Jamel Bishop is seeing a big change in his classrooms as he begins his senior year at Doss High School in Louisville, Kentucky, where cellphones are now banned during instructional time.

In previous years, students often weren’t paying attention and wasted class time by repeating questions, the teenager said. Now, teachers can provide “more one-on-one time for the students who actually need it.”

Kentucky is one of 17 states and the District of Columbia starting this school year with new restrictions, bringing the total to 35 states with laws or rules limiting phones and other electronic devices in school. This change has come remarkably quickly: Florida became the first state to pass such a law in 2023.

Both Democrats and Republicans have taken up the cause, reflecting a growing consensus that phones are bad for kids’ mental health and take their focus away from learning, even as some researchers say the issue is less clear-cut.

“Anytime you have a bill that’s passed in California and Florida, you know you’re probably onto something that’s pretty popular,” Georgia state Rep. Scott Hilton, a Republican, told a forum on cellphone use last week in Atlanta.

Phones are banned throughout the school day in 18 of the states and the District of Columbia, although Georgia and Florida impose such “bell-to-bell” bans only from kindergarten through eighth grade. Another seven states ban them during class time, but not between classes or during lunch. Still others, particularly those with traditions of local school control, mandate only a cellphone policy, believing districts will take the hint and sharply restrict phone access.

Students see pros and cons

For students, the rules add new school-day rituals, like putting phones in magnetic pouches or special lockers.

Students have been locking up their phones during class at McNair High School in suburban Atlanta since last year. Audreanna Johnson, a junior, said “most of them did not want to turn in their phones” at first, because students would use them to gossip, texting “their other friends in other classes to see what’s the tea and what’s going on around the building.”

That resentment is “starting to ease down” now, she said. “More students are willing to give up their phones and not get distracted.”

But there are drawbacks — like not being able to listen to music when working independently in class. “I’m kind of 50-50 on the situation because me, I use headphones to do my schoolwork. I listen to music to help focus,” she said.

Some parents want constant contact

In a survey of 125 Georgia school districts by Emory University researchers, parental resistance was cited as the top obstacle to regulating student use of social and digital media.

Johnson’s mother, Audrena Johnson, said she worries most about knowing her children are safe from violence at school. School messages about threats can be delayed and incomplete, she said, like when someone who wasn’t a McNair student got into a fight on school property, which she learned about when her daughter texted her during the school day.

“My child having her phone is very important to me, because if something were to happen, I know instantly,” Johnson said.

Many parents echo this — generally supporting restrictions but wanting a say in the policymaking and better communication, particularly about safety — and they have a real need to coordinate schedules with their children and to know about any problems their children may encounter, said Jason Allen, the national director of partnerships for the National Parents Union.

“We just changed the cellphone policy, but aren’t meeting the parents’ needs in regards to safety and really training teachers to work with students on social emotional development,” Allen said.

Research remains in an early stage

Some researchers say it’s not yet clear what types of social media may cause harm, and whether restrictions have benefits, but teachers “love the policy,” according to Julie Gazmararian, a professor of public health at Emory University who does surveys and focus groups to research the effects of a phone ban in middle school grades in the Marietta school district near Atlanta.

“They could focus more on teaching,” Gazmararian said. “There were just not the disruptions.”

Another benefit: More positive interactions among students. “They were saying that kids are talking to each other in the hallways and in the cafeteria,” she said. “And in the classroom, there is a noticeably lower amount of discipline referrals.”

Gazmararian is still compiling numbers on grades and discipline, and cautioned that her work may not be able to answer whether bullying has been reduced or mental health improved.

Social media use clearly correlates with poor mental health, but research can’t yet prove it causes it, according to Munmun De Choudhury, a Georgia Tech professor who studies this issue.

“We need to be able to quantify what types of social media use are causing harm, what types of social media use can be beneficial,” De Choudhury said.

A few states reject rules

Some state legislatures are bucking the momentum.

Wyoming’s Senate in January rejected requiring districts to create some kind of a cellphone policy after opponents argued that teachers and parents need to be responsible.

And in the Michigan House in July, a Republican-sponsored bill directing schools to ban phones bell-to-bell in grades K-8 and during high school instruction time was defeated in July after Democrats insisted on upholding local control. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, among multiple governors who made restricting phones in schools a priority this year, is still calling for a bill to come to her desk.

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Associated Press writers Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, and Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Dylan Lovan

• McDonald’s has been criticized in recent years by price-conscious customers. CEO Chris Kempczinski recently admitted the menu has gotten too expensive. The fast-food chain reached an agreement with its U.S. franchises to price eight popular combo meals at 15% less than the total cost of buying the items separately, which will go into effect next month.

McDonald’s has been struggling to hold on to its low-cost image. Now fast food’s largest brand is trying to fix what many of its customers have been saying for months: Combo meals cost too much.

The global fast food chain that built its customer base on affordability is slashing its combo meal prices. The move comes just weeks after CEO Chris Kempczinski admitted the menu has gotten too expensive. 

McDonald’s and its U.S. franchises reached an agreement to price eight popular combo meals at 15% less than the total cost of buying the items separately, The Wall Street Journal first reported, citing people involved in the discussions. The lower prices will go into effect next month. McDonald’s will also reintroduce its “Extra Value Meals” branding with a $5 breakfast deal and an $8 Big Mac and McNugget special later this year, according to the report. 

McDonald’s did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

On a recent earnings call, Kempczinski said consumers’ value perceptions are most influenced by core menu pricing.

“Too often… you’re seeing combo meals priced over $10, and that absolutely is negatively shaping value perceptions,” Kempczinski said.

Kempczinski added the “single biggest driver” of what shapes a consumer’s overall perception of McDonald’s value is the menu board.

“We’ve got to get that fixed,” he said.

Over the past couple years, McDonald’s has been criticized online for its prices by value-conscious customers. A 2023 post on X about an $18 Big Mac combo meal went viral, igniting debate that the fast food chain had become too expensive. The post even elicited a response from the president of McDonald’s USA, who said the price of the meal was an “exception,” and the chain’s prices haven’t outpaced inflation.

McDonald’s decision to slash prices on core combo meals signals more than a marketing shift as the brand recognizes economic strains are affecting business. 

In May, Kempczinski said the company’s U.S. first quarter traffic this year from low-income consumers declined by “nearly double digits,” and middle-income consumer traffic fell by almost the same amount. He added traffic growth from high-income consumers “remains solid, illustrating the divided U.S. economy where low- and middle-income consumers, in particular, are being weighted down by the cumulative impact of inflation and heightened anxiety about the economic outlook.”

Despite the company’s U.S. comparable sales falling 3.6% in the first quarter—its worst showing since the pandemic—winning strategies like themed meals, including a recent collaboration with “A Minecraft Movie,” have lifted sales in the second quarter after two consecutive quarters of decline.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Getty Images—Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service

A longtime adviser to New York City Mayor Eric Adams who resigned from his administration while under FBI scrutiny gave a reporter a potato chip bag filled with cash Wednesday following a campaign event, a gift her lawyer later insisted wasn’t an attempted bribe.

The local news site The City reported the episode hours after one of its reporters said Winnie Greco had pressed a bag of potato chips into her hands containing a red envelope with a $100 bill and several $20 bills.

The reporter, Katie Honan, had scrutinized Greco’s conduct in the past as a major fundraiser for Adams in the Chinese American community.

Greco’s attorney, Steven Brill, told The Associated Press that the situation was being “blown out of proportion.”

“This was not a bag of cash,” Brill wrote in an email. “In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude. And that’s all that was done here. Winnie‘s intention was born purely out of kindness.”

Asked why Greco wanted to make such a gesture to Honan, Brill said, “She knows the reporter and is fond of her.”

The City said it interviewed Greco later Wednesday and she apologized, saying she made “a mistake.”

“I’m so sorry. It’s a culture thing. I don’t know. I don’t understand. I’m so sorry. I feel so bad right now,” Greco said, according to The City.

In response to the report of the bag filled with cash, Adams’ reelection campaign said it had suspended Greco from further work as an unpaid volunteer and that Adams had no prior knowledge of Greco’s actions.

The City reported Greco had texted Honan to meet her inside a Whole Foods store after they both attended the opening of Adams’ campaign headquarters in Harlem.

When given the chip bag, Honan at first thought Greco was just giving her a snack and said she could not accept it but Greco insisted, according to the report.

Honan left and later discovered the money, then called Greco and told her she could not accept it and asked to give it back. Greco said they could meet later but then stopped responding, the report said.

Greco later called The City back and asked them not to do a story, saying “I try to be a good person,” the news outlet reported.

A City Hall spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday night. An Adams campaign aide, Todd Shapiro, said Greco holds no position in the campaign.

“We are shocked by these reports,” Shapiro said. “Mayor Adams had no prior knowledge of this matter. He has always demanded the highest ethical and legal standards, and his sole focus remains on serving the people of New York City with integrity.”

A text message sent to a phone number listed in public records for Greco was not immediately returned Wednesday night.

Since she resigned as Adams’ director of Asian affairs last fall, Greco has occasionally been seen at Adams campaign events. Before her resignation, Greco had served as Adams’ longtime liaison with the city’s Chinese American community. She was also a prolific fundraiser for Adams’ campaigns.

In February of 2024, federal agents searched two properties belonging to Greco. Authorities didn’t explain what the investigation was about, and Greco has not been charged with committing a crime, but she was a number of close aides to Adams who resigned or were fired amid the federal scrutiny.

The City has reported extensively on the investigation and Greco’s conduct, including a campaign volunteer’s allegations that Greco had promised to get him a city job if he helped renovate her home.

A separate federal investigation into Adams led to a 2024 indictment accusing the mayor of accepting illegal campaign contributions and travel discounts from a Turkish official and others — and returning the favors by, among other things, helping Turkey open a diplomatic building without passing fire inspections.

A federal judge dismissed the case in April after the Justice Department ordered prosecutors to drop the charges, arguing that the case was interfering with the mayor’s ability to aid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and European Union officials on Thursday released a bare-bones account of their trade deal that imposes a stiff 15% import tax on 70% of European goods exported to the U.S., but they left blank key areas including wine and spirits and steel and indicated that talks would continue on those and a slew of other important goods.

The two sides said that the document made public Thursday was only “a first step in a process that can be further expanded to cover additional areas.” They are dealing with the vast range of goods traded between the two economies in what is the largest bilateral trading relationship in the world, involving $2 trillion in annual transatlantic business.

The 3 1/2-page text, which represents a political commitment and isn’t legally binding, contrasts with the typical format for trade agreements, which can be hundreds of pages long and carry legal force.

The key provisions are the 15% tariff on most EU goods, a zero rate on U.S. cars and other industrial goods exported to the EU, and a range of exceptions to the 15% rate for aircraft and aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients, with other sectors to be added for goods crucial to each other’s economies. Those goods would face lower tariffs from before Trump’s tariff onslaught.

One goods category that wasn’t excluded from the higher tariff was wine and spirits, which had enjoyed zero tariffs on both ends since 1997. The EU’s chief trade negotiator, Maros Sefcovic, said that EU officials had not won an exemption “yet” but hoped to in future talks and that “doors are not closed forever” on that issue.

Proposals to exempt a certain amount of EU steel imports, known as a tariff rate quota, have been left unresolved pending more talks.

The 15% tariff is much higher than tariff levels on both sides from before Trump launched his wave of tariffs, when they averaged in the low single digits. The tariffs are paid on the U.S. end — either absorbed by U.S. businesses importing the goods, lowering their profits, or passed on to American consumers in the form of higher prices at the cash register.

European officials have had to defend the deal against dismay from businesses and member governments at the higher tariff and criticism that the EU gave away too much. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sold the deal as granting quick relief from the even higher U.S. tariff on EU cars of 27.5% and as opening the way for further negotiations that could exclude more goods from the 15% tariffs. The deal provides that the lower tariff on cars would apply retroactively from Aug. 1 if the EU can introduce legislation to implement its part of the deal by then, which EU officials say they will do.

“Faced with a challenging situation, we have delivered for our member states and industry and restored clarity and coherence to transatlantic trade,” von der Leyen said. “This is not the end of the process.”

Sefcovic, who echoed those sentiments, said, “The alternative was a trade war with sky high tariffs … it builds confidence. It brings stability.”

The deal also includes nonbinding EU commitments to purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy and for EU companies to invest $600 billion in the U.S. In both cases, the money would come from private companies and is based on assessment by the European Commission on what companies were planning to spend.

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McHugh contributed from Frankfurt, Germany, and Hussein from Washington.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Klaus Vedfelt via Getty Images

• Maxwell Lee is leaving Jain Global after less than a year as portfolio manager.
• Lee was a rising star at Bank of America, promoted to director at age 27.
• Commodities strategies have struggled in 2025, per PivotalPath data.

A rising star commodities hire at Jain Global is out after less than a year.

Former Bank of America commodities trader Maxwell Lee joined Bobby Jain's monster hedge fund launch last November as a portfolio manager, but he recently left the firm, according to people familiar with the matter.

Lee was a rising star at Bank of America, where he was promoted to director at age 27, the youngest director in the bank's commodities unit according to his Forbes 30 Under 30 bio from 2023. He held the title head of commodity and FX systematic strategy trading and was later promoted to managing director before leaving for Jain Global.

Lee did not respond to requests for comment. A Jain Global spokesperson declined to comment.

Jain Global launched to great fanfare in 2024 and had an up-and-down first year.

Commodities, run by former Macquarie exec David Hochberg, is one of Jain's seven primary business units, accounting for about 13% of its capital allocation in July, Business Insider previously reported.

The hedge fund is up 2.4% in 2025 after gaining 0.2% in July. It's not clear how Jain's commodities unit has performed.

According to industry data provider PivotalPath, commodities has been among the worst-performing hedge fund strategies globally in 2025 and over the last 12 months.

• Jain Global, one of the buzziest hedge fund launches, recently wrapped its first year of trading.
• After a slow start, Jain started gathering momentum in 2025.
• Business Insider dug into the numbers and charts that explain Jain Global's first year.

Jain Global launched last July with great fanfare and even greater expectations. It landed with a thud — at first — before gathering momentum toward the end of its first year.

While Jain Global didn't end up being the largest hedge fund launch ever, as founder Bobby Jain had once envisioned, it nonetheless holds a claim to being the most complex and ambitious.

Jain raised $5.3 billion in commitments from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund, and wealth management platforms from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, among others. Jain Global didn't start trading that full amount right away. Instead, it received and put the money to work in stages, the last $700 million arriving in July.

The firm started trading with 215 employees and six overarching investment strategies, as well as a seventh Asia-specific business line that trades in each strategy — an unprecedented and expensive rollout intended to lay the foundation for future growth. In its first year, the firm traded about 50 products — everything from convertible bonds to significant risk transfers, Delta 1 options, and natural gas — across 45 countries.

Fair or not, the heft of Jain's undertaking immediately thrust it into competition with the world's largest multistrategy hedge funds, drawing comparisons to Millennium, Citadel, and Exoduspoint, which holds the crown as the largest ever hedge fund launch.

Business Insider dug into more of the numbers and charts that explain Jain Global's first year. Charts are based on BI conversations with people familiar with the firm as well as public media reports.

A Jain Global spokesman declined to comment.

Jain's headcount has kept growing

Jain Global's roster has expanded significantly since launch, growing nearly 80% to more than 380, about half of which are investment professionals, a person close to the firm said. PMs are still joining as their noncompete provisions and garden leaves expire.

One upshot of launching seven businesses at once, according to people familiar with the firm's strategy, is minimizing technology headaches from bolting on businesses years later.

Each of the seven business lines has a dedicated CIO overseeing the operation, apart from equity arbitrage. That business, which includes strategies like index rebalance and volatility trading, is overseen by founder and firm-wide CIO Jain, who spent decades at Millennium and Credit Suisse deeply involved in such trades.

How Jain Global has put money to work

How exactly a fund deploys its capital fluctuates depending on market conditions and personnel, among other factors. When Jain was pitching investors in late 2023, he included details on how he expected to allocate investor capital once at full strength, BI reported at the time.

Here's how those estimates compare with its capital allocation as it hit the one-year mark (The Asia business wasn't included in the strategy breakdown early on):

Having received its last tranche of capital this month, the firm expects to have its $5.3 billion fully deployed by year-end, a person familiar with the matter said.

Jain Global got off to an inauspicious start, losing money in its first two months but clawing into the black by the end of 2024, finishing up 0.5%.

But it started to hit its stride in the second quarter of 2025, posting three straight months of gains and ending its first 12 months of trading up 2.7%.

Here's a breakdown of Jain's performance in each of the first 12 months:

Investors don't gush over returns that lag the Treasury yield. But they also don't sign up for a three-year commitment to a new fund — as Jain's backers did — without some inherent patience.

"Setting up and effectively competing with the other Multi-Strats, which is already an extremely competitive backdrop, is an uphill battle," Brian Payne, chief private markets and alternatives strategist at BCA Research, said in an email to BI. "Getting the proper talent, infrastructure, technology, etc. on top of making sure the portfolio is properly balanced and meeting objectives is not one that can be done overnight."

It's taken ExodusPoint, which launched with a record $8.5 billion, seven years, including plenty of fits and starts, to begin hitting its stride, BI previously reported.

Jain envisioned a fund that could one day scale to as much as $12 billion. The initial investors get first crack at future Jain Global capital raises, and one telling sign will be who signs up for more and what external investors decide to pile in.

• Otter Rock is the latest member of the extended Tiger Management family tree.
• The long-short equity fund is a great-grandcub, as its founder worked at Tom Purcell's Alua Capital.
• Alix Karlan previously worked for Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global as well.

Alix Karlan is taking advantage of the renewed appetite for old-school stock pickers.

The former technology sector head for Tom Purcell's $3 billion hedge fund Alua Capital is planning to launch Otter Rock in the fourth quarter of this year, a person close to the firm told Business Insider. The fund's commingled vehicle is expected to raise $300 million before launch, and there's a chance the firm might take on additional capital via a separately managed account, the person said.

Karlan declined to comment.

The new fund will invest in stocks across different sectors, with a focus on companies undergoing technological disruption, the person said. It will be based in Stamford, the Connecticut town that is also the headquarters for Steve Cohen's Point72 and Paul Tudor Jones' long-running investment manager.

So far, the firm has hired Dan Beckham as chief operating officer. Beckham, according to his LinkedIn profile, has worked in various executive roles in asset management for decades, most recently as the head of investor relations and business development at private equity firm Saturn V Capital.

Karlan started as an analyst at Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global before going to Stanford Business School. He joined Purcell's firm in 2015 and worked there until the start of 2024, when he began trading his own capital using the strategy he plans to deploy at Otter Rock.

He's the latest addition to the extended Tiger Management family tree, which includes big-name managers known as Tiger Cubs, such as Tiger Global, Coatue, Lone Pine, and the aforementioned Viking, as well as funds started by former employees of these managers. Alua, for example, is run by Purcell, a former executive at Viking, and Marco Tablada, a onetime Lone Pine investor.

Despite Julian Robertson, the billionaire founder of the legendary firm, passing away in 2022, his firm is still active and continues his legacy of backing external managers. The Tiger Cubs, started by former analysts of Robertson's, have spawned the next generation of stockpicking hedge funds, led by Viking in particular.

Former Viking investors who have become founders include Purcell, D1 founder Dan Sundheim, Avala Global founder Divya Nettimi, and Voyager Global founder Grant Wonders. The industry is also closely tracking the progress of former Viking executive Ning Jin's soon-to-launch firm, Avantyr Capital.