• The author found that displaying family photos creates a sense of warmth and boosts mood at home.
• Growing up without family photos inspired her to fill her adult home with cherished memories.
• Displaying photographs has become a meaningful and affordable way to foster connection and happiness.

I grew up with my father, who never had photos developed and framed. When I spent time at friends’ houses, I envied the warmth that family photos brought to their homes. Very early on, I knew I wanted my adult home to be more like that.

I saw the value in displaying photographs of loved ones and happy memories, and I craved it. By middle school, I started buying disposable cameras with my babysitting money and taking pictures when I hung out with friends.

I noticed the positive effect that photos had on my mood very quickly

I didn’t have my own adult home yet, but I put pictures of my friends and me along the border of my bedroom mirror and regularly switched out my favorite photos in my school binder cover. I was searching for ways to create my own little spaces in the world, filled with memories that made me feel better. No matter what kind of mood I was in, whenever I saw those pictures, I felt loved.

By the time I was in high school and college, I was the one making copies of photos for friends. I noticed how exuberant my best friends would become when I gave them a photo of us being silly or just having a good time together. Before digital cameras and smartphones, looking at new pictures that had just been developed was really exciting for us.

Photographs allowed me to make a home on a small budget

When I had my son in my 20s, I knew I wanted to create a warm home, filled with photographs for him to see everywhere. As a single parent, photographs have been an inexpensive yet extremely effective way to make our home feel like a home. He has always loved it when I get new pictures to put up on the fridge or have framed.

It makes me really happy that I did this one simple thing differently from my dad, because I’ve seen it make an impact on my son’s life. I can see his face light up when he looks at certain pictures that are displayed, even ones that have been on the wall his entire life.

At 12, he’s now decorating his room in the same way I once did, pinning pictures of his friends up on the corkboards in his bedroom.

Pictures of my family help me always see what matters

Now that I’ve remarried, there are a lot of pictures of us together as a family or of just my husband and me.

It’s really hard to stay mad at my husband when I walk past a picture of us on our honeymoon, and it’s even more difficult to be upset with my son when I see a picture of him as a baby. It helps me see him as that baby again, who needs just as much love and support from me now as he did then. And when I see my husband and me so happy and in love, it makes me want to hang on to that and not take it for granted.

These pictures of different times in our lives don’t just make us happier, but they are powerful reminders of what’s most important. There’s a part of me that’s sad for not having experienced that when I was growing up, but I’m also relieved that I learned how to do it for myself and my family as an adult. My son loves photos just as much as I do, and so I know he’ll grow up to display them in his own spaces. It’s such a simple yet important thing he’s going to be able to do for himself and his loved ones, and that makes me really happy.

• Business Insider spoke with three perfume experts about the best fragrances to wear for winter.
• Gourmand scents are still popular, and heady, musky fragrances are great for cold weather.
• Perfumers also recommend leaning into brooding, dramatic, dark-academia vibes this winter.

When the chill sets in and you find yourself swapping lightweight sweaters and trench coats for bulky jackets, don’t forget to give your fragrance shelf a seasonal refresh, too.

Winter fragrances often lean richer, warmer, and more enveloping — think amber, spice, woods, and heady florals that wrap around you like a cozy, knitted blanket.

Business Insider spoke with three perfumers about which scents they love for winter and why. From narcotic florals to warm ambers, here’s what they said about their seasonal favorites.

Warm yourself up with amber.

Amber fragrances provide some coziness in cold weather.

Dana Schmitt, New York City-based perfumer at the fragrance company Givaudan, said that one of her longtime favorites is Chanel Coromandel, a soft yet luxurious scent. It’s a plush, amber perfume anchored by patchouli and frankincense.

Another staple she recommends is REPLICA’s Jazz Club, a classic scent built on rich, spicy, and woody notes.

It evokes the feeling of settling into a dim jazz lounge on a chilly winter night in the city — making it perfect for a romantic date night.

Just like in the fall, gourmand scents continue to stay popular.

Gourmands — including vanilla, caramel, and honey — are just so cozy for winter, bringing warmth and comfort when the temperatures drop.

Bryson Ammons, New York City-based perfumer and founder of The Alloy Studio, likes to push the category a bit further by incorporating a bit of spice.

He really enjoys Amphora Parfum Honeycakes, a sweet yet savory scent that feels both nostalgic and surprising. “It’s like a spiced coffee — a very sticky, syrupy fragrance,” he said.

For something more amber-forward but still gourmand, Schmitt points to Mugler Angel Eau de Parfum, a sweet, praline scent that also features signature notes of patchouli and bergamot.

Narcotic, headier scents are the way to go.

Winters can be cold. When it’s under 30 degrees, New York City-based independent perfumer Asia Grant likes leaning into narcotic, smooth fragrances that feel like wrapping yourself in cashmere and tucking into a dim, cozy library.

Rich musks and heady florals really come alive in cold weather, and also add a brooding, dark-academia vibe that pairs well with chunky sweaters and penny loafers.

Grant recommends Dominique Ropion’s Carnal Flower, an intoxicating, full-bodied fragrance that features notes of melon, tuberose, and white musk.

Because it’s so highly concentrated, she often likes layering it with lighter, fresher scents to balance it out.

Brighten up the chilly weather with citrusy scents.

Lemons, oranges, limes, and grapefruits might make you think “summer,” but they’re technically winter-blooming fruits, which makes them a natural fit for cold-weather fragrances, said Ammons.

They also add a bit of brightness and zing to the chillier months.

Bring the outdoors in with a fresh, woodsier scent.

Although spicy and ambery scents are a given for winter, Ammons likes to shake things up with fresh, woodsy one. Think: light florals, clean laundry, freshly-fallen snow, and a wisp of smoke.

One of his go-tos is Aesop’s Rozu Eau De Parfum, which pairs notes of rose and bergamot with sandalwood and musk.

“There’s something clean and kind of chic about it,” Ammons said.

• The Netflix-Warner Bros. Discovery deal would be one of the biggest ever in the media industry.
• WBD CEO David Zaslav told employees not to worry in a town hall on Friday afternoon.
• “Netflix is an exceptional company” with “a great, sustainable future,” Zaslav said.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav presented an upbeat take on the company’s new mega-merger with Netflix during a Friday all-hands with employees.

“This is a big day for Warner Bros.,” Zaslav said at a company global town hall, a recording of which was obtained by Business Insider.

Netflix plans to buy the Warner Bros. studio and streaming assets in an industry-shaking $72 billion deal, the companies announced on Friday. WBD’s TV networks like CNN and TNT will be part of a spinoff in mid-2026, as the media conglomerate had originally planned.

WBD’s town hall on Friday afternoon at 1:30 pm ET seemed designed to answer employees’ questions and assuage any fears about the Netflix deal. Zaslav also sent a memo to staffers, several of whom told BI they were worried about their job security as the company undergoes another major deal. That’s especially true because Netflix has its own top-tier tech that could render some of WBD’s obsolete.

“The intention is, they want to keep most people,” Zaslav said of Netflix on the call.

WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, who will lead Discovery Global after it’s spun off from the main company, said on the call that while the WBD as the world knows it will come to an end, he’s excited for the future.

“It’s an emotional day, I think, for all of us,” Wiedenfels said.

What WBD execs said about the split, bidding war, and sale

Early on the call, Zaslav acknowledged that WBD and its employees had gone through a slew of changes since he engineered a merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery in 2021.

“In the end, we’ve gotten a lot more right than we’ve gotten wrong,” Zaslav said.

The WBD CEO reiterated that the company had planned to split itself before Paramount expressed its interest with an unsolicited offer. As a public company, Zaslav explained that it was executives’ duties to get the best possible offer.

“Our No. 1 focus is to drive shareholder value,” Zaslav said.

As Netflix, Paramount Skydance, and Comcast put forth offers, Zaslav said that the bidding war got noisy.

“It was more public than we would have liked,” Zaslav said of the bidding process.

WBD employees should be flattered by the interest from Netflix and other companies, Zaslav said.

“They wanted to figure out how to get into business with all of you,” Zaslav said of WBD’s suitors. He also said there may be more noise ahead, so “put your seatbelts on.”

In the end, WBD executives told employees that they took the best offer on the table.

“Netflix is an exceptional company,” Zaslav said. “I think it has a great, sustainable future.”

As Netflix incorporates HBO Max content, Zaslav said that “more people will be getting nourished” by HBO and Warner Bros. content.

Netflix execs also explained their views on the deal

After announcing its blockbuster deal on Friday, Netflix also moved to answer questions from Wall Street analysts, investors, employees, movie-theater owners, and government regulators.

Here’s what Greg Peters, the Netflix co-CEO, said about the deal on a call with analysts: “This acquisition will allow us to significantly expand our production capacity in the United States and keep investing in original content over the long term. That means more opportunities for creative talent; it means more jobs created across the entire entertainment industry.”

This story is developing and will be updated.

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
• Sign up for the weekly BI Tech Memo newsletter here.

OpenAI spread itself too thin, and CEO Sam Altman knows it.

His “Code Red” to employees this week marks a reset: Focus on improving ChatGPT, and pause lower-priority initiatives. The most striking pause is advertising. Why delay such a lucrative opportunity at a moment when OpenAI’s finances face intense scrutiny?

Because in tech, nothing matters more than users.

Google built its Search empire on this principle. Every query and click fed a feedback loop: user behavior informed ranking systems, which improved results, which attracted more users. Over time, that loop became an impenetrable moat. Competing with it has proven nearly impossible.

ChatGPT occupies a similar position for AI assistants. Nearly a billion people now interact with it weekly, giving OpenAI an unmatched new window into human intent, curiosity, and decision-making. Each prompt and reply can be fed back into model training, evaluations, and reinforcement learning to strengthen what is arguably the world’s most powerful AI feedback loop.

Altman’s Code Red aims to protect that advantage. If ChatGPT becomes more useful, people will use it more, which strengthens the loop, which improves the product again — a compounding cycle that could make ChatGPT as unassailable in AI answers as Google is in search.

But that dominance is no longer assured. Google’s Gemini 3 rollout has lured new users. If ChatGPT’s quality slips or feels cluttered, defecting to Google becomes easier. Introducing ads now risks exactly that. Even mildly irritated users could view ads as one annoyance too many.

For now, OpenAI is betting on new model releases to reaccelerate ChatGPT’s growth. Ads can wait, but not forever. Generative AI is expensive to run, more so than Search or social networks. OpenAI has already committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure to serve ChatGPT at a global scale. At some point, those bills will force the company to monetize more aggressively.

If OpenAI manages to build even half of Google’s Search ads business in an AI-native form, it could generate roughly $50 billion in annual profit. That’s one way to fund its colossal ambitions.

But that future depends on the strength of today’s feedback loop. For now, the priority is clear: make ChatGPT undeniably better, pull more users in, and keep the flywheel spinning. Ads can come later. User growth can’t wait.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• I’ve been a server at a winery for years, so I’ve seen guests make their fair share of mistakes.
• For example, I often find that guests don’t want to expand their horizons during a tasting.
• Additionally, some customers don’t realize they should tip the staff in a tasting room.

As a server, I’ve always thought of wine tastings as opportunities to share my love for the beverage with others.

But after working at a winery for over seven years, I’ve seen almost everything, from wannabe wine sommeliers to guests who think a tasting is an excuse to get drunk with a view.

Here are some of the biggest mistakes customers make at tastings.

Refusing to try certain wines

One of the most common mistakes I’ve noticed is that people assume they know exactly what a wine will taste like based on its name or varietal.

I’ve had guests turn their noses up when I say “riesling” and immediately declare that they don’t like sweet wines. In reality, not all rieslings are sweet — some are incredibly dry, with crisp acidity and minerality.

That’s why I encourage guests to taste wine like it’s their first time trying it. You might think you know what you’ll like, but sometimes the name of the wine doesn’t tell the whole story.

In my opinion, the best part of a wine tasting is discovering something unexpected that charms your taste buds.

Acting unruly when in a large group

Managing the expectations of large groups who come in for bachelorette parties, birthdays, or other celebrations can be challenging.

From what I’ve seen, the tasting-room staff have good reason to run and hide in the kitchen if someone walks in wearing a “bride” sash. Don’t get me wrong — I love a good chance to day drink, but sometimes guests arrive expecting to do what they see in the movies.

They envision wine tastings as an opportunity to slam rosé and run through the vines, but an intimate tasting room isn’t the space for that. It’s a refined experience, focusing on savoring the wine and enjoying the setting.

I always recommend reserving a private tasting room for larger parties or calling ahead to establish proper expectations so everyone can enjoy the experience without stepping on any toes.

Not tipping the staff after a tasting

Many guests forget or don’t realize that tipping is customary in a winery’s tasting room. The setting is a bit more relaxed than at a restaurant, so some people often don’t associate the tasting room with tipping.

However, the tasting-room staff work hard to make your experience enjoyable, and many of us rely on tips.

Tipping might not be required, but it’s a small gesture that goes a long way in acknowledging a server’s effort to make each tasting special.

• A critical system failed as a fighter jet was landing on an aircraft carrier earlier this year.
• The $60 million F/A-18 fell off the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman and into the Red Sea.
• A new Navy investigation shows how the landing unraveled in a matter of moments.

As the fighter jet landed on the aircraft carrier, a critical piece of the landing system blew apart, shot across the machinery room, slammed into equipment a sailor had been sitting at only moments earlier, and then hit the deck spinning “like the Tasmanian devil.”

“Something bad just happened,” a sailor in the room said as he raced to get help. The other sailor who narrowly avoided catastrophe suffered a minor injury and had their headset ripped off in the incident.

One of the arresting gear cables — the tensioned wires that US Navy fighter jets hook onto during landings at sea — had broken as the crucial machinery that absorbs the landing plane’s force came apart beneath the flight deck. The failure destabilized the F/A-18 Super Hornet that had just touched down.

Asymmetric forces threw the aircraft off-center. With no chance of regaining flight, the aviators ejected as it shot off the deck and into the sea. It all unfolded in a matter of seconds.

A new Navy investigation into the disastrous landing, reviewed by Business Insider prior to its release on Thursday, highlights how quickly routine carrier operations can go terribly wrong.

The May 6 incident, which injured two naval aviators, marked the second Super Hornet loss in a matter of days — and the third overall for the carrier USS Harry S. Truman‘s Middle East deployment.

The command investigation into the costly mishap details how one of the carrier’s arresting cables failed to stop the fighter jet, which left a trail of sparks and flames as it flipped off the flight deck and into the Red Sea.

Rear Adm. Sean Bailey, commander of the Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 8, led by the Truman, said in the investigation that the loss of the $60 million fighter jet was “entirely preventable.”

A rough landing

The Truman and its strike group spent months in the Red Sea leading Navy combat operations against the Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group in Yemen that had been attacking important Middle East shipping lanes.

Flight operations were running at a higher tempo, with the carrier launching and recovering aircraft dozens of times a day.

For aircraft recoveries, Nimitz-class carriers like the Truman typically have four arresting cables tensioned across the flight deck to catch the tailhook of a landing plane and decelerate it instantly.

On May 6, as the two-seater F/A-18F was landing that night, everything looked normal right up until the jet hooked the arresting cable.

Arresting gear sailors heard what sounded like an explosion, parts were flying around the machinery space, and on deck, sparks were shooting out of the jet, followed by flames.

It was dark, and the air boss overseeing the flight operations and landing signal officers, unaware that the cable had parted, thought the fighter’s engine had ingested foreign object debris.

The aircraft was leaning left as it moved down the landing zone. “POWER!” the lead LSO called. “ROTATE, CLIMB!” The fighter jet was traveling too fast to stop, but not fast enough to take off. A back-up LSO realized the aircraft wasn’t climbing and made the call.

“EJECT, EJECT, EJECT!” the officer called out.

The aircraft rolled and then knife-edged at 90 degrees. Moments later, it plunged into the Red Sea.

The “man overboard” call went out a minute after the plane first touched the deck. Sailors on the flight deck didn’t see any parachutes deploy after their cockpit ejection amid the disarray, but a few minutes later, they saw the two aviators illuminate their flashlights in the water around 100 yards away.

Twenty minutes later, a rescue helicopter and swimmers arrived on scene to recover them. The aviators suffered minor injuries.

The ‘critical point of failure’

The command investigation blamed the mishap on a mix of factors, including the ship’s high operational tempo, understaffing, and errors by the arresting gear operator, who ensures the system is ready to counteract the landing aircraft’s momentum.

According to the investigation, “the primary contributor in the chain of events that led to the mishap” was inadequate maintenance on the sheave damper crosshead and clevis pin, components of the arresting gear system.

The root cause, the investigation report said, was “the material failure of the clevis pin.” The pin lacked a washer, a small part that helps keep the system in place. That maintenance oversight ended with a jet in the water and two aviators overboard.

It’s possible this mechanism had been loosening for some time before the mishap, the investigation said. A missing washer could allow the pin in the arresting gear to work loose and shear off, ultimately causing internal parts in the gear to come apart under and the arresting cable to break.

Sailors across the board were poorly trained, the investigation determined, and a maintenance support sailor who was supposed to inspect the arresting cable and its mechanisms hadn’t thoroughly done so.

Vice Adm. John Gumbleton, acting head of Fleet Forces Command, wrote in a letter attached to the investigation that Truman’s leadership across all levels “allowed the air department’s aircraft launch and recovery equipment maintenance program standards to decline, ultimately leading to a critical point of failure.”

The May 6 incident was the fourth major mishap that the Truman and the rest of its strike group suffered during the monthslong Middle East combat deployment.

In December, the cruiser USS Gettysburg mistakenly shot down one of the Truman’s F/A-18s. A few months later, in February, the carrier collided with a commercial vessel. And in April, just over a week before the arresting cable incident, a fighter jet and a tow tractor fell overboard as the carrier made a hard turn to evade incoming Houthi missile fire.