Today’s monkey torture videos are the products of a digitally connected world. People who enjoy watching baby animals probed, snipped, and mutilated in horrible ways often have difficulty finding local collaborators, but online communities like “million tears”—now thankfully shuttered—can help them forge connections.
Once they do meet other like-minded souls, communication takes place through chat apps like Telegram and Signal, often using encryption.
Money is pooled through various phone apps, then sent to videographers in countries where wages are low and monkeys are plentiful. (The cases I have seen usually involve Indonesia; read my feature from last year to learn more about how these groups work.)
Many people have decided a trip to the US isn’t worth the risk after recent border detentions. But if you are going, what do you need to know? Immigration lawyers explain it all
Kindness doesn’t cost a thing. Putting up a big “no foreigners welcome” sign, threatening to annex your neighbour, and throwing visitors to your country into detention for minor visa infractions, however? Such actions are expensive. The United States is on track to lose $12.5bn (£9.4bn) in international travel spending this year, according to a study published on Tuesday by the World Travel and Tourism Council.
If the Trump administration is concerned that its aggressive rhetoric is costing tourist dollars, it’s not showing it. During a recent press conference about the 2026 Fifa World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada, vice president JD Vance joked about deporting football fans who outstay their welcome. “We’ll have visitors from close to 100 countries. We want them to come…” Vance said. “But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home, otherwise they’ll have to talk to [Homeland Security] secretary Noem.” That’s Kristi Noem, the woman who shot her own dog. Not someone you want to talk to when she’s in a bad mood.
As part of the Global Change Research Act of 1990, Congress mandated that every four years, the government must produce a National Climate Assessment. This document is intended to provide an overview of the changing state of our knowledge about the process itself and its impact on our environment. Past versions have been comprehensive and involved the work of hundreds of scientists, all coordinated by the US’s Global Change Research Program.
It’s not clear what the next report will look like. Two weeks after cutting funding for the organization that coordinates the report’s production, the Trump administration has apparently informed all the authors working on it that their services are no longer needed.
The National Climate Assessment has typically been like a somewhat smaller-scale version of the IPCC reports, with a greater focus on impacts in the US. It is a very detailed look at the state of climate science, the impacts warming is having on the US, and our efforts to limit warming and deal with those impacts. Various agencies and local governments have used it to help plan for the expected impacts of our warming climate.
Momodou Taal, who had been asked to surrender by immigration officials, says he has ‘lost faith’ that favourable court ruling would protect him
A Cornell University student who participated in pro-Palestinian protests and was asked to surrender by United States immigration officials has said he is leaving the US, citing fear of detention and threats to his personal safety.
Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana studies and dual citizen of the UK and the Gambia, has participated in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack. His attorneys said last month that he was asked to turn himself in and that his student visa was being revoked.
Federal prosecutors say Charlie Javice tricked JPMorgan into paying $175M for her startup, Frank.
At her New York fraud trial on Wednesday, her lawyers asked, without success, for a mistrial.
They said prosecutors are hiding a key “witness” from jurors: the Frank website itself.
Federal prosecutors are hiding an important “witness” from the jury at Frank founder Charlie Javice’s New York fraud trial, her lawyers said Wednesday — the Frank website itself.
The website, which helped students apply for college financial aid, was shut down in November 2022, a year after JPMorgan Chase purchased it for $175 million.
Javice is on trial for allegedly clinching the deal by fraudulently exaggerating Frank’s value, claiming the website had 4.25 million users when it only had 300,000.
On Wednesday morning, lawyers for Javice filed a motion demanding a mistrial, saying prosecutors failed to show jurors key content from the website that could help clear their client.
The motion cites undated pages from the defunct site in which Javice, the lawyers say, was frank about Frank.
“Frank has helped over 250,000 families,” one page cited in the motion reads. “Frank is an online tool that has helped 300,000 students maximize their financial aid for college,” another page said.
“This case is about whether Ms. Javice misrepresented metrics related to the Frank website,” defense lawyers from the Miami-based firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan wrote the judge.
“Yet, the website has been the equivalent of the missing key witness,” they wrote. “An exculpatory one, at that.”
The motion didn’t address why the defense couldn’t simply show any useful web pages to jurors themselves. Nor did it succeed in stopping the trial — testimony continued without it being discussed in court.
Prosecutors did not file a response. During a month of testimony, they have shown jurors thousands of pages of emails and spreadsheet evidence in which JPMorgan Chase executives were assured that Frank’s users numbered in the millions.
Though it apparently fell flat, the mistrial motion provided the best glimpse yet into the defense strategy.
“The Frank website is directly relevant to two of Ms. Javice’s legal defenses: lack of intent and materiality,” the motion says.
The fintech entrepreneur had no intention of hiding Frank’s true user base from the bank — instead, “she was proud of it,” the motion says. “Ms. Javice displayed it multiple places on the Frank website.”
As for materiality — meaning whether the alleged exaggeration of user numbers was a material, or meaningful, reason JPMorgan purchased Frank — here, too, the website clears her, the lawyers argue.
The bank would have been “on notice” that Frank had 300,000 user accounts just from looking at the website, the motion said.
Last week, in another defense filing, Javice’s lawyers said they’ll argue that the 4.25 million figure referenced website traffic, not user accounts.
And in defense opening statements, jurors were told that the bank was really looking to acquire Javice, not her data.
The young entrepreneur is an “incredible young woman” who’d made the Forbes “30 Under 30” list and who, at age 28, secured a one-on-one meeting with Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, lawyer Jose Baez said in openings.
Charlie Javice sold Frank to JPMorgan Chase for $175 million.
Charlie Javice
A Land Rover and Lululemon
For the jury, Wednesday was another day of looking at document evidence.
Rachel Danko, an investigative analyst for the US attorney’s office, spent all day on the witness stand, showing jurors months of texts, emails, and spreadsheets that prosecutors say prove the conspiracy.
Jurors were not shown the trial’s most controversial texts, which have been barred as evidence.
They include one in which Javice complains about the sentence of Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, calling the defrauded investors in that case, “sophisticated assholes.” In another text kept from jurors, Javice calls her second-in-command at Frank, Olivier Amar, “the best partner in crime.”
The two are now co-defendants facing up to 30 years prison on charges of conspiracy and bank fraud
The evidence jurors did see on Wednesday revealed more of the close working relationship between Javice and Amar as they rushed to send JPMorgan the data the bank demanded.
The two also used WhatsApp to celebrate their $175 million windfall.
Jurors saw text exchanges between Javice and Amar in which they commiserate about their days of anxiety and nights of sleeplessness.
In the texts, they share jokes and the occasional smiley and winky emojis.
Javice kidded Amar about a new Land Rover he planned to buy if the deal went through, and joked about a new shipment of company “swag” — sweatshirts made by Lululemon and bearing the “Frank” logo.
“Better pick up the Land Rover in a Frank Lulu sweatsuit :p ” Javice texted Amar on August 3, 2021, after he texted that payment had just gone through on what prosecutors say was a fake database of 4.25 million students.
“Score. Call me,” she texted Amar after the payment cleared. Days later, JPMorgan finalized its acquisition offer.
Federal prosecutors said they expect to finish presenting their direct case on Thursday. Neither defense team has said on the record whether defense witnesses would be called.
US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said earlier this week that he expects trial testimony to conclude by the end of the week.
Ben and Jerry’s is litigating with its parent company, Unilever.
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto
Ben & Jerry’s accused its parent company, Unilever, of ousting its CEO, court documents show.
Ben & Jerry’s suit against Unilever, which is ongoing, accused it in a new filing of silencing activism.
Attorneys for Ben & Jerry’s said activism is integral to its brand, attracting customers.
Ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s accused its parent company Unilever of ousting its chief executive, according to new court filings.
The removal of CEO David Stever came after disagreements over the ice cream brand’s commitment to social and political activism, which Unilever intended to “silence,” attorneys for Ben & Jerry’s said in a motion filed on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York as part of an ongoing lawsuit between the two.
“Unilever has repeatedly threatened Ben & Jerry’s personnel, including CEO David Stever, should they fail to comply with Unilever’s efforts to silence the Social Mission,” attorneys for Ben & Jerry’s said in the lawsuit. “Unilever’s motive for removing Mr. Stever is his commitment to Ben & Jerry’s Social Mission and Essential Brand Integrity.”
Unilever informed the Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board, which manages its social brand and mission, on March 3 that it would be replacing Stever, the filing said.
Stever served as the company’s chief executive since May 2023 after spending decades working up the ranks of the company, according to multiple reports.
It was not immediately clear if Stever’s removal was fully completed. Ben & Jerry’s attorneys alleged there were breaches in the approved process of an executive’s removal and motioned for the courts to prompt Unilever to “comply with the CEO appointment and removal procedure.”
Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 for $326 million. But the relationship has recently become tense over political issues. In 2021, for example, the ice cream company tried to stop selling in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
In November, Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever, accusing it of silencing its political statements on the Gaza war. Tuesday’s filing is part of that lawsuit.
On its social media accounts, Ben & Jerry’s touts a litany of progressive social justice ideals, including voting rights, LGBTQ and BIPOC rights, and immigrant and refugee rights. The activism is “core to Ben & Jerry’s DNA,” and a “key part of its business” in attracting customers, the company’s attorneys said in the lawsuit.
“Consequently, every act of muzzling, suppressing, or publicly undermining the company’s social activism causes real, calculable, and significant financial and reputational harm to Ben & Jerry’s,” the ice cream company’s attorneys said in the lawsuit.
Rippling has created a hotline for companies to flag ‘suspicious behavior’ by its chief rival, Deel.
Rippling filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing Deel of using a corporate spy to steal company secrets.
The company also sent document preservation letters to Deel board members.
Rippling has put out a Bat-Signal to summon help with its lawsuit against a competitor.
Rippling, which has had a public and bitter rivalry with Deel that predates a lawsuit it filed Monday, created a hotline for companies to report suspicious activity by Deel, the company told Business Insider.
“Shortly after we filed the lawsuit, we began receiving numerous unsolicited reports from companies who experienced suspicious behavior by Deel over the last several months,” a Rippling spokesperson told Business Insider.
Rippling’s legal team also ramped up its case against the rival human resources technology company on Tuesday bysending letters demanding that Deel’s five board members preserve documents potentially related to the case, another Rippling spokesperson confirmed.
Neither Deel nor the company’s five board directors immediately responded to Business Insider’s requests for comment for this story.
Both Rippling and Deel have competed fiercely for clients, and each have been valued at north of $10 billion.
Rippling’s lawsuit filed Monday accuses Deel of competing unfairly by recruiting a Rippling employee to spy on the company and steal its secrets.
The alleged mole, according to the lawsuit, performed numerous searches in Rippling’s internal Slack, Google Drive, and Salesforce databases. The spy found information about Deel customers who had spoken to Rippling about signing up with its human resources technology services instead, and then funneled that intelligence back to Deel, the lawsuit alleges.
A representative for Deel denied “all legal wrongdoing.”
The website for Rippling’s hotline asks for information about “similar activity” to the allegations in the lawsuit. If it receives credible tips, it could bolster the company’s accusations in court that Deel misappropriated trade secrets.
The lawsuit alleges the corporate spy stole lists of prospective and existing clients, and that Deel could have used that proprietary information to woo clients to its own platform.
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Private information from the company kept leaking, the company said in a lawsuit filed Monday.
Recruiters at one of its chief rivals, Deel, had contacted more than a dozen Rippling employees on their personal phone numbers, which were unlisted, the lawsuit said.
Then a journalist approached Rippling, a workforce management software company, with a story claiming it may have violated sanctions, citing messages from Rippling’s Slack channels, according to the lawsuit.
After launching an investigation, Rippling found an employee in Ireland they now say was a spy digging for corporate secrets to pass off to the company’s competition.
The employee, who oversaw payroll issues in Europe, was looking at Slack channels with “no connection to his payroll operations job responsibilities” and searching for the term “Deel” more than a dozen times per day, according to a lawsuit, filed against Deel in San Francisco federal court.
The man — who is not named in the lawsuit — found sensitive information about potential customers who were looking to switch from Deel to Rippling, the lawsuit says. He downloaded a 31-slide deck that explained Rippling’s strategy for competing with Deel, the lawsuit alleges.
Rippling’s leadership believed they found their mole. So they set up a honeypot operation.
Believing that Deel “was most likely to activate its spy if faced with potentially damaging press,” Rippling’s general counsel emailed a legal letter to three of Deel’s top leaders. The letter identified a Slack channel called “#d-defectors,” where Rippling employees discussed information that Deel would find embarrassing if made public.
In reality, the “#d-defectors” channel did not exist until shortly before Rippling sent the letter to Deel, the lawsuit says.
“Rather than being a gathering place for ex-Deel employees, the channel was set up as part of a ruse designed to confirm that Deel was instructing D.S. to search for specific information in Rippling’s Slack,” Rippling’s lawsuit says, referring to the alleged “Deel’s spy.”
Deel “took the bait,” the lawsuit says. Just hours after Rippling sent the letter, the spy searched for and accessed the channel, the lawsuit alleges.
It was a “smoking gun” that Deel’s highest echelon — or someone working on its behalf — fed information to the alleged spy, Rippling said in the lawsuit.
Over the course of four months, the alleged spy pulled information from Rippling’s Slack, shared Google Drive, Salesforce database, and internal human resources directory, the lawsuit says.
A representative for Deel denied “all legal wrongdoing” and said Rippling was trying to distract from claims that it violated sanctions laws, which Rippling denies.
“Weeks after Rippling is accused of violating sanctions law in Russia and seeding falsehoods about Deel, Rippling is trying to shift the narrative with these sensationalized claims,” a Deel spokeswoman said in a statement. “We deny all legal wrongdoing and look forward to asserting our counterclaims.”
A tech rivalry for the ages
Rippling’s lawsuit, which demands a jury trial, marks a fiery escalation in its rivalry with Deel.
Founded in 2016 by Parker Conrad, a mainstay of the workforce software market, Rippling creates tools to streamline a company’s back office. It launched with the idea of gathering all of a customer’s data about its employees and placing it in one system.
Deel came onto the scene with a different proposition. In 2019, the company functioned as an “employer of record” for companies, allowing its customers to hire globally without having to worry about compliance regulations in different countries. Over time, Deel, led by founder Alex Bouaziz, bolted a wider range of products onto its system, building them in-house and buying up small players in payroll and IT.
The two firms now go head-to-head in the workforce software market, raising bigger and faster rounds of funding to expand their operations.
Their competition has often unfolded in the public eye. Last spring, when Rippling held a tender offer, which refers to the sale of a shareholder’s stock in a company, the company barred former employees who work for its competitors, including Deel, from cashing out.
In January, a class action complaint alleged Deel processed payments without the proper licenses related to a Ponzi scheme. The plaintiff’s lawyer, Thomas Grady, has been reported to be an investor in Rippling. In a motion to dismiss, Deel denied any wrongdoing and chalked up the complaint as a feckless attack by its biggest competitor.
A court order and a flushing toilet
Rippling said it picked up the alleged corporate spy’s trail partly by looking at his Slack activity. The employee, who joined Rippling in 2023, had rarely used the “preview” function on Slack, which allows users to view a channel’s contents without notifying colleagues, the lawsuit says.
In November 2024, the lawsuit says, the employee started previewing dozens of channels a month, sometimes peeking at particular channels more than 100 times each month.
The channels were dedicated to information about Rippling’s services and software sales, as well as information about competitors like Deel, the lawsuit says.
Rippling’s lawsuit alleges the employee’s browser and email history indicate he may have also met with Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz and Global Head of Expasion Olivier Elbaz in December.
On Wednesday, after the honeypot operation, Rippling sought a court order in Ireland to seize and inspect the alleged spy’s phone.
When a court-appointed solicitor served the employee with the order at Rippling’s Dublin office, the employee said his phone was in a bag on another floor.
It was a lie, the lawsuit alleged.
“The bag only contained a notebook. It held no mobile device,” the lawsuit says.
The spy then went to the bathroom and locked the door, “despite the independent solicitor’s repeated warnings that these actions were in violation of the court order,” the lawsuit says.
“I’m willing to take that risk,” the employee said, according to the lawsuit.
The employee “then stormed out of the office and fled the scene,” the lawsuit says.
Rippling says in the lawsuit the solicitor heard the employee flush the toilet, suggesting he “may have attempted to flush his phone down the toilet rather than provide it for inspection,” though a later inspection of the building’s plumbing “did not locate any mobile devices.”
A delivery driver burned by a hot tea from Starbucks in 2020 was just awarded $50 million.
Smith Collection/Gado/Gado via Getty Images
A jury awarded Michael Garcia, a delivery driver, $50 million after a Starbucks drink burned him.
Garcia filed a complaint against Starbucks in 2020 after a hot tea fell on his lap.
Garcia suffered serious burns, his lawyers argued.
A court ordered Starbucks to pay $50 million to a California delivery driver who suffered serious burns after a hot tea fell in his lap.
A Los Angeles County jury found Starbucks negligent on March 14, marking four years since the litigation between Starbucks and Michael Garcia began. Garcia, who worked at the time as a Postmates driver, first filed the complaint against Starbucks in March 2020.
A Starbucks spokesperson told Business Insider it planned to appeal the decision.
“We sympathize with Mr. Garcia, but we disagree with the jury’s decision that we were at fault for this incident and believe the damages awarded to be excessive,” the statement said. “We plan to appeal. We have always been committed to the highest safety standards in our stores, including the handling of hot drinks.”
Trial Lawyers for Justice, the firm representing Garcia, said he entered a Starbucks drive-thru that February and ordered three venti-sized hot teas. The firm said the barista at the pick-up window “negligently failed” to secure one of the drinks into the drink carrier.
“Within 1.4 seconds of Michael taking possession of the tray, the unsecured cup fell directly into his lap, the lid popped off, and the scalding hot tea caused third-degree burns to his penis, groin, and inner thighs,” a press release said. “He was taken by paramedics to the emergency room.”
Nick Rowley, Garcia’s attorney, said the driver’s life “has been forever changed.”
“No amount of money can undo the permanent catastrophic harm he has suffered, but this jury verdict is a critical step in holding Starbucks accountable for flagrant disregard for customer safety and failure to accept responsibility,” he said in a statement.
Donald Trump issued three orders revoking the security clearance of lawyers at major firms.
He described the firms as “dishonest and dangerous” accusing each of weaponizing the judicial process.
Each of the firms has ties to Trump’s political opponents — and legal scholars say that’s a problem.
Donald Trump issued another order on Friday revoking the security clearance of employees at Paul Weiss, a major law firm associated with his political opponents.
The Friday order is thethird time in as many weeks that the president has singled out law firms — Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and Covington & Burling — to have their workers’ clearances revoked. He also ordered a review of their government contracts. It comes just days after a federal judge blocked the order against Perkins Coie, arguing it was likely unconstitutional.
Critics warn that the president’s efforts to bar the law firms’ employees from interacting with federal agencies or even entering federal buildings could not only put the firms out of business but also erode the rights of lawyers — and people seeking legal counsel — across the country.
Representatives for the White House, Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and Covington & Burling did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
Trump’s order against Paul Weiss singled out attorney Mark Pomerantz, who had previously left the firm to join the Manhattan District Attorney’s office investigation into Trump’s finances until his resignation from the case in February 2022. Additionally, the order highlights that a Paul Weiss partner, on behalf of the District of Columbia Attorney General, brought a pro bono suit against individuals accused of participating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
The order says allowing employees of the Paul Weiss firm to maintain their security clearance “would threaten the national security of or otherwise be inconsistent with the interests of the United States.”
Similarly, Trump’s March 6 order against Perkins Coie described the firm’s activity as “dangerous and dishonest,” highlighting the firm’s representation of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in her 2016 run against Trump.
“Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false ‘dossier’ designed to steal an election,” the order reads, referring to a memo compiled by the former British spy Christopher Steele in the run-up to the election, which contained allegations of collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government.
Many of the claims in the so-called Steele dossier were uncorroborated, though some were eventually verified.
On February 25, Trump issued a separate memo targeting Covington & Burling. The memo specifically named and suspended the security clearance of attorney Peter Koski, who provided legal assistance to former Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Smith led the investigations into Trump and his affiliates related to efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election and the possession of highly classified documents at the Mar-a-Lago social club following his presidency.
In each of the orders, Trump accused the named law firms and specific attorneys of weaponizing the judicial process.
Big impact on Big Law
Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and Covington & Burling are among the largest law firms in the United States, with multibillion-dollar annual revenues, according to AmLaw Global 200 Rankings. Each firm employs more than 1,000 attorneys and support staff like paralegals, researchers, and case managers.
Anyone working at the firm who works a case involving a government contract or represents a client involved in government work — or a claim against the government — could require a security clearance, Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told Business Insider.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s someone working on a classified documents case or a case involving terrorism, they have to have clearance to review the material that is the evidence and the discovery in the case,” Rahmani said. “Anything that may touch upon national security and military secrets, the lawyers have to have that clearance, and if they’re not afforded that clearance, they can’t engage in the representation.”
Removing that clearance is a blow to each firm’s business — a potentially fatal one, a lawyer representing Perkins Coie said in a recent hearing.
“It truly is life-threatening,” Politico reported Dane Butswinkas, who represents Perkins Coie, said during an emergency hearing in which the firm challenged the legality of the president’s order. “It will spell the end of the law firm.”
Rahmani said the revocation of the lawyers’ security clearances could also impact clients seeking counsel, by limiting who they are able to retain to attorneys that the Trump administration allows to have clearance.
Politico reported the judge ruled on Wednesday during the emergency hearing that the “retaliatory animus” of Trump’s order against Perkins Coie is “clear on its face” and “runs head-on into the wall of First Amendment protections.”
Howell issued a temporary restraining order, blocking portions of the president’s order from taking effect against Perkins Coie staff while legal challenges play out. The orders affecting Paul Weiss and Covington & Burling staff remain in effect.
“This may be amusing in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where the Queen of Hearts yells, ‘Off with their heads!’ at annoying subjects … and announces a sentence before a verdict,” Politico reported Howell said. “But this cannot be the reality we are living under.”
