• The war in Ukraine has given rise to explosive-packed drones modified with fiber-optic cables.
• These drones are dangerous, as they can't be jammed with electronic warfare and are harder to detect.
• But one Ukrainian company is developing a solution so front-line soldiers can find the drones.

Russian forces are using explosive-packed drones connected to their operators by fiber-optic cables to deliver unjammable precision strikes on Ukrainian troops and military equipment, and Kyiv is looking for a fix to fight back.

Fiber-optic drones have been increasingly appearing in combat over about the last year, and they're a challenge. These drones are dangerous because they can't be jammed with traditional electronic warfare and are difficult to defend against, highlighting the need for a solution.

The drones are "a real problem" because "we cannot detect and intercept them" electronically, Yuriy, a major in an electronic-warfare unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, told Business Insider. "If we can see, we can fight."

The problem is one that the defense industry is looking into closely. Kara Dag, for instance, is an American-Ukrainian technology company that's developing software and hardware to defend against Russian drones for the military and working on a solution, but it's still early days.

The company's chief technology officer, who goes by the pseudonym John for security purposes, said the ongoing conflict is a "war of drones." He told BI Ukraine had managed this fight well with jamming techniques, but Russia has found ways to slip past some of its defenses.

Fiber-optic drones, which Russia appears to have started flying into battle last spring, are first-person view, or FPV, drones, but rather than rely on a signal connection, they are wired with cables that preserve a stable connection. As a result, these drones are resistant to electronic warfare, like radio frequency jammers, and produce high-quality video transmissions.

In August, combat footage from Russian fiber-optic drones began to circulate, indicating a more lasting presence on the battlefield. Now, both militaries are using these drones.

Fiber-optic drones are highly dangerous, John said, as they can fly in tunnels, close to the ground, through valleys, and in other areas where other drones might lose connection with their operators. They are also tough to detect because they don't emit any radio signals.

Russia can use these drones to destroy Ukrainian armored vehicles and study its defensive positions, he said. Since they don't have bandwidth problems, these drones "can transmit very high-quality picture and they literally see everything."

The drones aren't without their disadvantages, though. Yuriy shared that the fiber-optic drones are slower than the untethered FPV drones and unable to make sharp changes in direction. He said that Russia does not have too many of these drones, either, nor does it use them in every direction of the front lines. But where they are used, they're a problem.

Because jamming doesn't work on fiber-optic drones, there are efforts underway to explore other options for stopping these systems, such as audio and visual detection. But this kind of technology can be expensive and hard to manufacture.

John said that the company has developed a low-cost solution to find fiber-optic drones. One element of this system is an array of dozens of microphones that can be focused on one point in the sky to listen for any nearby drones. The second element is an unfocused infrared laser that highlights any object in a certain area of the sky while a camera records any reflected light coming back.

It's a single device that can be placed around a kilometer from troop positions. John said the device is in lab testing, and the next step is to deploy it in real combat conditions on the front lines next month. The plan is to eventually produce several thousand of these devices every month.

The introduction of fiber-optic drones into battle — and Ukraine's subsequent efforts to counter them — underscores how both Moscow and Kyiv are constantly trying to innovate with uncrewed systems before the enemy can adapt, a trend that has been evident throughout the war.

In a previous interview with BI, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, described the technology and drone race playing out in this fight as a "cat-and-mouse game." He said that Kyiv is trying to stay several steps ahead of Moscow at all times.

The Ukrainian military said last month that it was testing fiber-optic drones, adding that "FPV drones with this technology are becoming a big problem for the enemy on the front line."

On Tuesday, a Ukrainian government platform that facilitates innovation within the country's defense industry shared new footage of fiber-optic drone demonstrations on social media. Russia, if it's not already, may soon find itself working to counter these new drones as well.

• While struggling with parenting duties, Babette Lockefeer considered quitting her business.
• Her husband didn't agree with her decision to stop work and be a stay-at-home mom.
• Lockefeer was angry at first but later realized she wouldn't be happy if she wasn't working.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Babette Lockefeer, 35, from the Netherlands, about navigating motherhood alongside her career. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Four months after my second child was born, I wasn't living life as I'd envisioned it.

I was in the midst of a big project for my business as a leadership and team facilitator and struggling to balance my career and motherhood. I felt overwhelmed, stressed, and sleep-deprived.

In the summer of 2021, I told my husband I wanted to quit the business. He immediately said no.

At first, I was angry. I'd always valued doing important work and my career, and I was willing to stop doing that for our family, but felt he wasn't letting me.

Over time, I realized he was right: I wouldn't have been happy as a stay-at-home mom. Talking with my husband and processing my feelings helped me realize that being a mother wasn't a detriment to my career. I had to deal with some insecurities and make some changes at home to understand I could do both.

I was always a high achiever at work

I started my career in 2014 as a consultant at McKinsey. I spent two and a half years there, but in 2016, I joined Alibaba as a global leadership associate. I spent around half a year in their Dutch office, helping Dutch e-commerce players connect to the Chinese market.

In the summer of 2017, my husband, who I'd met as a student, and I moved to China, and I worked for Alibaba in Hangzhou.

I really enjoyed it. We had monthly trainings where we learned more about China, e-commerce, and leadership. The training made me realize that my real interests lay in leadership development. In 2018, I left Alibaba and started my own business in the leadership space, TheoryY.

I was also pregnant with my first child at that time. Five months after his birth, in December 2019, we decided to leave China and move back to the Netherlands.

Soon after we returned, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. I got pregnant again and had a second child in February 2021. Because of the pandemic, it was difficult to have family assistance with childcare or access to day care.

Around 10 weeks after giving birth, I started a new project with my business after being referred to a new client. Our newborn wasn't fond of sleeping, so we had a lot of broken nights.

For me, motherhood was about having a healthy attachment with my children, being present, and attending to all of their needs.

This was impossible to achieve all the time. I was too tired, overwhelmed, and full of doubt. With hindsight, I still did a good job as a mother, but I'd internalized the perfect mother myth.

Society's picture of an ideal mother is in direct conflict with that of an ideal employee. The employee is always available and wants to go the extra mile, but the mom also needs to be fully committed and always have the space to attend to her children's needs.

I was always a high achiever at work, but now, I had less time and energy to go the extra mile. I was working fewer hours than before having children, but when I was with my kids I wasn't always present because I was thinking about work. I felt like I wasn't doing a good job on the work front or the motherhood front.

My husband didn't think quitting would make me happy

My husband worked full-time. He was very involved as a dad. When our second child was born, he took some parental leave, spread across the year, plus six weeks of birth leave. But because I was self-employed and had more flexibility, I was always picking up things that fell off the wagon — which was a lot of the time during COVID.

I would spread my hours around, sometimes working in the evenings so I could still do the tasks I was hired to do. We never had a consistent schedule, and I felt like I was firefighting. Whenever a child was ill or had a doctor's appointment, the mental load was predominantly on my shoulders.

When I spoke to my husband about quitting, he said he didn't think it was the right decision. He also wanted to spend time with our kids and thought it wasn't fair if he was the sole breadwinning parent.

He also said he didn't think I'd be happy as a stay-at-home mom. I disagreed, saying I wasn't happy as it stood.

I spoke with my husband, processed my feelings and decided to continue working

From our first conversation, it was clear we weren't aligned, so we continued to discuss it.

I shared that I felt I was undervalued and wasn't appreciated by him unless I was achieving something professionally. He told me he still appreciated me now that I was a mom and wasn't on a steep career trajectory at the time.

I decided to continue working, but we also changed some practical things about our household. When our third child was born in July 2023, my husband was granted 26 weeks of parental leave by his new company, and he took all of it, taking full end-to-end responsibility for the household for the first time.

It allowed me to trust him fully with the kids and family chores going forward, so our dynamic has become more equal. We don't split things 50-50 all the time, but regularly discuss how best to divide responsibilities between us.

Looking back, I'm grateful that my husband could see that, in the long term, it wasn't a good idea for me to quit working. I need the intellectual stimulation that comes from a job, and my work fills me with the energy to show up as the mom and partner I want to be.

Do you have a story about balancing parenting with your career? Email Charissa Cheong at [email protected]

• Ultra-processed foods are associated with all kinds of poor health outcomes.
• But they're probably not all equally bad.
• An ongoing study suggests adding more high-volume foods into your ultra-processed diet could help.

It's no secret that ultra-processed foods aren't the greatest for our health.

"What we're trying to figure out is, very specifically, what is it about ultra-processed foods that seems to drive over-consumption and weight gain?" metabolism researcher Kevin Hall recently told Business Insider.

Hall works at the National Institutes of Health, where he is conducting an unusual experiment. He brings people into a tightly controlled food lab for one month, and tests out how four different diets — one unprocessed, and three ultra-processed, but all with the same levels of key nutrients — impact people's hunger, fullness, calorie consumption, weight gain, and fat loss.

While his study is still ongoing, he's been sharing some initial results with colleagues in the US and in Europe.

The early findings offer some hints about why UPFs can not only lead to weight gain but also make it hard to dump fat. The study is also showing that simple tweaks could make a huge difference. Perhaps, Hall says, you don't need to cut out ultra-processed products to have a satisfying, relatively healthy plate of food.

On an ultra-processed diet, patients gained 2 lbs a week

When Hall's patients switched diets, their calorie intake shifted dramatically.

During their week of unprocessed meals, full of fresh vegetables, beans, legumes, and whole grains, participants ate an average of 2,700 calories per day. They also tended to lose a little weight, about a pound of fat.

That changed when they switched to an 80% ultra-processed diet. Same amount of food offered, same levels of sugar, salt, fat, carbs, protein, and fiber on the plate.

The patients ended up consuming more food to achieve the same level of fullness — ingesting about 3,700 calories per day on average. On ultra-processed foods, the patients' weight shot up by over two pounds in a single week.

The results, while still preliminary, are even more striking than the last experiment Hall did like this, when patients ate 500 extra calories per day on ultra-processed diets.

People might not even feel like they're eating more when they consume those ultra-processed meals. Generally speaking, each bite of ultra-processed food is far more calorie-dense than a homemade meal.

Adding moisture made ultra-processed meals 'healthier'

Cutting out ultra-processed foods isn't realistic in the US, Hall said. But what if you could make a Western diet less bad?

Hoping to reduce people's weight gain and improve satiety with fewer calories, Hall (and his team of clinical chefs) devised two new diets to test this time.

Both diets were 80% ultra-processed but with some crucial adjustments.

In the first new diet, researchers lowered the amount of what are called "hyper-palatable foods" — foods that combine sugar, salt, and fat in ways that aren't typically seen in nature (think: rich, salty ice cream, a donut, or veggies in cream sauce).

Addiction researcher Tera Fazzino coined the term "hyper-palatable" as a way to collect data on the irresistibility of junk food. She hypothesizes that hyper-palatable ultra-processed foods might mess with our minds, and drive people to eat more than they would otherwise.

But that didn't ring true in Hall's new study. The patients who cut out hyper-palatable foods only saved themselves 200 calories a day, and gained over 1 lb in a week.

In the second diet, the chefs lowered the amount of hyper-palatable foods again, but also upped the moisture of people's ultra-processed meals, making them less energy-dense. Often, this meant adding more high-volume, non-starchy vegetables like a side salad to the ultra-processed plate.

"Basically, add very low-calorie mass," Hall told BI. "That typically is non-starchy vegetables."

On an ultra-processed diet with fewer energy-dense foods and less hyper-palatable items, people lost about a pound in one week — just like on the unprocessed diet. They also consumed about 830 fewer calories per day, very close to the 1,000 fewer calories consumed on the unprocessed diet.

"I thought, OK, gosh, we've solved this problem, this is great," Hall said during a presentation at Imperial College London in November, when he first revealed the new results.

There was a catch, though.

"A little bit of a monkey wrench was thrown in because we decided to look at the body composition changes," Hall said.

The nut we haven't cracked: Achieving the right kind of weight-loss

Only people on the 100% unprocessed diet lost body fat.

On the "healthier" ultra-processed diet, people lost about a pound of weight in a week, but it was coming from fat-free mass. That means muscle, bone, tissue, or maybe just water weight.

Hall is not yet sure why this is happening, but he says it could have to do with the "digestability" of the ultra-processed foods — in other words, how they are handled inside our bodies, compared to whole foods.

"If we can learn what those mechanisms are, then the really smart people who are ingenious food technologists and scientists can maybe re-engineer some of these foods," he told BI.

"There's so many narratives and hypotheses that sound reasonable, but until you actually do the studies to test that, then you don't know."

5 simple ways to make your meals healthier today

While it's still too early to say for sure exactly why people eat more calories and store more fat on ultra-processed diets, Hall says we can already begin to use his early findings to make some educated guesses.

Here are some tips:

• Bulk up a meal, any meal, by adding some vegetables to your plate. Could be salad. Could be a side of cooked broccoli or some carrots. They don't have to be fresh. Frozen is also just fine.

• Try some beans. You could whip up a hearty longevity-friendly minestrone soup, but if you don't have the time even ultra-processed refried beans are a decent option.

• Pick out whole grains, like oatmeal, brown rice, and quinoa.

• Pay attention to how much added sugar is in items like yogurt, granola, and salad dressing, and try to limit how much of it you consume. (Olive oil makes a great dressing, and it's filled with healthy fats and beneficial plant compounds.)

• Prioritize the satiating, nutrient-rich foods we know are associated with good health, like eggs (even the ultra-processed liquid kind might be fine).

"It's possible that there's some weird additive or some ingredient in that food that is not good for you," Hall said. "We don't have the science on that yet, but applying what we do know, I think you can still make educated choices."

• My son's principal told me he called a girl ugly on several occasions.
• As a mother and leadership coach, I worried I failed my son.
• Instead of judging him and myself, I taught him the power of words.

"Your son has been calling a girl ugly — repeatedly."

I froze. My stomach dropped. The words from the school principal felt surreal. My 13-year-old had called someone ugly. And not just once, but repeatedly?

I was shocked, but more than that, I was terrified. I felt like a failure.

I'm a leadership coach. I work with executives on empathy, accountability, and understanding, yet here I was, faced with the reality that I might have failed my own child.

The questions swirled. How did this happen? Did I not teach him better than this? Where did I go wrong?

At that moment, something clicked: leadership principles aren't just for the boardroom; they're for everyday life. Parenting is leadership, too. I had to approach this challenge with the same mindset I used to guide executives.

I decided not to judge my son, so I asked him questions instead

At first, my emotions boiled over. I wanted to tell my son how disappointed I was and to remind him of all the lessons we've discussed: kindness, respect, empathy. But I knew that simply reacting emotionally wouldn't help him grow.

Effective leaders don't react with anger or judgment. Instead, they choose a path of inquiry and growth. It's about creating a space where accountability happens without shame.

So, instead of scolding him, I asked him questions like: "Why do you think that happened?" and "What do you think the impact was?"

My son's answer surprised me. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone on purpose. "I was just trying to be funny," he said. "I wanted to fit in with my friends."

This moment hit me hard. I realized that he wasn't trying to be cruel; he was trying to make his friends laugh, to impress them.

When I took a step back to collect myself, a memory surfaced: I called a girl ugly in the eighth grade. I hadn't thought about that moment in years, but there it was — sharp, vivid, and undeniable. I didn't say it because I believed it. I said it to fit in, to feel better about myself, and to cave to the pressure around me.

Instead of scolding, I told him about the time I called a girl ugly. I used my vulnerability to help him see that everyone makes mistakes. This wasn't about labeling him a bad person but about helping him understand the harm in his actions.

"I know you're not a mean person," I said gently, "but you did a mean thing."

This conversation was about making him think, making him feel what the other person felt. I wanted him to understand the power of his words and begin to reflect on how to repair the situation.

I then encouraged my son to apologize — not just with words, but with sincerity. We practiced it together. I asked him to think about how the girl might have felt and what she might have been thinking when he said those words.

My son learned his lesson once he apologized

When the time came, his apology was heartfelt. But the girl's response was even more powerful.

"I'm OK with jokes," she said, "but I'm not OK when they're about my body or my looks."

It was a moment of leadership — on her part, on his part, and on mine.

At that moment, I felt something shift in my son. He understood that words have power — not just in the moment they're spoken, but in their lasting impact on someone's self-worth.

I've been a leadership coach long enough to know that people don't always behave as expected. Sometimes, good people do bad things, and even the most well-intentioned individuals make mistakes.

It's easy to react with judgment, to label someone's behavior as unforgivable. But true leadership is about offering grace and space for growth.

The key to this experience was replacing judgment with curiosity

When I first heard what my son had done, my first instinct was to judge him harshly. But judgment doesn't foster growth; it stifles it.

By embracing curiosity, I was able to ask the right questions — questions that led to reflection rather than defensiveness. By doing so, we had a real conversation about empathy, self-awareness, and becoming a better person.

This experience reminded me that we parents are not raising our children to avoid mistakes. We're raising them to learn from those mistakes and grow our understanding of ourselves and others.

Parenting is no different from leadership. The same principles we use to guide executives, employees, and teams can — and should — be applied to how we raise our children. By embracing curiosity, modeling accountability, and leading with compassion, we teach not just by our words but by our actions.

• When I saw the Los Angeles fires creep toward my house, I knew I had to pack an emergency bag fast.
• I grabbed the essentials, but then I remembered I needed to take photos of my birth mother with me.
• That's when I learned nothing I've ever purchased is as important to me as I thought.

It's amazing what you pack when a fire rages five blocks from the home you've lived in for 24 years and raised your kids in. It's amazing what you decide — in those panicked moments — is most valuable.

My daughter, 26, lives at home, and her friends, who evacuated from the latest fire in Hollywood, came to stay with us. We live in the flats of the San Fernando Valley. Wildfire danger is rare, and the same goes for floods and mudslides. That's why, 24 years ago, we chose this leafy cul-de-sac.

Like all Angelenos, I've spent the last few days scared and anxious, checking in with friends and watching communities and beloved institutions burn to the ground. I've heard from friends who've lost everything. A lifetime turned to ash.

At least everyone is safe, I kept telling myself. I've been coping as best I can, alternating between watching the news and attempting to dissociate with "Downton Abbey."

But one night this week, my daughter ran into my room and told me to turn on the news. There was a fire just blocks away. We grabbed our coats, ran outside, walked a block, and saw the flames on the nearby hillside. Families emerged from houses and buildings, carrying all they could manage, and rushed to their cars.

"What should we do?" my daughter asked.

I stood nearly catatonic. "I don't know. I just don't know."

We watched the Los Angeles fire department make water drops and watched more neighbors, stricken with fear, run to their cars. We decided to get back home and quickly pack the car.

I first struggled to find what was most valuable to me

I grabbed jewelry, passports, jugs of water, and the emergency earthquake kit my husband insists we keep updated. I packed underwear, toothpaste, and random toiletries as if hyaluronic acid was essential to my survival. My daughter carried bags of dog food and her favorite clothes. I then watched her take a giant plastic bin from the garage.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Pictures," she replied.

Suddenly, everything stopped — the noise, the fear, the rushing. Only one thing mattered: finding the photographs of my birth mother.

My birth mother and I never met, but I needed her in this emergency

I was adopted at three months old, and my records were sealed. At 31, after the birth of my daughter, I found my birth mother via a copy of my original birth certificate held in the New York Public Library. She had already died — in 1995, one day before my 27th birthday, before I found her, before I could tell I was OK, and before I could tell her that I understood.

After a decadeslong search, I found her husband (not my father), Andrew. In 2022, I met Andrew in Paris. After lunch and wine, he handed me a canvas bag and said, "This is for you."

Slowly, meticulously, I took out photograph after photograph — aged and loved — and contemplated the face, expression, and fabulous style of my first mother.

When I came home from Paris, I carefully laid out each picture on my hotel bed — some more than 40 years old — and snapped photos of them with my phone. I knew I needed a digital archive, but nothing could replace holding the images in my hand, touching her in the only way allowed. I then put the bag of photos in a box I kept under my bed.

I took the photos of Gloria with me, not fully knowing how much I valued them

My daughter shouted to me, "Everything I want is in my car!"

I let her know I was almost ready. Frantic to find the pictures of Gloria, I rifled through storage bags, and then I remembered the box. It was right there under the bed — below where my head rests each night.

I reached, retrieved it, and opened it. The bag of Gloria's photographs was safely inside. Hurry. I rushed to my car, placed the box beside my go bag, and hugged my daughter. We were ready. We were safe. And my first mother was with me — like she always is.

In the end, thanks to brave firefighters and water drops, we didn't need to evacuate. But the lesson of those frenzied moments will stay with me forever. Nothing I've ever purchased is as important to me as I thought.

• This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Happy Saturday! Trying to pick a diet for 2025? Sometimes, it's best to keep it simple. That's what Jennifer Aniston does with her 80/20 rule, which is about eating healthy most of the time with some room for leniency.

On the agenda:

• The year's must-attend events for the world's wealthiest people.
• Netflix could finally win a best picture Oscar — right when it doesn't need one.
• A top nutrition scientist shares how to increase your fiber intake while still meeting your protein goals.
• The pressure to be a perfect parent now extends to childbirth.

But first: Throw it away. Seriously.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here.

This week's dispatch

The art of decluttering

It's my favorite time of year: After Santa drops off all his presents, my house is no longer recognizable — but I have a plan for that. It's time to harness my inner Marie Kondo and attempt to reorganize my home.

Before the holidays, I had already started intentionally throwing away items I hadn't used for months. Even the kids' toy basket (OK, fine, baskets) was touched by my decluttering bug. If anything was broken, it went into the trash bag. Don't worry; my 2- and 5-year-old didn't shed a tear.

I'm now moving my way from forgotten closet to forgotten closet, finding things I need and throwing away things that are no longer useful to me and my family.

Even though millennials have a reputation for being minimalists, the truth is we've also bought into the consumerism that makes America what it is, writes journalist Kelli María Korducki. "Millennials haven't been minimalists in years. In fact, we may have never been minimalists at all," she says.

For some, decluttering their physical space may not be enough; their digital lives may also need some tidying up. That's what writer Theresa Sam Houghton did after she realized bookmarking apps and unplayed podcast episodes were clogging up her smartphone. She writes that she's now "developed a weekly routine that helps me reign in digital clutter on a regular basis."

Are you convinced yet? If not, read this to see how decluttering helped one couple eliminate clutter and $32,000 worth of credit-card debt.

Billionaires' busy social calendar

The billionaire population is sparse, but birds of a feather tend to flock their private jets together. That is, you can typically find them all in the same place.

At the beginning of the year, they descend en masse to Switzerland for the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos. In February, you can spot them at the Super Bowl. Every July they head to a small town in Idaho for the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, also known as billionaire summer camp.

Where the wealthy mingle.

Netflix on top

If the streamer's success at the Golden Globes is any indication, 2025 could be the year that Netflix finally wins best picture at the Academy Awards. But it doesn't need to.

After spending millions of dollars on best picture campaigns in past years, Netflix has cemented its place in Hollywood as the definitive leader in the streaming wars. With its attention in other areas — like its live sports push — a best picture nod for "Emilia Perez" would be a nice addition, but not a necessary one.

The Oscars extra credit.

Also read:

• The best-dressed celebrities at the 2025 Golden Globes
• Timothée Chalamet and Glen Powell took their lookalikes to the Golden Globes. Fans hope it's the end of doppelganger contests.

You probably aren't eating enough fiber

Grocery stores are filling shelves with high-protein versions of food, but top nutrition scientist Tim Spector said people who want to improve their diet should focus on consuming more fiber than protein. It's great for gut health and can ease constipation, among many other things.

The US Department of Agriculture's Dietary Guidelines for Americans for 2020 to 2025 found that more than 90% of women and 97% of men in the US don't meet the recommended intake of dietary fiber. Spector shared tips for eating enough fiber while also hitting your daily protein target.

More fiber, please.

Also read:

• A dietitian said eating high-fiber and fermented foods can improve gut health and boost energy in the winter. Here are her favorite recipes.

Everyone is suddenly obsessed with optimizing childbirth

When scrolling through social media as a pregnant person, you're often inundated with a million ways you can make the most of the birth experience. Plus, there's a growing industry of birthing influencers marketing their preferred birthing styles — from natural to ecstatic births — through sponsored posts, consulting services, and online courses.

While much of the talk centered on optimizing birth is well-meaning, how we give birth — or rather, how we think we'll give birth — has become the latest way we define, and judge, ourselves as parents.

The 'good birth' myth.

Also read:

• I wanted my child to be happy. To do so, I need to let go of my perfectionism.

What we're watching this weekend

• "The Traitors": Season 3 of the Emmy-winning competition series premieres on Peacock this week, with Britney Spears' ex-husband, Zac Efron's brother, and a former "Bachelorette" star among the new cast.
• "The Curious Case of Natalia Grace": Max is now streaming the final chapter of the ID docuseries about a Ukrainian orphan whose adoptive parents accused her of being an adult secretly posing as a child.
• "American Primeval": "Friday Night Lights" star Taylor Kitsch is a standout in Netflix's answer to "Yellowstone," a bloody and violent new drama set in the early days of the American West.

See the full list

What to shop

• Beat the cold: There's nothing like a bone-chilling gust of wind to remind you that your jacket needs replacing. Check out our guides to the best men's parkas for extreme cold and the best winter coats and jackets for men.
• Skill building: Get a leg up at work and learn new skills with a Coursera Plus annual subscription, which is 50% off right now. The deal offers access to thousands of classes from verified providers like Google, Microsoft, and IBM.
• RTO, but make it comfy: Just because you're back in the office doesn't mean you have to be uncomfortable. These are our favorite stretchy work pants for women that feel like sweatpants but look professional.

More of this week's top reads:

• 2025 TV shows we're most excited about, from the return of 'Stranger Things' to the new 'Game of Thrones' prequel.
• Norovirus cases are spiking across the US this winter. Here's why — and what you need to know to protect yourself.
• Why are mocktails so expensive?
• Review: I ate at Louis Vuitton's new café and while I enjoyed 'luxury snacking,' it's not a place I'm rushing to revisit.
• Brooke Shields says she's happier than ever with herself at 59. Here are 3 lessons she's learned about aging well.
• A glass of milk's worth of calcium has been linked to lower colorectal cancer risk. Here are 6 foods you might not know contain the mineral.
• 9 luxurious status symbols you might be tempted to buy in 2025.

The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York City. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York.

• Zenia Olivares has been customizing her New Jersey home for the last two years.
• She decided to add a partial wall to her open-concept living room to break up the space.
• Olivares said the new wall made the area more functional and aesthetically pleasing.

Zenia Olivares wasn't a fan of the shape of her living room when she bought her home two years ago.

Olivares, 34, lives in a 1935 bungalow in New Jersey with her husband and their two dogs. She's a full-time content creator, documenting how she has transformed her 2,800-square-foot house into the perfect home for her family on her social media pages.

"It's got a lot of original charm," Olivares said of her six-bedroom, three-bathroom house. "We've got the original Douglas fir floors and some of the original baseboard and trim, but there has evidently been a lot of stuff done to the house."

"It was updated in the '70s and the '80s and in the '90s, so there are layers upon layers of things that I've found just working on the house itself," she said. "It's like an onion."

Olivares' goal has been to make her home feel comfortable with vintage and transitional influences. She described her decor style as "real cozy," saying it "feels like a hug."

She's transformed nearly every space of her house, telling Business Insider she knew there was one room she definitely wanted to change when they bought the house: her open-concept living room.

The open-concept living room didn't feel right

When you enter Olivares' home, you're greeted by the living room, which was initially a large rectangular space. All of the other rooms in the house are nearly perfect squares, so the length of the space felt out of place to Olivares.

"The living room was too long, and it didn't quite make sense with the layout of the house and how everything else was," Olivares said. "It felt disconnected."

"I thought, 'What if I built something to separate the spaces?'" Olivares said.

She told BI she went back and forth about the idea as she and her husband continued to work on their home, as she wasn't sure a wall would work as the house changed.

Olivares revamped her fireplace and added columns to the ceiling, but she still felt like the living room was the wrong shape.

"I tried doing furniture as a divider, but it didn't quite work with the positioning of the door," she said. "I couldn't let the idea of a wall go."

Olivares isn't alone in her desire for separation in her home. The trend of open-concept living has become less popular in recent years, and realtors are seeing more and more people find ways to enclose rooms in their homes.

In mid-2024, Olivares decided to make her dream a reality, working with a contractor friend to build a partial wall in the middle of the living room.

Olivares used a partial wall to break the space up

Olivares knew she didn't want to fully close off the space to the right of her front door. Instead, she decided to add a partial wall, often called a pony wall, with columns.

She told BI she wanted to keep the "open feeling" of the large room but hoped the partial wall would create division.

"I also like the idea of being able to visually frame the stairs," she said.

Olivares and her friend worked together to add a large beam to the ceiling, to which they attached tapered columns connected to a pony wall below.

They made all the pieces themselves, also creating molding and staining the wood a darker hue that fit Olivares' vision.

Olivares also mocked up the new wall using cardboard boxes before they started any work to ensure she liked the look, which she recommends to anyone doing a similar project.

Because she didn't hire someone to work on her home, Olivares said adding the wall and columns only cost around $830. It also wasn't too time-consuming; building, installing, and staining the wood took just over a week.

She said adding the column to the ceiling was the most challenging aspect of the project.

"The ceiling is original plaster, and it is not in any way level whatsoever," Olivares said. "And it's overhead work, so that's going to hurt your shoulders and your back."

"It took me and my contractor friend an entire day to get that up there and for it to look as good as we could get it," she added.

The hard work was worth it for the final look.

Olivares loves the separate spaces

Olivares told BI she was able to bring her exact vision to life.

"I love it," she said of the pony wall. "I smile every time I walk through the living room, and everybody has to walk through the living room to get to one side of the house or the other. It's beautiful to look at, and it makes the spaces make sense."

"It makes it flow," she added. "It makes it function, and it looks right."

The functionality the new wall brought to Olivares' home has been a huge benefit of the addition. For instance, the wall created an area for Olivares to put her keys down when she walks through the front door.

Likewise, she placed her Christmas tree for 2024 in the corner next to her staircase, and the new wall helped to make it feel like a dedicated space.

She also plans to add a buffet bookshelf to the wall next to the stairs to make the new room feel even more intentional down the road. Looking at the wall, Olivares knows adding the barrier was the perfect choice for her home.

"Sometimes open-concept is a little too open," she said.

• Growing up, I didn't think I'd change my last name when I got married.
• But when I came out as a lesbian and met my now-wife, I changed my mind.
• Rather than choosing one of our existing last names or hyphenating, we created something new.

Before I came out as a lesbian, I was sure I wouldn't adopt the last name of my future husband. I knew I was going to be a writer and felt that I wanted to have a name that I could build a brand around, and like many closeted lesbians, I was sure I wouldn't be getting married until well into my career and my 40s. Thankfully, I made a lot of realizations six years ago when I met my now-wife. It also meant I had to revisit my previous stance on name changes. Since I found my forever partner, I actually wanted us to be tied together in name and in life.

But choosing whose name to pick became more challenging as we stripped away traditional gender roles. I could have pushed for us to use my name if I really wanted to keep the name attached to my bylines, but again, since we weren't relying on heteronormative practices telling us what to do, giving Taryn my last name didn't feel very symbolic. It became a transformative choice to decide upon a new married name for ourselves and our future children.

We looked at other last names, but nothing felt quite right

One thing remained true: I am a writer, and my other half is an artist. We both needed a name that could represent us in our aspiring careers. It felt silly to go on a last-name generator website, but it seemed like a good start to find some different options and see if anything sparked inspiration. It gave us a list — Cooper, Gardner, Baker, Stewart — but none of these last names felt right with either or both of our names.

I started to feel like I was undergoing a small identity crisis. This name was going to define me for the rest of my life. At least with my maiden name, I had 25 years to get attached to it. I might not have picked it myself, but it was the only thing I had ever known.

We decided to create a new name for ourselves

But then there was this moment where Taryn and I thought about creating a new name that tied us to our past and future. We tried different ways of combining our names phonetically. My last name was Ruffino, and hers was Smith. What we got was Suffino. It was the easiest combination that felt good on the ears. I looked up the name, and it had no origins at all. It also didn't quite look right to us, like a cheesy ship name.

That's when I really got to work researching different prefixes and suffixes. I knew "ino" from my last name meant little. When I looked at other ways to get that same "suff" or "saff" sound, I was reminded of the word sapphire, which also happened to be the stones we chose for our engagement rings.

Not to totally geek out, but the root origin of the word sapphire comes from the Greek word sappheiros, which means "blue gemstone." If we spelled our name Sapphino, we would get the meaning "little blue."

Another hidden meaning in the name is the origin of sapphic. Yes, the word that relates to lesbians. Sappho was the name of a famous Greek poet who wrote about her love of women. Long story short, our name can also be interpreted as "little lesbian" (my personal favorite).

And thus, the Sapphinos were born. It didn't take long to get used to at all. It felt right and the perfect way to share our identity with each other and the world. I'm just as excited to see where the name Kylie Sapphino takes me as I am to pass it down to my own family, knowing that it has such a special meaning to us and our story.

• Having a third child brought unexpected challenges and joys to our family life.
• Parenting each child requires unique approaches, as no two children are the same.
• Balancing time with a partner becomes challenging, requiring conscious effort to connect.

Becoming a parent is one of the most insane transitions in life. One day you're worrying about feeding and bathing yourself and the next your feeding and bathing responsibilities have doubled. As it goes, the more children you have, the more responsibilities you accrue. By the time my husband and I were settled in with two daughters, 2 years and 8 months apart, we felt our plates were full and our family was complete. But then the pandemic happened and we decided to have a third.

After the arrival of our third daughter, I discovered an assemblage of unexpected surprises — many of which caught me off guard, even as an experienced parent. At first it was more noise and a messier house. The washing machine literally never rests and the floors are always covered in crumbs. But then, there was more. Here are seven ways having a third child changed our lives in ways we didn't expect — some good, some a little tricky.

Experience means nothing

Even if you already have children, nothing will prepare you for the new newborn phase — especially after a five-year hiatus. I remember thinking the first few months would be like riding a bike; I would hop on the momcycle and take off without any wobbling. However, the way a newborn cries, eats, sleeps, poops, blinks will never be the same as your previous babies. Parents have to learn a whole new language of baby communication with each child. And it doesn't get easier; while newborns are a mystery, toddlers all seem to be a mystical unsolvable puzzle, too. Every child is unique, and parenting them will be unique, too.

You will be overstimulated

Have you ever tried making scrambled eggs while breastfeeding a newborn, quizzing an 8-year-old on their spelling words and watching a 10-year-old practice her ballet turns at the same time? That is what life with three is like on many days in our household.

Every child will need a new parenting style

My oldest never played in the bathroom. The second liked to throw things in the toilet. The third? Let's just say she knows exactly what toilet water tastes like.

Our youngest daughter is the most active, most curious, and the fastest child we have ever made. She doesn't subscribe to time out and she questions the majority of our rules (especially when it doesn't apply to her older sisters). Let it be known, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to parenting multiple children.

You and your partner may not see one another as much

It's all hands on deck with three kids in the house — and sometimes that means everyone is doing different things in different places. I never anticipated how little I would see my husband once our third was born. But once she was here, I finally understood how parents can say they start to feel more like roommates rather than a couple. Three children mean three different sets of appointments, extracurriculars, bathtimes, and bedtimes. To combat this, my husband and I have to make a conscious effort to schedule time to talk, let alone hang out without an offspring present.

You don't have to be the perfect mom

I really wish someone told me mom-perfection is pointless when I was pregnant the first time around. Perhaps it would have spared me the silly thought that I could try to "get it right" with my third. The truth is the best moms don't get it right. Mistakes are normal when you're a parent. If you set the bar too high with unattainable goals and expectations, you'll ultimately feel horrible every time you don't meet them. Instead of being perfect, just be regular — be loving, be funny, show your kids you're human with real feelings and admit that you sometimes make mistakes. In the end, as long as you don't give up, you'll be the best mom no matter what.

Lower your expectations, then lower them again

When I had just one or two kids, I was able to be on time for parties with a perfectly wrapped gift or warm delicious appetizer in hand. My girls were by my side, dressed in clean clothes with matching socks and a bow. Nowadays, I am lucky if I remember to change out of my slippers before I leave the house. And you know what — it's fine. You get used to things not being exactly how you used to like them and learn quickly that having low expectations is the way to live. After all, having low expectations isn't such a bad thing. Your family and friends will forgive you for being late and accept the chaos (as they're probably in a state of chaos on their own).

Your heart may feel like it's going to explode

I'm not talking from stress — I'm referring to the overwhelming sense of love, pride, and joy you will experience when you see your three children together.

I don't recall when I had the epiphany that having a third child is worth every challenge and bump in the road — but it happened. One day I looked around and knew I was right where I am supposed to be. Even though you feel three times as exhausted and three times as busy when you have your third child, you will also undoubtedly feel three times in love.

• Walgreens' CEO said the company is taking "creative" steps to address shoplifting and shrink.
• While anti-theft measures can be effective, they can also hurt a store's sales, CEO Tim Wentworth said.
• The pharmacy chain is in the midst of a multi-year turnaround effort to revive its retail business.

When it comes to its retail business, Walgreens faces a tradeoff when it comes to locking up items behind anti-shoplifting displays.

The Illinois-based pharmacy chain has long been one of the more vocal companies raising concerns about shoplifting in its stores — and its CEO said that the challenges continue.

In prior quarterly earnings calls, Walgreens executives mentioned "higher shrink" — or missing inventory — as a drag on profitability.

While the term didn't garner a mention in prepared remarks for Walgreens' fiscal first-quarter earnings call on Friday, CEO Tim Wentworth said in a call with analysts that the work to minimize shoplifting "is a hand-to-hand combat battle still, unfortunately."

The CEO also said the company's asset protection team is taking "creative" steps to address the issue in an effort to better avoid negative customer experiences.

"When you lock things up, for example, you don't sell as many of them," he said. "We've kind of proven that pretty conclusively."

Other companies are exploring additional ways to combat retail theft.

Walmart, for example, is testing technology with employees that allows them to use an app to unlock items protected behind anti-shoplifting displays. The retail giant is also piloting body cameras for front-line store workers at some Texas locations. T.J. Maxx has implemented body cameras for some employees as well.

Meanwhile, Walgreens is in the midst of a multi-year turnaround effort to revive its retail business.

American drugstores in general are in a tough spot as customers increasingly turn to options that have lower prices, better choices, and more convenience.

With Walgreens continuing to close underperforming stores and reinvest in successful locations, Wentworth said the company is testing out new systems to improve the in-store customer experience, like a digital check-in for prescription pick-up.

The CEO said the company is working on "getting to the right number of stores so that we can invest in them properly for the customer experience that needs to be — frankly, in too many of our stores — improved."

Walgreens delivered a big earnings beat on Friday, and its stock closed up over 27%.

Wentworth said the results reflect the company's "disciplined execution."

"While our turnaround will take time, our early progress reinforces our belief in a sustainable, retail pharmacy-led operating model," he said.

• Fight attendant salaries vary widely depending on seniority and number of hours worked.
• American Airlines pays the highest hourly rates for flight attendants, though pay at the Big 3 is fairly similar.
• United Airlines' flight attendant pay has been the same since 2021 as they negotiate a new contract.

Flight attendants at American, Delta, and United don't make nearly as much as their pilot colleagues, but the highest-paid cabin crew can take home a base salary of more than $70,000 a year — with some making six figures.

But the job is a far cry from your typical 9-5. It takes years of working grueling schedules and meeting high customer service and safety standards to reach the upper echelons of seniority at the US' Big 3 airlines.

Flight attendants are paid a base hourly rate, plus a per diem bonus if they are away from the airport where they are based. Some are paid for boarding. They can also earn more money by working holidays, flying at night, or holding a specialized position. Airlines also typically pay profit-sharing bonuses.

Pay increases with each year of service up to the 13th year.

Most flight attendants are guaranteed a monthly minimum, which varies by airline — meaning they will be paid for at least a certain number of hours each month whether or not they fly it, minus certain circumstances. Many work more than the guarantee.

Pay scales obtained and verified by Business Insider show American offers the highest hourly rates, followed closely by Delta. United's pay rates have been frozen since 2021 as the airline and union negotiate a new contract.

American Airlines

• First-year: $35.82
• 13th-year: $82.24

American offers the highest hourly rates thanks to a new contract ratified in September with the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.

The deal, which took five years of negotiations partly due to the pandemic, increased pay by up to 20.5% at the date of signing. First-years start at about $36 an hour, while 13-year flight attendants make about $82 an hour.

American guarantees 71 hours of pay a month for those with a pre-planned "line" schedule. "Reserve" crew, or those on call, have a minimum of 75 hours.

This translates to at least $30,500 for first-year crew and $70,000 for thirteen-year veterans before taxes and other earnings.

As part of the new contract, pay will increase in October 2025 and again each year through 2029. By then, hourly rates will increase to a starting base pay of about $40 per hour

American added boarding pay to its latest contract at 50% of a flight attendant's hourly rate, which is expected to go into effect in March. This will further up the cabin crew's annual salary. Historically, crew were not paid for boarding time.

American has historically not paid a high profit-sharing bonus. In 2023, it was just 1.1%. The new contract increased that profit-sharing formula to match Delta's, but the final amount will depend on American's year-end earnings. For 2023, the airline was the least profitable of the Big 3.

Delta Air Lines

• First-year: $35.50
• 13th-year: $79.80

Delta's flight attendants are not unionized. Their most recent pay bump was in June, which increased cabin crew salaries by about 5%.

First-year Delta flight attendants earn a base pay of $35.50 an hour, while 13-year crew members earn about $80 an hour.

Like American, Delta cabin crew get boarding pay equal to half of their hourly rate. In 2022, Delta became the first major US airline to offer the extra pay.

Flight attendant salaries at Delta vary based on hours worked a month and there is no contractual minimum.

Some Delta flight attendants who are trying to unionize say the lack of guaranteed hours could lead to lower pay than competitors.

A Delta spokesperson said flight attendants typically get 80 hours a month. This means first-year and 13-year flight attendants earn about $34,000 and $76,600 annually, before taxes and other earnings.

He added cabin crew can earn up to $1,200 extra annually for meeting monthly operating metrics.

Delta also consistently distributes the highest annual profit-sharing. It paid $1.4 billion to employees in 2023, which amounted to a bonus of 10.4% of employees' eligible earnings.

United Airlines

• First-year: $28.88
• 13th-year: $67.11

United has the lowest first-year base pay at about $29 an hour. Thirteen-year flight attendants make about $67 an hour.

United guarantees 71 hours of pay a month for those with a line schedule, while a reserve crew member gets a minimum of 78 hours. United does not currently offer boarding pay.

That amounts to United first-years making at least $24,600 a year and 13-year flight attendants making at least $57,000 annually before taxes and other earnings.

Failed negotiations between United and its labor union, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, have prevented pay increases, which is why the airline's wages are comparatively lower. Mediation of a new contract has been paused until at least early this year, so United cabin crew are still being paid 2021 rates.

A United spokesperson told BI half of the airline's cabin crew are at the top of the seniority pay scale, with average annual pay in that group hitting nearly $80,000.

That likely accounts for hours worked above the guarantee, as United said the crews have flexible schedules and can work when they want, or other ways to earn extra pay.

United said it has proposed a 22.5% raise and new boarding pay, among other offerings, as part of its contract negotiations.

The union told BI it wants industry-leading pay and better work rules and scheduling.

Despite lower comparative base pay, United flight attendants have earned high profit-sharing bonuses. In 2023, that was about 9.2% of their eligible annual salary.

Other ways flight attendants earn money

Extra pay opportunities can add tens of thousands of dollars to flight attendants' base rates and put the most senior crew members well into the six figures.

This includes working overtime, flying on holidays or during nighttime, or if they hold a skilled position. Airlines also offer flight attendants free flights for personal use as part of their employment benefits.

Skilled positions can include being the in-charge "lead" or purser, working in the galley, or speaking a second language. The premium pay ranges from $1 to $7.50 extra per hour, depending on the aircraft and whether the flight is domestic or international.

Flight attendants also get per diem pay, typically $2 to $4 for each hour on duty away from home, to cover work-related expenses like meals, laundry, and transportation.

Senior flight attendants can gross $100,000 or more annually, depending on how many hours they work. Premium and special skills pay help boost that. They can fly more hours by bidding for more than their monthly minimum or picking up trips dropped by other crew members.

• The growing population of older Americans is facing unaffordable long-term care.
• These costs will also burden many younger people caring for older relatives and kin.
• Government incentives and public insurance could help address care affordability, experts say.

As the population of older Americans balloons, the financial costs associated with aging are, too.

Many millennials and Gen Xers are facing a stark reality: their parents and grandparents don't have the means to pay for long-term care — and they'll need to help foot the bill, especially since government aid often doesn't cover large parts of this care.

Many younger people end up leaving their jobs or working less in order to care for their aging family members — and that sacrifice can hurt them financially both today and in the future, including by shrinking their income and Social Security benefits, experts say.

"The bigger issue is you can create almost a cycle of poverty," Marc Cohen, a professor of gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, told Business Insider. "It's not something that just sticks with one generation. The costs are borne communally."

Unprepared for a predictable crisis

Much like other forms of care — from emergency rooms to daycares — the labor and facilities needed for long-term care don't come cheap. A shortage of long-term care workers, coupled with inflation, has sent prices up in recent years. As the oldest members of the baby boomer generation near 80, the demand for these services is expected to rise sharply — putting upward pressure on costs.

Privately-provided long-term care — including assisted living communities and home healthcare — is largely out of reach for the broad middle class. Fewer than 15% of people 75 and over living alone in major US cities could afford to pay for assisted living or daily home health aide visits without dipping into their assets, per a 2023 report from Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

"It's the affordability issue, particularly in the middle market, that concerns us the most," Lisa McCracken, head of research and analytics at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care told Business Insider.

Retirees and their families may not be able to rely on the government to help. Medicare, the government's health insurance program for older people, doesn't cover most long-term care, including assisted living, home healthcare, and nursing homes. Medicaid largely doesn't cover assisted living and home healthcare, and there are often long waitlists for the nursing home care it does cover. Some assisted living residents have been evicted after they spent down their savings and were forced to rely on Medicaid.

"A lot of people thought, 'Oh, well, doesn't Medicare pay for this?' and it does not," Cohen said. "And so people find out late in life that they don't have any protection against these costs."

That's what happened to Erika Gilles and her family. After Gilles' 78-year-old mother, Karen Proctor, was hospitalized for her chronic kidney disease last year, she quickly realized her mother's Medicare coverage wouldn't be enough to cover her long-term care. Overnight, her mother went from living independently in the house she's long owned to requiring dialysis treatment and constant care. But Gilles couldn't purchase private long-term care insurance because of her mother's pre-existing conditions.

Gilles, 57, found a group assisted living facility for her mother, who applied for a state subsidy to help cover the cost. If the subsidy doesn't come through, Gilles is worried they'll have to sell her mother's house in Sun City, Arizona.

"It's totally turned my life upside down. It's absorbed all of my time," Gilles said. "I don't think I'm ever going to retire."

It's not just a boomer problem

Gen X, many of whom are sandwiched between caring for their aging parents and dependent children, has fallen behind in their financial savings. A study conducted by Nationwide showed that 56% of Gen Xers were financially supporting either their parents or their kids. About a fifth of Gen Xers taking care of a parent said they had a significant amount of debt, and a similar portion said they were unable to save for retirement, the study found.

The number of US adults who care for a spouse, older parent or relative, or child with special needs has grown from 43.5 million in 2015 to 53 million in 2021, per a report from the insurance provider Guardian.

A separate survey of 35- to 60-year-olds conducted by Carewell found that 75% of those taking care of both a parent and a child said they struggled to save for retirement, while 63% said they lived paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, adult caregivers provided around $600 billion worth of unpaid labor last year, noted a separate report from the AARP.

Brandon Goldstein, a financial planner at Prudential, said he frequently works with clients struggling to care for their parents as they get older. In some cases, his clients are experiencing financial stress as a result of caretaking and have been forced to cut back on saving.

Some of them may need to bank on their own children taking care of them in the future, he suggested, given how much they've sacrificed in their own retirement savings.

"Having to reduce what you put towards retirement is going to put you in a situation where you might not have assets now, and you could — I don't want to call it a burden — but you might become this responsibility if you don't have assets to cover a facility," he told BI, adding that some may need to consider working for longer than they originally expected.

Ultimately, through ballooning Medicaid costs, taxpayers may be on the hook for the growing long-term care crisis. An increasing number of older people don't have kids or spouses to take care of them as they age, and those that end up needing long-term care may have to rely on Medicaid. About a fifth of baby boomer women don't have any children, and those who do have kids have fewer, on average, than previous generations.

A government-aided solution for long-term care?

Cohen argues that the private long-term insurance market is suffering from "a clear market failure" and policymakers need to step in to create a public option for middle-income people and their families.

McCracken said that in order to scale some of the most effective models of assisted living and other long-term care, private providers will need more government incentives and partnerships.

Cohen argued that public long-term care insurance would work well if most people paid into it because a relatively small number of older people require the most expensive care, like 24/7 nursing.

That option could resemble an earned benefit, like Social Security and Medicare, funded by a mandatory tax that people pay throughout their lives and collect when they retire. Rep. Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, has proposed legislation that would create a public insurance program for catastrophic long-term care funded by a payroll tax.

Some states have begun to address the issue. Washington State recently passed a 0.6% payroll tax to fund a new universal long-term care insurance program called WA Cares, which provides $36,500 in care per person, and will increase with inflation in future years.

Gilles said she wants to see the government or care providers figure out a way to lower costs.

"They've got to provide more support to families going through this," she said. "They've got to either make it more affordable, or they need to provide more resources, or not make it so expensive so that it's attainable for anybody at any income level."

Are you or someone you care for struggling with long-term care costs? Email this reporter to share your story: [email protected].

• Apple has yet to capitalize on the initial hype of Apple Intelligence.
• Analysts have adjusted their expectations of a "super cycle upgrade " for iPhones.
• This month, Apple will report its first earnings since launching Apple Intelligence.

Apple bet big on Apple Intelligence, but the iPhone upgrade cycle that some analysts predicted it would spark doesn't look like it's happened yet.

Apple introduced its AI venture in June last year during its Worldwide Developers Conference, and Apple Intelligence launched to eligible iPhones in October. Its availability is limited to iPhone 15 Pro models or later, which Wedbush analyst Dan Ives had said could drive a "golden upgrade cycle" among iPhone holders — and which would be a big sales boon for Apple.

Yet the tech giant got a rare downgrade to "sell" on Tuesday. Craig Moffett, senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, said the move was partly due to a lack of consumer excitement around AI, according to Bloomberg.

"Not only have we not seen any sign of an upgrade cycle, something that would be concerning enough on its own, but we have seen growing evidence that consumers are unmoved by AI functionality," Moffett said.

Apple had touted the iPhone 16, which went on sale in September, as the first iPhone built from the ground up for AI. William Kerwin, tech analyst at Morningstar, previously told BI that AI was Apple's "biggest story" of 2024.

Although there was a lot of hype around Apple Intelligence when it was first announced, analysts have had to adjust their expectations.

"The initial excitement from the announcement" has moved to "actually becoming expectations for a tepid growth cycle in the first year, and more aggressive expectations for year two," Morningstar's Kerwin said.

Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst in Taiwan known for his Apple predictions, wrote in a blog post that the iPhone 16 series sold about 37 million units during its first preorder weekend — a 12.7% drop year-over-year from the iPhone 15's release weekend, according to Kuo.

Wall Street was bullish on Apple stock following WWDC's AI announcements, but the full capabilities of Apple Intelligence are yet to come.

Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, told BI that the upgrade super cycle isn't completely off the table, but it may not happen in 2025.

Munster said he believes Apple Intelligence will "play a big role" in a super cycle that could take place in the last half of fiscal 2025 or in fiscal 2026.

"They still haven't put all the pieces in place yet," Munster said.

He added that there's "a lot of work to do" to get to a super cycle of iPhone upgrades.

Its fiscal fourth-quarter 2024 earnings period ended less than two weeks after the iPhone 16 came out, so it was too early to tell how revenue would be impacted by Apple Intelligence. Still, investors will get a better view with it reports Q1 2025 data on January 30.

• Ukraine added a modern German combat vehicle to its arsenal, poised to enhance its ground strategy.
• German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall delivered the first KF41 Lynx fighting vehicle late last year.
• The KF41 will undergo testing with hopes of starting domestic mass production of the IFV in Ukraine.

Ukraine received its first high-tech combat vehicle for testing and is expected to strengthen the country's frontline strategy and boost its defense industry.

Produced by the largest German arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, the KF41 Lynx infantry fighting vehicle has a modular design that allows it to adapt to a range of combat scenarios, including command and control, reconnaissance, and medical evacuation.

Considered one of the most advanced IFVs in the world, the Lynx is known for its scalable protection, firepower, and high mobility, all while prioritizing its compatibility with future upgrades to adapt to modern combat.

The first Lynx vehicles delivered to Ukraine will be used to determine what modules may be needed — they can carry drones, electronic warfare systems, or anti-tank missiles — and then prepare a bigger order.

Future-proof combat vehicle

First unveiled at the Eurosatory Defense exhibition in Paris in 2018, it didn't take long for the Lynx KF41 to make waves due to its future-proof design.

The KF41, which stands for "Kettenfahrzeug," meaning "tracked vehicle" in German, is the successor of the KF31. With a more spacious interior than its predecessor, the KF41 can accommodate a crew of a commander, gunner, and driver, as well as up to nine fully equipped soldiers. It is designed to carry infantry to key objectives and with tailored firepower like autocannons to destroy enemy vehicles or strong points in the process.

The KF41 also features a more powerful diesel engine, allowing it to reach speeds of up to 43 mph. The tracked vehicle can also operate across various terrain and on long missions with a range of over 300 miles.

Depending on the armament and passengers, the combat vehicle can weigh over 40 tons, but it has a flexible suspension system to protect troops and payload without compromising mobility.

A lethal and formidable platform

The KF41 is equipped with a 35mm Wotan cannon that can fire 200 rounds a minute at targets nearly two miles away using an advanced 360-degree weapon sight system. The IFV can also be configured to launch anti-tank guided missiles, loitering munitions, drones, or other electronic warfare packages.

Not only is the German light tank armed to the teeth, it can counter a range of threats, from rocket-propelled grenades to anti-tank missiles. Its formidable modular armor can be equipped with active hard-kill weapon systems to destroy incoming missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, or it can take on a more passive defense by deploying smoke cartridges to conceal its location.

Germany's largest arms manufacturer

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger announced the delivery of Lynx IFVs at the Ukraine Recovery Conference held in Berlin last June, adding that the company hopes to start "manufacturing these systems in Ukraine in the near future."

"It is now being tested by the armed forces so that a mass order may be placed as soon as possible," Papperger told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The delivery and production of Lynx IFVs in Ukraine is part of a larger effort by Rheinmetall to build "closer cooperation" with the country and bolster its waning defense industry. The Düsseldorf-based contractor also plans to open facilities in Ukraine to domestically produce munitions and repair armored systems. The publicly traded Rheinmetall, Germany's largest arms maker, reported €6.3 billion in group sales during the first nine months of 2024, a 36% increase.

After opening its first manufacturing facility in Ukraine last summer, Papperger recognized the vital role that ramped-up arms and ammunition production play in Ukraine's "re-industrialization and in strengthening its defense capability."

However, the Rheinmetall CEO added that more government support from other countries is needed in the long term, with the current industrial strategy likely lasting only six to 12 months.

"This is not enough if you are waging a war against Russia, a very dangerous counterpart," Papperger said at the June conference. "I really hope that this will not happen, but if Ukraine loses, Europe will have a very large-scale problem."

Aiding Ukraine in the fight against Russia

Ukrainian forces have suffered heavy losses in their mechanized forces, which include US-made Bradleys and outdated Soviet-era vehicles, heightening the growing need for fighting vehicles like the Lynx against advancing Russian forces.

"Why the Lynx? This is one of the most modern infantry fighting vehicle platforms," Oleksandr Kamyshin, then the head of Ukraine's strategic industries, said at the June conference in Berlin. "For our European partners, this is a good opportunity to test it in battle and make it better. And for our soldiers today, we need every additional vehicle that will help them stand at the front."

The domestic production of Lynx IFVs is also aimed at creating a more self-reliant defense industry in Ukraine while sustaining efforts to maintain and repair its fleet locally.

Rheinmetall isn't the only defense company setting up operations on Ukrainian soil. American defense contractor AeroVironment partnered with a Ukrainian company to locally manufacture its loitering munition, Switchblade 600.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 30% of the military equipment used by Ukrainian forces was domestically made, including sea drones, howitzers, glide bombs, and even its own missiles.

"The Ukrainian defense industry has been in decline for decades," Kamyshin said in June. "But today, it is reviving and making a significant contribution to Ukraine's economic recovery — also thanks to partners like Rheinmetall."

Zelenskyy said the efforts and support from the US and other European allies "have made us stronger." But defense experts have criticized Western governments for being too slow to provide essential military aid to Ukraine, forcing the country to become more reliant on its own supply.

President-elect Donald Trump's second term has also raised international concern about the US' role in providing assistance to Ukraine. On the campaign trail last year, the former president proposed his intention to cease support to Ukraine and negotiate a peace deal with Russia that would likely cede much of the territory it lost since the war began.

Ahead of his return to the White House, NATO officials are bracing for US support to diminish during his administration, sparking discussions to "Trump-proof" future aid packages to Ukraine.

• After months of delays, Donald Trump was sentenced Friday in his hush-money case.
• Now that his felony status is finalized, he can appeal the conviction and the prosecution itself.
• In the meantime, the liquor licenses at two of his New Jersey golf clubs could be revoked.

Donald Trump received no punishment for the 34-count conviction handed down by a jury in his New York hush-money case.

The president-elect's sentencing, though, finalizes his status as a felon, heralding a new chapter of legal proceedings.

Trump, who is scheduled to be sworn in as president again on January 20, can now begin an appeal of his criminal conviction.

In the meantime, his business interests could face legal challenges, and the liquor licenses at his New Jersey golf resorts could be revoked.

Here's what comes next now that Trump is the first president in US history with a felony sentence on his record.

Trump's liquor licenses

The liquor licenses for two of Trump's New Jersey golf courses, the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, may be in jeopardy.

"With the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) will proceed in determining whether President-elect Trump is qualified to continue to hold an interest in the licenses," said a spokeswoman for the New Jersey attorney general's office, of which the ABC is a division.

This past summer, New Jersey's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control set and then postponed a liquor-license-revocation hearing for the two clubs, saying it was waiting for Trump's sentencing to be finalized.

Since then, both clubs have been operating with interim licenses that expire in February. Those licenses have remained in effect, "allowing the facilities to continue serving alcohol until a hearing on the renewals is held," the spokesperson said Wednesday.

Trump has a third New Jersey club in Pine Hill, the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia. Its liquor license is up for renewal by borough authorities in June. Borough officials did not respond to a request for comment on their plans for that license.

The liquor licenses for all three New Jersey clubs are in Donald Trump Jr.'s name — but that does not protect them from Trump's new status as an adjudicated felon, New Jersey officials said.

State law requires revocation if anyone who either holds or is the primary beneficiary of a liquor license has a finalized felony conviction.

The AG spokesperson said this week that the agency's previous review, which found Trump benefits from the licenses, has not changed.

"There has been no change to ABC's review that indicates that the president-elect maintains a direct beneficial interest in the three liquor licenses through the receipt of revenues and profits from them, as the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust," the AG spokesperson said this week.

A criminal appeal

Trump can now appeal his indictment and conviction to New York's Appellate Division, which serves as a first-tier appellate court in the state.

If that fails, he could file with the New York State Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.

If the state courts uphold his conviction, Trump could ask the US Supreme Court to overturn it.

The Supreme Court ruled by a narrow 5-4 margin to allow Trump's sentencing to proceed Friday.

Two of the Republican-appointed justices, John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, sided with the Democratic appointees to allow the hearing to happen.

In post-trial legal arguments, Trump's lawyers have cited a July Supreme Court decision that found a president is immune from criminal prosecution. The ruling offers broad immunity, so evidence involving a president's "official acts" cannot be used in a prosecution, even for nonofficial actions.

The Justice Department frequently intervenes on behalf of members of the executive branch to argue that its members are immune from certain kinds of civil lawsuits.

The department could do the same for Trump as he appeals his criminal case, Michel Paradis, a professor of constitutional law at Columbia University, told Business Insider.

"They would basically file a motion in the Appellate Division to assert the interests of the United States, which would entitle them to file a brief and argue," Paradis told BI.

Trump has nominated Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, the lead lawyers in his Manhattan criminal case, to serve in top roles in the Justice Department for his second term.

Trump has also named John Sauer — who successfully argued the criminal immunity case on his behalf last year — as his pick for solicitor general, who presents arguments before the Supreme Court.

Other legal issues

The two federal criminal cases against Trump — over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and for taking government documents with him to Mar-a-Lago post-presidency — were dismissed after Trump won reelection in November.

He still faces an array of civil lawsuits stemming from his actions during the January 6, 2021, riot, but those will likely continue to move slowly through the courts.

A fourth criminal case, in Atlanta, over Trump's efforts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results, has been mired in delays. The case is effectively frozen as Fani Willis, the district attorney who brought the indictment against Trump and more than a dozen codefendants, appeals a decision to have her removed from the case over an inappropriate relationship with its special prosecutor.

The greatest consequences for Trump may be the judgments against him in civil cases brought by the New York Attorney General's office and by the writer E. Jean Carroll.

In February, a New York judge found Trump and his companies liable for fraud, ordering them to pay penalties that, with interest, have ballooned to nearly a half-billion dollars. An appeal of that case is pending.

Two juries have ordered Trump to pay a total of nearly $90 million after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll. Those cases, too, are being appealed.

• Ukraine launched a risky attack on Russia last year, seizing swathes of territory in Kursk.
• Ukraine was able to go on offense and seize the initiative, but the impact hasn't been felt at home.
• Warfare experts said the move was likely worthwhile, but it remains to be seen if that holds true.

Ukraine's ambitious advance into Russia's Kursk region last summer was a tremendous risk.

Whether the gamble was ultimately worth it is something that military historians are likely to long debate. For Ukraine, there have been some signs it could double down with a new offensive.

There have been costs, but the Kursk assault offered the Ukrainians a chance to break from the slow, brutal, and grinding defensive situation at home and go on offense, as well as divert Russian resources. And there is still the possibility this helps Kyiv in potential peace talks.

"It's hard to say until everything plays out, but I would still say it was a good move," Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of Ukraine's actions in Kursk in recent months.

Ukraine's Kursk operation was a chance to change the status quo

Ukraine's Kursk operation was a surprise to war watchers, Ukraine's international partners, the Russian soldiers defending the country's borders, and even many of Kyiv's own troops.

Ukraine said that it was trying to create a buffer zone, strain Russian combat resources, and secure land and prisoners for negotiations with Moscow.

Ukraine was also likely aiming to boost the morale of its tired forces, as well as signal strength to Western nations that may have been growing weary of providing support.

The advance also gave it a shot at seizing the initiative and taking the fight onto Russian soil. Seizing the initiative has long been understood to be key to winning wars.

Without it, like in chess, "you're constantly on the defensive, your adversary boxing you into a corner," George Barros, a warfare expert at the Institute for the Study of War, said.

There's a risk of sooner or later being left with "a series of bad decisions that you'd rather not make," he said. Letting your adversary hold the initiative in a war is "how you end up losing."

Ukraine also proved it had more cards to play in this war.

Col. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commander for the UK's Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear forces, highlighted Ukraine's use of drones and effective Ukrainian employment of armored maneuver warfare.

But those maneuvers were costly.

Reported tank losses suggest fighting in Kursk "has chewed up a fairly large portion" of Ukrainian armor assets from Western partner nations, said Matthew Savill, a former intelligence analyst at the UK Ministry of Defence who is now a military-strategy expert at the Royal United Services Institute.

That limits Ukraine's flexibility and the ability to surge forces elsewhere.

There's no guarantee, though, Ukraine would have been able to effectively employ the tanks back on its own soil, where the intense fighting and dense drone coverage have limited their use. Michael Bohnert, a warfare expert at the RAND Corporation, said that taking the tanks to Kursk may have been the most optimal way to use them.

The Ukrainian army was trying to relieve pressure on the front

Russian President Vladimir Putin's initial response was slow, and he didn't turn to the military for a fix, instead relying on a mix of other security groups. As Russia eventually stepped up its efforts to dislodge the assaulting Ukrainian troops, thousands of North Korean troops arrived to fight for Russia.

Russia's delayed, and irregular, reaction meant Ukraine could seize more territory and prepare better defenses, but it also meant that hopes of drawing a significant number of Russian troops away from the Ukrainian front lines were not fully realized.

Russia did not have to dramatically soften its efforts in Ukraine in response to Kursk, and its army has been grinding forward, advancing throughout the fall.

And Ukraine had to pull troops from the front lines at home for Kursk, potentially complicating its own defense. It remains unclear whether it was better for Ukraine to move its forces into Kursk or defend the lines at home.

But there were some good effects for Ukraine on its own soil.

"Ukrainian moves "fundamentally disrupted the Russian combat plans," Barros said, "because the forces and the plans that presuppose their availability were then consumed and taken by the newly imposed requirement for defending Kursk and repelling the Ukrainians from Kursk."

The head of Ukraine's armed forces said in December he had "no choice" but to assault Kursk, arguing he needed to reduce pressure on the fronts in Ukraine and stop Russia from opening a new front in Ukraine's Sumy region.

He said that it reduced the intensity of Russia's attacks across Ukraine, except at Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, areas where the Russians are advancing.

It's been a tough fight for Ukraine to hold ground inside Russia

Much less information is coming out of Kursk than from the fighting inside Ukraine, but Russia's losses have soared since August, per UK intelligence citing the Ukrainian military. Ukraine says that Russia has lost over 38,000 troops and more than 1,000 pieces of equipment in Kursk.

Bohnert said Kursk had been "very costly from the Russian perspective." He said that the losses Russia appears to be accepting there are surprising.

But Russia has been increasingly demonstrating it's willing to tolerate high losses, grinding away at Ukraine with its larger army in a war of attrition.

Ukraine, at the peak of the incursion into Russia, held about 500 square miles of territory in Kursk. But Russia appears to have taken back around half of that, and it's not clear what Ukraine's latest actions there may achieve.

Warfare experts told BI that the Ukrainians may have given up at least some of that willingly, less chained to holding every inch of territory than in their own country. De Bretton-Gordon said Ukraine still holds significant territory, which could prove helpful for the country if the war's end depends on negotiations — something for which president-elect Donald Trump has pushed.

"Whoever holds Kursk probably come the new year is going to be in the box seat for any ceasefire negotiations," said de Bretton-Gordon, adding that he largely views Ukraine's decision to advance into Russia's Kurks to be a "positive."

Beyond serving as a bargaining chip, Kursk also helped to dispel the idea the war was hopelessly stalemated. It also showed that surprise and big gains were possible for Ukraine.

"If enough Western officials and politicians believe that it's hopelessly stalemated, it can't change, then their appetite to continue supporting Ukraine will be destroyed over time. That is the Russian strategy in its entirety," Barros said.

Though some Western nations eventually gave Kyiv new permissions to use their weapons to strike into Russia, supporting Ukrainian operations, Kursk did not result in a huge boost in aid from Ukraine's partners, and it's unclear if it had any significant effects on their long-term thinking.

The push into Russia was a shocking moment and a morale booster, but it hasn't yielded the results Kyiv had hoped for and might not.

Assessing Ukraine's gamble in Kursk

So was Ukraine's Kursk operation worth it? That question's still up for debate.

Based on Ukraine's knowledge at the time of the attack, and what has happened since, Cancian said he would say, "Yes, it was the right thing to do."

Barros said that without Kursk, "you would have the Russians leaning into this attritional style of warfare where they get to keep conducting attacks." And Ukraine would have been leaning into the way Russia wanted to fight.

Savill said that he was "wary of criticizing it from a thousand miles away when they're fighting the existential fight and I'm not."

"The choice to do it was bold," he said. "It did put the Russians on the back foot temporarily. It did show something about what well-resourced Ukrainian forces could do if they identified a weak point." But he also said the decision to hold on to so much of Kursk after that first big advance "might turn out to have been the mistake."

Barros said the question of Kursk being worth it is a "complex question," as "we're looking at a live patient." But ultimately, he said, "it's a good thing that the Ukrainians sought to contest the initiative and impose problems on the Russians."

• Florence Pugh said certain film roles have left her "broken for a long while afterwards."
• Pugh said she felt like she had "abused" herself while taking on roles like "Midsommar."
• She added that she's had to learn to protect herself as an actor over the years.

Florence Pugh has said she "can't do" certain movie roles again because they have left her feeling "broken."

Appearing on the Reign with Josh Smith podcast last week, the Oscar-nominated star said that she learned the hard way about the importance of setting emotional boundaries while working on the 2019 horror film "Midsommar."

"Protecting myself is something I've had to learn how to do," Pugh said.

"There's been some roles, and I've given too much, and I've been broken for a long while afterwards," she added. "Like when I did 'Midsommar,' I definitely felt like I abused myself in the places that I got myself to go."

The movie, which propelled the British actor to global stardom, saw Pugh play a woman named Dani who, having experienced a family tragedy, travels to a remote Swedish village with her boyfriend (Jack Reynor) to participate in a mystical summer festival. The couple's relationship deteriorates throughout the film as the idyllic weekend reveals increasingly violent and bizarre customs.

Despite pushing herself to a dark place, Pugh said she wouldn't change things now as throwing herself into a role is part of her process.

"I look at that performance and I'm really proud of what I did, and I'm proud of what came out of me. I don't regret it," she said.

"I don't think I'd be able to do this without going all the way and putting myself in all of those characters that I've played," she continued. "There's always a piece of me, and there's always a moment at the end of filming where I, like, protect and defend those characters to the very end, even if they've done God-awful things. I think that's only natural when you're in someone for so long."

She added: "There's definitely things that you have to respect about yourself."

"The nature of figuring these things out is you need to go, 'Alright, well, I can't do that again because that was too much.'"

Pugh also recently opened up about what it's like to be a young woman in Hollywood, describing the experience as "exhausting."

While promoting her latest movie, "We Live in Time," the 29-year-old actor told The Times of London that female movie stars face being called divas if they don't follow stereotypes.

"There are fine lines women have to stay within," she said.

"I remember godawful headlines about how Keira Knightley isn't thin anymore, or watching women getting torn apart despite being talented and beautiful," she continued. "The only thing people want to talk about is some useless crap about how they look. And so I didn't care to abide by those rules."

• Asset managers are flocking to the lending business, creating a "private-credit" gold rush.
• This has pushed up demand for talent, but how does one break into the burgeoning field?
• BI breaks down the top career pathways and do's and don'ts, according to recruiters and consultants.

Lending is not a new business for Wall Street, but the private-credit gold rush has opened the door to a hiring spree that's only expected to heat up in 2025.

After the 2008 financial crisis, banks removed much of the riskiest lending from their balance sheets. Investment behemoths like Apollo Global Management and Blackstone have been picking up the slack ever since, underwriting loans to real-estate developers and blue-chip firms like Intel or funding corporate buyouts.

According to Morgan Stanley, the private-credit industry is poised to grow to $2.8 trillion by 2028, nearly double the $1.5 trillion mark it reached at the start of 2024. New funds are being launched all the time: Just this week, hedge fund Point72 launched an investment team focused on private credit, and insurer Northwestern Mutual announced that it is partnering with private credit shop Sixth Street to invest insurance money into the sector.

As private credit's star rises, demand for talent has surged, according to financial industry recruiters. Finding the right talent, however, can be challenging — a situation that could worsen in 2025 as demand for corporate lending accelerates.

With so much interest in this field, Business Insider spoke to three financial industry recruiters and two consultants who have worked with private-credit firms to understand what it takes to break into this burgeoning field, where the career path is less obvious than some other financial industry jobs. They said most private-credit shops want people with experience in the field, especially at the senior levels. Given the surge in nonbank lending, however, other pathways are also opening up.

"If you understand credit and you have some stomach for risk or are willing to do workouts to take control of companies if something goes south, there's an awful lot of money to be made in credit," said Robin Judson, founder of recruiting firm Robin Judson Partners.

Depending on the job, it can also offer a better work-life balance —by Wall Street's standards anyway.

"Now, that doesn't mean it's 9-to-5, but maybe it's 9-to-9 or 9-to-8, which is a much more doable day," Judson said, though she noted that there are still some very late nights and early mornings to close deals.

Private credit professionals may also have a more "consistent" workflow versus dealmakers, who are constantly hunting for targets or preparing investment memos that go nowhere, said John Rubinetti, a partner at executive recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles. It also means they may close half a dozen deals a year, well above that of their private-equity counterparts, who may work on dozens of deals in a given year but close just one.

Here are five skills and experiences that could help you get a foot in the door of one of the industry's hottest sectors.

For senior talent, it helps to have private credit experience

"At the senior level, most funds say, 'I'm only looking at people who have direct experience, who have a Rolodex, who know what they're doing, and who've got a track record," Judson said.

Only, it's not so easy to find those people. According to Judson, there are more open roles than experienced people who can fill them, a dynamic that will only increase as more private credit funds launch. In the current talent market, it has forced more firms to get creative about where the scout for talent.

"The folks with the acumen to do it exist. The folks with the experience who have done this before do not exist," said Kevin Desai, the head of tax and consulting firm PWC's private-equity consulting practice.

The investment-bank pathway for junior talent

Investment banks are the most common route for young people to move to so-called buyside firms, whether a hedge fund or a private equity shop. The same is true when it comes to private credit because investment banking analyst programs have proven such a great training ground.

"The most important skillsets are evaluating whether a company is going to make money, how the firm can structure an investment to make money, and how to protect yourself from the downside," explained Jennifer Cragin, a search consultant at BellCast partners who formerly was a director of the capital markets group at Lazard.

"Those are the skills young financial professionals tend to learn in investment banking or credit underwriting," she added.

The investment banking roles firms will want to see on a resume may vary, but all three recruiters said a background in leveraged finance can be very helpful. Leveraged finance, or LevFin, is the part of the bank that helps to finance private-equity buyouts and other transactions through debt. Bankers in leveraged finance need to be able to underwrite loans and predict future cash flow, making it the most direct banking analog to private credit.

Outside of those roles, extensive debt experience in a particular line of business can help, especially if it aligns with an industry that the potential employer is targeting, like infrastructure or climate transition.

"It depends on what their lending base is going to be," Cragin said. said. "If it's infrastructure, you may see people coming from project finance or some of the direct lending seats within the banks or from restructuring."

For senior bankers, it depends on the firm

At the senior level, it can be harder to break into private credit from investment banking, where the focus is on getting the deal done versus thinking like an investor, recruiters said.

"If you're a billion-dollar fund, pulling somebody at a senior level from a bank is very risky," Judson said, adding: "It's not about getting the deal done on the investing side; it's about getting the right deal done."

Unlike smaller firms, some of the largest and most institutionalized firms will still hire senior bankers with the right experience because they have the resources to train them.

Indeed, Apollo CEO Marc Rowan recently said the firm has hired hundreds of senior bankers to fill its growing credit business, including its 16 origination platforms. "For the last five, six years, we've taken 300 to 400 senior bankers from their job inside the banking institution to our firm," he said at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services conference last year. "There's been a movement of knowledge and a movement of relationships and a movement of competency."

Investment bankers with strong connections can also prove to be hot hiring targets.

"They essentially bought those relationships," Rubinetti said of some investment bankers with expansive rolodexes who were poached by private-credit firms.

Private-equity experience can help — to a point

The earliest private-credit firms were launched to provide fundraising to private-equity firms' corporate buyouts, creating a natural pathway from private equity to private credit, recruiters said.

"For private equity candidates, three-quarters of what they need is there. They think like investors, they understand how deals are structured and what they look like, and they understand risk," Judson said. "What they don't necessarily have are credit skills."

The longer you stay in private equity, however, the harder it may be to make a move since debt and lending experience become increasingly important the higher you get on the corporate ladder. Rubinetti said an obvious candidate might be someone who worked in private equity and then went to business school. You would need to get your foot in the door soon thereafter, however.

"Once you're 3-4 years post-MBA, it just makes no sense," he said.

Skip on-cycle recruiting

Although private-credit shops will hire from private-equity firms, the recruiters who spoke to BI suggested that bankers interested in a private-credit career skip what's known as on-cycle recruiting.

Private equity has become notorious for this recruiting schedule, in which they recruit junior investment bankers for jobs that won't start for two years, usually after their analyst training is complete. In practice, this means that some young bankers already have their next job lined up before they even set foot in the office for their first gig.

On-cycle recruiting can backfire, however, for people looking to break into private credit as many private-credit shops don't participate in on-cycle recruiting, recruiters said.

"A lot of the best candidates we see for private credit didn't participate in on-cycle recruiting," Judson said. "Instead, they hunkered down, learned their stuff, participated, put their hands up, and got extra work, which as an analyst means that they basically don't sleep. They then decide to pursue what they want to do next, once they're better equipped."

• Personal trainer Harry King is 82 and said lifting weights has helped him manage arthritis pain.
• King works out five days a week doing bench presses, leg presses, and cardio on the elliptical.
• He said exercise allowed him to get back to an active lifestyle and makes everyday tasks easier.

When Harry King was in his 50s, a doctor told him the arthritis in his knees had gotten so bad, he needed to stop taking the stairs, and even limit walking whenever possible.

Now 82, King is not only walking, hiking, and working out regularly — he works at his local Planet Fitness as a personal trainer, leading others through their workouts.

"Weight training is the best thing I can do for my arthritis," he told Business Insider. "By exercising and weight training I've built up the muscles around the knee to strengthen it."

King said strength training has helped him get back to an active lifestyle. Over the years, he's earned a second-degree black belt and won two championships in karate, as well as kayaked and hiked across his home state of South Carolina.

"I realize I do more than most 82-year-olds," he said. "It's just a way of life for me. To get into it, you just have to take the first step and go to the gym."

He works out up to five days a week

King spent most of his younger years being active in sports. He started basketball in high school and kept up with it until about age 50,

It wasn't until he was diagnosed with arthritis that he slowed down and started to feel out of shape. But being sedentary worsened his aches and pains and started to limit what he could do. King said he knew it was time for a change when he had an opportunity to hike the Matterhorn in the Alps, but wasn't physically ready.

"I vowed to let that never happen again, to let being out of shape stop me from doing things," he said.

King found a new doctor who could help him get back to physical activity, and found going to the gym helped him feel stronger and more capable in everyday life.

When King saw an opening for a personal trainer a few years ago, he applied, hoping to pass on his enthusiasm for strength training to help other people get stronger and live longer.

He said his approach isn't necessary about seeking out intense challenges (although he'll take them, when the opportunity arises), but making sure he can keep moving.

"I don't need to push through pain to be at the level I want to be. I just want to be fit enough to do something everyday," he said.

His workouts include bench presses, leg presses, and low-impact cardio

King said his exercise routine aims to include heart-healthy cardio as well as strength training for both upper and lower body.

For cardio, King prefers the elliptical or a bike for a low-impact workout that's easier on the joints.

"I used to run a lot but my feet can't take the pounding anymore," he said.

His weightlifting workouts include lower body movements like leg presses or modified squats to protect his knees, and upper body exercises like lat pull-downs and bench presses.

King isn't lifting light weight, either. While he doesn't try to max out his weight, a typical session might involve three sets of 12 reps. On the bench press, he could be hitting as much as 140 pounds.

The goal is progressive overload, gradually increasing the challenge to continue building muscle and strength while preventing injury.

"I don't try to lift as heavy a weight as I used to, just as heavy as I need to improve my strength," he said.

• Alisa Wolfson's family lost their home in the Pacific Palisades to the LA wildfires.
• They have been staying in hotels while they figure out their next steps.
• The impact of climate change and insurance issues are prompting them to consider leaving California.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alisa Wolfson, a journalist living in the Pacific Palisades with her husband and two daughters, ages 7 and 10. They evacuated on January 7 and subsequently lost their home in the LA fires that swept through Southern California. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up in the Palisades, and I've seen countless fires in surrounding areas. Usually, when fires start in the Santa Monica mountains and head toward the Palisades, they're always able to extinguish them.

On Tuesday when I was leaving my house, I thought we'd be back that night, so I didn't grab anything other than my laptop and our passports. If I'd thought that there was any chance something like this could happen, I would've grabbed as much as I could, even strapping things to the roof of my car.

The next day, when I found out our house was gone, I was in complete shock. I keep closing my eyes and going room by room through my house, picturing how everything was. To think that none of it exists anymore is… I haven't found a profound enough word. "Devastating" and "unfathomable" don't do it justice.

Everything we own is gone

I felt like our house was a fortress; it was so well-built and sturdy. Before we found out, my husband had even said, "I wouldn't be surprised if our house was the only one still standing."

One of our neighbors was able to bike to our street and sent pictures and videos to the group text. Miraculously, two homes across the street from me are still standing. They're the only ones left on the block, and their hedges are still green.

I recognized our driveway, our lime tree — still with limes on it — and a white cement wall in front of our house that had turned brown with soot. Everything else was unrecognizable. We had two vintage cars in our garage — a '57 Chevy that was built like a tank and a '69 Jaguar — and there's no more evidence of them. They're just dust.

Every single possession that I have — that I had, rather — is gone, and I wasn't able to save any of it. Our entire lives that were in that house are gone. The magnitude of what that means and its permanence feels so unexpected and unfair.

I'm so sad that I didn't bring a basket of old home videos of my dad, who passed away when our oldest was only 10 months old. My mom's house also burned down, so we have no family heirlooms left. People say, "You still have plenty of years left to start collecting," but it's not the same as having your grandmother's silver that was used at all of the family get-togethers and celebrations.

We're fortunate to have the means to stay in a hotel

People online have been saying things [about Palisades] like, "They're rich. They'll rebuild and don't need any assistance." I don't take it personally. Unless it's happened to you, it's virtually impossible to relate to.

We're fortunate to have the means to stay in a hotel right now — first the Beverly Hilton, and we moved to the Fairmont Century Plaza on Wednesday, as it's across the street from my husband's office and around the corner from the Westfield Century City Shopping Centre.

Just about every other hotel guest I've seen is in the same boat. There's something strangely comforting about knowing we're not the only ones, that there's a larger community that's all grieving the same type of loss.

We're taking it an hour at a time

There's a long road ahead. The rental market is already insane. There are a limited number of rentals, and everyone's in line for the same properties. I'm sure there will be price-gouging and greedy people who want to get as much money as they can when they lease their homes out.

We've had friends and family from all over the country reach out and offer to have us stay with them. One offered us their condo in Sun Valley — an incredible offer, but uprooting ourselves feels like it'd be too much change so quickly.

Family friends have a horse property in the Palisades and have graciously offered us one of their little guest cottages. We're waiting to see if it survived. If so, we'll go there temporarily because it's somewhere our daughters are familiar with.

Otherwise, we're looking into potential long-term hotel stay-type places. Really, we're just taking things day by day. We're booked at this hotel through the weekend on Monday as of now. We could extend here, but we might benefit from having a little more space, especially with the dog.

My husband and I both grew up in the Palisades and bought our home there in 2018. We love our neighborhood and its strong sense of community. Now, moving away from California is on the table.

Climate change is real. Fires are becoming more frequent and more intense, and nobody wants to insure homes in California anymore. Ironically, just last month, State Farm sent us a notice that they wouldn't be renewing our fire insurance policy. Fortunately, we're covered through April. We've filed a claim with our insurance and are waiting to have a subsequent call with an adjuster.

I want to incorporate as much normalcy as possible

I've only cried once so far today. I don't know if things are settling in and becoming more real; perhaps we're falling into our own little routine at the hotel.

A family that we know happens to be staying in the room next door, and our daughters are very happy at the thought of doing cartwheels up and down the hallway together because that's what makes them feel normal right now. All I can hope for is that my girls continue to have those brief moments and glimmers of hope.

I'm trying to incorporate as much normalcy as possible where I can, not that there's really much to be had. I have a hard time accepting things from people because I'd rather be helping, but I've had to do away with that mindset and just accept the help.

Last night, I sent my daughters home with one of my best friends. She made them dinner and tasked them with some babysitting duties to make them feel like they were needed. She took them to get ice cream afterward and even brought me a scoop when she dropped them off.

It's those kinds of things that are really keeping us going.