• After Ray Zahab was diagnosed with lymphoma, he plans to run 111 miles in Death Valley.
• Zahab, an accomplished ultrarunner, kept training in between chemotherapy treatments.
• Temperatures in Death Valley can reach over 120 degrees, but Zahab says he's ready.

Ray Zahab has run hundreds of miles across deserts and the Arctic, completed numerous ultramarathons, walked to the South Pole, and even starred in a film Matt Damon produced about Zahab's 111-day trek across the African desert with friends.

But two years ago, the 55-year-old Canadian adventurer started feeling exhausted all the time.

"I'm not that old," Zahab told Business Insider. "I mean, for crying out loud. I am getting older, but this is ridiculous," he remembered thinking.

It turned out that the ultrarunner's lack of energy had nothing to do with his age. His doctor diagnosed him with lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.

While the diagnosis was frightening, Zahab said he was grateful his form of cancer is treatable, even though it's not curable.

Zahab began chemotherapy but didn't take much time off from running. Though he experienced nausea, exhaustion, and shakiness from his treatments, he kept training, he told "Ottowa Citizen" last year.

"I was going to just spend each month between chemo being as fit as I possibly could and go do something epic," he said. In 2023, he spent 10 days running 87 miles across Canada's Baffin Island during the freezing winter.

Now that his cancer is in remission, his next adventure is to run about 111 miles through Death Valley, California, to celebrate.

Running in 120-degree weather

Death Valley is one of the hottest places on Earth. In summer, temperatures can regularly reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's no accident that Zahab is planning to run through the desert in mid-July, the region's hottest month.

This time of year, Death Valley feels like a hot convection oven, Zahab said. During past runs there, "my fingernails felt like they were burning in the wind coming off the valley," he recalled.

But despite the harsh conditions, Zahab actually enjoys summer runs in Death Valley. "I love being in these places at that time of year, and I don't take anything for granted," he said.

He's carefully planned his route and will have caches of emergency supplies and ice packs, he said.

He said he's also feeling better than he was last year. When he finished treatment in 2023, he decided to make the 111-mile trip through Death Valley, "as a treat to myself," he said. However, he didn't finish last year's run.

That's because Death Valley was experiencing hotter-than-usual temperatures that year. Plus, "I don't think I was completely recovered from the chemo yet," he said.

Though this desert run will be grueling, he thinks he's ready. "I'm in great shape," he said. "I've been training like crazy."

Finding your own version of extraordinary

Before he started mountain biking and running, Zahab said he was a regular smoker who wasn't very healthy. He was also afraid of failure. "I spent 30 years of my life talking myself out of trying new things," he said.

With his cancer in remission, Zahab knows he's luckier than many with the same disease. "I learned that in chemo," he said.

Not everyone would be able to jump right back into training for ultrarunning while still in treatment. And not everyone would want to run across the Sahara.

The key, Zahab said, is to find whatever you're passionate about.

"I think that within every single person, if they choose, is their own version of extraordinary," he said.

This summer's Death Valley run will be the next in a long series of ultramarathons and expeditions for Zahab. He hopes it will help prepare him for an upcoming run across South America.

• Late bloomers find career success later than other people expect them to.
• Author Henry Oliver said many famous people were late bloomers, such as Malcolm X and Vera Wang.
• He said late bloomers never stop being curious, and only take advice from the right people.

If "30 under 30" lists are any indication, there's a lot of cultural pressure to accomplish career milestones earlier in life.

But there are plenty of people who find their callings and reach success later on.

In his new book "Second Act," Henry Oliver, a global brand consultant-turned-literature blogger, shares stories of famous career "late bloomers," from modern celebrities like Jay-Z and Vera Wang to historical figures like Malcolm X and Margaret Thatcher.

"The book is about highly successful people, but I think there are these applicable lessons," Oliver told Business Insider. "We learn them from the best people."

He said there's no universal age that makes someone a late bloomer. Instead, he defines late bloomers as "people who start doing incredible things after the point when no one expects it."

"No one was sitting there in 1975 saying, 'Oh, Margaret Thatcher's going to do big things,'" he said. "When Malcolm X went into jail at age 20, no one had any idea that he was going to become Malcolm X."

Oliver shared some of the core traits of successful late bloomers — and how you can make sure you're on the right track if you're looking for your second act.

You tap into old passions

Oliver said that most of the late bloomers he researched were "just obsessively interested" in the things they ended up succeeding in.

He said Katharine Graham, who inherited The Washington Post, was always obsessed with the news. Margaret Thatcher was obsessed with politics, 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson was obsessed with books, and Frank Lloyd Wright was obsessed with buildings from a young age.

Sometimes, late bloomers would find a way to use their talents in new ways. "Malcolm X was always very, very good with people," Oliver said. In his youth, he wasn't interested in politics or religion, but "becoming this kind of charismatic leader is not entirely incompatible with the person he was."

You're eager to sample new things

People commonly get stuck in their careers because they think it must be linear, Oliver said. They might also feel like a career pivot has to be a huge decision right away, rather than a trial run.

"Do it for three hours one Saturday and just see if it was fun," he said of people trying out interests they want to pursue. "If you do lots of different things, you'll come across stuff that you like and you'll develop it and you'll build it up."

In his book, he calls this the "explore" phase of being a late bloomer, where you look around for new ideas and experiences to see what sticks. It can look like freelancing on many different projects or even changing your environment by moving cities.

He said this is the crucial first step to getting a "hot streak" later on and achieving success.

You make a conscious decision to move forward

After the explore phase comes the even more important "exploit phase," Oliver said. He describes it as making a firm choice to pursue a goal, rather than staying on a meandering path.

"You come to a point when you say, 'I'm going to pull some of these things together and I'm not going to explore anymore: I'm going to deliver," he said.

One of his favorite examples in the book is Audrey Sutherland, who solo-kayaked 850 miles around Alaska when she was 60. She'd never been to the Arctic before and had only kayaked in warm waters.

"She looked at herself at age 60 and said, 'do it now, or you're too old,'" he said. "That's the crucial thing. That's what matters."

You take small steps toward big breaks

According to Oliver, "luck" happens when you've done the work to set yourself up for success. That can look like saving money to quit a job or taking online courses to learn new skills.

One example in the book was Maya Angelou, who was in writing groups and sending out her work, to no avail. She moved from California to New York and still struggled to get any bites.

She was friends with James Baldwin, who took her to a dinner party in 1968 that she wasn't in the mood to go to. At the party, a couple asked her to tell them the story of her life. Their reaction and encouragement inspired her to write and publish her autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," the following year.

"You have to go to the party, even when everything's not working and you don't want to," Oliver said.

You only take advice from the right people

If you're doing a hard career pivot, Oliver said it's good to test out your ideas with people before making a big leap. However, it should only be with people who have relevant experience.

"Good advice comes from someone in a position of expertise with up-to-date knowledge," he said. But if your parents think pursuing your dream is worthless because being a doctor is safer, Oliver said the advice can be either useless or actually harmful to your progress.

You're not complacent, even if it's comfortable

One of the most common obstacles late bloomers face is the "competency trap," Oliver said. They feel stabler in a role they already know they're good at, even if they're unhappy, because it feels easier than quitting a lucrative job, dealing with a pay cut, or learning something completely new.

While he said career pivots are never easy, times have also changed: people are living longer, healthier lives, giving them more opportunities to try new things.

"We're always keen to compare the late bloomer with the early bloomer," he said. "But I would compare the late bloomer with the person who dies without doing their thing."

• Chinese state media shared a video of what it characterized as a submarine detection device dropped by a US Navy aircraft.
• The apparent sonobuoy was discovered in the South China Sea near the Second Thomas Shoal. 
• Military maritime patrol aircraft, including China's planes, routinely use systems like these.

China's coast guard found a submarine detection device dropped by a US Navy aircraft somewhere in the South China Sea, a state broadcaster reported.

Many militaries, including China, use sonobuoys and acoustic sensors. Maritime patrol aircraft often use them and other detectors in open waters to track submarine movements and locations.

Video footage shared by Chinese state media on Wednesday showed a US Navy aircraft, what appears to be a P-8 Poseidon, dropping an object resembling a sonobuoy into the South China Sea.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify the reported details of the video posted to Chinese social media. The footage showed a close-up examination of the object, which Yuyuan Tiantan, part of the China Media Group, identified as a "submarine detector" and reported was recovered by the Chinese coast guard.

The video identifies the object's manufacturer as Ultra Electronics Undersea Sensor Systems, Inc. It's a British company which makes sonobuoys and underwater sensors.

The US Department of Defense didn't respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Chinese state media said its coast guard picked up the device near the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, contested territory claimed by both China and the Philippines.

The two South China Sea claimants have clashed in the area, increasingly over the past few years and especially in recent months, with Chinese Coast Guard ships firing water cannons at Philippine supply boats and ramming Philippine vessels.

Chinese coast guard personnel recently disrupted a supply run with bladed weapons, drawing complaints of piracy from Manila.

The Second Thomas Shoal, which China calls Ren'ai Jiao, is located far from the Chinese mainland, as well as the Yulin Naval Base on Hainan Island, where China houses its submarines, though its boats operate across the strategic South China Sea.

Sonobuoys and other similar sensors are small, common instruments in anti-submarine warfare and underwater acoustic research. They have long been used by militaries for monitoring submarine locations and movements, as well as non-military purposes.

There are various kinds of sonobuoys that deliver active and passive collection of data or serve specific operations. In the state media video, China said that the "probe" was being used to detect subs and counter sub signals.

Like the US Navy, China has its own anti-submarine warfare and maritime surveillance aircraft, such as the KQ-200 that are capable of deploying sonobuoys like the SQ-4s and SQ-5s.

In response to the recent discovery by the Chinese coast guard, Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Wu Qian said that China firmly opposes US warships and aircraft stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, per Chinese media reporting.

US military ships and aircraft routinely operate in the international waters of the South China Sea unilaterally and with allies and partner nations in support of what it calls a "free-and-open Indo-Pacific," flying and sailing wherever international law allows.

• Bill Gates, the Microsoft cofounder, shares three kids with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates.
• They include a recent med school graduate and a fashion startup cofounder.
• His eldest daughter, Jennifer Gates Nassar, recently announced she is expecting her second child.

Bill Gates' story is a quintessential example of the American entrepreneurial dream: A brilliant math whiz, Gates was 19 when he dropped out of Harvard and cofounded Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen in 1975.

Nearly 50 years later, he's one of the richest and most famous men on Earth, with a fortune of about $131 billion, per Forbes. He stepped down from Microsoft's board in 2020 and has cultivated his brand of philanthropy with the Gates Foundation — a venture he formerly ran with his now ex-wife Melinda French Gates, who resigned in May. 

Even before founding one of the world's most valuable companies, Gates' life was anything but ordinary. He grew up in a well-off and well-connected family, surrounded by his parents' rarefied personal and professional network. Their circle included a Cabinet secretary and a governor of Washington, according to "Hard Drive," the 1992 biography of Gates by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Brock Adams, who went on to become the transportation secretary in the Carter administration, is said to have introduced Gates' parents.)

His father, William Gates Sr., was a prominent corporate lawyer in Seattle and the president of the Washington State Bar Association.

His mother, Mary Gates, came from a line of successful bankers and sat on the boards of important financial and social institutions, including the nonprofit United Way. It was there, according to her New York Times obituary, that she met the former IBM chairman John Opel — a fateful connection thought to have led to IBM enlisting Microsoft to provide an operating system in the 1980s.

"My parents were well off — my dad did well as a lawyer, took us on great trips, we had a really nice house," Gates said in the 2019 Netflix documentary "Inside Bill's Brain."

"And I've had so much luck in terms of all these opportunities."

Despite his very public life, his three children with French Gates — Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe — largely avoided the spotlight for most of their upbringing. 

Like their father, the three Gates children attended Seattle's elite Lakeside School, a private high school that has been recognized for excellence in STEM subjects — and that received a $40 million donation from Bill Gates in 2005 to build its financial aid fund. (Bill Gates and Paul Allen met at Lakeside and went on to build Microsoft together.)

But as they have become adults, more details have emerged about their interests, professions, and family life. 

While they have chosen different career paths, all three children are active in philanthropy — a space in which they will likely wield immense influence as they grow older. While their father has reportedly said that he plans to leave each of the Gates three children $10 million — a fraction of his fortune — they may inherit the family foundation, where most of his money will go.

Here's all we know about the Gates children.

Gates and his children did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said the "worst moment" of Sam Altman's ousting happened around midnight.
• Chesky said Altman expected to get reinstated but OpenAI then announced Emmett Shear as CEO.
• Altman planned to go to Microsoft but Chesky said his friendship with Shear helped open a dialogue.

Sam Altman has shared glimpses of his brief ousting from OpenAI, like how he operated in an "adrenaline-charged state" and barely ate or slept for the roughly four-day period.

But the hardest moment happened at midnight about two days in, according to an interview with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on CNBC.

"It was probably 48 hours in," Chesky said. "The board had led us to believe he was going to be reinstated, and right before midnight, we get information that Emmett Shear is now the CEO."

At that point, Chesky said Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman said they would go to Microsoft, and it felt like the page had turned. While Chesky said he wanted the two former executives to fight to stay, they were ready to leave if that was best for OpenAI and its employees.

"I thought that was the end of it," Chesky said. "The miraculous thing was, it turns out Emmett Shear is also a friend of mine and that opened a new line of communication." While many other things happened, his relationship with Shear, who ran Twitch before stepping down in March 2023 and who did briefly run OpenAI over that long weekend, helped foster dialog, Chesky said.

While the midnight news might have disappointed Altman, Chesky said he was surprised — in a good way — at how he wasn't acting out of self-preservation throughout the ousting.

"When people are attacked, they typically go to themselves," Chesky said. "And Sam was focused not on himself, but OpenAI and that made me want to fight for him."

Chesky was one of the first people Altman contacted when he was fired, and the two have reportedly been friends for a decade. Altman and Shear mentored Chesky at startup Y Combinator. Both Shear and Chesky worked together to bring Altman back as CEO, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Airbnb and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Airline rating company Skytrax has released its 2024 list of the world's best business-class cabins.
• Qatar Airways and its Qsuite business class cabin took top honors. 
• Skytrax rankings are based on surveys of travelers from more than 110 countries. 

Qatar Airways offers the best business-class cabin in the world, according to travelers polled by travel industry rating company Skytrax.

Skytrax published its latest rankings in June as part of the 2024 World Airlines Awards, which also named Qatar Airways the best airline in the world.

Business-class offerings from Asian and Middle Eastern airlines took the top six spots in the Skytrax rankings which are compiled using feedback from over 350 airlines from travelers representing over 100 countries.

Here's a closer look at airlines with this year's 10 best business-class offerings in the world, according to Skytrax.

• Sabrina Philipp split from her husband after nearly three years of marriage.
• She celebrated her divorce by hosting a $30,000 "divorce party" for 18 family and friends.
• In a mock freedom ceremony, Philipp used a slingshot to fire her wedding ring into the ocean.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sabrina Philipp. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I hadn't expected it to be so emotional, but the high point of my divorce party was taking a slingshot and launching my wedding ring into the ocean.

A friend played "Goodbye Girl" by The Chicks as the band hit the water. It was out with the old, in with the new. My life was over as a married woman. The next adventure had begun.

My guests — including my parents — clapped and cheered. I had never felt so relieved and happy. It might have cost $30,000, but my divorce party was worth every cent.

I met my ex-husband in Bali in June 2017, when I was a 23-year-old graduate from the University of Florida. He was an Australian who was about to turn 29 and traveling simultaneously.

He was my first serious boyfriend — certainly the only one I'd lived with. We had a great time exploring Bali and then Europe. A couple of years later, we moved to Scotland.

My ex and I were the only people at our wedding

The relationship had its ups and downs. We shared many interests, such as food, travel, and animals — but spent a lot of time apart, particularly when he flew to Australia to visit his child from his first marriage.

Still, I quickly said "yes" when he proposed in January 2020. We began to plan a destination wedding in Bali in July 2021. However, the pandemic shut everything down, and we had no idea when it would end.

An immigration attorney suggested that we move the wedding forward. We ended up getting married in Denmark in August 2020. Restrictions were still in place, and we had to take COVID tests before and after the trip. Only the two of us were there, but my family watched the ceremony via Zoom.

I cried when I said my vows. Everyone thought it was because I was so happy. The truth is, I was thinking, "Oh, my God, I just got married, and my mom and my dad aren't here." But, in my young mind, I thought it was the right decision.

We settled in Edinburgh, where I ran my business coaching company. We got two dogs — Bonnie and Clyde — and considered starting a family. But there were issues behind the scenes, such as him declaring his love and ghosting me. We had couples therapy.

After a while, my ex stopped going to therapy. I went on my own. Things weren't working out. I was growing older and wiser as I approached the age of 30. We argued about money, and there were other fights. We separated in the summer of 2023.

It was extremely traumatic. I felt emotionally lost. Then there was a drama about finances. Luckily, he didn't object to me keeping our pets.

I focused on health and wellness after the split

I'm an influencer and shared the details of our break-up on Instagram. It struck a chord, especially with women. They commented on my posts, messaged me, and asked for advice. I realized I had a platform to talk about the reality of divorce and how to survive it.

Meanwhile, I became focused on health and wellness. I wanted to feel good and look good — purely for myself. I got Botox and plastic surgery, including rhinoplasty and blepharoplasty, in New York City.

My friends and I jokingly coined the phrase "Hottest Ex-Wife Ever." It was one of the reasons I decided to celebrate my new look and new-found freedom with the divorce party.

I wanted to challenge the negativity around divorce. Many people see it as a failure. If your marriage ended, that doesn't mean it failed, or you should regret it.

We live our lives in chapters. It's OK if one chapter is marriage and the next is being single again.

The party happened in April in my home city of Miami, just before my 30th birthday. Eighteen people flew in from Canada, California, Texas, North Carolina, and all over Florida. It meant the world that Mom and Dad were there. They hadn't attended my wedding, so it was fitting that they came to my divorce celebration.

I felt the opposite of ugly, rejected or unwanted

I micromanaged the guests' outfits — everyone had to wear black because it was a funeral for my marriage.

We started with a sexy lingerie shoot in my hotel suite with my girlfriends. I posed in lacy underwear with my divorce cake in the shape of a black heart. It was great because, when you go through a divorce, you can feel so ugly, rejected, or unwanted. I felt the opposite.

Then, we had a four-course dinner at a waterside restaurant in Miami Beach. We ate caviar and seafood and drank bottles of Dom Perignon. The ambiance was perfect. I couldn't have wished for better company or a better time.

As for my wedding ring — a platinum piece from Cartier that I'd bought for myself in Copenhagen for $1,000— we had a mock ceremony when I pitched it into the sea.

A jeweler told me I could have melted it down and gotten around $70 for the weight of the metal. "That's not very fun," I thought. "Do I want $70, or do I want photos and videos of me slingshotting my wedding band into the ocean?" The symbolism was everything. I took the slingshot.

Do you have a powerful story about a good or bad relationship you'd like to share with Business Insider? Please send details to jridley@businessinsider.com

• Japan's Olympic teams will wear infrared-proof uniforms at the Paris Olympics.
• Mizuno designed the uniforms to combat illicit photography of athletes.
• Complaints about revealing photos led to the development of this specialized fabric.

A brand-new innovation is coming to the Paris Olympics this summer: uniforms that creeps can't see through with infrared cameras.

Japan's volleyball, track and field, table tennis, and other teams will wear uniforms made of a cutting-edge new fabric that absorbs infrared light, preventing infrared cameras from seeing through to athletes' underwear or bodies underneath, Le Monde first reported.

Japanese sports equipment company Mizuno designed the outfits specifically to combat the rising trend of voyeurs producing and circulating compromising photos of athletes on pornographic websites, Mizuno said in a press release.

Kazuya Tajima, who works on Mizuno's development team, told Le Monde he hopes that the "use of this fabric by top athletes will make society aware that voyeurism is unacceptable," adding that "cameras are becomingly increasingly sophisticated."

The fabric uses specialized material that absorbs light from the infrared range into the composition of the textile itself, making the fabric "nearly wholly opaque" under both visible and infrared light, Mizuno explains. And that, Mizuno says, "can help reduce the number of athletes that fall victim to illicit infrared photography."

Development on the technology began after athletes complained to the Japanese Olympic Committee in 2020 about revealing photos of themselves shared on social media with sexually explicit captions, The Japan Times reported.

Though the trend may be getting more attention lately, it's nothing new.

A member of Japan's badminton team, Reiko Shiota, who competed in the 2008 Beijing Games and 2012 London Games, has been a victim of photos of her breasts and lower body circulating online, Le Monde reported.

And Japanese gymnast Airi Hatakeyama has also been targeted by people sexualizing suggestive photos of her, even when she was a minor, according to Le Monde.

Some of the voyeurs have even been caught in the act. In 2023, a man was charged for filming female athletes' lower bodies during a running match in Kyoto, and ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Games, another man was arrested for selling infrared photos of a female volleyball player on a porn website, Le Monde reported.

• A Tesla owner said he crashed his new Cybertruck after the brakes stopped working.
• Bruce Freshwater said now he can't drive the car and a repair could cost up to $30,000.
• He said Tesla was investigating, but hasn't gotten back to him. The company didn't respond to BI.

A Tesla owner said he crashed his new Cybertruck into a neighbor's yard within the first few hours of driving it — and he said it's because the vehicle's brakes didn't work.

The owner, Bruce Freshwater, told BI that the crash happened on April 27 after he picked up the Cybertruck. He said he pumped the accelerator when his daughter asked him to, but that nothing happened when he hit the brakes.

"I held the brakes down, and the vehicle really wasn't slowing down," Freshwater said.

Freshwater said he went to make a turn and "the back wheels locked up." According to a report from the North Fayette Township Police Department in Pennsylvania, Freshwater stated that his vehicle went forward 50 feet and crashed into his neighbor's yard. The Cybetruck then barreled into one of his neighbor's cars. That car then ran into a second vehicle, Freshwater told the police in the report, which BI has viewed.

Freshwater's Cybertruck, along with one of the neighbor's vehicles, sustained "disabling damage," according to the police report. The second vehicle had "moderate damage," the report said.

Freshwater said no one was hurt in the crash, but also said a fuse was blown when the airbags deployed, so the Cybertruck can't be driven.

Freshwater said a Tesla-recommended body shop gave him an estimate of between $16,000 and $30,000 to repair the vehicle. He paid around $109,000 after taxes for the Cybertruck, which he bought new from Tesla. He said he's now working with his insurance company to determine what happens next.

Meanwhile, Freshwater said he called Tesla's service line after the incident and heard back on April 29, two days after the crash, and again a week later.

He said a Tesla manager told him that due to the terrain, the accelerator may or may not disengage, and they're looking into the braking issue. He said that was the last he heard from Tesla.

Tesla didn't respond to BI's request to verify Freshwater's account or to comment on the situation.

The Tesla owner posted about the incident on X and said Tesla "needs to take some responsibility." Freshwater told BI that he still makes car payments every month on a vehicle he isn't using.

He said no other Tesla owners have contacted him regarding a similar experience, but the issue he experienced may not be an isolated case.

Tesla voluntarily recalled 2024 Cybertrucks in April for an "unintended acceleration from trapped pedal." The situation may occur when the accelerator pedal pad dislodges and causes the pedal to become trapped by the interior trim, increasing risk of crashing, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The report said the issue occurred because of an "unapproved change" during the vehicle's production in which soap had been added to the assembly. Residual soap "reduced the retention of the pad to the pedal," it said.

The recall covered 3,878 Cybertrucks, the NHTSA recall report said. As of April 15, there were no known related injuries, and by April 17, the vehicles in production were apparently equipped with a new accelerator pedal component, the report said.

Freshwater said he was initially a big fan of Cybertruck and ordered it the first day it became available. But while he initially wanted a Cybertruck replacement, he now isn't sure what he hopes will come out of the situation.

"With the wife and the kids, I'm not sure they would ever get in it with me," Freshwater said. "So it comes down to that, too."