• Influencers have filed a lawsuit against Capital One.
• They allege its Shopping extension hurt their earnings by unfairly claiming credit for sales.
• Capital One said it disagreed with the premise of the lawsuit.

First, the influencers came for PayPal's Honey. Now, Capital One is in the crosshairs.

Capital One is the subject of a lawsuit filed this week by creators, who allege the company's Shopping browser extension hurt their affiliate-marketing commissions by stealing credit for driving sales.

"We disagree with the premise of the complaint and look forward to defending ourselves in court," a Capital One spokesperson told Business Insider.

Capital One Shopping is a free browser extension that searches for discount codes and coupons, compares prices across around 30,000 online retailers, and lets users earn rewards that can be exchanged for gift cards. It makes money by earning a commission when its users purchase an item from its merchant partners.

In a class-action lawsuit filed on January 6 in a Virginia court, two creators who promote products on social media allege Capital One's Shopping browser extension is designed to "systematically appropriate commissions that belong to influencers."

The lawsuit alleges Capital One Shopping "stole credit" by swapping out influencers' affiliate-marketing browser cookies with its own. Cookies are small data files stored on a user's device that help companies track users' browsing history.

The war for the last click

Much like recent lawsuits filed by influencers against PayPal over its Honey browser extension, the Capital One Shopping case hones in on the marketing practice of "last-click attribution."

In this model, cookies, unique web links, promo codes, and other analytics tags are used to determine the last piece of content a user engages with before they make a purchase. That entity, be it a YouTube video or an ad, gets credit for the purchase.

The practice has fallen out of favor in some marketing circles because it doesn't consider the full cycle of convincing someone to buy a product. There are also concerns that some middlemen may try to game the system to unfairly claim last-click credit for purchases that they had little to do with.

Companies in the affiliate-marketing industry often seek to adhere to "stand down" practices, where they won't override another affiliate's cookies.

In their lawsuit, content creators Jesika Brodiski and Peter Hayward allege Capital One Shopping took credit for sales and conversions that were originally derived from affiliate-marketing links they shared to social media.

Brodiski shared affiliate-marketing links on social media for products on Walmart.com, and the lawsuit claims that — if a user had the Capital One Shopping extension activated during the checkout process — Capital One would remove her associated cookie and replace it with its own. The lawsuit said Brodiski earned around $20,000 through affiliate marketing in 2024 but that her earnings were hampered by Capital One Shopping.

Hayward is part of the Amazon affiliate-marketing program and similarly alleges Capital One would replace his referral tag with its own.

The lawsuit also alleges Brodiski and Hayward "face future harm in the form of stolen referral fees and sales commissions because the Capital One Shopping browser extension continues to steal affiliate marketing commissions with each passing day."

A court will need to certify the class action in order for the case to proceed

The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial. If the case is certified as a class action, other influencers could join the suit.

Christopher Roberts, partner and class action attorney at the law firm Butsch Roberts & Associates, told BI the most difficult part of such cases is getting the class certified. The court will need to rigorously analyze various factors, such as whether the class is big enough and whether it would make more sense to litigate complicated cases individually.

Certification aside, Roberts said he felt the case would come down to what discovery shows.

"This case, on its face, is very well-pled, and it's pretty specific as to the code for this app being supplanted on the computer so that they can get the affiliate payment," Roberts said.

• The third book in Rebecca Yarros' "Empyrean" series comes out on January 21.
• It will pick up where dragon rider Violet Sorrengail left off in "Iron Flame."
• Warning: This article contains major spoilers for "Fourth Wing" and "Iron Flame."

The much-anticipated third installment of Rebecca Yarros' "The Empyrean" series is finally hitting bookshelves.

"Onyx Storm," which continues Violet Sorrengail's journey to become a dragon rider, will be released on January 21 by Red Tower Books.

Yarros' dragon-filled romantasy world became massive in "Iron Flame," and it might be difficult to remember everything that happened in the sequel before you read the third "Empyrean" book.

Check out Business Insider's recap of the major events in "Iron Flame" so you're ready for "Onyx Storm." And if you need a refresher on the first installment in the series, you can also read BI's guide to "Fourth Wing."

The rest of this article contains major spoilers for "Fourth Wing" and "Iron Flame."

Violet Sorrengail was reckoning with some major shocks at the start of 'Iron Flame'

When "Iron Flame" opens, Violet Sorrengail is recovering from a battle that brought her face to face with venin and wyverns, evil creatures the government of Navarre — including her mother, General Lilith Sorrengail — told her weren't real.

The battle also revealed that her romantic interest, Xaden Riorson, and other students at Basgiath, the war college Violet attends, have been secretly fighting for the revolution, and it left her friend Liam dead.

As if those revelations weren't enough, Violet also awakens at a rebel outpost in Aretia to discover the mender who saved her life is Brennan, her brother she thought had died. Instead, he has been working with the rebels under an alias since his disappearance.

Violet and her other classmates decide to return to the Riders Quadrant at Basgiath before the school's graduation. They are under strict orders to keep the venin attack — and the true cause of Liam's death — secret. Violet also decides to try to find information about Navarre's wards to help protect innocents from the venin.

During the fight, Violet's younger dragon, Andarna, exerted so much power to protect Violet that she escalated her growth process and had to fall into a deep sleep to complete her change. Violet takes her to the Vale, the home of the dragons, to recover while she returns to Basgiath with her other dragon, Tairn.

New dangers at Basgiath

After graduation, Xaden is assigned to work at an outpost called Samara, a full-day flight away from Basgiath. Xaden and Violet, who is still a student, must visit each other every seven days so her dragon, Tairn, and his dragon, Sgaeyl, can see each other because they are mated.

Meanwhile, the imposing Vice Commandant Varrish comes to work at Basgiath, keeping a close eye on Violet and her classmates who were at the venin battle.

Violet also discovers that Jack Barlowe, her nemesis from "Fourth Wing," whom she thought she killed, was resurrected. Violet is wary of Jack as he's integrated back into Basgiath, but when a first-year student tries to kill her, Jack saves her, telling Violet they're even after his attempts on her life the previous year.

Violet and her squad continue to bond as they face new challenges in a Rider Survival Course. Violet also manages to steal a journal written by Lyra, one of the First Six Riders, from the royal family with their help. She hopes it can offer insight into how Basgiath's wards function.

The danger surrounding Violet at Basgiath comes to a head when Varrish and his cronies torture her for five days for stealing the journal. Visions of Liam keep Violet sane during the torture. When Varrish taps Violet's childhood friend Dain Aetos to wrench secrets from her mind with his signet power, he surprises them all by betraying Navarre and freeing Violet.

Xaden arrives soon after, and he and Violet kill Varrish and confess their love for each other. They also decide to reveal the existence of venin and wyvern to the Basgiath student body, giving their peers the chance to join them as they flee to join the rebels.

They manage to convince around 200 riders to leave with them, including Dain, Violet's squad, and even some teachers, heading to Xaden's home, Riorson House, for safety. Mira, Violet's sister, also joins her siblings at Basgiath.

Violet and her squad join the resistance

Andarna wakes up soon after Violet arrives at Riorson House, and she now appears to be a large, black dragon. Though she has matured into a moody adolescent, her disrupted growth means her wing muscles didn't develop correctly. She will never be able to bear a rider, which is heartbreaking for both her and Violet.

Meanwhile, Violet and the other cadets from Basgiath settle in with the rebels. They continue to train alongside gryphon riders — including Xaden's ex-girlfriend Cat — which can be fraught as the riders learn to trust each other.

Ahead of a wyvern attack, Violet manages to get the wards surrounding Aretia up, though they don't work as well as those in Navarre. Lilith then gives Violet Lyra's journal during a meeting because she wants her children to be safe, and Violet taps her Scribe friend Jesinia to translate it so they can find answers about the wards.

During their time at Riorson House, Violet realizes Xaden has a second signet he has kept secret from everyone but her. He confides in her that he is an inntinsic, allowing him to read people's intentions — a signet that riders are immediately killed for having because of the dangers they pose to other riders.

The conversation also hints that Violet has a second signet that has yet to be revealed because she is bonded with two dragons.

'Iron Flame' culminates with a battle at Basgiath

Violet and her friends rush back to Basgiath when they realize venin are launching an attack on the school. When they arrive, they discover that Jack has secretly turned venin months ago, and he destroys the wards after killing his own dragon.

Dragons, gryphons, and their riders work together to defend Basgiath from venin and wyverns in an intense battle. Brennan manages to mend the wardstone Jack broke, and Jesinia finally translates Lyra's journal, telling Violet they need a seventh type of dragon to make them work.

Jesinia's discovery makes Violet realize Andarna isn't a black dragon as she previously believed and is, in fact, the seventh breed of dragon. Andarna then tells Violet she didn't hatch for 650 years, as she was waiting specifically for her.

The dragons assemble to raise the wards, and Violet nearly gives all her power to secure them until her mother steps in. Lilith sacrifices herself, raising the wards and killing the invading wyvern.

Violet rushes to find Xaden after the battle, and she discovers he has the red-rimmed eyes associated with the venin, as he took power from the land to try to protect Violet. The book ends with Jack telling Xaden there is no known cure to turning venin.

Violet won't continue her studies at Basgiath in "Onyx Storm," instead traveling to find allies to help fight the venin — and save Xaden.

• Mom Lisa Ward lives in Topanga, between Palisades and Malibu, where the LA wildfires are raging.
• Her family was horrified when they saw TV images of their local high school burning to the ground.
• While her 17-year-old won't get the graduation he hoped for, his priority is to help homeless friends.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lisa Ward, 59, a stay at home mom from Topanga, California. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Our family is sheltering in Topanga, a canyon region between Palisades and Malibu that is being ravaged by California wildfires.

The generator turns on and off at random, but we're glued to the local TV news whenever we can be. On Tuesday — when the fires struck our area — my oldest son, Luc, 19, jumped up from the couch.

"That's the high school," he shouted, pointing to the footage of the flames and billowing smoke consuming the campus. "There's the locker building, the baseball field, and the football stadium — they're all burning."

We were in shock. We'd been in the stadium for Luc's graduation from Palisades Charter High School in 2023 and were proudly looking forward to sitting in the bleachers for his 17-year-old brother Cole's graduation in June.

Our youngest, Theo, 15, began as a freshman there last September.

It was terrible to see the campus ablaze, though we knew it wasn't as horrific as watching someone's home burn down. A few minutes earlier, Luc's girlfriend, Nikola, 19, had spotted her condo building on fire around a mile away from the school.

She sobbed in my arms. We later found out she'd lost everything except the bag of clothes she'd grabbed before evacuating. The branches of the trees were in flames as she ran to the car.

My son asked about his graduation and prom

Cole, our senior, was on a snowboarding trip with some classmates in Mammoth Mountain, a five-hour drive from Topanga. They found out about what happened to the high school on social media.

"I won't get my graduation ceremony at Pali High, will I?" Cole asked me. "Or prom?"

"No," I replied as gently as I could. I don't think you will." He had gone to his brother's graduation, and it had been an enormous thing. Cole is a linebacker on the school football team, which plays a huge role in the celebration.

Some people in his cohort have already had their pictures taken for the senior graduating yearbook in their formal dresses and suits. But this year's book can't be finished. The photo lab where they do it has gone.

I could tell Cole was upset, but he's a kid who puts things into perspective. It's best not to have a school than a home. Of the six kids who went to Mammoth Mountain, only two of them — including Cole — still had homes. We've told them that there'll always be a bed for them here as long as we're not evacuated.

Everyone is on edge as we worry about our houses. We haven't really had a chance to think about what classes will look like this year.

But Cole and Theo have been told they will start online schooling before the high school figures out how to relocate about 3,000 kids to other places.

The kids can't really process the events

Remote learning during the pandemic was a nightmare for everyone, particularly Theo, who suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was younger. We didn't get through a single day without tears. The social isolation also affected the kids.

As for the here and now, they can't absorb what's going on. When you watch the fires on the news, the images are so shocking that they don't seem real. I can see it in their faces. "My darlings," I told them. "I don't think the human brain can process this because so much has gone in such a short space of time."

I'm a big communicator, even when the boys don't like it. Sometimes, I'll talk and hear nothing back, but I don't stop. I'm constantly checking in on them to tell them that I love them.

• Trump's nominees must file personal financial disclosures.
• Those reports include information on income, assets, and more.
• On Friday, the first disclosure report for a Trump nominee became public.

How you ever wondered how some of President-elect Donald Trump's appointees and nominees make money? We're starting to find out.

Just like House members, senators, and congressional candidates, Trump's nominees are required to file personal financial disclosures before they assume office or are confirmed by the US Senate.

Those disclosure reports, along with their ethics agreements, include details of each person's assets, sources and amounts of recent income, and other details of their personal finances.

The documents are likely to reveal information like Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth's salary at Fox News, Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi's compensation for lobbying, and the sprawling assets of the billionaires working for the administration.

As of Friday, January 10, only one of these disclosures has been made public. This story will be updated as more become available.

Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget

Russell Vought is Trump's nominee to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a role he served during the second half of Trump's first administration.

His financial disclosure shows that he brought in more than $542,000 in both salary and bonuses from the Center for Renewing America, a pro-Trump think tank, and its affiliated advocacy group, Citizens for Renewing America. Vought serves as the president for both organizations.

He's made thousands in extra income on the side, including $15,000 from the Republican National Committee for helping to prepare the policy platform for the party's convention.

He also received a $4,000 honorarium from Hillsdale College on September 19, the date that he appeared on a panel during the conservative institute's Constitution Day celebration in McLean, Virginia.

His assets include various mutual and index funds, along with between $1,000 and $15,000 in Bitcoin, which generated more than $1,000 in income last year. As part of his ethics agreement, Vought agreed to sell off that Bitcoin within 90 days of his confirmation.

• Delta reported fourth-quarter earnings that topped analyst expectations on Friday.
• Revenue from premium seats was a major bright spot for the airline.
• Shares soared more than 9% in trading following the announcement.

People are clamoring for premium air travel, and Delta Air Lines is cashing in on that demand.

The airline reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue on Friday, both of which beat Wall Street estimates. Massive growth in premium seat sales helped send shares up more than 9% in trading Friday.

Revenue from Delta's premium cabins, which include Delta One, Domestic First Class, and Delta Premium Select, increased 8% to over $5.2 billion in the quarter, versus a 2% growth in its main cabin.

Despite taking up a small fraction of an aircraft's cabin, premium seats generated $20.5 billion in revenue during 2024, just $4 billion shy of the amount brought in by economy.

For 2024, Delta reported $61.6 billion in total revenue, up 6% over 2023.

Delta President Glen Hauenstein said baby boomers have played a big role in driving that premium demand.

"Being a boomer myself, I'm proud of us driving our premium results," Hauenstein said during the company's earnings call on Friday. He expects younger generations to account for more premium demand as the older generation of consumers ages out.

"The newer generation is wealthier, and we have a bigger share of that generation. So excited not only for today as the boomers are driving it but excited for tomorrow as we pass it on to the next generations," Hauenstein said.

In recent years, Delta has introduced updated premium cabins and opened new and expanded Delta SkyClub lounges. The airline also recently opened its first DeltaOne business-class lounge in New York.

Americans are clamoring to go to Europe

Demand for international travel gave Delta a boost during the final quarter of 2024.

Transatlantic revenue increased by 6% despite a 2% capacity cut. Revenue from transpacific flights increased by 19%, but that required an outsize 24% capacity increase.

It looks like the strong demand for transatlantic travel will continue into 2025. Hauenstein said Americans' continued desire to travel to Europe during the early months of this year is due to the strong US dollar and will not compromise demand for flights this summer.

"You go to a restaurant in New York and then go to a restaurant in Europe, you'll see a vast difference in the bill," he said. "This is a great time to travel to Europe. People are seeing that."

Delta expects first-quarter 2025 revenue to be 7 to 9% higher than the same period in 2024.

Delta's lucrative credit card partnerships continued their hot streak.

The airline earned $2 billion in the quarter by selling frequent flyer miles to American Express to be offered as rewards card holders. That's up 14% from the same period in 2023.

• Meta is dropping many of its DEI initiatives, BI confirmed.
• The company sent a memo announcing the changes on Friday.
• Meta's VP of human resources said the legal and policy landscape in the US was changing.

Meta is rolling back its DEI programs, Business Insider has learned.

The company's vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale, announced the move on its internal communication platform, Workplace, on Friday, which was seen by BI.

"We will no longer have a team focused on DEI," Gale wrote in the memo.

"The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing," she wrote. "The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI."

She added the term DEI has "become charged" partly because it is "understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others."

Meta confirmed the changes when contacted by Business Insider.

On Monday, Meta said that it is also replacing fact-checkers with community notes on its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Meta is the latest company to back away from DEI in the wake of a backlash, legal challenges, and the reelection of Donald Trump as US president.

Read the full memo:

Hi all,

I wanted to share some changes we're making to our hiring, development and procurement practices. Before getting into the details, there is some important background to lay out:

The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms longstanding principles that discrimination should not be tolerated or promoted on the basis of inherent characteristics. The term "DEI" has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.

At Meta, we have a principle of serving everyone. This can be achieved through cognitively diverse teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. Such teams are better at innovating, solving complex problems and identifying new opportunities which ultimately helps us deliver on our ambition to build products that serve everyone. On top of that, we've always believed that no-one should be given - or deprived- of opportunities because of protected characteristics, and that has not changed.

Given the shifting legal and policy landscape, we're making the following changes:

• On hiring, we will continue to source candidates from different backgrounds, but we will stop using the Diverse Slate Approach. This practice has always been subject to public debate and is currently being challenged. We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds to build products that work for everyone.
• We previously ended representation goals for women and ethnic minorities. Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it.
• We are sunsetting our supplier diversity efforts within our broader supplier strategy. This effort focused on sourcing from diverse-owned businesses; going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting small and medium sized businesses that power much of our economy. Opportunities will continue to be available to all qualified suppliers, including those who were part of the supplier diversity program.
• Instead of equity and inclusion training programs, we will build programs that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.
• We will no longer have a team focused on DEI. Maxine Williams is taking on a new role at Meta, focused on accessibility and engagement.

What remains the same are the principles we've used to guide our People practices:

1. We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, beneficial and universally impactful for everyone.
2. We build the best teams with the most talented people. This means sourcing people from a range of candidate pools, but never making hiring decisions based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, gender etc.). We will always evaluate people as individuals.
3. We drive consistency in employment practices to ensure fairness and objectivity for all. We do not provide preferential treatment, extra opportunities or unjustified credit to anyone based on protected characteristics nor will we devalue impact based on these characteristics.
4. We build connection and community. We support our employee communities, people who use our products, and those in the communities where we operate. Our employee community groups (MRGs) continue to be open to all.

Meta has the privilege to serve billions of people every day. It's important to us that our products are accessible to all, and are useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We continue to be focused on serving everyone, and building a multi-talented, industry-leading workforce from all walks of life.

Do you work at Meta? Contact the reporters from a non-work email and device at [email protected]; [email protected]; and [email protected].

• Social-media sentiment around Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni has soured amid their feud.
• Lively has accused Baldoni of harassment, and he claims she tried to smear him.
• Negative posts around the stars have ballooned since Lively filed her complaint.

The feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni seems to have tanked public perception of both stars.

That's the key takeaway from a new analysis of social-media sentiment shared exclusively with Business Insider. The data comes from the social-monitoring firm Sprout Social, which tracks posts on X, YouTube, Reddit, and Tumblr and categorizes them as negative, neutral, or positive.

Lively's 80-page complaint, filed December 21, impressed some public-relations pros, who, in interviews with BI, called it well-timed and detailed. They said at the time it would be hard for Baldoni to come back from it. Lively accused her "It Ends With Us" costar Baldoni of sexually harassing her and engaging in a smear campaign against her. Her allegations were detailed in a The New York Times article published the same day the complaint was filed.

Baldoni hit back in a lawsuit filed against the Times, which accused the paper of libeling him and said Lively embarked on a negative PR campaign against him.

Sprout Social data showed that the volume of social-media mentions of both stars soared after Lively's complaint was filed and the Times story was published. Most of the commentary was negative, the firm's analysis found.

Lively saw negative sentiment jump 29 percentage points to 61% in the immediate aftermath of her complaint (from December 21 to 26), the data showed, compared with the period just before (December 15 to 20).

Baldoni's largely positive sentiment flipped to mostly negative, increasing 41 percentage points to 63% negative during that time.

Baldoni's lawsuit brought a fresh round of negative sentiment on social media for both stars.

Negative sentiment around Lively jumped from 39% right before Baldoni's suit (from December 26 to 31) to 52% right after (from January 1 to Monday). Baldoni saw a similar jump, from 42% just before his lawsuit to 52% after.

The positive sentiment around both stars languished at 6% for Lively and 7% for Baldoni during the period following his suit.

In their legal filings, Lively and Baldoni accused each other of using PR pros to plant negative stories about them, supported by screenshots of conversations.

Lively's complaint alleges Baldoni's camp engaged in "astroturfing," a controversial PR tactic that involves planting online comments while making them look as if they're occurring organically.

The new data suggests that negative sentiment reached its highest point, however, after the stars went to war in legal filings and in the press.

• Ukraine said one of its pilots downed a record-breaking six cruise missiles in a single mission.
• The pilot said he downed two of them with his gun, something experts said took great skill and risk.
• Getting close enough to shoot down missiles requires skill to avoid getting hit with dangerous debris.

The Ukrainian F-16 pilot said to have shot down half a dozen Russian cruise missiles in a single mission showed remarkable skill, particularly during a risky gun battle, a former US Air Force pilot told Business Insider.

Ukraine's air force command said that an F-16 pilot took out six Russian cruise missiles during a single flight in December, calling it a first for the jet. It said that during the historic engagement, the pilot shot down two missiles with the F-16's M61A1 six-barrel 20 mm cannon.

Ret. Col. John Venable, a 25-year veteran of the US Air Force and a former F-16 pilot, told BI that the pilot's ability to gun down the Russian missiles without putting his own aircraft at risk required a lot of skill.

He said "the fact that he did that without fragging himself" says "a lot about his skill set."

Switching to guns raises risks

Ukraine's F-16s have been repeatedly seen flying with an air-defense loadout of two AIM-9 Sidewinders and two AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles. The country's air force said the pilot had used up all of his missiles and was low on fuel after destroying four Russian missiles, but he then saw another Russian missile going toward Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.

He moved to intercept it, firing his gun at the missile that was traveling over 400 miles an hour, the air force said. There was more than one explosion, and the pilot realized that he had actually eliminated two Russian missiles.

The Ukrainian F-16 pilot, per a translation by RBC-Ukraine, said that there was a danger in doing that because "shooting down cruise missiles with a cannon is very risky because of the high speed of the target and the danger of detonation. But I did what the instructors in the US taught me, and I managed to hit it."

Venable said the risk of debris makes this kind of engagement more dangerous for the pilot. He said that pilots must get close to missiles to get a good shot.

He said that if the intercepting aircraft is behind the target and it explodes when hit, "you're going to be what we call fragged," meaning that the aircraft absorbs some of the explosive debris. Pilots have to come in at an angle. Venable said that there being two missiles meant the situation required greater skill.

Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK's Royal Aeronautical Society, likewise said that fighter pilots using guns must get "pretty close" to their target. That brings danger, with cruise missiles "packed with explosives."

"If you're firing at something and it's at close range and that thing goes off — you've got to be pretty aggressive and pretty brave to be doing that," he said.

It takes skill to fly this mission

Retired US Army Maj. Gen. Gordon "Skip" Davis, the former deputy assistant secretary-general for NATO's defense-investment division, told BI "shooting two cruise missiles with aircraft guns is quite impressive."

Venable said that pilots who are shooting at a missile but want to protect their aircraft must approach the missile like they are coming onto a highway from an off-ramp, "where you're at 90 degrees out, and then you start to actually align your car with the highway as that on-ramp turns onto the road."

"That's where you want to take the shot, not when you are right behind the aircraft." And doing that "takes skill," he said.

Ukraine has not commented on the aircraft's state but said the pilot landed at an airfield, indicating it was intact.

Ukraine's air force command said pilots learned to shoot missiles with aircraft cannons in US simulators but never tried it before in combat, the Kyiv Post reported.

Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, told BI the gun kill was "good flying."

He said that it's "easier now with modern radars in fighters than in World War II, but the fighter still needs to close with the cruise missile and fire very accurately."

The jets are likely to continue to fight as missile shields

Battling Russian aircraft would be the better test because they shoot back, but Venable said the reported achievement, which he said was "more than plausible," says a lot "about how far Ukraine's air force has come" and the Ukrainian air force's capabilities.

Kyiv's new F-16s provide added air defense as Russia batters Ukraine with barrages of missiles, hitting major cities and energy infrastructure and killing civilians. The jets support already-strained ground-based air defenses.

This mission carries risks, and Ukraine has already lost at least one of its F-16s and one of its trained pilots.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser on the International Security Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that Ukraine is facing threats Western pilots haven't.

"None have faced the numbers of simultaneous incoming missiles that the Ukrainians have," he said. "US and Western pilots have faced one or two incoming missiles at a time."

Ukraine has a limited F-16 fleet that arrived later than desired. Partner nations have pledged more than 85, far fewer than what the Ukrainians likely need. Many of the jets, older versions of what Western nations fly, still haven't been delivered.

Ukraine probably won't receive enough fighters to use them the way the West does, but it can use them to strengthen its air defenses.

Venable said Ukraine does not have enough aircraft, stealth platforms, and other assets to be able to really use its jets to press against Russia. He said partners had to be conscious of leaving enough jets in their own fleets.

Col. Yuriy Ihnat, the head of the Ukrainian air force command's public relations service, said Ukraine wants more powerful modifications and missiles for its F-16s to compete with Russia, but said the headline-making intercept showed the skill of Ukrainian pilots and how formidable Ukraine's air force could be with more powerful jets.

• Macy's just announced the list of locations it will shutter this year.
• The 66 closures are part of a broader plan to shutter 150 stores by the end of 2026.
• The department store chain has struggled as shoppers turn to lower-priced rivals and online retailers.

Macy's just revealed a list of 66 stores across 22 states that will close this year.

The company said most of the locations on the list are expected to close before May.

The stores announced Thursday are the first of 150 locations that the retailer plans to shutter through 2026. Following the closings, there will be about 350 Macy's left.

"We are closing underproductive Macy's stores to allow us to focus our resources and prioritize investments in our go-forward stores, where customers are already responding positively to better product offerings and elevated service," CEO Tony Spring said in a statement.

Macy's has struggled for years as online shopping and lower-priced options have grown and the chain's in-store experience floundered. Over the past decade, its share price has been down more than 50%.

The department store chain said its closure plan will allow it to focus on its best-performing locations and online experience, where it will refresh its merchandising assortment and modernize the shopping experience.

Macy's isn't the only department store struggling. Kohl's announced this week that it would close more than two dozen stores this year, and over the past five years, Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus filed for bankruptcy.

Here's a full list of the Macy's stores that will close this year.

Arizona

Superstition Springs Center
6535 E Southern Ave, Mesa

California

Broadway Plaza
 750 W 7th St., Los Angeles

Hillsdale Furniture (Closed in FY2024.)
 2838 South El Camino Real, San Mateo

Sunrise Mall
6000 Sunrise Mall, Citrus Heights

Westminster Mall
300 Westminster Mall, Westminster

NewPark Mall
200 NewPark Mall, Newark

Mission Valley Home (Closed in FY2024, furniture business relocating.)
1555 Camino De La Reina, San Diego

Otay Ranch Town Center
2015 Birch Rd Ste. 2, Chula Vista

Village At Corte Madera
1400 Redwood Hwy, Corte Madera

Downtown Plaza
414 K St., Sacramento

Colorado

Northfield Stapleton
8298 E Northfield Blvd, Denver

Streets At Southglenn Furniture (Previously announced and closed.)
6797 South Vine Street, Centennial

Florida

Boynton Beach Mall
801 N Congress Ave. Ste 100, Boynton Beach

Fort Lauderdale Furniture (Furniture business relocating.)
4501 North Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale

Pembroke Furniture (Furniture business relocating.)
13640 Pines Blvd, Pembroke Pines

South Dade Furniture (Closed in FY2024, furniture business relocating.)
13251 South Dixie Highway, Miami

West Shore Plaza
298 Westshore Plz, Tampa

Altamonte Furniture (Going out of business sale to occur in Q1.)
820 W Town Pkwy, Altamonte Springs

Southgate
3501 S Tamiami Traill Ste 600, Sarasota

Boca Raton Furniture (Previously announced and closed. Furniture business relocating.)
9339 Glades Road, Boca Raton

Georgia

Gwinnett Furniture (Going out of business sale to occur in Q1.)
3360 Venture Parkway, Duluth

Gwinnett Place
2100 Pleasant Hill Rd Ste 2318, Duluth

Johns Creek Town Center (Small format location.)
3630 Peachtree Parkway, Suwanee

Idaho

Silver Lake Mall
200 W Hanley Ave Ste 200-4, Coeur D'alene

Illinois

White Oaks Mall
104 White Oaks Mall, Springfield

Louisiana

Acadiana Mall
5733 Johnston St. Ste 2098, Lafayette

Massachusetts

Independence Mall
101 Kingston Collection Way Ste 1, Kingston

Maryland

Security Square
6901 Security Blvd Ste 871, Baltimore

Harford Malle
600 Baltimore Pike, Bel Air

Michigan

Grand Traverse Mall
3400 S Airport Rd W, Traverse City

Lakeside Malle
14200 Lakeside Cir, Sterling Heights

Oakland Mall
500 W 14 Mile Rd, Troy

Genesee Valley Center
4600 Miller Rd, Flint

Minnesota

Maplewood Mall
3001 White Bear Ave N Ste 2035, Maplewood

Burnsville Center
14251 Burnhaven Dr, Burnsville

Missouri

Metro North Mall
400 NW Barry Rd Ste 150, Kansas City

South County Mall
10 S County Center Way, Saint Louis

New Jersey

Essex Green Shopping Center (Backstage location, expected to be closed mid-year.)
459 Prospect Avenue, West Orange

New York

Lake Success (Backstage location, going out of business sale to occur in Q1.)
1550 Union Turnpike, New Hyde Park

Melville Mall (Backstage location, going out of business sale to occur in Q1.)
834 Walt Whitman Road, Huntington

Queens Place (Backstage location, expected to be closed mid-year.)
88-01 Queens Blvd, Elmhurst

Sheepshead Bay (Backstage location, going out of business sale to occur in Q1.)
2027 Emmons Avenue, Brooklyn

Mall At Greece Ridge
397 Greece Ridge Center, Rochester

Sunrise Mall
400 Sunrise Mall, Massapequa

Brooklyn
422 Fulton St, Brooklyn

Staten Island Furniture (Furniture business relocating.)
98 Richmond Hill Road, Staten Island

Fordham Place (Backstage location, going out of business sale to occur in Q1.)
404 East Fordham Rd, Bronx

Ohio

Fairfield Commons
2727 Fairfield Commons Blvd, Beavercreek

Franklin Park
5001 Monroe St Ste D100, Toledo

Oregon

Streets Of Tanasbourne
2055 NE Allie Ave, Hillsboro

Salem Center
400 High St NE, Salem

Pennsylvania

Logan Valley Mall
5580 Goods Ln Ste 2178, Altoona

Exton Square Mall
245 Exton Square Mall, Exton

Philadelphia City Center
1300 Market St, Philadelphia

Wyoming Valley Mall
59 Wyoming Valley Mall, Wilkes Barre

Tennessee

Oak Court
4545 Poplar Ave, Memphis

Texas

Almeda Mall
100 Almeda Mall, Houston

Fairview
201 Stacy Rd, Fairview

Shops at Willow Bend
6209 W Park Blvd, Plano

Southlake Town Square (Small format location.)
321 State St, Southlake

West Bend (Small format location.)
1751 River Run #101, Fort Worth

Highlands of Flower Mound (Small format location.)
6101 Long Prairie Rd Ste 500, Flower Mound

Virginia

Southpark Mall
170 Southpark Cir, Colonial Heights

Washington

South Hill Mall
3500 S Meridian Ste 985, Puyallup

Redmond Furniture (Going out of business sale to occur in Q1.)
15340 NE 24th St, Redmond

Kitsap Mall
10315 Silverdale Way NW, Silverdale

• We adopted a child in Oregon who had Costa Rican heritage that we wanted to be sure to celebrate.
• So, when she was 4, we moved to Costa Rica. We struggled and returned to the US after a few months.
• We learned ways to embrace her roots without having to leave the community we'd built in the US.

In 2008, my husband, Jonathan, and I adopted our daughter from Oregon's foster-care system when she was 18 months old.

The Department of Human Services mandated months of preliminary classes, many of which focused on how best to celebrate an adopted child's ethnicity. I took this directive very seriously.

Our kid's birth mother had been born in Costa Rica and adopted by a US couple two decades before she got pregnant and relinquished her infant to the state.

I knew enough about the emotional wounds adopted children can face to believe I should take drastic measures to try to mitigate any pain my own girl could experience.

When she was 4 years old, I had an even bigger idea for how we might be able to do so: We could move to Costa Rica. It would be an adventure, I thought, a perfect escape from the cold, rainy Northwest winters in our tiny Oregon cottage!

Call it a revelation or call it a midlife crisis, but my husband took a six-month leave of absence, I quit my job, and we found a short-term renter who would care for our cats until we found a new house to purchase.

In December 2011, we moved from the US to Playas del Coco with two backpacks and a bag of kids' science books.

We spent weeks trying to embrace the local culture and fall in love with our new home

For the first few weeks in Costa Rica, we spent our days at the beach or taking the public bus throughout the Pacific side of the country, searching for the ideal place to put down roots.

However, we hadn't prepared for Christmas. We'd spent past holidays at my mother's house in California, drinking eggnog and opening presents.

In an unfamiliar country, Jonathan and I wandered through the aisles of the local supermarket looking for last-minute small, portable gifts for our daughter.

We picked up a makeshift cardboard tree and tried to feel merry without our handmade stockings hanging over the fireplace and our 6-foot tree covered in ornaments rich with memories.

Our new condo was still empty and felt soulless, so we wandered out for some classic Christmas cheer. We found ourselves on the beach clutching cups of shaved ice in sweaty palms while red-faced children in suits and taffeta dresses sang and swayed on hot sands to "Let It Snow."

"I miss my friends," our small daughter whimpered. "I miss our cats."

I missed our pets and my own friends horribly, but we'd resolved to surround her with the people, music, and traditions of her birth mother's country.

Instead of commiserating, I suggested we head out for dinner.

We sat down to plates of gallo pinto — Costa Rica's ubiquitous rice-and-bean dish — and pan-fried plantains in a pastel-painted room full of empty tables and a neon-purple Christmas tree.

We hadn't met any other families yet, so we walked home alone, pointing out holiday light displays on our new neighbors' houses and trying to feel celebratory.

For another seven weeks, we traveled the country by bus and occasionally in a rented Jeep. We spent most of our time in Playa Samara, where we enrolled our daughter in a bilingual kindergarten.

We roamed the beautiful beaches, kayaked on rivers, and introduced our child to the animals, birds, trees, and insects of her birth mother's country. She met local kids of all ages and shopkeepers who pinched her cheeks and slipped her complimentary bags of fried plantains.

Still, our daughter was miserable. "I want to go home!" she said daily.

After 3 months in Costa Rica, we headed back to the US

Early in March, Jonathan turned to me, red-faced and sweating. "It's broiling by eight in the morning," he said. "Makes me almost miss winter in Oregon."

"I do miss winter in Oregon," I replied. "I miss the rain and the cold. I think I even miss the mud!"

We walked down to the beach, our daughter riding his shoulders, and crossed a rickety little bridge to a new restaurant we'd heard about.

Outside, we stopped and stared. Oregon Ducks flags — the green and yellow emblems in our college town back home — hung everywhere. The owner, we learned, had relocated from our part of the world.

As our child eyed the flags wistfully over yet another bowl of gallo pinto, I stared out at the dark ocean. This felt like a sign that Oregon was our perfect place, and my husband agreed.

By mid-month, we'd moved back to the US. We acknowledged our change of heart with chagrin, but our friends and neighbors welcomed us back with joy.

Now that we were home, I studied what other adoptive parents did to honor their children's culture — everything from special summer camps to weekly dinners, church services, and festivals. We set about creating a community of kids who looked like our daughter and began taking Spanish classes.

There were less extreme ways, I found, to celebrate our daughter's heritage and bolster her against the inevitable sorrow that can come with being adopted. We didn't need to relocate 4,000 miles away from all that she loved.

The next Christmas, Jonathan hung our stockings over the fireplace in a cottage that now struck me as charming, shaded by graceful firs and cedars.

We sewed catnip mice and tucked them into small stockings. We set up our big tree and excitedly hung the ornaments we'd been exchanging for years.

Then, I led my daughter into the kitchen where I got out the stepstool and the cast-iron pan. "Open this can of black beans," I told her. "We're going to learn to make gallo pinto."

• I've been following the Mediterranean diet for years, and I've learned a lot of simple recipes. 
• Lamb souvlaki, baked salmon, and creamy chicken pasta are all in my dinner rotation. 
• For breakfast, I love shakshuka, and orange, avocado, and shrimp salad is a great lighter meal.

I learned to cook for the Mediterranean diet at university over five years ago. Since then, I've tried various recipes and even developed some of my own.

I take a minimalist approach to my diet and often only use a few ingredients in my meals. I bulk out the more expensive ingredients, like fresh fish and poultry, with whole grains, mixed beans, and vegetables.

My favorite recipes take about 10 to 30 minutes to prepare and don't require any specialist equipment. 

I've discovered a love for orange, avocado, and shrimp salad

I wasn't initially convinced that orange, mustard, and shrimp went together. It felt unnatural to make a salad without traditional ingredients like cucumber and tomato.

However, the sweetness of the orange sharpens the buttery avocado and perfectly complements the shrimp. 

Start by tearing half of an orange into segments. Squeeze the juice from the other half and put it to the side. Dice an avocado, slice half a red onion, and rip up some romaine lettuce. Add all of the components to a bowl with a few pieces of shrimp on top — I like to buy the precooked kind for convenience.

To make the dressing, combine the orange juice with a splash of olive oil, a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard, and a little salt and pepper.

Zucchini fritters with tzatziki make a wonderful lunch

Vegetable fritters are one of my favorite snack foods to batch-cook and freeze for busy weekday lunches. 

Grate one zucchini and half an onion into a sieve. Add a little salt and squeeze out the excess water with a spoon.

Then, grate a handful of Parmesan into a bowl with a cup of all-purpose flour, a splash of milk, and one egg. Combine the grated vegetables and batter. 

Add a generous amount of olive oil to a pan and fry small dollops of batter until golden. Press the fritters flat to make sure they're cooked all the way through.

For the tzatziki dip, mix Greek yogurt, two crushed garlic cloves, a sprig of fresh mint, and a dash of olive oil. 

Smoked mackerel pâté is an indulgent treat

Instead of sweets and chocolate, I like to indulge in cheeses, smoked meats, and pâtés. 

To make that fit into my Mediterranean diet, I combine precooked and shredded smoked mackerel, light cream cheese, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Season the pâté with salt and pepper, and serve it spread on sourdough toast. 

Shakshuka is the ultimate weekend brunch dish

If I fancy a Mediterranean breakfast on the weekend, I go for shakshuka.

Sauté diced red pepper, green pepper, and onion with two crushed garlic cloves. Add a sprinkle of cumin, paprika, coriander, and red-chili flakes before pouring in some chopped tomatoes.

Place three eggs in the mixture, cover the pan, and let them simmer on low heat.

Remove from the heat once your eggs are cooked to your liking and finish with fresh chopped parsley and mint. 

On special occasions, I'll whip up a lamb souvlaki

As a young journalist, lamb is a little out of my price range, so I reserve it for special occasions.

I opt for a good-quality lamb shoulder and season it with garlic, oregano, lemon juice, and olive oil for a few hours.

Add chunks of lamb to a wooden skewer and throw them on the grill. I often bulk out my kebabs with bell peppers and onions.

Finish the meal with tzatziki and Greek potatoes. 

Salmon with veggies is an easy weeknight meal

If I've spent my evening at a spin class or late-night meeting, salmon is my go-to dish.

Season some fillets with garlic and herbs and wrap them in aluminum foil. Cook them in the oven for about 15 minutes and pair them with roasted asparagus and broccoli. 

I've concocted a Mediterranean version of a make-your-own pizza 

If you have an at-home dinner date coming up, make some puff-pastry pizza together.

Roll out a premade puff-pastry sheet, add pesto and tomato paste for the base, and cook for five minutes. 

Once it's out, top with crumbled feta, spinach, and onions for a veggie-style pizza. You could also use some shredded salmon for a little extra protein.

Put it back in the oven until the cheese starts to brown and melt.

To balance out my lighter meals, I like to make a 1-pot creamy-chicken pasta 

We all need cheesy carb-filled dinners from time to time — the Mediterranean diet is all about balance and moderation. 

Chop up a few chicken breasts, fry them in a pan until golden, and remove.

Sauté a few cloves of garlic and combine with chicken stock, heavy cream, and fettuccine pasta in the pan. The measurements will depend on how much you like garlic and cream. 

Once the sauce has thickened, sprinkle in some Parmesan, olives, and lemon slices and pop the cooked chicken back in.

Chorizo and butter-bean stew is a cozy meal 

On colder days, I like to cozy up with a stew.

Slice up some chorizo and fry in a pan for a few minutes. Crank your extractor fan onto its highest setting to avoid the smoke alarm going off — I speak from experience. 

Toss in cans of butter beans and chopped tomatoes and let everything sizzle.

Add a big spoonful of pesto for a garlicky twist and serve.

I like to make frittata when it's time to clean out the fridge

When I don't know what to make, eggs are always a great option.

Mix a few eggs, a handful of sun-dried tomatoes, and some crumbled feta cheese together.

Finely dice half an onion and fry with crushed garlic for a few minutes. Sauté some spinach in the onion mixture and pour the egg concoction on top.

Bake in the oven until the egg is fully cooked and garnish with fresh parsley and your seasonings of choice. 

Whenever I need a little extra protein, I turn to tofu 

If I find myself in a bit of a food rut, I mix things up with meat alternatives.

I've only recently discovered tofu, and I've been enjoying adding it to salads and grain bowls for a protein boost.

I marinate the tofu cubes in lemon, garlic, and rosemary overnight and then fry them in olive oil for a crispy texture.

This story was originally published on May 17, 2022, and most recently updated on January 10, 2025. 

• Insurance companies hire private businesses to proactively protect properties from wildfires.
• The CEO of one company told BI its strategies include using fire-blocking gel and cleaning gutters.
• He said companies like his can help solve the insurance crisis, as they focus only on economic loss.

Insurance companies are hiring private firms to protect customer properties before wildfires roll in by taking measures such as applying protective gels and removing combustibles to try to fire-proof structures.

David Torgerson is the CEO of Wildfire Defense Systems, a private company that contracts with insurance carriers to protect homes and businesses from fires like those ripping through Southern California. He said that Wildfire Defense Systems works exclusively with insurers, partnering with dozens of carriers across 22 states to protect structures.

"We are typically working hours in advance, or days in advance of the fire passing over a property, and we call that the presuppression," he told Business Insider. "We're preparing the property to survive the amount of time that the fire is in proximity to the structure, and then we quickly come back in after the fire is passed to secure the property."

He said that his employees — who, unlike first responders, are not focused on saving lives or containing the blaze — are "actively working" to help battle the fires in Southern California.

In addition to applying fire-blocking gels and getting rid of flammable materials, Wildfire Defense System's strategies include cleaning gutters and operating sprinkler systems, a company fact sheet says. The famed Getty Villa has so far survived this week's blaze in part because of similar fire-mitigation efforts.

Once a fire passes through a neighborhood, company personnel will return to insured homes to put out any simmering spot fires and assess other risks, Torgerson said. By law, his company can only protect homes covered by insurance policies that include its services, he said.

In recent years, insurance companies have cut back on coverage in California, largely because of wildfire risk. In 2023, State Farm said it was no longer accepting new homeowner insurance applications in the state. It also ended coverage for 72,000 homes and apartments last year, including some in the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood devastated by the most recent blazes.

Preliminary estimates have put insured losses at more than $20 billion, a record high for California. Real estate and insurance experts previously told BI that the current wildfires will likely exacerbate the state's insurance crisis.

Torgerson said that qualified insurance resources like his are part of the solution to coverage woes because they mainly try to mitigate the economic cost of a fire.

"Our job really is to help policyholders and insurance carriers keep insurance available in the marketplace," he said. "If wildfires are going to get steadily more intense and more frequent, the scale of our operations have increased."

With some of the nation's wealthiest ZIP codes on fire — in Pacific Palisades, for example, the average home price is $4.5 million, per Realtor.com — controversy has erupted around who has access to fire safety resources. When a Los Angeles-based investor and self-described entrepreneur posted a request on his X account to hire private firefighters for his home, many responded with outrage in the comments. The user, Keith Wasserman, has since suspended his X account.

Torgerson told BI that his services are very different from private firefighters, who he said comprise a tiny sliver of the market. Wildfire Defense Systems does not have contact with individual homeowners and protects properties based on risk, not home value. He also said his employees meet all the training requirements of the National Wildlife Coordinating Group and are members of the firefighters union.

"It only really comes up when the fires are occurring in Southern California, the LA basin," he said of private firefighters, who he said are not subject to the same training. Torgerson said his services are part of standard insurance policies with the affiliated companies, though he declined to disclose which insurers use his services.

In 2021, State Farm said in a press release that it was partnering with Wildfire Defense Systems and the service would be added to all non-tenant homeowner policies in California, Arizona, and Washington. Chubb also partners with Wildfire Defense Systems in California and other states, according to its website, and says that policyholders can opt to enroll in the protective services.

Representatives from State Farm and Chubb did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

• TikTok said it would "go dark" this month if the Supreme Court doesn't extend a divestment deadline.
• TikTok users would likely stop seeing videos after January 19, and the app would leave app stores.
• The company is arguing its case against a divest-or-ban law before the Supreme Court on Friday.

TikTok said it would "go dark" in the US later this month if the Supreme Court fails to extend a January 19 divestment deadline set by a divest-or-ban law.

During oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Friday, the company's attorney Noel Francisco said TikTok's partners, like app store hosts and other service providers, would stop working with it if its Chinese owner ByteDance fails to divest its US operations by the 19th. That would force TikTok to shut down.

"It's essentially going to stop operating," Francisco told the court. "I think that's the consequence of this law, which is why I think a short reprieve here would make all the sense in the world."

This means a TikTok ban would not only prevent the app from being downloaded but also likely block existing users from seeing videos. The app wouldn't continue operating in the US the way "Fortnite" did, for example, when Apple removed the game from its app store amid a dispute between the companies.

"This is not a dispute between two private parties," G.S. Hans, a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, told Business Insider. "This is a dispute between a private party and the government, and the government can pretty easily legally prevent a company from operating."

TikTok filed a legal challenge against the divest-or-ban law in May. The bill asked its China-based owner, ByteDance, to separate itself from the US version of TikTok within nine months or be forced to stop operating in the US. The company lost its case in the DC Circuit last month, and it's now asking the Supreme Court for an emergency injunction to pause its divestment deadline.

During oral arguments, the company pushed back on the idea that it could divest the US version of TikTok from the rest of the company. Francisco described that process as "extraordinarily difficult" over any timeline.

• A couple in Australia had their marriage annulled after the bride said she didn't genuinely consent.
• The woman said she believed the ceremony was a "prank" being filmed for Instagram.
• A judge ruled in her favor, saying it was likely the applicant believed she was just acting.

A couple in Australia had their marriage annulled after the bride testified in court that she thought the ceremony was part of a "prank" video orchestrated by the groom for social media clout.

In a family court judgment from October, which was made public this month, a judge declared the couple's December 2023 marriage void.

The bride, 24, filed for the annulment in May 2024, arguing that the marriage to the groom, in his 30s, was a sham because she did not offer real consent.

She said she thought she was merely playing the role of a bride for a video that the groom, a social media influencer with over 17,000 followers, would post on Instagram.

The Guardian Australia was the first to report on the judgment.

The bride says she thought it was a 'prank'

The couple, both originally from the same country, met on a dating platform in September 2023.

For legal reasons, their identities cannot be published.

In her affidavit, the bride said that after a brief period of dating, the groom invited her to Sydney in December 2023 to attend a "white party," instructing her to wear a white dress.

Upon arriving at the venue, she said she was "shocked" to find out for the first time that he had "organized a wedding for us."

She said she felt uncomfortable and told the groom she was leaving. However, she testified that she did not leave, and instead called a friend for advice.

The bride said the groom had told her it was a "simple prank" and that her friend assured her that she could not legally marry without a notice of intention to marry being filed.

During cross-examination, the bride testified: "He pulled me aside, and he told me that he'd organizing a prank wedding for his social media, to be precise, Instagram, because he wants to boost his content and wants to start monetizing his Instagram page."

Video evidence presented in court showed the celebrant leading the couple through their vows. The judge said that nothing in the words used by the bride "revealed hesitation or uncertainty."

"We had to act," she said in cross-examination, "to make it look real."

The couple got engaged 2 days earlier

In his affidavit, the groom disputed the bride's account, claiming the ceremony was legitimate and resulted in a valid marriage.

He said the bride had accepted his marriage proposal, which she did not deny.

However, she said that while she did eventually intend to marry him, she didn't expect to get married so soon after the proposal — just two days later.

In her affidavit, the bride said her culture would require either her parents to be present or to grant permission beforehand.

The judge wrote, "In my view, it beggars belief that a couple would become engaged in late December then married two days later."

The judge added that a wedding celebrant had been retained over a month before the groom proposed, a notice of intention to marry had been filed in November, and the bride didn't have a single friend or family member present.

The bride said she only found out the marriage was real in February last year when the groom, who was applying for refugee status, asked to be put as a dependent on her application for permanent residency.

In concluding remarks, the judge wrote: "On the balance of probabilities, in my view it is more probable than not that the applicant believed she was acting in a social media event on the day of the alleged ceremony, rather than freely participating at a legally sanctioned wedding ceremony."

• Some fire hydrants ran dry in LA due to enormous water demand and infrastructure issues.
• President-elect Trump wrongly blamed a separate debate over water from northern California.
• LA officials and California water policy experts said there was no water shortage in the area.

Some fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles ran dry this week after the wildfires overwhelmed the local water system.

The problem unleashed a flurry of criticism, including from President-elect Donald Trump. He accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of refusing to sign a "water restoration declaration" that would have allowed water from northern California to flow into the areas burning in Los Angeles.

"He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn't work!), but didn't care about the people of California," Trump wrote on January 8 on his social media platform.

But the reasons the water ran out were about local infrastructure, California officials and water policy experts told Business Insider. They also refuted the existence of a "water restoration declaration" and said Trump used the delta smelt as a scapegoat for a separate — and much more complex — debate over water allocations from a watershed in northern California.

A spokesperson for Newsom called Trump's claims "pure fiction," and accused Trump of politicizing the disaster. A spokesperson for Trump's transition team pointed to a plan his administration developed in 2019 directing water to the Central Valley and Southern California. But a Newsom spokesperson and California water policy experts said that plan is unrelated to water in fire hydrants in LA.

Janisse Quiñones, head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said water demand was four times higher than usual for 15 hours straight as firefighters rushed to put out the flames. That depleted three 1 million gallon water tanks in Pacific Palisades between the afternoon of January 7 and early morning of January 8.

"Those tanks help with the pressure on the fire hydrants and the hills of Palisades," Quiñones said Wednesday during a press conference. She explained that without enough pressure in the system, more water couldn't be pumped uphill into the tanks from a network of underground pipes and aqueducts, leaving hydrants dry. Officials couldn't refill the tanks fast enough as flames engulfed entire neighborhoods.

Fire hydrants ran dry because of infrastructure

The problem stemmed from depleted water tanks in the hills of Pacific Palisades on January 7 and 8.

Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks water use and storage data in California, characterized it as an "infrastructure bottleneck."

"Water flows from the reservoirs into this very complicated network of pipes, pumps, and tanks that stretch all over LA. It's really like an electrical grid," Mount said. "Before the fire, the system was full, but then was drained."

Mount echoed LA officials, who said there wasn't enough pressure in the system to pump water into tanks in the hills of Pacific Palisades. Firefighters were stretched thin trying to put out the flames, unable to refill the tanks from which water flows down to homes and fire hydrants.

"We had crews trying to mitigate this, and they had to evacuate," Quiñones said during the press conference. "We're fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is really challenging."

Newsom on January 8 said up to 140 additional water tender truckers were deployed to assist in fighting the Eaton and Palisades fires.

At a January 9 briefing, LA Mayor Karen Bass said fire hydrants aren't constructed to handle such massive devastation. The water shortage was compounded by the fact that planes couldn't perform water drops from the air because of the high-speed Santa Ana winds.

"That was the reason that the devastation was so bad," Bass said. "The unprecedented wind, the strength of the wind, and the fact that the air support could not go."

There is no water shortage in southern California

Trump accused Newsom of causing a water shortage around LA. But southern California has plenty of water, despite the issues with fire hydrants, sources told BI.

The reservoirs in southern California are full, Mount said. And as of January 10 the Castaic Lake reservoir — the largest State Water Project reservoir in Southern California — was at 77% of its total capacity, per the California Department of Water Resources.

Mount said this was due to two years of record rainfall and snowpack in the northern Sierra Nevada mountain range, which feeds many reservoirs that serve southern Californians.

Mike McNutt, a spokesman for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District that serves 75,000 people in northwest LA — including in Palisades — told CalMatters on January 8 that the water supply was "looking pretty solid."

What does the delta smelt have to do with this?

A spokesperson for Newsom said Trump "conflated two entirely unrelated things: the conveyance of water to Southern California and supply from local storage." The spokesperson added that there was no "water restoration declaration."

Mount agreed, as did Mark Gold, the Natural Resources Defense Council's water scarcity director and a board member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

"There is no connection between the delta smelt and the water challenges of fighting a fire in Southern California," Mount said.

Mount said Trump may have been referring to a separate debate over how to allocate water exported from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — where water in northern California flows into the San Francisco Bay — to both agriculture and urban areas in the southern half of the state, including Los Angeles.

In December, the Biden administration and California officials finalized a plan that aimed to strike a balance among farmers, urban residents, and depleted fish populations including the delta smelt, CalMatters reported. The new regulations replaced those finalized during Trump's first term, which were litigated by Newsom's administration over concerns that the delta smelt, salmon, and steelhead trout would be pushed to extinction.

While Los Angeles does import water from the Bay Delta through the State Water Project, Gold reiterated there are no shortages in southern California.

The region also gets water from the eastern Sierra Nevada through the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the Colorado River, and groundwater.

"The scapegoat for Trump has been the delta smelt because it's not exactly charismatic megafauna," Gold said, noting that endangered and threatened salmon, trout, and other fish are at risk.

Were you impacted by the Los Angeles fires and want to share your story? Email this reporter: Catherine Boudreau [email protected]

• Xocean's uncrewed ships offer low-carbon ocean data for offshore wind and hydrography.
• The Irish startup has secured $119 million to expand its services.
• Check out the 10-slide pitch deck it used to secure the funding.

Xocean, which offers data on the ocean to offshore wind and hydrography operations, has secured $119 million to expand.

The Irish startup, launched in 2017, has developed remotely controlled uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) with built-in sensors that can capture geophysical ocean data.

Users monitor and control the USVs through the startup's CyberDeck cloud platform, which also analyzes the quality of the data being collected. This data can give insights into seafloor topography and the sediments that make up the ocean floor.

Xocean's clients include BP, Shell, and SSE Renewables.

"We are providing this service for many of the world's largest energy companies, supporting the development of clean, renewable energy globally," founder and CEO James Ives said in a statement announcing the $119 million investment.

The transition to cleaner energy has been a central topic of discussion as companies race to find renewable sources of energy — such as wind and nuclear — to power the AI boom.

The startup partnered with climate investment firm S2G Ventures to structure the $119 million round, which was backed by S2G, Climate Investment, and Morgan Stanley's 1GT climate fund, among others.

The company said it would use the capital injection to expand its geographical footprint and accelerate product innovation.

Check out the 10-slide pitch deck used to secure the fresh funding.

• We had just moved to Colorado when the Marshall fire happened in 2021.
• My family evacuated to a nearby hotel, and the community rallied in the coming weeks and months.
• Here's what I learned from the experience and how I prepare in case of another fire.

Three months after our family moved to Colorado, on December 30, 2021, our area was hit by the Marshall fire. Similar to Los Angeles, downslope winds raced from the mountains, fueled by warm air and pressure changes as they moved into the lower elevations where we lived.

I remember taking the kids to the basement because I was concerned about our upstairs windows breaking from the wind. Fifteen minutes later, my husband texted to ask if we were OK because a large fire had broken out. I walked upstairs to see thick smoke out the window. I could no longer see the house across the street.

I grabbed the kids, the dog, and my purse. Then, I packed a handful of diapers, snacks, and water in a bag and left. We didn't lose our home that day, but over a thousand homes were destroyed in what became the most destructive wildfire in Colorado's history.

As a new Colorado resident, I knew little about fire risk and what to expect after a wildfire. After living near the Marshall fire, I better understand what to expect after a fire and the steps I can take to prepare for future fires.

Our community came together

Thousands in our community lost their homes. Many who still had homes standing required substantial professional remediation before being safely lived in again. Housing was already in short supply and it became a more significant challenge after the fire, as people needed places to stay while homes were rebuilt, remediated, or sold.

When we returned home, we exchanged numbers with several neighbors we hadn't talked to much before. The Marshall fire started and spread so quickly that many were alerted by texts and knocks on the door instead of the emergency alert system.

The destruction was surreal, but the community stepped up. Everyone we encountered was doing something to help. People opened their homes and quickly assembled donations and supplies.

It may be a while before the fire is truly contained

Firefighters must be able to put out the fire completely, so you might not be able to return to the area immediately. You may hear the term "mopping up." Even though a fire appears out and contained, there can still be hot spots or burning embers that aren't evident to us. Firefighters work hard to control the fireline and reduce the risk of reignition.

Put personal safety first

Fires present multiple risks. In their wake, they leave unstable structures and trees, scared animals or lost pets, and physical hazards such as sharp surfaces and nails. Traffic patterns often change, and emergency personnel decide when residents can safely access burned or evacuated areas.

Air quality is also an issue, as fires release chemicals and ash into the air. One of my children has asthma, and we mostly played inside in the days following the fire.

Personal protective measures are important, such as closed-toe footwear, long sleeves and pants, a well-fitting N95 mask, and goggles. It's important to remain observant and, if possible, wash clothing after spending time at a wildfire site.

Be aware of fire suppressants

The fire suppressants and retardants you see planes dropping near wildfires contain ammonia. Nitrile gloves, long sleeves, and goggles are recommended in these areas, as the ammonia can irritate the skin and eyes. Avoid using bleach to clean the residue, as toxic gasses can form when the two are combined.

I felt on edge for a while after the fire

When the Marshall fire happened, I was home with four kids ages 4 and under. Somehow, I left with all four kids, the dog, and a bag over my shoulder in one trip out the door. I couldn't find our cat and felt gutted about leaving him behind.

I drove away from the fire to a school parking lot. I finally took a breather, collected myself, and updated my husband. To this day, every time I drive past that parking lot, I feel a pang in my stomach.

The devastation in Los Angeles is horrific. My experience does not begin to compare to what those communities are facing. I was able to get out easily and drive to safety. My home was not destroyed, and I had somewhere to return to.

What I do now to make sure I'm prepared

I was unprepared when we first moved to Colorado. After the Marshall fire, I felt anxious whenever a red-flag warning indicating a high risk of fire was issued or another windstorm kicked up. Sometimes, I'd look out the window and check for smoke — just in case. Having a plan and being prepared helped me feel like I could return to our daily lives.

Here's how I make sure I'm ready:

• I have a government-issued ID with me so I can book a hotel room. We saw people who had fled quickly without ID run into this issue.
• I ensure my van has a full gas tank during high-fire-risk days.
• I have pictures of all the rooms in our home in case I ever have to file an insurance claim.
• I learned how to open my garage door manually. This is essential if your car is in a garage and the electricity goes out.
• I have one "go-bag" backpack with the necessary documents and extra essentials if we ever need to leave quickly.
• During red-flag warnings, I add to the backpack. I include pull-ups for the kids, nonperishable snacks and water, pet food and supplies, phone chargers, and medications. I place the cat carriers by the go-bag.
• If the risk is exceptionally high, I enclose our cats in one room so I can grab them quickly. When we evacuated, I couldn't find our cat, so I had to make the awful decision to leave without him.

After living in Colorado for several years, it feels more like home than anywhere else. Yet, as much as I love our home, I still get worried whenever Colorado's infamous winds pick up. But I feel calmer knowing that I better understand fire risk, what happens after a fire, and how to prepare as much as possible beforehand.

• Ukraine attacked a Russian warehouse full of reconnaissance drones on Friday.
• A security source said Ukraine targeted the facility with drones and a Neptune missile.
• Russia uses its reconnaissance drones to support deep strikes, which have been a problem for Kyiv.

Ukraine says that its forces attacked a Russian warehouse facility full of reconnaissance drones on Friday, hitting it with a homemade missile not often mentioned in disclosures of Kyiv's combat operations.

The cross-border attack targeted a drone and ammunition storage facility in Russia's southwestern Rostov region, a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) source told Business Insider Friday.

The source said that Ukraine first launched drones to overwhelm Russia's air defenses in the area before striking the site, located near the small village of Chaltyr, with a Neptune missile.

The R-360 Neptune is a subsonic, long-range cruise missile made by the Ukrainian defense manufacturer Luch Design Bureau. It was initially developed as an anti-ship missile, but the weapon has since been modified to strike land targets.

The modified Neptune missile doesn't get as much attention as some of the country's other weapons, especially those provided by Kyiv's Western partners, but Ukraine has used it to strike high-value Russian targets, including high-end air-defense batteries and, more recently, oil terminals. Friday's attack appeared to be its first confirmed combat use in quite some time.

Footage of the attack, which was shared with BI, captures the buzz of what appears to be drones. A massive fireball can be seen at one point, followed by a loud blast. Other videos show fires at the site and plumes of smoke. Since ammunition was stored at the facility, secondary explosions may have occurred.

The source said that the strike operation was carried out by the SBU and Ukraine's navy. "Now these Russian 'birds' in the sky will be reduced. Work on military facilities in the enemy's rear will continue," they said, according to a translation of their remarks shared with BI. BI was unable to independently verify the details of the operation.

Russia uses its reconnaissance drones, like the Orlan, among other systems, to enable deep strikes on Ukraine by providing valuable intelligence, like targeting data on troop positions and critical equipment, from behind the front lines. Moscow then attacks these locations with guided tactical missiles.

Russia's reconnaissance strike complex has been a challenge for Ukraine, particularly amid strains on its air defenses.

Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have routinely pressed the US and its NATO allies for more air defenses and interceptor missiles to help defend against Russian strikes. The Ukrainians have also been increasingly looking to interceptor drones as cheap alternatives to costly missiles.

Taking targets out on the ground is another option. The strike on Friday marked Ukraine's latest cross-border attack in Russia. Earlier this month, Kyiv launched drones at a major port near the city of St. Petersburg, hundreds of miles away, in a bid to disrupt operations at the facility. These strikes have become a problem for Russia.

• Business Insider asked baristas to share the drinks they think customers should order more often.
• An Americano misto is a good substitution for a classic latte.
• A macadamia-milk latte is a great option for those who prefer or need milk alternatives.

Whether your go-to coffee-shop order is an Americano or an oat-milk latte, you may feel the desire to switch up your routine every now and then. However, figuring out what to order can be difficult.

That's why Business Insider asked baristas about the underrated drinks they think customers should order more often. Here's what they said.

If it's an option, order a pour-over coffee to enjoy the true flavor of a roast

Pour-over coffee refers to a drink that's made when hot water is poured over coffee grounds.

Alex Greene, head roaster at Gregorys Coffee, told Business Insider that although most coffee shops don't offer this beverage as an option, customers should opt for one if it's available.

"It's coffee in its purest form, so you get to enjoy what the farmer produced without any modifications or milk," Greene said.

An Americano misto is a fine substitute for an expensive latte

For coffee-shop visitors looking to save money without sacrificing flavor, Laila Ghambari, the owner of Guilder Café and Juniors Roasted Coffee, recommends ordering an Americano misto. This drink is made with espresso, water, and a layer of steamed milk.

"An Americano is just hot water and espresso. You can still get your typical flavoring and ask for an inch or two of steamed milk of your choice. It's still sweet and decadent but costs less than a latte," she told BI.

Spruce up your chai order with a shot of espresso

A chai latte is a popular drink that can be enhanced further with the addition of espresso.

"Adding an espresso shot to a chai latte not only boosts the caffeine contents of the drink but creates a blend of complex flavors that elevate a good drink to an excellent one," Yaretsy Flores, owner and barista at Casaroma Café, told BI.

This drink, known as a dirty chai latte, can be ordered hot or iced. Both are great options that deliver a delicious mix of chai and espresso.

A cortado is a good option for coffee lovers seeking a balanced profile

Daniel Mentado, owner of mobile coffee bar Sole Cafe, told BI he always recommends a cortado for its perfectly balanced flavor.

"Equal parts espresso and steamed milk create a smooth, rich drink that highlights espresso's bold flavor without being overpowering. Its smaller size ensures a satisfying experience without excessive milk, making it ideal for those who appreciate quality over quantity," Mentado said.

Iced-coffee enthusiasts should opt for a refreshing cold-brew lemonade

A cold brew is a popular option for coffee drinkers year-round, but Chris Dennis, barista and general manager of Ox Coffee, recommends ordering a cold-brew lemonade instead.

"Cold-brew lemonade, especially in the summer, combines two incredible concepts that complement each other well. The best option for this is a cold brew made from berry-forward blends," he told BI.

For those seeking milk alternatives, try an iced macadamia-milk latte

Connor Nerat, regional manager and barista at Spill the Beans, encourages adding macadamia milk to lattes over traditional milk alternatives.

"Macadamia milk is amazing because it has a natural sweetness that almond and oat milk don't have," he said.

Nerat added that a macadamia-milk latte is also low in calories.

Historian Roel Konijnendijk reviews ancient warfare scenes and battle tactics in movies and TV shows.

He looks at the naval battle and gladiator fights depicted in "Gladiator II," starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, and Denzel Washington. He talks about how armies would signal attacks in season two of "House of the Dragon," starring Matt Smith, Emma D'Arcy, and Olivia Cooke. He breaks down the many siege warfare methods in "Prince of Persia," starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, and Gemma Arterton; and season two of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." He discusses the purposes behind cavalry charges in "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, and Viggo Mortensen; and "Kingdom of Heaven," starring Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, and Edward Norton. He explains the ancient Greek shock tactics in "300: Rise of an Empire," starring Eva Green and Lena Headey. He points out how line formations operate in "Rome," starring Tobias Menzies and Kerry Condon. Finally, he examines the strengths and weaknesses of Kublai Khan's army in "Marco Polo," starring Benedict Wong.

Roel Konijnendijk is a historian of ancient warfare at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. He specializes in classical Greek warfare.

You can find Roel on social media here on Bluesky or X (formerly Twitter).