Category: Laptops

Pence said he disagreed with Trump’s positions on various policy issues.

“As I have watched his candidacy unfold, I’ve seen him walking away from our commitment to confronting the national debt. I’ve seen him starting to shy away from a commitment to the sanctity of human life,” Pence said.

Pence also criticized Trump for flip-flopping on TikTok, which he considered banning in the last year of his presidency.

Trump has now expressed support for the app as the House of Representatives passed a bill that could force its parent company, the Chinese company ByteDance, to sell TikTok or face a ban.

“Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years. That’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign,” Pence said.

Pence refused to say who he would vote for in November but said he would “never” vote for President Joe Biden.

Trump and Pence’s relationship soured after the then-vice president certified the results of the 2020 election.

During the January 6 Capitol riot, some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” and Trump later defended them.

After Pence’s short-lived presidential campaign, Trump called on Pence to endorse him.

Trump became the GOP’s presumptive nominee on Tuesday, hours after Biden won his party’s presumptive nomination, confirming that the election will most likely be a rematch between the two.

• Cabinet Alberto Pinto is the design firm behind the interior of one of the world’s largest private jets.
• Owned by a Middle Eastern businessman, this BBJ 747-8i likely costs hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Designing and implementing the interior of the ultra-luxurious Boeing jet took the firm four years to finish.

The 747-8i Boeing Business Jet, which is a VIP-configured variant of the civilian jumbo plane, is the world’s largest private aircraft in active operation.

The dual-level jumbo takes private flying to the next level as a flying palace capable of traversing time zones in the absolute pinnacle of luxury air travel.

Marketed to governments and the world’s elite, these giant jumbo planes cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

For example, the US government paid about $325 million each for its two specially modified presidential Boeing 747-200B aircraft, more commonly known as Air Force One. 

Famed French interior design firm Cabinet Alberto Pinto was tasked with creating the interior of one multi-million BBJ 747-8i, which was purchased for private use by a Middle Eastern businessman. The list price of the -8i model went for about $400 million, according to the Business Jet Traveler, but the sale cost was undisclosed.

Take a look inside the flying mansion.

• “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” called out Elon Musk over his drama with Don Lemon.
• In a parody video, Musk has a conversation with himself asking softball questions.
• Musk canceled X’s partnership with Lemon after being asked about ketamine use, Trump, and moderating X.

Stephen Colbert mocked Elon Musk reportedly bristling at the interview questions that Don Lemon said led to the end of his partnership deal with X.

The late-night host posted a video about “the Elon interview of Elon” that includes a parody clip of Musk interviewing himself. The video points out that Musk is a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” but reportedly was angered at the subject matter Lemon asked during their real-life interview.

“Coming soon: The only interview style that meets Elon Musk’s approval,” Colbert captioned a post on Threads.

The clip depicts the parody Elon Musk sitting across from himself asking softball questions.

“Coming soon to X, Elon Musk sits down with the only person on the platform that can be trusted with free speech: Elon Musk,” a narrator says. “Elon asks Elon the tough questions.”

The parody Musk then asks if the Tesla CEO is good at his job, works hard, and has high integrity. The other Musk answers affirmatively to each question.

The narrator closes out the Colbert video joking that X is “where everyone named Elon can speak Freelon.”

Former CNN host Lemon announced on Wednesday that the deal he’d announced with X for “The Don Lemon Show” had been terminated by Musk hours after he’d interviewed the owner of the platform. Lemon said Musk had grown “upset” and “mad” at questions about his reported ketamine use, recent meeting with Trump, and whether he held a responsibility to moderate antisemitism and hate speech on the platform.

Musk invited Lemon to work with X on his show after he and CNN parted ways. In his statement on his canceled partnership, Lemon said the X owner had gone back on his word.

“His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems to not include questions of him from people like me,” Lemon said.

Following his announcement, the official X Business account put out its own statement on the issue. It emphasized the company’s support of free speech and assured that “The Don Lemon Show” would be allowed to post its content to X — but that its partnership with Lemon wasn’t happening.

“However, like any enterprise, we reserve the right to make decisions about our business partnerships, and after careful consideration, X decided not to enter into a commercial partnership with the show,” the statement said.

Lemon’s interview with Musk is still set to premiere as part of the “The Don Lemon Show” on Monday.

Defense lawyers, meanwhile, are demanding “dismissal of the Indictment and severe sanctions,” against Manhattan prosecutors as punishment for this late production of evidence, they said in a motion made public Thursday. Short of that, the defense is asking that the trial date be delayed by at least 90 days.

Meanwhile, as they wait for Merchan to calm the chaos and pick a new trial-start date, lawyers for Trump and for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg are filing dueling court documents that blame each other for the delay.

Bragg’s side said it has shown only “diligence” in seeking evidence relating to Cohen’s federal prosecution. The defense has only dragged its feet in seeking the same evidence, prosecutors said.

But in his own filing, Trump attorney Todd Blanche countered that Bragg’s lawyers “have engaged in widespread misconduct” by attempting to “suppress” the federal evidence in an effort to improve their chances at trial.

“The People should have collected all of these documents long ago,” Blanche claimed in his motion.

“Instead, they collected some materials but left others with the federal authorities, in the hope that President Trump would never get them,” his motion says.

Both sides appear to agree that the delay was triggered by some 73,000 pages of records — sought for months by both the DA’s office and the defense — that have been turned over in tranches throughout this month by the US Attorney’s Office.

Of that massive evidence dump, some 31,000 pages were turned over only Wednesday, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo wrote in a letter to the trial judge on Thursday.

More pages are expected to be turned over by federal prosecutors next week, Colangelo wrote.

But each side is accusing the other of footdragging in pursuing this last-minute evidence, which includes federal grand jury minutes, tapes, witness lists and other documents relating to Cohen — the former Trump fixer who is now a key hush-money prosecution witness.

In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court to charges that included making an illegal campaign contribution on Trump’s behalf, namely the same $130,000 hush money payment at the center of Trump’s upcoming state trial.

REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz; Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The 2016 payment, which purchased porn star Stormy Daniels’ silence just 11 days before the presidential election, was made “at the direction of” Trump, Cohen said. He is expected to repeat that account at Trump’s upcoming trial.

At the time of the payment, Daniels was about to go public with her account of having slept with Trump during a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2008. The alleged tryst was shortly after Melania Trump gave birth to their son, Barron Trump.

So far, Manhattan prosecutors have confirmed that only 176 pages of the newly-produced materials appear to be relevant to Trump’s case, Colangelo said in his letter to Merchan, the hush-money judge.

The evidence turned over Wednesday appears to include additional material related to the state case, Colangelo added.

The assistant prosecutor blamed the late, ongoing evidence dump — and the resulting need for a delay — on federal prosecutors and the Trump defense.

The materials turned over Wednesday included evidence that Manhattan prosecutors requested from federal prosecutors “more than a year ago and that the USAO previously declined to provide,” Colangelo complained in his letter to the judge, using the acronym for US Attorney’s Office.

The materials are being produced in response to a subpoena that defense lawyers first served on the US Attorney’s Office back in January, Colangelo also wrote.

“Defendant waited until January 18, 2024, to subpoena additional materials from the USAO and then consented to repeated extensions of the deadline for the USAO’s determination,” the assistant prosecutor wrote.

“The timing of the USAO’s productions is a result solely of defendant’s delay despite the People’s diligence.”

Manhattan prosecutors remain ready to start trial on March 25, but would agree to a delay of up to 30 days “in an abundance of caution,” Colangelo wrote.

Merchan has not indicated when he will decide on the dismissal request or the trial date.

But less than three years on, the partnership is headed for a messy divorce.

A UTA spokesperson said Tuesday Kassan was “terminated for cause” on March 7 “following a thorough and exhaustive third-party investigation into misappropriation of company funds.” The talent agency filed a lawsuit against him in the Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, alleging constructive fraud, and breaches of a partner services agreement, fiduciary duty, and duty of loyalty.

Kassan’s attorney on Tuesday said he had filed his own claim with the Los Angeles Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, naming UTA and its CEO Jeremy Zimmer among the defendants and alleging they breached his contract by cutting his expense account and minimizing MediaLink’s role in overseeing UTA’s marketing division. The complaint, a copy of which was sent to Business Insider, claims Kassan wasn’t fired but instead resigned from MediaLink on March 6. Kassan is claiming for breach of contract, fraud in the inducement, and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

MediaLink is deeply embedded in all aspects of the ad industry

MediaLink works with nearly every element of the media and marketing business — running agency reviews, providing consultancy to tech firms looking for customers and acquirers, headhunting C-suite execs, and linking publishers with advertisers. To some detractors, MediaLink’s tactics are described as like a “mafia” because it’s so deeply embedded and receives a paycheck from almost every part of the business. But Kassan, publicly at least, took that moniker as a compliment. “No conflict, no interest,” is Kassan’s motto.

Now, Madison Avenue is buzzing about whether the MediaLink mafia can continue without its Godfather.

“Half the value just walked out the door,” said Jon Miller, a veteran media executive who serves as CEO of Integrated Media, which specializes in digital media investments.

“It’s the end of MediaLink,” said an executive at a competitor firm to MediaLink, which expects to pick up business as a result of the UTA turmoil. “If there ever was a business that was completely tied to its CEO, it’s that.” The exec, like many people contacted for this story, asked for anonymity to speak freely on a sensitive situation or because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly.

A UTA spokesperson said MediaLink has a strong executive team in place that continues to carry the business forward. “There will not be any disruption for our clients,” the UTA spokesperson said. A spokesperson for MediaLink directed a request for comment to UTA.

Kassan’s attorney, Sanford Michelman of Michelman and Robinson, said in a statement that his client’s first priority is the success and continued growth of MediaLink.

“He looks forward to ensuring its continued success in the industry,” the statement said.

Talent agencies are retrenching

UTA’s acquisition of MediaLink was one example of a long trend of talent agencies branching out to advertising services.

In 2013, it was Endeavor’s WME buying a 49% stake in Droga5 (which was later unloaded to consulting giant Accenture).

Before buying MediaLink, UTA already had a marketing arm, led by Julian Jacobs and David Anderson, which connects brands to Hollywood; it recently brokered a deal that put General Motors cars in Netflix shows, for instance. UTA also recently acquired JUV Consulting, an agency that helps marketers reach Gen Z.

“There was always the idea that if you have the connection to culture, you can extract a lot of money from Madison Avenue,” said a former creative agency CEO. “It’s just easier said than done.”

Lately, there are signs that the agencies are retrenching, however. WME is expected to sell non-core parts of its business after parent Endeavor said last fall that it was evaluating “strategic alternatives” for its assets. And the talent agencies have exited the content business to resolve a dispute with the Writers Guild of America.

After falling out with Kassan, UTA may think twice about buying another agency.

Who will run MediaLink now?

The media and ad industry will be watching to see what, if any, leadership changes UTA makes at MediaLink.

Kassan is 73 and was facing questions about his succession plans before this latest blow-up. A prior obvious natural successor, Kassan’s longtime right hand, Wenda Harris Millard, left in 2022. People familiar with the company were hard-pressed to come up with names of top lieutenants whose industry stature came close to matching Kassan’s. And the rift with UTA could complicate its ability to bring in outside talent to run it, should it try to do so.

One client noted that Kassan had built a strong bench of talent at MediaLink, and a former MediaLink executive said that while Kassan was a driving force behind the company winning new business, he wasn’t involved in most of the projects it works on.

As for what’s next for Kassan, speculation has run the gamut, with people imagining variously Kassan starting over on his own, settling with UTA, or buying his firm back. There’s also conjecture about the nature of the breakup between him and UTA head Zimmer, and whether there will be more juicy details to learn about Kassan’s alleged spending and the MediaLink acquisition agreement beyond what has already been reported.

Kassan has a loyal following, and it’s easy to imagine people giving him another chance, as they have done in the past. In 1999, he was fired by Western Initiative Media Worldwide, part of ad holding company Interpublic Group, after he sued the media buying company for $63.5 million, alleging breach of contract and defamation of character. The suit was settled. And in 1995, he was suspended from practicing law in California after a conviction for grand theft by embezzlement. The charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor and expunged from his record.

“It’d be easier for him to start MediaLink 2.0,” said Lou Paskalis, a former Bank of America marketer and the founder and CEO of AJL Advisory. “All of us are going to just move from MediaLink to whatever Michael’s new company is, because you’re buying Michael Kassan.”

The end of the ad industry schmoozefest?

MediaLink grew out of a time when mistrust between agencies and marketers was running high, and the media landscape was growing more complicated with the entry of tech giants. Over the years, the business of building community in the ad industry has attracted new players like Marc Sternberg’s Brand Innovators and Pttow, but they haven’t come close to supplanting MediaLink.

The tech companies have only gotten more powerful, and now AI is threatening to disrupt media buyers’ and sellers’ businesses even further. There still may be a place for connectors like Kassan. But agencies in particular are also frustrated about their reliance on MediaLink, especially because participating in the media agency reviews that MediaLink oversees comes at a high cost. One industry veteran said they saw Kassan’s exit as an opportunity to change how ad industry consultants operate and charge for services.

Kassan’s departure may mark the beginning of the end of the advertising industry schmoozefest. At the center of the dispute between UTA and Kassan is the MediaLink founder’s $950,000 annual expense account. Cannes Lions, where MediaLink is omnipresent, is the ultimate industry tentpole event, where deals are signed on yachts in the opulent setting of the French Riviera. MediaLink parties attracted big-name — and expensive — performers, from Lady Gaga to Elton John and Mariah Carey. (Kassan was notably absent from South by Southwest in Austin this month, where MediaLink hosted a client dinner with former NFL quarterback Tom Brady.)

“Who else in the industry has the convening power of Michael Kassan?” said advertising industry veteran Rob Norman, the former global chief digital officer of WPP’s GroupM. “If you pull that bolt out, does the rest of it fall over? Then does it still matter to UTA?”

“This is a vindication of the Constitution and the principles the founders were trying to achieve,” Ken Cuccinelli, the lawyer and former Trump White House official leading the suit, told Business Insider in an interview.

Cuccinelli’s lawsuit, first reported by POLITICO, was filed last week on behalf of Republican Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas and a trio of ex-lawmakers from both parties — and it hinges primarily on the 27th Amendment to the US Constitution:

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

The amendment was first submitted to the states for ratification along with the amendments that later became the Bill of Rights — but it wasn’t ratified until 1992, over 200 years later.

The suit argues that Congress has violated the US Constitution by routinely denying lawmakers an annual cost of living adjustment in their salaries.

Since 2009, rank-and-file lawmakers’ salaries have remained flat at $174,000 because government funding bills have included a provision explicitly blocking a modest pay increase that would otherwise happen. Almost every year, Congress votes on those bills — and they take effect — without an election happening in between.

Because lawmakers’ salaries are not keeping pace with inflation and increasing under the cost of living adjustment that would otherwise take place, the suit argues that their wages are being “varied” by being effectively suppressed, thus violating the 27th Amendment.

“You’ve got a situation now where you either have to be rich to go into Congress, or you have to sacrifice your family,” said Cuccinelli, noting that lawmakers are typically expecting to maintain two separate residences — one in DC, and one in their home state.

The suit calculates the amount of additional wages that the ex-lawmakers are owed, including:

• $753,300 for Democratic Ed Perlmutter of Colorado

• $563,800 for Republican Rodney Davis of Illinois

• $268,839 for Republican Tom Davis of Virginia

Estimating that roughly 1800 current and former lawmakers have been affected by the routine denial of cost of living adjustments, the plaintiffs are seeking roughly $50 million in damages from the government.

It goes without saying that this is unpopular with the public — despite the potential good-government benefits of raising lawmakers’ salaries, polling has consistently shown that Americans hate the idea of giving Congress a raise.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

But Cuccinelli — who previously served as the Republican Attorney General of Virginia, the acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security under President Donald Trump, and at one point, the head of a pro-Ron DeSantis super PAC — says he doesn’t care in the least.

“If you know anything about my history, obviously I’m a conservative and a constitutionalist. I suffer from severe idealism,” he said. “I don’t think the Constitution was written to restrain government actions in ways that would always be popular.”

“People who don’t like it should take it up with James Madison,” Cuccinelli added, referring to the fourth US president and the original proponent of the 27th Amendment. “I’m not embarrassed to be on the side of James Madison.”

Cuccinelli said he was first inspired to pursue this case when he helped a trio of Republican congressmen with a lawsuit over the fines that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi imposed on them for skirting the magnetometers that used to stand at each entrance to the House chamber. That suit also alleged a violation of the 27th Amendment, though a judge later dismissed the case.

He also lauded the bravery of Crawford — who faces reelection in November, unlike the other plaintiffs — as taking a “courageous step” by joining the lawsuit.

Workhorse transport planes fighting as bombers

US Army Photo

Traditionally, the Air Force’s workhorse transport planes, like the C-17 Globemaster III and MC-130J Commando II, have aided in the strategic and rapid delivery of fuel and supplies via airdrop. The big aircraft can also carry personnel.

These two types of planes were selected for the initiative because turning them into bombers required fewer modifications and training.

“The beauty of that capability is it doesn’t require any aircraft modifications,” Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, then-deputy chief of staff of US Air Force Special Operations Command, told reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association conference, which Business Insider attended at the time.

“It doesn’t require any special aircrew training. It really just takes advantage of the characteristics of that platform.”

The MC-130J can climb 28,000 feet with a 42,000 payload and has a range of 3,000 miles. Slife said the cargo plane can carry as many long-range weapons as a B-52.

“An MC-130J is the perfect aircraft for this capability because we can land and operate from 3,000-foot highways and austere landing zones whereas a bomber cannot,” Lt. Col. Valerie Knight, 352nd Wing mission commander, said in a release in November 2022.

The C-17 has a payload capacity of nearly 171,000 pounds, designed to transport armored vehicles, trucks, and trailers, as well as airdrop more than 100 paratroopers and their accompanying equipment. This plane, given its size, can carry three times as many long-range precision munitions as a B-52 bomber, according to Slife.

• Alabama Sen. Katie Britt defended the sex trafficking account she described during her SOTU rebuttal.
• Britt was criticized for linking a decades-old story of a victim in Mexico to President Joe Biden.
• On Fox News, Britt said she was clear with her comments and denied that her language was deceptive.

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt stepped into the center of the political spotlight last week and may wish she could step out of it.

With her Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, Britt became a target for fact-checkers and late-night comedians.

While arguing Biden “invited” the immigration crisis at the southern border, Britt brought up an anecdote of a sex trafficking victim who she said she spoke with after taking office in 2023.

“I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas. That’s where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped,” Britt said.

While describing the devastating circumstances of the woman’s case, Britt seemed to imply that it took place under Biden’s administration.

“We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace,” Britt said.

The catch is that the case Britt referred to happened in Mexico during the second George W. Bush administration. The victim has testified to being abused from 2004 to 2008, and a fact-check by The Washington Post found no evidence that cartels were involved, despite Britt’s claims to the contrary.

Asked if she meant to “give the impression that this horrible story happened on Biden’s watch” on Fox News by Shannon Bream on Sunday, Britt defended her wording.

“No, Shannon, look, I very specifically said this is what President Biden did during his first 100 days,” detailing the president’s immigration policies and executive actions Britt disagreed with.

Britt said she was simply contrasting Biden’s first days with her own first 100 days in office, during which she said she visited the border multiple times and spoke with “previous victims of drug cartels.”

“Okay but to be clear, the story that you relayed is not something that’s happened under the Biden administration, that particular person?” Bream pressed.

“Well, I very clearly said I spoke to a woman who told me about when she was trafficked when she was 12,” Britt replied. “I didn’t say a teenager, I didn’t say a young woman. A grown woman, a woman.”

Speaking with the Post, Britt’s communications director Sean Ross disagreed with the premise that Britt’s language about the anecdote was deceptive.

“The story Senator Britt told was 100% correct,” Ross told the Post, arguing that Biden’s policies have “empowered the cartels” to victimize more people “than ever before.”

Ross did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider on Sunday.

• The Russian government is cracking down on citizens who oppose the war.
• Some 260 people have been jailed for anti-war stances, a Russian human rights organization said.
• The crackdown comes as Russians mourn the death of prominent Putin critic Alexey Navalny.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine plods onward, so does its severe surveillance of citizens who have spoken out against the war effort.

As the invasion enters its third year, authorities have been bringing up charges against citizens like 70-year-old human rights activist Oleg Orlov for “discrediting the army,” CNN reported.

“The state in our country is once again controlling not only social, political, and economic life but is now claiming full control over culture, scientific thought, and is inserting itself in private life. It’s becoming all-pervasive,” Orlov said during his trial in Moscow, after which he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, CNN reported.

His crime was penning an article in the French press in 2022 about Russia’s descent into fascism and President Vladimir Putin’s “mass murder of the Ukrainian people,” according to The New York Times.

Some 260 people are currently detained in Russian jails for their antiwar sentiments, according to OVD-Info, a Russian human rights group, CNN reported.

Shortly after the invasion began in February 2022, Putin signed a law punishing people who share “false information” with up to 15 years in prison. People have faced punishment for benign acts of protest, like holding up a blank posterboard or even referring to the conflict as a war, according to Human Rights Watch.

“They will imprison old people, they will imprison people who have disabilities. They will imprison people with children, women with children,” Darya Korolenko, a lawyer at OVD-Info, told CNN. “They just want everyone to be silent.”

Similar to Orlov’s case, an elderly woman named Evgeniya Mayboroda was jailed for reposting what authorities called anti-war stances on social media, CNN reported.

In another case, 67-year-old Nadezhda Buyanova, a doctor in Moscow, was arrested and had her apartment searched after she was accused of sympathizing with Ukraine.

Russia’s tightening grip comes on the heels of the death of Alexey Navalny, one of Putin’s top critics whose sudden demise in a Russian prison has been blamed on state actors. Hundreds of Russians nationwide were detained at memorials for the late Navalny.

• The US and other countries delivered humanitarian aid to residents in the Gaza Strip this month.
• Photos showed US military personnel loading pallets of aid aboard a C-130J Super Hercules.
• The airdrops come ahead of Biden promising to build a temporary port to get more aid into Gaza.

The US carried out its first military airdrop into Gaza earlier this month, delivering thousands of meals and other humanitarian aid to the war-torn enclave.

These images show how the US Air Force is carrying out the humanitarian missions that advocates warn aren’t enough.