• "Back in Action" is Cameron Diaz's first film role in over a decade.
• Unfortunately, it's a poor comeback vehicle with rough dialogue and a thin plot.
• The film works fine as a casual watch, but not much else.

"Back in Action" is Cameron Diaz's first film role in over a decade. She should have made a better choice for a comeback.

The film, directed by Seth Gordon, is capital-F "Fine" at best and mediocre background watching at worst. Given that this is the movie Jamie Foxx miraculously recovered from a stroke to complete, one would hope the end product inspired stronger enthusiasm.

The aptly titled film stars Diaz and Foxx as Emily and Matt, suburban parents who were elite spies before having their first child and pivoting to coaching soccer and selling puzzles on Etsy. "Back in Action" kicks off 15 years in the past during their last mission together to steal an Industrial Control Systems key (don't worry about it) from a Eastern European crime lord. They succeed, but terrorists attack them on the plane back to safety. Presumed dead, Matt and Emily use the plane crash to disappear and raise the child that Emily has just learned she's carrying.

This opening sequence does little to establish Matt and Emily's relationship, or even their individual characters, past a few entertaining punches, quippy one-liners, and saccharine expressions of sincerity. "My favorite person is about to create my new favorite person," Matt tells Emily, despite having to clarify moments before that they were exclusive.

Their extremely normal life only gets blown up because Matt and Emily are caught on tape beating up a few guys ("BOOMERS WRECK DANCE PARTY") while picking their underage daughter Alice (McKenna Roberts) up from the club. With Alice and their son Leo (Rylan Jackson) in tow, they go on a quest to pick up the ICS key from Emily's mother Ginny (Glenn Close — why not?) and unite their family through espionage. Andrew Scott and Kyle Chandler are also in this film, for some reason, and are mostly wasted in their roles.

Aside from one tepid but somewhat surprising twist, "Back in Action" is a mélange of spy tropes, embarrassingly bad and self-explanatory dialogue, and trite familial conflicts. The film's emotional appeal hinges on Emily's relationships with Alice, who rebels against her for standard Teenage Girl Reasons, and her mother Ginny, whom she hates for being absent in her childhood. Simple friction leads to simple payoffs.

The film's fight sequences slightly redeem it, mostly because it's fun to watch Diaz and Foxx beat up some classic goons in tandem. However, the movie insists on soundtracking those fights to classic hits like Nat King Cole's "L.O.V.E." and Etta James' "At Last," seemingly in a bid to create a romantic, nostalgic atmosphere for its leads. To be fair, they have more chemistry in those moments than literally anywhere else in the film.

In the end, "Back in Action" is an unfortunate comeback choice for Diaz, and its script gives her and Foxx little to stand on through the film's nearly two-hour runtime. For audiences, it's a passable enough choice for a Friday night flick or folding laundry, but not much else.

"Back in Action" is streaming now on Netflix.

• YouTubers Myka and James Stauffer adopted a boy named Huxley from China in 2017 and documented it online.
• In 2020, the Stuaffers were criticized after revealing they placed him in a new home.
• In a since-deleted video, the couple said that Huxley was "thriving," and "happy" in his new forever home.

Almost five years after YouTubers Myka and James Stauffer faced waves of backlash for their decision to place their adopted son Huxley in a new home, plenty of questions still linger about the family.

The Stauffers' controversial decision gets renewed attention in the HBO original documentary series "An Update On Our Family," whose title is taken from the couple's infamous since-deleted video of the same name. The three-part docuseries is also inspired by a New York magazine article by Caitlin Moscatello.

The Ohio-based vlogger parents didn't participate in the docuseries, but James regularly posts about his car detailing business on his Stauffer Garage YouTube channel and Instagram account.

Here's what we know about where Huxley is now.

Myka and James Stauffer adopted Huxley, then 2 and a half years old, from China in 2017

The parents of four other children kept their followers updated on their adoption process through YouTube vlogs. After welcoming Huxley into their home, the Stauffers shared his progress as he adjusted to his new life and family.

Their channel swelled to 700,000 subscribers, videos about Huxley were monetized, and they maintained sponsorship deals with brands.

But in 2020, fans noticed that Huxley was absent from their social media content, prompting questions and concerns about what happened to him.

In May of that year, Myka and James revealed that they had placed Huxley in a new home to better support his needs.

Little is known about Huxley's life since he was placed in a new home in 2020

In the since-deleted video that sparked backlash, the couple said that they only learned after bringing Huxley home that he had special needs that they hadn't been told about.

The Stauffers said that Huxley received multiple assessments and evaluations from medical professionals who agreed that he needed a home better equipped to support him.

The couple also said that they were intentionally vague about Huxley's situation because they "didn't want to mess up anything" as he was meeting and spending time with new people so he could find his "forever family."

Myka said that the adoption agency had placed Huxley with a family it thought was "the perfect match." People magazine reported that Huxley has since been renamed.

"He is thriving," Myka said in the video. "He is very happy. He's doing really well. And his new mommy has medical-professional training, and it is a very good fit."

In an Instagram post shared in June 2020, Myka apologized for the "confusion" and "pain" she caused and admitted she was unprepared to properly parent Huxley.

"We love Huxley and know that this was the right decision for him and his future. Praying that Huxley only has the best future in the entire world," she wrote.

The first episode of "An Update On Our Family" is streaming on Max. The remaining episodes will be released weekly through January 29.

• The Biden administration will leave it to Trump to enforce the TikTok ban.
• Congress ruled last year that Chinese firm ByteDance should sell TikTok or see it banned.
• Trump takes office on January 20, the day after the deadline for ByteDance to sell.

President Joe Biden's administration is not planning to implement the TikTok ban set to take effect on Sunday.

That would leave it to President-elect Donald Trump and his officials to act after they take office on January 20.

The law, which was passed by Congress and signed by Biden in April of last year, requires TikTok to be banned unless ByteDance, its China-based parent company, sells the app's US operations by January 19.

"Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

"President Biden's position on TikTok has been clear for months, including since Congress sent a bill in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion to the President's desk: TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law," she added.

The bill that would ban TikTok from US app stores also gave Biden the ability to grant ByteDance a 90-day extension if several conditions were met, including if there was "evidence of significant progress" made toward selling TikTok's US operations.

Trump has defended the app, which was banned amid concerns user data could be accessed by the Chinese government.

Mike Waltz, Trump's incoming national security advisor, told Fox News on Wednesday that Trump would seek to preserve the app, used by around 170 million Americans.

"We're going to find a way to preserve it but protect people's data. And that's the deal that will be in front of us," Waltz said.

He suggested an executive order could be used to protect it, but offered few details on how this might work in practice.

Last month, Trump called on the US Supreme Court to pause the ban. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban on Friday.

Following the ruling, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew posted a video to TikTok thanking Trump for his commitment to working with TikTok to keep the app running in the US. 

There have been several potential TikTok buyers, but it's unclear if or to what extent ByteDance has sought to divest. ByteDance and TikTok have not publicly shown any interest in a sale.

Democratic former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday that more time was needed to find a US buyer.

"It's clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, of so many influencers who have built up a good network of followers," Schumer said.

It's also unclear what will happen to the app on Sunday if Biden, Trump, or the Supreme Court do not step in before then to save it.

The legislation passed last year requires platforms in the US such as Apple or Google to stop offering the app or updating it when the sale deadline passes, meaning it'd effectively "go dark" or be unavailable.

• Democrats may need to help Republicans raise the debt ceiling this year.
• If that happens, Democrats aren't going to do it for free. They'll likely demand concessions.
• Rep. Ro Khanna, a Silicon Valley Democrat, says his party should demand a federal minimum wage hike.

At some point in the next few months, Congress will have to raise the debt ceiling.

For now, Republicans are planning to do it on their own. But if past is prologue, they'll probably need votes from across the aisle — and Democrats are likely to demand something in return.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley, told Business Insider this week that he believes the price should be an increase in the federal minimum wage.

"We should force Republicans to vote on it," the California Democrat told BI.

Khanna did not specify a particular level at which he'd like to raise the wage, but Democrats generally support a $15 per hour federal minimum wage. Some, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, have proposed pushing it even higher, to $17 per hour.

President-elect Donald Trump said in December that he would "consider" raising the minimum wage, but several Republican lawmakers later told BI that they opposed the idea.

Scott Bessent, Trump's nominee for secretary of the treasury, said at a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday that he does not believe the current $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage should change.

It's not clear if Democrats will follow Khanna's lead, though he told BI that he would "make the case to the caucus."

Minimum wage increases tend to be popular among both Democratic and Republican voters — in November, several Republican-leaning states passed minimum wage hikes via ballot measures.

Democrats still have to figure out their price for helping Republicans

As of now, Republicans want to avoid handing any leverage to Democrats in the first few months of Trump's presidency. They plan to include a debt ceiling hike in a broader party-line "reconciliation" bill containing a smattering of Trump's priorities on energy, immigration, border security, and taxes.

But there's a good chance that won't work, given some hardline Republicans' deep reservations about raising the debt ceiling without dramatic spending cuts. Some Republicans have never voted to raise the debt ceiling before, and in December, dozens of them openly defied Trump's call to raise the debt ceiling after Elon Musk helped tank a government funding bill.

If Republicans can't do it themselves, Democrats will have the chance to make demands, lest the country breach the debt ceiling and trigger a fiscal crisis.

"I'm not a cheap date," Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts told BI. "The idea that we're just going to help them out when they can't get their own members to cooperate, those days are gone."

Of the several House Democrats that BI spoke to, only Khanna was willing to name a specific price. Others demurred, saying they were waiting to see what negotiations would look like in the coming months, and underscoring that Democrats would have to decide on their approach collectively.

"The sentiment from our caucus is: If you need our help on anything, you're going to have to help us," Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told BI. "All of this, I think, is subject to many of our internal conversations."

Democrats could also use their leverage to try to halt the deep cuts to federal government spending that Republicans may pursue in the coming months, rather than making an affirmative policy demand.

"There's clearly a whole host of things that I think the caucus would have as priorities," Democratic Rep. Joe Morelle of New York told BI.

• AMC's "Breaking Bad" ended over 10 years ago, but its popularity and impact endure.
• The show's iconic characters resulted in spinoffs, and it still has an enthusiastic fan base.
• From a character's brush with death to flying pizzas, here are some surprising "Breaking Bad" facts.

When "Breaking Bad" debuted in 2008 on AMC, the gritty drama stunned viewers, especially those who knew Bryan Cranston as the goofy father from "Malcolm in the Middle." His chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-maker character, Walter White, became increasingly ruthless as the series continued. 

That wasn't the show's only surprise. Gruesome deaths, twisty plots, and memorable characters all made the show iconic, a legacy that continues over a decade after its end. "Better Call Saul" and a movie, "El Camino," followed, continuing the interest and accolades for "Breaking Bad." 

Here are some fun facts about "Breaking Bad" you may not have known. 

The show was originally set in California instead of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the show used the stark, lonesome desert as the perfect place for hiding secrets — and stacks of cash. That wasn't always the plan, though. 

In a 2010 interview with Slant magazine, Vince Gilligan, the show's creator, said he had originally planned for "Breaking Bad" to be set in Riverside, California.

Then Sony approached him with the idea of moving it to New Mexico because of financial incentives. The state offered tax credits for film and television production, Gilligan said.

They chose to film the show there "for strictly financial reasons," he added.

However, the city's proximity to the Mexico border ended up influencing storylines in later seasons. "I feel like I got very lucky that we wound up there, although it was not originally my decision," Gilligan said. 

"Breaking Bad" boosted Albuquerque's economy and tourism business.

It wasn't just the plot that benefited from setting the show in New Mexico. Albuquerque saw a spike in visitors eager to explore Walter White's haunts. 

The show's now-famous shooting locations continue to be a major draw for tourists from all over the world. Local souvenir shops sell "blue meth" rock candy, "Breaking Bad" t-shirts, and much more. 

A website listing every known filming location in Albuquerque makes it easy for travelers to plan their "Breaking Bad" sightseeing trips.

Top sites include Walter White's house; Saul's office; and Twisters, the restaurant that served as the set for villain Gustavo Fring's Los Pollos Hermanos.  

The real-life house that Walter White lived in is for sale, but the new owners might have to deal with nosy fans.

The filming location for Walter White's house in "Breaking Bad" became a must-see for tourists. For the occupants, the sensation around their modest three-bedroom home became so frustrating that they recently put it up for sale for $4 million. 

For years, the family dealt with tourists taking rocks from the yard or tossing pizzas on the roof, just like Walter White did in a now-iconic scene from the show. 

The owners hope whoever buys the house will embrace the show and its enthusiastic visitors. "I hope they make it what the fans want," owner Joanna Quintana told KOB4, a local NBC affiliate, earlier this month. "They want a B&B. They want a museum. They want access to it. Go for it." 

The iconic shot of Walter White tossing the pizza on the roof of his house was shot in a single take.

During the second season of "Breaking Bad," Walter White famously threw a pizza onto the roof of his home.

While the production team had set aside hours to get the shot, Cranston did it in a single take, he said in a 2012 interview on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

When fans saw an unsliced pizza swirl into the air and land perfectly on the roof, they wondered what pizza place sells uncut pizza.

In a 2017 Reddit AMA, Gilligan explained that he and the production team knew eagle-eyed fans would catch this, so they added a scene to explain the situation. 

Badger and Skinny Pete show up at Jesse's apartment with a pile of unsliced pizzas. "That's the gimmick," Badger said. "They don't cut the pizza, and they pass the savings on to you."

The DEA consulted on the show, and Cranston shadowed a chemistry professor to get the lingo right.

The show reached out to the US Drug Enforcement Agency to get their input on the show. "But they saw that it might be in their best interest to make sure that we do it correctly," Cranston told High Times in 2012. "So DEA chemists came on board as consultants and taught Aaron Paul and me how to make crystal meth." 

To become even more familiar with the science, Cranston met with the head of the University of Southern California chemistry department. The professor let the actor know they were using some equipment incorrectly, and Gilligan made the changes.

However, the show won't accurately teach you how to make meth.

Walt and Jesse are shown throughout the series making methamphetamine in great detail. However, it's not exactly a step-by-step recipe for viewers.  

In a 2011 interview with NPR, Donna Nelson, an organic chemist and a science advisor to the show, said they eliminated key elements from the process to keep people from attempting to make meth at home. 

"That was actually one of the concerns of a lot of people, but Vince Gilligan has been very clever," Nelson said. "If you just simply followed the one synthesis as it's presented, you wouldn't come out with methamphetamine."

 

 

The bathtub scene didn't pass the "Mythbusters'" tests.

In one of the first season's most memorable scenes, Walt and Jesse used hydrofluoric acid to dissolve a body in a bathtub. In addition to dissolving the body, the acid ate through the tub and ceiling, cascading a massive, disgusting, gloopy mess onto the first floor. 

"Mythbusters" tested the method on pig flesh in 2013. Although hydrofluoric acid broke down the tissue, it didn't liquify it as thoroughly as the episode showed.

Meanwhile, the bathtub and drywall were relatively unaffected by the acid in the "Mythbusters" demonstration. 

Bryan Cranston was not the first choice for the role of Walter White.

Initially, executives offered the role of Walter White to actors Matthew Broderick and John Cusack, The Hollywood Reporter reported in 2012.

Both declined, much to the dismay of executives at AMC and Sony Pictures Television who couldn't get past Cranston's history of comedic roles. 

Gilligan pushed for casting Cranston as the antihero because he had witnessed the actor's range in an episode of "The X-Files." The role was very different from Cranston's work on "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Seinfeld," and his performance left a positive impression on Gilligan. 

"We needed somebody who could be dramatic and scary yet have an underlying humanity so when he dies, you felt sorry for him," Gilligan said of Cranston's part on "The X-Files." "Bryan nailed it."

Gilligan showed executives the tapes of Cranston's performance on the 1990s series, and the rest was history. 

A news story helped inspire the premise for "Breaking Bad."

While most aspects of the show are fictional, the creators took a few elements from real life. 

Gilligan was talking to another writer, Tom Schnauz, who jokingly pitched an idea based on a news article he'd recently read about a man cooking meth in an RV, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Gilligan couldn't get the image out of his head, he told Vanity Fair in 2010. 

"The idea of it suddenly struck me as wonderful for a TV show because who would do such a thing?" he told The Hollywood Reporter. "And if he were indeed someone like us — meaning a couple of dopey middle-aged white guys — what would that look like?"

From there, Gilligan took inspiration from the Japanese movie "Ikiru," a fictional story about a man diagnosed with cancer, he told NPR in 2019. 

The name Heisenberg, Walt's alias in the show, does come from real life, though. It's a nod to German physicist and Nobel Prize winner Werner Heisenberg. 

Networks including HBO, Showtime, and FX all passed on "Breaking Bad."

Before the multi-Emmy-award-winning series found a home on AMC, some of the biggest networks passed on the show. 

Reportedly, FX was afraid the show was too similar to its other series featuring male antiheroes. Another exec said the concept sounded a lot like Showtime's "Weeds," which was about a suburban woman who secretly grows and sells marijuana, according to Vanity Fair. 

In 2011, Gilligan called his pitch meeting with HBO one of "the worst" he ever experienced. 

"The woman we're pitching to could not have been less interested — not even in my story, but about whether I actually lived or died," he said. 

"My agents could never even get her on the phone afterward to even say no," he added. 

"Breaking Bad" borrowed some makeup and special effects magic from "The Walking Dead."

For the character Gus Fring's final scene, the makeup department and special-effects team had to create a realistic, half-blown-off face for actor Giancarlo Esposito.

To do so, the crew members from another hit AMC show, "The Walking Dead," helped out.  

"We did have great help from the prosthetic effects folks at 'The Walking Dead'" Gilligan told The New York Times in 2011. "It's a combination of great makeup and great visual effects. And it took months to do."

 

 

"Breaking Bad" producers vetoed a Marvel cameo in their series.

While filming "The Avengers" in New Mexico, Samuel L. Jackson hoped to make a cameo as his Marvel character. Nick Fury would casually enter Los Pollos Hermanos in costume, order food, and leave. 

"I just wanted to order a three-piece and really freak people out," Jackson told IndieWire in 2012. "Then people would be going, 'Wow, was that him?'"

He said the producers of "Breaking Bad" weren't interested.

Walter Jr.'s website SaveWalterWhite.com is real.

During the show's first season Walter White's son, Walt Jr., created a fundraising website called SaveWalterWhite.com to help pay for his dad's cancer treatment.

Walter Sr. then used the website as a way to launder the money he made from selling meth by making consistent, anonymous donations to himself. 

AMC runs the site, which you can still visit. Its "Click Here to Donate" button links to AMC's own website.

Jesse Pinkman was originally going to die in the first season.

Fans may have heard that Gilligan planned to kill off Aaron Paul's character Jesse Pinkman on the ninth episode of the show's first season, but the 2007 writers' strike meant only seven episodes ran.

As a result, Gilligan had time to reconsider killing off Jesse and ultimately keep him on the show. That isn't quite the full story, Gilligan said on a panel in 2011. 

"The writers' strike, in a sense, didn't save him," he said. By episode two, he and the producers and directors all knew Aaron Paul was a great actor and that it "would be a huge, colossal mistake to kill off Jesse." 

Pinkman remained an integral part of all five seasons of the series.

 

Aaron Paul was actually injured while filming a fight scene.

In a 2013 Reddit AMA, Paul shared that he was knocked unconscious, got a concussion, and went to the hospital after a fight scene. 

"Raymond Cruz who played Tuco gave me a concussion," Paul wrote in the AMA. "Tuco takes Jesse and he throws him through the screen door outside, and if you watch it back you'll notice that my head gets caught inside the wooden screen door and it flips me around and lands me on my stomach."

Cruz continued the scene, thinking Paul was acting, kicking his costar then picking him up and throwing him over his shoulder. In reality, "I was pretty much unconscious," Paul wrote. 

In 2023, Cruz told The Mirror that Paul had some of the details wrong. "I'm actually the one who stopped it," he said, explaining that he quickly realized the actor was hurt. 

Viewers can see the moment that Paul was injured because that's the shot featured in the show. 

"It's a crazy take because it's so violent," Cruz said. "The door ripped off its hinges."

Cranston said filming one scene turned him into a "weeping mess."

The season-two scene where Walt purposely watches Jesse's girlfriend, Jane, die was the hardest moment for Cranston to film, he told IndieWire in 2018. 

He said he pictured his own daughter choking as he watched Krysten Ritter act out her character's death.

Once the director cut, Cranston said he was a "weeping mess." He turned to the actor who played Skyler White, his TV wife, for comfort. "Fortunately, you have your family around you, and I went to Anna Gunn, and she held me," he said. 

There's a reason Skyler's sister, Marie, wears so much purple.

Skyler's sister, Marie Schrader, wears and owns a lot of purple items. Her go-to color was no accident, Gilligan told Vulture in 2011. 

"Well, Marie would say purple is the color of royalty," he said. The show often used color to portray certain energies and foreshadow certain fates. 

"We always try to think of the color that a character is dressed in, in the sense that it represents on some level their state of mind," he told the publication. 

For example, Gilligan said Walter's last name is White because it "is the color of vanilla, of blandness."

Cranston has a permanent reminder of the show on his body.

On the final day of filming "Breaking Bad," Cranston got a tattoo of the show's iconic Br/Ba logo.

"We were having a couple of drinks at a bar, and they brought in a tattoo artist and we thought, 'Why not? This is the time to do it,'" he told The Wrap in 2013.

The tattoo is hidden on the inside of his right ring finger. "So every once in a while I catch a glimpse of it and I see that logo from 'Breaking Bad,' and it makes me smile," Cranston told E! News in 2013.

 

 

Aaron Paul also has some mementos from the show.

During a 2016 interview with Seth Meyers, Paul said he took everything he could from the set of "Breaking Bad."

One of the items was the faux severed head of Gus Fring, which Paul said he keeps in his media room. 

The actor also took the license plate from Jesse Pinkman's first car, and he has an iconic Heisenberg hat, he said in a 2013 interview with Entertainment Weekly.

This story was originally published on September 16, 2019, and most recently updated on January 17, 2025.

• When I tried a variety of hacks for perfect scrambled eggs, I was impressed by the whirlpool trick.
• My new go-to method involves placing raw eggs in a boiling vortex of water and then straining them.
• The finished scrambled eggs come out super fluffy, creamy, and perfectly cooked every time.

Scrambled eggs are simple to make, but they aren't always easy to get right. They can be rubbery if they're cooked over heat that's even a skosh too high, but they can be goopy and runny with too low of a temperature.

I've tried many different methods for making scrambled eggs just how I like them — light yellow and fluffy with no rubbery or dry texture — but my favorite involves a boiling vortex of water.

It sounds weird, and I was pretty reluctant when I came across this egg-cooking hack online. But once I tried it, I was converted.

All you need is eggs, salt, and boiling water for this relatively simple process

I start the process by bringing a pot of salted water to a boil, as if I was making pasta. Just as the water begins to boil, I crack some eggs into a separate bowl and whisk vigorously for about 30 seconds.

Then, it's time to make a whirlpool. I stir the water clockwise until it's swirling. While the water is still circling the pot, I pour in the whisked eggs and place a lid over them.

I use a glass lid to cover the pot so I can watch the action unfold as the eggs quickly turn stringy.

When I initially tried this method, I thought it was interesting to watch them cook this way, but I was worried — I didn't think eating long strands of eggs sounded particularly appealing.

After straining, these eggs come out light and fluffy with no rubbery texture

After about 20 seconds, I use a strainer to lift the eggs out of the water and into a bowl.

I might have to blot a little extra water out of the eggs, but otherwise, they no longer look stringy and are actually light and fluffy.

I like to add butter, salt, and pepper to the eggs or put them on top of toast. They're creamy, they're not runny, and impressively, they don't make the bread soggy.

Even better, the clean-up process with the whirlpool trick is minimal

Not only do the eggs come out just to my liking and cook quickly, but the cleanup is pretty easy. There's no need to soak and scrape away caked-on scrambled eggs from a pan.

Instead, you're just cleaning up a pan that held mostly water and a strainer — I like to spray mine down immediately after using it to prevent the eggs from sticking.

Perfect eggs and no-fuss dishwashing? I'll be boiling my scrambled eggs with the whirlpool trick from here on out.

This story was originally published on June 2, 2022, and most recently updated on January 17, 2025.

• TikTok might go away. (Or not? Probably not? Who knows!)
• Whatever its fate, TikTok changed how people consume and post to social media.
• The TikTokification of American life isn't going anywhere — even if the app disappears.

Even if TikTok goes away, part of it will be with us forever: It's impossible to erase the TikTokification of the entire internet — or the effect the app has had on, well, everything.

Sure, there are several possibilities now that the Supreme Court has upheld the TikTok ban: One possibility is that TikTok actually goes away in the US on Sunday, existing in history as a strange several-year blip — replaced by either incumbent apps like Instagram and YouTube Shorts, or something new. (RedNote? Probably not, but who knows!)

In the last week, when things were looking pretty dire for TikTok, I started talking to colleagues about what TikTok actually meant — what its legacy meant. And we all realized that, essentially, there were almost no aspects of American life that had been untouched by TikTok. OK, well maybe not EVERYTHING — I'm being a little dramatic here, but it's very easy to rattle off a bunch of industries and corners of culture that were massively changed by TikTok.

Book publishing is one of the perfect examples of a fusty old thing — an industry that's existed for centuries and one that you'd think would be threatened by people's free time being sucked up by a video app. But instead, BookTok became this juggernaut force for selling and marketing books.

The beauty industry, homebuying, restaurants, the customization of Starbucks drinks, the music industry, sorority recruitment — all changed by TikTok.

Still, those various activities had already been disrupted by social media platforms that came before TikTok: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter — even MySpace. But TikTok represented something even more — an entire cultural shift.

TikTok changed us to the online core

As someone who has spent most of my career trying to observe how people act online, I've come to believe there are a few things about TikTok that have changed humans on an almost molecular level. It's changed the way we interact online — which is much bigger than just how lipstick is marketed.

TikTok's algorithmic feed upended all that we had previously understood or enjoyed about social media.

Social media has long been about followers and a direct relationship with the person whose content you're viewing. Before TikTok, follower count was important — and it was rare that a single post would go viral on its own.

TikTok flipped this completely.

It's almost hard to remember now that most other social apps have copied TikTok's "For you page," but this way of organizing your feed was new and almost confusing at first.

Sure, there were still some big creators who had massive followings, but there was a democratization of virality: Suddenly, every high school had a kid who had gone viral at least once on TikTok.

As TikTok grew to be more than just teens dancing, it became understood to everyone using it that if you posted, there was a chance lots of strangers might see your content — even if you weren't a big influencer or famous person. Almost Warholian — in the future, everyone will get 10,000 views on a random TikTok post. "I didn't expect my last post to blow up," is one of the most common intros to a TikTok you'll see.

As people accepted the idea that you might actually be perceived by others on the app, something strange happened. Instead of an Instagram effect where people felt pressure to look their best and put forth an idealized version of their life, people — especially young women — were more willing than I'd ever seen before on social media to post images of themselves looking, uh, not-so-perfect. Lying in bed with unbrushed hair, no makeup, unflattering angles — things you'd never, ever see on Pinterest or Instagram. As a millennial woman raised on Instagram, I admired Gen Z's daring to look like crap on the internet — it was refreshing and honest.

Those changes are here to stay, no matter whether TikTok shuts down for a day, or forever, or is saved by some executive order.

TikTok uncorked something in the way we consume and the way we post — and that's not going back in the bottle.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor didn't intend to find her niche as an actor starring in movies and TV shows about race. But with a long list of credits punctuated by acclaimed projects that tackle the topic head-on, like "When They See Us," "Origin," "The Birth of a Nation," "If Beale Street Could Talk," and the 2023 remake of "The Color Purple," she acknowledges the trend.

"I didn't seek them out," Ellis-Taylor told Business Insider of these types of roles. "But I always sort of end up in them, and I think I've been trying to figure that out, too."

Ellis-Taylor's latest movie, "Nickel Boys," technically fits into this category, putting a warm and empathetic lens on a real-life tragedy. RaMell Ross' film adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel of the same name tells the story of Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a Black boy who's sent to an infamously abusive reform school in 1960s Florida.

Told largely through the eyes of both Elwood and his reform school friend Turner (Brandon Wilson) in a groundbreaking first-person perspective, the film is an intimate and often devastating look at the boys' coming-of-age against the backdrop of the Jim Crow South.

As Elwood's devoted grandmother Hattie, Ellis-Taylor radiates warmth and determination, even when she knows the odds are stacked against her grandson.

Ellis-Taylor suspects that her tendency to get cast in heavy projects like "Nickel Boys" that chronicle racial injustice has something to do with how she spends her time off — a case of art echoing life.

"I'm from Mississippi, and so a lot of what I've done when I'm not acting has been fighting what is essentially a Confederacy that didn't die," said Ellis-Taylor, who spent years advocating for the removal of the Confederate emblem from the Mississippi state flag (it was officially changed in 2021).

"I don't hold my tongue when I see things that I feel are wrong and wrong in a way that the foundation of that wrong is race or caste-related or misogyny-related."

If speaking up has given her a reputation, she's glad for it.

"I think who I am when I'm not working, maybe there are rumors about that," Ellis-Taylor continued. "And that gets to people and they think, 'Okay, maybe we need to hire this crazy lady.'"

For BI's latest Role Play interview, Ellis-Taylor explains why the "Origin" awards-season snub still stings, her decision to criticize queer erasure in "The Color Purple," and the project she's hoping to get off the ground next.

On the disappointing reception to 'Origin' and the burden on Black creatives

Business Insider: Many of your recent films, especially "Nickel Boys" and "Origin," deal with heavy topics, and talking about those subjects invariably comes up on the press tour. How do you navigate that? Does it ever weigh on you?

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor: Sometimes it does. I find myself having to be really vigilant about how I respond to things. For example, with both "Origin" and something like "Nickel Boys," you hear things like, "Where is the hope in this?" Because there is a burden on Black makers to provide hope for people.

So when I get questions like that, I have to be really vigilant in saying, "Why are you asking me that? We're talking about a film here. Why is that uniquely the responsibility of a Black filmmaker to provide hope? Why? You're not asking our contemporaries to do that, but it's our responsibility to do that kind of work."

So that can weigh on me, because that's time that I could be answering something else.

Much has been made of "Origin" being snubbed during awards season last year and why that might have happened. I know you and director Ava DuVernay have both spoken before about how frustrating it was for that film to not get the reception it deserved. Is that something that still bothers you?

Yeah, it does. The lovely people that I'm working with on "Nickel Boys," it's hard for me to say to them, "Look, guys, I got a little PTSD going on." You know? Because I was going through this less than a year ago, nine months ago, really, and it still hurts.

A lot of what hurt me is that I know what Ava wanted. She wanted this book, and her film that's based on the book, to be a part of our national discussion about race and caste in this country. And the reality is, films getting awards, it helps it saturate culture. Not just culture, it helps it saturate our political discussions. She wanted "Origin" to be at the center of that.

Not having that kind of result was very disappointing. Not just disappointing for everyone who worked on the film, but I feel that I'm personally disappointed. My disappointment is not just my own personal disappointment, but I feel that to have a conversation, to be able to have the language for the conversation that would've been so beneficial in these last few months, and not to be able to have that because folks didn't know. And folks don't know because folks didn't see it, and folks didn't see it because it wasn't in the awards discussion. It still stings a bit, yeah.

On calling out queer erasure in 'The Color Purple' remake after appearing in the film

After "The Color Purple" remake came out, you criticized how both the 2023 version and the 1985 film downplayed that this is a story about Black lesbians. Why was it important to you to speak out on that?

It's important for me to say that because Alice Walker is a queer woman, and she wrote that. She was writing herself into existence when she wrote "The Color Purple." And I feel that it is a dishonoring of that writing into existence if that is not a priority in any iteration of it.

When we say things like, "It is about Black sisterhood"... that's lovely and wonderful, but it is also about Black women who fall in love with other women, who have sex with other Black women.

And when we're not honest about that and we don't meet that, when we cower and say it's about something else because we don't want to make other people feel uncomfortable, that's homophobic. That's homophobia at its core, and I'm tired of that.

I feel like we have a lot of well-intentioned people who want to do the right thing, who would never claim to be homophobic or bigoted in any sort of way, but if we are like that, we have to be like that in the art that we make. And that is why I have to say that.

And I'm queer. I'm a queer woman. I'm bi, so when I read "The Color Purple," I saw myself. I feel like we're quiet and silent about queer erasure. I just won't do that.

Do you feel like for the story to be told properly, it needs to be told by a Black queer woman?

I think that would be beneficial. I believe that queer people should play queer people. I think too often we have straight people playing queer characters. And I think that queer people can play themselves and should play themselves. I think it's not going to change until we start insisting, until queer folks start insisting on something better.

Did anyone give you a hard time for being critical of the movie after having been in it?

Nobody said anything to me. I don't think people really try to say anything to me too much.

And I'm going to be honest, my critique of the film was about its erasure of queerness, solely. It wasn't about its artistic merits. It wasn't about Ms. Winfrey personally or how I felt I was treated on the film. It didn't have anything to do with that. And I made sure that when I said what I said, the film was out already, all the awards had been announced.

There was nothing that I was going to say that was going to affect the box office or affect its chances. I waited until all of that was over, because the reality is when you do say critical things like that, it affects how the film is seen in the world.

I feel that I owed it to those young women who were in that movie, for them to have the fullness of the experience, the joy of being in "The Color Purple," and I didn't want to shed any sort of negative light on that at all. So I waited until all of that was over, and then I had to say that because it was important to say that. And I hope my queer community joins me, and when they see that, that they speak up as well. It's not going to be different until we do.

On her first Oscar nomination and writing her own stories

You got your first Oscar nomination in 2022 for "King Richard." In 2024, you had four films released. Do you feel like the nomination changed the types of roles you were being offered, or boosted your career?

Well, I think 2022 and the end of 2021, yeah, things changed. Things changed quite a bit. It was like a five-year period leading up, a couple years leading up to that, things started changing. I was doing some stuff that I had never really done before.

As far as the types of roles, I think it's consistent. I don't have people that are knocking on my door throwing scripts at me. I just think that the diversity of the kind of work that I would choose to do, I would like to do, it's not as varied as I would want in terms of what is being offered to me.

But my response to that is I have to write that into existence, and so that's what I'm trying to do now.

What types of projects are you writing now?

Well, one of the things is writing a story about Rosetta Tharpe. It feels like every other year there's a story about Elvis or Bob Dylan. And I think that Rosetta Tharpe created rock 'n' roll, so we need some stories about Rosetta Tharpe and the movement of music that she made inside and outside of the church, and then her blending both of those.

That's the story of American music, and I think it's fascinating. She's a woman. She's a queer woman. She had a relationship with the woman who she was singing with. It is a fascinating story. I want to see that onscreen.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

"Nickel Boys" is now in theaters.

More from this series

• Guy Pearce on the one bad job that made him swear off doing blockbuster movies
• Niecy Nash-Betts feels bad about making out with Glen Powell in front of his mom
• Billy Bob Thornton ad-libbed his famous 'Friday Night Lights' speech after being betrayed

• I've followed the Mediterranean diet for over 20 years while living in Crete, Greece. 
• I eat some things in moderation, but I don't cut out certain food groups and snacks. 
• Olive oil and lemons are Mediterranean-diet staples that I like to embrace.

The Mediterranean diet is suspected to have started in Crete, Greece, the historically rich island where I've had my home base for the past 20 years. 

This plant-heavy diet, which involves eating vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fish, and healthy fats like olive oil, is believed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, improve brain function, and increase life expectancy.

With a focus on seasonal foods, traditional options, and local products, this power-packed way of eating has become increasingly popular.

Your mindset is as important as what you eat

Here in Crete, "siga siga," which translates to "slowly, slowly," is not just something commonly said, it's a way of life.

Meals can last for three hours, and I siesta from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. most days and then often spend my evenings drinking coffee and chatting with friends. 

A laid-back pace of life is just as important as eating well, so make sure to surround yourself with people and take the time to enjoy your food.

Snack when you're hungry

A common misconception is that you can't snack while embracing a new diet, but in Crete, I've found that munching is welcome at all hours of the day. 

Although potato chips and sugary drinks aren't a kitchen staple of mine, I regularly enjoy cucumbers chopped into bite-sized chunks, tomatoes sprinkled with sea salt, and crunchy dakos, whole-wheat, open-face sliders drizzled with olive oil. 

Use olive oil for everything

Saturated and trans fats may have adverse health effects, but I banished butter and margarine from my pantry years ago as a matter of taste.  

These days, I make everything from carrot cake to mashed potatoes with olive oil. It's not just because extra-virgin olive oil is a major component of the Mediterranean diet, but it also gives food a much richer flavor. 

On top of its wholesome taste, this oil is rich in antioxidants that are said to help protect the body from cellular damage.

I also prepare herb-flavored options by bottling oil with fresh basil or rosemary sprigs. So when I'm hungry for a treat, I drizzle this tasty alternative over a few cubes of whole-grain bread served with fresh cucumber.

Don't deny yourself the foods you enjoy

For me, the Mediterranean diet is not about denying yourself the foods you love — it's about enjoying them in moderation.

Eating the occasional dose of poultry, eggs, and dairy is fine. After all, how could anyone resist a bowl of deliciously creamy Greek yogurt drizzled with local honey and topped with a handful of nuts? 

I've noticed that meat is also on the menu in most Cretan homes, but since there's not much room for larger animals like cows to graze on this arid atoll, a lot of people eat other options such as lamb or goat.

Plus drinking wine in moderation is a welcome accompaniment to the Mediterranean diet. 

If life throws you lemons, use them

It's great to eat vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats, but you should also make sure to fill your cupboard with lemons. 

Like several of my neighbors, I have a lemon tree growing at the bottom of my garden, and I use this vitamin-C-packed fruit with just about everything. 

You can add a wedge to your first glass of water in the morning, mix lemon juice with extra-virgin olive oil to pour over your salad, or squeeze a few drops into your chunky lentil-soup supper — I guarantee you'll be hooked.

Swap out chocolate and cake for fruit and honey 

I love whole grains and vegetables, but I sometimes find myself missing chocolates and cookies. But I've learned to curve my sugar cravings by adding plenty of fruit into my diet.

After a meal at a Cretan restaurant, you'll nearly always be offered a bowl of sweet Bing cherries, a platter of juicy chilled watermelon, or a gleaming bunch of grapes picked fresh from the vine, depending on the time of year. 

When I need a midmorning snack, I head straight toward the fruit basket, so I also make sure to stock my fridge with dried prunes and apricots.

Plan your meals ahead of time

Like most people I know, I have a busy life and don't always have time to prepare healthy dishes. So my solution is to have a whiteboard that I use every Sunday to plan out my meals for the week. 

Once I know what I'm eating each day, I prep some of the basic ingredients — like whole-wheat pastries, lentils, beans, tomato sauce, or chickpeas — and put them in the freezer.

Then when I want to cook one of the dishes on my list — such as my favorite Mediterranean lentil soup with sun-dried tomatoes, herbs, onions, and garlic — I just defrost my main ingredients and add the rest.

Don't be afraid to forage your own food

There are as many as 300 different wild, edible greens in Crete, so foraging is a popular pastime. 

When I first moved to Greece's largest island, I'd see my neighbors coming home from the fields with bags full of greens. And soon enough, I learned to recognize dozens of these edible plants and how to prepare them, like lightly steaming and dressing them with a squeeze of lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil. 

Foraging for food is a great way to eat mineral-rich greens and stay on your feet.

You might not find anise-scented fennel or wild oregano growing in your backyard, but dandelion, purslane, and sorrel are common finds — just make sure to harvest them in a non-polluted spot. 

Don't call it a diet

For me, the Mediterranean diet is not a fad, it's a lifestyle choice that involves making the most of the foods that are available in a sustainable way.

While respecting the environment, you also learn to savor the flavors of sun-rich tomatoes, fiery garlic cloves, and tree-plucked lemons. 

Once I started the Mediterranean diet, I never wanted to eat in any other way again.

This story was originally published in February 2021, and most recently updated on January 17, 2025.

• Elle Fanning often takes fashion risks on the red carpet.
• The "A Complete Uknown" actor has worn see-through outfits and looks with plunging necklines.
• Most recently, she wore a leopard-print dress with a thigh-high slit.

Elle Fanning is almost as well known for her style as she is for her acting résumé.

She's often included in best-dressed lists, from her on-theme Met Gala outfits to glamorous awards show ensembles.

Fanning has also experimented with daring looks as her career has progressed, wearing gowns with plunging necklines and embracing sheer fabric.

Check out some of Fanning's boldest looks to date.

Elle Fanning was photographed in a black crop top during a day out in Cannes, France, in 2017.

She paired the halter top with a pink jacket and an orange skirt. A white bag and black heels completed the look.

Fanning walked the red carpet at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival in a green dress with a plunging neckline and low back.

Fanning's green silk Gucci gown was almost entirely sheer and embroidered with sparkly floral detailing.

Oversize flowers decorated the hem of the dress.

At the 2017 Toronto Film Festival, Fanning arrived in a pink lace dress with a sheer corset.

The Alexander McQueen dress was covered in delicate lace, and the sheer, dropped-waist corset offset the high-low skirt.

She accessorized the look with sparkly pink heels.

She wore another pink look to a Miu Miu fashion show in July 2017.

The dress was covered in oversize sequins and featured a plunging neckline and midriff cutout.

Fanning matched her silver heels to the crystal-lined neckline detail of the Miu Miu dress.

Fanning's custom Miu Miu dress for the September 2018 Deauville American Film Festival had cutouts on the bodice.

The gown's bodice was yellow and trimmed with silver sequins, forming a bow in the center.

The white, tulle skirt flowed out into a train behind her.

She chose a sequined Valentino dress for the September 2018 world premiere of "Teen Spirit."

The sparkly navy dress had a deep neckline trimmed with pink and silver stripes.

She accessorized the dress with red satin heels.

At the May 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Fanning turned heads in a floral-print Valentino gown.

The gown had a full skirt and train, as well as ruffled sleeves.

Fanning wore Chopard jewelry and Sophia Webster shoes at the "Les Miserables" premiere.

She attended the August 2019 D23 Expo in a head-to-toe pink look.

Fanning arrived at the event in a sheer Kimhekim blouse and skirt held together by an oversize pink satin bow.

She completed her look with a pink corset and pointed-toe heels in a lighter shade of pink.

Fanning wore a chic yellow dress with a daring twist for a March 2019 Miu Miu fashion show.

The dress hit Fanning at her ankles, and both the skirt and the plunging neckline were trimmed with ruffled fabric.

She paired the floral-print dress with pointed metallic silver heels.

Fanning's dress for the March 2019 iHeart Radio Music Awards looked almost see-through.

The pale-pink dress from Miu Miu featured sequins on the halter bodice, which formed cutouts on the sides. The tulle skirt flowed to the floor and featured subtle sparkles.

Fanning wore the gown with Tiffany & Co. jewelry.

Fanning wore Gucci at a February 2020 screening of the film "All the Bright Places."

Fanning's flared jumpsuit featured a fun petal cutout on the bodice. She paired the black ensemble with a floral Gucci choker and black heels.

At the November 2021 LACMA Art + Film Gala, Fanning wore a sheer black gown with cutouts across her torso and sleeves.

Fanning's Gucci dress had an open back, a high neckline, and a full skirt.

At the November 2021 InStyle Awards, Fanning wore a gold and diamond cropped top.

The actor's Balmain top, designed to look like a gold chain, left Fanning's back completely open.

She wore the top with a low-rise, black skirt.

Fanning arrived at the January 2023 Critics Choice Awards in an off-the-shoulder dress from Alexander McQueen.

The cream dress was designed with ruffles and floral embroidery. It flared around Fanning's hips, cinching in again for an asymmetrical look.

Cutouts decorated the dress, and the sweetheart neckline sat low on Fanning's chest. Gold shoes completed the look.

She wore a black bodysuit to an H&M event in September 2023.

The bodysuit's top looked like a bra, and sheer black lace covered Fanning's stomach.

She paired the daring top with black, wide-legged pants, a matching jacket, and silver shoes.

Fanning walked a L'Oreal runway in a pale-yellow dress with a low neckline in October 2023.

The Georges Chakra dress hugged Fanning's figure, and it was embroidered with textured embellishments.

The draped neckline scooped all the way to Fanning's navel, and she wore gold shoes with the look.

Fanning's Balmain dress for the May 2024 Met Gala looked made from glass.

For the "Garden of Time" Met Gala, Fanning wore a form-fitting dress with a neckline that flowed into birds on each shoulder.

The glass-like material was see-through, and it flowed into a tulle train.

Fanning opted for another sheer dress for the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024.

The long-sleeve Gucci gown was covered in a sunflower pattern from head to toe.

The gauzy sleeves and skirt flowed around Fanning, offsetting the plunging neckline that cinched her waist.

She jumped on the shirtless suit trend at the Tony Awards in June 2024.

Fanning chose a loose-fitting suit from Saint Laurent for the event.

The single-button jacket bared her chest, and she paired the black suit with pointed-toe heels.

Fanning wore another all-black look to the Hamilton Behind the Camera Awards in November 2024.

Dior designed her knee-length black dress, which cinched at the waist and was framed by cutouts on the sides.

The neckline formed a deep V, and the latex sleeves formed gloves. Black heels completed the look.

Fanning's floral-patterned gown for the Governors Awards in November 2024 looked ethereal.

The sage-green dress from Valentino featured long sleeves and a low neckline, and the hem and sleeves were trimmed with fuzzy fabric.

Fanning wore a coordinating shrug over the gown, adding volume to the look.

For the Gotham Film Awards in December 2024, Fanning walked the red carpet in a Dior gown.

The deep-green dress had an A-line silhouette, and the bodice was made of crisscrossing fabric, creating subtle cutouts.

The pleated skirt was semi-sheer, showing glimpses of Fanning's legs throughout the night.

In December 2024, Fanning attended the premiere of "A Complete Unknown" in a white, backless Gucci dress.

The column dress had a square neckline trimmed with silver embellishments and a bow in the center.

The straps were made of the same fabric and flowed onto Fanning's back in a square pattern.

A delicate train flowed out, adding glamour to the look.

Fanning chose a leopard-print dress for a Golden Globes after-party in January 2025.

Fanning's dress for the 2025 Golden Globes featured a leopard bodice, and she nodded to the look with her vintage Dior gown at the after-party.

The form-fitting dress had spaghetti straps adorned with red bows and a thigh-high slit cut up the skirt. A coordinating scarf completed the sultry look.

• The US Army is working on improving its Black Hawk helicopters with new technology.
• It is partnering with Skyryse to make aircraft easier to fly, with or without a pilot.
• There have been other efforts to deliver autonomous Black Hawk capabilities.

The US Army is partnering with aerospace company Skyryse on tech solutions that could be used to make its workhorse Black Hawk helicopters easier to fly, with or without a pilot.

It's part of an effort to increase the safety and effectiveness of aircraft like the Black Hawk. This helicopter is heavily used but has also been involved in deadly accidents. Increased autonomy and ease of use could reduce those risks for the numerous operators worldwide using these aircraft.

Skyryse and the Army announced the plan earlier this week. It focuses on Skyryse's signature SkyOS program, which the company described as the world's first universal flight operating system.

The partnership will "develop solutions to reduce time to train for pilots, increase interoperability between aircraft, and deliver optionally-piloted capability which could be applied" to the Army's 2,400 Black Hawks and other aircraft, Skyryse said.

The pilotless element of this cooperation follows previous efforts exploring autonomous Black Hawk flight options.

One of the stated goals of the partnership between the Army and Skyryse is to make the Black Hawk safer and simpler to fly while maintaining its mission flexibility. The Black Hawk has long been a premiere platform for the US military, as well as global militaries, seeing combat across the world.

Black Hawk helicopters have been used in a range of locations, including Iraq and Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, the war in Ukraine, and other places and have supported a variety of missions.

Highly modified Black Hawks were, for instance, used during the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. It first entered service in 1978 and has been upgraded several times.

The Black Hawk, which comes in several variants, is operated by three dozen countries and has been used by the US Army for over 40 years. It is known for its versatility, conducting air assaults, transporting troops and supplies, evacuating injured soldiers, and serving as a command and control center.

But there have been safety concerns about the aircraft after decades of crashes and malfunctions. In 2023, US Army data reviewed by Military.com revealed 60 deaths had occurred in Black Hawk-related training incidents. And there have been many operational accidents as well.

Through the new partnership, Skyryse and the Army aim to use SkyOS to simplify pilot operations, improve safety features, employ autonomy, and explore the ability to fly with or without a pilot.

Skyryse and the US Army did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the cooperation.

Dr. Mark Groden, CEO of Skyryse, said in a statement on the partnership that "by combining the Army's operational expertise with Skyryse's leadership in rotorcraft flight controls and automation, we have a unique opportunity to make flying simple and safe enough that any serviceperson can fly any aircraft."

Autonomy efforts involving the Black Hawk date back a decade, when the Army successfully tested an uncrewed Black Hawk picking up and delivering an autonomous amphibious all-terrain vehicle. More recent examples in this space include a demonstration in October 2022 of a Black Hawk flying autonomously to perform internal and external cargo resupply missions, as well as rescue operations. 

And in October 2024, the Army and aircraft manufacturer Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company that produces the Black Hawk and other helicopter models, showed how the latter's MATRIX autonomy system can employ a Black Hawk to receive remote mission commands in real-time and then carry out said operations without remote control.

Two months later, in December, Lockheed announced that Sikorsky had been selected by the Marines to showcase the autonomous capabilities of the Black Hawk helicopter in demonstrations intended to show "how autonomous aircraft can keep future Marine forces supplied, whether operating from Navy ships or expeditionary bases ashore."

• Advertisers hope TikTok can return to the US soon after a ban that will likely take effect Sunday.
• TikTok's future in the US now seems to hinge on President-elect Donald Trump.
• Advertisers say a long US shutdown will degrade TikTok's value because users will flee.

If TikTok returns to the US after "going dark," would advertisers come back, too?

That was the big question floating around the ad industry on Friday after the Supreme Court upheld a law forcing TikTok's Chinese owner to divest from the app or see it banned on Sunday.

Brands will not be able to run ad campaigns in the US once the TikTok ban comes into effect, but they will still be able to log in to its ad platform to manage ads running on the app in other countries, several ad agency execs told Business Insider.

TikTok reps have said they will look to refund advertisers for campaigns that weren't completed by the time the ban takes effect, one of those agency execs said. They, like some others interviewed for this article, asked for anonymity to discuss clients' plans and to protect their business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

Despite this movement and disruption — and allegations from Congress that the app could be weaponized by the Chinese government for data collection and to spread propaganda — industry insiders said most advertisers are ready to bounce back should TikTok be switched back on in the US.

"Our clients are seeing too much success on the platform to turn away from it completely," a second agency exec told BI.

TikTok generated around $12 billion in advertising revenue in the US last year, according to estimates from the research firm EMARKETER.

As the potential of a TikTok shutdown loomed in recent months, agencies were already advising clients to distribute their TikTok budgets across a broader range of apps should the ban come to pass.

Jon Molina, a senior director at the digital agency Brainlabs, said it's advising clients to put around 75% of their TikTok budgets with Meta on Facebook and Instagram Reels and the remaining 25% on YouTube Shorts once the ban comes into effect. Advertisers should monitor the performance of those campaigns over the coming days and optimize their budgets accordingly, he said.

While Meta and YouTube are expected to be big beneficiaries of TikTok's woes, some ad buyers said they're not like-for-like replacements.

"A lot of brands have not only seen advertising results but new engagement organically from TikTok — people reviewing products, people filming unboxing videos," a third agency exec said. "Brands are able to connect with new and diverse audiences, and those will be the expectations of any platform moving forward."

Advertisers are hoping a TikTok rescue deal is secured quickly

TikTok and many of its advertisers are now looking to Trump to save the app once he takes office next week. Trump, who recently said he opposes a TikTok ban, wrote in a social-media post on Friday that he would make a decision on the app soon.

A TikTok rep pointed BI to a video posted on Friday, in which TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew thanked Trump for the "opportunity to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States."

Advertisers' lasting appetite for TikTok will depend partly on how long a rescue deal takes — especially as its parent company ByteDance is expected to need the Chinese government's sign-off. If creators find success elsewhere, they might not be inclined to reestablish themselves on TikTok, and advertisers will follow the audiences.

"I'd be shocked if a big TikTok creator could replicate that success in one week, but if it's several months, it could be too far gone," said Shamsul Chowdhury, EVP of paid social at the digital agency Jellyfish.

The third agency exec said that some advertisers would have big questions for TikTok's new owner before they picked up where they left off. For example, they might want reassurances that they could continue to run global campaigns from the US, more details about how their data would now be handled, and information about which brand-safety controls they could use.

Brands are ramping up on YouTube Shorts and Meta Reels

For now, advertisers are getting ready to put their contingency plans into action. Rival apps are keen to make the process as easy as possible. January is marketing budgeting season, when many media companies entice advertisers with incentives.

"We are hearing from multiple providers, including other social platforms and non-social media providers, about reallocation incentives such as how TikTok's audience is also available on their platforms, added value based on minimum incremental spend, discounts on higher impact units like takeovers, and funding to support creative projects," said Prerna Talreja, managing director of integrated investment and partnerships at the media agency Crossmedia.

As advertisers drag and drop their TikTok campaigns into Meta and Google, ad prices are likely to spike, given the supply-and-demand auction dynamics of those platforms.

"You may end up seeing CPMs going haywire for a short period of time," said James Poulter, head of AI and innovation at House 337, a creative agency. CPM refers to the cost to reach 1,000 ad impressions.

The language-learning app Duolingo, a big TikTok advertiser known for its "unhinged" marketing featuring its green owl mascot and snarky responses in the comments, has seen this movie before.

Duolingo's chief marketing officer, Manu Orssaud, said the company was shown the importance of adaptability when TikTok was banned in India in 2020.

The brand has been doubling down on YouTube in particular. Duolingo grew its view count on YouTube Shorts by 423% to 1.1 billion last year, and it added 3.3 million subscribers to its YouTube channel, bringing the total to 5.2 million.

"While TikTok's algorithm has been a game-changer, what truly drives our success is the creativity and innovation of our social team," Orssaud said.

• Mark Zuckerberg praised Sheryl Sandberg in a Threads post on Friday
• A NYT report said Zuckerberg blamed Sandberg for an inclusivity program at Facebook.
• Meta recently said it was rolling back its DEI initiatives.

Mark Zuckerberg praised former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg on Friday after a report said he had blamed her for an inclusivity program at the company.

"Sheryl did amazing work at Meta and will forever be a legend in the industry. She built one of the greatest businesses of all time and taught me much of what I know," Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads.

The post was sent in response to another user who shared a Business Insider article from last year with the headline, "Mark Zuckerberg jokes that Sheryl Sandberg raised him 'like a parent.'" The user said it "didn't age well."

Sandberg responded in a Threads post: "Thank you, @zuck. I will always be grateful for the many years we spent building a great business together — and for your friendship that got me through some of the hardest times of my life and continues to this day."

Representatives for Sandberg declined to comment when reached by BI. Meta did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Meta told employees last week it was rolling back its DEI programs, BI previously reported. On Thursday, The New York Times reported Zuckerberg met with Stephen Miller, an advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, at Mar-a-Lago late last year.

The Times said Miller told Zuckerberg Trump would target DEI culture, including at companies like Meta. The Meta CEO assured Miller he would not stand in Trump's way, the Times reported, citing three unnamed sources.

The outlet also reported that one source said Zuckerberg blamed Sandberg for an inclusivity initiative at Facebook during the same meeting.

The reporting was met with some backlash online and support for Sandberg, who was sometimes referred to as the "adult in the room" at Facebook while she was there.

Sandberg has also pushed for women's empowerment in the workplace and wrote the book "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead."

Zuckerberg appears to be reshaping Meta ahead of the incoming Trump administration. In addition to rolling back DEI, Meta also announced last week it would be ending the use of third-party fact-checkers in favor of a community notes system.

During an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast last week, Zuckerberg said "masculine energy" was needed in the workplace.

"Masculine energy, I think, is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it," he said in an interview on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast. "It's like you want feminine energy; you want masculine energy."

• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon spoke at the Cisco AI Summit this week.
• He said AI was changing processes like drafting IPO filings and analyst research.
• Efficiency gains rely on the execution of employees changing their processes.

One of Wall Street's top bosses just gave a revealing look into how AI is changing the lives of bankers and analysts in its investment bank.

Ten years ago, when Goldman wanted to win the business of a company going public, it would appoint a team of about half a dozen people who over two weeks would draft a prospectus known as an S-1, a significant regulatory document that details the business, financials, and risk factors, among other things. The idea was to show would-be clients all the thought and legwork Goldman bankers had already put in.

"Now you can basically have something that's 95% of the way there in a few minutes," CEO David Solomon said at Cisco's AI Summit on Wednesday. If the 95% is "now a commodity," he said, the remaining 5% matters a lot because it's the margin where Goldman can get an edge.

It's a big deal, as Goldman is one of the top banks that take companies public, along with Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan. It's also just one of the ways Goldman is using AI to reduce grunt work and move more efficiently.

Solomon described a road map for how Goldman Sachs was strategizing around AI. He said that getting engineers to free up capacity by being 30% more productive with coding tasks was "first and most obvious," given that Goldman has 11,000 engineers. Another priority is making better use of Goldman's data, which includes tracking the firm's trades over the past 40 years and making it available to clients.

The third, and perhaps most visible and directly client-facing, is deploying AI in the investment-banking business. Enabling the bank to do more work by giving workers a kind of information superintelligence would boost the already booming firm, which brought in more than $53 billion in 2024.

Beyond using AI to draft IPO prospectuses to court potential clients, Solomon said Goldman was "focused on how we can completely change kind of what you'd call the material preparation" involved in investment banking. That includes preparing bankers for client meetings and getting information to clients to better make investment decisions. He said Goldman was also building an "investment-banking copilot" with the bank's own data. Copilots typically describe AI tools that help workers be more productive by drafting text, analyzing information, and suggesting ideas.

It's not just bankers who can anticipate changes to their daily processes. The Goldman CEO also talked about the potential for AI to shake up analyst workflows in equity research.

He said one of the most significant things analysts and their dedicated teams do is report on companies and feed that information into models, often to gauge a company's trajectory, growth, and risks.

"Obviously that can all be automated now with this technology," Solomon said.

But that doesn't mean those jobs will be replaced with technology. "You really need the analysts, and you need smaller teams, and you need a horizontal engine that basically does all that work for everyone as opposed to individual pods for every single industry," Solomon said.

The success of these AI deployments will rely in part on the execution of change management.

Solomon said that generating efficiencies and cutting down on redundancies in the equity-research example would be "a massive process change."

"It's hard, because people don't want to change their process," Solomon said. "They like their team. They like the fact they have complete control."

• Apple TV+ debuted its first original series on November 1, 2019.
• Since then, the streamer has consistently put out great TV.
• As season two of "Severance" drops, these are the best shows on Apple TV+.

It was only a matter of time before Apple got into the content game, but when the first few Apple TV+ series premiered back in 2019, it wasn't clear that it would be successful.

Unlike other streaming services, Apple TV+ doesn't have a huge backlog or beloved properties to fall back on, like Max with Warner Bros. and HBO, Peacock with NBC and Universal, Hulu with Disney and ABC, or even deals with legacy studios like Prime and Netflix do.

Instead, Apple has had to rely on producing original content, and sometimes overspending to get it done. However, the quality of the content speaks for itself.

We've chosen the 24 best shows on the streaming service that prove it might be time to ditch another app in favor of Apple TV+.

"Severance"

"Severance" is probably Apple TV+'s most popular show — its highly anticipated second season premieres January 17, almost three years after the first season ended in April 2022.

The sci-fi thriller takes place in a world where employees of the Lumon corporation can choose to undergo the "severance" procedure, which completely separates their consciousness between their work selves and their home selves (or "innies" and "outies" in the show's parlance).

The cast is packed from top to bottom with amazing actors, but we can't say enough about Adam Scott's dual performance as Mark Scout/Mark S. It's clear that while the two share an underlying goodness, they each have distinct personalities and mannerisms.

Fans of shows like "Lost," "Mr. Robot," and "Westworld" should tune in immediately.

"Slow Horses"

"Slow Horses" is a British spy thriller based on the Mick Herron books series called "Slough House."

A far cry from the slick halls of James Bond's MI6, "Slow Horses" follows a team of reject MI5 agents who, rather than get fired or quit, are sent to Slough House, a junky outpost run by the slovenly Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a former Cold War super-spy who has become jaded with the entire service.

Of course, even though these are supposed to be the most incompetent agents in the intelligence community, things just keep happening to the Slow Horses that keep them in the action.

There are four seasons with six episodes each, with at least two more on the way, so it's a perfect weekend binge.

"Bad Sisters"

"Bad Sisters" is a black comedy starring Sharon Horgan, Anne-Marie Duff, Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene, and Eve Hewson as five sisters living in Dublin. One of them, Grace (Duff), is married to a controlling, abusive man named John Paul (Claes Bang).

Each of the Garvey sisters has their own problem with John Paul, so when he dies mysteriously, each becomes a suspect in a case involving John Paul's life insurance.

The first season told a relatively complete story, so it was surprising when the show returned for season two. While it didn't live up to the highs of season one, it's enough to be in the company of the Garvey sisters for another eight hours.

Plus, you can always pretend it's a perfect limited series if you really don't want to watch season two.

"Hijack"

"Hijack" seemed to come out of nowhere, but what a pleasant surprise it was. The show stars Idris Elba as Sam, a corporate negotiator who happens to be on a flight from Dubai to London that gets hijacked midair.

The series is a tense thriller set in real time. It is seven episodes long, and the flight is seven hours.

It was renewed for season two last summer, and we can't wait to see what Sam does next.

"Shrinking"

"Shrinking" is a comedy starring Jason Segel as Jimmy, a therapist grieving the loss of his wife after a drunk-driving accident. Sick of listening to people complain to him about their problems without doing anything about it, Jimmy begins to cross ethical lines and tell people what he thinks they should be doing.

It's a comedy, we promise.

The cast is rounded out by Jimmy's coworkers Gaby (Jessica Williams) and Paul (a locked-in Harrison Ford), his best friend Brian (Michael Urie), and his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell).

If you're a fan of the heartwarming, gentle comedy of "Ted Lasso" (more on that later), the two seasons of "Shrinking" will go down easy, and we're sure the upcoming third season will too.

"Black Bird"

The first true-crime series on this list, "Black Bird" is the real story of Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton), a low-level criminal who agreed to a two-year plea deal with a chance of parole that turned out to be a 10-year deal with no chance of parole.

But his fortunes begin to change when the FBI approaches him with a proposition: befriend fellow inmate and suspected serial killer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) and get him to confess to as many murders as possible, and get out of prison immediately with an expunged record.

"Black Bird" also stars Ray Liotta in one of his final performances as Jimmy's father, Big Jim.

Anyone who was a fan of Netflix's "Mindhunter" should tap into "Black Bird" as soon as possible.

"Presumed Innocent"

This is the second adaptation of Scott Turow's novel of the same name, after the 1990 film starring Harrison Ford and Brian Dennehy.

In the show, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Rusty Sabich, a Chicago prosecutor who is accused of murder himself after a coworker he was having an affair with, Carolyn (Renate Reinsve), turns up dead.

This show is, in a word, chaotic. But it is extremely watchable, and we don't get enough legal thrillers in movies or on TV anymore, so it's great to see one as successful as this. Season two was confirmed in July 2024.

"For All Mankind"

"For All Mankind" is an alternate history show that asks what would have happened if the Soviet Union had beaten the US to the Moon in 1969. You might not think that would change a lot, but the four seasons of "For All Mankind" suggest it would've changed NASA and the space program in all sorts of ways.

Each season of the show takes place in a different decade, allowing us to check in with our characters in the '70s, '80s, '90s, and 2000s. A fifth season in the 2010s has already been confirmed.

In addition to being thrilling sci-fi, it's also a compelling look at the personal relationships between the astronauts and their families. There's something for everyone.

"The Morning Show"

You might be asking, "Is 'The Morning Show' actually good?" And our response to that would be: Must a show be good?

Is it not enough to cast some of the best TV actors of all time (Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Jon Hamm, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Steve Carell, Greta Lee, Karen Pittman, Billy Crudup, Julianna Margulies, Nicole Beharie, Holland Taylor, Tig Notaro … the list goes on) to spout some nonsense about how important TV ratings and morning shows are to American culture?

Ultimately, "The Morning Show" is extremely watchable. Season four is set to drop this year.

"The Buccaneers"

"The Buccaneers" is one of Apple TV+'s few teen-focused shows, but it's a great one. Based on Edith Wharton's unfinished novel of the same name, "The Buccaneers" is a more progressive take on what it was like to be a young woman in society during the Gilded Age.

Our titular buccaneers are a group of American friends who travel to England during debutante season to secure advantageous matches. But someone in the writer's room was clearly watching "Bridgerton," because there's racial diversity, a compelling queer storyline, love triangles, and tons of modern music.

"The Buccaneers" ended on a tantalizing cliffhanger, so thankfully, it was renewed for a second season in December 2023.

"Bad Monkey"

Vince Vaughn stars in another crime series after "True Detective"; this time it's a more comedic one based on the Carl Hiaasen novel "Bad Monkey."

All of Hiaasen's novels are characterized by the easy-breezy Florida mentality of its lead characters, and "Bad Monkey" is no different. In the series, Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, a motor-mouthed cop turned restaurant inspector.

When Yancy is tasked with some busy work by a former colleague (transporting a severed arm to the morgue), he gets dragged into a conspiracy spanning Florida, Key West, and the Bahamas.

It was renewed for season two in December 2024.

"Pachinko"

"Pachinko" is a generational epic based on Min Jin Lee's 2017 novel of the same name. It follows a Korean family living in Japan across four generations and 74 years. Part of the show's central tension is the treatment of Korean immigrants in Japan throughout the 20th century, and it is sure to both warm and break your heart.

Fans of Anna Sawai from "Shogun" should check out the two seasons of "Pachinko," as she's equally wonderful in both shows.

"Five Days at Memorial"

The second true-crime limited series on this list, "Five Days at Memorial," is based on the five days immediately following Hurricane Katrina at Memorial Medical Center, a hospital in New Orleans. It's based on the 2013 book of the same name.

If you don't know the true story already, we recommend going blind. Vera Farmiga gives a truly harrowing performance as Dr. Anna Pou, an overworked surgeon who makes stomach-churning decisions about how to help her patients best as they await rescue.

"Platonic"

For some lighter fare, we turn to "Platonic," a sweet, decidedly not rom-com about two best friends who reconnect after one gets divorced.

Why'd they stop being friends? Because Sylvia (Rose Byrne) accidentally told her best friend Will (Seth Rogen) that she hated his his now-ex Audrey (Alisha Wainwright).

The stakes are low in "Platonic," but the chemistry between Rogen and Byrne, first established in the "Neighbors" films, remains as charming as ever.

Season two was announced in December 2023, so it's expected to be released this year.

"Manhunt"

"Manhunt" went somewhat under the radar upon its release last March, but we don't know why. It's a genuinely riveting portrayal of the 12-day manhunt for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle), led by Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies) — and the conspiracy led by some in the South to protect Booth.

In the series, Lincoln is played by an unrecognizable Hamish Linklater (who is never anything less than stellar).

The series is just seven episodes long, so it's another great weekend show to binge.

"Dickinson"

"Dickinson" is one of the most inventive shows on this list, starring Hailee Steinfeld as the 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson. The show follows her as a young woman living in Amherst with her sister Vinnie (Anna Baryshnikov), her brother Austin (Adrian Blake Enscoe), and her parents Edward (Toby Huss) and Emily (Jane Krakowski).

Complicating matters is that Austin's fiancée Sue (Ella Hunt) is Emily's secret lover.

While fans of Dickinson's might know that she didn't have the happiest adult life, the show manages to inject hilarity, biting social commentary, and a decent amount of magical realism into the show — for example, Emily is friends with a personification of Death played by Wiz Khalifa.

It ran for three seasons from 2019 to 2021 and is one of few shows today that actually has a satisfying conclusion.

"Mythic Quest"

"Mythic Quest" is a workplace sitcom about a team of employees working at a video game studio that created a hugely popular MMORPG game of the same name.

The cast is an all-star lineup of comedians, including "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's" Rob McElhenney as Ian, the creative director and creator of "Mythic Quest"; Danny Pudi as Brad, the head of monetization; David Hornsby as David, the executive producer; Jessie Ennis as Jo, David's assistant; and Charlotte Nicdao as Poppy, the lead engineer.

If you're not sure about the show at first, give it until the fifth episode, "A Dark Quiet Death," which completely upends its structure and introduces two entirely new characters, played by Cristin Milioti and Jake Johnson.

Season four will premiere on January 29, giving you enough time to catch up.

"Servant"

If you happened to catch "The First Omen," one of 2024's best horror films, you're probably wondering where else you can watch Nell Tiger Free be delightfully creepy.

Look no further than "Servant," a psychological horror show produced by one of the kings of horror, M. Night Shyamalan.

"Servant" is the story of a married couple, Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) and Sean (Toby Kebbell), who are dealing with the tragic death of their 13-week-old son Jericho in an unorthodox way — they've purchased a realistic baby doll, and Dorothy is treating it like it's her actual, living son.

So much so that Dorothy and Sean (who knows that the doll isn't real) have hired a nanny to care for Jericho. Enter: Free as Leanne, the creepiest nanny to grace the small screen in quite a long time.

"Servant" is up and down, as Shyamalan projects can be, but the four seasons keep the tension up the entire time. All horror fans should at least try it out.

"Ted Lasso"

We couldn't round up Apple TV+'s best shows without including "Ted Lasso," arguably the show that put the streamer on the map and was nominated for a record-breaking 20 Emmys for its first season.

The show, born from a character created for an NBC Sports ad, starred Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso, a college football coach from Kansas hired to coach a Premier League soccer team in England. For reasons revealed later in the show, Ted is very game to uproot his entire life.

But the reason for his hiring isn't altruistic — the team's new owner, Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), got ownership of the team in a bitter divorce and now wants to take the team down to piss off her ex-husband.

Much has been said and written about the quality of "Ted Lasso's" three seasons, but we maintain that the first season is as perfect as TV gets.

It's a beautiful story about meeting new people, what it means to be a leader, opening yourself up to love, and radical kindness and optimism. We needed it upon its premiere in 2020, and we're certain we'll need it again in 2025.

"Silo"

"Silo" is a dystopian thriller based on a series of novels by Graham Yost. It takes place on an Earth ravaged by warfare that has left the surface poisonous. Humanity has moved underground into a giant solo that's 144 levels deep.

Rebecca Ferguson plays Juliette, an engineer who works deep inside the Silo. She becomes curious about why everyone is forbidden from learning about the outside world and the death of her lover George (Ferdinand Kingsley) and begins to investigate what's actually going on in the Silo.

"Silo's" second season concludes on January 17 — but fear not, it's already been renewed for a third and fourth season to conclude the story.

"Schmigadoon!"

We're still bitter about the cancellation of "Schmigadoon!," a love letter to classical musicals.

The show follows Josh and Melissa, a couple played by Keegan-Michael Key and Cecily Strong, who happen upon the magical town of Schmigadoon while on a hike.

In the town, all the residents act like they are living inside a 1940s musical and break out into songs — of course, since the cast is made up of musical theater icons like Kristen Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Ariana DeBose, Jane Krakowski, Aaron Tveit, Tituss Burgess, Patrick Page, and more, it's an absolute hoot.

Season two, subtitled "Schimago," spoofs the darker musicals of the '60s and '70s. Since it was canceled after that, we'll never know what was set for season three, but it's made clear from the finale that it probably would've been poking fun at the mega-musicals of the '80s and '90s like "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera."

However, "Schmigadoon" isn't gone for good. A stage adaptation is set to premiere in Washington, DC, this month, and hopefully, it will be transferred to Broadway.

"Loot"

All you need to know about "Loot" is that it stars Maya Rudolph as Molly, the wife of a billionaire who gets cheated on and is suddenly left with a lot of money, a lot of time, and zero purpose.

To fill her time, she decides to become involved in a foundation bearing her name instead of just being a figurehead. Hilarity ensues.

It was renewed for a third season in July 2024, meaning we'll have more of Molly's antics soon.

"The Afterparty"

"The Afterparty," while being a TV show, was a true love letter to movie fans everywhere, as each episode took turns poking fun at a different genre with razor-sharp accuracy.

The first season of the show focused on the murder of pop star Xavier (Dave Franco) at the after-party of his high school reunion. As Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) asks each person to take her through the night, each person gets to tell their story in their preferred way.

For example, an episode from Xavier's former bandmate Yasper's perspective is an upbeat musical, while another classmate's night seemed straight out of "The Fast and the Furious."

Season two has a similar format, except it's about a wedding after-party, during which the groom was murdered.

It was canceled after two seasons, but at least we'll always have "Yeah Sure Whatever."

"Sugar"

We don't want to spoil the midseason twist of "Sugar," a seemingly straightforward LA detective story starring Colin Farrell as John Sugar, a private investigator.

But rest assured: This show is bonkers. It is worth watching the eight episodes — and Apple agreed, as season two was greenlit in October 2024.

• TikTok CEO Shou Chew reacted to the Supreme Court upholding the upcoming ban.
• Chew thanked Trump for what he said was a commitment to a solution to keep TikTok in the US.
• Trump previously said his decision would come "in the not too distant future."

With neither the Supreme Court nor the outgoing Biden administration having stepped in to prevent a looming TikTok ban, the app's CEO publicly addressed President-elect Donald Trump in his reaction to the news.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew posted a short video to his account on the platform addressing millions of American users and thanking Trump for what he described as his support.

He also took the opportunity to mention just how many views Trump's videos had generated on the platform.

"I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States," Chew said.

Chew said TikTok has been "fighting to protect" free speech for its over 170 million American users. He thanked Trump on behalf of those users and "everyone at TikTok."

Chew said the president-elect was someone who "truly understands our platform," using it "to express his own thoughts and perspectives" — and generating over 60 billion views from his videos.

While Chew's words suggest he is hopeful Trump will intervene, there is no guarantee the president-elect will once he takes office the day after the ban is set to go into effect.

Trump previously called for a TikTok ban in 2020, however, he utilized the platform for his 2024 campaign and has since said that he has a "warm spot in my heart for TikTok."

The pair met at Mar-a-Lago on December 16, and Trump later filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court requesting an extension from the January 19 deadline.

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that the law requiring TikTok's owner, ByteDance, to divest its US-based operations or face a ban did not violate the First Amendment.

"The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!"

In his video posted to TikTok, Chew said the company "will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives" for years.

"More to come," the TikTok CEO said.

• TV shows like "Severance" and "XO, Kitty" returned for season two this week.
• Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx star in the new Netflix spy movie "Back in Action."
• Movies that were released in theaters, like "A Better Man" and "Unstoppable," are new to streamers.

The wait for season two of "Severance" is finally over.

Three years after the twisted workplace thriller debuted on Apple TV+ and became a critical success, the show is back for another season — and hopefully with some answers about what's really going on at the mysterious Lumon Industries.

However, there's another highly anticipated premiere this week. After a 10-year break from acting, Cameron Diaz is out of retirement and starring alongside Jamie Foxx in Netflix's new espionage movie "Back in Action."

For a dose of nostalgia, "Saturday Night Live" fans can check out Peacock's docuseries "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night."

Here's a complete rundown of all the best movies, shows, and documentaries to stream this weekend, broken down by what kind of entertainment you're looking for.

Season one of the NBC series "Brilliant Minds" came to an end this week.

The medical drama stars Zachary Quinto as Oliver Wolf, a neurologist who uses unconventional and sometimes controversial methods to better understand and treat his patients. The finale aired on NBC on Tuesday, and it's now available to watch on the network's streamer, Peacock.

Streaming on: Peacock

"Severance" is finally back for season two.

In the jaw-dropping season one finale, Mark Scout (Adam Scott) and his fellow innies at Lumon Industries stage a rebellion that leaves audiences with shocking revelations and a massive cliffhanger. Season two picks up after those events, as Mark and his workplace friends face the consequences of trying to tamper with the severance barrier between their work and personal lives.

Streaming on: Apple TV+

"To All the Boys" spin-off series "XO, Kitty" is also back for season two.

After the drama of last season, Kitty Song Covey (Anna Cathcart) begins her spring semester at the Korean Independent School of Seoul (KISS) in season two of "XO, Kitty," plus Noah Centineo returns for a cameo as Peter Kavinsky.

Streaming on: Netflix

"The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live" is now streaming on Netflix.

The six-episode limited series, which was released on AMC in 2024, continues Rick Grimes' (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne's (Danai Gurira) journey by tying up loose ends and offering closure for the couple's love story.

Streaming on: Netflix

Horror fans can check out "Hereditary."

The 2018 psychological horror movie, directed by Ari Aster and starring Toni Collette, centers on the Graham family. After their grandmother dies, secrets unravel about her, and disturbing forces take hold of the family.

Streaming on: Netflix

The dark thriller "A Different Man" has hit streaming just in time for awards season.

The A24 movie stars recent Golden Globe winner Sebastian Stan as Edward, an aspiring actor living with neurofibromatosis (NF), a rare genetic condition that causes typically benign tumors to grow on nerve cells throughout the body and on the skin.

After participating in an experimental drug trial, Edward embraces a new face and new alter-ego — until he meets the charismatic Oswald (Adam Pearson), who was also born with NF, but navigates the world with an ease and confidence that Edward never had.

Streaming on: Max

"Outlander" actor Sam Heughan stars in the psychological thriller series "The Couple Next Door."

Based on the Dutch series "Nieuwe Buren," the steamy Starz show follows two couples in a suburban neighborhood whose lives become intertwined through betrayal and secrets.

Streaming on: Starz

Cameron Diaz makes her return to acting alongside Jamie Foxx in "Back in Action."

In "Back in Action," former CIA operatives turned parents Emily (Diaz) and Matt (Foxx) are thrust back into the world of espionage after their covers are blown.

Streaming on: Netflix

Jennifer Lopez plays a single mom raising a son who defies expectations in "Unstoppable."

"Unstoppable" is based on the true story of Anthony Robles (played by Jharrel Jerome), who was born with one leg and overcame adversity to join the Arizona State wrestling team and become an NCAA Champion.

After releasing in select theaters in December, the film is now available to watch on streaming.

Streaming on: Prime Video

Reality TV fans can tune into season two of "Love Island: All Stars."

Maya Jama returns as the host for season two of "Love Island: All Stars," which features 12 previous "Love Island UK" stars returning to the villa in South Africa in hopes of another chance at love.

Streaming on: Peacock

Comedian Ari Shaffir has a new comedy special called "Ari Shaffir: America's Sweetheart."

Shaffir pushes the boundaries of dark comedy in his latest comedy special, where he jokes about everything from white privilege and drug addiction to kids and adulthood.

Streaming on: Netflix

YouTubers Myka and James Stauffer's decision to place their adopted son in a new home is reexamined in "An Update On Our Family."

The three-part HBO docuseries, which debuted on Wednesday, explores the lucrative world of family vlogging through Ohio-based parents Myka and James Stauffer.

In 2020, the couple faced backlash after announcing they made the decision to place Huxley, their son whom they adopted from China, with a "new forever family."

Streaming on: Max

"Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy" gives a closer look at the collapse of Sean "Diddy" Combs' empire.

The documentary follows the rise to fame and recent allegations against the musician Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering and is now incarcerated in Brooklyn ahead of a criminal trial in May.

The docuseries includes never-before-seen archival footage of Combs and interviews from new people coming forward about their experiences with him.

Streaming on: Peacock

"SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night" pulls the curtain back on NBC's long-running sketch comedy series.

"SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night" is a four-part docuseries celebrating the 50th anniversary of "Saturday Night Live." It features never-before-seen footage, interviews with cast and crew, a behind-the-scenes look at the writers' room, a deep dive into the iconic "More Cowbell" skit, and a closer look at what went wrong during season 11.

Streaming on: Peacock

Season five of the animated series "Harley Quinn" premiered this week.

Season five of the adult animated series follows Harley Quinn (Kaley Cuoco) and Poison Ivy (Lake Bell) as they move from Gotham City to Metropolis — the home of Superman, Lois Lane, and Lex Luthor. When a catastrophic plan begins unfolding, Harley and her misfit friends must save Metropolis.

Streaming on: Max

Fans of the Nickelodeon series "Henry Danger" can watch "Henry Danger: The Movie."

Jace Norman reprises his role as the titular superhero in the full-length movie, which also includes the returns of other original cast members from the "Henry Danger" series.

In the film, a superfan named Missy Martin (Glee Dango) brings Henry to her world via a reality-altering device so they can fight crime together. To avoid getting stuck in an alternate reality, Henry must team up with Missy and his best friend Jasper (Sean Ryan Fox).

Streaming on: Paramount+

• The Supreme Court upheld the January 19 deadline for TikTok to sell to a US company.
• TikTok users are mourning the app in advance, sharing memories and viral moments.
• Reactions to TikTok's fate have been spreading as users bid it farewell.

Content creators and their audiences are sharing their disappointment that the Supreme Court has decided to uphold a January 19 deadline for TikTok to be sold to a US company or banned in the US.

Memes about TikTok's looming Sunday shutdown haven't stopped since the US government cranked up the heat on the platform, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, over concerns that the app poses a national security threat. Without an extension to the deadline, the beloved short-form video app will be removed from app stores and likely face a full shutdown in the US.

The reality of the Supreme Court's ruling is setting in for US TikToker users who'd been holding out hope for a different resolution.

Offline, flyers around New York City advertised a "celebration of life" memorial for the app at Washington Square Park on Sunday.

Online, users are sharing the first viral moments they ever saved, participating in old trends "one last time," and wishing each other well on new platforms.

Some said they're getting in their last "doom scrolls" before the app potentially goes away for good.

"These last few days on TikTok have felt like the end of school," one creator said, like "signing yearbooks and just goofing off."

TikTok probably won't disappear from phones in the US immediately on Sunday, though the app would no longer be updated.

On X, a user reshared a video of a crying and dancing woman, which has been a viral meme on TikTok for a while.

On TikTok itself, users posted video compilations of their favorite moments, set to songs like "American Pie" by Don McLean and "Good Riddance" by Green Day.

Some users said their "For You" pages were taking them down memory lane with nostalgic sounds, dances, and some of the most talked-about moments.

"How am I going to share my reactions to the unhinged Mafia romance books I read?" user rachelsreading.rambles said on TikTok in a post captioned, "If I don't laugh I will definitely cry."

Another TikToker, kailebrodersen, said, "I have had to hold back tears because TikTok is my main source of income" and expressed anger at the US shutdown, saying TikTok "showed us the American Dream."

Users have been flocking to alternative short-form video platforms, like the China-based RedNote, to try to replace the app, but it's unclear whether RedNote, YouTube, Instagram, or other apps will eventually adopted as alternatives to TikTok.

But for now, it looks like the era of TikTok is truly coming to an end in the US.

• Scott Bessent's confirmation hearing this week held a number of clues as to what markets can expect from Trump 2.0.
• The long-time investor and hedge fund exec is Trump's pick to lead the US Treasury.
• Bessent said Trump would "unleash a new economic golden age" during his testimony.

Scott Bessent's nomination hearing gave markets a handful of hints as to what the next four years could look like.

The investor and hedge fund executive sat this week for his confirmation hearing as Donald Trump's pick to lead the US Treasury Department. Economists at Deutsche Bank noted that his remarks held a few important clues for investors.

In his testimony, Bessent said he believed Trump's presidency would help "unleash a new economic golden age," which could include more jobs and increased wealth for Americans. He also suggested the US was "barreling towards an economic crisis" at the end of the year.

If confirmed, Bessent will be in charge of Trump's plan to create the "Greatest Economic Boom," and will oversee the President-elect's plans to cut taxes, deploy tariffs, and curtail the national debt.

Here's what Deutsche Bank economists think were the top takeaways of Bessent's testimony.

1. Nothing has been taken off the table in Trump's tariff plan

Bessent didn't have firm guidance on what Trump's tariff plan could look like. In his testimony, the Treasury Secretary nominee said the tariffs would aim to even out unfair trade practices by other countries, raise federal revenue, and potentially give the US more bargaining power in negotiations. He didn't specify if the tariffs would be slowly implemented over time.

Bessent also pushed back against the idea that Trump's tariff plan was inflationary. Trump levied tariffs during his first term as president without a significant inflation increase, but economists say that his plan this time around is more expansive, explaining the difference in inflation outlooks for the coming years.

"Besesnt's comments on tariffs were notable in that they left everything on the table," the Deutsche Bank economists said.

2. Trump's 2017 tax cuts could be extended

Bessent doubled-down on his support for extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts. If the US doesn't extend the tax cuts, Americans could face $4 trillion tax hike when the 2017 package expires this year, he said.

"We must make permanent the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and implement new pro-growth policies to reduce the tax burden on American manufacturers, service workers, and seniors. I have already spoken with several members of this Committee, as well as leaders in the House about the best approach to achieving these important goals together," he added.

3. Bessent could crack down on government spending

Bessent emphasized his resolve to get the national debt and the widening deficit under control. He's been a vocal proponent of reducing the federal debt balance in the past, attributing rising debt levels to the government's "significant spending problem" in his testimony.

The total federal debt balance clocked in at $36.17 trillion as of Friday, according to US Treasury data.

"On the debt limit, Bessent provided reassurance that the US would not default on its debt if he were to be confirmed as Treasury Secretary," Deutsche Bank wrote.

Bessent also appeared "hesitant" to support removing the national debt limit, the Deutsche Bank economists noted, referring to an idea that Trump floated late last year. But, when questioned, Bessent said he would work with Trump to remove the debt limit, if Trump wished to do so

4. Trump will support the Fed's independence

Bessent pushed back against the notion that Trump would try to exert power over the Federal Reserve. Media reports that have suggested Trump would infringe on the independence of the Fed are "highly inaccurate," he added.

Bessent also did not speak about the potential for a "shadow Fed Chair," something he spoke about last year.

"Trump would make his views on monetary policy known, as Bessent noted Senators often do, but he does not support undermining Fed independence," the economists said.

5. Sanctions could get stronger

Bessent voiced support for intensifying sanctions on Russia and Iran. Sanctions on Russia, in particular, have not been "fulsome," Bessent said, suggesting he would tolerate higher oil prices in favor of increasing restrictions on Russia.

"If any officials in the Russian Federation are watching this confirmation hearing, they should know that if I'm confirmed and if President Trump requests it as part of his strategy to end the Ukraine war, I will be 100% on board from taking sanctions up, especially on the Russian oil majors to levels that would bring the Russian Federation to the table," Bessent said during the hearing.

"This statement could indicate that such sanctions may be near-term priorities for the Trump administration," Deutsche added.

• 23andMe has been exploring a possible sale of its telehealth business, Business Insider has learned.
• The struggling health company bought the virtual-care startup Lemonaid in 2021 for $400 million.
• 23andMe's stock plummeted after a 2023 data breach exposed millions of customer accounts.

The struggling genetic-testing company 23andMe has been quietly exploring a possible sale of its telehealth offering, Business Insider has learned.

23andMe has been testing the waters for a buyer for Lemonaid Health, the virtual-care business it bought in 2021 for $400 million in cash and stock, people with knowledge of the efforts told BI.

It's not clear how formal the efforts have been. 23andMe didn't respond to multiple requests for comment from BI.

When 23andMe acquired Lemonaid, it said it wanted to provide personalized telemedicine care informed by its genetic-data collection.

Founded in 2006, 23andMe seized consumer interest with its genetic-testing kits that offered customers breakdowns of their ancestry. In 2017, it started selling tests designed to help assess a customer's risks for conditions like Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

23andMe went public in June 2021, a few months before the Lemonaid deal closed, at $11.13 a share.

Since then, 23andMe's stock price has tumbled, partly because of a massive data breach and a resulting $30 million class-action lawsuit. In November, strapped for cash, the company cut 40% of its staff, or about 200 people, and shut down its drug-discovery efforts.

In September, the company was trading at $0.35 a share. The following month, 23andMe completed a reverse stock split, exchanging every 20 shares of its stock for one share to prevent it from being forced to delist from the Nasdaq. On Friday it was worth about $3.60 a share.

Three-quarters of Lemonaid's $400 million acquisition was paid as shares of 23andMe stock. 23andMe was valued at $3.5 billion when it went public in 2021. On Friday it was valued at about $91 million.

23andMe's nosedive

In 2023, 23andMe said hackers had accessed ancestry data for nearly 7 million users. The data — including birth details and names — was sold on the dark web.

A data-breach-notification filing in January 2024 indicated that 23andMe took five months to realize the data had been accessed. This led to a class-action lawsuit, which 23andMe settled for $30 million in September.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in July, 23andMe's CEO, Anne Wojcicki, proposed taking the company private. Five days later, a special committee assembled by 23andMe's board of directors rejected that bid.

In September, the company said in a separate SEC filing that Wojcicki was open to the possibility of a third-party takeover. Shortly after, 23andMe's entire board of directors resigned.

Wojcicki walked back the remarks in a separate filing, and a 23andMe spokesperson told BI in January that Wojcicki was no longer open to considering a third-party buyout. The spokesperson said Wojcicki still intended to take 23andMe private.