The author promised her daughter a trip to Paris when she turned 13 but debated canceling it due to her teen's behavior.
Courtesy of the author
In 2020, my daughter asked me if I would take her to Paris when she turned 13.
But when she turned 13, she started getting in trouble and pushing the limits.
I stuck to my agreement, and the trip was what we needed to reset our relationship.
In 2020, when my daughter was 9, right in the heart of the COVID-19 lockdown, she asked if Iwould take her to Pariswhen she turned 13.
At the time, she had a new obsession with all things French. I had justleft my 15-year marriageand was single for the first time in 20 years. I thought to myself — 13 is four years away, why not say yes, and give my child what they desired?
"Yes," I said. "I would love that."
Four years later, she turned 13 and immediately asked, "So, are we going to Paris?"
I couldn't disappoint her
I panicked. I had just bought a new house, was raising two teenagers as asingle mother on one income, and was not financially stable enough to take an international trip. Yet, there was no way I could disappoint her.
"Yes, let's do it."
Flash forward to early 2024, I've purchasedaffordable plane ticketsto Paris and have begun saving every dollar to afford food and lodging. We planned to go in September after the Paris Olympics closed. Little did I know what the summer was to bring.
I had always been very close with my daughter, but when she turned 13, she shifted almost overnight — my sweet little girl became adisobedient teenager— a cliché, I know.
I had been a difficult teenager myself. I was expelled from Catholic school when I was 13, among other indiscretions. My daughter knew these stories. I was proud of my rebellious youth and worried that it would come back to haunt me.
And it did.
Her behavior wasn't great
She moved schools in the middle of seventh grade, bored of her small elementary school. Immediately, due to social pressure and the need to belong, she fell in with a popular girl who made questionable life choices. My daughter started smoking marijuana, sneaking out without me knowing, lying, and growing ever more untrustworthy. We fought. We argued. It continued for months.
"You're so not chill, Mom."
As the summer wore on and she engaged in more troubling behavior, I wondered if she deserved to go to Paris. It was a privilege to travel to Paris. I struggled with the decision. One day, she even asked me, "Are you going to cancel Paris because of all this?"
I didn't.
The trip was what we needed
We went to Paris, and she proved to be a mature and adventurous traveler. Knowing little French, she walked into stores by herself, always politely speaking the little French she knew. She encouraged us to rent bikes and ride around the busy Parisian streets, her headphones in one ear and Kendrick Lamar pumping his bass through her body as she passed by the River Seine.
She loved riding the metro, sitting in cafés, trying escargot, sipping Champagne, and watching the Moulin Rouge dancers. She especially loved the middle school French boys outside the skate shop in the Le Marais district. She loved picnics in the park and was awed by Rodin's sculptures.
The trip was exactly what we needed to change our relationship. I didn't turn away from my teenage daughter when she challenged me. I didn't punish her extensively (just enough), but I kept communication open and didn't take away this trip to Paris just because she broke my trust. I trusted that travel could be a way to strengthen our connection as she grew up and experimented with independence.
Beyond that, she was able to experience the world outside the US, which is hugely beneficial for any teenager. Stepping out of her comfortable life into a foreign country only helped her realize the importance of family and resolved our conflicts as mother and daughter.
The trip changed the way she saw herself, the world, and her peer group and improved our relationship. Upon returning, she stopped smoking pot, ditched the bad friends, and won back my trust. Today, we're even closer as she approaches another big milestone: high school.
While driving home from school, I asked her, "Why did you want to go to Paris?"
She replied, "I don't know. I mean, it's Paris. Who wouldn't want to go to France?"
She proceeded to reach for the radio dial and turn up Frank Ocean, and I knew we were both thinking about the time we shared in Paris, cuddling under jackets on a cold boat ride down the Seine or gasping at the grandeur of the Louvre's great ceilings.
Brenda Duncan Cusick moved from Moorpark, California to Prescott, Arizona in 2020.
Brenda Duncan Cusick
Brenda Duncan Cusick moved from California to Arizona due to rising wildfire risks and living costs.
Cusick's monthly expenses dropped by a couple of thousand dollars living in Prescott, Arizona.
After retiring from the insurance industry, she started a local food tour.
After living in Moorpark, California, for nearly two decades, Brenda Duncan Cusick had become an expert in wildfire evacuations.
Cusick, 61, told Business Insider that she's had to flee the home she shared with her husband and two children at least five times. Moorpark is an hour's drive northwest of Los Angeles, close to where the deadly Woolsey Fire in 2018 destroyed tens of thousands of homes. Over time, she saw how the blazes were becoming more difficult to control.
The wildfires also affected Cusick's career as an insurance agent. Between 2015 and 2023, she sold homeowners, commercial, and auto policies, including for Farmers Insurance. But it became harder to keep and attract clients as rates tripled in some cases due to a combination of factors, including fire risks, the rising costs of reinsurance, and California regulations, Cusick said.
"I lost a lot of sales because people wanted to save on their insurance, but I would advise they carry more coverage," Cusick said. "They'd own a $1 million home and a small business, and I'd tell them they could lose everything they've worked for for being underinsured."
Cusick said that rising wildfire risks — combined with higher insurance premiums, utility bills, gas prices, and car registration fees for her family of four — made her realize it was impossible to retire in California.
She's not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Californians have moved out of the state in recent years, often driven by high prices and, in some cases, natural disaster risks.
Residents have among the highest average energy bills in the country, in part because utility companies have spent billions of dollars on wildfire-related costs that are partially passed on to customers. California also has aggressive climate policies that make oil and gas more expensive.
Willow Creek Reservoir in Prescott, Arizona.
Brenda Duncan Cusick
When the COVID-19 pandemic gave Cusick and her husband the freedom to work remotely in 2020, they decided to sell their home and move to Prescott, Arizona. They joined the many older Americans who have flocked to Arizona for retirement, citing lower costs of living and comfortable weather. While there is little data indicating climate-fueled disasters are directly causing massive migration, Cusick's story suggests that the costly ripple effects of wildfires on insurance and utility bills may help motivate people to leave their longtime homes.
Saving thousands a month and starting a local food tour
Cusick said that at first, it was "daunting" to consider leaving her home state.
"But once we did, we realized that there are so many lovely places to live all over the US," she said, adding that her monthly expenses have dropped by a couple of thousand dollars.
They downsized from their 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom home in Moorpark to a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom property in Prescott. Cusick said selling their California home gave them enough cash for a large down payment on the new place in Arizona. Their monthly mortgage payment is now $1,672, compared to $3,309 in California, according to bank statements reviewed by Business Insider. Their utility and HOA bills in Arizona average about $373 a month, while in California, they could range from about $400 to $1,200.
Cusick said Prescott reminds her of growing up in California.
"It's a very western town in the mountains of Arizona," she said, noting that Prescott is surrounded by a national forest.
Prescott was the capital of Arizona Territory until the late 1800s, and every Fourth of July, it hosts a big rodeo. The downtown reminds Cusick of a Hallmark move, she said. Prescott's history, cooler summer temperatures, and location between Phoenix and the Grand Canyon help it attract thousands of tourists every year.
After Cusick retired from the insurance industry, she got involved with a local charity and started the Prescott Food Tour.
"It's completely the opposite of selling boring, impossible insurance," she said. "I by no means make anywhere near what I did before, but when you're retired, you get to do things like this."
Do you have a story to share about leaving an area prone to wildfires or rising home insurance costs? Contact this reportercboudreau@businessinsider.com.
Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a NATO Summit in July 2024.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Calls are growing for Norway to tap into its sovereign wealth fund to boost funding for Ukraine.
The calls come amid souring relations between the US and Ukraine, raising pressure on Europe to step up.
Norway has spent less on Ukraine aid than its neighbors. Its SWF is worth $1.8 trillion.
Norway is facing growing pressure to tap into its massive sovereign wealth fund to boost aid for Ukraine as concerns grow over continued US support for Ukraine's war efforts.
Norway, a founding member of NATO, has a $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, fueled by oil and gas revenues, as well as investments in stocks, bonds, real estate, and renewable energy.
The country caps its annual use at 3% to finance Norway's welfare state and budget. However, amid growing tensions between Washington and Kyiv, Norwegian politicians and economists are pushing to tap the fund to increase support for Ukraine.
"Norway is one of the few countries that has large money easily accessible, and we must therefore double our support to Ukraine immediately," Guri Melby, the leader of Norway's Liberal party, said in a Facebook post Saturday.
Arild Hermstad, the country's Green Party leader, said that "Norway has a record-high oil fund that we must now actively use to secure peace and democracy in Europe and Ukraine."
Norway lags behind its Nordic neighbors
Norway has spent less on aid to Ukraine than its Scandinavian neighbors, allocating just 0.75% of its GDP, compared to Sweden's 0.91%, Finland's 0.98%, and Denmark's 2.17%, according to the Kiel Institute for World Economy Ukraine Support Tracker.
Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in an X post on Thursday that parliament had agreed to double the country's financial pledge to Ukraine this year, to about $8.1 billion.
The Prime Minister's Office didn't reply to a request for comment from Business Insider.
But when it comes to the sovereign wealth fund, Norway's finance minister, Jens Stoltenberg, a former NATO Secretary General, warned last month that breaking the 3% cap would be risky and should only be used in times of crisis.
Meanwhile, in an op-ed published last weekend, 47 Norwegian economists, analysts, and professors urged the country to use the fund to help Ukraine.
"Russia's attack, if not stopped, poses an existential threat to freedom and democracy, not only in Ukraine but throughout Europe, including Norway," they wrote.
Breaking the 3% cap
Knut Anton Mork, a professor emeritus of economics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, told BI it wouldn't be the first time Norway had broken the 3% cap.
It exceeded it by 1.2 percentage points in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and by 0.1 percentage points during the 2008 financial crisis, when it was already set at 4%.
Even so, Mork said "disregarding the 3% rule would be somewhat unusual, and more so the larger the gift."
He predicted that the government would likely stay "within the 3% rule, or maybe slightly above" it.
Einar Lie, a professor of economic history at the University of Oslo, who along with Mork signed the op-ed, said breaking the 3% cap to aid a foreign country has never been considered before, but he argued that helping Ukraine to "survive and deter further aggression is vital" for long-term security.
"It is definitely more likely to happen as a part of a broad concerted action among European countries and, hopefully, the US," he added.
European concern over US support
Calls for Norway to step up its spending for Ukraine come amid uncertainty over Washington's commitment to the war-torn country.
Last Friday, during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to the White House, President Donald Trump accused Zelenskyy of "disrespecting" the US.
Days later, Trump said he was pausing all military aid to Ukraine. One military expert told BI that if US aid does not restart, then Ukrainians could hold out for perhaps two to four months.
The situation has raised concerns about how Europe could step in to further help Ukraine's defense.
At emergency talks in London on Saturday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a "massive surge" in defense spending among European allies was in the works.
US job cuts hit the highest level since July 2020, fueled by DOGE's layoffs of federal workers.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported a 245% increase in job cut announcements from February 2024.
Retail and tech sectors also have also seen significant layoffs amid economic uncertainty.
Monthly job cut announcements in the US surged to their highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic last month, according to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The job cuts, spearheaded by President Donald Trump's DOGE committee, totaled 172,017 in February, the highest monthly level since July 2020 and the highest total for the month of February since 2009.
The reported job cuts in February represented a 245% increase from the 49,975 job cuts announced in February, and a 103% increase from the 84,638 job cuts announced in February 2024.
"With the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] actions, as well as canceled Government contracts, fear of trade wars, and bankruptcies, job cuts soared in February," said Andrew Challenger, Senior Vice President at Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Challenger tracked 62,242 job cuts announced by the federal government last month across 17 different agencies. That's a more than increase from the 151 government job cuts announced in February 2024.
Challenger's report comes one day after the release of the ADP employment report for February. Private payrolls rose by 77,000, badly missing estimates of 148,000.
It's not just the government announcing job cuts, though. Other areas of the economy that were vulnerable to job cuts include the retail and technology sectors, which announced 38,956 and 14,554 job cuts respectively in February.
The layoffs may keep mounting. Estimates on Wall Street suggest DOGE could cut as many as 300,000 jobs, and Apollo economist Torsten Sløk recently noted that two contractor jobs are tied to every government job. That means total layoffs could quickly approach one million if DOGE follows through with its job cuts.
And the job cuts could even lead to voluntary layoffs, according to Challenger.
"When mass layoffs occur, it often leaves remaining staff feeling uneasy and uncertain. The likelihood that many more workers leave voluntarily is high," the firm said.
Economists expect the US economy to have added 170,000 jobs in February, with the unemployment rate remaining at 4.0%.
Many mindfulness apps are effective at addressing acute stress but may not be as helpful for chronic stress. Neurofit, a mental wellness app that focuses on movement, is trying to close this gap.
The app, developed by the husband-and-wife team Andrew and Loren Hogue, leverages neuroscience and what they call "nervous system fitness" to help users reduce stress and improve mental clarity through somatic exercises. Somatics is a field of movement studies and bodywork that focuses on the body's physical perceptions and experiences, emphasizing conscious movements that increase the mind-body connection.
With just a three-person team, Neurofit relies on AI to deliver its program and engage users. The small business uses AI in three key ways: mental health coaching, app coding and development, and language translation.
Andrew and Loren Hogue are the cofounders of Neurofit.
Courtesy of Britt James/In The Flow Photography
Andrew Hogue, a serial entrepreneur with a background in software engineering, cofounded Neurofit in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when rates of anxiety and depression soared. Five years later, many people are still recovering from that collective trauma.
Loren Hogue, a former lawyer and a master somatic coach, underwent training and learned that chronic stress affects physical health just as much as mental health.
Neurofit uses neuroscience- and evidence-based methods to address chronic stress and burnout, anchoring its program on somatic movements and mindfulness activities proven to reduce stress.
The Neurofit app has a daily check-in function where users assess how they feel about different parts of their lives, including career and family, and securely collects this data to understand each user's "stress fingerprint," Andrew Hogue said.
The app compiles biometric data, such as heart rate and nervous system recovery, and combines this with information about each user's stress profile and physiology to provide personalized guidance and insights. It analyzes a user's unique stress patterns over time and tailors exercises and coaching to the individual's needs.
Product development, coding, and translation help
Neurofit also uses AI for coding. Andrew Hogue used it to develop an app specifically for Apple Watches, something he'd never done despite his experience as a software engineer. He said AI reduced the learning curve, guiding him through the coding process to develop an Apple Watch app in just a few days to complement Neurofit's existing iOS app.
Neurofit has also adopted AI to reach a global audience.
The company uses ChatGPT 3.0 — a generative AI tool that can create new content from virtually any source material — to translate mental health and wellness articles in the app's content library into more than 40 different languages. The technology allows Neurofit to translate content faster and more affordably than using human translators, saving the company $1,500 to $2,000 for each language, Andrew said.
Lauren Houge said AI also helps Neurofit increase accessibility and equity.
"By driving down the cost of care, AI-driven tools are poised to serve far more diverse populations from anywhere, not just tech-savvy or privileged groups," she said.
But adopting AI hasn't been foolproof. The technology initially produced subpar language translations, but they improved over time with better data inputs. It experienced a similar problem with its content library, as ChatGPT 3.0 initially delivered lower-quality results as the team added more internal links, visuals, and graphics to its content pages. Andrew Hogue said these issues have been resolved over time.
It's just another reminder that you can't rely solely on AI tools; a human always should be in the loop.
The Hogues said it's critical for small businesses new to AI to start with small test cases, look for repetitive tasks to easily automate, and use the technology to augment — rather than replace — human empathy and connection.
Loren Hogue added that ethical and privacy safeguards are nonnegotiable, especially in healthcare.
"Robust data protection needs to be built into every step, starting at the design phase, so users feel safe sharing biometric information," she said.
Ultimately, they believe the potential for AI to have a positive effect on people's mental health may outweigh the possible risks.
"We believe AI can transform mental health care into a more proactive, holistic, preventive, and personalized domain," Loren Hogue said, "one that supports not only immediate mental and emotional well-being, but also long-term physiological resilience and longevity."
President Donald Trump briefly had to stop speaking during his 2025 joint address to Congress due to a Democratic lawmaker's heckling.
Ben Curtis/AP
Trump is delivering an address to a joint session of Congress tonight.
His speech was quickly disrupted by heckling from Rep. Al Green of Texas.
It's not officially a State of the Union speech, but it's very similar.
President Donald Trump began his speech on Tuesday evening by declaring to the nation that the US is on the verge of a historic comeback. His opening remarks, however, were quickly disrupted by Rep. Al Green of Texas, who was escorted out of the chamber after repeated warnings from House Speaker Mike Johnson.
"Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the Golden Age of America. From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country," Trump said in his address to Congress. "We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in 4 years or 8 years — and we are JUST GETTING STARTED."
Before he was escorted out, Green shouted, "You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!" at the president.
On Tuesday, ahead of his speech, markets tanked after he imposed 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said after markets closed on Tuesday that a compromise could "probably" be imminent.
Trump sounds like a leader gearing up for a trade war.
"Whatever they tariff us, we tariff them. Whatever they tax us, we tax them. If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market," Trump is expected to say. "We will take in trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before."
Elon Musk, the de facto head of the White House DOGE office, is also in the chamber and wearing a suit. Former federal workers who Musk has helped fire were invited as guests by Democratic lawmakers.
It's a State of the Union address in all but name — technically, in the president's first year, it's just a joint address to Congress.
The last time Trump was in the House chamber was during the final year of his first term when he delivered his final State of the Union address on the eve of the Senate acquitting him in his first impeachment trial.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, the January 6 insurrection, the Biden administration, and Trump's improbable political comeback.
Trump's speech could last up to two hours, according to White House press guidance. He's likely to address trade, the state of the economy, artificial intelligence, the war in Ukraine, and DOGE.
As is often the case with Trump, it's possible the president goes off-script.
This story will be updated with new details from Trump's address when it begins.
Anna Kim/Getty, Mutlu Kurtbas/Getty, Chip Somodevilla/Getty, Tyler Le/BI
Trump no longer appears to be tracking the success of his presidency through the lens of the stock market.
The president dashed hopes that tariffs could be avoided, staying the course as markets tanked.
His team has suggested they're eyeing the 10-year Treasury yield as a scorecard instead.
President Donald Trump isn't flinching from his sweeping tariff policy in the face of a brutal stock sell-off that has investors fleeing to safe havens this week.
The president plowed ahead with his plan to levy tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China on Tuesday. The S&P 500 extended a decline that began on Monday when Trump announced there was no last-minute deal coming to avert the tariffs. The benchmark index was down more than 1% at midday and has seen its postelection gains completely erased. The Nasdaq 100, meanwhile, has entered a correction, down 10% from its most recent peak.
But the administration has suggested the decline in stock prices isn't what the president is focused on.
"Over the medium term, which is what we're focused on, it's a focus on Main Street. Wall Street's done great, Wall Street can continue to do fine, but we have a focus on small business and consumers," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Tuesday.
The message to markets is clear: The new administration is OK with the fallout in stocks for now.
It is an about-face from Trump's first term, when he boasted about taking the stock market to a "different planet." He also regularly posted about the stock market being up "massively,", and suggested that stocks would have crashed had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election.
In what perhaps is the best example of how much validation Trump derived from the stock market, in 2020 he sent the late Fox News host Lou Dobbs an autographed chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The chart showed the index's nearly 2,000-point rise the day Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency.
Trump sent the late Lou Dobbs an autographed chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on March 13, 2020.
A screenshot from Lou Dobbs Moneyline show on Fox Business.
But the president has been quiet about the stock market lately, saying little to boost investors' mood despite stocks trading lower than when he won the election in November.
Trump's team has suggested that other scorecards could be used to measure success. In February, Bessent pointed to the 10-year Treasury yield as a barometer on the president's radar, emphasizing the focus on borrowing costs for Americans, which are often tied to government bond yields.
"He and I are focused on the 10-year Treasury, and what is the yield of that," Bessent told Fox Business. "He wants lower rates."
The yield on the 10-year bond slid four basis points on Tuesday as concerns about tariffs' impact on economic growth overshadowed fears that a trade war would lead to higher inflation. The rally in bond prices, which move inversely to yields, means Treasurys have now outperformed stocks since the election, according to Bloomberg data.
The president's moves have also challenged the views of Wall Street forecasters, who predicted he could step in if markets became too volatile.
"On election day S&P 500 closed at 5783; we say this is first strike price of Trump put, below which 'Stocks Down Under Trump' headlines begin, below which investors currently long risk would very much expect and need some verbal support for markets from policymakers," Bank of America strategists wrote last week before tariffs sparked the latest stock rout.
On Truth Social, the president's recent posts have revolved largely around things like tariffs, his immigration policy, and progress on a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, with no mention of the stock market.
Trump's team did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Dolly Parton has an estimated net worth of $450 million, according to Forbes.
Her Dollywood theme parks and music catalog are her biggest financial assets.
She's contributed millions to humanitarian causes such as disaster relief and the Moderna vaccine.
Dolly Parton is one of country music's biggest superstars.
Her many accolades include spots in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Living Legends Medal from the Library of Congress, Kennedy Center Honors, a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, and 11 Grammys.
Parton wasn't always a millionaire. Parton grew up in Sevierville, Tennessee, where she shared a two-room log cabin with her parents and 11 siblings.
She still calls Tennessee home, though she upgraded to a 3,324-square-foot ranch in Brentwood purchased in 1999. She shared the home with her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, until his death in March at the age of 82.
Parton is also a philanthropist who has given away millions to fund children's literacy and public health initiatives.
With ventures like the Dollywood theme park and a line of Duncan Hines cake mixes, Parton is worth an estimated $450 million, Forbes reported. Here's how she makes and spends her fortune.
Dolly Parton skyrocketed to country superstardom with songs like "Jolene" and "9 to 5."
Country music legend Dolly Parton.
NBC / Contributor / Getty Images
Dolly Parton wrote her first song at age 5 and played her first show at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry at 13. She released her debut album, "Hello I'm Dolly," in 1967.
Forbes reported that about one-third of her fortune comes from her music catalog, which is worth an estimated $150 million.
Dolly Parton's albums on display at the Dollywood DreamMore Resort.
Talia Lakritz/Insider
Parton has released over 50 studio albums and achieved 26 No.1 hits on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. She has also lent her songwriting talents to other artists, such as Whitney Houston's megahit "I Will Always Love You."
Parton owns nearly all of the publishing rights to her music through the company she founded.
Dolly Parton earns royalties on her music.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
When her contract with Combine Music expired in 1966, Parton founded her own publishing company with her uncle and then-manager Bill Owens, according to her official website.
This has allowed her to maintain the publishing rights to almost all of her music and receive a publishing fee whenever one of her songs is played on the radio or used in film or TV, Forbes reported in 2021.
Her music catalog earns her between $6 million and $8 million in royalties every year.
Dollywood, her theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, is her biggest financial asset.
Dollywood.
George Rose/Getty Images
In 1986, Parton partnered with the existing Silver Dollar City theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to remodel and rebrand it as Dollywood. She grew up less than 10 miles away, in Sevierville, Tennessee.
"I always thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area," Parton told the Associated Press in 2010. "Sure enough, I was lucky, and God was good to me and things happened good. We started the park and 25 years later, we're still at it."
The park spans 160 acres in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Parton's 50% stake in the theme park is worth about $165 million.
Dollywood.
Talia Lakritz/Insider
Dollywood remains the top tourist attraction in Tennessee with around 3 million visitors each year, according to CBS affiliate WVLT. A one-day adult ticket costs $92.
Her shares in Dollywood's Splash Country water park are worth an estimated $20 million.
Dollywood's Splash Country.
Dollywood
Opened in 2001, the 35-acre water park is located next to Dollywood. It operates seasonally, from May to September.
Parton also co-owns the DreamMore Resort and Spa with a stake worth $15 million.
The Dollywood DreamMore Resort.
Talia Lakritz/Insider
The 20-acre hotel in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, features a shuttle to and from Dollywood and pieces of Dolly Parton memorabilia.
A chestnut "Dream Box" displayed in a glass case on the hotel's lower level contains a recording of "My Place In History," a song Parton wrote to be released on her 100th birthday in 2046.
In 2023, Parton opened her second hotel in Pigeon Forge, the HeartSong Lodge and Resort.
Her lines of housewares, Duncan Hines cake mixes, and "Doggy Parton" pet apparel provide additional revenue streams.
Dolly Parton cake mix.
Talia Lakritz/Insider
Parton's colorful collection of cookware and home decor is available at stores like Kohl's and JCPenney.
Her "Doggy Parton" pet gear, including bandanas, wigs, and toys, is available on Amazon, and a portion of sales support Willa B. Farms animal rescue.
After releasing two Duncan Hines cake mixes in 2022, the singer expanded the line to include mixes for corn bread, brownies, and biscuits along with her coconut- and banana-pudding cakes.
Parton purchased the Brentwood, Tennessee, home she shared with husband Carl Dean for $400,000 in 1999.
Dolly Parton's estate in Brentwood, Tennessee.
Google Maps
The grounds of the 3,324-square-foot home include a tennis court, swimming pool, garden, and barns for livestock, the Daily Express reported.
In an interview published in the 2017 book "Dolly on Dolly," Parton said that she and Dean would take pictures of Southern mansions in Mississippi on their annual anniversary trip and note features they wanted to incorporate into their eventual dream home.
"I knew that house before it was built and I built it long before we could afford it 'cause I knew we'd be able to — someday," she wrote, according to an excerpt published in The New York Post. "I scouted all over Tennessee for a piece of land with hills in front and a stream around it. It's got a bitty bridge, and I made sure it's just narrow enough so's no tour bus can git over it. Carl and me can walk around stark naked there and nobody'd see. We have chickens and cows and a vegetable garden. It's a quiet, homey place for me and the special people in my life."
It's a far cry from her roots: Parton grew up in a two-room log cabin with her parents and 11 siblings in Sevierville. The cabin had no electricity or running water, but Parton remembered her years there fondly in her 1973 song "My Tennessee Mountain Home."
Dollywood features a replica of her childhood home built by her brother, Bobby, and furnished by her mother, Avie Lee.
While she wears elaborate bedazzled outfits for public appearances and performing onstage, Parton is more frugal when it comes to her everyday clothes.
Dolly Parton fashion in 1978, 1989, and 2014.
Ron Galella/Getty Images; Rick Diamond/Getty Images
In a 2020 appearance on the Scandinavian talk show "Skavlan," Parton said she buys most of her clothes off the rack and doesn't splurge on designer items.
"I really like to earn money, but I love to spend it, too. But I spend it on things that I feel like that's needed," she said. "I'm not the kind of person that will go out and spend like three or four thousand dollars on a coat or one outfit."
She added that the steep price tags on expensive items make her think of her parents, who "could have fed a family of 12 on what I would pay for a coat."
Parton is renowned for her generous charity work through The Dollywood Foundation, which she founded in 1988.
Dolly Parton at a benefit concert.
Rick Diamond/Getty Images
"I just give from my heart," she said in a speech while accepting the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2022. "I never know what I'm going to do or why I'm gonna do it. I just see a need and if I can fill it, then I will."
She gives away around 2 million books to children each month through the foundation's Imagination Library.
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in action.
Yui Mok - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images
Parton founded her Imagination Library in 1995, inspired by her father's struggles with literacy. The nonprofit sends free books to children from birth through age 5 each month.
"This actually started because my father could not read and write and I saw how crippling that could be," she told the Associated Press in 2022. "My dad was a very smart man. And I often wondered what he could have done had he been able to read and write."
She continues to invest in her hometown, funding a new medical center and scholarships for students in her old high school.
LeConte Medical Center.
Talia Lakritz/Insider
LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with the help of Parton's philanthropy and fundraising. She also funded its Dolly Parton Center for Women's Services and Dolly Parton Birthing Unit.
The Dollywood Foundation offers $15,000 scholarships to five high school seniors in Sevier County, Tennessee, and covers college tuition and books for its theme-park employees, CBS News reported.
Her $1 million gift to Vanderbilt University in 2020 proved integral to the development of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine.
Dolly Parton received the COVID-19 vaccine she helped fund.
DollyParton/Twitter
A report in the New England Journal of Medicine on the development of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine acknowledged the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund among supporters of the research.
Parton qualified to get the vaccine she helped fund in Tennessee in early February 2021, but she said she wanted to wait "until some more people" got theirs.
"I don't want it to look like I'm jumping the line just because I donated money," she told the Associated Press. "I'm very funny about that."
In a video of her getting the vaccine in March 2021, Parton sang a rendition of her hit song "Jolene," changing the lyrics to "vaccine, vaccine," and encouraging everyone to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
In October, Parton donated a total of $2 million toward Hurricane Helene relief.
Dolly Parton onstage at a variety special.
Jon Morgan/CBS via Getty Images
Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm on September 26, flooding neighborhoods and leaving over 1 million homes and businesses without power.
At an October 4 press conference in Newport, Tennessee, Parton announced that she planned to donate $1 million from her personal fortune to help those impacted by Hurricane Helene and an additional $1 million through her businesses such as Dollywood and Dolly Parton's Stampede.
"I can't stand to see anyone hurting, so I wanted to do what I could to help after these terrible floods," she said.
She continued, "I hope we can all be a little bit of light in the world for our friends, our neighbors — even strangers — during this dark time they are experiencing."
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An Oscar statue on display at the 96th Academy Awards event.
PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images
UPDATE: The 97th Academy Awards have concluded and are now available to stream on-demand through most of the streaming services we've outlined below. We recommend catching up on the ceremony sooner rather than later since some of the on-demand offerings are for a limited time only. The original article follows:
The Academy Awards kick off in just a few hours, with Conan O'Brien serving as host for the first time. We've compiled everything you need to know about how to watch the Oscars free, including global streaming options and a roundup of some of the nominees, presenters, and performers.
Hollywood congregates tonight for the 97th Academy Awards, highlighting the best films, performers, and creators from the last year. As always, one of the most notable categories of the night is Best Picture. The race is especially tight tonight since multiple films have nabbed important awards leading up to the Oscars, with "Anora," "The Brutalist," "Conclave," and "Emilia Pérez" winning big at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and BAFTAs.
Among other notable races is Best Actor. Adrien Brody ("The Brutalist") has largely swept this awards season, but a Timothée Chalamet ("A Complete Unknown") win at the SAG Awards last weekend — the final major stop on the awards juggernaut before the Oscars — has opened up questions about a potential Chalamet upset. Of course, part of the allure of the live telecast of the Oscars is that none of the major predictions could come true, and it's anyone's game until the envelope is opened.
Keep reading to learn how to watch the 97th Academy Awards. Plus, we'll show you how to use a VPN so that you can watch from anywhere. And if you're hoping to watch some of the films you see tonight, check out our guide to where to watch every 2025 Oscars best picture nominee.
The Oscars will air on ABC in the US, kicking off at 7 p.m. ET. The network will air live red carpet coverage starting at 6:30 p.m. and a lengthy pre-red carpet show earlier in the day. For cord-cutters, ABC typically requires a live TV streaming package (which we'll dig into below), but for the first time ever, the ceremony will also be simulcast on regular Hulu. Subscriptions start at $10/month and come with a 30-day free trial.
If you'd rather watch through a service that carries ABC live streams (so you can watch the network beyond tonight), a live TV streaming package like Sling TV, DirecTV Stream, or Fubo will be the way to go. Sling is the cheapest of the bunch, with Sling TV Blue plans starting at $46/month and offering 40+ popular channels, although ABC varies by region so you should check to make sure it's available in your area before subscribing. New users can get half-off their first month of service.
If you're looking for something closer to cable, DirecTV Stream and Fubo carry anywhere from 90 to 200+ live channels, depending on which tier you sign up for. DirecTV Stream's Entertainment plan starts at $87/month and comes with a five-day free trial, while Fubo's Essential plan starts at $85/month and comes with a seven-day free trial.
How to watch the Oscars in the UK
The Oscars will air on ITV1 in the UK, kicking off at midnight on early Monday. The ceremony will live stream for free on ITVX, which only requires account creation to use.
How to watch the Oscars in Australia
The Oscars will air on Seven in Australia. The ceremony will be available to live stream on 7Plus, a free streaming service that only requires account creation to use.
How to watch the Oscars from anywhere
If you're outside Australia or the UK right now, you can still keep up with the free streaming options with the help of a VPN. Short for virtual private networks, VPNs are easy-to-use cybersecurity tools that enable people to change their virtual location. They're especially popular among those hoping to upgrade their online security and access their go-to websites and apps while traveling abroad. ExpressVPN is one of the top options on the market, with a 30-day money-back guarantee and tons of other security-enhancing assets, which we outline in our ExpressVPN review.
As usual, the Academy Award presenter lineup is nearly as impressive as its nominees (and some nominees, like Zoe Saldaña, are even pulling double duty). In addition to host Conan O'Brien, presenters include Joe Alwyn, Robert Downey Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Selena Gomez, Goldie Hawn, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Cillian Murphy, Amy Poehler, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, June Squibb, Ben Stiller, Emma Stone, Oprah Winfrey, and Bowen Yang, among others.
Which films are nominated for Best Picture?
This year's Best Picture nominees range from a beloved musical adaptation to an epic sci-fi sequel to a Bob Dylan biopic. Check out the full list of all 10 nominees below:
Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
I'm Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked
Who is performing at the Oscars?
In a shake-up from the norm, best song nominees won't be performing at this year's Academy Awards ceremony. However, that doesn't mean that the evening will be without music. "Wicked" stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are scheduled to perform, although exact details about their collaboration haven't been revealed. Doja Cat, Raye, Lisa of Black Pink, and Queen Latifah have also been announced as performers through the Academy's official Instagram account.
Where do the Oscars take place?
The 97th Academy Awards will be held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The Oscars have been held at the venue every year since 2002, with the exception of the 2021 Academy Awards, which were held in a different seating format at Union Station in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Note: The use of VPNs is illegal in certain countries, and using VPNs to access region-locked streaming content might constitute a breach of the terms of use for certain services. Business Insider does not endorse or condone the illegal use of VPNs.
Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times
OpenAI has been elevating research and technical talent to leadership roles after recent departures.
The company has also brought on some new faces to fill the vacancies in its executive suite.
Here are some of the key people to watch going forward.
Last year, OpenAI found itself navigating a storm of departures. Recently, the company has been busy elevating its research and technical talent to leadership positions while strategically bringing in new hires to patch up the holes in its executive suite.
This shuffle in leadership couldn't come at a more critical time, as the company faces intensified competition from heavyweights like Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, and Elon Musk's xAI. Staying ahead means securing top-flight talent is essential. After all, "OpenAI is nothing without its people," or so employees declared on social media after the failed Sam Altman ouster.
Meanwhile, the company is juggling a cascade of legal challenges, from copyright lawsuits to antitrust scrutiny, all while navigating the shifting sands of regulatory guidance under President Donald Trump. On top of that, OpenAI is trying to restructure as a for-profit business, raise tens of billions of dollars, and build new computer data centers in the US to develop its tech.
It's a high-wire act that hinges on the expertise and execution of its new and newly promoted leaders. Below are some of the key power players who are helping to shape OpenAI's future.
Leadership
Sarah Friar.
Photo By Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images
Sarah Friar, chief financial officer
Friar joined last year as the company's first financial chief and a seasoned addition to the new guard. Formerly Square's CFO, Friar knows how to turn a founder's vision into a story that investors want to be a part of. She took two companies public: Square and Nextdoor, the hyperlocal social network she led through explosive growth during pandemic lockdowns.
At OpenAI, Friar leads a finance team responsible for securing the funds required to build better models and the data centers to power them. In her first few months on the job, she helped the company get $6.5 billion in one of the biggest private pools of capital in startup history.
She inherited a business with a colossal consumer-facing business and high-profile partnerships with Microsoft and Apple. At the same time, OpenAI is burning through billions of dollars as it seeks to outpace increasingly stiff competition from Google, Meta, and others. Friar is expected to bring much-needed financial acumen to OpenAI as the company moves to turn its research into mass-market products and a profitable business.
Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer
In his role as chief strategy officer, Kwon helps set the agenda for a slew of non-research initiatives, including the company's increasingly active outreach to policymakers and the various legal challenges swirling around it. His background as the company's former general counsel gives him a strong foundation in navigating complex legal and regulatory landscapes.
Kwon works closely with Anna Makanju, the VP of global impact, and Chris Lehane, the VP of global affairs, as they seek to build and strengthen OpenAI's relationships in the public sector.
Kwon was previously general counsel at the famed startup accelerator Y Combinator and assistant general counsel at Khosla Ventures, an early investor in OpenAI.
Che Chang, general counsel
Being at the forefront of artificial intelligence development puts OpenAI in a position to navigate and shape a largely uncharted legal territory. In his role as general counsel, Chang leads a team of attorneys who address the legal challenges associated with the creation and deployment of large language models. The company faces dozens of lawsuits concerning the datasets used to train its models and other privacy complaints, as well as multiple government investigations.
OpenAI's top lawyer joined the company after serving as senior corporate counsel at Amazon, where he advised executives on developing and selling machine learning products and established Amazon's positions on artificial intelligence policy and legislation. In 2021, Chang took over for his former boss, Jason Kwon, who has since become chief strategy officer.
Kevin Weil, chief product officer
Kevin Weil.
Photo by Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images
If Sam Altman is OpenAI's starry-eyed visionary, Weil is its executor. He leads a product team that turns blue-sky research into products and services the company can sell.
Weil joined last year as a steady-handed product guru known for playing key roles at large social networks. He was a longtime Twitter insider who created products that made the social media company money during a revolving door of chief executives. At Instagram, he helped kneecap Snapchat's growth with competitive product releases such as Stories and live video.
Weil is expected to bring much-needed systems thinking to OpenAI as the company moves to turn its research into polished products for both consumer and enterprise use cases.
Nick Turley, ChatGPT's head of product
In the three years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, it has reached hundreds of millions of active users and generated billions in revenue for its maker. Turley, a product savant who leads the teams driving the chatbot's development, is behind much of ChatGPT's success.
Turley joined in 2022 after his tenure at Instacart, where he guided a team of product managers through the pandemic-driven surge in demand for grocery delivery services.
OpenAI's chatbot czar is likely to play a crucial role as the company expands into the enterprise market and adds more powerful, compute-intensive features to its famed chatbot.
Srinivas Narayanan, vice president of engineering
Narayanan was a longtime Facebook insider who worked on important product releases such as Facebook Photos and tools to help developers build for its virtual reality headset, Oculus. Now, he leads the OpenAI teams responsible for building new products and scaling its systems. This includes ChatGPT, which is used by over 400 million people weekly; the developer platform, which has doubled usage over the past six months; and the infrastructure needed to support both.
Research
Jakub Pachocki, chief scientist
Ilya Sutkever's departure as chief scientist last year prompted questions about the company's ability to stay on top of the artificial intelligence arms race. That has thrust Pachocki into the spotlight. He took on the mantle of chief scientist after seven years as an OpenAI researcher.
Pachocki had already been working closely with Sutskever on some of OpenAI's most ambitious projects, including an advanced reasoning model now known as o1. In a post announcing his promotion, Sam Altman called Pachocki "easily one of the greatest minds of our generation."
Mark Chen, senior vice president of research
A flurry of executive departures also cast Chen into the highest levels of leadership. He was promoted last September following the exit of Bob McGrew, the company's chief research officer. In a post announcing the change, Altman called out Chen's "deep technical expertise" and commended the longtime employee as having developed as a manager in recent years.
Chen's path to OpenAI is a bit atypical compared to some of his colleagues. After studying computer science and mathematics at MIT, he began his career as a quantitative trader on Wall Street before joining OpenAI in 2018. Chen previously led the company's frontier research.
He has been integral to OpenAI's efforts to expand into multimodal models, heading up the team that developed DALL-E and the team that incorporated visual perception into GPT-4. Chen was also an important liaison between employees and management during Sam 0Altman's short-lived ouster, further cementing his importance within the company.
Liam Fedus, vice president of research, post-training
Fedus helps the company get new products out the door. He leads a post-training team responsible for taking the company's state-of-the-art models and improving their performance and efficiency before it releases them to the masses. Fedus was the third person to lead the team in a six-month period following the departures of Barret Zoph and Bob McGrew last year.
Fedus was also one of seven OpenAI researchers who developed a group of advanced reasoning models known as Strawberry. These models, which can think through problems and complete tasks they haven't encountered before, represented a significant leap at launch.
Josh Tobin, member of technical staff
Tobin, an early research scientist at OpenAI, left to found Gantry, a company that assists teams in determining when and how to retrain their artificial intelligence systems. He returned to OpenAI last September and now leads a team of researchers focused on developing agentic products. Its flashy new agent, Deep Research, creates in-depth reports on nearly any topic.
Tobin brings invaluable experience in building agents as the company aims to scale them across a wide range of use cases. In a February interview with Sequoia, Tobin explained that when the company takes a reasoning model, gives it access to the same tools humans use to do their jobs, and optimizes for the kinds of outcomes it wants the agent to be able to do, "there's really nothing stopping that recipe from scaling to more and more complex tasks."
Legal
Andrea Appella, associate general counsel for Europe, Middle East, Asia
Appella joined last year, bolstering the company's legal firepower as it navigated a thicket of open investigations into data privacy concerns, including from watchdogs in Italy and Poland. Appella is a leading expert on competition and regulatory law, having previously served as head of global competition at Netflix and deputy general counsel at 21st Century Fox.
Regulatory scrutiny could still prove to be an existential threat to OpenAI as policymakers worldwide put guardrails on the nascent artificial intelligence industry. Nowhere have lawmakers been more aggressive than in Europe, which makes Appella's role as the company's top legal representative in Europe one of the more crucial positions in determining the company's future.
Haidee Schwartz, associate general counsel for competition
OpenAI has spent the last year beefing up its legal team as it faces multiple antitrust probes. Schwartz, who joined in 2023, knows more about antitrust enforcement than almost anyone in Silicon Valley, having seen both sides of the issue during her storied legal career.
Between 2017 and 2019, she served as the acting deputy director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission, one of the agencies currently investigating Microsoft's agreements with OpenAI. Schwartz also advised clients on merger review and antitrust enforcement as a partner at law firm Akin Gump. She'll likely play an important role in helping OpenAI navigate the shifting antitrust landscape in President Donald Trump's second term.
Heather Whitney, copyright counsel
Whitney serves as lead data counsel at OpenAI, placing her at the forefront of various legal battles with publishers that have emerged in recent years. She joined the company last January, shortly after The New York Times filed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and its corporate backer, Microsoft. OpenAI motioned to dismiss the high-profile case last month.
Whitney's handling of these legal cases, which raise new questions about intellectual property in relation to machine learning, will be crucial in deciding OpenAI's future.
Previously, Whitney worked at the law firm Morrison Foerster, where she specialized in novel copyright issues related to artificial intelligence and was a member of the firm's AI Steering Committee. Prior to her official hiring, she had already been collaborating with OpenAI as part of Morrison Foerster, which is among several law firms offering external counsel to the company.
Policy
Chan Park, head of US and Canada policy and partnerships
Before OpenAI had a stable of federal lobbyists, it had Park. In 2023, the company registered the former Microsoft lobbyist as its first in-house lobbyist, marking a strategic move to engage more actively with lawmakers wrestling with artificial intelligence regulation.
Since then, OpenAI has beefed up its lobbying efforts as it seeks to build relationships in government and influence the development of artificial intelligence policy. It's enlisted white-shoe law firms and at least one former US senator to plead OpenAI's case in Washington. The company also spent $1.76 million on government lobbying in 2024, a sevenfold increase from the year before, according to a recent disclosure reviewed by the MIT Technology Review.
Park has been helping to guide those efforts from within OpenAI as the company continues to sharpen its message around responsible development of artificial intelligence.
Anna Makanju, vice president of global impact
Referred to as OpenAI's de facto foreign minister, Makanju is the mastermind behind Sam Altman's global charm offensive. On multiple trips, he met with world leaders, including the Indian prime minister and South Korean president, to discuss the future of artificial intelligence.
The tour was part of a broader effort to make Altman the friendly face of a nascent industry and ensure that OpenAI will have a seat at the table when designing artificial intelligence regulations and policies. Makanju, a veteran of Starlink and Facebook who also served as a special policy advisor to former President Joe Biden, has been integral in that effort.
In addition to helping Altman introduce himself on the world stage, she has played an important role in expanding OpenAI's commercial partnerships in the public sector.
Chris Lehane, vice president of global affairs
Chris Lehane.
Thomson Reuters
Lehane joined OpenAI last year to help the company liaise with policymakers and navigate an uncharted political landscape around artificial intelligence. The veteran political operative and "spin master" played a similar role at Airbnb, where he served as head of global policy and public affairs from 2015 to 2022 and helped it address growing opposition from local authorities.
He previously served in the Clinton White House, where Newsweek referred to him as a "master of disaster" for his handling of the scandals and political crises that plagued the administration.
Lehane is poised to play a crucial role in ensuring that the United States stays at the forefront of the global race in artificial intelligence. When President Trump introduced Stargate, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank aimed at building large domestic data centers, Lehane was on the scene. From Washington, he traveled to Texas to meet with local officials, engaging in discussions about how the state could meet the rapidly growing demand for energy.
Lane Dilg, head of infrastructure policy and partnerships
In her newly appointed role, Dilg works to grease the wheels for the construction of giant data centers needed to build artificial intelligence. She took on the position in January after two years as head of strategic initiatives for global affairs, working with government agencies, private industry, and nonprofit organizations to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.
In hiring Dilg, OpenAI gained an inside player in the public sector. Dilg is a former senior advisor to the undersecretary of infrastructure at the US Department of Energy and was interim city manager for Santa Monica, California, managing the city through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dilg will undoubtedly play an important role in expanding and nurturing OpenAI's relationships in Washington as it seeks to secure President Trump's support for building its own data centers.