Former ESPN broadcaster Sage Steele said the network deserved to be crushed for failing to show the national anthem on its main channel ahead of the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans after the terrorist attack that took place in the city just the day prior.
Steele appeared on "OutKick the Morning" and appeared flabbergasted over ESPN failing to show the national anthem on that day, which the company chalked up to "timing issues."
"It was so egregious, and I tweeted about it and I put it on my Instagram, and I really do try and stay away from too much that revolves around my former employer. That life is gone, and I am so glad to be past it, grateful for those years. I couldn’t help it Charly, because it was such, to me, a blatant decision to skip," Steele told host OutKick’s Charly Arnolt on Tuesday.
"You are a mile away, maybe less than in New Orleans, from where all of those people were murdered on the morning of what was supposed to be the game that was airing on ESPN. And you chose to ignore it when people are suffering and it’s so much bigger than football? They were crushed. They were crushed, and deservedly so, for not doing it."
Steele said ESPN showing the pregame prayer last week was a reaction to the backlash it received over the Sugar Bowl.
"So, I absolutely think that this was a reaction to that. I think it actually went overboard … show the national anthem," she said. "Do you need to show the prayer? And I also believe that the prayer was – they said it was to pray for the victims of the California fires as well as the terrorist attack in New Orleans. [We're] a little late for that."
"Listen, I pray every single day. I pray for those people constantly, so I guess we shouldn’t be focused on that," Steele continued. "But from a business perspective, what are we doing? Just be consistent. And I guess it wouldn’t be a good thing if they were consistent in this case, would it? Because they [would’ve] continued to do the wrong thing for humanity."
"That’s what this is. This is bigger than business, this is bigger than sports. It’s about humanity, and I guess [I] wasn’t surprised by what happened at the Sugar Bowl. I was just so sad and disappointed because this is the reason why, one of many reasons why, ESPN as a whole is no longer what it once was."
President Biden released a farewell letter Wednesday saying that "It has been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years."
"Today, we have the strongest economy in the world and have created a record 16.6 million new jobs. Wages are up. Inflation continues to come down," he added ahead of a speech tonight from the Oval Office.
Biden began his letter by writing that four years ago when he took office, "We were in the grip of the worst pandemic in a century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.
"But we came together as Americans, and we braved through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous, and more secure," he said.
While touting economic growth, Biden said "We’re rebuilding our entire nation -- urban, suburban, rural, and Tribal communities.
"Manufacturing is coming back to America. We’re leading the world again in science and innovation, including the semiconductor industry. And we finally beat Big Pharma to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors," he continued. "More people have health insurance today in America than ever before."
Biden said he "ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake.
"The very nature of who we are was at stake. And, that’s still the case. America is an idea stronger than any army and larger than any ocean," he declared.
Biden is now set to leave office next week with President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term.
"It has been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years. Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as President of the United States," Biden wrote. "I have given my heart and my soul to our nation. And I have been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people.
Biden concluded his letter by saying that history, power and "the idea of America" is in the hands of its citizens.
"We just have to keep the faith and remember who we are. We are the United States of America, and there is simply nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together," he said.
Applying for jobs is becoming an increasingly frustrating process for many.
Iryna Melnyk/Getty Images
Job ads have been getting too lengthy and have long lacked salary details.
Hiring managers are being inundated with applications thanks to AI.
The situation is untenable and something needs to change, hiring experts say.
Job ads need an overhaul. They're often too lengthy, too demanding, and may prompt candidates to lean more on their networks to avoid a relentless application-rejection cycle.
With an era of "revenge quitting" on the horizon, companies that want to attract top talent may want to rethink what they post on job boards, use AI sparingly but smartly, and remember that hiring is an inherently human process.
Research from the HR and recruitment software company iCIMS, shared with Business Insider, found that job openings were up only 3% between December 2023 and December 2024, but applications rose by 13%.
Rhea Moss of iCIMS told BI that this underlines a "self-fulfilling prophecy" in the job market: candidates can't help but contribute to the vicious cycle by applying for more jobs.
"There's an interesting confluence that's happening right now, of candidates feeling like their résumé isn't being looked at, and recruiters feeling like they have too many résumés to look at," Moss said. "Something has got to change here."
Too wordy and demanding
Job hunting can be frustrating. Susan Levine, the founder and CEO of the recruitment and advisory firm Career Group Companies, told BI that job ads "frequently paint an unrealistic picture of the roles they represent."
Using buzzwords to draw attention rather than accurate descriptions can contribute to the culture of love-bombing and ghosting in the jobseeking world, where candidates believe they are perfect for a role — only to hear nothing after an interview.
"This practice can mislead candidates, leading them to believe they are a strong match when their qualifications may not align with what the company truly needs," Levine said.
Ads can also be too long and demanding. Data from the recruitment software and hiring platform Applied, shared with BI, found more than a third of "entry-level" job ads sought an average of 2.5 years of experience.
Michael Horn, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and coauthor of "JOB MOVES: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career," said: "Job descriptions are really, really broken at this point."
"They have gotten ridiculous in terms of the number of listed and credentials and qualifications," he told BI. "They read much more like legal documents."
Ashley Ward, the founder and CEO of the recruitment agency W Talent Solutions, said poorly constructed job ads contribute to a frustrating cycle for all involved.
"A job ad should serve as a compelling invitation, not a laundry list of unattainable qualifications," Ward told BI. "Yet, too many ads are designed more as exclusionary gatekeepers than as tools for engagement."
'Soul-crushing' process
Shannon Talbot, a former banking director and VP at an advertising agency turned career coach, told BI that hiring managers often "copy and paste old, potentially irrelevant job descriptions because they're in a rush to fill the role."
"These descriptions turn into wish lists of requirements rather than focusing on what's truly needed. Add to that the lack of transparency around salary and job levels, and it's no wonder candidates feel frustrated."
The language of job ads can be off-putting. The Applied report, which analyzed just over 7,500 ads, found that using masculine wording (including "individual," "challenging," and "driven") reduced the number of women applying by 10%.
There's also no guarantee the jobs being advertised actually exist.
A recent analysis from Greenhouse found that as many as one in five jobs advertised online may be "ghost jobs" — roles that are never filled, and companies may never have any intention of filling in the first place.
"The job market has become more soul-crushing than ever," said Jon Stross, president and cofounder of Greenhouse.
The human touch is missing
AI was supposed to make everything better, with job hunting becoming easier and more efficient than ever on both sides of the process.
Horn said hiring managers may receive thousands of applications, mostly from people wholly unsuitable for the job.
"Individuals applying to things are struggling to figure out, thinking, I don't even know what this means. Am I a good fit for this? I have no idea," Horn said. "Might as well let the AI apply, and then we'll figure it out later."
Meanwhile, good candidates may be automatically rejected by an algorithm.
Rise of the networks
When met with an unfulfilling market, people may instead turn to their networks for their next career move, said Horn.
This could have consequences for DEI. Managers have a tendency to want to hire candidates like themselves, whether they mean to or not. Networks becoming more important could have a disparate impact on underrepresented groups, Horn warned.
Hiring managers can help make the application process more transparent by maximizing automation while maintaining the human touch.
Lisa Frank, the founder and CEO of the recruitment and coaching firm LBF Strategies, said hiring managers should embrace AI but remember that it can't be fully relied on to make decisions.
"You're still dealing with humans, hiring other humans, humans working with other humans, or working for or managing them. We can't turn our backs on that," she told BI.
College students seem to struggle with original thought, according to the author.
izusek/Getty Images
I teach writing courses to undergraduates at the University of Michigan.
Many of my students seem to struggle with traits of perfectionism and formulating independent ideas.
I'm rethinking how I model my life for my daughter to foster her autonomy and sense of self.
I've been teaching University of Michigan students how to write for over a decade, starting as a graduate student instructor and now as a middle-aged mom. I've worked closely with all students — from the pre-med freshmen to the seasoned seniors majoring in creative writing.
Through our in-class discussions and their writing, I've glimpsed into a wide sampling of backgrounds. The majority of students hail from places like where I'm raising my own daughter — the university town of Ann Arbor.
Therefore, it's impossible not to view my students through the lens of my child's development.
I've noticed most of my students are able to articulate most things — except who they are. They are only concerned with test scores and perfectionism.
This makes me wonder if I should change the way I'm raising my daughter to give her a better sense of self.
Students struggle with independent thought and a sense of self
Most high schools teach students to write formulaically. If they follow that formula, then they will receive a good grade.
But in my class, I encourage my students to write originally. I've realized that students struggle without the formula, without a road map. They struggle to come up with original ideas out of fear they will fail or not suit my needs.
After class, I am swarmed by eager questions asking what I want them to write. When a deadline looms, I clarify office hours are not for me to think of their ideas. I've received e-mails with bulleted topics for me to pick beforehand.
I had a class free write on ambition and perfection. Students asked if it would be collected. Did I want a title? Is their name top right or left? The point was to sit with their thoughts long enough to hear their own ideas. They struggle to tell their own story.
"I figured out what you want," a business student approached me once, grinning. "A pioneering idea!"
He waited for me to confirm he'd guessed my definition of the correct idea. I wanted to tell him that the student with a pioneering idea won't care what his English professor wishes to read.
Modern parenting techniques are breeding perfectionism
Research published cites a significant rise in perfectionism in young people compared to previous generations. The study found that 88% linked their perfectionist traits to academic achievements.
But where does all of this start? I think it starts back in childhood. Overbearing parents are creating a lack of intrinsic decision-making in their kids. Gentle parents are becoming helicopter parents by reading a book about not becoming helicopter parents.
Parents are turning to specialists for picky-eating, proprioception-system correcting, and allergens. In doing so, we're fueling the child-perfecting industry.
I'm modeling imperfect behavior for my daughter
Parents hide their inexperience, even though we all go onstage cold. But we must let our kids see who we really are — imperfect creatures who make mistakes.
I've stopped deducting points from my self-imposed score. I schedule less and cancel more. I foster my daughter's independence by shifting focus back to my growth, showing her my life as I draft it — my mistakes and disappointments.
In doing so, I hope she understands perfectionism isn't the goal.
Illustration by Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images
A Chinese app known as RedNote is surging in new users from the US.
I downloaded it and found users posting gleefully about giving away their data to China.
The frenzy around RedNote might be short-lived, however.
I spent time on the Chinese app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, that Americans are flocking to as a potential TikTok ban looms.
It was an amusing and utterly confusing experience.
The app is flooded with posts deriding the US government. It seems impossible to parse what's potentially propaganda, what's ironically pretending to be propaganda, and what are earnest complaints about the US government — or earnest welcome messages from Chinese citizens.
What's clear, however, is that many Americans are furious, and they're doing what angry Americans do best from their couches: make memes. One video with over 30,000 likes shows a scene from the movie "Brokeback Mountain," where the two main characters reunite and hug, with the caption, "Me being reunited with my Chinese spy."
Many users joked — using the hashtag "TikTokrefugee" — about giving all their data to the Chinese government. One speculated that RedNote users were being assigned a new Chinese spy to watch them.
My feed, overall, was chock full of dark humor about being fine with giving data to China or using the app "just to say FU to our govt," as one user put it.
Many posts expressed anger toward the US government, or at least joy in what people perceived to be the government's embarrassment when it discovered that young people were signing up for an app that could be even worse of a national security issue than TikTok.
Sure enough, RedNote and Lemon8, an app owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance, hit the top two spots on the Apple app store rankings on Monday. I mean, yes, it is pretty funny!
Admittedly, I also chuckled at another genre of memes about how people would rather sign up for a dubious Chinese app than switch to Instagram Reels. One video I saw showed a cat labeled "Americans" loudly rejecting a cup of yogurt with the Instagram logo on it.
The RedNote frenzy may be short-lived, however. The app is difficult to navigate for English speakers, and some new users have reported it banned them (although it's possible these issues relate to the phone verification system, which I also found to be buggy).
It's also possible that users are downloading RedNote and other Chinese apps not to replace TikTok, but to to send a signal to the US government.
"It really is just retaliation towards the government in the simplest way, but in a way that feels very native to Gen Z," Meagan Loyst, the founder of the investor collective Gen Z VCs, told my colleagues Dan Whateley and Sydney Bradley.
But for one or two days, at least, there's some level of cathartic steam being released — the frustration that millions of TikTok users feel that the app they enjoy is likely going away.
Officials in Europe say Russia is deliberately using the vessels to target the crucial infrastructure used to transmit internet data and power.
They say the incidents add up to a campaign by Russia to sabotage infrastructure. At least one vessel is said to belong to a "shadow fleet" of ships not directly tied to Russia that it uses to evade oil sanctions.
The means employed, the officials say, are decidedly low-tech: aging tankers dragging their anchors along the seabed for miles, hoping to snag and damage a cable.
One Finnish official on Monday said that Eagle S and its crew were preparing to target more cables before the ship was boarded.
The Baltic and beyond
In November, a Chinese-flagged vessel, the Yi Peng 3, was accused of damaging another cable in the Baltic.
Another Chinese-flagged vessel, the NewnewPolar Bear, damaged subsea communications and gas cables in the Baltic in October 2023 by dragging its anchor. China admitted the vessel was responsible for the damage but said it was an accident, The South China Morning Post reported.
And on January 6, Taiwanese officials said that a Chinese-owned tanker severed cables near its north coast in a parallel incident it blamed on China.
Analysts classify the incidents as likely examples of "grey zone" tactics used by Russia and China to destabilize their rivals while falling short of acts of war.
"Attacks on CUI have become a viable weapon in grey zone warfare," said James Foggo, a retired US Navy admiral, using an abbreviation for Critical Undersea Infrastructure.
"More must be done to preserve CUI in the Baltic and other susceptible regions of the globe," he said in an interview with Business Insider.
Plausible deniability
Danish naval patrol vessels monitoring a Chinese bulk carrier suspected of involvement in damaging undersea cables.
MIKKEL BERG PEDERSEN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images
Using commercial vessels for sabotage comes with risks, but also significant benefits for the attacker.
Henri van Soest, a senior analyst at RAND Europe, told BI that "Russia gets a number of advantages from using its shadow fleet for this purpose. The most important one is deniability and ambiguity: We currently have little insight into the make-up of the shadow fleet."
The ultimate ownership of a vessel can be difficult to establish.
The Eagle S, for instance, is owned by a company registered in the UAE, managed by a firm in Mumbai, and sails under the flag of the Cook Islands.
Analysts assert that Russia is directing the vessel, but there is no verifiable public link.
The Kremlin has itself denied any connection with the Eagle S, and other similar incidents in the Baltic.
The lack of an explicit tie to Russia also allows the ships to navigate freely, drawing less attention from national coast guards than a Russian ship.
A thousand threats, or more
Van Soest also pointed to the size of the fleet — which analysts say could exceed 1,400 vessels. It makes any single ship hard to monitor or counter.
"While currently only a small number of ships are suspected of engaging in sabotage activities, these actions make the entire shadow fleet suspect," said Van Soest.
He said there was a psychological component to the strategy in addition to the actual damage it can cause.
"Any ship that forms part of the shadow fleet could potentially be on a sabotage mission. It also sends the implicit message that Russia could swiftly order a larger number of shadow fleet vessels to start sabotage actions, leading to far greater damage and disruption," he said.
Clumsy strategy
The sabotage playbook comes with risks for Russia.
Pushing too hard with the fleet, Kaushal said, could prompt Western navies to treat it as a hostile entity and try to restrict its movements, reducing its value as a way of overcoming sanctions.
It's also clumsy, said Erin Murphy, deputy director of Chair on India and Emerging Asia Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.: "Anchors can bounce on the ocean floor and miss cutting the cable entirely, if that was the intent of a ship."
For all that, there is not much Western countries can do that matches the potential scale of the problem.
Limited counterplays
Sweden has said it'll be contributing 3 naval ships to boost NATO patrols in the Baltic to defend against subsea cable sabotage.
And late last year the alliance also deployed divers to test equipment to better defend the cables.
Two further measures proposed by European officials have been to tighten sanctions on vessels in the shadow fleet and boost naval patrols to deter sabotage.
"Increased patrols could help, but there's still the problem in terms of the size of the ocean and waterways," said Murphy.
In short: the sea is just too big to defend.
And Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute, was skeptical that sanctions would deter the shadow fleet in practice.
Kaushal said that several vessels connected to recent cable-cuttings, including the Yi Peng 3, were not considered to be part of the shadow fleet.
Murphy, the author of a 2024 report on the threat to subsea cables, said nations could pressure the destination ports of suspected shadow fleet vessels to search them or deny them entry.
"This could work for a short time but countries and actors usually find ways to circumvent," she said.
It leaves Western nations with few options beyond chasing shadows.
One company has said it's ready to make tens of thousands of new gas vehicles for the USPS, rather than electric ones, if the new administration wants.
The "Michigan" deployed "superb operational planning and risk management during the completion of three highly successful missions vital to national security."
