• Chris Williams, ex-VP of HR at Microsoft, shares advice on how to bounce back from mistakes at work.
• He suggests employees take three steps: own it, fix it, and prevent it.
• Williams used these steps to fix a big mistake he made at Microsoft and was eventually promoted.

As the VP of HR at Microsoft, I saw a lot of people make mistakes. From simple math on their expense accounts to serious errors in judgment that required the local police to resolve. Also, much of what I learned about handling mistakes at work came from an enormous mistake I made years ago.

Everyone makes mistakes, but at work, it seems like they hit harder.

On the job, consequences often warrant more than simply, "Oops, my bad." Mistakes at work often cost a lot of money and might put jobs at risk — even your own. Here are the three steps you should take to help save your job or even career when you make an error at work: own it, fix it, and prevent it.

Own it

The first step to resolving an error at work is to take responsibility for the mistake. If you made the error, don't deflect, don't blame the computer, don't pretend it didn't happen. Own it.

Tell your boss as soon as possible before things spiral out of control.

For example, many years ago, I wrote the copy protection code for Foxpro, the database software that was eventually sold to Microsoft. I tested it on dozens of machines in every case I could find.

The very day we released a beta version, it froze the receptionist's computer — not just crashed it, but locked it up so the machine couldn't even boot. I quickly discovered it was my code that had caused it, and we had just sent that code to thousands of testers.

My code could've locked up dozens or hundreds of customer computers.

I realized my error wasn't that complex, so I immediately enlisted the help of all of my peers to discover the extent of the problem and potential fixes. My friend in shipping stopped the copies that had not been sent, and my colleague sent a message to every beta tester not to install the software. For some users, it was too late, so I quickly developed a tool to recover the frozen machines.

By the end of the day, I had a fix for the receptionist's machine that we could apply worldwide. We posted those steps as quickly as we could.

I survived the error with the help of my friends.

On the other hand, in very rare cases, the mistake is very serious, even potentially illegal. If you think what you've done exposes you or the company to legal liability, get some protection. It might be a good idea to consult a personal attorney right away.

Fix it

Often the best thing to do when you've made a mistake is to repair the damage. Correct the report and let everyone know it's been fixed. Clean up the mess on the shop floor. Make an adjustment entry to the inventory.

As a manager later in my career, I very much appreciated people who could say, "Hey, I broke this thing, but don't worry, I've already fixed it.

Whatever the mistake, a key part of owning the problem is fixing it. If the damage is out of your hands or beyond your abilities, at least understand and explain it as best you can. You are uniquely positioned to know how it got broken, that knowledge can go a long way to fixing the problem. So tell that part of the story too.

Also, it's never a good idea to fix things and hide them, pretending they didn't happen. Not only is that not true, but it has many negative effects. If your mistake is later discovered, the trust relationship you have with your boss is gone — maybe irreparably. Mistakes can be forgiven, but untrustworthiness is harder to repair.

There may have even been side consequences to your mistake that you didn't see, which could ripple far and wide. That glitch in the inventory could result in distrust of the inventory system overall and lead to far broader issues.

Prevent It

That leads us to the next step: stopping it from happening again.

As the person who made the error, you have a unique view of how similar mistakes can happen. You can provide insight into ways to prevent them.

In my case, I worked to ensure we had a broader selection of test machines and developed a new set of test cases for all our security code. I was probably the only one who understood the impact of my mistake and was the best one to implement changes.

Work with your manager to identify ways to prevent the error. Maybe it's as simple as a checklist. Perhaps more than one person needs to review it. Maybe there needs to be software or physical locks to prevent the possibility of the mistake again.

The one thing we all learn early on is to learn from our mistakes.

A mistake at work doesn't have to end your career

In my case, the error that I owned and fixed certainly didn't slow my career. Not long after, I was promoted to development manager for the company. I'm sure my transparency and ownership were part of the reasons I was trusted for that role.

When you make a mistake, the best way for the entire company to learn from it is for you to own the mistake, fix it, and work to prevent it from ever happening again.

Chris Williams is a former VP of HR at Microsoft. He's an executive-level advisor and consultant with more than 40 years of experience leading and building teams.

• Airline rewards programs have faced scrutiny over dynamic pricing and devaluation practices.
• Frequent flyers feel burned as airlines adjust rewards, and the DOT is investigating.
• Dynamic pricing can affect point values, leading some customers to prefer cashback over miles cards.

Sean Brown, 46, has logged close to 2 million miles on Delta, his preferred airline. But his loyalty is waning as dynamic pricing and devaluation practices have made their way to airline rewards programs and left some customers feeling burned.

"Unfortunately, there's been a pretty seismic shift in the industry," the healthcare IT executive said, adding, "That has really not sat well with me."

For years, some customers have forgone cheaper or more convenient flights from other airlines so they could earn points and perks with their preferred brand. Frequent flyers would get rewarded for their loyalty with predictable exchange rates to turn points into more flights, seat upgrades, and lounge access, among other perks.

But as air travel ramped up and more and more customers got in on the points grind airlines have gotten much more flexible about how they value rewards, offering some for cheaper and some for much more.

It's caused some previously loyal customers to jump ship — and even Washington is stepping in. In September, the Department of Transportation announced it was investigating major airlines' reward devaluation and dynamic pricing practices.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg told BI he wants to understand the effect that these programs have on competition, and whether they're dissuading customers from getting the best price.

"One of the biggest concerns is devaluation. So the points are worth something one day and something else," Buttigieg said. "Another is some of the hidden pricing where the value of rewards is unpredictable or is concealed."

For Brown, the calculus has already shifted from spending on his preferred airline to whatever gives him the best value.

"I'll just tell you, the sentiment in the plane — doesn't matter where you sit if you're in the front, the middle, or the back," Brown said, "everyone is pretty pissed off at the fact that they're getting gouged left and right."

How points changed

Concern with how airlines calculate, redeem, and communicate about rewards points has reached Capitol Hill.

In May, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra and Buttigieg held a joint hearing on airline and credit card rewards. They wanted to investigate how credit companies might be devaluing their rewards or using what the CFPB called a "bait-and-switch scam" to lure in customers.

"Our initial review of the fine print suggests that credit card companies and airlines have the power to quickly and dramatically devalue those points by making it more challenging to redeem them or by limiting the inventory that can be purchased with points," Chopra said in prepared remarks.

Buttigieg said he's not interested in telling airlines or credit cards how to run their programs — instead, he just wants to ensure that they're transparent, consistent, and fair. He's also trying to figure out how to put his points to use: He and his husband want to use points toward a family trip after his job with the Biden administration winds down.

But his points may not hold the same value as they used to. Brett House, a professor of economics at Columbia Business School, said that airlines "have progressively rejigged their frequent flyer programs to require higher and higher bars to get access to clubs and other amenities or privileges that those programs provide."

It's a confluence of several different factors. First, to attract more customers after the 2020 slump, credit card companies issued all kinds of new perks and ways to earn points, such as higher sign-up bonuses or more points on things like restaurants and food delivery. On average, sign-up bonuses were worth $326 in 2022 — a nearly 20% increase in value since 2019, the CFPB found.

In response, customers hoarded those points, using their balances as a savings account for future travel. The CFPB found that by 2022, cardholders had an average of $156 worth of untouched rewards.

But with appetites for flights high in the wake of the pandemic, Gilbert Ott, the director of partnerships at the travel platform point.me, said there was a "logjam" — due in part to airlines struggling to scale back up again.

"When flights were coming back, they were completely full," he said. That made it a tough sell to convince airlines to make more point seats available, Ott said. To sell a seat for points, rather than cash, it really needed to be worth their while.

Enter: Dynamic pricing.

Airlines have long used fluctuating pricing strategies, but applying them to points and rewards is more recent. The practice has spread to other industries to help companies continually adjust to the highest price customers are willing to pay based on various factors like timing and demand.

American Airlines told BI that dynamic pricing allows them to offer some flights at lower rates. It does seem to work that way sometimes: As The Wall Street Journal reported, the lowest award flight cost on the carrier dropped after it rolled out dynamic pricing.

Delta, Southwest, and American all noted that they offer no blackout dates for rewards. Southwest said that it will continue to offer "uncapped reward seat availability and points that don't expire." A Delta spokesperson said that members can redeem points for things beyond vacation and flights, including premium drinks in its Sky Clubs, cheaper seat upgrades, and checked bags.

All of this adds up to a lot of guesswork in the points game. As Buttigieg notes, airlines used to provide charts showing just how much a flight would cost in points.

"I do think it's an interesting question to consider: Should there be some publicly sponsored source of information that at least tells you what you can expect from the airlines?" Buttigieg said. "But honestly, right now, it's so complex and convoluted, I'm not even sure such a thing is possible."

American told BI that it's "the only major U.S. carrier to continue offering an award chart to help guide members in mileage redemptions," and a search of other airlines did not turn up results for any others.

United reportedly got rid of its chart in 2019, and Delta reportedly pulled their chart even earlier. A United spokesperson said that since it moved to dynamic pricing in 2017, roughly half of its customers have gotten flights "for fewer points than our fixed award chart offered."

A rollercoaster of rewards' values

Thanks to dynamic pricing, depending on demand or timing, a flight might cost 500,000 points on some days and 50,000 on others. By one measure, the average economy rewards prices across almost every airline have risen since 2019.

An analysis from IdeaWorks found that, on average, mileage and point prices have risen by 28% since 2019. But there are still deals to be found. Ott's point.me compares points' values across different airlines and rewards programs. Dynamic pricing, he said, has brought some redemption costs down.

"There are some airlines that charge far less now in economy and just a little bit more in business," Ott said. "But because of the dynamic pricing, you have dates that are 500,000 points and a million points — because there's a seat now available with points on every flight, and there's only some dates where the lowest prices are available. "

For Meir Statman, a professor of finance at Santa Clara University and author of a book on financial behavior, the points game is getting "entirely iffy" and he has moved away from miles cards entirely — instead, he wants cash back.

He's not alone. While airline credit card rewards remain popular, cashback rewards have become the leading motivator for consumers to open new credit cards, per a report from EMARKETER.

J.D. Power's 2024 US Credit Card Satisfaction Study found that most cardholders are using cashback cards — consumers said that they were opting for the cards due to their lack of fees and were using the cashback rewards more frequently as a credit on their monthly statement.

"People figure out that those points for miles are not worth it, Statman told BI, adding, "When I'm getting a thousand miles and I thought that it was worth a cent per mile and now I find that this is worth, God knows what, but surely less than a cent per mile, I may as well get 1% in the form of a dollar than in the form of a mile."

Are you giving up on points or loyalty rewards? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Prosecutors accused luxury real-estate agents Oren and Tal Alexander of sex trafficking this month.
• They are the latest in a series of top figures in real estate accused of sexual abuse or harassment.
• Some in the industry say its structure, partying, and cult of personality are all partly to blame.

The Alexander brothers, luxury brokers who New York prosecutors accused of sex trafficking this month, are the latest in a series of top figures in real estate accused of sexual abuse or harassment.

The brothers, Oren and Tal, have denied the allegations.

Still, the accusations have made some in the industry — which is dominated by women but mostly led by men — reflect on its permissive, decentralized culture that parties hard and, too often, multiple people told Business Insider, puts women into uncomfortable or dangerous situations.

While it's far from a mass reckoning like Hollywood's #MeToo movement, the series of accusations against major real estate players over the past year and a half has prompted some in the industry to look inward and consider whether its traditional practices and lack of uniform safety precautions may have contributed.

Sue Yannaccone, the president and CEO of Anywhere Real Estate Inc., which owns multiple real-estate-brokerage chains, including Century21, Coldwell Banker, and Corcoran, told Business Insider that real estate has more to do to address some of these issues.

"Real estate is not unlike other industries that have had to, unfortunately, reckon with a pattern of discrimination and harassment of women," Yannaccone said. "Holding offenders accountable is an important and effective step in our progress, and there is still more work to be done across all sectors to ensure women can always thrive in safe, supportive, and equitable work environments."

The lax structure and low barrier to entry in real estate often mean careers are built largely on an individual agent's personality and charisma. It can also create opportunities for bad behavior to go unchecked, said Brian Boero, the cofounder of 1000watt, a real-estate branding and marketing company.

With over 1.5 million agents or brokers in the United States, it's similar to "the Wild West," he said. He added that many of them operate as independent contractors, acting as free agents.

"You have really good people, and you have really bad people. It's hard to paint this industry as a whole with a broad brush," Boero said. "The employee relationship does not exist, and people can, more or less, do whatever they want with very little supervision."

A series of accusations

Oren and Tal Alexander first rose to prominence as real-estate agents at Douglas Elliman before splitting off to found their own brokerage, Official Partners.

The Alexander Team, as they were commonly known, sold over $260 million in real estate in New York in 2023, the real-estate industry trade publication The Real Deal reported.

The Alexanders "used their prominent positions in the industry to induce other women to attend events and parties" where they later sexually assaulted them, prosecutors said in an indictment earlier this month.

Prosecutors accused Oren, Tal, and a third brother Alon, who works at the family's security firm, of operating a sex-trafficking scheme in which the brothers — and others — victimized dozens of women dating back to 2010. The brothers obtained drugs to "surreptitiously" give the women and planned the assaults in advance, prosecutors said in the indictment.

Attorneys for the three brothers, whom police arrested in Florida earlier this month, did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. The twins denied the allegations when they were first reported.

James Cinque, a New York attorney representing the Alexander brothers, told BI in response to a story published before their arrest outlining four women's claims of assault and sexual misconduct that he and his colleagues had "asked them not to comment while these matters work their way through the legal system." Cinque added they're "comfortable that they will ultimately be vindicated."

Meanwhile, the success of eXp, an emerging real-estate brokerage that has a market cap of about $1.8 billion, has been overshadowed by complaints of sexual misconduct against some of its agents.

Five female eXp employees, in two separate lawsuits filed in 2023, accused agents Michael Bjorkman and David Golden of drugging them at work-related events. Four of the women said they were also sexually assaulted, according to the lawsuits. The New York Times first reported the cases against Bjorkman and Golden.

Richard Schonfeld, an attorney representing Bjorkman, told BI that the lawsuits are "one side of the story." Peter Levine, a lawyer for Golden, didn't return requests for comment from BI but told the Times the charges against Golden were "baseless and without merit." Trial dates for both cases are set for 2025.

Representatives for eXp, who didn't return requests for comment from BI, emailed a statement to the Times, highlighting the industry's decentralized nature.

"The claims in this case stem from alleged assaults by independent real estate agents who were never eXp employees — which we handled with speed, seriousness, and deep respect as soon as the accusers brought it to our attention, in line with our values and with the law," it read.

The National Association of Realtors, the largest trade association for real-estate agents in the United States with more than 1.5 million members, is also facing troubling allegations.

One of the most notable involves Kenny Parcell, a Utah real-estate agent and former NAR president who resigned in August 2023 after The New York Times published an exposé detailing multiple accusations against him and the organization.

The Times' report was based on interviews with 29 current and former employees from NAR and its affiliates who said Parcell and other NAR and affiliated company leaders repeatedly engaged in abusive and inappropriate behavior, often without facing consequences.

In June 2023, Janelle Brevard filed a lawsuit against NAR, accusing the organization of sexual harassment, retaliation, and racial discrimination. In the lawsuit, Brevard, a Black woman, said she was fired from her role in podcasts, video, and marketing after ending a consensual relationship with Parcell.

Brevard ultimately withdrew her lawsuit after entering into an agreement with the organization, the Times reported. Brevard did not respond to repeated requests for comment from BI, and her attorney declined to comment.

"The allegations are not true," Parcell said in a four-page statement in 2023. "Nothing has changed" since then, he wrote in an email to Bl on December 23. "My resignation from NAR was in no way an admission of guilt — it was a good faith effort to put NAR and its members first," he said.

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for NAR said the organization's "new leadership has undertaken a comprehensive review of our policies and procedures and continues to work every day to help NAR employees feel respected and supported."

Parties, star-agent culture, and a long road ahead

The real-estate industry can feel unsafe at times, especially for women, as the job has inherent risks. Agents are commonly expected to meet with clients, who might be strangers, alone at homes that could be secluded or lack cell reception.

In a NAR survey of 1,423 licensed real-estate agents this year, women agents were twice as likely as men to report experiencing a situation at work that made them fear for their safety, and 54% of women carried a weapon or self-defense tool compared to 47% of men.

Still, Boero said the industry's internal culture — its hard-partying traditions and the "cult of the superstar" — also presented problems.

"The Alexander brothers were like that: high-profile, flashy, wealthy, did a ton of business. We tend to elevate, emulate, and worship those types of figures in this business. And they're not always men, but they frequently are," he said. "There is this cult of the top producer in the business that, I think, has maybe obscured bad behavior over the years."

Parties are also a central, sometimes problematic, component of real-estate culture. In an industry where success is often tied to how connected you are, brokers often frequent social events to meet and mingle with other brokers, current clients, and prospective clients.

"Parties and awards and all of that stuff is very big in this business, which means there's a lot of partying and drinking, sometimes at scale," Boero said, "which, again, sometimes creates the conditions within which bad people can do bad things."

Brooke Cohen, one of the attorneys representing all five plaintiffs in the eXp cases, told BI that socializing is often essential in real estate as an opportunity for making deals, networking, and advancing your career.

That means women can find themselves in uncomfortable environments. "It's important that in this industry some parameters are put in place," Cohen said. "We really would like it to be better for people who have to attend these events to do business."

Yannaccone said women's prevalence in the industry motivated her to create What Moves Her, a program that supports women in real-estate leadership.

"Our work is just one piece of a larger effort toward progress that includes not just the many brave voices of female agents and leaders, but many of our male counterparts as well," she said. "It's our hope that through our collective effort, we can help create an industry that truly operates on shared values of integrity, accountability, and good governance."

• France sent dozens of tank-killing armored vehicles to Ukraine to counter Russia's invasion.
• The vehicles were designed for recon and fire support but were ineffective on Ukraine's front lines.
• Instead, Ukraine repurposed the so-called "light tanks" as self-propelled artillery.

France is among several Western nations aiding Ukraine with both training and weaponry in a bid to turn the tide in its nearly three-year-long war with Russia.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, France has delivered military equipment and weaponry valuing more than 2.6 billion euros, in addition to training nearly 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers, according to the country's defense ministry.

Over the last few months, a French military task force trained a brigade of Ukrainian troops on effective fighting tactics and how to use French-supplied military weaponry, including the tank-destroying AMX-10 armored vehicle.

French and Ukrainian officials have referred to the AMX-10 as a "light tank," but it lacks the large-caliber armament and tracks typically equipped on tanks. Its light aluminum armor left it vulnerable to Russian artillery.

Better described as an armored reconnaissance vehicle, Ukraine initially struggled to effectively use the AMX-10 in its frontline defenses, instead adapting the vehicle's operations to the Ukrainian battlefield.

• I had the rare opportunity to fly in a historic jet trainer ahead of the Pacific Airshow in October.
• The T-33 Shooting Star was used to train US Air Force pilots on jet aircraft until the early 1960s.
• The flight was an unforgettable glimpse into aviation history as modern fighters rule the skies.

Strapped in the rear seat of the T-33's cockpit, I triple-checked the buckles and straps securing me. The clear bubble canopy sealed shut with a click, shutting out the aircraft's engine roar.

As someone who has solely flown on commercial airliners and once on a puddle jumper in Alaska, I didn't know what to expect until the jet's mounting speed on the runway pressed me back into my seat. The rush of adrenaline pulled my focus away from the sensation of the wheels leaving the ground as the world below transformed into a patchwork of shrinking buildings and roads.

As the sunset painted wispy clouds in a red-orange glow, I felt transported back to the Jet Age's earliest days, when competency at this aircraft's stick and analog controls was a make-or-break for US Air Force trainees.

Developed by Lockheed Corporation, the T-33 Shooting Star was a subsonic jet trainer designed to transition Air Force pilots from propeller-driven aircraft to the emerging era of jet propulsion in the late 1940s.

But the hourlong flight in the run-up to the Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach, California, taught me to appreciate the iconic aircraft that paved the way for the cutting-edge jets that dominate today's skies.

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Virginia's top legislative Democrat sounded an alarm over President-elect Trump's Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) plan to tell a portion of the federal workforce "you're fired" for efficiency's sake.

The state Senate's top Republican responded Thursday by saying the majority party is "asking the wrong question."

Earlier this week, House Speaker Don Scott Jr. wrote a letter to the commonwealth's unemployment agency warning of the fallout from such a plan and a potential uptick in unemployment claims.

"We should all be concerned about what these changes mean for the employees raising their families in Virginia, paying taxes in Virginia and calling Virginia home," Scott wrote to Virginia Employment Commissioner Demetrios Melis in a letter reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

TOP DOGE SENATOR DEMANDS LAME-DUCK BIDEN AGENCIES HALT COSTLY TELEWORK, CITING VOTER MANDATE

"Taking President-elect Trump at his word that he will immediately move to downsize the workforce and relocate agencies, we can safely assume that a large portion of our workforce that resides in the commonwealth will be negatively affected," added Scott, D-Portsmouth.

Scott reportedly said he believes Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads area he represents would be hardest-hit.

"I have concerns that, in the coming months, not only will our nation experience a mass increase in unemployment due to the proposed changes to our government. But, more importantly, those changes will have a detrimental effect on Virginians, our commonwealth’s unemployment rate and our economy overall," he told the Times-Dispatch.

However, Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-New Kent, said the concept of DOGE addresses a greater concern for Virginians and U.S. taxpayers when it comes to fiscally responsible governance.

"That's the wrong question," McDougle said in an interview Thursday.

YOUNGKIN ‘PERSONALLY INVITES’ NEW TRUMP ADMIN TO SETTLE IN VA OVER MD, DC

"The question should be whether we are taking dollars that Virginians are earning and paying to the federal government and whether they are being spent wisely.

"If the federal government is paying people to do jobs they shouldn't be doing, then that's spending taxpayer dollars unwisely."

Trump's DOGE co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy, previously told Fox Business, "We expect mass reductions … [and] certain agencies to be deleted outright." 

Ramaswamy's counterpart, Elon Musk, has expressed similar sentiments, including a tweet stating, "Delete CFPB," a reference to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Additionally, Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican seen as the top DOGE lawmaker in the upper chamber, is spearheading a bill to relocate about one-third of federal workers outside the District of Columbia-Maryland-Virginia area. The legislation proposed by Ernst has a lengthy acronym, the DRAIN THE SWAMP Act.

Ernst also demanded answers from Biden agency heads about work-from-home policies their staffs enjoy.

In his remarks Thursday, McDougle added that if Democrats were so concerned about the subject, they should have balked at plans to funnel Virginia taxpayer funds to the Washington-area Metro system to "subsidize" the lack of ridership from telework policies criticized by Ernst.

"I didn't feel our Democratic friends were as concerned with the millions of dollars going to fund Metro amid [federal workers not being required to] go into the office and having to subsidize them," McDougle said.

Virginia's 2024 budget included about $144 million in Metro funding. Metro CEO Randy Clarke said in June the transit agency found an additional $50 million in efficiencies for its nearly $5 billion budget, according to multiple reports.

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Earlier this month, a top Democrat on the state House Labor Committee, said she was "very disappointed" with a response from representatives for Gov. Glenn Youngkin when she voiced concerns about potential federal workforce cuts.

State Delegate Candi Mundon King, D-Dumfries, noted in November that thousands of federal workers live in the state and in her district and called DOGE's plan "disastrous" after the Virginia Republican Party touted the "streamlin[ing of] government bureaucracy" as "good for all Americans, including Virginians."

Mundon King's district sits in the Washington exurb of Prince William County, which, for many years, was led by high-profile conservative Corey Stewart but has recently swung heavily Democratic.

"No wonder Northern Virginia has lost faith in Virginia Republicans," Mundon King said.

Youngkin, a successful business executive before entering politics, previously said anyone who leaves the private sector to work in government will immediately recognize it needs drastic adjustments.

"Whether it's me coming into state government in Virginia or President Trump coming back into the federal government, [we] know it is inefficient. It does not work with the same efficiency you would expect out of a business," he told The Daily Progress of Charlottesville.

Government efficiency plans "may result in some job losses for the federal government. … The great thing about the Commonwealth of Virginia is we have nearly 300,000 jobs that are unfilled," he added.

Melis similarly told Scott Virginia is "well prepared" to adapt to changes in employment figures and reassured Mundon King earlier this month that some of the concerns voiced were premature, according to The Roanoke Times.

Youngkin earlier this month invited workers in Trump's incoming administration to choose Virginia as their place of residence over Maryland or the District of Columbia, citing, in part, lower taxes and better-ranked schools.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said Virginia's economy was "stagnant" and the unemployment system "in shambles" when the Republican took office after eight years of Democratic governorship.

"Commonsense policies to lower the cost of living and bring real business-like efficiency to government have helped fix both," Martinez said.

"The governor appreciates Speaker Scott’s recent commitments to support further tax relief, which, along with a roaring economy and over 300,000 open jobs, means Virginia is in a great position as the president works to shrink the bloated federal government."

• There were some great TV shows in 2024, but only 15 earned a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
• The list includes a British spy series, a docuseries about Simone Biles, and a crime drama.
• Here are the shows that got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes in 2024.

2024 has been a solid year for television as shows like "House of the Dragon," "Fallout," and "Baby Reindeer" got audiences talking.

But while those three, in particular, were very successful, they didn't receive the hallowed 100% rating on the reviews aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. ("Baby Reindeer" got 99%)

Instead, the list of perfect scorers includes a British Apple TV+ show about hapless MI5 spies, an animated series based on "League of Legends," and a crime drama based on books by Michael Connelly.

Here are all the shows that received a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Note: All scores were current on the date of publication.

Levels of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, were found to be high in more than half of U.S. states' wastewater.

President-elect Donald Trump will soon inherit an array of conflicts in Asia, Africa, Europe and even North America.

The American population will continue to age and grow slowly, several experts have told Newsweek.

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