• Netflix and Paramount Skydance are battling for control of Warner Bros.
• Former Disney dealmaker Kevin Mayer sees similarities with the Fox deal he helped negotiate.
• Warner Bros. will be a big winner if Netflix or Paramount is forced to fork over more money.

A former Disney executive who oversaw its dealmaking expects "more fireworks" in the bidding war for Warner Bros.

"I would be very surprised if we don't see a sweetened, and perhaps meaningfully sweetened, offer" from Netflix, Paramount Skydance, or both, said Kevin Mayer, Disney's former top dealmaker, on Tuesday at the UBS media conference.

On Friday, Netflix agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming and studio assets for $82.7 billion, including debt. Paramount Skydance then launched a hostile offer, saying on Monday that it's willing to pay $108.4 billion for the whole firm, including the TV networks like CNN and HGTV. Executives at Netflix and Paramount CEO David Ellison have each framed their offers as the best for employees, Hollywood, WBD shareholders, and TV viewers. Both suitors also said they're confident they can pass regulatory scrutiny.

Mayer, now the co-CEO of Cocomelon owner Candle Media, said he thinks Paramount's hostile bid will reignite the faceoff for Warner Bros. and force the eventual winner to fork over more money.

"From the Warner Bros. Discovery perspective, this is nothing but good news," Mayer said.

Mayer added: "Does it move up another $5 billion or $10 billion? I think it probably does. That's what it's going to take to win it."

Mayer said the battle for Warner Bros. reminds him of the fight for control of 21st Century Fox between Disney and Comcast, which he was involved in during his tenure at the Mouse House.

Under Mayer, Disney agreed to buy Fox's studio, FX, and its stake in Hulu for $52.4 billion in equity, or $66.1 billion with debt, in December 2017. Six months later, cable giant Comcast made a $65 billion all-cash offer for those same assets. Disney ultimately won, but it was forced to pay a heftier price of $71.3 billion. Mayer helped engineer Disney's initial agreement with Fox, but had moved to a role atop Disney's streaming business by the time the acquisition closed.

"That was a difficult process," Mayer said of Comcast's bid for Fox. "It added $19 billion to the price tag. Still a good deal, but not the exceptional deal that it was before we had to pay more."

While Disney's deal with Fox gave it control over Hulu and bolstered its library, Disney activist investor Nelson Peltz argued that the Mouse House had shown "poor judgment" by "overpaying for the 21st Century Fox assets."

As Netflix and Paramount vie for Warner Bros., Mayer said the Disney-Comcast showdown "points to where we might see this going."

That's because Ellison's $30-per-share hostile bid, which Paramount also sent to WBD's board, might not be rich enough, Mayer said.

"David Ellison has already kind of hinted at that, that he hasn't done his best and final yet, and I suspect he hasn't," Mayer said.

Mayer was likely referencing a text message from Ellison to WBD CEO David Zaslav, which was made public as part of a Paramount filing on Monday: "Please note importantly we did not include 'best and final' in our bid."

"The team at Paramount is aggressive," Mayer said. He pointed to the gargantuan amount of money that David Ellison and his father, Oracle billionaire Larry, have at their disposal.

"I don't think there's a whole lot of hesitancy to spend it," Mayer said.

• Luigi Mangione has been in court in NY fighting the admissibility of evidence tied to his arrest.
• See the to-do lists and other items collected from his backpack when he was arrested last year.
• Mangioni is accused of the ambush shooting murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

A second week of evidence-suppression hearings has begun for Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the year-old ambush shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann set the stage on the hearing's first day, last Monday, by playing an audio recording of the surprisingly calm 911 call that led to Mangioni's arrest.

Since then, more evidence has been revealed for the first time in a lower Manhattan courtroom — all seized from Mangione upon his arrest at a Pennsylvania McDonald's following a five-day manhunt. It ranges from the probative (a journal and firearm) to the personal (a grab-bag of toiletries).

Mangioni's lead defense attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, has called for the hearing to argue why none of it should be shown to a future jury.

Here are the most significant and interesting images shown in court.

Lawyers are fighting over Mangione's backpack, which arresting officers searched twice before getting a warrant.

Mangione, 28, hopes to convince a state-level judge in Manhattan to toss key evidence from this bag, most significantly a ghost gun and a handwritten "manifesto."

The bag was searched twice by arresting officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania — once at the McDonald's where he was taken into custody, and again during intake at the town's only police station.

Only afterward did police seek a search warrant. At the hearing, prosecutors are calling more than a half-dozen Altoona officers to testify that both searches were proper under Pennsylvania law.

Mangione's red notebook, aka "the manifesto".

Defense lawyers call it a "journal." To prosecutors, it's a "manifesto." Either way, this red, soft-covered notebook is prime evidence.

Prosecutors say an entry from October 22, 2024, describes an intent to "wack" the CEO of an insurance company at its annual "bean-counter conference". (Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was shot from behind six weeks later, as he approached a Midtown hotel, where he was to speak at UHC's annual investor meeting.)

Police bodycam footage screened at the hearing shows two officers pulling the red notebook and other items from Mangione's backpack after he is placed in handcuffs at the McDonald's. They were looking for anything dangerous, including a bomb, multiple cops testified.

This hybrid metal and 3D printed 9mm firearm was recovered from the backpack, too.

Prosecutors say this firearm is a ballistic match to the shell casings and discharged bullet recovered from the sidewalk where Thompson was shot just before sunrise on December 4, 2024.

It was found at the bottom of the backpack at the police station during Altoona cops' second search — an "inventory search," meant to record the personal property and evidence taken from a suspect.

The top portion of the gun is the metal receiver for a Glock 9mm, prosecutors say. The bottom portion, including the butt and trigger, was 3D printed. A silencer and an extra ammo clip were also recovered from the backpack.

Some of the contents seized offer a glimpse into Mangione's self-care aspirations while on the lam for five days.

This is a photo of Mangione's many toiletries and other incidentals collected from his backpack, including spare socks, fresh medical masks, electrical cords, protein bars, and hand sanitizer.

They are not evidence but offer an intimate view of his self-care routine. Included was a stick of sandalwood-and-shea-butter scented "sensitive skin" deodorant, an electric hair-and-beard clipper with multiple black plastic comb attachments — and a pair of white-tipped tweezers.

"Change hat, shoes, pluck eyebrows," reads a to-do note dated the day after Thompson is shot

Several handwritten notes were also collected from the backpack — some in the form of "to-do" lists.

A checklist under the heading "12/5" — the day after Thompson's shooting — begins with a starred entry: "Buy black shoes. (White stripe too distinctive)". Mangione was indeed wearing new-looking black sneakers when he was arrested four days later.

The second entry reads, "change hat, shoes, pluck eyebrows."

A third entry begins "bus to Penn Station" and appears to include detailed travel directions.

Prosecutors say Mangione tried to throw arresting officers off the scent by claiming he was a "homeless" guy named "Mark."

The first two officers arriving at the McDonald's on December 9, 2024 — the fifth day of the nationwide manhunt — testified they had not believed Thompson's shooter would be in the restaurant.

The store manager had only reluctantly called 911 at her customers' insistence, so the call had been dispatched as "Priority: Low."

"What's your name?" one of the officers asked, approaching Mangione at the back of the restaurant. "Uh, Mark," Mangione answered, according to bodycam footage shown in court. He told them he was homeless.

He then handed over this New Jersey license — listing his name as "Mark Rosario."

Everything changed when Mangione's mask came off.

Mangione was then asked to pull down his blue-and-white paper medical mask, which Altoona patrolman Joseph Detwiler said made Mangioni stand out.

"We don't wear masks," Detwiler told the jury. "We have antibodies."

When Mangione's mask was lowered, everything changed. "I knew it was him immediately," testified Detwiler. "I stayed calm."

Mangioni alerted police to this small knife.

Before they left the McDonald's, Mangione had alerted the police to a small, silver folding knife they'd failed to find in his pocket, along with something that looked like a metal stylus or screwdriver tool.

The knife was small enough to qualify as a legal carry, Detwiler's partner, Patrolman Tyler Frye, testified Thursday, adding that even so, "It could possibly hurt somebody — seriously."

"Hot meal" and "water bottles."

Back at the Altoona Police station, a more thorough search of Mangione's backpack, pockets, clothing, and other belongings was conducted. Officers found this folded scrap of lined paper, filled with writing and diagrams in pencil.

Part doodled map, part to-do list, it is filled with dates and tasks, only some of which were accomplished. Under "12/8," the words "Best buy" had been crossed off, as were mentions of a USB drive, "digital cam," and "light source."

"Hot meal" and "water bottles" were also crossed off.

Other items on the list — including "AAA bats" and "survival kit," under the date 12/9, the day of his arrest — were not crossed out.

$7,800 in large bills.

At the Altoona police station, cops recovered $7,800 in large bills and currency from Thailand, Japan, and India, totaling $1,620, from Mangioni's backpack.

"There's a weapon," Patrolwoman Christy Wasser is heard saying soon after, in footage showing her continuing to search Mangione's backpack.

Given the gun and the at-first-overlooked knife, the decision was made to strip-search Mangione.

This story was originally published on Friday, December 5. It has been updated to include images of new evidence released in the case.

• Many professionals find AI tools helpful for work, but hide their usage from colleagues.
• In a recent Anthropic report, 69% of respondents mentioned the social stigma of using AI at work.
• Are you an "AI creeper," too? Take our survey to share more about your experience.

Do you lower your screen brightness and scan your surroundings before pulling up ChatGPT at your office desk? Or maybe you go into a private room to ask the LLM some queries?

If you find yourself hiding your AI usage at work, you may be an "AI creeper." That is, someone who uses the technology but doesn't want their coworkers to know about it.

If this description matches your work habits, you're not alone. A survey released this month of 1,250 professionals from AI startup Anthropic found that while 86% of those surveyed reported that AI saves them time and 65% were satisfied with the role it plays in their work, 69% mentioned the social stigma that can come with using it in the workplace.

One employee anecdote included in the report said that "a colleague recently said they hate AI and I just said nothing." The same worker added that they don't share their process with anyone because they "know how a lot of people feel about AI."

Workers in certain industries may be especially prone to judgment from their peers. The report said that out of 125 creative professionals surveyed, 97% said AI saved them time and 68% said it increased their work's quality. However, 70% of creatives mentioned peer judgment around AI use.

Business Insider is exploring the trend of "AI creeping," and we want to hear about why you're downplaying your usage. Please fill out our survey below to share more about your experience:

• Taylor Swift's "The Life of a Showgirl" has spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
• It ties "Folklore" as her third-longest reign atop the chart.
• "The Tortured Poets Department" holds the record in Swift's catalog with 17 weeks at No. 1.

Taylor Swift gave us fair warning in her newest album: "I'm married to the hustle."

Swift's 12th studio album, "The Life of a Showgirl," not only broke the record for the biggest sales week ever, but it also continued to amass sales and streams in the US for over two months after its release.

After seven consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, "Showgirl" returned for its eighth total week atop the all-genre album chart.

The impressive tally comes just one year after Swift set a personal-best chart record with "The Tortured Poets Department." Keep reading for a ranking of her 16 studio albums (including both originals and rerecords) based on their Billboard 200 performances.

9. "Taylor Swift"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 5

Swift's self-titled debut is the only studio album in her catalog that hasn't reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

"Taylor Swift" debuted at No. 19 and scaled the chart for more than a year, peaking at No. 5 in 2008.

8 (tie). "Lover"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for one week

Swift's seventh studio album was the first one that she owned outright, thanks to her new label contract with UMG.

"Lover" was promoted by several singles, including "You Need to Calm Down," "The Archer," and "The Man."

Four years later, after Swift kicked off the Eras Tour with "Cruel Summer" near the top of the set list, the fan-favorite song climbed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained there for four weeks, becoming the album's biggest hit.

8 (tie). "Red (Taylor's Version)"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for one week

The extended tracklist for "Red (Taylor's Version)" included the storied extended cut of "All Too Well," a longtime fan-favorite song in Swift's catalog.

"All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" was released alongside a short film directed by Swift and promoted by a convention-breaking performance on "Saturday Night Live." It became the longest song to reach No. 1 in the history of the Hot 100.

7 (tie). "Fearless (Taylor's Version)"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for two weeks

"Fearless" was the first rerecorded album that Swift ever released.

The "Taylor's Version" series was inspired by the sale of Swift's masters to Scooter Braun in 2019, which she described as her "worst case scenario" in a passionate open letter. Swift decided to remake and rerelease her first six albums in a bid to reclaim ownership of her life's work. (Braun later sold Swift's masters to a private-equity company.)

In addition to faithfully recreating each tracklist, Swift decided to add never-before-heard songs "from the vault" that were written during the album's original creative process but cut from the final product.

"I've spoken a lot about why I'm remaking my first six albums, but the way I've chosen to do this will hopefully help illuminate where I'm coming from," Swift explained. "Artists should own their own work for so many reasons, but the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work."

"For example, only I know which songs I wrote that almost made the 'Fearless' album," she continued. "Songs I absolutely adored, but were held back for different reasons."

Many were skeptical that the "Taylor's Version" project would be embraced by fans, let alone achieve commercial success.

Those skeptics were forced to eat their words when "Fearless (Taylor's Version)" began to outpace the original on streaming platforms. According to Billboard, "Fearless (Taylor's Version)" earned more equivalent album sales in its first week of release than "Fearless" earned over the entire next year.

Four years later, in May 2025, Swift announced that she bought back her masters from Shamrock Capital, giving her complete control over her musical catalog and rendering her "Taylor's Version" project moot.

7 (tie). "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for two weeks

The rerecorded version of Swift's third album featured six songs from the vault, including two duets with Fall Out Boy and Hayley Williams.

6 (tie). "Reputation"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for four weeks

"Reputation" arrived after an extended period of silence. Swift's longtime feud with Ye (then known as Kanye West) and Kim Kardashian had reached a fever pitch; in response to a massive social media hate campaign, Swift decamped to London and withdrew from the public eye.

She returned with a new snake-infested aesthetic and "Look What You Made Me Do," a cheeky lead single that poked fun at her own persona — and quickly shot to No. 1 on the Hot 100.

Swift also declined to participate in interviews or media appearances while promoting her sixth album. Instead, she relied on a simple tagline: "There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation."

6 (tie). "Evermore"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for four weeks

"Evermore" was surprise-released just five months after Swift's previous album, "Folklore." The two were billed as "sister albums," created under near-identical conditions with the same team of collaborators.

"To put it plainly, we just couldn't stop writing songs," Swift explained on social media.

"Evermore" was nominated for album of the year at the 2022 Grammys, but lost to Jon Batiste's "We Are."

5 (tie). "Speak Now"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for six weeks

Swift's third album had a lot to live up to, following the blockbuster success of "Fearless."

In response to skeptics — who questioned whether the teen phenom was relying too heavily on her collaborators — Swift decided to write "Speak Now" entirely by herself. She is the only songwriter credited on the standard tracklist.

5 (tie). "Midnights"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for six weeks

Swift's 10th studio album sold over 1 million copies in its debut week, the first to cross that seven-figure threshold since Swift's own "Reputation." (She has now achieved the feat on eight different occasions.)

"Midnights" also won album of the year at the Grammys, joining "Fearless," "1989," and "Folklore" in the prestigious group of victors. Swift is the only artist in history to win album of the year four times.

5 (tie). "1989 (Taylor's Version)"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for six weeks

The rerecorded version of "1989" was released nine years after the original. Swift added five vault songs to the tracklist, including the fan-favorite closer "Is It Over Now?"

4. "Red"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for seven weeks

"Red" is Swift's fourth studio album. It featured a mishmash of Max Martin-produced pop bangers ("We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," "I Knew You Were Trouble") and country-rock breakup anthems ("State of Grace," "Holy Ground").

3 (tie). "Folklore"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for eight weeks

"Folklore" marked a sonic departure for Swift, stripping down her favored synth-pop production to reveal introspective reflections and intricate narratives.

The pandemic-era album was co-produced by Swift, Jack Antonoff, and Aaron Dessner of The National. It received rave reviews from critics and is widely considered her best work to date.

3 (tie). "The Life of a Showgirl"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for eight weeks

Cowritten and co-produced with Max Martin and Shellback, "The Life of a Showgirl" was described by Swift as a snapshot of "everything that was going on behind the curtain" during the Eras Tour.

The album's eight-week reign at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 brought Swift's total sum atop the chart to 94, extending her record among solo artists.

Since the Billboard 200 was launched in 1956, only The Beatles have logged more weeks at No. 1 than Swift.

2 (tie). "Fearless"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for 11 weeks

Swift's sophomore effort had the longest run at No. 1 of any album in the 2000s. "Fearless" has since been certified diamond by the RIAA.

2 (tie). "1989"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for 11 weeks

Swift's fifth album marked her official pivot from country to pop music, a move that Swift said she had to "really fight — and I mean aggressively fight — to have happen."

In addition to its double-digit streak atop the Billboard 200, "1989" yielded several hit singles on the Hot 100, including "Shake It Off," "Blank Space," and "Bad Blood."

1. "The Tortured Poets Department"

Billboard 200 peak: No. 1 for 17 weeks

Swift's 11th studio album, "The Tortured Poets Department," did not leave the No. 1 slot for 12 straight weeks after its debut in April 2024, fending off new releases from stars like Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, and Zach Bryan.

The uninterrupted reign of "Poets" was rare for a streaming-era release. It became the first album ever by a female artist to spend its first 12 weeks atop the chart, surpassing a record previously held by Whitney Houston's 1987 blockbuster "Whitney." (The all-time record for a consecutive streak among women is held by Carole King's "Tapestry," which spent 15 weeks at No. 1 in 1971.)

Swift briefly yielded the top spot to Eminem and Stray Kids before "Poets" notched 13th, 14th, and 15th consecutive weeks atop the chart.

The album eventually fell to lower positions, but then in December of that same year, it returned for two more weeks at No. 1 after Swift released physical versions of the album's deluxe version, "The Anthology," for Black Friday.

• Goldman CFO Denis Coleman said pay for top performers remains highly competitive.
• His remarks signal a robust hiring landscape heading into 2026.
• Strong hiring reflects this year's robust dealmaking that's surprised some bankers.

The dealmaking market has been growing hotter by the minute, as a robust corporate merger backdrop is driving pay packages higher on Wall Street.

Banks need elite talent to tackle what's expected to be a busy 2026, forcing them to compete for top dealmakers amid one of the strongest M&A backdrops in years. The industry "will probably have the second biggest year in history," Goldman Sachs CFO Denis Coleman said on Tuesday at a financial industry conference hosted by the firm, noting that the bank has already advised on activity "north of a trillion dollars" this year.

Coleman acknowledged the intensity of the hiring market in an interview with an equity research analyst. He said the bank is prepared to shell out to retain its top performers. He described the compensation landscape as "competitive" for the crème-de-la-crème.

"Our philosophy is to continue to be a pay-for-performance organization, and we want to make sure that we're in a position to pay very competitively, particularly for our very best people," he said. "As long as the markets are as ebullient as they are and with optimism on the outlook, that'll continue to be a focus."

He also pointed to the formation of the firm's Capital Solutions Group — a consolidation of underwriting, sponsor coverage, and corporate derivatives into one centralized hub. It has enabled more complex financings and opportunities across both institutional and wealth clients since it was formed, Coleman said.

"The opportunity to deploy sizable capital into acquisition financing is a very attractive activity for Goldman Sachs," he said.

Strong tailwinds

The remarks come after a better-than-expected earnings season on Wall Street, where major banks reported a resurgence in dealmaking after nearly three years of sputtering and false starts.

Goldman's advisory revenue jumped 60% in the third quarter to $1.4 billion, while JPMorgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley each logged double-digit gains in investment-banking fees in the most recent quarter.

CEOs across the Street have been sounding increasingly bullish: Morgan Stanley chief Ted Pick said in the fall that after years of seeing only "green shoots," the "flywheel is taking hold," prompting some bankers to wonder whether a new "golden age" for corporate dealmaking may be emerging.

The recent government shutdown didn't stall the M&A train, Coleman added on Tuesday, conceding it slowed equity offerings because regulators were closed. But as far as the advisory business goes: "We feel very very good about how the franchise is positioned" heading into the new year.

That momentum is feeding directly into pay expectations. Compensation consultancy Johnson Associates projected that year-end bonuses will rise across most corners of high finance — with M&A bankers forecast to see increases up to 15%, their strongest showing since 2021. Traders are expected to lead the bonus scoreboard with gains of up to 25%, while wealth management incentives are also set to climb.

"It is a moment in time, but at this moment in time, based on the quality of our franchise and the current outlook," Coleman said, "we feel really, really good about continuing to drive growth for our clients and returns for our shareholders."

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said ChatGPT has helped him parent his baby.
• Altman described a scenario where OpenAI's chatbot reassured him during a moment of parental angst.
• Altman told Jimmy Fallon that he feels kind of bad about asking an all-knowing AI basic questions.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says his most famous product has helped him manage life as an actual parent.

"I cannot imagine having gone through, figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT," Altman told Jimmy Fallon during an interview on NBC's flagship late-night talk show. "Clearly, people did it for a long time — no problem."

Altman said he feels "kind of bad" asking a technology that boasts such wide-knowledge questions like, "Why does my kid stop dropping pizza on the floor and laughing?"

Another example, Altman said, was a couple of months ago when he was at a party talking to someone who was also raising a newborn. Altman recalled that the parents said their six-month-old was "crawling everywhere." Altman said he grew concerned that his son was not at the same stage.

"I ran to the bathroom, and I was like, do I need to take my kid to the doctor tomorrow morning?" Altman said, describing what he typed into ChatGPT: "Is this okay?"

Altman said OpenAI's chatbot responded "with a great answer, which was of course," his son's development was "normal."

"It is personalized, like ChatGPT gets to know you, and by the way, you're the CEO of OpenAI, you probably are around all these high-achieving people, maybe you don't want to project that onto your kid, and you should just relax, and he'll be fine, whatever," Altman told Fallon of the answer.

Fallon didn't touch on OpenAI's recent struggles. Last week, Altman reportedly declared a "code red" in a private message to employees, ordering a greater focus on ChatGPT as competitors like Google make significant advancements with their competing AI models.

Instead, Altman's late-night debut featured the lighthearted fare that's standard on late-night TV. At one point, Fallon asked Altman to explain what ChatGPT is in case viewers who were unaware, including the host's dad, might be watching.

Altman has spoken in the past about how becoming a parent has added another lens to his outlook on AI.

"My kid is never going to grow up being smarter than AI," Altman said during a January episode of the "Re:Thinking" podcast with Adam Grant. "Children in the future will only know a world with AI in it."

The OpenAI CEO and his husband, Oliver Mulherin, welcomed their son in February with an announcement on X. Despite Altman's stature, the couple has led a relatively private life.

Fallon, who has two daughters, also joked with Altman about when their kids reached certain developmental milestones, like crawling.

"Mine was on Dancing with the Stars at seven months," Fallon said. "Semi-finalist."

• After moving from Boston to San Francisco for family, the author's kids relocated again.
• The author reflects on the challenges of staying close to adult children who move frequently.
• She now considers her own needs and identity after years of prioritizing her family.

I'm thinking about moving again.

It'll be the second move I've made in a decade. After living in Boston for more than 30 years, I relocated to San Francisco to be closer to some of my adult children. Although all five were born in Massachusetts, none of them still reside in the Commonwealth. One is in New York; the others are in California.

When child #5 started contemplating a cross-country move while still in high school, I made the preemptive decision to pack us both up and head west. After all, if he moved and I stayed, who would shovel the snow for me?

I had to push through the fear

The decision to move wasn't difficult, but it was scary. I'd lost the sense of adventure my kids now had. Too much life experience made me reluctant to take a risk. I wish I could combine the wisdom of age with the courage of youth.

It was knowing I'd be close to my children that propelled me to push through the fear. In fact, push through the fear became the mantra I repeated continuously as I sorted through decades of stuff and used a push broom to sweep the detritus from the attic floor.

Our time together was short-lived

I was so happy when we first moved. I was spending a lot of time with two of my older sons and my youngest was reconnecting with his brothers who because of age and distance had missed a lot of his growing up. My daughter, who was attending college in Santa Barbara, visited frequently. Sadly, it didn't last.

Within a couple of years, the two sons who'd preceded me to the Bay Area were moving again. Apparently, it's not unusual for Gen Zers and millennials to move often. That's not something I'm inclined to do.

Honestly, if I had my way we'd build a family compound where I'd reign as the matriarch, hosting elaborate family meals at expansive dining tables each Sunday just like I'd seen in some Italian movie. They really know how to do family in Europe.

It's not easy being near all my kids

I imagine it's easier for the mother of one to settle close to her child. It's a bit trickier when there are five. If I were still married, I'd likely have stayed in Boston with my husband and expected our kids to come to us, but that's not my life. I'm the single mom who wants to remain tethered to my offspring.

For as long as I can remember, my life has revolved around these children, and I can't picture not being an integral part of their daily existence. As fully formed adults, they no longer need me as they once did, although recently one of my sons told me that he misses the days when I'd wake him up in the morning, tell him what to wear, and feed him.

Gone are the days when I was the queen of their universe, yet I'm unwilling to be a distant planet. I feel the gravitational pull toward all of them, and that's my dilemma. That one son who stayed back East is married now and the father of my two grandchildren. I love spending time with my grandchildren, who are growing up too quickly. I know I'm welcome to visit anytime for as long as I like, but what if I lived nearby?

I scroll through real estate apps constantly, looking at houses in New York, but I'm not sure I really want to go back there — at least not yet. After all the years of full-time mothering, I can honestly say my job is done. Now it's time to figure out who I am and what I want.

• After dating for three years, my then-partner and I decided to open a joint bank account.
• It was the biggest game changer in our relationship.
• Now, we have a few different shared accounts for different things. Our system works for us.

My partner Sam and I had been dating for about three years when the conversation about opening a joint bank account came up. We weren't married at the time, but we had just started living together after moving to Canada for a working holiday.

Until then, we split most things evenly. Sam had always earned more money than I did, but I was determined to pay my own way. Often, he would treat me to dinner or a movie, but I tried to reciprocate as much as possible.

When we moved in together in Canada, dividing up all of our shared expenses seemed like unnecessary work. Neither of us could be bothered keeping a spreadsheet of costs or using a calculator to work out who owed what for groceries and rent.

He brought up the idea of a joint bank account

"Why don't we just open a joint bank account?" Sam said one night on the couch while playing Xbox. It wasn't the first time the topic had come up — Sam had suggested it a few months before we moved in together, and I was hesitant.

To me, the prospect of having a shared bank account sounded so weird and grown-up. I was pretty immature at 25, and back then, I thought that joint bank accounts were something that only married couples had, along with a station wagon and a mortgage.

However, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. So, one afternoon after work, Sam and I marched down to the local Bank of Montreal branch on Banff Avenue with our IDs in hand and opened our first-ever shared bank account. I remember walking outside afterward and snapping a photo together, laughing. It was a milestone in our relationship that I'd never really thought about before that point.

Pooling our money changed our relationship

Straight away, something shifted in our relationship. It wasn't just about the convenience of having a joint account, like being able to pay bills or save money more efficiently. There was this sense that we were on the same page. We were pooling our resources, making joint financial decisions, and truly functioning as a team.

To start off, we each transferred a set amount into the shared bank account each week to go towards our living expenses and savings goals for a three-month trip around South America. Call us naive, but we didn't even set any ground rules around spending or have a conversation about what would happen if we broke up. We were in a pretty good place in our relationship at the time, and we both trusted each other to do the right thing.

A year later, when we moved from Canada to the UK, we used the same system of opening a joint account and transferring a set amount into it, then again when we returned home to Australia. It worked so well for us, and made living together, traveling, and navigating expenses a lot less complicated.

We have a system for dealing with money, and it works for us

After we got married, Sam and I did some reading about money management and decided to set up a few different accounts — one for our regular expenses, one each for our fun money (activities, meals out, entertainment, etc.), and one for our savings and investments. This financial management strategy has proven to be invaluable and has helped us to budget and live within our means.

We've now been married for over a decade, and we still use the same system. We know couples who keep their finances completely separate, and though it works for them, this is what's worked for us. We're raising a family together and working toward shared financial goals, so managing our money together just made sense to us.

Looking back, I think one of the biggest game-changers for our relationship wasn't moving in together or even getting married. Surprisingly, it was opening a shared bank account. That was the turning point — the moment we decided to work as a team toward a shared financial goal.

• The US charged two men in connection with an operation to smuggle Nvidia AI chips to China.
• The DOJ said the group relabeled Nvidia chips as "SANDKYAN" to evade US export controls.
• The arrests follow a wider probe that seized $50 million in smuggled GPUs and cash.

Ever heard of a chipmaker called "SANDKYAN?"

No? That's because it doesn't exist — it was the fake company name involved in what US authorities are saying was a "sophisticated" AI chip-smuggling operation.

On Monday, prosecutors announced they have arrested several parties in connection with an operation that involved smuggling Nvidia's most advanced AI chips to China and Hong Kong in violation of US export control laws.

Among those are Fanyue "Tom" Gong, a 43-year-old tech-company owner in New York, and Benlin Yuan, a 58-year-old Canadian executive. They were arrested on December 3 and November 28, respectively, after investigators linked them to the trafficking network, the Department of Justice said in a press release published Monday.

The Nvidia chips, known as GPUs, are used to train cutting-edge AI models and high-performance computing systems. They are tightly restricted due to their potential military applications.

"These chips are the building blocks of AI superiority and are integral to modern military applications," said US Attorney Nicholas Ganjei for the Southern District of Texas, adding that the smuggling operation threatened national security.

Yuan's lawyer told Business Insider he had no comment about the cases. A representative for Gong could not immediately be identified.

An Nvidia spokesperson told Business Insider that the export system is "rigorous and comprehensive" and that it will "continue to work with the government and our customers to ensure that second-hand smuggling does not occur."

It comes as President Donald Trump on Monday announced his approval for Nvidia to sell H200 chips to China under a plan that includes a 25% payment to the US.

How prosecutors say the smuggling operation worked

Prosecutors said the smuggling operation relied on falsified paperwork, shell companies, and covert relabeling.

The people involved purchased GPUs through straw buyers and intermediaries who claimed the hardware was destined for US customers or countries that don't require export licenses, prosecutors said.

Once the chips reached US warehouses, the DOJ said, workers under Gong's direction removed Nvidia labels and then rebranded the GPUs as "SANDKYAN," a fake company name.

Shipping documents were also rewritten to classify the GPUs as generic computer parts, the DOJ said.

The mislabeled GPUs were then exported covertly to China, Hong Kong, and other restricted destinations, often routed through a Hong Kong logistics firm and a China-based AI company.

Yuan, who ran the US arm of a Beijing IT company, recruited inspectors and instructed them not to disclose the GPUs' true destination, Ganjei said.

Prosecutors said Yuan also helped craft false explanations when federal authorities detained certain shipments.

The arrests are part of "Operation Gatekeeper," a wider crackdown that earlier led Texas businessman Alan Hao Hsu and his company to plead guilty to smuggling offenses. According to court documents unsealed on December 8, Hsu exported or attempted to export $160 million worth of Nvidia's H100 and H200 chips to China, Hong Kong, and other prohibited countries.

Prosecutors said they seized more than $50 million in GPUs and cash from Hsu's operation. The activity took place between October 2024 and May 2025, the DOJ said.

Gong and Yuan remain in custody pending further proceedings. Yuan was charged with conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act, while Gong was charged with conspiring to smuggle goods out of the US. If convicted, Yuan faces up to 20 years in prison. Gong faces up to 10 years.