• An uptick in retirements and a decrease in immigration could help some job seekers.
• US businesses are hiring at the lowest rate since 2013, excluding a two-month dip in 2020.
• A smaller workforce could aid some job seekers but poses risks to the economy.

An uptick in retirements and a decrease in immigration could make it easier for some Americans to find work this year.

Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told Business Insider that these factors are likely to make it "slightly easier" for some people to find work in 2025 — particularly those looking for "in-person, skilled-labor" jobs where hiring is the strongest on Indeed's job platform.

"Backfills for retiring employees, paired with fewer workers coming from abroad, are likely to mean less competition for many roles," he said, referring to government projections of lower net immigration levels this year and next, along with the potential for stricter immigration policies under the incoming Trump administration. "But it's probably still going to feel harder to find a job than it did during the hiring surge we saw in 2021 and early 2022."

There are some signs that the hiring landscape could improve, and economists told BI that the ongoing retirement wave and the potential for lower immigration levels could favor job seekers this year.

This could be the break many people wanted. While the unemployment rate remains low compared to historical levels, US businesses are hiring at the lowest rate since 2013 — excluding a two-month pandemic-related dip in 2020. This has made it harder for some people to find work. As of December, roughly 1.6 million people had been looking for work for at least six months — up from 1.3 million a year prior.

Stahle said that 2025 could mark an "important inflection point" when demographic factors begin to lead to a decline in the labor force participation rate — which he added has been roughly flat over the last year.

"Once that process starts, it is unlikely to reverse course without a massive surge in immigration or growth in labor market involvement from older workers above all-time highs," he said.

A gap in the workforce could be on the horizon

About 1.1 million baby boomers retired in 2024, and an estimated 2 million will do so this year, Adam Schickling, a senior economist at Vanguard, told Business Insider.

Schickling said there are roughly 8 million working Americans between the ages of 63 and 67 — a common age range for retirement. While there were a similar number of people in this group last year, Schickling said a larger share of this year's cohort is older — between the ages of 65 and 67 — which is among the reasons Vanguard expects an uptick in retirements.

Schickling added that some older workers postponed their retirements because the strong labor market made it easier to secure work. But he said many of these workers will likely choose to retire before they turn 70.

"2025 is shaping up to be one the biggest years for baby boomer retirements," he said. That, coupled with a smaller-than-usual cohort of people between the ages of 20 and 24, suggests there will be a very low labor supply growth this year, he added.

Stahle said workers over 55 are spread across the labor market but are particularly common in business, management, healthcare, and education roles.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office projected last year that net immigration levels — and overall population growth — would begin declining in 2025. Additionally, on the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump said he would carry out the "largest domestic deportation in American history," though the extent of his plans is unknown.

"If the incoming administration follows through on promises of limiting immigration and implementing mass deportations, it is likely that we see the demographics impact the labor supply sooner rather than later," Stahle said.

Leisure and hospitality, construction, and agriculture are the industries with the highest share of immigrant workers who are not US citizens as of 2022, per the most recent Census Bureau data available.

When reached for comment, Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition team, said that as president, Trump "will enlist every federal power and coordinate with state authorities to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history while simultaneously lowering costs for families and strengthening our workforce."

A smaller workforce could ultimately hurt the economy

To be sure, it's uncertain how much retirements and changes to immigration levels will impact the US labor supply in 2025. Kory Kantenga, head of economics, Americas, at LinkedIn's Economic Graph Research Institute, told BI that retirement levels have been relatively stable over the past year, per LinkedIn data. Additionally, the specifics of the Trump administration's immigration policies haven't been announced.

While a lower labor supply might help some Americans find work, it could also come with significant economic downsides.

"Declining labor supply can improve prospects for job-searchers, but too few workers can also result in inflationary wage growth and supply disruptions that perpetuate inflation," Schickling said. For example, labor supply issues in the construction industry — which has long relied on immigrant labor — could make it more difficult for the US to increase its housing supply, he added.

Kantenga said that in the long run, having an economy with fewer workers could lead to lower consumer spending and slower economic growth.

"Slower growth means fewer opportunities for everyone," he said, adding, "And so it's not necessarily clear that it's going to make workers better off just because it may be easier for them to find a job."

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• Business Insider asked successful men across industries about their favorite fashion.
• Some said they love fan-favorite athleisure brands like Alo Yoga and Lululemon.
• Others prefer pieces from Loro Piana, Acne Studios, and Buck Mason.

It doesn't matter if they wear scrubs or suits during the workday.

Successful men across industries have scoured stores and websites to find their favorite fashion items.

Some have landed on sites like The RealReal, where they buy designer suits for half the retail price. Others buy tops, jeans, and other wardrobe essentials from designers who have local boutiques in their areas.

Here are the brands and pieces a few professionals told Business Insider about, from fan-favorite athleisure to designer denim.

Pants from Alo Yoga are one venture capitalist's secret to feeling comfortable at work.

Rob Biederman, 38, is busy. He founded Asymmetric Capital Partners in 2021, now works as the fund's managing partner, and was named a BI rising star of venture capital in 2023.

He also serves as chairman for Catalent Technologies, the pharma and biotech company he previously founded.

Whether he's sitting in an office or on the go for a work trip, Biederman has found the $128 Day and Night pants from Alo Yoga to be the most comfortable and work-appropriate option on the market.

"I'm actually wearing them right now," he said during an interview with BI. "I might wake up in New York, fly to Boston, fly to San Francisco, then fly to London. So, I need things that can do well across multiple days. They can't get wrinkled if I wear them twice."

In his experience, Alo's slacks fit the bill. They're sold in four neutral colors, and each pair has four pockets.

He also incorporates pieces from Billy Reid and Buck Mason throughout his wardrobe.

"They're two brands that I find to be such undiscovered players," Biederman told BI. '"And it happens that both of their stores are really close to my apartment in West Village."

He describes clothes from both brands as classy, stylish, and crafted with quality. Biederman said they also hold up well after airplane rides and busy days.

Buck Mason is best known for its jackets, button-up tops, and thermal layering pieces. The brand's menswear items range from $45 to $1,498.

Billy Reid, on the other hand, sells elevated basics like lambskin jackets, printed button-ups, and peacoats, with each piece costing between $68 and $1,998.

Depending on the occasion, one art professional switches between denim from Andersson Bell and DL1961.

Paul Hill, the 25-year-old founder of the art-tech company Strada, describes himself as a "big uniform guy."

He spends his days operating a New York City gallery and developing workflow management software for the art industry. So he prefers to keep his wardrobe simple.

"I'm just like, let me pretty much wear the same thing as much as possible every day," he said with a laugh.

The base of his outfits is always a pair of jeans from one of two brands. When he wants a classic fit, he wears New York-based DL1961, which sells sustainably-made pants that cost between $158 and $258 each.

On days when he wants to go high-fashion, however, Hill turns to Andersson Bell. Designer pants from the Seoul brand feature patchwork patterns, oversize pockets, and unique washes. They cost upward of $306 each.

One tech professional in the education space alternates between three designer brands.

Sasha Bratyshkin, 28, formerly worked as an engineer at Facebook and now serves as the cofounder and chief technology officer of Housing.Cloud, a platform that helps students find housing.

In the summer, he enjoys wearing designer pieces from Dries Van Noten and Jacquemus. The latter is known for its cropped jackets, statement button-up tops, and graphic hoodies. Its menswear pieces cost between $150 and $4,590 each.

But at the start of the year, you can usually find Bratyshkin wearing Acne Studios.

"They have great sweaters," he said of the Stockholm-based brand. "It's a cozy line."

The average knitwear piece from the brand retails for $620.

He also searches for new fashion pieces on Ssense.

Since the end of 2024, Bratyshkin has been using the e-commerce site Ssense to find designer pieces at discounts — specifically ones that keep him warm in the winter.

"I'm having a little cardigan phase, so I'm shopping for a lot of that stuff on there," he told BI.

The website sells brands like Bottega Veneta, Comme des Garçons, and Stella McCartney and occasionally offers discounts you likely wouldn't find on the retailer's website.

A finance professional creates his ensembles using garments from John Elliott and 3sixteen.

Reed Switzer, 24, created the fintech company Hopscotch, which helps small businesses pay bills more easily.

He wears Buck Mason's $158 chinos for work most days. On his days off, however, he typically wears jeans from the New York City brand 3sixteen, specializing in Japanese denim. Pairs usually cost around $250 each.

"It's really, really solid stuff," he told BI about the brand's products. "I always had issues finding jeans that I really liked, and this brand just kills it."

As for tops, Switzer gravitates toward heavyweight, good-quality tees. He's a big fan of the $158 ones from designer John Elliott.

"I think they're really great, basic, plain T-shirts," he said. "And the cut on them is always really nice."

His suits of choice come from the Italian brand Loro Piana.

"Any time I need to be a little bit more dressy, Loro Piana, I think, is classic," Switzer told BI. "You can't go wrong with them."

The brand's suits can cost between $4,200 and $6,825 and are favored by celebrities like Andrew Garfield.

Switzer said he also enjoys the designer's trousers for work days.

No matter the occasion, this real-estate professional wants to wear Lululemon.

"Regardless of whether I'm staying in the house or I'm going out, you'll always catch me in some form of a Lululemon outfit," Bryce Grandison, a 27-year-old former real-estate analyst, told BI.

Now studying to become a licensed agent in his home state of Georgia, Grandison doesn't have much time to focus on fashion. So, he sticks with matching sets.

He especially likes the brand's jersey pieces, which range in price between $58 and $98, the $128 ABC joggers, and the $128 half-zip sweaters.

The RealReal is the ideal place to create a luxury wardrobe, says one dermatologist and CEO.

Reed Waldman, 30, is a dermatologist and the CEO of Veradermics, a biopharmaceutical company he founded. During each workday, he wears his personal uniform: a blazer and trousers or a full suit with a tie.

"I don't think I've bought any brand-new clothes in several years," he told BI. "I am an avid shopper of The RealReal. I primarily wear Cesare Attolini, Tom Ford suits, and Hermès ties."

He discovered the retail platform when he first entered the dermatology field with only one suit in his closet. A colleague suggested he try some designer pieces from the secondhand site.

"I think I bought some navy Brioni blazer for $70, and I was like, 'This is so much cheaper than going to Macy's,'" he said. "And people were like, 'This is a really nice blazer. You look really nice.' So then I started buying a lot more dress clothes."

• Brandy Melville is expanding in Asia with a new store in Seoul, South Korea's capital.
• The store is in Seongsu-dong, a hip neighborhood often likened to Brooklyn.
• The store saw snaking queues and products flying off the shelves in its first week of operation.

Brandy Melville, the teen-favorite clothing store that offers a "one size fits all" sizing approach, just opened a new store in Seoul's answer to Brooklyn — and it's a big hit.

The store, located in the hip Seongsu-dong area, opened on January 3 and was flooded with customers in its first week of operation, according to The Korea Herald.

Snaking queues formed outside the store in its first week of operations, as seen in TikTok videos posted by customers.

Other TikTok posts about the store's opening showed customers spending hours waiting in line.

The videos showed a well-stocked inventory, with full stacks of clothes on islands around the store. Products were snatched up fast, with staff having to restock the shelves frequently, per multiple reports from South Korean media outlets.

TikToker users have also been quick to post their shopping hauls from the new store, showing off their new sweaters and cami purchases. Other videos called it a "must-visit" store and one of the "new trendy places" in the Seongsu-dong neighborhood.

The Seoul store adds to the chain's small but growing presence in Asia. Brandy Melville currently has five other stores in the continent — one each in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan, and two in mainland China.

Founded in Italy in the 1980s, the brand gained popularity after expanding to the US in 2009 and establishing its image as the go-to retailer for teenage girls in the US.

Representatives for Brandy Melville did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Three days a week, Annie spends two hours commuting to her public relations job outside Denver. Her company changed its office policy last year from remote to hybrid, leading her to lease a car and get back on the road. So on Fridays — without telling her coworkers — Annie typically doesn't work.

On the final day of the workweek, Annie watches TV, goes to the gym, takes a walk, or sometimes goes skiing. She keeps her phone or computer nearby to be available for messages in case something unexpected happens, but pushes her easiest work to Fridays, wraps it up quickly, and starts her weekly long weekend as early as possible.

When Annie is on the mountain instead of at her desk, she has "zero remorse," she tells me — on a phone call she scheduled on a Friday afternoon — even if she's a little worried about getting caught. (She asked that I change her name for this story for fear of retribution from her employer.)

Annie says the return-to-office mandate has worn down her social battery and made her less productive than when she worked from home full time. She was recently diagnosed as autistic, she says, and working from home has allowed her to focus better without coworkers interrupting. "If they expect me to come into the office and be fully present and sacrifice a lot of really important things that have improved my quality of life," she says, "then Fridays are the very least that I can do for myself to get through it."

What was once the final push to the weekend is becoming a sneaky personal day for some remote workers. The trend has been called "quiet Fridays" or "gentle Fridays" — a clandestine progression of casual Fridays or summer Fridays from the prepandemic era.

Some companies are instituting policies to ban meetings from being scheduled on Fridays and discourage sending emails. Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced legislation last year calling to shorten the workweek to 32 hours. In Tokyo, government workers will soon have the option of four-day workweeks, a move meant to give people more time to prioritize family as fertility rates in Japan have fallen and some have overworked themselves to the point of death.

But the dream of an official four-day workweek stays largely out of reach from many. Greece last year enacted a law enabling a six-day workweek in certain industries, a move to combat a shrinking population and lack of skilled workers. Workers are revolting against unpopular RTO mandates. Now, fed-up remote workers are sometimes taking back the day for themselves, particularly as the rise-and-grind girlboss mindset of the 2010s has been eclipsed by the ascent of the anti-work movement. Since the pandemic, burnout is up, workplace loyalty is shrinking as companies conduct mass layoffs, and people are prioritizing self-care over impressing the boss with long hours. Office attendance may be creeping back up, but Friday remains the least popular day to commute, by far. And as I found, for many workers at the end of the week, the W in WFH is in scare quotes.

A search through Reddit and TikTok will reveals number of viral hacks to trick your boss into thinking you're actively online. There are mouse jigglers and apps that keep screens on but also tips like turning off your phone's auto-caps settings so Slack messages look like they're sent from a computer and not a phone. More rogue hacks include putting PowerPoint into presenting mode to keep a screen on, entering into a Zoom meeting with yourself, or tying a mouse to an oscillating fan.

While workers may appear to their employers to be online and grinding away, evidence suggests that many have shut their laptops and gone out into the world. In 2024, for example, OpenTable saw 44% more diners book reservations between noon and 5 p.m. on Fridays than on other weekdays. "Shifts in work culture are definitely impacting dining habits," Debby Soo, OpenTable's CEO, told me over email. Similarly, on Resy, 28% of weekday-afternoon reservations were on Fridays, more than on any other weekday. Zocdoc shared booking data with me that shows that booking appointments on Fridays have crept up slightly since 2021, and that several types of appointments are more common on Fridays, including acupuncture, IUD procedures, and annual physicals.

ActivTrak, a workforce-analytics and productivity-software company, has found that people are in fact calling it quits earlier on Fridays. In an analysis of 71,000 workers at more than 800 companies that are ActivTrak customers, the company found that in late 2024 workers clocked out about an hour earlier on every day of the week than they did in early 2021. The steepest drop was on Fridays, with workers leaving at 3:42 p.m., some 80 minutes earlier than they did four years ago.

Some people may be out and about more on Fridays because their companies encourage them to log off. Buffer, a social media management software company, moved to a four-day workweek in 2020. It started as an experiment but proved so positive for morale that the company has kept it in place, says Hailley Griffis, its head of communications and content. After the initial adjustment of cramming more meetings into the first four days of the week, the schedule now "really helps reduce the amount of stress and anxiety," she says. "It would be very difficult for me to go back to working five days a week, in terms of energy management."

Stok, a sustainability consulting company, started offering "quiet Fridays" every other week in 2020. The goal is to have no emails or meetings that day, and instead allow employees to put their heads down on projects or take the day for themselves, says Madeleine Drake, Stok's director of people and culture. "Each of us has the awareness and autonomy and collaborative spirit to understand what's best each day," she says, adding that some 90% of the company's employees typically participate.

But flexible gigs are getting harder to come by. Job posts offering four-day workweeks have dropped 42% since late 2022, according to data from Indeed, and those offering flexible Fridays are down 18.5%. Employees are likely "more interested than they've ever been" in flexible Fridays and shorter workweeks, Kyle M.K., Indeed's talent-strategy advisor, says. "But the implementation is probably slowing down," in part due to economic pressures and labor market uncertainty, he adds. There's a disconnect between what employees want and what employers are offering, despite growing evidence that shorter workweeks improve productivity and employee satisfaction and that workers are getting fewer things done on Fridays anyway. "I think employers will start to see a decline in the ability to attract top talent and see their turnover grow if they're not focusing on the work-life balance, the burnout, and the stress level of their employees," he says.

Some workers feel there's no reason to hang around on Fridays if they can get all their work done by Thursday. Jenna, who works in sales in Philadelphia and whose name has also been changed, says she felt burnout in 2020 and would have to log off midday because of exhaustion. Nearly five years later, she's taking nearly all of Friday off and expects her clients or coworkers to be doing little on the last day of the workweek, too. Like Annie, she chats with me on a Friday afternoon — between hanging out at a neighborhood brewery and running an errand. It's a typical Friday for her, which can include vet appointments for her dog, trips to the gym, or boozy lunches with a friend. "A Friday-morning Costco run is magical," Jenna tells me.

The trust gap between bosses and workers is widening. A 2024 survey from PwC found that 86% of business executives believe employee trust to be high, but just 67% of employees say they have high trust in their employer. About half of business executives say they have a great extent of trust for senior leadership, while just 38% say the same of entry-level workers.

Employment is a contract, where both parties should have clear communication to maintain trust, says Shaun Hansen, a professor of management at Western Oregon University. If you're instructed or it's implied that you should be working Fridays, then that's the agreement. But employers can build trust by better communicating their expectations and shifting to more flexible arrangements, Hansen says. That might mean analyzing roles and admitting that not every white collar job has to fit a 40-hour, 9-to-5 schedule to be done well. "If you have a job that you can finish on a Thursday night, but your employer is insisting that you're there on Friday, it not only puts you in an ethical pickle, but it also will cause you to probably look for a better job where you have more flexibility," he tells me.

Of course, no-work Fridays are a privilege reserved for white-collar remote or hybrid workers. The more room they have to slack off, the greater a divide we might see in work-life balance across industries. "I feel guilty about it from the level of: What a privilege I have that I have a job that I can even do this," Jenna tells me. But guilt about not being fully honest with her employer as she fields occasional Microsoft Teams pings from the bar? Not so much.

On a Friday afternoon last summer, a friend and I packed up the car to head away for the weekend. I, taking advantage of my then-employer's summer Fridays, left my laptop at home. But I watched as my friend connected her laptop to a hot spot, opened it on the back seat, and began playing a lengthy fireplace video on YouTube that would keep the green circle next to her face on Slack aglow for the ride. I was given her phone to act not just as a road-trip DJ but also as her secretary, responding to any messages from her boss. It took some teamwork, but where there's a will to work less, there's a way.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

• Trump's mass deportation plans could hinder LA wildfire rebuilding efforts.
• Immigrants form a large part of California's construction workforce, already facing shortages.
• Deportations could worsen housing shortages and increase costs in the construction industry.

Housing policy and immigration researchers say President-elect Donald Trump's plans for mass deportations could hamper efforts to rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed by the wildfires in Los Angeles and intensify the region's housing shortage.

Data from the National Association of Home Builders shows immigrants, including those living in the US illegally, make up a significant portion of California's construction workforce, which is already suffering from a shortage of workers.

The extent and scope of possible deportations after Trump takes office on January 20 is still unclear. However, researchers expect even the threat of immigration crackdowns to shrink the available construction workforce.

"When Trump is sworn in, there will be a chilling effect," Ben Metcalf, a housing policy researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, told Business Insider. "We don't know how big it will be, but it is 100% certain that there will be fewer undocumented folks showing up at the job lines to try and get on construction jobs."

As of January 15, at least 25 people had been killed by the wildfires in LA County, and the Palisades and Eaton fires — the two largest — were still only partly contained. Over 12,000 structures have been destroyed, while over 40,000 acres have been burned. Nearly 90,000 people are still under evacuation orders.

Housing policy researchers and economists warned that the wildfire destruction will deepen California's already acute housing shortage. LA County was short about 337,000 homes as of 2022, per a report published last year from Zillow.

Any immigration restrictions will hurt labor availability for developers, contractors, and others involved in LA's future rebuilding effort, Eric Finnigan, vice president of demographics research at John Burns Research and Consulting, told Business Insider.

"Everyone in and around Southern California that's in the housing market is going to feel this in some way or another," he said.

An industry built on immigrant labor

The exact number of immigrants who work in the country's construction industry varies among researchers, but foreign-born workers — particularly those living in the country illegally — make up a disproportionate share of the workforce. An estimated 15 to 23% of that overall construction workforce live in the country illegally.

In California, immigrants made up 41% of the construction workforce in 2023, the National Association of Home Builders found. It's unclear what share of LA's construction workforce is in the country illegally.

The construction industry is already facing a significant nationwide labor shortage — estimated at about 500,000 workers last year — that has also increased building costs. The shortage has slowed the pace of new home construction, repairs, and renovations and driven up labor costs.

Some economists and homebuilders have previously told BI that Trump's plans to curtail legal and illegal immigration could further restrict the construction workforce, slow the rate of building, and inflate prices. Many immigrants working in the industry are protected under certain special legal programs, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status, which were bolstered under President Joe Biden but may be cut by Trump.

Deportations would mean "fewer workers to build the housing that we need, and to some extent, some homes would become vacant because members in their home got deported," said Shane Phillips, housing initiative project manager at UCLA's Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

Sixty-one percent of home builders surveyed by John Burns Research and Consulting in December said they expect potential deportations under Trump to hurt their operations. At the same time, 87% of home builders said they're concerned about Trump's plans to raise tariffs, which economists expect would inflate the costs of building materials imported abroad.

Immigrants who live in the US illegally are also more likely to work in single-family home construction than in larger apartment buildings, multiple experts told BI. This is in part because small, custom home construction projects tend to employ smaller contractors better able to skirt regulations, Metcalf said. Most of the homes that have been destroyed or damaged by the fires are single-family.

"Particularly in the renovation and rebuilding kind of space, where you're just doing a one-off home, that is exactly where the construction industry is particularly reliant on those undocumented workers," Metcalf said.

Chloe East, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies topics like immigration, said slowing the pace of construction by shrinking the immigrant workforce would also hurt the US-born construction workforce.

"When companies cannot find laborers for a building contract, they will also not hire architects and managers for the contract either," she said.

There is precedent for deportations negatively impacting the construction industry. During President Barack Obama's first term, about 400,000 people were deported through the Secure Communities program, a Department of Homeland Security program that identified deportable immigrants in US jails. Research on its impacts found deportations had negative impacts on new home builds. East added the threat of mass deportations causes people who are living in the country illegally to work less to avoid deportation risks.

"Three years after the start of mass deportations, the average county has about 2,000 fewer new housing units built than it would have if mass deportations had not occurred," East told BI, citing an October 2024 paper. "Because there are fewer new homes built, the price of the average new home also goes up."

An unpredictable future with immigration

While Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have pledged to deport millions of immigrants as part of a broader crackdown, it's not clear that their ambitious plans are feasible. Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, told The Wall Street Journal he doesn't know how many people may be deported in the first 100 days and said the administration will likely first go after immigrants who are living in the country illegally and with criminal records rather than broad sweeps of immigrant-heavy neighborhoods.

During his first term, Trump oversaw an initial uptick in removals. Still, his administration deported about 1.5 million people — significantly fewer than the 2.9 million people Obama deported during his first term.

On the campaign trail, Vance argued that deportations would lower housing costs, and American-born workers not in the workforce could take on construction jobs.

However, some economists and homebuilders told BI that these conclusions may not hold up. During the pandemic, many older, experienced workers retired, and the pipeline of younger US-born workers isn't sufficient, homebuilders have told BI.

"The only way that we as a country are going to get through our issues with homelessness, the housing price bubble, and the housing crunch issue is to construct more housing," Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the immigrant advocacy nonprofit group National Immigration Forum, told BI. "If we're actually thinking about removing so many of those workers and decimating that industry, it would have a domino effect on our housing shortage issues."

Chad Blocker, a Los Angeles-based immigration attorney, said his firm's clients in the construction industry are attempting to reassure their immigrant workers even as they anticipate a major federal immigration crackdown.

"The immigration enforcement environment is going to change dramatically," Blocker told Business Insider. "There's just a lot of general anxiety among the immigrant communities, including those who are here with lawful status."

Are you a home builder or immigrant construction worker concerned about the impacts of shifting immigration policy? Share your story with these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected].

• Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank founded Home Depot in 1978 after they were fired from retailer Handy Dan.
• FBI records show the pair were investigated over claims they tried to bribe Handy Dan workers to decertify their union.
• The investigation ended in 1983 when a prosecutor determined the case was too old and the evidence was "insufficient."

The Home Depot cofounders Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank were investigated by the FBI in the 1970s and '80s over claims they used a $140,000 "slush fund" to try to bribe employees at a California home-improvement retailer to decertify their union, newly public records show.

The investigation spanned from 1978 to 1983 and focused on their time as executives at Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers. Marcus, who died at 95 in 2024 with a net worth of more than $10 billion, served as Handy Dan's president. Blank, now 82 and worth over $9 billion, was the company's treasurer.

Marcus and Blank were fired in 1978 after Handy Dan's corporate parent said in securities filings that it found "unauthorized and unacceptable business practices" at the company, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Handy Dan's corporate parent later said the two men used company funds to pay employees to favor union decertification, the Journal reported.

The FBI began investigating in late 1978 after a lawyer for a retail workers labor union filed a complaint to federal authorities based on The Wall Street Journal story.

Federal agents said their investigation substantiated the claim, according to the records. No charges were ever brought; the records cited "insufficient" evidence and "statute of limitations problems." The effort to decertify the union was ultimately unsuccessful.

"Investigation revealed that from early 1977 through early 1978 approximately $140,000 in corporate funds" were paid to workers to influence them, an FBI agent wrote in a memo. "Numerous employees have admitted receiving cash (over and above wages) usually received in plain envelopes."

The FBI interviewed at least eight witnesses, whose names were largely redacted in the records. One anti-union employee told investigators that money "was only furnished to those whom the company thought would eventually vote for the decertification." Clinton Doolen, a manager who died in 1992, recalled Marcus saying that "money was no object" when it came to dislodging the union, the records show.

"Marcus was strictly against the unions and highly obsessed with getting the union completely out," another witness told the FBI. The witness said Marcus told them he was willing to use any means to break the union, and the witness "could see that Marcus really meant it."

Marcus offered a different version of events. In the 1999 book "Built From Scratch," he said he learned some Handy Dan employees wanted to disband their union. He said he hired a lawyer and "directed our personnel department to do whatever fell within the legal guidelines" to support them.

He said that the chairman of Handy Dan's parent company twisted the truth and used an internal investigation "as a tool to eliminate me," and that "neither the Justice Department nor the SEC instigated investigations."

FBI records show Marcus testified in a Securities and Exchange Commission proceeding in July 1978, about three months after he was fired. He declined, through a lawyer, to be interviewed by the FBI. It's not clear if Blank was a subject of inquiry by the SEC.

The SEC and two top-ranking officials at the Marcus Foundation didn't reply to comment requests, nor did Marcus' son Frederick Marcus, who is a director of the foundation. Representatives for Blank, Home Depot, the Justice Department, and the FBI declined to comment.

Business Insider obtained the FBI records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Blank's name was redacted, but his job title matched that of the subject in question. A third person whose name was redacted was also a subject of the investigation.

The FBI submitted a "prosecutive report" to the Justice Department in March 1982. A year later, a federal prosecutor decided not to move forward with the case. The prosecutor didn't believe there was enough evidence against Marcus, Blank, and the third person to indict them, and the union election at the center of the investigation was more than five years old, an FBI memo said.

Marcus and Blank founded Home Depot in 1978, eventually transforming it into the world's largest home-improvement retail company. Its stores aren't unionized; in 2022, the last time a petition was filed at a store for a union election, union advocates suffered a resounding defeat.

Marcus' anti-union sentiments were well known. In 2008, he called a bill that would make it easier for employees to form unions "the demise of civilization," and in 2010, he founded the Job Creators Network, which has opposed bills that would increase union power.

Both men have been significant political donors. Blank has primarily supported Democratic candidates, while Marcus gave millions to Republican candidates, and once said that retail executives who weren't helping Republicans "should be shot."

Read the documents here:

• Jeff Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, has launched its first orbital rocket, New Glenn.
• New Glenn is one of the largest, most powerful rockets ever built.
• The maiden launch marks a milestone for Blue Origin.

Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin has entered the rocket big leagues.

At 2:03 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Blue Origin's 32-story-tall New Glenn rocket fired its seven engines and climbed atop a cloud of fire and steam for the first time, roaring into the skies above the launch complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

"LIFTOFF! New Glenn is beginning its first ever ascent toward the stars," Blue Origin wrote in an X post on Thursday morning.

Bezos, who was present at New Glenn's launch, uploaded a minute-long clip of the launch on X shortly after liftoff.

New Glenn belongs to a new generation of the largest, most powerful rockets ever built, next to Elon Musk's SpaceX's Starship and NASA's new moon rocket, the Space Launch System.

These heavy-lift vehicles have roughly the size and heft of NASA's Saturn V — the rocket that launched Apollo astronauts to the moon — but they're designed for even more ambitious goals.

Musk and Bezos have espoused plans to establish permanent human settlements on Mars and on a giant space station, respectively. NASA aims to build permanent science stations on and around the moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars with SpaceX's and Blue Origins' help.

First, though, Blue Origin needs to strengthen its business. New Glenn's maiden launch positions the company to fly payloads to orbit and challenge SpaceX's dominance.

Blue Origin was originally planning to launch New Glenn on Monday. The launch was repeatedly delayed and eventually postponed after Blue Origin said they had to "troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue."

"I'm incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt," Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp on Thursday. "We knew landing our booster, So You're Telling Me There's a Chance, on the first try was an ambitious goal. We'll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring. Thank you to all of Team Blue for this incredible milestone."

Blue Origin loses booster in an otherwise successful launch

In a statement two hours after the launch, Blue Origin confirmed that it had lost its booster after it separated from the rocket

The booster was meant to return to Earth and land on a platform in the ocean, which would have been the company's first step to proving the reusability of its booster.

This makes SpaceX the only company to have recovered and reused a rocket's booster. The Musk-led rocket company has been retrieving its much smaller Falcon 9 first-stage boosters for reuse in this way for years.

SpaceX's Starship booster recently proved a different landing method, lowering itself into the waiting arms of a landing tower in October.

Like Falcon 9, and unlike Starship, New Glenn is only partially reusable — its second stage is not designed for reuse.

Musk congratulated Bezos shortly after New Glenn's successful liftoff.

"Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt! @JeffBezos," Musk wrote on X.

Blue Origin's future depends on New Glenn

Trailing behind SpaceX, Blue Origin is one of the leading companies paving the way for reusable rockets, which can help slash spaceflight costs.

Weeks before New Glenn's debut launch, during the New York Times 2024 DealBook Summit, Bezos said Blue Origin "is not a very good business, yet."

He added, "It's going to be the best business that I've ever been involved in."

New Glenn is Blue Origin's second rocket, but its first designed to insert itself into Earth's orbit.

The company began construction on New Glenn in 2016. Bezos has said he isn't happy with the company's speed of progress.

"Blue Origin needs to be much faster," Bezos told Lex Fridman in December 2023. "And it's one of the reasons that I left my role as the CEO of Amazon a couple of years ago."

For comparison, SpaceX began developing its first orbital rocket, the Falcon 9 v1.0, in 2005. It made its debut launch five years later, in 2010.

That said, New Glenn is more than three times more powerful than SpaceX's first Falcon 9.

Blue Origin's comparatively tiny New Shepard rocket, which carries paying customers and other payloads to suborbital space, has been reused nearly 30 times since its first launch in 2015.

New Glenn's maiden voyage is carrying a test payload

As Blue Origin's barge sails the booster back to the coast, the rocket's second stage is scheduled to remain in space for about six hours while carrying the company's prototype Blue Ring pathfinder spacecraft.

Blue Ring is designed for multiple mission types, including transporting, refueling, and communicating with other craft in space. The pathfinder prototype launched on Thursday is a test launch and is set to remain onboard and not be deployed into space.

"There is a growing demand to quickly move and position equipment and infrastructure in multiple orbits," Limp wrote on X in December. Blue Ring is designed to fulfill that need for both government and commercial customers, the Blue Origin CEO said.

The Federal Aviation Administration has granted Blue Origin a license to launch New Glenn to orbit from Cape Canaveral for the next five years.

Blue Origin's customers include NASA, Amazon, and several telecommunications providers.

• A new Pentagon report said its troops earn more than most of their full-time civilian counterparts.
• It said that after one year of service, the top 70th percentile of enlisted earners get about $1,000 a week.
• But that figure includes far more than base pay, which Congress recently voted to raise significantly.

A Pentagon report said its troops often earn more than their civilian counterparts and would stand to lose out if they were to leave the service.

"Our military compensation package is strongly competitive with the civilian labor market," it wrote in its review for military compensation, which is released every four years.

The report comes just a month after Congress voted to raise basic pay for US troops by 4.5% across the board, citing concerns about recruitment difficulties and food insecurity among soldiers. Junior enlisted troops, who hold rank equivalents of E-1 to E-4, received an even bigger raise of 14.5%.

Many of these troops were earning less than $30,000 a year in basic pay, and the bill passed in December aimed to raise their salaries to that level.

However, the Pentagon uses a different metric that extends beyond basic pay, which it calls regular military compensation. This includes benefits such as tax advantages and housing and food allowances.

By that measure, the Defense Department's new report found that "military pay among Junior Enlisted Personnel is higher than 90th percentile of earnings for civilians with similar education and experience."

"Basic pay is a blunt and costly instrument," the report said. "And should be used only when there are system-wide problems, such as widespread retention and recruiting shortfalls, which cannot be solved more efficiently with other policy instruments."

Its findings relied largely on a benchmark that compared two things: the 70th percentile of compensation for enlisted soldiers and the 70th percentile earnings for full-time civilian workers with the same education.

The report said that for enlisted soldiers with one year of service, the top 70th percentile received about $1,000 a week in regular military compensation.

Meanwhile, the report listed the 70th percentile of civilian earners as needing 10 years of work experience to get $1,000 a week.

The Pentagon said that for enlisted soldiers with 10 years of service, the top 70th percentile of earners gets $1,500 a week.

On the other hand, the 70th percentile of officer earnings stands at $1,500 a week for those with one year of service, going up to nearly $2,500 a week for those with 10 years of service.

It compared those earnings to the 70th percentile of civilians with college degrees, whom the report said consistently earn about $200 to $300 less a week.

Overall, the report said that enlisted personnel earn more than 83 out of 100 civilian workers with the same education and experience, and officers earn more than 76 out of 100 civilian workers with the same background.

The Pentagon mostly recommended "quality-of-life" improvements instead of a pay bump. It asked the military to look more into expanding its retirement savings programs, providing better childcare access for serving parents, and asking its personnel to move less often to avoid hurting the careers of soldiers' spouses.

In its budget overview for the 2025 financial year ending September 30, the Defense Department said troop pay and benefits make up about 30% of its total budget request for $850 billion.

In the new report, the Pentagon said its current pay structure is mostly working.

"Recent retention is strong, recruiting has significantly improved, and favorable comparisons between military and civilian pay suggests that levels of basic pay are more than adequate," it said.

• Sephora is embarking on the largest capital project in its history — a complete redesign of its stores.
• Sephora CEO Artemis Patrick said the redesign would change how its North American shops look.
• She said the refresh aimed to provide a consistent consumer experience across all stores.

Sephora is betting big on its brick-and-mortar strategy by giving its entire fleet of North American stores a facelift.

The LVMH-owned beauty retailer, which operates over 2,700 stores in 35 countries, will revamp the design of all its North American stores in the next five years, CEO Artemis Patrick said at the National Retail Federation's Big Show on Monday.

Patrick said it will be the "largest capital project for Sephora in its history." She added that while some stores will only see minor changes, others can expect "major redesigns."

She said the company talked to "millions of consumers" and used heat maps to understand its customers' shopping habits.

One thing the retailer is rethinking is gondolas — stand-alone islands in its stores that display products from one particular brand. She said that the gondolas are "quite expensive."

"We're not a cheap date," Patrick said. "And we don't want our brands to be spending a ton of money on building these amazing fixtures, and then it's not productive and doesn't work out."

Instead, she said that Sephora was testing out a new layout format focused on Sephora's four key product categories — makeup, skincare, fragrance, and hair care — which would make updating stores easier.

Another change shoppers can expect to see is the location of the beauty studios, which will be moved to the sides of the stores.

"We talked to our millions of consumers, and the reality is, they didn't want their makeup being done in the window," she said. "Not shocking."

Patrick said that Sephora is also rethinking the section near the checkout counters where the mini sizes of products are placed.

She said that with Sephora's staff billing a fourth of customers via mobile devices around the stores, the minis section could be broken up and moved to the front of the stores instead of near the checkout counters.

She added that the redesign, as a whole, aimed to give Sephora customers in different regions a consistent experience.

"One of the things that was really, really important to us was ensuring that no matter what, where you are, whether you are in our Soho store, you're in Boise, Idaho, or you're in Vancouver Island, that experience is the same no matter where you go," she said.

She added, "Because we do believe we have that consistency with our beauty advisors, but maybe not necessarily in all our retail stores."

Sephora contributed heavily to LVMH's "selective retailing" division. In the first half of 2024, ending June 30, the division raked in $8.6 billion in revenues and saw a 7% increase in profits from recurring operations compared to the year before.

Its biggest competitors in the US include the cosmetics store chain Ulta Beauty and department store chains Nordstrom and Macy's. Macy's recently announced that it plans to shutter 150 stores by the end of 2026.

Representatives of Sephora declined to comment in response to a request from Business Insider.

• Cameron Diaz says she spent her 10-year break from acting "trying to stay alive just like every other mother."
• But she's set to make a return to Hollywood in the Netflix movie "Back in Action."
• Diaz joins a long list of celebrities — like Tom Brady — who have unretired.

Cameron Diaz was busy being a mother during her 10-year break from making movies.

In a video uploaded onto the "Still Watching Netflix" channel on YouTube, which goes behind the scenes on Netflix shows, Diaz spoke about what she had been up to during her hiatus.

"I was not keeping up with any kind of training," Diaz, 52, said. "I did nothing public."

The actor — known for films such as "Charlie's Angel" and "Vanilla Sky" — added that she "said no to everything," although she did start a wine company.

"That was what I was putting most of my focus on, if I was doing anything other than just sort of being a mom and living my day-to-day," Diaz said. "And that was pretty much it. I'm just trying to stay alive just like every other mother. I'm just trying to keep it going."

Diaz married Benji Madden of the rock band Good Charlotte in 2015. They welcomed their daughter, Raddix, in 2019 and their son, Cardinal, in 2024.

In an Entertainment Weekly interview in 2018, Diaz said she was "semi-retired" as an actor, before clarifying she was "actually retired." Per her IMDB page, her last role was in 2014's "Annie."

During Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit last year, Diaz shared that her decision to stop acting was something she "had to do."

"It felt like something I had to do to reclaim my own life. And I just really didn't care about anything else. Nobody's opinion, nobody's success, no one's offer, no one's anything could change my mind about my decision of taking care of myself and building the life that I really wanted to have," Diaz said. "It really comes to: What are you passionate about? For me, it was to build my family."

Diaz is set to return to acting in the Netflix movie "Back in Action," which premieres January 17 and also stars Jamie Foxx.

She joins a long list of celebrities who have unretired — most notably, Tom Brady.

Six weeks after retiring from the NFL in 2022, Brady announced he was unretiring in a post on X.

"I'm coming back for my 23rd season in Tampa," Brady wrote. "Unfinished business. LFG."

More recently, in December, Jim Carrey, 62, walked back on his comments about coming out of retirement because he was strapped for cash.

"I said I'd like to retire, but I think I was talking more about power-resting. Because as soon as a good idea comes your way, or a group of people that you really enjoyed working with and stuff, it just — things tend to change," Carrey told Comicbook.com.

A representative for Diaz did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.

• China is loading up on soybeans amid US trade war fears.
• China's soybean imports rose 6.5% in 2024, hedging against potential Trump trade policies.
• Intensifying US-China trade tensions could hit the soybean trade, impacting US farmers and rural economies.

China is stockpiling more than semiconductor chips amid its trade war with the US.

Last year, China imported a record 105.03 million metric tons of soybeans — a key crop that was embroiled in Donald Trump's tariff war with China during his first presidency.

China's import of US soybeans, in particular, also spiked last year, rising 6.5% from 2023, according to Reuters' calculations of official customs data.

Buyers from China — the world's largest soybean consumers — were likely stocking up on the crop to hedge any geopolitical risks ahead of Trump's second term, analysts said.

Trump has threatened to put 60% tariffs on all Chinese goods during his second presidential term, igniting fears of an intensification in trade tensions.

"If the US ramps up tariffs on Chinese imports, China could target US agricultural imports as retaliatory tariff countermeasures," Rajiv Biswas, an international economist and the author of "Asian Megatrends," told Business Insider.

"US soybean imports are likely to be a key target for China's retaliatory tariff measures due to the very large scale of China's soybean imports from the US," he added.

The power of the soybean market

The US is the world's second-largest soybean producer after Brazil. It accounts for about a quarter of China's import of the oilseed, which it typically uses for animal feed.

During his first term as president, Trump slapped heavy tariffs on Chinese imports.

In response, China imposed 25% tariffs on US agricultural produce, including soybeans, sending American soybean exports to China sharply lower.

The tariffs on some of these farm imports were waived ahead of the US-China trade deal in January 2020.

Impact on American farmers

A replay of retaliatory tariffs during Trump's second presidency could hit US soybean farmers.

"In a scenario where China imposes retaliatory tariffs on US soybeans in 2025, the impact would again likely be a substantial economic loss for the US soybean industry," said Biswas.

A study from the American Soybean Association and the National Corn Growers Association shows that a new trade war would result in an "immediate drop in corn and soy exports to the tune of hundreds of millions of tons."

"Brazil and Argentina would claim the lost market share, which would be extremely difficult for American growers to reclaim in the future," the two associations said in October, cautioning against a trade war.

There isn't enough demand from the rest of the world to offset a major loss of soybean exports to China, they added.

A trade war would create a "ripple impact across the US, particularly in rural economies where farmers live, purchase inputs, use farm and personal services, and purchase household goods," wrote the two agriculture trade associations.

As it is, Chinese soybean importers have diversified their sources since Trump's first presidential term, with Brazil a major beneficiary of the trend.

Any decline in Chinese soybean demand — made worse by the country's ongoing economic downturn — would also weigh on the trade in a well-supplied market.

"Although a Trump presidency could reignite US-Mainland China trade tensions and potential Chinese tariffs on US soybean exports, we anticipate that the expected decline in Chinese demand will mitigate price impacts," BMI Research wrote last week.

• LinkedIn is a social network for professional networking and career development.
• Microsoft acquired LinkedIn nearly a decade ago for a whopping $26.2 billion in cash.
• LinkedIn is free, but a subscription version called LinkedIn Premium offers additional features.

Like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a dozen others, LinkedIn is a social network. And like other social networks, it's owned by a big tech company: Microsoft.

But unlike most social networks, LinkedIn is a professional networking site, designed to help people make business connections, share their experiences and resumes, and find jobs.

Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion in cash. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the time that the social network would complement Microsoft's business-focused software, such as Microsoft Office 365, the suite of productivity programs.

Like many tech companies, LinkedIn has had its ups and downs in the post-pandemic years. LinkedIn Premium earned $1.7 billion from subscribers in 2023, executives revealed on a Microsoft earnings call. However, the job cuts that have plagued the tech industry didn't spare the networking site; LinkedIn laid off hundreds of employees in 2023 and 2024.

But despite financial turbulence at the company, LinkedIn is still a valuable networking site used by millions of people and companies all over the world. Here's what you need to know about using the platform:

LinkedIn essentials

Despite the professional focus, LinkedIn is quite similar to social networking sites like Facebook. It's based on principles like connecting to friends (or, in the case of LinkedIn, "connections,"), posting updates, sharing and liking content, and messaging other users.

LinkedIn also puts a professional spin on ideas you know from Facebook. Your profile, for example, becomes a resume, complete with work experience, accomplishments, recommendations, and referrals from colleagues.

The site also offers things you won't find in other places, like a full-featured career board, where you can search for and apply for jobs.

Many employment services are now compatible with LinkedIn — when applying for a position, you may be able to share your LinkedIn profile, which sometimes means you won't need to painstakingly enter your work experience into a long online form.

If you're new to LinkedIn, here's a quick tour around the site.

A quick tour of LinkedIn

• Home is akin to Facebook's news feed. Here you can see posts made by other LinkedIn users, and make your own posts that others can see, like, share, and comment on. Like Facebook, you can limit your posts to just connections in your network, or share your thoughts with everyone.
• My Network is where you can see your existing network of connections, and search for LinkedIn users to invite to join your network. You can also see existing invitations you've received from others.
• Jobs is a comprehensive career site. You can search for and apply for jobs, get information about companies you're interested in, and much more. You can set up notifications and get emails when there are new job postings.
• Messaging leads to an instant messaging platform you can use to chat with people in your network. You can also use it to send messages to people outside your network with something called InMail, if you subscribe to certain tiers of LinkedIn Premium.
• Me is where you can find your profile, which is akin to your resume. Here, you can show your career history by posting your work experience, accomplishments, education, current location, and more. If you have a LinkedIn account, this should be as polished as your actual resume, as you can expect professional connections and recruiters to look at it.

What you can do with LinkedIn

It should be clear that LinkedIn is a tool you can use to enhance your professional networking and job searching activities.

Many people use the site to grow their contacts and find career opportunities, and the Jobs section of the site is a powerful tool for finding and applying for jobs. There are settings on LinkedIn that let you alert recruiters that you're actively job searching as well.

Some people use LinkedIn to enhance their professional reputation by making posts in the news feed, and commenting on other people's posts.

Like most other tech companies in recent years — including Microsoft and its new Copilot tool — LinkedIn has increasingly focused on AI products. LinkedIn has unveiled its own AI-powered writing assistant that can generate personalized suggestions for your profile.

LinkedIn Premium

LinkedIn Premium is a subscription version of LinkedIn that adds a number of additional features, such as online professional development classes, insights into who's viewing your profile, and the ability to instant message anyone on LinkedIn, even if they're not in your network.

LinkedIn Premium offers four types of plans with different price points, depending on your needs. Premium Career is for professionals and job-seekers looking to further their careers, while Premium Business, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter Lite are for employers, businesses, or sales professionals.

The most popular plan, LinkedIn Premium Career, costs $39.99 for one month, or you can purchase an annual package for $239.88. You can also try a one-month free trial.

• Israel and Hamas have reached a multiphase cease-fire and hostage agreement, negotiators announced.
• People in Israel and the Gaza Strip gathered to celebrate the news of the long-awaited accord.
• The tentative deal comes after 15 months of bloodshed that left tens of thousands dead.

Israel and Hamas have reached a tentative agreement to stop the war in Gaza, the White House announced Wednesday, a first step towards an end to 15 months of fighting that left tens of thousands dead in the Middle East.

As news of the long-awaited cease-fire deal reached Tel Aviv and the Gaza Strip, people gathered to celebrate what they hoped would be the end of hostilities and the anticipated return of their family and friends held in Hamas tunnels or Israeli prisons.

'Complex' multiphase agreement

Set to take effect on January 19, the complex cease-fire deal includes a phased approach. Lasting six weeks, the first phase consists of a "full and complete" cease-fire, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the release of hostages held by Hamas, US President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

Israel said it would reduce the number of forces operating in the Gaza Strip and expected to fully withdraw its military presence in a later phase of the deal. Hamas agreed to initially release nearly three dozen Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel but has not confirmed when the final hostages will return home.

Biden added that women, the elderly, and the wounded hostages would be released as part of the first phase, as well as American hostages being held in Gaza. Seven Americans are being held hostage in Gaza, three of whom are presumed to be alive.

To ensure both sides adhere to the terms of the cease-fire agreement, diplomats from the US, Qatar, and Egypt said they plan to create a "follow-up mechanism" to track reports of violations.

"We expect that the parties will adhere to the agreement and stay committed … but we know that these kinds of agreements are very complex and will have some issues down the line," Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said.

'A permanent end of the war'

Over the next six weeks, Biden said negotiations between Israel and Hamas will continue to work out the second phase of the cease-fire deal: a permanent end of the war in Gaza.

"There are a number of details to negotiate, to move from phase one to phase two," the US president said. "But the plan says if negotiations take longer than six weeks, the cease-fire will continue as long as the negotiations continue."

Biden added that Palestinians can return to their homes in all areas of Gaza as officials work to get humanitarian assistance into the war-torn territory.

In a possible third phase of the deal, Biden said the remains of hostages who have been declared dead would be returned to their families, and "a major reconstruction plan for Gaza will begin."

Palestinians rejoice in Gaza Strip

Photos and video taken in the Gaza Strip captured celebratory cheers and gunfire as Palestinians crowded the streets after learning that this could be the end of the humanitarian crisis that has gripped the Gaza Strip and forced the vast majority of them from their homes.

Israel's war against Hamas has leveled neighborhoods and led to the deaths of at least 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

Some gathered outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, a medical facility in central Gaza that doubled as a displacement camp that was frequently targeted by Israeli attacks. The Israeli military said they believed the complex concealed a Hamas command center.

One of the celebrants, Alaa Abu Karsh, told CNN that the news of the cease-fire was a "very big surprise for the Palestinian people and the whole world."

"We wish many people could be celebrating this moment with us, but they are now in a better place," he said.

Protest-turned-celebration in Israel

Ahead of the announcement of the cease-fire agreement, thousands of Israeli protesters gathered outside the country's defense ministry to call for the return of the hostages still being held in Gaza.

The remaining hostages have been held for 466 days in abject conditions in Gaza after being seized by Hamas fighters during the Oct. 7, 2023 terror rampage into Israel.

Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant condemned National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom were against the hostage deal and threatened to quit the government if it was approved.

"It is neither Jewish, nor Zionist, nor humane," Gallant said at the rally.

However, the protests soon turned to celebrations as news spread to Tel Aviv that the cease-fire and hostage deal had been reached.

Demonstrators were seen embracing and crying as they held their picket signs depicting their friends and family still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

Divided on hostage deal

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a volunteer-based organization, said the agreement is a "significant step forward" to bring Israeli hostages home, expressing "profound gratitude" to the US and international mediators involved in brokering the peace deal.

"Since November 2023, we have been anxiously awaiting this moment," the organization said in a statement, "and now, after over 460 days of our family members being held in Hamas tunnels, we are closer than ever to reuniting with our loved ones."

"However, deep anxiety and concerns accompany us regarding the possibility that the agreement might not be fully implemented, leaving hostages behind. We urgently call for swift arrangements to ensure all phases of the deal are carried out," the group continued.

Though a majority of Israelis support the peace deal, the Tivka Forum, a right-wing organization advocating for the release of hostages, said they believe the agreement includes steep concessions, like the release of Palestinian prisoners, that could compromise Israel's national security and its leverage against Hamas.

"The proposed deal endangers the hostages and endangers the State of Israel," the organization said in a statement. "It is high time we stop the immoral surrender to terror, and demand that all the hostages be released at once, unconditionally and immediately."

The forum added: "Our only option is to win this war and to remove any incentive to ever attack Israel again."

World leaders react

World leaders reacted with messages of hope for peace.

The peace deal came less than a week before Biden leaves office and US President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House, with both administrations taking part in the negotiations.

"In these past few days, we have been speaking as one team," Biden said, as his administration will work to implement the deal while the Trump administration will work to carry it out.

António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general, emphasized the importance of implementing the deal and getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

"It is imperative that this ceasefire removes the significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid across Gaza so that we can support a major increase in urgent lifesaving humanitarian support," Guterres said.

Netanyahu had yet to officially announce that Israel accepts the agreement announced by Biden and Al Thani on Wednesday, saying that some final details are still being agreed upon. The Israeli prime minister said he will release a statement "after the final details of the agreement, which are currently being worked on, are completed."

Hamas said in a statement that the cease-fire was "the result of the legendary resilience of our great Palestinian people and our valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip."

• A judge in Manhattan denied the Alexander brothers bail in their sex-trafficking case on Wednesday.
• The denial followed a contentious hearing over whether the three brothers are dangerous or a flight risk.
• The judge criticized a lawyer who argued a woman can't be incapacitated if she can still stand up.

A judge in Manhattan denied bail on Wednesday for the Alexander brothers in their federal sex trafficking case, meaning they will remain jailed in Miami pending trial.

Oren and Tal Alexander were luxury real-estate agents in Miami Beach and Manhattan before they and Oren's twin, Alon, were indicted in December. The three have denied wrongdoing and have pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking charges.

The bail denial by US District Judge Valerie E. Caproni followed a contentious three-hour hearing, during which one defense lawyer argued that the brothers were no longer "orgying" and another said a woman can't be incapacitated if she can still stand up.

That latter claim sparked a harsh retort from the judge.

"That is nonsense," Caproni told a lawyer for Oren Alexander, interrupting his attack on a key piece of evidence — a 2009 video showing either Oren or his twin, Alon, having sex with a woman that the government alleges was incapacitated.

"I'm just telling you, if that's your argument, you lose," the judge told the lawyer.

The testy exchange was begun by Deanna Paul, a defense lawyer for the twins' older brother, Tal, who told the judge that the sex-trafficking indictment is based on weak evidence.

The indictment alleges that for 10 years starting in 2010, the siblings conspired to use their wealth and prominence in the luxury real estate world to rape or assault more than 40 women, mostly in Manhattan and Miami and often through the use of the drug GHB.

Halfway through Wednesday's hearing, which the brothers did not attend, Paul mentioned that key prosecution evidence — the 2009 video. She criticized its probative value, telling the judge it "shows the lack of force" during a consensual sexual encounter.

"In my view, having sex with a woman who is physically incapacitated is basically rape," the judge responded, citing the prosecution's description of the video.

The judge asked prosecutor Andrew Jones to describe the video more fully, which he then did publicly for the first time. He called it a "trophy" tape that the government had seized as evidence, and said it depicts one of the twins having sex with a woman he said the government has not spoken to.

Jones said he wasn't sure if the video shows Oren or Alon, but that as it begins, "one of these very stone-cold sober defendants sets up a tripod."

"There's a woman on the bed. She's naked," Jones continued. "When she tries to speak, it's incoherent. She is mumbling," and she appears unable to move, he told the judge.

After the alleged rape, "she manages to stand on the floor, but then collapses back on the bed," the prosecutor said the video shows.

Later in the hearing, the video was mentioned again by a lawyer for Oren Alexander, Richard Klugh.

He referred to the woman in the video as "the sexual partner" of either of the twins and "the woman who stood up immediately after having sex."

He said prosecutors are misrepresenting evidence when they say the woman was unable to speak, given that "she was mumbling."

"You cannot call someone incapacitated who is able to stand up," he added — at which point the judge called his assessment "nonsense."

At the end of the hearing, Caproni rejected defense arguments that the siblings were neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk, and that, as Klugh put it, "there's been no more orgying. They're married."

She also turned down a $115 million bail package and a promise that the three would live together in Florida on home confinement. The home would have an in-house security team, window sensors, and an alarm system, the defense lawyers had said.

Caproni said her denial was based in large part on federal appellate case law from New York's Second Circuit that bars judges from accepting a two-tiered bail system where only wealthy defendants can spend money for 24-hour monitoring by an in-house security team.

"I have real problems with that," she said. "In the Second Circuit, if the only way I can mitigate danger to the community is to create a private jail, then I can't do that."

Caproni set the trio's next court date for January 29.

• Biden delivered his farewell address to the nation on Wednesday, days before he leaves office.
• Biden warned of an oligarchy taking shape in the US and a "tech industrial complex."
• He also said AI posed opportunities and risks and that the US must lead the way over China.

President Joe Biden delivered stark warnings for the American people during his farewell address to the nation Wednesday night, capping a 50-year career in politics less than a week before his one-term presidency comes to an end.

Biden highlighted some accomplishments of his term, including the passage of major climate legislation and a gun-safety law. But he also said he wanted to warn the country about "the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked."

"Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead," he said, adding that the wealthy needed to "pay their fair share of taxes" and play by the same rules as everyone else.

Biden also said he was concerned about "the potential rise of a tech industrial complex" that could pose real dangers for the US, citing a "concentration of technology, power, and wealth."

"Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling, editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking," Biden said, seemingly a reference to Meta moving away from third-party fact checkers. "The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit."

Biden said artificial intelligence posed both opportunities and risks for American society, security, and the economy.

"But unless safeguards are in place, AI could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work and how we protect our nation. We must make sure AI is safe and trustworthy and good for all humankind," he said, adding, "And as the land of liberty, America, not China, must lead the world of the development of AI."

Biden's remarks on AI came a day after he signed an executive order to speed up AI infrastructure projects in the US. On Monday he also announced new chip rules aimed at advancing AI development in US-allied countries in an effort to counter China.

At the start of the address, Biden briefly addressed the Gaza cease-fire agreement that the White House had announced earlier on Wednesday after more than a year of conflict in the area.

Biden said the plan was developed and negotiated by his team and would largely be implemented by President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. "That's why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed, because that's how it should be — working together as Americans," he said.

A senior administration official said in a call Wednesday evening the Biden administration worked for several months on the terms of the negotiation with officials from Egypt and Qatar, but in its final days, members of Trump's administration joined the discussions to help finalize the agreement. The official also said the transition from one president to the next helped to create a deadline for the negotiations.

In his message on Wednesday, Biden also emphasized his belief in and the importance of safeguarding American institutions and democracy.

Trump is set to be sworn into office on January 20, kicking off his second term in the White House.

Biden's presidency is ending after he dropped out of the presidential race last year to serve a second term amid concerns about his age and mental acuity.

• As Malaysia enters a period of political stability, its new dream is to become a regional tech hub.
• Investments and startups are flowing into the country, but it's still early days.
• Despite its last tech mega-project failing, insiders told BI they see a winning plan this time.

Kean Wei Wong's hands snapped from the wheel as we hit the highway in the midday rain.

His sedan, a Malaysian-made Proton S70, kept cruising on its own, flowing with the traffic snaking into Kuala Lumpur.

The bespectacled 28-year-old, a former insurance salesman, was taking me for a spin of what he and two college friends were selling: a plug-and-play dashcam that uses AI to drive your family car.

Their company is Kommu, one of the 4,000 Malaysian startups the federal government hopes will form a key pillar of a new Asian tech boom. As the nation exits an era of political turmoil, founders like Kean say they're hopeful.

"The younger generations are stepping up," he said as he crossed his arms, letting the car do the work. "We're no longer thinking of survival. It's more like we're in an innovation phase."

Born from years of tweaking open-source code, Kean's software controls limited steering and acceleration. It's nothing that EV makers like Tesla aren't already selling, but he and his buddies custom-engineered their product, made with Chinese phone parts, for Malaysia's national auto brands.

Their pitch is that for $800, the owner of a $10,000 hatchback can plug in Kean's dashcam via two cables and get partial self-driving.

Kean is unsure if their product is legal, though he said they haven't seen trouble from authorities and secured prize money from a government-affiliated competition.

"It's like a gray area. Malaysia isn't a very regulated country yet," he said. "That's why there are opportunities for startups like us."

Off to a good start

A political reckoning saw Malaysia cycle through five prime ministers in six years, until Anwar Ibrahim, the current prime minister, squeezed through the November 2022 national polls through a coalition.

As the dust settles, more than a dozen local tech insiders told Business Insider that Malaysia feels like it's on the cusp of a new chapter. Anwar champions the idea of the next era in the nation's economy, rallying his government for an all-out push to develop Southeast Asia's version of Silicon Valley.

The prime minister described Malaysia's new effort as "a clear break from the past," saying in May that the country had missed opportunities for tech investments in previous years.

Malaysia is banking on more than just stability. It commands vast reserves of land and water, useful for facilities like data centers run by Intel, Nvidia, and ByteDance. US-China tensions and the Ukraine war brought a wave of investors looking to park funds in new havens. And Malaysia's popular but spatially constrained neighbor, Singapore, is contending with surging living and business costs.

Anwar's government is touting Malaysia as an appealing alternative, announcing a plan in April to extend financial support, visa access, and job benefits to foreign startups moving in. State money, including the sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad, is offering $27.6 billion for all local ventures over the next five years.

"It's different. Because this time, the government isn't doing too much," said Tan Eng Tong, a startup advisor who runs an education center for tech workers in Malaysia. He spent the 1990s building his career in Silicon Valley with Seagate and Hewlett-Packard.

Tan believes Malaysia's last tech mega-project in the 1990s was the result of a government trying to force a revolution. Then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad cleared land for global companies to settle down, dreaming of transforming greater Kuala Lumpur into an IT powerhouse.

But many of the prized multinationals eventually used their new Malaysian bases for low-cost labor in manufacturing and outsourcing. When a BI reporter visited Cyberjaya — a development near the capital meant to house the world's hottest startups — in 2022, the largely residential area was filled with abandoned business hubs and quiet malls.

5,000 startups by 2025

Now, the country is trying a new approach. Its semiconductor industry, largely based in the state of Penang, already houses Intel and Texas Instruments. Officials have announced a plan to bring in $100 billion in additional investment for the sector, without specifying a deadline.

Anwar is continuing the prior administration's goal of producing 5,000 local startups and five unicorns by 2025.

Norman Matthieu Vanhaecke, the Belgian-Malay CEO of Cradle Fund, the government's agency supporting early-stage firms, said the country now has about 4,000 startups. The overwhelming majority are located in the capital and the state that surrounds it, Selangor.

But Vanhaecke says Malaysia's true near-term goal is to get on the map and have Kuala Lumpur join Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore on global lists like Startup Genome's ecosystem ranking.

Singapore and Indonesia have enjoyed the lion's share of venture capital activity in Southeast Asia. In 2023, they secured 651 and 165 deals, respectively, according to data from the investment database PitchBook.

Malaysia recorded 71 deals that year, and the total annual value of its deals has never reached $1 billion, per PitchBook. The total value of deals in Singapore has eclipsed $9 billion annually in the last three years.

The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, a government agency tasked with attracting tech investment, is trying to give foreign startups a "soft-landing zone" in Malaysia through coworking spaces.

The agency told BI that since 2016, it has partnered with 23 locations that have serviced about 600 startups. These firms are promised low business costs and potential access to government and private sector financing.

Malaysia opens its state funds to startups

Noor Amy Ismail, an analyst asked by the Malaysian government to assess the local VC scene in 2023, said she studied South Korea's 2014 tech drive for her recommendations. There, government funds set the stage, then petered off as private investors poured in.

Amy advised Malaysian officials to do the same.

"That is what our venture capital road map is trying to address, to get more corporate investors on board to support," she said.

State and national funds, which have long dominated investing in Malaysia, have been opening their coffers to startups.

One founder, Jimmy How, said state executives were far more risk-averse 10 years ago when he started his affiliate marketing company.

"Back then, guys like Khazanah wouldn't even look at startups like us," How said. Khazanah, Malaysia's main sovereign wealth fund, earmarked $1.3 billion in 2023 for startups and venture capital over the next five years.

How's company received an investment from Penjana Kapital, a national venture program, during a Series C funding round in 2023.

Gokula Krishnan, the founder of Vircle, a financial literacy app for kids, said his firm received a seed investment from Khazanah in 2023. It helped convince him to stay in Malaysia instead of leaving for Singapore.

"Talent is relatively cheap. Available office space is cheap. Cost of living is supercheap, even compared to Vietnam or Indonesia," he said about Malaysia. "I don't see any other country in Southeast Asia that has this mix."

No more 'shit-hole state of mind'

Khailee Ng, an energetic Malaysian with a mane of black hair flowing down to his shoulders, is perhaps the biggest name in Kuala Lumpur's venture capital scene. He's a managing partner with the US venture firm 500 Global, which has seeded at least six unicorns in Southeast Asia since 2014.

Malaysia, burdened by a history of infighting and policy reversals, has for too long wallowed in a self-defeating attitude — a "shit-hole state of mind," he said.

But Ng said he's seen far less of that among entrepreneurs in the last two years. "They're getting funding, they're kinda seeing that things are working. I think a lot of tech startups are starting to be open to the idea that something good will happen," he said.

His team analyzed 198 local startups from January 2023 to June 2024 and found that 33 were profitable, with at least 20% annual growth and $5 million in revenue.

Of that group, 11 had over 60% growth and $10 million in annual revenue.

"I was shocked," Ng said, adding that 500 Global has since invested in five of those 11 firms.

Stronger currency boosts purchasing power

In Puchong, a town about 10 miles south of Kuala Lumpur, entrepreneurs Amirul Merican and Chor Chee Hoe were preparing just after dawn to meet their startup's new landlord. They're looking to move into a factory to expand production at their firm, Qarbotech, by 50 times.

In a garage space on the outskirts of the capital, their workers hauled tubs of grounded carbon to be heated into a patented liquid via a dozen or so kitchen microwaves.

That liquid is their product, a spray that Amirul and Chor say boosts crop yields for rice paddies and vegetables through improved photosynthesis.

Amirul said the last two years of political stability were a boon for their expansion plans.

Malaysia's stronger currency has made purchasing American equipment cheaper — like a giant industrial-level microwave they bought to replace their kitchen appliances.

The ringgit has strengthened by over 3% against the dollar over the past year, peaking with a 13% gain against the dollar in September.

"That's crazy," Amirul said of the gains in September, when they bought the microwave. "We have a stronger currency, more international companies looking at Malaysia."

Quelling the brain drain

One of Malaysia's long-term challenges is quelling a brain drain to Singapore, Australia, and the West.

More than 1.1 million Malaysians lived in Singapore in 2022, about three-quarters of whom were skilled or semi-skilled workers.

Jayant Menon, a senior fellow who studies Asian trade and investment at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said if Malaysia does not fix issues like its talent exodus, the tech push could become a collection of short-term investments spilling over from the US-China trade war.

Amy, the analyst asked to assess Malaysia's tech scene, said the government should work on bringing middle-class female talent back into the workforce.

About 53% of Malaysian STEM graduates in 2021 were women, far higher than the global average of 29%.

"But the moment they enter the workforce, that number drops to about 43 to 44%," Amy said of how many working STEM professionals are women. Middle-income Malaysians are often under pressure to care for both their children and retiring parents, and many women choose to take on that role since they earn 33% less than men in the country, she added.

"Naturally, the women will stay at home," she said. "But we have all those women who we put on scholarships stuck at home."

Malaysia could also struggle with educational gaps for its future workforce.

Nearly a quarter of Malaysia's 17-year-old students failed math in the 2023 national exams, while another 28.9% scored a D or E grade, according to the Education Ministry.

The country has been grappling with inconsistent education policies, debating whether to offer science and math classes in English, Malay, or other mother tongues for the past two decades. Singapore's education and government are primarily in English, a decision that helped make the city-state a business hub.

On the global front, Malaysia must also overcome a hit to its reputation from a major 2015 corruption scandal, in which officials funneled $4.5 billion from its sovereign wealth fund 1MDB into their own pockets.

Kean, the founder who's building self-driving software, is aware of those potential pitfalls. But he said that for entrepreneurs like him, the only option for now is to keep going.

Since April 2022, Kommu says it has sold 400 dashcams, mostly to car enthusiasts. The company's next phase of development is creating software that can navigate to destinations and know when to exit highways.

His team is unsure where Kommu can take its dashcam or where their exits lie. But he hopes that a way up could come from local automakers noticing their work and reaching out.

"I think any entrepreneur will tell you that the best time to start is now," he said.

Correction, January 16, 12:45 p.m. SGT: An earlier version of this story misspelled a source's name. He is Kean Wei Wong, not Kean Wei Kong.

• Nate Anderson said he's disbanding Hindenburg Research after completing all its outstanding projects.
• Hindenburg, a short-seller founded in 2017, gained fame for its forensic financial research.
• The firm impacted major companies and plans to share its tactics publicly.

Nate Anderson, founder of the short-selling firm Hindenburg Research, is tapping out.

On Wednesday, Anderson wrote in a post titled "Gratitude" on the firm's website, "I have made the decision to disband Hindenburg Research. The plan has been to wind up after we finished the pipeline of ideas we were working on," including reporting multiple cases to regulators.

"Building this has been a life's dream." But, he said, "the intensity and focus has come at the cost of missing a lot of the rest of the world and the people I care about."

Anderson launched Hindenburg in 2017 and rose to prominence in 2020 with a report saying that electric truck manufacturer Nikola Corporation had exaggerated and misrepresented its products to investors. The stock tumbled 11% in a single day, and Anderson was off to the races.

Other targets of Hindenburg's negative research and short-seller activity included Clover Health, Adani Group, and Icahn Enterprises. In each instance the entity in question saw sharp stock losses immediately after publication. The Adani Group situation was especially notable, because the market reaction to the firm's research resulted in tens of billions of dollars of lost net worth for one of Asia's richest individuals.

Unlike typical investors that seek to capture returns from rising stock prices, short-sellers bet on declines. Hindenburg carved a niche for itself by publishing negative research, often focused on highlighting what it argued to be fraudulent or misleading corporate behavior, while also positioning itself short beforehand. It's unknown how much money the firm brought in overall from its short bets.

Anderson said in his message that the firm's work held some of the most powerful companies accountable for their actions.

"Nearly 100 individuals have been charged civilly or criminally by regulators at least in part through our work, including billionaires and oligarchs. We shook some empires that we felt needed shaking," he wrote.

In the next six months, Anderson wrote that he plans to make the firm's tactics public through open-source materials and videos on their investigation process.

Anderson and representatives from Hindenburg didn't immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

• Pete Hegseth faced intense questioning over his comments about women in combat roles.
• Hegseth walked back his opposition but said he'd order a review of gender-neutral standards.
• The military does not have a quota for women in combat roles as Hegseth had suggested.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, walked back his outspoken opposition to women serving in the US military's combat jobs as he faced intense questioning from lawmakers on Tuesday.

Hegseth, an Army veteran of Iraq and Fox News host, had built a large following with blunt commentary that criticized female troops and claimed standards had been lowered to help them. But in the Senate hearing, he signaled he wouldn't attempt to ban women from combat roles, a backtrack that may have been necessary to get enough votes.

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and Iraq veteran whose support has been seen as pivotal, asked if Hegseth supports women continuing to serve in combat roles.

"Yes, exactly the way that you caveated it," Hegseth said. "Yes, women will have access to ground combat roles, given the standards remain high, and we'll have a review to ensure the standards have not been eroded in any one of these cases."

Hegseth said that if he's confirmed by the GOP-led Senate, he would initiate a review of gender-neutral standards within the Pentagon for combat jobs held by female service members.

Hegseth had been a vociferous critic of the 2015 lifting of combat exclusions for women.

"I'm straight-up just saying we should not have women in combat roles," Hegseth said in an interview after Trump's re-election in November. Combat roles include jobs in the infantry, artillery, and special operations, among others.

"They're gonna change the standards, they're gonna push the quotas," he continued during the interview. "They pushed that under Obama in a way that had nothing, zero to do with efficiency… with lethality," he said.

The military does not have a quota requirement for women who fill combat roles and Hegseth's claims to the contrary provoked a confrontation before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said during questioning. "That does not exist."

According to Military.com, almost 700 female Marines currently serve in infantry jobs, over 700 serve in the Navy's submarine forces and nearly 4,000 in the Army hold combat-related jobs. Roughly 98% of the Army's armor and infantry jobs were held by men as of 2020.

Since opening ground combat jobs to women in 2015, critics have contended that women who passed notoriously grueling training is a result of lowered physical standards, putting combat missions at-risk of catastrophe.

Ground combat roles were opened to female service members only after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan in which women routinely found themselves in a grey zone, operating outside the wire at a time when restrictions on women in combat at times burdened units with bureaucratic red tape.

In the hearing, Hegseth emphasized his focus would be on the Defense Department's warrior ethos and making troops and the arms they carry even deadlier, implying that his earlier opposition to women stemmed from concern over fair and rigorous standards.

"Our standards will be high, and they will be equal — not equitable, that is a very different word," Hegseth said in his opening statement. "When President Trump chose me for this position, the primary charge he gave me was to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense."

Since women began attending sought-after training schools, allegations have popped up about unequal treatment. Military news site Air Force Times reported in 2021 concerns from a female student at the Air Force's special operations course who questioned whether course standards were lowered for her.

The US Army has repeatedly said it did not lower standards for female soldiers at Ranger School, over 100 of whom now wear its coveted tab on their sleeve.

• Drake sued his own label, UMG Recordings, Inc, alleging defamation.
• He accused the label of approving and publishing Kendrick Lamar's diss track, which the suit said included false and dangerous allegations.
• UMG said it is fighting the case to protect other artists for "having done nothing more than write a song."

Drake filed a lawsuit against his own label, UMG Recordings, Inc., amid his ongoing beef with Kendrick Lamar.

The rapper, whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham, accused Universal Music Group of approving and publishing Lamar's diss track "Not Like Us," which the complaint says includes allegations that UMG "understood were not only false, but dangerous."

The song "falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him," according to the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.

"Even though UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake's music for years, and knew that the salacious allegations against Drake were false, UMG chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists," Drake, through his attorneys, stated in the lawsuit.

Representatives for Drake and UMG did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

UMG told The New York Times that it intends to fight the lawsuit to protect other artists for "having done nothing more than write a song."

The complaint pointed to one incident in May in which someone opened fire outside his Toronto home, striking the front door and wounding a security guard, who the lawsuit described as "one of Drake's friends."

In the days following, the lawsuit said there were two attempted break-ins at his property, one of which involved an individual who dug under the property's gate with his bare hands and "managed to yell racist slurs and threats against Drake before being escorted off the property."

The complaint underscored that Lamar was not named as a defendant. It said UMG's actions in publishing the track were the cause of the string of incidents.

The complaint further said that UMG did not help Drake when he confronted company executives about the situation.

The lawsuit is another escalation in the ongoing beef between two chart-topping rappers that started more than 10 years ago.

What began as an exchange of subtle shots and coded lyrics in their songs turned into an all-out musical brawl last year after Lamar once again declared himself the king of hip-hop in a collaborative track with rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin. In the song, he directly responded to Drake's 2023 track, "First Person Shooter."

Within a month, Drake and Lamar exchanged several searing diss tracks, at one point going beyond rap and taking shots at each others' character and personal lives.

Music critics and listeners widely saw "Not Like Us" as the final, decisive blow in the rap beef as the song received widespread acclaim and remained on Billboard's number one spot on the Hot Rap Songs chart for 21 weeks, breaking a record that was set by Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road."

The Compton-born rapper took a victory lap in June when he hosted a one-night concert in Inglewood, California, where he performed "Not Like Us" six times in a row.

The rivalry escalated in November when Drake involved the courts by filing a legal petition — which comes before a lawsuit — that accused UMG and Spotify of devising a scheme in order to make "Not Like Us" a viral hit at the expense of the Toronto rapper.

UMG previously denied the claims and called Drake's filing "contrived" and "absurd."

In a second legal petition from November, Drake attorneys' hinted at defamation claims against Universal and said that the label should have prevented the release of Lamar's "Not Like Us" due to the statements in the song.

• Teens say that TikTok has a culture that other apps can't replace.
• Many of them became emotionally attached to the community during the pandemic.
• Some teens are pushing back on the ban by seeking out other Chinese apps.

Over the past few weeks, Madeira Semins, 18, has spent a lot of time thinking about TikTok — and experiencing a range of emotions about the possibility of the platform going away.

"It's a coping mechanism for many people in my generation," Semins, who attends college in Ohio, told Business Insider. "It seems dramatic to say that I feel uncertain about what my life will look like without TikTok in it, but it really has been such a quiet influence that I didn't even realize was happening until I started to think about what I'd do without it."

Last week, the Supreme Court heard testimony on a law that requires TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to sell its US operations by January 19 or face a ban. Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, ByteDance plans to end US access to TikTok on that date.

While some teens say they'll simply move to other social media outlets, others are frustrated by what they see as a lack of understanding about TikTok's role in their communities, as well as overreach by the federal government.

A generation uses it to interact with the world

Like many teens, Semins and her 16-year-old sister started turning to TikTok during the pandemic when they were isolated at home. The app kept them "sane and in touch with the world," she said.

Since then, the app has become an easy way for her to connect with her peers both online and in person, serving as a source of memes and trends that it seems everyone knows.

"Losing TikTok seems like it has immense potential to drastically change the ways my generation interacts with the world and each other," Semins said.

Not just a way to pass time

Elizabeth Conley, a 19-year-old from Indiana, uses TikTok for her work with BridgeUSA, a multi-partisan student movement that promotes diverse voices in politics.

"TikTok isn't just a way to pass the time; it's been a huge tool for engaging with people on campus and raising awareness about important issues," she said. "Losing that platform would mean rethinking our outreach strategy entirely."

Conley also uses TikTok for humor and quick connection with peers by laughing over memes or popular trends. But she says the platform also helps her "discover new ideas and creative content that sparks conversations with people I care about."

Some teens are turning to RedNote in protest

Rayyan Ahmed, 19, says he uses TikTok as a "low-effort way to keep constant communication" with friends. Now, he sees his peers taking a critical look at the idea of the government banning an app.

"There's a popular sentiment about the app that the government should focus on stronger data privacy laws instead of banning one certain app," said Ahmed, who lives in New Jersey.

Some teens he knows are moving to another Chinese app, RedNote, in "defiance of the ban," Ahmed said, adding that he believes teens are moving there because the app is Chinese.

Given that, Conley wonders if the TikTok ban will have the desired impact.

"I'm not sure a ban would fully achieve its goals because people might just find other ways to access TikTok or turn to different platforms without really addressing the underlying issues," like concerns about security and the influence of social media on youth, she said.

Ahmed himself hasn't transitioned to RedNote, and said he'll likely just spend more time on Instagram Reels. Many of Semins' friends also plan to switch back to Instagram Reels, but that app has a different feel for her. Whereas TikTok was purely for her friends and peers, former teachers and adult friends of her family follow her on Instagram.

"I can't imagine myself posting TikTok-inspired reels to the same audience," she said. "Part of what makes TikTok so successful, in my opinion, is that it has always been a more casual space, and I'm not confident in Instagram's ability to integrate that playfulness successfully."

The ban could isolate disconnected teens

Jackson Jordan, 15, told Business Insider that there's no other social media platform that matches the opportunities to connect with peers that TikTok has given him.

Jordan's mom, Titania, is Bark Technologies' chief parent officer and founder of Parenting in a Tech World. She's talked with him extensively about misinformation, addictive algorithms, bullying, digital footprints, and other online dangers, but she's also allowed him to be "very active" on TikTok, she said.

Although Jordan is clear-eyed about the dangers of TikTok, he and his mother both also see the app's potential, from allowing content creators to build careers to creating connections for teens. Losing that concerns Jordan.

"This ban would further isolate an already disconnected generation of internet users, including myself," he said.

Jordan doesn't think the government should have the right to do that.

"I feel upset," he said. "It is an unfair violation of our right to free speech. Banning TikTok isn't a matter of national security; it is outright government censorship."

Some teens are ambivalent about the ban

Not all the teens that Business Insider spoke to are as concerned about the potential ban. Aidan O'Donnell, 18, has already started migrating from TikTok to Instagram Reels.

"I honestly don't care now" about TikTok's future, O'Donnell said.

Semins and her friends hope they'll spend more time offline if TikTok goes away.

With the app on all of her friends' phones, she often finds herself scrolling side-by-side as her friends do the same.

"In those moments, I often wish we were talking instead or doing something more collaborative and interactive," she said. "The app is just so addictive, and the algorithm is so personalized that it can feel almost impossible to just stop."