• Microsoft AI recently announced its latest model MAI-Base-2.
• AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman compared the model to a similar offering from OpenAI.
• Microsoft trained its model more efficiently than OpenAI, he said in an internal meeting.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told employees an in-house model was better than a similar offering from OpenAI, one of the software giant's biggest customers and partners.

"We now have a stronger pre-trained base model than the model that currently powers GPT 5.6 Sol," Suleyman said during a town hall meeting with employees on Thursday. "And in fact, we used one-quarter of the compute that OpenAI used to train their model."

Pre-training is the first stage of building an AI model, when it learns patterns from huge amounts of text, images, and other information. This takes massive amounts of expensive computing power, so Microsoft could save money if it's worked out a way to do this more efficiently.

Microsoft announced the model, MAI-Base-2, earlier on Thursday.

Suleyman said Microsoft privately tested this model against OpenAI models, including one nicknamed "Spud" that powers GPT-5.6. He added that Microsoft's model performed better on tests measuring how well AI can understand and predict patterns in information.

The comparisons are based on technical information Microsoft has about OpenAI's models, Suleyman said.

"Privately and confidentially, we've also compared it to the OpenAI models," Suleyman told employees, while suggesting that Microsoft has special access to information on how OpenAI models perform.

It's notable that Suleyman would choose to highlight limitations of OpenAI models, even in private discussions. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, and owns a stake in the startup that is likely worth more than $100 billion. Any criticism of OpenAI could potentially dent the value of this huge investment.

The two companies also have a major partnership, with Microsoft offering OpenAI models to its Azure cloud customers. Microsoft has used OpenAI models for its own products such as Copilot, too.

But the relationship between the two companies has frayed in the past year or so. Increasingly, Microsoft has tried to branch out from OpenAI, including by working on its own models.

Suleyman also said Microsoft's new AI model used "12 times less computation than was used for DeepSeek, for example, on compute efficiency."

Suleyman didn't specify which DeepSeek model, but a public blog post described the pre-training of MAI-Base-2 being a lot more efficient than a similar offering from the Chinese lab, called DeepSeek-V4-Pro-Base.

Microsoft in March created a new combined team for its commercial and consumer Copilot products and reassigned Suleyman to focus on building AI models in the company's superintelligence unit.

Microsoft declined to comment and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

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• OpenAI's Alexander Embiricos said the AI era gives a choice: work more, or work less.
• He's in charge of Dots, the company's new always-on work assistant.
• AI is often pitched as freeing up time. Embiricos responded to the idea that it might add more work.

As the competitive AI race pushes tech workers into long hours, the head of OpenAI's new Dots product says AI gives people another option: work a whole lot less.

Alexander Embiricos, who leads OpenAI's enterprise product and helms the new Dots agent tool, told a crowd at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference on Thursday that AI's capabilities have created something of a fork in the road for workers. You can grind to meet the moment. Or you can use AI to kick your feet up a little.

"We basically have a lot more choice now," he said.

Embiricos made the comments after a reporter asked about when AI systems will actually deliver more free time. The reporter shared an anecdote where an OpenAI employee used a ChatGPT mobile feature to work in their car and on a plane — not exactly liberated by the new tech.

Embiricos said that the moment has already arrived where a worker can "outsource" tasks to AI and do less work. Then again, some people are so excited about AI's potential that they feel like it's an "interesting, ripe moment" to put in extra hours.

"I think that's why a lot of people are motivated to work very hard right now. That includes myself," he said. "But I think actually there is this choice, and there's totally this other setup where you could delegate a ton more things."

OpenAI is billing its Dots tool as a workplace assistant, always on and capable of proactively handing tasks and sorting to-dos. Embiricos uses his Dot often in Slack, he said, engaging on various threads.

His perspective illustrates how early companies are in their journey to adopt AI tools. Most companies have not yet automated their work tasks, and many workers are still debating how much to use the tools. Early AI adopters, meanwhile, can sprint through some work that used to take days or weeks, especially in software engineering.

Embiricos summed up the situation he feels workers are in: "You either choose: do you expand the ambition of what you can do, or do you do less? I do think we're there."

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• The challenge: Small spaces need versatile pieces that adapt for daily living, working, and hosting.
• Our top picks: Multifunctional designs including expanding dining tables, storage beds, fold-down desks, and modular sleepers.
• What we look for: Budget-smart, durable furniture with hidden storage and effortless transformation.

Living in a small space shouldn't mean giving up on hosting dinner parties, accommodating overnight guests, or sacrificing storage and organization. While downsizing can even transform your spending habits for the better, the key isn't cutting back on what you own — it's choosing clever, stylish furniture that makes every single square foot work twice as hard. According to interior designers, navigating tight layouts comes down to avoiding common spatial mistakes and maximizing unused corners, especially when a single room must serve as a dining area, home office, and guest suite all at once.

Whether it's an unassuming console table that expands to seat 12 for holiday dinners, a sleek bench hiding secret storage, or a playful accent chair that flips into a guest bed at a moment's notice, the best pieces double up on functionality without sacrificing aesthetics. We've rounded up smart, highly adaptable finds that earn their footprint in your home. Ahead, we've organized these problem-solving pieces room by room so you can easily upgrade your kitchen, living room, and bedroom to handle daily life and host effortlessly when company arrives.

Kitchen and dining small space ideas

Beyond versatile dining tables, pairing multi-functional furniture with space-saving kitchen products helps keep prep surfaces clear and daily cooking hassle-free.

A rolling kitchen island turned bar set

Winsome Suzanne Kitchen Table Set with Stools

This counter-height kitchen cart plays double duty as extra prep space and converts into a dining table with the addition of a drop leaf, keeping things from feeling too cramped. We love that the stools tuck neatly into the base, so you don't have to worry about tripping over them when not in use. It also includes two small drawers for stowing silverware and other small kitchen accessories, as well as a hanging bar. Roll it to the side when you need to reclaim your kitchen space.

Or a kitchen cart for extra storage

Seville Classics Acacia Kitchen Rolling Island Cart

If you'd prefer your kitchen island to earn its keep by providing storage for small appliances and other kitchenware, look no further than this one from Seville Classics, with a stunning solid acacia wood countertop. This rolling unit has two tiers of open shelving and two small drawers. It doesn't quite look like a built-in, but it definitely doubles your prep space and can be pushed aside when you need to reclaim floor space.

A console table that expands with seating for up to 12

Expand Furniture Junior Giant Expanding Table

For people who love to entertain but only host a few times a year, or don't want to devote the space to having a massive table commanding the room, this Expand Furniture console table starts as an unassuming console that tucks against the wall as an entry table or even a desk, and expands to fit up to 5 leaf-panel extensions that can seat up to 12. They also offer a matching bench, too.

It comes pre-assembled and has a lifetime warranty on the telescoping mechanism.

See all Expand Furniture Transforming Tables.

Folding chairs that don't look like a temporary seating option

Latitude Run Foldable Bistro Dining Chairs

To complement your expanding table, consider folding chairs that look anything but temporary. These condense down to store away and out of sight. These offer subtle padding and an upholstered design. These Latitude Run foldable bistro chairs are lightweight, weighing under 15 pounds, making them easy to carry, and have a weight capacity of 330 pounds.

See more stylish folding chairs at Wayfair, like this faux-leather-upholstered design or a vintage-inspired rattan option.

A drawer add-on that maximizes counter space

Yamazaki Home Countertop Drawer with Pull-Out Shelf

In a world where we love our small kitchen appliances, you sometimes have to choose among prep space, storage, and keeping your prized espresso machine within easy reach. Yamazaki bridges the gap with this genius countertop drawer with a pull-out shelf to make up for the lost space. It stands 5.3 inches tall and can easily fit popular countertop appliances such as your air fryer, toaster, microwave, or espresso machine. The drawer can be pulled out up to 8 inches, while the shelf extends out almost 10 inches. Not to mention, the shelf and the drawer position can be flipped. We'd store the daily accouterments we want within easy reach, but out of sight, like an oven mitt, aluminum foil, or even silverware.

Editor's tip: If you have hanging cabinets, check the clearance to ensure your appliance can still fit under them.

Living room small space ideas

A modular sofa bed with built-in storage

Cozey Neptune Sofa Bed

Modular, sleeper, and storage are not typically features you see all together in one product. Modular and storage… absolutely; sofabed and storage, we've seen it in some sectionals, but the Cozey Neptune sofa plays triple duty in versatility to complement your lifestyle, not work against it. The seat cushions lift off to reveal hidden storage, while individual pieces convert into a full-size bed. The covers are also removable for easy washing. Configure in a number of ways to suit your space, from a compact loveseat to an expansive U-shaped sectional that seats 7.

Read our Cozey Neptune sofa bed review.

An accent chair that flips out into a bed

Ikea PS 2026 Skiftebo Chair Bed

If you don't want to give up the look of your Cloud couch — trust us- we get how comfortable they are — consider an accent chair that flips into a twin-size bed for giving overnight visitors a proper supportive place to sleep. Part of Ikea's PS 2026 collection, which pushes the design envelope with experimental and playful designs, Skiftebo Chair Bed consists of three cushions atop a small metal frame that turns into a bed. Each cushion is wrapped in a stain-resistant, removable cover for washing. Contrary to typical Ikea lore, reviewers note assembly is a breeze. They comment on how comfortable it is, but also caveat that the backrest cushion, which is secured with a button and rests against the low metal frame, tends to slide around.

A storage bench for the edge of your bed or entryway

Ashley Cortwell Storage Bench

Whenever you need extra storage (and seating), a storage bench is our not-so-secret weapon. Let it work as a coffee table ottoman next to the sofa, a perch in an entryway that also stores shoes and outdoor accessories, or at the edge of your bed for storing extra linens. The hinged cover swings up for deep storage.

An accent table that tucks under the sofa

Crate & Barrel Cruz Burnished Brass Steel Rectangular 10" C Table

A C-shaped table tucks neatly against the arm of a sofa, providing a stable surface for keeping a drink or serving as a spot to work from a laptop where traditional end tables take up too much floor space. This brass design from Crate and Barrel has sophisticated styling thanks to the asymmetrical sheets of brass that both stabilize the table and add visual interest. The flat, low-profile base slides underneath the sofa while the top surface hovers directly over the sofa or your lap.

A lift-top table coffee table

West Elm Mid-Century Marble Double Pop-Up Coffee Table

While there are a plethora of cheaply made MDF lift-top table bases out there, this is one area not to skimp on, especially when a moving mechanism is involved. This contract-grade West Elm coffee table smoothly pops up in two places to serve as a makeshift dining table, desk, or board-game surface. It also provides both hidden and open storage to hide remotes but display your favorite books and trinkets. It combines kiln-dried eucalyptus and engineered wood in a walnut finish with marble accents.

Stackable benches for extra seating, tabletop space or storage

Ikea KOMPISHÄNG Stool Set

Ikea has made it clear these are not your ordinary nesting benches. The stackable set from its new Kompishang collection, oriented toward renters and frequent movers, can serve as extra seating, a side table, or convert into a small two-tier shelving system. They're made of solid birch and can handle up to 220 pounds.

A cabinet Murphy bed

Latitude Run Solid Wood Queen Murphy Bed

We imagine this Murphy bed cabinet looking stately in the corner of a home office or in that spare guest bedroom you didn't want to devote an entire bed to, leaving space for other activities and room flow. This solid wood cabinet flips open into a pullout bedframe. It also has two drawers for extra bedding and 5 outlets so your guests can stay charged up.

Note: The mattress is not included, but it fits a 4- to 6-inch tri-fold mattress.

Bedroom small space ideas

A classic storage bed

Latitude Run Braya Hydraulic Storage Bed

Deals editor Sarah Saril hides plastic bins, fabric cube totes, and more underneath her hydraulic lift storage bed, out of sight and out of mind, in her storage bed to store off-season clothing and extra blankets. "Aside from the heavy lifting involved, it's not hard to access the storage area underneath, either — you won't even have to make your bed to open the lid," she says. However, she recalled assembly as somewhat confusing.

A bookshelf that converts into a desk

Rebrilliant Tall Folding Desk with Writing Board

Unlike wall-mounted fold-down desks that require drilling into studs and permanent installation, this freestanding unit delivers a complete home office setup without damaging your walls. When unfolded, the desktop provides ample workspace, along with built-in storage shelves and integrated USB power outlets to keep your devices charged. When the workday ends, the table flips back up into a compact cabinet that conceals your laptop and paperwork out of sight. As a bonus, the front panel features a chalkboard writing board for quick note-taking, weekly to-dos, or displaying custom decor. It could also work in a child's room without cramping up floor space for play.

A leaning full-length mirror with extra functionality

Article Obero Floor Mirror

Article's leaning full-length mirror hides a shelf and a small hanging rod for outfit planning or keeping a robe. It's particularly useful for renters who don't want to have to deal with mounting anything.

A modular dresser that fits your space as your needs change

Thuma Nest Dresser

While not necessarily space-saving, Thuma's modular drawer system grows or shrinks with your space and can be configured stacked, side-by-side, or three across, making it great for renters or transient people

They're made of solid wood, though, so they're made to last. Each drawer has a 5-inch depth.

Read more in our Thuma Dresser Review.

A nightstand with USB ports

Better Homes and Gardens Lillian Fluted 2-Drawer Nightstand with USB

I'm a firm believer that you need a nightstand. Where else will you be able to perch your alarm clock, bedside lamp, and a glass of water? This small-space-friendly design has built-in USB ports to keep cable clutter at bay and two drawers.

Bathroom small space ideas

Over-the-toilet shelving

Umbra Bellwood Over-the-Toilet Shelf

Tiny bathrooms don't need to be short on storage. Look over the toilet to keep extra toilet paper, cosmetics, and cleaning supplies within easy reach. Mix in some baskets to corral small products or consider a closed design if you want to store extra bath towels. Contributor Emily Hochberg liked the relatively easy assembly and curved lines of Umbra's Bellwood Shelving unit. She says it made her feel like a designer styled her bathroom, adding a plant and candles to up her bathroom aesthetic.

Read our Umbra Bellwood over-the-toilet shelf review.

Related: Professional organizers share the best small-space storage solutions, including organizers, bins, and hidden shelving.

• Netflix is replacing its content chief after laying off about 1,000 employees.
• Former Disney and Fox executive Peter Rice will take the role from departing Bela Bajaria.
• Netflix has gone through a bruising period as Wall Street questions its long-term direction.

Netflix has hired a new content chief after a stock slump and struggles to grow its viewership.

Peter Rice, a former Fox and Disney executive, will oversee Netflix's $20 billion budget for movies and shows starting on October 26, the company announced on Thursday.

Rice will replace Bela Bajaria, who's leaving the company after almost a decade. Bajaria took the top content job in 2023 and memorably described the ideal Netflix show as a "gourmet cheeseburger."

The exec shake-up came a day after the streaming giant laid off about 1,000 employees, its biggest round of layoffs in four years.

Netflix has had a tough year.

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at a Bloomberg media event last month that Netflix is "not growing as fast as I want us to, and we're working on making that move faster."

Shares are down nearly 40% in the past 12 months as investors increasingly worry about slower viewership growth and the company's long-term direction. Netflix's attempt to buy Warner Bros. — which was ultimately stymied by David Ellison's Paramount — soured the Wall Street narrative about the company's future.

Rice was previously the head of Disney's TV arm, where he ran Hulu and networks like ABC, Disney Channel, and FX. He was fired from the Mouse House in 2022 by former Disney CEO Bob Chapek and replaced by Dana Walden, who's now Disney's creative chief.

"Peter is one of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry," Sarandos said in a statement. The co-CEO added that Rice's "business acumen is sharp, his talent relationships are exceptionally strong, and his experience across TV and film is deep and broad."

Bajaria "led enormous changes at Netflix," Sarandos said, crediting her for helping the streamer broaden its content mix to live events and sports.

Under Bajaria, Netflix had hits like "KPop Demon Hunters" — its biggest movie ever — as well as breakout shows like "Wednesday" and Emmy Award winner "Adolescence."

However, Netflix's engagement growth was only 2% in the first half of 2026, and the company has faced increased competition from free streamers like YouTube and Tubi. YouTube is now well ahead of Netflix as the most-watched service on US TV screens.

Netflix, which had more than 325 million subscribers as of its last disclosure in January, remains the clear leader among paid streaming services. That said, Rice will have to figure out the right content mix to fend off both its Hollywood rivals and social-media competitors like Instagram and TikTok.

• Apollo is delaying recruiting for its 2028 associate class, Business Insider has learned.
• This follows last year's delay, which helped slowed down private equity's chaotic recruiting process.
• Apollo said it wants young bankers to have more experience before making their next career move.

Apollo is delaying on-cycle recruiting again this year, after a similar move last year helped push back the recruiting timeline across the private equity industry.

The private equity giant told prospective candidates Thursday afternoon that it will not recruit its 2028 associate class this calendar year, according to an email obtained by Business Insider.

The memo, signed by David Sambur, co-head of Private Equity, and Antoine G. Munfakh, deputy global head of Private Equity, said the firm will wait until candidates who started their investment banking careers over the summer are "closer to completing one full year of professional experience."

The hope, the memo said, is that this will convince others in private equity to delay their process so both candidates and employers can make "better decisions." Last year, after Apollo CEO Marc Rowan said the firm would delay on-cycle recruiting, others, such as General Atlantic also decided to pause.

"We were encouraged that others in the industry took similar steps, and we hope more firms will do the same this year," the memo said.

On-cycle recruiting — the controversial process through which private equity firms hire junior investment bankers for associate roles a year or even two before they would start — had crept earlier and earlier in the years following the pandemic.

Competition among private equity firms to lock up top talent pushed recruiting earlier and made the process notoriously intense. It would kick off with little warning, with junior bankers sometimes calling in sick or interviewing in the middle of the night to avoid jeopardizing their day jobs. JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been a big critic of the process, calling it "unethical."

In 2025, amid rumblings that on-cycle recruiting could take place before some students even graduated from college, JPMorgan rolled out a policy that incoming analysts could be terminated for accepting future-dated private equity offers.

Apollo then decided to pause its on-cycle recruiting for 2027 associates, setting off a chain reaction that delayed the process well into this year.

Questions have swirled if the practice would kick off early again this for the 2028 class, but it appears with this latest move, Apollo is trying to slow down the recruiting timeline across the industry again.

Read the full memo below:

—-

To: Prospective Apollo Associate Candidates, Class of 2028

Subject: Apollo Recruiting, Class of 2028

Congratulations on beginning your career in investment banking. We know how exciting and demanding this period can be, and we hope you are enjoying the experience and learning a great deal.

Last June, we wrote to prospective candidates for our Associate Class of 2027 to explain why Apollo would be delaying its recruiting process. We believed then, as we do now, that young professionals should have the opportunity to develop their skills, gain meaningful experience and better understand their interests before making important decisions about their careers.

We were encouraged that others in the industry took similar steps, and we hope more firms will do the same this year. Young professionals still deserve more time to gather valuable life and work experience before making important career decisions.

We wanted to share with you that for the Associate Class of 2028, we will not participate in on-cycle recruiting this calendar year and intend to wait until candidates are closer to completing one full year of professional experience before engaging in formal recruiting for an Associate position. We believe giving candidates more time and experience before beginning the process leads to better decisions for candidates and employers alike.

In the meantime, we will continue to spend time with many of you, introduce you to our platform and share the diverse array of career opportunities available at Apollo. When our formal recruiting process begins, we intend to approach it thoughtfully and give candidates ample time to prepare, interview and consider their offers.

None of this changes our enthusiasm for meeting and recruiting exceptional young talent. Quite the opposite. Investing in our people has always been central to Apollo's success, and we remain committed to attracting and developing the next generation of investment professionals.

For now, our advice is simple: Focus on the opportunity in front of you. Learn as much as you can. Build relationships, develop your judgment, and take the time to discover what genuinely interests you. There will be plenty of time to make decisions about the next chapter of your career.

We look forward to getting to know you and hope many of you will consider building your careers at Apollo.

Best,

David Sambur

Partner, Co-Head of Private Equity and Head of Equity

Antoine G. Munfakh

Partner, Deputy Global Head of Private Equity

The best fitness trackers can tell you a lot more than how many steps you've taken. Today's top wearables track your workouts, heart rate, sleep, recovery, and daily activity to give you a clearer picture of your overall health and fitness — and, more importantly, help you understand when to push harder or prioritize rest.

But the right tracker for you depends heavily on what you want to monitor most and what you're most comfortable wearing. Popular options range from full-featured fitness watches to discreet bands and smart rings. Over the last two years, I've tested nearly 20 fitness and health trackers in real life, wearing them through strength workouts, runs, hikes, ski days, travel, sick days in bed, and long stretches at my desk.

After all that testing, the Garmin Vivoactive 6 is still the best fitness tracker for most people thanks to its accurate health and workout data, comprehensive features, clean design, and long battery life. But if you're looking to spend less, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is my budget pick. It skips some advanced training features but still tracks the basics for under $100. And if you want something discreet to focus more on everyday health than on exercise goals, I highly recommend the Oura Ring 5. It's lightweight, unobtrusive, and delivers insightful interpretations of your biometrics, including early signs that you may be getting sick.

Below, you'll also find recommendations for runners, athletes focused on improving recovery, and those who want a screen-free band without the distractions of a display.

Our top picks for the best fitness trackers

Best overall: Garmin Vivoactive 6 - See at Amazon

Best on a budget: Google Fitbit Inspire 3 - See at Amazon

Best for daily health: Oura Ring 5 - See at Amazon

Best for runners: Garmin Forerunner 265 - See at Amazon

Best screenless band: Google Fitbit Air - See at Amazon

Best for recovery: Whoop 5.0 - See at Amazon

Best smartwatch for fitness: Apple Watch Series 12 - See at Amazon

Best overall

After testing 15+ wearables over the last two years, the sleek Garmin Vivoactive 6 still stands out as the best fitness tracker overall. It hits the sweet spot between ease of use, accuracy, and robust fitness functionality, enabling it to grow with you as your training changes.

Garmin is known for its top-performing GPS and heart rate tech, which means it's super accurate for tracking workout effort and sleep health. The Vivoactive 6 supports over 80 trackable activities, from running and strength training to pickleball and swimming.

While it doesn't auto-track activity, I found the workout stats it displays to be spot-on, easy to read mid-exercise, and customizable enough to highlight what you actually care about (like heart rate zones or pace splits). The daily suggested workouts, pace guidance, and smart wake alarms make it feel like a personal coach on your wrist — not just a step counter.

Outside workouts, the Vivoactive 6 quietly keeps tabs on your overall well-being: It tracks stress levels, sleep stages, menstrual health, respiration, and recovery via Garmin's "Body Battery" score, which I've found to be helpful for knowing when to push and when to rest. It even uses your skin temperature and heart rate to alert you to early signs of illness, so you know when to take it easy.

Garmin watches are also known for their long battery life, and the Vivoactive 6 is no different. It lasts for a full 11 days (even with GPS running regularly), which means you rarely have to charge it — convenient not only for a busy life but also for not missing sleep tracking or step counts.

The Vivoactive 6 also has a sleek design with customizable watch faces, so it doesn't scream "sporty" during business meetings. It also delivers texts, emails, and phone alerts on your wrist, although that's about its limit as a smartwatch.

Yes, there are more affordable options and more specialized wearables for runners or triathletes, but the Garmin Vivoactive 6 is the best fitness tracker for most needs. It's a great pick for active people who want to stay on top of their daily movement, workout intensity, and recovery.

Read our full Garmin Vivoactive 6 review.

Visit our guide to the best Garmin watches.

Best on a budget

If you're looking for an affordable wearable to help you move more, stay on target during workouts, and get meaningful health insights, the Google Fitbit Inspire 3 is the best fitness tracker for under $100. It strips down to the essentials, but handles all the basics exceptionally well, especially for the price.

Fitbits have long excelled at heart rate-driven insights, and that's exactly where the Inspire 3 shines. It has reliable continuous heart rate tracking, particularly during HIIT or interval-style workouts where your effort changes quickly; in fact, during testing, I found it was better at tracking rapid heart rate changes than most Garmin watches.

That heart rate accuracy powers two of Fitbit's most useful motivation tools: Active Zone Minutes, which show whether you're actually working hard enough to improve cardio fitness, and Reminders to Move, gentle nudges that encourage you to hit at least 250 steps each hour. In real-world use, I found these features were surprisingly effective at keeping me consistent.

With a slim screen and lightweight design, the Inspire 3 is comfortable, and you'll probably forget you're even wearing it. It has a clean, sleek design, albeit with a more "tracker"-y aesthetic than a more traditional round-face watch. The Inspire 3 also has a great battery life, lasting up to 10 days on a charge, making it easy to wear 24/7 without constantly thinking about power.

Despite its simple screen, the Inspire 3 tracks a lot behind the scenes. It monitors steps, workouts, sleep stages, stress levels, respiration, and menstrual health, giving you a clear picture of both activity and recovery. I've found Fitbit's sleep tracking to be especially strong, with easy-to-understand trends that show how rest affects your energy and workouts the next day.

However, there are a few things you don't get at this price. Namely, the Inspire 3 is light on smartwatch extras and advanced training metrics. There's no built-in GPS (it uses the one on your phone), and it has limited on-wrist data during workouts. Some of the device's deeper insights are also locked behind a Google Health Premium membership. And its smaller screen means you can't easily read texts on your wrist. You can only see one training metric at a time during a workout, but that's the trade-off for an entry-level tracker.

If you're just getting started with fitness tracking or you want a low-profile device to keep tabs on daily movement, workout intensity, and sleep, the Fitbit Inspire 3 offers outstanding value and proves you don't need a fancy watch to build better habits.

Read our full Fitbit Inspire 3 review.

Visit our guide to the best Fitbits.

Best for daily health

If your focus is on better understanding your overall health rather than pushing yourself harder in training, the Oura Ring 5 is my go-to recommendation. It's not just the most impressive smart ring I've tested, but also simply the best everyday health tracker. It quietly monitors your sleep, recovery, activity, heart rate, and other biometrics, all from a simple ring that you'll rarely notice. It then translates that data into useful insights about how your body is doing — and when you might want to rest, move more, or prioritize sleep.

After wearing the Oura Ring 4 for a year and the new Oura Ring 5 for four months, I can say the newest model addresses the only real complaint I had about its predecessor. The Ring 4 had a slightly bulky build, but the Ring 5 is about 40% smaller thanks to a redesign of its battery, sensors, and internal architecture.

While I did get used to the Ring 4's thicker profile, I still noticed it when I was tightly gripping something (like a barbell) and would regularly take it off during nicer outings when I didn't want it to clash with my outfit. The Ring 5 looks much more like a typical piece of jewelry. I also found it easier to forget about it while sleeping, working, lifting weights, and traveling.

Despite its smaller size, I didn't encounter any drop in data consistency. In my testing, it continuously tracked heart rate, skin temperature, activity, and recovery, then distilled the data into easy-to-understand scores, such as Readiness. I've even gotten alerts to rest before I started feeling sick, which helped me adjust early and bounce back faster. Sleep tracking also remains one of Oura's top features. Each morning, the app gives you a Sleep Score, along with details on sleep stages, heart rate, temperature, and overnight recovery, plus helpful info like cumulative sleep debt over the past few days, so you know what to prioritize.

Its menstrual tracking is among the most advanced in wearables, too, using manually entered data and continuous skin temperature readings to predict ovulation, cycle phases, and early signs of pregnancy. You can add tags for things like migraines or allergies and, over time, see patterns emerge to better anticipate how you'll feel. The Oura Ring also autotracks most daily activities (including housework and yardwork) and gradually learns your patterns, becoming more accurate over time.

But what really sets Oura apart is its app. While most wearables deliver your health data through a hard-to-decode app, Oura's interface is clean, well-organized, and surprisingly deep. It has just three tabs (Today, Vitals, and My Health) with the key takeaways up front and biohacking-level metrics like cardio age, VO₂ max, and AI-powered health tips a tap away.

However, the Oura Ring 5 isn't a full-fledged workout tracker. It can log many activities and monitor your calorie burn, but it doesn't provide real-time heart rate zones, pace, or detailed post-workout analysis. If I'm training for a race or pushing my fitness, I reach for a Garmin or Fitbit, but I still rely on Oura to track my recovery and holistic health. The Oura Ring also requires a $6/month subscription to unlock the majority of its insights. But if your main focus is readiness, sleep, and subtle daily movement, the Oura Ring 5 is the smartest, sleekest way to stay in sync with your body — and well worth the price.

Read our full Oura Ring 5 review.

Best for runners

Whether you're gearing up for a 5K or a full marathon, the Garmin Forerunner 265 is the best fitness tracker for dedicated runners. It keeps your training smart, structured, and on track — while also keeping up with your day-to-day life and recovery.

I tested this watch for two months in my daily active lifestyle and also lent it to a friend to train with for a 30K trail race. We both agree: What makes the Forerunner 265 so great for active folks is its exceptional accuracy, intuitive design, and features that go beyond just collecting data to actually help you train better.

The Forerunner 265 uses Garmin's best-in-class GPS and heart rate tech to deliver highly reliable metrics during every workout. During runs, the watch shows just the right amount of information — pace, time, distance, splits, and heart rate zones — all on a crisp AMOLED display. It even has a Garmin Run Coach that, when synced with your headphones, will tell you to slow your pace for a more sustainable heart rate.

Post-run, it delivers training effect scores, run power zones, and suggested recovery times. The watch also offers daily workout suggestions each morning and an on-watch countdown to your next race. The built-in altimeter, barometer, and full GPS make it a great pick for trail runners and other mountain athletes.

The Forerunner 265 has more than 30 workout modes, so it tracks cross-training and strength training just as accurately. It also has built-in music storage (Spotify or Amazon Music) and can be used phone-free thanks to onboard GPS. With up to 13 days of battery life (or 20 hours in GPS mode), it easily keeps up with multi-week training blocks without the constant need for charging.

It doesn't have full smartwatch functionality (you can only read texts, not reply), and its sporty look won't appeal to everyone, but for runners who care about performance and recovery more than lifestyle perks, the Forerunner 265 is the most well-balanced Garmin you can get without stepping into ultra-athlete territory.

Check out our full Garmin Forerunner 265 review.

Best screenless band

If you want to track your fitness and recovery without the constant buzz of notifications or the distraction of a screen mid-yoga, the Fitbit Air is my favorite screenless band. It quietly collects your health data in the background, then lets you check your sleep, recovery, and daily movement in the app when you're ready.

Unlike most fitness bands, the Air has no watch face. At just 12 grams and 8.3 millimeters thick, it's remarkably slim, lightweight, and noticeably less bulky than other screenless trackers I've tested, including the Whoop. Not only does this make it super comfortable to wear, but the understated design also lets the watch blend in better with everything from work to dinner outfits. I found this made me more inclined to leave it on for nights out, ultimately resulting in more continuous health data.

Despite its minimalist hardware, the Air tracks most of the fundamentals you'd expect from a Fitbit: continuous heart rate, steps, sleep, overnight blood oxygen, skin temperature variations, and workouts. Battery life lasted a full seven days in my testing, even with regular workouts and sleep tracking.

With a screenless tracker, the app is everything, and the redesigned Google Health app is excellent. It's well organized in an intuitive, easy-to-scan format, making it simple to check daily metrics. Sleep tracking is particularly well presented: Rather than burying you in graphs and technical jargon, Google translates your data into straightforward explanations of how well you slept and recovered. I actually found some of its language easier to interpret than the more data-heavy insights from my Oura Ring.

The other shining star of the app is its new Gemini-powered Health Coach, which can use your data to provide personalized guidance. I had it create a stretching and strengthening plan to ease my back pain, and it went further by checking in each day and offering suggestions for sleep tweaks and desk stretches while I recovered.

That said, the above insights require a $10/month Google Health Premium subscription. The free tier still provides basic data, including steps, heart rate, calories burned, and core sleep tracking, but you'll need a Premium plan to get the most out of the device. I'm also a bit disappointed that the Air lacks Fitbit's hallmark Reminder to Move feature, which is an unfortunate design oversight.

Serious athletes who want a screen-free band that prioritizes in-depth recovery may want to consider the competing Whoop 5.0, but the Fitbit Air is ultimately the best value in this space. It's smaller, lighter, sleeker, and significantly cheaper than most rivals, with a powerful app to back it up.

Check out our full Google Fitbit Air review.

Best for recovery

Like the Fitbit Air, the Whoop 5.0 is a screenless band. But while the Air is the best value for the average person who wants an unobtrusive health tracker on their wrist, the Whoop stands apart thanks to its unique focus on recovery. Their designs might be similar, but these fitness bands are made for very different users.

If you’re great at training hard but not at recovering sufficiently, the Whoop 5.0 is one of the most unique — but useful — fitness trackers I’ve tested. It's a particularly good fit for CrossFitters, weightlifters, and multi-sport athletes who want help understanding how high-volume training, sleep, and everyday habits affect their body’s ability to repair and perform again tomorrow.

Rather than focusing on traditional fitness metrics, Whoop organizes your data around three areas: Strain (how much stress you put on your body throughout the day), Recovery (how prepared your body is to take on more strain), and Sleep Performance (how much sleep you actually got). Since there’s no screen, the wristband continuously records biometrics like heart rate and skin temperature and puts everything into the Whoop app.

I love that Whoop automatically detects workouts of different lengths and intensities, then lets you review them afterward. You can follow real-time stats like heart rate zones in the app, but Whoop’s real power lies in showing your accumulated strain and recovery for the day. This can help you make a smarter call about whether to push for another hard workout or something restorative.

While testing the Whoop, I found this shift in perspective surprisingly useful. My strength sessions sometimes added relatively little strain to my day, whereas a 90-minute yoga session registered as considerably taxing. A full day of casual skiing also put more stress on my body, biometrically, than one intense 30-minute run, and at certain points in my menstrual cycle, a restorative yoga class was enough to skyrocket my Strain. Whoop helped me see that the workouts I perceived as “hard” weren’t necessarily the only things determining how recovered I’d be the next day.

I also lent my Whoop to a friend who was getting sick and exhausted regularly. He has an active job, a laundry list of hobbies, and rarely takes a rest day. After one week, he was shocked to learn his body was rarely recovered despite getting solid sleep. After a month of adjusting his activity to balance his Strain and Recovery scores, he felt better and was biking and skiing better than before.

Whoop also recommends how much sleep you need. Its AI-powered Whoop Coach can answer questions like “How hard should I train today based on my recovery?” while the customizable journal lets you log habits such as alcohol use, screen time, and stress to see how they correlate with recovery. I found the latter especially useful for identifying why my sleep or recovery was shot rather than simply being told that it was.

The major downside for some athletes is that Whoop isn’t designed to be your primary source of real-time workout data. If you’re training for a race, you’ll likely want a separate watch or bike computer for quickly checking pace, mileage, or splits.

It also comes with an annual membership fee — $239 a year for the Peak membership, which includes advanced features like Health Monitor, Stress Monitor, and Whoop Age. The cheaper Whoop One ($199/year) covers the core fitness and recovery metrics, while the more expensive Whoop Life plan ($359/year) pairs with the Whoop MG and adds more advanced health capabilities.

Best smartwatch for fitness

If you're an iPhone user who wants a full-fledged smartwatch that also doubles as an excellent fitness companion, the Apple Watch Series 12 is a great option. It covers nearly everything you'd want from a general fitness tracker while adding tons of features your smartphone can do — all in one wearable device.

The Series 12 launched in September 2026 and carries over the core capabilities of the older Series 11 while adding a more advanced heart rate sensor and a few new Apple Intelligence features. It still comes in at the same $399 starting price, and it's available in 42 or 46mm sizes, with health-tracking features like wrist temperature, respiratory rate, sleep score, and hypertension alerts.

The new sensor even enables the watch to track your heart rate every five seconds, versus every five minutes on the older Series 11. This data is shared with Apple's Vitals app to deliver better insights into your everyday health. There's also a new Readiness app that generates an overall score indicating how your body is doing. This is similar to what Oura's app offers, and it can help you decide whether you're better off taking a break or pushing harder.

But while it's great to see the latest Apple Watch get more advanced sensors, you'll need to consistently wear the Series 12 while sleeping to get the most from it. Otherwise, it won't have enough data to work with. And our reviewer found that to be a bit of an issue since the watch isn't the most comfortable to wear overnight. But if you're not bothered by wearing a smartwatch 24/7, then the Apple Watch Series 12 delivers comprehensive insights. Apple is also launching a revamped Health app later this year with a Longevity tab and Health Age feature, which again mirror similar features offered by brands like Oura and Whoop.

As a full-fledged smartwatch, the Series 12 also has tons of features outside fitness tracking. You can answer calls, chat with Siri AI, dictate texts, use Apple Pay, control music, and access widgets — all from your wrist, no unlocked phone required. The Series 12 also has new Audio Intelligence features, such as Music Recognition, which can automatically identify songs you hear throughout your day. The watch's optional always-listening capabilities will also enable generalized overviews of your day (Siri Recap) and 15-second transcripts of your last conversation (Live Rewind), but these features are still pending and carry potential privacy concerns.

Read our full Apple Watch Series 12 review.

Check out our guide to the best Apple Watch.

What else we considered

Garmin CIRQA - See at Garmin
Garmin's first screenless tracker offers excellent health, sleep, and training data without a subscription, but its bulky sensor was uncomfortable and difficult to forget about during my four weeks of testing. The Fitbit Air is slimmer, lighter, and cheaper, making it a better value for most people who specifically want a screen-free tracker.

Read our Garmin CIRQA review.

Fitbit Charge 6 - See at Amazon
The Charge 6 is an accurate, affordable tracker that hits a great middle ground between a basic fitness band and a smartwatch, with excellent heart rate and sleep tracking, plus a useful display. However, its small screen isn't ideal for serious training, and I found the built-in GPS unreliable unless paired with my phone.

Read our Fitbit Charge 6 review.

Garmin Fenix 8 - See at Amazon
The Fenix 8 is one of the most powerful fitness watches I've tested, with excellent GPS, advanced training metrics, topo maps, and dozens of sport profiles. It's a fantastic choice for ultra athletes and serious backcountry adventurers, but its $800-plus starting price and exhaustive features are overkill for most people.

Read our Garmin Fenix 8 review.

Garmin Venu 3 - See at Amazon
The Venu 3 combines Garmin's excellent fitness and health tracking with a bright AMOLED display, 14-day battery life, and smart features such as the ability to take calls on your wrist. It's a great watch, but at $450, I don't think it offers enough over the less-expensive Vivoactive 6 to justify the price for most people.

Read our Garmin Venu 3 review.

Amazfit Helio Ring - See at Amazon
The Helio Ring is an affordable, subscription-free smart ring that reliably covers basics like sleep, stress, and steps. But its clunky app, short three- to four-day battery life, and limited health and activity tracking hold it back from being worth buying. For about the same price or less, a Fitbit offers considerably more functionality and value.

How we test fitness trackers

To find the best fitness trackers, I tested more than 15 models over the course of two years. I wore each device 24/7 for multiple weeks at a time, often back-to-back or side-by-side, to compare the accuracy of metrics like heart rate, recovery, step count, and sleep quality in real-world use.

I live in the Colorado Rockies with an active routine that includes gym-based strength training, daily dog walks, and a rotation of seasonal high-altitude sports such as skiing, mountain biking, and hiking — alongside everyday work and the occasional rest day. I also travel across the country roughly once a month. Each wearable was tested during workouts of varying intensities, while sleeping, while showering, and during long days on the go.

For each device, I evaluated:

• How accurate the data was (GPS, heart rate, and recovery metrics)
• How intuitive each wearable was to set up and navigate
• How motivating or helpful the insights felt
• How well it fits into a daily routine
• How comfortable it was to wear 24/7
• The clarity and usefulness of the companion app
• How well the battery life held up to real-world use

Meet the expert behind this guide:

Rachael Schultz, contributing reporter: I've spent years covering health and fitness, and for this guide, I put more than a dozen of the top fitness trackers to the test in real life, not just quick trials, but weeks of wearing each one day and night to see how they actually perform. The goal was simple: figure out which trackers actually fit into your life and make it easier to understand your body, so you can choose the right one with confidence.

Learn more about the Reviews team at Business Insider.

Fitness tracker FAQs

What type of fitness tracker should you buy?

Determining which type of wearable to buy largely comes down to how much data you want access to and whether you want it all on your wrist.

• Fitness watches (like Garmin and Fitbit) are great for all-day tracking and workouts, with simple displays and long battery life. These usually balance activity, sleep, and recovery, but have limited smartwatch capabilities and don't integrate as smoothly with iOS or Android systems as smartwatches do.
• Smartwatches (like the Apple Watch or Google Pixel Watch) add texting, calls, AI assistants, music, and third-party apps — but usually sacrifice battery life, lack the most robust fitness features, and can feel like wearing your phone on your wrist.
• Smart rings (like Oura) skip screens altogether for a minimalist, low-distraction option that still tracks recovery, sleep, and activity in the background.

What should you consider when choosing a fitness tracker?

Battery life: How often you want to charge your device can be a dealbreaker. Most smart rings and Garmin watches last seven to 14 days. Apple and Google smartwatches often require daily charging. Anything shorter than 24 hours means you'll probably miss out on step count or sleep data while charging it.

Workout-tracking features: Consider which activities you do most often. Some trackers only log basic workouts, while others track strain, auto-detect movement, or even coach you with pace and recovery insights. If you're a runner or mountain athlete, prioritize built-in GPS, heart rate zones, race-training tools, and an altimeter for elevation data. The more built-in activity modes a watch has, the more it can grow with you as you get into new sports, too.

Recovery and sleep data: Look for a wearable that helps you understand when to push and when to rest. Devices like Whoop, Oura, and Garmin track heart rate variability, body temperature, and sleep stages to give daily recovery scores or readiness indicators.

Display and comfort: Bigger screens are easier to read mid-workout, but bulkier watches can be annoying to sleep in. Slim trackers or rings may be better for all-day comfort, especially for smaller wrists or anyone sensitive to wearing devices overnight.

App experience: The best fitness wearable is only as good as the app behind it — especially for minimal or no-screen devices like smart rings. Look for one that's easy to navigate, clear in its insights, and motivating over time. Garmin and Oura offer detailed but digestible data; Google and Apple are cleaner and beginner-friendly; Whoop offers AI-powered insights and habit tracking.

Which fitness tracker brand is the best?

No single fitness tracker brand is the best at everything, but each has key strengths and weaknesses.

• Garmin excels at its fitness-first tracking approach, with 30+ activity modes in most models, top-tier GPS, deep health metrics, long battery life, and a free training coach.
• Fitbit balances affordability with solid tracking, especially for heart rate during intervals and sleep insights.
• Whoop is great for people focused on recovery and long-term strain, and it stands out with its distraction-free screenless design.
• Apple and Google offer the most well-rounded smartwatches with excellent integration into their ecosystems — but fitness tracking may take a backseat to lifestyle features. That said, Google now owns Fitbit, so its Pixel Watch has a solid fitness foundation, and Apple continues to improve its smartwatch sensors.

The best weight loss cat foods are typically lower in calories and fat than regular formulas while providing more nutrients per serving. These foods also often contain more fiber, which helps cats feel full even when they're eating fewer calories.

To choose the best weight management foods for this guide, we consulted veterinarians about what to look for in diets for overweight cats and evaluated dozens of recipes using their guidance. Every food below meets or exceeds the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) standards and aligns with the Global Nutrition Guidelines published by the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA). These are the benchmarks consistently recommended by the veterinarians we consult.

Our top picks for the best weight loss cat foods

Best overall wet: Hill's Science Diet Perfect Weight Roasted Vegetable and Chicken Medley, 2.9 oz. cans (24 count) - $52 at Chewy

Best overall dry: Royal Canin Weight Care Adult Dry Cat Food, 6 lb. bag - $43 at Chewy

Best budget wet: Blue Buffalo True Solutions Weight Control Chicken Recipe, 3 oz. cans (24 count) - $36 at Chewy

Best budget dry: Purina One +Plus High Protein Chicken, 7 lb. bag - $18 at Chewy

Best for seniors: Iams Proactive Health Healthy Senior Chicken Recipe, 7 lb. bag - $17 at Chewy

How does weight loss cat food work?

Weight loss cat foods are specially formulated and labeled as "weight management," "weight loss," or "healthy weight" cat food. Keep in mind there's no one-size-fits-all food for overweight cats. The ideal diet for your cat depends on factors like their individual needs, age, ideal weight, and overall health. That's why it's important to talk with your veterinarian before making changes to your cat's diet. They can recommend appropriate food and help you create a safe, effective weight loss plan tailored to your cat.

It's also helpful to understand factors that cause cats to gain weight, including aging, decreased mobility, excessive calorie intake, and limited physical or mental activity. And while spaying or neutering is important for a cat's overall health, it can also lead to gradual weight gain.

Your veterinarian can calculate your cat's daily caloric needs and recommend an appropriate weight management food. Portion control is key for weight loss and maintenance, but simply cutting back on your cat's regular food can be harmful. Smaller portions may not provide all the nutrients your cat needs, says Dr. Mark Freeman, a veterinarian and clinical associate professor of community practice at Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.

How we recommend the best weight loss food for cats

To find the best weight loss foods for cats, we consulted five veterinarians, including three who specialize in animal nutrition. While they didn't recommend specific foods, their expertise helped us identify the qualities of an effective weight management diet and the safest ways for cats to lose weight.

We also ensured our picks aligned with the AAFCO standards, the WSAVA Global Nutrition Guidelines, and other publications and organizations listed in this guide. Learn more about how Business Insider Reviews tests and researches pet products.

Best wet overall

Wet food contains 75% to 78% moisture, compared with just 10% to 12% in dry food. This matters because cats typically get much of their hydration from what they eat rather than from drinking water, says Dr. Debra Zoran, a small animal internist, nutritionist, and professor at Texas A&M University. What's more, the extra water in canned food can help cats feel fuller while they consume fewer calories.

Because wet and dry cat foods have such different moisture levels, you need to convert wet food values to a dry matter basis to compare their nutritional content. This calculation excludes moisture and measures nutrients based solely on the remaining solids. We contacted manufacturers directly to obtain the dry matter basis for our picks. To compare other dry and wet foods, use the instructions from the Cummings Veterinary Medical Center at Tufts University, contact the food manufacturer, or ask your veterinarian for help.

Our top picks for wet cat food for weight loss include extra fiber from ingredients like powdered cellulose. This added fiber can help your cat feel satisfied between meals and potentially reduce begging. These foods also contain L-carnitine, an amino acid that helps the body burn fat for energy and may support weight loss.

Best dry overall

Your veterinarian might recommend dry food with added salt as part of a weight management plan. Although salt may seem like an unusual ingredient, Freeman says pet food manufacturers include salt to encourage cats to drink more water. "It's another mechanism to help pets feel full and reduce food consumption," he says. 

Managing calorie intake is also key to helping cats lose weight. That doesn't mean cat treats are forbidden, however. They're important for bonding with your cat and rewarding them, says Dr. Julie Churchill, a veterinary nutritionist and professor of nutrition at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. That said, she recommends setting aside a portion of your cat's kibble for treats. This way, you can give your cat a few small pieces of a complete and balanced food without disrupting their diet.

Our picks for the best dry cat food for weight loss include both soluble and insoluble fiber sources, such as beet pulp, oats, psyllium seed husk, and inulin derived from chicory root or Jerusalem artichoke. Soluble fiber absorbs water and forms a gel in the stomach, which slows digestion and increases a cat's feeling of fullness. Insoluble fiber adds bulk to stool and supports a healthy digestive system. These formulas also contain fish oil, a source of omega-3 fatty acids that can help reduce inflammation and improve joint health. This may help ease joint pain caused by the added stress of carrying excess weight.

Best budget wet

Along with added moisture, many wet cat foods contain carbohydrate sources that can help your cat lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. For instance, Tufts University says complex carbohydrates such as brown rice and whole corn are more fiber-rich than other carbohydrates. They can help your cat feel full for longer. Our experts recommend whole, complex carbohydrates over processed carbohydrates such as flour and meals. This is because cats use more energy to break whole carbs down, says Dr. Korinn Saker, a retired veterinary nutritionist who was associate professor of clinical nutrition at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. 

Our budget picks for the best affordable cat food for weight loss include fiber to help your cat feel full and L-carnitine to help them burn fat. If wet food still feels too pricey (it tends to be more expensive per serving than dry food), you can ask your vet for help creating a meal plan that mixes wet and dry food. Zoran says she offers her cats wet food to keep them hydrated, but also incorporates a small amount of dry food in feeder puzzles. This helps slow her cats' eating by making them work for their food, which can help them feel more satisfied and promote weight loss. You can learn more about the differences between canned food and kibble in our wet vs. dry cat food explainer.

Best budget dry

Budget dry food is a good option for cat owners looking for an affordable way to help their cat lose weight. Both budget and premium weight loss cat foods may contain cost-effective protein sources like meat byproducts and byproduct meals. These are secondary ingredients from the human food industry, but they meet the nutritional requirements for pets set by the AAFCO. Our experts agree that byproducts and meals make good protein sources for cats. 

Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they need animal-based proteins for essential amino acids like taurine. Budget dry cat foods can meet your cat's dietary needs as long as proteins in the form of whole meat, meat meal, or byproducts come first on the ingredient list.

Our budget picks for the best weight loss foods for cats are low in calories and fat, like our other recommendations in this guide. They contain proteins such as chicken, chicken byproduct meal, and turkey meal. Our pick from Purina also contains L-lysine, an amino acid that supports the immune system and may boost a cat's resistance to certain viruses.

Best for seniors

Senior cats are more likely to develop health problems, especially if they are overweight. Churchill says maintaining a healthy weight can add years to a pet's life, improve their quality of life, and delay many chronic diseases that occur with aging.

When choosing among the best senior cat foods, it's important to work with your veterinarian to determine your pet's specific needs. Some cats may require a diet with lower levels of phosphorus, sodium, or protein, while others may benefit from a high-protein diet. Many senior cat foods, such as the ones below, also contain ingredients like fish oil, glucosamine, and chondroitin that can help improve mobility and reduce inflammation. Our senior picks also contain cranberries and blueberries. These ingredients provide antioxidants, which can help keep a cat's liver, kidneys, and brain healthy.

Our top picks compared

How to choose a weight loss food for your cat

When shopping for the best cat foods for weight loss, you'll want to consider the following criteria: 

AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement for adult maintenance or all life stages: The AAFCO is a nonprofit organization that provides nutritional guidelines for pet food. An AAFCO statement indicates that a food meets the nutritional needs of cats based on their life stage. You can confirm a cat food is nutritionally complete and balanced for "adult maintenance" or "all life stages" if it has an AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement on the label. 

Keep in mind that cat food will only meet your cat's nutritional needs when served in the right portions. Giving your cat a smaller portion could lead to a nutritional deficiency, while overfeeding them may lead to weight gain, especially if they don't get much activity. 

Growing kittens need more calories and nutrients than adult cats so we recommend the best kitten foods for young felines. Therefore, weight management foods don't make a good choice for kittens, even if the food is labeled for "all life stages." If you have any concerns about your kitten's weight, consult a vet before you change their diet or feed them smaller portions. As your cat nears their first birthday, your vet can evaluate their weight and how many calories they should consume daily. 

Guaranteed analysis and nutrient profiles: The guaranteed analysis on a pet food label shows the percentages of important nutrients, including protein, fat, fiber, and other essential vitamins and minerals. Food for adult cats, including seniors, must have a minimum of 26% protein and 9% fat. Our experts say it's important to carefully examine the guaranteed analysis of protein, fat, and fiber percentages to ensure the recipe meets your cat's needs. The best weight loss foods for cats generally contain low to moderate fat and high fiber. 

Ingredients list: The ingredients on a pet food label appear in order of weight. As obligate carnivores, cats must eat diets made up of animal-based proteins. So, animal proteins in the form of whole meat, meat meal, or animal byproducts should appear first on the ingredients list of any cat food. To add fiber to your cat's diet and keep them feeling full between meals, opt for recipes with whole complex carbohydrates such as whole corn, whole brown rice, oats, and inulin. Sources of inulin you may notice on cat food labels include chicory root and, less commonly, Jerusalem artichoke.

Expert formulations: Expert formulation is even more important when it comes to weight loss diets since the best weight loss foods for cats are developed to provide more nutrients per serving, with fewer calories. We only recommend food from brands that employ a full-time board-certified veterinary nutritionist or a PhD-level animal nutritionist. This helps ensure your cat's food meets nutritional recommendations and includes the right ingredients for cats. It also aligns with the WSAVA guidelines and our experts' guidance.

Manufacturing standards: We expect commercial cat food brands to be transparent about their quality control measures. This means providing information about the types of tests they conduct, how often they test, and the results of those tests. If this information doesn't appear on a pet food company's website, brand representatives should provide the information upon request.

Calorie content: The calorie content of cat food is listed in kilocalories (kcals). Weight management foods generally have fewer calories per serving but are nutrient-dense to meet nutritional needs. However, the calorie needs of adult cats can vary depending on their age, ideal weight, and overall health. Our experts emphasize the importance of switching to a weight management diet instead of just giving your cat less food. Your vet can recommend the best weight loss cat foods and the right portion size for your cat. When a pet is only a little overweight — 10% to 15% — a successful approach to weight loss may involve switching to a lower-calorie food and adjusting treats and snacks, combined with increased exercise, Churchill says. Pets more than 15% heavier than their ideal weight are considered obese and may benefit from a prescription weight loss diet.

Vets can use a scale and the body condition scoring (BCS) system to assess your cat's weight and body fat. Your vet will consider your cat's lifestyle, ideal weight, and overall health to recommend the ideal number of daily calories your cat should eat. You can ask your vet to teach you how to use the BCS system to check your cat's body fat at home between wellness visits. Churchill says that frequent monitoring of your cat's weight is important since it allows veterinarians to fine-tune caloric intake and ensure that weight loss stays safe and healthy. She adds that cats should lose weight gradually, at a rate of 1% to 2% of their body weight per week.

Meet the experts behind this guide

Janelle Leeson, pet nutrition reporter: I've covered feline health and nutrition for Reviews since 2023, combining in-depth research with expert insight to help cat guardians make informed decisions. For this guide, I reviewed scientific literature on feline obesity and weight management, interviewed veterinarians about what makes a diet effective for weight management, compared the nutrient profiles and ingredient lists of more than 40 formulas, and applied rigorous, vet-informed criteria to every recommendation. My reporting is rooted in credible sources, objective comparisons, and a passion for helping cats thrive.

Our expert sources:

Dr. Liza Cahn is a licensed small animal veterinarian and consultant for Embrace Pet Insurance.

Dr. Julie Churchill is a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and a professor of nutrition at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Mark Freeman is a board-certified veterinarian and clinical associate professor of community practice at Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Korinn Saker is a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and a retired professor of clinical nutrition at the College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University.

Dr. Debra Zoran is a small animal internist, nutritionist, and professor of small animal clinical sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University.

Weight loss cat food FAQs

Is wet or dry cat food better for weight loss?

Both wet and dry cat foods can support weight loss, but wet food is generally the better choice. It's lower in calories per bite and higher in moisture, which can help keep cats feel full. Wet formulas also often contain complex carbohydrates, such as brown rice and whole grain corn, that take longer to digest.

Dr. Liza Cahn, a veterinarian and consultant for Embrace Pet Insurance, says dry food is typically more calorie-dense, making it easier for cats to overeat, especially when they're free-fed. The carbohydrates in kibble tend to come from processed flours and meals, which may be less filling. Still, a lower-calorie, high-fiber dry food can aid weight loss when portions are measured carefully. Whichever food you choose, regular exercise through play and enrichment is an important part of an effective weight management plan.

What is the best way for an indoor cat to lose weight?

A successful feline weight loss plan relies on three pillars: a balanced diet, portion control, and regular exercise. A weight management food also plays an important role, but the amount you feed is just as important. Freeman emphasizes the importance of portion control. He and his team provide pet parents with a carefully calibrated measuring cup for portioning food. Churchill recommends using a kitchen scale for accurate measuring. Treats count toward your cat's daily calorie intake, too. Since they are usually not complete and balanced, Churchill suggests setting aside a small portion of your cat's regular food to use as rewards instead. Exercise is especially important for indoor cats because it burns calories and helps prevent boredom. Churchill recommends puzzle feeders for meals, and all of our experts agree that cat trees and perches can encourage activity.

How much should I feed a cat that needs to lose weight?

Your veterinarian can calculate the appropriate amount of calories your cat needs based on their age, health, and body condition. As a starting point, you can use the Pet Nutrition Alliance Calorie Calculator to estimate your cat's daily calorie needs based on their current and ideal weight. For obese cats (those 15% to 20% over their ideal weight), Churchill says simply cutting back on their regular food can cause nutritional deficiencies. Your veterinarian may instead recommend a therapeutic weight loss diet.

How long should it take a cat to lose weight?

Cats should lose weight gradually, at a rate of about 1% to 2% of their body weight per week, Churchill says. Slow weight loss helps reduce the risk of health issues, including muscle loss and hepatic lipidosis, a potentially fatal condition. Also called fatty liver disease, hepatic lipidosis can develop when a cat's food intake decreases so rapidly that they enter a state of anorexia. The body responds by sending fat stores to the liver. However, the liver can't process such large amounts of fat, so it builds up in liver cells, causing irreversible damage. While roughly 90% of cases stem from underlying conditions such as kidney disease, cancer, or diabetes, rapid calorie restriction for weight loss can also cause fatty liver disease, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. However, obesity itself also increases a cat's risk.

Do slow feeders help cats lose weight?

Yes, slow feeders can help cats lose weight by encouraging them to mimic their natural hunting and foraging behaviors. Food puzzles also provide mental stimulation and curb boredom that can lead to extra eating or begging. Some slow feeders and puzzles, such as the Catit Senses Food Tree, encourage physical activity by requiring cats to sit up, reach, or circle the feeder to get food. Others, like kibble-dispensing balls, motivate cats to push the toy to release food. Portion control is still essential, so carefully measure your cat's food before adding it to a slow feeder or puzzle.

Jenna Miscavige is the niece of David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology. She was raised as a Scientologist and left when she was 22 years old.

Founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, Scientology developed into a global religious movement, reportedly reaching over 100,000 members at its peak in the 1990s. Even as its ranks have contracted, Scientology has retained an outsize place in popular culture due in no small part to high-profile members such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

Jenna Miscavige speaks to Business Insider about Scientology's secretive reputation, recruitment tactics, finances, allegations of abuse, and celebrity connections.

She is the author of "Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape." Jenna also uses social media to speak out against Scientology and inform the public.

The Church of Scientology disputes Jenna Miscavige's depiction of the organization, saying in an emailed statement: "What [Jenna] is selling is not a new revelation. It is discredited allegations repackaged for profit. Her bid for notoriety begins and ends with a prominent family name she is desperate to trade on."

For more from Jenna:
https://www.youtube.com/@JennaMiscavige
https://www.instagram.com/therealjennamiscavige
https://www.tiktok.com/@jennamiscavige

• In a new interview, White House press secretary Katie Zacharia didn't deny failing the bar exam.
• She also defended calling herself a lawyer.
• "The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China," she said of the bar exam.

President Donald Trump's new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia is defending her self-description as a lawyer, while acknowledging that she took the bar exam and considered the results "inconsequential."

Zacharia's legal qualifications have faced growing scrutiny since her debut White House media briefing earlier this week, when shortly afterward she was asked which state she passed the bar exam in and replied: "When I moved to China."

In an interview Thursday with right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec on Real America's Voice, she did not deny reports that she'd failed to pass the bar.

Zacharia, who moved to China after earning her law degree in 2011, told Posobiec she had already preregistered for the bar exam before moving to Beijing, where her husband was working at an American private equity firm.

"I didn't want to withdraw from that," Zacharia said of the bar exam. "And we knew we would be moving out to China, and I was obviously incredibly distracted and overwhelmed and excited for finally being married to someone who I had been long-distance from for at least a year."

Zacharia said she thought she'd take the bar and "see what happens."

"The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China, and we left shortly thereafter," said Zacharia.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Zacharia failed California's bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University in 2011.

A Business Insider review of records for all 50 states and the District of Columbia found no evidence that Zacharia had been admitted to practice law in the US.

In China, Zacharia said she took a job in the international practice division of the Zhong Lun law firm, where she said she worked on multimillion-dollar shareholder agreements and cross-border transactions. She said she was one of four associates under a senior partner.

"After moving to China, I didn't really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on," Zacharia told Posobiec, adding, "There's no Chinese bar. I had enough credentials, which was my law degree, to be able to do this practice."

"I had all the necessary requirements to do that, and I was able to do it effectively and well," she said.

She also said that she never retook the bar exam after returning to the US and having the first of four children with her husband within six years.

Zacharia said she consulted with people within the legal field "for a very long time" and was told it would be acceptable to call herself a lawyer "and provide legal analysis, not legal advice."

"They said absolutely, absolutely across the board — you can call yourself a lawyer, you have a JD, and to buffer that, you have international legal experience in transactional law," Zacharia said.

"It's unfortunate that people dub this as some kind of conspiracy," she said. "The truth is, I was very careful how I executed this, and I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law."

Zacharia's LinkedIn page says she served as general counsel for Fix California, a political advocacy group, between January 2024 and March 2025. In California, it is a misdemeanor to practice law or to advertise yourself as an attorney without a license.

At least two watchdog groups have filed a complaint about Zacharia with the State Bar of California this week.

• Two watchdog groups asked the California state bar to investigate White House spox Katie Zacharia.
• She worked as a general counsel in California. The state bar has no record she was licensed there.
• Zacharia said she consulted with people in the field to see if she could label herself a lawyer.

A growing chorus is voicing concern about White House press secretary Katie Zacharia's self-described legal career.

Two watchdog groups Wednesday filed complaints with the State Bar of California, asking it to investigate whether she violated California law by calling herself a lawyer.

It is a misdemeanor in California to practice law or advertise yourself as an attorney if you don't have a license to do so.

Several law and legal-ethics professors told Business Insider that if Zacharia misrepresented herself as an attorney, or used a title like general counsel without having been admitted to the bar, that could land her in trouble with state bar officials should she try to join in the future.

Substack publication Popular Information this week reported that Zacharia hadn't been admitted to any state bar, and The Wall Street Journal reported that she failed California's bar exam after graduating from law school in 2011. After her graduation, she moved to China, where she worked for a law firm as an associate on an international practice team.

Zacharia Thursday defended calling herself a lawyer.

In an interview Thursday with right-wing activist Jack Posobiec, Zacharia said she considered her bar exam results "inconsequential" because of her impending move to China.

"After moving to China, I didn't really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on," she said.

She told Posobiec that she "consulted for a very long time with many people in the field" to see if she could label herself a lawyer and offer legal analysis, not "legal advice." She also said she wouldn't weigh in on legal matters as press secretary.

President Trump's new press secretary has repeatedly referred to herself as a lawyer. Her LinkedIn page says she worked as a general counsel in California, and on Tuesday, in a statement to Business Insider, she said she had "practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials."

Zacharia used her legal pedigree to give herself credibility in her White House role, the Campaign for Accountability said Wednesday in its complaint to the California bar.

"The public is entitled to rely on the representation that a person who calls herself a lawyer is in fact licensed to practice law," the group wrote.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Thursday that Zacharia "is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary."

In an X post Wednesday, Cheung referred to the Campaign for Accountability as a "radical leftist-organization run by rabid numbskulls suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome."

"Nobody takes them seriously because they are deranged low lifes," his post said.

Watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund also filed a complaint with the bar.

'Character and fitness'

There is no record that Zacharia has ever been licensed to practice law in her home state of California, a spokesperson for the state bar told Business Insider.

Zacharia earned her law degree at California's Pepperdine University in 2011, then moved to China, according to her LinkedIn page.

She later served as general counsel for Fix California, a political advocacy group, between January 2024 and March 2025, her LinkedIn page says. Richard Grenell, the founder of Fix California and a state department official in the Trump administration, didn't respond to requests for comment about Zacharia's work for the organization.

That résume entry could hurt her chances of admission to the bar in future, legal-ethics professors told Business Insider.

The bar admissions process in most states includes a step in which the bar evaluates prospective members' "character and fitness," according to Richard Zitrin, a legal-ethics professor at the University of San Francisco's law school.

Claiming to be a general counsel in California would cut against her if she didn't have a license to practice law at the time, Zitrin said.

Business Insider reviewed records for all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found no evidence that Zacharia had been admitted to any state bar in the US.

A law firm in China

Zacharia moved to China with her husband because of his job at an American private equity firm, the White House said.

In China, only Chinese nationals can become a member of the country's bar and practice law, experts in the Chinese legal system told Business Insider.

According to her LinkedIn page, Zacharia worked for Zhong Lun, a large law firm in Beijing, between 2011 and 2013. Asked by a reporter on Tuesday which state she passed the bar exam in, Zacharia responded, "When I moved to China."

Unlike the United States, where the bar admission process varies by state, China has a single unified bar exam process. It is available only to Chinese nationals and generally requires a degree from a Chinese university, according to Jacques deLisle, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school who studies the Chinese legal system.

"The odds that she is a member of the Chinese bar are essentially zero," he said. "Both because of the citizenship requirement and the education requirement."

It's possible for employees of international law firms to do some work on transactions without passing a bar exam, but the scope of the work they're permitted to do is limited, according to Taisu Zhang, a professor of Chinese law at Yale Law School. Those firms generally require employees to pass a bar exam within a few years, he said.

Law firms like Zhong Lun often hire recent foreign law school graduates to review contracts and advise on elements of US law for transactions, but they need to "stay within the edges" of their work so that they don't cross into practicing law, which is illegal in China, deLisle said.

"She was never a lawyer in China. It doesn't mean she didn't do law-related work, but she was never a lawyer in China," deLisle said.

Representatives for Zhong Lun didn't respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

There is not a single pair of shoes that I've worn more often than my Rothy's Casual Clogs. Easy to slip on, excellent arch support, machine-washable — what else could you want in a shoe? And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. My colleague, style editor Gabrielle Chase, is equally obsessed. We've both been wearing their clogs for years and have featured them in several stories across BI Reviews.

Rothy's rarely offers discounts, but right now it's having a huge sale just on its clogs. The brand is advertising the sale as "up to 25% off," but some pairs, like the Braid Clog (now $99), are discounted by as much as 38%. I can't overstate how rare it is to see a deal this good from Rothy's.

The classic Casual Clog, my all-time favorite shoe that comes in 15+ colors, is 25% off (down to $119 from $160). Other styles, like the Penny from our guide to the best clogs, are only discounted by about $10, so we'd wait until Black Friday to see if you can get a better deal (no guarantees, though — Rothy's doesn't always do a Black Friday sale).

I've been wearing my pair of Casual Clogs for about 4 years, and they still look brand new. Clogs might not be everyone's first choice for walking, but I've been able to do 10,000-step days in these shoes so I love them for long days out on my feet — even without socks. They're also great for wearing in the house when I'm cooking or on my feet doing a ton of cleaning, which is why we featured them in our guide to the best slippers for women.

What makes Rothy's clogs so comfy?

After testing so many pairs of clogs from the brand, I think there are three main reasons Rothy's clogs are so comfortable, and those reasons are universal across styles because they all use the same footbed and upper materials.

Extremely well-designed arch support: The first is that the molded footbeds have perfectly contoured arch support that feel super smooth underfoot (AKA no lumps, bumps, or hard spots). The footbed also shapes to your arches over time, but not in the way that stiffer pairs like Birkenstocks take forever to do. Instead, the softer base allows your foot to sink in ever so slightly from day one. The cushioning isn't too squishy, but it also isn't too firm, so you get that perfect balance of support like you would with a proper walking shoe.

They don't cause blisters: The second reason they're so comfy is that Rothy's uses a seamless construction, so you don't get any uncomfortable joints or seams that rub against the sides of your feet. The upper is molded all the way over the base of the clog, which means no blistering, ever.

The upper material is soft and stretchy: Made from a blend of recycled water bottles and wool, the material you'll find on Rothy's clogs is even softer than what they use for their flats and loafers. That means it's flexible when you're walking and doesn't require any break-in time like leather clogs. It's also really easy to clean, whether you're just brushing it with a gentle bristle brush (I use a toothbrush!) or throwing your pair in the washing machine. Just don't put them in the dryer or they'll shrink.

What size should you order?

Rothy's clogs only come in whole sizes, which can make finding the right size a little tricky. We typically recommend going down if you wear a half size and going with your regular size if you're a whole size, but there are some exceptions. If you have wide feet or plan to wear socks with your clogs, half sizes may want to consider sizing up. If you have particularly narrow feet, you can go up to a full size down.

You can read our full Rothy's review, where we explain sizing considerations based on specific styles.

The bottom line

You won't find a comfier pair of clogs than the ones from Rothy's, but you also won't find them on sale very often. The site usually hosts a couple of promotions a year, and isn't even consistent about offering deals during Black Friday or Cyber Monday. We hope they'll have another sale this year, but if not, it's likely this is your last time to save on a pair of clogs until summer, when the last seasonal sale happened.

Streaming services have become all but necessary to keep up with sports and original TV shows, even for those with extensive cable packages. Fortunately, there are deals on nearly every streaming subscription service out there, especially when you bundle multiple platforms together or opt for an annual plan. Below, we've highlighted all of the best streaming deals and bundles, from Disney to Amazon and everything in between.

Many of these discounts are evergreen, year-round offerings, but we'll keep this page updated with the latest limited-time deals, so you don't need to worry about missing out on a potential savings opportunity. After scouring the internet for discounts this month, we've found introductory offers from multiple live TV services, six-month price-lock deals from Disney Plus and Hulu, a brand-new mega bundle from Prime Video, and sales on STARZ monthly and annual plans.

We know streaming can get pricey, especially after the slew of recent price hikes, which is why we've rounded up a massive list of the best streaming deals below using our rigorous deal hunting and vetting process. You can explore both basic stand-alone streaming services and comprehensive live TV packages, with price comparisons showing how much you'd pay per year on a month-to-month plan or how much you'd pay per month without bundling multiple services together. Many of the streamers offer introductory deals for new and/or eligible returning customers, which we've also outlined.

Paramount+

There are a few simple ways to cash in on Paramount+ savings. Signing up for an annual plan is an easy way to save around $18 to $28 year-over-year compared to what you'd pay after 12 months of a monthly plan. The Essential tier gives subscribers ad-supported on-demand content, while the Premium upgrade features an ad-free on-demand experience, CBS live streaming, Showtime programming, and other perks. Paramount+ Essential (or Peacock Premium, if you'd prefer that) is also included with all Walmart+ plans, from monthly ($12.95 a month) to annual ($98 a year).

If you just want to stick with a monthly plan, you can head to the Paramount+ website.

Disney Plus and Hulu

Disney (and several of its partners) offers the greatest number of deals through bundles. There are savings if you bundle Disney+ with Hulu, with Hulu and HBO Max, with Hulu and ESPN, with Hulu + Live TV, or if you just get an annual Disney+ ad-free subscription. We recommend trying out one of the Disney+ and Hulu combos no matter what, since you get two entire on-demand subscriptions for only $0.50 a month more than the price of one. There's also some savings if you commit to a six-month plan (billed monthly) of the Disney+ and Hulu bundle (ad-supported or ad-free), which will give you a cheaper monthly fee for the first six months. Eligible students can also get a special discount on the ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu bundle.

If you plan to stick with just one streaming service or want to try a month-to-month subscription first, you can head to the Disney+ website for more information.

ESPN

There are two tiers of ESPN's streaming service: ESPN Select (formerly ESPN Plus, for $13.99 a month) and ESPN Unlimited (for $31.99 a month). Both plans also have annual subscription options, which offer year-over-year savings compared to paying monthly for 12 months. You can also purchase a gift subscription for an ESPN Select annual plan. Additionally, you can save if you bundle ESPN Unlimited with other services, like Disney+, Hulu, NFL Plus Premium, or FOX One.

The ESPN Unlimited and NFL Plus Premium bundle costs $41.99 a month, which is a decent savings opportunity when compared to the $46.98 you'd pay each month if you subscribed to the services separately. The ESPN Unlimited and FOX One bundle offers slightly more savings at $39.99 a month, compared to the $51.98 you'd pay if subscribed separately. You can learn more about the Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN bundles in the section above.

If you'd rather try a monthly plan or explore the bundle deal, you can go to the ESPN website. 

Peacock

Peacock's monthly plans go for $12.99 or $19.99 a month, so the annual plans add up to about 12 months for the price of the 10. The Premium tier offers on-demand and select live coverage with ads, while Premium Plus has ad-free on-demand content and a 24/7 live stream of NBC. The service boasts select live sports and classic comedies, like The Office, Parks and Rec, and Saturday Night Live. There's also a pared-down Peacock Select tier, which costs $8.99 a month or $89.99 a year. This plan only includes ad-supported on-demand current season and library content from NBC and Bravo shows, in addition to some other select programming (but no movies, live events/sports, or Peacock Originals).

Peacock and Apple TV have also launched two bundle options: one for Peacock Premium and Apple TV, and another for Peacock Premium Plus and Apple TV. Subscriptions cost $17.99 and $22.99, respectively, a significant savings opportunity compared to what you'd pay for both services separately each month. Additionally, Peacock Premium (or Paramount+ Essential, depending on what you prefer) is included with Walmart+ subscriptions, which cost $12.95 a month or $98 a year. Instacart+, which costs $9.99 a month or $99 a year, also comes with Peacock Premium access.

You can check out the Peacock website if you'd rather subscribe to a monthly plan.

Apple TV

Apple TV typically costs $14.99 a month, but users can find savings in an annual plan, which costs $119. It's worth noting that you might need to sign up for a monthly plan first and then opt into annual billing. Beginning in the 2026 season, all MLS matches became available to Apple TV subscribers, so there's no need to pay for the extra MLS Season Pass.

You can also find some savings by bundling Apple TV and Peacock together. Monthly bundles are available for both ad-supported and ad-free versions of Peacock, with savings ranging from 34% to 36% each month compared to what you'd pay if you subscribed to Apple TV and Peacock separately.

If you're interested in learning more about Apple TV Plus or other Apple services, you can visit the Apple TV Plus website for additional information.

Starz

Starz subscriptions usually cost $11.99 a month, $45.99 for six months, or $69.99 for a year, but the streaming platform is almost always offering a promo on at least one of its plans. Right now, new customers can save on monthly or annual plans. Users can get 58% off their first three months of service with the monthly plan, or get 57% off a full year of service with the annual plan. The annual plan already boasts a decent amount of savings compared to paying for 12 months of service at the monthly rate, so the current deal offers an even deeper discount.

If you're interested in learning more about the different subscriptions, you can check out the Starz website.

Prime Video

Prime Video is Amazon's streaming counterpart, but if you're not interested in having a full Amazon Prime membership (which includes access to Prime Video), you can get a stand-alone Prime Video subscription for $8.99 a month. You can also find some savings by subscribing to an annual Amazon Prime plan, which goes for $139 a year. If you're looking for an ad-free on-demand experience, you can get Prime Video Ultra for an additional $4.99 a month.

Prime Video also allows customers to subscribe to external streaming services through their account, and these sign-ups often come with special deals in the form of discounted bundles. Some of the best Prime Video add-on deals available right now include the Starz and BritBox bundle ($17.99 a month, compared to the $22.98 a month you'd pay each month if you subscribed to each service separately) and the HBO Max and Cinemax bundle ($22.99 a month, compared to the $28.48 you'd pay each month if you subscribed to each service separately). There's also a new mega bundle, which combines AMC+, BritBox, MGM+, PBS Masterpiece, and STARZ ($29.99 a month, compared to the $48.95 you'd pay each month if you subscribed to each service separately).

If you'd rather try a monthly plan or just stick with Prime Video, you can find more information on the Prime Video storefront.

NFL Plus

NFL Plus always offers some savings when you sign up for an annual plan compared to what you'd pay after subscribing to a monthly plan for 12 months. Opting for an annual subscription can save you over 40%. You can also find some moderate monthly savings by bundling ESPN Unlimited and NFL Plus Premium together, or by adding NFL Plus Premium to the Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Unlimited bundle.

If you'd prefer to sign up for a monthly plan, you can explore all subscription options through the NFL Plus website.

DAZN

DAZN has become an absolute hub for boxing, hosting some of the most-anticipated matches around the globe each year. DAZN also offers other select sports, usually without a PPV fee, although boxing is its focus. Most major fights require a subscription and pay-per-view (PPV) fee, but you can find some savings by opting for one of the annual plans. Flexible month-to-month subscriptions cost $30.99 a month, but you can save by opting for the 12-Month Monthly Saver plan, which reduces your monthly bill to $20.99 a month on a one-year contract.

There's also an up-front annual plan, which costs $224.99 a year. DAZN has also introduced a new Ultimate plan, which costs $44.99 a month on an annual contract or $449.99 up front for a year. The Ultimate tier includes at least 12 PPV fights a year at no extra cost.

For more information on DAZN's plans and PPV offerings, you can explore the DAZN website.

HBO Max

There are three tiers of HBO Max, previously Max (and before that, also HBO Max), in addition to a Disney/HBO Max/Hulu bundle, which we've highlighted above. The standard monthly price for HBO Max with Ads is $10.99, HBO Max Ad-Free is $18.49, and HBO Max Ultimate Ad-Free is $22.99. The ad-free tiers also include sports live streaming for games that air on Warner Bros. channels, like TNT and TBS. The annual version of each plan offers about 17% off in total per year, which is not a bad deal if HBO Max is something you're planning to hang onto in the long run. You can learn more about the Disney Plus, Hulu, and HBO Max bundles in the Disney Plus section above.

You can go to the HBO Max website if you'd rather just sign up for a month-to-month plan right now.

Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll is a popular anime-centric streaming service that has some decent savings opportunities when you subscribe to one of its three tiers of service on an annual basis. Monthly subscriptions range from $9.99 a month to $17.99 a month, and their annual counterparts range from $99.99 a year to $179.99 a year. Year-to-year, annual subscriptions are about 17% cheaper across the board than what you'd pay in total after 12 months on a monthly subscription.

You can learn more about the various plans through the Crunchyroll website.

YouTube TV

YouTube TV is one of the most popular live TV streaming services. The streamer offers a comprehensive selection of channels across multiple plans, with the option to pay for add-ons. The main plan carries 100+ popular channels and an enticing, limited-time offer for new users. From now until November 26, customers can get their first five months for $67.99 a month, instead of the standard $82.99 a month. That shakes out to 18% off.

If you're interested in checking out other plans, you can head to the YouTube TV website.

Fubo

Fubo is another fantastics live TV platform, best known for its sports offerings. Standard plans start at $88.99 a month and go up to $98.99 a month before any add-ons or regional sports fees. However, new customers can get $25 off their first month of Pro or $30 off their first month of Elite. Additionally, subscribers can get Fubo Elite with Sports Plus for $109 a month, with a $40 discount on the introductory month. There's also a Fubo Latino plan, which is currently discounted by 50% in the first month of service.

For additional plans and channel information, head to Fubo's website.

DirecTV

DirecTV, formerly DirecTV Stream, is another comprehensive live TV streaming service with pretty much all of the channels you'll find in a standard cable package. New subscribers can save on their first 24 months of Signature packages, including discounts on the Entertainment, Choice, Ultimate, and Premier plans. First-time customers can also get $30 off their first three months of Entertainment, $30 off their first month of Choice, $35 off their first month of Ultimate, and $40 off their first month of Premier. Just keep in mind that the actual monthly prices might be a bit higher after paying the required regional sports fees and/or any necessary Gemini lease fees. Users can also save some money on their month of DirecTV's MySports genre pack and their first two months of DirecTV's MyNews and MiEspañol genre packs.

If you're interested in learning more about DirecTV, check out the DirecTV website for additional information.

Sling TV

Sling TV has developed a reputation as one of the most affordable live TV streaming packages on the market, and it's also chock-full of deals. There are several main plans to choose from: Sling Select, Sling Essentials, Sling Orange, Sling Blue, the Sling Select + Essentials combo, and the Sling Orange + Blue combo. Individual Orange and Blue plans cost $45.99 a month each, but you can get both starting at $60.99 a month. Sling Select and Essentials start at $19.99 a month each, but you can get both beginning at $34.99 a month. If you have a plan that gets local channels (like Sling Select, Sling Blue, or one of their combos), subscriptions will cost a little bit extra each month.

Sling also offers all sorts of deals if you add on a streaming service through your Sling subscription, including first-month savings on Paramount+ with Showtime (Premium), AMC+, and STARZ. Several Sling plans also include access to the FOX One app at no extra cost.

If you want to explore Sling TV and its add-ons, visit the Sling website for more information.

Philo

Philo is another budget-friendly live TV service, best known for its entertainment and lifestyle line-up. A base subscription (70+ channels) costs $25 a month, but the Philo Bundle+ offers some major savings. Users can get a base Philo subscription, ad-supported HBO Max (normally $10.99 a month), AMC+ (normally $7.99 a month), and Discovery+ (normally $6.99 a month) for just $33 a month. Costs for those three streaming services would normally add up to $25.97 total each month, but the Philo Bundle+ goes for just $8 a month more than Philo Essential.

To learn more about either plan, you can check out the Philo website for additional details.

Streaming device deals

If you've gotten yourself all set up with a streaming service but you still need a way to watch it on your TV, then it might be time to purchase a streaming device. These are particularly helpful tools for those without smart TVs, which typically come with streaming apps available to download or already installed (although you'll still need to pay for a subscription to use them). Some of this month's best deals were available during Prime Day and have since gone back to full price, but there are still some offers on a few of our favorite picks, including Roku devices.

Wireless and grocery streaming deals

One of the cool things about streaming services is that they're often already included with other subscriptions or contracts, or these services allow you to sign up for a streamer or bundle at a reduced price. Mobile carriers and grocery delivery services have some of the best offers, and we've rounded up some of the top options below. Cellular providers typically involve long-term contracts, so we encourage potential customers to read the fine print carefully.

I wouldn't exactly call Quince "affordable luxury," but it is luxury adjacent. I'm still wearing the pieces I first put on over three years ago, so in general, the value is there.

Is Quince a good brand? The short answer: it can be. By sticking to the simplest designs and learning the nuances of its inconsistent sizing system, Quince has become my trove for modern, elevated basics.

That said, Quince will use signifiers like "Italian Leather" or "Responsible Down" to suggest a product's worth. Recently it renamed its handbags to "Gemma" and "Vivienne" to give them a more personal identity, the same way fashion houses do.

We've done the work of parsing through Quince's massive, ever-changing selection of clothing and accessories. First, I'll introduce you to our all-time favorites — the styles that have earned us compliments while proving their long-term durability.

The best Quince clothing

Every so often, we find a Quince item that makes us want to stock up on multiples. Some of its strongest showings were the soft basics, luggage, fine jewelry, and stretchy leggings. These impressed everyone on a body-diverse group of testers and felt more expensive than they cost. Learn more about how the Reviews team tests clothing at BI.

Quince Ultra Soft High-Rise Leggings

Our fit tip: Choose the 25-inch inseam version if you're 5-foot-3 or under.

"Between the luxe heathered fabric, timeless neutral colors, and flawless fit, I always feel put together in this set — whether I'm grabbing coffee, dropping my son at daycare, or taking a stroll around the local lake. And I love that I can mix and match the pieces, too.

The leggings look equally cute with a workout tank as they do with a V-neck tee and denim jacket. In the cooler months, I could definitely imagine wearing them with a slouchy off-the-shoulder sweater and Chelsea boots.

I originally bought this set hoping it'd be a budget-friendly alternative to my Beyond Yoga Spacedye bra and leggings. For the sake of comparison, that set costs $167 — and this one is $70.

As it turns out, the quality is still up to par. The fabric hasn't pilled, stretched out, or faded despite frequent wear and washing — and if anything, it's become even softer over time." — Rebecca Strong, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince Cotton Cashmere Ribbed Long Sleeve V-Neck Midi Dress

Our fit tip: This has a clingy fit that's true to size. The sleeves run a bit long.

This sweater dress has just 3% cashmere, so it's soft without being itchy if you're sensitive to knit fibers. I like that the fabric is heavyweight and stretchy, and how comfortable and clingy the fit feels.

I also appreciate that this Ribbed Midi Dress has a tie in the rear so I can pull it tighter around my waist, preventing it from becoming another lumpy, misshapen sweater dress. It's proven worth the $70, since I wore it at least once a week in the span of a month. With a quick switch of accessories, this sweater dress can be transformed from a cozy loungewear look to a semi-formal outfit. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Read more about its versatility in our full Quince sweater dress review.

Quince Mongolian Cashmere Fisherman Vest

Our fit tip: Size down if you want a more fitted look. It'll still wear comfortably over a base layer.

Quince's fisherman knit is one of my favorite patterns I've tried from its cashmere collection — it's chunky, structured, but still very soft. This Fisherman Sweater Vest is made from a 7 gauge cashmere, meaning it's lightweight and ideal for layering. It has a long, boxy, and slightly oversized fit, so size down if you prefer your waistline to be visible. Pictured above, I'm wearing this on it's own with a Quince Baguette, but it also looks very smart atop a white button-down. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince SuperSoft Fleece Sweatsuit

Our fit tip: Both pieces have a cropped fit, which may not be ideal for tall people.

During the pandemic, we wrote a lot about the best loungewear you can buy, so I tested probably 10-15 lounge sets while working from home. I wish I had known about this set sooner, because it's definitely my new favorite!

The material is relatively thin and lined with a super soft fleece that feels like you're wearing a cloud. The Wide-Leg Pants fell in just the right place on my calf, and I love that they're versatile enough to pair with other tops besides the matching sweatshirts. The Fleece Crew fit really well, and though it wasn't cropped by design, it tucked into the high-waisted pants without billowing out too much. It took two or three washes to stop seeing little bits of fuzz lingering behind on the inside, so I recommend putting it through the laundry before your first wear. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Ultra-Soft Bike Short

Our fit tip: These are for low-impact exercise routines. For higher compression, choose the Ultra Form Bike Short.

When Quince named its "Ultra-Soft Bike Short," they weren't being hyperbolic. I'd go as far as to say "ultra" is an understatement.

Trust me, I've tested a lot of activewear in my career; this is the softest material I've ever put on my body. The style is constructed from 84% recycled polyester (sourced from about 4 to 5 recycled PET bottles) and 16% Spandex. It boasts a 4-way stretch, adding to its comfortability, and while it keeps everything secure and smooth, it's not restrictive. I've worn them for low-impact yoga flows and mat pilates, paired them with a sweatshirt for all-day wear, and I would probably feel comfortable sleeping in them, too. — Julia Guerra, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince 100% Organic Cotton Poplin A-line Maxi Skirt

Our fit tip: Choose the petite length if you're 5-foot-3 or under.

This Poplin A-line Maxi Skirt isn't just my new favorite style from Quince, it's maybe one of my favorite pieces of clothing ever. The white skirt comes in and out of stock, but it's pretty consistently available in black and navy. It's not see-through at all thanks to a thin cotton lining under the poplin, but it still remains super breezy and light.

I love the length on my very short frame, but even if you're taller, you can wear it at different spots on your waist to get a shorter or longer fit. I'm a sucker for an elastic waist band (comfy clothes only!) and anything with pockets (yes, it has pockets!), so basically this is my dream skirt and I'll be wearing it as often as my laundry schedule allows. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Tencel Jersey Fit & Flare Dress

Our fit tip: Size down if you have a short torso. The full skirt weighs the stretchy bodice down, which lowers the waistline.

I wore this comfy Fit & Flare Dress straight out of the bag in came in, and it proved its versatility immediately. The fabric is made from a supremely soft, stretchy blend of Tencel and Spandex, which clings at its top and flows around its midi-length skirt. I was building up a bit of a sweat while vacuuming in it, yet it felt so light and breathable that I kept on wearing it after I'd cooled down.

I'm 5-foot-9 and have a short torso, so the size S fit has more of a drop-waist that flares around the hips. Importantly, though, this dress has two hip pockets — so besides being extremely comfortable, it's also convenient. If you want a version you can really sweat in, Quince offers the same design in its moisture-wicking Flowknit fabric. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Mongolian Cashmere Crewneck

Our fit tip: This style is fitted and runs small. The sleeves were short on our long-limbed testers.

The super soft Quince Mongolian Cashmere Crewneck Sweater feels more expensive than it is, and it's obvious why it's such a hit. It's main difference from Naadam's ($98) is that it's slightly thinner and not as smooth. I tested the newest Cashmere 2.0 version, which costs the same and felt slightly thicker than the original, but it's not as good as Naadam in terms of softness.

I only wash my cashmere as needed in order to make it last. The Quince sweater feels thinner and pilled more than Naadam's after washing, but I still don't find it any less wearable.

Of course, the price tag on Quince's 100% Grade-A Mongolian cashmere is attractive when you see that it's practically identical to Naadam's. The patterns are the exact same (unless I'm really nitpicking — Quince's neckline is bound with a seam that looks slightly more unfinished and liable to fray). But the quality is acceptable and consistent with other Quince cashmere pieces I've tested. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Read more in my full Naadam vs. Quince cashmere sweater review.

Quince Mongolian Cashmere Fisherman Crewneck Sweater

Our fit tip: This boxy knit runs slightly small. Size up if you want an oversized look.

"This is Quince's actual best cashmere crewneck. When it comes to cashmere, I'd rather have a thick $99 sweater than a thin one, even if the latter only costs $50. The Fisherman Crew is the perfect density when a thick hoodie feels too bulky to fit under your coat, and the lofty 7-gauge knit is even comfortable enough to sleep in. It comes in ten colorways, including this Dusty Blue (which looks closer to pewter in person). I just wish I'd ordered this style in a size Medium, as the Small looks a bit cropped on my long torso." — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Mongolian Cashmere Oversized Cardigan

Our fit tip: Boyfriend sweaters should feel a little roomy. We recommend sizing up if you're between sizes.

This is another fave. It can be really hard to find a decent oversized fit when you're typically the largest size in the size range (as I am for Quince), so I'm really happy that this sweater has a loose, "boyfriend" style without being shapeless or overly baggy. It's super soft and very versatile — I can see myself wearing this buttoned-up on its own or open with a cute tank or crop top underneath. — Lauren Savoie, former deputy editor, Insider Reviews

I think this cardigan was one of my favorites in the order. It's so soft and luxurious. At $150, it's definitely on Quince's pricier end, but I view this as an investment piece I'll be wearing for years to come. It's generously sized, with a bit of a boxy fit. — Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Australian Merino Wool Half Zip Sweater

Our fit tip: This half-zip runs long. If you're between sizes, round up so you can layer underneath.

This Merino wool half-zip has a chunky knit like a fisherman sweater, and it's really easy to layer with because of the loose, oversized fit. Wearing this has made me realize I actually love half-zips because I can loosen it when I pull it over my head and it won't mess up my hair or smudge my makeup. Then once it's on, I zip it back up to keep my neck warm.

The sleeves have pilled significantly over time, and there are a lot of snags pulled from my cat's claws (this is one of his favorite things to sleep on).

I like the chunky lower gauge knit for this kind of sweater because it feels heavyweight and insulating without suffocating me around the neckline. And for the price, you really can't do much better on a Merino wool sweater. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Cashmere Batwing Sweater

Our fit tip: This style only comes in S/M or L/XL. We found it fit true to size.

This slouchy, casual-but-polished sweater has become my go-to for Zoom calls. The fit is perfectly oversized — I'm usually between a small and a medium in tops and the S/M fits me well with room to spare — which makes it great for layering on top of a long-sleeve shirt or tank. Thanks to the longer tunic-style length, it looks great with a pair of leggings or jeans but can also be worn over a midi skirt for a more elevated look. — Talia Ergas, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince Carry-On Hard Shell Suitcase

This Hard Shell Suitcase was really easy to wheel around, and I was grateful for its smoothness when navigating the subway. I tested both this version and the Front Pocket version, but the pocket was pretty useless and only made it bulkier, so I recommend saving the $40 and going with the pocketless version.

The carry-on is lightweight, but not flimsy. I like that the inside has a removable mesh pocket and a zipped pouch that unfurls and can be easily tucked away when not in use. I use it whenever I need to pack about four days worth of outfits and toiletries.

It comes with its own magic eraser to wipe off scuff marks, but I honestly don't think it's worth the extra effort just for it to become scuffed the next time I use it. If you're concerned about scratches, you'd better get a protective sleeve or choose a soft-shell suitcase instead. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Adeline Shopper Tote

Style editor Samantha Crozier tested dozens of the best work bags for women to find durable totes to take to the office. Her favorite affordable work bag is this simple carryall, which has tiny metal feet to keep its base off the floor, as well as a sleek leather exterior that looks more expensive than it is.

"If there's one criticism I have of this bag, it's the lack of pockets with zippers," she writes. "The only zippered compartment is the center pocket that's meant for a laptop. Other than that, there are three open pockets in the interior that are big enough for a cell phone."

"The Adeline is also not lined, which doesn't make too much of a difference when you're using it," she continues. "The interior is not as luxurious as most of the bags on our list. However, it does mean that the interior is wipe-clean, which is blessedly low maintenance."

Quince Silver Threader Drop Earrings

Even though these are really subtle and small, the Silver Threader Drop Earrings are a best-seller from Quince's jewelry collection. I gather it's because the style is so easy to put on and forget about — they're extremely lightweight, and made with 925 sterling silver so they won't irritate your skin if you have a nickel allergy. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

See more in our guide to where to buy silver jewelry online.

Quince All-Day Neoprene Backpack

These two backpacks are nearly identical, but the Dagne Dover version has a few more bells and whistles that make it one of our all-time favorite work backpacks. However, $225 is pretty steep considering it's not waterproof or made of suede. For a lot cheaper, Quince gives you the same luxe neoprene look and most of the features you want in a college backpack.

"Both bags feature the same padded laptop sleeve, front exterior pocket with a key ring, two external and one internal water bottle pocket, rear luggage sleeve, and zip-up pouch. In addition to all of this, the Dakota has two extra zip-up pockets inside its front flap, a shoe bag, plus exterior zip-up pockets on either side. The Quince backpack instead has just one," writes former deals fellow Jennifer Gonnick.

Read more in our full Dagne Dover versus Quince backpack review.

Quince Revive Nylon Belt Bag

Quince's affordable belt bag is made from 100% water-resistant recycled nylon that's durable and lightweight. I consider it Quince's dupe for the Lululemon Everywhere Belt Bag, with a spacious main compartment and smaller mesh interior sleeves, as well as a key leash. It's a bit too bulky to jog with, but the Revive Nylon Belt Bag the perfect size for travel and concerts. If you're shopping for gifts, you can put lip balms, a unique keychain, and other mini accessories in this fanny pack as its own little gift basket. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Responsible Down Puffer Jacket

Our fit tip: The hem goes past the hips, but leaves your thighs exposed to the cold. Choose the Long Puffer Jacket if you want fuller protection or the Cropped Puffer Jacket if you have a short torso.

"The Quince puffer is insulated with 700+ fill power, so it'll keep you warm below freezing temperatures. The outer shell is wind-resistant and treated with a PFC-free DWR water-repellent finish to keep snow out. It also has a bungee hem when you need to better trap body heat.

It's nearly identical to (but $100 cheaper than) The Super Puff, with the same removable hood, thumbhole wrist cuffs, and extra pockets. The Aritzia coat was slightly warmer (though our executive editor, Sally Kaplan, didn't feel a big difference here during testing) and comes in a lot more color options, but if you don't need either of those features, the Quince Puffer saves you a hundred bucks.

The outer shell and lining are made with 100% recycled polyester, the down fill is responsibly sourced, and it's made by a brand that is committed to sustainability and fair manufacturing prices." — Rachael Schultz, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince 100% Leather Oversized Bomber Jacket

Our fit tip: Go with your usual size. This style is meant to be roomy.

The Leather Oversized Bomber Jacket's design details are practical and minimal. You won't find any plackets or shoulder epaulets — just a zippered chest pocket and two roomy welt pockets at each hip. The buttons at the cuff and waist don't actually adjust their width that much. I do appreciate that the chest pocket is deep enough to hold my phone, though.

The sheepskin is soft and pliable, which makes it very comfortable (albeit prone to more visible scratches). I recommend the distressed leather because Quince's leather oftentimes looks flat and rubbery, and the faded effect gives it some much-needed dimension. This worn-in look also adds an edgy flair, but I still feel polished when I dress it up with some crisp pants and heeled ankle boots.

This wide-sleeved bomber jacket feels lighter than it looks, and the roomy fit makes it a perfect top layer for the fall or spring. I almost got the Medium because the hemlines at Quince tend to run short on my 5-foot-9 frame, but the Small ended up being perfect. I believe that in order to find a better leather bomber jacket for $250, you'd need to have great luck and be in touch with specialty thrift stores.

Quince Water Repellent Windbreaker Jacket

Our fit tip: This style runs slightly small. Size up if you're in between.

This lightweight, packable windbreaker is inspired by lululemon's Always Effortless jacket. I wore it on a day that New York City experienced its largest 1-hour temperature drop ever. I was in the park basking in the sunlight, it was a balmy 79 degrees, and I was convinced spring had sprung. But by the time I'd walked home, it was cloudy and 53 degrees.

I was so glad I had packed this jacket in my tote bag — it takes up almost no space, and it has stowable hood in case of rain. This hood packs into the tall stand collar, and it's wide enough to actually fit over my hair. I usually wear a size S, but I sized up to an M and it was the right call, since this jacket's a bit cropped. One detail I loved is that its zippers match the fabric perfectly, so it has a true monochromatic look.

You can wear this jacket to exercise, since it's lined with a soft mesh and has a vent in the rear to circulate air. Or, use it as a stylish, sporty top layer on those days with hard-to-predict forecasts. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Italian Wool Cocoon Coat

Our fit tip: This style runs small and narrow, so it feels tighter when buttoned. The mid-length coat also comes in a long version.

Quince's Italian Wool Cocoon Coat has a very refined and elegant look, with even stitching and a warm, substantial feel. I chose the caramel, a rich camel shade, but it also comes in black and heather charcoal. I like that it has deep and roomy pockets, while the shawl collar can be worn either up or down.

As for the fit, I find Quince's sizing runs small. This coat is roomy enough through the hips and bust, but my arms feel restricted when I have the coat buttoned. You'll want to size up if you'll be wearing lots of layers underneath.

Quince compares this coat to similar ones from Aritzia, Eileen Fisher, and Akris Punto, of which only Eileen Fisher offers plus sizes. Design wise, it is closest to Aritzia's Cocoon Coat, which is also made with Italian wool and comes in a multiple wool-cashmere variations.

This label on this coat comes from Italian wool mill called Lanificio Nello Gori. According to the mill's website, they specialize in carded wool, also known as recycled wool, and work with brands like Woolrich, J.Crew, and Gap. Meanwhile, the clothing tag states that the coat is made in China with 80% virgin wool and 20% nylon.

Contrastingly, Quince's online product description says that the jacket is Italian wool and made in Vietnam. While virgin wool can technically undergo a carded technique, the wool mill on this coat specifies its specialty as recycled wool, creating a bit of a discrepancy in the coat's true origins.

I still liked wearing this coat because it feels stylish and it comes at an unbeatable price, but it's perhaps not up to the the luxury standard that Quince is trying to convince you it is. —Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Shearling Collar Leather Flight Jacket

Our fit tip: This style is slightly cropped and doesn't stretch. Size up if you're between sizes.

"The leather looks slightly aged for a vintage look, the shearling is both stylish and warm when popped up and worn around the neck, and the hardware feels solid and sturdy. I've seen similarly priced jackets made using faux leather and shearling that completely miss the mark for me.

Quince's version is the ideal solution for anyone who doesn't want to spend close to $1,000 (or more, depending on the brand) on a flight jacket. Yes, you'll sacrifice some quality — especially when it comes to seam construction and tailoring — but it's worth it to me for the cost savings." — Amir Ismael, former men's style editor, Insider Reviews

Read more in our full Quince men's clothing review and Quince Shearling Leather Flight Jacket review.

Quince Double-Faced Merino Wool Scarf Coat

Our fit tip: It's oversized on purpose. Choose your regular size.

This wool scarf coat sold out last season before I could try it, but I've been keen to test out this designer dupe. It's Quince's version of the Toteme Embroidered Scarf Jacket ($1130), which is a street-style favorite among fashion editors. Toteme's is made of a wool-poly blend, while the Quince coat is 100% Merino wool.

This coat may look warm and cozy because of its oversized fit, but the felt-like material is actually quite thin. It works better as a stylish top layer than an actual coat. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Italian Leather Handwoven Square Toe Ballet Flat

Our fit tip: These run true to size in length. However, the vamp may feel tight on high-volume feet.

My best friend recommended I try these Quince Square Toe Ballet Flats after she wore hers on a trip to Paris. Sure enough, they're some of the best ballet flats I've ever worn — and I've tried 33 pairs in the last year alone.

Quince has done something right with the Italian Leather Handwoven Ballet Flats: They took a popular design that doesn't require much finesse to recreate, and are selling it for much less.

I immediately wanted to wear these cushiony shoes all day, they are that comfortable. There are, however, subtle signs of shortcuts that Quince takes to make these Freda Salvador-lookalikes so cheap (like the dye that rubbed off and stained my skin when they got wet). — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Read more in our guide to the best travel shoes for women.

Quince Italian Leather Glove Ballet Flat

Our fit tip: Choose your normal size. They will feel stiff at first, but slowly mold to your feet.

Everlane's Day Glove Flats currently hold the top spot in our guide to the best flats, and are a long-standing favorite of executive editor Sally Kaplan. In our Everlane Day Glove flats review, she says, "there exists on this earth no better flat." However, the Quince Italian Leather Glove Ballet Flats are a surefire substitute.

Along with several other of Quince's dupes, these Day Glove-lookalikes sold out almost as soon as they became available. Upon first inspection, they are practically indistinguishable from Everlane's. They even have the same pull-tabs and perforations around the inner arches to help ventilate the shoe — which is good, because the leather can and will get sweaty inside. The leather has some give, but if you have extra wide feet, I'd skip these. I wear a size 8 and these have a nearly true-to-size fit that lean a tad tight, especially around the top seam.

I found Quince's Glove flats to likewise have zero break-in time — as soon as I slipped them on, they felt like wearing soft leather slippers. I like how much traction their rubber soles have compared to other flats I've tried, and their Ortholite insoles provide cushioning below the arches.

They're now my most-worn flats, and after over three years of consistent wear, have only just recently starting to look "well loved." The toe tips are peeling a bit, but that hasn't stopped me from putting them on anytime I can't decide what shoes to wear. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Read more in our full Quince ballet flats review and guide to the most comfortable dress shoes for women.

Quince Italian Suede Penny Loafer

Our fit tip: Avoid these if you have a wide forefoot, as the toe box is tapered. The length fits true to size.

Quince undercuts many brands featured in our guide to the best loafers for women. This pair has many of the same features as the Glove Flats, like genuine Italian leather and Ortholite insoles.

The main drawback is that the black suede around the toes got a little faded the more I wore them, so I recommend choosing the Almond colorway to keep them looking newer for longer.

That being said, I'm still impressed at how much they look and perform like Margaux loafers. The stacked leather heel is actually sturdy, and inside the leather is soft and molded to my feet. I don't suggest these for wide feet or sensitive high arches, but they fit me (a size 8) comfortably and true to size. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Water Repellent Suede Clog Mule

Our fit tip: These are wide-foot friendly and the length is slightly short.

I've seen dupes of those suede cork clogs (you know the ones) at Target, but Quince's clogs are a better upgrade because they're made with genuine suede. These mules have a cork midsole like the real deal, but the insole is much more forgiving because it has cushioned arch support.

They've become my go-to house shoes because they're sturdy, flexible, and have a nice laid-back, West Coast look when I wear them with jeans. I wear mine almost exclusively indoors because the suede isn't super structured, but the comfortable footbed makes them worth it. I'm a size US 8 and found they run a bit small, so I recommend sizing up if you're even slightly between sizes. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Italian Cami One-Piece

Our fit tip: Choose the long-torso fit whether you're 5-foot-9 and up or your torso measures over 23 inches.

Quince has long-torso swimsuits designed for proportions like mine. You can find the Italian Cami One-Piece in a regular 23.5-inch torso size or the longer 25.25-inch torso. I'm 5-foot-9 and chose the longer size, since most one-pieces make me feel like I'm being split in two.

The straps are adjustable, giving you more control over chest coverage. This is helpful if you're at, say, a family pool party and want more chest coverage. The low cut of the legs and fuller seat also felt modest enough for this setting.

Inside, the shelf bra has removable foam cups (I usually remove these because they tend to turn heavy or lumpy when wet). I left them in when testing this suit because without them, the fabric is thin enough that some nip does poke through.

The poly-Spandex fabric feels stretchy, soft, and closely-fitted. I'm a size 4 and the Small fit me with little room to spare. It takes a minute to squeeze into because of the mild compressive effect, but once it's on, it's on. Everything stayed in its place, even as I bodysurfed through crashing waves. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Organic Cotton Boyfriend Crew

Our fit tip: Pair this sweater with high-rise jeans so that its cropped hem meets right at your natural waist. Choose the plus-size version if you wear a size 16 and up.

Slightly cropped and perfectly midweight, this cotton sweater is a real winner through the seasons. I love to half-tuck it into jeans or drape it around my shoulders. The design is simple but executed well for the price point, and you'll get the cost-per-wear down in no time because it's so versatile. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Quince 100% Organic Cotton Oversized Cardigan

Our fit tip: Go with your usual size. It's meant to have a relaxed, oversized fit.

I'm allergic to wool, so every time I find an oversized cotton sweater or cardigan, I get extra excited. After testing this one from Quince, I consider the brand a top selection for the best sweaters for women and am definitely planning to buy it in more colors! I love the swingy, oversized fit, and the weight of it is substantial enough that I don't worry about it stretching or shrinking. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Lightweight Cotton Cashmere Maternity Fitted Midi Dress

Our fit tip: Choose your pre-pregnancy size, since the fabric is stretchy.

This ultra-stretchy Maternity Midi Dress is a big win from Quince in my book. Knit tank dresses have been a staple in my maternity wardrobe, but this one has an extra thoughtful detail in the form of a hidden zipper on each side for easy nursing access. I haven't gotten to use the feature yet since I'm still pregnant, but I love that it extends the life and utility of the dress.

Though the thick knit fabric of this dress is a little heavy for hot summer days, it's great for cooler evenings, indoor events, or colder months. I've been pairing it with oversized button-down shirts and sneakers to make it feel more casual, but it also looks great with heels for events or work. I recommend going with your pre-pregnancy size because there's a ton of stretch in the fabric. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Cotton Cashmere Maternity and Nursing Set

Our fit tip: The high waistband of the pants is meant to be worn over the bump.

Matching sets make getting dressed so much easier while pregnant. One less thing for me to decide on today? I'll take it. This one is probably my favorite so far, with the same thoughtful side-zip detail (and material) as the cotton-cashmere midi dress. I can tell I'm going to get a lot of wear out of this postpartum, too.

I'm 5-foot-2 on a good day, and the Maternity Wide Leg Pants just graze the floor for me so I have to wear these with thicker-soled sandals or sneakers. The legs have slits that help with ventilation, but it's also just a cute design choice. They're high-waisted, but they actually reach over the top of my belly so there's no uncomfortable band digging in. The drawstrings also allow you to get an adjustable fit throughout pregnancy, so I know they'll last from now until I'm ready to pop.

The V-neck Sweater Tank has nice, thick straps that I can wear with basically any bra, which I really appreciate as someone with a large chest. There's plenty of room for my cup sizes to change over time as well because the material is so stretchy. For both the pants and the sweater, get your regular pre-pregnancy size — these pieces will grow easily with your changing body. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Decent, but dubitable

Here's where Quince's inconsistency comes into view. We ran into varying fit issues, specific colorways to avoid, and lots of items that scored as "just okay." Many linen, silk, cashmere, and leather goods pieces fall into this category. This isn't because they aren't well priced, but because when it comes to natural textiles, it's usually worth spending more elsewhere.

Quince Bella Stretch Straight Jeans

Our fit tip: These ankle-length jeans have a slim fit in the hips and thighs. Wash them sparingly and let them air dry, or else they will lose their stretch.

I tested these high-rise straight ankle jeans from Quince's first denim collection, and during my first try-on, they seem to look and feel just like a pair of Mother Denim jeans I thrifted years ago (which probably originally cost over $200). Quince jeans cost only $50, so this comparison proves to me that Quince denim is worth trying if you're on a budget. They're certainly not luxury quality — Quince's are too thin and stretchy — but for the price, they're just okay.

People with an hourglass figure who struggle to fit their hip-to-waist ratio will appreciate this stretchy high-rise waistband. When I held them up to myself in the mirror, I assumed they'd be too tight around the hips, but the elastic factor is impressive. They hug my curves and give me a subtle lift in the seat area. I even found that they lightly compress around my waist, so there's no gap around my middle.

Quince advises that these run big — for reference, I'm 5'9" and ordered a size 27. I'm about 38 inches around the hip, and found that the stretchiness allowed for the perfect amount of wiggle room.

I tend to wear my jeans many times between washes, so I've yet to see how this pair fades over time. But in the meantime, I'm wearing these stretchy jeans with my favorite flats. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Bella Rigid Jeans

Our fit tip: These have an ankle-length, high-rise fit. Choose the 26-inch inseam version if you're 5-foot-4 or under. They run slightly narrow in the hips and seat area, but are more relaxed in the thighs.

It's even more important to get the sizing right with rigid denim, since there's no give in the fabric. I tested the Quince Bella Rigid Straight Jeans ($60) in my usual size 27. At first they felt the slightest bit tight in the hips and thighs, but they've relaxed after a few wears.

This pair is an affordable alternative to Levi's Wedgie Jeans ($110). It replicates that same snug rear fit which lifts and defines your butt, though not so much that you feel you're being cut in half.

When I compare the Bella Stretch jeans to the rigid ones, I'm more confident in the rigid pair's durability. To be fair, I'm prefer non-stretch denim to begin with (the only stretch jeans I like are my Rag & Bone sweatpant jeans). In my experience, the firm, lightweight fabric feels more lived-in and retains its shape better. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince 100% European Linen Pleated Trouser

Our fit tip: The rear of the waistband is elasticated. If your waist is much narrower than your hips, size down to minimize unwanted bulk.

"The hidden elastic waistband at the back adds a lot of stretch, which is a pro — but also a con. In my case, it made the pants feel loose and I regret not exchanging them for a smaller size. They're okay, they just look a bit big and bulky (though that second part is because I chose the color white).

The liner means they're not see-through. For this particular style, the white and flax colorways come with a full inside lining that's made from 85% polyester and 15% cotton. That's a good thing, as it avoids any sheer wardrobe mishaps. However, it does add some substantial bulk that's not present with darker colors. I'm okay with it because I specifically wanted crisp white linen pants for summer, but if you'd prefer a more streamlined style, I'd suggest going with a different shade." — Emily Hochberg, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince Ultra-Stretch Ponte Super Wide Leg Pant

Our fit tip: These fit true to size, but the hems felt shorter after washing.

Quince's Ponte collection includes this billowy wide-leg pair that have now become a staple in my workwear wardrobe. These stretchy work pants feel like sweatpants, but have the polished appearance of slacks. They pull on effortlessly with a concealed zipper and clasp at the hip, and the extra high-rise waistband is comfortable enough to sit in all day.

They're not entirely wrinkle-resistant, but I'd still recommend them to anyone who's looking for a solid pair of black work pants they can lounge in.

I'm five-foot-nine, so I was pleased to learn the Ultra-Stretch Ponte Super Wide Leg Pants come in a 32-inch inseam that falls past my ankles. However, they shrank in the wash and so I can't recommend them to tall people. The material is thin, so in the winter I wear leggings underneath to stay warm. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Silk Slip Dress

Our fit tip: It's narrower in the bodice, but otherwise fits true to size as a midi-length dress. Adjustable straps let you customize the neckline.

The Quince silk slip dress revealed to us the true nature of the brand's clothing. It's a flattering, classic style that style editor Samantha Crozier was able to wash and wear for about nine months until it finally tore. That being said, it's an easy dress to throw on, with a beautiful sheen that makes you feel polished in no matter where you wear it — and it's highly affordable for genuine silk.

"The dress is only $89.90. When I was on the hunt for a silk dress, I mulled over dresses as high as $250 for days, wondering if I could justify the price. For me, this dress is the perfect combination of price, style, and fit," says Crozier.

You're likely to get a lot of use from this dress before you experience the same disappointment. It also recently became available in extended sizes. However, its short lifespan does put it in the category of fast fashion, so we can't call it a sustainable option.

Quince Washable Stretch Silk Maternity Slip Dress

Our fit tip: It's long on people 5-foot-3 and under, and the inner chest panel is too short for large busts.

Because I'm 5-foot-2 with a DDD chest and struggle with strapless bras, I knew this Maternity Silk Slip Dress would be a bit of a gamble. Ultimately, there was a lot I loved about it, and I've worn it several times throughout my second trimester. But there were also few things that weren't exactly right for my short, curvy body type.

First, what I loved and who this would work well for: The washable, slightly stretchy silk material is incredibly soft and comfy against the skin. I appreciated that the straps were adjustable, and that the curvature of the dress laid beautifully over my belly. The hem hung just around my ankles making it more of a maxi dress on me, but for anyone who's taller than I am, the midi length would be just right. I also love that it's so easy to dress down with a cardigan or button-down and casual shoes (I've worn mine a lot with sneakers and flip-flops) or dress up with heeled sandals. If you have a smaller cup size than I do, and if you're a little taller than me, I have a feeling you'll love this dress.

The downsides were that the lining panel on the chest could have been a little longer for people like me with large cup sizes. If you don't have a large chest, this won't be an issue for you, but for me it sat in just the wrong spot so you could see where the lining ended. I also wish it came in a petite length, but those are the extent of my complaints. It's a comfy and beautiful dress, but definitely best for someone who's a little taller with a smaller cup size. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Washable Stretch Silk Tiered Maxi Dress

Our fit tip: Choose the petite length if you're 5-foot-4 or under.

"While elegant enough to dress up with some heels and a clutch for dinner, I mostly pair [this maxi dress] with sneakers for an elevated and comfortable daytime look. The sneaker look works for me because, at 5-foot-7, the dress hits me right above the ankles, but if you're shorter, it may fall closer to the floor.

On particularly hot days, I did sweat in this dress (usually I pick sleeveless items when I think I may sweat), and the sweat was fairly visible through the silk fabric. That's the only downside I found to this dress. I washed it cold on the delicates cycle and hung it to dry. I steamed it to remove wrinkles (ironing silk is not recommended). Each time I wore the dress after washing, I found it as soft and shiny as before." — Talia Ergas, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince 100% Washable Silk Skirt

Our fit tip: The waistband is stretchy, but the silk itself is clingy. Size up if you're in between.

Perfect for holiday parties, this washable silk skirt comes in standard and extended sizes and is woven in shades of rich burgundy, chocolate, and more.

"This is a piece I know I'll keep wearing all season long. It can be styled so many ways, whether with an oversized sweater or a little tee," writes our senior home editor Jaclyn Turner. "I'm between an XL and a 1X, and I appreciate the roominess of the 1X. I recommend sizing up if you want a smoother fit since the silk is quite clingy."

"The thick silk feels premium and cascades beautifully," says associate editor Kinsley Searles, who also tried this silk skirt. "There's no zipper — instead it pulls on and the elastic band sits firmly in place. But while the elastic waistband is flexible, it's important to note that the silk itself is not stretchy."

Read more in our full Quince plus-size review.

Quince 100% European Linen Scoop Neck Midi Dress

Our fit tip: The bust is fitted, so size up if you have a large cup size.

"I've worn this Quince Linen Midi Dress for a little over a year, and it's become one of my favorites," writes travel writer and style contributor Emily Hochberg. "The combination of the scoop neck, fitted bust, and midi length makes it sleek and sophisticated, but not so dressy that I can't wear it casually. Plus, it has pockets."

"I really adore this dress because it's lined with 100% cotton, which acts as a barrier to prevent wrinkling," she continues. "I've noticed fewer markings as a result, and it's still lightweight without added bulk. The gingham print I chose means wrinkles are mostly camouflaged."

Style editor Samantha Crozier tried the white version and found issues with the length of the liner. "Instead of a full-length lining, it stops right at the knees. You can't see this unless you're directly in the sun, but that's exactly what this dress was made for," says Samantha. "It cuts you off in an awkward way and is another example of how Quince gets it almost right, but how cost-saving measures get in the way of producing a truly great piece."

Quince 100% European Linen Square Neck Jumpsuit

Our fit tip: The bodice runs large, so size down if you wear a small band size.

If you're looking for a cozy throw-on outfit, I highly recommend this jumpsuit. Though the legs were a bit long on my 5'1" frame, the jumpsuit fit like a dream — just roomy enough to layer a turtleneck underneath on chillier spring days, but not so oversized that I couldn't just wear it on its own without my bra showing. The linen isn't particularly hefty, but in the black color, it remains totally opaque.  — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Estelle Mini Shoulder Bag

I like the Estelle bag's sculptural shape and its material quality is more than fine, but as we've seen from testing other Quince leather goods in the shade "Cognac," black is really the way to go. This brown color is more muted in person, and the pebbled leather doesn't translate well. It's pretty small, but works well to hold the bare essentials. I consider this as more as an accent piece than a way to carry all my belongings. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Sabine Crossbody

Loewe's Puzzle Bag was once my dream bag, and I pined after it for years — until I tried it on and found the default crossbody strap was too short on me. Heartbroken, I turned to the Quince Sabine, a dupe featuring an adjustable leather strap that comfortably converts it into a proper crossbody.

Visually, the two designs are remarkably similar, from the asymmetrical, geometric leather panels and the diagonal zipper compartment on the back. While Quince's leather isn't quite as buttery soft as Loewe's, it shares the same slightly pebbled texture. The Loewe has a puffier top handle compared to Quince's flat design, but Quince's back pocket is larger and more functional for quick-grab items like keys or a card case (though it's still too tight for an iPhone). Inside, the main compartment is surprisingly roomy, comfortably holding my phone, cardholder, sunglass case, AirPods, hand sanitizer, portable charger, and —by my last count — nine lip products.

The biggest drawback to the Quince bag is security. While the Loewe zips shut under its flap, the Quince relies on a simple magnetic closure. Initially, I appreciated the quick, one-handed access without dealing with a zipper. However, the magnetic edges ripple slightly in the center when closed, and most recently, when I tossed the bag onto the backseat of my car, most of its contents slipped out. Additionally, when filled, the bag loses its structure and sags in the middle, but I don't mind the slouchiness. With repeated use, I've also noticed the leather edge paint starting to peel in the interior of the flap.

Even if this isn't an heirloom-quality piece meant to last decades, it delivers the trendy designer aesthetic in genuine leather for not even a tenth of the cost. — Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Italian Leather Pouch Travel Set

This 100% top-grain Italian leather makeup bag set is stunning. There are four colors to choose from (I picked olive), and each is outfitted with gold-tone zippers. At $70 for the set, it makes a timeless gift that can be used for years to come.

It's pretty basic in the way of organizational features (the larger bag has one flush slip pocket), but being able to divide items between two cases is advantageous. If you're trying to maximize packing space, this is a solid bet.

I used the 6.5 x 11 x 3.5-inch bag to stow larger full-size makeup items, and I was able to fit two foundations, a tinted moisturizer, two blushes, five blush/contour/highlight sticks, three lipsticks, a makeup setting spray, and an eyeshadow palette — with room to spare.

In the 5 x 9 x 3-inch clamshell, I carried full-size makeup brushes and a concealer. On shorter trips, you could also use the larger bag for travel-size toiletries (the water-resistant microfiber interior can be wiped clean) and the smaller pouch for makeup. I love that the smaller bag can be nested inside the larger one to save space when it's not in use. — Talia Ergas, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince Gemma Quilted Crossbody

The quilted leather camera crossbody bag is such a good everyday staple that's easy to dress up or down. At 8.5 inches deep, the Gemma is more spacious than it looks, and I can easily fit my large wallet, sunglasses, phone, keys, and even my purse-shaped water bottle inside. In terms of appearance, it's comparable to the ultra-popular Saint Laurent Lou quilted camera bag, but of course, it comes at a very small fraction of the price. For 100% top-grain Italian leather, the price tag is unbeatable. — Talia Ergas, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince Cashmere Lined Leather Gloves

Our fit tip: This pair runs small and doesn't stretch. Size up for a roomier fit.

Quince is one of our favorite sources for affordable cashmere, though the quality of its leather can be unpredictable. Of all the Quince leather pieces I've tested, the brown can look sort of flat in person — which is why I recommend going for the black Quince Leather Gloves.

"The gloves don't have a lot of give, but that's to be expected as they're leather," writes Rachael Schultz in our guide to the best winter gloves for women. "They're overall super comfortable, you just have to make sure you get the size right."

This pair has a timeless design, and the naturally insulating, moisture-wicking cashmere lining will keep your hands toasty warm and dry. See our guide to the best shoe polishes for a leather conditioner you can use to prevent them from becoming dry and cracked." — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Underwear and Bras

Our fit tip: The fabric stretches, so you can stick to your usual size.

I am a big fan of Quince's MicroModal underwear. I helped to test undies for our guide to the best underwear for women and genuinely thought Tommy John was the only place I'd buy underwear for the rest of my life — until I tried Quince's undies. The quality isn't as long-lasting, but for the price point, I'm personally okay with that.

At first, I loved the airy Second Skin material most because it's super lightweight and extremely stretchy, similar to Tommy John's Air Mesh underwear. I've tried the thongs and briefs, as well as the Scoop-Neck Bralette and the Crossover Bralette all in the Second Skin material, but after testing for several months and seeing how they've worn through multiple washes (lots of threads coming loose along the waistband), I'd recommend sticking with the MicroModal underwear instead.

The MicroModal underwear is incredibly comfortable and slightly thicker, kind of like super stretchy cotton, so I prefer wearing those pairs with jeans. They are breathable with a comfortable elastic waistband that doesn't dig in whatsoever.   — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Our fit tip: Size up to account for shrinking cotton.

Quince has been well-tested and reviewed by our team, so their underwear was an easy addition to our guide to the best cotton underwear. Each pair is made from Organic Context Standard-certified cotton in a Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production factory in Sri Lanka.

"I recommend Quince's underwear to anyone who shares my concern over the overwhelming amount of women's underwear that are treated with pesticides and harsh chemical dyes. I wear this soft, stretchy bikini with more peace of mind knowing it's made with organic cotton, and the low-rise waistband is perfect for wearing beneath low-rise jeans. They run small, so I'd round up if you're between sizes — especially because they shrink in the wash." — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Diamond Engagement Ring

This gold ring has a four prong setting and features an emerald cut lab-grown colorless 3.05 carat diamond. It's a VS1 diamond, meaning it has minor internal defects (called "inclusions"), but these are invisible to the naked eye.

I only wear-tested this ring for one day, so we can't speak to its long-term durability. Overall, I'd say Quince diamond engagement rings are most worth it for people who like a modestly-sized lab-grown diamond with a simple band. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

The styles to skip

Quince is known to make overly ambitious comparisons to genuine luxury brands. This strategy can easily backfire when your designer dupes are driven by trends instead of heritage craftsmanship.

Here are the items we tested that are ultimately not worth the money. Among them are white linens, leather shoes, and knitwear that turned lumpy over time.

Quince 100% European Linen Pants

Our fit tip: The waistband stretches, so you can choose your regular size.

These pants were the biggest miss of the bunch for me, and I think it had more to do with the color than the execution. The pants themselves are super lightweight and great to throw on over a swimsuit for a pool day, but the white color (which looked more beige on the site) is stark and sheer. The elastic waist at least gives you some flexibility and comfort, but the lack of stretch in the legs isn't great. These would not be my first pick for linen pants. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Quince 100% European Linen Shorts

Our fit tip: The length is short and feels even shorter when they wrinkle.

"No one is perfect, right? And out of the seven Quince linen pieces I own, inevitably one had to flop. For me, it’s these Quince Linen Shorts — purely for how instantly and visibly they wrinkle (even for linen).

I tried the Light Driftwood color, and the wrinkles are glaringly obvious. If you want to try this style, I’d recommend a darker color, which might make some of those marks less visible. And it could be worth a shot, since they are soft, comfortable, and come with multiple pockets.

Their creases fold and bunch up, which makes these shorts feel even shorter. For me personally, when it comes to linen bottoms, I just prefer something longer like pants so the wrinkles aren’t so all consuming." — Emily Hochberg, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Quince Organic Cotton Cropped Cardigan

Our fit tip: The length is short and it will only shrink further if you neglect to air dry.

I love a cropped cardigan, but unfortunately this one has stretched out over time and the button placard has gotten a bit misshapen with regular wear and washing. I could have done more to prevent this by only laying it flat to dry, but I'm lazy so I put it through the dryer (as I think most people would). If you take care of this as you should, it'll last you a lot longer before it starts to stretch out, but I think you can get a better value from the other cotton sweaters Quince has to offer. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Italian Leather Horsebit Loafer Mule

Our fit tip: These are short in length, and the vamps are too high for most people.

I wanted to like these Gucci lookalikes, but I was immediately unimpressed with their construction. The leather felt too thin and loosely structured, and the positioning of the footbeds felt so off that I checked to see I hadn't put them on the opposite feet by accident.

I've gathered from this pair that even though Quince's Italian leather is soft and flexible, it doesn't work for slip-on mules where you need a firm, thicker leather to hold its shape. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Mongolian Cashmere Scarf

Our fit tip: This scarf is too short and thin to provide meaningful protection from the cold.

Quince describes this scarf as oversized, but it's actually pretty narrow and short. Pictured above, I'm wearing it with a Quince Cotton Cashmere Sweater Dress.

It's made from 12-gauge 100% Grade A cashmere— 12-gauge means there are 12 rows of yarn per inch, and describes how tightly the scarf is knitted. A common low gauge of 3 means it'll feel more dense, so a 12-gauge scarf like this one is finer and thinner. — Gabrielle Chase, style editor, Insider Reviews

Quince 100% Organic Cotton Poplin Tiered Maxi Dress

Our fit tip: Choose the petite length if you're 5-foot-4 or under.

This Organic Cotton Poplin Dress is theoretically a great dupe for the popular Somerset dress from Anthropologie at less than half the price. It comes in eleven color options, including this bright reddish-orange color, and while the cotton has no stretch, the dress has elastic at the waist for flexibility with the sizing. Unfortunately, there was not a petite length available when I first tested the dress so it was super long on me, but I found the poplin material to be thin and easy to wrinkle. It's a nice silhouette, but there's a reason it costs half as much as Anthro's version. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Washable Stretch Silk Notch Collar Blouse

Our fit tip: This style runs small despite the stretch. The plus size version is especially tight in the bust.

"I'm forever on the hunt for a good button down, and I wanted to love the Washable Stretch Silk Blouse. I typically size up because I have a large chest. Sadly, the silk blouse in a 2X pulled at the bust and around my torso. The ivory color was also quite sheer, and the slight stretch of the fabric only accentuated the parts that I didn't want to show off more.

The model who wears the bottom half of the shirt unbuttoned seemed to foreshadow my experience, while the model pictured wearing the Wine colorway appears to be swimming in it. The sizing felt off, in my opinon." — Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor, Insider Reviews

Quince Mongolian Cashmere Tee and Washable Silk Tank

Our fit tip: These styles seemed to work exclusively on people with a small bust and slim hips.

"These two pieces were my 'skips' out of everything I tried. The Mongolian Cashmere Tee is super soft and quite cute as a basic, but it's a bit sheer. I don't think I'd buy it in this color, but I'd certainly consider it in a gray or black (both of which Quince offers).

The Washable Silk Tank was fitted at the bust and hips, but loose through the waist, which I thought gave me a boxier shape. Looking at the straight-sized customer photos, this style seems to fit best on people who have small chests and slim hips. That said, I think this piece still has potential in my wardrobe as a layering staple and would be a great base under some suiting for work." — Lauren Savoie, former deputy editor, Insider Reviews

FAQs on Quince

Why is Quince so affordable?

Quince is able to maintain such low prices because it uses a direct-to-consumer business model. It doesn't have to budget for overhead costs on wholesalers, brick-and-mortar locations, or warehousing. Instead, it saves money by shipping directly from manufacturers.

Is Quince a good brand?

We can't abide by all of Quince's business practices, since there's no proof Quince is wholly ethical. It claims to partner with some Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) compliant factories in order to ensure safe conditions and fair wages for employees, but BSCI compliance doesn't equal a certification like Fair Trade. The site offers even less information about its animal welfare policies.

Where is Quince based?

Quince is headquartered in San Francisco, California and led by CEO Sid Gupta. It partners with manufacturers located mainly in China, India, and Cambodia. These partners range from mid-sized family-run operations to large factories.

Is Quince sustainable?

We like that Quince packaging is made with recycled materials, as well as its use of some organic textiles and OEKO-TEX certified fabrics. Plus, most of its clothing (besides its silks and linens) has a much longer shelf life than modern fast fashion. But for as often as it touts itself as "sustainable," Quince doesn't offer enough clarity on the efficiency of its supply chain.

What is Quince's return policy?

Quince has a 365-day return window, but there's a caveat. If you're going to test it, make sure your payment method (whether that's PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay) adheres to the same default refund period as Quince. If it's anything less than 365 days, you may receive a Quince store credit instead of your money back.

Is Quince good quality?

The quality is there, but it's not consistent. It mostly depends on the materials used and the utility of the product. In general, natural fiber wardrobe basics are the most high-quality category for Quince because you'll use them often. The statement pieces, like trendy designer dupes, are not constructed with longevity in mind.

Quince sizing: Does it run small?

For the most part, yes. Quince still has a long way to go in terms of size inclusivity. The majority of Quince's clothing only ranges from XS-XL in women's and S-XL in men's. Some of its pants offer different inseam lengths, but we found they don't fit curvy bodies well. It's made some progress with a collection of Quince women's extended sizes that debuted in 2023, but we'd like to see this expanded to men's styles. It's also unfair that that Quince charges more money for plus-size clothing.

What's the verdict on Quince?

If you're looking for quality wardrobe basics, Quince delivers. It isn't the one-stop-shop for low-cost luxury goods as it claims to be, but we still think everyone could find at least one thing they love from Quince.

The bottom line

After more than 60 Quince pieces over the past 3+ years, we decided it's not quite affordable luxury — it's more what we call luxury-adjacent. At its best, Quince has elevated basics, luggage, and jewelry, but it's less reliable in silks, linens, and some leather goods. Ultimately, Quince is not a bad place to shop — as long as you stick to the simple things.

• Ukraine's access to military-grade Starlink services is returning, sources told Business Insider.
• Defense ministry and parliamentary sources said on Thursday that Starshield operations had been at least partially restored.
• On Wednesday, Ukraine was caught off guard by sudden speed restrictions, affecting drone missions.

Ukraine's access to military-grade Starlink services appears to have been at least partially restored on Thursday, a day after Kyiv was stunned by sudden speed limits that it said hamstrung some drone operations.

Ukrainian defense ministry sources told Business Insider that Starshield services remained functional while in motion as of roughly 11:45 a.m. local time on Thursday, according to reports that they had received from military units.

The sources said the defense ministry is working to understand how and why there was a disruption to the operation of Starshield, SpaceX's dedicated satellite network for military services.

Yehor Cherniev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliament's national security, defense, and intelligence committee, told Business Insider that Starshield services had been restored to their pre-disruption capacity.

Ukrainian officials and service members were caught off guard on Wednesday by the unexpected Starshield disruption, which they said restricted speeds above 100 miles per hour. Some units experienced a loss of connection at speeds as low as 45 miles per hour.

The full extent of the service limitation remains unclear.

Yuriy, an officer with Ukraine's National Guard, told Business Insider that his units use Starshield to support drone operations and that speeds were back above 100 miles per hour as of Thursday morning. He asked to be identified only by his first name for security purposes.

However, Yuriy said that several operations were disrupted during the earlier restrictions.

Defense ministry sources said the disruption complicated mid-range strikes, air defense intercepts, and front-line logistics. Starlink does not work inside Russia, so the issue was limited to missions in Ukrainian territory or Russian-occupied territory.

The sudden Starlink disruption caused widespread confusion and raised questions about the source of the decision and whether it was connected to tensions between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over Kyiv's targeting of Russian energy facilities.

Ukrainian forces use Starlink, the commercial satellite internet service run by SpaceX, and Starshield, a secure network for military and government work built by the company but operated by the US government. Some Ukrainian officials initially blamed SpaceX for the disruption.

In an X post on Wednesday responding to Ukraine's former defense minister, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk put the issue on the Trump administration, saying that Starshield was "owned and controlled by the American government." He said "any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS."

A senior US official told Business Insider Thursday afternoon that "no such request was ever made by the President."

The Pentagon has not responded to requests for comment.

Sprawling influence

The outage and impact on front-line operations have called attention to Ukraine's deep dependence on Starlink, which has become critical for battlefield communications and drone warfare.

As Business Insider recently reported, Starlink's rapid expansion has given Musk and SpaceX an enormous source of influence and soft power, and the world's richest man has not been shy about using that power in Ukraine to influence the course of the war.

Musk said in 2023 that he refused a request from Ukraine's military to activate Starlink to assist a Ukrainian assault on the occupied Crimean peninsula. Earlier this year, SpaceX clamped down on Russian forces' use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine, handing Ukraine a key battlefield advantage.

While support for Ukraine has varied, Musk has consistently been a prominent critic of the Ukrainian president. In an X post late on Wednesday, hours after responding to Ukraine's defense minister, he wrote that it was "time for Zelenskyy to go."

The sudden Starlink disruptions came as Ukraine faces growing pressure from the US, with Trump pushing Kyiv to halt its strikes on Russian energy facilities. The US president said on Tuesday that Washington had not cut intelligence sharing with Ukraine, another concern for the country.

Cherniev, the Ukrainian lawmaker, confirmed on Thursday that the US continues to share intelligence with Kyiv.

Meanwhile, Russia has intensified its ballistic missile attacks against Ukraine, firing dozens overnight. Recent attacks have targeted Kyiv and Ukrainian energy facilities.

• Dr. Katie S. Davis is a clinical neuropsychologist who evaluates children for learning disorders.
• She said some parents are rushing to diagnose their children for normal kid behavior.
• She suggested some softer interventions before booking an evaluation appointment.

Over years of evaluating children for learning disorders, Dr. Katie S. Davis noticed an interesting phenomenon: Some parents seemed visibly disappointed when she told them their kids didn't meet the criteria for ADHD or autism.

"I found that those conversations can be more difficult to have than with a parent whose kid is really disabled and whose needs are very high," Davis, a clinical neuropsychologist and author of "Actually, You're Fine," told Business Insider.

Though she would try to reassure those parents that their concerns about their children's behavior were valid and worth addressing even without a formal diagnosis, "it's not as tangible or concrete as parents want, and they often leave the conversation feeling dissatisfied."

Parent-reported diagnoses of several childhood developmental and learning conditions have increased in recent years. For example, the estimated share of US children ages 3 to 17 with a current ADHD diagnosis rose from 8.6% in 2016 to 10.5% in 2023. Separately, a study of children ages 6 to 17 found parent-reported lifetime learning-disability diagnoses rose 16.4% over the same period.

While some argue that greater awareness of learning disabilities and disorders accounts for the increase, Davis doesn't feel that explains the full story. From what she's observed, ever-growing expectations for kids — and parents desperate for explanations for why their child is lagging behind — also play a role.

She said rushing to a diagnosis can have negative long-term implications for everyone.

"People don't think that ADHD means anything, people don't think dyslexia means anything," Davis said. "Then those people who are truly disabled by those conditions have enough battle to justify their need for accommodations and services."

Higher and higher expectations

In order to qualify for a diagnosis such as ADHD, symptoms must be present in at least two major settings, such as both at home and at school. For autism, they must be persistent across multiple contexts.

But some parents focus on how their child behaves in the classroom, in part due to ever-increasing expectations around academic success, Davis said.

"Doing well in school is no longer good — you have to be at the top of the pack," Davis said, noting that similar patterns have arisen in higher education settings with parents arguing for their teenagers' grades to be inflated. "Parents want excellence, and if it's not excellent, it's bad."

When worrying about their child's behavior, some parents zero in on their child's behavior in class while overlooking how their child compares to others, Davis said.

"If you're in a kindergarten classroom, probably all of the kids to some degree are going to have trouble sitting on the rug for 30 minutes at circle time," Davis said. Most will cluster in the middle of the bell curve, while some will get antsier earlier or later. The kids who consistently stand out compared to their peers are the ones who should probably be evaluated, Davis said.

Otherwise, "for nine kids out of 10, that sounds like a kid in an elementary school."

Labels are a double-edged sword

Whether they're diagnosed with ADHD or not, a child being hyperactive in class isn't a parent's fault. Still, parents can feel like they're personally responsible.

"There is an eagerness to medicalize the feelings of insecurity, because if it's due to a diagnosis, then it's not a knock on your decisions," Davis said.

Whether or not their child is formally diagnosed, Davis warned against treating it as a catch-all explanation for everything your child does.

"Despite our best intentions, if we put a label on the kid and the kid is aware of that label, they are given the message 'there is something wrong with how you are developing,'" she said. Even positive spins, like "ADHD is a superpower," can send a message to the kid that their life will be forever defined by struggle, she said.

It can also imply that symptoms like difficulty focusing or reading can't meaningfully improve with the right interventions.

"We all want to develop resilience in our children, to make them feel like they have agency and control and they're in charge of their own destinies," Davis said. "Especially when kids are very young and don't understand the fluidity of these labels, we could potentially be working against them."

Try softer interventions first

Davis wants to be clear: Diagnoses such as autism and ADHD are real. There are children who are unambiguously and significantly impaired by them in every setting, who need clear support academically and socially. "There are evidence-based interventions at our disposal that are enormously helpful," she said.

However, for parents who believe their child falls into some gray areas, Davis recommended trying a few things before booking an evaluation appointment. She compared it to a young child with a mild fever: A responsible pediatrician would guide parents through modest steps, such as taking a temperature and offering plenty of fluids, before rushing to the ER.

Instead of assuming your child might have autism if they struggle to make friends or always hang out alone at recess, Davis suggested first making other plans with their parents to set up playdates. You can also sign up your child for a karate class or call the school's teacher to see if they can intervene and help the kids play together more.

Alternatively, she said, if you immediately seek out a diagnosis and place your child into therapy and social skills groups, you could be taking away from more enriching social activities.

If a child continues to struggle, Davis recommended getting a neuropsychological assessment — a form of standardized test that is broader than getting an autism or ADHD evaluation.

While not perfect, she said neuropsychological assessments can measure a child's motor skills, sensory processing, attention, cognitive efficiency, language, memory, and social functioning. Their scores are typically compared with norms for peers of the same age.

More importantly, it helps parents know which interventions are the best. "If your kid perceives life to be very stressful or upsetting, they're not making it up. Let's talk about what we can do to support them better in that environment," Davis said. "But we don't need a diagnosis to do that."

• Chip stocks are on track for their worst losing streak in over a year.
• Losses in the sector have hit $1 trillion amid worries about valuations, rates, and increased competition.
• Concerns about funding costs and AI overspending have also started to flare again as bond yields rise.

The AI trade is taking it on the chin this week.

Investors dumped high-flying chip and memory stocks for a second day on Thursday, with the largest names in the sectors shedding more than $1 trillion in market cap this week.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is down 12% from its peak in early October. The index is on track for its seventh day of losses, which would mark its worst losing streak since May 2025.

The major indexes shook off the volatility and pared their earlier losses in the afternoon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 500 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was flat.

Here's where US indexes stood at the 4 p.m. ET closing bell:

• S&P 500: 7,744.06, up 0.33%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: 52,177.69, up 1.08% (+556.21 points)
• Nasdaq 100: 29,935.59, down 0.5%

Here were some of the most notable moves in the chips and AI space:

Here are the factors behind the latest burst of selling across the chips space:

1. Spillover effects from South Korea

The sell-off appeared to begin in South Korea this week. It's a highly-leveraged market that's been rattled by extreme volatility numerous times this year already. SK Hynix and Samsung, which make up more than half of the market cap of the country's KOSPI stock index, began sliding on Tuesday as investors aired concerns about lofty valuations in the sector. The selling quickly spread into areas like Japan and the US.

Investors began selling chip stocks in earnest after Chinese chip firm CXMT said it made progress on a new, denser chip architecture, sparking fears China could be catching up to international memory chip makers.

2. Hot inflation

Hotter-than-expected inflation data has also dampened investor sentiment. September inflation grew at a 3.7% pace, slightly above the 3.6% expected. Producer prices also rose at a 6.3% annual pace in September, its fastest pace since 2022.

Markets are pricing in a 92% probability that the Fed will hike rates at least one more time through the end of the year.

"With a second day in a row of higher-than-expected inflation numbers, it seems the Fed will have no choice but to raise rates again this year," Chris Zaccarelli, the chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management, said.

Investors flipped the script on the bond sell-off as stocks tumbled. The flight-to-safety trade was in full effect, with 10-year Treasury yield plummeting 13 basis points to 5.06%, even as red-hot inflation readings raised the odds of rate hikes from the Fed.

3. Higher borrowing costs

Higher-for-longer interest rates have been on investors' minds lately, with the recent spike in bond yields adding to the risk-off mood. The 10-year US Treasury yield rose as high as 5.34% in early October before pulling back to around the 5% mark on Thursday, remaining near multi-decade highs.

As yields rise, fears are growing that US Treasurys and hyperscaler debt will increasingly compete for investor capital, driving the yields up for both.

"The concern is that these will cut into future returns, even as the likely timing and size of these returns is far from clear," David Morrison, a senior market analyst at Trade Nation, wrote in a note.

4. Concerns about overspending, slowing revenue

Anthropic told investors it made $16.8 billion in revenue in the third quarter.

Bearish market watchers say the results mark a "worrisome deceleration" from the prior quarter's growth, when revenue more than doubled from $4.7 billion to $11.5 billion, DA Davidson said.

All this is once again raising concerns that tech giants may be overspending on artificial intelligence. The hyperscalers are on track to spend around $800 billion on capex this year, according to a Goldman Sachs report.

"The big story of last night, and really the reason for a tremendous amount of market angst in the last several sessions, was the anticipation and fear around Anthropic's updated #'s," analysts at Jefferies wrote in a client note.

Also on Thursday, CoreWeave stock plunged as investors eyed a spike in its bond yields. The neocloud company has seen its bonds due in 2032 surge from 9.625% when they were issued in June, to almost 15% this week.

Morrison flagged the worry among some investors that tech giants may be "overspending on capacity which may never get used."

Some analysts are eyeing the possibility that the chips rout may be nearing its end. Strategists on JPMorgan's market intelligence team floated a possible "inflection point" in the sector, given how chip stocks remain around 15% below their all-time highs in June.

"We think Semis can climb this latest wall of worry as recent earnings updates from Hynix / Samsung point to on-going thematic strength. Separately, breadth continues to deteriorate which we think can reverse into / out of earnings season which will buttress the rally," the bank wrote earlier this week.

• Saimah Chaudhry listed her Smartcar on a rental service on a whim.
• She grew her fleet to more than 50 vehicles and was making hundreds of thousands annually.
• Five years ago, she launched a rental platform focused on electric vehicles.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Saimah Chaudhry, cofounder and chief operating officer of Zevo. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Back in 2015, I was working for a SaaS company that I'd founded. It mostly served clients in the restaurant industry, where my parents and grandparents were both entrepreneurs.

One day, I was meeting with an out-of-town client who was staying in Manhattan Beach. He mentioned he'd rented the BMW he was driving from Relay Ride (which later became the car rental app Turo).

That was the first time I heard of car sharing. I was working from home, and my Smartcar was definitely an underutilized asset. On a whim, I listed it for rent. A grad student at UCLA booked it for three months, and I pretty much never saw that car again — after that, it was always rented.

I quickly got 2 more cars to rent

My day-to-day car use was pretty minimal, but I still needed to drive occasionally. I leased another Smartcar because they were very cheap at the time. I listed that one too, and soon acquired a third car.

At the time, I was about 25. I couldn't afford to buy real estate to get into the short-term rental market. But renting cars gave me an accessible way to turn an underutilized asset into a productive asset.

My friends and family thought I was crazy, but I loved the business's efficiency. I began researching what cars were most in demand in greater LA. I bought mid-range luxury cars like Corvettes and BMWs, which were popular with tourists. Before long, I had a fleet of more than 50 cars and was making hundreds of thousands annually.

Maintaining my fleet was challenging

A little more than a year after I started renting, a client offered to buy my SaaS company. It wasn't a hugely profitable sale, but the timing was good because it allowed me to expand my rental business. I also started a YouTube channel teaching other entrepreneurs how to manage their fleets. That was hard to monetize, so rentals accounted for about 90% of my income.

I learned a lot about operations and logistics. At first, I had cars parked all over my neighborhood in free public parking. Eventually, I leased a small lot. There wasn't a ton of storage needs, because the cars were always rented out.

The bigger challenge was vehicle maintenance. They took a lot of wear and tear, and I couldn't always account for when things went wrong.

My company now focuses on renting to gig workers

About five years ago, another owner found me via my YouTube channel. We thought we could do something similar to Turo, but better. We wanted to focus only on electric cars. Not only were they the way of the future, but they also had fewer moving parts and maintenance demands.

We launched Zevo in 2021. Today, our rentals drive about 8 million miles each month.

I love that the business supports entrepreneurs on both sides. The people who own vehicles typically have fleets of five to 250 cars. We work with dealership partners to help them purchase the most in-demand vehicles. On the other side, most of our renters are drivers for the gig economy. They typically take longer-term rentals of about 90 days.

I believe that everyone — even a 25-year-old woman like I was when I started — should be able to play in the asset class. Control of those assets shouldn't be concentrated just with big tech companies.

I paused from renting my own vehicles while we got Zevo off the ground. I just recently purchased a Tesla to list on the platform, and I'm excited to be back in the game.

• The cult documentary "Cocaine Cowboys" is celebrating its 20th anniversary in November.
• The movie will be re-released for free online and feature AI-enhanced scenes.
• Director Billy Corben and producer Alfred Spellman broke down their thought process exclusively to BI.

Some movies celebrate an anniversary with a glossy Criterion Collection release; others get a multi-city theatrical run. The guys who made "Cocaine Cowboys" are celebrating its 20th anniversary a little differently.

The beloved 2006 documentary, which chronicled how 1970s Miami became the ultraviolent entry point for the illegal drug trade in the US and introduced the world to "Godmother of Cocaine" Griselda Blanco, is getting a free re-release online — with some improvements.

Director Billy Corben used artificial intelligence to sharpen the movie's look, enhancing many of the still photos featured in the doc with a richer texture. Instead of the former drug cartel members and hitmen simply telling stories on-camera, Corben's re-release also accompanies them with AI-shot reenactments.

"It still plays unlike any documentary I have seen before; it still has a unique style and pace," Corben exclusively told Business Insider. "So we wanted a version that we would be proud to show to somebody now. A version that fans could appreciate and respect and enjoy, but also that we could introduce to a whole new generation of people who might have never heard of it, let alone seen it."

The re-release will be streaming for free on CocaineCowboys.com beginning November 13 at 5 p.m. ET.

The goal was to make 'Cocaine Cowboys' look like it was released today

The idea to use AI came to Corben and his producing partner Alfred Spellman last fall after the movie's rights reverted back to the duo's production company, Ratonkur. They turned to the AI studio New Territory Media to give a facelift to the 4,000-plus shots in the movie, doing everything from enhancing the resolution of the original interview footage and adding new motion graphics to creating entirely new reenactments of events that interview subjects described.

"What we hoped was this would look like a movie that was released in 2026," Spellman said.

"Cocaine Cowboys" became a cult hit in the late 2000s, which led to Corben releasing a sequel in 2008, "Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin' with the Godmother." The movies found a second life on streaming, resulting in Corben making the 2021 Netflix docuseries, "Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami." The franchise gained interest again in 2024 thanks to the popular Netflix miniseries "Griselda," which starred Sofia Vergara as The Godmother.

The use of AI has become a hot-button debate in Hollywood, as many fear it will leave humans out of work. Nevertheless, AI usage in Hollywood is increasing: An AI version of the late Val Kilmer recently starred in a movie, and Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney featured an AI version of Elon Musk in his documentary on the richest man in the world, "Musk."

Corben and Spellman see AI as another tool they can use to tell stories.

"We're able to scale our style and quality of storytelling in a way that would have been impossible for us to do before," Spellman said of AI.

"Every month that we worked on this project, it got better," Corben added. "The only downside of that was resisting the temptation to start all over again." 

Watch the "Cocaine Cowboys" re-release trailer: 

• US Army troops assigned to a European command fired the new Typhon missile system for the first time in a recent California test.
• The mobile system can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles and SM-6 missiles.
• The Army has already deployed Typhon to the Pacific, where it has drawn China's ire.

Soldiers from the US Army's Multi-Domain Command in Europe have fired the Typhon missile system for the first time, a step toward potentially bringing a new long-range strike capability to the European theater.

The mobile, ground-based Typhon system, which is also known as the Army's Mid-Range Capability, can fire Tomahawk cruise missiles and Standard Missile-6s, giving the service options for striking targets at greater distances.

The weapon has already been deployed in the Indo-Pacific, where its presence has frustrated China. The US and allies have tested the weapon in exercises preparing for a Pacific fight.

On Thursday, Multi-Domain Command - Europe announced its first live-fire of a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile from the newly fielded Typhon system. The test occurred at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California last month. It marks the third time Typhon has been fired in the continental US.

Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment, a long-range precision fires unit within Multi-Domain Command - Europe, carried out the testing. This unit operates one of the Army's four Typhon batteries, and troops went through five weeks of training to learn how to operate and maintain the system.

"They're incredibly good at what they do now," Lt. Col. Derek Bartlett, the battalion commander, said in a press release, adding that he's now "very comfortable deploying them forward after these five weeks."

Army leaders said that Typhon would boost US firepower in Europe, adding another layer to the Army's ability to strike targets across multiple domains.

"Typhon gives me more options as an all-domain fires commander to hold critical targets at risk at greater range and creates opportunities for the Joint Force," Brig. Gen. Steven Carpenter, head of Multi-Domain Command - Europe, said in remarks shared with Business Insider. "This live-fire demonstrates our Soldiers' ability to turn a newly fielded system into a credible combat capability that strengthens deterrence and, if required, helps us win."

Manufactured by defense contractor Lockheed Martin, Typhon is intended to fill a gap in the US arsenal. Its development followed the 2019 US withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty over concerns about Russian violations. That particular arms control treaty prohibited nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,000 kilometers.

"We get that range for that combatant commander to give them options and capabilities where they really haven't had it before from the land force," Bartlett said in the release.

The Army has already been putting those capabilities to the test in the Pacific.

Typhon was first deployed overseas in April 2024 in the Philippines amid a joint exercise between Manila and Washington. At the time, US Army Pacific called it a "landmark deployment."

In July 2025, during the Talisman Sabre exercise, the US Army fired the Typhon system for the first time west of the international date line in the Pacific, launching a Standard Missile-6 toward a maritime target. The missile successfully struck and sank the target.

Earlier this week, Maj. Gen. Bernard Harrington, head of the 7th Infantry Division, Multi-Domain Command - Pacific, told audiences at the Association of the United States Army's exhibition in Washington, DC, that Typhon has maintained a forward presence in the region for around 30 consecutive months.

"And really what that allows us to do is not only train and share lessons on that equipment, but it also allows us to learn about how to operate in the environment," Harrington said.

"How do you sustain in the environment? How do you protect those types of systems in the environment? How do you connect sensors to shooters? And to be able to do that persistently forward and persistently with our ally in the Philippines, and our partners, is incredibly important," he added.

Typhon's presence in the Indo-Pacific has repeatedly irritated Beijing. In 2024, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry, called the deployment "a move to turn back the wheel of history," adding that "it gravely threatens regional countries' security, incites geopolitical confrontation, and has aroused high vigilance and concerns of countries in the region."

The Chinese military's Rocket Force notably maintains a very substantial missile arsenal that includes medium- and intermediate-range systems that put US assets and bases, as well as allies and partners, at risk.

• Anthropic's revenue growth slowed in the third quarter.
• Some of its revenue has come from rivals distilling Anthropic models.
• Cracking down on distillation may have dented revenue growth recently.

Anthropic's revenue growth slowed in the third quarter, disappointing some investors as the AI startup prepares to go public.

There's an intriguing explanation for at least part of the slowdown: The company may be getting better at stopping rivals from stealing its AI secrets.

Anthropic generated $16.8 billion in revenue during the third quarter, my colleague Stephen Council reported on Wednesday. While that's impressive growth by almost any standard, it's a slowdown from earlier in the year.

Here's where things get interesting.

Anthropic told prospective investors this week that 5% to 7% of its revenue comes from something called distillation, The Information reported.

This is when rival AI developers use Anthropic's Claude models to help train their own competing systems.

One way to do this is to create thousands of Anthropic accounts and bombard Claude with carefully chosen questions. The rivals collect the answers and use them to teach their own AI models how to perform similar tasks.

All these "distillation" accounts and questions generate revenue for Anthropic, even though the customers are effectively trying to copy its technology.

Anthropic has repeatedly accused Chinese AI companies of doing this and has been cracking down on the practice. And lately, the company has said this effort has been successful.

That creates an unusual problem: Anthropic's success in protecting its technology could be hurting its reported revenue growth.

It also raises questions about whether some of the company's spectacular growth earlier this year was artificially boosted by rivals paying to copy its models. It's unclear how much of the recent slowdown can be attributed to the crackdown.

Indeed, the company told investors this week that revenue from distillation is expected to decline further, according to The Information.

There's a precedent for this in the tech industry.

When Twitter went public, investors closely watched its user growth. Some accounts were bots rather than actual people, complicating the numbers investors used to judge the company's health.

Twitter disclosed estimates of fake and automated accounts in its regulatory filings, giving investors more information to assess its growth. The result was that user growth numbers came down.

Anthropic could face a similar challenge as it prepares for an IPO that could value the company at $1.5 trillion or more.

The important distinction is that a decline in distillation-related revenue doesn't necessarily mean Anthropic's underlying business is weakening. It could simply mean fewer rivals are paying to exploit its technology.

Of course, competition and other factors could also be slowing growth.

But investors will need to separate genuine customer demand from revenue generated by companies trying to copy Anthropic's AI.

Sometimes losing customers isn't such a bad thing.

I asked Anthropic about this on Wednesday and didn't hear back by Thursday morning.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com

Since launching in 2019, Disney Plus has consistently ranked among the top streaming services available, thanks to its reasonable starting price point and impressive content catalog. It's a family-friendly service with programming from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and more.

Our guide to the best streaming services dubbed Disney Plus the best pick for families. That continues to hold true, but Disney Plus has also begun to expand its offerings. The app now live streams select content from ESPN and ABC sports properties. Additionally, if you opt for one of the Disney Plus bundles (which we recommend, since they start at just $0.50 a month more than stand-alone Disney Plus), you can get even more adult-friendly options from Hulu, ESPN, NFL Plus, or HBO Max.

Below, we've broken down everything you need to know about the service, including prices, free trial information, bundle options, device compatibility, password sharing crackdown details, and a rundown of some of the top programs you can watch on the service.

What is Disney Plus?

Disney Plus is a family-friendly streaming service that exclusively houses movies and TV shows from hit properties belonging to the Walt Disney Company. This includes classic Walt Disney Pictures films, TV series, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and more. In addition to the streamer's back catalog of existing programming, it regularly releases new TV shows, with a particular focus on the Marvel and Star Wars franchises.

The streaming service is a convenient (and necessary) one-stop streaming shop for anything Disney-owned, as you'll be hard-pressed to find most programs on another service. Disney Plus offers live streaming for select live sporting events, like many WNBA events broadcast on ABC. If you're bundled with Hulu and/or ESPN, you can watch select programming on Disney Plus without having to swap to one of the other apps.

How much does Disney Plus cost?

Disney Plus costs anywhere from $12.49 to $21.49 a month on its own, depending on whether you sign up for the ad-supported or ad-free version. The service also offers an annual ad-free subscription for $215 a year.

The price increases if you add on another streaming service (or two or three) with one of the Disney Plus bundles, but these are significantly cheaper than paying for multiple streaming services individually. Bundles start at $13 a month for ad-supported Disney Plus and Hulu and increase as you add in other services, like ESPN Select, ESPN Unlimited, or HBO Max.

There's also a special six-month price-like option for the Disney Plus and Hulu bundles. If you lock into a six-month contract, you can pay a reduced rate of $12 a month for your first six months of ad-supported service or $20 a month for your first six months of ad-free service, after which point plans will renew at their then-standard rates.

Disney Plus with Hulu and ESPN Unlimited costs anywhere from $36 to $45 a month. Customers can also bundle Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Select at a cheaper rate with more selective ESPN content. Additionally, there's an option to bundle Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN Unlimited, and NFL Plus Premium. For this ultra plan, subscriptions range from $46 a month to $55 a month.

Bundles including ESPN can offer ad-free Disney Plus and Hulu, but ESPN will always feature ads due to the nature of live TV. For a comprehensive cost breakdown of all plans, you can explore our Disney Plus price guide.

Does Disney Plus have a free trial?

Disney Plus doesn't offer a free trial, so you'll be billed immediately once you sign up. However, a few different live TV services carry ad-supported Disney Plus and offer short free trials for new customers, so people can technically try out the service free through those options.

DirecTV's MyEntertainment plan, part of its genre pack initiative, carries 60+ live channels, the ad-supported Disney Plus and Hulu bundle, ad-supported HBO Max, and ad-supported AMC Plus. The month-to-month package costs $43 a month and comes with a five-day free trial for first-time customers.

Hulu + Live TV also includes the ad-supported Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN bundle in its 90+ channel lineup. Subscriptions start at $100 a month and sometimes offer a three-day free trial for new users.

How to sign up for Disney Plus

It's easy to sign up for Disney Plus. You just need to head to the Disney Plus website and click the plan you're interested in. The landing page usually offers two bundles up top, but you can scroll down for more options. If you're only interested in signing up for stand-alone Disney Plus but have trouble finding that option, you can sign up for ad-supported Disney Plus here.

After clicking, you'll be prompted to enter an email to log into your MyDisney account. If you've never had an account through a Disney-owned streaming service, you'll be prompted to create a MyDisney login. However, if you've ever signed up for Disney Plus, Hulu, or ESPN Plus before (even if you then canceled your account), you most likely already have a MyDisney login that you can use.

What's on Disney Plus?

A stand-alone subscription to Disney Plus houses Marvel shows and films, including movies from the MCU like "Iron Man," "Captain America," "Thor," and "The Avengers," and other older Marvel properties, such as the mid-2000s "Fantastic Four" films and "The Incredible Hulk." Netflix's "The Defenders" shows, like "Daredevil" and "Jessica Jones," have also migrated to the service. Additionally, the streamer regularly releases new MCU TV shows, including "WandaVision," "Loki," and "Agatha All Along."

Disney Plus has similar offerings from Star Wars, including the nine tentpole films, relevant spinoffs, and new Disney Plus original series, such as "Andor," "The Mandalorian," and "Skeleton Crew." Subscribers can also find all Pixar films here, from the "Toy Story" franchise to "Finding Nemo" to "Coco." The app also has select other children's programming, like the whole backlog of "Bluey" episodes.

When a new Marvel, Star Wars, or Pixar film leaves theaters, Disney Plus typically becomes its permanent streaming home following the movie's video-on-demand rental and purchase period.

Disney Plus alone live streams a select few ABC and ESPN sporting events that are also shown on ESPN, such as the WNBA All-Star Weekend. However, bundling with Hulu and/or ESPN, two other Disney-owned streamers, will unlock your full viewing potential, especially for more adult programming. Hulu shows like "The Bear" and "Only Murders in the Building" will be available to stream within the Disney Plus app, as will select events that stream on ESPN. You'll just need to ensure all accounts are linked to the same MyDisney email address.

What devices does Disney Plus support?

Disney Plus is available across the vast majority of devices, even ones that often aren't streaming-friendly, like select gaming consoles (PlayStation, Xbox) and cars (Mercedes-Benz, Tesla). Disney Plus also supports HDMI and AirPlay, and is available on Apple Vision Pro. The Disney Plus website has a full rundown of device compatibility, but you can find some of the most popular devices that Disney Plus is compatible with below:

• Desktop web browsers
• Mobile devices and tablets (Android, Apple, Amazon Fire tablet, Windows 10 & 11 tablets and computers)
• Smart TVs (LG WebOS, Samsung Tizen, Android TV, Google TV, Vizio SmartCast, Roku TV)
• Game consoles (PlayStation, Xbox)
• Cars (Mercedes-Benz, Tesla)
• Streaming devices (Apple TV 4th Gen and later, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Xfinity Flex, Roku)
• Peloton

Does Disney Plus allow password sharing?

Like Netflix, Hulu, and an increasing number of other streaming services, Disney Plus doesn't allow password sharing between households. However, thanks to the Disney Plus Extra Member option, users don't need to pay for an entirely new account. This allows the main subscriber to add an extra member who can create one profile and stream on one device at a time outside their household.

The monthly fee for this option ranges from $7 a month (ad-supported Disney Plus) to $15 a month (ad-free Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN bundle). You can also add an extra member to the Disney Plus and Hulu bundles ($8 a month to $11 a month) or the Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Select bundles ($12 a month to $15 a month).

• Anthropic is opening its doors to independent AI safety evaluators from METR.
• It's the first time a frontier AI company has done so.
• Dario Amodei pledged last month to take the step.

Anthropic is giving a team of six independent evaluators company hardware, office space, and access to internal tools so they can more thoroughly vet the AI giant's unreleased models and agents.

In a blog post on Thursday, the Claude maker said it chose six evaluators from METR, the research group perhaps best known for its report on OpenAI's Hugging Face agent breach, to receive "employee-like access" at Anthropic.

"We want to be publicly accountable for the decisions we're making," Anthropic said in its blog post. "We aim to close the gap between what evaluators understand about a frontier AI company's systems and what the company itself understands."

The choice to set the evaluators up at Anthropic fulfills a promise first made by CEO Dario Amodei last month, when he published a lengthy essay calling on frontier AI companies to slow down in the wake of the Hugging Face breach.

"Anthropic is unilaterally committing to this step now," Amodei said at the time of embedding safety evaluators.

Reacting to Amodei's essay, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said his company would also embed evaluators, though that hasn't happened yet. Anthropic's Thursday disclosure marks the first time a frontier AI company has taken the step.

Within the last year, a steady drumbeat of incidents in which rogue AI agents break free from their guardrails and wreak havoc on the wider internet has spurred calls for action from politicians and tech CEOs alike.

Most recently, an Anthropic agent submitted an erroneous tip for an unsolved murder in Philadelphia, and another agent submitted 20 visa applications on a US government website, according to published reports.

In its blog post on Thursday, Anthropic said the evaluators have free rein to publish their findings, with a couple of caveats prohibiting the METR team from disclosing customer data, model architecture, and attorney-client privileged information.

Anthropic also said it holds the right to require METR to redact information. "METR is free to characterize our redactions publicly, and say whether it believes the redactions were justified, as long as it does so without revealing the redacted information," Anthropic said.

The access does not extend to the wider METR team.

The six chosen researchers, whose names were not immediately published on Thursday, will be "siloed" from the wider METR team.

"Embedded evaluation gives a few qualified people working under Anthropic's security standards a close view of how we operate," Anthropic said. "It's not a way for other organizations to obtain our information, or that of our customers and partners."

METR did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

We've been on a yearslong journey to find the best work bag money can buy, and we've finally narrowed our list down to six standout picks. In our hunt, we've tested over 50 bags — meticulously studying materials, developing strong opinions on interior organization, and most importantly, testing them in real life. We've toted around work bags on subway commutes, international trips, and after-work events to figure out which features work and which bags earn us the most compliments.

So three years, over 50 bags, and hundreds of commutes later, we've finally nailed down our favorites. Here's our definitive list of the best work bags for women.

For more of our meticulously tested coverage, see our articles on the best workwear for women, the best work pants for women, the best plus-size work clothes, and the like. Learn how the Reviews team tests bags at BI.

How I tested the best work bags for women

Best overall: Oleada Marina Tote

It's been a journey finding the best overall work tote, but this one from Oleada is as close to perfect as I've found. What makes it stand out is how sophisticated and stylish it looks on the outside, coupled with stellar organization on the inside.

But all those brilliant features are housed in a bag that looks like a stylish purse. It has a fashion-forward belt, a streamlined silhouette, and classic colorways that withstand trend cycles.

The Marina Tote is also surprisingly lightweight, weighing in at just 2.03 pounds. Compared to other leather picks on this list, that's at the lower end of the weight range.

The Oleada Marina Tote nails the balance that's so hard to find in a work bag: It's polished enough to pass as a great everyday purse, yet thoughtfully designed for the less glamorous realities of commuting with a laptop, water bottle, keys, and phone.

It may not be the right pick if you need a huge, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink carryall, but for most office days and work trips, it's the best overall work bag I've tested.

Runner-up: KAAI Pyramid Bag

The stylish Pyramid Bag is one of the more expensive picks on this list. But the quality of the materials and the craftsmanship mean that you get what you're paying for.

It's made from scratch-proof leather that won't discolor or wilt in the rain. This is a higher-grade material and far more durable than other materials like pebbled leather, vegan leather, or genuine leather. So, even if this pick is more expensive, it is likely to last a lot longer than other choices.

Style editor Gabrielle Chase also notes that the straps are smart and have a generously long drop: "They measure 10.6 inches, and while I'd prefer if they were wider and more padded, I can still easily sling them over a jacket. They're made of reinforced leather, which doesn't pull or sag when the bag is full," she writes in her full KAAI review, which we highly recommend checking out if you want to know more about the brand.

Best customizable: Cuyana Easy Tote

Cuyana's Classic Easy Tote is made from beautiful pebbled leather and strikes that hard-to-find balance between soft and structured.

Executive editor Sally Kaplan, who has had hers for years, says it's "chic, durable, flexible but not floppy," and can fit a huge amount of stuff. While it looks like a simple leather tote at first glance, thoughtful details—like its comfortable handles and customizable snap-in accessories—make it far more functional than it seems.

The bag is fairly bare-bones on its own. If you want internal organization, you can add accessories. The three that I think are most helpful are the System Flap Bag, the System Organizer Pouch, and the System Laptop Sleeve.

There are two versions of the Easy Tote: the Classic Easy Tote and the Easy Zipper Tote. We recommend both equally; it's just a matter of whether you prefer added security or added capacity.

Check out our full Cuyana review to hear about our other favorites from the brand.

Best oversized tote: Coach Brooklyn 39

The Coach Brooklyn 39 is the bag you want if you're the kind of person who packs a sweater, a lunch, and a change of clothes for after work. It has a huge capacity, but the fashion-forward silhouette keeps it from looking like a shapeless sack.

It doesn't have an internal organization system, but it makes up for it by being remarkably light. Some of our favorite totes have built-in laptop sleeves and other helpful extras, but this one's interior is simply unlined leather. That pared-back construction keeps the bag exceptionally lightweight for its size, and leaves you free to pack it without working around compartments you may not always need.

The leather also gives the oversized silhouette a more elevated feel, so it reads as a great everyday shoulder bag rather than a purely practical carryall.

It's the rare oversized work tote that feels effortless to carry and looks just as good off the clock as it does on your commute.

Best satchel: Parisa Wang Gabrielle 35

When I first saw this bag, I immediately wanted to use it as a purse. The fact that the Gabrielle 35 fits a 13-inch laptop, comes with a shoulder strap, and has tons of pockets is a practical bonus that felt too good to be true.

Parisa Wang brand partners with artisans who typically work with top luxury brands like The Row and Prada, and you can absolutely feel the quality. In fact, the Gabrielle 35 looks and feels like the ultra-coveted suede Margaux bag from The Row (which will run you $5K or more). But dare I say that the Gabrielle is cuter?

Best minimalist: The Horse Teddy Tote

The bag brand The Horse is known for their exceptional materials, and this bag is no exception. The luxurious pebbled calfskin material is hefty without being overly heavy, with a satisfying thickness that makes you confident it can carry significant loads.

If you're looking for the internal organization of a specifically designed commuter bag, you should look elsewhere. But if you're looking for a tote that works just as well for work as it does for stuffing with clothes or toting around while shopping, the Teddy Tote is a great pick.

Carrying heavier items feels easy and secure, without that digging-in feeling you get from stiffer or thinner straps. I was honestly surprised by how perfectly engineered they are for real-life schlepping: they sit nicely on your shoulder, distribute weight well, and stay comfortable longer than you'd expect.

Even when I packed it with all my essentials, there was still room to spare. It's the kind of tote you can grab on a busy day and trust to handle whatever you end up bringing along.

More work bags we tested

• Cuyana System Tote: Like the Easy Tote, the System Tote is made from beautiful leather and can be customized with Cuyana's helpful snap-in organizers. It's much heavier, though, and its short arm opening can be difficult to wear over a thick winter coat.

• Freja Paloma Tote: The Paloma holds a 16-inch laptop, water bottle, jacket, and more, while its vegan leather exterior and warm-toned lining look far more expensive than they are. The center zip compartment has gaps at either end, so smaller items could slip out if you use it as an under-seat travel bag. It's also on the heavier side.
• July Juliette Suede Work Tote: July's structured suede tote stands upright on its own, has a removable water-bottle holder, and includes a luggage sleeve for travel days. Its rigid, boxy shape will not suit anyone who prefers a lighter, more relaxed everyday bag.

• Clare V. Simple Summer Tote: With its relaxed crochet construction and interchangeable straps, this is a fun, roomy warm-weather work tote that can fit an oversized laptop and lunch. It has only one small interior pocket and no built-in laptop protection, so a sleeve is essential.
• Portland Gear Cascade Tote: The weatherproof Cascade Tote kept our belongings dry in heavy rain and has a padded laptop sleeve, water-bottle pockets, a key leash, and a luggage sleeve. Its sporty polyester exterior is more practical than fashion-forward.
• Baggallini Carryall Laptop Tote: At just over a pound, this nylon tote is an excellent lightweight choice with a padded laptop sleeve, RFID-blocking pockets, and enough organization for travel. It looks more casual than leather work bags and will not feel as elevated in a formal office.
• Parker Thatch Jack: The Jack's distressed leather is meant to pick up marks and wear beautifully, making it an easygoing luxury tote you do not need to baby. It is pricey and has minimal organization beyond a few interior pockets.

• Oleada Marina Carryall: This top-handle bag converts into a backpack or shoulder bag and has separate laptop storage, a water-bottle holder, key leash, and luggage sleeve. Its more structured shape and higher price make it best for someone who values organization and versatility over a soft, simple tote.
• Lo & Sons The O.G. 2: The O.G. 2 is a strong work-gym-travel hybrid, with a separate shoe compartment, padded laptop sleeve, water-bottle pocket, and luggage sleeve. It is more utilitarian-looking than a classic leather work tote.
• KAAI Horizon: The Horizon is an exceptionally roomy luxury tote with space for a 16-inch laptop, water bottle, lunch, and a change of clothes, plus a secure zip top and clever hidden phone pocket. Its nearly $1,000 price puts it firmly in splurge territory.
• Polène Cyme: The sculptural Cyme can be worn open or folded inward, and it carries a 14-inch laptop and daily essentials in a distinctive silhouette. Its wide open top and leather ties offer little security for public-transit commuters.
• Strathberry Tote: Strathberry's excellent craftsmanship, rich suede lining, and refined hardware make this a beautiful option for anyone who does not need a true commuter bag. It only fits a MacBook Air and lacks a padded laptop sleeve, despite its luxury price.
• Monos Metro Tote: The Metro Tote is a handy work-travel companion with a luggage sleeve, full zip closure, and exterior pocket for a passport or phone. It is roomier and bulkier than many people need for everyday commuting.
• Caraa Studio Tote: Caraa's convertible tote-to-backpack design is ideal for city commuters, and its separate shoe compartment keeps sneakers away from the rest of your things. It fits only a 13-inch laptop, which may be limiting for some work setups.

• Arden Cove Victoria Tote: The Victoria Tote offers impressive anti-theft details, including slash-resistant waterproof fabric, locking zippers, and RFID-blocking storage. Its narrow straps can dig into your shoulders when the bag is loaded with a laptop and water bottle.
• Cuyana Double Loop Satchel: This elegant satchel has a distinctive shape, soft Italian leather, and enough room for a 16-inch laptop in its main compartment. Organization is sparse unless you buy the additional insert, which adds to an already steep price.

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was born in Taiwan and came to the US as a child.
• Huang exhorted immigration in a recent podcast, saying it helps power the US tech sector.
• His comments contrast with the Trump administration's hardline on immigration.

A key Trump ally in the tech world is trumpeting the benefits of immigration.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, himself an immigrant from Taiwan, said on a recent podcast that he believes the United States needs to maintain its status as an attractor of top tech talent — even if those workers come from outside the United States.

"We want all the world's great minds to come here, bring their great ideas," Huang said on the Bg2 podcast. "The inflow of intellectual property into this country is unlike anything else the world's ever seen."

Though Huang said immigrants must enter the country "lawfully," he said that striking a good balance is necessary. "Surely we want to do it," he said of attracting foreign talent.

Huang's spirited comments clash with the Trump administration's agenda, which has sought to crack down on H-1B visas — often the first gateway for tech workers entering the country — as part of its wider crackdown on immigration.

In a statement to Business Insider, a White House spokeswoman said, "There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force, and President Trump's agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this Administration's commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential."

In September last year, Trump signed an executive order setting a $100,000 fee for new H-1B applications, to be paid by companies hiring the foreign workers.

Some of the top tech companies sponsoring H-1B visas include Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Apple.

Then, last week, Vance and other US officials said during a press conference that the administration was banning Microsoft and Adobe from a federal visa sponsorship program that links an H-1B visa to a green card.

"If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants," Vance said during the press conference.

Huang has emerged as one of Trump's more reliable allies in the tech world. Huang said last month that AI CEOs were scaring people about the tech for "ulterior reasons," an act he called "irresponsible" and "unnecessary."

"We don't need more regulations," Huang said. "We need to apply the current regulations we have."

As Trump weighed calls from some AI CEOs to regulate the burgeoning industry after a series of rogue AI incidents, the president ultimately took an approach aligned with Huang's view.

Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

At an October 8 event at the White House, Trump gave science and tech medals to six CEOs. Only one of them, Michael Dell, was born in the United States. The rest — Elon Musk of SpaceX, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sergey Brin of Google, and Lisa Su of Taiwan — were born abroad.

• Tesla first unveiled plans to reboot the high-powered Roadster in 2017. Reservations cost $50,000.
• The company stock has skyrocketed since the announcement as the Roadster languished in limbo for nearly 9 years.
• We did some back-of-the-napkin math to find out how much that $50,000 could have yielded if invested in Tesla stock instead.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is about to pull the wraps off the second-generation Roadster — again.

It's been nine years since Elon Musk said it would revive the Roadster. Would-be buyers chomped at the bit to grab the two-door, 600-mile-range, high-powered electric car way back in November 2017. They paid either $50,000 to reserve a spot in the car's queue or $250,000 to buy a Founders Series upfront.

Roughly nine years later, the car still hasn't entered production. That could change soon, as Tesla is about to unveil the car — now apparently with cold-gas thrusters that might allow it to temporarily hover — on Thursday night.

That raised an expensive question: What if early Roadster buyers had put that money into Tesla stock instead?

So we did some back-of-the-napkin math to figure it out.

Tesla shares closed at about $21 on November 17, 2017, the first trading day after Musk unveiled the car. At roughly $360 in mid-October 2026, a $50,000 investment made in 2017 would now be worth between $850,000 and $900,000. That's a gain of more than $800,000, before taxes and trading fees.

A buyer who put down the full $250,000 for a limited Founders Series Roadster would be sitting on roughly $4.3 million in Tesla stock today, a gain of about $4 million.

The long wait for the Roadster's deliveries has not gone unnoticed by Musk.

During an October 2024 earnings call, he thanked the vehicle's "long-suffering" deposit holders, while saying the car company had focused heavily on its autonomy and robotics ambitions.

The wait has been too much for some big-name shoppers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (who has a famously fraught relationship with Musk) publicly canceled his reservation in 2025. YouTuber Marques Brownlee, known as MKBHD, canceled one of his two reservations after 8 years, saying that Tesla "has been sitting with my 50 grand for eight years and hasn't done anything with it."

Per Musk's X thread, the wait might be worth it. Ahead of the Thursday event, Tesla's CEO wrote that the reveal will be "a candidate for greatest product demo of all time."

• Verb CEO Cyrus Beschloss says AI's critics are still using the technology.
• He said they will have a hard time deciding between data centers and ChatGPT.
• Most Americans don't want large data centers in their communities, even if they use AI.

Verb CEO Cyrus Beschloss is calling AI non-believers' bluff.

Beschloss said critics of AI and the data centers that power it aren't above using the technology.

"All the people that are saying they're anti-data center, that they're anti-AI in general, they're using it," Beschloss said on Wednesday during CNBC's Trading the Midterms event.

He said that when people have to choose between shutting down data centers or shutting down ChatGPT, it won't be an easy decision.

"There's going to be a heck of a crossroads," Beschloss said.

His company, Verb, is a data exchange where users can get paid by selling their proprietary information to data-hungry AI companies. Users can decide which data to share, set their reserve price, and buyers can decide whether to purchase it.

Verb says its data shows that among people who use AI assistants, the majority of the queries dealt with schoolwork, writing, business, and side hustles.

OpenAI transformed society in 2022 when it released its chatbot, ChatGPT. Tech companies have raced to dominate the market ever since. Meta, Google, and other major players have invested heavily in developing AI, which they say will revolutionize everything from health to work.

Critics of AI, however, say the benefits don't outweigh the risks. They're concerned about the potential for AI to displace human jobs, destroy the environment, co-opt copyrighted material, and even destroy humanity as we know it.

Data centers, which tech companies need to power their AI systems, are a glaring physical manifestation of those concerns. Supporters say building more data centers will create new jobs, bolster economies, and strengthen the country's national security. Others say they will strain electrical grids, raise utility prices, damage the environment, and disrupt daily life. A Gallup survey published in May said 7 of 10 surveyed Americans oppose building a data center near their homes.

President Donald Trump's administration has broadly supported AI development and the expansion of the nation's infrastructure, including the $500 billion Stargate Project, an initiative backed by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. The initiative was launched in 2025 to build new AI infrastructure.

• The newest subject of the tech industry's memes: seductive spies seeking AI secrets.
• WSJ reported that OpenAI warned employees a hypothetical stranger at the playground could have ulterior motives.
• X users memed hypothetical HR guidance and jumped on the opportunity to roast tech bros' dating skills.

Are you a complex cyber-spy, or are you just happy to see me?

Employees at AI labs are working on bleeding-edge tech and privy to trade secrets — so it's understandable if they're on high alert for traps, honeypots, and secret agents. Especially after the FBI arrested OpenAI employee Abdulrahman Alfozan and charged him with bugging one of the lab's conference rooms. Alfozan, who was fired, has yet to enter a plea.

The Wall Street Journal published a story on Wednesday about the security instructions AI labs were giving their employees. Reporter Erin Woo wrote on X: "OPENAI to EMPLOYEES: If someone is trying to seduce you, first consider — could they be a spy???"

The story sparked a wave of memes.

One X user joked that OpenAI's HR should tell employees: "Remember how ugly and unfunny you are." Another joked that most AI employees are 2s to 5s on the classic scale to 10, and that they should be doubtful if a 9 is interested.

Katie Miller jumped in to say that 10s are definitely spies. "And in SF, if she's a 6, she's a spy," Miller wrote.

"This is now my favorite 2026 burn," wrote Ashley Mayer, the cofounder of the venture capital firm Coalition.

Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, pointed out that the Superintelligence Labs' office was in the South Bay. "So if someone you don't know is trying to talk to you, you KNOW something is up," he wrote.

Some took a darker spin on the meme. A Hugging Face alum wrote that OpenAI engineers would never be truly loved. "You will be loved for your access," he wrote.

Others were hesitant to accept the cloak-and-dagger narrative. One X user wrote that suitors would be more likely to look for money than secret intel.

Another group took it as a positive — the employees are getting approached, even if it's a spy. One X user said that it was "best recruiting strategy I have ever seen." Another said they were annoyed they never got honeypotted in their own tech job.

When it comes to romance, it can be rough out there for techies. San Francisco is a notoriously difficult dating scene; tech bros told Business Insider that the city's gender ratio and relentless hustle culture pushed romance off the table.

Maybe you've heard tech's calling card: "Single until Series B."

Either way, the advice would likely be tough to hear. "HR tearing self-esteem apart one employee at a time," one user wrote.

• Anthropic's latest revenue figures were like chum in the water for the AI doomers.
• Critics pointed to the revenue figure to argue the AI boom is ending.
• Anthropic is getting ready to go public in what's expected to be a historic IPO.

Nearly $17 billion in quarterly revenue is good, right? Not if you're the most hotly anticipated IPO candidate in recent market history, apparently.

Anthropic, which is gearing up for what's expected to be a historic public offering, told investors this week that it made $16.8 billion last quarter. That's a significant jump from the prior three-month period, but slower than the growth rate from the first quarter to the second— and AI doomsayers dooming harder than ever.

Market researcher publication Geiger Capital shared a graphic of Anthopic's revenue run-rate on X, stating, "Not good enough. It's over."

Other prominent AI skeptics shared similar views. Gary Marcus, an AI researcher and author who has been an outspoken critic of the market's frenzy for AI, recalled a previous Anthropic revenue forecast, implying that it seems absurd now.

Marcus engaged with a user defending Anthropic, who argued that its slower Q3 growth was due to the "death of tokenmaxxing" and rising competition from Chinese open source models.

Tech founder and former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang, a fellow AI critic, highlighted the market implications of Anthropic's newly released figures, laying out what they might mean for other tech companies.

"Anthropic's quarterly revenue growth rate of ~45% is going to be seen as disappointing, and will put massive pressure on the AI hypergrowth story. If valuations start correcting, watch out below."

Citrini Research, the firm that went viral in February for publishing a hypothetical doomsday scenario that triggered a stock brief stock sell-off posted, "Oh it's over over" as Anthropic's revenue figures made the rounds.

Ed Zitron, an independent journalist and researcher who compared OpenAI to Lehman Brothers after auditing its financials, quickly chimed in after the figures were released.

"The absolute best thing about this story is that boosters are furious Anthropic didn't give a new magical made up run rate number," he wrote.

Zitron has been a steadfast AI doomsayer, repeatedly predicting that the bubble will burst, with consequences that extend far beyond the stock market.

Bundles have become one of the best ways to save on streaming services you were already planning to subscribe to, and ESPN and FOX are now getting in on the action. The ESPN Unlimited and FOX One bundle unlocks comprehensive live streams from ESPN and FOX properties, making it a cord-cutting sports fan's best friend.

ESPN Unlimited and FOX One launched separately on August 21, 2025, and the ability to bundle them together was first introduced on October 2. The ESPN Unlimited and FOX One bundle costs $39.99 a month. Typically, ESPN Unlimited costs $31.99 a month (after a recent price hike) and FOX One costs $19.99 a month, meaning that you can save 23% (about $12) each month by bundling the two services together.

• Explore the ESPN Unlimited and FOX One bundle

Both streaming apps serve as one-stop shops for their respective properties. ESPN Unlimited carries full live streams from ESPN, ESPN2, ABC on ESPN, the ACC Network, SEC Network, and more. It also houses streaming exclusive games, dubbed "ESPN Plus" content, and on-demand programming.

FOX One has a similar suite of offerings, including live streams of your local FOX station, FS1, FS2, FOX News, the Big Ten Network, and more. The service also houses on-demand episodes of popular FOX shows, like "Special Forces," "Family Guy," and "Doc."

Keep reading to learn more about the two apps and other bundling opportunities. Or, sign up directly for the ESPN Unlimited and FOX One bundle.

FAQ

Can you watch everything on one app?

While you can bundle ESPN Unlimited and FOX One under one subscription, they remain separate apps, and you'll need to use each one to watch its respective programming.

Are there other bundles?

If you're not interested in bundling ESPN Unlimited with FOX One, you might still like one of the ESPN Unlimited, Disney Plus, and Hulu bundles. You can bundle the three services together for as little as $35.99 a month. There's also a savings opportunity for the bundle that includes ad-free Disney Plus and Hulu.

Additionally, users can bundle ESPN Unlimited and NFL Plus Premium for $41.99. There's also a quadruple bundle option that combines Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Unlimited with NFL Plus Premium. You can learn more in our Disney Plus bundles guide and roundup of the best streaming deals and bundles.

Was there a price hike on the bundle?

The bundle has remained the same price since it launched in 2025. However, ESPN Unlimited faced a price hike in August 2026. By staying the same price, the bundle has actually increased in value, offering a greater overall discount compared to what you'd pay if you subscribed to ESPN Unlimited and FOX One separately each month.

• Tyler Perry is a billionaire thanks to his Madea franchise and Tyler Perry Studios.
• Perry was the third highest-paid entertainer in the world in 2022.
• Take a look at how he makes and spends his money.

Tyler Perry's entertainment empire made him a billionaire.

The actor, director, writer, and producer joined the billionaire ranks of Oprah Winfrey, George Lucas, John de Mol, and Steven Spielberg in 2020.

In 2022, Perry was the third highest-paid entertainer in the world at $175 million, Forbes reported.

As of October 2026, his net worth is $1.4 billion, according to his Forbes profile.

Perry's income streams include his film and TV library, investments, his ongoing content deal with BET, and Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta.

Here's a look at how he makes and spends his fortune.

Perry, 57, was born Emmitt Perry, Jr. in 1969 and raised in New Orleans.

Perry shared a close relationship with his mother, Willie Maxine Perry, who died in 2009, The Seattle Times reported. He is estranged from his father and, to distance himself from him, Perry changed his name to Tyler at 16.

Perry did not finish high school but later completed his GED.

He is now based in Atlanta and has a son with his former partner, model and activist Gelila Bekele.

In December 2020, Perry revealed in an Instagram post that he and Bekele had split.

"I'm 51, single and wondering what the next chapter in my life will look like," he wrote.

Perry got his start in theater.

When his first play, "I Know I've Been Changed," debuted in Atlanta in 1992, it opened to a mostly empty theater, according to his official website.

Thirteen years and many other plays later, he released his first film, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," in 2005, jumpstarting his Madea franchise. The movie made $22.7 million its opening weekend.

One of Perry's best-known projects is the Madea movie franchise, in which Perry himself dresses as a woman and plays the titular role.

In a 2017 appearance on the "Today" show, Perry said that playing the role happened by accident. When the actress playing a grandmother in his 2000 stage show "I Can Do Bad All by Myself" didn't show up, he had to take over her lines, and Madea was born.

"That two minutes of Madea ended up being most of the show," he said.

Perry made 13 core Madea movies over 2 decades.

The final theatrical release in the franchise, "A Madea Family Funeral," made $27 million in its March 2019 opening weekend, Variety reported. In July 2025, the latest movie, "Madea's Destination Wedding," was released on Netflix.

The highest-grossing Madea movie, "Madea Goes to Jail," brought in $90 million in total box-office earnings in 2009, Forbes reported.

Perry's Madea franchise has grossed over $660 million.

His broader film collection has brought in over $1 billion in ticket sales.

Perry and Lionsgate had a "first look" deal for 6 years from 2008 to 2014.

Many of Perry's Madea movies were distributed by studio giant Lionsgate; later Madea movies were released on Netflix.

In a first-look deal, the creator owns the copyright to his material. Perry maintains ownership of everything he has produced, including 1,200 TV episodes, over 20 films, and at least two dozen stage plays.

Since parting ways with Lionsgate, Perry has inked partnerships with the Oprah Winfrey Network and Viacom, the parent company of BET.

Perry created shows such as "The Have and Have Nots" and "If Loving You Is Wrong" for OWN during his seven-year partnership with the network, which ended in 2019.

In 2017, Perry signed a contract with BET's parent company, Viacom (now Paramount Skydance Corporation), to produce exclusive original content for BET and other Viacom networks following his partnership with OWN.

BET, short for Black Entertainment Television, was launched in 1980 to focus on programming for Black audiences.

In a September 2020 profile, Forbes estimated that about $60 million of Perry's billion-dollar net worth came from his stake in BET+.

At the time, the company reportedly gave Perry a 25% equity stake in its streaming service, BET+, and paid him $150 million annually to produce new films and TV shows.

Paramount Skydance acquired his stake in 2026 when BET+ was folded into Paramount+. Perry continues to produce original programming for BET, though the terms aren't public.

Perry's shows "Sistas" and "The Oval" were the top two cable series for Black audiences in 2021.

Forbes estimated that his 330-acre production studio in Atlanta, Tyler Perry Studios, is worth $280 million.

In 2015, Perry paid $30 million for a plot of land on the grounds of the historic Fort McPherson army base, where he built his production studio.

The land was once a base for the Confederate Army, a point Perry has acknowledged. In a 2019 BET Awards speech, he said, "While you're fighting for a seat at the table, I'll be down in Atlanta building my own."

The studio grounds feature 12 sound stages and 200 acres of greenspace.

Marvel megahit "Black Panther" was one of the first movies shot at the studio's new stages.

Perry took Architectural Digest on a tour of the property in 2019, which includes neighborhoods, mansions, and a replica of the White House.

Perry has built an impressive real-estate portfolio over the years that consists of several multimillion-dollar properties in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Wyoming.

Perry bought a 34,000-square-foot house in Atlanta in 2007 for $9 million. It has seven bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, a helipad, an infinity pool, and a tennis court, Architectural Digest reported.

He sold the home to David Turner, an entrepreneur and evangelist, nine years later in 2016 for $17.5 million. Steve Harvey bought the house for $15 million in June 2020.

In September, Perry listed his Beverly Hills mansion for $57 million and said that he was preparing to move to Puerto Rico.

Perry bought the property for $4.3 million in 2004 and expanded it to 24,592 square feet in a 2012 renovation, Realtor.com reported.

Perry hosted Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in the nine-bedroom mansion after they were cut off by the royal family in 2020.

"We needed a house, and he offered security as well. So it gave us breathing room to try to figure out what we are going to do," Meghan told Oprah Winfrey in a 2021 tell-all interview.

Perry revealed in the Netflix docuseries "Harry and Meghan" that he had written Meghan a letter ahead of her wedding, saying he was praying for her.

When Meghan later called him, crying, Perry validated her feelings about how she was being treated by the media.

"To tell Meghan that I felt her feelings were valid hurt," he said in the docuseries. "I didn't want to have to say that to her — I didn't want her to feel that. But I didn't want to lie to her. She was afraid of them destroying her, or going crazy, or them making her think she was crazy."

In the docuseries, Harry and Meghan revealed that they had named Perry godfather to their daughter, Lilibet.

Architectural Digest reported in November 2019 that Perry also owns a log cabin in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and property in the Bahamas.

Perry purchased his Wyoming vacation home in 2005.

In the Bahamas, White Bay Cay and the island next door were listed together for $7 million before Perry purchased them in 2009, though the amount he paid has not been reported.

Real estate isn't his only major investment. Perry also owns a $150 million private jet, which he has used for humanitarian aid.

Perry used the jet to fly water and other necessities to the Bahamas in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, CNN reported.

Perry is known to be generous with his wealth.

Perry founded The Perry Foundation in 2006, which supports initiatives in areas including education, human rights, health, and agriculture.

In July 2020, he gifted approximately $50,000 in grocery store gift cards to those in need in Atlanta, the "Today" show reported.

• The last thing I expected to find in Great Smoky Mountains National Park was a resort town.
• It was abandoned in the late 1900s, but its 100-year-old cabins still stand.
• I stepped inside the empty vacation homes and found eerie remnants of a past era.

Tucked away beneath the towering oaks and pines in the lush woods of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 100-year-old cabins dot a once-abandoned resort town known as Elkmont.

I visited in the spring of 2023 and was amazed to find that the cabins preserved and restored by the National Park Service were open for public viewing. 

When I made plans to visit the historic district, I pictured myself wandering outside cabins and looking in the windows. I had no idea I'd be able to step inside them for a more intimate look at what life was like 100 years ago.

Elkmont Historic District is in a valley on the northern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I took a taxi to the resort town. Drivers can take the US-411 from Gatlinburg and turn at the "Elkmont Campground" sign, according to Visit My Smokies, a tourism site run by Sevier County. From there, take a left at the sign that says "Elkmont Nature Trail." 

I began my trip to Elkmont by reading about its history.

According to the site's historical markers provided by the NPS, the land was used for farming in the 1800s. Then, in the 20th century, a railroad was built, bringing loggers and tourists to the area. This led to the establishment of a resort town known as Daisy Town.

About 100 years ago, it was a place where wealthy Tennesseans escaped hot summers in cities and found "harmony with nature," according to the NPS.

Families took the train to Daisy Town and spent their summers relaxing on the porches of their vacation homes and playing outdoors, one NPS marker said.

When the National Park Service bought the land in 1934, the resort town diminished.

Residents had the option of selling their cabins for full price or at half price with a lifetime lease, according to Visit My Smokies.

By the late 20th century, the once-booming vacation community was a ghost town.

In 1992, the NPS stopped renewing leases, and the abandoned cabins began to deteriorate.

In 2009, the NPS announced plans to preserve Elkmont's historic buildings.

Volunteers removed trees, repaired roofs and ceilings, and added insulation to the cabins, Knox News reported.

During my visit, I went inside every cabin.

I stepped inside all 16 cabins lining the pedestrian street.

The oldest of the bunch was built in 1830 and then moved in 1932 to serve as a guest house in the resort community, according to the NPS.

The one-story building stood out to me because it looked older than the rest, with a distressed, unpainted wooden facade.

Inside was a single, large room with nothing but a stone fireplace.

I thought the weathered, empty home felt eerie. 

In fact, none of the cabins were furnished.

Still, I thought details like built-in kitchen counters and cabinets gave them a sense of a past life.

Looking out the windows of these historic cabins, I thought about what it would have been like to vacation here a century ago.

I pictured a shaded summer, waking up to natural views, and stepping outside to enjoy a cup of coffee with no agenda. It seemed like an ideal getaway for city dwellers like me.

On my way out of Elkmont, I spotted families wandering the street. This made me think that the site is no longer the ghost town it once was.

I left Elkmont with a sense of what the once-abandoned resort community was like and felt grateful to the preservation crew for making it possible for me to visit.

One of the more underrated streaming services is offering over 50% off subscriptions for a limited time. STARZ has discounted both its monthly and annual plans, so customers can get a year of service for as little as $30.

STARZ is a little-known gem of a streaming service that offers a mix of STARZ TV exclusives, including ongoing shows like "Outlander: Blood of My Blood," and a rotation of popular films, such as the "Michael" biopic.

The current offer brings the monthly subscription price down from $12 a month to $5 a month for the first three months of service, or 58% off. The annual deal offers a similarly enticing discount, bringing a yearly plan down from $70 to only $30 (about 57% off).

These STARZ offers are some of the best streaming deals available right now, especially as other non-live TV streaming platforms refrain from launching deals ahead of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal season.

When our team vets deals, we look at both the depth of the discount and the duration of the offer. While these aren't the absolute lowest prices we've ever seen at STARZ, over 50% off is a solid deal. Likewise, having the monthly and annual deals count toward three months and a full year of service, respectively, is a particularly competitive offer.

Both the monthly and annual options are solid deals, and which one you should choose ultimately comes down to how long you're planning on hanging on to the streaming service. If you're only interested in binge-watching one TV series or looking to stream a specific movie, then paying for a single month of the monthly discount will be enough, but if STARZ is something you'd like to keep in your streaming rotation long-term, the annual plan is the way to go.

FAQ

Who is eligible for the STARZ deals?

The STARZ deals are available to new STARZ customers who subscribe via the STARZ website.

How do you sign up for the STARZ deals?

Signing up for the STARZ deals is easy. You just go to the STARZ limited-time offer landing page and click on either the monthly or annual plan. Then, you click the green "Claim Special Offer" button. From there, you'll be prompted to input your email, create an account, and add your payment info.

If you're planning to cancel after your introductory offer ends, set a reminder for yourself, since each plan will auto-renew at its then-standard rate unless you cancel before then.

You can learn more about the platform in our STARZ guide. To learn explore additional streaming apps, check out our roundup of the best streaming services.

• US Treasury yields sank plunged on Thursday.
• It was a remarkable move down in yields given back-to-back hot inflation readings this week.
• It's a sign that investors are flocking back to Treasurys as a haven as high-growth tech stocks teeter.

After dumping bonds for weeks, investors are scrambling back to Treasurys for safety.

The sell-off in government bonds has been the biggest story in markets recently, with yields touching their highest levels in almost a quarter century as inflation and economic fears pushed investors away from government bonds.

But the paradigm shifted on Thursday. Amid a tech rout that's wiped about $1 trillion from chip stocks this week, and as investors grow cautious on the AI trade heading toward earnings, Treasurys are acting as safe havens again.

Yields were lower across the board on Thursday. The move is especially unusual given hotter-than-expected inflation data this week, which would typically lead investors to price in higher rates and make them more hesitant to hold onto government debt securities.

Investors shrugged consumer and producer inflation figures off, seeking shelter from stock volatility and macro uncertainty.

Treasury yields on Thursday

To markets, the moves are signaling a few things:

• Treasurys are a haven trade again. US government bonds have long been thought of as safe havens, but investors have questioned their reputation recently due to concerns about tariffs, ballooning debt and widening deficits, and geopolitical turmoil. The result was a shift away from Treasurys that pushed yields to their highest levels since 2002.
  
  The risk-off sentiment on Thursday is helping bonds "find their footing" again, Ed Yardeni, a market veteran and the president of Yardeni Research, said.
• The usual paradigm of stocks and bonds moving in opposite directions has returned. It's often the case that stock and bonds seeing inverse moves. That pattern appeared to break down in recent months, with stocks and bond yields rising in tandem, a dynamic that worried some strategists. But the latest turn toward Treasurys is a sign that government bonds are behaving as a buffer against volatility in equities. The biggest decline in yields also pared as investors returned bought the dip in stocks.
• Interest rate panic may be starting to ease. Investors may have turned to Treasurys partly due to recent dovish Fed comments, strategists on JPMorgan's markets intelligence team wrote in a client note on Thursday.

The bank pointed to recent remarks from Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, who said she didn't "feel any urgency" to raise rates immediately when speaking on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank meetings.

Earlier in the week, New York Fed President John Williams also said he didn't see any reason for rate hikes in 2027. In early October, Fed vice chair Phillip Jefferson also said the Fed may need to "take more time" to assess the impact of higher yields on inflation.

"The global equity selloff has restored the safe-haven appeal of government bonds," Rosenberg Research wrote in a client note on Thursday. "Flight-to-quality demand is overwhelming the CPI scare, while markets scale back rate hike expectations across major central banks."

Investors are still pricing in a 91% chance the Fed will hike rates at least one more time this year, according to the latest reading on the CMEFedWatch tool.

• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made their first joint appearance since moving back to the UK.
• They visited Nottingham, where they attended their first royal engagement as a couple in 2017.
• Photos show how the two visits compare, including a subtle fashion nod from Meghan.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle might not work for the monarchy, but their latest public appearance was certainly reminiscent of their royal heyday.

On Thursday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made their first joint appearance since moving back to the UK with their children in September.

The couple headed to Nottingham, which holds special significance for the duke and duchess. They made their debut as a royal couple there in December 2017 after they got engaged, attending the Terrence Higgins Trust World AIDS Day charity fair.

For their 2026 visit, they spent the day visiting multiple charities, including the Himmah Hub, the organization Meghan collaborated with on her 2018 charity cookbook when she was a working royal.

It's been nearly a decade since their royal debut, and although Harry and Meghan stepped back as senior royals, their 2026 appearance looked remarkably similar to their 2017 visit.

Take a look at photos from both Nottingham appearances to see the similarities and differences.

At their first royal engagement in December 2017, Harry and Meghan wore coordinating ensembles.

For their first appearance after their engagement, Harry and Meghan both walked the streets of Nottingham in navy coats for a matching moment.

Meghan's double-breasted coat from Mackage hit her mid-calf, and she paired it with a black turtleneck and a taupe Joseph skirt. Black, slouchy boots completed the look.

Harry paired his coat with a blue blazer, dark trousers, a white shirt, and a cream scarf.

For their 2026 visit, the couple showed off their own style, wearing slightly more casual attire.

Harry wore a slightly more casual version of the outfit he wore in 2017, pairing a white shirt and charcoal blazer with jeans rather than dress pants.

Meghan, on the other hand, wore an all-maroon ensemble designed by Joseph, who made her skirt for her 2017 appearance. As she did for her first event, Meghan wore a turtleneck and a skirt, with a belt at the waist, though she swapped boots for pointed-toe heels.

She wore her coordinating coat open, showing off the look as she greeted people, and had her hair swept up in a ponytail.

They greeted members of the public in 2017, but they kept their interactions fairly formal.

During their first walkabout, Harry and Meghan stopped to speak to people throughout Nottingham, chatting with adults and children.

People took photos of the couple as they spoke to them, but they didn't stop to pose for the pictures, keeping their interactions more formal as members of the royal family tend to do.

In 2026, they took selfies with members of the public.

Harry and Meghan had more relaxed interactions with Nottingham residents during their 2026 visit, including posing for multiple selfies with fans who whipped out their phones.

Working royals rarely take selfies with the public, though Prince William notably broke protocol to take a birthday selfie with Taylor Swift in 2024.

In 2017, the couple kept physical contact with the public limited.

Photos from Harry and Meghan's 2017 trip to Nottingham show the couple shaking hands with people as they stopped to talk.

In some, they crouch down to speak to children, making sure they could hear them.

However, in 2026, they embraced well-wishers.

Harry and Meghan shook hands with some visitors in 2026, but they also greeted some members of the public more warmly.

They grasped hands, joked with people as Harry seems to do in the photo above, and, most notably, gave several hugs to people who had lined up to meet them. Meghan, in particular, was photographed embracing several of the people who had gathered.

Meghan received several bouquets at her first royal engagement in 2017.

When Meghan visited Nottingham in 2017, members of the public had prepared to greet her with flowers, symbolically welcoming her into the royal fold.

She left her 2026 event with multiple bouquets as well.

As they did in 2017, the flowers people brought her in 2026 sent the message that Meghan was welcome in Nottingham following her yearslong absence from the UK.

Harry and Meghan stuck together for much of their 2017 engagement.

Making their first official appearance in December 2017 was a big step for Harry and Meghan, as they had largely kept their relationship private before they got engaged.

The couple greeted people individually, but they also kept close to each other's sides throughout the day. In one photo, they held hands, with Meghan putting her other hand on Harry's forearm.

Nearly a decade later, not much had changed for the couple.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been through a lot since they first went to Nottingham (as has the royal family).

They got married, welcomed two children, stepped back from the royal family, and spent years living in California.

Despite those changes, the couple looked as smitten with each other as they did nine years ago, with photographers snapping a shot of them in a nearly identical pose to the one from 2017. They smiled and grasped each other's hands as Meghan held Harry's wrist, just as she had in the past.

• Julien Fréret is the director of an Intermarché supermarket in Normandy, France.
• He said a cyberattack caused temperatures to spike across the store's refrigeration system.
• Fréret said the shop had to throw away around 30 cubic meters of food, worth about $112,000.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Julien Fréret, the director of Intermarché La Haye-du-Puits in Normandy, France.

On Monday, a cyberattack affected refrigeration systems at hundreds of French supermarkets. Fréret spoke to Business Insider on Wednesday. The following has been translated from French and edited for length and clarity.

Monday began like any other day at our supermarket.

But at 5 a.m., our baker arrived and called us and said: "I think you need to come. There’s a big, big, big problem with the refrigeration."

When we arrived, temperatures in all the refrigerated cabinets were rising. No circuit breaker had tripped, and the CO2 system was still running — but the control panel showed error after error.

We put a thermometer in a freezer. It read 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

That was when panic set in. We thought: This can’t be possible.

We searched everywhere, restarted the refrigeration, and called the on-call technician. We were nowhere near imagining that someone had used the software to set temperatures above 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

The temperatures kept rising

At about 7 a.m., we received an email from Danfoss, the company whose software monitors our refrigeration system, saying there had been a cyberattack.

By then, two hours had passed. The whole system had failed, leaving nowhere to save the food. Everything that needs to stay cold was affected: fresh counters, frozen food, all of it.

Staff were arriving to stock the shelves. We told them: "Stop, stop, stop, stop. We’re stopping the shelving."

The temperatures kept rising. In some sections, they reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit. In the fish section, they climbed to about 163, even 176 degrees Fahrenheit.

We shut down the motors, but it was too late. Butter and ice cream had melted.

It was heartbreaking

We called in a judicial officer to document what happened and take inventory before disposing of the food.

We threw away about 30 cubic meters of food — a skip and a half — worth about $112,000, excluding equipment damage. Refrigeration systems are meant to make cold, not heat. At those temperatures, the fans melted.

It was heartbreaking. We were sickened.

Throwing away food is already such a concern in society. Having to put $112,000 worth in the bin was horrible. We’re a small rural community, so you ask yourself: Why us?

Explaining it to customers

We closed the fresh-food sections but kept the rest of the supermarket open.

Some customers understood and asked how someone could do this. Others could not understand what a cyberattack had to do with food. They asked: "Why are you throwing away so much food? Why don’t you give it away?"

But food that had reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit could not be given away.

I had never imagined this could happen. You hear about cyberattacks on hospitals or cars.

But attacking food? This was the first time I had ever seen anything like it.

The software monitors food safety, alerting us when temperatures rise or a motor fails. From what we understand, someone changed the defrost settings. That system uses heat to stop refrigerators icing over; it had been set to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

We're vulnerable

We tried to save the food, but it heated up too fast. It was already too late.

Still, I’m grateful for how the team responded. Morning staff came back that afternoon to clean the refrigerators. Nobody said, "That’s their problem." Everyone pulled together.

We have disconnected the software from the internet. It still monitors temperatures of our refrigerators and freezers locally, but we can no longer check them remotely; we have to be at the store.

We have not had another problem, but we are dealing with computers, so I can’t say it will never happen again. This episode has shown how vulnerable we are to cyberattacks.

We have started restocking and are about 60% stocked. We hope to be fully operational by Friday.

We have to turn the page and keep going for our customers.

• A working paper by Census Bureau researchers measured AI exposure in entry-level jobs across fields.
• The study found that education and healthcare fields are among the least affected by AI.
• Graduates in AI-exposed fields saw lower employment and earnings than their less-exposed peers.

If you're hoping to get an early-career job in the age of AI, get ready to pick up the hard hat, scrubs, or chalk.

Recent graduates are entering a job market where entry-level work is increasingly being reshaped by AI models, but not all fields may be equally exposed.

Business Insider analyzed data from a September working paper by US Census Bureau researchers that estimates the extent to which different fields of study are exposed to AI. The paper evaluates exposure by assessing whether GPT-4 could substantially reduce the time required to complete tasks in jobs that young graduates in each field typically enter.

Some of the most exposed fields, according to the working paper, include computer-focused fields such as computer science, computer engineering, and computer programming, as well as information sciences. Statistics, applied mathematics, electrical engineering, actuarial science, and journalism also ranked among the highest-exposure fields.

The study found that graduates in the highest-exposure fields were 5 percentage points less likely to be employed in the quarter after graduation and had 13% lower initial full-quarter earnings than graduates in less-exposed fields after ChatGPT became widely available in 2022.

On the other hand, fields like teaching, medical assisting, and nutrition were found to be among the least exposed to AI.

For this ranking, Business Insider looked at the fields in the paper's three lowest-exposure deciles and combined closely related specialties to rank the 25 least-exposed general career paths.

While looking at job exposure to AI can help draw a picture of what jobs may be more vulnerable, this ranking isn't definitive, and the study reflects only GPT-4's ability to speed up job tasks.

See what college majors might be safest from AI in the future.

25. General and interdisciplinary science

This broad science degree combines biology, chemistry, physics, math, and environmental science. Graduates often work as lab or research assistants, technicians, science educators, or specialists. Many also use it as preparation for various health professions education.

24. Nutrition and dietetics

The work of dietitians and nutritionists often involves tailoring advice to each patient's health and circumstances, such as culture, budget, and lifestyle. Graduates also often go on to work as public health specialists or health educators.

23. Criminology

Criminology experts often work in community-focused areas like law enforcement, corrections, crime analysis, or victim services. Their work often involves interpreting behavior and evidence, making difficult judgment calls with legal and community safety consequences.

22. Visual and performing arts

Some may say AI art will replace human artists, but we probably won't see an Oscar-winning AI model for a while.

Performance and studio artists, such as performers, musicians, actors, painters, sculptors, and designers, may be among the least replaceable professionals in the age of AI, as their work showcases human creativity, performance, and collaboration.

21. Liberal arts

The core of subjects like philosophy and literature is often human by design. Liberal arts graduates often apply their studies and skills to analyzing, expressing, and adapting ideas in areas such as law, communications, nonprofit work, public service, research, education, and business.

20. Physiology

Physiology graduates study the human body's systems and often go on to work in clinical research, laboratory work, health education, or other health professions. Their work often involves supporting patient care and interpreting biological findings.

19. Family and consumer sciences

Graduates in family and consumer sciences help people make better decisions about relationships, finances, and family well-being; they often work in areas like human development, family services, consumer education, and community programs.

18. Social work and human services

Social work and human services graduates often help people navigate crises, connect with benefits, access adequate care, and build support networks. They also often deal with uniquely complex circumstances that require specialized judgment and trust.

17. Health sciences and pre-health programs

Health sciences and pre-health programs prepare students for careers in medicine, dentistry, physician-assistant studies, public health, clinical research, or patient support. Graduates often work directly with patients, healthcare systems, and care teams.

16. Speech therapy and communication disorders

Speech therapists and communication disorder majors study how speech develops in humans and how to address various challenges affecting communication. Their work often involves assessing and treating different conditions in speech, hearing, language, and communication through individualized patient care.

15. Forestry, ecology, and natural-resource management

Forestry, natural resource management, and ecology majors often work as foresters, conservation scientists, environmental planners, land managers, or wildlife technicians. Their work often involves monitoring ecosystems and managing land based on ground conditions.

14. Criminal justice and fire protection

So far, AI cannot save anyone from a burning house. Graduates in criminal justice and fire protection work in highly physically demanding fields that require a high level of situational awareness and preparedness, such as first responders, fire services, policing and corrections, and public safety administration.

13. Transportation and logistics

Specialists in transportation and logistics are the human motor behind the supply chain. They often work in freight operations, warehousing, dispatching, transportation, and fleet management. Their work involves coordinating transportation routes and schedules as well as managing disruptions.

12. Secondary and subject-area teaching

Graduates of secondary and teacher education programs are the backbone of high school curricula and often go on to teach in subjects such as math, science, English, social studies, art, and music.

11. General teacher education and education studies

Beyond level- and subject-specific teaching, general education studies are also a solid path for those looking to enter education, which is overall one of the safest fields in terms of exposure to AI. Graduates' work often focuses on teaching, curriculum development, and instructional support.

10. Physical education, kinesiology, and recreation management

Graduates from these programs often go on to work as physical education teachers, coaches, fitness professionals, or youth program leaders.

9. Plant sciences and agronomy

Graduates from plant sciences and agronomy programs often use their knowledge and skills to assess soil health, manage pests, maximize yields, and make weather-based decisions while working with crops, farms, and greenhouses for agricultural companies.

8. Animal sciences and zoology

Graduates in animal sciences and zoology often work in animal care, zoos, conservation, research, wildlife biology, and agriculture. Their work often involves working directly with animals to study their health, behavior, habitats, and ecosystems.

7. Nursing

Nursing provides uniquely human patient care that AI can't replicate yet. Their work often involves applying clinical judgment and providing hands-on care, including administering medication, monitoring patient symptoms, and collaborating with medical teams.

6. Physical, occupational, and related therapy programs

Programs in physical and occupational therapy often lead to careers focused on patient rehabilitation, with high demand for hands-on assessment and the development of tailored recovery plans.

5. Special education

Special education teachers support students with disabilities in achieving educational goals by adapting instruction, developing individualized plans, and working closely with students, families, and specialists to build academic and life skills. This work demands patience, knowledge, and interpersonal skills from graduates.

4. Medical laboratory technology

Graduates working with medical laboratories and clinical technologies test blood, tissue, and other patient samples. In doing so, they help doctors diagnose and treat illness. These trained professionals ensure reliable results and troubleshoot problems with automated equipment.

3. Early childhood and elementary education

The safest category of teachers in terms of AI exposure is those who work directly with a school's youngest students. Teachers in elementary and early-childhood education are key to helping children achieve foundational learning and social development. Their work often involves managing young classrooms, working closely with parents, and developing lesson plans for different student needs.

2. Educational administration and leadership

AI is not replacing school principals anytime soon. Graduates of educational administration and leadership often go on to work as school principals, district administrators, and instructional leaders after gaining classroom experience and other credentials. Their work involves managing staff, responding to parents' needs, setting school- or district-wide priorities, and making community-shaping decisions.

1. Medical assisting services

Even high-tech clinics need someone assisting at a patient's bedside. Medical assisting is the safest field in terms of AI exposure, according to the US Census Bureau working paper.

Graduates in the field often work on patient intake, taking vital signs, and handling administrative tasks such as updating medical histories and scheduling future care. While AI might streamline the paperwork side of medical care, the industry still depends on direct patient contact to keep a clinic running.

• Meta's Muse gave a new shot of life to the AI trade when it was released last month.
• Its success could draw investor scrutiny away from hyperscaler capex this earnings season.
• "It should, in theory, assuage some fear that it's all for nothing," said Baird's Ross Mayfield.

This earnings season could be the moment investors stop complaining (or complain less) about Big Tech capex.

AI's biggest spenders might be able to breathe a little easier as they head toward third-quarter earnings, thanks to Meta's agentic AI, Muse. The product takes AI a step further than traditional chat bots that have become ubiquitous in the last four years.

Where AI for most people has been akin to an elevated, more eloquent search engine, Muse and other agentic AI tools feel like a leap forward in the technology, capable of acting without being prompted.

Consumers, so far, are enthralled.

Muse has reached over 2 million daily users and 3 million downloads. Meta's stock has surged 22% since September 8, driven by investor excitement for the next chapter of the AI story.

And it's that excitement that could help investors calm down about the billions being poured into the AI buildout this earnings season.

Muse's success could be the signal that Meta — and by extension, other hyperscalers like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon — aren't throwing cash into a black hole.

Their recent skepticism could ease up, as they see a clearer path to monetization, said Ross Mayfield, an investment strategist at Baird. He called Muse the first big app of the AI era, and likened it to the revolutionary dynamic that an app like Uber brought when it first launched.

"It's a great first start, and it should, in theory, assuage some fear that it's all for nothing," Mayfield told Business Insider. "At the very least, you can see, 'All right, here's a product that is super popular and clearly super useful to people, more so than just making funny photos or asking questions.'"

Muse's success means others will try to copy it (Amazon has already blocked it on its platforms, signaling it could be working on its own agent), which means more capex being sunk into AI infrastructure companies.

Not everyone thinks hyperscalers will get a free pass on capex now that AI agents are in the zeitgeist. Lance Roberts, the chief investment officer at RIA Advisors, said that while firms like Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon have impressive track records that investors should keep in mind, capex will still be top of mind this earnings season as investors have yet to see if Muse and other future products can be effectively monetized.

Ben McMillan, the chief investment officer at IDX Advisors, had similar thoughts, saying that Meta still has to show its plan for how to turn Muse, which is free for users currently, into a cash cow.

"Meta's built-in audience buys it time, but only so much, especially with yields now starting to compete for investor capital," he told Business Insider. "Meta arguably has a straighter path to increased ad revenue from Muse (vs. others), but they need to show it."

• Five years ago, I moved back to my hometown of St. Louis with plans to return to New York City.
• However, I've become very close with my niece and nephew — and that love has kept me here.
• Now, I'm realizing that leaving might teach them to take risks and follow their dreams.

As soon as I walk into my sister's house, my 1-year-old niece strikes the perfect "Home Alone" face and shrieks in delight. She races into my arms and I pick her up, both of us touching noses and smiling.

I hear my 5-year-old nephew call out my name from the living room, and I walk over to find him stomping around like a dinosaur.

I ask what he is today, and he growls, "I'm a T. rex!" I melt at the indescribable amount of joy they both bring me.

I'm so grateful I live a short 15-minute drive from them in St. Louis, where I was born and raised. But it's not where I want to stay.

I never wanted to live here long-term, but then my sister had kids

St. Louis was always supposed to be a temporary place for me.

After growing up here and going to college within the state, I moved to New York straight out of college and dove headfirst into my career. For 12 years, I thrived in the Big Apple: Beyond exciting me, it ignited me. I really felt like myself living in New York City.

The only reason I moved back to St. Louis was the COVID-19 pandemic. Most things in New York shut down, and I could no longer justify paying high rent for a small space without access to the city's exciting amenities.

So, I moved back to St. Louis. I was in the process of starting and growing my own business, which felt easier to do in a lower-cost city. Around the same time, my sister had two children, and helping out with them kept me busy while I planned my eventual return to New York.

Moving back was the goal, but as my niece and my nephew have gotten older, it's been harder to think about leaving them. I love our sleepovers and impromptu plays and performances, and I'll miss making blanket forts at our house.

I'm obsessed with every second I get to spend with them, but at the end of the day, after they've gone to sleep, I head back home to my quiet neighborhood — where there are fewer horns honking, no one hanging out on fire escapes, and very few restaurants open for dinner at 10 p.m.

It doesn't quite feel like home.

Deciding to leave St. Louis was tough, but I think I'm making the right choice

I'm itching to return to my life in New York City. I miss going to a different networking event every night, eating incredible cuisine from all over the world, and riding the subway with people dressed to the nines.

For those first few years in St. Louis, I kept talking myself out of planning a move.

But about three years in, I started to realize that being a role model to them is about more than just being physically present. What am I actually teaching them if I stay because I'm afraid of missing them?

So, in 2025, I decided to renew my lease in St. Louis for the final time. Fast forward to this year, and I have a one-way flight booked for after Thanksgiving.

I'm excited, but I'm sad, too.

Kids change so rapidly, and I'll miss out on so much. I'll especially miss how easy it is to spontaneously pop over to their home, help my sister, and gather up some extra cuddles whenever they need them — or whenever I do. I know I will miss things I will never get back.

But I want my niece and my nephew to know they can love their family fiercely without worrying that they're abandoning any of us by living their lives. I want them to see an adult choose opportunity, happiness, and growth, even when that choice has a sacrifice.

Plus, just because I'm gone doesn't mean I'll be detached from them. We can FaceTime every day, and they can come visit.

My sister and her family will have a free place to crash in New York, and I can show them the magic of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or watch their eyes sparkle as we explore museums. I can create a life there that becomes part of their world, too.

And maybe one day, when one of them is debating whether to leave St. Louis for something they desperately want, I hope they'll remember that their aunt did it first.

• I've been shopping at Costco for years and rely on the store for nutritious and affordable meals.
• As an executive member, I love buying the Amylu products and Bachan's Japanese barbecue sauce.
• I always stock up on Kirkland Signature products like organic chicken breasts and Greek yogurt.

Some people are horse girls, but I proudly refer to myself as a Costco girl.

I grew up going to the store with my mom in the early 2000s and loved snacking on the free samples. As I got older, I knew I was in a serious relationship when my partner and I got a Costco executive membership together.

Now, as I'm starting my own family, I still turn to Costco for nutritious and affordable meals.

I make weekly trips to the wholesale retailer, and although I always grab the rotisserie chicken, there are (at least) nine other items that I simply cannot leave the store without.

Here are a few of my favorite items to buy at Costco.

I always pick up a few Amylu products.

Amylu is my favorite brand from Costco. As a home cook and food scientist by trade, I prioritize making homemade meals weekly. But trust me when I say this brand is worth buying.

All of Amylu's products are filled with ingredients I'd use if I were making them from scratch. I use the chicken meatballs with basil and Parmesan for lunch bowls and the organic maple chicken patties to bump up the protein in my breakfast.

I love Costco's organic peanut butter.

This creamy, natural, organic peanut butter only contains two ingredients: peanuts and salt.

I love that the Kirkland Signature peanut butter doesn't don't have an oily, oxidized aftertaste like others on the market.

We love adding our own flavors to the Kirkland Signature Italian sparkling mineral water.

The Kirkland Signature Italian sparkling mineral water is a staple in my house.

We like to flavor it ourselves by adding lemon, lime, or pomegranate molasses to make our own beverages. However, it's also perfectly refreshing on its own.

Kirkland Signature organic chicken breasts are the backbone of my meal prep.

Although Costco offers great, affordable options for chicken breasts, thighs, and drumsticks in value packs, I find the organic variety is often higher quality.

These chicken breasts are the backbone of my meal prep. As soon as I arrive home, I marinate and freeze them so that when they defrost, they're ready to go.

Even my dog loves the Kirkland Signature plain Greek yogurt.

Costco has a variety of great yogurt options. However, my favorite is the enormous container of plain, non-fat Greek yogurt because everyone in my household — including my dog — can enjoy it.

I like to flavor it in batches and can sweeten it myself since I usually pile on the toppings.

I also use this as a swap for sour cream, or as a base for my Ninja Creami.

I use rolled oats for oatmeal and baking.

I make oatmeal all year long, but I also use rolled oats as a base for baking to amp up the fiber. The oats can be used whole, but sometimes, I blend them to make my own oat flour.

In a pinch, it's also ideal for a soothing bath.

The Kirkland Signature Parmigiano-Reggiano is a versatile staple.

This huge wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano is worth its weight in gold.

We shave it over our salads and pasta dishes but keep the rind for brothy beans, homemade marinara sauce, and soup stock.

I like to grab a pack of the Columbus hickory-smoked turkey bacon.

The Columbus hickory-smoked turkey bacon is another one of my favorite items to buy at Costco. It comes in a pack of four, and we usually freeze each one until we're ready to use it.

We like to bake it on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper.

This bacon is great for making breakfast burritos or for when we're serving a crowd.

Bachan's Japanese barbecue sauce makes cooking flavorful meals easy.

Bachan's Japanese barbecue sauce is super versatile and cuts my time in the kitchen in half. It works as a marinade, a dip, and so much more.

It's an easy way to pack a punch of sweet and savory goodness into any meal. We like to use it on all our proteins, from chicken to tofu.

This story was originally published on March 24, 2025, and most recently updated on October 15, 2026.

Curious to know what other shoppers put in their carts? Check out our other Costco diaries here.

• Hilary Swank is pregnant again at 52 after giving birth to twins in 2023.
• In a 2024 interview, Swank, then 50, told Business Insider she's happy to be an older mom.
• She has built up work flexibility and is more comfortable with herself than she was in her 30s.

In 2022, Hilary Swank announced she was pregnant with twins at age 48, sparking conversations around the risks of pregnancy after age 35.

Now, Swank is pregnant again at 52. She announced her pregnancy in an Instagram reel with the caption: "A lot of people have been asking what project I'm doing next, this one releases in December."

Pregnancies at 35 or older have traditionally been classified as "advanced maternal age" by the medical community. Studies have linked older pregnancies to a higher risk of complications and health problems such as high blood pressure and chromosomal abnormalities. Research suggests that the risk increases with age.

In 2024, Swank, then 50, told Business Insider that she's glad she had kids at 48.

"The person that I was in my 20s and even into my 30s would've been a very different mom than I am now," Swank, who is also the Chief Innovation Officer of HealthyBaby, said.

Swank said there were many benefits to being an older parent, such as more time and flexibility to really show up for her kids.

She loves her work flexibility

Swank told Business Insider that she took the first year and a half off for maternity leave (the average length of maternity leave in the US is three months). She also didn't feel rushed to go back to work, waiting for an opportunity that seemed right.

Swank said having more time with her kids is crucial. "I just had three and a half hours of sleep, and I haven't really seen my babies, and that's really hard," she said. "It makes me really empathize with all the parents out there who are working really long hours who don't get to see their children."

She has more mental energy to devote to her kids

Swank said she doesn't have to focus on herself as much as she did in her 20s and 30s, when she was getting her acting career off the ground. It's given her the space to prioritize her kids' needs.

"I'm in a place where I just have a lot more patience and a lot more grace to give, not just my children, but others around me," she said. "I can give them so much more than I could have at that point."

She feels more comfortable with herself

One of the best things about getting pregnant in her late forties was Swank's comfort with herself.

"The things that you used to care about don't take front and center anymore," she said. "You're on to new places in your life and it's a beautiful place to be."

Swank isn't the only one who feels this way: other older parents say they had more time to figure themselves out before they had kids. Even Swank's mom misses her 40s.

"If she could go back to any time, it would be 45 — she felt her best," Swank said. "And I hear a lot of women say that."

• Leslie Pickett had been a fan of rock star Jon Bon Jovi since she was a high schooler.
• She thought she was texting the celebrity and fell in love. In fact, the man was an imposter.
• He continually asked Pickett for money, and she gave him $10K. She's now appearing in a documentary.

This story is based on an interview with Leslie Pickett, 55, a mortgage lender from north Louisiana. She appears in the new National Geographic special "Super Scam Me," out October 17. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I've been a fan of Jon Bon Jovi ever since the age of 14, when I was blown away by his music during the 1980s.

Then, as I got older, I could see all the good things he had done as a philanthropist. His Soul Foundation supports affordable housing and feeds the hungry.

He's an amazing human being, and who doesn't love Jon Bon Jovi?

I'm more of a Facebook person and unfamiliar with Instagram, but I came across his verified account toward the end of 2024.

He messaged me directly on Instagram

I wrote a comment on the post, and saw a personal message in my inbox. The message didn't come from his verified account, but another one showing his face.

It said something to the effect of, "Glad to have you here, fan. How long have you been a fan of mine? What's your favorite song?"

It was just a bunch of questions. Then he said that if his management found out he was messaging directly on Instagram, they would shut down the page.

He said it would be better if we went to WhatsApp or Telegram. I'd never been on either, but I figured it out.

We sent a ton of texts over the next couple of months, and I found myself falling for him. There was one specific incident when I had my doubts and asked him outright why he was chatting to me. I mean, why would Bon Jovi want me?

He threw out, "I love you." I said, "You don't even know me! Name five things about me you love." He wrote down five things, and some of them were from the first and second months of our conversation.

I framed it as if he were a friend of mine because it was just beautiful. It was a never-ending love bomb.

I told him not to send me flowers again

He sent me recorded videos. Then, we did a live video chat, but it was very grainy, and he was really far back from the camera. The call only lasted five seconds before it cut out. However, it looked very much like Bon Jovi to me.

Then I received a mixed bouquet of flowers in a vase. I suppose my address is public record, so it wasn't difficult for him to find it.

I had no idea they were coming, and I immediately threw them away. I didn't want anyone else to see them and ask where they came from. After that, I told him absolutely not to send flowers again or call my phone unless we had a time set up beforehand.

Meanwhile, he said he and his wife had already filed for divorce, but nobody knew because it wouldn't be good for his public image. He said he just wanted somebody who loved him for him and not for his money and fame.

The only person I confided in was my cousin, Jerry. He knew the full extent of what was going on. He said it was just a fantasy — a fairytale — and not to fall in love with the guy.

I didn't listen. When you're talking to someone that often, it's hard not to believe they are who they are. The mind plays tricks.

Next, he started asking for money. The idea was that I would pay him for one of those meet-and-greets that big stars do with their fans.

He said we'd spend a day together and that he'd take me out to dinner. I can't remember the original figure he quoted, but it was around $3,000, which I paid in increments. I once sent $1,000, but the other payments ranged from $150 to $500.

I had a lot of trouble getting the money over. He advised me to use Cash App or PayPal instead of Venmo, saying they had lower fees. He also guided me on how to send bitcoin by showing me screenshots of the process.

He said I needed security clearance

In July 2025, he finally said he was flying to Louisiana to meet me. He said he'd arrived.

He sent me pictures of him sitting at a table in a hotel that I was familiar with. I could see the same wall sconces, the napkin arrangements, the tablecloths, the rug, and the floor pattern.

Next, he said we had to do a security clearance call on Google Chat before we met. I was at my cousin Jerry's house and made the phone call in the bathroom. I'd never used the app before, and all I could see was a tiny box on the bottom right of my screen.

I couldn't make him out properly. I put my hand down to enlarge the picture, and he hung up. He texted afterward to say that it was a security breach because his people thought I was trying to record the call to blackmail him.

He said the only way I could meet him was to pay more money for a second security check. He was willing to stay in town if I were willing to do so. That's the only time I paid him a much larger amount of bitcoin.

As usual, he was very willing to send me screenshots of his phone showing exactly which sites to visit, and he walked me through it step by step. Then he made every excuse in the book not to meet me.

I contacted an investigative journalist

Looking back, I guess I had paid my dues. At that point, the doubts started to flood in. I thought about the power and sophistication of AI, and asked myself if it was a scam. The answer, of course, was yes.

I was bamboozled, yet determined not to sit back and do nothing. I really liked the National Geographic series "Trafficked" and contacted the host, investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller, for help that same month.

She was filming episodes for her new documentary, "Super Scam Me." That October, we teamed up with a reformed hacker and obtained the scammer's IP address by setting a trap to lure him into claiming more bitcoin, the favored currency of scammers.

The address was in Lagos, Nigeria. We looked up the exact house on Google Earth. I was shocked and couldn't stop crying when we found out the truth.

People might wonder why I fell for the scammer's lies. This man was very good at what he did. I was lonely, and it wasn't hard to develop feelings for someone who told you everything you wanted to hear.

It still hurts. You don't get over a 10-month relationship quickly, especially since it was supposedly with someone you've idolized since 14.

I can't wallow in it and want to help others

To my horror, after I went to the police and they helped me put together the math, I discovered I had lost $10,000 to the scam. It might not seem a lot to some people, but it is to me. I have been rocked emotionally and financially.

The only way I can reconcile it with myself and forgive myself for being that dumb is to think that God maybe thought the scammer needed the money more than I did.

I have to get over what happened. I can't wallow in it. My objective is to raise awareness and keep more men and women safe online. If people know how to spot a scammer, it could stop their world from falling apart.

Editor's note: A rep for Jon Bon Jovi said they were unaware of Pickett's situation. They added that people should use caution when liaising with social media accounts, and artists will never solicit money online via social media.

• Lyft is starting a new business-focused ride brand.
• Alcove will offer chauffeur services using a company that Lyft acquired last year.
• Both Uber and Lyft are betting big on the upscale business travel market.

Lyft is creating a new brand to target the business travel market.

The division, called Alcove, will combine new corporate travel offerings with UK-based TBR Global Chauffeuring, which Lyft acquired last year for the equivalent of $110 million.

Alcove will provide "the highest levels of service" with "great chauffeurs," Lyft CEO David Risher said in a statement Thursday.

"Like the bridge instead of the tunnel? Prefer 72 degrees? Want the rear window open just a bit? That's what Alcove will offer," he said.

Alcove is the latest effort by a ride-hailing company to tap into business and executive travel — a market that companies believe is more lucrative than your average ride.

In March, Uber started its own version, called Elite, as a similar black-car service "designed for executives, frequent travelers, and riders looking for a more elevated experience," the company said. The same month, Uber acquired Berlin-based chauffeur service Blacklane.

The global chauffeur market is worth "tens of billions of dollars," Lyft said in its statement announcing Alcove.

Alcove will initially work directly with companies and travel management firms, Lyft said. The company plans to formalize the new brand by unveiling a new portal and a mobile app next year, it said.

Do you have a story idea about Uber or Lyft? Contact this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• President Donald Trump has had six White House press secretaries across his two presidential terms.
• Sean Spicer, Stephanie Grisham, and Kayleigh McEnany held the role for less than a year.
• Katie Zacharia is the new White House press secretary, taking over for Karoline Leavitt.

There's a new face at the White House podium.

Katie Zacharia held her first briefing as the new White House press secretary on Tuesday after President Donald Trump chose her to succeed Karoline Leavitt, who left the White House in August to spend more time with her young children.

Zacharia is the sixth White House press secretary Trump has hired across his two non-consecutive presidential terms. Three of them served for less than a year.

It's not unusual for presidents to go through several press secretaries due to the demanding nature of the role. President Barack Obama had three press secretaries during his two terms in office. Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had four.

Here's a look at all of the White House press secretaries who have represented the Trump administration.

Sean Spicer

Sean Spicer's time as White House press secretary spanned 182 days — the shortest tenure of all of Trump's press secretaries.

After leaving the White House, he appeared on season 28 of "Dancing with the Stars." He now serves as a political contributor at NewsNation and hosts several podcasts, including "Full Court Press with Sean Spicer" and "The Sean Spicer Show."

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

During Trump's first term, Sanders served as White House press secretary for just under two years, from July 2017 to July 2019. In the final months of her tenure, Sanders largely stopped holding formal White House press briefings.

Sanders is the daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who now serves as the US ambassador to Israel in the second Trump administration. After her time as press secretary, Sanders was elected governor of Arkansas in 2022. She is running for reelection in the 2026 midterms.

Stephanie Grisham

Grisham served as White House press secretary for less than a year, from July 2019 to April 2020. Throughout her tenure, she did not hold a traditional press briefing.

Grisham went on to become Melania Trump's White House chief of staff, then resigned from the role following the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

She has since become a vocal critic of Trump and spoke about her time working in the Trump administration at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Kayleigh McEnany

McEnany served as Trump's 2020 campaign press secretary before Trump chose her to replace Grisham as White House press secretary. She held the role for less than a year, from April 2020 until Trump left office in January 2021.

McEnany resumed formal White House press briefings after Grisham's tenure.

McEnany now hosts "Saturday in America with Kayleigh McEnany" on Fox News, and co-hosts another Fox News show, "Outnumbered."

Karoline Leavitt

Leavitt served as White House press secretary from January 2025 to August 2026. At 27 years old, when she started the role, she was the youngest person ever to hold the position.

Leavitt established a "new media seat" in the White House briefing room, highlighting podcasters, independent journalists, social media influencers, and other non-legacy media sources.

She was also the first-ever pregnant White House press secretary, and gave birth to her second child while in the role. Leavitt resigned shortly after returning from parental leave, citing her desire to spend more time with her family.

She will begin working as an on-air contributor for Fox News starting November 1.

Katie Zacharia

Trump named Zacharia as Leavitt's successor, writing in a Truth Social post on October 9 that Zacharia "has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning," and calling her "a devoted fan and member of MAGA." She held her first briefing on Tuesday.

She previously worked as a senior communications advisor at Trump Media and Technology Group, which runs Truth Social.

When reached for comment, the White House referred Business Insider to White House communications director Steven Cheung's previous statement calling Zacharia "a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team."

"She is uniquely qualified and whip-smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as press secretary," Cheung said.

• Tesla plans to unveil its long-delayed next-generation Roadster on October 15.
• Elon Musk first showed off a prototype in 2017 and targeted production for 2020. That was overly optimistic, to say the least.
• Tesla still hasn't announced a firm production or customer-delivery date.

Finally! Hopefully? Very likely?

Tesla is set to re-unveil the second-generation Roadster on Thursday evening — and Elon Musk has been hyping it up. The event was originally scheduled for October 1, but the automaker postponed it due to inclement weather.

The Tesla CEO said the big reveal would be "a candidate for greatest product demo of all time" and "the whole world will watch this."

The event is scheduled for 7:55 p.m., Central Time, and is strictly limited to reservation holders who received direct tickets. Tesla says it will livestream the event.

Thursday's event has been years in the making. Musk first revealed the rebooted halo vehicle nearly nine years ago, in November 2017, making this its second unveiling.

In September, Tesla shared a teaser of the high-powered EV, captioned "Go for launch," showing a Roadster in a shaft of light with "10.01" at the bottom. Musk added that the car is "out of this world."

It'll be a unique offering in Tesla's lineup — with an eye-watering price tag.

The automaker has promised a sleek convertible with a 0-to-60-mph time of 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, up to 620 miles of range, and a 200-kilowatt-hour battery pack — roughly the same size as the battery in GMC's gargantuan Hummer EV.

Those are all old-school, driver-oriented performance metrics from a company that is increasingly betting on an autonomous future. Musk has also teased a SpaceX collaboration that could give the Roadster cold-gas thrusters — "rocket-y stuff," as he put it — that could briefly lift the car in the air.

Online, there's a ton of speculation about what Tesla's teaser image actually shows. A popular theory: the image, when flipped upside down, could be showing the car floating in the air.

In September, Tesla's post quickly got the meme treatment, with some joking about how long they've waited to see the high-priced car.

Tesla began taking reservations in 2017, asking for a $50,000 deposit for the base car and $250,000 upfront for a Founders Series. Musk has acknowledged the long wait in recent years, thanking the vehicle's "long-suffering" deposit holders on an October 2024 earnings call.

Some big-name early reservation holders have removed or altered their booking from the Roadster's queue. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman openly canceled his reservation, while YouTuber Marques Brownlee, commonly known as MKBHD, canceled one of his two reservations.

"Well well well," Brownlee wrote in September after the Roadster teaser.

• Apple's latest ad, featuring a chaotic family scene, has viewers and ad pros divided.
• Some viewers said the ad for its HomeView device was stressful, while others found it relatable.
• Ad pros say Apple failed to make HomeView feel like a desirable product.

A cortisol-spiking nightmare or just another morning in a modern family home? Apple's latest ad has divided both the internet and advertising pros over whether its chaotic depiction of family life hits the mark.

The ad for its new HomeView smart home device follows a family hurrying to get ready for the day. The parents and siblings variously bicker about the etymology of "French toast," the temperature of the thermostat, and the whereabouts of their missing belongings, all while barking commands at the device that's supposed to make their lives easier.

"As an unapologetic tech fan, it's been a while since a new product made me want to disconnect and, as one commentator put it, 'live in a cave for a bit,'" Richard Exon, founder of the creative agency Joint, told Business Insider. "But this ad managed it."

HomeView's marketing positioning matters as Apple tries to convince consumers to introduce another connected screen into their homes and draw them further into its deeply integrated ecosystem of products and services. It's also the second major product launched under its new CEO, John Ternus, who faces the challenge of proving the company remains an innovator capable of creating must-have products across different categories.

Prominent tech analyst Benedict Evans wrote on Threads that the "stressful, confusing, complex situation" portrayed in the ad gave him few clues as to why he would want the device.

While some viewers found the commercial exhausting, others saw a familiar reflection of their own family lives.

Some ad pros think that was a mistake. The company, renowned for making people want technology they never even knew they needed, may have failed to make its new device appear desirable.

"The question for any brand when launching a new product is, how do I turn need into want?" said famed ad man John Hegarty, who cofounded the ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty. "Sadly, presenting a list of features doesn't get me to need, never mind want."

Dylan Stuart, senior partner at the brand consultancy Lippincott, said Apple seemed to have overlooked the difference between selling technology and selling aspiration.

"Apple's genius was never really about making better products; it was about making people feel that owning those products would make them better versions of themselves," Stuart said.

"Nobody aspires to become a more efficient administrator of domestic dysfunction," Stuart added.

A feature frenzy

The three-minute ad crams in a dizzying number of features.

A small sample:

• The FaceTime call with the grandparents
• Mom using Find My to locate her missing keys
• The son blasting Apple Music through the speakers
• The daughter canceling her carpool slot in Apple Calendar so she can walk to school with her secret boyfriend
• Siri, meanwhile, practically becomes another member of the family

"It feels like a case of 'your brief is showing,'" said Sean McNamara, head of strategy at the creative agency Party Land, referring to the briefing instructions marketers assign to their creative teams and agencies. "It would probably go down easier broken up into snackable pieces versus the twelve-course tasting menu."

The dose of realism is a departure from Apple's familiar, polished, and aspirational marketing playbook. The family scene follows well-trodden territory for a tech company trying to bring relatable use cases to life. In doing so, some critics said Apple may have sacrificed its marketing distinctiveness.

"From a brand perspective, it's giving serious Google," McNamara said. "If you edited out Siri and blurred out the logos on the hardware and in the UX, I don't think viewers would connect it back to Apple."

Apple has set a high bar

Apple has set high expectations for its marketing.

Prior ads in its catalog include the cinematic, Ridley Scott-directed "1984" Super Bowl spot that launched the original Macintosh, "Think Different," which launched after Steve Jobs returned to the company, and the award-winning "Shot on iPhone" campaign.

"For any other advertiser, this piece of work could be considered acceptable, although it would pass largely unnoticed," Joint's Exon said. "But for Apple, the creative bar is so high that even a slight misstep unleashes something close to mass hysteria from the commenting classes."

Apple's push deeper into the smart home may explain the shift in its marketing toward a more demonstrative, feature-heavy approach.

"I think there's something to Apple not leaning too heavily into an aspirational lifestyle tone," said Haley Hunter, chief operating and marketing officer at Party Land. "I just don't think that works anymore."

Hunter said that a core tenet of her agency's creative approach is that "it's funny because it's true." Apple's commercial, she said, wasn't particularly comedic, but its depiction of family life was honest.

"I did actually get called 'Bruh' this morning by a tween," Hunter said.

Some ad pros suggested the backlash to the HomeView commercial was overblown. The ad simply explains what the technology does and puts it at the center of everyday life, said Simon Cooper, executive creative director at the agency Born Social.

"They're just a normal functioning family," Cooper said. "It's like 'The Simpsons' with more fingers and fewer jokes."

On paper, Alejandro González Iñárritu's new movie had all the trappings of a hit.

The Oscar-winning director had assembled a star-studded cast led by the inimitable Tom Cruise. He had a twisty and surprising script that uses satire to tackle ambitious topics, and a talented team that built set pieces impressive enough to match.

But he was still nervous about the execution.

"The acting tone was the most scary part for me," Iñárritu told Business Insider shortly before the movie's opening weekend. "Tone, you cannot write — you have to feel it and hear it."

Four days later, the verdict at the box office came in: "Digger" was a bomb. The climate-change satire starring Cruise, John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, and Emma D'Arcy made $8 million in its opening weekend on a reported $180 million budget, making it the lowest opening weekend for Cruise in 19 years. The movie is projected to bring in only $50 million worldwide by the end of its theatrical run.

To add insult to injury, film critics, who helped make his previous work like "The Revenant" and "Birdman" Oscar darlings, lambasted Iñárritu for even attempting something as grandiose and ambitious as "Digger."

The Hollywood Reporter called it "so meta that you watch in excruciating weariness as it disappears up its own ass." IndieWire described it as "so detached from human truth that its most believable character is a one-eyed animatronic cat."

The movie currently holds a 53% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest for Iñárritu and lowest for Cruise in close to a decade.

Not everyone disliked the movie. Anne Hathaway, Mandy Patinkin, Jane Fonda, and Iñárritu's close friend Guillermo del Toro all shared positive reactions on social media after the movie opened. "Love the arts FUCK the charts," del Toro wrote on X.

The movie has proved divisive in part thanks to its plot twists, the basics of which we'll reveal here. (Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers!)

"Digger" follows oil tycoon Digger Rockwell (Cruise), who learns one of his wells in the Arctic has exploded and a chunk of a glacier is racing towards Europe to wreak havoc. But about a half hour into the movie, it's revealed that the saga of Digger Rockwell is actually a stage play. Rockwell is being played by an actor named Curtis Markson in a satirical stage production titled "Fossil Fools."

At the movie's end, there's another twist: "Fossil Fools" is based on actual events that happened years prior. There really was a Digger Rockwell, and one of his wells did explode, causing an environmental catastrophe that changed mankind. Markson is performing the play in of an audience living decades after those events occurred, and the world is still paying the price.

It's an ambitious attempt by Iñárritu to deliver commentary on climate change while stretching the audience's capacity for nonlinear storytelling. Whether it was successful or not depends on whom you ask. But if Iñárritu has learned anything from making "Digger," he said it's that "satire is a motherfucker."

For the latest interview in Business Insider's Director's Chair series, Iñárritu spoke about traveling to the Arctic, choosing the movie's ending, and the unique way he worked with Tom Cruise to develop the script.

On reading the script to Tom Cruise 'like an 8-year-old' and what 'Digger' is really about

Business Insider: You have said the idea for this movie came to you ten years ago. What was that idea, and how did it evolve? 

Alejandro González Iñárritu: I can tell you it started when we ended the shooting of "The Revenant." We struggled with a lot of weather — dramatic changes at the locations where we were shooting in parts of Canada. Things were happening, weather-wise, that had never happened before.

A one-degree difference in the climate, people don't understand what that means. You say, "Well, the planet is 1.5 degrees hotter," and people go, "Who cares?" That's the difference between water and ice, and we experienced that dramatically. It was surprising. We were shooting ice in the summer.

So Sabina Berman, my writing partner, and I, started thinking. The Arctic was melting. The powerful people were excited because, with the ice receding, there were suddenly more channels to transport more materials. The absurdity in that was the beginning of this, the narrative madness. 

I would think the next step is: How am I going to tell this story using my own brand of creativity?

I think as a storyteller it's our duty to try to say or express a story in the most original way possible. The original title on the script was "Blah, Blah, Blah," and that's what this story is about. It's about the most scary weapon that all human beings have: the tongue. That's the weapon. We didn't want to tell a story about climate change, or about politics. I hope this story transcends politics. We wanted to talk about the human nature of the blah, blah, blah. 

The result of the blah, blah is no one is listening to each other. The movie's brutal final few minutes show the result: a dystopian world.

Language is a tool. It's a bridge to bring a common reality. But it's also a weapon to destroy. Once an idea comes — an ideology, a religion, whatever — suddenly the reality that is experienced by the body, not our abstract thought, becomes almost a reality. I think it's one of the traps that we are now in as a society.

Then you need someone as big and as brash as the Digger Rockwell character to take us on that journey, right? Did you need to cast someone at Tom Cruise's level to accomplish this movie?

Let's start even before that. Before the casting, I realized that nobody cares about an abstract thought or reflection. Perception has become reality, and for the last nine years, the reality seems to be secondary to the stories people are telling us. They want us to believe things for a reason. But nobody cares what I think.

So I realized the only way to explore this phenomenon is we need a character. It can't be a political commentary or a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. We need a strong character to navigate the story truthfully.

Once I had that, I knew I needed an incredible actor who can sustain this weight on his shoulders and deliver it with candor, not preaching, and someone who's very American, because we are all Digger, in my opinion. The conclusion was that there are not many who can play this, but Tom was it. But will he accept? He was very brave and was never scared. 

You didn't send him the script; you read it to him. In that unique experience, could you tell while reading that you had him hooked?

He asked me to do that, read it to him. 

Had an actor ever asked you before to read the script to them?

Never. But I have to say, I thank him because it was useful for him. He said he needed that, to hear it. He didn't want to come in with his own perceptions; he wanted my years of knowledge that I put into the material. That surprised me.

But he was like a kid; he'd react with worry and excitement throughout the telling, like, "What's going to happen!" [Laughs.] I felt like I was reading the story to an 8-year-old. It was fantastic, the curiosity. 

Did you read it with a Digger Rockwell voice? Or act bombastic when the president spoke?

You are exactly right. I'm a terrible actor, but I knew where we were going. So I would play a little bit with the pauses, the power. I was trying to point him to where I was thinking. And between lines, I would explain to him how I thought I would shoot a sequence and why, for him to have some images. 

On struggling to figure out the movie's tone and doing rewrites

Are you a filmmaker who thinks of the visual before the dialogue?

It's both ways. Like a song, sometimes you have the lyrics first, and sometimes it's the melody that's first. In this case, when I read it to Tom, by that time, I had so many images. The universe of "Digger" was already built in my head. We were building sets in Canada in 2019.

Doing that reading to Tom helped me so much because it was the first time, after years of writing, hearing those words out loud. And things changed. It helped me with things that worked and things that didn't work. 

You gave us breadcrumbs to follow before the big reveal of what the movie really is, right? The cat's head almost coming off its body at the start of the movie, Riz Ahmed's character, Dr. Ganesh, coming in from a door that seems to lead nowhere. 

Yes. You are on the money. The corridor we discussed because I said, "No, theater is like that." That was one of the most difficult aspects, because I had to be thinking in two channels: One, a director of theater, Hannah (Sophie Wilde), and one as the film director.

The decisions as Hannah were sometimes challenging as a film director because I had to shoot in three walls, with all the limitations, trying to take advantage of the gags and the theater play. But the most difficult thing was the tone of the theater play.

The theater play is a satire; she wants black satire. The projection of the voice, you have to talk very strongly; in cinema you can whisper. So every lens for the theater scenes was wide — I wanted to see the feet, hands, which normally in film and TV shows you have close-ups. I wanted to show the whole concept. 

And then the scenes that are off set, that's when you go in tight with the lens.

Exactly. I changed the language. The sound design, the palette, everything changes. There are two realities.

With the visuals I did in advance, everything was pre-staged; I knew the camera angles. It was very prepared for the VistaVision because it was expensive. But when the actors arrived, we were rehearsing and rehearsing. Sometimes the scenes were super funny and I was cracking up. But then I'd watch the dailies the next day and I said, "This is crap."

So we would return to the rehearsals. We would do it, I'd watch the dailies and realize, "This is too naturalistic, this is not a comedy." So to find the speed and the tone of the first 30 minutes was the most challenging thing for you to believe that it's a film, but that there's something off. But then when the reveal happens, it isn't a trick; it plays like a theatrical production. I wanted to be honest. That was the scariest. 

It seems your actors felt that uncertainty as well. Michael Stuhlbarg told me that the whole cast discovered what they were actually making through the rehearsal. 

The tone. And then I had to rewrite scenes to do the right tone. I was lucky to be editing at the same time, because we had a hiatus. 

In the hiatus, I rewrote the whole long table scene completely. Because it was not working, it was too much. It didn't have the dramatic tension that it needed, despite it being a satire.

It was a luxury to be able to be moving the pieces, to change things around, but you need an amazing cast to do all that. John Goodman, Jesse Plemons, Riz Ahmed, Michael Stuhlbarg, all of them, I felt like I had a great jazz band. I was obsessed with the rhythm. We found the tone together. It was a joy but it was scary. We couldn't find it for a while. 

On finding the movie's ending and feeling like he was writing a documentary

Speaking of rhythm, was it a challenge in the edit to find the right moment where you have the tree fall and the giant hand coming in to fix it, basically revealing what we'd been watching was an illusion?

Every shot in the film was pre-designed, pre-lit. We built huge walls of fabric in Pinewood Studios, and with a little camera I staged every single scene with stand-ins, reading the words, measuring the timing of the words, measuring every height of the windows, the light direction; I storyboarded. There's nothing in any frame that is incidental. It was all preconceived.

I wanted to give the audience a lot of context. To have all the reasons why these guys were the way they were, because of the world they inhabit. I wanted people to feel lost in the frames, in the windows. That was decided. But again, the challenge was the tone to match it all. 

What I found fascinating, going back to the star power, is how you end with Tom Cruise in "Digger." In "Birdman," Michael Keaton has his big closing moment at the end of the movie. Leonardo DiCaprio is alone in the wilderness in the final frame of "The Revenant." Cruise is very much part of the ensemble at the end of this movie. He's among his cast mates celebrating the end of the show, and then you take us to what's happening outside of the theater. There's no big final shot for Tom. Was that always the intention?

It always was like that. Always.

When you do a film like this, reality and fiction do not stay still, and the last nine years have moved so fast. 

So if you made this movie a few years earlier, it would have a completely different ending?

It would have been another movie. It was the same story: Greed, power, the stories we tell ourselves; we have never spoken so much and heard so little. But the approach was all the disasters were going to be shot in real locations in water tanks, but we changed all that and put it on TV screens and iPads — framed reality. To show that we are so certain in our opinions that we are lost in our stories.

At a moment, honestly, I felt lost. How can I tell this story? It's so complex. I felt like I was writing a documentary. What the fuck is this?

So the pandemic happened, I made "Bardo," and as time passed, "Digger" collapsed two times. It was very traumatic. I lost three years of my life, lost pre-production. I traveled to the Arctic twice. I interviewed every single scientist available. Everything Ganesh says is exactly what could happen. This is science-based, this movie.

So reality wasn't enough for me in the film. It's the crossroads of reality and imagination. But there was a time that the more we stretched our imagination, it would become reality! [Laughs.] When we started this movie, no ice shelf had been detached; we thought that was a huge stretch of reality. That was crazy to imagine. Now, Greenland is in the conversation.

That's where the people coming together to see a play comes from. I was on this walking holiday with my family, and suddenly I saw these glaciers melting. That's when I realized that only by separating from the representation of reality is it more real. We see reality through a representation; we get together, and we can separate ourselves from what we see. That's the key. 

Are you concerned because of the political climate that we're in, and your own concerns about getting the story right, that this film will get sucked into a vortex of noisy commentary?

Absolutely. Because nobody cares about it because we hear about it all the time. The news is satire. Everything is performative, Jason. The commentary will end up matching what's in the movie. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

"Digger" is in theaters now.

• Former "GMA3" co-anchors Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes are married.
• The two first sparked controversy when they were spotted cuddling while still legally married.
• Nearly four years later, the two are now legally wed.

As one of the internet's favorite sayings goes: Never let your spouse stop you from finding your soulmate.

"GMA3: What You Need to Know" co-anchors T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach sparked controversy in November 2022 after their relationship became public when photos of them cuddling were published by The Daily Mail.

The relationship between the two journalists — who were legally married to other people at the time — subsequently made national headlines. 

Holmes married attorney Marilee Fiebig in 2010, the same year Robach married actor Andrew Shue. After the news broke, both Holmes, 49, and Robach, 53, said they were either separated or in the midst of divorce proceedings when they were photographed together.

"To be clear, we were outed as being in a relationship, but everyone else thought we were being outed as adulterers — being outed as cheating on our spouses — and it wasn't the case," Holmes said on a December 2023 episode of their podcast, "Amy & T.J."

In a happy twist, Shue and Fiebig are also in a relationship and have been together since December 2023.

In October 2025, nearly three years after the first headlines about their relationship, Holmes and Robach announced on their podcast that they had gotten engaged.

One year after their engagement, Robach and Holmes married on September 19, 2026, in Holmes' home state of Arkansas, according to public marriage records. People reported the news in October.

Here's a timeline of the scandal that rocked "GMA3" and led to both Holmes and Robach exiting the morning show.

Holmes and Robach did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Keyaira Boone, Esme Mazzeo, and Libby Torres contributed to a prior version of this article.

November 30, 2022: The Daily Mail published photos of Robach and Holmes.

Robach and Holmes began cohosting "GMA3: What You Need to Know" in 2020, although they had worked together at ABC since Holmes' hiring in 2014.

In November 2022, The Daily Mail posted images of them together in a series of intimate situations, including having drinks in a New York bar and traveling to a cottage in the Shawangunk Mountains of upstate New York. The two were pictured laughing together, holding hands, and casually touching one another.

Shortly after, Entertainment Weekly reported that Holmes shuttered his X and Instagram accounts, and Robach deactivated her Instagram profile.

December 2022: Shue deleted pictures of Robach on his Instagram profile.

Shue's account was wiped of pictures of his wife the day after The Daily Mail published their photos of Robach and Holmes, E! News reported.

December 2022: An interview with Robach and Reese Witherspoon from earlier in the year resurfaced, hinting at similarities between "GMA3" and "The Morning Show."

An October 2022 interview between Robach and Witherspoon resurfaced on Twitter, reminding viewers that the host had once possibly hinted at drama occurring behind-the-scenes of "GMA3."

Witherspoon, who was promoting her Apple TV+ drama "The Morning Show," asked Robach and her co-hosts whether the fictional workplace drama "hit home a little bit."

"We can give you a few more plot lines," Robach replied, as her colleagues laughed. Witherspoon jumped on the opportunity to take the show's stories to the next level. 

"Email me," she told Robach.

December 2022: "GMA3" staffers said Robach and Holmes did not start dating until they were separated from their spouses.

People reported that Holmes and Robach were both effectively single when they began dating, citing sources. 

"This was two consenting adults who were each separated. They both broke up with their spouses in August within weeks of each other," a source said.

"The relationship didn't start until after that," they added.

Meanwhile, the two anchors continued filming. On December 2, they even joked about what "a great week" they were having in a sarcastic tone, according to Page Six.

December 5, 2022: Robach and Holmes were pulled off the air.

Robach and Holmes were placed on hiatus from "GMA3" amid the scandal. The New York Times reported ABC News' then-president, Kim Godwin, called the news frenzy surrounding their relationship an "internal and external distraction" on a morning editorial call.

It came amid claims from staffers that Holmes had engaged in relationships with other colleagues at ABC during his time there, while married. He has not publicly commented on the accusations.

December 28, 2022: Holmes filed for divorce.

Holmes filed for divorce from Fiebig in New York. They were married for nearly 13 years and share one daughter, Sabine.

On the same day the news broke, Holmes and Robach were photographed making out in Miami.

January 2023: Holmes' estranged wife, Marilee Fiebig, spoke out via her divorce lawyer for the first time since the scandal broke.

"Marilee's sole focus has remained on the overall best interest of her 9-year-old daughter," Stephanie Lehman, Fiebig's lawyer, told The Daily Mail.

She confirmed that the divorce between Fiebig and Holmes was progressing. "To that end, T.J.'s lawyer and I have been working together to move their divorce forward privately, expeditiously, and as amicably as possible," Lehman continued.

Lehman criticized Holmes' public actions.

"Notwithstanding, we continue to be disappointed by T.J.'s lack of discretion, respect, and sensitivity toward Marilee and the party's daughter," she added.

The divorce was ultimately settled in October 2023, People reported.

January 27, 2023: Holmes and Robach exited "GMA3" permanently.

In late January 2023, TMZ was the first to report that the co-anchors were preparing to officially exit "GMA3."

The same day as the reports, Holmes' and Robach's exits were confirmed. In a statement given to Business Insider, ABC said that Holmes and Robach were officially leaving the network.

"After several productive conversations with Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes, about different options, we all agreed it's best for everyone that they move on from ABC News," a spokesperson for the network said. "We recognize their talent and commitment over the years and are thankful for their contributions."

December 1, 2023: Robach and Holmes made their red-carpet debut as a couple.

The two attended KIIS FM's iHeartRadio Jingle Ball 2023 together. They showed plenty of PDA in their first public appearance as a couple.

December 5, 2023: Robach and Holmes released the first episode of their podcast, a year to the day after their relationship was publicly revealed.

During the first episode of "Amy & T.J.," the former anchors emphasized that they were both separated from their respective partners when their relationship began.

"To be clear, we were outed as being in a relationship," Holmes said on the podcast. "But everyone else thought we were being outed as adulterers, being outed as cheating on our spouses, and it wasn't the case."

Robach, for her part, said her close friends knew she was in the middle of divorcing Shue when the photos of her and Holmes leaked in November 2022.

"I took my ring off early August. It was very clear to anyone who knew me that I was in the middle of a divorce," she said.

Holmes also acknowledged that the couple probably could have gone about things differently.

"We shouldn't have allowed — and I could say that in hindsight — for folks to find out about our relationship before they found out about our divorces," he said. 

But Robach said they were trying to protect their families from potential backlash.

"We thought we were protecting our children and our families, and we thought we had time," she said. "And we thought we had a right to privacy. And maybe that was foolish and silly."

December 5, 2023: The same day the podcast launched, reports surfaced that Robach's and Holmes' exes were dating.

Page Six first reported that Robach's ex, Andrew Shue, and Holmes' ex, Marilee Fiebig, had been dating for about six months.

People reported that they "bonded over their shared experience of splitting from their partners," citing a source.

March 17, 2024: Holmes and Robach ran the New York City Half Marathon together.

As running has been part of their relationship for years, the two continued their tradition by participating in the NYC Half Marathon in March 2024.

Robach called the day "13.1 miles of pure joy" on Instagram.

September 30, 2024: Holmes and Robach announced they had moved in together.

The decision to move in together was spurred by Robach's then-21-year-old daughter, Ava, who asked to temporarily move into her mom's apartment due to a roach infestation.

"I've just said, 'Hey y'all, knock yourselves out. I'll be at T.J.'s,' " Robach said on their podcast.

This led to the two officially cohabitating.

"I've enjoyed the time that we've had together. It's been a little different, but I've liked it," Holmes said.

In February 2025, Us Weekly reported that their exes, Shue and Fiebig, had moved in together as well.

October 14, 2025: They announced they are engaged.

In a four-minute minisode of their podcast, Robach and Holmes shared the news that they are officially engaged — and had been for around a month.

"I was in three massive football stadiums three weekends in a row, wearing my engagement ring very proudly, very excitedly, and kept waiting for somebody to point it out or ask me, 'Hey, what's that?' And it never happened," Robach said.

Holmes added that if any news about the proposal came out from anyone besides them or "the 10 people" they told, it was nonsense.

September 19, 2026: They get married in Arkansas.

According to a wedding license obtained by People, Holmes and Robach applied for the license the day prior. They tied the knot in Arkansas, where Holmes was born and where his alma mater, the University of Arkansas, is located.

October 13, 2026: News of their wedding becomes public.

The license was filed with the County Clerk's office in Washington County on October 13, which is how the news of their marriage became public. They have not commented on their marriage yet, but they've talked about it before.

During a May 2026 episode of their podcast, they shared that they had picked a date and "a way" they wanted to get married that "would be very special to us," but didn't give details. "We can't say what that is. That's a big thing for us."

• Starlink has become a hot perk, and now you can check ahead of time if your United flight has it.
• You can enter your flight number up to 3 days before departure and check for last-minute changes.
• United's rollout of Starlink is faster than other US airlines, with almost half its planes equipped.

If you're flying with United Airlines to capitalize on Starlink, it's now much easier to know whether your flight will include the fast, free internet service.

The airline released a tool on Thursday called the Starlink WiFi Tracker. You can enter your flight number up to 3 days before departure to check its Starlink availability.

This isn't infallible, though, as the airline might switch which plane it uses for your flight. However, United says the tool includes updates made in real time for such last-minute changes.

United already used texts, emails, and its app to notify passengers if their flight was scheduled to have Starlink, but the new tool lets you check for last-minute changes.

It also tracks the progress of Starlink installation across the fleet.

As of Thursday morning, 639 aircraft, or about 43% of United's fleet, are equipped with the service.

That includes all of its regional airplanes, operated under the United Express brand, and about a third of its other narrow-body airplanes — like the Airbus A321 and Boeing 737. However, Starlink is only on six of its 248 wide-body airplanes, which operate long-haul flights.

United said it is installing Starlink on about 20 aircraft a week and plans to complete installations by the end of 2027.

Its tool also shows the percentage of daily flights departing from each of its seven hubs that are equipped with Starlink. Chicago O'Hare leads the way at 54%, with San Francisco's 36% at the bottom.

Nearly half the airline's daily departures are equipped with Starlink, United said.

Starlink has become a notable advantage for United since its main rivals don't have it. American Airlines plans to install Starlink starting next year, while Delta Air Lines has tapped Amazon Leo.

United is trying to win over new customers by launching an offer that matches travelers' loyalty status on Delta or American. The offer said, "Don't keep buffering: switch to United and get the fastest WiFi in the sky."

Thousands of customers have signed up within two weeks, United said. It added that status match applications are up 275% compared to before this campaign.

And now, it's also extending the offer for another week.

• I grew up in Paris and often see tourists miss out on my favorite parts of the city.
• The famous landmarks are worth visiting, but so are the French capital's quieter neighborhoods.
• I wish more tourists embraced café culture and were open to trying authentic French dishes.

I grew up in Paris, one of the most popular places in the world for people to visit.

Over the years, I've watched countless tourists make mistakes, skip out on incredible experiences, and miss opportunities to improve their trip.

Here are a few things I wish people knew before visiting my city.

Check the major tourist spots off your bucket list, but venture to Paris' quieter neighborhoods too.

Paris is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Many people dream of snapping photos of the Eiffel Tower, wandering through the Louvre, and strolling down the Champs Elysées.

These historic sites and cultural attractions are prerequisites on most first-timers' itineraries for good reason. However, if you're seeking an authentic glimpse of everyday Parisian life, I urge you to explore the city beyond its most famous landmarks.

Walk along Canal Saint-Martin and check out the surrounding area's art stores, trendy restaurants, and local shops. The quaint streets are quiet and peaceful during the day, but they become more lively at night as locals grab drinks and mingle.

The weather is gray and rainy for most of the year, so make sure to carry around an umbrella.

Many movies and TV shows portray Paris as a city that's sunny and warm all year round. Unfortunately, that's far from reality.

The weather in the fall, winter, and spring can be overcast and humid, and I've seen a lot of tourists pack the wrong attire or scramble to find rain gear during their trip.

Don't let the weather deter you, though. If you're planning on walking a lot, just carry a small umbrella with you. 

To explore Paris in the sunshine, your best bet is to visit in the summer.

Don't expect Parisian cafés to be like your local coffee shop — they're about more than getting a caffeine fix.

Cafés are an essential aspect of Parisian culture, and there are few better places to romanticize your life. So when you're in the French capital, sit down at one of the outdoor terraces, sip on an espresso, and people-watch for as long as you'd like. 

In the morning, most cafés serve breakfast, which often consists of a sliced baguette, warm tea or coffee, and juice. At night, some turn into bars.

Don't expect Parisian cafés to be the same as your coffee shop at home. Here, you'll rarely find to-go cups, non-dairy milk, or specialty drinks like lattes or iced coffees. 

If you order a coffee in Paris, expect your waiter to hand you an espresso. For those who don't drink black coffee, request milk in it by asking for a "café crème" or a cappuccino.

Tourists can still get their familiar to-go cups and lattes at coffee chains, which have larger menus catered to international travelers.

A trip to Paris isn't complete without a stop at the local boulangerie.

When you're in Paris, you'll pass countless French bakeries, known as boulangeries. Do yourself a favor and stop in.

Not only will you be able to taste authentic French bread (ask for a "tradition," which is a hand-formed baguette prepared with a few simple ingredients), but the pastries will also make you want to return each day of your trip.

Delicacies like strawberry tarts, mille-feuilles cakes, and croissants are ideal treats at any hour.

Bakeries are also a go-to spot for holiday treats. They sell Mother's Day cakes and Easter chocolates. If you happen to be in Paris for Epiphany in January, try a galette de rois, which is a traditional round cake. 

Go to the famous museums, but remember that the city has smaller galleries and cultural spaces, too.

The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée de l'Orangerie, and the city's other world-famous museums are spectacular.

However, every single neighborhood in Paris is seeping with culture, and there are so many other galleries and cultural spaces worth adding to your itinerary.

The historic Marais neighborhood, located in the third and fourth arrondissements, is home to some of my favorite art galleries. I go to Galerie Perrotin for contemporary works and Polka Galerie for photography exhibits. 

To immerse yourself in the history of French fashion, head west to the Galerie Dior and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent.

Art is all over the streets, so keep your head up as you wander through different neighborhoods.

From the giant murals around the Centre Pompidou to the graffiti covering buildings in Montmartre, street art is all over the city. 

You never know where you'll stumble upon an amazing piece of art, so make sure to keep your head up as you walk around the different neighborhoods.

Some tourists only stick to the French foods they know, but there are so many delicious dishes to try.

Crêpes, onion soup, and escargots are some of the best-known French dishes around the world, and they're the ones I often see visitors order in Paris. 

Those meals are delicious, but they aren't all that French cuisine has to offer. Some of my favorite dishes are beef tartare, pâté de campagne, and roasted duck.

Get out of your comfort zone and try new foods at a traditional bistro or brasserie, where the menu is written on a chalkboard. It's a guaranteed way to experience true French cuisine.

If you're in Paris during an important soccer match, embrace the locals' excitement.

Soccer, referred to as "football" in France, is a big deal here.

Crowds gather in bars, restaurants, and other public spaces to watch matches, especially major ones like the World Cup or the UEFA European Championship.

If you can attend a game at the Stade de France or the Parc des Princes, I recommend doing so. It'll expose you to a new side of French culture that most tourists don't see.

The Métro can be intimidating for first-timers, but it's a wonderful way to get around the city.

Taking public transportation in an unfamiliar city can be scary and confusing. But once you start using the Paris Métro, you'll realize how efficient and reliable it is.

It can often get you almost anywhere in the city in under an hour, regardless of where you are.

I also recommend downloading the Bonjour RATP app, which lets users search for the most optimal route to their destination.

When you take the Métro, remember that you're in a big city. Avoid traveling during rush hour and keep a close eye on your belongings.

Many tourists don't know that the Seine is one of the city's most vibrant gathering spots in the summer.

If you want to party and meet locals during the summer, the Seine is the place to go.

As soon as the weather gets warmer, Parisians flock to the riverbank to meet friends, listen to music, and enjoy food and drinks. Some areas get so crowded that you have to search for a place to sit. 

At a promenade along the water called the Quai Saint Bernard, people gather to practice tango, salsa, and other dances. The atmosphere is laid back and welcoming, so if you go, you'll most likely end the night with some new local friends. 

Have a plan in place in case you run into a protest.

Protests are common in Paris, so tourists should be aware of the political climate and local news ahead of their trip.

Law enforcement officials regularly close down subway stations along protest routes and block off streets to contain crowds.

Tourists may want to avoid areas where demonstrations are taking place because protests can sometimes escalate into violence.

If you do run into one you weren't expecting, I advise turning around, finding the nearest subway station, and leaving the area instead of following the flow of people.

Give yourself enough time to stroll through the parks before they close.

Paris is home to some of the world's most scenic public parks, but most tourists don't realize that a lot of them close before the sun sets.

Arrive in the morning or early afternoon to ensure that you have plenty of time to enjoy the grounds.

If you want to admire classic French architecture, head to the Luxembourg Gardens and lounge on the grass or by the fountain. You can also visit the Palais-Royal garden after exploring the Louvre, which is just steps away.

This story was originally published on August 17, 2022, and most recently updated on October 15, 2026.

• My husband works as a physical therapist and has $100,000 in student loans.
• I teach college courses through part-time jobs without maternity leave or benefits.
• Our monthly expenses leave little room for the costs of having a child.

I always assumed I would have a big family, whether I wanted to or not. My mother was one of 12, my father was one of seven, and I was the oldest of six.

I grew up stepping between bodies at crowded holiday gatherings and playing gigantic games of capture the flag with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was fun growing up with a lot of playmates, but more importantly, childbearing was framed as an essential part of our conservative Catholic identity.

Motherhood was a sacrificial duty that would ensure my place in Heaven. I never considered whether this was what I wanted because I was supposed to live according to God's plan rather than my own.

When I left the church, I thought I had gained the freedom to choose

As I got older, that rhetoric made me feel trapped. I married at 22 but put off childbearing in favor of graduate school and chasing my dream career, though it felt like I was on borrowed time. When I finally left the Catholic Church in my late 20s, I suddenly had the freedom to ask myself what I wanted life to look like. For the first time, I pictured my life childfree, imagining international vacations, friendships, and hobbies. I also pictured life as a parent, with bedtime stories, birthdays, and soccer games.

For years, my husband and I weighed the merits of these two life paths. I finished grad school, and we bought a house in Minneapolis with an extra bedroom just in case. Now, at 32, it theoretically feels like the ideal time to get serious about the question of children. But with our mortgage, home repairs, and other bills, it feels like another outside force has made the decision for us.

We have student loans

My husband is a physical therapist, which pays a living wage, but he also has about $100,000 in student loans. I'm a college instructor, and the academic job market has forced me to work multiple part-time jobs that don't provide benefits or maternity leave.

We're on a strict monthly budget. Our income goes to our mortgage, loans, health insurance, gas, groceries, and Roth IRAs. We set a little aside to rebuild our emergency savings. While we could have made different choices, like renting instead of buying or pursuing corporate jobs, the reality is we have little left for much of anything, let alone international vacations or a baby.

We can't afford 1 child

When I was a kid in the early 2000s, my dad was an electrician and sole provider for our growing family of eight. We got by on baloney sandwiches, coupon-cutting, and hand-me-downs. Money was tight, but we also owned a house in a safe suburb, and my parents sent six kids to Catholic school from K-8. We could sacrifice the small things to afford the large.

Now, the economy is different. We can't afford to have one of us stay at home, and there aren't enough coupons in the world to cover the rising cost of day care, around $15,000 a year in Minnesota. The starter home my parents bought in 1997 cost $120,000, while my husband and I paid $330k for the same-sized house. The cost of gas and groceries has continued to rise. Add hospital bills and diapers to that list, and the numbers don't add up.

My situation is far too common

I'm not alone in this frustration. A report from MassMutual found that 23% of millennials and Gen Z adults don't plan to become parents because of financial constraints. In addition, an estimated 30% of millennials with at least one child say they won't have more because of the cost.

My partner would be an amazing dad. I would love to see him teach our kid to read or how to ride a bike. Part of me longs to nurture a child through all the phases of life, not for moral reasons but for the joy of meeting the person they become.

Unfortunately, this isn't a reality worth thinking about when we're struggling to afford our day-to-day.