Brianna DeWitt didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom.

The 35-year-old loves her job: She spends mornings on the early shift as a physical therapist in Oahu, Hawaii. The rush she gets working in a hospital every day makes her years of intense medical training worth it.

So when her first baby was born in 2023, DeWitt did her best to make space for her career alongside her new role as a parent. Working part time seemed like the best of both worlds; she could still get the satisfaction that came from her job, and the scaled-back hours would allow her to spend time with her son and cut down on childcare bills. But then DeWitt realized that reducing her schedule below full time would disqualify her family from healthcare coverage and make her ineligible for an employer-matched 401(k).

"My husband was self-employed," she told me. "So I was trying to hold down the fort as far as our health insurance benefits went." He recently switched to a corporate job so the family could have stable coverage, and DeWitt could continue splitting her schedule between the hospital and their baby, "That was really important to us," she said.

DeWitt's dilemma is shared by parents and caregivers across America. Unlike other developed countries, the US offers few legal protections for part-time employees, meaning that people who typically work fewer than 30 to 34 hours a week are left at the mercy of their company's policies. At a time when many millennials are starting families, a shift to working part time could be a perfect solution for new parents to stay connected to their careers while attending to the needs of their children. While some companies like Starbucks and UPS offer benefits to part-time workers, for most people, stepping back from full-time work can mean losing out on healthcare coverage, paid leave, and fair wages.

"It could be the same position, the same qualifications, but you have one worker working full time and one worker working part time, and they are given different access to benefits, eligibility for promotions, or even paid differently based on hourly wages," Laura Narefsky, a senior attorney at the National Women's Law Center, told me.

At a time when the job market is cooling and businesses are keen to keep valuable employees around, conversations with economists, policy analysts, company leaders, parents, and caregivers made it clear that expanding workers' ability to adjust their hours is a winning idea. Companies that allow parents to work part time could retain experienced talent and save money on hiring. And letting more parents, especially mothers, stay connected to the workforce could be a path to economic growth as a whole: Nearly 3 million part-time workers are parents with children under 6 years old. America has a long way to go in terms of making the labor force flexible — but improving part-time opportunities is not only possible, it has overwhelmingly positive implications for the US job market.

Over 29 million people in the US work part time — roughly 18% of the total American labor force. Employees might choose a part-time schedule for a variety of reasons: They could be parents or caregivers who need to be home to look after a loved one; some are students trying to make ends meet while they finish a degree; others are retirees, people with disabilities, or people working multiple jobs. What all of these part-time workers have in common is a lack of federal protections.

Full-time employees in the US are guaranteed some basic rights, such as paid leave and access to company benefits. But once you dip below that roughly 30-hour-a-week threshold, employees don't have the same safeguards. Workers told me that can lead to unpredictable schedules and tight budgets. Part-time workers are about three times as likely as full-time workers to hold a low-paying job, and many live near the federal poverty line. In a 2020 report, the Economic Policy Institute found that part-time workers are paid nearly 20% less per hour than their full-time counterparts in the same industry and occupation. And that doesn't include the money part-time workers lose if they don't have access to benefits.

Julie Gagne, 63, cobbles together part-time and gig work to make ends meet while caring for her ex-husband, who is quadriplegic. She is a delivery driver near her home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and often earns less than $20 an hour. It's enough to cover basic essentials, but she hasn't been able to build any savings and the job can be "physically exhausting," she said.

"Candidly, I have not had health insurance in a very, very long time," she said, adding, "I'm very healthy, but obviously if something catastrophic happened, I'd be screwed."

This level of economic uncertainty is particularly acute for parents. As the cost of childcare has skyrocketed in recent years, outpacing salaries in some cities, many have been left in a bind. The lack of options hits moms especially hard. Deborah Singer, the chief marketing officer at the advocacy and research organization Moms First, said that mothers and female caregivers are most likely to drop to part-time hours or leave the workforce altogether. About six in 10 part-time employees are women, and working fewer hours can have long-term consequences.

"That's not just a penalty that women are going to pay when their child is young," Singer said. "That's going to impact their entire career, their retirement savings, and our economy more broadly."

Having access to a flexible schedule — without having to make major financial sacrifices — would be a game changer for millennial parents, allowing more of them to stay on the career ladder when their kids are toddlers or in preschool. Right now, though, many have to choose between a steady paycheck and time with their family.

Jessica Cuevas, 35, lives in Chicago with her husband, their preschool-aged son, and toddler. After her first child was born, Cuevas knew she wanted to hang on to the successful career she'd built in academia. To save on childcare bills, she switched from a full-time role in college admissions and education policy to a part-time job as a college counselor for a nonprofit. The move helped her stay in the field she's passionate about, but she said she lost her access to employer healthcare and retirement plans. Her pay is unpredictable month-to-month, and she hopes to return to full-time work as soon as her youngest son goes to school.

"I became a mom, and as much as I wanted to be there for my family, I also didn't want to lose myself," she told me, adding, "I'm very frustrated with companies and employers for putting the load directly on mom: What if she also wants to grow? What if she also wants to scale up? What if she also wants to get paid more than her partner?"

The lack of protections for part-time workers makes the US an anomaly compared to many of its peer countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, and Spain. In the Netherlands, for example, part-time workers are required by law to have the same access to benefits, time off, and pensions as full-time employees. Not extending these rights to part-time workers in the US isn't just a burden on the individuals, but it's also holding back the nation's economy as a whole. Kathryn Anne Edwards, an economist who studies the labor market and economic inequality, said providing more rights for part-time employees could boost the American labor force.

"Our labor market is much meaner and exclusive than people realize," Edwards told me. "Our labor market is very much like, 'If you can't hack it, you're out' at the expense of people's participation."

Take the Netherlands: As of 2023, the country's labor-force participation rate was 73%, with a slightly higher rate for men (76%) than women (68%), largely thanks to the prevalence of part-time work. At the end of 2023, the US labor-force participation rate was 62.5% with a sharper gap between men (68.2%) and women (57.3%). Historically, when more people are working, there are positive downstream effects like higher consumer spending and more movement in the labor market.

"What the US labor market needs is a 'glow-up,'" Edwards said. But it's unlikely that laws protecting part-time employees will be passed at the federal level anytime soon. A Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights — which would ensure that all part-time employees have access to paid leave and other benefits — was introduced in the House in 2023, but the bill has gone nowhere.

Still, companies can take steps to protect part-time workers, even without government involvement. UPS offers pensions and some healthcare coverage for part-time employees, and Trader Joe's offers medical, dental, and vision benefits, along with access to a 401(k) for most part-time employees. The moves aren't just a moral imperative for these companies, they also have material benefits for their business.

In a March report for BI using data from 400,000-plus small and midsize businesses, the business research firm Gusto found that the average job tenure for part-time workers with healthcare benefits is 39 months, compared to 36 months for full-time workers and 23 months for part-time workers without healthcare benefits. Employees who had access to paid vacation time and retirement plans were also more likely to stay at their companies than those who didn't. When experienced talent stays at a company, employers don't have to spend money to fill open roles.

In recent years, Starbucks has implemented similar part-time work benefits. It offers full tuition for full- and part-time employees pursuing a degree, parental leave for part-time employees working at least 20 hours a week, 401(k) matches, and healthcare coverage. A spokesperson for Starbucks told me that most of the company's barista employees are part time. The spokesperson said employee retention at the chain is at its highest level since the pandemic, and the company believes its benefit policies play a big role in that. The spokesperson said the company has seen a boost in traffic to its Careers webpage since its enhanced parental leave policy for full- and part-time workers began on March 1.

Jamie-Lee Kapana, 33, is a barista in Oahu and has a 13-year-old son. She's been working part time at Starbucks since he was a toddler. Kapana said that with past service-industry jobs, she struggled to find the flexibility she needed as a new mom while still paying the bills. Starbucks' health, 401(k), and other benefits have been a game changer for her family, she said.

"I decided to leave the restaurant job and commit to Starbucks because of the health benefits, job flexibility, and consistent hours," Kapana told me. "One of the biggest advantages was being able to work just 20 hours a week to receive these benefits, not just for myself, but also for my son."

More white-collar industries are leaning into part-time work as well. A June report from the hiring platform Indeed found that part-time job postings in sectors like beauty and wellness, marketing, and communications rose by up to 27% between 2022 and 2024. Still, higher-paying sectors like insurance, law, and finance remain heavily tilted toward full-time roles.

A more accessible workforce is a win-win for employees and employers. Companies can retain talent, and parents can achieve a healthy work-life balance. Plus, as Edwards told me, "more workers equals a bigger economy, full stop."

Allie Kelly is a reporter on Business Insider's Economy team. She writes about social safety nets and how policy impacts people.

• Prosecutors see Mark Zuckerberg's old emails as a key piece in their blockbuster antitrust trial.
• If the FTC wins, it may ask that Meta be forced to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp.
• In his once-private emails, Zuckerberg can be seen as ever watchful of his expanding empire.

Mark Zuckerberg's own emails, some of them more than 10 years old, revealed he had antitrust concerns long before the FTC brought its case against Meta.

During 10 hours of testimony, a lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission grilled the Meta CEO over his old emails.

Zuckerberg's messages reveal near-nonstop concern about nascent rivals, blunt descriptions of some of Facebook's most pivotal deals.

"While we believe our current trajectory will yield strong business growth over the next 5 years, I worry it will also undermine our global network, erode our corporate brand, impose an increasingly large strategy tax on all of our work, and then over time we may face antitrust regulation requiring us to spin out other apps anyway," Zuckerberg wrote in a 2018 email to top Facebook executives.

Daniel Matheson, the FTC's lead lawyer, highlighted another portion of Zuckerberg's prescient warning about his company's future.

"While most companies resist breakups, the corporate history is that most companies actually perform better after they've been split up," Zuckerberg wrote. "The synergies are usually less than people think and the strategy tax is usually greater than people think."

When Matheson asked the billionaire to explain his thinking, Zuckerberg appeared flummoxed.

"I'm not sure exactly what I had in mind then," Zuckerberg said in response to Matheson's question about what corporate history he had in mind in 2018.

The trial, which began Monday and is expected to last up to eight weeks, had a high-profile start, with Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg as the prosecution's first witnesses.

Matheson and his lawyers repeatedly turned to a 2012 message Zuckerberg sent Sandberg in which he bluntly summed up the need to acquire Instagram. In the same thread, he offered to teach Sandberg how to play Settlers of Catan.

"Messenger isn't beating WhatsApp," Zuckberg wrote. "Instagram was growing so much faster than us that we had to buy them for $1 billion and Groups and Places, although smaller efforts, have made only a little progress. That's not exactly killing it."

Facebook acquired WhatsApp roughly two years later for $19 billion.

If the FTC wins the case, the government could ask Meta to sell Instagram and WhatsApp. Legal experts say the government faces a high bar in proving that Meta "cemented" its monopoly with its acquisitions of the two companies since the FTC already OKed those mergers years ago.

(In October 2012, Facebook officially rebranded as Meta.)

The many worries of Mark Zuckerberg

Meta has sought to downplay Zuckerberg's messages. Mark Hansen, the company's lead lawyer, said that Facebook's cofounder had to be worried — it came with the job.

"Was it a constant joke at Meta that you were worrying and the sky was falling?" Hansen asked Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg replied that if it is a joke, "It's probably behind my back," but stressed that worry is a cornerstone of Silicon Valley.

Hansen also said that while the government had numerous examples of Zuckerberg expressing fear about Instagram and WhatsApp's rise, there were also worries about defunct social networks like Path. In one email, Zuckerberg expressed worry that Dropbox could eventually become a competitor — that, too, never came to fruition.

"I'm getting a bit more worried about Path," Zuckerberg wrote in 2012 to top executives in a thread named "Aquarium," the tongue-in-cheek name for one of the social network's real-life conference rooms at its Menlo Park HQ.

"Out of all the new social startups, they're the only one that goes right to the core of what we're trying to do around identity and friend sharing."

Zuckerberg's old worries are more relevant when they concern Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC contends that Facebook gobbled up the companies because it worried that, with a large user base, either one could eventually pivot to become more like Facebook.

"If Instagram continues to kick ass on mobile or if Google buys them, then over the next few years they could easily add pieces of their service that copy what we're doing now, and if they have a growing number of people's photos then that's a real issue for us," Zuckerberg wrote in a 2011 email.

Sometimes it's not about being Liked.

As for WhatsApp, the government showed multiple messages where Zuckerberg expressed concern about the messaging app that rose to popularity outside the US — and one where he seemed unmoved by its leadership.

"I found him fairly impressive although disappointingly (or maybe positive for us) unambitious," Zuckerberg wrote in 2012 to colleagues after he met Jan Koum, the cofounder of WhatsApp.

The Meta CEO seemed taken aback when Hansen asked Zuckerberg about the email. Zuckerberg said the point of his message was that he had learned Koum did not want to pivot or monetize WhatsApp in a way that would truly unnerve Facebook.

In contrast, the FTC showed multiple messages in which Zuckerberg expressed frustration with Facebook's efforts to develop a competing camera app as Instagram skyrocketed in popularity.

"What is going in with our photos team?" Zuckerberg wrote in a 2011 message that was partially redacted when it was presented in court. "Between [redacted] leaving and [redacted] being checked out/a bad manager as well as [redacted] also being checked out and [redacted] not wanting to work with this team because he thinks this team sucks. It seems like we have a really critical situation to fix here."

• Domestic migration to the Sunbelt has slowed, and the Midwest is a beneficiary.
• Three baby boomers explain why they traded the Sunbelt for the Midwest.
• Rising home prices and climate change impacts have made the Midwest more attractive.

After 40 years in Arkansas, Teri Center missed Midwestern summers. Benton got so hot and humid that the Minnesota native felt trapped in her air-conditioned home for months at a time. She worried things would only get worse as climate change takes its toll.

"The fall quit happening because it went from drought summers to dead-looking leaves," the 66-year-old said.

She and her husband, both retired, were also eager to live in a small, walkable city in a blue state with affordable home prices, good healthcare, and legal marijuana, which Center uses to help treat her chronic pain.

So in 2023, the couple sold their Benton home for $195,000, uprooted their lives, and moved to Lansing, Michigan, where they bought an old home for $65,000 that they're fixing up themselves. They live within walking distance of the state capitol, biking and walking trails, a hospital, and a ballpark. Lansing hits the "sweet spot" for affordability and climate, Center said, though they left their community behind in Arkansas. They didn't know anyone in Lansing when they moved.

Center's move is part of a bigger trend. The data shows that over the last few decades, domestic migration to the Sunbelt has slowed — and flyover country is becoming the new place to be.

Home prices and rents have risen dramatically in many Southern and Sunbelt communities, particularly as the regions have welcomed a spike of new residents in the years since the pandemic. At the same time, much of the Snowbelt, particularly more rural areas, has stayed relatively affordable. The North is also experiencing less frigid winters, while the Sunbelt grows ever steamier, making the Snowbelt increasingly attractive.

People who've traded their lives in the Sunbelt or West for the Midwest told Business Insider their new home offers an affordable cost of living, a high quality of life, and something of a safe haven from the worst impacts of climate change.

A good quality of life

When Patrick Walters and his wife moved to Carmel, Indiana, two decades ago, they were looking for a safe place with good public schools to raise their four young kids. The family, who'd moved several times, including to Central California and Chicago, found just what they were looking for in the northern Indianapolis suburb.

Carmel has nearly doubled in population to over 100,000 residents over the last quarter century, but it's still a safe, affordable, and increasingly attractive place to raise a family, Walters said. Videos of the impressive athletic and academic facilities at the city's high-achieving public high school recently went viral on TikTok. And urbanists celebrate the suburb's walkability and density — and its many roundabouts.

Walters, who grew up in Colorado, misses the natural beauty of the West, but he's come to love the Midwest's quality of life. "If somebody had told me years ago that I'd be living in Indiana, I would have thought they were crazy," he said. "But this is by far the nicest place we've ever lived."

Younger people agree. All four of Walters' kids, who are between 23 and 32 years old, still live in Indiana and don't want to leave. His two oldest recently bought their own homes in the Indianapolis suburbs.

"You can have a really high quality of life out here for a lot less money than other parts of the country," he said.

Have you moved to the Midwest — or left? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

Escaping heat and drought

Worsening extreme heat, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires are making large parts of the South and Sunbelt more challenging places to live. And it looks like Americans are starting to respond by moving away.

The warmest places in the country have seen their population growth slow while the coldest places are growing, economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank reported last year. As temperatures rise and extreme weather events grow more severe with climate change, the trend looks like it's here to stay.

Nearly 20 years ago, Robert Taylor left his hometown of Flint, Michigan, for a change of pace in Arizona, where he lived on a golf course and got around by bicycle. But after 10 years in Tempe, he wanted a break from the desert heat and droughts and moved to New Orleans.

"I decided that maybe I didn't enjoy the heat as much, and I was still worried about the water, and I was getting older, and I wanted to have some fun, so I decided to move to New Orleans, walk around, and drink all day," he said.

But after several years in the Big Easy, Taylor, 63, felt he could no longer afford the rising cost of housing or handle the intense heat and humidity for half the year.

So he moved back to Flint, where he rents a room for $400 a month and hopes to use the money he's saving on housing to travel more. He's still adjusting to living in a much smaller city with fewer attractions. But at least the winters aren't as frigid as he remembers.

"People in Michigan have gotten soft," he said. "Now you get an inch of snow on the ground and things shut down here. It's just laughable."

• Some older Americans are working past 80 to supplement Social Security and cover their expenses.
• Rising inflation and health issues are driving some older workers to seek part-time jobs.
• The number of workers 80 and older increased by 25% since 2022, per Gusto, sometimes in risky jobs.

Jim Uhrinyak, 82, doesn't know if he'll ever have enough money to retire.

Uhrinyak is gearing up to work part time as a driver inspector at the traffic control company his son manages. He could have to work in areas where the traffic poses safety hazards. The Navy veteran said the extra money he makes will help him afford groceries, medications, and the bills he shares with his son, with whom he lives.

"I never saved for retirement," said Uhrinyak, who lives in Arizona. "It is miserable at an older age not to have funds to enjoy the last years of your life."

Uhrinyak is one of dozens of Americans in their 80s who spoke to Business Insider about needing to work well past retirement age. Many said they need income to supplement their Social Security checks, while others said a health scare, job loss, or rising inflation have eaten into the savings they hoped would carry them through retirement. This story is part of an ongoing series on older workers.

An analysis by Gusto, a small-business payment and HR platform, found that since 2022, the number of workers 80 and older has increased by about 25%, compared to 4% growth in the overall workforce. To be sure, that number represents a fraction of the workforce — about one in 1,000 US workers. The analysis was based on payroll records from over 400,000 small business customers.

"The economy and current prices are in a place where they're really forcing folks to reconsider or even rejoin the labor force," Nich Tremper, a senior economist at Gusto, said. "These are folks who are just likely looking to earn a little bit extra to have their money last as long as the month does."

Navigating work amid health challenges

Some workers in their 80s and older, including Uhrinyak, said they've taken on new jobs amid health issues, as they had few other options to stay afloat financially.

In February, Uhrinyak resigned from his role as a construction coordinator because of side effects he experienced from taking Ozempic. He said working with his son will make his transition back to the workforce easier.

Uhrinyak said the $800 a week he'll earn from the driver inspector job will supplement his $2,800 a month Social Security payment. He spends roughly $350 a month on medications — including $120 for a blood thinner — which, along with various medical expenses, has hurt his financial planning.

"The worry of having funds just to survive is sometimes overwhelming," Uhrinyak said. He has about $6,000 in total savings, he said.

Some older Americans have told BI that the only jobs they could find have put them at potential risk of injury, including jobs where they have to stand for hours at a time or lift heavy items. Some said their jobs have taken a toll on their bodies or mental health.

Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute who researches Social Security, found that older workers' jobs fall into, on average, 2.6 of six dangerous work categories, including physical demands and high pressure. She told BI that many older workers approaching or past retirement age have had to take blue-collar jobs that are lower-paying and riskier.

"You have slightly less dangerous jobs for older workers than for prime-age workers, but the dangers that they face are much worse," Morrissey said.

Diane Knaus, 82, broke her ankle in September, and she temporarily stopped working as a freelance writer to focus on her recovery. After a couple of months with limited income, Knaus said she began thinking about how to generate some additional cash. She's about to start a desk job for a trucking company.

"I'm on my Social Security, but that's not much," said Knaus, who lives near Annapolis, Maryland. "I'm just taking life year by year."

A tough job market for older Americans

Dozens of workers in their 60s and older told BI this year that finding a well-paying job feels nearly impossible amid a tight job market and reduced white-collar hiring. It's leading many to seek blue-collar roles and other part-time positions that pay a bit more than minimum wage.

Pamela Levier, 81, recently resigned from her full-time service department job at the car dealership where she'd worked since 2013. While she has four pensions tied to her and her late husband, she said they're "not large amounts" and that she's not in a position to retire.

The dealership was sold, and the new owner was expected to make changes that Levier felt would negatively affect her work experience and could put her job at risk. She said she's been looking for positions at other car dealerships but hasn't had much luck. She's hoping to find a job to supplement her $2,100 monthly Social Security check.

"I live paycheck to paycheck," said Levier, who lives in the Tampa area. "No savings, no stocks, or bonds."

While she's in need of additional income, Levier said working would also help her stay busy.

"I don't want to be sitting around just not doing anything," she said. "I enjoy being out and about and learning things. It helps me stay young."

Working partly for the fun of it

To be sure, some older Americans who need work to supplement Social Security said financial stability and fulfillment are their main motivators.

Lawrence Dugan, 80, said he isn't desperate for the wages he earns and could live minimally on his savings and retirement income. While he and his wife value working, Dugan said they have some concerns, including knowing they could be "screwed" if an economic disaster comes.

"Working is probably 30% to 35% financial to get extras in life," said Dugan, who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Dugan said he works as a psychology consultant and earns roughly $3,000 monthly. He also sells paintings for extra income. Meanwhile, his wife works 15 to 20 hours a week as a home-care agency nurse. Dugan receives about $2,800 monthly in Social Security, while his wife gets about $2,100. Their combined net worth is less than $250,000.

"I knew when I was 25 I wouldn't retire and would die with my boots on," Dugan said. But he values work because it keeps him feeling younger. "Unless you keep using your brain, you use it or lose it."

• Americans are dealing with a palpable sense of uncertainty about the economy.
• Most react to money fears in three ways: fight, flight, or freeze.
• Which are you? Identifying your reaction can help regain a sense of control when anxiety strikes.

Job applications, panic buying, and tuning out the news: Which one's closest to your reaction to economic anxiety?

"We want the economy to keep rolling smoothly in the background while we live our lives," Joseph Coughlin, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab told Business Insider. "So when we see this great uncertainty, it only adds to the stress that we're already trying to manage."

Coughlin said that many people cope in three ways: fight, flight, or freeze. In other words, Americans' money anxiety mirrors their natural reactions to other fears.

In recent months, BI has heard from dozens of Americans who are dealing with uncertainty regardless of their age, financial situation, or political affiliation.

The US isn't in a recession yet, but most of the people we spoke to are worried about short-term price increases, their student loan payments, or their 401(k)s. Some fear a more dire scenario of job losses and a downturn in the months to come.

Amid flip-flopping trade policies, stock market fluctuations, and DOGE cuts, consumer sentiment fell again in April, reaching its second-lowest level since 1952. Consumer spending trends indicate households are feeling the heat of high prices and tariffs.

If you feel powerless in the current financial environment, focus on what you can control and be aware of your own natural fear reaction, said Bradley Klontz, psychologist and professor at Creighton University's business school. He added that the US economy has faced downturns before and always recovers.

"We have a fight, flight, freeze response," Klontz said. "You need to point it in the right direction."

Do you have a story to share about your finances? Fill out this survey.

People in 'fight' mode are busy making plans

Those with a fight mentality toward uncertainty are working hard to make plans. As Coughlin said, they are likely calling their financial advisors, reading news articles, saving extra money, and doing anything else they can to prepare for a potential downturn.

Robert Kistler, 71, retired a decade ago from his career as a product engineer. He and his wife built a seven-figure net worth and strong nest egg, but they're working to dial back their spending. With the long-term future of the Social Security trust fund in question and current staffing turmoil at the Social Security Administration, Kistler said they aren't confident benefits will support them as they age.

"It turns out our annual spending is roughly 20-25% more than in our plan — I am certain this is going to impact our retirement plan confidence level somewhat," Kistler said, adding that he met with his financial advisor this month to make a plan.

Similarly, 65-year-old professor Gail Lisenbard recently paid off her car and started grooming her mini golden doodle at home to save more money. She hopes to retire in the next few months and said she's carefully planned her nest egg, but is now concerned about rising prices.

Younger Americans are taking action to protect their finances, too. Millennial mom Jen Miller had planned to buy a new car before May because her family has a third baby on the way, and they need more room. But, concerned about new tariffs on auto imports, she moved up her timeline because she's worried US car inventory will decline: "We certainly felt spurred into action," she said.

Haylee Bachman, a 30-year-old mother of three near Seattle, said her family lives on a low income and receives some government aid, but their budget has been especially tight lately. Her fiancé's job in car manufacturing became less stable in recent months because the industry is in turmoil with the auto tariffs.

Bachman said she's teaching herself to bake bread, cinnamon rolls, and other kitchen staples from scratch because it's cheaper and has visited food banks to pick up groceries. She's trying to save enough to afford rent and pay for activities like soccer and tumbling that make her kids happy.

"I know that things could get very bad for us since we are low-income and a one-income household," she said. "I'm not sure what the future holds, so I'm just trying to make those tiny changes."

People with a 'flight' reaction make snap financial decisions

A "flight" reaction to economic turmoil can take a few different forms. To protect their finances, Coughlin and Klontz said people with this response are likely panic buying or pulling their investments out of the stock market — snap financial decisions that may not be the wisest, but make people feel better in the moment. Coughlin refers to it as the "I need to get out of here" feeling.

BI has heard from teachers cashing out their pensions, families with tariff nerves overstocking their pantries, and investors primed to sell at the first sign of trouble. Some Americans are considering literal 'flight' — they're moving to other states or countries to escape high costs or policies they disagree with. Others are anxiously stepping back from newspapers or social media to tune it all out.

Klontz said when people get scared, "our survival brain tends to take over."

"Our instincts are great if we're being chased by a rabid dog," Klontz said, "but our instincts are not good when it comes to investing and spending." He advised people to avoid major or impulsive purchases where possible.

Still, Olivia Iverson, 28, doesn't regret choosing to "panic buy" a new MacBook laptop in early April. She pulled the trigger because many laptops are imported from China, and tariffs are likely to raise prices. Trump has since announced a pause on tariffs on electronics for now.

"A laptop is a one-time purchase," Iverson said, adding, "there's some stuff people panic buy that you're going to have to keep buying week to week, even if prices of these items change."

A flight response can lead to moves and major purchases, but it can also be a much-needed emotional break. As a busy mom balancing a household budget, Bachman said she often turns off the news. She said it can be stressful to constantly be on alert for changes in politics or the economy that might affect her family.

"I try to take care of myself as much as possible, just because I can't be the best mom without doing that," she said. "I do self-care, skincare, like face masks, or I sit in silence. That's a big one. I just sit in silence, in the dark sometimes, and just relax."

People who 'freeze' don't know what to do with uncertainty

The most common reaction to economic uncertainty is freezing, Coughlin said. Freezers are looking at the economy — the tariffs, stock ups-and-downs, the tough white-collar job market, and DOGE cuts — and they don't know what to do.

The slow job market has left Christopher Smith's financial plans on ice. The 41-year-old has been looking for a job for about two years, but hasn't found the right fit. He's trying to stay optimistic, but he's "admittedly terrified" of what will happen to his employment prospects if there's a recession. He's taken on a roommate to help with bills.

"I am begging the universe to send me a job ASAP," he said. "I really hoped to be working by now, and I am slowly drowning under my finances."

Michael Salvatore, similarly, isn't sure what to do next. He operates several bars and coffee shops in Chicago. His businesses are at risk of higher costs on everything from eggs to coffee beans. He said he's put all kinds of decisions on hold, including hiring and opening a new location.

"Especially as a small-business owner, the unknown makes it impossible to have a vision that you can execute on," he said, adding, "I'd rather the market crash and know that, 'hey, we're on a level playing field."

Rebecca Walriven-Lawson, 74, is also feeling stuck. She recently lost Medicaid because her Social Security cost-of-living increase put her over the qualification threshold. Without health insurance, she can't afford the surgery she needs to walk comfortably. She isn't sure what to do next.

"There's nothing for any of us to do but wait," she said.

• Military deception must adapt rapidly to the age of AI.
• Commanders in future wars will rely on AI to aid their staff in assessing the battlefield.
• This creates vulnerabilities to fool the AI, especially for rigid militaries, US Army officers said.

Deception operations are the ultimate mind games of war. Manipulating enemy commanders into expecting an attack at the wrong place, or tricking them into underestimating your strength can be far more powerful than tanks or bombs.

But what if the enemy is enhanced by a thinking computer?

Successful operations must now fool not only human commanders, but the AI that advises them, according to two US Army officers. And Russia and China — with their rigid, centralized command and control — may be particularly vulnerable if their AI is deceived.

"Commanders can no longer rely on traditional methods of deception like hiding troop movements or equipment," argue Mark Askew and Antonio Salinas in an essay for the Modern War Institute at West Point. "Instead, shaping perceptions in sensor-rich environments requires a shift in thinking — from concealing information to manipulating how the enemy, including AI systems and tools, interpret it."

Historically, commanders went to great lengths to fool enemy generals using misdirection, decoy armies and letting slip false war plans. Today, nations will have to focus on "feeding adversaries accurate if misleading data that can manipulate their interpretation of information and misdirect their activity," the essay said

The idea is to turn AI into an Achilles heel of an enemy commander and their staffs. This can be done by making "their AI systems ineffective and break their trust in those systems and tools," the essay suggests. "Commanders can overwhelm AI systems with false signals and present them with unexpected or novel data; AI tools excel at pattern recognition, but struggle with understanding how new variables (outside of their training data) inform or change the context of a situation."

For example, "slight changes in a drone's appearance might cause AI to misidentify it," Askew and Salinas told Business Insider. "People are not likely to be thrown off by small or subtle tweaks, but AI is."

To determine enemy intentions or target weapons, modern armies today rely on vast amounts of data from a variety of sources ranging from drones and satellites, to infantry patrols and intercepted radio signals. The information is so copious that human analysts are overwhelmed.

What makes AI so attractive is its speed at analyzing huge quantities of data. This has been a boon for companies such as Scale AI, which have won lucrative Pentagon contracts.

Yet the power of AI also magnifies the damage it can do. "AI can coordinate and implement flawed responses much faster than humans alone," Askew and Salinas said.

Fooling AI can lead to "misallocation of enemy resources, delayed responses, or even friendly fire incidents if the AI misidentifies targets," the authors told Business Insider. By feeding false data, one can manipulate the enemy's perception of the battlefield, creating opportunities for surprise."

Russia and China are already devoting great efforts to military AI. Russia is using artificial intelligence in drones and cyberwarfare, while the Chinese military is using the DeepSeek system for planning and logistics.

But the rigidity of Russian and Chinese command structures makes any reliance on AI an opening. "In such systems, decisions often rely heavily on top-down information flow, and if the AI at the top is fed deceptive data, it can lead to widespread misjudgments," the authors said. "Moreover, centralized structures might lack the flexibility to quickly adapt or cross-verify information, making them more vulnerable to deception if they cannot protect their systems."

In other words, false images are fed to an enemy's sensors, such as video cameras, to try to get the AI to rush to the wrong conclusion, further blinding the human commander.

Naturally, China and Russia — and other adversaries such as Iran and North Korea — will seek to exploit weaknesses in American AI. Thus, the US military must take precautions, such as protecting the data that feeds its AI.

Either way, the constant presence of drones in Ukraine shows that the sweeping maneuvers and surprise attacks of Napoleon or Rommel are becoming relics of the past. But as the MWI essay points out, surveillance can determine enemy strength, but not enemy intent.

"This means deception must focus on shaping what the adversary thinks is happening rather than avoiding detection altogether," the essay said. "By crafting a believable deception narrative — through signals, false headquarters, and logistical misdirection — commanders can lead enemy AI and human decision-makers to make ineffective decisions."

Like any scam, military deception is most effective when it reinforces what the enemy already believes. The essay points to the Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, when a Roman army was nearly annihilated by Carthage. Intelligence wasn't the problem: the Romans could see the Carthaginian forces arrayed for battle. But Hannibal, the legendary commander, deceived Roman commanders into believing the center of the Carthaginian line was weak. When the Romans attacked the center, the Carthaginian cavalry struck from the flank in a pincer maneuver that encircled and decimated the legions.

Two millennia later, the Allies used elaborate deception operations to mislead the Germans about where the D-Day invasion would take place. Hitler and his generals believed the amphibious assault would occur in the Calais area, nearest to Allied ports and airbases, rather than the more distant Normandy region. Fake armies in Britain, complete with dummy tanks and planes, not only convinced the Germans that Calais was the real target. The German high command believed that the Normandy landings were a feint, and thus kept strong garrisons in Calais to repel an invasion that never came.

Drones and satellites have improved battlefield intelligence to a degree that Hannibal could never have imagined. AI can sift through vast amounts of sensor data. But there still remains the fog of war. "AI will not eliminate war's chaos, deception, and uncertainty — it will only reshape how those factors manifest," the essay concluded. "While intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems may provide episodic clarity, they will never offer a perfect, real-time understanding of intent."

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Caring for your gut microbiome is one of the buzziest health topics right now.
• The evidence that a happy gut improves our overall health is piling up.
• The message is spreading online, and businesses are cashing in.

Is half of your social circle suddenly obsessed with their gut health? You're probably not alone.

From 2015's "The Good Gut" by Erica and Justin Sonnenburg to Netflix's 2024 documentary "Hack Your Health," numerous documentaries, books, and articles in the last decade — including by Business Insider — have explored the potential benefits of caring for the gut. Between December 2021 and April 2022, Google searches for "gut health" doubled, the search engine's data shows, and have kept rising since.

In turn, the global digestive health market — which encompasses functional foods and dietary supplements, from probiotic yogurts to juice "cleanses" — is projected to be worth $71.95 billion in 2027, up from $37.93 billion in 2019, according to market research by Fortune Business Reports.

But the increase in interest doesn't seem to be because significantly more people have gut problems than in previous decades, Dr. Kyle Staller, a gastroenterologist and director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, told BI.

← removed sentence in brackets and added line break And our diets haven't changed enough in recent years to have worsened gut health on a population-wide scale, he said.

Instead, health experts told BI the buzz comes down to a combination of growing research suggesting gut health plays a larger role in our overall health than previously thought, the rise of wellness influencers, and a post-pandemic obsession with preventative health.

The link between the gut microbiome and our general health is clearer than ever

The trillions of microorganisms in our digestive system, known as the gut microbiome, are at the center of this health craze. Early research suggests that a healthy gut microbiome is one that contains a diverse range of microbes, nurtured by things such as high-fiber and fermented foods, and is linked to many physical and mental health benefits.

This research was advanced with the launch of the Human Microbiome Project at the National Institutes of Health in 2007, and influential gut-health labs have since been established at institutions including Stanford University and King's College London.

And there's been a 4,300% increase in the number of academic papers mentioning the terms "gut health" or the "gut microbiome" in the last decade — from three papers in 2014 to 132 papers in 2024 — according to data from Elsevier's Scopus research database.

This explosion of research coincided with the rise of social media and the erosion of certain taboos, including talking about gastrointestinal issues, Staller said, especially for women.

With greater social awareness, comes greater misunderstanding

People being candid about their digestive problems on social media has made us more aware of the gut's role in our health and wellbeing, Stephanie Alice Baker, a sociologist at City St George's, University of London, who researches online health misinformation and wellness culture, told BI.

And as fad diets fall out of fashion, gut health has become a socially acceptable replacement, she said.

The idea of wanting to lose weight is more taboo now than it was 15 years ago, Baker said. "Now, people still want to be slim, but they'll often frame that goal through the lens of health or self-optimization," she said, because it's more socially acceptable.

And when a health trend gains awareness online, an influx of companies, products, and services will always appear in response, she added.

But Staller said that the research is still new, and we understand much less than people might think. He cautions against jumping to conclusions based on one or two scientific studies or anecdotal evidence being shared online. Don't believe that products marketed as "natural" are automatically beneficial, he added.

"People seem to think that somehow we might be able to hack our guts and cultivate the ideal microbiome," Staller said, with probiotics or fermented foods. But we don't know how to create the "ideal microbiome" because we don't know what one looks like yet, he said.

While there's no "magic trick" or miracle product for good gut health, Staller recommended focusing on generally healthy habits: getting enough sleep, eating a nutritious diet including enough fiber, and being active.

• Vice President JD Vance called Chinese people "peasants" during an interview with Fox.
• Anger against Vance's comment is fueling further discontent over US tariffs on China.
• Many Chinese social media users pointed to Vance's upbringing in Appalachia.

Vice President JD Vance's comment about Chinese people has esclated online tension between the US and China over a back-and-forth trade war.

"What has the globalist economy gotten the United States of America? And the answer is, fundamentally, it's based on two principles — incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us," Vance told Lawrence Jones on news show "Fox & Friends" on April 3.

"To make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture," Vance continued.

It took some time, but clips of Vance's interview went viral across the Chinese social media over the following weeks and drew intense backlash. By April 7, a hashtag on Vance's remarks became the top trending topic on Weibo, China's Twitter-adjacent social media platform, and racked up a total of more than 150 million views by April 18.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian responded to the comments during a press conference on April 8: "It's both astonishing and lamentable to hear this vice president make such ignorant and disrespectful remarks.

The internet fire storm soon followed, and the anger against Vance spilled over into discussions related to US tariffs on China.

In a dramatic speech about the tariffs that has racked up millions of views, Xia Baolong, a Chinese politician and director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, ended his talk by hitting back at Vance.

"Let those American peasants wail in front of the 5,000 year-old civilization of the Chinese nation," Xia said.

"Vance once said that the Chinese are 'peasants.' This real 'peasant' who came from the American countryside seems to have some defects in perspective," wrote Hu Xijin, the influential former editor-in-chief of state-run paper Global Times, on a Weibo post discussing the possibility of a trade decoupling between China and the US.

"Look, this is their true face — arrogant and rude as always," wrote one Weibo commenter who racked up more than 3,000 likes.

"We are peasants, but we have the best high-speed rail system in the world, the most powerful logistics capabilities, and the world's leading AI technology, unmanned driving technology, drone technology, etc.," wrote another Weibo commenter. "Such peasants are still quite powerful."

Some more politically savvy commenters also pointed out the irony in Vance's remarks, considering his own working-class roots as described in his 2016 memoir "Hillbilly Elegy."

In the memoir, Vance recounts a childhood marked by poverty, abuse, and his mother's struggle with addiction, much of it spent in Appalachia — a region he portrays as neglected by affluent elites. The book was widely seen as appealing among the white working class and as an explanation for the billionaire's rise.

"Vice-President Vance, don't forget," wrote a Chinese blogger on Zhi Hu, a Chinese micro-blogging platform, "a peasant gave birth to you!"

The White House did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender became the acting commissioner of the IRS on Friday.
• Faulkender is the 3rd person to lead the IRS since tax season began and the 5th since Trump took office.
• Trump has nominated Billy Long for the role, but his confirmation is awaiting Senate approval.

The Internal Revenue Service had another leadership shake-up on Friday, marking the third turnover the bureau has seen since tax week began — and the fifth since Donald Trump took office in January.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced in a Friday statement that he had appointed his deputy, Michael Faulkender, to become acting commissioner of the IRS. Faulkender will take over from Gary Shapley, a former IRS staffer who held the position for just days following Melanie Krause's departure on Tuesday.

"Trust must be brought back to the IRS, and I am fully confident that Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender is the right man for the moment," Bessent said in a statement on Friday. "Gary Shapley's passion and thoughtfulness for approaching ways by which to create durable and lasting reforms at the IRS is essential to our work, and he remains among my most important senior advisors at the US Treasury as we work together to rethink and reform the IRS."

Shapley, last month, was tapped as a senior advisor to Bessent. He became a hero among conservatives following his testimony before Congress in July 2023, in which he and fellow IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler attested that the Justice Department had delayed a criminal probe and tax investigation into Hunter Biden while President Joe Biden was in office.

In his statement, Bessent said Shapley and Ziegler would conduct a yearlong investigation into IRS reforms, after which Bessent said he "will ensure they are both in senior government roles that will enable the results of their investigation to translate into meaningful policy changes."

Shapley took over the role of acting IRS commissioner after Krause resigned on Tuesday. Her resignation came on the heels of the IRS coming to an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to share sensitive tax information related to undocumented immigrants to help the Trump administration locate and deport them, court documents show.

The agreement was revealed in early April in a partially redacted document filed in a case challenging the legality of the IRS sharing individuals' tax information with external agencies.

Krause took over the agency in an acting capacity after Doug O'Donnell resigned in February. O'Donnell had served in the role following Biden-appointed IRS commissioner Danny Werfel's resignation on Inauguration Day.

Trump has nominated Former Republican Rep. Billy Long for the role, but his confirmation is awaiting Senate approval.

The uncertainty regarding the bureau's leadership comes as the IRS is facing significant staff cuts. Business Insider previously reported that the staffing cuts are intended "to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the IRS," and include a 75% reduction of the IRS's Office of Civil Rights and Compliance.

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• The share of borrowers applying for adjustable-rate mortgages has increased to its highest level since November 2023.
• ARMs often come with lower interest rates than fixed-rate loans. But they're also riskier.
• While an ARM can save you money, it may be safer to get a fixed-rate mortgage if you plan to stay in the home long term.

As mortgage rates rise, more borrowers are looking for ways to keep their homebuying costs down. Could an adjustable-rate mortgage be the way to do that?

On Wednesday, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that for the week ending April 11, 2025, the share of borrowers applying for ARMs rose to its highest level since November 2023.

"Given the jump in rates, more borrowers are opting for the lower initial rates that come with an ARM, with initial fixed rates closer to 6% in our survey last week," Mike Fratantoni, MBA's SVP and chief economist, said in a press release.

MBA's data also showed that the average fixed 30-year mortgage rate increased 20 basis points to 6.81%. So it's possible that borrowers could get a significant discount by opting for an adjustable-rate loan. But is that a good idea?

Why more buyers are shifting to ARMs

"Generally, ARM rates are lower than fixed mortgage rates, however, how much lower depends on market conditions," says Jennifer Beeston, executive vice president of national sales at mortgage lender Rate.

Beeston says that ARMs have trended closer to fixed rates in recent years, but that they're starting to diverge more.

Because ARM rates are typically lower than fixed mortgage rates, they can help buyers find affordability when rates are high. With a lower ARM rate, you can get a smaller monthly payment or afford more house than you could with a fixed-rate loan.

How does an adjustable-rate mortgage work?

With a fixed-rate mortgage, your interest rate remains the same for the entire time you have the loan. This keeps your monthly payment the same for years.

As the name suggests, adjustable-rate mortgages work differently. You'll start off with the same rate for a few years, but after that, your rate can change periodically. This means that if average rates have gone up, your mortgage payment will increase. If they've gone down, your payment will decrease.

5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage example

The most popular type of ARM is the 5/1 ARM. We'll use it as an example to show how these types of mortgages work.

The first number tells you how long you'll keep the rate you were initially given. So, say you get a 5/1 ARM with a 6.20% interest rate.

For the first five years you have the mortgage, your rate will stay at 6.20%.

The second number tells you how often the rate will adjust after the initial fixed-rate period is over. With a 5/1 ARM, the rate adjusts once a year. If over those first five years market conditions cause interest rates to rise, you'll likely end up with a higher rate when it comes time to adjust.

Five-year ARMs also come in a 5/6 variation, which means that after the five-year fixed-rate period your rate will adjust once every six months.

Are adjustable-rate mortgages risky?

Because your monthly payment can go up over time, these types of mortgages are risky.

"Personally, I am not a huge fan of ARMs unless the borrower is educated on the risks and has a firm understanding," Beeston says.

ARMs do come with some limits on how much they can change each time they adjust. When you apply for an ARM, your lender will give you a loan estimate that spells out those limits and tells you how high your payments could ultimately go.

Don't assume you'll be able to refinance your way out of an ARM if your monthly payments go too high, Beeston warns.

"People always assume if that happens, they can refinance, but if rates overall are higher or if they do not qualify to refinance, they can end up in a bad financial position," she says.

Is an ARM better than a fixed-rate mortgage in 2025?

ARMs tend to be popular with borrowers who don't plan to stay in their homes for a long time. If you sell your house before the initial fixed-rate period is over, you won't have to deal with a changing mortgage payment.

If you plan to stay in your home for longer, Beeston recommends going with a classic 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

"A 30-year fixed is fantastic for risk-averse borrowers," she says. "Not all countries have 30-year fixed loans. We are very lucky in America to have the ability to lock the rate of our loan for the life of the loan."

How much can an ARM save you right now?

How much you could save by opting for an ARM depends on your mortgage lender and your finances.

Say you get quotes from a lender that show you can get a 5/1 ARM with a 6.20% interest rate or a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a 6.80% interest rate on a $300,000 loan.

For the first five years, the monthly payment on the ARM (not including taxes and insurance) would be $1,837, while the monthly payment on the fixed-rate mortgage would be $1,955.

This is just an example. ARM rates can vary a lot, so if you're interested in seeing if an ARM could save you money, your best bet is to talk to a lender.

You can also keep an eye on Business Insider's daily mortgage rate coverage for the most up-to-date info on current ARM rates and how they compare to fixed-rate options.

• North Korea sent troops and weapons into Russia's war in Ukraine.
• Top US officials have suggested it could receive help with missiles and submarines in return.
• China appears to also be involved in a transactional relationship with Russia, a top admiral said.

Since North Korea went all-in on supporting Russia's war in Ukraine, sending weapons and even troops, US officials have been speculating what it could be receiving in return.

Last week, two top US military leaders in the Indo-Pacific region suggested that support could mean a host of potential wins for Pyongyang, from military capabilities to sidestepping sanctions.

At a US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the challenges and threats in the Indo-Pacific region, North Korea, Russia, and China were important topics of concern, particularly the deepening relationship between Pyongyang and Moscow.

The strategic partnership between the two countries, US Army Gen. Xavier Brunson, Commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, and US Forces Korea, said in his opening statement, has significantly shifted the status of the theater.

The relationship has presented new opportunities for North Korea to circumvent international sanctions, fill gaps in its military, and pursue a new status on the world stage.

That includes a share "of space, nuclear, and missile-applicable technology, expertise, and materials" from Russia, the general added, some of which will enable advancements in North Korea's arsenal over the next few years.

North Korea's nuclear forces have already been improving. The country has developed new intercontinental ballistic missiles for its nuclear warheads. Further support will only accelerate advancements.

Other expected gains, Brunson and US Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, the leader of US Indo-Pacific Command, said, include air assets, surface-to-air missiles, and submarine technologies.

These would be in addition to the valuable experience in modern war North Korea is receiving, as well as critical intelligence on how its weapons and troops perform in battle. North Korea's heavy artillery and tactical ballistic missiles have seen use in Russia's brutal conflict against the Ukrainians.

The South Korea Institute for Defense Analyses recently presented new research indicating that Pyongyang may also be receiving billions of dollars for its part in the war.

Potential North Korean gains from its involvement are part of a significantly larger "transactional symbiosis" between North Korea, Russia, and China, Paparo said, "where each state fulfills the other state's weaknesses to mutual benefit of each state."

In China's case, it provides support for Moscow and potentially receives help with its submarine program, which would be important in a maritime conflict in the Pacific with the US Navy.

"China has provided 70 percent of the machine tools and 90 percent of the legacy chips that have enabled Russia to rebuild its war machine," the Indo-Pacific commander said. "And then coming back to China is potentially submarine quieting help, as well as other help in some of the areas where Russia is strong."

Neither Beijing nor Moscow's embassies in the US immediately responded to Business Insider's request for comment.

Ukraine imposed sanctions on several Chinese companies on Friday for supporting Russia in the making of Iskander missiles. A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged that China was supplying Russia with weapons.

China and Russia have been building a partnership against the West, particularly the US, for years now, strengthening military ties.

North Korea and Russia formalized their emerging partnership last year through a mutual defense pact and Pyongyang's offer to deploy thousands of combat troops to fight alongside Moscow's forces in Kursk. Those soldiers, some of North Korea's better forces, have seen massive losses in combat.

Prior to the deployment, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for apparent discussions on an arms deal. Intelligence indicates Russia received thousands of artillery shells and missiles from North Korea.

The arms agreement has caused concern in the US and South Korea. Seoul had been sending Ukraine artillery indirectly through the US, which effectively put both North Korea and South Korea on opposite sides of the war.

• Meta will be one of the co-sponsors of the 2025 White House Easter Egg roll.
• Corporate sponsorships are expected to be a larger part of the 2025 event than past editions.
• Meta is facing an ongoing antitrust trial just blocks away from the White House.

First Lady Melania Trump on Friday announced that Meta will co-sponsor the 2025 White House east egg roll blocks away from a courthouse where the company's future continues to hang in the balance.

According to Trump's office, Meta will sponsor an "AI-Powered Experience and Photo Opportunity." Other tech companies, including YouTube, which is owned by Google, and Amazon, will also sponsor parts of the event that dates back to the 1870s.

A spokesperson for the first lady deferred comment to the White House Historical Association. CNN reported in March that all funds raised by sponsorships would go to the private nonprofit that helps preserve and educate the public on the White House's history.

The White House previously expressed interest in having more explicit corporate sponsorships, leading to the possible conflicts of interest that Meta's presence will underline.

The Federal Trade Commission is currently prosecuting an antitrust case that alleges that Meta "cemented" its monopoly after acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014. If the FTC wins, they could ask that the social media giant be forced to sell two of its biggest acquisitions.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified over 10 hours in DC Circuit court this week. He has repeatedly tried to curry favor with Trump and his orbit. The New York Times reported that Zuckerberg has visited Mar-a-Lago and the White House multiple times. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Meta CEO held multiple meetings with top White House officials, including chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Meta donated $1 million ahead of Trump's inauguration amid a rush by companies to get closer to the incoming administration. Separately, Meta settled a lawsuit with Trump for $25 million.

In a statement before the antitrust trial began, Meta expressed confidence that it would prevail. Legal experts have said the FTC has a high bar to reach, especially since federal officials previously OKed Meta's acquisitions when they occurred.

Meta and the White House Historical Association did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• I was excited and terrified about becoming a father.
• My wife told me that we were raising an adult since we were not going to be there with him forever.
• Now, he is an adult, and like me, he is prioritizing his family.

When I got the news that I was going to be a father, a lot went through my mind. First, there was excitement and happiness. We weren't trying to have a baby, but we were also not trying not to. Then came fear and even doubt.

My wife once told me that we were raising an adult, not a child and that we wouldn't always be there for him.

So, from a young age, we raised our son to be his own person, to think for himself and make decisions. We taught him critical thinking, time management, and making choices with money. He didn't like team sports, so he chose taekwondo. He learned discipline, and it provided him with a personal challenge, which was in keeping with his personality.

He now has a daughter

He's grown up now. After graduating from a magnet high school technology program, he joined the Army, was awarded an ROTC scholarship, and was commissioned as an officer. He's now a construction manager, married, has bought his first house, and is a father to a little girl.

My son's job is just a 10-minute commute. He has the flexibility to come home for lunch or work from home sometimes. When he comes home, Jena runs to the door and calls to her daddy. No matter how long he's worked or how tired he is, he picks her up and excitedly says, "Hello, beautiful."

From my point of view, we have a lot to be proud of. But there are some who would say that I failed as a father. That I didn't raise my son to be a "man" because I didn't make him play football or because I interceded when there were issues in Scouts with bullies. I actually had a scoutmaster tell me that "boys will be boys," believing that fighting would somehow make them men.

Many in society will often look down on men who do not hold to their masculine ideals. A television host criticized a husband recently for grocery shopping with his wife. Some believe firmly in having only traditional gender roles. Where men are providers and women the caregivers.

I set the example that family came first

When my son was born, I decided that my family would come first. That meant prioritizing family time, being home for dinner, school events, after-school and weekend activities, and vacations.

There were times when I made career choices that weren't the best for me but were the best for my family. It meant taking jobs that weren't the highest salary but were stable, a short commute and prevented us from having to move to pursue a career. Turns out I was leading by example.

Like me, my son prioritizes family time, goes shopping with them, and pushes strollers. He goes on vacations, camping trips, and picnics in the park. He parents his daughter when his wife goes to yoga. And has even gone to work with nail polish after Jena decided to give him a manicure.

Maybe being a man means more than being physically tough and emotionally vacant. Maybe being masculine can mean making tough choices and not being defined by others.

The other night, my wife and I were at our son's house; it was nearly dinner time. A car backed into the driveway. Our granddaughter, now 3, ran through the kitchen, threw open the door, and shouted, "Daddy!" From outside, we heard a man say, "Hello, beautiful."

• Honeywell developed two new systems designed to make takeoffs and landings safer.
• Surf-A alerts pilots about potential runway collisions.
• Smart-X lets pilots know if they are taking off or landing on a taxiway instead of a runway.

Honeywell Aerospace Technologies has developed a series of new systems that alert pilots to impending danger during takeoffs and landings. They say the technology could help make aircraft collisions and near-misses a thing of the past

I recently took a demonstration flight aboard Honeywell's Boeing 757 test plane, showcasing its new Surface Alert, or SURF-A, and existing Smart-X systems.

Both systems are built into the plane's avionics software and warn pilots directly, giving them precious extra seconds to react.

"Pilots are our last line of defense. They are the ones who can help mitigate a disaster. These are tools, a third set of eyes to help increase their situational awareness," Thea Feyereisen, a human factors expert who helps lead research and development at Honeywell Aerospace, told Business Insider in an interview.

According to a recent study by Boeing, the minutes surrounding an aircraft's takeoff and landing account for nearly two-thirds of all deadly aviation accidents, but only 6% of a flight's total time.

Here's a closer look at my test flight.

The test flight started with an early morning briefing at the Signature Aviation private jet terminal on the northern edge of Atlanta's international airport.

The Honeywell team gave us an overview of its new SURF-A tech, which is expected to receive FAA certification next year. The system warns pilots if a plane is already on or about to cross the runway they are approaching.

The flight would also demonstrate their existing Smart-X technology that lets pilots know if they are about to take off or land on a taxiway or if there won't be enough runway to land safely.

Both systems are available as software upgrades on aircraft equipped with Honeywell's popular enhanced ground proximity warning systems, or EGPWS.

After the briefing, we boarded Honeywell's Boeing 757-200 test plane.

The Honeywell jet was the fifth 757 ever to roll off Boeing's assembly line. It entered service with Eastern Airlines in 1983 and was acquired by Honeywell in 2005.

Since joining the Honeywell fleet, the jet has clocked over 4,000 flight hours on more than 1,000 test flights.

It's set up to test everything from weather radars and in-flight WiFi to sustainable aviation fuel. The jet has also been fitted with an extra engine pylon on the starboard side of its fuselage to test turbofan and turboprop engines.

After boarding, the Honeywell team gave the passengers a pre-flight safety briefing.

Unlike most Boeing 757s, the aircraft features built-in air stairs that can be deployed at airports without the capability of supporting a jetliner of its size.

Here is my seat for the demo flight.

Seat 1B is an old-school domestic first-class seat immediately in front of the bulkhead.

In front of the seat is a large LCD screen connected to four cameras in the flight deck.

The four cameras let the passengers see the cockpit displays and gave us a pilot's eye view of the flight.

Soon, we were off the ground and en route to an airport in Albany, Georgia, about 180 miles south of Atlanta.

The test flight consisted of half a dozen simulated test scenarios, with a Honeywell-owned King Air turboprop test plane serving as the offending aircraft that triggered the safety alerts.

During the short 20-minute flight south, I had the chance to stroll around the cabin.

Here's one of the plane's two Rolls-Royce RB211 turbofan engines, each producing a whopping 40,000 lbs of thrust. The 757 has a reputation among pilots for being an absolute hotrod, even when loaded with passengers and cargo.

Further back in the cabin, a group of Honeywell engineers monitored the plane's systems.

Even though this was a demo flight with media, there was still precious data that could be collected.

The first scenario involves a plane on the landing runway.

SURF-A warned the pilots repeatedly with aural and visual signals about "Traffic on Runway" when it detected the King Air sitting at the end of the runway.

The scenario simulates how the system might have provided additional reaction time in situations like the February 2023 incident, in which a FedEx Boeing 767 cargo plane nearly landed on top of a Southwest Boeing 737 attempting to take off from the same runway in Austin.

The test flight also showed SURF-A alerting when a plane crosses the runway during takeoff.

This scenario is much like the incident from January 2023 when a Delta 737 had to slam on its brakes after an American Airlines jet crossed the runway from which it was trying to take off.

SURF-A is also designed to alert a landing plane if an aircraft is crossing the runway.

It could help prevent incidents like the Southwest Airlines flight that narrowly avoided colliding with a private jet crossing the runway as it descended to land at Midway Airport in Chicago in February.

Honeywell also showed off its Smart-X runway awareness and alerting system, or RAAS.

The system, already on the market, alerted pilots when they tried to take off from and land on a taxiway.

In March, a Southwest Airlines jet mistook a taxiway at Orlando International Airport for a runway and attempted to take off from it. The Boeing 737 accelerated to 70 knots before being ordered by air traffic control to stop.

Smart-X also alerts pilots when their landing approach is at too high an altitude or they've gone too far down the runway to stop safely.

After landing, the system will also call out the maximum distance the pilots have left to stop before the runway ends.

After completing the test scenarios, I had the chance to ride in the cockpit jumpseat for the short flight back.

We touched down safely back in Atlanta on Runway 28, concluding our two-hour-long test flight.

After our flight, the Boeing 757 was refueled and prepped for more demonstrations.

The aircraft spent a few days in Atlanta before returning to its base in Phoenix.

• AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps are bracing for cuts, throwing members' career planning into doubt.
• Volunteers told BI they thought their service would be a launchpad for future opportunities.
• Many said they don't have clear backup plans, especially with the difficult job market.

Javon Walker-Price was squashed in a van on Wednesday afternoon, driving from Nebraska to Iowa, when the news came: His group of AmeriCorps members was being sent home.

By Thursday, Walker-Price's whole crew had to be on planes. They were only three months into a ten-month service contract and had been preparing to go to Minnesota to fix cabins and trails at a campground.

"It happened so fast," Walker-Price, 20, said. "One minute we were working, and the next minute we were told to pack our bags and come back to Iowa as soon as possible to get on the flight. It took everybody by surprise."

Walker-Price is just one of the thousands of AmeriCorps volunteers who are dealing with — or bracing for — the firings that have decimated many other federal agencies. Members of the White House DOGE office visited both AmeriCorps and Peace Corps headquarters earlier this month, throwing the agencies' futures into question. A representative for the Peace Corps told BI that while the agency is subject to the federal hiring freeze, "volunteer recruitment activities continue," and no staff have been cut.

Founded in 1993 and 1961, respectively, AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps enroll hundreds of thousands of young adult volunteers each year domestically and abroad. They receive a stipend for living expenses to do a range of service work, from environmental conservation to education, in local communities. Those who complete their service can also get educational grants for graduate school or to pay off student loans. The experience is often a launchpad for a career in public service. Now, members waiting to see if they get the chop are worried their careers will falter.

"They should not be dumped out unceremoniously into a job market that is not prepared to receive them," said Curt Ellis, the CEO and cofounder of FoodCorps, a nonprofit that works with about 150 AmeriCorps members each year. A current AmeriCorps staff member said the competition in the job market "is just going to be insane for everyone."

Business Insider spoke to nine early-career AmeriCorps and Peace Corps members and full-time agency or partner organization staff about what the cuts mean for their futures.

The White House confirmed to BI that roughly 75% of full-time AmeriCorps employees were placed on administrative leave this week. The agency reportedly shut down a program that focuses in part on disaster preparedness, sending home all members and placing them on administrative leave. There's no clear timeline for when employees could return to work or be fired.

An administration official said that the staff shake-up comes because "AmeriCorps failed eight consecutive audits and is entrusted with over $1 billion in taxpayer dollars every year." Representatives for AmeriCorps did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Peace Corps rep said the agency is in "full compliance with executive orders and other presidential actions."

'I don't know what I'm going to do'

Though most of the members BI spoke with had not been cut at the time of writing, all said they're bracing for the possibility

"The writing is on the wall," a 24-year-old Peace Corps member in the South Pacific said.

"The whole AmeriCorps community that I'm involved with is just anxious about if cuts do happen, how do we pay our bills?" a 26-year-old AmeriCorps member working in Texas said. "How do we keep moving forward with our lives?"

For many, AmeriCorps seemed like a solid entryway to a stable career path — the 26-year-old said they thought of it as a "stepping stone" to a permanent job.

Meredith B., a 28-year-old AmeriCorps member in Boston, said she took her job, in part, because of a shaky labor market. "I said, 'Oh, I'll work for the government in an almost unrelated position that still employs my skills. This will be safe.'"

"They're willing to hire people who don't have much experience, and they teach you all the skills you need in a very open environment where it's OK to make mistakes and not know what you're doing," a 22-year-old AmeriCorps member in North Carolina said. "By the end, you have those skills to go into whatever other career you're trying to go into."

Now, members are wondering whether their months, or in some cases years, of service will still set them up for success.

"I wish I knew," the Peace Corps member said about his contingency plan if his job gets cut. "It's rough because a lot of the off-ramps I would've had previously have now either been cut or have been severely negatively affected."

He wanted to work for the federal government or a nonprofit organization that received now-slashed federal funding. He's worried that the few government jobs that are available will go to older people with more experience and degrees.

"They are being flooded by very, very well-qualified government workers that I cannot compete with. So right now I don't know what I'm going to do."

Meredith B. said that she doesn't have any sort of safety net, like many other people her age. All of her belongings were ruined in Hurricane Helene — what she has left fits in the two suitcases she brought with her to Boston.

"That's all the things I own in this world now, except I bought a pair of pants recently," she said.

A path forward, suddenly blocked

A former worker at the agency who served under Obama, Trump, and Biden also said AmeriCorps set young people up for a career in service.

"I've seen it time and time again," they said. "That service connected them to a lifetime of continued commitment and impact."

It's not just future jobs that hang in the balance — many members of AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps use education grants from the programs to pay off student loans or get another degree. Libby Stegger, the founder and executive director of Civic Bridgers in Minnesota, which partners with AmeriCorps, said she doesn't know what would happen to members' education awards if funding is cut.

"That is something that is very appealing to folks of all ages, and especially to folks who are early career," she said of the education grants. "Particularly for people who might otherwise not have access to those kinds of education funding opportunities, that is a tremendous benefit."

The 26-year-old AmeriCorps member said he "wouldn't even consider" grad school if his education award gets cut, and the Peace Corps member said going to grad school with the money had been key to his long-term goal of working in the federal government.

Cuts are also rippling down to students who are still in high school or college. Elizabeth Baz, 18, applied to AmeriCorps for a gap year.

"I was really hoping that AmeriCorps would kind of help me just get my life together and help me gain some more self-discipline and more life skills," she said. Baz said she still plans to take a gap year but doesn't know yet what she'll do.

The AmeriCorps member in North Carolina said it's upsetting to think that younger people won't have the same opportunities she did. The AmeriCorps member in Texas said his service made him feel more American, and he worries his family won't have that same experience.

"I have here on my desk a picture of my little nephews," he said, choking up. "And I think about all the work that we're doing now is to potentially have that same space for them to also experience whenever they're my age."

By Thursday night, Walker-Price had made it home to Virginia, but he had trouble sleeping in the quiet. He had gotten used to the sounds of his AmeriCorps colleagues, who had become more like family.

"We planned on being with AmeriCorps for 10 months," Walker-Price said, "and just being sent home immediately, now it's like, what am I going to do?"

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• The Trump administration's Ukraine peace deal faces a critical deadline, Rubio warns.
• Trump's patience is waning as progress on ending the Ukraine war remains elusive.
• US withdrawal could collapse the peace process, affecting sanctions and military aid.

President Donald Trump's negotiations to end the Ukraine war are going nowhere. Leaders from the US, Europe, and Ukraine met in Paris this week for peace talks. Russia did not participate and has signaled it's in no rush to agree to a cease-fire.

Now, Trump's top diplomat is signaling he could walk away from the table. It's a classic dealmaking technique straight out of Trump's 1987 book, "The Art of the Deal."

"We're not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday after tense meetings with European and Ukrainian officials. "So we need to determine very quickly now, and I'm talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks."

"If it's not possible," Rubio added, "then I think the president is probably at a point where he's going to say, 'Well, we're done.''

Trump, who campaigned on ending the Ukraine war quickly, wrote in his book to "know when to walk away from the table."

"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it," he wrote. "That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you're dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can't do without."

The book may be decades old, but it's as relevant as ever to Trump's negotiating strategies — at least according to some in his orbit.

"Many of you in the media clearly missed 'The Art of the Deal,'" Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters earlier this month in response to questions about Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs strategy. "You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here."

Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Business Insider that "it is difficult to know how seriously to take Rubio's suggestion that the United States is ready to 'move on' if progress on ending the war in Ukraine is not in the immediate offing," because "the Trump administration's position on many policy issues changes on an almost daily basis."

"It remains unclear whether moving on means giving up on efforts to bring the war to a close, ending US support to Ukraine, abandoning the attempt to reset relations with Russia, or some combination of all three," added Kupchan. "Clearly, the Trump administration is frustrated that its pledges to end the war are not panning out."

Kupchan said Ukraine's best hope lies in striking a minerals deal with the US; those talks are ongoing.. "Kyiv has a compelling interest in convincing Trump not to walk away from supporting Ukraine, and the minerals deal can help achieve that outcome. An agreement of some sort looks likely, although its terms are still in play," he said.

Rubio's ultimatum landed just as Vice President JD Vance, meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome, expressed optimism about ending the "very brutal war." Rubio's comments from Paris, where he presented a US peace framework that reportedly received an "encouraging reception," painted a more urgent picture.

The Kremlin acknowledged "some progress" but has insisted any deal would hinge on protecting Russian interests. Rubio's explicit "matter of days" deadline suggests Moscow's pace isn't matching Washington's demands.

If the US does step back, the implications are stark. Without Washington wielding its unique leverage — the threat of tougher sanctions on Russia or cutting off Kyiv's military aid pipeline — most observers believe the peace process would likely disintegrate.

Tom Wright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Biden administration official, called it "absolutely absurd" that the administration is about to throw in the towel on negotiations on the Russia-Ukraine war without even trying to put pressure on Russia. "Ukraine wants an immediate cease-fire. Putin's maximalist objectives and desire to subjugate Ukraine are the main obstacles to peace," Wright said.

Ian Bremmer, the founder and president of Eurasia Group, told BI that "US coordination on negotiations with Europe and Ukraine in Paris sends a clearer message to Putin that if he wants a deal with Trump (which has lots of long-term strategic advantages for the Kremlin), he's going to have to accept a cease-fire. Your move, Putin."

• China's air force is capable of denying US superiority in the first island chain, the top US commander in the Pacific said.
• Adm. Samuel Paparo said that China's fighter fleet, bombers, and missiles are enough to cause problems.
• He said that neither side would see air supremacy in a potential war.

China can prevent the US from achieving air superiority within the key first island chain, America's top commander in the Indo-Pacific region said.

Last week, Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, gave China "high marks" in its ability to prevent the US from achieving air superiority in the first island chain, the strategic archipelagos in East Asia that includes Japan, Taiwan, and the northern Philippines, among other territories.

In a hearing with the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Paparo pointed to China's air force. He said that China now has 2,100 fighters and 200 H-6 bombers and a production rate for fighters that's currently 1.2 to 1 over the US.

China still operates a lot of older airframes, but the number of capable fourth-generation platforms is on the rise, as is its number of fifth-gen fighters. And the country continues to work on new aircraft designs.

"Furthermore," Paparo explained during the hearing, "their advanced long-range air-to-air missiles also present a tremendous threat." China has prioritized building up its missile stockpiles and capabilities in recent years, particularly ones capable of targeting US and allied forces and installations, including insufficiently defended airfields, in the region.

Air superiority, like the US military has enjoyed in conflicts in the Middle East in recent decades, requires securing a substantial degree of control over the skies with little interference from the enemy, meaning aircraft can operate with flexibility and provide support for other forces.

Ceding that air superiority, Paparo said, "is not an option if we intend to maintain capability against our adversaries and the ability to support our allies," especially in the first island chain.

But both the US and Chinese air forces have been rethinking what air superiority would look like in a conflict and questioning whether that is even possible for more than brief windows of time.

With both sides employing advanced sensors and long-range weapons, including formidable air defenses, permanently controlling the skies seems increasingly unlikely.

That said, the admiral explained that he has "some game," too. In a conflict, neither Beijing or Washington's forces would likely achieve air supremacy, or complete control, Paparo said.

"It will be my job to contest air superiority, to protect those forces that are on the first island chain, such as 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force," the commander explained to lawmakers, "and also to provide windows of air superiority in order to achieve our effects."

Officials and experts have often discussed what the future US Air Force strategy against China should look like, the role of unmanned aerial systems in that, and how air power could determine the outcome of a war.

Also important is considering how China's air defense systems would protect important targets, such as critical command and control centers, air bases, and radar sites.

Researchers have said that China could more easily devastate American airpower than the other way around.

Some have pointed to the importance of hardening US airbases and bolstering air defenses in the Indo-Pacific to improve the survivability of American aircraft should China launch a missile strike. Lawmakers in Washington have said the US isn't doing enough in that regard.

• I fly often and thought I'd upgrade to business class one time just to experience it.
• Instead, I fell in love and have made business-class upgrades my new normal.
• I love that I can easily sleep, get work done, and relax in comfy seats in business class.

I have visited more than 35 US states and 42 countries on four continents.

Since I have such an intense affinity for world travel, I've previously had to figure out ways to keep costs low enough so that I can continue onwards to my next adventure.

I usually book economy flights even though I've always struggled with leg space as a taller woman — my overall desire to travel superseded concerns about short-term comfort.

However, something changed last fall when I (somewhat impulsively) upgraded my long-haul flight from Zurich to Seoul to business class.

It was meant to be a one-off thing, but it's changed how I want to experience travel. I've had three long-haul flights since that "fateful" day in September ... and I've upgraded to business class each time.

I've found it's easy for me to justify shelling out extra funds for upgrades

In business class, I'm able to enjoy my long-haul journey as much as my destination. The bigger seats with ample legroom and in-air dining and flowing libations have been eye-opening.

The upgraded seat gives me room to stretch my legs and have enough space to be comfortable and productive when I have work to do, too.

Although the overall experience of business class is worth it, I find the most value in how I feel upon arrival.

The 180-degree lie-flat seats give me an opportunity to sleep (even if I can only manage a few hours). This is especially great on long, overnight flights that usually have morning or daytime arrivals.

While heading to my next destination, one of the greatest gifts I can give myself is the best opportunity to rest, relax, and recharge while on a flight. Business class gives me the comforts to do just that.

Now that I've felt the perks of business class, it's hard to want to travel any other way

The typical cost of business-class upgrades can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands (unless you use frequent-flyer or credit-card points) and may not be feasible for every budget.

Personally, I break down the cost of an upgrade by looking at the flight time. So, for example, if the flight is 12 hours, and the upgrade costs $1,000, that's about $83 an hour. To me, that cost is often worth it.

Although it took me 37 years to try business class, I don't know if I can travel in economy again, especially not for long trips.

Moving forward, for any flight longer than nine or 10 hours, I'll be trying to purchase an upgrade.

• The initial screening of jurors for Diddy's NYC sex-trafficking trial is set to begin April 28.
• In a last-minute lineup change, prosecutors had asked to call 3 prior accusers to the stand.
• On Friday, the judge said that the two with the most "explosive" accusations cannot testify.

The Manhattan judge for Sean "Diddy" Combs' coming sex-trafficking trial dealt the rap entrepreneur an important pretrial victory Friday — barring testimony by two prior accusers.

The two women, whose names were not revealed in court, would have given jurors "potentially explosive" testimony about uncorroborated prior abuse, some of it stretching back decades, US District Judge Arun Subramanian said.

The judge added that he will, however, allow federal prosecutors to call a third prior sex-assault accuser to the stand, a woman referred to as "Victim 5" who would testify using her name.

Victim 5's testimony may bolster the prosecution's arguments that Combs intentionally coerced and sexually abused four women already mentioned in the indictment, the judge said.

Subramanian's decision on accuser testimony was one of many in a fast-moving court hearing Friday.

The judge denied Combs' request to delay the start of the trial for two months. Combs also lost his bid for a much longer juror questionnaire.

In other wins for Combs, the judge ordered that the defense team can have access to all of the drafts of a memoir written by key prosecution witness Cassie Ventura.

Ventura, an R&B singer who dated Combs for a decade, will testify next month under her own name.

The judge also allowed Combs to subpoena Warner Bros for raw footage from interviews of two accusers who appeared in "The Fall of Diddy," a docuseries that aired in January on the studio's subsidiary, Max.

"GREAT JOB!" Combs wrote on an orange sticky note at the end of the hearing, passing it to lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo.

After court, Combs was allowed to turn his chair and speak briefly to his mother, Janice, who sat in the audience.

"I love you," Combs told her, smiling and sounding cheerful. "Everything is good. I'm feeling good," he told her.

"My son? He always looks good to me," Janice Combs later told Business Insider.

Prosecutors had fought hard last week to add the three new accusers to the trial witness list, arguing that their testimony was vital to the case, even though some of their sexual abuse allegations are decades old and are not part of the indictment itself.

Combs' lawyers fought against allowing their testimony, telling the judge that, taken together, the trio's "horror show" claims of being abused by Combs would be "far worse and far more inflammatory than the charges."

Not so, prosecutors had countered in court filings this week.

Anything the three newly surfaced witnesses would add to their accounts "will be no more inflammatory than the evidence that the jury will already have before it at trial," prosecutors said.

Combs' indictment cites the accounts of four female accusers who suffered "years' worth of beatings, drug-fueled coercive sex marathons, and multiple rapes," prosecutors wrote.

Since his arrest in September, Combs has denied the charges and promised through his lawyers to prove that the behavior charged in the indictment was consensual and that his accusers are financially motivated.

Federal judges often allow testimony about prior abuse

Since the 1990s, federal judges have commonly allowed sex-crime juries to hear that a defendant may have committed prior sex crimes.

Two sex assault accusers, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, were allowed to testify at the 2023 E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, at which a federal jury in Manhattan found the now-President Trump liable for sexual abuse. Trump is appealing the verdict.

In the Combs case, federal prosecutors warned the defense in early March that once the trial begins, they plan to call three additional sex assault "victims" to testify against the rap entrepreneur.

Prosecutors told the judge in court filings this week that their testimony is necessary to counter Combs' consensual-sex defense.

The indictment alleges that over the past two decades, Combs used violence, drugs, and threats to force three girlfriends and a female employee to "fulfill his sexual desires." To date, only one of the accusers, Ventura, has been named publicly.

Prosecutors allege that Combs forced his girlfriends to perform in so-called freak offs, elaborately staged and often videotaped sexual performances that could last for days and often involved hired male sex workers.

The three newly-surfaced accusers would bolster the testimony of the indictment's four alleged victims by demonstrating Combs' "history of refusing to take no for an answer," prosecutors wrote.

"Thus, when the defendant inevitably argues at trial that he had no clue these four women did not want the sexual experiences that he demanded, the Government should be able to point out that someone as practiced as he is in sexual assault surely recognized the signs of non-consent," prosecutors wrote.

The defense fought against letting the three prior accusers anywhere near the jury. Their allegations are "salacious," unproven, and stretch back into the 1980s, lawyers for Combs complained in their own court filings this week.

"The government should not be permitted to pollute the trial with decades of dirt," the defense wrote, saying the only purpose for the proposed testimony would be "painting Mr. Combs as a bad guy who must have committed the charged crimes."

Disproving the trio of accusers' claims "would require weeks-long mini-trials," the defense also complained.

If convicted of racketeering and forcible sex trafficking, Combs faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years and a maximum of life in prison.

Questioning of prospective jurors is scheduled for May 5, with opening statements expected May 12.

• Netflix says it hasn't been affected by economic headwinds and isn't changing its forecasts.
• A UBS report found the streamer is cheaper than its peers in terms of cost per hour viewed.
• That gives Netflix an edge amid market turbulence.

As economic anxieties mount, Netflix is looking like quite the bargain in a crowded streaming market.

During its earnings call Thursday, the streamer said it hadn't seen any major changes amid emerging economic headwinds — and it isn't adjusting its forecasts.

Co-CEO Greg Peters said subscriber retention was stable, consumers weren't shifting significantly to lower-priced plans, and the price increases unveiled in January had rolled out as expected. He added the company's cheaper, ad-supported plan — starting at $7.99 — would only add to its resilience.

"Historically, in tougher economies, home entertainment value is really important to consumer households, and Netflix is a tremendous value in absolute terms — and certainly in competitive terms," co-CEO Ted Sarandos added.

A recent report by UBS analysts lends credence to Sarandos' comments about Netflix's value.

In fact, the analysts found that, in terms of cost per hour of viewership, Netflix is cheaper than its peers.

Ad-free subscribers pay 39 cents an hour to stream Netflix, according to UBS. And ad-supported subscribers pay a mere 18 cents an hour, making the service cheaper than traditional TV.

UBS wrote that the low ratio is being driven by how much people watch Netflix. One sign of strong engagement? Viewing hours on Netflix's Top 10 lists was up 5% year-over-year in the first quarter, driven by titles like "Squid Game" and "The Night Agent," per the report.

Netflix declined to comment.

The streaming giant crushed its earnings Thursday — the first time it did so without disclosing subscriber figures — reaffirming why it has been trading like a "recession-resistant" stock. Shares are up nearly 10% year-to-date.

Beyond Netflix, streaming has generally been considered a recession-resistant sector. One financial influencer interviewed recently by Business Insider advised consumers to make use of their streaming services in lieu of going out as a budgeting hack. Other areas of entertainment may fare less well, though live music is well-positioned.