When Laurie Schive and her husband opened Blue Loon Bakery in a small New England town in 2018, she didn't expect hiring and keeping workers would present much of a challenge.

After all, earlier in her career, Schive darted around dozens of countries as a clandestine service officer for the CIA, focusing on limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. She later served as a director of global risk consulting at a Big Four firm.

Nonetheless, finding people to bake the European-style viennoiserie and sourdough breads she'd grown to love living abroad wasn't easy, Schive told Business Insider.

Harder yet was getting them to stay, she said.

Hiring in the restaurant business has rarely been straightforward. Now, to attract and retain staffers, some employers say it's necessary to take a kitchen-sink approach: deploying various benefits, training, technology, and added flexibility in scheduling.

An all-of-the-above strategy is often necessary because labor shortages remain a perennial challenge in the restaurant and food service industry, which is estimated to employ about one in 10 US workers. The National Restaurant Association projects that the industry will add 200,000 jobs in the US in 2025, boosting employment to 15.9 million by year-end.

At so-called quick-service restaurants, many workers don't last a year or even six months, David Henkes, a senior principal at the market research firm Technomic, told BI.

"When you talk to restaurants about what they're doing, a lot of it just involves trying to stem the flow," he said, referring to the succession of hires and quits. That's because people often view restaurant work not as a career but as an "entry-level stepping stone," Henkes said.

For that reason, and because industry profit margins often hover around a scant 3% to 5%, it can be tough to persuade bosses to invest in workers who might not even last an entire burrito season. Yet, Henkes said, restaurants are increasingly putting money into hourly workers by offering "carrots" like partial college tuition, scholarships, and 401(k) plans.

These measures, Henkes said, "show that the restaurant is investing in the person." That, in turn, can pay off by reducing the share of workers who hand in their aprons well before making it a year in the job.

Finding a career, not just a job

The burrito chain Chipotle's turnover among hourly restaurant workers — crew and managers — dropped from 164% in 2022 to 145% in 2023 and then to 131% in 2024, the company told BI. Turnover above 100% means that the business, like many of its peers, has to replace more workers in a year than it employs at one time.

Salaried restaurant managers and field staff have also been leaving the Newport Beach, California-headquartered company at lower rates in recent years.

These are decreases that Lois Alexis-Collins, Chipotle's chief people officer for field operations, attributes in part to the company's efforts to show workers that there are ways to progress in a career rather than just hold down a job.

That growth could mean going from burrito slinger to regional vice president, which involves overseeing as many as 500 locations. Compensation for those management jobs tops $600,000 annually, the company said. Alexis-Collins said part of the messaging to newbies includes being clear about what it takes to get ahead.

"You're not guessing," she said. More than 85% of Chipotle managers started on store crews, Alexis-Collins said.

The company offers quarterly bonuses of a week's pay to crew members whose restaurants do well, up to $5,250 a year for education, and a debt-free degree program.

Still, most of its restaurant workers "come in wanting a job," she said.

Alexis-Collins said Chipotle has tried to make improvements, especially at the general manager level, because they are "the captain of the ship."

One effort involves an artificial intelligence platform that chats with job candidates, collects their information, schedules interviews, and sends offer letters on a manager's behalf. Chipotle thinks the tool, called Ava Cado, could cut the time it takes to hire restaurant workers by as much as 75%. That's a help to management.

"The more stable the restaurant leader is, the better retention for the crew team," Alexis-Collins said.

Chad Moutray, the National Restaurant Association's chief economist, likewise told BI that having the right manager in place matters not only for the bottom line but also for "making sure that your workers are sticking around."

He said a lot of food service workers tend to get jobs at places where they already eat. That creates a level of buy-in from the start, Moutray said. Yet, for employees to stay, they also need to feel appreciated, have colleagues they like working with, and have managers who lay out what's expected, he said.

Getting tech to do some gruntwork

Henkes, from Technomic, said more restaurants are making "a big push" to increase job satisfaction by using technology to take some menial tasks off workers' plates. That can include adding kiosks where customers place orders or introducing automation to the back-of-house areas where food gets prepped.

Henkes said that while a lot of the investments that restaurants are making in technology relate to labor, the goal generally isn't to replace workers. Instead, he said, it's to do things like automate taking inventory to free up workers to interact with customers.

"What it's doing is redeploying them to higher-value activities," Henkes said, referring to technology.

He said software that juggles workers' shift requests can give employees more predictability and flexibility in their schedules. That's important for boosting job satisfaction, but it also helps restaurant workers who hold down more than one job.

"It has become a very scientific approach to making sure that people are scheduled when they want to be and that shifts are covered," Henkes said.

Boosting pay and benefits

Schive, at Blue Loon Bakery, said that while labor is the cost that she has the most control over, corralling employees is the hardest thing about running the business.

"You recruit them, you train them, and then you have to retain them," she said.

Schive uses a calculator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to determine a living wage for full-time workers at her New London, New Hampshire, bakery, which occupies a white clapboard house built in the 1830s and an attached barn.

As the pandemic began to subside and workers in many industries stepped up their job-hopping, Schive and her co-owner and husband, Mike Morgan, decided they needed to boost pay and other benefits, especially for full-time workers.

Blue Loon covers 75% of full-time workers' healthcare premiums and offers a retirement account with a 3% match.

Recently, the bakery added six weeks of paid family medical leave for part-time and full-time workers.

"I don't know that it really contributed a large part to our recruiting effort, but it helps," Schive said.

She and her husband have worked with real estate agents to try to find workers a place to live in a tight housing market. The couple also let an employee use a small cottage on their property while she looked for a home.

Schive, who is the chair of the Bread Bakers Guild of America, said other bakeries and restaurants had taken similar steps to help workers secure housing because a dearth of affordable options can be a barrier to attracting employees.

Blue Loon now has more than two dozen staffers in place for the busy summer tourist season — about double what it has in winter.

The goal now is to keep them. That includes the overnight baker Schive hired after pandemic lockdowns temporarily closed a nearby college where he had been working.

"I'm holding onto him like grim death," she said, "because he's wonderful."

• Trump's tariffs have made the jobs of global trade professionals even more complicated.
• It's an industry that was already known for its complexity.
• One advisor even started a support group for fellow "trade nerds" navigating the uncertainty.

Derek Lossing, a global supply chain and transportation advisor, was recently invited to speak at an investor conference for a large bank.

The invitation came at somewhat short notice: He agreed to the engagement on a Friday, and it took place virtually the following Tuesday.

But despite the bank only having the weekend to promote it, about 300 analysts showed up to hear him speak, a far cry from the usual dozen or so investors who typically show up to this kind of event, Lossing told Business Insider.

They were eager to gain any insight they could into how the latest executive orders on trade issues, such as tariffs and the end of de minimis, could impact businesses and the economy at large.

"I think people are just lacking information," he said. "Things are so fluid right now."

All of the uncertainty is making global trade experts very busy — and maybe a little stressed.

Cindy Allen is the CEO of consulting firm Trade Force Multiplier, which advises companies on global trade issues like tariffs and the end of de minimis. She has 35 years of experience in trade, mostly as a customs broker and freight forwarder. She also held leadership roles in data automation at US Customs and Border Protection and in compliance at FedEx Logistics.

Allen described the current trade environment as "unprecedented." The closest comparison she could think of was the COVID pandemic, but she said that was more a transportation and availability issue, while the problems created by tariffs are more financial in nature.

Working in this industry means having in-depth knowledge of complex regulations. Becoming a certified customs broker, for example, requires passing an extremely complicated test that most people fail.

"It was complicated already assessing duties, determining what regulations apply to products," Allen said. "But now with all of the additional tariffs, it has become extremely complex."

A support group for 'trade nerds'

Paul Diedrich is a director of customs brokerage and trade services at freight forwarder Ardent Global Logistics. As a trade compliance professional, his job is to help Ardent's customers navigate the latest customs regulations and ensure they are importing in a compliant manner.

He said that he worked 12-hour days, plus weekends, in the weeks following "Liberation Day," providing guidance and answering questions for small and medium-sized business owners who were worried about the impact the tariffs would have on their bottom line.

"It really wasn't the physical act of importing a shipment on behalf of one of my customers," Diedrich said. "It was just talking them down off ledges, in some cases."

"When you had a container that yesterday, or prior to all of these tariffs, would've been $3,000 to $5,000 in duty, and now it's $54,000 in duty — for a small company, that's a big hit, and not many companies can take that kind of a cash hit all at once," he said.

Diedrich decided to start a "Tariff Turmoil Support Group" for "trade nerds" navigating the uncertainty. He hosted the first meeting at the end of March and a second in April.

"More chaos yesterday with a softening of the language around the China tariffs putting more pressure on myself and my fellow brokers. I hope everyone repolished those crystal balls," Diedrich said in a LinkedIn post promoting the first meeting of the group. "We are judgement free, politics free, and open to any broker, importer or compliance professional beaten up over these last few weeks."

One area of frustration for people joining Diedrich's support group is how difficult it has become to interpret executive orders that often lack the specific details they need to do their jobs effectively.

"It's leading folks in my industry to come up with contradictory opinions" on things like what a duty on a particular import might be, and whether an exemption might be available, Diedrich said. "Honestly, you can look at both opinions and look at the order and say, 'Okay, I can see where you're coming from.'"

'I'm usually there with a glass of wine, waiting'

Keeping up with the latest executive orders and interpreting them for clients is a time-consuming part of the job.

"The first place you've got to check is the White House website for executive orders," Allen said. "5 p.m. on Friday seems to be the preferred time to drop major trade issues, so I'm usually there with a glass of wine, waiting."

She added that trade publications and associations, such as the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association, are invaluable sources of information.

But staying up to date also means monitoring social media, including Trump's posts — or "truths" — on Truth Social.

"The work to stay current right now is a very different type of work than what historically has made consulting firms good at what they do," Lossing said. "Historically, it was unbundling historical trade data, but now it's catching the luncheon interviews that the treasury secretary had in DC this afternoon and monitoring his comments."

That makes it difficult for trade experts to make firm recommendations as they have historically been able to. Lossing said he has instead presented his clients with data points and "scenario modeling" they can consider when making decisions.

"We could be 30 seconds away from the next 'truth,' and everything we thought to be true could be different with China," Lossing said. "Usually when you're helping clients with some sort of strategy, it doesn't change on a day-to-day basis."

However, being at the center of a national conversation could have some silver linings.

Allen said that for most of her 35-year career, most people, including her family, didn't really understand what she did for work. Trump's tariffs changed that.

"There's a greater appreciation for compliance professionals. The CEO now has their phone number and knows their name," Allen said. "Our industry has become much more valuable in the boardroom."

She said she hopes the attention will get more people interested in the field.

"Trade is only getting more complicated, and we need younger, newer people to come in with great ideas to help us modernize the process," she said.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at @mlstone.04. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• I love Temu, and so far, it's weathering the Trump tariff wars.
• I got my latest order just fine — with no extra fees — because Temu is shipping from US warehouses.
• But eventually, those warehouses are going to be empty. Then what happens? I asked experts.

If you haven't been following my Temu saga, let me catch you up: I (reluctantly, and with appropriate shame) love Temu! I was nervous after President Donald Trump ended the loophole that lets it ship me cheap junk from China. But then I got my latest order — with no problems, delays, or extra fees.

So does that mean my Temu habit is safe?

I talked to a couple of experts on world trade. They told me: Temu is probably safe for now, but over the long term, my relationship with Temu could come to a sad and screeching halt.

That's because right now, Temu is shipping everything that US customers buy from US warehouses. That means those orders — like my one last week for some children's birthday party favors — avoided the extra fees Trump slapped on orders coming from China.

But pretty soon, those US warehouses are going to run out of stuff. Then what happens? The experts I talked to said that's where things get tricky. Here are some potential outcomes:

• The US and China hammer out a trade agreement that lowers or ends tariffs, and Trump backpedals on his closing of the so-called de minimis loophole that allowed Temu — and Shein — to send stuff to the US directly from Chinese warehouses with no extra duties.
• Temu recruits companies to start storing millions of items in US warehouses to replenish the ones that will soon be empty.
• Temu somehow gets companies to make low-cost crap in countries aside from China that aren't subject to as high of tariffs. (So that squirt gun that used to be made outside Beijing might now be made outside Hanoi, Vietnam.)

Any of those things would be a huge change from how Temu does business now. It's a marketplace where sellers in China have warehouses full of stuff, and Temu is just the intermediary, acting as a showroom for those wares to American customers. After US customers fill up their baskets, the sellers send orders directly from their warehouses to the US — exploiting the de minimis loophole that eliminates duties for packages sent directly to customers that have a value under $800. (That's the loophole Trump closed.)

So getting a whole new army of sellers, this time in the US, would be a big lift. A Temu spokesperson said that's exactly what the company is doing — "actively recruiting US sellers to join the platform."

"The move is designed to help local merchants reach more customers and grow their businesses," the spokesperson told Business Insider. It's not clear how the sellers would source the items they would sell. If they were made in China and imported for sale in the US, presumably, the seller would still have to pay a tariff — even if the end customer avoided the de minimis fee.

And besides, I'm not sure US-based sellers would be able to offer the same ultralow prices that Chinese sellers do. (If they can't, shoppers like me might just head to Amazon.)

Temu will eventually run out of stuff in the US

Willy C. Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School who focuses on global supply chains and manufacturing, estimated that Temu might have enough stock to last through the summer, or a little beyond. "I've talked to some people who have enough inventory to last until the holiday season," he said. "But then, eventually, they have to replenish."

Yannis Bakos, an assistant professor at NYU's Stern School of Business who focuses on e-commerce, said Temu and Shein would eventually run out of runway — if tariffs didn't change.

"While some strategies may offer short-term relief, the long-term sustainability of their US operations is questionable if the tariffs remain," Bakos said. "If they try to increase prices and move upmarket, it would be hard for them to compete with Amazon, so their likely best option would be to focus on increasing their growth into other markets, such as Europe."

Already, Temu and Shein in April sharply boosted their advertising in Europe, Reuters reported. It said local downloads there of the ultracheap shopping apps had risen but that growth was slow.

Is this Temu's new normal?

Still, Shih speculated there's one last tactic for Temu — and for those who love it, like me: Wait it out.

Eventually, the US and China will likely make some sort of trade deal, and the blisteringly high tariffs may ease up. Will this happen anytime soon? It could be a risky move putting too much hope into this basket after Trump said little girls might need to live with just two dolls instead of 30 this Christmas.

After all, he might actually believe Americans need to break their culture of consumption. (How much you take that at face value is up to you.)

As for me? I got my latest Temu order cheap and quick. And what is more American than being satisfied with "I got mine?" What happens next time … I'm not sure.

• Judge Beryl Howell, in a Friday ruling, blocked Donald Trump's executive order against Perkins Coie.
• Howell called Trump's efforts to target lawyers a "cringe-worthy" twist on Shakespearean villainy.
• Howell's ruling is the first decision fully blocking one of Trump's orders against Big Law firms.

US District Judge Beryl Howell, in a scathing Friday ruling, struck down President Donald Trump's executive order against Perkins Coie, declaring his effort to target the Big Law firm unconstitutional.

Howell's summary judgment decision fully blocks Executive Order 14230, titled "Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP," from taking effect. It is the first such decision in the myriad legal challenges to Trump's orders targeting various Big Law firms.

The federal government can appeal the decision, in which case the proceedings will be heard in the court of appeals. Any subsequent appeal would be heard by the Supreme Court.

A spokesperson for Perkins Coie told Business Insider in a statement that the firm was pleased with the judge's ruling.

"This ruling affirms core constitutional freedoms all Americans hold dear, including free speech, due process, and the right to select counsel without the fear of retribution," the statement said. "As we move forward, we remain guided by the same commitments that first compelled us to bring this challenge: to protect our firm, safeguard the interests of our clients, and uphold the rule of law."

Cases involving other firms — including Jenner & Block and WilmerHale — have pending motions to dismiss and have been granted temporary restraining orders partially blocking the orders from being implemented.

'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers'

"No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers,'" Howell wrote regarding the order targeting Perkins Coie.

The phrase is a reference to "Henry VI," one of three historical plays published by Shakespeare following the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. It is uttered by the villainous character Dick the Butcher, a henchman for the rebel leader Jack Cade, as part of the pair's strategy to seize power from the government of King Henry VI.

"Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power," Howell continued in her ruling. "In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase 'Let's kill all the lawyers,' EO 14230 takes the approach of 'Let's kill the lawyers I don't like,' sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else."

An order 'contrary to the Constitution'

Howell, who was appointed to District of Columbia federal court in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama, wrote that Trump's order "stigmatizes and penalizes" the firm and its employees due to its representation of clients "pursuing claims and taking positions with which the current President disagrees, as well as the Firm's own speech."

"Using the powers of the federal government to target lawyers for their representation of clients and avowed progressive employment policies in an overt attempt to suppress and punish certain viewpoints, however, is contrary to the Constitution, which requires that the government respond to dissenting or unpopular speech or ideas with 'tolerance, not coercion,'" Howell wrote.

Trump's order against Perkins Coie described the firm's activity as "dangerous and dishonest," highlighting the firm's representation of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in her 2016 run against Trump.

The executive order, along with similar actions Trump has taken against other firms, revoked the security clearances of employees of the firm, barred the law firms' employees from interacting with federal agencies or even entering federal buildings, and ordered a review of their government contracts.

Fighting back

While Perkins Coie was among several firms that chose to fight Trump's executive order in court, other Big Law firms instead brokered deals with the administration to reverse the president's orders, and some made preemptive deals to avoid punitive executive actions against them.

The executive order targeting Paul Weiss was rescinded after the firm pledged $40 million in pro bono services to support causes identified by the Trump administration and promised to review its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in its hiring practices.

Skadden made a deal with Trump before it was singled out in any executive orders. The firm promised to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services "to causes that the President and Skadden both support," Trump announced on March 28.

Before the preemptive agreement was announced, Skadden associate Rachel Cohen publicly resigned and, in an open letter circulated among associates at top firms, urged her fellow legal associates to call out their employers for what she described as inaction in the face of the administration's attacks on the industry.

After the Skadden deal was announced, another employee, Brenna Frey, also resigned publicly in an announcement on LinkedIn.

Representatives for the White House and lawyers representing the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at byktl.50. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Donald Trump celebrated his first 100 days in office with a rally in Michigan.
• Immigration was a primary concern among attendees.
• I went to the rally and spoke with people about their impressions.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump marked his first 100 days in office — for the second time.

I attended the rally, which took place in Macomb County, Michigan, just north of Detroit. I arrived at about 4 p.m. ET, shortly before the doors of the venue, an expo center for trade shows, closed. Trump was scheduled to speak at 6 p.m.

When I arrived, the venue was about three-quarters full, which felt surprisingly sparse for a milestone like Trump's first 100 days.

Protesters lined up outside. By 5 p.m., it looked like thousands of people were carrying signs, megaphones, pride flags, and dozens of inverted American flags — a signal of distress.

There were also several vendors outside selling hats, shirts, and other MAGA merch.

"We did good," one vendor told me when I asked him how he thought Trump fared in his first 100 days.

The atmosphere inside was celebratory.

In many ways, the crowd was rallying around the downsizing of the federal government. But the White House DOGE office was far from the top issue among the 15 attendees I spoke with. Immigration stood out as the primary concern in more than half of my interviews.

A brick-patterned suit and Americana on full display

Blake Marnell, a 60-year-old from San Diego, was garnering attention from the press for his bright orange brick-patterned suit when I approached him.

"This is my suit to support the border wall," Marnell said. "It's always been one of his policies that I support the most."

He told me he was wearing a costume suit he bought "off the rack" in England and has been sporting it at political events since 2019. An online search shows that his suit has made him so recognizable that he's often referred to as "Brick Suit."

Marnell noted that US Customs and Border Protection said illegal border crossings were down 95%. The agency said it apprehended 7,181 immigrants crossing the southwest border between ports of entry in March, a 95% decrease from March 2024.

This was my first time attending any sort of Trump programming, but it was clear there was a loose dress code. MAGA hats were a must. Many people wore red. There was a full display of Americana — flag-patterned dresses, camo, denim bedazzled with rhinestones.

A 60-year-old woman who asked not to be named told me she thought Trump had "done very well first 100 days, especially when it comes to the border," she said.

"My parents came in the right way," she said, adding that they emigrated from the Netherlands to Rochester, New York. "They were actually sponsored by a family member," she said.

Some people appeared to have been at the rally simply for the spectacle of it all. Nina, a 26-year-old from Montenegro, told me she was visiting Michigan for her friend's wedding this weekend. Among the activities they had planned, including going to a concert, Nina said she thought it would be a "fun experience" to see the American president.

Trump arrives onstage

About 30 minutes before Trump was scheduled to speak, the event organizers asked for volunteers to move to a set of bleachers close to the stage. That way, when Trump arrived, he'd see a full arena, the organizers said.

As the crowd waited for Trump, I chatted with a 31-year-old. He told me that his parents came to the US from Iraq and that he was originally a Democrat. Trump's "marketing skills" won him over, he said.

By the time Trump arrived, a bit after 6 p.m., the venue was filled with thousands of people.

"This is the best, they say, 100-day start of any president in history," Trump said after he took the stage. "We've just gotten started."

He listed his achievements since he assumed office for the second time. Week after week, he said, the administration has been ending illegal immigration, taking back jobs, protecting the country's workers, restoring rule of law, ending the "inflation nightmare," eliminating "woke lunacy," stopping the "indoctrination" of children, and slashing billions in waste, fraud, and abuse.

Trump has signed a record 142 executive orders since he started his second term. They relate to issues such as immigration sanctions and contracts with top law firms.

The past 14 weeks have been a "revolution of common sense," he said.

Here's a quick rundown.

DOGE has pushed almost a quarter million federal workers out of their jobs, Politico said. And more cuts are yet to come, whether or not Elon Musk, Trump's advisor and DOGE champion, hangs around. The office claims on its website to have saved $160 billion, or close to $994 per taxpayer. But Musk said in a Cabinet meeting earlier this month that he expected the group would save just $150 billion by 2026.

Unemployment has risen slightly from 4% to 4.2% since Trump took office. The US added 228,000 jobs in March, exceeding the average monthly gain of 158,000 over the prior 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The consumer price index unexpectedly fell about 0.1% in March, according to the BLS. This marks its first drop since 2020. But supply chain experts and logistics researchers told Business Insider that Americans should expect significant disruptions in both the availability and the prices of products in the coming weeks in light of Trump's tariffs.

Tariffs have also roiled the stock market. The S&P 500 is down 10% from its February record highs. Economists are increasingly saying a recession is likely.

The tariffs are also forcing companies big and small to rethink their plans. Small-business owners told BI that tariffs were cutting into profit margins and forcing them to raise prices. Corporations have paused imports, sales, and the production of goods in facilities outside the US. Companies are laying off workers.

The full effects of the tariffs remain unclear as Trump negotiates with countries during a 90-day pause.

Trump has also dismantled federal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and told government agencies to "take strong action to end private sector DEI discrimination." He's ordered federal funding for the "promotion of gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology" to be cut from K-12 schools in the name of ending "radical indoctrination."

A focus on border security and immigration

In his speech, Trump commended his administration, saying it had curtailed migration at the southern border, alongside drug cartels and gangs.

"We've achieved the most secure border in American history," he said.

He later shouted out Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — photographed last month wearing a Rolex at a maximum-security prison holding Venezuelan migrants who the Trump administration says were involved with the Tren de Aragua gang — saying she was doing great work.

Despite attendees' focus on immigration, two people told me they were surprised — and a little disturbed — by the high-drama video of migrants being arrested and imprisoned that was played about 25 minutes into Trump's speech.

In total, Trump spent about an hour and a half onstage.

He resurfaced his usual schtick. Trump repeatedly took aim at the media. He asked the crowd whether Biden should be called "sleepy" or "crooked."

He also praised Musk, DOGE, and what he said was the firing of "unnecessary deep-state bureaucrats."

And for all the commotion around Trump's tariffs, four people I spoke with appeared relatively staid on the matter. Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that pared down some auto tariffs, though the 25% levy on imported cars is set to remain. Those tariffs are the most likely to affect Michigan voters.

One attendee, who said he was under 30 and declined to share his name, told me that the tariffs were just "a sign he's arrived." The 60-year-old woman who said her parents came from the Netherlands said Trump may need to better weigh which items need to be under tariffs.

For some of Trump's loyal supporters, if they had any complaints, it seemed to be about the miscommunication they said surrounded some of his policies.

"I'm still a supporter, but I'm a little disappointed in the way he's handled the communication that's going out to the American people around his policies," one 30-year-old told me. "Time will tell, as they say."

Donald Trump's executive order circumvents the International Seabed Authority's control of international waters. Mining companies are seizing the moment, while activists believe they'll pollute the ocean.

• A new executive order calls on the Justice Department to "unleash" police across the country.
• One provision calls for law firms to provide pro bono assistance to officers who get sued.
• It's not clear how much of the order is legally or practically possible.

The Trump administration will seek to enlist private sector law firms to defend police officers "unjustly" accused of wrongdoing.

In an executive order signed Monday, President Donald Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to help defend police officers named in civil rights lawsuits. According to the order, whatever system the Justice Department creates "shall include the use of private-sector pro bono assistance for such law enforcement officers."

The order does not explicitly direct any particular law firm to do anything. However, following previous executive orders targeting a number of elite firms, nine have agreed to deals with the president and collectively agreed to provide $940 million in pro bono legal services to support the president's priorities.

The effect of the order is unclear. Police officers who get sued are normally defended by their department or by their union.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Law firms that have struck deals with the administration have described them as a way of preventing or resolving allegations by Trump that could make their clients flighty and threaten the firms' bottom lines.

Critics of the deals — and four law firms that have sued Trump over them — call them unconstitutional. They have so far been successful at limiting their reach. One firm, Susman Godfrey, made the decision to fight the administration in just two hours, Business Insider previously reported.

The terms of the deals that Trump has posted on Truth Social generally give the firms an indefinite period to honor their obligations. The firms that have struck deals have also emphasized that they wouldn't have to take a client just because Trump said so.

In public statements and with Monday's executive order, Trump has suggested that law firms quickly get to work on helping his administration and its allies on all sorts of cases — from negotiating trade deals and coal leases to, now, representing police officers in lawsuits.

There are about 1.2 million police officers in the US employed by state and local governments, and over 136,000 who work for federal law enforcement agencies. They collectively face thousands of lawsuits and legal claims every year related to their work.

Though police sometimes pay their own legal defense costs, it's more common for their employers or unions to pay them. Judgments against police officers are almost always paid by someone else; officers themselves paid just 0.02% of the $735 million awarded to people who sued over constitutional violations and injuries, according to a 2020 study in the UCLA Law Review.

• Ray Dalio says the global order is "on the brink," in part due to Trump's tariff policies.
• Companies worldwide are already reducing US ties, preparing for long-term decoupling, he said.
• Dalio warns the US may be bypassed as nations form new alliances and trade routes around it.

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio is once again sounding the alarm: the international order is on the verge of breaking point, and President Donald Trump's aggressive use of tariffs is accelerating the unravelling of global trade and capital flows, according to the billionaire investor.

In a sweeping statement on Monday posted to X, the founder of Bridgewater, the world's largest hedge fund, issued a warning to those who think the impact of US tariffs can be mitigated.

"I am now hearing from a large and growing number of people who are having to deal with these issues that it is already too late," Dalio, who has made similarly bombastic assertions before, wrote.

In early April, Trump announced a series of steep tariffs on dozens of countries, including longtime allies, but then paused the highest duties for 90 days, keeping a 10% baseline rate in place for most countries, except the 145% tariffs on most imports from China.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended Trump's trade policies in an ABC News interview last Sunday, calling his back-and-forth tariff strategy a way to create "strategic uncertainty" and gain "leverage" in trade negotiations with world leaders.

But for Dalio, the impact is destabilizing rather than strategic.

"Many exporters to the United States and importers from other countries that trade with the US are saying they have to greatly reduce their dealings with the United States, recognizing that whatever happens with tariffs, these problems won't go away," Dalio said.

Dalio suggested this could cause a readjustment of global markets around the US, as they find trading alternatives.

He also returned to his long-term criticism of US's debt-fuelled consumption model and questioned its sustainability. "Assuming that one can sell and lend to the U.S. and get paid back with hard (i.e. not devalued) dollars on their U.S. debt holdings is naive thinking," he wrote.

Dalio warned, "We are on the brink of the monetary order, the domestic political and the international world orders breaking down due to unsustainable, bad fundamentals that can be easily seen and measured."

He couched this statement saying today's trajectory is the "contemporary version" of historical events that have led to major power shifts in the past. The argument aligns with his past theses on the historical cycles of world order, and supposedly that of his new book — which he references in the post on X.

In a LinkedIn post on Thursday, Dalio said he dreamed of US-China trade negotiations leading to a "beautiful rebalancing" — an idea he reiterated in his statement on X.

He wrote that investors and policy makers should turn away from reactive positions on daily market changes, and instead focus on planning for "big fundamental changes" to forge a better future.

Bridgewater Associates' three co-chief investors issued a similarly dramatic caution in their latest letter to clients which they included an excerpt of in their company newsletter late last week.

They warned a "new macroeconomic and geopolitical paradigm" was roiling markets and potentially reshaping the global economic status-quo.

• President Trump designated federal land near the US-Mexico border as part of an Army base.
• The controversial order allows US troops to detain migrants as trespassers.
• Federal law bars US military personnel from acting as law enforcement on US soil.

A narrow strip of federal land along the southwestern US border has been designated as part of an Army installation, potentially allowing troops to take on a more direct role as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on migrants.

President Donald Trump transferred control earlier this month to the US military, which lays the groundwork for soldiers to search and detain migrants as trespassers in the militarized border zone.

With thousands more US active-duty troops already deployed to the US-Mexico border, the new designation could sidestep federal laws restricting active-duty troops from directly acting as domestic law enforcement.

The move increases the likelihood they'll be responsible for apprehending migrants and detaining them in safe conditions — missions typically reserved for law enforcement agencies.

Creating a military buffer zone

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving the Department of Defense jurisdiction over the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot-wide stretch of federal land that runs through New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

The Department of the Interior previously maintained the nearly 110,000-acre swath of federal land before the "emergency withdrawal and transfer of administrative jurisdiction" on April 15. The order excludes the jurisdiction of "Federal Indian Reservations."

The Army requested the jurisdiction transfer to increase patrols by federal personnel and implement security measures and infrastructure to "curb illegal cross-border activities," like illegal immigration and drug and human trafficking, according to a DOI statement.

From federal lands to National Defense Areas

The April 11 order outlines a phased rollout, starting by testing the implementation of a controlled perimeter in a "limited sector of federal lands" in New Mexico.

For the next 45 days, soldiers will detect and patrol routes and apprehend trespassers in the area. They will also construct temporary barriers and install signs to indicate the boundaries of the military zone.

Following the initial assessment and the Army's acceptance of jurisdiction, the federal land will become a "national defense area," granting the Pentagon the authority to establish and enforce security measures around it.

The 170-square-mile stretch of land will be considered an extension of Fort Huachuca in Arizona — despite not being physically connected to all of it — and remain under control by the Army for three years, according to the DOI press release.

"Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats," Trump said in the memo. "The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past."

Extended military installation

While under the Army's control, the militarized zone, known as the "New Mexico National Defense Area," will be governed and defended like any other military base, allowing US troops to search and temporarily detain trespassers before appropriate civilian or federal law enforcement officials take over.

Military personnel will also work alongside US Customs and Border Patrol agents at the southern border "to repel unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, and other cross-border criminal activities," per a Pentagon press release.

Bypassing the Posse Comitatus Act

Though thousands of military personnel have already been deployed to the southern border, the Posse Comitatus Act bars active-duty troops and federalized National Guardsmen from acting as domestic law enforcement.

The US military could be authorized to enforce civil or criminal law on US soil through the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides a statutory exception to the PCA in specific circumstances of civil disorder or armed rebellion. To enact it to stop migrants, however, would be an extraordinary use of the federal law.

Since Border Patrol agents and civilian law enforcement are only allowed to apprehend migrants, the vast majority of troops deployed to the border have been tasked with "enhanced detection and monitoring," Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of the US Northern Command, said.

Some personnel "operating in close proximity to the border" have been armed with rifles or pistols, Guillot said. Military officials have sought authorization for troops to shoot down suspected cartel drones surveilling the border.

Militarizing the southern US border

Thousands of active-duty troops aren't the only military assets the Trump administration is using to ramp up its crackdown.

Two US Navy warships, several military aircraft, and over 100 combat vehicles have been deployed to support the Pentagon's southern border operation.

On April 1, Defense Department officials estimated the cost of militarization at the US-Mexico border since January 20 at roughly $376 million, or about $5.3 million per day.

'Environmental crisis'

Traditionally seen as a steward protecting public federal lands, the DOI emphasized the "environmental crisis" at the border — not caused by the accelerated military build-up or deferred mitigation efforts, but by the migrants themselves.

The department said "repeated foot traffic, unregulated vehicle use, and the creation of informal trails or camps" cause harm to "ecologically sensitive areas along the southern border."

"Securing our border and protecting our nation's resources go hand in hand," Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said during a visit to New Mexico. "This transfer reflects Interior's commitment to public safety, national security, and responsible stewardship of our public lands."

• Kin is an Idaho prix fixe restaurant with a work culture rooted in collaboration and equality.
• The business, owned by Kris Komori and Remi McManus, offers salaries to all full-time staff.
• This article is part of "Made to Order," a series highlighting the business strategies driving today's food industry.

At Kin's prix fixe restaurant, the menu changes every five weeks, and it's always a group project.

Having five or more staff members work together to brainstorm a tasting menu, divide up the cooking, and gather ingredients may seem like a recipe for disaster, but Kris Komori and Remi McManus, the co-owners of Kin, don't mind the challenge. Collaboration is integral to their restaurant, even if it requires some trial and error.

"We don't necessarily have general managers and things like that," McManus said. "We all work as an entity and as a unit."

This mindset even extends to how Komori and McManus tackle payroll and prioritize pay equality. The owners offer all full-time staff a salary with benefits like paid time off and health insurance. This differs from the typical restaurant model in which some staff receive the minimum wage for tipped workers, while mainly relying on optional gratuities.

In a rapidly changing industry known for burnout and top-down management, Kin's approach to work culture might be less common. But Komori, who's also Kin's head chef, said the Boise restaurant had always been an outlier.

"We're not trying to change an entire restaurant industry or even Boise itself, but we did know that we could create something a little bit different," Komori said.

Their efforts have paid off. In 2023, Komori won a James Beard Award, and in 2024, Food & Wine listed the restaurant as one of the top 20 restaurants in the country.

On separate calls, Komori and McManus spoke with Business Insider about how they foster employee well-being at Kin — and how other restaurants can adopt a better workplace culture, too.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Business Insider: Tell me a bit about Kin's work environment. How do you try to set yourself apart when it comes to employee well-being?

Remi McManus: For years in the restaurant industry, there's been a big discrepancy in pay, especially from the front and back of the house. We try to develop equality through equal pay for all staff members. Our goals have been to develop more professionalism in the industry in Idaho and provide for our staff and our community more than we used to at my previous restaurant, State & Lemp.

Kris Komori: Part of the core competency of the business is connecting to our guests and community, but it's mostly about connecting with our crew. It's still long hours and stressful at times, but if we can have people be excited to come to work instead of dreading it, it's just a happier place to be.

How have you developed a sustainable business model that can account for having staff on salary?

McManus: It's important for employees to take ownership of their duties. This means engaging them in different responsibilities that play to their strengths and discussing things they would like to see done in the restaurant. We have a graphic designer who is a service staff member and helps us to do social media posts and graphic design for menus. We've had a bartender who moved on to be our full-time bookkeeper. We have individuals who have experiences outside the restaurant that we can utilize to change the dynamic of what this space really is. While most people see us as a restaurant, we see ourselves more as a community engagement center with food and beverage as the vehicle.

Komori: Since our tasting room is reservation-only, we know how many people are coming in and what their allergies or dietary restrictions are. Based on our capacity, we also know how much to order and prep. We can be efficient on the cost of goods and then put that into the payroll.

Why do you think a community-focused work culture is a less common approach in most kitchens and restaurants?

McManus: It's very expensive. Restaurants are fairly transient, and other owners don't potentially have the time or desire to invest as much into their employees. We're called Kin for many reasons, but one is because 100% of the staff that was with us at State & Lemp came over to Kin. It felt like we were a family creating a new establishment.

Komori: One reason why a lot of places don't do it is because you have to also get a lot of buy-in from the team in terms of rotating schedules, knowing that everyone deserves the time off. Sometimes that requires stepping in. If someone's on vacation, then everyone's got to pull a little bit more, but then you yourself go on vacation and the other people do that for you.

It's a compromise to staff saying you can have a career, sustainable finances, and days off in a restaurant. Because we have more people on staff, we can rotate schedules. As long as everyone has buy-in and supports each other, it works really well.

How does prioritizing collaboration and creativity help foster a more welcoming workplace?

McManus: Any employee wants to feel like they're valued at work. Because we are a small staff, we're able to engage with them on a day-to-day basis. Whether it be collaboration on a dish or activities outside the workplace, developing these intimate relationships is baked into our ethos.

When we come up with menu ideas, it's not necessarily just Kris or myself. Being able to rely on the individuals that have been here for years and also some of the new individuals for ideas is probably the best thing that we can do. People who have been doing something over and over and over again for years — they need new ideas. The collaboration process is probably one of the most effective things that we have in the restaurant right now.

Komori: Everyone that comes in here wants to create. What's cool about our tasting room is that it starts with one dish, but over time, the staff is creating dozens of dishes, and they start to notice their own style. They're also learning how to plan, order at a cost, and write a prep schedule. It's really important because probably a quarter of the kitchen will want to have their own place, or at least become a chef with their own team. It's a lot to change the menu, but it's also fun.

How can other chefs and owners adopt this workplace culture and sustain these practices?

McManus: We accept gratuities, but we use them to fund the salaries. I believe, in some larger cities, there are restaurants that have gone away from optional gratuities and just added them to the bill or increased the pricing so they can have a similar pay structure.

Komori: We're always wondering if the way that we're doing things is the best way to do it. You just have to be wanting to change. You ask your staff, "Hey, we want to try something to benefit the business and to benefit you. Are you willing to experiment with it?" And then you course-correct.

We have good retention, and our guests are happy to support a place trying to healthily and sustainably support its crew. So we get loyalty from customers, which stabilizes the revenue and helps sustain the system.

How do you think restaurants can be more than just places to eat and places to work for guests and staff?

McManus: It just comes down to culture. If you take the time and energy to learn more about the staff, have those conversations, communicate, and give ownership, then that shows in the staff members and that shows to the guests and community.

Komori: Partly the reason we're named Kin is not only because we try to be like a loose-knit group of people that really align with each other, but also we want to have a feel like we're inviting people into our home. Because of that, we know a lot about our regulars. Sometimes we feel like a restaurant, but other times, we're more than a restaurant — we just happen to have our product be food and beverage. If we're going to work so hard, we want to feel good about it, and just cooking for someone over and over and over behind a wall, you lose that connection.

This article is part of "Made to Order," a series highlighting the business strategies driving today's food industry.

When Sam Mink, the owner of Oyster House, made his way through the Philadelphia airport more than a decade ago, he wondered what it would be like to have a restaurant stationed in one of the international airport's terminals.

That may have been a premonition: This spring, Oyster House will open its second location between terminals B and C in the airport. The restaurant will seat 140 people and feature a shell-shucking station, Mink said.

He told Business Insider he understands that some people might feel skeptical when they hear the words "oysters" and "airport" in the same breath. But it's a chance Mink — and plenty of other food-and-beverage entrepreneurs across the country — are willing to take for the potential payoffs.

Across the US, airports are upping their selection of local eateries, often favoring them over nationally recognized chain restaurants and brands. Over the past two decades, this food-and-beverage trend has unfurled as part of a larger move to make airports feel more welcoming and authentic to their locales. Rather than fill US airports' fluorescent halls with more national chain restaurants, airport operators want to feature food and beverage options that speak to the cities where they're located.

"Airports, just like other concessions and concepts out there, are becoming more experiential. The airport that you're visiting can be just as much of a destination as where you're going, so it's a reflection of the local city," Liz Einhorn, a hospitality consultant and the founder of Experience Threee, told Business Insider.

Einhorn said that post-pandemic, more people are traveling just for fun, further incentivizing airport leaders to create unique and welcoming experiences.

A June report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that leisure travel has become more popular than business travel in recent years. Within the US, travelers seek vacation opportunities year-round, compared to their European and Asian counterparts who tend to travel in the summer, the McKinsey report said.

In addition to the forthcoming Oyster House location, the Philadelphia airport is home to the Philly-born coffee roastery Elixr, the brunch favorite Sabrina's Cafe, a Geno's Steaks outpost, and, soon, a Federal Donuts and Chicken.

Chicago O'Hare International Airport has Tortas Frontera, from the award-winning chef Rick Bayless, and Berghoff Cafe, a spinoff of the city's historic German eatery. Travelers to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport can visit Lil Woody's Burgers & Shakes, which has five other non-airport locations. The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport features local favorites Salt Lick BBQ and Salvation Pizza.

For restaurant entrepreneurs, these partnerships can enhance their marketing strategies by widening brand recognition. They also require less of a hands-on approach than opening an on-the-street store location from scratch, since hospitality-group collaborators take on the bulk of the planning, which can include training staff, designing and building the space itself, and creating the menu.

Airport leaders want to make their spaces feel unique

As conduits for mass travel, airports are inherently uniform in their designs. Walking through any given airport can feel like you're moving outside time or space.

As Steve Taylor, a professor of psychology who studies consciousness, wrote in an article for The Conversation: "They are liminal zones where boundaries fade. On a literal level, national borders dissolve. Once we pass through security, we enter a no man's land, between countries. The concept of place becomes hazy."

Airport business leaders know this, so they aim to turn their airports into more tantalizing and pleasurable experiences, said Melissa K. Montes, the vice president and publisher of Airport Experience News.

"At the heart of the industry's efforts is the guest experience," Montes told BI. "For some operators, this means leveraging new technologies or offering innovative products to cater to the evolving needs of a new generation of travelers. For others, the emphasis remains on delivering personalized service that creates meaningful connections with passengers."

She added that "experiences" has become a buzzword in the industry, as retailers and restaurateurs focus on strategies for keeping travelers with limited time — and an interest in spending on authentic goods and services — engaged with their offerings.

Increasingly, airports achieve that through localized food and beverage concepts in their terminals, said Simon Lorady, a vice president at Jackmont Hospitality, the food-service group responsible for bringing Oyster House, Federal Donuts, and Elixr to the Philadelphia airport.

It's a trend Lorady, who began his career working in Philadelphia-area restaurants, said he started to notice about 15 years ago.

"Travelers were getting more educated about food. People are traveling more, they're seeing more local and new concepts coming about, especially in these popular cities," Lorady said.

These shifting consumer expectations are reflected in the requests for proposals, or RFPs, that Jackmont Hospitality and other concessionaires — the companies responsible for bringing food, beverages, and other products to various markets, like on the street or at stadiums — receive.

Instead of asking for Burger King and Auntie Anne's outposts, airports are asking for barbecue joints, seafood restaurants, local roasteries, beer gardens, and other concepts that reflect each location's unique culinary culture, Einhorn said.

Turning an airport prospect into a local partnership

Once concessionaires view an airport's RFP for localized concepts, they seek out potential partners to collaborate with — often the owners of city-specific eateries.

Lorady said that the process of winning an airport hospitality contract is both an art and a science.

"They don't tell you the brands they are looking for, but they tell you a category," Lorady told BI. He gave the example of "elevated local coffee" as a category: "Our job is to decipher that category and think, 'What do they really want there?'" In this particular case, it resulted in Jackmont Hospitality bringing Elixr coffee to the Philadelphia airport in August.

The process is often driven by concessionaries' personal relationships with restaurant owners and involves ongoing conversations about how the partnership could work since each one can vary based on an airport's requirements for leasing, staffing, and safety, Lorady said. He added that a restaurant's resources and an owner's expectations can also play a role in shaping these partnerships. Some restaurants — say, one that slow roasts its meat for several hours — simply aren't suited for an airport outpost, Einhorn said.

Mink said that a hospitality company approached him about expanding Oyster House — his family's storied seafood restaurant — to the airport nearly 10 years ago, but he turned down the offer, unsure if he was ready to expand at the time. Fast forward to 2023, when Lorady contacted Mink with a similar offer.

"I was ready to take Oyster House out of Sansom Street and work on this dream of mine," Mink told BI about expanding the business. "I love the fact that it's a licensing deal, that they do a lot of the heavy lifting, and they work with us. I feel like we're partners in creating this restaurant that will be as close to the original one as possible — but obviously, it's not going to be exactly the same."

Restaurateurs see marketing opportunities with airport collaborations

Mink and Jeff Benjamin of Federal Donuts and Chicken — another Jackmont Hospitality partner restaurant — told BI that their collaborations provide an opportunity to market their brands to an audience of hungry travelers.

"It's a secondary or tertiary model to have these, what we call, nontraditional sites. It's less for the financial upside and more for the marketing and the visibility as we grow," Benjamin, the CEO of Federal Donuts and Chicken, said.

It's also a last chance for travelers to get a taste of local restaurants that they may have missed during the visit — or that they tried and loved — as they're heading back home, Lorady said.

Travelers appear to enjoy having more local options — commenters in travel subreddits often rave about their niche airport meals. And locals on business trips — including my father, a Philadelphia native — can enjoy a taste of home, in the form of a Geno's cheesesteak, even after they've moved away.

This article is part of "Made to Order," a series highlighting the business strategies driving today's food industry.

Dash In in Chantilly, Virginia, doesn't look like a store at a gas station.

As I walk in, I woman named Esme flashes a smile and greets me. Straight ahead is a kitchen where I can order a burger developed by the Washington, DC, chef Spike Mendelsohn or watch as mini doughnuts roll out of a fryer on a conveyer belt. To the right is a wall with bar-style taps that dispense soft drinks such as Pepsi and a cucumber-flavored soda. Before long, I'm ordering several food items from a touchscreen.

None of this was here just a couple of years ago, says Mark Samuels, the executive vice president of convenience retailing at the Wills Group, which owns Dash In. The company designed the 5,600-square-foot store and built it from the ground up. It also developed the food and beverage offerings, like the Spike burger.

"We're a very food-forward concept," Samuels tells me on the floor of the chain's Chantilly location.

Convenience stores have been upping their food game for a while. But Dash In's transformation shows how many are making food — freshly prepared food, specifically — a draw for patrons.

For convenience stores, food draws in customers

Gas stations with attached convenience stores proliferated in the middle of the last century as more Americans bought cars, moved to suburbs, and hopped on the interstates. They were easy places to buy fuel and, perhaps, a pack of cigarettes when you walked inside the store to pay for your gas.

Starting in the 1980s, though, many gas stations started installing credit card readers at pumps, reducing the number of people who had to stop by the attached store to pay.

At the same time, the number of smokers in the US was falling. That took away a key source of profit for convenience stores, Samuels says. "You had to find other ways to drive sales and profitability," he tells me.

One solution has been to offer more food.

Many chains have been adding prepared foods for years. East Coast diners are likely to have a preference between Sheetz and Wawa, both of which offer food such as doughnuts and paninis. Southerners, especially Texans, are likely to preach the virtues of Buc-ee's, a chain as known for Beaver Nuggets and brisket as it is for its supermarket-sized stores.

"These chains have recognized that they can become a food service and restaurant destination more so than they had been in the past, and it's opening up a new revenue stream for them," Billy Roberts, a CoBank senior analyst for food and beverage, told me over the phone.

Offering better food usually leads customers to spend more time in convenience stores, said Elizabeth Lafontaine, the director of research at Placer.ai, which tracks foot traffic at retailers.

"Convenience stores are a highly impulsive environment," Lafontaine said in a phone interview. "If somebody's going in, they're likely to pick up something else while they're there."

One metric that Placer.ai measures is "dwell time" — how long people spend at a store.

At Buc-ee's, customers spent just over 21 minutes per visit on average when they stopped by one of the chain's stores in 2024, a Placer.ai data analysis found. Wawa was far behind at about 12 minutes, as was Sheetz at 11, though both were still ahead of Circle K, which averaged about nine minutes.

"All of the ones that have longer dwell times — and also all the ones that are doing the best right now — are the ones that have really focused on the prepared food offerings," Lafontaine said.

Sheetz and Wawa, both of which have built up their store networks in the mid-Atlantic, compete with Dash In, Samuels tells me. "Where can we differentiate?" he says.

Convenience stores and fast-food collide

As Samuels and I sit at one of the tables in the Chantilly Dash In's dining area, Esme brings the food I ordered to our table.

I try the Spike burger, which tastes rich because of the over-easy egg and pleasantly zesty thanks to the spicy Dash sauce. There's also the Stackadilla, a multilayered quesadilla. I ordered it with shaved steak. And the sweet potato waffle fries, while not necessarily a Dash In original, are crispier than any I've had elsewhere — quite a feat given how much harder sweet potatoes are to crisp up than their white counterparts.

Between the burger, fries, and souped-up quesadilla, it's hard not to think Dash In and other convenience stores are taking on fast-food chains.

According to Samuels, I'm not wrong. These days, fast-food restaurants and convenience stores "are really melding together," he tells me, adding: "People are actually thinking of convenience stores now as a place to go eat, which didn't happen 20 years ago."

That comes at a tough time for many fast-food chains, which are trying to keep diners after years of inflation and persistently high prices. One of the highest-profile examples was McDonald's $5 meal deal, which the company said got more people ordering despite some pushback from franchisees who said the meal cost them too much to serve.

Many diners, especially Gen Zers, don't view traditional fast-food chains as a good value, a survey from Morning Consult last year found.

The food operations at Dash In feel similar to fast-food restaurants, though Samuels points out some differences. The grill and other work areas in the kitchen, for instance, are more open and visible than at many fast-food joints, he says. And while some fast-food chains stick food in warmers until someone orders it, everything here is made to order, he adds.

By doing that, convenience stores are "creating this experience where their food feels fresh because it's being prepared in front of you," Placer.ai's Lafontaine said.

"People will look at the quality, they will see what we're delivering, and we're going to get them back again and again," Samuels says.

• President Donald Trump has added another law firm to his list of targets.
• On Wednesday, Trump issued an executive order targeting Susman Godfrey.
• Susman previously represented Dominion Voting Systems in its suit against Fox News after the 2020 election.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday added Susman Godfrey to the list of law firms he's targeting with the weight of the White House's bully pulpit.

According to a White House fact sheet, Susman is being targeted over what the White House has called its work to "weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections."

White House staff secretary Will Scharf described the Susman action as similar to Trump's previous orders targeting firms that either participated in suits against him or hired former government attorneys who worked on Trump-related litigation when the president was out of power. Some of Trump's targets have been among the biggest firms in the country, including Perkins Coie.

Susman represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News, resulting in a $787.5 settlement in 2023. Fox News, Trump allies, and other conservatives repeatedly spread unfounded rumors about Dominion's election machines in the aftermath of Trump's 2020 loss.

The firm also represents Dominion in a lawsuit against Newsmax, another conservative media organization that promoted false conspiracy theories about the election technology company's role in the 2020 election. In a ruling Wednesday, moments before Trump signed the executive order, a Delaware judge ruled that Newsmax defamed Dominion and that the case could proceed to trial.

The firm also represents The New York Times in the publication's copyright suit against OpenAI and Microsoft.

Trump hinted that further law firm-related actions may be coming. He told reporters that "we have another five to go."

So far, Paul Weiss, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, and Milbank have all reached deals with the White House that call for hundreds of millions in pro bono legal work to advance Trump administration-supported causes.

On Tuesday, a group of former Republican and Democratic government officials, represented by Susman Godfrey lawyers, filed an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie.

Perkins Coie sued the Trump administration, arguing its targeting of law firms violated the US Constitution.

"The Constitution did not make the President a king empowered to punish subjects arbitrarily based on animus or whim," wrote the Susman Godfrey attorneys in their brief.

• The Trump administration is using US troops and military assets in its costly immigration crackdown.
• Navy warships, military aircraft, and combat vehicles have been deployed to the US-Mexico border.
• The Pentagon has spent $376 million on militarizing the southern US border since January 20.

US Navy destroyers are cruising coastal waters, spy planes are flying overhead, and troops are out patrolling desert trails in armored fighting vehicles.

America's southern border is starting to resemble a military front line as the Trump administration ramps up its crackdown on illegal immigration at the divide between the US and Mexico.

President Donald Trump swiftly put his mass deportation plan into motion after taking office, using US military personnel and assets to execute it by formally declaring illegal immigration a federal emergency.

About 10,000 active-duty troops have been deployed to support the Pentagon's southern border operation, as have two warships, a handful of military aircraft, and over 100 combat vehicles.

Costly crackdown on immigration

On April 1, Defense Department officials said the militarization at the US-Mexico border had cost roughly $376 million since Trump returned to the White House on January 20, or about $5.3 million per day.

After making illegal immigration a major campaign issue, with Trump criticizing Biden's border policies, the Trump White House has touted plummeting numbers of illicit border crossings. US Customs and Border Patrol reported that March saw the lowest number of attempted crossings in decades.

Illegal immigration was already on the decline prior to the start of Trump's second term, but the president is taking things further. He's got numerous military assets at the border. Here's what the administration has deployed.

Thousands of troops

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on April 1, Pentagon officials said 6,700 active-duty troops had been deployed to the US-Mexico border, in addition to about 2,500 National Guardsmen that were already stationed there.

Only Border Patrol agents or civilian law enforcement can actually apprehend migrants, leaving a large majority of the troops tasked with "detection and monitoring," Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of the US Northern Command, said.

Active-duty forces are limited in their actions on US soil.

The general said that deployed military personnel "operating in close proximity to the border" are armed with rifles or pistols, and military officials are seeking authorization for troops to shoot down suspected cartel drones surveilling the border.

USS Gravely

Two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers — USS Gravely and USS Spruance — have also been deployed to help "restore territorial integrity at the US southern border," officials said in two statements in March.

"Gravely's sea-going capacity improves our ability to protect the United States' territorial integrity, sovereignty, and security," Guillot said. The destroyer departed Yorktown, Virginia, in mid-March to waters off the Texas coast to support the border mission and counter maritime weapons and drug crime in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Gravely played a key role in Red Sea combat prior to this deployment. In December 2023, USS Gravely shot down two anti-ship ballistic missiles and was involved in sinking three Houthi small boats, marking the first time the US Navy killed Houthi fighters since the Red Sea conflict began.

USS Spruance

A second Navy destroyer, USS Spruance, which also saw combat in the Red Sea, left its homeport in San Diego last month to patrol waters off the West Coast as part of the border operation.

Guillot said that the warship "brings additional capability and expands the geography of unique military capabilities working with the Department of Homeland Security."

"With Spruance off the West Coast and USS Gravely in the Gulf of America, our maritime presence contributes to the all-domain, coordinated DOD response to the Presidential Executive Order and demonstrates our resolve to achieve operational control of the border," the general added.

The warships have been conducting operations alongside the Coast Guard.

Airlifters flying deportation flights

Migrant deportations are typically carried out using civilian charter flights operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Trump administration supplemented the deportation effort by using military cargo aircraft, like the C-17 Globemaster and C-130 Hercules, to transport migrants to Guatemala, Ecuador, Honduras, Panama, Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, and even India.

Military vs civilian flight costs

But the military aircraft, which are designed to transport both troops and cargo, come with a steep operational price tag. It costs about $28,000 per flight for one deportation on a C-17, whereas civilian flights cost an estimated $8,500.

Following backlash from Democratic lawmakers, the Trump administration halted military deportation flights in early March.

Though there are no further flights scheduled, Air Force Gen. Randall Reed told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March that his command is prepared to carry them out should the order be reversed.

"If I get the task, I'll absolutely fly it," Reed said.

Surveillance aircraft and drones

The big cargo planes aren't the only military aircraft being used at the southern US border. Spy planes and drones have been conducting regular intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance flights.

Reconnaissance aircraft like the U-2 "Dragon Lady" and Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint have been used for ISR missions above Mexico. The Navy has also reportedly used Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime reconnaissance aircraft to conduct maritime patrol and surveillance along the US-Mexico border.

Additionally, there have been reports of MQ-9 Reaper drones conducting flights as well. The Reaper is an uncrewed surveillance and combat asset.

The Trump administration also directed Pentagon intelligence agencies to direct satellite surveillance to the southern border region, Reuters reported last month.

Armored vehicles

Border patrol agents typically drive SUVs, sedans, and pick-up trucks donning a green-and-white paint scheme to traverse the rugged terrain at the border.

But as more active-duty troops are deployed to the region, armored tactical vehicles have become a regular sight in an apparent intimidation tactic.

"This sends a clear and unequivocal message to the criminal organizations operating on either side of the border that we will not tolerate illegal incursions or illicit activities along our border," Border Patrol spokesman Claudio Herrera-Baeza said.

He added that "these vehicles have incredible detection technology that the Border Patrol will incorporate into its mission of safeguarding our borders."

'More military assets'

The US Army sent over 100 Stryker armored fighting vehicles, along with hundreds of soldiers, to an installation near the border between Yuma, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas. Black Hawk helicopters and Chinooks for support aviation were also deployed.

Typically deployed to warzones, the 20-ton eight-wheeled Stryker combat vehicles can be armed with a machine gun or grenade launcher and carry up to 11 troops. They can also reach speeds of up to 60 mph and have a range of 300 miles.

"That's really what we're doing with the Stryker out here," Lt. Col. Travis Stellfox told Scripps News. "It provides us great mobility to get soldiers where they need to be to observe on the border."

There is always the possibility more military assets could be deployed. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said previously that "whatever is needed at the border will be provided."

• Donald Trump's attacks against Big Law firms have drawn three lawsuits. A few other firms settled.
• 504 law firms asked the courts to put a stop to it.
• But from Kirkland & Ellis to Paul Hastings, the highest-earning firms in Big Law declined to join.

More than 500 law firms — including some of the country's most prominent — signed onto a legal brief Friday to oppose Donald Trump's executive orders attacking law firms that hired his political enemies.

Absent from the list, however, were America's 27 highest-grossing law firms.

From Kirkland & Ellis, which reported $8.8 billion in revenue last year and has about 3,800 lawyers, to Paul Hastings, with more than $2 billion in revenue, corporate America's legal team was largely silent.

The 27 firms that didn't sign collectively brought in over $74 billion in revenue last year.

They are: Kirkland, Latham, DLA Piper (verein), Baker McKenzie (verein), Skadden, Sidley, Gibson Dunn, Ropes & Gray, White & Case, Morgan Lewis, Hogan Lovells, Jones Day, Simpson Thacher, Greenberg Traurig, Norton Rose (verein), Goodwin Procter, King & Spalding, Quinn Emanuel, Cooley, Davis Polk, Paul Weiss, McDermott, Mayer Brown, Sullivan & Cromwell, Holland & Knight, Weil, and Paul Hastings.

"The largest law firms are extraordinarily powerful, and in this instance, that power actually cripples them. I'm disappointed that they didn't join," said Nathan Eimer, one of the lawyers who wrote the brief.

The above 27 firms did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about why they didn't sign onto the brief.

The brief was filed in support of Perkins Coie, a law firm whose attorneys Trump effectively deemed a national security threat in an executive order that barred them from federal buildings, stripped them of security clearances, and required government contractors to disclose whether they used the firm.

Several former partners at Perkins Coie represented some of Trump's political adversaries, but most of the firm's political lawyers have left.

Some big firms did sign on to the brief, as did some top class-action lawyers and trial lawyers who often represent plaintiffs suing big corporations.

The US arm of Freshfields, a UK-founded corporate law firm that last year was reported to do about 20% of its business in the United States, signed the brief. Arnold & Porter, a big DC-based firm that represented federal workers accused of being communists during the "Red Scare" of the 1950s, also included its name. Arnold & Porter was one of eight firms among the country's 100 highest-earning that signed, according to Law.com.

Other firms targeted by Trump's orders rallied behind Perkins. Covington & Burling, which gave legal advice to a prosecutor who went after Trump, as well as WilmerHale and Jenner & Block, which have sued the Trump administration over executive orders that targeted them, all put their names on the brief.

But the lack of America's largest firms was frustrating, said Eimer, who told Business Insider he didn't know whose names would be included until shortly before the legal papers were filed because the process was treated with extreme confidentiality.

"I understand, from the management side, why they feel that jeopardizing their business is their overriding concern. But in my view, at the end of the day, lawyers have an obligation to the courts," he said, "and the constitution that overrides our business interest."

Law firms, including Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Milbank, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, have cut deals with the Trump administration to collectively devote hundreds of millions of dollars worth of lawyers' time to causes that dovetail with the president's interests — like veterans' rights and fighting antisemitism.

Bloomberg reported the conservative group The Oversight Project wrote a letter to law firms asking them to donate up to $10 million of legal advice to it and other "center-right" groups to help satisfy their commitments.

The first firm to cut a deal with the Trump administration was Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, whose chairman, Brad Karp, and senior lawyers are known for being political progressives. Karp defended the agreement with the Trump administration in an email sent to the firm late last month, saying that competing law firms immediately started trying to poach Paul Weiss clients and attorneys.

"The resolution we reached with the Administration will have no effect on our work and our shared culture and values," Karp wrote.

Paul Weiss's name is not on the brief.