• Alexis Walker is a longtime makeup artist and career pivot coach who hosts The Hollywood Second Act Podcast.
• Walker helps people in Hollywood and other industries apply their skills to new opportunities.
• She herself started transitioning out of the entertainment industry during the pandemic.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alexis Walker, a 48-year-old career pivot coach and Hollywood makeup artist, who lives in Los Angeles. In 2024, Walker started The Hollywood Second Act Podcast where she interviews industry veterans and business experts.

The following has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

I studied psychology in college and was on track to become a counselor. But right before I graduated in 1999, we had a tragic loss in our family that essentially threw the puzzle pieces of my life on the floor.

It made me very aware that life is fragile and fleeting, and everyone should be doing something that makes them happy.

I realized I wanted to do something that felt creative and allowed me to be around amazing people. So, I decided to go to school to become a makeup artist.

I moved to Los Angeles about 25 years ago

I enrolled in a six-month intensive makeup artistry program where we learned everything from how to do facial hair to aging makeup.

I was young and it was so exciting. I wanted to do any work I could get. I think my first job was $25 a day, and I was thrilled.

I also worked at a makeup counter early in my career so I could pay my bills while I was building my resume and making connections.

It's such interesting work because you're not just doing art on a piece of paper. You have a human in your chair and you have to contend with whatever mood they're in. The people who are most successful in this industry have really high emotional intelligence.

For years, I was working hard to get into the makeup artist union, because that's where you really start making a living. But it takes a long time to get in because you have to work a certain number of days in a certain timeframe.

In the early days, it felt like there was a secret handshake to get into Hollywood that everyone knew except me.

I worked for six years to get into the union. I remember my first union day working on a mainstream movie and I felt so lucky to be there.

Over time, I came to realize that while I was lucky to be working on various projects, they were also lucky to have me. I'm a hard worker and it took time, but I came to understand my contribution was worth something too.

I worked on so many fun projects

Getting to work with icons like Norman Lear on "One Day at a Time" and Garry Marshall were definite highlights of my career. I was fortunate to work for Adam Sandler's Happy Madison company for many years and had the opportunity to travel the country with wonderful people on fun projects like "Just Go With It."

When I was young, the industry felt like something I could give myself to completely. I was single for so long because I was totally satisfied with my work.

It's a very consumptive industry. We often didn't work regular hours. Sometimes I'd be working 19-hour days and beginning my day at 3 a.m.

I started thinking about making a change ahead of the pandemic

I was getting older, and I was starting to wonder, is this it? Is there something more I want to express or experience? But it was a long process to figure out what I wanted to do next.

During the pandemic, I was working on two multicam shows, which are traditional sitcoms like "Cheers" or "Seinfeld." They're great for makeup artists and shooting crews because they allow for a more traditional schedule.

At the same time, I was exploring my career options. I applied to grad school and quickly realized that wasn't quite right. I was doing a lot of volunteering and community building, taking classes and courses on various things, just trying different things on.

The strikes in 2023 disrupted Hollywood even more. We all wanted people to have protection and the rights they were fighting for, but it was really tough for so many people to be out of work.

I think the strikes made a lot of people realize that this industry doesn't give us very much control over our lives and income.

But changing your career in middle age often means changing your entire life, particularly when you're in an industry that encompasses so much of your life. And that can be scary.

I wish I'd had a mentor when I was pivoting

I so desperately wanted guidance from someone who understood the industry I was leaving and could help me navigate it, but I couldn't really find that.

So, last year I started a podcast called the Hollywood Second Act Club Podcast, where I interview amazing people in the entertainment industry who have pivoted to new careers or started side hustles. They are the mentors I wish I'd had.

Some examples of the incredible guests I've had on the podcast include a hairstylist turned infant and toddler sleep expert, a former music supervisor turned financial advisor, a former camera assistant turned underwater portrait photographer, and a studio marketing executive turned home organizer.

There are so many superpowers people in this business have that they might not even be aware of.

A lot of my listeners are trying to figure out how to take those skills and build a life that feels authentic and gives them agency over their work. It's not just about switching from one job to another; it's about building out the whole package.

I also have experts on the podcast who talk about different aspects of building your own business. The podcast leans toward the entrepreneurial path for those wanting to take charge of their own life and career.

I also completed a coaching program

I work with all types of people who want to change their careers and change their lives. I have a particular fondness and focus on people in the entertainment industry because I'm familiar with it, but I work with people outside of Hollywood, too.

I help people take the skills they already have and apply them to whatever it is they want to do next.

I also still work from time to time in the industry. The medical insurance is incredible. But it's not so much my focal point anymore.

My heart hurts for this industry because I love it and I think a lot of people are feeling like a deer in headlights, terrified of what's next. I know what it's like to be freaking out, but if we can lean on one another, we can make it.

My own pivot has been challenging at times. I feel stretched thin all the time and I'm constantly having to figure out new things.

But I've never been happier. I'm living a life that feels juicy. I wake up in the morning with creative ideas and get to help incredible people. I'm very, very happy.

• Gerardo and Tomi Ruiz moved from San Bernardino, California, to San Antonio, Texas, in September.
• They moved with their two young sons after a nearby fire destroyed their rented home.
• The couple loves Texas for its cheaper cost of living and the people but misses California's food.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gerardo Ruiz, 29, and Tomi Ruiz, 26, native Californians who moved from San Bernardino, California, to San Antonio in 2024. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Gerardo: My wife, Tomi, and I are from San Bernardino, California. We met at a party in 2019 and married last April.

San Bernardino isn't as nice as it used to be. Many things, like homelessness and gang activity, seem to have gotten worse in recent years.

Tomi: There were things we liked about California. I had family only about an hour away. I loved being in the snow or at the beach whenever I wanted.

We had been talking about leaving California for a while because the cost of living was dramatically increasing. We had discussed Texas, Arizona, or maybe Utah, but we weren't serious about it.

A fire finally pushed us to leave

Tomi: In September, the Line Fire broke out in Highland, California, next to my grandparents' house.

We were renting a house on the other side of town. The Line Fire wasn't directly threatening our house at first, but our neighbor's home caught fire. They said it started from an ember from the Line Fire.

It was terrifying. We were asleep, and suddenly, my husband woke up to what sounded like a huge explosion. I felt him pushing me and yelling.

When I sat up, I saw flames coming through our bedroom window, not even six feet away.

Gerardo: We have two kids, Anthony, who is 3, and Charlie, who is 1. We grabbed them both and ran outside.

Tomi: We both ran out in our underwear because we didn't have time to get clothes.

The fire destroyed about half of our house, plus there was smoke damage everywhere.

Gerardo: We lost almost everything in our bedroom and the dining area.

Tomi: We were just in shock. We sat outside staring at the house for a long time.

Gerardo: The Red Cross gave us some money for a hotel.

We had to restart our lives somewhere

Tomi: A few days later, our landlord told us they had to terminate the lease because they couldn't estimate how long the repairs would take and couldn't put us in another place in the meantime. We were homeless and realized that we had to start all over again.

We discussed staying in California, but starting a new lease in the state is expensive with a deposit, the first month's rent, and all the fees.

We figured if we had to start over completely, we'd be better off starting in Texas.

Gerardo: My brother has lived in San Antonio for about 10 years. We came out to visit a few years back and just fell in love with the city.

Tomi: We packed up what we had left, my husband took out his 401(k), and we drove to Texas.

Texas is so much more affordable

Gerardo: Our first impression of Texas was how cheap the rent is. We paid about $2,350 in San Bernardino for a 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom apartment. We're now in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom place in San Antonio and pay $1,250.

Tomi: We first applied for a few houses, but the wait took forever. We decided to apply for an apartment and got approved the next day. We stayed in a hotel for three weeks until we got approved for the apartment.

In addition to rent being cheaper, gas is much cheaper, which is great for us because we have pretty big cars.

Gerardo: Car registration is, too.

Tomi: Groceries, however, seem to be about the same.

While the cost of living is more affordable here, the pay is lower.

I'm a certified phlebotomist, and in California, I was making about $25 an hour. Here in Texas, I got some offers ranging from $16 to $20 an hour, and I accepted one. I'm making less than I was in California, but with the money we're saving, it's not too big a difference.

Gerardo: I'm a tow truck driver. I worked two driving jobs in California, making $21 an hour and $24 an hour.

I expected to be able to find a similar job in Texas, but once I got here, it was more difficult than I thought. The highest-paying towing job I could find was for a little more than $15 an hour.

For now, I've been holding off on getting a job to watch the kids since we don't know many people here in Texas who could babysit.

The state has exceeded our expectations

Tomi: We just fell in love with Texas. It's so much greener than we expected. We thought it would be all desert and cowboys, but San Antonio has many nice parks and playgrounds. It feels very family-oriented.

Gerardo: The environment out here is great. My wife has some PTSD from the fire, and it's nice that it's not as dry.

Tomi: You definitely feel the Texas heat, though. It was still so hot on Halloween. We're used to a breeze in October.

It also snowed since we've been here, which is uncommon for San Antonio. We love the snow.

There have been some challenges, but we made the right choice

Gerardo: The hardest adjustment has been the food. Even the McDonald's here tastes different. Texas street tacos are not like California street tacos at all.

There was incredible Hawaiian barbecue in California. Since we moved, I haven't been able to find similar food.

Tomi: Texas has been so good to us. I felt like I was home right away. I feel like I've connected with the people. Everyone is so kind.

Gerardo: Our goal is to stay in Texas long-term, but we want to move to Amarillo, Texas, eventually. It snows there more often, and we love the cold.

Tomi: I'm so glad we moved. It was scary when we decided to do it, but we had nothing to lose and made it work.

Gerardo: The recent fires in Los Angeles were terrible, and we're praying for everyone involved.

The reassurance of not having to worry about wildfires here like we did in California has been a huge plus already.

• Jonathan Soto-Nieves left Puerto Rico in his 20s to join the Marine Corps.
• After leaving active duty, Soto-Nieves began a tech career in the defense industry.
• Last year, he moved back to Puerto Rico to start his new defense systems company.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jonathan Soto-Nieves, the 40-year-old founder and CEO of iTerra Solutions, a Puerto Rican-based company focusing on cybersecurity and the defense industry. Soto-Nieves moved from Virginia back to his home country of Puerto Rico last year to launch the startup.

The following has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

I was born and raised in the outskirts of San Juan, Puerto Rico. I'm from a town called Hatillo, which is in the countryside and very rural.

I always say that being Puerto Rican is the best thing that ever happened to me. The country is very family-oriented and culturally vibrant. Plus the beaches and mountains make Puerto Rico very idyllic.

Growing up, I never really saw myself leaving Puerto Rico, but my brother joined the Marine Corps and I had always been intrigued by the military.

I decided to join the Marines in 2010 and moved to the mainland when I was 24. I was active duty for almost 10 years. I did six deployments. I was in Afghanistan, I've been in Africa, South America, and Europe.

Being a Marine shaped me into who I am. I developed an interest in operations and learned leadership skills. It helped me start to shape my professional life and opened a lot of doors. I'm still in the reserves.

I really liked all the different places I lived during that time. I was stationed in San Diego at one point, as well as North Carolina, and Germany.

Puerto Rico was always on my mind.

I thought maybe one day I'd get to retire here.

After leaving active duty in 2019, I transitioned into the corporate world. I worked at a few companies before moving to Virginia to work for Microsoft. I spent three years there and I learned a lot about technology and cyber security.

The idea for iTerra Solutions first came about when I was working in Virginia. I had made a group of friends and colleagues who all worked at different companies in the defense industry. A lot of them were former Marines, too.

We provide cyber security help and data analytics across several defense-related sectors.

We were originally planning to open and operate iTerra Solutions in the US. We even registered the company in Virginia in May 2023.

But Puerto Rico was calling me home

I was doing some research in 2024 when I stumbled on Invest Puerto Rico, a nonprofit that works to promote Puerto Rico as a competitive business locale by helping new businesses get established on the island.

I filled out a form explaining the idea behind iTerra Solutions and someone from Invest Puerto Rico reached out immediately.

I went to my wife, who was pregnant with our son Sebastian at the time, and told her we were going to be able to move back home. We started the moving process at the end of 2024 and officially moved from Virginia to Puerto Rico in January 2025.

Invest Puerto Rico helped us so much in getting started because I didn't know a lot of people in Puerto Rico anymore since I'd been gone from the country for 20 years. I didn't know the ecosystem and they helped me with networking and transitioning.

Invest Puerto Rico works in collaboration with other companies and accelerators. For example, iTerra Solutions is in a program right now which is part of the Puerto Rico Scientific Trust, which is an accelerator that helps startups like us.

I call it an ecosystem because the whole community is working in conjunction with one another. It's amazing.

I am just so stoked to be a part of this amazing movement happening in Puerto Rico right now. It really is the place to be. There are so many interesting companies on the rise in aerospace engineering, biopharma, and other future-oriented sectors.

Moving back to Puerto Rico was a big transition

My son was born last year in the US, but I always wanted him to have the life I had growing up in Puerto Rico and I'm so happy to be able to give him that.

Now, in 2025, I'm ready to hit the ground running as both a first-time father and a startup founder.

We are up and operating in Puerto Rico. iTerra Solutions is already part of this amazing ecosystem, supporting customers in the healthcare industry who are modernizing their computer data systems.

It feels so good to be back. I missed the culture here so much, and it's so wonderful to see all the collaboration in the business sector, as well as my family. My son has two grandmothers here to love him.

The country feels different from when I grew up here. Puerto Rico is becoming a real powerhouse and I think that's only going to continue to grow.

And from a personal standpoint, you just can't beat living here. I work from the beach with my computer regularly in 80-degree weather.

I smell the salt from the ocean each morning. I love to go running along the beach and feel the breeze.

You never know what life is going to throw at you, but our plan is to stay here in Puerto Rico forever. This is Plan A and we don't have a B or C.

• The RMS Titanic sank on April 15, 1912 — almost 113 years ago — after it hit an iceberg.
• The RMS Carpathia was over three hours away and came to rescue the stranded survivors.
• Of the roughly 2,200 people aboard the Titanic, only about 700 people made it into lifeboats.

When the Titanic sank at approximately 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, its survivors didn't know if, or when, rescue would come. 

They sat, waiting, unknowing for an hour and a half in the dark, frigid Atlantic. Meanwhile, hundreds of frozen bodies floated nearby where the ship had slipped under the surface. 

"'My God! My God!' were the heart-rending cries and shrieks of men, which floated to us over the surface of the dark waters continuously for the next hour, but as time went on, growing weaker and weaker until they died out entirely," survivor Archibald Gracie later wrote. 

When the RMS Carpathia came to their rescue around 4:00 a.m., it took an additional 4.5 hours to move everyone from the lifeboats onto the ship. 

These photos show how the Carpathia saved a fraction of the Titanic's passengers from the icy sea.

The Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912, with around 2,200 people aboard.

A British passenger liner, the Titanic was operated by White Star Line and was traveling from Southampton, England, to New York City. 

Just before 11:40 p.m. on April 14, Titanic crewmembers spotted an iceberg, but it was too late for the ship to change course.

When the ship was about 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, the two lookouts, Fredrick Fleet and Reginald Lee, spotted the berg.

Fleet and Lee were contending with an unusually calm ocean. With no waves breaking at its base, the iceberg was difficult to spot. Their binoculars were also locked in a cabinet, so they were using their naked eyes to scan the dark water on the moonless night.

While the night was clear, the lookouts later said the berg, between 50 and 100 feet tall, suddenly loomed out of the haze. One weather researcher has suggested a local phenomenon known as sea smoke, steam rising from the water, could have obscured the enormous frozen object.     

First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship's helmsmen to avoid the iceberg, but they couldn't turn in time. As the ship scraped the iceberg, it tore a hole in the side of the ship, rupturing at least five of the watertight compartments.

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By 2:20 a.m., the stern of the Titanic slipped below the water, and the surviving passengers never saw it again.

Thomas Andrews, the Titanic's designer, was on board and quickly realized the extent of the damage and alerted the captain. 

Within an hour, Captain Edward Smith ordered the lifeboats lowered into the water, The BBC reported in 2012. As the ship's bow continued to sink, the stern rose into the sky.

Shortly after 2 a.m., the Titanic's lights went out. Soon after, the ship broke into two pieces, and the bow sank beneath the waves. Then the stern followed suit, sending hundreds of crewmembers and passengers into the sea.

Of the 2,200 or so people aboard the Titanic, only around 700 people made it into lifeboats.

There were 20 lifeboats aboard the Titanic, more than the 16 required for a ship that size. However, the boats only had capacity for about half of the passengers and crew, 1,178 people, Smithsonian Magazine reported in 2017.

Women and children were the first passengers to climb into the lifeboats. Many boats were launched below capacity, either because the crew were afraid they would collapse if fully loaded or because they didn't want to spend valuable time coaxing passengers onto the boats, according to "Titanic: A Night Remembered." 

At first, passengers remained relatively calm as the Titanic sank, NPR reported in 2012. The mood changed as more people started arriving on the upper decks where the lifeboats were located, one survivor told The BBC in 1979. 

Most of the lifeboats didn't return to rescue people who had plunged into the water.

As they rowed away, some lifeboat passengers feared the suction created by the sinking ship would drag them under. Others feared desperate swimmers would swamp the boats.

Emily Borie Ryerson's lifeboat returned to pick up survivors, mostly crewmembers, she testified during a senate inquiry into the event.

They "were so chilled and frozen already they could hardly move," she said. The water was 28 degrees Fahrenheit, according to "Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron," a National Geographic special about the movie.

The SS Californian was near the Titanic when it sank, but its radio was shut off for the night.

When flares from the Titanic woke the captain, he assumed they were "company rockets," or signals passed between ships owned by the same company, not distress signals, the BBC reported.

Between 10 and 19 miles away, the Californian would have reached the Titanic much more quickly than the Carpathia, which was around 58 miles away.

The Californian had also messaged the Titanic earlier, warning of ice. The luxury liner's telegraph operator responded that he was busy, telling the Californian to stop sending messages. 

Instead, the RMS Carpathia responded to the Titanic's distress call and changed course to help.

Harold Cottam, the Carpathia's 21-year-old wireless operator, had planned to go to sleep for the night. First, though, he sent the Titanic a message to let them know he'd picked up transmissions meant for the luxury liner. 

"Come at once. We have struck a berg," Jack Phillips, the Titanic's wireless operator, responded. At 12:35 a.m., Cottam alerted Arthur Rostron, the captain of the transatlantic passenger liner, who threw on a dressing gown and headed his vessel toward the sinking ship, BBC News reported in 2013.   

"All this time, we were hearing the Titanic, sending her wireless out over the sea in a last call for help," Cottam told The New York Times in 1912. 

Another ship, the Olympic, also heard the distress calls but was over 500 miles away, according to The Irish Independent.

Rostron ordered his crew to ready the Carpathia for survivors.

He stationed a doctor in each of the ship's three dining rooms, outfitting them with "restoratives and stimulants," per the US Senate's report on the disaster. The crew stocked the saloons with coffee, tea, soup, and blankets. 

When the survivors came aboard, the chief steward and pursers would record their names so they could start sending them by telegraph.    

Arriving around 4 a.m., the Carpathia came to the rescue of the survivors in the lifeboats.

The first lifeboat reached the Carpathia at 4:10 a.m. It took over four hours for the ship to pick up all of the survivors.

By 8:30 a.m., the final person from the Titanic's lifeboats had boarded the Carpathia.

The Carpathia discovered four bodies in the sea and lifeboats, which crew members buried at sea, according to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. 

Captain Rostron ordered the nearby Californian to search the area for any additional survivors. 

 

 

Those aboard the Carpathia tried to accommodate the survivors, but the life-changing experience left many inconsolable.

"The people on the Carpathia received us with open arms and provided us with hot comforts, and acted as ministering angels," Titanic survivor Archibald Gracie later said. Many voluntarily gave up their beds to the rescued passengers, according to a 2017 article in "Voyage: Journal of the Titanic International Society 101."  

While the doctors treated people for sprains and bruises, one saw women and children crying as the search for other passengers was called off. 

Augusta Ogden offered coffee to two distraught women. "Go away," they said. "We have just seen our husbands drown."

 

Rather than contine along their original course, Carpathia's captain chose to return to New York City.

The closest port was Halifax, Nova Scotia, but getting there required traveling through more ice. 

Rostron decided to return to New York, where the Titanic had been headed. 

People flooded the White Star Line office in New York, wanting confirmation on the fate of the Titanic.

From the start, there were rumors that the company withheld information about the disaster, The Washington Post reported in 1912.

Philip Franklin, who was in charge of White Star Line at the time, denied knowing about the Titanic striking an iceberg shortly after it happened, Smithsonian Magazine reported in 2015. 

 

 

Bad weather delayed the Carpathia's arrival in New York.

During the next few days aboard the Carpathia, survivors including Margaret Brown, who became known as the "Unsinkable Molly Brown" following the voyage, started a committee to help their fellow Titanic passengers. 

The self-described survivors' committee raised thousands of dollars to thank the Carpathia's crew. Brown, Emma Bucknell, and Martha Stone created lists of basic necessities for the other survivors. 

They camped in a dining room for hours, listening to other passengers as they "poured out their grief and story of distress," Brown later wrote. 

As the Carpathia approached New York, reporters hired tugboats to sail alongside the ship to talk to survivors.

Carlos Hurd, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was aboard the Carpathia when it raced to help the Titanic. He and his wife, Katherine, interviewed survivors and wrote down their stories. 

Rostron wouldn't allow him to use the telegraph during the trip back to New York, so he tossed his notes to his colleague aboard one of the boats, The Missoulian reported in 2012. 

Other journalists shouted at passengers through megaphones, offering $50 or $100 for interviews, WNYC reported in 2012.

The Carpathia eventually docked at Pier 54 on April 18 at around 9:15 a.m.

The ship had left from the same dock only seven days earlier, The New York Times reported in 2012. 

 

Thousands of people were waiting to welcome the survivors.

Families of passengers arrived hoping to be reunited with loved ones. Ambulances lined the streets waiting to tend to the survivors, The New York Times reported in 2010. 

The Carpathia had rescued over 700 people from the freezing Atlantic. 

Of the roughly 1,500 people who died aboard the Titanic, nearly 1,200 were crewmembers or third-class passengers. 

The Carpathia's crew returned 13 of Titanic's lifeboats to the White Star Line.

Before docking to let the passengers off, the ship stopped to drop off the lifeboats at the White Star Line's Pier 59, according to the Hudson River Maritime Museum. 

Practically overnight, passenger liners needed to have enough lifeboats for everyone on board, The New York Times reported in 2012. 

Halifax later became the main port for ships retrieving bodies from the wreckage.

Three ships dispatched from Halifax were able to retrieve over 300 bodies from the wreckage, or one in five victims, according to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. 

The first vessel sent to retrieve bodies, the Mackay-Bennett, ran out of embalming supplies — the ship didn't expect to find so many bodies in the water — forcing crew members to bury more people at sea than intended.

About half of the recovered bodies are buried in Halifax. Relatives claimed 59 bodies and returned them home. Most of the dead were crew members and third-class passengers who were trapped on lower decks, ABC News reported in 2020.

For his rescue efforts, Rostron received a Congressional Gold Medal.

Rostron was reluctant to speak publicly about his role in the Titanic rescue, though he did write an autobiography, "Home from the Sea," detailing his account of that fateful night.

This article was originally published in April 2020 and updated on January 13, 2025.

• Donald Trump is stacking his second administration with a slate of Silicon Valley insiders.
• The president-elect has tapped at least a dozen tech leaders for government roles.
• These are the businessmen, tech gurus, and venture capitalists who will help Trump govern.

President-elect Donald Trump is stacking his second administration with a cadre of Silicon Valley insiders.

In recent months, Trump has tapped a number of tech executives for a wide range of official government roles while elevating several other industry vets to less formal advisory positions.

Those joining the Trump administration in any official capacity will be subject to federal conflict of interest laws that prohibit government employees from having a hand in anything that could directly affect their financial interests, said Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former Chief White House Ethics lawyer under George W. Bush.

Private sector employees who join the government are generally required to sell any related financial holdings or recuse themselves from specific matters, Painter told Business Insider.

Exceptions exist, however, including at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a cost-cutting committee that will exist outside of government. Its leaders, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, won't be government employees, nor will they have to divest themselves of their businesses.

Here are some of the tech personalities Trump has tasked with helping run the federal government:

Elon Musk

Trump's pick for: Co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency

Background: Elon Musk is the world's richest person and the founder of several major companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and xAI. He also bought X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022 and currently serves as its CTO.

Musk, who spent at least $277 million supporting Trump and the Republican Party during the 2024 cycle, has said his super PAC will remain active in the midterms. In the months since the election, Musk has remained close to Trump's side and waded into political issues beyond his capacity as the DOGE co-head, like congressional budget negotiations.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Trump's pick for: Co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency

Background: Vivek Ramaswamy founded the pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences and Strive Asset Management, an investment fund supported by conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Though he ran for the Republican presidential nomination, Ramaswamy will join Musk in overseeing DOGE. Ramaswamy has said that he expects "certain agencies to be deleted outright."

Musk has said he wants to slash some $2 trillion from the federal budget, and the DOGE co-heads outlined their cost-cutting agenda in a lengthy opinion piece. Federal outlays hit $6.75 trillion in 2024, so the proposed cuts could run up against mandatory spending for entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Ramaswamy and Musk have criticized overregulation and the size of the federal workforce in particular.

JD Vance

Trump's pick for: Vice President

Background: Before rising in Republican politics, JD Vance worked in Silicon Valley, including at Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, Mithril Capital. He eventually started his own VC firm in 2019, Narya Capital, whose early backers included Thiel and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. According to his vice president and senate disclosure forms, Vance still has a stake in Narya Capital Fund I, Narya Capital Fund II, and Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.

David Sacks

Trump's pick for: White House AI and crypto czar

Background: The venture capitalist and former PayPal COO founded the enterprise social networking platform Yammer, acquired by Microsoft for $1.2 billion in 2012. He now works at the VC firm Craft, which he co-founded in 2017.

Sacks was also an angel investor in companies such as SpaceX, Uber, and Palantir. As a member of the "PayPal Mafia," Sacks has worked with other tech titans like Musk and Thiel. The "All-In" podcaster will develop a framework for digital currency as the chair of Trump's Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets.

Scott Kupor

Trump's pick for: Director of the Office of Personnel Management

Background: Scott Kupor is a partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and was one of the company's first employees. Kupor has said he looks for "egomaniacal" founders. He managed a16z's growth from $300 million in assets under management to more than $40 billion, according to the firm's website. Before joining a16z, Kupor worked in various capacities at Hewlett-Packard, the software company Opsware, and in M&A at Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Brothers, according to a16z's website.

Sriram Krishnan

Trump's pick for: Senior policy advisor for artificial intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Background: Most recently, Sriram Krishnan was a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Before joining a16z, he ran product and engineering groups at X, Meta, and Snap, according to a16z's website. The firm said he began his career at Microsoft as a founding member of Windows Azure. Krishnan was a16z's main contact with Twitter after Musk bought it in 2022, and he interviewed the Tesla CEO on a pandemic-era audio show.

Trump wrote on X that Krishnan would work closely with David Sacks to focus on "ensuring continued American leadership" in AI and help coordinate government policy about the technology.

Ken Howery

Trump's pick for: US ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark

Background: A cofounder of PayPal and Founders Fund, Ken Howery was the US ambassador to Sweden under the first Trump administration. In announcing Howery's appointment, Trump wrote on Truth Social that for "purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity."

Trump proposed the same idea in 2019 — which the island and Denmark rejected. Greenland is an autonomous dependent territory of Denmark, a member of NATO, and a US ally.

Jacob Helberg

Trump's pick for: Undersecretary for economic growth, energy, and the environment at the US State Department

Background: Jacob Helberg is a senior advisor to Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Palantir, a data mining company co-founded by Thiel, has several government contracts and counts the US federal government as one of its biggest clients. Helberg is a member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He has propelled the effort to ban TikTok in the US and is also the author of "The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power."

Michael Kratsios

Trump's pick for: Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Background: Michael Kratsios is a managing director at Scale AI. He served as chief technology officer during Trump's first administration and has been working on tech policy for the transition, according to Politico.

Trump wrote on X that Kratsios will work closely with Sacks and also serve as an assistant to the president for science and technology. He also said that Kratsios had received a Distinguished Public Service Medal from the Defense Department.

Emil Michael

Trump's pick for: Undersecretary of Defense for research and engineering

Background: Emil Michael was the chief business officer at Uber and COO of Klout, a now-defunct social media company that ranked users' online social influence. Previously he served as special assistant to the Secretary of Defense. He built several companies during his career, the first being Tellme Networks in 1999, according to his website. Microsoft acquired Tellme Networks in 2007. Michael has invested in or advised various companies, including Stripe.

While at Uber, Michael led the company's work in China and built its Uber for Business unit, according to his bio.

Lynne Parker

Trump's pick for: Executive director of the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology

Background: Parker previously served as Trump's deputy Chief Technology Officer and was the founding director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office. She has served as associate vice chancellor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and as director of the AI Tennessee Initiative, according to the university's website. UT credited her with leading development of several "landmark" national AI polices, including some concerning federal use of the technology.

Paul Atkins

Trump's pick for: Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Background: Paul Atkins, a vocal crypto supporter, is the founder and CEO of risk management consultancy Patomak Global Partners and has been the co-chair of the Digital Chamber's Token Alliance, an industry group, since 2017. He served as an SEC commissioner under President George W. Bush.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that Atkins "recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before." If confirmed, Atkins will replace the current chair of SEC, Gary Gensler, who has drawn the ire of much of the crypto industry over his regulatory efforts.

Jared Isaacman

Trump's pick for: Administrator of NASA

Background: The billionaire SpaceX astronaut founded Shift4 Payments, a payment processing firm. His nomination comes only months after he completed the first commercial spacewalk. Isaacman, who dropped out of high school and started two companies, has commanded several space missions for Musk's SpaceX.

He flew twice to space in SpaceX's Crew Dragon — for flights he commissioned, funded, and commanded, as BI previously reported.

Jim O'Neill

Trump's pick for: Deputy Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services

Background: Jim O'Neill is a Silicon Valley investor who served as acting CEO of the Thiel Foundation, helping to found the organization's fellowship. In 2012, he worked with Thiel to launch Mithril Capital Management, the VC fund that eventually hired Vance, and worked there until 2019. He was briefly the CEO of the health organization SENS Research Foundation and sits on the board of ADvantage Therapeutics, which focuses on therapies for neurodegenerative conditions.

Gail Slater

Trump's pick for: Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice

Background: A known tech advisor, Slater has worked for various tech companies, including as a lawyer at the Internet Association, a defunct lobbying group representing companies including Google, Facebook, and Amazon. She also worked at the streaming platform Roku.

• One Georgia high school has gone all-in on artificial intelligence.
• Students at Seckinger High School learn math, science, English, and history through an AI lens.
• Teachers say students are more engaged and better prepared for the jobs of the future.

Prior to joining the faculty at Seckinger High School, art teacher Megan Fowler's only experience with anything even resembling artificial intelligence was a single graphic design class in college.

But as her teaching career progressed, "I just felt like what I was teaching was not necessarily applicable to students' future careers," she told Business Insider.

Now, Fowler, who is in her 13th year of teaching, uses AI every day. Whether she's teaching students how to use large language models like ChatGPT as an artistic thought partner, introducing kids to the ethical considerations of generative art, or spearheading AI-centered professional development content for fellow teachers, Fowler has fully submitted to the power of machine learning.

Seckinger High School, located in Gwinnett County, Georgia, opened its doors in August 2022, right as AI went big. The public school, with an enrollment of about 2,000 students, operates like any other public school in Georgia's largest school district, with one critical distinction: Students at Seckinger learn all the standard fare — math, science, English, and social studies — via an AI-embedded educational experience.

With outside help from tech partners and community collaborators, including Google and Microsoft, as well as higher ed experts and school district leaders, Gwinnett County Public Schools created an "AI-ready" framework for Seckinger students, replete with six components ranging from technical proficiency to ethics, said Sallie Holloway, director of artificial intelligence and computer science at the district.

"Our students are making connections to their future that is not as common in other schools," Holloway said.

Teachers and administrators at the school see it as their responsibility to prepare students for the jobs of the future, many of which will require advanced knowledge of AI, four Seckinger educators told BI.

And it's an approach that is likely to pay off, according to education experts.

Bree Dusseault, managing director at the Center for Reinventing Education, cited an Institute for the Future statistic that approximately 85% of the jobs that will be available in 2030 don't yet exist.

"So, how do we build a school system that is helping prepare our students for this new future?"

How it works

Seckinger staff members explain the school's AI approach using a water-based metaphor. Students can choose to swim, snorkel, or scuba dive in the oceans of AI.

"We like to say that all of our kids are swimming in AI," said teacher Jason Hurd, who heads the AI career and technical education pathway at Seckinger. "They are exposed to it, have access to it, see it integrated into their lessons across all content areas at school."

Next are the snorkelers, students who want to dive a bit deeper into the tech. They might take an AI elective class or join the robotics team.

Scuba divers, meanwhile, are the students who opt to enroll in the school's AI pathway, which immerses students to the nuanced mechanics of AI via three advanced courses. These students finish high school prepared to go into a specific field involving AI, Hurd said.

AI integration at Seckinger looks very different depending on the class, subject, and teacher.

For example, Scott Gaffney, a social studies teacher, uses AI to teach students historical problem-solving. In one instance, Gaffney presented students with an outbreak of cholera in 1854 London and asked them to use AI to map the spread via dot distribution. The students then used AI to analyze the data and pinpoint the nexus of the outbreak to a specific street, he told BI.

"Gen Z processes information way faster than previous generations," Gaffney said. "It's fun to present them with a challenge and task them to use AI to get the solution."

Hurd's AI pathway course covers everything from programming to applied reasoning to ethics.

"I tell students that some days it will feel like a math class, some days it will like a philosophy class, some days it will feel like a history class," Hurd said.

How it's working so far

The school, which is currently in its third year of operations, is still in pilot mode as the district waits to see what aspects of Seckinger's AI approach are ready to scale and share across the rest of the 142-school system, Holloway said.

But the anecdotal results thus far have been overwhelmingly positive, educators said.

"Kids aren't skipping class as much and there's a genuine interest in how teachers are teaching this content," Holloway said. "It's not a magic bullet, but they really are seeing an increase in engagement."

It helps that students at Seckinger generally feel like they know why they're learning something and how it might help them down the line, teachers said.

While there was some early community skepticism around Seckinger's AI concept, educators said that parent attitudes have done a 180 in the last three years.

"Parents want their kids to go here, and kids want to be here," Fowler said.

Still in its infancy, the school has yet to graduate a cohort that spent a full four years at Seckinger. Hurd, who runs the AI pathway, said he's gotten great feedback from former students who have gone on to enroll at Georgia Tech. Similarly, Fowler said she's seen some students go on to study digital art or user experience after graduating from Seckinger.

Looking to the future

Part of the fun — and challenge — for Seckinger teachers is staying up-to-date with the rapidly evolving technology. When the district first began discussing the idea behind Seckinger in 2019, ChatGPT had yet to be released. Today, it has over 180 million users.

"Algebra has always been algebra and will be forever," Hurd said. "But the field of AI is constantly changing.

While some schools and districts are taking a hard-line approach to dealing with AI in education — banning tools like ChatGPT or Gemini from school servers — Seckinger staff are excited to see how their students can use AI to one day change the world.

"There were once things called Google and Wikipedia that people thought would ruin education," Gaffney said. "They haven't. They've actually sharpened our future leaders."

• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson Friday.
• In it, she warned that the US would breach its debt limit as soon as January 14 unless Congress acted.
• The Treasury Department will begin taking "extraordinary measures" to avoid defaulting on debt.

The US will need to take "extraordinary measures" to avoid defaulting on its debt as early as January 14, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned in a letter on Friday.

In the letter addressed to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Yellen wrote that although the outstanding debt subject to the limit is expected to drop by approximately $54 billion when the new debt limit is established on January 2, it won't be long before the US does hit its limit.

She said the Treasury Department will likely need to start making accounting manuevers between January 14 and 23 to prevent the US from defaulting.

The debt limit is the mechanism that restricts the amount of money the US can borrow. Much of that money goes toward programs like Social Security, Medicare, military salaries, interest on the national debt, and tax refunds, Yellen said in the letter.

The government could face trouble paying those bills if lawmakers fail to raise the debt limit.

Yellen's warning comes days after President-elect Donald Trump pushed Congress to raise or eliminate the debt ceiling entirely. Lawmakers, however, failed to pass a two-year suspension extension while voting on a government spending bill earlier this month.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 suspended the debt limit through January 1, 2025, following a contentious political fight. Republicans are set to take control of the government in January and will have to contend with the ongoing debt ceiling problem, which could affect financial markets and borrowing costs.

"I respectfully urge Congress to act to protect the full faith and credit of the United States," Yellen wrote.

• Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban TikTok.
• The president-elect filed a brief urging SCOTUS to give him time to pursue a political resolution.
• Congress passed a law that requires TikTok's Chinese owners to divest or be banned from US app stores.

President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause the law that would ban TikTok in mid-January until after his inauguration.

Trump filed a brief on Friday urging the top court to give him time to "pursue a political resolution" before agreeing to ban the social media app.

In April, Congress passed a bipartisan law that established a nine-month deadline for TikTok's Chinese parent company to divest from the app or be barred from US app stores.

Business Insider reached out to TikTok and the Supreme Court for comment.

"President Donald J. Trump filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to extend the deadline that would cause TikTok's imminent shutdown, and allow President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue in a way that saves TikTok and preserves American national security once he resumes office as President of the United States on January 20, 2025," Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said.

In the Friday filing, Trump's lawyers highlighted the president-elect's "consummate deal-making expertise," suggesting Trump has the "political will" to negotiate a resolution that would simultaneously "save the platform" and address the national security concerns highlighted in the Congressional bill.

The nine-month deadline is officially up on January 19, which is one day before Trump assumes office for a second time.

Trump previously supported a TikTok ban but appeared to change his mind in recent months. He met with the app's CEO earlier this month and said he had a "warm spot" in his heart for TikTok.

Legal experts previously told BI that Trump has a couple of options to try to keep the app running in the US, including asking his Department of Justice to ignore the divest law or trying to rework strategic interpretations of the law.

Trump and his lawyers also argue that the president-elect has a mandate from American voters to protect their free-speech rights, including those who use TikTok.

"Moreover, President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history," the file said.

"Consistent with his commanding presence in this area, President Trump currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates, allowing him to evaluate TikTok's importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech," lawyers added.

• Jaymes O'Pheron is an entrepreneur who has lived all over the world.
• He and his wife moved from Washington state to Fargo, North Dakota, in 2021.
• O'Pheron said the Midwest locale is his favorite because of its strong community.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jaymes O'Pheron, a 34-year-old entrepreneur who moved from Aberdeen, Washington, to Fargo, North Dakota, in 2021.

The Fargo-Moorhead area, home to about 261,000 people, has seen a significant population uptick in recent years and is expected to reach almost 340,000 people by 2045, a 35% growth rate, according to the Fargo-Moorhead Economic Development Corp.

My family is a bit odd. I'm the oldest of eight and grew up in a very sheltered, religiously-minded family. I spent most of my childhood in Washington state, outside Vancouver and across the river from Portland. When I was 17, my dad got a job in Texas, so we moved South.

After that, we deliberately decided as a family to leave America. We picked Ireland because, at the time, it was the last English-speaking nation that did not allow abortion. We wanted to support that.

I absolutely loved Ireland. The weather, the people, the history, the language, the food, the music, the pace of life, the cities, the way it's designed — it's very communal.

After four years in Ireland, though, some personal issues led me to move back to Washington in 2012. I met my wife in Aberdeen, and we got married in 2018.

But we knew we weren't going to stick around Washington forever. We had been experiencing some health issues that we eventually traced back to mold allergies. We realized we were biologically incompatible with mold and how damp and moldy the Northwest is. We couldn't live there.

We wanted to find a permanent home, so we started researching potential places to move in 2019.

We tried to be intentional about where we ended up. We narrowed it down to a few places with favorable economic and regulatory aspects and a positive culture.

Then, we visited Fargo, and we knew this was the place. We officially moved in May 2021.

Fargo is very friendly to startups

I'm a serial entrepreneur. I can't stop starting things, both nonprofit and for-profit. Right now, I'm primarily focusing on my nonprofit, which is focused on empowering people to be change-makers in their communities.

I'm also a freelance coach for career performance, communication, networking, and burnout prevention.

The community support here in Fargo is incredible. That was hugely important as I was trying to build up my coaching business. I needed a larger metro center to network, but I also needed a regulatory environment conducive to small business startups.

Fargo is a great place for small business startups, a huge part of which is due to the community. The people recognize that we need to support one another. Being an entrepreneur is emotionally difficult and risky. Having people around you cheering you on and having your back is incredibly valuable.

That community support is unique from all the other places I've lived. You can walk out onto the street and make friends with anyone.

We are definitely putting down roots here. We want our great-grandchildren to live here, so we started looking for a place to buy.

We found a beautiful home. I'm on the HOA board. There are a lot of benefits and assistance in North Dakota for people who are first-time home buyers.

In Washington, I was living in a studio apartment. We paid about the same rate here in Fargo for our two-bedroom apartment, which was twice the square footage, just outside downtown.

It's one of the best places in the country as far as the ratio between low cost of living and high-paying jobs goes. The quality of living is high. There are a lot of job opportunities here.

Fargo is my favorite place I've lived

I just love Fargo. It's my favorite of all the places I've lived because I have all my favorite people here. I have better friends here than I've had in my entire life. My favorite part is the community.

When we first drove to Fargo, it felt like we were driving home. There's something about the scale of the city that is very approachable. It is a downtown area with robust activity, but it also has that small-town feel. It feels very safe and welcoming.

We had new friends from church help us move into an apartment immediately. We had met the pastor when we first got to Fargo, and he put out a call to the parish, and they all showed up to help us.

Because it's a college town, there's a lot of youthful energy and idealism. It's also on the border of Minnesota, a blue state. So, Fargo is a true purple city. There's a lot of diversity of thought and opinions. People actually have conversations, which is cool.

The one thing we were anticipating having to adjust to was the weather. We made sure we did all the preparation. We changed our car battery and got the right kinds of tires.

We had a really hard winter our first year there. But it was fun. I shoveled snow from our patio into the bathtub and took an ice bath. The cold weather actually leads to the quality of the community here. People help one another because we're all in it together.

Fargo is growing quickly. One of the issues we're dealing with is where to put all the people. We don't want to create sky-high prices or spread out too far so people can't commute. The city is trying to strike that balance of small-town heart and big-town body that we love so much.

As a burnout coach, I know that the silver bullet is community. We need to be able to connect with people around us authentically. Loneliness is killing us. So, it's a luxury to have people here at Fargo whom I can rely on.

I think others who value community should look at Fargo. It's an amazing place to be.

• The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to $1 billion ahead of a Christmas Eve drawing.
• If someone wins on Tuesday, they will score the seventh-largest prize in the game's history.
• The lump sum cash option is about $448.8 million, according to the Mega Millions website.

One lucky lotto player could wake up to a billion-dollar Christmas morning this year.

The Mega Millions jackpot hit an estimated $1 billion on Tuesday ahead of the Christmas Eve drawing, according to the Mega Millions website.

If someone does score a six-number winning ticket on Tuesday, the jackpot would be the largest prize ever won in December and the seventh-largest in the game's history.

Choosing the lump sum cash option would cut the prize money in half to about $448.8 million, according to the Mega Millions website. Winners can also choose annual payments over time. Mega Millions winnings are subject to state and federal income taxes.

Nobody has won the jackpot since September, when a Texan nabbed $810 million. The pot has continued to climb in the previous 29 drawings.

Several of the largest-ever lotto jackpots have happened in recent years.

A California man won a whopping $2.04 billion Powerball — the largest-ever lotto prize — in 2022. Earlier this year, a different California man claimed a $1.7 billion Powerball prize.

The largest Mega Millions prize, meanwhile, went to a Florida winner last year who won a $1.6 billion jackpot.

The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are about one in 302,575,350, according to the Lotto website.

If someone wins on Tuesday, they wouldn't be the first Christmas Eve Mega Millions winner. A $68 million jackpot was won in 2022, but nobody ever claimed the prize, ABC News reported.

• Taylor Swift supported her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, on the road to their second Super Bowl as a couple.
• She's been photographed at 23 football games since they began dating in 2023.
• Swift tends to wear Kansas City Chiefs gear and dress up in the team's red-forward color palette.

Already known as a gifted songwriter, chart-topping singer, and billionaire businesswoman, Taylor Swift has recently added WAG to her list of identifiers — an acronym used to describe the supportive wives and girlfriends of high-profile athletes.

Since Swift began dating NFL star Travis Kelce in the summer of 2023, she has been spotted cheering for the Kansas City Chiefs at 23 games, including Super Bowl LVIII.

"I'm just there to support Travis," Swift told Time in 2023. "I have no awareness of if I'm being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads."

The megastar was back in action for her second consecutive NFL season, supporting Kelce and the Chiefs during their journey to Super Bowl LIX.

Here are the best photos of Swift from each appearance so far.

Swift attended her first game at Arrowhead Stadium in September 2023.

Swift's enthusiasm at her first Chiefs game seemed to confirm her rumored romance with Kelce.

Swift later said they were already an official couple before she watched the Chiefs beat the Chicago Bears.

"This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell," she told Time. "We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I'm grateful for, because we got to get to know each other."

"By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple," Swift continued. "I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date."

For her second appearance, she brought her longtime pal Blake Lively.

Swift and Lively watched the Chiefs defeat the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey — where Swift had performed three sold-out concerts just a few months prior.

The October game drew the highest viewership for a Sunday TV show since the Super Bowl, NBC Sports reported.

Indeed, Swift's newfound interest in football has been credited with bumping merch sales and enticing more female viewers.

Swift cheered with her boyfriend's mom, Donna Kelce, during a home game against the Denver Broncos.

Shortly before her third game-day appearance, Kelce accused the NFL of "overdoing it" with its wall-to-wall coverage of Swift.

"I think it's fun when they show who all is at the game. I think it brings a little more to the atmosphere, brings a little bit more to what you're watching," Kelce said during an episode of his "New Heights" podcast.

"But at the same time, I think they're overdoing it a little bit," Kelce continued. "For sure, especially for my situation. I think they're just trying to have fun with it."

Swift has struck up a friendship with Brittany Mahomes, who's married to Kelce's teammate.

Just a few days before the release of "1989 (Taylor's Version)," Swift watched the Chiefs take down the Los Angeles Chargers.

She spent the home game cheering with Mahomes and showing off their secret handshake.

Swift wore a black turtleneck and a red teddy coat in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Swift spent most of November 2023 on the road for the South American leg of the Eras Tour. Kelce even flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to watch Swift perform — and received an onstage shout-out in return.

She returned to Kelce's side in early December when the Chiefs took on the Green Bay Packers. It was her first time watching Kelce's team lose.

She wore a vintage Chiefs sweatshirt for the team's next home game.

Swift purchased the '90s sweatshirt from Westside Storey, a secondhand clothing boutique in Kansas City.

The store's owner, Chris Harrington, told Business Insider he originally thought Swift's order — which totaled $1,200 for curated vintage pieces — could be fraudulent.

Instead, she wore one of those pieces at Arrowhead Stadium in December, causing a surge of traffic to Westside Storey's website.

"We've had hundreds of orders over the last 48 hours," Harrington told BI. "Sometimes our online store lights up after a Chiefs game when we win, but this is 100 times more than that, and we lost the game. It was the Taylor effect."

She brought her dad and friends to cheer for the Chiefs in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Swift hit the road to watch the Chiefs defeat the New England Patriots on the latter's home turf. She even convinced her father, Scott Swift, to swap his traditional Philadelphia Eagles gear for a Chiefs sweatshirt.

Several friends accompanied Swift, including Alana Haim, stylist Ashley Avignone, and backup singer Melanie Nyema.

Swift spent Christmas Day at Arrowhead Stadium.

Even though the Chiefs lost to the Las Vegas Raiders on December 25, 2023, Kelce praised Swift and her family for making the day special.

The singer's brother, Austin Swift, dressed up as Santa Claus and gave Kelce a VHS copy of the 1994 film "Little Giants."

"He actually made me feel like a child because his gift to me was straight out of the bag," Kelce said on his podcast "New Heights". "Whipped it out and handed me a VHS of my favorite football movie of all time."

She also spent New Year's Eve cheering for Kelce in Kansas City.

Swift wore a Chiefs varsity jacket for the game against the Cincinnati Bengals, which the home team won.

For her first game of 2024, Swift braved freezing temperatures to high-five fans.

The Chiefs defeated the Miami Dolphins during the fourth-coldest game in NFL history, per CNN.

That same day, the Chiefs owner praised Swift and Kelce's "purely organic" relationship.

"It's been a very interesting, very fun year having the two of them dating, the attention that's been focused on the Chiefs," Clark Hunt told CNBC. "Our female audience has grown leaps and bounds."

Kelce scored two touchdowns in Buffalo, New York, with Swift in the stands.

Swift joined Kelce's family to watch the Chiefs advance through the NFL playoffs — including his brother, Eagles center Jason Kelce, who lost his shirt in the frenzy.

She saw Kelce and his teammates become AFC champions.

Swift watched the Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens in the 2024 AFC Championship Game, securing their spot in Super Bowl LVIII. She even joined Kelce on the field to celebrate the win.

Swift flew from Tokyo to watch the Chiefs play in Super Bowl LVIII.

Swift was widely expected to attend the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas, despite having an Eras Tour stop scheduled in Tokyo the night before.

Sure enough, she made the trip in time to watch the Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers, with friends like Lively, Lana Del Rey, and Ice Spice in tow.

The superstar geared up for her second NFL season in September 2024.

Swift was back in Kansas City on the evening of September 5, 2024, as the Chiefs took the field for their first game of the season against the Ravens.

She donned an all-denim getup and thigh-high red boots.

Swift wore a vintage Chiefs T-shirt for Kelce's second home game of the season.

Just a few days after attending the MTV Video Music Awards in New York (and giving her boyfriend a shout-out onstage), Swift was back in Kansas City to watch the Chiefs defeat the Bengals.

She also watched the Chiefs beat the Saints at Arrowhead Stadium.

After skipping two of Kelce's games in Atlanta and Los Angeles, Swift returned to Kansas City in style — wearing over $50,000 worth of jewelry and designer clothing — to cheer for the Chiefs against the New Orleans Saints.

The home team won 26-13, their fifth consecutive win of the season.

Swift cheered when the Chiefs beat the Buccaneers with a touchdown drive in overtime.

One day after Swift wrapped the final US leg of the Eras Tour in Indianapolis, she was back in Kansas City to watch the Chiefs take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Despite a touchdown from the Buccaneers in the final minute of regulation play, the Chiefs rallied in overtime to score a winning touchdown.

The singer was on duty again to watch the Chiefs defeat the Broncos.

Swift wore her typical black-and-red combo for another home game at Arrowhead Stadium, pairing a Victoria's Secret corset with a Versace tweed two-piece set. She was joined in the VIP box by her mother, Andrea Swift.

Swift saw the Chiefs beat the Raiders at home.

Swift arrived at Arrowhead Stadium with Kelce's mom, Donna. The pair cheered as the Chiefs clinched a narrow defeat against the Raiders.

A few weeks later, she watched the Chiefs win again at Arrowhead Stadium.

Swift wore her boldest gameday outfit yet for the Chiefs vs. the Houston Texans, pairing a statement red coat with a faux fur lining from Charlotte Simone with a vintage Chanel bucket hat.

Kelce and the Chiefs beat the Texans 19-27, adding another win to their dominant season. (To date, the Chiefs have only lost three times with Swift in the stands.)

Swift sat with Caitlin Clark during the divisional round of playoffs.

Swift and WNBA star Caitlin Clark were spotted celebrating together when the Chiefs defeated the Texans again 23-14, advancing to the AFC Championship Game for the seventh straight season.

For the second year in a row, Swift celebrated on the field with Kelce and the Chiefs when they became AFC champions.

The Chiefs took down the Buffalo Bills 32-29 in the 2025 AFC Championship Game, sending the league's top-seeded team to the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

Like she did the previous year, Swift joined Kelce, his mom, and his teammates on the field for their post-game celebration. Unlike the previous year, however, Swift wore a loud-luxury outfit covered with Louis Vuitton logos.

Swift traveled to New Orleans for a rare Chiefs loss at the Super Bowl.

The Chiefs faced the Eagles at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans. Serendipitously, Swift's trusted collaborator Kendrick Lamar headlined the halftime show.

As opposed to her usual Chiefs getup, Swift wore an agnostic white-and-denim outfit — perhaps to avoid rooting against her hometown team, who beat the Chiefs 40-22.

• A new study suggests universal pre-K programs could increase parents' earnings.
• Researchers found that those who enrolled their kids in free pre-K made about 21% more
• Universal pre-K programs have also been shown to help kids' long-term futures.

Universal pre-K has long been thought to boost children's lives and futures, but a new study suggests parents could also reap the benefits of free and early education for their kids.

Economists found that parents who had the opportunity to enroll their children in a universal pre-K program in Connecticut saw increased earnings by about 21% while their kids were in the program, as well as persistent gains for up to six years after.

The study, published in the National Bureau of Economic Research this month, looked at a New Haven pre-K program that provides six and a half hours of free schooling each day to three and four-year-olds, as well as wraparound childcare before and after school.

Parents who were lucky enough to win the school lottery saw several positive economic benefits, according to researchers. In addition to increased wages over time, those whose kids enrolled in the program also got an average of 12 more working hours each week, the study found.

"Parents whose kids have access to reliable, high-quality child care in the pre-K period are more likely to work during that period, and they work more hours," wrote economist Emily Oster in her ParentData newsletter. "This extra work allows them to get on a steeper career path."

The authors of the study similarly chalk it up to career continuity.

"This means that even though everyone eventually ends up working the same number of hours, the group that was able to invest in their career early have higher wages and therefore more income," Oster added.

Historically, parents haven't been required to send their kids to school until Kindergarten in most states. But in recent years, a growing number of municipalities have begun offering schooling for children as young as 3.

Supporters of universal pre-K say the concept gives kids an equal starting position heading into school and opens them up to educational opportunities at a younger age. Opponents, however, point to the high costs associated with providing free childcare.

Several studies in recent years have recorded some of the benefits for kids, including 2021 research that found children who attended universal pre-K are more likely to graduate high school and attend college. The study also pointed to positive behavioral impacts for those students.

The positives go beyond academics, too. A 2017 study found that universal pre-K helps more kids access healthcare, such as earlier detection and treatment for conditions like asthma and hearing and vision problems.

Affordable childcare and universal pre-K could also flush billions of dollars back into the US economy, a 2022 study from left-leaning think tank The Century Foundation found.

President Joe Biden included universal pre-K in the Build Back Better Act, which failed to garner Congressional support back in 2021. The legislation would have allowed three million more parents to either enter the labor force or increase their working hours, the Century Foundation report found.

The new study out of New Haven notably did not find any evidence that universal pre-K programs improve students' future test scores — a finding in line with prior research that suggests the biggest benefits are more long-term, Oster noted in her newsletter.

"In the end: from an economic standpoint, the biggest value to universal pre-K may be that it helps parents return to the labor force and make a better life for their families in the short and long run," Oster wrote. "And of course, that's also good for kids."

• The House of Representatives failed to pass a pared-down spending bill.
• The vote came after President-elect Donald Trump tanked a bipartisan version that looked set to pass.
• The move pushes the government closer to a holiday shutdown.

The House of Representatives on Thursday failed to pass a stripped-down spending bill following a tumultuous 48 hours on the Hill, pushing the government closer to a partial shutdown right before the holidays.

Republicans in the House said they had settled on a new version of the continuing resolution ahead of the vote on Thursday after President-elect Donald Trump tanked a previous spending bill that initially won bipartisan support.

But the final vote was 174-235-1. Thirty-eight Republicans flouted Trump and voted against the continuing resolution.

On Wednesday, Trump came out hard against the original continuing resolution, urging Republican lawmakers to renegotiate the bill and threatening to primary those who failed to fall in line.

The president-elect's apparent turnabout came after billionaire Elon Musk publicly backed the idea of shutting down the government until the day Trump is inaugurated. Musk railed against the resolution, which he said included items unrelated to government funding, such as pay raises for lawmakers and pandemic preparedness.

Musk, who has been tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency alongside fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, celebrated the pared-down spending bill ahead of the failed Thursday vote.

"This shows how much your voice matters!" the Tesla CEO wrote on X. "And having a President like @realDonaldTrump means that your voice is finally heard."

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to agree that Musk played a major role in killing the original bill. Some have expressed concern about the outsized influence Musk seems to have on Trump. The president-elect, for his part, has pushed back on suggestions that Musk is the one in control.

The continuing resolution that failed to pass on Thursday was smaller in scope than the original legislation. Among the items cut from the bipartisan resolution included funding for a child cancer research program, funding for research on premature labor, money for treatment of sickle cell disease, money for early cancer detection, a program for Down syndrome research, and an anti-deepfake porn bill.

The newer version of the resolution would have kept the government funded through mid-March and suspended the nation's debt ceiling until January 2027.

Trump encouraged Republican lawmakers to back the new version of the bill on Thursday.

House Democrats, on the other hand, expressed frustration about the series of events. CNN reported Thursday that Democrats could be heard chanting "hell no" during a caucus meeting ahead of the vote.

If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement, a partial shutdown would lead to suspended funding for many government entities and withheld paychecks for thousands of federal employees right before the holidays.

• Republicans in Congress withdrew a spending bill after pressure from Elon Musk.
• The bill aimed to keep the government funded through mid-March.
• Trump had also called on Republicans to renegotiate the bill.

Congressional Republicans scrapped a last-minute spending bill that would keep the government funded thought mid-March after a pressure campaign from Elon Musk.

CNN and The Washington Post reported the bill had been killed.

Earlier on Wednesday, Musk wrote in a post on X, "Your elected representatives have heard you, and now the terrible bill is dead. The voice of the people has triumphed!"

The bipartisan bill was backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who had said he spoke Tuesday with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy about their criticisms of the bill. Musk and Ramaswamy are set to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, which will serve as an advisory group to the Trump administration focused on cutting government spending.

In a post on X, Musk endorsed the idea of shutting down the government until January 20, when President-elect Donald Trump is set to be inaugurated.

Shortly after Musk's post, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance issued a statement calling on Republicans to renegotiate the bill.

Trump threatened that Republican lawmakers who failed to fall in line would face political consequences.

"If Republicans try to pass a clean Continuing Resolution without all of the Democrat 'bells and whistles' that will be so destructive to our Country, all it will do, after January 20th, is bring the mess of the Debt Limit into the Trump Administration, rather than allowing it to take place in the Biden Administration," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be Primaried," Trump added. "Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking Office on January 20th, 2025."

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told CNN Republicans scrapped the bill after Trump came out against it.

The Biden administration subsequently accused Trump and Vance of "playing politics," hurting "hardworking Americans," and creating "instability" with the last-minute rejection of the legislation.

"Triggering a damaging government shutdown would hurt families who are gathering to meet with their loved ones and endanger the basic services Americans from veterans to Social Security recipients rely on," Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. "A deal is a deal. Republicans should keep their word."

Some Democratic senators blamed Musk for the package falling apart, suggesting the billionaire already has an outsized influence on Congress' ability to pass legislation.

Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat who lost his re-election bid, told CNN that Wednesday's series of events were "bizarre, disturbing, and dangerous."

"Just the fact they're even talking about this because of a comment by one person that triggers this kind of result, it doesn't bode well for the new Congress or the new administration," he told the outlet.

• A bird flu outbreak has ravaged the world's birds since 2020 and infected cattle earlier this year.
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency over the virus this week.
• Health officials also confirmed the first "severe" case of and hospitalization for the H5N1 virus.

The burgeoning global bird flu outbreak continued its flight path across the country this week, with two major developments that point to the virus's increasingly concerning spread.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency over the virus on Wednesday, citing a worrying number of infected herds throughout the state in recent months and a need for more resources.

Since the state first identified the H5N1 avian influenza virus in cattle in late August, California's agriculture department has confirmed 645 infected dairy herds.

Newsom's announcement, meanwhile, came just hours after health officials confirmed the first severe case of bird flu in Louisiana, saying a person was hospitalized with an infection after being exposed to sick birds in his backyard.

In recent months, infectious disease experts have grown more and more nervous about the possibility of a human pandemic linked to the virus, even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has maintained that the public health risk for humans is low.

Here's where things stand.

Bird flu outbreak

The H5N1 virus first reemerged in Europe in 2020 and has since become widespread in birds around the world. The outbreak has killed tens of millions of birds and tens of thousands of sea lions and seals in recent years.

Birds carry the disease while migrating and can expose domestic poultry to the virus while never showing signs themselves, according to the CDC.

The virus jumped to cattle herds for the first time ever earlier this year in a major escalation. Then, in October, a pig in Oregon tested positive for the virus, an especially concerning case as swine can host both bird and human flu viruses.

There has been no known human-to-human transmission yet. Still, the growing pattern of mammal-to-mammal transmission has infectious disease experts on guard against the possibility that H5N1 could eventually become a human pandemic.

"If it keeps spreading in animals, then it is eventually going to cause problems for humans, either because we don't have food because they've got to start exterminating flocks, or because it starts to make a jump in humans," Dr. Jerome Adams, a former surgeon general and the director of health equity at Purdue University, told Business Insider in April.

"The more it replicates, the more chances it has to mutate," he added.

The ongoing multi-state dairy cattle outbreak, which is believed to have started in Texas, has infected 865 herds across 16 states, according to the CDC, and has led to a growing number of human cases among US dairy and poultry workers.

The CDC has thus far confirmed 61 reported human cases and seven probable cases across the US, though some scientists estimate that the real number of infections is higher.

More than half of the human cases are tied to interaction with sick cattle. The remaining infections have been traced to exposure to sick poultry or have an unknown origin, the CDC said.

State of emergency

California's Wednesday announcement will give state and local authorities increased resources to study and contain the outbreak, Newsom said.

"This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak," the governor said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the Agriculture Department said it would start testing the nation's milk supply for traces of the virus, requiring dairy farmers to provide raw milk samples upon request. Up until then, cattle testing for potential infections had been almost entirely voluntary.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine and associate chief of the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said the declaration will likely give California a greater ability to surveil dairy farms for signs of the virus.

But declaring a state of emergency could be a double-edged sword.

Phrases "like 'state of emergency,' given that we've just been through a pandemic, can induce panic," Gandhi said.

And it's not time to panic yet, she said.

Gandhi praised the CDC's "very measured" messaging around the virus thus far and said health officials are closely monitoring the spread.

• Nissan and Honda are considering a merger to help them compete in the EV industry.
• The news sent Nissan stocks skyrocketing by as much as 24% in early trading on Wednesday local time.
• The Japanese car companies are struggling with slumping profits and stock prices.

Honda and Nissan are set to negotiate a possible merger that could see the two Japanese car heavyweights strengthen their existing ties and increase their collective power locally and globally.

Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported news of the possible merger on Tuesday, adding that the two car companies are hoping their combined resources will help both compete against Tesla and Chinese electric vehicle makers.

The two companies are in talks to set up an umbrella holding company to facilitate a merger, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a person with knowledge of the discussions.

"As announced in March of this year, Honda and Nissan are exploring various possibilities for future collaboration, leveraging each other's strengths," a spokesperson for Honda said in a statement to Business Insider on Tuesday.

"We will inform our stakeholders of any updates at an appropriate time," the statement added.

The merger could also include another automaker: Mitsubishi Motors, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Nissan is Mitsubishi's largest shareholder.

"The contents of the report is not something that has been announced by our company. Nothing has been decided at the moment," Mitsubishi said in a statement to BI.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the parent company of Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn had approached Nissan to take a controlling stake in the automaker.

Representatives for Nissan and Foxconn did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

The news sent Nissan stocks skyrocketing. The company's shares were nearly 24% higher when local markets closed on Wednesday.

The stock's uptick follows a particularly difficult year for the car company. Amid falling profits and decreased sales, Nissan slashed its workforce by 9,000 jobs globally in November in an effort to reduce costs. Nissan's shares are down nearly 25% this year.

The potential consolidation comes after Honda and Nissan agreed to collaborate on EV batteries and software earlier this year.

During Nissan's November earnings call, CEO Makoto Uchida acknowledged that the company had fallen behind, saying the automaker needed to strengthen its competitiveness.

"There are limits if we are to do that alone. So, that had triggered us to engage in partnership with Honda," Uchida said on the call.

Honda investors, however, seemed less thrilled by the news.

The company's shares closed 3% lower on Wednesday. Honda's stock is down by over 15% this year.

December 18, 12:15 a.m. — This story has been updated with statements from Honda and Mitsubishi Motors.

• Dozens of unidentified aircraft have been spotted over military bases, airports, and cities in the US.
• The Pentagon said Monday that DoD has "no evidence" the drone sightings pose a threat.
• A White House spokesperson said the sightings include a mix of commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones.

US officials said on Monday that the mystery drones flying over US military bases, airports, and cities don't pose a threat.

On Monday, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that more than 5,000 drone sightings have been reported in recent weeks, but only about 100 required further investigation.

He said the sightings have included a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as some crewed aircraft and stars mistaken for drones.

The House Intelligence Committee was expected to receive a classified briefing on Tuesday over the issue, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The drones have been seen flying at night over New Jersey and other East Coast states since mid-November, sparking concern and speculation from officials and citizens.

Kirby told reporters that "our assessment at this stage is that the activity is lawful and legal,"

The federal government has sent advanced technology and additional personnel to assist local authorities and state officials investigating the sightings, Kirby said.

He stressed that the government does not believe the drones represent a threat to national security.

"There are more than one million drones lawfully registered with the FAA here in the US and there are thousands of commercial hobbyists and law enforcement drones that are lawfully in the sky on any given day," Kirby said.

Kirby spoke to reporters on Monday after the Pentagon indicated, drawing an analogy to vehicles that approach the base, it wouldn't shoot at something unless it presented as a "clear and present danger."

The Department of Homeland Security echoed Kirby's statement in a post to X late on Monday.

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the Defense Department has "no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus."

"We'll continue to do everything possible to investigate reports of concerning activity," he told reporters Monday. "But given how many drones are lawfully in our skies every day, we need to be careful to avoid assuming malintent or malicious behavior."

President-elect Donald Trump accused the US government on Monday of withholding information about the drones.

"The government knows what is happening," he said during public remarks at Mar-a-Lago. "And for some reason, they don't want to comment. I think they'd be better off saying what it is. Our military knows, and our president knows, and for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense."

"Something strange is going on," Trump said of the recent developments. "For some reason, they don't want to tell the people."

Mayors of 21 towns in New Jersey sent a letter Monday to the state's governor, Phil Murphy, demanding more transparency.

"Despite inquiries made to relevant authorities, we have yet to receive satisfactory answers about the purpose, operators, or safety protocols governing these flights," the letter says.

Where have residents reported seeing drones and unidentified aircraft?

Residents and officials have reported spotting unidentified aircraft, believed to be drones, flying above New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in recent weeks.

Murphy, the New Jersey governor, said late Monday that he had received a briefing from FBI Newark on their investigation.

"We are ready to assist the federal government in getting to the bottom of this," he added.

Murphy told reporters on Monday that some of the suspected drones spotted over his state are "very sophisticated" and can "go dark" the "minute you get eyes on them." Others have described the flying objects as bigger than normal hobby-style drones and able to avoid detection.

"This is something we're taking deadly seriously and we've gotten good cooperation out of the feds, but we need more," Murphy said.

Drones have been spotted near Picatinny Arsenal and Naval Weapons Station Earle, both military bases in New Jersey, and an airport in New York serving the public and the military.

However, officials have stressed such sightings are not necessarily unusual.

"This is not a new issue for us. We've had to deal with drone incursions over our bases for quite a time now," the spokesperson for the Joint Staff said Saturday. "It's something that we routinely respond to in each and every case when reporting is cited."

There have also been reports of suspected drones following a US Coast Guard vessel, as well as local police statements on the presence of unidentified aircraft near critical infrastructure.

US Northern Command, which is responsible for overseeing the protection of the US homeland, said over the weekend it was "aware and monitoring the reports of unauthorized drone flights in the vicinity of military installations in New Jersey."

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio acknowledged that drone activity near the base led officials there to close its airspace for several hours late Friday night and into Saturday.

A recording of a controller from the Wright-Patterson air traffic control tower that was shared by The War Zone, which first reported the incursions, urges an aircraft to "use extreme caution for heavy UAS movement on the base."

What are officials saying about these mystery drones?

Trump said Friday on Truth Social that there are mystery drones being sighted all over the country. "Can this really be happening without our government's knowledge," he wrote. "I don't think so!"

He suggested that they be shot down. Other officials have expressed concern about shooting them down due to the threat to local populations of falling debris. Neither kinetic nor electronic warfare methods are particularly ideal near civilian areas.

New Jersey State Assemblyman Brian Bergen told CNN News Central's Sara Sidner on Monday that "we shouldn't be shooting things down right now."

"Look, I was an attack helicopter pilot in the US Army. I flew overseas. I have seen bullets fly through the sky. It's not a great idea to do over the United States," he said. "Things should not be shot out of the sky. That is a very dangerous thing to do."

The FBI and New Jersey State Police issued a joint statement on Monday warning of "a concern with people possibly firing weapons at what they believe to be a UAS," as well as increased incidences of pilots being dazzled by lasers.

There could be "deadly consequences" of these actions, they said.

Amid the confusion on the drones, there has been a lot of speculation, including from officials.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey said on Fox News last Wednesday that the drones came from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States, citing "very high sources."

Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh rejected the congressman's claim in a press conference later that day, saying "there is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there's no so-called mothership launching drones toward the United States."

Singh said that the Pentagon has no evidence that the reported drone sightings are the work of a foreign adversary. While Iran does have vessels that can carry drones, they were spotted off its southern coast as recently as Thursday — debunking Van Drew's claims.

He doubled down on Thursday, saying the government isn't telling the truth. The congressman said it could be another ship belonging to another foe. A Department of Homeland Security official said Saturday that there is no evidence of any foreign-based involvement in sending drones ashore from vessels in the area.

"We're doing our best to find the origin of those drone activities," an FBI official told reporters Saturday. "But I think there has been a slight overreaction."

Local officials, meanwhile, have been calling for additional information.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Saturday called for increased federal oversight of drones and said runways at Stewart International Airport in Orange County were shut down for an hour due to unidentified drone activity. "This has gone too far," she said.

Hochul called on Congress to strengthen the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of drones and provide counter-unmanned aircraft equipment to local law enforcement. On Sunday, she posted to social media that the federal government was sending a "drone detection system" to her state.

Previous unidentified flying objects and drone sightings

There have been a number of sightings of suspected drones and other unusual flying objects over or around military installations in recent years.

In February 2023, for example, the United States shot down three unidentified objects flying over American airspace over the course of three days. The incidents were part of a saga that followed the US takedown of a spy balloon off the coast of North Carolina the government said came from China.

As for drone activity, The Wall Street Journal reported in October that drones had been spotted over a military base in Virginia and the Energy Department's Nevada National Security Site the year prior. Retired US Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, until March of this year the head of Air Combat Command, said that he learned about the sightings in December 2023, when officials at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia reported seeing dozens of drones flying over the base at night. It's unclear who was behind those incidents.

While the federal government says that the latest sightings are not the work of adversaries or a public security threat, multiple recent incidents near bases have raised national security concerns.

For instance, federal authorities on Monday charged a Chinese citizen residing in California, Yinpiao Zhou, with failure to register a non-transportation aircraft and violation of national defense airspace. The Justice Department accused Zhou of using a drone to photograph Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County on November 30.

Police arrested Zhou at the San Francisco International Airport before he boarded a China-bound flight.

And another man, Fengyun Shi, a Chinese national, was sentenced to six months in federal prison in October for photographing US Navy ships with a drone in Virginia. Fengyun, a student at the University of Minnesota, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of unauthorized use of aircraft for the unlawful photographing of a designated installation.

The FBI official who spoke to reporters on Saturday said of the most recent sightings: "We are doing everything we can, alongside our partners, to understand what is happening and whether or not there is more nefarious activity that we need to explore."

• OpenAI published Elon Musk's old emails in a blog post on Friday.
• The AI company released its version of a timeline of events amid a brewing legal feud with Musk.
• In a 2015 email, Musk said OpenAI's nonprofit structure didn't seem "optimal."

OpenAI responded to co-founder Elon Musk on Friday with a new legal filing and a pointed blog post featuring the billionaire's old emails in which he pushed for the AI startup to be for-profit.

The emails and filing are the latest blows thrown in the legal feud between OpenAI and Musk. Last month, Musk asked a federal court to stop OpenAI from moving to a for-profit business structure. In the last year, Musk has twice sued OpenAI in an effort to stop the startup from adopting a more traditional business structure.

In a Friday afternoon legal filing, OpenAI accused Musk of trying to hobble the AI startup while he perfects his competitor, xAI.

The company also detailed its version of a timeline of events in a post titled "Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for profit," saying that the Tesla CEO "not only wanted, but actually created a for-profit" structure in 2017.

The emails stand in contrast to Musk's more recent public stance against OpenAI transitioning from a not-for-profit company to a for-profit organization.

Musk did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

In one image of a November 2015 email, Musk wrote to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that the startup's then-non-profit structure "doesn't seem optimal," according to the post.

OpenAI wrote in the blog that the company and Musk both agreed that a for-profit was the next step for the startup in the fall of 2017. But when Musk failed to win majority equity, OpenAI accused him of walking away and saying the company would "fail."

Musk left the OpenAI board in 2018, but his lawyers have said he continued contributing to the company until 2020.

"Now that OpenAI is the leading AI research lab and Elon runs a competing AI company, he's asking the court to stop us from effectively pursuing our mission," OpenAI wrote this week.

Musk announced xAI, his competitor to OpenAI, last year and has since released the Grok chatbot.

OpenAI also published Musk's private emails in March after Musk sued OpenAI and Altman.

In a November 2015 email published earlier this year, Musk said the company should say it was starting with a funding commitment of $1 billion, promising to cover "whatever anyone else doesn't provide."

OpenAI also accused Musk at the time of wanting the startup to merge with Tesla and be its "cash cow."

Musk's most recent filing is his fourth attempt in less than a year to "reframe his claims," OpenAI said in the blog post.

"You can't sue your way to AGI," the company wrote in the blog post. "We have great respect for Elon's accomplishments and gratitude for his early contributions to OpenAI, but he should be competing in the marketplace rather than the courtroom."

• Amazon plans to donate $1 million to Trump's inauguration, the same amount as Meta, per reports.
• The moves show Big Tech's effort to mend relations with Trump, who has been critical of the industry.
• Trump said Thursday he wanted to "get ideas" from Big Tech leaders coming to visit him in Mar-a-Lago.

First Meta, now Amazon — Jeff Bezos' company will also reportedly donate $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration.

The Wall Street Journal reported Amazon would donate the same amount as Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, the latest sign that Big Tech and the president-elect are reconciling.

Trump also told CNBC Thursday that Bezos would visit him "next week," and The Information reported Thursday that Google CEO Sundar Pichai would also travel to meet him.

It comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Trump at the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago resort for Thanksgiving Eve dinner last month.

″Mark Zuckerberg's been over to see me, and I can tell you, Elon is another and Jeff Bezos is coming up next week, and I want to get ideas from them," Trump told CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday.

Spokespeople for Amazon and Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

Meta confirmed to the Journal Wednesday its $1 million donation to the president-elect's inaugural fund. Amazon confirmed its donation to the Financial Times.

The meetings and donations point to a shift in the relationship between tech leaders and Trump, who had previously been critical of them. Trump has previously accused Zuckerberg and Bezos of bias against his administration, among other criticisms.

In previous years, Bezos and Trump have clashed. During his first campaign and term, Trump would take shots at Amazon, once stating that the company was doing "great damage to tax-paying retailers."

Bezos has previously criticized Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, including the president-elect's call at the time to imprison Hilary Clinton.

As Trump took office in 2017, Amazon donated about $58,000 to Trump's inauguration — much less than what other tech companies donated at the time, according to the Journal.

Zuckerberg has criticized Trump's violent remarks on Facebook. In 2021, the social media platform took the extraordinary step of deplatforming Trump after he praised January 6 rioters.

Both tech leaders have appeared to warm up to Trump in recent months.

The Amazon tycoon said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit last week that he's "actually very optimistic" about a second Trump term, saying that Trump has likely "grown in the last eight years" and that he was encouraged by the president-elect's focus on deregulation.

"He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help do that, I'm going to help him," Bezos said.

Zuckerberg also appears to be mending his relationship with the president-elect, despite Trump threatening to throw the Meta CEO in prison as recently as July.

After the first assassination attempt against Trump, Zuckerberg called the president-elect a "badass" but stopped short of endorsing him during a Bloomberg interview.

On November 6, Zuckerberg was among the CEOs congratulating Trump's election victory.

"Looking forward to working with you and your administration," Zuckerberg wrote in a Threads post.

• Luigi Mangione has been charged with murder in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's killing.
• Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy family, left an online trail before his arrest.
• He founded an app, talked about AI on X, and read the Unabomber Manifesto.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate charged with murder in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has a vast online trail.

Police arrested Mangione in Pennsylvania on December 9. He initially faced local gun and forgery charges. He's expected to be extradited to New York.

New York court documents show that in addition to one count of murder, he also faces two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a firearm.

Here's what to know about Mangione.

Mangione attended elite schools

Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.

He achieved a Bachelor of Science in engineering with a major in computer science and a minor in mathematics. He also received a Master of Science in engineering the same year with a major in computer and information science, a university spokesperson told Business Insider.

Before that, he attended Gilman School, an elite all-boys preparatory school in Baltimore. His yearbook entry, obtained by BI, says he was involved in robotics and Model United Nations.

In his valedictorian speech, Mangione praised classmates for "challenging the world" and thanked parents for sending their children to the fee-paying school, which he described as "far from a small financial investment."

He favorably reviewed the Unabomber Manifesto

On Goodreads, Mangione reviewed Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" book, also known as The Unabomber Manifesto, in early 2024. He gave it four out of five stars.

"He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people," Mangione wrote. "While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary."

Mangione's review of the manifesto also quoted another online comment about the book, which appears to have originated on Reddit, praising the use of violence "when all other forms of communication fail."

"'Violence never solved anything' is a statement uttered by cowards and predators,'" Mangione quoted.

He founded an app and worked in tech

In 2015, while in high school, Mangione founded a company called AppRoar Studios. AppRoar released an iPhone game called "Pivot Plane" that's no longer available, but a reviewer in 2015 said it was "a fun little arcade game brought to you by 3 high school juniors."

He lived in a co-living space in Hawaii as recently as 2023.

He posed for photos indicating he participated in Greek life at the University of Pennsylvania.

The fraternity chapter represented in his photos couldn't be reached for comment.

A blog post on the University of Pennsylvania's website that was removed on December 9 said he cofounded a video game design club there.

Stephen Lane, a professor of video game design at the Ivy League university who didn't advise the club, told BI that "the fact he took the initiative and started something from nothing, that means at least in the context of Penn, that's a pretty good thing." He added, however, that Thompson's shooting was "obviously not a good thing."

Mangione's LinkedIn page says he worked as a data engineer at the vehicle shopping company TrueCar starting in 2020.

A TrueCar spokesperson told BI that Mangione hadn't worked for the company since 2023.

Online breadcrumbs and roommate say he dealt with back pain

At the top of Mangione's profile on X — formerly Twitter — is a triptych of three images: a photo of himself, smiling, shirtless on a mountain ridge; a Pokémon; and an X-ray with four pins or screws visible in the lower back.

The Pokémon featured in his cover image is Breloom, which has special healing abilities in the games.

Some of the books reviewed on Mangione's Goodreads account are related to health and healing back pain, including "Back Mechanic: The Secrets to a Healthy Spine Your Doctor Isn't Telling You" and "Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery."

R.J. Martin, the founder of the co-living space in Hawaii, told the Honolulu Civil Beat that Mangione had suffered back pain from a misaligned vertebra that was pinching his spinal cord.

Martin told CNN that after leaving Hawaii, Mangione texted him to say he'd undergone surgery and sent him X-rays.

"It looked heinous, with just, giant screws going into his spine," Martin told the outlet.

It's not immediately clear whether the surgery was related to UnitedHealthcare.

Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for the co-living space founder, told The Wall Street Journal that Mangione stopped replying to texts about six months ago and "sort of disappeared."

A YouTube spokesperson said that the platform had terminated Mangione's three accounts, adding that they had not been active for about seven months.

A senior police official told NBC New York on December 12 that Magione was never a UnitedHealthcare client and may have targeted Thompson because of the insurer's large size and outsize power. That same day, The Wall Street Journal reported that a company spokesperson said Magione was not a client.

Mangione was interested in AI

On his X account, Mangione posted and amplified posts about technological advances such as artificial intelligence. He also posted about fitness and healthy living.

He frequently reposted posts by the writer Tim Urban and the commentator Jonathan Haidt about the promise and perils of technology.

He also appeared to be a fan of Michael Pollan, known for his writing about food, ethics, and lab-grown meat.

On Goodreads, he praised Urban's book "What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies," describing it as "one of the most important philosophical texts of the early 21st century."

Urban posted to X on December 9: "Very much not the point of the book."

He was previously accused of trespassing

Before his arrest, Mangione had at least one encounter with the legal system. Hawaiian court records indicate that in 2023, he was accused of entering a forbidden area of a state park.

Mangione appears to have paid a $100 fine to resolve the matter.

Mangione comes from a wealthy and influential Baltimore family

Mangione is one of 37 grandchildren of the late Nick Mangione Sr., a prominent multimillionaire real-estate developer in Baltimore who died in 2008, The Baltimore Banner reported. Nick Mangione Sr. had 10 children, including Louis Mangione, Luigi Mangione's father.

Members of the Mangione family own the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Hayfields Country Club in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

One of Luigi Mangione's cousins is the Republican Maryland state legislator Nino Mangione, the Associated Press reported.

Representatives for Nino Mangione's office, in a statement to BI, declined to comment on the news of Luigi Mangione's arrest.

"Unfortunately, we cannot comment on news reports regarding Luigi Mangione," the statement read. "We only know what we have read in the media. Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest. We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news."

The Mangione family has donated more than $1 million to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where all of Nick Mangione Sr.'s grandkids, including Luigi Mangione, were born, the Banner reported.

A public filing from 2022 for the nonprofit Mangione Family Foundation lists Louis Mangione as vice president.

He was arrested while on his laptop at a McDonald's, the police said

When the police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, responded to a McDonald's after a call about a suspicious person, they found Mangione sitting at a table looking at a silver laptop and wearing a blue medical mask, a criminal complaint said.

The complaint said that when asked for identification, Mangione gave police officers a New Jersey driver's license with the name "Mark Rosario."

When an officer asked Mangione whether he'd been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the complaint said.

It added that Mangione correctly identified himself after officers told him he could be arrested for lying about his identity.

When asked why he lied, Mangione replied, "I clearly shouldn't have," the complaint said.

His motive is still not known, but police are analyzing his so-called manifesto

An internal NYPD report obtained by The New York Times said Mangione "likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices."

Mangione "appeared to view the targeted killing of the company's highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and 'power games,' asserting in his note he is the 'first to face it with such brutal honesty,'" according to the NYPD report by the department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, the Times reported.

Moments before the December 10 extradition hearing began, Mangione, handcuffed and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, shouted out to the press as Pennsylvania police escorted him into the courthouse.

Mangione yelled out something partially unintelligible, saying something was "completely out of touch" and "an insult to the American people." He also shouted that something was a "lived experience" as a group of officers led him into the courthouse.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told NBC New York that Mangione had prior knowledge that UnitedHealthcare would be having its annual conference in New York City.

Mangione has retained a high-profile New York attorney

Thomas Dickey emerged as Mangione's attorney in Pennsylvania after his arrest in Altoona on December 9.

During a December 10 hearing at Pennsylvania's Blair County Courthouse, Dickey told the judge that Mangione was contesting his extradition to New York City.

Dickey later told reporters that Mangione would plead not guilty to all the charges in Pennsylvania. During an interview with CNN, Dickey said he expected Mangione to plead not guilty to the second-degree murder charge in New York and that he hadn't seen evidence that authorities "have the right guy."

Karen Friedman Agnifilo will represent Mangione in New York, a representative for Agnifilo Intrater LLP confirmed to Business Insider on Sunday.

Friedman Agnifilo worked as the chief assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office from 2014 to 2021. She pivoted to private practice in 2021.

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