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• Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that Kyiv’s access to Starlink has been disrupted.
• Slower-than-normal speeds have affected military operations, the officials said.
• Ukraine is heavily reliant on Starlink, specifically for communications and drone missions.

Ukraine’s access to Starlink internet service was suddenly disrupted for unknown reasons, interfering with military operations, sources in the country’s defense ministry and a top presidential advisor said Wednesday morning.

Serhii Beskrestnov, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a social media post that Elon Musk’s SpaceX had implemented speed limits for Starlink terminals overnight. Beskrestnov said the restriction throttles the operation of Starshield, the company’s dedicated satellite network for military services, at speeds above 100 miles per hour, or roughly 161 kilometers per hour.

Sources in Ukraine’s defense ministry confirmed the disruption and told Business Insider that SpaceX had restricted the Starshield operations without warning the military. They said some units have experienced a loss of connection when drones reach speeds as low as 45 mph.

The sources said that the disruption has complicated military operations, particularly drone missions. This includes mid-range strikes, front-line logistics, and air defense intercepts, some of Ukraine’s most important drone missions.

Because Starlink does not work inside Russia, the disruption is limited to drone operations within Ukrainian territory and Russian-occupied territory.

Later in the day on Wednesday, the defense ministry reported that “SpaceX continues to maintain a limit of 161 km/h. During the day, the real limits were significantly lower. However, as of now, we record that the quality of communication has improved at speeds of up to 160.”

Ukraine has said it is in contact with the US, SpaceX, and NATO partners and is working to install backup communication channels. SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider on the restrictions.

Critical in combat

As the technology has in military and industrial sectors worldwide, SpaceX’s Starlink has become critically important to Ukraine’s military.

Kyiv has adopted it as a battlefield communications tool and also uses it in drone warfare. Drones equipped with Starlink dishes, which can be controlled remotely by pilots hundreds of miles away and adapted to new targets mid-mission, have become one of the country’s most potent weapons in the battle against Russian forces.

Ukraine’s dependence on Starlink has made it reliant on Musk and SpaceX, however.

As Business Insider recently reported, Starlink has provided Musk a vital source of influence and soft power that stretches the globe. In 2023, the world’s richest man said he refused a request from Ukraine’s military to activate Starlink to assist a Ukrainian assault on Crimea, and Reuters reported last year that SpaceX jeopardized a 2022 Ukrainian counteroffensive by cutting Starlink access to front-line troops.

Recently, Musk has proven to be more supportive. In February, SpaceX clamped down on Russian forces’ use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine after Ukraine’s then-defense minister made a personal appeal to the billionaire CEO, a move that allowed Ukrainian forces to wage a successful counteroffensive.

‘It is clear this action is not coincidental’

Musk has not yet addressed reports of Starlink disruptions in Ukraine.

On Saturday, he reignited past criticisms of Zelenskyy with a post on X that the Ukrainian president had “gone too far” with his strikes on Russian refineries.

The Starlink disruption comes after a series of Russian ballistic missile attacks against Kyiv on Monday and Tuesday nights. Ukrainian officials said that in both cases, international partners did not provide an advance warning about their launch, breaking from standard practice.

Asked by reporters before the attack on Tuesday if the US would cut intelligence with Ukraine over its strikes on Russian energy sites, President Donald Trump said that Washington continued to share it.

Zelenskyy’s advisor suggested that the Starlink disruption could be linked to tensions between the US and Ukraine.

“It is clear that this action is not coincidental and is related to the current political situation,” Beskrestnov said on Telegram, according to a translation of his statement. The cause, however, remains unclear.

• Epic Games said that thanks to vibe coding, it has revamped its launcher.
• “Programming is hard,” the company wrote in an announcement.
• The news came just days after Epic CEO Tim Sweeney discussed a major shift around AI.

Epic Games is releasing a revamped version of its launcher that the “Fortnite” maker says it vibe coded.

“Programming is hard,” the company wrote in an announcement on Wednesday. “So, instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look.”

Epic Games says its new launcher is “light on features” for now and that users should “think of it as a speedboat and not a yacht!”

The announcement, which also outlined plans to bring Fortnite to Linux, came days after Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said there was a major shift underway at the company.

“We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration,” Sweeney wrote on X on Monday.

Sweeney said the company isn’t looking to shed developers, but rather enable them to do more.

“The aim isn’t to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal,” he said.

Epic’s leader made similar comments in March when the Fortnite maker announced that it was laying off more than 1,000 employees. Sweeney said the cuts were not related to AI.

“Since it’s a thing now, I should note that the layoffs aren’t related to AI,” he wrote in a memo to employees that the company shared publicly. “To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can.”

• OpenAI said the device was “concealed in toilet paper” and planted in one of its offices.
• The company said it then used its own models to determine who planted the device.
• The Department of Justice said an employee was arrested on October 9.

OpenAI said it found a “sophisticated recording device” hidden in one of its offices and used its own AI to identify who planted the device.

“We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier,” OpenAI wrote in an X post on Tuesday. “We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.”

A statement from the Justice Department said that the employee in question is allegedly 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national. Alfozan was arrested on October 9 and charged with using an electronic device to intercept oral communications. Alfozan made his first appearance in federal court on Tuesday, the statement said.

A complaint filed in the Northern District of California said that an employee found a USB device surreptitiously placed on the back of a television located in an “executive conference room.” The device was concealed in toilet paper, the complaint said.

Photos attached to the court documents and DOJ statement showed the device positioned behind what appears to be a television. The complaint said the device consists of a “thumb-sized development board with a detachable camera sensor, digital microphone, and microSD storage.”

The complaint further said that CCTV footage showed Alfozan near the conference room on multiple dates prior to the device’s discovery.

“According to the complaint, meetings in the executive conference room where Recording Device 1 was discovered frequently involved discussions of highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including proprietary research, product plans, and business-development opportunities, as well as nonpublic information about OpenAI’s technical progress and strategic decisions, capabilities, priorities, government engagements, and commercial relationships,” the DOJ said.

Prosecutors allege that Alfozan used a productivity tool to inquire about OpenAI’s building addresses and meeting rooms, and used a chatbot account associated with Alfozan’s spouse to submit prompts related to building and hiding an audio recording device.

Some of the queries to the productivity agent included a list of “today’s meetings in this room” and “what meeting was this presented at and when was it recorded,” the complaint said.

A LinkedIn account with the same name as the defendant in the complaint showed that Alfozan was an engineering lead at OpenAI and is a partner at Raed Ventures, a Riyadh-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage tech startups across the Middle East and North Africa.

A contact associated with the LinkedIn account and a spokesperson for Raed did not immediately return a request for comment.

In a statement, William Pernik, Aflozan’s attorney, said the government’s allegations “appear wholly out of character” for his client and clarified Alfozan’s charges.

“He is charged with violating a federal recording statute, not stealing trade secrets or working as a foreign agent,” Pernik wrote. “There is no evidence to suggest otherwise at this time that has been shared with us. Where someone was born is not evidence of anything and national origins is — and always should be — a protected status under our system of laws.”

OpenAI said that it found no evidence that the employee improperly accessed or manipulated model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was fired, OpenAI said in the social media post.

OpenAI told Business Insider that its models were used to help with the technical investigation of the incident, including analyzing forensic images of the device’s storage. It also said it has evidence that the employee intended to plant more recording devices throughout OpenAI’s offices.

OpenAI said in the X post that the case was an example of how AI can help address “sophisticated security threats.”

The announcement comes on the heels of a cluster of firings at OpenAI unrelated to the recording device. In the prior case, the company let go of three safety and alignment employees who it alleged had “violated clear policies on handling sensitive information.”

The workers, Jasmine Wang, Mikita Balesni, and Tomek Korbak, published a letter disputing some of the claims circulating about their conduct. They wrote that they were concerned about the lack of clarity around their firings, as well as the way they might chill transparency at the company.

OpenAI stood by the dismissals. The company published an internal note that said, “Our internal investigation uncovered a significant breach of trust beyond what’s outlined in the letter they published and we stand by the decision to not continue their employment.”

• Job switchers are experiencing better wage growth than job stayers.
• Last year, both groups saw similar increases, defying historical trends.
• Still, not everyone can leave their job or find a new opportunity right now.

It’s once again better to switch jobs than stay in your current gig if you want a raise.

“Wage growth for workers who change jobs is picking up again in 2026, even as raises for those who stay put keep slowing,” Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau, vice president for macroeconomic research at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said in a LinkedIn post.

That’s based on 12-month moving averages of median wage growth for job switchers and stayers tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta using Current Population Survey data.

Year-over-year wage growth for job switchers has been 4.4% for four straight months, while growth for job stayers falls short, with September’s estimate at 3.5%. The gap between the two groups shrank last year, including a brief period where stayers actually saw slightly better wage growth than switchers. The recent trend could be the start of a return to the historical norm of a healthy job-switching premium.

“The first half of this year was the anomaly, and the low-hire environment is to blame,” said Chris Martin, senior economist at Glassdoor. “Job seekers had to take what they could get, and that often meant compromise: fewer promotions and lower wages.”

However, some workers don’t have the luxury to switch jobs right now. The quits rate has been bouncing between 1.9% and 2% for a little over a year now, far below the 3% rate a few years ago during the “Great Resignation,” suggesting lower confidence among workers. Openings have been similarly sluggish and are substantially down from the March 2022 record of 7.5%.

“The return of this premium for job switchers is an early sign of improving prospects for job seekers, though the hiring rate remains low and job searches are taking longer,” Martin said.

With job openings basically in line with the unemployment level, AI making it easier to send out résumés, and job losses in white-collar sectors, workers might find it tough to say goodbye to their current role.

“While job hopping still comes with higher pay, which is especially helpful for workers feeling the squeeze of inflation, the opportunities to job hop are few and far between,” said ZipRecruiter economist Nicole Bachaud.

People can improve their experience while stuck in their role. Bachaud suggests learning AI skills, which may be helpful in your current position or to note on your résumé.

“For workers who are feeling stuck in their current position, it’s important not to fall into the complacency trap,” Bachaud said. “Beyond wages, the labor market is shifting rapidly as AI reshapes jobs.”

Whether you’re applying for a new higher-paying job or seeking a raise from your current employer, it’s not a bad idea to broadcast your accomplishments. People can “loud work” and boast their achievements and contributions to their manager and colleagues as well as beyond the workplace, such as through LinkedIn posts.

“We stop ourselves from self-promotion because we think it’s bad, but self-promotion is the breadcrumbs that lead to the titles and the promotions and the pay raises,” said Jasmine Escalera, a career expert with MyPerfectResume.

• If you’re lucky, scrolling through TikTok could be part of your job.
• Sophia Sesto, Poppi’s VP of culture, is tasked with keeping the prebiotic soda brand relevant.
• Poppi’s influencer strategy relies on its team of marketers who are deeply fluent in the internet and pop culture.

Sophia Sesto has a trick up her sleeve for influencer marketing: staying chronically online.

Her role — vice president of culture for the buzzy prebiotic soda brand Poppi — requires her to be tuned in to popular culture.

To spot trends and emerging content creators, it’s crucial to follow “your own For You Page,” Sesto told Business Insider. Sesto was recently featured in Business Insider’s 2026 list of most innovative influencer marketers.

The search for new, culture-driving creators “is never-ending,” said Sesto, who leads Poppi’s influencer, partnerships, and social marketing teams.

Within Poppi’s internal Microsoft Teams, there is a channel called “Seed” where Sesto and other Poppi staff “are constantly dropping” creators and content, accompanied by ideas for how the brand can work with these people in the future.

“It is the most manual process,” Sesto said, adding that AI tools haven’t yet proved useful on this front. “It’s all in-house, and we say we get our consumer because we are them.”

Brands are projected to spend more than $44 billion on influencer marketing in the US this year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). As more dollars get pumped into the space, and more creators vie for those checks, standing out and driving conversation carry more weight.

Meanwhile, the internet rapidly churns through viral memes and trends. Brands only have a split second to pounce.

“A big part of my role is continuously building a model that moves at the speed of culture, while also being able to scale,” Sesto said.

Poppi’s reality TV love affair

Poppi’s marketing campaigns around the hit reality TV show “Love Island” were right in this sweet spot.

While on her honeymoon, Sesto watched “Love Island” and kept up with her colleagues.

“We were in the Teams chats like, ‘Did you watch last night? What do you think of this? What do you think of that?'” Sesto said. “I promise we get real work done too, but this is when our best work happens.”

Poppi’s team, like many other “Love Island” viewers, grew obsessed with a 2025 cast member, Amaya Espinal. That July, when the plot of the show turned on Espinal, Poppi’s staff went on Instagram to show its support with a made-up “Amaya Papaya” flavor.

“It’s our best-performing Instagram post of all time,” Sesto said.

What started as a joke turned into a full marketing campaign and flavor launch. By October, Poppi had cast Espinal in a campaign and launched a limited-edition flavor, “Amaya’s Island Colada.” The drink was sold on Amazon and at Target.

Poppi sank its teeth into the “Love Island” fandom even further, working with creators on watch parties and other digital content. According to the company, creator-made content generated more than 212 million views.

How Poppi works with pop culture icons

Poppi has landed its bright-colored soda cans in the hands of internet celebrities like Alix Earle, Jake Shane, and Charli XCX.

Poppi has a “long-standing relationship” with Earle, Sesto said. The brand worked with Earle at Coachella in 2024 and later launched a branded can with her in 2025. Earle’s partnership goes deeper than sponsorships, too. She became an investor in the soda brand in 2024.

The brand has leveraged these faces in some of its highest-budget advertising campaigns, such as its Super Bowl commercials.

Poppi recently partnered with actor Shay Mitchell’s luggage brand, Béis, on a collection of suitcases. Like many brands, Poppi leveraged an IRL event to coincide with the launch.

Poppi isn’t only focused on the biggest stars.

Sesto said its “always-on influencer program” is a crucial part of the brand’s strategy to stay relevant and in front of consumers. When Poppi rolled out its “Shirley Temple” flavor at the end of 2025, it sent cans of the soda to influencers without any context, Sesto said, hoping the creators would post about it.

“We gave them the opportunity to launch the flavor for us,” Sesto said.

Big Soda, bigger opportunities

After Poppi was acquired by PepsiCo for nearly $2 billion in 2025, a new motto defined the brand’s transition: “Let Poppi be Poppi,” Sesto said.

Poppi’s new parent company is “leaning in” to Poppi’s cheekiness, Sesto said, and letting Poppi’s team “do our thing.”

The new ownership is also opening up doors. Since the acquisition, Poppi inked a partnership with Starbucks, landing the prebiotic soda on the coffee chain’s shelves. Meanwhile, Poppi is also venturing into international markets and launched in the UK this year.

“We’re working on — spoiler alert — more places where you’ll see Poppi,” Sesto said.

• Ukraine relies heavily on mini turbojet engines for drones and missiles.
• The country’s defense minister said he expects monthly demand for one specific model to rise to 10,000.
• Local jet engine production has become a priority for Kyiv as its weapons become more advanced.

Mini-turbojet engines have become a growing priority for Ukraine’s defense industry as the country relies on them to power the next generation of high-speed interceptor drones and long-range strike weapons.

Ukraine has long sourced weapons and components from partner nations. But as the country builds more of its own drones and missiles, reducing that dependency and increasing its self-sufficiency has become more important.

Yevhenii Khmara, Ukraine’s defense minister, told reporters over the weekend that Kyiv views jet engine production as a “critical area” for its local defense industry. For one specific engine model, he said, projected monthly demand could reach 10,000 units.

Khmara said that the demand would be spread across just 20 Ukrainian manufacturers.

Brave1, Ukraine’s state-backed innovation platform, said that supporting domestic jet engine production has been a priority for the past year and a half. The 20 active projects include a mix of government and private initiatives.

Large-scale mini-turbojet engine production is “crucial for effectively protecting our skies, and we are working hand-in-hand with the Defense Forces to deliver it at pace,” Brave1 told Business Insider in a statement on Tuesday.

Ukraine puts jet engines in medium-range drones, which it has used to hit Russian logistics and supply routes across occupied regions of southern Ukraine, and deep-strike weapons, including its cruise missiles that can reach military and energy targets hundreds of miles across the border.

Jet engines are also essential for Ukraine as it builds a next generation of interceptors to counter a rise in Russian jet-powered attack drones.

Earlier Ukrainian interceptor models were designed to counter Russian drones powered by piston engines, which could reach speeds of up to 115 mph. But Moscow is increasingly using jet-powered drones that travel much faster; some variants can reach up to 375 mph and are much harder to intercept.

Ukrainian defense firms are now developing faster interceptors, some of which are powered by turbojet engines. The next generation of interceptors has already downed several of Russia’s fastest drones.

Following a meeting with military leadership in late September on the Russian drone threat, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed that “new decisions” had been made concerning domestic jet engine production, according to a statement from his office at the time. He did not elaborate further.