• An F-35 flying in Texas recently sent classified data to a command center in Denmark.
• The demonstration showed how the stealth fighter can gather critical intel and export it to allies.
• The F-35's advanced sensors and avionics allow it to act as the quarterback for a given mission.

US defense contractor Lockheed Martin said one of its F-35 stealth fighters sent classified data from Texas to a command center about 5,000 miles away in Denmark, calling this a milestone and a successful demonstration of how systems work together.

Danish military F-35s flying out of Fort Worth exported the data via DAGGR-2, made by Lockheed's Advanced Development Programs, also known as Skunk Works. The command-and-control system then passed the classified information through commercial satellite communications to Denmark's Skrydstrup Air Base.

In a statement on Monday, Lockheed said that "this is another success in a series of Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) demonstrations proving the F-35's ability to serve as a powerful force multiplier, enabling allied forces to rapidly deploy ready-now capabilities to connect systems across the battlespace."

Simply put, the advantages of the F-35 aren't limited to the munitions it carries. The stealth fighter can boost situational awareness and quarterback assets to make them more effective.

Danish Air Chief Maj. Gen. Jan Dam hailed the recent data demonstration as a "significant milestone toward enhancing Denmark's capabilities, as it enabled our MDO staff to witness in real-time the potential of the F-35's ability to collect, analyse and share advanced data across geographically dispersed networks."

Denmark is one of the eight countries that made up the original multinational F-35 program. The fifth-generation stealth fighter jet has been sold to 12 additional countries around the world, and over 1,200 aircraft have already been delivered to these militaries, including the US, since the first plane rolled off the production line nearly two decades ago.

The F-35 is considered to be a key component of American airpower. Not only can it penetrate contested airspace, but it can also quarterback the mission, leading the team even if it doesn't fire any weapons using its high-end sensors and advanced networking capabilities.

The recent demonstration highlights how the F-35 can effectively gather critical information and distribute it to allies. Past exercises involving the aircraft have underscored this capability.

In April, Lockheed shared that a Danish F-35 relayed sensitive data to a command center at Leeuwarden Air Base during the NATo air exercise Ramstein Flag 2025, and that information was then passed to a rocket artillery system to enable a kill.

OJ Sanchez, Skunk Works' vice president and general manager, said that the collaboration with Denmark has "enabled us to do what we do best at Skunk Works — rapidly deploy ready-now capabilities at a pace unparalleled in the industry and prove it through real-world flights."

The US operates all three F-35 variants — the A for conventional take-off and landing, the B for short take-off and vertical landing, and the C for ship-based operations — and has used each one in combat operations in the Middle East. Denmark's air force uses the F-35A for its operations.

• Elon Musk was interviewed at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday.
• The Tesla CEO said he was more concerned about his level of control than a huge payday.
• Musk said he "can't be sitting there and wondering if I'm going to be tossed out."

Elon Musk has said he will still be CEO of Tesla in five years' time —unless he dies.

In a video interview at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday, the billionaire said he was committed to leading Tesla until at least the end of the decade, and would only stop "if I'm dead."

His comments come as doubts have emerged about Musk's future at the EV giant, which has become a target for protests and vandalism over Musk's work cutting the federal workforce with DOGE.

Earlier this month, Tesla chair Robyn Denholm denied that the automaker's board had begun scouting for a new CEO following a Wall Street Journal report that board members had contacted recruitment firms.

In a combative interview with Bloomberg's Mishal Husain in Qatar, Musk said he was confident the ongoing legal dispute over his huge pay package in Delaware would not affect his future compensation.

He said he was more concerned about his level of control over Tesla than a multi-billion-dollar payday: "It's not a money thing. It's a reasonable control thing over the future of the company, especially if we're building millions, potentially billions, of humanoid robots," Musk said.

"I can't be sitting there and wondering if I'm going to be tossed out," Musk added.

Stock revival

Musk also faced questions over Tesla's rocky start to the year, with the automaker reporting underwhelming first-quarter deliveries last month as it battles plunging sales, particularly in Europe.

The Tesla CEO denied the company was experiencing lacklustre sales, saying Tesla was "already turned around" and pointing to the share price revival over the past month.

"Europe is our weakest market. We're strong everywhere else. Sales are doing well at this point, we don't anticipate any meaningful sales shortfall and obviously the stock market recognizes that, since we're now back over a trillion dollars in market cap," he said.

Tesla's European sales fell 37% in the first three months of 2025 compared to last year, according to European Automobile Manufacturers' Association data, even as overall EV sales increased.

Tesla stock rose 0.8% in morning trading in New York.

• The Port of Corpus Christi is using AI and a digital replica of its port to track moving ships.
• It's also using a large language model that generates hypothetical incidents for training.
• This article is part of "How AI Is Changing Everything," a series on AI adoption across industries.

The Port of Corpus Christi in Texas is among the United States' most important seaports. It's the country's third-largest port by tonnage, and it exports more US crude oil than any other domestic port. 2024 was a record year, with the port recording more than 200 million tons of shipments, 130 million of which were crude oil.

Coordinating a port of this size is a huge logistical undertaking. To manage this challenge, the port commissioned the development of an AI-enhanced command-and-control software called the Overall Port Tactical Information System, or OPTICS.

OPTICS is built on the Unity 3D engine, which creates a 3D digital twin — a virtual replica — of the port using real-world data. That real-world data is managed by Esri's ArcGIS, which can handle the large amounts of current and historical data needed to make this project possible. The result looks a bit like Google Earth but shows up-to-date information on the port's operations.

"In the acronym OPTICS, tactical is meant in the sense of making smart business decisions informed by real-time information," Darrell Keach, the business systems manager at the Port of Corpus Christi, told Business Insider. "So, that's what we built."

Tracking ships with machine learning

All large commercial vessels have a transponder that broadcasts the vessel's identification, course, speed, and destination, among other information.

But it isn't a real-time system — ships report their position intermittently every few seconds or minutes.

"The frequency of updates we get from a transponder varies on a couple of factors," said Starr Long, the executive producer at The Acceleration Agency, which developed OPTICS for the Port of Corpus Christi. "When ships are at rest, we get updates about every four minutes. When they're moving, we can get updates about every two minutes."

Long said gaps could be worsened by a switch between tracking systems. Ships outside radio communications relay tracking data over satellite but then switch to radio as they come into port. The transition can extend the interval between updates to about six minutes.

Such gaps were incompatible with OPTICS' goal of creating a real-time overview of port operations. The digital replica wouldn't be very realistic if the virtual ships seemed to teleport between positions.

The Acceleration Agency used machine learning to help solve this problem. Unlike traditional vessel tracking systems, which may appear to show ships skipping between update points, OPTICS uses an AI model — trained on about a year of ship movement data from the Port of Corpus Christi — to predict a ship's position. This allows a smoother, more realistic view of port operations at any given moment.

Keach emphasized the safety implications of this improvement. Larger ships are "almost a thousand feet long, a hundred feet wide, and full of very flammable liquid," he said. "The margins are fairly narrow, so having as much data as possible for navigation is important."

The Port of Corpus Christi also has ambitious plans for how this system could expand its scope. Keach said OPTICS' next development cycle would hopefully include vessel-crossing predictions that could anticipate and prevent collisions.

Generative AI for emergency response training

Many of the ships entering and exiting the Port of Corpus Christi carry hazardous cargo, but the port's infrastructure also has risks. In 2020, a dredging vessel operating in the port struck a liquid propane pipeline, causing a deadly explosion.

The Port of Corpus Christi conducts emergency response exercises to prepare for events like this. As part of the deployment of OPTICS, the port wanted to create hypothetical events based on past incidents for training purposes.

But this feature could conflict with federal security requirements if it were to reproduce past events with protected criminal justice information.

To solve for that, The Acceleration Agency trained a large language model capable of generating situations that are similar to — but not exact reproductions of — real incidents.

"What we did was take basically a year's worth of actual security incidents from the police department, like chemical spills, trespassing, vehicle collisions, and trained an LLM to generate synthetic events based on that history," Long explained.

The use of AI-generated events, rather than real-life past events, offered another benefit that became clear during development and testing. Initially, the OPTICS software generated trainings that, in some ways, were too realistic. They presented trainees with a historically accurate ratio of noncritical to urgent scenarios — as a result, those trainings addressed fewer emergency incidents, which are relatively uncommon. So Long's team had OPTICS increase the frequency of emergency events.

"We had to go back and tell it: 'No, don't do it for real. Do it much faster,'" Long said. The use of an LLM, which can process requests in natural language, simplified the creation and modification of the hypothetical events used for training.

The future of port operations

Keach said the Port of Corpus Christi's deployment of OPTICS, which started rolling out at the end of 2024, was just the start.

He said the port's investment in OPTICS was happening alongside other infrastructure investments, such as weather sensors, cameras, and a private 5G network to serve port operations.

OPTICS, which is used only by workers coordinating port traffic, might eventually aid the crews of ships coming into the port, Keach said. He added that OPTICS, equipment using augmented and virtual reality, high-tech sensors, and predictive AI could help ships navigate tough weather conditions, such as fog.

Since the port uses third-party tools — Esri's ArcGIS platform and Unity's 3D engine — as the basis of its digital twin, deploying those applications would probably be less strenuous than if it used proprietary tech. These technologies provide the flexibility to add additional data and incorporate additional devices. Unity, for instance, already supports a range of devices, including smartphones and AR headsets.

"The future state will drive it more into the field," said Keach.

• AI is reshaping tech hiring, reducing demand for entry-level roles in favor of experienced talent.
• SignalFire data shows a 50% drop in entry-level Big Tech hiring since pre-pandemic times.
• Tech firms now prioritize mid-senior hires, valuing experience over youthful potential.

For decades, Silicon Valley thrived on a mythology of youth. Tech giants and startups hired young, hungry employees who were relatively inexperienced but could work every waking hour to write code and ship product.

This era of youthful dominance in tech hiring may be fading, and it's partly due to the rise of AI. That's according to a new report from SignalFire, a venture capital firm that uses data and technology to guide its investment decisions.

Youth no longer at the center

In the past, young graduates were seen as hungry, moldable, and cost-effective hires. But today, new grads face the steepest employment challenges the tech industry has seen in years. SignalFire's latest State of Talent report reveals that entry-level hiring in Big Tech is down more than 50% from pre-pandemic levels, and startups aren't far behind.

"Tech startups have long been synonymous with youth," said Heather Doshay, a partner and head of talent at SignalFire. "But today, our data shows that many of those same early career professionals are struggling to find a way in."

Startups are mostly focused on survival, cutting burn rates, and extending runway. That means fewer hands, more output, and a demand for autonomous doers. In short, they want experienced individual contributors who can hit the ground running, not entry-level hires who require more management time and training.

"With reduced headcount, every hire must be high ROI," Doshay added. "Right now, that points squarely to mid-senior level individual contributors — autonomous doers who deliver against immediate company needs."

AI: The catalyst for a hiring reset

AI isn't the sole cause of this generational hiring shift, but it's a major catalyst. Asher Bantock, head of research at SignalFire, noted that AI tools are increasingly automating the types of narrowly scoped tasks that were once assigned to junior developers.

"What's increasingly scarce is not keystrokes but discernment," he told me. Crafting effective AI prompts, debugging machine-generated code, and integrating tools at scale requires architectural thinking, skills honed through years of experience, not a college diploma.

Data from SignalFire's new report reveals this trend:

• At Big Tech companies, new grads now account for just 7% of hires, with new hires down 25% from 2023 and over 50% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
• At startups, new grads make up under 6% of hires, with new hires down 11% from 2023 and over 30% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
• The average age of technical hires has increased by three years since 2021.

Big Tech companies are now focusing their resources on mid- and senior-level engineers, particularly in roles related to machine learning and data science. Meanwhile, functions like recruiting, design, and product marketing are shrinking across the board, the data also shows.

The "experience paradox"

This AI-driven shift has created what SignalFire calls the "experience paradox." Companies want junior hires to come pre-trained (just like those AI models!).

But young candidates often struggle to gain experience without being given a chance. It's a classic Catch-22, especially in a job market where 37% of managers say they'd rather use AI than hire a Gen Z employee, according to SignalFire's data.

Even top computer science grads from elite universities are struggling. The share of these graduates landing roles at the "Magnificent Seven" (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla) has plummeted by more than half since 2022, according to SignalFire's report.

A cultural shift

This isn't just an economic or technical evolution, it's a cultural one. Where Silicon Valley once idolized youth, today's market prizes proven execution. Risk tolerance has dropped across the startup ecosystem, and with venture capital funding tightening, founders are hesitant to invest in long-term potential over short-term impact.

Interestingly, this has opened the door for more seasoned professionals. While C-suite hiring has also slowed, companies are increasingly turning to "fractional" roles — part-time CTOs, CMOs, and advisors — to access senior talent without inflating their burn rate, according to SignalFire.

More hustle than ever

For younger professionals, the path into tech now requires more creativity and hustle than ever. Bootcamps, freelancing, open-source contributions, and AI fluency are becoming critical entry points. Simply having a degree, even from a top school, is no longer enough.

For companies, the long-term risk of this shift is clear. Without reinvesting in early-career talent, the tech industry risks breaking its talent pipeline. While AI may temporarily reduce the need for junior hires, the future may still depend on building and training the next generation of technologists.

The mythology of youth in tech isn't dead, but in 2025, it's being rewritten.

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

Morning! If you're in the market for a Los Angeles mansion, you might be able to get one for a steal. The 10-bedroom, 13-bathroom home in LA's Holmby Hills neighborhood has been on the market since September, when it was listed for $61.5 million. The catch? Sean "Diddy" Combs owns it.

In today's big story, JPMorgan's getting so much efficiency out of AI it's impacting the bank's hiring plans. (Oh, and Jamie Dimon chimed in with some thoughts on the economy.)

What's on deck

Markets: What top Wall Street banks are saying about the return of the "sell America" trade.

Tech: An excerpt from a new book chronicling OpenAI's incredible, and sometimes controversial, rise to power.

Business: CBS News' CEO is leaving. It's another blow for "60 Minutes."

But first, we're no longer hiring humans for that position.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

(AI) Help Wanted

Artificial intelligence might not take your current job. But there's a chance it'll make finding your next one pretty hard.

JPMorgan is the latest company to indicate AI is affecting its workforce needs, writes BI's Reed Alexander.

During JPMorgan's investor day Monday, two bank executives said hiring would slow down and headcount reductions would be coming, thanks partly to AI. It's a big reversal for the bank, which has grown its headcount by 23% over the past five years.

Jeremy Barnum, JPMorgan's CFO, told investors the bank was "asking people to resist head count growth where possible and increase their focus on efficiency."

Meanwhile, Marianne Lake, CEO of consumer and community banking, said there will likely be a 10% drop in the bank's operations workforce thanks to the benefits of AI.

Barnum made one caveat about JPM's future hiring plans. Strategic hiring will still take place in "high-certainty areas" like bankers, advisors, and branches.

Translation: If you're generating money for the bank, you're fine. Everyone else? Good luck.

The bank isn't alone in its AI-powered hiring slowdown. Amazon also sees robots as a key part of flattening its hiring curve, according to an internal document viewed by BI's Eugene Kim.

It wouldn't be right to discuss JPMorgan's investor day without mentioning the world's most famous banker.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon shared some pessimistic views on the state of the volatile economy.

He raised the alarm on the risk of stagflation, a nightmare situation where inflation flares up while growth stalls. JPMorgan also missed out on some business because of Trump's trade war, according to Dimon.

Dimon wasn't completely down on the current administration, crediting government officials for wanting to "fix some of the things they think are broken." (If Dimon had it his way, regulations for public companies would loosen. Shocker!)

But perhaps Dimon's most interesting comments were about one of his biggest rivals: bitcoin.

Despite his constant bashing of the digital asset, his bank will now allow clients to buy it. (They won't hold onto it for you, though.)

"I don't think you should smoke. But I defend your right to smoke," Dimon said.

3 things in markets

1. Ross Gerber isn't sold on Tesla's recent rally. Shares of Elon Musk's EV maker were up 52% from recent lows, but Gerber still thinks it has further to fall. The early investor-turned-bear dumped more stock, citing three major issues with the company.

2. US debt downgrade: disaster or distraction? Top Wall Street banks weigh in. Moody's slashed America's top-tier credit rating following concerns about the country's fiscal situation. The news rattled the markets on Monday, but Wall Street banks aren't bracing for a major volatility spike. They explained why.

3. Would-be investors said no to OpenAI's nonprofit structure. In a letter to California's attorney general, the company said it lost out on "many" potential investors because it couldn't offer "easy-to-understand" equity. It plans to restructure as a Public Benefit Corporation.

3 things in tech

1. OpenAI's growing pains. ChatGPT turned the hot little startup into a household name overnight. With a sudden need to scale up, OpenAI went on a hiring frenzy that led it to double in size. The result was pure chaos. Read an excerpt from Karen Hao's new book about the world's most famous startup.

2. This Yale student moonlights as a tech security watchdog. Alex Schapiro has caught bugs in startups and big companies, leading at least one to start its own bug bounty program. He's an ethical hacker — someone who looks for flaws in code before the bad guys can exploit them.

3. AI and consulting are on a crash course with each other, and the Big Four could be the victim. Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG have dominated the services industry for decades, but AI could upend that. From business models to pricing structures, here's how AI could disrupt the Big Four's dominance.

3 things in business

1. CBS News' CEO Wendy McMahon is out. In a memo sent to staff obtained by BI, McMahon cited disagreements with Paramount's path forward. Her exit follows longtime "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens' departure a month ago. Following news of the latest shake-up, Sen. Bernie Sanders warned Paramount Global's controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, to "not capitulate to Trump's attack on a free press."

2. The pharma heir and the trial lawyer she says hoodwinked her. Claudia Engelhorn gave a $10 million "gift" to her former lawyer, Erik Bolog. Engelhorn says he tricked her into it; Bolog says she's retaliating because he called her out on what he says was a racist remark. Now, they're duking it out in court.

3. Walmart just did other companies a favor. The retail giant's recent announcement to raise prices due to Trump's tariffs gave other companies the freedom to do the same, retail analysts told BI. But following Trump's Walmart backlash, companies might want to be careful with how they approach the price hike conversation.

In other news

• Instagram is offering creators up to $20,000 to bring people to the app.
• 23andMe was once worth $6 billion. What's left of the DNA testing startup is being bought for $256 million.
• Capital One just bought Discover. Here's what it means for their customers.
• From guitars to tubas, Trump's tariffs are making instruments more expensive.
• Nvidia CEO says Chinese AI researchers are 'world class' — and US companies are hiring 'a whole bunch' of them.
• I'm a former air traffic controller. The entire system is being stressed and the government needs to do more.
• People are working harder and longer. Here's how to avoid burning out.

• Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' would create 'unfettered abuse' of AI, 141 high-profile orgs warn in letter to Congress.

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  What's happening today

• Google's annual Input/Output developer conference begins in Mountain View.
• McDonald's annual shareholder meeting.

• Home Depot reports earnings.

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• The Business Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.

• It took time for me to find the person I wanted to spend my life and create a family with.
• I fell in love with an older man who already had children and learned he didn't want to have more.
• I've formed strong bonds with my husband's family and grandchildren and I love the life we have.

I didn't actively choose not to have children. It simply did not happen.

I was child-free, but not because of medical reasons, heartache, or anything traumatic. I just felt building a family had to be something I did with the right person — a person I had not met yet.

Through the years, I admired my married friends and their strong relationships with their children, and harbored a quiet yearning for that type of sharing and love, but I wasn't going to do it on my own. And little did I know, my family wasn't going to look anything like how I had imagined it would.

First comes love, then comes a surprise

In 1990, my life took an unexpected path. A holiday romance on a beautiful Caribbean island blossomed into something with staying power. I finally met the man I felt was the right one. He was older, twelve years older than me, yet we fell in love. To me, it seemed like a connection made from heaven. My solitary soul suddenly joined with someone else, and I wanted to commit.

Convinced that my biological clock was still ticking at 37, I discussed having a baby with the man of my dreams. But he was not on the same page. He already had two grown-up sons from a previous marriage and explained to me that he didn't want any more children.

I slowly came around

At first, I was devastated. I felt rejected and a little resentful. But I knew I had to change my thinking, as it was the only way to move forward. I took a step back, accepted that not having kids was not my first choice, and reflected instead on what I did want for myself and my future husband.

In other words, I shifted my way of thinking, removed the factors that were causing anxiety and pain, and replaced them with more meaningful ones.

Yes, I could still have joy and fulfillment in my life, they were just going to look a bit different. Striving for a healthy, committed relationship was number one on my list.

With that in mind, I knew I shouldn't dwell on the stress of what-if situations I didn't have control over. I counted my blessings, mindful that there were many, and discovered that love and commitment mattered most of all to me.

My family formed in other ways

When my husband and I got married, I discovered something powerful: Life gets better with sharing. I set out to form meaningful relationships with each member of my new family, knowing that it might take time. Luckily, I never felt left out or saw myself as an outsider.

With the grandchildren, I've had a chance to explore the practical side of being a grandmother. I built a strong relationship with the parents and enjoy having their children around during the holidays and throughout the year.

Family gatherings continue to be joyful moments that I am happy and grateful to be a part of.

Embracing and appreciating the life I have

After more than 30 years of marriage, I'm grateful for the place I am in. Although I admire the responsibility of parenting and the sense of fulfillment it brings, I have no apologies or regrets about not having biological children of my own. In hindsight, I wish I had had this larger version earlier, and I didn't spend so much time on the what-if factor of our relationship.

• My family loves going to Great Wolf Lodge resorts. In many ways, a stay is as fun as a Disney trip.
• We've been to these resorts around the US, and the ones in Dallas and Houston recently won us over.
• Our stays feel like a great value with spacious rooms, immersive activities, and epic water parks.

Although my kids love a Disney vacation, they're just as happy going to a Great Wolf Lodge.

The North American chain is famous for its indoor water-park resorts, and my family of six has been to several of its locations around the US.

Most recently, we visited the Great Wolf Lodge locations in Dallas and Houston. The Dallas resort recently completed a massive $40-million-dollar renovation, and the Houston location opened in August.

The latter is the first of the company's "next-generation" lodges, meaning the property has more amenity upgrades, premium attractions, and immersive design elements than the others.

Here's what we love about the family-friendly resorts — especially these two Texas locations — and why we're already planning another visit next year.

The rooms and common areas at each lodge feel incredibly immersive and comfortable

Although Great Wolf Lodge resorts can appear plain on the outside, the interiors feel quite immersive.

The properties typically have special themed areas, like the Adventure Park tunnel at the Houston location that made my 9-year-old daughter feel like she was "in a fairy-tale."

I had to agree with her — the woodland-inspired section of the property felt like it was from another time and place. Characters came alive in the walls and screens around us as we listened to mystical music and walked under a glowing canopy of trees.

We were also impressed by our KidCabin suites, which sleep up to six guests and give off serious summer-camp vibes.

The spacious woodland-themed rooms had leather couches and bunk beds, plus fun decorations like oars, maps, and glowing lanterns on the walls.

As we tucked our youngest kids in that first night, we also realized the ceiling light gave the illusion of a glowing night sky.

The water parks are definitely a highlight of each stay

Access to the property's climate-controlled indoor water park is included with every stay, and it's a huge draw for us.

All the Great Wolf Lodge water parks we've been to have signature attractions like a wave pool, lazy river, and some version of the chain's signature Howlin' Tornado (a thrilling 6-story-high tube ride).

Each location has its own unique slides and features, too. The Houston water park, for instance, has the Rapid Racer, which is the most innovative and fun water slide I've ever been on.

It sends two double tubes down adjacent slides to race against each other before hydraulically launching them both back uphill after the first big drop.

Plus, the resorts have a range of attractions that cater to each of my kids' interests

Although water-park admission is included for all resort guests, all other activities can be paid for à la carte or are included as part of a multi-tiered pass system.

Passes only need to be purchased once per trip, and some cost as little as $20 a person.

We got the highest level pass for access to all activities for $89 a person in Houston and $79 a person in Dallas. They came with other perks, too, like free ice cream and arcade credits.

From there, we had tons of options for activities. My 6-year-old enjoyed panning for fool's gold and shiny rocks at the Oliver's Mining Co excursion, my youngest daughter liked playing mini golf, and my teen and tween had a blast zip lining and climbing across massive rope courses.

We also enjoyed miniaturized bowling and games in expansive arcades at both locations, a laser-tag arena and Topgolf swing suite in Dallas, and a virtual-reality game center in Houston.

One of the best bonding activities we did was MagiQuest — an interactive scavenger hunt where kids use wands to perform tasks directed by magical creatures. Our family had a blast going on quests around each resort.

To end each day, we headed to the hotel's grand lobby for the immersive (and free) nightly bedtime-story show.

It used special effects like smoke, lighting features, and projections to tell the story of a young wolf trying to find a place in her pack.

Other perks include good food, convenience, and lots to do nearby

In addition to activities and a water park, each property has restaurants and shops —everything we'd need for a top-tier family vacation under one roof.

Throughout our stays, we frequented the lodges' many buffet, quick-service, market, and sit-down dining options.

Although it would've been nice to have a few more dinner options on each property, it was great not needing to travel far for meals.

At the same time, we could easily leave the resort to explore nearby areas. These Southern Texas locations are close to sites we loved visiting, like NASA's Houston Space Center, Pleasure Pier, and Texas State Capitol.

We really appreciate the convenience and value of our Great Wolf Lodge vacations

Altogether, this vacation captured the magic our kids love about a Disney trip, but with significantly less stress and sticker shock for my wife and me.

Our suites at both Texas resorts felt like a great value at just over $200 a night, though I've seen prices up to $650 a night depending on availability and time of year.

To put the trip into perspective, just one day of the most basic Disneyland tickets for our family of six can cost well over $800 — and that's before even booking a hotel.

At Great Wolf Lodge, that could be enough to get the whole family a suite and indoor-water-park access for a night or a few.

• AI fintech startup Affiniti just raised a $17 million round led by SignalFire.
• The startup is building AI agents that act like CFOs for small businesses.
• The agent can provide specific financial guidance in different industries.

One startup is betting that AI agents will become an invaluable tool for the country's 33 million small businesses, and it just raised a fresh round of funding to bring to life its vision for an "AI CFO."

The fintech startup, Affiniti, just raised a $17 million Series A led by SignalFire, Business Insider has learned exclusively. Contrarian Thinking Capital, Sequel, Indicator Ventures, Lightshed Ventures, RiverPark Ventures, Rocket Money founder Yahya Mokhtarzada, Morning Brew founder Austin Rief, Chelsea Football Club player Trevoh Chalobah, and other angel investors also participated in the funding round.

Founded in 2021, New York-based Affiniti is a fintech platform for small- and medium-sized businesses that make up 99.9% of businesses in the US, employ nearly half of the American workforce, and represent 43.5% of America's GDP, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

While SMBs make up the vast majority of businesses in the US, Affiniti cofounders Aaron Bai and Sahil Phadnis believed that they lacked the resources they needed to survive and thrive: namely, a platform to track spending and saving and offer financial analytics that could then be used to make better business decisions.

The duo launched Affiniti in November 2024 with its first products: an expense management platform and a small-business credit card, along with $11 million in seed funding.

While onboarding their first customers, Phadnis said that for many SMBs, Affiniti was the first fintech they had ever interacted with. Additionally, many companies didn't have finance teams, and they wanted additional tech tools to help complete tasks typically handled by a finance team or chief financial officer.

Around the same time, AI agents were starting to get big in Silicon Valley. The tech presented an opportunity for a new Affiniti product: an "AI CFO" that manages every aspect of a company's finances, from banking, bill pay, sales, and more.

Phadnis told BI that Affiniti is virtualized in different industries, so it can provide specific financial guidance to SMBs in healthcare, finance, automotive, and other industries.

"Understanding what's going on in AI across verticals has allowed us to stay innovative, from planning out how our agent can co-pilot a pharmacy's financial decisions to using LLMs to analyze financials internally to assess a business's financial health," he said.

AI agents have been slow to enter the highly-regulated world of finance compared to other industries like sales and advertising. Hebbia, which uses AI agents to help bankers and lawyers with investment research, raised $130 million last year from A16z. Another startup bringing AI agents to research, Auquan, raised $8 million earlier this year.

Moving forward, Phadnis said that Affiniti is focused on customer acquisition and data.

"We believe the real power of AI agents lies in the data they're trained on," he said. "If we can become the go-to financial platform for managing all of an SMB's financial activities, we'll be in a unique position to create the most accurate AI CFO for each SMB vertical we target."

Here's an exclusive look at the 11-slide pitch deck Affiniti used to raise its $17 million Series A funding round.

• The world's largest hedge fund is crowdsourcing ideas about the new global economic order.
• Bridgewater and Global Citizen are launching a contest to predict the impact of protectionist policies.
• Five winners will receive $25,000 and a chance to work at Bridgewater, which manages roughly $92 billion.

Bridgewater is turning to the crowd for ideas on how to trade and position itself in a new global economic regime.

The world's largest hedge fund, known for its macro bets and its billionaire founder Ray Dalio, is hosting a competition with Australian nonprofit Global Citizen, which aims to end extreme poverty globally, titled "Forecasting the Future: A Modern Economics Challenge."

The contest is open to anyone who wants "to tackle one of the most significant global economic transformations of our time," according to a press release, and submit their analysis and forecast on what the protectionist policies of leaders around the world, led by tariffs proposed by President Donald Trump's administration, will do to the world economy.

Five winners will receive $25,000 and a chance at a job at the $92 billion hedge fund. The application opened on Tuesday.

"We are looking for the brightest minds across the world to contribute their understanding of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead and to join us as we navigate the future of this new world order," said Nir Bar Dea, the CEO of Bridgewater, which was founded in 1975 and calls itself a "a community of independent thinkers" in the release. The manager's polarizing workplace culture, termed "radical transparency" by its founder, has also set the firm apart over the decades.

One hundred applications will be selected from the initial pool, and then senior leaders at Bridgewater will decide on the five winners from that group.

The release says the five winners will be offered a job or internship opportunity with Bridgewater "pending successful completion of its interview requirements." A person close to the competition told Business Insider that the asset manager's "standard interview requirements" still apply, without specifying what those were.

The role offered to the winners is dependent on where the firm believes they would fit best within the organization, but even an internship can be a lucrative opportunity. A job posting for a 2026 investment internship states that the eight-week gig would pay $51,000 plus a signing bonus.

Bridgewater is not the only hedge fund to source talent through a contest. Systematic trading shop WorldQuant has an annual championship where students and academics from around the world submit math models predicting market moves. Last year, the prize pool was $400,000. $25 billion hedge fund Balyasny runs a stock-picking contest that serves as an early application pool for the firm's internship program.

The new economic world order

Bridgewater's top investment leaders have been public about how radical the Trump administration's economic policies have been and the substantial impact they will have on portfolios and institutions around the world. One of the firm's co-chief investment officers, Greg Jensen, wrote at the end of 2024 that the "previous global consensus around free trade and limited government intervention is hanging by a thread."

The firm has dubbed the new economic world order "modern mercantilism," a system the manager says relies more on state power than free trade.

Despite the world becoming less interconnected, the macro investment manager is still searching for international opportunities, especially in Asia. The firm's other co-chief investment officer, Karen Karniol-Tambour, recommended investing in China at the Milken conference earlier this month.

The firm's flagship fund, Pure Alpha, was up close to 9% through the first quarter of 2025, Reuters previously reported.

• Omada Health filed its S-1 to go public at the beginning of May.
• Now, the chronic care startup is launching new AI agent tools for nutrition.
• Omada is cashing in on a surging "food as medicine" market amid the Ozempic-fueled weight loss boom.

Omada Health just filed its S-1 to go public. Now, the diabetes care startup is bolstering its business with new tech for AI-powered nutrition.

The startup is releasing an AI agent to provide nutrition education and guide patients through goal-setting sessions about their food habits, Business Insider has learned exclusively.

The agent, called OmadaSpark, is part of a new suite of "nutritional intelligence" tools that Omada hopes will help its patients make more thoughtful and informed choices about their nutrition and drive behavior change.

Omada is tapping into a booming nutrition care market. "Food as medicine" pushes are picking up steam, especially as US Department of Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. touts his agenda to "Make America Healthy Again", while more and more patients take GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic for weight loss.

That's leading investors to back nutrition startups like Nourish and Fay Nutrition with big funding rounds — and bringing fresh business to late-stage virtual care businesses seizing on the moment like Omada.

The release comes less than two weeks after Omada filed to go public. The startup is one of two digital health companies to have publicly announced IPO plans this year, alongside physical therapy startup Hinge Health, which launched its road show last week.

Omada Health has been caring for patients with chronic conditions, with a focus on diabetes, since 2011. It's making most of its new AI nutrition tools available to all of its patients across conditions from diabetes to hypertension to obesity. That includes a "food hub" in Omada's app where patients can ask the AI agent nutrition-related questions and track their meals, with new capabilities to track patients' water intake and log meals based on food barcodes or photos of the food uploaded to the app.

OmadaSpark is Omada's first patient-facing AI tech. Dr. Justin Wu, Omada Health's vice president of clinical innovation and quality, said the startup now feels ready to allow patients to interact with AI directly after significant improvements in the underlying models. He said Omada has fine-tuned its nutrition AI with the startup's own clinical input, as well as guidelines from the United States Department of Agriculture and other organizations.

Anti-diet tech in the age of Ozempic

Omada Health CEO Sean Duffy told BI in October that metabolic health is the company's most popular entry point for new customers, which Wu said remains true today.

While Omada doesn't prescribe GLP-1s like Ozempic or Wegovy, many of its members take the drugs, and employers and insurers often contract with Omada seeking wraparound care for those patients, Duffy said in October.

Despite the recent Ozempic-fueled weight loss craze, Omada says its new nutrition tools are distinctly anti-diet.

Omada's meal-tracking feature aims to provide feedback encouraging nutrient-dense foods rather than focusing on caloric intake. Its app further tailors nutrition recommendations based on a range of factors, including users' demographics, chronic conditions, dietary preferences, and whether they're taking a GLP-1.

"At Omada, we've always had a nutrition philosophy that's moved away from a restrictive mindset to one of abundance," Wu said. "We don't want to make people feel bad about their choices — we really want to give them freedom in how they approach their nutrition. Now with AI, we're able to uplevel those tools."

Omada's approach arrives at a complicated moment for the weight loss market. Longtime player WW International, formerly WeightWatchers, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month after struggling with its strategic pivot away from calorie counting and toward wellness. Weight-loss startup Noom, on the other hand, has faced criticism over the years for marketing itself as an anti-diet app while promoting dieting mainstays like significant calorie deficits.

Omada is treading especially carefully knowing its patients may have histories of disordered eating. Wu said Omada's new AI agent's goal-setting tools will only be available at first to patients who have indicated emotional eating as a concern, to ensure the tool can support those patients' needs. The information from those sessions will also be fed to the members' care teams, Wu said, to help coaches carry the conversation forward at a deeper level.

Omada's IPO prospects

While the public markets dipped in April due to President Donald Trump's tariff proposals, key policy rollbacks have cooled market volatility and prompted plenty of companies, including Omada Health, to barrel ahead with their IPO ambitions.

While Omada's financial profile isn't quite as strong as Hinge Health's, the chronic care startup has been making progress toward profitability and high margins.

Omada banked nearly $170 million in revenue last year, up 38% from its 2023 revenue, with a 60% gross margin.

Its losses have been narrowing, but the company is not profitable yet, recording a $47 million net loss in 2024. Bankers and investors have generally pushed digital health startups to reach profitability before trying to go public, after the sector's last IPO cycle produced several company collapses.

Omada last raised $192 million in a Series E funding round led by Fidelity Management in 2022 that boosted its valuation to over $1 billion.

The startup plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker "OMDA".

• Sweep secured a $22.5 million Series B to enhance its agentic AI platform for businesses.
• Sweep's platform automates workflows in Salesforce and Hubspot for go-to-market teams.
• It gave BI the 14-slide pitch deck used to secure the fresh funding.

A New York startup that's developed an agentic AI to help companies carry out their go-to-market operations has just raised $22.5 million in a Series B round led by Insight Partners.

Sweep's AI automates go-to-market workflows that employees would otherwise do manually on customer relationship management platforms Salesforce and Hubspot.

The startup embeds its AI platform directly into Salesforce and Hubspot. Its AI can update Salesforce records, offer project pipeline updates by creating real-time alerts on Slack, and monitor and gather data across documents.

The startup, which launched in 2021, offered a tiered subscription model, with tiers based on the level of intelligence and automation that its customers need. Clients include Wix, HR startup HiBob, and NBC Sports.

Sweep's cofounder and CEO, Ido Gaver, told Business Insider the round followed "strong revenue and customer growth."

"In VC land, everyone's talking about agentic AI, but under the surface, there's growing skepticism. Investors are asking: Is this real? Is it hype? Does it actually deliver value? Most companies claim to be agentic, but very few can show it makes a difference for customers," he said in an interview.

The Series B was led by software investment giant Insight Partners. Bessemer Venture Partners also participated.

"Agentic AI is the next foundational shift in enterprise software, and Sweep is helping define what that looks like," said Jeff Horing, managing director at Insight Partners, in a statement accompanying the announcement of the fundraise.

The startup will use the money to expand its go-to-market team and grow its agentic layer across platforms like Marketo, Gaver told BI.

Check out the 14-slide pitch deck used to secure the fresh funding.

• Putin has appointed Andrei Mordvichev as the new commander in chief of Russia's ground forces, multiple outlets reported.
• Experts reacted, saying Mordvichev was a proponent of Russia's brutal "meat grinder" assaults.
• The attacks involve wave after wave of infantry assaults to grind down defenders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed a new commander in chief of Russia's ground forces who has been involved in some of the war's most brutal fighting, according to multiple reports.

Colonel General Andrei Mordvichev replaced General Oleg Salyukov in the role on Thursday, state-controlled Russian outlet Izvestia reported.

Deutsche Welle and several Russian outlets, including the government-published Rossiyskaya Gazeta, also reported the move. A list of official presidential decrees announced Salyukov's departure, but has not yet confirmed that Mordvichev is the replacement.

The Institute for the Study of War said Friday that Mordvichev's reported appointment represented an endorsement of his preference for "grinding, highly attritional, infantry-led assaults," and said this suggested the Kremlin "aims to institutionalize these tactics."

Military analyst Yan Matveyev credited him as one of the main initiators of the approach, in a post to Telegram after the appointment was reported.

Mordvichev has previously said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is "only the beginning." In an interview with Russian state media in 2023, Mordvichev said that the war "will not stop here," Newsweek reported at the time.

As deputy commander of the Central Military District, Mordvichev also presided over Russia's capture of the coastal city of Mariupol in 2022, one of the war's most brutal sieges.

That battle, which is estimated to have killed more than 8,000 people, ended with Russian forces taking the Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian forces had held out for two months.

Mordvichev is also credited with the capture of the strategically important city of Avdiivka in February 2024.

Ukrainian officials said that Russia lost more than 30,000 troops killed or wounded taking the city, using its infamous "meat grinder" approach of grinding down resistance with wave after wave of infantry attacks.

Mordvichev's reputation has grown steadily, and he was embraced by Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic, as "the best commander" during his promotion to head up the Central Military District last year, The Times of London reported.

In 2022, Ukraine claimed to have killed Mordvichev in an airstrike near Kherson, but he was later seen meeting with Kadyrov.

He is under multiple European sanctions, according to the sanctions database OpenSanctions.

Salyukov, who became the ground forces commander in 2014, is a few days away from his 70th birthday, when he will age out of military service.

He's being moved to a senior post on the Russian Security Council, per a presidential decree.

A provocative appointment during peace talks

The reported appointment came as the two sides met in Istanbul for peace talks.

The talks, which began Friday, were left to lower-level officials after Putin declined to attend in person. The Russian officials included many of those who carried out fruitless negotiations in Istanbul in 2022, according to ISW.

Some of Ukraine's European allies criticized Putin for his no-show, with Estonia's Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna describing it as a "slap in the face."

• Home Depot's CFO said it would maintain pricing levels despite the impact of tariffs.
• Richard McPhail cited strong supplier ties and productivity.
• The retailer posted a rise in first-quarter sales, while earnings dipped.

Home Depot said it had no plans to pass on the cost of tariffs to consumers despite their financial impact.

"We intend to generally maintain our current pricing levels across our portfolio," CFO Richard McPhail told CNBC on Tuesday. He cited the retailer's scale, "great" partnerships with suppliers, and productivity as key factors enabling it to absorb rising costs.

Home Depot had diversified its supplier base and no country outside the US would account for more than a tenth of its purchasing within 12 months, McPhail added.

The comments follow Walmart's announcement that it would raise prices in the coming weeks in response to the financial impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Retail analysts told Business Insider that Walmart's move gave other retailers air cover to follow suit.

McPhail's comments come as Home Depot posted a 9.4% rise in first-quarter sales to $39.9 billion, although comparable sales fell by 0.6% due to the impact of foreign exchange rates.

Net earnings fell $200 million to $3.4 billion compared with the same period last year.

CEO Ted Decker said in a statement that the first-quarter results were in line with our expectations.

"We feel great about our store readiness and product assortment as spring continues to break across the country," he said.

Home Depot maintained its full-year guidance of a 2.8% rise in total sales and an approximately 1% increase for comparable sales.

The stock rose 2.5% in premarket trading.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

• Air fryers, which require less oil and energy than standard ovens to cook food, are hugely popular.
• The best-selling recipe developer Nathan Anthony said air fryers aren't just for cooking frozen food.
• His favorite high-protein recipes include hunter's chicken.

Air fryers have become a household staple for many people in recent years — and the food writer Nathan Anthony is one of them.

"I absolutely love my air fryer," Anthony, the founder of recipe brand "Bored of Lunch," told Business Insider. "It cooks food faster, uses less oil, and helps cut down on energy bills. With the cost of living the way it is, I'm all about making tasty, affordable meals, which is exactly why I started sharing my recipes online."

Anthony, who is based in Belfast, UK, has 2.7 million followers on Instagram and is the author of five Sunday Times bestselling books including "The Healthy Air Fryer Book" and "Air Fryer 30 Minute Meals," having started off posting his recipes online for fun.

"I love that air fryers are now everywhere — they're making cooking easier and more accessible for everyone," Anthony said. "My goal with the cookbooks is to show that they're not just for frozen food. You can make everything from a full Sunday roast, to soups or even takeaway-inspired chicken fried rice — the possibilities are endless."

He shared three of his favorite high-protein air fryer recipes with BI.

Hunter's chicken

"This no-fuss, sticky bacon and BBQ-coated chicken and potatoes is the one you need, all in one tray. Prep to plate in 25 minutes," Anthony said.

Serves 2

602 Calories per serving

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts
• Packet of streaky bacon
• 700 grams baby potatoes, halved
• Low-calorie oil spray
• 4 tablespoons barbecue sauce
• 2 handfuls of cheddar
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• Salt and pepper
• 1-2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Method:

1. Rinse the baby potatoes and pat them dry. Cut them into halves or quarters for quicker cooking.
2. Coat the potato pieces in low-calorie oil spray, then sprinkle with paprika, salt, and pepper for flavour. Place them in the air fryer basket and cook at 200°C (392°F) for five minutes until they're crispy on the outside.
3. While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the bacon-wrapped chicken. Wrap each chicken breast with bacon slices and place them in the air fryer basket with the partially cooked potatoes. Cook for an additional 15 minutes at 200°C (392°F) until the chicken is cooked through and the bacon is crispy.
4. Once the chicken and potatoes are cooked, brush the chicken breasts with barbecue sauce and sprinkle grated cheese over them. Add a dash of Worcestershire sauce for extra flavor. Return the chicken and potatoes to the air fryer and cook for another two to three minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
5. Once everything is cooked, plate up the air fryer hunter's chicken and crispy potatoes. Serve hot and enjoy this satisfying and hassle-free meal!

Sticky lime and honey burrito bowls

"This is a recipe I make over and over again. It's perfect coming into the summer months. Be sure to pick up some tortilla chips for dipping," Anthony said.

Serves 4

624 Calories

Ingredients:

• 600 grams boneless chicken thighs

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
• 1 teaspoon garlic granules

For the lime honey marinade:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• Coriander
• Fresh red chile
• Juice of 1 lime
• Juice of 1 lemon

Serve with:

• Basmati rice (mixed with lime juice and coriander)
• 100 grams sweetcorn salsa
• 100 grams red peppers
• 4 tablespoons sour cream
• Guacamole
• Tortilla chips (optional)

Method:

1. Season your chicken thighs with oil, paprika, cumin, Cajun seasoning, and garlic granules.

1. Pop the seasoned chicken thigh in the air fryer for 12 to 15 minutes at 200°C (392°F).
2. While the chicken is cooking, prepare your marinade by mixing honey, oil, coriander, fresh chile, lime, and lemon juice together. When the chicken has five minutes left, be sure to baste it in some of the marinade.
3. Begin assembling your burrito bowl by preparing some rice (I used microwave basmati and added a squeeze of lime and some chopped coriander) along with guacamole, sweetcorn salsa, sour cream, peppers, and tortilla chips.
4. Once the chicken is cooked, add it to your burrito bowl and get stuck in.

Pesto and egg Bagel

"Just beautiful, it's probably not normal how many times I've had this recently. Pesto and eggs are a dream combo but with crispy cheese and a bagel, magnificent," Anthony said.

Serves 1

547 Calories

Ingredients:

• 1 bagel, cut in half
• 2 eggs
• 30 grams reduced-fat cheddar
• 1 heaped tablespoon reduced-fat green pesto
• Salt and pepper
• Chile flakes (optional)

Method:

1. Line your air fryer with baking parchment.
2. Add two swirls of pesto (roughly the size of the bagel) directly to the baking parchment, then top with half the bagel each (cut side down), followed by an egg in the centre of each bagel half.
3. Sprinkle with chiles, salt, and pepper, and top with cheese.
4. Air-fry for six to seven minutes at 180°C (356°F).

• I spent three nights in Vancouver, British Columbia, in May.
• The Canadian city in the Pacific Northwest looked and felt vastly different from my home, NYC.
• I was surprised by Vancouver's forest hikes, luxury estates, and floating gas station.

When I need a break from my life in New York City, I tend to avoid other urban metropolises. I usually prefer to divert my attention from the loud, crowded streets at home to national parks and small towns to refresh my state of mind.

But this May, I decided to try something different. I visited a major city I'd never been to on the other side of the continent — Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada's Pacific Northwest.

I spent three spring nights in Vancouver. With mountain ranges, quiet forests, and sprawling estates, it looked and felt nothing like NYC. I was fascinated by the unique aspects of the city that gave me a break from mine.

I didn't expect to start my trip with a unique experience in the airport, and it made me excited for the coming days.

When I landed in Vancouver after a six-hour flight, I followed fellow passengers through the international terminal to customs. On the way, we walked through a room that made me stop in my tracks. It looked like a museum exhibit.

Known as the Pacific Passage, this room was designed by AldrichPears Associates to immerse visitors in the natural wonders of British Columbia upon arrival.

As I entered, I was entranced by the soundtracks of waves crashing and birds chirping through the overhead speaker. The room had a forest scene on the left, a body of water on the right, and sculptures by indigenous artists on display — a canoe in the water and a gigantic thunderbird suspended in the air, among others.

The city was far lusher than I was expecting.

I've grown accustomed to a lifestyle with limited access to nature in New York. We have plenty of parks, but the skyscrapers and bustling streets dominate the landscape. I long for more natural escapes within my city, but I always assumed the lack of them was the price you pay for a convenient, urban lifestyle.

That's not the case in Vancouver. From the downtown area to the quieter surrounding neighborhoods, various tree types stood as tall as the buildings, if not taller. There was no shortage of shade, and looking over the city from hilltops and hotel balconies, I could see how forests were embedded throughout the skyline.

I was blown away by the city's quiet hiking trails that felt miles away from the bustling streets.

After seeing Vancouver's forests from a distance, I wanted a closer look. So I wandered Stanley Park and Jericho Beach Park. From the trails, it was easy to forget I was in the middle of a major city.

Hiking from one neighborhood to the next rather than walking through the developed streets was a scenic route I never expected to find.

I was stunned by the castle-like hotel that stood out among skyscrapers downtown.

I spent my first night at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, a historic hotel that looks like a castle.

I had stayed in a similar Fairmont in the past, Fairmont Le Château Frontenac in Quebec City, where the castle-like structure matched the old-world European-style town. But I was surprised by the Vancouver hotel's location in the middle of the downtown area in a busy city.

The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver looked like a medieval relic next to modern skyscrapers.

From the balcony of a hotel room, I spotted something I'd never seen before — a floating gas station.

I spent my second night in Vancouver at the Fairmont Pacific Rim, which overlooks Coal Harbour. From my balcony room on the 21st floor, I was astonished to spot a Chevron gas station in the water.

Installed in 2010, the Chevron Legacy is the only gas station for boats in the harbor. Its placement made sense, since I saw a marina full of yachts nearby, but I'd never previously thought about how boats fuel up.

I was in awe of the mansions along Billionaires' Row with striking architecture and regal landscaping.

NYC's Billionaires' Row is world-famous for its ultra-luxury residential buildings with glass facades that tower over Central Park. Vancouver's Billionaires' Row looks vastly different.

The elite Belmont Avenue in the West Point Grey neighborhood is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the city, including a 10-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion valued at roughly $72 million, according to Coast Reporter.

A 20-minute drive from downtown, Belmont Avenue is lined with mansions with large lots and ocean views. During my visit, I spotted a range of architectural styles, from Victorian to modern.

The most surprising part of these properties was the landscaping. Perfectly trimmed trees, bushes, and hedges stood above vibrant flower beds. They looked like grounds you'd find at a European palace.

I didn't expect to leave with dreams of moving in.

I love living in New York, but don't plan to stay here forever. I've always thought that whenever I decided to leave the city for a place with more space and nature, I'd end up somewhere that left me longing for the urban lifestyle.

But visiting Vancouver made me realize I can have it all — the mountains, the hikes, and the bustling city streets. On the day of my departure, I daydreamed about what my life would be like if I moved there. And one day, I just might.

• Jasmine "JB" Badie is a choreographer and creative director for pop stars, including Beyoncé and Sabrina Carpenter.
• She helps train the artists to sing and dance at the same time for their big performances.
• "Cardio is major," Badie told BI. "You train hard because you want the show to be great."

Have you ever wondered how pop stars such as Beyoncé and Sabrina Carpenter can sing for hours at a time while performing to massive audiences? No, they're not superhuman, but they do have a secret weapon: choreographer Jasmine "JB" Badie.

The 36-year-old Atlanta native helps singers get fit enough to sing their hearts out while dancing onstage — a feat requiring impressively high cardiovascular fitness. She shared how she gets clients fit enough for a big show in just two to three months and how you can replicate it in your own (offstage) life.

Badie was the co-choreographer for Beyoncé's 2018 Homecoming Coachella Performance, which ran for an hour and 45 minutes. She's also the choreographer on Carpenter's Short n' Sweet tour, which kicked off in September 2024. The tour, which runs through November, includes 19 songs and lasts roughly 90 minutes.

Badie told Business Insider that to achieve this level of sustained fitness, her clients' weekly workout schedule involves lots of rehearsals, cardio, and Pilates.

"Cardio is major," she said. "You train hard because you want the show to be great."

Daily workouts, rehearsal, and stretching

Badie likes her clients to wake up early, eat breakfast, and do a morning workout before they move on to 30 to 45 minutes of stretching.

For the morning workout, she recommends different types of exercise throughout the week, as some help strengthen while others are good for mobility, flexibility, or fitness. For example, Badie likes Pilates for stretching and working deep, stabilizing muscles.

"Pilates strengthens muscles that we may not know we have sometimes," she said, adding that barre classes help with posture, standing up straight, and opening up the hips.

Meanwhile, hiking or jogging on a hilly trail is good for breath control, which enables singers to belt out long notes, maintain the correct pitch, and not breathe too loudly when singing. "Running on the different intervals is great instead of just straight because you can feel where your breath is and where it's not," she added.

Then her clients start all-day rehearsals. "We'll run our cue points," she said, referring to specific points in the music. "We'll run all of our dance steps. We'll run our marks on the stage."

Pop stars focus on Zone 2 training. You should, too.

Although most of us aren't preparing to perform for thousands of fans night after night, we can still benefit from improving our aerobic fitness. It has many positive knock-on effects, such as better sleep and improved mood.

Being able to exercise and hold a conversation at the same time without being out of breath is a sign that you're training in Zone 2, a buzzy exercise term that some longevity experts believe can help ward off chronic disease as well as boost fitness.

In Zone 2, you're working at about 60-70% of your maximum heart rate, your body is mainly burning fat for energy, and your muscles have access to oxygen, making it an effective way to increase your aerobic endurance.

Once you enter Zone 3 or 70% to 80% of your max heart rate, you're moving at an intensity that's too much for the available oxygen supply, so your body starts using carbohydrates for energy.

We store carbs in limited amounts, so it wouldn't take long for your body to run out of energy. So, the more you train in Zone 2, the longer your body can last before needing to make that switch. That's important for a singer because once they're in Zone 3, they'll sound out of breath.

Zone 2 training causes your body to adapt at a cellular level by boosting mitochondria. Having more mitochondria is associated with increased athletic performance, better insulin resistance, and heart health. It's also the part of the cell responsible for making energy, which increases the power output of the muscle tissues, Dr. Morgan Busko, the sports medicine physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, previously told BI.

Singing while running or jumping rope

In addition to the daily workout and rehearsals, Badie asks her clients to practice their setlist and script while doing strenuous cardio for at least 30 minutes a day.

"It's doing everything you need to be doing on the stage, off the stage," she said.

The choreographer often starts her clients' workout with a jump rope that involves jumping for four minutes, taking a one-minute break, and repeating it three more times. During the break, they have to catch their breath and practice what they are going to say to the audience.

"We'll be like, 'How are you guys doing out there?" she said, mimicking how pop stars engage their audience onstage.

It also involves running on a treadmill while saying their script and singing aloud. "That's how you notice where your breaths are," Badie added.

As they get fitter, Badie shortens the break in between sets and gets them to practice wardrobe changes.

"You have to really work on it," she said.

• Hugh Morris made just over $250,000 at JP Morgan before he left in August 2024 after his divorce.
• The 31-year-old said a higher-up told him he was making a big mistake leaving to start his own firm.
• Morris initially regretted his decision and had panic attacks, but now has his dream practice.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hugh Morris, the president and senior wealth advisor at The Morris Group at LPL Financial. Morris's prior employment and financials have been verified with documents. It has been edited for length and clarity.

At 30 years old, I had been working as a financial advisor at JP Morgan Wealth Management for nearly three years, making just above $250,000.

I loved the company, the people I worked with, and my job, but after getting divorced in January 2024, I had a reset.

Since entering the workforce, I've always wanted my own business. As a young person with no partner, kids, or obligations, this was my opportunity to see if I could make it in the business world as a financial advisor.

Additionally, I wanted the freedom to set my own schedule so I could volunteer and get involved in my community.

I liked the idea of taking on the number and types of clients I wanted. With my own business, I could take on fewer clients than I managed at JP Morgan and make the same amount of money because I would take home all my fees.

I also thought in 30 years' time, if I were making $1 or $2 million in revenue I could sell the business at three to four times that amount to fund my retirement.

Preparing to quit my job

To prepare for my resignation, I created a monthly budget of my essential costs. I used this as a guide for my savings, so I could cover myself if the business failed.

My divorce was finalized in March 2024. We sold our house, ridding me of a $6,000 monthly house payment. I started renting, which cost less than $2,000 a month. I wanted to reduce my expenses, knowing that I would need to invest a lot of my own money into the business.

Each month, I tried to save between $5,000 and $6,000. I wouldn't have any income initially, and I knew I needed a fund to supplement my income and pay for my living expenses.

I also started networking with friends and family, thinking about where I would get my clients once I launched.

My goal was to get to $10 million in assets at a 1% fee, which is about $100,000 in revenue, in the first year.

I had panic attacks after I quit

After months of planning, saving, and networking, I resigned in August 2024. A higher up said to me, "This will be the biggest mistake of your life."

That comment stuck with me. For three months after resigning, I had panic attacks and woke in the middle of the night, sweating, my heart racing. I couldn't sleep or eat.

I thought about my old salary and the salary I could've been making had I stayed. Fears about bankruptcy crept in, and I thought about how I'd have to find a new career if this failed.

Until December 2024, I regretted leaving JP Morgan, thinking I had done what my higher-up had predicted — made a big mistake.

During the first two months of my business, I had zero income, living off the money I had saved in preparation. My first clients were family and friends, excited about my new venture, but it was difficult to grow my client list.

My grandfather's encouragement got me through those first months. Every day, he told me: "You can do this," and, "It's going to work."

I also didn't want to let down my new clients. They trusted me.

It hasn't been easy starting a business, but I have more freedom

Despite my fears, I stayed consistent. I didn't take a salary for the first two months, but by December, I was making an average of $1,500 a month from my assets under management fee.

I got referrals from existing clients and learned how to market myself to get new clients. In January, I started paying a company to do my marketing.

In March, I hired a business coach because I wanted to cut down my learning curve and grow my business faster. She helped me see that I had the skills to make my business successful.

I expect to generate $100,000 in revenue in 2025 with around 40 clients.

I still work between 40 and 60 hours a week, but set my own schedule and can volunteer in the middle of the day or leave early on a Friday.

I've also had the freedom to spend more time with my clients at dinners or golfing. I like getting to know my clients and building trust with them. I want to personalise their experience.

I occasionally feel lonely, working for myself, but I've built up a network of financial advisors in the same position as me. We talk or text often.

My income is tied to the stock market

My income is directly related to the stock market. I try to live as lean as possible and have a safety net to manage the current market volatility.

I have future clients in the pipeline, which could boost my income, but they don't want to move over right now because of the economy.

If the stock market is down 20%, my revenue will be down 20%. But it also works in reverse, when the market is up, I will get a bump in revenue.

Despite the current economy, I no longer regret my decision to start my business. I've had enough initial wins to feel like I'm going to make it work.

I have the practice I've dreamed about. There is no turning back.

Editor's note: JP Morgan declined to comment when approached by Business Insider.

• Honda plans to reduce EV investment by $20 billion to focus on hybrids amid a global sales slowdown.
• Its CEO cited regulatory changes and slowing EV growth as key reasons for a strategic shift.
• The abandoned merger with Nissan adds pressure on Honda to safeguard its future.

Honda is dialing back its ambitious EV push and doubling down on hybrids amid slowing demand.

On Tuesday, CEO Toshihiro Mibe said the automaker would cut its EV investment by 30% from $69 billion (10 trillion yen) to $48.4 billion (7 trillion yen) through the 2031 fiscal year. The move is aimed at stabilizing Honda's future in a slowing EV market.

The Japanese company will focus on ramping up its hybrid lineup, citing "changes in environmental regulations" and "a slowdown in EV market expansion" as key drivers.

"Due to the recent market slowdown, our EV sales ratio in 2030 is now expected to fall below the previously announced target of 30%," Mibe said.

The shift comes amid broader turbulence in the auto industry.

In the first four months of 2025, EV sales in North America — the US, China, and Mexico — rose by just 5% compared to 25% in Europe and 35% in China, according to data from EV research firm Rho Motion.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency said in its Global EV Outlook 2025 that higher tariffs could further raise EV prices and slow down sales growth.

In response, Honda plans to launch 13 new hybrid models globally starting in 2027, with the aim of selling 2.2 million hybrids annually by 2030. Despite the pivot, Honda said it remains committed to reaching 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2040.

The announcement follows the collapse of a proposed $50 billion merger with Nissan that would have created the world's third-largest automaker. Nissan rejected the deal over concerns about being treated as a subsidiary.

Honda is also ordering US employees back to the office at least 80% of the time by October, saying in-person work is key to "facing a rapidly changing business environment and increasingly competitive market conditions."

• Southwest Airlines has started warning passengers about the use of power banks on flights.
• It's set to introduce a new safety policy next week.
• The change comes after an Air Busan plane caught fire when a power bank overheated in January.

Southwest Airlines is restricting the use of power banks due to the risk of them catching fire during flights.

A spokesperson told Business Insider that the airline will introduce a "first-in-industry safety policy" on May 28.

"Using portable charging devices while stored in a bag or overhead bin will no longer be permitted," they added. "Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of its customers and employees."

Since last week, passengers checking in for their flights on the Southwest app have received pop-up notifications that warn about portable charging devices.

A Reddit user shared a screenshot from the app, which read: "If you use a power bank during your flight, keep it out of your bag and in plain sight. Do not charge devices in the overhead bin."

The devices are powered by lithium batteries that can overheat and catch fire. In such rare cases, keeping the device in plain sight makes it easier for flight attendants to identify any smoke or fire and react quickly to extinguish it.

Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration recorded about three incidents every two weeks, compared to fewer than one a week in 2018.

The FAA has recorded nine confirmed incidents in the US this year.

There have been other suspected cases and disruptions caused just by the risk of overheating.

Last month, a Lufthansa Airbus A380 with 461 passengers had to divert to Boston when a passenger's tablet became stuck in a seat.

The most notable incident occurred in South Korea in January. An Air Busan plane was about to take off when a fire spread through the cabin, injuring seven people.

Investigators later said the fire was likely caused by a power bank, found in an overhead luggage bin.

The Korean government subsequently tightened its rules for airlines, which included prohibiting storing them in the overhead bins.

In the US, there are already many limits on power banks, which are banned from checked luggage. Southwest is going a step further in response to recent incidents.

• Qatar's prime minister said its offer to give the US a Jumbo jet was a "normal thing between allies."
• The Boeing 747-8 could be used as Air Force One for President Donald Trump's second term.
• Critics have questioned the legality, while Trump said that accepting the gift was sensible.

Qatar's prime minister doesn't understand the backlash over its offer of giving a Jumbo jet to the US.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani called the proposed gift of a Boeing 747-8 jet, worth about $400 million, as "a normal thing that happens between allies."

"I don't know why people consider it as bribery or Qatar trying to buy influence with this administration," he said at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday. The comments were reported by Bloomberg, which is hosting the event.

President Donald Trump said last week that his administration was preparing to accept the gift from the Qatari royal family.

The aircraft would be used as the new Air Force One in Trump's second term and then added to his presidential library.

Democrats as well as some Trump supporters have criticized the deal, voicing worries about its legality.

Trump defended the move, saying he would be a "stupid person" if he didn't accept it.

Sheikh Mohammed described the proposed gift as a Qatar "Ministry of Defense to Department of Defense transaction, which is done in full transparency and very legally."

"Many nations have gifted things to the US," he said, naming the Statue of Liberty as one.

Sheikh Mohammed added that "we need to overcome" stereotypes of Qatar trying to buy influence in the US.

Trump has said the jet would be a gift to the Department of Defense, not him personally.

The DoD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.