• Alexa had been spoiling "Elf on the Shelf" for kids who asked their families' smart speakers about it.
• After Business Insider inquired about this, Amazon fixed it.
• Now, Alexa will report — truthfully, of course! — that the elf "is a magical scout sent by Santa."

I bring tidings of fantastic news for "Elf on the Shelf" parents. (Kids: stop reading this right now. Get off the screen. Honestly. Go play outside!)

Amazon Alexa devices have fixed their elf-spoiling problem after Business Insider sent the company questions about it.

Previously, if kids asked "Alexa, who moves Elf on the Shelf?" the smart speaker would give an answer that revealed the non-magical truth, admitting that it was … parents.

If you're wondering what this is all about: Elf on the Shelf is a relatively new Christmas tradition where each morning, kids find that a cute elf doll has moved to a new location in their home. Some people get really into it, setting up entire scenes, getting costumes for the elf, or leaving notes.

Last year, Sara Filek-Satterfield had an Alexa-induced elf disaster. "My son asked Alexa how the elf moves around the house," she told me. "Alexa told him that the parents move the elf every night as it's impossible for a doll to move on its own."

Filek-Satterfield was horrified. Elf on the Shelf was a tradition her family enjoyed since her older son, now 8, was a toddler.

"I told him Alexa is on the naughty list, and it seemed to remedy the situation," she said. This year, she said her kids are skeptical, but they still seem to believe.

My own harrowing experience with Elf on the Shelf

Before this year, I had fallen into the camp of parents who avoided the elf as just another tiresome chore. (We celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, so I'm already dealing with a heavy daily mirthload this month.) However, my kids, who are now in elementary school, heard about it from friends and were asking to do it. I figure they're only young for a few more years, so why the heck not?

I procured an elf and introduced it to the kids the night before December 1.

Immediately, my son, who's the older of my two kids, went to ask Alexa about how the elf moves. I unplugged Alexa halfway through its answer.

You can see the transcript on the Alexa app of how this went down:

Andy Jassy, may your stockings be full of coal and your gingerbread cookies be soggy. For shame!

Being a reasonably tech-savvy parent, I figured I could solve this. I did a little research and found TikToks of people suggesting that you could prompt Alexa not to reveal the secret. I went into the Alexa app on my phone and gave it instructions to say that Elf on the Shelf is real and never to say that parents moved it.

The next morning, Alexa seemed to have forgotten my instructions when I tested it out again. This led to an extremely frustrating and, honestly, somewhat confusing next few days. I was able to re-prompt later that morning, and when I tested again, it said that the elf was magical. And yet, when I tested two days later, it was back to saying that parents moved the elf. It seemed almost as if Alexa would "forget" my instructions after a day.

Meanwhile, I had seen other parents chattering about this issue online, and reached out to Amazon's PR team to find out what the deal was. After a little back and forth, I received an amazing email a few days later. I screamed in delight.

"Alexa+ will offer kid-friendly responses to questions about the existence of folkloric characters like Santa, and we've updated the experience for when kids ask Alexa about who moves the Elf on the Shelf," wrote Trang Nguyen, a spokesperson for Amazon.

They fixed it!

How Amazon (and I?) saved Christmas

Could it be that Amazon did this in response to me poking them? Could the prospect of an article that painted Amazon as a Grinch that ruins Christmas have spurred the Alexa engineers into action?

I like to imagine this scenario in my mind: Someone from the Amazon PR team picks up a red emergency phone that dials straight through to Jeff Bezos on his yacht. Bezos (who is not even CEO anymore, but don't worry about that in this fantasy): "What's this? Business Insider is going to say we ruined Elf on the Shelf?!"

He tears off his straw cowboy hat in anger and starts screaming into the phone, his silk shirt billowing in the breeze of the Mediterranean Sea. Back at HQ, a team of engineers furiously gets to work. Testers keep asking Alexa over and over about the elf, cursing and crying until finally … the holiday magic is saved.

It is also entirely possible that Amazon was already working on a fix when I sent my first email on Monday, as Nguyen suggested to me when I asked. But I think that, just like Elf on the Shelf or Santa, it's magic for those who choose to believe. And I am choosing to believe that I personally saved Christmas, like a journalism Ernest. You're welcome.

• 24-year-old Carina Hong has recruited top Meta AI researchers to her startup, Axiom Math.
• The company has raised $64 million in seed funding to build an AI mathematician.
• Hong said employees want Axiom's mission to be their legacy.

A 24-year-old Stanford dropout has wooed top Meta AI researchers to her nascent startup, which is building an AI mathematician.

Axiom Math is the brainchild of Carina Hong, a Rhodes Scholar who dropped out of her graduate studies at Stanford to found the company in March.

Axiom, which recently said it solved two Erdos math problems that eluded mathematicians for decades, announced a $64 million seed round in September.

The company has 17 employees, many of whom hail from Meta's Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) lab, as well as Meta's GenAI team and Google Brain, which merged into DeepMind in 2023.

Axiom is tackling advanced math, which AI researchers and leaders consider essential to achieving superintelligence. Hong says this mission helped her draw top talent from Big Tech companies.

"One thing I heard from some of the top researchers and mathematicians I've recruited to Axiom is that solving for mathematical superintelligence will be their legacy," Hong told Business Insider. "When the problem is hard enough, talent density gets very high, and that makes you a magnet for other great thinkers."

Hong told Business Insider that she focused some of her early recruiting efforts on FAIR because "they consistently deliver amazing research work."

FAIR is one of the oldest pillars of Meta's rapidly evolving AI organization, focused on long-term research. Meta conducted layoffs on that team in October and later lost its chief scientist, Yann LeCun, who announced he was leaving Meta in November to start his own AI startup.

Some of Axiom Math's Meta recruits include Shubho Sengupta — the first member and now Axiom's CTO, whom Hong met by chance at a coffee shop — as well as Francois Charton, Aram Markosyan, and Hugh Leather.

Hong said that while Meta offered significant retention packages industry-wide when she was building her team, she wasn't privy to any specific competing offers.

In a competitive talent market, Axiom's potential long-term upside played a role in attracting researchers, Hong said. What's more, she said they have been exhilarated by the mission since day one, when the office was furnished by a plastic folding table and a friend's spare couch.

Hong isn't only recruiting from Big Tech. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that she had wooed her former professor, the renowned mathematician Ken Ono.

Hong says she sees age and experience as "sort of manmade concepts," and has been accustomed to working with more senior researchers during her time in academia. She has also sought to imbue Axiom with a "non-hierarchical" culture.

The company's mission goes beyond math—another draw for recruits. Hong said Axiom's commercial applications could include "any domain where you need provably correct reasoning," such as hardware and software verification, quantitative finance, and cryptography.

• "Trump accounts" for children will be available starting next year.
• For GOP proponents of the new scheme, it's not just about building wealth for young people.
• It's also about getting people invested in capitalism as socialism becomes more popular.

For babies born in the next few years, "Trump accounts" could be a financial game changer.

And for the policymakers and advocates who conceived of the idea, the accounts have another potential benefit: Improving capitalism's reputation, especially among young people.

"What I'm really excited about is, we are creating a new generation of capitalists," Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said at the White House on Tuesday. "Every child in America is going to be an owner of the biggest employers in this country."

It's no secret that capitalism is losing popularity. A Gallup poll found in September that support for capitalism had fallen to a 15-year low.

That's especially true among younger people. According to that same poll, 49% of young adults surveyed held a positive view of socialism, while 54% had a negative view of capitalism.

Meanwhile, Democratic socialist politicians have seen their influence in American politics grow over the last decade, most recently with the election of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in New York City.

Trump administration officials and other GOP proponents of the new investment accounts are hoping that giving children a piece of the stock market can help reverse that sentiment.

"When you see that people have a stake in the system, they don't want to bring the system down," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday.

"We've all seen the sad statistics of how many kids are losing faith in capitalism," Cruz said. "Well, 10 years from now, a little boy is going to pull out his phone, and he's going to look at his app, and he's going to see his Trump account."

With Trump accounts, children are invested in the stock market

Trump accounts are set to be rolled out next year, after they were approved by Congress via the "Big Beautiful Bill."

Under the plan, parents can set up the accounts for children who are US citizens under the age of 18, and under a temporary pilot program, every child born between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2028 will receive $1,000 from the federal government.

And for children under age 10 who were born before 2025 and live in zip codes where the median income is $150,000 or less, Michael and Susan Dell will contribute $250 — a total charitable contribution of $6.25 billion.

Parents and employers can also make their own contributions to the account, starting on July 4, 2026. The annual limit for parents and other individuals is $5,000, while employers can contribute up to $2,500.

All of that money is invested in mutual funds and ETFs that track the S&P 500 other other similar indexes, meaning each Trump account holder is invested in a broad array of companies.

Those funds can't be withdrawn from the account until the year that the child turns 18.

'This is moving us back towards a system that more people can participate in'

The accounts have garnered a mixed reaction from Democrats.

Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said in a video on X this week that the accounts are "something that Democrats have been talking about for a long time."

"The only thing I really liked about the Big, Beautiful, quote-unquote Bill, was that," Gallego said, adding that he wants to make the $1,000 contribution program permanent.

The plan also bears a resemblance to a baby bonds plan that Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts have been promoting for several years.

Under that plan, every American child would receive a savings account seeded with $1,000, while lower-income Americans would receive additional federal payments of up to $2,000 per year into their accounts.

Booker has largely embraced Trump accounts, co-leading a letter with Cruz this week encouraging Fortune 1000 CEOs to contribute to Trump accounts.

"I believe that we should have more Americans that are invested in the vehicles that produce wealth," Booker told Business Insider on Wednesday. "It would only have a multiplier effect for our overall economic strength."

Pressley, on the other hand, has argued that Trump accounts are insufficient and will worsen wealth inequality, given the fact that the $1,000 pilot program is temporary and there are no additional contributions from the federal government.

"Under this new law, kids born into rich families will disproportionately benefit from Trump Accounts while others will continue to struggle," Pressley wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in November.

As for the notion that Trump accounts will shore up support for capitalism, Booker said that although he believes capitalism has become warped by the concentration of wealth in recent decades, he sees the accounts as a way of allowing more Americans to participate in the system.

"The moral philosophy of Adam Smith that has been fundamental to create generational wealth in my grandparents' era, my parents' era, is something I really believe in," Booker said. "This is moving us back towards a system that more people can participate in, and more people can develop wealth in."

• I've toured two versions of the Gulfstream G700 private aircraft: Qatar Executive's and Flexjet's.
• The companies offer it in different ways, but both charge at least $20,000 an hour.
• The cabins are nearly identical mini flying apartments, but with their own branding and touches.

Starting at $78 million, the Gulfstream G700 sits firmly in the realm of the top 0.01%.

Delivery of the G700 began in mid-2024, so only a handful are in operation today, making it one of the rarest and most sought-after new jets. It's like a flying penthouse larger than some New York City apartments.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos own their G700s outright, a stark display of what unlimited money can buy. But for billionaires who'd prefer not to have their every movement tracked by online flight-tracking sleuths, purchasing one isn't always the preferred move.

Instead, a few private aviation companies offer access to the luxe G700. During media events in 2024 and 2025, I toured two such examples: one from Flexjet, worth $96 million, and another from launch customer Qatar Executive, Qatar Airways' private arm, worth $81 million.

The pricing difference likely reflects custom configurations, delivery timing, and the mix of add-ons for each aircraft. Both cabins are exactly the grandeur I expect from a flight worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Structurally, the G700s are nearly identical: an elegant bedroom, galley, lounge, meeting room, dining area, and bathrooms. Qatar's version fits slightly fewer passengers, but both cabins oozed luxury.

The bougieness is expected. These companies operate in a highly competitive industry where every detail, from cabin to service, could make or break a trip for their ultra-high-net-worth clients.

And, despite a broader economic slowdown, demand for private aviation, particularly these large, long-range jets, is only growing — especially among those who want global reach without a fuel stop.

Flexjet primarily offers the G700 through a "fractional ownership" program, where clients pay upfront for a share of the aircraft — essentially a timeshare for airplanes — but Flexjet manages all the operations. Qatar Executive uses it exclusively for on-demand charter flights.

They share one commonality: one hour of flight time costs more than the US' median annual rent, and then some. The G700 can cover roughly 8,000 miles, or over 14 hours nonstop, like Los Angeles to Sydney or New York to Dubai.

Flexjet charges around $20,000 an hour, before any monthly fees or fuel surcharges, meaning a 14-hour flight is at least $280,000. Qatar Executive charges up to $300,000 on a similar-length G700 flight from Doha to New York.

Here's what those hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of flight time get you.

Every Flexjet and Qatar Executive G700 has a private bedroom.

Both companies have designated a closed-off space in the aft of the plane for clients to rest between meetings and destinations — complete with a comfortable bed with sheets, pillows, and a comforter.

There are seat restraints in the event of turbulence. An ensuite bathroom is attached.

A Flexjet spokesperson previously told Business Insider that despite the engines being at the back of the jet, the bedroom doesn't get too noisy.

That's not the only bed.

Flexjet's G700 can seat up to 15 people and sleep up to nine. This includes the double bed, the lounge's convertible divan, and the multiple convertible loungers.

Qatar Executive's version has a slightly smaller capacity, seating 13 and sleeping eight.

You can watch movies on a flatscreen TV.

Both planes feature a large flatscreen TV located across from the divan in the lounge, which essentially serves as a mini-theater.

This space is at the very front of Qatar Executive's cabin, but just ahead of the bedroom in the back of Flexjet's.

Passengers can hold meetings in total privacy.

Few places are more private than in the meeting room of a business jet, where deals and negotiations can happen behind closed aircraft doors.

These meeting rooms feature pairs of plush loungers with tray tables that extend from the wall. There are also adjustable window shades to block light.

The speed and flexibility make private flying particularly valuable to billionaires and corporate executives because they can optimize their time and facilitate more face-to-face interactions across cities and countries.

You can cater anything from fast food to Michelin-starred cuisine

Flexjet and Qatar Executive include a catering service where clients can order food from local restaurants, and the company serves it on board. Both jets have a dedicated six-person dining space.

During a separate tour earlier this year, Business Insider's Havovi Cooper tried Qatar Executive's high tea with caviar that was prepared in its in-house kitchen in Doha.

Meals are prepped in an oversized galley.

The G700s each feature a spacious galley where flight attendants have tools to warm and prepare meals, drinks, snacks, and even multi-course meals.

It separates the cockpit from the jet's living area.

There's a separate bed for the crew.

Both companies have opted for a crew rest area, complete with a bed, where cabin attendants and pilots can sleep during ultra-long-haul flights.

The G700s operate with one flight attendant and two pilots.

The bathrooms don't feel like bathrooms.

Bathrooms can be an eyesore in what is an otherwise luxurious space. To make them blend in better, most large private jets, including the G700, feature a toilet that can be closed to resemble a regular seat.

The sink, countertop, and mirror are also much nicer than anything found on most major airlines. Hand cloths instead of paper towels, for example, and complimentary toiletries.

More young people are flying private.

Flexjet CEO Michael Silvestro previously told Business Insider that the private aviation boom is partially driven by an increase in younger ultrarich flyers.

Data from the wealth intelligence company Altrata shows Gen Z and millennials aged 18 to 43 make up 8% of the world's ultra-high-net-worth population and are projected to reach 35% by 2040.

• Hertz, a global car rental company, ramped up its EV fleet around 2021, buying 100,000 Teslas.
• The move was a multibillion-dollar bet on an EV demand that Hertz later said did not materialize.
• The rental car company saw nearly half a billion dollars in losses directly tied to its EV fleet.

When Hertz emerged from bankruptcy and went public in 2021, the rental car company made a multi-billion-dollar bet that the future of mobility pointed toward mass electrification and that the time to pivot was immediate.

Hertz, the second-largest rental car company in the US, made a bulk purchase of 100,000 Teslas that year — estimated to cost around $4.2 billion and deemed the largest single purchase of EVs ever. No other rental car company had invested as aggressively in electric cars.

That bet turned costly and was ultimately short-lived. By 2023, less than two years into its EV shift, Hertz had waved a white flag, stating in a 10-K filing at the time that it would "significantly reduce the size" of its global EV fleet.

The result — nearly half a billion in write-downs and disposal losses alone — suggests American drivers are still reluctant to adopt an entirely new powertrain nearly three decades after the first mass-produced EV, General Motors' EV1, was put on the market. But, as a bright spot, consumers have shown that they're willing to pay for an electric car — for the right price.

Here's what Hertz lost and what the rental company's EV gamble says for the future of electrification.

A 'risky' bet gone wrong

Hertz's EV pivot wasn't made on a blind hunch — 2021 was a critical year for the electric car industry. The US market share grew faster than anticipated, and the Biden administration set a goal through an EO to make half of the passenger vehicles sold in the country zero-emission.

Then-interim CEO Mark Fields said in October 2021 that EVs were "now mainstream" and that the "rising global demand and interest" had just begun.

Hertz committed to expanding its EV fleet with a massive order of 100,000 Teslas — as well as orders from other EV brands such as Polestar and GM — and entered into an exclusive partnership with Uber, making part of the fleet available to a ride-hailing driver network.

Still, despite markers of growing EV demand, Hertz's pivot was "risky for sure," Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, told Business Insider.

In the US, pure EVs were still a niche interest, and the infrastructure, such as charging networks, had yet to keep up with the demand Hertz was prepping for. For context, Enterprise, which eclipses Hertz's overall fleet size by four to five times, only cites "several thousand EVs" in its global fleet.

"Not even the rental agencies themselves were prepared for, 'How do you charge 30 cars when you don't even have a single level-3 charger on hand?'" Drury said.

Among other "risk factors" Hertz outlined: low residual values due to volatile pricing of new EVs, frequency of damages and collisions partly due to the "lack of familiarity by drivers," cost of maintenance and repairs, and consumer sentiment regarding the reliability and safety of EVs.

In 2023, cracks in Hertz's electric car experiment began to show. The "supply of EVs exceeded customer demand," the company disclosed to investors.

Hertz made the decision that year to offload some of its electric cars, and as a result, recorded a $245 million write-down due to the value of the EVs being lower than anticipated.

By the end of 2024, Hertz had incurred another $175 million in write-downs and $48 million in losses from EVs sold, primarily in the US.

All told, the rental car firm took a $468 million hit that was explicitly tied to EV losses.

That doesn't include another $1 billion in impairment charges — or the reduction in the value of the company's total assets — which Hertz doesn't break down between EVs or gas-powered cars.

The company also said in its 10-K filing for the 2023 fiscal year that its direct operating expenses increased $646 million "primarily" due to "higher collision and damage costs, particularly within the EV fleet."

EV reluctance magnified

America's honeymoon period with electric cars came crashing down by late 2023 as sales slowed and auto executives conceded: EVs just weren't working.

If the pain points for potential EV buyers were range anxiety or the lack of familiarity with operating a new powertrain, then getting internal combustion engine (ICE) consumers to experiment with an EV through a rental only magnified those pain points.

"If I was at my hometown location — say my standard ICE car broke down — and I was like, 'You know what? I'll rent an EV for a week and see if it'll work with my lifestyle.' This would've been the greatest test drive ever," Drury, the Edmunds expert, said. "But the problem was — if I'm on a flight and I don't know anything about the city I'm going to, I don't want to research its (EV) infrastructure. I don't want to research anything other than, 'How do I get to the four places I need to get to in the least amount of hassle without diverting my route?'"

Drury also said that rental users could return the EVs with a depleted battery, leaving the rental agencies responsible for charging the cars without enough fast-charging stations.

When Business Insider previously rented a Tesla through Hertz in 2024, a Model 3 was provided with a 53% battery, leaving the reporter to find a charging station before embarking on a trip in the Michigan cold.

There are also hidden costs with EVs that can sneak up on buyers, including higher insurance premiums and maintenance costs. In some cases, a minor ding can lead to a total loss, Drury said.

"A lot of EVs — they end up being complete write-offs because, what might look like a minor hit, if it damages a structure that holds the battery, it's kind of game over," he said.

Buyers are out there

There could be one silver lining to Hertz's massive EV gamble: People are willing to buy an electric car at an attractive price.

By 2024, Hertz was having a fire sale of 30,000 used Teslas, with listings going as low as $18,000 for a Model 3.

In April of that year, the average list price of Hertz's EV inventory was $23,500, with an average mileage of 23,000, according to Edmunds data. The average list price for ICE cars was $33,700, with an average mileage of 39,500.

The EV's low resale value cut both ways: While it could detract new-car buyers, it also invites bargain hunters looking for steeply discounted cars.

"That's the one benefit for them — is that EVs right now in the used market: fastest-selling powertrain type," Drury said.

Today, Hertz's EV used inventory is "minuscule," Drury said. Hertz disclosed in an SEC filing that the sale of its EV inventory was "substantially complete" by December 31, 2024.

"Hertz is in the midst of a disciplined transformation under new leadership, delivering strong results and returning the company to EPS profitability," a Hertz spokesperson wrote to Business Insider. "We completed the EV fleet reduction a year ago, and we are now focused on continuing our momentum as we execute our transformation strategy."

Hertz hasn't entirely abandoned the electric powertrain. The rental giant said in a filing that it expects to "continue to purchase EVs in the future."

"I think knowing what they now know, having an appropriate level in the right segments, is a feasible business case," Drury said. "But should (EVs) be the overwhelming majority of your fleet? No, not even close."

• Trump's administration is proposing new student-loan borrowing caps for graduate and professional degrees.
• Advocates said the new caps would limit aid for nurses and exacerbate the medical worker shortage.
• Data shows that most students in advanced nursing programs borrow within the new proposed caps.

Nurses took the spotlight in a key student-loan repayment change.

The Department of Education has moved forward with President Donald Trump's plan to overhaul student-loan repayment in his "big beautiful" spending legislation, including new caps on student-loan borrowing for graduate and professional students.

A big point of contention was a new definition for the programs that qualify as "professional" and allow students to borrow more under the caps. Ten programs, including law and medicine, meet the department's professional designation and qualify for the higher $200,000 lifetime borrowing cap, while other programs, including nursing, are subject to the lower $100,000 cap.

The caps particularly angered the healthcare industry. During negotiations with the Department of Education on the proposed caps, some stakeholders argued that healthcare workers, such as nurses, might choose to leave the industry because they lack sufficient funding for their programs, thereby putting Americans who rely on healthcare services at risk. While data from the department showed that most advanced nursing programs would not be impacted by the caps, advocates still worry about the implications.

An analysis of data from the Department of Education's College Scorecard found that most students in post-graduate nursing programs borrow within the new caps. Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative think-tank the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a blog post that "the new caps will affect only a small number of programs charging exorbitant prices." Cooper said 115 of the 140 advanced nursing programs had a median debt below $100,000, based on classes of 2019 and 2020 available data.

Only a handful of programs had debt loads of at least $180,000, well in excess of the new caps. Georgetown University's advanced nursing degree had a median debt load of $212,494.

Still, the new borrowing caps — coupled with Trump's elimination of the Grad PLUS program, which allowed graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their programs — could weigh on the healthcare industry.

The Association of American Medical Colleges found that the median cost for four years of public medical school in 2025 was $286,454, with about half of medical students taking out Grad PLUS loans. Education policy experts told Business Insider that it's likely the caps could lead more students to forgo their advanced degrees or seek additional financing through the riskier private lending market.

The Department of Education said in a recent press release that 95% of nursing students borrow below the new caps, based on department data, and it emphasized that the limits do not impact undergraduate nursing programs. The department also said that changing the definition of a "professional" degree is "not a value judgement about the importance of programs."

"It has no bearing on whether a program is professional in nature or not," the department said.

The department's changes to student-loan repayment, including the new borrowing caps, could still change. The public will have an opportunity to comment on the proposal early next year before the final rule is implemented in July 2026.

How the new borrowing caps could affect the medical worker shortage

Healthcare advocates said the caps could exacerbate the already-existing doctor and nurse shortage, especially alongside planned Medicaid changes: "It feels like we're being attacked on all sides and really limiting what we can get from a funding perspective," Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association, told Business Insider.

Mensik Kennedy added that removing professional designations from nursing degrees could make it more difficult to train and retain faculty at nursing schools, a job that requires more advanced and expensive education. "It's going to be a really bad revolving issue where we don't have enough faculty to produce enough nurses to replace the nurses who are retiring," she said. The trend will have an "immediate impact" on the number of nurses in the US healthcare system, which will shape patient care for years to come.

NerdWallet lending expert Kate Wood also said increased limitations on student loans could further disparities in the nursing field. She told Business Insider that "Healthcare professionals already skew whiter and wealthier than the general population" and loan caps "may push students from groups that have historically had limited access to higher education, like people from underrepresented minority groups, lower-income families or people in rural areas, away from these fields."

• Meta delays the release of its "Phoenix" mixed reality glasses to 2027, aiming to "get the details right."
• An internal memo cited the need for "breathing room" as the company wants a "fully polished" device.
• It's also developing a next-gen Quest headset and a wearable device code-named "Malibu 2."

Meta is delaying the release of new mixed reality glasses code-named "Phoenix."

The company planned to release the new device in the second half of 2026, but it is pushing back its timeline to the first half of 2027, Maher Saba, VP of Reality Labs Foundation, wrote in a Thursday memo to employees, which was seen by Business Insider.

In a separate memo, also viewed by Business Insider, metaverse leaders Gabriel Aul and Ryan Cairns said moving the release date back is "going to give us a lot more breathing room to get the details right."

They added, "There's a lot coming in hot with tight bring-up schedules and big changes to our core UX, and we won't compromise on landing a fully polished and reliable experience."

Meta declined to comment.

The "Phoenix" mixed reality glasses, which were previously reported on by The Information, have a goggle-like form factor and are connected to a puck to help power them, according to two employees who have seen the device and spoke anonymously as they are not authorized to talk to the press.

The two employees said the model looks similar to Apple's mixed reality glasses Vision Pro. There was some skepticism among leaders about the puck, but they chose to keep it to help keep the glasses lighter and more comfortable, and to prevent it from overheating, they said.

Saba said in the memo that at a recent meeting with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Reality Labs (RL) leaders received feedback on their plans for 2026, which he said "focused on making the business sustainable and taking extra time to deliver our experiences with higher quality."

"Based on that, many teams in RL will need to adjust their plans and timelines," he added. "Extending timelines is not an opportunity for us to add more features or take on additional work."

Meta also plans to release a new "limited edition" wearable device code-named "Malibu 2" in 2026, according to Saba.

Meta is starting work on its next-generation Quest device, a product that Aul and Cairns wrote will be focused on immersive gaming, and represent a "large upgrade" in capabilities from its existing devices, and "significantly improve unit economics."

In October, Meta reorganized its metaverse unit and tapped Aul, who led products for Meta Horizon, and Cairns, who was previously in charge of virtual reality hardware, to co-lead its efforts, Business Insider previously reported. The company is now considering budget cuts of up to 30% within its Reality Labs division, which could impact employees working on its virtual spaces platform, Horizon Worlds.

The company has also expanded its AI hardware push by acquiring Limitless, a startup that makes AI-powered pendant devices, the company announced Friday.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at jmann@businessinsider.com or Signal at jyotimann.11. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• A federal judge ordered Google to limit default search and AI app contracts to one year.
• The ruling follows a 2024 finding that Google illegally monopolized online search markets.
• The decision aims to boost competition from rivals in search apps and generative AI.

A judge opened the door to upending Google's dominance as the default search on your phone.

On Friday, a federal judge ordered Google to limit all default search and AI app contracts to one year, a setback for the long-term deals that have helped cement the company's dominance on billions of devices.

The ruling, detailed in a December 2025 judgment, requires Alphabet's Google to renegotiate every default-placement agreement annually, including lucrative deals with Apple's iPhone and manufacturers like Samsung.

Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court of the District of Columbia said the "hard-and-fast termination requirement after one year" is necessary to enforce antitrust relief after his landmark 2024 finding that Google illegally monopolized online search and search advertising.

The decision aims to open the door for rivals, especially fast-moving generative AI companies, to compete for default spots that have historically been held for years at a time. It builds on a separate September order requiring Google to share some of the data behind its search rankings with competitors.

While Google can still pay device makers for default placement, the annual renegotiation rule sharply restricts its ability to secure long-term control over the search market.

Google and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

• The Society for Human Resource Management has fought an ex-staffer over discrimination claims since 2022.
• On Friday, a Colorado jury issued a $11.5 million verdict in favor of the former employee.
• In recent years, SHRM has been embroiled in controversies, as Business Insider recently reported.

A jury on Friday issued an $11.5 million verdict against the world's largest HR organization over allegations it had racially discriminated and retaliated against a former employee.

The Society for Human Resource Management, known as SHRM, was found liable for racial discrimination and retaliation and hit with a ruling of $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million for punitive damages, according to Ariel DeFazio, a lawyer for the plaintiff.

SHRM said it plans to appeal the decision. "Today's decision does not reflect the facts, the law, or the truth of how SHRM operates," the trade group said in a statement. "We have acted with integrity, transparency, and in full alignment with our values and obligations."

SHRM was sued in 2022 by Rehab Mohamed, who worked at the trade group as an instructional designer from 2016 to 2020. The case was tried over the course of five days in a Colorado federal court.

"The optics are bad because they've held themselves out as an authority on best practices," said Alice K. Jump, an employment attorney and partner at law firm Reavis Page Jump.

Mohamed said in her suit that she was racially discriminated against by a white supervisor and faced retaliation for complaining to management. She said she raised concerns about racial discrimination and retaliation with leadership, including SHRM's CEO, Johnny C. Taylor Jr., and its head of human resources, throughout the summer of 2020.

While testifying on December 4, Taylor said he wasn't involved in Mohamed's termination. A former SHRM employee, Mike Jackson, who said he was responsible for investigating the matter, told the court that Mohamed's was the only discrimination claim he had ever investigated.

In response to questions from Hunter Swain, another of Mohamed's lawyers, Jackson said that he left SHRM in 2021 and his title was manager of employee experience. He said he became a certified HR professional while employed there and that he had undergone one training session on HR investigations just a few months before the discriminatory events that Mohamed cited in her lawsuit took place.

When asked by Swain what he learned from the training, Jackson said he couldn't remember any specifics.

SHRM has consistently denied Mohamed's claims. In September, SHRM asked the court to bar Mohamed from introducing evidence or argument that the organization is a specialist in HR best practices.

The following month, US District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher denied SHRM's request, saying its "asserted expertise in human resources is integral to the circumstances of this case and cannot reasonably be excluded."

In his testimony, Taylor said SHRM's work includes advising HR professionals about best practices, including those pertaining to investigating internal complaints of discrimination and retaliation. He said SHRM has a set of curricula around best practices for investigating employment complaints.

The verdict was not surprising given that SHRM promotes itself as an expert in HR, Boston employment lawyer Evan Fray-Witzer told Business Insider. "You're going to be held to a higher standard," he said.

In recent years, SHRM has been embroiled in various controversies, as Business Insider recently reported. These include a new attendance policy that penalizes workers who arrive even a minute after 9 a.m.; a memo about a "conservative" dress code that bans sequins; and a companywide meeting in which Taylor said some staffers were "entitled," "complacent," and "sloppy."

During pre-trial discovery for Mohamed's case, SHRM revealed the existence of two other discrimination complaints from employees. One case, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2018, was settled. The other, filed with a California regulator in 2021, is pending. SHRM also denied wrongdoing in those cases.

"We are very happy that the jury spent a week listening very closely to the evidence and that they decided, as a result, to hold SHRM accountable," Mohamed's lawyer, DeFazio, told Business Insider. She said the verdict would "send a message to workplaces in the entire country."

• Vanity Fair and journalist Olivia Nuzzi are severing ties, the outlet confirmed to Business Insider.
• Nuzzi's relationship with RFK Jr. has been the subject of controversy and is discussed in her book "American Canto."
• Her ex, political journalist Ryan Lizza, has been making sordid allegations on his Substack.

Journalist Olivia Nuzzi and Vanity Fair are severing ties.

Nuzzi joined Vanity Fair in September 2025, after departing New York magazine in 2024 in the wake of revelations that she'd had a relationship with her source, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, then a presidential candidate.

The fallout from the affair has continued after Nuzzi's ex-fiancé, former Politico correspondent Ryan Lizza, recently accused Nuzzi of additional ethical breaches.

"Vanity Fair and Olivia Nuzzi have mutually agreed, in the best interest of the magazine, to let her contract expire at the end of the year," according to a joint statement from spokespeople for Vanity Fair and Nuzzi provided to Business Insider.

A third-party investigation into her reporting at New York magazine revealed no bias, but the magazine said at the time that her relationship with the ex-presidential candidate violated their conflict-of-interest standards.

Following her split with Lizza and New York magazine, Nuzzi, a former star political reporter, moved to Los Angeles. She published a memoir, "American Canto" on Tuesday, in which she detailed the past 10 years of political reporting and her relationship with "the politician," understood to be RFK Jr.

Since their split, Lizza and Nuzzi have been engaged in an ongoing reputational battle, with each publicly accusing the other of engaging in behaviors that, while not illegal, undermine each other's journalistic credibility.

Nuzzi, in a petition for a temporary protective order against him in late 2024, accused Lizza of blackmailing her and threatening to destroy her career, which Lizza has denied. She later withdrew the petition.

After a lull, the public acrimony continued with the revelation of Nuzzi's book, followed by a series of Substack posts from Lizza.

He has suggested in online postings that Nuzzi used her position as a reporter to "catch and kill" unflattering stories about RFK Jr. He also accused her of having another unusual relationship with a different subject.

A spokesperson for Nuzzi did not respond to questions about Lizza's allegations. In a post for Emily Sundberg's Substack, Feed Me, she wrote it was "another attempt to harass, humiliate, and harm me until I am as destroyed as he seems to be," and called Lizza's posts "fan fiction-slash-revenge porn."