• New York-based Noto has raised $3.8 million to modernize tutoring centers and lesson-based businesses.
• Noto's platform uses AI to cut admin by automating billing, scheduling, and payroll.
• Check out the 44-slide pitch deck that helped Noto land its seed round from Base10 Partners.

Noto, a startup that provides software to automate tasks like billing and payroll for educational businesses, has raised $3.8 million in seed funding led by Base10 Partners.

AJ Ding and Steve Wang founded the startup after they spent last summer knocking on the doors of small firms across New York City, and they kept hearing the same story: business was booming, but operations were a mess.

"We ended up interviewing about 150 businesses over two weeks, walking around six hours a day," Ding, Noto's cofounder and CEO, told Business Insider.

The pair said many of the lesson-based businesses they visited — including tutoring centers, music schools, and driving schools — still ran on sticky notes, Google Sheets, and outdated software systems.

Owners were "drowning in admin," Ding said.

Ding told BI that Noto's platform, which launched in September 2024, is designed specifically for lesson-based businesses and their unique operational challenges. They include managing parent-child-instructor relationships, shifting schedules, and complex billing rules.

Noto uses large language models to draft lesson reports, reschedule classes, and summarize parent communication. The goal, Ding said, isn't to replace tutors but to free up their time.

Ding, a second-time founder and Yale-trained statistician, previously built an AI recruiting platform. His cofounder, Wang, was the founding engineer at Nitra, a software company for doctors' offices backed by A16z.

"The lesson-based business segment has been chronically underserved by technology," Caroline Broder, a partner at Base10, said.

With the new funding, Noto plans to grow its engineering team, hire a business operations lead, and improve the platform's AI capabilities, including AI onboarding, rolling out student-facing insights, and AI-assisted admin agents.

Check out the 44-slide pitch deck Noto used to raise $3.8 million from Base10 Partners.

• Secretary of Education Linda McMahon referred to AI as "A1" during a panel this week.
• A.1.'s marketing team jumped in to savor the moment.
• The brand created an image of a bottle with a new label: "For education purposes only."

Linda McMahon may have meant artificial intelligence — but steak sauce brand A.1. heard opportunity.

After the Secretary of Education repeatedly referred to artificial intelligence as "A1" on a panel this week, the brand jumped in to savor the moment.

"You heard her. Every school should have access to A.1.," the brand wrote in a Friday Instagram post, alongside an image of their iconic bottle slapped with a new label: "For education purposes only."

The big slogan across the graphic read: "Agree. Best to start them early."

McMahon made the slip while speaking at the ASU+GSV Summit, a conference on the future of education and work. She was on a panel discussing the role of AI in the workforce — but things took a saucy turn.

"You know, AI development — I mean, how can we educate at the speed of light if we don't have the best technology around to do that?" she said. The former CEO of WWE used the correct abbreviation for artificial intelligence, before pivoting into the world of condiments.

McMahon said she heard about "a school system that's going to start making sure that first graders, or even pre-Ks, have A1 teaching in every year." McMahon continued: "That's a wonderful thing!"

"Kids are sponges. They just absorb everything," she added. "It wasn't all that long ago that it was, 'We're going to have internet in our schools!' Now let's see A1 and how can that be helpful."

McMahon and A.1. did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

It's the latest example of a brand seizing a quick moment of fame on social media.

Coffee Mate's marketing team sprang into action after the season finale of "The White Lotus," creating a semi-viral post that played off a key moment from the show.

The coffee creamer brand worked with the hit HBO series on two limited-edition flavors ahead of the latest season: piña colada and Thai iced coffee. An executive said his team had no idea that piña coladas would be featured on the hit show's finale on Sunday night.

• President Donald Trump says he doesn't need Elon Musk in his administration.
• Trump said the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is still around because he likes Musk.
• Trump previously said he expects Musk to leave government "in a few months."

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he doesn't really need to have Elon Musk in his administration.

"Elon has done a fantastic job. Look, he's sitting here, and I don't care. I don't need Elon for anything other than I happen to like him," Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

Trump said on Thursday that he had recently purchased a Tesla vehicle as a "show of support" for Musk.

"I don't need his car. I actually bought one, and they said, 'Oh, did you get a bargain?' No. I said, 'Give me the top price.' I paid a lot of money for that car," Trump said.

Trump's purchase took place during a White House event last month, where he was seen trying out a red Tesla Model S with Musk.

"He's done a fantastic job but he hasn't been treated properly," Trump said of Musk on Thursday.

Musk, who was at the meeting, was seen smiling and nodding to Trump's remarks.

Musk has been spearheading cost-cutting efforts at the White House DOGE office. In an attempt to slash spending, DOGE has laid off thousands of government workers and shuttered foreign aid programs. These rapid cuts have sparked fear and chaos across the government.

Musk said at the Thursday Cabinet meeting that DOGE will cut nearly $150 billion in spending for the 2026 fiscal year.

But these broad cuts at DOGE and the turmoil that comes with them have also hit Musk's business interests. Tesla showrooms nationwide have been the target of protests, and Tesla owners have said their vehicles have been defaced.

"If you read the news, it feels like armageddon. I can't walk past the TV without seeing a Tesla on fire. What's going on?" Musk told Tesla employees during an all-hands meeting last month.

"Listen, I understand if you don't want to buy our product, but you don't have to burn it down. That's a bit unreasonable," Musk added.

Musk has been one of Trump's biggest supporters. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO spent at least $277 million supporting Trump and other GOP candidates in last year's elections.

But Musk appeared to break with the administration after Trump announced sweeping tariffs on over 180 countries last week.

Musk called for a "free trade zone" between Europe and the US during a meeting with Italy's League Party on Saturday. Musk also criticized Trump's top advisor, Peter Navarro, saying he was "dumber than a sack of bricks" after he called Musk a "car assembler."

Last week, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News in an interview that Musk would stay on as an advisor even after he completes his work with DOGE.

Trump said on April 3 that he expects Musk to leave his administration "in a few months" but said he wants Musk to stay on for "as long as possible."

Musk is now working for the administration as a special government employee. Per federal law, such employees cannot work for more than 130 days in a 365-day period.

"Elon Musk and President Trump have both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete," the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, wrote in an X post on April 2.

Musk and the White House did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• "The Last of Us" season two picks up five years after the events of the first.
• It sees Ellie embark on a mission of revenge after a tragedy.
• Viewers are encouraged to consider whether trauma defines the characters.

"The Last of Us" season two picks up five years after the first: Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) have a strained relationship after he lied to her about saving her from the Firefly hospital, and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), a Firefly soldier, seeks revenge against Joel for murdering her father.

This sets the scene for some of the most emotionally devastating TV in recent memory. The show masterfully explores how trauma, violence, grief, and love shape each character, bringing viewers closer to Joel and Ellie in particular.

It's done with astounding elegance, allowing the shock and horror to bleed into intimate moments.

That being said, viewers hungry for jaw-dropping set pieces won't be disappointed. One assault from an army of the infected, which can be seen in the trailers, is a pulse-pounding fight for survival for Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and the other residents of Jackson, Wyoming. It easily rivals battles in "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon."

The characters also spend plenty of time skulking around shadowy corridors, fearing they will be hunted by the infected, which brings delicious tension. But much like the first season, the threat of the infected just sets the scene: The real meat of the story comes in the character dynamics and how they have each been changed by their post-apocalyptic world.

Let's address the elephant in the room: Fans of the beloved video games that the show is based on may think they know what's coming in season two.

Regardless of what does or doesn't happen, fans should know that the adaptation by showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann is uncompromising.

Bella Ramsey delivers one of the most powerfully raw performances of the last few years, as Ellie edges closer to becoming something truly dangerous on her rage-fueled quest to Seattle.

But Ellie is too skillfully developed as a character to only be vengeful. The show spends time carefully crafting a beautiful connection between her and Dina, played by "Alien: Romulus" star Isabela Merced, who has difficulties of her own. When this dynamic takes a backseat, it's used as a clever tool to challenge Ellie's lust for blood.

Although Ramsey is the driving force of the season, Merced, Pedro Pascal, and Gabriel Luna are there to provide a balance between the trauma, revenge, and those pesky plant zombies.

Pascal, in particular, shows that he's capable of being more than the grizzled badass he has played in "The Mandalorian," "Gladiator II," and "Narcos."

Joel's character is expanded through soft, quiet moments, which will no doubt make audiences emotional. If these are the types of performances that Pascal can deliver, then his career is only going to become more interesting.

Ultimately, trauma is used in the season to lead the audience to question whether its main characters are defined by the horrors they've experienced. While some are able to process it and move on, others are completely consumed by it.

Either way, the audience gets one of the most beautifully written seasons of TV of the year, and it's only April.

• Gwyneth Paltrow is reflecting on the lessons she learned while trying to blend her family.
• "If I look back at my mistakes as a stepmother, I should have just treated them both like my kids way faster," Paltrow said.
• Navigating the stepparent dynamic was difficult and often felt "full of minefields," she said.

Gwyneth Paltrow says she waited too long to fully embrace her stepchildren as her own.

On the April 8 episode of her "Goop" podcast — which featured her husband, Brad Falchuk, as a guest — Paltrow spoke about the work that went into blending their families.

Paltrow has two kids with her ex-husband Chris Martin, whom she divorced in 2016 after 13 years of marriage. In 2018, she married Falchuk, who has two kids from his previous marriage.

"We traversed through some really rough things," Paltrow told Falchuk. "One of the most profound lessons that I've learned from my relationship with your daughter — which is now so fantastic — is there was a testing going on. She was testing me at the time to see at what point I would reject her."

To overcome that initial friction with her stepdaughter and avoid being seen as the "evil stepmother," Paltrow says she decided to embody a maternal essence.

"I was going to be that presence for her, always loving and forgiving in the face of, you know, if she acted up, and show her that ultimately I was so there for her that she would not question my intentions or think that I was there to take you away from her," Paltrow said to her husband.

But it wasn't easy and she often had to remind herself to be the adult if they ran into conflict.

At the same time, Paltrow was worried because she felt like she didn't have "jurisdiction" to tell her stepkids how they should behave.

"I thought that in my case, if I assert my boundaries or my expectations around manners, or anything like that, it will exacerbate the situation," Paltrow said.

It was difficult navigating the stepparent dynamic, which often felt "full of minefields," she said.

"If I look back at my mistakes as a stepmother, I should have just treated them both like my kids way faster," Paltrow said. "Like I was too worried about everyone's feelings, in a way."

During the Visionary Women's International Women's Day Summit in 2024, Paltrow said that being a stepmother was one of her "biggest learnings as a human being."

"And my area of growth personally came from the initial difficult relationship I had with my stepkids, and now they're like my kids," she said, per Us Magazine.

Parenting experts previously told Business Insider about the common mistakes that stepparents make when trying to connect with their stepkids.

One mistake is trying to compete with the stepkids' biological parents.

"Instead, speak directly to the child about their parent and encourage the relationship between the child and parent. This will help make clear that this isn't an either/or situation," Sarah Epstein, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in family dysfunction, told BI.

Another mistake is trying to discipline stepchildren before building a relationship. Clinical psychologist Dr. Kasi G. Patterson told BI it would be better to let the biological parent handle it first.

Only after a trusting relationship has been developed will the kids learn to view both parents — biological and stepparent — as authority figures and "can accept discipline from each of them," he said.

A representative for Paltrow did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.

• "Yellowjackets" season three ended with a few big reveals.
• Sophie Nélisse, who plays young Shauna, has a pivotal role in the finale ending.
• Nélisse said she's enjoyed playing young Shauna as a villain, but still has empathy for her.

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for the "Yellowjackets" season three finale.

Shauna went off the rails in a major way in "Yellowjackets" season three, but at least one person is still rooting for her: Sophie Nélisse, who plays teen Shauna.

The third outing of the Showtime hit survival thriller, which aired its finale Friday, follows a high school girls' soccer team that gets stranded in the wilderness after the plane crash. The show simultaneously tracks the survivors' adult selves 25 years later as their traumatic experiences come back to haunt them.

While each of the survivors has plenty of trauma (because, well, the cannibalism), none have been through the wringer quite as much as Shauna, who was responsible for her best friend Jackie's death in season one and then lost her baby in a stillbirth in the wilderness. These events have led to Shauna going down a dark, violent path in season three.

The episode, fittingly called "Full Circle," takes us back to where it all began: the scene from the pilot where the girls, in makeshift masks, hunt down one of their own, who falls into a pit. Fans have been wondering for three seasons who "Pit Girl" and the group's leader, the "Antler Queen," might be. "Full Circle" gives viewers those two big reveals, establishing that Mari was the girl who was chased and fell into a pit, and Shauna was the Antler Queen pursuing her.

While the "Yellowjackets" cast was heartbroken to lose Mari (Alexa Barajas), they were also excited to finally get answers. The Antler Queen twist wasn't exactly shocking to Nélisse, who said she saw the writing on the wall a few episodes back as young Shauna started wresting leadership away from Natalie (Sophie Thatcher), but she was still happy to finally see it play out.

She also wondered if Shauna's new leadership role will quell the fury and grief she's been driven by all season long. "Is that enough to soothe her need for vengeance and power?" Nélisse told BI.

Given that the others were actively plotting against Shauna after she forbade them all from leaving the wilderness when a pair of scientists and a guide stumbled upon their bloody bacchanal, keeping the group from mutiny will also be a challenge.

"I'm curious to see how long she can hold that power," Nélisse added.

Nélisse thinks Shauna is bisexual, but she's not sure Shauna and Jackie were more than friends

One of the subtler apparent revelations in the finale happens when a drunken Travis confronts Shauna before the girls leave to hunt down Mari. He tells her that "none of this is even real." He suggests that he's experiencing the thoughts of those who have died there, including his younger brother Javi and Shauna's dead best friend Jackie.

Travis tells Shauna that Jackie's thoughts are his favorite: "The slumber party makeouts? The jealousy? The betrayal?"

Whether that was a drug-induced hallucination or not, it certainly seems to suggest that something sexual went down between Shauna and Jackie, further complicating a relationship that was already complicated by Shauna's affair with Jackie's boyfriend Jeff, who ultimately married Shauna and has a daughter, Callie, with her. That, paired with the season three storyline that sees Shauna embark on a toxic relationship with fellow survivor Melissa, is pretty strong evidence that Shauna and Jackie probably hooked up at one point before the crash.

When I brought it up to Nélisse, she seemed surprised by that reading of the moment. She said she didn't take it that way but loved the theory. Though she tries to avoid looking at TikToks of the show, she's well aware that many viewers think there was something more than friendship between Shauna and Jackie, at least on Shauna's side.

"There's not an answer, actually, for that one. A lot of people have been hinting that there was sexuality between Jackie and Shauna," Nélisse said. "But the creators seemed, from our discussion, to say that there wasn't, but that there is just this really complex relationship. It's such a fine line to walk on."

"I think it's up to people's interpretation," she added.

Nélisse has no idea what will happen to Shauna in 'Yellowjackets' season 4, but she has some hopes

According to Nélisse, the cast only gets the scripts for an episode about a week before filming. That means they're not privy to the long game the show is playing in advance of individual revelations, and they don't have the answers to ongoing mysteries like what's going on with Taissa and whether there is actually something supernatural in the wilderness.

"Every season has felt almost like a complete different character to me," Nélisse said of playing Shauna. "I think what's fun is that I get to play somewhat of the villain [in season three], but at the same time, with all of her background and all of her trauma and all of her luggage that she's been carrying."

Nélisse says Shauna's baggage helped her contextualize some of her character's less popular decisions.

"Although everything that she does is maybe not excusable, you understand the why behind it. So I have a lot of empathy for her," she added. "It's been just really fun to be able to tap into something a lot darker. But at the same time, still caring for her and rooting for her, in a way."

So can Shauna go any darker in a not-yet-confirmed season four? Nélisse isn't sure, but she kind of hopes so.

"Part of me wants her to go even crazier, but I'm like, she needs to calm down."

The "Yellowjackets" season three finale is now streaming on Paramount+.

• US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth axed $5.1 billion in IT and consulting contracts.
• This includes contracts with companies like Accenture and Deloitte.
• He said the terminations "represent $5.1 billion in wasteful spending" at the DOD.

The US's defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, just ordered the termination of IT and consulting contracts with companies like Accenture and Deloitte, calling it "wasteful spending."

In a Department of Defense memo, Hegseth said he would cut a Defense Health Agency contract "for consulting services from Accenture, Deloitte, Booz Allen, and other firms that can be performed by our civilian workforce."

Also on the chopping block is the Air Force's contract with Accenture to "re-sell third-party Enterprise Cloud IT Services," which Hegseth says the government can "already fulfill directly with existing procurement resources."

In the memo, Hegseth also said he was terminating 11 other contracts for "consulting services" that support "non-essential" activities, like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), climate matters, and the Pentagon's COVID-19 response.

Hegseth said the terminations "represent $5.1 billion in wasteful spending" at the DOD and would result in nearly $4 billion in savings.

The savings would be reallocated, Hegseth said, to serve "critical priorities to Revive the Warrior Ethos, Rebuild the Military, and Reestablish Deterrence."

He did not specify in his memo which Pentagon projects this money would go to.

In response to a request for comment, the DOD directed Business Insider to an X video of Hegseth talking about the terminations.

"By the way, we need this money to spend on better healthcare for our warfighters and their families, instead of $500 an hour business process consultant. That's a lot of consulting," Hegseth said in the video.

Hegseth also expressed his gratitude to Elon Musk's cost-cutting outfit, the Department of Government of Efficiency. DOGE has been slashing federal spending across various agencies, whether it be by laying off thousands of federal workers or shuttering foreign aid programs.

"So we want to thank our friends at DOGE. We want to thank all the folks here that have helped us unpack this, reveal it, and we're excited to make these cuts on behalf of you, the taxpayer and the warfighters at the Department," Hegseth said in his X video.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO referenced the Defense Department's $841 billion budget in an op-ed he wrote with Vivek Ramaswamy for The Wall Street Journal in November. Ramaswamy, who was co-leader of DOGE at the time, left DOGE in January.

"The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent," the pair wrote.

Last month, Hegseth announced that the Defense Department was terminating over $580 million in programs, contracts, and grants that DOGE had identified as wasteful spending.

Representatives for Accenture, Deloitte, and Booz Allen did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

• "The Pitt" is the latest word-of-mouth viral TV series.
• Max has already renewed the show for a second season.
• Here's what to know about the cast, plot, and potential release date.

"The Pitt" has become a surprise hit for Max, inspiring the streamer to renew the series to return next year.

The critically acclaimed medical drama is part of a recent wave of procedural shows from major streamers. These shows are popular on network TV channels and feature the professional lives of medical, emergency service workers, and cops.

"The Pitt" season one had an interesting twist on the usual medical show model, focusing on the medical staff of a fictional Pittsburgh hospital during a single, extended 15-hour shift. Each episode covered one hour of that shift.

Max told the Wrap, a week after "The Pitt" premiered in January, that the series had one of the most-watched premieres for the streamer since it launched in 2020. Word-of-mouth helped build the audience even further, as chatter on social media about the intense drama encouraged more people to watch.

Taking heed of the show's viral success, Max announced in February that it had ordered another season.

Here's what we know so far about season two.

Season two will be set on the Fourth of July, one of the busiest days for hospitals.

Season one introduces Dr. Robby and his Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital dayshift team, which includes two bright-eyed medical students, an arrogant intern, and multiple resident doctors.

While the workday is already chaotic from the start, the drama intensifies when there's a mass shooting at a festival near the hospital.

Robby is barely keeping it together already, still dealing with trauma from working at the hospital during the pandemic. When his stepson's girlfriend dies on his watch due to injuries from the shooting, he breaks down and is consoled by one of the medical students.

The team pulls through with only six deaths out of the 112 patients that come to the hospital. Dr. Jack Abbott, a night-shift doctor, talks Dr. Robby down from quitting — or jumping off the roof.

There are other unresolved stories at the end of the finale. Dr. Langdon was caught stealing drugs, Dr. McKay got in trouble with the police for breaking her ankle monitor to help save the multiple shooting victims, and there are a few patients still in critical care that have to be passed on to the night shift team.

Season two may not even address or resolve these story threads.

R. Scott Gemmill, the show's creator, said during a Deadline Contenders TV panel event in April that season two would be set 10 months later than season one, during a Fourth of July weekend. It will still keep the 15-hour shift model.

Holidays are some of the busiest days for hospitals, and the Fourth of July has one of the biggest spikes in hospital visits of the year, partly due to incidents with fireworks. Fans are expecting even more chaos than season one.

"The Pitt" season two is expected to premiere in January 2026.

Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, told Vulture in March that they plan to have the series out in January 2026, so fans won't have to wait more than a year to see new episodes.

"This model of more episodes cuts down on the gap between seasons. On the platform, we have shows like 'House of the Dragon,' 'The Last of Us,' and 'White Lotus,' which, because of how they're made, can take two years to make," Bloys said. "What I love about something like 'The Pitt' is, I can get 15 episodes in a year."

Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Robby and is an executive producer, told Esquire in April that the writing room is already meeting to develop a script for season two.

Variety reported that the series will start shooting season two in June.

There may be a new cast for season two.

Since Wyle is an executive producer and star of the show, he will likely return as Dr. Robby, but the rest of the cast's fate is uncertain.

Ten months is a long time and may mean certain doctors and nurses have left or transferred hospitals.

The medical students Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell) and Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) will have finished their rotation and likely return to school. Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball) was on the edge of being fired, and Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) considered quitting in the finale.

Alternatively, certain characters could be on other shifts this time round.

At the Deadline Contenders event in April, Wyle said they are casting new actors to join the series.

"We're calling all pros," he said. "We want people who are good at memorising dialogue and really good with props and are used to working in a company, an ensemble."

Wyle did not clarify if this casting was for a main role as a doctor or a guest appearance as a patient.

• Zillow said it's banning listings that are initially selectively marketed to the public.
• The policy targets the selective sharing of listings before they appear on sites like Zillow.
• Now listings that are made public must be widely shared within a day in order to appear on Zillow.

Zillow announced a new policy Wednesday that it said was motivated by one principle: "A listing marketed to any buyer should be marketed to every buyer."

Under the company's new listing access standards, homes that are listed for sale but only to a limited group — or not made visible to all potential buyers via the common channels — will not be allowed to appear on Zillow.

The policy is a response to a push by some real estate brokerages to selectively share their listings, rather then make them widely visible from the jump, such as on sites like Zillow or Redfin, as Business Insider's James Rodriguez reported Wednesday.

For instance, Compass, the largest real estate brokerage in the US by sales volume, uses a marketing strategy that includes listing properties on a "Coming Soon" page before listing them more widely on sites like Zillow.

Zillow's new policy means that in order for a listing to ever appear on the site, it needs to be submitted to a local database of homes for sale called a Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, and published on sites like Zillow within a day of being initially marketed, on a brokerage's own site, on social media, or via a yard sign.

"Our standards are straightforward: If a listing is marketed directly to consumers without being listed on the MLS and made widely available where buyers search for homes, it will not be published on Zillow," the company's statement said.

Zillow also said the practice of selectively sharing listings hurts consumers and creates confusion in the marketplace.

"It's a bait-and-switch move, where agents or brokerages try to get the best of both worlds — dangling a listing to gain more business, only to turn around and market it widely later," the statement said, adding: "Consumers should not have to wonder whether the home that might be perfect for them is hidden behind a gate they didn't know existed."

• Waymo robotaxis will begin mapping out limited parts of Tokyo.
• Nihon Kotsu, a Japanese taxi company, will manually drive the cars.
• Waymo sent us a photo of one of the first 25 robotaxis that will be a part of the mapping process.

Waymo has arrived in Tokyo.

The Alphabet-owned robotaxi company announced on Wednesday that its Jaguar I-PACE vehicles will begin mapping out seven central wards of Tokyo — Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chūō, Shinagawa — which represent some of the city's major commercial hubs.

The cars, however, won't be driverless yet.

Nihon Kotsu and GO, two of Japan's largest taxi platforms, will manage the fleet and manually drive the vehicles. This will help the Waymo cars gather data and learn the country's unique driving patterns, such as left-hand traffic.

"Initially, the Nihon Kotsu drivers will manually drive the car, just like you or I would with our hands on the wheel and no autonomous driving enabled," Sandy Karp, a spokesperson for Waymo, told Business Insider in an email. "Waymo will use the information from these driving missions to begin adapting and validating its autonomous driving technology for operation in Japan."

Waymo will begin the mapping process with 25 vehicles, Karp said.

The spokesperson sent BI a photo of one of the vehicles backing out of a shipment container at an undisclosed port in Japan earlier in March. In the photo, a Nihon Kotsu crew member watches the Waymo as it pulls out of the container.

Karp said the vehicles have since been moved to a depot and are "getting upfitted with some adjustments" to comply with local laws and regulations, including new vehicle signage and an additional blindspot mirror attachment.

Yasuharu Wakabayashi, president of Nihon Kotsu, said in a statement that the company's drivers have trained in the US and are "well-prepared to begin introducing Waymo's vehicles to Tokyo."

"We anticipate that autonomous robotaxis will help address driver shortages in the future," he said. "We view this initiative as the first step toward building an ideal ecosystem that unites people and advanced technology."

Waymo's approach to a fully autonomous driver system includes mapping out a specific area with its vehicles before it can launch to the public without human supervision.

This differs from other autonomous vehicle-focused companies like Wayve or Tesla, which rely more heavily on end-to-end learning models for its self-driving software. This essentially allows the car to learn to drive in its environment on the go without the need to map out an area beforehand.

Proponents of this approach argue that end-to-end learning allows for a more efficient ability to scale. Waymo's director of product management, Vishay Nihalani, told BI at a recent autonomous vehicle conference in Los Angeles that as Waymo's driver continues to learn, the robotaxi will require less time to map out any given city.

Waymo has also sought partnerships with third parties, including rideshare platforms, to help manage its fleets in some cities.

In Austin and Atlanta, for example, Uber manages Waymos's fleet, which includes vehicle maintenance and depot operations. In San Francisco, Waymo maintains the vehicles on its own.

According to the company, Waymo now provides more than 200,000 paid passenger weekly trips.

The service now operates in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Silicon Valley geofenced areas.

• Coachella attendees told Business Insider they've been waiting up to 12 hours to get into the campgrounds on Thursday.
• Festivalgoers said the process hadn't taken more than two hours in previous years.
• Sources told BI that people had to pee on the road, ran out of gas, and have yet to hear from Coachella officials.

Coachella 2025 is off to a slow start.

Attendees of the festival, which takes place every April in Indio, California, told Business Insider they'd spent up to 12 hours waiting to get into the campsite on Thursday — and some still haven't made it in.

"I made a joke earlier that I didn't know Fyre Festival tickets were included in admission this year, but that's honestly how I feel," Adam Roberts told BI while waiting in his car. "I feel duped."

Festivalgoers, who paid at least $800 each to attend, said they hadn't heard any news on the delays despite receiving updates in the official app and Instagram promoting partnerships with Amex and Nobu.

Representatives for Coachella didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

'I've never seen lines this long'

BI spoke to several seasoned Coachella veterans who have repeatedly camped at the music festival. None said they had seen anything like what they experienced on Thursday morning.

Hailey Maxwell was heading to her fifth Coachella when she arrived in Indio around 3 a.m. PT. While the official website states that camping opens at 9 a.m. on the Thursday before the festival — which runs from Friday to Monday — Maxwell said that typically hasn't been the case in the past.

"They usually open the gates around 3:15 to 3:30 a.m. every year, which is why people wait around the area," Maxwell said. "We're usually at the campsite before sunrise. I'm not even to the security checkpoint yet."

Maxwell had been in line for nine hours when she called BI from her car around 12:30 p.m. PT.

"The directions were the same they had on the website in past years, but this time, they're directing people a different way," she said. "There was no traffic control, so nobody knew where they were going. It took us four hours just to travel half a mile."

Oliver and Kayla Standring, who arrived in line at 8 a.m. PT, told BI they instantly knew it would be bad.

"I've camped another four times at Coachella, and usually it's a pretty smooth process," Oliver Standring said, adding that it's taken "two hours max" in years past.

A lack of toilets and food

Festivalgoers told BI that one of the biggest issues was the lack of restroom access while they waited.

"It's the middle of the desert; there isn't a bush to hide behind," Kayla Standring said. "I had to open both of the car doors to block myself, then the girls in the car behind us saw, and they started doing that. I started a revolution for the women."

"People are peeing in cups," said Roberts, who arrived around 4:30 a.m. PT. "It's been eight hours; people gotta do what they gotta do."

Many attendees said they'd stopped drinking water so they wouldn't have to keep peeing on the side of the road. But that means getting more dehydrated in the desert heat.

"It's already really hot outside," Maxwell said. "My car is air-conditioned, but if it weren't, I would be dying. I know people's cars are overheating, and some people have already run out of gas."

Kayla Standring said she saw people walk a mile to the closest Rite Aid to get supplies while Zoe Bush and her friends used DoorDash to deliver food to their car.

"I have gone five years now and have never had it be even remotely bad. It's always smooth sailing," Bush told BI. "But our group drove eight hours from the Bay Area and are currently running on two hours of sleep."

Zero communication

When Kayla Standring asked a security guard what was happening, she said he told her to "download the Coachella app" to find out. However, every festivalgoer who spoke to BI said they hadn't received any communication from Coachella staff and that there was also a lack of signs or traffic control on the ground.

Attendees have flooded one of Coachella's most recent Instagram posts — promoting a Nobu omakase experience — to demand answers. They have also tried to take matters into their own hands, whether seeking solutions via Reddit boards or contacting city officials.

"People in my group were calling the police and letting them know what is happening because, at this point, it's a health hazard," Maxwell said. "So the Nobu thing felt really out of pocket to post and not at all address what's happening."

"I've done many music festivals. People understand that sometimes things happen, but no communication is what makes it frustrating," Roberts said.

Mixed feelings

As attendees prepare for the three-day festival, the start of this year's Coachella experience has left some feeling defeated while others are trying to keep up their morale.

Kelly Jensen, who was stuck in line from 2 a.m. to 2 p.m., finally made it to the campground, but she said the ordeal was "literal hell."

"It was truly the worst experience ever and also super disappointing because of how much money we spent to be at an event that we really loved," Jensen, who has been to Coachella four times, told BI. "We finally got in, but no one has energy to start setting up camp."

"Given this experience, I would never camp again — and camping is a big part of these experiences," Roberts said. "I'm sure once we get there, things will be better, but this is absolutely not the way to start the event."

• TikTok is letting go of some US staff on its e-commerce team, five employees told BI.
• The cuts are hitting its governance and experience team, which handles Shop marketplace safety.
• TikTok made cuts to its global trust and safety team earlier this year.

TikTok is letting go of some US e-commerce staff today as part of a restructuring of its governance and experience team, five employees at the company told Business Insider.

E-commerce governance and experience, called GNE for short, is a global team that handles marketplace safety for users, sellers, and creators within TikTok Shop. The group manages tasks like seller compliance, monitoring product listings, and protecting intellectual property.

Business Insider wasn't able to immediately learn the scale of the job cuts.

A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment.

TikTok's broader US e-commerce team has been under pressure from global leadership this year after failing to meet performance expectations in 2024. The organization's top executive, Bob Kang, called out the team during a company all-hands meeting in February, BI previously reported. Some employees in the group received low scores during annual performance reviews in March, leading to performance-improvement plans and, in some cases, exits with severance.

This month's layoffs follow a February round of cuts to TikTok's global trust and safety team, which Reuters first reported. This group handles tasks like content moderation on a broader set of user videos that don't necessarily involve shopping.

The job cuts arrive at a moment of flux for TikTok as it reckons with a 2024 law that required its owner ByteDance to divest from its US app. After ByteDance failed to comply, TikTok briefly shut off in the country. President Donald Trump has since directed his attorney general not to enforce the law.

Trump said this week the company was close to reaching a deal to address the divestment requirements, but it fell apart after the US levied new tariffs on China. The Chinese government, like the Trump administration, would need to approve the deal. TikTok may become a bargaining chip amid broader trade negotiations.

A ByteDance spokesperson told BI on Friday that it was in discussions with the US government regarding a potential solution for TikTok in the US, but an agreement had not been executed, and any agreement would be subject to approval under Chinese law.

• Matt Bomer still thinks he made the right call in turning down "Barbie."
• Bomer previously revealed he'd auditioned to play a Ken but pulled out. He starred in "Maestro" instead.
• He told BI he wouldn't have had the same experience on "Maestro" if he had to fit in filming "Barbie."

Matt Bomer had a jam-packed 2022, filming the acclaimed historical romance drama "Fellow Travelers" and the Oscar-nominated "Maestro." It could have been even busier if he'd squeezed in playing a Ken in "Barbie," but he has no regrets about turning that down.

Bomer previously revealed to Vanity Fair that he'd auditioned to play one of the Kens in Greta Gerwig's smash hit, but ultimately walked away from the opportunity because it would've required too much time away from his family (Bomer shares two children with his husband, Simon Halls) along with his other booked roles.

The movie went on to gross over $1 billion worldwide and became a cultural sensation. But looking back, Bomer is still confident in his decision to focus fully on Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein biopic "Maestro," in which he played Bernstein's lover David Oppenheim. The actor told BI that it would've been too difficult to squeeze in "Barbie" between his intensely collaborative time on "Maestro."

"Even though my part in 'Maestro' was smaller, Bradley was so collaborative with me from the get-go," Bomer said of Cooper. "And it was such an immersive experience that to have just flown in from London to film my scenes [in 'Barbie'] really quick and fly back to London — I feel like 'Maestro' wouldn't have been the same experience for me."

Bomer describes his "Maestro" experience as life-changing, saying it shaped the way he works as a dramatic actor "for probably for the rest of my career on film."

"It was a way of working that I'm really grateful that I got to be exposed to," he said. "I wouldn't have, I think, if I were trying to just squeeze it in."

After Bomer's string of emotionally intense roles in 2023, he's taking a breather. Now, he can be seen in a less heavy role Hulu's in "Mid-Century Modern," a half-hour sitcom about three gay men who are longtime friends living together in Palm Springs. Bomer plays Jerry Frank, a handsome and good-natured but slightly dim-witted flight attendant.

"Mid-Century Modern" is a classic comedy that has shades of "Golden Girls," but it has dramatic moments, too, particularly related to Bomer's character Jerry's backstory. Jerry was a closeted Mormon whose ex-wife cut him off from their daughter (played by Billie Lourd, who happens to be the goddaughter of Bomer's husband in real life) after he came out as gay.

Bomer praised how the show can "go a little Norman Lear and handle some of the heavier stuff," particularly with his character, but his main goal was to create something fun and not that serious — both for himself and for viewers.

"I hope it brings a lot of joy to a lot of people," Bomer told BI. "That's what we wanted. That's what I know I needed. I needed to laugh and come to work and laugh, and I hope it brings a lot of laughs to folks out there as well."

"Mid-Century Modern" is now streaming on Hulu.

Donald Trump loves Fox News, and Fox News loves Donald Trump. It's a long-standing symbiosis, rarely interrupted. But on Wednesday morning, Trump's favorite network pushed back on his tariff push. He changed course a few hours later.

• A tourism helicopter crashed in the Hudson River Thursday, killing three adults and three children.
• A family visiting from Spain was on the helicopter, said NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
• Recent airline crashes have increased awareness of aviation safety; the cause of this crash is not yet known.

A tourism helicopter crashed into the Hudson River near Manhattan in New York City on Thursday afternoon, killing all six people on board, including three children.

Four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, and two were taken to the hospital, where they died, Mayor Eric Adams confirmed at a press conference on Thursday evening.

At least some of the victims included a family visiting from Spain, Adams said.

Authorities responded to initial calls at 3:17 p.m. local time, an NYPD spokesperson told Business Insider.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the helicopter involved was a Bell 206, a popular and versatile model, and that the National Transportation Safety Board would lead the investigation.

The NTSB said in a post on X that it is "launching a go-team" to investigate the crash Thursday night.

Videos of the crash posted on social media appeared to show the helicopter's rotor disconnected from the rest of the aircraft, spinning mid-air as the cabin plunged into the water.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, though officials said that it appeared the helicopter, which officials said was operated by New York Helicopters Tour Company, lost control.

The helicopter company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a post on X, Jersey City's mayor said the main body of the aircraft has been recovered from the river and is in an Army Corps of Engineers building.

"Recovery operations have been secured for the night. Major parts of the aircraft have not been recovered so dive operations by the NYPD and NJSP will resume tomorrow morning," wrote Steven Fulop.

"The pier is being secured by PA," he added.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a post on X that she joins "all New Yorkers in praying for those we've lost and their families."

In an earlier statement on X, NYC Mayor Eric Adams called the crash "heartbreaking and tragic." He urged bystanders to avoid the area near Pier 40 in Manhattan.

Calls to the helicopter's registered owner, a Louisiana firm, were unanswered.

A recent spate of plane crashes has heightened awareness of aviation safety, but Thursday's incident appears to have no relation to the airline crashes for now.

The Hudson River sees heavy helicopter traffic between area airports and tourist flights over sites like the Statue of Liberty. Pilots are required to use corridors and specific flight rules designated by the FAA.

It's not the first time a helicopter has crashed into the rivers near New York City. In 2018, five people died after a helicopter made an emergency landing in the East River and flipped upside down, trapping the passengers inside.

And in 2019, a helicopter crash-landed on the roof of a skyscraper, killing the pilot.

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

• Amazon will pay higher prices to some vendors to offset tariff impacts.
• The move aims to prevent losing vendors due to tariffs on imports from China.
• Amazon usually requires margin guarantees from vendors, potentially raising product prices.

Amazon is stepping in to help weather the tariff storm — only for some vendors.

Amazon will pay higher prices to its vendors on a "case-by-case basis" to "share the tariff impact," according to an internal document obtained by Business Insider.

That means Amazon will pay some of its wholesale vendors more than the previously agreed-upon prices for their products. By doing so, vendors can offset the increased cost of sourcing their products from countries hit by tariffs.

The change reflects the urgency Amazon is applying to deal with the onslaught of tariffs. The vast majority of vendors import their products from China, and President Donald Trump had said tariffs on goods from China would increase to 125%. The vendors said Amazon likely doesn't want to risk losing the products they sell.

These vendors wholesale their products to Amazon, which then resells them on its online marketplace. Vendors account for roughly 40% of the products sold on Amazon, while the other 60% come from third-party merchants.

"Amazon is not willing to suffer a mass exodus of vendors all at once," Matt Daubenspeck, director of Apothecary Products, told BI. "If customers cannot find what they want on Amazon, they may shop elsewhere."

Such price concessions are rarely available outside the normal price negotiation cycles and are only offered during extenuating circumstances, like the recent pandemic or a supply chain crisis, several vendors told BI.

The offer isn't available to every vendor, and in most cases, Amazon requires margin guarantees, they said.

Amazon's spokesperson declined to comment.

Guaranteed margins

The internal document didn't specify which vendors are subject to the new offering. It said Amazon is bulk-buying products at discounted prices and ordering some of the best-selling products from China ahead of time.

Several vendors said Amazon usually offers price concessions only if the vendor agrees to guaranteed margins. That means vendors have to pay Amazon an additional amount if their products fail to reach a fixed profit margin.

Corey Thomas, CEO of e-commerce agency AMZ Atlas, told BI that a number of his clients are already in talks with Amazon about the margin agreements. He cautioned against the vendors taking the margin agreements because it could backfire if Amazon decides to sell their products at a lower price and margin, which would put the vendor on the hook to make up for lost profits.

"Negotiate VERY carefully," Thomas wrote in a separate LinkedIn post.

Vendors expect the tariffs to raise product prices on Amazon across the board. If Amazon pays more to its vendors, that cost will likely increase the final sales price. Several third-party sellers previously told BI that they plan to raise prices on their products due to the tariffs.

Not for everyone

Amazon isn't extending the pricing increase to every vendor. Several vendors told BI their requests for a price change have been rejected recently.

In one email seen by BI, an Amazon employee told a vendor the company was "unable to accept" the price increase proposal and suggested exploring other cost-saving options. The email said the general manufacturing capacity in China is "currently underutilized," a factor that could lead to "potential cost reductions for suppliers." It also said alternative cost-cutting measures and Chinese government subsidies are available.

"Before passing increased costs to retail partners, we expect our vendors to thoroughly explore and implement all possible operational efficiencies and cost-reduction strategies," the email said.

Several vendors told BI that it's unclear what criteria Amazon follows before accepting price increase requests. It appears Amazon wants to keep the process opaque for now.

"Do not cite out internal policies" when rejecting a vendor's request, the internal document said.

Truist Securities managing director Youssef Squali wrote in a note on Thursday that he is lowering Amazon's growth estimates in part due to tariff-driven price hikes.

"While there are several currents and countercurrents hurting and benefiting Amazon at the same time, we believe the net net of this is an increase in prices virtually across the board and a likely slowdown in consumer spending, which will weigh on the company's growth for the rest of FY25 and FY26 and on margins," Squali wrote.

Do you work at Amazon? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 650-942-3061. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Director James Cameron appeared on Meta's "Boz to the Future" podcast.
• Cameron discussed using artificial intelligence to enhance the filmmaking process.
• He said Hollywood must cut the cost of effects-heavy blockbuster films in half.

James Cameron hopes generative artificial intelligence can relieve the pressure on Hollywood's bottom line.

The Academy Award winner discussed AI and filmmaking with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth on the latest episode of the "Boz to the Future" podcast.

Cameron has been outspoken about the technology, which has been a source of controversy in the entertainment industry. The growing prevalence of AI in the film-making process helped spark the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike and, more recently, prompted debate ahead of the 2025 Academy Awards.

Although Cameron was previously critical of AI, he joined the board of directors for Stability AI, the company behind the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, in 2024.

During the interview, Cameron said the decision stemmed from his desire to understand the technology.

"My goal was not necessarily to make a shit pile of money. The goal was to understand the space. To understand what's on the minds of the developers," Cameron said. "What are they targeting? What's their development cycle? How many resources do you have to throw at it to create a new model that does a purpose-built thing and my goal was to try to integrate it into a VFX workflow."

Cameron believes filmmakers must embrace AI to cut the cost of "big effects-heavy, CG-heavy" blockbuster films. "We've got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half," he said.

Hollywood budgets have shrunk due to several factors, including studios ordering less content and a slow box office.

"That's not about laying off half the staff and the effects company," Cameron said. "That's about doubling their speed to completion on a given shot, so your cadence is faster and your throughput cycle is faster, and artists get to move on and do other cool things and then other cool things, right? That's my sort of vision for that."

Cameron also talked about the opposition to using other people's work to train AI models — a major point of contention not just among those working in movies but among all artists.

Companies like OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, have been criticized for gobbling up intellectual property to train their AI models. A group of authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, sued the company for copyright infringement.

"A lot of the hesitation in Hollywood and entertainment in general, are issues of the source material for the training data, and who deserves what, and copyright protection and all that sort of thing. I think people are looking at it all wrong," Cameron said. "I'm an artist. Anybody that's an artist, anybody that's a human being, is a model."

"You can't control my input. You can't tell me what to view and what to see and where to go," Cameron said. "My input is whatever I choose it to be and whatever has accumulated throughout my life. My output, every script I write, should be judged on whether it's too close, too plagiaristic, whatever."

Representatives for Cameron did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

On Sunday, over 6 million people watched Jason Isaacs tear into pieces of so-called "suicide fruit," pop them in a blender, and serve poisoned piña coladas to his fictional family on "The White Lotus."

Though the HBO anthology series' season three finale was full of twists and turns, none were quite so hard to swallow — literally — as the Ratliff family's near-fatal cocktail hour, which remained a focus of watercooler gossip even though the season's actual murders happened elsewhere.

It was the culmination of Isaacs' year-and-a-half-long experience of living with and through Timothy Ratliff — first by putting on "a ton of weight" to embody the self-indulgent financier, then by portraying his Lorazepam-addled spiral during a seven-month shoot in Thailand, and finally by deciphering the character's inner world for a long line of interviewers — all in the service of a rabid HBO audience eager to disseminate his juiciest quotes on social media and meme-ify his character's Duke T-shirt-wearing anguish.

Though Isaacs, 61, has been a reliable scene-stealer for decades, his spotlight is brighter now than ever. Not that he's hoping he'll get recognized at the grocery store or photographed on the street.

"I will be as famous as I've been before, probably for as briefly as it was before," Isaacs told Business Insider. "And then I'll disappear back into the crowd, as has happened many times before. And that's exactly how I like it."

If you haven't spent much time thinking about Isaacs prior to "The White Lotus," that's by design. Though he pops up everywhere from blockbusters like "Armageddon" to beloved franchises like "Harry Potter," he's made it his business to disappear into each of his characters without pretense or fanfare.

Since discovering his passion for acting while studying law, Isaacs spent the '90s doing a bit of everything, from starring with Daniel Craig in the acclaimed play "Angels in America" to appearing alongside Laurence Fishburne in the cult classic sci-fi movie "Event Horizon." But it was his performance in Roland Emmerich's "The Patriot" as a sadistic British officer during the American Revolution that would become his breakthrough role — though Isaacs objects to the term.

"I've known a couple of people who are super famous. They have a part that changed their life forever," Isaacs explained. "No part has changed my life forever. I just keep working."

Though Isaacs said he was offered a host of top-billed villains after "The Patriot," he turned most of them down, balking at the idea of accepting a role for more opportunities, more fame, or even more money. More than anything, he wants his audience to feel transported — an experience he's had most often when the actor's background or personal life is a mystery.

"When you ask me about my career," Isaacs said, "what I really want is to just go, 'If you ever see my name, watch it. Don't ever read anything I say or watch anything I do on the internet.'"

For the latest interview in Business Insider's Role Play series, Isaacs reflects on the twist-filled season three finale of "The White Lotus," the "odd experience" of working on a Michael Bay set, and the real-life roots of Lucius Malfoy's evil.

On what he thinks happened to the Ratliff family after leaving the White Lotus

Business Insider: In your last scene on the boat leaving the White Lotus, it doesn't seem like Lochlan has any idea that he was nearly poisoned by his dad. Do you imagine that Tim would ever come clean about that?

I think Tim is going to do an awful lot of taking his own inventory and do an awful lot of soul-searching, and I think he will come clean about all of it.

I think Tim's a new man. Most people don't change. Mike [White] is far too good a writer to give everyone huge changes. They don't change that much. Now, their circumstances are going to change a lot, and who knows what the Ratliffs will become when they have to face their new lives? But Tim has changed enormously, almost completely.

I can't help but think about that epiphany the family's going to have when they realize what was going on with the piña coladas. I mean, what a heart-wrenching moment it would be if Tim were to come clean about his intentions.

I don't know, I think when their phones start pinging, there are other things they'll be far more concerned about in the short term. Like, where are we going to live? How am I going to pay my cellphone bill? How are we going to put food in the fridge? All of their life plans have just been blown up. Piper wouldn't be going back to the monastery, whether she wanted to or not, because they won't be able to afford a plane ticket.

On saying yes to 'Peter Pan' and almost saying no to 'Harry Potter'

You played Captain Hook in "Peter Pan" and Lucius Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" series. Did you ever worry you'd get typecast as a villain with great hair?

No. I did shoot the two of them at the same time and I was going to turn Lucius down because I knew I was doing Captain Hook. I thought, "Ugh, two children's villains." I was persuaded not to by most of my relatives — my godchildren, nephews, and nieces — because they wanted to visit the set, I think. Not because they cared about my career.

No, you don't get typecast. There's no such thing. You can be type-offered, but you have to take the jobs.

After "The Patriot," for instance, which is another villain with a wig, I was offered a lot of bad guys opposite every single massively biceped, steroided-up, macho He-Man in Hollywood. And I turned 'em all down. I went and did a play and played a drag queen [in "Sweet November"] and "Black Hawk Down" and stuff.

So, when you are casting a film, which I've now done a few times, your first thought when someone goes, "It's a crazy old man," you go, oh, Bruce Dern. And then hopefully some good casting director goes, "The only thing is, he has done that 50 times. Do you want to be more imaginative than that?"

So I was the go-to for a minute — occasionally for more minutes when other films came out — for lip-curling, mustache-twirling villains, but I didn't take the jobs.

Well, at least the wigs were amazing.

The wigs were amazing. I love a wig. The thing is, men don't get to disguise themselves very much. Women can totally change their looks. And I love disguise.

I mean, I'm one of those actors that likes to try and be different every time, speak differently, walk differently, look differently. I put a ton of weight on to play Tim. I thought he was a fat cat and he's just a guy who overindulges with red wine and desserts and caviar and the rest of it. So I like a wig because that's part of the great disguise.

On the 'joy' of playing Lucius Malfoy and welcoming a new generation to Hogwarts

As somebody who likes to change their appearance and their style and their accent so much, was it difficult locking into such a long franchise like "Harry Potter" and having to return to that over and over?

Well, first of all, let me just display my allergy to the word franchise, which I hate. You are not the only person who uses it. I had a coffee in Starbucks this morning — that's a franchise. Burger King is a franchise. "Harry Potter" is a story. Beautiful stories.

But it wasn't difficult locking into it. It was a joy because every couple of years, I'd go to "Harry Potter" land for a month or two months. I wasn't on it very much. I was doing many television series and films in between. Lucius, after "Chamber of Secrets," made occasional appearances. But really, it was barely in my life. It was like going back to a holiday resort, seeing your old friends. It was a joy.

They're working on casting a new version of "Harry Potter" as an HBO series.

I know! My daughter's friend is in the casting office, and my goddaughter is in the writing room.

Have you suggested any actors that should take over your role?

One of the best casting directors in the world is doing it and they don't need my suggestions. Actually, they're getting phenomenal actors. It's going to be brilliant.

It's going to be weird for those of us who were in the films to be history and chip wrapping, but such is life. We've had a good run.

On Michael Bay vs. Ridley Scott and Shakespeare's best advice

From what I know about your filmography and from what you've been saying, "Armageddon" feels a bit like an outlier. Do you see it that way?

Not really. I'd done "Event Horizon," which was part of an ensemble.

I already had a bit of a career going in England. I was doing a comedy in Northern Ireland, Belfast, when I was offered "Armageddon" and they wanted me to drop out because filming started the next morning. I was offered one of the astronauts in "Armageddon." And I went, "I can't drop out!"

I remember this guy on the phone going, "Jason, you have to understand, this is a Bruce Willis project." And I went, "Mate, this is a David Thewlis project! But it doesn't make any difference. I'm still a professional actor. I signed a contract." [He said,] "You let us handle that." And I went, "No! You're not handling anything. I'm getting up in six hours and I'm on set."

They came back to me and said, "OK, if you can't play one of the astronauts, do you want to play this part? It's only eight days." I remember the agent going, "But they'll pay for you to stay in the hotel for six months. Six months, and we can get you some other meetings and work will go well."

So, it was an odd film for me. I don't know if it's an anomaly. I wouldn't have taken a part that small at the time, I think, if it hadn't worked out this way.

On the very first day I did, frankly, the only scene I had lots of lines in. And Michael Bay took a shining to me and said, "Oh, that was great. Let's have you back. We'll give you a clipboard, we'll stick you next to Billy Bob. You come in, you'll be in all the scenes, and we'll throw you a line here and there."

At the time, because I'm nicely brought up, I went, "Oh, thanks so much," thinking, "Are you fucking kidding me?" And then I was there, essentially as an extra, for six months. So it wasn't my favorite experience, although I did get to go to NASA and meet the people who'd been up in the International Space Station, all the rest of it. But I didn't like standing on the set for six months with a clipboard, hoping to be thrown a line like a fish on a fish farm.

That's funny that it was framed almost like a reward because the director liked you, but it didn't feel like a reward.

It's not his fault. It was nice. Look, I'm around producing occasionally, very rarely directing. You want the best people you can have on set to do anything at all. It's not insulting, but it's just — I didn't have any choice. I was paid for the whole film. I couldn't say, "Well, actually, no, Michael, I'm just going to come in for the eight days you booked me for."

So, I was there all the time — with, by the way, many other fabulous actors, who were great Broadway actors and people who were all the techs at NASA, who were also waiting to be thrown a line here and there. It was an odd experience. The entire film, frankly.

How does being directed by Michael Bay compare to being directed by someone like Ridley Scott a few years later?

[Laughs.] I don't know how much you know about Michael Bay. I'm not telling stories out of school. He's done lots of very successful films. It's a very alpha, macho style he has with these giant movies. He shouts a lot, and there's a lot of cameras swirling around, and there's a lot of screaming going on. And I think he wants to build tension on the set so that he gets tension on the camera.

Ridley is just this visual genius. Very quiet. He's whispering his orders to someone else and they're telling you, communicating. On "Black Hawk Down," we really had no contact with Ridley in many ways, because there were so many cameras. There were such gigantic scenes, he'd be in tent somewhere, and someone next to you with a walkie-talkie would tell you, "Walk down that street, the building's going to fall on you. A tank's going to fly over your head. Nine people are going to die and try and get your lines inside the helicopter." And you'd go, "Sorry, just explain that to me again?" And they go, "Don't worry, it'll all work out. Action!" So it was less about character and story than it was about these enormous set pieces.

I know you said you turned down a lot of villain roles, but are you drawn to characters with a strong dark side?

Oh no, just drawn to well-written stories. I don't really know what a villain is. If there's a part that's written to make the audience go, "Boo, hiss," they're very rarely human. Shakespeare said the job of storytelling is to hold the mirror up to nature. If you believe a character, you are going to react to them much more strongly. If they happen to be the antagonist in the story, fine, but they're the hero of their own story.

I take parts when I go, "That's a human being." Lucius is an old-fashioned racist and he's trying to make Hogwarts great again. He's a guy that believes when old, white, rich people like him ruled the world — wizards with "pure" wizarding blood — it was better. The great American industrialists at the turn of the 20th century were all eugenicists. They didn't think they were villains.

I take parts that are well-written. They make me look good as an actor because I look three-dimensional.

Have you ever played a character who was particularly difficult to shake, who felt like they were holding onto you?

No. I have a wife, and two kids, and a dog, and a mother-in-law, and old friends.

I feel them completely when I play them. And yes, I suppose if you're crying all day, you're not pretend-crying all day. So you feel sad somehow. Doing the film "Mass" was a study in grief and the great spiritual enlightenment that came with forgiveness. But if you're in grief, or if you're in anger all day, your cells carry it slightly.

But my brain could overcome that when I'm looking at people that I love. I know they're not dead or I know that I'm not angry at them. And you just have to give yourself a little bit of decompression time — but not days or weeks. Minutes or hours.

That's an important distinction. Some actors might say they live in it for longer than they intend to.

Well, then they're idiots.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

"The White Lotus" season three is streaming in full on Max.

More from this series

• Patricia Arquette has a message for anyone looking for 'Severance' spoilers
• Billy Bob Thornton ad-libbed his famous 'Friday Night Lights' speech after being betrayed
• Dennis Quaid would never do a sequel to 'The Parent Trap'

• US military planes flew an entire Patriot battalion from the Pacific region to the Middle East.
• The head of US Indo-Pacific Command said Thursday that this took 73 C-17 flights to do.
• The relocation of the Patriot air defenses comes amid a broader force build-up in the Middle East.

US military airlifters flew over 70 cargo loads of equipment from the Pacific to the Middle East, moving a Patriot air defense battalion from a priority theater to the tense region, a top commander said on Thursday.

The recent relocation of the high-profile air defense system comes amid a broader build-up of US military assets in the Middle East, including aircraft and warships. Tensions with Iran and the Houthi rebels in Yemen are running high.

During testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Sam Paparo, who leads US Indo-Pacific Command, was asked about the military's capability gaps that exist in his theater.

He singled out cargo lift as an area of concern.

"For instance," Paparo said, "just having moved a Patriot battalion into the CENTCOM AOR, it took 73 C-17 loads to move" that battalion. He was referring to the US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East region. "Our lift requirements must be paid attention to," he told lawmakers.

A Boeing-made C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft can carry around 170,000 pounds of cargo, with a maximum takeoff weight of 585,000 pounds. The US military has more than 200 of these planes across the armed forces.

The MIM-104 Patriot is a surface-to-air missile system that has been in service since the 1980s and is regarded as one of the most advanced air defense systems that the US operates.

The US military has 15 battalions and has previously deployed them to the Middle East.

One battalion consists of four batteries, each of which includes a radar, a control station, and up to eight launchers that can individually hold four interceptor missiles.

Paparo did not elaborate on the Patriot movement. However, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing the day before, an exchange between Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton and Gen. Xavier Brunson, the commander of US Forces Korea, indicated that the batteries came from the Korean peninsula.

It's unclear where in the Middle East the Patriot battalion is being deployed, but the movement comes amid renewed tensions in the region.

Israel has resumed its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, and the US has carried out airstrikes against the Houthis for over three weeks in an attempt to get the Yemeni rebels to finally stop their Red Sea attacks.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is pressuring Iran into a new nuclear deal, with the president threatening military action against Tehran if the two adversaries can't reach an agreement.

At the start of April, the Pentagon said that it was extending the Middle East deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and sending another strike group into the region.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also ordered more aircraft to the Centcom area in addition to "other air assets that will further reinforce our defensive air-support capabilities," possibly alluding to the Patriot movements.

Those aircraft include B-2 stealth bombers, which deliver tremendous firepower, and A-10 attack aircraft, in addition to the extra fighter jets attached to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, which looks to have just arrived in the Middle East along with its strike group.

The US military and its partners "are prepared to respond to any state or non-state actor seeking to broaden or escalate conflict in the region," chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said at the start of this month.

• Elon Musk said the DOGE office would cut nearly $150 billion in spending for the 2026 fiscal year.
• Last month, Musk said the office would cut nearly $1 trillion.
• Musk has a history of making lofty promises that don't translate into reality.

Elon Musk said on Thursday that the White House DOGE office would cut close to $150 billion in government spending for the 2026 fiscal year, lowering the ambitious targets he had for President Donald Trump's signature effort to reorganize the federal government.

"Thanks to your fantastic leadership, the amazing Cabinet, the very talented DOGE team, I'm excited to announce that we anticipate savings in FY26 from reduction of waste and fraud by $150 billion," Musk said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

Musk said the savings "will actually result in better services for the American people." Business Insider previously reported that because of DOGE-office-spurred cuts, fewer people were answering the phones in Social Security offices at a time of record call volumes.

During a Fox News interview last month, Musk said the DOGE office would be very close to cutting $1 trillion in spending before his time in the government is up.

"I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that timeframe," Musk told the Fox News anchor Bret Baier during a panel interview with top members of the DOGE team.

Musk, the de facto leader of the White House DOGE office, is nearing the end of his 130 period in the federal government. As a special government employee, the Tesla CEO's time is set to be up as soon as late May. The service requirement does not have real teeth, but the White House has said Musk intends to leave when his time runs out.

Trump expressed hope in retaining other DOGE team members, many of whom, like Musk, are special government employees.

"Your people are fantastic. In fact, hopefully, they will stay around for the long haul," the president said.

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy between Musk's current and previous statements.

Musk has a history of making sweeping promises that don't always translate into reality.

In 2016, Musk promised that it would be possible within two years to summon a Tesla remotely from across the country — a feat that remains nowhere near possible.

During initial conversations about the DOGE office, Musk mused about cutting $2 trillion in federal spending.

The office has begun to fade from headlines amid Trump's tariffs and congressional action on the president's sweeping immigration, energy, and tax cut bill.

Musk has also become more of a liability. His significant bet in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on April 1 appears to have backfired. Nationally, Musk's popularity has cratered amid his high-profile role in the Trump administration.