Mike Dowd is a former New York City Police Department officer who became involved in drug dealing while on the force. He was arrested in 1992 and later convicted of racketeering and conspiracy to distribute narcotics, serving 12 years in federal prison.
He speaks to Business Insider about how police corruption starts and spreads inside a precinct. He breaks down why some officers turn corrupt, how the NYPD investigates its own, the risks officers take when they cross the line, and how much money is involved in drug-related corruption. He also outlines what could be done to improve police accountability and prevent similar cases.
Dowd now works on podcasts, books, and courses with the New Solutions Network, and is developing a premium cigar line with Adam Diaz.
Layoffs are coming to Wall Street banking and trading giant Goldman Sachs this spring, Business Insider has learned.
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Goldman Sachs is set to initiate small rounds of head count cuts starting next month, sources say.
The Wall Street giant is known to oust poor performers, often through an annual companywide process.
This spring, it’s giving business-line leaders more discretion to set their timelines, sources said.
Goldman Sachs is planning to start trimming staff next month, reflecting a shifting strategy this spring toward several rounds of cuts, rather than a single, larger-scale effort to oust underperformers all at once, multiple people familiar with the situation told Business Insider.
The Wall Street bank has long been known for its annual head count reduction rituals that play out in the spring and fall, and have historically axed up to several thousand positions at once by trimming the bottom 5% of its worldwide workforce.
But this year, Goldman is skipping its usual spring “Strategic Resource Assessment,” or SRA — the internal name for a big, one-time culling — in favor of a series of smaller, rolling cuts, the people said. The first round of layoffs is expected in April, with additional cuts continuing through the summer. The shift is meant to give divisional leaders more control over timing than waiting months for the next firmwide review, one person with direct knowledge said. They added that a more traditional SRA round could still happen later in the year, in keeping with past conventions.
The reductions are set to hit all business lines from its powerhouse investment bank to its expanding asset and wealth management unit, but are expected to be significantly fewer than the cuts last March, whose target of up to 5% could have translated to up to 2,300 jobs. Final names and numbers for the upcoming rounds have yet to be finalized, the people said, declining to be identified discussing nonpublic information.
“Regular, consistent head count management is nothing out of the ordinary for a public company,” a Goldman Sachs spokesperson said in a statement. “We are constantly assessing our performance and talent across divisions.” The bank said it does not comment on specific head count targets for workforce reduction actions.
Two of the people said the planned cuts are not tied to Goldman’s latest iteration of its “One Goldman Sachs” strategy, which it announced in October — a firmwide initiative aimed at integrating its businesses. That initiative is aimed at driving efficiency through AI, including what it called at the time a “limited reduction in roles.” In its most recent earnings report recapping 2025 results, Goldman reported full-year revenue of more than $58 billion, up 9% from the prior year.
Other large companies have also announced job cuts this year, including Citi and Amazon, which reduced about 16,000 roles, and software firms like Atlassian and Block.
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Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime lawyer, Darren Indyke, was called before the House Oversight Committee.
Indyke sought to explain Epstein’s large cash withdrawals starting in 2013.
Epstein used cash to cover his sex-trafficking operation, victims and their lawyers have alleged.
Speaking under oath before members of Congress on Thursday, Jeffrey Epstein’s personal lawyer attempted to explain some of the now-dead financier’s large cash withdrawals.
In his prepared remarks, Darren Indyke told members of the House Oversight Committee that Epstein required large amounts of cash to run his many households, from New York to the US Virgin Islands.
“He and his staff required cash to pay for a wide variety of expenses including maintenance, repairs and daily household needs for his residential properties in New York, Florida, New Mexico, Paris and the USVI, as well as meals, gifts, gratuities and fuel for his private aircraft,” Indyke said in his opening statement, a copy of which was obtained by Business Insider.
“It is undisputed that during this time period Mr. Epstein had difficulty accessing credit cards from major banks,” Indyke said, referring to cash withdrawals he made for Epstein between 2013 and 2017.
The Epstein files made public by the Justice Department include documents with credit card charges from that time period. They also include credit reports showing he had credit card accounts open between 2011 and 2017 and a credit score above 750.
A representative for Deutsche Bank declined to comment. An attorney for Indyke didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges in New York.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to lesser sex crimes in Florida after numerous young women, some of them teenagers, told the authorities that he paid them several hundred dollars in cash for “massages” that turned into sexual abuse.
Lawyers representing Epstein’s accusers in civil lawsuits against banks that maintained Epstein’s accounts have pointed to the large cash withdrawals from Epstein’s accounts following his 2008 conviction. They argued that, given the news reports about Epstein’s payments to women, the banks should have flagged cash withdrawals that they say allowed Epstein to continue his sex-trafficking operation.
JPMorgan Chase — which cut ties with Epstein after employees repeatedly raised concerns over the cash withdrawals — settled a class-action lawsuit from Epstein victims for $290 million. Deutsche Bank, where Epstein moved his accounts after JPMorgan severed ties, separately settled a lawsuit for $75 million.
Indyke said he never tried to circumvent the banks’ policies on cash withdrawals and that he never believed the money was used for “improper purposes.”
“For a person in Mr. Epstein’s financial position — with five multimillion-dollar residences staffed by dozens of employees and with an extensive travel itinerary — it did not strike me as unusual that Mr. Epstein’s business, household and personal needs required large amounts of cash on a regular basis,” he said.
Other people working for Epstein also had access to his accounts and withdrew cash from his accounts, including accountants Richard Kahn, who testified before the House Oversight Committee last week, and Harry Beller.
Indyke said in his statement that Epstein appeared “extremely contrite” after his 2008 conviction and regretted believing in him. He said he wasn’t personally aware of any sexual abuse until after Epstein’s death.
“He led two entirely separate lives, his professional one and the other, a private, personal one that caused many others to suffer,” Indyke said. “That I did not know what my client did in his private life may be difficult for some to believe, but it is true.”
Bari Weiss has made her mark as the top editor of CBS News.
Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
CBS News is planning to lay off dozens of employees across the company.
Top editor Bari Weiss previously told staffers that “a moment of incredible transformation” could require staffing changes.
Weiss has said that CBS News is “toast” if it can’t evolve beyond broadcast TV.
CBS News is planning to shed dozens of staffers as top editor Bari Weiss reshapes the storied broadcast network, Business Insider has learned.
The network plans to announce the layoffs imminently, a source with direct knowledge told Business Insider.
Weiss foreshadowed these cuts some weeks ago, telling CBS News employees at a late-January all-hands meeting that a “tsunami of technological change” could force staffing changes at the network.
“I can’t stand up here and tell you that in a moment of incredible transformation that that’s not going to mean transformation of our workforce,” Weiss told staffers at the town hall.
When asked about specific personnel changes at the town hall, Weiss said CBS needs to shift away from undifferentiated “commodity news” toward exclusive reports that people “can’t get anywhere else.”
“If you can get what we’re selling in five other places, in 10 other places, in 100 other places — that’s probably not a thing we need to double down on,” Weiss said.
CBS Newsis also growing in certain areas. The broadcast network brought on over a dozen new contributors in January, and Weiss has said she’s looking to hire more people who can help CBS transform into a digital-focused company.
“Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. I’m here to tell you that if we stick to that strategy, we’re toast,” Weiss said in late January.
The former New York Times editor, who founded anti-establishment news site The Free Press, was a polarizing choice for the top spot.
Her decision to delay a story that criticized President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts, as Paramount tried to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, prompted backlash inside and outside CBS News. In response to a question from a staffer about political bias, Weiss said she’s not “a mouthpiece for anybody.”
In an internal all-hands, Google DeepMind leaders addressed staff concerns about Pentagon work.
Leaders said there was a “robust process” to ensure the contracts align with Google’s AI principles.
At the same time, leaders said Google was pursuing more contracts in areas like cybersecurity and biosecurity.
Google told employees that it was confident its work with the Department of Defense aligned with the company’s AI principles — and that it was “leaning more” into securing national security work with governments, Business Insider has learned.
In a Google DeepMind town hall in January, leaders including CEO Demis Hassabis addressed a question from staff that asked how Google was ensuring its partnerships with the Department of Defense and Boston Dynamics weren’t violating the company’s AI policies.
Tom Lue, Google DeepMind’s VP of global affairs, said the company has a “robust process” in place to review details around intended use cases and whether partners have protections for safety, responsibility, and privacy, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by Business Insider.
Lue reminded staff that the company had updated its AI principles in 2025. That change removed a previous pledge not to use Google’s technology to develop weapons or for surveillance purposes.
“The north star for the analysis is whether the benefits substantially exceed the risks,” Lue said.
The tech industry’s role in warfare and surveillance has become a hot topic in recent weeks, following a feud between Anthropic and the Department of Defense. Anthropic drew red lines on how its AI could be used in warfare and surveillance, leading the Pentagon to designate the startup a “supply chain risk.” Anthropic later filed a lawsuit against the DoD over it being effectively blacklisted.
At the same time, tech companies such as Google, Amazon, and Oracle — some of which once stood firm against involving themselves in the business of war — are increasingly vying for lucrative defense contracts.
In the January town hall, which predated Anthropic’s dust-up with the DoD, Lue said employees should expect more of these types of deals.
“I also want to mention, this is an area we’re going to be leaning more into. We’re talking with governments about their national security concerns,” Lue told employees.
He said the company was having conversations around cybersecurity and biosecurity risks.
Approached for comment, a Google DeepMind spokesperson pointed Business Insider to a blog post published last weekdescribing the details of Google’s most recent Pentagon contract. It explains that the tool is used for jobs such as document drafting and project planning.
Google rebuilds its Pentagon relationship
Hassabis, who had once feared how Google might use DeepMind’s technology for warfare, told staff in the same town hall that he was “very comfortable” with the balance Google was striking.
“Obviously it’s a very complicated world as we can all see, but I think it’s incumbent on us to work with democratically elected governments and to provide the unique capabilities we’re world-class in to help the world be safer and be a benefit to the world,” he said.
Google re-engaged the Pentagon last year, securing contracts for its AI and cloud products after walking away from a military deal in 2018 amid an employee revolt. This month, it won a contract to deploy AI agents across the department’s unclassified networks.
Company leaders have said these deals involve using AI for largely clerical work and do not play a role in identifying, tracking, and striking targets. During the meeting, Lue said the Pentagon contract involved tasks such as summarizing information, extracting text from contracts, and other “back office type operations.”
Employees have raised concerns that Google may not have total control over how its partners ultimately use the technology, such as the AI tools it’s supplying to the Israeli government. Last month, employees from Google and OpenAI signed an open letter calling on their companies not to allow their technology to be used for autonomous killing or mass surveillance.
A whistleblower complaint filed with the SEC alleged that Google breached its own policies in 2024 by helping an Israeli drone contractor analyze footage, The Washington Post previously reported. A Google spokesperson told the Post that the usage of its AI services in that instance was too small to be “meaningful.”
It’s not only government contracts that have some Googlers worried. Google DeepMind said in January it was working with Boston Dynamics to integrate Gemini into one of its robots.
“Boston Dynamics was very clear in the terms that these technologies can’t be used for weaponization purposes. We have a very robust process in place,” said Lue during the town hall.
Jerome Powell hasn’t ruled out remaining on the FOMC after his time as chair ends.
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The Fed opted to hold rates steady at its March meeting, as expected.
Chair Jerome Powell talked about jobs, inflation, oil prices, and AI productivity gains.
Powell hinted that he may remain at the central bank after his tenure ends in May.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell isn’t saying his farewells yet.
The Federal Reserve opted to hold rates steady at its second meeting of 2026, and the central bank chair signaled a potential return to the committee after he leaves the post. From the job market to oil prices, here are Business Insider’s biggest takeaways from the meeting.
Inflation is the headline
The Fed is tasked with balancing maximum employment and stable prices — a dual mandate goal that has become increasingly challenging due to the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran.
Powell said the FOMC is closely monitoring the impact of both tariffs and the war on inflation rates, especially as inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% goal. The Middle East conflict has sent global energy prices soaring, with oil reaching over $100 a barrel. Gas prices are north of $3 a gallon. Powell said tariffs are working their way through the economy, too, though the Supreme Court’s ruling against Trump’s 2025 levies could provide some relief.
What’s not clear is how long these elevated prices will last — and how it will shape America’s long-term economic health. Either way, a rate cut isn’t something the Fed would take lightly.
“Progress should come” later this year, Powell said. “If we don’t see that progress, you won’t see a rate cut.”
The job market is shaky
While overall economic growth is strong, the employment situation is tenuous. Low hire and quit rates, limited vacancies, and dwindling labor force participation could continue, especially if interest rates stay high. Powell said the central bank is in a tough position: cutting rates could help juice the job market, at the risk of worsening inflation.
The unemployment rate is still historically low, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a loss of 92,000 jobs in February. Job seekers are increasingly frustrated by sweeping layoffs and a cutthroat white-collar job market. And while the Fed was feeling optimistic about jobs at its January meeting, its March view was more cautious.
Productivity gains are a bright spot — though Powell said AI and data center supply may be slow to catch up with demand.
“Higher productivity is the thing that allows incomes to rise over time,” he said. “So it’s a great thing.”
Powell might stay
President Donald Trump has nominated ex-Wall Street executive and former Fed governor Kevin Warsh as Powell’s successor, though his confirmation isn’t a sure thing. Congressional leaders across the aisle are hesitant to confirm any of Trump’s picks following the Department of Justice investigation into Powell, and Warsh’s confirmation hearings have not yet been scheduled.
Though his term as chair is set to end on May 15, Powell said he may make a surprise return to the committee. If Warsh isn’t confirmed in time, Powell said he will remain as chair — at least until the DOJ probe is resolved. After that, he said, “I have not made that decision yet, and I will make that decision based on what I think is best for the institution and for the people we serve.” It’s rare for chairs to return to the FOMC after their tenure, but Powell is eligible to serve as a governor through January 2028.
As for the April rate decision, Powell said his colleagues are closely monitoring inflation, jobs, and breaking news. He made no promises about a cut — though the central bank projects at least one this year.