• A GoFundMe for James Van Der Beek’s family highlights how expensive cancer is for working-age Americans.
• Business Insider reporting shows that young adults with cancer lose $5,000 in annual wages on average.
• Financial challenges can be compounded by career setbacks and insurance stress.

A GoFundMe for James Van Der Beek’s family highlights a harsh reality of young cancer diagnoses: they can be financially devastating.

“The costs of James’s medical care and the extended fight against cancer have left the family out of funds,” reads the fundraising page.

The effort raised over $1 million in 24 hours following the actor’s death from colorectal cancer on February 11.

Van Der Beek, who was 48, was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2023 and publicly announced his diagnosis in late 2024. He is survived by his wife, Kimberly, and their six children. The fundraiser says the money will help pay off Van Der Beek’s care, cover household expenses, and support the kids’ education.

The family’s story underscores the financial struggles for millions of Americans navigating a cancer diagnosis under 50. While it’s hard to face steep healthcare costs at any time, it can be especially challenging during prime earning years. Van Der Beek worked in TV and movies from the 1990s to the early 2020s. In his breakout role, he played the eponymous character in “Dawson’s Creek.”

Young cancer patients lose $5,000 in yearly wages

Business Insider heard from dozens of patients as part of a yearlong investigation into young cancer cases. They told us about the credit card debt they incurred from treatment, the skyrocketing cost of health insurance, and the impact of cancer on their working lives long past recovery.

Our newsroom collaboration with health economists at GoodRx found that the average 30-something with a stage 3 colon cancer diagnosis spends $45,000 out of pocket in their first year of treatment. Chemotherapy, prescriptions, insurance premiums, fertility treatments, and unexpected costs like transportation and mobility aids are included in that figure.

Lost wages are too — young patients in their prime earning years typically miss out on thousands of dollars in income.

The GoodRx analysis of data in the national Medical Expenditure Panel Survey found that the average cancer patient ages 18 to 44 loses $5,104 in annual wages and 26 days of work due to illness. This is markedly more than older patients outside their prime working window: Patients ages 45 to 64 lose $2,903 in wages and 18 days of work.

These numbers are averages, and a particular patient’s wage losses and costs may vary depending on their age, job, treatment plan, and location. But it highlights a truth for young adults like Van Der Beek: Bills for cancer care can hit at a time when people are financially vulnerable or facing income instability.

Financial challenges can also be compounded by career setbacks. Young cancer patients told Business Insider they struggled to balance their workload with constant medical appointments and worried about losing out on promotions. Some had to quit their jobs, while others couldn’t afford to give up their employer-sponsored health insurance. Medical debt is among the top causes of bankruptcy in the US, and is more frequently reported by millennials than any other generation.

What’s harder to capture in data is the emotional toll young cancer has on patients, especially those who consider their careers to be part of their identities.

As Van Der Beek told Business Insider last year: “All these beautiful things that I love, and I used to define myself as — a father, a provider, a husband — all that got taken away, or at least paused. I had to sit there and say, ‘Well, what am I?’ And it was, ‘I’m still worthy of love.'”

• Apple was hit with a warning letter from the Federal Trade Commission over its Apple News platform.
• FTC’s Andrew Ferguson urged Apple to review its terms of service and the app’s curation of articles.
• Ferguson cited reports that Apple News has promoted ‘left-wing’ news outlets over conservative ones.

Apple is caught in the Trump administration’s crosshairs — this time over its news app.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson issued a letter to CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday, citing recent reports from right-leaning media watchdog Media Research Center that said Apple News promoted “left-wing “publications over conservative outlets.

Ferguson questioned whether Apple was acting in line with its terms of service with its curation of featured articles on the Apple News app.

“As an American citizen, I abhor and condemn any attempt to censor content for ideological reasons,” Ferguson said in the letter, which he published. “Such efforts, whether taken to appease overzealous activists, at the behest of foreign governments, or simply to advance the political views of Silicon Valley elites, stifle the free exchange of ideas, manipulate the public discourse, and are inconsistent with American values.”

While he said the FTC doesn’t police speech and can’t require the company to promote one ideology over another, the FTC Act is meant to protect consumers from deceptive acts or practices by companies.

Ferguson urged Apple to conduct a “comprehensive review of Apple’s terms of service” to ensure it isn’t in violation of the FTC Act.

Apple and the FTC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ferguson is no stranger to taking on Silicon Valley. Before he was appointed by President Donald Trump as FTC chair in 2025, he vowed to “end Big Tech’s vendetta against competition and free speech.”

The FTC warning is the latest snag in Cook’s political tightrope walk. The iPhone maker took a hit last year from the Trump administration’s tariff policies, though smartphones, computers, and some other electronics were exempt from the most aggressive tariffs. Apple has pledged to invest more than $600 million in American businesses.

• The AI industry is poised to spend big on politics in 2026.
• Multiple super PACs backed by prominent tech-world figures have cropped up.
• Here are the ones to watch as the year goes on.

Artificial intelligence is poised to play a big role in politics this year — and not just when it comes to AI-generated content.

Several super PACs backed by figures in the tech industry have formed ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Some of the groups plan to support candidates who are friendly towards the AI industry and will take a lighter regulatory approach to the technology.

At least one group has been formed explicitly to combat the influence of those pro-AI groups.

It comes as the Trump administration takes a friendly approach toward the industry, including moving to restrict states’ ability to regulate AI. Meanwhile, other politicians are calling for a national moratorium on new AI data centers, and some are just starting to use the technology for themselves.

Here are the super PACs to keep an eye on as the year progresses.

Leading the Future

The biggest player so far is Leading the Future, a pro-AI network of super PACs associated with some of Silicon Valley’s tech elite.

The group’s main super PAC had raised just over $50 million by the end of 2025, according to recent FEC filings.

That included:

• $25 million from OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman and his wife Anna;
• $25 million from Andreesen Horowitz;
• $100,000 from Perplexity.

Brockman explained his philosophy on political giving in a lengthy post on X at the end of 2025, writing in part that “being pro-AI does not mean being anti-regulation.”

The network includes a super PAC for Democratic races, Think Big, along with a GOP-focused super PAC, American Mission.

FEC filings show that SV Angel Founder Ron Conway contributed $500,000 to Think Big.

Meanwhile, 8VC Founder Joe Lonsdale gave $250,000 to American Mission.

The group said in an August release that it plans to serve as the “political and policy center of gravity for the AI industry” and will “support candidates aligned with the pro-AI agenda” and “oppose those that do not.”

The group has already begun spending.

Think Big has spent over $900,000 against Assemblyman Alex Bores in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th congressional district.

And American Mission has spent over $500,000 backing GOP candidate Chris Gober in Texas’s 10th congressional district.

Public First

In response to Leading the Future, two former congressmen — Republican Chris Stewart of Utah and Democrat Brad Carson of Oklahoma — have formed a competing political network, Public First, to back candidates who support AI regulation.

The group aims to raise $50 million for its effort, well short of what pro-AI groups have raised. But Carson recently told Business Insider he feels good about Public First’s odds, given that the American public is broadly supportive of AI regulation.

“We have $50 million and 85% of public sentiment. They have 15% of public settlement, and $100 million,” Carson said. “I will take our side of that bet any day.”

Carson said that Public First would have financial support from employees at a variety of AI companies.

“There’s going to be people from across the AI sector, as well as far beyond the AI sector, who contribute to the effort,” Carson said.

On Thursday morning, Anthropic announced it was donating $20 million to Public First.

“At present, there are few organized efforts to help mobilize people and politicians who understand what’s at stake in AI development,” Anthropic said in its statement announcing the donation. “Instead, vast resources have flowed to political organizations that oppose these efforts. Public First Action is working to fill that gap. “

The group has two affiliated super PACs: one that supports Democrats called Jobs and Democracy PAC, and another that supports Republicans called Defending Our Values PAC.

Neither has spent in any election so far.

Two Meta-backed super PACs

Meta is also getting into the super PAC game, establishing two different PACs last year to support candidates aligned with their vision for AI regulation.

Unlike the other PACs, Meta’s efforts will focus primarily on the state level.

One PAC, called Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (Meta) California, will focus specifically on the Golden State, where Meta is headquartered.

“As home to many of the world’s leading AI companies, California’s innovation economy has an outsized impact on America’s economic growth, job creation, and global competitiveness,” a Meta spokesperson said. “But Sacramento’s regulatory environment could stifle innovation, block AI progress, and put California’s technology leadership at risk.”

The spokesperson added that the PAC would back candidates in both parties who “recognize California’s vital role in AI development and embrace policies that will keep the state at the forefront of the global tech ecosystem.”

Meta gave $20 million to its California-focused PAC in August, according to documents recently filed with the California Secretary of State.

A separate PAC, the American Technology Excellence Project, will focus on races in other states.

“Amid a growing patchwork of inconsistent regulations that threaten homegrown innovation and investments in AI, state lawmakers are uniquely positioned to ensure that America remains a global technology leader,” Meta VP of Public Policy Brian Rice said in a statement.

That PAC has been seeded with $45 million, according to POLITICO.

Neither PAC has spent significant sums yet.

• Roxanne Ardekani grew up in the US and now trains as a Norland Nanny in the UK.
• Norland’s educational program is unlike anywhere else she’s studied, Ardekani says.
• She’s seen a boost in her self-confidence, which she finds surprisingly motivating.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Roxanne Ardekani, 28, a student at Norland in Bath, England. Norland is an institution, almost 135 years old, that trains elite nannies for some of the world’s wealthiest families. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I didn’t grow up thinking nannying would be my career, let alone that I’d move to the UK to train for it. I was born and raised in New Orleans. My parents are Iranian, and growing up meant traveling a lot and moving between cultures.

When I was 19, I left the US to study abroad in Innsbruck, Austria. Innsbruck is a sister city of New Orleans, and I was able to do an exchange program there. What was supposed to be temporary turned into something longer. Austria just really fit my lifestyle, and I decided to stay.

Nannying came into my life almost by accident. While I was studying psychology at the University of New Orleans — and later American studies at the University of Innsbruck — I was looking for a side gig. A friend connected me with a family who needed a nanny. I went to the interview, and it was a perfect match.

I remember thinking, “Where has nannying been my whole entire life?”

It brought together everything I loved: working with children, developmental psychology, and being hands-on. What started as a few days a week eventually became full time. It was so rewarding that I continued working with children throughout my time in Austria.

It was around that time I started noticing job listings that mentioned something called a “Norland Nanny.” I had never heard of it. I looked it up and immediately thought, “Oh my gosh, this is Hogwarts for nannies.“

I decided to apply, telling myself I’d roll the dice. If I got accepted, I’d move to the UK. If I didn’t, I’d keep working as a nanny.

I started at Norland in September 2023, and I’m currently in my third year. After I finish my studies and complete my Newly Qualified Nanny year (a probationary paid placement), I’m scheduled to graduate as a qualified Norland Nanny in March 2028.

Why Norland feels different

I’ve studied in the US, Austria, and now the UK. Norland is such a different experience from what I’ve experienced in my previous studies.

Before coming here, I studied psychology at the University of New Orleans, then completed an exchange and later switched fully to the University of Innsbruck, where I finished a degree in American Studies and English. I had been in the academic world for a long time, but it wasn’t until Norland that I realized how different it felt to be guided through the work and to fully understand what I was doing.

The biggest difference at Norland is the level of care and attention to detail. In my previous education, it often felt like you were given an assignment and expected to push through on your own. You aimed for the finish line and hoped you figured things out along the way.

At Norland, the approach is different. The teachers here are like, “Hey, let’s go through this. Let’s make sure you know what you’re doing.”

That shift has been huge for me, especially in my research. We spend a lot of time talking about methodology, data quality, and ethics. We ask whether research is valuable and whether it’s ethical — not just whether it’s finished. That level of care and intention is something I felt was missing in my earlier studies.

Learning by doing

Norland is academically demanding. Our classes are long — about 2.5 hours — and they’re dense with information. They’re also deeply connected to practice.

Alongside coursework, I’m in placements where I work with families in different settings. I’m constantly seeing how my studies in the classroom translate into day-to-day care, and how different families and lifestyles shape the work.

We learn how to communicate with parents. We study child neurology. We talk about self-regulation, learning through play and why play matters for development.

One recent module that really stands out to me focused on entrepreneurship. As a nanny, you’re working under families, but it’s also your own practice. That class made me think differently about the long-term possibilities of this career. It made me think more seriously about what it could look like to build something long-term, or even eventually open my own practice.

The confidence I didn’t expect

The biggest change for me isn’t just what I’ve learned. It’s how I feel. For the first time, I genuinely feel confident in my skills. I know what I’m doing. That feeling motivates me in a way I didn’t expect.

Moving to the UK at 25 felt like a bigger leap than earlier moves. I had friends, a job, and a settled life in Austria. I remember sitting at the airport, UK-bound, with my suitcase thinking, “I don’t know about this.”

When I first arrived at Norland, it was nighttime, and I didn’t recognize anything. I had no phone reception and took a bus before eventually getting an Uber. When I finally reached my room, my roommates opened the door, they hugged me, grabbed my suitcase, and pulled me inside. I didn’t even have time to overthink it. I think of the grand scheme of time, I haven’t been here that long to feel as grounded as I do.

I’m very open to where opportunity takes me. After I graduate, I’m interested in international maternity nursing through the Norland Agency, short-term placements, and eventually starting a business.

What I do know is that this training has changed how I see myself professionally. Norland didn’t just add credentials to my resume. It gave me confidence I didn’t realize I was missing. That’s been just as important as anything I’ve learned in the classroom.

• Air passengers were unexpectedly told late on Tuesday that the airspace over El Paso would close for 10 days.
• Kiva Lucero canceled his connecting work flight from El Paso to Dallas, and booked a 12-hour bus.
• The airspace reopened after seven hours, and Kiva wasn’t able to get his $100 bus ticket refunded.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kiva Lucero, 21, who is from El Paso and studies in New York City. He is the cofounder of a Paris-based creative collective. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I was scrolling on Instagram on Tuesday when I saw the El Paso airspace was closing for 10 days. Immediately, I was stressed and anxious.

I had a flight booked from El Paso to Dallas for Thursday, and then Dallas to Paris, and had to get to Paris by the weekend for work.

When I found out that what was supposed to be a 10-day closure lasted seven hours, I didn’t feel much relief — I had canceled my flight to Dallas and spent nearly $100 on a bus that I haven’t been able to get refunded.

I booked a bus ticket at three o’clock in the morning

When I first found out about the airspace closure at around midnight on Tuesday, I called my airline immediately and explained the situation. I kind of freaked out.

I asked them if it was possible for me to cancel the El Paso to Dallas leg of my flight, and I would just figure out a way to get to Dallas.

They canceled my flight after a lot of hard negotiation. At three o’clock in the morning, I booked a ticket for a 12-hour bus ride from El Paso to Dallas, leaving at 7 p.m. on Wednesday and getting to Dallas 6:30 a.m. Thursday.

I didn’t even know if I was going to make it to the bus. I was thinking El Paso could get completely locked down. I was up all night.

I just didn’t expect anything good to come of the situation. I thought it could be a serious evacuation. I called my mom to make sure everything was good, because I didn’t want her staying in town if there was a major issue.

I felt stressed and helpless

When I saw on the New York Times in the morning that the closure was lifted, I still couldn’t sleep.

I called the airline again to reinstate my original booking, because I didn’t want to take a 12 hour bus. Luckily, they did.

But it was hours of just stress and anxiety and feeling so helpless.

I had already canceled plans with friends and work meetings because I thought I would be on the bus the next day.

Thankfully, I should make it to Paris now, but it cost me $100 and a full night of sleep.

A Trump administration official told Business Insider of the disruption: “Mexican cartel drones breached US airspace” and the Defense Department “took action to disable the drones,” and there was no threat to commercial travel.

• If you could set your Instagram page to keep posting after you die, would you?
• Meta was granted a patent that would use AI to train a bot to keep post-mortem accounts active.
• A Meta spokesperson said the company has “no plans to move forward” with the tech.

Does Meta want to make our social media accounts immortal?

The company was granted a patent in late December that outlines how a large language model can “simulate” a person’s social media activity, such as responding to content posted by real people.

“The language model may be used for simulating the user when the user is absent from the social networking system, for example, when the user takes a long break or if the user is deceased,” the patent says.

Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s CTO, is listed as the primary author of the patent, which was first filed in 2023.

“We have no plans to move forward with this example,” a spokesperson for Meta told Business Insider.

In the patent, Meta lays out why it thinks people might need this.

If you’re no longer posting online — whether that’s because you need a break from social media or … you … die — your followers’ user experience will be affected. In short, they’ll miss you.

“The impact on the users is much more severe and permanent if that user is deceased and can never return to the social networking platform,” the document says.

To fill that void, Meta would essentially create a digital clone of your social media presence, training a model on “user-specific” data — including historical platform activity, such as comments, likes, or content — to understand how you would (or rather, did) behave.

That clone can then respond to other people’s content by liking and commenting, or responding to DMs. For influencers or creators who make their livelihoods on Meta’s platforms and need to take a break from social media, such a tool could be useful.

Meta’s patent also references tech that would allow the LLM to simulate video or audio calls with users.

The Meta spokesperson said that while it files patents to disclose concepts, a granted patent does not always mean the company will pursue, develop, or implement that tech.

Still, it opens up many questions about the nature of tech — and grief. An AI bot that acts as your understudy while you’re on a digital detox is one thing, but imitating people who’ve died?

Edina Harbinja, a UK-based professor at the University of Birmingham’s Law School, has concerns.

“It does affect not just legal issues, but a lot of very important social, ethical, and deeply philosophical issues as well,” Harbinja, who specializes in digital rights and post-mortem privacy, told Business Insider.

Getting into the business of grief tech

Meta has thought about managing digital legacies for years.

About a decade ago, Facebook launched tools that let people designate a “legacy contact” to manage their accounts if they died. And back in the company’s metaverse days, in a 2023 interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Mark Zuckerberg discussed virtual avatars for deceased people.

“If someone has lost a loved one and is grieving, there may be ways in which being able to interact or relive certain memories could be helpful,” Zuckerberg said at the time.

There are a lot of names for this broader category of tech — death bots, ghost bots, grief tech — that are aiming to help people face the loss of loved ones with eternally memorialized digital versions of them.

Several startups have launched around this premise, and many have emerged from founders’ own experiences with grief. Replika, an AI chatbot startup, was founded in 2015 by Eugenia Kuyda after the loss of her friend. Then there’s You, Only Virtual (YOV), which was founded in 2020 by Justin Harrison when his mother was diagnosed with cancer.

“Everybody in the tech world has been thinking about this for a while, as soon as we started having breaks in generative AI,” Harrison said.

In 2021, Microsoft patented an AI chatbot that could simulate a deceased person (as well as fictional characters or celebrities).

Meta’s patent signals that the technology category is moving more into the mainstream, Harbinja said.

Harrison isn’t surprised to see bigger tech companies dipping their toes in the space, and sees it as a sign that people are beginning to “feel more comfortable with doing this.”

“We can only improve on what we offer people,” Harrison said, adding that the resources for grieving are “horrible” to begin with.

“I think we have a moral obligation, if we have the potential, to do more for those folks than we should be,” he said.

AI, death, and grief are not easy topics to digest, however. The intersection of all three is a potent brew of taboos ripe for a philosophical debate on ethics, digital rights, and privacy for any dinner table.

‘Let the dead be dead’

Meta has more than helping people process grief as an incentive to pursue the tech it lays out in its patent, especially for accounts taking a break.

“It’s more engagement, more content, more data — more data for the current and the future AI,” Harbinja said. “I can see the business incentive for that. I’m just curious to see how they would, when, and if they will implement this innovation.”

Depending on how a product like this is rolled out, different questions could come up.

For instance, would this apply across all of Meta’s apps? Would it understand the nuance of your WhatsApp presence vs. the candor you have in the Instagram comment section?

Joseph Davis, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, said he was concerned with the impact that tools like a Meta bot could have on how humans experience grief.

“One of the tasks of grief is to face the actual loss,” Davis said.

“Let the dead be dead,” Davis added. “The idea of bringing them back, but you’re not really doing that, but in fact, it looks like that. That’s the confusion.”

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at sbradley@businessinsider.com or Signal at sydneykbradley.123. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.