Major-airlines-are-making-it-free-to-change-travel-plans.jpeg

Major airlines are making it free to change travel plans ahead of a huge winter storm

by with No Comment Xpandfy

Major airlines are making it free to change your flights ahead of a dangerous winter storm.

Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines, and JetBlue are waiving rebooking fees for flights to and from affected regions this weekend.

If your travel plans this weekend include major cities such as Dallas, Austin, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston, you may want to contact your airline to avoid prolonged delays or cancellations at the airport. The National Weather Service is warning that more than 230 million Americans will be affected, from the Southwest to New England.

Even if you won’t change your plans, your flight may still get canceled. Delta Air Lines said Thursday it is canceling flights at airports in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee, citing safety concerns caused by heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain. The airline will also be bringing in cold-weather specialists.

As of Thursday evening, based on the Misery Map, which tracks real-time flight disruptions, there hasn’t been a spike in delays or cancellations.

Based on recent storms, such as the one that hit over Thanksgiving and coincided with the end of the government shutdown, mass cancellations may be inevitable. So it’s good to know your passenger rights and your options when things don’t go according to plan.

Know your rights as a passenger


A passenger checks the flight board at Boston airport.

Opt in to automatic flight updates via text or email so you don’t miss a flight delay or cancellation notification.

JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images



If your flight is canceled and you choose not to rebook, the airline is legally required to provide you with a cash refund — not a voucher or credit.

However, things are different for delays. The Trump Administration recently killed a proposal that would have required airlines to compensate passengers for long delays, so flyers largely have to rely on airline goodwill or their credit cards to get anything for the inconvenience.

Some airlines have committed to providing accommodations, transportation, and food during a controllable overnight delay or cancellation, as outlined in the Airline Customer Service Dashboard.

Controllable disruptions include issues such as maintenance or crew staffing. Frontier Airlines is the only carrier that does not offer accommodations in the event of a controllable overnight delay or cancellation, but it will provide a meal voucher.

It still doesn’t hurt to ask for a meal or hotel voucher when a non-controllable issue arises, such as the weather. The worst they can say is no.

Use your airline’s mobile app to change or cancel your flight


United mobile app.

Most airlines also offer a chat function if you prefer to text.

United Airlines



During disruptions, airlines often allow you to make changes via their mobile app or website, rather than waiting on clogged phone lines or in long customer service lines.

If this isn’t an option, try an online chat. Carriers like Delta Air Lines allow you to text a representative for help.

You can put yourself in the virtual queue and wait in line at the airport, potentially upping your chances of speaking with an agent sooner.

Here are the phone numbers for each airline:

  • Alaska: 1-800-252-7522 or text 82008
  • Allegiant: 1-702-505-8888
  • American: 1-800-433-7300
  • Avelo: 1-346-616-9500
  • Breeze: No phone number to call, but you can text the airline at 501-273-3931.
  • Delta: 1-800-221-1212
  • Frontier: No phone number. The best way to contact Frontier is via online chat or email.
  • JetBlue: 1-800-538-2583
  • Southwest: 1-800-435-9792
  • Spirit: 1-855-728-3555
  • Sun Country: 1-651-905-2737
  • United: 1-800-864-8331

Check if you have travel insurance through your credit card


Passport and Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card

Some travelers rely on their travel credit card to recoup costs during non-airline-controlled flight delays.

Evgenia Parajanian/Shutterstock



Travel credit cards, such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the American Express Platinum, offer built-in insurance that reimburses travelers for hotel, meal, and transportation expenses incurred due to certain flight disruptions.

The weather is typically covered. For this to work, the traveler would have needed to book their flight with that travel card.

If your credit card doesn’t offer travel insurance, it may be worthwhile to purchase a separate trip insurance policy before traveling. This type of insurance can help reimburse costs you might lose due to flight problems, such as prepaid hotel stays or cruise bookings.

However, you must purchase this insurance before any travel disruptions occur — once you know a flight might be affected, it’s likely too late.




Source link

Goldie-Hawn-80-credits-one-thing-with-making-her-relationship.jpeg

Goldie Hawn, 80, credits one thing with making her relationship with Kurt Russell last 42 years

by with No Comment Xpandfy

Goldie Hawn, 80, says there’s one reason her relationship with Kurt Russell has lasted more than four decades without marriage.

“Freedom. And I really feel this way, and I always have. And even if we did get married, it wouldn’t make any difference because it’s 42 years now,” Hawn told host Dan Buettner on Thursday’s episode of “The Dan Buettner Podcast.”

Hawn likened the experience to being a bird in a cage.

“If I’m a bird and you leave the cage door open, I may never fly out. But if you close that door, for my freedom and my independence, I would probably take, like, all my feathers off,” Hawn said. “It’s a freedom of self, it’s a freedom of basically, not melding into somebody else.”

Hawn and her partner, Russell, met for the first time in 1966 and reconnected in 1983 after being cast in the romance drama “Swing Shift.” They started dating shortly after, and welcomed one son, Wyatt Russell, together in 1986.

Their blended family includes Russell’s son, Boston, from his marriage to Season Hubley, and Hawn’s children, Oliver and Kate Hudson, from her previous relationship with Bill Hudson.

Hawn, who has been married twice before, said she’s learned that traditional ideas of partnership don’t work for her.

“But, man, this whole idea of becoming one is not my idea of fun. That’s why it works,” she said.

Hawn said she and Russell share a strong bond, and accept that there will be parts of each other they don’t love. But she doesn’t see those imperfections as a good enough reason to walk away from the relationship.

“Why is that a reason to break up? Why is that a reason to say this isn’t working?” Hawn said.

“You might not like it, but is that a reason to suddenly decide that this isn’t working for me?” she continued.

When Buettner asked why she keeps choosing Russell, Hawn listed several reasons.

“Because I have respect for him. Because I think he’s an amazing person. I’m also very sexually attracted to him, and that’s important,” Hawn said, adding that he’s smart and makes her laugh.

She also praised his talent and appearance.

“He’s such a great actor, and I find him incredibly handsome to this day,” she said.

Hawn added that they’re “an unbelievably happy family most of the time,” despite their own individual flaws.

“Why would I want anybody who is perfect? There is no such thing,” she said.

Hawn has long spoken about what she believes makes her relationship with Russell last. In 2024, she told E! News that “good sex” is a key part of it.

“Because sex is something that connects you and creates more belonging. People who have healthy sexual relationships usually last a lot longer. But it’s not just because of the act, it’s because of the warmth and the intimacy that it creates,” she said.

Russell has also shared his perspective on their decision not to marry.

“At that time, we constantly got asked, ‘When are you going to get married? Why aren’t you married?’ And we were like, ‘Why does anybody care about that?’ We’d asked our kids if they cared about it. They didn’t. We didn’t,” Russell told Variety in a 2023 interview.

Other celebrities have also shared their own tips for making relationships last.

In 2024, Bette Midler told Entertainment Tonight that sleeping in separate bedrooms is the reason her marriage has lasted over 40 years.

“My husband snores,” Midler said.

In 2025, Food Network star Ina Garten said her almost 60-year marriage works because they make decisions together.

“And this is what Jeffrey taught me: Let’s figure out how we can both do what we want to do. It’s not about whether we get to do what you want to do or I want to do,” Garten said, referring to her husband, Jeffrey Garten.




Source link

Shuby headshot

Grok stops users from making sexualized AI images after global backlash

by with No Comment Xpandfy

Grok will no longer be allowed to create AI photos of real people in sexualized or revealing clothing, after widespread global backlash.

“We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,” X’s safety account said in a blog post on the platform on Wednesday. “This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”

The change was announced hours after California’s top prosecutor, Rob Bonta, said he launched an investigation into sexualized AI deepfakes, including those of children, generated by Grok. Bonta said that there had been a flood of reports in the last few weeks that Grok users were taking pictures of women and minors they found online and using the AI model to undress them in images.

Indonesia and Malaysia suspended Grok because of the images, the first countries in the world to ban the AI tool. Lawmakers in the UK publicly considered a suspension.

In Wednesday’s blog post, the social media company reiterated that image creation and the ability to edit images via Grok on the X platform will now only be available to paid users as an additional safety measure.

The company restricted non-paying users last week after complaints from officials globally, but it was slammed for being insufficient.

A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it “simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service.”

Elon Musk, who owns xAI, the maker of Grok, said that the UK government wanted “any excuse for censorship” in response to a post questioning why AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT were not being looked into.

On Wednesday, a few hours before X’s official account posted about the ban on creating sexualized images, Musk asked users to try to get around the AI model’s image restrictions.

Bonta’s office and Starmer’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.




Source link

Jordan Hart's face on a gray background.

5 big changes Nike CEO Elliott Hill is making to turn around the struggling sportswear giant

by with No Comment Xpandfy

Nike CEO Elliott Hill inherited an uphill battle when he took over at the sports giant in October 2024.

Since then, Hill has made changes — both big and small — to the company as part of its turnaround strategy. After retiring from Nike in 2020, the former president of consumer and marketplace returned to guide the company amid declining sales, sluggish growth, and increased pressure from upstart rivals.

During the quarter preceding Hill’s start, Nike’s revenue declined 10% year over year to $11.6 billion, following flat growth in the 2024 fiscal year. Nike shares jumped about 8% on the day Hill’s appointment was announced in September.

The Nike veteran didn’t waste time launching his strategy when he took the helm, reevaluating the existing practices and adjusting them as needed.

“We lost our obsession with sport,” Hill said on a December 2024 earnings call. “Moving forward, we will lead with sport and put the athlete at the center of every decision.”

Last week, during the company’s most recent quarter, Hill told investors that the comeback “won’t be a straight line.”

Here’s what Hill has been up to in 2025.

Hill kick-started his turnaround plan

Nike’s “win now” strategy — Hill described it on last week’s earnings call as Nike’s “immediate response to our biggest challenges and opportunities” — focuses on five key areas: culture, product, marketing, marketplace, and in-person presence.

The plan leans on a sports-driven reset that has “realigned” about 8,000 employees around its core sports categories, the company said. Those categories include running, basketball, football, and training, as well as sportswear.

The idea is to put the athlete “at the center of everything that we do,” Hill said in a March earnings call.

The running category is leading the effort and reflects the direction Hill is steering the company. Nike said its running business grew by more than 20% last quarter, which ended in November, marking the second consecutive period of comparable growth.

Nike’s senior leadership team got a revamp

Hill shook up Nike’s leadership this year.

In May, he restructured its consumer, product, and brand leadership to focus on three areas: consumer and sport, marketing, and product creation. As part of that overhaul, Nike’s former president of consumer, product, and brand retired, and Hill promoted four other Nike insiders to senior roles reporting to him: president of Nike (Amy Montagne), chief innovation, design, and product officer (Phil McCartney), chief marketing officer (Nicole Graham), and chief growth initiatives officer (Tom Clarke).

Hill also hired a new communications chief this year, Michael Gonda.

And he made another round of changes in December, eliminating the roles of chief technology officer and chief commercial officer. At the same time, Nike established the role of chief operating officer, which reports to Hill. The new job’s function is to “integrate technology more seamlessly into our sport offense,” Hill said in a note to employees that Nike released publicly. Venkatesh Alagirisamy, a 20-year veteran of Nike, transitioned into the role on December 8.

As part of the shake-up, general managers in all regions now report directly to Hill.

“It’s clear how important it is to stay closely connected to what’s happening on the ground, from intern to CEO, and every role I’ve held in between, I’ve felt that way,” Hill said on last week’s earnings call.

He began mending relationships with wholesale partners

Hill said Nike’s ties with wholesalers such as Foot Locker and Dick’s Sporting Goods had frayed amid its aggressive shift toward direct-to-consumer sales.

Since Hill’s return, he said he’s been mending those relationships. For example, Nike is back on Amazon and has struck partnerships with smaller retailers, such as Urban Outfitters and Aritzia.

Nike’s wholesale revenues increased 8% year over year to $7.5 billion during its most recent quarter, which ended November 30.

Hill pulled back on promotions and raised prices

Hill said that Nike would strive to provide a more “elevated” experience for consumers, speaking in a January interview with Fortune. He said Nike had become “too promotional” on its own site.

“Being premium also means full price,” Hill told Fortune. “We’ll focus on promotions during traditional retail moments, not at the consistent levels we are today.”

He said in March that Nike Digital, which includes its website and app, ran zero promotions in North America in January and February, down from over 30 during the same months in 2024. The cutback on promotions came alongside “surgical” price increases Nike made to mitigate tariffs in 2025.

He gave the House of Innovation concept store a makeover


Nike 26.2 collection

The House of Innovation is Nike’s six-floor flagship store.

Jordan Hart/Business Insider



Nike’s 68,000-square-foot House of Innovation is the blueprint for its stores. It’s a six-story flagship store that opened in 2018, showcasing the company’s most advanced products. The first floor is dedicated to running, and the rest of the sprawling store is organized by sport, gender, and age.

Hill has frequently pointed to the revamped store in his first year as a model for Nike’s move to sports-driven retail layouts.

“It’s an immersive sport experience, and the refresh has already led to double-digit revenue increases,” Hill told investors in September.

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




Source link

Henry Chandonnet is pictured

The creator of Anthropic’s Claude Code likes to hire engineers who do ‘side quests’ like making kombucha

by with No Comment Xpandfy

Want a job at Anthropic? It might help to get a hobby.

The AI boom is changing the job requirements for an engineer. Not only do they need to have coding skills, but they also must know how to operate vibecoding tools and stay up to date with new AI models.

Anthropic leader Boris Cherny looks for something else: “Side quests.”

“When I hire engineers, this is definitely something I look for,” he said on “The Peterman Pod.”

Cherny’s definition of side quests includes “cool weekend projects,” like someone who’s “really into making kombucha.” It’s a sign that the engineer is curious and interested in other things, he said.

Much of Cherny’s own growth came from his side projects. Cherny is now a key figure at Anthropic. He created Claude Code, a tool that is now popular with engineers across the country.

“These are well-rounded people,” he said. “These are the kind of people I enjoy working with.”

Cherny also said he prefers that his new hires be “generalists.”

He gave the example of an engineer who can code, but is also able to work on product and design. That all-star engineer also seeks out user feedback.

“This is how we recruit for all functions, now,” he said. “Our project managers code, our data scientists code, our user researcher codes a little bit.”

Cherny isn’t alone in pushing for jobs to become more generalist. Figma CEO Dylan Field said in October that AI was causing job titles to merge, resulting in everyone being a “product builder.”

What else is Anthropic looking for? For some time, it monitored whether candidates use AI in their applications.

In May, Business Insider reported that Anthropic asked candidates for certain jobs not to use AI in their written responses so the company could test their “non-AI-assisted communication skills.”

Anthropic changed its policy in July, allowing candidates to seek out assistance from Claude.

For the younger engineers, a job at Anthropic may be hard to come by. In May, CPO Mike Krieger said on “Hard Fork” that he was focused on hiring experienced engineers — and had “some hesitancy” with entry-level workers.

On the podcast, Cherny said that his love of generalists came from his career trajectory. Working at startups since 18, Cherny had to do everything, he said.

“At big companies, you get forced into this particular swim lane,” he said. “It’s just so artificial.”




Source link

3-design-mistakes-youre-making-in-each-room-of-your.jpeg

3 design mistakes you’re making in each room of your house

by with No Comment Xpandfy

The internet is full of interior design aesthetics — Scandinavian, Boho, Country House, Maximalist — each complete with its own set of experts and influencers explaining what must-haves you need to best accomplish the trend.

From quirky pastel candles and oblong mirrors to designer couches and industrial curtain rods, it’s no wonder Americans spend an average of $1,599 on home decor annually, per a 2024 Opendoor survey.

But LA-based content creators Robert Gigliotti and Ethan Gaskill have taken a different approach to interior design influencing.

The friends and collaborators have garnered more than 3.5 million views on TikTok sharing their most disliked interior design and home decor trends in a series called “home decor icks.”

Gigliotti and Gaskill are not designers but have self-taught eyes for design fostered by family experiences.

Gigliotti told Business Insider that his mother flipped houses while he was growing up in Connecticut and he became “tired of them all being builder gray,” so he got involved in helping pick out tiles and other finishes.

Meanwhile, Gaskill was raised in North Carolina and drew inspiration from his father, a custom home builder, and his mother, a real-estate agent.

“My mom was always around the house and really ingrained in my brain the idea of keeping a tidy space and making sure your space is a kind of reflection of who you are, in the way that it sort of impacts your mind,” he said.

Gigliotti and Gaskill said their opinions have resonated with audiences online partly because they’re calling out mistakes they’ve made or seen themselves.

“It’s all things that people kind of agree on or relate to in a way, that they can kind of laugh about,” Gaskill said.

Gigliotti added, “The second anything becomes too serious, it’s not fun anymore, so it’s not like we would actually go in someone’s home and be like, ‘This is disgusting.’ Honestly, it’s amazing effort if you painted everything pink and did your statement wall of floral wallpaper. At least you’re having fun. If you love it, we like it.”

Business Insider spoke with Gigliotti and Gaskill to hear more about what they think you should avoid when decorating each room of your home, from “cringey” art prints and DIYs to overly curated shelving.


Source link