Author: openjargon

• The US has spent $5 billion on a fleet of new helicopters to transport the president.
• But the VH-92 continues to scorch the White House lawn, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
• This years-long problem has sidelined the helicopters from carrying Biden for now. 

The new Marine One helicopters, part of a program that the US spent $5 billion on, still can't carry President Joe Biden because there's still a risk they will scorch the White House lawn, according to a new report.

The rotors and engine exhaust from the Sikorsky-manufactured VH-92 Patriot will occasionally burn the grass when it lands, an issue that was initially identified in 2018, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Because of this unrelenting problem, the new VH-92 is only carrying White House officials or Secret Service personnel instead of the president himself and is restricted to landing on paved surfaces, the report said. Older VH-3D Sea King helicopters will continue to transport Biden from the iconic, traditional South Lawn takeoff spot.

The executive-transport fleet consists of VH-3D and VH-60N helicopters, which are designated with the "Marine One" callsign when Biden is aboard. The US military sought to replace these aging aircraft with the newer VH-92 systems under the $5 billion program and has already secured 20 of them from Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky's parent company.

The VH-92's lawn-scorching problems were first discovered in 2018 during the Trump administration, kick-starting an effort to resolve the issue.

The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, noted in a June 2020 report on the matter that the military had "yet to demonstrate that it can meet the requirement to land on the White House South Lawn without causing damage."

"Heat from the auxiliary power unit and/or engine exhaust continue to damage the lawn under certain conditions," the GAO wrote at the time.

"The program is studying solutions," the GAO said, noting that those included certain "aircraft design changes, lawn surface treatments, and operational procedural changes to minimize landing zone risks."

In early 2021, the Department of Defense's operational testing and evaluations office determined that "the damage was found to be primarily due to engine exhaust, auxiliary power unit exhaust, and discharge of aircraft fluids onto the grass."

However, in its 2023 annual report, which was released earlier this year, the Pentagon said the VH-92 is "operationally effective for administrative lift missions" after the helicopter's "voice communications" were improved, without specifically mentioning the lawn issue.

Neither Lockheed Martin, nor the White House, immediately responded to Business Insider's queries on the reported continuation of the VH-92 problems.

A spokesperson for the defense contractor, meanwhile, told Bloomberg that the company thinks it has found a way to fix the issue.

"We have been working in close collaboration with our customer and have an agreed upon landing zone solution with testing planned to validate and ensure the aircraft meets that specific operational requirement," Melissa Chadwick told the outlet.

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• Captcha tests have been around for years, but they're getting more difficult.
• The "I'm not a robot" tests must evolve to keep up with advancing tech, experts said.
• But internet users are over trying to prove their humanity.

The days of simply identifying distorted letters and typing them out to verify your humanity are long gone.

Google's reCAPTCHA and other third-party Captchas are feeling more like a New York Times game nowadays. But instead of bragging to friends about solving it in two minutes, the reward is being able to pay your utilities bill or log into an account you haven't accessed in months.

The prompts ask us to identify pictures of motorcycles, crosswalks, or buses. Still, they're getting less simple in order to stay ahead of technology that knows how to outsmart Captchas, the Wall Street Journal reported. To put it another way: the robots are making it harder to prove you're not a robot.

So, if you're annoyed by the complex Captchas, prepare for them to get only more mentally taxing.

"Things are going to get even stranger, to be honest, because now you have to do something that's nonsensical," Kevin Gosschalk, founder and CEO of Arkose Labs, a firm that designs Captchas, told the Journal.

He added: "Otherwise, large multimodal models will be able to understand."

The acronym CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Some humans struggle more than others to pass such tests.

There's already a corner of the internet complaining about them.

"I keep falling into endless loops of non-stop 'prove you're human' tests. As in 12+ times I'm absolutely certain I know what a bloody car, bus or crosswalk looks like but they just keep coming," one Reddit user complained in a query about bypassing such tests.

"Can't wait to be violently humbled by one of those goddamn captcha things telling me I'm too dumb to tell a bus from a bike again tonight," an X user posted ahead of a Taylor Swift merchandise release.

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• Tesla EVs come with an adapter to charge at non-Tesla chargers. 
• But that adapter doesn't work with the Cybertruck, Tesla says. 
• This design flaw almost stranded me — until a Ford dealership came to the rescue. 

When I got behind the wheel of my 3-day rental earlier this month, I knew driving the Tesla Cybertruck would be unlike any other driving experience.

What I didn't expect was for the attention-grabbing truck to also give me a headache when I tried to juice up. After all, it's Tesla's newest product, the company's superchargers are seemingly everywhere, and EV charging is slowly improving across the board.

Boy, was I wrong.

In all of my naivety (despite editing articles every single week about electric cars and their associated infrastructure challenges), I thought the reporting trip would be a breeze. I would pick up the vehicle, test it out, charge it overnight, stop quickly at a Supercharger on the way to return it, and be on my way.

Not so fast.

Here's where my assumptions went astray, thanks to some design oversight from Tesla and a lack of contingency planning on my part:

I picked up a shiny new Cybertruck, one of the first few hundred made, in a Target parking lot in South Austin.

It was my first time using Turo, the peer-to-peer car rental app (more on that in a later story), and the pick-up was seamless.

I was staying at my parent's house in the Texas Hill Country, about an 80-mile drive, so I knew I would be fine on range for the first leg of this journey. I also made sure to research Superchargers — there wasn't one in my parent's town — but there were two within 30 miles, and some new third-party plugs in town I hoped to check out.

Given the truck's advertised 320-plus miles of estimated range, I didn't give charging much more thought.

As I settled in and came to terms with the contraption I was now responsible for operating, I made a mental note of the estimated range remaining: 218 miles

The truck's owner, whom I never actually met face-to-face, had a charging limit set at 80% to protect the battery pack's long-term health.

I also noticed the massive front windshield and sunroof actively soaking up the Texas sun, which would definitely affect the range if I cranked the climate control to cool off. Still, even with the AC blasting and some fun accelerating to investigate the truck's handling, I knew I would be fine mileage-wise.

The truck handled winding Texas backroads with ease, hugging corners and accelerating astonishingly quickly.

My excitement to test out "sport mode" and the truck's speed probably didn't help my range either.

I arrived in the heart of the Hill Country with 111 miles remaining, according to Tesla's onboard computer, plenty for another full day of testing every feature possible. Charging would be no issue, I thought, and I wanted to get the full experience.

Some more testing and photo-taking took my range to about 85 miles when I locked up the truck for the night.

To my surprise, I lost about 20 miles of range overnight. This meant starting the next day with 62 miles in the tank.

I later learned Tesla's sentry mode can eat battery life as it monitors the exterior cameras. That's when some of my anxiety began to set in. "I really hope this one public charger in town works," I thought as I prepared for a day of testing the truck. I headed over to the public charger first thing to check it out.

If it were my own truck, I would likely have a high-voltage outlet at home to charge overnight and start every day with a (mostly) full battery. But because it's a rental and my parents don't have an EV, that wasn't an option.

Unfortunately, the public charger was occupied. Time to get creative.

I opened PlugShare, a crowdsourced app that aggregates all EV chargers onto one map, and headed over to the local HEB.

The best US grocery chain (depending on who you ask) has installed chargers at many of its locations around Texas. The ones here were brand new from Volta. (So new they weren't yet showing on Volta's app or even Google Maps Street View).

HEB didn't respond to questions about how many chargers it has installed so far or of which brands.

This is where the problems started. I (wrongly) assumed Tesla's adapter would work for all CCS chargers. CCS is an industry standard that predates Tesla. But newer, second-generation CCS chargers have additional DC fast-charging pins that make the plug bulkier on the bottom to increase charging speeds.

Even with the adapter, the bottom part of the plug could not fit past the Cybertruck's plastic fender.

Before you send me hate mail, there’s an important nuance here: Tesla does, in fact, sell a CCS combo adapter for $250. It doesn't work with the Cybetruck.

So I was stuck with a measly "SAE J1772" charging adapter that comes with every Tesla. Silly me.

This is when panic began to set in. What if the car using the public charger in town was there all day? It could be hours, given how slow those are.

But deep down in my journalistic notebook of a brain, I remembered that Ford was installing EV chargers at many of its dealerships. The one in town showed up on PlugShare, and maybe, just maybe, that one would work differently or have different adapters, I thought.

I called them before heading over just to make sure the charger was working and available to anyone. They said come on over. I didn't tell them exactly what I was driving yet.

There's one thing you should know about pulling a Cybertruck into a Ford dealership in Texas. You're going to get lots of attention.

Their brand-new CCS fast chargers wouldn't work with the Cybertruck, either, thanks to the larger plug on this new generation.

As more automakers switch to Tesla's charging technology, now known as the North American Charging System or NACS, the adapter issue is only going to get worse. For now, the two standards largely operate at the same speed, with the plug shape being their main difference.

Luckily, the dealership had an old-school level-2 charger around back. They were happy to let me hang out for a bit if they could have a look at the truck. I was happy to oblige.

Charging on a car lot with no shade or amenities isn't fun, but it's better than being stuck.

"My new Bronco used to be what turned heads in this lot," one employee told me. "I can't compete with this!"

After about an hour, I had added nearly 30 miles to the truck's estimated range and decided to go try the public charging spot in town again.

An open spot this time! Maybe I wouldn't be stranded after all.

I didn't have high hopes after reading some reviews. And the station's appearance wasn't helping my anxiety. I pulled in and set to figuring it out.

I had never heard of LibertyHydra chargers, and their app was clunky at best. Still, I was able to pre-pay for charging increments up to 4 hours at a relatively cheap rate — $8.90 total in this case. (The company didn't respond to questions about uptime and maintenance on their system).

It worked! Once electrons started flowing I was getting about the same charging rate as at the dealership.

Some quick back-of-the-envelope math showed I could easily finish the day and make it to a Supercharger the next morning to return the truck with the same range as I picked it up.

Relief.

With (most) of my anxiety squared away, I set out to test another strange task asked of EV owners: Leaving a car for hours.

Luckily, nobody messed with the plug. (The app would have warned me if the truck stopped charging unexpectedly). But there were plenty of passersby still taking photos.

I was able to monitor the charging remotely on the app.

As the truck sat in the sun charging, temperatures inside climbed rapidly.

But the same way I could see this meant I could also start the AC on my walk over to pick it up, a handy feature for hot climates like Texas.

When all was said and done, I had 170 miles of charge for the next day's return trip to Austin with a stop at a Supercharger.

Tesla owners have told me for years that the Supercharger network was a huge selling point, and this trip proved that to be true.

Supercharging takes away most, if not all, of the hassles I encountered. (Charging overnight at home would have as well.)

On the return trip, I simply plugged in a Supercharger along my route into the computer and headed down the road. About 15 minutes away from the charger, the truck notified me it was pre-conditioning the battery for a faster charge, which seemed to mean no more regenerative braking but no other major changes.

I arrived at an empty — albeit stark — Supercharger in Johnson City, Texas, and plugged in with no issue. The truck immediately began charging at warp speed compared to my other two tries, adding 140 miles of range every hour. I was topped up in exactly 27 minutes to the limit pre-set by the owner.

On a brief walk to the local ACE Hardware and a doughnut shop (no amenities at this charger), the truck let me know that charging was almost finished and warned me of idle fees if I remained plugged in more than 5 minutes after.

The total came out to $17, my Turo host told me. Since it was a rental, I didn't even have to think about it — and he didn't request a reimbursement.

I dropped off the truck with about 125 miles of range right next to a Supercharger.

Was I truly stranded at any point? Not quite, but it was as close as I ever wanted to be. On my next road trip in an EV, I'll double-check my adapters — and not count on random ones to get the job done.

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• A US defense official downplayed the threat of China's new Xi'an H-20 bomber.
• The official said it's "not really" a concern, per defense media.
• That said, the US won't really know for sure how good or bad they are until it sees them fight.

China's new bomber, the Xi'an H-20, is intended to rival America's new stealth bomber, but a US defense official told reporters on Monday it's "not really" a concern.

"They want to show that they're a great, you know, military power," the official said during a background briefing, per Breaking Defense and other defense outlets, but "that doesn't necessarily mean it actually delivers them the kind of capability that they would need or at the quantity that they would need."

The official said that looking at the system design, "it's probably nowhere near as good" as US stealth platforms, "particularly more advanced ones that we have coming down."

There are still a lot of unknowns with the H-20. Still, the Pentagon's 2023 China military power report notes that the H-20 is expected to have a range of around 10,000 km, be able to carry both nuclear and conventional payloads, and be capable of being refueled aerially for prolonged flight. Those aren't insignificant capabilities, but without sufficient stealth, the bomber may not be worth the hype.

A Chinese military official recently told Chinese media that additional information about the bomber would be made public in the near future. "It's coming soon, just wait," People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Deputy Commander Wang Wei told Hong Kong Commercial Daily in March, adding that "it is worth the excitement."

China has been heavily focused on military expansion and modernization, advancing its aviation through its state-owned companies such as China Aviation Industry Corporation, which has previously produced bombers, heavy transport planes, and fighter aircraft.

Among the products this company makes that the US military has also shrugged off is the Chinese fifth-generation J-20 fighter jet. A former US Air Force commander said previously that it wasn't "anything to lose a lot of sleep over."

Although the US official said that the H-20 bomber likely doesn't match up to American capabilities, they clarified at the press briefing that "we're not going to know they're not good until they're shooting at us, and I don't want to be in a position where I find out, 'Oh, they actually are that good.'"

So the military may not be particularly worried, but they also can't make assumptions and have to be ready to match the threat and maintain overmatch.

The Pentagon unveiled a new stealth bomber in 2022 that is currently in production and will eventually replace B-1 and B-2 fleets. 

"As the world's first six-generation aircraft, B-21 forms the backbone of the future for US air power, delivering a new era of capability and flexibility through advanced integration of data, sensors and weapons, and is rapidly upgradable to outpace evolving threats," Northrop Grumman, the aircraft's manufacturer, said in in a statement earlier this year.

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• The founder of startup HeadSpin just got an 18-month prison sentence for wire and securities fraud.
• He admitted he gave investors wrong financial information, defrauding them out of over $100 million.
• Prosecutors said his sentence is a warning to other "fake it til you make it" Silicon Valley execs.

The founder of a buzzy Silicon Valley startup was sentenced to prison over a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme — and prosecutors want it to be a lesson to other "fake it til you make it" entrepreneurs.

Manish Lachwani, the former CEO of app testing company HeadSpin, was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison, plus three years supervised release, for wire fraud and securities fraud, the Department of Justice announced.

Lachwani pleaded guilty to the charges in April 2023, admitting that he had knowingly given investors wrong information on the company's financials and customer base.

Those false documents helped him dupe investors out of more than $100 million between 2017 and 2020, according to the DOJ.

Lachwani founded the software-as-a-service company — which gives clients software and tools to test out mobile apps — in 2015.

He served as its CEO until he was ousted in 2020 after the board launched an internal investigation into company financials, The Information reported. The company is still operating under new leadership.

Lachwani's defense argued in a court filing that "The Court has referenced a 'fake-it-till-you-make-it' mentality in Silicon Valley; HeadSpin has in a very real way 'made it' and HeadSpin's investors may still see a highly profitable exit."

But the judge and prosecutors would not let the "fake it" part of the equation slide.

"This defendant admitted he lied about his company's revenue and customers to attract funding from investors, including many in Silicon Valley," US prosecuting attorney Ismail J. Ramsey said in the DOJ's statement. "Today's sentencing should send a message to other entrepreneurs who may be tempted to cross the line into fraud and to 'fake it until they make it.'"

"This Office is committed to protecting investors—including those whose capital powers the engines of innovation in Silicon Valley—from start-ups that misrepresent their finances and try to cut corners," Ramsey said.

Lachwani's fraudulent behavior highlights how private startups can keep information from their backers.

Representatives for Lachwani and HeadSpin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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• Higher life expectancy rates mean that some Gen Zers might be retired for 50 years, says UBS.
• A portfolio needs to beat inflation by 2 percentage points to retire well, the bank said.
• Rising longevity has become of increasing interest to economists in recent years.

Gen Zers could spend up to 50 years in retirement — so they should start investing as soon as possible, according to UBS.

The Swiss bank said that young people will be retired for up to half a century, based on recent Swedish research that argues artificial intelligence could prolong the average lifespan to about 120 years this century.

Typical investing wisdom posits that a retired person's portfolio should aim to keep pace with inflation.

However, in a scenario where someone is not working for decades, their holdings need to beat the rate at which prices are rising by about 2 percentage points to retire comfortably, according to a team of UBS strategists led by Lee Wen Ching.

"The traditional school of thought supports the thesis that investment returns must at least match inflation," she wrote in a research note. "But when taking spending into account, we conclude that a portfolio actually needs to earn at least 2 percentage points in excess of one's cost of living in order to last 50 years in retirement or more."

The cost-of-living crisis has also tended to disproportionately affect the rich — so those who want to retire and then live a life of luxury will need their portfolios to beat inflation by an even larger amount, according to Wen Ching.

"Lifestyle, preferences, education choices —these are all factors that determine our spending patterns," she wrote. "Dining at a Michelin-star restaurant would have cost 11% more every year, whereas having home-cooked meals could have been more cost-effective."

Rising global life expectancy, declining birth rates, and the rise of trends such as the FIRE movement have made longevity and retirement increasingly pressing issues for economists in recent years.

Last month, top economist Andrew J. Scott told BI that a rethink on aging could help to solve a potential retirement crisis.

"Clearly, climate change is a huge issue, AI is now an obsession about how we can adapt and change our future, but we never talk about adapting to aging," he said. "We've never invested enough in old age, because we thought we'd never get there — and now we will."

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• Tesla has laid off 2,688 workers at its Austin factory, nearly 12% of the site's staff.
• This is likely part of larger workforce cuts across Tesla that Elon Musk announced last week.
• The layoffs have also impacted workers at Tesla's other US and international locations.

Elon Musk's focus on Texas didn't stop him cutting jobs in the Lone Star State.

Tesla laid off 2,688 workers at its Austin factory, according to a regulatory filing under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The WARN Act requires most companies with more than 100 employees to provide 60 days of notice before a large-scale layoff.

The Texas site employed about 22,777 people before the layoffs — meaning Tesla cut nearly 12% of its staff at the site.

The permanent reductions will begin on "the 14-day period beginning on June 14, 2024," according to the notice, and are likely part of larger layoffs across Tesla. On Sunday night, CEO Elon Musk told staff the company was cutting more than 10% of its workforce. Within hours, laid-off workers were notified their employment had been terminated, effective immediately.

Tesla's Austin Gigafactory is the production hub for the company's Model Y and Cybertruck. The site also serves as the company's headquarters. Tesla is attempting to move the company's state of incorporation to Texas as well.

The broader layoffs appear to have affected workers across the country, as well as some staff at Tesla's international offices. Last week, a WARN notice revealed the cuts had impacted 280 workers at a Tesla facility in Buffalo, New York. At this point, it's unclear how many workers have been cut at factories in California and Nevada.

A Tesla spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Do you work for Tesla or have a tip? Reach out to the reporter via a non-work email and device at gkay@businessinsider.com

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• I think HomeGoods is an interior designer's dream because of its accessories and decor.
• The store offers affordable, stylish options for bathroom accessories and plastic dishware.
• I love looking through the selection of chic light fixtures and colorful throw pillows.

Throw pillows easily freshen up a space.

One inexpensive way to freshen up any space is by adding some new throw pillows. I even have a closet full of throw pillows because I enjoy changing them out for holidays or seasons.

HomeGoods has a great selection of indoor and outdoor pillows that could bring new life to a sofa, chair, or bed. My store even has aisles of trendy, unique holiday pillows.

I've heard people say there's no such thing as having too many blankets, but I'm guilty of using that logic when it comes to throw pillows.

The right lighting fixture can look timeless.

Lighting fixtures can be really expensive and hard to fit into your space, as they come in a plethora of styles and finishes. Thankfully, HomeGoods has a variety of options, including ceiling fixtures and table and floor lamps.

I especially enjoy the versatility of the store's timeless frameworks. I recommend swapping out the lampshades that come with the fixtures to create a more personal touch. Plus, you can change the lampshades out to create a whole new look if your design style changes.

Felt hangers instantly upgrade the closet space.

The easiest way to upgrade one's closet is to replace plastic or wire hangers with felt ones. Having hangers in one color (I suggest sticking with a neutral shade) and material brings an overall less cluttered feel to the space.

Felt hangers are also better for many clothing materials, as they prevent creasing. I even hang sweaters on them since they don't stretch the material as much as plastic hangers do.

Though they're pricier than plastic or wire hangers, I think the HomeGoods selection is very affordable.

The plastic holiday dinnerware is pretty great.

Everyone wants to be the host with the most when having friends and family over for the holidays. Luckily, I find that the selection of plastic dinnerware at HomeGoods makes entertaining easy.

Whether you're having a Christmas party or hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, HomeGoods regularly stocks plates, cups, and napkin options that give a holiday feel without breaking the bank.

If you like creating a different place setting each time you host, the plastic-dinnerware section contains tons of options.

Aesthetically pleasing board games look fancy.

Instead of unusable trinkets and figurines, try decorating your space with board games. Not only do board games have a purpose, but also, the ones at HomeGoods are appealing to the eye.

I've come across a variety of games, from Monopoly to Chess to Connect Four, that seem to be designed with aesthetics in mind.

Many of the board-game boxes and covers come in neutral colors, retro designs, and wood tones to add a tasteful sense of playfulness to your space.

Nothing says you have your life together like a matching bath set.

Bathrooms can be one of the hardest rooms to decorate, but one way to do so is with a matching accessory set. A matching soap dispenser, trash can, tray, toothbrush holder, and dish is sure to wow.

HomeGoods has several options in a variety of materials, including glass, ceramic, and concrete.

The bathroom set I got from HomeGoods is made of concrete, so its natural-stone material creates contrast with my otherwise white bathroom.

Buy wall art or use the canvases to make your own.

Large canvases can make such an impact in a space and scream luxury, and HomeGoods has a vast variety of options.

From art with striking abstracts and soft, whimsical neutrals, HomeGoods seems to have it all at pretty reasonable prices. I've even seen canvases that are cheaper than plain white ones at some art stores.

If you want to save money and paint on top of a canvas with artwork, check out HomeGoods' clearance section. I purchased a few cheap canvases, repainted them white, and went over them with my own designs.

Add stylish pet beds to your space.

Let's face it: Our furry friends can destroy pet beds, toys, and furniture. Thankfully, HomeGoods has a pet section where some things are priced more affordably than at traditional pet stores.

The toys and beds specifically seem to be of great quality, and I've even seen the same styles sold at big-box stores. Investing a lot of money in a dog bed that's going to get chewed to pieces isn't practical to me, so getting one at HomeGoods is a great solution.

This story was originally published on September 26, 2023, and most recently updated on April 23, 2024.

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• A British Airways plane went on a "flight to nowhere" after experiencing a problem.
• After flying in circles for four hours to burn fuel, the plane landed back in Singapore.
• The delay had a knock-on impact on British Airways, leading to a flight from London to LA being canceled.

An already delayed British Airways plane that took off from Singapore landed back at the same airport five hours later after a technical fault forced it to turn back.

The plane, which was set to fly from Singapore Changi to London Heathrow on Tuesday as flight BA12, flew partway over Malaysia before turning back only about half an hour after takeoff, data from flight-tracking site FlightAware shows.

The aircraft, an Airbus 380, flew in circles over the Singapore Strait before landing. It circled for around four hours to burn excess fuel in preparation for its eventual landing.

Aircraft often jettison fuel during emergencies or when they need to land earlier than expected as landing with a full load of fuel is likely to be dangerous due to weight restrictions on landing.

"Planes are designed to land below certain weights," Business Insider previously reported. "A heavier plane is more likely to hit the ground hard and get damaged."

The plane set off at about 3:10 a.m. local time for a planned 14-hour flight and landed back in the city-state at about 8:30 a.m., per FlightAware data.

Passengers had already had to contend with a delay, as the plane was meant to depart at 11:20 p.m. on Monday night.

A Business Insider employee was on the flight and said passengers were initially told before takeoff that the plane's weather radar had failed and returned from the runway to an aircraft stand to fix the problem.

After around an hour, the problem was fixed, and the plane took off. Roughly 30 minutes into the flight, staff announced that the system had failed again and told passengers the plane would need to dump fuel before returning to Singapore.

"We are sorry for the delay to customers' travel plans after the aircraft returned to Singapore Changi Airport as a precaution following a minor technical fault," a spokesperson for British Airways told Business Insider.

"Our teams are working hard to get our customers where they need to be."

The BI employee on the flight said that passengers were provided with accommodation and food upon returning to Singapore, but they didn't have information on which flight they would be transferred to.

"We currently do not have a revised departure time for your flight," British Airways said in an email to passengers at about 9:15 a.m. local time.

The BI employee said a number of passengers had missed their connecting flights from Heathrow.

According to the British Airways app, the airline's next flight from Singapore to London was due to leave at 11:20 p.m. local time on Tuesday but is now not expected to depart until 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Flight cancellations and delays such as that impacting BA12 can cause a snowball effect on airlines, staff, and passengers, leaving crew members and aircraft in the wrong place and disrupting further flights.

In the case of the Singapore to Heathrow flight, the Airbus A380 used was meant to be flying on from London to Los Angeles on Tuesday. However, that flight had to be canceled, as British Airways did not have any other aircraft available.

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The girl was 14 and attending a Dallas dog show. She and her family were talking to a prominent handler and longtime family friend, Adam Wilkerson, 31, when he asked her to help him get coffee for the group. Instead, he brought her to an empty hall closet and instructed her to touch his exposed penis.

She began working as Wilkerson's assistant a few months later. She'd been showing dogs since she was a toddler, her mother told Business Insider. Working for Wilkerson, whose dogs had won awards including best of breed at the lauded Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, seemed like a natural step to achieving the girl's ambition of becoming a professional dog handler.

The dog-show circuit brought them back to Dallas later that summer. This time, the girl was staying in a hotel room with Wilkerson and his girlfriend, also a professional dog handler. Wilkerson emerged from the shower and forced the girl to perform oral sex on him, according to court records. His girlfriend was asleep on the bed.

By the end of the summer, Wilkerson was charged with sexually assaulting the girl across five counties, mostly at dog shows, according to court documents reviewed by BI. He confessed to several assaults, pleaded guilty to indecency with a child, and served 12 years in prison.

He was required to register as a lifetime sex offender when he was released in 2020. He couldn't live near schools or playgrounds and was prohibited from holding certain jobs. But he continued showing dogs.

He was often at the same dog shows as the girl, now an adult, her mother said.

"We'd come to shows and he'd show up, and clubs would have his grooming setup literally 60 feet away from her, weekend after weekend," the mother recalled. "You could toss a ball and smack him." The girl was "terrified," her mother said, that Wilkerson might approach her.

BI does not publish the names of victims of sexual abuse without their consent. The girl declined to comment. Her mother asked not to be named to protect her daughter's identity. Their identities are known to BI.

The mother contacted the American Kennel Club, the organization that oversees most dog shows in the country. The AKC helps local kennel clubs enforce rules about conduct and animal treatment. It routinely bars people from participating in dog shows or, crucially for some dog breeders, registering their dogs with the AKC for violating rules about conduct, recordkeeping, or animal abuse.

But when the mother asked the AKC whether it could stop Wilkerson from attending events, the group's response, she said, amounted to a shrug. The AKC's reply was that it's just a "registry organization," meaning it exists to keep canine-breeding records.

The message she took was that the AKC believed protecting her daughter was less important than protecting Wilkerson.

Wilkerson died in March. But his was not an isolated case. For decades, members of the dog-handling community have clamored for the AKC to take action to prevent the sexual abuse of children, and they say their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

BI identified three other dog-show professionals — a handler, a breeder, and a former AKC employee — who were convicted of crimes against children. None were suspended by the AKC or local clubs, meaning they could return to the sport if they chose. Two of them did so.

As similarly situated organizations have taken measures meant specifically to protect child participants — including instituting background checks for people who work with children, barring people who have been convicted of crimes against children from membership, and publishing guidelines on unsupervised interactions between children and adults — the AKC failed to intervene, critics say, pleading that it was powerless to bar people accused or convicted of child abuse from participating in its events.

At the same time, it enforces strict discipline for infractions such as using curse words at a dog show and sometimes requires members to pay a $500 deposit to lodge a complaint about behavior.

The organization has only recently begun adopting policies to protect children, including expanding the number of people who take mandatory training on child-abuse awareness.

It's also considering an "extensive personal conduct policy designed to cover all manner of criminal behavior," a spokesperson, Brandi Hunter Munden, wrote in response to a request for comment, adding: "This policy will address cases where individuals alleged to have engaged in conduct that is illegal, violent, dangerous, or damages the reputation of others in the sport, and will allow AKC to bar individuals from the sport for that conduct."

Munden declined to share the draft policy with BI and did not answer a question about when it would be implemented.

The AKC markets dog shows as family-friendly events. Children as young as toddlers compete in junior handler divisions. Young teens eyeing a career in the sport often apprentice to professional handlers, a role that can put them in unsupervised proximity to the handler for days or weeks at a time.

But a string of convictions and arrests for handlers and judges has given many in the dog-show world pause.

A handler, Andrew Mansfield, was charged in 2018 with sexually assaulting the 14-year-old daughter of a client at a dog show in Michigan. He left the state before police could execute a warrant for his arrest and continued to show dogs for a year before he was apprehended at a dog show in Florida. He pleaded guilty in 2020 to one count of criminal sexual conduct.

Mansfield spent a year in jail and is serving five years of supervised release, the terms of which limit his interaction with children. He wasn't barred by the AKC or local clubs for his conduct and briefly returned to showing dogs at events overseen by the AKC after his conviction, he confirmed to BI.

In the world of dog shows, "I think there's a lot more that goes on than people ever know or realize," Mansfield said, "from drugs to abuse and anything else."

Mansfield may not have been censured by the AKC for his assault conviction, but he was briefly suspended from showing dogs in 2014 for a different reason: During a show in Louisiana, his dogs damaged a hotel room, prompting a local kennel club to bar him from events for three months and fine him $500.

The AKC was "not made aware" of Mansfield's 2020 conviction, Munden said, adding: "We can only investigate and act upon information that is reported to us."

A Pekingese breeder and handler, Walter Palmerino, was convicted in Massachusetts in 2008 of possessing child-sexual-abuse material. Since his release from prison, he has continued to breed and show dogs in Florida.

While Munden said he wasn't using the AKC's "services at the time of the arrest or conviction," show results indicate he was breeding and exhibiting dogs while his trial was ongoing. When contacted by BI, Palmerino said he's "no threat to anyone," adding: "I don't have children. I don't know children. I'm not around children. I show my dogs and get out of there, and that's it."

A retired American Kennel Club judge, field representative, and breeder, John Cathcart McCartney, was charged in 2014 with molesting three sisters, all under the age of 12. According to court documents, the girls would play with his show dog, Oscar, when they went over to his house, where McCartney made them touch his penis in exchange for candy and other treats.

But in the gossip pages of Dog News, a weekly magazine widely read by show-dog enthusiasts, McCartney's arrest was portrayed as a tragic misunderstanding by the former columnist and editor in chief Eugene Zaphiris.

"Hopefully, this will all work out in John's favor," Zaphiris wrote. Zaphiris did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

McCartney was convicted to life in prison plus 17 years in February after a decade of delays in his trial. An attorney for McCartney declined to comment. The AKC did not receive any complaints about McCartney before his arrest, Munden said, and he passed a background check before he began working for the organization in the early 2000s.

As a retired field representative, McCartney is entitled to receive a pension from the AKC. It's not clear whether he's still paid by the organization.

Two high-profile accusations in March have also rocked the sport. Adam Stafford King, a veterinary ophthalmologist and prominent AKC judge, was arrested on one charge of distributing child-sex-abuse materials. Federal prosecutors claim King also discussed raping a 4-year-old, abusing his toddler-aged niece and nephew after drugging them with Benadryl, and sexually abusing the child he and his husband were expecting via a surrogate.

A week later, Wisconsin police arrested Jacob Boudreau, a dog handler and groomer, charging him with 12 counts of possessing child-sexual-abuse material. Police said they found Snapchat messages with fantasies of having sex with his friend's 5-year-old son, as well as images of sex acts performed on his dog.

King has pleaded not guilty and is "committed to fighting these charges until his name is cleared," his attorney said in a statement, adding: "We look forward to a swift trial where the facts will demonstrate Mr. King's innocence and that he has been wrongfully accused."

Boudreau also intends to plead not guilty, his attorney said.

The AKC "did not condone or participate in any of the actions of these bad characters," Munden wrote in her statement. The AKC is "not always privileged to a person's private legal matters," she added, saying: "AKC advises individuals that they can contact law enforcement if they believe an individual is unlawfully at an AKC event."

The American Kennel Club is not your average, resource-strapped not-for-profit.

Founded in 1884, the organization brought in over $100 million in revenue in 2022, according to the most recent year tax filings are available. Its president and CEO's total compensation in 2022 was $1.3 million. Its headquarters occupy the entire floor of a building on Manhattan's Park Avenue next to Grand Central Terminal.

The bulk of the organization's income comes from the dog-show community, in the form of event and registration fees paid by local kennel clubs and breeders. But it also generated roughly $20 million in advertising, media sponsorships, and royalties in 2022, including from pet-food brands such as Royal Canin, Purina, and Eukanuba. The AKC also has media deals with ABC and ESPN to air exclusive dog-show content.

Four affiliated nonprofits — AKC Reunite, the AKC Canine Health Foundation, the AKC Museum of the Dog, and the AKC Humane Fund — have annual combined revenues of about $20 million. (A fifth affiliated nonprofit, the AKC Purebred Preservation Bank, was established last year; its revenues could not be determined.)

Mars Inc., which owns Royal Canin and Eukanuba, did not respond to a request for comment; neither did Purina or ABC. ESPN declined to comment.

Munden told BI the AKC was blindsided by the charges against King and Boudreau. Their alleged conduct "did not occur in the sport or at an event," she said.

"The entire American Kennel Club Board of Directors and staff condemn alleged criminal conduct by any participant in our sports, and we will continue to examine ways to strengthen our oversight," Dennis Sprung, the AKC's president, wrote last month in The Canine Chronicle, a glossy magazine that's widely distributed at dog shows. "We are committed to the well-being of every fancier, young or old, and will investigate every complaint that is received."

The arrests, though, have galvanized — and divided — parts of the dog-show community.

In an op-ed in Dog News in late March, Margaret Poindexter, the AKC's former general counsel, excoriated what she described as the AKC's "pathetic, pasty, paltry pablum" of a response to King's and Boudreau's arrests.

Another camp advises caution. "Making quick decisions based on current events is not the way to develop good, lasting policy," Deb Cooper, a dog-show gossip columnist and AKC judge, wrote in The Canine Chronicle.

In addition to the pages of dog-specialist magazines, battle lines have been drawn in raucous Facebook groups, some established years ago to share intelligence — and gossip — about bad breeders and bad judges. Dog handlers, fed up with what they see as the AKC's complacency, have compiled lists of people in the community who have been accused or convicted of child-abuse-related crimes. Others have shared stories on social media of abuse and harassment at the hands of judges and handlers.

The debate is taking place as kennel clubs try to entice younger children to show dogs. Many dog shows include competitions for junior handlers, including a "Pee Wee" division for kids under the age of 10. In recent years, some clubs have introduced events for children under the age of 5. Instead of showing dogs, they show their stuffed animals.

Many longtime dog handlers started as children, according to interviews with a dozen people involved in the sport. Teenagers who want to work as dog handlers apprentice as assistants, a sometimes unpaid position that involves long hours and days or weeks on the road.

Munden, the AKC spokesperson, said the organization "does not encourage nor promote minor children traveling to dog shows without a parent or legal guardian" and that parents were responsible for overseeing their children's participation in the sport.

Many people involved in the sport take pains to protect children, in part through a vigilant whisper network, longtime handlers told BI.

One dog handler and AKC judge, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not authorized by the organization to speak with the media, said that as a child showing dogs, it was apparent to them that some adults in the dog-show community found young girls sexually attractive. "I was probably 13 or 14 when I understood that," this person said. "You'd see older men take an interest and it was like, 'Why'd you put your arm around me?'"

"I was probably 13 or 14 when I understood that. You'd see older men take an interest and it was like, 'Why'd you put your arm around me?'"
Anonymous AKC judge and handler

Children who want to work in the sport professionally aim to work for handlers who have led their clients' dogs to the winner's podium, Ashley Miller, a Texas handler who apprenticed to dog handlers as a teenager, said.

At dog shows, professional handlers "flirt; they give compliments," Miller said, adding: "These girls think, 'He wins,' and they want to win too. If you're with someone who wins, you have a leg up."

The AKC, local kennel clubs, and dog-show participants have overlooked or minimized dynamics that can enable child abuse in the sport, Carissa Shimpeno, a professional dog handler, said.

Shimpeno's mother was also a professional dog handler. When Shimpeno was in third grade, one of her mother's clients began sexually abusing her, Shimpeno said, adding that the abuse lasted for years.

Shimpeno's mother "really relied" on her abuser's business, Shimpeno recalled, saying: "That fact was used against me. It made it very complicated. I didn't want to mess up our security." Shimpeno last month helped found a group, Show-Safe, dedicated to expanding the reach of child-abuse awareness training in the dog-show community.

The AKC appears to be listening to its critics and says it's taking reasonable steps to protect children involved in the sport.

In addition to announcing its forthcoming behavior policy, the AKC mandated in April that staff, registered handlers, judges, and local clubs' youth coordinators take a two-hour training from the nonprofit Darkness to Light on recognizing and preventing child sexual abuse. Previously, only AKC staff and registered handlers, a group of about 350 people, had been required to take a similar training.

The group also recommended that children and their parents in the dog-show community take training from the national nonprofit SafeSport for Kids and temporarily suspended King and Boudreau from participating in AKC events.

Such steps are major improvements over the organization's historically anemic response to allegations of abuse and assault, Mary Dukes, a breeder and dog-show judge, said. Dukes is also a former AKC employee; in 2021, she persuaded the AKC to roll out SafeSport training for registered handlers.

"Any movement is a step in the right direction," Dukes said. "I'm happy that they've made a big public start because they've been hesitant to do that in the past."

In her experience, the AKC has been reluctant to step beyond its role as a repository of dog genealogical data to police the conduct of people in the dog-show community, Dukes added. The organization has faced similar criticism from animal-rights groups who have said it should take a firmer stand against animal cruelty and high-volume dog-breeders, with the AKC similarly pleading that it's not a law-enforcement agency.

Others in the sport have already gone beyond the AKC.

A breed club dedicated to a rare North African sight hound, the Sloughi, recently barred people convicted of certain crimes from membership and began requiring background checks for judges, moves it positioned in a public statement as a response to the two recent arrests. Florida's West Volusia Kennel Club announced last year it would no longer allow convicted sex offenders to participate in its dog shows, a change spearheaded by Susan Shephard, the chair of the club's shows, after she said she encountered Palmerino, the Pekingese breeder who was convicted of possession of child sex abuse material, "bold as brass, wheeling his Pekingese ringside" at a dog show.

"I'm over this being swept under the rug."
Susan Shephard, show chair of Florida's West Volusia Kennel Club

Shephard said the rule hadn't been difficult to enforce. If someone comes to her with a screenshot from a state or national sex-offender registry, she will bar the offender from the show, she said.

"I'm over this being swept under the rug," she said.

But the response hints at the difficulty the AKC and other clubs may face if they attempt to implement similar rules. Palmerino said he's in the process of drawing up a lawsuit against the AKC and Shephard for barring him from shows.

"I have some of the top Pekes in the country," and his breeding program has taken a hit, Palmerino said.

Compared with similar organizations, the AKC's existing policies around protecting children from sexual abuse are notably lax. The youth farming and animal-husbandry club 4-H, which has branches across the country, requires volunteers to undergo criminal background checks before they're authorized to work with children. So do the Boy Scouts and many church groups, changes implemented after decades of unaddressed child sexual abuse resulted in damaging media coverage and expensive lawsuits. After child-abuse accusations against a prominent trainer became New York Times headlines in 2018, the US Equestrian Federation announced strict guidelines barring children from unsupervised, one-on-one time with trainers and massage therapists.

In its statement, the AKC disputed that it lacked a process for dealing with inappropriate behavior.

"For decades, the AKC has had measures in place to bar people from the sport for conduct regarding the treatment of dogs or conduct that occurs while at an AKC event that is prejudicial to the sport," Munden wrote, adding that the organization's bylaws allowed people to submit complaints to the board.

But submitting a complaint can come with a hefty price tag: a $500 deposit, which the organization keeps if the complaint is found to be unsubstantiated, according to the AKC's regulations.

Munden said the group wasn't a stickler about the fee. If someone submits a complaint to the organization without a deposit, they may choose to open an investigation anyway, she said.

But having such a rule in the organization's bylaws disincentivizes speaking up about abuse, Tonda Curry, who shows toy fox terriers, said — particularly in light of a common perception that the AKC is an old boys' club. A county prosecutor by day, Curry has helped file complaints to the AKC about various misconduct allegations.

"It creates such a mistrust," Curry said.

When Wilkerson continued to show up at dog shows over the protests of his victim's mother, the AKC seemed to believe that law enforcement was best equipped to determine whether he could attend dog shows, not the AKC or local clubs that take their lead from it.

"Each time" a concern about Wilkerson's presence at a dog show was raised, the AKC advised the person "to contact local law enforcement as it would be their jurisdiction to determine if he was permitted to be on the show grounds or in violation of his terms," Munden said, adding: "After each interaction with law enforcement, we were subsequently advised that he was within his rights to be on the grounds."

That explanation rings hollow to some in the sport. Local clubs, following AKC rules, regularly suspend people for minor offenses such as swearing on show grounds, a review of AKC records showed.

"If you can suspend someone at a dog show for telling someone else to fuck off, which they can, and we can tell them they can't go to the dog shows for six months, it seems like you should be able to suspend someone who's been convicted of a sexual offense against a child," Dukes, the former AKC employee, said. "It seems to track."

Paige McCarver, an Arizona dog groomer who has bred and shown dogs, has experience with what she perceives as a double standard: She was suspended for three months and fined $300 when a spectator saw her trip over one of her dogs, but when she told the AKC that a judge had commented on "how full and luscious my breasts were" and "how good would they taste in his mouth," the organization took no action, apart from privately warning the judge that such behavior was unacceptable, according to correspondence McCarver shared with BI.

Munden said that though people raised concerns about Wilkerson being at dog shows, the organization was never specifically asked to suspend him from the sport. "If a formal complaint was made to AKC regarding revoking his privileges to show dogs at AKC events overall, we would have considered it," she said.

Shortly after Wilkerson's release, Curry started a Change.org petition asking the AKC to ban registered sex offenders from show grounds. The petition garnered nearly 2,800 signatures.

Curry is sympathetic, she said, to the argument that once someone has served their time, they should be allowed to reenter society. She's worked in the criminal-justice system for 34 years, including as a defense attorney.

But she supports barring people convicted of crimes against children from participating in dog shows.

"Are we punishing them for life? Maybe we are," Curry said. "But we're also trying to protect kids."

The mother of Wilkerson's former assistant said she's certain her daughter was not Wilkerson's only victim. After Wilkerson's arrest, her daughter asked her to contact the parents of five other girls she believed were abused. Those parents chose not to pursue the matter, the mother said.

"Of all the alleged victims that there could have been or were, the fact that only a 14-year-old girl had the courage to step forward and say it stops here — the courage that it takes for a child to do that, and carry that weight on her own, is incredible," her mother said. "To have to sit in the courtroom and stare at him while he stares at you. That's tough for anyone."

Meanwhile, the American Kennel Club, the mother said, showed only cowardice.

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