Author: openjargon

• Elon Musk wants to combine Twitter and Grok, his AI engine, and create a news machine.
• But Grok won't look for "news" — it will look for "things people are saying on Twitter about news."
• There's several problems with this approach! But it may be the future, regardless.

What do you think of when you think of "news?"

I'm both old and in the news business. So when I think of "news," it's usually like something that comes from an organization that specializes in distributing and sometimes sourcing/verifying facts about current events. You know: like a newspaper or a website or TV show/network.

Elon Musk thinks news is something different: It's what people talk about on the service formerly known as Twitter.

And that's the vision he's using to build a news service at X, the company formerly known as Twitter, using Grok, his homegrown AI chatbot.

Musk's idea, he tells journalist Alex Kantrowitz, is that the best way to learn about the news isn't by reading/listening to the news, but by listening to what people say about the news.

Conversation on X will make up the core of Grok's summaries — or, really almost all of it. Musk said Grok will not look directly at article text, and will instead rely solely on social posts. "It's summarizing what people say on X," he said.

And just to make it clear, a Musk employee confirms to Kantrowitz that these are indeed his marching orders: "Igor Babuschkin, a technical staff member working at Musk's xAI, said his team is focused on 'making Grok understand the news purely from what is posted on X.'"

Look. I know that "understanding the news purely from what is posted on the company formerly known as Twitter" is not going to give a lot of us comfort. Definitely not in the Elon Musk era of the company formerly known as Twitter.

But … I kinda like it? In theory?

Let's be clear: Understanding what is happening in the world based solely on what people say on X, or any other social media platform, is Not A Good Idea. But consuming commentary about what people say about what's happening in the world isn't a terrible idea. Maybe even a good one?

And, more practically: That kind of commentary consumption actually is the way many people learn about what's happening in the world. Even if you're a Serious News Consumer (thank you!), the bulk of the information you're getting likely isn't directly from a primary news source, but from someone who has aggregated or at least repeated what a primary news source says. It's basic economics: It's very expensive to go find news for yourself, and very cheap to talk about things that are in the news, or to package and present news other people have procured. That's why even large, well-funded news outfits — take, for instance, CNN — spend most of their time discussing and debating things we've already heard about, instead of presenting you with new things.

And while there are plenty of use cases where generative AI doesn't do a great job, it does seem quite useful at summarizing existing information, particularly when it's already been typed up. So why not summarize commentary?

The to-be-sures: Yes, you'd be foolish to rely on an Elon Musk-run AI machine for factual information.

But to be honest, that caveat applies to any AI machine at the moment. Last week, for instance, I asked Google's AI (not its much maligned Gemini but the one Google has started inserting into some people's phones whether they want it or not) a question about World War II and the Tower of London and it confidently gave me an answer about Big Ben instead.

So let's assume that any generative AI answer about anything should be deemed a starting point at best — something that may or may not be right and definitely requires a fact-check before you use it to inform a consequential decision. Just like you should if your source was "thing I read on the internet" or "thing I heard on a podcast."

Which gets to the other problem with Musk's solution, as Kantrowitz points out: Right now, Musk is barely even trying to tell you about the original source of the information he's summarizing.

When I asked Grok to "tell me about Elon Musk's plan to summarize news using grok" it provided me a very cogent summary of Kantrowitz's piece. But to find the source of that summary, I needed to scroll to the bottom of the entry, then all the way to right, past other people's tweets with zero information about Musk's plans, to find Kantrowitz's tweet linking to his original article.

That's a lousy way to give people access to more information. It's also lousy for publishers who are still spending effort — like Kantrowitz — to find new information. It means Musk gets the benefit of their work and they get next to nothing — barely even a link — in return.

Alas, I think that's the way we're headed with AI in general: Despite efforts to negotiate or sue Big AI, most publishers are headed to a world where Big AI engines provide increasingly complete answers to queries and give users little incentive to head to original sources to learn more.

It would certainly be nice if Grok gave Kantrowitz more prominent billing when it provides an answer, and I think it may or may not get around to doing that, depending on Musk's feelings at any given moment.

But any media company that doesn't have a plan, or at least a hope, for dealing with AI news — beyond wishing for a check or a court order — is going to be in trouble regardless.

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• HGTV's new show "Zillow Gone Wild" premieres May 3rd. 
• The founder of the popular Instagram account says the show brings listings to life in a new way. 
• One featured homeowner tells BI, "It's up to every owner to create their own magic." 

If you're prone to late night scrolls on home-buying website Zillow, lusting after drool-worthy mega-mansions or eye-popping geometric structures, you are not alone.

HGTV's new show "Zillow Gone Wild," — premiering tonight at 10:30 p.m. (EST), and also available to stream on Max — is here to unite all aspirational scrollers and take them behind the scenes of the most out-there houses. The show is based off the popular Instagram account of the same name that posts stunning, one-of-a-kind homes currently on the market.

Led by host Jack McBrayer, famous for playing the NBC page Kenneth on "30 Rock," the show takes viewers on-site to walk through the mind-boggling listings and meet the owners who made the structures feel like home.

Viewers have the added chance to win $25,000 by guessing online which home will be crowned the "wildest" after 8 weeks of episodes.

One man's hobby sparks a community of almost 2 million followers

Zillow Gone Wild first began as an Instagram account, started in December 2020 by content creator Samir Mezrahi. Initially, Mezrahi found himself perusing Zillow listings to entertain himself through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and had a hunch others were doing the same.

"It felt like there was nowhere to talk about these wild, newsworthy, interesting homes," he told Business Insider.

Mezrahi collected postings of homes with outrageous amenities like go-kart tracks and nightclubs or places that doubled down on aesthetics like futuristic desert dwellings or fantasy-like castles.

The account blew up almost "instantly," Mezrahi says. Within a few weeks, "Saturday Night Live" featured a skit on Zillow scrolling, which Mezrahi saw as confirmation that he pierced the zeitgeist.

Four years later, Zillow Gone Wild boasts nearly 2 million followers on Instagram, where user submissions drive most of the posts, along with community-led traditions like "Castle Fridays" and "Mid-Century Modern Wednesdays."

Mezrahi is proud of the range of homes displayed, rather than just a singular focus on luxury. The account has shown off everything from a $210,000 60's-inspired trailer in North Carolina to a $36.5 million, 7-bedroom estate in California.

His hope is that the show brings the "wild" listings to life, allowing viewers to connect and dream further about the homes.

"Pictures don't always give you a sense of scale, or really do the property justice," he told BI.

A Pink Palace in Palm Springs preserves Hollywood history

One featured home on the new HGTV show is a desert oasis of Hollywood Regency design, an era in the early 20th century defined by the glamorous, over-the-top homes of newly minted movie stars.

Dubbed the "Pink Palace," the 3-bedroom, 4-bathroom Palm Springs home is wrapped in a bubblegum pink color on the outside and the inside features leopard-print walls, 1960's chandeliers, and an explosion of intricate mid-century patterns.

Homeowner and professional interior designer Tracy Turco said the opulence is intentional.

"I go for the gusto. I spark a lot of fun and joy in my decorating," she told Business Insider. The episode featuring her home will run next week, on May 10th.

The home once belonged to Magda Gabor, one of a trio of actress sisters some have compared to a 1950's socialite version of the Kardashians. Turco, a Hollywood Regency enthusiast, intended to keep Gabor's spirit alive from decor like a preserved portrait of Gabor hanging in the foyer to the lifestyle the home allowed.

"At our pool parties, we had people dancing in tuxedos and champagne flowing," she said.

On the show, host McBrayer points out that what makes the home "wild" is its fanatic attention to detail.

"There is not a square inch of this home that doesn't spell glamor," McBrayer said in Turco's episode.

Turco ultimately sold the property to be closer to family in Florida, but is resting easy as she found a set of buyers who are enthusiastic about keeping the home's aesthetic alive. She says she won't be upset if they paint over the pink.

"It's up to every owner to create their own magic," she told BI.

"Zillow Gone Wild" airs 10:30 p.m. on Fridays on HGTV and is streaming on Max.

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• It's not all bad news for electric vehicles these days, but it can seem like it. 
• Automakers aren't likely to walk away from multi-billion dollar investments.
• There are shoppers who want EVs, they just can't afford them.

The electric vehicle market is going through its biggest change yet, and it's not pretty.

The rate of EV sales has been slowing for about a year, major automakers have pulled back on their previously lofty EV goals, and even electric car-giant Tesla is faltering.

High-end vehicles that companies have spent years developing are hitting the market after their target buyers have already gone electric. Meanwhile, a newer crop of EV-curious shoppers can't find a car in their price range and are opting for hybrids instead.

In the once-thriving EV startup market, valuations of previous Wall Street darlings like Rivian have crashed back to earth while others, like Fisker, are at risk of going belly-up.

This thinning of the herd in the EV market gives skeptics of a battery-powered car revolution plenty to point to these days. But to count out EVs altogether ignores the greater context behind this rough moment for the electric-car market.

Demand for electric vehicles hasn't dried up completely

Demand for expensive EVs has softened significantly, but an opening exists in the affordable market.

A new generation of electric car shoppers are looking for different options than their early-adopting counterparts. These shoppers, who are less interested in Tesla, are more frugal and practical, and more likely to be considering replacing their gas-powered car with an EV rather than adding an EV to their fleet.

These shoppers are discovering that there's not much made for them in the way of EVs right now, which has led to an uptick in demand for hybrid vehicles instead.

The result is a slowing in the rapid rate of growth the EV segment has seen in the last few years – not a reversal. Overall sales of electric vehicles are still on the rise, it's just slower going. EVs accounted for 8.9% of retail sales in April, according to JD Power, up from a first-quarter average of 8.3%.

Legacy car companies aren't going to give up on EVs

It's just not that simple. Essentially every major automotive company at this point has built its future around selling more electric vehicles. This has required billions of dollars in investment that executives are not going to just walk away from overnight.

On top of that, car companies will still have to meet increasingly stringent emission standards in the US and globally over the next several years, and EVs are crucial to meeting those standards.

What we're seeing instead is a sobering up of sorts after several years of hype. Companies, egged on by investors, spent the last several years promising a battery-powered future was right around the corner. As these ambitions have met with reality, however, plans have changed.

Hybrid sales are good for EV sales

While hybrid sales can take away from EVs in the short term, industry experts have actually said that hybrids are a good bridge technology for future EV adopters.

But that didn't stop Tesla CEO Elon Musk from blaming hybrids in part for some of his company's poor first quarter results last month.

It's true that as EV growth has slowed, interest in hybrids is on the rise. These cars, which come in plug-in varieties or with hybrid engines that don't need to be hooked up to a charger, are more appealing to the current green-car shopper.

The real divide here is not between hybrids and EVs, but between legacy car companies and EV-only startups. Companies like Ford and GM can keep a shopper in the brand if they opt for a hybrid over an EV, while Tesla or Rivian loses a hybrid buyer altogether.

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• If the US goes to war with Russia or China, it could have to deal with both adversaries at once, US intel leaders warn.
• Russia and China have developed what they call a "no limits" partnership. 
• The two also conducted a joint military exercise near Taiwan for the first time, per a US official.

In the event of a conflict with either Russia or China, US forces may find themselves dealing with both adversaries due to their "cooperative" partnership, according to recent warnings from top US intelligence officials.

And the chance of the US finding itself at war with these rivals is much more likely now than it was a few years ago, prompting the US to revisit its thinking and military planning.

During Thursday's US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on worldwide threats, Avril D. Haines, director of national intelligence, and Lt. Gen. Jeffrey A. Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, commented on recent cooperation between Russia and China, noting that it indicated that the two could come to each other's aid in a war with the US.

In the hearing, Haines highlighted ties between the two, from military activities to economics, politics, and technology. She added that this was prompting new government planning "across the board."

When asked about whether this dynamic meant the US had to prepare to fight both adversaries at the same time should conflict begin with one, Haines said it was possible, but the likelihood "depended on the scenario." Kruse, however, said that it was a greater possibility than it was a few years ago.

"Bottom line is that, basically, if we were to have a conflict with one, the chances are we would have a second front," Kruse said.

Kruse also noted that what the Department of Defense had seen over past few years had "caused the department to relook at its analysis and become even more concerned" about joint force requirements in an environment where Russia or China could support one another in a conflict.

The "no limits" partnership between China and Russia, declared in February 2022 just before Russia invaded Ukraine, is also prompting the Pentagon to change its thinking about what potential conflict with either rival would look like.

"We are in the middle of that revision today," Kruse said.

Perhaps one of the most glaring pieces of evidence, beyond China's support for Russia's war in Ukraine and helping Russia evade sanctions, is the military cooperation pertaining to Taiwan, long a potential flashpoint.

Haines explained to the Senate committee that Russia and China conducted exercises related to Taiwan for the first time, highlighting a possibility that should China decide to pursue an invasion or blockade of the island, Russia could be involved.

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• Hope Hicks, a former longtime advisor to Donald Trump, took the witness stand in his hush-money trial Friday.
• Just after Trump's lawyer began cross-examining her, she broke down in tears.
• Hicks was Trump's 2016 campaign press secretary and later his White House communications director.

Hope Hicks, an ex-White House aide and longtime advisor to Donald Trump, broke down in tears while on the witness stand on Friday in the former president's hush-money criminal trial.

Her voice cracked as she began answering questions from Trump's lawyer Emil Bove Thursday afternoon, who had asked her whether the Trump Organization created the position of Communications Director to get her to join the company in October 2014.

After answering "yes," Hicks grabbed a tissue and turned to her left while sitting on the witness stand. She turned her face and body away from the courtroom audience.

"Ms. Hicks, do you need a break?" the trial judge Juan Merchan asked.

"Yes, please," she responded in a cracked voice, while facing away from the judge.

After the judge announced a break, she walked across the courtroom, passing by Trump without looking at him.

Hicks is a key witness in the trial, potentially linking Trump directly to what prosecutors call an election-influencing scheme to purchase a porn star's silence in the days before the 2016 presidential election.

Hicks — Trump's 2016 campaign press secretary and later his White House communications director — said on the stand in the Manhattan courtroom that she was testifying pursuant to a subpoena in the historic case.

Prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office allege Trump illegally falsified 34 business records by covering up a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

The payment, handled by Trump's ex-personal attorney and former fixer Michael Cohen, was made to Daniels 11 days before the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence over a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, prosecutors allege.

While Trump's lawyers have claimed the arrangements were made to avoid personal embarrassment, Hicks — Trump's 2016 campaign communications director — testified about working with Trump and Cohen to respond to media inquiries about the scandal.

In their opening statements, prosecutors said the campaign was particularly vulnerable to the perceptions of female voters following the publication of the Access Hollywood tape, and so Trump sprung into action to block Daniels from going public about an affair she says she had with him.

"I was definitely concerned this was going to be a massive story and make the news cycle for the next couple of days — at least," Hicks said on the witness stand earlier Friday, explaining her reaction to learning about the tape.

In her testimony, Hicks hurt Trump by showing how deeply he — and the campaign — worried about infidelity stories going public in the weeks before the election.

Hicks became emotional as prosecutors wrapped up their direct examination of her.

Her final answer helped bolster the district attorney's case. She said Trump was happy that news of the hush-money arrangement with Daniels had become public in 2018 "rather than just before the election."

Hicks took the witness stand again after about a five-minute break, looking flushed but calmer.

Hicks was one of Trump's most trusted advisors in his 2016 climb to the presidency and federal prosecutors have said in court papers from the 2019 prosecution of Michael Cohen that she could directly tie Trump to the so-called "catch-and-kill" scheme.

She was in on a flurry of phone calls and emails involving Trump, Cohen, and two top executives at the National Enquirer, in the wake of the publication of Trump's notorious Access Hollywood tape, prosecutors have alleged.

"I was concerned. Very concerned," she said of receiving a transcript of the Access Hollywood tape.

Hicks was also in on a three-way conference call with Trump and Cohen as they allegedly talked about safeguarding Clifford's silence, the feds alleged on pages 41 and 42 of a 269-page search warrant.

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• A former aide to Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui has pleaded guilty to fraud.
• Yvette Wang admitted to conspiracy weeks before her ex-boss is set to stand trial.
• Guo is accused of defrauding online followers out of more than $1 billion.

Yvette Wang, a former aide to indicted Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, pleaded guilty to fraud, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Wang used to work for Guo, a self-exiled rapper, influencer, crypto guru, and real estate mogul who himself is facing 11 counts of fraud and money laundering charges.

William Je, Guo's financier, is facing the same charges — plus an additional count of obstruction of justice, according to the Department of Justice.

Federal prosecutors allege that Guo was the leader of a conspiracy that asked hundreds of thousands of followers to make investments based on false statements. He used the proceeds to buy a New Jersey mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari, two $36,000 mattresses, and other extravagant purchases, prosecutors allege.

US Attorney Damian Williams said Friday that Wang, 45, played "a leadership role" in the scheme, which "collected more than $1 billion from innocent victims located throughout the country and the world."

Wang's guilty pleas — to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering — carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.

She also agreed to pay $1.4 billion in restitution and forfeit the same amount to the US, according to the DOJ.

She will be sentenced on September 10. Wang's lawyers did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Guo, an associate of longtime Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon, is set to stand trial later this month.

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• Defense tapes played in court Thursday have been posted to SoundCloud by Law360.
• They are recordings of 2018 phone calls between the two lawyers who struck the 2016 hush-money deal.
• They suggest an alternate reality to the DA's — where Trump is more victim than mastermind. 

On the witness stand Thursday, Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Keith Davidson, told jurors that it was easy to tell when Michael Cohen was recording their phone calls.

Cohen would suddenly sound "very structured."

"Ordinarily, he was sort of all over the place," Davidson testified of Donald Trump's fixer-turned-nemesis.

Davidson's surmise — that Cohen was likely taping him at the time — makes a pair of newly-released defense tapes all the more compelling and perplexing.

The tapes are from March of 2018. In them, the lawyer for then-President Trump chats with the former lawyer for a porn star.

They rehash old times: that hush-money deal they hammered out together days before the 2016 presidential election, a deal now at the center of Trump's ongoing criminal trial.

"Sometimes people get settler's remorse, you know?" Davidson says on one tape, in what he hesitatingly admitted on the stand Thursday was a reference to Daniels.

"And other times, people think that, hey, I need to resolve this case before a date certain, because this is when I have the most" Davidson says.

If Davidson really suspected he was being taped, that suspicion did not stop him from creating a record that, six years later, could damage not only his own credibility, but that of his porn star former client, and the prosecution.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has spent two weeks so far presenting a case that describes Trump as the mastermind of an election interference conspiracy.

Daniels, meanwhile, has portrayed herself as signing the hush-money deal in fear for her life.

She wanted to create a paper trail linking her name to Trump's, she says in last month's documentary, "so that he could not have me killed."

The tapes show the case, and Daniels, in a different light. They raise the question of whether Daniels' agent and Davidson, eager for cash, "leveraged" her story of a tryst with Trump in the crucial waning days of the 2016 election.

Trump's side is already pushing an "extortion" theory, using much of their cross-examination of Davidson Thursday to grill him on his past hush-money cases involving celebrities and their scandals.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he comes out and says, you know what, Stormy Daniels, she wanted this money more than you could ever imagine," Davidson says on another tape.

Davidson said Thursday that he was talking about an upcoming TV interview, and was describing what he believed would be said during that interview by Anthony Kotzev, the then-boyfriend of Daniels' agent, Gina Rodriguez.

"I remember hearing her on the phone," Davidson says on tape, referring to Rodriguez.

"Saying, 'You fucking Keith Davidson. You better settle this goddamn story because if he loses this election — and he is going to lose — if he loses this election, we all lose all fucking leverage. This case is worth zero."

Davidson was describing someone else's opinion, not necessarily his own. Still, as Davidson's angry words from 2018 played in the courtroom, they may have rang a bell that cannot be unrung in jurors' memories.

Ultimately, whether Trump was the victim or mastermind of the hush-money deal may prove immaterial.

Prosecutors say that throughout 2017, his first year in office, Trump falsified 34 business records, including nine checks to Cohen he signed personally.

The falsifications are felonies because they hid an unlawful conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, the District Attorney alleges.

Whether Trump was playing Daniels or she was playing him — or both, as is also possible — has no bearing on the lawfulness of the documents themselves, prosecutors have argued.

"This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a coverup," prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors at the start of last week, in the opening assertion of his opening statements.

And while Colangelo told jurors that prosecutors will prove Trump "orchestrated" an election-influencing hush-money conspiracy, the charges do not require proof of who played whom.

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• The economy is settling into its new shape, and it might mean lower pay for new workers.
• Job growth in April was concentrated in traditionally low-paying sectors like healthcare and retail.
• Wage growth, though slower, still outpaces inflation, which is still a boon for workers.

The economy is settling into its new shape after a long roller coaster ride — and it's not all good news if you're looking to land a big paycheck.

Jobs are still being added at a healthy clip and unemployment is still near a sustained historic low, according to the latest jobs report. It's exactly what the Federal Reserve might be looking for, and signals continued good news for an economy that's been bolstered by a booming labor market.

"The growth in wages have outpaced inflation, which translates into more money in the pockets of working families. That is not an accident," Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su told Business Insider.

But there's a dissonance in the job market; if you're a college-educated, white-collar worker, you might know that all too well. That's because the industries that led job growth in April are traditionally low-paying.

It's yet another sign that higher-paying jobs are becoming more scarce, and it comes as more Americans find themselves employed, but not necessarily stable. It might also be falling more on the shoulders of women, who are seeing historic employment figures.

For instance, the private education and health services sector led the pack in job growth last month — and while that might sound high-paying on its face, the data under the hood tells a different story. The bulk of job growth in the sector is happening in fields like healthcare and social assistance, which includes the traditionally low-paid workers in nursing and residential care facilities, and home healthcare workers.

"Healthcare is not just doing well," Julia Pollak, the chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told Business Insider. "Healthcare is dominating everything. It's added 56,000 jobs in this report, but it has added over 750,000 jobs over the past year."

Indeed, job growth is concentrated in industries that are historically low-paying — and continue to pay less than the average across private industries. Those industries, and the subsets within them that are seeing big growth, also happen to be female-dominated, as Kate Bahn, the chief economist and SVP of research at the Institute for Women's Policy Research, told BI.

"Where there's been job growth has not been sectors where there has been high wage growth," Bahn said, adding: "That's interesting that there's high labor demand in those industries — clearly — but it has not translated into high wage growth."

The three sectors that saw net job growth of at least 20,000 last month all have average wages below those for all private employees:

That points to a continued dynamic in the labor market: White-collar workers are seeing an employment slump, as Business Insider's Aki Ito chronicled. The hiring rate for those making over $96,000 is at just 0.5% — its lowest level since 2014.

It's all a bit of a mixed bag. As Pollak notes, "wage growth has come down sharply, but it's mostly come down in industries where it was very rapid before."

Wages in the lowest-paying sectors have grown faster than those in higher-paying industries over the last few years, as demand for hourly workers skyrocketed and employers turned toward raising pay and benefits to try to plug shortages in a tight labor market.

"I think low-paid jobs have gotten a little bit better compared to how really awful they used to be," Bahn said.

But as Bahn notes, "there's a lot of evidence that women are really constrained and limited in their labor mobility when they are in these career paths of women-dominated jobs like healthcare and education."

And the rise of these jobs might also be further contributing to another growing group undergirding some of the holes in the economy. A growing share of workers in the US are what's known as "ALICE": Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. That means that they're holding down jobs, and making enough money to be ineligible for many social services — but still aren't getting by.

The workers below that ALICE threshold are doing even worse. They're concentrated in industries like retail trade, healthcare and social assistance, and accommodation and food services — all of the jobs currently booming.

But even if wage growth isn't as high as it was before, Nick Bunker — the economic research director for North America for Indeed Hiring Lab — pointed out to Business Insider that "wages continue to outpace inflation," which could be good for job seekers.

"I think that's a sign that, hey, you're going to get more bang for every wage gain than you have in the past," Bunker said.

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• Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have gone on for months.
• The US intelligence chief said the threat is likely to remain active for a while.
• This is partly because the Houthis continue to make weaponry and receive help from Iran, she said.

For months, the Houthis have relentlessly fired missiles and drones at merchant and Western naval vessels in key Middle Eastern waterways.

While American and partner forces have managed to degrade the Iran-backed rebels' capabilities to an extent, through strikes directly in Yemen, the US intelligence chief testified this week that these attacks aren't going to slow down anytime soon.

"Our assessment is essentially that it is going to remain active for some time," Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Thursday in response to questions from US lawmakers about how long the Houthi threat will continue.

Speaking to the Senate Committee on Armed Services during a hearing on global threats, Haines said her assessment is, in part, because Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi sees domestic political advantage for some of his actions, and he is interested in advancing his reputation across the Middle East through the attacks.

The Houthis are also indigenously producing lots of drones and other weaponry inside Yemen while continuing to receive assistance from Iran, Haines added. Tehran has backed the militant group for several years.

"Neither of those things are likely to change in the near future," she said. "Now, that doesn't mean that the strikes that the Department of Defense and the coalition‚ with our allies, have taken haven't had impact. They have, but it's been insufficient to really stop the Houthis from going down this road."

The US and UK militaries have carried out several rounds of joint strikes targeting Houthi facilities across Yemen. On a far more frequent basis, however, American forces have carried out unilateral, preemptive strikes targeting drones or missiles before the rebels can fire them at nearby ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Most recently, on Thursday, US Central Command said it engaged and destroyed three Houthi drones in Yemen after determining that the weapons "presented an imminent threat" to American and coalition forces, as well as commercial ships in the region.

The Houthis have previously asserted that their ongoing attacks are directly tied to Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip, but US officials have often pushed back on these claims, citing the wide range of nationalities that the rebels have attacked. One incident in March led to several fatalities among a multinational crew.

When asked by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine during Thursday's hearing whether a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas would significantly reduce the pace of Houthi attacks, Haines said it's "honestly unknown at this stage."

"They have indicated at different times that they would comply with a ceasefire, so I think there's a fair possibility," Haines replied. "One of the things that's been challenging is that their rationale for their attacks has shifted over time a bit, and it's gotten more complicated."

Beyond going after ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the Houthis, as part of Iran's broader proxy network that spans the region, have also launched missiles at Israel. The rebels, for instance, participated in Tehran's massive and unprecedented attack on the country last month.

The Houthis' attacks on vessels transiting the Red Sea, which has disrupted international shipping, and on Israel create "a real risk of broader escalation," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded in its annual threat assessment report earlier this year.

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• Pro-Russia hackers are targeting infrastructure systems in the US and Europe, says a security advisory.
• Hackers have infiltrated infrastructure sectors in water, dams, energy, and agriculture.
• Security agencies say improved cyber hygiene can prevent these breaches.

Infrastructure systems in the US and Europe are vulnerable targets for pro-Russia hackers, numerous security agencies cautioned in a May 1 advisory statement.

"In early 2024, the authoring organizations observed pro-Russia hacktivists targeting vulnerable industrial control systems in North America and Europe," the advisory said, which was authored by the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with other domestic and international bureaus.

The agencies observed pro-Russia hackers compromise the operational technology of infrastructure such as "Water and Wastewater Systems (WWS), Dams, Energy, and Food and Agriculture Sectors."

Pro-Russia hackers could be breaking into these systems in various ways. Some through points include entering outdated software and cracking weak passwords.

While the hackers have mainly caused "nuisance effects," the advisory noted that "historically, these hacktivists have been known to exaggerate their capabilities and impacts to targets." The unauthorized access is problematic though.

The authoring agencies have found that interferences can be avoided through improved cyber hygiene and guidance among systems, which is further explained in the advisory.

The advisory note said that actions such as changing passwords for operational technology, creating multi-factor authentication for accessing that technology, and limiting the exposure of operational technology to the internet should be taken immediately.

Earlier this year, there was a hack reported on a Texas water tower, causing it to overflow. The group of hackers believed to be responsible for the disruption is called Sandworm, and the group was linked to Russia in April.

Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm owned by Google, described Sandworm as a "dynamic and operationally mature threat actor that is actively engaged in the full spectrum of espionage, attack, and influence operations."

The Department of Justice charged several members of Sandworm in 2020 with crimes related to interfering with the US presidential election in 2016. Sandworm is also known for its hacking disruptions on a global scale, previously targeting Ukraine and South Korea.

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