Author: openjargon

• Ukraine lawmakers are pushing a bill to allow prisoners to serve in the military.
• The bill aims to boost combat manpower while excluding people imprisoned for certain severe crimes.
• The move comes amid Ukraine's struggle with soldier shortfalls in the face of Russia's larger military.

Ukrainian lawmakers are advancing a bill that would allow prisoners to serve in Ukraine's military and take on Russia in front-line combat.

The first draft of the bill, which was submitted to Ukrainian Parliament on Wednesday, calls for prisoners to be released on parole for military service under contract during period of martial law and mobilization, reports Army Inform.

This bill was approved on first reading with the support of 281 officials in the hopes of bolstering recruitment and giving people in prison the opportunity to "correct and fulfill the duty to repel armed aggression against Ukraine."

However, not every prisoner is qualified to mobilize.

Those who are in prison must undergo a mental health assessment and medical exam. They cannot participate if they are convicted of crimes such as terrorism, murdering two or more individuals, sexual violence, drunk driving with vehicular homicide, or national security crimes.

"These changes make the state more stable and the army stronger in confronting the enemy," said Defense Minister Rustem Umerov in February. The bill has gone through numerous revisions since it was first submitted in December, and more are expected.

Lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak told Reuters that to avoid corruption, there will likely be additional changes before the final reading.

Ukraine's military has been experiencing a dangerous shortage of available soldiers on the battlefield. It has had difficulty maintaining a strong position against Russia's much larger military as more soldiers are wounded and killed while fewer potential replacements enter the recruitment pipeline. The Ukrainian parliament took several steps this week to address that.

Lawmakers passed measures simplifying conscription ahead of a possible mobilization, and demobilization plans that would have allowed soldiers to return home after extended deployments were slashed by Ukraine's parliament this week.

"This is demotivating and demoralizing for the military," one artillery soldier told CNN.

In addition to key manpower advantages, Russia also has an edge in industrial capacity and war materiel. US diplomatic and military officials have said that Russia has almost "completely reconstituted" its armed forces and nearly "grown back" it's capability to what it started the invasion with, even after suffering severe losses.

Ukraine is now not only waiting for critical aid to arrive from the US, but it is also waiting for more recruits as the bill granting people who are incarcerated the ability to join the military works its way through parliament.

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• Five recession indicators that were flashing a warning sign about the economy have since retreated.
• Ned Davis Research said its Recession Probability Model has plunged to 2%, suggesting "minimal odds" of an economic downturn.
• "The reversal of these historically important indicators shows why it is risky to rely on a few indicators that support a particular view," NDR said.

Various economic indicators that suggested a recession was imminent not too long ago have since retreated, according to Ned Davis Research.

That means investors probably don't have to worry about an economic recession occurring any time soon. That's an about-face from just a few months ago when various economists and market strategists were still bracing for a recession.

From the Leading Economic Indicator Index to the inverted yield curve, NDR highlighted five recessionary signals that should no longer be the cause of concern for investors.

"The reversal of these historically important indicators shows why it is risky to rely on a few indicators that support a particular view," NDR strategist Joseph Kalish said in a Friday note.

These are the five recession indicators that are no longer flashing red as the resilient US economy continues to power forward.

1. NDR's Recession Probability Model

NDR's internal Recession Probability Model is derived from state employment and income data, and when it hits the 50% level, it flashes an imminent recession warning.

The model surged to 43.5% in December, just shy of the 50% trigger level, but it has since plunged to just 2.1% in February thanks to several data revisions and seasonal factor updates, according to NDR.

That indicates "minimal odds" of a recession at this time.

2. Household employment levels

"The household employment survey had been much weaker than the establishment survey entering this year. Adjusting household employment to the payrolls concept saw a large gain of 352,000 in March, following three consecutive months of decline. The only times that had happened was during and immediately after the GFC and during the pandemic," Kalish said. 

3. Gross domestic income

Measuring the US economy by income levels is less popular than the consumption-based GDP measure, but it does offer insight into how healthy US income levels are. 

"In theory, the two measures should be equal, since one person's spending is another person's income," Kalish explained. But those two economic measures have not been equal more recently, sending warning signs about unsustainable growth in the economy. 

GDP was notably stronger than GDI for four consecutive quarters, with annualized GDP above 2% while GDI had failed to hit 2% during that stretch. But that finally reversed in the fourth quarter, when GDI surged to an annual rate of 4.8%, far outpacing the GDP reading of 3.4%. 

4. Leading Economic Index

"The Conference Board's LEI had declined for 23 consecutive months, driving its six month change and diffusion indexes into contractionary territory for the economy. In February, the LEI ticked up 0.1% and the Conference Board no longer expects a recession," Kalish said. 

You can read more about the recent reversal in the LEI index here.

5. Inverted yield curve

An inverted yield curve, which occurs when short-term interest rates rise above long-term interest rates, has long been a closely watched recession indicator, but since going negative in July 2022, the yield curve recession signal has failed to materialize. NDR believes that will continue to be the case.

"Finally, 525 bp of Fed rate hikes and an inverted yield curve were supposed to generate a recession by now. Our two indicator composite gave a contraction signal in October 2022. Since that signal, the Coincident Economic Index has gained 2.3%," Kalish said. 

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• Wedbush analysts said Tesla pushing off a cheaper EV in favor of robotaxis would be "a debacle."
• Reuters reported Tesla halted the development of its affordable EV to focus on a robotaxi. 
• Wedbush believes full autonomy won't be reached until 2030, making an affordable Tesla "crucial."

The robotaxi that Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased would be revealed by the end of the year is not what the company needs to focus on in the short-term, according to one prominent analyst firm.

Instead, it is "crucial" that Tesla delivers a sub-$30,000 car in the next 18 months, Wedbush analysts wrote in a note published Thursday.

The analysts said while an upcoming Tesla robotaxi reveal is an exciting announcement, full autonomy isn't expected until 2030.

"If robotaxis is viewed as the 'magic model' to replace Model 2 we would view this as a debacle negative for the Tesla story," the analyst note said. "It would be a risky gamble if Tesla moved away from the Model 2 and went straight to robotaxis."

The Wedbush letter comes after Reuters reported on April 5 that Tesla was holding off on developing the $25,000 electric vehicle to put more resources toward self-driving cars. The report cited internal company messages and sources familiar with the situation.

Musk responded to the report, saying "Reuters is lying (again)" in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Later on April 5, Musk posted on X that Tesla will unveil its robotaxi on August 8.

The possible reveal date comes after years of Musk discussing how Tesla's self-driving software, which currently requires an attentive driver at all times, could eventually make its cars more valuable if owners could generate money by providing fully autonomous rides for others when not personally using their vehicles.

Musk has long focused on self-driving cars

Musk said in a 2022 interview that Tesla's "overwhelming focus" is solving fully autonomous driving.

"It's really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero," Musk said in the interview.

The Tesla CEO has said new cars quickly lose value and car companies make money on selling existing fleets.

Tesla's Full Self-Driving software beta, or FSD, is currently classified as "level two" in an industry standard that goes up to six. The software still requires full human supervision. Numerous crashes involving Teslas have led to scrutiny from safety regulators and lawsuits.

Other automakers are also exploring fully autonomous driving.

Apple was famously rumored to be designing such a vehicle, before it reportedly decided to fully scrap the project amid continued delays and technological constraints.

Driverless cars aren't being sold on the market yet. But Waymo is testing self-driving models in Los Angeles and parts of the Bay Area, although it issued software recalls in February after two of its vehicles, which didn't have passengers at the time, crashed into the same towed pickup truck.

GM's Cruise, which had halted its autonomous vehicles, is also getting back to testing its vehicles in Phoenix — but with human drivers for now. The company lost its license in California in October after one of its vehicles ran over and dragged a pedestrian who the company says was first struck by another vehicle.

Meanwhile, a number of Chinese tech companies like Baidu and Didi have quietly stopped testing self-driving cars on the road after mounting pressure from lawmakers and public criticism about safety issues.

Musk has also talked up the value of a more affordable Tesla

Musk has also touted the importance of a cheaper Tesla model for years.

"This has always been our dream, from the beginning of the company," Musk said during Tesla's "Battery Day" presentation in 2020.

As the lack of low-cost options turns some customers off from making the switch to EV vehicles, Tesla has experienced decreased demand. The company has tried to cut prices multiple times to better compete with companies like BYD.

It recently announced its quarterly deliveries had fallen significantly short of Wall Street's lowest expectations, clocking the company's first year-over-year quarterly decline since 2020.

"For Musk, this is a fork in the road time to get Tesla through this turbulent period otherwise dark days could be ahead," Wedbush analysts wrote in the letter.

With the ongoing issues surrounding Tesla's margins and demand, the analysts said Musk needs to "regain confidence in the eyes of the Street."

Former Tesla CEO and cofounder Martin Eberhard also weighed in on the Reuters report of Tesla's scrapped Model 2 earlier this week, saying it would be a "shame" if the company dropped it.

Eberhard also said it could benefit China, which has gained market share against Tesla thanks to its affordable electric cars.

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• The RMS Titanic sank on April 15, 1912 — almost 112 years ago — after it hit an iceberg.
• The RMS Carpathia, which was three hours away, came to the rescue of the stranded survivors.
• Of the 2,200 or so people aboard the Titanic, only around 700 people made it into lifeboats.

The sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, has captured the world's fascination for 112 years. 

The stories of those plucked from the icy waters — or those who narrowly missed being aboard the ship — dominated headlines for months following the sinking. In the decades since, the discovery of the wreckage, ill-fated attempts to visit it, and 1997's "Titanic" — history's first billion-dollar film — all proved the tragedy's enduring legacy.

Around 2,200 people were aboard the RMS Titanic when it set sail across the Atlantic Ocean toward New York City. Of those people, only around 700 survivors made it into lifeboats after the ship collided with an iceberg off the coast of Greenland.

The RMS Carpathia, which was three hours away at the time of the sinking, came to the rescue of the stranded survivors.

These photos show how the Titanic passengers were rescued from the icy waters.

The "unsinkable" Titanic set sail on its ill-fated voyage on April 10, 1912, with around 2,200 people aboard.

A British passenger liner, the Titanic was operated by White Star Line and was traveling from Southampton, England, to New York City. 

At 11:40 p.m. on April 14, an iceberg was spotted 400 nautical miles south of Newfoundland, Canada, but it was too late for the ship to change course.

The two lookouts, Fredrick Fleet and Reginald Lee, failed to spot the iceberg in time.

Fleet and Lee were contending with an unusually calm ocean, which made icebergs less visible since there would be no breaking water at the base. Their binoculars were also locked in a cabinet, which meant the lookouts were tasked with spotting icebergs using their eyes alone.

However, lookouts were trained to spot objects with the naked eye first, and 1912-era binoculars were not much more advanced than the trained eyesight of the lookouts, according to Encyclopedia Titanic. Given the short amount of time between when the lookouts saw the iceberg and the time of impact, binoculars still likely wouldn't have prevented a collision.

The Titanic attempted to avoid the iceberg, but it failed to turn in time. As the ship scraped the iceberg, it tore a hole in the side of the ship, rupturing at least five of the watertight compartments.

By 2:20 a.m., the stern of the Titanic slipped under water, and the surviving passengers never saw it again.

After just an hour, the ship was quickly filling with water, and passengers began to panic, Britannica reported. Due to the water, the ship's bow continued to sink, causing the stern to rise into the sky.

By 2 a.m., the crew was released by the captain. Shortly after, the Titanic's lights went out, the ship broke into two pieces, and the bow sank beneath the waves. Twenty minutes later, the stern followed suit, sending hundreds of crewmembers and passengers into the sea.

Of the 2,200 or so people aboard the Titanic, only around 700 people made it into lifeboats.

As the ship began to take on water, the lifeboats were launched with women and children only. There were only 20 lifeboats aboard the Titanic, according to Britannica, which could carry up to 1,178 people, only half of the ship's passengers and crew.

These boats were launched below capacity, for fear that the device lowering the boats would break if the boats were full. For instance, the first lifeboat to leave Titanic had the capacity for 65 people but was carrying only 27 when it launched, Britannica reported.

After the ship sank, people in lifeboats returned to search for survivors, but they found most people who entered the water had not drowned. Instead, they had frozen to death.

There were not enough lifeboats to hold the number of passengers that needed to evacuate.

No lifeboat or fire drills were carried out before the ship's sinking. In fact, a lifeboat drill had actually been planned for the morning before Titanic's sinking but it was canceled.

Loading passengers into the lifeboats turned to chaos. While some boats launched half full, others got stuck as they were being lowered into the water and were swarmed by people desparate to get on, Prologue magazine reported, per the National Archives.

The SS Californian was near the Titanic when it sank, but its radio was shut off for the night.

When flares from the Titanic woke the captain, he assumed they were "company rockets," or signals passed between ships owned by the same company, not distress signals, the BBC reported.

Instead, the RMS Carpathia responded to the Titanic's distress call and changed course to help.

The Titanic's distress call reached the Carpathia, a transatlantic passenger liner manned by Captain Arthur Rostron, at 12:20 a.m., but it was more than three hours away. 

Another ship, the Olympic, was too far away to help.

Arriving at 3:30 a.m., the Carpathia came to the rescue of the survivors in the lifeboats.

Lifeboat No. 2 was the first to reach and board the Carpathia, Britannica reported. It would take several hours for the ship to pick up all of the survivors. 

By 8:30 a.m., the final person from Titanic's lifeboats had boarded the Carpathia.

The ship was then ordered by the captain to search the wreckage and frigid waters for any other survivors, but none were found. The ship did discover four bodies, which crew members buried at sea, according to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. 

 

 

The passengers and crew of the Carpathia tried to accommodate the survivors once they were aboard, but for many, the life-changing experience had rendered them inconsolable.

The Carpathia's crew and fellow passengers gave their beds to survivors and offered them warm clothing and blankets, the Maritime Executive reported. Many of the survivors were upset and could do nothing but cry, or were shell-shocked by what they had experienced. 

 

Rather than continuing along their original course, Carpathia's captain chose to return to New York City.

The closest destination was Halifax, Nova Scotia, but it required traveling through more ice, and there wasn't enough food on board to meet the needs of the Titanic passengers in addition to Carpathia's if the ship sailed on to its original destination. 

The ship's captain decided to head back to New York, which had been the Titanic's original destination. 

Halifax later became the main port for ships retrieving bodies from the wreckage. According to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, three ships dispatched from Halifax were able to retrieve 328 bodies from the wreckage, or only one in five victims. 

Roughly half of the Titanic victims' bodies are buried in Halifax, 119 bodies were buried at sea, and only 59 bodies were claimed by victims' relatives and returned home. A majority of the bodies buried at sea were damaged beyond recognition or belonged to crew members or third-class passengers.

The main vessel charged with retrieving bodies, the Mackay-Bennett, also ran out of embalming supplies — the ship didn't expect to find so many bodies in the water — forcing crew members to bury more people at sea than intended. 

Rumors of the Titanic's sinking created a public frenzy at the White Star Line's office.

The White Star Line office in New York was flooded with people wanting confirmation on the fate of the Titanic, but White Star initially refused to confirm if the ship had sunk, according to the New York Daily News.

Even as publications began to report on the sinking, White Star Line wouldn't confirm the news to the public until almost two days after the ship went down. 

 

As the Carpathia made its journey into New York, reporters hired tug boats to sail alongside the ship to talk to survivors.

Captain Rostron ordered his crew to ignore all calls from the press regarding the Titanic. So to get the scoop, journalists shouted questions at the passengers and crew through megaphones from the tugboats.

The Carpathia eventually docked at Pier 54 on April 18 at 9:30 a.m.

The ship had left from the same dock, only seven days earlier, according to the Maritime Executive. 

 

Around 30,000 people were waiting to welcome the survivors.

Families of passengers arrived hoping to be reunited with loved ones, according to the New York Daily News. Ambulances and hearses lined the streets waiting to tend to the survivors or cart away any of the dead. 

As the survivors of the Titanic left the Carpathia, they were greeted by the thousands of people.

Families reunited with each other, while others learned their loved ones had perished. 

Among the casualties, the crew and third-class passengers suffered the greatest losses with 700 and 536 fatalities, respectively, according to Britannica. 

The Carpathia's crew returned 13 of Titanic's lifeboats to White Star Line.

According to Titanic Universe, the Carpathia did not have the space for all 20 and left seven lifeboats in the North Atlantic.

The 13 lifeboats they brought back were placed in the possession of the White Star Line.

For his rescue efforts, Rostron received a Congressional Gold Medal.

Rostron was reluctant to speak publicly about his role in the Titanic rescue, and he avoided any spotlight for the rest of his life.

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• The GOP-led House of Representatives keeps stalling to bring a Ukraine aid bill to a vote.
• It may be because Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene threatened to oust the speaker if he did so.
• The House is considering six bills next week surrounding household appliance regulations.

As Ukraine aid continues to stall, the House of Representatives announced plans to address legislation barring government regulations on home appliances.

Though the Senate passed a $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel in February, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has yet to bring a similar or matching one to a vote. His reluctance could stem from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene threatening to oust him from leadership last month.

Johnson and his team have reportedly been negotiating with the White House regarding a Ukraine-based aid bill, but there's no set timeline for his prep work.

In the meantime, the House Rules Committee has announced it's set to take a look at a series of six bills, each relating to government regulations and standards on household appliances.

The bills to be reviewed are the following:

• Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act

• Liberty in Laundry Act

• Clothes Dryers Reliability Act

• Refrigerator Freedom Act

• Affordable Air Conditioning Act

• Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act

The six are strikingly similar to a culture war-esque bill that passed in the House in mid-2023 to prevent a gas stove ban, despite the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission noting that such a ban wasn't on the table and the White House clarifying Biden wouldn't even support one.

The House is set to vote on Friday to renew the nation's warrantless surveillance program for an additional two years. The chamber was initially going to instate the program for five more years, but 19 Republican members spoiled a procedural vote for it on Wednesday, forcing the change.

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• The job market will see "massive" disruption as AI becomes more prominent, a professor warned. 
• Even more utopian forecasters have said AI could affect millions of jobs.
• There's no safety net that can contain the fallout from AI's impact, Eric Posner argues. 

Artificial intelligence will upend the job market even in the best-case scenario — and there's no social safety net for workers who are at risk of being put permanently out of work,  according to University of Chicago professor Eric Posner.

In an op-ed for Project Syndicate, Posner pointed to growing concerns that the labor market will become increasingly dependent on AI, with some researchers warning a significant number of workers could be replaced by artificial intelligence technology in the coming decades. 90% of workers could have their jobs impacted by AI, and 9% of workers could be completely displaced by AI over the next 10 years, a 2024 study found.

Some tech commentators have said that those job losses could be supplemented by government aid, such as some form of universal basic income.

However, that kind of aid doesn't address a key problem stemming from an AI-fueled workforce: the possibility that many formerly employed people will suffer emotionally from the perception that they're not contributing to society, Posner warned.

"Loss of self-esteem and a sense of meaning and usefulness is inevitable in a society that valorizes work and scorns the unemployed and unemployable," Posner wrote. "Even if taxes or subsidies can keep alive jobs that produce less value than AI substitutes, they will merely be putting off the day of reckoning."

The "antiwork" movement has gained traction in recent years as Americans, especially Gen Zers, shun exploitation by their employers and the grind that's characterized other generations' working experience. But most employed Americans seem to like their jobs: 51% of US employees said they were satisfied with their jobs overall, according to a 2023 Pew Research study.

Higher rates of unemployment have also been linked to rising depression, alcoholism, anxiety, and other mental health ailments, even in studies that control for income, Posner noted.

He pointed to the "China shock" that hit the US in the early 2000s, when a flood of cheap imports from China led to job losses for around 2 million Americans, according to a study from the Cato Institute. That shock attributed to a rising number of "poor mental health" days in the US, another study found. 

"Even if humans are able to adjust to a life of leisure in the long term, the most optimistic projections of AI productivity portend massive short-run disruptions to labor markets, akin to the impact of the China shock," Posner said.

"That means substantial — and for many people, permanent — unemployment. There is no social safety net generous enough to protect people from the mental-health effects, and society from the political turmoil, that would follow from such widespread disappointment and alienation," he added.

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• Sheldon and Camry are a couple earning $250,000, making their household among the top 10% earners.
• Their monthly spending includes a $200 gym membership, date nights, and paying for a wedding.
• But the Gen Z pair doesn't feel like major earners thanks to New York rent and saving for a wedding.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with investment banker Sheldon, 26, and 25-year-old registered nurse Camry. They requested to use their first names only to maintain their privacy and protect their careers. Together, the New York City-based couple earns about $250,000 annually, with both making six-figure salaries. They have no children. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest 10% of earners in the US brought in at least $199,135 as a household in 2022. This article has been edited for length and clarity.

We're both less than five years into our careers, and while we're considered in the top 10% of earners, it doesn't feel like that at all.

Two major reasons for that: We live in New York City and are planning a wedding, so our $4,000 in rent and $3,000 in wedding expenses tend to eat up the majority of the monthly budget.

This wedding is a sacrifice we knew we wanted to make, but we'll be glad when it's over. The wedding will end up costing between $55,000 and $60,000 total.

We've basically been paying another rent payment on top of our other expenses. As soon as it's over, we can finally splurge the way we'd like. It's definitely going to feel like a pay rise.

Despite earning more than a lot of people, we both still have this kind of grinder mentality because our life isn't cheap, and times are tough. Our jobs in investment banking and nursing are pretty stressful, but they provide a certain lifestyle that we definitely want to attain.

Our finances won't be fully combined until after we're married, but we pay for things cooperatively. For now, we spend from separate accounts.

On budgeting

Sheldon: I've gone through the trouble of actually creating a budget using a template on Excel and all that. It looks nice and pretty, but adhering to it is a completely different ballgame.

Camry: I always have a number in my head of what I don't want my checking account to go below or my credit card limit to go above. Having something we're working toward is kind of like budgeting. We're on a wedding budget right now.

What they splurge on

Sheldon: Our special date nights do incur a lot of expenses because we're going to nice restaurants spending between $250 and $275 for the two of us. It definitely adds up.

I'm kind of big into fashion — brands like Kith or Aimé Leon Dore —so I'll buy a couple of pieces here and there when it makes sense. Wall Street is very "work hard, play hard," so sometimes you need to treat yourself with retail therapy.

Camry: I pay for my student loans, rent, and my phone bill. Whatever I have left after wedding expenses, I consider my discretionary spending money.

We're privileged enough to eat out multiple times a week if we want, and if I want to go to Sephora and buy some things or have a monthly gym membership, I can do those things.

My $200 monthly unlimited membership at CorePower Yoga is a non-negotiable for me.

What they save on

Sheldon: I don't really spend extravagantly to begin with because of my schedule. I'm able to avoid a lot of expenses because I work so much.

My food and travel expenses are typically paid for when I'm working late into the evening, so it saves me a lot of charges.

But apart from eating out, we're not doing a lot of recreational stuff. Right now, our favorite activity is taking walks in Central Park, which is nice because it's free.

Camry: I do get a discount as a nurse on my gym membership. I try to look for those sorts of discounts to save money where I can.

I used to buy designer bags and shoes without a second thought, but now we have something to pay for as a couple.

Their financial advice to others

Sheldon: I advise my friends to sacrifice a little now so that you can live better later, to invest in the market and be patient, and to have an idea of the life you want and what it will cost and plan accordingly.

Camry: If I could do anything differently, I would've opened up a high-yield savings account when I first started my nursing job post-graduation.

Their future plans

Sheldon: Once the wedding is over, we'll be able to resume normal operations. I'll finally be able to start saving regularly again since this process has made me stop almost completely.

We definitely have very ambitious travel goals. There are no limitations of places we can think of. South Africa, Singapore, Paris, and Japan are on our dream travel list, for sure.

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• Taylor Swift is back on TikTok despite a feud between the app and her label Universal Music Group.
• The artist's song catalog returned a week before her new album rolls out.
• Swift's reemergence shows that even the world's biggest stars need TikTok to promote their work.

Taylor Swift is back on TikTok.

The pop star's music, along with tracks from hundreds of other artists like Drake and Olivia Rodrigo, was pulled off the app at the end of January amid a contract dispute between her record label Universal Music Group and the ByteDance-owned company. The purging of songs later expanded to Universal Music's publishing arm, hitting a wide swath of performers around the world.

The move has been particularly troubling for artists who are releasing new music this year. TikTok is an essential promotional tool for performers and record labels. Music fans use the app to find new songs, and user-generated trends can help old and new tracks break into the Billboard 100. UMG artists can still post videos on TikTok, but they can't use their own tracks, making it harder to push a new album. In the meantime, marketers have been using other short-video products like Instagram reels to promote songs.

The TikTok-UMG feud isn't over. The two parties are waiting each other out, to win favorable licensing terms and prove once and for all who needs each other more. And yet, Taylor Swift's music made it back onto the app this week, a few days before she's set to release her new album "The Tortured Poets Department."

As Variety reported, Swift owns her own masters while still being repped by UMG, creating a window for her to negotiate her own terms with TikTok. The label, which declined to comment on the record to Business Insider, seems to have acquiesced to allow Swift's music to reappear. TikTok did not respond to BI's comment request.

Swift's return to TikTok shows that even the industry's biggest stars still need to use the app to help a new album take off.

The megastar has 283 million Instagram followers, nearly 100 million monthly Spotify listeners, and around 57 million YouTube subscribers. A single social-media post from the 34-year-old performer can send her "Swifties" fan base into a frenzy.

And yet, Swift's team made the move to port her content back over to TikTok, seemingly undermining the bargaining position of UMG during its TikTok fight.

Swift has a track record of doing things on her own terms. She bypassed Hollywood studios to work directly with AMC for the film release of her Eras tour, for example, which earned over $250 million at the box office globally. Her 2023 Eras tour was an economic force on its own, adding $4.3 billion to the US's gross domestic product, with similar economic spikes projected in countries like Singapore and Australia as she continues her tour internationally this year, per Bloomberg.

The TikTok-UMG fight is inspiring more artists to take control of their music

For artists and producers, having the ability to assert independence in an industry controlled by a few major labels is critical, music producer Chauncey Hollis, known professionally as Hit-Boy, told BI.

Like many artists, Hit-Boy, who works with UMG's publishing arm, saw some of his music pulled from TikTok earlier this year. It strengthened his resolve to take more control over his music going forward.

"It is just kind of frustrating in that sense where I'm literally spending my money to create and have these platforms to promote and push what I'm doing, and it's like I have no control over it," he told BI. "What else can they strip away from the artist's ability to be seen and heard? We don't know. What's important is to just know that regardless of what happened, you have to just create your own platforms and the people that rock with you, they're going to come."

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• Boeing execs used an additional $545,520 for personal travel expenses in 2021 and 2022.
• The Wall Street Journal first reported Boeing had improperly classified personal trips on private jets as business travel.
• The IRS said in February it was beginning to audit corporate jet usage.

Boeing's execs have been using the company's private jets for personal travel — and it's more than we thought.

Top Boeing executives used an additional $545,520 for personal jet travel in 2021 and 2022 than was initially reported, according to an amended SEC filing.

The Wall Street Journal reports Boeing made the revisions after an investigation last year into the use of private jets by its top executives.

The Journal found that, in some cases, personal trips had been improperly classified as business travel.

"Following a review commenced by the company in 2023, we found certain items, primarily aircraft, and ground transportation costs … were not previously classified as perquisites by the Company but should have been classified as such in accordance with SEC rules and guidance," the company said in its proxy statement.

The revised stats for Boeing's outgoing CEO, Dave Calhoun, amounted to an additional $142,315 in personal travel in 2021 and 2022.

That said, Boeing wrote in the filing that its CEO "is required to use company aircraft for all business and personal travel for security reasons."

The other execs whose travel was revised in the filing include CFO Brian West, former president and CEO of commercial airplanes Stanley Deal, and president and CEO of Boeing defense, space, and security Theodore Colbert.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Calhoun recently said he would step down at the end of 2024 after he faced significant scrutiny following the Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 door blowout in January.

The Journal notes there are tax implications when company jets are taken for personal travel and that the IRS said it will begin auditing corporate jet usage this year.

The Journal's 2023 investigation found that Boeing's fleet of private jets had made around 400 trips to or from airports near Calhoun's two homes in New Hampshire and South Carolina since roughly 2020 after Boeing moved its headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, VA., in 2022, and attempted to get staff to return to the office.

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• Reservations site OpenTable will reportedly add users' first names to formerly anonymous reviews.
• The move comes a month after news of a similar change from careers site Glassdoor.
• In both cases, the companies say identification improves the authenticity of their services.

Anonymity has long been simultaneously one of the best and worst things about the internet.

Now restaurant reservations service OpenTable has reportedly decided that the benefits of anonymous posting don't outweigh the costs.

In an email to users seen by tech news site Bleeping Computer, the company said it will begin showing a first name and profile photo on all diner reviews, including on past comments that were shared anonymously.

"We've heard from you, our diners, that trust and transparency are important when looking at reviews," the email said, adding that the move is meant to strengthen the "credibility" of OpenTable reviews, according to the news outlet.

Neither OpenTable nor parent company Bookings Holdings immediately responded to Business Insider's request for comment on this story ahead of publication. Bookings' other services include Kayak and Priceline, among others.

The reported policy change comes a month after after Wired found that careers site Glassdoor had begun requiring users to provide their real names for account verification, though they still have the option of posting anonymous content to the company's services.

"We use your real name and email address for verification purposes only, to make sure everyone is who they say they are. After that, your privacy takes priority," Glassdoor says in an FAQ page.

One Reddit user was quick to dismiss concerns about OpenTable's change, saying, "This is how you get King Tuttle's, Emperor Nero's, and Kim Jongummm on the reservation list. Customers will outsmart this in no time."

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