• Naomi Osaka made a shock announcement on Twitter on Monday.
• The world's number one women's tennis player confirmed her split from the 2018 WTA Coach of the Year Sascha Bajin.
• The decision comes just 16 days after she won her second career Grand Slam title, the 2019 Australian Open, and months after winning her first, the 2018 US Open.
• Nobody in the tennis industry seems to know why they have parted ways.

Naomi Osaka has split with the coach who guided her from world number 68 to a two-time Grand Slam champion, and nobody knows why.

Osaka joined forces with the 34-year-old tennis coach Sascha Bajin in December 2017, one month after being ranked 68th in the world by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA).

Six months later, Bajin had guided Osaka into the top 20. And, within two years of benefiting from his tutelage, Osaka won her first major trophy, the 2018 US Open final where she outclassed Serena Williams in straight sets.

Read more: Naomi Osaka has signed a 3-year endorsement deal with Nissan — and she's well on her way to becoming the biggest star in tennis

Now, just 16 days after winning her second major — the 2019 Australian Open— Osaka made an announcement that shocked the tennis industry as she confirmed her split from Bajin.

"Hey everyone, I will no longer be working together with Sascha,"Osaka wrote on Twitter on Monday. "I thank him for his work and wish him all the best in the future."

Within an hour, Bajin said: "Thank you Naomi. I wish you nothing but the best as well. What a ride that was. Thank you for letting me be part of this."

Osaka's decision took the sport by surprise

Bajin was the 2018 WTA Coach of the Year and had previously worked with Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, and Caroline Wozniacki.

Considering Bajin's pedigree and the wild success Osaka enjoyed under his watch, the decision to part ways is "surprising,"according to the New York Times tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg.

Rothenberg even wrote that "the reasons for the split were unclear."

Neither Bajin, Osaka, or her agent Stuart Duguid have elaborated on what caused the split but it will likely be a hot topic in the weeks ahead.

The 21-year-old, currently without a coach, plays in the Dubai Tennis Championships in the United Arab Emirates on February 18. It is her first tournament since becoming the number one women's tennis player on the planet.

SEE ALSO: Naomi Osaka admitted her fear of 'slipping and sliding' on grass courts ahead of Wimbledon

DON'T MISS: One of Naomi Osaka's sponsors has issued a groveling apology after accusations of 'white-washing' her in an advert

UP NEXT: Naomi Osaka has signed a 3-year endorsement deal with Nissan — and she's well on her way to becoming the biggest star in tennis

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NOW WATCH: Why hosting the Super Bowl isn't worth it, according to an economist

• A study has found a link between eating ultra-processed foods and dying earlier.
• Ultra-processed foods go through processes like heating and are often full of additives.
• They include ready-to-heat meals and hotdogs, burgers, and fries.
• Over half of what we eat could be ultra-processed.
• A good way to cut back is to cook more meals at home.

A major study has just found a link between eating ultra-processed foods — like microwave meals, pizza, burgers, and fries — and dying earlier.

The research from France, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, involved monitoring the diets of 44,000 people between 2009 and 2017. The results showed that people faced a 14% higher risk of early death with every extra 10% of ultra-processed foods they ate.

Most of the participants were over the age of 45, and the majority were female. Every six months they were asked to fill out surveys about everything they consumed in 24 hours. After seven years of being followed, 602 people had died — 219 from cancer and 34 from cardiovascular disease.

"An increase in ultra-processed foods consumption appears to be associated with an overall higher mortality risk among this adult population," the researchers wrote in their conclusion. "Further prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings and to disentangle the various mechanisms by which ultra-processed foods may affect health."

The results were self-reported, which can be inaccurate. But observational studies are the only option when it comes to assessing the impact of dietary differences because it would be unethical to ask a group of people only to eat ultra-processed foods, which are rich in fat and salt and low in fiber.

Over half of what we eat could be 'ultra-processed'

A recent study found that 61% of an adult's diet in the US, 62% in Canada, and 63% in the UK came from ultra-processed foods. To be defined as "ultra-processed" food goes through several processes, including being heated to high temperatures, and the addition of chemicals like emulsifiers and texturizers. Many foods you buy and stick in the oven fall into this category.

According to The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the more ultra-processed food we eat, the worse our diet. One way to cut back is to cook more meals at home, and eat with friends because studies have shown that people who dine together eat better.

Read more: Eating fried chicken every day could mean you die earlier, according to a new study

Restaurant meals can be fresh and healthy too, the Foundation said on its website, but "challenge yourself to fill half your plate with vegetables wherever you dine, and choose items that are baked, poached, stir-fried or grilled rather than deep-fried."

Ultra-processed foods are disproportionately consumed by lower-income people, Professor Nita Forouhi from Cambridge University's School of Clinical Medicine told Medical Xpress.

"Consumption of highly processed foods reflects social inequalities — they are consumed disproportionately more by individuals with lower incomes or education levels, or those living alone," she said.

"Such foods are attractive because they tend to be cheaper, are highly palatable due to high sugar, salt and saturated fat content, are widely available ... More needs to be done to address these inequalities."

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NOW WATCH: We compared Apple's $159 AirPods to Xiaomi's $30 AirDots and the winner was clear

Three US Air Force personnel have reportedly been injured during a parachuting training exercise at a US Air Force base in Miami-Dade County, Florida, early Tuesday morning, the local NBC6 news channel reported.

The three injured victims were training for a HALO — High Altitude, Low Open — jump at Homestead Air Force Base, NBC6 reported, citing unnamed sources.

HALO jumps involve jumping from as high as 14,000 feet then waiting longer than usual to open the chute. 

Emergency personnel arrived to the scene shortly after 4 a.m. local time, NBC6 reported, with all victims taken to hospital.

Local WPLG news anchor Eric Yutzy tweeted photos of rescue workers transporting stretchers to an air ambulance.

The victims' conditions are not known.

Business Insider has contacted the Department of Defense and Air Force for comment.

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NOW WATCH: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un is 35 — here's how he became one of the world's scariest dictators

• Citigroup's venture arm, Citi Ventures, has put money into nearly 50 companies over the years.
• Citi CIO Vanessa Colella explains what the bank looks for when investing in a startup.

Earlier this year, Citigroup rolled out a partnership with Feedzai — an artificial-intelligence-powered fraud-detection company— to bolster the bank's ability to alerts clients in its Treasury and Trade Solutions business to aberrant or suspicious payments.

For a division that processes $4 trillion each day for thousands of corporations and public institutions across the world, the potential impact could be substantial, especially given the alert process has historically been rife with false positives that sap time and resources.

The partnership blossomed from an investment Citi Ventures made two years earlier in the budding startup, which is increasingly the path for fintech firms that catch the bank's eye as well as its formidable checkbook. 

"We've explored a lot of different ways of interacting with startups. We believe that it's critical to not just be watching startups, but to actually be in the game with them," Vanessa Colella, Citigroup CIO and head of Citi Ventures, recently told Business Insider. "We all said, it's not enough to even get front-row seats. You have to actually suit up and be in the game."

Other startups the bank has invested in and subsequently integrated into its own businesses recently include HighRadius, which uses machine learning to streamline money-collection processes, and Braze, which focuses on improving companies' digital engagement with customers.

Citi Ventures has put money into nearly 50 startups so far — several which they've already exited — which fall under one of five umbrellas: fintech, commerce and payment, cybersecurity, machine learning, and customer experience. Some of the more familiar names include digital wealth management firm Betterment, cybersecurity company Tanium, and technology services company Plaid. 

How does the bank decide which startups are right to invest in? Colella laid out her approach to Business Insider:

"When we invest at Citi, we're looking for companies that have product-market fit. They might be very early, seed-stage companies, or they might be Series B raises, but they've got product-market fit. In many ways, our portfolio companies have already gone through that kind of process where they had an idea, they went out to market, they tried to figure out "Was this quite right or not?" And they've landed on that product-market fit.

...

"What we've found at Citi is that we can be most helpful to entrepreneurs after they've gone through that initial phase and they really know what product, what service they're trying to bring to market and why it's better, and we can help them accelerate that. Everyone has a different formula, but that's how it works here."

A company that's still figuring out its idea or is mainly looking for financing is unlikely to find traction with Citi Ventures.

But, if a fintech has already developed a promising solution to a client frustration, Citi is happy to invest and use its global scale and relationships to accelerate growth.

As Citi CEO Michael Corbat told Bloomberg last month in Davos: "Think about that fintech company that has come up with technology, it can do something well and can bring it on to our platform and touch 140 million clients around the world in 100 countries, and we can scale them on day one."

Sign up here for our weekly newsletter Wall Street Insider, a behind-the-scenes look at the stories dominating banking, business, and big deals.

• Read more:
• We spoke with Citi's innovation chief about which fintechs it wants to invest in, how its internal 'Shark Tank' judges know when to kill an idea, and why red tape helps some startups flourish
• The head of innovation at $483 billion insurance giant John Hancock shared an anecdote about a fax machine to highlight the gap between fintechs and finance giants
• How JPMorgan's CIO decides which startups to partner with, which to invest in, and which to outright buy

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A $736 billion investor says the market is predicting an economic slowdown

• A lawyer at the heart of the National Enquirer's war with Jeff Bezos used to be a loyal servant of the billionaire at Amazon, The Wall Street Journal reports.
• American Media Inc's Deputy General Counsel Jon Fine worked at Amazon from 2006 to 2015, and was focused primarily on publishing and the company's Kindle business.
• Fine took up a job at AMI in November 2018. He wrote two of the emails published in Bezos' explosive blog post last week, in which he accused the Enquirer of extortion.

A lawyer for the National Enquirer, who sent emails to Jeff Bezos which the billionaire described as "extortion," used to work for Amazon.

The Wall Street Journal spotted that Jon Fine worked at Amazon from 2006 until early 2015. This is confirmed by Fine's LinkedIn profile, which features his nine years of employment at Amazon, where he primarily worked in publishing and marketing the Kindle.

A former colleague of Fine's told the Journal that Fine and Bezos' families spent time together socially outside of work. The old colleague added that he was "shocked" that Fine had "put himself into this position."

Fine joined the Enquirer's publisher American Media Inc (AMI) in November 2018, evidenced in a press release at the time, which also refers to his time at Amazon. He is the firm's deputy general counsel, media.

In his explosive blog post from last week, Bezos published two emails which appear to have been sent by Fine, both addressed to Bezos' lawyer Martin Singer.

The first email lays out terms, demanding among other things:

"A public, mutually-agreed upon acknowledgment [sic] from the Bezos Parties, released through a mutually-agreeable news outlet, affirming that they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AM’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces, and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility."

Previously Bezos' private investigator Gavin de Becker had told The Daily Beast that he suspected political motivations were behind the leak.

The second email is a cease and desist letter, which asserts that any implication that the Enquirer's reporting on Bezos was politically motivated is false. Fine makes reference to the intimate photos which Bezos claims he was threatened with, saying:

"If your client agrees to cease and desist such defamatory behavior, we are willing to engage in constructive conversations regarding the texts and photos which we have in our possession. Dylan Howard [AMI's chief content officer] stands ready to discuss the matter at your convenience."

Fine did not reply to requests for comment when contacted by the Journal.

SEE ALSO: These are the main players in the explosive saga of Jeff Bezos' love life and his war with the National Enquirer

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NOW WATCH: I quit texting for a week and it was harder than I expected

• George Clooney will not be the godfather of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal baby.
• The actor said he had "enough s--- to deal with" already caring for his twins in an interview with Australia's Who magazine.
• The Clooneys and the Sussexes are close friends — George and his wife Amal attended Harry and Meghan's royal wedding in May last year.
• A few months later, the foursome reportedly holidayed together at the Clooneys' luxurious Lake Como villa in Italy.

The Clooneys and the Sussexes are pretty tight.

Last year George and his wife, international human rights lawyer Amal, attended the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

A few months later the foursome reportedly holidayed together at the Clooneys' luxurious Lake Como villa in Italy.

Read more:Meghan Markle and Prince Harry reportedly spent 3 days at George and Amal Clooney’s luxurious Lake Como villa

It came as little surprise then when insiders told the press that Clooney could be a shoo-in to be the godfather of the Sussexes' royal baby, which is due some time in April.

"I'm all for it [Clooney as godfather]. He'd make a wonderful just about anything — he's a good guy," Clooney's cousin Ben Breslin said in an interview with the Daily Mail.

However, Clooney has now debunked the rumours of his godfathership in an interview with Australia's Who magazine.

"Oh yes, I'll be the godfather of the royals apparently," he told reporters before laughing and confirming, "No!"

The actor added, "I'm the father of twins, I have enough s--- to deal with — literally!"

In the same interview, Clooney came to the defence of Meghan Markle, saying that she was being vilified in the same way that Princess Diana was.

Read more:George Clooney compared Meghan Markle's plight to Princess Diana, saying 'we've seen how that ends'

"I do want to say, they're just chasing Meghan Markle everywhere, she's been pursued and vilified," he said.

"She's a woman who is seven months pregnant and she has been pursued and vilified and chased in the same way that Diana was and it's history repeating itself.

"We've seen how that ends. I can't tell you how frustrating that is, just seeing them broadcast a letter from a daughter to a father, she's getting a raw deal there and I think it's irresponsible and I'm surprised by that."

Clooney's publicist did not immediately respond to INSIDER's request for comment.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Michael D'Antonio reveals Donald Trump's 'strange' morning ritual that boosts his ego

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here. Current subscribers can read the report here.

Smart speakers comprise one of the fastest-growing device segments in the consumer technology market today. Ownership levels have nearly doubled from early 2017 to summer 2018. 

With this rapid growth, there are a few pivotal questions that both companies looking to develop and sell smart speakers as well as those looking to sell products, deliver media, and offer access to services like banking over these devices need answers to in order to craft successful strategies. In particular, they need to know who is and isn’t buying smart speakers, and what consumers who own smart speakers are actually doing with them. 

To offer these stakeholders insight, Business Insider Intelligence asked more than 500 US consumers about their knowledge of smart speakers, the devices they do or don’t own and what led them to their purchase decisions, as well as the tasks they’re using their smart speakers for.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence will look at the state of the smart speaker market and outline how each of the major device providers approaches the space. We will then focus on the key factors that affect whether or not someone owns one of these devices. Next, we will use our survey data to outline the reasons why people don’t own devices in order to offer guidance for who to target and how. Finally, we will discuss what consumers are actually doing with their smart speakers — specifically looking at how the devices are used and perceived in e-commerce, digital media, and banking — which can help companies determine how well they’re publicizing their smart speaker services and capabilities.

The companies mentioned in this report are: Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung, Facebook, Sonos, LG, Anker, Spotify, Pandora, Grubhub, Netflix, Hulu, Instagram, Snap.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Despite their growing popularity, nearly half of respondents still don't own a device — which presents a long runway for adoption. Our survey data reveals a number of key factors that impact whether or not someone owns one of these devices, including income, gender, and age.
• Smart speakers are establishing themselves as a key platform for e-commerce, media, and the smart home.
• The introduction of a screen to some smart speakers will expand the possibilities for companies developing for the device — but developers will need to resist the compulsion to use speakers to accomplish too much.

In full, the report:

• Provides an overview of the key players and products in the smart speaker market.
• Highlights critical adoption rates broken out by key factors that define the segment.
• Identifies how consumers are using devices in important areas where companies in various industries are trying foster greater use of the voice interface.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Russia wants to disconnect the entire country from the global internet to simulate a cyberwar.
• It will redirect domestic web traffic internally, through the Russian government routing points rather than using the global infrastructure on which the web was built.
• It's part of the Kremlin's plan to make the country's internet independent so that it could survive being cut off by other nations.
• It comes as NATO countries step up sanctions and cyberattacks against Russia.
• Having all web traffic within Russia pass through government routing points could also allow Moscow to set up a massive web censorship system, like in China.

Russia plans to temporarily disconnect the entire country from the global internet, in order to simulate an all-out cyberwar on the country.

Under this test, Russian internet service providers (ISPs) would have to redirect web traffic from within the country to routing points approved or managed by the government's telecom watchdog, Roskomnazor, ZDNet reported, citing Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting.

At present Russia, like most countries, allows internet traffic to use global systems to connect with devices all over the world. The temporary disconnection will reportedly take place in the next few weeks.

During the outage, the country's internet would also rely its own version of the Domain Name System (DNS), the directory of web domains and addresses.

The trial run is set to take place at some point before April 1, though an exact date has not yet been set, ZDNet said.

The experiment is part of the country's Digital Economy National Program, a draft law introduced last year which aims to protect the country's digital infrastructure even if other countries cut it off.

The Kremlin's ultimate goal for the program is to wean the country off foreign internet providers and keep the Russian internet independent so it would be protected against potential cyberattacks, ZDNet said.

Russia's Ministry of Communications in 2017 said it wanted to route 95% of the country's traffic domestically by 2020, the country's Izvestia newspaper reported at the time.

Having all web traffic within Russia pass through the government's routing points could also allow Moscow to set up a massive web censorship system, like that in China, the BBC reported.

China's internet censorship system, also known as the Great Firewall, routinely scrubs websites and censors keywords from social media to stop citizens from seeing content unsavory to the regime.

Read more:Planting spies, paying people to post on social media, and pretending the news doesn't exist: This is how China tries to distract people from human rights abuses

The introduction of the plan comes after NATO stepped up annual cyber war games against Russia. Its exercise in Estonia, on Russia's border, last November involved simulating officers' responses to riots stoked by social media and breaches to network systems that resulted in infrastructure damages, Bloomberg reported.

The US, UK, and EU have also threatened to sanction Russia over recent cyberattacks.

The US imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Russian firms and individuals last year, saying that it was responding to Russian attempts to jeopardize the US power grid and financial system.

The EU last year also said it would "strengthen the resilience" of its member states "in the digital domain" after the Netherlands said it caught four Russian intelligence agents trying to hack into the global chemical weapons watchdog headquarters while it was investigating Russia last April.

SEE ALSO: 4 Russian spies got caught in an audacious revenge hack aimed at chemical weapons inspectors, Dutch intelligence says

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The US Air Force refuels combat jets in midair with a 'flying boom system' — watch it in action

• Actor Audrey Moore was one of the final women in her friendship group to get married.
• She thought it was sad that her friends only got to wear their weddings dresses once, so when she got married, she asked them to rewear their gowns.
• To ensure she stood out, Moore wore an icy blue gown in the style of Esla from "Frozen."
• A picture of Moore with her friends dressed in white went viral on Reddit.

An American bride asked the married women attending her wedding to rewear their own bridal gowns for the occasion — and the photos are fantastic.

When actor Audrey Moore, who has starred in shows such as "Better Call Saul" and "Godless," tied the knot to now-husband Jesse Lumen on December 30 2018, the celebration was nothing if not unconventional.

One of the most celebrated aspects of the day was Moore's decision to ask female guests to wear their own wedding dresses, because she thinks it's a shame to wear them only once.

This might have meant Moore didn't stand out as a bride should on her wedding day, she made sure this wasn't the case by choosing to wear a custom-made icy blue gown in the style of Elsa from "Frozen."

"I've been to all of their weddings and I saw them all in their beautiful dresses," Moore told Buzzfeed News.

"I wanted them to have the opportunity to wear their really magical, beautiful dress a second time."

She says all the women were keen to get involved, while any who didn't have wedding dresses of their own borrowed gowns from friends and family members.

However, Moore says she was one of the final women in her friendship group to get married, so the vast majority had their own dresses.

"It was like watching a group of princesses come to life," Moore added.

When the newlyweds shared images from their nuptials on Reddit, the post swiftly caught the attention of many internet users, receiving over 90,000 likes.

The men celebrated the occasion in equally unconventional attire, with both the groom and male guests wearing hoodies featuring a tuxedo design on the front.

"We had such a good time," said Moore. "We really wanted it to be sweet and also just taken seriously in the love for each other but not taken so seriously in any sort of pomp and circumstance."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Meet the three women who married Donald Trump

• Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker decried what he considered the sorry state of the government in an interview with Ray Dalio, the founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, released Tuesday.
• Volcker, who served in various roles across government over a 50-year stretch, called out President Donald Trump's "personal behavior" and Congress' inability to "function effectively" in the wide-ranging interview.
• "Too much policy seems to be out of the back pocket today and god knows what happens tomorrow," Volcker said. "For an old government man like me, it doesn't look very good, let's hope it gets better."

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker took both President Donald Trump and the lawmakers in Congress to task in a new interview with Ray Dalio, the founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates — the world's largest hedge fund.

Volcker, who also chaired two commissions that focused on strengthening the civil service and government employment opportunities, was asked by Dalio about comments the former Fed Chairman made to The New York Times in October. In that interview Volcker said the government was a "mess."

"We have fake news, you don't know what to believe, you've got presidents [that] don't seem to mind either personal behavior or making outrageous statements — true or not," Volcker said. "You have a Congress that's been unable to function effectively, hopefully maybe that'll change a little bit but we'll wait and see after this past election. But we have not been on a constructive track, I think that's fair to say."

Volcker warned in the Times interview that the US was "developing into a plutocracy" and said the lack of faith in government was startling.

In the interview with Dalio, released Tuesday, Volcker cast a downbeat tone about the current state of government and the bureaucracy that supports its functions — particularly when it came to the Trump administration.

"Too much policy seems to be out of the back pocket today and god knows what happens tomorrow," he said. "For an old government man like me, it doesn't look very good, let's hope it gets better."

Volcker also called out the breakdown of norms in Congress, highlighting the speed with which Republicans pushed through their massive tax reform bill — named the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) — at the end of 2017.

"We rammed through a massive tax bill, whatever you think about that tax bill, it shouldn't be rammed through the Congress without any debates at midnight on December 31 or whenever it was done with almost nobody in the Congress having a good idea about what was in the bill, whether you like what's in the bill or not."

From the point of introduction by the House GOP leadership to Trump signing the bill into law, it took just under two months for the TCJA to pass. By contrast, the 1986 tax code overhaul cited by Republicans as their model for the TCJA took around nine months from formal introduction to its signature by President Ronald Reagan.

While Volcker is generally identified as a Democrat, the longtime civil servant spent decades in government under various administrations and political parties. He worked for the Treasury Department under both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, was first appointed to the top post at the Fed by Jimmy Carter then reappointed by Ronald Reagan, and also served on Barack Obama's post-financial crisis response team.

Volcker also singled out the Trump administration's slow pace of appointing people to positions in government and the quality of the appointees that the president has selected.

"The quality of people appointed to cabinet offices or sub-cabinet offices, I think by any estimation if not up to scratch," Volcker told Dalio.

The former Fed Chairman also criticized the conflict of interests of some of Trump's cabinet nominees, singling out the selection of Andrew Wheeler— a former coal industry lobbyist — to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"When you see [a] lobbyist for polluting companies named head of the agency for anti-pollution, you wonder about the coherent nature of the appointment and it's happening too often," Volcker said.

To try and rebuild the civil service, Volcker created the Volcker Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the federal government through stronger public administration education and research. Volcker also recently released a memoir, Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government, that advocated for a stronger civil service.

SEE ALSO: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren's 'soak the rich' tax plans are supported by an increasing number of Americans

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NOW WATCH: ROGER STONE: Trump is 'never going to change'

• BBC cameraman Ron Skean was "violently pushed and shoved" by one of President Donald Trump's supporters at a rally in El Paso, Texas, on Monday night.
• Footage from Skean's camera shows him thrown off balance, before recovering to film a man being led away and yelling "f--k the media."
• The BBC said it was "unacceptable for any of our staff to be attacked for doing their job" but said the president signaled to check that Skeans was OK after the attack. 
• BBC journalists in Washington connected the attack to Trump's criticisms of the media on Monday and at other rallies, and said they had faced abuse at Trump's events.

A BBC cameraman was attacked and pushed by one of President Donald Trump's supporter yelling "f--k the media" at the president's rally in favor of a border wall in El Paso, Texas, on Monday night.

Ron Skeans was "violently pushed and shoved by a member of the crowd while covering a President Trump rally in Texas last night," a BBC spokesman told INSIDER in a statement.

Read more: Trump's holding a rally in El Paso, which he falsely claimed was a hub of violent crime

Skeans told the BBC that he was taken aback by a "very hard shove," at the rally adding: "I didn't know what was going on."

Greg O'Donoghue, the BBC's Washington Correspondent, shared footage from Skeans's camera, which jerks away Trump to the floor as Skeans is pushed. The man tried to smash Skean's camera, O'Donoghue said.

After ten seconds the camera stabilizes, pivoting to show a man wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat repeatedly yelling "f--k the media" as he restrained by another man, who appears to be wearing an identical hat. 

Members of the crowd can then he heard yelling "get him out" as the man is escorted from the scene.

The man was eventually removed by security, and Skeans is "fine," the BBC spokesman said. He added that Trump "could see the incident and checked with us that all was ok."

"It is clearly unacceptable for any of our staff to be attacked for doing their job," the spokesman added.

O'Donoghue called the attack a "shameful moment," and condemned security at the event for allowing the man to reach the elevated platform where journalists were covering the event.

He also told BBC Radio 4's "Today" program on Tuesday that crowds getting worked up about the media was a "constant feature of these rallies."

"I have been spat at before, they hurl abuse at American colleagues in particular," he said.

Read more:Beto O'Rourke held an anti-wall rally at the same time as Trump: See scenes from their dueling rallies in El Paso, Texas

During the rally, Trump repeated his frequent criticisms of the media, claiming that it is biased against him and fundamentally dishonest and regularly "fake."

He told supporters that "the media refuses to acknowledge what we've done" and that "some of the most dishonest people in media are the so-called fact checkers."

He also directly referenced members of the present to media cover the rally, saying: "We have suffered a totally dishonest media and we've won and it's driving them crazy, driving them crazy. It's driving them crazy, but look at them. They still come."

Eleanor Montague, the BBC's Washington news editor, said that "the crowd had been whipped up into a frenzy against the media by Trump and other speakers all night."

In August, United Nations experts warned that Trump's attacks on the media, including calling journalists "enemies of the people," could result in violence against journalists. 

The rhetoric of Trump and other leading Republicans against the media was also credited with either explicitly or indirectly influencing Cesar Sayoc, the man accused of mailing potential explosives to critics of Trump, including the Obamas and CNN.

Sayoc's social media accounts and the exterior of his van showed that he is a Trump supporter who shared right-wing articles and memes. 

Trump has also previously praised a Republican congressman who pled guilty to assaulting a reporter.

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NOW WATCH: Roger Stone explains what Trump has in common with Richard Nixon

Here is what you need to know. 

1. Lawmakers have reached a tentative deal to avoid another US government shutdown. The provisional deal would provide $1.375 billion for border fortification, made from vertical steel slats rather than a solid wall, according to multiple reports. 
2. Global stocks are rallying on the deal. Dow futures jumped 209 points (0.84%), while Japan's Nikkei popped 2.6%.
3. Amazon is acquiring the Wi-Fi router company Eero. Eero makes "mesh" routers, which help blanket large spaces with a strong wireless signal. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 
4. One of Tesla's largest institutional shareholders halved its stake during the fourth quarter. T. Rowe Price had a 5.2% stake in the electric-car maker as of the end of December, roughly half its earlier stake.
5. Aurora Cannabis reported lower second-quarter margins as production costs jumped and prices fell. Shares of the Canadian company slumped nearly 5% in premarket trading.    
6. OPEC cuts its demand outlook as US oil output remains robust. In a research report cited by Bloomberg, the cartel of oil producers said it pumped 797,000 fewer barrels per day in January.
7. Billionaire investor Ray Dalio sat with his idol, the former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. Volcker laid out 3 principles that guide his worldview in an exclusive interview conducted by Bridgewater Associates. 
8. Goldman Sachs dumps a trade recommendation that's crushed the market over the past 2 years. The equity strategists say companies with strong balance sheets no longer have an edge over firms with weaker assets. 
9. Economic data is light. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey is due at 10 a.m. ET. Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks on "Economic Development in High Poverty Rural Communities" in Mississippi at 12:45 p.m. 
10. Earnings reporting continues. Activision Blizzard and TripAdvisor report after the closing bell. 

SEE ALSO: 2 notorious recession signals are descending into the danger zone, and they have some Wall Street strategists convinced that a meltdown is fast approaching

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NOW WATCH: Michael D'Antonio reveals Donald Trump's 'strange' morning ritual that boosts his ego

• Software company SAP unveiled its Runway App at Christian Siriano's show during New York Fashion Week on Sat., Feb. 9.
• The app offers in-person showgoers and at-home viewers the ability to "like" and "love" looks as they debut down the runway, while also giving designers live feedback of each look. 
• But aside from seeing a description of each look as it makes its way down the runway, the longterm appeal of such an app for consumers seems uncertain. SAP's Runway App only offers a "favorite" feature right now — which seems no different than favoriting a photo saved to your camera roll.
• The company said it may include a "see now, buy now" feature in the future, which would increase the app's consumer appeal.

How compatible are fashion and tech? 

It's a question that's been increasingly asked as both billion-dollar industries eye potential ways to cash in on the other. Upon first glance, it may seem obvious the two are interwoven: iPhones line the front rows of fashion shows now more than ever before. 

At Christian Siriano's runway show Saturday during New York Fashion Week, we saw the pairing in full force ... kind of.

The designer, from Project Runway fame, teamed up with global software giant SAP to feature a "live-voting" app, where attendees and remote viewers could "like" and "love" the various looks in real-time.

Siriano's show at 30 Rockefeller Plaza drew celebrities, influencers, and industry elites. Before taking the elevator 67 stories up to The Top of the Rock, where the show was held, attendees passed SAP employees handing out flyers for the Runway App. Many just walked right on by, totes and tiny sunglasses in tow. 

A few days before the show, 360-degree photos are taken of each look (Siriano had 57), which helps the app's machine-learning tools recognize the outfits through a phone’s camera as they come down the runway day of. The app then prompts the user to give it a thumbs up or a heart.

As of right now, there is no "see now, buy now" feature, though SAP sees it as a potential asset later. 

Yet, it's what the app offers to designers that may be its best quality: Designers can also use the Runway App to go back and review the feedback data to determine what could work in department stores as consumers head to the racks. According to SAP, the app helps "brands to increase margins by understanding what’s loved in real-time and avoid investment in unpopular designs."

The primary capacity of SAP's Runway App for users is the favoriting feature. But how is that any different than taking a photo of a look that stands out to you?

The app is attempting to break a convention already set in stone, one rather already simplistic nonetheless, in the fashion world: the camera function. Why go through an app when you can merely swipe left on your iPhone's home screen? A fashionista's camera roll is already a collection of her favorites. Without the "see now, buy now" option, the app's appeal to the average runway attendee seems uncertain.

Not to mention, SAP's Runway App design is rather primitive in nature and battery-draining: I had to quickly shift to low-battery mode during Siriano's show while using the app and ended up with 1% at the end. For someone attending more than one show, this would be a buzzkill. 

Similar to how the fashion houses experiment with new looks during fashion week, SAP seems to be doing the same thing with its software — trying to better understand how to appeal to consumers while helping out the businesses behind the experience. The company did not immediately respond when asked how many people used the app during Siriano's show Saturday.

Whether stars like Christina Hendricks, Mariska Hargitay, or Deborah Messing, who were in attendance, were using the Runway App is unknown... but seems unlikely. Unlike the rest of the attendees, their phones remained relatively out of sight. 

Take a look at how SAP's Runway App works: 

After you've downloaded the Runway App, you are greeted with a page featuring designers SAP has partnered with. This past Saturday, the only designer listed was Christian Siriano, with whom the app was debuted.

At the bottom there are 2 options: Runway Camera and View Collection. If you are in the audience, you can open the Runway Camera. 

As the show begins, the app's camera function surfaces looks that come down the runway with its machine-learning algorithm. The app then prompts a pop-up — a thumbs up or heart accompanied by a description of the outfit.

The "like" and "love" feedback can be immediately accessed by the designer. Users can also take photos that are then saved in the app's camera roll. 

Once a look has made its runway debut, photos begin to populate in the "View Collection" tab on the show's home screen.

Here you can "like" and "love" looks you may have missed while they were coming down the runway. The collection is then made permanently available inside the app for viewing even after the end of the show.

• Each year, Melinda Gates and her husband Bill publish an annual letter outlining the things that cheer, worry and surprise them.
• The 2019 letter was published on Tuesday. Business Insider met with Melinda Gates to discuss one of their most surprising assertions in it: that data can be sexist.
• Business Insider sat down with Gates to learn more about sexist data and how it damages women in the US and the world.

When you are one of the world's wealthiest women and you've dedicated your life to solving poverty, how do you know which projects are worthwhile to fund and which are not?

If you are Melinda Gates, a software engineer by training, you do what engineers always do: look at the data. 

But Gates and her husband Bill were disturbed when they discovered that data can be sexist. It can also be biased. It might even be racist.

She recently sat down with Business Insider at her office outside Seattle to discuss the issue, which is highlighted in the Gates' 2019 annual letter. 

Gates is a champion for gender equality, one of the UN's sustainable development goals. She has pushed for better family leave policies in the US and has spoken out about problems women face in the tech industry.

Now Gates is taking on data, a sacred cow of that industry.

"We think data is objective and that’s one of the things that surprised Bill and I the most," she told Business Insider.

Gates began to see the problem when she learned just how little data is collected on the lives and deaths of women worldwide.

An example: Medical professionals often didn't collect all pertinent details surrounding a woman's cause of death in the US until 2017 — including whether or not she was pregnant.

That's alarming, especially when you consider the US has a surprisingly high rate of maternal deaths from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes.

"That, to me, is sexist data," Gates says.

The Gates' annual letter also discussed a surprising finding about premature births. DNA testing company 23andMe found a correlation between preterm labor and low blood levels of a mineral called selenium.

But without enough historical data on women, it's tough to turn that finding into an action.

"Even in the preterm birth area, you have to look at Hispanic women vs. Caucasian women. Well, Hispanic women are having more preterm births than Caucasian women. Why is that? And where is that happening? Is that true across the nation or is it different in different pockets?" Gates said. "Until you get that granular in the data, you won’t know what to go look at to say, 'Where do we need to go to invest money and create solutions?'"

Gates also noted the well-documented history in the US of under representing women in drug testing and clinical trials.

That's changing, "but we used to test drugs with men and very few women in the trial," Gates said. "We even used male mice and very few female mice," even though women and men have different metabolic systems.

Some researchers say that women are still under-represented in clinical research, even for illnesses that commonly plague women, like heart disease.

"You have to collect the right data. And then you have to disaggregate it and look at it," Gates says.

Data can be racist, too 

While the annual letter talks at length about sexist data particularly in developing countries, US researchers have been known to overlook important information about other populations as well.

"We don’t collect all the same data about people across the United States," Gates said, noting that the foundation has supported work from the groundbreaking Harvard economics professor Raj Chetty on poverty in America.

More details need to be gathered on the ethnic backgrounds of people, particularly those living in low-income areas, to know what their communities need.

Do they have a good gym, solid after-school programs or decent parks? Such research helps policy makers decide how and where to invest in projects that "help people be safe and thrive and lift themselves up," Gates said.

Does this mean that female researchers or people of color are less likely to create sexist or racist data? 

"We don’t know, because we haven’t had men and women equal in those positions for a long enough time," Gates said.

"But I know when you have diverse viewpoints at the table — women, people of color — the questions change."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How Apple went from a $1 trillion company to losing over 20% of its share price

• Digital trust is the confidence people have in a platform to protect their information and provide a safe environment for them to create and engage with content.
• Business Insider Intelligence surveyed over 1,300 global consumers to evaluate their perception of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
• Consumers’ Digital Trust rankings differ across security, legitimacy, community, user experience, shareability, and relevance for the six major social networks.

If you feel like “fake news” and spammy social media feeds dominate your Internet experience, you’re not alone. Digital trust, the confidence people have in platforms to protect their information and provide a safe environment to create and engage with content, is in jeopardy.

In fact, in a new Business Insider Intelligence survey of more than 1,300 global consumers, over half (54%) said that fake news and scams were "extremely impactful” or “very impactful” on their decision to engage with ads and sponsored content.

For businesses, this distrust has financial ramifications. It’s no longer enough to craft a strong message; brands, marketers, and social platforms need to focus their energy on getting it to consumers in an environment where they are most receptive. When brands reach consumers on platforms that they trust, they enhance their credibility and increase the likelihood of receiving positive audience engagement.

The Digital Trust Report 2018, the latest Enterprise Edge Report from Business Insider Intelligence, compiles this exclusive survey data to analyze consumer perceptions of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

The survey breaks down consumers’ perceptions of social media across six pillars of trust: security, legitimacy, community, user experience, shareability, and relevance. The results? LinkedIn ran away with it.

As the most trusted platform for the second year in a row – and an outlier in the overall survey results – LinkedIn took the top spot for nearly every pillar of trust — and there are a few reasons why:

• LinkedIn continues to benefit from the professional nature of its community — users on the platform tend to be well behaved and have less personal information at risk, which makes for a more trusting environment.
• LinkedIn users are likely more selective and mindful about engagement when interacting within their professional network, which may increase trust in its content.
• Content on LinkedIn is typically published by career-minded individuals and organizations seeking to promote professional interests, and is therefore seen as higher quality than other platforms’. This bodes well for advertisers and publishers to be viewed as forthright, honest, persuasive, and trustworthy.

Want to Learn More?

Enterprise Edge Reports are the very best research Business Insider Intelligence has to offer in terms of actionable recommendations and proprietary data, and they are only available to Enterprise clients.

The Digital Trust Report 2018 illustrates how social platforms have been on a roller coaster ride of data, user privacy, and brand safety scandals since our first installment of the report in 2017.

In full, the report analyzes key changes in rankings from 2017, identifies trends in millennials' behavior on social media, and highlights where these platforms (as well as advertisers) have opportunities to capture their attention.

Join the conversation about this story »

• California has moved its presidential primary up from June to March, which could prove to be one of the most decisive factors in the 2020 election. 
• Historically, early primary states have had a huge say in the presidential nominees for both major parties so candidates focused much of their energy on campaigning there. 
• In the past, California's late primary meant voters in the country's most populous state didn't have much of an influence on the presidential nominating process. 
• California's secretary of state said the earlier primary is already driving candidates to shift focus toward the West. 
• California sends more delegates to vote in the presidential nominating process at the Democratic National Convention than any other state, so the early primary means candidates can't afford to ignore it. 

One of the biggest moments in the 2020 presidential election may have happened back in September 2017.

That's when then-Governor Jerry Brown of California signed legislation permanently moving the state's presidential primary from June to March. 

The move was designed to give a state that's home to nearly 40 million people a far greater role in the presidential nomination process, and it could have a major affect on where and how candidates focus their energy not only in 2020 but all future presidential elections. 

California Secretary State Alex Padilla said that early primary states are "always meaningful as a sort of test for presidential candidates" and he feels strongly that by moving up its presidential primary his state has sent a clear message to candidates that "if you want to be an effective leader of the United States you can't do so without respecting California." 

'An early primary will allow California voters to have a significant say'

"California is the most populous state in the nation, we're the most diverse state in the nation, we represent the largest economy of any state in the nation by far, and an early primary will allow California voters to have a significant say in determining nominees for president of the United States," Padilla told INSIDER.

Read more:Cory Booker kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign by calling for legal marijuana

By the time California's primary took place in June 2016, there was virtually no doubt that Donald Trump would be the GOP presidential nominee. It was also becoming quite clear that Hillary Clinton would ultimately defeat Bernie Sanders in their heated battle for the Democratic nomination.

This is precisely why California decided to move the primary up to March 3, or Super Tuesday, the day most states traditionally hold their primaries after the early nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

'A political world unto itself'

History tells us that early primary states are extremely important for anyone vying for the nominations of both major parties. With the exception of former President Bill Clinton in 1992, in the past four decades no candidate was won the Republican or Democratic nomination without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire. 

In 2020, California could be just as decisive for Democrats as these two states.

California is far more representative of the overall US population than states like Iowa and New Hampshire, which are both small and overwhelmingly white.

Moreover, California sends more delegates to vote in presidential nominating process at the Democratic National Convention than any other state. There are nearly 500 delegates up for grabs in the western state. Comparatively, other large states like Florida and New York both have fewer than 300 total delegates. 

As Padilla put it, "California, by virtue of its size and the number of voters here is almost a political world unto itself in the national political map."

Accordingly, California leaders hope that moving the primary up will pressure candidates to pay more attention to the western state and its voters, given presidential hopefuls have typically dedicated much of their energy to gaining a lead via early primary states — particularly Iowa and New Hampshire. 

"Candidates for president are not strangers to California; they're not shy about coming to California to raise money," Padilla said. "Voting early in the primary season will force candidates for president to have to come earn California votes, not just ask for contributions."

"We're looking forward to that engagement between candidates and voters ... in a way that hasn't been done in the past," Padilla added. 

The 'California bump'

California voters will also be able to begin sending mail-in ballots on February 3— a month before the primary — which is the same day as the Iowa caucus.

Padilla said there's "no doubt" there will be an increase in voter turnout next March after a historic number of Californians headed to the polls in November's midterm elections. 

The early primary date and flexible voting options in the delegate-rich state could see candidates place more stock in focusing on issues that voters in California care about, such as immigration and climate change. 

"Every race is a little bit different," Padilla said. "Just as candidates for president look for either an Iowa bump or a New Hampshire bump, they're going to be equally looking for a California bump in momentum. That's great for California voters and the issues that matter to us." 

Candidates are already shifting focus to the West

California is an expensive state in which to campaign, so candidates with larger pockets are more likely to focus energy there. The fact that it's so much bigger than other states also means candidates have a much broader audience to appeal to, which can prove challenging. 

Padilla, who's also a former state senator with roughly two decades of experience in California politics, said he's already seen a shift in behavior from candidates as a result of the earlier primary date.

Read more: Here's what the 2020 Democratic presidential contenders looked like in their school-age days

He said several Democratic candidates have "had higher profile events or or speaking opportunities in state, whether they been declared candidates or rumored to soon be declared candidates."

"You do hear the chatter in the political consultant class of who's been reached out to by whom," Padilla added. 

Indeed, as the 2020 race heats up and more Democrats hop in the ring, California already seems to be at the forefront of a number of candidate's minds. 

Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, the state's former attorney general, kicked off her campaign with a massive rally in her hometown of Oakland, California, in late January. Roughly 20,000 people were in attendance.

With strong roots in California, Harris could have a big advantage over the growing field of Democratic contenders, but there have also been many examples of presidential candidates losing the primaries in their home states — such as Republican Sen. Marco Rubio losing in Florida in 2016.

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who represents California's 15th congressional district and is considering running in 2020, seems to recognize the value of having an earlier primary in his state, but also isn't discounting the importance of campaigning nationwide. 

"It's great for California — as our most populous and diverse state, and as the world's fifth-largest — to have a stronger voice in the primary process, but it's not really a factor as I near my decision about whether to run for President in 2020," Swalwell told INSIDER. "If I run, I'm running for all Americans and seeking all Americans' support."

Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey launched his bid for president on February 1 and has tapped Addisu Demissie as his campaign manager.

Demissie, who recently led Gavin Newsom to victory in California's 2018 gubernatorial race, has a proven record of success in the Golden State, as well as experience in presidential campaigns after serving in a key role on Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign team. 

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also reportedly plans to visit California as part of a cross-country tour of early primary states, now that she's formally launched her presidential campaign. 

This could be the start of a massive shift in candidate behavior, in which more and more contenders focus on the West in future elections. 

"With California coming on early, I think the West is more important than ever," former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada recently told The Boston Globe.

'We're going to be a force for years to come'

California also held its presidential primary earlier in 2008, moving it up to February.

That year, the state saw its highest level of voter turnout for a primary election (57.7%) since 1980.

But that election was a one-off, and all of the other regularly scheduled primaries — for congress, state legislature etc. – remained in June. 

As Sam Mahood, press secretary for Padilla, told INSIDER, "This isn't a one-off move up the primary, we've moved up the primary permanently so we're going to be a force for years to come."

Read more:Here's everyone who has officially announced they are running for president in 2020

"Unlike 2008, this time around we’ve moved ALL regularly scheduled primaries up to March," Mahoon added, meaning there are also important down-ballot races for Californians to vote on in next year's primary. 

What could also change the game in California in 2020 is the level of enthusiasm for early voting.

In the 2008 California presidential primary, roughly 40% of voters sent in their ballots by mail. This seemed to limit the California primary's impact that year versus earlier contests in other states like Iowa and New Hampshire, despite the size of its electorate. 

Comparatively, Padilla said that "for the last several election cycles ... it's been more than 60% of people who choose to vote by mail."California midterm voter turnout in 2018 was over 64%, the highest percentage since 1982, and roughly 65% of voters sent in their ballots by mail. 

'I think an early primary is ... good for the policy and direction of our nation'

The major political parties in the US have strict rules surrounding the nominating process for president. In light of this, whenever big states move up their primaries it has the potential to cause backlash among party leaders. 

In 2008, for example, when Florida and Michigan moved up their presidential primaries without the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) permission, their delegates were given just half a vote each at the party's national convention as punishment. For the same reason, the Republican Party issued a similar punishment for delegates to its national convention from Florida and Michigan that year. 

With that said, California has not broken any rules by permanently setting an earlier primary date in this instance, given it falls in line with Super Tuesday and primaries in most other states. 

But the news of the California primary being moved up permanently might spark concerns among some it will give an outsized influence to a coastal state, as well as a disproportionate advantage to candidates with lots of money.

But Padilla dismissed such fears, noting that he's often heard similar concerns about smaller states like Iowa and New Hampshire having so much sway over presidential nominees in such a large, diverse country. 

"I think an early primary is not just good for California, I genuinely believe it's good for the policy and direction of our nation," Padilla said.

"California has prided itself in being a policy leader on a lot of fronts and for a lot of years," he added. "We look forward to continuing to be a driver of policy and the economy for the country." 

SEE ALSO: What you need to know about Kamala Harris and her 2020 presidential bid

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Donald Trump's connection with Vince McMahon and WWE spans decades

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• The Chase Ink Business Preferred Credit Card currently offers a big 80,000-point sign-up bonus after spending $5,000 on purchases in the first three months after opening a new account.
• It also offers 3x points per dollar on popular business categories like travel, shipping, telecom, and online advertising.
• The card also comes loaded with useful travel benefits and protections.
• I can't tell you how many times I've kicked myself for missing out on a big bonus opportunity. If you are excited by the benefits and rewards of this card, you'll want to act fast to make sure you don't miss out.

The Ink Business Preferred Credit Card is a top business card offered by Chase, one of the top card issuers in the US. This card gives you the ability to earn valuable Ultimate Rewards points, redeemable for free and discounted travel around the world.

This card currently offers a big 80,000-point sign-up bonus after spending $5,000 on purchases in the first three months after opening a new account. It also offers 3x points per dollar on popular business categories like travel, shipping, telecom, and online advertising. If that sounds like something you would enjoy, you may want to act fast to lock in the 80,000-point bonus opportunity before it's gone.

Earning the big Chase Ink Business Preferred bonus

Chase offers 50,000-point sign-up bonuses on popular credit cards on a fairly regular basis (see all the best cards offered by Chase here), but offers in the 75,000+ territory are few and far between. While you can sometimes land a 100,000-point offer, 80,000 is nothing to ignore.

After spending $5,000 on purchases in the first three months — an easy hurdle for many small businesses — you'll bring home the full 80,000. Points are worth 1.25 cents when you have this card and redeem through the Ultimate Rewards portal (or 1.5 cents if you also have the Chase Sapphire Reserve). That makes the bonus worth at least $1,000 toward travel.

If you don't normally spend $1,666.67 per month or more, you may be able to reach this bonus by pre-paying for planned expenses. For example, you can buy inventory, prepay for insurance, or pay for the company holiday party to get closer to the goal.

This bonus alone is easily worth enough for three domestic round-trip flights or an international flight to nearly anywhere in the world.

Read more: My wife and I use 4 Chase cards to maximize our Ultimate Rewards points — here's how easy it is to do

Earning points with everyday business purchases

This credit card gives you 3x points per dollar on "travel, shipping purchases, Internet, cable and phone services, and on advertising purchases made with social media sites and search engines" up to $150,000 in combined purchases per year. If you hit that big spending maximum, that's a whopping 450,000-points per year. Hello, business class overseas flights and luxury hotels!

Even if you don't spend six figures, the points add up fast. After hitting the $150,000 maximum, you earn an unlimited 1 point per dollar, the same as you get on all standard purchases with the card outside of the bonus categories.

Other benefits

As a premium Chase card with a $95 annual fee, this card comes loaded with useful benefits and protections. Those include no foreign transaction fee, trip insurance, auto rental insurance, purchase protection, extended warranties, and more.

Also, keep in mind that you can use your Ultimate Rewards points for a wide range of flexible redemption options. The best value typically comes from transferring points to partner airlines at a 1:1 ratio and booking a premium ticket. However, you can also use points for purchases, cash back, and other lower value redemptions.

Pairing Chase cards to put your earnings potential on steroids

One of the best parts of Ultimate Rewards is that you can earn from multiple cards in the same account and transfer between household members, most commonly a spouse. When you have multiple personal and/or business cards that earn Ultimate Rewards or cash back at Chase, your free flights and hotel nights come in even faster.

For example, if you have this card and the personal Chase Freedom, you can earn 5 points per dollar on rotating bonus categories with Chase Freedom (up to $1,500) and combine with your Ink Business Preferred points. The same goes for Chase Freedom Unlimited (unlimited 1.5 points per dollar), Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (2x points per dollar on restaurants and travel), or Chase Sapphire Reserve (3x points per dollar on restaurants and travel).

Between my wife (I'm an authorized user), my personal accounts, and my business, I have four cards that earn Ultimate Rewards. I'm writing this review on a plane on the way home from a trip booked using Ultimate Rewards. I took my dad to Israel in business class for less than $100 each after points.

Act fast or miss out

I can't tell you how many times I've kicked myself for missing out on a big bonus opportunity. If you are excited by the benefits and rewards of this card, you'll want to act fast to make sure you don't miss out.

Click here to learn more about the Ink Business Preferred Card from Insider Picks' partner: The Points Guy

SEE ALSO: The best credit card rewards, bonuses, and perks of 2019

DON'T MISS: I pay $1,000 in annual fees for the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Amex Platinum — and as far as I’m concerned, the math checks out

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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering adopting a blockchain-based solution to better track prescription medications, from creation to distribution, according to Engadget.

The goals of such a program would be to ensure that hospitals and pharmacies are receiving and dispensing authentic medication and to more precisely track highly controlled substances — like opioids — throughout the supply chain.

The FDA is currently soliciting bids from vendors to participate in a pilot program, with an aim to more broadly roll out a system in 2023.

A blockchain-based prescription tracking solution would likely follow the model of other blockchain supply chain management tools. 

These sorts of systems typically use items such as RFID tags to identify the containers holding the goods to be tracked, recording the tags’ unique IDs to a distributed ledger to capture it on the blockchain and monitor the movement of containers.

As goods are shipped to different packaging and distribution centers, their tags will be scanned, and their updated location and status will be recorded to the blockchain. Business Insider Intelligence recently spoke with Eric Piscini, the CEO of blockchain supply chain tracking startup Citizens Reserve, about the company’s solution, which can provide a number of useful lessons on how to approach a blockchain-based supply chain management solution.

With prescription medication, blockchain would offer both critical benefits but also potential drawbacks that could push the FDA to other types of solutions.

• Beneficially, a blockchain-based solution would be decentralized and easily shareable. The extent of a blockchain solution's openness varies case-by-case, but moving prescription medication from the factory to the hospital — and eventually the patient — involves a number of interested parties. The supply chain can include the pharmaceutical company, the purchaser, the logistics company, and FDA regulators, for instance. Blockchain is useful in this type of scenario, as it lets every stakeholder see what's happening to the shipment — within the confines of regulatory permissions — while also creating an immutable trail to follow so that shipments are traceable, preventing them from going missing without explanation. 
• But some blockchain solutions could face issues. One problem that public blockchains face is that as they grow larger, the amount of computing power needed to append a new entry to the ledger grows. That creates a need for more powerful hardware and also drives up energy costs. Citizens Reserve gets around this issue by employing a combination of public and private blockchains, as private chains have fewer entries and thus require less power, but such a tactic isn't infallible. Also, a blockchain solution can only provide as much information as its sensors. While it can tell when a box tagged as transporting medication is received at a facility, it can’t do anything to verify the actual contents, which could undermine the whole goal of the system.

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SEE ALSO: More than half of transportation and logistics professionals still use a pen and paper to manage their supply chain — here's how blockchain could change that

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• Brittany Dawn Davis, an influencer with around 560,000 Instagram followers, is being called a "scammer" for not delivering on the nutrition plans and coaching sessions she sells.
• Customers have been demanding refunds, but she's told some of them to sign a non-disclosure agreement before she'll give their money back, according to an email INSIDER obtained.
• In some cases, customers said she's granted partial refunds. Several customers told INSIDER they had success by disputing her transactions through PayPal.
• At least two sponsors have dropped Davis since the complaints went viral.

Brittany Dawn Davis — the popular fitness influencer being criticized as a "scammer" by people who bought her personal coaching and nutrition programs — is starting to offer refunds to furious fans.

But she's asking some of them to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) first.

One customer, Paige Larson, emailed Davis to ask for a refund for a nutrition program she purchased in 2016. Rather than being customized for her, as advertised, the 2016 program was identical to one Larson purchased from Davis a year earlier, Larson told INSIDER.

In an email to Larson on Friday, Davis agreed to give her a refund — but only if she signed an NDA.

"My attorney will also be asking anyone who is refunded to sign a NDA agreement for confidentiality purposes from this point moving forward to protect my name, my brand, and my business in any future situation in person or online," Davis wrote in the email. "The disclosure will need to be signed before the refund can be made."

Read more:A fitness influencer with more than 500,000 followers is being called a 'scammer' by fans who paid her for personal coaching and nutritional programs

Larson quickly agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement and sent along her PayPal information and proof of purchase, as Davis requested. Larson said Davis still hasn't responded to her, she hasn't received an NDA, and Davis also still hasn't issued a refund.

Davis told INSIDER that she's planning to rectify the situation with each customer on an individual basis.

"Brittany Dawn Fitness has and will continue to acknowledge the concerns and questions of our customers through direct conversations with each of them," she wrote in an emailed statement. "I have set up a monitored customer service email where I have been able to accept and rectify more than two-thirds of the complaints through make-goods, refunds, and plans extensions, depending on each specific situation."

Davis declined to answer INSIDER's questions about the NDAs or the partial refunds.

Davis is experiencing massive backlash

Davis changed tack after dozens of customers complained that they didn't get the services she advertised.

On her site, Davis sells ebooks with diet guidance, customized macro diet plans, and individualized coaching sessions that cost up to $300.

But multiple followers told INSIDER that the diet plans weren't tailored to their specific lifestyle, and that she skipped follow-up appointments after the first coaching session. Followers also said Davis deleted critical comments on social media, and blocked them when they asked about their purchases.

Complaints about Davis's business had built up for months — some followers posted negative reviews on the Better Business Bureau website in spring 2018 — but they really gained traction this February.

A video making fun of Davis went viral in the online fitness community, and a change.org petition titled "Stop Brittany Dawn Fitness Scams" accrued over 8,000 signatures. A private Facebook group meant to swap stories about Davis now has 3,500 members, and its users organized to ask her sponsors to drop her.

Davis made an apology video over the whole affair, but many fans aren't convinced by it.

Davis is starting to issue refunds — but she hasn't always given full ones

After INSIDER published a story about Davis Friday, dozens of people reached out to share stories about their experiences.

They almost all had the same themes in common: Davis didn't customize the programs, she didn't follow up on coaching sessions, her nutrition guides didn't make sense, and she didn't respond to emails and messages with customer service complaints.

"I ordered [a plan] in November and didn’t get any file until yesterday," one customer, Sophie, told INSIDER on Saturday. "The description says it has '21 amazing recipes,' but the file Brittany sent to me yesterday only contains 11."

Sophie, who spoke on the condition of withholding her last name, said she ultimately received a refund after disputing the case with PayPal, which processed her purchase. Several other customers said they also had success by disputing their transactions with PayPal.

When Davis herself has issued the refunds, she hasn't given full ones, according to emails posted in the private Facebook group and reviewed by INSIDER. She sometimes offered half a refund, and then sent a PayPal transfer for half of that amount.

She's also losing sponsors

Since complaints about Davis went viral, brands have dropped her as sponsors. At least two companies — the nutrition food company Tropeaka and clothing brand TimelessLabel — have dropped her, according to emails and Instagram messages reviewed by INSIDER.

"Whether it’s fitness, or a small clothing boutique like ours, please do your research (something we should have done)," TimelessLabel told INSIDER in an email. "Do not give her your hard earned money or the time of day."

Davis has also lost around 5,000 followers since the complaints went viral, according to the social media analytics site SocialBlade.

In the private Facebook group, many users are upset that Davis is still offering programs on her website, even though she hasn't delivered nutrition plans and coaching sessions that people purchased months ago.

Davis told INSIDER she and her "stakeholders" were putting together a plan that would satisfy customers.

"Brittany Dawn Fitness and each of our stakeholders hope to positively move forward by working to put communication and quality fitness plan execution policies firmly in place so this will never happen again," she wrote in an emailed statement.

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• Reader revenue has been the big growth story at The New York Times, which hit 4.3 million subscriptions at the end of 2018.
• After a Trump bump, the Times is doubling down on investigative reporting to maintain subscription growth, COO Meredith Levien told Business Insider.
• She also discussed how the Times is trying to grow subscriptions at high price points, how increased competition for subscription dollars affects the Times' business, and its relationship with platforms.

As COO of The New York Times, Meredith Levien oversees advertising and circulation revenue, which has been the big growth story recently. The Times just hit 3.4 million digital subscriptions and 4.3 million total subs, including print, and set a goal of passing 10 million subscriptions by 2025.

But while President Trump (who has mocked the paper as the "failing New York Times") contributed heavily to the growth of the Times and other news outlets after the 2016 election, Levien said the Times is no longer reliant on the "Trump bump," as other stories gain attention and it invests in stories no one else is doing.

“At this point, the president is no longer driving our subs,” Levien told Business Insider. “We’re still in a very strong news cycle. Investigations will continue to get a substantial amount of investment. That’s the kind of work I don’t think anyone is doing at scale."

She also talked about getting people to pay at the higher end, the Times’ relationship with distribution platforms, and why she’s not worried about competitors heavily discounting subscriptions.

Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed:

Lucia Moses: The Times got a big subscription boost in part with a $1-per-week deal it’s been running. Is there any concern that people will drop off once the promotion ends?

Meredith Levien: We’re about six months into that offer, and retention is pretty good. We don’t publicize our retention rate, but it’s gotten substantially better. We’ve had a number of people come in at 50% off who we had to step up to full price, and that went really well. We’re getting better at how we onboard you and interact with you in the first 90 days. We’re still not as good as the best subscription companies out there, but we’re a lot better than we were, and that gives us confidence we should be able to retain at whatever offer we get people in at. As we get better at the product we’re also making it more valuable. I don’t think there are a lot of places in news where you can say that.

Moses: Where does the Times need to get better?

Levien: We have three big areas of investment. We added 120 new journalists in 2018 and we will continue do that. Investigations will continue to get a substantial amount of investment. Things like the story of Trump’s family wealth and taxes. That’s the kind of work I don’t think anyone is doing at scale. Everything about how tech is transforming the world and we’ll keep covering that. There’s a presidential election and we’ll continue to invest in how we cover politics. Climate remains a giant story and we see that as a really important area to put fresh investments.

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We’re making big investments in the customer journey and user experience. From the moment someone hits a New York Times story on Facebook or Google, we’re doing more to explain the access model. We’re putting a lot of energy and thought into our app. That’s not been an area we’ve been focused on.

Moses: Trump has been a big subscription driver. How do you think about continuing growth once the Trump era ends?

Levien: A couple things. We felt very confident in the second half of the year and at this point that the president is no longer driving our subscriptions. We’re still in a very strong news cycle. Tech, climate change — these are really big stories that are getting a lot of attention. So we feel pretty confident that as we invest in politics and stories beyond politics, we’ll see meaningful engagement at the Times.

Moses: Why did the Times set a goal of subscriptions rather than subscription revenue?

Levien: The first goal was to double digital revenue in five years. We’re well ahead of that. We’re a $1.7 billion public company, and we need to grow revenue and need a certain amount of profitability to invest in the business. So implied in the 10 million is we will do that in a way that will make the Times a healthy and successful company.

Moses: How does it impact the Times’ ability to charge with more publishers getting into online subscriptions and often heavily discounting?

Levien: We are making a market for subscription journalism and you don’t make a market by yourself, so it’s really, really good that there are many, many getting into the space. A healthy, ascendant Washington Post, a strong Wall Street Journal are good for a healthy, ascendant New York Times. That said, how do we think about others discounting more aggressively? I think what we do is fundamentally different and worth paying more for. We’ve been much more aggressive with brand marketing than anyone who be considered a close competitor. So I’m not terribly worried about where anyone else prices their subscriptions. The Post has done extraordinary reporting on politics, The Wall Street Journal has done extraordinary reporting on business, but I don’t think there’s anyone other than The New York Times that pursues the truth and does our breadth of work. I’m not sure we have a peer.

Moses: You’ve begun dynamic pricing of subscriptions. Do you see a point where you have people paying at all kinds of levels?

Levien: We really see room on both sides of the demand curve. We’ve been testing the lower half. That’s worked and reached an audience for whom the price before felt too high. At same time I think there’s a large number of people who would pay whole lot and will pay a whole lot for The New York Times. All-digital access is $125. We have a lot of people who take that. We have people paying over $1,000 a year for The New York Times. I think there are probably people in the world who would pay $100,000 for a subscription because they believe so much in it. It’s a business challenge to identify people who would pay a lot and get it to them in a way that makes sense. We’re putting lot of thought into how to get at the high end of the demand curve. We’ll test higher prices. We’ll put out more product. We keep putting more value in the paper.

Moses: What’s working on platforms and where is there room for improvement?

Levien: We continue to have productive relationships, with some more than others. We’ve spent lot of money with Facebook, Google, Twitter, building our audience with subscribers. All of that said, we’re most focused on The New York Times as the best place to experience journalism. On Google, we like what they’re doing, the tool set they built with Subscribe with Google.

Moses: And Facebook and Apple News, which have or are working on subscription products?

Levien: I don’t think we’ll comment on that. We are at the moment most focused on our own model and user experience. I don’t think we’ve talked publicly about whether we’ll participate in [Apple News subscription service] Texture. Apple News, like Google and Facebook and to some degree Twitter, continue to be one of a handful of important sources of people discovering a story first from the Times.

Moses: How do you assess the digital news landscape now, which has been dominated by a lot of layoff stories?

Levien: It’s really unfortunate and upsetting that we’re losing so many jobs in journalism. I think that is not good for the world. What is going well is: journalism is finding its way into new places in people’s lives. As we find ways to get into stories and find new formats like audio where we can do news in a more narrative, interesting way, I think there’s an opportunity for high-quality journalism to play a bigger role in people’s lives.

The Daily is a success for so many reasons but it really invented this new form of narrative news. The format is intimate. The special sauce wasn’t just the story but understanding how the story came to be and the story behind the story. It gives people a sense of how we do the work we do. We’ll keep making The Daily bigger and we’re very focused on what other shows and special events we can launch through it. Caliphate was one example. We’ll do multi-episode specials and grow shows out of audio.

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