Category: Business

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Happy first day of summer! With the changing of the seasons, it's worth reassessing your wardrobe. These are the summer accessories you should ditch. (No more cargo shorts!)

In today's big story, we're looking at why the rise of "quiet vacationing" shows the depressing state of America's work culture.

What's on deck:

• Markets: Private equity's push into investing in law firms is a disaster, according to one attorney.
• Tech: It seems like not even the streamers can save pay TV.
• Business: Top MBA grads are vying for a spot in this private-equity firm's CEO-In-Training program.

But first, I might be a bit slow to respond.

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The big story

Down-low vacation

Are you working today, or are you "working" today?

If you're unfamiliar with the distinction, let me introduce you to a new workplace phrase: quiet vacationing.

The idea is to take some time off without officially informing your employer. The result is a quasi-vacation where you might shoot off emails and respond to Slack messages between drinks at the swim-up bar.

Naturally, it's a concept championed by those loveable workaholics, millennials.

Depending on your position on the workplace spectrum, that might sound like an ideal setup or the sign of a lazy worker.

But Business Insider's Emily Stewart argues workers feeling too stressed to fully take time off is a sad example of America's work culture.

It's not an unfounded fear, either. One piece of research found men at a consulting firm were rewarded for giving the impression they were workaholics despite actually pulling back on work.

Either way, it's a trend that's unlikely to die down in the near term.

As I previously wrote, the rise of WFH Fridays is the perfect complement to quiet vacations. And summer presents plenty of opportunities for on-the-sly trips.

Look no further than July 5, the Friday after Independence Day, which is sure to have plenty of people "working."

Personally, I blame the hesitancy to fully unplug on one man: Wally Pipp.

Pipp was the New York Yankees' first baseman, twice leading the American League in home runs and helping the Yankees win a World Series in 1923.

But, as legend goes, on June 2, 1925, Pipp asked out of the lineup due to a headache. His replacement was Lou Gehrig, who went on to play in more than 2,100 consecutive games en route to a legendary career.

Now, Pipp's name is synonymous with the risk of taking your foot off the gas. Long before "FOMO" there was fear of getting "Wally Pipped." It also makes for great fodder for LinkedIn influencers who tout the importance of #hustleharder.

And with the threat of layoffs ongoing, it's no wonder people might not want to be seen taking it easy.

The irony is that quiet vacationing could arguably put you in a worse position for your job these days. As companies continue their efficiency push, taking longer to do your work because you're secretly out of town might be a bigger sin than just taking time off.

Better to put in 100% effort 80% of the time than 80% effort 100% of the time, one could argue.

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3 things in markets

1. How dreams of upending the legal industry with private equity became a nightmare. Arizona permitting non-lawyers to invest in law firms created what trial lawyer Steve German initially saw as a "revolutionary" opportunity "to do good." But his partnership with Miami investment firm 777 Partners quickly soured, and now German is a vocal critic of Arizona's hands-off approach.
2. The cost of delaying rates could be fatal for the economy. Famed economist Mohamed El-Erian warned the Federal Reserve's higher-for-longer approach to interest rates is creating and deepening vulnerabilities in the economy. As it stands, he sees the recession risk at 35%.
3. Russia's largest private bank is expanding to China. Alfa Bank PJSC is applying to build new offices in Beijing and Shanghai after being hit by US sanctions. The move is a nod to Russia and China's increasingly intertwined, "no-limits" partnership.

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3 things in tech

1. Pay TV is falling fast. Pay-TV subscriptions have been declining for years, but the start of the year ushered in the worst quarter in pay-TV's history. Even digital pay-TV subscriptions like YouTube TV, which were once promising, are starting to falter.
2. Some Amazon employees were fuming over a private Foo Fighters concert for senior leaders. Internal Slack messages viewed by BI show Amazon employees slamming the company for the concert, which was just for director- and vice president-level employees. "Meanwhile, there's no budget for a monthly happy hour on our team," one employee wrote.
3. Businesses' embrace of generative AI is about to get messy. A vast majority of US companies are adopting generative AI tools — and at an unusually fast pace, according to a survey from Bain & Company. Now, they actually have to make money from these big investments.

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3 things in business

1. How to grow a CEO. One private-equity firm has a training program that promises to pipeline MBA grads into CEO roles at their portfolio companies. Described by one alum as "turbocharged entrepreneurship," it's harder to get into than Harvard.
2. For TV companies, the cost of sports might be Hollywood. Media companies are shelling out billions to vie for sports broadcasting rights, which have never been more important for viewership. They've also never been more expensive. That high price tag could spell disaster for Hollywood as media execs pull funding from entertainment budgets to cover costs.
3. Dell workers are rejecting RTO. Almost half of the company's full-time US workforce have rejected its return-to-office push, data seen by BI shows — and those workers are ineligible for promotion if they stay remote. BI spoke with 11 Dell employees on why they made that choice.

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In other news

• The egg-freezing industry's shady sales pitch.
• Nvidia is throwing its weight around — and even Amazon is bowing down.
• Digital advertisers want "premium content" — but are in a battle over how to define it.
• Apple exec explains why you wouldn't want to run Apple Intelligence on your older iPhone.
• There's a pipeline of former Tesla staffers to Elon Musk's shiny new startup xAI.
• Fewer Microsoft employees think they're getting a 'good deal,' internal survey shows.
• The Caitlin Clark culture war sums up our garbage treatment of female athletes.
• The curious case of Reddit's surging traffic.
• Here are the highest-paid CEOs in the US, some of whom have 9-figure compensation packages.

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What's happening today

• The summer solstice, the longest day of the year and the official start of summer, is today. Enjoy the extra sunlight!
• SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission launches.

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The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. George Glover, reporter, in London. Annie Smith, associate producer, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.

• The Philippines released video showing Chinese coast guard during a skirmish in the South China Sea.
• It called Monday's incident, in which the Chinese brandished weapons, "a brazen act of aggression."
• It's the latest in a series of Chinese provocations in the South China Sea.

The Philippine army has shared video that it says shows China Coast Guard personnel wielding an ax and other weapons at them during a tense encounter in the South China Sea on Monday.

Chinese coast guard also flung rocks, slashed boats with "bladed and pointed weapons," and blared sirens and strobe lights during the encounter, which damaged the boats, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said.

The footage, shared to X on Wednesday, shows several boats crowded together with people on either side yelling at each other.

One figure — identified by the Armed Forces of the Philippines as a member of the China Coast Guard — can be seen brandishing an ax.

It also shared aerial footage of what it said was a Filipino boat "crammed in the middle" of two Chinese vessels.

Business Insider was not able to independently verify the footage.

The posts called the situation "a brutal assault" on China's part.

General Romeo Brawner, the Philippines' top military commander, criticized China for what he described as "reckless and aggressive" behavior. He accused the Chinese vessels of ramming Philippine boats, and said one Filipino soldier lost a thumb when his vessel was hit.

But China's foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian described the actions as "professional, restrained, justified and lawful."

The Filipino armed forces said its troops had been engaged in a humanitarian resupply mission at the Ayungin Shoal, a contested atoll in the South China Sea some 120 miles from the Filipino Palawan Island.

China claims sovereignty over much of the South China Sea — including the resource-rich waters in which Monday's skirmish took place — despite a 2016 ruling by the Hague not recognizing those claims.

The clash took place a few days after China enacted a new law allowing its Coast Guard to seize foreign ships suspected of trespassing, CNN reported.

Beijing takes particular exception to the object of the Filipino mission, which was to resupply the BRP Sierra Madre, a ship that the Philippines deliberately grounded in 1999 in order to cement its claims over the waters.

The Philippines and its allies condemned Monday's incident, which is the latest in a series of Chinese provocations in the South China Sea.

The Philippines' Fisheries Bureau in February accused China of trying to destroy Scarborough Shoal, a fish-rich atoll off the Manila coast, by pumping cyanide into the waters.

In April, Chinese Coast Guard ships battered a Filipino vessel, this time off Manila's coast, with water cannon, in a move that Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela called "harassment."

The incidents have taken place against the backdrop of strengthening US-Filipino relations, which has seen an uptick in military cooperation between Manila and Washington in recent months.

• The first known instance of GPS jamming impacting transatlantic flights has been recorded. 
• According to air traffic control data, a flight was forced to operate in a "degraded mode."
• Russia is suspected of being behind GPS jamming in the Baltic region.  

The first known instance of GPS jamming impacting a flight on transatlantic routes has been reported.

According to air traffic control data cited on June 19 by an open-source intelligence analyst on X and the Resilient Timing and Navigation Foundation (RNTF), a flight from Madrid to Toronto was unable to ascend because a flight at a higher altitude had been affected by GPS jamming.

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that monitors global conflicts, reported the incident.

Satellite navigation systems, or GPS, are used by aircraft to navigate to their destinations. Interference with GPS isn't an immediate danger to planes because they have backup navigation systems, but they do pose a wider safety risk, say experts.

In the air traffic control data communications log, a dispatcher said that an aircraft at a higher altitude was operating in a "degraded mode," and another replied that it was the first known instance of GPS jamming on a transatlantic route.

The reports said it's not known for certain what caused the GPS interference, but they note that in the Baltic region, thousands of flights and ships have been affected by GPS interference believed to be linked to Russia.

The Norwegian Communication Authority told Business Insider in February that flights were experiencing GPS jamming on an almost daily basis, and in March, a plane carrying UK defense secretary Grant Shapps was impacted while flying near Russia's Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic.

Russia has a powerful electronic warfare capability, that it uses on the battlefield in Ukraine to disable missiles and drones.

According to reports, a Russian electronic warfare unit is based in Kaliningrad.

The RNTF said that the plane on the transatlantic route had likely been impacted by GPS interference while traveling from the Baltic region or the Middle East, and its GPS receivers hadn't recovered by the time it reached the transatlantic phase of the trip.

It noted that if similar incidents happen more frequently, it could have a major impact on transatlantic flights, likely resulting in delays and cancellations.

• Apple is betting its future on Apple Intelligence.
• The new suite of AI features are expected to breathe fresh life into iPhones.
• Apple may have a problem offering these services in China, its second-biggest iPhone market.

If there's one place Tim Cook could do with Apple Intelligence being a real hit, it's China.

Apple's spin on generative AI, revealed at WWDC this month, is set to bring Silicon Valley's most-hyped technology to its devices at a time when they could do with a killer new feature to entice Chinese consumers.

That's because Apple has been in urgent need of a plan to rejuvenate interest in iPhones in China — its most important international market — where sales were down by almost a fifth in the first three months of the year, according to one estimate.

Apple's decline in China has been triggered by a number of factors.

For one, Chinese consumers have had a conveyor belt of enticing alternatives — such as the Mate 60 Pro and Pura 70 Ultra — showcased to them by domestic players such as Huawei in recent months. They're likely to have grown tired of iterative iPhone upgrades in recent years, too.

Luckily for the iPhone maker, interest in Apple Intelligence has been strong. A combination of its own AI and a new partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI has offered investors enough assurance to drive an $200 billion-plus rally in Apple stock.

There's just one problem: Apple doesn't have a clear way of getting all these new AI features everyone's excited about up and running in China.

Getting Apple Intelligence to China

Keeping a strong foothold in China is vital for Apple. In its last fiscal year, the company generated $72.6 billion in net sales from the Greater China region.

However, with signs of that sliding, Apple has reason to get Apple Intelligence into the country.

CEO Tim Cook has put the new suite of AI features front and center in Apple's future, promising they "will transform what users can do with our products — and what our products can do for our users."

The problem is that a key part of Apple Intelligence — ChatGPT —isn't actually allowed in China right now. Chinese citizens must use a VPN to gain access to the OpenAI chatbot.

ChatGPT has not made its way into the country because companies seeking to offer large language model-led AI chatbots must first get approval from Beijing. Such approval has only been offered to Chinese developers of AI chatbots thus far.

According to The Wall Street Journal, this has led Apple to conversations with leading local companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Beijing startup Baichuan AI about striking an agreement to mirror its OpenAI deal.

It's worth noting that ChatGPT does not play a central role in Apple's AI rollout.

Laggard risk

OpenAI's chatbot will be available on upgrades coming to Apple's iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems later this year. Users will be able to opt into having it appear as a virtual assistant on their devices and power Siri. The rest of it is driven by Apple's own AI.

Still, the OpenAI partnership is an important one for Apple as its rivals in China have already introduced smartphones with AI features.

With no means of introducing Chinese users of its devices to ChatGPT, Apple risks being seen as a laggard on the most-talked about technology of the moment.

Apple will want to find a partner in China as fast as it can.

• Elon Musk moved The Boring Company to Texas in 2021, per the Times of London.
• A resident told the outlet it has turned Texas' "incredible vistas" into "gravel mines."
• She said she fears what will become of the area if steps are not taken to hold industries in check.

Elon Musk's construction company, The Boring Company, has turned Texas' "incredible vistas" into "gravel mines," a longtime resident told The Times of London.

"I could start crying just talking about it," Erin Flynn, a 62-year-old sixth-generation Texan who lives in Bastrop, told the outlet.

"It is beyond heartbreaking," she added.

According to The Times, Musk moved his tunnel-building venture to Bastrop, a rural town of about 12,000 people located 30 miles east of Austin, in 2021.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March 2023 that Musk plans to build his own town on thousands of acres of land in Central Texas, envisioning a "Texas utopia" along the Colorado River in Bastrop County. It cited deeds, land records, and people familiar with the project.

The project is bringing billions of dollars in investment and thousands of well-paying jobs to the region, the Times of London reported.

But it is also threatening the generations-old rural way of life, with trucks operating nonstop, earth mounds scattered across the horizon, rock-sorting machines towering over the trees, and cranes moving to and from construction sites, according to the outlet.

Flynn and her husband said their corner of Texas is being wrecked not only by Musk's firms — The Boring Company and SpaceX both have operations in Bastrop — but also by gravel and sand mines that were gradually erected to support the industry's operations there, per the outlet.

Flynn said she fears what will become of the area if steps are not taken to hold industries in check, per the outlet.

"There's a lot of freedom — people come to Texas for the freedom — but you have to respect your neighbor," she said, adding: "There is a fundamental lack of respect and a lack of communication. You're just being bullied."

The Boring Company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Last year, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said it had opened investigations into The Boring Company after receiving three complaints regarding the Bastrop site's handling of wastewater and concrete production.

In February, Tesla, another company owned by Musk, which has a 2,500-acre property on the outskirts of Austin, applied for an exemption from the city's "extraterritorial jurisdiction," which allows it to regulate developments outside city limits.

The city's planning department approved it in March, meaning Tesla's massive gigafactory would no longer have to follow local environmental regulations.

• Millennials and Gen Zers are embracing "quiet quitting" to end friendships gradually.
• The term originated on TikTok in 2022 to describe minimal effort at work.
• Experts warn that this approach can cause confusion and recommend open communication instead.

Some millennials and Gen Zers are embracing "quiet quitting" as a means of ending friendships.

The term originally gained popularity on TikTok in 2022 as a way to describe employees doing the bare minimum without actually quitting or getting fired.

But the trend has taken a turn, and some people are now using the same strategy to end a friendship: slowly phasing out communication without directly saying that they no longer want to be friends with someone.

Melissa Ann Marie, a TikToker in her 30s, spoke about her experience using this strategy in a TikTok video posted on June 1.

"It's not like a romantic relationship where it has to end because you're seeing other people, but it kind of just has to slowly fade because you're not prioritizing each other anymore," Marie said in the video, which has 2.3 million views and 168,7000 likes at the time of writing.

In a follow-up video posted on June 3, Marie said the reasons for ending her past friendships varied, from noticing that one friend gossiped too much while another failed to put in the effort.

Out with the old

Daniel Glazer, a clinical psychologist, told Business Insider that he has noticed "an instinctual impulse among millennials and Gen Zers to start molting connections" that are "hindering who they're becoming."

"While losing enduring connections can lead to feelings of isolation or missing out, quiet quitting may also be a healthy way for millennials and Gen Zers to prune their social lives, allowing new, richer relationships to grow," he added.

Azul Cibils Blaquier, a 23-year-old journalist from Argentina, agrees with Glazer's assessment. Speaking to BI over email, Blaquier said she quiet quit her group of childhood friends earlier this year.

Blaquier said things started to fizzle out when she temporarily relocated to the US two years ago, and her friends stopped making an effort to stay in touch.

"I tried talking to them about it individually, but eventually, I grew tired of being the first one to phone and, ultimately, of no one doing anything about my pain," she said.

Though she moved back to Buenos Aires in December, Blaquier said she could tell that things wouldn't return to normal with her old friend group.

"Quiet quitting on these friendships has opened me up emotionally to making new, stronger ones," she said.

Quiet quitting can lead to regret, experts say

Mark Vahrmeyer, a psychotherapist and cofounder of Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy, told BI that the consequences of quiet quitting depend on the circumstances.

For example, he said if you notice that you are outgrowing a friend, or if the friendship has naturally run its course, then the line of communication may fade organically.

However, he said it should be avoided if it is being used as a strategy to avoid confrontation over a real issue that has upset you.

"Generally where there is conflict, rather than a simple diverging of paths, this should be addressed in a friendship either to attempt to resolve it, or conversely, if repair is not possible, to bring an end to the relationship," he said.

Sophie Mort, a clinical psychologist and mental health expert at Headspace, told BI that quiet quitting to avoid conflict will lead to feelings of regret, as unresolved feelings remain permanently unaddressed.

"The act of distancing without any explanation can understandably leave lingering discomfort and unanswered questions," she said.

"For the person initiating the distancing, there may be feelings of regret or remorse, especially if their reasons for doing so were due to avoiding confrontation, which can later leave a sense of a missed opportunity to resolve things."

Margaret Bankole, a friendship and relationships counselor, told BI that quiet quitting can be harmful for both sides, as it will ruin the opportunity to gain closure.

"It is given less weight than ghosting, but it can have the same effects, if not worse, as the person on the other end is left feeling confused," she said.

"Honesty is always the best policy — tell someone why you want to end a friendship in order to bring closure. It will give them a chance to explain, as it could be a simple misunderstanding, or you can both walk away in peace."

• The SEC has filed charges against a Texas man over his offer to invest $200 million in Virgin Orbit.
• The SEC says Matthew Brown claimed to have $182 million but had less than $1 in his bank account.
• Virgin Orbit, which aimed to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX, went bankrupt in 2023.  

In March 2023, beleaguered rocket company Virgin Orbit thought it had found a lifeline.

A Texas-based investor named Matthew Brown reportedly offered to invest $200 million in the rocket firm, which was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

But in a complaint filed on Monday, the SEC alleged that the offer was a sham and that Brown had a negative net worth at the time.

The regulator has filed charges that accuse Brown — who it says resides in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas — of engaging in a "fraudulent scheme" to submit and publicly tout a "bogus" $200 million bailout offer for Virgin Orbit, which went bankrupt in April 2023.

Backed by British billionaire Richard Branson, Virgin Orbit had raised millions of dollars to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX in the private space industry, which the World Economic Forum estimates will be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035.

But the company was left scrambling for funding after a failed rocket launch in January 2023.

In its complaint, the SEC said Brown misrepresented his personal wealth in conversations with Virgin Orbit, including sending a fabricated screenshot of his company's bank account with a balance of over $182 million, when the actual balance was less than $1.

Brown also appeared on CNBC shortly after entering into discussions with Virgin Orbit despite signing an NDA.

He told the channel he planned to close the deal "in the next 24 hours," and he would "basically be the owner" of Virgin Orbit as a result of the investment, according to the complaint.

The SEC says that Brown also told Virgin Orbit that he had graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas with a law degree. "Brown had never graduated from college, let alone attended law school," the SEC wrote.

When Brown's offer leaked to the media, shares in Virgin Orbit went up by over 33%.

The SEC said that the deal collapsed after Brown attempted to request the inclusion of a "break up fee" if the transaction did not close and refused to respond to Virgin Orbit's due diligence inquiries.

The company, once valued at $3.7 billion, filed for bankruptcy less than a month later.

The SEC seeks a civil fine for Brown and a permanent ban on purchasing or selling securities.

A representative for Brown and his business, Matthew Brown Companies, told Business Insider in a statement after this story's publication: "We are steadfast in our commitment to thoroughly contest these issues, if they arise, through the trial process. Our stance in this civil lawsuit is firm: We will not settle until we are vindicated by the rule of law."

The representative alleged that the SEC complaint contained errors and fabrications and that there were conflicts of interest involving SEC investigators.

The SEC did not respond to BI's request for comment, made outside normal working hours, about the representative's allegations.

June 20, 2024: This story was updated to include a statement from a representative for Brown and his companies.

• Two climate activists were arrested after appearing to target Taylor Swift's jet.
• The activists broke into London's Stansted Airport and sprayed two jets with orange paint.
• Swift's jet wasn't at the airport at the time.

Two climate activists from the Just Stop Oil group were arrested after covering private jets in orange paint in a Taylor Swift-inspired stunt.

A video posted on X on Thursday showed the two activists breaking into a private airfield at London's Stansted Airport — where they claimed Swift's jet was parked — before spraying two jets with paint.

However, a representative for Stansted Airport told Business Insider that Swift's jet wasn't at the airport when the incident occurred.

It's possible that Swift's aircraft originally landed at the airport before being moved. According to flight tracking data cited by The Independent, Swift's Falcon 7x landed at Stansted at around 11 p.m. on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for Essex Police told BI that a 22-year-old from Brighton, England, and a 25-year-old from Dumbarton, Scotland, had been arrested "on suspicion of criminal damage and interference with the use or operation of national infrastructure."

They were detained shortly after 5:10 a.m. on Thursday morning, the statement added.

"We are not anti-protest but we will always take action where criminal acts take place," Chief Superintendent Simon Anslow said in a statement obtained by BI.

The protesters belonged to Just Stop Oil, a climate campaign group that has defaced famous artwork and landmarks, which most recently included spraying Stonehenge with orange paint.

A representative for Just Stop Oil confirmed to BI that the planes doused in paint did not belong to Swift.

They said the protest was "generally targeted at private planes," though the two people involved likely believed Swift's aircraft was at the airport.

The representative said the group singled out Swift's aircraft in its social media post because it is "the most emitting" of all celebrity private jets and because they believed that Stansted is where she usually keeps her private jet while in London.

BI previously reported that the singer spent more than 166 hours traveling in private jets between March and August of 2023 for the first leg of her widely popular Eras Tour.

However, according to a study by My Climate Tracker, cited by The Tab, Travis Scott was the celebrity with the most private jet use in 2023. The rapper took 137 flights, resulting in 6,061,300 kg of CO2 emissions, according to The Tab.

Meanwhile, Swift wasn't among the top 30 celebrities with the most private jet use in 2023, the outlet said.

That's a stark contrast to 2022.

According to Yard, a UK-based sustainability marketing firm, Swift produced the most CO2 emissions of all celebrities in 2022, with 170 flights and an average flight time of 80 minutes.

A spokesperson for Swift previously told BI that her jet is "loaned out regularly to other individuals" and to attribute most of the trips to the singer alone is "blatantly incorrect."

The singer's spokesperson also previously said she had purchased carbon credits to offset her jet use.

Swift is in London for the UK leg of the Eras Tour. She is expected to perform three sold-out shows at Wembley before returning in August for additional shows.

• Two astronauts will be at the ISS for longer than planned, following issues with Boeing's Starliner.
• The spacecraft has experienced helium leaks and thruster failures during its first crewed launch.
• NASA and Boeing have pushed back Starliner's return to June 26 to review data from the mission.

Two NASA astronauts have been left waiting to return home from the International Space Station because of issues with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

NASA and Boeing announced on Tuesday that Starliner's return had been delayed to June 26 after the troubled vessel's first crewed launch was hampered by technical issues.

It's the latest delay to hit the Starliner mission and means an ISS mission that was expected to last eight-10 days is now extended to at least 20 for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

The space capsule had a difficult time docking with the ISS, with five thrusters failing on approach, though four were subsequently recovered.

NASA said last week that ground teams were also assessing the potential impact of five small helium leaks.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, NASA and Boeing officials said that Starliner had plenty of helium left and that they felt "comfortable" about the craft's ability to re-enter Earth's atmosphere safely.

They added, however, that they were taking time to review data from the launch and docking before giving Starliner the green light to return home.

Starliner's first crewed launch, which took place on June 5, was delayed multiple times because of technical concerns.

The launch was a crucial moment for the US aviation giant, which is attempting to challenge SpaceX's stranglehold on the commercial space industry.

SpaceX has been transporting astronauts to and from the ISS since 2020, but Boeing, the other company selected by NASA for the task in 2014, has lagged behind.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk criticized Boeing about a month before Starliner's launch, writing on X that the company had "too many non-technical managers."

The issues with Starliner come at a bad time for Boeing, which is grappling with new safety concerns over its 737 Max after a door plug on an Alaska Airlines passenger plane detached mid-flight in January.

Boeing and NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.

• Denmark says Ukraine can use the F-16s it plans to give to hit military targets in Russia.
• Experts say that may not the best use for the jets.
• Ukraine hasn't been promised many, making each one a valuable prize for Russia. 

NATO member Denmark has given Ukraine permission to use the F-16s it receives to hit military targets within Russia.

It is unclear if Ukraine has any intention of using its F-16s in this way, or if doing so would mean the jets themselves enter Russia or just their munitions, but military experts told Business Insider it may not be the best use for them regardless, at least right now.

Denmark's decision is part of a wider and influential shift in NATO oversight of the weapons sent to Ukraine, a loosening of the restrictions on how Ukraine is allowed to fight the war.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, partner nations have prevented Ukraine from hitting military targets within Russia, giving Moscow a safe space to stage attacks and putting Ukraine at a huge disadvantage. Over the course of the war, many attacks have been launched from inside Russian territory. Analysts have described this situation as Ukraine fighting a war with one hand tied behind its back.

But some of Ukraine's international partners have been changing their approach over the past few weeks. And now Denmark is the first country to give the go-ahead for the coming F-16s. Just because it can, though, doesn't mean it should.

A big danger

Ukraine is expected to get its first F-16s this summer. George Barros, a Russian military expert at the US-based Institute for the Study of War think tank, said "it doesn't make a lot of military sense" to use the American-made fighter jets to "strike into Russia at this time."

"Because the deeper you go into Russia and the closer you get to the border, the more dangerous it is for you to fly," and it's more likely that you lose high-end equipment and trained pilots not easily replaced, he said.

Barros said that in the future, particularly with more jets, that would be a great use for them, "but that's not where we are now."

Ukraine's ability to use other weapons to hit Russia is a big boost for Ukraine, but it's not necessarily the best thing for a fairly small fleet of F-16s.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a defense strategy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that he suspects "that the F-16s will stay back from the front lines to avoid the Russian air defense envelope."

F-16s, when armed with anti-radiation missiles like the AGM-88 HARM missiles provided by the US, can be used to target air defenses in suppression and destruction missions, but those can be challenging, high-risk operations.

F-16s are big targets

Tim Robinson, a military aviation specialist at the UK's Royal Aeronautical Society, said the F-16s could be useful for hitting targets that are in Russia but out of range for other weapons. The aircraft has that capability, but striking into Russia is a risky mission, particularly for a fourth-generation aircraft that first flew in 1974.

He suspects that Ukraine, having "finally got them," will want to ensure "they don't lose them straight away."

Ukraine has been fighting hard to get F-16s since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, but the US prohibited other countries operating the jet from sending them to Ukraine until it changed its mind in May 2023.

Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, said that Ukraine will want to keep its aircraft "safe."

Ukraine will have to be more cautious with its F-16s, as it is not getting a lot, experts say.

The exact number of F-16s Ukraine will get to begin with is unclear, but it's not expected to be many. Ukraine has been promised a total of an estimated 85 jets by Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium. And France is sending an unspecified number of its Mirage 2000-5 fighters. This is a boost, but Ukraine can't afford to suffer tremendous losses.

A problem is that Ukraine is expected to receive more F-16s than it has trained pilots. A lack of available training spots in Arizona, Denmark, and Romania means that only around 20 Ukrainian F-16 pilots will be trained this year, Politico reported, thus limiting the number of jets Ukraine can fly into battle.

The number of warplanes aside, there's also a political aspect to Ukraine needing to keep its jets in the air.

Professor Michael Clark, a Russia and Ukraine expert and a British national security advisor, said Ukraine has been managing expectations over how effective the aircraft will be. Ukraine has suggested that the aircraft will be extremely useful against Russia, but there is a risk of backlash over losses or failure to secure a major breakthrough.

He said that while analysts "know that warfare is full of setbacks and things that don't go right first time and so on," a "manifest failure of an F-16 offensive would be politically very damaging for the Ukrainians," especially among some US Republicans and groups that are reluctant to back Ukraine.

As a result, Clark said, the Ukrainians are likely thinking that for its F-16s, "it'd be better to hold them back until they can be more confident rather than throw them in quickly, hoping that they'll be okay, because the chances are they won't."

Cancian said losing F-16s, particularly with so few promised to Ukraine, would be seen as "a big deal."

He said some expectations put on Ukraine's F-16s are unfair. US air strength, for instance, can come from the employment of "hundreds of aircraft with extensive support systems on the ground," the air fleet and ground infrastructure that Ukraine's embattled air forces lack.

Avoiding Russia

The experts said that the jets likely won't go into Russia because of the dangers there. If they do, it would like be rare. Even flying over Russian-occupied territory is dangerous.

Cancian said there may be "one or two deep raids maybe over Crimea just for the symbolic and psychological effect, but as a routine use, no, it's just too dangerous."

Notably, though, Ukraine has been increasingly targeting air defense systems on the occupied peninsula and elsewhere.

ISW suspects "Ukrainian forces may be conducting an organized effort to degrade Russian air defenses, which could enable Ukraine to more effectively leverage manned fixed-wing airpower (namely using F-16 fighter jets) in the long term."

And Ukraine has demonstrated a willingness to make bold plays.

Layton acknowledged Ukraine might attempt something daring, noting that they have conducted some other risky moves that have given them big wins, like taking down Russian aircraft.

"Tactically, they are very smart," he said. "So while I think they wouldn't do it, if they did it, it would be very carefully organized and fairly quick." But in general, he said, going into Russia "makes them far too vulnerable."

"I personally think that the Ukrainians will be foolish to put their aircraft in quite small numbers across the border because I think that the Russians will outnumber them," he said.

Robinson noted Russia has a "massive air defense network" that would target the jets, which lack stealth characteristics like fifth-gen jets. Ukraine has a network like this too, and it's why Russian jets have barely entered Ukrainian-held airspace. But in Russia, Ukrainian aircraft can also expect to battle the Russian Air Force in addition to enemy air defenses.

"The problem is that there's not going to be very many F-16s, and they will be very vulnerable as they fly over Russian territory," Mark Cancian said.

F-16s may hang back

Instead, Cancian said, he expects them to be used mostly defensively — used away from the front, protecting cities and infrastructure from Russia's drones and missiles. The F-16 can play defense well and has been prominent in the post-9/11 Noble Eagle mission defending US and Canadian airspace.

He said F-16s "aren't going to be flying over the front lines, but they don't really need that," as other weapons can hit into Russia and defend the front lines.

Layton agreed the best use for Ukraine's first F-16s would be defensive, staying in Ukrainian territory in an air-defense role to shoot down Russia's drones and cruise missiles.

But he was more bullish on Ukraine hitting targets in Russia, saying that it could do it without flying the aircraft into Russia, as he suspects that Ukraine will likely get the right intelligence to do such a hit without taking too much risk.

A key aspect of what kind of missions the F-16 can fly is what kind of missiles and bombs the jet is carrying. Ukraine does not currently have the full range of capabilities.

Ukraine's pilots could, however, be able to master defensive action the fastest, and it would likely be the most effective thing Ukraine could do without a greater number of aircraft, the experts said. It would also bolster a capability that has been heavily strained by relentless Russian attacks, and that's air defense.

Experts said they don't expect the F-16s to make a massive difference in the war by themselves, particularly without more of them. But they said these fighter jets will be useful for Ukraine by replenishing lost aircraft, deterring Russian jets, and acting as defenses.

"Whenever they arrive," Cancian said, "that's a good time for Ukraine because they will add to Ukraine's military capability."

Robinson said the F-16s will "make Russian pilots there a little bit more kind of wary, a little bit more careful about what they're going up against."