Business
/ArcaMax

Modular housing may finally have its day -- as solution to wildfire rebuilding
LOS ANGELES — The sense of loss Sue Labella feels after the Pacific Palisades home she’d lived in for almost 50 years burned down in January’s wildfire is only matched by her desire to return.
To come back as fast as possible, the 83-year-old widow has decided on a home radically different from the 1939 Tudor where she and her husband ...Read more

Silicon Valley office market improves as vacancies shrink, deals grow
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Silicon Valley office market is getting off to a good start in 2025, according to a new report that detailed improvements on multiple fronts in the region.
The vacancy rate fell, rents increased, and overall deal activity expanded in the South Bay during the January-through-March first quarter of 2025, Colliers, a ...Read more

Trump's auto tariffs, threats on allies intensify trade war
President Donald Trump signed a proclamation to implement a 25% tariff on auto imports and pledged harsher punishment on the E.U. and Canada if they join forces against the U.S., expanding a trade war and triggering threats of retaliation.
“What we’re going to be doing is a 25% tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States,” ...Read more

Billion-dollar US levies on Chinese ships risk 'trade apocalypse'
For a symbol of the chaos engulfing world trade since the Trump administration walked into the White House, look no further than a pile of 16,000 metric tons of steel pipes. Stevedores in Germany should be preparing to load the first batch on a ship bound for a massive energy project in Louisiana. Instead the cargo is sitting in a German ...Read more

Despite rising homeownership rates, large racial gaps remain in NC, US, report says
After homeownership rates dipped across the board the year before, Black households saw the greatest year-over-year increase among all races in 2023, a new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) says.
Nationally, Black homeowner rates rose to 44.7% — up .6 percentage points from 2022, according to NAR’s 2025 Snapshot of Race...Read more

Wealthy white homeowners vote more on property tax hike proposals in Cook County, study finds
CHICAGO -- Some suburban voters are facing key decisions about hiking property taxes in the April 1 election, but if the past is precedent, “the few will decide for the many” again, according to a report from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ office.
Referendums for $45 million in infrastructure spending in Western Springs, $94.9 ...Read more

San Diego falls in national home price rankings
SAN DIEGO — San Diego home price gains slowed to their lowest level to start 2025 in almost two years.
In January, the San Diego metropolitan area’s home price increased 3.39% annually, said the S&P Case-Shiller Indices report released this week. The highest gains in the 20-city index were in the New York metro area, at 7.75%, and Chicago, ...Read more
Evan Ramstad: Minnesota's Tile Shop learned its lesson in the first Trump administration
Cabell Lolmaugh arrived in the corporate office at Tile Shop Holdings Inc. eight years ago just as it was being forced to adjust to anti-dumping penalties against China, the source of about half the tiles it sold.
Today, Lolmaugh is CEO of the Plymouth, Minnesota-based retailer and the U.S. is again raising import barriers, not just on China ...Read more

Shuli Ren: China's 'engineer dividend' is paying off big time
DeepSeek has changed how the world sees China. Worries over the country’s “3D” problem — that deflation, debt and demographics are structurally hampering growth — have melted away. Instead, investors are talking about how the world’s second-largest economy can take on the U.S. and challenge its technological dominance.
There is the ...Read more

How to navigate pet rules when finding apartments
Finding my first place out of college, I didn’t need too much. So long as the walls weren’t stained with gunk from previous tenants and the kitchen was operable, I was satisfied.
For most people, that makes finding an apartment rather easy. But Freddie, my sweet — sometimes high-maintenance — pit bull mix, complicated matters.
Freddie ...Read more

'Would we ever open again?' The pandemic locked down these San Diego businesses. Here's where they are today
Five years ago, the COVID pandemic dealt a swift blow to San Diego small businesses, leading some of them to close their doors permanently shortly after the first lockdown in March 2020.
Others, like Trilogy Sanctuary, held on, in a state of limbo.
“I remember the day when they said everything was going to be shut down and you couldn’t do ...Read more

California now has more EV charging ports than gas nozzles
There has been a shift in what moves California.
Electric vehicle charging ports now outnumber gas nozzles across the Golden State, a sign of the increasing number of zero-emission vehicles on the road. But the milestone arrives as the federal government has moved to deprioritize the shift away from gasoline-powered cars.
California has ...Read more

Rideshare companies' legal liability may face limits in Nevada
A bill coming out of a political fight between the state’s trial lawyers and the ridesharing company Uber was fast-tracked through a Nevada Legislature committee this week.
Assembly Bill 523 would make ridesharing and delivery companies not liable for harm caused by their drivers or passengers — known as vicarious liability — as long as ...Read more

Rivian spins out startup focused on small, lightweight electric vehicles
Rivian, known for its large electric trucks, is setting its sights on small and lightweight vehicles.
The Irvine, California-based automaker said Wednesday it's spinning out its micromobility business into a new startup called Also Inc.
Micromobility encompasses a variety of vehicles, including electric bikes, scooters and skateboards.
Rivian...Read more

Lawsuit alleges securities fraud, profit-boosting scheme at UnitedHealth Group
A massive pension plan in California alleges UnitedHealth Group has engaged in a wrongful profit-making scheme through its Medicare Advantage business that wasn’t disclosed, allowing top executives to reap millions in stock trades based on nonpublic information, according to an amended lawsuit filed in Minnesota this month.
The Eden Prairie-...Read more

Philly Shipyard backs Trump plan to counter China shipbuilding -- as critics fear supply chain disruptions
PHILADELPHIA -- The owner of Philadelphia’s commercial shipyard is backing a Trump administration proposal that aims to counter China’s dominance in shipbuilding and subsidize domestic industry following decades of declining production.
The Trump administration in February proposed charging Chinese shipping companies and other ocean ...Read more

Atlanta officials look to lure Ukrainian drone makers to the region
Gwinnett County, Georgia, officials and community development leaders are working to woo Ukrainian drone makers as they try to make the region a major tech hub.
These efforts were on full display Thursday at an event in Norcross aimed at highlighting drone technologies and ways U.S. and Ukrainian entrepreneurs can collaborate. Though current ...Read more

Electric vehicle range anxiety? FIU researchers develop new battery that could be a cure
They call it range anxiety, the fear that an electric vehicle could run out of juice, say somewhere south of Yeehaw Junction on the way to Disney World with three cranky kids aboard.
Such scenarios are one of the big hesitations for many people pondering the purchase of an EV.
Research going on at Florida International University could go a ...Read more

Michael Hiltzik: 23andMe files for bankruptcy, putting its hoard of personal health information at risk
Even for Silicon Valley, the land of multibillion-dollar “unicorn” startups, the launch of 23andMe in 2006 attracted special attention.
Formed to offer genetic testing services directly to consumers, who spit into a receptacle and mailed it to the company for DNA analysis, its founders included Anne Wojcicki, who was married to Google co-...Read more