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• A Delta flight from NYC to LA had to turn back after its emergency exit slide detached.
• The Boeing 767 landed safely at JFK about an hour after taking off.
• It is the latest in a string of safety mishaps to befall a Boeing plane.

A Boeing plane was forced to make an emergency landing on Friday after an emergency slide fell off the aircraft.

Delta Air Lines flight 520 from New York's JFK airport aborted its trip to LA on Friday and landed back where it started.

It touched down again at around 8:30 a.m., just an hour into its journey, according to the tracking site Flightradar24.

"After the aircraft had safely landed and proceeded to a gate, it was observed that the emergency slide had separated from the aircraft," a Delta spokesperson said in a statement to NPR.

The airline didn't offer any detail on when, how, or why the slide detached — or where it ended up.

The Delta spokesperson said the airline was "fully supporting retrieval efforts and will fully cooperate in investigations."

In a second statement, Delta said that the incident set off an emergency alarm.

The cabin crew had been alerted by a "flight deck indication related to the right wing emergency exit slide, as well as a non-routine sound from near the right wing."

"As nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people, Delta flight crews enacted their extensive training and followed procedures to return to JFK," the Delta spokesperson said.

"We appreciate their professionalism and our customers' patience for the delay in their travels."

No injuries were reported aboard the aircraft, which had been carrying 176 customers, two pilots, and five flight attendants.

Delta Air Lines did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular working hours.

In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration said "Delta Air Lines Flight 520 returned safely to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York around 8:35 a.m. local time on Friday, April 26, after the crew reported a vibration."

"The FAA will investigate."

Delta said it had removed the plane in question from service.

It was a Boeing 767-300ER plane, delivered to the airline in 1990.

According to Flexport, a global logistics workflow company, an aircraft is generally assumed to be operable for an average of 30 years before it is decommissioned, which would put this one at the older end of its service life.

The incident is the latest to hit Boeing following a series of other safety mishaps.

In January, the aircraft maker was forced to ground its fleet of 737 Max planes after a door plug blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight that took off from Portland, Oregon.

The disaster wiped nearly $30 billion off Boeing's market value and saw share prices plummet by as much as 20 percent.

Boeing was also thrust into the spotlight on Capitol Hill by testimony from whistleblowers who told a committee they were met with death threats when they tried to flag safety concerns with their superiors.  

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• Hannah Tooker, a senior vice president at a marketing agency, has been a manager for six years.
• She told Business Insider she found managing Gen Z employees different from her fellow millennials.
• Tooker said Gen Z is more likely to say what they want and maintain a better work-life balance.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hannah Tooker, a 32-year-old senior vice president of customer engagement at LaneTerralever, a marketing agency based in Phoenix. It's been edited for length and clarity.

There are many things I love about managing Gen Z. They're creative, and they're fearless.

I work at a full-service marketing agency. I lead a handful of teams here, mostly responsible for content, user experience, and quality assurance.

I've been a manager for six years, and I manage seven people. I like helping people grow and figure out their next steps. It's my favorite part of the job.

Working with Gen Z is different from managing millennials

I've been managing Gen Z workers for about three years. This new generation approaches work in interesting ways compared with millennials.

Some people complain that they're hard to work with, but having high expectations and wanting work-life balance and an employer who cares isn't a bad thing.

When people get stuck on the challenging aspects of working with Gen Z, they miss out on all the positives.

If I ask a Gen Z team member to do something they don't know about, they'll go away, watch a YouTube video, and work it out.

I like teaching my Gen Z team members but also learning from them. Here's what they've taught me:

1) Communication can take many forms

Before I started managing Gen Z, I mainly used traditional channels to communicate with my colleagues, such as email.

My Gen Z co-workers didn't like using those channels and preferred to message me on social media. This is partly because of the nature of our work — we use social media a lot. But also, they like to communicate on the platforms from which they find inspiration.

They'll exchange direct messages with me on TikTok and Instagram about ideas they think clients might be interested in.

It was an adjustment to get the right balance between work and socializing when communicating on social media. I figured if it worked for them, I wasn't going to shame them. It might've been a way of working I wasn't used to, but it's still work. I've got used to it now, and it works well for us.

2) It's better to ask for clarification

Gen Z isn't shy about asking for clarity. I appreciate that.

When I gave one of my Gen Z team members feedback, they said: "I appreciated the feedback you gave me. Could you show me what you meant or sit with me and walk me through it?" It lets me know they need more help understanding something.

Often, I review work by making changes to it myself. One of my team members asked me to show them what I would do differently by "marking up" the document. That way, they could refer to it moving forward.

Older workers might never ask for that. We'd just take the feedback and run with it. I like that Gen Z wants to get to the root of a problem.

3) Team members' emotional needs are important

Gen Z needs a little more reassurance than other generations.

For example, I often send notes to team members if I need to discuss something with them. A typical note might say: "Got a second to chat?" My Gen Z team members said that made them panic.

I altered the way I approached them to account for that. Now I'll say: "Got a second to chat? Good thing!" or "Got a second to chat, question about XYZ client." That works better.

I've noticed that because this is the first professional role for many Gen Z employees, they can bring their personal life into the workplace more than previous generations did. When this happens, I've learned to help them take a pause, work through what's going on, and proceed with their work. It's taxing at times, but it's worth it.

I've learned how to balance someone's emotional needs with the needs of a business.

4) Good work-life balance is more sustainable

I graduated from college and started work after the 2008 recession. I had great managers, but there was a strong hustle culture and a need to be "on constantly."

Burnout was a badge of honor for the first half of my career.

Since entering the workforce, Gen Z has said, "That's not for me." They want a better work-life balance. I hear my Gen Z colleagues talk about what they're doing after work or how they're taking a day off to do nothing. At first, I found it challenging to grasp that their life came first and work came second.

It's made me reevaluate how I balance work and life. I used to work in the evenings for several hours, but I don't do that anymore. I also take breaks during the day.

I've realized that burnout doesn't benefit anyone down the line. If someone on my team hasn't had any paid time off days in their calendar for three months, I'll ensure they take one. I want to be a good example for them.

Managing Gen Z has changed me

If you do the work as a manager to figure out how to work with Gen Z and how to help them become successful, you're going to get smart, passionate young people who want to do a good job.

There'll always be people who want to stick to the old style of management and work culture.

But as the world changes and new generations enter the workplace, we have to change too.

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• A host of warning signs point to China preparing for military action against Taiwan.
• Experts say China could be readying for a showdown over the island.
• US involvement, and Chinese leader Xi's goals, also factor into the timeline.

Tensions between China and Taiwan are reaching a boiling point, and many signs point to Chinese military action to seize the island by force, possibly in just a few years.

While a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be an incredibly complex and dangerous operation, influential China watchers are sounding the alarms over preparations almost certainly needed to seize the island — a buildup of China's naval forces, energy and food stockpiles, and large-scale military drills just off its coast.

"I don't think they lack for anything that they need," Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia engagement at Defense Priorities, said of China's forces. "You could always ask the question, 'Could they be more ready?' and I suppose there are some certain areas, but I, for a long time, maintained they have what they need to undertake the campaign."

What China needs for an all-out attack

China has pushed a rapid modernization of its armed forces over the past two decades that has alarmed US military officials and opened China leader Xi Jinping's options for how to reunify Taiwan, the democratic island of 24 million that Beijing views as a breakaway. China's navy, for example, has surpassed the size of the US fleet and its shipbuilding capacity is easily the largest in the world.

But there are questions around the quality of China's warships despite the sheer numbers, and whether it has the capacity for an amphibious assault against Taiwan's advanced weapons.

Taiwan's Ministry of Defense assessed in 2021 that China "lacks the landing vehicles and logistics required to launch an incursion into Taiwan." The US Department of Defense largely concurred, and the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission wrote something similar in its 2020 report, noting that while China had a "shortage of amphibious lift, or ships and aircraft capable of transporting troops the [Chinese military] needs to successfully subjugate the island," the PLA was looking into using civilian vessels to supplement that.

Chinese ships and aircraft that try to invade or blockade the island into submission would be highly vulnerable to Taiwan's arsenal of advanced weapons like F-16 fighter jets, Patriot missile batteries, and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The question is whether China has built an invasion force that can sustain the damage from these weapons in what would be the first amphibious invasion in seven decades.

Others have seen signs that China is corralling the civilian shipping needed to meet the heavy material needs of an amphibious invasion armada.

Thomas Shugart, a former US Navy submarine commander who's now an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank, wrote for War on the Rocks in August 2021 that "Chinese leaders have already begun organizing civilian shipping into auxiliary units of the military," highlighting examples of large roll-on/roll-off ferries being employed in amphibious assault exercises, something Chinese media later confirmed, and adding that the civilian vessels were carrying both Marine Corps and ground force units.

While these ferries aren't necessarily designed for landing assault troops, Shugart noted, they are built to carry a large number of people, load ground forces quickly and with little warning, disembark their troops, and return for more; the US military also has fast-transport vessels and cargo ships to support operations.

"The evidence shows that these fleets are all ready to mobilize, really at a moment's notice," Goldstein said. "China has the biggest ports in the world and they're full of these ships, so putting them together into fleets to make this attack would be very quick, within days."

Xi is a year-and-a-half into his third term as China's leader, and many of his recent moves suggest China is preparing for war. Xi successfully consolidated control over Hong Kong in 2020, and may have his eyes on a bigger prize.

In March, China dropped "peaceful reunification" when referring to Taiwan and announced a 7.2% increase in defense spending. Food and energy security, like petroleum reserves, have been stockpiled for years. New laws around civilian mobilization and economic self-reliance indicate Xi is preparing his people and the Chinese economy for the possibility of war. Military forces are being deployed nearer to Taiwan than ever, effectively shortening Taiwan's reaction time. Stockpiling of China's rocket force, too, suggests it would have more than enough missiles and rockets to target Taiwan.

Earlier this month, Mike Studeman, former commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and director for intelligence for US Indo-Pacific Command, wrote in War on the Rocks: "There is no apparent countdown to D-day for initiating a blockade or invasion, but major strategic indicators clearly show that General Secretary Xi Jinping is still preparing his country for a showdown. Developments under way suggest Taiwan will face an existential crisis in single-digit years, most likely in the back half of the 2020s or front half of the 2030s."

Some experts assess China would lean into the element of surprise, a core facet in their military doctrine. One common concern is that as China's military exercises around Taiwan have grown in frequency and size, the line between exercise and potential attack is becoming blurred. "The bad news" with such a scenario, Dean Cheng, a senior advisor to the China program at the US Institute of Peace, said, "is they go to war with what they have on hand, because they probably haven't had a chance to deploy more forces forward, stock up munitions, get everything loaded and ready to go. How important is surprise versus how important is being able to sustain the operation?"

That ploy resembles the massive Russian build-up on Ukraine's borders prior to the 2022 invasion that officials had claimed was for field exercises.

Goldstein's estimate is that while it's still risky, "they have what they need, and they're ready to undertake" an attack. "I don't think we'll have a lot of warning," he added, noting a sudden set of actions that only unfolds over a period of hours would be more likely than many other clearer, long-term signs.

US involvement also factors in. "There is a possibility of American intervention which then goes to the question of how well can China conceal its preparations for an invasion?" Cheng said.

A Chinese ring of steel

Experts, as well as US and Taiwan lawmakers and military officials, have long debated about the readiness of the People's Liberation Army as China's military is known.

"The PLA's modernization plan, we think, is still on track, and is aimed at a 2027 period," Cheng explained, with goals of being a fully modernized fighting force by then.

Before then, there's a higher risk that an assault attempt would fail or shatter Beijing's forces. "The PLA isn't going to make the call, however, about whether to invade Taiwan, that's going to be up to Chinese leadership, Xi in particular, and the rest of the Politburo Standing Committee," top leadership in the CCP, Cheng said.

China has indicated it will use force if necessary, but a full-scale invasion likely has dire consequences for China. Other actions — such as an air and maritime blockade, as noted in DoD's China report, limited force campaigns, air and missile campaigns, and seizure of Taiwan's smaller occupied islands — could be preferable, and China boats much of those capabilities already.

A blockade, for example, would give the US and its allies more time to respond than a sudden, bolt-from-the-blue surprise attack. "It's less risky in the sense that you're not going to have necessarily thousands killed, but you're giving Taiwan and the Americans time to organize a response," Cheng said.

There's also precedent at play: The US blockaded Cuba after it detected a deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles to the island in 1962 in what would become the Cold War's most dangerous crisis.

US involvement in defending Taiwan from China is a major unknown. A war game analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies from January 2023 reported that in most of the 24 runs, the US, Taiwan, and Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China, but suffered heavy and severe losses.

But with all of this comes the consideration that Xi's biggest priority is to reunify with Taiwan. As US Army Maj. Kyle Amonson and retired US Coast Guard Capt. Dane Egli wrote in 2023, much of when Xi decides to invade Taiwan comes down to how he wants to maintain his legacy in the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese society, as well as what accomplishing such a feat would do for him.

Scene for a showdown

Cross-Strait relations have soured in recent years, especially with the Democratic Progressive Party in power since 2016, raising worries that military action for reunification is more likely and other options, such as diplomacy, aren't. The worst case scenario is a full-scale invasion, which would unleash all-out war and potentially trigger responses from the US, Japan, the Philippines, and others.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Beijing's economy was booming, Taiwanese students were traveling to the mainland for school work, and Chinese leadership likely believed Taiwan would eventually accept reunification.

"But the state of the economy and society, and the Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong, as well as other elements such as American actions, led Beijing to think time is no longer on their side," Cheng said. "Tensions are definitely higher now, but where I would draw the line is that it doesn't necessarily mean Beijing is about to launch an invasion."

Goldstein said that in tracking Chinese media closely, calls for reunification are more frequent and heated. "I am concerned that China may see some reason to go earlier rather than later," he explained.

Xi himself told US President Joe Biden in late 2023, "Look, peace is… all well and good, but at some point we need to move towards resolution."

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• Scientists have been extracting huge fossils from the La Brea tar pits since 1913.
• Many of the animals lived during the Ice Age, as far back as 50,000 years ago.
• The tar pits have preserved an entire ecosystem, from mammoths to pollen.

Tens of thousands of years ago, dire wolves hunted ground sloths and camels while herds of gigantic mammoths lumbered past cypress trees. All of this happened where Los Angeles now stands, and many of these animals are still well preserved in the bubbling black goo below.

Since 1913, scientists have been pulling bones and other fossils out of the La Brea tar pits. In fact, some of the best evidence for these species comes from the pits, which are just steps from an art museum and office supply store.

Despite the name, the thick liquid in the pits isn't tar. It's asphalt. "It's this crude oil that's just coming up and has been up for the last thousand years," Matt Davis, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, told Business Insider.

The tar pits have preserved everything from massive mammoths to specks of pollen. "That's really rare for a fossil site," Davis said. It's unusual that both plants and animals fossilize in the same place, he said.

At La Brea, "you get a whole ecosystem," he said, "and that lets us really reconstruct what the Ice Age looked like."

During a recent visit, Business Insider visited the pits and spoke with La Brea's scientists who showed us how fossils of mammoths, dire wolves, and other species go from covered in gunk to ready for display.

From huge mammoths to microscopic pollen, the tar pits captured everything.

Perhaps La Brea's most iconic sight isn't all that scientifically accurate. A model of a drowning mammoth sinks into the asphalt as her distressed family watches from dry land.

"This is actually an excavation pit for asphalt," Davis said. The real tar pits likely wouldn't have looked like a black bubbling lake. "This is way deeper than they would've been," he said.

But it helps visitors get a sense of how frightening getting stuck would've been. "It would have been horrible," Davis said. "It would have been slow. You would've been stuck there for days starving until some animal ate you alive."

The pits contain asphalt that becomes very sticky in warm weather.

Methane, not heat, makes the sticky substance in the pits bubble. "It's not hot," Davis said, "it's just gaseous."

However, the tar pits are stickier in summer. "The viscosity of asphalt totally changes," Sean Campbell, a senior paleontological preparator, said. "When it's hot, it's gooey," he said. "It's very likely to trap things." Preparators help ready fossils for study and display.

There are several reasons animals might have stumbled into the tar, Campbell said. They might have been unfamiliar with the area. Water or leaves could've covered the sticky black oil.

"Another huge one is predation," Campbell said. Inexperienced young herbivores trying to outrun a predator might have headed straight for the asphalt.

That's why the makeup of the pits is so carnivore-heavy. The dying animals brought all kinds of scavengers who then got stuck snacking on their last meal.

La Brea contains over 100 pits.

There are over 100 pits at La Brea, and excavators numbered them in the order they were dug up. "Sometimes they started with separate pits and as they dug down, they actually came together," Davis said. For example, Pits 3 and 4 became Pit 3, 4.

The pits still hold onto anything that drifts into them.

"These leaves will be in the fossil record for a paleontologist 50,000 years from now," Davis said of the debris covering one of the pits. In addition to sycamore leaves, future excavators will find the occasional cellphone or scooter, he said.

Scientists have excavated the pits for over 100 years but were initially focused on large bones.

In the early 1900s, after an oil company started drilling wells, scientists started excavating the bones. In 1913, George Allan Hancock, the land surveyor's son, gave Los Angeles County permission to dig.

It wasn't quite the careful process it is now, Campbell said. They were mostly looking for the large bones of mammals and ignoring everything else. "They were really just trophy collecting," he said.

"We're much more careful about things now, and much slower, too," Davis said.

Later excavations started looking for tiny fossils of plants, insects, and small animals.

Between 1913 and 1915, there was a flurry of activity as LA County excavators looked for bones. "They dug 96 deposits in two years, some of them 40 feet down by hand," Campbell said.

Pit 91, shown above, eventually collapsed, but in 1969, a group of scientists started excavating it again. This time they measured everything that was at least a centimeter long, discovering about 450 additional species, Campbell said.

"That's because of Pit 91 and all the meticulous work that all those people did for 40 years," Campbell said.

Today, the scientists collect samples of all the dirt and debris and keep anything larger than 0.841 millimeters, he said.

Asphalt is still piping to the fossils left in Pit 91, keeping it from drying out, so excavating the pit isn't the main priority. There are still giant ground sloths, horses, and much more waiting to be found.

In 1914, excavators found 10,000-year-old human remains in one of the pits.

Only one human's remains have been found in the tar pits. In 1914, excavators found the partial skeleton of La Brea Woman, a teenager who died around 10,000 years ago. Originally, some experts thought she'd been buried with a dog whose bones were close by. But the dog was later found to be 7,000 years younger.

"Because that asphalt is continually churning up, the bones get all mixed up over time," Davis said.

Many museums have recently begun returning human remains to descendants, but much about La Brea Woman is still unknown.

It's unlikely scientists will find more human remains anytime soon. The deposits they're working on are too old, 34,000 to 51,000 years old, Campbell said. "It's double the timeframe that is known for California humans," he said.

During a 2006 construction project, workers found 16 enormous fossil deposits.

In 2006, the nearby Los Angeles County Museum of Art started digging for an underground parking garage. "If you're doing any construction in this area, you're going to hit fossils," Davis said. And that's exactly what happened.

Because regular excavation would have taken too long, workers put large fossil deposits into 23 boxes. La Brea employees and volunteers have been whittling away at what's known as Project 23 ever since.

"It's like a Jenga block," Davis said. Using a combination of tools and chemicals, each fossil is carefully removed, and the surrounding asphalt and sand get sifted through fine mesh to capture smaller objects.

In the box Campbell has worked on for two years, there's a huge range of life: deer, coyote, dire wolf, saber-tooth cat, predatory birds, dung beetles, xanthium pods, and acorns, just to name a few.

It's taken almost 20 years to sort through the large fossil deposits from Project 23.

The deposit preparator Laura Tewksbury has been working on started at 86,000 pounds, measuring 10 feet by 10 feet. Now it fits on a table. There are potentially still thousands of bones left in the chunk.

A fossil deposit is so jumbled, it's like a game of Jenga to remove them.

For each fossil Tewksbury removes, she writes a data tag. One belongs to a desert cottontail rabbit, the same species a group of excited kids saw still hopping around the museum grounds.

"Our story here is so much about extinction, but it's also about survival because almost everything that we have here is still around," Tewksbury said. The megafauna died out about 13,000 years ago, , but the smaller animals are still around.

There are still plenty of species in the tar pits that could use more research.

Once Tewksbury has extracted the fossils, they go to the lab for further identification. She's hoping she's found the lower jaw of a Capromeryx minor, or dwarf pronghorn. It's an antlered, hoofed mammal.

The species is understudied, Davis said, but it's one of the few small species that went extinct during the Ice Age. He's not really sure why. "All the modeling I've done says it should be alive," he said.

Visitors are able to see fossils being studied and prepped for display.

Large windows separate the laboratory from the museum, allowing visitors to watch the preparators and paleontologists work.

"We're one of the main exhibits in the museum, which is pretty cool," Connie Clarke, an assistant preparator, said.

Fossils that come to the lab still need cleaning and sometimes repair.

The samples taken out of the Project 23 deposit boxes still need work after they're freed from the surrounding asphalt and sand. For example, a dire wolf skull had a tibia or a lower leg bone cemented near the eye socket.

Dire wolves are now extinct but were bigger and bulkier than today's species of gray wolves.

"This is what we spend a lot of time doing, is trying to expose all the features like these teeth from this matrix that's currently covering it," Clarke said.

The tar pits are full of predators, especially dire wolves.

Dire wolves are the most common species pulled from the tar pits. There's an entire wall of their skulls at the museum, but it's just a fraction of the whole collection.

With that many specimens, it's easy to see differences between individuals, like wear patterns on their teeth. "There were times when life was tougher," Davis said. "You see more breakage in the teeth as they were gnawing on bones versus just eating flesh."

Cleaning fossils takes chemicals and a lot of patience.

Many paleontology labs work with fossils that are bone turned into stone, Clarke said. "We're dealing with just pickled bones, basically, and hardened asphalt."

They use a chemical Novec 73DE that softens the matrix or surrounding material. The preparators can then use cotton swabs and small sticks to clean away at the asphalt.

The debris early excavators once discarded holds a wealth of mini fossils.

The preparators keep the matrix that surrounds the fossils because it contains microfossils, Clarke said.

A large screen helps magnify what's under the microscope because the microfossils are so tiny. A penny shows the scale of a miniature wood rat tooth, snake backbone, lizard jaw, freshwater shells, and juniper seed.

"It's just sort of a whole ecosystem," she said.

Meet Zed, a 37,000-year-old Columbian mammoth.

One of Project 23's biggest discoveries, literally, was an almost complete Columbian mammoth skeleton. The employees call him Zed.

"He's special," Clarke said. "We usually don't get complete individuals." Preparators have found over 80% of his bones.

They're continuing to clean and stabilize Zed's skull before he goes on display.

Repairing a mammoth skull is delicate work.

Part of Zed's preparation includes using archival glue and archival paper to repair some fissures.

"He's a delicate old man," Clarke said. "Lots of cracks."

During the Ice Age, no land animal was as big as the Columbian mammoth.

The Columbia mammoth was the largest land animal in North America during the Ice Age, Davis said.

It was bigger than a woolly mammoth but not as furry. Los Angeles' weather was a little bit cooler and wetter but not covered in ice like the northern parts of the continent.

That's a misconception about the Ice Age, Davis said. "We don't live in a world of Star Wars planets, where you just have one habitat for the entire planet."

La Brea's collection is overflowing.

The La Brea museum is planning an expansion because it's running out of space.

The collection holds the bones of over 3,600 individual dire wolves. It's such a wealth that paleontologists can actually afford to destructively sample some for radiocarbon dating, Davis said.

"You have to destroy a little bit of the bone, carve it out, pulverize it," he said. "We have so many bones, that's not really a problem."

The collection attracts scientists from all over.

Not every species found in the pits is as abundant as the dire wolves. Excavators have only found a few hundred deer bones, Campbell said.

Still, there's enough to keep a team of scientists with a variety of expertise busy, Davis said.

"We have enough fossils that we could have 10 times the staff, 10 times the paleontologists working here," he said.

The abundance of fossils has helped researchers learn about saber-tooth cats' social lives.

Another common predator that inhabits the tar pits is saber-tooth cats.

In a recent paper, scientists described one older cat with hip dysplasia, a painful condition that affects modern house cats, too.

Since it would have made it difficult for the animal to catch prey, the paleontologists suggested members of its group shared their food with the injured felid.

The American lion was a fearsome predator.

Lions also stalked prey around the tar pits. The gigantic American lion may have weighed up to 900 pounds, over 300 pounds more than a typical lion today.

They had retractable claws like house cats and were big enough to hunt bison and horses.

To get a feel for what Los Angeles once looked like, visit the Pleistocene garden.

The megafauna like dire wolves, mammoths, and saber-tooth cats attract a lot of attention from La Brea's visitors. But the plants are also part of the story.

The Pleistocene garden contains plant species found as fossils in the asphalt. They help document changes in California's climate and vegetation. Over 50,000 years, the landscape changed from a pine forest to woodland to a sage scrub habitat.

From an environment full of trees, it became more open with more grasses and shrubs. Around 7,000 years ago, the region looked similar to modern LA's scrublands.

The museum's founders wanted to create a Pleistocene park.

In the 1920s, Herman Beck created sculptures of the La Brea animals, including the short-faced bear. Even back then, the museum's founders wanted to make a Pleistocene park, Davis said.

"They were using those kind of terms 100 years before Jurassic Park," he said.

The short-faced bear was taller than modern grizzly bears. "It would've been absolutely terrifying," Davis said.

An iconic scene runs along the museum's exterior.

Paleoartist Charles R. Knight created a large mural of the tar pits in 1925, and a modified recreation now runs around the museum's fascia.

The mural lacked the smaller animals that would have filled the landscape, but at least one detail is very true to life.

"This tree appears in just about every tar pits painting, this very particular curved branch," Davis said. That's because excavators actually found that tree, curved branch and all, in the asphalt.

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• Hush-money prosecutors say their "entire case" rests on an obscure NY election conspiracy law.
• Attorneys specializing in state election law believe the statute has never been prosecuted.
• But two election law scholars said DA Alvin Bragg's novel strategy may well get Trump convicted.

At Donald Trump's hush money trial on Tuesday, a Manhattan prosecutor surprised law nerds in the audience by revealing that "the entire case" rests on a single section of New York's election law.

The statute is simple. It outlaws conspiring to promote or prevent someone's election through "unlawful means."

Trump is on trial for falsifying business records throughout his first year in office to hide an election-influencing hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Falsifying business records is a misdemeanor, but the charge becomes a felony — punishable by up to four years in prison — if the records were falsified with the intent to commit or hide some other underlying crime.

Now, Manhattan prosecutors now say an old, rarely used section of the state election law is their favorite on the menu of potential underlying crimes.

"As the court is aware, falsifying business records in the first degree requires an intent to commit or conceal another crime," prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on Tuesday.

"The primary crime that we have alleged is New York state election law section 17-152," Steinglass told the judge, lifting into prominence an arcane measure that had previously played only a supporting role in the case.

"There is conspiracy language in the statute," the prosecutor said, "The entire case is predicated on the idea that there was a conspiracy to influence the election in 2016."

Business Insider asked two veteran New York election-law attorneys — one a Republican, the other a Democrat — about the law, also known as "Conspiracy to promote or prevent election."

Neither one could recall a single time when it had been prosecuted.

"I've never heard of it actually being used, and I've practiced election law for 53 years," Brooklyn attorney and former Democratic NY state Sen. Martin Connor said of section 17-152.

"I would be shocked — really shocked — if you could find anybody who can give you an example where this section was prosecuted," agreed Joseph T. Burns, attorney for the Erie County Republican Committee in Buffalo, New York.

"I would be absolutely floored," Burns continued, "if you could find anyone prosecuting this in the last 40 years."

Two highly respected law professors specializing in New York election law said the same.

Neither could cite a time when 17-152 — a misdemeanor that's been on the state's election law books since at least the mid-1970s — had been used.

However, while the two attorneys were highly skeptical of the DA's newly focused strategy, the two election law professors told BI they were confident it would lead to a conviction.

Sure, 17-152 has never been used before, they said. But that doesn't mean it won't work now that the dust has been blown off.

"I think it's very smart of prosecutors to use this state law, whether it's been used before or not," said Jeffrey M. Wice, who teaches state election law at New York Law School.

Wice noted that two judges — Merchan and Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a Manhattan federal judge who rejected Trump's attempt to move the hush-money case to federal court — upheld the use of 17-152 in this case. 

"It's a solid statute and very straightforward," Wice said. "Just as we have to expect the unexpected from Donald Trump, we have to also expect the unexpected from prosecutors and the jury."

An underlying crime

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg first mentioned New York's election conspiracy law nearly a year ago in a May 2023 filing called a bill of particulars.

It was mentioned only in passing.

The underlying crimes — either committed or merely intended to be committed — that hoist Trump's falsifying business records up from misdemeanor to felony "may include violations of New York Election Law section 17-152," prosecutors wrote.

In the same bill of particulars, prosecutors said the underlying crime could also be an intent to violate state tax law because Trump's then-"fixer," Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 out of his own pocket. Trump hid the true nature of that outlay when he reimbursed Cohen through a series of monthly checks for "legal fees," money Cohen then claimed as income, prosecutors say.

As an alternative, the underlying crime could be an intent to violate federal election law, prosecutors said, under the theory that the hush-money payment was an illegally high campaign contribution.

These same three "underlying crimes" — using state election law, federal election law, and state tax law — were again given equal prominence here in a February 15 decision by Merchan.

Only on Tuesday, when Steinglass spoke to the judge, did section 17-152 take its starring role.

Crimes, within crimes, within crimes

Connor, the former state senator and longtime election law practitioner, said there's a problem with letting 17-152 do the heavy lifting in the Trump indictment.

Falsifying business records requires proof of at least an attempt to commit an underlying crime to be a felony.

But what if that underlying crime is section 17-152 — conspiring to mess with an election through "unlawful means?"

Things will get "twisty," Connor said, when prosecutors try to show that Trump's falsified business records are felonies because of an underlying crime — 17-152 — that itself needs proof of a conspiracy to do something "unlawful."

"You're having an underlying crime within an underlying crime to get to that felony," Connor told BI.

"It's novel," he said with a laugh. "It's novel," he repeated.

Section 17-152 needs its own underlying criminal conspiracy, he said.

"Two or more conspiring to elect or defeat a candidate — that's the definition of every political campaign," he joked. "It's only when you conspire to do it by unlawful means that you violate this law."

Having an election-conspiracy statute like 17-152 on the state election-law books makes little sense, he said.

"It would appear to cover something like three people getting together and saying, 'Let's break into our opponent's headquarters and destroy all his equipment,'" Connor said.

"Or, 'Let's firebomb the place.' There probably have been cases like that, but for that kind of illegal conduct, you would use the state penal code and charge arson or burglary, which are felonies," he added

"Because if you're only using this election law, you only have a misdemeanor."

Winning isn't as tricky as it sounds

What will prosecutors argue made Trump's 17-152 election conspiracy "unlawful?"

They've already cited three ways.

First, there's federal election law. Prosecutors have alleged that the conspiracy intended to violate the Federal Election Campaign Act, or FECA, which sets strict limits on contributions.

Trump conspired with Cohen and editors at the National Enquirer to bury Daniels' story of a 2006 one-night-stand — long denied by Trump — by paying her $130,000, prosecutors say. That money was an illegally high campaign expenditure, they say.

Second, Trump intended to violate state tax law when he disguised his repayment of Cohen as a series of monthly checks for "legal fees," prosecutors say.

And third, Trump conspired to falsify the records of the National Enquirer through a plan to "catch and kill" stories that could hurt his 2016 campaign, prosecutors allege.

Proof of an intent to violate any of these three laws would be sufficient to satisfy Section 17-152. And once you prove 17-152, you have the underlying crime you need to raise misdemeanor falsifying business records to a felony.

It's important to remember that Trump is only charged with 34 counts of this one crime: felony falsification of business records, said election-law scholar Jerry H. Goldfeder.

Trump is not charged with actually committing any of the underlying state and federal laws required to prove felony falsification.

So prosecutors have no legal obligation to prove he's guilty of any of these underlying laws, 17-152 included, said Goldfeder, senior counsel at Cozen O'Connor and author of Goldfeder's Modern Election Law.

"They only have to prove he intended to commit these underlying crimes," which is a far lower bar, said Goldfeder, who also directs the Fordham Law School Voting Rights and Democracy Project.

"I think it's a very viable case," he told BI.

"And the testimony so far demonstrates that Trump intended to pursue this catch-and-kill scheme and to falsify business records to cover it up — and did so to influence the election," he said.

"It's up to the jury of course," he added. "But the testimony so far is pretty clear." 

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• A mistake by Ukrainian troops appears to have let Russian forces advance and capture large parts of a village.
• The incident occurred during a rotation between Ukraine's 47th and 115th Mechanized Brigades.
• It marks the second time a Ukrainian unit has failed on the eastern front in recent weeks.

A blunder by Ukrainian troops appears to have allowed Russian forces to advance and capture large parts of a village unopposed.

Russian troops were able to take most of Ocheretyne, northwest of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, after an apparent rotational error involving Ukraine's elite 47th Mechanized Brigade and its 115th Mechanized Brigade.

The 47th Mechanized Brigade was due to be relieved by the 115th along the front line just east of Ocheretyne.

But as the 47th pulled back, Russia's 30th Motor Rifle Brigade attacked, taking advantage of a gap left by the pending arrival of the 115th.

The commander of the 47th, Mykola Melnyk, famed for losing a leg during the summer offensive, wrote on Facebook: "The drastic advancement of the Russians became possible because certain units just fucked off.

"Hope they get retrained as assault troops," he added.

Vadym Chornyy, a spokesperson for the 115th Brigade, told the Financial Times that the allegations were "not true."

"The unit did not abandon its position," he said.

Melnyk said the only reason Russia was unable to continue its advance was because the 47th Brigade rejoined the fight.

"The holes were clogged by those who were planning on taking a break," he said. "The 47th brigade is back in business. Another month and that will make it a year without rotation."

An update on the Ukrainian Deep State website, which tracks changes on the battlefield, showed that Russian forces had captured large parts of the village.

Images shared on Telegram also claimed to show a Russian flag flying over a building in the war-torn village.

Earlier this week, the think tank the Institute for the Study of War said that Russian forces appeared "to be aiming to make a wide penetration of Ukrainian lines northwest of Avdiivka," but it added that its efforts would likely be hindered by upcoming deliveries of US and Western aid.

The ISW said that attacking Ocheretyne was part of Russia's "operational-level goal of reaching the Donetsk Oblast administrative boundary via Pokrovsk."

It comes after part of Ukraine's 67th Mechanized Brigade was broken up while defending Chasiv Yar, a city north of Avdiivka and close to Bakhmut.

David Axe, a military correspondent and blogger, wrote in an article for Forbes that the 67th was broken up due to disputes between its commanding officers, many of whom he said were members of far-right political groups.

Chasiv Yar is a crucial city in the battle for Ukraine's Donetsk region, and capturing it would put Russian forces within striking distance of Ukrainian operational and supply centers in the area.

The commander in chief of Ukraine's armed forces said earlier this month that Russian troops had been tasked with capturing Chasiv Yar by May 9.

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• Sephora employees have spoken out about a change they said has led to a lack of hours and perks.
• A new "flex" position means no more guaranteed shifts or free products for them to try at home.
• It's part of an initiative known as "Project Shift," employees told Business Insider.

For years, makeup enthusiasts considered Sephora a "fun" job. But a recent policy change has axed the benefits that many counted on to make it all worth it.

Business Insider spoke to six recent and current Sephora employees who said an initiative called "Project Shift" saw them or their coworkers unexpectedly reclassified as "flex" employees instead of part-time in February.

BI verified their identities and employment at the cosmetics retailer. They asked to be kept anonymous to protect their careers in the beauty industry and within Sephora.

The difference, they said, is that as flex employees, their hours aren't guaranteed. A document viewed by BI showed that they should expect to work between zero and 19 hours a week.

Before, employees said they were divided into full time, part time, and partial part time categories. Under the new rules, those who can't promise three days of availability a week must be classified as flex, according to a document viewed by BI. Those who are available for at least three days are considered part time.

For some now-flex workers, that means they've had to go months between working shifts. For all of them, it means they'll no longer receive the same free makeup products as their part-time and full-time colleagues.

No more freebies

It's known as "training product," or "gratis," and it's a monthly bag of free beauty products that can range from $250 to $1,000 in value.

One former employee — who asked only to be referred to by her first name, Grace — said she received roughly $700 worth of products in her monthly gratis bag during her time as a licensed beauty advisor. Grace left Sephora in the summer of 2023.

For employees earning between $16 and $20 an hour, going home with luxurious serums and concealers made up for the lack of pay, they said.

"Any benefit I have outside of an employee discount has been taken away," a current employee who asked to remain anonymous said.

Multiple employees told BI that May will be the last month that flex workers receive gratis. Typically, gratis is ordered months in advance, but workers who are now classified as flex said that they haven't been asked to request any products for June or later.

When frustrated workers flooded the r/SephoraWorkers forum, a photo of a poster was uploaded that depicted the benefits flex employees earned compared to their coworkers.

In a statement to BI, Sephora said its changes "offered the opportunity to more than 4,160 employees, including part-time employees who previously were not eligible" to have access to health benefits and sick time based on their working hours.

The company confirmed that flex and temporary employees don't receive gratis but said they can get free products from brands who visit their stores.

For one employee, the loss of her monthly gratis prompted her to walk away from Sephora months shy of her 16-year anniversary.

She asked not to be named, but the worker told BI that Sephora "crossed the line" by taking away gratis. After over a decade of working there, she said she witnessed the changes to the company happening over time.

"Over the years, it was all about helping a customer — talking with them about makeup that I love," she said. "Then, it just became so numbers-driven."

'Sell, sell, sell'

And her sentiments were echoed by other employees who viewed Sephora as a fun reprieve from their full time jobs or useful added money and perks.

Many said their hours are nearly nonexistent now.

In one instance, an Ohio-based employee said she works "maybe once every six to eight weeks." Another said she hasn't had a shift at her store since January.

With only their 30% off employee discount left, they said, it's not worth it.

"We're all being pushed to sell, sell, sell," a current employee told BI.

Sephora, which is owned by LVMH, celebrated hitting $10 billion in sales in 2023 by sending out cookies to its store employees in January. The move left some saying they felt unheard by the company.

Weeks later, Project Shift had some getting called into their manager's office to learn they'd also be losing gratis soon.

The Ohio employee continued: "All y'all could do was give us those cookies, and then take our gratis and tell us we're forced to be flex employees?"

One former Sephora employee previously told BI that Sephora had changed from being a dream job for makeup lovers to "just a transaction" after several years. When Project Shift happened, they said it was time to go.

"They should take the f out of Project Shift," the employee who left after 15 years told BI.

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• Jefferies CEO Rich Handler sold $65 million of stock — some of which he used to buy a superyacht.
• He purchased Boardwalk from billionaire friend and client Tilman Fertitta.
• Here's a look at the multimillion-dollar superyacht.

Earlier this week, Jefferies CEO Rich Handler sold $65 million worth of stock in the investment bank — enough to warrant a press release — partly to buy a yacht from his friend and client, hospitality billionaire and Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta.

"My sale of shares today was a gift to myself and my family," Handler said in the release.

It's a pretty good gift. The boat in question is a 50-meter superyacht named Boardwalk.

According to the yacht's shipyard, Westport Yachts, the off-market deal was pending as of last month. The sale price isn't public.

Boardwalk, which is currently moored in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was originally delivered in 2010. She features a spa pool and helipad on her sun deck, as well as multiple bars and 15 bathrooms, of which at least one has a television. The master cabin has a dressing room and a private study, and there are scooters on board to make getting around easier — and more fun.

She can fit 12 guests and 12 crew members, according to industry source SuperYacht Times.

"It isn't cheap, I can tell you that. I just love it," Fertitta told a local ABC affiliate in 2017, referring to Boardwalk's $40 million price tag.

While Boardwalk is technically part of "a series" — one of a fleet of boats built by the shipyard of this size and general design — Fertitta made many custom adjustments, adding lights throughout and opening up spaces to create a less formal feel, he told Yachts International in 2011.

Handler has been a guest on the yacht before, landing on its deck via helicopter when it was moored in St. Barts, according to a video posted on Fertitta's Instagram account in 2018.

"It's a shame when you have to pick your friends up to come see you. This is @handlerrich roughin' it to the @boardwalk164," he wrote in the caption.

"It's one of those things that I've always wanted and I'll always have," Fertitta said during the 2017 interview.

While he won't always have this exact boat, Fertitta, who is worth $9.3 billion, per Forbes, will likely always have a yacht and appears to have traded up.

He teased his new, fully custom vessel — a 77-meter giant built by Dutch shipyard Feadship — in 2019. It was delivered in 2021 and is also named Boardwalk.

The new Boardwalk has a more modern design. The gym has a Peloton and a Mirror; there's a sauna and beauty salon; and there are six sit-down bars — appropriate for a hospitality billionaire.

"This takes it to a whole new level," his son, Michael, told Boat International.

Looks like Handler still has something to aspire to.

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• A rising number of young Americans are disconnected from work, school, and a sense of purpose.
• Disconnection rates have been increasing since the 1990s, affecting young people's futures.
• Poor mental health and a lack of a financial safety net contribute to rising disconnection.

Destiny's main goal right now is survival.

The 21-year-old grew up in foster care in Florida and left the foster-care system at 16. Retail jobs helped her save enough money for an apartment, and she eventually became a manager at Family Dollar. She enrolled in college and maintained straight A's — for a while.

But Destiny, who asked to go by only her first name for fear of personal and professional repercussions, began to suffer from overwork while having multiple jobs during the pandemic, and her mental health faltered.

"I feel for those who are in my shoes and don't have a connection or a home base," said Destiny, who now lives in a small apartment in Alabama with her boyfriend. "You think you're alone, but there are so many of us who are in this situation. We're hopeless, feel like a failure, and we want to get it together. We just need better resources and time."

Eventually, Destiny dropped out of college and quit her job. She's struggled to get medication for her OCD and find stable employment beyond part-time gig work. She knows she's not alone in feeling stuck when it comes to investing in education or finding the right job.

"When I was a general manager, when I would hire people, I was hiring people who had master's" degrees, Destiny said. "They just couldn't find a job that used that degree or jobs they just weren't qualified enough for with their experience. I think a degree now is just pretty much a baseline education for most people with jobs."

A growing group of America's young people are not in school, not working, or not looking for work. They're called "disconnected youth" or "opportunity youth," and their ranks have been growing for nearly three decades. Experts say it's not just work and school; this group is often also disconnected from a sense of purpose.

It's creating a tale of two Gen Zs: those who have followed traditional milestones and others who are increasingly getting left behind. These aren't all young people taking gap years — the disconnected youth Business Insider spoke with want education and good jobs but are partly victims of economic circumstances outside their control. And that might cost them.

'A long shadow across the whole life course'

Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicates the share of disconnected 18- to 24-year-olds has been on the rise since the 1990s. While it fell a bit in the 2010s, it spiked in the 2020s. In 2022, 13.2% of people in that age group were considered disconnected.

Measure of America, which looks at 16- to 24-year-olds who aren't in school and aren't working, found that nearly 4.7 million young people were disconnected in 2021.

Kristen Lewis, the director and cofounder of Measure of America, part of the Social Science Research Council, described ages 16 to 24 as consequential.

"Being disconnected from 16 to 24 can really cast a long shadow across the whole life course," Lewis said. It can even hurt someone's future earnings and likelihood of owning a house.

Just look at the wage progression as young people pick up degrees.

Using 2022 American Community Survey microdata from the University of Minnesota's IPUMS program, Business Insider found that 18- to 24-year-old Americans who were working earned a median income of $19,200.

The National Center for Education Statistics found that among 25- to 34-year-olds working full time in 2021, those who hadn't completed high school earned a median of $32,500, while those who had completed high school had a median income of $39,700. For those with a bachelor's degree, that jumped to $61,600.

"When kids become disconnected from school and work, there's just a downward spiral that is too often going to result," Sen. Tim Kaine, who's introduced legislation to help at-risk youths find jobs and receive job training, told BI. "Some people can figure their way out of that spiral, but many cannot."

Joseph, 21, is in that life stage. He said that while he doesn't want to be disconnected, mental-health challenges and a lack of a financial safety net or health insurance had left him in a lurch.

He said he grew up "very poor" in a trailer park in Indiana with his parents and three siblings. He excelled in high school and got a full scholarship to a four-year college. But after a year of remote learning, he struggled to keep up with schoolwork and often missed classes; he dropped out as he worked on improving his mental health. He said he regretted not being able to find a way to stay enrolled.

"I lost my scholarship, and I want to go back to college now and have a much better relationship with the concept and know myself and my needs better," he said. "But I can no longer afford it without the scholarship."

Joseph has been unemployed since October after struggling to hold down jobs at a warehouse, a summer camp, and a Walmart.

Despite having trouble finding a doctor to help him receive work accommodations for his disability, he's applied to various jobs, including substitute teaching and working in a kitchen, but he hasn't heard back from any. He's starting an online needlepoint-patch business to bring in extra income as he looks for his next job. He said he felt alone.

"I'd like to live in my own place, learn to drive so that I'm not dependent on my parents for transportation, and have a job that doesn't cause me more pain than I'm already in," he said.

This has contributed to feelings of severe anxiety and distress; he said he'd contemplated suicide. He's hoping to finally get evaluated for ADHD and autism spectrum disorder after months of having no health insurance.

Ashley Palmer, an assistant professor of social work at Texas Christian University who has written papers on this cohort, said disconnected youth fall along a spectrum of connectedness to work and school.

"I don't think that simply being in school or working means that you're doing OK or that you're going to have improved well-being," Palmer said.

She said that while there's a lack of research in predicting the long-term social and psychological effects of disconnectedness, she suspects a lack of purpose can erode mental and physical health and relationships with friends and community.

"When you lack that purpose, it is difficult for you to think about how or in what ways you want to contribute or can contribute to society," Palmer said. "Our society is a relational one where we depend on people to be able to contribute in various ways."

Lewis, the researcher, said that "youth disconnection is not a spontaneously occurring phenomenon." Areas with high poverty rates and fewer community resources tend to have higher disconnection rates. Palmer added that those with limited access to transportation, people with disabilities, and young parents were also more susceptible.

In more affluent areas, Lewis said, "people are experiencing good health, access to knowledge, a decent standard of living — disconnection is rare in those communities."

"If you think about middle-class kids, they don't get just a chance or one second chance, they get a million chances," Lewis said. "They're in institutions where they can try and they can fail and they're protected to some degree from the consequences, and they can mess up and people can help them. Disconnected young people don't have that luxury."

Parents of disconnected youth are at a 'total loss'

Sarah Nunley, a Gen X parent of two disconnected youths in Silicon Valley, said kids in her area are often pressured to focus on academics and attend college.

But Nunley said she noticed a "dramatic shift" after the remote-school era of the pandemic, as her own kids dropped out of college.

"The top priority became this YOLO environment, or mentality that you only live once, where it was more important to spend time with friends and go on adventures, and education became secondary to that," Nunley said.

Veronica, a 43-year-old parent in Texas, recently watched one of her kids become disconnected. She thinks he became burned out after working relentlessly in retail during the pandemic and still not getting promoted.

"He was going full throttle," Veronica said. "I mean, my husband and I would make comments when we saw him coming downstairs in his work uniform, be like, 'You're going to work again?'"

Nunley said she was at a "total loss" about what she and her fellow parents could do to improve things. But she has hope that disconnected youths will come around.

"Everybody cares. There's not a single person that doesn't care about what's going on or doesn't have an opinion about what's going on," Nunley said. "So from that perspective, I think that there is a lot of hope that they will eventually figure it out. But I don't have any ideas of how they will figure it out."

DC Lucchesi, a Gen X dad of three, said that while parents want to give their kids the tools to do better, so much has changed about the path to success since parents were that age.

"Generationally speaking, the parents of this 'disaffected youth,' they're all my age," he said. "What we grew up learning or hearing or being told was you get a damn college degree and that's going to be your springboard to success. And somewhere along that space, the success of that safety net disappeared."

Instead, Lucchesi said, parents need to learn to be OK with telling their kids that they don't have to pursue an Ivy League degree or attend an elite school.

"It's OK to be doing something else that brings you joy and puts a check in the bank for you," he said.

But the pressure to help isn't only on parents. Palmer, the social-work professor, argued that policymakers interested in fixing the problem could implement programs like guaranteed income for disconnected youth, expanded social safety net initiatives like Medicaid, and universal preschool and childcare.

"The things that worry me are that we are not adequately addressing a growing mental-health crisis, and we are missing people with our social safety net — the lack of holistic supports for young people, things like not just making sure that they're enrolled or trying to get them placed in a job, but are there livable wages even with a college degree?" Palmer said.

Destiny aspires to attend law school, though her immediate goal is to find a stable job that comfortably pays her bills. She hasn't even begun to think about retirement or a mortgage. She's considering buying an RV and traveling around to save money on an apartment.

"I think the mental-health crisis has always been a big deal but just swept under rugs," Destiny said. "The only reason there's a true surge in mental-health crises now is because the newer generations are more outspoken about it. Trauma cycles get bigger with every new generation you introduce. I think it has finally hit its breaking point."

Are you or were you a "disconnected youth," or are you supporting one? Contact these reporters at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com or jkaplan@businessinsider.com.

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• Russia's oil and gas revenue is set to surge despite Ukraine's attacks on energy infrastructure.
• Revenue from oil and gas is a key way Russia funds its war in Ukraine.
• Russia says it has successfully rerouted oil supplies and limited the effects of Western sanctions.

Russia's oil and gas revenue for April is expected to soar by roughly double year on year despite increased Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure, a Reuters report said.

The news agency projected Russian oil and gas revenue for the month to come in at 1.292 trillion roubles, which is around $14 billion, up from 648 billion roubles, or roughly $7 billion.

Reuters said it made the calculations using "data from industry sources and official statistics on oil and gas production, refining and supplies on domestic and international markets."

The April data is expected to be published by the Russian Finance Ministry in early May, per the report.

Revenue from oil and gas is a key way in which Russia funds its war in Ukraine, and the significant year-on-year rise highlights the difficulty Western countries have had in attempting to impose effective sanctions on its economy.

The West has taken a number of steps to try and limit Russia's income from energy.

Measures have included the US and the UK banning Russian oil and gas, the EU prohibiting the maritime import of Russian crude, and G7 leaders agreeing to set a price cap on Russian crude oil at $60 per barrel.

But Russia says it has largely managed to circumnavigate these moves.

In December last year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said almost all of Russia's oil exports in 2023 had been shipped to China and India, adding that the European share of crude exports had fallen from around 40-45% to just 4-5%.

"The main partners in the current situation are China, whose share has grown to approximately 45-50%, and, of course, India…Earlier, there basically were no supplies to India; in two years, the total share of supplies to India has come to 40%," Novak said.

"As for those restrictions and embargoes on supplies to Europe and the U.S. that were introduced… this only accelerated the process of reorienting our energy flows," he added.

The news comes despite increasing Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

Earlier this week, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters that Ukraine's security service (SBU) had carried out drone strikes on two Rosneft-owned oil depots in Russia's Smolensk region.

The source noted that the SBU was continuing to target "logistics that provide fuel to the Russian army in Ukraine."

"These facilities are and will remain our absolutely legitimate targets," they said.

Despite Russia's strong April revenue projections, it seems Ukraine's strikes are having some success.

Bloomberg reported this week said that Russia's oil refining was at an 11-month low because of flooding and Ukraine's drone campaign.

Between April 11-17, Russia processed 5.22 million barrels of crude oil a day, Bloomberg reported, citing a person with knowledge of the industry data.

The report said that that was 10,000 barrels a day below the average of the seven days prior.

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