• Kid Cudi is soon expected to testify in Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial.
• The rapper may take the witness stand as soon as Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors say.
• Kid Cudi's 2011 affair with R&B singer Cassie Ventura provoked violent rages from Combs, prosecutors allege.

Rapper Kid Cudi is expected to testify as a government witness in Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal sex-trafficking trial this week.

Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, may take the witness stand as soon as Wednesday in the Manhattan federal courtroom where the trial is underway.

The "Pursuit of Happiness" rapper briefly dated R&B singer Cassie Ventura, the prosecution's star witness who testified for more than 20 hours last week in the hip-hop mogul's trial.

While on the stand, Ventura testified that the 2011 relationship sent Combs into a violent rage.

She told the eight-man, four-woman jury that Combs threatened to blow up Kid Cudi's car when they were out of the country.

Prosecutors allege that the threat was not an empty one.

The rival's convertible was allegedly firebombed by Combs' underlings using a Molotov cocktail — an arson that Kid Cudi will likely be asked about on the stand.

"Sean wanted Scott's friends to be there to see the car get blown up in the driveway," Ventura testified.

Ventura's 2023 now-settled lawsuit against Combs first suggested that Combs was responsible for the 2012 firebombing.

In addition to the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against Combs, prosecutors have accused him and his associates of several other crimes, including arson.

Prosecutors have alleged in court papers that Combs ordered his underlings to torch a vehicle "by slicing open the car's convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior."

• Elon Musk said there could be 1,000 Tesla robotaxis in Austin in just a few months.
• Musk confirmed on Tuesday that he expects the initial Austin fleet to hit the road in June.
• He also said the robotaxis will be geo-fenced to certain areas after being asked about a BI article.

Tesla robotaxis are on their way to Austin in June, the company's CEO, Elon Musk, confirmed — and there could be 1,000 of the vehicles on the streets within just a few months.

"We'll start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40," he said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday. "It will probably be at 1,000 within a few months." He's previously said the ramp-up will be quick.

After the Austin rollout, Musk said he plans to expand the robotaxis to other cities, like San Francisco. By the end of 2026, Musk predicted there could be more than 1 million self-driving Teslas in the US.

In 2019, Musk said Tesla could have more than one million robotaxis by year's end, but that deadline came and went with Musk admitting that punctuality is not his "strong suit."

Texas and California, where autonomous Waymo cars are already on the road, have different regulations, and Tesla doesn't have full approval to launch its robotaxis in the Golden State.

"The approval process is very haphazard and sort of state-by-state, and sometimes city-by-city," Musk said. He said on Tuesday that it's crucial to set up nationwide regulations for self-driving cars.

The initial robotaxi launch in Austin will be highly limited, as Musk said on an April 22 earnings call. Tesla told a Morgan Stanley analyst that the service will operate on public roads and be invite-only.

The company also said many teleoperators will be available to help out. In robotaxi-speak, teleoperators typically mean that a remote employee can take over some level of control, usually when the autonomous driver gets stuck. Competitors Waymo and Zoox handle those types of situations slightly differently. It's not clear exactly how much control teleoperators will have during the Austin robotaxi launch.

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

Musk said during the interview that Tesla's robotaxis will be geo-fenced to specific parts of the Austin region after CNBC's David Faber pushed the CEO to respond to the outcome of Business Insider's test between Waymo and Tesla's Full Self-Driving Supervised software.

BI compared the companies' two self-driving technologies, and the Tesla ran a red light at a complex intersection in San Francisco.

Musk said BI's test "made no sense" but added that Tesla's robotaxis will avoid certain areas of Austin if the company deems it unsafe.

"We will geo-fence it," Musk said. "It's not going to take intersections unless we are highly confident it's going to do well with that intersection. Or it will just take a route around that intersection."

• YouTube is stepping up its efforts to help its creators win an Emmy.
• The platform hosted its first "For Your Consideration" event for awards voters on Sunday.
• YouTubers like Sean Evans and Michelle Khare are vying for nominations this year.

From "Beast Games" to "Paul American" to Ms. Rachel, Hollywood wants a piece of YouTube.

But the video giant, which stopped making its own original content in 2022, isn't sitting idly by while streamers like Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and Netflix court its creators. Behind the scenes, the company is working to elevate its native content within Hollywood and prove its creators are worthy of the industry's highest honors.

One key component is YouTube's Emmys push. A creator has never won a Primetime Emmy — TV's most prestigious award — in a main, televised category for their show, a YouTube spokesperson said.

While creators have nabbed nominations and wins in the past, the company is pulling out all the PR and marketing stops for a different outcome.

In addition to the cultural cache, a win could sway more ad budgets reserved for premium TV in YouTube's direction, as The Wall Street Journal reported.

For the first time this year, YouTube hosted a "For Your Consideration" event in Los Angeles, escalating its efforts to nab an Emmy for its creators. It's not alone; earlier this month, Amazon pushed YouTube's most popular creator, MrBeast, for Emmy consideration at its own FYC event.

These events convene awards voters — in this case, members of the Television Academy — to screen content and introduce them to prospective nominees. Emmy nominations are set to be announced on July 15.

This year, YouTube is backing three creators who self-submitted for Primetime nominations, including Sean Evans' "Hot Ones" in the Outstanding Talk Series category; Rhett and Link's "Good Mythical Morning" for Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series; and Michelle Khare's "Challenge Accepted" for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special.

YouTube's event, held on Sunday, featured screenings and conversations with each of the creators. There were also themed food trucks — such as the "be your mythical best" bean burger and "Challenge Accepted" fuel bowls — and recreations of each creator's sets for guests to take photos at and tag on social media.

YouTube does not fund individual creators' Emmy submissions or FYC campaigns in their entirety, a spokesperson told Business Insider.

It's providing PR and marketing support, as it did last year. In addition to the event, this support includes drumming up press for the shows, and running billboards timed to the Upfronts and Cannes Lions advertising events, as well as across Los Angeles this summer.

A win for the creator economy at large

Khare, who has 5 million YouTube subscribers, told BI she isn't sure whether her series "Challenge Accepted" would have been greenlit in the traditional studio system. The show sees her try out difficult jobs like FBI hostage negotiation and joining the traveling circus. The challenges can be dangerous and the shoots long.

That's why she said an Emmy nomination would mark a win for the creator economy writ large.

"Anytime a creator in the digital landscape does something, it's paving a new way for everybody exterior to the traditional Hollywood system," she said.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said in a Hollywood Reporter op-ed that YouTubers deserve Emmys and the Television Academy should consider expanding its categories.

The Emmys "should reflect what viewers are actually watching on their TV screens," he said — a nod to YouTube's growing dominance in the living room.

Many creators "operate as full-fledged studios with writers' rooms, production teams, and genre-defining formats," Angela Courtin, YouTube's VP of marketing for connected TV and creative studio, told BI in a statement. "It is only fitting that their creative achievements be honored alongside Hollywood's most celebrated figures."

In addition to its FYC efforts, YouTube has helped creators get into film festivals, the spokesperson said. Khare had a screening at the Montclair Film Festival last year, and Evans and "Good Mythical Morning" were both at Sundance and SXSW this year.

YouTube's efforts to position its content alongside traditional TV don't stop there. YouTube is also readying a "Shows" feature for its TV app to give episodic content more of a polish. First announced in September and touted at YouTube's Brandcast advertising event, Shows organizes YouTube series into seasons and episodes on dynamic landing pages.

• Cassie Ventura's mother was called to the witness stand in Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal trial.
• Regina Ventura described threats Combs allegedly made after her daughter's 2011 affair with Kid Cudi.
• "I was yelling and screaming and trying to hit him," she said of confronting the rapper in 2016.

Cassie Ventura's mother told a federal jury in Manhattan that she once screamed at and tried "to hit" her R&B singer daughter's ex, Sean "Diddy" Combs.

Regina Ventura sat wrapped in a large beige shawl as she described physically confronting the hip-hop tycoon during testimony at Combs' sex-trafficking and racketeering trial on Tuesday.

It was August 2016, and the mom of two from Connecticut had been visiting daughter Cassie Ventura in Los Angeles when she learned that Combs had stolen her daughter's cellphone, she told jurors.

Cassie Ventura was upstairs in her apartment, the mom testified, leaving her to call the police and take on Combs outside the building.

"I was yelling and screaming and trying to hit him," to get Combs to give the phone back, the mom testified, her voice quiet and calm throughout her 15 minutes on the stand.

"He did give it back," she told the eight men and four women on Combs' jury.

The elder Ventura also described an incriminating Blackberry text from the couple's 2011 breakup, a message first shown to the jury last week.

In the message, Cassie Ventura tells her mother that Combs threatened her with revenge porn and physical harm out of jealousy over her relationship with rapper Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi.

Combs' jealous threats around Cassie Ventura's 2011 Kid Cudi romance came with a demand for money, jurors heard Tuesday.

Regina Ventura testified that she borrowed against her home of 57 years — Cassie Ventura's childhood home in Connecticut — to pay $20,000 that Combs said he needed for unpaid "expenses."

Combs was "angry he spent money on her and she had been with another person," Regina Ventura said.

"I was scared for my daughter's safety," the mom said, when asked why she wired Combs the money.

Combs returned the Ventura family's cash "about four or five days later," she told jurors. Her testimony gave no explanation for why the money was returned.

Regina Ventura's turn on the stand followed more than 20 hours of testimony delivered to the jury by her daughter.

Cassie Ventura took the stand last week while eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine. She detailed what she said were years of sexual abuse at the hands of Combs during their 11-year relationship.

The younger Ventura, who prosecutors allege was one of two women that Combs sex-trafficked, has played a key role in the hip-hop mogul's ongoing trial.

Over the course of her four days on the witness stand, Cassie Ventura at times gave tearfully described feeling "worthless" while joining in on the drug-fueled, often dayslong sex performances that Combs dubbed "freak offs."

These sex encounters, which prosecutors say Combs arranged, directed, and often recorded, are at the core of the indictment against Combs.

Combs used "lies, drugs, threats, and violence to force and coerce" Ventura and later an anonymous Jane Doe into the freak offs, prosecutor Emily Johnson told the jury in her opening statements last week.

• Raytheon, a division of RTX, announced its new upgraded radar for hypersonic missile defense.
• The company said on Monday it delivered the radar to the US Missile Defense Agency.
• Hypersonic weapons are fast with unpredictable flight patterns that challenge current missile defenses.

Raytheon has given the US Missile Defense Agency a new radar, the most advanced of its kind, that it says can support the difficult mission of defending against hypersonic weapons.

The radar is one of the latest examples of how the US is working to strengthen its air defenses against more advanced threats like hypersonic weapons, which are nearly impossible to intercept with current systems.

Raytheon, an RTX Corporation business, announced on Monday the delivery of its first upgraded AN/TPY-2 missile defense radar featuring a Gallium Nitride (GaN) populated array.

These radars are able to detect, track, and discriminate ballistic missiles in multiple phases of flight. The latest upgrade improves the sensitivity and range of the radar and expands its surveillance capabilities.

"The radar also features the latest CX6 high-performance computing software that offers more precise target discrimination and electronic attack protection," Raytheon said in a release.

Some experts have noted the game-changing use of GaN semiconductor technology in enhancing radars, radio frequency sensing, and other communication platforms. Multiple big players in the defense industry have been working on GaN-based capabilities, especially for upgrading sensors and weapons systems.

Last fall, Raytheon began production of the GaN-empowered Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense System (LTAMDS) with the Army, designing it to ultimately replace the current Patriot missile defense system radars.

Raytheon's new version of the AN/TPY-2 is the most advanced it's built, said Sam Deneke, president of Air and Space Defense Systems at Raytheon, per the release. "As demand increases for missile defense of the homeland, the AN/TPY-2 radar is ready to meet the mission."

US military officials have been pushing for more capabilities to defend against hypersonics for years now. They're daunting weapons due to a hypersonic missile's ability to fly low, fast, and maneuver along unpredictable flight paths that make them far more difficult to intercept than already challenging ballistic missiles that fly the predictable parabolic arcs.

Both China and Russia, key US rivals, possess hypersonic missiles in their arsenals.

US-made air defenses have defeated Russia's advanced Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile, sometimes questionably touted as hypersonic weaponry. But defending against weapons more accurately identified by that name, such as China's DF-17 missile equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle or Russia's Zircon scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile, could prove more difficult, though Ukraine has claimed to have defeated the Zircon.

Though the weapons may not be unstoppable, they represent a much more challenging threat, and this technology is continuing to advance.

China's expansion of its missile arsenal has raised concerns about the vulnerability of US forces and strategic allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region. Washington lawmakers and US military leaders have repeatedly said that American forces lack the active and passive defenses needed to defend against a substantial Chinese missile bombardment that could include hypersonic weapons. But efforts are underway to strengthen these defenses.

Last year, for instance, the US and Japan announced plans to jointly develop a hypersonic missile defense system as part of a Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) Cooperative Development (GCD) Project Arrangement that aims to intercept a hypersonic weapon in its glide phase of flight. 

And more recently, the Trump administration began pursuing a new "Iron Dome for America," now called the "Golden Dome," because, as the president said in a January executive order, "the threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States."

• Lululemon's 2-in-1 maxi dress has become massively popular overnight.
• The stretchy garment is more suited for casual outings, unlike the brand's athletic wear.
• Some shoppers, however, have argued the dress is overpriced and basic.

It's a gown. It's a skirt. It's $148 and strangely controversial.

I'm talking about the 2-in-1 maxi dress from Lululemon, which, in all fairness, you might not have ever noticed.

The garment is extremely understated and more ideal for a walk on the beach than a workout class. There's a good chance you've scrolled past it while shopping for new leggings on the brand's website.

Fashion fans, however, can't seem to talk about anything other than the stretchy shift right now.

Lululemon sells everyday clothes. You just might not have noticed.

At its core, Lululemon is an athletic brand. Its Align leggings brought the company fame, and its sweat-repelling pieces have become massive in different sports communities.

Even its everyday staples, like the belt bags teens carry instead of purses and the ABC joggers professional men wear to the office, can be used for sport.

So, Lululemon's maxi dress might seem like an anomaly. It's designed simply to be worn as part of a cute outfit, not an active ensemble.

"I still can't comprehend how this dress is from Lululemon," one TikToker captioned her video about the garment.

It's really not an outlier, though. Lululemon has been selling maxi dresses and other casual staples for years. They're just sleeper hits.

This specific strapless dress can be worn as a skirt when its top is folded over the hips. It's sold in four colors — light ivory, black, lava cake, and raceway green — and sizes between XXXS and XL.

Many of the sizes are now sold out across colorways, and it's unclear if the brand will restock.

Representatives for Lululemon didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Cute, but costly

As is the nature of the internet, the very existence of the simple dress has been debated. Over the past two weeks, dozens of videos tagged #lululemondress have been posted to TikTok.

Many have raved about its soft texture, saying the dress contours your body and fits like a dream. Its versatility is also a big draw.

Others, however, said its design is way too basic and overpriced, retailing for $148.

Though the dresses are made from a mix of fabrics, including silk and Lenzing Modal, they also contain nylon and Lycra elastane, which some shoppers dislike for being unsustainable and plastic.

"It's not that it's ugly, it's just not $150 type of cute," one TikToker wrote.

"Ok but if you saw it at Walmart, would you buy it??" another TikTok user said.

Some people are so bothered by the dress that they've even compared it to a "thneed," the fictional, trendy garment mentioned in "The Lorax." The comparison has made the dress even more viral, with shoppers debating if Lululemon's garment fits the bill.

I'm here to tell you that comparison is not accurate at all.

After all, Lululemon's dress does not look like a stretched-out sweater, like a thneed does, and it can't be worn as a sock, hat, or sweatshirt, like a thneed can.

Now, is the dress worth $148 of your hard-earned money, or the time and effort it will take to find one in your size right now? That's for you to decide.

President Donald Trump went to Capitol Hill to get Republican lawmakers on board with his multitrillion-dollar bill proposing significant tax cuts.

• Elon Musk challenged Bill Gates' criticism of DOGE's USAID budget cuts.
• Gates has claimed DOGE's cuts could cause "millions of deaths" but Musk demanded evidence.
• Musk defended DOGE's moves and slammed Gates' comments at the Qatar Economic Forum Tuesday.

Elon Musk clapped back at Bill Gates when asked about his criticism of the Department of Government Efficiency.

In response to Gates' remarks to CNN and other publications earlier this month that DOGE's slashes to the US Agency for International Development would lead to "millions of deaths," Musk asked his fellow tech billionaire to show proof.

"I'd like him to show us any evidence whatsoever that this is true. It's false," Musk told Bloomberg's Mishal Husain onstage at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday.

With Musk as its de facto leader, DOGE has taken an aggressive approach to making the government more efficient — including cutting over 80% of USAID's programs, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. DOGE was effectively "feeding USAID into the wood chipper," as the Tesla CEO put it in an X post on February 2.

Musk told Husain that parts of USAID "that were found to be even slightly useful" were preserved and moved to the State Department. On January 28, Rubio announced that the US would issue a waiver allowing "life-saving humanitarian assistance programs" to continue their work.

Musk previously called USAID a "criminal organization," and he said Tuesday that it hasn't been able to provide evidence of the children it's helping.

"'Like, where are they? If they're in trouble, we'd like to talk to them and talk to their caregivers,'" Musk said.

Neither Musk nor representatives for Gates immediately responded to Business Insider's request for comment.

Gates, the cofounder of Microsoft, committed his over $100 billion fortune and the resources of the Gates Foundation to aid in global health over the next 20 years. He told CNN that DOGE's bold approach to cutting government spending is "a mistake."

USAID distributed nearly $32.5 billion in aid in 2024, devoting over $2.3 billion to fighting AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis around the world. It also spent about $290 million on making vaccines and immunization more widespread.

According to the United Nations, the US funds 70% of the global response to HIV/AIDS, saving more than 26 million lives since the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was created in 2003.

"He's the one who cut the USAID budget. He put it in the wood chipper," Gates told The New York Times Magazine of Musk. "The world's richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world's poorest children."

• As a chef, I've learned the best tricks to grill perfectly cooked, juicy chicken every time.
• Choose your chicken cut wisely and add flavor to your meat with a rub, marinade, or brine.
• Sauce can char on your chicken if you add it too soon, so wait until the end to brush it on.

Whether you're having people over or bringing a meal to a potluck, grilled chicken is always a crowd-pleaser.

As a restaurant chef, I've broken down so many whole birds that I could probably do it blindfolded, so I have a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to making the tastiest grilled chicken around.

Buy high-quality chicken from a trusted source

First and foremost, buy a good chicken from a trusted source.

Terms like "organic" and "free range" are often vague and don't always indicate what you think they do, so look for the USDA-grade label first and foremost.

An A grade means there's a good fat-to-skin ratio and no discolorations, and B and C grades are usually used for ground meat.

From there, look for cage-free, antibiotics-free, and Kosher, which all refer to how the chickens are raised and processed. Those factors, separately or combined, make for a chicken that is consistently tasty. 

Know how to best handle whichever cut of meat you're planning to grill

If you're not sure what chicken to grill, I suggest bone-in, skin-on meat. It tastes better because this extra layer of fat infuses the chicken with flavor and moisture while cooking.

You can also experiment with grilling a whole bird spatchcock style, which is without the spinal cord. This way, the bird stays flush with the grill, so it will cook evenly over the heat, and everyone can still have their favorite cuts.

Grilled wings are also great for a crowd, and their small size means they'll cook quickly. Keep a close eye on them.

Chicken breast is popular for a reason, but it typically has an uneven thickness. Slice cutlets in half or pound them flat before grilling for even cooking results.

Don't underestimate the power of marinades, cures, and brines

The whole point of marinating meat is to break down tissue and bring in flavor with acid and salt.

A quick marinade is easy to throw together, too. Your acids could be lemons, limes, oranges, vinegar, and even wine or beer. You can even make a marinade with leftover salad dressing or pickle juice.

Marinate for a few hours or the night before cooking for best results.

You may also want to consider brining — an overnight bath in a salt and seasoning mixture can do wonders for flavor and texture.

The salt breaks down the proteins and pulls in the seasonings, essentially curing the meat.

You can also experiment with curing with dry rubs and salt seasoning mixtures, which don't use water. The salt will pull the moisture out of the meat and then reabsorb it.

Just sprinkle a thin layer all over your meat and plan to brine or cure at least one day before cooking.

Add your sauce toward the end of the grilling process

A good barbecue sauce can bring finger-licking qualities to your chicken, but don't add it too early in the grilling process. 

This is especially crucial for sauces made with sugar. Similar to roasted marshmallows, it will burn over an open flame and can turn into a black char if too close to the fire.

Instead, slather on your sauce when the meat is mostly cooked through. Barbecue sauce is best used as a basting tool right before serving, so you can get all of that flavor without turning your chicken into a hockey puck. 

Use one of several methods to ensure your chicken is cooked

A fully cooked piece of chicken is 165 degrees Fahrenheit at the thickest part. However, if you don't have a meat thermometer, look for other signs that can signify a bird is cooked.

If there are bones, they should wiggle easily in their sockets. If boneless, pierce with a knife and any juices — there should always be juices — should run clear.

If you undercook your chicken, put it back on the grill for a few more minutes with the cover on to let the residual heat cook it through.

Grill over indirect or direct heat, but keep the lid closed

Most grills have a large grate directly over the flame and a smaller elevated one with indirect heat.

If you're cooking a larger or thicker piece of chicken breast, grill over indirect heat before or after charring, especially if you want to ensure it's cooked all the way through.

You can add some wood chips to your gas or charcoal grill for extra flavor, but keep the lid closed to keep it nice and hot. It's OK to check on the meat every few minutes, but try to lift the grill lid sparingly to keep the heat inside. 

This story was originally published on August 13, 2o22, and most recently updated on May 20, 2025.

• I made Ina Garten's smashed cheeseburgers with caramelized onions.
• The recipe only calls for a few ingredients, and you don't even need to fire up the grill.
• The burgers were perfectly juicy, and the simple toppings made the process easy.

Ina Garten might be best known for her oversized-cosmopolitans and perfect roast chicken, but the celebrity chef has also released multiple burger recipes during her decades-long career.

Ahead of Memorial Day weekend, I decided to try one out.

Among her many burger recipes, her smashed hamburgers with caramelized onions called to me because of their simplicity.

A number of the ingredients I needed for the recipe were already in my pantry, which helped me save money on buying supplies and was a testament to Garten's flair for simple yet delicious recipes. 

Here's how to make Ina Garten's caramelized-onion cheeseburgers.

This recipe only requires a few basic ingredients, including onions.

You can find the full ingredient list and recipe instructions on Garten's website.

I started by preparing the caramelized onions. The recipe calls for two medium red onions, thinly sliced.

I added 2 tablespoons of canola oil to a large nonstick pan over medium heat and then added the onions.

Garten says it should take about eight to 10 minutes for the onions to start to brown. I liked that this recipe didn't require a grill, making it apartment-friendly for this New Yorker on Memorial Day weekend.

While the onions were browning, I began preparing the burger patties.

The recipe calls for a pound and a 1/2 of ground beef with 20% fat.

To make the burgers, you season the meat with Colman's mustard powder, black pepper, and kosher salt.

I had never used mustard powder in a recipe before, but I was excited to see if it would enhance the flavor of the burgers.

I mixed the ground meat and seasonings in a glass mixing bowl.

This was so much easier and simpler than adding an egg or a ton of other ingredients like many celebrity chef burger recipes require.

I shaped the meat into four burger patties and placed them on a plate in the freezer.

The chef says the burgers should stay in the freezer for exactly 15 minutes, so I set a timer to ensure I didn't go over or under the mark. I assumed this step was to help the burgers keep their shape when I added them to the cast-iron skillet.

After adding a teaspoon of sugar to the onions and letting them caramelize for a few minutes, I added a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.

Garten explains that this step is to help deglaze the pan. 

After less than a minute, my onions were lightly caramelized and ready to add to the burgers.

I took them off the heat while I waited for the burgers to be ready to add to the pan.

I heated up a couple of tablespoons of oil in my trusty cast-iron skillet and waited for the burgers to be done in the freezer.

While this recipe does call for two different pans, it doesn't require many extra bowls or equipment, which I greatly appreciated when it was time to clean up.

I placed the burger patties down in the cast iron and made sure not to move them once they made contact.

Each burger patty should be about an inch thick. While all my burgers weren't the exact same size, I figured I did a good enough job and was able to use every last bit of the meat mixture.

To put the "smash" in "smash burger," I pressed down firmly on my burgers with a spatula.

This definitely would have worked a little better with a metal spatula, as Garten suggests using, but I made do with the one I had in my kitchen. In the end, the burgers turned out well.

After the burgers had cooked on one side for three minutes, becoming perfectly crispy, I flipped them over and added my toppings.

I grated some Gruyere cheese to top the burgers and added the caramelized onions, too. Then, I placed a lid on the skillet to allow the cheese to melt completely and finish cooking the burgers.

After about two minutes, my burgers were done.

Garten suggests using sandwich potato rolls, such as Martin's, for the burgers, so I did just that.

When I cut into the burger, it was perfectly medium rare.

I'm admittedly not the best at telling when burgers are done to my liking, but Garten's timing worked out perfectly.

The burger blew me away — it was juicy and flavorful, and the onions added the perfect amount of sweetness.

This recipe is great for grill masters and burger novices alike, as you only need a few ingredients to get a delicious burger. Even my roommates were surprised by how tasty these simple burgers turned out. 

I'll definitely be making these burgers again for an easy dinner or even a summer party with friends.

• Sean "Diddy" Combs' ex-assistant testified about a 2008 ordeal involving Suge Knight.
• An armed Combs went after Knight after he was spotted at an LA diner, the man testified.
• Combs faces federal charges, including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

With three guns on his lap, Sean "Diddy" Combs ordered his driver to "motherfucking go" as they lit out for a Los Angeles diner — itching to confront longtime rival Suge Knight, Combs' ex-personal assistant testified Tuesday.

David James, Combs' then-personal assistant, described the dramatic 2008 ordeal — in which an early morning cheeseburger run nearly escalated the notorious East Coast-West Coast rap feud— while on the stand at Combs' federal sex-trafficking trial.

"It was the first time I realized my life was in danger," James told the Manhattan jury during his second day of testimony.

Knight, the Death Row Records cofounder, had been spotted at Mel's Drive-In diner some 20 minutes prior, James testified. It was James who drove Combs and one of the hip-hop tycoon's trusted security guards back to the diner, guns at the ready.

"I remember complete silence" during the 10-minute drive from Combs' Hollywood Hills home to the diner, James testified, adding, "I remember thinking there are three guns and three people in this car" should anything happen.

James, who said he served as Combs' personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, told the jury that by the time Combs got to the diner, Knight had already left.

"We didn't see any black Escalades or black SUVs" in the lot by the time they returned, James said, referring to the four cars he said Knight had been traveling with.

In the end, Combs just went home.

"We eventually drove back to his house in Hollywood Hills," James told the jury.

James said that Combs' human resources director tried to talk him into continuing to work for the rapper's Bad Boy companies. She offered him a job with the Sean John fashion line, or in marketing, he said.

"I told her no," he testified. "I just wanted to get out."

Last week, Combs' ex-girlfriend — star prosecution witness Cassie Ventura — described the Combs-Knight incident from her vantage point, back at the rapper's home.

On Tuesday, James described it from his own perspective, telling jurors what he heard and saw from behind the wheel.

It was 4 a.m., and Combs wanted cheeseburgers after a late-night recording session at his rented Hollywood Hills mansion.

James and one of Combs' security guards, Damian "D-Roc" Butler, were sent to Mel's, a popular all-night diner.

"I drove the staff truck, a silver Lincoln Navigator," James testified.

James had just pulled the Navigator into a parking spot at Mel's when Butler saw Knight at the wheel of an Escalade parked a few spots over.

"That's motherfucking Suge Knight!" Butler said, according to James.

James testified that the security guard walked up to Knight's car and said, "What's up? It's me D-Roc, Biggie's boy," referring to rapper Notorious B.I.G.

"Oh, what are you doing in my city?" Knight asked Butler, who replied, "I'm just here getting money, you know how it is," James testified.

"I know what it is," Knight responded.

The two men shook hands, and parted ways.

But as James and Butler were placing their order inside Mel's, they saw someone pass a gun to Knight — and saw four SUVs drive into position at different corners of the parking lot, James testified.

"We gotta' fucking go," Butler said, and they sped back to Combs' home, James testified.

Knight, who is serving a 28-year prison sentence in connection to a fatal 2015 hit-and-run, has recently commented on Combs' criminal case in interviews. An attorney for Knight did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Outside of Combs' home that early morning, James told jurors he saw Combs arguing with Ventura.

"She was telling him not to go. She was very upset," James said of Ventura.

Ventura said there was a 'freak-off' right before the incident

In her testimony last week about the situation, Ventura said that she had been involved in one of Combs' "freak off" sex performances at the time.

"I just remember we were kind of, like, just chilling at this point and D-Roc came in and he said that Suge was down at Mel's diner, which was just right down the hill," Ventura had testified. "And they quickly packed up and drove down there."

Ventura said she got upset.

"I was crying. I was screaming, like, please don't do anything stupid. I just was really nervous for them," Ventura testified. "I didn't know what it meant, what they were going to do."

Ventura testified that Combs and the other men put on black clothes, covered up their heads, went into a safe, and grabbed guns.

"And next thing I knew, they were in the SUV," she said.

They returned to the house in about half an hour, Ventura testified.

Prosecutors say that for two decades, Combs led a "criminal enterprise" that involved the sex trafficking of Ventura and another woman. Combs is accused of coercing those women, plus two additional women, into sex through a pattern of threats, manipulation, and violence.

Combs and his associates also committed other crimes, including forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, drug offenses, and obstruction of justice, prosecutors allege.

If convicted on the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against him, Combs could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

• Helene Sula has lost 50 pounds since May 2024, mostly by walking, hiking, and tracking her meals.
• The travel content creator, 38, said she doesn't deprive herself of yummy food in foreign countries.
• Sula shared 5 ways she lost the weight and is keeping it off, even with the occasional indulgence.

Helene Sula has visited 60 countries and hundreds of cities worldwide for her job as a content creator.

As much as sightseeing is part of her job, so is trying new foods.

After living in Heidelberg, Germany, for three years, she returned to her hometown, Dallas. Over time, she began to notice changes in her body.

"I've always fluctuated, but I especially gained a ton of weight when I moved back to America," Sula, 38, told Business Insider.

Her weight gain pushed her to reflect on her relationship with food, exercise, and travel.

"Food is part of a cultural experience," Sula, who now lives in Montenegro, said. "When I travel to a new place, I want to try the food. But I had to reframe my mindset and make it my mission to realize that I can try the food — I just don't need to eat all of it right then and there."

After a year of exercising and revamping her diet, Sula has lost 50 pounds — and gained a world of self-confidence.

"I am a very positive and outgoing person, but I think over the years, that has gone away a bit because I've been embarrassed," she said. "I feel like I've finally gotten back to myself. It's been really nice."

Here are 5 things Sula does to maintain her weight loss.

1. She tracks her meals on MyFitnessPal

Sula used to eat fast food regularly and didn't pay a lot of attention to her portion sizes.

"I'd eat a spoonful of peanut butter, and snacks like popcorn and chips straight out of the bag," she said. " I would never be mindful of how much I was eating or the portions. I didn't really think about that."

Sula has become more mindful of her eating choices, attributing a big part of her weight loss success to portion control.

"I thought I was eating healthy, but I was overeating," she said. "Now, instead of having three scoops of gelato, I have one."

To monitor her food intake and ensure she's maintaining a calorie deficit, Sula uses meal tracker My Fitness Pal. It's available on iOS and Android and is free to use, though users, like Sula, can pay for a premium version.

"I track breakfast first thing in the morning, and then, later in the day, I'll track what I eat for lunch and dinner," she said.

The app has been a game changer in her fitness journey.

"I don't try to be perfect with it — it's just a good tool to make sure that I'm staying on track," she added.

2. She doesn't turn down food, but she balances treats with other items

Sula rarely stays in a city for more than a week. No matter where she is, she still tries to maintain a well-balanced diet.

"My husband and I just went to Turkey," she said. "The food in Turkey is absolutely amazing. I still watched my portions, and definitely ate healthy when I could."

For her, that means consuming enough protein, fiber, fruits, and vegetables throughout the day.

Her favorite foods to eat on the road are:

• Eggs: While getting certain foods can sometimes be difficult to find in other countries, there's one food she can always count on — eggs. "My No. 1 is eggs in the morning, I'll go for an omelet of sorts," she said.
• Fruits and vegetables like apples and carrots: Sula likes to shop at local markets and grocery stores with fresh produce.

• Deli meats: She can get most of her go-to snacks, like turkey slices and fresh vegetables, in pretty much every grocery store. "I prefer turkey, just because it's somewhat healthy," she said. "I'll go up to the deli counter in a grocery store and have them slice it for me." She'll typically eat four to six slices, paired with roasted vegetables and a piece of fruit. If she's on the go, she'll have a protein shake instead.

• Protein shakes: Not all protein brands are available abroad, so Sula isn't picky. "If I'm in the UK, I like to drink UFit, and if I'm in Montenegro, I'll drink Protein Zott," she said.

3. She keeps a grocery list in her phone that she can use in any store around the world

A big part of eating healthy is balance — knowing when to indulge or abstain, Sula said.

"If I know that I'm going to have an indulgent dinner, for lunch, I'll go to a grocery store and grab an apple, protein shake, some turkey, and some nuts," she said.

According to her, this short grocery list is fairly affordable in most countries, typically costing about $6.

To ensure she doesn't stray from the menu, Sula keeps a grocery list in her iPhone notes app. She said it's a great way to avoid overthinking and complicating her eating decisions.

"Having a list of the foods that fill me up makes the rest of my day great," she said. "It takes the guesswork out of having to think so much about what to eat. I also don't get hangry."

4. She walks, hikes, and swims wherever she is

Sula said that a lack of walking was one of the biggest contributors to her weight gain.

"I went from living in Germany and walking or biking everywhere, to living in Dallas, where I wouldn't even dream of walking down to go to the grocery store," she said.

Now, Sula tries to constantly be on the move. To help her maintain her steps and exercise, her husband, who has a Master's in exercise science, created a workout schedule that she uses even when she's traveling.

While it can look different depending on what country she's in and what she's training for, it typically looks like this:

• Monday: An interval workout of a three-mile walk, alternating between two minutes of fast-paced walking and two minutes at a slower pace.
• Tuesday: Cross-training, which typically involves swimming
• Wednesday: Rest day
• Thursday: A nine-mile walk
• Friday: An eight-mile walk
• Saturday: Rest day or 12-mile walk
• Sunday: Rest day or 12-mile walk

"My workout schedule is very flexible," she said. "I don't really go to the gym very often. I have weights that I use at home, and I watch YouTube workout videos."

"If I'm somewhere for more than a week, I might go swimming, so I have to find a hotel gym," she added. Typically, it costs her around $5 per visit.

Sula has also added long-distance hiking to her workout plan. In 2024, she walked England's Cotswold Way, a 100-mile trail of rolling hills, woodlands, and farmland that runs from Chipping Campden to Bath, about a two-hour drive southwest from London. The walk took her 10 days to complete.

"It's my goal to walk everywhere we visit," she said. "I'm doing tons of walking in Montenegro. I've done a ton of walking in France. Germany is also really good for walking."

5. She doesn't shame herself for indulging occasionally or enjoying life

Sula's weight-loss journey hasn't been perfect, and she does have a few regrets.

"For a decade, I kept gaining and losing weight," she said. "I had an all-or-nothing mindset," she said. "I told myself, 'You need to eat healthy, and if you don't, then you ruined everything,' but that's just not real life."

"You can still try all the different foods and drinks, and still enjoy life," she explained. "The same goes for exercise. Building yourself up physically and making small changes makes a world of difference."

Sula's biggest recommendation for those trying to lose weight or better their health is to listen to their body.

"I'm still on a weight loss journey, but I think my No. 1 goal is to really just listen to my body and how I feel," she said. "I realize that food doesn't go away — it's always going to be there. You can try it, but you don't need to eat 55 croissants when you're in France."

• Google's vision for Search in an AI era is starting to come together.
• It's rolling out its AI Mode to users in the US, giving them a full AI search experience.
• At its annual I/O event, the company also announced several new search tricks it has planned.

We're finally getting a good glimpse of what Google looks like when it's fully transformed by AI.

Last year's I/O brought an onslaught of AI announcements and a sense that the search giant was trying to prove it still had the juice to lead this race, with a lot of disparate products and demos. This year, a clearer picture is emerging of how Google sees the future of its core products, including what CEO Sundar Pichai called a "total reimagining" of Search during a roundtable with the press ahead of the event. This includes a more conversational-type search called AI Mode and eventually an artificial intelligence assistant that understands the world around you.

Google has faced a major dilemma: Search advertising generates the lion's share of the company's multibillion-dollar business, though it knows it can't just stay still and let rivals eat its lunch. It's trying to build AI into its main product before someone else does it better. But not so fast that it risks hurting the company's profit engine.

The company has been inching forward with AI Overviews, and this week it's rolling out its AI Mode to everyone. While AI Overviews gives a response summary at the top of the normal search page, AI Mode allows users to click a new tab, which opens a conversational-type experience that surfaces a more diverse variety of sources, all still based on Google's search index. Users can also ask follow-up questions.

"AI Mode is not just this AI-powered experience end to end, but it also is a glimpse of what's to come in Search overall," said Google Search's head, Liz Reid.

AI Mode uses what Google calls a "query fan-out" technique, which means it runs multiple queries simultaneously and returns the results all at once. Google says it will make searching better and allow users to ask more complex questions.

The feature today is just the start of how Google sees search evolving. Google is announcing a bag of new tricks that it's keeping in Labs for now, so they'll only be available to early testers. Still, they show what Google sees as the future of search.

One example is Deep Search, which lets users punch in a superlong and complicated question and returns a fully cited report, much like Google's Deep Research feature in Gemini. There's also a version that returns real-time data and visualizations (think charts on sports teams' statistics).

Google is also set to let users give AI Mode access to other Google apps and their search history so it can return more tailored answers and recommendations.

Reid said Google would feed some of the features from AI Mode into its standard search engine and AI Overviews, the idea being that Google's standard search experience benefits from the leaps it's making in the underpinning AI models.

"You put all of this together. This really is building the future of search," Reid said. "Searching starts to feel effortless."

Does Google envision AI Mode being the default one day? That's the implication here, though the company will closely watch over the next few months to see just how many people click the "AI Mode" tab.

The everything assistant

Google also has a vision for an AI assistant that's with you all the time.

If you've seen Google's Project Astra, an AI agent that uses vision to see the world around it, you already have a good idea of what Google is thinking here. It wants to build an assistant that's with you anywhere — be it in your phone or in a pair of augmented reality glasses — and can see the world, answer questions, and relay information to you in a matter of seconds. Or maybe it's just helping you code.

At I/O, Google is announcing it's extending its frontier Gemini 2.5 Pro model to be a "world model," which really just means it's going to be able to understand what it's seeing and, Google says, make plans. In AI speak, it's becoming more agentic.

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said these updates were "critical steps" toward building a "universal AI assistant" that can better understand the user and take actions on their behalf.

"This is our ultimate goal for the Gemini app: an AI that's personal, proactive, and powerful," Hassabis added.

Google is set to make its camera-enabled and screen-sharing Gemini Live available to everyone with the Gemini App and launch Veo 3, a video generation model that includes support to combine sound effects.

It needs to build fast here. While generative AI is not yet a critical business in the way Search is, the company said its Gemini app had more than 400 million monthly active users. Google's own internal analysis found that Gemini still trailed OpenAI's and Meta's apps as of earlier this year, according to documents shown in court.

Have something to share? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at 628-228-1836. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Google unveiled Flow, an AI moviemaking tool, at the IO conference.
• Flow uses Google's latest AI models to generate visuals, sound effects, and dialog.
• AI-generated content could challenge traditional studios like Netflix.

Technologist Luis von Ahn was recently asked if AI is a threat to the company he runs, Duolingo.

He said many companies could be disrupted, including Netflix.

"That's one of the things that is scary about the world that we live in," von Ahn said. "With AI and large language models, we're undergoing a platform shift."

"I'm not super worried, but you just never know. And it's not just for Duolingo, it could be all kinds of things, right?" he added. "I mean, it could be a threat for Netflix. It could be that just a large language model — just press a button and it makes you the perfect movie."

This was a couple of weeks ago, and I thought he was overselling it a bit. That's until I got a glimpse of Flow, a new AI-powered moviemaking tool that Google unveiled on Tuesday.

At the Google I/O conference in Silicon Valley, the company showed off this new technology, along with some illustrative movie clips created by filmmakers who had early access to Flow. 

Flow was built on top of Imagen 4 and Veo 3, the latest versions of Google's image and video-generation AI models. The company says the updated Veo model creates better visuals and can now generate sound effects, background noises, and even dialog.

If you give it a prompt describing characters and an environment, and suggest a dialog with a description of how you want it to sound, it produces a film. In one illustrative clip Google shared, two animated animals talked with each other. (To me, it looked very similar to a Pixar movie).

Flow is designed to help creators produce high-quality cinematic video from text descriptions. Users can also bring their own images and other files into Flow. It integrates precise camera movements, including the ability to request specific camera angles, such as an 8-millimeter wide-angle lens.

You can edit the film, too, within Flow.

In one example shared by Google, a user requests a scene of an old man and a friendly bird driving a black convertible off a cliff. The car begins to fall, but using Flow, the scene is swiftly changed and extended using AI so that the bird in the car starts flapping its wings and flying instead. The edit seamlessly retains character and scene continuity. 

Implications for Netflix and traditional studios

While Google positions Flow as a tool to empower filmmakers, the broader implications are clear: AI-generated content could one day challenge human-created productions in quality, cost-efficiency, and scale. For companies like Netflix, which have built empires on high production-value storytelling, AI poses both an opportunity and a threat.

On one hand, AI tools could accelerate content development, reducing production timelines and budgets. On the other hand, it could open the door for a flood of content from smaller studios, individual creators, or even consumers, eroding the competitive advantage of traditional production pipelines.

Moreover, AI-generated media could be hyper-personalized. Imagine a future where viewers select themes, genres, or even actors — and the platform generates a custom film on demand. Just like Duolingo's von Ann described earlier this month. That could shift power away from major studios and toward platforms that control the underlying AI infrastructure, such as Google.

On a recent podcast, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the internet giant thought hard about acquiring Netflix years ago. Now, maybe he doesn't need to do that deal.  

The road ahead

Google's Flow is another sign of a broader trend, which is that AI may be democratizing creativity. While Netflix and legacy studios may initially integrate these tools to enhance production, the long-term landscape could resemble the transformation seen in music, publishing, and software coding — where AI tools and platforms radically lower the barrier to entry for more people.

The key question isn't whether AI will change filmmaking — it already is. The question is whether established players like Netflix will ride the wave or be overtaken by it.

As AI continues to evolve, so too must the business models, strategies, and creative visions of Hollywood's biggest names. The age of algorithmically generated storytelling is arriving sooner than we think.

• Timothy Burke is accused of grabbing unaired Fox News footage using someone else's credentials.
• A judge scolded his lawyers for misrepresenting and making up legal precedents in an attempt to get the case thrown out.
• A lawyer for Burke admitted to using ChatGPT and Westlaw's AI features without checking their output.

A lawyer for Timothy Burke, the journalist indicted over leaked Fox News footage, admitted in a court filing Monday that he used ChatGPT and other AI tools to write an error-filled legal brief.

Last week, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle said a filing by Burke's lawyers contained "significant misrepresentations and misquotations" and demanded an explanation. On Monday, the lawyers, Michael Maddux and Mark Rasch, said the errors happened because of Rasch's research and edits.

The judge cited nine examples of "non-existent quotes and miscited propositions" that appeared to come from federal appellate rulings and a Congressional committee report. She also said their brief had six errors that may have been less egregious, as well as other "miscellaneous problems."

Rasch's process "included the use of Westlaw, Westlaw's AI features, Google, Google Scholar, as well as the 'deep research' feature of the Pro version of ChatGPT version 4.5," the brief said. The lawyers said Rasch used a feature on the legal research platform Westlaw called Quick Check to vet the brief, but didn't do so again after accidentally adding unvetted sections from previous drafts.

Maddux, the lawyers added, was busy with another case.

Maddux, Rasch, and Burke didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Neither OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, or Thomson Reuters, which makes Westlaw, responded to requests for comment.

The proliferation of AI and the high cost of legal research has led to a number of attorneys being called to the mat by judges over errors in their legal arguments, often a result of generative AI systems' tendency to "hallucinate."

Often, the mistakes are made by solo practitioners or lawyers from small firms, though big firms have also been found using AI. A Latham & Watkins attorney said the AI system Claude was to blame for giving the wrong name and authors for an article cited in an expert's report, though the content was otherwise correct. Last week, attorneys from the firms K&L Gates and Ellis George were told to pay $31,000 after their submissions were found to contain made-up citations.

Burke, a former Deadspin editor now working as a media consultant, faces charges of hacking into a streaming system used by broadcasters. The case has attracted attention from press freedom advocates, with his lawyers arguing Burke committed no crime since the URLs he visited to download clips of Fox News footage were public.

The footage, which included antisemitic remarks by the rapper Ye and behind-the-scenes comments by Tucker Carlson about sex, his "postmenopausal" viewers, and issues with the Fox Nation streaming service, was never aired on the network. When the clips appeared online in 2022 and 2023, it aroused suspicions that a Fox employee had leaked them. In 2023, however, federal investigators zeroed in on Burke, who was indicted last year.

• 2006 was the lowest point in Cruise's career.
• The public bristled at him talking about Scientology and his relationship with Katie Holmes.
• Here, we chronicle Cruise's downfall and his rise back to stardom thanks to "Mission: Impossible."

In August 2006, it seemed like Tom Cruise's career was over.

In an unprecedented announcement from the head of a major conglomerate, Viacom's then-chairman Sumner Redstone publicly ripped into the star — who for years was one of the most profitable actors and producers at Viacom's movie studio, Paramount Pictures.

"We don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot," Redstone told The Wall Street Journal that year. "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

It was likely the toughest and strangest time of Cruise's career. The then-43-year-old actor had a lifetime box-office gross of over $1.5 billion, but his flawless transition from young heartthrob to respected dramatic actor to massive action star seemed to self-destruct as quickly as one of the messages his character, Ethan Hunt, received in the "Mission: Impossible" movies.

The studio he'd called home for 14 years was parting ways with him following a string of bizarre outbursts.

In 2025, that all seems hard to imagine.

Cruise is not only the face of one of the biggest action franchises ever, but his 2022 hit, "Top Gun: Maverick," might have saved Hollywood following the pandemic.

On May 23, he's back with another "M:I," Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning," which is being touted as Cruise's final time playing Ethan Hunt.

It's yet another must-see title from one of the last real movie stars the industry has left.

But there was a time the veteran actor's career was at a low point.

The couch jump, 'TomKat,' and Scientology

Cruise's strange downfall and subsequent rebirth as one of the most bankable movie stars all began with a seemingly innocent act of love.

When Cruise agreed to appear on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in May 2005 to promote his film, "War of the Worlds," it was a big deal. Cruise rarely did interviews, especially on daytime TV.

As Cruise walked onto Winfrey's stage, the crowd went wild. Winfrey playfully tousled Cruise's hair, and the actor was clearly in a great mood.

During the interview, Winfrey mentioned Cruise's latest love interest, Katie Holmes, who was off-stage where no one, especially the cameras, could see her. The excitement of talking about his new girlfriend led him to leap up on Winfrey's couch with joy. He did it a second time for good measure.

After the couch-jumping, Winfrey even got Cruise to chase down Holmes and get her to come onstage.

It seemed harmless at the time, but thanks to a very young internet video-posting site called YouTube, the image of Cruise on top of Winfrey's couch became a pop-culture phenomenon. To some critics, Cruise's behavior felt off. 

A month later, Cruise agreed to go on the "Today" show to continue promoting "War of the Worlds" and also talk about his religion, Scientology. When now-disgraced interviewer Matt Lauer spoke about Scientology, and specifically about Cruise not agreeing with psychiatry, the tone changed. Cruise offered his opinion on Brooke Shields' use of antidepressants for postpartum depression.

Here's an excerpt of Cruise and Lauer's uncomfortable exchange:

Cruise: "Do you know what Adderall is? Do you know Ritalin? Do you know Ritalin is a street drug? Do you understand that?"

Lauer: "The difference is — "

Cruise: "No, Matt, I'm asking you a question."

Lauer: "I understand there's abuse of all of these things."

Cruise: "No, you see here's the problem: You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

Later in the conversation:

Lauer: "Do you examine the possibility that these things do work for some people? That yes, there are abuses, and yes, maybe they've gone too far in certain areas, maybe there are too many kids on Ritalin, maybe electric shock —"

Cruise: "Too many kids on Ritalin?"

Lauer: "I'm just saying — but aren't there examples where it works?"

Cruise: "Matt, Matt, Matt, you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt. OK? That's what I've done. You go and you say, 'Where's the medical tests? Where's the blood test that says how much Ritalin you're supposed to get?'"

Lauer: "It's very impressive to listen to you, because clearly you've done the homework and you know the subject."

Cruise: "And you should. And you should do that also, because just knowing people who are on Ritalin isn't enough. You should be a little bit more responsible … "

Minutes later, the exchange was on loop all over the world.

Within a few weeks, Cruise had gone wild on Winfrey and lashed out at Lauer, and by then, the tabloids had gone into overdrive with the Cruise-Holmes relationship, which they called "TomKat."

It was time for Cruise to get off the grid, but he couldn't.

Cruise's star power takes a hit

For most of his career, an experienced publicist named Pat Kingsley reportedly kept Cruise's private life out of the tabloids. According to a 2014 LA Weekly story, she even talked Cruise out of being more vocal about Scientology when he did press for his 2003 film "The Last Samurai."

A year later, the LA Weekly story said Cruise let Kingsley go after 14 years and formed a publicity team that included his sister, Lee Anne De Vette, and fellow Scientologists.

Now, in a typhoon of backlash that Cruise had never experienced before, his team may have been too inexperienced to protect him.

Despite all the negative attention, "War of the Worlds" still went to No. 1 at the box office during its opening weekend ($65 million), and ended up with a worldwide take of $592 million.

It would be the last time a film starring Cruise would make over $500 million worldwide for the next six years.

Following the release of "War of the Worlds," TomKat was still daily tabloid fodder, especially with the news that the two were expecting a child. And then, in March 2006, Cruise went global again with the controversial "South Park" episode "Trapped in the Closet."

The episode originally aired in November 2005 and revealed what Scientologists believe is the origin of life, but it also depicted Cruise as an insecure person and played on rumors about his sexuality.

In the episode, one of the main characters on the show, Stan, is thought by Scientology to be the second coming of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. This leads Scientologists, including Cruise, to flock to Stan's house to pay their respects. But when Stan insults his acting ability, Cruise hides in Stan's closet, leading to Stan saying, "Dad, Tom Cruise won't come out of the closet."

Comedy Central delayed re-airing the episode in March 2006 because Cruise reportedly had declared he would not promote "Mission: Impossible 3" unless Viacom (which owns the film's studio, Paramount, and Comedy Central) canceled the rebroadcast.

Cruise's reps denied he ever threatened not to promote the film.

The controversy made headlines all over the world and led "South Park" fans to declare they would boycott "Mission: Impossible 3" until Comedy Central aired the episode.

The episode finally re-aired in July of that year.

"Closetgate," as it would become known, was the last straw.

The constant tabloid coverage of TomKat, plus rumors that Cruise and Holmes' relationship was supposedly arranged by the church, had turned people off. (Cruise and Holmes married in November 2006 and divorced six years later.)

The bad press soon began to affect Cruise's career. "Mission: Impossible 3" opened in theaters in May 2006, and Cruise's Q score — the appeal of a celebrity, brand, or company to the public — was down 40%.

Though the film was No. 1 in the US on its opening weekend ($48 million), it lost appeal as the weeks passed. Ticket sales dropped 47% during its second week in theaters and 53% in its third week.

"Mission: Impossible 3" is the lowest-grossing film in the franchise to date, with a $400 million worldwide gross.

It was at this point that Redstone gave Cruise his wake-up call: "We don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

The long road back to superstardom

After being kicked off the Paramount lot, Cruise hired a publicist with more experience and buckled down for a comeback. He brought his production company over to MGM and took partial ownership of the iconic United Artists studio.

Cruise also became less vocal about Scientology in public, though he was apparently still very much involved in private. In 2008, a Scientology-produced video went viral on YouTube of the actor explaining what the religion meant to him.

Cruise paused making action movies and turned to dramas like "Lions for Lambs" (2007) and "Valkyrie" (2008).

In between those films, he agreed to star in pal Ben Stiller's 2008 comedy "Tropic Thunder" as the overweight, bigger-than-life movie exec Les Grossman. It was the best move Cruise had made in years. In doing something so out of character, he began to win back fans.

"Tropic Thunder" reunited Cruise with his former studio, Paramount. Although Cruise's production company was kicked off the lot, it didn't mean he couldn't still be cast in the studio's films. The wheels were now in motion for Cruise to get back on Paramount's good side so he could make more "Mission: Impossible" movies.

Being a hit in "Tropic Thunder," Paramount's biggest comedy of the year for Paramount, was a good starting point.

Director J.J. Abrams, who directed Cruise in "Mission: Impossible 3" and was in Paramount's good graces after directing the studio's hit "Star Trek Into Darkness," was also working to get Cruise back in the franchise.

In the summer of 2010, news broke that Cruise would be starring in "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol," with Abrams as producer. But this installment in the franchise would not be titled "Mission: Impossible 4," because the idea was that the film would be a refresh on the franchise, with Cruise stepping aside as the lead and giving way to rising star Jeremy Renner.

Cruise didn't get the message.

Back in the Ethan Hunt role, Cruise cemented his place in the franchise by scaling the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, without a stunt double.

That, and the other impressive stunts featured in the film, led to "Ghost Protocol" earning the biggest worldwide box office in the franchise's history — $695 million. It was also the second-highest earning film for Paramount in 2011, just behind "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

It wasn't all box-office wins for Cruise following "Ghost Protocol." "Knight and Day" and the "Jack Reacher" franchise didn't do as well as expected. And he could not help Universal's Dark Universe get off the ground as 2017's "The Mummy" bombed at the box office.

However, he laid the seeds of what could be another profitable franchise with 2014's "Edge of Tomorrow, which — even with a slow start when it opened — ended up passing the domestic $100 million mark (the first time in nine years that a non-"Mission: Impossible" Cruise film hit that landmark number) and only grew in popularity when it got onto home video and streaming.

And then there are the "M: I" movies.

In 2015, "Rogue Nation," with its eye-popping stunt in which Cruise hung from the side of a plane as it took off, earned over $682.7 million worldwide and was the top-grossing film for Paramount that year. And 2018's "Fallout" did even better, taking in over $791 million worldwide.

Cruise took a break from the "M:I" movies to single-handedly get audiences back in theaters after the pandemic when "Top Gun: Maverick" opened in May of 2022. It would go on to earn over $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

Just over a year later, "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning" opened and brought in a respectable $570 million-plus worldwide as it teed up the final chapter in Cruise's "M:I" journey with yet another stunning stunt.

Despite Alex Gibney's explosive 2015 HBO Scientology documentary "Going Clear," in which Cruise is criticized for being the face of the controversial religion, Cruise remains one of the world's top movie stars. 

And with "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning" out this month, it doesn't seem likely that he'll be knocked off that mantel anytime soon.

This story was originally published in 2022. It has been updated to reflect recent events.

• Elon Musk won't be dissuaded from his fight against OpenAI.
• Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, has accused the AI company of abandoning its nonprofit mission.
• OpenAI has said it will keep its nonprofit control, dismissing Musk's lawsuit as bad-faith.

Elon Musk is charging ahead with his legal fight against OpenAI, extending his long-running feud with its CEO Sam Altman.

During a video interview at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO once again said OpenAI has fundamentally changed from its original intent — which was to be an open-source, nonprofit that produced AI for the good of humanity.

"And now they're trying to change that for their own financial benefit, into a for-profit company that is closed source," Musk said.

Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018 and later went on to start his own competing AI company, xAI, says he invested around $50 million in OpenAI when he co-founded it with Altman in 2015.

"So this would be like, let's say you funded a nonprofit to help preserve the Amazon rainforest, but instead of doing that, they became a lumber company, chopped down the forest, and sold the wood," Musk added. "You'd be like, wait a second, that's not what I funded. That's OpenAI."

Musk first filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last year, before withdrawing it and replacing it with another suit claiming the company had "betrayed" its mission when it created a for-profit arm in 2019 and expanded its partnership with Microsoft in 2023. And in September of last year, OpenAI announced that it would be transitioning from a nonprofit into a for-profit company.

The ChatGPT maker then abandoned that commitment earlier this month, announcing that its nonprofit would stay in control of its for-profit division.

But, Musk and his legal team remain unconvinced by that pivot. His lawyers said in a filing earlier this month that OpenAI's turnabout is "a façade that changes nothing," arguing that it does little to restore the nonprofit's original goal to serve the public.

An OpenAI spokesperson told BI in a statement that, "Elon continuing with his baseless lawsuit only proves that it was always a bad-faith attempt to slow us down."

xAI and a lawyer for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• More than 2,500 ships pass through the Freeport of Riga every year.
• The port is rolling out a private 5G network to power technology like autonomous sea drones.
• This article is part of "Build IT: Connectivity," a series about tech powering better business.

In the Middle Ages, seafarers would sail down the Daugava River to take refuge from the harsh winds and waves of the Baltic Sea. They'd anchor their ships, which carried goods like corn, hide, and flax, in a small natural harbor in the city of Riga.

Today, the harbor in the Latvian capital is still a bustling port, although cargo ships and autonomous drones have replaced the sails and oars. It was designated a freeport, or free trade zone, in 2001, which means that businesses using the port may be exempt from certain taxes and tariffs. More than 2,500 ships passed through the harbor in 2024.

Ansis Zeltins, the CEO of the Freeport of Riga Authority and the chairman of the European Sea Ports Organization, said automation is one of the biggest areas of innovation in the shipping industry. For instance, uncrewed surface vehicles, sometimes known as sea drones, can perform routine tasks like ship inspections and monitor water pollution levels.

But remote and autonomous technology requires a fast, reliable connection.

"The amount of data that needs to be processed in today's ports is immense and continuously growing," Zetlins said. "Modern logistics, as well as port and maritime security solutions, require the secure exchange of data between all stakeholders in real time."

But that's not easy when connecting ships, drones, and the port across the ocean.

"Ships are moving objects," Zeltins said. "That means, technologically, there's a challenge with the signal."

The port used to rely on WiFi and 4G to connect ships and drones to the mainland, but in 2020, it teamed up with LMT, a Latvian telecoms company, to roll out 5G connections across the port.

More devices, faster speeds

5G is a wireless technology that uses radio waves to transmit data.

"For the majority of people like you and me, 5G is not that big of an upgrade from 4G or WiFi," Chris Karaplis, the CEO of Simply Embedded, a technology consulting firm, told Business Insider. "While speeds can be slightly faster, the biggest differentiator is its ability to support more devices, so your connection won't slow down when more people are on the network."

5G can support as many as 2.6 million devices per square mile.

"For industrial applications in sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, and smart cities, 5G can be a game changer," Karaplis said. "Being able to send large packets of data more reliably and faster, ultimately improving efficiencies, is a huge benefit for infrastructure or logistics-critical businesses."

At the start of the 5G rollout, LMT and Freeport of Riga built a private 5G network within the Baltic Container Terminal on the mainland. They replaced 22 WiFi access points with just one central control system and two outdoor antennas.

Under the new 5G system, Vilciņš said data transmission speeds became more than 10 times faster. This resulted in the use of other technology in port operations, such as replacing handheld radio communications with push-to-talk, a solution that allows the transmission of images and videos as well as sound.

"There were immediate improvements in business processes," Kārlis Vilciņš, the head of system integration business at LMT, told BI in an email. Vilciņš said before the switch, container reach stackers, or vehicles used to transport containers within the port, idled and waited for a stable connection to handle containers, which often caused delays.

'Multi-hop' connections

The real challenge was connecting the ships in transit. They used a "multi-hop" method, where ships serve as floating telecom base stations. One vessel connects to the mainland's 5G antenna, then passes that connection to the next ship, and so on.

LVR Flote, a port services provider based in Riga, first successfully tested the method in November 2023 using LĪVA, the first 5G-equipped ship on the Baltic Sea. This past July, the company carried out a more complex test, connecting two ships with an airborne drone that transmitted real-time seabed surveys and video footage back to the port. These hydrographic measurements are critical for safe navigation and port operations.

"5G provides an option for real-time controls," Zeltins said. "It's much safer and more responsive."

Ships using the multi-hop technique can connect up to 18 miles apart. Up to five ships can be linked up in this way, extending the total network range at sea to more than 100 miles.

"This is a major improvement because such technology has not been deployed at sea before," Arturs Lindenbergs, the head of the innovation development division at LMT, said in an email.

Looking ahead, Zeltins wants to harness the faster connection to bring new technology to the Freeport of Riga. For instance, the port is testing a Remote Operations Center platform for autonomous maritime systems.

"Our collaborative efforts have the potential to make the port of Riga a unique test bed for next-generation maritime technologies, increase high-value-added activity at the port, and attract high-value investments and new revenue streams," he said.

• Elon Musk said that it's up to the government to take its advice on federal cost-cutting.
• Musk praised DOGE's work while at the Qatar Economic Forum, but said it couldn't act alone.
• "We're not the dictators of the government — we are the advisors," he said.

Elon Musk on Tuesday said White House DOGE office staffers aren't "dictators of the government" and that progress made by DOGE is tied to its support from Congress and the executive branch.

Musk, the public face of DOGE's cost-cutting efforts, told the Qatar Economic Forum that DOGE has performed "incredible" work but that it couldn't make changes alone.

"The ability of DOGE to operate is a function of whether the government — and this includes the Congress — is willing to take our advice," he said. "We're not the dictators of the government — we are the advisors. And the progress we've made thus far is incredible."

"The DOGE team has done incredible work, but the magnitude of the savings is proportionate to the support we get from Congress and from the executive branch of the government in general," he added.

DOGE's work to downsize federal departments and agencies, including its efforts to probe sensitive information that's raised alarm bells for many lawmakers, has, in part, defined President Donald Trump's second term.

Before the official launch of DOGE, Musk said that $2 trillion in savings was a "best-case outcome" for the initiative, which delighted conservatives who had long railed against the size of the federal deficit. The tech titan recently said DOGE has saved $160 billion so far through its efforts to weed out waste and abuse.

The Trump administration is seeking to codify DOGE's cuts into law, but it has run into snags from a swath of GOP lawmakers who have resisted some of the more drastic initiatives.

At the forum, Musk continued to praise DOGE while also emphasizing its limitations.

"DOGE is an advisory group. I don't think any advisory group has done better in the history of advisory groups of the government," he said.

"We do not make the laws, nor do we control the judiciary, nor do we control the executive branch," he continued. "We are simply advisors. In that context, we are doing very well."

In April, Musk said he was stepping back from his work with DOGE in order to focus on Tesla.

• Small mining towns flourished at the start of the 1900s.
• Up until the 1930s, horse-drawn carriages and automobiles could still be seen on the same streets.
• Today, many of these towns lean on their history as tourist attractions.

Rural small towns that are today shaped by Dollar General stores and rusty industrial plants were once lively brick-paved main streets where domestic manufacturing and tight-knit communities flourished.

While some of America's small towns have grown in recent years, with young people moving in, others that prospered a century ago now lie abandoned.

First, mining prospects dried up. By the mid-century, declining industries began shaping what is now known as the Rust Belt, where once-booming iron, steel, and automobile plants were abandoned as manufacturing industries moved overseas.

Before this economic turmoil, small towns across the US were home to close communities, quaint main streets, and the first automobiles.

In some villages and small towns, like Normal, Nebraska, the bank was a building smaller than a house. In Hugo, Oregon, the high school was the size of a midsize church.

Take a look at what small towns looked like 100 years ago.

Oatman, Arizona, started as a mining town after gold was found nearby in the early 1900s.

Between the early 1900s and the 1940s, Oatman and nearby Gold Road were Arizona's biggest gold producers, and the town used to be a bustling center with over 10,000 inhabitants.

During the 2023 census, it had a population of just 102 people.

Today, the "lively ghost town" is defined by its streets of historic buildings, burros on the streets, and people wearing old-timey clothing and gunfighter costumes, as reported by Legends of America.

The main street in Manning, Iowa, was a dirt road until it was paved in 1915.

The town was founded in 1881 and was named for O.H. Manning, a politician.

The town of 1,500 is about 2 miles long and 2 miles wide, and its Main Street was paved in 1915, as reported by a community website.

In Eastman, Wisconsin, in 1920, the town's power plant was a small building that looked like it could be someone's home.

Eastman was established in 1855 and was named for Ben C. Eastman, a member of Congress from the district.

Today, the town has a population of 350, according to 2020 census data.

The state bank in Normal, Nebraska, is pictured in the early 1900s.

The town was annexed in 1919 to become a part of Lincoln.

In 1927, the town of Hermosa, South Dakota — 84 people — gathered to meet President Coolidge.

In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge went on a "working vacation" to South Dakota's Black Hills, where he would get a break from the hectic politics of Washington, DC, and win over rural populations, as reported by The Rapid City Journal.

The president's visit was supported by the expansion of the air mail service, which helped communications from the small, remote town, as reported by Vermont Public.

A town baseball game can be seen in this image of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, in 1910.

The town of Boothbay Harbor was incorporated in 1889 and became a trading and shipbuilding center.

Today, the coastal town's main industries are boat manufacturing, fishing, and tourism, according to the Boothbay Harbor Chamber of Commerce.

Pictured in Cordell, Oklahoma, in 1920, two people pose by a sign that discourages speeding.

The town was established on land taken from the Cheyenne and Arapaho people. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, at the end of the 19th century, a general merchandise store with a post office was established nearby. The name of the town honors a postal employee, Wayne W. Cordell.

In the early 1900s, Manhattan, Nevada, attracted settlers after gold was found nearby.

In 1905, a prospector found gold, and within a year, its population had reached 4,000, Travel Nevada reported.

Today, about 125 people reside in the town, and residents often refer to their community as a "living ghost town," per Nevada's state tourism agency.

Bannack, Montana, also began as a mining town after gold was discovered in a nearby creek.

Though the town enjoyed decades of prosperity for the resources provided by Grasshopper Creek, by the 1930s, few residents remained.

In the following decade, the local school had to close down due to a lack of students, effectively turning the once-prosperous town into a ghost town, per Legends of America.

The now-abandoned town where gold was first discovered in the state is now part of a state park where dilapidated buildings are preserved.

Bonners Ferry, Idaho, pictured below in 1926, was another bustling mining community.

Gold was discovered nearby in the mid-1800s.

Today, the town of 2,500 features a revitalized downtown area for tourists to visit, according to the town's website.

In 1925, Dayton, Tennessee, became famous for the Scopes Trial.

In 1925, a Dayton high school science teacher, John T. Scopes, was tried and found guilty for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in what became known as the Scopes Trial.

Hugo High School, pictured below in 1926, was a school in Hugo, Oregon, from 1892 to 1967.

Former students recently hosted a Hugo School reunion, according to Hugo School's Facebook page,

Fleischmanns, New York, was a vacation town for those looking to escape the New York City heat.

Farmers discovered they could make money from people leaving the city, and hotels and guest houses popped up throughout the town.

Today, the town houses around 205 people, according to 2023 census estimates.

Provincetown, Massachusetts, began as a fishing and whaling community.

In 1914, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum was founded by a group of prominent local artists. They worked with local businesses to create an art collection and educate the public in the arts. 

The town is known for being the 1620 landing site of the Mayflower.

Lumber operations are pictured in Crossett, Arkansas, in the 1920s.

The town was named after Edward S. Crossett, a lumber entrepreneur.

Stillwater, Minnesota, was incorporated in 1854 and also began as a lumbering town.

The town "had all the ingredients for a lumbering town," as reported by the Washington County Historical Society. The town features rivers connecting the small community to the pine forests of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, and still waters that allowed for the raft assembly industry to flourish locally.

In 2011, Forbes named it as one of America's prettiest towns.

Holy City, California, was established by a cult leader and white supremacist, William E. Riker, in 1919.

Holy City was created not as a religious oasis, as the name would indicate, but instead as "a commune and tourist trap created in the 1920s by a white-supremacist huckster," the San Francisco Chronicle wrote.

The Chronicle also reported that Holy City was reduced to "a few derelict buildings" after facing fire, neglect, and a new freeway that cut off the compound from major roads. 

Mercury News reported in 2016 that the town was purchased after a decade on the market by Robert and Trish Duggan, billionaire Scientologists. 

Taos, New Mexico, was established as early as 1000 AD by the Taos Pueblo people.

Historians estimate that the ancestors of Taos Pueblo people built their living structures, as well as pottery and ceremonial buildings, as far back as 1000 AD, according to Taos.org.

Wrangell, Alaska, pictured below in the early to mid-1900s, was discovered by the Tlingit tribe.

The Native Alaskan populations remained isolated until the early 1800s, per Wrangell's website. 

Lt. Dionysius Zarembo, a Russian-American ship commander, landed on present-day Wrangell in 1833. It is the only city in Alaska to be ruled by four nations and under three flags — Tlingit, Russia, England, and the United States — according to the town's website.

South Pass City, Wyoming, was founded as a gold mining town. It was later abandoned.

Today, the town is a historic site tourists can visit and see the over 20 original restored buildings, per Wyoming History.