• The first known instance of GPS jamming impacting transatlantic flights has been recorded. 
• According to air traffic control data, a flight was forced to operate in a "degraded mode."
• Russia is suspected of being behind GPS jamming in the Baltic region.  

The first known instance of GPS jamming impacting a flight on transatlantic routes has been reported.

According to air traffic control data cited on June 19 by an open-source intelligence analyst on X and the Resilient Timing and Navigation Foundation (RNTF), a flight from Madrid to Toronto was unable to ascend because a flight at a higher altitude had been affected by GPS jamming.

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that monitors global conflicts, reported the incident.

Satellite navigation systems, or GPS, are used by aircraft to navigate to their destinations. Interference with GPS isn't an immediate danger to planes because they have backup navigation systems, but they do pose a wider safety risk, say experts.

In the air traffic control data communications log, a dispatcher said that an aircraft at a higher altitude was operating in a "degraded mode," and another replied that it was the first known instance of GPS jamming on a transatlantic route.

The reports said it's not known for certain what caused the GPS interference, but they note that in the Baltic region, thousands of flights and ships have been affected by GPS interference believed to be linked to Russia.

The Norwegian Communication Authority told Business Insider in February that flights were experiencing GPS jamming on an almost daily basis, and in March, a plane carrying UK defense secretary Grant Shapps was impacted while flying near Russia's Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic.

Russia has a powerful electronic warfare capability, that it uses on the battlefield in Ukraine to disable missiles and drones.

According to reports, a Russian electronic warfare unit is based in Kaliningrad.

The RNTF said that the plane on the transatlantic route had likely been impacted by GPS interference while traveling from the Baltic region or the Middle East, and its GPS receivers hadn't recovered by the time it reached the transatlantic phase of the trip.

It noted that if similar incidents happen more frequently, it could have a major impact on transatlantic flights, likely resulting in delays and cancellations.

• Apple is betting its future on Apple Intelligence.
• The new suite of AI features are expected to breathe fresh life into iPhones.
• Apple may have a problem offering these services in China, its second-biggest iPhone market.

If there's one place Tim Cook could do with Apple Intelligence being a real hit, it's China.

Apple's spin on generative AI, revealed at WWDC this month, is set to bring Silicon Valley's most-hyped technology to its devices at a time when they could do with a killer new feature to entice Chinese consumers.

That's because Apple has been in urgent need of a plan to rejuvenate interest in iPhones in China — its most important international market — where sales were down by almost a fifth in the first three months of the year, according to one estimate.

Apple's decline in China has been triggered by a number of factors.

For one, Chinese consumers have had a conveyor belt of enticing alternatives — such as the Mate 60 Pro and Pura 70 Ultra — showcased to them by domestic players such as Huawei in recent months. They're likely to have grown tired of iterative iPhone upgrades in recent years, too.

Luckily for the iPhone maker, interest in Apple Intelligence has been strong. A combination of its own AI and a new partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI has offered investors enough assurance to drive an $200 billion-plus rally in Apple stock.

There's just one problem: Apple doesn't have a clear way of getting all these new AI features everyone's excited about up and running in China.

Getting Apple Intelligence to China

Keeping a strong foothold in China is vital for Apple. In its last fiscal year, the company generated $72.6 billion in net sales from the Greater China region.

However, with signs of that sliding, Apple has reason to get Apple Intelligence into the country.

CEO Tim Cook has put the new suite of AI features front and center in Apple's future, promising they "will transform what users can do with our products — and what our products can do for our users."

The problem is that a key part of Apple Intelligence — ChatGPT —isn't actually allowed in China right now. Chinese citizens must use a VPN to gain access to the OpenAI chatbot.

ChatGPT has not made its way into the country because companies seeking to offer large language model-led AI chatbots must first get approval from Beijing. Such approval has only been offered to Chinese developers of AI chatbots thus far.

According to The Wall Street Journal, this has led Apple to conversations with leading local companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Beijing startup Baichuan AI about striking an agreement to mirror its OpenAI deal.

It's worth noting that ChatGPT does not play a central role in Apple's AI rollout.

Laggard risk

OpenAI's chatbot will be available on upgrades coming to Apple's iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems later this year. Users will be able to opt into having it appear as a virtual assistant on their devices and power Siri. The rest of it is driven by Apple's own AI.

Still, the OpenAI partnership is an important one for Apple as its rivals in China have already introduced smartphones with AI features.

With no means of introducing Chinese users of its devices to ChatGPT, Apple risks being seen as a laggard on the most-talked about technology of the moment.

Apple will want to find a partner in China as fast as it can.

• Elon Musk moved The Boring Company to Texas in 2021, per the Times of London.
• A resident told the outlet it has turned Texas' "incredible vistas" into "gravel mines."
• She said she fears what will become of the area if steps are not taken to hold industries in check.

Elon Musk's construction company, The Boring Company, has turned Texas' "incredible vistas" into "gravel mines," a longtime resident told The Times of London.

"I could start crying just talking about it," Erin Flynn, a 62-year-old sixth-generation Texan who lives in Bastrop, told the outlet.

"It is beyond heartbreaking," she added.

According to The Times, Musk moved his tunnel-building venture to Bastrop, a rural town of about 12,000 people located 30 miles east of Austin, in 2021.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March 2023 that Musk plans to build his own town on thousands of acres of land in Central Texas, envisioning a "Texas utopia" along the Colorado River in Bastrop County. It cited deeds, land records, and people familiar with the project.

The project is bringing billions of dollars in investment and thousands of well-paying jobs to the region, the Times of London reported.

But it is also threatening the generations-old rural way of life, with trucks operating nonstop, earth mounds scattered across the horizon, rock-sorting machines towering over the trees, and cranes moving to and from construction sites, according to the outlet.

Flynn and her husband said their corner of Texas is being wrecked not only by Musk's firms — The Boring Company and SpaceX both have operations in Bastrop — but also by gravel and sand mines that were gradually erected to support the industry's operations there, per the outlet.

Flynn said she fears what will become of the area if steps are not taken to hold industries in check, per the outlet.

"There's a lot of freedom — people come to Texas for the freedom — but you have to respect your neighbor," she said, adding: "There is a fundamental lack of respect and a lack of communication. You're just being bullied."

The Boring Company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Last year, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said it had opened investigations into The Boring Company after receiving three complaints regarding the Bastrop site's handling of wastewater and concrete production.

In February, Tesla, another company owned by Musk, which has a 2,500-acre property on the outskirts of Austin, applied for an exemption from the city's "extraterritorial jurisdiction," which allows it to regulate developments outside city limits.

The city's planning department approved it in March, meaning Tesla's massive gigafactory would no longer have to follow local environmental regulations.

• Millennials and Gen Zers are embracing "quiet quitting" to end friendships gradually.
• The term originated on TikTok in 2022 to describe minimal effort at work.
• Experts warn that this approach can cause confusion and recommend open communication instead.

Some millennials and Gen Zers are embracing "quiet quitting" as a means of ending friendships.

The term originally gained popularity on TikTok in 2022 as a way to describe employees doing the bare minimum without actually quitting or getting fired.

But the trend has taken a turn, and some people are now using the same strategy to end a friendship: slowly phasing out communication without directly saying that they no longer want to be friends with someone.

Melissa Ann Marie, a TikToker in her 30s, spoke about her experience using this strategy in a TikTok video posted on June 1.

"It's not like a romantic relationship where it has to end because you're seeing other people, but it kind of just has to slowly fade because you're not prioritizing each other anymore," Marie said in the video, which has 2.3 million views and 168,7000 likes at the time of writing.

In a follow-up video posted on June 3, Marie said the reasons for ending her past friendships varied, from noticing that one friend gossiped too much while another failed to put in the effort.

Out with the old

Daniel Glazer, a clinical psychologist, told Business Insider that he has noticed "an instinctual impulse among millennials and Gen Zers to start molting connections" that are "hindering who they're becoming."

"While losing enduring connections can lead to feelings of isolation or missing out, quiet quitting may also be a healthy way for millennials and Gen Zers to prune their social lives, allowing new, richer relationships to grow," he added.

Azul Cibils Blaquier, a 23-year-old journalist from Argentina, agrees with Glazer's assessment. Speaking to BI over email, Blaquier said she quiet quit her group of childhood friends earlier this year.

Blaquier said things started to fizzle out when she temporarily relocated to the US two years ago, and her friends stopped making an effort to stay in touch.

"I tried talking to them about it individually, but eventually, I grew tired of being the first one to phone and, ultimately, of no one doing anything about my pain," she said.

Though she moved back to Buenos Aires in December, Blaquier said she could tell that things wouldn't return to normal with her old friend group.

"Quiet quitting on these friendships has opened me up emotionally to making new, stronger ones," she said.

Quiet quitting can lead to regret, experts say

Mark Vahrmeyer, a psychotherapist and cofounder of Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, told BI that the consequences of quiet quitting depend on the circumstances.

For example, he said if you notice that you are outgrowing a friend, or if the friendship has naturally run its course, then the line of communication may fade organically.

However, he said it should be avoided if it is being used as a strategy to avoid confrontation over a real issue that has upset you.

"Generally where there is conflict, rather than a simple diverging of paths, this should be addressed in a friendship either to attempt to resolve it, or conversely, if repair is not possible, to bring an end to the relationship," he said.

Sophie Mort, a clinical psychologist and mental health expert at Headspace, told BI that quiet quitting to avoid conflict will lead to feelings of regret, as unresolved feelings remain permanently unaddressed.

"The act of distancing without any explanation can understandably leave lingering discomfort and unanswered questions," she said.

"For the person initiating the distancing, there may be feelings of regret or remorse, especially if their reasons for doing so were due to avoiding confrontation, which can later leave a sense of a missed opportunity to resolve things."

Margaret Bankole, a friendship and relationships counselor, told BI that quiet quitting can be harmful for both sides, as it will ruin the opportunity to gain closure.

"It is given less weight than ghosting, but it can have the same effects, if not worse, as the person on the other end is left feeling confused," she said.

"Honesty is always the best policy — tell someone why you want to end a friendship in order to bring closure. It will give them a chance to explain, as it could be a simple misunderstanding, or you can both walk away in peace."