Author: openjargon

• On Friday, Rep. Mike Levin became the 18th House Democrat to call for Biden to drop out.
• The California Democrat reportedly said it directly to Biden during a call with other lawmakers.
• Levin issued a statement saying that "the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch."

Rep. Mike Levin on Friday became the 18th House Democrat to publicly call on Joe Biden to drop out of the race

The California congressman said it directly to the president during a Congressional Hispanic Caucus call, according to several media reports.

Levin then issued a statement saying that "the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch," referencing feedback that he's received from constituents since Biden's disastrous debate against former President Donald Trump in June.

Levin represents a relatively competitive San Diego House district and campaigned alongside Biden in 2022.

The number of congressional Democrats calling on Biden to exit the race continues to grow by the hour: Five have done so just since the end of the president's press conference yesterday.

Though that press conference went smoothly overall, it is unlikely to assuage other Democrats who are concerned about their own reelection prospects.

• Southwest Airlines and Archer Aviation are developing electric air taxi operations in California.
• Southwest plans to use Archer Midnight eVTOL aircraft to cut customer travel time to the airport.
• Archer is working to obtain FAA certification for the Midnight eVTOL over the next 18 months. 

Southwest Airlines and Archer Aviation plan to develop an electric air taxi network for California airports.

The two companies signed an agreement on Friday that would allow Southwest Airlines customers to use Archer's Midnight electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft as a speedy means of getting to and from airports in the future.

"This is a pretty huge deal for us and the industry," Archer Aviation chief commercial officer Nikhil Goel told Business Insider. "This is the first time Southwest has done anything like this, and so at this point, we're working with two of the biggest airlines in the US and three of the five largest airlines in the world by market cap."

Archer has also been working with United Airlines, which ordered $1 billion worth of the company's Midnight eVTOL aircraft for similar use in 2021.

The firm has inked deals internationally, as well. Interglobe Enterprises, the parent company of India's largest airline, IndiGo, signed an agreement in late 2023 with Archer that includes the purchase of 200 Midnight eVTOL aircraft for air taxi service in India.

The Southwest deal aims to shorten airport commutes for customers flying through any of the 14 California airports where the airline operates.

For example, let's say someone in Los Angeles wants to fly to Napa — but skip traffic to and from the airport.

With Archer, they would go to the Archer Vertaport, under development in Santa Monica, for a short hop to Burbank Airport. There, they would board an 80-minute Southwest flight to San Francisco International Airport and then a 15-minute Archer flight to Napa. (For context, Napa is roughly 60 miles from SFO).

Goel said this route could shave one to two hours off customers' travel time.

Beyond the new partnership with Southwest, Archer said it is focused on completing the development and certification process and building up the manufacturing infrastructure to support the Midnight eVTOL, which is at the heart of the deal.

"For us at Archer, the next 18 months are almost solely dedicated to certifying and manufacturing the aircraft," Goel said.

Archer received FAA certification to commence commercial operations in June, allowing the company to refine its systems before launching customer service.

However, the Midnight eVTOL, a four-seat electric tilt-rotor aircraft, has not been certified.

Archer is also working to complete its 350,000-square-foot production facility in Covington, Georgia, which will be operated in partnership with Stellantis. When fully operational, the factory is expected to be able to produce up to 650 aircraft a year, with room to expand capacity to 2,300 aircraft annually.

Archer isn't the only player in the eVTOL business that's working with major airlines.

Delta and Japan's All Nippon Airways are working with fellow mobility startup Joby Aviation for future air taxi services.

• Chris Duffy, a comedian and podcast host, says caregiving often takes away his social time.
• He started to take more time for interactions with casual acquaintances.
• Sometimes that leads to friendship, but even when it doesn't it's meaningful, he says.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Chris Duffy, author of "Let's Hang Out: Making (and Keeping) Friends, Acquaintances, and Other Nonromantic Relationships." It has been edited for length and clarity.

In my early 30s, I was the caregiver for my wife, who was dealing with chronic pain and other health issues. It was all-encompassing and there wasn't a lot of time to have outside social interactions. I really felt the loss of those connections.

Now, at 37, I'm parenting for the first time, and my son is 6 months old. It's a similar feeling: if I don't reach out, there just aren't many people around. It's just not possible to have a social life in the same easy, unplanned way I could in college or during my 20s.

Yet, I've realized I can get some social fulfillment from casual interactions. Sometimes when I'm taking my son for a walk I make meaningful eye contact with another parent. We don't even have to exchange words but we're acknowledging that we're both here, walking at 6:30 a.m., in the trenches with the baby.

That simple exchange makes me feel less isolated. Here's how to foster them in your life.

Take the pressure off

Friends are great, but making new friends creates loads of pressure. Luckily, you don't need to see your friends every day to reap the benefits of social interactions. Research shows that even casual acquaintances can benefit our health and happiness.

So, chat with the cashier, say hi to people on your walks, and ask how your barista is doing. Maybe you open the door to a deeper relationship, but even if you don't, you'll feel better.

Stop assuming no one wants to talk to you

The biggest barrier to connection is almost always your mental idea that other people don't want to be connected. But research shows that's just not true. There have been studies of people on buses where one passenger is challenged to make small talk with the person they sit next to. When researchers ask about it, both people feel so much better.

The vast majority of interactions are going to be positive, so take a risk on starting one. Don't be afraid to take that first step and just say hi. It doesn't have to be a high-stakes thing, and just breaking the ice can lead to a much bigger reward.

Just show up

Get into your community and show up at the same places regularly, and you'll start to see familiar faces. I'm not much of a swimmer, but I started going to my community pool. Before long, I'd met some of my best friends. We connected because we had this place in common. Maybe for you, it's the library, a coffee shop, or the park. Just get out there!

You don't have to be vulnerable

Our culture really pushes the idea that vulnerability is the most important thing for building connections. I think time is much more essential. Over time, you're going to connect with people and naturally become vulnerable unless you're really fighting it. So no, you don't have to pour your heart out to someone you just met — instead, just ask how their day is going.

Join clubs or groups

Years ago, it was so common to be part of a religious community or club. These days, not so much, but these community groups are still a great way to meet others. They're sort of forced social gatherings where you're sure to see the same people again and again.

As a comedian, I love weird things, so I joined the Los Angeles Breakfast Club. We gather every Wednesday at 7 a.m. to eat breakfast and sing songs about ham and eggs. It's not for everyone, but it's been great for me.

Don't underestimate the internet

There's an idea that you can't have a real connection through the internet, but I was surprised by how false that is. The key is to find your own weird little corner of the internet where you can form connections. I even heard about a group of people who meet in the comments section for the New York Times Metro Diary each week. Set aside the culture of debating and just try to learn about others.

Making friends as an adult isn't easy, but the more you can approach it with a spirit of play and generosity, the more meaningful connections you'll find.

• A judge dismissed Rudy Giuliani's bankruptcy case, freeing him to appeal a $148 million judgment.
• It comes with a big asterisk: Giuliani can't seek bankruptcy protection again for 12 months.
• Now, all the civil lawsuits against Giuliani can continue to play out in courts.

The judge overseeing Rudy Giuliani's bankruptcy granted him a rare legal win.

In a court order Friday, the judge dismissed the Chapter 11 case and allowed him to appeal the $148 million defamation judgment he owes.

But there's a catch: Giuliani isn't allowed to file for bankruptcy again over the next 12 months. And his creditors are ready to pounce.

The former New York City mayor filed for bankruptcy in December, claiming he couldn't pay his $152 million in debt.

The bankruptcy froze all the other civil litigation against Giuliani, including defamation cases from election technology companies and a lawsuit from Noelle Dunphy, who accused him of sexual abuse.

Nearly all of Giuliani's debt was the $148 million judgment a Washington, DC, jury awarded to Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, two election workers he defamed by falsely claiming they manipulated votes in Georgia.

Giuliani's assets were worth about $10 million — depending on what he could get if he sold his Manhattan and Florida apartments — not nearly enough to satisfy all the debt.

Friday's order, approved by bankruptcy judge Sean H. Lane, also puts Giuliani on the hook for $350,000 in fees already incurred in the case by a legal discovery vendor. Lane also placed control of Giuliani's Upper East Side condo, which is up for sale, in the hands of a lawyer representing his creditors. A chunk of the potential proceeds from the sale would go toward legal fees, and the rest would be held in escrow.

Over the past few months, Giuliani has filed inconsistent financial statements and appeared to squirrel away streams of income, his creditors have complained. Giuliani said he had trouble finding an accountant — a claim his creditors found hard to believe. Lane expressed frustration with "the difficulties we've had in terms of transparency in this case" in a hearing earlier this week.

At the same time that Giuliani was filing odd financial statements, he also made it clear in court filings that he wanted breathing room to appeal his $148 million judgment.

After months of wrangling — including a last-ditch effort to convert the bankruptcy to a Chapter 7, which would have further slowed the process — Giuliani and lawyers representing Freeman and Moss struck a deal.

On Wednesday, they both told the judge that dismissing the bankruptcy altogether was the best move.

The draft order provided by Giuliani's legal team included a line that would forbid the 80-year-old from filing for bankruptcy again for one year.

In the Southern District of New York, where the case is playing out, bankruptcy judges customarily forbid debtors from re-filing for some period of time if they believe the debtor sought the protection in bad faith, according to Eric J. Snyder, the chair of the bankruptcy practice at Wilk Auslander LLP.

"Twelve months is a long time. Normally it's six months," Snyder said. "But in this type of case, because of Giuliani's behavior, I think 12 months is probably consistent."

Dunphy will continue her fight in court

Dismissing the bankruptcy would unfreeze all of Giuliani's other civil cases, allowing him time to appeal the massive defamation judgment against him.

It also means all the other litigants suing Giuliani can continue to pursue their cases against him in other courts, which are mostly taking place in New York, where he was once the mayor and top federal prosecutor.

But the legal team representing the so-called "unsecured creditors" — including Dominion Voting Systems and Dunphy — objected to dismissing the bankruptcy case.

In a rowdy hearing Wednesday, they asked Lane to allow the cases to play out in the bankruptcy process.

Lane said at the hearing that he was inclined to dismiss the case. He said appointing a Chapter 11 trustee to take over Giuliani's assets would eat up administrative fees, and that Giuliani's lack of financial transparency posed a persistent problem.

"That's not going to magically change if you continue the case in 11 with the trustee," he said.

"Our client Noelle Dunphy remains as strong and steadfast as ever in her commitment to pursuing justice," Dunphy's lawyer Justin Kelton told Business Insider in an email earlier this week. "If Mr. Giuliani's bankruptcy is dismissed, she will continue pursuing her claims in court, and we look forward to the day when we can present this case to a jury."

Giuliani also has plenty of other legal woes stemming from his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump.

The ex-president's former attorney was disbarred in New York and may soon lose his law license in Washington, DC.

He is also the subject of two criminal cases, in Arizona and Georgia, over his efforts to overturn the election results.

• A car enthusiast posted a video of Sam Altman in a super rare Koenigsegg Regera.
• The Swedish supercars are some of the fastest street-legal cars. They cost as much as $4.6 million.
• Vroom vroom.

Joseph Velyan was eating lunch at a restaurant with his family when he spotted something extraordinary rolling down the street: a Koenigsegg Regera.

Only 80 of these Swedish sports cars were made — and they can cost as much as $4.65 million.

"I've been into cars almost my whole life, and seeing a Koenigsegg was definitely a dream of mine — especially in public," Velyan, who runs the car fan pages @norcal.garage on TikTok and Instagram told Business Insider. "I go to car events and see some pretty rare cars often, but this is for sure the rarest one I've seen, and it caught my eye right away."

He took a quick video of the car and posted it online in late April. But it wasn't until more than a month later, when he looked back at the footage, that he noticed something else interesting: The driver appeared to be Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. (Representatives for Sam Altman didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.)

Like Velyan, Altman is a Car Guy. According to a Wall Street Journal story about his vast fortune, he owns a McLaren in addition to the Koenigsegg and drove F1 cars on a racetrack for fun on vacation with his husband in Dubai.

He also has mentioned owning a Telsa. (This might be amusing to Elon Musk, the former friend and current frenemy of Altman, who had an amused reaction to the video after Musk's henchman friend Jason Calacanis pointed out the irony of the head of a nonprofit driving such a fancy car. (Musk's beef with Altman is largely over how OpenAI has shifted from its nonprofit roots. And, of course, Altman has been an investor in companies including Reddit and Stripe, accounting for a fortune that's been estimated at around $3 billion.)

In the video of Altman in the Koenigsegg, there's something totally uncanny about seeing such an unusual car — which looks unlike anything else and is capable of going zero to 250 miles per hour in under 30 seconds — at a stop light in a busy pedestrian area. Velyan is right — you'd expect to see something like this at a car show or a track, not a city street in Napa, CA.

There's something else sort of weird — tech moguls, for as rich as they are, don't typically drive incredibly noticeably ostentatious cars.

Sure, they might own a fancy car in their collection (Mark Zuckerberg reportedly has a $1.4 million Pagani Huayra), but you don't typically see them driving them past a CVS in a supercar on a Tuesday.

Koenigseggs are so rare that there's a fan community that keeps track of each model on a blog called Egg Registry. Based on the distinctive all-white paint job of the car in the video, it seems likely to be No. 7232, which the fans on the blog have traced to an owner in San Francisco. (BI couldn't independently verify this.) They say it's been seen driving around the streets and showing up to a local car show.

The hoi polloi can often be a little harsh on seeing displays of tech mogul wealth (just check the comments anytime Zuckerberg posts himself surfing). But on TikTok, a lot of ChatGPT users seem pretty happy for Altman and his car.

"This man helped me pass chem 🙏 enjoy that Regera" wrote one person."

"Bro carried me through half of my classes last year I hope he enjoys that beauty," said another.

"Countless assignments, countless tests passed enjoy it bro."

• Russia has been engaging in hybrid attacks against NATO for a long time.
• In recent months, aggression has included attempted assassinations, arson, GPS jamming, and other sabotage.
• A former top US general said this week that in some ways, Russia is already at war with the alliance.

Russia has been carrying out hybrid attacks, aggression in the blurry grey area between war and peace, against NATO, unnerving the military alliance and raising concerns that what has long been a low-intensity campaign could escalate into something much bigger.

Recent covert acts of sabotage are far from the level of aggression and brutality that Russia has put on display in Ukraine. But make no mistake, a former top US general argued this week, Moscow is already fighting NATO.

"We need to acknowledge that they are at war with us," said Ben Hodges, a retired lieutenant general and former commander of US Army Europe, on Wednesday at the NATO Public Forum in Washington, DC.

"It may not be T-72s or Sukhois that are striking NATO countries, but they are absolutely at war," he said, referring to types of Russian tanks and aircraft, respectively. He listed off GPS jamming, sabotage, election interference, and the illicit movement of oil as a few examples of malign activity.

NATO allies have seen a string of aggressive acts linked to Moscow over the past few months, ranging from signal jamming and incidents of arson to cyber hacks and attempted assassinations. Moscow does not necessarily claim responsibility for these, but leaders have suggested that it is Russian President Vladimir Putin's way of trying to interfere with Western support for Ukraine.

Russia's leadership has regularly framed the conflict as not merely a fight with Ukraine but as a confrontation with NATO. Moscow routinely portrays itself as the victim while targeting other countries with direct and indirect aggression.

The recent campaign prompted NATO in May to raise public concern over Russia's activities. In a pointed statement, the alliance expressed great concern over what it described as "hostile state activity" in a number of European countries.

"These incidents are part of an intensifying campaign of activities which Russia continues to carry out across the Euro-Atlantic area, including on alliance territory and through proxies," the NATO statement said, adding that "this includes sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic interference, disinformation campaigns, and other hybrid operations."

NATO called the situation a "a threat to allied security" and said that allies "will act individually and collectively to address these actions."

A lasting headache for NATO

Although the war in Ukraine has exacerbated tensions, the problem of Russian hybrid attacks is not a new hassle for the alliance, which has been dealing with this trend for quite some time.

"The Russian threat isn't just directed at Ukraine. In fact, we all, in our own countries, have had warnings of this — we've all had knowledge of this and experience of this for a number of years," UK Defense Secretary John Healey said at the Public Forum.

"We face wider Russian aggression directed at our own democracies, from hybrid attacks to threats in the high north," he added.

Some allies know this better than others. The Baltic nations, which are on the alliance on its eastern flank, point to a long history of hybrid attacks by Russia to validate their concerns over neighboring Russia's aggression.

"We've been advocating taking a strict position on Russia for years," Latvian Defense Minister Andris Sprūds said alongside Healey and Hodges at the forum this week. "We, ourselves, have been experiencing hybrid attacks from Russia for decades, so that's why the threat has been quite clear, what we're facing."

"We are facing Russia, the country, which can change in every five years — in every 10 years — dramatically," the defense minister added. "But nothing changes in 100 years. So we pretty much see the same Russia. It's expansionist, it's imperialist, regardless what type [of] regime we are dealing with."

The Russian hybrid attacks were a notable discussion point on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington this week. At one panel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said every ally is "acutely" aware of the threat and is focused on the recent upticks in sabotage.

"These are not one-offs," Blinken added. "This is part of a deliberate strategy by Russia to try to undermine our security and undermine the cohesion of the Alliance. It's not going to work because we see it and we're acting on it."

• JWST snaps thousands of photos of our universe, from sparkling stellar nurseries to clusters of distant galaxies.
• But it takes human image processors, like Joe DePasquale, to turn these photos into works of art.
• DePasquale gave BI a behind-the-scenes look at how he creates images like the Deep Field and the Tarantula Nebula.

Two years ago today, NASA unveiled the first full-color space images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

We often hear about the scientists who study JWST's space images and what they discover, but behind these beautiful works of art are image processors like Joe DePasquale who can spend days, or even weeks, transforming a single image.

Webb's raw telescope images can look like empty black boxes when they first beam back to Earth. It takes science, intuition, and sometimes a bit of Photoshop to tease out the most important moments, DePasquale said.

DePasquale is a principal science visuals developer at the Space Telescope Science Institute. He processed some of the very first Webb images that the public got to see.

While working on an image, DePasquale gradually unveils details that sometimes amaze him. For the Deep Field image, one of Webb's first images, he was astonished to see tiny dots around some galaxies at the center. These dots are globular clusters of stars that surround very distant galaxies.

"To be able to pull out that much detail in just this tiny part of the sky — seeing that in such clarity was amazing," DePasquale said.

Unprecedented detail

After Webb launched in 2021, the next few months were "nail-biting," DePasquale said. Before the telescope could begin photographing the farthest reaches of the cosmos, it had to unfold and fully deploy in space.

"We watched every step along the way — the mirrors unfolding, the sunshield deploying, all of these things happening. There were 300 different single points of failure where if anything didn't work, the whole observatory would just be scrapped," he said.

Webb deployed perfectly, and got to work photographing our vast universe. A single Webb photo, like the Deep Field image, can capture thousands of galaxies.

Pulling all that detail out of the raw Webb image was no easy task. The final photo is actually four different images stitched together. When DePasquale first lined them up, he noticed that the brightness was different in each panel. To get them to match, he had to use Photoshop to adjust the lighting of the panels by hand.

It took about two weeks to process the Deep Field image from start to finish, he said. The end result is a sparkling portrait of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723.

Peering across the universe

Webb is the most powerful telescope ever launched into space. It can see what the universe looked like around a quarter of a billion years after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies started to form.

In its last two years of observations, Webb has fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe with groundbreaking discoveries like capturing the first images of stars forming inside the Pillars of Creation and the four most distant galaxies ever observed.

"Both Hubble and Webb are extremely high-angular-resolution telescopes. They're able to resolve very small details in these really distant objects," like the Tarantula Nebula, DePasquale told Business Insider.

The Tarantula Nebula is a star-forming cloud of gas and dust located in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, 170,000 light-years away from Earth. That's really far away, but the extremely high precision of Webb's huge mirror allows the telescope to collect a lot of light from any object it observes, so it can photograph distant objects in striking detail, DePasquale said.

Processing raw space images is both a science and an art.

When processing the Tarantula Nebula image, DePasquale wanted to emphasize the cluster of hot, young stars in the center. To do that, he enhanced the contrast between the light and dark parts of the image, and made the billowing clouds of the nebula glow in whites and made the young stars burn bright blue. He does a lot of this work by hand, manipulating the images using Photoshop.

"Our work transitions from being analytical and scientific into a more subjective realm, where it's more like a photographer. We make scientifically-informed aesthetic judgments about how to process the data to highlight key scientific features within it," he said.

• In Japan, I saw how the local culture and etiquette are different from what I'm used to in the US. 
• With self-cleaning toilets and an absence of trash, Japan models an impressive level of cleanliness.
• The public toilets and hotel freebies in Japan were also far superior to what I've seen in the US. 

As soon as I arrived in Tokyo to a near-silent Narita Airport, I knew I was in for a bit of culture shock.

Already, the Japanese culture felt far different from what I'm used to in the United States: Most US airports are incredibly noisy.

As I left, I was surprised again when I got into a taxi on the right side of the car. I quickly learned from the driver's panicked reaction that I was apparently supposed to enter from the left.

The next few days were a crash course in learning the local etiquette.

Although I'm considered pretty soft-spoken back home, in Japan, I felt too assertive and found myself quieting my voice and being more gentle in my body language to adapt to my surroundings.

I found myself appreciating Japan's politeness, extreme cleanliness, and order, whether I was lining up to board the subway or using the immaculate public bathrooms.

The harsh return to loud and chaotic New York City made me miss many of the norms I witnessed on my trip. Here are some I wish the US would adopt.

The public bathrooms are impressively clean, with fancy toilets

Compared to the public bathrooms in the US, Japanese public bathrooms feel like they belong in a five-star hotel.

Each one I encountered in Japan looked spotlessly clean, and the toilets were more technologically advanced than anything I've seen back home.

They don't just flush automatically when you're finished — they can also sense when you're approaching and lift the lid accordingly.

Almost all have multi-functional, electronic bidets. Some have heated seats, and many are self-cleaning.

Many hotels provide complimentary pajamas, slippers, and toiletries

I returned home from Japan with a full tube of toothpaste because I barely touched my toiletry bag during my trip.

Every hotel in Japan I stayed at had an impressive toiletry kit that included a toothbrush, toothpaste, hair brush, and single-use size packets of facial cleanser and moisturizer — often from a luxury skincare brand.

I've never gotten freebies on this scale at nice hotels in the US, where the standard is just one tiny bottle each of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion.

In Japan, I'd usually also find a set of pajamas and slippers in the closet for guests to use. At some of the finer hotels I stayed in, they were from designer names. The Derek Rose set I wore at The Ritz-Carlton, Fukuoka was so silky I considered buying them.

The complimentary items made traveling more efficient since I barely had to unpack at each new hotel I stayed in.

The airports often have separate slippers for walking through security

As someone who awkwardly tip-toes through security because I'm grossed out by walking on the airport floor, I was thrilled to find slippers available to borrow at several airports throughout the country.

In Japan, it's customary to remove your shoes before entering many indoor spaces. I loved that this extended beyond the airport to hotels, spas, and sometimes restaurants, where I'd often have to leave my outdoor shoes at the door.

It helped indoor spaces feel even cleaner, especially on rainy days when shoes can get wet or muddy.

There are hardly any public trash bins, yet the streets are spotless

Every time I had a receipt I wanted to toss, I faced the impossible task of finding somewhere to throw it out. Even in big cities like Tokyo, garbage bins are almost completely absent from public spaces.

I thought this would incentivize people to litter, but it actually seemed to have the opposite effect. A local told me Japanese residents often just hold onto their trash until they can dispose of it at home.

Public spaces are incredibly quiet, creating a calm atmosphere

In Japan, it's the norm for people to keep to themselves in public.

I first noticed it at the airport, where I saw seats separated by small walls instead of armrests, creating semi-closed pods for travelers. It was a dream for introverts like me.

Whether I was at the airport, on the train, or even a busy shopping mall, my surroundings were quiet — so quiet, I often thought I had my headphones in when I didn't.

In New York City, I'm used to hearing strangers' full conversations or music blasting from their headphones. In Japan, I rarely even heard someone on their phone — and if people were traveling together, they were silent or speaking quietly.

As a result, public spaces in Japan maintain an air of tranquility that feels like a novelty compared to many public spaces in the United States.

• PwC has gradually curtailed Summer Fridays in recent years. 
• Some partners expected the perk to be eliminated altogether, The Financial Times reports.
• Top firms are tightening their belts as demand slows.

PwC staff in the UK are bracing for a popular perk cutback.

The Big Four accounting firm is slashing its "Summer Fridays" to a span of six weeks this year, The Financial Times reported.

PwC first introduced Summer Fridays in 2021, and gave Friday afternoons off for a three-month span in 2022.

It reduced that period to two months in 2023, according to FT, before cutting it further this year.

Some partners thought Summer Fridays would be eliminated entirely this year, FT reports.

In a memo, PwC chief people officer Ian Elliott cited "market conditions" for the shift, saying employees should balance summer hours "with the needs of our clients, teams and work commitments, which should continue to take priority," according to FT.

In addition to cutting Summer Fridays, PwC is handing out smaller bonuses and salary increases to some of its UK staff, which numbers 26,000 workers, FT reports.

PwC offered UK buyout packages earlier this year as advisory work has slowed at top consulting firms.

PwC told Business Insider in a statement that the "vast majority" of its employees "received a bonus and a 3% pay rise," adding, "our summer working hours are continuing once again, albeit for a shorter period."

A perk on the decline

A recent study shows that Summer Fridays are getting phased out across the industry.

Eleven percent of North American workers reported having the perk, CNBC reported last month, citing a 2023 Gartner survey of 1,100 people. By comparison, 55% of companies offered the benefit in 2019, according to a Gartner survey of 94 HR leaders.

CNBC reported the shift could be attributed to the rise of hybrid work and work-from-home Fridays — as well as companies cracking down on flexible work paradigms that emerged during the pandemic.

Other companies are keeping Summer Fridays but adding a catch. Kellogg's global snacks unit this year lets its workers take off for half the day on Fridays — but makes them make up the time at other points in the week.

Despite the decline in Summer Fridays, some business titans think the 4-day workweek is an inevitability.

"You know, between the advent of AI, generally, we hear from people that Fridays are just not — people are not as productive on Fridays, and so I just think it's an eventuality," billionaire hedge fund manager and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen said in April.