Author: openjargon

• Democrats could end up with a "trifecta" in 2025, allowing them to once again pass party-line bills.
• They passed tons of major bills during the first two years of Biden's presidency.
• Here's what they could do with another two years in full control of the federal government.

There's lots of talk — and rightfully so — about what America might look like if former President Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office.

But there's a not-insignificant chance that not only does Trump lose again, but that Democrats find themselves once again in control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives at the beginning of 2025.

It's not the most likely outcome, but it's one worth taking seriously, especially given the retirement of Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, two key Democratic obstacles to President Joe Biden's agenda who will be out of office next year.

Here's how Democrats could win a trifecta again — and what could happen if they do.

How Biden could win — and have Democratic majorities in Congress

As it stands now, Trump has a slight lead over Biden nationally, and the incumbent president is facing an array of challenges as he seeks a second term. But the election is still six months away, polls shift, and who knows what could happen between now and then?

Democrats are broadly seen as favored to retake the House, with nearly 20 House Republican incumbents fighting to hold on in districts won by Biden in 2020. Several of those seats are in California and New York, while another two are in Arizona, where Democrats are expecting major political upside from a possible ballot measure on abortion rights.

The Senate will be a tougher lift. With Manchin's retirement, Democrats are all but guaranteed to lose at least one Senate seat, cutting any potential majority down to 50-50 — and it's only a majority if Biden wins, and Vice President Kamala Harris is around to break tie votes.

Democrats' chances essentially hinge on keeping tough seats in Ohio and Montana, two states that Trump won handily in both 2016 and 2020, while maintaining their seats everywhere else, including Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

It will be tough, but it's within the realm of possibility that Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio hang on — as they did in 2018 — and that Democrats end up with a slim majority again.

Democrats may have the votes to codify abortion protections nationwide

The lowest-hanging fruit for Democrats, if they regain a trifecta, would be to pass legislation protecting abortion rights nationwide — likely something resembling the Women's Health Protection Act, which would overrule existing state-level abortion bans that have emerged in the years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Biden supports it, and House Democrats have already voted for it twice, once in 2021 and again in 2022.

The reason they weren't able to pass the bill in the Senate in 2022 was because Manchin and Sinema opposed eliminating the chamber's "filibuster" rule, which requires 60 votes to pass legislation. Manchin was the only Democrat who opposed the bill outright.

Aside from national abortion protections, Democrats might take a shot at another legislative item stymied by Manchin and Sinema in 2022 — voting rights.

Democrats accomplished a lot during the first two years of Biden's presidency. But there's plenty they still want to do.

In contrast with the past 16 months of divided government, Biden's first two years came with lots of legislative accomplishments, including unprecedented climate legislation, a massive infrastructure bill, legislation to invest in the country's semiconductor manufacturing system, and more.

There are still a million more things that Democrats want to do — or have been blocked from doing before.

For one indicator of how far the party might go with a trifecta, take a look at the Congressional Progressive Caucus's recently released "Progressive Proposition Agenda."

It's a laundry list of progressive policy ideas, including items that were included in the original "Build Back Better" social spending and climate bill that Manchin and Sinema ultimately helped kill.

That includes reinstating the expanded child tax credit, investing $250 billion in affordable housing, passing legislation to strengthen workers' unions, legalizing marijuana, granting statehood to Washington, DC, and providing full tuition at public colleges and universities.

Not all of these policies would be enacted, and it's difficult to say for sure what Biden would pursue with total control in 2025.

But progressives showed during the first two years of Biden's presidency that they held more sway than any other faction of the party, and it will be worth paying close attention to them again whenever Democrats regain power — whether that's next year or several years from now.

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• A Japan Airlines flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled after the captain got drunk in a hotel.
• A replacement pilot could not be found in time for the morning departure.
• The airline told Japanese media that police were called due to the pilot's disorderly behavior.

A Japan Airlines flight from Dallas to Tokyo was canceled after a captain got drunk at a hotel bar and received a warning from police, the airline said, according to Japanese media.

The Mainichi, which cited a statement from Japan Airlines, reported that the captain dined in Dallas last week with other crew members.

According to the outlet, the airline said he then continued to drink throughout the evening in the hotel lounge where the crew were staying and, later, in his hotel room.

At around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, a hotel employee asked the group to be quiet, but the pilot's disorderly conduct prompted a call to the police, The Mainichi reported.

According to statements provided by the airline to Japanese media, police questioned the man and warned him not to cause further problems.

A spokesperson for Japan Airlines told Business Insider by email that the pilot received a "verbal warning from the police upon the hotel's request."

The spokesperson said the decision to cancel the flight stemmed from the need to assess the captain's physical and mental well-being, not because the pilot was under the influence at the time of the flight.

"It is true that the captain consumed alcohol," the spokesperson said, while noting that "there was a sufficient interval between alcohol consumption and the scheduled duty time."

Japan Airlines told The Mainichi it could not find a replacement pilot in time for the Wednesday morning departure.

Data from the flight-tracking website FlightAware shows that the flight, due to depart at 11:05 a.m. local time on Wednesday, was canceled.

The airline spokesperson told BI that it arranged for passengers to travel on alternative flights.

"We are fully aware of the seriousness of this situation," the spokesperson said. "In order to prevent such an incident from happening again, we will thoroughly implement measures to prevent recurrence and work to restore trust in our airline."

Although a relatively rare occurrence, there have been several recent incidents of pilots reporting for duty under the influence.

In March, a Delta Air Lines captain admitted to turning up for a flight while over the legal alcohol limit.

He was arrested after failing a breathalyzer test in June last year, and was later sentenced to 10 months in prison.

In 2023, a United Airlines pilot who showed up to work under the influence was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence by a French court.

Le Parisien reported that he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.132%, more than six times the legal limit for pilots in Europe and three times the Federal Aviation Administration's limit.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, a pilot's ability to fly a plane is significantly impaired by alcohol use.

It said that the number of serious errors pilots commit dramatically increases at or above concentrations of 0.04% blood alcohol.

Tuesday, April 30, 2024: This article has been updated with a response from Japan Airlines.

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• The Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York, was built by Frederick Vanderbilt in the 1890s.
• The 45,000-square-foot Gilded Age mansion is located on 153 acres of land in the Hudson Valley.
• The National Park Service offers tours of the mansion to the public.

During the Gilded Age in the late 1800s, railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt was the richest man in America with a net worth of $100 million, or around $200 billion today — more money than the US Treasury had at the time.

After Cornelius' death in 1937, his son William Vanderbilt took over the businesses and doubled his father's fortune. He died the wealthiest private individual in the world in 1885.

William's son, Frederick Vanderbilt, and his wife, Louise, purchased a 153-acre Hyde Park property in 1895. Construction on the mansion began in 1895 and was finished three years later.

The mansion and its grounds are now owned by the National Park Service, which offers tours of the property. I visited the Vanderbilt mansion in February 2023 to see its opulent rooms for myself.

The Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York, was home to one of America's wealthiest families during the Gilded Age.

In total, Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt spent $660,000 to build the home (more than $23 million in today's money) and $1.5 million (around $53 million today) to furnish it.

Today, the Vanderbilt Mansion is owned and operated by the National Park Service.

Frederick and Louise didn't have children. After Frederick's death in 1938, he left the house to Louise's niece, Margaret Van Alen. The Vanderbilts' neighbor in Hyde Park, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, then suggested preserving the estate by converting it into a national park.

The Vanderbilt Mansion opened to the public in 1940, according to the National Park Service.

I bought my tour ticket at the Pavilion Visitor Center, which once served as a guest house.

The only way to see inside the mansion is through a guided tour with a park ranger.

The hourlong tours cost $15 per person and are offered daily at 10 a.m., 12 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. There are no reservations — tickets are sold at the visitor center on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The visitor center featured a Vanderbilt family tree and information about their other homes across the US.

The Vanderbilts' largest home, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, features 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces.

The Vanderbilt family also had homes in New York City, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

The tour began outside the Vanderbilt Mansion, where our park-ranger guide told us about the construction of the 45,000-square-foot home.

The building was designed by architects McKim, Mead & White and built by Norcross Brothers. The exterior is made of Indiana limestone.

The Vanderbilts used the home as a seasonal escape in the spring and fall. It has six floors and a total of 54 rooms, according to the National Park Service.

We then walked through the front door into an opulent entrance hall.

The oval-shaped entrance hall was furnished with green marble imported from Italy.

The space was full of decorative tapestries, sculptures, and other artifacts.

Unlike most residences at the time, the mansion had running water and electricity.

Frederick used his office to manage the affairs of the Hyde Park estate.

The office contained a private bathroom that led into his den.

Frederick's den functioned as his private leisure space.

The den included a small library of books and a moose head mounted to the wall.

The dining room sat 18 people, which is believed to be the largest gathering the Vanderbilts hosted at Hyde Park.

The Vanderbilts hosted their first housewarming dinner party in May 1899, and only entertained about once per season.

It also features a 400-year-old Persian carpet, one of the largest known Islamic carpets in the world.

The carpet measures about 20 by 40 feet.

After dinner parties, guests would enjoy coffee and games of charades in the formal living room.

Decorated with antique Renaissance furniture, the living room featured Circassian walnut panels on the walls.

The ground floor also included an 18th-century-style French salon where Louise would occasionally have tea with guests or spend time alone.

Frederick and Louise had a permanent residence in Paris, which inspired the Louis XIV-style decor.

Vanderbilt butler Alfred Martin told the National Park Service that when the door to the salon was closed, "that was a sure indication that Mrs. Vanderbilt did not want to be disturbed."

A grand staircase led to the second floor.

The railing of the staircase was coated in velvet to make even climbing the stairs a comfortable, luxurious experience.

An octagon-shaped balcony overlooked the entrance hall, with a similarly shaped skylight above.

The second floor housed Frederick and Louise's bedrooms, as well as her dressing room and several guest rooms.

In the winter months, when the Vanderbilts spent time in their New York City townhouse, the home's furniture was covered with linens.

When I visited in January, the guest bedrooms were staged to appear the way they would have at that time of year. It took servants weeks to cover and uncover every item in the home with custom-made sheets.

Louise's bed was surrounded by a railing, as was often the case in royal bedchambers in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.

In European palaces, railings around royal beds were utilized during daily ceremonies when a monarch woke up or during royal births. In Louise's bedroom, the railing was merely a decorative homage to the French architecture she loved.

Her room connected to Frederick's through an adjoining door. Frederick's room was closed for restoration when I visited.

We concluded the tour in the basement, where servants would prepare the Vanderbilts' meals in the kitchen.

The basement is also where servants stored the estate's wine and spirits, did laundry, and brought food up to the ground floor through a dumbwaiter.

The mansion employed 18 servants total.

Stepping out onto the grounds of the mansion, I could see why the Vanderbilts relished their seasonal country home.

The mansion is situated on 153 acres of land in the scenic Hudson Valley.

As our tour guide put it, "It's like they get to live in a beautiful landscape painting whenever they wish."

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Speaker Mike Johnson's job is probably safe, at least until November.

In a statement on Tuesday morning, the top three House Democratic leaders — including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — said that they would oppose any effort by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to oust Johnson from the speakership.

"The time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction," the three leader said. "We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed."

The leaders' statement signals that the vast majority of Democrats will do the same.

It's a stark contrast to October, when every Democrat present voted for Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida's motion to vacate then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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In 2017, just before Microsoft forged a partnership with a then relatively unknown startup called OpenAI, Bill Gates shared a memo with CEO Satya Nadella and a small group of the company's top executives. A new world order, Gates predicted, would soon be brought on by what he called "AI agents" — digital personal assistants that could anticipate our every want and need. These agents would be far more powerful than Siri and Alexa, with godlike knowledge and supernatural intuition.

"Agents are not only going to change how everyone interacts with computers," Gates wrote. "They're also going to upend the software industry, bringing about the biggest revolution in computing since we went from typing commands to tapping on icons."

At the time, the memo struck those who read it as far-fetched. "It seemed super futuristic," a Microsoft executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. Microsoft had been widely mocked for its previous attempts at creating personal "agents," from its failed Office assistant Clippy to its racist chatbot, Tay. Few at the time would have believed a new generation of these agents would transform Microsoft.

Today, though, it's clear that Gates' secret correspondence anticipated Copilot, the artificial-intelligence tool that has helped propel Microsoft to become the world's most valuable public company. Powered by a version of OpenAI's GPT large language model, Copilot debuted last year as a tool within Microsoft products to help users with tasks such as preparing presentations and summarizing meetings. "Copilot now sounds exactly like what he wrote," the executive said.

That's not by accident.

Publicly, Gates has been almost entirely out of the picture at Microsoft since 2021, following allegations that he had behaved inappropriately toward female employees. In fact, Business Insider has learned, Gates has been quietly orchestrating much of Microsoft's AI revolution from behind the scenes. Current and former executives say Gates remains intimately involved in the company's operations — advising on strategy, reviewing products, recruiting high-level executives, and nurturing Microsoft's crucial relationship with Sam Altman, the cofounder and CEO of OpenAI. In early 2023, when Microsoft debuted a version of its search engine Bing turbocharged by the same technology as ChatGPT, throwing down the gauntlet against competitors like Google, Gates, executives said, was pivotal in setting the plan in motion. While Nadella might be the public face of the company's AI success — the Oz who built the yellow-brick road to a $3 trillion juggernaut — Gates has been the man behind the curtain.

"What you read is not what's happening in reality," another Microsoft executive said. "Satya and the entire senior leadership team lean on Gates very significantly. His opinion is sought every time we make a major change."

When Nadella took over the reins from Steve Ballmer a decade ago, Microsoft was seen as a dinosaur of the computer age it had helped pioneer. Peter Thiel bashed the company as "a bet against technological innovation." So Nadella, who had worked at Microsoft since 1992, turned to his former boss for help. On the day Nadella became CEO, he asked Gates to spend 30% of his time as a technical advisor, in part to help motivate his staff. "When I say, 'Hey, I want you to go run this by Bill,' I know they're going to do their best job prepping for it," he told Wired at the time.

In 2020, when Gates stepped down as chair of Microsoft's board, Nadella showered him with praise. The company, Nadella promised, would "continue to benefit from Bill's ongoing technical passion and advice to drive our products and services forward."

But a year later, Nadella's embrace of Gates appeared to change — at least publicly. In 2021, as Gates and his wife, Melinda, were divorcing, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gates had been forced to step down as the company investigated him for having an affair with an employee. As news of Gates' misconduct went viral, the squeaky-clean reputation he and his public-relations team had meticulously crafted over the years unraveled. Several female employees came forward with stories of Gates asking them out, and his meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, including a flight on Epstein's private jet, came under renewed scrutiny. Suddenly, Nadella's mentor had become his greatest liability, and he and Microsoft quickly distanced themselves from Gates.

"The Microsoft of 2021 is very different from the Microsoft of 2000," Nadella said at the time. "The power dynamic in the workplace is not something that can be abused in any form." The company's greatest responsibility, he later added, is "cultivating a culture where everyone is empowered to do meaningful work."

But among the people whom Nadella secretly empowered to do meaningful work, BI has learned, was Gates himself. Rather than banishing him from the company, Nadella continued to draw on his advice and expertise — making Gates a key player in Microsoft's efforts to vie for dominance in AI.

The common lore about Microsoft's marriage with OpenAI is that it was brokered by Kevin Scott, the company's chief technology officer. Scott had known Altman for years, and in summer 2018, he arranged a meeting between Altman and Nadella. Later that year, the three men hammered out an initial deal, and the rest is history.

According to two executives, Gates' memo treated as gospel, sparking Microsoft's push to take the lead in the AI arms race.

But lost in that origin story is that Gates had been regularly meeting with OpenAI since 2016. Ever since he published "The Road Ahead" in 1995, Gates had been dreaming of a world in which everyone would navigate the internet using software that would "have a personality you'll be able to talk to in one form or another" and that would "learn about your requirements and preferences in much the way that a human assistant does." Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft had launched several primitive and widely ridiculed versions of agents — from Rover, a cartoon dog that guided you through Windows 95, to Clippy, the most hated paperclip of all time. Now, it seemed, OpenAI might offer Microsoft a way to help forge the AI future that Gates had long envisioned. After the two companies formed their partnership, OpenAI's leaders conducted regular presentations for Gates at his 66,000-square-foot mansion in Washington, keeping him apprised of critical benchmarks and significant obstacles.

It was Gates, in fact, who played a pivotal role in turning OpenAI and Microsoft into a power couple. In mid-2022 — two years after he was ousted from the board — he privately challenged Altman and OpenAI to create a model capable of passing an Advanced Placement biology exam. Gates didn't think it could be done. Altman and OpenAI debuted GPT-4 for the first time outside the company at Gates' house in August 2022 during a dinner; Nadella was among the guests. When it aced the test, Gates was shocked, calling it "the most stunning demo I've ever seen in my life."

The demo prompted Gates to write another memo — what one former executive referred to as "the memo" — spelling out how Microsoft should use GPT-4. Gates stressed that the large language model, trained on the entirety of the public internet, could finally usher in the era of personal agents. "Think of it as a digital personal assistant," he wrote in a version of that memo later posted on his blog. "It will see your latest emails, know about the meetings you attend, read what you read, and read the things you don't want to bother with."

According to two executives, Gates' words were treated as gospel, helping spark Microsoft's push to take the lead in the AI arms race. Soon after Gates' dinner, Nadella hosted a meeting on Microsoft's campus, where he challenged the teams to incorporate AI into search, cybersecurity, and its Microsoft 365 suite of business applications, which includes Word and Outlook.

Early the following year, Microsoft introduced a new version of its beleaguered search engine, Bing — now turbocharged with a GPT-enabled agent that would later be named Copilot. Almost overnight, thanks to Gates' maneuvering, Microsoft had transformed Bing from a search engine on life support to an AI-powered tool that had a chance to give Google a run for its money.

In February 2023, Microsoft held an event at its headquarters similar to a Steve Jobs iPhone launch. Nadella, beaming, declared war on Google. Gates did not appear to be in attendance.

Today, Gates remains close with Altman, who visits his home a few times a year, and OpenAI seeks his counsel on developments. There's a "tight coupling" between Gates and OpenAI, a person familiar with the relationship said. "Sam and Bill are good friends. OpenAI takes his opinion and consult overall seriously." OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood confirmed OpenAI continues to meet with Gates.

Last fall, Nadella and Microsoft scrambled to quell the chaos when OpenAI's board abruptly fired Altman. Frank Shaw, a Microsoft spokesperson, told BI that if Gates was speaking with Altman, it was not on behalf of the company. "Bill is not at Microsoft and not involved here," Shaw told BI at the time.

During the five-day fracas that followed, Gates — with his own recent experience with an ouster — reached out to Altman to offer support as he negotiated a return to the leadership of OpenAI.

Today, insiders say Gates' sway at Microsoft extends far beyond OpenAI.

Executives from across the company — including its business-applications boss, Charles Lamanna; its chief scientist, Jaime Teevan; its Teams chat-app boss, Jeff Teper; and its head of cybersecurity, Charlie Bell — meet regularly with Gates to review products. He's also personally involved in recruiting and retaining important executives for Microsoft. "Gates is very involved with product reviews and one-on-ones with executives," a former executive said. Last year, Gates told Forbes he spent about 10% of his time in Redmond, Washington, advising Microsoft on product road maps.

Gates over years has also pushed Microsoft to be more consumer-focused, despite many consumer technology failures. In March, many observers were shocked when the company announced it was hiring Mustafa Suleyman, who cofounded DeepMind and spent many years at Google, to lead a new consumer-AI organization. "Bill G. thinks the major opportunity is consumers," one insider said. "If you look at the new consumer-AI organization, that looks like Bill's influence on Satya." Shaw said Gates was not involved in hiring Suleyman.

All this is a far cry from the perception that Gates has been kept at a distance ever since he was ousted from the board. Gates, who has continued to keep a low profile, has emerged from the scandal largely unscathed; today, the allegations of his misconduct aren't even mentioned in his Wikipedia entry. The Microsoft of 2024, it appears, is not as different from the Microsoft of 2021 as Nadella would have everyone believe. Gates is not gone, but his checkered past has been largely forgotten.

Shaw said there hadn't been any substantial changes in Gates' role as a technical advisor since he left the board in 2020. The "insistence on portraying the role of Bill Gates as 'pulling strings' at Microsoft," he told BI, "is fundamentally inaccurate and at odds with reality." Gates declined an interview request and his representative did not respond to a request for comment.

Near the end of "The Road Ahead," Gates got existential. "It's a little scary that as computer technology has moved ahead, there's never been a leader from one era who was also a leader in the next," he lamented at the ripe age of 39. "So from a historical perspective, I guess Microsoft is disqualified from leading in the highway era of the Information Age."

Then the middle-aged Gates revealed his true ambition: "I want to defy historical tradition."

Now approaching 70, Gates is still defying history — this time from behind the scenes. And if the revived fortunes of Microsoft are any indication, he appears to be winning.

April 30, 2024: This story has been updated with an additional comment from Microsoft.

Ashley Stewart is a chief technology correspondent at Business Insider. She reports on enterprise technology companies including Microsoft and Amazon Web Services from Seattle.

Are you a Microsoft employee or someone else with insight to share? Contact Ashley Stewart via email (astewart@businessinsider.com), or send a secure message from a nonwork device via Signal (+1-425-344-8242).

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• Reports that the US purchased 81 combat aircraft from Kazakhstan are likely false, experts said. 
• They cited Kazakhstan's deep economic ties to Russia and the report's sources.
• Kazakhstan has denied selling aircraft to Ukraine, saying foreign companies were not allowed to bid.

Reports that the US acquired 81 obsolete Soviet-era combat aircraft from Kazakhstan are likely false, according to military analysts.

On Sunday, the Kyiv Post reported that Kazakhstan had auctioned off 117 Soviet-era fighter and bomber aircraft for a reported fee of one billion tenge, or $2.26 million, of which 81 were purchased by the US.

The outlet cited reports from the Ukrainian Telegram channel Insider UA and the Russian news site Reporter.

The Kyiv Post said the reason for the US purchase was not made public but that the aircraft would "likely" be transferred to Ukraine, which is fighting back against Russia's full-scale invasion.

But Kazspetsexport, Kazakhstan's state-owned weapons importer and exporter, denied selling military airplanes to Ukraine in a later statement, saying that foreign companies were not allowed to bid.

According to Francisco Olmos, a research fellow at The Foreign Policy Center specializing in Central Asian Affairs, it's "very" hard to establish whether the sale actually happened.

But he said that Kazspetsexport's denial "lends weight to the fact that such a purchase by the US did not take place."

He also said he doesn't see why Kazakhstan would indirectly provide spare parts for Ukrainian jets.

Given Ukraine's reliance on Soviet-era weapons, the Kyiv Post had suggested that the aircraft could either serve as a source of spare parts or be strategically deployed as decoys at airfields.

"Astana has kept a balanced stance during the conflict, and this would significantly change that," Olmos said. "Let's not forget Russia and Kazakhstan continue to have close ties, politically and economically."

Alexander Libman, a professor of Russian and East European Politics at the Free University of Berlin, said he would "seriously" doubt that such a deal could take place.

"Kazakhstan was extremely cautious about not creating tensions with both Russia and the Western countries, and supplying weapons to Ukraine would be a clear violation of this strategy," he told BI.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, its neighbors, including Kazakhstan, have trod a fine line, trying to keep an officially neutral position while, in some cases, strengthening their ties with the West.

Some Central Asian countries, like Kazakhstan, have even offered humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

However, out of fear of a backlash from Russia, they have declined to provide military equipment, Mark Temnycky, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, told BI.

He said these countries saw Russia's invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, and with large ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking populations of their own, fear they could be next.

Russia has also deepened economic ties with the countries, especially Kazakhstan, with Russia-Kazakhstan trade valued at $26 billion and $27 billion in 2022 and 2023, record numbers.

Balancing economic ties with Russia and closer relations with the West puts Kazakhstan on an "increasingly difficult tightrope," Kate Mallinson, an associate fellow of Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Programme, told BI.

She also suggested that reports of a US-Kazakhstan deal are likely part of a disinformation campaign from Russia aimed at "driving a wedge" between Kazakhstan and its neighbors, and putting more pressure on the country to toe the line.

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• Donald Trump will get a break from his criminal trial to attend Barron's high school graduation.
• Trump had asked the judge in his hush-money case for the day off.
• On Tuesday, noting jury selection wrapped up quickly, the judge allowed it.

Former President Donald Trump can attend his son Barron's high school graduation after all.

Trump's lawyers asked New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on April 15 — the first day of jury selection in his hush-money criminal trial — if the court would recess that day so the former president could attend the milestone event.

Merchan didn't immediately rule on the request, noting that it depended "on if we are on time and where we are in the trial."

On Tuesday morning, minutes before Trump was found in contempt after nine gag order violations and fined $9,000, Merchan approved the request.

"We picked the jury pretty quickly," the judge said.

Trump's five-woman, seven-man jury was selected in one week, half the time originally estimated.

"So Mr. Trump can certainly attend that date," Merchan said.

Trump said weeks ago — when he told reporters he believed Merchan would keep him from the graduation — that Barron worked "very, very hard" and had been "looking forward, for years, to that graduation with his mother and father there."

After the Tuesday morning rulings, testimony continued in Trump's first criminal trial.

He is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records; prosecutors allege that he lied on documents to disguise payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.

Prosecutors say Trump's ex-personal attorney and former fixer, Michael Cohen, facilitated $130,000 in payments to Daniels just days before the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence over a 2006 affair before voters went to the polls.

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• Layoffs at Google have reportedly hit Flutter, Dart, and Python teams.
• A Google representative confirmed layoffs to TechCrunch but did not disclose the specifics.
• One product manager working on Flutter and Dart said the layoffs "affected a LOT of teams."

Google layoffs are still rolling through the company.

Flutter, Dart, and Python are among those affected by the latest layoffs, according to media reports and employee social media posts.

Google confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch but did not specify which teams, roles, or how many employees were let go. A representative told the outlet the layoffs were not company-wide and that employees affected could apply for other open roles.

A Google representative told Business Insider: "As we've said, we're responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead. To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers and align their resources to their biggest product priorities.

"Through this, we're simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and important advances and our biggest company priorities, while reducing bureaucracy and layers."

The layoffs hit the key developer teams just weeks before Google's annual I/O developer conference being held on May 14 and 15.

One product manager working on Flutter and Dart said in an X post the layoffs were decided at least "a couple of layers above our team and affected a LOT of teams. Lots of good folks got bad news, and lots of great projects lost people."

At the start of this year, Google laid off hundreds of workers in its central engineering division and members of its hardware teams. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai warned staff at the time that "role eliminations" would continue through 2024.

Google's parent company already axed about 6% of its staff, or about 12,000 workers the previous year.

The continued layoffs have prompted pushback from Googlers, with some staging protests and lashing out at senior leadership.

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• Taiwan's economy is booming.
• Its GDP rose by a better-than-expected 6.5% in the first quarter, data published on Tuesday showed.
• Exports of AI-related tech such as semiconductors were one of the key growth drivers.

The ChatGPT-fueled artificial intelligence boom has helped Taiwan's economy expand more than expected.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose by 6.5% in the first three months of the year compared with the same quarter in 2023, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday.

That's the fastest expansion rate in nearly three years and ahead of the 6% figure economists polled by Bloomberg were expecting.

The AI craze has been one of the key drivers of growth for Taiwan over the past year.

Its overall exports jumped just under 19% in March, with sales of AI-related hardware soaring more than 400%.

"The pace of growth may not always show an out-sized surprise, like March's, but we believe Taiwan's export demand will continue to get a meaningful boost from both AI-related investments and ongoing strength in [the] US economy," Bansi Madhavani, an economist at Australia's ANZ Banking Group, previously told Bloomberg.

Taiwan is one of the world's biggest manufacturers of the microchips needed to power large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.

According to data from Citi, Taiwan's TSMC produces 90% of the world's most advanced processor chips. The AI craze of the past year and a half has led to skyrocketing demand for these types of semiconductors and helped make TSMC the world's ninth most-valuable company worth almost $720 billion.

Strong consumer spending also boosted Taiwan's growth in the first three months of the year, the statistics bureau said, with tourism, food and beverages, and the stock market all enjoying bounce-back quarters.

Economists have warned that growth could slow over the rest of 2024, with Taipei estimating that GDP will be up 3.4% by year-end. That chimes with sluggish forecasts from TSMC and Intel, with both warning in recent weeks of a potential slowdown in semiconductor demand.

The Taiwan Stock Exchange closed 0.5% lower on Tuesday as traders fretted that the AI rally might have peaked, while the New Taiwan dollar fell 0.4% against the US greenback, per data from Refinitiv.

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• Amazon reports first-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
• Investors will be looking for updates on the company's cloud-computing business, as well as plans for AI.
• The company's stock is up 19% in 2024 so far, more than double the S&P 500.

Amazon will report first-quarter earnings on Tuesday after the closing bell.

Investors will be watching for updates on the company's cloud-computing business, as well as for insights into how Amazon plans to use artificial intelligence.

Amazon's stock was down 19% year-to-date through Monday's close, handily outpacing the the S&P 500's 8% gain.

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