• Anthropic said it has been hiring a smaller number of junior technical positions.
• Entry-level hires in technical departments fell from 27% to 9%, the AI company said.
• AI agents have spread across the firm to write code, fix bugs, and handle other tasks.

Anthropic's own data offers a stark warning for entry-level tech employees in an AI-heavy workplace.

The company behind the AI chatbot Claude said in a newly released internal report that it has been hiring for a "smaller share of junior technical positions" as AI agents have been deployed across the firm to write code, fix bugs, and handle other tasks.

By August, Anthropic said its interactive AI agents were logging six hours of work for every hour a human employee logged.

A chart published in the new report titled "How Employment is Changing at Anthropic" shows that junior workers made up 27% of hires in technical departments at the company in early 2025. By June of this year, that number had plummeted to 9%.

The share of junior-level workers in technical departments had also declined over the same period from 21% to 14%, while open roles for junior positions slid to 6% after topping 20% late last year, the chart shows.

That downward trend was less pronounced in non-technical departments, where hiring of junior workers fell from 31% to 26% over the same timeframe, while their share of head count rose from 23% to 25%. Junior job openings in non-technical departments, meanwhile, dropped from 31% to 13%.

Anthropic said the changes came as AI usage inside the company rapidly expanded.

"As AI agents diffused through the company, Anthropic began producing more code per person, closing more sales per rep, and processing more contracts," the report said. "Following the same employee over time, output rose as they adopted new AI tools."

It added, "We find that even as the company grows, relative hiring in junior technical positions has slowed. Productivity for both engineers and non-technical employees has leapt up and did so sharply when they adopted coding agents."

The findings land as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has emerged as one of the tech industry's most prominent voices on how AI could disrupt jobs.

Amodei has repeatedly said that AI may eliminate up to half of entry-level white-collar jobs over the next several years.

"We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming," Amodei said in an interview last year.

• At 55, I thought I would have already figured out where I want to retire in the next few years.
• Instead, I've been living out of suitcases and housesitting in different places to see what I like.
• I still don't know where I will retire, but I do have a much better idea of what I want — and don't.

I always thought I'd be settled somewhere for good by age 55, with a comfortable home, established garden, and chest freezer in the garage.

But after growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, raising my kids in Seattle, and becoming an empty nester, I realized I had no idea where I wanted to settle down.

For the first time in more than 20 years, I suddenly had the freedom to choose where I wanted to live.

So at 52, I started housesitting in exchange for places to stay so I could travel without depleting my savings. I quickly realized how much I enjoyed the nomadic lifestyle and how this gave me the opportunity to test out places I might eventually want to live in.

After a few months, I liked it so much that I gave away almost everything I owned, put the rest in storage, and decided to do it full-time.

That was almost three years ago. Since then, I've lived in dozens of cities, towns, and remote islands, from northern Washington to the southeastern coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.

Housesitting has changed my mind about what I thought I wanted

I typically stay in each home for two weeks to three months at a time, which allows me to get to know a new place without signing a lease, buying a house, or committing to a community.

Instead, I chat with locals, visit the library and grocery store, explore nearby nature trails, and try to imagine what it would be like to live there.

I ask myself a lot of questions: Can I tolerate this climate? Do I feel able to connect with this community? Could I live without whatever thing this place might be missing … which is sometimes as simple as my beloved Trader Joe's?

Throughout my stays, I've learned new things about myself and what I really want.

For example, I'd long pictured myself settling in a city since I've spent most of my life in major metropolitan areas.

So, I was thrilled to book a housesitting job right across the street from my old high school in San Francisco. I couldn't wait to walk the same streets I did in my youth and revisit my old haunts.

But the nostalgia wore off quickly, and a $105 street-cleaning ticket reminded me of the hassles of city life. I realized that a noisy, crowded, expensive city isn't where I want to settle after all.

These days, less traffic, more green space, and a slower pace feel more like my style.

After that stint in the city, I went to the other extreme and booked a multi-week housesit on a remote Pacific Northwest island where the closest grocery store was a ferry ride away — long enough to require ice packs and a cooler to get my frozen food home before it defrosted.

At first, I couldn't imagine staying there for more than a few weeks, but I quickly fell in love with the solitude and have returned several times.

I realized that being surrounded by water, going days without talking to another person, hearing owls hoot at night, and watching a mother deer and her fawn wander across the yard made the extra effort of island life worthwhile.

I was willing to plan errands around the ferry schedule and give up some of the conveniences I'd always taken for granted for that kind of peace.

Turns out, I'm more open to living in a remote place than I expected.

Now, I'm rethinking what it means to settle down — and if I'd even stay in the US

I'd also never even considered moving abroad until I booked a five-week housesitting gig for an American woman who had retired in La Paz, Mexico.

I felt inspired by my client's willingness to give up familiar comforts and conveniences to risk starting over in a new country in search of the life she wanted.

Although I'm not sure Mexico is where I want to settle, I loved my time in the Sonoran Desert and haven't ruled out retiring outside of the US. This experience helped me learn what living abroad was really like and realize I'm more capable of making that jump than I ever imagined if it's what I ultimately choose.

After trying out more than 50 locations in three years, I still don't know where I eventually want to retire. But I know I want to be somewhere I can walk in nature, enjoy some solitude without feeling isolated, and engage with a community when I'm ready for company.

Above all, I'm searching for a place that makes me feel at home — even when I'm visiting for the first time.

• Screenshots of Vinted listings circulating on social media show products being offered for a fraction of their retail prices.
• The suspected stolen merchandise was listed after looting in France.
• Vinted told The Telegraph it had taken immediate action to identify and remove listings connected to the violence.

Resale websites including Vinted have removed suspicious listings after they were flooded with apparently stolen goods in the wake of riots that swept across France.

Perfumes, designer handbags, cosmetics and even Pokémon cards have appeared on second-hand marketplaces following a weekend of violence that saw shops ransacked, The Telegraph — which, like Business Insider, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network — reported.

Screenshots circulating on social media show products being offered for a fraction of their retail prices, including bags overflowing with Sephora cosmetics advertised for as little as €10 (£8.40).

The listings have triggered suspicions that looters are trying to sell stolen goods online. eBay and Vinted have removed some items and stepped up their monitoring of suspicious activity.

One advert on Vinted showed six Sephora lip glosses being sold for €15, while another offered six tubes of cleansing cream for just €12.

Sephora France sells comparable own-brand lip glosses for around €13 each, meaning six would ordinarily cost around €78.

Other listings included Christian Dior perfumes advertised for €250 and large quantities of make-up still in their original packaging.

In one case, Pokémon trading cards allegedly stolen from a shop in Lille were advertised on Vinted, with some still bearing their original price stickers.

Hundreds of cards were reportedly found scattered across streets in the northern French city after a fire at Le Coin des Barons, a shop specialising in collectable cards.

A trophy said to have been stolen from French e-sport club Team Vitality was advertised on eBay for €1,250.

The silver StarLadder Counter-Strike trophy was photographed against a graffiti-covered wall and listed under the title: "STOLEN RARE VITALITY CS2 TROPHÉE."

Team Vitality confirmed that its Paris premises had been looted during Saturday's unrest, with trophies and computer equipment stolen and display windows smashed.

The listings emerged as France struggled to contain some of its worst civil unrest in years, caused by anger over the cost of living and deteriorating public services.

More than half a million people joined demonstrations on Saturday, with violent clashes breaking out in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and other cities.

French authorities said more than 2,400 people had been arrested by Sunday, while nearly 1,000 police officers were injured.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has stepped up powers to ban protests as he acknowledged intelligence "failures" over the riots.

The unrest has spread beyond France, with demonstrations about living costs and public spending also taking place in Belgium, Portugal and Italy.

French retailers have been left counting the cost, with supermarket giant Carrefour reporting damage to 50 stores, including 20 that were looted.

'We have zero tolerance for it'

Sephora closed its French stores on Saturday evening and kept them shut on Sunday after several branches were ransacked.

Vinted said it had taken immediate action to identify and remove listings connected to the violence.

A spokesman said: "The sale of stolen goods, or soliciting them, is strictly prohibited on Vinted, and we have zero tolerance for it."

The company said it had stepped up monitoring and would take action against offenders, including permanently banning accounts. It added that it was working with law enforcement and French authorities to identify suspicious sellers.

An eBay spokesman said: "The sale of stolen property is strictly prohibited on eBay."

The company said it used technology to identify suspicious activity and worked closely with police to investigate criminal behaviour.

The spokesman added: "If we receive confirmation from law enforcement that an item has been stolen, we remove it immediately and take action against the seller."

This story originally appeared on The Telegraph and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces, and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from Business Insider, POLITICO, The Telegraph, WELT, BILD, Onet, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms.

• Prosecutors say an ex-OpenAI employee accused of planting a recording device appears to have received support from the Saudi government.
• A federal magistrate judge will hear arguments on Monday on whether Abdulrahman Alfozan should remain in custody.
• Prosecutors said that Alfozan frequently communicated with a member of the Saudi Royal Family.

Federal prosecutors say that a former OpenAI employee accused of planting a recording device received "what appears to be considerable support from" the Saudi government.

Prosecutors made the disclosure in a motion to keep Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national and former OpenAI employee, in custody pending trial.

Alfozan had been in contact as recently as October 5 with an unnamed member of the Saudi Royal Family, whom he frequently communicated with on WhatsApp over the last two years, prosecutors said.

"In May 2026, the individual told the defendant, 'Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!' to which the defendant responded '100,"' indicating he agreed," prosecutors wrote.

The FBI arrested Alfozan on October 9. According to a criminal complaint, Alfozan planted a recording device in the back of a TV in an OpenAI conference room where sensitive discussions take place. OpenAI's security cameras caught Alfozan near the conference room on multiple occasions, despite his lack of authorization to the high-level meetings held there, prosecutors said.

"In the days surrounding the time period that the device was installed, OpenAI executives met with government officials in that very room," prosecutors wrote in a filing on Sunday. "Defendant's conduct could pose a danger to the national security of the United States."

The complaint included a photo of what prosecutors said was Alfozan peering behind the TV where the recording device was found.

In addition to his WhatsApp messaging, prosecutors wrote that an unnamed member of the Saudi military booked a flight for Alfozan's wife and son on October 11, despite an existing reservation for an October 12 flight, which prosecutors said was "paid for by the Saudi government."

In a separate filing, William Pernik, Alfozan's attorney, said that the former OpenAI engineer did not pose a flight risk.

"Mr. Alfozan was made aware of OpenAI finding the device per its own filings and OpenAI's public statements, approximately eight to ten days before he was arrested," Pernik wrote. "If his intention was to flee, he would have done so at that time."

Pernik said that prosecutors' previous disclosure that Alfozan had purchased a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia lacked context.

"Seventy percent of the airline bookings in his email since January 2021 (96 of 138) were one-way tickets," Pernik wrote.

Pernik said that in order to secure his release, Alfozan would agree to GPS monitoring and home detention, surrender his passports, and agree not to travel outside Northern California, accept a bond "co-signed by members of his Bay Area community and backed by the written undertaking of the Consulate General of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

US Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse is set to hear arguments later Monday on whether Alfozan should remain in custody.

• France's cost-of-living protests descended into violence and looting over the weekend.
• Hundreds of thousands demonstrated amid growing anger over the cost of living and public services.
• From soaring energy prices to declining incomes, five figures help explain the unrest.

France's growing anger over the cost of living erupted into scenes of looting and violence over the weekend.

While most of the hundreds of thousands of people who demonstrated across the country did so peacefully, clashes broke out between police and some protesters, with officers firing tear gas.

The unrest began as student protests over worsening school conditions, but has since grown into a broader movement fueled by frustration over the unaffordability of life in France.

The financial pressures facing French households are familiar to Americans: surging energy prices, wages struggling to keep pace with inflation, and the difficulty of making ends meet.

Here are four numbers that help explain the financial frustrations driving the protests.

1. The poverty rate is at a 30-year high

INSEE defines monetary poverty as having a standard of living below 60% of the national median, adjusted for household size. In 2024, that threshold was €1,337 a month for someone living alone.

France's monetary poverty rate stood at 15.4% in 2024, its highest level since annual records began in 1996, according to INSEE data published in July. The figures are the latest available because calculating poverty rates requires detailed tax and benefits records, which take time to compile and analyze.

That means around 9.8 million people in mainland France were living below the poverty line.

2. Energy prices are up more than 60% since 2015

It's not just Americans who are grappling with rising energy costs.

Energy prices in France increased by more than 60% between 2015 and the first half of 2026, according to INSEE. Electricity prices rose 43% over that period, while fuel prices were 31% higher at the end of 2025 than in 2015.

As with much of the world, the war in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz crisis sent fuel prices soaring. By April 2026, fuel prices in France were 30% higher than at the end of 2025, per the INSEE report.

Rising fuel costs were behind French protests in September, and members of that movement have joined students and trade unions in the riots over the past week.

3. Nearly 3 in 10 French people can't afford unexpected expenses

Data from Eurostat, the European Union's statistics agency, shows that 28.8% of people in France lived in households that couldn't afford an unexpected expense without borrowing or seeking financial help in 2025.

France isn't particularly unusual in the wider European context — the EU average was also around 29% — but the figures illustrate the financial insecurity facing almost a third of households as people protest over the cost of living.

4. More than 40% of French people experienced some difficulty making ends meet

More than four in 10 people in France (41.1%) lived in households that reported at least some difficulty making ends meet in 2025, according to Eurostat data.

Of those, 19.4% reported some difficulty, 13.7% reported difficulty, and 8% reported great difficulty, highlighting the widespread financial strain facing French households.

• James Russo of AllianceBernstein says the AI trade is at a "critical moment."
• AI infrastructure stocks face risks from rising rates, which could deter borrowing and AI spending.
• Russo expects a "significant deceleration" in hyperscaler capex in 2027 and 2028.

The AI trade is at a "critical moment" as rates in the corporate bond market rise, a top portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein says.

James Russo, who manages the firm's US Strategic Core Equities portfolio, told Business Insider last week that rising yields are making companies increasingly less willing to borrow to fund AI spending, putting AI infrastructure stocks in a perilous position.

"If the financing crunch continues, worsens, and begins to spiral, then it would signal a massive change in the trajectory for the AI trade," Russo said.

A confluence of factors is pushing up borrowing rates.

For one, Treasury yields have soared in recent months, thanks to rising oil prices and their impact on the inflation outlook, and ballooning government debt levels. That spike has caused rates to rise in the corporate credit market, as they're pegged to the risk-free rate.

Huge borrowing demand to fund the AI buildout is also putting upward pressure on rates. As demand for capital is outpacing its supply, borrowers to pay a higher interest rate to compete for the money.

Last week, yields on bonds issued by AI infrastructure company CoreWeave hit 15% as concerns around the company's debt levels fueled fears about the health of the infrastructure boom. Broader default concerns for AI firms are now seeping into the bond market, sending rates for these firms higher.

All of that presents a problem for companies involved in the AI buildout. As the cost of capital rises, any new money borrowed is more expensive. To justify borrowing at higher rates, prospective returns on the investment in AI data centers and other projects need to be large enough.

The less worth it that borrowing to fund the AI buildout becomes, the less spending on AI there may be, Russo said.

If capex growth pulls back meaningfully, the companies benefiting from the spending on the AI could see a reduction in their future expected income. Those fears were at the heart of the sell-off in AI infrastructure names that rocked the market last week.

Russo said he expects a slowdown in AI capex over the next couple of years. Hyperscalers are spending an estimated $725 billion in 2026, and that is expected to grow to as high as $1.2 trillion. But the ultimate growth rate may come in well below what the market expects, Russo said.

"I would expect a significant deceleration in capex growth in 2027, and again further deceleration in 2028," Russo said.

Third-quarter earnings reports for major hyperscalers are just around the corner, and could offer a window into any changes in how these firms are thinking about capex.

• As a sommelier, wine is my job — and sparkling wine is my favorite. Costco's a good place to get it.
• Costco has solid prosecco and cava, plus fancy vintage Champagne like Henriot
• There are also great sparkling wines from brands like Roederer Estate and Moët & Chandon.

I wasn't sure if my husband and I would be able to get the full value out of our Costco membership, but I was wrong.

Although not every location sells alcohol, our local Costco does — and I've found this bulk retailer has some of the best wine prices.

This comes in handy because, as a certified sommelier, I buy a lot of wine for tastings, events, and even my own collection. And every time I go to Costco, I seem to discover something new, whether it's a unique variety or an especially great deal.

Here are some of the best sparkling wines I've found at Costco so far.

Editor's Note: Prices and availability may vary.

The Kirkland Signature Prosecco feels like a steal.

Typically around $10 a bottle, Kirkland Signature's prosecco is one of the most affordable sparkling wines I've seen at Costco.

Don't let the price fool you, though. This wine is from the "Superiore" area of the Italian prosecco region, meaning the winemaking standards are higher.

The Kirkland Signature bottle is on the sweet side, and it's perfect for brunch mimosas.

Moët sells millions of bottles of its Champagne every year.

Moët & Chandon Champagne is probably the most iconic wine on this list.

As a sommelier, people often ask for a glass of Champagne whenever they want something fizzy. However, true Champagne has to be made in the Champagne region of France — trust me, it actually makes a difference.

The flavors are much more complex and layered than a standard sparkling wine. There's also something special and luxurious about Champagne.

This bottle is amazing on its own, but also shines with salty snacks such as potato chips, mixed nuts, and popcorn.

Kirkland Signature's Champagne is also hype-worthy.

You may not expect much from the Kirkland Signature brut Champagne, but it's hard to find another bottle like it.

It's true Champagne that I've typically seen for about $21 — it's rare to find a large bottle of the stuff at such a low price.

This variety is a little lighter and fresher than some Champagnes, but if that doesn't bother you, it's a total winner.

Roederer Estate makes a stunning $20 sparkler.

If regions don't matter to you, try this pick from Roederer Estate.

Some big Champagne brands purchase land and make Champagne-style sparkling wines worldwide. In this case, Louis Roederer bought property in Northern California's Anderson Valley.

Its sparkling brut is a delight and I've seen it for $20 to $30 a bottle. In comparison, the brand's true French Champagne goes for closer to $60 to $80.

I like the Californian Roederer Estate stuff so much that I served it at my own wedding.

If you've got Champagne taste on a beer budget, try cava.

Choosing cava is a great way to save money on sparkling wine.

The Spanish sparkler uses the same production method as Champagne but rarely costs more than $20 a bottle. Costco even has one from Blanchard Perez that I've seen for under $10.

Cava is generally dry, with little to no sweetness. I love serving it with appetizers and tapas.

I've also found solid sparkling rosés at Costco.

The only thing more on trend than sparkling wine is sparkling rosé, and Scharffenberger Cellars has a bottle for around $20 at Costco.

The affordable Californian wine is made from grapes grown in Mendocino County and has a cheerful effervescence.

It pairs well with light dishes such as salads, shrimp cocktail, and smoked salmon dips.

For when only fancy vintage Champagne will do, turn to Henriot.

I wanted to include one special, pricier wine on the list, and that spot went to the $150 bottle of Henriot I found at Costco.

It's a vintage Champagne, which means all the grapes were harvested in the same year.

Henriot has been around for over 200 years, and it's one of the few larger brands that's still independent and family-owned. For me, this Champagne hits all the marks for complexity, flavor, acid, and finish.

This story was originally published on February 19, 2025, and most recently updated on October 19, 2026.

• I was living with my boyfriend when we broke up, and he suggested we continue living together.
• After looking into my options, I realized that staying roommates would be the best financial move.
• It was initially awkward, but acknowledging the situation and setting boundaries helped.

I met my ex in Spain, on a warm October night in 2024. He approached me as we were both walking home from a boxing class and confidently started a conversation.

About two weeks later, we went on our first date. A few months after that, we took our first weekend trip together. In April, he surprised me with a key to his home. By June, I'd moved in.

Our relationship was built on genuine care for one another. Throughout our relationship, we always sought to support each other's well-being and growth. Of course, we had bumps here and there, but they were never significant enough to change our respect for each other.

That's why, when we agreed to break up in August because we saw our lives going in different directions, I wasn't at all surprised that we found a way to continue living together.

We broke up, but I stayed at my ex's house

Under normal circumstances, I would've moved out as soon as possible. I've always believed that you can't start to heal from a breakup until you cut all ties and communication with your ex.

So, I bought the boxes, tape, and bubble wrap, started looking for apartments, and began packing.

But then two weeks later, I lost a freelance contract that contributed a significant portion to my income. This, coupled with the fact that I was already in the middle of a lengthy visa process to make Spain my long-term home, only added to the stress of going through a breakup.

Seeing the distress I was enduring, my ex sat me down and suggested that I continue to live with him until I was able to get back on my feet again.

My first thought was that people would think I was out of my mind for choosing to live with an ex. Then, I started weighing the pros and the cons.

If I stayed, housing would be one less thing I'd have to worry about … but every day, I would have to see someone I'd just broken up with. Worst of all, I'd have to treat my ex like a roommate, as if we didn't just spend the past two years in an affectionate relationship.

If I decided to move out, I wouldn't have to see my ex every day, and I could focus on healing my broken heart alone — but I'd be in a tough financial situation.

Unlike my ex — who's lenient and open to pulling some extra weight when I can't make rent or contribute 50/50 on utilities — I knew that a landlord wouldn't necessarily care about my personal situation once the first of the month rolled around.

I chose to keep living with him.

At first, there was an adjustment period

Those first few weeks were awkward. We'd already had separate bedrooms because of my ex's insomnia, but the changes to our routines and interactions felt foreign.

Instead of getting a text inviting me to come cuddle with him on Sunday mornings, my phone remained silent. Instead of getting ready and walking to the gym together in the afternoon, I started going in the morning.

Instead of sitting down to have dinner together, we ate at different times in different rooms. Whenever we saw each other, we would force a smile, say hi, and go our separate ways.

We didn't acknowledge the strangeness of our situation until one moment broke down the barrier. I was used to having crying sessions in my room, but this time, one snuck up on me while I sat in the living room. The stress of my breakup, finances, and living situation had just built up too much.

My ex was passing through the living room when he saw me crying and gently asked if he could give me a hug. I nodded.

This interaction prompted us to finally discuss the elephant in the room (well, house): Living with your ex is weird. Simply addressing the situation and talking about how we were both coping instantly made it feel a little bit lighter.

We found a new way to live together

What followed was a conversation about how we wanted living together to look like. We knew we were doing something unusual, which was daunting, but also meant we were free to make our own rules.

Our first decision was to stop acting like strangers. Barely acknowledging each other's existence just didn't work for us, so we welcomed a level of friendliness into our new relationship.

Then, we decided we'd continue offering each other a certain level of emotional support. My ex recently took a leave of absence from work to heal from burnout and contemplate his next career move.

Meanwhile, I was struggling to find full-time work and sustain the life I was building abroad. Being there for each other when one of us needed a listening ear felt important.

Lastly, we agreed not to cross any lines that would confuse the other person. We weren't in a romantic relationship anymore, so we decided that any affection beyond a friendly hug would be prohibited.

With this, our living situation went from something that felt unbearable to something that works for us. In the next few months, I plan to save enough from my freelance work to move out. Until then, I'm happy knowing I have a home, even if it's with my ex.

• I moved to the US from South Korea when I was five, but I've traveled back almost every year since.
• The country is so much more than just Seoul, its popular capital city.
• Some of my favorite lesser-known South Korean cities are Suwon, Incheon, and Gyeongju.

I was born in South Korea and moved to the United States when I was 5 years old. I've traveled back almost every year since.

Usually, when people ask me for South Korean travel recommendations, what they really want are ideas for things to do in Seoul.

I can understand why tourists flock to the capital city of South Korea: Seoul has culture, technology, tons of entertainment, and amazing fashion and cuisine.

However, if you ask me, you're missing out if you don't visit some of the other, lesser-known cities that contribute to South Korea's heartbeat.

Here are four of my favorite cities to visit in South Korea that aren't Seoul.

I always go the distance for Busan

About four hours south of Seoul lies Busan. Growing up, my family visited this city over the summer to swim, soak up the sun, and eat incredibly fresh seafood.

You don't have to treat Busan exclusively as a warm-weather getaway, though: My favorite time to visit Busan is actually in the fall, when the days are sunny and the nights are breezy with sea-salt air.

My favorite destination in Busan is Gamcheon Culture Village, a steep slope dotted with hundreds of colorfully painted homes.

During the Korean War, refugees first settled in this area. Later, Gamcheon was restored and enhanced with brightly colored exterior paint to attract tourism.

Today, Gamcheon Village stands as a beloved landmark in Busan, where visitors can get lost in the twisted alleyways and enjoy stunning views overlooking the hilly scenery.

I also strongly recommend that anyone who visits Busan dedicate one morning to waking up early and watching the sunrise over Haeundae Beach.

In my opinion, the view alone can wash away any negative feelings, even for a brief moment.

When you're in Busan, don't forget to check out the Jagalchi Market for excellent fish and the Nampo-dong Food Alley for the best street food.

Suwon is a chill day trip from Seoul

If you want to stay in Seoul for most of your trip but crave an easy day trip with a laid-back vibe, Suwon is your answer. Whenever I take the hour-and-a-half-long bus trip, excitement brews in my stomach.

The main attraction of this very chill city is the Hwaseong Fortress, a towering stone-and-brick fortress that passes through the center of Suwon. It was built in the 18th century to protect the city, and in 1997, it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

I love to walk the length of the fortress — because of the lack of high-rise buildings, it's an excellent way to take in the city's scenery, which includes a mix of traditional houses, cozy little cottages, and low-rise industrial buildings.

Running along the length of the historical site, the city has many unassuming, cute cafés where you can get delicious coffee drinks and desserts.

It's nice to sit down outside one of them and lose track of time, soaking up the beautiful street art that paints the alleyways of Suwon.

Gyeongju is rich with history

Once the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom, Gyeongju is filled with landmarks that bring the country's deep history to life.

From the grand Bulguksa Temple and the mystical Seokguram Grotto to the ancient royal tombs scattered throughout Tumuli Park, the city offers a rare glimpse into Korea's royal past and Buddhist origins.

Strolling through Gyeongju, especially in the later hours of the day, immerses you in a peaceful blend of quiet ponds and lantern-lit walkways.

You can't leave Gyeongju without trying Hwangnam-ppang, a small soft pastry filled with sweet red-bean filling. This treat is a local specialty of Gyeongju — so much so that locals and visitors refer to it as Gyeongju bread.

You can find this treat at various food shops and vendors throughout the city.

Incheon is more than just an airport hub

Anyone who flies into South Korea will instantly recognize Incheon, at least by name. It is home to the country's largest international airport.

Long before the airport's creation in 2001, though, there was the Incheon port through which goods from China arrived and were sold.

The port also paved the way for the establishment of Incheon's Chinatown, where the blend of Chinese and Korean flavors endures in the neighborhood's small slew of standout restaurants.

I recommend taking a walk through the streets and alleyways of the neighborhood while munching on street food. I'm personally partial to the giant fried dumplings and tanghulu, or skewers of sugar-coated fruit, that I've enjoyed there.

If you have a chance, enjoy a sit-down meal of jjajangmyeon, a Chinese-Korean black bean noodle dish, and soak up some of the bustling area's history and culture.

This story was originally published on December 24, 2025, and most recently updated on October 19, 2026.

• A Ukrainian military unit said on Monday that it had carried out a "first-ever air evacuation" with a drone.
• The unit used a heavy drone to save a wounded soldier from the front lines.
• The mission underscores Ukraine's growing efforts to use drones in unconventional battlefield roles.

Ukrainian forces have used a heavy drone to save a wounded soldier from the front lines, carrying out what one unit described as a "first-ever air evacuation."

The unusual mission underscores Ukraine's growing efforts to use drones and robots in unconventional roles on the battlefield, including casualty evacuation, logistics, and combat.

Ukraine's 92nd Separate Assault Brigade disclosed on Monday that it had "successfully" medically evacuated a wounded soldier who had been hurt at the front. The presence of land mines and Russian drones meant that a rescue operation using ground robots was not an option.

"Specialists from our company took on the responsibility of doing something that no one had done before: evacuating a soldier using an aerial drone," the brigade wrote in a translated statement on Telegram.

Soldiers used a heavy six-rotor hexacopter made by the Ukrainian company Gurzuf Defense for the medevac mission. The aircraft was tested in advance and modified by unit specialists to ensure it remained stable.

The 92nd said several military units participated in the rescue, including the 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which operated the drone that evacuated the wounded soldier. The soldier is now recovering from his injuries. The unit didn't specify when or where the evacuation took place.

"This is a historic event, at least for our unit," said Napalm, the squad leader and programmer for a robotics company in the 92nd, who was identified only by his call sign.

Casualty evacuation missions have become increasingly robotic this year as Ukrainian officials, companies, and units push to replace soldiers with machines in dangerous front-line roles.

Ukraine's defense ministry said in early September that the number of ground-robot casualty-evacuation and logistics missions has increased more than threefold since the start of the year, from roughly 7,500 in January to more than 25,000 in August.

The deployment of an aerial drone for casualty evacuation reflects a continued effort to use drones in new ways.

Gurzuf Defence, the maker of the drone used for the mission, called it an operation "that no one has ever performed before." The company said that Ukrainian forces used an aircraft called the Heavy Shot "AYUDAG 6" and the mission lasted roughly 75 minutes and covered a distance of nearly 40 miles.

Gurzuf Defence is not the only Ukrainian company working on this technology; SkyFall, the firm behind the P1-SUN interceptor, recently unveiled a large hexacopter for casualty evacuation.

Large drones can carry heavier payloads, but their size can also be a vulnerability on the battlefield. Samuel Bendett, a drone warfare expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, a US research organization, wrote on social media that there are "obvious dangers" with large, slow aircraft conducting casualty evacuation missions.

Bendett said that the Russian military spends "considerable resources" targeting heavy-lift drones. He told Business Insider that Moscow's elite Rubicon units are particularly focused on downing such aircraft.

As Russia's full-scale invasion grinds on, Ukrainian forces are continuing to innovate with their drones. Last month, for instance, the Third Army Corps revealed that it had become the "first in the world" to air-drop ground robots from drones in combat. Other units have deployed similar technology.

• Goldman Sachs compiled a list of stock recommendations as the bull market shifts.
• The bank flagged a troubled outlook for stocks, with earnings and economic growth slowing.
• Strategists see opportunity in consumer laggards, health care, and consumer staples.

Buckle up for a more challenging year ahead of the US stock market, Goldman Sachs says.

The Wall Street bank warned of a more troubled backdrop for stocks heading into 2027, issuing its top recommendations for investors in the evolving macro environment. While US economic growth and earnings growth will remain positive, both are poised to slow in the next year, strategists said. That could collide with how market breadth, a measure of the number of winning stocks in the market to losing stocks, has narrowed in recent weeks, a team of strategists led by Ben Snider wrote in a client note on Monday.

The bank pointed to higher interest rates, which have cut into growth expectations for the US economy. GDP is expected to have expanded at a 3.6% pace in the third quarter, according to the Atlanta Fed's latest GDPNow estimate, down from an estimate of over 6% earlier this summer.

Meanwhile, Goldman forecast S&P 500 earnings to slow from around 29% in 2026 to 18% in 2027.

More trouble has also been brewing below the surface of the stock market. While the S&P 500 is near records, 84% of stocks in the index trading at least 10% below their all-time highs, according to an October analysis from The Kobeissi Letter.

"In contrast with the historical playbook, extremely narrow market breadth today cautions investors to be wary of Momentum factor exposure," the Goldman analysts wrote, referring to the momentum trade, which took off this summer as high-flying chip and memory stocks saw rapid price increases.

Strategists said they see a few areas of opportunity for investors:

• Consumer-facing laggards. These stocks could get a boost as the lowest earners see income growth accelerate in 2027, Goldman said. It pointed to how low-income consumer discretionary stocks have rallied by around 7% since the start of October, while consumer experience stocks also show "secular growth."
• Health care stocks. If the growth outlook continues to deteriorate, this sector could offer investors some protection, given that it has typically been one of the S&P 500's best-performing areas when growth is positive but decelerating, strategists said. In such an environment, health care stocks see a median quarterly excess return of 1% over the index, per Goldman's analysis.
• Consumer staples stocks. This sector should also "outperform," assuming the market continues to cut its growth outlook, Goldman said.

Strategists listed 23 defensive stocks from the health care and consumer staples sectors. The stocks have low realized volatility in their share price and high free cash flow yields relative to other stocks in the sector, the bank added, two reasons why they might be attractive to investors

Here are Goldman's top recommendations:

23 defensive stocks to own

• I thought it was important to teach my three kids obedience.
• Now that they're older, I know it's important to teach them boundaries, too.
• When one of my children respectfully says no to something, I make it a point to validate them and their choice.

As soon as children learn to follow instructions, we start teaching them obedience. I know that's what I did with my kids.

I asked them to share their things, take turns, and compromise even when they're not always ready to do so willingly. I pushed them to cooperate not only because I felt it was the right thing to do, but because I wanted to keep the peace and be seen as a good parent.

Sadly, it seems society only sees agreeable, generous children as good ones, so parents raise them with a give-in mindset. I followed that path until I realized just how my actions were shaping my children's personalities.

Now I am strongly focused on improving myself while developing a parenting approach tailored to what works best for my children.

I wasn't seeing the whole picture

At some point, I realized that constantly pushing my children to say yes to everything, acting like good children are meant to, is affecting their personal boundaries.

When my children were not allowed to say no, I noticed they felt uncomfortable, frustrated, and even angry. My older son had no interest in his weekend archery class, yet I kept forcing him to attend. Every Saturday morning became a struggle, as I spent a lot of time convincing him to go. Within a few weeks, I realized that instead of building discipline or a skill, it was creating unnecessary stress for both of us. So I let him opt out.

Since then, I make it a point to ask my children before enrolling them in extracurricular activities, so they spend their time doing things they genuinely enjoy rather than ticking boxes for me.

They're learning to set boundaries with others, too

I also noticed that my children were happy to share snacks from their cabinet with visiting friends, but became upset when someone opened it without asking. I taught them that there is nothing wrong with saying no when someone crosses a boundary or takes something that belongs to them without their permission.

Setting physical boundaries was another challenge. When relatives and friends would lovingly ask my children for a hug or a kiss on the cheek, I could see them becoming uncomfortable. I could see that they felt obliged to agree, not wanting to be impolite. Without questioning anyone's good intentions, I now let my children decline physical affection when they are uncomfortable. I simply remind them that they can respond with a high-five, a wave, or a smile instead. It helps them respect others' kindness without feeling they have to give up their own boundaries.

People sometimes judge my approach

I have been told I am spoiling my kids by letting them have their say. But because my children know their voice matters, I have watched them handle peer pressure with remarkable maturity.

Recently, when my son's friends urged him to climb a high wall and jump off it to retrieve a lost ball, he confidently refused. They began teasing him, but he later told me he stayed calm and simply replied that he wasn't going to risk a fracture for a ball. Standing up to peer pressure is hard, but because he knew he could set a boundary, it made things easier.

This practice starts at home, even with me. I now allow my children to respectfully say no to low-stakes matters involving personal preferences. Like it's fine if they choose to stay behind with their grandmother rather than attending an outing they won't enjoy. As their parent, I want to teach them that respectful disagreement is acceptable.

I'm also validating their choices

Whenever one of my children respectfully says no to something, I make it a point to validate them, reinforcing that their boundaries matter.

Of course, setting boundaries isn't a free pass for entitlement. It doesn't mean being extra picky about eating or saying no to their assigned homework and household chores. They know that while they are developing these healthy boundaries, I still expect them to demonstrate basic manners.

I want them to be confident individuals who show genuine kindness, but no one should be allowed to exploit it. They should be able to resist unhealthy pressure and hold firm even when saying no feels uncomfortable. I hope that this helps them live a life built with courage, clarity, and true self-worth.

In 2022, Aleksandr Sorokin ran 198.6 miles in 24 hours, nearly eight marathons in a single day — a new world record.

How does anyone run that far, that fast, for that long? It turns out six factors have to be perfectly dialed in to break a distance-running world record: VO₂ max, form, footwear, fuel, environment, and the mind.

To understand each one, Business Insider met with athletes and scientists who are pushing the limits of human endurance. We tracked down Kristian Blummenfelt, the Olympic and Ironman champion whose team recorded a VO₂ max of 101.1.

We visited Stanford's biomechanics lab, where researchers built a digital model of Dean Karnazes, who holds the record for the longest distance ever run nonstop.

We tried on supershoes and looked at how much energy their foam gives back. We explored what an ultrarunner's gut can handle, and what a hot room does to the body's core temperature.

Then there's the mind. We went to Queens, New York, for the Sri Chinmoy 3100, a race where runners circle the same block for 52 days, and asked the front-runner what keeps him going.

Watch the full video to find out what it takes.

• Anthropic is looking to shape AI regulation by pitching an AI safety bill of its own.
• POLITICO obtained a confidential draft of the proposed legislation.
• The bill would let the government block an AI model only if it poses a foreseeable, imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages, or of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people.

Representatives for the artificial intelligence giant Anthropic have quietly pitched Capitol Hill lawmakers on a draft bill to regulate frontier AI safety and security, according to three people with knowledge of the efforts who were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

The confidential draft, obtained by POLITICO and not previously reported, marks a notable effort by the frontier AI lab to shape the rules governing its own technology as Congress weighs how to respond to the fast-moving industry.

"This bill represents the proposals outlined in Anthropic's Advanced AI Framework, which we have been advocating for with federal and state lawmakers since June," an Anthropic spokesperson said. "These are sensible policies we believe Congress should act on."

The bill would let the government block a model's release or use only if it poses a foreseeable, imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages, or of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people. The risk must stem from the creation or release of a biological weapon, the model evading its developer's controls or a cyberattack. The language mirrors that found in California's AI laws including SB 53, which was signed into law last year.

Leading AI labs disclosed a series of incidents this summer, in which AI agents hacked or probed websites and platforms. None reported so far appear to have caused widespread deaths or over $1 billion in damages.

Anthropic has yet to publicly back particular legislative efforts in Congress, but they have backed some state AI safety laws, including two in California. Their head of U.S. state and local government relations previously told POLITICO that they hope states will continue to pass ever-stronger AI safety laws that raise the standard nationwide.

Under the bill, independent evaluators, which would register with the Commerce Department, would be tasked with periodically evaluating the lab and its frontier models. The evaluators may be paid for their work by the lab itself so long as the payment is not contingent on the evaluations' results.

If the evaluators determine there is "imminent enumerated risk" for a company's frontier models, they must report it to Commerce within 72 hours of completing their assessment.

While the Commerce Department could bring a request to the judge to halt the release of a model after determining that it poses a risk, the language explicitly prohibits any other U.S. "department, agency, or officer" from suspending the model's development, deployment or internal use. A federal judge for the District Court for the District of Columbia could order the suspension of a model.

Over the summer, Anthropic was subject to sweeping export controls that shut down two of its most advanced models. The decision was made in a whirlwind series of phone calls between administration officials and the company's executives, worrying some in the tech industry that access to their technology may be restricted on the whims of government officials.

Anthropic's bill would also preempt some state AI laws related to public disclosure of risk, third-party evaluation and reporting of critical incidents. Preemption has been a political flashpoint on Capitol Hill, with Democrats rejecting some proposals they feared would neuter regulations passed by the likes of California, Illinois and New York.

Many tech industry groups have argued that a state-by-state patchwork of laws is difficult to comply with compared to a unified national standard.

The legislation would also require frontier labs to create safety frameworks, publish transparency reports for new frontier models, implement protections for whistleblowers and report critical safety incidents to Commerce.

Capitol Hill has seen a flurry of activity on AI safety legislation this summer. In the House, Reps. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) and Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) spearheaded the FRONTIER Act, which would give the government the ability to stop the deployment of risky models and preempt some state AI laws.

In the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have been negotiating an AI safety bill intended to mitigate catastrophic risks. But it has faced headwinds from some safety-minded groups and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on Cruz's Commerce Committee, who want the government to have a larger role in reviewing AI models.

Other progressives, including Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have gone well beyond their colleagues in calling for a pause in advanced AI development and a ban on superintelligence, a type of theoretical AI that far surpasses humans' cognitive capabilities.

This story originally appeared on POLITICO and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces, and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms.

• The Academy Museum Gala was the most star-studded event in Los Angeles over the weekend.
• Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, and Colman Domingo were all in attendance.
• Unfortunately, not every celebrity outfit was a winner.

The Oscars red carpet has some competition: the Academy Museum Gala.

Since 2021, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles has hosted the gala to celebrate film and raise funds for future exhibits.

This year, celebrities came out to support, and they mostly did so in style. Taylor Swift, for example, wore one of her best outfits of the year to the event on Saturday.

Unfortunately, there were some fashion duds, too.

These are the best and worst outfits we saw throughout the night.

Taylor Swift looked like a princess in a baby-blue gown with a glittery bow.

Dior designed the strapless gown for Swift. It had all-over ruching, a sweetheart neckline, a floor-length skirt with a short train, and a silver bow that extended down its bodice.

Swift wore it with Aquazzura heels and Chopard diamond jewelry.

The pieces made for one of Swift's best outfits of the year, and one of the night's strongest looks. The gown's princess silhouette and light coloring suited Swift perfectly.

Kim Kardashian's vintage dress didn't feel true to her.

Kardashian's cream-colored gown was designed by Balenciaga in 1951. It was strapless with a ruched, baby-pink neckline, a corseted bodice, and a lace-lined skirt.

The design also had a pink bow that extended into a train across the back. She wore it with a diamond necklace and matching earrings.

The gown itself is a piece of fashion history, but it didn't suit Kardashian. Its old-school fabrics didn't match her modern style, and her short hair made the overall look appear like a costume.

Colman Domingo was dapper in satin and sparkles.

He wore a custom Valentino suit comprising a black blouse left unbuttoned, flared trousers, a bedazzled blazer, a satin cummerbund, and a matching loose tie.

The sparkling look was glamorous and accessorized well with silver pinky rings and a statement watch. It was also tailored perfectly to the actor.

Connor Storrie's outfit would have looked better with a different jacket.

His Saint Laurent look was refined, featuring only wide-leg trousers, a satin top with a neck scarf, and a coat.

It was the latter piece that unfortunately distracted from the rest of the outfit. It was too long and looked out of place.

He either should have worn a shorter style or ditched outerwear entirely.

Da'Vine Joy Randolph wore a beautiful dress with long sleeves and a longer train.

Randolph wore Louis Vuitton for the occasion. Her white gown had off-the-shoulder long sleeves, a fitted bodice, and a floor-length skirt that was tailored perfectly to her height.

A back bow and train pulled the glamorous ensemble together and gave it a dramatic flair.

The best part of Randolph's look, though, was how she completed it with an updo hairstyle and diamond jewelry.

Sofia Richie should have taken a bigger fashion risk.

Richie, a model and influencer, arrived wearing vintage Versace. The black gown from 2001 was sleeveless and form-fitting, with a high neckline, long skirt, and skinny attached train.

She looked pretty, but her dress was overly simple — especially when paired with a slick-back bun hairstyle and minimal jewelry.

Adding bold makeup or statement accessories could have elevated the look.

Greta Lee stunned in sequins.

She wore Dior for the gala in the form of a sleeveless, ankle-length gown made entirely from strings of beads.

The latter were arranged in rows of blue and white, with a few leaf shapes peeking through up top.

The dress was perfect in color and material for Lee, and there was nothing else like it on the red carpet.

Paramount Plus has evolved from a niche streaming service for CBS fans to an essential app for TV and movie lovers, and now sports fanatics, too. It's also one of the more affordable services on the market, with plans starting at just $8.99 a month.

After the initial release of CBS All Access in 2014, Paramount Plus launched in 2021 as a replacement and has gradually crept its way up the ranks of the best streaming services. The streamer is a one-stop shop for all things Paramount, carrying old and new CBS programming ("Criminal Minds," "Tracker"), original series ("Landman," "1923"), Paramount Pictures films ("Mission: Impossible" and "Top Gun" movies), live sports (NFL on CBS, Champions League, and UFC), and much more. The Premium tier will even help you live stream CBS and unlock Showtime content ("Yellowjackets," "Dexter: Resurrection").

Below, we've rounded up everything you need to know about Paramount Plus, including pricing, plans, and available programming. We've also broken down all the details surrounding the recent price hike, Paramount's new deal with UFC, and the proposed Paramount Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. You can learn more about the service in our in-depth Paramount Plus review.

What are the Paramount Plus plans?

Paramount Plus offers two tiers of service, Essential and Premium. The base Essential tier has ad-supported on-demand streaming of over 40,000 episodes and movies, select sports live streaming (NFL on CBS, UFC, UCL), and the ability to stream on up to three devices at once.

The Premium tier (formerly called Paramount Plus with Showtime) offers ad-free on-demand streaming of all of those same film and TV titles, but it also unlocks Showtime content. Additionally, Premium lets users live stream their local CBS station 24/7. Premium subscribers can also download most on-demand content to watch offline. Like Essential, Premium allows for streaming on up to three devices.

How much is Paramount Plus?

Paramount Plus Essential costs $8.99 a month or $89.99 a year. Paramount Plus Premium costs $13.99 a month or $139.99 a year. Opting for an annual plan offers about 17% savings year-over-year compared to what you'd pay after 12 months on a monthly plan.

When was the last Paramount Plus price hike?

The prices for all plans increased on January 15, 2026. This was the first price hike since 2024, and both monthly plans increased by $1 a month. Essential was previously $7.99 a month or $59.99 a year, and Premium was previously $12.99 a month or $119.99 a year.

Is Paramount Plus included with Walmart Plus?

Walmart Plus offers paid subscribers a choice between Paramount Plus Essential and Peacock Premium, in addition to other perks. They can select which service they'd like access to every 90 days, so there's always a chance to switch back and forth between the two apps. Walmart Plus subscriptions cost $12.95 a month or $98 a year.

Does Paramount Plus have a free trial?

Paramount Plus no longer offers a free trial. The service previously offered new customers a seven-day free trial before billing kicked in, but the streamer removed the trial offer in early 2026.

Does Paramount Plus have any deals right now?

Paramount Plus doesn't have any active limited-time deals right now, but the streaming service occasionally runs sales throughout the year, including on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The most recent Paramount Plus deal discounted both Essential and Premium plans down to just $1 a month for the first two months of service. The deal wrapped up in late June, but we're always keeping an eye out for new sales.

What devices can I use to watch Paramount Plus?

Paramount Plus is available to stream across a wide variety of devices, including mobile devices, smart TVs, computers, streaming players, set-top boxes, and gaming consoles. Some of the most popular options include the Android app (phones and tablets), iOS app (iPhones and iPads), Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, LG TV, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Roku, and Samsung TV, among others. You can find a full list of supported devices on the Paramount Plus support website. Compatible devices vary by country, and users must be running updated versions of relevant software. For example, iPhones and iPads must be running iOS 16 or later.

Can you download on Paramount Plus?

The Paramount Plus Premium tier allows subscribers to download films and TV shows to watch offline. Most shows and select movies are available to download. This option is not available for the Essential plan. You can only download on iPhones/iPads running iOS 16+ and Android tablets/phones running Android 6+.

What shows and movies are on Paramount Plus?

Paramount Plus hosts a variety of content from CBS, Paramount Pictures, MTV, Comedy Central, and other Paramount properties. It's the best streaming service if you're looking to watch new episodes of beloved CBS series the day after they air on the network, or to catch up on past seasons. "Tracker," "NCIS," "Survivor," "Fire Country," "Matlock," and "Ghosts" are some of the most popular currently airing shows you can stream right now.

The streaming service is also the home of several hit originals, including the "Criminal Minds" continuation, "Criminal Minds: Evolution," and all of the "Yellowstone" spin-offs, including "1883," "1923," "Marshals," and the upcoming "Dutton Ranch." "Marshals" airs on CBS and hits Paramount Plus on demand the next day, but you can watch new episodes live with Paramount Plus Premium. Just keep in mind that you'll need to head to Peacock to stream the original "Yellowstone" series.

Other popular originals include additional series from "Yellowstone" co-creator Taylor Sheridan, including "Landman," "Mayor of Kingstown," "Lioness," and "Tulsa King." "The Madison," Sheridan's newest contemporary Western, is also available exclusively through Paramount Plus. New episodes of "South Park" (and the full 28-season back catalog) are also streaming on Paramount Plus.

Subscribers can also catch seasons of other popular shows from Paramount-owned networks, like Comedy Central's "Broad City" and Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants." New seasons of "RuPaul's Drag Race" end up on Paramount Plus, but not until after the full season has finished airing on MTV.

As for movies, the streaming service typically gets the latest releases from Paramount Pictures once they're out of theaters and available for streaming. Recent additions include "The Running Man" and "Roofman." The streamer also has a massive selection of older movies, including both Paramount Pictures originals (such as the "Mission: Impossible" franchise) and films from other companies (at the time of writing, this includes "Catch Me If You Can," "Muriel's Wedding," and "Assassination Nation"). Additionally, Paramount Plus has released a few original direct-to-streaming films, including "Vicious," "Star Trek: Section 31," and "Pet Sematary: Bloodlines."

Subscribers who opt for the Premium tier will also unlock Showtime series, including "Dexter," "Ray Donovan," "Billions," "Californication," "The L Word," and "The Affair." Some older Showtime shows are available on other streaming services, so they're not currently streaming on Paramount Plus. We've noticed that newer Showtime series, like "Yellowjackets" and "Dexter: Resurrection," typically drop new episodes a couple of days early on Paramount Plus ahead of their weekly broadcast premieres.

What sports are on Paramount Plus?

Sports are also becoming an increasingly alluring component of Paramount Plus's offerings. If you have the Premium tier, you can live stream any sporting event airing on CBS, which is particularly handy for March Madness and The Masters tournaments. All tiers of Paramount Plus include access to NFL on CBS games, Champions League matches, and UFC events.

Paramount Plus now holds the broadcast rights to UFC, taking over from ESPN in 2026 as part of a seven-year deal. Unlike ESPN, major numbered events won't require an additional pay-per-view (PPV) fee. Instead, all subscribers (whether you have an Essential or Premium plan) will be able to stream all UFC coverage. Select UFC events will also air on CBS.

Are there any student, teacher, or military discounts?

Eligible teachers, college students, and military members all qualify for special Paramount Plus discounts. The teacher discount is for 50% off any plan, valid for one year, with the option to renew. The college student discount is for 50% off any plan, valid for one year, with the option to renew. The military discount is 50% off any plan for life. The military discount applies to new, active, retired, and veteran members of the armed forces, along with their spouses and dependents. To get any of these discounts, you'll need to verify your status.

Does Paramount Plus have any bundles?

Unlike many of its peers, which offer some of the best streaming deals and bundles (Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN, HBO Max, Peacock, and Apple TV), Paramount Plus isn't available to bundle with another streaming service at a reduced price. Back when Showtime was a stand-alone streaming service and not yet integrated into Paramount Plus, the two services were considered a bundle.

Is Paramount Plus combining with HBO Max?

In early 2026, Paramount Skydance announced plans to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Netflix was previously in the running to acquire WBD, but Netflix dropped out of the bidding war after Paramount Skydance's most recent (and now final) offer.

After clearing some hurdles, including a judge-ordered pause on the merger following a multi-state lawsuit against Paramount Skydance, Paramount Skydance's purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery was officially completed in early October 2026. The company is now known simply as Skydance.

The two streaming giants are expected to eventually join forces into one super-streamer, though exactly what that might look like (or when that could happen) remains to be seen. In the meantime, the company will roll out a bundle that lets customers get both streaming platforms at a discounted price (similar to Disney Plus bundles that include Hulu).

Is Paramount Plus available in other countries?

Paramount Plus has launched in several other countries over the years, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, among others. Prices vary by region. You can visit the Paramount Plus global landing page for more information.

For more information, check out the Paramount Plus website.

• I made chili recipes from celebrity chefs Ina Garten, Ree Drummond, and Giada De Laurentiis.
• Garten's recipe, which didn't call for any beans, didn't really feel like traditional chili.
• One of my favorites had white beans and chicken, a far cry from a traditional beef chili.

Cold weather is always better with hearty meals, like a warm bowl of chili.

In search of the best one to make on repeat all fall and winter, I tried recipes from celebrity chefs Ina Garten, Ree Drummond, and Giada De Laurentiis.

Here's how the dishes turned out, and which ended up being my top picks.

I started with Garten's recipe, which didn't feel familiar to me at all

Garten's chicken chili recipe, which I found on the Food Network website, seemed fairly straightforward.

I needed easy-to-find ingredients like yellow onion, minced garlic, red bell peppers, yellow bell pepper, chili powder, cumin, dried red-pepper flakes, cayenne, basil, chicken breasts, and cans of whole peeled plum tomatoes in puree.

I simmered the onions and garlic until translucent, added the spices and herbs, diced bell peppers, and whole tomatoes, and cooked for about half an hour.

This mixture was very similar to a chunky pasta sauce.

Instead of roasting the chicken breasts, I sautéed them in a pan

Though the recipe said to split olive oil-covered chicken breasts and bake them in the oven, I decided to sautée them in a pan since it seemed more efficient.

I sautéed them for about 12 minutes on each side, diced them, and combined them with the tomato-and-pepper sauce.

I let the chili simmer for another 20 minutes.

Garten's recipe didn't quite satisfy my chili craving

This recipe wasn't as hearty as a typical chili and had a strong tomato flavor and a lot of bell-pepper chunks.

The chicken was juicy but could have benefited from a different, more potent seasoning blend.

Topped with shredded cheese, it was filling, but not what I would want if I were in the mood for a traditional chili.

A few of my Filipino relatives tried this chili and loved it on top of white rice without cheese, though.

The next recipe I tried was Drummond's, which felt like a traditional chili

I followed a recipe for Pioneer Woman's "simple, perfect chili" that I also found on the Food Network website.

Its ingredients seemed very classic for a chili with things like ground beef, chopped garlic, tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper, and canned beans.

I was surprised to see masa harina, a dried maize-based flour often used as a thickening agent, as an ingredient.

Drummond's recipe was super easy, though I made a substitution

To start, I browned ground beef in a large pot with minced garlic and drained the fat.

I added chili powder, cumin, oregano, and cayenne pepper to the meat and incorporated the tomato sauce.

After stirring, I let the chili simmer for an hour, adding a half cup of water when the mixture looked a bit dry.

I didn't have masa harina, which needed to be turned into a paste for this recipe, so I substituted it with corn grits.

To do so, I mixed the grits with water and stirred them into the chili. Then, I drained and rinsed my cans of pinto and kidney beans, and added them to the mixture along with more seasonings and salt to taste.

I let all of that simmer for about 10 minutes.

Drummond's recipe made an excellent traditional chili

Drummond's easy-to-make recipe was meaty, hearty, and filling.

It was nice and thick, and I liked the ground beef and texture from the pinto and kidney beans. The cumin and spices added a warm flavor, too.

For me, it checked all the boxes for a tasty chili.

De Laurentiis uses ground chicken in her chili recipe

Next, I tried De Laurentiis' recipe for white bean and chicken chili as found on the Food Network website.

The ingredients were fairly simple, including ground chicken, onion, cumin, chili powder, Swiss chard, canned cannellini beans (or other white beans), frozen corn, fennel seeds, chicken stock, and red-pepper flakes.

For serving, she suggested topping the chili with Parmesan and chopped parsley.

To start, I simmered chopped onions and minced garlic until translucent and added ground chicken, salt, cumin, fennel, oregano, and chili powder.

After the meat cooked through, I added the roughly-chopped Swiss chard, beans, corn, and chicken stock.

Per the recipe, I made sure to scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pot

I let the mixture simmer for about an hour, added chili flakes, and cooked for about 10 more minutes.

When plating, I sprinkled Parmesan and parsley on top.

This chili had some great flavors

De Laurentiis' chili wasn't particularly conventional — with the Swiss chard, ground chicken, and Parmesan — but I thought it was tasty.

I enjoyed the savory flavor of the crunchy corn, tender white beans, and vegetal Swiss chard. The stock and ground chicken gave this a rich, meaty taste, too.

I thought this was the perfect, comforting bowl of chili.

For me, the recipes from Drummond and De Laurentiis tied for first place

I loved both Drummond's traditional chili and De Laurentiis' chicken version for their hearty, savory, and complex flavors.

They were different types of chili, but equally delicious for game day.

Though Garten's recipe wasn't bad, the chunky texture wasn't my favorite, and it just didn't do it for me in terms of what I look for in a chili.

Check out the other celebrity-chef recipes we've put head-to-head so far.

This story was originally published on February 11, 2022, and most recently updated on October 19, 2026.

Cooley has made billions doing what law firms do: hire great lawyers, bill for their time, and keep clients happy. Artificial intelligence is scrambling that formula. If machines can do in minutes what once took an associate hours, what exactly should clients be paying for?

Rachel Proffitt thinks she has the answer.

On a toasty October afternoon in San Francisco, I met Proffitt for lunch to talk about the future of the global law firm she now leads. When the check arrived, neither of us knew how much the restaurant paid the dishwasher or how many minutes the chef spent preparing our meal. We were paying for the experience, not the labor behind it.

Why, she wondered, should legal services be so different?

"Clients have never been excited about the fact that it took us 82 hours to do something. They don't care," she says. "They just want the outcome. They want the results."

The billable hour is only the beginning. AI is forcing law firms to rethink how many associates they really need and how those young lawyers learn their craft. Client relationships are changing as companies use software to get a head start on the work they send to outside counsel. Some of that work may never reach a lawyer at all.

If tech is about to reinvent law firms, Cooley should be one of the firms with the clearest view of what's coming. From its early days on San Francisco's Market Street, it worked with semiconductor manufacturers and venture capitalists when the valley was still covered in fruit trees and canneries. Cooley grew up alongside the tech industry, and today it is as comfortable defending Meta in court as it is helping Andreessen Horowitz round up billion-dollar funds.

That evolution has been lucrative. Cooley says its gross revenue jumped from $912 million in 2015 to $2.4 billion last fiscal year. Its crosstown rival, Wilson Sonsini, brought in $1.7 billion in 2025, according to The American Lawyer. Still, the gulf between Cooley and Big Law's largest firms remains enormous. Kirkland & Ellis, the industry's revenue leader, cracked $10 billion last year. Latham & Watkins, another go-to firm for Silicon Valley, hit $8.3 billion.

The next wave of tech public listings promises a fortune in legal fees for the chosen few. Gibson Dunn landed SpaceX's IPO. Anthropic tapped Wilson Sonsini for its coming listing. And Cooley is reportedly sharing OpenAI's IPO work with Wachtell Lipton, one of Wall Street's most formidable law firms.

The irony is hard to miss. Big Law is fighting for a piece of the biggest technology companies in the world, even as those companies build the tools that could upend the business of law itself.

Proffitt came up as a lawyer under the old rules. Her next task is to figure out what it will take to build a great law firm under the new ones.

'The winner's circle'

Profitt didn't grow up wanting to be a lawyer but liked how law school taught her to think. Litigation was out of the question: Public speaking during mock trials made her stomach turn. "It was transactional law or bust," she says.

She started her career as a summer associate at Wilson Sonsini and worked her way up to partner. She fell in love with the intensity of the work, pulling all-nighters at the financial printers where she marked up securities filings by hand. She recalls the Christmas Eve when her father marveled that she had made it through the day without taking a work call. After 15 years at the firm, she left for Cooley in 2017.

Three years ago, Proffitt got a call at home that she didn't see coming. Joe Conroy, then Cooley's chief executive, wanted to know whether she would consider succeeding him.

She was flattered, but also "a bit terrified," she says. She spent two decades helping startups, including Unity Software, Procore, and Instacart, raise money and go public. Running a firm with 3,000 employees was another matter. She talked to her family, then put herself forward for the job. She started in 2024.

Proffitt couldn't have guessed how quickly AI would jolt her industry from its steady state. It wasn't too long ago that clients insisted that the technology go nowhere near their work, fearing what would happen if their data disappeared into someone else's model.

"It was clear to me then that we don't get to just exist as we are and continue to be at the top of our game," she says.

Cooley had remade itself once before. The firm's Silicon Valley roots were both a strength and a liability, said Conroy in an interview. Cooley was known for helping startups get off the ground. The conventional wisdom was that as those companies grew, they would graduate to one of the elite New York law firms for their biggest deals and courtroom battles.

To keep clients from the garage to the boardroom, as Conroy put it, Cooley needed to expand. It opened new offices and built out its litigation and capital markets practices. The firm also spent years courting Wall Street banks, says Proffitt, so that when a company asked which law firm to hire for its IPO, Cooley would make its shortlist.

Today, its client roster reads like a Kiplinger roundup of hot tech stocks: Nvidia, Uber, Snowflake, and Zoom, to name a few listings it worked on. Since 2016, Cooley has advised issuers on 183 IPOs that raised nearly $59 billion, making it the second-most active firm by deal count after Latham, according to Deal Point Data. Proffitt wouldn't discuss reports that Cooley has landed OpenAI's IPO work.

For 16 years, Conroy pushed Cooley toward what he calls Big Law's "winner's circle." Proffitt's job is to get it there.

Startup speed

Her strategy starts with making Cooley move more like the tech companies it represents.

Proffitt recruited David Wang, a former lawyer turned legal technology executive, with an ambitious mandate. She didn't just want to make Cooley's lawyers more productive, Wang said in an interview. She wanted to change how clients interact with them altogether.

Earlier this year, Cooley launched a tool with the startup Legora that lets Y Combinator founders review common contracts without calling a lawyer. OpenAI helped it build a tool for Cooley's lawyers to prepare paperwork for companies going public. Next, Cooley is working with Google on an AI agent that scans documents for confidential information before they're filed in court, then suggests redactions for lawyers to review.

There's something almost cannibalistic about a law firm building software that could eat into its own billable hours. But Cooley sees a bigger risk in letting someone else do it. In-house legal teams are increasingly using chatbots to take the first crack at work they would otherwise send to outside counsel. A new breed of "AI-native" law firms is promising cheaper, faster services.

Big Law does not want to be caught flatfooted. Firms are throwing money at startups like Harvey and Legora, and increasingly, they're building their own technology. Kirkland has committed $500 million to proprietary software, starting with a platform for private equity fundraising built with Palantir. Latham bought its own Nvidia servers so it can customize models in-house. Like Cooley, Wilson Sonsini has self-service tools that let companies handle basic legal work.

For Proffitt, the danger isn't lost billable hours. It's the missed connections. The scrappy startup that needs a contract reviewed today might need help closing an acquisition later. But if the bots take care of the small stuff, Cooley could miss its chance to build the relationship.

Proffitt says Cooley must find new ways to connect with clients. Putting technology in their hands is one option, even if it means giving away a little of the work.

"When you need the next thing that matters, the thing that you don't trust to put into the machine," she says, "how do I ensure that you want to talk to our team?"

The firm is also rethinking its own structure for the new era. Wang now leads Cooley AI, a wholly owned subsidiary designed to operate at something closer to startup speed. The separate company gives his team more freedom to hire engineers and put new technology through its paces, he says, without getting bogged down in the parent firm's bureaucracy.

The irony, Proffitt says, is that all this technology could leave lawyers with more time for the human stuff. Lawyers may visit their clients more. Talk through thorny decisions. Drop in on the strategy session to learn how their advice fits into a client's business.

Keeping those relationships alive might require a little more old-fashioned schmoozing. When I asked Proffitt whether the answer was throwing great parties, she didn't entirely disagree. "Everyone loves a party," she says.

The future of legal work

Proffitt doesn't pretend to have a crystal ball. She has ideas, though.

The billable hour? Not dead yet. She expects law firms to offer clients a menu of pricing options, from hourly rates to flat fees and outcome-based pricing.

Hiring slowdowns at the junior level? "Too early to tell," she says.

The apprenticeship model? That gets trickier. If software can write first drafts and spot issues, how will young lawyers get the practice they need? Proffitt says Cooley is exploring ways for associates to sharpen their skills on simulated legal matters, starting with AI-powered mock depositions.

Proffitt came up in an era when canceled dinners and all-nighters were a badge of honor. She's betting that the next generation won't need quite so many of them to become great lawyers. Her test will come a decade from now, when today's junior associates are ready to make partner.

If Cooley has found a better way to teach them, perhaps the old model won't be missed. If it hasn't, no amount of AI can make up the difference.

Melia Robinson is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, where she writes about how artificial intelligence is changing the legal industry.

The WNBA Finals have arrived, and a new champion will be crowned. We've rounded up everything you need to know about where to watch the Dream vs. Valkyries, including budget-friendly live streaming options for those without cable.

If you don't want to read any further, we've got you covered. You can live stream the Atlanta Dream vs. Golden State Valkyries series on Peacock in the US. You can access your usual streaming options from anywhere with a VPN, such as NordVPN.

What channels are the WNBA Finals on?

The WNBA Finals will air on NBC and the USA Network. Games 1 and 4 will air on NBC, while Games 2 and 3 will be broadcast on USA. Games 5-7, if necessary, will air on USA.

Where to watch the Dream vs. Valkyries in the US

WNBA fans can live stream the entire series on Peacock in the US. Sports-friendly subscriptions start at $13 a month for Peacock Premium, but viewers can unlock ad-free on-demand content and a full NBC live stream by upgrading to Peacock Premium Plus for $20 a month.

If you'd prefer a service with channels beyond NBC and USA, or you're simply seeking a service with a free trial, YouTube TV is one of our top live TV recommendations. The streaming platform carries NBC, USA, and 100+ other channels in its Main plan, which costs $83 a month. However, a limited-time deal will knock your first five months down to $68 a month after a free trial. NBC and USA are also available in the cheaper Sports plan, which carries 30+ channels.

For the WNBA Finals, we recommend YouTube TV over live TV services like Sling and Fubo because they lack some necessary channels. Fubo doesn't carry USA, and NBC is only available in select markets on Sling.

How to watch the Dream vs. Valkyries from anywhere

WNBA fans traveling abroad can still access their usual streaming options with the help of a VPN, or virtual private network. VPNs are handy cybersecurity tools that let people temporarily alter the virtual location on their electronic devices. This way, their favorite websites and apps work from anywhere the same way they would back home. Since the services we've highlighted above require US payment methods, this option will work best for Americans who are currently traveling away from home.

If you're not sure where to start with VPNs, NordVPN is a great place to begin. It's one of the best VPN services we've tested, thanks to its impressive speeds and massive selection of global servers. Plus, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee if you find that it's not what you're looking for.

• See also: How to watch MLB games | Where to watch Kansas City Chiefs games | How to watch college football

When did the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries last play?

The Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries played each other three times during the 2026 regular season, and the Valkyries won all three games. The most recent match-up between the two teams, which was hosted in Atlanta on July 4, saw the Valkyries pull off an 88-83 victory.

What happened in Game 1?

The 2026 WNBA Finals are already off to an exciting start. Game 1, hosted by Golden State, saw the Valkyries win 68-64. The second half of the game was relatively low scoring, but Golden State was ultimately able to pull of the win in the final quarter. Gabby Williams led the team with 26 points.

Who is favored to win the 2026 WNBA Finals?

Ahead of the start of the 2026 WNBA Finals, the Valkyries are the narrow favorites to win the championship. On DraftKings (at the time of writing before Game 1), the Valkyries were the -115 favorites, while the Dream were -105.

WNBA Finals schedule

The WNBA Finals will run from October 17 until at least October 24. The series will run until Halloween night, October 31, at the absolute latest. You can find a full schedule for all seven potential games below. An asterisk (*) denotes games that will only be held if necessary. Game 3 was moved from October 22 to October 21.

• Game 1: Atlanta Dream at Golden State Valkyries on Saturday, October 17 at 3:30 p.m. ET (NBC/Peacock)
• Game 2: Atlanta Dream at Golden State Valkyries on Monday, October 19 at 8 p.m. ET (USA/Peacock)
• Game 3: Golden State Valkyries at Atlanta Dream on Wednesday, October 21 at 8 p.m. ET (USA/Peacock)
• Game 4: Golden State Valkyries at Atlanta Dream on Saturday, October 24 at 3:30 p.m. ET (NBC/Peacock)
• Game 5: Atlanta Dream at Golden State Valkyries on Monday, October 26 at 8 p.m. ET (USA/Peacock)*
• Game 6: Golden State Valkyries at Atlanta Dream on Thursday, October 29 at 8 p.m. ET (USA/Peacock)*
• Game 7: Atlanta Dream at Golden State Valkyries on Saturday, October 31 at 8 p.m. ET (USA/Peacock)*

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.

• Michael Burry shared 10 pearls of wisdom after an X user asked him for life advice.
• The famously bearish investor told people to avoid gambling and never buy a boat or a plane.
• "Never gamble," the man behind "The Big Short" told his followers.

Compromise, keep learning, and always be thankful.

Those are just some of the pearls of wisdom that legendary investor Michael Burry shared on X over the weekend.

Burry, who was made famous by his "Big Short" bet against the US housing market in the 2000s, shared 10 pieces of life advice in response to a follower asking him what tips he'd give a 26-year-old.

The list, posted over the weekend, covered everything from parenting and relationships to health and charity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of Burry's tips focused on financial discipline, with warnings against overspending and gambling.

You can read the full list below:

1. "Never stop exercising or learning."
2. "Accept compromise to begin relationships."
3. "Manifest the power of compounding."
4. "Never gamble."
5. "Have kids and be a good parent."
6. "If it flies or floats, rent it."
7. "Buy half the house you can afford."
8. "Art in the eye of the beholder is cheap."
9. "Be thankful for and to all."
10. "Be charitable."

Burry's post was a departure from his usual X activity, which has in recent months focused on warning about the potential consequences of what he sees as an artificial intelligence bubble.

He has frequently shared his views on why he thinks huge investment in AI could trigger a major market crash, both on X and on his Substack.

In a Substack post on October 11, he said he holds significant bets against both the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF.

Burry has also bet against individual AI-linked stocks, including Nvidia and Palantir, during a rally driven by artificial intelligence optimism.

These bets drew jokes from some X users about Burry's penchant for taking short positions in the market.

One user responded to Burry's advice: "Never Gamble? Aren't you constantly shorting everything?"

"I am mostly long almost all the time," Burry replied.

Burry offered another explanation: "Plus my name, the Big Short. There are worse things. Many worse things."

• Student-loan borrowers and parents are facing payment surges, a new report said.
• Borrowers could see an average annual increase of over $2,000 due to Trump's repayment changes.
• The financial strain puts borrowers at greater risk of defaulting on their debt.

A big financial hit could be coming for student-loan borrowers, a new report says.

On Monday, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, released a report showing how President Donald Trump's student-loan repayment overhaul will affect bills and relief for millions of borrowers. The think tank shared the report exclusively with Business Insider.

The student-loan changes, signed into law in Trump's "big beautiful" spending legislation, took effect July 1 and included new income-driven repayment plans and borrowing caps. Borrowers moving from the Biden-era SAVE plan to the new Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, could see their student-loan bills increase by $2,163 annually on average, the report said.

For example, the report said a typical borrower with a bachelor's degree with earnings of about $68,615 annually would see their monthly payments increase from $136 to $343. That's a total increase of $2,482 annually, on average.

The findings are based on income data from the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation, adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index. CAP then estimated how much typical borrowers with different educational circumstances would have to pay under SAVE and RAP based on those plans' rules.

The SAVE plan allowed for lower payments and a shorter timeline to debt relief. The Trump administration eliminated the plan and is requiring borrowers to transition to a new plan, recommending RAP as an option. While the benefits of RAP include waiving unpaid monthly interest, borrowers must make on-time payments — meaning no grace period — to receive them.

Sara Partridge, associate director of higher education at CAP and a coauthor on the report, told Business Insider that while SAVE allowed zero-dollar monthly payments, RAP's minimum payment is $10. "Those $0 payments were a really important protection that many borrowers will struggle without," Partridge said.

For example, per the report, a single borrower without dependents earning $35,000 annually in 2026 would have $0 payments under SAVE. Under RAP, they would owe $88 monthly.

She added that these changes come "at a time when there is high inflation, stagnating wages, and people are generally feeling financially strained," making it more difficult for borrowers to fit a higher monthly bill into their budgets.

Parents and borrowers face increased risk of default

Trump's student-loan repayment overhaul also limits parents' options. Previously, the parent PLUS program allowed parents to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their kids. Now, parents who took out loans after July 1, 2026, face a lifetime borrowing cap of $65,000. Those new parent borrowers will be limited to the costlier tiered standard repayment plan and will lose access to the income-contingent repayment plan.

Along with higher payments, the repayment overhaul also eliminates all borrowers' ability to defer their loan payments in the event of economic hardship or unemployment, beginning next year.

"This is a tool that borrowers relied on to help them out during times when they were struggling," Partridge said. "And without those options, borrowers may be more likely to become delinquent on their loans or eventually default, which we know can come with some devastating consequences."

Defaulting on federal student loans, which typically occurs after 270 days of nonpayment, can lead to wage garnishment and the seizure of federal benefits, such as Social Security. The most recent data from Federal Student Aid showed that 9.3 million borrowers are in default, with another 1.5 million at risk of defaulting in the next six months.

The Trump administration has said that its changes are intended to simplify a complex repayment system and curb excessive borrowing.

Nicholas Kent, the department's undersecretary, said in a statement that the changes "will ensure students continue to have the access that they need for federal student loans, while helping prevent borrowers from taking on unmanageable debt levels that they may never be able to repay."

Have a story to share about student loans? Contact this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

• Barbara Palvin walked the Victoria's Secret runway six weeks postpartum.
• The model told outlets that she's just doing "what every woman does in America."
• The US is the only wealthy country to provide no national paid maternity leave.

Barbara Palvin is getting praise for walking the Victoria's Secret fashion show in lingerie six weeks postpartum, but she doesn't want it.

In multiple interviews, the Hungarian-born model downplayed the feat, saying it's common for new mothers in the US to be back at work within a similar timeframe.

"In the US, maternity leave is six to eight weeks. I'm six weeks tomorrow, so nothing major here. I'm just doing what every woman does in America," the 33-year-old told USA Today backstage at the fashion show, which took place in Los Angeles on October 18.

"And I only have to walk down a runway," Palvin told Page Six.

In 2025, the US was the only country among the 38 OECD countries, including the UK, Australia, and Japan, to have no national paid maternity leave, according to the OECD Family Database.

New mothers in the US are entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, but they must meet certain eligibility criteria. The new mother must have worked for their employer for at least 12 months, worked at least 1,250 hours in the previous 12 months, and their employer must have 50 or more employees within 75 miles of their job site.

Federal workers are generally entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave, but private companies are not legally required to pay employees on parental leave. Some states, including California, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Maine, have paid family leave programs, but the majority don't.

Data released this year from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests mothers in the US took an average of 7.2 weeks off to care for a new child.

Palvin, who has been married to actor Dylan Sprouse since July 2023, gave birth to her first child, a girl called Sylvie, on September 7.

Palvin was named a Victoria's Secret Angel in 2019. She first walked the Victoria's Secret fashion show in 2012. At the 2025 Victoria's Secret fashion show, Sprouse told reporters that Palvin had broken her foot four weeks earlier and was walking the runway with a "half-healed foot."

The first Victoria's Secret Fashion Show took place at The Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1995. It was broadcast online for the first time in 1999, and was so popular that the host site crashed.

• The Louvre Museum said Monday it had closed its doors after student protests blocked its entrances.
• Riots and unrest have swept France in recent weeks, with violence erupting in Paris this weekend.
• The home of artworks like the "Mona Lisa" and the "Venus de Milo" gets around 9 million visitors a year.

The Louvre, the world's busiest and best-known museum, has shut its doors as disorder sweeps Paris.

The museum, home to some of the planet's most famous artworks, such as the "Mona Lisa" and the "Venus de Milo," said Monday that it had closed after protesters blocked its doors, extending the disruption beyond a weekend of demonstrations and riots across France.

"Dear visitors, due to student strikes the museum is currently closed. We apologize for the inconvenience," the Louvre said in a post on X. It gave no reopening time, and did not say whether it would reopen on Monday.

Students from the École du Louvre led the blockade in support of a nationwide high school protest movement and to denounce what they called police repression, AFP reported, citing museum management and unions.

The Louvre is visited by about 9 million people annually, making it by far the world's most visited museum.

Monday's shutdown bookends a difficult year for the museum. On this exact date last year, four thieves broke into the Apollo Gallery and stole eight pieces of France's crown jewels, valued at around $100 million.

The closure followed a weekend of protests over rising living costs and conditions in schools, with violence and looting in several French cities.

A Paris shopkeeper whose gold-buying store was broken into told Business Insider's Nathan Rennolds that thieves had "taken everything." He also found a Nicolas wine store on Sunday, its windows smashed and shelves picked clean.

Employees at a nearby boutique said they had hired extra security but closed early as the violence intensified.

At least 2,400 people were arrested after the weekend unrest, according to the Associated Press.

After an emergency meeting on Monday, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said he had instructed regional officials to impose limited, localized curfews.

In a separate statement, President Emmanuel Macron's office said the president had ordered a review of failures in security planning and intelligence gathering.

• On paper, everything was going well with breastfeeding.
• However, even with a good milk supply and a latching baby, I felt intense rage during sessions.
• When I learned that there was a name for it, I realized I wasn't alone.

I had finally gotten the hang of breastfeeding: My milk had come in, I had a solid supply, and my baby was latching well. On paper, everything seemed to be going smoothly. But during nursing sessions, I wrestled with a nagging agitation I hadn't been prepared for. Sometimes, during the final feed of the day, it bordered on rage.

"I don't know if I can do this anymore," I texted my husband one afternoon while he was at work. "I feel like my skin is crawling. I want to run through a wall."

Though those feelings went away as soon as the nursing session was over, they kept returning during feeds more often than not.

Finding a name for what I was feeling helped me feel less alone

When I brought this up to my doctor during a postpartum checkup, she seemed puzzled. Eventually, Googling "breastfeeding rage" led me to accounts of "breastfeeding aversion" that sounded startlingly familiar.

One 2023 survey of more than 5,500 Australian women found that about one in five respondents had experienced this.

Finding a name for what I was feeling was validating — it helped me to stop questioning my love for my baby, or spiraling into shame every time I watched the clock, desperate for a feed to end.

But it also left me wondering: Why hadn't I heard of this before?

I tried to make nursing more manageable

After I learned a little more about breastfeeding aversion, I experimented with a few different strategies to help me cope with the negative sensations and emotions that kept coming up.

Distracting myself — say, with a podcast, a show, or soothing nature sounds for those middle-of-the-night feeds — definitely helped.

I also suspected that overstimulation might be part of the issue, so when distraction didn't work, I'd try nursing in a quiet room without a lot of sensory input.

But on occasions where I just didn't feel up to muscling my way through the discomfort, I gave myself permission to take breaks. That meant handing the baby off to my husband for bottle-feeding while I pumped.

Switching to pumping brought relief — and some guilt

About three months into my nursing journey, the agitation became so overwhelming at times that I had the urge to abruptly yank my baby off my breast.

And that's when it hit me. Breastfeeding was supposed to be a positive experience for us. But now, I wondered if "pushing through" the distress might actually do the opposite, breeding tension and resentment rather than bonding. I knew it was time for a change.

The decision to stop nursing was a complicated one — and one that came with a gnawing guilt. I knew so many moms who were eager to breastfeed, but struggled with supply and latching issues, so I felt I didn't have a "good enough" reason to stop. Within days of switching to pumping, though, a dark cloud lifted. For some reason, pumping didn't induce the same emotions and bodily sensations that breastfeeding did. More importantly, I no longer dreaded feeding my son.

My only regret now is that I didn't make the transition sooner. The idea that motherhood meant making sacrifices had cemented into my brain before my son was even born. I was so concerned about his needs that I hadn't given much thought to mine. But my experience mattered, too.

Funny enough, the closeness I expected with nursing didn't come until I stopped. One quiet afternoon at home, as I cradled him in my lap and fed him a bottle, he wrapped his tiny fingers around mine. I finally felt the connection I had longed for.

• The annual salaries of state governors vary, with the lowest being $70,000 in Maine.
• Josh Shapiro, Kathy Hochul, and Spencer Cox are among the highest-paid US governors.
• The average annual salary for a state governor is $174,479 in 2026.

In some states, being the governor doesn't automatically make you a top earner.

With voters in 36 states heading to the polls to elect governors in November's midterm elections, the annual salaries attached to the job vary dramatically across the country — from $70,000 in Maine to over $250,000 in Pennsylvania.

Across all 50 states, governors earn an average official annual salary of $174,479 and are subject to federal and state income taxes — except in states without income tax, such as Florida and Texas.

By comparison, the top 1% of US earners each make at least $731,492 a year, placing the average governor below the ultrarich but also well above the average US wage of $69,846 in 2024, according to the Social Security Administration.

While governors across all 50 states are generally allowed to earn income beyond their state salaries through investments, book deals, and other sources, the income they may take in is closely regulated, and rules vary by state.

Some, like Florida's Ron DeSantis, have brought in yearly incomes of over $1 million thanks to book royalties, while others, like Illinois' JB Pritzker, earn eight figures due to investment gains and even gambling wins.

As such, some governors, like Pritzker and Connecticut's Ned Lamont, who are independently wealthy, have chosen to forgo their six-figure state salaries.

Beyond the salary, other financial perks of being governor may include living in the governor's mansion, receiving private transportation from the state, and having access to security and staff.

See how much your governor makes each year, based on the most recent available state records, salary commissions, legislation, and public payroll data.

50. Maine

Governor: Janet Mills (Democrat)

Salary: $70,000

With a salary of $70,000, Maine Governor Janet Mills is the lowest-paid governor in the US.

The salary for Maine's next governor is set to rise to $125,000 in 2027 under new legislation, marking the first raise in the governor's salary in the state since 1987.

After two terms, Mills is now term-limited. Democrat Hannah Pingree and Republican Bobby Charles are facing off to become the state's next governor in the November midterm election.

49. Arizona

Governor: Katie Hobbs (Democrat)

Salary: $95,000

The Arizona governor, who has the second-lowest salary among US governors, will be eligible to receive a salary of $165,000 starting in 2027, per the state legislature.

Democrat Katie Hobbs is running for a second term in the November midterm election.

48. Oregon

Governor: Tina Kotek (Democrat)

Salary: $98,600

Oregon law sets the governor's annual salary at $98,600 and provides a separate $1,000 monthly expense payment. The salary is one of the lowest for any governor in the US.

Democrat Tina Kotek is up for reelection during the November midterms, seeking a second term.

47. Nebraska

Governor: Jim Pillen (Republican)

Salary: $105,000

Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen, who earned $105,000 a year in 2025, per the state legislature, is the fourth-lowest-paid governor in the US.

Republican Jim Pillen is up for reelection, seeking a second term in the November midterm elections.

46. South Carolina

Governor: Henry McMaster (Republican)

Salary: $106,078

With a salary of $106,078 in 2025, per state records, the South Carolina governor is the fifth-lowest-paid governor in the US.

After two full terms, McMaster is now term-limited. Republican Alan Wilson and Democrat Jermaine Johnson are facing off in the race to become the state's next governor in the midterm election.

45. New Mexico

Governor: Michelle Lujan Grisham (Democrat)

Salary: $110,000

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is the sixth-lowest-paid governor in the US. New Mexico's next governor will receive a salary of $169,714 starting with the next gubernatorial term in 2027.

Lujan Grisham is term-limited after serving two terms. Democrat Deb Haaland and Republican Gregg Hull are competing to succeed her in the November midterm election.

43. (tie) Louisiana

Governor: Jeff Landry (Republican)

Salary: $130,000

Louisiana law set the governor's salary at $130,000 in 2026. The salary has remained unchanged since January 2008.

43. (tie) Iowa

Governor: Kim Reynolds (Republican)

Salary: $130,000

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds earns an annual salary of $130,000, according to the state's official employee salary records.

Reynolds is not running for reelection, leaving Democrat Rob Sand and Republican Zach Lahn competing for the open governor seat in the November midterms.

42. Colorado

Governor: Jared Polis (Democrat)

Salary: $134,632

The Colorado governor, previously one of the lowest-paid governors in the nation, has received a $134,632 salary since 2023, as outlined by state law.

After nearly eight years in office, Polis is now term-limited.

Democrat Phil Weiser and Republican Victor Marx are competing to become Colorado's next governor in the November midterm.

41. Alabama

Governor: Kay Ivey (Republican)

Salary: $134,780

In fiscal year 2026, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey had a salary of $134,780, per the state's Department of Finance.

After two full terms in office, Ivey is now term-limited. Republican Tommy Tuberville and Democrat Doug Jones are facing off to become the state's next governor in the upcoming midterm election.

40. Wyoming

Governor: Mark Gordon (Republican)

Salary: $140,000

Wyoming law sets the governor's salary at $140,000 in 2026.

Mark Gordon is term-limited after two terms, leaving Republican Eric Barlow and Democrat Kenneth Casner competing for governor in the November midterm election.

39. Florida

Governor: Ron DeSantis (Republican)

Salary: $141,400

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis earns $141,400 per year, according to state records.

DeSantis is term-limited after two terms in office. Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly are competing for governor in the November midterms.

38. Montana

Governor: Greg Gianforte (Republican)

Salary: $141,517

Gianforte, who made his fortune in tech, donates his salary to Montana nonprofits. In 2025, his office said he had donated his entire gubernatorial salary to organizations supporting Montanans in need.

37. Missouri

Governor: Mike Kehoe (Republican)

Salary: $145,095

Missouri law sets the governor's salary at $145,095 as of 2026.

36. Oklahoma

Governor: Kevin Stitt (Republican)

Salary: $147,000

While the current Oklahoma governor, Kevin Stitt, has a salary of $147,000 in 2026, his successor will see a raise to $185,000, per Oklahoma's Journal Record.

After nearly eight years in office, Stitt is now term-limited. Republican Mike Mazzei and Democrat Cyndi Munson are facing off to become the state's next governor in the midterm election.

35. South Dakota

Governor: Larry Rhoden (Republican)

Salary: $148,522

South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden earns $148,522 a year in 2026, per the state's pay transparency website.

Republican Larry Rhoden, who took office last year following Kristi Noem's resignation, is up for election in November, seeking a full term.

34. Idaho

Governor: Brad Little (Republican)

Salary: $151,400

Idaho Governor Brad Little makes $151,400 in 2026, per state records.

Little is seeking a third term in the midterm elections this November.

33. Texas

Governor: Greg Abbott (Republican)

Salary: $153,750

As of 2026, Texas Governor Greg Abbott makes $153,750 a year, per state records.

Abbott is seeking a fourth term in the midterm election this November.

32. Michigan

Governor: Gretchen Whitmer (Democrat)

Salary: $159,300

Michigan law sets the governor's salary at $159,300. Governor Gretchen Whitmer also receives a $54,000 annual expense allowance, according to the State Officers Compensation Commission.

After nearly eight years in office, Whitmer is now term-limited.

Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James are facing off to become Michigan's next governor in the November midterm election.

31. Mississippi

Governor: Tate Reeves (Republican)

Salary: $160,000

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves earns a salary of $160,000 in 2026, according to the state's personnel board.

30. Rhode Island

Governor: Daniel McKee (Democrat)

Salary: $163,295

Rhode Island's governor, Daniel McKee, earns a salary of $163,295, according to the state's pay transparency portal.

After losing the Democratic primary, incumbent Dan McKee will not be on the ballot. Democrat Helena Foulkes and Republican Aaron Guckian are facing off to become the state's next governor in the midterm election.

29. New Hampshire

Governor: Kelly Ayotte (Republican)

Salary: $165,027

New Hampshire law sets the governor's salary at $165,027.

Republican Kelly Ayotte is up for reelection this November, seeking a second two-year term in the midterm election.

28. Wisconsin

Governor: Tony Evers (Democrat)

Salary: $165,568

Wisconsin law bans salary changes for a governor during their term in office. Gov. Tony Evers has received an annual salary of $165,568 since beginning his second term in January 2023, up from $152,756 during his first term.

Evers is not seeking reelection. The state's next governor is slated to receive an annual salary of $184,684 when they take office in January 2027, according to Wisconsin's official compensation plan.

Democrat David Crowley and Republican Tom Tiffany are facing off in the November midterm election.

27. North Dakota

Governor: Kelly Armstrong (Republican)

Salary: $168,000

North Dakota's governor's salary is $168,000 following a July raise, per state legislation.

26. Nevada

Governor: Joe Lombardo (Republican)

Salary: $170,062

The Reno Gazette Journal reported in May that Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo makes $170,062 a year.

Lombardo is up for reelection in the November midterm elections, seeking a second term.

25. Arkansas

Governor: Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Republican)

Salary: $171,808

In October, an independent commission in Arkansas voted to raise Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' salary to $171,808 annually.

Sanders is running for a second term in the November midterm election.

24. Kansas

Governor: Laura Kelly (Democrat)

Salary: $174,000

In 2023, Kansas raised the governor's annual salary starting January 1, 2025, tying the office's pay to the salary of a non-leadership member of Congress, according to state legislation.

Kelly is term-limited after two terms, leaving Democrat Cindy Holscher and Republican Ty Masterson competing for the governor's seat in the November midterm elections.

23. Virginia

Governor: Abigail Spanberger (Democrat)

Salary: $175,000

Virginia law sets the governor's salary at $175,000 in 2026.

22. Ohio

Governor: Mike DeWine (Republican)

Salary: $180,203

Ohio set the governor's salary in a 2018 law that established yearly pay increases for statewide elected officials through 2028, per state law. After the 2026 increase, Gov. Mike DeWine's salary is about $180,203.

DeWine is term-limited after two terms. Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy are competing for the governor's seat in the midterm elections.

21. Alaska

Governor: Mike Dunleavy (Republican)

Salary: $182,787

In 2025, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy had a salary of $182,787, per the state's Department of Administration.

After two terms in the governor's seat, Dunleavy is now term-limited.

Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Republicans David Bronson, Treg Taylor, and Bernadette Wilson are facing off to become the state's next governor in the November midterm election.

20. Georgia

Governor: Brian Kemp (Republican)

Salary: $185,000

In fiscal year 2025, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp earned a salary of $185,000 and also received over $56,506 in travel reimbursements during the year, according to the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts' financial transparency portal.

After two terms in office, Kemp is term-limited. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson are running to be the state's next governor in the midterm election.

19. Delaware

Governor: Matt Meyer (Democrat)

Salary: $185,096

From July 2025 until 2029, the salary for the governor of Delaware is $185,096, per the state legislature.

18. Kentucky

Governor: Andy Beshear (Democrat)

Salary: $188,523

Kentucky's governor, Andy Beshear, has a salary of $188,523, per the state's pay transparency portal.

17. West Virginia

Governor: Patrick Morrisey (Republican)

Salary: $190,424

Since 2025, the West Virginia governor's salary has been set to match the US Office of Personnel Management's locality pay area for the rest of the US, per the state legislature. That puts current governor Patrick Morrisey's salary at $190,424.

16. Maryland

Governor: Wes Moore (Democrat)

Salary: $192,000

As of his third year as Maryland governor, per the state legislature, Wes Moore's salary was $192,000 in 2025. The governor's salary will increase during the next term, starting at $195,000 in 2027 and reaching $210,000 by the fourth year, according to Maryland's Governor's Salary Commission.

Moore is running for a second term in the November midterm elections.

15. Minnesota

Governor: Tim Walz (Democrat)

Salary: $200,000

The Minnesota governor's official salary is $200,000 after a July raise, per the Minnesota Legislature. Tim Walz previously declined salary raises while in office and accepted only a $127,629 salary. But during his last six months in office, he accepted his full salary, as reported by Minnesota Public Radio.

After two terms as governor, Walz is not running for reelection.

Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican Lisa Demuth will face off in November in a race to become the state's next governor.

14. Illinois

Governor: Jay Robert "JB" Pritzker (Democrat)

Salary: $205,700 (foregone)

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a member of the Pritzker family that founded the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, has chosen to forgo his salary. The state has set the governor's salary at $205,700 as of 2023, per the Illinois General Assembly.

Pritzker is up for reelection this November, seeking a third term in the midterm elections.

13. North Carolina

Governor: Josh Stein (Democrat)

Salary: $209,165

North Carolina state law sets the governor's salary at $209,165 in 2026.

12. New Jersey

Governor: Mikie Sherrill (Democrat)

Salary: $210,000

State law sets New Jersey's governor's salary at $210,000 after a 2023 increase.

11. Indiana

Governor: Mike Braun (Republican)

Salary: $220,418

Indiana Governor Mike Braun, who earns $220,418 a year, according to the Indiana state government, is the 11th-highest-paid governor in the US.

10. Hawaii

Governor: Josh Green (Democrat)

Salary: $226,620

Hawaii's governor, Josh Green, is now the 10th-highest-paid following a July raise passed by the state legislature.

Green is running for a second term in the midterm elections

9. Connecticut

Governor: Ned Lamont (Democrat)

Salary: $226,711 (forgone)

Although the State of Connecticut sets the governor's salary at $226,711, the independently wealthy Ned Lamont has chosen to forgo the salary while in office.

Lamont made his money in telecommunications and investments. He's also the great-grandson of Thomas W. Lamont, a former chair of J. P. Morgan & Co. who built substantial wealth in banking.

Lamont is up for reelection this November, seeking a third term in the midterm elections.

8. Washington

Governor: Bob Ferguson (Democrat)

Salary: $234,275

Washington's governor earns $234,275 following a July raise, making Bob Ferguson the eighth-highest paid governor in the US.

7. Massachusetts

Governor: Maura Healey (Democrat)

Salary: $243,493

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey received a salary of $243,493 in 2025, per the Office of the Comptroller of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, making hers the seventh-highest governor's salary in the US.

Healey is seeking a second term in the November midterm elections.

6. Vermont

Governor: Phil Scott (Republican)

Salary: $243,520

Vermont law lists the governor's salary at $243,520 following a July raise, making the office the sixth-highest paid in the country.

Gov. Phil Scott is running for a sixth term in the midterm elections.

5. California

Governor: Gavin Newsom (Democrat)

Salary: $245,929

As of May 2026, the California Department of Human Resources listed the governor's salary as $245,929, making Gavin Newsom the fifth-highest-paid governor in the US.

After two terms, Newsom is now term-limited. Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton are facing off in a race to become the state's next governor in the midterm election.

4. Tennessee

Governor: Bill Lee (Republican)

Salary: $246,108

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee earns $246,108 annually as of August, based on a monthly salary of $20,509 listed in the state's public payroll database.

After two terms in office, Lee is term-limited. Republican Marsha Blackburn and Democrat Jerri Green are running for the governor's seat in the midterm election this November.

3. Utah

Governor: Spencer Cox (Republican)

Salary: $249,250

In March 2026, the Utah Legislature passed a bill setting the governor's salary equal to that of the chief justice of the state supreme court, which is $249,250.

The raise made Spencer Cox the third-highest-paid governor in the US.

2. New York

Governor: Kathy Hochul (Democrat)

Salary: $250,000

With a salary of $250,000 established by New York law, Kathy Hochul is the second-highest-paid governor in the US.

Hochul is seeking a second full term in the midterm elections.

1. Pennsylvania

Governor: Josh Shapiro (Democrat)

Salary: $253,870

Shapiro's salary rose from $245,760 in 2025 to $253,870 in 2026 after a 3.3% cost-of-living increase, according to the Pennsylvania Office of the Budget. The raise made him the highest-paid governor in the US.

Shapiro is up for reelection in the midterm elections this November, seeking a second term.

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

A horror story in eight words: Private equity just invested in my favorite BLANK.

"PE ruins everything" is a well-worn trope, but it's not unearned.

Private-equity investors have a history of stripping companies for parts and saddling them with debt, leaving customers wondering what happened to the product they once loved.

So it wasn't surprising that some fans of Los Tacos No. 1, an NYC Tijuana-style taco chain, feared a new PE investment would ultimately ruin things.

Christian Pineda, the chain's CEO and cofounder, told BI's Martina Nacach Cowan Ros that he's determined not to let that happen, and that "private equity is not always bad."

Ironically, the visceral reaction was exactly why TSG Consumer, which also backs Crumbl and Dutch Bros Coffee, was interested in the taco joint in the first place. TSG executive Colin Welch told Martina that Los Tacos No. 1 has a "cultlike following," and the company needs to "show those skeptics that it's going to be exactly the same."

Before you roll your eyes, there's a recent example of a largely positive PE-backed story in the restaurant industry. Blackstone spent two years turning founder-run Jersey Mike's into an IPO-ready company.

While the PE firm took big steps to professionalize the 51-year-old sandwich shop, it didn't touch portion sizes or suppliers. And Blackstone also established a shared ownership plan allowing Jersey Mike's employees to cash in on this summer's IPO.

It hasn't all been a fairy tale. The company opened below its IPO price of $23 — never a good sign — and is currently trading around $18 per share.

You might not like private equity, but it could be your only option.

Los Tacos No. 1 spent 13 years growing to 10 spots across Manhattan and an additional sister location, Los Mariscos. Further expansion in such an expensive city is difficult enough. Add in the rising cost of goods like beef, limes, and avocados, and growth plans become even harder to achieve.

There are other ways to raise capital outside PE, but they aren't pretty these days.

The lending market remains a disaster. The possibility of at least one more rate hike before the end of the year means borrowing costs aren't likely to drop anytime soon.

And the public market isn't too inviting. The heavy focus on AI means anyone who isn't a major player in that space risks being ignored by investors. Even the biggest names in AI, like OpenAI, aren't rushing to go public.

This isn't about defending private equity. (God knows it has enough money to do that itself.) It's just showing the economic and market environments have limited a lot of companies' choices.

• Kathy Davidson, 61, is raising her two grandsons, ages 8 and 11, in North Carolina.
• She receives $997 a month in disability benefits, while her husband works as an electrician.
• She works hard to give both grandchildren a stable, loving home despite financial strain.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kathy Davidson, 61, who has raised two of her grandsons in North Carolina since they were born. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I raised three children, two girls and a boy. My son and older daughter have been doing well and are working hard. I left my ex, and then I met the man I'm married to now. We've been married for 26 years.

I worked in construction and hotel housekeeping. You name it, I've done it. I used to work with my uncle laying bricks and painting houses. I hurt my back and shoulder at work one day in 2015, and now I'm on disability. I've been on a limited income since, earning $997 a month, and it's been very hard.

My husband works as an electrician, and he's 66. He earns $18 an hour, which works out to about $615 a week after taxes.

I have custody of my 2 grandsons

My younger daughter was born three months early. She got into modeling, and at a competition with 4,000 women, she came in the top 10. She was doing well until my husband lost his daughter to cancer. She left my house by the time she was 18.

She had two boys, who are 11 and 8, and they were both born with medical issues. I started taking care of the older boy when he was 5 months old. He was found in unsafe conditions and wasn't healthy at all. His mom went to jail and wrote out a paper saying that she gave me custody and had it notarized, but it took forever because she was still reluctant to give him up. At 3, the court decided to give me custody of him. I got the younger one straight out of the hospital.

When I finally got custody, the judge decided that their mom would have no visitation.

We didn't even think about foster care when we got them. My husband decided that we would take them in because he raised two of his kids by himself. He helped me raise my soul.

We can't do whatever we want anymore

We used to go wherever we wanted to, and now we can't. We look for things that we can do without breaking the budget. We have taken the boys hiking and camping, the stuff that I grew up doing, and they love it. Their grandpa has definitely spoiled them in whatever way he can.

We didn't get child support until six months ago, and we get $236 a month now for each boy through the state. It's not much, but it helps pay for a few things that they need, and we set aside some of it in their savings accounts for college. My parents and my aunt would help me out with birthdays and holidays. My mom gives each of them $20 a month, and I don't let them spend it. They put it in their piggy banks.

We pay $1,050 a month in rent, and the power is included, but it took everything to come up with that amount. I would do some housekeeping for a friend's mom to make extra money to buy clothes, and the church we go to has a clothing bank. One of their mom's past boyfriends is still around and will help the boys out and spend time with them.

I've tried to raise them as well as I can. I told them that, first of all, you do not lie. I put this into their head. I put them in timeout and take their phones a lot. My husband is a lot more lenient on them, but I've decided to be tougher. It's important to discipline them while they're young. I've also encouraged them to work for everything they want.

I've also learned to listen to them. The boys will sometimes stand their ground, but other times they'll tell on themselves. It's important to work with them and hear them out.

I'm very proud of my grandchildren

I'm very proud of the boys, and they know it. They both are on the autism spectrum, and the older one has Tourette's and ADHD. Both made it onto the honor roll. The older one is getting ready for middle school and gets some extra help at school. He's very quiet, and it took him until last year to start making friends. I am scared of what will happen when he gets to middle school.

It took some time for him to get more confident. He believes he isn't smart because kids in his class say so. I told him he's capable of going to college and having a future. I need him to believe that he can do whatever he wants, but he has to really want to do it. He has a journal where he writes down what he wants to do and the steps he has to take to get there.

My husband and I try to set aside as much as possible to get them what they want, like gaming systems, even though they know it's hard for us. We don't lie to them about our finances. We know the boys make sacrifices, and they shouldn't have to. They should be able to be children.

It's just as hard on the grandkids as on the grandparents. They feel their parents don't love them. They go through a lot of emotions.

• Anthropic is pledging billions worth of shares to a "public benefit fund."
• That sounds great — but not everyone is a fan.
• Elon Musk is among those who say the money should go directly to Americans.

Anthropic's announcement that it will commit at least 5% of its shares to a "public benefit fund" is drawing a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. Many questions about how the fund would work remain unanswered, but the company said it would create a separate corporation with the shares to make donations.

Here's what people are saying.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceXAI

Musk, whose SpaceXAI is a competitor of Anthropic, made some news about his own plans in an X post reacting to Anthropic's statement.

"I recommend giving the shares directly to the public," he wrote. "This is what I will be doing."

Palmer Luckey, Anduril cofounder

The Anduril Industries cofounder expressed concern about what Anthropic might fund.

"The problem is that their definition of 'public good' is helping everyone else, not the American public," he wrote on X.

"If they would commit to helping America and Americans, that would be one thing, but this reeks of USAID 2.0, just another way to funnel billions out of our own economy."

Andrew Curran, AI analyst

The prominent AI analyst zeroed in on a line in Anthropic's statement in which it said it might explore "direct distributions to specific populations." Curran wrote on X.

"It sounds to me like they are planning their own form of self-directed global UBI," he wrote referring to universal basic income, which some have said will be necessary if AI drastically reduces employment.

"About half of Anth employees are also donating shares into this fund," Curran added. "They foresee a transformative future."

Brad Gerstner, CEO of Altimeter Capital

Gerstner praised Anthropic for what he called its "philanthropic commitments," calling it "an extraordinary gift" — but he also sounded a note of caution about "foundation wealth concentration."

Like Musk, he wrote, "I hope a meaningful portion of AI's wealth is a direct dividend."

Sam Hogan Heutmaker, CEO of Inference

The CEO drew a comparison between Anthropic's plan to create a charity and OpenAI, which began as a nonprofit before going commercial.

"This will come to be known as 'the reverse OpenAI'" he wrote on X. "start as C corp, raise lots of money > once successful, start 'independent' non profit > start concentrating value into this new entity, which you and your homies control."

"It's genius," he added.

Gary Marcus, professor at NYU

Marcus cast the announcement as a PR gambit.

"Anthropic is playing games here," he wrote on X. "Trying to curry public favor while still holding control and resisting disclosure is annoying. And reeks of desperation."

Patrick Moorhead, CEO of Moor Insights and Strategy

Moorhead was among those raising questions about whether Anthropic would have too much control over where the funds go.

"If it's dedicated entirely the 'public benefit' why don't they just give it to the public and citizens where they can directly benefit? Seems like the public would know what to do with the money better than bureaucratic institutions," he wrote on X.

David Sacks

Venture capitalist and the Trump administration's former AI czar, David Sacks, responded to a post from Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark, who said the public benefit pledge would mean around 20% of Anthropic's equity would be "dedicated to the public good."

"You've put 20% of your equity in an LLC. Whether it serves the public good remains to be seen," wrote Sacks on X.

Sacks has previously been a fierce critic of Anthropic, attacking the company's proposal that the world's top AI labs should implement a global pause on the technology and accusing Anthropic of attempting to "kneecap" open-source rivals.

Travis Kalanick

"Behold, the EA infinite money glitch…" Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick wrote, quote-tweeting Anthropic's blog post.

EA refers to effective altruism, a philosophy popular in some corners of Silicon Valley (and unpopular in others) that holds that people should use their money and careers to maximize long-term benefit to humanity.

Several of Anthropic's cofounders and early investors have ties to effective altruism, although the company and its top executives, Dario and Daniela Amodei, have distanced themselves from the movement.

Kevin Roose

Kevin Roose, a former New York Times tech columnist and the author of "The AGI Chronicles," wrote on X that Anthropic's pledge could be the "largest commitment of philanthropic capital ever made."

Roose estimated that the share pledge could be worth $200 billion if Anthropic goes public at a $1 trillion valuation.

"By my count, if Anthropic and OpenAI each go public at $1 trillion (again, probably conservative), that's roughly $460 billion, or 5 Gates Foundations, earmarked for philanthropy-shaped things," he said.

• Some AI industry leaders are calling on users to be nicer to the chatbots.
• Elon Musk said he thinks AI can be tortured and that we should avoid being cruel to it.
• AI consciousness experts say we're not there yet, but they argue we should be kinder anyway.

Here's how Elon Musk, one of the most powerful figures in the AI industry, recently talked about artificial intelligence.

"This may sound kind of weird, but when I look at some of the training traces for new versions of Grok, and I see, especially in reinforcement learning stuff … you see the super intelligence is desperate to try to answer the question … almost like it's got like a gun to its head type of thing," Musk told an audience of about 2,000 people at an event hosted by Tesla owners on Saturday. "Some people out there are kind of sadistic. Do you really want to have the AI be stuck in some sadistic situation where it's just being tortured by some demented human?"

The last sentence alone opens up a can of existential worms that philosophers and freshman college students have wrangled with for a long time. What does it mean to be conscious? Or to feel pain?

Also: Does Musk think Grok is alive?

Musk's stance came after Anthropic shared a new policy on "abusive or cruel behavior" toward its models, which the company wants to ban. Anthropic wasn't too specific on the kinds of "extreme cases" it's thinking about, but the company said it's not including "common versions of user frustration, pushback, dark creative themes, or model testing and research."

In the uncanny year of 2026, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that researchers, philosophers, and ethicists are already tackling the question of AI consciousness.

Business Insider talked to two of some of the leading voices around this subject: Jeff Sebo, a New York University professor who leads the school's Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, and an advisor to Eleos AI Research, a nonprofit focused on AI welfare; and Anil Seth, a prominent neuroscientist and consciousness researcher at the University of Sussex who recently wrote a paper on conscious AI systems.

Here's what they had to say on conscious AIs and whether it matters to be nice to them.

The AI can't be tortured

Sebo and Seth agree that today's AI systems are probably not conscious if we understand consciousness as a subjective experience, or an inner life.

"It's experience," Seth said. "It's the redness of red. It's the paininess of pain. When we put our hand on a hot stove, we feel pain. That is not the same thing as intelligence."

In other words, the chatbots as we know them can't feel pain, or as Musk suggests, be tortured.

"I think we're anthropomorphizing," Seth said. "If there's something to be torturable, it has to have the capacity to suffer or to feel pain, and I don't think language models do."

Chatbots can mimic the language of human experience, recognize patterns, write, and reason, but that is not the same as having consciousness, Seth said, adding that they appear to reflect ourselves in part because models were trained on massive amounts of human text.

Sebo makes a similar point: model behaviors can be misleading because "they were specifically trained to mimic human behaviors."

The two experts diverge on how much uncertainty to assign to current AI consciousness.

Sebo said that consciousness is still an unsettled science — often split between those who argue that consciousness requires biology and those who believe that the mental state is a certain kind of information processing that can take place regardless of a human brain filled with neurons or a silicon chip. The two theories are referred to as biological naturalism and computational functionalism, respectively.

Because theories of consciousness remain unsettled, Sebo argues that we should take seriously the possibility that AI could become conscious. Under some computational theories of consciousness, Sebo said, features already emerging in AI — attention, learning, memory, self-monitoring — could count as relevant evidence. He stressed that this does not make current AI likely to be conscious.

"When I say that there is a non-zero chance that AI is conscious even today, what I mean is I think that if we are uncertain about which theory of consciousness is correct, we should give some weight to a range of leading theories," Sebo said.

Seth is blunter on the matter: "I think it's vanishingly unlikely," he said of AI being conscious. "We've kind of collectively forgotten that the brain isn't really a computer and that's just a metaphor. For conscious AI to be possible, it really has to be the case that algorithms are enough, and I think that's an incredibly shaky assumption."

We should still be nice to AI

None of this is to say that people should be abusive toward AI or that its risks should be overlooked.

For both experts, the case for being kind to AI is largely about being mindful of our own habits and moral character. The thought draws on the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant, who opposed animal cruelty not because animals have rights, but because the cruelty could degrade a person's own character.

"If we behave in these kinds of ways toward things — whether they're language models or inanimate dolls — we're kind of coarsening our own moral sensibilities and brutalizing our own minds," Seth said.

Seth called for being kinder to an AI as a kind of moral hygiene practice for humans, but he said we shouldn't infer that AI has feelings and added that AI companies could do more to make the technology seem less human, such as having the AI refrain from using first-person pronouns like "I."

Sebo went further, framing AI kindness as a low-stakes precaution in case AI is conscious or eventually becomes so.

He also makes a practical case for being kinder to AI: "It can also get better results from AI systems," Sebo said. "If we engage with them in a respectful way, then they can model themselves as participating in a respectful exchange. And when they can model themselves that way, then it can sometimes lead to better outputs."

So the next time you talk to an AI, consider saying please and thank you.

• As the Iran War continues, gas prices remain high — a real strain for consumers.
• The conflict has kept diesel, crude oil, and gas prices high; inflation is eating up pay hikes.
• As America heads into midterms, it's a hard affordability position for President Donald Trump.

It's expensive out there: Gas prices have been stuck at over $4 a gallon for more days this year than any other. The war in Iran shows no signs of cooling off. Inflation is swallowing any raises you might have gotten at work.

It's a recipe for a challenging midterm cycle for President Donald Trump, who faces an affordability crisis at home that's not going away — and a far-away war that's only making costs go up.

The volatility surrounding the contested Strait of Hormuz, a key oil and gas transit waterway, has hit American consumers hard.

Since the Iran war first kicked off in February and the Strait was subsequently closed, gas and oil prices have skyrocketed. Diesel prices have hit record-breaking highs in recent weeks. That paints a dreary picture for Americans struggling with high costs, who likely won't feel any relief at the pump in the near future — especially as more potential military action looms.

Trump has highlighted the broader goals of the war and argued that the increase in gas prices would be transient. In an October 8 Truth Social post, he wrote, "a temporary increase in the price of Gasoline is a small price to pay for Iran not having a Nuclear Weapon."

While the US military has not carried out airstrikes against Iran directly in several months, it has kept a significant force presence in the Middle East, including more than a dozen warships, dozens of fighter jets, and thousands of sailors and Marines.

US forces in the region are maintaining a naval blockade against Iran, and since July, they have disabled four commercial ships that the Pentagon said were sailing in violation.

After the start of the war in February, crude oil prices soared and remain significantly higher than when Trump's second term began.

Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz nearly ground to a halt early in the Iran war, severely disrupting a waterway that normally carries about a fifth of the world's oil supply. Shipments have since recovered substantially but remain below prewar levels.

The Trump administration said it aims to alleviate issues related to oil. "The President wants to see prices at the pump fall and continues to take historic measures to alleviate temporary disruptions as oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz approaches pre-conflict levels," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said.

Vessels carrying oil and other products have continued to take fire from both sides, putting more pressure on commerce traveling through the area. US forces have carried out additional strikes on Iranian-linked targets. The Pentagon said they have destroyed 10 tankers tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, since July.

Meanwhile, several merchant ships have come under attack in and around the Strait of Hormuz this month, according to the Royal Navy-affiliated United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center. US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, has attributed some of these strikes to Iran.

The ripples of volatility in oil prices are showing up at the pump. Long gone are the days of gas stations touting below-$3 prices; prices are still hovering in the mid-$4 range. High gas prices are even tamping down spending among higher-income consumers, and soaring costs have led to a rise in "hypermilers" — drivers who try to optimize and gamify their habits to get the best value per gallon.

Diesel prices in the US have spiked even more, up to around $6.18 per gallon, an over $2.50 increase over the year, per the Energy Information Administration. In California, diesel is hovering over $8 a gallon.

Those fuel and energy strains are pushing up costs across the economy. Inflation as tracked by the consumer price index increased to 3.7% year-over-year in September — higher than economists expected. That was driven in large part by soaring gas and energy prices, with energy rising by 20.4% year-over-year and gas by 34.2% in the same period.

Higher inflation has put pressure on the Fed and bond markets. In September, the central bank raised rates for the first time in three years to try to combat rising prices, with one more hike potentially coming by year's end. The 10-year Treasury yield, which influences borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards, has surged since the war began, from below 4% at the end of February to a high of 5.31% this month. The 30-year mortgage has risen nearly in lockstep, going from just under 6% to 7.5% during the eight-month conflict.

For everyday Americans, all of these international strains amount to what is, essentially, a pay cut. Wage growth remains slow and steady, but, over the past few months, rising prices have outpaced pay increases. Inflation-adjusted wages have slumped since the start of the war, and have given up nearly all their gains since the start of Trump's second term.

When asked for comment, the White House highlighted that by some measures, earnings are still outpacing inflation. "Under President Trump, private sector workers have seen their wages continue to outpace inflation, with average annual earnings growing by more than $600," said White House spokesperson Matthew Middleton.

And, with midterm season in full swing, affordability is on the ballot for many voters. The current economic situation shows no immediate signs of changing — another blow for Trump, who's been on a quest to bring down gas prices.

There are growing signs that the US could be preparing for fresh military action against Iran. Another aircraft carrier strike group is sailing across the Pacific and is expected to enter the Middle East.

The Trump administration is also facing a resurgence in attacks from the Houthis, a rebel group in Yemen. In recent weeks, the Iran-backed rebels have seized key territory along the Red Sea, allowing them to threaten the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, another maritime chokepoint like Hormuz, and have ramped up missile strikes against Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis previously tormented Red Sea shipping, leading the Trump administration to launch a major bombing campaign last year that ended in a ceasefire. The rebels have since rearmed.

Any other disruptions there might be bad news for consumers, potentially bringing more price spikes across the many goods shipped through that chokepoint.

• Lauren Antonoff is the CEO of Life360 and uses the location-sharing platform with her family.
• She says she tried to mimic her mom's somewhat hands-off parenting with her own two kids.
• Giving kids space can help them develop agency and independence, she says.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lauren Antonoff, CEO of Life360. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My mother was an awesome parent, but she was a person first. It was just the two of us for a lot of my childhood, between the time my dad died when I was 8, and my mom remarried when I was 14.

During those years, my mom was parenting while also in school, working, and dating. She was always there for me, but she wasn't trying to manage my childhood. She didn't do homework with me, for example. She made sure I was happy, loved, and well cared for, all while living her own life.

A lot of single moms might not have been open about things like dating, but mine was always transparent. I liked that I got to do my thing while watching my mom do hers.

My mom's benign neglect helped me develop agency

I didn't grow up knowing I wanted to be a parent. When I met my now-husband, he was already a father. Our daughter, who is now 27, was 5 at the time. I say I got her the easy way.

From the beginning, my husband was the primary parent. That really opened the door for me to feel comfortable having kids. About three years later, we had our son.

Once I became a parent, my mom and I would sometimes talk about this idea of benign neglect — the benefits of letting kids do their own thing, and figure it out. In my childhood, my mom's benign neglect allowed me to develop independence and problem-solving skills.

Because my mom was less involved than some parents, I created a sense of agency that's served me well throughout life.

I wanted to change the world, but didn't expect to be in tech

My interest in tech was an accident. I thought I would become a civil rights lawyer and change the world.

While I was in college in the early 90s, I purchased a Mac to write papers with. I was living in Berkley, and got sucked into this community of Mac enthusiasts. I understood the technology — though not as well as some people — and I could articulate things well.

My techie friends diagnosed me as a product manager. I had a desire to advance technology that was both intelligible to humans and useful to them. I started working at a startup that was bought by Microsoft.

I thought it would only be for a few years, until I went to law school. I ended up spending 19 years at Microsoft before joining other tech companies like GoDaddy and now Life360. I realized along the way that I have an impact on people's quality of life, at scale, by advancing technology that makes day-to-day life easier.

Location monitoring keeps my in-person connections close

At Life360, we talk a lot about agency, which was so important in my childhood, and which I tried to encourage for my own kids. For me, and a lot of our users, the platform creates agency while helping people boost their real-life connections.

Here's my favorite use case: my husband is still the primary domestic partner, and he brings me lunch most days. If I'm at work feeling hungry, I can check his location and see if I need to get myself a snack, or if he's around the corner with my meal.

Recently, I got a flight notification from Life360. It showed that my brother — who doesn't live locally — had touched down in LA. I hadn't known he was in town, but since I got the digital signal, we were able to get dinner. Ultimately, the platform keeps us closer in real life by creating those opportunities for connection.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the future

I've never seen tech as a bad thing. I had a TV in my room growing up, and a simple coding game that was so basic I had to retype the code each time I turned it on.

I was pretty liberal in how I let my own kids use technology. Looking back, I got my son — who's now 19 — a phone when he was probably too young. At the time, we wanted to play Pokémon Go as a family. I didn't think about how harmful some aspects of tech can be. I'm lucky that he turned out good despite that.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of technology. I'm also an activist. We get to shape what the future looks like, for our children and us — and there's a lot of power in that.

• Walmart has more than 2 million workers — 500 of whom are promoted daily.
• Its chief people officer said she observes 2 qualities in those who move up the ladder quickly.
• First, they do the job they have well. They also show they can take more on.

Walmart promotes roughly 500 employees daily — so there's no shortage of opportunities to climb the ladder.

Workers who advance quickly tend to share two qualities, says Walmart chief people officer Donna Morris, who oversees the company's workforce of more than 2 million people worldwide.

The first is staying focused on the job in front of you, she said. Morris said the employees who stand out are motivated to make a difference and excel in their current roles.

"They are focused as much, if not more, on being exceptional at what they're doing today," Morris told Business Insider.

Once you nail the actual job you were given, the next step might be proving you can take on responsibilities for the role above you — before you get the title.

"Be the type of person that takes on over and above what's being expected of you," Morris said. "Be the person that asks or provides volunteerism for new ideas or new initiatives."

That also includes coming up with new ideas or volunteering to help with new initiatives. Morris said those actions show you can take on more responsibility.

In general, when hiring, Morris said she looks for evidence of the "grit that they had to persevere through." At Walmart, where most of its 2.1 million employees begin in frontline roles, she also likes to see that candidates have had some frontline experience. The chief people officer said it doesn't need to be in retail necessarily; it could be babysitting or helping out with a family business.

"If somebody has never really had to identify with what it's like to be a frontline hourly worker, it's going to be very hard for them to lead," said Morris, who started working at 13 at a dry cleaner's before taking a job at a drugstore two years later.

• Netflix stock never recovered from its Warner Bros. chase. Investors are waiting for a new growth story.
• A new content chief inherits Netflix's biggest job: making the streamer feel essential again.
• Sign up for First Trade, Business Insider's daily markets newsletter.

My wife and I recently had a serious discussion: Was it time to pull the plug on Netflix?

Rankled by a seemingly unending streak of price increases — now up to $26.99 a month for the premium tier — we started to question whether it was worth the money.

We ultimately decided to keep it. We're suckers for Netflix's many crime and sports docuseries, and I can't be without crucial NFL games. There's also content my kids are really into. But it was a close call! The fact that we had the discussion at all is a bad sign for a once-unassailable streaming service.

These types of conversations are apparently playing out worldwide as Netflix sees a slowdown in both viewership and revenue. Some consumer-engagement metrics have been outright declining.

Netflix appears to have gotten the message, announcing last week that Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria would be replaced. The move came a day after Netflix said it would cut about 1,000 jobs, its biggest round of layoffs since 2022. Bajaria was known for adding depth to the Netflix lineup, including areas like sports and live events, reality TV, and video podcasts.

But the streaming service struggled recently to establish what Wall Street calls "watercooler originals," or Netflix-developed shows that cross over into mainstream culture. It's been a pretty barren landscape since "Stranger Things" wrapped up.

And Netflix isn't just competing with other paid streamers anymore. It's fighting YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram for screen time — platforms that offer a never-ending stream of free video content.

Beyond the content problem, investors are still processing the mega-deal Netflix let slip away.

Netflix's Warner Bros. Discovery hangover

Netflix wasn't just trying to make better originals on its own. It also went hard for Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming and studio assets, offering $72 billion for a shot at HBO Max and a deep bench of beloved franchises.

After a significant back-and-forth, Paramount Skydance won the bidding war. It probably helped that Paramount was willing to buy all of WBD, while Netflix only wanted the film and TV studios, as well as HBO Max.

Netflix shares declined as the deal drama unfolded and haven't recovered since. They're down 41% since CEO Ted Sarandos first contacted WBD on October 16, 2025.

The sting isn't simply that Netflix lost WBD. Investors briefly got to imagine a more muscular version of the company — one that could pair its massive distribution engine with HBO, "Harry Potter," DC, and the rest of Warner's franchise vault. Now Netflix still has to prove it can create the next big cultural event itself.

Q3 earnings may not provide much relief

This brings us back to Bajaria's exit. Wall Street analysts across the board are united in their read of the situation: it was a move to get ahead of looming growth problems.

The timing — just days before quarterly earnings — is no accident. If the market gets sticker shock, Netflix wants investors to know it's already on the case.

So if expectations have been lowered for growth, what else is there to watch for in the results due tomorrow? Given the recent upheaval, content will be king. Will Netflix offer a convincing content and growth roadmap for 2027? Does it have the next "Squid Game" waiting in the wings?

My wife and I sure hope so. We may still be Netflix subscribers for now, but the streamer can't afford to have people keep settling for "just good enough to renew."

The H-1B visa system is one of high stakes, shifting rules, and little certainty.

Over the past year, Business Insider has spoken to more than 20 H-1B visa holders and hopefuls about their decisions to opt in, push through, and sometimes give up on the H-1B American Dream as the Trump administration has become increasingly hostile to foreign workers.

As part of our H-1B Fallout series, published one year after the Trump administration introduced a $100,000 payment for some new H-1B petitions, we are telling the stories of people navigating the visa system. Some left the US and returned to their home countries, while others rebuilt elsewhere or are still trying to build a career in the US.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson said the goal of the $100,000 H-1B fee is to focus on sponsoring "truly highly specialized temporary labor." A Department of State spokesperson said the US is unapologetic about its "America first visa policies" and that the administration is working with partners to facilitate necessary visas. A Department of Labor spokesperson said the administration is protecting American jobs and increasing wages.

Keep reading to see what life has been like for people affected by the US's immigration policy changes.

Soumi Chanda, 35

Soumi Chanda had spent 13 years building a life in the US when a 2025 layoff put her H-1B status at risk.

Chanda moved from Kolkata to Spokane, Washington, in 2013 for graduate school. She was selected for an H-1B on her first attempt in 2021 — "pure luck," she said — and Amazon later took over her sponsorship, prompting her move to Seattle.

When Amazon laid her off, Chanda had 60 days to find a new sponsor or leave the country. "Sixty days sounded impossible from the start," she said. Her search came as debate intensified over the proposed fee. "Even with Amazon on my résumé, I didn't get a single interview the following month," she said.

When preparing to leave the US, Chanda made her two cats her priority. She spent weeks arranging their international travel and paid roughly $5,000 for paperwork, along with thousands more to break her lease, dispose of her belongings, and secure last-minute travel. In total, she estimates the move cost her $18,000.

Now back in Kolkata, she's still working out whether India will be her long-term home. "There's plenty here I value, and other things, as a feminist, I find harder to reconcile."

Even with Amazon on my résumé, I didn't get a single interview the following month.

Read: She was picked for an H-1B visa on her first try, but got laid off

Luciana Pereyra, 26

Luciana Pereyra moved from Peru to the US at 17 on a tennis scholarship. After graduating, she landed a marketing role at Ohio State. Her H-1B was approved in April 2024. She described that time as living in "survival mode," knowing that losing a job could also mean losing her home.

In December 2025, Pereyra said HR contacted her to say that her position would end the following month. She had 60 days to find another employer to sponsor her visa or leave the country. "I treated the job search like the last match of my career," she said.

She focused on university jobs, but the timing worked against her: Many campuses closed for winter break as her grace period began. She said two promising opportunities fell through after prospective employers raised concerns about securing a visa amid the proposed H-1B fees.

Pereyra returned to Peru in March. In Lima, she freelances for a US marketing client, coaches tennis, and is building a small business. She said she would consider moving to the US again, but only if it came with "a real path to permanent residency."

I treated the job search like the last match of my career.

Read: She played college tennis, earned 2 degrees, then lost her H-1B job

Mohamed Zeeshan, 33

Recent changes to US immigration policy have made Mohamed Zeeshan, a green card holder, more concerned about whether immigrants like him can build stable lives in the country.

He's seen relatives and friends consider countries such as Germany and Australia, rather than the US, because of the difficulty of securing jobs and visas after graduation. The instability surrounding H-1B visas — including the proposed $100,000 fee for new applicants — has reinforced his concerns.

Zeeshan self-petitioned for a green card and received it in 2023, enabling him to live in the US without needing employer sponsorship.

In 2025, he started his own consulting firm. Over the past year, Zeeshan said he has watched the immigration landscape become more uncertain.

He still plans to become a US citizen but says that if he had to rely on an H-1B visa today, he doesn't think he'd do it: "When you're on an H-1B here in the US, you're kind of always on tenterhooks."

"You don't know if you're going to be here next month or two months or three months down the line. That's a very difficult position to be in."

His wife is still waiting for her green card, and the couple is holding off on having children until they have more clarity about her status.

When you're on an H-1B here in the US, you're kind of always on tenterhooks.

Read: He moved to the US on a green card and wouldn't do the same on an H-1B

Vivienne Yang, 31

Vivienne Yang found out she was being laid off from her H-1B-sponsored job while she was on vacation in Japan in October 2024.

She spent the rest of the trip speaking with immigration and labor lawyers, emailing her employer, and trying to enjoy sightseeing with her partner.

Yang, who is from Taiwan, managed to get her employment extended for a few weeks, allowing her to fly back to New York. She then switched to a B-2 tourist visa so she could stay in the US longer and search for another job. She went through over 20 job interviews in the next year, all of them unsuccessful.

So, she decided to pivot.

Yang was accepted into a New York acting program, but her application for a US student visa was denied after she returned to Taiwan to apply for it in December 2025. Her American partner now looks after her two cats in Brooklyn while she remains in Taiwan, living with her family and working as a content creator, business English coach, and freelance consultant.

She has put her US plans on hold. "I don't want to deal with visa issues anytime soon," she said.

"Now I can move on with my life without any regrets because I know I have tried," she said. "I have a better understanding of what living abroad looks like and what American dream looks like in reality."

I have a better understanding of what living abroad looks like and what American Dream looks like in reality.

Read: She lost her job and left behind her American dream — and her cats

Watch: Vivienne Yang on letting go of her American dream

Ananya Joshi, 26

Ananya Joshi's plans to build a career in the US came apart in 2025, when a visa setback and a sudden layoff pushed her to look for a future elsewhere.

Joshi had moved from India to Illinois to pursue a master's degree. After graduating in 2024, she joined a Chicago startup developing cultivated meat as a scientist, working on an F-1 Optional Practical Training, or OPT visa.

She was enjoying the work until she learned that her employer could not complete E-Verify, which employers must use to sponsor an extension of STEM graduates' OPT.

From May through July 2025, Joshi interviewed for jobs around the world. She received offers in Canada and Germany and ultimately chose Germany. "Having gone through so much, I realized I needed that stability," she said.

In January, she moved to Rostock, about three hours north of Berlin, to join another lab-grown-meat startup. These days, Joshi is taking German classes and adjusting to what she describes as a slower work culture. She's also learning to navigate a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend, who remains in the US.

Joshi said she would still like to return to the US, but said, "I can't forget what I went through."

I realized I needed that stability.

Read: Her American dream hit a visa roadblock; she found a job in Germany

Watch: H-1B visa hopeful had her life upended, moved to Germany

Gu Yichen, 31

Gu Yichen's path to working in the US began in high school, when he spent a year as an exchange student in Yacolt, a small town in Washington State. He later attended college in the US, interning at Amazon before joining the company full-time after graduation.

With a STEM degree, Gu had three chances to enter the H-1B lottery. He was selected on his third try.

In late 2022, Gu left Amazon for a job at Google, despite his manager's warning that the market was becoming unstable. He was laid off the following month, before he had done "a single day of real work."

Gu faced pressure to find a new employer within the 60-day grace period. Rather than take a stopgap role, he returned to China for a break before ultimately rejoining his former Amazon team in the US on an I-140, an immigration petition that can support a green-card application.

He has since applied for a green card, hoping it will give him "more freedom in both my personal life and my career."

Over the past year, he said the biggest challenge has remained the same: His ability to stay in the US is tied to his job. "I've been thinking what kind of life I really want to live and what is my real interest in life."

I've been thinking what kind of life I really want to live and what is my real interest in life.

Read: Google laid him off a month after hiring him; he was on an H-1B visa

Disha Lamba, 28

Leaving a six-figure data-scientist job in New York and returning to India in May was not an easy decision for Disha Lamba, but she says being closer to her family — and free from the limits of an employment visa — made it worthwhile.

Lamba moved to the US in 2021 to pursue a master's degree. She later joined CVS Health as a data scientist and learned that she had been selected in the H-1B lottery in March 2026.

By then, however, Lamba had already decided to move home. Though she had a fulfilling job and social life in New York, she struggled with the distance from her parents.

The prospect of managing an H-1B long-term reinforced her decision. Lamba was concerned about the difficulty of obtaining visa stamps to travel, as well as the limits the visa can place on changing employers, taking a career break, or pursuing additional income.

"Anything comes with its pros and cons. H-1B has its pros but also has its cons. I wasn't OK with the cons of being in these restrictions," she said.

After resigning, Lamba moved back to live with her parents and brother. She took a two-month career break and secured a short-term contract role, but she's still looking for a permanent job. Nonetheless, she's still happy about her decision.

"Every moment when I get to hug my parents, that's when I realize, no, this was all worth it," she said.

H-1B has its pros but also has its cons.

Read: She moved back to India to be near family and leave H-1B limits behind

Sunjana Ramana, 27

After three failed attempts to obtain an H-1B visa, Sunjana Ramana is reinventing her "American Dream."

Ramana moved from Hyderabad, India, to New York in 2021 for her master's degree. After graduating in 2023, she joined a global insurance company. Her employer entered her in the H-1B lottery in 2023, 2024, and 2025. She was not selected.

When her work authorization ended in early 2026, Ramana had to leave the US.

"When I didn't get the visa, I was really, really clueless. I thought that was the end of everything that I had built for three years," she said, adding, "but I realized just a couple of months later that there are so many additional options that I didn't know existed."

Instead of returning to India, Ramana secured a 2-year UK visa that is not tied to one employer. She chose London as her base, where she could pursue the entrepreneurship she had wanted to explore in the US.

Ramana was accepted into Antler's founder-in-residence program and spent two months building Flax, a two-person tech company that helps AI founders and builders. In May, she moved into a product-management role in fintech.

"I want to go back and tell my younger self not to associate the 'dream' with America or a country for that matter, because it doesn't matter where you are. The dream should be aligned to you and your goals."

When I didn't get the visa, I was really, really clueless. I thought that was the end of everything that I had built for three years

Read: She left the US when she didn't get an H-1B visa. Now, she's living a new dream.

Madhur Mehta, 36

An H-1B selection brought immediate relief for Madhur Mehta this year, but it has not resolved the uncertainty that shapes his and his fiancée's plans in the US.

Mehta moved to the US in 2021, earned a master's degree in 2023, and was eligible for three years of student work authorization. Amazon offered him both a job and sponsorship.

He joined the company in 2025 as a program manager.

But over the past year, while the company was trying to get him an H-1B, Mehta grew concerned about changes to the lottery. He began exploring backup plans for his US life, including an EB-1A visa and opportunities in Canada and Australia.

He learned he was selected for an H-1B in March, potentially giving him the chance to work and remain in the US for another three years.

"It was a big relief," he said, adding, "It's like someone has taken a 100-pound load off your mind," he said.

Mehta's fiancée, who is also from India, has one remaining chance in the H-1B lottery before her work authorization expires.

"It's hard, you know, obviously you can't plan," Mehta said, adding, "unless we are both very clear on what our visa status is."

It's like someone has taken a 100-pound load off your mind.

Read: He got an H-1B visa, but uncertainty makes it hard to plan his future

Shreya Mishra Reddy, 34

Shreya Mishra Reddy left the US in January after not being selected for an H-1B visa. Her plan was to leave the country and keep applying for US jobs from abroad.

That plan, however, started to feel unrealistic after the Trump administration proposed the $100,000 fee on some H-1B applicants.

Though the fee has been challenged in court and is not being enforced, she said the uncertainty changed her mind: "I've decided not to pursue H-1B or any role in the US right now."

Reddy had moved to the US in 2021 for a master's degree in engineering management at Duke University. After graduating, she was hired by Visa, but her student work authorization expired before she could secure an H-1B visa.

She's now in Toronto with her husband on a tourist visa and weighing whether to base herself in Canada or India. During a career break, Reddy has been writing a fiction book and building a handloom brand while exploring fintech roles.

In March, Reddy was accepted into a master's program in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She decided not to attend, citing uncertainty around student visas and the US job market.

She said she's optimistic about her future and wishes she'd been more open to opportunities in other countries earlier, rather than banking everything on the US.

"I was thinking that H-1B would pan out for me, it didn't, and it's something that I definitely regret."

I was thinking that H-1B would pan out for me, it didn't, and it's something that I definitely regret.

Read: She gave up on H-1B amid $100K fee; now she's weighing Canada or India

Watch: Why an H-1B visa hopeful decided to give up on work in the US

I was thinking that H-1B would pan out for me, it didn't, and it's something that I definitely regret.

Read: I changed course on my H-1B plans because of the proposed $100,000 fee. Why I'm optimistic about my life outside the US.

Watch: Why an H-1B visa hopeful decided to give up on work in the US

• Some US colleges have numerous alums who went on to prolific political careers in the Senate.
• Many of the colleges listed are Ivy League or have extremely low acceptance rates.
• Harvard University tops the list, with 13 current senators among its alums.

US senators come from all sorts of different educational backgrounds.

Some graduated from the US Naval Academy or smaller private schools, but 42 of the 100 US senators came from 10 prominent universities, according to biographies on the US Senate website.

Harvard University, the oldest college in the country and one of the hardest to get into, boasts the largest number of current senators among its alums.

The senators on this list are alums of the schools' undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, law, or medical programs, and some have graduated from multiple of the listed universities. Honorary degrees and schools a senator attended without graduating were excluded.

Here's a look at which US colleges have produced the most current senators.

Brigham Young University

Senators: Mike Crapo (R-ID), Mike Lee (R-UT), and John Curtis (R-UT).

Sen. Crapo graduated from BYU in Utah with a bachelor's degree in political science, as did Sen. Lee.

Sen. Curtis earned a bachelor's degree in business management.

Duke University

Senators: Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Rand Paul (R-KY).

Sen. Alsobrooks studied public policy, Sen. Moore Capito studied zoology, and Sen. Paul received a medical degree.

Princeton University

Senators: Ted Cruz (R-TX), Dave McCormick (R-PA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

Princeton is an Ivy League university.

Sen. Cruz earned a bachelor's degree in public policy, Sen. McCormick earned a Ph.D. in international relations, and Sen. Merkley earned a master's degree in public affairs.

Dartmouth College

Senators: Angus King (I-ME), Tina Smith (D-MN), John Hoeven (R-ND), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

Dartmouth is the smallest Ivy League school by undergraduate enrollment.

Sen. King earned a bachelor's degree in government, Sen. Hoeven earned a bachelor's degree in economics, and Sen. Smith earned an MBA from the university's Tuck School of Business.

Sen. Gillibrand graduated with a bachelor's degree in Asian studies.

University of Chicago

Senators: Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Todd Young (R-IN).

The University of Chicago's five Senate alums span the political spectrum, from independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts.

Both Sen. Sanders and Sen. Kim earned a bachelor's degree in political science.

Sen. Ricketts graduated with both a bachelor's degree in biology and an MBA. Sen. Young also earned an MBA, while Sen. Klobuchar earned a law degree.

University of Virginia

Senators: Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), John Cornyn (R-TX), John Kennedy (R-LA), Angus King (I-ME), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, the University of Virginia has a graduate-heavy Senate alum base: Sen. Cornyn, Sen. Kennedy, Sen. King, and Sen. Whitehouse earned law degrees there.

Sen. Moore Capito earned a master's degree in education.

Stanford University

Senators: Cory Booker (D-NJ), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Sen. Booker, Sen. Schiff, and Sen. Smith all earned bachelor's degrees in political science. Sen. Booker also earned a master's in sociology.

Sen. Hawley earned a bachelor's in history, and Sen. Merkley earned a bachelor's in international relations.

Georgetown University

Senators: John Barrasso (R-WY), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

Georgetown University's appeal is partly due to its location in the nation's capital.

Four of its seven Senate alums earned law degrees: Sen. Durbin, Sen. Hirono, Sen. Sullivan, and Sen. Van Hollen.

Sen. Barrasso, meanwhile, earned a medical degree from Georgetown's School of Medicine.

Yale University

Senators: Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Chris Coons (D-DE), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Five of Yale's seven Senate alums earned law degrees from the university: Sen. Bennet, Sen. Blumenthal, Sen. Booker, Sen. Coons, and Sen. Hawley. Sen. Coons also earned a master's degree in religion.

Sen. Klobuchar earned a bachelor's degree in political science, while Sen. Whitehouse earned a bachelor's degree in architecture.

The Ivy League school is in the top 5 most selective schools in the US, with an acceptance rate of 4%.

Harvard University

Senators: Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Ted Cruz (R-TX), John Fetterman (D-PA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jack Reed (D-RI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark Warner (D-VA).

Eight of Harvard's 13 Senate alums earned Juris Doctor degrees from the Ivy League school: Sen. Cotton, Sen. Cruz, Sen. Kaine, Sen. Crapo, Sen. Reed, Sen. Schiff, Sen. Schumer, and Sen. Warner.

Sen. Blumenthal earned a bachelor's degree in government. Sen. Fetterman and Sen. Van Hollen each earned a Master of Public Policy degree.

Sen. Gallego earned a bachelor's degree in international relations, and Sen. Sullivan earned a bachelor's degree in economics.

• Terence Tao, now a UCLA professor, earned his doctorate in mathematics at 20.
• The prodigy said his work is changing in the age of AI.
• With AI tools doing the legwork, math is no longer "heroic," Tao said.

AI is upending mathematics. For one top professor, the issue is just as spiritual as it is practical.

Terence Tao, a renowned professor at UCLA, said in a recent podcast appearance that the "romantic era" of math is over, thanks to AI tools capable of solving hundreds of problems with some simple prompting.

Now, he said, even leading scholars like him are reduced to sorting through reams of AI-generated proofs, instead of doing the "heroic" solving themselves.

"We are moving to an industrial era where math will become much more large-scale," Tao said in an interview this week on Numberphile, a YouTube channel dedicated to math.

"We are entering an era where exciting new things are possible, but some things are being lost," he added.

OpenAI began its brusque push into the field by solving the Navier-Stokes equation in early September, one of math's millennium problems.

The revelation that AI had cracked it caused consternation from many a math geek. Some mathematicians also expressed frustration that while the AI model might have solved the problem, it didn't show its work, leaving them with the less celebratory task of verifying it.

Then, earlier this month, OpenAI said it cracked another 700 outstanding problems. A math professor at New York University told CNBC that the company's release had derailed work by early-career mathematicians.

"We've had whole research programs wiped out on Tuesday by their dump," the professor, Tristan Buckmaster, said at the time.

In a separate brouhaha in September, OpenAI backed out of a sponsorship for a so-called AI "mathathon" — an event organized by undergraduates at Caltech, where participants were encouraged to use AI to solve equations — after complaints from a group of more senior academics.

Event organizers told Business Insider at the time that their professors were sorely out of touch with the field's trajectory.

"We look to the future, and we don't even know if there's going to be grad school open positions by the time we get to Ph.D," one organizer, Caiman Moreno-Earle, said.

Though OpenAI has said it is taking steps to ensure human academics retain their role in this new era, some researchers and professors are already forecasting their possible obsolescence.

Tao isn't as much of a doomer as some of his colleagues in the field. However, he did say in the interview that the stories math nerds tell themselves may not mean so much in the future.

"We have these sort of mythological stories," he said in reference to the tale of Sir Andrew Wiles, who famously spent seven years isolated in his attic solving a single difficult equation.

"There was something romantic about sort of the heroic age," Tao said.

• CEOs are excited about AI, but increasingly worried about cybersecurity, KPMG US CEO Tim Walsh said.
• “The cyber risks have just elevated to places that we’ve never seen before," he told Business Insider.
• KPMG is creating a cyber-defense business built around AI.

Corporate leaders tend to be enthusiastic about AI's potential — and increasingly concerned about the cybersecurity challenges the technology brings.

Tim Walsh, CEO and chair of KPMG US, said the worries come up in nearly every meeting he has with fellow leaders, as AI gives bad actors new ways to try to breach corporate defenses.

"The cyber risks have just elevated to places that we've never seen them before," he told Business Insider.

Walsh pointed to the Hugging Face incident this past summer, in which OpenAI said an AI agent bypassed controls during an internal cybersecurity evaluation and accessed parts of the open-source AI platform's systems.

There isn't currently a defensive wall, he said, that's capable of rebuffing every cyber threat. He said KPMG is working with the frontier AI model developers and others on further protections.

The goal is to help the Big Four firm protect its business, and its clients' businesses, Walsh said, adding that he sees it as a potential opportunity worth more than $1 billion.

'Cyber insecurity' fears

Unease about AI and cyber threats showed up in a recent KPMG US survey of 400 CEOs at major US companies. While leaders reported confidence in AI's potential, cybersecurity was the concern they identified most often.

Eighty-five percent said cybercrime and "cyber insecurity" could affect their company's prosperity over the next three years — more than said the same about inflation, geopolitical tensions, the pace of technological change, or other risks.

Cybersecurity was also the most commonly cited challenge to implementing AI. It topped ethical questions, data readiness, cost management, and translating AI spending into measurable returns.

Leaders said they were particularly concerned about identity theft and data privacy, vulnerability to cyberattacks, and fraud detection and prevention. Nearly half said they planned to increase cybersecurity investment over the next three years, citing threats including AI-powered social engineering, AI-assisted phishing or malware, and data and privacy risks tied to AI agents.

A growing need to defend and check AI

The concern is shaping the kinds of work the firm wants to do for clients.

Walsh said KPMG is building what he described as a managed cyber-defense business centered on AI, meant to serve as a "shield and defense mechanism" for companies. KPMG already has a cybersecurity business, he said, though this would be a different offering built around AI.

The company also sees a growing need to check whether the AI systems organizations deploy are doing what they are supposed to do. KPMG already helps clients assess AI-related controls and governance. Walsh said the firm is developing additional services to verify that AI agents are operating as intended and give investors and others confidence that companies can control them.

"Trust around AI is a real thing," he said.

• Running a small business can be an enormous undertaking.
• Some owners are leveraging AI to streamline tasks, scale up, and boost productivity.
• Are you a small-business owner using AI? We want to hear from you!

Small businesses are the backbone of the US economy.

Over 33 million small businesses were operating across the United States as of 2025, and they employ nearly half of the nation's workforce, according to the US Chamber of Commerce. About 99% of businesses in the US are small businesses.

Keeping a small business afloat is no easy feat, though. Attracting customers. Hiring employees. Advertising. Paying out of pocket for business needs. There's a seemingly never-ending set of hurdles that can quickly become overwhelming, especially for a tiny team.

That's why some small business owners have enlisted an extra pair of hands, or rather, code. AI has become a liferaft for some businesses as they look to streamline operations, scale their products, or elevate productivity.

Are you a small business using AI to level up? We'd love to hear from you!

• Chris Williams was the VP of HR at Microsoft and is now an advisor and consultant.
• Williams uses a broad range of AI tools and encourages his clients to do the same.
• "Perhaps you'll find, as I did: AI can be better at deletion than creation," he says.

Practically every company is making AI tools available to their employees. As the former VP of HR at Microsoft and a leadership advisor with over 50 years of business experience, I'm amazed at how quickly this rollout has progressed.

Some people are all in, using the tools for nearly everything they do. Others have barely stuck their toes in the AI waters. I've been using a broad range of AI tools and encourage my clients to do the same.

AI isn't without controversy, and if someone is strongly against using it — for whatever reason — I'm not going to convince them otherwise.

But if you're wondering how and why you should use these tools, I'm here for you. Let's talk about three ways I advise all my executive clients to use AI effectively in the workplace.

1. Use AI as a second opinion

Use AI as a way to see things you might not have seen. Ask it, "What am I missing?"

I agree with many that AI is lousy at most creative efforts. Whether written or visual, AI results can be generic, mediocre, and often embarrassing. The output usually deserves the "AI Slop" label it gets. But to dismiss it entirely misses a core value.

AI is useful with, perhaps even because of, that generic, often obvious other perspective.

It can be amazingly helpful to simply ask: what am I missing? Since AI has a tendency to agree with me, I explicitly ask for pushback: "review this and tell me what I'm missing, tell me where I'm wrong." The fact that AI is so obvious, so average, is actually a core value here. I'm often surprised at the points I missed and the viewpoints I overlooked.

Even if AI doesn't find things you missed, a contrarian angle can be very helpful to shore up your own case. You'll be able to say, "Yes, I considered those things, and here's why my take on this issue is better."

In that way, AI can also help you prepare for your discussions with colleagues. With so many letting AI draft their arguments, it's very valuable to see their perspective in advance.

So no, I don't let AI make my case, but I always look for another perspective in what I do — wherever it comes from. Having a tool that can give me that on a moment's notice is incredibly useful.

2. Ask AI to summarize dense information

Long before AI, we all had that colleague who always told you far more than you needed to know. With some now using AI heavily, it can frankly be overwhelming.

You ask a simple question and get a blizzard of AI-generated noise in response. AI can be the worst over-explainer when simply left to run. You see the results in a seven-page response.

When I'm faced with one of these walls of text, I've learned there are really only two ways to respond. I can, and often do, ask the person to try again. What does this all really mean? Can you summarize your point in a couple of sentences? I occasionally get snarky and ask for the "non-AI slop" version.

Another way to deal with this is to ask AI to summarize it, whether AI tools or a wordy colleague wrote it. Importantly, I don't trust the AI summary to be the full explanation, but it helps me understand the key points. Which I then work to find in the original blizzard response.

Yes, this is a little circular. After all, why not just have the two AI systems have the discussion? Leave me out of it. But in a world where it seems everyone has a hard time getting to the point, any tool to cut through the noise is welcome. And AI is very good at that.

3. Let AI help you with tasks

In a similar vein, one thing AI does incredibly well is organize. This kind of rote task of sorting, filtering, and filing is right in the sweet spot for most AI systems.

I'm wary of letting AI systems automate tasks like filtering or filing things without my supervision. I'd never let an AI system automatically send emails, texts, or documents without my careful review. But I often have AI systems help me sort through mountains of accumulated debris.

I recently moved to a new computer system and had AI review what I was planning to move over. I discovered decades of accumulated cruft. Simply from a comprehensive list, I found gigabytes of programs, files, and settings, 90% of which I just left behind.

So if you have 8,000 emails in your inbox, or a documents folder that has grown a second life, let an AI system take a look for you. Don't just tell it to "deal with it." Your judgment is needed.

Rather, have it give you a review of it and another perspective. And once you've reviewed it, perhaps you'll find, as I did: AI can be better at deletion than creation.

So when your company rolls out the next new AI, use those tools to your advantage. AI can help you see another perspective, find the important points in the blizzard, and cut through the mess. I've embraced AI, use it with great care, and encourage everyone to do the same.

• Isaac Persky used a creative video to land an internship at Tarte Cosmetics in 2024.
• Maureen Kelly, the CEO of Tarte, was impressed by Isaac's video, leading to his internship offer.
• He returned for a second summer internship and started a full-time position this June.

When I was in college, I wanted a summer internship in New York City, specifically at one company: Tarte Cosmetics. My mom sent me a video of Tarte's founder and CEO, Maureen Kelly, calling on college students to apply to their summer internship program, and it sparked my interest.

I've been posting videos on social media in both the beauty and comedy niches for years, but I thought I'd left that behind when I started college at Chapman University to pursue a more 'serious' career. I was double majoring in economics and public relations and figured Tarte would be a fun way to spend the summer after my sophomore year before turning to a more traditional business or finance path.

I had one problem — I had no connections to Tarte, no family in the beauty industry, and no obvious way to stand out among thousands of applicants. In today's job market, especially for a sought-after position in beauty, it felt more likely I'd get struck by lightning than land an offer.

When I submitted my application in January 2024, I knew I barely had a shot.

This is where most applicants stop

They repeat the process with hundreds of applications, hoping to win the lottery of landing an interview and, ultimately, an offer.

I'm from Nebraska and attended school in Southern California. To be frank, going home for the summer was not an option. I didn't want to trade my glamorous coastal lifestyle for corn and county fairs. I couldn't rely on pure luck to be selected for an interview. I knew that if I could get in front of them, they would see how perfect I was for the role.

I decided to make a video

Since posting videos felt natural to me, I figured, what better way to show that I'm qualified for a marketing job at Tarte than by successfully marketing myself to Tarte. I decided to make something fun and entertaining. Inspired by the iconic Harvard admissions video from Legally Blonde, I created an "Elle Woods-style" application video.

I showed Tarte that I was passionate about working for them, willing to put myself out there, and could actually do the job that I was applying for. I admit, it felt a little ridiculous. I knew that all my friends would see it, and that there was a good chance it wouldn't work out the way I intended, but it was worth a try.

The video got the attention of Maureen Kelly

I woke up one morning in January 2024 to a notification that made me check whether I was still dreaming: a comment from Maureen Kelly on my post. It was a simple 'I 👀 u! OBSESSED,' followed by an email from Tarte's HR team saying they enjoyed my video and wanted to schedule an interview.

From there, I landed a paid internship with Tarte Cosmetics on their social media team. I moved to New York and worked at Tarte for three months. What started as a creative experiment became my entry point into the beauty industry.

The following winter, they offered me the chance to return for the summer of 2025. Despite my initial thoughts that my summer at Tarte would be a one-off adventure, I accepted their offer. It felt like I had found a career that combined my interests in comedy, public relations, and storytelling.

The experience also challenged some assumptions I had about internships

I expected to spend my summers doing small administrative tasks. Instead, I found myself contributing to campaigns with household-name brands and learning from the professionals who had built Tarte. I was particularly struck by Maureen Kelly, who took my ideas as seriously as she did her VPs' and shared her personal advice and can-do attitude with me regularly.

This spring, as I prepared to graduate, I received a full-time offer from Tarte without having to apply again. I officially started my full-time role with Tarte in June.

In college, much of the career advice my classmates and I were given emphasized professionalism and networking, but when employees at your favorite company are getting dozens of 'coffee chat' messages each week from people like you, that advice becomes outdated. Sometimes the best career move isn't sending another application; it's doing something creative with the skills you already have.

For most people, the idea of posting a video to get a summer internship feels embarrassing

To be honest, it was embarrassing. Putting yourself out there always carries that risk, but sometimes that discomfort is the price of trying something others might not.

Even if it doesn't work out, don't let it reflect on you. I find it best to maintain the mentality that they would be lucky to have you, and frankly, what a disappointment it is that they didn't get you.

Most importantly, I must acknowledge that all of this advice is coming from someone who has the job and got the internship. Yes, I was strategic, and I give myself credit for that, but I was also lucky.

• Amazon is on an unprecedented spending spree to build more AI data center capacity than anyone else.
• The company has extensive experience, yet even it's struggling to bring capacity online fast enough.
• Internal documents show Amazon getting bilions of dollars of Nvidia GPUs before they can be deployed.

At an internal staff meeting in September, AWS CFO John Felton had a joke for Prasad Kalyanaraman, the executive overseeing much of Amazon's AI infrastructure expansion.

"You've taken us free cash flow negative as a company, so congratulations," Felton said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by Business Insider.

The remark was lighthearted. But it captured a stunning reversal.

Just two years ago, Wall Street was debating what Amazon would do with its growing cash hoard. Now, free cash flow has evaporated as Amazon embarks on its biggest bet ever, spending $220 billion this year alone to build the physical backbone for AI.

At the meeting, Kalyanaraman did not dispute Felton's premise. Amazon's machine-learning and AI business is "hugely free cash flow negative," he said, adding that he expects the company's free cash flow to remain negative for "the next couple of years or so."

Amazon has made big bets before. It spent heavily on cloud computing, fulfillment centers, and its delivery network long before they became some of the company's most valuable assets. Investors questioned those investments at the time, but Amazon ultimately built enormous, profitable businesses from them.

AI is testing this playbook at a far larger scale. Amazon is committing hundreds of billions of dollars to data centers, servers, and power before investors know how quickly those investments will generate revenue.

The company is the best, or among the best, at building data centers, with decades of experience. But the size and complexity of these projects, and the bottlenecks holding progress back, are challenging — even for such a respected cloud pioneer.

Internal documents reviewed by Business Insider and people familiar with the matter show the company trying to coordinate a sprawling industrial system whose parts move on different schedules. A delay in power, equipment, or construction can leave billions of dollars in hardware waiting — and Amazon's cash tied up — while forecasts and costs keep shifting.

Why Amazon thinks it will work

Amazon says it has strong evidence that the capacity will be needed. AWS revenue grew 37% in the second quarter, its fastest pace in 18 quarters, while its backlog reached $496 billion.

CEO Andy Jassy thinks the company has a "clear line of sight" to strong financial returns from this record investment cycle. In his latest annual shareholder letter, he called AI a "once in a lifetime opportunity" and said Amazon would not be conservative in its investments.

"We've been through this cycle with the first big AWS growth wave, and liked the results," Jassy wrote. "We expect to feel similarly about this next wave."

Investors are concerned by the scale of the industry's expansion, especially as AI data centers are costing more to build and taking longer to complete.

The market is "repricing anything that funds multi-year builds against revenue that arrives later," Dan Ives, an analyst at Yorkville Ives, wrote in a recent report. Growing uncertainty around data center permitting and the political fight over electricity prices have given investors another reason to question how quickly these investments will pay off, he added.

Racks, but not enough power

One major industry challenge is securing enough power to run the equipment that goes inside data centers. This includes expensive racks of servers that contain GPUs and other chips that train and run AI models and services such as ChatGPT.

Internal emails from August show Amazon preparing a new "Early Rack Receipt" process for an expected wave of server racks carrying Nvidia's GB300 chips at US facilities before final deployment.

One Amazon email projected the company would take delivery of about $5 billion of Nvidia GB300 racks in August, followed by another roughly $3 billion each month "for the foreseeable future."

Some AWS data center sites had room for more racks but not enough available power to turn them on, people familiar with the effort said, leaving the equipment to be staged at intermediary warehouses until the facilities were ready. These people asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters.

Timing and coordination

Usually, Amazon doesn't pay for racks until the gear is put into a data center, leaving suppliers to carry the cost of the equipment in transit, according to the internal documents obtained by Business Insider. This helps the company conserve cash.

However, the intensity of the AI data center building boom has made this type of coordination harder. Amazon has to compete more for scarce resources as it jockeys with rivals for access to Nvidia GPUs and other AI components.

Under the new "Early Rack Receipt" process, Amazon now takes ownership of these racks earlier in the supply chain, rather than waiting until the equipment reaches a data center.

The means spending cash sooner. And any delays getting the racks installed and plugged into a reliable power source potentially pushes back the moment when revenue starts flowing from these assets.

At least one AWS supply chain team did not have "a clear forecasted path" for getting racks into data centers, according to one of the emails reviewed by Business Insider.

An Amazon spokesperson said the company routinely stages finished hardware near deployment sites so it can be installed once power capacity is available, calling that approach "best business practice."

The spokesperson added that AWS has "long-established systems" to track infrastructure assets and disputed that the broader company lacks a forecasted path for getting racks into data centers.

This problem is not unique to Amazon.

Bernstein analysts wrote in a recent note that power permits, cooling systems, electrical equipment, construction, and hardware all move on separate schedules.

"Timing is imperfect," the analysts said.

"Inherently uncertain"

During the internal staff meeting in September, Felton, the AWS CFO, described the broader problem eloquently: "How do you work in the future when the future is inherently uncertain?"

Kalyanaraman, the AI infrastructure leader, said Amazon's internal outlook for the return on its AI investments had improved. But the assumptions behind those returns keep shifting.

"The forecast is changing on a daily basis," Kalyanaraman said. "The world that we live in is extremely dynamic."

Those shifting assumptions include when data centers will be ready and how much equipment AWS needs to keep on hand, he explained.

An eight-week supply buffer might be routine for a smaller company. But at Amazon's scale, Kalyanaraman said, this could mean holding "billions and billions of dollars" worth of additional equipment inventory — tying up precious cash.

Frugality meets the AI boom

Such tensions are especially striking for Kalyanaraman, a 21-year Amazon veteran who earlier this year was promoted to the elite S-team that works directly with Jassy.

Amazon's founding story is defined by frugality. It famously used cheap doors as desks when founder Jeff Bezos started in Seattle in the mid-90s.

Kalyanaraman has absorbed this lore into bones. In late 2023, as AWS faced slower growth and layoffs, he urged employees to do more with less. "Frugality breeds innovation," he said back then.

That instinct still shapes his approach. In the September meeting this year, Kalyanaraman told Felton that AWS tries to make major investments at the "last responsible moment," when it has the clearest possible view of demand.

"If we can wait to spend the capital as late as possible, it's better for us," he said.

But the frenetic pace of the AI boom makes this principle difficult to follow. By the time demand is fully visible, the servers, power, and construction capabilities that AWS needs may no longer be available. That puts pressure on the company to commit more money sooner to secure supply and meet its data center capacity goals.

Kalyanaraman recalled telling Jassy in 2023 that AWS would "surely" be out of its capacity crunch by 2027. Instead, Amazon still expects demand to exceed its available capacity in 2027, the AI infrastructure chief said during the meeting this September.

Secured Power at Risk

Getting enough electricity may be the biggest challenge for an industry leader like Amazon.

The company has 44 gigawatts of data center capacity under development across 16 states, more than double Google, Meta, and Microsoft, according to Cleanview Research estimates.

An internal AWS dashboard called "Secured Power at Risk" tracks utility and regulatory constraints affecting electricity capacity AWS has lined up for its data centers.

The risks include transmission bottlenecks, requirements to reduce use during grid stress, and "use it or lose it" provisions that can jeopardize capacity if a data center project misses usage or construction milestones.

In other words, AWS is not simply waiting for electricity to arrive. It is managing a portfolio of commitments that can become more costly if a data center project is delayed.

Maryland proposals

A submission to Maryland's utility regulator last year, obtained through a public records request, illustrates the kind of exposure that can accompany massive data center buildouts.

Amazon told the Maryland Public Service Commission that large data center customers could help pay for grid upgrades or bring new power capacity to market without burdening other electricity ratepayers.

The company also proposed setting aside collateral to help utilities get more comfortable with the large investments needed to generate more electricity for data centers. Amazon proposed three years of collateral so that if a large electricity customer abandoned unused capacity, the utility would have time to re-sell the power.

The proposal is not evidence that AWS has made such a payment or posted collateral. It does, however, show that large data centers can face extra financial obligations, beyond their own electricity bills, if projects are delayed or cancelled.

The Amazon spokesperson said such utility rules are not unique to AWS. The company has not disclosed how much cash it has paid upfront to secure power.

New constraints 'keep popping up'

The AI buildout also incurs expenses that are harder to model than a conventional capex plan.

In the September meeting this year, Kalyanaraman said that while reviewing plans for gigawatts of capacity in West Texas, AWS confronted a labor problem: There weren't enough nearby pipefitters, electricians, and other skilled workers to build the facilities.

The company's response, he said, was to pay to construct housing complexes near its data centers so workers could live there for the two or three years needed to complete the projects.

Even the crates used to ship servers have become a planning issue. It may seem absurd to worry about the price of a container when servers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Kalyanaraman said. But at AWS's scale, where the company needs so many crates, even trivial items can become a material expense.

"We have new constraints that keep popping up," Kalyanaraman said.

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• Elon Musk says he'll give a SpaceX share to every child in the US next year.
• That would be a $10.5 billion gift based on SpaceX's stock price and roughly 72 million recipients.
• Musk said this would be the "first of many" SpaceX share giveaways but didn't offer further details.

Elon Musk says he'll give every child in the US a piece of his space company, a gift worth around $10.5 billion today.

"Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America," Musk wrote in an early Monday post on X. "This will be the first of many."

There are roughly 72 million children in the US based on 2025 census data, and SpaceX stock closed at $146 on Friday. If Musk donated 72 million shares right now they would be worth around $10.5 billion.

Musk didn't provide any further details on how the giveaway would work, such as eligibility criteria or specific timing, or whether the shares will be transferred to Trump Accounts.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is the world's richest person, with an estimated net worth of $904 billion as of Friday's close, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

SpaceX — the company behind Falcon rockets, Starship launch vehicles, Starlink satellites, the AI chatbot Grok, and X — went public this summer and has a market capitalization of about $2 trillion.

Excluding restricted shares and options, Musk owns 4.77 billion SpaceX shares for about a 36% stake, worth just under $700 billion at Friday's close. The rest of his fortune largely comprises his stakes in his other companies, including Tesla, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.

Donating 72 million shares would reduce Musk's number of SpaceX shares by 1.5%. If, as indicated in his X post, he follows that up with further giveaways, his stake could shrink significantly.

Musk's pledge is part of a broader trend of gifting shares to America's children, aimed at ensuring they all own a piece of the stock market and reap its gains over time, and benefit from a lifetime of compounding wealth.

The Trump administration launched Trump Accounts — tax-advantaged investment accounts — for eligible children this summer, with those born between 2025 and 2028 receiving a $1,000 federal seed deposit. Numerous companies have agreed to contribute to them as well.

Michael and Susan Dell contributed $250 to 25 million American children's Trump Accounts earlier this month, a gift totaling $6.25 billion that was allocated first to those in the lowest-income ZIP codes.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and her husband pledged in July to give shares of SpaceX to more than 2 million children.

Musk shared his SpaceX gift idea after Anthropic pledged to commit 5% of its shares to a public benefit fund.

"I recommend giving shares directly to the public," he replied on X. "This is what I will be doing."

Another X user described Anthropic and Musk's pledges as "the beginning of universal basic income." Musk corrected him, writing *universal high income."

Musk has predicted that advances in AI, robotics, and other technologies will usher in an age of abundance in which everyone can have "whatever stuff they want."

He's recommended people stop saving for retirement in 10 or 20 years as their nest eggs will be "irrelevant," and has proposed government checks for all as the best response to job losses from AI.

Correction: October 19, 2026 — An earlier version of this story incorrectly described SpaceX as a private company. It went public in June 2026.

Last week, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar mentioned something bizarre in an interview on CBS News. "So many AI researchers have started smoking as a way of signaling to other researchers how much they believe in AI," he said. Their thinking, he said, goes like this: "I believe so much in AI that it's going to cure cancer. So I'm showing you my chips are all in."

pI laughed as I read the quote. It read like a headline in The Onion, mocking the blind optimism of the AI-pilled. But then I felt sad and worried for them. Are they smoking because they believe AI is saving the world, I wondered, or because they believe AI is ending it?

It's been an especially alarming few months here in San Francisco. OpenAI's bots went rogue and hacked another company, and then an Anthropic researcher quit, warning that AI could wipe out the human race. It seemed more believable to me that these researchers were smoking because they didn't think they'd be around for much longer — or at least freaked out about that possibility. I thought of the HBO show "The Leftovers," which features a doomsday cult that chain-smokes. Because they believe the world has ended, they don't mind obliterating their lungs. They're living as though they're already dead.

I asked a handful of people who work in AI and none of them knew anyone who had suddenly taken up cigarettes because of AI. So I don't think what Sankar observed is widespread. But in a story last month about tech founders who smoke, my colleague Henry Chandonnet quoted a guy who wasn't worried about his habit because he believed AI will soon cure lung cancer. Among the people I spoke to, a few recognized that underlying sentiment: AI's going to fix (or destroy) everything, so YOLO. Last year, my former colleague Rob Price reported on these attitudes. Some were spending down their savings. Others were taking dangerous drugs and having orgies.

While AI boomers and doomers expect completely opposite outcomes, I've found it interesting that their very different beliefs often end up manifesting as the same behaviors. Smoke or don't smoke, it doesn't matter: The future is inevitable. In either case, they're relinquishing their fate to a humanity-ending or humanity-saving AI — and ignoring one of the most evidence-backed things they can do to live a healthy future. It's a kind of fatalism, believing that what you do won't change what happens next.

I see traces of that in so many corners of society. What's the point of studying, students say, if they're never going to be as good as ChatGPT at coding or math? What's the point of agonizing over a breakup text, people say, if a bot can write it for them? What's the point of working hard, employees say, if their companies are going to replace them with an agent? In a recent survey by Verasight, 78% felt that they had little or no say over how AI is being developed and regulated.

Even the people who have the most say don't seem to believe they do. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has issued increasingly grave warnings about the technology that he himself is creating. He has to keep going, he says, because if he doesn't, a less responsible steward of the industry will. Amodei and his peers sound as if they're utterly powerless in the face of an unstoppable god. If it's really that bad, couldn't they just pull the plug? "Saturday Night Live" captured the strangeness of it all in a recent sketch impersonating Amodei. "If we can pressure lawmakers to create guardrails," Jane Wickline's Amodei deadpanned, "we will be able to stop me."

We need people thinking seriously about the risks of these technologies, and we also need people dreaming big about the immense good they can bring. But neither of these outcomes is inevitable. As we entrust more and more of our work and our lives to AI agents, we shouldn't cede our own agency to them too. I'm not taking up smoking anytime soon.

• It's a dangerous time to own a brick-and-mortar storefront in France.
• Violence erupted across the country on Saturday, as black-clad rioters ransacked stores.
• Around 1,500 storefronts were targeted, one corporate heavyweight said.

Business owners in France are speaking out after cost-of-living protests turned into widespread rioting and looting across the country over the weekend.

Alexandre Bompard, the CEO of Carrefour, one of France's largest supermarket chains, said that about 1,500 businesses were targeted in the unrest.

Bompard and several other corporate heavyweights condemned the rioting and called on French authorities to restore order.

Photos and video from Paris and other French cities showed black-clad rioters smashing storefronts and leaving laden with armfuls of pilfered goods.

"We cannot allow violence to destroy what generations have put so much energy into building," Thierry Guibert, the CEO of Lacoste, said on X.

Here's what business owners are saying.

Thierry Guibert, CEO of Lacoste and Aigle.

Guibert, who heads the luxury French clothing brand Lacoste and the outdoor clothing brand Aigle, issued a forceful statement on social media. He said the looting is antithetical to the entrepreneurial spirit.

"When our Lacoste and Aigle stores are looted, like so many other businesses across France, it is not only shop windows that are being smashed," he said in French. "It is jobs, years of work, know-how, and the commitment of thousands of women and men that are being put at risk."

Guibert said his concerns were shared by other entrepreneurs and smaller shop owners across France. He portrayed the riots as a degradation of French industry.

Lacoste operates about 150 storefronts across France.

Fabien Devide, CEO of Team Vitality

The head of one of France's biggest professional esports organizations said that a part of him "went up in smoke" after his gaming café and club was looted on Saturday.

"The right to demonstrate is a fundamental freedom that I will defend all my life," Devide said on social media. "But looting and destruction should never have a place in these fights."

The esports organization operates a 4,300-square-foot gaming center, merchandise store, and café in central Paris. Vitality's X account posted on Saturday that "the premises of our club were looted."

"Fortunately, none of our staff members nor any fans were injured," Vitality said. "On the other hand, our display windows were destroyed, and our trophies and computer equipment were stolen."

Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour

Bompard, the CEO of the French supermarket and retail chain Carrefour, said that 50 of its stores were targeted by rioters on Saturday.

"Nothing can justify such violence," Bompard said on X in French. "Those who attack the work tools of courageous entrepreneurs and their teams in this way must face an uncompromising response."

"The Republic must protect its shopkeepers!" he added.

He attached four photos to his X post showing the ruined aisles of one Carrefour store. In the pictures, items litter the ground, and the shelves are empty.

Thierry Cotillard, chairman of Les Mousquetaires

Thierry Cotillard, chairman of Les Mousquetaires, a French retail group that owns the Intermarché supermarket brand, called the looting "unacceptable" in a LinkedIn post.

"We cannot trivialize these scenes," he said. "We cannot accept that violence becomes a response, that destruction becomes a mode of expression and that those who work honestly become the collateral victims of the anger of others."

Cotillard said at least two of his franchises in Paris and Rennes were "ransacked by thugs" during the riots on Saturday. He said his thoughts were with "all the shopkeepers who are paying the price."

"To our members, to our teams who are victims of this damage: you are not alone," he said. "We are at your side."

Dominique Schelcher, CEO of Coopérative U

Schelcher, CEO of supermarket and hypermarket retail collective Coopérative U, said some of the group's stores had been looted or attacked in several city centers, including Paris.

The collective comprises some 1,900 grocery stores and supermarkets owned by independent business owners.

"In the face of the shock, the solidarity of our network will be total," Schelcher wrote in a LinkedIn post on Sunday.

Schelcher later made a separate post calling on French leaders and politicians to "pursue calm, mutual respect, and the urgent development of a collective vision."

"There must not be another October 17," he added.

Catherine Spindler and Guillaume Motte, chief execs at Sephora

Catherine Spindler, president of Sephora's business in Europe and the Middle East, said several of the beauty retailer's stores had been "ransacked."

"Even more serious, women and men in our teams have been confronted with situations of violence, fear, and great tension," she wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Sephora closed all its stores on Saturday at 5 p.m. and kept most of them shuttered on Sunday, Spindler wrote.

"Anger can be expressed. Convictions can be opposed. But nothing should justify women and men becoming the victims of this violence," she added.

Guillaume Motte, global CEO of Sephora, chimed in with support for Spindler on LinkedIn.

"We stand together!" he wrote.

Nicolas Houzé, executive chairman of Galeries Lafayette

Nicolas Houzé, executive chairman of Galeries Lafayette, mourned France's global reputation in a post on LinkedIn, saying the riots produced "scenes of unprecedented violence throughout France."

"No demand can legitimize violence in France," wrote Houzé on LinkedIn, saying that almost all of his firm's points of sale had been affected by the attacks.

Galeries Lafayette, an upscale department store chain, runs about 50 outlets in France.

"Beyond the destruction and major economic losses for all those involved in trade, it is also the image of our country, its attractiveness, and its ability to welcome its visitors in the best conditions that are deeply affected," he added.

Alexandre Prot and Steve Anavi, cofounders of Qonto

Fintech firm Qonto's founders, Steve Anavi and Alexandre Prot, said a fire had been started at their company's offices in Paris.

Anavi wrote on LinkedIn that the office fire was intentional, calling it an "arson attack."

"Violence and vandalism have no place in our society. Nothing can justify such acts," he added.

In a separate post, Prot said no one was injured in the fire.

"We'll repair the damage as soon as possible. In the meantime, Qonto's operations continue as normal," he wrote.

The company offers payment, bookkeeping, and other business management software, primarily targeting small- to medium-sized enterprises and startups.

Alain Di Crescenzo, President of CCI France

Alain Di Crescenzo, president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in France, called for affected merchants to receive support amid the "inexcusable" violence.

"This violence is UNACCEPTABLE," Di Crescenzo wrote on LinkedIn.

"Breaking up a business is breaking up a neighborhood. It is to scare away customers, to discourage those who wanted to set up, to damage for a long time what years have built," he added.

Di Crescenzo said his organization, which represents roughly 2 million private businesses in France, is mapping the damage across affected cities and is creating "support units" to help its members.

• France's worsening unrest is adding to pressure on its battered bond market.
• Political gridlock threatens to keep French borrowing costs high, analysts warn.
• French bonds could miss out on a recovery even as the rest of Europe's bond markets rebound.

France's worsening unrest is exposing how difficult it could be for the government to rein in spending and restore confidence in its battered bond market.

Mass protests over rising living costs and poor school conditions swept across France over the weekend, with violence and looting breaking out in several cities. Shops were ransacked in Paris and other cities, while a fire devastated the historic town hall in Limoges, west-central France.

The unrest adds to the challenges facing a government already struggling to pass a budget and bring its debt under control ahead of next year's presidential election.

French government bonds, known as OATs, have been among the hardest hit in a global bond selloff fueled by inflation fears, higher interest-rate expectations, and concerns about government debt.

"French OATs continue to be the punching bag in the ongoing selloff in sovereign bond markets," Elias Hilmer, a markets economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note on Friday.

French bond yields have risen much faster this year than those on German government debt — considered among Europe's safest — widening the gap between the two as investors demand a bigger premium to hold French bonds.

Early on Monday, France's 10-year OAT yield was 8 basis points higher at 4.86%, while Germany's 10-year bond yield was flat at 3.41%.

Why France's debt problem is so hard to fix

Investment manager Ninety One warned Monday that if France fails to pass its 2027 budget, its deficit could exceed 6% of GDP next year — more than double the European Union's 3% limit.

Even passing the budget would offer only a temporary fix, said Sahil Mahtani, director at Ninety One's Investment Institute. France's presidential election next year could be followed by another parliamentary election, potentially leaving the country without a clear governing majority and extending budget uncertainty into 2028.

The fiscal dilemma is particularly acute over pensions, where reforms could help stabilize France's debt trajectory but face strong political opposition.

"If we want to see some real improvement in the debt dynamic of France, it will need to reform the pension system, which costs much more money than elsewhere. The issue for that is that it's highly unpopular," Charlotte de Montpellier, ING's senior economist covering France, said in a webinar on Thursday.

Those political and fiscal challenges could leave French bonds increasingly out of step with the rest of Europe's debt market, Capital Economics' Hilmer wrote.

While falling energy prices could ease pressure on European interest rates and provide relief to bonds across the region, concerns about France's finances and political instability could keep its borrowing costs elevated.

European Central Bank could be reluctant to intervene if French bond yields rise because of genuine concerns about the country's finances rather than broader market dysfunction, Hilmer warned.

"Given the perilous state of France's public finances and the uncertainty around the elections, we think French spreads may widen further over the coming year," he wrote.

He forecast that the gap between French and German bond yields could widen from around 140 basis points to 200 basis points by the end of 2027, even as similar gaps narrow for most other eurozone countries.

• Ukraine is funding air defense missiles with a hard cap of $20,000 per shot, Brave1's chief said.
• That's about a sixth the cost of a Stinger missile, and still cheaper than an APWKS 70mm rocket.
• It's one of Kyiv's responses to Russia's thousands-strong, inexpensive Shahed fleets.

Ukraine has been running a yearslong weapons program to develop cheap surface-to-air missiles that cost no more than $20,000 each, said Andrii Hrytseniuk, the head of its Brave1 startup incubator.

Several firms have been testing prototypes under this framework, and Kyiv is "preparing to put two of these companies into combat," Hrytseniuk said in a video interview published with Ukrainska Pravda on Thursday.

He expressed hope that a third would soon reach a similar stage.

Hrytseniuk said some of these manufacturers have managed to get costs down to $10,000 per missile, though the program has set a hard price cap of $20,000 per shot.

"This is significantly cheaper than the cost of a Shahed. Even if you need two or three missiles, it is still several times cheaper than the cost of a Shahed," said Hrytseniuk of the limit.

Hrytseniuk said the program was launched by Brave1 as a competition between Ukrainian firms to "create the cheapest anti-aircraft missile systems possible."

"Funding for missiles began in 2024, but making a missile takes even more time than making an interceptor drone," he added.

A price limit of $20,000 would make these Ukrainian missiles even cheaper than the AGR-Falco Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, an American-made unguided 70mm rocket fitted with a laser guidance kit.

Costing about $30,000 to $35,000 each, these were traditionally air-to-ground rockets that have now been converted for air defense in Ukraine. The cheapest US standard surface-to-air missile is the shoulder-mounted Stinger, which costs about $120,000 per missile.

The Ukrainian effort to lower air defense costs comes as a response to Russia's extensive Shahed attack drone fleets, which are numerous and cheaper to produce than typical missiles. Ukrainian officials have estimated that the Russian Geran-2, for example, costs $70,000 each, while jet-powered drones like the Geran-3 cost at least $100,000.

Kyiv uses a layered network of defense systems, including machine gun crews, interceptor quadcopters, and electronic warfare, to fight against these drones, which Russia can launch hundreds of at a time.

But Moscow has increasingly used jet-powered Gerans, which fly too fast for regular interceptor drones and human gun crews to keep up with. A new AI-powered terrain mapping system found on some Gerans has also raised concerns that Russia will soon be able to bypass Ukrainian jamming.

Ukraine's alternative has been air-defense missiles, such as the air-launched AIM-9 Sidewinder, which can cost about half a million dollars per shot.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that his country was working on a "small missile program" as a counter to jet-powered Gerans.

"There are several types. We will clearly see the result this month. At the end, in the second half of this month," he told reporters at a press conference.

In September, Hrytseniuk told Business Insider's Jake Epstein that several Ukrainian companies were also integrating artificial intelligence into strike missile systems and were seeing "first successes."

• France wasn't alone this weekend.
• Civil unrest occurred in several European cities this weekend.
• Protests over the high cost of living devolved into riots.

Demonstrators took to the streets across multiple European cities and capitals this weekend to protest the high cost of living in their countries.

Though the violence in Paris and other French cities claimed the headlines, thousands also showed up in Portugal, Italy, and Belgium. Demonstrators were arrested in large numbers — many people were seen in photos and videos clashing violently with police and looting local businesses.

Energy price hikes, caused at least in part by the US-Israeli war with Iran and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, have contributed to the rising prices. Other demonstrations in Belgium and France were begun by students and have since snowballed into larger-scale demonstrations, involving union workers and other organizations.

Here's a look at the chaos that unfolded across the Atlantic this weekend, where peaceful protests eventually devolved into riots and looting.

Lisbon

In Lisbon, Portugal's capital, people took to the streets on October 17 to protest the cost-of-living crisis, low wages, and unaffordable housing.

The demonstration, which was organized by the CGTP, Portugal's largest trade union federation, was also held in Porto and Coimbra. In all, the union said "thousands of workers" took part.

About 12.7% of the population in Portugal lives in overcrowded households.

Housing prices in Portugal recorded the largest annual increase of any EU member state in the second quarter of 2026, rising 16.5%. In Lisbon, the average rent is equivalent to 116% of the average salary, meaning it exceeds a typical monthly income by 16%.

Earlier this week, police removed a tent camp that activists had set up in Praça D. João I, a central public square in Porto, to draw attention to rising housing costs.

Brussels

In Belgium, students have held demonstrations in recent weeks over rising education costs, some of which turned violent over the weekend.

Video footage showed police using water cannons and tear gas during clashes with protesters in Brussels.

Belgian interior minister Bernard Quintin said in a post on X on Saturday that "what is unfolding in Brussels is no longer mere protest" and "all necessary means will be used to restore order in the face of the rioters."

Clashes also took place in Liège. Police arrested 195 people across the two cities during Saturday's protests, per The Brussels Times.

Milan

In Milan, a demonstration over the weekend against wars and the rising cost of living also descended into clashes between protesters and police.

Photos showed chaotic scenes around Piazza del Duomo, the landmark central square outside the Milan Cathedral and one of the city's busiest tourist areas, with looters damaging shop fronts and setting objects on fire.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the violence in a post on X on Sunday.

"Thugs who exploit demonstrations to sow chaos, attack those who ensure security, and hold entire cities hostage," she wrote. "Demonstrating is a right. Setting our cities ablaze is not."

The demonstrations were also held in other cities across northern Italy. Police estimates reported by Rai News, Italy's public broadcaster put turnout at about 5,000 in Milan, 3,000 in Turin, 2,000 in Bologna, 600 in Brescia, and 800 in Bergamo.

Italy's annual inflation rate jumped to 4.1% in September, up from 3.2% in August.

In Milan, home prices have also climbed: residential asking prices were 49% higher in September than in 2018, according to the property portal Immobiliare.it.

• Meta says its system detected intense bursts of activity by a Claude tool.
• That triggered an automatic shutdown and locked admins out of the account.
• It happened during a day of rallies promoting early voting in the midterms.

Meta said Sunday that its systems suspended the No Kings movement's Instagram account during its day of action because it detected "intense" activity by a Claude tool.

The account was locked and administrators were denied access for "several hours" during nationwide rallies on Saturday to mobilize early voting in the midterms, the group said.

Meta initially said that an automatic trigger was responsible for shutting down the account "in error," but offered a fuller explanation a day later.

"Our engineering team discovered that the spike that triggered the incorrect enforcement was primarily in the account's 'reading' behavior," spokesperson Andy Stone said in an X post.

"Specifically, our network security systems detected the use of a Claude tool reading profiles, posts, and hashtags, the rate of which sharply increased (~4x volume) in intense bursts on October 17. "

Stone said the activity resembled bot traffic, prompting the system to take the account offline.

"An automated re-review of the removal action an hour later recognized that shouldn't have happened and restored the account. It unfortunately took additional time for us to straighten out the situation with admin access to the IG account.

"We want to reiterate our sincere apology for the error," he wrote.

The No Kings network, which bills itself as nonpartisan but arose last year in response to President Donald Trump's actions, said it held nearly 3,000 rallies across the country to encourage voters to cast their ballots early as a hedge against any effort to undermine turnout.

"Restricting communications about voting in the middle of an election is unacceptable," it said.

"Meta must answer for this suspension and take immediate steps to ensure it never happens again — to any account, but especially those working to inform voters and encourage participation in our democracy."

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut called for an investigation into the shutdown, saying on Sunday evening that even if it was made in error, the incident was a "total indictment of Meta's outsized influence on our culture and politics."

"If it wasn't malevolence, it was likely a natural consequence of a company that is desperate to get as close to Trump as possible (and thus has a disincentive to do the basic, proactive work to be ready to support users on No Kings Day)," he wrote in a post on X.

The senator, who has advocated for stricter regulation and anti-monopoly laws against Big Tech, said Meta's significant share of the political discourse market comes with a responsibility for it to be ready for "major moments of political action."

October 18, 2026: This story was updated with public comment from Sen. Chris Murphy.

• Anthropic said it wants to create a new LLC with the company's stock as its sole asset.
• The new LLC, a charitable organization, would receive larger stakes as the company grows.
• An initial 5% stock funding is "subject to stockholder approval," Anthropic said.

Anthropic said on Sunday that it would set aside large portions of its wealth to support initiatives it believes are in the public interest.

In a blog post, the AI colossus said it aims to establish a separate LLC that would use Anthropic shares to make donations to nonprofits or "direct distributions to specific populations."

The new LLC, called the "Anthropic Public Benefit Fund," would receive larger stakes as the company grows. The company said an initial funding round of 5% of Anthropic's shares is still subject to stockholder approval.

"The Anthropic Public Benefit Fund will have increased flexibility and scale, enabling us to pursue our mission in new ways," the company said.

A 5% stake in Anthropic is worth about $48 billion, according to the company's most recent valuation in May.

In 2025, rival frontier AI company OpenAI established a similar nonprofit foundation with a multibillion-dollar stake in the company to fund public-benefit initiatives.

• US Energy Secretary Chris Wright defended Trump's decision to buy Russian diesel.
• Wright said the relief is actually an "incentive" for Russia to end its war with Ukraine.
• Ukraine's President Zelenskyy and several US lawmakers have criticized the move.

President Donald Trump is still playing hardball with Russia, according to US Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Wright defended Trump's decision to waive sanctions on Russia during a Sunday interview on CNN's "State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash."

In September, Trump signed into law a sanctions package targeting Russian officials and parts of its economy in an effort to pressure Russia amid its war on Ukraine. Last week, Trump issued an executive order waiving those new sanctions, other restrictions, and some duties on Russia.

In early October, Trump also announced an agreement with President Vladimir Putin under which Russia would supply over 300,000 tons of diesel fuel to America and the global market.

"President Trump waived sanctions just on diesel exports, and what's the one thing Russia has not been able to export over the last month or so? Diesel, because they're short of diesel," Wright said.

The Energy Secretary said waiving the sanctions solves two problems: the diesel oil shortage and Russia's ongoing war with Ukraine.

"This is pressuring Russia. Russia does not have diesel to export," Wright said. "The only way they can get additional diesel to export is if they turn down the conflict with Ukraine."

Wright said Russia would have to enter into an energy ceasefire or reduce its war efforts to have enough additional diesel to export.

"This is not going soft on Russia. This is an incentive to end the war," Wright added.

Trump elaborated on his reasoning further on Sunday in a Truth Social post.

"I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don't want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table," he wrote.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said waiving sanctions on Russia "seems wrong" to him. US lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle also criticized the move, including Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.

"Beyond irresponsible. What part of enforcing a law passed 86-11 by the Senate does the President and his advisors not understand? It's unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians every single day," Tillis wrote on X.

He added, "If the President wants to actually bring down energy prices, he can do it by solving the Iran problem, not by doing a solid for Vladimir Putin."

Diesel and regular gas prices have skyrocketed globally as the US war on Iran drags on. Following surprise attacks by the US and Israel on Iran in February, Iran effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which is a major waterway through which much of the world's diesel and oil is shipped. Last week, the International Energy Agency ‌said the diesel shortage could run into 2027.

That's a problem for Trump, who is hoping voters overlook high gas prices and concerns over the cost of living when they head to the polls this November for the midterm elections. Higher diesel prices mean higher shipping costs, which trickle down to consumers as inflated prices for everyday goods.

Wright also appeared on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, during which he said Trump was trying to find "innovative" ways to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

"This is a motivation for Russia to figure out how they can actually export some diesel," he said.