• Senators advanced a bill that would give prosecutors more time to bring pandemic fraud cases.
• They cited Business Insider's reporting on potential misuse of Shuttered Venue Operators Grant funds.
• The Small Business Administration says 69% of the $14.6 billion SVOG program may have been misspent.

Lawmakers just came closer to giving US prosecutors more time to pursue billions of dollars in suspected pandemic-aid fraud tied to restaurants and live entertainment — and cited Business Insider's investigation into how those funds were used by celebrities.

Senators passed a long-delayed bill on Wednesday night that would extend the statute of limitations for fraud tied to two relief programs: the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund and the $14.6 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant.

The bill would put the programs on the same legal footing as bigger, better-known pandemic aid packages that lost as much as $200 billion to fraud, like the Paycheck Protection Program. If it becomes law, prosecutors will have 10 years to bring charges of defrauding the programs, instead of the usual five.

Earlier this week, the Government Accountability Office reported that as much as $10 billion from SVOG funds may have been improperly paid out, which is more than 200 times larger than a fraud estimate the Small Business Administration published three years ago.

Business Insider previously reported that hundreds of millions of dollars were paid out to successful artists like Lil Wayne, Post Malone, metal legends Alice in Chains, and DJs including Steve Aoki and Marshmello. They used the money on private jets, luxury clothes, and payments to themselves, according to the investigation.

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who has been the bill's main advocate, invoked that reporting in remarks on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

"For fraudsters, time flies when you're having fun," she said. "Look no further than rapper Chris Brown, who exploited the SVOG program to pay for his lavish $80,000 birthday party and paid himself $5 million in the process."

Lawyers and representatives for Brown didn't respond to requests for comment. Previously, in response to Business Insider's late 2024 investigation, an attorney for the accounting and wealth management firm that helped Brown's company get a federal grant, NKSFB, called Business Insider's questions "uninformed" and didn't answer them.

COVID fraud cases get more time

The bill passed with an amendment that would require enforcement to be "carried out in a nonpartisan manner," said Sen. Ed Markey, the top Democrat on the small-business committee that Ernst chairs.

The SBA has said that 70% of the restaurant support funds paid out by the RRF program were proper, but that it's "unknown" whether the remaining $8.7 billion was legally paid to eligible recipients. The agency's inspector general previously said more than $6 billion was paid out without doing enough to verify that recipients qualified for the money.

The agency has previously defended cutting checks under the shuttered venues program to "loan-out companies" used by big-name artists to ink performance deals.

Recipients included Broadway shows, arts companies, and cultural institutions that asked Congress for help paying bills they'd run up during the year-plus when public gatherings were limited because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The law also allowed payments to lesser-known groups, like talent agents.

There was no requirement that recipients be on the brink of bankruptcy. One Texas concert promoter received a $10 million grant in July 2021. About four months later, he bought a home for $2.1 million in cash.

The law creating SVOG allowed grant recipients to use the money for a broad range of purposes, including expenses deemed "ordinary and necessary" as well as compensation to the owners of for-profit businesses that received the money.

The new estimate of $10 billion in payment errors amounts to about two-thirds of the program's entire budget. SBA officials said that $4.5 billion of that was overpayments to businesses that "did not align with the established statutory guidelines" for payment. They also found errors with the monitoring of recipients' spending.

In 2023, the Biden administration said that one-third of 1% of the entertainment grants were "likely fraudulent." Government watchdogs say only some "improper payments" amount to fraud, so the new number isn't an apples-to-apples comparison with the 2023 figure.

More than 2,000 people have been sentenced for defrauding pandemic aid programs. The SBA inspector general has said many more cases are pending.

• Pokémon cards have become valuable assets on the playground and in cafeterias.
• Preteen collectors aren't playing around: They view the cards as investments and a tool to build value.
• I caught up with kids at a recent trading event. Here's what I learned.

My introduction to Pokémon was the cartoon, which premiered in the US when I was five. My brother watched and built a small collection of cards, only for them to be stolen, marking the end of his short-lived hobby.

I hadn't really thought much about the pocket-sized monsters since then, aside from when Pokémon Go became an inescapable phenomenon in 2016.

Then, a few months ago, a couple of my colleagues with elementary school-aged kids said Pokémon was back, but it wasn't the game they remembered.

Thanks to the internet and smartphones, today's kids treat their Pokémon collections like stock portfolios. Kids bragged, some inaccurately, about million-dollar cards, and parents coached their youngsters on how to make the best trades.

I decided to see for myself and headed to the hottest club in New York for the under-16 set: Bleecker Trading.

The financial center

On a Thursday during spring break, the hobby shop on the Upper West Side was welcoming, with boxes of free pizza stacked near the door and a Pikachu balloon signaling that it was open for business.

Business, indeed. During my afternoon at the Bleecker Trading, I watched as dozens of kids wheeled and dealed, spewed financial jargon — like appreciation and interest — that I didn't learn until I was twice their age, and negotiated with adults.

Last year, Pokémon was the world's No. 1 toy product by sales — though perhaps it should be thought of more as a commodity and less as a plaything. Over the past year, Pokémon cards have outperformed both the Dow and the S&P 500, according to Card Ladder's Pokémon index, which tracks market performance on several resale platforms.

Edi, a nine-year-old from Switzerland, was visiting his dad in New York and had begged to visit Bleecker Trading. When I walked in, he was in the middle of shaking hands with the shop owner, Matt Winkelried, to mark a successful deal.

Edi understands how valuable cards can be.

"The best card costs more than a house," he told me.

He's not wrong. In February, a rare Pikachu sold for $16.5 million, setting a record. Edi's own top card cost about $300 or $400, his dad said.

In a back corner, three teenagers were in the middle of a trade. One said he was happy to make a cash deal. Another said, with a bit of jealousy, that the other's grandma always buys him good cards.

They were emphatic about the reason they collect: the money.

They seemed a bit bemused by my amazement. Duh, they understood the basics of investing and how to read stock-like charts that track the values of specific cards.

They prided themselves on trading fairly and following the rules (including sanitizing their hands before engaging, as demonstrated by Bleecker Trading staff). In fact, they seemed downright responsible with their money.

A couple of tables over, RJ and Jasper, who were there with their dads, told me about how they keep some packs and boxes of cards unopened — a strategy Winkelried likened to a low-risk investment like bonds.

It's tempting to rip through them, RJ said, so he keeps them under his bed in a bag. Out of sight, out of mind.

I asked what he was saving for. "A rainy day," Jasper, who keeps track of the interest on various cards, told me.

The kids, it turns out, may be all right.

• I asked ChatGPT to identify the unnamed male celebrity who allegedly tried to sext Lena Dunham in 2012.
• It told me it was Don Rickles, which I feel pretty certain is not correct.
• So what are we doing here, folks? Learning to use AI?

Did you hear about the time Don Rickles tried to chat up Lena Dunham in the middle of the night?

No? Let me explain. First, we need to talk about Reese Witherspoon.

See, I'm a simple woman. I have only two interests: tech news and celebrity gossip. So I was naturally intrigued by a recent online fuss over Reese Witherspoon's admonition for women to learn to use AI. It sparked so much backlash that she had to issue a follow-up explanation.

I've also been intrigued by Lena Dunham's new book. (They're related — sort of. Keep reading!)

I think Reese is generally right about AI — she's saying the same thing that every other business leader is saying. But her comments did make me think a little more about what "Learn to use AI" even means. Writing emails with ChatGPT? Understanding the technology behind different models? Vibe coding? What level of "using AI" is expected here to stave off falling behind in the workforce and life in general?

One area I've really leaned into is using ChatGPT as a sort of super Google — to find something I know is online but would take some effort to dig up with a normal search engine.

A recent example? It's related to — of course — celebrity gossip.

I was reading Dunham's new memoir, "Famesick," which is full of moderately juicy celebrity gossip about named people and also blind items — celebrity gossip that gives a few clues about the identity of the person without naming them, a fun little riddle for the readers to solve.

One blind item is about an unnamed male celebrity who — allegedly — sent Lena a flirty late-night text message after meeting her backstage while taping "The View" in 2012. I figured I could solve this blind item by finding out who the other guest was on the same episode — information that should be online somewhere, but would take me forever to find.

So I asked ChatGPT to identify the male guest on "The View" episode that Lena was also on that year. At first, ChatGPT told me that it was only the four female cast members from the show. When I asked again who the other male guest was, the suggestions were Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth. (Not so. They appeared on a separate episode that same year, according to IMDb.)

That time Don Rickles chatted up Lena Dunham

When I said, "No, a comedian," as Dunham had described the man, ChatGPT confidently provided a new answer: It was legendary comedian Don Rickles who'd texted Dunham after the show.

I laughed out loud because of all the possibilities of who sent a late-night "u up?" text, I feel fairly certain it was not Don Rickles, who would've been 85 years old at the time.

Dunham's description of the man: "a bit of an American Hugh Grant, famous for that sort of chattery charm and his ability to woo his onscreen paramours with his fast-talking, hand-flapping anxiety. Ostensibly a comedian, he was there to promote his Gothic-tinted movie, where he had made a dramatic turn." Doesn't exactly sound like a Borscht Belt insult comic Don Rickles to me.

After spending way too much time searching the internet for answers on this — the old-fashioned way — I can make some guesses about how and why ChatGPT was so wrong here. IMDb's episode guide for episodes of "The View" from 2012 is spotty, with entries for some episodes missing information about guests, and no accessible video clips online. The only proof I found that Lena Dunham ever appeared on "The View" on April 20, 2012, was a Vulture blog post from that day, complete with an embedded YouTube clip that has been marked private.

Knowing this, I can start to see how AI got confused: When there's a lack of information, AI sometimes blurs together what it can find to try to spit out a plausible answer. Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth appeared on the May 4, 2012, episode of "The View," and Dunham and Rickles appeared together on an episode in 2016.

ChatGPT doing this kind of thing — basically, taking a guess at what you might want to hear — could be useful if you're trying to write an email to a friend, maybe? It's not useful, obviously, if you're looking for a specific fact and it just plain makes something up.

For the record: Neither Lena nor Don (who died in 2017) nor the National Comedy Center, which is the keeper of the Rickles archive, responded to my requests for comment.

Are we stuck in a pizza glue loop?

Look, I get it. It's not particularly exciting to point out that ChatGPT gets things wrong in the spring of 2026. We know this, or at least we all should know this. Still, I keep coming across so many obvious mistakes when asking AI for factual things. These are the glaring mistakes I catch when I know that what AI has generated is not the right answer.

But what about the mistakes that I don't catch — or don't even know to catch? Things that I blindly accept as fact? For work-related stuff, I'll always double-check, but in those cases, am I actually saving myself any time?

How soon will this improve? Will we be stuck in a pizza glue loop forever? Is this what's going to make a bunch of lawyers and tax CPAs lose their jobs? I mean, OK, sure.

Here's where Witherspoon's and other bosses' idea of "Learn to use AI!" feels frustrating. I feel fairly confident about using various AI tools and have a decent concept of how they work. I am a woman, and I have learned to use AI! And yet, here I am, still unsatisfied.

There's a gap between what Reese Witherspoon wants for me and what I want out of AI — and the wholesome image of comedy legend Don Rickles. For now, those things just aren't lining up right.

• Tax proposals in California and New York are pushing billionaires to Florida.
• Aside from the tax benefits, lifestyle perks are also fueling the trend.
• Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin have all recently purchased homes in the city.

Move aside, Wall Street and Silicon Valley: Miami is vying to be the new epicenter of US business, tech, and wealth.

The city has long been seen as a gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean, but recent developments in its business landscape are helping turn it into a larger American business hub.

Finance firms, tech companies, and consumer brands have expanded their presence in the city, from opening new offices to relocating headquarters.

And their executives have joined the wave.

Ken Griffin recorded Miami-Dade County's first-ever nine-figure home sale after Citadel announced its relocation in 2022; Jeff Bezos spent $147 million on two Indian Creek homes after leaving Seattle for Miami; and Palantir CEO Alex Karp quietly bought a $46 million mansion on the Venetian Islands ahead of the company's headquarters shift to Aventura.

This comes as states like New York and California are considering or proposing policies aimed at increasing the taxation of the ultrawealthy. This includes California's proposed Billionaire Tax Act, which would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of California residents and certain trusts worth at least $1 billion, and New York's pied-à-terre tax bill, which would impose an added tax on certain non-primary New York City homes, including second homes owned by people whose primary residence is elsewhere.

But beyond the tax benefits, the ultrawealthy are flocking to Miami for the lifestyle.

"You can't beat the lifestyle," Manny Varas, a luxury homebuilder who works with billionaire clients in South Florida, told Business Insider.

Varas, who has built and renovated homes for the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Lil Wayne, and the Bezos family, said that the city's "pro-work and creative environment," as well as its culinary, hospitality, arts, and events scene, are among the biggest drivers of billionaires' decisions to move to Miami over other tax-friendly states.

Some of these leaders have officially announced they or their companies will be moving to the Sunshine State, while others have quietly snapped up property in the city in recent months, signaling a potential expansion of their presence there. While some have cited business interests, others have publicly shared factors such as family proximity and Miami's culture.

Here are some of the most notable people and companies that have recently relocated or bought up property in Miami.

Ken Griffin

Leading Miami's billionaire migration is Ken Griffin. In June 2022, Citadel and Citadel Securities announced they would move their global headquarters from Chicago to Miami.

In April 2022, an entity tied to Citadel paid a then-record $363 million for a waterfront Brickell office development site.

Citadel now lists Miami as its global headquarters, and its new Brickell location is expected to have 1.2 million square feet of office space, according to its plans.

Meanwhile, Griffin purchased the $107 million, 4-acre Adrienne Arsht Estate in Coconut Grove in 2022, setting a Miami-Dade record at the time and becoming the first nine-figure home sale in the county's history.

While Citadel's permanent Brickell tower is still in development, Griffin has been one of the biggest figures betting on Miami as the next center of US commerce.

The company told Business Insider that the city was home to about 400 Citadel-affiliated employees, including some senior executives.

Jeff Bezos

In 2023, the Amazon founder announced via an Instagram post that he was leaving Seattle for Miami

That fall, Bezos bought neighboring mansions in Miami's Indian Creek Island for $79 million and $68 million, in what was one of the highest-profile moves in Miami's billionaire era.

Bezos cited Blue Origin's operations in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and his parents' relocation back to the city as reasons for his return to Miami, where he attended high school.

Peter Thiel

On December 31, 2025, Thiel Capital — Peter Thiel's private investment firm — announced that it had opened a Wynwood office, saying the space would complement its Los Angeles operations.

The firm also said Thiel has maintained a personal residence in Miami since 2020, when he purchased an $18 million mansion in Miami's Venetian Islands.

In 2024, Thiel moved his voter registration to Florida, further formalizing his move to the state.

Michael Ferro

In March 2025, Michael Ferro Jr., chairman of the private equity firm Merrick Ventures, bought a 2.5-acre estate on Star Island for $120 million, setting what was then a record for a home sale in Miami-Dade County.

He also moved Merrick Ventures to Florida. The investment firm Ferro, founded in 2007 and previously based in Chicago, is now described on its website as a Florida-based private equity company focused on technology.

FC Barcelona

Along with Miami's influx of billionaires, the city has also become the American capital of soccer, with international figures like Lionel Messi and David Beckham investing in the sport's presence there.

In April 2025, FC Barcelona announced it would relocate its North American division's commercial offices from New York to Miami's One Biscayne Tower after receiving an incentive grant from the Miami Downtown Development Authority, an autonomous city agency focused on economic and business development.

Galderma

Galderma, the parent company behind brands like Cetaphil and Differin, announced in June 2025 that it would establish its new US headquarters in Miami's Brickell neighborhood. The company said it expects roughly 150 employees to be based there by 2028.

The skincare company cited the concentration of med spas and dermatology clinics in the Miami metro area, the rapid growth of aesthetic procedures in the region, and the size of the Miami Health District as drivers behind the move.

Playboy

In August 2025, Playboy announced it would relocate its global headquarters from Los Angeles to Miami Beach. At the same time, it announced plans for a new Playboy Club in Miami Beach and new content studios in the city.

The company hopes to open its offices by September 2026.

"Miami Beach is among the most dynamic and culturally influential cities in the country, making it the ideal home for Playboy's next chapter," Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy Inc., said in the statement.

MSC Cruises

In January, MSC Group's cruise division opened its new North American headquarters in downtown Miami.

The 130,000-square-foot office, located near PortMiami, is a roughly $100 million investment that will house more than 400 employees across MSC entities under one roof, MSC said in its announcement.

Palantir

In February, Palantir announced it had moved its headquarters to Miami.

Regulatory filings placed the company's principal executive office at 19505 Biscayne Boulevard in Aventura, about 17 miles north of downtown Miami.

The address, which is also home to an Industrious coworking space, is located across from the sprawling Aventura Mall and sits above a Sweetgreen, a Starbucks, and a Lego store.

Months before, CEO Alex Karp quietly bought a $46 million mansion in Miami's Venetian Islands.

Howard Schultz

In March, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said in a LinkedIn post that he and his wife were leaving Seattle for Florida after more than four decades in the city. He wrote that they had moved to Miami for their "next adventure together."

The announcement followed Schultz's purchase of a $44 million penthouse at the Four Seasons Private Residences, a waterfront residential tower in Surfside.

The executive, who had long-established ties in Seattle — the city where the coffee chain was founded — is one of the newest neighbors in Miami's high-profile circles.

Mark Zuckerberg

While the social media tycoon has not formally announced a relocation to Miami, Mark Zuckerberg made Miami history in March when he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, purchased a $170 million property on the appropriately nicknamed "Billionaire's Bunker," Indian Creek Island — the most expensive home sale in Miami-Dade County's history.

The still-under-construction property spans about 2 acres on the exclusive island, where Zuckerberg will be neighbors with Jeff Bezos, Ivanka Trump, and other notable figures.

Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have both made major moves into South Florida's luxury real-estate market in recent months.

Page, who has long been based in Palo Alto, California, spent roughly $173.4 million on two Coconut Grove properties — including a 4.5-acre waterfront compound on Biscayne Bay — in December and January.

In March, Brin, who has also been a longtime California resident based in the Bay Area, purchased the former Allison Island home of LVMH CEO Michael Burke for $51 million.

• Rudrojas Kunvar, 16, built Evion, an AI tool that helps farmers analyze crop health.
• The tool collects aerial crop data from drone-captured images.
• Kunvar created Evion to make that data more accessible to small and midsize farms.

While meeting with a venture capitalist last year, 16-year-old Rudrojas Kunvar received an offer that would excite even the most nonchalant teens: accept $300,000 to drop out of high school and run his AI startup full-time.

"It was definitely a rough couple of weeks of contemplating," Kunvar, who lives in Germantown, Maryland, told Business Insider. "That's a lot of money."

Kunvar had spent the summer before building Evion, a free AI crop-analysis tool that uses images taken by basic camera drones that farmers can purchase themselves.

The AI model analyzes images and generates a crop health map that farmers can integrate into their existing platforms or access via a dashboard. Green means healthy, while red means unhealthy.

"Farmers can use that to predict the future of their crops," Kunvar said. "You can see what areas need more water or fertilizer, rather than just spraying everywhere."

Like construction and defense, drones are reshaping America's agriculture industry. There were about 5,500 agricultural drones registered with the Federal Aviation Administration in 2025, up from about 1,000 in 2024, according to Michigan State University researchers.

Kunvar said Evion can help farmers save money because the targeted data can eliminate crop health uncertainty, meaning they'll be less likely to waste water or fertilizer.

Kunvar says Evion is positioned as an alternative to companies that market pricey agricultural drone products or services. Instead, farmers can buy cheap camera drones, take their own photos, and upload the information themselves.

"It's meant to be a more affordable plan for these low to mid-scale farms," Kunvar.

After building Evion, Kunvar partnered with Jacob Lee, who has experience creating tech tools, to expand its reach. Kunvar launched the initial pilot in the fall.

Ultimately, Kunvar declined the $300,000 drop-out offer, saying he wanted to ensure his product remained accessible and didn't get wrapped up in chasing profits.

It all started with a question

The idea behind Evion came during Kunvar's sophomore year at Poolesville High School in Montgomery County while attending a community festival. One-third of Montgomery County is designated as an Agricultural Reserve, or protected local land meant to preserve rural space.

"I asked a farmer about how they're able to tell when a disease is coming or what slight discoloration means," Kunvar said. "Essentially, he said he's guessing. I spoke to a few other farmers, and I realized there was a common thread among all of their responses."

Kunvar, who said he's had a lifelong love for technology, was surprised.

"We've had a lot of AI advancements in various verticals and various industries," he said. "Why isn't there much happening for agriculture?"

Initially, Kunvar wanted to make his own fleet of fully autonomous drones that could capture the data, but went a different direction after talking with mentors and crunching the numbers. Instead, he studied drones and pinpointed what's driving their cost: the multispectral camera.

"The camera was the leading cost. I wondered, 'What if there's a way to get similar data without needing this camera? What if I could use a simple camera?'" Kunvar said.

He pointed toward Tesla and its autonomous vehicles as proof it work. Unlike Waymo and other companies that use lidar, Tesla relies on cameras.

After setting up the logistics and AI model, the founders sought clients by sending cold emails and LinkedIn messages. They found better luck, however, partnering with agriculture-oriented nonprofits and organizations to reach farmers.

Now, the technology is helping farmers in North America, Southeast Asia, and India.

As for his future plans, Kunvar wants to continue growing Evion while exploring opportunities in different fields, including AI infrastructure.

"There's so much ambiguity in entrepreneurship, especially in startups, but I've learned there's beauty in ambiguity," Kunvar said. "There's been times where nothing's working out, and then you have the tiniest win, and it's like, 'wow, maybe I can do this.'"