• The US Navy dispatched three of its destroyers to support the military's southern border mission.
• USS Stockdale's captain explained to BI that his warship is an ideal platform for this mission.
• He said the Stockdale brings high-end comms and sensors to the table, along with an embarked helicopter.

The captain of one of three US Navy destroyers that deployed this spring to support the military's southern border mission after spending months battling the Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea says his warship was well-suited to both assignments.

Amid questions of whether the southern border deployments were overkill, the military acknowledged that it was "a bit unique to deploy a capability of this level for this mission set." But it sent an unmistakable message.

Unlike the Red Sea mission, at the southern border, the value of these warfighting ships isn't as much the firepower they bring to a potential fight but rather the capabilities that other vessels lack, such as robust communications and sensor suites, and endurance.

Cdr. Jacob Beckelhymer, the commanding officer of USS Stockdale, told Business Insider that the maritime security missions are familiar taskings and "part of the broad set of things that destroyers do."

The Stockdale just recently returned to its homeport in San Diego after spending weeks deployed off the coast of southern California in support of US military operations at the southern border.

Transnational criminal operations coming out of Mexico were at the top of the US intelligence community's 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, and the Trump administration has made cracking down on maritime criminal activity, from illegal immigration to human and drug trafficking, priorities.

In addition to thousands of military personnel, the administration has dispatched a range of military assets to the border area, including the three destroyers that battled the Houthis last year.

The Stockdale, like USS Spruance and USS Gravely, had an embarked US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment for its southern border deployment. These are Coast Guard teams that specialize in law-enforcement operations at sea, such as counterterrorism, counter-piracy, and anti-immigration missions.

Arleigh Burke-class destroyers like the Stockdale are equipped with missile tubes that carry a mix of surface-to-air and land-attack munitions and different guns, such as a five-inch deck gun, machine guns, and a Phalanx Close-In Weapons System.

This extensive loadout was needed to battle the Houthis, as the Stockdale and other Navy warships routinely came under rebel missile and drone attacks. The warships faced a very different threat environment at the southern border than in the Red Sea. Beckelhymer said Stockdale's weapon system was in a "different configuration" since they didn't expect to be shot at. At the southern border, the emphasis was on other capabilities.

"The sensor suite is incredible. My surface radar tracking ability, I think, far exceeds what we normally see, particularly on the smaller Coast Guard cutters," Beckelhymer said. "And then I've also got a much larger team."

He touted the ship's combat information center, a multimission room with many monitors that display maps and radars, as an essential tool for monitoring possible smuggling situations and recommending whether it's worth following up.

As Henry Ziemer, an Americas Program fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, previously wrote, a destroyer has "powerful sensors and electronics that can be assets for detecting small boats and semisubmersibles used for illicit activities."

These ships can also coordinate additional assets, he said, and function as a force multiplier.

Beckelhymer said the MH-60R Seahawk helicopter embarked on the Stockdale provides faster air coverage than relying on something from the shore. The helicopter is equipped with a very capable radar and communications suite and can share real-time data and video feed with the destroyer.

The captain said the Stockdale is also an endurance platform. The ship can "stay on station considerably longer" and carry more fuel and food.

During its deployment, Stockdale served as a command-and-control platform, providing maritime awareness and surveillance to the Coast Guard assets operating in the area. The destroyer played a role in helping them apprehend suspected smuggling vessels, and Beckelhymer's crew saved the lives of mariners who were caught adrift with no food or water on board.

Speaking to the missions that his warship has supported, Beckelhymer said "it's really, really humbling to watch young men and women put to action the things that it takes to operate a destroyer at sea in support of priority missions for two separate fleet commanders."

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This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

• Cloudflare's CEO has issued a stark warning for content creators.
• Matthew Prince said creators could lose out on advertising cash as people turn to AI for search purposes.
• He suggested creators work with tech companies to block AI bots from accessing their work without paying.

The CEO of one of the internet's biggest gatekeepers has warned that content creators are at risk of losing out on subscription and advertising money as people increasingly turn to AI for search purposes.

Matthew Prince, the billionaire cofounder and CEO of cybersecurity giant Cloudflare, told CNBC on Wednesday that creators need to push back as more of their value is captured directly by AI searches.

"I think that the economy is for sure changing," Prince said.

"What's changing is not that fewer people are searching the internet," he continued. "It's that more and more of the answers to Google are being answered right on Google's page."

Creators may miss out on ad views and subscription sign-ups as search engines and AI bots can now provide answers to search queries while sending fewer people to the original source, which Prince said could spell trouble for content producers.

"If you're making money through subscriptions, through advertising, any of the things that content creators are doing today, visitors aren't going to be seeing those ads," he said. "That means it's gonna be much, much harder for you to be a content creator."

Moving forward, Prince suggested that creators should work with tech companies to block AI bots from accessing their work without paying.

"The fuel that runs these AI engines is original content. So that content has to get created in order for these AI engines to work," he said. "What content creators have to do is restrict access to content, create that scarcity, and say, 'you're not going to get my content unless you're actually getting paying me for creating that content.'"

But Prince said there was still some cause for optimism, particularly for those creating "valuable" work.

"Original content that is actually highly valuable is I think going to be more valuable in this future," he said.

The exec has also spoken about what he sees as AI's potential upside for businesses and how the technology can supplement real workers' skills.

"AI has helped us not replace people, but help make people better," Prince told Business Insider in an interview last month, adding that Cloudflare's use of AI was less about replacing teams and more about giving them "superpowers."

• When I got divorced, I was so scared of being alone that I immediately went on the dating sites.
• I jumped into a relationship very quickly without realizing we had different values.
• When that relationship ended, I learned to heal and focus on myself.

It was only six months since my divorce became final that I did something I still regret. I created a Match.com profile.

I was just a week away from turning 40 and newly alone. I was hiding my pain so well that my friend suggested I start online dating. I knew it was a bad idea, but I took her advice anyway.

I quickly got into a relationship with a man when I should have been focusing on myself and my healing post-divorce.

I did not want to face the pain of being alone and divorced

Getting divorced in my early 40s was not in the plan. When it became my reality, I struggled with loneliness. I had been married for almost 16 years and had known my ex-husband for 18 years. The idea of suddenly being alone at night and having no one to share my day with was scary. It also meant having no financial support and having to rely solely on myself for the first time.

Instead of facing it, I buried that pain. I distracted myself by reading the messages from guys on dating apps.

There were too many choices on the apps, and I quickly found out that you don't know a person unless you've gone out with them a few times and learned to ask the right questions. So that's what I did.

I felt I was interviewing and hiring a man to be a boyfriend; it did not feel great. I wanted a more natural way of meeting someone, but with my busy work schedule, long commute, and kids, the apps were the best way to meet someone.

The dating apps were helping to distract me from my pain, but also making me feel even more alone. I knew I needed to get into a relationship and off the apps fast.

I met someone who seemed like the right match

I wanted a nice, kind guy, and I did not care if he was older or younger. I wanted somebody who could be a great friend and show much-needed love and care.

I thought I found someone who fit the bill right after my birthday. He was tall, handsome, and a little bit older.

He portrayed himself as a strong, caring man. He also made me feel safe. He accepted my flaws, weirdness, and sense of humor.

I filled the emptiness in my heart with the occasional dates with him. I felt alive again when I heard his laughter. It was exciting and fun when we spent time together.

But something didn't feel right. We dated for two years, and ultimately, I realized we had different priorities and values. He was not my match; I just started dating him and stayed with him to avoid the cold, empty bed at night after my divorce.

I paid a high price for my wrong move

I made the biggest mistake of looking happy and making my friends believe I was ready for a new relationship after my divorce. The fact is, I was not prepared for a new relationship, not even close.

I was so eager to find a man to walk down the aisle with again, but I made the wrong move. I forgot to find myself first.

It's been 10 years since that relationship ended, and I have since invested money, energy, and time into my spiritual and personal growth. I can now say I am OK with being single as I approach my 50th birthday. I now value the relationship I have with myself.

I understand the allure of using technology to build something better and smarter than us. But in doing so, we must be absolutely sure we are not helping to bring about harm or doom on humanity.

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The poorest kids in the country miss out on the full benefits of the expanded child tax credit in the "big beautiful bill."

Why it matters: The bill now making its way to the Senate provides more tax breaks to higher earners than those at the bottom.

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By the numbers: The Republican bill raises the maximum child tax credit to $2,500 per child from $2,000 for three years.

• 20 million children would not fully benefit from the increase, according to an analysis from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), since their parents don't earn enough income to get the maximum amount.

"A majority of those children get nothing from the proposed expansion," says Kris Cox, director of federal tax policy at the CBPP.

• 17 million children as of now do not receive the full benefit from this tax credit, per the CBPP. None of them will get anything from the expansion.

How it works: Under current law, families need upward of $30,000 a year to receive the full tax credit amount, explains Joe Hughes, senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

• Parents who are poor and don't owe income taxes can only claim up to $1,700 per child, known as the "refundability cap." It's a number which adjusts annually for inflation.
• The new bill didn't raise the refundability cap. Instead, it only increases the maximum that parents, earning less $400,000 a year, can claim.
• A married couple filing jointly would need to earn $48,550 to receive the full tax credit under the new bill, per CBPP estimates. Under current law, a married couple has to earn $36,800.

Zoom out: The new bill widens the gap between what's available to kids in higher income families and those who need help most.

For example: A married couple with two children earning $400,000 a year, the max income allowed to claim the credit, would get an additional $1,000 tax credit.

• A single parent with two children, earning $24,000 a year, would get nothing, Cox explains in a recent Bluesky post.
• The parents who miss out on the full benefit are those working in low-paying jobs like cashiers, home health aids and housekeepers.

Presumably a few of these parents are tipped employees who could benefit from the no-tax-on-tips provision of the bill. However, just as with this the child tax credit, many earn too small an income to benefit.

The other side: The standard defense here is that low-income Americans don't pay very much in taxes. Their tax burden is low, so they shouldn't get the full credit because they don't need the tax relief.

• White House spokesman Kush Desai says wealth inequality decreased after the 2017 tax bill, and the new bill would lock that success in place.
• He adds that it builds on that success "by eliminating taxes on tips and overtime in addition to rewarding American manufacturing with full equipment and factory expensing to turbocharge America's economic resurgence."

Between the lines: This big bill faces big hurdles ahead in the Senate — and the bond market — and it's not clear what will eventually make it through.

The intrigue: The legislation also blocks another 4.5 million children from benefiting from the child tax credit because now to claim it, both parents, if they are filing jointly, must have their own Social Security numbers.

• Under current law, parents who don't have Social Security numbers can claim the credit if their child has one. So, for instance, a parent who is a non-citizen immigrant and files taxes with an ITIN number can claim it.
• Before 2017, any parent filing taxes could claim the credit. But when Congress changed the law in the first Trump tax bill, 1 million citizen children lost out, Cox says.

State of play: The child tax credit provisions are a stark 180 for the House.

• Just last year, the House passed a bill, with 169 Republican votes, that would have made the credit more equitable. (It failed in the Senate.)

The bottom line: An expanded child tax credit benefits a lot of middle and upper-middle class parents, but the poorest don't catch a break.

• President Donald Trump's $5 million "gold card" visa aimed at the rich could face limited demand.
• One analyst said even the wealthy may be reluctant to pay that much as a fee rather than an investment.
• The move appears to have boosted interest in the EB-5 visa program, Henley & Partners said.

In February President Donald Trump announced a $5 million "gold card" visa scheme that would offer green card privileges and a "route to citizenship."

He's suggested that as many as one million people might want to buy one, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said that 250,000 people were "waiting in line" and "willing to pay the $5 million" fee.

This week Lutnick told Axios that a website where potential applicants could register their interest would go live within weeks and that further details would follow.

Dominic Volek, head of private clients at Henley & Partners, an investment migration consultancy, said the scheme was unlikely to generate a rush of applications.

"Their estimations are just simply way off," he told Business Insider. "As a general rule of thumb for wealthy people, they won't spend more than 10% of their liquid net worth on a single discretionary purchase" — whether that's a yacht, a watch, or the right to live in a country.

Volek said that to comfortably afford $5 million, an individual would need at least $50 million in liquid net worth.

"Globally, there's probably only 100,000 to 150,000 people who have that kind of net worth, and the majority are already in the US. And so that leaves you with less than 100,000 people as a potential market," he said.

Even if you're quite wealthy, the idea of handing over $5 million rather than investing it may be a tough sell. Many other countries with citizenship or residence-by-investment programs offer tangible returns, not pure capital outflows.

New Zealand offers residency in exchange for a $2.95 million investment, while Singapore requires a $7.8 million investment.

Tax trouble

"Those were all investments," Volek said. "That's money I put into the stock market, into a business, into a bond, and I get a return."

Another factor is taxation. Unlike many countries, the US taxes citizens — and even green card holders living abroad — on their worldwide income.

"It's not a good place to be from a tax perspective," Volek said. "If the tax treatment is not adjusted, then it will be a massive failure."

Trump's plan has triggered a ripple effect by boosting interest for the more affordable EB-5 immigrant investor visa, which offers green cards for a $1.05 million investment.

"Probably 80% of the prospects we were speaking to immediately called and said, 'Let's start the process. Let's get our petition in,'" Volek said.

According to a recent report from Henley & Partners and global wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth, EB-5 visa enquiries jumped 168% in the first quarter of this year compared to the last quarter of 2024.

By April, enquiries about the EB-5 program had already reached nearly 50% of 2024's total, the firm said.

Lutnick has suggested that the gold card visa could replace the EB-5 program.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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