Author: openjargon

• Danielle Shultz is a professional dancer and runs her own corporate wellness business.
• Shultz is one of many Americans who don't work a typical 9-to-5 and leans on side hustles for income.
• Her business, Triangle Sessions, has landed contracts with Google, Meta, and Deloitte. 

When Danielle Shultz has rehearsal at The Metropolitan Opera, she starts her commute from Philadelphia to New York City at 7 a.m.

The 36-year-old professional dancer catches up on work emails on the train, picks up an egg sandwich at her favorite New York breakfast cart, then heads to ballet class. Sometimes she doesn't arrive back home until after midnight.

Dancing is just one of Shultz's jobs. She also runs her startup Triangle Sessions, which offers corporate wellness and team-building events. But for her, it's all worth it.

"I got really creative with how I could support myself," Shultz said. "I have done a lot and always have a hustling mentality to make ends meet."

Shultz is one of man Americans who have careers outside the traditional 9-to-5. Thirty-nine percent of Americans have a side hustle, and half of Gen Zers and millennials have more than one stream of income, according to a survey of 2,505 US adults conducted by YouGov Plc — and commissioned by Bankrate — in April 2023.

Freelancing, side hustles, gig work, and overemployment have become popular as people look to boost their income on a flexible schedule.

Shultz has been dancing with The Metropolitan Opera for a decade, working part-time in shows like "The Magic Flute" and "Der Rosenkavalier," along with taking regular training classes. She has always had to supplement her dance income, she said. In the past, she's done this through work in restaurants, as a cruise ship performer, and as a yoga teacher.

She planned her first event for Triangle Sessions in 2019, and the business took off during the pandemic as companies were looking for virtual employee activities. When she's not at dance rehearsal, Shultz teaches Triangle Sessions classes on topics like relaxation and terrarium building. She also helps companies plan their corporate retreats.

Triangle Sessions now makes up between 60% and 80% of Shultz's annual income, she said, and the business books between five and six figures a year from contracts with major companies like Google, Meta, and Deloitte. Her income breakdown fluctuates each year depending on how much time she spends on dancing versus Triangle Sessions, she said.

"I've learned that no experience is wasted," Shultz said. "And sometimes, when you feel a little bit lost or you're not on a traditional path, it just makes your life a little bit richer and more interesting."

Balancing two careers takes patience

Shultz typically knows which shows she will be cast in at The Met a year in advance, she said, and the intense rehearsal period usually last for a few weeks at a time. She plans her work with Triangle Sessions around her show seasons.

Shultz largely grows her business through word-of-mouth and companies usually hire her to lead employee team-building activities — both virtually and in person. For example, Shultz recently taught a workshop where she connected the history of bonsai trees to employee milestones.

Although Shultz will sometimes hire outside contractors to teach workshops she doesn't specialize in, most of Triangle Sessions content is created and taught by her. She has worked with insurance companies, law firms, technology companies, and healthcare workers.

As some companies shift from virtual to hybrid or in-office work, she said many of her events and planned retreats have become popular.

"There's this universal need to connect with one another, all while taking care of ourselves individually," she said.

Shultz has had to learn to be patient with herself and the continuous changes in her career, she said. But the flexibility of Triangle Sessions allows her to continue performing, spend time with her two young children, and take a break when she needs one.

"Nothing is ever 50/50," she said. "It's not going to be in perfect balance, especially if you want to make progress in any one direction."

Retirement is on the horizon

Shultz encourages others thinking about nontraditional careers to embrace both the busy times and quiet times.

When her schedule is packed, Shultz said she is grateful to keep building her business. And, when her rehearsals and Triangle Sessions events slow down, she said she spends extra time with her family and focuses on keeping herself healthy.

"That is going to be a guiding compass for the rest of my life," Shultz said.

Schulz loves her career at The Met, but said she plans on retiring soon. After that, she would work for Triangle Sessions full-time. But, Schulz even if she's no longer on stage, she won't stop dancing.

"I will always keep moving," she said.

Do have a career that isn't a traditional 9-to-5? Are you willing to share how you make and spend your money? Reach out to this reporter at allisonkelly@insider.com.

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• US grocery prices remain high despite cooling inflation.
• USDA's recommended monthly food budget for a family of four has risen 27% since 2020.
• Tools like meal planning, coupon apps, and shopping in bulk can help manage high grocery costs.

While inflation has cooled since its peak in June 2022, one place where American wallets are still being hit hard is at the grocery store.

The US Department of Agriculture tracks the prices of foods at the grocery store, and each month, it recommends food plans at various cost levels, depending on if you want a "thrifty," "low," "moderate," or "liberal" plan.

It also creates a strategy specifically for residents of Alaska and Hawai'i, as prices in those states tend to be outliers.

As of March 2024, the USDA recommends a family of four on a thrifty budget spend $976.60 monthly and $1,585.20 for a liberal budget.

On average, across the four food plans, the monthly budget recommendation has risen 27% since the start of 2020. Meanwhile, as of November, grocery prices were up 25.1% since the start of 2020, outpacing the 18.9% increase in overall prices.

However, the USDA changed the formula for the thrifty plan in 2021, resulting in a larger increase than the other cost levels. The average increase for the low, moderate, and liberal plans was 23%.

The plans are designed to show how to have a healthy diet at various price levels for a family of four, defined as a male and a female, both between 19 and 50 years old, as well as two children, one between the ages of six and eight and the other between the ages of nine and 11.

How to adjust for smaller households

The USDA has also broken down the recommended grocery budgets for individuals by sex and age based on recommended calories and nutrients during different stages of life.

For example, an adult male between the ages of 19 and 50 has a recommended moderate food budget of $376.90, and it is $318.50 for a woman in the same age range.

However, these recommendations are based on a household of four people, with some of the costs shared across the family. The USDA recommends adding 20% for someone only shopping for themselves, 10% for a household of two people, and 5% for a group of three.

Prices remain high even though inflation has cooled

The inflation on food purchased for the home has slowed, rising 1.2% in March compared to the same period in 2023, lower than the overall inflation rate of 3.5%.

However, the higher rates seen in recent years, especially in 2022, are still built into the prices paid at the store and are hitting consumers' wallets hard.

With food prices still weighing down consumers, some are becoming more conscious of how much they're spending and where.

Luckily, there are tools to help, such as meal planning, sticking to a grocery shopping list, using coupon apps, shopping in bulk, and looking around for the best deals on food.

Have your grocery budget and shopping lists changed in the last few years due to inflation? Reach out to this reporter at cgaines@businessinsider.com.

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• The days of rapid tank and infantry advances deep into an enemy's territory may be over.
• The US Army must be prepared more for fights that resemble WWI, an Army veteran argues.
• Any advancing force must move with a defensive bubble against enemy firepower, he argued.

Modern weapons have become so accurate and lethal that soon armies will not be able to maneuver rapidly on the battlefield.

Instead, they will trudge forward under the protection of defensive "bubbles" designed to stop drones and missiles. According to this vision, swift battlefield maneuvers will be replaced by grinding wars of attrition where victory goes to the side that has the most firepower as well as the most resources to replace losses.

It's a grim vision of warfare that has more in common with the slaughter of the First World War than the mechanized blitzkriegs of World War II and Desert Storm, where infantry and armor backed by airpower seized vast territory. But it's a future the West must prepare for, warns Alex Vershinin, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel, in an essay for Britain's Royal United Services Institute think tank.

The Ukraine war has demonstrated that — at least for now — firepower dominates maneuver. Russian and Ukrainian have painfully learned that with surveillance and attack drones constantly overhead, emerging from cover is dangerous and slow. Long-range guided missiles and shells can decimate armored columns that dare to thrust through minefields and layered defenses covered by artillery and airpower. Instead of sweeping offensives, the Ukraine war has become a largely static conflict where immense preparations are made for attacks that might gain an obscure village or a few square miles of territory before the attacker halts to dig in and regroup.

"It is easier to mass fires than forces," Vershinin said in the RUSI analysis. "Deep maneuver, which requires the massing of combat power, is no longer possible because any massed force will be destroyed by indirect fires before it can achieve success in depth. Instead, a ground offensive requires a tight protective bubble to ward off enemy strike systems."

"Shallow attacks along the forward line of troops are most likely to be successful at an acceptable cost ratio; attempts at deep penetration will be exposed to massed fires the moment they exit the protection of the defensive bubble," said Vershinin.

This moving shield would consist of layers of defense systems, including air defense against drones and missiles, as well as electronic warfare to jam those drones and missiles by flooding their control frequencies with electronic noise. But this protection comes at the cost of rapid maneuver. That bubble must be carefully set up to provide interlocking coverage against multiple types of threats, and move in lockstep with the column.

"Moving numerous interdependent systems is highly complicated and unlikely to be successful," Vershinin said.

Coordinating all these different weapons and jammers also requires skilled staff work that even advanced armies may lack. "Integration of these overlapping assets requires centralized planning and exceptionally well-trained staff officers, capable of integrating multiple capabilities on the fly," said Vershinin. "It takes years to train such officers, and even combat experience does not generate such skills in a short time."

As an example, Vershinin cites a hypothetical advance by a platoon of 30 soldiers. This would require multiple jammers to disrupt enemy drones, guided rockets, and communication systems. Engineers will have to clear a path through any minefields, and the infantry will have to coordinate with friendly artillery and drones. Failure to do this could be catastrophic: Russia is now firing 10,000 artillery shells per day, and this year it has already dropped 3,500 big GPS-guided glide bombs that have devastated Ukrainian positions.

"All these systems need to work as an integrated team just to support 30 men in several vehicles attacking another 30 men or less," Vershinin said. The preparations needed for a brigade- or division-sized attack — the kind that are needed to achieve decisive victories on the battlefield — can only be imagined.

All of this raises a deeper problem, especially for the West. Without maneuver, war becomes a battle of attrition, like the First World War, or siege warfare as with the Union and Confederate armies in front of Richmond in 1864. These kinds of wars are fought over years and cause slaughter on a massive scale.

"The West is not prepared for this kind of war," Vershinin said. "To most Western experts, attritional strategy is counterintuitive. Historically, the West preferred the short 'winner takes all' clash of professional armies."

To some extent, all wars are attritional: what ultimately destroyed the Third Reich wasn't a few defeats like Stalingrad and Normandy, but the cumulative losses from six years of relentless fighting. However, sustaining a war of attrition requires an emphasis on production, mobilizing resources for the long haul, and the ability to continuously replace losses. Victory goes to the side that can wear down the enemy while maintaining its own strength.

"The military conduct of war is driven by overall political strategic objectives, military realities and economic limitations," said Vershinin. "Combat operations are shallow and focus on destroying enemy resources, not on gaining terrain."

One question is whether the Western public will tolerate this mode of warfare. Vladimir Putin and his generals may not lose any sleep over suffering nearly 500,000 casualties in two years. But the average American or European may feel differently.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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• The UK's new laser weapon could be used in Ukraine, the UK defense secretary said.
• The laser, dubbed DragonFire, was originally scheduled for deployment in 2027.
• Grant Shapps hopes to speed up the roll out so it could be put to use on Ukraine's frontlines.

A new high-tech laser weapon developed by the UK that is capable of shooting down enemy drones and missiles could be sent to Ukraine.

The weapon, dubbed DragonFire, was originally slated for deployment by 2027, but Grant Shapps, the UK defense secretary, said he hoped to "speed up" production so it could be put to use on Ukraine's front line.

Speaking to journalists on a visit to the Porton Down military research hub in Salisbury, England, Shapps said he would look to see if the pace can be increased even further "in order for Ukrainians perhaps to get their hands on it."

"I've come down to speed up the production of the DragonFire laser system because I think given that there's two big conflicts on, one sea-based, one in Europe, this could have huge ramifications to have a weapon capable particularly of taking down drones," Shapps said.

The comments come after a trial of the laser successfully hit an aerial target in January.

Following the release of a video showing it in action in March, Ukrainian politician Oleksiy Goncharenko told Newsweek his country was "ready to test" DragonFire on the battlefield.

Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said at the time in a post on X that Ukraine was "ready to take and test the operation of such a laser complex in combat conditions."

And Shapps seemed to agree with the Ukrainian position.

"Let's say that it didn't have to be 100% perfect in order for Ukrainians perhaps to get their hands on it," he said.

"It's designed to not wait until we have this at 99.9% perfection before it goes into the field, but get it to sort of 70% and then get it out there and then develop it from there," Shapps added.

"But 2027 is still the date as of this moment," he continued.

DragonFire can hit a £1 coin from a kilometer away

The state-of-the-art weapon works by shooting a hexagonal array of 37 channels of 1.5kW laser beams, combined with mirrors to increase the power, at a target, The Telegraph reported.

Tim Kendall, a Defence Science and Technology Laboratory senior laser physicist who helped build DragonFire, told The Telegraph that this creates "a perfect laser beam" that can be fired through a telescopic lens.

The MoD said the weapon could hit an object the size of a small coin from a kilometer away.

The weapon itself is invisible as the wavelength of the light is so small it cannot be seen by human eyes.

The weapon cost £100 million, or around $125 million, to develop, the MoD said.

It added that the weapon could provide a long-term, low-cost alternative to other air defenses, as "firing it for 10 seconds is the cost equivalent of using a regular heater for just an hour."

The UK is by no means the only country to be developing laser weapons.

The US is already rumored to be deploying them in the Middle East to stop drone and missile attacks, though it's unclear whether they've been used yet.

Russia has also said it has used laser weapons to take out Ukrainian drones, though their effectiveness has at times been hampered by the weather.

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• New York City got its first tiny forest, planted on Roosevelt Island on April 6. 
• The planting method, developed by a Japanese botanist, uses minimal land to maximum effect.
• The effort is designed to both boost biodiversity and connect the community.

On a chilly Saturday morning in early April, a few hundred people gathered in a park on Roosevelt Island, a skinny strip of land in New York City's East River, to dig around in the dirt.

The occasion was the creation of New York City's first tiny forest, a planting method developed by the prominent Japanese botanist and ecologist Akira Miyawaki that's designed to accelerate dense growth to promote biodiversity. Volunteers had signed up to help plant 1,500 native trees and shrubs on a 4,000-square-foot plot on the southern end of the island.

"The idea is very simple, it's to bring back what was once there," said Elise Van Middelem, the founder and CEO of SUGi, an international foundation behind the effort.

The small, dense plot of greenery is just the newest feature on an island that's undergone many transformations.

Before a Dutch colonist bought the strip of land in 1637, it was home to the Lenape people, who called the land Minnehanonck. In the late 1660s, the land was acquired by a British captain whose descendants eventually used it for farming and renamed it Blackwell's Island. When the city took it over in 1828, it built a penitentiary, the New York City Lunatic Asylum, and a smallpox hospital on what became known as Welfare Island.

Curtis Zunigh of the nonprofit Lenape Center told attendees at the planting that the mini-forest is an opportunity "to reverse the process of many generations that have threatened the existence and the wellness of this land and our collective spirit."

US Rep. Jerry Nadler, who represents the island, said the forest is a way to combat the climate crisis. "Let's not stop here. Let's make the Manhattan Healing Forest a model for expanding green spaces across our city."

The island was fully transformed in the 1970s, after the city moved the last of its prisoners to Rikers Island, renamed it after President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and leased most of the land to New York State. As a way to lure residents to the dilapidated place, the state planned something of an urban utopia with hundreds of below-market-rate apartments.

Judith Berdy was 29 years old when she moved into a one-bedroom apartment for $321 a month on the island in 1977. Forty-six years later, she's still a resident — and the island's chief historian. Despite its newer luxury homes, Berdy says the island has retained much of the community feel it had decades ago. "It's a real small town, you walk around and most people know each other," she said.

Other Roosevelt Island "pioneers" included current resident Christina Delfico's grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins. Delfico moved to the island herself more than a decade ago and founded a nonprofit called iDig2Learn that helps reconnect people with nature. She spurred the creation of the pocket forest when she reached out to Van Middelem last summer after reading about SUGi's work. Van Middelem jumped at the opportunity. A few months later, Delfico secured the necessary approvals from the island's authorities.

"We've been through a lot of changes," Delfico said, "So this restoration rejuvenation project is just what the doctor ordered."

SUGi has created pocket forests in 42 cities on six continents since 2019 — the Roosevelt Island forest is the group's 200th. Van Middelem hopes London, where SUGi has planted 23 pocket forests — a total of 30,000 trees on 2.7 acres — will be a model for New York. The goal is to create "biodiversity corridors" through cities, Van Middelem said, likening the project to "urban acupuncture."

Sharon Bean, who lives in Syracuse, New York, drove down to volunteer at the planting in honor of her sister, Kat Livingston, an avid gardener who died in January of cancer. Bean, a member of the Navajo Nation who grew up in New Mexico, believes kids, in particular, need to connect with nature. "They should learn plants first — our nature first — people second, things last. And it seems like we reversed it."

Despite being designed as an urban paradise — a small, affordable town with plenty of green space — the island "is sitting on a lot of untapped potential," said resident and urban researcher Tayana Panova. Its urban design, Panova said, could do more to bring people together. "It has the bones of a great main street with a lovely main square," she said, but there's little to attract residents and visitors there.

The waterfront, she noted, has outstanding views, but "there's almost nothing to do there – no cafés, squares, shade structures, plentiful seating, or other kinds of amenities and assets that we know make the best waterfronts around the world great places that people flock to."

Ideally, the tiny forest can offer a new attraction.

Olivia MacDonald, a 24-year-old copywriter who lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, read about the event in the New York Times and immediately signed up to volunteer.

"It seems very modern and almost utopian to think about doing something like this," she said. "I just wanted to be a part of it."

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• Researchers studied racial bias in hiring by sending over 83,000 fake résumés to big US companies.
• Résumés with Black-sounding names were often less likely to get callbacks.
• Now, the researchers are naming names among the more than 100 Fortune 500 companies involved.

A few years ago, researchers determined that having a name like Emily or Greg on your résumé made it easier to get a callback for a job than having a name like Lakisha or Jamal.

Now, researchers are naming names — not of potential employees, but of companies and industries that seem to favor résumés from job candidates who appear white over those whose names suggest they're Black.

The auto services industry was among those most likely to show a preference for résumés containing white-sounding names.

To determine which names might disadvantage job applicants, researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, sent more than 83,000 fake résumés to more than 100 big US companies.

In the best cases, employers went for white-seeming résumés more frequently than Black-seeming ones "only slightly or not at all," the researchers said. But in the most extreme instances, those doing the hiring favored résumés that might be presumed to be from white candidates by 24%, on average.

The findings illustrate how difficult it can be for many job seekers — even in a strong labor market — to find work. Already, some people in fields like tech who have seen cuts in recent years are applying to job after job with little luck. Having to overcome race as an obstacle can make the hunt all the more difficult.

"Putting the names out there in the public domain is to move away from a lot of the performative allyship that you see with these companies, saying, 'Oh, we value inclusivity and diversity,'" Pat Kline, a Berkeley economics professor involved in the study told National Public Radio. "We're trying to create kind of an objective ground truth here."

Indeed, some companies fared worse than others. The authors said the worst 20% of companies accounted for about half of the discrimination Black applicants faced.

Genuine Parts Company, parent of NAPA Auto Parts, and AutoNation, one of the biggest auto retailers in the US, were among those researchers ranked lowest in their assessment.

The researchers did caution that the nature of the experiment — sending fake résumés to companies — results in "only noisy" estimates of a company's potential discrimination.

Another company where researchers identified disparate response rates for candidates was Costco.

Representatives for Genuine Parts Company, AutoNation, and Costco did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider ahead of publication.

Of the 108 companies researchers sent résumés to, among the best performers were car-rental company Avis Budget Group and the grocery chain Kroger. Representatives from both companies did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

Researchers deemed names as "racially distinctive" if more than nine in 10 people called that were of the same race, according to NPR.

What did that look like in practice? It meant pitting a Brad or a Greg against a Darnell or a Lamar, NPR said.

The findings build on work done two decades ago by University of Chicago researchers, who found that résumés with white-sounding names were 50% more likely to get a call from a hiring manager than those with Black-sounding names, the university said.

The researchers also examined how much names associated with a particular gender affect an applicant's success in getting a hit. Some industries preferred men, while others went for women more often. In most cases, however, gender didn't appear to play a role in how often a candidate got a callback.

Concerns about hiring bias have drawn attention in recent years because of fears that artificial intelligence could exacerbate inequities in who gets a shot at what jobs. That extends to furthering racial bias.

Yet researchers have also said that, done right, AI could help reduce bias in hiring — by helping women, for example, land roles in fields like tech that men have historically dominated.

Andreas Leibbrandt, an economist at Australia's Monash University, previously told BI that if AI could remove identifiers like gender — or names associated with gender — that could help make the process fairer.

"We do observe that when recruiters know the gender of the applicants, then they discriminate against women. When we remove the gender, there is no gender difference," Leibbrandt said.

This kind of bias is one reason Khyati Sundaram, the CEO of a hiring startup called Applied, doesn't think the résumé should be central to getting a job. Instead, screening for skills through tests could help make the process fairer, she previously told BI.

Kline, the Berkeley professor, told NPR he and his fellow researchers hoped people would focus as much on the companies doing better with equitable hiring as the laggards because doing so could help other companies learn how to curb racial bias.

"Even if it's true, from these insights in psychology and behavioral economics, that individuals are inevitably going to carry biases along with them, it's not automatic that those individual biases will translate into organizational biases," Kline said.

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• Retail wages are on the rise as the employers struggle to find and retain workers.
• Entry-level employees now find jobs on the sales floor that pay more than $17 an hour.
• Business Insider asked Glassdoor to round up 15 of the highest-paying entry-level retail jobs in the US.

Retail wages are ticking up.

Although the federal minimum wage is still $7.25 per hour (since 2009), fewer and fewer employers can get by without paying at least double that.

A worker would need to earn $17.14 an hour with a 35-hour weekly schedule for 52 weeks in order to meet the US poverty line of $31,200 for a family of four. However, full-time schedules from a single retailer can be difficult to find.

To find out which companies pay the most, Business Insider asked the jobs experts at Glassdoor to share their data from the past year for entry-level sales floor jobs.

Glassdoor's averages are calculated using hourly wage information submitted by users of the platform between January 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024, for sales associates and related roles, like cashiers and retail representatives.

Companies had to have at least 1,000 employees to be included in the analysis, and all the entries on this list had a minimum of 30 worker-submitted salaries.

Keep reading for a look at 15 of the highest-paying entry-level retail jobs in the US:

15. Smart & Final – $16.95

The Los Angeles-based grocery chain operates 253 stores across California, Nevada, and Arizona, and employs more than 11,000 associates.

14. ALDI – $17.06

Limited-selection grocer ALDI has 2,372 locations across the US, with a dozen more stores opening soon.

13. FedEx Office – $17.09

FedEx Office employees assist customers with more than just shipping boxes — they also offer custom printing options and a selection of office supplies.

12. Pottery Barn – $17.25

Pottery Barn is the largest brand in Williams Sonoma's home furnishings portfolio, with 184 locations and over $3 billion in sales.

11. Bloomingdale's – $17.28

Owned by Macy's, the luxury department store has 57 US locations and is a key part of the struggling corporation's growth plans.

10. Living Spaces – $17.56

The California-based home furnishings retailer has 39 locations in the Western US, and prides itself on offering a range of aesthetic options at affordable prices.

9. Trader Joe's – $17.69

From its humble beginnings in Pasadena, California, Trader Joe's now boasts roughly 500 locations across the US selling a low-cost assortment of private label groceries.

7. (tie) Tory Burch – $17.89

Launched in New York City in 2004, Tory Burch now sells shoes, handbags, accessories and more at 111 retail locations in 35 US states.

7. (tie) Fred Meyer – $17.89

Back in 1922, entrepreneur Fred Meyer wanted to offer a one-stop shopping experience. Kroger acquired the business in 1999, and today his namesake company's cavernous stores carry some 225,000 different products.

6. Lululemon – $18.00

The yoga pants (and more) brand has more than 360 US stores, which are not only places to buy apparel, but a hub for events, trainings, and even alterations.

5. Buc-ee's – $18.18

Buc-ee's large format travel centers boast the cleanest restrooms — a must-have for any road trip — and their retail and food operation has attracted legions of fans of the growing brand.

4. IKEA – $18.50

The Swedish furniture giant has dozens of US stores where it sells the majority of its products.

3. Costco – $18.57

The wholesale club has more than 600 locations across the US, and employs over 206,000 US workers.

2. REI – $18.88

Founded in 1938, the outdoor lifestyle co-op employs 16,000 people at 181 locations across 41 US states.

1. Patagonia – $21.88

Patagonia topped last year's list with a $20.04 average wage, which would have remained in the lead even without its $1.84 raise. The outdoor apparel company operates 36 retail stores across 20 US states and is widely considered a top-choice company to work for.

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• Iran launched a drone strike on Israel despite warnings from the Biden administration.
• The attack shows how much the US has lost control of the conflict in Gaza, a military expert said.
• The Biden administration wants to be "firefighters in a raging house fire," he told BI.

Iran's barrage of attacks against Israel represents a stark reminder of how the US has been unable to ameliorate tensions in the Middle East and contain the ongoing conflict in Gaza, a national security and foreign policy expert told Business Insider.

On Saturday, Iran launched missiles and drones against Israel in what officials from Iran described as retaliation for the airstrike on the country's consulate in Syria nearly two weeks ago. The airstrike killed two Iranian generals and five officers, the Associated Press reported.

The US anticipated that Iran would strike back, but it was only a matter of when and how. President Joe Biden told reporters on Friday that he expected Iran to attack Israel "sooner, rather than later."

The president also re-affirmed US support for Israel and had a simple, brief message to Iran: "Don't."

Iran's brazen dismissal of Biden's warning may be the result of a series of inconsistent strategic moves from the US with its handling of the Israel-Gaza war, Sean McFate, a national security and foreign policy expert at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, told Business Insider.

'No strategic competence'

McFate told BI that Iran's retaliation was a way to show the international stage that the country had a backbone after Israel's airstrike in Damascus. But, more broadly, Saturday's attack shows just how effective Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel was at stoking chaos in the Middle East, McFate said.

Hamas "launched this as a way to disrupt the melting of relations between Israel and the Gulf states," McFate said, referring to how diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab countries had been thawing before the war. Biden similarly stated that Hamas was trying to disrupt his administration's efforts to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as with others in the region, The Washington Post reported.

With the war in Gaza, the US wedged itself into the battle and has so far shown conflicting messages to the world through its military support for Israel and simultaneous humanitarian aid for Gaza, leaving Gulf countries such as Iran to feel more defensive, the expert said.

"The fact that the Biden administration is both arming Israel and sending aid to Gaza shows the world that the Biden team has no strategic competence," McFate said. "They've already lost control."

McFate pointed to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war as another example of one of the Biden administration's strategic misfires.

Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Biden has said that the US must maintain its support for Ukraine against Russian aggression. But the president's support for Israel runs counter to the reasons he said the US should support Ukraine.

"The administration wants to be the firefighters in a raging house fire," McFate said. "But I think for them to do that, they need to extend more leverage on the government of Israel by conditioning further military support. Israel has basically said, 'Drop off your munitions. Don't answer the door. Just leave,' like your Uber driver. I think the administration has been a little too timid in how to deal with Israel."

In recent weeks, US support for Israel showed some signs of wavering as Biden called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the White House.

In a Saturday statement after Iran's strikes, Biden condemned the attacks and said he had spoken with Netanyahu over the phone to say that the US remains steadfast in its support for Israel.

"I've just spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu to reaffirm America's ironclad commitment to the security of Israel," Biden said. "I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks — sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel."

However, in the same call, Biden told the prime minister that the US will oppose a counterattack against Iran, a senior White House official told CNN.

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

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• Billionaires are predictable — and they like to stick together.
• Each year they attend a pretty standard set of parties, festivals, and conferences.
• Here's where you can find a billionaire at any time of year — and how much it will cost you to join in on the fun.

There are exactly 2,640 billionaires in the world, according to Forbes. That's about 0.00003% of the global population.

Despite their scarcity, these billionaires are surprisingly easy to find. After all, birds of a feather — especially those of a small brood — flock their private jets together. At the start of the year, they descend en masse on Davos. In July, they fly to Sun Valley. In December, their yachts anchor in St. Barts.

Here's where billionaires mingle, wheel and deal, and relax, and how you can join them — for a small price, of course.

January: Davos

After billionaires shake off their New Year's Eve hangovers, many make their way to Switzerland for the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos to attend lavish dinners, hit the slopes, and discuss the global problem du jour.

The official event is invite-only and costs tens of thousands per ticket. But those who want to rub shoulders with attendees — think Bill Gates, Marc Benioff, and Mark Zuckerberg — aren't completely barred from the Alpine resort.

Many of Davos' luxury hotels, like the Steigenberger Grandhotel Belvédère and AlpenGold, are closed to the public, so you'd be better off renting an apartment. Those don't come cheap, though. Local outlets reported that rentals went for 10-times their typical prices last year. One apartment with two double beds and a pull-out sofa cost nearly $27,500 to rent for the five nights of the conference.

And good luck finding food. With most of the restaurants booked up for conference events, you may be left paying $43 for a hot dog.

February: Super Bowl

NFL teams are among the most popular toys of the ultrarich: Walmart's Rob Walton has the Broncos, hedge fund manager David Tepper owns the Panthers, real estate tycoon Stanley Kroenke boasts the Rams, Jerry Jones controls the Cowboys, and so on.

So it's no surprise that a number of billionaires flock to the sport's biggest game every year, though Super Bowl weekend as a billionaire involves more than just wings and great commercials.

Host committees and travel agencies have curated luxury experiences for the richest football fans that cost six figures and include chartered jets, five-star accommodations, and access to the field after the game. Suites for this season's game in Las Vegas are going for up to $3 million on rental platform Suite Luxury Group.

There are also the private parties, known for their superstar performers — in some cases, ones particularly familiar with billionaires. Last year, DJ D-Sol, also known as Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, reportedly spun a set at a party attended by billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Apollo cofounder Josh Harris.

March: Hong Kong's Art Basel

Last year marked the grand reopening of Hong Kong's Art Basel after a three-year coronavirus hiatus. Wealthy Chinese carpooled together in private jets to the fair, Bloomberg reported, and spent millions adding to their collections.

In a savvy scheduling maneuver, the 2023 art fair coincided with the Wealth for Good summit. The conference, a push to get more family offices to set up in the city, counted billionaires like Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang, Sequoia Capital China's Neil Shen, and local real estate magnate Adam Kwok as its attendees.

Artsy clocked more than a dozen seven-figure sales at the art fair, including work like George Condo's "Purple Compression" and Kazuo Shiraga's "Kisan," which sold for $4.75 million and $5 million, respectively. One of the fair's most famous sale's came in 2018, when Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen sold Willem de Kooning's "Untitled XII, 1975" for $35 million to a private collector.

April: The Masters Tournament

Forget Easter. The first signs of spring mean one thing for billionaires: golf.

Each year, the Masters Tournament kicks off the run of major professional golf championships at Augusta National. The famously exclusive club in Georgia — it didn't allow women to join until 2012 — counts a number of billionaires as members.

Pals Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, as well as Warren Stephens, David Ziff, and Stanley Druckenmiller, belong to the club, Bloomberg reported in 2015.

Each year, hundreds of private aircraft land at the airports around Augusta, according to information from the aircraft-tracking website JetSpy.

Billionaires like former Nike CEO Phil Knight, hotelier Robert Rowling, and investor Herbert Allen Jr. all had planes touch down for last year's tournament, according to the Jetspy data. So did Tiger Woods — the only billionaire winner of The Masters.

His victory means he is the proud owner of one of Augusta National's iconic green jackets, which are only allotted to members and Masters winners.

The secretive club hasn't ever spelled out its membership process, but it's invite-only, and new members can only join when existing ones leave.

You can, though, spectate alongside some of the biggest names in business. Tickets for the Masters are available through a lottery system — or for as much as $10,000 on the secondary market.

May: The Cannes Film Festival

Summer starts early for billionaires, who dock their yachts for the Cannes Film Festival at the end of May. While the event is technically reserved for industry professionals, per its website, the super-rich can, of course, pay to play. For them, the fete is as much an opportunity to get a first look at Oscar winners as it is an opportunity to mingle with stars on the Croisette.

It was one of the first stops on Jeff Bezos' 2023 grand debut tour of his $500 million superyacht Koru, which he disembarked to hit up the Vanity Fair party at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, a favorite venue of the very wealthy and those who court them. Other guests included A-listers Robert de Niro, Naomi Campbell, and Pedro Almodovar. In years past, the likes of David Geffen and Len Blavatnik have turned up at the same event.

Billionaires like François-Henri Pinault and the late Paul Allen have hosted their own parties at the film festival: The former throws the Kering Women in Motion Dinner each year, while the latter was known for his themed yacht parties.

Notably missing from the French Riviera this year? The yachts of Russian Oligarchs.

June: The Royal Ascot

While a number of billionaires spend June in the Hamptons or crisscrossing the Mediterranean, some prefer to spend it on dryer land. The headline billionaires at the Royal Ascot — an annual horse race held about 25 miles outside London — are, unsurprisingly, the members of the British royal family.

But many other members of the three comma club, and their hats, are in attendance. The rich crowd is different from the one at a typical F1 Grand Prix, and some billionaire horse owners — like Chanel's Alain and Gerard Wertheimer; the shipping scions of the Niarchos family; Tetra Pak heiress Kirsten Rausing; and construction magnate Anthony Bamford — have even had skin in the game.

For over 200 years, the Royal Ascot has been open to the public — about 300,000 people attend the five-day event — but don't expect to get anywhere near the rich and famous. Joining the Royal Enclosure requires a special application process, including having two sponsors. Plus, there's a strict dress code — no spaghetti straps or bow ties allowed — and kids under 10 years old are not allowed.

July: Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference

Every July, private jets descend on the small town of Hailey, Idaho, for the summer counterpart to Davos: the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference — also known as billionaire summer camp.

Since 1983, boutique investment bank Allen & Co — its president, Herbert Allen, is a billionaire himself — has hosted the event, which attracts the biggest and richest names in business, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and Rupert Murdoch.

The conference has become known for the deals struck in between rounds of golf, guided hikes, whitewater rafting, and tennis matches. It's where Jeff Bezos snagged The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013 and where the seed for Disney's $19 billion acquisition of ABC were planted in 1995.

The vacation-cum-business-meeting is invite-only and pretty much restricted to masters of the universe dressed in vests and quarter-zips — as well as their entourages. Security is strict, with even the press walled off from most of the wheeling and dealing.

But when the conference is not in session, you, too, can stay at the Sun Valley Lodge, the homebase of the retreat that offers a year-round ice skating rink, luxe spa, and pool with a view of the mountains. The most basic rooms cost upwards of $500 a night over the summer, and suites go for upwards of $1,500. But don't feel too bad for the billionaires, Allen & Co foots the bill.

August: Burning Man

On its face, Burning Man — the anticapitalist art and music festival in the Nevada desert — doesn't really seem like an event for billionaires. But the richest people in the world don't seem to care about whether or not they're wanted.

Since the 1990s, attending Burning Man has become a sort of status symbol of the tech elite. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are longtime Burners — the festival inspired the very first Google Doodle — as is Eric Schmidt, who they chose to be Google's CEO.

Facebook cofounders Dustin Moskowitz and Mark Zuckerberg, and Uber cofounder Garrett Camp have also attended. Even Ray Dalio, the billionaire hedge fund manager, wanted to see what all the hype was about, sporting some psychedelic bell bottoms and joining the party in 2019.

The experiences of many celebrities and billionaires on the Playa lean less into the "decommodification" and "leave no trace" principles of the festival and more into the "immediacy" one — as in instant gratification. They take charter planes into Black Rock City's pop-up airport, a temporary runway constructed for the occasion; travel around in tricked-out art cars (basically fancy golf carts); and forego rustic tents for more fancy camps, complete with furniture, air-conditioning, and personal chefs who charge six-figures for their services.

All of this may be why there was a hefty dose of schadenfreude when Burning Man went underwater, quite literally.

September: The Monaco Yacht Show

There are yachts, and then there are the superyachts — and those are aplenty at the Monaco Yacht Show in Monte Carlo, where billionaires gather at the end of the summer to scope out their new toys. (There are also, technically, megayachts, but for plebeian purposes, they are one and the same.)

The 100-plus boats on display have an average length of 165 feet, and feature elevators, bars, spas, pools, gyms, hot tubs, and helipads — sometimes more than one. Jet skis and submersibles are popular add-ons.

In the past, yachts owned by billionaires like Paul Allen, Steve Wynn, and Pier Luigi Loro Piana have been exhibited at the show — with some available for sale or to charter. The event also used to be a favorite of opulent Russian oligarchs, though sanctions have prevented them from attending for the past couple of years.

If you're looking to peruse boats that you can't afford — or maybe meet a billionaire who will invite you on theirs — you're in luck: The Monaco Yacht Show is open to the public for the small price of 600 Euros, or $640, a day.

October: The Frieze Art Fair

The Frieze Art Fair, held annually in London, draws the rich — and the staff of the rich — from around the world looking to add very expensive contemporary art to their collections. (For those who prefer pre 21st century art, there's the nearby Frieze Masters.)

In years past, collectors like Point72's Steve Cohen, Diamond titan Laurence Graff, and the wife of hedge fund legend Louis Bacon, Gabrielle, have all been spotted. While exactly which works these patrons have bought tend to be kept under wraps, pieces go for millions of dollars each year.

While anyone can buy tickets to the fair itself — this year for as low as £46, or $57 — the fetes surrounding Frieze Week are a more surefire place to spot a billionaire — or their younger, edgier heirs. A look at party snaps from the last few years show Gordon Getty's granddaughter Ivy Getty, Cohen's daughter Sophia, and Roger Penske's granddaughter Sophia mingling with art-world celebrities, and possibly looking for some six-figure works of art to add to their starter collections.

November: Le Bal des Débutantes

Le Bal des Débutantes continues the centuries-long tradition of rich, famous women reminding society that they are, well, rich and famous.

The ball is invite-only, and no one, not even billionaires, can buy their way in — at least that's what Ophélie Renouard, the founder of the ball's current iteration, told Insider. Renouard handpicks the cohort of about 20 women each year, who go to Paris for a weekend of photoshoots, makeup and hair appointments, and traditional waltzes.

Past debutantes have included royalty like Princess Hélène of Orléans and Princess Akshita Bhanj Deo; children of Hollywood elite like Forest Whitaker's daughters Autumn and True, and Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe's daughter Ava; and, of course, the heiresses of billion dollar fortunes like Araminta Mellon, Kayla Rockefeller, Laila Blavatnik, and Amanda Hearst, usually with their very wealthy and very powerful parents in tow.

As is often the case for the rich — and rich nepo babies, in particular — things come free: The weekend's dance lessons, couture gowns, glam squads, and jewels are paid for by sponsors.

December: New Year in St. Barts

Billionaires ring in the New Year seemingly anywhere but at home. And while Aspen and Maldives are popular choices for the wintering elite, there is perhaps nowhere with more billionaires-per-square foot during the holidays than St. Barts.

In years past, the Caribbean island, formally Saint-Barthélemy, has attracted yachts owned by the likes of David Geffen, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, and Bernard Arnault for year-end festivities.

Unfortunately for the poor rich, one of the most infamous St. Barts New Year's parties will be canceled this year. Roman Abramovich — the former Chelsea FC owner, sanctioned Russian billionaire, and unlikely hero of St. Barts — will not be hosting his multi-million dollar extravaganza, which has featured performances from Prince and Beyoncé; millions worth of food and alcohol; and guests like Orlando Bloom and Rupert Murdoch.

Guess they'll have to buy tickets to Nikki Beach's party like the rest of us.

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• Iran launched a retaliatory attack against Israel on Saturday.
• The US military shot down Iran-fired drone aircraft amid the attack, per Reuters.
• CNN reported the US military remains poised to provide "defensive support" to Israel.

The US military on Saturday shot down drones fired by Iran and headed toward Israel amid Iran's retaliatory strike on the country, Reuters reported.

The outlet did not specify how many drones or the locations where they were shot down. However, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it launched a barrage of drones and missiles toward Israel in response to Israel's April 1 strike on an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, that killed several high-level Iranian military commanders.

"In accordance with our ironclad commitment to Israel's security, US forces in the region continue to shoot down Iranian-launched drones targeting Israel," CNN reported a US defense official said. "Our forces remain postured to provide additional defensive support and to protect US forces operating in the region."

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

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