Tag: News

• Red Lobster has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• The troubled chain said its restaurants will remain open and operating during the process.
• The bankruptcy comes after losses piled up due to a $20 endless shrimp promotion.

Red Lobster has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the seafood restaurant chain announced in a statement on Sunday.

It comes after last week's decision to close more than 50 locations. However, Red Lobster added its remaining restaurants will "remain open and operating as usual during the Chapter 11 process." It has about 550 outlets in 44 states, per the filing.

CEO Jonathan Tibus said in the Chapter 11 documents the number of customers had fallen by 30% since 2019, and had "only marginally improved from pandemic levels."

Red Lobster has often run an all-you-can-eat shrimp promotion. To try to increase footfall last year it started offering the $20 deal every day, rather than once a week. The move backfired, however, adding to its losses.

In an earnings call last November, the finance chief of the chain's owner, Thai Union Group, told investors the promotion was "one of the key reasons for the losses we generated" in the third quarter of 2023.

Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to stay in business while it restructures its assets.

Red Lobster, which has debts of $1 billion, said it will use the process to reduce its number of locations and "pursue a sale of all its assets as a going concern."

The firm said it had received a $100 million debtor-in-possession agreement from its existing lenders, which will now take control of Red Lobster.

"This restructuring is the best path forward for Red Lobster," Tibus said. "The support we've received from our lenders and vendors will help ensure that we can complete the sale process quickly and efficiently while remaining focused on our employees and guests," he added.

• Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran on Sunday.
• The crash involved a US-manufactured Bell 212 helicopter, which stopped being made in 1998.
• Iran's former foreign minister said US aircraft sanctions against Iran could be to blame.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash on Sunday — and the country's former foreign minister believes US sanctions were partly to blame.

Raisi, 63, and other senior officials were killed after the helicopter they were traveling in was forced to make a "hard landing" over northwest Iran, Ahmad Vahidi, the country's interior minister, told IRNA.

State TV said the helicopter crashed into a mountain. While there is no official statement on the cause, images of the crash site captured by ISNA, Iran's state students' news agency, showed heavy fog lingering over the area.

Multiple outlets, including Reuters, said the helicopter was a US-manufactured Bell 212, a model that first entered service in 1968 and stopped being made in 1998.

Iran's former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the US sanctions — which prohibit Iran from purchasing US-built planes — could be partly to blame.

In a phone interview with state TV on Monday, Zarif said the sanctions prevent Iran from having good aviation facilities.

According to part of an interview cited by Iran International and ISNA News Agency, he said the crash that killed Raisi would be "recorded in the black list of American crimes against the Iranian nation."

The US has imposed various sanctions against Iran since the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Economic sanctions, including those targeting the aviation industry, were reinstated in 2018 after the US withdrew from its nuclear deal.

Iranian airlines are prohibited from purchasing planes that contain more than 10% US parts, according to US think-tank The Washington Institute.

This is likely to complicate the process of updating or repairing US-manufactured planes that the country purchased before the sanctions took effect.

Farzin Nadimi, a research fellow at The Washington Institute and an expert on Iran's security and defense, said that around half of Iranian planes were grounded in 2019 due to a lack of spare parts. At the time, an estimated 8% of fleets were expected to go out of service each year.

Iranian airlines operate some of the world's oldest aircraft, according to Bloomberg, which estimated the average fleet age to be over 25 years.

According to US military training documents cited by Reuters, the Bell 212 was developed for the Canadian military in the late 1960s and first used by Canada and the US in 1971.

There have been multiple crashes involving a Bell 212 through the years, including a 1997 crash in Louisiana where eight people died, according to First Post.

In 2009, a Bell 212 operated by Cougar Helicopters crashed off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada. The incident, which killed 17 of the 18 people on board, was a result of an emergency landing after the aircraft lost oil pressure in one of its engines, First Post said.

The most recent fatal crash involving a Bell 212 took place in September when a private aircraft crashed off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, cited by Reuters. It is not known how many passengers were on board.

Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Palmer Luckey's startup Anduril is producing futuristic weapons of war. 
• But the billionaire founder has his own James Bond-esque collection of military vehicles.
• Luckey gave Bloomberg an inside peek at his 1980s-designed home and private collection of "boys toys."

The defense tech startup Anduril is making some of the most futuristic autonomous weapons on the market as it tries to reinvent the military's wheelhouse.

But the company's forward-thinking vision hasn't stopped founder Palmer Luckey from amassing his own collection of older military-grade vehicles and boy's toys.

The billionaire's collection includes a boat bought from the US Navy, six helicopters, and a 1985 ex-Marine Corps Humveefighter, he revealed in the latest episode of Bloomberg's "The Circuit."

That's land, sea, and air covered.

Luckey's Mark V special operations craft, which he purchased from the Navy, is the fastest boat ever built by the force with a little over 5,000 horsepower, he told reporter Emily Chang as he took her for a ride on the vessel around Newport Beach.

"It was designed specifically for Navy seal insertion and extraction missions. It runs really fast, and it's a lot of fun."

He still has the real M2 heavy-barreled 50 BMG machine gun that came with the boat but keeps fake ones fitted "most of the time."

"Most of my neighbors like it, and a handful hate it."

Luckey first made his name when he founded virtual reality company Oculus in 2012. Two years later, he sold the company to Facebook, now known as Meta, for $2 billion in cash and stock. 

In 2017, one year after he was fired from Facebook, Luckey founded Anduril. It's since risen to the top of Silicon Valley's defense tech boom.

But his passion for the military started when he was young, Luckey told The Circuit.

"I grew up watching the Marine Corps practice right offshore in their helicopters. Watching Navy ships do exercises gets in your brain, and it doesn't leave."

He's now the proud owner of six helicopters, including a UH-60 Blackhawk.

In addition to military-grade vehicles, Luckey owns a 1967 Disneyland Autopia, a toy car used in Disney theme parks, designed by legendary park designer Bob Gurr and Walt Disney himself.

"As far as I know, mine is the only complete Autopia that is outside of the parks. Mine has the original mechanicals, original gear boxes, original wheels, the whole deal," Luckey told Chang.

The small vehicle, typically seen tearing up Disneyland race tracks, suffered a minor breakdown mid-interview and had to be fixed with a flathead screwdriver.

The founder also took cameras into his 1980s-designed home in LA. Fitted with a two-inch thick teal shag carpet and a 6,500-gallon aquarium, Luckey's home has "some good Miami Vice vibes," he told Chang.

The coffee table is fitted with a map of his Dungeons and Dragons campaign, where he plays as a "chaotic neutral wizard named Nilrim V."

As the billionaire founder himself admits, "I am a little bit of a caricature."

But where to keep the world's largest collection of video games?

"I put that in one of my missile bases. 200 feet underground," Luckey told Chang.

• Google boss Sundar Pichai says the company is moving boldly but cautiously with its AI efforts.
• In an interview with a YouTuber, Pichai discussed the balance of fast innovation and responsibility.
• Google's AI misstep with Gemini and competitive pressure may be behind the need for such a balance.

Google is "moving boldly" with its AI efforts but is proceeding cautiously.

CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is trying to balance "moving fast" with being responsible, and that could mean it would need to slow down the launch of future AI tools.

In a recent interview with YouTuber Varun Mayya, Pichai said, "I think with a technology like that, which is developing fast, you have to ride the curve where you're pushing, but also be as responsible, but there is some trade-off."

He explained that the positive reaction is "why you see us moving fast, but there will be moments when we feel 'okay, maybe, this technology, it's important to spend more time getting this right."

He added, "On the balance, yes, we are moving boldly."

Pichai also said the public response to the AI-infused products it's been rolling out, such as AI overviews on Search, gives the company confidence that it's moving in the right direction.

The comments come after a blunder with Google Gemini's text-to-image generator earlier in the year that saw it generate historically inaccurate images, which led to the company pausing its wider launch.

Pichai later said, "We got it wrong," which could have caused the company to be more wary of releasing new products before they're ready.

Like other Big Tech firms, Google is under pressure to ship AI products fast to gain a competitive edge in the AI race. The companies — including Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Apple — are pouring a lot of money into AI and making strategic changes to give them a leg up.

A recent Bernstein research note said the companies are on track to invest a combined $200 billion this year in AI infrastructure, equipment, and real estate. Google alone is spending $1.1 billion expanding its main data center in Finland, Bloomberg reported.

In April, Google reshuffled its leadership team in to accelerate the company's progress. It merged its platforms and devices unit into one team to focus on Android, Chrome, and gadgets. Last year, the tech giant also merged its two AI research groups, Google Brain and DeepMind, into one new team called Google DeepMind.

Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

• The internet has been buzzing about Mark Zuckerberg's new style choices.
• We showed ChatGPT some recent pictures of Zuckerberg and asked it to analyze his looks.
• The chatbot had some recommendations for the Meta CEO.

Mark Zuckerberg might be going viral for his new style, but ChatGPT has some fashion tips for the Meta CEO.

Zuck has been getting noticed for his refreshed take on the typical "tech industry uniform" of t-shirt and jeans. The CEO was one of the main figureheads of the trope early on in his career, but the 40-year-old is switching it up now.

But is it working for him? To find out, Business Insider turned to ChatGPT for an analysis of Zuckerberg's style. We grabbed a few recent photos from his Instagram and used prompts to get OpenAI's chatbot to weigh in.

ChatGPT is powered by GPT-4o, a large language model trained on data to provide humanlike answers to prompts.

BI also asked a real — human — style expert to answer the same prompts to the best of his ability.

Here's what they both had to say after seeing the 10 photos (and don't worry, we didn't use the viral fake bearded image).

ChatGPT's verdict was that Zuckerberg should work on dressing more appropriately for his job running a company.

"While casual, Zuckerberg's style can sometimes appear too relaxed for a CEO. Introducing smart-casual elements like blazers or stylish jackets could bridge the gap between his very casual and formal looks, providing a more polished appearance while retaining comfort," the chatbot said.

But Reginald Ferguson, men's fashion consultant and founder of New York Fashion Geek, disagreed with ChatGPT and said Zuckerberg is dressed "appropriately for a CEO of his era and industry."

When asked directly about the appropriateness of his style, ChatGPT matched Ferguson's answer more closely.

"Zuckerberg's style is generally appropriate within the context of the tech industry, known for its more laid-back dress codes. His formal attire at events shows that he can elevate his style when needed, aligning with traditional expectations of a CEO," the chatbot wrote.

While Ferguson said Zuck's new necklace choices are "tasteful," it seems like ChatGPT wants him to tone it down a bit with the gold chains.

"In terms of accessories, while the choice of a chain necklace is a personal style statement, opting for more subtle pieces might be more fitting for a CEO, especially in professional or public settings," said ChatGPT.

Zuckerberg's venture into fashion has been the source of viral moments online. His gold chains have earned him the meme treatment, and the billionaire Facebook founder seems to be leaning in.

And this might not be the end of his style evolution, Ferguson said.

"The challenge with Mark Zuckerberg is he's lived his entire adult life in public and came out the gate with a style (no style) that a whole generation of young men followed," Ferguson said.

He continued: "He still has no style, but he's trying, and he and his stylist should be applauded for that."

• Some European NATO members are talking about putting their troops in Ukraine.
• Estonia's PM said allies shouldn't fear that troops doing training there would escalate the war.
• Some want their allies to consider similar action, saying Russia is a threat to Europe.

Some NATO countries are encouraging their allies to be bolder when it comes to sending their own soldiers to Ukraine.

Many NATO countries have aided Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, by providing weaponry and training of troops.

However, some say that Ukraine's allies should consider more direct action to stop Russia, including by putting their own troops on the ground.

Estonia wants more action

The most recent comments came from Kaja Kallas, prime minister of NATO member Estonia. She told the Financial Times that NATO members should not be concerned that sending troops to Ukraine to train soldiers would risk a wider war with Russia.

Allies that train Ukrainian troops are doing so outside Ukraine. However, some Western and Ukrainian officials believe that training Ukrainian soldiers on their own territory would be more efficient, the FT reported.

Kallas said: "There are countries who are training soldiers on the ground already," and said they were doing it at their own risk.

Poland's foreign minister in March called it an "open secret" that some Western soldiers are already in Ukraine.

Kallas said that even if NATO soldiers were attacked by Russia while in Ukraine, it wouldn't automatically trigger Article 5, NATO's collective defense clause.

According to the clause, an attack against one NATO member is an attack against all.

"I can't possibly imagine that if somebody is hurt there, then those who have sent their people will say 'it's article five. Let's . . . bomb Russia.' It is not how it works. It's not automatic. So these fears are not well-founded," she said.

She added: "If you send your people to help Ukrainians . . . you know the country is in war and you go to a risk zone. So you take the risk."

Estonia, while a small country, is one of Ukraine's key allies and has been one of the biggest advocates for Ukraine receiving as much support as possible. It has repeatedly warned that Russia is likely to attack elsewhere in Europe after Ukraine.

Kallas' comments come after other officials in Estonia suggested their soldiers could be sent to Ukraine.

Madis Roll, the country's president's national security advisor, said earlier this month that the government is "seriously" discussing the potential of deploying Estonian troops to Ukraine in non-combat roles.

France says Western troops may be needed

French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this month that Europe should consider sending troops to help Ukraine if Russia breaks through its lines, as "if Russia wins in Ukraine, there will be no security in Europe."

Macron repeatedly said that he could consider putting Western troops in Ukraine.

He said he would consider doing it "if the Russians were to break through the front lines, if there were a Ukrainian request, which is not the case today."

He added: "We have undoubtedly been too hesitant by defining the limits of our action to someone who no longer has any and who is the aggressor."

Macron, like Estonia, warned that Russia would likely look to attack elsewhere in Europe if it is not defeated in Ukraine.

In response to Macron, the Kremlin said putting NATO troops in Ukraine would lead to a war between it and Russia.

And other allies, including the UK and the US, said they were not considering such a move.

But a frequently repeated pattern in this war has been how some of its allies have rejected the possibility of taking some steps to support Ukraine, before changing their minds later.

Other countries are considering sending soldiers as trainers

Poland's foreign minister said in March that the presence of NATO forces in Ukraine "is not unthinkable" and said he appreciated Macron for not ruling out the idea.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė told the FT this month that she had the authority from her parliament to send troops to Ukraine for training, but Ukraine had not yet requested any.

She said Russia may consider responding, but "if we just thought about the Russian response, then we could not send anything. Every second week you hear that somebody will be nuked."

• Tesla staff are living in limbo as Elon Musk's job cuts continue.
• The layoffs are likely to continue through at least June, Bloomberg reported.
• The lingering threat of job cuts has left some Tesla workers on edge.

Tesla staff are living in limbo amid Elon Musk's rolling job cuts.

The cuts are likely to continue through at least June, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The lingering threat of layoffs has left some Tesla workers on edge.

The report said coworkers had taken to joking about anxiety and insomnia, with one employee likening the atmosphere to the hit Netflix drama "Squid Game," where characters must fight for their lives while playing children's games.

Tesla representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

Last month, Musk told Tesla staff he planned to cut more than 10% of the EV company's 140,000-strong workforce.

The billionaire had reportedly pushed for a 20% head count reduction to match the company's quarterly vehicle deliveries decline.

Tesla's delivery numbers slumped prior to the layoff announcement, falling below Wall Street's already pessimistic estimates.

Deliveries in the first quarter fell by a fifth compared with the previous quarter and by more than 8% versus the same period the previous year, marking the company's first year-on-year sales decline since 2020.

The layoff announcement came as Tesla grappled with poor sales amid increased competition from Chinese automakers such as BYD.

The rolling layoffs have affected several of Tesla's key divisions, wiping out almost all the Supercharger team. According to a report from Reuters, the team's decimation came after the division's chief refused to conduct further layoffs.

Musk has reportedly since backtracked on this decision and rehired some of those workers.

The CEO has also denied a Reuters report last month that Tesla was scrapping plans for a long-awaited $25,000 model in favor of prioritizing a robotaxi.

Tesla stock is down close to 30% since the start of the year, valuing the automaker at just over $550 billion.

• Virgin Atlantic cut thousands of jobs after the pandemic struck in 2020.
• More than 200 former cabin crew are suing the airline claiming unfair dismissal.
• They claim older staff were unfairly targeted, while those with little experience were kept on.

Virgin Atlantic is being sued by more than 200 former cabin crew, claiming the airline unfairly targeted older staff for dismissals during the pandemic, The Guardian reported.

The airline, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, cut 3,000 jobs — about a third of its workforce — in May 2020. Virgin Atlantic also retired its Boeing 747 jumbo jets a year early and closed its base at London Gatwick Airport as it tried to avoid bankruptcy.

Some staff who were made redundant — a UK employment process similar to layoffs but with more legal protections — were then added to a "holding pool" to potentially be rehired.

In its 2021 annual report, Virgin Atlantic said it rehired 99 pilots and 724 cabin crew from the holding pool, "something we had committed to doing as soon as possible in the reorganization of 2020."

However, it is claimed that mostly new cabin crew were added to the pool, some of whom had as little as one week's training, The Guardian reported. Cabin managers, with an average age of 45 and with 20 years of experience, were made redundant, per the report.

The claims are set to be examined by an employment tribunal in London starting next month. About 150 workers are reportedly being represented by the Cabin Crew Union, another 51 by a law firm, and a further 11 elsewhere.

Susan Mcentegart, a 53-year-old former cabin manager who worked at the airline for 23 years, told The Guardian: "It seemed the world was closing down and losing jobs was inevitable. But the way they went about it seemed unfair."

"I was flabbergasted that I wasn't in the holding pool," she added. "There were people who hadn't even got their wings — after six weeks of training — in the pool, and there seemed to be too many of us of an age that were left out."

Virgin Atlantic said in a statement: "Throughout the redundancy process, we were committed to ensuring all our people were treated fairly and compassionately. To allow as many of our people to return as soon as demand allowed, we introduced a holding pool, which meant that more than 1,000 of our cabin crew returned at their previous level of seniority.

"Where people had to unfortunately leave us, it was for unbiased, objective and lawful reasons, after full consultation with our recognized unions, elected colleague representatives and clear and open continued communication."

• OpenAI plans to pause ChatGPT's "Sky" voice after it was compared with Scarlett Johansson.
• The company said the voice was not an imitation of Johansson and belongs to a different actor.
• Many have compared to the chatbot's voice to Johansson's character in Spike Jonze's "Her."

OpenAI said it would "pause" ChatGPT's "Sky" voice after it sparked comparisons with Scarlett Johansson.

The company shared a blog post on X, saying: "We've heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them."

Many social-media users linked the latest update to Jonze's prophetic film, comparing the voice with Johansson's character in Spike Jonze's 2013 film "Her." The plot features a man falling in love with an AI system.

Some commentators complained that the bot's voice sounded overly sexual and was too flirty in some of the demos.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even appeared to address the similarity, posting the word "her" on social media during a recent company demo that heavily featured the voice.

However, the company's CTO, Mira Murati, told The Verge the voice had not been designed to sound like Johansson, adding that someone in the demo's audience had asked the same question.

OpenAI addressed the comparisons with Johansson directly in the blog post, saying the voice was not modeled on Johansson's.

"Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents," the company said in the post.

Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

Last week, the company demoed a new AI model called GPT-4o, which uses native audio inputs and outputs. When integrated into ChatGPT, users can have human-like conversations with the bot, speaking to it and showing it things.

The result is designed to feel like having a real-time virtual assistant, or what could be considered an AI best friend, in your pocket.

• Ukraine launched a drone strike on a key Russian air base on Saturday, sources say.
• Ukraine says many of Russia's devastating glide bombs are launched from planes at Kushchyovskaya air base.
• The bombs have become a central feature of Russian attacks, notably on Chasiv Yar and Avdiivka.

Ukraine says it launched strikes on a key air base with a view to thwarting Russia's devastating glide bombs, according to Sky News.

An unnamed military source told the outlet that the operation overnight on Saturday had "significantly reduced" Russia's ability to target the front line with the bombs.

The attack took place at the Kushchyovskaya air base in Krasnodar Krai, southwest Russia, the source claimed.

Other sources corroborated that there had been some kind of attack.

Russia's state-controlled news agency TASS acknowledged an air attack there, saying some drones were shot down.

The influential Russian Telegram channel ASTRA said that at least three drones had not been shot down there, citing its own unnamed sources. It said that a Su-27 aircraft at the base was damaged, as well as infrastructure there.

Russia keeps Su-27s, Su-34s, and Su-35s at Kushchyovskaya, all of which are used daily to launch the glide bombs and other attacks, Sky's source said.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify the claims.

Ukrainian law enforcement officers with knowledge of the situation told Ukrinform that the attack was a joint operation between the security service and Ukraine's specialist drone unit.

Ukraine also says it targeted the base at the end of April, The Kyiv Independent reported. Soon after that attack, the UK Ministry of Defence assessed that Russia began to pull some aircraft out of there and relocate them further from the front line.

Glide bomb launches have become a core tactic for Russia in recent months.

The cheap, Soviet-era air-launched munitions are adapted with wings and a rudimentary guidance system that allows aircraft to drop them from well beyond the reach of Ukraine's air defenses.

Once launched, the bombs are difficult to intercept, and can have a devastating impact.

"These glide bombs were vital in the seizure of Avdiivka and are currently being used heavily in Chasiv Yar," the source told Sky News.

"They allow the Russian aircraft to release their bombs further away from the target so they are at less risk from Ukrainian air defense," they said.

Chasiv Yar, in Ukraine's eastern Donestk region, is a hotspot of the front line, where Ukrainian forces have dug in for several weeks.

Sited just west of the now-ruined city of Bakhmut, the hilltop town is a gateway to several key cities and supply routes.

Russian attacks there had intensified in recent days, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

The Ukrainian outlook on holding the city has been bleak for a while — in early May, deputy intel chief Major-General Vadym Skibitsky said it was only a matter of time before Russia took it.