Category: Business

• Sonakshi Pandey transitioned from software engineering to solution architecture.
• Mentoring has sharpened her leadership skills and exposed her to diverse tech fields.
• She looks for mentees who are self-driven, prepared, and are willing to be honest and vulnerable.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sonakshi Pandey, a cloud computing product manager at Google in Seattle. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified her employment history.

I was three years into my career as a software engineer when I realized I wanted to challenge myself.

I loved coding but was keen on a role that was less desk-bound and encouraged me to meet people and speak in public, something that made me anxious because I have always been an introvert.

I found that a solution architecture role would be a good entry point, and I interviewed to move to Amazon Web Services, from Amazon.com, where I was at the time.

I got the role and had the opportunity to speak at client meetings.

But my first few presentations were very rocky: I struggled with confidence, imposter syndrome, and memorizing a script.

It took hours of practice presentations and guidance from various mentors to help me become a person who speaks comfortably at meetings and tech conferences.

Now, I'm selective about who I choose to mentor. Here's why I do it and how I pick mentees:

Being a mentor benefits me

I mentor interns at Google and a variety of people at various stages of their careers who reach out on LinkedIn or other social media. I am also starting an advisory role at the University of Washington this summer.

I have found it to be a mutually beneficial relationship, where I get a lot from talking to them as well.

Having mentees from backgrounds like data analytics, solutions architecture, and people management has exposed me to parts of the tech landscape that I don't know as much about.

Watching my mentees succeed not only gives me confidence about the impact I can create but has rekindled my passion for my field.

I have been mentoring for about four years now. Most of my mentorship relationships also turn into professional connections and become good opportunities for collaboration or support.

What I look for in mentees

As someone with close to 10 years of experience in Big Tech, I receive a lot of reachouts on social media and my email.

In the early days of setting up my tech Instagram and YouTube accounts, I was excited to help everyone who reached out and asked for my time.

I soon realized that I would need a way to filter mentees because not everyone would reciprocate or acknowledge the efforts I put into supporting them. This made me very protective of myself and the hours I was dedicating to mentorship.

What I look for in cold reachouts

I find that the best reachouts are the ones that show research and effort.

I always appreciate when people include something they learned from my content and how it helped them or feedback for my posts. Interactions that start with asking me more details or questions about a topic I mention are also a great way of connecting.

One of my reachouts introduced themselves by saying they completed a free certification after watching one of my videos and would like my help in using it to land a full time role, which stood out to me.

I find that it is a great way of establishing a two-way relationship instead of simply introducing themselves and requesting 15 minutes of my time.

A nice email also seems more thoughtful than a direct message on Instagram or a request to connect on LinkedIn. I naturally get a lot more of those, because they require such less effort.

Very few people do the hard work of going to my "About" page on YouTube and finding my email.

Long-term relationship building

I look for people who appear proactive and self-driven. I love when mentees set ambitious goals and seek resources to achieve them. They come to meetings with thoughtful questions and a desire to learn from my personal stories.

The mentees I have long-term relationships with are those who approach setbacks with optimism. They are also honest with me and true to themselves.

I advise those looking to become mentors to seek out similar traits. The best mentees are self-starters who come to meetings prepared and are keen on paying it forward.

• Harrison Butker defended remarks he made during Benedictine College's graduation ceremony. 
• He encouraged female graduates to forgo professional careers to be homemakers. 
• A career coach said women should be free to make their own choices without shame.

Harrison Butker isn't apologizing for his remarks suggesting that women should forgo professional careers to become homemakers.

The Kansas City Chiefs player appeared at the Courage Under Fire gala at Regina Caeli Academy on Friday, nearly two weeks after his graduation speech at Benedictine College garnered criticism.

"It is now, over the past few days, my beliefs or what people think I believe have been the focus of countless discussions around the globe," Butker, 28, said in footage shared online. "At the outset, many people expressed a shocking level of hate. But as the days went on, even those who disagreed with my viewpoints shared their support for my freedom of religion."

Butker said he's become a polarizing public figure, but didn't waver on his previous stance.

"It's a decision I've consciously made and one I do not regret at all," Butker said.

Butker has weathered criticism following his remarks at Benedictine College, a small Catholic liberal arts college in Kansas, on May 11. While there, he told female graduates they had been told "diabolical lies" before suggesting they were more excited to create a family than go into the workforce.

"How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?" Butker said. "Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world."

Butker then mentioned his wife, whom he said embraced "one of the most important titles of all: homemaker."

"I say all of this to you because I have seen it firsthand how much happier someone can be when they disregard the outside noise and move closer and closer to God's will in their life," he said.

Women shouldn't be shamed for the path they choose

Butker's comments sparked online debates about women in the workforce.

Phoebe Gavin, a career and leadership coach, told Business Insider that women should have the space and opportunity to determine their future based on their ambitions.

"I am pro-women having choices and women being able to make those choices based on what intrinsically motivates them," Gavin said. "There are some women who are going to choose to embrace motherhood as a primary motivation in their lives, and then there are women who are going to make other choices."

Gavin added some women want both a career and motherhood, while others want neither. None of these choices should be ridiculed, she said.

"There are people who truly believe that is the right decision for them, and if that's what they believe, then I fully embrace, empower, and encourage them to go down that path," she said. "My issue is pushing those sorts of values upon other people."

That's why she takes issue with Benedictine College's decision to choose Butker as a commencement speaker.

"They should have known that he was not the kind of person that they would want to put in front of these grads," Gavin said.

She said it was "challenging" to see young female graduates who had spent at least four years working toward professional careers "being told that they're doing the wrong thing and that they should be doing something else."

Jessica Schaefer, a crisis communications and reputation management expert, echoed Gavin's thoughts. She said commencement speeches are meant to be inspiring, not a platform to share personal opinions.

"As someone who works on a lot of these commencement speeches, it's important that you prepare. The goal is to inspire everyone that's graduating," Schaefer told BI. "It's not a platform for your personal opinion. That's not why you're getting paid to give a commencement speech."

Gavin added that "whatever choice a woman makes, they should be able to make that choice and live without shame."

Since giving his speech, several people have spoken out against Butker and Benedictine College.

The National Football League distanced itself from Butker with a statement praising inclusivity. Teammates Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes said they disagreed with Butker's comments but defended his right to voice his opinion.

And nuns from Benedictine College denounced Butker's speech, saying they disagreed with the suggestion that "being a homemaker is the highest calling" for women.

"We sisters have dedicated our lives to God and God's people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years," the statement read. "These women have made a tremendous difference in the world in their roles as wives and mothers and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers."

Butker and Benedictine College representatives did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider outside regular business hours.

• The 2024 Senate elections — which will run concurrent with the presidential race — are approaching.
• Democrats will have to defend several vulnerable incumbents in swing and GOP-heavy states.
• However, the party has held their own in the last three cycles in navigating tough Senate races.

In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats defied political expectations by holding on to their Senate majority, with every incumbent securing reelection and then-Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman flipping the open seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.

The upper chamber in January 2023 then shifted from its previous 50-50 split — with Senate control in 2021 and 2022 resting on Vice President Kamala Harris' tiebreaking abilities — to a 51-49 majority led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. And despite Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema switching from the Democratic Party to register as an Independent late in 2022, she continues to retain her committee assignments through her former party.

However, the class of senators who were elected and reelected in 2018 — a Democratic wave year that saw several vulnerable red-state members of the party win and lose — will face a challenging map in 2024.

Much of the party's performance will likely be tied to President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection to a second term.

Former President Donald Trump, who will once again be the Republican presidential nominee this year, remains unpopular among moderates and suburban voters who often decide close Senate elections.

A major development that boosts the GOP: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in November 2023 announced that he wouldn't seek reelection in 2024, a major blow to Democrats as he was not only the lone statewide officeholder from the party but the only Democrat who could conceivably have run a competitive race given its conservative lean. The GOP is now in the driver's seat in the Mountain State, which backed Trump over Biden by 39 points in 2020.

In 2024, 34 seats will be up for grabs, including 20 currently held by Democrats, 11 held by Republicans, and three currently held by Independents.

Here are the key states that both parties are set to target:

Arizona

Sinema's decision to become an Independent gave Democrats jitters while they were still rejoicing Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock's runoff victory in December 2022, but since then, her decision hasn't impaired the party's ability to move legislation and approve judicial nominations.

However, after more than a year of speculation, Sinema announced in March 2024 that she wouldn't seek reelection to a second term, ending fears from some Democrats that her candidacy might aid the GOP in a potential three-way race.

Rep. Ruben Gallego launched his campaign for the Democratic Senate nomination in January 2023 and remains the frontrunner to win the party's primary in July.

Democrats have made major inroads in Arizona in recent years, and the party is aiming to bolster their political ascent in the state by electing Gallego.

On the Republican side, former television journalist Kari Lake and Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb are the leading candidates.

Lake, the 2022 gubernatorial nominee who lost to now-Gov. Katie Hobbs, jumped into the Senate race in October 2023 with the endorsement of Trump. While Lake ran a hard-charging conservative campaign two years ago, she has recalibrated her strategy and has sought to expand the GOP tent this year in anticipation of a competitive general election race in the purple state.

Meanwhile, Lamb, a conservative who has pushed for stronger security measures at the US-Mexico border, was the first major Republican to enter the race.

Blake Masters, the 2022 Republican Senate nominee who lost to Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, is running for the House seat being vacated by GOP Rep. Debbie Lesko after the 2024 elections.

Abe Hamadeh, who was narrowly defeated in the 2022 race for state attorney general, had been mentioned as a potential contender but in October 2023 threw his support behind Lake. He is also running to succeed Lesko in the House.

Maryland

Former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan will face off against Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks for the seat being vacated by veteran Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin.

Maryland is one of the most Democratic states in the country. The party has hefty majorities in the state legislature and dominates the state's congressional delegation. In the 2020 election, Biden won the state by 33 points. And Gov. Wes Moore easily won the state's open gubernatorial race in 2022.

Hogan's candidacy presents a unique challenge for Democrats. The former two-term governor, one of the most prominent Republican critics of Trump, left office with high marks from Maryland voters. During his two gubernatorial runs, he won over many moderate Democrats and Independents en route to his victories in a state where Republicans are vastly outnumbered.

And Republicans have the financial means to compete in Maryland as they seek to replicate the coalition that gave Hogan eight years in Annapolis.

But Alsobrooks, a former prosecutor, gained substantial name recognition as she campaigned across the state and won a tough Democratic primary against Rep. David Trone, who spent over $60 million of his own money in his unsuccessful bid to secure the party's nomination.

Alsobrooks also benefits from representing the state's second-most populous county and in the primary she performed strongly in Trone's suburban Washington backyard and in the Baltimore area.

If elected, Alsobrooks would be Maryland's first Black US senator.

Michigan

Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a popular lawmaker now in her fourth term, announced in January 2023 that she would not run for reelection in 2024.

Stabenow, the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, was most recently reelected in 2018 by 6.5% against now-GOP Rep. John James. (James, the Republican Senate nominee in both 2018 and 2020, is running for reelection to his House seat anchored in suburban Detroit this fall.)

Republicans would very much like to flip this seat, but Michigan Democrats had a banner year in November 2022 — sweeping the top statewide offices and retaking control of the full legislature. Biden is set to compete hard in the state this year, but he continues to face significant intraparty pushback over the conflict in Gaza, an issue that will play heavily in the presidential race and the Senate contest given the state's sizable Arab-American population.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a moderate Democrat who represents a Lansing-area swing district that stretches to rural and suburban areas northwest of Detroit, announced in February 2023 that she would enter the Senate race.

Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and the acting assistant defense secretary for international security affairs in the administration of President Barack Obama, is the most prominent elected official to seek the Democratic nomination.

The congresswoman, who was first elected in 2018, said in her announcement video that she would focus on bolstering the middle class "in the state that invented the middle class" if voters send her to the Senate.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Reps. Debbie Dingell and Haley Stevens, and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow all ruled out Senate campaigns.

The actor Hill Harper, best known for his roles on "CSI: NY" and "The Good Doctor," jumped into the Democratic primary in July 2023.

Businessman Nasser Beydoun is also seeking the Democratic nomination.

A number of Republicans are currently in the race, including former Rep. Mike Rogers, Sandy Pensler, a businessman, and Sherry O'Donnell, a physician and former congressional candidate.

Former Rep. Justin Amash, who voted to impeach Trump in 2019, is also running for the GOP nomination.

Rogers, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who served in Congress for 14 years, offers Michigan Republicans their most formidable candidate to date. But his appeal in a Trump-dominated GOP is untested on a statewide level.

Former Rep. Peter Meijer, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role on January 6, 2021, entered the race in November 2023 but withdrew in April 2024.

Meijer served for one term in Congress and was ousted in a 2022 GOP primary by Trump-backed challenger John Gibbs. Gibbs eventually lost the general election race to now-Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten.

Montana

Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is a political survivor, having first won in conservative-leaning Montana in 2006 before winning tough reelection contests in 2012 and 2018.

And Tester hopes to keep the streak going, announcing in February 2023 that he'd seek a fourth Senate term in 2024.

Despite the GOP lean of Montana, Tester has built a solid political brand over the years and has been able to appeal to many of the state's Independents and Republicans in past elections. GOP leaders have long coveted this seat, though.

Former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, a favorite of Republican leaders in Washington, jumped into the GOP primary in June 2023 and has earned the endorsement of Trump.

Former Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson is also a candidate in the GOP primary.

Rep. Matt Rosendale, a staunch conservative who lost to Tester in 2018, announced in February 2024 that he'd also run for the seat. The decision was poised to set up a competitive — and potentially bruising — primary with Sheehy. But less than a week after entering the race, Rosendale dropped his bid, citing the headwinds he'd likely face after Trump backed Sheehy.

After Rosendale pivoted to running for reelection to the House, he subsequently withdrew from that race as well.

Nevada

Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is running for a second term in office in one of the most competitive battleground states in the country. In 2018, Rosen, then a first-term congresswoman, ousted then-GOP Sen. Dean Heller by 5 points.

In 2024, Rosen will be running for reelection when Nevada, a perennial swing state, will be a top target for both Biden and Trump.

Senate candidates on the Republican side include former US ambassador to Iceland Jeffrey Gunter; Army veteran and businessman Sam Brown; former state lawmaker Jim Marchant; attorney Ronda Kennedy; retired Army Lt. Col. Bill Conrad; retired Air Force Lt. Col. Tony Grady; and real estate broker Stephanie Phillips.

Ohio

Sherrod Brown, who was also elected to the Senate in 2006, is running for a fourth term. He has maintained a strong populist connection with his constituents despite the continued reddening of Ohio, which only 20 years ago was widely seen as the nation's premier swing state.

Republicans view the Ohio seat as one of their biggest targets, but Brown has proven to be an effective candidate adept at winning over Independents and even a slice of conservative-leaning voters.

In March 2024, businessman Bernie Moreno defeated state Sen. Matt Dolan and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose in a hotly-contested GOP primary.

Moreno and Dolan previously ran for Senate in 2022 but fell short in that year's Republican primary to now-Sen. JD Vance.

The general election matchup between Brown and Moreno, which could very well determine the Senate majority, is now set to be one of the most expensive races in the country.

Pennsylvania

Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr., who was first elected to the upper chamber in 2006, is seeking a fourth term in 2024.

Casey — a former Pennsylvania auditor general and ex-state treasurer who has won all three of his prior Senate races with relative ease — will likely benefit from running in a presidential year when turnout in the Democratic strongholds of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh is poised to be very high.

However, Casey has also generally done well in many of the state's working-class towns and cities, and he could post an electoral performance similar to Fetterman, who dominated in the vote-rich Philadelphia suburbs in 2022.

David McCormick, a businessman who narrowly lost the 2022 Republican Senate primary to Dr. Mehmet Oz, will be the party's Senate nominee in the fall. McCormick, who grew up in the Pittsburgh area, is viewed as a candidate who can potentially bolster the GOP among Independents and suburban voters.

Texas

The Lone Star State has been firmly in the Republican column since the 1990s.

Democrats have sought to run more competitive Senate and gubernatorial races in recent years but have largely fallen short by sizable margins, with the notable exception being the close 2018 senatorial contest between then-Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. That year, O'Rourke lost to Cruz by 2.6 points, a result that gave Democrats hope that they could once again win the state in the near future.

Cruz has long been a major foil for Democrats; the conservative lawmaker also ran for president in 2016 before his defeat in the GOP primary to Trump.

In March 2024, Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL player and civil rights attorney, easily won the Democratic primary over candidates that included state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, state Rep. Carl Sherman, and former Nueces County district attorney Mark Gonzalez.

Republicans point to the conservative tilt of the state in projecting confidence in the race, but they are also cognizant of Cruz's narrow 2018 victory.

Trump is favored to carry Texas in 2024, which would likely boost Cruz, but Allred was first elected to office by appealing to moderates and flipping a GOP-held district in the Dallas area. The congressman could potentially build on O'Rourke's success by making further inroads in suburbs across the state, especially if abortion remains as potent an issue in 2024 as it was in the 2022 and 2023 elections.

Wisconsin

Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced in April 2023 that she'd seek a third term in the upper chamber.

While Wisconsin in recent years has been one of the most politically polarized states in the country, Baldwin was able to win over many rural and exurban voters during her 2012 and 2018 campaigns — while also racking up large margins in the Democratic-heavy population centers of Milwaukee and Madison.

Several of the most prominent Republicans who were thought of as potential candidates — including former Gov. Scott Walker, Reps. Bryan Steil and Tom Tiffany, and former Rep. Mike Gallagher — declined to enter the race.

The GOP candidates currently in the race include Eric Hovde, a businessman, and Rejani Raveendran, the chair of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point College Republicans.

• Mexico City could run out of drinking water by June 26, an event locals call "Day Zero."
• Three years of low rainfall and high temperatures have worsened the city's water crisis.
• The Cutzamala water system, which provides water to millions, operates now at 28% capacity.

Experts say that Mexico City could run out of drinking water by the end of June, an event locals call "Day Zero."

Mexico City has long struggled to bring water to its millions of residents, but three consecutive years of low rainfall and high temperatures have created a serious emergency.

The Cutzamala water system — a series of treatment plants, reservoirs, and canals that provide water to tens of millions of people — is running dry.

Conditions are so bad that the North American Drought Monitor classified the federal district containing Mexico City as "severe" on April 30. Locals expect "Day Zero" could come as soon as June 26, according to Mexico Business News.

While local politicians downplayed the water crisis for months, several neighborhoods have already seen their water run out, CNN reported.

The Mexican government describes the Cutzamala system as "vital to the lives of millions of Mexicans" living in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area and the Valley of Toluca Metropolitan Area.

The system normally moves about 15 cubic meters of water a second and provides service to about 22 million people. It's now operating at 28% capacity, The Washington Post reported.

Crumbling infrastructure is also contributing to the problem. About 40% of Mexico City's water is lost due to leaky pipes and other issues, the Post reported.

Gabriel Quadri de la Torre, a federal congressman for the Mexico City district of Coyoacán, told the outlet that fixing the pipes would cost billions and that it's "very difficult to think" the city will have the money to pay for it.

With June 26 fast approaching, the city desperately needs rain. But rainfall might cause a "false sense of security," Christina Boyes, a professor at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City, told the Post.

Researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico said in a study that intensive water capture, using treated residual water for agriculture, and refilling aquifers with surface water, could save the Cutzmala system, according to Mexico Business News.

The study found that only 75% of farms in the area use irrigated water, and most do not reuse the water when they can. Still, the study's plan would cost an estimated $5 billion, the report says.

Mexico's National Water Commission announced in February that it's working on projects to improve the Cutzamala system and help supplement some of the water it is losing. As part of the action, the Mexico City Water System introduced a plan to improve infrastructure reliability, strengthen programs for private company participation in the water network, and harvest rainwater in schools, the agency said.

• Apple is developing software for users to create custom emojis using generative AI.
• Siri will get a generative AI upgrade to improve natural speech and new task capabilities.
• New AI features for iOS 18 and macOS 15 include transcribing voice memos and retouching photos.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But that was before we had emojis. And before emojis had AI.

Apple is developing software for users to create customized emojis on the go as part of a new spate of generative AI features, according to Bloomberg. These features go beyond the catalog of emojis Apple offers by creating a special emoji for each situation.

Siri is also getting a generative AI makeover. With the help of Apple's own large language models, its virtual assistant will should sound more natural, and the Apple Watch will get a more advanced version of Siri to assist with tasks on the go, Bloombeg reported. Apple hopes the technology will also help Siri improve upon the tasks it already does, like responding to questions, and take on new tasks like summarizing text messages.

Apple also aims to release new AI features for iOS 18 and macOS 15 to transcribe voice memos, retouch photos, and speed up and improve search results.

Next month, Apple will likely discuss some of these features at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The company has been pretty quiet about its generative AI strategy — especially compared to other tech giants like Google and Microsoft — but that doesn't mean you should count it out of the AI arms race. CEO Tim Cook promised in February that "AI "will affect every product and service we have."

It's par for the course for Apple to be a little late to the announcement game.

"Apple is very rarely first to market," Carolina Milanesi, principal analyst at Creative Strategies, a tech consulting firm, previously told Business Insider. "They prefer to come in and disrupt the market — take anything from wearables to smartphones to tablets. They've never been first."

• Hillary Clinton said that Democrats didn't do enough to stop the demise of Roe.
• "We didn't take it seriously, and we didn't understand the threat," she told The New York Times.
• Ahead of November, abortion and reproductive rights are top of mind for many voters.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview for a forthcoming book, made some of her strongest remarks to date about the fall of Roe v. Wade, arguing that the Democratic Party underestimated the anti-abortion movement.

In advance of the June release of the book, "The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America," Clinton told The New York Times that Democrats believed that the court system and legal precedents would protect abortion rights — until the US Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that those rights were not protected by the Constitution.

"We didn't take it seriously, and we didn't understand the threat," Clinton, the party's 2016 presidential nominee, told the Times. "Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realize we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country."

"We could have done more to fight," she added.

The book, written by Times journalists Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, explores the decadeslong push to dismantle Roe v. Wade and the ramifications of its demise.

During the interview, Clinton lamented that Democrats were "taken by surprise" by the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. She argued that she never became complacent over the potential for a conservative-led Supreme Court to reverse Roe.

"One thing I give the right credit for is they never give up," she told the Times. "They are relentless. You know, they take a loss. They get back up. They regroup. They raise more money."

"It's tremendously impressive the way that they operate," she continued. "And we have nothing like it on our side."

Since the fall of Roe, Democrats have benefited in elections across the country, with many independents and even some Republicans backing ballot measures protecting abortion rights. And Democratic candidates fared much better than predicted in the 2022 midterms in part because they supported abortion rights, a position largely in line with suburban voters who have dramatically moved away from a GOP now controlled by former President Donald Trump.

Democrats plan to use the issue against Trump this year, telling voters that it was his Supreme Court appointments that have now caused a patchwork of abortion laws across the country — with some states enacting near-total abortion bans and others expanding access.

Trump has sought to moderate his views on the issue. He criticized a near-total abortion ban in Arizona that has since been repealed by the legislature.

But Clinton is warning that the conservative push to restrict abortion further will not abate.

"More people have got to wake up because this is the beginning," she told the Times. "They really want us to just shut up and go home. That's their goal."

• Bette Nash, the world's longest-serving flight attendant, has died from cancer at age 88.
• Nash started her career in 1957 with Eastern Airlines. 
• She witnessed major changes in air travel, from the jet age to post-9/11 security measures.

The world's longest-serving flight attendant has died from cancer at the age of 88.

In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, American Airlines said: "We mourn the passing of Bette Nash, who spent nearly seven decades warmly caring for our customers in the air."

"She started in 1957 and held the Guinness World Record for longest-serving flight attendant. Bette inspired generations of flight attendants. Fly high, Bette," the post continues.

Nash never officially retired from her role with American Airlines. She died in hospice after a recent breast cancer diagnosis.

Nash got her first job as a flight attendant with Eastern Airlines — which later became American Airlines — in 1957, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House.

"You had to be a certain height, you had to be a certain weight. It used to be horrible. You put on a few pounds and you had to keep weighing yourself, and then if you stayed that way, they would take you off the payroll," Nash previously told ABC affiliate WJLA about the early days of her career.

She told ABC News in 2022 that a ticket for a flight between New York and Washington, DC, cost just $12 at the time, adding that passengers could even purchase life insurance from a vending machine before boarding their plane.

Over the course of her career, Nash saw huge changes to the aviation industry, including the effects of deregulation, the computer revolution, and the heightened security measures that came into effect following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

She also saw flying become increasingly accessible following a boom in commercial air travel in the 1950s.

By 1955, more people in the US traveled by air than by train, and by 1957, airplanes had also replaced ocean liners as the preferred means of crossing the Atlantic, according to the National Air and Space Museum.

Just as Nash was starting out, jet passenger service also began in the US with the arrival of the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 airliners.

"The jet engine revolutionized air travel. Powerful and durable, jets enabled aircraft manufacturers to build bigger, faster, and more productive airliners," the National Air and Space Museum says on its website, adding that almost half of all Americans had flown by 1972.

In an X statement, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants said Nash "touched many with her warmth, dedication, and service."

"RIP, Bette. You won't be forgotten," it added.

• The baby-boomer "time bomb" is finally upon us, economists say.
• All boomers will be at least 65 soon, the generation's point of "peak burden" on the economy.
• Future generations can take solace in the fact that no boomer-size generations are in the making.

A time bomb has been ticking in the US.

It's the baby boomers, who as they age are approaching their "peak burden" years in regard to their drag on the economy and the resources of younger generations.

Boomers have already gotten tons of flak from younger people over the economy they've left Gen Zers, millennials, and Generation X to inherit. By the end of this year, all boomers — defined by the US Census Bureau as being born from 1946 to 1964 — will be 60 or older.

This means the youngest boomers are rapidly approaching retirement, and a bigger retirement population means more of a drag on the US economy, a burden that Barclays senior economist Jonathan Millar expects to stretch on for the next 20 years. 

"The peak burden," Millar told Business Insider, is when essentially all living baby boomers have hit retirement. "And we're getting there."

The date could fall sometime around 2029, when the youngest boomers will be 65, according to a Census Bureau report.

A population time bomb

It isn't the boomers' fault they were born. They didn't choose to be a mammoth-size generation that's left the US with a big and probably expensive retirement-age population.

And it isn't the case that baby boomers will derail economic growth nearly as much as, say, a full-blown recession, according to Dean Baker, an economist who described the baby boomers as a "time bomb" in a 1998 paper.

"Yes, it does create strains, but the idea was just some horrible catastrophe that loomed on the horizon," he said of the public dialogue on aging boomers. "It was really just craziness."

Still, the consequences of an aging population are real — and it's expected to weigh on the US over the coming decades. Older people are just one of the many factors weighing on Japan's economy, for instance, with people over 65 making up more than 25% of the overall population.

Baby boomers have already weighed on the US economy, and the cohort risks being a bigger drag in the coming years, Millar said.

Boomers are taking up the housing supply

Boomers are taking up a disproportionately large share of the housing supply compared with previous generations. That has been a pain for other homebuyers, as lower housing inventory has helped push up home prices.

The housing market saw its worst year of sales since 1995 in 2023, according to the National Association of Realtors. Existing homeowners have had little incentive to downsize their homes, many of which are fully paid off or financed at ultralow rates.

"It probably means we're headed for five or six years where baby boomers contribute to very strong housing demand, and we're going to have high house prices as a result," Millar warned.

Boomers also appear to be hogging the larger homes that millennials would otherwise be flocking to as they start families. In 2022, empty-nester baby boomers owned 28% of large homes in the US, a Redfin analysis found, double the share of millennial families.

Boomers are contributing to the labor shortage

The US has more open jobs than available workers. That gap is likely to widen as more boomers leave the workforce.

As of January, the Chamber of Commerce estimated that the economy was still down about 1.7 million workers compared with before the coronavirus pandemic. The labor market, meanwhile, is staring at 9.5 million job openings.

The labor shortage could eventually spell trouble for the economy, as a low supply of workers pushes up wages, which can stoke inflation.

Boomer retirees are also still demanding goods and services in the economy. If they aren't contributing anything in labor, that demand is also inherently inflationary, Millar added.

Boomers are a risk to the stock market

Retirees, who are less tolerant of stock-market volatility, also pose a downside risk to stocks. Boomers are more likely to sell if the US economy tips into a recession. That's a problem, considering that analysis by Rosenberg Research found people 55 and older account for 80% of stock-market ownership in the US.

"Retirees don't have the luxury to buy and hold through a market downturn," the economist David Rosenberg said in a recent note. "If a downturn does materialize, demographically induced selling is a force that could exacerbate the spiral powerfully, with the effects ricocheting into consumer spending."

Boomers will drain Social Security

Finally, boomers are set to collect a large amount in Social Security payments. The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is expected to be depleted in 2033, a year earlier than previously expected, the Social Security Administration said in a new report.

Politicians are averse to raising taxes or slashing spending on social programs, Millar noted, and are unlikely to let payments lapse. Instead, they'll most likely pay for the program by taking on more debt to keep funding retirees through old age.

"Any way you slice it, this is a burden on current and future generations of taxpayers," Millar added.

The silver lining is that there doesn't appear to be a baby-boomer redux in the making, Baker said. Millennials are a large generation, but after that, Gen Z and Alpha look to be much smaller, meaning there won't be a similar time bomb ticking for the economy.

"I think it's very unlikely that we're going to see another population boom like we had in the post-World War II years," Baker said. "If there's some set of events that lead to that, it's nothing I can see on the horizon."

Correction: February 5, 2024 — An earlier version of this story incorrectly described data from the National Association of Realtors. It found the housing market to have had its worst sales in 2023 since 1995, not ever.

This story was originally published in February 2024.

• Trump vowed to commute Ross Ulbricht's sentence at the Libertarian National Convention.
• Libertarians view Ulbricht's life sentence as a symbol of government overreach.
• Trump also promised to include a Libertarian in his cabinet if elected.

Donald Trump made an address at the Libertarian National Convention on Saturday, promising to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the jailed founder of the infamous online drug marketplace Silk Road.

"If you vote for me, on Day One, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht," Trump declared to enthusiastic applause from the crowd in Washington, DC. 

The move to highlight Ulbricht was strategically catered to Libertarian voters.

Ulbricht, now 40, who was imprisoned for life in 2015, is an unjustly imprisoned hero of the US libertarian movement.

The Libertarian Party, with its long-standing advocacy for drug legalization and criminal justice reform, has consistently lobbied for Ulbricht's release, viewing his life sentence as a symbol of government overreach.

Ulbricht became interested in libertarian values at university, according to a Wired report, where he discovered the ideas of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, an advocate of the moral purpose of free-market capitalism and staunch opponent of interventionism. Ulbricht embraced these ideas of uncompromised freedom, per Wired.

"When I created Silk Road, I wasn't seeking financial gain," Ulbricht's wrote in a heartfelt letter to his trial judge in 2015.

"I created Silk Road because I believed at the time that people should have the right to buy and sell whatever they wanted so long as they weren't hurting anyone else," he wrote.

In 2015, he was given life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was also fined $183,961,921.

Ulbricht is being held at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson.

The majority of goods sold on Silk Road were illegal hardcore drugs, said the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York at his trial.

"Silk Road was supposed to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices, to pursue their own happiness," wrote Ulbricht. "While I still don't think people should be denied this right, I never sought to create a site that would provide another avenue for people to feed their addictions."

Trump, who was loudly booed and heckled during much of his speech at the Libertarian National Convention, did manage to partially win the audience around by committing to free Ulbricht.

Katherine Yeniscavich, a Libertarian Party national committee member, told Politico, "It's one of the things we wanted from his first term."

In addition to the Ulbricht pledge, Trump made further pledges, promising to include a Libertarian in his cabinet and others in senior administrative positions if elected.

• The Federal Reserve published its Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking this week.
• The percentage of parents with children under 18 who felt "financially okay" declined.
• It's the lowest percentage since 2015. Skyrocketing childcare costs are likely to blame.

The financial well-being of American parents with young children is plummeting, highlighting how unaffordable childcare costs have become.

The Federal Reserve published its annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking on May 21. The survey, which collected answers from 11,000 people in October 2023, examines the economic well-being of US households and potential financial risks.

While the report said people's overall financial well-being was "nearly unchanged" between 2022 and 2023, some groups "continued to experience financial stress at higher rates than others."

That included parents with children under 18.

The percentage of parents with children under 18 who felt "okay financially" dropped from 69% in 2022 to 64% in 2023.

The 2023 data point is a stark decline from 2021 when 75% of parents said they felt comfortable financially. Data from the Federal Reserve shows that parents haven't felt this financially insecure since 2015, when it recorded 65%.

Comparatively, the percentage of adults who don't have children under 18 and feel "okay financially" hasn't dipped below 70% in the last eight years.

The report doesn't give specific reasons for the growing financial concern, but the rising cost of childcare has been a national concern for years.

The cost of childcare has skyrocketed in the United States, making it difficult for families to maneuver the current economy.

"Childcare costs can be significant for parents," the Federal Reserve report says. "The median monthly amount that parents using paid care paid for childcare was $800. For those who paid for 20 or more hours of childcare each week, the median cost was $1,100."

Business Insider estimated that it could cost parents nearly $26,000 a year to care for one child in 2024 — a 41.5% increase from 2016. A 2024 Bank of America analysis also found that the United States has the second most expensive childcare system among developed countries.

That analysis, which ranked New Zealand No. 1, found that the average couple with two children spent more than 30% of their combined wages on childcare.