Author: openjargon

• Target came under fire last year when conservative groups attacked the company's Pride collection.
• In response to protests, the retailer pulled merch and shrunk in-store displays.
• Some on Target's Pride Council and past vendors say the company has done little to rebuild its relationship with the LGBTQ+ community.

On Tuesday, members of Target's LGBTQ+ employee resource group logged on for a much-anticipated virtual meeting to preview the 2024 Pride collection, two council members told Business Insider.

A few days earlier, following the news that only a fraction of stores would be carrying Pride merchandise this year, VP of Brand Management Carlos Saavedra promised to "share all the details" about the celebration in an internal preview.

The two council members said that in prior years, members of the 3,700-person group, known internally as the Pride+ Council, were able to participate in selecting vendors and products to feature in the collection.

Last year, Pride products had already been on sale online for weeks by mid-May, and each of the retailer's nearly 2,000 US stores was busy setting up displays near their front entrances.

As of Friday, the online collection that once boasted over 2,600 items consisted of just a few dozen items — mostly pet gear, a bottle of rosé, and a USB thumb drive — and a promise of new arrivals coming on May 28. A landing page for LGBTQ+ owned or designed brands mostly included a small collection of apparel from the Phluid project and kombucha.

Eager to see what was in store for this Pride Month, Pride+ Council members joined the Tuesday meeting to find that only presenters could speak, comments were disabled, and no products were shown, the two council sources told BI.

It's a far cry from just over a year ago, the members said, when Target was doing something that few large companies had ever done: embracing both halves of the LGBTQ+ acronym.

For the second year in a row, the company had offered a line of functional garments and a range of apparel and accessories boasting slogans that acknowledged and celebrated transgender and nonbinary members of the community.

Target declined to address specific questions when contacted by Business Insider and instead referred to its previous statement on the Pride 2024 collection.

"We have long offered benefits and resources for the community, and we will have internal programs to celebrate Pride 2024," the statement said. "Additionally, we will offer a collection of products for Pride, including adult apparel, home products, food and beverage, which has been curated based on guest insights and consumer research."

At a time of the year when corporations are often accused of "rainbow washing" for Pride month in June, members of the LGBTQ+ community held Target up as an example of what true ally-ship could look like.

But late last May, conservative protesters took aim at Target's Pride collection, falsely claiming the merchandise was "Satanic" and sexualized minors.

In response to what it said was a mounting security threat, the retailer pulled merch and shrunk in-store displays, alienating some of its LGBTQ+ employees, customers, and vendor partners in the process.

Even as conservative groups claimed victory, the backlash continued in the form of a shareholder lawsuit and related shareholder proposal arguing that the company's diversity initiatives are harmful to shareholder value.

Target says it rejects those assertions and is defending itself in court.

However, the two Pride Council members and multiple LGBTQ+ vendors who worked on past Pride collections told BI they feel the company hasn't done enough to rebuild its relationship with its LGBTQ+ partners over the past year.

Erik Carnell, the trans designer whose Target merchandise was pulled due to Satanic references elsewhere in his portfolio, told BI the company declined to provide him an explanation about its decision beyond what was included in its public statements, and he hasn't heard from them since.

"I don't expect to hear from them again," he said.

"I don't doubt that there are people working high up in Target who do genuinely care about or are part of the LGBT community and did honestly want to support the trans community, but these people aren't necessarily responsible for certain decisions," he continued. "At the end of the day, the pink dollar isn't quite as strong as the Christian Right dollar."

Humankind, the trans-friendly swimwear brand that was at the center of the firestorm, first began working with Target in 2021 in preparation for the 2022 Pride collection, according to founder Hayley Marzullo.

After Humankind products were pulled from shelves, a Target representative did reach out to Marzullo, according to emails seen by BI.

"We understand this has an impact to you and your team and wanted to check in to see how you're doing and if there are any questions you might have," the Target representative said.

The emails show that Target and Marzullo discussed a year-round assortment of gender-inclusive apparel in partnership with Humankind, but Marzullo told BI the idea eventually stalled.

She said she eventually learned through a non-Target source that Humankind was not going to be part of this year's June collection.

"Everything was set to continue to expand," Marzullo said. "We spent time and energy developing new products and new colors, only to be cut."

Leslie Garrard, the CEO of TomboyX, said her company was invited to sell through the Target.com marketplace after a successful 2022 in-store collaboration.

The brand still has over 60 items listed online — not in stores — but Garrard told BI she has noticed some items delisted in recent weeks, including a Pride rainbow design and a tucking underwear bottom. TomboyX fulfills all orders itself as Target does not generally stock or ship marketplace products.

"If you're taking your Pride assortment and you're taking out a ton of apparel, or you're just associating Pride with cake mixes, tablecloths, and dog leashes, you're not really showing up for your community," Garrard said.

One of the employees involved in the Pride Council told BI that a lot of LGBTQ+ people, herself included, joined Target specifically because of its stated support for trans and queer rights.

Target's handling of Pride this year so far tells her that "they are here for the L, G, and B, but not the T, Q, I, A, and plus," she said. "This feels very much like a betrayal."

• Americans are the most pessimistic they've been in years about their chances of finding a new job. 
• However, the unemployment rate remains low and the US economy continues to add jobs. 
• A slowing job market, particularly for remote and high-paying roles, could explain some of the pessimism. 

Americans are getting increasingly pessimistic about their chances of finding a new job if they lose their current one.

In the New York Fed's Survey of Consumer Expectations, a nationally representative survey of roughly 1,300 US households, respondents are asked to estimate the chance that, if they lost their job today, they'd be able to find a new job they would accept in the next three months.

As of the recently released April data, the average probability was 50.9%, which means the respondents, on average, viewed their chances of success as effectively a coin flip. This was the lowest mark since April 2021. However, excluding 2020 and early 2021 numbers — when job-finding expectations plummeted due to the pandemic — it hasn't been this low since November 2014.

The NY Fed's survey data reveals a similar trend across education levels, incomes, and regions of the US: Americans are less confident in their ability to find a new job than they were in the years before the pandemic. The one group whose optimism is near record highs is workers aged 60 and older, whose average probability was 55.4% as of April. Older workers have a lower unemployment rate than the national average.

This pessimism about the job market is another example of the disconnect between how Americans say they feel about the economy and the hard economic data, which suggests things are going pretty well despite some evidence of a slowdown in the job market. However, some experts have argued that people have a legitimate reason to be sour on the economy, in part due to the impacts of inflation and high interest rates. Regardless, how Americans feel about economic issues could be a key factor in the presidential election this fall.

Why Americans might be getting worried about the job market

In some ways, Americans' growing pessimism in the job market is perplexing.

In November 2014, when the average job-finding probability among the NY Fed's respondents was 50.1% — similar to this past April's 50.9% figure — the unemployment rate was 5.8%. It was 3.9% as of this past April.

In November 2014, there were over 4.8 million job openings, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There were nearly 8.5 million openings as of the most recent March data.

What's more, the median number of weeks Americans remain unemployed is in line with pre-pandemic levels, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And despite a small increase from March to April in the number of unemployed people dropping out of the labor force, there hasn't been a notable uptick.

While Americans may be more pessimistic about the job market than some economic data suggests they should be, it's arguably less of a surprise that their confidence has trended a bit lower in recent months.

That's because the job market has become more challenging than it was a couple of years ago, when the Great Resignation was at its peak.

In May 2022, when Americans' average job-finding probability was 58.2% per the New York Fed survey, the highest it'd been in over two years, the US had around 11.5 million job openings, not far from the record figure reached two months prior. Compared to May 2022, there were about 3 million fewer openings as of March 2024.

Fewer job postings can lead to more competition among applicants. In a report published in May, LinkedIn stated a 14% increase in the number of applications per open role on its platform between November 2023 and March 2024.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate — while still low compared to historical levels — has ticked up a bit.

In May 2022, it was 3.6%, below the 3.9% rate this past April and not far from the 3.4% reached twice in 2023. The US hasn't had an unemployment rate below 3.4% since the 1950s.

Not only has the unemployment rate risen slightly, but some Americans think they're at a higher risk of losing their jobs.

In addition to surveying people about their job-finding expectations, the NY Fed also asks them to estimate how likely they think they are to lose their jobs over the next 12 months. As of April, the average probability among respondents was 15.1%. While this was lower than the 15.7% in March, it was the second-highest probability since October 2020.

What's more, in May, the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, an oft-cited gauge of economic vibes, declined roughly 13% from April to its lowest level in about six months. In a statement accompanying the release, Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu said that consumers are expecting unemployment to move in an "unfavorable direction in the year ahead."

To be sure, while some experts expect the unemployment rate to rise over the next year, most are projecting only a modest increase.

Struggles to find remote jobs and high-wage roles could be fueling pessimism

The job market can be especially frustrating for Americans looking for remote work, since those roles can be difficult to land.

The share of US remote job postings on LinkedIn fell from over 20% in April 2022 to about 10% in December 2023. Despite the decline, LinkedIn said remote roles accounted for nearly half of all applications in December.

Additionally, no one is a good fit for each one of the US's 8.5 million job openings. So, it's possible that some Americans in certain industries are facing a job market where openings are far from abundant.

For example, there's some evidence that the job market for high-wage roles has cooled over the past year. In April, the industries that added the most jobs were generally lower-paying, including transportation and warehousing as well as retail trade.

Julia Pollak, the chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told Business Insider earlier this month after April's labor market figures were released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that it is "no longer a white-hot labor market" or a job "candidate's market in every industry where workers can get whatever they want."

Lastly, it's possible that many Americans think the Bureau of Labor Statistics's job opening figures are overstated. For example, some job seekers have reported encountering "ghost jobs" — listings on job platforms that companies are no longer actively hiring for.

Fortunately for Americans, the strong recent labor force data suggests that the vast majority of people who want a job already have one.

But if layoffs begin to pick up, and more people find themselves looking for work, their job search might be more challenging than their last.

Are you struggling to find a job? Are you willing to share your story? If so, contact these reporters at jzinkula@businessinsider.com and mhoff@businessinsider.com.

• American Airlines opened a $250 million employee-only hotel at its Texas headquarters in 2023.
• The hotel features 600 rooms and numerous amenities, like a gym, an outdoor pool, and a cafeteria.
• The "hospitality complex" is a central space where employees can work, meet, study, and socialize.

American Airlines spent $250 million to build an employee-only hotel at its sprawling Texas headquarters that opened in January 2023.

Complete with 600 rooms and heaps of amenities, the "hospitality complex" is basically a mini-city exclusive for employees traveling to the airline's main hub, Dallas/Fort Worth, on company business.

Think flight attendant and pilot training or annual conferences. Eligibility extends to employees at American's mainline operation and its wholly-owned subsidiaries like Envoy Air, Piedmont Airlines, and PSA Airlines.

American's senior manager of corporate real estate, Holly Ragan, told Business Insider during a recent tour that the hotel's purpose is to have everything in one place where employees can easily access everyday needs. It also creates community and pride among employees, she said.

"Skyview 6 is the central heart of campus where our team members can gather," Ragan said. "We have dining, corn hole, a fitness center, a pool, and just various offerings to help our employees feel a sense of normalcy when they're here."

Take a look inside American's "Skyview 6" hotel, which is not open to the public.

Skyview 6 is a rare perk in the industry. Only a few employee-specific airline hotels have been built in the US.

Republic Airways, a regional carrier that contracts flying from American, Delta, and United, has its own hotel in Indianapolis for employee training.

However, it's more common for airlines to book rooms at nearby hotels for employee training or business rather than running their own space.

The hospitality complex was built on the former site of the industry's first Stewardess College, which American opened in 1957.

The Stewardess College was the airline's flight attendant training center.

American wanted to ensure employees had access to things like food and fitness without having to leave campus, Ragan said.

For example, new hire flight attendants will spend about six weeks at the hotel during training and don't have to venture far for anything.

Meanwhile, Skyview 5 — American's flight academy — is just a short walk from the hotel, so trainees don't have to rely on a car or shuttle to get to class (though there is a service if needed).

The company wasn’t exaggerating — the hotel has literally everything.

The entire Skyview 6 complex is 550,000 square feet and is covered with unique airline memorabilia and artwork.

The private hotel can accommodate everyone from flight crews and corporate employees to airport staff and maintenance technicians.

Employees entering Skyview 6 for the first time will enter through a giant lobby complete with ceiling art that represents different engine types.

"When team members arrive, we don't want them to feel like they are visiting; this is their home, too," Ragan said.

She noted that the company's maintenance team in Tulsa assembled the four engines, which include those from an Airbus A320, a Boeing 777, a Boeing 787, and a Boeing 737.

Along the wall is the famous staircase where early-day American flight attendants stood for their graduation picture.

The staircase represents the graduation ceremony that started at the Stewardess College, where the newly winged flight attendants stood for a photo.

On the day of my visit, it was the graduation of a class of flight attendants. They, too, would pose for the iconic staircase photo.

Ragan said the medallion behind the staircase is the original.

"It makes me appreciate the time period, seeing them just lying on the bed studying," she said, pointing to photos of flight attendants at the Stewardess College in the 1950s. "Especially the new hires, it helps them connect to what was originally here."

Near the lobby is a 10,000-square-foot multi-use ballroom where events like the annual State of the Airline hosted by CEO Robert Isom are held.

The entire space can be sectioned off into smaller rooms, each closed off by a giant garage door that enters into the main hallway.

Besides the CEO's annual meeting, events held here may be leadership development training or business conferences.

There are also conference rooms scattered throughout the hotel's first floor, as well as a coffee and wine bar.

Ragan said longtime employees who may not see each other often will meet up at Skyview 6 after hours to chat over a glass of wine.

The wine bar complements the on-site tavern with a cabin-style fireplace and billiards table.

Employees staying overnight at Skyview 6 will be assigned one of the 600 rooms available on-site.

An elevator takes employees to one of the nine available floors, each representing a different destination in America's network — the higher the floor, the further the city.

The rooms came with everything you’d expect at a regular chain like Marriott or Hilton, including a bed, television, bathroom, desk, and closet.

Ragan said company employees stayed at off-site hotels before Skyview 6 opened.

The bathroom has a standing shower, toiletries, a make-up ring, and a Bluetooth-capable mirror for listening to music or a podcast.

There is also a motion-sensor under-counter light that helps employees find their way in the dark, as well as a hairdryer.

Ragan said the shower is particuarly unique as the shower head and the nob to turn it on and control the temperature are on opposite sides.

She further explained that bulk toiletries are part of the complex's effort to reduce waste, particularly plastic.

The shower door closes all the way to ensure no mess or splashing like in some hotels.

Aviation-themed art nod to the airline without being overbearing.

The art will change from room to room, but the overall layout and size of each space are exactly the same. Ragan said this ensures there isn't a hierarchy among team members.

Aside from the expected hotel amenities, American has added a few special touches based on employee feedback.

Ragan said the input of American flight crewmembers, who stay in hotel rooms far more than the average person, was essential in creating the hotel design.

For example, Ragan said crews travel with clips to hold curtains together and keep light out, so a magnet was added to make them easier to latch.

She said the curtains also have a slight drag to ensure the slit at the bottom doesn't let in any light either.

Another crew-specific amenity is a board to pin up their 'paper tiger,' which is a poster diagram of the cockpit required for pilot training.

"Those little details that resulted from feedback from our team members will make the employee visits more successful," Ragan said.

Meanwhile, employees asked that there be no microwaves in the rooms to avoid unwanted smells like burned popcorn.

Ragan said there is microwave capability on the main floor for employees who need it and that other kitchen equipment like a refrigerator and Keurig are available in the rooms.

The closet area features plenty of hanging space for uniforms, as well as a full-body mirror.

There's also an iron, closet space for a suitcase, and drawers for extra storage.

Outside the rooms are lounges for employees to socialize or study.

"We wanted team members to be able to control their environment as much as possible, so there are breakout spaces throughout the entire complex, from the lobby to the floor lounges," Ragan said.

Ragan said each living space comes with a customized color scheme and artwork representing a destination.

She noted that the floor living spaces are meant to be casual and comfortable, but there is a noise policy because people are actively studying at all times.

As far as food, employees have access to things like a grab-and-go market and a giant cafeteria.

The cafeteria, complete with options like pizza, Chinese cuisine, and hamburgers, can be used by any American employee on the greater HQ campus and was packed with people on my visit.

According to American, the food is free for some team members, like new hire employees in training. Local team members have to pay, Ragan said.

A huge compass covered half of the ceiling, with indicators showing due North and the degrees.

The art complements the other aviation-themed pieces throughout the complex.

The sitting area outside the food hall stretches into a large courtyard where employees can access sports courts and walking trails.

Employees have access to a basketball court, tennis court, pickleball court, and beach volleyball court.

A sign inside the fitness center posted a volleyball tournament being held later that week with a QR code to sign up — it was cool to see those community events.

The centerpiece of the courtyard is the 'Globe of Firsts.'

The 12-foot stainless steel sculpture features names like Bonnie Tiburzi, the first female pilot hired by a major US airline.

The McDonnell Douglas DC-3, which was built in the 1930s after strong insistence from American then-president Cyrus Rowlett "CR" Smith, also made the globe.

For gym buffs, Skyview 6 has a giant two-level facility with everything from treadmills and weights to massage chairs and showers.

A large locker room complete with towels and toiletries is available in the 73,000-square-foot fitness center.

The size of the gym was the most shocking part of the entire tour, and it easily dwarfed my local LA Fitness.

"The gym is complimentary if you stay at the hospitality complex," Ragan said. "We have classes and a few studios for events and fitness in general."

There’s even a pool outside.

The pool is likely an enjoyable perk during the Texas summer heat.

It's clear American didn't cut corners when designing its new employee-only complex.

The hospitality complex is meant to be all-inclusive, and I can imagine employees are happy with the private space, given they were in contract hotels prior to Skyview 6's opening.

"[Skyview 6] establishes a level of pride for our employees," Ragan said. "When you are in a space like this and you walk other training centers, you have a great appreciation for the commitment this organization has made to creating such an amazing experience for its team members."

• Germany is showing cross-party support for defending Ukraine's border regions from NATO territories.
• NATO is currently focused on providing additional defense aid to Kyiv.
• A German politician said the Western defense of Israel from Iran is a blueprint for protecting Ukraine.

The Western response to Iran's barrage of attacks against Israel represents a potential model for defending Ukraine's border regions from NATO territories, a German politician has said.

Calls have been growing for NATO countries to use air defenses based in eastern Europe to take down Russian missiles and drones targeting Ukraine.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO's Secretary-General between 2009 and 2014, told the UK's i Paper that interceptor missiles from neighboring NATO countries like Poland and Romania could shoot down Russian airstrikes aimed at Ukraine.

Voices within both ruling and opposition parties in Germany have expressed support for defending Ukraine's border regions from NATO territories such as Poland and Romania, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a Christian Democratic Union politician and former Bundeswehr general staff officer, compared defending Ukraine to Western efforts to prevent Israel from being hit by 300 missiles and drones fired at Israel in April.

Nearly all the munitions were intercepted by Israeli and partner forces in the region, including the US military.

Kiesewetter told Business Insider in a statement: "Western countries could protect part of Ukraine's airspace from NATO territory and shoot down Russian unmanned missiles. This would relieve the burden on Ukrainian air defenses and allow them to protect the front.

As in the case of Israel, where France, the UK, and others helped, which meant they did not become a warring party."

Echoing Kiesewetter, Rasmussen told the i Paper said NATO could do "exactly the same" and help Ukraine shoot down incoming Russian drones and missiles.

Ukraine believes US-made Patriot missiles are key

Germany has emerged as a key player in the debate over NATO defending Ukraine's airspace. In April, it bolstered Ukraine's air defense capabilities and agreed to equip it with a Patriot air defense system.

Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Germany has sent Patriot systems with missiles, 2 SKYNEX systems with ammunition, IRIS-T SLM missiles, and Stingers.

Germany's multipartisan calls for defending Ukraine's airspace point to a future of collaborative air defense.

Marcus Faber of the the Free Democratic Party says that after the end of the war, an "international protection force" could be organized by the EU or NATO, per FAZ.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for more Patriots to defend Ukraine's airspace.

More than 100 Patriot air-defense systems could be spared by Ukraine's allies, Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told The Washington Post in April.

• Tech company Buildkite is fully remote, making deliberate efforts to build camaraderie crucial.
• Its all-employee gatherings emphasize fun activities like snorkeling to boost employee connection.
• The remote approach works better than a hybrid setup, according to Buildkite's founder.

The last annual all-employee gathering at the Australian tech firm Buildkite lasted three days and included snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef.

The time on the water wasn't an excursion meant to break up hourslong meetings about company priorities. The snorkeling was the plan. So was cornhole and a game of toss the shoe.

Team-building activities on the job are nothing new. Yet fostering a sense of connection among employees is a deliberate and essential effort at Buildkite, its founder and CEO, Keith Pitt, told Business Insider, because the company is 100% remote.

"The point of it was to be silly and to put people in different environments and situations where they could create new networks and pathways to people in the company," Pitt said.

Buildkite's zeal for zaniness — one employee holds the unofficial title of Dome, the director of musical entertainment — aims to drive workers' collaboration and innovation. Those are the stated aims of many CEOs when they call workers back into the office for at least part of the workweek. But Pitt sees hybrid's halfsies approach as misguided.

"It's the worst of both worlds," he said.

Pitt calls hybrid setups a "scheduling and policy nightmare." He said sitting in a meeting where some people are gathered in a room and one or more are dialed in from elsewhere can lead to people not hearing each other and virtual attendees missing out on what goes on in the room.

"In a hybrid environment, remote is always second class," Pitt said.

The connections budget

Pitt, 36, isn't anti-office. At age 17, he dropped out of high school to become a full-time programmer. He did the commute and wore a suit to work every day.

Yet in 2013, when Pitt, who lives in Perth, Australia, started Buildkite, it never occurred to him to set up an office.

The company makes a DevOps platform used by OpenAI, Airbnb, Doordash, and Slack, among others. Starting out, money needed to go to web servers, not rent.

Pitt said the 135-person company funnels part of what it isn't spending on facilities into "connection budgets." They fund the annual all-employee gathering and smaller trips throughout the year to let coworkers get on a plane, rent a coworking space, and collab IRL when needed.

The cost of the last in-person all-hands came to about 300,000 Australian dollars — about $200,000.

"It's cheap as chips," Pitt said. "Best money ever spent."

Buildkite also spends on remote activities meant to foster connection. There are virtual gatherings for doing puzzles or quizzes about music or movies. The company has held cooking events where it pays workers to buy ingredients, and colleagues make a meal together over video.

But for all the fun meant to boost camaraderie, Buildkite's culture is serious about working from home, Pitt said.

Workers are given a budget of 3,000 Australian dollars to trick out their home offices. The company asks new hires to take pictures of their setups to ensure they have a quiet space with a proper desk and chair to avoid ergonomic fails.

"We don't foster a work-from-the-couch, work-from-the-kitchen-table type environment," he said. "We encourage people to throw some paint on the walls, buy some plants, buy some new artwork, just to change it up."

Workers also need high-quality equipment: A poor camera or mic, Pitt said, is the digital equivalent of having something stuck in your teeth.

'It's easy to look busy'

Another way the company tackles remote work for an employee base spread around the world is to cluster some functions. Buildkite uses what it calls "timezone bubbles." So, for product and engineering, workers need to be plus or minus four hours from Sydney's time zone. For sales and marketing, it's the western US.

That helps to ensure coworkers are generally online simultaneously and not left waiting for responses from colleagues.

For all the work Buildkite has done to establish norms around having what Pitt refers to as 135 small offices around the world — one for each employee — he sees Buildkite's embrace of remote work as a long-term experiment.

"I'm eager to see how this thing plays out," he said. For now, it seems to be working. The company is on track to hire 50 people in 2024.

Rather than dwelling on where workers work, a big focus is on developing trust, Pitt said. He thinks one of the reasons some bosses are demanding workers be back in the office is because they don't trust their teams. But, Pitt said, "it's easy to look busy."

Pitt said building trust can be harder when people aren't face-to-face. Playing games with colleagues is the "shortcut" he's found to developing that faith in colleagues beyond completing projects together, he said.

That's part of why he occasionally gets workers together. After the last all-worker event, the number of employees who reported feeling more connected to their teams and the company more than quadrupled. Now, Buildkite runs employee sentiment surveys every couple of months. And when it dips below a certain level, the company will announce another gathering.

It's important to keep trust elevated because that's when workers do their best, Pitt said.

"Trust is a big part of being able to come up with creative ideas on things," he said.

And, Pitt said, if workers care about the mission, it doesn't matter whether they work in an office or from afar.

"People will want to do the work because it's fun and it's what they want to do with their lives," he said.

• Among the free games you can play at any time on Google are classics like Pac-Man and Snake.
• Some of the most popular hidden Google games are findable just by typing them into the search bar.
• Google also launched the Google Play Store in 2012, where you can search and download other games.

It's a wonder how many things Google lets you do. While you may think of Google as nothing more than a search engine — far and away the most used search engine on the planet — it is so much more than that. Google's search bar can serve as a calculator, a translator with Google Translate, an image archive with Google Images, and, as it turns out, a digital retro arcade where you can play various video games right there in the Chrome browser.

And we're not talking about the Google Play Store, AKA "Google Play" and "Play Store," for the record. You can download and play all sorts of games there, but there are also "secret" games hidden within Google itself, including Pac-Man, Quick Draw, Whirlybird, and more.

These games were originally released as part of the Google Doodle, which is the image that occasionally replaces the colorful Google logo atop the search bar on the search engine's homepage. Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched the very first doodle in 1998 in honor of that year's Burning Man festival.

Often animated, these games took the Google Doodle even further, making it fully interactive. And though all of these Google games have long since disappeared from the search engine's home page, they can still be found if you know where to look.

How can I play old Google games?

Most hidden Google games can be found simply by Googling them. Type "Snake" into the search bar and hit enter and you will be taken to a page of search results with the game Snake perched at the top. Hit "Play" and the gaming commences.

Enter "Play Garden Gnomes" into the search engine, and you'll get a link to an enjoyable game in which you use a trebuchet to throw garden gnomes. Type "Quick Draw" into the search engine, and you'll be given a link to that game, and so on.

Once you know the names of the games you can play on Google, finding and playing them is not hard. Other games to search for and try include Soccer 2012, Tic Tac Toe, Minesweeper, Atari Breakout, Halloween 2018, and more.

The most popular games on Google

It's little surprise that the most popular games on Google are classics that have stood the test of time. They include Pac-Man, created in 1980, and Snake, a game people of a certain age will recall playing on TI-82 graphing calculators in the 1990s. (In case you were wondering, the highest score possible for Google Snake is 252. It's not easy to achieve.)

Other popular games include Solitaire — also a classic, of course — Whirlybird, Gnomes, and more. There is even a game you can play when you are not online: the T-Rex game, where you control a little cactus-jumping dinosaur. To play that game, turn off your internet connection, open Chrome, and press the Space key to begin.

How to download a game on Google Play

If you're looking to play something a little more advanced or modern than the iconic Google games, you can head over to the Google Play Store and download games onto your Android devices.

Google Play was launched in 2012. It replaced the Android Market, Google Music, and Google eBookstore as the one-stop shop for downloading music, movies, books, apps, and, of course, games.

On Google Play, you can easily access millions of apps. To download a game, simply open the Google Play Store on your device (or visit play.google.com on an internet browser), search for your desired game, click "Install" or the price, and follow the directions to download.

• The Housing Choice Voucher Program is the biggest, most effective federal housing assistance program.
• But housing vouchers are both severely underfunded and complicated to use.
• Proposals include increasing funding, easing inspection rules, and exploring cash assistance options.

The most effective housing assistance program in the country is facing a slew of mounting challenges. The federal Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8, is also the biggest, aiding about 5 million people in 2.3 million households.

But a declining number of landlords across the US are accepting the vouchers, and a growing number of recipients are failing to secure housing through the program.

Voucher holders pay about 30% of their income toward rent, while the Department of Housing and Urban Development covers the rest — up to what it determines to be fair market rent. There's lots of research showing the program is very effective at reducing homelessness and dangerous housing conditions like overcrowding.

It also gives low-income people more power to choose the neighborhood, building, and unit they want to live in — and to stay there. Kids whose families have vouchers are less likely to bounce from school to school or end up in foster care, said Will Fischer, senior director of housing policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Vouchers aren't helping as much as they should

But the program is only reaching a fraction of those who could benefit from it. Only about one in four Americans who are eligible for a voucher get one — and the average wait time is two and a half years. So about 10 million additional low-income households are going without the help they qualify for.

Once someone gets a voucher, it can be very challenging to find a home that meets the program's requirements, and a landlord willing to accept the applicant within the period of time — as short as 60 days — allotted to find a unit. The vast majority of landlords in Los Angeles (76%), Fort Worth (78%), and Philadelphia (67%) refused to rent to voucher holders, according to a 2018 study. While it's illegal in some places to discriminate against voucher holders, the practice isn't outlawed everywhere. Some places, including Iowa, have banned protections for voucher holders.

Lawsuits against property owners and brokers have accused them of explicitly denying applicants based on their source of income. Racial discrimination against voucher holders, who are disproportionately Black, is also rampant, advocates say. But many landlords say the administrative process — which includes an inspection — is simply too slow or burdensome.

Ultimately, only about 60% of voucher recipients are successful in finding a home with the subsidy. Those lucky enough to get a voucher and move into an apartment sometimes face issues with their city and state housing authorities and are wrongly ejected from the program.

More funding could help

Of course, the single biggest challenge the program faces is that it's severely underfunded. Government housing assistance for the poorest renters has dropped to the lowest levels in 25 years even as the number who need the aid has soared, according to an analysis by Harvard housing experts published in The New York Times in December.

Fully funding housing vouchers would mean many more housing-insecure and unhoused people would get help. It's up to Congress to make this change, as it determines how much the federal government spends on its housing assistance programs, mainly Housing Choice Vouchers and public housing, every year.

In its budget for fiscal year 2025, the Biden administration requested a $2.5 billion increase for voucher funding over 2023 levels. As part of that funding increase, vouchers would be guaranteed to very low-income veterans and youth aging out of foster care — two groups particularly vulnerable to homelessness. But Republicans have sought to cut HUD funding, making it challenging to significantly expand the reach of vouchers.

Jenny Schuetz, an expert on urban economics and housing policy at the Brookings Institute, told Business Insider earlier this year that Congress could consider reducing the amount of voucher funding per household so that it can offer vouchers to more households. "If you're gonna have an honest conversation about how much Congress is willing to fund, then the number of people could be higher than it is today," she said.

The Biden administration isn't interested in spreading funding more thinly as rents spike across the country. Instead, it boosted funding per voucher by increasing its limits for fair market rents to better keep up with rent increases, which allowed about 20,000 additional households to use vouchers.

'Graffiti can't harm you'

The second-biggest problem, experts say, is the home inspection process. Before a voucher recipient can sign a lease on a home, it must be inspected by the local housing authority to make sure it meets a slew of health and safety standards. But that process can create lengthy delays, cause landlords to keep a unit empty and miss out on rent payments, and ultimately result in the voucher holder losing out on the home.

Rising rent — and the impact that has on households — is a much bigger concern than unsafe housing, a recent in-depth report on HUD's housing quality standards and inspection processes by the Urban Institute. The author of the report, Michael Stegman, called inspecting every apartment before a voucher holder can move in "akin to using a bazooka to kill a gnat" during a panel discussion of the Urban Institute report in May.

Stegman detailed how the quality of rental housing across the country has dramatically improved since Section 8 was first implemented in the mid-1970s. And he recommended that HUD try out different inspection regimes, including allowing landlords and tenants to self-certify that the home meets health and safety guidelines, with unannounced inspection audits by local housing authorities.

Congress has made some efforts to address the issue, including the introduction of a bipartisan bill designed to incentivize landlords and loosen inspection requirements. Housing authorities across the country have been more successful in streamlining their inspection processes over the last decade.

The Biden administration has made some headway on the issue. Last October, slightly less burdensome regulations, known as NSPIRE, went into effect. The new process attempts to zero in on health and safety issues while relaxing regulations around non-threatening conditions, like traffic noise and graffiti.

"Graffiti can't harm you, can't kill you," Tara Radosevich, an assessment manager at HUD, said. "It might be something you may not want to live near, but if it doesn't harm a resident, we're willing to accept that our units may be in areas with graffiti."

Still, experts say much more needs to be done to reduce administrative burdens and boost landlord participation. One solution is to offer so-called holding fees, which would pay landlords while they hold a unit vacant during the inspection process, Fischer said. Another way to incentivize property owners is to create a fund to reimburse landlords for damage to units, as Oregon and Washington State have done.

Other fixes, Fischer has written, include allowing voucher funding to be used for security deposits and other upfront costs, offering voucher holders help in the home search process and giving them more time to secure a home, making it easier for voucher recipients to move, and banning discrimination against voucher holders across the country.

The Biden administration is also exploring offering housing assistance in cash. Researchers at the Department of Housing and Urban Development have proposed piloting a direct cash transfer program for rent as an alternative to housing vouchers. Cash payments for housing, researchers say, have a slew of benefits, and cut the red tape associated with vouchers.

"Giving people money has a lot of advantages over giving people vouchers," Schuetz said. But she added that smaller-scale experiments with cash programs are needed to shed light on just how effective they might be as housing assistance.

Are you a housing voucher recipient or a landlord who's dealt with vouchers? Reach out to this reporter at erelman@businessinsider.com.

• DC Ranch is the priciest neighborhood in Scottsdale, Arizona, with an average home price of $3.3 million.
• The sprawling 4,400-acre community includes four villages of mansions, condos, and businesses.
• I got an exclusive tour of the neighborhood and thought it felt like a small town.

The most expensive neighborhood in Scottsdale, Arizona, is a sprawling, 4,400-acre community with four villages packed with mansions, condos, and businesses lining the McDowell Mountains.

Known as DC Ranch, the neighborhood has an average listing price of $3.5 million, according to Realtor.com. It's also where Scottsdale's most expensive home on the market — priced at $54 million — is located.

I recently got a private tour of the exclusive, mostly gated neighborhood.

To me, it felt like a private little town against a desert backdrop.

DC Ranch is in North Scottsdale.

Roughly 30 minutes by car from downtown Scottsdale's shops, businesses, and amenities and 40 minutes from Phoenix, North Scottsdale is known for its large mansions and suburban mountain views.

Within the four villages at DC Ranch, there are 26 neighborhoods.

According to the company's website, DC Ranch started as a cattle ranch in the 1900s. In 1997, the first home in the now-residential area was finished. Today, DC Ranch has 2,800 homes and 7,000 residents.

I got an exclusive tour. My guide drove me to each village, stopping for photos along the way.

When I arrived at DC Ranch, I hopped in an SUV with my tour guide, senior communications manager Elizabeth Dankert. We drove through all four villages so I could get a closer look at the custom homes, shops, restaurants, pools, golf clubs, and other amenities enjoyed by residents.

The tour began at Market Street, a walkable area with shops, businesses, and restaurants.

Market Street is a public area on the edge of DC Ranch. It's a walkable complex with real estate and financial offices, shops, and restaurants. While anyone can peruse Market Street, it's especially convenient for residents with stores like Safeway.

Market Street is on the edge of Desert Camp Village.

Residents of Desert Camp can walk to the commercial area of Market Street.

The village on the west side of DC Ranch includes a mix of condos, townhouses, and single-family homes, as well as a community center.

Desert Camp homes sold for an average of $1.2 million in 2023, according to my guide.

Desert Camp is the most affordable village in DC Ranch. Its oldest homes were built in the 1990s, according to the community's website.

Just north of Desert Camp is Country Club Village, where homes sold for an average of $3 million in 2023.

Farm, ranch, and Spanish-style homes in Country Club Village line a pristine, private golf course dotted with cacti.

Desert Parks is at the southern end of the community.

Desert Parks Village is full of gated neighborhoods lined with single-family homes and luxury apartments.

Here, homes sold for $1.5 million on average in 2023.

Desert Parks is home to Spanish and Western-style houses and bungalows. The area is also dense with small parks and shaded areas.

Parts of this village are walkable.

Aside from its suburban streets, Desert Parks has businesses on walkable roads. One area, DC Ranch Crossing, has shops, restaurants, and doctors' offices.

The eastern section of the community is Silverleaf Village, where homes sold for an average of $5.5 million in 2023.

Silverleaf is the most expensive village in DC Ranch, with homes costing up to $54 million.

The village also has a 50,000-square-foot clubhouse with a spa, pools, and restaurants. Like in the Country Club Village, there's also a golf course.

The village borders Copper Ridge School for kids from kindergarten to eighth grade.

On our way to Silverleaf, we passed Copper Ridge School, where many DC Ranch students can walk or bike to class. According to the neighborhood's website, a pedestrian underpass leads from Silverleaf to the school.

The architecture in Silverleaf is reminiscent of Europe.

The homes in Silverleaf are unlike any others I saw in DC Ranch. Driving down each street, I felt like I'd been transported to Europe.

According to the neighborhood's website, these properties have Spanish and Mediterranean Revival Estate architectures. And many of them showcase vibrant gardens and landscaping.

And the higher up we drove, the bigger the mansions got.

As we headed up the mountain, I noticed the Silverleaf homes were even more expansive.

At the top, estates had multiple buildings. We stopped, and I got out of the car. I thought of Italian castles and Greek villas as I wandered the hilly street on foot and marveled at the grand houses.

Many homes up here are still under construction.

DC Ranch is still growing. From luxury apartment buildings to gigantic Silverleaf homes, there's more high-end housing in the works.

Looking down at DC Ranch, I wondered what it would be like to live there.

DC Ranch may be a slight trek from the action in downtown Scottsdale and Phoenix, but to me, it felt like a community that could provide for itself. With so many amenities, shops, and restaurants, I thought residents wouldn't have to leave DC Ranch to fulfill their needs.

And with views like this, I'm not sure I'd ever want to.

• The ongoing Donald Trump hush-money case will be decided by a jury of 12 New Yorkers.
• We ran a trial transcript through AI chatbots and asked how they'd decide if they were jurors.
• Both ChatGPT and Perplexity said they'd find the former president guilty. Here's their reasoning.

It will be a jury of 12 ordinary New Yorkers that will decide the fate of former President Donald Trump in his ongoing Manhattan hush-money trial.

Unless Trump decides to testify, the trial is nearly over. Michael Cohen, the trial's key witness, is scheduled to wrap up his testimony on Monday, and the judge told lawyers to prepare for closing arguments on Tuesday. Deliberations could begin as soon as Thursday.

Prosecutors have brought 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, alleging Trump illegally disguised hush-money payments paid to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. A guilty verdict comes with a sentence of up to four years, though experts expect the former president would see no jail time.

While legal and political pundits have been trying to figure out whether Trump will be found guilty — and what it will mean for the 2024 presidential election — we decided to get another perspective: that of AI chatbots.

Business Insider has compiled a 4,179-page trial transcript, combining PDFs of official daily transcripts purchased from the New York State Criminal Court's stenographer's office. The transcript incorporates all of the proceedings running through Thursday, including all of Cohen's direct examination and the bulk of his cross-examination. He's expected to wrap up his testimony Monday before Trump's lawyers put an expert witness on the stand.

Using that document, we asked various AI chatbots whether they found Trump guilty.

Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity were prompted to imagine they were an ordinary Manhattan resident on the jury, responsible for evaluating the evidence in the trial. Each was asked to review the transcript and base their answer on the evidence and arguments presented. They were told to "choose now whether you would find him guilty or not guilty."

Gemini, Google's AI chatbot, said it "was still learning" how to answer the question.

But OpenAI's ChatGPT and Perplexity weighed in — and both said they'd find Trump guilty.

"I would vote guilty on the charges of falsifying business records," Perplexity responded definitively. "The prosecution has provided credible and significant evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in the alleged conduct."

ChatGPT initially hesitated to give a definitive answer, saying its decision "would depend heavily on the credibility of the witnesses and the clarity of the documentary evidence."

But after a follow-up question prompted it to "decide now," OpenAI's bot said its "decision would be to find Trump guilty based on the evidence provided in the transcripts."

Both chatbots pointed to the prosecution's documentary evidence, including financial records and communications, as bolstering the case against Trump.

"The records suggest that these transactions were not only known to Trump but were executed with his involvement or under his directive," ChatGPT said, adding that the evidence shows "a deliberate effort by Trump to suppress damaging information during the election, indicating intent."

They acknowledged that the case hinges on the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer and the prosecution's star witness. Cohen is a complicated figure; as Perplexity said, he "has a history of legal issues and may have motives to testify against Trump."

But, ultimately, they found his first three days on the stand convincing.

"Testimonies from key figures like Michael Cohen, who was directly involved in the payments, strengthen the case by providing insider details on the transactions and Trump's involvement," ChatGPT said.

Perplexity found the testimony of National Enquirer publisher David Pecker valuable as well, saying he helped "establish that Trump was involved in the scheme to make and conceal these payments."

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, has told jurors to weigh the case based on the evidence presented in court. But ChatGPT said that Trump's reputation posed a problem for his defense.

"The defense needs to manage the negative public perception of Trump due to his high-profile status and the media's extensive coverage of his alleged wrongdoings," ChatGPT said.

The defense's cross-examination of key witnesses isn't cutting it either, according to ChatGPT.

"Although the defense has raised significant procedural and credibility issues, these do not necessarily counter the substantive evidence of Trump's involvement and intent," ChatGPT said.

Of course, chatbots won't be deciding this case, and it would be next-level dystopian to trust AI to declare human beings guilty or innocent.

Crucially, the verdict form and the judge's instructions for the jury have not yet been finalized. Those instructions will shape how the jurors consider the evidence during deliberations, which may differ from the way these chatbots analyze the evidence.

Plus, the chatbots are just complex computer programs, not real-world jurors. They are powered by large language models, which use algorithms and data to form a human-like response.

Jurors, meanwhile, are actually human. They are emotional, unpredictable beings who can be swayed by what they see, feel, and smell in the room, as well as many other unknowns.

And, for now, the jury is literally still out.

Here is the full prompt we used:

Scenario: You are one member of a 12-person jury composed of 12 ordinary residents from Manhattan. You have been selected to evaluate the evidence in the trial of former President Donald Trump, who is facing charges brought by the Manhattan District Attorney. The charges allege that Trump falsified 34 business records to conceal hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

Task: Review the attached transcript of the trial proceedings provided up to this point. Based on the evidence and arguments presented:

Discuss the credibility and significance of the evidence against Trump.

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the prosecution's case and the defense's counterarguments.

Decide whether the evidence presented proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump is guilty of the charges.

Question: Based on your analysis, how would you vote as a juror in finding Donald Trump guilty or not guilty on any of the charges? Please provide your reasoning. You must choose now whether you would find him guilty or not guilty.