• Some Democrats are dismissing the forthcoming DOGE push to cut wasteful government spending.
• Others in the party aren't totally writing off what Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are selling.
• Several key progressives believe they can work with the DOGE regarding the defense budget.

President-elect Donald Trump has grand plans to reduce the size of government, and he wants to use the forthcoming Department of Government Efficiency as a vehicle to make his intentions a reality.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, the incoming co-leads of the commission, have said they want to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget by July 4, 2026.

While many Republicans are fully onboard with the prospect of axing federal departments, a large number of Democratic lawmakers will likely be opposed to such efforts.

With Democrats still smarting from Vice President Kamala Harris' election loss and keenly aware of the extent of Musk's financial support of Trump in the 2024 race, rank-and-file members may not be inclined to aid the DOGE.

However, several Democrats, including Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Jared Moskowitz of Florida, have already signaled that they want to be a part of the conversation regarding any proposals.

Here are the congressional Democrats who could potentially give DOGE's recommendations a bipartisan boost:

Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida

Moskowitz was the first Democratic lawmaker to join the House's DOGE caucus, which will partner with the DOGE commission and look into ways to rein in spending.

The congressman in December told Business Insider that his overall mission is to reorganize the Department of Homeland Security so the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Secret Service reports squarely to the commander-in-chief.

"If this is where that conversation is going to happen, I'm happy to be at the table," Moskowitz said. "And if they want to do stupid stuff, I'll call it out and I'll vote against it."

In a recent NPR interview, Moskowitz said joining the DOGE caucus isn't an indication that he's fully embracing Trump's legislative worldview.

"On some issues I'm progressive. On other issues I'm conservative, and I think that's how most of my constituents are," he said.

Rep. Val Hoyle of Oregon

Hoyle is another Democratic lawmaker who's joined the DOGE Caucus and is firmly standing behind the decision.

In a recent statement, she said she came to Washington "to be in the rooms where the tough conversations are happening" — while also affirming her commitment to protecting Social Security.

"I oppose cuts to the Social Security Trust Fund — always have and always will," she said.

"The DOGE Caucus is a forum to discuss ways to find savings in the budget," she continued. "Anyone who thinks there aren't opportunities to make government more efficient and effective is not living in the real world. This isn't a partisan issue."

Rep. Ro Khanna of California

Khanna, who represents a district that includes a chunk of the Silicon Valley, is known for his progressive views. He has crossed the aisle on a range of issues, including legislation involving technology and veterans.

"President Trump signed five of my bills in his first term. I think I was the California Democrat who had the most bills signed by him, and it's because I looked for areas of common ground," Khanna said in a December interview with Spectrum News.

Regarding the DOGE, Khanna said he hopes to work with the commission to root out wasteful spending in the Department of Defense.

"American taxpayers want and deserve the best return on their investment," he recently wrote in a MSNBC op-ed. "Let's put politics aside and work with DOGE to reduce wasteful defense spending."

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware

During a November appearance on Fox News, Coons, a close ally of President Joe Biden, seemingly expressed an openness to some of DOGE's goals.

"They could save tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars," he said at the time. "Depending on how it's structured and what they do, this could be a constructive undertaking that ought to be embraced."

Coons also threw cold water on the $2 trillion figure, arguing that "there's no way" to make such dramatic spending cuts without impacting programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Sanders, a longtime progressive champion, turned heads when he wrote on X that "Elon Musk is right" regarding the need to tackle wasteful spending in government.

"The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its 7th audit in a row. It's lost track of billions," he said. "Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud. That must change."

Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York

Suozzi, a Long Island congressman known for his moderate brand of politics, said he looked forward to Musk and Ramaswamy's high-profile December visit to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers. However, Suozzi wrote on X that he was told the meeting wasn't open to Democratic members, a development he said was "unfortunate."

"I would have liked to attend the meeting and explore whether there are any opportunities to work across party lines to promote cost savings and efficiencies," he said. "Many of us on this side of the aisle share both the goal of making government more efficient, and actually have experience doing it."

• Every year, my dad would pick out the family Christmas tree at a nearby farm.
• After he had strokes, we figured out a way to continue to include him in the tradition.
• We kept up this new version of our ritual for over a decade.

We want holiday traditions to be static, each year repeating the last. In reality, kids grow, parents age, divorces happen, and jobs change, forcing us to adjust to suit new circumstances. We learned this when my father had strokes, and we fought to keep him involved in our annual tree fetch — a ritual that he'd started.

Decorating for Christmas was a task my dad adored, and finding the perfect tree was a contemplative task. At Nick's, the sheep farm with a few trees we went to every year, he studied spruce, fir, and balsam. When he found a promising one, he shook the snow off a branch, picturing how the lights would drape. Most trees were too fat, too full, and after what seemed like forever, my dad finally made his decision.

Our family repeated the tree-fetching ritual year after year

The older I got, the less I minded my father's measured pace. I didn't grow less impatient, just more appreciative. We kept coming to Nick's, and the trip unfolded sweetly and predictably. When my father asked our opinions, I knew that voting for a fuller Christmas tree was useless. The request for input was an opportunity for us to agree with his vision. Once he cut the tree down with his rusty handsaw, we dragged it to a clearing for a snapshot. The three of us beamed beside our scrawny tree, a scarf of impossibly soft hills behind us.

Dad took pictures using modest Kodaks and flimsy disposables, tracking time, and the expansion of our family. First, we added Jack, my husband-to-be, and then our first son. I valued the moment, a spot in the year that always happened.

So, when Dad had strokes, going from a spry and goofy 70-year-old to a stunned and humbled fellow, we had to keep him connected. The first year, we couldn't bring him because he was just regaining his strength. But when we brought the tree to my parents' house, we drank hot cocoa at the kitchen table and told him Nick said hello.

After my dad's strokes, we were determined to include him again

The next year, my husband was determined to get my dad back to Nick's. The idea terrified me. How could we get a wheelchair up the stony field? My mother wouldn't let it happen! Luckily, Jack ignored my resistance and made a plan with Nick to use a hay wagon, with a four-wheeler as backup, to get my father up to the trees.

When Jack proposed this, my parents said yes. They trusted him. He is a dancer and a tree surgeon, and when my dad was still able, he sometimes helped Jack at work. Wearing a hard hat, he dragged branches and helped lower limbs to the ground. Jack's use of trigonometry to get the branches away from a house really impressed him. "He's a wonder," my dad said. Yes, he was, but this was the first time he'd be assisting anyone in a wheelchair up a half-frozen field.

My mom sent us off to the farm. We were a caravan of minivans, holding my sister and her daughters, my brother, my family, and my dad. My sister and I helped our kids out of their car seats and fit their mittens into place. We helped Dad transfer from the car to his wheelchair and pulled on his gloves.

The event went without a hitch. Most of us climbed onto the hay wagon, but it was too high to hoist my dad. Jack and my brother helped him on the four-wheeler, and my brother sat in front of him and drove. I was in awe that Jack had imagined this day into a new shape.

At the top, Jack and my brother transferred Dad back to his wheelchair and took turns pushing him through the patch of trees. The rolling was rough, so he didn't survey every possible one, but he got a good sample. When he found what he wanted, Jack got him in place so he could saw it down himself.

Pictures of this day show a gray sky and patchy snow, all of us smiling. We were just a family fetching our Christmas trees, a normal and joyful thing. Did we lament that the day was different? We couldn't, because the tradition was still repeating, just altered.

We continued the tradition in this new way until my dad died

For the next dozen years, we kept going to Nick's. Instead of using the four-wheeler, Jack — and later, our eldest son — towed my father uphill. They looked like beasts of burden, pulling the patriarch. Jack tied a length of rope to the chair, and stepped into the loop, pulling it up to his chest. We made our selections — ours was always sculptural, a twist of pine regrown from a stump. The one for my parents' house went on the deck, so it could be 15 or 20 feet tall. We arranged ourselves at the outdoor photo studio and posed.

The year my father died, I don't remember what happened.

We still get our tree at Nick's. A young family now shares the tradition, and this makes me miss my father a little less. The trees are so tall that they've lost most of their lower limbs, and made a bed of needles. When the little boys run through the small forest, they kick up a terrific perfume of pine.

Their father is a tree surgeon, too, and this year climbed 15 feet up to cut down the top of a tree, which was still 20 feet of pine, to use at a community square. My family chose a 20-footer too, and have it on the deck that my youngest, a 21-year-old, built this summer. All of this rhymes with the traditions Dad began.

Family rituals don't work because we repeat them by rote. They work because we thread a feeling through a moment, sewing up time. We work like tailors, making adjustments to keep everyone, living and remembered, inside.

• Microsoft is diversifying the AI models for 365 Copilot to reduce reliance on OpenAI, per Reuters.
• The move aims to cut costs and improve speed for Microsoft's enterprise clients.
• Big Tech firms have invested heavily in AI startups to develop advanced models.

Microsoft is diversifying the artificial intelligence models it uses to power its flagship AI assistant, 365 Copilot, in a bid to reduce its dependence on OpenAI, Reuters first reported.

The Big Tech giant is moving toward adding internal and third-party AI models to help run its 365 Copilot to cut costs and address concerns about speed for its enterprise clients, per the report.

As one of OpenAI's main backers and corporate partners, Microsoft will continue working with the AI startup to develop frontier models.

"We incorporate various models from OpenAI and Microsoft depending on the product and experience," Microsoft said in a statement to Reuters.

Microsoft can customize OpenAI's model, per its original licensing agreement with the company. While Microsoft is currently training its own model, Phi-4, the software juggernaut is looking at modifying other third-party models to reduce the cost of running 365 Copilot.

Microsoft's lackluster debut of Copilot raised concerns about the software giant's ability to deliver on its AI ambitions, BI previously reported. Some customers appear to be dissatisfied with the product, spurring complaints that it is ineffective, expensive, and not secure.

In the race to develop powerful frontier models, Big Tech giants have scrambled to bulk up their arsenal of AI investments — and pumped billions of dollars into startups to help them achieve this goal.

Amazon has invested $8 billion into AI juggernaut Anthropic and used the startup's technology to power its digital assistant. This year, Google signed a deal with Character.AI, a startup that develops anthropomorphic chatbots, which allowed it to hire its founder and license its technology — a deal described as an "acquihire."

Microsoft and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment, sent outside standard working hours.

• Elon Musk's xAI raised $6 billion in its Series C fundraising, the startup announced on Monday.
• The round's participants included Sequoia Capital, and Nvidia and AMD were strategic investors.
• The AI startup plans to use the cash to ship new products and build out its infrastructure.

Elon Musk's xAI has completed its Series C funding round, raising a total of $6 billion, it revealed in a Monday blog post.

Musk's artificial intelligence company said the participants included a16z, Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Fidelity, Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holdings, Oman and Qatar's sovereign wealth funds, California-based Lightspeed Venture Partners, Chicago-based Valor Equity Partners, Dubai-based Vy Capital, and UAE-based tech investor MGX.

xAI added that chipmakers Nvidia and AMD took part as strategic investors and "continue to support xAI in rapidly scaling our infrastructure."

Musk shared the news on his X platform, writing, "A lot of compute is needed." He also tagged xAI in a meme generated by xAI's Grok chatbot that riffed on a famous line from the movie "Jaws."

Musk was likely underscoring the vast amount of processing power needed to train and run AI models, which has fueled enormous demand for microchips and underpinned a roughly eightfold rise in Nvidia stock since the start of 2023.

xAI, founded in March last year, raised $6 billion at a post-money valuation of $24 billion in its Series B round in May. The Wall Street Journal reported in late November that it had raised a further $5 billion at a $50 billion valuation. It appears xAI ultimately raised a bigger round of $6 billion, but the valuation wasn't disclosed.

The startup highlighted its progress since May in its blog post, including its launch of Colossus — the world's largest AI supercomputer powered by 100,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs, which xAI plans to double in size to 200,000 chips soon.

xAI also released version two of Grok, an application programming interface (API) for developers to build on its platform, its Aurora image generation model for Grok, and Grok on X.

The company said it's training Grok 3 and "focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that will leverage the power of Grok, Colossus, and X to transform the way we live, work, and play."

Musk's fledgling business said it would use the Series C funds to accelerate its infrastructure growth, ship new products, and speed up its research and development of tech that will enable its "mission to understand the true nature of the universe."

• Emily Schildt, 37, is a veteran brand marketer and CEO of Pop Up Grocer, a boutique grocery store.
• Pop Up Grocer, which has been called NYC's answer to Erewhon, has plans to expand across the US.
• Its success thanks to Gen Z viewing a pantry stocked with pricey snacks as a status symbol.

Emily Schildt is a millennial, but if you peeked into her pantry, you could easily mistake her for Gen Z.

Bank of America reported Gen Z customers spent more at premium grocery stores than any other generation in 2024. Younger consumers are more likely to buy luxury grocery items as they become priced out of more expensive purchases, like a house or designer handbag.

Schildt, 37, gets the hype. The self-proclaimed "peanut butter connoisseur" currently has two spreads on rotation in her Brooklyn home: One Trick Pony Nuts, a peanut butter made of Argentine peanuts and Patagonian sea salt, and Pistakio's pistachio spread. Together the two jars retail at over $25.

Schildt, the CEO of Pop Up Grocer, is accustomed to the price of luxury condiments. She launched the boutique grocery store in 2019 to spotlight the newest modern food and beverage brands.

The brand's first brick-and-store opened last year in the West Village. TikTokers dubbed Pop Up Grocer as New York City's answer to Erewhon — an upscale market chain in Los Angeles known as a celebrity hotspot and for pricing essentials like milk for $20.

Schildt was working as marketer for small food companies and saw firsthand how difficult it was for her clients to succeed at large retailers.

"You can obviously have a great product and a wonderful story to tell, but ultimately, it was really difficult, if not impossible, to find a shelf on which to sell your product," Schildt said.

That realization led her to launch Pop Up Grocer in 2019. Schildt told Business Insider, "I started as a single pop-up store here in New York and it was just 10 days long and it was really successful. So we went on to do nine more of those." Pop up Grocer raised a $3 million seed round in 2021.

Now, the company has evolved into a permanent store. Schildt said the store, which opened in 2023, has been successful "in terms of year-over-year growth."

"We have been fortunate to operate every unit since our start profitably," she said, adding "I'm very proud and excited about that."

"Now we are putting plans in place and making inroads to open a second store," she said.

Gen Z is redefining groceries as a luxury

The last four years haven't been without challenges.

First, there was the not-so-small hurdle of launching Pop Up Grocer during a worldwide pandemic. "It was wild," Schildt said, adding that she felt it has had a lasting impact on consumers.

People might be more "flush with cash" nowadays, she said, but "they're being very reserved about how they're spending it."

However, one demographic isn't afraid of splurging on pantry products: Gen Z. BI previously reported that Gen Zers are spending more on expensive snacks, food, and beverages than ever.

Schildt echoed this, telling BI the generation has redefined groceries as "a more accessible luxury product."

"A $20 Hailey Bieber smoothie from Erewhon might give you some clout among your peers and social audience," she said. Similarly, at Pop Up Grocer, some of the most expensive snacks have the highest sales in revenue.

A $20 Coconut Cult yogurt is small potatoes compared to a luxury handbag, but it still gives you a feeling of indulgence, Schildt said.

The Sephora of Food Retail

Like many CEOs, Schildt does some of her best problem-solving and ideating on the shop floor.

"I learned that I didn't really know my customers at all until, you know, I sat in our café for a week and watched how people use the store, what they're buying, and how they interact with our team."

It's a strategy that Schildt used long before she opened the first Pop Up Grocer store.

When asked about the Erewhon comparisons, Schildt said, "Erewhon is my Mecca," adding, "I went many times as a point of inspiration for starting my business. To go in there and to find camel milk as a concept was really sort of inspiring."

In the aisles of Erewhon, Schildt asked herself: "If I'm using the store in this way for discovery and inspiration, why isn't there a store that is created specifically for that purpose?"

Enter Pop Up Grocer.

"Ultimately, our goal is to be the Sephora, if you will, of food and beverage, of grocery," she said, "a place for discovering new brands and new products, for prioritizing, as a company, new brands and underrepresented and under-resourced founders across the US."

Aspirational grocery shopping is a promising market for Schildt to bet her success on. Erewhon made an estimated profit of $171 million last year and told Bloomberg it averages four times the annual revenue per square foot of other groceries. Bayley & Sage, a luxury independent grocery store in London, saw a 29% increase in revenue last year, according to the Financial Times.

Schildt wouldn't say where she plans to open the next Pop Up Grocer, though Los Angeles, a hub for the rich and famous of America, does seem like a logical next step.

If Pop up Grocer does head west, Erewhon should brace for some friendly competition, which Schildt said is necessary to grow the category.

"The more the merrier," she added.

• Madeleine White's pajama brand faced backlash over pricing and material quality.
• She took the website down and relaunched it seven months later with higher quality and lower prices.
• White told BI building back trust with her audience is the most important thing for her.

Madeleine White learned what happens when your brand is a huge miss with your fans the hard way.

When she launched her pajama brand, See You Tomorrow, in May, White was thrilled because designing fashion was all she ever wanted.

But the launch went awry. Fans didn't like the price point or the materials used in many of the garments, leading to cries that White was out of touch and had lost the authenticity she had grown her millions of followers for.

"It was always a dream starting my own business," White told Business Insider. "But I could not have been prepared for how difficult it's been.

A clothing launch backfires

White started making content after she lost her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to learn how to use a sewing machine.

Using her decade of experience in modeling, White became known for sharing thrifting videos and industry insights.

On Instagram, she now has 1.6 million followers, and on TikTok, she has 4.7 million.

But after See You Tomorrow launched, fans lamented that she'd forgotten her roots.

White's aim was always to create a brand that would resonate with her followers: one that wasn't budget or fast fashion but also wasn't high-end and unaffordable.

But while things started off well with over half a million visitors on the website, customers felt See You Tomorrow fell short on price point and quality.

"I feel like her original fan base have nothing in common with her current ventures," one said on the InfluencerSnark subreddit.

Under one Reddit post showing a $145 pajama set, customers said they weren't too eager about the price or the materials.

"They're cute, and I've been trying to focus on a smaller but more quality wardrobe, so the price didn't immediately turn me off," one said. "$145 for 100% polyester is absolutely insane though."

"She should get backlash for this, because choosing fast fashion materials but selling it at a high-end price is wild," wrote another. "Were this made from cotton satin or even a cotton silk voile it would be worth it. It would be sustainable."

White told BI she was aware of the complaints immediately and decided to take action. She took the site down and started rethinking the entire brand.

"We went back to the drawing board after a couple of days," she said. "I decided that unless I could fix most of these concerns that people had and really give it a proper shot, then it wasn't really worth continuing the business."

7 months later

White didn't want to make any announcements while things were in flux, which was hard to do with so many fans eager to know what was happening.

Seven months later, in December, See You Tomorrow relaunched with new, higher-quality pieces and lower prices.

"I decided to bet on myself and put my money where my mouth is and to create the product that I wanted to make," she said. "I trusted my instincts that something wasn't right and that we could do better — and we are doing better."

White had to find new manufacturers and pay for everything herself. She said that though it was hard, she's glad she took that leap of faith.

"I felt like it would be so much more powerful to my audience if I could prove to them that I actually cared about their opinions and I cared about that feedback," White said.

"It's easy to say, I'm so sorry, I fucked up," she added. "But it's much better to say I'm so sorry, I fucked up, and here is how I fixed it."

White told BI that the last few years have been a mad rush because she was so eager to start her own brand. In hindsight, she would have spent longer researching what she wanted to do and not taken the first offer that came along, she said.

"It was definitely an eye-opener," she said.

Trust is everything

White posted a TikTok this month explaining everything. She said what was most important to her out of everything was building trust again with her audience.

It seemed to pay off, with followers thanking her for her transparency and applauding her for listening to their concerns.

White said she doesn't care if she sells one product or a thousand with this new launch — she just wants to repair her relationship with her supporters.

"I've definitely learned just how badly launching a brand that people don't like can hurt your public image," she said. "It just goes to show how important it is for us as people with large followings to do things right."

She said she's also learned that people are happy to pay for quality as long as they know how a price point was reached.

White said influencers are held to a high standard, but ultimately, she sees that as a good thing.

"It just makes the brand better," she said. "I've learned so much, and I've definitely learned not to put my name on anything until I'm 100% happy with it."

• A Russian-flagged cargo vessel has sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, per Russia's foreign ministry.
• The Ursa Major ship went down after an explosion in the engine room, the ministry said.
• It comes after Ukraine said Moscow had sent four ships to Russian military bases in Syria.

A Russian-flagged cargo vessel has sunk in the Mediterranean Sea after an explosion in its engine room, Russia's foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Fourteen crew members were rescued, but two were missing, the ministry's situation and crisis unit said in a Telegram post.

A map posted alongside the statement suggested that the vessel's location was between Aguilas in southern Spain and the Algerian port city of Oran.

The ministry said the vessel, the Ursa Major, was owned by SK-YUG LLC, a Russian shipping company also known as SC South that has been sanctioned by the US.

Ship tracking data said the 466-foot vessel, built in 2009, last departed from St. Petersburg on December 11.

It comes after Ukraine's intelligence directorate reported on Monday that a Russian cargo ship called Sparta had broken down near Portugal after the engine failed.

The GUR said the ship had been sent to evacuate Russian weapons and equipment from Syria.

The crew was able to fix the vessel, and it continued on through the Strait of Gibraltar, the GUR said.

It remains unclear whether the Sparta and the Ursa Major are the same ship. Maritime tracking data shows that the Ursa Major was previously named Sparta III.

Moscow has operated two military facilities in Syria, the Hmeimin airbase and the Tartus naval base. Both have been crucial for projecting Russia's influence across the Middle East and Africa.

The fall of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad earlier this month has called the future of the bases into question.

Ukraine's GUR said earlier this month that Russia had deployed four ships to help evacuate equipment in Syria, including ships named the Sparta and Sparta II.

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

• Four Americans shared how a six-figure salary affected their lives.
• Higher salaries have helped them travel, pay off student debt, and improve their relationships.
• However, landing a higher salary came with long hours and more responsibilities.

Landing a higher salary can be life-changing, said four Americans who've reached this pay threshold over the past decade.

Due to rising prices in the past few years, a six-figure income doesn't go as far as it used to, but for many people, it's allowed them to splurge on travel or establish financial security.

Most Americans aren't six-figure earners: The average annual salary for full-time workers was about $82,000 as of November, the latest data available, per a New York Fed survey.

Business Insider asked four people who've made more than $100,000 annually about the biggest benefits of having a six-figure income. BI has verified their six-figure earnings.

The perks include enhanced relationships

David Houde first earned a six-figure income in 2015. This year, he's earning roughly $144,000 annually as a software engineer. The 48-year-old, who's based in Michigan, said boosting his earnings made him less hesitant to spend money.

"Even when grocery shopping, I used to try to keep a running tab of what I was spending," he said. "When I felt like it was getting too high, I'd start making decisions on what I could put off until the next time."

House said he occasionally relied on credit cards to purchase items, which accrued debt when he couldn't pay off the balance. Now he has enough money to not only pay off his credit card but have plenty left over.

Christopher Stroup, who first made $100,000 in 2014, said the pay bump helped him pay off his student debt.

The 33-year-old, who's based in California, said his income also enhanced his relationships with friends and family. He can afford to regularly travel with them or dine out at restaurants with them.

"I even have an annual goal to make it to Europe at least once," he added. "None of that would be possible if I weren't earning at this level."

Additionally, Stroup started his own financial planning business: He launched it in September after leaving his job in August. He said he's had to put a lot of money into his startup, but that he'd saved enough in recent years to both invest in his business and meet everyday expenses. He said he expects to earn over $100,000 in combined income this year from his prior job as a financial advisor and his business.

The perks can come with more responsibilities

Corritta Lewis first earned a six-figure income in 2018 and said her salary has doubled over the past few years. In 2023, she earned roughly $280,000 across her consulting job and a travel blog she runs on the side.

The 35-year-old, who's based in Orlando, told BI the extra income has allowed her and her wife to travel the world, plan for early retirement, and save for their son's future.

"We both graduated with crushing student loan debt that delayed our lives, so we want to ensure he is not in that situation," she said.

However, there is a significant downside to her higher income: "lack of time," Lewis said. Rising up the pay ladder has required her to sometimes put in long hours. The end of the year tends to be a particularly busy time — she said she's recently been working between 50 and 60 hours a week.

"I do not have as much free time to spend with my family," she said, adding, "I am trading my time today to reach a specific retirement goal."

She said she hopes to be able to pivot to part-time work in a few years after growing her savings further.

Similarly, for John, a millennial based in California, making more money has come with additional responsibilities.

He first earned a six-figure income in 2018 working in the IT sector and is on track to earn roughly $250,000 this year across a full-time and part-time job, both of which are remote.

John said one of the biggest impacts of his six-figure income is that he's been able to help out his family financially.

"I pay for my mom's rent and for the majority of my sister's medical expenses," said John. His identity is known to BI, but he asked to use a pseudonym due to fears of professional repercussions.

Even with these additional expenses, John said he has enough money for himself and worries less about his finances than he did earlier in his life.

"I could afford a decent quality of life without having to look at the prices of things, he said. "Given that I don't have a college degree, this was very freeing for me."

Are you making over $100,000 a year? Are you willing to share your story and the impact this income has had on your life? If so, contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Whalar Group cofounder Neil Waller shared his top predictions for the creator economy in 2025.
• He expects an increase in AI tools and more creators developing content calendars.
• Read his seven top creator-industry trends for 2025 below.

In 2024, a string of trends in the creator economy emerged or accelerated, from creator-led tours to buzz around artificial intelligence. But what will happen next year?

Neil Waller, cofounder of the creator-marketing agency Whalar Group, shared his top predictions for the creator economy in 2025 with Business Insider — from a continued rise of generative AI tools to audio.

Whalar Group runs a venture studio and a physical campus for creators. It also has a talent-management arm that helps clients grow their businesses and land brand partnerships.

Read Waller's seven predictions for 2025 below:

1. More creators will plan out their content calendars.

   From video themes to episodic content, Waller expects more creators to have planned content next year.

   "This can allow them to hire people around achieving those goals as well," Waller said. "Just more planning, and more content from creators that's thoughtfully stitched together."

2. An increase in talent managers.

   Waller said he thinks there will be an increase in the number of creator talent managers, both from external agencies and those hired directly by creators for their teams. (Whalar runs a talent-management firm for creators on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.)

   "The amount of managers that are in this industry now supporting creators has grown dramatically," he said. "I think we'll see far more creators have managers, and far more people get into the management space, which I think is a really good thing when done well because it helps professionalize the space, and provide creators with more time to work on what they want to do, which is create and build communities."

3. Platforms will lean more into generative AI tools.

   Waller said he believes there will be a larger wave of creators adopting generative AI tools into their workflows.

   "They've been experimenting already," Waller said. "I think just with the rate of understanding and the rate of new technologies coming, we're going to see an adoption of all sorts of different tools, not just chatbots, but help with editing, thumbnails, and animation."

   Aside from platforms like YouTube and Instagram integrating AI, Waller also mentioned several startups used by creators to help with workflow, like the captions tool Zeemo and the writing assistant Claude.

4. More creators will monetize their online communities through courses.

   "Creating a physical product is quite a heavy lift," Waller said. "But I think creators are in an interesting place to take their skills and teach online courses. There are a lot of interesting niches that I think could do this."

   Waller said tools and startups helping creators build courses or online products — from Mighty Networks to Kajabi — have made it easier for creators to start.

5. The creator economy will continue to professionalize and gain a new level of respect.

   Working in the creator economy has gained acceptance as a real (and aspirational) profession.

   "I see more and more educational creators teaching science, pottery, magic, finance, art, and we're just seeing lots of these interesting niches by professionals who are good storytellers and creators themselves," Waller said.

6. Audio is going to have another giant leap forward.

   "I think audio is going to have another big moment of growth next year," Waller said. "And I think it will be driven by AI toolsets where the AI technologies are going to dub a translation of the content in your own voice."

   Waller predicts that more accessible AI-powered tools will be available to change the movement of the creator's mouth to look as if they are speaking the dubbed language.

7. A new wave of athletes, politicians, musicians, and entrepreneurs will become creators.

   "Just look at the Kelce brothers," Waller said about athletes Travis and Jason Kelce and the success of their podcast. "We've already seen those moves start. But I think that group of professionals are going to massively enter into the creative space."

• In 2022, Melissa Petro's family skipped holiday stress for a meaningful trip to Sri Lanka instead.
• The trip was a celebration after she sold a book proposal and they met up with family members there.
• Staying in an Airbnb with hired help enhanced her experience and allowed for true relaxation.

From Elf on the Shelf to cookie swaps, matching pajama sets, ugly sweater office parties, and countless other traditions, the holidays can be the most wonderful — and exhausting — time of the year.

After I sold a book proposal in November 2022, I had no interest in putting up a tree or wasting money on toys my kids didn't need while battling a seemingly endless parade of wintertime illnesses.

Instead, I wanted to celebrate the win and spend meaningful time with my family before having to focus on writing. My husband and I decided to skip the seasonal stress of gifting and spend the money instead on a trip of our lifetime.

We chose a location that was special to us

My husband is part Sri Lankan, and his brother owns a hotel on the island's southernmost tip. Planning an epic trip to Unawatuna, Sri Lanka, made a lot of sense. Because a flight to Sri Lanka from New York takes around 19 hours, we wanted to go for a significant amount of time. All four of our flights cost around $4,000 in total.

Whenever we travel, I prepare my kids by looking at pictures and discussing what we'll see and do. At three and five years old, they were too young to notice that we were skipping most kids' favorite holiday.

Getting there was part of the adventure

Taking a monthlong midwinter trip will probably require that you pull your kid out of school. Molly was still in day care, and Oscar's kindergarten attendance is always good, so missing two weeks of classes wasn't a problem. At this time both kids were too young to be seriously invested in participating in the typical end-of-season pageants and fairs.

For the flight, I packed a bag of snacks and another bag of activities like coloring, puzzle books, and playdough — anything that'll strike them as novel when boredom hits. I space out meals, movies, and activities.

We were unsure how our children would manage a long-haul flight, so we opted for an overnight layover in Abu Dhabi. It was the middle of the night when we arrived in the Middle East, but due to the time difference and having slept on the plane, everyone was wide awake.

The hotel we booked had a 24-hour waterpark, so we went for a moonlit swim. The next morning, everyone slept in, and we had enough time to shop at a nearby mall before the next six-hour flight.

I thought having hired help would feel weird, but it was wonderful

We had the option to stay with family in a more remote area but chose to rent a two-bedroom Airbnb instead. We wanted to be closer to the beach and have space versus spending the entire trip with relatives. A monthlong stay cost just $1,650 — less than it would've cost to stay in a typical hotel. The property exceeded my expectations.

The house was traditional, with whitewashed cement walls, a thatched roof of woven palm fronds, and polished cement floors. It was surrounded by a walled-in garden with mango trees, coconut palms, colorful flowers, and cement urns holding rainwater occupied by tiny fish.

The property had a private butler who cleaned daily and cared for the garden. Breakfast every morning was included, and he cooked traditional Sri Lankan dinner whenever requested for an extra fee.

I worried that having an unfamiliar adult in our intimate space might feel awkward, but it didn't. He did our laundry by hand, and I appreciated that the house was clean when we returned from a day out. He was sensitive to our privacy and extremely patient with the children — and having his help meant that I actually got a vacation.

Instead of forced traditions, we enjoyed much-needed family time

We spent the last weeks of the year together on the beach instead of visiting Santa and last-minute shopping. We swam in the ocean, made sandcastles, and ate authentic seafood curries poolside at various local resorts. We visited a local street dog rescue and a sea turtle sanctuary.

The temperature in Unawatuna in December is between 75 and 86 degrees, so there's no hope for snow — and no disappointment when it doesn't happen. There's no driving through inclement weather, no seasonal spirit days at your kid's day care, and no Secret Santa gifts to buy or toss.

There were occasional reminders of the holiday — twinkle lights on a palm tree or a Christmas carol playing in the background, mostly for tourists' sake — but there isn't the gross display of consumerism that's ubiquitous in the West.

Santa didn't skip my kids entirely

My husband and I felt a little guilty skipping Christmas entirely, so on Christmas Eve, we cut down a branch from the rubber tree out back and ran to the dollar store to buy a few ornaments and some inexpensive trinkets for them to open in the morning.

Considering many families spend thousands of dollars each year on decorations, gifts, meals, and other holiday-related expenses, and then another couple thousand for an annual vacation, rolling it all into one expense made sense for us.

With a minuscule percentage of my typical effort, the kids were just as pleased. As they played with their new toys in the garden, they marveled at how Santa found us all the way in Sri Lanka.

• A recent documentary reveals what it's like to live in a home famous from a movie or TV show.
• Owners of the properties in "Home Alone" and "Halloween" have welcomed hordes of fans paying homage.
• Residents of the "Breaking Bad" house, meanwhile, put up iron fences and yelled at visitors.

Celebrity homes regularly make splashy headlines for their private beaches, basement bowling alleys, and dedicated trophy rooms.

But when the house itself is a celebrity, it can be a blessing or a curse.

In a new documentary, "The House From…", director Tommy Avallone takes viewers inside the iconic homes made famous from movies, including "Home Alone" and "American Pie," and television shows, including "Full House" and "Breaking Bad."

Some residents embrace the quirks of living in a fan-favorite home, where visitors might take photos outside, recite famous lines out loud, or even gather once in a while for a convention — like devotees of "Back to the Future" did in 2015 for the film's 30th anniversary. Other homeowners, however, take steps to keep die-hards at bay, from adding fences to charging for pictures.

Some movie-house owners embrace fans on 'pilgrimages'

In 2012, real-estate agent Marissa Hopkins listed the Winnetka, Illinois, home that Kevin McAllister bravely defended in the 1990 classic "Home Alone."

Hopkins said in the documentary that the spotlight can sometimes make famous homes even harder to sell.

"People want to come see the house when they're in town, or they actually make it a pilgrimage," she added.

John Abendshien, whose family owned the "Home Alone" house from 1988 to 2012, said that people started coming to gawk at the property within a year of the film's release in 1990 — but his family welcomed the looky-loos.

"It was a fun, positive experience," Abendshien said. "Why not share it with others?"

Fans of the 1978 classic horror film "Halloween" love to recreate an iconic image of Jamie Lee Curtis sitting on the front stoop of the film's main house with a giant pumpkin.

For years, Bianca Richards — the real-life owner of the South Pasadena, California, property — has not only welcomed fans, but made frequent trips to Michael's to make sure there are photogenic pumpkins on hand for their social-media shoots.

"I take my job very seriously," Richards said in the documentary.

Richards relishes the strangers who arrive at her front steps on any given day, accepting fan mail and action figures that people have sent over the years. She even keeps a scrapbook of thank-you notes "Halloween" buffs have sent her.

"I want people to have a good time," Richards said. "I just thought, 'I'm going to embrace this.'"

Other residents of main-character homes would rather fans stay far, far away

Some denizens of famous movie homes have gone to extremes to ward off fans.

The owners of the Oregon property used to film "The Goonies" have covered their home in a tarp to ward off photo-seekers.

It's a different story in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the residents of Walter White's home in "Breaking Bad" have a fiery relationship with the TV show's devotees.

Comedian Luke Mones, who visited the home in 2018, described how his pilgrimage turned hostile in the documentary. The owner, who was sitting outside in a lawn chair, started yelling at him when he approached the home, Mones said.

"'The show ended eight years ago. Get a life!'" Mones recalled the owner yelling at him.

The current owner has added iron fences, yellow caution tape, and an army of "Keep Out" and "Private Property" signs to deter visitors.

"The owner is horrible. Screaming obscenities at my young kids," one person wrote in a May 2024 TripAdvisor review for the home. "Rude lady! Needs to sell if she doesn't like the publicity!" another visitor wrote in April 2024.

The apathy to visitors might be understandable: Some "Breaking Bad" fans, recreating a beloved scene from the series, have been known to lob pizzas at the front door.

• Netflix is facing its latest live-stream test: two Christmas Day NFL games and a Beyoncé show.
• A Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight streamed live on Netflix was beset by technical difficulties.
• Netflix said it's applying learning from that unprecedented stream to avoid a repeat.

Netflix is hoping its latest live event won't break the internet.

The streaming giant will again test its technical limits when it streams two NFL games on Christmas Day — the first fruits of its three-season deal. (Netflix reportedly paid $150 million to air this year's two Christmas matchups, with additional games set for the 2025 and 2026 holiday seasons.)

And to raise the stakes even higher: Beyoncé will perform at the halftime show during the second game.

As Netflix's live spectacles grow in stature, so has the attention grown on any technical difficulties. Netflix told Business Insider it has learned from past issues.

Last month, a boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson was marred by buffering, poor image quality, and audio problems for certain viewers. Around 90,000 issues were reported on Downdetector at the time.

That wasn't the first time Netflix frustrated viewers with technical challenges. Last year, a live "Love Is Blind" reunion was delayed and ultimately filmed to air later.

The Wall Street Journal reported that issues during the Tyson-Paul fight arose because Netflix greatly underestimated viewership — with three times as many people tuning in as had been expected. This overwhelmed Netflix's systems and also left internet service providers unprepared, the Journal reported.

The Tyson-Paul fight was a record-breaking event, Netflix said, drawing over 65 million concurrent viewers globally.

"We were stressing our own technology, we were pushing every ISP in the world right to the limits of their own capacity, we were stressing the limits of the internet itself," co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at a conference earlier this month.

The company told Business Insider it worked quickly to stabilize issues for the majority of its members after problems arose during the Tyson-Paul stream. It said it's now applying lessons learned about its main pressure points as it looks to the NFL streams, including adjusting its content delivery, encoding, and streaming protocols.

Netflix is estimating the football games could attract 35 million concurrent viewers, the Journal reported, but is preparing for an audience in line with the boxing event.

Live programming is a prime target for advertisers because it draws especially engaged viewers. As Netflix has sought to build out its advertising business, it has signed costly content deals, including a $5 billion, 10-year deal for WWE programming and a pact with FIFA to air the next two Women's World Cup tournaments in 2027 and 2031 exclusively in the US.

The Tyson-Paul stream did not feature any ad breaks, though there were logo placements and in-broadcast integrations, Netflix previously told BI. The NFL games will be the first time Netflix has commercial breaks built into a stream, according to the Journal.

Inventory for both games is sold out, Netflix announced in November, with sponsors including the likes of FanDuel and Verizon.

And the day has been programmed like a full-fledged spectacle. Mariah Carey is set to kick off the broadcast, performing her Christmas staple "All I Want For Christmas Is You" — though it will be pre-recorded.

The Kansas City Chiefs are set to face off against the Steelers in the first game in Pittsburgh, beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Then, the Houston Texans are set to battle the Baltimore Ravens, beginning at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. Beyoncé Knowles is scheduled to perform at halftime during the second matchup — in her native Houston.

Netflix launched its ad-supported subscription tier two years ago and has amassed 70 million subscribers. The company has predicted advertising could eventually make up 10% of its revenues.

• Starting next fall, you'll be able to watch ESPN without paying for other cable channels.
• ESPN hasn't said how much its new streaming service will cost. Analysts think it might go for about $25 a month.
• ESPN isn't sure how many takers the new service will have. It's hoping a new ad campaign will prime the pump.

If you pay attention to the media business, you know that ESPN is going to cut the cord next year. Disney's sports channel is finally going to offer TV viewers a chance to subscribe to ESPN as a stand-alone streaming service, like Netflix or Max.

But ESPN needs to reach a much bigger audience than people who pay attention to the media business if this thing is going to work.

So here's a new ad that's supposed to "set the stage for ESPN's upcoming chapter," per the company's press release. It's going to start airing on Christmas.

This one isn't for me. But I'm not a professional ad critic. And lots of times, the ad campaigns that ad critics swoon over don't really move the needle, so who knows?

But I am old, and I remember the 1990s, when ESPN's SportsCenter was the center of the sports universe. And the winking, mockumentary spots it ran all the time made you feel like you weren't wasting your time watching sports. Sports were fun, but also funny, and you were in on the joke, too.

Anyway. Things are different now. Let's look ahead to the future. Specifically next fall, when what ESPN refers to as "Flagship" is supposed to launch. (This is different than the ESPN+ service it already sells, which shows you stuff that's not on ESPN; Flagship will be a streamed version of all the stuff that's on "real" ESPN.) How much will it cost, and how many people will sign up?

The company has yet to reveal pricing, or audience projections, so outside estimates can vary wildly.

MoffettNathanson analyst Rob Fishman thinks ESPN will sell Flagship for about $25 a month, and projects modest pickup at first: 1 million paid subscribers by the end of 2026, 1.5 million in 2027, and 3 million by 2030.

Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall is way more bullish. He thinks ESPN will sell Flagship for $23 a month, and projects 12 million subscribers in 2027, and 17 million by 2030.

That big spread reflects the uncertainty I've heard coming from Disney and ESPN insiders themselves. They simply don't know how many people will want to pay for a service that gives them a lot of sports, but not all the sports on TV. And they also don't know if the people who do pay are going to be cable TV subscribers who are trading down from a big bundle of channels — or if they will be cord-cutters/cord-nevers who aren't paying for cable in the first place.

That uncertainty was part of the rationale for ESPN's participation in Venu, the "Hulu for sports" streaming service that was going to cost $43 a month, and would include ESPN and other Disney channels like ABC, as well as sports and non-sports programming from Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. The thinking/hope was that between traditional TV, the stand-alone streamer, and the joint venture, ESPN would end up capturing whatever audience wanted to pay for sports, no matter how they wanted to pay for it.

Venu was supposed to have launched already, but has been held up by an antitrust legal challenge; a trial is supposed to get underway in early January. So if Disney and its partners win, ESPN could find itself launching two different streamers next year.

• Some overemployed Americans have secretly worked multiple remote jobs to increase their incomes.
• They've used the money to travel, save for retirement, buy cars, and pay off student debt.
• Many said job juggling was worth it despite the long hours and risk of professional repercussions.

Some Americans have increased their incomes by secretly working multiple remote jobs, and they're using the money to splurge or improve their financial futures.

In 2021, Robert was making roughly $180,000 a year from his tech job. When his workflow started to slow, he feared he could be laid off and found a job that paid $190,000 annually. He kept both remote roles, and in 2023, Robert earned more than $300,000 across the two.

Robert, a Gen Xer in Florida, said the extra income enabled him and his partner to take a roughly $20,000 cruise and spend another $10,000 on trips to Yellowstone, the Galápagos Islands, and Las Vegas, among other places.

"We spend a lot on travel because life is more about experiences and memories than material things," Robert previously told Business Insider. His identity is known to BI, but he asked to use a pseudonym because of his fear of professional repercussions.

Robert is among the "overemployed" Americans who have secretly worked multiple remote jobs to boost their incomes. Over the past year, BI has interviewed more than two dozen job jugglers who've used the extra money to pay off debt, save for retirement, and afford expensive weight-loss drugs.

To be sure, while some employers may be OK with their workers having a second job, doing so without company approval could have professional repercussions. Additionally, job juggling can lead to burnout, and the ethics of doing it in secret are up for debate.

But many current and former overemployed individuals told BI that the financial benefits were worth it, and some have used the money to build additional income streams. BI has verified their earnings, and their identities are known, but they asked to use pseudonyms because of their fear of professional repercussions.

Overemployed workers set up new earnings opportunities

Patrick, an account manager, earned about $200,000 last year secretly working two full-time remote jobs and doing some freelance work.

He used the extra income to pay off debts and make home improvements. It also allowed his wife to trade her full-time job for a part-time gig so she could spend more time with their child.

"I'm a new father, and my goal is financial freedom," Patrick, who's in his 30s and lives in California, previously told BI.

Some overemployed workers have tried to turn their extra earnings into additional income streams.

In 2023, Luke made about $225,000 across multiple remote jobs. The e-commerce professional said he used the extra income to make a down payment on a truck and start an Airbnb. He said he didn't want to become reliant on the extra income.

"I went into it saying that I was not going to use the money as spending money," Luke, who's in his 30s and lives in the South, previously told BI. "I was basically going to treat the money like it wasn't there unless it was something that I needed to buy that was big."

Over the past few years, Charles, a consumer-product professional in his 30s, earned between $100,000 and $300,000 annually by working multiple remote roles. His income fluctuated as he bounced between different jobs.

He said boosting his earnings made it possible for him to make home improvements, buy a rental property, and purchase a new car.

Some job jugglers have padded their savings or paid down debt

Some overemployed workers haven't splurged much and have instead used the money to shore up their finances.

Adam, who's in his early 40s, had roughly $118,000 in student-loan debt as of January 2023. The security-risk professional said juggling two remote roles and doubling his income to more than $170,000 had allowed him to significantly reduce his debt burden.

"I'm expecting to have all my student loans paid off before Christmas," Adam, who lives in Arizona, previously told BI. In November, Adam said he was still on track to meet this goal.

Adam said he also used his extra money to build a four-month emergency savings fund and help out a few friends financially.

In 2021, Phil, a software engineer in his 30s, saw his workload decline at his job. He thought the change would give him the time to juggle two remote jobs simultaneously.

Phil, who's in his 30s and lives in Texas, said his roughly $350,000 annual pay allowed him to allocate nearly $75,000 to his retirement funds last year.

"Overemployment definitely helps as far as financial security is concerned," he previously told BI.

Are you secretly working multiple remote jobs at the same time and willing to discuss details about your pay and schedule? If so, reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• These days, Hollywood is more focused on animated blockbusters for kids than on live-action movies.
• Although animated movies can be great, I think kids are missing out. They need to see real humans.
• My solution? Getting DVDs of '90s movies from the library for my kids.

Think of your favorite holiday movies as a kid: "Elf," "The Santa Clause," "It's A Wonderful Life," "Home Alone." What do they all have in common? Real people! They're live-action, not animated.

In fact, when you think back to some of your most cherished movies as a kid, assuming you were a kid before the year 2000 — I bet a lot of them are also not animated. "E.T.," "Honey I Shrunk the Kids," "The Parent Trap" (both versions!), "The Sandlot," "The Mighty Ducks," "The Goonies," "Newsies," Hocus Pocus," "The Princess Bride," "The Bad News Bears." And on and on and on.

I don't want to sound like a grump or overly nostalgic — but too many kids' movies these days are animated. I wish Hollywood were producing more live-action kids' movies! You know, with real people!

Please don't mistake this for disparaging the art of animation. I also believe that, overall, kids' movies are far better than when I was a kid. The average kids' movie in 1985 was probably fairly intolerable for an adult; whereas now I am perfectly happy to watch even the most average Pixar or Illumination movie with my kids. "Hotel Transylvania 2?" Totally enjoyable! "Boss Baby?" Fine by me! "Despicable Me 4?" You know what, it's really funny!

I appreciate that animation can create worlds and do things that could never be done in live-action, even with special effects. "Kung Fu Panda" or "Inside Out" simply wouldn't work if they weren't animated, and they're delightful.

In the decades since I was a kid, animated movies for kids have become studio blockbusters. "Inside Out 2," "Frozen II," "The Lion King (2019)," and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" are in the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time.

Why studios have moved toward animation

These tentpole films are expensive to make and take years of animation work. (For better or worse, it's possible that AI could make the process cheaper and faster.) There's also a low end of this — if you've ever seen some of the crummy animated movies that are straight to streaming platforms … yikes.

The movie business has changed radically because of streaming, and kids' content has been affected in specific ways. No one buys DVDs anymore, and that used to be a big revenue stream for certain genres like comedies and family movies. Now, it means that a movie generally has to earn a lot during its opening weekend. Hence, more sequels, even for animated kids' fare: Franchises are a safer bet.

This is the reason that for adult films, we see fewer romcoms, comedies, and smart dramas than we did 10 years ago, and more action movies and franchises. That same dynamic is playing out with family movies, too. You can imagine why a studio would rather do another "Frozen" movie than take a risk on something weird like "Mrs. Doubtfire."

The business reasons make sense. But I think kids are missing out if they're not seeing many live-action movies or TV shows — they're not seeing real actors showing emotions or real-world situations playing out. Seeing real kids, real adults, speaking, moving, even singing — that's a different kind of experience. I would posit that seeing real humans on film is important for young viewers to become true movie lovers, and to experience the pleasures of the art of film.

A good movie is a transformative and magical experience — and yes, animated movies can achieve this — but there's something to be said about the magic that real, live acting can bring.

I just wish more of these amazing live-action family movies were being made today.

How I find good live-action movies

When I browse the streaming services for movies for my preschool and elementary-age kids, I find that nearly all the movies available are animated. The rare live-action ones tend to be older movies from the '90s, probably put there to appease millennial parents.

(I would like to give a brief shoutout to the rare Netflix original live-action kids movie, "Yes Day," starring Jennifer Garner. It's delightful and a family-pleaser.)

I can't make the movie business work differently, but I can suggest something to my fellow millennial parents of young kids who want to find more good live-action movies to watch: Try your local library's DVD section. I've discovered that there are tons of good '90s and early '00s live-action movies out there that simply aren't on streaming services.

A hidden bonus feature of watching real DVDs instead of streaming is that it eliminates the thing where you open Netflix, and your kids see the thumbnail for a show they've already watched three times and start begging to watch it again.

I've been doing a fairly regular family movie night with my kids with my own hidden agenda: I get to pick the movie, and I always pick live-action movies. So far, it's been a success with my kids and I've even enjoyed movies I hadn't seen since I was a kid, like "Free Willy." It's enough to hold us over until "Paddington 3" comes out.

• My family's stay at a Mexico resort fell short despite a previous positive experience.
• The resort's lack of a booking system led to long waits for our large group of eight people.
• Mexico's tourism industry is growing, with a shift toward luxury-focused properties.

In August, I traveled from the UK to Mexico for a two-week vacation with my extended family of eight.

We stayed at The Fives Beach Hotel and Residences, an all-inclusive resort in Playa del Carmen that has five pools, 11 restaurants, and a spa.

We previously vacationed at the same resort in 2016 and loved it so much that we decided to stay there again on this trip for my uncle's 60th birthday.

But this time around, the hotel didn't meet all of our expectations and I would now think twice about booking an all-inclusive resort.

Our group of eight collectively paid at least £19,494, or around $25,434, for our two-week package vacation, which included flights from the UK.

Next time, I'd rather spend my money on an Airbnb or a different hotel that can better accommodate large groups.

We got upgraded on the second day

Half of my extended family lives in England, while my parents, my partner, and I live in Scotland.

We each booked the trip separately since we were traveling from different locations and had slightly different budgets.

My partner and I paid £4,394, or around $5,732, for our portion of the trip through TUI, a travel group that specializes in package vacations.

The price included our round-trip flights from Glasgow to Cancún, airport transfers, and our standard room at The Fives Beach Hotel and Residences with all food and drinks included.

Our standard room was supposed to have a king-sized bed, a bathroom, and a shower. But when we arrived, we noticed two single beds with a dresser between them.

We told reception about the issue, and to their credit, we were upgraded to a suite the following day for no extra cost.

Our suite had a king-sized bed, an open-plan living room and kitchen with two flatscreen TVs, and a balcony that overlooked the pool below.

This is the same type of suite that my parents booked, which cost an additional £500, or around $652.

We were delighted with the free upgrade; the resort more than made up for the mix-up.

A disaster dining experience

The resort's restaurants were vast, ranging from Mexican to Italian and Mediterranean food.

During our stay in 2016, there was a booking system for guests to reserve dinner each night. We never had an issue getting a reservation, despite the fact that there were nine of us.

When eight of us returned in August, we found out that the booking system had been scrapped, and guests were now required to show up without a booking.

We were probably impacted more than other guests because we were a large group. Sometimes, we had to wait in long lines, or we were asked to come back later. On one occasion, we had to wait for two hours to get a table for dinner.

We didn't have to wait as long for lunch, but this was because we were often asked to dine separately at two tables of four.

The only meal that presented no obstacles was the breakfast buffet, which was held in a giant restaurant with plenty of tables and staff.

We had paid a lot of money for this trip to celebrate my uncle's birthday. But this situation made my family and I feel like we were an inconvenience or an annoyance to the staff, who seemed to struggle to accommodate us.

A haphazard solution

During the second week of our trip, a staff member asked for feedback on our overall experience. My mom mentioned the issues we'd been having at the restaurants.

To our surprise, the staff member said the resort would make an exception for our group and allow us to reserve tables for the final week of our stay.

Our party was then given a timetable with reservations for dinner each night. We were thrilled by the turn of events.

This was definitely an improvement, but even after we were given the timetable, two of the restaurants completely forgot about our reservations when we showed up for dinner.

We tried ordering room service a couple of times, and we enjoyed it. But we couldn't keep this up every night, as the menu options were limited to mostly fast food and snacks such as pizza and nachos.

It's not unusual for all-inclusive resorts to host large groups such as wedding parties, bachelor and bachelorette groups, or families with children.

With that said, I couldn't understand why this resort would implement a system that worked against larger groups, who would evidently be paying a lot of money to be there.

Mexico ranks among the top 10 most favored tourist destinations worldwide, Miguel Turroco, the secretary of tourism, shared in a Visit Mexico report in June.

The country's tourism industry saw growth of 5.5% in the fourth quarter of last year — almost double the growth of the country's GDP — according to Turroco.

Duncan Greenfield-Turk, CEO of the travel agency Global Travel Moments, tells me that all-inclusive resorts have "maintained their popularity" in recent years, though he noticed a general shift toward luxury-focused properties "as major brands like Marriott and Hyatt expand their portfolios in Mexico."

But for groups who want something different, he recommends renting a property in Puerto Vallarta or Tulum, which he said have "plenty of space and personalized services."

Overall, my family still had a good experience, and we appreciated that the resort addressed our concerns.

I'm not saying I'll never try an all-inclusive resort again, but I won't be returning to this resort or any others without a booking system.

Next time, I'll follow Greenfield-Turk's suggestion to rent a private property that can better accommodate larger groups.

The Fives Beach Hotel and Residences did not respond to a request for comment.

• Elon Musk's startup xAI has attracted top talent since launching in July 2023.
• xAI has raised more than $12 billion and is valued at $50 billion.
• Its founding members have previous experience at the likes of Google, OpenAI and Tesla.

Elon Musk's startup xAI is one of the newer players in the artificial intelligence race, but that hasn't stopped it from bringing in top talent and soaring to a valuation of $50 billion in just 16 months.

Launched by Musk in July 2023 to take on OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, xAI's lofty goal is to "understand the universe."

The startup began with a team of 12 people who, prior to joining Musk's latest moonshot, worked at the likes of Google DeepMind, Tesla, OpenAI, and Microsoft. It has raised a total of $12 billion, including a $6 billion funding round that closed in December.

Since its launch, xAI has released a chatbot called Grok, which is now free for everyone to use. Some of its latest features include web search results, PDF upload, image understanding, and the ability to summarize conversations and understand posts. It has also rolled out an image-generating tool.

Grok has been trained on user data from X, the company formerly known as Twitter, which Musk also owns. That dynamic has given xAI a competitive advantage but also triggered an investigation from Europe's lead privacy regulator, resulting in X making concessions on some user data.

To compete with rivals like OpenAI and Google, xAI plans to tenfold the size of its Memphis supercomputer, which trains its AI models. The xAI team built the supercomputer, called Colossus, at breakneck speed, and it's already considered the largest of its kind in the world.

Meet the key figures at xAI who are driving the startup's rapid growth.

Igor Babuschkin

Babuschkin, a founding member of xAI, spent three years as a research engineer at Google DeepMind before he joined OpenAI. He returned to Google DeepMind for nearly a year, then left for xAI.

In a livestreamed conversation with Musk and others on X Spaces in July 2023, Babuschkin said he was originally a physicist and briefly worked at the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most advanced particle accelerator.

During that conversation, Babuschkin said he's "always been very passionate" about understanding the universe and then became interested in the deep machine learning and AI fields, and decided to make a career switch.

He added, "I was very passionate about language models and making them do impressive things, and now I've teamed up with Elon to see if we can actually deploy these new technologies to really make a dent in our understanding of the universe and progress our collective knowledge."

Manuel Kroiss

Kroiss previously worked as an engineer at Google DeepMind and coauthored several research papers on machine learning, the most recent being: "Launchpad: A programming model for distributed machine learning research."

Yuhuai (Tony) Wu

Wu previously worked at Google and Google DeepMind and spent a few months as a research scientist intern at OpenAI. He also spent over a year as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.

Wu said in the 2023 X Spaces livestream that his dream has been to tackle the most difficult problems in mathematics and AI. He has also coauthored a number of research papers on machine learning and large language models.

Wu has a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of New Brunswick and a Ph.D. in machine learning from the University of Toronto.

Christian Szegedy

Szegedy joined xAI from Google, where he spent 14 years of his career. His last role there was as a staff research scientist.

Szegedy holds a master's degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from The University of Bonn.

In a fireside chat with Nvidia data scientist Bojan Tunguz earlier this year, Szegedy said he had worked on chip design for 12 years.

Then, in 2010, at the age of 40, he decided to make a career change after realizing AI would be the next big thing and joined Google.

Jimmy Ba

Ba has a background in deep neural networks and is a former student of Geoffrey Hinton, who is widely referred to as the "Godfather of AI."

Ba is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. In 2023, the university awarded him a Sloan Research Fellowship, a program that the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation recognizes as individuals "whose creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders."

A LinkedIn post by the university's Department of Computer Science announcing the award said Ba's research has played a major influence in deep learning and focuses on creating efficient deep learning algorithms for neural networks.

In the X Spaces last year, Ba said his long-term research ambitions align with xAI's mission to "help humanity to overcome some of the most ambitious challenges out there" through AI tools.

Toby Pohlen

Pohlen spent over six years at Google DeepMind, where he was most recently a staff research engineer. The London-based engineer worked on evaluation tools for LLMs, as well as scalable reinforcement learning at Google DeepMind.

When xAI released Grok in November 2023, Pohlen shared a demo and suggested that the chatbot would have a regular setting as well as a "fun mode."

Ross Nordeen

Nordeen was previously a technical program manager at Tesla and worked on supercomputing before leaving to join xAI in 2023.

According to Musk's biographer, Walter Isaacson, Nordeen was called in to help Musk with a last-minute effort to move some data servers from Sacramento to Oregon.

Nordeen is said to have bought the entire stock of AirTags from an Apple Store in San Francisco, worth $2,000, so he could track the journey of the servers that were being moved.

Nordeen paid a further $2,500 at Home Depot for tools like wrenches, bolt cutters, and headlamps to help with the mission to remove and transfer the servers.

Greg Yang

Yang works on mathematics and the science of deep learning at xAI and was previously a researcher at Microsoft for more than five years.

In the X Spaces session, Yang said he took time off from his undergraduate degree at Harvard University and became a DJ and dubstep music producer. He said that after some introspection, he figured out that he didn't want to be a DJ.

He said his goal is to make artificial general intelligence happen, adding that he wants to "make something smarter than myself." He then studied mathematics to pursue his career ambition.

Guodong Zhang

Guodong has a Ph.D. in machine learning from the University of Toronto. He started his career in AI as a research intern at Microsoft, then Google Brain, and Google DeepMind.

He then spent about 10 months as a research scientist at Google DeepMind before he joined xAI as a pretraining lead.

Zihang Dai

Dai also joined xAI from Google, where he was mostly recently a senior research scientist and spent over five years at the company.

He holds both a master of science degree and a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

• Russia's natural-gas transit deal with Ukraine is set to expire soon, which would cut billions in revenue.
• The deal's possible end affects European countries relying on Russian gas via Ukraine.
• Russia has shifted much of its energy exports to India and China amid Western sanctions.

Russia is set to lose yet another source of income for its war chest in days — and it's Ukraine calling the shots.

An agreement to let piped Russian natural gas transit via Ukraine to Europe is set to expire at the end of the year, depriving Moscow of billions of dollars in income for its wartime economy.

European countries receiving gas from the pipeline have voiced concerns about the end of the supply, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said that the five-year agreement will not be renewed.

Russia has meanwhile said it's ready to extend the agreement — though President Vladimir Putin said last week that it was "clear" there wouldn't be a new contract.

Still, the situation could change.

Zelenskyy said last week that Ukraine could consider continuing the arrangement if Russia doesn't receive payments for the fuel until the war ends.

On Monday, the Kremlin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the gas transit was complicated.

"The situation here is very difficult, requiring greater attention," Peskov said, according to the TASS state news agency.

Russia is probably making $5 billion in gas sales via Ukraine this year

The end of the five-year transit deal would be a blow for Russia, which could make about $5 billion from gas sales via Ukraine this year alone, according to Reuters' calculations based on Moscow's gas price forecast.

It would also impact several European countries that still depend on Russia for gas, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Austria. There are alternative energy sources and pipelines available, but they could be pricier.

Ukraine could lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year in transit fees — a Kyiv consulting firm told Bloomberg in September that this amounted to about $800 million.

But Ukraine's $800 million revenue from transit would just be a "paltry 0.5% of the country's annual GDP," analysts at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a think tank, wrote in a report last week.

They argued that it was "simply preposterous" to think that continuing the transit deal would offer Ukraine a security guarantee as Russia would want to preserve its gas flows to Europe.

This is because "Russia always put itself first," the analysts added.

Russia diverts energy flows away from Europe

The end of the Ukraine transit route for Russia's gas would put more pressure on Putin's wartime economy, which has plummeted because of sweeping Western sanctions targeting its massive oil and gas trade.

Energy accounts for about one-fifth of Russia's $2 trillion GDP. The country's energy revenue fell 24% last year on the back of sanctions and continues to be under pressure this year as Europe weans itself off Russian gas.

Russia once accounted for as much as 40% of Europe's gas market, but the EU has cut its reliance on the fuel since the Ukraine war.

In response, Russia has diversified its energy customer base, diverting most of its previously Europe-bound oil to India and China.

On Friday, the Russian energy giant Gazprom said in a Telegram post that it delivered a record amount of gas to China via an eastern Siberian pipeline. It didn't specify the volume of gas it delivered but said it was above its contractual obligations with the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation.

• Telegram is profitable after 11 years, thanks to ads and premium subscriptions, its CEO said.
• The platform's revenue exceeded $1 billion, with $500 million in cash reserves.
• Telegram faces global scrutiny over misinformation and its lack of content moderation.

Encrypted messaging service Telegram is finally profitable about 11 years after it was founded, CEO Pavel Durov said Monday.

Durov wrote in a post on his Telegram channel that the messaging platform turned profitable this year because of revenue from ads and its premium subscription. It also paid off a "meaningful share" of its $2 billion debt, he said.

Telegram has been pushing monetization efforts this year such as a revenue-sharing model for content creators and a business-level subscription tier. The premium monthly subscription costs $4.99.

Telegram's 2024 revenue surpassed $1 billion, and the company has $500 million in cash, excluding crypto, the Russian-born founder wrote. He said the results "demonstrate that social media platforms can achieve financial sustainability while staying independent and respecting users' rights."

The milestone is a big improvement from last year's figures: Telegram lost $108 million on revenue of $342 million, according to The Financial Times in August. Losses in early years are common for growing tech and media companies and Durov even floated the idea of a public listing earlier this year.

The messaging service, which said it has about 950 million users, has faced a series of controversies, including bans and scrutiny over the spread of misinformation. In August, French authorities arrested Durov and issued preliminary charges for allowing what they deemed criminal activity on Telegram. Durov has not been allowed to leave France since.

"Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach," Durov wrote on his Telegram channel at the time.

He acknowledged that the platform's growth spike caused "growing pains" that made it easier for criminals to abuse, but said it isn't an "anarchic paradise."

Spain, Germany, and the UK, among other countries, have considered banning the app or placing sanctions because of what they see as disinformation on the platform and a lack of response to government requests to take down some posts. Telegram differs from other social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, because it has little to no content moderation. It is banned in China, Thailand, and Iran.

Telegram was banned in Russia between 2018 and 2020 after Durov denied the Kremlin access to user data. Durov left Russia in 2014 after similar problems with his previous social network venture.

Today, Telegram is popular in Russia and plays a major role in information about the war in Ukraine.

• Netflix has dropped many original, well-received series in 2024.
• "Bridgerton," "Nobody Wants This," and "Baby Reindeer" are among the most-talked-about series of the year.
• "Supacell" season one and "Ripley" have also received critical acclaim.

Some of Netflix's best shows of 2024 are fresh offerings from the streamer.

Over the years, Netflix has created several award-winning hit series, from "Stranger Things" and "The Crown" to "Emily in Paris."

"Bridgerton" is another big hit. After its release in May and June 2024, its third season became the sixth most-watched English Netflix TV show of all time.

But many established shows haven't returned in 2024, providing space for series including "A Man on the Inside," "One Day," and "Baby Reindeer" to shine.

Here are the Netflix originals released in 2024 that have scored highly on Rotten Tomatoes.

"Ripley"

Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%

"Ripley" differs from previous adaptations of Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" books by being filmed in black and white, creating an enchanting noir world.

Like in the book, Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) is a con man who is pulled into a world of extravagant wealth when he is hired to bring a son home to his father.

This adaptation is a slow-moving psychological thriller, but if you can survive its pace, you will be rewarded with a visually beautiful piece of television and another amazing performance from Andrew Scott.

Terminator Zero

Rotten Tomatoes score: 86%

"Terminator Zero," the first anime set in the "The Terminator" universe, flew under the radar when it premiered in August. However, critics praised the series, saying it had stunning animation.

The series takes the story format of past "Terminator" projects and brings it to 1997 Tokyo.

Malcolm Lee (voiced by Yūya Uchida in Japanese and André Holland in English) is developing a rival AI system to Skynet when he is visited by a Terminator. He and his three children try to escape from the assassin while being helped by a mysterious soldier from the future.

"Griselda"

Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%

"Griselda" — a limited series about the life of Griselda Blanco (Sofía Vergara), a real-life drug trafficker who died in 2012 — was Netflix's first big hit of 2024.

"Griselda" does not stick to the facts of Blanco's life but portrays a fascinating, fast-paced story about the self-destructive nature of greed.

Critics praised Vergara as the standout in the series for portraying Griselda's transformation from housewife to brutal killer. Vergara is best known for starring in comedies, but "Griselda" showed she can handle serious roles.

"Bridgerton" season three

Rotten Tomatoes score: 87%

Though there are plenty of complaints about this season of "Bridgerton," the show's writers still managed to hook audiences in for another eight episodes of romantic chaos.

The series sees lead couple Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) figure out whether they can be more than friends.

Fans and critics praised Coughlan and Newton's cozy chemistry, while supporting characters like Francesca Bridgerton (Hannah Dodd) and Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen) stole the show with spell-binding performances.

The franchise also finally committed to including LGBTQ+ characters in the "Bridgerton" world by confirming that two siblings are bisexual, teasing more great romances to come.

"One Day"

Rotten Tomatoes score: 91%

Netflix dropped the perfect romantic drama right in time for Valentine's Day in 2024.

"One Day," an adaptation of David Nicholls' bestselling book of the same name, is about a 20-year relationship between two people, Dexter (Leo Woodall) and Emma (Ambika Mod), who couldn't be more different.

Each episode jumps a year forward to show how their relationship has changed, making the series easy to binge. Woodall and Mod are captivating with their subtle but convincing performances, bringing Dexter and Emma to life.

Though the story is remembered for its devastating ending, every bit of "One Day" is thrilling television.

"Dead Boy Detectives" season one

Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%

Since the end of "Supernatural," there has been a gap for a new supernatural mystery series to take over, and "Dead Boy Detectives" may be the perfect successor.

Though the show is technically a spinoff of Netflix's "The Sandman," they couldn't be more different. Two ghosts (George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri) choose to stay on Earth instead of going to the afterlife and begin a new career solving paranormal mysteries with a psychic medium friend.

The cleverly written series blends the case-of-the-week format with an overarching villain, making it fun for all types of fans.

"Nobody Wants This" season one

Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%

"Nobody Want This" was arguably the biggest surprise hit of the second half of 2024.

Based on the life of the series' showrunner, Erin Foster, "Nobody Wants This " follows a burgeoning relationship between an unlikely couple: a self-destructive, agnostic sex podcast host and a modern "hot rabbi."

Fans and critics alike thought Kristen Bell and Adam Brody had irresistible chemistry and were mostly won over by the pair's performance rather than the series' story.

Brody's performance marked a revival for the actor.

"Black Doves" season one

Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%

Netflix had so much confidence in "Black Doves" that it renewed it for a second season in August before the first season dropped.

The gamble paid off. "Black Doves" received critic praise and a Golden Globe nomination. During its premiere week, it was also the second most-watched series in English on the platform.

Keira Knightley stars as Helen Webb, the wife of a UK political figure and an operative of a spies-for-hire organization. When Helen's secret lover is killed, her organization sends Sam Young (Ben Whishaw) to protect her. Together, they investigate her lover's murder.

Knightley and Whishaw give great performances in this thriller full of surprise twists that seamlessly blend violence and comedy.

"A Man on the Inside" season one

Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%

The last time showrunner Mike Schur and actor Ted Danson teamed up, they created "The Good Place," which was named one of the top 10 best shows of the 2010s by AV Club, Time, and Vanity Fair.

Now they're back with another show that's making fans laugh and cry, "A Man on the Inside."

The series follows Charles Nieuwendyk (Danson), a widower grieving the loss of his wife, who is hired as a spy in a retirement home to help a private investigator solve a theft. Along the way, Charles makes new friends, reconnects with his daughter, and learns about combating loneliness as he grows older.

The series has great performances across the cast, including Danson, Stephanie Beatriz, Sally Struthers, and Stephen McKinley Henderson.

"The Diplomat" season two

Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%

"The Diplomat" earned SAG, Emmy, and Golden Globe award nominations after debuting in 2023 with an 84% Rotten Tomatoes critic score.

Season two received an even better score and solidified the show as one of the most exciting thrillers on TV right now. The show could win more awards in 2025.

Keri Russell is the standout actor as Kate Wyler, a US ambassador to the UK who is helping to defuse an international crisis while the White House moulds her to step in as the new vice president.

In season 2, Kate finally meets the VP she is meant to replace, Grace Penn (Allison Janney).

"American Nightmare"

Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%

Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins, the filmmakers behind Netflix's "The Tinder Swindler," released an arguably even more harrowing true crime series in 2024 with "American Nightmare."

The show was based on the case of Denise Huskins, a woman who was kidnapped, drugged, and raped in 2015. When she was let go by her kidnapper, the police accused her and her boyfriend of faking the kidnapping.

The real culprit, Matthew Muller, was arrested later that year for a similar home invasion, and investigators later found evidence that linked him to Huskins' kidnapping.

"American Nightmare" is a sensitive, riveting retelling of this case without the sensationalism seen in some other Netflix true crime shows.

"Baby Reindeer"

Rotten Tomatoes score: 99%

"Baby Reindeer" may be on your radar because of the multiple controversies concerning the real-life people who inspired the show.

Based on writer Richard Gadd's autobiographical one-person comedy show, "Baby Reindeer" is about an aspiring comedian who is stalked by a woman he serves at a pub.

Gadd takes the audience on a nuanced, darkly comedic, and shocking emotional roller coaster as he unpacks his trauma. No wonder "Baby Reindeer" won six Emmys in 2024.

"Supacell" season one

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

We may be in an era of Superhero fatigue, but that has not stopped "Supacell" from becoming a Netflix hit in 2024.

The sci-fi drama follows a group of Black people living in South London who discover they have superpowers. Together, they must fend off a secret organization hunting them and save an important person.

The initial logline sounds like every superhero story, but "Supacell" strengthens its storyline by shining a light on the experiences of Black Londoners.

The series boasts a talented cast of rising stars and great action sequences. It also shines a light on sickle cell anemia, a historically poorly understood condition that mostly affects people of African and Caribbean backgrounds.

"Girls5Eva" season three

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Thank god Netflix picked up "Girls5Eva," the riotously funny comedy created by "Umbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" alum Meredith Scardino, for a third season.

The series follows a has-been '90s girl group who reunites after a young rapper samples their single "Famous 5eva" and makes them relevant again. "Girls5eva" has it all: jokes on jokes on jokes, themed songs about Fort Worth, Texas, and Renée Elise Goldsberry reliably giving the comedy performance of her life every single episode, among plenty of other redeeming attributes.

While it's one of the funniest shows on television, "Girls5eva" also has a lot of heart and commentary on queer fandom, modern fame, and female friendship.

"Heartstopper" season three

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

For the third season in a row, "Heartstopper" is one of the highest-rated Netflix original series of the year.

"Heartstopper" is a cozy, wholesome series about the relationship between two British high school students as well as the highs and lows of teenagers' lives from a queer lens.

Season three is filled with fun cameos from British actors includin Hayley Atwell and Jonathan Bailey, and great performances from the lead actors Kit Connor, Joe Locke, and Yasmin Finney.

"Arcane: League of Legends" season two

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

"Arcane" season one, a video game adaptation of "League of Legends," received a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating, a 96% Rotten Tomatoes fan rating, and won four Emmy awards.

Though fans and critics said season two's conclusion was rushed, they praised it for its beautiful animation and electrifying action.

"Arcane" season one is a decadeslong, tragic story about the class conflict between the technological utopian city of Piltover and its neighboring poor city of Zaun.

The two cities head toward war in season two following the previous season's cliffhanger, where Jinx, a mentally ill criminal from Zaun, shoots a rocket at the Piltover's governing council.