Category: Business Insider

• Instacart, DoorDash, and other apps seem to be trying to roll back Seattle's new gig worker pay law.
• Their efforts targeted the workers via surveys and requests for testimonials to send to the city.
• They say Seattle gig workers are making less and delivering fewer orders after many raised prices.

On February 29, Instacart sent an email with a link to a survey to its gig worker shoppers in Seattle. Its stated purpose: To figure out what its shoppers thought of the city's new law on gig work.

But in the preamble to the survey, Instacart indicated it already had thoughts about how things were going. "Some shoppers are seeing a negative impact on earnings, limited service areas for batches, and decreased order frequency," the email read. "That's why it's crucial we hear from you about exactly how these changes have influenced you and your work with Instacart."

The survey is one example of how Instacart, DoorDash, and other gig work companies have been pushing back on a law that took effect in Seattle this past January. The law, one of multiple proposals known collectively as "Pay Up," most notably aims to increase delivery workers' pay to a rate comparable with Seattle's $19.97 minimum wage.

The companies lobbied against the proposals before the Seattle City Council. But they haven't given up the fight just because they've become law.

Some of the questions in Instacart's survey asked shoppers about how their earnings or wait times for orders had changed since the pay law took effect.

One asked shoppers whether they supported or opposed Pay Up — but only after offering Instacart's own explanation in the previous questions about the law.

That's caught some workers' attention.

"There were so many red flags in that survey that, of course, I didn't want to bother to do it," one Instacart shopper who delivers orders in Seattle told Business Insider. The shopper asked not to be identified for fear of having their Instacart account deactivated, but BI verified their employment and identity.

The survey also asked shoppers whether they were waiting longer to claim orders to shop or earning more or less from Instacart customer tips — even though Instacart itself plays a commanding role in determining both, the shopper told BI.

After Pay Up took effect, for instance, Instacart reduced the default tip on orders within Seattle to 0%. Before the law took effect, it was 5%. The survey also didn't mention that Instacart had increased fees for customers since the law took effect, the shopper said.

On Wednesday, Instacart said that the survey had garnered responses from "more than 250 shoppers." The summary touted that a super-majority of shoppers in Seattle said their experience on the app had gotten worse since Pay Up became law in January, with earnings down and wait times to claim orders up.

"A staggering 82% have said tips are down since PayUp took effect," the summary says, for example, without mentioning Instacart's change to its default tip in Seattle.

A spokesperson for Instacart told Business Insider that "the voice of shoppers is critical in helping to shape public policy across the country, and we regularly reach out to shoppers to understand their experience on the platform. In one recent survey, 72% of shoppers surveyed in Seattle told us their experience has been worse since the PayUp law took effect.

"Elected officials, especially in Seattle, rely heavily on the voices of local constituents — including workers, businesses, and customers — to inform the direction of their policy proposals," they continued. "Instacart will continue to listen to shoppers and help empower them to make their voices heard in important policy conversations."

About a month later, in March, Instacart sent out another email to shoppers. While it didn't reference the survey, it did claim that the company had heard from shoppers whose pay had gone down and who were waiting longer to claim batches of orders. "It's clear that this new law isn't working and unfortunately, this is exactly what we warned the Council would happen," the email read.

The message included a link to a form with a pre-written letter, which pointed to many of the same issues that the survey had alluded to, including lower pay and wait times. It instructed shoppers to add their own experiences and then submit it to Instacart as a testimonial for the city council.

Some shoppers posted the email on Reddit. One poster, who included screenshots of the message, encouraged other Instacart shoppers to turn the pre-written letter to the city council around. "Instead, tell them to crack down on Instacart's retaliation," the post read, referring to the costs that the company passed on to customers.

"I actually removed some of the text and I rephrased it to say, 'Thank you for passing Pay Up,'" the Instacart shopper who spoke with BI said.

Other companies have made their gig workers aware of their stance on Seattle's new law, even if they haven't issued calls to action like Instacart's.

About a week after Seattle's pay law took effect, DoorDash sent an email to its workers in Seattle with claims that Dashers would see fewer offers and wait longer to claim them. DoorDash also said in the message that it would end its Top Dasher and Priority Access programs in Seattle, both of which allow delivery workers access to better-paying batches if their metrics, such as customer ratings, are high enough.

"These new rules restrict platforms from rewarding high quality Dashers," the email read, referencing Pay Up.

"It's painfully clear from listening to Dashers, merchants and consumers that this new law simply isn't working," a DoorDash spokesperson told BI.

"The regulatory response fee in Seattle helps offset the costs associated with the current law," the spokesperson said. "If those costs can be decreased through reform legislation, we will explore all options to increase affordability for consumers, including a reduction of the fee."

Uber Eats and Grubhub have also put out statements saying that things have gotten worse for their gig workers since Seattle's law took effect. The companies have also added fees for customers since Pay Up took effect. DoorDash, for instance, has added a $4.99 charge to orders in Seattle, though nothing in the Pay Up legislation required it.

Seattle's city council is considering significant changes to Pay Up in hopes that the companies will take away those fees, local news outlets reported in recent weeks.

Anna Powell, a DoorDash government relations manager, told GeekWire in February that the company's goal was more ambitious.

"We would like to see a repeal of the ordinance," Powell said.

Do you work for Instacart, DoorDash, Walmart Spark, or another gig delivery service and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com

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• For Ukraine to survive, it must keep Russia's larger forces off-balance.
• Ukraine must seize back initiative and shift to a new strategy or it risks defeat, an expert warns.
• "Ukraine has to go on the offensive," ISW's Russia expert George Barros said.

Victory in the Ukraine war may come down to a simple question: which side has the initiative?

If Russia can retain the initiative, it can launch constant offensives with its larger forces that will drive Ukrainian defenders to the breaking point. For Ukraine, gaining the initiative has become existential: it has to keep Russia off balance, or its forces will be worn down responding to Russian offensives.

"We've been trying to really communicate the importance of the initiative," George Barros, an influential Russian military expert for the U.S-based Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider. "It's not big, decisive operations, but smaller- and medium-sized operations done in conjunction with each other that deprive the enemy of the initiative so that you can set the conditions for a strategic victory."

Russia has seized the momentum despite taking a huge toll as the war nears what could be a decisive moment. The top US general in Europe said that within weeks Russia will be outfiring Ukraine's artillery by a factor of 10 to 1, a dire situation that could lead to Ukraine's defeat.

Seizing the initiative has always been recognized as a key principle of war. Better to have the enemy dance to your tune, than dance to his. Initiative is especially important to the weaker side. Great commanders like Napoleon, or nations like Israel in the 1967 War, compensated for numerical inferiority by striking first, hard and continuously to keep the enemy off balance.

This is exactly the aggressive approach that Ukraine will need to defeat a Russian invasion force superior in numbers and firepower, but clumsy in tactics and command. "Ukraine has to go on the offensive," Barros said. "They want to give the Russian high command a jolt to the system. This forces the Russians to think about where to preposition their reserves, and where to allocate certain kinds of resources. It gets them worrying about what the real Ukrainian objective is. Is this a feint? Or are the Ukrainians actually trying to develop some sort of movement here?"

Yet hamstrung by ammunition shortages from stalled US aid and dismayed by the failure of its summer counteroffensive, Ukraine has switched to a strategy of "active defense." Exactly what this strategy entails isn't clear, but it appears to involve remaining on the strategic defensive while conducting local attacks to try to hold every inch of territory and decimate Russian assault troops.

The problem is stark. Ukraine simply cannot afford to go on the defensive and expect this will stop Russia, Barros said. Even if Ukrainian troops achieve some tactical victories, the longer-term strategic picture will remain grim. This was exactly the outcome when Nazi Germany used a mobile defense strategy in Ukraine in 1943-1944: counterattacks by German armor repeatedly smashed Soviet penetrations, but the Germans were ultimately worn down as their elite panzer divisions rushed from crisis to crisis.

What's interesting is that top Russian and Ukrainian commanders are operating from the same playbook. Both were trained in Soviet military academies, which emphasized seizing the initiative. "It's the same Soviet military science that Gerasimov [Russia's chief of the General Staff] and Zaluzhny [former Ukrainian commander-in-chef] can recite to you chapter and verse," said Barros. "The initiative is extremely important to them."

Ukraine and its Western allies talk of remaining on the defensive in 2024 while mustering troops, weapons and ammunition for a decisive counteroffensive in 2025. Russia likely won't allow Ukraine the luxury of time and preparation.

"The Russians have been smart about the way that they have been putting pressure on the Ukrainians in 2024," Barros said. "They are whittling away the forces that that the Ukrainians theoretically would be building for 2025. And then we get to a point in 2025 where everyone is pressuring Ukraine to conduct a big new counteroffensive to prove that Ukraine can still do this. And then that effort is probably under-resourced."

"It's too optimistic," Barros added. "It's banked on the idea of a single decisive operation. But the Russians will anticipate where this operation will likely be, and more or less effectively defeat it."

A better strategy would be for Ukraine to conduct smaller operations aimed not at crippling the Russian army in Ukraine, but to keep it off balance and reacting to Ukrainian attacks rather than conducting its own, Barros argued. This could set the stage for a decisive counteroffensive later on, or at least improve Ukraine's position in any peace negotiations.

"These smaller operations, over the course of time and done skillfully, will set the conditions for a major success," said Barros. Other experts have suggested that the quest for decisive battle has become futile, and that future conflicts will be long-term wars of attrition.

But for Ukraine to gain the initiative, there are two must-haves, said Barros. One is that Ukraine must become more proficient in maneuver warfare, and avoid the clumsy operations that hampered its 2023 counteroffensive. But simply mimicking NATO — such as those for breaching minefields and fortified lines — won't work: either Ukraine lacks the resources, or because drones and long-range artillery have rendered those Western tactics obsolete.

Which means Ukraine will have to devise its own approach. "I do think the Ukrainians can conduct maneuver warfare if they're trained and resourced properly," said Barros.

The second precondition is even more difficult. To seize the initiative, Ukraine needs to know that it will receive a steady and reliable stream of Western aid, rather than sporadic deliveries. A handful of Western weapons here and there — such as getting a mere 14 British Challenger 2 tanks — isn't good enough. "The Ukrainian General Staff has no guarantee that any more will ever come in the future, and that forces them to treat these unremarkable tactical systems as strategic resources," Barros said. "You can't plan to conduct a normal breaching operation where it's okay to assume that you might lose 30 percent or more of your tanks if you're not sure if there will replacements."

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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• George Stumpp, a retired bartender, lives comfortably in Panama after moving from New Mexico.
• Stumpp rents two properties as Airbnbs, supplementing his income in a country with good healthcare.
• He said Panama has robust infrastructure, a lower cost of living, and many of the same stores as the US.

George Stumpp, 65, worked as a bartender and bar supervisor in Long Island and New Mexico for decades. Realizing his retirement savings could go further in a different country, he settled in Panama.

In 2006, he and his wife bought a property on the outskirts of Panama City for $37,000 in cash, traveling back and forth until his retirement. After 15 years of going back and forth, he settled there permanently in 2021, renting out two casitas as Airbnbs to supplement his income. He's enjoying retirement in a country with a lower cost of living and high-quality healthcare, and he said he's enjoyed adapting to Panamanian culture.

"One of the reasons I chose Panama over other Central American countries is because we've got better infrastructure than anyplace else," Stumpp told Business Insider. "It's a thriving country, and a lot of that is based on income that they get from the Panama Canal."

As the cost of living continues to increase, driven by elevated housing costs and still-high grocery bills, many American retirees are looking abroad for retirement. Some recent retirees previously told BI they're living much more comfortably in places like Colombia, Thailand, and St. Maarten.

Leaving the US

Stumpp grew up in the Hamptons on Long Island and eventually worked as a bartender for 15 years. He worked at rock 'n' roll clubs in the 1970s then found work at more upscale bars and restaurants.

As Long Island got more expensive, he decided to relocate to Sante Fe, where he had a cousin at the time. In 1993, he moved to Santa Fe with his then-girlfriend and her two kids.

He got a job at a luxury hotel downtown, working his way up the ranks to bar supervisor. For years, he managed the bar, from creating schedules to ordering inventory. As his kids got older, he started to vacation in Central America, traveling to Costa Rica, Belize, and Panama.

His parents had retired to a lakefront cottage in Ontario, Canada, so he knew he wanted to retire abroad. In the mid-2000s, he started looking into purchasing a property in Belize, a predominantly English-speaking nation, although he and his wife ended up passing on it after noticing it wasn't as peaceful as they wanted it to be.

After reading more about Panama and seeing more Americans moving there, they took a lengthy trip searching for potential properties. He noticed he could get cheaper prices by calling the number on hand-painted signs outside homes instead of going through real estate websites, which would upcharge nonlocals.

Buying a home in Panama

He settled on a nearly half-acre property for $37,000 back in 2006 located three minutes from the beach, giving his Sante Fe home to his stepdaughter. The property had an old home that was falling apart, and he and his wife built a smaller house toward the back of the property with a bedroom, small kitchen, bathroom, and front porch. They split the old house in two as rental units. He owns his property outright with no mortgage, and his annual property tax is less than $100.

"We literally just took it apart — it was wired with extension chords, and it was in sad shape," Stumpp said. "We took it apart, put it back together again, and turned it into these two cute little Airbnb rentals. I'm not making a million dollars, but it's supplemental income."

After moving back and forth between Panama and the US for work for several years, he finally decided to retire and put his Santa Fe house on the market in 2021, noticing his home increased over $100,000 in value from the year before. He sold his convertible and bought an SUV, drove around the US for four months visiting friends and seeing national parks, and then flew back to Panama with his dog.

Moving to Panama permanently

He said over the last two decades, Panama's infrastructure has become much more robust than many other Central American countries. He said the city has good healthcare, a thriving financial scene, and plenty of big-box retailers and large chains.

Within 15 minutes of his house, he said there are four grocery stores, a Home Depot-like retailer, and many restaurant chains similar to those in the US.

"Anything I can buy in the States I can buy here. You might pay a little bit more for certain things, but then again, there's always alternatives," Stumpp said. "I can buy Kellogg's cornflakes and pay a lot of money, or I can buy the local cornflakes for a lot less."

Because he's over 60, he gets discounts on his utilities, doctor visits, public transportation, flights, and even movie theaters.

He's seen many large condominium complexes built along the beach that sell for about $300,000 with monthly maintenance fees of between $150 and $250. In his area, which has fewer tourists and expats, home prices are much lower, though he said sometimes houses can stay on the market for years without buyers.

His electricity fees are about $50 a month, while WiFi is $40 a month. His water bill is a miniscule $5 a month, and he rarely uses air conditioning, which keeps costs down. Still, he estimates his grocery bills are comparable to what he spent in the US, though going out to eat is slightly less.

"As more and more North Americans come down, prices on certain things like services have gone up," Stumpp said. "When I first got here, a hand carwash was $2, but now it's $10."

He loves the weather and living by water, and he's enjoyed becoming integrated into Panamanian culture over the past few years. Still, he said he's noticed a lot of Americans moving down to Panama who don't adapt to the culture, noting that some have left recently citing cultural differences. He said Americans should understand that they're guests in Panama and respect their neighbors, even if it means having to listen to loud music during a party.

"If you come down here to retire, it's not going to be like back home, and you're going to have to be flexible," Stumpp said. "There's some other old-timers here, and those are the ones that can adapt to life here, but there's those that can't."

Have you recently left the United States for a new country? Have you recently moved to a new state? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.

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• Boeing's upcoming 777X airliner is set to compete with the Airbus A350 widebody family.
• The 777-9 has better capacity than the biggest A350 variant, but it has less range and costs more.
• The A350 has had relatively fewer challenges compared to the 777X's slew of production problems.

The upcoming Boeing 777X is the world's largest twin-engine commercial aircraft in production. Two passenger variants are planned, the 777-9 and the smaller 777-8, as well as a 777F cargo option.

The huge plane boasts one-of-a-kind folding wingtips and next-generation engines that help greatly reduce fuel burn, making it a popular option for airlines like British Airways and Emirates looking to replace less efficient widebodies.

However, the still uncertified 777X jet is not set to fly commercially until at least 2025, meaning it still has to receive permission from US aviation regulators to fly passengers. Some airlines are instead opting for the in-service widebody plane produced by Boeing's European rival — the Airbus A350.

The twinjet is available in the A350-900 and A350-1000 variants and has been flying passengers since 2018 with more than a dozen global carriers, including Delta Air Lines, Qatar Airways, and Singapore Airlines. Similar to Boeing, Airbus is also developing a freighter variant.

Boeing hopes the 777X will give the A350 a run for its money thanks to its favorable economics — but that's assuming Boeing can overcome the production problems that have already delayed deliveries by at least five years.

Here's how the two ultra-long-haul next-generation widebodies compare.

The 777-9 is the largest of the two widebody families, boasting a length of nearly 252 feet and space for up to 426 passengers in two classes.

The Airbus A350 follows at about 242 feet, then the 777-8 at 232.5 feet. The A350-900 is the smallest of the four at just over 219 feet long, according to the planemaker.

The 777-8's smaller cabin can carry up to 395 people, based on a two-class configuration. The A350-900 and A350-1000 planes have capacity for 315 and 369 people in two classes, respectively, according to Airbus.

Both A350 variants beat out the 777-9 in terms of range. But of the bunch, the smaller 777-8 can fly the farthest nonstop.

Both the A350-1000 and the 777-8 have ranges exceeding 10,000 miles, but the latter can fly about 50 miles farther. By comparison, the 777-9 can fly for about 8,400 miles nonstop, while the A350-900 can fly for 9,500.

The smaller but higher-ranged 777-8 plane is intended to capture longer-haul flights with lower demand.

Both companies say they've revolutionized the cabin in their unique ways, and customers can expect innovative space and comfort.

The Boeing and Airbus widebody cabins have innovations like better temperature control, improved ergonomics, big overhead bins, and unique lighting — like the Northern Lights color scheme on the 777X or the sky and clouds scene on a Finnair A350.

Boeing, however, says it has a competitive edge thanks to its larger windows and wider fuselage.

The 777X boasts larger windows and a wider cabin than the A350, according to Boeing.

For its part, Airbus says its A350 offers the quietest twin-engine cabin, and its Airspace design "delivers a sense of spaciousness with wider seats, high ceilings, and alluring ambient lighting."

Like previous 777 planes, the 777X's wider fuselage allows it to fit 10 seats across each row in economy.

The 777X offers a width of about 19 and a half feet, which Boeing says is "16 [inches] wider than the competition."

Airbus' A350 family of planes is about 18 feet wide, according to the manufacturer.

Airbus has since amended its design to offer the same 10 abreast rows.

Both the 777X and the A350 airframes allow for 10 abreast rows, which has been the norm on the previous-generation 777 for years but is new for the A350 as of October 2022.

The planemaker's A350 still typically sees nine seats per row, like on the newly delivered one to Air India.

Regarding economics, Boeing contends its 777X will be the world's most efficient airliner thanks to its innovative engines and super-wide wingspan.

The 777X has a wingspan of 235 feet and five inches with the wingtips deployed — a key part of its advanced efficiency. The full wings are 23 feet longer than older 777 variants, generating more lift and reducing fuel burn by 10%.

General Electric makes the 777X's GE9X engines, which, according to GE, are the biggest ever built globally and are 10% more fuel efficient than the GE90 predecessor developed for the classic 777 models.

The folding wingtips and the GE9X powerplant are exclusive to the Boeing 777X.

The entire body of a Boeing 737 narrowbody can fit inside the GE9X engine, and the powerplant can produce some 100,000 pounds of thrust.

Meanwhile, the unique folding wingtips are an industry first, and Boeing is confident in their safety. A 777X test pilot told Business Insider at an airshow in July 2022 that the wingtips are safe due to redundancies, alerts, and detailed electronic checklists.

The wingtip mechanism was developed for the need for the 777X to fit in the existing airport gates used for previous-generation 777s.

When the wingtips are retracted, the wingspan is the same as the classic 777 at about 212 feet — the same as the A350.

Without the adjustable wingtips, aircraft operators and airports might be put off by the 777X due to the time and money associated with accommodating the longer wingspan.

The A350 variants use engines from GE competitor Rolls-Royce, which are the sole powerplants used on the widebody jet.

The Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine is the "world's most efficient large aero-engine," according to Airbus.

The powerplant boasts a 25% lower fuel burn and CO2 emissions than previous options, which Airbus says help drive down operating costs.

Airbus's lower-cost A350 uses carbon composite materials, while the 777X is mostly aluminum.

When Airbus developed the A350, it used a clean-sheet design rather than innovating its previous widebodies, like the four-engine Airbus A340, to better compete with the twin-engine Boeing 777 and Boeing 787 airliners.

The planemaker settled on a composite airframe to make the A350 lighter, saying on its website that the airframe and the engines together "significantly lower fuel burn, CO2 emissions, and maintenance costs while optimizing range and payload."

The Boeing 777X, by comparison, was derived from the classic 777 and has the traditional aluminum fuselage — though with composite wings.

The 777X's carbon fiber wings similarly offer weight savings and also improve strength.

The 777X composite materials used over traditional metals will improve the rigidity and strength of the stretched wings, according to Boeing.

Complementing the engines, the lightweight composite will contribute some 10% lower operating costs on the 777-9 compared to the A350-1000, per Boeing.

Airlines will get some size and range advantages with the 777X that the A350 variants lack — but at a cost.

The 777X variants are tens of millions of dollars more expensive than the A350. According to list prices, the 777-9 is about $442 million, and the 777-8 is about $410 million.

The less expensive Airbus planes list at about $366 million for the A350-1000 and about $317 million for an A350-900.

Though, airplanes regularly don't sell at the full list price.

The A350 has been in service for years now with relatively few problems, but it has had a few bumps in the road.

Compared to the 777X's yearslong certification delays, the A350 has experienced fewer production and quality problems. There are about 1,300 of the widebodies in service, with nearly 600 on order, according to Airbus.

A significant hiccup, however, came in 2021 when Qatar filed a lawsuit against Airbus over chipped paint on some of the airline's A350s, which led to Airbus changing the jet's design and eventually revolving the concerns with Qatar in 2023.

The modified A350-1000 is being developed for Qantas' Project Sunrise, however, it is facing some issues.

Australian flag carrier Qantas plans to launch the world's new longest flight using A350-1000s modified with an extra fuel tank.

The ultra-long-haul plane is set to connect Sydney to New York and London nonstop — routes that stretch some 10,000 miles and up to 21 hours in the air.

However, Airbus has faced hold-ups on the assembly line relating to the fuel tank, which has delayed the delivery of the jetliner by at least six months from 2025 to mid-2026, Forbes reported.

The 777X, meanwhile, has had several production problems that have delayed deliveries and raised questions about the entry timeline.

Boeing launched the 777X program in November 2013, when the first deliveries were expected by 2020. However, problems related to the pandemic, heightened scrutiny after the Boeing 737 Max 8 incidents, and supply chain issues have pushed that to at least 2025 and cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars in additional expenses.

Meanwhile, Emirates President Tim Clark previously stated the plane would not enter the market until 2026 but has still placed orders for both the 777-9 and the 777-8 variants.

The 777X delays have prompted carriers like Qantas and Korean Air to buy the A350 over Boeing's future widebody.

In late 2019, Qantas chose the A350 to power its Project Sunrise flights, with Airbus beating out the bid by Boeing. At the time, the American planemaker dealt with the fallout from two deadly 737 Max 8 crashes and structural issues with the 777X.

Korean Air signed a $14 billion order with Airbus in March for more than 30 A350 planes, choosing the readily available plane over the yet-to-be-certified 777X.

Still, the new 777X plane has secured hundreds of orders as Boeing chases certification.

Emirates has purchased the most 777Xs so far, holding 205 of the 481 airline orders, according to Boeing.

Other buyers include Air India, Japan's All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways, and Singapore Airlines, as well as a few cargo airlines and undisclosed customers.

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• "Poke" is one of Facebook's oldest features, going back to when it was just for college kids.
• In a 2005 interview, Mark Zuckerberg said he came up with the idea while drunk.
• Poking is back! Facebook has made it more prominent on the app, and pokes have gone up 13x.

For many of us, the most genius idea we've had while drunk is "we should order pizza." But when a young Mark Zuckerberg over-imbibed, he invented the "poke," the Facebook feature that is both the most creative thing Facebook has done — and one of the creepiest.

The poke was one of the earliest features of Facebook, which Zuckerberg launched in college in 2004 as The Facebook. Poking someone just sends them an alert that the other person gave them a poke. It could be flirty, it could be friendly, it could be just inscrutably weird.

In 2005, when Facebook was still open only to college kids, "CBS Sunday Morning" did a segment about young tech founders, including a young woman who ran a website for camcorder reviews, the creator of the Firefox browser, and a young man named Mark Zuckerberg. In the interview, Zuckerberg describes to the tech journalist David Pogue how Facebook works.

Here's how he describes the poke feature:

There's this feature called poking where you just go to someone's profile and you can poke the person. And, like, what does that do? Nothing. It sends them a message — it's like, "You've been poked."

And you know, like, who cares? I mean, it's like, I thought about it when I was drunk or something. And people really like poking each other for some reason that I don't think anyone can really explain.

Meta declined to comment.

Meanwhile, improbably, the poke is having a comeback.

Facebook made a design tweak to make the poke button more prominent; it had previously been hidden away and almost impossible to find. It also made it easier to find the page where all your pokes live (try searching "pokes" on Facebook).

The result was that poking went up 13-fold in a short period, and mostly by younger Gen Z users who probably weren't on Facebook the first time the poke was popular.

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• Ukraine said it struck a powerful  Russian electronic warfare system this week.
• Footage appears to show it had destroyed a Borisoglebsk-2 EW jamming station.
• EW has become increasingly important in the current conflict.

Ukraine's special operations forces (SSO) said on Wednesday that it had targeted a Russian Borisoglebsk-2 electronic warfare (EW) system.

A video shared on the special forces' Telegram channel appears to show a drone striking the system, which Russian news agency Tass described in 2017 as the "technical backbone" of Russia's EW technology.

The SSO's post said that the system was destroyed in the drone strike after troops from the 3rd SSO Regiment had spotted it during a reconnaissance mission in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify the location or time of the footage.

The Borisoglebsk-2 is an automated jamming system used to detect, analyze, and suppress high-frequency and very high-frequency radio communications, the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) think tank said in a 2017 report. It has the ability to control four jamming units from a single command point.

The website Army Recognition called the Borisoglebsk-2 a "cornerstone of the Russian Army's electronic warfare arsenal."

The SSO said that the EW system was first used against Ukraine in 2014 during Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Electronic warfare, which uses the electromagnetic spectrum to disrupt and degrade an enemy's ability to use signals like radio and infrared, has become crucial in the current conflict as each side looks to neutralize the other's attack and reconnaissance drone capabilities, which have been a key feature of the 25-month-long war.

Russia has maintained a significant lead in EW capabilities, although it has seemingly been reluctant to deploy such systems on the front lines.

There have been signs that that is beginning to change, however, with recent reports of Ukraine striking and capturing a Russian tank that was fitted with a makeshift EW system.

Both sides are also now seeking to use AI to bypass EW defenses, developing AI-powered drones that can locate and lock on to targets without communicating with an operator — meaning electronic warfare systems are rendered redundant.

"You cannot jam such a drone because there is nothing to jam," one Ukrainian drone pilot from the 92nd brigade told Reuters.

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• The US Army lacks the equipment and experience to successfully attack across a river.
• These capabilities have atrophied and need an overhaul, an Army major argued.
• River crossings are dangerous and only getting more difficult.

Assaulting across a river is among the most dangerous military operations. Yet if the US Army went to war tomorrow, it would lack the equipment, doctrine and experience to launch an attack across a defended river, according to one Army engineer.

"The Army has not conducted such an operation since World War II," wrote Maj. Aditya Iyer, an Army engineer, in an essay for the Association of the United States Army. For example, Army divisions don't have adequate bridging capabilities of their own to conduct what the Army calls "wet gap" attacks, and would need support from corps-level units that might not be available.

"The current wet-gap crossing doctrine, organization, materiel and leadership are ineffective for division-level wet-gap crossing operations independent from the corps," Iyer warned. River crossings are especially dangerous because the massed vehicles can be targeted as they funnel across or even become stranded on the far bank against a larger enemy.

As an example of neglecting river assaults, Iyer points to the fiasco of Russia's May 2022 attempt to cross the Siverskyi Donets River, which the 74th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade tried to storm using mobile pontoon bridges. The result was an estimated 500 casualties and dozens of tanks lost.

Iyer lists multiple mistakes by Russian commanders, including attacking at only one point on the river, lack of prior reconnaissance, and attacking in daytime instead of night. "In contrast, the Ukrainian forces had accurate intelligence that showed the Russian troops massing along the river," Iyer said. "The Ukrainian engineer reconnaissance teams had also identified potential river crossings and had pre-coordinated artillery targets on the crossing sites, and they were right; Russian forces did indeed use those sites."

To be fair, the US Army also has a checkered history with river assaults. At the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, the Union Army made a foolish and bloody attempt to cross the Rappahannock River against entrenched Confederate defenders. In January 1944, the US 36th Infantry Division launched an ill-prepared and disastrous night assault across the Rapido River in Italy that cost almost 2,000 casualties (the furious survivors spurred a congressional investigation after the war).

Indeed, the Army was unprepared for river crossings at the start of World War II. Divisions lacked sufficient bridging equipment — including bridges robust enough to bear the weight of tanks — which made them dependent on corps-level assets. Nor was there a centralized authority to coordinate complex crossing operations. However, by the time of Operation Plunder — the massive assault across the Rhine River in 1945, involving a million men and nearly 6,000 artillery pieces — many of these problems had been rectified. The Rhine crossing even used US Navy landing craft normally used for amphibious assaults on the ocean.

If anything, river crossings are even harder nowadays. The ruses that commanders like Napoleon used — such as surprise descents on a weakly held point, or feints to mask the real crossing point — are much harder when drones are constantly overhead as in Ukraine. If the enemy can spot the crossing, they can blanket the bridgehead with long-range missile and artillery strikes.

This wasn't such a problem in counterinsurgency operations in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq. Major combat operations against Russia and China would be different, especially in regions like Eastern Europe, where there are plenty of rivers and canals. "The Russo-Ukrainian War has highlighted that military technologies have evolved in recent decades and that the U.S. military must be prepared to conduct wet-gap crossing operations against a well-organized and technologically advanced force," said Iyer.

The Army's current wet gap deficiencies resemble those of World War II. Divisions, and the engineer battalions in brigade combat teams, don't have sufficient bridging capabilities of their own. The division is supposed to use at least four Multi-Role Bridge Companies to cross a 400-meter (1,312-foot) river. But those special bridging companies are controlled by corps headquarters.

"Divisions rely on the corps augmentation for wet-gap crossing operations, including other enablers, such as military police and smoke," Iyer noted. Nor does the Army have enough Multi-Role Bridge Companies to support all its divisions.

What's more, many of the Army's bridges, such as the Improved Ribbon Bridge, aren't strong enough to bear the weight of heavy vehicles such as the 70-ton M1 Abrams tank. "The current bridging equipment has the same capability shortfalls that we had in World War II," said Iyer.

The Army also needs a centralized doctrine for river crossing operations that goes beyond merely building the bridge itself, and not how to seize and secure a bridgehead. "Publications remain technically focused on engineer considerations and calculations to execute a crossing," Iyer said.

Simply having the engineering capability to quickly build a bridge across a mile-long river is no minor feat. The question is whether it can be done if the enemy objects.

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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• A TikToker says she got stuck in her Tesla for 40 minutes during a software update.
• Her car was parked in the sun, and during the update she says the temperature inside reached 115°F.
• The door has a manual release, but the user guide says opening it during an update can damage the vehicle.

A TikToker says she was "roasting like a freakin' chicken" after she got stuck in her Tesla on a hot day while the car completed its software update.

The TikToker, whose screen name is Brianna Janel, said in a series of videos that she expected the software update to last 24 minutes, according to a message displayed on the internal screen in the vehicle — long enough for her to finish a work call while she waited for her Chick-fil-A order to be ready — but she was still locked inside by the time her call had finished.

"When your car is updating, you're stuck in your car if you activate it while you're in here," Janel said in her first video, which had received 18.3 million views at the time of publication. "So I did that and now I'm stuck in my car literally dripping sweat — like dripping sweat — and inside my car, it's 103 degrees."

According to the Omni Calculator, on a 75-degree day, the internal temperature of a car can reach up to 115°F in just 40 minutes. In Orange County, where Janel said she's from, the weather on the afternoon when she posted the video hit a high of 76°F.

Tesla's user manual alerts owners that some safety features are disabled during software updates and warns not to open the doors or windows while the update is installed, or else "you could damage the vehicle."

The manual doesn't specify what kind of damage could occur, but the Model 3 starts at $38,990 while a Model X starts at $79,990, giving owners a significant financial incentive not to risk it.

"I'm slightly freaking out, I hope I don't run out of air. I can't open up the doors or the windows otherwise, I could potentially damage my car," Janel continued in her viral video. "So yeah. I will be stuck in my car until further notice."

Commenters on the video were split between blaming Janel for refusing to use the emergency manual release and blaming Tesla for what some described as a "huge safety issue."

In a later video, Janel said she had owned her Tesla for about 6 years, but this was the first time she'd decided to update the car while she was inside. By the 30-minute mark, she decided to just "wait it out" because she didn't want to damage the vehicle, though she added she would have opened it if she felt she was actually risking her health.

"I made it out of my car — look, I'm sweating. I'm literally dripping sweat; you can see it on my face," she said in a video update regarding her ordeal. "I just got stuck in my car as it was updating for 40 minutes, and the interior is 115 degrees. The AC has never felt so good and I've never felt better."

Despite the incident, Janel said she still loves her Tesla and calls it "a good vehicle," but she issued a warning to those who came across her video: "Do not update it when you're sitting in the car. Stick to updating it at 2 a.m. like I used to do it."

Janel and representatives for Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

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• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been threatening to oust Speaker Mike Johnson from his chair.
• On Friday, Donald Trump tried to downplay tensions between the two representatives.
• MTG went on Steve Bannon's show the same day, saying Johnson is "full of shit."

Donald Trump appears to be trying to play the role of diplomat amid ongoing tensions between House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

For weeks, the Georgia representative has threatened to oust Johnson from his chair ever since the House passed a $1.2 trillion government funding bill, arguing that it did not do much to move forward the GOP's priorities such as immigration.

On Friday, Trump tried to ease those tensions with his public endorsement of the Speaker during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

"I stand with the speaker," Trump told reporters as Johnson stood beside the former president.

When asked about Greene's motion to vacate, Trump said that he got along well with both representatives and claimed that Greene sympathized with the difficult job Johnson has faced since he took up the role as Speaker.

"I think he's doing a very good job," Trump said, adding, "I'm sure that Marjorie understands that. She's a very good friend of mine, and I know that she has a lot of respect for the Speaker."

But hours before Trump held his press conference, the Georgia representative repeatedly criticized the Speaker on Steve Bannon's "War Room" show.

Greene excoriated Johnson for Friday's passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which she said gives the federal government too much power to spy on citizens. She then went on a brief tirade about the coverage she's received from mainstream media and claimed that most Americans would agree with her ideas.

"They know I mean exactly every single word I say, and I'm not full of shit just like Mike Johnson is, and I'm actually going to follow through with action instead of lie to people on television, and in press conferences, and out on the campaign trail," she said.

In March, Greene filed a motion to vacate Johnson only months after the House was thrown into chaos after Rep. Kevin McCarthy was removed from his speakership. Greene previously supported McCarthy's bid to become Speaker and was one of the 210 Republicans who voted to keep the California representative in his seat.

Greene's calls to oust Johnson from his role have frustrated some of her Republican colleagues and those in Trump's orbit.

One source close to Trump told Politico that Greene's threats were "100 percent distraction. Unwanted. And just stupid."

Spokespeople for Greene, Johnson, and Trump did not respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.

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• Elon Musk's the Boring Company is in the process of expanding its tunnel system under Las Vegas.
• Fortune reported the company mistakenly exposed the base of pillars that support the Vegas monorail.
• The monorail was temporarily shut down and the company was issued violations, Fortune reported.

The Boring Company, the startup owned by Elon Musk that is expanding its network of tunnels under Las Vegas, was issued several violations from Clark County and accused of creating a "potential hazard" by exposing structural foundations of the Vegas Monorail, according to a new report from Fortune.

The Boring Company opened a 1.7-mile tunnel project in 2021 to transport passengers beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center in Teslas. Now the company is expanding the tunnel system to create the Vegas Loop, which is set to include the LVCC loop and the airport, downtown Vegas, and more, with 68 miles of tunnel approved by the county and city.

However, the expansion has not been without hiccups. Fortune, in part through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained documents showing workers for the Boring Company mistakenly dug too close to pillars holding up the monorail, a 3.9-mile public transit system along the Vegas Strip.

Clark County issued three violations to the company related to two incidents in June and October of last year, in which the base of monorail pillars had been exposed, the outlet reported.

For the incident on June 15, the county ordered the monorail system to be temporarily suspended. Fortune reported that an engineering firm was brought in to assess the risk, and the following day, a construction company poured a cement mixture over the pillar base area. The monorail reopened on the evening of June 16.

The Boring Company, Clark County, the monorail, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which owns the monorail, did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

A spokesperson for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority acknowledged the incidents to Fortune, saying of the June incident that the Boring Company was "fixing a broken irrigation line and inadvertently exposed a Monorail foundation, so we took the correct steps to repair that, including pausing operations for a day."

Regarding the October incident, the spokesperson said concerns were raised but were "unfounded" and that the monorail was not shut down.

"We put the public at risk for anybody who was on that monorail at that time," a former Boring Company employee working near the June incident told Fortune.

The incidents are not the first time safety concerns have been raised about the Boring Company. In February, Fortune also published an investigation in which former employees said they felt unsafe working there.

Bloomberg also reported in February that the Boring Company was being hit with safety violations, with workers experiencing chemical burns and potentially dangerous accidents.

Some employees were left with scars after they had to travel through two feet of chemical-laced mud that made their skin feel "on fire," according to Bloomberg, citing an investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

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