The dramatic images of wealthy neighborhoods burning during the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires captured global attention, but the damage was much more widespread. Many working-class families lost their homes, businesses and jobs. In all, more than 16,000 structures ' most of them homes ' were destroyed, leaving thousands of people displaced. The shock of this catastrophic loss has been reverberating across Southern California, driving up demand for rental homes and prices in an already unaffordable and competitive housing market. Many residents now face rebuilding costs that are expected to skyrocket. As the region starts to recover, communities have an opportunity to rebuild in better ways that can protect neighborhoods against a riskier future ' but at the same time don't price out low-income residents. Research shows that low-income residents struggle the most during and after a disaster. Disaster assistance also tends to benefit the wealthy, who may have more time and resources to navigate the paperwork and process. This can have long-term effects on inequality in a community. In Los Angeles County, where one-third of even moderate-income households spend at least half their income on housing, many residents may simply be unable to recover....

When it comes to tariffs for Canada and Mexico, America is ending the week pretty much as it started. Over the course of just a few days, Donald Trump'following up on a November promise'announced 25 percent tariffs on the country's North American neighbors, caused a panic in the stock market, eked out minor concessions from foreign leaders, and called the whole thing off (for 30 days, at least). But the residue of this week's blink-and-you-missed-it trade war will stick. The consensus among economists is that the now-paused tariffs on Canada and Mexico would have caused significant, perhaps even immediate, cost hikes and inflation for Americans. Tariffs on Mexico could have raised produce prices within days, because about a third of America's fresh fruits and vegetables are imported from Mexico, Ernie Tedeschi, the director of economics at Yale's Budget Lab, told me in an email. But 'uncertainty about tariffs poses a strong risk of fueling inflation, even if tariffs don't end up going into effect,' he argued. Tedeschi noted that 'one of the cornerstone findings of economics over the past 50 years is the importance of expectations' when it comes to inflation. Consumers, nervous about inflation, may change their behavior'shifting their spending, trying to find higher-paying jobs, or asking for more raises'which can ultimately push up prices in what Tedeschi calls a 'self-fulfilling prophecy.'...

Snap announced on Thursday that it's introducing a new 'Challenge Tags' rewards program for AR developers to win cash prizes for submitting Lenses. The company also announced that it's launching educational pricing and a student discount for Spectacles, its developer-focused AR glasses. The theme of the first Challenge Tag is humor and is open through January 31. The developer of the first place Lens will win $2,500, while second and third place will get $1,500 and $1,000, respectively. Twenty honorable mentions will get $250. To participate, developers need to register for each challenge, build a Lens in Snap's Lens Studio, and apply the Challenge Tag in the publishing process to be considered. Snap will announce new challenges each month. Lenses submitted for a prize will be judged on their originality, technical excellence, and theme focus. AR developers from more than 100 countries worldwide can participate, thanks to Snap's new partnership with AR marketing platform Lenslist. As for the new educational pricing and student discount for Spectacles, students, teachers, and staff from colleges and universities will be able to access a pair for a subscription fee of $49.50 or '55 a month. The standard subscription fee is $99 per month....

RealPage says it isn't doing anything wrong by suggesting to landlords how much rent they could charge. In a move to reclaim its own narrative, the property management software company published a microsite and a digital booklet it's calling 'The Real Story,' as it faces multiple lawsuits and a reported federal criminal probe related to allegations of rental price fixing. RealPage's six-page digital booklet, published on the site in mid-June, addresses what it calls 'false and misleading claims about its software''the myriad of allegations it faces involving price-fixing and rising rents'and contends that the software benefits renters and landlords and increases competition. It also said landlords accept RealPage's price recommendations for new leases less than 50 percent of the time and that the software recommends competitive prices to help fill units. ''The heart of this case' never had a heartbeat'the data clearly shows that RealPage does not set customers' prices and customers do what they believe is best for their respective properties to vigorously compete against each other in the market,' the digital booklet says....

Carbon pricing revenues reached a record $104 billion in 2023, with over half of the collected revenue being used to fund climate and nature-related programmes, according to the World Bank's latest State and Trends of Carbon Pricing report. 'Carbon pricing can be one of the most powerful tools to help countries reduce emissions. That's why it is good to see these instruments expand to new sectors, become more adaptable and complement other measures,' Axel van Trotsenburg, Senior Managing Director at the World Bank, said. However, the report's authors point out that less than 1% of global emissions are currently subject to a direct carbon price at or above what is recommended by the High-level Commission on Carbon Prices to limit global temperature rise to well below 2'C. Speaking at an energy conference in Cape Town, the company's chief executive, Dan Marokane, said Eskom was engaging with groups currently helping to fund its switch to greener power about delaying the closure of some coal power stations until 2030....

Shares of data security and management company Rubrik rose 21% in early trading Thursday, marking the latest large software debut in an IPO market that's showing signs of resurgence after a long lull. Palo Alto, California-based Rubrik priced its initial public offering at $32 a share on Wednesday, above the projected range of $28 to $31. The offering raised around $752 million for the company, and set an initial valuation around $5.6 billion. Shares are trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol RBRK. Founded in 2014, Rubrik pitches itself as a provider of tools for organizations to secure their data across the cloud and recover from cyberattacks. The company's IPO prospectus also plays up its AI expertise, stating that it can 'apply artificial intelligence and machine learning directly to business data to understand emergent data security threats and deliver cyber recovery.' Rubrik raised considerable funding as a private company, pulling in more than $550 million in known financings. Its largest venture shareholders include Lightspeed Venture Partners and Greylock Partners, both early-stage lead investors....

On Aug. 20, 2011, Marc Andreessen published the definitive manifesto for a generation of technologists and investors, with 'Why Software Is Eating the World.' It kicked off an era of immense enthusiasm for software startups, coinciding with a period of historically low interest rates. Andreessen's sentiment lines up with reality: At that time, the risk and potential associated with high-growth software companies were not well understood or adequately reflected in the financial models used to compute valuation. The sheer momentum of software investment over the following years encouraged the growth of private capital inflows, allowing startups to stay private for longer. Valuation was seen as an arbitrary milestone on the road to IPO as investors ratcheted up the price and exit expectations to produce ever more impressive (paper) returns. Somewhere during this period of easy money and endless growth, investors stopped thinking seriously about valuation. All that mattered were comps based on trends in similar transactions. A startup would be awarded a market-based multiple based on its growth rate, revenue and ' where investors were unusually diligent ' their margins....

Apple is moving to make the App Store more appealing to developers before the upcoming deadline to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which offers developers the ability to distribute apps through their own channels for the first time. In an effort to retain developers, Apple has begun its pilot tests of 'contingent pricing,' a new way for them to market App Store subscriptions, TechCrunch has learned. The feature, which Apple first announced last month, offers customers a discounted subscription as long as they're actively subscribed to another subscription from either the same developers or two different developers. For individual developers who use it themselves, it would serve as a way to upsell to their existing, loyal customers by offering them a deal on another app in their portfolio. Alternately, two developers could use the option to attract customers to their respective subscriptions ' something that might make sense if the two apps offered integrations with one another or complemented each other in some way....