• An Egyptian spy ruined a potential cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.
• The intelligence official added more of Hamas' demands after Israel had already agreed to the deal, CNN reports.
• Israel, the US, and Qatar were reportedly blindsided by the secret changes.

An Egyptian spy torpedoed a potential cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas earlier this month by secretly changing its terms before handing it between the warring sides, CNN reports.

The intelligence official, Ahmed Abdel Khalek, changed the deal after Israel had already agreed to it by adding in more of Hamas' demands to the framework to clinch their approval, according to the report.

Abdel Khalek works for Abbas Kamel, according to CNN, who is the head of Egypt's general intelligence service.

One of the biggest points of contention in the deal was a call for "sustainable calm" to be reached in its second phase, according to CNN. Israel is opposed to discussing an end to the war until Hamas is defeated and all of its hostages are freed, the outlet reports.

If it had been passed, the deal could have seen the release of some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners and temporarily paused combat. US officials have pushed for a temporary cease-fire in the hopes that a stop to the fighting could open the possibility to a more lasting peace.

Officials involved in the talks from Qatar, the US, and Israel were blindsided and angered by the spy's secret changes, according to CNN.

Neither the CIA nor the State Department immediately responded to Business Insider's requests for comment.

Hamas announced it had agreed to the deal on May 6, which Qatar and Egypt helped negotiate. At the time, an anonymous Israeli official told Reuters the announcement was a "ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal."

Mediators had hoped the deal would stave off Israel's incursion into Rafah, which is now expanding.

The scuttled cease-fire also dashes a priority for US President Joe Biden. Biden is locked in a tight race with rival Donald Trump, but the Democrat is facing a revolt from left-wing voters who accuse him of supporting the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza by sending Israel weaponry.

• Donald Trump's presidency began with business leaders eager to help him in building up the economy.
• Many business leaders praised his tax overhaul, which lowered the corporate tax rate.
• But after the 2017 Unite the Right rally, Trump was widely criticized for his response to the violent event.

When Donald Trump first ran for the presidency, he pledged to run the United States like a business.

"If we could run our country the way I've run my company, we would have a country that you would be so proud of," he said during an October 2016 debate with his then-opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

After Trump was elected to the White House, he brought along key figures like financier and film producer Steve Mnuchin, who became his Treasury secretary; onetime Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn, who became the director of the National Economic Council; and businessman Wilbur Ross, who served as Commerce secretary.

Leaning in to his pro-business ideology, Trump worked to cut regulations across the federal government and signed into law his signature $1.5 trillion tax plan that Republicans were able to muscle through Congress as the majority party. The plan, which was opposed by congressional Democrats, was the broadest overhaul of the tax code in decades.

For much of the business community, the law, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, was a long-awaited achievement.

But Trump's presidency also featured some high-profile clashes that, over time, caused him to become a polarizing figure among leaders who often agreed with him on many policy issues. As Trump touts his past stewardship of the economy ahead of November, here's a look at his relationship with the business community during his first term:

One of their own

Decades before Trump went into national politics, he rose to national prominence as a wealthy real estate developer and businessman. As a presidential candidate, Trump's background was unique in that he had neither served as a governor or as a member of Congress, nor did he have a military background.

But in a presidential year when many GOP voters were looking for a change agent, his business background gave him a major boost as a political outsider.

For many in the business world, Trump was essentially one of their own. His relationship with top corporate leaders started off on a high note, especially after he hosted a dozen chief executives (which included Tesla founder Elon Musk) at the White House during his first week in office, where he emphasized his desire to enact tax cuts.

However, Trump's relationships with many of these leaders disintegrated in the aftermath of the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where white nationalist groups unleashed a wave of violence. Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old woman who was assembled with a crowd of counter-protesters in downtown Charlottesville, was killed after a white supremacist drove into the group.

Trump, days after the incident, sought to highlight that some attendees were protesting the removal of a Confederate statue and weren't in Charlottesville to cause trouble, but the remarks backfired spectacularly.

"You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides," he said. "I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch."

After the comments, Kenneth Frazier, then the chief executive of Merck, stepped down from Trump's manufacturing council.

"America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal," he said at the time.

Under Armour's Kevin Plank, 3M's Inge Thulin, and Intel's Brian Krzanich, among others, resigned as well.

Trump then abruptly disbanded the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum.

The infrastructure plot

Trump in July 2017 signed an executive order for the creation of an infrastructure advisory council, similar to his other councils, but he eventually nixed it.

The inaction regarding the infrastructure council mirrored Trump's eventual inaction in advancing a comprehensive infrastructure plan, despite his contention that he would rebuild America's roads and bridges, especially in the hard-hit Rust Belt communities that were struggling to recover from factory closures and declining tax bases.

Even the promise of an "Infrastructure Week" became a long-running punchline. Trump put forward plans to spend between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion on infrastructure in both 2017 and 2018.

But he became sidetracked whenever he sought to lay out a plan.

During a Rose Garden event in June 2017, Trump accused the former FBI director Jim Comey of lying under oath before Congress — taking him away from his intended focus on infrastructure. In August 2017, a Trump Tower event meant to provide updates about Trump's infrastructure plan became dominated by his response to the violence in Charlottesville. And in February 2018, Trump's infrastructure proposal took a back seat amid accusations of misconduct by two close aides.

Trump's plans to repair the nation's bridges, ports, and railways didn't move forward in 2018 — even though the GOP had full control of Congress until January 2019.

"We have a very important election coming up, and they don't like the wins we've been getting," Trump said in 2018, seeking to shift blame on the infrastructure inaction to Democrats.

Even after the 2018 midterms — when Democrats retook the House but Republicans retained control of the Senate — Trump never got a major infrastructure plan through Congress.

That task became a rallying call for his successor, President Joe Biden, who in November 2021 signed into law a landmark $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which funded everything from port upgrades and Amtrak grants to critical bridge repairs and high-speed broadband.

Turning to tech

During the 2016 presidential race, many top tech executives threw their support behind Clinton's campaign.

But after the election, Trump invited a broad array of tech leaders to Trump Tower and expressed a desire to work with them on innovation. During the December 2016 meeting, the group spoke about job creation, trade, and infrastructure, according to Trump's then-transition team.

One of those leaders in attendance was Musk, years before he'd go on to acquire Twitter and rebrand it as X.

In June 2016, Trump met with top tech executives including Apple's Tim Cook and Amazon's Jeff Bezos to devise a solution for overhauling the federal government's information technology systems. But the meeting came as many leaders remained staunchly opposed to Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris climate accord earlier that month. (Biden rejoined the agreement in January 2021.)

Cook at the time told Apple employees that he tried to convince Trump to remain in the accord, but said his appeal "wasn't enough."

In 2020, several tech leaders — including Cook — were critical of Trump's visa restrictions that would impact highly-skilled foreign workers in the industry. The Trump administration at the time said the move was made to afford positions to American workers during the pandemic.

Cook at the time said he was "deeply disappointed" by the move.

"Like Apple, this nation of immigrants has always found strength in our diversity, and hope in the enduring promise of the American Dream," the executive added.

Ahead of the November election, Trump is looking to Silicon Valley — where Biden has considerable support — as he looks to erase a sizable financial gap with his Democratic rival.

• Red Lobster fans clamored for sentimental items from the iconic chain, but they were out of luck.
• The contents of each shuttered location were only auctioned off en masse, winner takes all.
• The stockpile of equipment from 52 locations sold for between $10,000 and $35,000. 

Red Lobster superfans were desperate to get their hands on sentimental items from the iconic restaurant chain before dozens of locations were laid to rest.

Some love the restaurant so much that they wanted to buy their favorite tables before they were gone, according to a liquidator who auctioned off everything inside the stores.

Red Lobster, the largest seafood restaurant chain in the world, began abruptly closing stores across the country last week. As of May 15, at least 99 locations had closed in at least 27 states, ABC News reported.

Then, on Monday, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Among the reasons: its iconic endless-shrimp promotion cost the chain millions.

With so many locations shuttering their doors, the equipment inside had to go somewhere, so Red Lobster hired TAGeX Brands, a liquidation company charged with auctioning off the entire contents of 52 locations.

But rather than sell off all those lobster tanks and fish fryers piecemeal, TAGeX held one auction for each location — winner takes all.

TAGeX's founder and CEO Neal Sherman told Business Insider that only two groups of people participated in the auctions: wholesalers of used equipment and restaurant operators.

But that left out the superfans who just wanted a piece of the pie for sentimental reasons, and Sherman said hundreds of them reached out to his company.

"They wanted the table where the first date was of their spouse, a table where their high school buddies would get together every year at, you know, the sentimental value, which often happens," Sherman told BI.

"And then we just kept trying to tell 'em, look, it's like a truckload of equipment. Do you really want that in your backyard?" Sherman added.

Sherman said that even among the equipment wholesalers and restaurant operators, he was surprised by how much interest there was. Bidding wars even broke out, with each location getting between 12 and 25 unique bidders — much more than his company expected, Sherman said.

At the time the auctions closed, TAGeX's website showed that the entire contents of each location sold for between $10,000 and $35,000. That included everything from upright refrigerators and microwaves to fish tanks, furniture, and, in some cases, decor.

Winners didn't get any perishable items like food or leftover alcohol, or things like salt and pepper shakers, which Red Lobster redistributed to its still-operating locations, Sherman said.

Sherman said tens of thousands of people visited the auction website before it closed on May 16. The winning bidders only had one day to haul out their spoils from the now-dark locations.

"I knew that people really had a passion for Red Lobster. I didn't know it was this passionate," Sherman said. "The biscuits? I've never had them, but I got to go try some now. I was watching my weight, but I'm going to go try some."

• Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is airing an ad touting his position on abortion.
• Hogan, a Republican, has said he supports codifying Roe into law.
• His ad illustrates just how much the politics have changed on abortion rights since Roe reversal.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is betting big that he can mollify the tidal wave Republicans have faced in the wake of Roe v. Wade's reversal in his bid to help the GOP retake the Senate.

In his first general election ad published on Tuesday, Hogan publicized his previous promise to codify Roe v. Wade into law if he's elected this November. President Joe Biden and Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to restore nationwide abortion rights since the Supreme Court issued its landmark reversal of Roe in 2022.

Hogan is taking on Prince George's County executive Angela Alsbrooks. Alsobrooks prevailed last week over Rep. David Trone after a bruising Democratic primary. Trone, who amassed a fortune thanks to co-founding Total Wine, spent over $60 million trying to defeat her.

Maryland's election will be one of most closely watched Senate races this November.

Hogan's position makes him one of the few prominent Republicans to support abortion rights. Both parties have seen the number of dissenters on abortion rights dwindle as views on the issue have hardened in recent years. In the Senate, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are the only Republicans who support codifying Roe into law. Anti-abortion advocates, who strongly support many other Republicans, spent decades laying the groundwork to overturn Roe.

Republicans have struggled nationally to figure out how to talk about abortion. Former President Donald Trump angered some of his allies by announcing that he would largely leave the issue up to the states.

Hogan is far from a vocal abortion rights supporter.

As The Associated Press pointed out, he vetoed a 2022 bill that proposed to expand abortion access in Maryland. When the legislature overrode his veto, Hogan used his power to block funding that would have supported training non-physicians on how to perform abortions. When he first announced his Senate run, Hogan initially said he needed to think more about his position on abortion rights. He then quickly came out in favor of codifying Roe.

A former two-term governor, Hogan has to navigate running for the Senate in a state that hasn't elected a GOP senator since 1980. Still, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell views Hogan as a prized recruit due to the former governor's proven ability to win.

Republicans are in a tough spot on abortion.

The Supreme Court's Dodds ruling triggered a backlash that hit Republicans particularly hard in the 2022 midterms. Some GOP officials have tried to support antiabortion rights groups when the issue has come on the ballot. That hasn't worked either. Abortion rights advocates are undefeated on ballot-related issues since Roe.

Democrats have already placed abortion rights on the Florida ballot this November. A similar effort is pending in Arizona, a key swing state. Recent history shows that ballot measures likely won't be a big boost for Biden. But the president's reelection needs all the help it can get when faced with his horrendous approval rating.

Hogan would also be outnumbered if he wins. His upset would almost certainly hand the GOP control of the Senate. No Republican Senate is going to make a serious effort to codify Roe, given the party's near-universal support to restrict abortion rights. Even if Hogan found a way to force a vote, the filibuster would kill it rather quickly. The reality is that if Republicans hold the House and retake the Senate and presidency in November, it's far more likely the GOP will face pressure to impose some sort of national abortion ban.

Trump has said he wouldn't sign such a ban into law, but a GOP-controlled House, along with anti-abortion activists, may find ways to test him. Some of Trump's allies have also theorized ways to use the White House's power to restrict access to abortion without needing to pass a law.

• A new report from Forbes Advisor ranked US states by risk of cat and dog illnesses.
• They analyzed 19 different diseases throughout the US, including Lyme Disease, rabies, and worms.
• Here are the top 10 riskiest states for your pet's health, and how you can protect them.

Spring has sprung, and with warmer weather comes the start of a far less pleasant time of year: tick season. As ticks become more active this spring, both humans and their pets will be at greater risk of diseases like Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and ehrlichiosis.

But a new science report from Forbes Advisor, the analysis arm of Forbes, could help you protect your pets from tick-borne diseases and other harmful infections.

The report analyzed 19 dog and cat diseases across the US from six pet health and infectious disease organizations, including the Center for Disease Control and the American Veterinary Medical Association. It uncovered the riskiest states for pets, and the data might just save your pet's life.

"As a pet owner, you want to do the very best job taking care of your pet," and this report will hopefully better equip pet owners to do exactly that by spreading awareness, Alexandria Cremer, a Forbes senior PR strategist involved with the report, told Business Insider.

Here are the 10 riskiest states for your pet, the most common diseases to watch out for, and some basic tips for keeping your pet happy and healthy.

Top 10 riskiest states for your pet

Forbes Advisor created its own ranking scale based on data from all 19 diseases. The scale ranges from zero to 100, and states with higher scores have a greater risk of these diseases.

These were the 10 riskiest states, according to the data:

1. West Virginia Score: 100
2. Rhode Island Score: 80.71
3. New Jersey Score: 74.1
4. Kentucky Score: 73.91
5. Maine Score: 71.3
6. Oklahoma Score: 70.15
7. New York Score: 66.23
8. Mississippi Score: 65.88
9. Indiana Score: 65.69
10. Pennsylvania Score: 64.75

Some key takeaways: Five of the top 10 riskiest states for your pet are on the East Coast (Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania).

Two of these 10 states, West Virginia and Maine, were also among the top three riskiest states for tick-borne diseases. And Pennsylvania recorded the most cases of rabies (237) in cats between 2017 to 2021.

The most common diseases to watch out for

Ticks

Tick-borne diseases like Lyme Disease, anaplasmosis, and ehrlichiosis are especially common in the spring and summer months.

Arkansas, Maine, and West Virginia ranked highest in tick-borne diseases out of all 50 states. But regionally, the East Coast — and especially the Northeast — showed the highest risk of tick-borne disease.

These bacterial infections can turn deadly if not treated quickly, so it's important to watch your pet for symptoms. Fever, lethargy, loss of appetite, and joint stiffness or pain are all common symptoms of these three tick-borne diseases.

Parasites

Ticks aren't the only tiny critters that can get your pet sick. Parasites like worms can wriggle their way into your pets' bodies when they ingest contaminated substances like dirt or feces, or when an infected insect — like fleas and mosquitos — bite your pet.

Roundworms are the most common intestinal parasites in cats and dogs. The top three states with the highest risk of roundworm were South Dakota, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

This parasite poses the biggest risk to puppies and kittens, so it's important to deworm them every two weeks until they're three months old, according to Companion Veterinary Clinic. Watch for symptoms like a distended belly, weight loss, diarrhea, vomiting, and loss of appetite.

Viruses

Cats and dogs can catch viruses too. The risk of dog flu, a highly contagious respiratory virus, was highest in New Mexico, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

Most dogs recover from the flu in two to three weeks, but it's still important to look for the symptoms so that you can keep them properly hydrated, rested, and fed while they recover. Symptoms include a runny nose, fever, lethargy, runny eyes, and loss of appetite, according to the FA report.

Feline immunodeficiency virus is one of the most common diseases that infect cats. Kentucky and Mississippi showed the highest risk of this disease.

It's dangerous because infected cats may not display any symptoms for years, but all the while, this virus is causing lasting damage to their immune systems. Though the early signs are hard to see, you can catch them one to three months following infection if you know what to look for including swollen lymph nodes, fever, depression, and lack of appetite, according to Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine.

How to keep your pet safe

No matter where you live, there are some preventative measures that every pet owner can take to protect their pet's health.

Scheduling annual vet check-ups to make sure your pet is up to date on their vaccines is a great place to start, according to the animal rescue Brandywine Valley SPCA.

It's also important to keep up with preventative medication. Experts recommend giving your pet heartworm, flea, and tick medication once a month, all year round, and routinely checking your pet's fur and skin for ticks, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the FDA.

Trips to the vet can get expensive, especially if your pet needs emergency care or surgery. Emergency vet bills range from $150 to $5,000 on average in the US, MetLife reports. Consider purchasing pet insurance to help cover unexpected costs. Depending on your pet's breed, age, and other factors, pet insurance can range from $48 to $68 per month per dog and $28 to $40 monthly per cat, according to a separate report from Forbes Advisor.

And last, but certainly not least, making sure your pet gets proper nutrition, hydration, exercise, and mental stimulation is key to keeping them happy and healthy, according to the Animal Foundation.

• Scarlett Johansson says the voice for OpenAI's chatbot is "eerily similar" to hers.
• Between this and the fiasco last November when Sam Altman was pushed out, it seems like a mess.
• These are the people who are supposed to be bringing us the future? 

OpenAI's fight with Scarlett Johansson isn't just a PR disaster (and a big one at that). It also reveals a troubling attitude about people's intellectual property — and even their voice.

Most of all, it shows there's just really, really bad judgment going on at the highest levels of Sam Altman's company.

Let's say ScarJo had actually agreed to do the voice of "Sky" for ChatGPT instead of Altman's company hiring someone else to play the breathy, flirty female part. In this scenario, the voice would be not just vaguely reminiscent of the movie "Her" — a winky reference for those in the know — but literally an exact imitation of the movie, with Johansson playing the starring role.

But … stop for a second and imagine how truly stupid that idea would be from the start.

First of all, getting one of the highest-paid Hollywood actors to endorse your product is expensive. And getting her to reprise a role from 2013 is for what, exactly? Just a nerdy joke? Not even that many people saw "Her" (and I do worry our tech overlords forgot the ending).

Also, consider that maybe a voice assistant shouldn't necessarily be a sexy-breathy-flirty American female voice (yes, there are other voice options, but OpenAI chose "Sky" for the demo).

It's giving "let that sink in." It would be funny for a Super Bowl ad — not to develop into the flagship product that you're also claiming will change the world.

What actually happened, of course, was way worse. Scarlett Johansson declined when Sam Altman asked her to lend her voice to ChatGPT back in September when the SAG strike was going on, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, OpenAI hired a voice actress who the company said wasn't intended to be a voice mimic. But everyone immediately noticed that the "Sky" voice that ended up on ChatGPT reminded them of ScarJo.

And then Sam Altman, in one of the greatest self-own moves of the generative AI era, tweeted out "her" during the product demo last week. Doesn't that make it seem like OpenAI did want to evoke Johansson's character from the movie?

The company said in a statement that the voice wasn't intended to mimic Johansson's. Altman said in a statement to Reuters that the actor used for "Sky" was cast before he contacted Johansson to ask to use her voice. "Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky's voice in our products," Altman said. "We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn't communicate better."

Now, Altman and OpenAI are tangling with an immensely popular celebrity, adored by a nerd army for her superhero role in the wildly popular Marvel franchise, with a husband whose job is to make fun of things in the news on TV each week, and a history of litigation against a big company.

Of course, it's also hitting a nerve because now there's a beautiful and popular face attached to something that the general public has been slightly nervous about: "Is AI going to steal our content and replace us?"

Altman tweeted himself into tech's biggest PR disaster since Facebook Beacon — completely avoidable. The OpenAI team used a Scarlett Johansson sound-alike voice — also completely avoidable.

It almost makes you wonder: Are these really the people we should believe are such geniuses and have such great judgment that they should be in charge of this potentially life-changing technology?

Just last week, several high-level OpenAI employees, including Ilya Sutskever, also a board member, left the company. This comes six months after what OpenAI and Microsoft employees internally referred to as the "Turkey-Shoot Clusterfuck" — the Thanksgiving week firing of Altman and his eventual return the next week. The details of what went down first were eventually revealed not to be a valiant fight of good and evil over controlling an all-powerful AGI, but apparent run-of-the-mill workplace gossip and alleged bullying.

This is all enough to make even the most optimistic ethical accelerationist pause and wonder, uh, what the hell is going on at this clown show? If AI is as powerful and world-altering as OpenAI is telling us it will be, are we not supposed to be mildly concerned that the people in charge keep stepping on rakes?