• I've moved countless times across the States throughout my adult life.
• As a writer, I thought the concept of home was abrasive to my creative practice. 
• I moved to New York with my sister, and everything changed. 

I grew up in Connecticut in a cloistered home environment that didn't always feel safe. To get away, my sister and I would drive around our rural town and the surrounding towns, listening to music and trying to find the longest routes home.

We didn't have a direction or purpose behind the drives, and our car was rickety and unreliable, but it felt good. It felt different — it wasn't home. But the high ended as soon as we rounded the corner to our house.

I was constantly moving

After I finally moved out, I didn't stop moving. I lived everywhere from Ohio, to Massachusetts, to Maine, to Colorado, to California, to Oregon. No matter where I was, I never settled. I didn't accumulate things because I was always thinking about leaving. I always wanted the option to get up and get out. In most places I lived, I slept on the floor, on a piece of foam, on coaches, and sometimes in my car in parking garages between shifts.

I used candles instead of lamps because I didn't own any. I hung postcards in my bedroom using earring studs, because I didn't own any artwork. I left my books and clothes in piles because I didn't have shelves or a dresser.

I worked in cafés, restaurants, and bars, and I'd take silverware, napkins, and food from the places I worked. I also took toilet paper from the public library and downloaded borrowed CDs onto my computer for music. I had enough for rent, but I couldn't save. Still, I was making choices. I didn't believe that life was linear and that structure meant home. I didn't feel unstable; I knew what I was doing, and I was creative about it.

During my childhood and early adulthood, my home life was caging. It was an often unfriendly and hostile environment that robbed me of independence and free thought.

Eventually, I moved to New York with my sister

As a writer, I've always wanted to live as bravely as I want to write. Consigning myself to conventional notions of home and family felt antithetical to courage. As Rachel Cusk writes in "Outline," good writing comes out of "tension between what's inside and what's outside." I worried that if I created a life that was calm and predictable, I'd lack the tension that fueled creativity.

In 2020, the pandemic hit and changed my perspective. My graduate program went online and I was isolated from everyone I knew in Oregon. I rented a car and drove back east two weeks after the country went on lockdown. I didn't want to be in Connecticut, so I moved to New York with my sister.

When we got our Brooklyn apartment, we had nothing. I felt as though I could still leave if I wanted. But my sister had different ideas. The months passed, and the city came back to life. My sister wanted to hang things on our walls, to get plants and a cat. She wanted to buy kitchenware and find recipes, have dinner together, and host movie nights.

She's a visual artist, and she saw our place becoming our very own "arthouse" — a place where we could create separately and together, inviting others in when we chose. She was thinking about our future.

She helped me through my fear of putting down roots

Sure, I'd write in the same space where she was drawing, but I wasn't ready to commit. I wasn't ready to give up on all the places I could still live. I didn't want to say this is where I live, and this is who I am. I didn't want to want to stay.

"You can still leave whenever you want," my sister said. "But that doesn't mean you can't have a place that feels safe while you're here." She told me that the place and family we were creating could be different. It could be a place where we created what we wanted to, whenever we wanted to create it.

We've lived together for four years now. In that time, we've made a place that defies what home used to mean. It's a place full of quiet and disruption. A place where we sleep on good beds, eat in the shower, listen to the radio loudly, and interrupt each other to ask about the syntax, the line weight, the pimples on our backs.

My sister has taught me that home and family mean creating alongside someone you love. She's taught me that our space and our connection can offer a new version of peace.

I'm still susceptible to that pull of relocation and anonymity. But I'm now also susceptible to the allure of coming back. That cool warm smell with the windows open and my sister coming out of her room in her leather slippers. The cats asking for food. And all of our things, exactly where we left them.

• Netflix organized and paid for a wedding for two "Bridgerton" superfans, Shanti Hinton and Tiffany Rae.
• The couple told Business Insider that Netflix flew them from New York to London for their big day.
• Cast members came to the reception where Tori Kelly performed an original "Bridgerton" song.

When Shanti Hinton and Tiffany Rae watched "Bridgerton" for the first time in 2020, they immediately fell in love with sumptuous regency drama, which brought them closer as they reminisced over the first stages of their own love story.

Little did they know that four years later, Netflix would throw them a wedding where they would be gifted their own regency-themed crest and get to meet some of the "Bridgerton" cast.

Just like "Bridgerton" season three leads Penelope and Colin, Hinton and Rae had a friends-to-lovers romance. The pair became friends in 2011 when they were at high school in New York, after Rae offered to help Hinton with her science homework, they told Business Insider. Romance blossomed during Hinton's senior year when she was about to go to college.

"She asked, 'Oh, who wants to jog with me before I leave?' And that's how it all started," Rae said.

The pair told Shondaland.com that they dated long-distance for the next four years while Hinton attended college in North Carolina and Rae stayed in New York for a dance course at Queensborough Community College.

"It wasn't, like, crazy serious, it was puppy love, but we knew our energy gravitated towards each other and that we were going to be with each other," Rae, 28, said. "I mean, that first year, we talked about marriage. We were so young!"

Things started getting more serious in 2016 when they moved in together and met each other's families. They got engaged four years later, but then COVID hit, putting their dream wedding on hold.

"We was like, 'Are we just going to elope?'" Rae said. "Our families will kill us if we do that. And we really want a destination wedding."

She added: "Something in our spirits told us, 'Just wait because something's going to happen."

While waiting for the right moment, Netflix contacted them on social media. They were already on the streamer's radar after attending the Queen's Ball an immersive "Bridgerton" pride event held last June in different cities worldwide.

Rae and Hinton said the event gave them an excuse to dress up.

"We just like to do crazy silly things," Rae said.

A Netflix representative noticed their regal outfits and asked to take their picture, which was shared on the event's social media.

"They took a picture of us because they loved our outfits," Hinton, 28, said.

In November 2023, another Netflix representative reached out, explaining they were looking for "Bridgerton" superfans to throw a themed wedding for.

"I was like, 'Oh, girl, this has to be a scam,'" Rae told Shondaland.com of her first thoughts before agreeing to go through the interview process.

In January 2024, Netflix chose Rae and Hinton, promising to provide them with a luxury wedding planner who would accommodate their requests.

"We were shocked," Hinton told BI. "We were like, 'Wait a minute, this is real?' And we started hugging each other and crying, and it was just like we were still in shock."

Rae said the fact it was a "Bridgerton" wedding was the "cherry on top" of the opportunity.

"We love 'Bridgeton' so much. We love the time period," Rae said. "It fits with who we are. We love to dress up."

Hinton and Rae said Netflix catered to their every request

The wedding was planned in a flash. A month and a half after being told they'd won, Netflix flew Hinton and Rae to London for their big day.

Rae said they wanted to keep Netflix's involvement a secret, so they didn't tell their family and friends until after they had agreed to fly to London for the wedding.

"We just told them that we were getting married, and they pulled up for us, period," she said. "And then after, once they confirmed that they were coming, then we said, 'yeah, by the way…'"

Rae said Netflix paid for the couple's flights, outfits, and hotel, but their guests were happy to pay for their own tickets and accommodation to support their dream day.

"We love our family and friends because they came for us," Rae said.

Netflix also hired Alice Wilkes, a luxury wedding planner based in the UK, to help organize the event. Rae and Hinton said Wilkes helped make their vision a reality.

That included an ice sculpture at their reception, which featured two winged beasts surrounding a unique family crest made for the couple, similar to those on "Bridgerton."

"Like the ice sculpture, we was like, 'I don't know if she's going to be able to pull that off.' And she's like, 'Oh yeah, we got you. Let's write it down. What else do you want?'" Hinton said.

While planning the wedding, Hinton and Rae also met "Bridgerton" stars Golda Rosheuvel, Adjoa Andoh, and Kathryn Drysdale, who helped them decide on their food and outfits.

In the YouTube video of the couple's meeting the cast shared by Netflix, Hinton and Rae cried while talking about how much they relate to Queen Charlotte (Rosheuvel) and Lady Danbury's (Andoh) journey.

"On and off camera, they really had such a genuine connection with us," Rae told BI. "We got really emotional with them, and it was really a good experience."

The wedding had tasteful "Bridgerton" references

Hinton and Rae's wedding ceremony was held in Chiswick House and Gardens, an opulent 18th-century villa in upmarket west London that is inspired by Italian architecture.

The center room was decorated with scores of flowers in multiple shades of purple, yellow, blue and white and featured violinists to give the setting a "Bridgerton" feel.

Rae rode to the venue in a carriage featuring the couple's family crest on the side and wore a crown and a diamond-themed dress in a nod to Queen Charlotte.

Meanwhile, Hinton wore a ruffled shirt and red suit jacket inspired by "Bridgerton" character Simon Basset (Regé-Jean Page).

There weren't many other "Bridgerton" references at the ceremony, but Hinton and Rae liked that.

"What I loved about the wedding was that it wasn't too much," Rae said. "I loved that they didn't make it too much in the period style. They made it in the period style, but more of us as well. It was like a mixture of who we are."

Hinton and Rae added that they were focused only on each other during the wedding and didn't truly appreciate the decoration until after the service.

"The best part was seeing Tiffani come down the aisle because of the anticipation," Hinton said. "I was just like, 'I have to see her. I'm waiting to see. I can't see her.' So to finally have that moment just to see her beautiful smile just lit up the room, I was just bawled."

Rae said: "I was crying every second. After we got married and I was able to sit and look around, I was like, 'Oh, that's so beautiful.'"

The wedding reception was held at The Lanesborough Hotel, another 18th-century house that hosts a "Bridgerton" themed afternoon tea.

This was where the "Bridgerton" theme really kicked in. The venue featured the ice sculpture with the couple's crest and was covered in flowers.

The dining room looked like a banquet hall, with huge floral displays and candles decorated with floral imagery and the couple's crest.

Rosheuvel, Andoh, and Drysdale also returned to congratulate the couple and introduce another special guest.

Hinton and Rae were told during the planning stages that they would be treated to a performance of a new "Bridgerton" love song for their first dance.

At the reception, Grammy-winning artist Tori Kelly surprised the pair and performed "All I Want," an original song that appeared in "Bridgerton" season three.

Hinton said this was a "mind-blowing" moment for her.

"It gave me goosebumps. I didn't know what to do with myself. I was just holding Tiff the whole time, just in shock that she was there," Hinton said. "I was a huge fan of Tori Kelly when she was on YouTube doing her singing covers."

After their dream wedding, the couple is trying to find the right time to go on their honeymoon.

"This is like a dream come true for us to finally get married in this way, and to showcase it to the world is a bonus," Rae said.

• Nike just said its sales will fall over the coming quarters, sending its shares down 20%.
• The sportswear brand has started implementing a turnaround plan, but the results are yet to be seen.
• Nike's reliance on its lifestyle business seems to be hurting it, one analyst said.

Nike is facing one of the most challenging periods in decades.

In December, the company announced a cost-cutting initiative that included simplifying its assortment of products and cutting jobs.

The aim was to deliver up to $2 billion in savings over the next three years, which "will be invested to fuel future growth, accelerate innovation at speed and scale, and drive greater long-term profitability."

Two quarters on, investors aren't seeing much of that growth.

On Thursday, Nike delivered a lackluster set of Q4 results and said it expects sales for its 2025 fiscal year to fall by mid-single digits, including a 10% drop in the first quarter alone. That shocked investors, especially as analysts had expected a 1% increase this year, according to Reuters.

Some major reasons included a tougher sales environment in China, ongoing challenges with its digital platform, and what Nike CFO Matthew Friend described as "muted" forward wholesale orders with "newness not yet at scale."

It doesn't look like it's going to get better very quickly, either, with Friend saying on the earnings call that the "next few quarters will be challenging."

Meantime, CEO John Donahue said that 2025 "will be a transition year for our business."

None of it impressed investors much. Nike's shares closed down 20% on Friday afternoon.

So, how can the biggest name in sneakers get its stride back?

One answer rests in what the company calls its "lifestyle" business — basically, shoes and clothing meant for casual wear. Nike's "performance" segment, meanwhile, includes many of its core sports products, such as basketball shoes.

While revenue from performance products grew in Q4, declines in its lifestyle business overshadowed them, contributing to the worse-than-expected results.

In its last fiscal year, lifestyle products have grown to about 60% of Nike's business, UBS analyst Jay Sole estimates.

Dividing sales more evenly between performance and lifestyle products would help Nike "restore its image as a sports brand and make its top-line growth rate more sustainable for the long term," he wrote in a note.

"One of our big takeaways from Nike's 4Q report is its lifestyle business needs a major reset," Sole said.

The company has also lost ground to rivals when it comes to connecting directly with customers.

Members of run clubs in Portland, near Nike's headquarters, say that they have been visited by representatives from smaller brands like Hoka and New Balance — but no one from Nike, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

CEO Donahue noted that road running "remains a competitive battlefield that we are playing to win" on the call.

Another issue is Nike's pipeline of new products.

Nike has been cutting back on some popular shoe lines to get people hyped about new ones. On Thursday's call, Donahue pointed to areas where Nike has introduced new products, from fitness leggings aimed at female consumers to shoes specifically for road runners.

That could help drive performance sales — especially those through Nike's digital business, a major pain point at the moment for the company.

But Donahue also referenced products that were still in development or months away from release. He teased new versions of Nike's Pegasus and Vomero running shoes, for instance, that aren't scheduled to hit shelves until the second half of fiscal 2025 while referencing a "strong wholesale order book" for coming seasons.

"Talking about newness not in stores doesn't work anymore," Jefferies analyst Randal Konik wrote.

While CFO Friend said management is "confident that we are repositioning Nike to be more competitive," investors have yet to be convinced.

"This is still [Nike] and the right strategy could turn the business," BMO analyst Simeon Siegel wrote in a note after Thursday's earnings report. "But we're not convinced that strategy is presently in place."

• US consumer spending — especially on physical goods — has been in a yearlong squeeze.
• Even as inflation cools, high prices are still putting a dent in household budgets.
• The increased frugality means retail brands are having to balance creativity and discipline.

US consumers are in a weird place this summer.

People are still spending money, but there's an uncomfortable awareness that years of price hikes mean each dollar doesn't go as far as it used to.

Over the past year or so, US shoppers have been dialing back on buying physical goods while still springing for travel, restaurants, and other experiences.

And even though prices have largely slowed from their pandemic-era increases, they're still up roughly 20% from 2020 and unlikely to tick back down.

That's putting a sizable dent in household budgets.

Joseph Lewis, 33, told Bloomberg he has been looking for ways to preserve the financial cushion his family managed to pull together in 2021.

"We're in a space where we have to be financially creative in terms of really figuring out what it is you can do without and even what it is that you can perhaps do on your own," he said.

Now, retail brands are feeling the pinch from this slow-moving slowdown.

This week, both Nike and Walgreens reported earnings that were challenged by declining sales.

The shoemaker responded by saying it would reallocate $1 billion to "consumer-facing" initiatives to spur demand, while the drug store said it would close a "significant" portion of more than 2,000 underperforming locations in the next three years.

Meanwhile, Lowe's CEO Marvin Ellison said things are going more or less according to plan for the home improvement retailer, which is to say not great.

"This consumer remains very cautious, specifically when you think about larger ticket discretionary purchases," he told Oppenheimer analysts Wednesday. "The sentiment for the DIY consumer remains a bit weak."

"We think it's going to be focused more on smaller projects and looking for value, and we are working to position ourselves to be in that space as effectively as we can," he added.

And for Walmart, which has fared quite well through this belt-tightening phase, CFO John David Rainey on Tuesday described customers as being "choiceful."

"If you look at our revenue growth, though, it's almost entirely driven by units versus price," he said, meaning that the retail giant is making more of its money from bigger shopping baskets than from higher prices.

The corporate commentary comes on the heels of reports from the Federal Reserve Banks of San Francisco and Philadelphia, which find a more precarious situation this year for US households compared with last year.

The San Francisco Fed said last month that the $2.1 trillion worth of "excess savings" in consumer accounts has been fully depleted, and the Philadelphia Fed found this month that higher-income households reported an increased concern regarding their ability to "make ends meet" over the coming year.

None of this is to say the economy is in a bad spot right now, but for a lot of folks it doesn't exactly feel good either, and that is a sentiment retailers are going to need to address with a mix of creativity and discipline.

Creativity — as a few companies have shown this year — means investing in products, services, and prices that get customers excited, while discipline is making sure the math still works for the business.

It doesn't have to be complicated, either. Look no further than Costco's beloved hot dog combo or Arizona Iced Tea founder Don Vultaggio, who made headlines for his commitment to keeping his price at 99 cents per can.

"We're successful, we're debt-free, we own everything," he said. "Why have people who are having a hard time paying their rent have to pay more for our drink?"

• China and Russia have good reasons for their partnership beyond just driving America crazy.
• But there are plenty of issues that could derail this alliance.
• Successful alliances like NATO require partners to subordinate their interests for the common good.

During the darkest days of the Cold War, in the 1950s, the West worried that the Soviet Union and China had joined forces to form a massive Communist bloc.

But those fears proved overblown, as Beijing and Moscow soon went from allies to bitter enemies that clashed over their long border. Fast forward to today, and growing military ties have again raised the specter of a Sino-Russian alliance that unites two of the most powerful nations in the world.

But this partnership is not a solid alliance like NATO that's built on mutual defense and interoperability of its forces. "The Sino-Russian relationship is probably best characterized as a marriage of two imperfect partners who share a deeply cynical view of the U.S.-led international order but often hold divergent visions of the order that they believe should replace it," according to a report on Sino-Russian cooperation by the RAND Corp. think tank.

"These two imperfect partners realize some level of shared, albeit unequal, dependency while simultaneously harboring deep suspicions about whether they can trust or rely on the other," the study said.

This may be scant comfort to Western leaders who fear a scenario where Russian aggression in Europe is simultaneous with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which would overstretch US resources and allow America's allies to be overwhelmed.

Already, Russia's military and China's People's Liberation Army have held around 25 joint exercises since 2005, involving ships, aircraft and ground troops. Beijing and Moscow have teamed up to fly joint patrols, including a 2023 incident where they flew near South Korean airspace.

Equally important is that China has become a key enabler of Russia's war in Ukraine. With Western sanctions depriving Russia of key components such as electronics, China and its vast manufacturing base have emerged as a major supplier of microelectronics, drone parts, and other components.

But these don't equate to the sort of integrated operations practiced by the US and Britain in World War II, where American troops served under British commanders and vice versa, or by NATO today.

"Policymakers and planners should avoid overestimating the state of military cooperation and operational integration that exists between Russia and China," RAND warned.

Exercises involving Russian and Chinese forces have been "described as more 'parallel' than 'joint,' meaning that Russia's military and the PLA are given set tasks and timelines, perform them in synchronized yet independent fashion, and overall have limited interaction in such areas as planning and C2 [command and control]," RAND said. "For this reason, these exercises have in reality done relatively little to promote interoperability at either the operational or the tactical level."

The result is military cooperation that is more symbolic than practical. "China's commitment to the exercises is relatively low," RAND said. "The PLA [People's Liberation Army] sent around 3,200 soldiers to Russia's 300,000-strong Vostok 2018 exercise and just 1,600 to Russia's Tsentr-2019 exercise (in which the Russian side fielded almost 130,000 soldiers). It appears that the PLA is more interested in learning from Russia than in sharing insights into its own military capabilities or training as equal partners, whereas, for Russia, the goal is to present an image of joint cooperation with China to the West to counter an impression that Moscow is isolated and vulnerable."

Mark Cozad, who co-authored the RAND study, contrasted these arrangements with NATO or US-South Korean military integration. "NATO and the US-South Korea plan to fight as alliances which means that training needs to develop and train combined command and control, targeting, ISR [intelligence and reconnaissance], logistics, and operations among other areas," Cozad told Business Insider. "Also, there is a much more rigorous approach to training in these alliances meaning the training is generally much more realistic than what we see out of the Russians and Chinese."

Despite boasting of their military ties, Russia and China don't have much faith in each other's military prowess. After Russia's dismal combat performance in Ukraine, the question is "whether China would view the Russian military as a capable and useful coalition partner," the report said. On the other hand, given China's lack of recent combat experience, "Moscow may view the PLA as a well-resourced but questionable partner."

Some alliances are tighter than others. America and Britain were part of the Grand Alliance with the Soviet Union, in which Russia and the Western Allies waged parallel and mostly uncoordinated campaigns in an atmosphere of mutual distrust. Capitalist and Communist could agree on the need to defeat Hitler, but not much else.

In their 2001 friendship treaty, China and Russia did agree to consult with each other should either nation be attacked. But they didn't promise to fight on each other's behalf. "Notably, this agreement does not include a mutual defense clause," the RAND study pointed out.

Successful alliances require partners to subordinate their interests for the good of the alliance, and that's a huge problem for Russia and China. Both nations have a tradition of being the dominant partner in alliances and of bullying their allies, whether it was the Soviet Union bossing their Eastern European satellites, or China treating neighbors such as Vietnam and Korea as vassals.

"Neither China nor Russia has a recent history of an interoperable military alliance with any other country, much less any history of joint C2 [command and control] structures or devolving authority to field commanders to innovate and partner to solve operational challenges," said the report.

Besides the pleasure of driving America crazy, military cooperation between China and Russia does offer tangible benefits. China, which has not fought a war since invading Vietnam in 1979, can learn from Russian combat experience in Syria and Ukraine. Russia gets access to Chinese products that are under sanction in the West. Good relations means the 2,600-mile-long Russia-China border can be demilitarized, allowing forces to be concentrated in Ukraine or for an invasion of Taiwan.

Yet there are plenty of issues that could derail this alliance. One is the immense amount of historical baggage weighing down their relations. "The Russians and Chinese have had a mixed relationship for over 75 years at this point that has included both strategic partnership and intense hostility," Cozad noted.

China hasn't forgotten that Tsarist Russia annexed 350,000 square miles of Chinese territory in the 1850s. In 1969, Chinese and Russian troops fought border clashes along the Ussuri River (at one point, the Soviets considered a nuclear strike on China). Today, there is competition over Central Asia, Chinese unease over Russia's war in Ukraine, and the fact that Russia is inexorably becoming the junior partner as Chinese economic and military power grows.

Which raises the question: can the West exploit these potential divisions to break up the Sino-Russian alliance? RAND emphatically warns against trying. "We advocate not trying to undermine the Russia-China partnership because we don't have many tools or incentives that either of those two partners sees as more valuable than their partnership," Cozad said. While the Chinese may want things from the US, "they are skeptical that in five or 10 years that incentive can again be taken away and then they have damaged their relationship with Russia while losing that incentive."

Instead, RAND suggests that the best response would be for the US and its allies to ally more closely. "The most effective way for the United States to counter the Russia-China strategic partnership is by ensuring the health of its own alliances and pursuing ever greater cooperation with its most important allies and partners," the report recommended.

In the end, successful alliances are a mixture not just of national self-interest, but of shared values. That may be the real difference between an alliance like NATO, most of whose members share a belief in democracy, individual rights and free trade, versus a Sino-Russian friendship based on the question of "what's in it for me."

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Gunmen attacked Orthodox churches and synagogues in Dagestan on Sunday, killing around 20 people.
• The attacks raised questions about Russia's domestic security as it continues its war in Ukraine.
• Experts told BI that Russian security services were likely "distracted" by the invasion.

On Sunday evening, gunmen attacked two Orthodox churches and two synagogues in Russia's predominantly Muslim Dagestan region, hurling Molotov cocktails and exchanging fire with police.

The attacks, which killed around 20 people, raised major questions about whether the Kremlin has the resources to protect its citizens back home while pursuing its war in Ukraine.

The incident "caught security forces completely off guard," Lucas Webber, a research fellow at the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank, told Business Insider — despite the fact that it would have required "quite a bit of planning and preparation beforehand."

The attacks also illustrated "the diverse range of militant actors Russia has angered through its domestic and foreign policy actions," he added.

The Institute for the Study of War reported that the Islamic State's (IS) Northern Caucasus branch, Wilayat Kavkaz, was likely behind the attacks, noting that they had "increased fears within the Russian information space about further terrorist attacks and instability in the North Caucasus."

Five of the six gunmen said to have been killed in the attack also had connections to the Dagestan region's political elite, according to the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington DC-based think tank.

The attacks marked the latest in a series of major domestic security failures that have plagued Russia since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Such incidents have presented a major problem for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose reputation as a strongman able to guarantee security and order in Russia while also waging a war against Ukraine appears to be flailing.

Earlier this month, security forces stormed a detention center in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don where six inmates linked to Islamic State had taken two guards hostage. The inmates were killed, and the hostages were freed, Russian news agency Tass reported, citing Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service.

In March, gunmen entered the packed Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow, killing more than 140 people and leaving many more injured. Four men from Tajikistan were detained following the attack. Islamic State later claimed responsibility.

In October, a mob of protesters also ransacked Dagestan's main airport in search of Jewish people to target.

North Caucasus

Russia's North Caucasus region has a long history of rebellion against Kremlin rule, especially in Chechnya, where Russia battled separatists in two bloody wars — in 1994-1996 and then in 1999-2009.

But such violence became increasingly rare, with immense pressure from security services and developments in Syria and Iraq causing Islamic State's presence in the Caucasus to splinter, Mark Youngman, the founder of Threatologist, which analyzes Eurasian security risks and specializes in the North Caucasus, told BI.

"Since 2017, there has been no organized insurgency — no infrastructure, no leadership — challenging Russia's presence," Youngman said. "Since that point, most jihadist violence has been perpetrated by isolated individuals and small groups — people inspired by jihadist ideology, but lacking resources and connections."

Nevertheless, Russia remained a "priority enemy of Islamic State," Webber said — something he noted has been exacerbated by Russia's "2015 intervention in Syria, expanded private military companies activities across Africa, and strengthened ties with Iran and the Taliban."

Youngman said that part of the problem stems from Russia not taking "meaningful steps" to tackle the root causes that have fed support for radical ideologies in the region, such as "arbitrary behavior by the security services, human rights violations, poverty, corruption," and "lack of opportunities."

Russia has instead relied on force to counter insurgency, Youngman said.

Despite Sunday's incident being the second major terrorist attack in just three months, Russian security services "have not really changed their strategy," Harold Chambers, a political and security analyst specializing in the North Caucasus, told BI.

"Dagestan's authorities have been focused on hunting Ukrainian agents, real or fake, and followers of online opposition members," Chambers said. "Thus, the presence of radical actors who were publicly known went unaddressed."

Russia's security services "do not seem to possess the same level of intelligence about threats — or, if they do, they are not acting on it," Youngman added. They are "distracted by events in Ukraine."

• Daniella Glaeze documents her 3D printed home on TikTok, amassing millions of views.
• Icon and Lennar are building a community of 100 3D printed houses just north of Austin.
• The homes, made with "lavacrete" and featuring biophilic designs, offer energy efficiency.

3D printed houses may sound like they're from a future filled with hoverboards and holograms. But for Daniella Glaeze, she's already living it.

Glaeze began documenting her 3D printed home on TikTok shortly after moving into it in April. Her videos showing off the futuristic concrete house have garnered several million views — and questions.

"I'm definitely excited to bring some of this content to viewers and anyone interested in seeing the process and how these homes work," Glaeze told Business Insider.

"Homes," plural, because it's not just their house — it's a whole neighborhood. 3D printing construction startup Icon teamed up with home construction giant Lennar to build a community of 100 3D printed houses, called the Wolf Ranch, just north of Austin.

According to Icon, 95 of the homes already have their wall systems printed and all 100 are expected to be complete by 2025, but residents like Glaeze have already begun to move in.

First-time homeowners Glaeze and her husband, who are both software engineers, became interested after seeing some of these houses on TikTok.

"We're both in tech, so we know the type of engineering and innovation that goes into creating something like this, so we were really intrigued," Glaeze said.

The homes are built using a massive gantry-style printer, called the Vulcan Construction System, which spans 45.5 feet wide and 15.5 feet tall.

In one TikTok with over 4 million views, Glaeze toured her home, which has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a garage. Several commenters were worried about the potential of grime settling in the ribbed wall ridges, one writing, "I can't stop thinking about all the dust that would collect on the walls."

However, Glaeze reassured that despite the unmistakable grooves, she had yet to encounter any dust build-up. She said that a wipe or handheld vacuum has gotten the job done.

"The ridges on the wall are not like little shelves, they're very thin," she said. "Even if dust were to collect, I don't think it'd be very noticeable, and the walls are very easy to clean, honestly."

The simple solution seemed to be mirrored in most of her responses to other questions people brought up. Yes, you can hang things on the wall using a concrete bit. Yes, you can paint the walls with an airbrush. And yes, you can make the walls flat by sanding or using plaster.

"The walls are the only thing that are concrete and printed in the foundation," Glaeze said. "Everything else, like the electricity, the roof, the doors — they're all like a traditional home."

In fact, the only issue she has come across has been a spotty WiFi connection due to the thick concrete material, which she has combated with a WiFi booster.

So why print your home?

"My favorite thing about living in a 3D printed house is really the aesthetic," Glaeze said. "I think it's really cool; it's something new that's also different and innovative. "

Icon, which codesigned the homes with architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group, told Business Insider that aside from added structural support, 3D printing offers architectural freedom that would be far more expensive with traditional construction. They particularly lean into biophilic designs that include more organic forms with rounded edges and curves, the company said.

Glaze said she loves how the curved walls make "the whole house feel very seamless and clean" and has been experimenting with different light fixtures that "reflect really cool with the layers."

"It's really cool to see how people get creative with decorating the home," she said. "I have a neighbor who's playing with different light and textures and abstract art that pops off the walls."

Glaeze also said the thick concrete material, dubbed "lavacrete" by Icon, is not only well-insulated to keep temperatures cool against the Texas heat, but has also been "really sturdy" against rainstorms and outside noise.

"They have a lot of drills and heavy machinery outside, and I don't hear anything," she said. "I am sensitive to super loud sounds so being in this house is so quiet and so peaceful."

Icon said its wall systems had been tested against hurricane standard winds and also announced in March a new formulation of lavacrete called CarbonX, a lower carbon emission cement material that will be used for the remaining wall systems.

3D printing promises to be cheaper — soon

While one of Glaeze's biggest incentives for moving in was the house's "really good interest rate," the actual price is pretty on par with other properties in the area.

Since the homes in this neighborhood are being sold by Lennar, their pricing is dictated by the current market, Icon said. According to the company's website, the homes range from $425,000 to $585,000.

However, Icon said that homeowners have reported lower lifecycle costs and utility bills due to higher energy efficiencies. It also said 3D printing offers lower construction costs and faster development.

According to the company, its robotic system typically requires two people to operate, and each wall system in Wolf Ranch took, on average, two weeks to complete.

"One thing that Icon told me is they do want to combat the housing crisis," Glaeze said. "They want to have more affordable and efficient homes."

• After a shockingly weak debate performance, President Joe Biden is asking voters not to count him out.
• But looking past worries over Biden's mental acuity and ability would mean ignoring obvious flaws.
• In that way, Biden's strategy to ignore and deflect looks similar to how Trump campaigns.

After a shockingly weak debate performance, President Joe Biden is employing a Trumpian strategy: asking voters not to count him out despite obvious flaws in his campaign and to look past the questions of his fitness for office.

"I would not be running again if I didn't believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this job," 81-year-old Biden said Friday, attempting to reassure the crowd at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds.

But that's not what it looked like on Thursday when Biden floundered in his debate performance against former President Donald Trump, political strategists told Business Insider.

"It was a disaster for President Biden," Alex Zdan, GOP political strategist and former New Jersey Republican candidate for US Senate, told BI. "It was a train wreck, impacting a volcano, going into a black hole, going into a comet. It was the worst-case scenario. It was everyone's fears come true. It got so bad, it's to the point where conservative Republicans, who never thought they'd feel this way before, are expressing empathy for the president."

Some of Biden's most loyal Democratic defenders have now publicly called on him to leave the race. So far, Biden has ignored those calls and urged voters to overlook his tired and, at times, incoherent debate performance.

"I don't walk as easy I as used to," Biden said Friday in North Carolina. "I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth."

Representatives for the Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

But looking past worries over Biden's mental acuity and ability would mean ignoring obvious flaws — likely to the detriment of his own campaign, two public relations experts said.

"Given the conversation surrounding his age and the public being worried about his mental state, that performance could have swayed some undecided voters to either vote for Donald Trump or simply not vote at all," David Triana, a consultant for Triana PR, told BI. "Given how members of the Democratic Party are suggesting Biden should step aside and give someone else an opportunity this November, and the media seemingly propping up Gavin Newsom to do just that, I think this crisis reached DEFCON 1."

Biden's current refusal to acknowledge his shortcomings and his persistence in the race despite calls to drop out has begun to echo Trump's typical strategy of ignoring and deflecting criticism, Triana said. Dustin Siggins, a former political journalist turned PR consultant, agreed.

Both candidates are stubborn, Siggins said, and that stubbornness has bred success in spheres where it can be rewarded: politics and business.

"However, Trump's habit is both a choice and part of his natural personality," Siggins told BI. "Joe Biden, as we saw on Thursday night, seems too cognitively impaired to understand how he came across to the entire country."

Not everyone sees Biden's persistence in the race as an act of ego or hubris. Brand strategist Rebecca Horan called it "par for the course for any politician."

"For one thing, he is still president, so stepping down from the race due to his age might seem like he is conceding the MAGA Republicans' case that he is not an effective president. It's easy to understand why someone would have difficulty doing that," Horan told BI. "I also believe there's some optimism — an 'I can fix this' stance — to Biden's persistence, where he does believe he is doing this for the good of the country."

If it got to the point where the overwhelming sentiment within the Democratic Party was that Biden should step down, Triana said he believes Biden would — another difference between the two candidates.

Where the similarities end

Another Trump presidency would mean a vastly different America than if Biden won a second term. Trump has promised his second term would be categorized by "revenge" against his political enemies; he has threatened to indict Biden if the federal courts don't grant him immunity from prosecution, and authoritarianism expert Timothy Snyder worries democracy may not survive if Trump wins again.

Trump has asked the American people to ignore the events of January 6, 2021, and his lies around the 2020 election. He's asked that they ignore that he was convicted on 34 felony counts related to hush money payments to a porn actor. He'd rather voters forget that he still faces three additional criminal cases — including two that center on allegations that he attempted to overthrow American democracy — and that he was impeached twice during his first term.

He also wants us to forget his lies, of which there were at least 30 on Thursday night (compared to Biden's nine, a fact-checker found). These included vastly overstating the economy's health during his tenure, exaggerating the size of the US's trade deficit with China, and falsely claiming the Biden administration is weak on border policy.

The GOP has, for the most part, gamely followed this selective amnesia. Politicians that haven't have largely been primaried or siloed to be talking heads on cable TV.

When BI reached out for comment, representatives for the Trump campaign declined to answer questions about similarities between Trump and Biden. Instead, a spokesperson pointed to the former president's recent statement declaring victory during Thursday's debate.

A harm to democracy?

The election will ultimately be decided by Independents, undecided voters, and anyone who might stay home. To have a chance, Biden will need that constituency to ignore his poor debate performance and questions about his age. So the question becomes: Will they come November?

Even some of Biden's most strident supporters are worried he's no longer the country's greatest chance of defeating Trump and has instead become a liability in the fight against him.

"One of the key arguments for Biden is saving democracy: 'Trump tried to lead an insurrection on January 6, and I'm the one that will stop that,'" Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at USC, told BI. "If there are now Democrats calling for Biden to step down or not run, it sort of messes up that narrative."

Qasim Rashid, a human rights lawyer and former Democratic candidate for congressional seats in Virginia and Illinois, told BI there needs to be an off-ramp built for Biden that protects his dignity and his legacy and "allows us to continue our momentum on the values of protecting democracy, fighting for economic justice and ensuring that 2024 is not the last presidential election, but a stepping stone to 2028, 2032 and so on."

"At the end of the day, for me, the top priority is, how do we protect our democracy?" Rashid said. "And if the evidence shows that that's with Biden, OK — but I think the evidence is now starting to show, pretty compellingly, that there's a better alternative, and we should take that seriously. Whether Biden and his team and the Democratic Party listen to that, it's up to them."

The New York Times Editorial Board argued that Biden's staying in the race could ultimately be a detriment to democracy. In an opinion article published Friday, the board stated that the greatest act of public service Biden could do now would be to end his campaign for reelection.

Refusing to do so, the board wrote, puts America at risk of the very fate Biden aimed to avoid by running in the first place: a second Trump presidency.

"The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can't continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November," The Times' board wrote. "It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long."

• President Joe Biden had a disastrous debate night against Donald Trump on Thursday.
• The president, 81, coughed, stumbled upon his words, and didn't complete some sentences.
• His performance did little to convince voters that he's fit for office, The New York Times Editorial Board wrote.

After President Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance on Thursday night against former President Donald Trump, The New York Times Editorial Board has declared that it's seen enough: Biden should step aside.

The Times editorial board, which provides opinions on critical issues facing the country at the moment, published a column on Friday criticizing Biden's performance and wrote that it did little to convince American voters that the 81-year-old president is fit for another term.

"The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant," the editorial board wrote. "He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump's provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures, and his chilling plans. More than once, he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence."

The board praised Biden's accomplishments in the past three years, calling him an "admirable president," but concluded that "the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for reelection."

A spokesperson for Biden's campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

The Times' editorial board, which typically leans left on issues, has previously called on Biden to take voters' concerns about age seriously.

And Thursday's debate only cemented those concerns that the editorial board argued won't be dispelled through more public appearances.

The New York Times newsroom, which operates independently from the editorial board, has been criticized by the Biden campaign and some of the left for its coverage of the president.

Biden's team has bristled at the newspaper's coverage of the administration and the president, while a spokesperson for The Times has criticized the White House for lack of access for journalists.

"Mr. Biden has granted far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews with independent journalists than virtually all of his predecessors," The Times' spokesperson wrote in an April statement.

A Times spokesperson declined to comment.

The editorial board acknowledged in the column that Trump's debate performance should also be disqualifying, as the former president repeatedly misled and lied throughout the debate.

But the board wrote that Republicans aren't interested in "deeper soul-searching" and that the party has been hijacked by Trump.

The editorial board also wrote that Trump poses a serious threat to democracy and that if the choice came down to him and Biden, the board's "unequivocal pick" would be the sitting president.

"That is how much of a danger Mr. Trump poses," the board wrote. "But given that very danger, the stakes for the country, and the uneven abilities of Mr. Biden, the United States needs a stronger opponent to the presumptive Republican nominee."