Just like House members, senators, and congressional candidates, Trump's nominees are required to file personal financial disclosures before they assume office or are confirmed by the US Senate.
Those disclosure reports, along with their ethics agreements, include details of each person's assets, sources and amounts of recent income, and other details of their personal finances.
The documents are likely to reveal information like Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth's salary at Fox News, Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi's compensation for lobbying, and the sprawling assets of the billionaires working for the administration.
As of Friday, January 10, only one of these disclosures has been made public. This story will be updated as more become available.
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Russell Vought is Trump's nominee to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a role he served during the second half of Trump's first administration.
His financial disclosure shows that he brought in more than $542,000 in both salary and bonuses from the Center for Renewing America, a pro-Trump think tank, and its affiliated advocacy group, Citizens for Renewing America. Vought serves as the president for both organizations.
He's made thousands in extra income on the side, including $15,000 from the Republican National Committee for helping to prepare the policy platform for the party's convention.
He also received a $4,000 honorarium from Hillsdale College on September 19, the date that he appeared on a panel during the conservative institute's Constitution Day celebration in McLean, Virginia.
His assets include various mutual and index funds, along with between $1,000 and $15,000 in Bitcoin, which generated more than $1,000 in income last year. As part of his ethics agreement, Vought agreed to sell off that Bitcoin within 90 days of his confirmation.
Delta reported fourth-quarter earnings that topped analyst expectations on Friday.
Revenue from premium seats was a major bright spot for the airline.
Shares soared more than 9% in trading following the announcement.
People are clamoring for premium air travel, and Delta Air Lines is cashing in on that demand.
The airline reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue on Friday, both of which beat Wall Street estimates. Massive growth in premium seat sales helped send shares up more than 9% in trading Friday.
Revenue from Delta's premium cabins, which include Delta One, Domestic First Class, and Delta Premium Select, increased 8% to over $5.2 billion in the quarter, versus a 2% growth in its main cabin.
Despite taking up a small fraction of an aircraft's cabin, premium seats generated $20.5 billion in revenue during 2024, just $4 billion shy of the amount brought in by economy.
For 2024, Delta reported $61.6 billion in total revenue, up 6% over 2023.
The DeltaOne cabin on board an Airbus A330-900neo
Chris Rank/Delta Air Lines
Delta President Glen Hauenstein said baby boomers have played a big role in driving that premium demand.
"Being a boomer myself, I'm proud of us driving our premium results," Hauenstein said during the company's earnings call on Friday. He expects younger generations to account for more premium demand as the older generation of consumers ages out.
"The newer generation is wealthier, and we have a bigger share of that generation. So excited not only for today as the boomers are driving it but excited for tomorrow as we pass it on to the next generations," Hauenstein said.
Demand for international travel gave Delta a boost during the final quarter of 2024.
Transatlantic revenue increased by 6% despite a 2% capacity cut. Revenue from transpacific flights increased by 19%, but that required an outsize 24% capacity increase.
Inside the new Delta One Lounge at New York's John F Kennedy International Airport.
Taylor Rains/Business Insider
It looks like the strong demand for transatlantic travel will continue into 2025. Hauenstein said Americans' continued desire to travel to Europe during the early months of this year is due to the strong US dollar and will not compromise demand for flights this summer.
"You go to a restaurant in New York and then go to a restaurant in Europe, you'll see a vast difference in the bill," he said. "This is a great time to travel to Europe. People are seeing that."
Delta expects first-quarter 2025 revenue to be 7 to 9% higher than the same period in 2024.
Delta's lucrative credit card partnerships continued their hot streak.
The airline earned $2 billion in the quarter by selling frequent flyer miles to American Express to be offered as rewards card holders. That's up 14% from the same period in 2023.
Meta is dropping many of its DEI initiatives, BI confirmed.
The company sent a memo announcing the changes on Friday.
Meta's VP of human resources said the legal and policy landscape in the US was changing.
Meta is rolling back its DEI programs, Business Insider has learned.
The company's vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale, announced the move on its internal communication platform, Workplace, on Friday, which was seen by BI.
"We will no longer have a team focused on DEI," Gale wrote in the memo.
"The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing," she wrote. "The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI."
She added the term DEI has "become charged" partly because it is "understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others."
Meta is the latest company to back away from DEI in the wake of a backlash, legal challenges, and the reelection of Donald Trump as US president.
Read the full memo:
Hi all,
I wanted to share some changes we're making to our hiring, development and procurement practices. Before getting into the details, there is some important background to lay out:
The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms longstanding principles that discrimination should not be tolerated or promoted on the basis of inherent characteristics. The term "DEI" has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.
At Meta, we have a principle of serving everyone. This can be achieved through cognitively diverse teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. Such teams are better at innovating, solving complex problems and identifying new opportunities which ultimately helps us deliver on our ambition to build products that serve everyone. On top of that, we've always believed that no-one should be given - or deprived- of opportunities because of protected characteristics, and that has not changed.
Given the shifting legal and policy landscape, we're making the following changes:
On hiring, we will continue to source candidates from different backgrounds, but we will stop using the Diverse Slate Approach. This practice has always been subject to public debate and is currently being challenged. We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds to build products that work for everyone.
We previously ended representation goals for women and ethnic minorities. Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it.
We are sunsetting our supplier diversity efforts within our broader supplier strategy. This effort focused on sourcing from diverse-owned businesses; going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting small and medium sized businesses that power much of our economy. Opportunities will continue to be available to all qualified suppliers, including those who were part of the supplier diversity program.
Instead of equity and inclusion training programs, we will build programs that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.
We will no longer have a team focused on DEI. Maxine Williams is taking on a new role at Meta, focused on accessibility and engagement.
What remains the same are the principles we've used to guide our People practices:
We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, beneficial and universally impactful for everyone.
We build the best teams with the most talented people. This means sourcing people from a range of candidate pools, but never making hiring decisions based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, gender etc.). We will always evaluate people as individuals.
We drive consistency in employment practices to ensure fairness and objectivity for all. We do not provide preferential treatment, extra opportunities or unjustified credit to anyone based on protected characteristics nor will we devalue impact based on these characteristics.
We build connection and community. We support our employee communities, people who use our products, and those in the communities where we operate. Our employee community groups (MRGs) continue to be open to all.
Meta has the privilege to serve billions of people every day. It's important to us that our products are accessible to all, and are useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We continue to be focused on serving everyone, and building a multi-talented, industry-leading workforce from all walks of life.
Many families in the U.S. face growing challenges in accessing high-quality maternity care. That's why Newsweek and Statista are happy to recognize America's Best Maternity Hospitals 2025.
The Supreme Court seemed inclined Friday to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S.
Why it matters: One of the most popular social media apps in the country may disappear next week.
State of play: The court heard oral arguments Friday over the new law that requires TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to either sell TikTok or shut it down in the U.S by Jan. 19. The law passed last year with broad bipartisan support and was signed by President Biden.
TikTok and a group of its users challenged the law, saying it violates their First Amendment rights.
Congress said the law was necessary because ByteDance is controlled by the Chinese government, and that its ability to harvest vast amounts of personal information from American users is therefore a national security threat.
Zoom in: Most of the justices homed in Friday on one central point: The law would allow TikTok to keep operating if it used an algorithm other than ByteDance's. And ByteDance, as a Chinese company, doesn't have First Amendment rights.
"The law doesn't say TikTok has to shut down. It says ByteDance has to divest," Justice Amy Coney Barrett said.
"The law is only targeted at this foreign corporation that doesn't have First Amendment rights. Whatever effect it has, it has," Justice Elena Kagan said.
"Congress doesn't care what's on TikTok," Chief Justice John Roberts said. "Congress is fine with the expression."
"It doesn't' say, 'TikTok, you can't speak,'" Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said.
All of those statements came during the justices' tough questioning of Noel Francisco, the lawyer representing TikTok.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, defending the law on behalf of the federal government, also faced tough questions.
Several justices seemed wary about one of the law's stated justifications β that the Chinese government could manipulate which content TikTok users see. That rationale does seem to have some First Amendment implications, they suggested.
Some justices also questioned whether there might be a less restrictive way to make sure Americans know about China's potential influence over TikTok.
What's next: The court will likely rule quickly β given the looming Jan. 19 deadline.
Wildfires continued to rage across Los Angeles County for a fourth day Friday, killing at least 10 people and razing an estimated 10,000 structures in the area.
The big picture: The fires roaring across the county are already among the most destructive recorded in the state.
While firefighters have made some progress containing the fires, the high winds that have helped fuel the blazes will remain high through Friday and are expected to pick back up early next week.
The latest: A mandatory curfew has been issued for thePalisades and Eaton fire areas and all mandatory evacuation zones, L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a press conference Friday.
The curfew β from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. β is intended to boost public safety and discourage looting and burglaries.
An estimated 153,000 residents remain under evacuation orders Friday, Luna noted.
Kevin McGowan, director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, apologized for an erroneous evacuation alert that was sent to some L.A. residents Thursday.
"There is an extreme amount of frustration, anger, fear, with regards to the erroneous messages ... I can't express enough how sorry I am for this experience," McGowan said.
State of play: The fires have burned through nearly 36,000 acres already, per CalFire.
The Palisades Fire has spread across over 20,438 acres in the area between Malibu and Santa Monica and was 8% contained as of Friday morning.
The Kenneth Fire, which erupted Thursday in the Calabasas and Hidden Hills areas, stood at 1,000 acres and 35% containment Friday.
The Hurst Fire, which has burned 771 acres in the San Fernando Valley, was 37% contained. The Lidia Fire, spread across 395 acres in a rural, mountainous area near Acton, was 75% contained.
The Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills was 100% contained Thursday. Other fires in Pacoima, Hollywood and Studio City have been extinguished, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said at the press conference Friday.
The big picture: President Biden announced Thursday the federal government will cover 100% of California's disaster assistance costs for the wildfires.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that the state was activating additional National Guard troops to assist in firefighting efforts.
Sheriff Luna confirmed Friday that the California National Guard had been deployed to the Eaton Fire area Thursday and that more National Guard members were expected in the next "12-24 hours."
Zoom out: The blazes have been propelled by dry conditions and high winds, hitting after many parts of Southern California saw no meaningful rainfall for more than eight months.
That's the key takeaway from a new analysis of social-media sentiment shared exclusively with Business Insider. The data comes from the social-monitoring firm Sprout Social, which tracks posts on X, YouTube, Reddit, and Tumblr and categorizes them as negative, neutral, or positive.
Lively's 80-page complaint, filed December 21, impressed some public-relations pros, who, in interviews with BI,Β calledΒ it well-timed and detailed. They said at the time it would be hard for Baldoni to come back from it. Lively accused her "It Ends With Us" costar Baldoni of sexually harassing her and engaging in a smear campaign against her. Her allegations were detailed in a The New York Times article published the same day the complaint was filed.
Baldoni hit back in a lawsuit filed against the Times, which accused the paper of libeling him and said Lively embarked on a negative PR campaign against him.
Sprout Social data showed that the volume of social-media mentions of both stars soared after Lively's complaint was filed and the Times story was published. Most of the commentary was negative, the firm's analysis found.
Lively saw negative sentiment jump 29 percentage points to 61% in the immediate aftermath of her complaint (from December 21 to 26), the data showed, compared with the period just before (December 15 to 20).
Baldoni's largely positive sentiment flipped to mostly negative, increasing 41 percentage points to 63% negative during that time.
Baldoni's lawsuit brought a fresh round of negative sentiment on social media for both stars.
Negative sentiment around Lively jumped from 39% right before Baldoni's suit (from December 26 to 31) to 52% right after (from January 1 to Monday). Baldoni saw a similar jump, from 42% just before his lawsuit to 52% after.
The positive sentiment around both stars languished at 6% for Lively and 7% for Baldoni during the period following his suit.
In their legal filings, Lively and Baldoni accused each other of using PR pros to plant negative stories about them, supported by screenshots of conversations.
Lively's complaint alleges Baldoni's camp engaged in "astroturfing," aΒ controversial PR tacticΒ that involves planting online comments while making them look as if they're occurring organically.
The new data suggests that negative sentiment reached its highest point, however, after the stars went to war in legal filings and in the press.
A photo shared by Ukraine's Air Force Command when said that one of its F-16 pilots took out six Russian cruise missiles at once.
Facebook/@Air Force Command of UA Armed Forces
Ukraine said one of its pilots downed a record-breaking six cruise missiles in a single mission.
The pilot said he downed two of them with his gun, something experts said took great skill and risk.
Getting close enough to shoot down missiles requires skill to avoid getting hit with dangerous debris.
The Ukrainian F-16 pilot said to have shot down half a dozen Russian cruise missiles in a single mission showed remarkable skill, particularly during a risky gun battle, a former US Air Force pilot told Business Insider.
Ukraine's air force command said that an F-16 pilot took out six Russian cruise missiles during a single flight in December, calling it a first for the jet. It said that during the historic engagement, the pilot shot down two missiles with the F-16's M61A1 six-barrel 20 mm cannon.
Ret. Col. John Venable, a 25-year veteran of the US Air Force and a former F-16 pilot, told BI that the pilot's ability to gun down the Russian missiles without putting his own aircraft at risk required a lot of skill.
He said "the fact that he did that without fragging himself" says "a lot about his skill set."
Switching to guns raises risks
Ukraine's F-16s have been repeatedly seen flying with an air-defense loadout of two AIM-9 Sidewinders and two AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles. The country's air force said the pilot had used up all of his missiles and was low on fuel after destroying four Russian missiles, but he then saw another Russian missile going toward Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.
He moved to intercept it, firing his gun at the missile that was traveling over 400 miles an hour, the air force said. There was more than one explosion, and the pilot realized that he had actually eliminated two Russian missiles.
The Ukrainian F-16 pilot, per a translation by RBC-Ukraine, said that there was a danger in doing that because "shooting down cruise missiles with a cannon is very risky because of the high speed of the target and the danger of detonation. But I did what the instructors in the US taught me, and I managed to hit it."
Venable said the risk of debris makes this kind of engagement more dangerous for the pilot. He said that pilots must get close to missiles to get a good shot.
He said that if the intercepting aircraft is behind the target and it explodes when hit, "you're going to be what we call fragged," meaning that the aircraft absorbs some of the explosive debris. Pilots have to come in at an angle. Venable said that there being two missiles meant the situation required greater skill.
Ukrainian Air Force's F-16 fighter jet flies in an undisclosed location in Ukraine.
AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File
Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK's Royal Aeronautical Society, likewise said that fighter pilots using guns must get "pretty close" to their target. That brings danger, with cruise missiles "packed with explosives."
"If you're firing at something and it's at close range and that thing goes off β you've got to be pretty aggressive and pretty brave to be doing that," he said.
It takes skill to fly this mission
Retired US Army Maj. Gen. Gordon "Skip" Davis, the former deputy assistant secretary-general for NATO's defense-investment division, told BI "shooting two cruise missiles with aircraft guns is quite impressive."
Venable said that pilots who are shooting at a missile but want to protect their aircraft must approach the missile like they are coming onto a highway from an off-ramp, "where you're at 90 degrees out, and then you start to actually align your car with the highway as that on-ramp turns onto the road."
"That's where you want to take the shot, not when you are right behind the aircraft." And doing that "takes skill," he said.
Ukraine has not commented on the aircraft's state but said the pilot landed at an airfield, indicating it was intact.
Ukraine's air force command said pilots learned to shoot missiles with aircraft cannons in US simulators but never tried it before in combat, the Kyiv Post reported.
Ukrainian Air Force's F-16 fighter jets fly in an undisclosed location in Ukraine.
AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, told BI the gun kill was "good flying."
He said that it's "easier now with modern radars in fighters than in World War II, but the fighter still needs to close with the cruise missile and fire very accurately."
The jets are likely to continue to fight as missile shields
Battling Russian aircraft would be the better test because they shoot back, but Venable said the reported achievement, which he said was "more than plausible," says a lot "about how far Ukraine's air force has come" and the Ukrainian air force's capabilities.
This mission carries risks, and Ukraine has already lost at least one of its F-16s and one of its trained pilots.
The aftermath of a Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.
Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser on the International Security Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that Ukraine is facing threats Western pilots haven't.
"None have faced the numbers of simultaneous incoming missiles that the Ukrainians have," he said. "US and Western pilots have faced one or two incoming missiles at a time."
Ukraine has a limited F-16 fleet that arrived later than desired. Partner nations have pledged more than 85, far fewer than what the Ukrainians likely need. Many of the jets, older versions of what Western nations fly, still haven't been delivered.
Ukraine probably won't receive enough fighters to use them the way the West does, but it can use them to strengthen its air defenses.
Venable said Ukraine does not have enough aircraft, stealth platforms, and other assets to be able to really use its jets to press against Russia. He said partners had to be conscious of leaving enough jets in their own fleets.
Col. Yuriy Ihnat, the head of the Ukrainian air force command's public relations service, said Ukraine wants more powerful modifications and missiles for its F-16s to compete with Russia, but said the headline-making intercept showed the skill of Ukrainian pilots and how formidable Ukraine's air force could be with more powerful jets.
Macy's has announced the locations of 66 stores slated to close across 22 states.
Scott Olson / Getty Images
Macy's just announced the list of locations it will shutter this year.
The 66 closures are part of a broader plan to shutter 150 stores by the end of 2026.
The department store chain has struggled as shoppers turn to lower-priced rivals and online retailers.
Macy'sΒ just revealed a list of 66 stores across 22 states that will close this year.
The company said most of the locations on the list are expected to close before May.
The stores announced Thursday are the first of 150 locations that the retailer plans to shutter through 2026. Following the closings, there will be about 350 Macy's left.
"We are closing underproductive Macy's stores to allow us to focus our resources and prioritize investments in our go-forward stores, where customers are already responding positively to better product offerings and elevated service," CEO Tony Spring said in a statement.
Macy's has struggled for years as online shopping and lower-priced options have grown and the chain's in-store experience floundered. Over the past decade, its share price has been down more than 50%.
The department store chain said its closure plan will allow it to focus on its best-performing locations and online experience, where it will refresh its merchandising assortment and modernize the shopping experience.
Macy's isn't the only department store struggling. Kohl's announced this week that it would close more than two dozen stores this year, and over the past five years, Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus filed for bankruptcy.
Here's a full list of the Macy's stores that will close this year.
Arizona
Superstition Springs Center 6535 E Southern Ave, Mesa
California
Broadway Plaza Β 750 W 7th St., Los Angeles
Hillsdale Furniture (Closed in FY2024.) Β 2838 South El Camino Real, San Mateo
