• Netflix's 'Running Point' is a fictional comedy about a woman who becomes the owner of a basketball team.
• The series is based on the life of Jeanie Buss, owner of the LA Lakers.
• Mindy Kaling, the show's creator, said Buss came up with the idea for a comedy show about her life.

Netflix's "Running Point," a sports comedy about a woman who becomes the owner of an LA-based basketball team, may seem familiar to fans of the Los Angeles Lakers.

That's because the show is loosely based on the life of Jeanie Buss, the team's president.

"Running Point" is the latest series to examine the legacy of the LA Lakers, the second-most successful team in the NBA.

In 2022, Max produced a biopic series about the lives of key players and executives at the NBA team in the 1980s, and Hulu released a 10-episode documentary about the team's rise.

Netflix takes a new approach to portraying the team's history, focusing on Buss' life and her journey to being taken seriously in a male-dominated sport.

Mindy Kaling, the show's creator, told ExtraTV in an interview published on Tuesday that Buss asked her to make a show about her life.

"She approached me like five years ago to want to do this show," Kaling said. "She loved 'The Office' and so she's someone who has a very serious job but doesn't take herself seriously.

"She could have said like, 'I want the show to be a drama, and I want my character to be like hugely important, and everyone admires them.' But she's like, 'No, I want it to be funny.'"

Kaling added that Buss gave her and the writing team full access to her life and allowed them to interview her at any point to make "Running Point."

"Running Point" is still a fictional show, so many elements of Buss' life have likely been changed.

In real life, Buss took over the LA Lakers from her father, not her brother

The character based on Buss, played by Kate Hudson, is called Isla Gordon and runs a team called the Los Angeles Waves. Isla has three brothers who are part of the team's executive branch, while Buss' has five brothers and a sister who work in multiple sectors within the Lakers.

Buss became the owner of the Lakers in 2013 after the death of her father, Jerry Buss, the former owner. But in the show, Gordon takes on the role after her older is in a car accident.

Gordon is not the only character directly inspired by a real-life person in the show.

Brenda Song plays Gordon's friend, Ali Lee, who is based on Linda Rambis, the manager of special projects at the Lakers and a long-term friend of Buss.

Both Buss and Rambis are executive producers on "Running Point."

"Some of the situations seem outlandish but nothing surprises me that happens in the world of professional basketball," Buss told The Associated Press at the series' premiere event in LA on February 13. "We've seen everything."

The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on Business Insider for current information.

• My husband and I used to love having Premier status on United, but we don't qualify anymore.
• The airline offers one credit card that gives automatic Premier status, but it has a $525 annual fee.
• It has great perks, but I realized a United card with a lower annual fee was a better value for us.

For years, my husband and I regularly traveled for work enough to earn Premier status on United Airlines. We loved it — the Premier security lanes at some airports literally saved us hours of travel time.

However, to reach Premier status, you need to fly a minimum of four United flights a year and earn at least 6,000 Premier qualifying points. We've both been traveling less lately and sadly don't qualify anymore.

We miss it so much that I've been looking into getting a United credit card in hopes of replacing those Premier-status perks.

I found a few options: the $0-annual-fee United Gateway℠ Card, the $0 intro for the first year, then $95-annual-fee United℠ Explorer Card, the $250-annual-fee United Quest℠ Card, and the $525-annual-fee United Club℠ Infinite Card.

All of them offer bonus miles, extra points when making United and everyday purchases, and no foreign transaction fees. However, only the United Club℠ Infinite Card comes with automatic Premier status.

Before signing up for it, though, I wanted to see if the hefty annual fee would be worth it for me.

I felt confident we'd make up the fee by utilizing all the perks, but I still wasn't sold

Automatic Premier status is the card's big selling point for me.

Beyond Priority security lanes, one of the reasons I love the status is earlier boarding. The highest Premier 1K level automatically gets you pre-boarding, Premier Gold and Premier Platinum board in Group 1, and Premier Silver boards in Group 2.

The United Club Infinite Card itself also gives you access to priority boarding in Group 2.

In my experience, your carry-on bag isn't getting in the overhead bin if you're in any boarding group after Group 3 on a full United flight. The most basic priority boarding typically costs at least $24 a person per flight, so the savings can add up.

Some of the card's other big perks are the high earning rates for points and miles and United Club access.

The Club is an exclusive airport lounge where members can grab snacks, work before flights with free WiFi, and chat with customer service about flight delays or cancellations.

That membership alone usually costs about $650 a year — that's already higher than the card's annual fee.

With or without Premier status, the card also gives you two free checked bags on every flight. However, if I make it to Premier Platinum or Premier 1K, I could get up to three bags for free.

I recently checked two bags on a United flight from Vancouver to Chicago that cost me $70 each way, so it would only take a few flights to get to the card's annual fee amount.

Additionally, the card gives holders $120 toward Global Entry, TSA PreCheck®, or NEXUS — which I think of as a bonus security-skipping credit.

Overall, the United Club℠ Infinite Card sounded great, but I was still hesitant.

Eventually, I realized the Quest and Explorer cards offer similar benefits

Despite the compelling case I just made for the United Club℠ Infinite Card, we aren't going to sign up for it.

I'm sure it's of excellent value for some frequent travelers, but we can't financially justify the upfront cost of the annual fee — even if we'd eventually "make all the money back."

Fancy perks, like the Club membership, distracted me a bit at first. However, that membership isn't something we would've otherwise purchased, so I can't say we'd actually be saving that money by getting it for free.

Instead, we sat down and really thought about our travel priorities: faster security, priority boarding, and free checked bags.

The United Quest Card has a $250 annual fee, which can be partially offset the first year by its perk of a $125 United purchase credit.

It doesn't come with Premier status, but I would get 500 Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs) for signing up and earn one additional point for every $20 spent. Premier Silver status — the lowest level — costs 6,000 PQPs. That's a lot of credit card purchases to get Premier status, but it's possible.

Even if I can't make it to Premier status, the United Quest℠ Card offers free priority boarding, two free checked bags, and many of the other smaller perks the United Club℠ Infinite Card offers — including the $120 security-skipping credit.

If I wanted an even less expensive card, I could try the United Explorer Card. Its annual fee is actually waived the first year — a great upfront win.

I'd earn fewer miles and could only earn up to 1,000 PQPs through spending on the card. But I'd still get priority boarding, one free checked bag, the $120 security-skipping credit, and other basic perks.

Additionally, the United Explorer Card comes with two free United Club passes a year, so my husband and I could have an annual luxurious airport experience.

Letting go of my obsession with Premier status saves me money

I was originally dead set on getting a United credit card that guaranteed us the Premier status we love so much.

Although the card that offers it isn't a perfect match for us, I'm glad I did more research before applying for the card.

This process helped me narrow down the perks that can actually save us money while still improving our travel experience.

By going with the United Quest℠ Card or United℠ Explorer Card cards, we can still access priority boarding in Group 2 — meaning we likely wouldn't have to worry about our carry-ons making it on the plane — and check one or two bags for free.

We could also use the $120 credit that comes with the cards to sign up for something like TSA PreCheck® to get through security faster.

Plus, we won't have to spend $525 every year to get those perks.

• The "Shrek" franchise is returning with another sequel starring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Zendaya.
• "Shrek 5" will premiere in December 2026.
• Here's what to know about the long-awaited movie. 

"Shrek 5" is heading to theaters in 2026 with a new cast member — Zendaya.

On Thursday, DreamWorks shared the first teaser for the movie, with new designs for Shrek and the main characters.

The teaser said that Zendaya is starring in the film, seemingly playing one of Shrek's daughters.

It has been 15 years since the last sequel to "Shrek," the pop culture juggernaut that turned DreamWorks into a leading film studio.

The first film won an Oscar, and the franchise made nearly $3 billion across the first four films. The "Puss In Boots" spinoff movies, released in 2011 and 2022, also made an extra billion dollars.

A "Shrek" sequel has been rumored for years, but fans were beginning to lose hope after "Shrek Forever After" provided a neat finish to the story. The decision to restart the "Shrek" franchise may be due to the surprise success of "Puss In Boots: The Last Wish," which had a slow opening but eventually made $481 million.

"The Last Wish" arrived 11 years after "Shrek," proving that there is still an audience for the films.

Here's what we know so far about "Shrek 5."

Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, and Cameron Diaz are returning for "Shrek 5."

Eddie Murphy, who plays Donkey, told Collider in June 2024 that he had started recording his lines for "Shrek 5" and said that DreamWorks plans to release a spinoff about his character.

A month later, DreamWorks Animation finally confirmed that "Shrek 5" is in the works. It also announced that Mike Myers will return as Shrek, with Cameron Diaz as Fiona.

No word yet on Antonio Banderas, who joined the franchise in "Shrek 2" as the outlaw Puss in Boots. Banderas voiced Puss in Boots in both of the spinoff movies (the first is set before "Shrek" and the second is set after "Shrek Forever After") and has made no announcement about stepping down from the role.

This could mean that the fan-favorite feline won't show up, or Banderas hasn't been able to finalize his deal with DreamWorks yet.

Walt Dohrn will co-direct "Shrek 5" with Brad Ableson, the director of "Minions: The Rise of Gru." Dohrn was a writer and artist on "Shrek 2" and "Shrek the Third," was the head of the story on "Shrek Forever After," and the voice of Rumpelstiltskin in the latter film.

The movie's producers are Gina Shay, who produced "Shrek Forever After," and Illumination founder Chris Meledandri.

"Shrek 5" will premiere in December 2026.

There are no details yet on the plot or how it will follow "Shrek Forever After."

The last movie ended with Shrek and Fiona happily raising their three triplets after Shrek learns to appreciate his life as a father.

DreamWorks initially announced that "Shrek 5" would premiere on July 1, 2026, but in their new teaser, the release date has changed to Christmas 2026.

• Elon Musk says it "might make sense" to increase pay for members of Congress.
• He said it could help safeguard against corruption — an argument Democrats like AOC have long made.
• It's a reversal from December, when he helped tank a funding bill over a modest lawmaker pay raise.

Elon Musk seems to be changing his mind about whether members of Congress should get a raise.

"It might make sense to increase compensation for Congress and senior government employees to reduce the forcing function for corruption," the Department of Government Efficiency head wrote on X on Thursday. "The latter might be as much as 1000 times more expensive to the public."

It's a far cry from December, when Musk helped tank a bipartisan government funding bill in part because it included a modest pay increase for members of Congress.

Musk's comment on congressional and government salaries came in response to a video claiming that members of Congress are enriching themselves by steering congressional funds toward non-government organizations that they're affiliated with.

Members of Congress are already prohibited by law from using their official positions for personal gain, and outside income often comes in the form of book proceeds.

Nonetheless, the argument Musk is making about corruption and salaries echoes those made by Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and good-government experts, who have warned that members of Congress may be tempted to trade stocks or be lured into employment in the private sector due to their stagnant salaries.

Rank-and-file members of the House and Senate currently make $174,000 — a figure that hasn't changed since 2009, since lawmakers have proactively blocked a cost of living adjustment every year since then.

If their salaries had kept pace with inflation since 2009, they would have been paid $217,900 last year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Though that $174,000 salary is far higher than what most Americans make, lawmakers and experts have pointed to the cost of maintaining two residences, as well as the importance of the job, as a reason why the salary should be increased.

• San Francisco-based Breakout has come out of stealth with $3.25 million in seed funding.
• The startup has developed an AI agent to manage software companies' inbound sales.
• Check out the 13-slide pitch deck the startup used to raise funding.

An AI startup that helps software companies manage inbound sales has come out of stealth and secured $3.25 million in seed funding.

San Francisco-based Breakout, which was launched by ex-Googlers Sachin Gupta and Hitesh Aggarwal, has created an AI sales representative that can show demos and handle early-stage customer interactions.

Gupta used the analogy of walking into an Apple store and waiting in line to speak to a human sales rep. Instead, an AI sales agent would "instantly" give you all the information you needed about an iPhone and "quickly get into your buying process."

One big problem with some AI sales agents is that they can often provide scripted interactions instead of personalized responses. Breakout says its tools can answer questions and offer tailored interactions depending on each customer's needs.

"Especially as companies go through the growth stage and have a high-velocity sales process, they start facing a lot of challenges around the buyer experience," Gupta told Business Insider. "That's the problem we're trying to solve."

The startup makes its money by offering a usage-based pricing package, typically starting with 300 conversations a month and scaling up from there. Breakout says it currently has five key clients.

While there is still a lot of investor appetite for AI startups, Gupta said there was equally as much noise. That makes it "an interesting position for investors," he said, "because they want to deploy capital, but every day they also get to know another company which is building in the AI space."

He added, "Investors tend to have certain business objections. They tend to ask, do you have access to data? And in our case, we don't have a dependency on proprietary data."

Breakout's $3.25 million seed round was led by led by Village Global, with participation from Recall Capital and Z21 Ventures.

With the fresh funding, the startup plans to build out its tech capabilities so it can start serving its waitlist of customers.

Check out the 13-slide pitch deck, shared exclusively with BI, that it used to secure the fresh funds.

• LTK is relaunching its app on Thursday to add new social features and expand beyond shopping.
• Other social-commerce apps like Flip have similarly moved into general entertainment.
• The companies are stepping up efforts to blend entertainment and shopping as they chase users.

For social-shopping apps, commerce alone isn't cutting it.

LTK, a platform that lets users buy products from creator videos and posts, is relaunching its app on Thursday to encourage more everyday content from its users.

"We're moving from being a shopping app to really being a lifestyle app," Amber Venz Box, cofounder of LTK, told Business Insider.

LTK's new feed lets users discover videos by geography and topic, such as fashion, parenting, cooking, and travel. It still wants creators to tag items in videos (that's how the company and its affiliate partners make money), but it hopes they'll vlog about other parts of their lives without any intent to push products.

The app also plans to roll out more strictly social features, like the ability to connect with friends.

It's not the only commerce platform looking to broaden its appeal in recent months. Flip, a TikTok-like app once composed purely of videos tagged with products, opened up to other content in July. It now hosts everyday videos it calls clips, which run the gamut from movie scenes to creator-on-the-street interviews and other types of content that would live on a general entertainment platform.

"The idea of social commerce over the last five years was that everyone built it to be a commerce platform where there's somebody selling you the product," Flip's CEO Noor Agha told BI.

Agha said Flip's clips feature is part of a push to merge entertainment and commerce. "If we cannot solve both, social commerce will never actually go mainstream," Agha said.

The opportunity is huge for companies in the category that can build an audience, as platforms like TikTok have shown. In a December EMARKETER forecast, the research firm predicted the number of US social-commerce buyers would hit 100 million in 2024, with sales crossing $100 billion in 2026. Social-shopping startups like Whatnot and ShopMy have pulled in tens of millions of dollars in new funding in the past few months as they chase new users.

TikTok made entertainment a must-have in social shopping

The push among shopping apps to add general entertainment is likely a response to the rise of TikTok's e-commerce platform, Shop. The app built an audience of more than a billion users globally through social entertainment before introducing commerce features.

"A lot of the social-shopping apps are trying to reverse engineer that entertainment component into their apps to make them more sticky and to keep users and audiences coming back," said Sky Canaves, a principal analyst at EMARKETER covering retail and e-commerce.

Social platforms in the US have spent years testing features to get users to buy stuff in-app, with mixed results. TikTok finally showed that consumers, if prodded enough, would get on board.

Canaves said TikTok has shown that social commerce can work, "but it needs to be grounded in content, and typically that's entertainment content and creator content."

Ultimately, that reverse engineering feat may be tough to pull off. In February, Amazon nixed its TikTok-like shopping feed, Inspire, in another sign that shopping-only video feeds lack staying power.

But relying on platforms like TikTok or Instagram for distribution is also risky for startups that don't want to be subject to the whims of Big Tech. Instagram, for example, has pulled back on commerce features in recent years.

LTK recently partnered with TikTok to integrate affiliate links within the TikTok app. But TikTok generally keeps its e-commerce features in-house. The company's future in the US is also uncertain due to a divest-or-ban law that targets the company and its owner ByteDance.

For social-shopping startups, building an entertainment platform where they can control everything may be the best path forward.

Putting social in social commerce

Making shopping feel more social is key to retaining users and growing an app's audience. Venz Box said a big part of that is tapping into the relationships users have with brands and the creators themselves.

LTK is encouraging creators to post more lifestyle content to the app so that users feel as connected to the creator on LTK as they do on larger platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

"We started investing in order to be the place that they retain, nurture, and grow their community," Venz Box said.

Community is a buzzword for social apps overall and has driven several trends in social shopping. Substack has several shopping-focused newsletters with established online and IRL communities. Meanwhile, TYB, a shopping-rewards platform cofounded by apparel brand Outdoor Voices' Ty Haney, is focused on building and maintaining communities of superfans with challenges and group chats.

Ultimately, every app is fighting for a share of the internet's most valuable commodity: consumers' time.

"I am willing to sacrifice that not every piece of content has something to buy in it because the opportunity set is so much larger if you can go deeper with people," Venz Box said.

• Blue Origin announced its all-women space crew, including Gayle King and Katy Perry.
• This mission marks the first all-female crew since 1963, led by Jeff Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sánchez.
• The 11-minute journey will use Blue Origin's reusable, autonomous New Shepard rocket.

Jeff Bezos' fiancée is headed to space.

Helicopter pilot and former journalist Lauren Sánchez will lead an all-women crew, including "CBS Mornings" cohost Gayle King and pop star Katy Perry lifting off to space this spring on a Blue Origin spaceship.

The six-person crew will also include research scientist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen, former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe, and film producer Kerianne Flynn. Sánchez "brought the mission together," Blue Origin announced on Thursday.

"She is honored to lead a team of explorers on a mission that will challenge their perspectives of Earth, empower them to share their own stories, and create lasting impact that will inspire generations to come," it added.

The 11-minute journey will take a six-person crew past the Kármán line, which is the "internationally recognized boundary of space." Blue Origin says it will be the first all-female flight crew since Valentina Tereshkova's flight to space in 1963. It marks the 11th human flight with Blue Origin's New Shepard program, which uses Blue Origin's reusable, suborbital rocket system built for human flight. The rocket is fully autonomous with no pilots.

Sánchez is following in Bezos' footsteps with the launch.

The first passengers of the New Shepard program included Bezos and his younger brother Mark Bezos, who owns a private equity firm and volunteers as a firefighter. The crew had about three minutes to float around before gravity pulled them back toward the ground.

"I'll tell you something very interesting: zero gravity feels very natural. I don't know if it's because it's like a return to the womb," Bezos later said in a podcast interview.

Bezos also said that the crew on his flight experienced the overview effect — or overwhelming feelings that astronauts can experience when viewing the Earth from space.

"You see how fragile the Earth is. If you're not an environmentalist, it will make you one," he added.

However, in a later flight, "Star Trek" actor William Shatner also flew up to space with Blue Origin's New Shepard program and had a less pleasant experience. Shatner wrote in his book that it was a dark experience for him that "felt like a funeral," and he experienced "the strongest feelings of grief" during the trip.

"I love the mystery of the universe," he wrote. "All of that has thrilled me for years…but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold...all I saw was death."

"I had a different experience because I discovered that the beauty isn't out there, it's down here, with all of us," the actor wrote. "Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound."

Blue Origin is an aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight company headquartered in Washington. It's owned by Bezos and currently headed by former Amazon exec Dave Limp. Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 and has said it's his "most important work.

• I tried Ina Garten's baked rigatoni with lamb ragù.
• The pasta recipe tastes like a cross between a Bolognese and baked ziti.
• I made the dish for a small dinner party, and it was a huge hit.

From a light summer garden pasta to a rich five-cheese penne, none of Ina Garten's pasta dishes have ever disappointed me.

Her weeknight Bolognese is one of my favorites, so I was excited to try another "Barefoot Contessa" red-sauce pasta when I found the recipe for her baked rigatoni and lamb ragù.

While Garten's weeknight Bolognese cooks in 30 minutes, her baked rigatoni takes over an hour. Would the extra effort be worth it?

I decided to find out.

Ina Garten's baked rigatoni with lamb ragù includes red wine, two types of cheese, and a lot of veggies.

To make Garten's comforting pasta dish, you'll need:

• 1 pound of ground lamb
• 1 pound of rigatoni (Garten recommends De Cecco)
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes (such as San Marzano)
• 1 pound of fresh mozzarella
• ½ cup of freshly grated Italian Parmesan cheese
• 2 ½ cups of dry red wine (Garten recommends Chianti or Côtes du Rhône)
• ⅔ cup of heavy cream
• 2 extra-large eggs
• 3 large carrots, diced
• 1 medium fennel bulb, diced
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon of whole fennel seeds, roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes

Before we got to work on the ragù, we began prepping all our vegetables and herbs.

There's a lot to this recipe, so it might help to have a sous chef. I had my friend Zach, who loves making pasta, on hand to help me with this cooking project.

First, per Garten's instructions, I chopped my yellow onion, diced my carrots and fennel bulb, minced the garlic, and roughly chopped the fennel seeds.

Then, we heated olive oil in a Dutch oven and began adding the ingredients.

First, we added the onion, carrots, and fennel to the pot.

We sautéed the veggies for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until they began to brown.

Next, we added the lamb, along with the garlic and fennel seeds.

We let the mixture cook for eight minutes, breaking up the lamb with a wooden spoon and stirring until it was no longer pink.

The room filled with a delicious scent as we threw in the rest of the sauce ingredients.

We added the tomato paste and two cups of red wine (I went with Chianti), along with the oregano, red pepper flakes, and some salt and pepper.

I also threw in the San Marzano tomatoes, which I crushed in the pot with a wooden spoon.

Then, it was time to let our beautiful sauce simmer.

I brought the Dutch oven to a boil, then lowered the heat and let it simmer — partly covered — for 40 minutes.

Per Garten's instructions, I also stirred the sauce occasionally while it was cooking.

While the sauce was simmering, we prepped our rigatoni.

I brought a large pot of water to boil, added salt, and then threw in the box of rigatoni. Garten recommends cooking your noodles until they're "barely al dente."

After 40 minutes, it was time to add more red wine to the sauce.

I took the Dutch oven off the heat and stirred in the remaining half cup of Chianti.

While waiting for the pasta to finish cooking, we prepped the cheese.

Garten's recipe calls for grating half of the fresh mozzarella on a box grater and slicing the other half.

Grating mozzarella is no easy feat. We tried one of Zach's tricks — putting the cheese in the freezer for a bit to harden it — but the task was still a struggle, so we ultimately used a knife to chop up the rest.

Once the pasta was ready, we tossed in the eggs and cream.

First, we whisked the eggs and cream together in a bowl, then added it to the rigatoni.

We added our mozzarella to the pasta, then tossed everything in with the lamb ragù.

We threw in some more salt and pepper, per Garten's instructions, and mixed everything together.

It was finally time for the last step as we transferred the pasta into a baking dish.

We sprinkled everything with Parmesan cheese, then arranged the slices of mozzarella right on top.

The dish already looked delicious, but, alas, we'd have to wait. We set the timer for 40 minutes and popped the dish in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once our pasta formed a beautiful crust on top, we knew it was time to eat.

We took the baking dish out of the oven and sprinkled some parsley on top before serving it to our very excited (and very hungry) friends, who thought it had been worth the wait.

"The melted mozzarella on top of the lamb ragù added the perfect amount of creamy cheesiness, and the lamb was melt-in-your-mouth cooked to perfection," my friend Tyler said. "The sauce was so good."

"The dish reminded me of a cross between Bolognese and a baked ziti!" my friend Sara added. "Definitely a labor of love, but to someone not cooking, highly worth it!"

My sous chef, Zach, also loved the taste, although he didn't agree that it was worth the extra effort.

"As Prue would say on 'The Great British Bake-off,' it was worth the calories — but I wouldn't say it was worth the time," he said. "While it was definitely fun cooking it, I think you could genuinely make a dish that was 90% as good with just focusing on the ragù and broiling the pasta versus fully baking it."

The cooking process for Garten's baked rigatoni was definitely laborious, and I agree with Zach that the lamb ragù would make an incredible sauce even without the extra baking time. But you can also make most of the dish a day in advance. Per Garten's advice, just follow all the steps for the ragù, refrigerate it, and bake it just before serving the next day.

We served the pasta with Garten's "outrageous" garlic bread. It was the perfect meal for a small dinner party.

Garten's "outrageous" garlic bread was so good that it almost stole the show from the lamb ragù. Everyone loved the crunchy exterior, and the lemon zest and parsley on top added a nice brightness to all that garlic.

"I could have eaten an entire baguette's worth of the garlic bread," Tyler said.

Overall, the two dishes were perfect comfort food, just as Garten promised. When winter feels never-ending — as this one certainly has — what better way to get through than with some garlic bread and ragù?

• Romanian lawmakers approved a bill allowing its military to shoot down drones over its airspace.
• The NATO country has seen Russian drones entering its territory, with some crashing on its land.
• Russia has targeted Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure near NATO's borders.

Romania could start shooting down drones that enter its airspace after lawmakers approved a new bill on Wednesday.

The legislation allows Romania's military to "destroy, neutralize, or take control of" unnamed aircraft illegally breaching its airspace.

It's set to be signed into law by interim President Ilie Bolojan.

Romania, a NATO member bordering Ukraine, has seen regular incidents of Russian drones entering its airspace or crashing on its territory since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Last month, Romania's defense ministry said that its investigation team had found Russian drone debris in two areas near its border with Ukraine.

Romania has also scrambled fighter jets in response to Russian drone activity. In July, two F-18 jets were dispatched after Russian drones attacked Ukrainian civilian targets and port infrastructure near their shared border.

In September, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets and two Spanish F-18 jets were also deployed after Russian drones targeted Ukrainian infrastructure nearby.

Drones have been a hallmark of the war in Ukraine, with both sides using the rapidly evolving technology to devastating effect. This has raised the alert level in nearby countries.

In an interview last year, Gheorghita Vlad, Romania's defense chief, advocated for legal revisions to empower the military to shoot down drones.

Other countries neighboring Ukraine, including Poland and Latvia, have also reported Russian drones illegally entering their airspace.

NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah told BI in September that "shooting down drones or missiles violating Allied territory are decisions for national authorities."

"We are strengthening Romania's defense," Mircea Abrudean, Romania's interim Senate president, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

"Romania's safety is non-negotiable," he added.

Abrudean also said another law passed in the Senate on Wednesday would allow Romania's military to better collaborate with NATO partners on its territory during peacetime missions and military operations.

• I lived in Tucson, Arizona, as a child. After leaving for college, I hadn't been back in 15 years.
• Recently, I visited Tuscon as an adult and it was even better than I expected.
• The city was filled with excellent food, hiking trails, and beautiful sunset views.

I live in Oregon and enjoy traveling, though I usually focus on exploring new places or returning to beloved spaces in the Pacific Northwest again and again.

However, my most recent trip was a bit different: I returned to where I grew up for the first time in 15 years. Although I was born in Canada, I spent second grade all the way through middle and high school in Tucson, Arizona.

As a kid, I didn't enjoy Tucson. Once I was accepted to a university in Washington State, I left the Sonoran Desert as quickly as I could and never looked back.

Years later, though, I wanted to see the place where I'd spent years growing up — this time through the lens of an adult and visitor.

My visit to Tucson was nothing like I'd expected. After spending several days exploring the city, I was surprised by how much I loved it, and I'm already booking my next flight back.

The opportunities for exploring the outdoors were abundant.

Although my parents instilled a love for the outdoors in me as a child, it wasn't common for us to head out and explore nearby trails.

Fortunately, over the past few years, Tucson has added many more accessible hiking trails, easily connecting visitors and locals to nature in just about any direction from the city's core.

I found myself especially impressed by Sabino Canyon, which I remember visiting several times as a kid. Years later, I'm impressed that the robust recreation area offers something for everyone.

The canyon has a paved main path, excellent for runners and walkers, and an unpaved trail for those seeking a more difficult hike.

For those with mobility issues or who simply want a leisurely way to see the landscape, the Sabino Canyon Crawler is a wonderful option. The electric shuttle travels up through the canyon, and passengers can listen to a narration about local wildlife while they ride.

Visitors can ride the shuttle up and back down the entire way or choose their own level of adventure. I loved that I could get off at the top and walk back to the visitor center to see parts of the canyon up close.

I'm still thinking about all the good food I ate.

In an episode of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations," the chef visits El Charro Café. Established in 1922, the family-run spot is known as the oldest operating Mexican restaurant in the United States.

The restaurant is still located in an old house and carries on its tradition of making carne seca — a dish featuring beef that has been dried on the rooftop in the desert sun before being shredded and simmered with tomatoes, onions, and chilies.

Growing up, I'd never visited El Charro Café. I'm grateful I went now, as I loved experiencing the taste of history that lives on in this beautiful building.

Another food highlight on my trip was stopping for a baguette at Barrio Bread, which makes use of heirloom, drought-tolerant grains grown in the Sonoran Desert.

I also encountered incredible tableside-made guacamole at almost every Tucson restaurant I visited.

The coffee scene is something special.

Tucson has a pretty impressive collection of local coffee roasters, which means my trip had no shortage of great beverages.

I had no complaints about my visits to Caffe Luce and Yellow Brick Coffee, but my visit to Exo Roast Co. was truly the standout.

According to its website, Exo collaborates with small producers in Mexico and roasts its beans on-site. I visited its Simpson St. location and immediately loved the charm of the space.

The late-1800s adobe-style building houses a sunny courtyard with plenty of lively plants, with historic details inside, including exposed wooden-beam ceilings and stunning terracotta-hued tiled floors.

I loved sipping an orange-cardamom latte and eating the flakiest croissant while enjoying the community feel of this space.

I found comfort in driving up Mt. Lemmon for sunset.

For two summers, I worked at a scout camp on Mt. Lemmon — the highest point of the Santa Catalina Mountains that tower over Tucson on its north side.

Although I loved my experience as a camp counselor and the people I met, I didn't have as much appreciation for this geological wonder as I do now.

The sunsets I experienced during my visit were just as spectacular as I remembered. Taking a drive on my last night in Tucson and stopping at a mountain viewpoint to take in the color show with the city below was a highlight of the trip.

Visiting Saguaro National Park was much more enjoyable as an adult.

Saguaro National Park is uniquely split up into two sections, with the city of Tucson in the center.

While planning this visit, it dawned on me that I had attended elementary school just five minutes from Saguaro National Park East.

We had driven through the park almost daily, or I had ridden the bus past countless collections of saguaros, a cactus species.

I didn't realize how special that was as a child, but exploring the park as an adult gave me a better appreciation for the landscape of the Sonoran Desert where I grew up.

• A Gen X woman is on track to earn nearly $300,000 this year across two full-time remote jobs.
• However, one of her managers asked her to move from Arizona to Texas and work from the office.
• She's looking for a new remote role to maintain her high earnings and overemployment.

Working two remote jobs simultaneously helped Kelly buy a home and support her children. But one employer's return-to-office push is threatening her "overemployed" lifestyle.

In 2020, Kelly was working remotely as an engineer for a NASA contractor but felt her salary was insufficient to afford a home she desired in the Los Angeles area. To boost her income, she took on a part-time remote job with another NASA contractor — and didn't tell either employer she was juggling two jobs. When the part-time role ended six months later, she'd grown used to having the additional income, so she started another remote role.

"Having two remote jobs that were nearly full-time was a lifestyle that I missed," said Kelly, whose identity was verified by Business Insider but who asked to use a pseudonym, citing a fear of professional repercussions.

This year, Kelly is on track to earn nearly $300,000 secretly working two full-time remote jobs, roughly doubling her income from when she worked one job. The additional income helped her buy a home in Arizona — where she relocated to in 2021 — and, as a single mom, it's helped her financially support her adult children. What's more, she said she generally works no more than 40 hours a week across the two roles.

But one of her managers has asked her to relocate to Texas and work from the office a few days a week. If she quits, her income will be cut in half. She said she'll do whatever she can to continue juggling two jobs.

"I've been in a situation where I'm tight on money, and I just don't want to be in that situation again," said Kelly, who's in her late 40s.

Kelly is among the Americans who have secretly juggled multiple remote jobs recently to boost their earnings. Over the past two years, BI has interviewed more than two dozen overemployed workers who've used their extra income to afford expensive vacations and weight-loss drugs. To be sure, holding multiple jobs without employer approval could have professional repercussions and lead to burnout. However, many job jugglers have told BI that the financial benefits have generally outweighed the downsides and risks.

Looking for a job while delaying RTO

Even before her employer asked her to move to Texas, Kelly faced some obstacles in her overemployed journey.

In 2023, a couple of years after her part-time role ended, Kelly accepted a new full-time contract position that she worked in addition to her full-time, remote job. However, the new role required her to work in the office a few days a week. She said it was very difficult to juggle both roles, particularly when she worked from the office.

"Every time I had a NASA meeting, I would get in my car, sit in the scorching Arizona sun, use my NASA laptop, and connect to my personal hot spot on my phone," she said. "After I got home from my local job, I would stay up late to complete my NASA work."

After six months, Kelly said she left the hybrid job and began looking for a second remote role. In late 2023, she connected with a company that she thought was hiring for positions in Arizona. However, she learned the company was based in Texas and wanted employees who could work from a Texas office a couple of days a week. When the company offered her the job, she declined the offer.

A couple of weeks later, Kelly said the manager for the position she declined called her and said she'd be allowed to work remotely. The manager pushed her to commit to relocating after a year but Kelly said she never agreed to those conditions. She accepted the updated offer and, for the first time, began juggling two full-time remote jobs.

However, over the past year, Kelly has been moved to a different contract within the company and reports to a different manager. She said this manager wants her to move to Texas, using a relocation package that expires in a few months. She said some coworkers have also been asked to move.

Kelly has been traveling to Texas occasionally for the job, but she said she doesn't want to move there. She likes Arizona, prefers being remote, and can't juggle two full-time jobs from an office.

"It just limits me when I'm sitting in an office, someone's over my shoulder," she said.

For now, Kelly said her plan is to look for a new remote role — or a hybrid position based in her area — and not tell her manager that she won't be moving. She said she's interviewing for a few roles.

However, remote roles can be hard to get. Some companies have called workers back to the office at least a few days a week, and the share of hybrid and remote job postings has fallen in recent years from pandemic-era highs.

Kelly said she's not sure what will happen if she continues to delay her move. If she loses the job, she said she'd be able to rely on the income from her other role — which pays more than $100,000 annually — while she continues her job search.

While balancing two jobs can be stressful, she said she's learned how to make it work. She records meetings she doesn't have time to focus on and takes vacations from one job on the rare occasion she has to travel for the other.

"My friends and family always think I'm crazy for doing all of this, but it's kind of like an adrenaline rush and it makes me stay busy," she said.

Do you have a story to share about secretly working multiple jobs or discovering an employee is doing so? Contact this reporter at [email protected] or Signal at jzinkula.29.

• Goldman Sachs mentioned diversity just 3 times in this year's report.
• It said its "aspirational hiring goals" will expire this year without saying if it would set new goals.
• The firm's CEO, David Solomon, pointed to the political landscape under the Trump administration.

Goldman Sachs tamped down the diversity language in its annual report as DEI efforts come under fire from the Trump adminitration.

The bank also said "aspirational hiring goals" it set five years ago expire this year without saying whether it planned to set new goals.

Goldman's 2024 annual report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, referenced diversity relating to human capital just three times, versus 14 in the 2023 report and 16 times in the 2022 report. The Wall Street bank also eliminated a section of the report previously titled "Diversity and Inclusion," its hiring breakdown by race and gender and its diverse hiring goals by race and gender.

Earlier this year, Goldman dropped a policy requiring companies its advises on IPOs to have at least two women directors.

Goldman isn't alone. The $11 trillion asset manager BlackRock this week also cut mentions of its "three pillar DEI strategy" in its annual report, as well as a breakout of its employee demographics by race and gender. It also amended the metrics used to determine borrowing costs for a $4.4 billion credit facility which was previously tied to its efficacy in boosting internal DEI targets.

The changes come as President Trump cracks down on DEI. In January, he invoked directed the Department of Justice to investigate DEI policies, prohibiting private organizations from instituting such initiatives in employment practices related to federal contracts.

In a statement, Goldman CEO David Solomon cited changes to the law.

"We have made certain adjustments to reflect developments in the law in the US," he said. "Our people are a powerful example of that and that's why we will continue to focus on the importance of attracting and retaining diverse, exceptional talent."

Goldman said in the report that it still believes in a diverse workforce and would "continue to develop programs consistent with our fundamental commitment to inclusive merit-based promotion and compliance with the law."

The bank's 2023 report set goals to hire of 50% women analysts and associates, 11% Black professionals and 14% Hispanic/Latinx professionals in the Americas, and 9% Black professionals in the UK.

In 2023, it also broke down its workforce by race and gender, saying its analyst and associate hires included 49% women professionals, 9% Black professionals and 13% Hispanic/Latinx professionals in the Americas, and 15% Black professionals in the UK.

Also gone are mentions of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs. In the 2023 report, Goldman said it would seek to double the number of campus hires in the US recruited from HBCUs in 2025 relative to 2020.What's more, a breakdown of the firm's aspirational goals for diverse hiring is also missing.

For Goldman, DEI has historically been framed as a business imperative. In its 2022 annual report, the firm stated that "diversity at all levels" was "essential to our sustainability" and cited efforts to increase representation among women and underrepresented groups. At the time, the firm touted stats, such as one where it said approximately 57% of Goldman's board was diverse by race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Even so, its track record on DEI has come under fire for other reasons. Last year, reporting from The Wall Street Journal found that numerous senior women at the bank felt it hadn't done enough to support their career prospects or advancement, and was still heavily male-dominated.

Reed Alexander is a reporter for Business Insider. He can be reached via email at [email protected], or SMS/the encrypted app Signal at (561) 247-5758.

• When DOGE was first announced, GOP lawmakers expected to be at the forefront.
• One month into Trump's presidency, they're largely in the backseat.
• One key DOGE-focused lawmaker says he wants to see lawmakers get more input.

When Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy made a splashy visit to Capitol Hill in December to tout their new "Department of Government Efficiency," the excitement among Republican lawmakers was palpable.

GOP leaders moved to set up a DOGE subcommittee led by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Lawmakers established DOGE caucuses in both chambers to serve as the focal point for legislation, and in the House, it was even bipartisan. "If this is where that conversation is going to happen," Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida told BI at the time, "I'm happy to be at the table."

Two months later, it's clear that Congress is not where the most consequential DOGE conversations are happening, or where key decisions are being made.

Instead, even Republicans who broadly support DOGE's mission have been left watching from the sidelines as Musk's team has shuttered entire agencies, frozen federal funds, and asserted control over the federal workforce, spurring a flurry of lawsuits and fears of a constitutional crisis along the way. At the same time, those same lawmakers are still bearing the brunt of the public outcry over DOGE cuts, with some now public suggesting that the effort should slow down.

Rep. Blake Moore of Utah, one of the three GOP co-chairs of the House DOGE caucus, recalled on Tuesday feeling "very encouraged" when Musk visited the Capitol in December, when lawmakers took the microphones in a subterranean auditorium to offer up the variety of ideas that they'd spent years developing around government efficiency and eliminating waste.

"There was just very much an interest in taking and collecting input for stuff that we've already been working on," Moore told BI. "I want to see more of that."

Musk's shock and awe campaign across the federal bureaucracy has made parallel efforts in Congress feel quaint. Later on Tuesday, a handful of members of the House DOGE caucus held a "DOGE Day" press conference, where they highlighted various bills aimed at clamping down on government waste. When it was time for questions, those lawmakers weren't asked about any of those bills — they were instead pressed over the cuts that Musk's team has already been making.

Rep. Aaron Bean of Florida, another co-chair, told reporters that the "uncomfort factor" for members of Congress came from the speed of it all.

"A lot of members of Congress haven't seen this speed," Bean said. "But I can tell you, it has to be done."

Republicans on Capitol Hill have continued to assert that they remain behind the steering wheel when it comes to the flow of federal funds and the structure of the federal bureaucracy, even as they're increasingly in the back seat. Others blame the perennially slow pace of congressional legislating.

"Congress will have its time," Rep. Greg Murphy, a North Carolina Republican who's in the DOGE caucus, told BI. "But as slow as Congress moves, and as difficult as it is to get 535 opinions, this is one thing where the executive branch has come in."

Some argue that the administration's moves to withhold congressionally approved funding and fire thousands of workers merely constitute a "review," and that Congress will have the final say. Others, such as Republican Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas, say their main concern is the longevity of the executive actions driven by President Donald Trump and Musk.

"We've got to codify what President Trump is doing," Cloud, a member of both the DOGE caucus and the DOGE subcommittee, told BI. "Otherwise, it's just a great blip on the radar."

Sen. Rand Paul is urging the administration to send a rescission bill to Congress, arguing that it would be "messier" to attempt impoundment, which would "likely be challenged in court" and take some time to resolve.

"Rescission won't be challenged in any way," the Kentucky Republican told BI. "It's a much cleaner way of doing it."

Congress played second fiddle to DOGE yet again on Wednesday, when Greene's DOGE subcommittee held a hearing centered on the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. Over the course of nearly two hours of testimony and questioning, few of the panel's Republican members acknowledged the elephant in the room — that the agency is already shuttered and nonfunctional.

After the hearing, Greene insisted that Congress remained at the forefront of DOGE.

"We're actually filling our role here on the DOGE subcommittee," Green said, "looking into the waste, fraud, and abuse, making our recommendations, and hopefully putting that into legislative actions."

• Oscar nominee Mikey Madison says getting cast in "Anora" marked a turning point in her life.
• Madison and Baker spoke to BI about how she landed the title role playing the feisty sex worker.
• Baker also recalled what it was like to be on set for Madison's infamous scream during the home invasion scene.

To an outsider, Mikey Madison's ascendance to Hollywood It Girl might seem sudden. But for the 25-year-old actor, the road to mainstream acclaim and an Oscar nomination has felt like a long, slow climb.

"It's funny, I have to say it doesn't feel rapid at all," Madison told Business Insider. "I mean, I've been acting for almost 10 years now, and at times it's been so incredibly slow."

Before her Oscar-nominated leading role in Sean Baker's "Anora," Madison had a small but dedicated fanbase, thanks to her breakthrough role playing Pamela Adlon's eldest daughter in the FX series "Better Things" and scene-stealing appearances as a Manson follower in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood" and a particularly sassy Ghostface in the 2022 "Scream" sequel.

Playing the titular sex worker in "Anora" catapulted Madison — and Baker, a longtime indie darling virtually unrecognized on the awards circuit prior to this year — into the mainstream conversation.

When BI spoke to Madison in October, just before the film's theatrical release, the actor was coming to terms with the fact that the project she had deeply immersed herself in would now be released for public consumption.

"I was very in my character's mindset. I wasn't necessarily thinking from an audience's perspective of this is going to possibly be in movie theaters and things like that," Madison said. "I was just focused on telling the story. And I'm glad that I was, because I wouldn't have wanted to have that in my head."

Madison's laser focus on her craft is part of what compelled Baker to cast her in his movie. The filmmaker was so captivated by Madison after seeing her in "Scream" that he immediately met with her, pitched her his general idea for "Anora," and then offered to write the part for her if she agreed to do it.

"I didn't have a word on paper yet. I started writing after she accepted," Baker told BI.

"He's told me he liked how I scream," Madison recalled of her initial conversations with Baker. "I think also it was just an intensity that he was interested in."

For Madison, saying yes, even without a script, was a no-brainer — she'd long admired Baker's work and counts "Tangerine" as one of her favorite films. She was particularly attracted to Baker's penchant for bringing morally grey characters to life in vivid color.

"Those are the characters that I love to play: Nobody is just good. Nobody is just bad. It's somewhere in between," Madison said.

"I've dreamed of working with a filmmaker like Sean for my entire career as an actress," she added.

Indeed, Anora is a deeply complex character, one who's frequently inscrutable even in the film's Rorschach test of an ending. One of Madison's biggest scenes, and the crux of the film, is a home invasion sequence in which Anora is restrained and held captive by the handlers of her new husband Vanya, the wayward son of a Russian oligarch, after they arrive to bust up the pair's ill-fated marriage.

The scene, shot in real time, involved many hours of Madison emitting an ear-piercing scream.

"That scream was bone-chilling, and it echoed throughout the entire mansion. And you had members of the crew working in other places of the house, and they didn't know what was going on," Baker told BI. "And to tell you the truth, it was actually quite disturbing for a lot of people. They had to cover their ears after a while, because it was so intense."

"I think she told me after maybe a few hours, 'I'm going to lose my voice if I keep going on like this,'" he said.

That quite literally full-throated commitment to the role, which also required twerking and shadowing real sex workers to learn the ins and outs of stripping, has paid off. Madison was nominated by most of the major awards organizations for her work in "Anora," winning the lead actress category in several of them, including the BAFTAs and the Independent Spirit Awards.

Most Oscar season pundits anticipate the trophy on Hollywood's biggest night will go to either Madison or Demi Moore for "The Substance." But whether she wins or loses, Madison knows that the movie — and Baker — have changed her life forever.

"'Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood' was my sort of introduction into the film world. It reminded me of why I wanted to be an actress," Madison said. "But I do feel that Sean seeing me and seeing any potential, or whatever it was that he saw, and giving me this opportunity to play a character like Anora — I think that that's been a huge turning point in my life."

• Social startups like Diem and Spill are tapping users as investors.
• Both are using WeFunder, a platform where everyday people can invest in early-stage startups.
• Users who invest in the companies also receive special perks.

Some early adopters of new social-media apps are getting more than just bragging rights.

Two early-stage social startups are opening up investment rounds to include the users of their apps (and other everyday investors). Diem, a social search platform powered by AI, launched its community round in February and is scheduled to close in May. And Spill, a visual conversation app centered on culture, founded by ex-Twitter employees, will launch its own community crowdfund in March.

"We've always wanted the community to be able to own a piece of the product," Diem CEO Emma Bates told Business Insider.

Both platforms are using WeFunder, an equity crowdfunding tool that is compliant with SEC regulations. WeFunder has been used by startups like fintech Mercury and app developer platform Replit to raise millions.

"What we have is a tool that allows you to let a larger number of smaller checks into the deal," said Read Ezell, director of fundraising at WeFunder.

Like angel syndicates, where angel investors pool their own money, community investors on WeFunder are represented by a single lead investor and receive a single line on a startup's cap table (a breakdown of who owns how much of a given company).

Diem's round allows users to invest starting at $100, while Spill is setting its entry point at $250.

Often, crowdfunding rounds listed on WeFunder accompany venture capital investment rounds.

"It's not a signal that you can't raise money," Ezell said. "It's a signal that you have another way to raise money."

For instance, Diem's community round is an allocation of its Seed Plus investment round, which closed with venture capital partners in June. One of those VCs, Charles Hudson (a managing partner at Precursor Ventures), is the lead investor for the WeFunder syndicate of community investors. That means Diem's WeFunder round offers community investors the same terms that Hudson invested on.

Diem and Spill have each raised over $5 million in venture capital, per the companies.

Ezell said crowdfunding can be "intuitive" for some social startups and consumer-facing businesses.

"For us, it just made sense," said Spill CEO Alphonzo Terrell, adding that users were asking to invest when the platform was still nascent. "We're a community-driven product and for a community that frankly doesn't get billed for in social media and also typically doesn't get access to these types of opportunities to be a part of an early-stage tech platform."

Since it launched, Spill has centered Black, Brown, and LGBTQ+ communities on the app. Diem advertises its app as being for "girls, women, and gender-expansive people."

While Spill and Diem are inviting users to invest in the company at an early stage, other larger networks like Reddit have tapped users as investors. When Reddit was preparing to go public in 2024, it offered some power users priority access to buy stock at the IPO price.

What app users get in return

By investing in startups like Diem or Spill via WeFunder, users are entering a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE). In other words, if the startup goes public in the future, the users would be guaranteed stock. If the startup is acquired, community investors also receive returns.

For early-stage startups, seeing those returns could take a while. And there's the risk a startup won't successfully make an exit.

"The reality is that it's risky, but also the reality is that most investments are under $1,000 on WeFunder," Ezell said.

Beyond equity, Diem and Spill are also offering different perks for their community investors — clout being one of them. For instance, Spill will add "investor profile badges" to app users who participate in the round, as well as access to new features, exclusive events, and first-looks at company updates.

Diem is offering similar perks for investors that can be unlocked at different investment tiers. People who invest more than $250 can gain access to Diem events, for example, while people who invest more than $1,000 also receive company merch. (Investment perks are listed on the WeFunder investment terms.)

Investing in the future of social media

The current moment in social media is also fueling these startups' decisions to crowdfund. From Meta's changing policies to TikTok's uncertain future, many social-media users have been seeking alternative platforms.

"A lot of people are interested in supporting the next generation of tools that help us stay informed and connected," Terrell said. "Clearly, there's a desire for something different, something much better, and we think people who are participating in this round are going to be key voices and partners for us in that."

Diem and Spill aren't the first social platforms to use WeFunder, either. In 2023, Substack used WeFunder to raise $7.8 million from more than 6,000 participants. Then, in 2024, Beehiiv, another newsletter platform, raised $1 million from over 800 participants.

"From day one, we have always looked to our users to determine what we needed to build," Beehiiv's CEO Tyler Denk said. "They're a huge part of the success we've experienced, and I wanted to ensure they had an opportunity to share the upside with us as we build this thing."

Other startups, like Fanbase, a social network focused on creator monetization, have used StartEngine, another startup crowdfunding platform.

• My daughter exhibited "mean girl" behavior that led to a meeting with the school dean.
• Embarrassed and upset by her behavior, I feared for her future relationships.
• I had to remind myself that we should continue to model empathetic behavior at home.

My stomach turned when the school dean called my husband and me into a conference to discuss our first-grade daughter's behavior with another classmate.

In the meeting, we learned our daughter consistently left her classmate out of group activities. For example, every time the girl went to sit with our daughter at lunch, our daughter got up and sat at another table.

Saddened by this behavior, my husband and I reflected on our parenting. Hadn't we emphasized kindness in our home and modeled empathy? How often did we tell our daughter about times we experienced bullying as kids — that it hurt our feelings and left a lasting impact? Our daughter seemed touched by these heart-to-hearts, but her behaviors proved otherwise at school.

It was embarrassing for our daughter to act catty toward her classmate, and it was a good reminder that while I can influence her behavior, I cannot control it.

Children are their own persons, shaped by a combination of factors

Of course, my husband and I felt embarrassed and humbled by our daughter's choices. While we laugh at Regina George's character in "Mean Girls," we don't want to raise a mean girl.

Aware that my reaction was fear-based, I turned to some simple truths to gain a better perspective. By nature, they are egotistical, Jillian Amodio, a licensed social worker, told Business Insider. "It's a survival skill but a frustrating one at times when they exhibit behaviors we deem "unacceptable, inappropriate, or socially crippling," Amodio said.

Further, children "don't have a perspective of the long game," said Patty Johnson, a clinical psychologist. "Their ability to plan, organize, and follow through is short-sighted, whereas we parents tend to predict far into the future of our children's lives. If they have a tiff at school with another student, the child may be focused on the incident that occurred, while parents may worry about how their child may get along in life, make friends, and find a partner that will tolerate their unruly behavior."

I struggled not to see my daughter's behavior as a character flaw instead of what it was — an immature person learning to navigate a difficult relationship. If adults are prone to struggle in relationships — and our brains are much more mature — then how can we expect children to get it right every time?

This was a good reminder that my daughter's catty behavior didn't necessarily reflect my parenting or who she would grow up to be.

I give room for her to talk to me about things that happen

"But it wasn't just me!" my daughter defended. "I got up because another girl said, 'Let's sit over there!'"

While my daughter's behavior was unkind and inexcusable, the more I peeled back the layers, the more I found that her view of what happened was complex and tangled in her other relationships at school. She isn't a natural-born leader and often takes her cues from others. As we discussed her behavior, I found she usually reacted and modeled it off her peers.

Continuing conversation at home helped my daughter change her attitude toward the girl she was being catty to. When she found ways to include her in school activities, my husband and I cheered and celebrated her thoughtfulness. If they had a misunderstanding, she felt safe bringing it to me or my husband so we could discuss it. That girl made the top of her guest list when my daughter's birthday party arrived.

Even though my initial reaction was embarrassment and fear, ultimately, I learned to release that and provide my daughter with a safe place to process this relationship's intricacy. While it was a tough situation, it helped us set a better foundation of parent-child trust and communication and, I hope, grace for each other.

• A man, 34, shared his daily diet with Business Insider for help with building muscle and losing fat.
• The registered nutritionist and personal trainer Jamie Wright said he could take two approaches.
• Fill out this form to have your diet reviewed by an expert.

Justin Khan, 34, told Business Insider's Nutrition Clinic that his goals are to build strength and muscle, and reduce his body fat to 15%. A nutritionist told him he has a choice of two strategies to hit his goals.

Khan submitted an average day of eating to BI's Nutrition Clinic, where registered nutritionists and dietitians offer advice on readers' diets.

Khan, who lives in Florida, said he was an avid gym-goer and martial artist in his 20s. Currently, twice a week he does 1.5 hours of calisthenics and strength training, mostly compound lifts. He also tries to walk between 3,000 and 10,000 steps a day.

"I'm a software engineer, so I'm sitting at a desk most of the day," Khan said. "I'm also taking classes toward a Master's degree, which cuts into time I would use for working out or getting in extra steps."

He tries to get at least six to seven hours of sleep each night but occasionally gets less.

Jamie Wright, a registered nutritionist and personal trainer, told BI that Khan focusing on whole foods, protein, and gut-healthy nutrients means he is already ticking a lot of boxes.

Every meal Khan eats contains protein

Khan said he's never followed fad diets but he has "teetered between very healthy and unhealthy eating periods."

He has a family history of high cholesterol and has previously had issues with critically low levels of vitamin D, so now takes supplements.

"I'm trying to follow a few strict meals for my diet but continue to be a little flexible every day," he said.

On an average day, Khan eats:

• Breakfast: hot oatmeal with banana, chia seeds, collagen powder, creatine, protein powder, and kefir
• Lunch: seasoned and baked chicken thigh and drumstick with mixed vegetables
• Snack: two hard-boiled eggs and mixed beans
• Dinner: salmon with mixed vegetables and beans

Option 1: Follow a small calorie deficit to lose fat and maintain muscle

The first of the two approaches Wright recommended Khan could take to hit his goals was creating a sustainable calorie deficit to lose body fat. Reaching his goal of 15% body fat should be achievable without a severe, prolonged deficit, Wright said.

"He is already eating a well-balanced diet so that means he won't need to make any drastic changes, but rather optimizing his intake to ensure he maintains muscle while gradually losing fat," Wright said.

It can take some trial and error to work out how many calories to eat. But Wright recommended trying to keep them as high as possible, then cutting portion sizes slightly or making simple food swaps, like replacing chicken thighs with breasts, which are leaner, if needed.

There is a significant difference between 3,000 and 10,000 steps, so aiming for the higher end of that range could help with fat loss, Wright said.

He also recommended Khan assess how much protein he eats and aim for roughly two grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily (the International Society of Sports Nutrition recommendation for people who exercise) to help him maintain his muscle.

"Maintaining a moderate but consistent calorie deficit rather than an aggressive one will allow for better adherence and help prevent excessive muscle loss," Wright said.

"I'd also recommend that Justin is firm with his goal and isn't tempted to go beyond his initial 15% mark (especially given his history of more restrictive diets that have ultimately backfired).

"He may wish to explore a 'reverse dieting' strategy at that stage to gradually increase his food intake over time while aiming to mitigate any significant changes in his body fat levels."

Option 2: A 'lean bulk' to build muscle

Khan could alternatively take the approach of eating in a slight calorie surplus, or taking in more energy than his body uses to maintain his weight and lifestyle. This will help him build muscle while minimizing fat gain, known as a "lean bulk."

Wright recommended gradually eating more food but no more than 300 to 500 calories a day above what he needs to maintain his physique.

Wright said to focus on eating nutrient-dense whole foods, plenty of protein, and more carbs to fuel his workouts.

"Since he is only lifting twice a week, adding a third session, even if it is a shorter one, could help drive more muscle growth," Wright said.

It's smart to monitor your body composition when lean bulking: If you gain excess fat, dropping your calories or upping your energy expenditure, for example by walking, can help, Wright said.

Sleep helps muscles grow

Both strategies are effective, it's simply a case of whether Khan wants to prioritize fat loss first or muscle gain.

Whatever approach Khan takes, he would likely benefit from sleeping for closer to 7.5 hours a night to help with muscle repair and energy levels, Wright said.

"If he starts with weight loss, he can eventually transition to a muscle-building phase by gradually increasing calories while monitoring body composition," Wright said. "If he chooses to build muscle first, he will need to accept that some fat gain is likely, but keeping his surplus controlled will help keep it to a minimum."

While it isn't impossible to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously, it can be difficult, especially for people who've been strength training for some time. This is why people often go through phases of "bulking" and "cutting."

Having a flexible diet (regardless of approach) should help Khan stick to his lifestyle sustainably and build a healthy relationship with food, Wright said.

• Data suggests Netflix is likelier than rivals to win back subscribers after they cancel.
• Antenna found that 61% of subscribers who canceled in 2023 returned to the service within a year.
• Netflix also has an unrivaled churn rate within the industry.

For Netflix, a canceled subscription doesn't necessarily spell disaster. In fact, the service will probably get the subscriber back — and quickly.

Data from the analytics company Antenna provided to Business Insider indicates that within six months of canceling in 2023, 50% of subscribers rejoined the streamer. Within a year, 61% of subscribers were back on the platform.

That means Netflix's '"win-back curve" was steeper than the weighted average of its competitors.

All told, Antenna — which analyzed nine streaming services, including Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, and Max — found that 34% of US subscribers who canceled a service in 2023 returned to that service within six months, and 45% returned within a year.

Antenna measured win-back data for its annual "State of Subscriptions" report by looking at US cancellations initiated in 2023, excluding free tiers. The company used data from millions of transaction records, weighted to be representative of the US population.

Netflix declined to comment.

In addition to winning back subscribers, the streamer bests its rivals when it comes to churn rate, or the monthly rate of people who cancel a subscription.

Antenna has consistently pegged Netflix's monthly churn rate at 2%, far less than the weighted average of competitors.

Netflix added a record number of subscribers last quarter — the last time it'll be breaking out those figures — and recently pushed through another price increase.

Even if that price increase causes some subscribers to cancel, this data suggests there's a good chance they'll come crawling back.

• Netflix's drama "Toxic Town" is about the mothers of children in the UK poisoned by their environment.
• 'Doctor Who' actor Jodie Whittaker leads the show.
• Much of the series revolves around one of the mothers, Susan McIntyre, played by Whitaker.

Netflix's true crime drama "Toxic Town" tells the story of children born with disabilities after they were poisoned by toxic waste in their British town.

The four-part series, which premieres on Thursday, examines how Corby Council reclaimed the nearby steelworks between 1984 to 1999, causing atmospheric toxic waste to blow through areas of the town. Pregnant women unknowingly inhaled a mix of chemicals, leading to birth defects.

The show centers on Susan McIntyre (Jodie Whittaker), who seeks justice for her son Connor, who was born with a deformed hand.

Over several decades, McIntyre and several other parents took the council to court and proved that it covered up the potentially harmful effects of the toxic waste.

Here's what to know about the real McIntyre.

Susan McIntyre campaigned for years to get justice for her son

McIntyre, 56, moved to Corby from Scotland when she was three years old. Despite being 200 miles away in the East Midlands, Corby has a large Scottish community because people moved south when the Glasgow-based company Stewarts & Lloyds built a steelworks there in the 1930s.

In an interview published in The Times of London on February 9, McIntyre said she previously worked at some of the factories located around Corby, and was a single mother to her sons, Daniel and Connor McIntyre.

She said she had a difficult pregnancy with Connor, who was born in 1996.

"Everything went wrong, from pre-eclampsia to gestational diabetes. I was in hospital for about five weeks up until when I had him," she said.

Connor was born without fingers on his left hand and had 20 corrective surgeries as a child. Once McIntyre became aware that Corby Council was responsible for the toxic waste that caused birth defects in numerous children, she started campaigning for justice.

She said: "The Sunday Times came to my door, and said, 'We think there's some problem in Corby with children born with deformities, could we tell your story?' That was the start of it, and then it never stopped."

McIntyre has spoken to the press a number of times to raise awareness of the legal battle and how her son's disability has affected his life. In the 2020 BBC documentary, "Toxic Town: The Corby Poisonings," she explained that he was severely bullied because of his hand.

She said: "He just didn't get peace from these children, he got bullied that much he would break down and cry and say 'Mum I don't want to go out because people are looking at my hand.

"He started biting his hand, tried to cut it off. But I think it was a cry for help. All Connor wanted to be a normal kid, to be a man and get on with his life. But nobody ever gave him a chance."

McIntyre and several other mothers involved in the case worked with Netflix on "Toxic Town," and they met with actors Whittaker and Aimee Lou Wood regarding the series.

Corby Council settled with the group for £14.6 million

The group of mothers and their children took legal action against Corby Council with the help of the lawyer Des Collins (Rory Kinnear) and the case was overseen by Mr Justice Akenhead of the High Court.

In a 2009 hearing, Akenhead ruled that there was a "statistically significant" number of birth defects in Corby, and found the council "liable in public nuisance, negligence, and breach of statutory duty."

In 2010, the council reached a settlement of £14.6 million with the group.

After the settlement was announced, Chris Mallender, Corby Council's chief executive, said: "The council recognizes that it made mistakes in its clean-up of the former British Steel site years ago and extends its deepest sympathy to the children and their families.

"Although I accept that money cannot properly compensate these young people for their disabilities and for all that they have suffered to date and their problems in the future, the council sincerely hopes that this apology coupled with the agreement will mean they can now put their legal battle behind them and proceed with their lives with a greater degree of financial certainty."

• This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.
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Hello there! Feeling nostalgic about those old Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combo restaurants? Well, there's a new dynamic duo in the neighborhood: Applebee's and IHOP. We got to try out their first hybrid restaurant in the US, which is hoping to appeal to young diners.

In today's big story, the economy is showing signs of slowing down and some are saying DOGE isn't helping things.

What's on deck

Markets: An inside look at what life is like at Goldman Sachs' Dallas office.

Tech: Nvidia posted another big earnings beat.

Business: Jeff Bezos has a new rule for The Washington Post.

But first, we're taking it slow.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

Economic speed trap

The economic growth spurt some were hoping for with the new administration is coming up short.

President Donald Trump's second term promised tax cuts, deregulation, and an environment that would get an economy firing on all cylinders. But investors and economic experts are raising concerns about a slowdown this year.

Neil Dutta, the head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research, outlined how the US economy is starting to look sluggish.

The market is also indicating something's amiss, as the 10-year US Treasury yield has dipped recently.

That's a key benchmark of DOGE's success — lower yield means lower lending costs for consumers — but it's not dropping for the reasons DOGE wants, writes Business Insider's Matthew Fox. The group's cost-cutting efforts are actually further muddying the economic outlook, according to some, leading yields to drop as investors look for a safe haven.

Dutta highlighted two things that have kept the economy humming — consumer and government spending — showing signs of strain.

To Dutta's point, a trio of economic data released last Friday on consumer sentiment and housing indicated all was not well, which led stocks to have their worst day of the year.

He's not alone in his concerns. Last week, hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen listed several factors — tariffs, less immigration, and cuts to government spending — for why he was "actually pretty negative for the first time in a while" on the economy's growth potential and where the markets are headed.

The Point72 founder said he expects a "significant correction."

Truist chief market strategist Keith Lerner is also treading carefully. Just six weeks after talking about a buy-the-dip opportunity, Lerner downgraded US equities for the first time in years from attractive to neutral.

Predictions of an economic dropoff predated DOGE and the administration.

Before the election, the International Monetary Fund forecast that the US economy's growth would ease up in 2025. And as we're less than two months into Trump's second term, a lot is subject to change.

But in the short term, DOGE's intent to clean up government waste could be speeding up the economy's slowdown. Morgan Stanley chief investment officer highlighted DOGE (in addition to tariffs and immigration) as "potential growth headwinds."

All this might sound counterintuitive. Wouldn't reducing the government's massive deficit be good for the economy? Billionaire Ray Dalio said rising debt could lead to a financial "heart attack" if not addressed.

But Cohen said the cost cutting is like a shock to the system.

"When that money's been coursing through the economy over many years and now potentially it will be reduced or stopped in many ways, it has to be negative for the economy," he said.

News brief

• The Supreme Court just handed the Trump administration a win on USAID.
• Taboola targets a $55 billion opportunity as it moves beyond content recommendation widgets.
• Satellite images show lavish palace complex as part of Saudi Arabia's $2 trillion megacity project.
• Federal workers react to Trump administration's new plan for restructuring, staff cuts: 'They'll have to fire me.'
• Gene Hackman, 'Superman' and 'The French Connection' star, dead at 95.
• Elon Musk says DOGE 'accidentally' cut Ebola prevention.
• Here's how much you'll pay in taxes if Trump's cuts get extended.
• Meta apologizes for the sudden influx of graphic content on Instagram Reels.

3 things in markets

1. Bitcoin turns bearish. The crypto token has taken a tumble — down as much as 13% from its January high — and has officially entered bear territory. Tuesday was a real drag, with bitcoin ETF investors pulling over $1.1 billion. Between policy promises falling short and last week's $1.5 billion hack of crypto-exchange Bybit, confidence in bitcoins and altcoins has faltered. The volatility takes its toll, with crypto addiction becoming a growing concern.

2. Goldman takes the Lone Star state. Southern hospitality, an open-door culture, box seats at Mavericks games — these are just some of the highlights of working at Goldman Sachs' Dallas office, according to five employees who spoke to BI. And more perks are on the horizon with Goldman planning a new Dallas campus with rooftop gardens, childcare, and more.

3. Elliott Management founder Paul Singer doesn't have fun at work. The man behind the $72 billion fund knows how to have a good time: He likes skiing, snowmobiling, and playing the keyboard. At the office, though, Singer is all work and no play, preparing for risks at every turn. In a recent interview, Singer spoke about the stresses of running a firm and his concerns about the market, but he's in it for the long haul.

3 things in tech

1. Nvidia shrugs off DeepSeek concerns with a strong earnings beat. The chip giant reported revenue of $39.33 billion, beating Wall Street's estimates by more than $1 billion. On the earnings call, Nvidia's CFO said that demand for Blackwell chips also exceeded expectations — and the stock rose in after-hours trading. CEO Jensen Huang said that AI models like DeepSeek's R1 need 100 times more compute, on the call.

2. Is having Palantir on your résumé the golden ticket for tech hires? CEO Alex Karp seems to think so. BI spoke with six technical recruiting specialists to find out if this was the case. Some weren't so sure, saying the industry prefers strong results over credentials. Palantir may also still struggle with brand recognition, and its culture could be a turn-off for those hiring.

3. Amazon's AI-powered Alexa+ is finally here. After slow progress, the tech giant unveiled its long-awaited voice assistant on Wednesday. Panos Panay, Amazon's senior vice president of devices and services, said the upgraded Alexa can invent bedtime stories, offer recipes, and book reservations through partner companies. Here's what to expect — and how much it'll cost.

3 things in business

1. Model Karolina Kurkova and her husband are at war with an exclusive private island club. In a lawsuit, the model and her real-estate broker husband are alleging Fisher Island Club's board of directors threatened them and wrongfully expelled them from the club, harming their reputation and causing them millions of dollars in damages. The private island that's just south of Miami Beach is home to multiple billionaires and high-profile celebrities. The Fisher Island Club denies the lawsuit's allegations as baseless and believes the complaint "is nothing more than disgruntled former members."

2. Jeff Bezos has an opinion on the opinion page. The Washington Post owner announced sweeping changes to the paper's opinion section in a note to staff and shared on X. The paper's op-eds must support "free markets" and "personal liberties," he said. As part of the overhaul, the opinions editor, David Shipley, has stepped down. While newspaper ownership often sets the tone for op-eds, the note is Bezos' latest controversial move after over a year of internal turmoil.

3. There will be winners and losers as the new Trump administration rewrites how business is regulated. Crypto firms including Coinbase and Robinhood have already benefited. Meanwhile, some legal experts predict an uptick in traditional securities cases and a continuation of the Biden DOJ's aggressive antitrust enforcement in cases against Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Ticketmaster.

In other news

• Michelle Trachtenberg, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Harriet the Spy' star, dead at 39: reports.
• Saying 'yes' to DOGE: One federal worker explains why he accepted the 'fork in the road' offer.
• I was one of the first Western tourists to visit North Korea in 5 years. I was surprised we were allowed to see signs of poverty.
• Customers are fraudulently asking delivery apps for refunds on food they received.
• Want to live in the US? Trump says invest $5M for a 'gold card.'
• These sports startups raised millions in VC funding last year in areas from new leagues to women's sports.
• Photos and videos show the 'Tesla takedown' protests that have sprung up in US cities.
• How Donald Trump could change free speech as we know it.
• MrBeast has a key trait he looks for in hiring — and it's increasingly hard to find.
• Republicans labeled BlackRock as "woke." Here's a brief history of how the firm has tried to shed that description.

What's happening today

• Revised GDP data for Q4 published

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.