• The median home price in May was $442,500, up from $441,000 in 2023, according to Realtor.com.
• Still, several big US cities saw home prices drop in May compared to the same time period in 2023.
• Miami saw the biggest decline — home prices fell by 11.2% year-over-year to $439,000.

The adage "what goes up must come down" is especially true in the real-estate market, where a slowdown in homebuying has led to price declines in cities across the country.

The median sales price for the entire US actually went up a bit — to $442,500 — in May from the previous May, which means buying a home hasn't become significantly more affordable for the typical American since last year.

However, with would-be buyers holding back, leading to less competition for homes, home prices in several major US metros have dropped by thousands of dollars, according to a new report from Realtor.com.

It comes down to consistently high mortgage rates and an overall increase in home financing costs, which have sidelined many prospective buyers.

"Higher mortgage rates compared with last May increased the monthly cost of financing 80% of the median home by roughly $158 compared with a year ago," said Danielle Hale, Redfin's chief economist. "This increased the required household income to purchase the median-priced home by $6,400, to $119,700, after also accounting for the cost of tax and insurance."

While this locks many Americans out of the market, it's good news for those who can still afford to buy a home in their area.

In pandemic boomtowns like Miami and Austin, which drew thousands of homebuyers looking for relatively affordable homes and more space, a pullback in demand has caused homes to stay on the market longer, prompting many sellers to reduce their prices.

In May, home prices in Miami and Austin dropped by 11.2% and 3.1%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2023, according to the report.

Realtor.com analyzed data from 50 of the largest US metros to calculate which ones saw the largest home-price declines in May.

Below are the 11 big cities with the largest price drops.

• Drone dogfights in Ukraine have drawn comparison to the aerial battles of WWI.
• In just two years, drone operators have become much more sophisticated.
• BI reviewed over 40 drone dogfights to see some of the main tactics that have emerged.

The sheer scale of drone use in Ukraine has given rise to an increasing battle for the skies, and the rise of drone-on-drone dogfights.

Thousands of uncrewed aerial vehicles take to the skies over Ukraine, serving a wide range of tasks such as directing artillery fire, surveillance, and acting as loitering munitions.

It's a set of tasks so integral to the fighting that earlier this month Ukraine's military launched the world's first stand-alone branch dedicated solely to drone warfare.

Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the world had only seen a handful of drone-on-drone incidents.

But now, Russia and Ukraine are "engaged in a 'drone arms race,' investing vast amounts of money, time, and expertise in developing and countering each other's systems," James Patton Rogers, a drone expert and director of the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute, told BI.

Today, drones that once used their explosive payloads on multimillion-dollar armored vehicles are choosing to target other drones instead because of the threat they pose, Mike Monnik, CEO of drone intelligence platform DroneSec, told BI.

BI reviewed more than 40 videos of drone-on-drone skirmishes over Ukraine, collected and annotated by DroneSec, to identify some of the distinct — and often overlapping — tactics that have rapidly developed in this short period.

(BI was unable to independently verify some of the videos, which are often shared by partisan groups.)

Dropping down from above

The cheap and plentiful DJI Mavic drone has limited visibility directly overhead — meaning that a drone hovering above is a distinct threat.

The clip above, posted by a pro-Russian channel in early April, shows a Russian drone smashing directly down onto a Ukrainian DJI Mavic-3 drone, sending it tumbling out of the sky.

In early 2022, "much of this was by chance," Monnik said. He described how a small commercial drone out on reconnaissance might notice an enemy drone in the sky, fly above it, and drop down to clip its rotors.

"At this stage, in many occurrences, both drones would actually be disabled," Monnik said.

By 2024, DroneSec said it was seeing first-person view drones kitted out with proximity or remote detonation capabilities.

Crashing into an expensive drone with your cheap one

One of the simplest attacks is using an FPV drone to crash into an enemy drone, with or without an explosive attached.

Given that the attacking drone is often a write-off too, the biggest win is when a cheap device takes out something costly.

The above footage, shared on June 1, shows a Russian Orlan-10 drone being pursued by a Ukrainian FPV, with the video then cutting out.

The footage then shows an Orlan on the ground, seemingly destroyed by the encounter.

Orlan drones, which cost between $87,000-$120,000, have proved to be one of the "most critical systems contributing to the lethality" of Russian forces, according to the Royal United Services Institute.

Meanwhile, the most commonly used FPV drones cost just a few thousand dollars.

Dropping explosives on a drone in midair

Another type of attack from above, but this time by releasing an explosive directly onto the drone below, as in this footage of Ukrainian Mavic-3 drones being knocked out by Russian drones from above.

Ukrainian soldiers told BI last year how they began adapting COTS drones to carry munitions that could be dropped from above.

Flinging a net onto an enemy drone

In February 2023, Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security said it had received six US-made DroneHunter F700s, an AI-backed drone that can shoot a net over targets in midair.

Footage shared by the CSCIS shows the tech being used to take out Orlan drones and Shaheds, the large loitering munitions used by Russia to pummel Ukrainian infrastructure.

According to Scientific American, DroneHunter F700s have been in use in Ukraine since May 2022.

It appears Russia may have acquired similar tech. In the below video, posted in April by a pro-Russian account, a small drone — identified as Ukrainian — is ensnared in a net fired from above.

Hassling a drone before it can release its payload

In the footage below, shared in May, a Ukrainian drone strikes an explosive payload carried by a Russian DJI Mavic-3 drone before it can be released, according to DroneSec's analysis.

Skip the drone — take out the pilot

There are plenty of other ways of countering enemy drones, including hitting them at their source, Patton Rogers told BI.

Drones can be sent to look for antenna peeking out of windows — "a tell-tale sign of an enemy drone pilot covertly operating," he said.

"Once identified, single or multiple drones will be sent in to eliminate the human drone pilot," he added.

In the future, drones could take down helicopters

According to Scientific American, the market for counter-drone technology could be worth $12.6 billion by 2030, and given drone warfare developments, it might need to be.

Monnik said DroneSec has already seen multiple attempts to use small, weaponized drones to target helicopters and small aircraft.

Aircraft appear to be fighting back — in April, footage shared by multiple accounts showed what was described as a Ukrainian Yak-52 trainer plane taking on an Orlan. Further reporting from The War Zone suggests this is not a lone phenomenon.

Monnik also predicted that we'll soon see drones equipped with gun-like weapon platforms, and a greater prevalence of drones being deployed in swarm-like formations.

It's tempting to compare the phenomenon to the dogfights of World War I more than a century ago, when pilots targeted each other with front-mounted machine guns or even pistols while flying.

"There is still a visceral real-world connection between both warring parties — perhaps more so than WWI air personnel — as pilots attempt to outwit each other," Patton Rogers said.

The last thing many of the drone pilots will see through their doomed drone's viewfinders is the enemy drone — knowing that somewhere, at the other end, an enemy pilot is watching it all on their own headset, he said.

"Such is the morbid intimacy of modern war," he said.

• Growing up, Simmy Dhillon watched his parents struggle in blue-collar jobs.
• During college, he started developing a meal delivery business with his brother.
• The brothers have since been able to fund their parents' lifestyles and retire them.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Simmy Dhillon, from London, about financially supporting his parents. Business Insider has verified their payments with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I come from a working-class family. My dad's parents moved to the UK from India in the 1960s and worked in factories. My dad also went into a factory job, where he stayed for 25 years.

My mum was born in India and came to the UK when she was very young. She worked as a cashier at Tesco, a supermarket chain, for 20 years.

They stayed in their blue-collar jobs for so long because they couldn't afford to take risks. They provided stability and support for myself and my brother, Jhai. As we grew up, we were both motivated to work hard. Many young people go out partying and drinking, but Jhai and I never really did that. It felt disrespectful to our parents.

I set high expectations for myself. I wanted to be able to take care of my parents so they wouldn't have to struggle.

I started my own business and retired my mum roughly 2 years later

I launched my business, Rice N Spice, in 2017 as a 20-year-old student. I cooked and delivered healthy meals to other students at my university. I initially ran it part-time, and after a few months, I asked Jhai to help me. Over the last few years, he and I grew it to the point where we could retire both my parents by the time I turned 27. It's been my proudest achievement, and I don't think anything can top it.

My brother and I now both work on the business full-time. He runs our kitchen operations team, and I run the office team, which has seven full-time employees, excluding myself.

Over the last seven years, we've grown the business into a national meal delivery service. We're now called Simmer Eats. Our revenue last year was £6 million, which is around $7.6 million.

My mum was involved in the business in the early days because we needed extra hands. She helped with cooking, delivering meals, and picking up supplies. For the first year, it was just the three of us.

By 2019, we were generating enough income that my mom could leave her supermarket job, and we could put her on a higher salary as an employee of Simmer Eats.

It was our long-term ambition to retire her. She made sure we had a good childhood, working multiple part-time jobs alongside her Tesco job. I felt we had stopped her from having the career she wanted.

In 2019, Jhai and I took my mum out for a birthday dinner and told her she could resign and never have to work for anyone else again. I rarely see one of my parents cry, but I could see little tears in her eyes.

She left her supermarket job, but she was having a lot of fun working with us, so she stayed involved in the business until 2022.

I'd dreamt of retiring my parents, but it was unbelievable that we could do it so quickly. I felt really proud.

I convinced my dad to quit his factory job

I felt a sense of urgency in retiring my dad, too. His factory job was physically demanding, and he felt trapped in it.

I recently found out that when my dad first got the job, his father told him to stay employed there until after he was due to pay off his mortgage. He thought it was a good job because it was relatively well-paid compared to other factory jobs. His father died soon after, and I think the promise my dad made to him is part of the reason he stayed in it for so long.

I eventually convinced him it was OK to leave his job, and we could take care of him financially. He left in January this year.

My parents live much more comfortably now

Now, we fully fund our parents' lifestyles, and they don't have to worry about being unable to afford things. This year, we gave them £37,500 each in dividends, as they are shareholders in the company. We'll likely pay them a similar amount each year.

Outside that, we take them out for dinner and to the cinema. Last year, I took my mom to India for a holiday, and we also got my dad a new car in February.

I've also paid for my dad to have surgery in a private hospital. He couldn't have afforded that on the salary from his job.

In June, we paid a lump sum of around £51,000 using dividends from the business to pay off my parents' mortgage. It's great that we've been able to take that pressure and stress off of them.

My parents are still relatively young, in their 50s, so they've got years to enjoy themselves. We go to the gym together as a family. Dad is trying to spend more time reading and says he wants to learn to play the trumpet. Mum does yoga, goes walking, and meets her friends. They're so unstressed now.

We felt we had more money coming in than we needed, so before we started upgrading our own lifestyles, it was only right to pay for things that would have a huge impact on our parents' lives.

That said, we haven't had a huge lifestyle inflation where we go all out on luxury. We can enjoy things like not worrying about menu prices or getting a taxi home from the airport instead of the bus — but we don't spend much on things we don't need.

Since my brother and I are quite frugal, we haven't had to reduce our spending to take care of our parents. We regularly save and invest so even if our business stopped growing so much, I think we would be OK.

I don't think I could have retired my family with a salaried job

The world is becoming more unequal and it's very difficult for people who grew up without money to become financially comfortable. I'm lucky that the business has taken off and has enabled me to provide my family with financial stability. It's fulfilled a childhood dream.

If I had a salaried job, even if it paid well, I don't think I'd be able to support my family in the same way. That's partly because running a business is more tax-efficient than being an employee, and there are no caps on earning potential.

I've achieved a lot already, but if my business became a billion-pound company, I don't think that would be as special as what we've been able to achieve for our parents.

• I'm a professional declutterer and work with clients on getting rid of things they don't need. 
• The more time bedding spends in contact with your body, the sooner you need to replace it. 
• Pillowcases last three to five years, while comforters last 15 years or more. 

As a professional declutterer, I know there are some items in the house that beg to be replaced, and then there are those you don't think about all that often.

When was the last time you really looked at your sheets or comforter? You use them every day, but you may have failed to notice that your linens could be past their prime.

Spring cleaning season is over, but it's never a bad time to examine your bedding and swap out the stuff that's worn out or uncomfortable. Some bedding lasts longer than others. Rule of thumb: the less time it spends next to your body, the longer it will last. Why? Well, because we're humans, and we're kinda filthy, even when we shower daily.

You should change pillowcases more often

Sheets and pillowcases can enjoy a nice long life, depending on their materials and the amount of use they get. Not surprisingly, the cheaper they were to begin with, the more often you'll have to replace them. On average, they should last you three to five years. If you've got multiple sets and rotate them regularly, you can hold on to them longer.

Once they're pilling, stained, or threadbare, they're done. Your tolerance may vary, but be nice to yourself. Buy the best quality you can and replace them as soon as you no longer sigh with pleasure when you slip into them at the end of the day.

Pillows should be washed often

You're used to washing your sheets and pillowcases weekly, but you may be forgetting about the pillows themselves. Pillowcases will protect them to some extent, but you should really be laundering your pillows every six months or so.

It turns out this is pretty easy; most can be tossed in the washing machine. But read the care instructions — you don't want to mess up your pillows or your washer. The adage that you get what you pay for is generally true. If you're springing for high-quality feather pillows you can keep them for decades, provided you're cleaning and fluffing them regularly.

If you prefer polyfill, cotton, or foam, you'll need to swap those out more frequently. Replace them every two to three years, but the real test is how they feel. Once you notice clumping or lumpiness, it's time to go shopping.

Mattresses and comforters last longer

Common wisdom is that a mattress lasts about 10 years. If you opt for something super fancy (and expensive), you may get more mileage out of it, but once you start to notice any sagging, it's time to get a new one. Don't put this off; your joints and back may never forgive you. Options abound when it comes to materials, and it's easier than ever to get a good mattress for not a lot of money.

Comforters are the real workhorses of the bed linens. They should last from 15 to 25 years, provided you're keeping yours in a duvet cover that's washed regularly. Since comforters are lying on you, rather than the other way around, they can maintain their shape and loft for ages. Wash it once or twice a year according to the manufacturer's instructions, and store it in a dry, non-musty cupboard when you're not using it.

Here's the real deal: once any aspect of your bedding starts to feel less than dreamily comfortable, it's probably time to replace it. Americans are already short on rest. A recent Gallup poll indicates that fewer than half of us feel we're getting enough sleep. The numbers bear this out; over the past century the national average of hours we're snoozing each night has dropped precipitously. Obviously, bedding isn't to blame, but why not create the coziest nest possible?

Once you've decided to replace your sheets or pillows, get the old ones out of the house. You cannot save them "just in case." You are allowed to turn sheets into drop cloths or tear them up for cleaning rags, but once they've passed their prime, get rid of them. You deserve nice things.

• Louie Chan started travel nursing after working for two years in a lower-wage nursing position.
• Travel nursing doubled her salary and renewed her passion for the job, but she says it was lonely.
• Chan left travel nursing to become a full-time nurse coordinator and made over $200,000 last year.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Louie Chan, a 30-year-old nurse in the Bay Area. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I went to college in 2012, I couldn't decide what to major in. My Filipino parents emphasized the importance of a stable job because it would bring freedom. This was important to them because we didn't have much money growing up.

I decided to pursue nursing, a career path common among Filipinos. It turned out to be a perfect fit for me. When I graduated from nursing school in 2017, I took my first job as a telemetry nurse in southern California, earning $37 an hour.

After two years of working at that same hospital, I grew my wages to $45 an hour, which was below the average hourly rate for nurses in California. We didn't have a nursing union at that hospital to ask for better wages and got very small yearly raises.

I started travel nursing in 2020 to earn more

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, I heard there was a bigger need than usual for travel nurses. I decided to take a leap of faith, leave my family behind, and move to Texas for my first gig as a travel nurse. The agency I signed up to work for placed me in Texas. I didn't have a say in where I went for that first assignment.

I was motivated to sign up because the pay was extraordinary. I worked six days a week and did 12-to-14-hour shifts. While this was more than my usual schedule, I was making almost triple my former amount — I went from earning $45 an hour to around $121 an hour.

I worked at that job for a couple of months and then returned to California to rest for a few weeks. After that, I spent two years working as a travel nurse at different hospitals. I doubled my salary, grew my career, and regained my passion for the job.

A typical travel nursing job lasts 13 weeks, and the rates fluctuate

Hospitals bring in travel nurses because they're short-staffed. Most travel nursing opportunities are for 13 weeks at a specific location. After that, you can extend your contract for another 13 weeks or longer, depending on the hospital's needs.

I found open positions through travel-nursing agencies. When I returned from working in Texas, I worked at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. As COVID-19 got worse, my pay as a travel nurse got higher. I made anywhere from $6,000 to $9,000 a week.

Usually, I worked six days on and eight days off. I liked the travel nursing schedule because it improved my work-life balance. I used my free time to travel around the cities I lived in and start a side hustle as a content creator.

Because travel nurses live away from home, we're given a tax-free stipend that covers housing and meals. I'd usually find an inexpensive hotel or rent a short-term apartment near the hospital.

The best part of the job is getting to live in new cities

As a travel nurse, you must be a fast learner because you enter a new hospital and start working almost immediately. It's a job for people who love being independent and can quickly pick up on the hospital's work culture and policies.

I loved the flexibility. I'd work at one hospital for 13 weeks and then take a month off to rest or travel before starting a new job elsewhere.

There are travel nursing jobs all over the world. I've always been interested in living in another country like Japan or Australia and would consider taking a travel nursing job abroad. If you're a nurse who wants a change of scenery, this is a dream opportunity, but there are some downsides.

It can be quite lonely

When working in a new place, you might not have the time to get to know people or make friends. When my shifts were done, I'd usually explore the city on my own, and every now and then, I'd make friends at work who I'd hang out with during my stay.

Some other nurses weren't nice to travel nurses because they knew we were making more money than them. I remember getting the worst patient assignments because I wasn't part of the core staff. There were also times when a group of nurses ordered food and invited everyone on the floor except the travel nurses. I didn't let their attitudes or comments bother me.

In other hospitals, the nurses were so grateful to have help because they were overworked and overwhelmed by the number of patients. In those jobs, I felt like I was making a difference.

Look into the tax implications of the job before deciding to become a travel nurse

People get into travel nursing and think they can give up their apartment, pack a suitcase, and live on the road. Travel nurses get tax-free stipends because the IRS assumes they're duplicating their expenses by paying for housing at home and where they live for the job.

Before committing to being a travel nurse, speak with a CPA or tax advisor to understand how to keep those tax-free stipends so you don't accidentally commit tax fraud. While I was a travel nurse, I was still making monthly payments on a house in California.

My days as a travel nurse are over

I'm now a full-time nurse coordinator in the Bay Area and enjoy working at my current hospital. I don't see myself pursuing travel nursing in the US again because I made over $200,000 last year and it's a healthy working environment. I also still make content on the side and may one day focus on that.

My experience as a travel nurse taught me that I have more nursing knowledge and critical care skills than I thought. It also taught me that I can live independently away from home.

Regardless of your career, you can't wait around and hope for a raise. Sometimes, you need to be the one to take bold actions and get paid what you deserve.

• Some women are earning higher incomes and becoming the primary breadwinners in their marriages.
• This shift is creating more stay-at-home husbands but can also cause jealousy and resentment.
• Communication is key for couples to navigate these changes and maintain relationship balance.

Women typically make less money than men in the workforce, but there are many professions where women earn more on average than their male counterparts. And as women's salaries increase, some become the breadwinners in their marriages and relationships.

This steady income growth for women can also create more stay-at-home dads and husbands, and the shift in responsibility can require some serious adjusting and getting used to.

Business Insider spoke with five women earning more than their husbands about the biggest obstacles they faced when they became breadwinners. For the most part, feelings of jealousy, resentment, and guilt formed, but ultimately the relationships grew stronger, and communication seemed to be the resolution.

Amy Porterfield is a breadwinner who retired her husband and was worried she'd resent him

"When I started my business, my husband was still a general contractor and contributed to the family finances while working to become a firefighter," Porterfield told BI.

Her husband eventually became a firefighter and earned up to $100,000. But within three years of launching her social media consultancy, Porterfield was earning $1 million in revenue and it became clear her husband didn't need to work.

When the opportunity to relocate from California to Tennessee came, it only made sense for Porterfield's husband to leave his job, even though he loved it. They decided he would retire from firefighting.

Porterfield said her husband was proud, celebrated her successes, and kept moving forward, but he expressed some concerns about not having a job that gave him purpose.

Meanwhile, Porterfield was afraid she'd resent her husband's free time, and eventually, she did.

Porterfield admitted that she occasionally became jealous of her husband's less stressful days when she felt overwhelmed with work. Still, the experience forced them to communicate more, which positively affected their marriage.

"Creating a life unlike most people's status quo forces you to communicate more, say the things you don't want to say but are necessary to grow, and show up in ways that stretch you."

Last year Porterfield's company earned $20 million in revenue, and she feels her family dynamic made her a better leader.

Karina Daves' income is four times larger than her husband's. Therapy helped him deal with it.

Once Karina landed her first tech job, the financial dynamics between her and her husband quickly shifted. "When we got married 11 years ago, Terrance made more money than me," she told BI. He was a master auto technician at Nissan, and Karina was a social worker.

Now, Karina is a regional manager of employee experience at a tech company, produces a podcast, owns a coaching business, and is a social media influencer. Her paystubs show that she makes four times more money than her husband.

To adjust to Karina's schedule and help out more with their two children, Terrance agreed to take a more flexible job at Princeton University and took a 50% pay cut. But he told his wife the transition was difficult and sought out therapy to help him make sense of it all.

Karina said that her husband's therapy sessions eventually helped him realize he was jealous of her and had started viewing her as an individual rather than a teammate. But through healthy communication they got back on the same page.

Katie Matthews' husband quit his job and made her the breadwinner, now they feel like they can breathe

In May, Matthews wrote about her experience as the breadwinner in her marriage for BI. She reported that her husband quit his job of 10 years at the end of 2023 after burning out.

"It was our sole source of income, but by the end, the money just wasn't adding up anymore," Matthews wrote. "So, six months ago, we did what many others dream of doing. We quit the job with no backup plan."

Matthews has stepped into the role of financial provider, earning money as a freelance writer while her husband is in charge of the housework and kid duties. Now that they've reversed roles, she says they're kinder to each other and better understand what the other person contributes. They also realize how much pressure they've put on themselves over the years, and she appreciates the support she now has to advance her career.

But this understanding doesn't stop Matthews from feeling resentful at times.

"Admittedly, I can feel resentful that I'm working while he isn't, especially when I've never had a clean break from work, not even when our babies were born."

Still, Matthews believes switching roles has expanded the couple's mutual empathy and made them a better team.

Andrea Mac loves being the breadwinner but feels like the second-choice parent

After Mac gave birth to her third child, her husband decided to leave his electrical engineering job and became a full-time stay-at-home dad. He takes care of 90% of their home life, while Mac earns 100% of the income.

This arrangement works for their family of six, but it doesn't come without some sacrifices that traditional moms don't typically face — especially when Mac has to take long work trips.

"For days and weeks at a time, my husband was effectively a single parent," Mac told BI. "It wasn't easy when I finally returned home."

Sacrificing parenting moments to be a provider has turned Mac into what she calls the "second-choice parent." It's also led to her questioning if she's just a paycheck sometimes, but she loves her work. Her company made just under $550,000 last year.

Mac considers herself and her husband incredibly hardworking and committed to providing for their family's needs. They believe in shared decision-making and an equitable division of responsibilities, which keeps their marriage balanced.

Betsy Grunch is a surgeon, and her husband is a stay-at-home dad

Work-life balance has been difficult for Betsy, an active mom and neurosurgeon with an unpredictable work schedule. Fortunately, she's able to split childcare responsibilities with her husband, Ray, a stay-at-home dad and private investigator.

"Even before I got pregnant, my husband wasn't working that much and did a lot of the chores at home, so we knew he'd mostly be the one to stay home with the kids," Betsy told BI.

But this arrangement doesn't come without the guilt of missing out on family moments. Betsy said her son and daughter, who are 9 and 6 respectively, understand that she has to work. At the same time, Betsy notices her kids can get jealous when she has to step away to focus on work tasks.

Betsy said she's learning to ask for help juggling both worlds. She's even hired extra staff at her job and extra help managing household chores. This allows her to be more present when she's with her family

"Outsourcing certain responsibilities has been life-changing and helpful. I can spend a lot more time with my kids now."

If you're a wife earning more than your husband and want to share your story, please contact Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

• Joe Biden and Donald Trump will debate Thursday night.
• Their face-off is the earliest major debate on record.
• There are other notable changes, including commercial breaks and no studio audience. 

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are set to face off Thursday night in the earliest major presidential debate on record.

Both men enter their first faceoff of 2024 locked into a race that remains too close to call nationally. According to Real Clear Politics' polling averages, Trump holds narrow leads in key swing states that could decide the race.

In an era where Americans watch few live events besides football, the evening offers both campaigns a chance to get their message in front of millions.

Here are the vital facts you need to know before Thursday night's debate.

When is it and how can I watch it?

The first presidential debate of the 2024 election will be Thursday, June 27 at 9 p.m. ET. CNN will host the debate, but all major broadcast and cable networks will offer simulcasts. You can also stream the debate through Max. If you can't access the debate any of those ways, CNN is also streaming it through its website here. You don't even need a cable login.

The debate will last 90 minutes.

How is this debate different?

Beyond taking place in the summer, this debate will differ from any other recent memory. Instead of a live audience, Trump and Biden will square off at CNN's studios in Atlanta. There will be moderators, but both campaigns effectively killed off the bipartisan organization that has hosted debates for years. So, CNN chose anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.

At Biden team's urging, CNN has also pledged to mute the mic of the candidate who is not speaking. You might recall that in 2020, Biden asked then-President Trump, "Will you shut up man?" during their raucous first debate. The first debate was considered by just about everyone involved to be an abject disaster.

Trump is set to get the last word this time since Biden elected to choose his podium position after winning a coin toss. As a result, Trump will be the last to deliver a closing statement. There will be no opening statements.

Wait, there are going to be commercials?

Yes, there will also be two commercial breaks. This, too, is a major departure from traditional debates.

What about fact-checking?

CNN correspondent Daniel Dale rose to fame fact-checking Trump, but don't expect him, Tapper, or Bash to chime during the debate. David Chalian, CNN's political director, told The New York Times that the debate "is not the ideal arena for live fact-checking." The fact-checking will have to wait until after the debate finishes.

What's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. going to be doing?

It's not entirely clear yet. We know he won't be joining the two presidents on the stage. CNN confirmed that Kennedy failed to reach their twin thresholds of 15% in four selected national polls and qualifying for the requisite number of ballots in each state. Billionaire attorney and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy's running mate, has promised "a few surprises" with their own live broadcast.

Kennedy's campaign is in a critical moment. He previously announced that he raised less money in May than in any month this year, mainly due to Shanahan's decision to tap into less of her fortune. The noted vaccine skeptic is also in the thick of trying to qualify for the ballot in all 50 states.

A third-party presidential hopeful hasn't made a debate stage since 1992, so Kennedy's failure is far from unprecedented.

How is Trump approaching the debate?

After years of suggesting Biden is too feeble to do the job, Trump has been slightly complementary of the man who beat him in the 2020 election.

Republicans seem to recognize that setting the bar for Biden's performance at practically not dying on the stage is, uh, a low bar. So, instead, Trump is engaged in the very traditional game of trying to shape the media narrative before the showdown begins.

What about Biden?

Biden has spent days prepping for the debate at Camp David, the presidential retreat. History shows that incumbent presidents typically struggle in the first debate, a fact both President Obama and Trump can attest to. Biden's lawyer, Bob Bauer, is expected to reprise his role of playing the former president in mock debates. Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, who has prepped Democrats for general election debates for decades, is taking time off from his new perch at AirBnb to help as well.

What topics can we expect?

Only Tapper, Bash, and a few select people at CNN know the exact questions. That being said, a few issues seem almost guaranteed to come up. Polls show that Americans have deep concerns about Biden's age. Some national polls have also showed support for Trump dropping slightly in the wake of him becoming the first former president to be convicted of a felony. Tapper has also grilled Republicans, who, like Trump, continue to try to raise doubts about the 2020 election. The former president never directly conceded the race.

Trump's comeback campaign is also surging due to views about the US economy. Traditional metrics show Biden has much to be proud of, but while inflation has cooled, voters are still angry about high prices. Voters are also deeply skeptical of Biden's immigration policies, one of the biggest areas of disagreement between the two hopefuls.

Wasn't it possible there would be no debates?

Yes, that was a very real possibility. In 2022, The Republican National Committee formally withdrew from the Commission on Presidential Debates after years of tensions with the organization that has organized general election debates since 1988. It became an open question of how debates would move forward this time.

Trump, who easily dispatched his primary opponents, began goading Biden to debate him anyplace and anytime. In late April, Biden told radio host Howard Stern he would debate Trump. Weeks later, Biden's campaign delivered the final blow to the commission, confirming that Biden would not participate in any of its scheduled debates. The president's team said the debates had become too unruly and were scheduled too late in the calendar.

Trump and Biden then quickly agreed on the CNN debate and another contest in September, operating without any help from the commission. For now, the pair hasn't agreed to a third debate. Traditionally, the commission held two formal debates and one town-hall-style debate.

What's next after the debate?

Both sides are set to campaign on Friday. Biden will be in North Carolina. Trump will be in Virginia, a state that hasn't gone for the GOP in a presidential election since 2004. Trump is optimistic he can expand the list of potential swing states.

At least one more debate is on the calendar; ABC News will host a September 10 debate. Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump's yet-to-be-named running mate are also expected to debate. As of now, they haven't settled on one network to host that debate.

• ChatGPT put OpenAI at the forefront of the drive to build human-like AI.
• But the momentum of that hugely impactful launch has been tough to maintain.
• The company has had PR setbacks and development snags.

"Try talking with it here," Sam Altman wrote on X, linking to an "early demo" of ChatGPT.

He gave some thoughts on "language interfaces" and how people would soon "talk to the computer" with voice or text to get what they want, "for increasingly complex definitions of want!"

That thread marked what turned out to be one of the most impact launches in Silicon Valley history.

ChatGPT' prompted a surge of interest in generative AI. Tech giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Meta poured billions of dollars into the technology, and venture capitalists pumped even more into startups focusing on it.

It made OpenAI the poster child of the race to create human-like artificial general intelligence, which has become Altman's stated mission.

But getting there from the ChatGPT demo he debuted in November 2022 is a long road. Few would've mistaken the chatbot — with a tendency to hallucinate and get basic facts wrong — for a human. The company is struggling under the weight of expectations the initial launch created — and following up with launches as smooth and impactful is getting tougher.

Meanwhile, rivals like Google, Meta, and smaller companies have tried to catch up by unveiling their own AI models, such as Gemini Ultra and Llama 3.

OpenAI's new products have had issues

On Tuesday, OpenAI said it was delaying a highly anticipated upgrade to its chatbot's "voice mode" feature, which had been due for imminent release.

The existing voice feature, first introduced in September 2023, had suffered delays in responding to users' attempts to have a back-and-forth conversation and struggled to "directly observe tone," as well as multiple speakers and background noises, the company said.

The upgrade was set to roll out to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users in late June until the company announced it needed to work on "the model's ability to detect and refuse certain content" and to prepare "infrastructure to scale to millions while maintaining real-time responses."

The hiccup came after OpenAI made headlines when Scarlett Johansson accused the company of touting a voice — "Sky" — that, she claimed, was "eerily similar" to hers.

Though Altman later claimed it "was never intended to resemble" Johansson's, the company decided to pause using the voice.

The voice feature isn't the only one having a hard time.

OpenAI still has no release date for Sora, the model that generates videos based on users' text prompts and was first demonstrated publicly in February. In May, Google boss Sundar Pichai said OpenAI's training of Sora may have violated YouTube's terms and conditions.

Open AI released GPT-4o, its most advanced multimodal AI model and the successor to GPT-4, in May but rival AI lab Anthropic showed data on Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which it released last week, that suggest its model beats GPT-4o on "graduate-level reasoning," "code," and "reasoning over text" benchmarks.

According to Chatbot Arena, a widely followed performance table, Claude 3.5 Sonnet beat GPT-4o in coding. GPT-4o maintains the overall top spot on the table but only by a narrow margin.

This month did give OpenAI something to celebrate; Apple announced that it was partnering with the company to bring ChatGPT to iPhones, iPads, and Macs. This gives OpenAI access to Apple's huge install base of more than 2 billion active devices.

But OpenAI isn't getting paid for the integration, and Apple didn't guarantee exclusivity, as it has signaled it's open to partnering with other companies on AI.

ChatGPT gave OpenAI a headstart in the race to make AGI. But in a race that long, anyone could win.

• Another whistleblower has come forward with complaints of Boeing's safety lapses.
• Richard Cuevas said that he saw holes drilled improperly, which could lead to "catastrophe."
• The airplane mechanic said he was fired from his job shortly after raising concerns. 

Another Boeing whistleblower has come forward, saying that he witnessed 787 Dreamliner planes being built in a manner that could lead to a "catastrophe down the line."

Richard Cuevas was a Strom airplane mechanic who used to work as a contractor for Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems. He said that in 2023, he witnessed substandard manufacturing of the 787 planes' forward pressure bulkheads, which help maintain air pressure.

In a complaint filed by his lawyers on Tuesday to the Federal Aviation Administration, Cuevas said Spirit AeroSystems workers were drilling holes into the fasteners of the plane's forward pressure bulkhead, which were bigger than what Boeing had specified.

They did this to "clear excess paint from the holes and speed up a slow process," per the complaint. Cuevas said that the faults could lead to a loss of air pressure in the flight and run the risk of power failure.

However, in March, a few months after he reported his findings to Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, he was fired from his job, the complaint said.

In a statement to CNN, Boeing said it had investigated Cuevas' concerns and determined that they were not safety threats.

"A subcontractor's employee previously reported concerns to us that we thoroughly investigated as we take seriously any safety-related matter," the company said to CNN. "Engineering analysis determined that the issues raised did not present a safety concern and were addressed."

Latest in a long list of Boeing whistleblowers

Cuevas is the latest whistleblower to allege that the aircraft manufacturer has been lax with safety and quality control.

A sprawling 204-page report by the Senate subcommittee investigating Boeing's safety and quality practices, released on June 17, cited accounts from numerous other whistleblowers.

These include Sam Mohawk, a quality assurance inspector for Boeing, who alleged that the company lost track of hundreds of faulty 737 parts and ordered staff to conceal improperly stored plane parts so that FAA inspectors would not see them.

Merle Meyers, a former Boeing quality manager, said that Boeing's manufacturing team regularly tried to retrieve bad parts from a "reclamation" area even after they were thrown out.

John Barnett, a Boeing manager turned whistleblower, said that safety procedures were ignored in the interest of speed and efficiency in building the planes.

Just days before he was supposed to give a deposition, Barnett was found dead from a"self-inflicted gunshot wound," the Charleston County coroner's office told BI's Matthew Loh. No further details were provided.

Boeing's troubles

Boeing planes have been plagued by technical issues in recent months.

On Saturday, a Korean Air 737 Max 8 flight bound for Taiwan had to turn back and make an emergency landing after detecting a fault with the aircraft's pressurization system.

Earlier in March, a United Airlines Boeing 777 taking off from San Francisco International Airport lost a tire just after takeoff, which crushed a car in the airport parking lot.

Most prominently, in January, a door plug came off a Boeing 737 Max 9 Alaska Airlines jet at 16,000 feet, resulting in a gaping hole in the plane.

Cuevas' lawyers and representatives of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside regular working hours.