• A handful of mansions on the market across the US are vacant —  and have been for years.
• Some of these properties are unfinished and lack basic amenities, like water or electricity.
• Take a look at four large abandoned homes for sale and see why they're still empty.

There are mansions that nobody wants.

It might seem far-fetched that a coveted piece of real-estate would be unsellable, but a few abandoned or unfinished mansions across the US have lingered on the market for years — even decades.

From Kanye West's incomplete spread in Malibu to a house on a private island in a remote Montana lake, these four houses — with at least 4,000 square feet of interior space — have had a hard time luring a buyer for various reasons.

Learn more about four abandoned mansions for sale across the US — why they're still empty.

This seven-bedroom 'zombie mansion' near Portland, Oregon, is listed for $1.3 million.

In Tigard, Oregon, about 10 miles outside Portland sits a 9,052-square-foot, seven-bedroom house that's never been lived in.

According to the Zillow listing, construction started in 2006 but was never finished.

It's been abandoned since 2008, after the builder had complications with his building loan during the recession, the Oregonian reported in December 2023.

The bones are there, but the house lacks electricity, water, and heating, the Oregonian said. The windows are boarded up, and the walls are filled with graffiti as squatters have made themselves at home in the empty mansion, according to The Oregonian.

For the state of disrepair, the list price of $1.3 million may just be too much.

Lising agent Eric Squire told The Oregonian that the asking price is "gutsy."

Squire added that the property is worthwhile not for the building itself, which will probably be torn down by any eventual buyer, but for the land. The 1.5-acre lot can be split into seven buildable lots.

"There is truly value here," he said. "The bones are good, and when it's built out, it will be a $3 to $6 million property."

Michael Jordan's Chicago mansion, empty since 2012, is listed for $14.9 million.

Jordan, the basketball legend, has been trying to sell his 56,000-square-foot compound outside Chicago for more than 10 years.

The nine-bedroom home was first listed for $29 million in 2012 and is now almost half off.

Part of the reason Jordan's seven-acre property hasn't yet sold is because of how he customized it. It starts with the "23" — his jersey number for most of his career — emblazoned on the front gates. The house is littered with other custom features like a basketball court with his logo in the middle of the floor.

"It's clearly his home," Bruce Bowers of Bowers Realty Group told BI in 2019. "It's a tough sell. There's a lot of work that would have to be done to make it your own."

Jordan has even tried offering the buyer a complete set of his famous Air Jordan sneakers, but that didn't work.

Today Jordan owns real estate in his home state of North Carolina, as well as in Florida.

Kanye West’s concrete mansion on the Pacific Ocean is unfinished but still listed for $39 million.

West's all-concrete house, designed by famous Japanese architect Tadao Ando, is perched on the Pacific Ocean in celebrity hot spot Malibu.

Kanye spent about $57 million on the 4,000-square-foot property in 2021. He started gutting the home soon after, but never finished his renovations.

In December 2023, he listed the home for $53 million but has since dropped the price to $39 million.

This might be the problem: The house comes without plumbing or electricity — and it's missing doors and windows, too, the Wall Street Journal reported in December 2023.

"It will take several million dollars for the house to be finished," real-estate agent Jason Oppenheim, of "Selling Sunset" fame who is representing West , told the Journal.

A private island in Montana with a half-built mansion is on sale for $72 million.

Cromwell Island — located in Flathead Lake in Missoula — is about 350 acres and has almost three miles of shoreline.

On the island is a 45,000-square-foot mansion that was started in the late 1990s and never finished.

On Cromwell Island sits an unfinished 45,000-square-foot mansion.

According to the listing, the previous owner, Robert M. Lee, the founder of gear company Hunting World, bought the property in the 1980s and started building a home for himself and his wife but died in 2016 before its completion.

Lee's widow, Anne Brockinton Lee, told the Wall Street Journal that they bought a house in Lake Tahoe in 1999 and moved there full-time. Once Mr. Lee passed, she thought finishing the Cromwell Island home would be too much of a pain for one person.

• Target posted its fourth consecutive quarter of comparable sales declines on Wednesday.
• The retailer increasingly appears to be losing market share to Walmart.
• To fight back, Target is cutting prices on thousands of items and leaning into budget-minded brands.

America's top two big-box retailers have borrowed quite a few strategies from one another over the past year, with different degrees of success.

Walmart has augmented its reputation for low prices with a number of Target-coded improvements such as refreshed stores, upscale product assortment, and smoother e-commerce options to see strong gains among higher-income shoppers.

Target's imitation game isn't faring so well.

The Bullseye retailer posted its fourth consecutive quarter of comparable sales declines on Wednesday, a stark contrast to Walmart's year of strong comp gains.

The numbers indicate Walmart (among others) may be picking Target's pocket in terms of market share as inflation-weary consumers hunt for the best value for their dollar.

Clearly something more urgent needs to be done if Target CEO Brian Cornell is going to fulfill his promise to return to comparable sales growth in the current quarter.

The most recent move came Monday when Target announced a batch of markdowns on thousands of commonly purchased items ranging from butter to baby wipes. Cornell said on the earnings call that the first round of 5%-30% reductions will collectively save shoppers "millions of dollars" this summer, with more to come.

In addition, Target's app and website now feature a Walmart-ian detail intended to convey savings: strikethrough prices that show item discounts.

"We believe that pricing and value transparency will only become more important with time and that we can continue to grow awareness of the great value we offer across our assortment," Target's chief growth officer Christina Hennington told investors.

Of course, those strikethroughs appear most frequently for members of the brand's free-to-join Circle membership program, which was revamped last quarter to include a paid tier for unlimited delivery that looks eerily similar to Walmart+. (Incidentally, Target+ refers to the company's third-party e-commerce marketplace offering.)

Confused yet? Wait until you hear about the company's competing private-label strategies.

Earlier this year, Target went after budget-minded buyers with a new line of essentials under the Dealworthy brand. Then late last month, Walmart took a shot at Target's Good & Gather-owned brand with an all-new upscale private label called Bettergoods.

While Walmart's Bettergoods appears to be winning over more customers, Hennington said Dealworthy is filling a critical spot in Target's range of products, and it's only just getting started.

"Where we've made surgical investment in supporting price points that were missing from our assortment, the guest is responding right away," she said. "When we introduced the right price points in Dealworthy, the guests noticed immediately and that drove unit and traffic acceleration in those categories."

Hennington also said the company is taking the opportunity to upgrade some of the offerings in its more established Up and Up brand.

"We've reformulated 40% of the products to add quality," she said. "Our star ratings and our reviews on Target.com have accelerated meaningfully as the guests have taken notice."

While the Targetification of Walmart is well underway and yielding good results for the retail juggernaut, the Walmartification of Target looks like it's still in early stages.

This summer will be a significant test of whether Target can win back some of the shoppers who have shifted over the past year toward Walmart — plus attract a few new ones.

• The public comment period on Biden's new student-loan forgiveness plan is over.
• This means borrowers are now one step closer to the relief, which is planned for the fall.
• Still, opponents of the plan have threatened legal challenges, jeopardizing the relief's timeline. 

Rachel, a Pennsylvania student-loan borrower, wants President Joe Biden's new debt cancellation plan to be implemented — and she wants the relief to be as broad as possible.

In a comment to the administration publicly available on the Federal Register, Rachel wrote that "the more student loan debt that can be forgiven the better."

She said her mom's student loans were forgiven last month, and during the over three-year student-loan payment pause, she was able to buy a home because she didn't have to pay her monthly student-loan bills.

"My loans are currently in repayment, and if that burden could be lifted it would be life-changing for me," she wrote.

Rachel is among the millions of federal student-loan borrowers contending with monthly bills again amid an uncertain time for relief. Biden's Education Department is working to implement a new debt relief plan after the Supreme Court struck down its first plan last summer.

The new plan — expected to benefit over 30 million borrowers — is focused on distinct categories for relief, including:

• cancellation of unpaid interest of up to $20,000;
• debt cancellation for borrowers who are eligible for — but have not yet enrolled in — relief under plans like Public Service Loan Forgiveness and income-driven repayment;
• relief for borrowers who entered repayment at least 20 years ago;
• and relief for borrowers who attended programs that left them with too much debt compared to post-grad earnings.

While a separate proposal for relief for borrowers experiencing financial hardship is expected to be unveiled in the coming months, the Education Department just concluded the public comment period for the other categories — meaning it is now one step closer to implementing the relief this fall.

But the road ahead isn't smooth. The department's proposal received a flood of negative comments, including a letter from 20 Republican state attorneys general who claimed the relief is unconstitutional.

"The least the American people should be able to expect is that people receiving debt cancelation actually apply for it and that the Department makes a determination on an individual basis," they wrote. "Instead, the Department is twisting the law to forgive as many loans as possible. This is wrong."

Some of those attorneys general have already filed lawsuits to block some of Biden's more targeted relief efforts, like relief through the new SAVE income-driven repayment plan, and it's highly likely lawsuits will arise once the administration gets closer to finalizing this new rule.

The administration has maintained confidence in the legality of its relief, vowing to move as quickly as possible so borrowers can start reaping the benefits this year.

"From day one of my Administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity," Biden said in a recent statement. "I will never stop working to cancel student debt — no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us."

Where the challenges stand

The administration is required to adhere to the negotiated rulemaking process to implement this new student-loan forgiveness plan. That means it will now take into account all the comments it received on the plan, and it will decide whether to adjust its proposal or move toward implementation.

For now, the administration plans to begin implementing the relief this fall, coinciding with the presidential election. Should Biden win, relief efforts would continue, but former President Donald Trump would likely cease those efforts if he wins another term.

A host of Republican lawmakers have also called on the administration to rescind its proposed rule. Before the public comment period concluded, 130 of them signed onto a letter saying that "the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that there is zero authority to write-off federal student loans en masse last June when the Department's 'Plan A' was ruled unconstitutional."

In addition, experts previously told Business Insider that Biden is likely to face similar legal challenges to the ones he did the first time around when he attempted to cancel student debt using the HEROES Act of 2003. The HEROES Act allowed the education secretary to cancel student debt in connection to a national emergency, like the pandemic, which the Supreme Court ultimately ruled was unconstitutional.

Biden's administration is using the Higher Education Act this time, which does not require a national emergency. Still, Cary Coglianese, an administrative law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, previously told BI that Biden "is certainly still facing a very skeptical Supreme Court."

"Even though it's a different statute, it's still a skeptical Supreme Court," he said. "It's still a pretty big program even though it's a smaller one."

For now, all borrowers can do is continue to make their payments as they wait for debt relief — either through one of the administration's targeted efforts or the broader version set for the fall.

Have you gotten student-debt relief? Do you have loans and don't believe they should be forgiven? Reach out to this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

• Trump's hush-money trial pauses Wednesdays for Manhattan mental health court cases.
• It's a completely different world once Trump and journalists decamp.
• Merchan remains his same commanding self but acts more like a kindly uncle than a strict headmaster.

For the past six weeks, the person in the chair has been the former president of the United States.

It is padded and made from weathered leather. The former president, who is also the presumptive Republican nominee in the next presidential election, makes himself comfortable.

He sits there for hours, leaning back, his eyes narrowed to slits, listening to his enemies testify against him.

He is flanked by a team of lawyers. Behind him are politicians from Washington, DC, paying fealty. Behind them, rows and rows of journalists sit for hours in hard, weathered wooden benches, shifting in their seats for a better look.

But on this day, a Wednesday, the chair was filled with a succession of anxious New Yorkers who had admitted to their crimes. They were there to get help.

The jury in Donald Trump's hush-money trial, over a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, is known not to sit on Wednesday. While the judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, is currently presiding over arguably the highest-profile criminal case in American history, he keeps the middle of his week clear for Manhattan's mental health court.

It is a completely different world. For Trump's trial, journalists and members of the public spend hours lining up outside the court, hoping to snag a seat in the courtroom or in a spillover room where they watch the proceedings on large TV screens. Hundreds are turned away.

On the two recent Wednesdays at the mental health court, in the same linoleum-tiled 15th-floor courtroom during the trial's off days, a Business Insider reporter was the only journalist there.

But for these Wednesday defendants, the stakes are no less high. They have effectively won the lottery to be offered another chance and avoid time in prison. It is hard.

In some respects, Merchan is his same old self in these sessions. He moves briskly and is on high alert for lawyerly evasiveness.

But in other ways, Merchan carries a different attitude.

Merchan plays the role of a strict headmaster in Trump's trial, holding high standards and keeping all the lawyers and witnesses on track. After a month of testimony, jurors will begin deliberating this week.

Merchan has held Trump in contempt 10 times for violating his gag order and threatened jail time, remaining vigilant after the former president's lawyers tried numerous attempts to delay the trial (and succeeding once).

In his mental health court, though, Merchan, who has presided over felony criminal trials since 2009, is more like a kindly uncle. He appears to genuinely want everyone to succeed. When a defendant shares a promising update, he cheers them on. When he chides, he does it gently.

"Keep it up," he tells defendants who give updates showing their lives are on track.

"You definitely turned it around since the last time I saw you, and I'm very glad to see that," he recently told one defendant after their lawyer said their client was improving after a rocky start to the program.

Not everyone has such good news to share.

The weather outdoors during two recent sessions was warm, but Merchan blasted the air conditioning, keeping the courtroom, which Trump derisively calls "the icebox," chilly.

On one day, a court employee wore a heavy black parka that reached past her knees. The hangers on the courtroom's coat rack remained untouched.

One defendant living in a treatment facility was caught with a contraband nicotine vape pen under her pillow. She was unable to get her usual prescription medications because her therapist had a "computer issue," she said. Merchan appeared let down, but remained sympathetic rather than skeptical, as some other judges might be.

In turn, the woman opened up to him about her depressive struggles to get out of bed, to go to group treatment sessions, or do much of anything. She was frozen with anxiety when she thought about the future, she said.

"I'm going to be honest with you, your honor," she said. "I'm not doing too great."

Sitting high above her at the bench, Merchan expressed his own frustrations about the world's unfairness and told her she didn't need to apologize for anything. The pressure of the future she was feeling, he said, was really the pressure of the responsibility she'll have for her own life once she graduates from the program.

"The future is going to be there," he said. "And you're going to be ready for it."

But he was still firm, reminding her that nicotine's addictive nature could put her back on the wrong path.

"You shouldn't be doing that," he said. "And we need to move past that."

"She is strong, and she can do this," her lawyer said.

"I agree," Merchan responded, beaming, before moving on to the next defendant.

Getting accepted is just the start

The Manhattan mental health court is one path available to those who plead guilty to felonies.

Few are able to take advantage of it.

Merchan is the sole judge of the mental health court in all of Manhattan, and has presided over it since its founding in 2011.

He is also the only judge overseeing another specialized court in Manhattan, which caters to veterans and has historically had a smaller caseload. Other specialized courts focus on defendants dealing with substance abuse issues and human trafficking. An Alternatives to Incarceration program, the largest diversion program in the borough, is also available as something of a catch-all, offering a holistic approach to criminal justice.

"No one's ever come out of prison better than they went in," Eliza Orlins, a New York City public defender who has represented several defendants in the mental health court, told Business Insider. "And so if there are things that we can do to help people rather than just punish them, obviously it's much, much better for everyone."

The mental health court has 56 ongoing cases in various stages, a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office told Business Insider. The figure represents a small percentage of the thousands of felony cases it brings each year. Defendants need to demonstrate they have a history of mental illness and might need to speak to the district attorney's office about their past traumas. If the office allows it, a mental health court treatment plan can become part of their plea agreement, which includes different consequences for failures. And once that's hammered out, Merchan needs to accept the plea.

"It's really hard, a huge burden to even get so far as to be accepted into mental health court," said Orlins. "And that's just the start of it."

For those who Merchan approves to enter the program, he refers defendants to a psychiatrist, who then comes up with an individualized plan to address mental health and potential substance abuse issues. Often, it involves living in a mental healthcare treatment facility.

The defendants check in every few weeks, and if they complete the program to the Merchan's satisfaction, the indictment is dismissed.

But if they commit new infractions or don't successfully complete the program, they can be hit with the recommended sentence in their plea agreement, which can mean time in state prison.

Between 2014 and 2021, 300 individuals were referred to the Manhattan mental health court, according to a report from the district attorney's office. In that time, 190 were accepted into the program. Of them, 100 participants graduated, a process that typically takes between 12 and 24 months.

Recovering from mental health episodes, Orlins said, is simply hard. Not everyone can do it.

"In theory, they're good. And if people are successful, sure, great. But it's hard," she said,

Merchan declined an interview request for this story, telling Business Insider he couldn't set aside any time during the ongoing Trump trial. In an interview with the Associated Press, before the trial began, he said the mental health court let him "see people through a different lens" than he did while presiding over only ordinary criminal cases.

'If you are ever struggling and having a hard time, just speak up'

Merchan might have a dozen cases each morning, spending as little as a few minutes on each defendant. The appearances look different than a normal criminal case.

In addition to the prosecutors and defense attorneys, there are case managers, standing at the lectern where lawyers normally question witnesses, who give updates about how each defendant is progressing in their mental health treatment program.

Each defendant has a story. Merchan listens carefully, looking directly at them and giving his full attention. When their lawyers make a request, he covers his hand with his mouth, as he often does during the Trump trial, a tic for when he is thinking about how to rule.

On a recent Wednesday, Merchan accepted one man's plea and inducted them into the mental health court.

"You're now in Manhattan mental health court," he said. "Welcome."

"If you are ever struggling and having a hard time, just speak up," the judge offered in a friendly voice.

Another defendant seemed like he would be headed for prison.

He had "absconded," according to his lawyer, after telling his chaperone, "Sorry man, I need to see my wife" and then slipping away. No one could find him.

"As far as we know, he doesn't have a wife," his lawyer said.

The case manager seemed to tear up a little. The backlog of people trying to get into the defendant's treatment facility was long. And so even if he returned, he wouldn't be allowed back in. If you fail the mental health court program in such a dramatic fashion, the next step can be a sentencing hearing.

Merchan allowed law enforcement to go after him.

"Bench warrant entered," he said solemnly.

Another woman appearing before the judge had a more upbeat update. She spends an hour reading every day and recently subscribed to the Wall Street Journal's weekend section, her lawyer said. She befriended a woman named Iris at her local library, who helps her interpret sports statistics, according to the lawyer.

Merchan was encouraged. The future held promise.

"I would like to adjourn the case for graduation," he said, which would be held on June 26. It would be long after Trump had left, to return only for a possible sentencing.

The woman was the last case scheduled to be heard that day. But before everyone gathered their belongings, there was one more matter to address.

A tall, elderly, lanky lawyer had approached the well. He had a client who graduated from the program two years ago, he said, during which the client enrolled in business school. The client was now set to graduate from school and was seeking a job, and was worried that having the case on the books — even though the indictment was dismissed — would hurt his employment prospects.

Could the judge seal the case?

The prosecutors didn't object. "The case is sealed," Merchan said.

"Tell him I said hello and wish him well," Merchan said, smiling warmly.

• Business Insider analyzed U.S. News & World Report's list of the best places to live in America.
• Florida and Colorado dominate the ranking, with multiple cities in the top 50.
• Northeastern and western states, however, are home to fewer of the best cities to live in.

If you're looking for a place to live with relatively affordable homes and a high quality of life, the Southeast may be the best place to look.

The 2024 U.S. News & World Report list of the Best Places to Live in the US, which was released Tuesday, ranks 150 major cities based on their quality of life, education, crime rates, employment opportunities, and housing. Many are concentrated in the Southeast and Midwest.

Business Insider mapped the top 50 best places to live, with the top 15 colored dark blue. These cities have relatively affordable housing, ample job opportunities, and high life satisfaction.

States such as Florida, Colorado, and North Carolina were particularly well-represented, while the Northeast and Southwest were sparse.

Florida and Colorado have many of the best places to live

Florida had six cities in the top 50: Naples and Sarasota in the top 15, followed by Pensacola, Tampa, Fort Myers, and Melbourne.

Naples, Florida, took the top spot this year, beating out Boise, Idaho.

Southeastern Florida cities like Miami and Fort Lauderdale normally get most of the love from movers outside the state — or even the country. But this year, it's the western part of the peninsula that's well-represented on the list of best places to live.

Cities like Tampa, which landed in the 35th spot, have invested in their downtowns with nice office buildings and more lively communities to attract and keep younger movers.

The warm weather and lack of income tax have always been selling points for the Sunshine State, and the number of residents continues to increase.

Colorado had four cities in the top 50: Colorado Springs and Boulder in the top 15, followed by Fort Collins and Denver.

The Southeast is the region with the most top-ranked places to live

The Southeast dominated the list, with five in North Carolina, three in Tennessee, two in South Carolina, two in Kentucky, and one each in Georgia and Alabama.

Meanwhile, the Northeast only had three cities total in the top 50, all ranked in the 30s: Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Portland. There were just a handful in the Great Plains region, such as Davenport, Iowa, and Nebraska's two largest cities, Omaha and Lincoln.

Thousands of Americans are rushing into Texas from states like California and Florida, though only two cities, Austin and McAllen, are in the top 50. Austin is a newcomer this year to the top 15, driven by its growing tech scene.

Austin's tech scene has divided some movers who expected a culture similar to the Bay Area with a cheaper price tag. Even though some residents are jumping ship due to rising prices, Austin still offers job opportunities that other cities don't.

Unlike Austin, McAllen, Texas, likely made the top 50 based on its affordability.

According to the Council for Community and Economic Research, the average home price in McAllen was $265,667 in 2023,

California, many of whose cities have undergone a large exodus over the last few years, has only two cities in the top 50: San Francisco and San Diego. Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah all have one each.

Some say the Golden State has been losing some of its shimmer. Between 2021 and 2022, California had a net outflow of nearly 350,000 residents, the census found. Many have been moving to Arizona, Florida, Texas, and Washington, citing factors such as high home prices, the climate crisis, and politics.

Have you recently moved to one of these cities or moved to another state for a better quality of life? Reach out to these reporters at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com and jpandy@businessinsider.com.

• Hezbollah may have surface-to-air missiles than can threat Israeli aircraft.
• A recent Israeli strike appears to have damaged a Iran-made Sayyad-2 missile.
• The possibility of missiles will "force" the IDF to be more cautious over Lebanon, an expert said.

Much has been written about Hezbollah's enormous arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles and rockets and the devastation they could unleash against Israel. A recent incident, however, briefly put the spotlight on Hezbollah's lesser-known air defenses.

After the Israeli Air Force targeted Hezbollah sites south of the Lebanese city of Sidon, footage emerged purportedly showing the remains of an Iranian-built Sayyad-2 surface-to-air missile. The Israeli military stated the Hezbollah sites targeted "posed a threat to Israeli aircraft."

Israeli media reported that the footage was "apparently the first public evidence suggesting that Hezbollah has such missiles," as had been previously claimed. Hezbollah has traded tit-for-tat strikes with Israel since Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attacks, but the air defenses suggest Israel's Air Force would face a much greater threat over southern Lebanon than it has in Gaza's skies.

The Sayyad-2 is a medium-range anti-aircraft missile Iran developed by heavily reverse engineering the American RIM-66 Standard Missile, SM-1, Tehran acquired before the 1979 revolution. The Sayyad-2 has a shorter range than its successors. The most advanced, the Sayyad-4B, which Iran developed for its Bavar-373 air defense system, has an estimated range of 186 miles.

In October, a Hezbollah-appointed guide showcased some of the group's firepower to visiting journalists and hinted they have long-range air defenses like the Russian S-300. "Do you think we don't have S-300?" he said. "If Iran has S-300, absolutely Hezbollah will take S-300."

It's unclear if Iran has tried to transfer the Bavar-373, Iran's domestically-developed equivalent to the S-300, to Hezbollah with its Sayyad 4/4B missiles.

"Hezbollah's air defense capabilities are very opaque," Nicholas Blanford, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of the 2011 book "Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel," told Business Insider. "More is known about other systems in their arsenal than air defense because Hezbollah very rarely uses it."

"Nevertheless, if Iran possesses or can acquire an air defense system that suits Hezbollah's needs, then it is safe to assume that Hezbollah probably will have it," Blanford said.

The Hezbollah expert also noted that possession of missiles like the Sayyad-2 "certainly raises the threat level" to Israeli aircraft compared to shoulder-fired missiles. He also pointed out that Israel has "always maintained" that any Hezbollah acquisition of advanced air defense systems amounts to a "red line."

Since 2013, Israel has sustained an air campaign in Syria targeting Iranian weapons shipments to Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring high-end systems. It has intensified this campaign since the Hamas 10/7 attacks, likely making it more difficult than ever for Iran to transfer weapons to Hezbollah via Syria. During this campaign, Israeli jets have evaded and, at times, destroyed Syria's Russian-built short and medium-range Tor and Pantsir air defenses.

The discovery of the Sayyad-2 suggests Iran transferred at least some anti-aircraft missiles to its most valued regional proxy.

"It has been reported that Hezbollah possesses Sayyad-2 anti-aircraft missiles previously, and the Israeli strike on Friday solidified those claims," Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the risk intelligence company RANE, told BI. "It was suspected that Hezbollah has been using the Sayyad-2 to shoot down some of Israel's advanced Hermes 900 drones over Lebanon."

"Hezbollah has for the past few years boasted of advancing its air-defensive capabilities, and the discovery of Hezbollah's possession of Sayyad-2 demonstrates how much they obtained advanced anti-air systems," Khoueiry said.

Israel has experience destroying formidable air defenses in Lebanon. When it invaded the country in 1982, it launched a coordinated, large-scale suppression of enemy air defense operation against an array of Soviet-built surface-to-air missile batteries Syria had deployed to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Operation Mole Cricket 19 obliterated the Syrian missiles and saw Israel's new F-15 and F-16 fighters dogfight the Syrian Air Force, shooting down 82 Syrian aircraft without losing a single fighter.

While Hezbollah is unlikely ever to field a network of anti-aircraft missiles that large, some of its air defenses could nevertheless impact Israeli air operations over Lebanon.

"Generally speaking, this will unlikely deter Israel's Air Force from operating over Lebanon but will likely force the Israelis to become more cautious amid Hezbollah's changing tactics and their more advanced capabilities, such as having their fighter jets flying at higher altitudes or using stealthier jets like the F-35," Khoueiry said.

"Israel's Air Force is much more advanced and can bypass these air defenses, maintaining its immense air superiority, but Israeli drones and helicopters operating over Lebanon could be more at risk, especially if the IDF expands its operations in Lebanon."

Khoueiry doubts Iran will transfer strategic systems like the Bavar-373 to Lebanon.

"It is more likely that Iran can and did transfer medium-sized and range defensive systems to Hezbollah," Khoueiry said. "Larger anti-air defense systems like the Bavar-373 are harder to transfer given their size, but also given that Lebanon's geography is small and Hezbollah would not be able to properly operate them there."

The RANE analyst believes that if Iran did deploy the Bavar-373 in the region, it would send it somewhere like Syria, although he estimates that's unlikely at this point.

"The discovery of the Sayyad-2 likely hints that Iran has been able to transfer more similar advanced defensive systems that Hezbollah is likely to use in a progressive way as the conflict escalates or in the event of a wider war, especially given the likely limited number they possess," Khoueiry said.

• The "Home Alone" house is for sale once again.
• The real-life home was used in the 1990 holiday film starring Macaulay Culkin.
• The owners of the red-brick Georgian Colonial home are asking for $5.25 million.

The real-life home defended by the fictional Kevin McCallister in the classic 1990 Christmas film "Home Alone" is back on the market, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Now, fans can purchase the red-brick Georgian Colonial home for a pretty penny. The owners are asking for $5.25 million, per a Zillow listing of the house.

Realtors for the home did not immediately respond to a request from Business Insider.

The home was the main filming location for the classic holiday film

Business Insider previously reported that before its current owners purchased the home in 2012, the Abendshien family bought it in 1988 for $800,000.

While the crew filmed "Home Alone," they were anything but — the Abendshien family lived in a makeshift apartment on the second floor.

The historic home is over 100 years old

The single-family home sits 20 miles north of Chicago in Winnetka, Illinois.

According to the listing, the 1921 home is 5,700 square feet on a half-acre and has five bedrooms and six bathrooms.

The current owners say tourists often stop by

The Illinois home was purchased by Trisha and Tim Johnson in 2012 for $1.585 million.

The couple told the Journal that tourists often stop by to take photos or recreate McCallister's scream in the movie.

"It's a lot of fun to see people as excited as they are just to see my house," Trisha Johnson said.

The Johnsons have updated much of the interior

Take a look through the Zillow listing, and you'll see a house with many modern fixtures. It's a lot different than the home that many viewers probably remember.

However, the Johnsons told The Journal that they chose to keep some features that highlight iconic scenes from "Home Alone." Trisha Johnson told the Journal that they left intact the front door and the central staircase that McCallister zooms down on a sled.

"That was in the movie and it's classic," she said. "We didn't want to take that out or touch it in any way." 

Renovations to the house include a basement overhaul

The Johnsons told the Journal that much of the renovations to the house occurred four years after they purchased it.

The space now includes a home theater with a bar and a massive sports court in the basement.

The couple also added some quirky Lego art to the theater, including a massive Lego statue of McCallister and a replica of the home.

• Donald Trump is challenging "The Apprentice" biopic; his lawyers called it a "libelous farce."
• The film depicts controversial claims about Trump's personal life.
• An entertainment lawyer says proving defamation is an uphill battle for the embattled former president.

Donald Trump has an abundance of legal battles to worry about, but his most recent fight is one he's starting himself.

In a cease-and-desist letter obtained by Business Insider's Jacob Shamsian on Friday, Trump's lawyers railed against "The Apprentice," an independently produced movie that premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival.

His attorneys called the Trump biopic a "libelous farce" in the letter, but an entertainment lawyer who spoke to Business Insider said it's an uphill battle for Trump to prove that's the case — especially if the filmmakers made it clear that the film is not a representation of the truth.

The film states that it is "inspired by true events," the Associated Press reported.

"That's typically enough to give the makers of the show enough wiggle room to use their expression and avoid defamation cases," Camron Dowlatshahi, an attorney at Mills Sadat Dowlat LLP, told BI.

Dowlatshahi said even if Trump happens to prove the film is defamatory, the embattled former president, constantly in the headlines for his many felony charges, will have to quantify that this one film had some effect on his brand.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, previously told BI in a statement that the film was filled with "blatantly false assertions."

"This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked," Cheung said.

Although it's unclear what is true and what is fiction, what is true is that many of the rumors about Trump in the movie — played by "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" star Sebastian Stan — have been following the real-life Trump for quite a while.

For example, critics who saw the movie at the French film festival say the movie depicts Trump raping his first wife, Ivana. The claim was made and later retracted by Ivana herself.

The film also reportedly depicts Trump suffering from erectile dysfunction. While there are no reports of Trump having ED, this creative liberty could have grown out of Trump's former longtime doctor saying the former president had been taking finasteride for hair loss, The New York Times reported in 2017. The drug can cause erectile dysfunction.

Now, as Trump goes head to head with the indie film, it could draw attention to these rumors, Dowlatshahi said. This is known as the "Streisand effect" — creating more attention for something by attempting to keep it quiet.

Dowlatshahi said the added attention might even benefit the production company, Tailored Films, which called the movie a "fair and balanced portrait" of the former president in a previous statement.

"If they're trying to get sold and companies see that there's potential for litigation, that might give them cold feet. I should note that this looks like a pretty high-quality production, so with all the buzz around it, it might be worth it for a company to take that risk and purchase the film."

Representatives for Trump and Tailored Films did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• YouTube is a massive online video platform that was acquired by Google nearly two decades ago.
• YouTube's most-viewed video currently has over 14 billion views.
• It's easy to make your own YouTube channel, but profiting from it is notoriously difficult.

YouTube is the world's largest online video platform, with some 2.7 billion monthly users. Over time, it has evolved from an amateur video-sharing website into a multimedia powerhouse.

YouTube was registered as a website on February 14th, 2005, by friends and former PayPal coworkers Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Perhaps YouTube's foundation falling on Valentine's was a sign of the love that billions of people would develop for the platform within the coming years.

Growth was rapid, with more than two million daily video views by the end of 2005 and more than 100 million daily views by mid-2006. Google purchased YouTube by November of that year for an impressive $1.65 billion after the failure of its own video-sharing platform, Google Video.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki persuaded Google's founders to acquire the platform after she saw how her children reacted to a video of a purple Muppet. (Coincidentally, Wojcicki's family intertwined with Google in a way the following year when her younger sister Anne became Sergey Brin's first wife).

Today, Google remains the owner of YouTube, whose headquarters are in San Bruno, California, just south of San Francisco. And YouTube is still a powerhouse in the media landscape.

YouTube has become one of Google's most valuable purchases, alongside other major acquisitions like the navigation and traffic app Waze, and the AI research lab Google DeepMind.

YouTube is a major revenue generator for Alphabet, Google's parent company. On his first-quarter earnings call in 2024, Sundar Pichai said YouTube had surpassed 100 million subscribers globally. Pichai projected that YouTube and Google Cloud combined would have a run rate of over $100 billion by the end of the year.

The most viewed YouTube video

At the time of this writing, the most popular video on YouTube, at least according to the number of views, is the Baby Shark Dance. Posted by Pinkfong Kids' Songs & Stories in the year 2015, at the time of this writing, Baby Shark has more than 14,480,310,500 views.

Baby Shark upset the music video for the song "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi (featuring Daddy Yankee) for the lead position in 2020, though that video is still performing well on YouTube with 8.437 billion views.

Other wildly popular YouTube videos include the Bath Song, Psy's beloved music video for the song "Gangnam Style," and Katy Perry's "Roar." The top hits are a unique mix of content targeted at younger kids and music created by and for adults.

How to download a YouTube video

If you're wondering how to download a YouTube video so you can enjoy it any time, it couldn't be much easier… assuming you have a paid YouTube Premium subscription. Without this subscription, you are essentially limited to filming your computer screen while a clip plays, but with YouTube Premium, on mobile or on the website, simply tap/click the word "Download" under the video. It will be saved to your YouTube library.

And if you need to cite a YouTube video, as in an article or term paper, if there is a clear creator of the video, MLA style guidelines prompt you to give the footnote or endnote in this format:

Doe, John. "Video Name" YouTube, 1 Apr. 2024, http://www.youtube.com/webaddresshere.

For videos without a clear creator, use this format:

"Capybara Eat Huge Pumpkin." YouTube, uploaded by Alex Smith, 12 Jan. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YNwxZnABzA.

How to make money on YouTube

At the time of this writing, the YouTube channel with the most subscribers is the India-based T-Series, which has 265 million followers at last check. A close second is the former reigning champ of YouTube subscribers, the YouTuber MrBeast, who has 256 million followers. Trailing MrBeast by a margin of tens of millions is the nursery rhyme channel Cocomelon, with 175 million subscribers.

If you're interested in becoming a YouTube creator yourself and (ideally) making money on the platform, you'll need to make a YouTube channel of your own. Creating a YouTube channel is not hard to do, though growing it into a profitable enterprise certainly will be.

To make a YouTube channel, sign into your YouTube account on mobile or on your computer. Then, in the top right corner of the screen, click your profile picture, then hit "Create a channel" in the dropdown menu. You'll be asked to create a channel, and then you can go to your new channel and hit the word "Create" in the middle of the screen to start uploading content.

As for how to make money on YouTube, the way most people do it is through advertising. You need to join the YouTube Partner Program, which requires a minimum of 500 subscribers and at least three video uploads in a three-month period. Once you have joined that, you can begin to make money — split with YouTube, of course — every time someone views an ad on your content, you stand to make a bit of cash.

Now, how much does YouTube pay? It depends on a few factors, including your viewer's location, the advertiser's budget, and more. Based on research for this article, the consensus seems to be that for 1,000 ad views, you would make around $18. So, true profitability might take a while.

What is YouTube TV?

YouTube TV is rather like a throwback to the days of "regular" TV. In Google's own words, YouTube TV is "a TV streaming service that includes live TV from 100+ broadcast, cable, and regional sports networks." You can watch live sports and news programs, see shows on cable and broadcast TV, and you get unlimited cloud DVR video storage space. One YouTube TV account allows six different users to access the same account. But before you get too excited about it, note that YouTube TV costs a hefty $72.99 per month.

How much is YouTube Premium?

First off, for the record, YouTube Premium has supplanted YouTube Red, which was discontinued. Today, YouTube Premium allows for ad-free viewing of content all across the site, and it grants access to the platform's music streaming service, YouTube Music, as well as to the archive of content from YouTube Originals, which has also been wound down.

A YouTube Premium subscription costs $13.99 a month for an individual plan or as much as $22.99 for a multi-access family plan that lets five people use the subscription, but they all must live in the same household. Students can qualify for a reduced $7.99 YouTube Premium plan, so take advantage of that if you're in school.