Category: Laptops

• Princess Diana wore a pink blouse in her engagement portrait in 1981.
• David and Elizabeth Emanuel made the top out of a stained dress.
• The top is up for auction, and it’s expected to sell for as much as $100,000.

One of Princess Diana’s most iconic garments is being auctioned off. The auction house, Julien’s Auctions, estimates that it will fetch between $80,000 and $100,000 when it sells.

After she became engaged to Charles in 1981, Diana posed for an engagement portrait taken by Lord Snowden, who was married to Princess Margaret from 1960 to 1978.

She wore a pink, silk blouse with a ruffled collar from designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel in the photo, which was published in Vogue in tandem with the engagement announcement in February 1981, according to the National Portrait Gallery.

The top went on to be displayed at Kensington Palace as part of the fashion exhibition “Diana: Her Fashion Story,” between 2017 and 2019.

Now, the top will be auctioned off by Julien’s Auction as part of its TCM Hollywood Legends auction.

The blouse will be available on December 17 alongside pieces from Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, and other style icons, as a representative from Julien’s Auctions shared with Business Insider.

As of Monday, Diana’s blouse has one bid for $80,000, and Julien’s Auctions anticipates it could sell for as much as $100,000. But the actual sale price could be even higher.

In September, three of Diana’s custom-made gowns sold for over $1.6 million during Julien’s Auctions and TCM’s “Legends: Hollywood and Royalty” event, with a dress estimated at $60,000 selling for a whopping $508,000, according to a Julien’s Auctions press release reviewed by Business Insider.

The shirt is the result of a fashion mishap

Elizabeth Emanuel said in a video for “Diana: Her Fashion Story” that the blouse — which she sold in 2010, according to Julien’s Auctions — only exists because of a mishap.

“A client had ordered a very pale pink dress, and as she took it off, she got mascara all over it, all over the hem,” Elizabeth said.

She and David decided to make an entirely new skirt for their client’s dress, leaving them with the previous, stained one. They weren’t sure what to do with at first, but then they had an idea.

“We chopped off the bit with the black mascara, and it looked pretty lonely,” Elizabeth said of the damaged skirt. “So we thought we better make a blouse to go with it.”

They then made the blouse from the spare material.

Diana selected the top after editors from Vogue showed her a variety of outfits to help her build her royal wardrobe. She “fell in love with” the blouse, as Elizabeth wrote in her 2006 book “A Dress for Diana.”

“So actually if that client hadn’t got mascara all over it, we wouldn’t have made the blouse,” Elizabeth added in the video, speaking about the top’s origin. “Who knows, we might not have met the princess. It’s all down to that bit of mascara.”

The mascara incident ended up being a life-changing moment for the Emanuels, as Diana chose them to design her iconic wedding dress, which had puffy sleeves and a 25-foot long train, after she wore the pink top.

Elizabeth told The Mirror in 2021 that she was “horrified” when she saw how wrinkled Diana’s dress was after she rode in a carriage to her wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey, though David told Hello! in 2020 that Diana wasn’t bothered by the wrinkles, even calling to thank him for the dress after her reception.

In addition to the Emanuel blouse, the Julien’s Auctions TCM Hollywood Legends auction will also feature a Jacques Azagury dress Diana wore on multiple occasions.

The gown has a velvet, embroidered bodice and an organza, dropped-waist skirt. Diana was photographed wearing the dress during two royal tours, one in Italy in 1985 and another in Canada in 1986.

The dress is expected to sell for between $100,000 and $200,000, and its proceeds will go to the New York Historical society, according to Julien’s.

• Over three days, Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas during its October 7 terror attack were released.
• Hamas agreed to release 50 Israelis in exchange for the release 150 Palestinians prisoners in Israel.
• Dozens of hostages and prisoners have meet with their families — see their emotional reunions.

Freed hostages and prisoners have been reunited with their families in emotional scenes in Israel and the West Bank.

Hamas released a further 17 hostages on Sunday, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hangari said on X. Israel responded by handing over 39 Palestinian prisoners. It follows the release of 41 hostages over Friday and Saturday.

Israeli authorities confirmed this morning they had released 39 Palestinian prisoners on Friday, including women and minors, the Guardian reported.

Hamas agreed to release 50 Israelis in exchange for Israel releasing 150 Palestinians under the terms of the four-day cease-fire.

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Several of the best Black Friday mattress deals have continued into the weekend.  Many top retailers are offering hundreds of dollars off popular beds; Tempur-Pedic, Nectar, Casper, and other top brands have sitewide sales that match or beat the best Black Friday mattress deals we saw last year.

As Insider Reviews’ mattress expert, I’ve tested and slept on more than 80 of the best mattresses for our guide. The best bed I’ve tested is the Leesa Sapira Hybrid, currently $300 off at Leesa. It dissipates heat well, has excellent motion isolation for couples, and features an average level of firmness that appeals to most sleep positions. Read our full Leesa Sapira Hybrid Mattress review. If you’re on a budget, we recommend the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress, marked down to $659 at Nectar, the best price we’ve seen on this bed.

Below are the best deals on mattresses and brands I’ve tested and recommend. If you’re looking for deals across home, kitchen, style, beauty, and tech, follow along as we continually update our best Black Friday deals hub.

The 5 best mattress Black Friday deals today

Best Black Friday mattress deals for side sleepers

The best mattresses for side sleepers tend to have a soft to medium-soft firmness to help keep your spine in a neutral position while you sleep. Fortunately, side sleepers have plenty of options since it’s the most popular position. Here are some of the best Black Friday deals on mattresses for side sleepers.

Best Black Friday mattress deals for back sleepers

Back sleepers generally don’t want their mattress to sink in too much. An average to medium-firm mattress works well to keep your spine aligned. These are the best Black Friday deals on mattresses for back sleepers.

Best Black Friday mattress deals for stomach sleepers

Stomach sleepers require the firmest mattresses for optimal body positioning. Since firmer mattresses are less common than medium or soft, I’ve included adjustable air bed options that allow you to choose a custom firmness.

Mattress Black Friday FAQs

What mattress brands are the best?

Tempur-Pedic is one of my favorite brands. The company’s proprietary foam cradles my body just right to quickly usher me off to sleep. It seems to work well no matter what position I’m in. Check out the Black Friday Tempur-Pedic sale.

Saatva is another popular brand, especially the Saatva Classic Mattress, currently $400 off at Saatva. I like that the company’s mattresses come with a lifetime warranty, free in-home set-up, and a year-long trial period. See our Saatva Black Friday sale article for the latest deals.

Lastly, Leesa makes my favorite mattress, the Leesa Sapira Hybrid. All Leesa mattresses I’ve tested have had a great balance of support and comfort. Visit our Black Friday Leesa mattress deals hub.

If you’d like to see more of our top picks for mattresses, check out our guide to the best mattresses.

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The internet is currently obsessed with insulated, handled straw tumblers, and they’re bound to be on many wishlists this holiday season. The Stanley Quencher is one of the most popular options in this category, but it’s sadly not discounted for Black Friday this year. Fortunately, the nearly identical Hydro Flask All Around Travel Tumber is on sale, and it might just be better than the Stanley.  

We’ve been rounding up all the best Black Friday deals and keeping track of the most popular sales. One of the fastest-selling deals on Amazon at the moment is this 25% off offer on the Hydro Flask tumbler. We love Hydro Flask water bottles; in fact, it’s a top pick in our guide to the best water bottles. These tumblers are exceptional at keeping water cold for as long as possible, and they offer great durability and reasonable weight for an insulated bottle. The deal is available in eight colors, and if you want to upgrade to the 40-ounce tumbler, you’ll pay just a few dollars more. 

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Apple AirPods and AirPods Pro remain Black Friday favorites because they are among the top wireless earbuds you can buy. They look sleek and produce great audio quality, but their seamless connectivity with iPhones, iPads, and Macs sets them apart from the competition. They are expensive when regularly priced, but you can find both models on sale as part of an early Black Friday AirPods deal. 

The new AirPods Pro with USB-C charging, at almost $60 off from Amazon, is discounted to its lowest sale price. Offering the best sound quality of any Apple earbuds, the AirPods Pro has active noise cancellation (ANC) to block out background sounds and supports lossless audio. In addition to USB-C, the case can also recharge via wireless, MagSafe, and Apple Watch chargers.

If you want to save even more and don’t need ANC, the standard AirPods is just $80 — which is only $10 more than the lowest they’ve ever dropped to. Note that this is the second-generation model, which has an older design and uses Lightning for charging. Nonetheless, it’s still a great pair of no-fuss earbuds that work well with Apple devices.

Read more about both models in our AirPods Pro review and AirPods 2 review.

If you’re looking for overear headphones rather than earbuds, Apple’s premium AirPods Max are also discounted by $100 at Amazon. AirPods Max offer great sound, ANC, and up to 20 hours of battery on a single charge. While the normal $550 price usually makes them less appealing than options like the Bose QuietComfort, the Black Friday deal provides better value for those committed to the Apple ecosystem.

Because AirPods always go on sale during the year, you should never pay full price. However, you’ll see the best AirPods deals during Black Friday, so now is a good time to get a pair if it’s on your wish list. 

For more top discounts on other products, check out our guide to the best Black Friday deals as well as all of the best Amazon Black Friday deals.

Which AirPods should I buy?

If you’re torn between which AirPods to buy, know that each is designed with a different user in mind. The second-generation AirPods Pro offer an excellent balance of performance, price, and comfort for most people, and they include premium features like active noise cancelation, adaptive sound, spatial audio, and water/sweat resistance. These perks help make them our overall pick for the best AirPods you can buy.

However, for the more budget-minded, the standard second-generation AirPods are still worthwhile. They deliver the same effortless connectivity with iPhones and offer solid sound quality. However, in exchange for their lower price, they’re missing ANC, water resistance, and spatial audio support.  

Apple also sells a midrange AirPods model, the AirPods (third-gen), which typically cost about $40 more than the second-gen model. The third-gen AirPods add water resistance and spatial audio but are still missing ANC. You can learn more about them in our third-gen AirPods review.

Finally, buyers who prefer an over-ear headphone design instead of earbuds, should consider the AirPods Max. These high-end headphones deliver premium sound quality, comfort, and battery life. Check out our AirPods Max review for more details. 

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Black Friday is a great time to load up on months of VPN access. Take NordVPN, for instance, which has one of the most mouthwatering offers among the trusted services we consider to be the best VPNs. You can get signed up for as little as $2.99 per month, depending on your chosen plan.

We’re monitoring more Black Friday VPN deals to help you squeeze even more value out of a tool that, quite frankly, has become invaluable in the information age. VPNs, short for virtual private networks, provide immense security and privacy benefits. If someone happens upon your network traffic with sniffing or tracking tools, they won’t be able to understand what you’re doing. NordVPN reinforces the security of up to six of your devices with military-grade network activity encryption. This VPN provider enforces a strict no-log policy, so it doesn’t keep any data about what you’re doing.

You can also knock down virtual border walls by routing your traffic through dozens of international servers, effectively allowing you to access websites that might otherwise be blocked in the country you’re connecting from. This is one of the best ways to access geographically restricted free live streams or international live streaming services, for instance. Using a VPN is the best way to access free NFL live streams and other sporting events, plus the growing library of free movies and TV shows being made available across the globe.

Below, we’ll explain how to get the most significant savings on this NordVPN Black Friday deal and all the other features you can unlock by snagging a subscription.

We’ll list the total and lowest monthly US prices for all available NordVPN plans below. You’ll likely see the equivalent discounted price in your local currency if you’re outside the US. Prices on annual plan options are usually displayed as effective ‘per month’ rates, but you’ll be charged upfront rather than once a month.  

NordVPN Black Friday deal

NordVPN plans and pricing explained

You’ll find quite a few options when browsing NordVPN plans. First, consider the plan length you want to sign up for. The monthly option (starting at $12.99 per month) sounds enticing with its flexibility to jump on and off at any time, but you won’t get any savings this route. You can only take advantage of this Black Friday deal by paying for one or two years upfront.

• The 2-year Standard plan costs $80.73 upfront, which is $2.99 per month over the life of the subscription. You save 65% compared to the month-to-month plan.
• The 1-year Standard plan costs $67.35 upfront, or $4.49 per month. You’ll save 45% in total.
• Each plan includes an extra three months for no additional cost.

You’ll also notice there are three tiers to choose from within each pricing structure. The monthly costs above increase by $1 per each step up you take. Here’s what you’ll get with each:

• Standard offers high-speed VPN connections and malware protection and blocks websites from tracking your activity and showing you ads.
• Plus includes everything Standard has and adds a complete cross-platform password manager, as well as the ability to scour the web to see whether sensitive information such as your email address, password, or credit card details have appeared in a data breach.
• Complete includes everything from Plus, but you also get 1TB of cloud storage with end-to-end file encryption.

All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re unsatisfied for any reason. Take a deeper dive into these plans and features by reading our NordVPN review. There, you’ll also get a better idea of the overall performance, convenience, and customer support you can expect.

• The CEO of Binance is set plead guilty to Justice Department charges, the WSJ reported.
• Changpeng Zhao will step down from his leadership role and Binance will pay a $4.3 billion fine.
• Binance has been in hot water as authorities have been taking a harder look at the exchange’s operations.

Binance chief Changpeng Zhao will step down from his role as CEO, and will plead guilty to charges that his crypto exchange violated US anti-money-laundering requirements, people familiar with the matter told the the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

Zhao is set to plead guilty to anti-money laundering charges, and Binance will pay a $4.3 billion fine at a federal court sources told the Journal. That amount will also include money to settle a lawsuit brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission earlier this year, which accused Binance and Zhao of failing to prevent illegal trading activity on the crypto exchange.

As part of the deal, Zhao will give up his leadership role at Binance, though he’ll continue to have majority ownership of the crypto exchange.

Binance is also set to plead guilty to the related charges, sources added, potentially putting an end to a Department of Justice investigation spanning nearly five years. 

Prosecutors were looking into Binance’s money laundering prevention measures, as well as whether the exchange allowed traders from sanctioned nations, like Russia and Iran, to conduct trades with American counterparties.

Binance, which is ranked as the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has been in hot water for months as regulators and law enforcement authorities took a harder look at the exchange’s operations. The exchange reportedly processed over $10 billion in illegal payments last year, according to Reuters, a claim that Binance denied.

Binance did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request to comment.

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Apple AirPods and AirPods Pro are among the top wireless earbuds you can buy, and for good reason. Their sleek design, great audio quality, and smooth connectivity with iPhones set them apart from the competition. But while they usually come with a high price tag, you can find both models on sale right now as part of an early Black Friday AirPods deal. 

Back down to their all-time lowest price, the AirPods Pro (second-gen) with USB-C charging are a steal at $60 off from Amazon. The AirPods Pro deliver the best sound quality of any Apple earbuds and they feature active noise cancelation (ANC) to block out background sounds. But if you don’t mind losing ANC, you can get the standard AirPods (second-gen) for even less money at just $79 — which is only $10 more than the lowest they’ve ever dropped to. You can learn more about both models in our AirPods Pro review and AirPods 2 review. 

Now, it’s not uncommon to find AirPods on sale throughout the year — in fact, we highly advise against ever paying full price for a pair. However, these Black Friday AirPods deals feature especially big price drops that we only see during limited-time sales like this. 

You can find even more top discounts on other products in our guide to the best Black Friday deals. And if you’re looking for more to add to your Amazon cart, check out our guide to the best Amazon Black Friday deals too.

Which AirPods should I buy?

If you’re torn between which AirPods to buy, know that each is designed with a different user in mind. The second-generation AirPods Pro offer an excellent balance of performance, price, and comfort for most people, and they include premium features like active noise cancelation, adaptive sound, spatial audio, and water/sweat resistance. These perks help make them our overall pick for the best AirPods you can buy.

However, for the more budget-minded, the standard second-generation AirPods are still worthwhile. They deliver the same effortless connectivity with iPhones and offer solid sound quality. However, in exchange for their lower price, they’re missing ANC, water resistance, and spatial audio support.  

Apple also sells a midrange AirPods model, the AirPods (third-gen), which typically cost about $40 more than the second-gen model. The third-gen AirPods add water resistance and spatial audio but are still missing ANC. You can learn more about them in our third-gen AirPods review.

Finally, buyers who prefer an over-ear headphone design instead of earbuds, should consider the AirPods Max. These high-end headphones deliver premium sound quality, comfort, and battery life. Check out our AirPods Max review for more details. 

• In 2023, a record number of low-income students took Advanced Placement exams.
• The College Board made about $500 million in revenue as a result.
• The problem? A sizable number of those low-income students didn’t pass.

For high school students across the United States, Advanced Placement courses offer a curriculum that not only exposes them to university-level work but can give them credits for college should they score high enough on end-of-course exams.

For many students from low-income and working-class backgrounds, the benefits of AP coursework can be the difference between saving tuition money from earned credits or forgoing college due to a lack of funding.

For the College Board, which created and administers the AP program, increasing access to AP coursework has been a significant part of the organization’s work over the past 20 years. And part of that push by the AP has been to increase the number of low-income students taking courses and exams, which requires a significant educational and financial investment.

However, as the College Board has pitched more schools to sign on to AP coursework and register students for exams, the performance levels for low-income test-takers has not dramatically shifted from the early 2000s: 60 percent of students from this demographic group only earned a 1 or 2 out of a possible 5 on the exam, which precludes them from earning college credit for the AP course.

In 2023, 38 percent of all test-takers scored a 1 or 2, with low-income students posting higher failure rates. Yet taxpayers this year shelled out at least $90 million to pay for AP exams that a sizable percentage of students didn’t pass, according to The New York Times.

The Times, based on its own analysis of College Board files and local education budgets, said that the organization receives about $100 million each year in public money for AP exams. In response to The Times, the College Board said that in 2023, it had received at least $90 million from the federal government to cover exam fees.

In tax filings, the College Board stated that it took in roughly $5 million to $6 million in direct government funding each year, according to the newspaper.

‘The best stuff in education’

At $98 per exam for US test-takers, AP fees bring in a lot of money to the organization, and the push to enroll more low-income students into the program comes at a time where revenue from the SAT — the College Board test that in recent years has become optional for students applying to a swath of institutions — has sharply declined.

The Times reported that from 2019 to 2022, SAT revenue dropped from $403.6 million to $289.2 million, a reflection of the test being less ubiquitous in the college admissions process.

The College Board stands firmly behind its AP push, though, pointing to equity and the need to expand education opportunities for students who may not have been initially on a college coursework track.

“What if the best stuff in education were not just for the best to distinguish themselves — but could engage a much broader set of kids?” College Board chief executive David Coleman said during a podcast earlier this year. “Why are we holding it for some?”

The College Board, reflecting on its own analysis, stated that AP coursework boosts students across the board, independent of their respective scores on the exam.

The organization has made this argument as AP has morphed into its financial crown jewel. The program in 2022 brought in nearly $500 million in revenue.

While the AP expansion has offered more opportunities to a broad range of students, questions remain regarding the actual preparedness of low-income students, as they often lack the funding to pay for expensive test preparation courses and may not have been exposed to as much high-level work as their upper-income peers before high school.

In 2023, a record 1.1 million students from low-income households took AP exams, per The Times. It’s a sharp increase from 2003 when 153,000 low-income students took the exams.

Overall, 5.2 million students sat down for AP exams in 2023, a more than threefold increase from 2002, when 1.6 million students took the exams.

Trevor Packer, who heads the Advanced Placement program, told The Times that the number of students taking on the intense AP curriculum and the push to find students who can perform well in the classes more than makes up for the low scores from many test-takers.

In a statement, the College Board said that the money it receives from the government — about 18 percent of its overall revenue — was “minimal” compared to its operating revenue.

“We believe these are worthwhile investments in preparing all students for their futures,” the organization said. “We recognize that all students are not yet receiving equitable preparation for AP coursework and that such work requires addressing inequities that occur years prior.”

It’s been less than 24 hours since OpenAI announced that its high-profile CEO Sam Altman was fired because the board no longer had “confidence in his ability” to lead and that Altman was “not consistently candid in his communications.”

The news came as a shock to the tech world, including employees at OpenAI and Microsoft, which has invested about $13 billion into the ChatGPT maker. 

But as a few new details of the ouster emerge, some have begun to describe it as a “coup,” or even a “hostile takeover,” journalist Kevin Roose said on a recent episode of Hard Fork, a New York Times podcast about tech. 

Altman was pretty “popular” within the ranks of OpenAI, and recruited a number of its employees. So many of them were baffled by the news of his sudden departure, Roose said. 

OpenAI’s now ex-president and cofounder, Greg Brockman — who quit in protest after Altman’s firing — said on X that Altman was given very little notice about his departure. 

In his X post, Brockman said on Thursday night, Altman received a text from Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s cofounder and chief scientist, asking to talk at noon the following day.

When Altman logged on to the Google Meet link on Friday, he was joined by the entirety of OpenAI’s board, Brockman said. Sutskever told Altman he was being fired and that they would publicize the news soon.

Minutes later, Brockman said he received a text from Sutskever asking to chat. Sutskever informed Brockman that Altman had been fired. And Brockman said he, too, was told that he was being removed from his role on OpenAI’s board but that he was still “vital” to the company and could remain as president. The company’s management team was made aware of the leadership changes shortly after that, Brockman said. 

Mira Murati, who has now assumed the role of interim CEO, was informed of the executive shake-up on Thursday night, Brockman noted in his post. 

“Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today,” Brockman said.

While the board’s actions are enigmatic by any account, it’s worth noting that OpenAI also operates by a rather unconventional corporate structure.

OpenAI launched in 2015 as a nonprofit. Then, in 2019, it announced a “capped profit” company, according to its website. So, it’s now made up of a nonprofit board that operates a for-profit entity, and most board members don’t own shares in the company. Altman, himself, took no equity in the company when it went for-profit. 

Altman’s departure has thrown Cerebral Valley, the moniker for San Francisco’s booming AI enclave, into a state of uncertainty. 

Annie Wright, a psychotherapist in the Bay Area, who’s been observing the pulse of the area for years, said she, too, was shocked by the news in a text to Insider. 

“AI makes the Bay feel like the Wild West in a gold rush and this feels analogous to the town Sheriff getting gunned down,” Wright said.