Tag: News

• Workers at a Towson, Maryland, Apple store have authorized a strike.
• Concerns include work-life balance, unpredictable scheduling, and wages lower than living costs.
• This Apple store was the first to unionize in the US in June 2022.

Workers at an Apple store in Towson, Maryland — the first US store to unionize — have authorized a strike.

Employees voted "overwhelmingly" in favor of allowing a strike, their retail labor union said in a statement on Saturday.

The issues "include concerns over work-life balance, unpredictable scheduling practices disrupting personal lives, and wages failing to align with the area's cost of living," the statement said.

The workers voted to unionize in June 2022 and have been negotiating with Apple's management since January 2023. Their past proposals for Apple have included more time off and the introduction of a tipping system. Saturday's statement did not include information about what specifics the union is currently negotiating over with Apple.

No date has been set for the strike, the union said.

The employees at the Towson store organized as the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees in 2022 when they voted to be represented by the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers.

About 100 Towson Apple store employees belong to the union, which also represents 600,000 workers from companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and United Airlines.

Apple did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment sent outside regular working hours.

In a statement to the Associated Press, the tech giant said: "We deeply value our team members and we're proud to provide them with industry leading compensation and exceptional benefits."

The tech company is facing labor-related issues at the Maryland store and elsewhere.

Last year, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint on behalf of the Towson workers, which alleged Apple denied benefits to workers at the store.

Apple's Towson store is one of two in the US that have successfully unionized. A store in Oklahoma City joined the Communications Workers of America union in October 2022. An Apple store in New Jersey voted against unionizing on Saturday.

Last week, the National Labor Review Board found that Apple illegally interrogated workers over pro-union activities at a New York City location. In December 2022, the NLRB said Apple violated labor law at its Atlanta location, where it interrogated workers and forced them to attend anti-union meetings, per the NLRB.

Other American retail giants' staff at various stores have also unionized in recent years, including Starbucks and Amazon. Employees at both companies have gone on strike in the past to protest unfair working conditions.

• Russian leader Vladimir Putin shook up his national security team on Sunday. 
• Putin replaced his longtime defense minister Sergei Shoigu with an economist Andrey Belousov. 
• Belousov was previously deputy prime minister and economic development minister.  

Russian leader Vladimir Putin is replacing his longtime defense minister Sergei Shoigu, 68, with an economist.

On Sunday, Putin named former deputy prime minister and economic development minister Andrey Belousov, 65, as his new defense chief.

"Today on the battlefield, the winner is the one who is more open to innovation," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said of Belousov's appointment, per state news agency TASS. "Therefore, it is natural that at the current stage, the president decided that the Russian Ministry of Defense should be headed by a civilian."

Shoigu, who served as defense minister since 2012, now runs Russia's Security Council instead, taking over from Putin ally Nikolai Patrushev. Details of Patrushev's new position, Peskov said, will be revealed "in the coming few days."

Besides leading the Security Council, Shoigu will represent Putin in the country's Military-Industrial Commission, which oversees the country's military industrial complex.

"He is deeply immersed in this work, he knows very well the pace of production of military-industrial products at specific enterprises and often visits these enterprises," Peskov said of Shoigu's new appointment, per TASS.

The sudden change in leadership on Sunday marks the first time Putin has shaken up his national security team since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

It also comes at a tenuous time for Russia's defense ministry. Last month, deputy defense minister and top Shoigu aide, Timur Ivanov was dismissed from his position after he was accused of bribery.

Shoigu himself was blamed by critics for Russia's lacklustre performance in its war on Ukraine.

The UK's defense ministry said in April that an estimated 450,000 Russian troops were wounded or killed over the course of the war. Back in February, the head of the UK's armed forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, said that 25% of Russia's vessels in the Black Sea had been sunk or damaged.

In June 2023, Wagner mercenary army chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led an aborted coup where he slammed Shoigu's leadership and called for his removal. Prigozhin died in a plane crash later in August.

Shoigu's departure, Peskov said on Sunday, "will in no way change the current coordinate system" of Russia's military strategy.

The replacement of Shoigu with an economist like Belousov comes as Russia reckons with its own transformation into a war economy.

On Sunday, Peskov told reporters that Belousov's appointment as defense minister was about "making the economy of the security bloc part of the country's economy."

"We are gradually approaching the situation of the mid-80s when the share of expenses for the security bloc in the economy was 7.4%. It's not critical, but it's extremely important," Peskov said, per CNN.

Representatives for Russia's defense ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

• Sen. Lindsey Graham hailed the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as an example of why Israel needs more munitions.
• Graham has been arguing against Biden's pausing of weapons to Israel.
• He said the atomic bombings in Japan helped end WWII, arguing that Israel also needs firepower.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Sunday urged the US to keep supplying munitions to Israel, comparing the war in Gaza with World War II and saying dropping atomic bombs on Japan was the "right decision" to ending the conflict.

Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welker, Graham drew the comparison to say that Israel was facing an "existential threat" against enemies like Hamas and needed more firepower to resolve the war.

In his view, the US also faced an existential threat from Japan and Germany in the 1940s.

"So when we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons," Graham said.

"That was the right decision," he continued. "Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war. They can't afford to lose, and work with them to minimize casualties."

The senator's comments come as President Joe Biden threatened to cut off the US supply of bombs and artillery shells to Israeli leaders if they invaded Rafah without a concrete plan to protect civilians. The city is Gaza's southernmost urban center, and has recently filled with over a million Palestinians fleeing the violence.

Biden's threat was blasted by Republicans in Congress — including Graham, who repeatedly referred to the atomic bombings in his interview.

"Why is it OK for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war?" Graham told Welker. "Why was it OK for us to do that? I thought it was OK."

"To Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state," he added.

Welker challenged Graham by saying that military officials attest to weapons technology now being more precise and able to reduce civilian casualties.

The senator dismissed Welker's remark. "Yeah, these military officials that you're talking about are full of crap," Graham said.

It's not the first time Graham has referenced Nagasaki and Hiroshima to advocate for the flow of munitions to Tel Aviv.

"We saved a million Americans from having to go and invade Japan," Graham said during a press conference on Friday responding to Biden's weapons supply threat. "So, no. Israel's tactics are not my problem."

He made a similar comment during a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

Israel began launching incursions into Rafah earlier this month, despite the White House's warning.

The Biden administration has since paused a shipment of about 3,500 bombs to Israel amid concerns that the weapons could be used in Rafah, and as the president faces growing backlash among Democrats in Congress for his support of Tel Aviv.

The US gives Israel an estimated $3.8 billion in weapons and defense systems a year. Congress voted through a $15 billion military aid package for Israel in April, which includes about $5 billion to replenish weapons stocks.

A representative for Graham did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

• A man suspected of shooting at an Amazon facility in Ohio died after a police standoff, reports say.
• The suspect, presumed to be an Amazon employee by police, also reportedly shot and injured a police officer.
• No injuries were reported at the fulfillment center, police said.

An Amazon employee suspected of firing a gun at an Amazon facility in Ohio is dead following a standoff with police, per local reports.

Per a press release from the West Jefferson Police Department and the Madison County Sheriff's Office, law enforcement began receiving calls at 4:42 p.m. EDT that someone had fired at the Amazon CMH5 Fulfillment Center.

The police said no injuries were reported at the center. The suspect, who police said was confirmed to be an Amazon employee, per the press release, fled in a vehicle. West Jefferson Police Chief Brandon Smith told local station WSYX that the suspect did not "go any further than the front area of the building."

According to information provided by Amazon to Business Insider, all Amazon employees at the facility went home with pay, evening shifts were canceled with pay, and counseling services were offered.

"We're thankful that no one at our facility was injured during this incident and for the work of our team on the ground and first responders," Steve Kelly, an Amazon spokesperson, told Business Insider in a statement. "As this is an active investigation, we're cooperating with the West Jefferson Police Department and will defer further comment to them at this time."

The Madison County Sheriff's Department declined to comment. The West Jefferson Police Department referred Business Insider to a press release on their Facebook page but offered no additional comment on the incident, pending investigation.

Per WSYX, the suspect, who police believe to be an Amazon employee, died two hours later after a confrontation with police in Columbus — though WSYX said it could not confirm if a police officer had shot the man.

The ABC station also reported that the man shot at and injured a police officer who remains in stable condition.

The Sunday shooting isn't the first time an Amazon facility has been the location of gun violence. In January, a 20-year-old man survived a single gunshot wound after a shooting at an Amazon warehouse in Vacaville, California, CBS reported. Last August, a local ABC outlet reported that 19-year-old Javonte Moon was killed following a shooting at an Amazon fulfillment center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Additional shootings, some fatal, have been reported at Amazon locations in Lakeville, Minnesota; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Chandler, Arizona, in recent years.

• Google Cloud Platform is a cloud computing services vendor like AWS or Microsoft Azure.
• Google Cloud Platform offers products in categories like computing, storage, data analytics, etc.
• Google Cloud Platform has a free tier, but most users will need the pay-as-you-go subscription.

Despite being among the biggest and most important cloud service providers in the world, Google's cloud computing service — called Google Cloud Platform — may not be as well known as some of its top competitors.

Even so, Google commands nearly 10% of the global cloud computing market with customers that include heavy hitters like Verizon, LinkedIn, Intel, Yahoo, and PayPal, just to name a few. 

What is Google Cloud Platform?

The Google Cloud Platform is a cloud computing services vendor. It offers a large array of computing resources to businesses that need access to servers, computing power, and storage space without incurring the expense and complexity of maintaining those IT resources themselves. In other words, Google Cloud Platform offers businesses a piece of the cloud.  

In this sense, Google Cloud Platform is very similar to competitors like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud. All of these companies offer the IT infrastructure needed to manage large databases, perform cloud data storage, and deploy applications on a global scale. 

Google Cloud Platform is focusing more on incorporating AI into its core products, much like Google DeepMind or Gemini.

In 2023, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced upgrades to its generative AI model used in Google Cloud Platform, allowing customers to use AI to write code.

Why use Google Cloud Platform?

Much like Google Ads, Google Cloud Platform is designed to help businesses build and optimize their online presence without necessarily becoming computing or advertising experts.

In fact, Google offers dozens of products through its Google Cloud Platform in categories that include computing, storage, databases, operations, developer tools, data analytics, and more.

It's appealing to many businesses because it offers scalability and reach without the need to own or maintain their own data centers or server farms. It also offloads the headaches and responsibility for security and compliance from businesses, since Google handles all of that. 

There's a wealth of options within the Google Cloud Platform. GCP's App Engine lets you build and host applications on the same systems where Google's own applications live, with the advantages of fast development and deployment, easy scalability, and simple administration. 

Among Google's storage offerings is its Cloud Storage service, which lets you store and access your data on Google's infrastructure. It combines scalability with Google's integrated security and sharing. There are a variety of networking tools, including Cloud CDN, Cloud DNS, Cloud Firewall, Cloud VPN, and Virtual Private Cloud — a completely secure and private network topology that delivers a secure environment for your deployments. 

And if you need data analytics, GCP offers BigQuery, a data analysis service that lets businesses analyze big data that measures in the hundreds of terabytes.

The difference between Google Cloud Platform and Google Cloud

With all those offerings, it's easy to confuse Google Cloud Platform with Google Cloud — they have deceptively similar names, and Google itself sometimes uses the terms interchangeably. That said, one is not always just a shorthand for the other. 

Instead, Google Cloud represents the full suite of public cloud computing services offered by the search giant, of which GCP is just one component. Google Cloud, for example, includes Google Workspace (the suite of productivity tools like Google Docs or Google Sheets that were formerly known as G Suite and Google Apps). 

Is Google Cloud Platform free?

You can get started with Google Cloud Platform at a relatively low cost. Google offers a 90-day free trial with $300 in credit that includes everything most businesses need to build and run apps, websites, and services, including access to Firebase and the Google Maps API. 

After the first 90 days, Google offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model with no upfront or termination fees, and monthly billing based on actual usage.

If your cloud computing needs are modest, you may even qualify for the Always Free tier — stay under Google's certain usage limits, and GCP is truly free with no billing against the resources you use. 

Google Cloud Platform's disadvantages

There's a lot here to tempt businesses, but Google Cloud Platform has its disadvantages as well. 

While cloud platforms like GCP dramatically reduce the upfront costs and complexity associated with servers, in the long run, the costs can add up and might exceed the expense of maintaining your own data center. 

And if you ever decide to change cloud services or switch to an in-house IT model, you might find that the proprietary nature of GCP services makes migrating away from Google difficult. 

• Elon Musk once championed encrypted messaging app Signal, promoting its user privacy protections.
• Signal has been sharply criticized recently by a conservative activist and a rival app, Telegram.
• Musk got on board with the criticisms and is propelling the encryption wars forward.

The encryption wars brewing between the messaging apps Telegram and Signal have attracted the commentary of a high-profile critic: Elon Musk.

Musk, who previously championed Signal for its user privacy protections, now appears to have changed his tune, amplifying criticisms of the app and its leadership and saying there are unspecified "known vulnerabilities" within Signal that have gone unaddressed by the company's leadership.

Given his influence in the tech sphere, Musk's remarkable reversal on Signal has become central to the current conversation on encryption — and, according to one cryptography expert, is pushing users toward less secure alternatives.

A conniption over encryption

In recent weeks, Signal has come under fire from Pavel Durov, the CEO of rival app Telegram, who lambasted Signal's encryption capabilities in a public post on his own platform, saying, "the US government spent $3M to build Signal's encryption," and accusing Signal of being an insecure choice for private messaging.

"An alarming number of important people I've spoken to remarked that their 'private' Signal messages had been exploited against them in US courts or media," Durov wrote.

While Durov didn't detail the allegations, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson previously claimed in an episode of the "Full Send Podcast" without evidence that the NSA broke into his Signal account before his trip to Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"But whenever somebody raises doubt about their encryption, Signal's typical response is 'we are open source so anyone can verify that everything is all right,'" Durov's post continued. "That, however, is a trick. " 

Notably, messaging on Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default, as it is on Signal.

Signal has also made its cryptography open-source. It is widely regarded as a remarkably secure way to communicate, trusted by Jeff Bezos and Amazon executives to conduct business privately.

In his post, Durov cited an article written by conservative activist Christopher Rufo — known in part for his crusade against DEI initiatives — that took aim at the Signal Foundation's current chairman of the board, Katherine Maher.

In his article, Rufo described Maher as "a US-backed agent of regime change" and alleged she worked with the government to censor conservative viewpoints during her tenure at Wikipedia. Maher's ideology, Rufo argued, means users of Signal should be cautious of its trustworthiness, though he provided no evidence that Maher has altered any of Signal's encryption technology nor changed the organization's mission since joining the board.

As Business Insider reported, the US government has been found to have used encrypted devices to spy on clients. However, there is no evidence that Signal, a nonprofit company operating with open-source code, has ties to the US government.

How Musk fits in

Musk championed Signal in 2021 for its user privacy protections, sending app downloads skyrocketing after urging people to "Use Signal" in a Twitter post. At the time, he was joined by other high-profile privacy advocates like Edward Snowden in his endorsement of the app.

But following Rufo's article, Musk's public commentary about the app turned sharply.

In response to Rufo's post, Musk wrote cryptically, "There are known vulnerabilities with Signal that are not being addressed. Seems odd…"

Musk did not elaborate on the so-called vulnerabilities, but his post prompted a response from Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal, who elaborated on the app's open-source code and the company's commitment to user privacy, saying the app's developers "put a lot of thought into making sure our structure and development practices let people validate our claims, instead of just taking our word for it."

"We use cryptography to keep data out of the hands of everyone but those it's meant for (this includes protecting it from us)," Whittaker wrote. "The Signal Protocol is the gold standard in the industry for a reason–it's been hammered and attacked for over a decade, and it continues to stand the test of time."

She added in another post that the point of how Signal is built and how the nonprofit company is structured is so that no one can disrupt its privacy-first mission, saying: "That's our whole deal."

Musk didn't respond to Whittaker, but when Jack Dorsey re-posted the same Rufo article, he wrote in a separate post that the allegations made in Rufo's story were "concerning."

A 'campaign to malign Signal'

"Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure, with assistance from Elon Musk," Johns Hopkins cryptography professor Matthew Green wrote in response to the unfolding commentary about the apps: "The goal seems to be to get activists to switch away from encrypted Signal to mostly-unencrypted Telegram."

He added that promoting Telegram as more secure than Signal, as Durov has done, "is like promoting ketchup as better for your car than synthetic motor oil. Telegram isn't a secure messenger, full stop."

Green continued that he doesn't care which messenger people use but wants people to "understand the stakes."

"If you use Telegram, we experts cannot even begin to guarantee that your communications are confidential. In fact at this point I assume they are not, even in Secret Chats mode," Green wrote. "You should do what you want with this information. Think about confidentiality matters. Think about where Telegram operates its servers and what government jurisdictions they work in. Decide if you care about this. Just don't shoot your foot off because you're uninformed."

Green, as well as Musk, Signal, and Telegram representatives, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Sonakshi Pandey switched roles at Amazon, then moved to Google to be a customer engineer.
• Pandey credits mentorship with transitioning her career and growing more confident.
• Pandey's résumé includes company blogs and a section on her volunteering and mentorship projects.

Sonakshi Pandey did not always feel prepared for the role she is in today.

She landed a job as a software engineer at Amazon straight out of her master's degree in computer science. For three years, she did what she loved: writing code.

"I was very shy, very introverted," she told Business Insider. "I used to wear my headphones and code for eight hours straight."

One day, she came across a YouTube video, where a tech expert was speaking about databases in depth. She admired how confident he sounded.

"I want to exactly do what this guy is doing: I want to go on a stage and I want to talk confidently in front of a bunch of people," she said.

It triggered her journey to change roles from software development to solution architecture at Amazon Web Services, a job that required more public speaking and client presentations.

After five years at Amazon, Pandey wanted to try working at other FAANG companies and applied to Microsoft and Google in 2021.

She shared the résumé that helped her land an offer at Microsoft as well as the one she accepted at Google, a customer engineering position.

Looking back on her 2021 résumé, Pandey said that there are two unique things about the document that worked in her favor.

1. Writing for company blogs

During her time at AWS, she wrote blogs for Amazon's cloud computing page.

Blogs reflect thought leadership — so if you want to build a brand as an expert in any industry, she said having blog posts on a bigger medium like a company website helps underline your expertise.

Pandey said she would not include some of her other public work, such as her career advice pages on Instagram and YouTube.

"I don't want that to deflect attention from my product manager skills," she said.

2. A section on volunteering — even though it makes her résumé 2 pages long

Pandey's section on volunteering, which discusses her mentorship projects, make her résumé exceed the typically recommended one-page rule. But adding that section is a non-negotiable for Pandey, she said.

For her, the section reflects an important part of her journey in tech — she dealt with imposter syndrome and hesitated with public speaking, and now she helps other women overcome the same issues. Pandey credits her transition to having a mentor at Amazon. "She recommended books to read, podcasts to listen to, and it eventually got me to killing it at my job."

The projects she founded and led are her way of paying it forward.

"I feel this is very important to have and is a piece of me that I want to share with everyone wherever I go," she said. "And that's why I was like: It doesn't matter if it's two pages, this needs to be here."

She said it also helped her in interviews. Pandey talks about her mentorship experiences when hiring managers ask scenario-based questions and discusses her initiatives when the interviewers give her time to introduce herself.

If she were to update the document today, she said she would only add her certifications and recent blogs at Google, and beef up her volunteering section with more recent diversity and mentorship projects.

Pandey is currently a data and product manager at Google's Seattle office. BI has verified her employment history.

• CEO Tim Cook will be staying at Apple for at least three more years, Bloomberg reported.
• Cook previously said he hopes his successor will be an internal hire.
• According to Bloomberg, execs Jeff Williams and John Ternus could be potential successors.

Tim Cook won't be steering Apple's ship forever.

Cook, who succeeded Apple founder Steve Jobs, helped Apple cross the $3 trillion market cap mark — and may push the company past $4 trillion by 2025.

However, 63-year-old CEO is also thinking about who will come after him. In October, Cook told singer Dua Lipa on her podcast "At Your Service" that he hoped his successor would "come from within Apple."

And according to "several people familiar with Apple's inner workings" who spoke to Bloomberg, that is a very likely scenario.

According to the Bloomberg report, Cook will not leave for at least three years, but company insiders are considering several potential CEOs.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Jeff Williams, Chief Operating Officer

Per Bloomberg, Williams has been widely seen as Cook's logical successor since 2019, when he took over Apple's design studio following the departure of Chief Design Officer Jony Ive in 2019.

Williams was once called "Tim Cook's Tim Cook. Both men have been described as having similar leadership styles.

Williams oversaw the development of the Apple Watch and now manages Apple's worldwide operations. The executive recently announced the company was abandoning a decadelong effort to manufacture an Apple electric car.

However, company insiders told Bloomberg that because Williams is 61, he may not be a long-term leader.

John Ternus, Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering

Company insiders told Bloomberg that because of Williams' age, John Ternus will most likely replace Cook once he leaves the company.

At Apple, Ternus leads the hardware engineering of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and AirPods and has been at the company for over two decades.

"Tim likes him a lot, because he can give a good presentation, he's very mild-mannered, never puts anything into an email that is controversial and is a very reticent decision-maker," one person close to Apple's executive team told Bloomberg. "He has a lot of managerial characteristics like Tim."

One person who spoke to Bloomberg, however, described the 49-year-old exec as "too junior."

Others told Bloomberg that he was not an "innovator" and pointed out that Ternus was behind the controversial introduction of the Touch Bar for MacBook keyboards, which was axed last year.

The less likely candidates

Bloomberg cited two other executives who could succeed Cook but are less likely to do so, according to one company insider who spoke to the publication.

Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, is responsible for developing iOS and macOS.

Federighi is more publicly known than some of his other colleagues: The exec, in a leather jacket, shredded on a triple-necked guitar in a clip shown at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2023.

Deirdre O'Brien, senior vice president of retail — who Bloomberg described as a Cook confidant — is also in the running. The exec, who helped launch Apple's first retail stores in 2001, took on her current post in 2019.

If O'Brien were to take over as leader, she would be the first female CEO of Apple, which was founded in 1976.

• South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is barred from nearly 20% of her state, The Associated Press reported.
• It comes after her controversial remarks linking tribal leaders and drug cartels.
• The bans build on preexisting tensions stemming from Noem's anti-protest stance and COVID-19 clashes.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is now barred from entering nearly 20% of her state, The Associated Press reported.

The governor has now been barred from land belonging to the Yankton Sioux Tribe and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate tribe, adding to her previous bans from the reservations of the Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, and Standing Rock Sioux tribes, per the report.

The moves mean Noem will be refused entry to the reservations of six out of the state's nine Native American tribes.

It follows her controversial remarks linking drug cartels and tribal leaders.

"We've got some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the cartels being there, and that's why they attack me every day," Noem said at a forum, per The AP.

"But I'm going to fight for the people who actually live in those situations, who call me and text me every day and say, 'Please, dear governor, please come help us in Pine Ridge. We are scared,'" she added.

Tribes have slammed Noem's comments, with Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out, saying: "How dare the Governor allege that Sioux Tribal Councils do not care about their communities or their children, and, worse, that they are involved in nefarious activities?" The AP previously reported.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe chairwoman Janet Alkire added: "Governor Kristi Noem's wild and irresponsible attempt to connect tribal leaders and parents with Mexican drug cartels is a sad reflection of her fear-based politics that do nothing to bring people together to solve problems."

Noem's strained relationship with the tribes predates her governorship, beginning with her support for antiprotest legislation following the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock in 2016.

Subsequent clashes over COVID-19 checkpoints exacerbated tensions between the governor and local tribes.

Noem recently came under fire for admitting that, a few decades ago, she killed her dog because it was untrainable and overly aggressive, in what many saw as a major publicity blow amid her campaign to be Donald Trump's running mate.

But six people close to the former president told Politico that Noem had been out of the running even before the revelation — although they did not rule her bid out entirely.

Trump seemingly stood by the governor amid the backlash, saying of Noem: "Somebody that I love. She's been with me, a supporter of mine and I've been a supporter of hers for a long time."

• Rory and Casey Jones built a villa in Bali for 2.287 billion Indonesian rupiah, or about $143,000.
• They wanted to invest in a tangible asset that would earn income and double as a retirement home.
• Prior to this, they had never traveled to Indonesia before.

For Rory Jones and his wife Casey, building a house in Bali seemed like a good idea — even though they had never been to Indonesia.

The couple, from Tasmania, Australia, dreamed of retiring early, so they spent a lot of time investing in the stock market.

"We got a little bit, I guess, down on the fact that we were putting this money away, but we had nothing to show for it apart from numbers on a bit of paper," Jones, 37, told Business Insider.

They wanted a tangible asset, and after some research, they settled on the idea of building investment property overseas.

"We decided it gave us the ability to earn a good income, but also, a place that we could potentially retire to, in a country that was less expensive than Australia," Jones, a photographer and videographer, said.

The couple had considered Thailand, the Philippines, and even Portugal, but ultimately chose Bali because their research showed that it had the highest return on investment. Moreover, it was also relatively easy for foreigners to build a home there.

According to ILA Global Consulting, it is possible for short-term rentals in Bali to yield a 15% annual return on investment, while other markets offer 5% to 10%.

Although the couple had never been to the island before, they had spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia.

"So we knew that we liked the climate. We knew that we would probably like the culture and the food too," Jones said.

First time in Bali

In 2022, the couple hopped on a plane to Bali for the first time.

They were there for about three weeks, exploring the island and speaking to different legal professionals and builders for more insights on how they could get started with their project.

"We spent a good chunk of time in different areas to make sure that we liked the area and that we had a good understanding of what that area gave to the tourists," Jones said.

Since traffic in Bali can be difficult to navigate, it was important that the area they chose had good infrastructure and was easy to get to, he said.

"Other than that, we were looking for a place that we could see ourselves retiring to as well," Jones said.

While looking for a peaceful but up-and-coming neighborhood that travelers would be drawn to, they eventually found a piece of land in the Bingin area near Uluwatu, a region in the southwestern tip of Bali.

"The best success that we had was actually just posting in the local Facebook groups to say that we were looking for land, and then people would reach out to us and let us know what they had available," Jones said. "With the land that we ended up getting, it was a local guy that showed us the land. He didn't own the land, but he knew the owners."

Since foreigners aren't allowed to own land in Bali, the piece of land they have is on a 30-year lease, with the option to renew for another 30 years. They paid 720 million Indonesian rupiah, or about $44,700, for it.

A modern tropical villa

The two-story villa, which sits on a 3,300-square-foot plot, has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The entire build, including furniture and permits, cost 2.287 billion Indonesian rupiah, or about $143,000.

Jones says he chose to build a house from scratch because it was cheaper than buying one.

According to the property website Propertia Bali, a new two-bedroom villa near Bingin can cost between 3.525 to 5.575 billion Indonesian rupiah, depending on the size, the complexity of the build, and the lease left on the land.

"If there was anything wrong with the building that was already existing, we wouldn't be able to tell," he added. "But by building ourselves, we could dictate the standards that went into that building."

Safety standards aside, it also meant that they could design the building the way they wanted it. Jones describes it as a mix between modern industrial and boho, with a touch of Balinese influence.

The building looks modern on the outside, thanks to the black steel window frames, a mezzanine-style design, and vaulted ceilings. In contrast, the interiors are cozy with lots of wood accents and furniture.

"We knew that the building itself was quite modern, so we wanted to bring a lot of the tropics and a lot of Bali into it with the interior design," Jones said.

Everything in the villa was crafted locally, he added.

The only major issue the couple encountered during the build was a particularly bad rainy season that delayed their project by a few weeks.

"Towards the end of the build, they were running quite late with everything, and it's fine that they were running late, but they didn't tell us that they were running late," Jones said. "There were some communication issues rather than issues with construction, which caused a bit of friction toward the end."

Retiring in Bali

The villa can be rented on Airbnb for a minimum of two nights. At press time, it has a 4.58-star rating based on 26 reviews.

"Initially we planned to spend a couple of months a year in Bali, but with the way that things have gone, with how popular it is, I think it would make more financial sense to leave it rented out on Airbnb all the time," Jones said.

That said, Jones hopes to be able to retire in that villa in Bali in the next five to six years.

"We're working hard at saving and investing as much money as we can to hopefully get to a point where we can retire in my early forties," he said. "But plans can also change, so it would be great to retire to Bali, but I mean, maybe we'll stay in Australia. Who knows? It's still a long way away."

That said, the couple has plans to build more investment properties in Bali in the future.

Jones has a piece of advice for those who are thinking of building a house in Bali: Manage expectations.

"Go into it knowing that the standards you may expect from your home country might not be the same in Bali. Expect things to run behind time and expect things to be done in a different way than what you might be used to," he said.

That way, things will be less stressful, he added.

Have you recently built or renovated your dream home in Asia? If you've got a story to share, get in touch with me at agoh@businessinsider.com.