• Rep. John Rose of Tennessee made a passionate speech defending Donald Trump on Monday.
• But all eyes were on Guy, his 6-year-old son, who stole the show with his backstage mischief.
• Guy just graduated kindergarten, and Rose said he was asked to smile for his little brother.

Politics can be tiring. The 2024 election, set to be a contest between two of the nation's oldest-ever candidates, is marked by undertones of war, a doozy of federal crimes, and increasingly divided voters.

Guy Rose, 6, is showing us all how he copes.

As his father, GOP Rep. John Rose of Tennessee, took the podium on Monday to blast former President Donald Trump's New York prosecutors, the boy, sitting behind, pulled a range of faces for the camera.

First, he flashed the camera with a winning smile, then appeared to lose interest before seemingly cooking up a fun idea.

"Regardless of one's opinion of the current Republican nominee, we'd be well-served to remember the long and cherished tradition we have in the country for settling our political differences at the ballot box," said Rose.

Meanwhile, Guy launched into a series of goofy faces, tongue wagging, eyes rolling, and complete with dramatic hand gestures.

His dad continued to speak, saying May 30 — the day Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies — would go down as "one of the more infamous days in American history" because of "flimsy" charges brought against Trump.

Behind Rose, Guy appeared to get bored, fishing a toy out of his pocket and fidgeting with it, occasionally giving the camera a cheeky glance.

C-SPAN captured the boy's adorable antics for only about five minutes as his father spoke, but they've since gone viral.

According to Rose, the faces apparently stemmed from an encouragement for Guy to smile at the camera for his little brother, Sam.

The Associated Press reported that Guy just graduated kindergarten last week and that his brother and mother, Chelsea, are back home in Tennessee.

Rose's opposition jumped in with criticism for the congressman on Monday evening, writing on X that "we too would be mocking him while he spoke."

Doug Andres, spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, suggested that Guy might have been trying to tell everyone something about the Illuminati.

Rose, now 59, was likely about 53 when his wife gave birth to Guy. The congressman was 45 in 2011 when he married Chelsea Rose, who was then 21 and a college senior, according to The American Prospect, a liberal political magazine.

He founded the IT training company Transcender Corp and was president of Boson Software, a similar firm based in Nashville. Rose was also Tennessee's agriculture commissioner from 2001 to 2003 before he became a congressman for the state's 6th district in 2019.

Rose generally aligns with his party in votes and politics, more recently defending Trump and supporting Israel.

• Authorities are blaming an intern for a construction firm in China for a tunnel collapse.
• The intern, Wang Nianpu, is named "mainly responsible" and criminally liable while his bosses face fines.
• Wang was supposed to deliver an important stop-work order but failed to do so, investigators said.

Chinese authorities have named a construction intern as likely criminally responsible for a pipe network collapse that killed three construction workers.

Wang Nianpu, an intern working as a quality inspector, was one of three people marked in an investigation report as liable for the collapse in December along a main road in central Jinan City.

The report, seen by Business Insider, was filed in early May but went viral after local media reported the case over the weekend.

It said the workers were killed in a tunnel that collapsed because a steel support beam was missing. An excavator was plowing through soil at the entrance, causing steel plating inside the trench to fall and crush the trio.

As a result, dozens of local government officials, Wang's senior colleagues, and bosses face fines, warnings, or formal admonishment.

Only Wang, a technician, and a site supervisor were named for criminal investigation.

The report singled out Wang, saying he was "mainly responsible for the occurrence of the accident" and that he was previously detained but released on bail pending his trial.

But it wasn't his role as a quality inspector that landed him in trouble.

According to the investigation run by Jinan's Emergency Management Bureau, Wang's supervisors discovered a safety hazard in the tunnel on December 28 and signed an order to stop work for the next day.

Wang was instructed to deliver the order to construction crews on December 29 but failed to do so for "personal reasons," the report said.

Authorities said the tunnel collapsed the next day.

The report found that the work carried out in the trench broke regulations and recommended a $151,000 fine for a Qingdao branch of PowerChina Construction, which was overseeing the site.

It's unclear who was Wang's direct employer. PowerChina Construction is a state-owned company and worked on the project with several subcontractors, including Chengda Lighting Engineering and Hengxin Construction Supervision.

Wang's case went viral on Weibo, China's version of X, on Tuesday, becoming the top search topic on the platform for several hours, per data seen by BI.

"I'm shocked. This type of accident is blamed on the person with the lowest salary?" one Weibo user wrote. "You're asking him to take the main blame when he can't even sit at the table for meals."

"It's no longer a joke that interns must bear important responsibility. It's a fact," wrote another.

Local media outlet Red Star News, citing labor experts from law firms in Beijing and Hunan, wrote that the "status of an intern should not be a prerequisite for a person to be exempted from criminal punishment."

• The NYSE will cancel trades after a glitch caused halts for 40 stocks, including Berkshire Hathaway.
• The glitch caused Berkshire Hathaway to appear to trade at a 99% discount.
• The technical issue lasted two hours and was linked to the Consolidated Tape Association's software.

The New York Stock Exchange said it will cancel trades made after a glitch caused trading halts for 40 stocks on Monday morning — including Berkshire Hathaway, which appeared to trade at a 99% discount.

Class A shares of the Warren Buffett company appeared to trade at $185.10 per share before a trading halt kicked in. Trading can be paused before a news event, due to regulatory concerns, or if a stock moves outside certain price bands, which is what happened to Berkshire Hathaway.

A handful of trades took place at the discounted price in the minute before the halt started, according to LSEG data. NYSE said that all Berkshire Hathaway trades made at or below $603,718.30 would be canceled.

Class A shares of the conglomerate closed at $627,400 on Friday. The stock reopened at $648,000 at 11:36 a.m., and closed at $631,110 on Monday.

The technical glitch, which came from the Consolidated Tape Association's real-time stock quotes, lasted for about two hours and was fixed by about 11:45 a.m.

The NYSE allows traders to flag "clearly erroneous" trades and seek compensation, if necessary. Last January, a glitch on the NYSE led to dramatic price swings for more than 250 firms and was traced back to a staffer who left a backup system running.

The CTA oversees the dissemination of real-time price information on several exchanges. It said that Monday's glitch could have stemmed from "an issue with Limit Up/Limit Down price bands that may have been related to a new software release."

The NYSE issued similar cancellation notices for at least 12 other firms, like fast-casual chain Chipotle, and exchange-traded funds, including a Pimco bond ETF.

• Alexandra Karplus credits office jobs in New York and Singapore for many of the friendships she's formed over the years.
• Since she started working from home, her personal relationships with coworkers aren't as strong.
• She still wouldn't want to go back to office life. 

"I want to invite you guys over to my place for Thanksgiving," I told a few coworkers while enjoying a picnic at the Singapore Botanic Gardens back in 2008.

It had been a month since I moved from New York to Singapore and I felt happily settled in my new life. I was 27, just married, and thrilled to start the next chapter of my life on the other side of the planet.

A welcoming group of colleagues from around the world — whose ages ranged from just out of college up to almost ready for retirement — had contributed to the easy transition. They gave me tips on how to sign up for phone plans, told me about neighborhoods to check out, taught me Singlish 101, and regularly invited me to join them for lunch, after-work drinks, and even a few picnics.

Additional friends and partners were often invited to tag along, and that afternoon, my husband — as well as one new colleague's fluffy husky — was sitting alongside me on the mat.

"How are we going to host Thanksgiving? We just moved into our apartment and don't even have plates or cutlery," my husband asked.

It was a good question. I hadn't considered logistics, nor had I ever hosted a Thanksgiving dinner. My British coworker Peter jumped in and said he'd be happy to have us over at his place. Everyone was excited to join in, although, with no other Americans in the group, it would be the first Thanksgiving for all of them.

On Thanksgiving day I prepared stuffing and a few pumpkin pies in my new kitchen. Peter had Skyped his mom back in Guildford for a step-by-step tutorial on how to prepare a turkey, and it was in the oven when we arrived. The other guests showed up with more sides and bottles of wine. I left that night with a full belly and a whole new group of friends to be thankful for.

I've met some of my closest friends at work

Fast forward 16 years — plus two children and a new job — and I'm still happy in Singapore. Because the city has a large transient population, I've seen many friends and coworkers come and go — but even this has had benefits.

I've attended three weddings of past colleagues in Bali, one of which was for coworkers who had fallen in love at the office. I've made trips to visit my work friends in their new homes around the world. Those who travel back through Singapore make it a point to plan a get-together when they're in town — usually at their favorite hawker center to eat satay and chicken rice.

Work friendships started back in New York and are still going strong

These types of strong connections with colleagues didn't just start in Singapore. The best part about my first job out of college, when I was still living in Manhattan, was our weekly brainstorming meeting. The team manager would bring a brown paper bag filled with bagels, and we'd sit around a table coming up with new ways to improve the site's content. The website didn't last, but the friendships have. My bagel manager has even made it over to Singapore to say hi.

The next job in New York was the one that eventually transferred me to Singapore. We were publishing inflight magazines from a warehouse-like space in Dumbo, Brooklyn, before it was a trendy part of town. This was where another set of friends came into my life.

When the weather got cold, we would wander over to Jacques Torres Chocolate Factory for hot cups of spicy cocoa. When we closed a monthly issue, my boss would treat the team to pizza at Grimaldi's. The pizza boss now lives nearby in Bangkok. He visits regularly, and my kids think of him as an uncle.

I'm questioning how friendships can grow when we work from home

The pandemic changed everything. At the time, I was producing magazines and web content for airlines. Global travel restrictions and lockdowns had a huge impact on the company, and eventually, management had to let go of the majority of our over 30-person creative team.

I was lucky and grateful to still have a job. At that point in my career, I was the editorial director, and while I didn't make the final decisions, I was the messenger who told people they'd been laid off. It felt like I had betrayed friends, and it also led me to question why I had been loyal to that company for so many years.

In my current job, as the lifestyle and culture editor for Business Insider in Singapore, we work almost entirely from home. We have a space in a WeWork, but we also have a remote-flexible work policy globally. New colleagues are given in-person training when they join the company, but the majority of our day-to-day communication happens online.

There's constant chatter throughout the workday on Slack — colleagues sharing articles, pointing out events, and praising each other's work. We even have a channel to share pictures of our cats.

But while I like my coworkers, and have been in this job for over a year, these relationships have not grown into friendships.

The benefits outweigh the downsides

Research shows I'm not alone.

In June 2022, the Survey Center on American Life surveyed 5,037 American adults about workplace relationships. More than half of those surveyed said they'd met a close friend through their work or a spouse's work.

Fast forward one year to a report on loneliness in the US, released in May 2023 by then-US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. In the report, Murthy said the number of close friendships people have has declined. Murthy connected this to technology, a factor that has led to a decline in face-to-face contact and is also what has enabled us to work from home.

"As we shifted to use technology more and more for our communication, we lost out on a lot of that in-person interaction," Murthy told the Associated Press in an interview last May.

Results from a June 2022 Gallup poll of 16,586 working adults highlighted the positive impact that friendship at work can have on business outcomes. But the poll also found that in the US, just two in 10 employees reported having a best friend at work.

There are benefits to working from home. As a mother, I have time to drop my kids off at school in the morning, as there's no commute. I find a little "me time" with a home yoga session over lunch. There's no one blasting music that's not my jam or stopping me for a meaningless, 15-minute chat on the way to fill up coffee.

Between a mix of one-on-one catch-ups and team-wide Google Meets — none of which ever run longer than the pre-scheduled time slot — it's easy to follow what everyone is working on, and I rarely feel like my personal time is being encroached upon.

However, friendships are much harder to make online, and none of my work relationships in this job have managed to cross the threshold into friendships.

Yes, we have a Slack channel to share pictures of our cats, but I haven't had the pleasure of meeting someone's dog, by surprise, at a team picnic. I haven't been introduced to any of my coworkers' friends or partners, nor has my husband met any of them. Back in the day, I even picked up some basic mahjong skills when an assistant editor invited the whole team over to her mother's apartment to celebrate Chinese New Year.

When Thanksgiving comes around this year, I'm not sure how my colleagues would react to an invitation to the feast. Maybe we can start off with a picnic.

• Donald Trump's felony conviction seems to have only turbocharged his campaign's fundraising efforts.
• Trump's campaign said it raised $53 million within a day within a day of his guilty verdict.
• Donations to the campaign in May nearly doubled the $76 million it and the RNC reaped in April.

Former President Donald Trump's conviction on Thursday hasn't dampened his appeal among donors and supporters.

On Monday, Trump's campaign team said it raised $141 million in donations alongside the Republican National Committee. The RNC is led by former North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley and Trump's daughter-in-law Lara.

According to the statement, the former president pulled in two million donations last month, with a quarter of those donors being new to the campaign. The sum raised is nearly double the $76 million the campaign and the RNC collected in April.

"We are moved by the outpouring of support for President Donald J. Trump," Trump campaign senior advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said. "President Trump raised $141 million in small donations alone this month."

The sudden turn in fortunes comes after a tough week for Trump, who was found guilty of all 34 felony counts in his hush money criminal trial in New York on Thursday. The conviction also made Trump the first former US president to become a felon.

But getting convicted might have been a blessing in disguise for Trump. His campaign said that over one-third of the donations, or $53 million, came within a day of his guilty verdict.

"Unfortunately for Democrats, their rigged political operation has backfired in a historic way, and Republicans are in a stronger position than ever to FIRE Crooked Joe Biden and Make America Great Again by electing President Trump on November 5," said RNC co-chairs Michael Whatley and Lara Trump.

The Trump campaign's bumper haul in May puts pressure on President Joe Biden, whose campaign raised only $51 million in April.

Last month, the Biden campaign ended the first quarter of 2024 with $192 million. The campaign said this was the highest amount raised by any Democratic presidential candidate at this point in the election cycle, per Reuters.

"We'll see how the numbers actually shake out come July," Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa told Axios in a statement.

"But one thing's for certain: Trump's billionaire friends are propping up the campaign of a white-collar crook because they know the deal – they cut him checks, and he cuts their taxes while working people and the middle class pay the tab," Moussa added.