Category: Business Insider

• Ryan Watson was on vacation when he was charged with illegally carrying ammo into Turks and Caicos.
• He and his wife, Valerie, say the four bullets in their duffel bag were unknowingly left there from a hunting trip.
• Watson now faces 12 years in prison, alongside several US tourists who say they made the same mistake.

An Oklahoma man traveling with his wife in the Caribbean territory of Turks and Caicos faces 12 years in prison after four rounds of ammunition were found in his luggage.

Ryan and Valerie Watson arrived in Turks and Caicos earlier this month to celebrate his 40th birthday with several other couples, their families said in a GoFundMe. NBC Boston reported that the Watsons arrived on April 7.

But the pair, who have two young children, were arrested in the self-governed British territory after airport security found the four bullets in their carry-on duffel bag.

Their families' GoFundMe said the ammo had been left in the bag unintentionally, and was from a prior deer hunting trip.

"They were hunting ammunition rounds that I use for white-tailed deer, and I recognized them, and I thought: 'Oh, what a mistake.' I had no idea that they were in there," Ryan Watson told NBC News.

Valerie Watson was released from the charges on Tuesday and flew back to Oklahoma to reunite with her children.

But her husband remains in Turks and Caicos, and was granted $15,000 bail the day after by the local supreme court, according to a police statement.

He now faces 12 years in prison, which is the minimum custodial sentence for bringing firearms or ammunition into Turks and Caicos.

Ryan Watson must stay on the islands and report twice a week to a local police station while waiting for his hearing, which is set for June 7.

Meanwhile, his family is trying to raise $300,000 for his legal fees and housing in the Caribbean.

"Isolated from their family, friends, and children, they face mounting legal fees, living expenses, and the overwhelming stress of their situation," their GoFundMe reads. "The emotional and financial toll is immense, and they are at risk of losing everything."

"We were trying to pack board shorts and flip flops," Valerie Watson told CBS News. "Packing ammunition was not at all our intent."

The Watsons did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider through their GoFundMe.

Eight US tourists prosecuted since February

It is illegal to bring firearms or ammunition into Turks and Caicos, and penalties apply regardless of the offender's status or country of origin, according to the local attorney general's chambers.

Several tourists caught under this law were previously let off with just a fine, while at least one was given a prison sentence under the minimum limit.

But in February, a court of appeal ordered that all offenders be given at least the minimum sentence of 12 years in prison.

At least eight tourists from the US have since been prosecuted under this rule, per the attorney general's chambers.

Another American tourist, 31-year-old Tyler Wenrich, was charged on Tuesday with possessing ammunition after he arrived in Turks and Caicos on a cruise ship, according to local police.

"While going through a security checkpoint, it was discovered Mr Wenrich allegedly had ammunition in his possession," a police statement said.

Amid the recent spate of tourist arrests, the US State Department published a September advisory warning US citizens that it wouldn't be able to secure their release if they brought firearms and ammo into Turks and Caicos.

"We strongly encourage you to carefully check your luggage for stray ammunition or forgotten weapons before departing for TCI," the advisory said.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Tourism is a key revenue for Turks and Caicos, and in 2019 provided about $787 million, or 65% of the island's GDP, to the territory, per a 2023 report by the Commonwealth Chamber of Commerce.

The Caribbean archipelago is a popular port of call for US cruise ships, and this year has seen a 127% jump in tourist arrivals — the largest increase in the world — compared to 2019, the United Nations World Tourism Organization said in February.

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• Microsoft plans to boost spending on AI and cloud services as demand rises.
• The company made $26.7 billion in revenue this quarter from cloud products, including Azure.
• Microsoft's spending commitment follows leaked plans to acquire 1.8 million AI chips in 2024.

Microsoft won't slow down its artificial intelligence spending spree anytime soon.

In its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, the tech giant said it will continue to invest in AI and cloud services because of growing demand and a rise in average spending on its cloud platform, Azure.

Capital expenditure — what a company spends on buying or maintaining assets — will increase "materially," Amy Hood, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said on the call.

"Currently, near-term AI demand is a bit higher than our available capacity," Hood said.

The company spent nearly $11 billion on property and equipment in the third quarter — 66% more than it spent in the same period a year ago.

Microsoft booked $26.7 billion in revenue in the third quarter from its cloud products, including Azure, according to the earnings statement.

AI assistant Copilot grew its paid subscribers by 35% this quarter, to 1.8 million, CEO Satya Nadella said on the call.

Microsoft's better-than-expected earnings sent stock up 4% in after-hours trading. Both revenue and earnings per share beat Wall Street estimates.

The company's plans to spend more come on the heels of other big commitments to developing AI. Last week, BI reported on leaked documents showing the company plans to obtain 1.8 million AI chips by the end of 2024 and ramp up its data center capacity.

The explosive interest in generative AI and foundation models is fueling a need for more data centers, including from Microsoft partner OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT and GPT-4.

AI models need to be trained on mountains of data, which requires thousands of graphics processing units produced by companies like Nvidia. Microsoft is designing its own chips to reduce its reliance on Nvidia.

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• Lara Trump says the RNC has been working hard to tackle voter fraud ahead of the upcoming elections.
• "We have lawsuits in 81 states right now," Lara told Newsmax on Tuesday.
• The gaffe drew multiple jokes from social media as well as from late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

Lara Trump may have had a little slip-up when announcing the Republican National Committee's approach to tackling voter fraud.

The newly elected RNC cochair — who's married to former President Donald Trump's son, Eric — said in a Newsmax interview on Tuesday that the RNC has engaged poll watchers and lawyers to oversee and monitor the upcoming elections.

"So in addition to these poll workers, we're gonna have lawyers in all the major polling locations across the country," she told Newsmax host Eric Bolling.

During the interview, she also referenced the lawsuits the RNC has filed, questioning election integrity. Last month, the RNC filed a lawsuit against Michigan's secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, claiming that the state's voter rolls are inflated.

"We have lawsuits in 81 states right now," Trump told Bolling.

The US, however, only has 50 states.

Trump's gaffe prompted multiple jokes on social media, with some even throwing out comical explanations for how the US may actually have an additional 31 states no one knows about yet.

"Maybe there are 81 states in the future,e and she's a time traveler," an X user named Mike Freeman said in a post.

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel couldn't resist mocking Lara Trump either when he referenced the moment in his monologue on Wednesday night.

"In 81 states! Not just Tennessee, eleven-essee, twelve-essee. West Dakota, South Virginia. Indiana, Out-diana, you name it, they're suing," Kimmel joked.

This isn't the first time the new RNC chair has been criticized for her remarks.

Earlier in April, she also claimed on Newsmax that no other president has been treated as badly as Donald Trump.

The former TV news producer was elected cochair of the RNC in March, along with former North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley. She received a glowing endorsement from Donald Trump, who tapped her for the position.

"Lara is an extremely talented communicator and is dedicated to all that MAGA stands for," the former president said of his "very talented daughter-in-law" in February.

That hasn't stopped Lara Trump's critics from slamming her. Last week, she fired back when a viewer questioned her intellect on her podcast, "The Right View with Lara Trump."

"Nothing stupid over here; I've done my research," Lara said.

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• Microsoft and Alphabet reported quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street's expectations.
• Their CEOs said that their profits are in part thanks to their companies' investments in AI.
• This is going to be "a goldmine situation for them," Wedbush's Dan Ives told CNBC. 

Investors just got a sneak peek at what the fruits of massive AI investments could look like.

On Thursday, just off the heels of Meta's mixed first-quarter results that caused a dip on Wall Street, Microsoft and Alphabet just proved that there's money to be made off of artificial intelligence.

Microsoft reported $21.9 billion in profits for its quarter ending on March 31, a 20% increase from the last fiscal year of the same period. Google's parent company reported $23.7 billion in profits, a 57% increase from the last fiscal year period.

Both profit results beat analysts' expectations, and the companies' leaders say they have AI to thank for that.

During an earnings call on Thursday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged that a large part of its first-quarter performance is due to Google's search engine. However, the executive also made sure to highlight the contributions of Google Cloud, which now comes with generative AI services through Google's AI model, Gemini.

"In Cloud, we have announced more than 1,000 new products and features over the past 8 months. At Google Cloud Next, more than 300 customers and partners spoke about their generative AI successes with Google Cloud, including global brands like Bayer, Cintas, Mercedes Benz, Walmart, and many more," Pichai told investors in the call.

Ruth Porat, Alphabet's chief financial officer, said in the call that Google's cloud segment saw $9.6 billion in revenue, and part of that is a reflection of "an increasing contribution from AI."

Similarly, Microsoft said its latest quarter received a boost from its cloud services.

According to a company press release, Microsoft reeled in $26.7 billion in revenue from its cloud products, including Azure. The company said that 7% of its growth from Azure came from AI.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's sole statement in the press release highlights the company's investment in artificial intelligence, namely Microsoft Copilot, which is an AI assistant for Azure.

"Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry," Nadella said in the press release.

Investors appeared pleased with Microsoft's and Alphabet's quarterly performance, which gave the companies a stock surge, as Wall Street continues to nurse a hangover from Meta's first-quarter report.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC on Thursday that the reaction is a "stark change" from what Wall Street saw 24 hours ago with Meta.

"They have a goldmine of AI engineers and data, and now they're starting to monetize it," Ives said of Alphabet and Microsoft. It's a "goldmine situation for them on AI," he added.

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• Major companies are pouring vast amounts of resources and money into artificial intelligence.
• But many have yet to see any significant returns on their investment.
• CEOs hope to re-assure shareholders that this is to be expected.

Some of the largest companies in the world are placing major bets right now on artificial intelligence.

In 2023, Apple spent more than $22 billion on R&D for generative AI products. Meta projected in its latest quarterly earnings that it will spend somewhere in the range of $35 to $40 billion this year alone, largely to improve its AI infrastructure.

Google's AI exec Demis Hassabis upped the ante and said that he expects the search engine giant to spend more than $100 billion on the technology.

Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, has an even bigger number: Up to $7 trillion in order to transform the semiconductor industry that will power AI.

That's a lot of money going into something that hasn't generated much revenue so far — with the exception of a few companies.

But leaders of businesses pouring tons of resources into AI are saying the same thing to reassure any impatient shareholders: Stick around. It's coming.

On Wednesday, Meta's stock tumbled despite beating sales expectations partly due to its heavy investments in AI and so-so revenue projections. CEO Mark Zuckerberg hoped to ease any investor concerns by saying that this downturn is temporary.

"Historically, investing to build these new scaled experiences in our apps has been a very good long-term investment for us and for investors who have stuck with us. And the initial signs are quite positive here too," Zuckerberg told investors in an earnings call. "But building the leading AI will also be a larger undertaking than the other experiences we've added to our apps, and this is likely going to take several years on the upside once our new AI services reach scale."

Elon Musk had even stronger words for investors on Tuesday after Tesla reported plunging profits.

The EV company has so far yet to deliver on its promise of autonomous driving, instead giving drivers its Full-Self Driving software, which is really a driver-assistance feature that requires full-time supervision of the operator.

Even so, Musk insisted during an earnings call that Tesla is an AI company and had a specific message to any shareholder who thinks that Tesla won't develop self-driving someday.

"If somebody doesn't believe that Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company," he said during the call. "And we will. And we are."

Will AI deliver?

Other CEOs have wondered how and when generative AI will deliver on its ambitious promises.

In January, during the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, AI was the hot topic of the moment, but some tech leaders remained cautious of the technology.

Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, told Reuters at the time that people should expect an "AI letdown" in the coming months.

"Everyone's like, yeah, I can build these cool demos, but where's the real value?" he told the outlet.

Shareholders at Meta were certainly spooked by Zuckerberg's "wait-and-see" line.

Nvidia could be the exception to the case. After all, they're the leading makers of the very chips that power the AI products companies are rushing to build.

Earlier this year, Nvidia smashed fourth-quarter expectations by reporting $22.1 billion in revenue, thanks in part to a surge in AI demand.

On Thursday, Microsoft and Alphabet reported profits, which they ascribed in part to their respective AI sectors.

Microsoft beat Wall Street's expectations by reporting $21.9 billion in profits for the quarter ending on March 31. The company attributed that growth to its cloud computing platform, Azure, which includes generative AI services.

Google's parent company reported $23.7 billion in profits for the same period. Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai attributed some of the company's most recent quarter's performance to its cloud services, which is now equipped with Gemini, Google's AI model.

"We are well underway with our Gemini era, and there's great momentum across the company," Pichai said in a statement. "Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure and our global product footprint position us well for the next wave of AI innovation."

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• The fires in Maui, Hawaii, displaced 6,200 families, many of whom are still looking for housing.
• Some locals have left the state altogether, while others are desperate to stay in their communities.
• Lawmakers are weighing a bill aimed at curbing short-term rentals across Hawaii.

When the fires in Maui, Hawaii, tore through the historic town of Lahaina in August 2023, 6,200 families were suddenly homeless, left to scramble for long-term housing through the sea of short-term rentals that have proliferated on the island.

Amy Chadwick, a Lahaina resident whose home burned in the fire, told The Associated Press she wasn't able to find housing in Maui that worked for her family for less than $10,000 a month. Instead, Chadwick and her family moved to Satellite Beach, Florida.

"You're pushing out an entire community of service industry people. So no one's going to be able to support the tourism that you're putting ahead of your community," Chadwick, who works as a server at a fine-dining establishment, told AP. "Nothing good is going to come of it unless they take a serious stance, putting their foot down and really regulating these short-term rentals."

Other residents who lost their Lahaina homes in the August 8 fire are still in temporary housing more than eight months later.

Shannon I'i, who lost her home in the fire, told Hawaii outlet KITV that her family is among the hundreds who are still living in a hotel.

"It is rough," she told the outlet. "But we do what we have to do to survive."

I'i said her family was recently told they'll have to move out, so they are again looking for housing, but they don't want to have to move away. "To be able to stay on west side of Maui with our community, that is the most important thing for me," she told KITV.

Vacation rentals that cater to tourists and can cost hundreds of dollars per night have long been a problem in Maui, but the Lahaina fires and displacement of thousands of families exacerbated the issue and made it more visible. State lawmakers are weighing a bill that would give counties across Hawaii the ability to phase out short-term rentals.

"There are about 7,000 short term rental units on Maui in apartment zoning and 2,200 are in West Maui," Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, a Maui city councilwoman, told KITV. "It would immediately provide housing for those folks who want to stay in West Maui, which is the majority of our folks looking for housing right now."

Gov. Josh Green has said he would sign the bill, SB 2919, if it passes the state legislature. The bill has been championed by Lahaina Strong, an advocacy group for the Maui wildfire survivors.

"We've helped change that conversation of 'build build build' to now, 'What about the inventory we already have?'" Paele Kiakona, a member of Lahaina Strong, told Hawaii News Now.

"On top of keeping people here and making it more affordable, we've potentially opened up an avenue to bring our people back," Kiakona added.

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• A key "catch-and-kill" witness testified for a third day on Thursday in Trump's NY hush-money trial.
• Ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker described scrambling to bury Trump's secrets.
• When a porn star and Playboy Bunny both came forward, Trump feared for voters, not family, Pecker told jurors.

First, up popped a doorman with a tale — false, it turned out — of an illegitimate child. Then, in swift succession and with the 2016 election just months away, a Playboy Bunny and a porn star appeared with more sex scandals.

Throughout their decadeslong friendship, Donald Trump worried about his family hearing these kinds of unsavory stories, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker told a Manhattan jury on Thursday.

But in the months before the 2016 election, all Trump worried about was his voters, Pecker testified on his third day on the stand.

"Prior to the election, if a negative story was coming out with respect to Donald Trump, and we spoke about it, he was concerned about Melania and Ivanka, what the family might hear or say about it," said the former publisher.

He pronounced the former first lady's name, "Millenia."

Then came the 2016 election, Pecker said — and first Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin, then Playboy Bunny Karen McDougal, then porn star Stormy Daniels tried to sell their stories to the supermarket tabloid.

"In the conversations with Mr. Trump about these stories, his family was never mentioned," Pecker said, under direct examination by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.

"I thought his concern was with the campaign," Pecker added.

In directing Pecker to describe Trump's priority of campaign over family, Steinglass was pursuing a legal point, not a moral one.

All three stories — doorman, bunny, and porn star — would be deep-sixed by the Enquirer as part of what Manhattan prosecutors call an illegal conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.

Trump falsified 34 Trump Organization business documents — invoices, checks, ledger entries — to disguise the $130,000 in hush money paid to Daniels just 11 days before the election as legal fees to then-attorney Michael Cohen, prosecutors say.

The falsifications are felonies, District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged, because the $130,000 was actually an illegal campaign expenditure.

Trump's books were cooked, Bragg alleges, to hide an underlying campaign finance crime.

Pecker and his top lieutenant, National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard, knew that in catching and killing Trump's trio of sex scandals, they could be seen as contributing to his campaign in violation election law, Thursday's testimony suggests.

Pecker told jurors he had been investigated by California officials for just this sort of thing more than a decade before Trump's 2016 campaign.

He had a similar catch-and-kill arrangement with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the runup to the star's successful 2003 run for governor.

"A number of women called up the National Enquirer about stories that they have to sell on different relationships, or contacts, and sexual harassments, that they felt that Arnold Schwarzenegger did," Pecker testified.

"The deal I had with Arnold was that I would call him and acquire them," he said of these stories.

Pecker told jurors that his publishing empire, American Media International, or AMI, was not charged with campaign finance violations.

Still, "it was very embarrassing to me and the company," he testified of the investigation.

His lieutenant, Howard, crossed his fingers extra hard on election night, a text message suggested.

"At least if he wins," Howard texted a relative as Trump's electoral college votes rolled in, "I'll be pardoned for electoral fraud."

The text was not shown to jurors after a successful challenge by the defense.

Prosecutors have said Howard is unable to appear as their witness because he is in Australia with a spinal injury. Defense lawyers complained they could not question Howard about the text if it were admitted as evidence.

Pecker's testimony continues Friday with cross-examination.

So far, he has spent three days describing a secret and complex catch-and-kill infrastructure that spanned the highest levels of both his tabloid empire and the Trump campaign, involving multiple attorneys and carefully worded contracts.

McDougal's August 5, 2016, catch-and-kill contract was "bulletproof" after being reviewed by a Trump campaign attorney, Pecker said, in some of the most damaging testimony on Thursday.

Trump was calling the shots, though often from the shadows, using Cohen as an intermediary, the testimony suggested.

"Karen is a nice girl," Trump told Pecker in a phone call in the summer of 2016, when McDougal surfaced as a scandal threat, claiming a nearly year-long affair with Trump from ten years prior.

"What do you think I should do?" Pecker, who believed McDougal was telling the truth, said Trump asked him.

"I think you should buy the story and take it off the market," Pecker said he responded.

"He said to me that Michael Cohen would be calling me back," Pecker added.

"Go ahead and buy the story," Pecker said Cohen soon told him.

When Pecker asked, "Who's going to pay for it?" Cohen responded, "Don't worry. I'm your friend. The boss will take care of it."

Asked who he understood "the boss" to be, Pecker answered, "Donald Trump."

Trump wound up not reimbursing Pecker for McDougal's $150,000 non-disclosure agreement, the former tabloid executive testified.

And despite the so-called "bulletproof" contracts, Pecker said, he received an unpleasant letter from the Federal Election Commission in 2018.

"I called up Michael Cohen immediately," Pecker said.

"I said, 'Michael. I just received this letter.' He said, 'So did I.'"

Pecker testified that he responded with prescient concern.

The McDougal hush-money payment would be deemed an illegal campaign contribution by the feds.

Cohen would plead guilty to making the payment. Pecker wound up cooperating and signing a non-prosecution agreement, he testified Thursday.

"I said, 'I'm very worried,'" Pecker told jurors of his conversation with Cohen.

"And Michael Cohen said to me, 'Why?' He said Jeff Sessions is the attorney general and Donald Trump has him in his pocket.'"

Pecker was not convinced: "I said, 'I'm very worried,'" he told jurors.

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• H5N1 avian influenza, also called bird flu, is spreading through US chickens and now cattle.
• The FDA discovered genetic material from the virus in grocery store milk.
• Former surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams explains why he's still eating milk, eggs, and meat.

Milk might contain remnants of the H5N1 bird flu virus that's raging through US chickens and cattle.

The Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it had discovered virus particles in "some of the samples collected" throughout the milk supply chain, from the cow to the shelf. The agency did not indicate how many samples tested positive or from where, but said the detections "do not represent actual virus that may be a risk to consumers."

However, the discovery suggests the virus has spread further through the US cattle population than officials previously realized. Scientists are growing more concerned that this avian influenza outbreak could make the jump into human-to-human transmission.

So far, though, many public health experts don't think this rings alarm bells about the safety of the food supply.

"I had eggs yesterday and I had milk last night, and I'll have a steak if someone gives me a steak," Dr. Jerome Adams, who was the surgeon general of the Trump administration and is now the director of health equity at Purdue University, told Business Insider on Wednesday.

"I still believe that the way we process and cook foods is going to disable most bacteria and viruses, including this one," he said.

Pasteurization should kill H5N1 in milk

The FDA oversees the nation's milk supply, and the US Department of Agriculture oversees dairy cows. Both say they believe the commercial milk supply is safe, due to the pasteurization process and the practice of disposing of milk from sick cows.

Pasteurization heats milk at a high temperature for a brief period of time to kill microbes living inside it. Some states allow the sale of unpasteurized, aka "raw," milk or cheese, which the CDC recommends avoiding.

Public-health experts told The Washington Post and The New York Times on Tuesday that they, too, believe pasteurized milk to be safe, but that the federal government should still conduct tests to confirm that. The FDA says such tests are ongoing.

"It's taking them too long to be able to reassure the public about the safety of milk," Adams said.

Some studies have shown that pasteurization deactivates H5N1 in eggs, the FDA says, and that happens at a lower temperature than milk pasteurization.

"To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe. Results from multiple studies will be made available in the next few days to weeks," the FDA statement said.

To be extra safe, cook meat and eggs all the way

There's probably no "significantly increased risk," Dr. Samuel Alcaine, an associate professor of food science at Cornell University, told Business Insider on April 6, but you can be extra safe by fully cooking your meat and eggs (until the yolk is firm).

Adams says he doesn't normally eat rare steak or runny eggs anyway.

"That has nothing to do with H5N1. That's just me being someone who's been in public health and food safety for a long time," he said.

His wife does eat runny eggs and rare steak, though, he added, "and I'm not telling her to change what she does."

He added that people should still follow basic food-safety practices: Wash your hands after handling raw meat or eggs, and before handling the food you'll eat. Prevent cross-contamination from raw meats or eggs and the utensils that have touched them. Always cook poultry to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

The biggest bird flu risk for humans isn't food

The people who are really at risk for bird flu are those who work closely with chickens, cattle, or other livestock.

The CDC says those workers should avoid unprotected, direct contact with sick animals, raw milk, animals' drinking water, animal carcasses, feces, litter, or other surfaces that could be contaminated with animals' saliva, blood, or other excretions. Workers should be provided with personal protective equipment for those situations and trained to use it properly, the agency says.

"It's spreading rapidly in these animals, and every time it spreads, it has a chance to mutate," Adams said.

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• Alphabet is joining its tech peers like Microsoft, Apple, and Meta in the dividend club.
• Its $0.20 dividend is its first ever, and it also authorized an additional $70 billion in buybacks.
• The news could ease concerns of some tech investors spooked by Meta's earnings Wednesday.

Alphabet is becoming a member of the dividend club.

In its first-quarter earnings report on Thursday, Google's parent company said it's issuing a $0.20 per share dividend, its first ever.

It'll be paid on June 17 to stockholders of record as of June 10, and Alphabet plans to pay quarterly dividends in the future, the earnings release said. The company also authorized an additional $70 billion in stock buybacks.

Its earnings also helped buoy the shares. It reported total revenue of $80.54 billion in the first quarter, beating estimates. That's about a 15% year-over-year increase.

Following the news, Alphabet's stock rose roughly 13% in after-hours trading.

It joins fellow tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Meta in issuing dividends. Meta announced a dividend of $0.50 per share, also its first ever, in February, as well as its own buyback boost of $50 billion.

Alphabet's announcement — and that of Microsoft, which also beat estimates — could help ease tech investors spooked by Meta's earnings call earlier this week.

Despite its earnings beat, Meta's shares fell 11% on Thursday after the company issued weak revenue guidance for Q2.

The earnings report showed Meta is going to spend more than expected this year, too, due to AI investments as well as higher infrastructure and legal costs. On Wednesday's earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned investors it could be a while before the company's AI investments pay off.

Meantime, Microsoft CEO Sundar Pichai said in its earnings release that "our leadership in AI research and infrastructure, and our global product footprint, position us well for the next wave of AI innovation."

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Operation Menai Bridge is code for the plans related to King Charles' death. Though details about the plan are tightly guarded, his passing will trigger immediate changes in both the monarchy and the UK. Here's what will happen.

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