 grams per snack.
• She shared her favorite ways to sneak in protein, from cottage cheese dips to energy balls.

Eating enough protein to hit your targets can feel like a second job, especially when you're already busy.

Lauren Twigge, a registered dietitian and mom of two living in Dallas, understands the struggle. She told Business Insider that following the recommended protein intake guidelines — about 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight — can "sound like a lot of numbers."

For busy parents like Twigge, who does strength workouts from YouTube while her son naps, logging every bite just doesn't feel realistic.

Instead, Twigge has a simpler way of reaching her protein goals. "I just make protein a priority — I try to get it in every meal and every snack," she said. She aims for roughly 30 grams per meal and at least 10 grams per snack. Research suggests these amounts are best for staying full and supporting muscle health.

She incorporates other nutrient-dense foods, such as fiber-packed veggies, complex carbohydrates like whole grains, and healthy fats such as nuts, so that her diet "isn't protein-only, but protein-paired."

Twigge shared some of her favorite ways to sneak protein into her meals without overthinking it.

She adds milk, chia seeds, and nuts to her oatmeal

Twigge usually starts her mornings with oatmeal, whether it's hot or meal-prepped overnight oats.

"You can make oatmeal a really, really balanced breakfast," she said.

Oatmeal already has some protein, fiber, and carbohydrates. To enhance its nutrition, Twigge uses milk instead of water for extra protein and adds chia seeds for additional fiber and healthy fats. Toppings like fruit add more fiber and antioxidants, while nuts add a bit more protein and healthy fats.

To change things up, she'll sometimes make chia seed pudding with similar ingredients, or eat pre-made egg bites for something savory.

Lunch is a protein-packed snack plate, smoothie, or salad

Twigge generally eats a big breakfast and dinner, while making her lunches lighter.

"I'm a big snack plate person," she said. "They're great for busy people."

Hers include hard-boiled eggs (which she batch-cooks in advance), meat sticks, and either a cottage cheese-based ranch dip or edamame guacamole served with fresh vegetables.

Another favorite is a protein smoothie, made with fruit, whey protein powder, milk, and riced cauliflower instead of ice to add extra fiber.

If she's pressed for time, she also loves throwing together a bagged salad. "You can make them really convenient, very nutrient dense," she said.

For her protein source, she'll add some hard-boiled eggs, chickpeas, quinoa, or chicken nuggets.

Common dinners include one-pot stir-fries and creamy pastas

Twigge tries to keep her dinners quick and simple — ideally under 30 minutes.

"I love one-pot meals," she said, adding that she has a few in rotation where she might swap out a few ingredients or sauces, "but the components are the same."

She makes lots of stir-fries with ground chicken, turkey, or beef, including vegetables like broccoli and bell peppers. "They're a really great way to get your protein and your color in a really flavorful way," she added.

Twigge also loves building up a simple pasta dinner by choosing protein-enhanced or high-fiber pastas and swapping milk for cream in the sauce for extra protein.

Sometimes, she keeps dinner even simpler by making grilled chicken or steak and pairing it with roasted vegetables and sweet potatoes.

Her go-to desserts are nut butter-stuffed dates and energy bites

One of Twigge's favorite desserts is dates stuffed with peanut or walnut butter for a protein- and fiber-packed pick-me-up.

Sometimes, she meal-preps protein energy bites using ingredients like oats and peanut butter, and protein powder.

"Those are typically my go-tos when I want something sweet," she said.

• Worldwide travel has been strained by rising oil prices and global conflict.
• Twenty countries are on the US State Department's "Do Not Travel" list due to risks.
• The State Department warns of threats like terrorism and kidnapping in some of these countries.

Travel season is coming soon, but recent global developments — from rising oil prices leading to higher plane ticket prices to security concerns in the Middle East — might make some travelers' vacations feel like more of a risk than an escape.

The US State Department ranks 20 countries around the world as a travel advisory level four, or "do not travel," due to risks like terrorism and kidnapping.

The advisory lists in countries like the US and the UK often overlap, although they're not identical.

Historical and cultural ties, proximity, and level of familiarity may all play a role in shaping these lists, Alan Fyall, a professor of tourism at the University of Central Florida, told Business Insider.

"All countries will rank destinations slightly differently," Fyall said

For some of the "do-not-travel" countries, the US has suspended embassy operations, making it difficult for the US to assist travelers when they're in trouble, which is part of the reason the warnings can be stringent, Fyall said.

"Do you really want to go and rescue your citizens from a country that, really, they're not that advised to go to in the first place?" he said.

The US and UK governments also issue warnings for specific areas in some countries, such as near the Thailand-Malaysia border, the Western Desert in Egypt, or parts of Israel.

While some risk-takers travel to these countries for a thrill, others go to visit family or for business reasons.

"Some people think the perceived risk is overstated," Edward Dramberger, a University of South Carolina tourism and hospitality professor, told Business Insider.

For those who travel to level-four countries, the US State Department often offers routine advice, including staying aware of your surroundings, keeping your travel documents on hand, drafting a will before travel, creating a plan to leave the country without the aid of the US government, and monitoring local news for emergency situations.

Nations and regions can change travel advisory levels on the US' list based on changing circumstances, but these are the 20 countries the State Department considers "do-not-travel" zones as of April 2026.

Afghanistan

Sitting between Iran and Pakistan, mountainous Afghanistan has rugged terrain and an arid climate.

"People perceive Afghanistan as just a desolate, mountain desert country with no attributes, no culture, which is wrong," Dramberger said.

Decades of coups, civil wars, and invasions have made the country difficult for travelers to get to know, except via the news.

The country, like the rest of the region, has become more vulnerable since the start of the US-Iran war in late February.

The US State Department lists crime, civil unrest, terrorism, wrongful detention, health, natural disasters, and kidnapping among the safety concerns when traveling to Afghanistan. Medical care may be more difficult to obtain in rural areas.

In late February, the agency posted a security alert noting the threats of the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict and urging citizens not to travel to the country.

The country is also prone to earthquakes, like one that struck the country in September 2025 and resulted in over a thousand deaths.

In 2021, the US Embassy in Kabul closed its operations in the country.

The agency recommends that American visitors keep a low profile while in the country.

Belarus

Once part of the Soviet Union, Belarus maintains close ties with its neighbor, Russia. From Gothic architecture to rare near-endangered species, Belarus has attractions for castle seekers and nature enthusiasts.

In recent years, Belarus has allowed Russia to use some of its territory to invade Ukraine.

The risk of civil unrest makes visits to Belarus unwise, according to the State Department. The US Embassy suspended operations there in 2022.

Americans traveling to Belarus should exercise the usual precautions for visiting high-risk countries and consider leaving their phones, computers, and other electronic devices behind. The State Department also recommends not accessing social media accounts while in Belarus because they may be monitored.

Burkina Faso

Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, is a West African hub of culture and arts, and the country also has an incredible wildlife refuge, Réserve de Nazinga, near its border with Ghana.

Despite the country's positive attributes, the US State Department advises that travelers avoid visiting the country.

The country's government has declared a state of emergency for several regions.

Terrorism, crime, and other threats have displaced over 2 million residents, as reported by the United Nations. While the displacement crisis has been slowly decreasing, the country still finds itself engulfed in a deep humanitarian crisis.

Since 2015, several citizens of countries like the US have been kidnapped in Burkina Faso, according to the US Overseas Security Advisory Council, which classifies the situation in the country as "critical."

While the US Embassy still operates in Ouagadougou, government employees are unable to travel to many parts of the country due to safety concerns, which include the threat of terrorist violence.

Travelers with dual citizenship might not have their US citizenship recognized if they are also citizens of Burkina Faso, the department warned.

In January 2026, the US government began suspending visas and limiting entry for citizens of 39 countries, including Burkina Faso. As a response measure, the West African country also suspended visas for US citizens.

The US government's recommendations for lowering risk while traveling in Burkina Faso include avoiding areas where Westerners typically travel and not resisting if someone attempts to rob you.

Central African Republic

The Central African Republic touches several other level-four countries, including Sudan and South Sudan, and is home to an incredibly rich biodiversity in its national parks, including Dzanga-Sangha National Park and Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park.

Many of the country's species are endangered, and its citizens have faced decades of instability, according to the United Nations.

Recently, armed groups have targeted Muslims and refugees.

The US State Department considers CAR a dangerous travel destination due to threats of terrorism, crime, civil unrest, unexploded land mines, and kidnapping, as well as health concerns. US citizens can expect limited help from the US Embassy in Bangui, CAR's capital.

Due to the threat of kidnapping, the US' travel advisory website suggests travelers leave DNA samples with their doctor and establish proof-of-life protocols with family or friends so they can assist you if you're abducted. The State Department also suggests keeping a low profile, avoiding travel to rebel-controlled areas, and not resisting robbery attempts.

Haiti

The Caribbean country of Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. The country, which won its independence from France in 1804, maintains some of its historic monuments, like its Citadelle Laferrière.

In recent years, the country has fallen under a state of emergency. In July 2023, the US ordered government employees to leave the country, and since 2025, the US government has enforced a ban on flights to Port-au-Prince, its capital, due to gang violence. The ban has since been extended to September 2026, and the country's capital remains cut off from US travel.

In addition to the flight ban, the country is also under a travel ban to the US, meaning that its citizens cannot enter the country, and that new visas are not being issued.

In the capital city of Port-au-Prince, local authorities have enforced curfews and "shelter-in-place" advisories since the beginning of the state of emergency.

The State Department has warned that armed robberies, sexual assaults, and kidnappings are among the reasons to reconsider travel to Haiti.

Anyone who does go should avoid walking in the streets when possible, travel in groups, and keep vehicle doors and windows locked when driving, according to the State Department.

Iran

One way to see over 800 miles of this Middle Eastern country is the Trans-Iranian Railway, which runs from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf. Tehran, the capital, lies along the route.

Some of the country's natural wonders include dormant volcanoes and the stunning limestone formations of Badab-e Surt.

Right now, it's not safe for US citizens to travel to the country, according to the State Department.

Starting in late February, the US and Israel engaged in strikes against Iran. President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday.

In a security alert issued on March 10, the government informed US citizens of departure options. For those staying in the country, the State Department advised sheltering in place and staying indoors away from windows.

The last travel advisory to the country, issued in December 2025, urged US citizens not to travel to Iran, to depart the country immediately, and to be aware that there is no US Embassy in the country to aid travelers in case of emergency.

Following protests in 2022, thousands of people were arrested and tortured by Iranian authorities, according to Amnesty International.

Starting in December 2025, massive anti-government protests broke out in the country again and resulted in violent crackdowns by state actors, with thousands of deaths and arrests in the tens of thousands. The Iranian government also imposed an internet blackout in efforts to censor information about the protests.

The US government has cautioned that Iranian officials may wrongfully and arbitrarily detain or imprison US nationals and other foreigners.

The travel advisory also warns of terrorism, civil unrest, and kidnapping throughout the country.

Iraq

From the Tigris and Euphrates to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Iraq holds sites that many remember from their ancient history textbooks. Sadly, some of its artifacts were lost to looting during the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Since the US invasion and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has faced threats from terrorist groups such as ISIS. Terrorism, kidnapping, and civil unrest are enough of a risk that the State Department considers Iraq a level-four country.

As of August 2025, ISIS was still active in parts of Iraq, according to OSAC.

Amid the Israel/US-Iran war in the Middle East, Iraq has become increasingly dangerous, and in a travel advisory issued on March 2, the US State Department warned that "anti-US militias" pose a threat to US citizens and international companies.

Armed conflict and continued terrorist threats are also dangerous at the northern borders, per the State Department.

The State Department also warns that US travelers should avoid the country's northern border and consider making arrangements with a professional security organization for any visits. US employees in the country are also forbidden from using Baghdad International Airport for travel due to security concerns.

Lebanon

At just over 4,000 square miles, Lebanon is slightly larger than Puerto Rico.

A lengthy civil war from 1975 to 1990 left scars in its capital city of Beirut and beyond. In recent years, an economic crisis has taken a toll. Meanwhile, conflicts in neighboring Israel and Syria have also affected Lebanon.

During the US-Iran conflict, the country has faced some of the most intense attacks, with Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah in Beirut and southern Lebanon.

On February 23, non-emergency US government personnel and their families were ordered to leave the country due to security concerns.

The country's level four travel advisory warns of crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, armed conflict, and unexploded land mines.

The US government has said that terrorist groups operating in Lebanon put travelers at risk. There have been suicide bombings, and a gunman opened fire at the embassy in Beirut in June 2024.

The State Department also warns that US citizens should especially avoid Southern Lebanon, the country's border with Syria, and refugee settlements, urging them to depart if they are there.

Visitors should take the advised security measures for high-risk countries and have a kidnapping protocol in place with family members, per the State Department.

Libya

Situated between Egypt and Algeria, Libya has a coastline along the gorgeous Mediterranean Sea. Roman emperor Septimius Severus was born in Leptis Magna, an UNESCO World Heritage site with striking ruins of large, impressive buildings.

Violence, including two recent civil wars, has marred the country. Armed groups have attacked hotels and airports in Tripoli, Sruman, and other cities, according to the State Department. The US Embassy hasn't been active in Tripoli since 2014.

The State Department warns of violent crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, widespread kidnapping, and armed conflict throughout the country, and suggests that US citizens draft a will and consult with a professional security organization if traveling to the country.

The agency urges US citizens in the country to depart as soon as possible via commercial means, even though US commercial flights aren't allowed to operate within the country's airspace.

Mali

Centuries-old mosques can be found in Mali's Timbuktu, symbols of its history as a seat of Islamic culture and learning. Its marketplace drew travelers and traders during the 15th and 16th centuries.

To the southwest of Timbuktu is Bamako, Mali's capital. Outside the city and in other parts of the country, terrorists and kidnappers target foreign visitors in the hopes of getting a ransom, according to OSAC. US personnel aren't allowed to visit nightclubs or attend concerts for safety reasons.

The State Department's advisory warns of terrorism, civil unrest, inadequate health services, and violent crime, including kidnapping, throughout the country.

Some advice for traveling in Mali includes avoiding walking deserted streets at night, carrying minimal cash, not leaving valuables in your hotel, and looking for a well-lit area when stopped by police.

US citizens are also advised to avoid travel outside Bamako and to have a plan to leave an emergency plan that doesn't require help from the US government.

Myanmar (Burma)

Located on the Bay of Bengal in Southeast Asia, Myanmar boasts a fascinating mix of architecture, from pagodas and palaces to colonial hotels and government offices. One stupa, or pagoda, the Shwedagon, is the country's most sacred Buddhist site.

A coup in 2021 sparked demonstrations. The military detained protestors and used force against them and bystanders, according to the State Department.

The risk of continued civil unrest and wrongful detentions, and arbitrary arrests, as well as poor health infrastructure, land mines, and crime, makes it unwise to travel to the country, according to the US State Department travel advisory.

Some armed groups have used improvised explosive devices in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, while NGOs have reported land mines in Shan State, Chin State, and Kachin State.

Niger

Visitors to the landlocked African country of Niger can explore the ancient mud-brick mosque of Grande Mosquée d'Agadez and the storied old town of Agadez, as well as see the Sahara Desert and the country's unique wildlife.

In October 2025, the US authorized that all government employees leave the country due to widespread safety concerns. Parts of the country have been under a state of emergency for over a decade, and local authorities "require military escorts for any foreigners" traveling outside the capital, Niamey, per the US State Department.

The agency warns of violent crime, civil unrest, terrorism, limited health services, and kidnapping throughout the country.

If they choose to visit anyway, US citizens are advised by the government to draft a will and have an emergency plan that doesn't depend on support from the US Embassy.

North Korea

One of the world's most mysterious and isolated countries, North Korea shares borders with South Korea, China, and Russia. Kim Jong-Un took over the presidency in 2011, continuing a family dynasty that's been in power since the 1950s.

In 2025, North Korea reopened to Western tourists for the first time since the pandemic. The State Department warns that US nationals may be arrested and held for extended periods.

It warns that it cannot provide emergency services to its citizens who are detained, as the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

Russia

Russia's cities contain dazzling buildings, and its landscape is breathtaking. Siberia's Lake Baikal is the planet's oldest and deepest. The world's last woolly mammoths lived and died out on Wrangel Island, where polar bears, musk oxen, and walruses now congregate.

Due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US State Department has declared it unsafe for US citizens, who may face harassment or detention. The US State Department urges every US citizen in the country to leave immediately, and notes that authorities might not inform the US government if an American is arrested.

The US' travel advisory also cited drone attacks and explosions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, locations near the Ukrainian border, and other areas.

The State Department notes there may be risks for those with dual US-Russian nationality. Because the situation is volatile, travelers should stay informed about the latest local news while visiting.

Digital communications also pose a risk, and the agency advises US citizens to reconsider bringing any electronic devices into the country, as the Russian government's security services closely monitor electronic communications and can use them to arrest foreign nationals.

Those who still choose to travel to the country are advised by the government to prepare for wrongful detention, draft a will, and leave DNA samples with a medical provider.

Somalia

Located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia's lengthy coastline borders the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Somali archaeologist Sada Mire has called the capital, Mogadishu, an "unbreakable pearl," tracing its history as a trade center back to the first century AD.

During the 1990s, Somalia experienced famine and civil war. Instability continued in the form of terror attacks, including a suicide bombing on a popular beach in 2024.

Due to the possibility of kidnapping, terrorism, and civil unrest, the US has issued a do-not-travel advisory. The State Department notes that the US also has very limited consular services in the country and that health services in Somalia can be limited and absent in rural areas.

The State Department also advised against sailing near Somalia's coast due to piracy.

South Sudan

It was only during the 21st century that South Sudan declared its independence and was recognized as a sovereign state. Its neighbors include Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Its short history was dominated by a civil war, and a new conflict is brewing between the military and an opposition force, which clashed near the Ethiopian border. NGOs, the UN, and others have found it difficult to accurately assess crime levels, but firearms easily cross the border from Sudan, according to OSAC.

The US State Department warns of civil unrest, violent crimes, kidnapping, unexploded land mines, and limited health services in the country and urges US citizens not to travel to the country for any reason.

Anyone traveling in South Sudan should avoid its border areas and adhere to restrictions around public photography and videography, the State Department says.

Sudan

Khartoum, Sudan, is where the Blue and White Niles meet. Meroë is further north, where ancient Kushite rulers lived and were buried in pyramids. Some date back to the third century BCE; several have collapsed but others retain decorative carvings.

Civil war threatens not only the archaeological history but locals and travelers. Officials at the US Embassy hastily evacuated Khartoum in 2023, soon after the conflict broke out. Various groups frequently engage in violent fighting, the State Department says.

The Darfur, Khartoum, and Kordofan regions have all been sites for kidnappings, according to OSAC. The Khartoum International Airport is closed.

The State Department warns of widespread violent crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest, unexploded land mines, and extremely limited health services in the country.

The US travel advisory suggests travelers be aware of their surroundings, especially in locations where Westerners typically visit, and that they draft a proof-of-life protocol with loved ones in case of kidnapping.

Syria

Not only is Damascus the capital of Syria, but it's also the seat of cultural history. Established over 2,000 years ago, it's one of the oldest cities in the Middle East. Evidence of its Roman and Byzantine past exists alongside important Islamic monuments such as the Umayyad Mosque.

Despite the allure of these ancient sites, the US doesn't recommend travel to Syria. A lengthy civil war broke out in 2011, with efforts to oust Bashar Assad from power. Since Assad resigned at the end of 2024, violence has continued to erupt in parts of western Syria.

The State Department has also warned that terrorism, kidnapping and hostage-taking, and unjust detention are risks in Syria, saying that "no part of Syria is safe from violence."

The agency recommends visitors set up proof-of-life protocols with loved ones, among other precautions, before and during travel.

Ukraine

Much like Istanbul's Hagia Sofia, for which it was named, the Saint Sophia Cathedral serves as an eye-catching landmark in Kyiv. It's just one of the Ukrainian capital's architectural treasures.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and years of fighting have ensued, mainly in the east, where the border lies. Belarusian troops are also present along its border with Ukraine.

The ongoing conflict is the principal reason the US government cautions against visiting. Areas that aren't on the frontline of fighting could still experience drone and missile attacks, the State Department notes.

Drafting a will, coordinating a security plan, and creating a communication protocol with loved ones are just a few of the steps suggested on the travel advisory website.

Yemen

Beautiful gypsum patterns adorn red fired-brick buildings in the Old City of Sana'a. People have lived in this area of Yemen for over 2,500 years. The country is located on the Arabian Peninsula next to Saudi Arabia and Oman.

Yemen's civil war started over a decade ago and continues today. The threat of armed conflict continues, according to OSAC. Detained US citizens have not been allowed to contact their families or the embassy, which suspended its operations in 2015.

The US travel advisory says US citizens should avoid travel to the country due to the threat of terrorism, civil unrest, unexploded land mines, crime, including kidnapping, and health risks.

The State Department warns against visiting the Yemeni island of Socotra. Some travel companies have offered trips there with unofficial visas, which puts travelers at risk, according to the travel advisory website.

• Russia's air force has grown more capable during the Ukraine war, airpower experts say.
• They argue it now poses a greater threat to NATO than before the war.
• Pilots are more experienced, losses are being replaced, and systems have been improved.

Russian airpower has become far more dangerous and poses a greater threat to the NATO alliance than it did before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, air combat experts warn.

Russia's war in Ukraine has provided its pilots with combat experience and lessons in modern warfare. Russia has also upgraded systems and weaponry and has been producing more aircraft than it has lost, boosting its overall end strength.

Justin Bronk, an airpower expert at the UK's Royal United Services Institute think tank, asserted in a recent report that Russian airpower "represents a greater threat to Western air power capabilities in Europe than it did prior to the invasion of Ukraine."

NATO needs to ensure it has upgraded its view of Russia's air force, retired US Army Maj. Gen. Gordon "Skip" Davis, who served as NATO's deputy assistant secretary-general for its defense-investment division, told Business Insider. "NATO can't be complacent with what it thought Russia once was as an air power versus what it is now."

He said "Russia is more dangerous now to NATO than it was before the war because of lessons learned."

Bronk said Russia's performance in Ukraine — including its early failure to achieve air superiority and its significant aircraft losses — has led many NATO policymakers and military observers to downgrade the threat posed by its air force, the VKS.

But that's a mistake, he said, because, "in many respects, the VKS of 2025 is a significantly more capable potential threat for Western air forces than it was in 2022."

Russia's fleet has grown

Russia has lost many aircraft to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Around 130 Russian fixed-wing aircraft have been shot down or badly damaged in the fighting, Bronk said, noting that his estimates are based on interviews with Western air forces and ministries, data from Ukraine's armed forces, and open-source information.

But he said the impact of those losses isn't as strong as the figures might suggest.

The types of Russian aircraft that have seen the highest losses — planes like the Su-25SM(3) and Su-34(M), at around 40 each — are not of much use to Russia in a conflict with NATO. And new production has resulted in the expansion of Russia's overall fleet.

Russia has been able to produce more of its Su-35S, Su-34s, and Su-30SM(2) aircraft than have been lost in the war, Bronk said, and deliveries for other aircraft types have also continued.

Russia has largely kept some of its best aircraft out of the fight, as well as some of its better weapons.

Bronk told Business Insider that the point "is not to downplay the attrition that the Russian forces have suffered in Ukraine." However, he said, "a lot of the areas that the Russian forces have been really worn down aren't particularly relevant for us in that fight."

Russia's pilots have improved

Russia's aircrew cadre, including its pilots, "has also grown significantly more capable during the war," Bronk said. While Russia has lost experienced crew members, it has lost far fewer pilots than it has jets. Skilled pilots are harder to replace in any air force.

And any losses in capable crews have been "more than offset" by the additional flying time and combat experience provided by warfighting in Ukraine, Broke added.

For a long time, Russian pilots generally flew far less than their NATO counterparts, but Ukraine has delivered years of valuable combat experience.

"In most cases, they have vastly improved both pilot and air crew experience in combat and high-intensity warfare," Davis said. Bronk noted they've also become better at air-to-air engagements against both drones and aircraft.

Russia has more attacking power

Russia has also upgraded its weaponry in ways that would make it more of a threat. In early 2022, Bronk said, Russia "would have struggled to employ effective battlefield firepower on a large scale due to inadequate weapon options, a lack of targeting pods, and poor close air support training. This is no longer the case."

Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK'S Royal Aeronautical Society, told Business Insider that "they're doing things smarter: better tactics, new weapons."

Russia's air force, for instance, is arming its Su-35 jets with longer-range R-37M missiles, which Bronk said "have significantly contributed to increasing the threat that they can theoretically pose to NATO air operations.

Russia has also developed stand-off airborne strike capabilities, from missiles to glide bombs, that not only complicate air defense but also allow it to strike from positions of relative safety. It's been a problem in Ukraine.

Robinson said that being able to fire precision weapons without entering Ukrainian airspace is "an example of their tactics and their munitions and technology improving."

In a potential future war, Bronk said, "NATO forces on the front lines could be intensively bombarded with glide bombs," without Russian aircraft needing to risk flying beyond the protection of ground-based air defenses.

Russia's defenses are more formidable

Russia's already formidable air defense arsenal, on which its airpower partly depends, may also now pose a greater threat to NATO forces than it did before the war.

Ukraine has been able to damage and destroy a vast number of them, but Bronk warned that "several hundred batteries of assorted Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems remain in service, and the primary threat systems are also still all in production in their latest variants."

Russia's experience has also made it more effective at using its systems to shoot down Ukrainian aircraft and drones, and it has upgraded its systems with new hardware and software.

"Russian SAM systems not only remain numerous but are also likely to perform better against NATO aircraft and munitions in a hypothetical direct conflict than they would have before 2022," Bronk said.

Russian forces have also shown improvement at coordinating the use of their aircraft and ground-based missile systems, Bronk said. That means a more coordinated threat to NATO aircraft if there were to be a direct conflict.

In a fight, though, as the Pentagon is fond of saying, the enemy gets a vote. While Russia may be more threatening than it was, NATO militaries are heavily armed with combat-proven equipment handled by skilled operators.

Russia doesn't outmatch NATO, Bronk said, but "they are more of a credible threat."

He predicted that Russia would still "struggle significantly in a direct air-to-air clash with Western forces. I think they would come off pretty badly." But the problem is that the fight wouldn't just be in the air; it would also have the power and effect of ground-based air defenses.

US and Western officials have said that Russia's fighting style and formidable defenses show that the West may not be able to get control of the air in a future large-scale war, which would make the fight harder and riskier for aircraft and potentially drag Western forces into an attritional slog — Russia's way of war.

Russia still has many problems, including a rigid command structure that limits flexibility and adaptation and limits on the Western technology it can access to build higher-end systems.

And NATO has learned a lot from the war, from Ukraine, for example, gaining more accurate data about Russia's surface-to-air missile systems, including their strengths and weaknesses, than it had before 2022, Bronk said. NATO, he added, has the right weaponry to counter them, "albeit not in sufficient numbers in Europe yet."

• The new CPI report showed the inflation rate sped up in March from 2.4% to 3.3%.
• Economists expected inflation of 3.4% due to higher energy prices.
• Gas prices spiked 21.2% between February and March, a record increase.

The effects of the Iran war showed up in the latest US inflation reading. Inflation climbed to the highest rate since May 2024, and gas prices reached a record month-over-month increase.

The consumer price index increased 3.3% in March from a year ago, up from the 2.4% increase in January and February, and just shy of the 3.4% forecast. Economists expected inflation to rise due to higher energy prices.

"The market was braced for a hot print, so today's inline number is a slight relief," said Alexandra Wilson-Elizondo, global co-chief investment officer of multi-asset solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. "However, it may be the best headline inflation number we see for a while as it may only partially capture the full force of the Iran conflict, which sent US crude and US gas up 70% at peak."

CPI increased 0.9% over the month, just short of the forecast of 1% and surpassing the previous 0.3% rise. That, plus a 0.2% month-over-month increase in average hourly earnings, means real earnings fell by 0.6%.

Energy prices rose 10.9% over the month, the largest increase since September 2005, after a 0.6% rise in February. Gas prices surged 21.2% in just a month, the largest on record.

Compared to the previous year, energy prices increased 12.5% in March, the largest rise since November 2022, with gas prices rising 18.9% year-over-year after declining 5.6%.

Stephen Juneau, senior economist in BofA Global Research, told Business Insider prior to the new report that it would probably be too early to "see material pass through to core." Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased 2.6% from a year ago in March, in line with the forecast of 2.7% and the previous 2.5% increase. It rose 0.2% over the month, just shy of the 0.3% forecast but matching February's rise.

In addition to usual spring demand, Americans have felt the effects of the war at the gas pump. AAA data showed the national average skyrocketed in March, ending the month at $4.018. It's a crucial milestone as it surpassed $4 for the first time in four years.

The new report doesn't include the recent temporary ceasefire. "As risk diminishes, gas prices might come down slightly, mortgage rates might fall, and businesses may gain confidence to hire, but we are still far from business as usual," said Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate.

The Fed will meet to decide its next interest rate move on April 28 and 29. CME FedWatch showed based on interest-rate traders that it's likely the Fed will decide to hold rates steady again.

"The implications of developments in the Middle East for the US economy are uncertain," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in the FOMC Press Conference in March. "We will remain attentive to risks to both sides of our dual mandate."

The war's effects could go on for a while.

"Even if the prices of gasoline and diesel start to come down after the conflict resolves, the effect on the economy will be more long-lasting," Kates said. "Fuel prices will not fall as quickly as they rose, but they should decline relatively quickly in the months following the end of the conflict. The ripple effects from these events, however, will take longer to play out and will affect the prices of shipped products, manufactured goods, building materials, and consumer products for far longer."

And the effects of tariffs aren't over, either.

"The normal annual price increases from businesses are still contributing to overall inflation, and tariffs are responsible for part of that as the tail end of their drawn-out impact continues to settle into the economy," Kates said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

We're taking more photos than ever before, but don't ever get a chance to show them off. A digital photo frame is the perfect way to display memories, even if a photo book is a nice option, too. Instead of settling on one image, you can curate your own slideshow gallery. The newest frames are WiFi-enabled, making it easy to add photos from your phone to the frame. Digital frames also make it possible to stay connected with family and friends, even over long distances.

The setup process and display quality of digital frames have also continued to improve. I've used and tested more than a dozen models over the last several years, and it's never been easier or cheaper to get started. From wall-mountable E Ink frames to large-screen options, these picks represent the best digital photo frames to choose from right now.

Our picks of the top digital photo frames

Best overall: Aura Aspen or Aura Carver - See at Amazon

Best budget: Akimart Digital Frame - See at Amazon

Best large: Pastigio 15.6" Digital Frame - See at Amazon

Best wall-mounted: Aura Ink - See at Aura

Best touchscreen: Cozyla Digital Frame - See at Amazon

Best with a calendar: Skylight Calendar 2 - See at Skylight

Best overall

Aura Frames have a design that's worthy of displaying people's fondest memories. The Aura Aspen 12-inch digital photo frame is simply stunning. It's in a class of its own with bright, accurate color and multiple orientations, and an easy, intuitive app.

The Aspen is a one-inch-thick, minimal frame that highlights your photos instead of drawing attention to itself. It may not completely fool people, but its paper-like matting is an elegant design. Instead of utilizing a touchscreen, there are two touch bars (one on the top and one on the side) for swiping through photos and videos. Tapping the bar favorites a photo, and displays a caption, if available.

The hardware is an important component of a digital photo frame, but the software and storage are the other parts. Aura alleviates concerns about storage with unlimited free uploads. After years of testing multiple Aura frames in my home, I've never run into a message about too many pictures or images not loading. There is an undisclosed amount of storage on the devices, so if your internet connection goes out, pictures won't disappear. The frames can also handle video with built-in speakers and display Apple's Live Photos, adding a hint of movement as the photos appear on the screen.

Aura's mobile app is easier to use than Instagram. You can select photos from your library to send to the frame, and within seconds, they'll show. Recent updates have brought email and texting options for sending photos to the frame. While Aura's sharing feature in the mobile app is robust and easy to use, if you'd rather not invite someone, you can give them the number or email address they can use to send pictures. The company also makes it easy to gift a digital frame to other people. You can preload pictures so they appear during setup.

Consider Aura's other frame sizes. Of course, the Aspen's 12-inch screen and $229 retail price might not fit everyone's home or budget. In that case, the Aura Carver is a fantastic stand-in with a 10.1-inch screen and a $149 retail price. It skips the faux-matting for a thicker grooved frame and can only be positioned in landscape orientation, which is its most significant drawback. Otherwise, the screen is crisp and vibrant. It has a gloss to it that looks best outside of direct sunlight, but its brightness should overcome that aspect. It's a great small digital frame that can fit nicely on a desk or a nightstand.

If money isn't a concern, the Aspen's size and versatility make it an excellent pick. Beyond the Aspen, the Walden extends that experience up to 15 inches. But if you don't have the cash to splurge or need a smaller frame for a certain area of the home, the Carver is also an excellent choice that's hard to be disappointed with.

Best budget

The Akimart Digital Frame is a great option for anyone looking to show off their photos without spending more than a $100. There are shortcomings of a budget digital photo frame, but its use of Frameo software helps make the experience top-notch.

Frameo is third-party software used by various manufacturers for photo frames. That means you could use the same app with different frames. You can think of it like Android for mobile phones. Frameo's interface is polished and tailored to photo-specific tasks, including uploading from your phone and letting others share their photos with your permission.

From unboxing to sending my first picture to the frame took under 10 minutes. The process is straightforward: scan a QR code to download the free Frameo app. The app works well, but because the Akimart Digital Frame is a touchscreen, you can also change settings and adjust brightness right on the frame.

At nearly every turn, I was surprised at how well this digital photo frame performed. It was responsive to touch and refreshed pictures quickly. Of course, there are a few downsides to the $59 product. The screen's colors and brightness weren't as good as the other frames in this guide. I noticed more glare and reflections on the screen because of its dimmer display. You won't want to put this frame in direct sunlight if you can avoid it, but otherwise it should perform fine. There are sacrifices to spending less on a digital frame, but in this case, those aren't significant enough to dismiss all of the conveniences if you have limited funds for an electronic frame like this.

Best large

If you want to make a statement with your photos, go with a large digital frame for extra impact. The 15.6-inch Pastigio Digital Frame set itself apart with an attractive display and easy-to-use software. Just make sure to give it enough room on a shelf or nightstand.

Photos that pop. Because of its larger size, one of the things I immediately noticed and appreciated about the Pastigio was its ability to auto-crop images to fit its size. Your results in this area will depend on the types of photos you use and their resolution, but this frame handled all of my pictures quite well. Even though this wasn't the brightest frame I tested, it was bright enough to make colors pop and reduce glare. The viewing angle and overall appearance were good, especially for the frame's price. The Pastigio 15.6 uses the same Frameo software as the budget Akimart frame. The benefit of a bigger screen, however, is that Frameo's collage feature is better utilized. It makes more sense to show off up to six images at once.

Versatile display options. The back of the Pastigio 15.6 has a removable stand for dual orientation. It also has four mounting holes for a TV or monitor arm. And if you don't mind a dangling power cable, there are two holes for wall mounting the frame. However, if you are looking for a big art experience, you may want to consider a dedicated art-style TV, which can display your own photos as well as famous paintings and photographs. I've covered the best frame TVs, and there are some worthy options available now.

Best wall-mounted

Most of these digital photo frames have holes on the back and mounting options, but that doesn't mean you should or that they're good for that purpose. Nearly all electronic photo frames need to be tethered by a power cord, hanging in plain sight, which is a non-starter for most people. The Aura Ink frame solves this problem with a battery capable of providing three months of life. It hangs on the wall wire-free.

E Ink is a display technology that mimics paper for better visibility in the sun and less eye strain. It flashes to refresh its pixels and only consumes power when the image changes. Otherwise, there's very little power draw for the automatic backlight, which turns off at night or when no one is in the room. If you've seen a color Kindle or other e-reader, you know that the color aspect can be lacking. Aura has done special work behind the scenes to make the Ink frame look better, but up close, you can still see some pixelation, and small details can blur together.

I've continually been drawn to all the incredible benefits of the Aura Ink. It looks like a printed photo, much more than any other digital frame. It has a display that pops in the sunlight, instead of becoming hard to see. The physical frame is sleek and gives off hints of an electronic design, yet it still includes light and motion sensors that work seamlessly across a room. There are also stealth buttons on the side to change photos without having to grab your phone. Despite the drawbacks, including a steep price,

The E Ink technology won't be for everyone. The Ink can't do videos or rapidly change images. It's also quite expensive, for a relatively small frame. But if what you're looking for is a digital frame you can hang on the wall without having to hide a cord, this option is stunning. It can also be quite good, with the included stand for displaying in portrait or landscape orientations on a tabletop.

Note: I tested the 13-inch SwitchBot AI Art Frame too, but it can only hold 10 pictures, and its screen didn't deliver the same level of detail as the Aura Ink. The AI Art Frame is neat for displaying certain pictures or posters, but right now it doesn't work as well as a photo frame.

Best touchscreen

A well-rounded option that’s responsive to touch, features a bright, high-quality display, and comes with an easy-to-use mobile app. We tested the Cozyla 10.1-inch digital photo frame and it's hard to go wrong with this option if you need a small and relatively compact option for your work desk or anywhere else around the house. It's also available in larger 17 and 32-inch sizes.

The digital photo frame supports basic features such as auto-rotation, slide shows, auto brightness, and a sleep mode. It goes a little bit further than other frames with unlimited free storage and the ability to connect to Google Photos for easy transfer. You can also use the company’s mobile app for iPhone or Android, upload via the website, and email pictures to the frame.

One of the more interesting features available is the AI photo enhancement. I tried it a few times with mixed results. Sometimes it made colors more vivid, among with other tweaks, but more often than not I thought the results were less appealing than the original, with unnatural appearances or smoothing. If AI isn’t your thing, then you don’t need to use it.

I also wasn’t crazy about the prominent light sensor right in the front, on the white matting. It makes it even less believable as a “real” picture frame. However, for the convenience it provides, it may be a fine trade-off. Like the Aura frames, it also relies on cloud storage and does not have an SD port for memory cards.

Best with a calendar

Hard to beat as a communal family appointment center. The Skylight Calendar 2 will sync with Google, Outlook, Cozy, and other online services to pull in everyone’s events. It’s a great way to get an overview of which time slots are taken and what days are free. To go even further into home management, Calendar 2 can handle to-dos and kids’ chores.

Calendar 2 looks just like a photo frame. However, its software is geared toward productivity rather than simply memories. To that point, you need Skylight’s $79 yearly subscription to enable photo screensavers and general photo frame functionality. With the subscription, you also get meal planning, rewards, and a special email address for additional data imports.

If your priority lies just beyond photos, but you’re still looking for an all-in-one unit, then the Calendar 2 should be on your radar. Right now, it’s hard to find a device like this that does calendars and photos equally well. Cozyla also offers its own Calendar design; it has a slightly higher upfront cost but no annual subscription.

Read our full Skylight Calendar 2 review.

Our best digital picture frames compared

What to look for

WiFi vs non-WiFi digital frames

If you haven’t looked at digital photo frames since their early days, you may still think of them as requiring manual photo transfer using an SD Card or USB flash drive. Some of them still offer that option, but most of them use WiFi to transfer pictures right from a mobile phone. Unless a digital frame will be used in a very specific way that requires a memory card, prioritize WiFi.

Storage: cloud vs local

One reason to have an eye towards local storage is for privacy. Still, in the age of online services, cloud syncing is the way to go. We’ve read through Frameo’s, Aura’s, and Cozyla's terms of service, and they’re all very standard terms that let companies use your photos to sync them, but they aren’t using them for any other purpose. If this aspect of using a digital frame is important to you, then you’ll want to dig into a company’s specific privacy policy.

App experience

Each of the frames we tested has apps for iPhone and Android. If you’re looking at a different option, then you’ll want to check that there is an app for your phone. The Aura app is among the most polished, with an easy-to-understand interface. I didn’t feel lost or confused by apps from Frameo or Cozyla, but they were a little busier and took a little time to fully get acquainted with them.

Orientation and mounting

While a lot of digital frames can be used in either landscape (horizontally) or portrait (vertically) orientations, not all can. Even if a frame doesn’t rotate, nearly every frame will still display all the photos, just with blank space on the side, which is called pillar-boxing

E Ink vs LCD

Right now, most people will want a more traditional LCD digital frame. This type of screen is bright and colorful and can accommodate videos and fast slideshows. E Ink is a more static technology that powers frames with a battery and lets them hang on a wall without a dangling cord. The other reason to heavily consider an E Ink frame, if you can stomach the cost, is for very sunny areas. E Ink is much more visible, with less glare in bright light.

How we tested

When we test digital photo frames, we evaluate each frame based on display quality, ease of use, sharing features, and overall design. We consider both hardware and software.

These frames need to look nice, but ease of use and sharing capabilities are also key. To get a gauge on the display quality, we used the same set of pictures on all the frames and turned the brightness up to 100%. Then we compared image quality side-by-side with an iPhone 17 Pro and directly with the other frames, evaluating color reproduction, resolution, and viewing angles.

We used photos with elements like a neon light, a famous landmark at dusk, a laptop with a hard-to-define color, and a several-week-old puppy. We looked at photos with people to get a sense of skin tones, but don’t show those here for privacy reasons.

The photo frames were evaluated in a bright, sunny room with direct light and monitored throughout the day and at night in the dark. We looked at their design, sensors, materials, and general appeal.

In terms of the software, we used as many sharing options as we could, adding photos to the frames in various ways. The most tedious part is going through all the settings and features offered. A lot of the features overlap, but each of these companies does things just a little differently. For example, all of them can be used for free out of the box, but Frameo software frames require a monthly or yearly subscription fee if you want longer videos (up to 2 minutes), online backups, or the ability to upload up to 100 photos at once to a frame.

Meet the expert behind the guide:

Tyler Hayes, contributor: I spend my time writing about technology and covering the latest consumer electronics. My first digital frame was a Kodak model with an odd aspect ratio back in 2006. It required transferring pictures in a specific resolution from an SD Card. Since then, I’ve had dozens of various ones from different brands, which have all gotten progressively better.

FAQs

Are digital photo frames worth it?

Most people won’t be fooled into thinking a digital frame is a real printed photo. But the point of this product is convenience and the ability to display all the photos you take regularly. With a wide range of sizes and prices, there should be an option that fits your budget if you want to display digital slideshows.

How does a smart display compare to a digital picture frame?

While you can display photos on most kinds of screens, the benefit of choosing a digital photo frame is its software features. These products are designed to display images, so they make it easy to upload images and rotate through them with various settings.

Do digital frames need WiFi?

Having WiFi makes it easier to connect a phone or tablet to a digital picture frame. While you don’t need to have WiFi to use some of them, not having the feature will make adding photos more tedious, so you likely won’t show off as many pictures or add new ones as often.

Can multiple people send photos to a frame?

Many digital photo frames offer sharing via a mobile app or an email address that delivers pictures directly to the frame. Whether it’s only people in your family or a group of friends, there are plenty of ways to have people directly add pictures to your photo frame without needing to manage every image.

What is the best digital photo frame for families?

Any of the frames we tested with software by Frameo, Aura, or Cozyla all offer sharing functionality, so everyone in the family can add their own memories. Frameo and Cozyla will display calendar dates if you want a visual indicator. If you’re looking for a dedicated calendar, your best bet is to look at specific products like the Skylight Calendar 2.

Are Aura frames worth it?

Aura makes great frames, but they do tend to be among the more expensive options. Part of the value Aura offers is free, unlimited photo storage. How many pictures to display is just never a question or concern. If one of the company’s products fits your budget, you can get high-quality hardware, an easy-to-use interface, and free photo sharing.

• Hulken bags have become a status symbol among Gen Z and entrepreneurs.
• After the brand expanded into travel, its founder said there are plans for new materials and partnerships.
• Still, Hulken faces challenges from tariffs and supply disruptions in its growth plans.

If you've been out and about in New York City, chances are you've seen a Hulken.

The boxy, tote-on-wheels bags have quickly become the modern, sexier version of a granny shopping cart. Gen Z has embraced the bags — which range in color from trendy chocolate browns to spunky pinks and are made of a durable, water-resistant plastic — as the new hot way to schlep more chic-ly.

I have to admit that I did not have such a fond first experience with the bags after receiving a large one at a 2024 event. It was the biggest goodie bag I'd ever received, and it completely overwhelmed me. I did not realize then that the massive metallic magenta block taking up what felt like half of my Brooklyn bedroom could fold down.

That foldable design feature is intentional, especially "to really allow for that urban living situation," cofounder and president Alex Schinasi told Business Insider.

Despite my initial reactions, those who know, know: Hulkens are quasi-status symbols for entrepreneurs and creative industry professionals; a sign of success. It felt like "if you had a full Hulken of packages [to bring to] the post office, you were a successful entrepreneur," Schinasi remembered. A filled-up medium Hulken of orders? Flex. A large one filled to the brim? An even bigger one.

After capturing the hearts and tired arms of many, Hulken is now trying to prove it's more than a one-product hit, expanding into travel, experimenting with new materials, and eyeing retail and design partnerships — all while navigating rising costs from tariffs and global supply chain disruptions.

Professionals gravitated toward Hulken

Much of that growth has been fueled by how specific professional communities have adopted the bags for work.

"The first two years of Hulken we were seeing all these professional niches that are very active on social media use it as a work expense, so they would get a Hulken, not for their laundry or groceries, but to transport their gear to and from set," Schinasi said, listing makeup artists, hair stylists, and prop stylists as a few professionals she's seen loving their Hulkens online.

A-list celebrities have also made their fandom known, like Kourtney and Kim Kardashian.

Schinasi and her drummer husband, Yoni Sheleg, co-founded Hulken as a Shopify site in 2018. When the pandemic set in and Sheleg's gigs mellowed, they hunkered down and focused on sharpening the product and the brand, and eventually marketing it. But it was Schinasi's dad, a bag manufacturing executive, who was responsible for the tote's design.

"He was actually shopping in Paris and not really knowing how to carry all his bags, and thinking, 'Oh my God, I need a solution for stuffing all this stuff,'" Schinasi said.

He'd eventually go on to create the prototype for the bag that ultimately became the brand's best-known Rolling Tote.

As outrageous as the Hulken might look at first glance, the functional item is inseparable from a fashion feel. Its sleek look, color variety, and matte options help. So does the expertise from Kathleen Scully, Hulken's director of product design. She spent more than four years as a senior luggage designer at Louis Vuitton. Her prowess helped Hulken win the Accessories Council 2025 Design Excellence Award for Tech and Innovation, beating luxury brands like Canada Goose and Moncler Lunettes.

After all, Schinasi said, the point of Hulken is that it's a "product that obviously has a utility component, but very much without compromising on looking stylish and being beautiful and fashionable."

The intentionally-designed product resulted in Hulken’s sales surging in recent years, growing from about $390,000 in 2020 to $29 million in 2024, with the company projecting as much as $50 million in revenue last year.

Hulken takes on travel

Years later, I gave these schlep-ready bags a second chance, and they've proven their worth. I found that my Hulken, a midnight blue medium roller with a 60-liter capacity, works best when it's weighed down. If it's not filled by much, it'll flip and flop around, likely nicking the back of your foot in a way that's bound to drive you crazy.

While I still don't think it's realistic for a Hulken to become my new go-to, I'm inclined to keep these colorful granny carts handy at home the same way I keep a foldable tote in my work bag. For days when I'm embarking on a journey of errands — like doing laundry, dropping off clothes at the thrift store, then getting groceries — a Hulken offers a smooth ride along the way.

Ahead, Schinasi plans to keep innovating materials that the classic Hulken can be made of, though the cofounder wouldn't hint at what's on the docket. Its matte version, for example, has already proven successful with customers who want something less flashy.

Hulken has also been eyeing travelers, too. The brand debuted a carry-on-size bag, which Schinasi deliberately calls a travel tote instead of a suitcase, in August 2025, part of a phased rollout.

"Travel hasn't really been reinvented, as far as suitcases go. We call ourselves a travel tote because it is that tote that you have at your side at the airport," she added.

The Travel Rolling Tote retails for $125, almost the same as the brand's signature tote-on-wheels. It's often sold out, but for Schinasi, whose background is in tech, that's OK for the rollout. "I like to be able to start small and kind of grow from there to once I can validate the demand first," she explained.

Schinasi plans to keep iterating in the travel category, and the cofounder teases designer collaborations may be on the way, in addition to retailer partnerships that'll be revealed by the end of 2026.

With a solid hero product, Schinasi is currently focused on navigating the turmoil of running a business under Trump's tariffs. Like many brands, this leaves her to solve a complex pricing calculus that protects the brand's margins without shocking consumers, ideally raising prices as little as possible.

The war with Iran has been the latest blow to solving that tricky equation. "That's kind of the flip side of running a flashy DTC brand. [Our] supply chain is being fragmented. Is the supply of material going to suffer from the rising oil prices? All of our shipping has to be rethought, and we have deadlines to meet. We have commitments with retailers and partners," Schinasi said.

However it pans out, Schinasi isn't giving up on her mission to make schlepping easier and more chic.

• Kevin O'Leary says you need at least $5 million in liquid assets to be genuinely wealthy.
• The "Shark Tank" investor said people aren't rich if their money is "tied up" in cars and homes.
• O'Leary previously said that hitting the $5 million mark is the "true definition of success."

You could own a row of Bel Air mansions, a fleet of Bugattis, and a closet full of Birkin bags and still not be wealthy in Kevin O'Leary's eyes.

"You're not rich if it's all tied up in real estate, you're not rich if it's in jewelry and in cars and in boats and all that stuff," the "Shark Tank" investor told Fox Business' "Varney & Co." this week.

The O'Leary Ventures founder and self-proclaimed "Mr. Wonderful" said that many wealthy people lack a sufficient "safety net" as they don't have enough assets that can quickly be converted into cash.

The "magic number" is $5 million in liquid assets, he said, as that should yield around 5% a year or $250,000 in pre-tax income — enough to provide for a family of four if the "poo-poo hits the fan in your world and everybody loses their job."

O'Leary said he personally keeps at least that much in Treasury bills, a form of highly liquid US government debt. He minted his fortune in part by cofounding SoftKey in the mid-1980s, acquiring The Learning Company, then selling the combined business to Mattel for $4.2 billion in 1999.

During another interview late last year, O'Leary said that securing $5 million in liquid assets was the "true definition of success." He underlined the difficulty of saving that much as "you're always tempted to buy a watch with it, or to lend it out to somebody, or help your cousin open a restaurant or whatever."

"That is not what it's for," O'Leary continued. "It's there to guarantee your financial freedom and that of your family for the rest of your life."

O'Leary has been preaching the importance of having cash in the bank for years. In his 2012 book, "Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women & Money," he wrote: "You aren't really living within your means until you've saved three months' salary as a protective cushion, and that's on top of all other non-liquid assets."

Without that safety net, he continued, "you're just one major illness, one job loss or one big market correction away from penury, or from losing your house, or worse."

O'Leary is far from alone in emphasizing the importance of liquidity. Warren Buffett — who mandates his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate keep at least $30 billion in liquid reserves — wrote in his 2010 shareholder letter that "having loads of liquidity, though, lets us sleep well," and means that during crises he's "equipped both financially and emotionally to play offense while others scramble for survival."

• An OpenAI exec said it's getting closer to building AI systems that can work as well as research interns.
• Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki said he "definitely" sees the company "on track" to hit that goal.
• OpenAI is aiming for an "AI research intern" by 2026 and a fully autonomous one by 2028.

OpenAI is getting closer to one of its milestone goals: systems that can function at the same level as research interns.

On an episode of the "Unsupervised Learning" podcast on Thursday, OpenAI's chief scientist Jakub Pachocki said recent breakthroughs in coding, advances in math research capabilities, and progress in physics suggest AI is on track to handle increasingly complex, multi-step technical work with less human oversight.

"I definitely see this as a signal that something here is on track," he said.

He said the key measure is how long a model can work mostly autonomously.

"The way I would distinguish a research intern from a full automated researcher is the span of time that we would have it work mostly autonomously," Pachocki said, pointing to longer task horizons as the key metric of progress.

At a company livestream in October, Pachocki outlined OpenAI's internal goal of building an "AI research intern" by September 2026, followed by a fully autonomous AI researcher by March 2028.

In an X post following the livestream, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said OpenAI "may totally fail" at the goal, but that it was important to be transparent given the potential impact.

'Explosive growth of coding tools'

Pachocki said the company is already seeing fast progress in the kinds of tasks that matter for that goal, pointing to coding agents like Codex, which he said are now handling much of the company's programming work.

He also pointed to math benchmarks as a "north star" for improving model reasoning, since they are easy to verify.

"We've seen this explosive growth of coding tools," Pachocki said. "For most people, the act of programming has changed quite a bit."

He added that the near-term challenge is moving toward systems that can tackle specific technical tasks with more autonomy, use more compute, and work for longer stretches of time.

"For more specific technical ideas, like I have this particular idea how to improve the models, how to run this evaluation differently, I think we have the pieces that we mostly just need to put together," he said.

Still, Pachocki was clear that AI isn't ready to operate independently at the level of a full researcher.

"I don't expect we'll have systems where you just tell them, 'go improve your model capability, go solve alignment,' and they will do it, not this year," he said.

• United Airlines' CEO said the company relies on "well-liked" pilots to assess potential hires.
• Kirby said the aim is to hire people who employees actually want to hang out with.
• United will receive 75,000 applications for a few thousand flight attendant openings, Kirby said.

You might be qualified for the job, but do people actually like hanging out with you?

That's a question United Airlines is interested in when assessing new hires — and uses a unique tactic in order to answer it.

Scott Kirby, United Airlines CEO, told McKinsey chief Bob Sternfels in an interview published in early April that he started a new process at the company aimed at evaluating if a candidate is a good cultural fit.

Kirby said he asked the head of flight operations to identify a dozen pilots who are "well-liked by everyone." When candidates come in for interviews, those popular pilots will hang out with them — walk them around the building, have lunch with them, and escort them to interviews.

"I told this group of pilots, 'Your job is just to assess: Is this interviewee someone I would like to take a four-day trip with? And if you say no, then they're out. You get a veto vote,'" Kirby said. "The idea is to pick people who care about others, who you want to hang out with, who you want to be with."

A spokesperson for United told Business Insider that practice is one part of a larger process for hiring pilots that includes "the rigorous standards set by United and the FAA."

Assessing for culture fit is common in hiring, but the stakes could be especially high when it comes to flight crews who can spend days at a time working together on consecutive flights.

Jobs at United Airlines can also be competitive. Kirby said in the interview with McKinsey that when United lists openings for 2,000 to 3,000 flight attendant roles, the company can receive 75,000 applications in a couple of hours.

"So for us, the question is: How do you find people who have the right mentality and customer service attitude?" he said. "We can train them to do the jobs, but how do you build a process to pick the right people and keep them excited?"

As of December 2025, United Airlines had around 113,200 employees, according to company financials, after several years of head count growth.

• This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Go to Miami, they said. It's "Wall Street South," they said.

Since the early days of the pandemic, the 305 has been pitched as the "new" Wall Street. Warm weather and low taxes! What's not to love?

But "Wall Street South" hasn't really materialized, despite hedge funds touting big investments in the city. BI's Bradley Saacks has the numbers to prove it.

Last year, eight of the world's largest hedge funds had 218 investment professionals in Miami, according to public filings. A year later, that number dropped by 20, even as firms increased their investing head count by more than 11%.

So as hedge funds bulk up, Miami isn't where they're sending their money-makers.

This isn't Miami's obituary.

The city has become a hot spot for the world's richest people looking to escape a potential California wealth tax.

Some Wall Street firms still have big plans for South Beach. Citadel has been headquartered there since 2022 and is building a 58-story tower. A person close to the $19 billion hedge fund Schonfeld told Bradley its Miami presence has grown year over year.

But Bradley's story highlights that funds' key employees — the ones deciding where to invest — aren't taking their talents to South Beach.

(No disrespect to the middle- and back-office workers, the unsung heroes. After all, if a trade doesn't reconcile, did it even happen?)

Much of that front-office hesitancy stems from a lack of critical mass.

"There wasn't enough flow," one hedge-fund manager, who started his firm in Florida but relocated to New York, recently told Bradley.

That's a tough reputation to shake. Young, ambitious financiers are less likely to take a chance on Miami if the action is still up north.

Being in a financial hub isn't a prerequisite for success. Renaissance Technologies, historically one of the top-performing hedge funds in the world, has done just fine on the eastern end of Long Island. (That may not sound far from NYC, but the Long Island Expressway takes no prisoners.) Still, proximity to the power brokers certainly helps.

As for Miami, instead of constantly pegging it as the next Wall Street (or any industry), maybe it's time to recognize it as something else entirely. Whatever that may be.

• EY is testing more individualized career paths in the AI age, including agile promotions and expanded use of assessments.
• The goal is to better align people to roles and reflect when someone is ready to take on greater scope or impact.
• The Big Four firm's chief talent and culture officer told Business Insider that managers' roles are also "evolving quickly."

AI isn't just reshaping how corporate America works. It's also rewriting the rules for standing out — including how companies evaluate promotion potential.

Big Four firm EY, for example, is rethinking what career pathways look like in the age of AI, as the tech influences everything from recruitment to onboarding to talent development and promotion.

"Undoubtedly, AI is changing how work is done," Ginnie Carlier, EY Americas' chief talent and culture officer, told Business Insider in an interview. "The traditional organizational pyramid is giving way to more flexible career portfolios, where impact matters more than title or tenure."

"Managers' roles are evolving quickly," she added. "They're increasingly responsible for cultivating a psychologically safe environment where people can experiment, fail forward and learn from AI; coaching and developing others; and leading teams comprised of both humans and agents."

While most career models were built on a "linear progression," Carlier said, AI is reshaping workflows and roles are becoming more fluid as "the contributions that matter most increasingly cut across skills, experiences, and outcomes rather than static job descriptions."

To adapt, EY is factoring in additional signals to assess performance and promotion potential.

Promotions have traditionally been based on business needs and an employee's ability to perform at the next level, a spokesperson for the firm told Business Insider. The changes EY are testing are part of its evolution into a more "skills-powered organization," they added.

"We're already testing more flexible, individualized career paths, including agile promotions and expanded use of skills assessments, to better align people to roles and to reflect when someone is ready to take on greater scope or impact," Carlier said.

While skills like rote analysis, manual research, and slide production were prized in the old world, the firm's focus now is on freeing workers to spend more time interpreting data, applying judgement to AI outputs, and telling a compelling story, she added.

AI is changing who gets through the front door

EY now requires all early-career applicants to complete a skills-based assessment. It has also shifted to a hiring model that better identifies candidates who can grow alongside the technology, Carlier said.

The EY exec also pointed to a program the firm launched in the summer of 2024 called 360 Careers, where early-career employees rotate across different parts of the business to build a broader set of skills. The program is part of EY's broader $1 billion investment in talent and technology that also includes higher early-career pay, AI-enabled audit and tax platforms, expanded support for college students, and enhanced wellbeing benefits.

As a result of the changing landscape, Carlier said the firm is recruiting from a widening pool of talent. Two decades ago, EY was almost exclusively made up of accounting professionals, she said. Now, its workforce includes engineers, creatives, technologists, and as a result of its latest changes, candidates without degrees, neurodiverse professionals, and those with highly specialized skills, Carlier said.

In a LinkedIn post in January, Carlier said AI's impact has been both broad, yet hard to predict.

"What we do know is that workforce transformation is changing the shape of our workforce and the skills we'll need to succeed. In turn, we need to completely change the employee experience — everything from talent processes and procedures on how we hire and develop our people, to how we assign them to work and manage their performance and career trajectory."

EY isn't the only consulting firm rethinking parts of the employee lifecycle — like performance evaluation — in response to AI.

At Boston Consulting Group, using AI has become table stakes.

"There's no box on our forms that says, 'Are you using AI?' It is an expectation," Alicia Pittman, the firm's global people team chair, previously told Business Insider.

Nearly 90% of BCG's 33,000 employees now use AI, and about half use it daily, Pittman said.

Consultants may use AI to surface insights, but they're still evaluated on how they interpret those insights and turn them into decisions for clients, Pittman said.

Do you work in consulting and have a story to share about using AI? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email Lakshmi Varanasi at lvaranasi@businessinsider.com from a non-work email and device or contact her on Signal at lvaranasi.70.

• Walmart submitted about 312 certified H-1B visa applications in the final three months of 2025.
• The number is down more than half from the same period a year earlier, and 40% below two years ago.
• Several major employers have curtailed use of the program after President Donald Trump made it more expensive.

Tech's hiring slowdown has come to Walmart.

The retail giant submitted 312 certified H-1B visa applications in the final three months of 2025, down sharply from recent years, according to the latest data from the US Department of Labor.

The period, which marks the first quarter of the federal fiscal year, offers the first indication of how changes to the work visa program that began rolling out in September are influencing corporate hiring activity.

Walmart's total is down more than half from roughly 860 in the same period a year earlier, and about 40% below its level two years ago.

By comparison, retailers like Target, Home Depot, and Lowe's each had fairly consistent numbers of certified H-1B applications over the same two-year period, though all four companies posted higher numbers at the end of 2024 than at the end of 2025.

Still, Walmart's skilled worker visa program numbers are an order of magnitude larger than the others.

The company was not immediately available to comment on this story.

Walmart's changes track with several major tech employers — including Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — that have likewise curtailed their use of the program after President Donald Trump announced changes that made it more expensive and difficult to obtain visas.

Amazon, which had the highest number of records in Business Insider's review of the data, saw its quarterly certified applications fall to 3,057 from 4,647 the year before — a decline of about one-third.

The Labor Department reviews and certifies H-1B and similar visa applications to ensure that prospective immigrant workers will be paid as much as typical US workers in similar roles, and won't adversely affect employment for those workers.

Some of Trump's changes to the H-1B program include a preference for higher-paid workers and introducing a onetime $100,000 fee for each new application.

In addition to new rules that made the visa process costlier and placed applicants under tighter scrutiny, companies have also generally focused on leaner, more specialized teams in the last year.

The median base salary in Walmart's Q1 H1-B applications was $150,000, up from $144,000 and $145,000 from the prior two years.

• A winner has been crowned for Business Insider's stock bracket.
• Alphabet took down Amazon in the title match as the stock readers most want to own for the next 10 years.
• Sign up for First Trade, Business Insider's daily markets newsletter.

After three weeks of voting and general bracket madness, First Trade readership has selected ALPHABET as the Magnificent 7 (plus Palantir) stock they'd most like to own for the next 10 years.

The Google parent capped off a dominant run through the bracket, commanding 56% of final-round votes. Its opponent, Amazon — which squeaked through its previous two matchups — brought in a respectable 44%.

The bracket championship reaffirms what's already been made abundantly clear for months: Alphabet is a force to be reckoned with.

It's increasingly becoming an AI power player. It has a firm foundation of existing high-margin businesses, like Google Search and YouTube. Its cloud business is growing. Waymo gives it a presence in self-driving cars. It's everything everywhere all at once.

Given that you voted so overwhelmingly for Alphabet, you probably already know all of this. So let's get into other main takeaways from the first annual First Trade stock bracket:

You want to own what you know

Peter Lynch, the renowned Fidelity stock-picker who crushed the market for years, famously said: "buy what you know." That's exactly what you did with your bracket picks.

Generally speaking, the more tangible and widely accessible the company's product, the better it did in the bracket. Pretty much everyone has an iPhone — Apple routinely dismantled Tesla. Google has 90% market share in search — Alphabet destroyed Meta. And so on.

On the flip side: You avoided the speculative names

The two stocks with the most theoretical valuations — Tesla and Palantir — lost badly in the first round. They may have the most vocal retail-investor armies, but that didn't show up in the vote.

The fact that Tesla barely put up a fight against Apple was perhaps the surprise of the tournament for me. I underestimated how much voters would prioritize stability.

You want market experience

The semi-finals of our bracket featured four of the five companies that have been public the longest. As for the title game, is it a coincidence that both finalists — Alphabet and Amazon — are grizzled veterans with multiple decades of public-market experience? Probably not.

A lot can happen in 10 years, and it makes sense that investors would prefer the steady hand of a proven entity.

Meta just doesn't do it for you

The biggest blowout of the tournament came when Meta was unceremoniously routed by Alphabet in the first round, grabbing just 12% of the vote. This could speak to the strength of the opposition — Alphabet did win the whole thing, after all. But its two other opponents put up a much stiffer fight.

What gives? My best guess is that you're completely unmoved by Meta's AI ambitions. The company is spending tens of billions on something that may not yield results for years. That's enough to make you overlook a thriving ads business. It's a good stock … just not championship material.

If you voted and want to share any insights I missed, email me at jciolli@businessinsider.com.

• Wall Street H-1B filings are down year-over-year following Trump's visa crackdown.
• While some large visa filers, like Goldman Sachs, are down year over year, others are up.
• Financial firms often use H-1B hires to boost their technical staff, but AI could complicate that.

H-1B visa filings fell at major financial firms like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan last year, while other major firms, like Citi, increased their petitions compared to the same time the previous year.

This is the first data available showing how the financial industry reacted to President Donald Trump's changes to the work visa program, which made new applications more expensive.

The Department of Labor data shows that the financial firms that filed the most certified H-1B applications in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 filed 10% less than they did in the same period the year before. The federal fiscal year's first quarter runs from October through December.

Certified H-1B and similar visa applications are those that the Labor Department has reviewed to ensure that a prospective immigrant worker will be paid similarly to other workers in similar roles, and won't adversely affect employment for those workers.

The named firms either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

H-1B applications fell sharply in the tech industry during the same time period, with all major firms Business Insider analyzed seeing reductions except for Nvidia.

Looking at 20 of the financial firms that are the biggest users of the program in the quarter, the firms filed 25% fewer than they did the previous year.

JPMorgan Chase saw the biggest drop in filings, from 724 certified applications from October through December 2024 to 516 a year later, a nearly 29% decrease. The change in applications dropped it from the biggest financial firm user of the program in the first quarter of last fiscal year to the second biggest user in the same quarter of this fiscal year. The firm's H-1B filings appear to be largely focused on tech roles.

The largest percentage decrease in the quarter came from Goldman Sachs, seeing a more than 60% drop from 256 filings to 101. The firm's remaining filings include a mix of front-office financial roles and technical roles.

While these two financial titans had a decrease in filings, some of their large banking competitors have actually seen their filings rise year over year, with Citi's filings up nearly 20%, Barclays' up nearly two-thirds, and Morgan Stanley's up more than a quarter. Citi and Barclays' filings show a mix of financial and technical workers, while Morgan Stanley's filings do not show the underlying job function.

Another company with a more modest 4% year-over-year increase, Capital One, filed for many data science- and machine-learning-oriented roles, including director-level roles in data engineering and data science, and a machine learning senior lead role.

The figures only reflect Labor Department certifications, not final visa approvals or lottery selections. Multiple filings can correspond to a single worker. And while Q1 numbers offer a preliminary snapshot, annual tallies could also vary based on hiring cycles or other factors.

Trump's administration has made some major changes to the H-1B program, including a $100,000 fee unveiled late last September, social media vetting requirements, and a wage-based lottery system that gives the highest-paid applicants a better chance in the annual H-1B lottery.

The H-1B lottery, which took place last month, is typically when the lion's share of applications are filed. When those filings are released, the impact of Trump's policy will be made clearer. Immigration lawyers previously told Business Insider that constant policy shifts and uncertainty are causing many corporations to curb their sponsorship of work visas.

The dip in filings also comes as fear is rising about generative AI's potential impact on white-collar workforces, especially technical workers, who are often among the main targets of H-1B-sponsored hiring.

• Deutsche Bank is projecting 19% earnings growth for the first quarter, surpassing estimates.
• Elevated oil prices and AI sector growth are driving strong earnings in tech and energy, it said.
• However, investor concerns persist despite Deutsche Bank's optimistic outlook on earnings growth.

First-quarter earnings season is set to kick off next week, and Deutsche Bank says it'll be a doozy.

The bank is eyeing 19% year-over-year earnings growth — above the Wall Street consensus of 16%, which is already the most bullish level in four years.

In a client note on Thursday, the bank cited a few tailwinds for its uber upbeat outlook:

• Elevated oil prices will be a boon for energy-sector earnings — to the tune of 10.3% growth in Q1, compared with 2.2% in Q4
• AI beneficiaries like Nvidia and Micron should see strong earnings growth, as should the broader mega-cap tech stocks. Financial sector earnings should also grow by almost double to 20%
• A rising ISM manufacturing index that is now indicating economic expansion, and earnings for industrial cyclical stocks will grow from 2.8% in Q4 to 7.9% in Q1
• A depreciating US dollar, which they think will boost earnings by 4.1 percentage points as foreign buyers have more purchasing power for US goods and services
• Earnings in the materials sector should keep pace at 30% growth, thanks to rising metals prices

While Deutsche Bank has adopted a rosy view of the coming earnings performance, investors don't seem convinced yet, it said. On the contrary, they seem worried about underwhelming results, thanks to factors like the war in Iran and the AI scare earlier this year.

"Equity investor positioning meanwhile is significantly underweight and in line with an imminent collapse in earnings growth," Binky Chadha, the bank's chief US equity strategist, said in the note. "Positioning is notably low for sectors in the market cross hairs currently, like Financials and Tech, especially Software."

Historically, earnings growth and investor positioning have been moderately correlated, indicating a rare disconnect between the two.

• Meta's release of its Muse Spark AI model has sent downloads of its AI app soaring.
• Muse Spark is the first model released by Meta Superintelligence Labs.
• Meta has spent billions leading up to this moment.

This is exactly the spark Mark Zuckerberg was hoping for.

According to Sensor Tower's estimates, Meta AI reached an all-time high in daily web visitors in the US. Meta's iOS AI app saw roughly 46,000 downloads, an 87% day-over-day increase in downloads on the US Apple App Store.

As of Thursday evening, Meta's AI assistant and glasses app is No. 6 among the most-downloaded free apps, a major improvement from its average rank of 65 in the previous month.

The market intelligence firm said the surge went beyond the US.

"The excitement surrounding Meta AI's new AI Model, Muse Spark, wasn't limited to the US as downloads of the app on iOS in Canada, the UK, France and Germany soared 51%, 32%, 27% and 25% day-over-day, respectively," Sensor Tower wrote in a report.

Muse Spark is the first AI model released by Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta invested billions in its AI buildout, including a $14 billion investment in Scale AI, which led it to poach Scale AI's cofounder, Alexandr Wang. Top Wall Street analysts were also pleased, which sent Meta's shares higher.

"Muse Spark is the first step on our scaling ladder and the first product of a ground-up overhaul of our AI efforts," Meta said in a release.

Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower, told Business Insider that, before Thursday, Meta's AI app hadn't cracked the top 10 of the US Apple App Store in more than 90 days. Its highest ever ranking, No. 2, came on April 30, 2025, around the time of its launch.

Meta's surge demonstrates how AI companies are increasingly using viral moments to make a dent in the consumer generative AI market, which is dominated by OpenAI's ChatGPT. On Wednesday, OpenAI said ChatGPT has 900 million weekly users.

Anthropic's Claude, one of OpenAI's chief rivals, briefly stole ChatGPT's US Apple App Store crown on the heels of an outpouring of public support following the Pentagon's decision to effectively blacklist Anthropic.

Overall, AI continues to dominate the App Store. Of the top 6 most-downloaded free apps, four are AI-related.

Meta is 6th, Google Gemini is 5th, and Anthropic's Claude is 3rd. ChatGPT lost its crown again and is in 2nd, though this time it's behind Augusta National's The Masters Tournament App, home of exclusive coverage of golf's first major. The first round in the quest for the famed Green Jacket began on Thursday.

• Pegasus California School has been the focus of a federal investigation and a blistering audit.
• It has claimed it was founded with the backing of the California education department.
• The state says that's not true and demanded it stop.

California's education department has demanded that a Chinese boarding school stop claiming it was founded with the "blessing and support" of the agency following a Business Insider report.

Pegasus California School is a private high school in Qingdao that costs thousands of dollars to attend and promises admittance to top U.S. universities. The school was the subject of a federal investigation and scathing county audit prompted by a 2021 Business Insider story on its ties to a California school district and state education officials.

The audit released last month by the Riverside County Office of Education found "sufficient evidence" of "fraud, misappropriation of funds, or other illegal fiscal practices," and referred its findings to the county prosecutor and other authorities.

Last month, Business Insider asked the California Department of Education about a claim on the Pegasus website that it was founded "with the blessing and support of the California Department of Education, to become the first and only high school in China that offers authentic California education." The website also describes how Pegasus offers its students a "true California-style instruction."

In response, the state agency sent a cease-and-desist letter in late March to the school, China's top market regulator, and the U.S. China Business Council.

California's Business and Professions Code Section "makes it unlawful for a non-governmental entity to use a state government name in a manner that could reasonably be interpreted as implying connection, approval, or endorsement by the state government," Len Garfinkel, the department's general counsel, wrote in the letter.

"You are on notice that the California Department of Education is not connected to, does not approve and does not endorse Pegasus California School," Garfinkel added.

Following Business Insider's inquiry, Steven Ma, Pegasus California School's founder, said that he has asked the school's administration to begin updating the website.

Pegasus changed the English version of its website to say that it was founded "with the blessing and support from the former California State Superintendent of Public Instruction." As of Thursday, it still mentioned the department on the Chinese version of the site, saying it was "authorized by the then-Secretary of Education of the California Department of Education."

Ma told Business Insider that the school administrator told him that "there is not a direct equivalent to the role of 'State Superintendent of Public Instruction' within the Chinese provincial governmental structure. As a result, in translation, it may have been rendered more generally as 'head of the California education department.'"

He added that, "the school will continue its review of all public-facing materials to ensure that language across different versions is clear, consistent, and does not create any potential for misunderstanding."

A California Department of Education spokesperson told Business Insider that "we're looking into this latest update."

Business Insider's 2021 investigation revealed that current and former state officials — including Tom Torlakson, who at the time was the state superintendent of public instruction, and David Long, a former California education secretary — worked closely with Pegasus' founder, a businessman named Steven Ma, to set up the school.

Wealthy Chinese students who attended Pegasus enjoyed perks that included California high school diplomas from the Val Verde Unified School District and a leg up in the cutthroat University of California admission process, the reporting found.

Torlakson, for a time, was also listed on Pegasus' website as the school's chief principal. "Going forward, I will use my personal connections in our education communities to promote Pegasus California School," a message attributed to him on the site said.

In response to that report, the California Department of Education in 2021 referred the matter to the state Attorney General's office and the Fair Political Practices Commission.

A spokesperson said it was "imperative that these serious allegations of misuse of state funds and conflict of interest during or after," Torlakson's term be reviewed by the appropriate outside agencies.

The recent audit found evidence that Torlakson and Long may have received benefits related to Pegasus.

For instance, the audit found that Ma, through his college consulting company ThinkTank Learning, made $13,600 in political contributions to Torlakson's 2014 campaign to be elected as superintendent. The auditors cited that as "evidence of potential bribes and/ or kickbacks."

The report also found that Torlakson's office had "raised concerns about representations that the CDE would partner or endorse official California schools in foreign countries."

Torlakson was unavailable to comment, according to a family member.

Ma previously said that "any political contributions referenced were lawful, publicly disclosed, and not connected to any official actions. I have never participated in or been aware of any bribery, kickbacks, or improper arrangements."

As recently as 2024, according to Pegasus' WeChat channel, UC Irvine offered a summer school program specifically tailored to its students.

Sheri Ledbetter, a UC Irvine spokesperson, confirmed that Pegasus students visited UC Irvine as part of a two-week international high school program, which included students from several international institutions.

"We no longer host international minors as part of UC Irvine's continuing education programs, and do not have a continuing relationship with Pegasus," Ledbetter said.

On the Pegasus website, Ma is described as a member of the University of California Regents Selection Committee. In one post, referencing Ma's UC affiliation, students were encouraged to meet with him to learn application strategies and secure offers from top U.S. universities.

"To our knowledge, he's not on such a committee," Stett Holbrook, associate director of strategic and critical communications for the University of California Office of the President, told Business Insider in response to Ma's claim.

"The University of California does not convene a Regents selection advisory committee," Holbrook added.

Ma told Business Insider that "To the extent any wording on the Pegasus website could be interpreted as suggesting a formal or ongoing committee role, that language will be reviewed and clarified as appropriate."

While Pegasus marketed itself as a California high school in China, Business Insider previously reported that it failed to receive accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, which accredits California schools, and it also didn't offer the "A-G course list," a program of courses required for California students to gain admittance to UC schools.

In 2018, Evera Spears, a former associate director for the University of California's Office of the President, contacted the admissions directors at all nine undergraduate UC campuses to remind them that Pegasus was "not WASC accredited; does not have a UC A-G Course List." She added that any Pegasus students accepted into any of the UC schools must be designated an "Admission by Exception," the system's term for students who show promise but don't meet the admission requirements.

A few months later, the director of admissions for UC Santa Barbara wrote to Spears that "It's off putting that they are using terms like A-G Approved course list," and that "I feel badly for families who can easily be led to believe that this program is endorsed by the UC system."

Pegasus continues to claim online that it offers "California's A-G curriculum."

Do you have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at neinbinder@businessinsider.com or Signal at neinbinder.70. Use a personal email address, a nonwork device, and nonwork WiFi; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Anna Noelle Rinke, cofounder of Homebody Studios, left her corporate job after feeling burnt out.
• Now that she's a boss, she said she feels like she can say "no," and has autonomy in structuring her schedule.
• She said she now works longer, but doesn't mind because she feels aligned with the work.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Anna Noelle Rinke, the 30-year-old Austin-based founder of Homebody Studios. Her previous employment and identity have been verified by Business Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I have an engineering background, and I worked in tech for the first portion of my career. I started an AI software company that was part of IBM's intrapreneur program. It made me realize I love entrepreneurship, but I wanted to learn a lot more. And then I was most recently a chief of staff to a major venture investor in Austin.

I absolutely loved the job. We were running a million miles a minute and I went into this job knowing it would be very intense and "on" all the time. But I was not getting enough sleep. I was not eating full meals. And I was putting more stress on myself than was even necessary.

I felt like if I continued to treat my body this way, there would be some repercussions. I was a cog in the machine that was an incredible company, but I got burned out.

Roughly 18 months ago, I left my job in venture capital and started a Pilates brand.

I've been a Pilates lover for seven years, and after I quit, it was the first time in my life I could explore it in a deeper way. I never had the time previously to get any form of fitness certification and I did that after quitting and fell in love. I started teaching privately and then I met my founder at a Pilates class.

She was the director of marketing at a fashion brand, already had a Pilates studio, and knew how to build a brand. I have the operational background and already founded a startup. I knew how to run a team and scale.

So we decided to come together. It was weird to go from working in such technical areas to telling everyone that I'm doing Pilates now. It was a big shift — and a big ego death.

I don't have to always say "yes"

We opened our first location in November 2024, and we now have four. I took a lot of lessons from my time in corporate about how to communicate effectively and approach systems and teams. We're scaling like a tech company — but still maintaining our health and relationships and the important things along the way.

The workload is more than I had before, but it's different. My cofounder and I can make the call if we want to say "yes" or "no."

If an event or brand deal comes up but we've been back-to-back for weeks, it's up to us to have the discernment to say, "Is this really worth it? Is this more important than our health and our option to rest right now?"

When I was an employee at a company, I had free will to say "no," but my nature was to say "yes." Now as a leader, I'm leaning into slowing down. I'm also thinking about my team and not wanting them to experience the things that I had to put myself through.

As a cofounder, I also have the autonomy to run an errand in the middle of the day. As an employee, you can't do that, unless it's part of the company culture, which it's usually not. I also have the autonomy to eat a full meal in between meetings, rather than just a protein bar. I'm able to balance health and relationships with my work.

It doesn't feel like work

At my AI startup, I worked roughly nine-hour days. The chief of staff job was typically 12 hours, although we had a light season, so I would work eight-hour days during the summer.

Now I work about 10 hours on weekdays, but sometimes it can creep to 12, and other times it's only six. That includes me taking a class, though, where I'm still kind of working. I also work on weekends, about four or five hours a day, unless we have an event and it's more.

A lot of days, I finish up at 6 p.m., eat dinner, and go back on my computer until bed. We have studios in Texas and California, so we work across multiple time zones.

I feel so aligned with what I'm doing right now that it doesn't feel like work. I feel like I always heard people say that and I didn't understand. I love what I do so much and I love seeing how we're helping people with their mental and physical goals. I could work 20 hours a day and it wouldn't drain me.

To feel so rewarded by work always felt like such a fairy tale — honestly like propaganda — but it's real once you feel like you're doing something that you're meant to be doing.

• US EV sales are plummeting, with a 27% drop in Q1 2026, per Cox Automotive.
• Model Y sales jumped 23%, helping Tesla maintain a 54% US market share.
• Toyota's US EV sales increased, while Ford and VW faced steep declines.

It's a bloodbath.

New first-quarter 2026 EV sales estimates from Cox Automotive show the US electric-vehicle market shrinking sharply, with total sales down 27% year over year to about 216,000 units.

Nearly every major automaker posted steep declines, underscoring how brutal the market has become without federal incentives.

The broader takeaway is stark. Without subsidies, most EV makers don't have the scale to turn a profit in the US and are losing ground fast. Tesla's scale continues to translate into dominance, while rivals face a brutal reality: in this market, volume isn't just an advantage, it's survival.

The only standouts from Cox Automotive's report were Tesla, which sold a lot more Model Y vehicles and retained strong market share, and Toyota, which grew from a small base.

Ford's EV sales plunged 70%, BMW fell more than 60%, and Volkswagen collapsed nearly 90%. Honda pulled an EV from the US market recently, and VW killed its last EV in this market.

Even previously aggressive players such as Hyundai were essentially flat, while Nissan and Mercedes saw demand evaporate. The pattern is clear: low volume and high costs are crushing legacy automakers' EV ambitions.

There were only a few bright spots.

Toyota stood out, albeit from a small base. Its EV sales jumped about 79% year over year to roughly 10,000 units, boosting its market share to 4.6%. General Motors, through Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC, held on to more than 10% of the US market.

Tesla, meanwhile, remains in a league of its own. The company sold 117,300 EVs in Q1, giving it a commanding 54% share of the US market. While Tesla's overall sales fell 8%, the Model Y was a standout, with deliveries rising nearly 23% to almost 79,000 units in the first quarter — by far the best-selling EV in the US.

It's not all positive news for Tesla. The company has been hit hard by a slowing overall demand for electric vehicles. Despite Tesla's March report of a 6% increase in global sales in the first quarter, the company missed Wall Street expectations.

Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Higher gas prices at the pump could mean demand for EVs recovers. We'll see when the Q2 numbers come in.

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

• Amazon's Project Houdini modularizes main server rooms, expediting AWS data center buildouts.
• Project Houdini expects to save weeks of construction time and tens of thousands of labor hours.
• Bottlenecks are slowing the expansion of AI infrastructure as demand surges.

Amazon is trying to radically speed up the time it takes to build the data centers powering the AI boom.

Inside the company, an initiative known as Project Houdini — a nod to the escape artist — aims to move much of the construction process into factories, turning the core server room into a set of large, preassembled modules, according to internal documents obtained by Business Insider.

The goal is to accelerate how quickly Amazon Web Services can bring new computing capacity online, a priority that has taken on new urgency as AI demand surges and bottlenecks limit availability.

The company expects the Houdini approach to cut months off data center construction timelines and eliminate tens of thousands of on-site labor hours, according to the documents from earlier this year.

"Given the need for accelerated DC delivery," one document said, referring to data centers, "we have been exploring solutions to take various DC build scopes to a factory setting."

The push reflects a growing constraint across the cloud industry. The AI boom has forced cloud providers to expand infrastructure at an unprecedented pace. Amazon alone is expected to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures this year, much of it tied to AWS data centers.

In his annual shareholder letter on Thursday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company still has "capacity constraints that yield unserved demand."

But building these huge facilities remains slow and complex. From securing power, AI chips, and labor, to the growth of NIMBY-ism and the challenge of assembling thousands of components on-site, the construction process is being slowed — no matter how much cloud giants commit to spend.

Houdini is Amazon's attempt to ease part of that constraint by reducing construction time. By shifting more work into controlled factory environments, the company can standardize builds, reduce errors, and rely less on local labor markets. Over time, this approach could transform how AWS develops data centers by relocating much of the core construction work off-site.

"Our innovations in data center construction enable us to deliver AI infrastructure faster and at lower cost, which is why customers turn to AWS to run their most demanding workloads," an AWS spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider.

Cutting thousands of labor hours

Today, building a data hall, the main server space inside a data center, is largely a "stick-built" on-site process, according to the documents. Workers install racks, wire power systems, and run cabling in sequence. The process can require 60,000 to 80,000 labor hours and take roughly 15 weeks before servers can be installed, according to the documents.

Houdini flips that model.

Instead of assembling everything on-site, AWS is prebuilding large sections of the data hall, known as "skids," in factories. Each skid arrives with racks, power distribution, cabling, lighting, and fire and security systems already installed.

The modules, roughly the size of a semi-trailer (or about 45 feet long and weighing around 20,000 pounds) are shipped on double-drop trailers, then moved into position and connected together.

The payoff is speed. Internal estimates show AWS can begin installing servers within two to three weeks of construction starting, down from about 15 weeks under traditional methods. The approach can also eliminate up to 50,000 on-site electrician hours, according to the documents.

Amazon expects Houdini to be ready by August and is designing it to support a broader buildout pipeline that could eventually reach more than 100 data centers a year, according to the documents.

A new phase of modular data centers

Modular data centers aren't new. Manufacturers such as Schneider Electric and Vertiv have long offered prefabricated systems, and newer players such as Crusoe are expanding the model for AI workloads.

Houdini pushes that approach further by applying modular construction to larger portions of a hyperscaler's data center, including the core server environment. Amazon owns the design and is working with partners to manufacture it, giving the company tighter control over how modules are built and integrated while standardizing them across its data center fleet.

The approach also makes construction more predictable and less risky. By pre-integrating power and cabling in factories, AWS can reduce reliance on local labor and enable earlier system testing.

AWS is working with Cupertino Electric Inc. to prototype and scale Houdini, with initial module production planned in Topeka, Kansas; Houston, and Salt Lake City. Amazon is also in talks with at least two additional off-site assembly vendors, the documents stated.

Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside, told Business Insider that Houdini appears to be the "latest evolution" of the modular data centers.

The containerized data centers offered by other companies usually target smaller customers and allow greater customization, while the prefabricated skids designed by hyperscalers are likely more uniform and better suited to their needs, he said.

"What may be new is the level of integration, the inclusion of AI servers and the scale at which hyperscalers are applying it," Ren said.

Speed isn't the only constraint

Houdini does not address what many in the industry see as the biggest bottleneck: power.

Securing energy supply, setting up grid connections, and building substations can take years — far longer than the months needed to construct a data center. That has pushed hyperscalers to invest heavily in energy strategies, including on-site generation, natural gas turbines, and nuclear power.

Dimitrios Nikolopoulos, a computer science professor at Virginia Tech, told Business Insider that access to power remains the primary constraint.

"While optimizing the build process to weeks is beneficial, it does not significantly impact the overall time-to-live if grid power is delayed for years," he said.

Still, once power is in place, construction becomes the next bottleneck, determining how quickly capacity can be turned into revenue-generating compute.

Houdini is Amazon's attempt to close that gap.

"This enables us to achieve accelerated build schedules while maintaining quality and cost consistency," one document said.

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• Visa's AI token usage is surging, doubling to nearly 2 trillion a month from 1 trillion in February.
• While that's a far cry from Meta, it's a sign that 'tokenmaxxing' is spreading beyond Big Tech.
• Visa says it's focused on results and rewarding teams who use AI to get things done.

'Tokenmaxxing' — or the controversial practice of showing off how many AI tokens you spend — is taking off outside Silicon Valley.

Visa, the world's largest payments company, is spending 1.9 trillion tokens a month as of March — double the number it recorded in February of this year, the company told Business Insider.

Visa says it's not focused on mere output, but on actual results. It has started rewarding teams who prove they used AI to get things done faster.

"It's about the volume of impact," Visa's president of technology, Rajat Taneja, said.

It's the latest sign that large corporations are aggressively adopting AI internally, with JPMorgan tracking how heavily its employees use AI and IKEA launching an AI sidekick to help its staff brainstorm. Now, businesses are going beyond just tracking AI usage — they are also rewarding employees for it.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest token usage at Visa is taking place in its software engineering department, Taneja said. But AI is taking off in other areas, too.

For example, Visa's marketing division used AI to spin up a new ad showing skiers racing down sunbaked streets in the Amalfi Coast.

Visa's internal AI awards

Visa has started recognizing teams that use AI to supercharge their work.

One team that used Anthropic's Claude Sonnet model to ship a new API in under 6 days won such an award. Teams can choose their own prizes, such as internal company 'points' that can be used to buy things like a coffee maker, Taneja said.

Taneja said Visa employees use various chatbots, with Claude being the most popular right now — though it often swaps places with OpenAI's ChatGPT. Google's Gemini is also a popular option internally, he noted.

Visas says 89% of its employees are active AI users, and 44% are what it considers power users: that means averaging at least 25 prompts per day for 15 days a month.

How much is a trillion tokens?

The trillion-token milestone is a notable one for a company outside Silicon Valley. However, within AI-land, burning through that high a number has become routine.

Meta employees burned through 60 trillion tokens in a month, according to a recent report in The Information.

A single developer at AI coding startup Cognition also surpassed the one-trillion mark for all-time usage, according to a photo he posted of an OpenAI certificate he received for the distinction.

Still, Visa's token-touting shows that burning tokens is a flex that isn't limited to frontier tech companies anymore.

People working in different industries might want to take notice.

"This shift is once-in-a-lifetime — bigger than any technology in the past," Taneja said.

• Coatue Management's Thomas Laffont likes the idea of recording and analyzing meetings to flag worrying behavior.
• The hedge fund leader told TBPN that recording meetings would lead to a "better world," though it would likely hurt morale.
• Ray Dalio's Bridgewater famously tried recording meetings in the past in an effort to boost transparency.

In the era of Zoom calls and hybrid work, white-collar workers are used to being on camera. Whether their employer should analyze the footage is another question.

Thomas Laffont, cofounder of the hedge fund giant Coatue Management, made his case for the idea on TBPN this week: "I believe that meetings should be recorded."

Laffont said that while a compliance department might say "we can't have meetings being recorded because it creates a paper trail," doing so would lead to a "better world."

Laffont referenced two hypothetical scenarios with a bad actor. In the first, meetings are not recorded, and someone speaks out a decade later to say there was a "pattern of deception" but that "nothing happened."

In the second, meetings are recorded. When the individual acts poorly, they get an email from the compliance system. The next time, they get flagged to human resources.

"I would much rather live in world number two," Laffont said. "You know what the problem is. There's a system."

Laffont presented the idea as merely a theory: "Let's not even talk about Coatue specifically," he told the TBPN hosts. When Business Insider asked whether Coatue Management records its meetings, the hedge fund declined to comment.

Evan Fray-Witzer, an employment lawyer from Boston, said that the legality of Laffont's idea would vary state by state, but that it would likely be legal if employees were notified in advance as a "condition of employment." How such recordings would be kept could present another issue, Fray-Witzer said, as storing confidential information in the cloud could create compliance problems.

Laffont didn't seem intent on the idea of storing the calls, and drew a distinction between transcription and recording. He wasn't looking for a database of all the call transcripts, he said. Instead, he wanted key takeaways, what was agreed upon, and whether anything was done in violation of compliance.

"I like the option of deleting," he said.

Fray-Witzer also said that there were many reasons not to record your employees on a strategic level, not a legal one.

"It'll probably be horrible for employee morale," he said. "It just has such a Big Brother feel to it."

Ray Dalio, the founder of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, was famously a fan of keeping logs, with the firm recording meetings and playing them back to employees in the 2010s. Bridgewater later began taping and keeping fewer meetings, Rob Copeland wrote in his book "The Fund," on the recommendation of former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick.

Laffont also noted analytics systems were getting better. "They're going to be able to look at your WhatsApp and your messages and your emails and all of your calls and they're going to be able to say, 'Hey, by the way, don't say this,'" he said.

Many employees are already recording their meetings — not to document bad actors, but to keep notes. AI notetaking agents are all the rage in Zoom and Teams calls, spawning a cottage industry.

Laffont said the idea wouldn't necessarily be to only penalize employees presenting problematic behavior; the goal would be to set them on a better path.

"Maybe that person, if they had gotten that first warning, might have realized: 'Oh wait, you're right, I'm being abusive,'" he said.

Should meetings be recorded? Take our survey

• As Americans focus more on wellness, the beverage industry is changing.
• Drinks are now laden with healthful ingredients like fiber, protein, adaptogens, and nootropics.
• The growing functional beverage segment has brands battling to keep up with demand.

Walk into a grocery store or scroll TikTok, and it's increasingly hard to find a beverage that's just a beverage. Instead, cans and powders promise everything from better sleep to sharper thinking to improved digestion, often all at once.

The global functional beverage market was worth about $208 billion in 2024 and is projected to more than double over the next decade, according to Zion Market Research. As the category explodes, so does the competition — and the number of ingredients and promises brands are cramming into every sip.

"It's like a smorgasbord of beverages," Michael Della Penna, chief strategy officer at InMarket, told Business Insider as the trend's momentum accelerated late last year. "There's one for hydration, one for health, and one for fun."

That shift is being driven in part by younger consumers, who are turning their daily beverages into a kind of DIY wellness routine, each serving a different purpose: protein coffee in the morning, a fiber soda in the afternoon, and a nootropic or adaptogen blend at night.

Much of that experimentation is being fueled by social media, where wellness trends spread quickly and consumers are encouraged to constantly try new routines.

"There's a lot of different botanicals and adaptogens and ways they can affect you," said Jon Kreidler, cofounder of Tattersall Distilling, which launched its first line of functional beverages in November. "I think that's where this next wave is headed: maybe this one's gonna help your gut, or help your mind in general; calm you down, relax you."

Less than six months after launching, Tattersall's functional beverage sales now account for about 10% of its business.

Celebrities are helping accelerate the segment. Dwayne Johnson's ZOA Energy leans into vitamins, antioxidants, and natural caffeine, while Kylie Jenner has expanded her Sprinter brand into hydration powders with collagen and electrolytes, and Snoop Dogg has entered the space with hemp-infused beverages aimed at relaxation.

Their involvement underscores how quickly functional beverages have moved from niche wellness products to mainstream — and highly marketable — lifestyle brands.

Reshaping not only what people drink, but why they drink at all

Across more than a dozen interviews, analysts, founders, and operators pointed to a broader cultural shift that accelerated during the pandemic — one in which consumers became more focused on health, more skeptical of traditional systems, and more interested in taking control of their own well-being.

"I think the pandemic really helped a lot of people wake up to the fact that how they take care of their bodies defines their reality," said Yasmin Santos, founder of the functional herbal tincture brand Altar Native.

That shift is also playing out in declining alcohol consumption, particularly among younger consumers, and the rise of alternatives designed to deliver similar social or emotional effects without the downsides.

"What we're seeing is people still want to feel something," Kreidler said. "They still want to be a part and partake and have something adult, but just are kind of fed up with the hangovers."

Functional beverages are increasingly stepping in to fill that gap — whether through THC-infused drinks, calming adaptogens, or "herbal mixology" concepts that blend traditional plant remedies with modern formats.

At the same time, the category is becoming more crowded — and more competitive. Big players are already moving in: Starbucks doubling down on its line of protein drinks, PepsiCo's $2 billion acquisition of prebiotic soda brand Poppi, and Coca-Cola's functional launches, such as its gut health product Simply Pop, signal that legacy companies see the space as a major growth opportunity.

The road to scale isn't easy

For smaller brands, scaling remains a challenge. Santos said manufacturing requirements and regulatory hurdles can quickly become barriers, especially for products using newer or less understood ingredients.

"I had to switch manufacturers," she said, after discovering her original partner wasn't certified for broader retail distribution. The new setup required minimum orders "10 times" larger, forcing her to rethink her business.

There's also uncertainty around certain ingredients themselves, as simple "better-for-you" swaps, like low-sugar sodas or probiotic drinks, evolved into increasingly complex formulations. Today's functional beverages often combine tried-and-true ingredients like protein and fiber with less rigorously studied ones, like adaptogens, nootropics, and cannabinoids, each targeting a specific outcome.

Some plant-based compounds, such as kava or kanna, fall into regulatory gray areas and have already faced restrictions on certain marketplaces, Santos said. Others require extensive independent testing to support any claims.

Whether all of those benefits hold up scientifically remains an open question, but that hasn't slowed the pace of innovation. If anything, the pressure to stand out is accelerating it. Brands are layering in more ingredients, targeting more use cases, and expanding into new formats, including powders and tinctures, as well as ready-to-drink cans and coffee additives.

"We're moving from a reactive health culture to a proactive health culture," John Wiseman, the founder and CEO of Curious Elixirs, a line of adaptogen-blended alcohol alternatives, said, as more people look for ways to support their bodies before problems arise. "I don't see that slowing down; I see that accelerating."

The modern beverage isn't just about quenching thirst. It's about optimizing everything else, too.

• Nations across the world are taking steps to mitigate the impact of oil price spikes.
• These include flexible working arrangements and reducing non-essential journeys.
• Countries heavily reliant on Middle Eastern oil are particularly vulnerable to the war's impact.

Governments around the world are urging people to cut back on energy use amid surging oil prices.

Last month, Brent crude, the global benchmark, climbed above $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022, and has hovered around that price.

The spike follows attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz since the outbreak of the US war on Iran and strikes on gas-related infrastructure, raising fears of prolonged disruptions to a route that carries roughly 20% of the world's supply chain.

In response, countries are rolling out measures to conserve fuel and protect domestic supplies. Thailand, for example, has said it will halt fuel exports to maintain its own energy demands, while other countries are asking citizens to pare back their consumption.

Here are some of the steps governments and international organizations are telling people to take.

International Energy Agency

The International Energy Agency, one of the world's most important energy groups, has issued 10 measures it says governments, businesses, and consumers can take immediately to help ease the impact of disruptions in oil markets.

These include working from home, avoiding air travel, and encouraging the use of electric cooking equipment.

Other steps include reducing highway speed limits by at least six miles per hour, car sharing, cutting air travel, and using public transport more.

The IEA said in the report that "the demand-side measures highlighted in the report cannot match the scale of disrupted supply."

However, it said "they can play a meaningful role in lowering costs for consumers, reducing markets strains and preserving fuels for essential uses until normal flows resume."

European Commission

The European Commission has urged people to follow the IEA's advice to work from home and to drive and fly less, warning of an extended energy crisis caused by the conflict in the Middle East.

The EU's 27 energy ministers met in late March to discuss the situation, after which energy chief Dan Jørgensen addressed reporters and shared the advice.

Going forward, Jørgensen also advised member countries to continue their efforts to expand renewable energy.

"Even if ... peace is here tomorrow, still we will not go back to normal in the foreseeable future," he said, Politico reported.

Philippines

The Philippines has taken several measures in order to bring down energy use, including a four-day workweek for government staff and orders to cut the use of electricity and fuel costs in government agencies.

Government offices were told in early March to implement flexible working arrangements where practical, turn off lights and computers during lunch breaks, and adjust air conditioning unit thermostats to no lower than 75 degrees.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a video message that the four-day workweek would be temporary and does not include emergency services.

"With the expected global oil price increase, the government is preparing measures to reduce its impact on Filipino families," the Facebook caption for the video said.

The Philippines is vulnerable to disruptions caused by the conflict, as it "relies on the Middle East for almost 90% of its oil supply," according to ING Think.

On March 18, Marcos said that the country is seeking alternative sources of petroleum products and asked the public not to worry.

"We are trying to find different methods to provide subsidies to give assistance," said Marcos in a press address. "The problem is that oil prices are very volatile. We can't anticipate them. So we are still adjusting right now."

Australia

Two Australian states are offering some free public transit.

Victoria — including its capital city, Melbourne — is offering complimentary trains, trams, and buses from March 31 through April 30, according to the Department of Transport and Planning's website, Transport Victoria.

Tasmania, the island state south of Victoria, has waived bus and ferry fees, effective March 30, Premier Jeremy Rockliff said. The free bus service will run through July 30.

Tasmanian officials said in the announcement that they'd seen a 20% increase in public transit usage in the last week as gas pump prices rose.

"Localized demand is absolutely putting pressure on supply," Jacinta Allan, the Victorian Premier, said during an interview on Channel 7. "We might not be able to control those global oil prices. What we can control and support is cost-of-living measures right now."

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also halved the fuel tax nationwide for three months, while saying Australia's oil supply remains steady.

While no official rationing has been implemented in the country, local media in at least two states have reported that some fuel stations implemented purchase restrictions since early March.

In comments to the media on March 9, Australia's energy minister Chris Bowen said that there is no shortage of fuel in Australia, but there are "some supply chain issues which are really being caused by a spike in demand of people seeking to buy extra diesel."

United Kingdom

The president of the AA, the UK's largest motoring organization, advised drivers on March 9 that although they "should not change their refuelling habits," they could "consider cutting out some non-essential journeys and changing their driving style to conserve fuel."

Edmund King, AA's president, added: "Any time Brent Crude passes 100 dollars per barrel raises concern across the markets, for the haulage industry and drivers.

"There will be gradual increases in pump prices, but this shouldn't happen overnight as fuel has been purchased at previous prices."

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, said that the government would support citizens during the oil price spike.

"No matter the headwinds, supporting working people and their families with the cost of living is always top of my mind," he said.

Thailand

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul urged citizens not to stockpile fuel. His comments came after long lines formed at gas stations across the country.

In early March, Anutin and the country's energy minister gave assurances that the diesel price would be capped for at least 15 days. He said that the Commerce Ministry was closely monitoring oil prices to prevent customer exploitation.

"Stockpiling fuel is dangerous. If you store it at home, it could accidentally cause fire — it could lead to all sorts of problems," he said. "There is no need to do that today."

India

The Indian government invoked emergency powers on March 10 to divert liquefied petroleum gas supplies away from industrial users and toward households.

This was an expansion of previous measures. On March 9, India ordered oil refineries to produce more LPG and said it was prioritizing that supply for households.

India's Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said in a tweet on March 10 that non-domestic supplies from imported LPG were being prioritized for essential sectors, such as hospitals and educational institutions.

Vietnam

Vietnam has urged local businesses to encourage employees to work from home in order to save fuel.

This comes after the country said it would remove tariffs on fuel imports.

Pakistan

Pakistan has ordered measures to conserve fuel and reduce government spending, including implementing a four-day work week, having half of public sector employees work from home, and closing schools for two weeks.

Other measures include pausing salaries for cabinet ministers and cutting government spending by 20%, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced on March 10.

On March 22, the South Asian country ordered fans to watch a popular cricket tournament, the Pakistan Super League, from home because of the fuel shortage. Normally, 30,000 fans would pack stadiums.

"We decided that as long as this crisis is ongoing, we will not have crowds at matches," the country's interior minister and head of the national cricket board, Mohsin Naqvi, said at a press conference.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka made Wednesdays a public holiday to conserve fuel as the country braces for potential fuel shortages, according to the BBC.

"We must prepare for the worst, but hope for the best," President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said on March 9.

The shortened workweek will apply to schools and universities, but "essential" services like hospitals will keep the lights on.

Denmark

Denmark is urging citizens to reduce fuel.

"What the Danes should please, please, please do is that if there is any energy consumption that you can do without, if it is not strictly necessary to drive the car, then don't do it," Lars Aagaard, Denmark's energy and utilities minister, said during an interview with a local broadcaster on March 11.

"Firstly, it can be felt in the private wallet, and secondly, it can help stretch our reserves so that they last longer," Aagaard added.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh's university students got an early start to their Ramadan holidays, thanks to fuel conservation measures.

The country announced by mid-March that main colleges could cancel classes until later in the month. The government has shut down campuses completely to save electricity and has started imposing temporary blackouts for other facilities.

Egypt

Egypt is enforcing some lifestyle changes to conserve gas and oil.

For a country that is used to shopping and dining well into the night, malls, restaurants, and retailers are being asked to shut down at 9 p.m. on weekdays starting on March 28.

The country also announced plans to turn off illuminated billboards and reduce public lighting, and to close government buildings by 6 p.m.

Spain

Spain's government has approved a $5.8 billion aid package to ease the economic effects of the war in the Middle East, Bloomberg reported.

The plan includes reducing VAT on electricity and gas from 21% to 10%, slashing the special electricity tax from 5% to 0.5%, and suspending the tax on electricity production, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.

A 20-cent-per-liter subsidy is being introduced for transport operators, farmers, and fishmongers, while the government plans to cover 80% of electricity-grid charges for energy-intensive industries.

Germany

Germany's government said it could launch a fuel price package to address surging costs.

"Petrol stations in Germany will soon be allowed to increase their fuel prices only once a day, namely at 12 noon, while price reductions will be permitted at any time," the government said in a press release.

The government said the price of gas changes "up to 22 times a day, which equates to a huge lack of transparency for motorists and commuters."

Those who violate the ban could be fined up to 100,000 euros. The package also includes a measure to release more oil reserves.

"The coalition parties want to submit the package to the Bundestag immediately, with the aim of introducing the new regulations before Easter, if possible," the government said.

Indonesia

Indonesia's government said it would ration fuel supplies to lessen the shock of soaring prices, AFP reported on March 31.

"To ensure fuel distribution, the government will regulate purchases ... with a reasonable limit of 50 litres per vehicle" per day for private consumers, said Airlangga Hartarto, the coordinating minister of economic affairs, according to the publication.

The government also ordered all civil servants to work from home, Hartarto said.

Indonesia heavily subsidizes fuel costs, but the budget was based on a global oil price of $70 per barrel, far below current levels.

South Korea

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung urged his nation's citizens to "save every drop of fuel," warning that crisis won't be over soon.

"I earnestly appeal to all citizens to actively participate in energy-saving movements in daily lives, such as taking public transportation and conserving electricity," Lee said during an address to the National Assembly, according to a Bloomberg News translation of his remarks. "The current crisis is not a passing shower that quickly subsides, but rather a massive storm whose duration is uncertain, making it all the more severe."

Lee urged lawmakers to quickly pass a proposed 26.2 trillion won ($17 billion) spending plan that will help cushion the blow of rising fuel prices. More than 10 trillion won of the plan is set to address high energy costs, Bloomberg reported.

"If we save every drop of fuel, avoid wasting even a single plastic bag, and add a spirit of mutual consideration and collective resolve, we can emerge from the tunnel of crisis safely and swiftly," Lee said.

Singapore

Singapore directed all government offices and facilities to set their air conditioners at 25 degrees Celsius, about 77 Fahrenheit, or higher as part of energy conservation measures.

In a statement on April 8, the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment and the National Environment Agency also asked offices to unplug non-essential equipment and appliances when not in use.

The two agencies said that they would speed up the installation of smart sensors and appliances with the highest energy-efficiency ratings. They called on businesses and households to take similar steps.

• A home editor tested the viral Hulken rolling tote bag on busy sidewalks and the subway.
• The Hulken solves a real problem better than most alternatives and holds up well over time.
• Buy 2 Hulken rolling tote bags to save 19% on your order. Plus, three budget-friendly alternatives.

If you regularly haul groceries, laundry, or heavy bags, the Hulken isn't just convenient; it can actually replace the need to carry anything at all. After weeks of testing it across errands, laundromat trips, and uneven sidewalks, the appeal is simple: it carries more than a typical cart, rolls smoother than cheaper alternatives, and won't fall apart after a few months. But at over $100, it's a serious upgrade, not an impulse buy.

The question isn't what the Hulken does. It's whether it's worth paying two to three times more than a standard cart. Here's who should actually buy the Hulken heavy-duty rolling tote bag and who shouldn't — and a couple of cheaper alternatives if you decide it's more than you need.

What the Hulken does better than cheaper carts

The Hulken sits somewhere between a tote bag and a utility cart. That hybrid design is exactly why it works. Unlike traditional wire shopping carts, the Hulken uses a structured, flexible body that can expand to fit bulky items without tipping over. During my testing, it handled multiple grocery bags, awkwardly-shaped boxes, and my KitchenAid stand mixer without needing to be carefully balanced.

The wheels are another standout. On cracked sidewalks and crowded streets, it rolls smoothly and quietly, without the rattling or resistance you get from cheaper carts. That matters more than you'd expect, especially on long walks.

Where the Hulken really earns its price is durability. Cheaper carts bend, wobble, or break at stress points over time. The Hulken is built to take repeated heavy loads without degrading, which makes the higher upfront cost easy to justify if you'll use it often.

The Hulken is expensive, but it solves a real problem better than most alternatives and holds up well over time.

What I love about the Hulken

It's really spacious.

My first task for the Hulken was to schlep a plethora of products I had to test from Business Insider's offices downtown back to my apartment on the Upper West Side. I managed to fit an entire microwave, a Le Creuset braiser, and a set of sheets into the Hulken with room to spare. I had put off lugging these items home for weeks, so I was delighted that they all fit so easily into one Hulken trip.

The wheels are small but glide super smoothly and its handles are generous enough that I don't have to bend or dip to hold them.

Unlike most grocery carts, the Hulken is pulled instead of pushed, which takes some getting used to. I find I have the most control when using the two side handles to roll it alongside me instead of pulling it behind me.

At 5'11", I was also worried that I'd have to hunch to reach the handles comfortably. Fortunately, the fit is pretty much perfect for my reach; I can walk at full posture while pulling it, which is very good news for my back.

It easily navigates the diverse (and sometimes treacherous) terrain of the city.

On my initial journey with the Hulken, I took it down a cobblestone street, up and down subway stairs and escalators, onto the subway during rush hour, and over the litter-strewn streets of my neighborhood. Since then, I've taken it to Trader Joe's, the farmers market, Central Park, on the bus, and to the laundromat.

The Hulken fits on a single escalator step, so I just roll it right on and off and never have to lift and balance it. I also love that it's the perfect height to glide under the subway turnstile — it skirts right under the bars behind me.

The handles are reinforced and so sturdy.

The most daunting part of traveling with a fully loaded Hulken is lifting it up and down stairs. While it's definitely a workout, the handles feel super sturdy. Hulken claims they're "unbreakable," and I can confirm they didn't show any signs of budging while supporting about 40 pounds of weight.

The zipper top helps keep things dry and clean.

Look, the city can be really gross, and the last thing I want is for a pigeon to crap directly into my bag of groceries or some kid to drop their Mister Softee cone onto my pile of freshly laundered clothing. The Hulken's zippered top is useful for keeping everything secure and protected from the elements. The bag isn't completely waterproof, but I've carried it a few times in the rain, and it's kept everything inside perfectly dry. The top also helps keep cold grocery items cool and sheltered from the sun, though it stops short of being a true cooler.

It's way easier to store than a classic granny cart when not in use.

The Hulken folds down to not much larger than a typical reusable bag. When I'm carrying it empty, I just tuck it under my arm. A metal-frame granny cart takes up way more space and isn't as convenient to carry when not filled.

I feel really cool while using it.

Every time I use the Hulken I get compliments on it. On my last trip home from Trader Joe's, two people stopped me to ask about it. It's just a big plastic bag, but it somehow feels very sleek and chic, which is — of course — the ultimate goal for my New York alter ego.

Cons to consider

I personally find pulling the Hulken behind me more tiring than pushing a cart in front of me with two hands. It also takes a little more work and attention to navigate obstacles (of which there are many in the city) while pulling the Hulken than it is when you're pushing a traditional rolling cart. This isn't a dealbreaker for me — an active 36-year-old — but a classic granny cart may be the better option for those who need to prioritize stability.

If I were to request one change to the Hulken's design, it would be some sort of velcro strip to keep the bag from flopping open when it's folded up.

Lastly, the most undeniable con is the price. It's a lot to pay for a bag on wheels. The Hulken is patented, but I've seen cheaper imitators pop up, including one from Target. I can't vouch for its quality compared to the Hulken, but if you can't fathom spending $100+ on a big plastic bag, it may be a viable option.

What size Hulken should you get?

The Hulken comes in three sizes, and I went with the large because I'm regularly "hulking" big boxes as part of my job as a product tester. That said, I think the medium is probably the ideal size for most people, especially if you primarily plan on using your Hulken as a grocery bag or laundry cart.

The bottom line

I can honestly say the Hulken is a delight to schlep. I highly recommend it for city dwellers who are short on storage space and big on style. While it's pricey, I think it's worth every penny — and now I want one in every size.

Hulken vs. the competition

Still not sold on the Hulken? There are cheaper alternatives

If the Hulken feels like overkill for your needs, there are more affordable options. Just know that they come with trade-offs in durability and ease of use.

Budget pick: Brightroom storage bag with wheels - $12 at Target

Space-saving pick: Whitmor utility shopping cart - $44 at Amazon

Bulky items pick: DBest Trolly Dolly personal hand truck - $50 at Amazon

• Howard Marks calls Andrew Ross Sorkin's 1929 book the best investing read in years.
• Marks highlights how leverage, speculation, and easy money fueled the historic crash.
• The lessons echo today as Marks warns of excess building in private credit.

Legendary investor Howard Marks has endorsed a book on the 1929 crash as he warns about excesses building in today's markets.

In his latest memo, the Oaktree Capital cofounder said Andrew Ross Sorkin's "1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History — and How It Shattered a Nation" is "the best investing book I've read in years."

Marks praised the book, published in October, for describing the Wall Street crash as "not by dryly recounting the events, but through profiles of the protagonists of the day."

Fueled by a yearslong speculative boom and heavy margin buying, the stock market crashed in October 1929, ending the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties.

It also marked the start of the Great Depression, a prolonged economic downturn marked by bank failures, mass unemployment, and widespread hardship.

Drawing on Sorkin's account, Marks said the bubble that led to the 1929 crash was driven by three main forces: stock sold without regard for suitability, heavy use of leverage, and a mismatch between illiquid assets and short-term financing.

In practice, that meant inexperienced investors piled into a market that had surged for years, while brokers, incentivized by commissions, extended margin loans covering up to 90% of purchases. Those loans could be called quickly if prices fell, forcing investors to sell into declines.

"A lack of financial sophistication on the part of individual investors leaves them susceptible to promotions and too-good-to-be-true promises," wrote Marks.

That dynamic can quickly turn dangerous when markets reverse.

"It's not easy to lose everything in the stock market, but the combination of these three elements can do the trick in a bad-enough boom/bust cycle," Marks wrote.

Marks drew these lessons as part of a broader memo on private credit, a fast-growing corner of finance that has expanded rapidly in recent years.

It comes as concerns about private credit are mounting, as some high-profile funds face a wave of redemption requests.

• Bobbi Brown, 68, says being pushed out of her namesake brand ultimately worked in her favor.
• "First of all, if I didn't get fired, I'd still be there, miserable," Brown said.
• After her 25-year noncompete ended, Brown launched Jones Road Beauty in 2020

Bobbi Brown, 68, says being fired from her namesake brand at Estée Lauder forced her to leave a job she was unhappy in.

On Thursday's episode of "Aspire with Emma Grede," the entrepreneur reflected on how her exit from Estée Lauder became a turning point in her career.

"I got fired, which is a good thing. And I didn't know what I was going to do. It was the first time in so many years," Brown told podcast host Emma Grede.

Brown founded Bobbi Brown Cosmetics in 1991 and sold it to Estée Lauder for a reported $74.5 million in 1995. As part of the deal, she agreed to a 25-year noncompete that prevented her from starting another cosmetics brand.

She stayed on as chief creative officer for more than two decades before leaving in 2016.

Brown said that things had grown more difficult toward the end of her time at the company.

"Well, the two years before were pretty miserable," she said, adding that neither running a business nor navigating corporate relationships is easy.

"When Leonard Lauder was in charge, I always had him. I could always just call Leonard, and he would say, 'OK, we'll figure this out. We got it.' So, he was really my mentor," Brown said. "And it stopped happening."

Lauder stepped down as CEO in 1999 and later as chairman in 2009. He died in 2025 at 92.

Brown said she felt out of step with the direction that the company was heading.

"For the majority of the time I was in charge, you know, until it became definitely more corporate, and there was a new leader, and things just were not about supporting individual brands and founders," Brown said. "And you know that's what they wanted, and that's fine."

Looking back, Brown said being fired ultimately worked in her favor.

"First of all, if I didn't get fired, I'd still be there, miserable. So, it's really good that it happened," Brown said.

"And, you know, it wasn't easy. I didn't just walk out and say, 'Oh, I'm going to start another brand.' You know, I had to literally emotionally detach. It was hard. It was really hard," she said.

Brown added that she doesn't "have an affinity, at all" toward Bobbi Brown Cosmetics now.

"They went in different directions, and honestly, it's fine. I don't spend a lot of time talking about the brand. You know, I don't wish any ill on them. It is what it is," she said. She added that she's now focused on her new passion project, Jones Road Beauty, which she launched in 2020 after her non-compete expired.

When Grede asked whether she had any regrets about selling her name, Brown said, "I don't."

This isn't the first time Brown has spoken about her departure from her eponymous label.

At The Wall Street Journal's CMO Council Summit in November, Brown said she relied on those around her for support after leaving the company.

"My neighbors came over and I drank tequila with them," Brown said.

In March, Brown told Business Insider she kept herself busy to avoid falling into a slump.

"I'm not someone that likes to stay sad or mad, so I just worked on myself — from the inside out," Brown said.

• Russia is looking to go big in the anti-drone ammo game, with a new 5.45mm rifle round.
• Kalashnikov Concern said it plans to mass-produce bullets that split into fragments to kill drones.
• Ukraine is already developing similar bullets, as such designs creep into the global defense industry.

Russia's primary small arms manufacturer, Kalashnikov Concern, said on Thursday that it's developing 5.45mm rifle rounds specifically designed to disable drones.

Though similar types of bullets have emerged sporadically on the Russian battlefield since last year, Kalashnikov Concern said it plans to mass-produce the rounds, formalizing a national effort to make drone-killing ammo for individual troops.

The armsmaker said the 30-round magazine is built for the AK-12 gas-operated assault rifle, with each bullet releasing a "multi-element projectile that significantly increases the probability of hitting UAVs."

Kalashnikov Concern said the round can be used in burst and single-fire modes and was tested against a drone hovering in the air and another drone flying along a preset path.

Ukraine has been making its own anti-drone rifle rounds, with a bullet called the "Horoshok," or "Little Pea," that splits into multiple fragments to widen the area of impact. Kyiv said in December that it plans to produce 400,000 of these rounds a month.

The Ukrainian 5.56mm round, however, sees the bullet traveling some distance before it fragments — extending the range of the shot.

Kalashnikov Concern said in its announcement that the fragments of its bullets "systematically separated upon exiting the barrel" during tests against fast-moving small drones.

Some Russian units were thought to have first publicized the overall idea, such as one group of soldiers who filmed themselves in February 2025 using steel pellets and heat shrink tubes to convert 7.62mm rounds into makeshift shotgun shell-like bullets.

The entire concept calls back to the now-widespread use of shotguns in the Ukraine war as a final line of defense against first-person-view drone attacks. The tactic became especially popular as both sides started using fiber-optic drones, which can't be remotely jammed.

The West is experimenting with anti-drone rifle rounds, too.

The US Navy's Naval Surface Warfare Center, for example, said in February that it's developing a "drone-killer cartridge" containing bullets that split into three fragments. Other American and European startups are selling their own versions of split-fragment rifle rounds.

Meanwhile, the concept is catching the eye of the larger defense industry. The Belgian arm of Thales, the French-headquartered prime, has been building a 70mm airburst rocket filled with steel pellets to counter one-way attack drones like the Shahed.

• Sophie Steiner moved to Shanghai in 2015, eager to try Chinese food beyond the General Tso's chicken she grew up on.
• In addition to sampling the city's modern dishes, she discovered Shanghai's traditional home-style cuisine.
• Three dishes she sees tourists often overlook when visiting Shanghai include kaofu, youbaoxia, and douhua.

Like every good love story, mine starts with infatuation.

I arrived in Shanghai in 2015 with an 18-month contract in hand. I saw the city as a temporary blip on my life's radar, a flirtation with a new fate, but nothing serious.

I saw this as a personal sabbatical — an opportunity to travel abroad. My plan was to upgrade my Chinese vocabulary beyond ni hao, and — most importantly — taste some real Chinese food, not the Americanized General Tso's chicken in white takeout pails I had grown up on, often accompanied by a crushed fortune cookie prophesying that "an exciting opportunity lies ahead."

As a self-proclaimed epicure, I did a lot of research before arriving. I consumed every English-language China blog, every Shanghai food influencer's Instagram post, and every cuisine-focused WeChat account as if it were the city's street food itself.

I could practically taste the soup dumplings and smell the scallion pancakes sizzling in hot oil long before I ever traipsed through Shanghai's backstreets.

I came in with a chip (read: fried wonton crisp) on my shoulder, assuming I knew it all. But I soon realized there was an entire subset of local Shanghainese cuisine I had overlooked.

These weren't dishes found on the street, but in people's home kitchens, shared around tables with close friends and relatives, often accompanied by baijiu-fueled laughter — baijiu being China's most commonly consumed distilled spirit.

Benbang cai is Shanghai's traditional home-style cuisine, built around braising, stir-frying, and steaming seasonal ingredients from the Yangtze River Delta, along with a liberal use of oil and sugar. It differs from modern Shanghainese food, which reflects a broader mix of global influences shaped by the city's history as a trading port.

These are three dishes I discovered that tourists often overlook when visiting Shanghai, but shouldn't.

That fortune cookie was right. The exciting opportunity lying ahead in 2015 has since evolved into a committed relationship with the city I proudly call home.

1. Kaofu — braised wheat gluten

At first, I avoided kaofu like the plague.

It's made from gluten — an ingredient many Americans now avoid — which made me wonder: How did the Shanghainese turn it into an entire dish?

But the elastic mass left over after washing wheat flour dough is said to be high in protein and low in fat, and to be fermented in a way that supports gut health.

Cut into cubes, the braised wheat gluten is doused in a sticky soy sauce tossed with wood ear mushrooms, peanuts, and bamboo shoots. Like a sponge, the gluten absorbs the sauce, lending a deep sweetness to every moreish morsel, and securing its position as a staple in traditional restaurants and home kitchens throughout the city.

2. Youbaoxia — fried shrimp

Translated as "oil-exploded shrimp," youbaoxia features whole, shell-on river shrimp flash-fried in a searing, oil-lined wok until crispy.

The shrimp are then stir-fried in a simple reduction of aged black vinegar, Shaoxing wine, sugar, and sesame oil, which coats every crevice of the crustacean in a glossy glaze. Some permutation of scallions, garlic, and ginger is often thrown in the mix, the Chinese holy trinity of cooking.

Youbaoxia is rarely found outside Shanghai and Zhejiang Province, as it traces its roots to the watertowns of Jiangnan, where seafood — like hairy crab, eel, and river fish — is a major component of the region's cuisine.

The shells and heads are customarily left on to preserve the balance of oceanic umami and the seafood's natural sweetness. Youbaoxia is best double-fried to lock in that sugary sheen and deliver a bold crunch.

3. Douhua — silken tofu

Unlike the sweet renditions of douhua, or tofu pudding, found all around China, Shanghai's douhua is conventionally eaten only for breakfast and in a savory format.

Dribbled with aged vinegar, soy sauce, and chili oil, a bowl is rounded out by a fistful of chopped scallions and cilantro. More elaborate versions arrive tableside, topped with pickled mustard tubers, crushed peanuts, dried shrimp, and fried mung beans.

The name translates to "tofu bloom." Hot, fresh soymilk coagulates with cornstarch and calcium sulfate, giving the dish its signature silken texture. Before it's pressed into the firm tofu found in supermarkets, the whey-surrounded curds "blossom," absorbing the flavors and textures around them.

Ladled out warm and luscious, this trembly soy milk custard is delicate, mild, and earthy, enhanced by umami-rich accompaniments. The quintessential pairing, a fried youtiao —orChinese cruller — acts as ideal dipping fodder.

The "bed-in-a-box" trend isn't new anymore — most major mattress brands ship compressed beds these days — but Casper still stands out for comfort and an easy, streamlined shopping experience. The brand's mattresses are designed to suit a range of sleep styles and firmness preferences, making it a popular choice for shoppers who want a reliable online mattress delivered right to their door. Since Casper mattresses can be pricey, using a Casper coupon code is one of the simplest ways to save on your next purchase and reduce your total at checkout.

Our sleep experts have tested eight different Casper mattress models, and each one delivered a strong mix of support, comfort, and durability. In our guide to the best cooling mattresses, the Casper Dream Hybrid Mattress ranks as the best option for back and stomach sleepers. You can explore our full Casper mattress review to learn how each mattress performed in real-world testing and find the best fit for your needs.

Casper regularly runs discounts on select mattresses, but the biggest savings come from stacking those deals (when eligible) with a Casper promo code. Some offers take an extra 15% off, adding significant savings on premium models. To make sure you're getting the best value possible, we've rounded up the top Casper coupons and promo codes below so you can upgrade your sleep for less. We've tested each of these codes to ensure that they're still active at the time of writing.

Today's best Casper coupons and promo codes

Previous Casper promo codes

Are there any other Casper mattress sales running at the moment?

You can find a full list of clearance markdowns on Casper's website at any time. As of the time of writing, Casper is running the following promotions.

• For the latest buying advice updates, follow us on Instagram and WhatsApp

How to use Casper coupons and promo codes

Casper coupons are pretty easy to use. Copy the code you're planning to apply. Add the product you're buying to your cart, then click "Apply promo code" to open the entry field. Paste your discount code there, then click Apply.

Can you stack Casper coupon codes?

Casper coupon codes are not stackable, so you can apply only one per purchase. Therefore, it's important to use the best one available.

Luckily, the coupon codes work with any ongoing Casper sales.

Can I use Casper coupons in-store?

Casper coupon codes vary in whether they can be used in-store. Most often, they are limited to online use, but in-store associates can price-match any discounts you have proof of.

What mattress should I buy from Casper?

Casper offers a full lineup of great beds designed for different sleepers. You can learn more in our full Casper mattress guide, or check out these favorites of ours:

Casper coupons: frequently asked questions

Does Casper offer discounts for teachers, students, or the military?

Casper offers exclusive military, education, and healthcare discounts for verified members. Active-duty service members, veterans, military family members, teachers, students, nurses, healthcare professionals, first responders, and hospital employees can all save 5% on Casper purchases.

If you fall into the education category, be sure to check out our roundups of the best student discounts and best teacher discounts you can score year-round.

Do Casper mattresses have a warranty?

Casper offers a 10-year limited warranty that automatically comes with mattresses purchased on Casper.com. It covers defects, including abnormal deterioration, physical flaws in the foam, and manufacturing errors in the zipper assembly. If you bought your bed from another retailer, you can register your bed here.

Final sale and clearance items receive a shorter warranty than other purchases.

What is Casper's returns/refunds policy?

Casper's return policy aims to be as painless as possible, offering free returns anytime after the 30-night adjustment period. Just reach out to support within the first 100 nights of your purchase to have the brand remove the mattress from your home and provide a full refund.

Other products, like pillows, sheets, and accessories, can be returned by printing out a given shipping label and sending it back for free.

Does Casper offer free shipping?

Every mattress order with Casper receives free, no-contact delivery. As the term "bed-in-a-box" suggests, each mattress arrives tightly coiled in a box for you to place on your bed and unfurl.

Other items, such as headboards and bed frames, may incur a shipping fee depending on where you live. Learn more about the specific costs here.

Does Casper offer white glove delivery?

Casper offers an in-home delivery and setup service starting at $199. After placing your order, you can schedule a delivery date for two to four weeks in the future. From there, you'll receive a four-hour delivery window the day before to prepare for your new product's arrival.

Will Casper remove my old mattress?

If your order includes in-home delivery and setup, Casper will offer disposal options for your old mattress. If your order does not include in-home delivery, check Casper's website or contact their customer support team for suggestions.

When is the best time to buy a mattress?

Mattress retailers typically offer the best sales and deals during Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Shopping during those times, combined with one of our coupon codes, will ensure you get the best price.

Does Casper only offer mattresses?

In addition to mattresses, you can shop for pillows, bedding, and furniture on Casper's site. You can even purchase dog beds from Casper to show your pets some love.

How does Casper compare to other online mattress companies?

Many online bed-in-a-box companies have risen in popularity in recent years, and each has its own merits and drawbacks. Check out our full guide to the best mattress to see how Casper compares to competitors across criteria like price range, mattress types, and delivery options.

Are Casper mattresses designed for specific sleep types and positions?

Casper designs their mattresses to provide tailored support no matter which position you sleep in, so you should be covered whether you prefer to sleep on your back, side, or stomach. The brand's patented "Zone Support" technology works to keep your spine aligned in any position for maximum support.

Can I reuse a Casper coupon?

For the most part, Casper promo codes can only be used once per person. However, there may be exceptions, so be sure to check the terms and conditions for the specific code you want to use.

Check out more great bed discounts in our roundups of the latest queen mattress sales.

• A couple built a US gas price tracker using Claude Code and AI agents that called 20,000 stations.
• It stacks gas prices with regional delicacies — like Dunkin' coffees and college football tickets.
• The calls show how people react to AI in the wild. Most answer, some hesitate, and a few swear.

"Hey, I'm Bobby from Gas Index, I'm an AI. What's regular goin' for today?"

"Say it again?" an attendant from Manhattan responded — before telling the bot the sign above the station was flashing a $3.89 price for a gallon of regular.

"Perfect, thanks," Bobby said before hanging up.

That's one of nearly 20,000 conversations between a gas station attendant and an AI agent — named Bobby after a character from the animated sitcom "King of the Hill" — created by Matt Cortland and John Fleming.

Cortland and Fleming, a married couple based in London, shipped a website and a phone bot as a passion project on Monday. It's called Gas Index.

It touches on several trends colliding at once: vibe-coding AI tools that speed up software development, rising fuel costs amid the war in Iran, and a new class of bots interacting directly with people in the real world.

"It seemed like a relatively new way of getting up-to-date information," Cortland, who has family in New Jersey and works as a consultant, told Business Insider. "We thought, 'What's the thing that could be really impactful for people?' We arrived at gas prices."

Fleming, a UK-based postdoctoral researcher at Oxford University, said their app reveals a significant difference in American regulations.

On Wednesday, the national average for regular gas is $4.16, according to AAA, but prices range widely — from $3.43 in Oklahoma to $5.93 in California. In the UK, by contrast, the couple found average regional prices differ by just three cents nationwide.

"The US is trying to fill a gap," Fleming said. "In the UK, it's a gold standard system. People in petrol stations have to update their prices every half hour and make it publicly accessible."

How does the gas spike compare with a Dunkin' iced?

Gas Index tracks more than 170,000 stations across all 50 states, with a marriage of data sets. It starts with location and pricing data from Google — but the tech company's dataset covers only about half of US gas stations, according to the founders, with stronger coverage among large chains.

The app aims to fix that coverage gap with updates where Google's pricing API doesn't reach.

To get more data, Gas Index relies on user-submitted photos of pumps and receipts and AI-generated phone calls to stations that don't report prices elsewhere.

Cortland and Fleming said the website was built with Claude Code over three days, while contributions from tools like ElevenLabs, Twilio, and Supabase helped build the phone bot and manage the data in another two days. The couple said the push to build the site's last 10% was "very intensive."

They estimate their AI token receipts for the project between $3,000 and $5,000.

"You spend for every call you make," Cortland said. "When you're making this many calls, the price really starts to go up. We did get a grant from ElevenLabs, which gave a ton of credits. If we didn't have that, it would have been way more expensive."

Gas Index also tries to translate rising gas costs into everyday terms.

Take, for example, a Toyota Camry owner in Alewife, Massachusetts. That driver can enter their car and location to see how much more they're paying to fill their tank — expressed in regional delicacies like Dunkin' iced coffees or fluffernutter ingredients.

Nebraska's gas prices are compared to the price of a ticket to attend a Husker college football game. Louisiana's is weighed against the price of a Cafe Du Monde beignet. New Hampshire's is stacked up to a pint of maple syrup.

Still, accuracy varies. Because the comparisons depend on user-submitted data, which the founders said will improve over time, they have built-in checks to weed out "bad data" from users.

Business Insider spot-checked 10 stations listed on the site by calling them directly. Four matched the listed price, while one differed by 15 cents. Gas prices can change multiple times per day, leading to discrepancies depending on when the data is collected.

Responding to an AI call

Bobby called a lot of stations. Their responses varied.

"I can go outside and check real quick," one cashier in Texas told the AI, according to transcripts provided by Cortland and Fleming. "I'm walking outside right now. So right now, our regular gas is $3.49 a gallon, and diesel is $4.99 a gallon."

Several others were less enthusiastic. Cortland says that one in every 700 calls features some profanity.

The calls also revealed regional differences. Texas was the hardest state to reach by phone, they said, while only 20% of stations in New Jersey shared prices after picking up the receiver.

Independently owned stations were the most willing to disclose their current prices, they said.

A war's impact on fuel costs

The site also frames price increases around the war in Iran, which it references repeatedly on its homepage.

"What's the war costing you specifically?" a read-out at the top of the site says. "Gas is up $1.13 a gallon since the Iran war began."

But the founders said they want everyone to use their new project, and don't want to be seen as nakedly political.

"The goal here is just to get people to try to get better pricing for stuff," Cortland said. "We want people in Democratic and Republican states also to use this, because it can be helpful for everyone."

Whether you're planning an event with family and friends or preparing marketing materials for your business, custom materials can elevate you to the next level. Personally designed invitations, vinyl banners, and more may seem intimidating, but Vistaprint makes it easy with a simple interface for customization and budget-friendly pricing. Vistaprint coupons and promo codes are also a great way to save more.

Vistaprint runs frequent sitewide sales and limited-time promotions, and using a Vistaprint coupon code or promo code can unlock even bigger discounts, sometimes up to 50% off your order. Many deals apply across popular categories like stationery, labels, and banners, and some offers can be used multiple times, making it easier to save on repeat orders.

Before you place your next order, it's worth checking the latest Vistaprint promo codes to make sure you're getting the lowest price on everything from everyday business essentials to custom stationery. Below, we've rounded up the best Vistaprint discount codes and active deals we've tested so you can save more on your next print project.

Today's best Vistaprint discount codes

Previous Vistaprint discount codes

Are there any other Vistaprint sales running at the moment?

In addition to their voucher codes, Vistaprint also runs several ongoing sales and promotions, all of which can be found on their "Offers" page. As of the time of writing, Vistaprint is running the following deals.

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

How to use Vistaprint voucher codes

Vistaprint requires all shoppers to create an account before designing products, so start there. Once you've created an account, you can add coupon-eligible items to your cart. From the "My Cart" page, you can apply a promo code by clicking the "Have a code?" dropdown, pasting the code into the text box, and clicking apply. Once the voucher code has been applied, continue to checkout to enter your shipping and billing information.

Can you stack Vistaprint promo codes?

Vistaprint does not allow discount codes to be stacked together. Only one code may be applied per purchase.

Vistaprint discount code frequently asked questions

Does Vistaprint offer discounts for students, teachers, and the military?

Vistaprint does not offer special discounts for students or teachers in the United States, so your best bet is to take advantage of their other coupons and deals.

Military members can receive a discount on all Vistaprint purchases. To take advantage of the discount, shoppers must verify their military status.

If you are a student or teacher, check out our roundups of the best student discounts and best teacher discounts to unlock more deals.

Does Vistaprint offer free shipping?

Vistaprint offers shoppers free economy shipping on orders of $100 or more. You don't need to enter a promo code to access free shipping; just add enough items to your cart.

Does Vistaprint offer special pricing plans for businesses?

Vistaprint offers special corporate pricing plans for businesses to use to create their branding and marketing materials. Businesses that participate in one of the three corporate pricing plans (each designed for different business sizes) enjoy perks like free shipping on orders over $50, multiple logins for other team members, and ease-of-ordering features like bulk ordering and auto-reordering. Learn more about the different corporate pricing plans on Vistaprint's corporate website.

Can I reuse a Vistaprint promo code?

In most cases, Vistaprint allows you to apply a promo code to multiple orders as long as your order contains qualifying items. There are some exceptions, though, so it's best to check the terms and conditions for a coupon to confirm.

Does Vistaprint save my previous designs?

When you create an account, Vistaprint saves all your designs and orders on the "My Projects" page, so you can access your previous designs and reorder them anytime.

Does Vistaprint offer resources to help me with my designs?

Yes, you can visit Vistaprint's "Ideas and Advice" blog for resources to help you with your designs, including design tips like packaging and graphic design trends, how to choose a logo for your business, the best promotional products for building brand loyalty, and more.

Can I hire someone to design things for me on Vistaprint?

Vistaprint makes creating your own designs easy. But if you don't have the bandwidth or would rather hire a professional, Vistaprint offers design services on many of its products, including business cards, flyers, and more. Learn more on Vistaprint's website.

Can I apply a Vistaprint discount code after placing an order?

If you forgot to apply a discount code before placing your order but later found one that applies, you won't be able to apply it yourself. That said, you can contact Vistaprint's customer care team through their help center, and they can apply the code for you.

If you've been considering building a new website for yourself or your business, our roundup of the latest Squarespace promo codes has more helpful coupons.

• Andrew Pritchard concealed drugs in all kinds of places, from a dead body to coconuts and pineapples.
• In 2007, he was acquitted in a case involving $134 million worth of cocaine ($230 million today).
• After that, he said he would stop drug smuggling, but continued for years.

Andrew Pritchard said his first exposure to smuggling was when he was 7 and returning home to the UK from a family trip to Jamaica.

He remembers that his and his sister's suitcases were incredibly heavy. When they got home, his parents opened them, revealing "loads of bottles of white rum," he said.

"At the time, overproof white rum was something which you couldn't get in this country," Pritchard told Business Insider in an interview for its video series "How Crime Works."

Pritchard's spiral into large-scale criminal drug smuggling didn't happen until later in his early 20s. He wasn't looking for crime.

He was interested in music and started producing sound systems, which eventually exposed him to the UK's warehouse culture in the late '80s. He started organizing rave dance parties, and that's when the drugs showed up in his life and sent him on a criminal path for decades.

Over the next 20 years, there were multiple turning points where he could have walked away, but each time he got out, he eventually found himself pulled back in.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," he said.

From ecstasy to weed to cocaine, and ultimately, police custody

The raves Pritchard was organizing were drawing thousands of people each weekend, he said. They also introduced him to drug suppliers and distribution networks.

As the rave scene grew, so did demand. He began selling ecstasy, first at parties, then at scale. In the early 1990s, Pritchard moved from dealing drugs to importing them.

One of his most effective methods involved fruit shipments. Using existing import routes into markets like London's Spitalfields, he concealed drugs inside produce crates, like apples and yams, that would pass quickly through customs.

After police stormed one of his drug houses in 1992, Pritchard fled to Jamaica. It was the first of several turning points where he could have started a different, crime-free life. Instead, what began as a period of hiding quickly became another opportunity to pull him back in.

For Pritchard, the money and lifestyle that drug smuggling bought him were impossible to ignore. "It's an addiction, not that I want to take drugs. It's an addiction that I want to be involved in that lifestyle," he said.

In Jamaica, he built connections with local networks and learned about large-scale cannabis smuggling. By the late '90s and early '00s, Prichard had moved further up the supply chain and into cocaine, where he got into some creative tactics.

Traffickers were hollowing out pineapples, plantains, and coconuts and stuffing them with cocaine that was then shipped from South America, through the Caribbean, and into Europe. Pritchard also tried other smuggling methods, like on planes, and at one point tried to hide drugs inside a dead body.

He was arrested in 2004 in connection with more than £100 million ($134 million) worth of half a metric ton (about 1,100 pounds) of cocaine packed inside coconuts. Adjusted for inflation, that would be approximately $230 million today.

After a lengthy trial, he was acquitted and released from custody several years later. He recalled thinking at the time, "May 2007, I'm out, I'm going straight, just had a son born. It's a new beginning."

His attempt at going straight didn't last

Pritchard returned to legitimate work, but he struggled to adjust to the financial difference.

"The music industry wasn't really getting in the same kind of financial gains that drug smuggling was getting," he said.

Ultimately, what pulled him back in was a favor for an old associate, he said.

"My own generosity came back to bite me," he said. "I lent some money to help him out of a situation."

That associate was still active in drug trafficking and under police surveillance. Pritchard said he initially tried to stay at arm's length but became increasingly involved, eventually helping arrange a drug shipment and being present when it was collected.

The associate, he said, had become a "police magnet," and Pritchard was arrested alongside him in 2013, which ended his final attempt to stay out of crime. In 2014, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

When his crime cycle broke

While in Belmarsh prison, Pritchard recognized younger people, from families and communities he knew, facing long sentences.

That shifted how he viewed his own role, he said. Instead of focusing on his situation, he began to consider the broader impact of what he had been part of.

"I had blood on my hands," he said.

After his early release in 2019, he founded the AP Foundation, which offers support to young people, explaining how quickly involvement in crime can escalate, and how difficult it is to leave once inside.

"I'm asked all the time, would I change anything? And the answer is I can't change anything," he said. "If I could look at myself as an 18-year-old, would I say don't do it? Everyone's expecting me to say don't do it.' But had I not done it, I wouldn't be able to now change lives."

Pritchard recounts his life so far in his autobiography "Empire of Dirt: From Raves to Riches."

When you're in need of a little extra support during bedtime, a body pillow is your best friend. Whether you're pregnant, recovering from an injury, sleep on your side, or just like having something soft to snuggle, the best body pillows promote better sleeping posture by aligning your spine and easing pressure on your hips and shoulders.

As a certified sleep science consultant, I've tested just about every one of the best pillows out there, and body pillows remain one of my favorite tools for better sleep. I spoke with leading spine and sleep specialists and personally tested 17 top-rated models, evaluating each for comfort, support, breathability, and overall feel.

Learn more about how Business Insider Reviews tests and researches home products.

Our top picks for body pillows

Best overall: Coop Sleep Goods Body Pillow - See at Coop Sleep Goods

Best for side sleepers: Pluto Puff - See at Pluto

Best eco-friendly: Buffy Wiggle Pillow - See at Buffy

Best budget: Utopia Bedding Full Body Pillow - See at Amazon

Best cooling: Zoma Sleep Body Pillow - See at Zoma

Best for back pain: Tempur-Pedic Body Pillow - See at Amazon

Best U-shaped: Yana 360° Body Pillow - See at Amazon

Best for pregnancy: Eli & Elm Memory Foam Pregnancy Body Pillow - See at Eli & Elm

Best overall

Our top pick has the same design as our all-time favorite pillow. Like the Coop pillow that earned the top spot in our guide to the best pillows, the Coop Sleep Goods Memory Foam Body Pillow is fully adjustable. You can add or remove the shredded memory foam to suit your sleep style and personal preferences. It also features a removable pillowcase for easy washing.

It's the perfect snuggle buddy at night. The Coop is bulky but just the right height for me — not too low and not too tall. It conformed so well to my body right out of the box that I didn't have to remove any foam. It's extremely flexible, moldable, and supportive — great for any body type.

It earned a spot on my bed. I love cuddling with it and have continued to use it for months after testing because it's really helped with my shoulder pain. It hasn't flattened out at all, and I sleep so much better with the support it provides. It stays cool throughout the night because it's made with super-breathable polyester and bamboo-derived viscose rayon.

We noticed a slight chemical odor after unboxing. The company recommends running it through the dryer with a dryer sheet for an hour to reduce the smell, which I did. While this helped, the odor didn't completely disappear until a week later, though I do think it's worth the wait. This pillow is hypoallergenic and CertiPUR-US certified.

Read our full Coop Sleep Goods Body Pillow review.

Best budget

This is the best body pillow you can buy under $30. Measuring 54 inches long by 20 inches wide and weighing about 5.1 pounds, the Utopia Bedding Full Body Pillow offers soft, reliable support at a fraction of the price of high-end models. It's filled with plush polyester, but it's Oeko-Tex certified for safety. It's a simple, no-frills option that still gets the job done.

It needs a day to fully expand. Thankfully, there was no strong chemical smell or off-gassing. I found it surprisingly comfortable for side sleeping. The fill feels medium-firm, soft to the touch but supportive enough to keep my knees and hips aligned. It's a cozy pillow that works well for hugging or tucking between the legs to reduce pressure.

But it has a few flaws. After a few days, I noticed a few lumps developing and had to fluff it to restore its shape. It's not the most durable pillow I've tested, and it does tend to sleep a little warm. Still, it rebounds well with a bit of care and feels more expensive than it is. Still, it's soft, supportive, and versatile. Considering the low price point and 30-day Amazon return window, it's a great value choice, especially if you're trying out a body pillow for the first time.

Best for side sleepers

The Pluto Puff is designed for side sleepers. In our guide to the best pillows for side sleepers, we name the Pluto Puff as our top choice for body pillow because it can easily be adjusted to best suit your needs. Despite its large size, the Puff is surprisingly easy to maneuver. The medium-firm feel supports side sleepers to keep their head, neck, and spine aligned through the night.

The Puff provides ample support in all the right areas. As a side sleeper, I know how tough it can be to find a comfortable position with all that pressure on the shoulders, hips, and knees. The Puff is a game changer for relieving pressure points and reducing tossing and turning. My husband, with sleep apnea, finds relief by sleeping on his side instead of his back. He reported the Puff to be incredibly helpful in maintaining proper alignment on his head and neck, with just the right amount of elevation.

I can't recommend it enough. Not only does it boast high-quality materials, but the included pillow case feels incredibly luxurious, silky smooth, and soft — like cuddling up with a cozy cloud of comfort. It also stays cool without overheating. Overall, the Pluto Puff is an excellent option, especially for side sleepers. It held its shape over time while providing consistent comfort, proper spinal alignment, and reliable support.

Best U-shaped

This U-shaped pillow stood out during my testing. The Yana 360 Body Pillow is the first U-shaped pillow that actually feels as good as it looks; soft, supportive, and perfectly balanced. The moment I wrapped myself around it, I felt that deep, cocoon-like comfort that keeps your whole body supported from every angle without the bulk or heat of other U-shaped designs.

It's available in cooling memory foam or shredded latex. Both are Oeko-Tex certified, and free from harmful chemicals. I tested the cooling gel version, and it stayed comfortably cool all night. It includes a removable, ultra-soft cover that feels incredibly smooth against the skin. The pillow comes with an extra bag of fill, in case you prefer a loftier, firmer feel. I tried mine as-is at first, but found the top a bit too high and firm. I removed about three handfuls of fill, and then it was perfect.

I love its versatility. It really lives up to its "One Pillow, Infinite Positions" promise. You can twist, wrap, or fold it depending on your needs. I love to cocoon myself in it for sleep, but it's just as useful for reading or working from bed. You can even flip it to cradle your legs or fold it into a supportive seat. It's flexible enough to move with you but structured enough to keep your body aligned and comfortable in every position. When not in use, it also wraps up into a ball, which could be easier for storing (or displaying on your bed).

It takes up less space than other U-shaped pillows I've tried. It still delivers that enveloping 360-degree support that feels secure, soothing, and almost weightless. It keeps my spine aligned, relieves pressure on my back and hips, and helps me stay comfortably in place through the night. Soft, breathable, and thoughtfully designed, it's my top choice for the best U-shaped body pillow, ideal for pregnancy, side sleeping, or anyone who wants that cozy, all-around comfort that makes great sleep effortless.

Best for back pain

This pillow is stuffed with the same material from Tempur-Pedic mattresses. The Tempur-Pedic Body Pillow is engineered with shapeable micro-cushions that respond and adapt exceptionally well to the body. It's designed for use during pregnancy and for side sleepers, but people with injuries, muscle tension, and back pain can also benefit from the sturdy support it provides.

It provides ample pressure relief. I love this pillow's versatility; I have used it to prop up my legs, relieve pressure on my lower hips, and stabilize my back when I'm sitting up. No matter how I use it, the pillow always returns to its original shape.

It's much firmer than other body pillows I tested. While this is a great feature for larger individuals and people looking for extra support, it might not be as comfortable for smaller folks or people who prefer a softer pillow. The foam is dense and heavy, so moving it around in the middle of the night could be tiring for people recovering from injuries, though the added heft means it doesn't fall off or move around the bed as easily.

Best cooling

This pillow kept me cool and comfortable all night. If you're a hot sleeper, a cooling pillow could make all the difference. The Zoma Sleep Body Pillow is made with high-quality materials as seen in the cover, which is made from a blend of stretchy, lightweight polyester and spandex. It's filled with shredded gel memory foam intended to keep hot sleepers at a comfortable temperature. It's a very well-made, high-quality body pillow that provides great support and breathability.

It's a little firmer than the Coop pillow. The 6-inch loft is helpful for side sleepers like me who need support between the knees. After a few nights of sleeping with the Zoma, I noticed a positive impact on my posture and spinal alignment.

It's shorter than other body pillows. It's two inches shorter than our top pick, so it's not possible to rest my head on it and have full leg support at the same time. I'm relatively short, so this could be a more noticeable issue for taller folks who want a pillow that supports the whole body. The smaller size could be perfect for those who sleep with a partner and don't want to hog the whole bed. The cover is also not removable, which makes washing and drying the pillow a lengthy process. For pregnant people, this pillow is firm enough to rest a growing belly on to relieve pressure on the shoulders and hips.

Best eco-friendly

This pillow is delightful to snuggle up with. I was particularly excited to review the Buffy Wiggle pillow, and it did not disappoint. The pillow has a white cover shell crafted from 100% fiber derived from eucalyptus. This fabric requires less water to produce than conventional cotton and is also biodegradable and compostable. Mine got softer after the first wash. You can also choose from 14 pillowcase colors, including linen, fleece, and prints, purchased separately. I opted for the fleece cover in a lovely peach color.

It features an eco-friendly design. Crafted entirely from recycled materials, its fill is composed of 55 recycled plastic bottles sourced from a facility certified by the Global Recycling Standard. These bottles, collected from landfills and oceans, undergo recycling and transformation into the fluffy pillows we've come to love.

It's long and versatile. Whether you want to knot it up for lounging on the couch, prop your feet on it, or snuggle up for a cozy night's sleep, it offers great full-body support. The Buffy is the longest pillow we've tested by far, at 82 inches, giving you plenty of room to wrap around and bend it to your liking. However, it's worth noting that its length might occupy more space on your bed, and it's also not as lofty as some might prefer.

Returning it is a major hassle. While Buffy has a 7-day trial (before your card is charged) and 50-day return policy, our editor recently went through the process, and found it to be a hassle and a waiting game for receiving a refund. Rather than a return portal, initiating a return required sending customer service an email. Initially, the response back was quick, prompting us to donate the items and provide a receipt. However, the confirmation response once we complied with their terms took over a week and multiple follow-ups.

Best for pregnancy

This pillow was designed to meet the needs of pregnant people at every stage. I had my sister-in-law, who was in her third trimester, try the Eli & Elm Memory Foam Pregnancy Body Pillow. She sought proper head, back, hip, and knee support while sleeping. She said the Eli & Elm allowed her to rest in different positions comfortably while minimizing pressure on her joints and improving her overall sleep quality. The ergonomic "J" shape won her over, and she plans to continue using it post-pregnancy. Plus, the removable and easy-to-wash pillowcase was a game changer for her maintenance routine.

It's a great body pillow for everyone. Despite not being pregnant myself, I found this pillow to be incredibly comfortable and versatile. I used it to prop myself against my chair for extra support while working from home at my desk. So, it's not just for expecting moms — anyone can benefit from this pillow.

It's adjustable. It can be tailored to your preferences, whether pregnant or not. Plus, it's Oeko-Tex and CertiPUR-US certified, meaning it's free of harmful chemicals, reassuring expecting parents that they can sleep soundly without worrying about any harmful substances.

Our top picks compared

What else we tested

• Bearaby Cuddler: "The Bearaby Cuddler follows the long cylindrical shape of the Buffy Wiggle Pillow and stretches over six feet long — taller than me. Despite its length, I like that it doesn't take up too much of the bed and that it's easily moldable. When I'm not using it, I can "knot" it up into a display piece. It's constructed of a single block of GOLS-certified latex foam Bearaby called Melofoam. It's been reformulated to be softer and a bit squishier, perfect for hugging. Since it's not a standard body pillow size, you'll want to invest in the cover too, but I had a hard time getting past the $350 price tag when bundled. For comparison, the Yana is also available with a latex construction and is $100 cheaper." — Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor
• Moonlight Slumber Comfort-U Total Body Support Pillow: The Moonlight can be used in a number of positions to provide versatile support for your entire body. It's filled with a comfortable and plush synthetic down called Fusion Fiberfill that won't flatten or clump, but it's not adjustable. Its large, oversized design also causes it to occupy a significant portion of the bed. If you prefer a down alternative U-shaped pillow, rather than the memory foam or latex of the Yana, this is a good option to consider. Moonlight also offers a lifetime warranty, which is appealing.
• Momcozy U-Shaped Pregnancy Pillow: Momcozy is one of the most popular pregnancy pillows on Amazon and has a very affordable $50 price tag, but I found it too bulky, taking up half of my king-size bed. It has a soft, cozy cover, but I found myself getting too hot with it, likely because of its bulkiness and thickness.
• Snuggle-Pedic Body Pillow: The Snuggle-Pedic Body Pillow was previously our top pick for side sleepers. After researching, we discovered that Snuggle-Pedic was acquired in 2020 and no longer offers features we loved, like a trial period and warranty. Recent customer reviews indicate a decline in the pillow's quality, many mentioned reduced fullness and changes in warranty terms. I also noticed a disparity between the original version we tested in 2020 and a new one that we re-tested, leading us to replace it in our guide.

• Oubonun Body Pillow: I recommend the Oubonun body pillow if you're on a budget; it's a good value for the money. It features a hidden zipper to adjust its hypoallergenic polyester fiber fill. It's softer than most but provides sufficient support and won't take up much space in your bed. One side is quilted, which is a nice detail. It even includes a pillowcase as a bonus.

What to look for in a body pillow

Choosing the right body pillow depends entirely on your individual needs and preferences. Consider the following factors as you search for the perfect body pillow.

Purpose

Identify why you need a body pillow—whether for back pain relief, pregnancy support, or overall comfort. Select a pillow designed with your specific needs in mind.

Shape and size

Assess your bed space and choose a body pillow size that complements it. Dr. Karen Litzy suggests considering the pillow size based on your bed dimensions and ensuring it provides sufficient coverage for your entire body. Larger pillows like the Coop Home may be suitable, but for shared beds, consider smaller options like the Zoma. Adjustability, weight, and body size will also influence your selection. Additionally, factor in your preferred sleeping position and needs when selecting your ideal pillow shape:

• I-shaped: The I-shape is like a standard rectangular pillow but longer. A common length is 54", and it can range from four to six feet. It's ideal for people who want a body pillow but don't have a specific need that needs to be addressed.
• U-shaped: The U-shape is characterized by its ability to offer support on either side, keep you from rolling, and make it easy to switch positions without having to reposition the pillow, making it an optimal choice for pregnancy. The most common way to sleep is to keep the open part at your feet, cuddle whichever side you prefer, and rest your head on the bend, but you can get creative about how you lounge and sleep with this shape.
• C-shaped: The C-shape is typically pretty customizable. It has a bend on each end and can be contorted and bent into varying shapes. It's a little smaller than the U-shape.
• J-shaped: The J-shape follows the I shape with the addition of being able to position your head at the curve, wrap your body around the straight portion, or place the hook under the knees and position your back against the straight side. It's a popular choice for side sleepers to curl up with.

Fill and firmness

Determine your preferred firmness level, balancing proper spinal alignment with comfort. Factors such as weight, height, and sleeping position influence this choice. Most of the body pillows we've examined have a memory foam or down-alternative fill, but body pillows are available in all the typical fillings of pillows, including down, wool, and latex as well. Memory foam pillows are firmer and offer more support, while down-alternative and polyfill will sleep more plush. Opt for hypoallergenic options, and for foam fill, ensure it's CertiPUR-US certified. Always check if the materials are safe and certified for a worry-free sleeping experience.

Ease of cleaning

Consider the ease of cleaning. Some body pillows feature removable, washable covers (e.g., Coop Home and Tempur-Pedic). Even those without removable covers, like the Snuggle-Pedic and Zoma, can be machine-washed. A pillowcase is recommended for regular washing, though washing larger pillows may be time-consuming. As body pillows increase in popularity, more bedding brands offer body pillow covers; just be sure to match the dimensions of your pillow.

Temperature regulation

If you sleep hot, opt for a breathable pillow designed to regulate temperature. Breathability is crucial, as overheating can disrupt sleep quality.

Medina emphasizes, "You don't want to become overheated on the body pillow, as an increased body temperature can provoke a wake response." A good body pillow enhances support, comfort, and breathability for improved sleep.

Return policy and trial period

Prioritize pillows with a flexible return policy and trial period. Since side sleepers may need time to find the perfect fit, allowing at least a week to adjust is essential. Ensure you can exchange or return the pillow if it doesn't meet your expectations.

How we tested the best body pillows

Our testing methodology

To find the best body pillows, I did hands-on testing with 17 different models, relied on my background in sleep research, and interviewed sleep expert Zeke Medina, PharmD, and physical therapist Karen Litzy, DPT.

As a sleep researcher and certified sleep science consultant, it's important for me to review items that truly improve quality sleep. I paid close attention to how well I slept with each pillow, including how comfortable, breathable, and supportive they were. Here's how I evaluated each pillow:

Setup: First, I wanted to know whether the body pillows emitted any chemical odors as soon as I opened the package. If there was an odor, I evaluated how long it took for any smells to dissipate. I also noted if the pillows were adjustable and if they included a removable and washable cover.

Specs and components: I recorded each body pillow's length, weight, firmness, and quality of materials. I also noted if they were hypoallergenic and researched if the pillows' fills were CertiPUR-US certified or made without toxic materials.

Sleeping: I slept with each body pillow for seven consecutive nights, taking note of how well I fell asleep, stayed asleep, and felt in the morning. I evaluated how comfortable and soft the materials were, whether I slept cool or hot, and how much support and tension relief I felt throughout the night and in the morning.

Return policy: I looked at the return policy and warranty of each pillow. This is important in case individuals are unsure it's the right fit. "No single pillow is the answer for everybody," says Medina, so it's best to try out body pillows to figure out what works for you.

Long-term use: Since original testing, I've continued to use our top picks regularly and will report back about their durability over time.

Meet the expert behind the guide

Suzy Hernandez, freelance contributor: I managed a sleep laboratory for over two years and have conducted extensive research on sleep. I've tested products for SleepScore labs and presented my work at the Eastern Psychological Association. Now, you'll find me testing sleep products from pillows to cooling bedding.

Body pillow FAQs

What are body pillows used for?

The benefits you get from a body pillow will depend on your individual needs and preferences, but they can relieve muscle tension, help with blood circulation, can be used post-surgery and during pregnancy, and may reduce snoring. They're also beneficial for side sleepers to "hug" throughout the night as a way to promote healthy spinal alignment, as well as the psychological benefits provided by cuddling with a body pillow.

How should you position yourself with a body pillow?

"You can throw your leg over it to take the stress off your shoulder, hip, and knees," said sleep expert Zeke Medina. "You can also place the pillow between your legs to alleviate the pressure between the knees."

Can you wash a body pillow?

In many cases, you can treat a body pillow like a regular pillow. Get a good body pillow protector or pillow case, so you have to clean the pillow itself less frequently. Follow the manufacturer's instructions and only use a large-capacity washer and dryer so you don't damage your machine.

What is the best body pillow fill?

Most of our top picks are filled with memory foam, which offers a good balance of support and firmness. However, our picks for side sleepers and our budget pick are filled with synthetic down, and have a softer, mushier feel. The right fill will depend on your preferences and sleep style. Latex fills are also an option, as seen from Yana and Bearaby, which will also feel firmer with a touch of responsive bounce.

If your cat were out in the wild, they'd naturally sharpen their claws on trees and other sturdy surfaces. Scratching is a natural behavior, so providing something that mimics that experience indoors is essential for their health, and can save your couch or door frames, too.

Cats scratch to condition their nails, leave scent markers of their presence, and stretch their muscles. The best cat scratching posts are stable, solidly constructed, and located where cats will actually use them. In fact, it's ideal to have multiple scratchers around your home, according to experts.

I've been testing home, tech, and pet products for over a decade. For this guide, I consulted a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and a certified applied animal behaviorist for insights into why cats scratch and the types of resources that can support this healthy behavior. I also have two cats who helped me evaluate nine scratching posts in our home. Both cats gravitated toward the SmartCat Ultimate Scratching Post, likely because it stood up to their vigorous scratching and was tall enough for them to stretch out. I like it because it looks nice and can last for years.

Read more about how Insider Reviews tests and evaluates pet products.

Our top picks for the best cat scratching posts

Best overall: SmartCat Ultimate Scratching Post - See at Chewy

Best budget: Frisco 33-in Heavy Duty Sisal Cat Scratching Post - See at Chewy

Best for large cats: MidWest Feline Nuvo Grand Forte - See at Chewy

Best post and bed: Vetreska 41.3-in Cat Scratching Post with Bed - See at Chewy

Best multi-post: Frisco Lucky Bamboo 35.5" Cat Scratching Posts with Toys - See at Chewy

Best overall

The SmartCat Ultimate Scratching Post blends solid construction, height, and tasteful design to take top honors in this guide. No scratching post is indestructible, but my current SmartCat post has lasted for years. When the sisal starts to fray, I can extend its life further by rotating the post to give my cats a fresh place to scratch. The two neutral color options are about as inconspicuous as cat scratchers get, and the gray post is especially muted. The sisal's weave seems to appeal to both my cats.

I could barely see any damage during my scratch test, and the sisal never caught the brush. That's important because cats' claws could get stuck on the sisal, leading to injury. The best cat scratching posts allow cats to get a full stretch, and at 32 inches tall, the SmartCat post suits most felines. "A big problem is that people invest in a scratching post that's way too tiny," says Mikel Maria Delgado, a certified applied animal behaviorist with Feline Minds. Neither of my cats is delicate (one is 13 pounds, and the other is 18 pounds), and this post can withstand up to 30 pounds according to Chewy's website.

The engineered wood base is wide to help with stability, but it isn't comfortable enough for use as a napping spot. The lack of padding makes the SmartCat less appealing for cat parents looking for a multifunctional furniture piece. There is a perch pad sold separately, but it was out of stock so I couldn't try it with my cats. This was also the only post I tested that didn't come with all the tools necessary for assembly, so you'll want to have a flathead screwdriver handy.

Best budget

Whether you have one cat or multiple, providing enough scratching resources can put stress on the budget. The Frisco 33-inch post offers many of the same features as the SmartCat post at about half the cost. Its sisal held up well during my scratch tests, although the brush snagged a couple of times.

Other than price point, its main distinguishing feature over my top pick is the plush material covering the base and top. The faux-fur top gives the Frisco dual functionality, adding both a scratcher as well as vertical space to your cat's environment. One of my cats especially liked perching on the top. The base is 16 by 16 inches, and held firm when he summited the post to survey his kingdom. While the post is slightly taller than the SmartCat, there's actually about 2 inches less sisal material on the Frisco because the plush top and base extend along the scratcher. While my cats seemed to appreciate the faux fur, it made the post stand out more compared to my decor. It does come in three colors, though the sisal is always the same cream color.

The Frisco post is also only recommended for cats up to 25 pounds, compared to SmartCat's 30 pounds, but this weight limit should still accommodate the majority of cats. In my push tests, it wobbled a little more than the SmartCat.

Best for large cats

If your cats harbor secret desires to scale trees, consider the MidWest Feline Nuvo Grand Forte. It's tall, wide, and rounded, making it closer to a trunk than anything else I tested. Business Insider reporter Janelle Leeson has cats who gravitated to this post. They loved scurrying up it and using the top as a scouting spot.

It has a mix of faux fur and sisal, with more of the rope-like material than either of the scratchers above. The large base is covered in plush fabric, which my cats enjoyed as a resting spot. For cats that like to scratch horizontally on similar material, there's plenty of room. Neither of my cats used this scratcher a lot, but that doesn't mean it won't work for your cats. "There's always going to be cats with very specific preferences," Delgado says. She notes you should give cats a range of options so you can figure out what appeals to them.

At 19 by 19 inches, its base takes up nearly 30% more floor space than my top pick, which may be problematic in space-challenged homes. However, my biggest issue with this post is that the sisal tends to shed. It has the loosest weave of any post in this guide, which impacts durability and requires cleanup.

Best post and bed

The Vetreska Cat Scratching Post with Bed looks like something out of Super Mario Bros, but the uniquely designed scratcher, topped by a cozy bed, quickly became my cat Dobby's favorite. The flower bed has a concave center surrounded by higher petals, and I find him curled up in the middle when I wake up in the morning. He also hangs out there most of the day. My larger cat doesn't like it as much, but it's getting so much use by Dobby that it's often occupied.

This scratcher is beautifully made. Jute covers the cactus frame and the rounded base, so cats can scratch horizontally or vertically. It's also one of the taller posts, so cats can get a good stretch when scratching. The jute held up well during testing and is less prickly than sisal. The best cat scratching posts should be stable to help your cat feel safe. Despite its unusual design, the Vetreska post is sturdy and withstood multiple feline launches from the floor to the bed without a single wobble. That being said, pulling the structure by one of the petals made it a little unsteady.

You'll pay a premium for quality. The Vetreska Post is the most expensive scratcher I tested, coming in at over 2.5 times the price of the top pick in this guide. In addition, its cartoonishness and vivid colors may not fit with everyone's decor. Some cats may gravitate towards a post with a simpler design or a different style of bed. However, if your cat does enjoy curling up in the flower, the post will have a much longer lifespan as a bed.

Best multi-post

This well-made Frisco scratcher with a bamboo motif offers multiple scratching options and includes added features to encourage play. My 3-year-old cat enjoyed batting at the felt leaves, though the fluffy ball didn't really intrigue him. My older cat found neither amusing.

It has three posts of varying heights to give your cat plenty of choices. The tallest post is about 26 inches, and when you factor in the base and leaf, the highest point on this scratcher is 36 inches. It's only recommended for cats up to 15 pounds, so combined with the shorter height, it's probably not the best option for larger cats. That said, my 18-pound cat didn't seem to have any trouble. The top of the base is also covered in sisal, providing an opportunity for horizontal scratching. The sisal was resistant to wear in my tests and didn't shed or snag, and the triple posts provide more scratching surfaces.

Its raised base can limit accessibility, requiring some cats to use the posts at a slight distance or contort around the posts in order to scratch.The design also deterred my cats from using the bottom as a resting area. In addition, this post's material was the prickliest I tested. As with the Vetreska cactus, the bamboo scratcher may stand out against more neutral decor.

What to look for in a cat scratching post

When choosing one of the best cat scratching posts, the most important criteria is that it's something your cat will use. That means paying attention to whether they prefer sisal or cardboard, for example. They'll also need something that's big enough for them to stretch out while scratching. Where you put the post in your home is also important. "Cats like to scratch in prominent locations near where they spend time," Delgado says. That's why it's a good idea to have multiple scratchers where both you and your cats hang out, especially in spaces where they sleep.

Cat-friendly design: Some cats like to scratch vertically, like on the arm of your couch. Others like to stretch horizontally and dig in their claws, and may use the back of your couch. Your cats' preferences might change as they get older, says Dr. Lore Haug, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist with Texas Veterinary Behavior Services. If your cat likes both, look for a scratcher that lets them use it in multiple orientations. Make sure it's long or tall enough for them to fully extend their body while scratching.

Materials: The material you choose will largely come down to your cat's preference. Sisal, cardboard, and jute are all common materials, since those are all what cats like. "Most cats are going to fall into the cardboard and sisal categories as their favorite," Delgado says. Both experts noted that carpet can snag cats' claws, so use caution if that's their favorite material.

Stability: Vertical scratchers should have a wide, heavy base so they don't shake when your cats use them. Haug says this might scare them off, especially if your cat is on the timid side. Horizontal scratchers should sit on a non-slippery surface so they don't slide around.

Durability: Both experts say that cats like leaving visual markers of where they scratched. The best cat scratching posts balance durability with material that accommodates those visual cues. Sisal and jute are both durable, while also fraying and wearing enough to serve as signals that your cat was there. The cardboard post I tested was the quickest to show damage and would probably need replacing the soonest.

Safety: Make sure the post won't tip when your cat is using it. "Vertical posts either need to be anchored to a wall or they need to have a really sturdy base so that they can't get knocked over," Haug says. Choose a material that won't catch your cat's claws.

How we tested cat scratching posts

The living room is the central hub of my home. It's where my couch is and everyone, including my two cats — an 18-pound 3-year-old and a 13-pounder who's 8 — congregates. I tested each one in that room before moving it to my home office, another hangout spot. Below are the evaluation points I considered throughout the testing process.

Cat preference: I placed each of the nine posts behind my couch, a spot that both cats like to claw. Over the course of three days, I used direct observation and camera footage to note when the cats used or interacted with the scratcher. Then I moved the scratcher into my office for an additional three days and tracked usage.

Stability: I watched for shaking when my cats used the scratchers. I used medium force to push and pull each post to see if it started to tip, slide, or jiggle.

Durability: Using a metal claw-shaped comb, I scratched each post 50 times. I noted any wear from this test and whether the material caught the comb. I also examined the post before and after the six days of testing for signs of use.

Assembly: I timed how long it took to assemble the post and whether I could do it on my own.

Aesthetics: I noted how well-made the posts seemed (quality sisal versus a more ragged-looking rope, for example, or bulky plastic screws instead of flush metal ones), how they looked after some use, and whether they were available in multiple color options.

Cost: Most scratching posts over 30 inches range from $40 to $75 on Chewy, PetSmart, and Petco. I determined whether the posts were above or below that price range. For more expensive posts, I took extra features into account.

Meet the expert behind this guide

Jenny McGrath, freelance reporter: I've tested and reviewed home, tech, and pet products for over 10 years. For this guide, I evaluated nine scratching posts with a range of materials and at various price points. I consulted two experts, an animal behaviorist and a veterinarian, to find criteria for testing and assessing scratchers. My two cats tested all of the options over a period of six days per product.

Cat scratching post FAQs

What scratching posts do cats like best?

Every cat is an individual, and the preferred scratching material varies from cat to cat. In addition, some cats prefer horizontally oriented posts, others like vertical or angled, and some enjoy all orientations. Even the same cat may switch their preference from vertical to horizontal scratchers as they get older due to limitations with mobility.

Do scratching posts really work for cats?

Cats scratch for multiple reasons, from stretching to marking their territory with their claws and the scent glands in their paws. You want to offer your cats a resource that fulfills these needs. As long as you're reinforcing their behavior and it meets their needs, most cats will use scratchers. "Scratching also helps cats stretch their back muscles, so it feels really good," Delgado says. Whichever way they like to scratch, make sure they can get a good stretch at the same time. If your cat still prefers your sofa or other furniture over the scratchers you provide, we also recommend several products to protect your furniture from scratching.

When should a scratching post be replaced?

Depending on how your cats use them, posts can last years. There are a few signs to watch out for if you think the scratcher is ready to be retired. "If there is rope that is unraveling or a cat stops using the post, or they get their claws stuck on it, then it is probably a good idea to replace it," Delgado says.

Which is better for a cat scratching post, sisal or jute?

Either or neither could work. Your cat might like cardboard or even denim better. It's the cat scratcher Pepsi-Coke challenge, Haug says. Give your cat a few options and see what prompts them to scratch.

Where is the best place to put a cat scratching post?

The post needs to be convenient, Haug says. "Having the posts where the cat hangs out a lot, where they sleep a lot, and in their core area is going to maximize their utilization of it." If you have multiple cats, you don't necessarily need to keep scratchers separate from one another. However, Delgado advises against sticking them in cramped corners or seldom-visited basements. "I have several posts close to one another, which can be helpful if you have multiple cats and there are high traffic areas they all like to scratch," she says.

How do you encourage a cat to use a scratching post?

Both experts suggested praising your cat and handing out treats when you see them using the scratching post. You can also sprinkle it with catnip if that attracts them, or encourage them to scratch by dragging a toy along the post.

How many scratching posts do my cats need?

The more cats you have and the bigger your space is, the more scratching posts you'll need, according to both experts. Even if you have a single cat and a small apartment, you should still have a few options in different locations to support choice and so your cat doesn't turn their claws onto your furniture.

Casper's Birthday Sale is live now, and it's one of the brand's best sales of the year. Here's the breakdown: 25% off mattresses, plus 30% off bundles. You can also save 20% on two or more pillows and 10% on other categories through April 21. I've gathered the best Casper deals below.

Compared with recent Casper promotions, this sale is worthwhile — especially if you're shopping for bundles. Though Casper is no stranger to a discount, this event is one of the more reliable times to buy if you want a broader discount across the lineup (not just one model). If you're trying to hold out for better, you may find yourself waiting months.

Keep scrolling to find some highlights from the sale, or check out the full lineup on Casper. Not sure which bed is right for you? Get the down-low in our reviews of the Casper Original, Dream, and One mattresses.

The best Casper Birthday Sale deals

When does the Casper Birthday sale end?

Casper's annual Birthday Sale ends on April 21. Stock typically doesn't run out during the brand's past sales events, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy if you're ready to commit to a new bed or pillow.

What is on sale for Casper's Birthday event?

You can find almost the entire Casper lineup on sale this month. Here are the specific promotions available now:

• Up to 25% off mattresses
• 30% off bundles
• 35% off select pillows and sheets
• 10% off adjustable bases
• 20% off two or more pillows
• 10% off accessories
• 10% off furniture

Check out our guide to the best mattresses to find other beds we love, or our roundup of the best Casper coupons for year-round deals.

For the latest buying advice updates, follow us on Instagram and WhatsApp.

My jeans have been collecting dust since the day I took my career fully remote. As a work-from-home girlie, I rely on pieces that are comfortable above all else — but still polished enough for a Zoom call or quick errands.

Since discovering Rag & Bone's Miramar sweatpant jeans (AKA sweans) two years ago, they've become my go-to "jeans." With the comfort of loungewear and the look of true denim, these are the next-best-thing thanks to a genius screenprinting technique to simulate real buttons and rivets.

Lately, I've been seeing sweatpant jeans pop up everywhere, which had me curious about which ones are truly the best (especially considering Rag & Bone's steep price tag of nearly $200). I compared six pairs across different price points, with varying levels of realism, fit, and comfort. Here's my honest assessment of each pair.

I looked for realistic faux buttons and fabric that mimics a twill weave

Realistic details — like printed buttons, belt loops, and pockets — are key to making sweatpant jeans look like traditional denim. Halara's budget-friendly option surprised me with how good it looked compared to much more expensive versions.

The faux distressed details made these wide-leg bottoms (available in regular, petite, and tall lengths) even more convincing. The cotton-elastane fabric is soft, the mid-rise waistband is perfectly stretchy, and it holds up well when washed in the delicates cycle.

Thoughtful details like functional belt loops made this GAP pair even more jeans-like

I was equally impressed with Gap's Printed Baggy Sweatpant Jeans, which balance a realistic-looking button fly and pockets with a soft French terry made with recycled polyester. Like most Gap pieces I love, these come in three lengths — a must for getting the right fit with wide-leg styles.

My favorite detail, though, is the working belt loops, which add functionality and realism. Styled with a belt, they're basically indistinguishable from the real thing.

Even though this pair uses a rigid denim fabric, the roomy legs and wide, stretchy waistband make them just as comfy

Nuuds specializes in loungewear that's designed to be worn out and about. Even though the denim is more rigid than the other sweans I tried, these are just as easy to wear thanks to a generously baggy silhouette with a 31-inch inseam and thick elastic waistband, which can be further adjusted with a drawstring. I love that the deep pockets on these are functional rather than printed.

These faux denim joggers were super comfortable, but they don't pass for real jeans

I'd call these sweatpants by Good American more "denim-inspired" than actual sweatpant jeans. The 100% cotton fabric looks just like a dark wash denim, but it lacks screen-printed buttons, pockets, or belt loops. That said, the fabric is soft on the inside, with a denim-like feel on the outside. The fit is roomy with a stretchy elastic waist and ankle bands you can tuck into boots. They fit true to size, and have the widest size range of any of the sweats I tested (XS-5XL).

If you prefer something more authentic-looking, Good American's Jeanius line includes everything from cropped palazzo jeans to corset-cut hoodies in the same super soft, sweatpant-like fabric. Unlike the joggers I tested, though, the other jeans styles don't have elasticized waists, and they use true buttons and zippers, so they won't give you the full sweatpant jeans experience.

Rag & Bone's sweatpant jeans remain the gold standard

Still, the award for best overall and the widest selection goes to the OG: Rag & Bone. While other brands are leaning heavily into baggy silhouettes with their sweans, Rag & Bone's Miramar line is generally more fitted, with straight-leg, flared, and shorts options as well.

My favorite style is the pull-on wide-leg drawstring, which has a narrower but still roomy silhouette compared to the other wide-leg styles I tried (and a whopping $268 price tag).

I love that the front pockets and belt loops are functional, while the fly and back pockets use a super convincing screenprinting technique. They're essentially the perfect travel pants: I can wear them on the plane, and later dress them up for sightseeing or a dinner out.

See another pair I tested in our full Rag & Bone sweatpant jeans review.

The bottom line

Rag & Bone still makes the most convincing "sweans." The only downside is the hefty price tag, which may be restrictive. Your best bet for a sweatpant jeans dupe will come from Halara or Gap, though they come in way fewer styles and aren't quite as soft as the Miramar.

Shop all Rag & Bone sweatpant jeans.

When you're shopping for a new TV, the first big call is usually screen size. Larger models have gotten a lot more affordable, but that doesn't always mean they're the right fit. In some living rooms — and especially bedrooms — a big-screen TV can feel like too much. That's why 55-inch models are such a great compromise. They're big enough to showcase sharp 4K detail and vibrant HDR, but still easy to place without taking over your entire space. If you want a smart balance of size, performance, and price, the best 55-inch TVs deliver exactly that.

Right now, my top pick is the Samsung S90F. Since it's an OLED, you get deep, inky black levels, excellent contrast, and wide viewing angles. If you're trying to spend less, the TCL QM6K is a standout value. It can't match OLED performance, but it still delivers bright colors, solid overall picture quality, and a smooth Google TV experience for a much lower price.

Below, you'll find all five of my picks for the best 55-inch TVs, whether you're mostly streaming, catching every game, or building out a more serious home theater. These recommendations come from more than a decade of hands-on experience testing and reviewing home entertainment gear.

Our top picks for the best 55-inch TVs

Best overall: Samsung S90F OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best on a budget: TCL QM6K QLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best premium option: LG G5 OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best entry-level model: TCL S5 LED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best for sports: Samsung S95F OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best overall

Competition for the best 55-inch TV is fierce, but the Samsung S90F stands out as the winner. It delivers the best balance of performance and value of any TV in its class.

The S90F's QD-OLED panel combines OLED's infinite contrast ratio with quantum dots' advanced color capabilities. The result is a vibrant picture with deep black levels that disappear in a dark room. Black levels do lift slightly when hit with ambient light, but never to the point of distraction. And unlike LG's OLED models, Samsung's use of quantum dots gives this TV a slightly wider range of colors.

Brightness is another standout for this class. Our reviewer measured a peak of roughly 1,460 nits, which is excellent for a midrange OLED. HDR movies and shows pop with intense highlights and crisp detail, coming remarkably close to what you'd get from premium TVs that cost more. Even lower-resolution cable channels and HD YouTube streams appear impressively clean.

The S90F also features wide viewing angles, ensuring consistent color and contrast no matter where you sit. It's among the best gaming TVs, too, thanks to its low input lag and smooth 120Hz refresh rate (up to 144Hz with a PC). Plus, Samsung's smart platform includes the Xbox app, letting Game Pass members stream games directly to the TV without a console.

Although our reviewer had issues with Samsung's smart TV interface on older models, they found the S90F to be more responsive and consistent, with reduced lag and fewer hiccups. However, the system's organization is somewhat clumsy compared to more user-friendly offerings, such as Google TV or the Roku OS.

But where it counts most, the 55-inch S90F is an absolutely fantastic TV. People who want a midsize display that doesn't skimp on image quality and features should consider this model first. Samsung also sells a newer 2026 edition of this set, called the S90H, but it costs a lot more and doesn't offer a big upgrade. That said, the S90H does add an impressive anti-glare screen that is much better at fighting reflections, albeit at the cost of contrast in bright rooms. You can learn more in my 2026 Samsung OLED TV roundup.

Read our full Samsung S90F TV review.

Check out our guide to all of the best TVs and best Samsung TVs.

Best on a budget

TCL's QM6K is the best 55-inch TV for budget-conscious shoppers. Despite its affordable price, the QM6K boasts advanced picture quality features that many similarly priced models lack.

Notably, the QM6K features a QLED panel with a Mini LED backlight. Most TVs in this price range cut those features to keep costs down, resulting in low contrast, dim images, and a washed-out picture. The QM6K, however, has solid performance across the board.

The QLED panel produces a wide range of vivid colors, and the Mini LED backlight has local dimming to control contrast across multiple zones. This results in good black levels with minimal blooming (halos around bright objects). In fact, the QM6K handles blooming better than many pricier QLED TVs I've reviewed.

Of course, there are areas where the QM6K falls short. Its brightness is decent for a TV in this class, but not as high as midrange models. I measured a max of around 550-730 nits across different test patterns, which is better than most competing TVs in this price range. That said, high-brightness HDR content doesn't have the luster and pop that I've seen on more expensive TVs.

The QM6K's viewing angles are also a bit limited. Colors and contrast fade and distort if you sit off to the side of the screen. That said, the effect isn't as severe as it is on most budget TVs of this kind.

TCL also earns points for including a backlit remote, which other brands, such as LG and Samsung, don't offer. The remote supports Google Assistant, and you can use hands-free voice control. The QM6K's Google TV interface is smooth, and I encountered only minor hiccups while navigating menus.

The QM6K is also one of the most affordable TVs with a high 144Hz refresh rate. This enables smooth gaming when paired with a high-end PC that can handle high frame rates, and it supports full 120Hz with a PS5 or Xbox Series X.

The 55-inch QM6K is regularly priced at $550 and occasionally goes on sale for as low as $448. Those are excellent prices for a TV in this class, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better option for the money.

Read our TCL QM6K 4K TV review.

Check out our guides to the best TCL TVs, best budget TVs, and best TVs under $500.

Best premium option

LG's G5 is the high-end TV to beat with image quality that edges out the competition. Most notably, the G5 is one of the brightest OLED TVs I've ever tested.

I measured a peak luminance of 2,410 nits using a 10% test pattern with the TV set in Filmmaker Mode. That's a big leap over the older LG G4, which maxed out at around 1,500 nits. Such high luminance allows the G5 to deliver more impactful HDR images. When paired with high-brightness HDR movies, like "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Aquaman," the TV simply stuns, delivering a nearly unrivaled combination of bold highlights, rich colors, and deep black levels. This is the kind of image quality that TV nerds like myself geek out over.

Like all OLED TVs, the G5's viewing angles are wide, so the picture doesn't degrade much when you sit off-center. This is great for rooms with seating on the side of the TV. The G5 is also equipped with advanced gaming features, including a high 165Hz refresh rate when paired with a PC, which enables smooth motion.

However, as impressive as the G5's image capabilities are, the TV isn't quite perfect. While watching a small selection of HDR videos, I noticed some false contouring (also called posterization). This flaw caused some colors and shadows to appear blocky rather than smooth. But LG has since released firmware updates to address this, so I don't consider it a notable drawback.

The G5 uses LG's webOS interface for smart TV features, and it works just fine. It offers access to many streaming apps and has cool features like Voice ID, which automatically switches user profiles based on who speaks to the TV. On the downside, webOS tends to emphasize sponsored content and shopping recommendations more than I'd like, but most of these ads can be deactivated by navigating through some hidden menu options.

The TV's design complements its premium picture quality, featuring a sturdy build, a thin profile, and a flush wall mount included in the box. But people who'd prefer to attach the G5 to a traditional TV stand have to buy one separately, since the set doesn't include one.

Shoppers with deep pockets should also note that LG just launched a new 2026 version of this TV, called the G6. Based on an early demonstration I saw, the G6 offers a brighter image, improved reflection handling, and better processing to minimize banding. But while it's an even better high-end TV than the G5, it also costs a lot more. For that reason, I still give the G5 the edge for most people who want a premium 55-inch set. You can learn more in my 2026 LG OLED TV roundup.

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

Best entry-level

For a typical sale price of under $300, the TCL S5 is the best 55-inch TV for people who favor affordability over advanced image quality.

This model uses a standard LED panel without local dimming. As a result, its brightness and black-level capabilities are a noticeable step down from QLED TVs like the QM6K and pricier OLED models.

Although the S5 can produce a wide range of colors, its limited contrast prevents the set from displaying HDR content as intended, causing dark scenes to appear more washed out when watching TV in low-light conditions. Colors and contrast also distort if you sit to the side of the screen, and the TV's refresh rate is limited to 60Hz, so it can't support high-frame-rate gaming. To be clear, these drawbacks are common for any TV at this price point, but it's important to keep them in mind.

I recommend paying more for the QM6K if you want a budget-friendly TV with good HDR capabilities. However, the S5 is a solid option if you just want basic 4K playback for casual viewing. Integrated support for the Fire TV platform and an Alexa voice remote round out the package, offering playback from all the best streaming services. An edition with the Google TV OS is also available for those who prefer Google's platform.

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

Best for sports

Samsung's high-end S95F OLED stands out from most other 55-inch TVs with a unique feature: a matte screen. While most competing displays use glossy or semi-glossy panels, the S95F's matte finish significantly reduces glare and reflections, which is particularly useful when watching sports in a bright room.

If your space gets a lot of natural light, this TV can be a game changer. Its wide viewing angles also maintain consistent colors and contrast, even when you're sitting off to the side — perfect for group watch parties or big game nights.

There is one tradeoff, though. The same matte coating that helps fight reflections also lifts black levels in bright rooms. That means dark scenes look hazier and flatter when the lights are on. Sports content won't suffer much, but if you often watch movies in daylight, you might notice the difference. It really comes down to whether you value glare reduction over high contrast.

In dark environments, however, the S95F's black levels appear as deep and inky as those of any OLED, and overall picture quality is stellar, right up there with top rivals from Sony and LG. The TV also delivers excellent brightness for an OLED. I measured a peak of around 2,170 nits, which is fantastic for an OLED.

The S95F's premium design matches its performance. It's thin with a minimalist profile and uses Samsung's One Connect Box to neatly manage inputs, eliminating clutter on the back of the screen. Gamers will also appreciate the TV's high 165Hz refresh rate for PC play and built-in Xbox Game Pass support for streaming games.

Those with the cash to spare should also consider Samsung's newer S95H, which carries over everything I liked about the S95F while offering an even brighter image, a cool frame-like bezel, and access to Samsung's Art Store. The S95H is a more impressive TV overall, but the cheaper S95F remains a better value for those seeking an anti-glare OLED for sports.

Read our Samsung S95F 4K TV review.

Check out our guide to the best TV for sports.

How we test 55-inch TVs

To find the best 55-inch TVs, our reviewers used a combination of hands-on testing and research, drawing on more than a decade of experience covering home entertainment gear.

We typically focus our testing on 65-inch TVs, since that size is considered the industry flagship. That said, performance is usually the same for a specific TV model across sizes of 55 inches and up. For instance, the 55-inch and 65-inch versions of LG's G5 OLED share identical specs and features, with screen size being the only real difference.

There are some exceptions. TVs that use local dimming, such as the TCL QM6K, may have fewer dimming zones in smaller sizes, which can lead to minor differences in contrast. These changes rarely affect our overall assessment, but when size-related differences are notable, we call them out.

To test TVs, we evaluate picture clarity, contrast, brightness, color accuracy, viewing angles, gaming performance, smart TV software, and overall value. We measure HDR brightness with a colorimeter and use Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark test patterns or pattern generators to assess objective performance.

Of course, numbers only tell part of the story. We also spend plenty of time watching real movies and shows in both dark and bright rooms. Our test content spans 4K, 1080p HD, and standard-definition sources from Blu-ray discs, streaming apps, and cable TV, with specific scenes chosen to stress black levels, shadow detail, HDR highlights, and upscaling. Gaming tests are done using a PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch 2.

You can learn more about our review process in our breakdown of how we test tech products.

Meet the expert behind this guide:

Steven Cohen, senior tech editor: I've been covering home entertainment gear for over a decade, and I test the latest TVs year-round. I also studied film production, which means I'm a little obsessive about picture accuracy — I want movies and shows to look the way the director intended, not overly bright or oversaturated. When I review a TV, I use professional calibration tools and test patterns to measure performance, but that's only part of the story. I also live with every TV I test like it's my own — streaming movies, watching sports, and flipping through everyday shows to see how it actually performs in real life. I then take all that hands-on testing and translate it into clear, practical advice so you can find a great 55-inch TV for your budget.

Learn more about the Reviews team at Business Insider.

55-inch TV FAQs

Is a 55-inch TV a good size?

A 55-inch screen is a solid choice for various needs, and many of the best smart TVs are sold in this size. A 55-inch set is still large enough to feel immersive in smaller living rooms, while offering a more compact alternative to 65-inch models that might be too large for some spaces.

If you're shopping for a media console or mount to pair with a 55-inch TV, consider our guides to the best TV stands and best TV wall mounts for top recommendations.

A 55-inch TV is also a good fit for a bedroom where you might want something smaller than what you've got in your living room, but not so compact that you have to sacrifice picture quality. Most brands' best 4K TVs are available in 55-inch sizes, but many top displays are not sold in smaller sizes. For instance, if you want one of Sony's best OLED TVs, the 55-inch size is the smallest available.

Should you buy a 2026 or 2025 55-inch TV?

New 2026 55-inch TV models were announced at the CES tech show in January, and several options are now available to buy from LG, Samsung, and Hisense. Sony also announced that it will release its first True RGB TVs later this spring, but sizes haven't been confirmed. Our experts will review 2026 TVs for consideration in this guide over the coming months.

However, shoppers should remember that 2025 TV models will remain in stock for much of the year, and they cost much less than their 2026 counterparts. With that in mind, 2025 TV models remain the better value for most people.

How much should a 55-inch TV cost?

The best 55-inch TVs range in price, with entry-level models starting under $300 and high-end models costing $2,000 or more.

If you want a midrange 55-inch TV, you should plan to spend about $400 to $700. Several great 55-inch QLED models in that price range feature quantum dots, local dimming, and Mini LED backlights, delivering good contrast and peak brightness levels of up to 1,000 nits.

Shoppers who prefer a 55-inch OLED TV to a QLED TV will have to pay more, with prices starting around $1,000. Although notably more expensive than their QLED counterparts, OLED TVs offer pixel-level brightness control, providing superior contrast and perfect black levels.

Many 55-inch TVs receive discounts throughout the year, but we typically see the biggest price drops during sales like Prime Day and Black Friday, as well as around major sporting events like the Super Bowl and March Madness.

How far should you sit from a 55-inch 4K TV?

The smaller a 4K screen is, the closer you'll need to sit to the display to see the full benefits of its resolution. To see the extra detail that 4K offers over 1080p Full HD, you'll want to sit about one to 1.5 times the size of your display. For a 55-inch 4K TV, the recommended viewing distance is between 4.6 and 6.9 feet.

Of course, you can still sit farther away from your TV and still enjoy its image quality, but the recommended distance will let you see the best level of detail.

If you need to sit even closer to your TV or just have a small room to work with, check out our guides to the best 50-inch TVs and best 43-inch TVs.

For rooms where you need to sit farther from your display, we recommend choosing a larger screen to fully benefit from 4K resolution. Check out our guides for larger display models:

• Best 65-inch TVs
• Best 75-inch TVs
• Best 85-inch TVs
• Best 100-inch TVs

Do 55-inch TVs have good sound quality?

Even the best 55-inch TVs tend to have mediocre built-in speakers. Audio drivers integrated into most TVs are small and often placed in areas that can result in a muddy sound, lacking range and deep bass. For this reason, we recommend pairing your TV with a soundbar or full surround sound system to get the best audio quality for movies, TV shows, and video games.

For the most immersive experience, we suggest finding a system that supports Dolby Atmos, which can enable sound effects from all directions, even above your head. Performance varies depending on the model you get, but entry-level Atmos systems can still provide a nice upgrade over your TV's built-in speakers.

Check out our various soundbar and speaker guides to see our top recommendations for different needs:

• Best soundbars
• Best Dolby Atmos soundbars
• Best budget soundbars
• Best soundbars with subwoofers
• Best Bose soundbars
• Best Sonos soundbars
• Best surround sound systems

Do you need a 55-inch TV with HDMI 2.1?

Many of the best 55-inch TVs include HDMI 2.1 ports. This feature is most beneficial for gamers who want to enjoy high frame rate modes on a console or PC.

An HDMI 2.1 connection enables a TV to receive 4K video signals at refresh rates higher than the previous 60Hz standard. High refresh rates enable smoother motion in video games that support them.

Most HDMI 2.1 TVs support a 4K/120Hz signal, and some models can even support higher refresh rates, such as 144Hz or 165Hz. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X support 4K/120Hz modes, while high-end gaming PCs can support 144Hz and 165Hz output.

In this guide, the Samsung S90F, TCL QM6K, Samsung S95F, and LG G5 all have HDMI 2.1 ports. Only the TCL S5 is limited to HDMI 2.0 with a 60Hz signal.

You'll need a compatible HDMI cable to send and receive an HDMI 2.1 signal from a source device to a TV. For top recommendations, check out our guide to the best HDMI cables.

• Target Hospitality stock is up about 60% since March 31.
• The company landed a $550 million deal to house 4,000 workers building a data center in Texas.
• It is one of many companies outside the tech industry that is benefiting from the AI boom.

A low-profile Texas company that provides temporary housing for immigrant detainees and oil riggers could get a boost from the data center boom.

Target Hospitality's stock is up about 60% since March 31. The company announced on April 1 that it had signed a $550 million deal with a top hyperscaler to house thousands of construction workers building a data center campus in Texas.

The deal is a "landmark" for Target Hospitality, Stifel analyst Stephen Gengaro said Monday in a note to investors.

Target Hospitality has become one of the many non-technology companies hoping to cash in on the AI boom, which has fueled the company's "largest commercial pipeline ever," CEO James Brad Archer said last month in an earnings call with investors.

For its new data center client, which the company has not named but has said is a "top 5 hyperscaler," Target Hospitality is building facilities for 4,000 workers adjacent to a data center construction site in North Texas. The site will feature "elevated hospitality service offerings," according to a press release.

Target Hospitality specializes in setting up and running large-scale temporary living facilities, also known as "man camps." Man camps are longtime fixtures of the oil and gas industry, which sends workers to remote locations for extended periods.

The camps are essentially tiny villages of prefab housing units built to be deployed and dismantled quickly. Man camps often feature on-site food, laundry facilities, and gyms for hundreds to thousands of workers at a time.

Amenities Target Hospitality has provided at other sites include swimming pools, on-site housekeeping, volleyball courts, and golf simulators.

Target refers to these camps as "communities." The company has historically balanced this business with government contracts.

Most recently, Target Hospitality operated two Texas detention centers for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a company filing.

Target is not the first hospitality company to jump on the bandwagon. Last year, Wyndham said it was planning to open more of its budget hotel chains in areas with heavy data center construction, such as Mississippi and Ohio.

Now, Target is at an "inflection point," Archer said.

"To be blunt, we're focused on growing the WHS segment," Archer said, referring to the company's Workforce Hospitality Solutions division, or the man camp side of the business.

"We believe it offers the most value creation," Archer said.

Target Hospitality did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• CBS News is hiring Joshua Hoyos as editorial director of its live news streamer.
• Hoyos was previously the New York bureau chief at ABC News and underwent an HR investigation.
• Read the full memo about Hoyos' hire.

CBS News is hiring a former newsroom leader at ABC News who abruptly left last year, Business Insider has learned.

Joshua Hoyos, formerly the New York bureau chief at ABC News, is joining Bari Weiss' broadcast network as the editorial director of CBS News 24/7, the news organization's free livestream news service.

Hoyos left ABC News last February after more than 12 years, following an HR investigation, a person familiar with the situation confirmed. Status first reported the news of the investigation into Hoyos.

A spokesperson for ABC News declined to elaborate on the nature of the HR investigation or whether fault was found.

The former ABC bureau chief will join CBS next Monday and report to Robert Gifford, the vice president and managing editor of CBS News 24/7. Gifford told staffers about the hire in a memo sent Thursday.

Hoyos is "an award-winning journalist and media executive who brings more than a decade of experience directing breaking news and live coverage at the highest levels of broadcast journalism," Gifford said in his memo, which was obtained by Business Insider.

A spokesperson for CBS News declined to comment. Hoyos didn't respond to several requests for comment.

Read the full memo from Gifford:

24/7 Team,

I am very happy to share that Joshua Hoyos is joining us as our new Editorial Director.

Joshua is an award-winning journalist and media executive who brings more than a decade of experience directing breaking news and live coverage at the highest levels of broadcast journalism.

Most recently, he served as New York Bureau Chief at ABC News, where he led newsgathering teams across the Eastern United States — overseeing correspondents, reporters, and producers through breaking news and major continuing coverage. His work at ABC was recognized with Emmy Awards, Peabody Awards, a duPont-Columbia Award, and multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Joshua is a committed advocate for diverse voices in journalism and an active member of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He recently served as Executive Producer on a documentary exploring the history and legacy of the New York Amsterdam News.

In his spare time, Joshua is an avid runner — with 15 marathons completed — and a devoted movie buff.

He starts next Monday, reporting to me. I am looking forward to introducing you all to him in person soon.

Please join me in welcoming Joshua to the team!

Khaby Lame's $975 million deal is facing trouble as brokerages restrict trading in the stock tied to it. The TikTok star had planned to merge his company with Rich Sparkle Holdings so everyday investors could buy in, but uncertainty has sent the stock down over 90% since January.