Pro Israeli activists prepare to confront people at a pro-Palestinian encampment protesting the war in Gaza on the campus of the University of Chicago on May 03, 2024.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Rep. Mike Collins appeared to praise University of Mississippi students for racist chants.
A video on X showed students engaging in racial taunts towards a Black war protester.
This isn't the first instance of controversial comments from Collins on social media.
Republican Rep. Mike Collins appeared to praise a large group of University of Mississippi students who taut a Black student protesting the Israel-Hamas war.
"Ole Miss taking care of business," the congressman from Georgia posted on X on Friday, with a link to a video showing the racist chants.
In the video, the predominantly white male counter-protesters can be seen shouting at a Black woman standing opposite.
The footage shows the woman filming as dozens of protesters scream, "Lizzo" and "fuck you fat ass" at her.
The camera pans to show a man jumping up and down making monkey noises at her. Security guards attempt to insert themselves between the two sides, ordering her to return to her side of the demonstration.
University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce said in a statement Friday seen by the Associated Press that the school had launched a "student conduct investigation" and that university leaders were "working to determine whether more cases are warranted."
"To be clear, people who say horrible things to people because of who they are will not find shelter or comfort on this campus," he said.
The protest was part of a larger wave of demonstrations across US college campuses in response to the Israel-Hamas war.
Business Insider has not yet received a reply from Collins' office to clarify what was meant by his post on X. The request was sent outside regular working hours.
In March, Collins was accused of antisemitism for remark about Jewish writer in response to a racist, antisemitic account on X, which appeared to suggest that a Washington Post reporter was Jewish.
Collins suggested in a follow-up post that because the account was called @GarbageHuman23, he simply agreed that the reporter was a "garbage human" because she'd written in a recent story that the US had been built on stolen land.
"I guess pointing out that a Washington Post journo excusing crime because she believes USA is on 'stolen land' makes her a garbage human is anti-Semitic? Y'all just see stuff that ain't there," Collins wrote.
Warren Buffett issued a grave warning about artificial intelligence.
The Berkshire Hathaway CEO predicted it would supercharge fraud by making scams far more convincing.
The investor likened AI to the atom bomb, saying the world has let the "genie out of the bottle."
Warren Buffett has raised the alarm on AI, warning it threatens to supercharge fraud by making scams more convincing than ever.
"Scamming has always been part of the American scene," the famed investor and Berkshire CEO said during his company's annual shareholder meeting on Saturday.
But Buffett said that images and videos created using artificial intelligence have become so convincing that it's virtually impossible to discern if they're real or not.
"When you think of the potential of scamming people … if I was interested in scamming, it's going to be the growth industry of all time," he said.
He recalled seeing a deepfake video of himself that a fraudster was using to ask strangers for cash.
"I practically would have sent money to myself over in some crazy country," he quipped.
Buffett also likened the advent of AI to the creation of the atom bomb, echoing comments he made at last year's Berkshire meeting.
"We let the genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons," he said. "That genie's been doing some terrible things lately. The power of the genie scares the hell out of me."
"AI is somewhat similar," Buffett added. "We may wish we'd never seen that genie."
The billionaire, who touted AI's enormous potential years before ChatGPT's release, emphasized he's no expert in the nascent tech.
"I don't know anything about AI, but that doesn't mean I deny its existence or importance or anything of the sort," he said.
Kim Jong Un, supreme leader of North Korea, pictured in Pyongyang in 2020.
API | Getty Images
Kim Jong Un's latest propaganda song, "Friendly Father," is trending on TikTok.
The song is part of North Korea's strategy to embed ideological messages in catchy pop tunes.
TikTok, a Chinese-owned platform, could soon be banned by the US.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dropped his latest propaganda song a fortnight ago, and the synth-pop track is seemingly winning over TikTokers, BBC News reported.
With its upbeat tempo and catchy melody, "Friendly Father" is reminiscent of an ABBA track — but with a Soviet-sounding twist.
While experts say the song is a calculated attempt to feed state propaganda to the masses, TikTokers are just enjoying the tune. Posts about the song have garnered millions of likes.
"On Spotify when," one user wrote.
"This song is like the end of a movie where the whole town gathers together and sings in unity while spinning in a circle," says another of the upbeat video.
North Korean Central Television has released a music video for the song "Friendly Father" praising Kim Jong Un
But such catchy tunes are purposefully designed to be accessible and simple to sing, making them easy to repeat and ensuring their ideological messages can be spread to the masses.
"The idea is they want to motivate, to strive towards a common goal for the benefit of the nation. They don't tend to produce songs like ballads," Alexandra Leonzini, a University of Cambridge scholar who researches North Korean music, told BBC News.
"All artistic output in North Korea must serve the class education of citizens and more specifically educate them as to why they should feel a sense of gratitude, a sense of loyalty to the party," she added.
It seems that the state's latest song has a particular aim of boosting the profile of Kim Jong Un, presenting him as more of a "father figure" like his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, and his father, Kim Jong Il.
It is an attempt to "elevate his status and stature" to their level, as he has previously had to rely on their reputations to "indicate his legitimacy to be the successor," Peter Moody, a North Korea analyst at Sungkyunkwan University, told The Telegraph.
"The song has ABBA written all over it. It's upbeat, it could not be more catchy, and a rich set of orchestral-sounding sequences could not be more prominent," Moody told BBC News.
It comes as Chinese-owned short-video platform TikTok faces a ban in the US over data security concerns.
Last month, the US Senate passed a bill that could see TikTok banned in the US unless its parent company, ByteDance, divests itself of the business over the next nine months to a year.
Reuters reported in April that ByteDance would rather close down TikTok in the US than sell it if legal means to fight the proposed ban fail.
Biden addressing campus protests over Israel at the White House on Thursday.
Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images
Joe Biden has tried to stake out a middle ground as protests spread across college campuses.
Polling shows that the protests are unpopular.
At the same time, Biden needs to keep his coalition of voters intact to win reelection.
As protests against Israel's war in Gaza have popped up on college campuses nationwide — at times devolving into chaos and violence — it's not surprising that President Joe Biden hasn't publicly embraced them.
After denouncing some of the protests as being out-of-bounds on Thursday, Biden told reporters that the demonstrations haven't led him to reconsider his stance on the war. That's not just because of his long-standing support for Israel, but because he has historically been skeptical of protest movements in general.
Polling has shown that pro-Palestinian protests are unpopular in general, despite widespread concerns about Israel's conduct in the war. A recent Morning Consult poll found that 47% of voters supported banning "pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campuses," versus 30% who were opposed and 23% who were unsure.
Americans' views on the ongoing campus protests and how universities should respond to them, broken out by age group:
Polling continues to show Biden running neck-and-neck with former President Donald Trump ahead of their November rematch, and the president and his campaign are likely trying to mitigate as much possible electoral damage as they can. It's also worth noting that the college-aged students taking part in these protests are part of a demographic that usually struggles to turn out on Election Day.
The president is part of a generation of Democrats that viewed close ties to Israel as a bedrock part of American foreign policy. During the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, he also kept his distance from the progressive activists and lawmakers that now undergird much of the party's criticism of Israel.
Compared to President Barack Obama, Biden was far more circumspect about criticizing Israel during its 2014 war, according to an NBC News report — and that conflict pales in comparison to the current one.
Even Biden's roots come with a distance toward protest movements. Unlike other lawmakers of his generation, Biden largely stayed away from the Vietnam War protests that sparked upheaval on college campuses nationwide.
"I was in law school," Biden said of the Vietnam War protests, per The New York Times. "I wore sport coats."
It remains to be seen whether Biden will pay the price at the ballot box for his positioning. He was already facing a growing electoral challenge from the Uncommitted movement, with progressives, young voters, and Arab and Muslim American voters withholding their support for Biden over his support for Israel.
The race between Biden and Trump is so close that even the vocal minority of young voters staying home could be a big problem for the president.
However, Americans traditionally don't peg their votes to foreign policy issues. Both historic and current polling shows voters are far more concerned about the economy.
A recent CBS News-YouGov poll of Michigan likely voters found that of 10 potential issues, the war between Israel and Hamas was the least likely to be a major factor in which candidate a voter would support — the most important issues by far were the economy and inflation.
Even among young voters, the trend remains the same. A Harvard Youth Poll of 18-to-29-year-olds nationwide found that the war was far less important to voters than inflation or healthcare.
In a new book, photographer Joshua Charow documents the rich history of New York City's artist lofts.
Protected by the Loft Law, a generation of artists were able to preserve their live-work spaces.
Nearly impossible in today's rental market, these spaces still inspire people around the world.
When he was a teenager, photographer Joshua Charow would sneak into buildings around New York City in search of the perfect rooftop shot. One factory in Brooklyn's South Williamsburg held his fascination as he discovered the raw, eclectic live-work spaces of artist's lofts.
In his early 20s, Charow returned to the building hoping to live there himself. He soon discovered he was "ten years too late" — all the lofts were taken by tenants living under New York City's historic Loft Law, protections for loft tenants passed in the early 1980s.
Fascinated by the Loft Law's history and its impact on New York City's culture and legacy, Charow mapped out every building that fell under this protection and set out to document the residents who are still benefiting from the law.
Over two years, he photographed 75 tenants and collected their stories into "Loft Law, The Last of New York City's Original Artist Lofts," now available from Damiani Books.
Here's more on Charow's research of the Loft Law and a look at six of the subjects he covers in his book.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, downtown New York City was a hub of manufacturing.
Lower Manhattan was once an industrial hub.
Alexander Spatari/Getty
Cast-iron buildings with floor-through workrooms and ground-level shops populated the neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, writes Charow.
When manufacturing moved out of American cities in the 1950's, many of these buildings were abandoned.
Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, where many lofts are located.
Mihai Andritoiu/Getty
Slated only for commercial use that no longer existed, New York City officials largely left these buildings untouched without a plan for their future, according to Charow.
However, many artists struck deals with landlords who looked the other way and allowed them to live there for cheap.
The raw interiors of an industrial loft made for a perfect studio space.
Orbon Alija/Getty
Landlords were happy to find any income for the spaces they chalked up to be practically worthless, Charow explains.
Some lofts didn't have electricity, heat, or a working kitchen, but artists loved the cheap rent and plentiful space to have both a home and studio.
A view of neighborhood containing cast-iron structures in New York.
Alexander Spatari/Getty
Artists taking over factories, warehouse, and even theaters "transformed formerly derelict neighborhoods into the cultural epicenter of the world," writes Charow.
As loft living became fashionable, many landlords tried to evict the artists who made the lofts hospitable, Charow explains.
Many people wanted to imitate the loft lifestyle, writes Charow.
Alexander Spatari/Getty
A group of artists formed the organization Lower Manhattan Loft Tenants in 1979 and lobbied politicians, arguing their essential cultural role in the city. They won.
The Loft Law passed in 1982, creating eviction protections and rent stabilization for those who could prove they lived in a commercial space with the landlord’s consent before 1982, according to Charow.
Today, the lofts exist among some of the most expensive real estate in the city.
Alexander Spatari/Getty
"If you're lucky enough to walk into one of their studios, you will be transported back to the year they moved in, to a New York that doesn't exist anymore," writes Charow.
Betsy Kaufman, Tribeca
Betsy Kaufman.
Courtesy of Joshua Charow
Painter Betsy Kaufman's original rent in 1979 for a different Tribeca loft was $450. In 1981, she moved into the space she still resides in today. Kaufman keeps her living space in the back of the apartment and uses the space near the soaring windows for her work, according to Charow.
"I think it's a lot of painters' dream to live and to have longevity as an artist," she told Charow about her life in the loft.
Carmen Cicero, The Bowery
Carmen Cicero
Courtesy of Joshua Charow
The Bowery, a downtown neighborhood in Manhattan, has one of the highest concentrations of Loft Law-protected buildings in the city, according to Charow.
The 97-year-old painter Carmen Cicero lives in a fourth-floor walkup in the neighborhood where for the past four decades he's been able to hone his craft.
His works are now in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Art Institute, and the Museum of Modern Art.
But when he first moved into his loft in 1971, the space, he told Charow, was a "flophouse" with separate rooms divided by chicken wire.
"Oh my God, it was just a horror," he told Charow. "There were no shades. I said, well, people are looking in, and I hate that. I didn't want to take my clothes off."
JG Thirlwell, Dumbo
JG Thirwell
Courtesy of Joshua Charow
JG Thirlwell is a musician who once performed in the experimental and punk scenes, and now mixes classical music and jazz, as well as scores film and TV. He moved into his Brooklyn loft in 1987 and created a home studio among the arched windows and 14-foot ceilings.
"Loft living is not for everyone." Thirlwell told Charow. "There's not adequate heat, and it's not like you can call up the super because there is no super. You're responsible for everything in here, and not everyone wants a life like that."
Kimiko Fujimura, Chinatown
Kimiko Fujimura
Courtesy of Joshua Charow
Painter Kimiko Fujimura moved from Tokyo to New York over 50 years ago. In the first SoHo loft she occupied in the city, a fire broke out destroying more than a hundred of her paintings, Charow said.
Now, she lives on the top floor of a former bow and ribbon factory in Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood, where she's been since 1979. She has created murals for the World Trade Center, Roseland Ballroom, and a Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo.
Marsha Pels, Greenpoint
Marsha Pels
Courtesy of Joshua Charow
Sculptor Marsha Pels lives in a glass factory built in 1852 that sold items to Mary Todd Lincoln for the White House, according to Charow.
A massive 20-foot door and two hoists let Pels move her giant sculptures in and out of the building and around the studio.
She told Charow she's lived in lofts throughout the city including the East Village and SoHo neighborhoods of Manhattan, and Red Hook and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn.
Steve Silver, Williamsburg
Steve Silver
Courtesy of Joshua Charow
The Bronx-born painter Steve Silver has lived in a 5,000 square foot Williamsburg loft since 1979, where just one of his paintings that is made up of 112 pieces is mounted on a massive 12×16 foot wall.
His building has begun to attract much wealthier tenants. A loft half the size of his home below him rents for $11,000 per month, writes Charow.
A caption accompanying the video reads: "It seems that in recent weeks, Putin's generals have been making a large-scale sacrifice to their hellish gods, throwing new forces and equipment to their death."
"The result is dozens of burned-out Russian tanks and armored vehicles," it continues.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reshared the video on X, formerly Twitter, writing: "A line to hell. Dozens of Russian tanks and combat vehicles were destroyed on a small section of the front in the Donetsk region."
Business Insider was unable to independently verify when or where the footage was taken.
A line to hell. Dozens of russian tanks and combat vehicles were destroyed on a small section of the front in the Donetsk region.
Fighting has intensified in the Donetsk region in recent months as Russia pushes to take more ground around the already-captured city of Avdiivka.
Russian forces are currently targeting the strategically important city of Chasiv Yar, just to the north.
Ukrainian officials believe that Russia is now intent on seizing the regions of both Donetsk and Luhansk in 2024.
Destroyed Russian tank in Donetsk Oblast
Ukraine's 58th Motorized Brigade.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank reported in February that Russia's campaign around Avdiivka had resulted in significant losses to both equipment and personnel.
The report said that at that time, Russia had lost 8,800 armored fighting vehicles since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The director-general of the IISS also said in February that Russia had likely lost more than 3,000 tanks since the invasion began.
"To put that into perspective, Russia's battlefield tank losses are greater than the number it had when it launched its offensive in 2022," he wrote.
Dutch open-source intelligence website Oryx puts visually confirmed Russian tank losses since the start of the conflict at just under 3,000.
Josh Jordan started Houston Bomb Shelter to construct emergency shelters for nuclear disasters.
High-end clients will spend up to six figures for large shelters.
Clients often want discretion to protect themselves from neighbors who don't have their own shelters.
This is an As Told To essay based on a conversation with Josh Jordan, a Texas-based engineer who founded Houston Bomb Shelter, which constructs private emergency shelters. It has been edited for length and clarity.
The danger of nuclear war has been around for almost 100 years, but recently renewed concern is driving a new interest in bomb shelters. So, I'm just trying to fill a need in that marketplace.
We offer a variety of different shelter structures. The above-ground option is the cheapest solution because it involves the least invasive construction techniques.
The one that I think is the best is a partially submerged solution. We'll dig out about three or four feet in someone's backyard, for example, and then put in a structure that is maybe three or four feet above the ground.
Of course, the ultimate option is a fully submerged solution, but those are a lot more expensive.
Shelters are not as romantic as in the movies. They are normally about 10 feet wide and 20 to 40 feet long. The majority of my clients are upper middle class, and they say, "Well, instead of getting the nicest Mercedes, I could use the extra $40,000 on a solution that could save my family's life." They rationalize it that way.
I've had some people contact me for larger shelters, but those are executive, C-suite-level people. They're not household names, but you look them up and find they're the CEO or COO of a company. Their budget is much higher. They don't seem to mind spending well into six figures.
Some clients don't want to tell their neighbors because they're nosy. They don't want to tell their homeowners association because then everyone's going to want to go there in case of an emergency. They think, "They're my neighbor, why wouldn't they open up their vault door for me? I've been their neighbor for 15 years." It's a sensitive topic for people.
So discretion is a requirement for our construction projects. We have a few different fake magnetic company decals to put on the side of the trucks, like pool guys or solar installers. Sometimes I offer to put up a big construction tent. We also disguise the shelter itself. Sometimes it looks like a shed or a doghouse. I like to make a trellis because that will keep most people from paying attention to it.
People aren't going to be staying in these things for years, or decades, or months, even. After a week, the radioactivity level drops substantially, and moving around is considered safer. After three weeks, there's hardly any remnants, and it's relatively safe.
There are two parts of a nuclear blast that are a concern. The initial blast has high-velocity winds and heat. A lot of people would die from that without shelter.
Then, generally speaking, there are between 30 minutes and 75 minutes before fallout starts. Fallout is just the dust that settles from the explosion, but radioactive particles attach to that dust. It makes this dirty snow that sort of seems like ash. That's what is going to be dangerous for the next three weeks.
If people survive that first blast, that's great. Then they have one to three weeks where they really need to be sheltered in place and not go anywhere. And that is the ultimate goal of the service that we provide: a safe place for people and their loved ones.
From left: Rep. Rob Menendez, Sen. Bob Menendez, and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla.
Bobby Bank/Kevin Dietsch/Tom Williams/Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI
Rep. Rob Menendez — son of the scandal-plagued Sen. Bob Menendez — faces a tough reelection race.
Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, styling himself as an anti-machine candidate, could defeat him.
The younger Menendez is out to prove that he can win without his father's political support.
When Rep. Rob Menendez decided to enter politics, his last name was undoubtedly his most valuable asset. Now, it's his greatest liability.
Sixteen months into representing a House district in New Jersey just across the river from Manhattan, Menendez is staring down a well-funded, formidable primary challenge from Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, who styles himself as a progressive urbanist and — perhaps more importantly — is not the son of Sen. Bob Menendez, who's been all but permanently sidelined by his lurid corruption scandal and could face time behind bars.
Polling has shown that the younger Menendez could lose, and the congressman has to contend with two dueling headaches ahead of the June 4 primary: separating himself from his scandal-plagued father, and surviving the loss of the state's long-standing "county line" ballot system, which has helped party bosses essentially coronate candidates like Menendez for decades. Running for reelection under what he calls "the most unique set of challenging circumstances you can imagine," Menendez is out to prove that he's able to stand on his own, and that he's more than the "nepo baby" caricature that's dogged him for his entire life.
"For all the times that people have said that I've only been able to accomplish something because of my father, that's now clearly no longer going to be the case when I win reelection," Menendez told me in April, as we sipped beers at the back of a Jersey City pub. "That's what's so exciting about this election."
Aside from the last name, one could be forgiven for failing to recognize the congressman as the senator's son — the 38-year-old Menendez comes across as a charming, wonky frat bro. "The best way I've heard myself described is as a geriatric millennial," he told a gathering of voters in Hoboken the day before we sat down. He sports a hi-top fade haircut, wears Nike Air Force 1 sneakers with his suits, is a skilled extemporaneous speaker, and carries himself with the self-assuredness that comes with growing up in a politically powerful family. Indeed, Menendez has never known a time when his father was not an elected official.
A 21-year-old Rob Menendez looks on at his father's 2006 Senate election victory party.
Stephen Chernin/Getty Images
His political survival now depends on separating himself from his father, a task that's clearly both politically and personally difficult for him. Menendez, who has not been implicated in his father's scandal, euphemistically refers to the ongoing criminal proceedings as the "challenges he's facing" or his "legal troubles," sometimes flashing a nervous grin when the topic comes up. He won't even comment on his father's stated intention to run for reelection as an independent if he's cleared of the corruption charges facing him, a move that could jeopardize Democrats' chances to retain the seat.
"I don't have the capacity to think through, well, what if, what if, what if," Menendez told me. "There's a lot that I have to deal with right now."
'This is a true test for democracy'
The younger Menendez's entry into politics was swift. In 2021, he was nominated by Gov. Phil Murphy to serve as a commissioner overseeing the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Six months after Menendez assumed that office, Rep. Albio Sires announced that he would not seek reelection and immediately endorsed the younger Menendez to succeed him. The rest of New Jersey's political establishment quickly followed, including local party organizations, and Menendez sailed through the primary in his deep-blue district with nearly 84% of the vote. Contrary to even some of his supporters, the congressman seems to have difficulty acknowledging how easy it was for him to get to Congress.
"I think sometimes people look at the result, and look at the support that we ended up with, and they say, oh, well this was all packaged together, this wasn't competitive," Menendez told me. "But you know, we treated it, and we ran it, like a real spirited race, like we were 30 points down every single day."
Mayor Bhalla told me that he began contemplating his primary challenge shortly after the elder Menendez was first indicted in September. As a congressional candidate, he's emphasized that Hoboken hasn't had a single traffic death in over 7 years under his "Vision Zero" strategy, earning the city plaudits from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and a bevy of positive national headlines. Fluent in the language of contemporary urbanism, Bhalla frequently invoked phrases like "daylighting" and "bumpouts" and "class two bike lanes" and "signalization" during our conversation.
His candidacy is also historic: If elected, he would be only the second Sikh American ever elected to Congress, and the first one to wear a turban. That facet of his candidacy has also contributed to his ability to outraise Menendez so far — an analysis of Bhalla's contributions shows that the vast majority of his $1.6 million war chest has come from South Asian American donors around the country. A coffee table in his mayoral office features a smattering of books on Sikhs, urbanism, and the city where he's been mayor since 2018.
Bhalla at an event in Jersey City in February.
AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey
Bhalla is slightly to the left of Menendez — the mayor supports Medicare for All, the congressman does not — but there's not a ton of daylight between the two on policy matters. They're also largely on the same page on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Bhalla told me that like Menendez, he would have voted for a recent bill to provide more military aid to the Jewish state.
Sitting in his recently opened campaign office, the mayor told me that the most important facet of his candidacy was his fight against New Jersey's party boss-driven political culture. Beyond his bid to unseat Menendez, Bhalla is also staking much of his candidacy on his opposition to the "county line" system, which has been struck down for this primary — and possibly forever — as a result of a lawsuit filed by Democratic Rep. Andy Kim in the midst of his short-lived Senate primary campaign against First Lady Tammy Murphy. "This is a true test for democracy, to see whether or not we can bring a voice to average residents," said Bhalla, deriding the "top-down party boss-led power" in his northern New Jersey district.
Bhalla filed an amicus brief in that lawsuit after coming out against the line, which has been proven to give a massive boost to those who receive the endorsement of local party organizations. Having been endorsed by those organizations, Menendez was set to benefit from the line this primary. Now that the candidates will compete under the "office block" ballot format used by every other state, Bhalla's chances of unseating the congressman have dramatically improved.
"This election is really a choice between a record of progressive accomplishments versus sort of the epitome New Jersey bosses," said Jersey City Councilman James Solomon, a Bhalla supporter who has long opposed the county line system. "With the congressman, you've got somebody who partnered with his dad's political machine to basically intimidate his way into Congress, is the best way I can describe it."
But the mayor hasn't always been a fierce opponent of bossism. Before beginning his crusade against the line in January, Bhalla sought the endorsement of the very party organizations he's now criticizing, in an effort to give him the unfair advantage he now opposes. Bhalla has also acted as a party boss himself, using his influence to place his former chief of staff in an advantageous position on the ballot in a 2023 state assembly race.
The younger Menendez at an event in Washington, DC shortly after his election in 2022.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Menendez was eager to highlight that hypocrisy in our conversation, deriding Bhalla as a "political opportunist" who was "calling every single mayor, asking them to put him on the line" after Senator Menendez was indicted and the congressman's own machine support appeared less than certain. "This idea that he is someone who's always fought the line is absurd," Menendez told me. "When he didn't get the line, then he pivoted."
"Once the idea of abolishing the line wasn't just a pie-in-the-sky dream, but could actually happen, I stood up and spoke out," Bhalla told me of the apparent hypocrisy. "I'm still waiting for Rob Menendez to do the same."
To that point, I pressed Menendez four different times on how he felt about the "county line" system, the ultimate fate of which is still being litigated. Each time, he declined to clearly state whether he preferred keeping the system — which largely helped him get elected in the first place — or favored its abolition. The congressman insisted that he wanted "clarity on the issue" and that he wasn't outright opposed to the abolition of the line.
"I guess the reason that my answer is not satisfying to you is because I may overvalue consistency," said Menendez. "The decision's done, and I'm actually really good with it, because we're going to win, we're going to have a decisive victory, and no one's going to be able to say it was only because of the line, or it was only because of my father."
'I mean, definitely the name helped'
It's been a nasty primary race, and there's still a whole month left. Bhalla and Menendez have swiped at one another on social media over gold bars, Sam Bankman-Fried, Bhalla's 2022 endorsement of Menendez, and more. The congressman has been particularly incensed by Bhalla's efforts to tie him to his father's corruption scandal.
During Bhalla's opening speech at a candidate forum in Jersey City — the duo's first joint appearance at such an event this cycle — Bhalla argued that the district's constituents were suffering from a lack of "connective tissue" with their representation in the House, prompting eye-rolls and smirks from Menendez, seated just feet away.
One constant, yet confounding subplot of the drama of this primary has been Bhalla's tensions with his own city council. Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher, an opponent of the line who also backed Kim over the governor's wife in the Senate primary, has endorsed Menendez, calling the mayor a "terrible candidate" who has been "dishonest all the time" during his tenure.
The day before I spoke with Menendez, Fisher organized a town hall-style event for the congressman in her apartment complex — a waterfront property that once served as a warehouse for the Lipton Tea Company. Five of Hoboken's nine city council members attended, two of whom told me that they view the mayor as uncompromising, headline-obsessed, and inaccessible. "Everything here is a headline or a deadline driving the process," Councilman Paul Presinzano said of Mayor Bhalla. "His agenda has been: me, me, me."
It's a perception that Menendez has also leaned on, aided by the conspicuous — and at times, disruptive — presence of a documentary film crew at the Jersey City candidate forum, which Bhalla quickly departed as Menendez stayed to shmooze with voters. "He has a camera crew following him, okay!?" Menendez exclaimed to me. A Bhalla campaign spokesman told me that film crew had reached out to the mayor's team, and that they're profiling several South Asian candidates running for office this cycle.
The meet-and-greet, where Menendez easily fielded pre-filtered questions from a crowd of roughly 100, illustrated the challenge the congressman faces in making his case for reelection: his record is thin, and he has yet to put his name on any major legislation, owing to being a freshman member of the minority party. Menendez talked up his constituent services operation, saying that he had solved over 1,500 cases — mostly immigration-related — and had brought back millions of dollars in federal funding to the district. He also talked about landing a "highly coveted" spot on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, touted his efforts to make the nuts and bolts of government work, and even provided an anecdote about how his elementary school science fair was anonymized as a result of claims that his father — then the mayor of Union City — was somehow exercising influence over the judges to help his son win.
Yet the congressman is still adjusting to the reality of running in an environment where the power of the machine has been diminished, speaking more about the "durability of the relationships" that he's built than the notion of grassroots support that other politicians, including Bhalla, typically invoke. In front of voters in Hoboken, he spoke at length about how he believes Congress should be "the most boring institution in the entire world," expressing irritation at the fact that his one of the few viral breakout moments of his tenure — referring to Donald Trump as "Orange Jesus" during a House Homeland Security meeting in February — got "exponentially more attention than doing the real work."
Menendez looks on as Bhalla's opening remarks at a Jersey City candidate forum are filmed by a cameraman.
Bryan Metzger
"Listen, it's a new type of campaign for him," said Fisher, explaining why she helped organize the event. "He hasn't created the brand to win an election in a way that he has to do with this year, versus how he's done it in the past. That's the difference between having the benefit of the line, and having to run on your own record."
And despite their misgivings with Bhalla, several of the Hoboken city council members tended to squirm a bit when I asked them about their mayor's primary critique of Menendez — that he's only in Congress at all due to nepotism and the power of the county line.
"Do I think it was nepotism? I mean, definitely the name helped," said Presinzano.
"The politics behind it, that allowed him to run in a way that made it difficult for other people, had nothing to do with Rob's willingness to say yes," said Fisher. "Rob's been in the seat now for a year and a half, and he's absolutely earned the right to be reelected."
'I also trust people to distinguish between us'
With the sudden end of Tammy Murphy's Senate bid and the resulting collapse of the "county line," the race to represent New Jersey's 8th district is poised to be the first real test of what the state's post-line politics will look like — and whether the Menendez brand is permanently dead.
One common refrain I heard from Menendez's backers is that he doesn't have to do this, that continuing to seek office in this environment — and while raising two young children — is proof of the congressman's commitment to public service. To that point, Menendez's financial disclosures show that he made more than $456,000 in 2021 from practicing law, more than two and a half times the $174,000 salary he makes as a member of Congress.
There are a variety of factors that will work in Menendez's favor in this primary, including the endurance of well-organized turn-out operations run by Democratic machines in places like Union City. He's also maintained the support of several other members of the New Jersey delegation, along with House Democratic leadership, despite those same lawmakers' months-old calls for his father to resign.
"He's really talented — a leader who has done nothing but earn my confidence," Sen. Cory Booker told me, while praising Bhalla as an "an extraordinary leader as well" who's a "longtime friend."
Menendez and Bhalla at an event in Hoboken in August 2022, before Menendez was elected to Congress.
Facebook/Rob Menendez
Bhalla also hasn't gotten help from other reform-minded candidates. Kim has declined to endorse either Menendez or Bhalla, while Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop — a 2025 gubernatorial candidate who's positioned himself as anti-machine — has simply declined to endorse Menendez rather than affirmatively back the mayor.
At the same time, the elder Menendez's trial is set to begin this month, guaranteeing that as they head to the polls, voters in New Jersey will once again be reminded of the gold bars, the wads of cash stuffed into pockets, and the allegations that the senator corruptly carried out the interests of autocratic Middle Eastern governments.
"Some people may be impacted by my father, and the challenges that he's having, and I understand that," Menendez said at the Hoboken meet-and-greet. "But I also trust people to distinguish between us."
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway grew its cash pile to a new record as it sold a net $17 billion of stocks last quarter.
REUTERS/Rick Wilking
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway grew its cash pile to a record $189 billion last quarter.
Buffett's company added $21 billion to its stash of cash and Treasuries in three months.
Berkshire dumped a net $17 billion of stocks, and boosted its buyback spend to $2.6 billion.
Warren Buffett's money mountain grew even larger last quarter as the billionaire struggled to find bargains with markets near record highs, and sold stocks at the fastest rate in years.
The famed investor's Berkshire Hathaway raised its stockpile of cash and Treasury bills by $21 billion to a record $189 billion — a 13% increase in just three months.
Buffett's hulking conglomerate revealed that fact in its first-quarter earnings report, published just before the kick-off of its annual shareholder meeting, which has been dubbed "Woodstock for Capitalists."
The centibillionaire and his team only spent $2.7 billion on stocks last quarter, while they dumped $20 billion worth, marking their largest quarterly disposal in several years. They offloaded over $17 billion of shares on a net basis.
Berkshire's net stock sales totaled $24 billion in 2023, which was a big turnaround from its purchase of $34 billion of stocks on a net basis in 2022.
On the other hand, Buffett deployed $2.6 billion on stock buybacks last quarter — Berkshire's biggest quarterly outlay since he repurchased $4.4 billion worth of the company's stock in the first quarter of last year.
Berkshire spent roughly $9 billion on buybacks last year, and just under $8 billion in 2022, down from over $24 billion in both 2020 and 2021.
The parent company of See's Candies, Geico, and NetJets grew its operating income by 39% year-on-year to $11.2 billion last quarter, as strong growth in its insurance and energy divisions offset lower earnings at the BNSF Railway.
Another major highlight was Pilot Travel Centers. The truck-stop chain, which Berkshire took full ownership of early last year, grew its revenues by 32% year-on-year to $12.5 billion for the period spanning February and March. However, its pre-tax earnings nearly halved to $70 million.
Illia Ponomarenko is one of Ukraine's best known war reporters.
He has covered the Russia-Ukraine conflict since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
His book "I Will Show You How It Was: The Story Of Wartime Kyiv" is out May 7.
Illia Ponomarenko grew up in the city of Volnovakha in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. He was a student at Mariupol State University in 2014 when war broke out in the Donbas, and Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
Ponomarenko told Business Insider, "We were patriotic, we were enthusiastic. We had the sense that the country was in our hands, and we wanted to make this country a better place following the revolution," referring to Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, which ousted the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
While Ponomarenko, 32, said he was unable to serve in the Ukrainian military himself due to medical reasons, he still wanted to help, so he picked up a notepad and pen and began reporting on the war.
Ponomarenko would go on to visit the front lines countless times, reporting first for a local paper in Volnovakha before joining the Kyiv Post. He would go on to cofound the Kyiv Independent in 2021.
Ukrainian soldiers on the Dnipro River on September 14, 2023.
Libkos/Getty Images
He said he survived a number of close calls in the intervening years, including "the most dangerous two hours" of his life in May 2017 during a Russian mortar attack on Avdiivka.
Almost five years later, during the Russian siege of Kyiv, a tank shell struck the apartment building where he had been living at the time.
But still, Ponomarenko did not flee. Rushing to report from the front lines had never been a choice, he said, but rather a "duty" that he felt compelled to fulfill.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ponomarenko has become one of Ukraine's best-known journalists, with around 1.2 million followers on X, formerly Twitter.
His posts are an insight into the man himself: brusque, purposeful, and laced with humor.
His first tweet after Russia's invasion: "This is it guys. See you in victorious Ukraine."
Ponomarenko had a chance to leave Ukraine after Russia launched its invasion.
He hurried himself, his girlfriend Natalya, a couple of his friends, and his mother, who had still been living in Volnovakha when the Russians crossed the border, to his girlfriend's parent's house near the border with Moldova.
But something didn't sit right with him. "I'm a war reporter," he writes in the new book, "I Will Show You How It Was," which is due to be released on May 7. "I need to be with my military now."
A few days later, he returned to Kyiv, where Russian troops were rapidly advancing.
"This was the best and most correct decision of my entire life," he told BI. "I refused to make a deal with the devil. I followed my conscience."
Ponomarenko said he believes the war has "shown what ordinary people are capable of" and has helped reveal "their true selves," pointing to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as evidence.
He said he had always been slightly skeptical of the Ukrainian leader's reasons for becoming president and his behavior in office, thinking of him as a bit of a showman.
But he said the war had brought out the best in Zelenskyy and transformed him into a leader.
He added that the war had also had a marked impact on his mother, who had been staunchly pro-Russian prior to the invasion.
"She was among so many pro-Russian people who saw what they needed to see," he said.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky at the European Political Community summit at the Palacio de Congreso in Granada, southern Spain on October 5, 2023.
THOMAS COEX
Ukraine is taking serious losses on the eastern front, but they're not out of the fight, he said
Ukraine has faced a series of major setbacks on the eastern front in recent months.
In February, as the war entered its third year, Ukrainian troops withdrew from the wartorn city of Avdiivka, an important strong point in defense of the country's logistical hub at Pokrovsk.
Since then, Russia has continued to advance in the surrounding areas.
Last week, a Ukrainian blunder allowed Russian troops to advance and capture large parts of Ocheretyne, a village just to the northwest of Avdiivka, while the battle for Chasiv Yar, another crucial city in the Donetsk region, is also raging on.
Capturing it would put Russian forces within striking distance of Ukrainian operational and supply centers in the area.
Ponomarenko told BI the situation was "catastrophic."
"The six months of chronic, acute lack of defense aid, critical lack of munitions, manpower – Russians are making use of this momentum," he said.
But, he added, "It's not an apocalypse. We're still in the game."
Kyiv and Bucha: Symbols of hope
Part of the issue, Ponomarenko believes, is that Ukraine has lost the sense of unity and togetherness that it had during the first months of the war — "the rage of the doomed," as he calls it.
"All ethnic religious or social boundaries disappeared. A blue collar guy could stand next to a minister," Ponomarenko writes in the book.
But after more than two years of hard fighting, "the situation is naturally different today," he added. "Large-scale mobilization has had a significant strike upon the public morale."
Ukraine needs "a bit of the spirit from the battle of Kyiv, that outburst of patriotism, enthusiasm," he said. "It was a bright moment of pure bravery and hope."
A man pushes his bike through debris and destroyed Russian military vehicles on a street on April 06, 2022 in Bucha, Ukraine.
The journalist recalled the first time he visited the city after Russia abandoned it, noting that there was a "feeling of evil" and a "smell of death" that stretched across the streets.
Human corpses, limbs, and dead dogs lay strewn on the ground. It was a "hellscape," he said.
At the time, some were convinced that Bucha would never recover, but returning citizens have helped revive the city with the assistance of a donation from the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.