Mud crabs are favored for their large claws and sweet, meaty flesh. As demand for these crabs skyrockets across Asia, and especially in Singapore, where chili crab is an iconic dish, overfishing and habitat loss are also putting them at risk. At Kampoeng Kepiting (Crab Village) in Bali, local fishermen are blending old-school techniques like hand-catching and using bamboo traps with innovative methods like "crab apartments" to cultivate and protect both the crabs and the disappearing mangroves they rely on to survive.

• Google is expanding ads in AI Overviews from mobile to desktop and testing ads in AI Mode.
• It's also adding other AI-powered ad tools, designed to help automate ad creation and buying.
• Ad experts said Google's AI strategy needs to balance monetization with a clean user experience.

Google's multibillion-dollar investments in artificial intelligence need to pay off eventually. Ads may be the answer.

Google on Wednesday said it's expanding ads within the search and shopping AI Overviews that appear at the top of results, going from mobile to desktop in the US. AI Overview ads are beginning to roll out in other locations, too.

It's also testing ads within its AI Mode, a relatively new product built into its search page, where users can conduct deeper research using its Gemini AI chatbot, Google said.

Dan Taylor, VP of global ads at Google, told Business Insider that queries within AI Mode tend to be twice as long as traditional searches and more exploratory in nature. This "opens up these new opportunities to discover brands where advertisers might not necessarily have been in the conversation before," Taylor said.

The ad news follows the opening of Google's big summer developer conference, in which the search giant offered a look at updates it's been cooking up for its AI models. CEO Sundar Pichai described a "total reimagining" of Search as AI Mode is brought to all users in the US this week.

With Google committing to invest more than $75 billion in AI infrastructure and to expand its cloud capacity this year, Wall Street is watching closely for hints about how the company intends to profit from the new technology.

Advertising is set to be an important portion of that pie; the majority of Google's revenue is derived from traditional search ads. While Google is embracing its new AI future, it will also be looking to protect its cash cow. Last year, Google recorded about $265 billion in ad revenue.

Google introduced ads to AI Overviews on mobile last year. This week, Google said that the launch of AI Overviews has grown the number of "commercial queries," where users are searching for information about a particular product or service they may later go on to buy. It didn't state by how much.

For now, advertisers can't directly opt for their ad placements to appear within AI Overviews or AI Mode. Instead, Google will pull from existing search campaigns, where marketers target users on variables like their location, demographics, and by keywords and topics.

Google's introduction of AI-generated answers to its search results got off to a fairly bizarre start last year. It infamously recommended users add glue to their pizza and suggested they eat rocks. Taylor said Google had strict brand suitability guidelines and extensive controls in place across search, display, and YouTube to prevent ads from appearing in unfortunate places that marketers would rather avoid.

Advertisers and website owners are grappling with the impact of AI-generated search. Overviews often offer a definitive answer rather than a series of links that encourage users to visit their websites. According to an April analysis of 150,000 popular keywords from the search marketing company Ahrefs, the average click-through rates on top-ranking search results have dropped since Google's AI overviews were introduced.

Google will need to strike a careful balance between monetizing its AI offerings and providing a clean user experience, especially since some generative-AI rivals, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, have yet to roll out ads. (OpenAI has hinted that ads aren't out of the question, though.)

"If people are changing the way they search and using AI search more for commercial queries, there's no doubt we'll see a shift in ads moving to that space," said Matt Steiner, director of biddable media at the marketing agency Croud.

Google is exploring ways to automate the entire advertising process through AI

Google also offered a glimpse on Wednesday at how it's using AI to automate creating and buying ads across search, its display ad network, and YouTube.

It's letting advertisers use its AI text-to-video and text-to-image generators, Veo and Imagen, to create the visual elements of their ad campaigns based on their product catalogs. On search, a new feature called Smart Bidding Exploration will automatically detect new types of queries advertisers can bid on based on more complex user searches that go beyond typical keywords like "best credit card." And Google is offering an AI agent within Google Ads and Google Analytics, which can make recommendations on campaigns or suggest new trends in their data that might be of interest.

"More traditional marketing tactics are not really able to keep up with the change in consumer behavior, and so AI is coming to the rescue, if you will, to help marketers adapt," Google's Taylor told BI.

Big Tech giants are increasingly looking for ways to automate advertising, with the potential to disrupt the entire industry of advertising agencies and vendors. In a recent interview, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is working toward a future where advertisers simply state their objective, connect their bank accounts, and Meta would do the rest — from creating the ads, selecting the targeting, and then providing the results. Google is moving in a similar direction with its AI-powered Performance Max product.

Scott Sadeghian-Tehrani, media strategy director at the marketing agency 26PMX, said some clients are wary of these types of automated tools. That's particularly true of retailers who often dice their budgets between different product categories and want to be able to make adjustments in the event of holding excess stock, or if it's unseasonably sunny and they want to ramp up advertising their swimwear, for example.

"Clients aren't really ready to hand over those reins, so there's a bit of trepidation," said Sadeghian-Tehrani.

• Companies run hackathons to promote collaboration and speed up software development.
• Pinterest's version, Makeathon, has encouraged employees to come up with ideas for new AI tools.
• This article is part of "AI in Action," a series exploring how companies are implementing AI innovations.

As companies look to AI for increases in productivity, some employees are wary. They worry about lost jobs, diminished creativity, and ethical oversteps, leaving many repelled by daily AI use.

Pinterest, a social media company with about 4,700 employees, has sought to address such concerns by keeping employees closely involved in the development of internal AI tools so those tools are viewed as efficient and helpful, not just mandated from the top down. Key toward this mission has been Pinterest's annual Makeathon, which is in its 14th year. The employee-led competition used to be viewed mostly as a fun way to recommend fixes, said Anirudh Koul, Pinterest's generative AI tech lead. Now, in the age of AI, its usefulness has exploded.

"The overarching goal is ground-up innovation," Koul told Business Insider. "We realized that if we can give the employees the opportunity and freedom to tell us what must be done, and give them some space to showcase working proof of their concept, we might find new innovations at a much faster rate."

Inside Pinterest's companywide hackathon

Makeathon is Pinterest's version of a hackathon — an event at which people work together to create new software quickly. Hackathons are designed to spark new ideas and increase employee engagement, said Brandon Kessler of Devpost, a digital platform for running hackathons. Since 2022's AI boom, hackathon demand has exploded, Kessler told BI.

Discussing hackathons' appeal, Kessler said the events "get people excited because they get to build something they want, as opposed to, 'Hey, all, please use this tool.'"

"You get people learning these new tools," he continued, "building stuff that helps the business, and collaborating and having fun — all within a short period of time."

Pinterest employees witnessed this type of quick development in early 2023, just a few months after ChatGPT's release. Pinterest's senior director of engineering, Anthony Suarez, helped collect a handful of engineers to have a mini hackathon which led to the creation of an internal chatbot tool. By their official Makeathon in July, Pinterest's now-foundational plug-in AI system was ready for wider use.

At Pinterest, hackathon projects start at an internal company page where employees across departments can log pitches. In the week before Makeathon, Koul's team hosts classes about how generative AI works and how to write prompts. There's also a class on no-code tools for app building so that nontechnical employees can still employ AI solutions.

Then, teams from across departments form around an idea. Suarez collaborated with seven Makeathon teams last cycle, mostly composed of fellow employees he had never worked with before. They also have the support of Koul's "hack doctors," support staff who work across the company and specialize in areas such as engineering, design, and video editing. The hack doctors help refine ideas and prepare teams to take questions from executives. Last year, just under 94% of teams worked with a hack doctor.

"We usually find that a good chunk of participants are actually not from engineering," Koul said. "They pair up with engineers to bring their ideas to the next level. We've had teams where people from six different countries come together."

Each team produces a video pitch, which colleagues up to the executive level can watch and vote on. Makeathon is strategically scheduled for late summer so any resulting tools can be incorporated into Pinterest's companywide planning period in September and October, Suarez told BI. He estimated that more than half of these Makeathon projects get funded during this cycle and called the event an "innovation flywheel."

How a Makeathon idea becomes an AI-tool reality

During the 2023 Makeathon, one of Pinterest's sales employees had an idea: What if AI could collect and search through all the company's internal documents?

The sales employee recruited a 14-person team, including Charlie Gu, a senior engineering manager on Pinterest's data team. Gu said he envisioned the tool as a Slack-based chatbot employees could turn to instead of bugging their colleagues. The team knew, however, that some existing documentation wouldn't be up to date when the chatbot pulled it in.

"We came up with a system where you can report answers and create new documentation on the fly," Gu said. The team pitched, built, and eventually implemented the document finder across the company.

The tool now answers, on average, an estimated 4,000 questions a month, according to Pinterest. The tool was also designed to access thousands of internal documents from Google Docs, Slack threads, and slide decks, said Koul, who is quite passionate about Makeathon. (He called over shaky service at a Mount Everest base camp to rave about it.)

Makeathon also encouraged some employees to come up with useful AI prompts. In 2024, Koul's team posed a challenge: Who could come up with the best questions to get Pinterest's chatbot to produce the most accurate and precise answers? Gu said that they had about 200 participants.

In this case, the employees' prompt generation helped with Pinterest's overall goal of encouraging employee engagement with AI. The effort also led Pinterest to integrate AI agents into the process of writing more precise prompts.

According to internal company surveys, 96% of Suarez's team of more than 60 use generative AI every month, and 78% of the company's 1,800 engineers report time savings from using internal AI tools.

Suarez said he'd been "quite surprised by the positive feel" for the tools across the business, adding: "Part of that is, we didn't force adoption of these tools early on, and we still aren't saying, 'You have to do this.' We're trying to come at this more from creating value."

• I spent a month in Turkey with a group of friends. We had fun, but made a few mistakes.
• We didn't realize Istanbul had two international airports or that çay had so much caffeine.
• I wish I hadn't exchanged my currency in the airport or bought so many souvenirs at Grand Bazaar.

In November, I went on a monthlong girls' trip to Turkey.

Before we left, I spent many evenings researching must-see attractions, searching for cute lodging options, and maintaining my Diamond League status learning Turkish on Duolingo.

My preparations paid off, and we had a great trip — but my friends and I made a few mistakes that we'll be sure to avoid next time.

We didn't realize there was more than one major airport in Istanbul.

Istanbul is the biggest city I've ever visited — it's so large that it actually hosts two international airports.

Istanbul Airport (IST) is on the European side of the city and Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SAW) is on the Asian side. It can take about two hours to get from one airport to the other by bus.

My friends and I all flew into IST, but some of our group booked domestic flights out of SAW the following morning without realizing it was a different airport in Istanbul.

We all made our flights, but we had to split up into different hotels during our Istanbul layover, one near IST and one near SAW.

I shouldn't have exchanged my money at the airport.

Since I arrived in Istanbul was after business hours, I figured my best option was to exchange US dollars for liras at the airport despite the poor exchange rate.

After all, it seemed like a bad idea to enter a new city without any cash.

However, I regretted my decision as soon as I left the airport and found that many exchange counters in the city were open late — and had better rates. It was also easy to find ATMs throughout the trip.

After that first money mishap at the airport, I got all my liras from Halkbank ATMs, which didn't charge me fees.

It took me too long to realize one of the most popular local drinks is packed with caffeine.

Turkish tea, or "çay" (pronounced like "chai"), is a popular drink in Turkey, and sharing tea is an important part of Turkish culture.

For my first few days in Turkey, I accepted tea whenever it was offered. It was inexpensive and delicious, and I was eager to participate in local rituals.

I was offered the tea at restaurants, shops, and even at the dentist's office (I was there for a bit of medical tourism).

What I didn't realize at first, though, is that çay is pretty caffeinated.

Although it varies depending on the strength of the brew, an average cup can contain over 40 milligrams of caffeine — about half of the caffeine in a standard cup of coffee.

Once I registered how much caffeine I'd been drinking throughout the day, I understood why my jet lag was so much worse than usual.

I ended up overpaying for souvenirs at the famous Grand Bazaar.

I loved browsing the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, but I wish I hadn't bought souvenirs there.

The famed Turkish market and its mazes of different stalls felt overwhelming in a good way. I was captivated by the endless colors of Turkish textiles, the rich smells of spices and teas, and the banter of shopkeepers trying to entice us into their stores.

I bought a few things at the Grand Bazaar, but I wish I'd held out on shopping until the next day, when we took the ferry to Kadikoy, a neighborhood on the other side of the Bosphorus.

I found many of the same wares in Kadikoy that I'd seen at the Grand Bazaar, oftentimes for almost a tenth of the price.

It also would've been smart to check US customs regulations before buying souvenirs.

Turkey is famous for its cuisine, and eating my weight in baklava was a highlight of my monthlong trip. When it was time to return home, I wanted to bring back some of my favorite Turkish delicacies as Christmas gifts for my family.

Shops in Istanbul made it easy to bring home food, with some sellers even offering to vacuum-seal items like baklava and olives.

Most of my culinary delights made it home, but I was heartbroken and slightly embarrassed when my giant bag of dried persimmons was confiscated upon my return to the US.

As it turns out, most dried fruits and vegetables from other countries aren't allowed to be brought into the country. I should've checked the guidelines before shopping.

• Chungin "Roy" Lee, founder of Cluely, predicts cheating with AI in job interviews will soon be widely acceptable.
• Lee, who created an AI tool for cheating on technical interviews, was kicked out of Columbia earlier this year.
• "We say 'cheat on everything' because, ironically, we believe this is the only path towards a future that is truly fair," he told BI.

Creating a tool that allowed job candidates to cheat on their technical interviews kicked off a chain of events that would eventually see Chungin "Roy" Lee kicked out of Columbia University — but he believes that, soon enough, everyone will be using AI to get ahead.

Lee has since branched out from an AI tool for coding interviews alone, founding "Cluely," which he's previously called "a cheating tool for literally everything," including live conversation. A promotional video for the app, for instance, depicts Lee using the app to "cheat" his way through a date.

"There's a very, very scary and quickly growing gap between people who use AI and people who moralize against it," Lee told Business Insider in an email. "And that gap compounds: in productivity, education, opportunity, and wealth."

"We say 'cheat on everything' because, ironically, we believe this is the only path towards a future that is truly fair," he added.

Lee talked more about his views on how AI use will impact interviews in a recent interview with EO.

"When every single person is using AI to cheat on meetings, then it's not that you're cheating anymore," he said. "This is just how humans will operate and think in the future."

In the coming years, Lee expects interviews to be a lot more "holistic," and largely assess whether the candidate is a "culture fit," rather than focusing on a deep dive into their skills. That is, if the interview as a means of assessment endures at all, given that he expects AI to become powerful enough to build individual profiles for each candidate and feed that information back to the interviewer.

"I already know all the work you've done, or at least the AI already knows the work you've done," he told EO. "It knows how good it is. It knows what skills you're good at, and if there is a skill match, then I should just be able to match you directly to the job, assuming that we get along after like a 30-minute conversation."

It's a practice that's already commonplace at Cluely, Lee added, where he says interviews tend to be less formal.

"I really don't know that there is a need for interviews in today's age, but right now what we use is really just a conversation," he said. "We check if you're a culture fit, we talk about past work you've done, and that's pretty much it."

Lee expects AI to eventually alter more than just the job interview — he believes everyone will soon be using it as frequently and broadly as possible.

"The entire way we're going to think will be changed," Lee told EO. "Every single one of my thoughts is formulated by the information I have at this moment. But what happens when that information I have isn't just what's in my brain, but it's everything that humanity has ever collected and put online, ever?"

For instance, Lee posed — how different would an interaction between two people look if an AI could feed one a "condensed blurb" of information about the other, after it was finished scraping their entire digital footprint?

"What happens when AI literally helps me think in real time?" Lee said. "The entire way that humans will interact with each other, with the world, all of our thoughts will be changed."

With Cluely, Lee hopes to get people used to what he believes is an inevitable transformation.

"The rate of societal progression will just expand and exponentiate significantly once everyone gets along to the fact that we're all using AI now," he said. "And that's what Cluely hopes to achieve, is to get everybody used to, 'We're all using AI now.'"

For Lee, it's simple — either get on board or fall so far behind you can't ever catch up.

"Mass adoption of AI is the only way to prevent the universe of the pro-AI class completely dominating the anti-AI class in every measurable and immeasurable outcome there is," he told BI.

• Amber Duncan founded a company that's now worth $50 million.
• She never finished her bachelor's degree, so her kids weren't interested in college.
• She returned in her 40s in part to show her kids the importance of finishing.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Amber Duncan, founder of Life After Debt. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I went to a private Christian school that had a clear message about higher education: You either went to college and got your degree, or you were a failure. It was so black and white.

I lived in a home with a lot of chaos, and I moved out the day I graduated from high school. A teacher helped me finish my college applications, and I got a scholarship to Liberty University. I moved from Florida to Virginia, where I started studying psychology.

The situation at my home continued to get worse as my parents went through a divorce. I felt I needed to be there for my younger brothers. I couldn't, in good conscience, stay at college while knowing my brothers had a need at home. My parents were so preoccupied with their divorce. I made the best decision I could and dropped out of college.

I subconsciously worried about my lack of a degree

Back in Florida, I started working as a makeup artist, making good money. Then, at 21, I unexpectedly became pregnant with my oldest daughter, Sabel. It was a tough season, but I was focused on giving Sabel the best life I could, which meant hustling to make money. College wasn't on my mind.

I became a mortgage broker, met my husband, and had four more kids. We built a property empire, but went bankrupt after the 2008 financial crash. Then, we came back stronger than ever, building a debt settlement company that's worth more than $50 million today.

I didn't often think about my lack of a degree. But subconsciously, when I walked into rooms with my co-founders, I worried that I was less worthy because I didn't have this piece of paper. That's what I'd been brainwashed to think.

My kid's question made me decide to get my degree

Soon, Sabel was a teenager starting to consider college herself. One day in the car, one of the kids said, "Why do we need college? You didn't graduate, and you're fine."

My life has proven that I didn't need a degree to be successful. Yet, I wanted my kids to experience college, which is so much more than a degree. Some of my best friends are still from my time at Liberty University. My kids have the financial means to go to college, and I thought it would be silly for them not to.

More importantly, I wanted my children to know that they should finish what they started. I decided to complete my degree.

I went on a cruise to celebrate my graduation

I re-enrolled at Liberty University in 2019 at 44, opting for online classes and switching my major from psychology to business management. Sometimes, because of parenting or business obligations, I could only take one or two classes; other times, getting motivated for assignments was difficult because I knew I didn't need this degree.

It took me a few years to finish, but in 2022, at the age of 47, I graduated with my bachelor's degree. Because of COVID regulations, there was no graduation ceremony. Instead, I went on a cruise with my family to celebrate.

Today, two of my kids have gone to college. Another son tried college and decided it wasn't for him, so he enrolled in trade school. My youngest two are still in high school, but I expect them to at least try college.

I'm proof that you don't need a degree to be successful. But graduating fulfilled something in me emotionally and brought a sense of calm. I had finally finished what I started.

• Creator economy vet Ben Grubbs has launched Visional Pop.
• The startup will invest in animation creators in hopes of developing global product franchises.
• Visional Pop has acquired kid-focused YouTube network YoBoHo to help fuel its mission.

An early architect of YouTube Kids has launched a new startup aiming to turn animated characters born on social media into global franchises.

Visional Pop will invest in and partner with animation creators, including those making comic-style and short-form videos on X and Instagram. It plans to help creators cultivate a presence on YouTube and other platforms and monetize mostly via consumer products, including toys and apparel.

Visional Pop was founded by Ben Grubbs, a YouTube and Turner Broadcasting alum and longtime investor in the creator economy. A firm he cofounded, Creator Sports Capital, recently led a $45 million investment into Good Good Golf.

Shortly after Visional Pop was founded late last year, it acquired YoBoHo — a 15-year-old, Mumbai-headquartered YouTube network that owns and operates over 150 channels in the kids' space.

Grubbs declined to share the acquisition price, but said YoBoHo will play a key role in the company's mission.

Visional Pop will harness YoBoHo's content distribution and audience development expertise, as well as its production infrastructure, to build YouTube channels for the creators it's working with.

YoBoHo reaches more than 200 million unique viewers monthly. In addition to incubating its own channels, it has developed YouTube channels for third parties, said founder and CEO Hitendra Merchant.

Selling products is one way creators can turn their content into a big business. Many influencers make money from the sales of items like T-shirts, keychains, and chocolate bars. However, Trump's tariffs have squeezed some pockets of the creator merch industry, such as plushies, and they have had to adapt.

Visional Pop will be based in Los Angeles, but Grubbs said he's assembling a team in Japan focused on product design and manufacturing.

Visional Pop will announce the first slate of creators it's investing in in the coming months. Grubbs said it's seeking family-friendly characters that appeal to children and adults alike.

Grubbs said he's been particularly inspired by the animated character IP market in Japan. One example is Chiikawa — a character that originated on X and has spawned dedicated retail stores in Tokyo.

"Our aspiration is to have IP that we develop and that we partner with and invest in that's going to be recognized by our grandkids," he said.

• The EU is bringing in a fee of 2 euros ($2.26) for small packages from the likes of Temu and Shein.
• That's far lower than charges faced by US consumers following decisions by President Donald Trump.
• One commentator said the "pain will be suffered by lower-income households."

European consumers now face a far smaller charge on imports from Chinese retailers than shoppers in the US.

The European Union said on Tuesday it will start imposing a flat fee of 2 euros ($2.26) on parcels worth less than 150 euros imported into the bloc.

About 4.6 billion parcels entered the EU last year, with the vast majority coming from China.

Earlier this month President Donald Trump reduced the tariffs on Chinese imports from 120% to 54%, and maintained the flat fee of $100 per postal item for packages worth less than $800.

Europe's move is a blow to Chinese fast fashion giants such as Shein and Temu, but less so than ending the "de minimis" loophole that had allowed US import duties to be avoided.

Customs and Border Protection data shows that de minimis shipments account for more than 90% of all cargo entering the US.

Trump's move means consumers cannot expect a return to the golden era of cheap clothes and fast delivery.

Rebecca Homkes, a lecturer at London Business School, said: "Consumers will see higher prices and potentially longer shipping times as Shein and others move from direct shipping to sending volumes of goods in containers to the USA to be re-sent from their USA-based warehousing."

In the meantime, shoppers are likely to face fewer options, longer wait times, and fewer bargains.

"The pain will be suffered by lower-income households who relied on small parcels from abroad to stretch the family budget," said Gary C. Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "This will harm a lot of people who belong to Trump's political base. It makes no sense."

Raj Bhala, Brenneisen Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas, said the previous 120% level was "essentially prohibitive, so Temu and Shein couldn't ship into the US."

There was no "some chance of retailers not decoupling entirely, perhaps if these retailers can absorb some of that 54% tariff."

• Grinding your own meat allows you to customize how lean or fatty your burger is.
• Blue cheese, grilled pineapple, or avocado will add a lot of flavor to a classic hamburger.
• Many, if not all, of these ingredients can already be found in your kitchen.

When it comes to crafting the perfect burger, you don't have to stick with basic cheese, lettuce, and tomato.

You also don't need to spend a fortune to upgrade your burger to something that's restaurant-quality.

Plenty of kitchen staples, from onions to eggs, can boost flavor, add texture, and elevate your burgers without any extra trips to the grocery store.

"You just have to think about what works with what," Hugh Acheson, a judge on "Top Chef" and a competitor on Iron Chef Canada, told Business Insider of combining flavors to make delicious burgers.

"Food should be like a big Lego set, and how you put together the blocks can build umpteen different things. The more skills you have and the more understanding of food you have, the more Lego blocks you have."

Here are 20 ways to make your burgers even better using things you already have in your kitchen.

Grinding your own meat is a way to ensure you're getting high-quality ground meat for your burgers.

The only way to guarantee you're getting the best-tasting meat is to ask the butcher in your local shop or grocery store to grind your desired cut for you or grind it yourself at home using a food processor.

Ground beef chuck is one meat many burger lovers prefer to use since it ranges from 15 to 20% fat.

Add bacon bits to your ground beef.

Adding bacon to your burgers can seriously up the flavor. If your burger patties are on the thicker side, you should cook the bacon before adding it to the meat to ensure you don't eat any undercooked bacon.

If your patties are thinner or smash-burger-style, it's OK to leave the bacon raw as long as you make sure it's all properly cooked before eating.

You can also add vegetables like mushrooms.

Acheson told BI that mushrooms and onions make delicious additions to burger meat.

"You don't always have to use beef either," Acheson said. "I make this pulverized mushroom and lamb burger that tastes very woodsy and gamey."

Worcestershire sauce adds tang to beef.

"I love the flavor bomb that is Worcestershire sauce," Acheson said. "Balancing that with a little olive oil is just going to add a little more fat and texture to meat when it hits the grill, and help prevent it from sticking."

This sauce can be added directly to ground meat to make burger patties more moist and flavorful.

Minced garlic also adds a lot of flavor to beef.

Crushed or minced garlic can easily be mixed into ground beef, pork, or even turkey before being cooked on the grill, and adds savory flavor. 

Using a high-quality bun can also make all the difference.

For slightly more texture, opt for a sesame-seed bun, often a summer pantry staple. However, for a softer yet still flavorful bun, butter a brioche bun, toast or grill it, and serve it with your burger.

You can also try out other alternative buns like potato rolls or even a toasted bagel.

A quick aioli or special sauce makes a great addition to burgers.

"A really simple and delicious special sauce is creme fraîche, mayonnaise, a dash of maple syrup, and a little bit of ketchup, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and lemon juice all blended up," Acheson said.

"Having a special sauce in your arsenal is really important."

Thousand Island dressing is another way to kick up the flavor profile of a classic cheeseburger.

If you want to add a little creamy, tangy flavor to a cheeseburger, dollop some Thousand Island dressing on top. Thousand Island is made from a base of three popular burger condiments: mayonnaise, ketchup, and sweet pickle relish.

Adding toppings like shredded lettuce or crunchy pickle slices can also recreate the same flavor profile as a classic Big Mac. 

Blue cheese will also bring a burst of flavor.

Topping a burger with some blue cheese crumbles is a recipe for success, Acheson said.

Top your burgers with peanut butter, or mix it directly into the ground beef.

Some burger lovers swear by peanut butter. While this creamy, flavorful addition can, of course, be smeared on top of your patties, it can also be added directly to the meat itself.

Taste of Home reported that adding a spoonful of peanut butter to ground meat can keep your burgers juicy, thanks to the oil in the spread.

Melt some garlic butter on top.

Simple garlic butter can be whipped up in just a few minutes.

You can either butter your buns with it before grilling them or drizzle it on the cooked burger patties themselves for a flavor boost.

Onions are a staple and can be either added as toppings or mixed into the burger meat.

"Onions are a staple that everyone's got around," Acheson said. "You can slow cook them, caramelize them, sweeten them with a little maple syrup or soy sauce, and cook them into a sort of onion jam."

Avocado slices make a great addition to burgers.

Avocado adds creaminess to a burger without the thick texture of mayonnaise or aioli.

Arugula adds freshness and a peppery flavor to your burger.

Unlike other leafy greens, arugula has a peppery flavor. Plus, you'll likely enjoy the layer of crunchy texture that adding greens provides.

Grilled pineapple slices or fresh pineapple salsa add a tropical, citrusy flavor.

If you happen to have a can of pineapple or pineapple slices lying around, they can make delicious burger toppings. A quick pineapple salsa with red onion and cilantro is easy to make and packs a lot of flavor.

Adding a fried egg takes any burger to the next level.

Adding a fried egg ups the protein level and the flavor of any burger. When you bite or cut into the burger, the runny egg yolk acts almost like a sauce.

To really make this brunch-ready burger pop, add bacon, special sauce, and salt and pepper to taste.

Pickled onions add a sour tang to burgers, and they are easy to prepare.

Pickled onions are easier to make than many home cooks might think, but they add some serious flavor to any burger.

Bon Appetit's recipe for quick-pickled onions involves leaving thinly sliced red onion in a jar with apple cider vinegar, sugar, and kosher salt for at least one hour. Then, simply drain the onions and add them to your burger.

Leftover pulled pork can add extra meatiness to a classic burger.

If you have some leftover pulled pork in your fridge, don't be afraid to add a little to your burger. Not only will this topping add tons of flavor and satisfy any barbecue craving, but the added protein also ensures you won't leave the barbecue hungry.

You could also whip up some boxed mac and cheese to add to your burger.

No burger topping is arguably as creamy and decadent as mac and cheese. While homemade mac and cheese may be ideal, don't be afraid to whip up a quick box of whatever boxed mac and cheese you have in your cabinets.

One final cooking tip: Using the whole grill can make sure your burgers are cooked perfectly.

"You want high heat, but use the whole of the grill," Acheson said. "The grill should have two different temperature zones — one lower and one higher. You're trying to get a good crust, a good Maillard reaction from that protein on the hot side, and getting good grill marks. Then move it over to the lower side to make sure you've reached the right temperature."

• Meta has instructed managers to rank more employees in its "below expectations" performance rating.
• The midyear reviews could set the stage for more performance-based cuts.
• The move follows CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plan to "move out low-performers" faster.

Meta is expanding the ranks of its lowest-rated employees in their midyear performance reviews, months after it laid off nearly 4,000 employees whom it labeled low performers.

Meta is telling managers to put more employees in its "below expectations" tier, the lowest performance bucket, during this year's midyear performance reviews, according to a memo shared on Meta's internal forum on May 14, which was viewed by Business Insider. For teams of 150 or more, Meta wants managers to put 15% to 20% of employees in the bottom bucket compared with 12% to 15% last year.

The expanded range includes employees who have already left the company as part of "nonregrettable attrition," Meta's term for staff considered noncritical to operations, including those who resigned or were dismissed for underperformance.

The midyear performance review process is "an opportunity to make exit decisions," the memo said. It added that "there will be no company-wide performance terminations, unlike earlier this year," and that leaders are expected to manage the performance of their reports.

Managers can select employees for performance-based cuts based on criteria including a "Below Expectations" rating in their mid-year review, if they had a formal disciplinary action within the past six months, or if they had an "Employee Relations" (ER) case in the first quarter. An ER case means if an employee was on a plan to manage their performance.

The review process is set to begin on June 16, and conversations between managers and employees on performance will take place between July and August.

The change comes just months after Meta laid off nearly 4,000 employees — about 5% of its workforce — in performance-based cuts. Internal documents seen by BI earlier this year suggested such layoffs could become an annual fixture, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg telling staff he had "decided to raise the bar on performance management" and move faster to "move out low-performers."

Meta did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

The new mid-year targets echo a similar move Meta made at the end of 2022, when it roughly doubled the share of employees placed in its lowest performance categories during annual reviews. At the time, managers were instructed to classify up to 16.5% of staff as underperformers, up from a previous range of 7% to 12%.

As with the current mid-year cycle, that figure included employees already marked for non-regrettable attrition. The company also warned managers to be more rigorous when evaluating employees on the borderline between performance tiers.

The repeated tightening of performance review criteria underscores Meta's ongoing effort to reshape its workforce following years of overhiring. Meta executives have increasingly used performance management as a mechanism to streamline teams and cut costs. Meta's HR leaders have emphasized the need to "move faster" in managing out underperformers so that new, stronger talent could be brought in.

Meta's move mirrors a broader trend in the tech industry, where companies are sharpening their focus on performance while doubling down on AI investments. Earlier this month, Microsoft said it would cut around 6,000 roles—roughly 3% of its global workforce in an effort to trim layers of middle management and boost the ratio of coders to noncoders on projects. At Google, CEO Sundar Pichai told employees late last year that the company had reduced its top management ranks by 10% as part of an ongoing push for efficiency.

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• I planned for the type of birth I wanted with my daughter, but nothing happened like I wanted it.
• Hailey Bieber's interview in Vogue about her struggles as a new mom took me back to my experience.
• I wish regular moms and celebrity moms didn't have to struggle postpartum.

As soon as the two bright pink lines on my home pregnancy test appeared, happily and suddenly, I knew what kind of birth I wanted.

I was committed to bringing my daughter into the world as gently as possible without interventions or pain medication. I spent nine months preparing, learning how to relieve the pains of childbirth naturally, and mentally committing to holding my daughter skin-to-skin, chest-to-chest, and nursing her moments after birth.

I did everything I could to stay healthy and prepare my mind and body for the marathon of giving birth. I ate right, gave up caffeine, exercised, and went to prenatal yoga several times a week.

And when nothing went as planned, I struggled with my life postpartum.

I left the hospital without my baby

Despite my meticulously detailed, carefully crafted idea of how my daughter's birth would unfold, nature took a different turn. My water broke, and I needed Pitocin, a drug that starts contractions.

Things got worse when my baby showed signs of distress. Instead of being able to move around the room as I had hoped, I needed to stay in bed, hooked up to monitors and oxygen.

Inexplicably, the doula I had hired to help guide me through the birthing process didn't answer her phone for hours as I continued to labor throughout the day. Although my husband did his best to help, I felt as though I had been abandoned, left to navigate this new and frightening experience on my own.

I kept reminding myself that even though nothing leading up to giving birth was going as planned, it would all be worth it once I held my happy, healthy baby in my arms.

That didn't go as planned either. Shortly after my daughter was born, she was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit. She stayed there for weeks, in a clear isolette that helped keep her alive, as she was diagnosed with one complex medical issue after another. She was fed through a tube. I needed permission to hold her and help to put her in my arms without disturbing the various monitors and wires attached to her tiny body.

Hailey Bieber's words resonated with me

Not having the type of birth I wanted was difficult, but leaving the hospital without my baby caused a tremendous amount of grief. The NICU staff and my OB all suspected that I had postpartum depression.

My husband had to go back to work before our daughter was released from the hospital, and I was mostly left to cry alone. I lost all of my baby weight and then some quickly. People told me how great I looked, but it was hard to take the compliment well.

The pounds fell off, not because I was lucky or focusing on my health. Instead, I was overwhelmed and depressed, unable to find the motivation to nourish myself.

When I read about Hailey Bieber's traumatic experience giving birth to her son Jack, I was immediately brought back to my daughter's birth and the aftermath. Like me, Bieber's labor started with Pitocin rather than with the natural waves of contractions many women are taught to expect. After giving birth, she faced a life-threatening complication.

Instead of spending the hours after giving birth bonding with her son, she faced invasive interventions to save her life and stop her from hemorrhaging. Bieber has opened up about how hard it has been for her to face what happened and the aftermath, along with the difficulties of adjusting to being a new mom in a new body.

Celebrity moms and regular moms both struggle

Too many women have had similar experiences. Bieber, a model and entrepreneur who is married to one celebrity, Justin Bieber, and is the daughter of another, Stephen Baldwin, has access to the best care available and a "team of experts" to help her recover, find her identity as a mother, and feel like herself again. I am glad that Bieber has this support, and wish it had been available to me and the countless other mothers who go through similar experiences.

Things weren't much better when I had my second child, a surprise baby. After my son's birth, the hospital staff largely ignored me when I told them I was in tremendous pain that was unlike anything I had experienced when I had my daughter.

When I asked for help lifting my son and changing his diaper because the pain made it so hard to move, I was admonished. Nurses told me it wasn't their job to hand me my child, and I would need to work through the pain. I was bleeding uncontrollably, but was told that I could get no more than my allotted share of ultra-thin maternity pads, which were disappearing at an alarming rate.

About an hour after I arrived home, I passed something extremely large, the size of my child's head. My husband called an ambulance, and I was diagnosed with a retained placenta, a potentially life-threatening condition if not caught and treated. I needed to be admitted to the hospital for several days for IV antibiotics to treat the infection that had already set in. This shook my confidence in the medical system and robbed me, once again, of the precious first days home with a newborn.

While I wish that Bieber and all mothers could have the type of labor they want, sometimes the best-laid birth plans are impossible. Hopefully, Bieber's bravery in being vulnerable will help other mothers get the support they need when things don't go according to plan.

• Eight sitting members of Congress have died since November 2022.
• Every single one of them was a Democrat.
• The party has been wrestling with age and gerontocracy for years.

In the last two and a half years, eight sitting members of the House or Senate have died in office. Every time, it's been a Democrat.

Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, died on Wednesday at 75, after a battle with esophageal cancer.

He's the third House Democrat to die in the last three months. If Democrats had gained a narrow 1 or 2-seat majority in 2024, they would have lost it by now.

The streak of Democratic deaths could just be something of a coincidence. After all, there are plenty of elderly and diminished Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

But Democrats do tend to be older than Republicans, on average. A report from FiscalNote found that in the last Congress, the average House Democrat was six years older than the average House Republican, while the gap was seven years in he upper chamber.

There are some potential structural reasons for this as well, including the seniority system, which Democrats tend to employ more than Republicans.

The deaths are just another data point in a long-running conversation that's been raging within the Democratic Party for years about age and gerontocracy, which culminated last year in President Joe Biden's decision to drop out of the presidential race after a disastrous debate performance.

Since then, Democrats in particular have been taking age more seriously, including when it comes to who's serving in important committee positions. Connolly notably beat back a challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York in December for the Oversight position he's now vacated.

Here's the full list of Democratic lawmakers who have died in office since November 2022:

• Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia
• Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona
• Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas
• Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey
• Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas
• Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey
• Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California
• Rep. Donald McEachin of Virginia

• Palisade, Colorado, has become one of my favorite towns after moving to Denver four years ago.
• It's home to striking nature and more than 30 wineries.
• I've visited a handful of times, and still haven't explored all the town has to offer.

I thought I'd have to head to California's Napa Valley for wine and cross the Utah state border for canyons. For peaches, I assumed I'd have to make my way South to somewhere like Georgia.

Then, I discovered Palisade, Colorado. The small town four hours west of Denver has become one of my favorite Colorado towns after living in the state for four years.

While it has all the outdoor activities I love — hiking, camping, biking, and rafting — it also stands out for its wineries, vineyards, and farms.

Palisade is home to something I don't find everywhere in Colorado — vineyards

Most of my weekends in Colorado are spent camping. I'll head west from my home in Denver, searching for mountains, dispersed campsites, and glorious hikes.

Thankfully, the state is full of options. While living in Colorado, I've explored dozens of mountain towns, visited new national parks, and stumbled upon historic sites like former mining towns.

Being in the mountains never gets old, but finding new activities keeps camping trips from feeling repetitive.

So, when I crave an experience other than shopping on Main Street and hiking up a mountain, I head to Palisade for wine.

The small Colorado town is known as the state's wine country. It's home to over 30 wineries, and the region's desert climate creates an ideal environment for growing grapes.

When it comes to the wine itself, Palisade doesn't specialize in just one variety. Instead, you'll find everything from rosé to cabernet franc and riesling.

I've visited the town a few times, and my favorite way to explore is on a bike. Some lodges, campsites, and businesses offer daily bike rentals, which means I can check off a handful of wineries in a day. Other tour operators have shuttles, horse-drawn carriages, and limos that take visitors wine hopping across the town.

Regardless of how you get to each winery, most have breathtaking views of grape vines with Colorado's Grand Mesa, the largest flat-top mountain, as the backdrop. It's a view that's hard to beat.

Beyond wineries, Palisade has accessible nature

Sure, wine is the town's main appeal, but that just scratches the surface of how I spend a weekend in Palisade.

Surrounding the small town is stunning nature. The area is more arid than the nearby Rocky Mountains, which means the terrain includes canyon systems, plateaus, and rusty red stone. In some hiking areas, you'll find wild horses, and in others, you'll find canyons overlooking the Colorado River.

During hot summer months, paddleboarding and rafting are popular activities.

There's also plenty of camping. While there are a couple of RV resorts and state parks with amenity-filled campsites, the region also has primitive camping around the Grand Mesa.

Palisade is a hidden gem

While plenty of people in Colorado have heard of Palisade, when I step outside my Denver bubble, I've learned it's a hidden gem — one I'm still exploring since I haven't discovered all the town has to offer.

While I've stopped by small farm stands to pick up fresh fruit and jams, I haven't picked peaches yet. Palisade is one of Colorado's top peach producers, and during harvest seasons, nearby farms will welcome visitors to their orchards for peach picking.

I'm also itching to return for the town's annual bluegrass festival with national artists and local musicians.

There are also restaurants, breweries, distilleries, and vineyards I've eyed from past trips.

So, while there are plenty of small Colorado towns I've yet to visit, I'm always willing to return to Palisade and shake up the traditional weekend camping trip.

• I drove three hours to visit one of the last-remaining KFC buffets in the world.
• The $13 meal included chicken, side dishes, desserts, and a few items not on the regular menu.
• I was pleasantly surprised by the meal, but wished this location offered mac and cheese as a side.

During an eight-hour drive from northern Delaware to Charlotte, North Carolina, my girlfriend's voice broke my glassy-eyed daze.

"Did that sign say KFC Buffet?" she asked.

My immediate reaction was disbelief, that maybe we'd been driving too long and hallucinated it — but a quick Google search confirmed that the KFC buffet was real. Although I couldn't find much about it online, according to an article from Mashed, they seemed to be most popular in the '80s before fizzling out after a decade or so.

During my research, I also stumbled across a Facebook group called "KFC Buffet Aficionados," where fans of the restaurant answer questions about the buffets and keep a map of all the remaining locations in North America.

There aren't many left in the world, but there is one pretty famous location in Tokyo. Turns out, the nearest one to my house is even closer than the one we originally passed.

So, my girlfriend and I took a three-hour drive to Dunn, North Carolina, to see what a KFC buffet is like.

Inside, the restaurant looked like any other KFC I'd been to.

We arrived tired and hungry on a Saturday night to a mostly empty parking lot. A small blue sign advertised that the location did indeed offer buffet-style dining.

On the inside, it looked no different than any other KFC I'd been to, save the approximately 8-foot-long self-serve buffet set up next to the cashier.

I ordered two buffet dinners at the counter.

I ordered two buffet dinners and was handed back two plastic trays: both complete with a large, three-section Styrofoam plate, a smaller dessert plate, a small soft-drink cup, and a spork.

My total before tax was $26, making the cost of one buffet dinner at this location $13.

The buffet had a nice mix of familiar favorites and special offerings.

The buffet offered much of what you might get at KFC when ordering a family meal: fried or grilled chicken pieces, and some of the signature sides like biscuits, green beans, mashed potatoes, and gravy.

The biggest disappointment was that the buffet didn't have my favorite side dish — mac and cheese.

However, there were also a few items that weren't on the regular menu, like rice and beans, collard greens, and fried okra, to name a few.

What surprised me most was the selection of fried chicken gizzards and livers. These were also offered as a regular menu item at this location, which is something that I hadn't seen at the numerous KFC's I'd been to up north.

The food was pretty good.

For the most part, everything I ate was hot and tasted fresh and flavorful. The chicken was just as crispy as any other piece of KFC chicken I'd had.

My favorite side was the fried okra, which was crunchy but not overcooked.

My girlfriend also insisted I try the fried chicken gizzards and liver. I had never had them before and decidedly did not enjoy eating even the smallest bites of either.

I enjoyed the apple cobbler for dessert.

In my opinion, the crowning item of the evening was the apple cobbler — a gooey mixture of apple chunks, pie crust, and sugar. It was one of a few dessert options like Jell-O, pudding, and fruit.

The cinnamon-apple filling might have been one of the strongest scents from the entire buffet.

Thankfully, it tasted as good as it smelled. I would go as far to say it tasted homemade. Was it worth the three-hour drive, though? Probably not.

I'd recommend stopping at a KFC buffet location.

Overall, this definitely wasn't the worst buffet I'd ever been to, but somehow, it wasn't the best experience I've ever had at KFC, either.

However, this was mostly due to the absence of notable menu items like the mac and cheese. Looking back, though, I could've easily ordered it from the standard menu for an additional charge.

At the end of the day, I was pleasantly surprised by the fresh-tasting, flavorful food, and I'd definitely recommend it to others, especially for the price.

• Layoffs are hitting TikTok Shop employees as the company said it's making personnel changes.
• The company sent an email to e-commerce staffers ahead of the cuts telling them to work from home.
• TikTok Shop sales have been slumping amid global tariffs and broader economic uncertainty.

TikTok Shop employees in the US are bracing for layoffs after the company told staffers to work from home Wednesday ahead of "organizational and personnel changes," per a memo viewed by Business Insider.

The moves are expected to impact employees who work in US operations and global key accounts, a team that works with large brands.

The company said it was making the changes after "careful analysis of how to create more efficient operating models for the team's long-term growth," according to the memo, which was sent by Mu Qing, an e-commerce executive.

Employees began receiving emails that their roles were affected on Wednesday morning.

BI was not able to determine the number of employees affected by the changes. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bloomberg earlier reported on the memo.

TikTok's US e-commerce business has been off to a rocky start this year, as sales have slumped amid global tariffs and broader economic uncertainty. Employees previously told BI that daily US sales from foreign sellers, many based in China, where tariffs skyrocketed in April, contributed to a broader sales drop-off on the platform starting in late March.

TikTok's coming personnel changes follow a round of job cuts in April when it restructured its e-commerce governance and experience team, BI previously reported.

TikTok Shop's growth in the US is a big priority at ByteDance, which sees hundreds of billions in annual sales on its Chinese sister app, Douyin. But even before its more recent sales slump, the US e-commerce business failed to meet many of its performance goals in 2024, company leaders told staffers during a February all-hands.

Over the past year and a half, TikTok has shaken up its leadership structure across the company, giving greater oversight to some Chinese and Singaporean leaders in departments including Shop.

TikTok's US future is up in the air, subject to the outcome of a divest-or-ban law that requires ByteDance to give up majority ownership of its US app.

TikTok has until June 19 to find a new owner, though President Donald Trump may extend that deadline. During a recent press appearance, he said he had a warm spot in his heart for TikTok.

Read the full memo sent to e-commerce staffers telling them to stay home ahead of personnel changes:

Over the past month, I have taken the opportunity to learn and evaluate how best to support US business in meeting the opportunities and challenges ahead of us.

We have undergone careful analysis of how to create more efficient operating models for the team's long-term growth and, as a result, will be communicating organizational and personnel changes to the e-Commerce US operations, US operations center, and global key accounts teams beginning early on Wednesday, May 21 (PT).

Our goal is to communicate with employees swiftly and with as much clarity as possible. All updates will be made via your company email, followed by HRBP outreach.

To best facilitate these conversations, it is recommended that you work remotely on Wednesday, May 21.

We appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as we navigate these difficult discussions. We are committed to supporting our teams throughout this transition with as much compassion and support as possible.

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• A personal trainer in his 50s got back in shape after colon cancer treatment with simple workouts.
• His routine includes rucking, walking with a weighted pack to build muscle and endurance in less time.
• He recommends shorter, more consistent workouts instead of exhausting yourself for long-term gains.

Shorter workouts could be the key to getting in shape and staying that way into your 50s and beyond, according to a personal trainer who learned to work smarter instead of harder.

Bill Maeda, 56, said recovering from a health crisis taught him that short, simple, and consistent is key to building muscle and fitness long-term.

"My raw horsepower is less than it was 10 or more years ago, but I don't care," he told. "The difference is now, I'm moving better, and it's fun."

Inspired by Bruce Lee to start training at 8 years old, Maeda had been a personal trainer for decades, even landed a few movie roles with his muscular physique. But in 2012, he was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in his early 40s, requiring major emergency surgery and half a year of chemotherapy.

Recovering from cancer made him realize that focusing on his physique over his health was like building a nice car without proper brakes or steering.

"I wanted a strong frame. I wanted a powerful engine, but I spent so much time building this car, I forgot how to drive it. That's what I'm doing now," he said.

Maeda slowly rebuilt his fitness, one rep at a time, and said shorter and simpler can be better for long-term gains.

Build a foundation on the basics: deadlifts, squats, push-ups

Maeda's current workouts on social media often feature unusual exercises, but he said most people shouldn't do complicated workouts unless they've mastered the basics. You don't need elaborate movement to build muscle, and the risk of injury can increase as an exercise become more intricate.

"Well into my forties, I didn't do anything fancy. It was deadlifts, squats, kettlebell swings, just a lot of very fundamental movements," Maeda said. "Those are what built my physical base, what people see now, the muscle I carry."

To gain muscle and strength, focus on progressive overload, performing the same exercises over time with gradually increasing weight.

From there, you can explore variations of exercise to keep workouts fun and challenging while improving mobility, agility, and balance.

"I do less of that heavy basic lifting because of the time I have now, I'd rather put it towards movements that spread the stress of what I'm doing more evenly throughout my body," Maeda said.

Work out in less time by rucking

One regular part of Maeda's fitness routine is rucking, or walking with weight. He typically carries a 45-pound backpack for 30 minutes a day, at least five days a week, while walking his dogs.

He first starting rucking as he was slowly rebuilding his endurance after colon cancer. He began with short walks wearing a backpack full of bricks and added weight (and better gear through his partnership with fitness brand GORUCK) over time.

Building muscle and endurance comes from challenging your body over time. Rucking provides a convenient way to work the muscles during activities that are already a part of a routine, like walking dogs or taking a hike.

For Maeda, it added an extra challenge without taking more time out of his day.

"It got me to a point where just walking seemed like a total waste of time," he said. "If I'm doing something that often and I can just put a 45-pound backpack on, that's a lot of minutes under load."

Ending a workout early can pay off

In his younger years, Maeda embraced the "no pain, no gain" mindset of tough exercise, but now warns against it.

"I don't personally recommend programs that are aggressive and based on sucking it up and willpower. Life is hard enough," Maeda said.

He said it's better not to be completely exhausted after exercise, so you're energized and excited for the next workout, even if that means cutting your workout short.

"Consistency over days is way more important than a hard weekend warrior workout that means you're sore for the rest of the week," he said.

Try this no-equipment workout for beginners

Maeda recommends starting with a workout you can do at home.

To complete his "exercise ladder," do:

• one squat, one push-up;
• two squats, two push-ups;
• three squats, three push-ups;
• continue up to five reps, or until the next set starts to feel daunting.

Over time, you can repeat the workout, aiming to reach a higher number of reps as you progress, or change up the exercises (doing lunges and pull-ups, or single-leg deadlifts and burpees).

• A United Airlines passenger says she was injured when a suitcase fell on her.
• The lawsuit says the flight crew should have intervened or assisted so that it was stowed properly.
• Eugenia Lyashenko has suffered from stress and depression since the incident, it adds.

A passenger is suing United Airlines, saying flight attendants should have helped put heavy luggage in the overhead bin.

Eugenia Lyashenko was flying from Boston to London in June 2023, per the lawsuit filed last Friday in the Massachusetts US District Court.

She was sitting in an aisle seat when another passenger's "heavy roller suitcase" fell from the open overhead bin, the suit says.

The lawsuit alleged that Lyashenko suffered serious head, neck, and back injuries after being struck by the suitcase.

"United should not have allowed other passengers to struggle with stowing heavy roller suitcases in the overhead bins without intervening to ensure that it was done properly and safely," it stated.

It added that the crew's failure to assist in storing the luggage contributed to Lyashenko's injuries.

As a result of the incident, she has since been unable to sit or stand for extended periods, and "suffered great pain, agony and mental anguish, stress, depression," the complaint says.

United Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lyashenko's attorneys sought unspecified compensatory damages under the Montreal Convention.

The treaty stipulated that airlines are liable for any passenger injuries on board an aircraft, or while boarding or deplaning, unless they can prove the passenger was negligent.

It says damages can be as high as about $175,000.

The Montreal Convention is often cited in airline lawsuits, such as when a Ryanair passenger broke her leg after falling down the aircraft's steps. She was awarded $33,000 in compensation.

And last year, a Delta Air Lines passenger said he broke a rib after his armrest collapsed when he leaned on it.

• US Navy planes recently carried out history's "largest airstrike" from an aircraft carrier, a top US admiral said.
• The bombardment targeted terrorist groups in Somalia, said the acting chief of naval operations.
• The carrier USS Harry S. Truman spent months engaged in combat operations in the Middle East.

US Navy planes recently launched the largest-ever airstrike from an aircraft carrier, dropping 125,000 pounds of ordnance, a top admiral said this week.

The USS Harry S. Truman and its strike group "launched the largest airstrike in the history of the world — 125,000 pounds — from a single aircraft carrier into Somalia," Adm. James Kilby, acting chief of naval operations, said on Monday.

A defense official told Business Insider the operation — a single bombing run involving around 16 F/A-18 Super Hornets — occurred on February 1 while the Truman was operating in the Red Sea.

US Africa Command said in February that airstrikes at the start of the month targeted senior ISIS-Somalia leadership in a series of cave complexes. The military assessed that over a dozen terror operatives were killed. Kilby's comments this week shed more light on the bombardment.

US forces have executed dozens of airstrikes this year against ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliate group al-Shabaab in Somalia. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence considers both groups to be a threat to American interests.

The Truman carrier strike group recently left the Red Sea and is participating in NATO maritime exercises in the Mediterranean Sea before heading back to its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia.

The strike group, consisting of the carrier and several other warships, deployed last fall and spent months operating in the Middle East, where it was a pillar of US combat operations against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen that were paused earlier this month.

Kilby, speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations event, said the Truman strike group engaged 160 drones and missiles that the Houthis had fired at Israel, the Navy, or shipping lanes. He also said the ships carried out 670 strikes in Yemen, targeting rebel assets.

The munitions used in these engagements could include a mix of surface-to-air missiles, land-attack missiles, air-to-air missiles, air-to-surface bombs, and air-launched standoff weapons. Multiple carriers have been a part of operations against the Houthis, expending significant amounts of ordnance to curb the group's attacks.

"We've seen an increase in how the Houthis are acting," Kilby said. "Sometimes, I hear people speak dismissively of them. They're not China, but they are a threat. And they are hunting our ships."

The Truman has had an eventful deployment. In December, one of the warships in its strike group accidentally shot down an F/A-18, which is estimated to cost roughly $60 million apiece, over the Red Sea. The military described the engagement as an "apparent case of friendly fire."

Several weeks later, in mid-February, the Truman collided with a commercial vessel in the Mediterranean. The aircraft carrier suffered some damage, and the incident led to the firing of its commanding officer.

In late April, with Truman back in the Red Sea, an F/A-18 and a tow tractor fell overboard from the carrier's hangar bay. A sailor had to jump from the cockpit just before the fighter jet went into the water.

And just over a week later, in early May, an F/A-18 was landing on the flight deck when Truman's arresting cables failed, sending the jet overboard. The two aviators safely ejected and were rescued from the water.

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

Good morning! We recently tested Tesla's Full-Self Driving software against Waymo's robotaxis, with the former making one big mistake. Turns out Tesla CEO Elon Musk wasn't a big fan of our test. However, he said the company's soon-to-be-launched robotaxis will avoid certain areas of Austin if the company deems them unsafe.

In today's big story, we're hitting some of the highlights from Google's big annual developer conference, including a major update to Search and a new tool that could upend Hollywood.

What's on deck

Markets: What was long considered the safest corner of the market is no longer looking so secure.

Tech: An exclusive conversation with Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri.

Business: Millennials aren't ready to inherit their parents' homes. There's a whole industry devoted to easing the handoff.

But first, we're entering AI Mode.

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The big story

Search's AI era

Google Search is getting an AI-powered makeover.

The search engine will be more conversational and eventually include an AI assistant as it looks to fend off competition from high-profile startups like OpenAI and Anthropic. AI Mode, set to roll out this week, will open up in a new tab and allow users to ask follow-up or more complex questions.

The update came at Google's annual developer conference, Google I/O, where the tech giant gave the clearest picture yet of how it sees its crown jewel keeping pace in a world dominated by AI, writes BI's Hugh Langley.

We always knew this was where things were headed. From the moment ChatGPT broke onto the scene in late 2022, there were rumbles about Search's future. Chatbots were viewed as a potential alternative for navigating the internet.

That put Google in a tricky situation. Search could benefit from AI, but there's also the risk of upsetting the company's golden goose.

At last year's I/O, Google offered a glimpse into the change users could expect from AI. Behind a catchy phrase — "Google will do the Googling for you" — the company showed off its AI Overviews feature you're probably familiar with.

But even with Search's initial AI adoption, smaller AI competitors were making serious progress. An Apple executive said AI engines were eating into Google's market share.

Google quickly denied Search was in trouble, but AI's impact is undeniable.

Which brings us to Tuesday's announcement, which Google Search head Liz Reid called "a glimpse of what's to come in Search overall."

Google also did a bit of its own disrupting.

The tech giant unveiled Flow, a new AI-powered moviemaking tool. BI's Alistair Barr has the rundown on what Flow can do and why traditional studios should be nervous.

(If you want to read more of Alistair — and you should — you can subscribe to his weekly newsletter Tech Memo, which comes out every Friday and focuses on Big Tech.)

To be clear, Google is pitching Flow as a tool for studios, not a threat to them. But it's easy to see how it could make one uneasy. The millions invested into high production-value storytelling doesn't look as good if you can do the same thing with AI for a fraction of the cost.

Of course, the studios could adopt the tech to help them work more efficiently and stay ahead of the competition.

Just ask Google.

3 things in markets

1. Bye-bye, bond safety. The bond market has had a rough few months, but after Moody's recently downgraded US debt, many Wall Street titans are questioning bonds' safety. The advice for investors is simple, but unnerving: Don't count on bonds to shield you during times of volatility.

2. The prize for Bridgewater's new research competition: $25K and a job interview. The hedge fund is crowdsourcing ideas on positioning itself in the new global economic order. Contestants can submit predictions on how countries' protectionist policies impact the global economy — and five could win big.

3. Crypto regulation is one step closer to becoming law. The GENIUS Act is headed for Senate debate as bitcoin is poised for a record high. Here's what to know about the bill, which is focused on creating rules around stablecoins.

3 things in tech

1. Instagram is all about … privacy? Instagram boss Adam Mosseri told BI's Peter Kafka about the "paradigm shift" from users' public posting to private sharing. He also talked about the app's push into messaging, why it shows recommended posts, Threads' origin story, and more.

2. Tech's new hiring playbook: age before beauty. Silicon Valley used to idolize youth, but now, big and little tech companies are looking for more experienced workers. AI is a big reason, since it's taking over more junior tasks. Younger engineers now have to hustle harder than ever.

3. To hype or hide AI? Investors love to hear about a company's AI ambitions, but customers hate it. Duolingo is the latest company to learn this after its CEO doubled down on its AI vision, sparking major backlash. This tension over AI has tech CEOs walking a tightrope.

3 things in business

1. Boomer home dilemma. America is on the precipice of a major wealth transfer through home ownership. Millennials stand to gain, but there are lots of kinks that could make them unprepared to inherit. Companies like Flock Homes may have the answer.

2. Elon Musk goes all in on tech, less so on politics. Musk told an interviewer in Qatar he'll still be Tesla's CEO in five years and would stop only "if I'm dead." He also isn't budging on his legal battle with Sam Altman's OpenAI, which he accused of abandoning its nonprofit mission. However, Musk is scaling back political spending, saying he's "done enough."

3. Why Walmart is raising prices and Home Depot isn't. Last week, Walmart said it would raise prices over tariffs, but on Tuesday, Home Depot announced it wouldn't, saying it would rely on other "levers" to avoid increasing prices. Here's four reasons why the retail giants are looking at new import costs differently.

In other news

• Google cofounder Sergey Brin shares why he's back at the company 'pretty much every day now' to work on AI.
• Inside Asia's biggest tech trade show, where Nvidia's 'Jensen' is the hottest name drop.
• Musk bashes Bill Gates' comments on USAID: 'Show us any evidence.'
• Google turns to Warby Parker to develop smart glasses, competing with Meta's Ray-Bans.
• Wall Street investors share three predictions for what could make or break the stock market's recent rebound.
• The unsolicited 'offers flooded in' for red-hot legal tech startup Legora's new funding round.
• Not quite the American dream: Renting is becoming a better deal, even if you're wealthy or a retiree.
• YouTube is going to new lengths to nab an Emmy.

What's happening today

• Target, Zoom, and Lowe's report 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.

• More graduates are applying for jobs at companies with fewer than 250 employees, a careers platform said.
• Job postings on Handshake have decreased by 15% in the past year.
• The number of job applications from graduates per vacancy has jumped by 30% year-on-year.

The class of 2025 is taking a closer look at smaller companies.

According to California-based career platform Handshake, more than a third of job applications from upcoming graduates have gone to companies with fewer than 250 employees. That's up from about a quarter of seniors two years ago.

With preparing for college during the pandemic, a wave of mass layoffs, and the rise of artificial intelligence, this year's graduating class has faced more than its fair share of challenges.

Now, they're trying to enter a job market showing significant cracks. While unemployment rates are relatively low, the number of job openings has been declining.

Handshake said job postings on its platform were down 15% over the past year, while the number of applications per job had increased by 30%.

The platform surveyed 2,871 students on bachelor's
degree courses at 658 institutions and found 56% of students were either "somewhat" or "very" pessimistic about starting their careers in this economy.

When asked how they felt overall about the job market, the one-word response used the most frequently was "competitive," followed by "difficult," "stressful," and "scary," Handshake said.

That may be a fair assessment of the situation. As of March, the average student graduating this summer had submitted 21% more job applications on Handshake than their counterparts last year. In 2024, there was an average of 13.6 applications per student; this year, it was 16.5.

Students are also reevaluating their goals. Of the 57% of graduates who started college with a "dream job" in mind, less than half have the same aim now.

Location is more important to this class than salary, with 73% reporting they would be more likely to apply for a job in their desired location, and 63% saying they are more motivated by a high starting salary.

Concern about the consequences of generative AI has also risen. Nearly 80% of graduating students expect to use AI in the workplace, but 62% are at least slightly concerned about how these tools will affect job prospects, compared with 44% just two years ago.