Tag: News

• Home prices are falling in parts of Florida and Texas even as they soar nationally.
• Sale prices only dropped in 15 of 221 metro areas last quarter, and five were in those states.
• High prices, steeper mortgage rates, and supply catching up with demand help explain the declines.

Home prices are falling in parts of Florida and Texas as buyers tap out and supply catches up with demand.

The median sale price for existing single-family homes rose in 93% of 221 metro areas in the year through March, the National Association of Realtors reported this week.

There were falls in just 15 markets, and five of those were in Florida and Texas — Cape Coral-Fort Myers (-4.4%), Panama City (-3.8%), and Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin (-0.2%), and San Antonio-New Braunfels (-4.6%) and Austin-Round Rock (-0.3%) respectively.

That's a striking contrast to the national picture. Overall, the median home price rose 5% to north of $389,000, led by metro areas such as Fond du Lac, Wisconsin (23.7%), and the Illinois regions of Kankakee (22%), Rockford (20.1%), and Champaign-Urbana (20%).

Florida and Texas are known for their red-hot real estate markets, so it's surprising to see prices dropping in several parts of those states.

Buyers may be getting priced out. Austin-Round Rock ranked among the 50 most expensive markets analyzed by NAR, with a median sale price of $467,000.

Cape Coral ($415,000) and Panama City ($351,000) were also in the top 100. Homeowners in Florida face the added headache of surging insurance costs due to climate risks.

Not only are homes expensive, but taking out a loan to buy one has become far more costly, creating an affordability crisis.

The monthly mortgage payment on a typical home with 20% down jumped by more than 9% last quarter to north of $2,000, NAR found.

The increase is largely down to the Federal Reserve's campaign to crush inflation by raising interest rates. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was nearly 7% last quarter — more than double its 3% level at the start of 2022.

Florida and Texas have also scrambled to build more houses in recent years, since the pandemic sparked a surge in people moving to those states.

Redfin identified only 10 metro areas that increased their housing supply in the year to March, and eight were in those two southern states.

'Lock-in effect'

Inventory has now caught up with demand in some areas, leading to homes sitting on the market for longer, sellers cutting prices, and price growth stagnating.

That differs from much of the country, where supply remains heavily constrained duer to the "lock-in effect" — sellers holding off on listing their homes because they don't want to give up their cheap mortgages.

Florida's Cape Coral led the supply boom with a 51% increase in homes for sale last quarter. It also had one of the highest rates of seller price cuts and saw an unrivaled 31-day increase in the time taken to sell a typical home, Redfin found.

In line with NAR, Redfin found that prices fell in San Antonio and were flat in Austin, even as the vast majority of markets recorded price increases.

The takeaway is that a combination of sky-high prices, steeper mortgage rates and other costs like insurance squeezing buyers' budgets, and supply catching up with demand has resulted in prices flatlining or falling in parts of Florida and Texas, bucking the national trend.

That's bad news for sellers and homeowners hoping their properties will appreciate in the near term. But it could give bold buyers an opening to snag their next home.

• As someone who's worked at Costco for 18 years, I know which items are worth grabbing at the store.
• The bakery's lemon-meringue cheesecake is a great springtime dessert.
• You can add the Bloomington Cascading-Cup fountain or the Woozoo five-speed globe fan to your home.

From Costco's rotating inventory to its competitive pricing, there are many reasons shoppers love the warehouse — in fact, the store is a leading retailer in customer satisfaction.

As someone who's worked at Costco for over 18 years, I'm always on the lookout for the best-value items at the wholesale retailer. Here are 10 things I recommend checking out at Costco in May.

Prices may vary by location.

The Kirkland Signature Tuscan chicken wrap makes a quick lunch or dinner.

This month, Costco is carrying a new deli item: the Kirkland Signature Tuscan chicken wrap. The wraps, stuffed with ingredients like rotisserie chicken, spinach, bell peppers, red-pepper pesto, and black olives, make an easy, quick meal.

Each container comes with four precut wraps and costs $7 per pound, which comes out to about $16 to $17 total.

The Happy Hop Crocodile Cave Adventure waterslide is a cool gift idea for kids.

The Happy Hop Crocodile Cave Adventure waterslide is a perfect way to keep kids busy during the summer. The inflatable slide features an electric air blower and is intended for kids ages 3 and up.

I like that it's easy to store and bring outside when the weather's warm. The Happy Hop waterslide is $400 at my location.

The Bloomington Cascading-Cup fountain can add elegance to a front porch or garden.

The Bloomington Cascading-Cup fountain, which is just over 5 feet tall, can effortlessly dress up an outdoor space. It's made of steel and features a basin filled with glass beads.

It also comes with hardware and an Allen wrench for easy assembly. The Bloomington Cascading-Cup fountain is $300 at my Costco.

I had to try the Kirkland Signature dipped-and-chewy granola bars when I saw them at my store.

The Kirkland Signature dipped-and-chewy granola bars just hit shelves at my store, and the chocolate-and-caramel combination immediately hooked me.

Every box contains 48 individually wrapped bars made with caramel, rolled oats, and a milk-chocolate coating. I grabbed an $11 box at my location.

The Blackstone six-piece griddle tool set can come in handy for outdoor cooking.

The Blackstone six-piece griddle tool set has been a hot seller at my location. The kit includes a griddle scraper, spatulas, and two 16-ounce bottles — everything you need for outdoor grilling.

This griddle tool set is $20 at my location.

Keep cool with the Woozoo five-speed globe fan.

The Woozoo globe fan can be a great addition to a home or office as temperatures increase. The compact, remote-controlled fan has five speeds, a timer feature, and an LED turn-off function.

This fan costs $47 at my store.

Two tasty desserts are combined in Costco's lemon-meringue cheesecake.

The Costco bakery is now carrying a lemon-meringue cheesecake, which includes a layer of tangy lemon curd, a toasted-meringue topping, and a sweet graham-cracker crust.

The lemon-meringue cheesecake is $22 at my local Costco.

Prepare for pool-time adventures with the Hurley ladies' swimsuits.

As summer approaches, many Costco warehouses are carrying the Hurley ladies' swimsuits. They come in various patterns and colors, including plain black and orange-and-pink floral designs.

I like that they have stretchy fabric and adjustable shoulder straps. The Hurley swimsuits are $22 at my store.

The Häagen-Dazs vanilla milk-chocolate-almond ice-cream bars are a delicious dessert for warm weather.

The Häagen-Dazs vanilla milk-chocolate-almond bars are a delicious warm-weather dessert. They're made with a vanilla ice cream base and dipped in sweet milk chocolate and crunchy-almond pieces.

Each box containing 15 bars is $13.90 at my store.

The 4505 Chicharrones chile-limón party mix is a great snack for get-togethers.

If you're looking for a crunchy snack, you might want to try the 4505 Chicharrones chile-limón party mix.

This snack features seasoned fried pork rinds and puffed snacks in Tajín, chile, and lemon flavors. My Costco has an 11-ounce tub of the 4505 Chicharrones party mix for $8.

• 4 flight attendants smuggled drug money from New York to the Dominican Republic, prosecutors said.
• The attendants, who held 'Known Crewmember' status, used a special security lane.
• Prosecutors said they transported about $8 million in cash, receiving a fee in return.

Four flight attendants have been charged in connection with a yearslong scheme to smuggle "millions of dollars of drug money" from New York to the Dominican Republic on commercial flights, federal authorities said Wednesday.

The flight attendants — Charlie Hernandez, 42; Sarah Valerio Pujols, 24; Emmanuel Torres, 34; and Jarol Fabio, 35 — were all arrested on Tuesday on various charges, including the operation of an unlicensed money transmission business.

According to a pair of federal indictments unsealed by the US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York, all of the defendants held "Known Crewmember" status with the Transportation Security Administration.

Using this status, they could access a special security lane at John F. Kennedy International Airport without undergoing typical passenger screening procedures.

"Flight attendants are ideal for smuggling bulk cash" for this reason, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent wrote in the indictments.

By "abusing their privileges as airline employees," the flight attendants managed to transport about $8 million in "bulk cash" from the US to the Dominican Republic over several years, US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

The indictments said the smuggling occurred from at least 2014 until as late as 2023.

Hernandez was accused of smuggling at least $2.5 million in narcotics proceeds from the US to the Dominican Republic, while Pujols, Torres, and Fabio were each accused of having smuggled narcotics proceeds, or cash they understood to be narcotics proceeds, worth at least $1.5 million.

In one of the indictment documents, an HSI special agent outlined sting operations in which a cooperating witness provided $60,000 in government funds to Fabio in 2023 and Torres in 2022.

The pair believed the money was the proceeds of narcotics trafficking and needed to be transported, according to the indictment.

In separate incidents, a year apart, Torres and Fabio met another informant in the Dominican Republic to deliver the cash, which was then returned to law enforcement, prosecutors said.

The interactions were recorded.

In December 2019, an informant gave Hernandez $121,215 in cash, of which $61,215 was handed over to Pujols.

Pujols was stopped by Customs and Border Protection agents at JFK.

The special agent said in the indictment that Pujols claimed to have about $1,000 on her, but agents found about $60,000 in three bundles concealed in her purse. She was fired from her job, according to the indictment.

Delta Airlines confirmed to NBC News that two defendants worked for them.

In a statement provided to Business Insider, a Delta spokesperson said: "Delta has cooperated fully with law enforcement in this investigation and will continue to do so."

It's unclear which airlines the other two defendants worked for.

Legal representatives for Fabio and Torres did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment. The other defendants' attorneys were not listed on court documents.

In the statement announcing the unsealing of the indictments, HSI Special Agent in Charge Ivan J. Arvelo said the defendants "took advantage of airport security checkpoints by using their trusted positions as flight attendants."

He said the investigation "exposed critical vulnerabilities in the airline security industry" and has "illuminated methods that narcotics traffickers are utilizing."

• Uber lost some of its "most frequent customers" thanks to the rise of remote working, its CEO said.
• Dara Khosrowshahi made the observation during the company's Q1 earnings call.
• That trend is reversing somewhat though, and "people are getting back to work," Khosrowshahi said.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wants to see more workers going back to the office, and not just at his own company.

Workers are still not using Uber as a "daily habit" for their commute as many did prior to the pandemic, which is hurting the ride-hailing giant's growth, the CEO said.

"With the pandemic, I think a lot of people who were kind of commuting to work, etc., stopped commuting," Khosrowshahi said on the company's earnings call on Wednesday.

"We have lost some of our most frequent customers," he said, adding that "there is an audience who kind of stopped using us as frequently as they used to."

Khosrowshahi's comments came as Uber reported mixed earnings for the year's first quarter.

Total revenue was roughly in line with Wall Street's expectations, coming in at $10.13 billion.

However, the company reported a surprising net quarterly loss of $654 million.

Shares of Uber dropped sharply on Wednesday following the report, but recovered some losses in pre-market trading Thursday.

The company attributed the loss to legal and regulatory changes and settlements and added that the loss includes "a $721 million net headwind from unrealized losses related to the reevaluation of its equity investments."

Uber is currently facing a multimillion-pound lawsuit from more than 10,000 black cab drivers in London.

Khosrowshahi told CNBC the loss had "nothing to do with the operating business."

His line is supported by Uber's $1.4 billion EBITDA, an 82% year-on-year increase.

Looking ahead, Khosrowshahi said on the earnings call that Uber saw the "weekday commute use case" as a key area for growth as more people return to the office — or are forced back under strict mandates.

"Some folks may not like that, but we love it here at Uber, people getting back to work and getting back to the office," he said,

The CEO said he was hopeful that commuters would continue to return.

"One interesting trend we're seeing is that people are getting back to work," he told CNBC in an interview.

Globally, gross bookings — the value of transactions on its app — were up 21% year on year, and the audience expanded by 15%, Khosrowshahi said.

"Demand for Uber remains strong," he added on the earnings call.

However, despite Khosrowshahi's vision of a return to regular commuting, CEOs are gradually starting to accept that hybrid work is set to stay.

In a KPMG survey released in April, 34% of US CEOs said they expect workers whose roles were once tied to an office to be back in their cubicles five days a week in the next three years, down from 62% who held that view in 2023.

About 98% of Americans want to work remotely at least some of the time, according to Forbes Advisor.

Khosrowshahi told employees that beginning in April 2022, Uber staffers in 35 of the company's locations were required to return to the office at least half the time.

He has allowed some workers to be entirely remote if they receive clearance from managers.

Uber did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• A Ukrainian platoon has shot down all of the drones it's encountered, its captain told The Guardian.
• Oleksandr Zhygun said his soldiers are using "antiquated" guns to do it, per the outlet.
• Ukraine has turned to Soviet-era weapons and earlier guns to overcome shortages of Western arms.

A Ukrainian captain operating near Kyiv said his platoon has shot down every Russian drone it has encountered, despite having what he describes as "antiquated" guns.

"We are using antiquated guns because we don't have new ones," Oleksandr Zhygun, a platoon captain in Ukraine's 241st Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces, told The Guardian.

Zhygun's Kalashnikov assault rifle was made in 1989, he said, the same year the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Yehven Dolin, a soldier in the brigade, uses a World War I-designed M2 Browning machine gun mounted on the back of a pickup truck, per the outlet.

"It might be old, but it works," Dolin said of his gun, adding that it doesn't make sense to deploy a $4 million US-provided Patriot missile to target a $20,000 drone.

Ukrainian troops have resorted to using old weapons, including World War I-era machine guns, antiaircraft guns from the 1940s, and Cold War-era rocket launchers, to try to stop Russian drones and make up for the lack of Western-provided missiles and ammunition.

But in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops are struggling against Russia's night-vision drones, a Ukrainian soldier told the Kyiv Post last month.

The task of protecting Kyiv's skies has also become more difficult with Russia painting its drones black, making them harder to detect, Zhygun told The Guardian.

Ukraine is waiting on significant resources from the US after Republicans in Congress agreed to a $61 billion military aid package.

In the meantime, Russia is exploiting Ukraine's weakened air defense systems before supplies make it to the front lines, according to an assessment from The Institute for the Study of War.

The effect has been felt on the battlefield, with Ukrainian soldiers struggling to hold the line and suffering heavy losses on key battlefronts in Ukraine's east, forcing them to pull out of the strategic city of Avdiivka.

Asked whether Ukraine could still win the war, Zhygun told The Guardian it was a "difficult" question and that they needed more air defense systems.

"For now, we have to ration our bullets. A lot depends on our Western partners," he said.

• An exiled colonel told BBC News that Saudi Arabia authorized lethal force to clear land for Neom.
• The Huwaitat tribe primarily occupied the land. One villager was reportedly killed by authorities.
• Col Rabih Alenezi went into exile in the UK last year. 

An exiled Saudi colonel says Saudi Arabia authorized the use of lethal force to clear the way for its Neom desert megacity.

Col Rabih Alenezi, who went into exile in the UK last year, told BBC News he was ordered to evict people living on the land to make way for a part of the project called The Line.

The area was mostly populated by the Huwaitat tribe, which traditionally lives on lands earmarked for the futuristic megacity.

Alenezi said the April 2020 order claimed the tribe was made up of "many rebels" and "whoever continues to resist should be killed, so it licensed the use of lethal force against whoever stayed in their home." He told BBC News he managed to avoid the mission on fake medical grounds.

One of the villagers, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, was later killed by Saudi authorities, according to Saudi activists.

At the time, Saudi state security claimed al-Huwaiti had opened fire on security forces. Human rights organizations have disputed this claim, BBC News reported.

The outlet said it was not able to independently verify Alenezi's comments about lethal force.

Representatives for the Saudi government did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours. A representative for The Line declined to comment.

The Saudi government has said more than 6,000 people have been moved to facilitate its Neom project, but some human rights groups estimate the figure is higher.

Last year, UN human rights experts said three men protesting the Neom project were sentenced to death. UN Special Rapporteurs — experts who advise its human-rights council — claimed the men had been convicted under "overly vague" terror laws for their objections.

Saudi Arabia has been trying to suppress any public criticism about its ambitious Vision 2030 plans.

In July, a Saudi woman was jailed for 30 years for criticizing Neom on X. Fatima al-Shawarbi objected to the villagers' exile from their homes to make way for the project.

• OpenAI researchers Daniel Kokotajlo and William Saunders recently left the company behind ChatGPT.
• Kokotajlo said on a forum he doesn't think OpenAI will "behave responsibly around the time of AGI."
• Kokotajlo was on the governance team, and Saunders worked on the Superalignment team at OpenAI. 

Two OpenAI employees who worked on safety and governance recently resigned from the company behind ChatGPT.

Daniel Kokotajlo left last month and William Saunders departed OpenAI in February. The timing of their departures was confirmed by two people familiar with the situation. The people asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss the departures, but their identities are known to Business Insider.

Kokotajlo, who worked on the governance team, is listed as an adversarial tester of GPT-4, which was launched in March last year. Saunders had worked on the Alignment team, which became the Superalignment team, since 2021.

Kokotajlo wrote on his profile page on the online forum LessWrong that he quit "due to losing confidence that it would behave responsibly around the time of AGI."

In a separate post on the platform in April, he partially explained one of the reasons behind his decision to leave. He also weighed in on a discussion about pausing AGI development.

"I think most people pushing for a pause are trying to push against a 'selective pause' and for an actual pause that would apply to the big labs who are at the forefront of progress," Kokotajlo wrote.

He added: "The current overton window seems unfortunately centered around some combination of evals-and-mitigations that is at IMO high risk of regulatory capture (i.e. resulting in a selective pause that doesn't apply to the big corporations that most need to pause!) My disillusionment about this is part of why I left OpenAI."

Saunders said in a comment on his LessWrong profile page that he resigned that month after three years at the ChatGPT maker.

The Superalignment team, which was initially led by Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, is tasked with building safeguards to prevent artificial general intelligence (AGI) going rogue.

Sutskever and Leike have previously predicted that AGI could arrive within a decade. It's not clear if Sutskever is still at OpenAI following his participation in the brief ousting of Sam Altman as CEO last year.

Saunders was also a manager of the interpretability team, which researches how to make AGI safe and examines how and why models behave the way they do. He has co-authored several papers on AI models.

Kokotajlo and Saunders' resignations come amid other departures at OpenAI. Two executives, Diane Yoon and Chris Clark, quit last week, The Information reported. Yoon was the VP of people, and Clark was head of nonprofit and strategic initiatives.

OpenAI also parted ways with researchers Leopold Aschenbrenner and Pavel Izmailov, according to another report by The Information last month.

OpenAI, Kokotajlo, and Saunders did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Do you work for OpenAI? Got a tip? Contact this reporter at jmann@businessinsider.com for a nonwork device.

• Some threads pulled away from Neuralink's first brain implant in a human, but it's now been fixed.
• Elon Musk's company considered removing the device from the patient, The Wall Street Journal reported. 
• Neuralink reportedly wants to install 10 more devices in humans this year.

Neuralink's brain-chip implant is working — except that some of the device's threads pulled away from the first human patient's brain.

Elon Musk's company shared a progress update in a blog post on Wednesday and said a number of threads "retracted" from the patient's brain a few weeks after his surgery. That rendered the implant less effective.

The "Link" device lets the patient move a computer cursor using his thoughts. The process involves more than 1,000 electrodes in the device and at least 64 "threads," which are each thinner than a strand of human hair, Neuralink said in an earlier blog post.

Neuralink measures the Link's speed, accuracy, and performance and its cursor control using a metric called bits-per-second (BPS). The Wednesday blog post said a higher BPS score means it has stronger cursor control.

The retraction of some of the threads caused the electrodes in the device to be less effective, Neuralink said. It's since made tweaks which in turn "produced a rapid and sustained improvement in BPS, that has now superseded Noland's initial performance."

Neuralink revealed in a livestream on X in March that 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh, who was paralyzed below the shoulders after a diving accident in 2016, was the first person to receive its implant in January.

Neuralink considered removing the implant from the patient altogether, The Wall Street Journal reported citing unnamed sources.

In February, Musk said on an X Spaces session that "progress is good" and that "the patient seems to have made a full recovery."

On Thursday he posted on X:

Neuralink plans to implant 10 devices in other human patients by the end of this year, according to the Journal.

In a meeting at Neuralink, shared on X in March, Arbaugh said it took five months from applying to be in Neuralink's human trials to having brain surgery, which took less than two hours. Since it was implanted, he's used it to play video games, including "Mario Kart," post on social media, and play chess.

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

• Donald Trump's next Cabinet is unlikely to be like his first.
• Trump has said he's learned who he should keep around him if he wins election in November.
• While some billionaires could get top posts, it's possible Trump assembles a collection of vocal allies.

Former President Donald Trump has said his next Cabinet would not be like his last.

"I'm not going to bring many of those people back," Trump recently told Time Magazine. "I had some great people. I had some bad people."

Trump was responding to a question of why the majority of his Cabinet has not endorsed him. The now-former president entered Washington as an unprecedented neophyte who had never held political office or served in the military. Now, Trump says "the advantage I have now is I know everybody."

In 2016, Trump assembled a so-called "gold-platted" Cabinet that was the wealthiest in modern history. Now, according to multiple reports, Trump prizes loyalty above all else. Perhaps it's not surprising, based on the now-confirmed reports, that members of Trump's Cabinet discussed invoking the 25th Amendment in the wake of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. It was a stunning end for a group of officials who had experienced an unheard-of turnover for a one-term president.

While Washington is abuzz about who could rise to power if Trump wins in November, the former president's campaign has stressed no such discussions are taking place. His most immediate needs remains finding a running mate, which could lead to other finalists ending up in his Cabinet.

"There have been no discussions about who will serve in a second Trump administration," Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung has previously told multiple outlets. His sentiment was reiterated to Business Insider.

Here's a look at the top names that may end up in Trump's Cabinet

Jamie Dimon

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon would easily be the biggest name in Trump's cabinet.

Multiple administrations from both parties have been rumored to consider the banker to lead the Treasury Department, but none have been able to pry him away from the investment giant.

"I love what I do, and I have never coveted the job. Ever," Dimon said when it was speculated he could join then-President-elect Joe Biden's administration. "And some people do, and I applaud that."

While Dimon was once famously called "Obama's favorite banker." He now routinely describes himself as "barely a Democrat." Dimon has not explicitly endorsed Trump, but like some of his fellow Wall Street titans, he has praised a man he previously criticized on multiple occasions.

"Take a step back, be honest, he was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration," Dimon told CNBC in January. "He grew the economy quite well. Trade tax reform worked. He was right about some of China."

A Treasury secretary makes about $250,000 a year, not that Dimon needs the money. Per Forbes, he's worth just over $2 billion. After a raise, the JPMorgan chief is set to make $36 million in compensation alone. Then again, big bank CEOs don't get to put their signatures on US currency.

Jeff Yass

Susquehanna International Group founder Jeff Yass is the richest man in Pennsylvania. According to The Wall Street Journal, he could also be the next Treasury secretary.

Yass is not shy about his conservative views. His positions haven't always aligned with Trump. The billionaire has donated $10 billion to Club for Growth's super PAC, a conservative anti-tax political organization that Trump has criticized. (Relations have since improved.)

Yass recently met Trump. And while the former president says the pair did not discuss TikTok, Trump abruptly reversed his previous support for banning the social media app after their meeting. Yass' Susquehanna owns a major stake in ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese-owned parent company.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Yass has privately dismissed claims the 2020 election was stolen.

John Paulson

Former hedge fund manager John Paulson was an economic advisor to Trump's 2016 campaign. While the billionaire has expressed some unease with Trump's rhetoric, Paulson has remained loyal to Trump.

Paulson, who made billions shorting housing during the 2007 financial crisis, recently hosted a fundraiser at his Palm Beach home that raised over $50 million for Trump and the Republican National Committee. Paulson turned his firm into a private family office in 2020. He's worth an estimated $3.5 billion.

There is potential daylight between Trump and Paulson on China. Like many on Wall Street, Paulson is skeptical of some of China hawks in Trump's orbit pushing for policies that could lead to decoupling the world's two largest economies.

"We don't want to decouple from China," Paulson told the Financial Times in April. "China is the second-largest economy in the world. We need to have a good economic and political relationship with them."

Scott Bessent

Key Square Group founder Scott Bessent has also been mentioned as a potential Treasury secretary, per the Journal.

Of all of Trump's potential Treasury secretaries, Bessent might boast the most unusual resume as a former top official at Soros Fund Management, a massive $30 billion firm largely owned by George Soros. Trump has frequently criticized Soros and helped cement the Hungarian-American philanthropist as a right-wing boogeyman.

Bessent operated a conservative publishing firm, All Seasons Press, which he sold in January. A month later, Bessent wrote in a Key Square note that he was betting on a "Trump rally" based on the belief that stocks would soar higher if the former president won.

Ric Grenell

Trump is so close to former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell that he has called him "my envoy." It's led to speculation that Trump's former US Ambassador to Germany, whose time in the State Department dates back to George W. Bush's administration, could rise as far as becoming the next Secretary of State.

Grenell is closely aligned with Trump's foreign policy. Like the former president, he also delights in his tussles with journalists. A previous New York Times profile summed up his rise, "Bombastic perseverance and ostentatious attention-seeking may be problematic traits for some employers, but they have helped fuel Mr. Grenell's rapid rise under President Trump."

Since Trump's 2020 loss, Grenell has traveled the world fostering further relationships with far-right leaders. His potential appointment as the nation's top diplomat would build on his historic DNI appointment, which made him the first openly gay acting cabinet-level official.

Stephen Miller

Former senior Trump White House advisor Stephen Miller has spent his post-White House time leading a legal group that has amassed notable wins over Biden. It's possible that Miller could find himself as the nation's top law enforcement officer if Trump returns to power, according to Axios.

Of course, Miller's radioactivity among Democrats would turn a potential nomination as Attorney General into a political battle. If Republicans retake the chamber, a very realistic possibility, his chances of holding a confirmable post would greatly improve.

Democrats loathe Miller for his role in leading Trump's immigration policy, including a "zero-tolerance" approach that led to children being separated from their parents — a policy even some fellow Republicans abhorred. Miller is also credited with coming up with the controversial implementation of Title 42, a pandemic-era declaration that allowed the US to expel migrants at the US-Mexico border quickly. Biden lifted the policy in 2023 amid criticism from some Democrats.

Miller has promised Trump will implement a "spectacular migration crackdown" if he returns to office. According to Axios, Miller could champion a focus on anti-white racism. His legal group has sued the NFL over its "Rooney Rule," which requires teams to interview minority candidates for top vacancies like head coach.

Doug Burgum

Trump has hinted that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum could have a top role in his administration. The former president is considering Burgum, who challenged Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, as vice president.

Trump is eyeing other potential primary foes to be his running mate, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who challenged Trump in 2016, is also under consideration.

But even if Trump picks someone else besides Burgum for veep, there's still a possibility the North Dakotan will find his way into a Trump Cabinet. Trump tapped Ben Carson as his Housing and Urban Development secretary after Carson challenged him for the 2016 nomination.

Burgum has remained in Trump's graces since endorsing him ahead of the Iowa caucuses. He has frequently been a top Trump surrogate on cable TV.

Sid Miller

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has been a loyal Trump backer since 2016. According to Politico, Miller is eyed as a potential USDA head.

Miller would be a notable change from Secretary Tom Vilsack, one of the longest-serving Ag secretaries in history. But while Miller has been a conservative culture warrior, his combative attitude toward the Texas legislature has alienated even some fellow Republicans. Case in point after Texas' recent primary, Miller vowed to hunt RINOs, writing on X "we know who slipped the noose."

Trump had the opportunity to tap Miller after the 2016 election but did not do so.

Miller's enemies might not be his only worry. One of his former aides will be on trial in August over charges that he solicited bribes from farmers.

• A FedEx Boeing 767 made a dramatic landing at Istanbul Airport due to failed nose gear.
• The pilot contacted air traffic control for assistance; both pilots were evacuated and uninjured.
• The incident could potentially damage Boeing's reputation amid struggles to regain trust after recent mishaps.

A FedEx cargo plane had to make a dramatic landing after its nose gear failed to deploy.

The Boeing 767 touched down at Istanbul Airport on Wednesday after flying from Paris Charles de Gaulle.

A video of the runway shows the jet touching down on its main landing gear, before leaning forward as the nose scrapes along the tarmac, producing smoke and sparks.

In a post on X, the Turkish transport minister, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, said the pilot contacted air traffic control after the front landing gear wouldn't deploy. Airport staff helped guide the pilots to land, the minister added.

He also said that the two pilots were evacuated and found to be uninjured.

The runway was closed to other flights until the plane could be removed. Videos shared on Uraloğlu's X account show workers surrounding the 767, and the jet being lifted by a crane.

FedEx is one of the world's largest airlines, with a fleet of more than 700 jets for its cargo operations.

It is currently unclear what caused the landing gear's failure.

Boeing remains under heavy scrutiny worldwide as the planemaker struggles to regain trust after January's Alaska Airlines blowout.

However, because the 767 involved is a decade old, it is unlikely that the landing-gear malfunction is Boeing's fault, and is more likely to be down to an issue with its maintenance.