Our Best Reads of the Week

Trust the system? 

Take a walk through the wreckage of the second-biggest banking failure in American history, and then wonder at the creaking mess that may be next. Feel these financial failures don’t affect you? Think again, with everything from vineyardsgreen energy taking a hit.

For tips on how to protect your biggest investment, architects offer new ideas on how to disaster-proof your home. Elon Musk is exploring his own grand plans to build a , but things aren’t looking so rosy for some celebrities, with a beauty bubble starting to burst.

Finally, we go undercover working in the world of one-percenters to find that the White Lotus is less fantasy fiction than reality show. Enjoy!

Banks in Crisis

Silicon Valley Bank failed fast — very fast. A bid to sell assets at a loss led to a run on deposits and wiped out a critical lender to the tech industry. Signature Bank also collapsed, thanks to a dalliance with crypto, while First Republic Bank is alive only thanks to a $30 billion bailout from its peers arranged by none other than Janet Yellen and Jamie Dimon. All that has led investors to wonder who’s next, piling pressure on the perennially pilloried Credit Suisse. The storied Swiss lender has won a line of credit from its regulator, but years of scandals ranging from dodgy loans and investments to money-laundering drug deals are sapping investor faith—Adrian Kennedy

Wine All About It

Reverberations of the banking crisis were felt far beyond tech. SVB was lender of choice for many in clean energy, affordable housing and winemaking. It provided nearly $240 million in financing for , the largest US residential solar company, and some fear it’ll now be harder to fund potentially revolutionary green technology. SVB also channeled over $2 billion into Bay Area affordable housing, and its collapse immediately stalled a $52 million San Francisco project. And its celebrated wine division extended over $4 billion in loans over 30 years, forcing roughly 10% of California’s producers to hastily set up new accounts, tap personal funds or delay releases of new bottles. —Alice Truong

Disaster-Proof Your Home

That all makes it sound like time to prep. With extreme weather becoming more common, developers and architects are pressure-testing home designs that can withstand hurricanes, wildfires and other climate shocks. They’ve created houses that can float in floods or withstand winds of up to 190 miles per hour (above). All these efforts can help prevent a bad day from turning into a tragic one. —Grace Huang and Coco Liu

Built and Ruled by Billionaires

News that Elon Musk is incorporating his very own town outside Austin, Texas seems true to form, but there are plenty of precedents: Victoria’s Secret mogul Les Wexner custom-designed his own metropolis in Ohio, luxury titan Brunello Cucinelli bought and renovated an Umbrian medieval village, and Larry Ellison essentially owns all of the Hawaiian island of Lanai. And why not? Founding a town, owning most of its property and having outsized influence give a billionaire unrivaled influence over a community. It’s the closest one can get in these modern days to having a fiefdom. —Devon Pendleton, Shelly Hagan and Sophie Alexander

Not So Pretty

What do Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga, DJ Khaled and Brad Pitt have in common? They’ve all recently launched beauty and skincare brands. We’ve identified at least 50 more stars, who have done the same in the last three years. Some are already showing major signs of strain. In January alone, influencer-stacked Morphe Cosmetics filed for bankruptcy, Ariana Grande paid $15 million to buy her brand’s physical assets back from Morphe’s parent company, and Sephora stopped selling two brands belonging to TikTok influencers. This could be just the beginning. —Rachael Dottle, Raeedah Wahid and Kevin Simauchi

Hawaiian Pleasure Palace

White Lotus a documentary? After we embedded Brandon Presser at the legendary Turtle Bay resort in Hawaii, it’s looking more and more like it. As with his previous proddings into the needy underbelly of the luxury travel industry, from superyachts to private jets to the sinful slopes of Aspen, Brandon proves that not everybody traveling in paradise is an angel. His hilarious takeaways include influencers flipping golf carts for content, guests demanding refunds over rain, porn stars and puritans sparring on the beach, and six figures of stolen goods. Read more of his undercover work —Justin Ocean

— With assistance by Adrian Kennedy, Alice Truong, Grace Huang, Coco Liu, Devon Pendleton, Shelly Hagan, Sophie Alexander, Rachael Dottle, Raeedah Wahid, Kevin Simauchi and Justin Ocean