Author: openjargon

Caitlin Clark, a 22-year-old Iowa graduate, is having an unusual start to professional life.

Her star rose fast in college. She became the leading basketball scorer in NCAA history — for men and women — and smashed all kinds of other records, drawing legions of new fans and also historic partnership deals. Since being drafted into the WNBA in April as the No. 1 overall pick, Clark is having an impressive, albeit inconsistent, rookie campaign. She has struggled at times with the increased physicality at this level, which is extremely normal.

But nothing that Clark does — or that is done to Clark — is treated as normal.

On Sunday, Clark was flagrant-fouled by the Chicago Sky's Angel Reese in the third quarter, and it made headline news on CNN, Fox News, ESPN, Bleacher Report, and even Deadline, the Hollywood news site.

That was just the latest bulletin in a months-long news cycle trailing everything Clark does. ESPN's Stephen A. Smith said WNBA players should go easier on Clark in games if they want to keep up record viewership: "Protect the golden goose." When Clark was not picked for the Olympic team in June — likely because of Team USA's depth at the guard position and Clark's lack of international experience — Republican governor Nikki Haley tweeted in outrage: "I think the Olympic selection committee should be asked do we want the best team to represent our country or not?" After Clark was hard-fouled in a recent game, a GOP congressman from Indiana wrote an open letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, asking her to do something about "excessive" physical play. He said Clark's "exceptionalism" was being met with "resentment and repeated attacks from fellow players."

All this attention positions Clark as the de facto face of the WNBA, which is predominantly Black with a strong and vocal LGBTQ population. Clark, herself, largely stays out of it. She doesn't comment on the uproar, except to say she's focused on playing basketball. And yet, her name has become a kerosene canister to inflame a thinly-veiled debate about race, gender, and representation in America.

These days, watching Caitlin Clark play basketball has become a Rorschach test for a deeply divided country.

How Caitlin Clark become the center of a culture war

Being a female athlete is inherently an act of political defiance. In the US, it took a 1972 law about gender equality in education, Title IX, to inadvertently drag public institutions kicking and screaming into providing resources for women's sport, and many remain noncompliant today. Because of this, activism and women's sports often go hand-in-hand, with champions fighting not just for medals, but for equal pay, racial and LGBTQ equality, and maternal rights. Four years ago, WNBA players actually helped flip a Senate seat in Georgia.

In recent years, we've seen some outspoken female athletes used as props to push political agendas, most notably Megan Rapinoe, the women's soccer player who became a target for her outspoken hatred of Donald Trump, and Brittney Griner, the WNBA player who was wrongfully imprisoned in Russia for most of 2022.

Clark is different. She, herself, does not talk politics. She shoots threes and dishes dimes. She attends her contractual media interviews, and fields offers from the world's biggest shoe brands who have been trying to partner with her since she was at school.

But it's getting tougher for Clark (and the rest of the WNBA) to focus on work alone.

Fouls that wouldn't even be a footnote in NBA coverage — fouls that other women across the WNBA commit and take every game — are suddenly talking points. Male sports commentators who have never given the WNBA airtime are dedicating multiple segments to Clark's Black opponents, calling them jealous bullies who are out to hurt her. Matt Leinart, a former football player-turned-media personality, said on X that the WNBA should suspend Reese for an unintentional foul because it was "bad for the game." ESPN's Pat McAfee, a football pundit, compared Clark to Eminem in an inflammatory rant, saying that people don't want to give her credit because she's white.

Last week, security had to intervene when Chennedy Carter, a Chicago Sky player, was confronted by a man outside a hotel in Washington, DC. The man was demanding to know if Carter had reached out to Clark after hard-fouling her in a recent game — a play that, while excessive, was overdramatized by a GOP congressman to issue a formal complaint to the WNBA. Fellow WNBA players started making statements, calling for the firestorm to stop. Many Black players, including Clark's own teammates, spoke up about experiencing excessive racist abuse on social media in recent weeks.

When asked about her name being used "as a weapon in the culture wars dividing the country," Clark initially side-stepped the question. "I don't see it. That's not where my focus is," she said. "My focus is here and on basketball. That's where it needs to be, that's where it has been, and I'm just trying to get better on a daily basis."

Some WNBA fans and players took issue with that response. "Silence is a luxury," Connecticut Sun forward Dijonai Carrington wrote on X. Carrington vocalized a brewing frustration about one (white, straight) rookie being awarded more mainstream credit, plaudits, and sympathy than we've ever really seen in the WNBA's existence.

Black women built, sustained, at times even saved the WNBA during its first 28 years. Their stories often go untold: a study found that in 2020, four of the five most talked about WNBA players in the media were white, despite 80% of the postseason awards being won by Black players.

And their compensation falls short, too. Media fanfare propelled Clark into a historic $28 million deal with Nike, which reportedly came with a signature shoe — a huge moment for women's basketball, but one that stoked controversy because the only other two WNBA players with signature shoes, Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart, are also white. (Two weeks later, Nike said A'ja Wilson, a Black two-time MVP who has been with Nike since she was the top draft pick in 2018, will have a signature shoe in 2025.)

The hope that this new era of WNBA fandom could be everything for everyone is turning into exasperation.

This all says more about commentators than it does about Clark

The chaotic coverage of Clark doesn't tell us much about her or the league. It does underscore that the sports media ecosystem is wholly unprepared for the rise of women's basketball.

Even before Clark, the price of the WNBA's media rights deal was expected to double in 2025, bringing a game-changing influx of cash to the table — money that can turn salaries from livable to luxurious, and investments into profit.

But this moment, which has been building for decades, is being undercut by commentators and brands who are fixated on Clark. While there's no doubt her exceptional skill is a big reason why ratings nearly tripled during the first month of the season, it doesn't do Clark or the WNBA any favors to paint her as a precious legend in a league of her own who needs to be protected.

All these projections — from Clark's supporters and detractors — infantilize every player on the court. She is strong, and played the best game of her WNBA career so far on Sunday. She's working hard to diversify her game, to adjust to the next level, on and off the court. In one of her most recent interviews, Clark got more direct than ever. "Everybody in our world deserves the same amount of respect," Clark told James Boyd of The Athletic. "The women in our league deserve the same amount of respect, so people should not be using my name to push those agendas."

She's growing. It's time for the rest of us to do the same.

• Many voters aren't happy about having to choose between Biden and Trump again.
• Here's the truth: several credible Republicans ran against Trump, and he beat them all.
• But Democrats didn't get a real choice. No credible candidates challenged Biden in the primary.

You've probably heard friends or family say it.

Perhaps you've even uttered some version of it yourself: "I can't believe we're stuck with Donald Trump and Joe Biden again."

If you feel this way, you've got quite a bit of company. An April survey from the Pew Research Center found that 49% of voters would replace both candidates if that were possible.

This scenario might tempt some to rail against the so-called "duopoly" of politics or bemoan the fact that neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party are able to field more popular candidates.

But it's important to understand that Biden and Trump are set to be their party's nominees for quite different reasons.

Republican voters had a lot of choices. They resoundingly chose Trump.

It might be easy to forget at this point, but Trump had lots of opponents.

Over a dozen people challenged Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, including one senator, one governor, three former governors, a former member of his cabinet, and his own vice president.

Trump handily beat all of them, winning a majority of the vote in all but two places: Vermont and Washington, DC.

It's not like they didn't raise enough money, bring enough experience, or were failed to effectively prosecute the case against Trump. Nikki Haley, the candidate who lasted the longest of all of the contenders, did all of those things.

It's just that GOP voters — who make up roughly a third of the electorate — overwhelmingly chose Trump, and the highest levels of the party once again fell in line behind him.

Polls showed Democrats open to alternatives. They never got a credible one.

On the other hand, Democrats ended up being stuck with Biden, despite plenty of indication that there was room for an alternative.

In July 2022, polling showed that nearly two-thirds of Democrats did not want Biden to run for a second term. In February of this year, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that 45% of Democrats said that Biden should not be the nominee, versus 46% who said he should.

That same poll found that just 23% of Democrats were enthusiastic about his candidacy. Polling has also shown that most Democrats believe he's too old to serve.

Sensing the possibility of an opening, just one elected Democrat stepped forward to challenge Biden: Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota.

But the Minnesota congressman's campaign failed to catch on. He didn't have the gravitas of a governor of a senator, made occasional gaffes on the trail, and most crucially, was marginalized by the top echelons of the party.

In short, if you're frustrated with your choices this November, you've got two very different groups to blame: GOP voters and Democratic Party elites.

• Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn asked 50 strangers to help distribute $27 million in inheritance.
• Engelhorn, whose ancestor was a rich industrialist, advocates for higher taxes on the ultrawealthy.
• The group proposed giving money to 77 charitable initiatives, including environmental and women's groups.

Earlier this year a 32-year-old Austrian heiress asked a group of complete strangers to decide how best to distribute roughly $27 million of her inheritance.

This week, the group "Good Council for Redistribution" (Guter Rat für Rückverteilung in German) reached a decision on how the money should be spent.

It should be awarded to 77 charitable initiatives over several years, the group said, including several women's shelter associations, children's charities, and climate crisis organizations.

The largest sum, of about $1.75 million, was earmarked for the environmental group Naturschutzbund Österreich, with other potential beneficiaries including the World Inequality Lab, Reporters Without Borders, and Catholic charity Caritas.

Marlene Engelhorn inherited a fortune as the descendant of Friedrich Englehorn, a 19th-century German industrialist who founded BASF, which would become the world's largest chemical producer.

After receiving the inheritance from her grandmother, Traudl Engelhorn-Vechiatto, who died in September 2022, Engelhorn sent out invitations to randomly selected Austrian citizens to help her redistribute her wealth.

Fifty people, aged 16 to 85, were ultimately chosen to decide how the bulk of the money would be spent.

They came from all walks of life and met over six weekends, hearing from experts in redistribution, poverty research, and law before making their decision.

Participants received stipends for childcare and travel expenses.

Englehorn's decision to give away her money, and have others decide how to go about it, received plenty of attention earlier this year.

In a mission statement, Englehorn explained her motives: "Our tax system favors precisely those who already live in abundance: work is taxed highly, wealth is taxed low or not at all."

Englehorn also told The Guardian: "To not redistribute wealth is as much of a distributional decision as to redistribute it."

She's previously called on the Austrian state to tax her 90% of the inheritance, telling Le Monde in 2022 that it was "unfair" to receive such a huge sum, given that she had never worked for it.

Austria abolished inheritance tax in 2008.

Englehorn has advocated for higher taxes on the world's wealthiest people. She also cofounded Tax Me Now, a collective of wealthy people in German-speaking countries calling on global leaders to tax their extreme wealth.

Englehorn, contacted via Tax Me Now, did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• My friends and I traveled together through Southeast Asia in our 20s.
• We just took another trip together, this time to Bhutan, nearly two decades later. 
• Though much has changed, our friendships are still strong. 

I walked around Singapore Changi Airport feeling like a kid at summer camp for the first time. It was my first trip away from my family in a decade.

"Will I be OK?" I wondered. "What if I feel homesick and want to go home to my children and husband?"

I sat down and checked my backpack for the 10th time to make sure my passport and wallet were still inside. Then, I took a deep breath and wondered why I felt so anxious.

An earlier version of me used to travel alone all the time when I was in my 20s, filled with a naïve optimism that everything would work out. Yet there I was, at 39, feeling completely out of my depth.

I connected to WiFi, and my phone lit up with a message. I felt a rush of relief as I remembered I wasn't alone on the other side of the world. Three of my college friends were heading to Bhutan with me.

They had just touched down from Brisbane and wanted to know where to meet up. "See you at the gate," I wrote, and started making my way through the terminal.

Suddenly, I heard my college bestie call out my name. "Millllllls," she yelled. It was like a scene from a bad romcom, as she came sprinting along the travelator and tackled me. We laughed and hugged, then made our way to the other women.

Three of us are moms who ditched our husbands at home with the kids. The fourth friend decided to join us literally a couple of weeks before the trip, much to our delight.

We've all had vastly different life experiences, but we share an enduring bond — the kind that's formed during those early foundational years and lasts the ages. We met at college and traveled through Cambodia and Vietnam together in our early 20s.

Over the next eight nights, we had the time of our lives in Bhutan. It had been almost 20 years since the four of us had traveled together, but somehow, we picked up right where we left off. Another friend also joined along the way, and she fit in perfectly with the group.

During the holiday, I had so many revelations. The main one was how much I love traveling with girlfriends at different life stages.

We laughed more than I thought possible

There were times when we laughed so much that we cried, starting with our layover in Kathmandu on the way to Bhutan. I had woken up to go to the toilet, and when I reappeared in our twin room, my friend thought I was an intruder. She let out a blood-curdling scream that shook the walls. "It's me, Carmen," I said, then we both collapsed in a fit of hysterics, laughing until our stomachs ached.

Another time, we talked about something serious in a restaurant when the only other patron let out an almighty belch. We all looked at each other, then keeled over with laughter.

But the funniest moment of all was when our somewhat conservative Bhutanese guide took us to a hot spring in Gasa and appeared in his very tight undies. Up until that point, he had been wearing his traditional robe, known as a gho.

We were all sitting in the hot springs nearby as he took a 10-minute shower, meticulously scrubbing every inch of his hair and body. My friend piped up something like, "Queue 'Mysterious Girl' by Peter Andre," and we all lost it. It was so immature, but all of us were enjoying ourselves.

We had the best conversations

Another thing I loved was our deep and varied conversations. Nothing had been off limits during our trip together around Southeast Asia, and the same was true during this trip.

We talked about old relationships and current ones; parenting and puberty; religion and life after death. We discussed the merits of early sex education and the importance of teaching our sons about consent.

Sometimes, we chatted about lighter topics like eyelash curlers and brands of face cream, but I enjoyed those conversations, too. Often, we told stories about our earlier trip together, and through shared experiences, we briefly re-lived our youth.

We embraced the comfortable silences

Part of what I found incredible was how easy and familiar it felt to travel with these friends despite such a long gap between holidays.

There were times when we would embrace the comfortable silences while hiking in the mountains, enjoying the silent companionship rather than filling the void with constant chatter.

The silences never felt awkward, but instead offered opportunities for thoughtfulness and reflection, leading to a deeper sense of connection between us.

We rallied together and enjoyed the sisterhood

There's nothing quite like the bond of female friendship, and I really felt the solidarity of sisterhood during our trip. When women come together, they empower one another to be stronger and offer a tremendous well of emotional support.

When one of my friends began her cycle earlier than anticipated on a remote hike, we all rallied together and pooled our sanitary pads to get her through.

When I had a moment of height-induced panic on a hike, my friends reassured me I would be OK and encouraged me to keep going.

When another friend ended up in tears because her daughter had received some bad news, we hugged her and tried to support her through it.

There were so many beautiful moments of connection like these that I will hold in my heart in years to come.

So, what's next for our traveling girl squad? We all lead very busy lives, and most of us live in different areas of Australia and the world (our fifth friend is based in Hong Kong). It's hard to know when exactly we might have the opportunity to connect again for another overseas adventure.

However, one thing's for sure. The memories of our trip will sustain us until we meet again — and there will be a next time, even if it's another decade in the making.

• Dell introduced a new hybrid work policy to get workers back to the office in February. 
• Nearly half the company's full-time US staff have chosen to stay remote, data seen by BI shows.
• 11 Dell employees explained why they've given up the chance of promotion to keep working from home.

Remote working is the new norm for many white-collar workers, but their bosses still aren't on board.

Rather than accept the shift in working culture, some employers have resorted to strict mandates and punitive policies to get employees back in the office.

Dell has been trying its best to do the same.

In February, the tech giant introduced a return-to-office mandate, telling workers to formally classify themselves as either hybrid or remote.

Those who chose remote are no longer eligible for promotion or able to change roles. Meanwhile, hybrid workers must come into the office 39 days a quarter, roughly three days a week, and their attendance is monitored using a color-coded system.

Several months after this RTO policy was announced, it appears it hasn't worked.

Close to 50% of Dell's full-time workers in the US have opted to stay remote, according to internal data on the entire full-time workforce seen by Business Insider.

Unless they agree to change their classification, those US Dell workers are now ineligible for promotion.

The data showed that around a third of international staff chose to stay remote.

Dell did not answer specific questions from BI regarding the data, but said it believes "in-person connections paired with a flexible approach are critical to drive innovation and value differentiation."

The data seen by BI isn't available to all Dell employees, but many confirmed anecdotally that half or more of their team had opted to stay remote.

"My team is spread out around the world. Almost 90% of the team did the same as in our case there was no real advantage going to the office," one worker said.

Eleven employees from sales, tech support, engineering, and HR departments spoke to BI to explain why they opted for remote work despite losing their shot at career progression. All the employees asked to remain anonymous as they are not permitted to speak to the media.

The benefits of WFH

For several Dell employees, the personal and financial benefits of working remotely were too good to give up.

"I benefited a lot from being WFH since 2020 and had a lot of personal growth. I'm not willing to give that up if I don't have to," one employee told BI.

The staffer explained that prior to COVID-19, their life "was basically home and work," and there was little time for anything else.

Like many who started working remotely during the pandemic, the Dell worker said working from home gave them more time to spend with family, exploring hobbies, and meeting friends outside the workplace.

"The more time I have to spend in the office, the less time, money, and personal space I have for all of that. I can do my job just as well from home and have all of those personal benefits as well,' they said.

"With the salary that we are receiving, a return to the office would leave a huge hole in our budget," said another employee, citing the cost of commuting and meals at work.

Some workers have 'no office to return to'

Some staff said they had no choice but to classify as remote because offices nearby had been shut down or were too far away to commute to.

"Dell closed down the facility in 2020 that I worked at, so I have no office to return to," one worker explained.

But with teams spread across multiple states and time zones, some of those who did live near an office felt it was pointless to show up.

"The particular work I'm doing now means I don't really have a 'team,' and the people I work with most are at different sites," one employee told BI.

Another staffer on a global team said their schedule required the flexibility of working from home: "I am not going to work eight hours in a Dell office and then come home and work three more hours in meetings with my folks in India or Malaysia."

The staffer said there had been no response from HR about how the new policy had restricted the team.

Several of BI's sources said their colleagues who opted for hybrid work have described near-empty offices in some locations.

"My meetings are now with people in different conference rooms across the country by themselves," a remote employee told BI.

"The reality of this thing is dumb."

Another staffer told BI that some had questioned the logic behind the new policy in a company town hall and was told by COO Jeff Clark that working in an office can allow staff to spread knowledge among each other.

Clark did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

'A meaningless threat'

Several senior employees told BI that because they had already moved up the ranks, there was really no more promotion Dell could give them.

"I've got nothing left to get promoted to unless I want to get into management," said one senior engineer.

A more junior employee pointed out that, regardless of the policy, promotion opportunities have felt limited in recent years.

"I know a few people who probably would have been deterred from staying remote due to the threat of the possibility of promotion, but since there haven't been any opportunities, they saw it as a meaningless threat."

In its latest full year results, Dell reported annual revenue of $88.4 billion, a 14% decline from 2023 and below pre-pandemic earnings. In the first quarter of its 2025 financial year, the company reported $22.2 billion in revenue, up 6% from the same quarter the previous year.

As the reality of Dell's new working culture has set in, several employees told BI they were looking to leave the company.

"Every mom that I talk to at Dell says that they are looking for other jobs because they need the remote work," said one employee.

Another said he was looking for new jobs and would "jump ship" as soon as he found something. Almost everyone he knew at the company, other than very junior employees, was doing the same thing.

"Before this whole fiasco, I wouldn't have considered going somewhere else," he added. "Being a second-class citizen doesn't leave you any career opportunities."

Are you a worker at Dell or another company pushing staff back to the office? Contact this reporter at pthompson@businessinsider.com

• Law enforcement worldwide teamed up recently to fight cybercrime. 
• "Operation Endgame" led to four arrests and the dismantling of 100 malicious servers globally.
• Cybersecurity experts called the sting an important step, but said its just a start. 

In what's been billed as a first-of-its-kind operation, law enforcement agencies around the world recently banded together to take down major cyber criminal infrastructure that officials said targeted multitudes of victims and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages globally.

Over a couple of days in late May, "Operation Endgame" led to the arrests of four people in Ukraine and Armenia, the dismantling of more than 100 malicious computer servers worldwide, and the seizure of over 2,000 domains, according law enforcement in the US and Europe.

One of the main suspects raked in at least $70 million in cryptocurrency by "renting out criminal infrastructure sites to deploy ransomware" according to Europol, the law enforcement agency of the European Union that conducted the operation along with other agencies, including the FBI.

Cybersecurity experts told Business Insider that the takedown is a pivotal step forward in the ongoing war against cybercrime. However, they said, the fight can't end here, as cybercrime is one of the biggest threats facing humanity.

"It's not like this is going to solve the problem, but it's a great step in addressing it," said Adam Wandt, a cybercrime investigations expert and a public policy professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

'Largest ever operation against botnets'

Europol called the sting the "largest ever operation against botnets, which play a major role in the deployment of ransomware."

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement that the agency "used joint and sequenced actions to run a first-of-its-kind international operation and debilitate the criminal infrastructure of multiple malware services."

As part of the operation, the law enforcement agencies shut down at least four malware groups or "droppers" known as "IcedID," "Smokeloader," "Pikabot," and "Bumblebee."

According to the FBI, these droppers, designed to install malware onto computer systems, "infected millions of computers and claimed countless victims around the world and throughout the United States, including a hospital network, which not only cost millions of dollars but alarmingly put people's lives at risk due to the compromised critical care online system."

"This is taking down computer servers, which are affecting all of us," said Wandt, who explained that the hackers behind the botnets are "going for money, and they don't care who they go for or how they get it."

"This could be my grandmother sitting at home, this could be a large bank. It doesn't matter," he said.

Wandt and other experts said the takedown of 100 malicious servers is a small number when compared to the vast number of servers that run botnets around the globe but that it's nonetheless important.

"That doesn't mean that it was a small number in the amount of fraud that it was committing," said Wandt.

Ransomware 'wreaking havoc around the world'

Tracy Beth Mitrano, a cybersecurity policy expert and a visiting professor of information science at Cornell University, called "Operation Endgame" a "significant step," but said "it's not significant in terms of the total scope of the problem."

"Ransomware has just been wreaking havoc around the world," Mitrano said. "It's been ripping through the United States."

Mitrano emphasized the importance of the US working with other countries around the world to combat cybercrime and called for international law, treaties, and agreements "to establish rules of the road in cyberspace."

"The war will not be won until there are international laws and standards that bring countries together," said Mitrano.

Mitrano said "Operation Endgame," is a "very important first step, but we have to keep going."

"Cyber insecurity is one of the biggest threats we face on the globe today," she said.

Thomas Holt, a cybersecurity expert and professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, said the coordinated effort of countries around the globe working to fight cybercrime as was done in "Operation Endgame" is "absolutely necessary."

"Cybercrime is such a distributed problem," he said, noting that cybercriminals can target "anyone anywhere with relative ease, and the likelihood of detection is really, really low."

So any attempt at cracking down on cybercrime is a positive, Holt said.

"It's a net gain in terms of complicating networks or forcing short-term behavioral change on the market and the actors," said Holt. "It may not create these long-term sustained drop-offs, but it at least provides a short-term benefit."

Holt said he does not believe cybercrime will ever be stopped, "But what I think we can do is produce complexities for the offender, making it harder for them to actually engage in an offense like running a botnet."

The "biggest problem" in the malware world, according to Holt, is that there is always a different iteration of malware on the horizon.

"Over the last decade, it has been ransomware primarily, but there's going to be an eventual pivot away from ransomware to something else," he said. "We don't know exactly what that something else is yet."

And artificial intelligence "will certainly simplify the process" for cyberattackers, said Holt.

Cybercriminals "don't have the same degree of difficulty or barriers to entry that we had in the 80s, the 90s, and even the early 2000s," Holt said.

"Now it's flattened to a point where as long as you have money, you can buy personal data, you buy credit card numbers, rent out denial of service attacks on demand or botnets," he said. "So you don't even need to know what you're doing. You just need to have a cursory understanding and dollars in your pocket."

In a press release announcing the results of "Operation Endgame" last month, Wray, the FBI director, vowed, "The fight against borderless cybercrime does not end here, and the FBI is committed to tackling this ever-evolving threat."

• Silversea Cruises' new Silver Ray embarked on its maiden voyage in mid-June.
• The ship's most luxurious 1,324-square-foot Otium Suites have amenities like a private hot tub and library.
• The cabin starts at $17,000 per person in 2024, and it's mostly sold out for the year.

Silversea is one of the highest-end cruise lines on the market. So, as you can imagine, its new ship's most expensive suites are luxurious.

Like, really luxurious. And really expensive.

Silversea's new Silver Ray departed on its maiden voyage in mid-June. As is expected of Royal Caribbean Group's ritziest brand, the cruise line's 12th ship is outfitted with 364 of some of the most sumptuous suites at sea, the smallest of which already have a balcony, marble bathroom, and on-demand caviar.

Not too shabby, right?

Well, after seeing Silver Ray's most glamorous 1,324-square-foot Otium Suites, you could find yourself scoffing at its other accommodations.

Its balcony alone is larger than the ship's smallest suites. And its cost is more than three times that of the cheapest option.

In 2024, Silver Ray's Otium Suites start at $17,000 per person for a seven-day roundtrip cruise from Venice, Italy.

It's a steep price compared to the itinerary's least expensive $4,850 per person suite (there's an even cheaper category, but it's sold out for the sailing).

Despite the cost, Silver Ray's two Otium Suites are almost completely booked through 2024.

Upon entering, you're immediately greeted with the library and dining room — spaces you'd be hard-pressed to find in a typical cruise cabin.

Forgot a book? The reading nook is perfectly stocked for travelers interested in learning about bicycle brand Brompton ("The Brompton" by Will Butler-Adams and Dan Davies) and British microchip maker Arm ("The Everything Blueprint: The Microchip Design that Changed the World" by James Ashton).

Or, grab one of the neatly packaged games, such as tic-tac-toe and dominoes.

The dining table would be perfect for churning out a quick round of backgammon.

If you enjoy playing with a side of snacks, the fresh fruit bowl might do. Otherwise, you could call your butler for complimentary caviar or foie gras.

If it looks like a long game, brewing one of the bar's espresso pods or teas might be a good idea. Or, help yourself to some liquor, stocked according to the guests' preferences.

The dining table opens onto a living room with sprawling ocean views.

The couch can convert into a bed to sleep an additional guest. There's certainly ample room for three travelers, after all.

Take note of the chessboard and fresh-cut flowers, small touches that are, again, uncommon in the average suite.

If just one TV isn’t enough, you’re in luck. There’s another one in the bedroom.

It's also where you'll find the vanity, walk-in closet, and sizable bathroom — decorated with marble, of course.

Silver Ray’s cheapest suites have a dual vanity bathroom with a shower.

To out-luxe these cheaper accommodations, the Otium Suite comes with both a shower and a bathtub.

No need to worry about full privacy. The toilet is behind another closed door.

All of the ship's suites have balconies. None are as large as Otium's.

There's no need to hit the pool deck when your 431-square-foot balcony has a private hot tub, lounge chairs, and an outdoor dining table.

To compare, Silver Ray's smallest suites come with a 53-square-foot balcony. Size does matter, after all.

A private hot tub is included in the suite, which starts at $2,430 per person and day.

Hey, at least the cost includes a $399 spa treatment per person, too. Maybe a luxurious massage would help melt away the stress of the payment.

• Reddit's traffic is up 39% year over year this month, according to Similarweb.
• That's a huge increase for a platform that's been around for almost 20 years.
• Reddit's big boost is likely from Google traffic. Huh!

Have you seen more Reddit results in your Google searches lately? Or maybe you're one of the savvy people who is adding "reddit" to the end of your searches for things like "best air conditioner reddit" or "disney fastpast worth it reddit."

You're not alone. Way, way, not alone.

Reddit's traffic has surged in the last few months, largely because of its increased prominence in Google search results. In April, Business Insider's Hugh Langley reported how Reddit is "taking over" Google search results, in large part because of a recent decision at Google to prioritize "helpful content," aka forum posts (Quora, the question-and-answer site, also has seen a big bump in traffic).

Google denied at the time that the boost to Reddit had anything to do with its $60 million deal to license Reddit data for use in Google's AI products.

The Wall Street Journal also noted this week that Reddit traffic is way up, boosted in part by people adding "reddit" to their Google search queries.

Similiarweb, a data analytics firm, reports that Reddit's traffic surged 39% in May year-over-year — which is a HUGE increase. Way, way bigger than the other social media companies, which saw moderate increases or even decreases (sorry, Facebook).

According to Similarweb, the big driver of Reddit traffic is indeed organic search, aka Google. Reddit.com had about 834.5 million direct visits in April (this means people typed reddit.com into their browser), but 1.3 billion visits came from Google search results.

Look at this chart of Reddit's global traffic for the last five years. For a company that has been around for almost 20 years, the sharp increase to the far right is, to use a data science term, banoodles:

There's a few ways to make sense of this. One is that Reddit is a highly useful source of information from real humans, and people love it.

Another explanation is that Google's search results are so borked that people, desperate for a better search experience, are narrowing their queries to Reddit's archives.

A third, less appealing option is that shady people are using Reddit as a dirty SEO trick, spamming smaller subreddits with with SEO-friendly affiliate links — and causing a moderation headache.

It could be a combination of all three! Either way, Reddit is a traffic juggernaut now. Huh!

• Marcia Naomi Berger is a psychotherapist in San Rafael, California.
• This is an adapted excerpt from her memoir, "The Bipolar Therapist: A Journey from Madness to Love and Meaning."
• In the book, she discusses shame, stigma, and her experience with inpatient treatment. 

A year after my first psychiatric hospitalization in Queens, New York, I returned to my job at an alcoholism treatment center in San Francisco. A year later, in 1975, I had a second manic episode, which landed me in Langley Porter Hospital.

The ward's common area looked like a large, L-shaped living room with couches, chairs, coffee tables, a ping-pong table, and a large bin with arts and crafts supplies. Inside it, I saw yarn and knitting needles, among other supplies. The room's walls were in pale, pastel tones; the furnishings were clean and in good condition.

Patients wore their own clothes and seemed mentally clear. All this felt good, yet I was shocked to be there. I wanted to work, see friends, and get my life back.

I first met Henry when I was a patient myself

I played ping-pong with Henry, a stocky, lively patient around my age. He cracked jokes as he slammed back my shots. The score was close to even.

"Hey, where'd you learn to play so well?" he asked.

"My father taught me when I was a kid." I pictured how Dad's eyes would light up when I surprised him with a good slam or shot back one of his.

Henry sent a high one my way, and I smashed it back. His mouth dropped open when the ball grazed the table's edge and landed at his feet.

"Hey, I could learn some tricks from you," he said.

"Just lucky." I was having so much fun I almost forgot where I was.

"This your first time here?"

"Yeah, but I was at another place last year. It was awful. Langley Porter's a palace compared with that snake pit." My stomach tightened at the thought of Elmhurst; then I relaxed

again in the game's rhythm.

He nodded. "I've been in worse too. This place is one of the better ones. It's like — smaller, more personal. Nicer atmosphere, if you know what I mean."

"Hey, you could write a tourist guidebook for the mentally ill and compare the facilities." We both laughed. I continued, "You could rate them, give them a different number of

stars or diamonds for service, appearance, etcetera."

"Yeah, I could compare the doctors, the food, the furniture, the buildings — "

"The patients, visiting policies, bathrooms," I added.

He laughed louder. "Ha, ha! Hey, you crack me up. What did you say your name was?"

"Marcia." I surprised him with a slam, but he lobbed it back. He caught me off guard; I missed, and he won the game.

Later, I took yarn from the bin and knitted a pillow cover in earth tones, like the pillow I'd given Doreen during my recent manic spree at work. The wool against my skin and the repetitive clicking of the knitting needles soothed me. I looked forward to finishing the pillow and sleeping with it at home soon.

Conversation flowed easily between patients. No one seemed too heavily medicated. It felt like a comfortable dormitory. Whatever happened to me that got me there seemed over.

Six months later, I had another manic episode and started taking medication that stabilized me. Yet, it was too late for me to regain the respect of some coworkers, which made for a toxic work environment.

None of my coworkers knew I'd been a psychiatric inpatient

Ironically, I was recruited to my next job as a senior psychiatric social worker in San Francisco General Hospital's psychiatric ward, where my colleagues respected me.

Not wanting to be stigmatized, I told no one there that I'd been a psychiatric inpatient elsewhere. But something happened that almost blew my cover.

A new patient caught my attention one day as I went to the ward's conference room. He looked vaguely familiar.

"Hey!" he called out. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

I looked at him and felt a sinking feeling in my gut. "Langley Porter, that's it," he called out and laughed. "Langley Porter. Hey, how 'bout that?"

It was Henry!

No one was in earshot. Wishing I could disappear, I looked at him blankly, like he was mistaken.

I worried my cover would be blown

"Yeah! I remember you. Don't you remember me?" he smiled. Was he accusing or just being friendly? Too off-balance to know, I stood frozen in place.

"Ping-pong! I remember," he said loudly. "Don't you?"

"No," I lied, shrugging my shoulders and avoiding his eyes. I sensed he saw through me, and I rushed off.

I was relieved when they didn't assign Henry to my team. But I felt uneasy, like a potential blackmail victim, until his discharge.

Studiously, I avoided him, quivering inside, wondering, Did he tell anyone?

In time, I forgot about Henry — until he was readmitted.

"Hi there," he said at that time. I heard, "I can ruin you."

I wanted to say, please don't tell, but I was still pretending I'd never seen him before. Then I saw his name on my list of patients on the large whiteboard that paired patients with their primary therapists. No, no, no!

I'd become friendly with Barbara, a psychology intern in her forties on a different team. I considered her mature and trustworthy.

Hoping she wouldn't ask why, and with knots in my stomach, I told Barbara privately that I wasn't comfortable being Henry's therapist.

"I'll take him," she said, like it was no big deal.

"Thank you," I gasped, touched by her easy generosity.

I still wondered if Henry had revealed my secret. Could someone in a psychotic state exercise discretion? Had he relished saying: She's as crazy as the rest of us?

Did Barbara know? Did everyone?

After his discharge, I waited for the proverbial other shoe to drop, for the next time he'd show up on the ward. But I never saw him again.

Excerpted from The Bipolar Therapist: A Journey from Madness to Love and Meaning by Marcia Naomi Berger. Copyright 2024, Marcia Naomi Berger. Published by Bitachon Press.

• OceanGate's Titan submersible imploded a year ago, killing all five on board.
• The investigation into the implosion is dragging on and will miss the 12-month deadline.
• There's currently no projected completion date for the investigation, the US Coast Guard told BI.

On June 18, 2023, OceanGate's Titan submersible imploded while heading to the wreckage of the Titanic. All five on board died.

A year later, investigators say that finding answers to what happened is "complex" and will take longer than anticipated.

In a statement on Friday, the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigations, or MBI, said it was continuing to actively investigate the factors that led to the implosion.

However, the statement acknowledged that the original 12-month timeline for the investigation had not been met.

In an email to BI, a Coast Guard spokesperson said the investigation is still in the fact-finding phase, where the agency is "gathering all relevant evidence and information."

The MBI said that the reasons for the delay included the need to contract two salvage missions to secure evidence and the extensive forensic testing being carried out.

"The investigation into the implosion of the Titan submersible is a complex and ongoing effort," said the MBI's chair, Jason Neubauer, in the statement.

Neubauer added: "We are working closely with our domestic and international partners to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the incident."

The US Coast Guard convened the MBI into the submersible's loss last year to determine the cause and whether any misconduct was involved.

It was also set up to investigate whether evidence indicated any criminal acts and to decide if new laws or regulations were needed.

"The MBI is committed to ensuring that we fully understand the factors that led to this tragedy in order to prevent similar occurrences in the future," Neubauer said.

On June 22, 2023, the Coast Guard concluded that the missing submersible had likely imploded, attributing it to a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber" on the seafloor.

Investigators found major pieces of debris, and months later, the Coast Guard said it recovered "presumed human remains."

Among the dead was Stockton Rush, CEO of the now-defunct OceanGate.

In a statement on Tuesday, OceanGate, which ceased all operations, said it expressed "our deepest condolences" to those affected by the tragedy, adding that it's continuing to cooperate with authorities in their investigations.

A June 2023 memorandum convening the MBI stipulated that if the 12-month deadline for the investigative report could not be met, a written explanation for the delay and a new expected completion date should be provided.

However, the Coast Guard spokesperson told BI that there is currently no projected completion date.

They added that the latter part of the fact-finding phase would include a public hearing, for which the MBI would provide at least 60 days' notice.

The Titan implosion raised concerns about deep-sea exploration in general.

Despite this, billionaire Larry Connor told The Wall Street Journal in May that he and Patrick Lahey, the CEO of Titan Submarines, plan to travel down to the Titanic wreck site to prove it can be done safely.