Tag: News

• Donald Trump made a $1 billion fundraising pitch to oil executives, The Washington Post reported.
• Trump promises to dismantle Biden's environmental policies if reelected.
• His campaign needs the funds due to lagging behind Biden and legal expenses.

Former President Donald Trump recently hosted a high-stakes dinner at his Mar-a-Lago Club, where he boldly pitched to top oil executives, The Washington Post reports. 

Last month, he asked for a $1 billion contribution to his reelection campaign, and in return, he pledged to dismantle President Joe Biden's environmental policies that have been a thorn in the side of the fossil fuel industry.

Trump's forward approach came as reports suggested the size of his reelection campaign war chest lags behind his Democratic opponent. Meanwhile, the former president, who is facing 88 criminal counts, indicted in four separate prosecutions, has been spending millions on legal fees and drawing on campaign funds to pay his lawyers.

A billion dollars would dramatically exceed Biden's fundraising. In March, the president's campaign said it had $192 million in the bank.

Anonymous sources with knowledge of the meeting with two dozen oil bosses told the Post that Trump assured them of immediate action to reverse Biden's environmental regulations and prevent the enactment of new ones.

The transactional campaign promise indicates what a second Trump presidency would mean for the White House's environmental agenda. 

While Biden has positioned the climate crisis as an existential threat and championed aggressive environmental regulations, Trump has dismissed it as a hoax and systematically dismantled environmental protections during his tenure.

Since taking office in 2021, Biden has swiftly reversed many of Trump's environmental actions, including blocking future oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. 

Within his first month at the helm, Biden began unraveling Trump's oil legacy, revoking a key permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, directing the EPA to revamp regulations for methane emissions, and introducing more ambitious fuel-efficiency standards, BI's Benji Jones reported.

However, despite oil industry grievances over Biden's policies, the US has experienced record oil production, leading to substantial profits for major energy companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron, said The Post.

At the Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump promised a "deal" that would be a boon for the oil giants, vowing to expedite permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and auction off more drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico, said The Post

While some in the industry initially favored alternative Republican contenders, Trump's steadfast commitment to pro-oil policies has garnered reluctant support.

Trump's "drill, baby, drill" mantra and promises of deregulation continue to resonate within the oil patch, contrasting starkly with Biden's green-energy agenda. 

In January, Trump, in a Fox News town hall on the eve of the Iowa primary, said, "We have more liquid gold under our feet; energy, oil, and gas than any other country in the world," and called clean energy a "new scam business."

Oil execs are disillusioned by Biden's failure to defend their industry's interests despite spending $400 million to lobby the administration last year, the sources told the Post.

As the campaign trail heats up, Trump's message to the oil industry remains clear: support him, and he'll deliver on their demands.

• I fell in love with a coworker — through coffee breaks and shared deadlines.
• When our relationship ended, I had to continue working in close proximity to my ex.
• The break-up was the push I needed to quit my job and become a successful freelancer.

Two weeks after a painful breakup, being assigned a new project offered a much-needed boost. I returned to the newsroom tired and weary but ready to dive into work.

I was invited to join a team of reporters who would spend the next few months investigating a select group of politicians we believed was likely wasting taxpayer money. After a few initial meetings, my editor mentioned another reporter whose beat overlapped with our mission would be joining the team. The door opened, and he walked into the meeting with his laptop and notebook — and his head down.

Two weeks prior, that same man had left my apartment in the middle of the night with all the belongings he'd been keeping in a drawer at my place. We tried to make our relationship work, but we couldn't.

Now here I was, in our shared office, sitting opposite the man who'd spent Christmas under my parents' roof a mere few weeks before but with whom I was no longer on speaking terms.

Sharing an office allowed us to develop a relationship

We met soon after he joined the company. He overheard a conversation I was having with one of his desk mates. He looked up, smiled, and the rest unfurled from there. We quickly became friends, but then it turned into something more.

We fell in love through coffee breaks, stolen glances, and Slack messages. Somehow, we managed to keep our ill-fated little love story to ourselves. With this being a small newsroom — where everyone knew each other — we felt it best not to make our relationship public.

Working together was exciting when we were dating but excruciating after we broke up.

Everything that paved the way for our dating — running into each other in the coffee room, sharing reporting interests — was now the bane of my existence. Every time I overheard his voice when I was trying to focus on my work, my heart broke piece by piece.

One day, my manager took me into a meeting room to ask what was going on. I haven't been my usual eager self, she said. I was distracted, and she didn't recognize this version of me. I confessed I was going through a break-up — stopping short of pointing my ex out to her as he walked by the meeting room.

Something needed to change.

The break-up became the push I needed

Ever since I'd graduated from college, I had been harboring a dream I was always too scared to face. After working in newsrooms for a while, I wanted to branch out on my own as an independent reporter, to fashion a life of my own design, and to see how far I could take it. But the thought of leaving full-time employment behind was terrifying.

Having to deal with the presence of my ex in my place of work created a sense of urgency, a need to leave as soon as possible that did not accommodate the lengthy process of looking for another job. Two months after our break-up, I resigned.

He came into my life for a reason — just not what I had thought

The night I handed in my notice, I celebrated over dinner with a close friend. I was not afraid but beaming with excitement. For years, I daydreamed about freelancing, feeling it was never the right time to take the leap. When I had no choice left, I realized there never would be the right time.

So, I jumped. And even though I felt leaving was necessary, the safety of a full-time job was no small thing to leave behind.

I have now been a freelancer for a year — a year that exceeded my wildest expectations of what life as a roaming journalist could have in store for me.

Without the break-up, it's possible I never would've found the kick in the behind I needed. He did not come into my life for the reasons I had thought he had. But he did play a role, unwittingly pushing me towards the life I'd always wanted. For that, I could not be more grateful.

• Donald Trump is entering the home stretch of his vice presidential selection process.
• He could have a new running mate as soon as June.
• Trump has a lot of factors to weigh in his decision. 

Former President Donald Trump is entering the final stretch in his vice presidential selection process.

There are now less than six months until Election Day. Republican delegates, including Trump's family, will gather in Milwaukee in just over two months to formally hand him his third straight GOP presidential nomination.

Even if he wins in November, Trump will reenter office as a lame duck. It means his apprentice will have the inside track to replace him in 2028 — a fundamentally different reality than the one he faced in 2016.

Trump is no longer a political neophyte. As he recently told Time Magazine, the former president claims he knows what to do differently this time. He no longer needs a running mate to unite his party's base. It's his show. But as recent primary results illustrate, there is still a subsection of the Republican Party that isn't thrilled by their choices.

A rematch between the two most recent men who have held the title of the oldest president in history is also sure to put a focus on their No. 2s.

So with that in mind, here's Business Insider's initial vice presidential power rankings. Like all good predictions, we'll update it as it gets closer to happening to ensure greater accuracy.

If we're wrong, just remember that offseason polls don't matter. (Trust me, I'm a Nebraska fan.)

Here's where things stand:

1. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina:

Scott has been on Trump's shortlist from the beginning. He's a former presidential candidate himself, a fact many recent vice presidential nominees share (though Trump ignored that in 2016). The 58-year-old has also shown a fundraising prowess that could be greatly appreciated given Trump's at-times cash-strapped campaign. It helps that he has a relationship with Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who, according to CNBC, is pushing Scott to get picked.

Scott would also be a historic choice. He's already the first Black Republican elected from the South since Reconstruction. Some Trump aides have urged the former president to balance out his 2024 ticket by picking a person of color.

Polls during Scott's brief run show that GOP voters like him. He receives a similarly warm reception on Capitol Hill, though his bipartisan push for sweeping policing reform failed. He voted to certify the 2020 election, a fact he shares with the overwhelming majority of GOP senators, but recently was cagey when asked if he would accept the results this November.

That all being said, we've talked up Scott before. And he dropped out before the Iowa caucuses.

2. Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota

Burgum's biggest moment in his brief presidential run was arguably when he injured his leg before a primary debate. Despite that inauspicious moment and a forgettable primary effort, he's receiving serious consideration. Burgum's momentum has surprised even his fellow home-state politicians. Sen. Kevin Cramer told Politico his governor deserved the spotlight but also summed up Burgum's biggest drawbacks by pointing out he's a "white male from a state with three electoral votes that haven't gone to a Democrat since LBJ does not seem to bring a lot of electoral value to the ticket."

Trump tried a Midwestern governor straight out of central casting who was supposed to outshine him. Unlike Pence, Burgum blazed a path in business before getting into politics. The North Dakotan sold his software company to Microsoft for over $1 billion in 2001. As CNBC pointed out, Burgum could write a massive check to Trump's campaign.

3. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida

Rubio would be the most obvious choice for a Trump pick poised to carry the former president's legacy forward in 2028. After all, the Floridian was once proclaimed the future of the Republican Party. He did vote to certify the 2020 election results but found ways other ways work with his former 2016 primary rival while in office. Rubio has also shown he'll shift his views, most notably he was one of the main architects of the bipartisan, sweeping 2013 immigration legislation that would have offered undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship. Like many 2016 foes, Rubio is also on record hammering Trump — including his cringey mocking of the future president's hand size (Rubio later apologized for that).

The biggest hurdle for Rubio isn't likely anything in his past. Instead, he faces very real concerns about residing in the same state as Trump.

As Politifact explained, the Constitution has been interpreted not to allow electors from the same state to vote for a president and vice president who also reside in that state. That means a Trump-Rubio ticket could lose out on Florida's 30 electoral votes, even if they won the state.

According to the Bulwark, Rubio would be willing to move but he might have to make his mind soon.

4. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York

Stefanik has clearly staked her ground as a Trump ally. She was the first member of House leadership to have endorsed Trump for his 2024 run. She endeared herself to his political base for her defense of the president during his first impeachment trial. Stefanik garnered national attention recently for grilling college presidents over their handling of antisemitism. She was once more liberal than Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, but her rise in the GOP has coincided with a reinvention as a Trump-aligned Republican.

Stefanik hails from a state that is never going to back Trump. But scores of studies show that the home-state boosts for vice presidents isn't all it's cracked up to be. Perhaps it's not surprising then that none of the top-tier names on Trump's list hail from a current swing state. Still, Stefanik's selection would be historic. She would be only the fourth woman to share a major party's ticket. Republicans, especially Trump, have struggled with suburban women, but it's not clear that tapping a woman would automatically cure that problem.

Biden may also delight in the selection of a House GOP leader. The president has repeatedly called attention to the drama that has gripped the lower chamber. Voters are likely to care more about the economy than Speaker Mike Johnson's job status, but the level of in-fighting in the GOP is so bad that multiple sitting lawmakers have quit their jobs early.

5. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio

Vance has used his powerful perch to push the GOP more in Trump's direction. He serves in a chamber that, unlike the House, is more likely to defy the former president. Despite just joining the Senate last year, the 39-year-old has been repeatedly mentioned as a potential running mate.

As a former venture capitalist, Vance has ties to the more conservative Silicon Valley leaders who could help buck up Trump's fundraising. Like many on this list, Vance has questioned the results of the 2020 election. He's gone even further recently by suggesting that former Vice President Mike Pence has overplayed the extent to which his life was under threat during the Capitol riot.

The rest of the pack

6. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida: Donalds has risen rapidly in the eyes of many of his House GOP colleagues. He has close relationships with the House conservatives that forced former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's historic ouster and have frustrated Speaker Mike Johnson, but he hasn't participated in either effort to challenge the men directly.

7. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy: Ramaswamy staked out the most pro-Trump territory of any GOP presidential hopeful. So much so that it got him noticed. Ramaswamy shares Trump's love of sparing with the media. He also tried to act like the former president on the debate stage, though his fellow candidates' patience grew thin as time wore on. Having never held elected office, the Roivant Sciences founder would have one of the least conventional resumes of any recent major party vice presidential nominee. He would also be a historic pick.

8. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii: Gabbard has reinvented herself since briefly running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Gabbard made a major show of leaving her party over "wokeness." Trump's interest is serious enough that she reportedly brushed off RFK. Jr's entreaties to become his vice presidential nominee. Still, there's already one former Democrat on any Trump ticket. Is there really room for another one?

9. Former HUD Secretary Ben Carson: Trump still has close feelings for his former Cabinet official. Carson also hails from the key state of Michigan. He's also still an avowed supporter of a national abortion ban, a topic Trump has tried everything in his power to avoid.

10. A wild card like Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia: Youngkin skipped out on a late 2024 run to focus on state legislative elections. The Republican was supposed to show how the GOP can talk about abortion in competitive areas. It didn't work out. Still, he has the personal wealth and connections to seriously help a Trump campaign. Plus, per CNBC, Rupert Murdoch likes him.

11. Anyone else.

12. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem: Noem could have been a contender. But when your top Google results are about dog killing, it's safe to say your chances are pretty much over. The prediction markets seem to think so, too.

• This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, a roundup of some of our top stories. Ever dream of packing it all in and moving to Southern Europe? You may have to rethink: The golden age of golden visas is already over.

On the agenda today:

• Chess is taking over modern culture. It's never been more toxic.
• Meet the best early-stage investors of 2024.
• Blackstone's high-profile real-estate fund could be in trouble.
• Want to sell your home? Get ready for disappointment.

But first: Apple's advertising flub reveals how Silicon Valley, and we, have changed.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Insider's app here.

This week's dispatch

Apple under pressure

A Space Invaders arcade game. Brightly colored paint cans. A cute squishy toy. Each slowly succumbs to a hydraulic press. What's left is a new iPad.

Apple's ad, titled "Crush," was meant to show how the new tablet can be a creative tool. Instead it debuted to derision. The company responded by pulling the ad from TV and apologizing, saying it "missed the mark."

The damage to Apple's business is likely to be minimal. First quarter iPad sales came in at $7 billion. In comparison, iPhone sales were almost 10x that. Apple is a $2.8 trillion giant.

The reputational damage is to be seen. Thanks to the almost instantaneous backlash, the ad didn't air widely. If the ad has changed your perceptions of Apple, let me know at mturner@insider.com.

But the ad, and the reaction to it, highlights our changed relationship with our devices.

Apple's iconic 1984 Super Bowl ad was about the promise of technology, of breaking free from drudgery, of revolution.

Forty years on, creatives are concerned that AI will coopt their work or replace them entirely. Vinyl sales are booming. Teenagers are choosing dumb phones. Digital cameras are back. We're tracking and limiting screen time for our kids.

It shouldn't come as a surprise then that an ad portraying a powerful machine crushing much-loved tools of human creativity hit a nerve.

Apple's mistake should serve as a lesson to every tech company.

The dark heart of modern chess

Chess has never been more popular, but its ugly side has also never been more exposed.

The same characteristics that have driven its popularity online — an easy-to-understand eight-by-eight grid, a strategy without chance or luck — have also made it a cheater's paradise. Meanwhile, rampant sexism festers at chess' heart.

One reporter's quest to understand chess' degeneration.

2024 top seed investors

Behind most startup founders is an investor who saw their potential, nurtured their ambition, and backed their ideas. Now in its fourth year, our list celebrates these figures, from Y Combinator's Dalton Caldwell to Verge Genomics' Alice Zhang.

Plus, we're also highlighting the top 40 women early-stage investors, including Cowboy Ventures' Aileen Lee and Array Ventures' Shruti Gandhi.

Meet the kingmakers:

• The Seed 100: The best early-stage investors of 2024
• The Seed 40: The best women early-stage investors of 2024

Trouble at Blackstone

Blackstone's $114 billion real-estate fund has veteran analysts worried. The private-equity giant found success pitching ordinary investors on BREIT, a commercial real-estate fund.

But some veteran analysts, accountants, and investors believe Blackstone's estimates of BREIT's assets are wildly inflated, making it essentially a house of cards.

Inside the growing alarm over BREIT.

Home sellers' summer from hell

Sellers have had the upper hand for the last few years, but that's about to change.

Home prices are still rising, but buyers are slowly starting to have more options — meaning the days of desperate dealmaking are over. Plus, mortgage rates have spiked back up to 7%, which is deterring prospective buyers and changing the calculus for many sellers.

More on why it'll be a rough summer for sellers.

This week's quote:

"I think what we all would want is some acknowledgment about what happened, and at least not completely dismiss the fact that it could have been work-related."

• A junior banker at Bank of America, after the death of a 35-year-old BofA associate.

More of this week's top reads:

• How spending has changed for young adults in the last 30 years.
• "Seriously underwater" mortgages are on the rise throughout the US.
• I've been offered every job I've interviewed for. I always ask five questions.
• Three reasons Norwegians are so effective at work.
• OpenAI destroyed a trove of books used to train AI models.

• Meet the millennials who accidentally gamed the economy and wound up wealthy.

  ---

  The Insider Today team: Matt Turner, deputy editor-in-chief, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.

• Flora Batts, 65, has had it with Texas' high cost of living, hot weather, and divisive politics.
• Batts is moving to northwest Pennsylvania, a part of the Ruset Belt where homes are cheaper.
• She said the city, located on one of the Great Lakes, has more tolerable weather and politics.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Texas native Flora Batts, a 65-year-old retired Medicaid program coordinator, who is moving to Pennsylvania in May. The essay, which also incorporates quotes from emails between Batts and BI, has been edited for length and clarity.

Austin has been my home for more than 60 years — minus the time spent following around my military husband.

I have family buried from Odem to Amarillo, but we're leaving the state for Pennsylvania.

We found our next home and will close on May 17, with the movers arriving on the 22nd to take us 1,500 miles north.

This decision wasn't made in haste or as a knee-jerk reaction to current affairs. It's like a marriage slowly dying over the years.

The quality of life in Austin has plummeted. Forget about buying a house here — the cost of living puts Dallas to shame. Moreover, most of my favorite restaurants are gone, replaced mainly by expensive fusion or fast food, and the traffic congestion makes it feel like Houston in the '70s. Plus, I hate hot weather.

It comes to a point when you know — you know — it's over.

Austin just isn't what it used to be

My family and I moved to Austin in 1963. The house my parents bought was considered the furthest reaches of North Austin at the time.

I grew up in the city, probably during one of the better times. Back then, there were open fields, and my brother and I used to go sailing and fish for crawdaddies. It was almost like living in the countryside.

Coming of age in Austin in the 70s was just an incredible time; you could do anything. The city had enough to allow us to get into trouble but still be safe.

I lived 20 minutes from a lake, so we would have bonfires and parties. You could go to the Armadillo and see Shawn Phillips, and catch drag shows downtown. The University of Texas students really kept the city young and on its toes.

I don't see that so much anymore. Tech has totally changed everything. Michael Dell kicked the door down and let everybody in. All that tech money changed Austin and drove up the cost of living.

It costs so much to afford homes in Austin now

After moving to South Carolina for the military, my husband and I moved back to Austin in 1998. At that time, I believe there was a 98% occupancy rate. Even back then the rents were sky high — they've just never really come back down.

The homes have gotten more expensive here, too.

In 1963, my parents bought their house for about $30,000. It's just a tiny house, one story and very simple. When my sister sold it after my mother passed away, it went for $220,000. It was later flipped, remodeled, and sold for around $500,000.

The 40-year-old, 2,400-square-foot home my husband and I bought in 2001 for $197,000 sold for $350,000 six years ago — and later resold for $550,000.

Texas brags that we don't have a state income tax, but we do have property taxes. And they're some of the highest in the nation.

I'm a retired state employee, and I have a pension and my Social Security. My husband is also retired from the military and on Social Security, but our incomes aren't enough to buy a nice house in an Austin neighborhood.

We're renting as we wait to move out of the state. Right now we pay $2,300 a month for a three-bedroom, two-bath home that's around 1,900 square feet.

We know our money is going to go a lot farther elsewhere.

The political climate in Texas has changed

When I was a young woman, I felt very proud to be a Texan. To be a Texas woman meant you were strong and that you could stand on your own two feet — and, in some cases, chew tobacco.

But it seems to me that the current government would prefer women to be demure and submissive, which is everything I was told was not characteristic of a Texas woman.

Thanks to 20 years of evolving conservative politics that seem to promote the idea that mom stays at home and raises the kids, I'm not comfortable identifying myself as a Texas woman.

I'm 65 years old, so abortion laws don't affect me. But they will affect my 14-year-old daughter.

I really don't think it should be the government's decision to tell her what she can and cannot do.

I want her to establish her own boundaries and have autonomy over her own body and life, but it's becoming less and less acceptable here.

Although my daughter was born in Austin and has only ever lived here, she doesn't really identify as a Texan. I think that speaks volumes.

Austin has become a playground for the wealthy

In the past, every Christmas, my sister-in-law and I would go with our kids to the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar. It was always a blast.

But it started getting more high-dollar vendors. It's making money hand over fist because there's a large population in Austin now that has a significant amount of disposable income. I'm not one of them. So I stopped going.

Many local businesses can also no longer afford to rent their retail space. We lost Nomadic Notions, a store that sold jewelry beading that also had all sorts of imported fabrics. It was so Austin-nesque, a very hippie vibe. We almost lost Toy Joy, too.

Back in the day, it was not a big deal to go down to the Paramount to watch a play. But because we're in far North Austin, the traffic really discourages us from venturing that far into town anymore.

The problem is that Austin is progressing faster than it can accommodate its population. We've been pushing the envelope for over 20 years now, operating at maximum occupancy off and on.

The city is trying to address the issue. It's doing a lot of expansion on the highways, and we've seen residential and retail building surge in the city. I believe it will eventually improve the infrastructure enough to handle the increasing population.

Our money will go further in Pennsylvania

For the past 10 years, we've been talking about leaving Austin. It was just a matter of deciding where to go.

At first, we thought about Colorado, but the pandemic really changed the whole landscape. Tech companies sunk their big dollars into the state. We got priced out of a real-estate market we used to think was affordable.

After Colorado, we started looking up states that would not tax our retirement income. We thought Virginia would be a good fit, but after visiting it for a week, the universe made it very clear that it was not for us.

We eventually decided on Pennsylvania, where my husband is from and still has family living. We're moving to Erie, where my daughter will be attending the same high school he graduated from.

The biggest driving factor is that there are an array of properties there that are affordable. We also wanted land with a lot of trees — something we couldn't afford in Austin.

In Erie, we bought a three-bedroom, two-bath home on two-thirds of an acre. It's an almost 100-year-old house that has been completely remodeled and expanded. It has a 16'x16' shed, which will be my clay studio. I'm just smitten with the property.

The area we're moving to is really quiet and 15 minutes away from Lake Erie. It's almost like going to the ocean because its waves are so strong, and there's a beach.

I'm also really stoked that it's always at least 20 degrees cooler there. I'm outdoorsy and like to be outside on my patio with my plants. But in Austin, I would always get hot flashes. Last summer, the weather was 110 degrees.

My life is going to change for the better

Pennsylvania is a purple state. I like knowing there's a nice balance between both sides, so everyone seems to get a voice and representation.

There will be a night-and-day difference between our lives in Texas and Pennsylvania. It won't be comparable.

My quality of life is going to be different. My husband has just retired. We'll have more time together in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood — very different from Austin, where it's loud and congested and there are condos in every backyard.

There are things I am going to miss about Austin, like the cheap gas, and the HEB grocery market. But Erie has local produce everywhere, miles of vineyards, and fruit trees in abundance.

I'll probably have to start making my own tortillas again and learn to replicate HEB's flaxseed waffles, but I like a good culinary challenge.

• Recycling standards vary widely across the US.
• Recycling the wrong material or including wet or dirty items can contaminate the waste stream.
• Some items may need to be dropped off at specific locations instead of having them collected.

Many of us have been guilty of "wish-cycling" — tossing just about every piece of paper, plastic, metal, or glass in the blue bin because it should be recyclable. Unfortunately, recycling is more complicated than that.

What belongs in curbside recycling bins varies widely in the US. "There are literally thousands of recycling standards across the country," Rajesh Buch, a professor at Arizona State University's Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, told Business Insider.

That's, in part, because recycling systems that can sort through piles of discarded items can cost tens of millions of dollars. "In most communities," he said, "they don't have the resources to have these fully loaded, full-capacity systems."

Conflicting standards can be confusing, but dumping every container or scrap can contaminate the waste stream, Buch said. One estimate puts recycling's contamination rate at 17%.

Therefore, it's necessary to check with your municipality to see the types of recyclables it's equipped to handle. Earth911 has a recycling locator that can help you find where to dispose of certain recyclables, or you can pay a company like TerraCycle to do the work for you.

That said, there are some items that almost always need to go in the garbage or a special recycling facility.

1. Aerosol cans

Aerosol cans are metal with plastic caps, which should be recycled separately. Some recyclers accept the cans but others don't.

You'll want to make sure they're empty if you are able to recycle them, especially if the cans contained chemicals. "Some of these are dangerous to put in the blue bin," Buch said.

2. Batteries

Some cities, like Seattle, have barred people from throwing batteries in the trash because they can cause chemical leaks and fires. Batteries usually can't be recycled curbside, either.

Instead, a battery recycling facility needs to take them, Buch said.

If you want to recycle them, you can find retail locations willing to take batteries on the site Call2Recycle.

3. Chip bags and other snack wrappers

Chip bags, granola bar wrappers, and other snack packages are often multi-layered materials, Buch said.

"You've got foil on the outside," he said. "You've got a plastic coating on the inside, and that's not recyclable." The machines aren't able to separate the layers.

Some brands' packaging is recyclable through How2Recycle, though you'll have to drop it off at a participating grocery store or retailer.

4. Coffee mugs and other ceramics

It might seem like your blue bin is the perfect spot for a broken coffee mug, but there isn't good technology to recycle ceramics, Buch said. They can even damage equipment.

The same is true for heat-resistant glass used to make items like baking dishes.

5. Coffee pods

Over the years, coffee companies have made their pods more environmentally friendly by switching to a different type of recyclable plastic. But you still can't just toss them in your recycling right out of the machine.

"The foil is recyclable," Buch said. "The plastic is recyclable." But you have to remove the foil top from the plastic cup. As with all other recycling, it should be clean and dry.

Even when properly separated, though, the pods can be what Buch calls a "nuisance item." They're so small that they often fall through slots or holes in sorting machines instead of getting recycled.

"Anything that's two inches or smaller is going to fall out of the sorting system," Buch said.

There are still ways to recycle some pods, though. Nescafe accepts pods you return to them, for example.

6. Diapers

Disposable diapers are difficult to recycle "even if you didn't have all the poop inside," Buch said. They contain a variety of materials, like plastic and cellulose.

Some recycling companies like TerraCycle might take them, but municipal facilities most likely won't.

7. E-waste

Cellphones, printers, and computers contain plastic, metal, and a mix of other materials that make them poorly suited for standard recycling systems.

Many cities have separate facilities where you can drop your e-waste off, or you might be able to schedule a special pickup. For example, if you have a coffee maker that's gone kaput, a retailer like Staples might recycle it and other small appliances for free.

8. Inflatable pools and toys

In 2018, the US generated 35.7 million tons of plastic waste and only recycled about 9% of it, according to the EPA's most recent estimates. Because there are so many different kinds of plastics, it can be difficult to know what you can and cannot throw in your blue bin.

Many plastic containers have a little symbol on them, recycling arrows with a number in the center. This is what's known as a resin identification code.

Most recycling facilities accept empty, clean, dry number 1 or 2 plastic. Some locations accept numbers 1 through 7, while others won't take number 3, 6, or 7. It's best to check before you chuck your plastic in the bin.

PVC, which is number 3, is used to make inflatable pool toys, faux leather, and other goods and is very difficult to recycle.

9. Light bulbs

There are many types of light bulbs, from CFLs to LEDs. It's important to figure out what type you have before tossing it because many municipalities have different rules about where they go.

"Some of the old light bulbs even have mercury or other kinds of chemicals in them, like fluorescent light bulbs," Buch said. You may have to take them to your local hazardous waste collection site.

Some hardware stores will take certain types of bulbs, and Batteries Plus accepts a wide variety, including LEDs, incandescent bulbs, and fluorescent tubes.

10. Medical waste

Needles, syringes, and other sharp medical products can injure workers at waste and recycling facilities. Some locations have drop boxes or other collection sites that take them.

Safe Needle Disposal offers lists of disposal locations by state as well as mail-in services, which often require a fee.

11. Napkins and paper towels

You may know that you only used a paper towel to dry your hands, but the recycling facility doesn't. They have to assume it could have been covered in food, grease, or even something hazardous.

"Those things become contaminated waste in the blue bin," Buch said. Plus, the fibers in these paper products are too short to get recycled.

12. Prescription pill bottles

As with coffee pods, some prescription pill bottles, and their lids, are small enough to fall through sorting machines and won't be recycled.

"There might be some communities where they don't take the pill bottle and other communities where they do," Buch said.

For example, Madison, Wisconsin's recycling program accepts prescription pill bottles that are taller than 3 inches, with their plastic lids attached.

13. Greasy pizza boxes

Cardboard is one of the most recycled materials in the US, but over half of what's tossed still ends up in landfills, according to a 2019 estimate.

While most pizza boxes are made of cardboard, they're also often greasy. "Sometimes the cardboard has cheese stuck to it, so now you've got cardboard with food, so it's contaminated," Buch said.

Unfortunately, grease-coated cardboard can damage recycling machinery. Some facilities will still take the boxes if they're not too dirty.

14. Plastic bags and bubble wrap

Plastic bags and film and bubble wrap can cause serious problems for recycling equipment, acting a bit like hair caught around a vacuum roller brush.

"Plastic film stretches and becomes literally filament-like," Buch said. "It gets wrapped around inside these sorting systems."

Many grocery stores have collection boxes for plastic bags.

15. Loose plastic bottle tops

Whether you should leave plastic tops on water bottles before recycling them varies between municipalities.

"The lid is made of a different material than the plastic bottle itself," Buch said, so they're recycled differently.

Many facilities can separate the cap and bottle. However, you'll still want to check with your local recycler because some require cap-free bottles.

16. Styrofoam

Many cities and states have banned styrofoam food containers, but the substance still arrives in a lot of products and shipping packaging.

Styrofoam, also known as polystyrene, isn't recyclable in most curbside bins. Many cities have drop-off sites, though, they may only take certain types, like styrofoam blocks.

• Donald Trump held a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, on Saturday night.
• The former president launched vulgar jabs at his opponents and roused crude chants from his supporters.
• Trump is on trial accused of making a hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.

Donald Trump launched a slew of vulgar jabs at his legal and political opponents and encouraged crude chants at a rally Saturday evening in Wildwood, New Jersey.

Thousands of MAGA supporters listened as Trump referred to the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, as "fat Alvin," calling him "radical" and "a corrupt guy."

The presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 elections then turned his attention to the judge presiding over his hush-money trial, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. He said Merchan was a "highly conflicted judge."

Trump's trial, where he stands accused of falsifying 34 business records to cover up a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election, is about to enter its fourth week in New York.

Daniels testified before the court this week, giving granular details about a sexual encounter she claims to have had with Trump in 2006.

At the rally, Trump said the whole thing was a "Biden show trial."

The former president said he had been indicted "more than the great Alphonse Capone… on bullshit, too." It prompted members of the crowd to chant "Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!" in response.

As Trump continued his typical attacks on the Biden administration, he asked the crowd: "Everything they touch turns to what?"

"Shit!" the crowd chanted in response.

"You can't use the word shit," Trump joked back.

The last time Trump was in Wildwood in January 2020, the Senate had been holding Trump's first impeachment trial. At the time, he told his supporters, "Democrats are obsessed with demented hoaxes, crazy witch hunts and deranged partisan crusades."

Trump took a similar line on Saturday night: "The radical left Democrats rigged the election in 2020, and we're not going to allow them to rig the election in 2024."

Trump predicted on Saturday that he would "win the state of New Jersey," per The Washington Post.

Wildwood is a Republican enclave in a solid blue state. New Jersey has not voted Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Latest polling for the 2024 presidential election puts Biden comfortably ahead by 7%.

• I ate at Shake Shack for the first time. My friend and I spent $57 on burgers, fries, drinks, and frozen custard.
• My vegan burger tasted delicious and I'd definitely order the frozen custard again.
• But I was disappointed by the cheesy fries and my friend had expected a bigger burger.

I'd heard good things about Shake Shack, the burger and frozen custard chain that started life as a hot dog stand in New York City.

My friend gushed about its cheesy fries after returning from New York, and I'd seen billboards advertising its delicious-looking vegan crispy shallot burger.

So I decided to give it a try.

Shake Shack first came to the UK in 2013. It now has 15 restaurants in the UK and three delivery kitchens.

I went to the Shake Shack in Stratford, located in a shopping mall near London's Olympic Park, to see what the hype was about.

Upon entering the restaurant, I was struck by how upmarket it looked for a fast-casual chain. The interior mainly consisted of subtle, natural colors — there was lots of exposed wood, green and black paint, and what I took to be fake plants.

You could place orders with a staff member at the counter, next to the pickup spot.

But while I was there, I only saw customers placing orders at the three digital order screens. Digital kiosks are a massive priority at Shake Shack.

Source: Business Insider

The chain’s execs have said that they’re Shake Shack’s biggest and most profitable order channel and that customers place orders that are, on average, more than 15% bigger than orders placed at a cashier.

Sources: Business Insider, Shake Shack earnings call

There was also a stack of printed menus, which I found unusual. This may have been for people who ordered with a member of staff or who wanted to browse the menu at their tables before ordering at a kiosk. It gave a better overview of the full menu than the kiosk screen did.

The kiosk was easy enough to operate.

I was able to customize some of the items, like adding pickles and tomato to my Crispy Shallot Burger for no extra cost. I wouldn't have thought to have asked for these at a staffed kiosk.

I felt like Shake Shack had a slower ordering process than other fast-food chains, though. I was surprised that it asked for my collection date and time when I was placing an in-store order.

When your order was ready, staff called your name, which was also displayed on screens in the seating area. The screens meant you could sit down to wait for your food to be prepared rather than having to stand by the pickup counter.

While I waited for my food, I looked at the decor. The kitchen was open plan, which is increasingly common at quick-service chains, and there was a foosball set.

I noticed that some of the tables were labeled as being made in Brooklyn from former bowling lanes. I felt that there was a contradiction between the eco-friendly upcycling and the final product then being shipped across the Atlantic.

In the UK, Shake Shack sells a range of beef, chicken, and vegetarian burgers, frozen custard, and milkshakes. You can also get hot dogs and crinkle-cut fries, as well as soft and alcoholic drinks.

Digital screens, including the order kiosks, advertised some of Shake Shack's limited-edition items. These included a couple of Al Pastor burgers — a flavor that burrito chain Chipotle has seen huge success with.

Source: Business Insider

My friend and I ordered a Crispy Shallot Burger, a ShackMeister with bacon, a pot of Shack Sauce, a portion of cheesy fries, and two large drinks. The drinks were massive.

My friend had the ShackMeister. The base price was £9.25 ($11.50) for a single patty, though he paid an extra $1 to add bacon. My friend thought the burger was delicious but was disappointed by the size — he said it definitely wasn't filling enough. Perhaps he should have got a double.

My friend said that the bacon was fairly priced and an "excellent addition." He chose the burger partly because of the crispy shallots it included, which we both thought were an interesting addition and differentiated Shake Shack's burgers from those sold by other chains.

My vegan Crispy Shallot Burger cost £9.55 (about $11.90). It contained a vegan fake-meat patty topped with vegan cheese, beer-marinated crispy shallots, lettuce, and Dijonnaise sauce. I added pickles and tomatoes to my burger for free.

The patty, which Shake Shack said is bespoke for the chain, tasted delicious. I was glad I added the pickle and tomato which gave the burger an extra crunch. I usually avoid mustard, but the Dijonnaise sauce gave it a tasty tang. It was a delicious burger.

But I was disappointed in the portion of the cheesy crinkle-cut fries we got to share. I felt like the fries were underseasoned — they tasted bland — and the cheese sauce was very thick and tasted artificial. There wasn't enough to spread over all the fries, too.

For £5.25 ($6.50), the portion seemed quite small, and unlike many other chains that offer a range of sizes for their portions of fries, there was only one size available.

For £1 I added on a tub of ShackSauce. It tasted great and gave my fries some much-needed flavor. To me, it tasted just like garlic mayo. Serious Eats suggests you can make a copycat sauce from mayo, ketchup, mustard, chopped dill pickle, garlic powder, paprika, and cayenne pepper.

Source: Serious Eats

Of course, we couldn't go to Shake Shack without trying its famous frozen custard. You can get chocolate or vanilla frozen custard in a cup or cone, or you can choose from a range of so-called "Concretes" that come with toppings. We ordered the Sticky Toffee one to share.

This was delicious. I love creamy desserts, and the frozen custard was basically thick ice cream. The toppings were tasty and didn't cost much more: Our £5.60 ($7.10) Concrete only cost £1.35 more than a plain one-scoop portion of frozen custard.

We got a milkshake to share, too. The portion seemed quite large, though I was surprised that the shakes only came in one size. After having the delicious, rich, thick Concrete, our £5.90 ($7.35) Cookies and Cream Shake seemed a bit underwhelming.

In total, we spent £45.85 (just over $57) at Shake Shack, which seemed like a lot for a meal for two at a fast-casual chain. But we did get a lot of food because we wanted to try out the menu: two burgers, two soft drinks, fries, a shake, a Concrete, and a tub of sauce.

I enjoyed the vegan burger and loved the Concrete, but if I came back I'd skip the fries and shake. Though our large soft drinks were massive, my friend said the burger sizes were more like snacks than full meals. After his burger and half the portion of fries, he was still hungry.

In mid-March, a scammer in California tried to buy $150 worth of Wingstop using my debit card. Aside from being impressed at the sheer size of the order, I was relieved because Citibank, which issued my card, declined the transaction on the spot and alerted me to the fraud. In minutes I was able to shut off my card, heading off any more purchases by the scammers, and order a new card. All's well that ends well.

When I went to Buenos Aires in April, I figured I might run into a similar situation. Sure, the banks say you don't have to call ahead when you travel anymore, but I assumed I'd still have some purchase flagged as potential fraud, as had happened in past trips abroad. Miraculously, everything went off without a hitch. I don't know how JPMorgan Chase knew that I would spend $200 on Botox in Argentina, but it did. (No, I didn't book my flight on the same card, and whatever, everybody gets Botox now.)

It's great that banks and credit-card companies are getting better at discerning which payments are fraudulent and which are legit. Many people have some horror story about having their credit card stolen or having their own legitimate transactions flagged as suspicious. And it's nice not to have to spend 20 minutes on the phone before a vacation explaining where you're going and when. Credit-card fraud protection is still far from perfect, but there's no denying that the technology is improving. On the flip side, it's also kind of wild to consider just how much financial institutions must know about you to make the right calls.

I was curious about how it all works — and, frankly, a little creeped out. So I reached out to some credit-card companies and academics to learn more. Why don't people have to alert their credit-card companies about travel anymore? And, more broadly, just how have banks gotten so good at figuring out what's normal about our spending habits and what isn't?

The Federal Trade Commission receives thousands of card-fraud complaints each year. The Nilson Report, which tracks the card industry, says payment-card fraud resulted in $33 billion in losses worldwide in 2022 and $13.6 billion in losses in the US. As such, credit-card issuers and banks are keen to do what they can to spot fraud. They want to keep their customers happy, and, more importantly, they want to stem their losses. In the US, the major credit-card issuers and banks generally have a zero-liability policy, which means that when a customer gets scammed, the organization, not the customer, has to eat the cost.

Years ago, whether a transaction went through was based on things like whether a physical card was present, whether you had enough money to make the purchase, and (if the cashier wanted to look) whether your signature on the receipt matched the one on the back of your card. In some cases, the cashier may have even asked for ID or called the bank to verify the funds. We've come a long way from those bad old days by using the same tools that power most innovations: data and computers. Credit-card companies and banks know a lot about us — where we shop, when we spend, and how much we're usually willing to pay for things — and they're getting better and better at turning that knowledge into action.

The models are evaluating a trillion dollars' worth of transactions a year.

While it's all the rage to talk about newfangled forms of artificial intelligence, fraud detection owes a lot to machine learning, a field within AI that's been around for years. A bunch of data gets dumped into computer systems, and algorithms figure out patterns and relationships. The algorithms create decision trees to predict the likelihood of different outcomes and identify what may be considered normal or fishy. It's not that your credit-card company knows that you, specifically, would blow a bunch of cash on A and not on B — it knows that customers with your profile are in the "likes A" camp and not the "likes B" one.

"It's looking at what's happening that is very much out of the ordinary for your general behaviors," said Tina Eide, an executive vice president of global fraud risk at American Express. "And when I talk about general behaviors, it is generalized, right? It is not down to the specific purchase or to the specific merchant." Eide added, "The models are evaluating a trillion dollars' worth of transactions a year."

The machines know more now than ever. Mike Lemberger, Visa's regional risk officer for North America, said that over the past five years the number of data points people generate with their credit cards has grown tremendously. People are increasingly using cards over cash. And they don't just have a physical card they're pulling out at the store — they've got their card credentials in their Amazon account, Netflix account, iPhone, etc. The more purchases the card issuer can analyze, the more accurate the fraud detection will be.

"Visa, we don't have consumer information — that's your financial institution that has that — but what we have is this triangulation of all these data points," Lemberger said. "We can create more and better scores, layer on top of that machine learning and AI abilities, and it becomes a much, much more powerful predictor, which we then feed into all of our partners to say, 'Hey guys, if you want to make the best decisions, here's a whole bunch of really good information.'"

Visa isn't going to block your card directly, but it'll alert your bank that your purchase looks suspicious or that fraud has been detected at the merchant you're dealing with.

This all seemed pretty simple until I talked to Yann-Aël Le Borgne and Gianluca Bontempi, a pair of researchers at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium who work on machine learning and card fraud. They emphasized the vast scale of this fraud-detection technology. Companies and their algorithms are ingesting millions of transactions and creating so many decision trees to categorize certain activities that it can defy human logic, they said. Basically, the computer may be right that your transaction looks funky even if it's made in your home city at a fairly innocuous vendor, or it may be right that the transaction is fine even though it's made in a faraway place — but when humans try to figure out what did or didn't sound the alarm, nobody will really be able to pinpoint why.

"Machines can consider many more features, and at the end of the day it's not clear if all those features have meaning for humans," Bontempi said. "Humans are used to working with two, three features, at most five features, while machines can work with hundreds of features. So there are really different levels between what a machine can do."

There are human-written rules, which are generally interpretable, and there are machine-written rules, which can be a black box. They're more accurate, but they may be harder, if not impossible, for people to reverse engineer. And banks may be using several different algorithms, making this even more complicated. Data scientists are the ultimate decision-makers, but the information they're dealing with is based on highly complex tech.

Humans are used to working with two, three features, at most five features, while machines can work with hundreds of features.

When I explained to experts my somewhat embarrassing wings-versus-wrinkles conundrum and asked what may have triggered one alert and not the other, they offered up different explanations. Eide, from American Express, said that even though I hadn't booked my trip to Argentina with the credit card I used to buy the Botox, something else had probably tipped off the system that I was there. I realized I'd also bought a package of spin classes in Buenos Aires on my phone with the same card. I had also paid for a meal in the city. Lemberger, from Visa, emphasized that it's about all the data and spending patterns and said that given my spending patterns, the Botox likely matched my profile more than the massive delivery order.

"I hate to say this to you, but at the end of the day, all these data points build personas. Just like in marketing somebody would use personas to market to you, we're using that same technology to protect you," he said. "And the fact is that we use those data points to not just secure you but the whole ecosystem."

At some point it occurred to me that the supercomputers that credit-card companies and banks are working with could know more about me than I even know or understand about myself.

"It's probable that the exact reason why a transaction caused your card to be blocked has no straightforward interpretation," Le Borgne said.

I also asked whether there was a big difference in credit-card protections and debit protections and was told not really — maybe banks will be a little more restrictive about credit because they're technically lending you money that's not limited by your actual cash balance. I also asked if companies don't worry about preclearing travel because they don't care as much about losing money to fraud anymore, to which the answer was a hard no.

"At the end of the day, somebody's got to pay for the fraudulent activity," Lemberger said. Credit-card companies will give you your money back if you're a victim of fraud, but they'll find another place to recoup that money, just as they always do.

Instinctually, I am not a technology-is-awesome person — if the AI really is going to kill us, I feel like we should unplug it. I'm not super freaked out about the privacy stuff, but I also don't love the idea that AmEx and JPMorgan and Citi have me so pegged. But it's cool that companies really are making fraud detection better, especially in a world where fraudsters themselves are constantly getting better. I don't want to be like "Yay, banks!" but maybe here the answer really is a little "Yay, banks!" At least that's the case until the next major data-privacy breach, at which point I will regret everything.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• Trump's lawyers say he didn't pay attention to his checks reimbursing Michael Cohen for hush money, too busy running the country.
• But Trump Organization and White House employees say he was discerning about the checks he signed.
• And in his books, Trump says he meticulously monitors his finances.

Imagine it's early 2017. You have never held office before. You are now the president of the United States. You didn't really expect to win the election, but here you are, at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

For decades, you have been in charge of a multi-billion dollar real estate company run by a small staff of about 20 people. And even though you're now the president, you still have to deal with unfinished business. One of your employees in New York sends you a pile of checks to sign.

You have North Korea to worry about. You're paranoid that the FBI director is out to get you. People are talking about Russia. The checks. The checks! What do you do with the checks?

You sign them. You get them mailed back to New York. You have more important things to worry about.

This is one of the arguments Donald Trump's lawyers have advanced in his defense for his hush-money trial: Trump didn't do anything wrong. It was Michael Cohen who paid the hush money.

And if Trump's signature was on a few checks? Well, he was trying to run the country and wasn't really paying attention to every check he signed.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has indicted Trump on 34 counts of illegally falsifying business records. According to the prosecutors, Trump disguised records reimbursing Michael Cohen — his former personal lawyer and a Trump Organization executive — for a $130,000 hush-money payment made to Stormy Daniels in the chaotic final days of the 2016 election.

The purpose of that payment, prosecutors say, was to keep Daniels quiet about an affair she says she says she had with him, keeping that information away from American voters as Trump's campaign was bruised by the revelations of the "Access Hollywood" tape.

According to witness testimony and records shown so far at the trial, held in a chilly 15th-floor courtroom in downtown Manhattan, Cohen fronted the hush money out of his own pocket in October 2016 using a shell company he created. Trump then reimbursed him, prosecutors say, in a series of 11 checks, nine of them bearing his handwritten signature.

Some of the payments to Cohen came from his personal bank account, others through a Trump Organization account.

Trump's lawyers have sought to pin all the blame on Michael Cohen. According to testimony from Trump's former press secretary and aide Hope Hicks, after the Wall Street Journal first published articles about the hush-money arrangement in 2018, Trump said Cohen "did it out of the kindness of his own heart" to "protect him" but "never told anybody about it."

When questioning his former employees, Trump's lawyers consistently ask whether he was "multitasking" while signing checks. And under questioning from a prosecutor, Hicks offered that Trump would have a constant flow of people coming in and out of his office.

"He is a very good multitasker and a very hard worker," she said. "He is always doing many things at once."

Trump's attorney Susan Necheles drilled into the question Friday while Madeleine Westerhout, Trump's White House executive assistant who kept a desk right outside the Oval Office, was on the witness stand.

Trump didn't use a computer and requested hard copies of everything. He "felt that if someone was getting his signature, they deserved his real signature," Necheles said.

Westerhout agreed Trump was "a person who multitasked" and signed "commissions, proclamations, executive orders, memos, and other documents" throughout the day.

It wouldn't be unusual, she said, if Trump signed a stack of documents while meeting with members of his administration or even foreign leaders.

To secure a felony conviction, prosecutors need to convince jurors that Trump knew what the money was for: That whenever he signed a check to Cohen, it was for the purpose of reimbursing him for the Stormy Daniels hush money.

And while Trump may not seem like the most detail-oriented person, prosecutors say there's something he's always watching: the bottom line.

Trump was discerning about which checks he signed

Trump has made no secret of his parsimoniousness. He has bragged about not paying vendors for his buildings. And he is using political donor money to pay his lawyers.

Prosecutors presented excerpts from Trump's book "Think Like a Billionaire," which includes a chapter titled "How to Pinch Pennies." In it, Trump relayed a famous story where he cashed a 50-cent check from Spy magazine, winning its "cheapest millionaire" contest. Every check counts.

"I always sign my checks, so I know where my money's going," Trump said. "In the same spirit, I also always try to read my bills to make sure I'm not being overcharged."

In the book — which defense attorneys were sure to point out was written with the help of a ghostwriter — Trump reflected deeply on budgeting, even musing about the innate ethics of room decorators.

"When you are working with a decorator, make sure you ask to see all of the invoices," Trump wrote. "Decorators are, by nature, honest people, but you should be double-checking regardless."

The books that prosecutors presented were written when Trump was a businessman, not yet best known as a political figure. But prosecutors suggest his thoughtfulness about his bills continued into his presidency.

Cohen met with Allen Weisselberg, the now-former Trump Organization CFO, in January of 2017 to hash out how he'd get reimbursed by Trump and the Trump Organization, according to records shown at trial.

Ultimately, Weisselberg agreed to give Cohen $420,000 in multiple payments over the course of 2017, which would cover taxes and include a bonus, Weisselberg's deputy Jeffrey McConney testified.

When Trump was running the Trump Organization every day, it was easy to get ahold of him in his Trump Tower office to approve expenses and sign checks paying for them.

But with him in the White House, employees had to figure out another way to have him sign off on expenses. They devised a system where they'd cut the checks and print invoices in New York, then FedEx a pile of them to Washington, DC, a few times a month. They'd pass through the hands of Trump's bodyguard-turned-White House employee Keith Schiller, then make their way to the Oval Office. Trump would review and sign them, and then send them back to Manhattan — all with the logistical assistance of taxpayer-funded government employees.

But Trump didn't automatically put his signature on every check. Occasionally, he'd write "VOID" on one he didn't want to be paid, according to Trump Organization employee Deborah Tarassoff.

"It was signed in a Sharpie in black," Tarassoff testified. "That is what he usually uses."

While Trump was making life-or-death decisions in the Oval Office, the billionaire was also discerning about trivial-seeming expenses. Prosecutors presented an invoice from the Winged Foot Golf Club, located north of New York City, for Trump's dues, that was sent to the White House from New York. Rhona Graff, his executive assistant at the Trump Organization, asked if he wanted to suspend his membership for four years — or to "continue paying annual dues + the food minimum."

Trump wrote in felt-tip pen: "Pay- ASAP OK" and signed "D."

"This was included in the stack of checks, so I passed it along," Westerhout, Trump's White House executive assistant in 2017, testified at the trial.

Westerhout didn't send back every single check to the Trump Organization. Sometimes, Trump didn't pull out his Sharpie (sometimes a Pentel felt-tip pen, she testified) to sign them.

Rebecca Manochio, the bookkeeper at the Trump Organization who was first to handle the checks when they came from the White House, testified that sometimes checks would be missing. When that happened, she checked with Westerhout.

"Either it got lost, or he had questions about it, and he had to speak to someone," Manochio said.

If Trump had a question about a check, he'd talk with a Trump Organization employee about it, Westerhout testified.

"I think I remember, maybe, a couple times him having a question about a check and then calling Allen Weisselberg or somebody else in the Trump Organization to ask for clarification," she said.

Graff, for her part, testified that "it wasn't unusual" to see Trump on the phone while signing checks.

"Am I correct that when he would sign checks, he was often multitasking?" Necheles asked her.

"It happened on occasion," Graff answered. "It would depend what was going on at the moment and how important the checks were that needed to be signed."

Trump — now a commensurate multitasker as he defends himself from multiple civil and criminal cases — employed a similar legal defense in his civil fraud case last year, where the New York Attorney General's Office accused him and his company of fudging numbers to commit insurance, bank, and tax fraud.

In a deposition, Trump said he was too busy saving the world "from a nuclear holocaust" to be paying close attention to the Trump Organization's finances.

The judge in that case didn't buy the argument, ultimately ordering him to pay nearly a half-billion dollars in penalties.

Trump perhaps said it best himself.

In the trial, prosecutors have trotted out passages about his thriftiness from several of his books.

You can negotiate every bill, even when shopping at "high-end shops," he once wrote. You need to watch out for "computer error" in billing, he says. The only solution, he says, is to peronally review and sign "as many checks as possible," he advises.

"When you sign a check yourself, you're seeing what's really going on inside your business," Trump wrote in one book. "And if people see your signature at the bottom of a check, they know you're watching them, and they screw you less because they have proof that you care about the details."