• Crisis PR is in the spotlight after Blake Lively filed a blockbuster complaint against Justin Baldoni.
• Lively's suit alleges Baldoni smeared her in the press in retaliation for harassment complaints.
• Crisis management experts say tough tactics are part of the game but warned against going too far.

What started as the story of a bombshell lawsuit from a famous actor against her director and costar has since turned into a tale of two PR campaigns and a reckoning in the broader public relations industry.

After Blake Lively filed a complaint Friday accusing Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment on the set of their film "It Ends with Us" and a retaliatory smear campaign in the press, publicists were abuzz picking apart how both camps responded to the news.

A key asset in Lively's suit is the reams of messages included that paint a picture in which Baldoni, his publicist Jennifer Abel, and crisis management expert Melissa Nathan detail plans to direct the conversation away from Lively's sexual harassment allegations by enlisting journalists and an online fixer to create, publish, and amplify negative stories about her.

The messages in the suit — and its allegations of astroturfing, a controversial practice in public relations that exists in a legal grey area — offer a peek behind the curtain of crisis PR, one that industry figures who spoke with BI say is giving their profession a bad name.

"Who is the real victim behind the smear campaign?" Molly McPherson, a crisis communications manager, said in an Instagram post breaking down her thoughts on Lively and Baldoni's ordeal. "It's PR. It's public relations."

The lawsuit introduced crisis PR and the practice of astroturfing to the general public

Hollywood is full of public relations firms big and small. Most work with studios, distributors, or directly with talent in the day-to-day grind of promoting their work, building relationships with the media and influencers.

Crisis management is an entirely different animal. They're called in when a controversy or scandal hits the client that's too out of hand for the publicist to deal with on their own.

"A crisis management person is hired to make sure all the assets are protected," a veteran crisis management publicist told BI. Unlike regular publicists, who "don't want to get their hands dirty," crisis PR firms are trained for this very purpose. "I know how to bob and weave, jump in and jump out," the source added.

The proposed campaign to damage Lively's reputation, as outlined in her complaint via quotes from Nathan's messages to Abel and Baldoni, included "social manipulation" on platforms like Reddit and "full social account take downs." In the messages, Nathan suggested having a full social crisis team on hand to "start threads of theories" about Lively and Baldoni's rumored feud, and the "creation of social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts, helping to change [sic] narrative and stay on track."

"All of this will be most importantly untraceable," Lively's suit quotes Nathan as saying.

Lively's lawsuit argues that these tactics in Abel and Nathan's alleged smear campaign on behalf of Baldoni went "well beyond standard crisis PR" by deploying the controversial practice of astroturfing, a tactic that, when applied to public relations, involves publishing sentiments on the internet or in the media to falsely create the illusion of public consensus or a "grassroots movement."

"Millions of people (including many reporters and influencers) who saw these planted stories, social media posts, and other online content had no idea they were unwitting consumers of a crisis PR, astroturfing, and digital retaliation campaign," Lively's suit reads, adding that the campaign blurred "the line between authentic and manufactured content, and creating viral public takedowns."

The crisis management experts who spoke to BI didn't see anything wrong with Baldoni's team coming up with worst-case scenarios for how to change the narrative were Lively to take her harassment allegations public. Several PR people say tough tactics are part of the game. But they were split on the tactic of astroturfing.

"It's not frowned upon, just amateurish," the veteran crisis management publicist said. "It gives experts a bad name. Like they saw it work in a movie and thought it was a brilliant idea."

Other Hollywood publicists were more stern in their assessment.

"I honestly thought it was used more in politics than entertainment," one longtime entertainment publicist told BI. "That's just a dirty tactic."

Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman called Lively's claims against Baldoni "completely false, outrageous, and intentionally salacious."

In a follow-up statement, he said Nathan's company The Agency Group (TAG PR), which was hired by Baldoni, "operated as any crisis management firm would when hired by a client experiencing threats by two extremely powerful people with unlimited resources," a reference to Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds.

"The standard scenario planning TAG PR drafted proved unnecessary as audiences found Lively's own actions, interviews and marketing during the promotional tour distasteful, and responded organically to that which the media themselves picked up on," the statement added.

BI contacted Abel and Nathan and didn't receive a response about PR tactics.

Experts say Baldoni's camp also made one key mistake

For all the PR wizardry happening as both sides respond to the story in the press, there's one move Abel and Nathan made that the veteran crisis management publicist said was a huge mistake.

"Never put anything in texts," the vet crisis management publicist said. "That was a rookie move."

The consequences are still unfolding. On Tuesday, Stephanie Jones, the owner of the publicity firm that represented Baldoni before Abel broke out on her own, sued the actor, Abel, and Nathan accusing Abel and Nathan of orchestrating a smear campaign against both Lively and herself behind her back and accusing Abel of covertly stealing Jones' clients when exiting the firm.

In an email Tuesday, Abel provided BI with a different account of how she left Jones' firm, including text messages showing she submitted her resignation and was open with plans to start her own public relations firm.

Now, even crisis managers need crisis managers to repair the profession's image.

"It does give the industry a black eye, and I think it should be a cautionary tale," a prominent industry figure who runs a crisis management firm told BI.

"If you don't know that you can't go that far," the person said, if you don't know that you can't "dupe media, that's troublesome."

• More than 3,400 older Americans have shared their financial and other regrets with Business Insider.
• Some older adults reflected on how parenthood shaped their finances.
• This is part of an ongoing series about older Americans' regrets.

For many people, raising children is the most fulfilling aspect of their lives. But dozens of older US parents told Business Insider that knowing what they know now, they might have made different financial decisions.

Since mid-September, over 3,400 Americans ages 48 to 96 have responded to Business Insider reader surveys or emailed reporters about their life regrets. One survey included the question "What advice would you give someone trying to decide when — or if — they have children?"

Hundreds of respondents said they had children when they were too young and financially unstable, delayed their career to raise a family, or spent too much or too little on their kids. Many said their decisions as young parents had lasting effects. Though many more mothers shared their parenting regrets than fathers, both shared very similar parenting regrets.

It's not all bad, though. Many parents said their financial and professional sacrifices were worth it to build strong relationships with their children. Others said that they did the best they could but that some parenting costs were unavoidable.

All of them stressed that despite having some financial or professional regrets, they love their children and had few regrets about how they raised them.

BI identified five common financial parenting regrets and interviewed seven parents. This story is part of an ongoing series.

We want to hear from you. Are you an older American with any life regrets you'd be comfortable sharing with a reporter? Please fill out this quick form.

Some parents wish they'd waited to have children until their careers were more established

Many respondents said they wished they had waited to have a baby until they were more financially stable. The high costs of childcare and housing made it difficult for some parents to set aside savings for emergencies or retirement, especially early in their careers. An analysis by Northwestern Mutual last year found that the average cost to raise a child until age 18 was about $300,000.

Judy Taylor, 72, told BI she loves her children but regretted having them in her early 20s. Taylor, who lives in Georgia, said she and her husband weren't established enough professionally to afford children and build savings for retirement. When they divorced after 16 years, Taylor shouldered additional costs as a single parent.

Taylor said she had little savings left and relied on slightly over $2,000 in monthly Social Security. If she missed a check, she'd be "dead in the water," she said.

"Babies are so precious," Taylor said. "But having another life to be responsible for can be overwhelming. Just be sure you're ready for that."

Jessica Douieb, the head of wealth partners at JPMorgan, advised that families build a wealth plan focused on short- and long-term goals that factors in education, tax planning, cash-flow management, investments, charitable giving, insurance, and estate planning.

"A frequent misstep is failing to plan for the long term," Douieb said. "In many cases, having children can delay retirement, requiring parents to work longer to support their children, which can affect financial security in later years."

Roxanne Lewis, 61, a mental-health case manager, relied on child support and food stamps to pay her bills as a single mother, though she later remarried and held stable jobs. She said she wished she'd had a nest egg and an established career before having the first of her seven children.

"When I was younger, I didn't think about retirement," Lewis said. "It was mainly about getting the bills paid, making sure the children had clothes and food. It wasn't even a thought in my mind, and nobody had ever mentioned it."

Lewis, who lives in East Texas, said she didn't often speak with them about retirement savings. She intends to work until 67, and while her finances improved after a raise in 2022, she's worried about how retirement may look with a few thousand dollars in the bank.

"I wish that I spent more time with my kids," Lewis said. "Money was a big thing for me, focusing on having enough money so they had what they needed, so I was always stressed."

Some said they spent too much on their children

A few dozen respondents said that while they felt that many of their financial investments in their children were worth it, they regretted spoiling their children — such as buying them a car when finances were tight — or not encouraging them to become financially independent. A few said they were burdened by letting their children live with them after college or stay on their insurance plans.

Douieb said parents who want to be generous with their children should prioritize nurturing their confidence and self-esteem over materially rewarding them.

"I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having ongoing, open discussions about money, reinforcing values like responsibility and self-sufficiency," Douieb said. "When they reach the right age, teaching children about saving, investing, and planning can help them become financially literate and independent, which will help them in the long run."

Some divorced parents described the financial toll of raising children alone or with limited support

Several respondents said divorce and single parenting affected their retirement plans. Some said they struggled to support a family without a second income or with limited child support, while others said being a stay-at-home parent meant they didn't have much savings after a divorce.

A BI analysis of 2023 individual-level census data found that divorced people had lower average 401(k) balances, less savings, and a more limited monthly retirement income than married people. It also found that just 38% of divorced people had a retirement account.

Nina Teasley, 65, lives on less than $2,000 in Social Security in Bethesda, Maryland. Teasley, a mom of four, was a stay-at-home mom for most of her adult life but divorced about 25 years ago. Though Teasley's children are now adults, she said she still felt the financial impact of her divorce.

Teasley said that while being so present in her children's lives was wonderful, she had no savings or retirement plan. When she and her husband split, Teasley took a customer-service job to support herself and her children, but the income wasn't enough to build a nest egg. Now Teasley isn't sure she can fully retire and worries about becoming a financial burden on her adult children.

"I thought I would be married forever," Teasley said. "I married a man who wanted to take care of me and the kids. But I wish I had not let that be. I wish I had decided to go to work and stay at work."

Michelle Patello, a vice president and wealth-management advisor at TIAA, said that there isn't one single approach to raising children after a divorce and that splitting expenses equally isn't always the answer.

"It's important to consider the different income levels when splitting costs," she said.

Some said they regretted being stay-at-home parents

The Pew Research Center found in 2023 that about four in five stay-at-home parents were women. Spending time outside the workforce to raise children meant many moms had less income to build savings and lower Social Security checks.

Older Americans' monthly Social Security income is based on the years they spent in the workforce. Stay-at-home parents' time spent raising children isn't counted toward their retirement benefit.

Wendy DeBord, 73, said she returned to work too late after having her children. DeBord, who lives in Toledo, Ohio, had her first child at 23 and had two more by 28. For 12 years she was a stay-at-home mom and ran a day care at her house. At 45, with little work experience, she took a job as a receptionist at an orthodontist's office. She worked her way up to becoming a public-relations coordinator.

"When I entered the workforce at age 45, I had to start on the bottom rung, so I barely made it to the middle of the ladder by age 70," DeBord said, adding she had a divorce at 50 that hurt her retirement planning.

She said that staying home with her children still felt like the right move, and she cherished watching them grow up. But she said that she started building her 401(k) late and that she reached $300,000 in savings, which she described as sufficient, at 70. She gets about $2,000 monthly in Social Security, which she claimed at 70.

Douieb stressed that stay-at-home-parenting considerations go beyond a parent's finances.

"A child's financial future will be more determined by instilling strong values around money management and savings from an early age," Douieb said. "Parents can create a nurturing environment where financial literacy is emphasized, teaching children the importance of budgeting, investing, and responsible spending."

Adults without children have regrets, too

Though many older parents said they regretted how they handled finances while raising a family, few said they regretted having children. "Every parent wants their child to have a better life than they did — he is the one thing I did right," one survey respondent wrote.

Others said they were happily child-free. "I have no children and no regrets," one person said.

Christopher Gilbert, 61, said he helped raise his nephew but might have been more fulfilled if he had raised children of his own, even with the financial burden. He said he couldn't start a family because of laws banning same-sex marriage, which became fully legal in the US in 2015.

Now gay people "can get married and have kids," Gilbert said, "but that came a little bit late for me."

Gilbert, who lives in Bradenton, Florida, said that while he had some retirement savings, he planned to work his job at a convenience store for as long as possible because it keeps him active and social.

Patello said that Americans should proactively plan for retirement regardless of whether they're parents. "The earlier, the better," Patello said. Even reducing your contributions but continuing to save can make all the difference for you and your family."

Are you an older American with any life regrets you'd be comfortable sharing with a reporter? Please fill out this quick form.

• Research identifies digital hoarding as a subtype of hoarding disorder, affecting mental health.
• Digital hoarding is linked to anxiety, causing stress and disorganization.
• Accumulation of digital photos and videos over the years has caused me severe stress.

"No way, I'd completely forgotten about this video! I'm so glad you held on to it for so many years!"

I used to love hearing my friends tell me any variation of this sentence. It was a glowing affirmation that holding on to my 6TB iCloud storage plan was the right move.

For years I'd taken it upon myself to be the group historian, to record the small moments at every event.

Then one day, I found myself curled up sobbing on the floor after being locked out of my 867 GB-strong Google Photos app.

Surely that was an extreme reaction, my friends said" "They're just pictures. Wait, you said how many GB?!"

I looked it up, and their concern was warranted. It turns out, I may be a digital hoarder.

What is digital hoarding?

Digital hoarding was first introduced as a potential subtype of hoarding disorder in 2015 after a case report in the British Medical Journal described a man who took thousands of pictures a week and showed reluctance to discard any of them.

The paper described digital hoarding as the "accumulation of digital files to the point of loss of perspective, which eventually results in stress and disorganization."

Although hoarding disorder has been documented as a mental illness in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, there has been very little research done on the digital aspect of it, save testimonials on the internet.

In a 2022 study with 846 participants, Darshana Sedera, assistant Dean at Southern Cross University, found that there was a definite link between digital hoarding and anxiety.

Nick Neave, director of the Hoarding Research Group, told me it was a sort of chicken-and-egg situation.

"A person whose levels of anxiety are slightly higher anyway tends to be driven toward digital hoarding and then tends to be more anxious when things start to unravel," said Neave.

"You want to take a very good picture, but you're anxious that you take the wrong picture or that you would delete that picture by mistake, so that you take many more pictures."

"Then you get even more anxious because you start to worry about storage, you start to worry about the cost, and oh no, what happens if all of those pictures get deleted?" he continued.

The signs were all there

He said that even though there's no formal diagnosis, I "ticked all the boxes" for being a digital hoarder.

When I looked back, the signs were all there. A screenshots folder filled to the brim with chat snippets from a decade ago, multiple Instagram accounts I created to upload my memories onto in case my Google Drive storage ran out, hundreds of GB worth of video call screen recordings I never once watched again.

The worst part is the accumulation over the years means that it will take me a long, long time to sit and delete the things I don't want anymore — and that doesn't just apply to photos and videos.

The internet seems bent on building up digital assets on my online presence with every minute.

Do you want to make cute compilation videos about the trip you just went on? Better be ready with about 50 different clips and 20-ish backup ones to be safe.

Instagram and TikTok let you post at least 20 pictures on one single carousel post now.

My bills all come online, which means I download the PDFs but also take screenshots because what if I can't find the PDF when I need it? My inbox is full of spam, but I can't hit "delete all" because what if there were useful promo codes in there, or my flight tickets went to the wrong folder and accidentally got deleted?

What's the alternative? Sift through hundreds of emails to find the three useful ones and delete the rest? Best to hold on to all of it, I told myself, ignoring the red notice that I've used up 96% of my storage.

Unpacking why exactly I can't part with my towering stash is probably best addressed through multiple therapy sessions, but my digital hoarding tendencies definitely have something to do with an underlying fear of forgetting and being forgotten.

How it all started

I know it started from a good place. Every time I saw a picture of little Hannah or heard my brother's voice before its current cracked adult iteration, I would smile and be infinitely glad I saved it.

Every time I chanced across a conversation from my teenage Google Hangouts phase, I sent it to my friends and we laughed about who we used to be and how far we've come.

I'm not sure when exactly it intensified into the obsession that it became, one that sent me into a weeklong spiral when I realized Instagram story archives from five years ago had irreversibly turned all my videos into static frames.

It genuinely felt like chunks of my memory were gone forever.

And what of the way forward? "Our possessions determine our self," Neave told me.
"It all tells a story about you; it's much more normal to be a hoarder than it is to be a minimalist, because hoarding is part of our human nature."

"The onus is largely and squarely on the online storage providers to provide us with indexing," said Darshana Sedera, adding that it would help with categorizing digital assets and make it easier to decide which ones to let go of.

He also said that setting aside time regularly to declutter your digital life is crucial to minimizing buildup.

Down the minimalist decluttering rabbit hole I go then. Hopefully, I come out the other side with a happier headline and several TBs lighter.

• South Korea's national assembly impeached acting president Han Duck-soo on Friday.
• Han took over from President Yoon Suk Yeol on December 14.
• Yoon was impeached after declaring martial law for several hours.

South Korean lawmakers impeached the country's acting president, Han Duck-soo on Friday, just two weeks after he had taken up the post.

Han, who is also the country's prime minister, took over from President Yoon Suk Yeol. Yoon was impeached after declaring martial law in South Korea on December 3.

The Democratic Party, South Korea's main opposition party, filed a motion to impeach Han on December 26.

While impeaching a president requires a two-thirds majority in the 300-seat National Assembly, impeaching a prime minister only requires a simple majority of lawmakers. 192 lawmakers voted on Friday to impeach Han.

Han has been suspended from his duties immediately. The country's finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, is next in line for the acting presidency.

The opposition moved against Han after he refused to appoint three judges to fill the nine-member constitutional court bench.

The constitutional court is the bench that will rule on Yoon's removal from office.

There are currently six justices, and six votes are needed to remove Yoon. This poses a potential obstacle ousting Yoon permanently, as the loss of one vote will allow him to continue to remain president.

The South Korean won on Friday fell to its lowest level against the dollar since 2009.

This story is developing, please check back for more updates.

• Taiwan has held its first tabletop war game amid rising tensions with China.
• The exercise simulates military escalation and involves government and civil groups.
• Taiwan aims to train 50,000 volunteers for emergencies amid China's military drills.

Taiwan's Presidential Office held its first-ever tabletop war games on Thursday in a sign of heightened tensions with Beijing.

The exercise simulates a military escalation with China, which claims Taiwan as its territory. It took place at the island's Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee meeting.

"The Taiwanese society must race against time to build capabilities that can counter threats of large-scale disasters and deter enemy aggression," Lai said at the opening of the event, without naming any country as an aggressor.

The three-hour wargame exercise involved central and local governments, as well as civil groups. It simulated various scenarios, including one in which self-governed Taiwan is "on the verge of conflict" and "high intensity" grey-zone warfare, Lai said.

Liu Shyh-fang, Taiwan's interior minister, said the island's government aims to train over 50,000 volunteers to respond to emergencies by next year. Authorities hope to involve a range of people, including taxi drivers and security guards, in the effort.

Taiwan's focus on emergency preparedness comes amid escalation with China in recent years. Beijing conducted two major exercises around Taiwan this year, in addition to other drills.

In October, China's military surrounded Taiwan during the "Joint Sword-2024B" exercise to show it could blockade key ports, execute strikes, and assault positions.

In May, China launched the "Joint Sword-2024A" exercise following the inauguration of Lai, whom Beijing has branded a separatist.

"The peace and stability in the first island chain is being collectively challenged by authoritarian states," Lai said, referring to an arc of archipelagos from Indonesia to Japan.

Taiwan's tensions with China are not just about the two sides.

Taiwan — a $775 billion economy with a population of about 23 million — is the world's semiconductor chip hub, so any national security development on the island has broader implications for the global economy.

Meanwhile, the US is obliged to ensure that Taiwan has the means to defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act.

Just last week, the US State Department approved $295 million in arms sales to Taiwan. China said that it "strongly deplores and firmly opposes" the move.

Taiwanese President Lai has challenged the notion that mainland China is Taiwan's "motherland." In July, he said the government of Taiwan — whose official name is the Republic of China — is older than Beijing.

• OpenAI and Microsoft have an internal definition for AGI, per The Information.
• The two companies agreed to define AGI as a system that can generate $100 billion in profits.
• OpenAI says on its website that AGI refers to AI systems that are smarter than humans.

OpenAI and Microsoft have a definition for artificial general intelligence, and it hinges on the money the emerging technology can bring in.

The two companies signed an agreement in 2023 that defined AGI as a system that can generate $100 billion in profits, The Information reported on Thursday, citing documents it had obtained.

OpenAI has, however, publicly defined AGI on its website as "a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work."

The ChatGPT maker added that its nonprofit board would decide whether AGI has been achieved.

"Such a system is excluded from IP licenses and other commercial terms with Microsoft, which only apply to pre-AGI technology," the company wrote on its website.

OpenAI and Microsoft did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Based on its agreement with Microsoft, OpenAI still has some way to go before it can achieve AGI.

The company expects to accumulate losses of around $44 billion between 2023 to 2028, and could hit $100 billion in revenue in 2029, The Information reported in October, citing financial documents it had obtained.

"My guess is we will hit AGI sooner than most people in the world think and it will matter much less," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times DealBook Summit on December 4.

In November, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI is in preliminary talks with California's attorney general's office about becoming a for-profit company.

OpenAI was initially launched as a nonprofit research organization in 2015. The company closed a $6.6 billion funding round in October, valuing it at $157 billion.

• A plot next to Jeff Bezos' Miami properties is on sale for $200 million.
• The land is on Indian Creek, a private island that's home to several billionaires.
• The sellers remain unknown, but their broker said they are open to negotiating the price.

A plot of land next to Jeff Bezos' properties in South Florida is on sale for $200 million.

The property is about 1.84 acres in size and is located at Indian Creek, a private artificial island in Miami-Dade County. Called the "Billionaire Bunker," the island houses properties belonging to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Tom Brady, Carl Icahn, and recent arrival Jeff Bezos.

The asking price — $200 million for the land — is more than what Bezos paid for any of his three properties on the island. In 2023, the Amazon founder purchased a $68 million mansion and an adjacent property for $79 million. In September, he made a third purchase for $90 million. Last year, Bezos said he would be moving to Miami after living in Seattle for 29 years.

The listing was first reported by The New York Post.

Ilya Reznik is representing the owners, who did not want to be identified. Reznik told the New York Post that the owners originally wanted to build on the land but changed plans and decided to sell. He said that the owners bought the land for $27.5 million in 2018.

Reznik told Bloomberg that the sellers are willing to negotiate on price, but he is "confident that in the end the buyer will pay a little extra because Bezos is a neighbor." Reznik added, "Those prices just didn't exist before he came to Indian Creek."

The broker also said that the sellers drew pre-designs for a 25,000-square-foot estate on the property that would be available to the buyer.

The New York Post reported that the land also comes with 200 feet of Biscayne Bay waterfront, which allows the owner to build a deep-water dock for a 180-foot megayacht.

The highly secure island is located about 15 miles from Miami and is only accessible via a single bridge connecting it to the mainland. It has about 40 homes over 300 acres and an ultra-exclusive country club. The island's police department monitors the area's only entrance and patrols the perimeter around the clock.

• "Squid Game" season three will premiere in 2025.
• It will wrap up the season two story and is intended to end the entire show.
• Here's what we know so far about the plot and cast.

It took Netflix three years to debut a second season of the surprise hit K-drama "Squid Game."

However, seasons two and three were filmed simultaneously, meaning there will be less of a wait after the second season, which released on December 26.

Netflix announced in July 2024 that season three, which will premiere in 2025, would be the last.

The third season will follow Seong Gi-hun's crusade against a secret organization that is manipulating people with huge debts to compete in deadly games for money.

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for season two.

"Squid Game" season 3 will likely be set directly after the end of season 2

Season two ended on a tragic cliffhanger, with the games' guards defeating Gi-hun's rebellion against the games.

After finding himself competing in the deadly games again, Gi-hun persuades his fellow players to stage a rebellion against the guards, steal their weapons, and storm toward the command center.

This plan is foiled by a saboteur in Gi-hun's ranks: Hwang In-ho, the game's leader, who entered the competition as Player 001 to spy on Gi-hun.

In-ho splits the rebels, making them easier to defeat, and fakes his own death. After his guards crush the uprising, In-ho, hiding his identity behind a mask, kills Gi-hun's best friend right in front of Gi-hun.

Outside the games, Gi-hun recruited a group of people to help find the game's island to shut down the competition. The season finale shows that they have a traitor among them, too — Captain Park, a fisherman who owns the boat the team is using to find the island.

"Squid Game" creator Hwang Dong-hyuk told Entertainment Weekly in December that seasons two and three were written as one story, but split into two seasons to accommodate all the episodes.

Since the games were not finished by the end of season two, season three will show the second half of the same competition. Gi-hun and his allies' will also likely have their last attempt to destroy the games.

One of the new games will be based around another creepy doll.

The most popular game in "Squid Game" season one was "Red Light, Green Light," in which the players race to the finish line without being spotted by a giant rotating creepy doll.

The doll was based on a statue in South Korea of Young-hee, a character from old school textbooks. In June 2022, Hwang said in a statement teasing the second season that the show will introduce Cheol-su, a character often paired with Young-hee.

Giant dolls of Cheol-su and Young-hee appear in a post-credit scene in the season two finale. The scene seems to be teasing one of the game settings in season three, but it is not clear yet what the game will actually be.

Season 3 is the final season of "Squid Game."

In December, Hwang told Entertainment Weekly that he decided to end the show after the third season because the story he is "capable of telling through Gi-hun" ends there.

He later told Variety that he was "sick" of making "Squid Game."

"I'm so sick of my life making something, promoting something," Hwang said. "I'm just thinking about going to some remote island and having my own free time without any phone calls from Netflix."

Since Netflix owns the rights to "Squid Game," it could create more spin-offs without Hwang's involvement. It already has a reality show, "Squid Game: The Challenge," and the video game "Squid Game: Unleashed." Variety reported that Hwang has been kept in the loop with these projects but has not been involved with them.

Deadline reported in October, citing unnamed sources, that an English-language version of "Squid Game" was in the works and that David Fincher may be hired to develop the show.

The surviving players from season 2 will return in season 3.

This includes: Player 388, Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul), the ex-marine; Player 222, Kim Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), the pregnant woman; Player 007, Park Yon-sik (Yang Dong-geun) and his mother, Player 044, Jang Geum-ja (Kang Ae-sim); Player 044, Seon-nyeo (Chae Kook-hee), the mystical lady; and Player 120 Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), an ex-special forces officer and transwoman.

Lee Jung-Jae and Lee Byung-hun will reprise their roles as the main protagonist, Seong Gi-hun, and the antagonist, Hwang In-ho. Other non-player characters who are still alive at the end of season two will also return, including former Detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) and Woo-seok (Jeon Seok-ho).

• An undersea cable in the Baltic Sea that provides power to Estonia was cut on Wednesday.
• Finnish authorities say they've seized an oil tanker they suspect caused the outage.
• Finland's president raised concerns of Russia's "shadow fleet" on social media.

Finnish authorities said they've seized an oil tanker on Thursday as part of its probe into the cutting of an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea which provides electricity to Estonia.

Finnish customs authorities and the European Union's executive commission said the tanker may be part of Russia's "shadow fleet" of oil tankers, The Associated Press reported.

Finland police said in a news release that the vessel, Eagle S, was registered in Cook Islands. MarineTraffic, a global ship tracking website, also stated that the ship was flying under the flag of Cook Islands and was sailing between St. Petersburg, Russia, and Port Said, Egypt.

On Wednesday, Finnish authorities began investigating the rupture of Estlink-2, an undersea power cable connected between Finland and Estonia, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on X.

Finland police said in the press release that the case is being investigated as "aggravated criminal mischief."

A spokesperson for Finland's police did not respond to a request for comment sent outside of working hours.

Russia has been using a network of mostly aging ships that are difficult to trace back to the country in order to evade costly Western sanctions that were imposed after the start of the Ukraine war in 2022.

According to the Center for Research on Energy and Clear Air, a Finland-based think tank, more than half of the 369 vessels exporting Russian crude oil and oil products in November were shadow tankers.

"Our main task is to find effective means to stop the shadow fleet," Orpo said at a news conference, according to The New York Times. "The shadow fleet pumps money into Russia's war fund so that Russia can continue to wage its war in Ukraine against the people of Ukraine, and it has to be stopped."

Finland's President Alexander Stubb also said in a post on X that the risks of Russia's shadow fleet need to be addressed.

The damage to the Estlink-2 further highlights growing concerns among countries around the risks of sabotage against undersea power cables and pipelines.

In November, two data cables were cut under the Baltic Sea, linking Germany and Finland as well as Sweden and Lithuania.

German Foreign Minister Boris Pistorius said without evidence that the incident was no accident.

"We have to assume, without certain information, that the damage is caused by sabotage," he said.

• On Thursday, season two of "The Flipping El Moussas" premiered on HGTV.
• Tarek and Heather Rae El Moussa flipped a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Los Angeles.
• The flip took longer than they anticipated, but they still made a profit on the property.

Tarek El Moussa and Heather Rae El Moussa are back to flipping houses on HGTV.

In January, the couple will appear in the competition series "The Flip Off" with Tarek's ex, Christina Haack. And on Thursday, season two of Heather and Tarek's show, "The Flipping El Moussas," premiered on HGTV, diving into the couple's house-flipping business.

In the episode, Tarek and Heather flipped a three-bedroom house in Los Angeles that was filled to the brim with trash when they started the project.

In the season premiere of "The Flipping El Moussas," Tarek and Heather took on a trash-filled home in Los Angeles.

As the episode opens, Tarek and Heather check out a three-bedroom, two-bath house in Los Angeles.

Tarek's company, Tarek Buys Houses, had purchased the 1,200-square-foot property for $430,000, which they said was on the low end for the area because the house was in disarray, filled with trash, rat droppings, and human feces.

They originally intended to sell the home to another flipper at wholesale, but because it was so dirty, Tarek and Heather would have had to invest money in cleaning it out before they could sell it to another flipper.

Instead, they decided to flip it themselves. They set a budget of $184,000 for renovations and hoped to sell the home for close to $1 million.

The home's large living area was full of garbage when Tarek and Heather started working on it.

The large living area had an open-concept feel, though it was difficult to see the layout when Tarek and Heather first toured the property because it was covered in debris.

Tarek said in the premiere that it took his team three days and 10 trips to the dump to clean out the property.

Tarek and Heather decided to fully open the living area during the flip.

The new living space felt large and airy after the renovation.

Tarek and Heather took down the wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living area, making the space feel larger.

The space was full of light thanks to its white walls and the sliding glass doors that took up nearly a whole wall in the living room. Touches like beachy lighting modernized the space.

The backyard wasn't much to look at before the renovation.

The fenced-in backyard offered privacy, but that was the only redeeming quality when the El Moussas worked on the project. The grass had died, and the house wasn't in great shape.

However, the El Moussas noticed that a raised patio would create a view of the area, so they decided to add it to the property.

A patio made the house feel more luxurious.

The episode revealed that adding the patio to the home wasn't simple. The team originally constructing it built an unstable structure and burned a hole through it, to Heather and Tarek's dismay.

But the final version of the patio created an indoor-outdoor living vibe thanks to the sliding doors.

The El Moussas also added a new fence, grass, and a gravel area to the yard for additional seating.

The kitchen was originally full of dark cabinetry.

To make the kitchen feel grander, the El Moussas decided to place the oven and gas range in the center of the space so they were visible when you entered the home.

They had to move some windows around to make the change, which ended up causing them weeks of delays on the flip.

The delays were worth it, as the range became the centerpiece of the kitchen.

The kitchen looked cohesive with the living room, featuring white counters, appliances, and built-in open shelves.

A window above the sink overlooked the patio the El Moussas added to the backyard.

Tarek and Heather wanted to modernize the fireplace in the living room.

A stone fireplace took up much of the central wall in the living room, but the dark color was dated and didn't fit the clean look Tarek and Heather were creating for the home.

Floating shelves and white brick made the space feel fresh.

The new fireplace featured vertical white brick framed by built-in shelving made of wood.

Large windows sat opposite the sliding glass doors, so light flooded the home.

The primary bedroom wasn't as private as it could have been.

When Tarek and Heather first walked through the house, they found that the primary bedroom had a bathroom attached to it, but it was accessible from the home's laundry room and kitchen as well.

The El Moussas decided to close off the bathroom and move the laundry room to a closet to make the bedroom bigger and have a true en suite.

They made the space feel fresher.

Rather than one large window, the El Moussas added two windows framing the bed in the primary to give it a sense of grandeur.

A sliding door led the way to the en suite.

The bathroom featured a large walk-in shower and double vanity.

Heather and Tarek's vision for the bathroom paid off, as they were able to use the former laundry room to add square footage to the bathroom.

The walk-in shower featured a bench, and tile floors with a star-shaped pattern brought a pop of color to the room.

The wooden cabinetry also matched the shelving in the living area, giving the home a sense of cohesion.

The flip took longer than the El Moussas wanted, but they still made a profit.

Due to project delays, Tarek and Heather spent 12 months flipping the property in Los Angeles.

They also spent nearly $100,000 over their original budget on the renovation and invested $276,000 in the flip. Considering the carrying and selling costs, Tarek and Heather's breakeven price for the house was $793,000.

They originally listed the house for $999,999 and got an offer of $920,000.