Category: Business Insider

• The housing market has been brutal in recent years as prices keep rising. 
• While high mortgage rates didn't bring prices down, steep insurance costs could put a lid on further appreciation. 
• "You can see in the course of even a year or two, prices begin to respond because people are very sensitive to this."

When mortgage rates started to spike in 2022, the thinking was that higher borrowing costs would put a lid on prices, which had spiraled endlessly upward since the pandemic sparked a buying frenzy. 

That didn't quite happen, and home prices have kept climbing, so much so that a recent report from Zillow said would-be buyers need to earn 80% more than pre-pandemic to afford the median-priced home. 

But there's an under-the-radar factor that could soon pull down home prices nationally, real estate experts told Business Insider — soaring home insurance costs. 

Home insurance premiums, which surged 4.5% year-over-year in March alone, according to the FRED economic data, could be the last straw for home buyers amid a litany of rising costs. 

Insurance comparison platform Insurify said in a recent report that annual insurance rates skyrocketed 19.8% from 2021 to 2023, and the company forecasts another 6% surge in 2024, which would push the average annual rate to $2,522 by year-end.

Real estate experts said that though they aren't the top driver of home prices compared to mortgage rates or housing inventory, they still have the power to influence what buyers are willing to pay over the long term.  

A growing national burden for buyers

Daryl Fairweather, the chief economist at Redfin, said in an interview with Business Insider that rising insurance costs are especially severe in states like Florida, where climate disasters factor into the risk forecast, but they're rising all over the US. 

"There are places all over the country that are gonna have their own climate issues," she said, while referring to Texas heat waves last summer, which she said are likely to be repeated this year, and the persistent smoke and wild fires plaguing the West Coast.

The insurance costs usually come as a surprise to home buyers in those areas, Fairweather added. 

"The problem is that most people don't go through the process of finding out how much insurance will cost until they've already made an offer on a home and they feel like they have to go through with it or they'll lose out on their earnest money if they back out," she said. 

Pressuring home prices

Danielle Hale, the chief economist at Realtor.com, told BI that lenders typically require various forms of insurance from buyers who take on a mortgage, and if the insurance costs are too high, it can disqualify the buyer from getting the loan. 

"As costs rise, the pool of buyers who can qualify for the mortgage is more limited, and the price of the home may need to fall in order for a buyer to be found," Hale said.

Jesse Keenan, a sustainable real estate and urban planning professor at Tulane University, said that homebuyers are very sensitive to the long-term operational costs of having insurance, and usually, the value of a home will decline if insurance is particularly costly. 

"So at the end of the day, it's buyers and sellers capitalizing risk," he said. "And they're coming to terms with what that risk may be."

He also noted that insurance markets are getting better at discovering and assessing risk, thanks to things like geospatial technologies and advanced computing. 

"The implications of that are that technology is helping companies price at a much more precise measure of risk, so with all that information, consumers are now saying, 'you know what, this is worth more, this is worth less.' And as a consequence, the value of properties that are shaped are shifting, mostly down," Keenan said. 

In some extreme cases, that sensitivity has already prompted home price repricing in locales with extremely high insurance premiums, such as Louisiana. 

"You can see in the course of even a year or two, prices begin to respond because people are very sensitive to this," he said. 

To Fairweather, it's more precise to say the rising insurance will make home values grow more slowly than they would have, as the robust demand still characterizes the current market. 

"In general, demand exceeds supply, even though homeownership has become so unaffordable. We take into account prices and mortgage rates and now rising insurance costs, but there's still people wanting to buy homes," she said.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/K8Pn7Ab
via IFTTT

• Realtors Eric and Beth Ann Mott relocated from Denver to Thousand Oaks, California, in May 2022.
• The Motts attribute their move to a growing preference for California's weather and lifestyle.
• Despite common misconceptions, the Motts find California financially comparable to Colorado.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with married realtors Eric Mott, 59, and Beth Ann Mott, 57, about their experience moving from a suburb in Denver, Colorado, to Thousand Oaks, California, in May 2022.

Eric: Denver used to be a really great place to live.

I was born in California. But my folks and I relocated to Denver in 1977 when it was still a cow town.

Beth Ann: I ended up in Colorado because of Eric. We did long-distance dating between Kansas City and Denver. When we got married in 1996, I moved with him to the Denver area.

Eric: We're both full-time realtors with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. We bought some investment properties in Denver, and in 2009, we 1031-exchanged three of those properties for a place in Thousand Oaks. So, we've actually owned our current home here in California since 2009.

Beth Ann: We planned on getting to California at some point. But it took us about 14 years to see that come into being.

Denver used to be a great place to raise a family

Eric: Colorado was one of the first places to legalize recreational marijuana, which we did not vote for. In our opinion, that's when things started turning in Denver.

The homeless population in Denver is pretty insane, even in the suburbs. It really started to affect our quality of life. We started feeling uncomfortable going downtown.

The traffic got really bad, too. Twenty years ago, it was much easier to go up to the mountains and ski for a day. But now, the traffic is just hideous. If you want to have a ski day, you'd better be willing to get up at 5 a.m. and not get home until 8 p.m.

We liked to take cruise vacations to escape Denver during the winter. Over time, we realized we are more ocean people than mountain people. We just got sick and tired of the snow in Denver.

It was really a combination of different things that changed the environment. It's just not what we used to enjoy.

Beth Ann: We first started considering a move to California during COVID when we were sitting at home and couldn't go anywhere. We had always talked about ending up in California someday, and we thought, "Why can't someday be now?"

COVID also forced everyone to do things remotely. We started doing a lot of client appointments via Zoom. So, the seed of the idea was born out of the possibilities that COVID created. We said, "Why wait?"

We tested it out in 2021, doing a lot of traveling and working remotely with our real estate team in Denver. It worked. So, that's when we pulled the trigger for the actual move in May 2022.

We moved into the house we already owned in California

Eric: The moving process wasn't too bad. We did a bit of downsizing. And we're renovating now.

Beth Ann: We still have our business in Denver. I commute and manage our team there a couple of times a month. We both got our California real estate licenses, too. Ultimately, the goal is to split our resources about 75% in California and 25% in Colorado.

Eric: For me, moving to California was like coming home.

We can get to the beach in 20 minutes. We can access hikes in the Santa Monica mountains at the end of our street. The Conejo Valley is like a small town. There are orchards and farms. And wherever you drive, there's green.

Beth Anne: It's beautiful, plus we have nice weather. I love things that bloom, and it's blooming here all the time.

Eric: We're also both golfers, so it's nice being in California where you can golf year-round and don't have to worry about snow on the course. We joke in December, when it's a high of 60 degrees, "Oh it's cold!" But it's really not.

Beth Ann: The traffic here is tough, though. Anytime you have to go near downtown, it's definitely not a pleasure. But the traffic in Denver was nearly as bad.

California is financially comparable to Colorado

Eric: Everybody always says the taxes in California are so much more, but they're really not when you look at them. The sales tax rate in Thousand Oaks is 7.25%, whereas where we lived in Colorado, it was 2% more. That adds up.

Beth Ann: Insurance rates in Colorado are really expensive, too. So, it's actually not that much different cost-wise living here. In fact, it's a bit cheaper. For example, we're paying less for homeowner's insurance in California than we were in Colorado. Same with property taxes.

Eric: The value of our home here in California was the approximate value of our home in Denver, dollar-wise. Our insurance policy there was around $2,300 a year. Out here, it's only $1,400. I also added on earthquake insurance, which is another $900. So it's about the same price even with the earthquake insurance as in Colorado.

The utilities here are a lot cheaper for us as well. We haven't used our air conditioner since September, and we didn't have to turn our heater on until January. That's savings in my mind.

Beth Ann: The prices at grocery stores in California, however, are a little bit higher.

Eric: But in California, there's no tax on food. That was a pleasant surprise when we first got here.

There's so much propaganda out there about California.

Beth Ann: You can't paint California with just one brush. I wouldn't have wanted to move to Los Angeles. But living in a place like Thousand Oaks is a different experience.

I think the only things we miss about Colorado are our family and our clients.

Eric: There are still things we like about Colorado, but we visit. We're enjoying the lifestyle that we're living in California.

Beth Ann: I think California will continue to be our long-term play.

Eric: California has exceeded our expectations.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/QG2Fyx7
via IFTTT

• Boeing is about to fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time.
• Boeing's latest airplane malfunctions don't necessarily mean the astronauts are in extra danger.
• Still, the FAA, NASA, and other aerospace experts have questioned Boeing's overall safety culture.

Defense and aerospace giant Boeing is about to fly astronauts in space for the first time.

NASA's Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are set to climb aboard Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spaceship on Monday evening, rocket through the skies, and cruise around Earth until the spaceship docks to the International Space Station early Wednesday.

They're scheduled to live on the space station for about a week, then brave a fiery plummet back to Earth with the spaceship deploying parachutes to land in the southwestern US.

This Crew Flight Test mission is over a decade in the making. Starliner is finally catching up to SpaceX's Crew Dragon, which has been working overtime to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS for NASA while Boeing lags behind.

Boeing might be fresh on your mind for another reason, though. Its latest series of passenger-plane woes began in January, when a panel ripped off a Boeing 737 Max 9 jetliner shortly after it took off from Portland. Several people were injured, but luckily nobody was in the seats beside the gaping hole that opened on the plane.

Then Alaska Airlines and United Airlines both reported loose parts on their grounded Boeing planes. The Federal Aviation Administration launched a six-week audit of Boeing and its supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, while the Department of Justice began a criminal investigation.

Does any of that affect the astronauts' safety aboard Starliner?

"This is a clean spaceship and it's ready to launch. And I can tell you from NASA's point of view, we don't launch until it's ready," NASA chief Bill Nelson told reporters on Friday.

NASA clearly trusts the spaceship now, but there have been problems.

On its first attempt to fly to the ISS uncrewed, in 2019, a software error caused the spacecraft to burn through its fuel shortly after launch, forcing an early return to Earth. Dozens of other issues were uncovered during that flight. Then, a problem with valves in the propulsion system delayed its second attempt, which ultimately reached the ISS.

In some aerospace experts' eyes, the airplane issues aren't completely irrelevant.

"I really don't think there's one direct connection," George Nield, former associate administrator of the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation, told Business Insider.

"It's different people, it's different missions, even different cultures probably within those units," he added. "But at the same time, senior leadership does have a very important role to play in setting the overall safety culture, setting overall priorities, and setting the expectation of the ability to speak out."

In response to a request for comment, a Boeing spokesperson referred BI to four of the company's public Starliner press briefings with NASA. The spokesperson did not specify which comments in the briefings were relevant.

Boeing's safety culture has been a concern to the FAA and NASA

The FAA investigation found dozens of manufacturing problems at both Boeing and its supplier, including inconsistencies in employees' understanding of quality control and procedural problems on the plant floor, The New York Times reported.

An expert review panel also reported "a disconnect between Boeing's senior management and other members of the organization on safety culture," as well as doubt about whether the company's safety-reporting system "ensures open communication and non-retaliation."

Bjorn Fehrm, an aeronautics industry analyst at the Leeham Company, says Boeing's problem is its history of focusing on key performance indicators, or KPIs.

"It changes the criteria for advancement in the company," Fehrm told Business Insider. Rather than being a good engineer, he says, KPIs incentivize being a good politician. They make shareholders happy, but they don't always result in the best product.

The Alaska Airlines plane malfunction is "a symptom of the sickness," Fehrm said. "The sickness is the 25 years of culture which is prioritizing numbers before best knowledge on what to do."

That culture was also behind two deadly crashes of 737 Max planes in 2018 and 2019, Fehrm says.

NASA, too, investigated Boeing's company culture after the error-ridden 2019 Starliner test flight. Doug Loverro, a NASA associate administrator overseeing the program at the time, said that the two deadly 737 Max crashes were on his mind when he launched that inquiry.

After those disasters, Boeing hired a new CEO and board members with engineering backgrounds and established an Aerospace Safety Committee.

Those were definitely improvements, Fehrm said, but it doesn't change the middle management that has filtered up by embracing KPIs.

"The desire to get the production rate up to the max is still there, and the old habits of cutting some corners in order to shape numbers are still there," Fehrm said.

"The culture of Boeing is an oil tanker. It's a ship," he added. "You can only turn so fast."

Spaceflight is riskier than aviation

NASA and Boeing have calculated the probability that a catastrophic mishap causes astronauts to die on a Starliner flight — euphemistically, they call this scenario "loss of crew."

NASA's minimum requirement for crew safety was a 1 in 270 chance of loss of crew. Boeing exceeded that with 1 in 295, according to Steve Stich, who manages the NASA Commercial Crew Program that birthed Starliner. He added that those calculations are for a full 210-day mission, while Whilmore's and Williams's test flight lasts just one week.

Of course, odds like that would never fly for commercial airplanes.

Spaceflight is so much more dangerous than aviation in part because it's so much younger. For more than 100 years humans have been building and flying planes, making deadly mistakes, and learning from them.

The US has flown about 400 crewed spaceflights, and four of them have resulted in fatal malfunctions, according to a 2020 analysis. That's a 1% fatal failure rate, which is 10,000 times greater than the rate for commercial airliners.

Spaceflight involves extreme environments and powerful rocket engines. There are simply more hazards the further you go from the ground.

"Even after many years and many hundreds and thousands of flights on an airplane, we still have to have a healthy safety culture. And that same situation applies to space activities, even more so," Nield said.

Starliner has extra safety features

Starliner's flight on Monday is a test, and the spacecraft has already been through a rigorous testing process at NASA's behest.

Boeing has fired the spacecraft's thrusters on the ground, tested its parachutes, and launched it and immediately aborted in order to test the mechanism that would jettison the spacecraft away from a failing rocket. Boeing also completed a series of reviews and corrections to resolve issues it discovered during its two uncrewed flights.

The astronauts have played a very hands-on role.

"We've got our fingerprints on every single procedure that exists for this spacecraft," Wilmore told reporters in a Q&A on Wednesday.

Starliner also has extra safety measures built into its design, Whitmore and Williams said in the Q&A.

For one, it has no "black zones" — parts of the flight trajectory where a certain type of spacecraft failure would be unsurvivable. That's partly thanks to its unique ability to switch between three different flight modes: fully automatic, manual control with computers, and a backup mode that's fully manual with no computers, as a failsafe.

Starliner can also abort its flight anywhere from the launchpad "all the way up through orbit," Williams said.

"We're on the tippity top end, so we'll be ok," she added.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/yfkoK0R
via IFTTT

• Michael Cohen was found to have 39,745 contacts stored in his cellphone, said a data analyst.
• Data from Cohen's phone contained a recorded call discussing a $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal.
• Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, is set to testify against the former president's New York trial.

Prosecutors at Donald Trump's hush money trial wrapped up Thursday's proceedings with testimony from a digital data analyst who works for the Manhattan District Attorney.

Douglas Daus, testified he had extracted data from two iPhones belonging to Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, and so-called "fixer"

One device had 39,745 contacts, which Daus described as "unusual."

"I've not seen contacts of that many being on a phone," he said. Daus, who works in the high technology analysis unit at the New York County District Attorney's Office, said he had analyzed "maybe thousands" of phones, per Associated Press.

Hope Hicks, a former advisor to Trump and who testified before the jury on Friday, as well as Trump Organization accountant Allen Weisselberg, First Lady Melania Trump, and Trump himself were all in his phonebook (there were 10 pages of contacts related to Trump), per Deadline.

One of the phones contained a recording of a September 2016 phone call made by Cohen to his client, Trump, which first became public in 2018. The call was played before the jury.

In the call, Trump can be heard responding to Cohen saying he needed to open a company and that he's spoken with the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, about how to set the whole thing up. This company was to facilitate the $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Trump.

"I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David," Cohen said, referring to David Pecker, then-CEO of American Media. This tabloid publisher bought McDougal's story for $150,000, intending to bury it.

Cohen, who is believed to have paid the hush money at the heart of the case, was once a fierce Trump ally. Now, he is an outspoken antagonist of the former president, testifying against him.

Cohen has frequently mocked Trump on his podcast and his account on the social-media site X. But the former fixer said recently that he would gag himself and stop criticizing Trump online and on his podcast until after he had testified.

One of Cohen's favorite jabs became the subject of more gag-violation arguments at the trial on Thursday.

Trump's defense attorney, Todd Blanche, complained that Trump had to remain silent about witnesses and jurors while his opponents get to say "anything they want" — citing Cohen, whose favorite insult for the former president is Donald "Von ShitzInPantz."

Donald 'Von ShitzInPantz' has now formally entered the public record.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/ZOJTixl
via IFTTT

• Text messages shown in Donald Trump's hush-money trial reveal attorneys' struggles to manage Stormy Daniels.
• Michael Cohen, Trump's ex-attorney, appeared frantic in messages after the hush-money story broke in 2018.
• Prosecutors allege Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 days before the 2016 election on behalf of Trump.

Text messages introduced as evidence in Donald Trump's criminal hush-money trial show how ex-attorneys for Stormy Daniels and the former president struggled to control the woman after the bombshell news of the money-for-silence scheme broke more than six years ago.

The series of messages between Trump's personal-attorney-turned-nemesis, Michael Cohen, and Los Angeles lawyer Keith Davidson were displayed for the Manhattan jury as Davidson was on the witness stand this week.

Davidson, Daniels' former lawyer who brokered the hush-money agreement over the 2006 sexual encounter she says she had with Trump, testified how Cohen became "frantic" after The Wall Street Journal, in January 2018, first published the story about the $130,000 payment made to the adult film actress.

The text messages between Cohen and Davidson during that time period show it, with Cohen repeatedly pleading for Davidson to call him.

"WSJ called stormy. She didn't answer. They say they are running story & have a deadline of tonight for her to comment," Davidson texted Cohen on January 10, 2018, two days before the story was published, the messages show.

Cohen quickly replied: "Write a strong denial comment for her like you did before."

'This is no good'

Days after the hush-money story broke, Cohen messaged Davidson to say he had Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — scheduled to appear "tonight" on Sean Hannity's Fox News show.

Davidson responded that she couldn't do it that day.

"She is flying to LA tomorrow. I'm trying to get her to commit for tomorrow," Davidson texted.

Cohen responded, "It's really important. Why?" and begged for Davidson to call him.

"This is no good. We need her as by doing tomorrow you just create another news cycle instead of putting an end to this one," Cohen wrote.

Minutes later Cohen texted Davidson, "Please call me," before he again texted, "Cmon!"

"Let's forget tonight. They would rather tomorrow so they can promote the heck out of the show," Cohen messaged Davidson about a half-hour later.

Messages show Cohen's 'pants on fire stages'

More than two hours later, Cohen backtracked, messaging Davidson, "The wise men all believe the story is dying and don't think it's smart for her to do any interviews. Let her do her thing but no interviews at all with anyone."

Davidson then replied, "100%."

"Thanks pal," Cohen messaged back, adding, "Just no interviews or statements unless through you."

In Davidson's testimony Thursday about the text messages regarding Daniels potentially appearing on Hannity's show, he said, "This was sort of in one of Michael Cohen's pants on fire' stages, where he was sort of frantically trying to address the fact that Stormy's story had percolated into public consumption and he — he was frantic."

"I was in a trial and — which is fairly all-consuming — and it was just many, many, many phone calls and many, many text messages with little regard for my schedule," Davidson told the jury.

Davidson testified that he believed Cohen thought if Daniels went on Hannity's show, it "would somehow help him and his client."

"I had an understanding that he believed that she would further deny the interaction," Davidson told the jury.

Daniels initially denied an affair with Trump, including in written statements issued to the media after the hush-money story broke. But months later, she said she did, in fact, have sex with the then-"Apprentice" star in 2006.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney's office say Cohen made the election-influencing hush-money payment to Daniels on Trump's behalf to buy her silence about the affair she had with him — and that Trump lied on documents to cover up his reimbursements to Cohen.

Trump, who faces 34 felony counts alleging falsifying business records, has repeatedly denied having an affair with Daniels.

'Why is she going on Kimmel after the Sotu'

The text messages between Cohen and Davidson also show the internal chaos that ensued before and after Daniels appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on January 30, 2018, following Trump's State of the Union address.

"Why is she going on Kimmel after the Sotu," Cohen texted Davidson days earlier. Davidson replied, "Idk I was pissed. She said this is her shot. I'm meeting with her this weekend to prep her and get the statement."

During Daniels' interview with Jimmy Kimmel, she suggested that her signature under a statement denying she had an affair with Trump had been forged.

"She just denied the letter," Cohen texted Davidson at the time. "Claiming it's not her signature."

"You said she did it in front of you," Cohen added. Davidson responded, "She did. Impossible – she posted it on her own twitter page."

Cohen then texted, "They showed her signature and she claimed it was not hers on Kimmel."

"Wtf," Davidson replied.

Cohen messaged minutes later, "The press is already beginning to send me e-mails."

Shortly after, Cohen texted Davidson to "please tell" Daniels' then-manager Gina Rodriguez "to ensure" Daniels "responds the same as your statement tomorrow when she does the view."

"This is not a comedy show!" Cohen fumed.

"Gina is ticked off at stormy because stormy made her look like a liar," Davidson told Cohen, referring to Daniels' agent. "Gina says she is going to have a LONG talk with stormy on the plane to NY tomorrow. She assured me this will get handled."

Davidson testified Thursday that Daniels signed the widely-circulated statement denying an affair with Trump, but that he wrote the statement himself.

The lawyer also testified that "an extremely strict reading of this statement would technically be true."

"I don't think that anyone had ever alleged that any interaction between she and Mr. Trump was romantic," Davidson said.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/vEosWUm
via IFTTT

• The 2024 Mount Everest climbing season was delayed due to crumbling ice in the Khumbu Icefall. 
• The Khumbu Icefall is one of the most dangerous obstacles to cross on the path to Everest's summit.
• As global temperatures rise due to climate change, this icefall will only become more treacherous.

Climbing Mt. Everest is a dangerous endeavor right from the start. Before climbers summiting via the South Col route can even make it to Camp 1, they must face one of the deadliest passages of all. A 1.6-mile stretch of slowly cascading ice just above Base Camp called the Khumbu Icefall.

It's a treacherous maze of crevasses that can stretch over 300-feet-deep and house-sized "ice towers" that can break free unexpectedly, triggering deadly avalanches like the one that killed three Sherpas last year.

It's called an icefall because it looks like a frozen waterfall, but here on Everest, the term "fall" might as well be a dire warning to all. As of 2016, six people had fallen to their deaths, and that's just a small portion of the total lives lost to the Khumbu.

This icefall is so perilous a dedicated team of specialized workers is responsible for charting a safe route through it. They're called the Icefall Doctors, and this year, they delayed Everest's climbing season by 12 days due to unsafe conditions on the Khumbu Icefall.

And it will only become more dangerous as global temperatures rise, Paul Mayewski, Mount Everest researcher and climatologist at the University of Maine, told Business Insider. He studies how climate change is affecting the highest peaks on our planet.

What makes the Khumbu Icefall so dangerous

The Khumbu Icefall is essentially a slow-moving river of ice that gradually falls down the mountain as the Khumbu Glacier recedes.

Its movement is what makes it so unstable, giving rise to deep crevasses and deadly avalanches.

Between 1953 and 2019, 45 people lost their lives on the Khumbu Icefall. The three major causes of death were avalanches onto the icefall (49% of deaths), icefall collapse (33%), and falling into a crevasse (13%), according to Alan Arnette, a Mount Everest summiter and climbing coach who writes a blog about the mountain.

At the beginning of each climbing season, the Icefall Doctors are the first to traverse this treacherous icefall. They find the safest route through it, laying ropes and ladders along the way to help people navigate its cliffs and crevasses.

This year, the Icefall Doctors repeatedly encountered dangers that slowed their process. Insufficient winter snowfall and high temperatures destabilized ice towers and bridges, forcing them to re-evaluate their route several times, Outside reported.

"Going up there one part of the day and coming down the next day could look very different. And the probability of that getting worse with a warmer climate increases," Mayewski said.

Climate change is messing with the Khumbu Icefall

Rapid melting causes glaciers, like the Khumbu Glacier, to shrink and erode. In turn, this leads to more lakes and streams, but on a more dangerous level it also increases the risk of avalanches, ice falls, and crevasses, Mayewski said.

"The likelihood of that getting worse in a warmer climate increases because ice becomes more mobile," he said. "The warmer it is, the more flowing water. And that flowing water obviously destabilizes the ice."

Mayewski's research suggests that conditions are changing all over Mount Everest, not just in this region. His study of the South Col, Everest's highest glacier, revealed that one-third of its ice has disappeared in the last two to three decades.

"Even just walking around base camp, it's very obvious that there's been a lot of melting," he said.

These aren't the only dangers

While it's clear that climate change is making conditions in the Khumbu Icefall more dangerous, not all risks on Mount Everest are related to climate, Arnette points out.

In 2023, the deadliest climbing year in Mt. Everset's history, 15 of the 18 total deaths were caused by acute mountain sickness, falls, and disappearances. He feels that most of these deaths were likely preventable.

For example, acute mountain sickness — a mild form of altitude sickness — can be treated if climbers and their guides recognize the symptoms quickly and get to lower elevation, Arnette said. But if climbers choose to keep going, their condition can turn deadly. AMS claimed eight lives on Everest last year, according to the Himalayan Database.

Arnette believes that introducing more safety enforcement on the mountain would go a long way to reduce fatalities.

Climbers sometimes put themselves at risk too, by opting for low-cost operators, tackling Everest without enough climbing experience, or refusing to turn back even when showing signs of illness. In that last case, Sherpas often have difficulty convincing their clients to throw in the towel due to language and cultural barriers, Arnette said.

Will the added risks driven by climate change make climbing Everest impossible one day? Mayewski doesn't think so.

"Will people still be able to do it? Yeah, I think they will. Will it be more dangerous? Arguably yes — it's already pretty dangerous," he said.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/8WlDyja
via IFTTT

• Tesla's Cybertruck Cybertent and other custom accessories turn the vehicle into a camp on wheels.
• Top Gear tested the Cybertruck camping set up, which starts at nearly $3,000.
• A rooftop tent on the Rivian R1T seemed a lot quicker and easier to set up.

The Tesla Cybertruck isn't just a truck, according to Tesla's marketing, which shows the vehicle traversing deserts, mountain ridges, and water crossings: It's an ultra-durable, adventure-ready truck capable of tackling just about any terrain in the backcountry, and it's got the camping accessories to prove it.

Tesla sells a range of accessories specifically designed to turn the Cybertruck, which retails for up to six figures — if you can even get your hands on one — into a camp on wheels.

Top Gear, the British car magazine and TV show, borrowed a fully souped up Cybertruck and headed to Johnson Valley in Southern California to spend a night camping in the vehicle in the desert. They also brought along a Rivian R1T outfitted with a more standard rooftop tent to compare.

While both setups could make for a very cool backcountry camping experience, the more customized Cybertruck tent looked much more complicated and time-consuming to set up. Top Gear did not declare a winner between the two, but they did note setting up the tent on the Rivian was quicker.

In Top Gear's video, shared on YouTube Wednesday, editor in chief Jack Rix encounters some metaphorical road bumps while setting up the Cybertruck Cybertent, which fits neatly in the vehicle's trunk and costs $2,975.

"Nearly $3,000 for one of these, which is, let's face it, an obscene amount of money," Rix said, but noted the tent was designed and produced with Heimplanet, a high-end tent brand.

Setting up the tent involved folding out the base platform, which is elevated above the truck bed, attaching several straps to the roof of the Cybertruck, manually pumping the inflatable frame, and staking out an awning if desired.

At one point, Rix accidentally deflated the tent and had to re-inflate it all over again.

It's unclear in the video exactly how long it took him to set up the tent, but it was fairly light outside when he started. It was almost completely dark when he finished, and he relied on his headlamp and the camera crew's lighting.

"Couple of setbacks, not going to lie, but the tent is fully erected," he said.

As someone who has camped in a variety of settings — in a car, in a van, in a rooftop tent, in an RV, in a regular tent at a campsite, and in the backcountry — it sure seemed like an awful lot of work, especially considering that one of the benefits of a typical roof top tent is the easy setup.

To be fair, Rix noted that it was his first time setting up the tent and that he could probably cut the time in half on his second go.

However, if you plan to go off-roading on your camping trip — one of the bonuses of having a Cybertruck — it would be an absolute pain to take down that tent each morning just so you could drive the vehicle during the day only to have to set it up again each night.

Top Gear's head of car testing, Ollie Marriage, showed up with the Rivian R1T and a fairly standard rooftop tent.

Setting that tent up appeared to take just a few minutes and required unzipping and unbuckling the cover and then simply unfolding the tent, which popped right up. If you wanted to take the Rivian off-roading during the day, taking down and re-setting up this tent appeared to be much easier.

Marriage appeared to be using Yakima's Skyrise HD Medium Rooftop Tent, which was released in partnership with Rivian and retails for $2,800. Yakima's similar model, without the Rivian branding, costs $2,499. Other Rivian drivers online also appear to have outfitted their vehicles with rooftop tents that sell for well under $2,000.

Top Gear noted plenty of cool things about the Cybertruck camping setup, including how well-integrated the whole design was. The full setup included a Cybertruck cooler, Cybertruck storage bins, and Cybertruck crossbars that all fit perfectly into the vehicle to maximize space.

Tesla also recently announced upcoming updates to the Cybertruck that are intended to improve the off-road driving and camping experience.

While Marriage said it was good that some cars are being designed with camping in mind, Rix noted one potential issue with taking EVs into the wild could be the range.

"These cars could take you to the wilderness," he said, adding you've just got to make sure you can return to a charging station.

Tesla, Rivian, and Top Gear did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/5h2d1LN
via IFTTT

• Stevie Howell is an artist born and raised in San Francisco, who now lives in LA.
• Howell says she misses the support system that San Francisco offered her and her business.
• She finds LA socially distant and misses SF's diverse food, art, and neighborhoods.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Stevie Howell, an artist and business owner who lives in Los Angeles. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I was born and raised in San Francisco and lived there for six years of my adult life before moving to Los Angeles about five years ago. I thought it would be a very easy move, but I've been surprised by some things that a huge city like LA doesn't have compared to tiny SF. 

People love to hate San Francisco — I heard the word "war-torn" used to describe it just the other day — but the truth is it's gorgeous. The city has parks and incredible views, and the hills are picturesque and fun to drive up and down. There's great architecture — from colorful Victorians to the monstrous Salesforce tower — and easy access to the ocean and the Bay.

It's a well-planned urban space, and the city continues to make thoughtful decisions in terms of keeping it visually stunning and stimulating.

Even though LA is much larger than San Francisco, LA doesn't feel urban, while San Francisco does. Here's what I felt were the five worst things about leaving the San Francisco Bay Area and moving to LA.

1. LA feels socially distant

LA feels like a vast network of suburban enclaves. I get an urban buzz in San Francisco — that hum of activity and people moving around rather than staying in their houses like they do in LA.

San Francisco is relatively condensed, so you know your neighbors, can walk to get coffee or go grocery shopping, meet up with a friend last minute, or go to dinner crosstown and not spend your entire evening trying to get there as we do in LA.

2. I miss the diverse food, art, and neighborhoods

Walking around, you can hear a mixture of languages and eat a range of cuisines. There's amazing food and so many creative chefs doing great things. A few restaurants that I miss most are Flour + Water (Italian), Mandalay SF (Burmese food), Marnee Thai (Thai), La Taqueria (Mexican), and Swan Oyster Depot (seafood).

I've heard the art world in San Francisco referred to as "provincial," but it's home to both amazing galleries and important collections. Some of my favorites are Jessica Silverman Gallery, SFMOMA, Rebecca Camacho Presents, and Minnesota Street Project.

Also, each neighborhood has its own identity, personality, and unique characters.

3. I miss San Francisco's support system

I loved the community I had at my studio; it's a sense of community that I haven't found in any other city.

My art studio was at the end of an old wooden building among a bunch of beautiful old brick warehouses and ship-building facilities. Other artists lived in the building, and we helped each other out. We referred new clients to each other, pitched each other's work to the press, and shared resources for opportunities.

As an artist and business owner, I founded my eco-friendly textile and wallpaper collection business in San Francisco in 2013. I don't think I ever would've started a business in another city. San Francisco breeds entrepreneurship that goes beyond the tech world.

4. I miss San Francisco's culture and philanthropic spirit

Living in San Francisco, I found that many of its businesses have a good environmental or social mission. I miss the philanthropy that's woven into the city. People care about the world and each other.

While San Francisco has gotten many things right, the way it deals with — or doesn't deal with — the homeless crisis is one thing it's gotten wrong. It stems from how the city deals with drug addiction, mental illness, and its high cost of living. Many other cities in the US are facing similar issues, and like other cities, it's upsetting to see. 

But I believe, for the most part, San Francisco still has the same caring heart and soul it's had for years. People care about their neighbors, their parks, and the greater world.

5. I miss the Bay Area's accessibility to the outdoors

There's so much amazing green space and beach around the Bay Area that's easy to get to. You can take a hike on your lunch break. Crissy Field, Golden Gate Park, Bernal Heights Hill, Dolores Park, Ocean Beach, Stinson Beach, Angel Island, and Rodeo Beach are great spots. 

When I lived in San Francisco, I was on a Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy committee and got to learn in-depth about how much thought goes into each individual plant that's planted in the city, and the education and research that's happening in the city's parks.

The access to the outdoors and natural beauty is also what made the Bay Area such an incredible place to grow up. There's truly a mix of indoor and outdoor learning that's incomparable to LA or anywhere else I've lived.

If you moved to a new city or state and want to share your experience, email Manseen Logan at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/DlbQ6cz
via IFTTT

• A lawsuit says Fisker failed to pay engineers who helped build its Pear and Alaska vehicles.
• In a statement to BI, the EV company said the claims are "without merit."
• Fisker recently told employees that cuts could be coming if things don't improve.

Fisker is now facing a $13 million lawsuit, the latest challenge for the struggling electric vehicle startup.

Fisker — which recently warned employees of layoffs — has been accused of stiffing an engineering firm on payments over the development of its Pear and Alaska vehicles.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court this week, was first reported by TechCrunch.

In the suit, a Michigan-based subsidiary of Bertrandt says Fisker broke a development agreement signed in May 2022.

According to the complaint, Bertrandt agreed to help Fisker launch its Pear electric car by providing "engineering, design, and development services," but Fisker failed to pay for the work and put the agreement on an indefinite "pause."

In a statement to Business Insider, a Fisker spokesperson said the accusations are "without merit."

"It is a legally baseless and disappointing attempt by what has been a valued partner to extract from Fisker payments and intellectual property to which Bertrandt has no right to under the relevant agreements or otherwise," the Fisker spokesperson said.

The lawsuit also alleges that Fisker asked Bertrandt to help with its Alaska pick-up truck and agreed to pay a quote of $1.66 million for the work, although there was never a formal written agreement or payment for the work.

According to the lawsuit, the unpaid services total over $7 million. Bertrandt says in the suit that Fisker agreed in February 2024 to pay over $3.6 million toward the balance but didn't follow through.

The suit also accuses Fisker of holding onto Bertrandt's intellectual property "related to the engineering and development of the PEAR and ALASKA vehicles." It seeks just under $13 million in damages.

Layoffs could be on the horizon

On Monday, Fisker sent an email to staff telling them they could be laid off in two months.

"Fisker is diligently pursuing all options to address our operating cash requirements, including maintaining discussions with prospective buyers and investors and exploring various restructuring alternatives," the company said in a memo to staff, according to three workers and an email seen by BI. "There is a possibility, however, that these efforts will not be successful."

The memo said the cuts would be immediate.

Last month, Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker told staff at an all-hands meeting that the startup was in talks with four automakers about a possible acquisition, according to a recording of the event seen by BI.

Fisker didn't say who the four companies were.

"They obviously need time to get to some diligence," he said.

Fisker told employees the company was working with Deutsche Bank to find a buyer.

Meanwhile, several sources told BI that Fisker has been using parts from its preproduction vehicles and its inventory of vehicles to fix some customers' cars.

One employee told BI that the parts were used in roughly 10 to 15% of fixes over the last few months.

A Fisker spokesperson denied those allegations earlier this week.

"No parts have been taken off these vehicles for use in customers cars," the spokesperson said. The spokesperson said parts may have been stripped off engineering vehicles "for analysis or to retrofit other engineering vehicles, but never customer vehicles."

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/YMNbSry
via IFTTT

• Fast-food prices have shot up since the start of the pandemic.
• Analysts say fast-food prices feel particularly painful because they're rising faster than grocery prices.
• As well as commodity costs, restaurants have faced soaring wages.

Fast food isn't as cheap as it used to be.

Gone are the days of McDonald's dollar menu, Subway's $5 footlongs, and NYC's $1 slices.

Diners say fast food is getting too expensive and no longer represents value. Some say they're placing smaller orders, turning to independent restaurants or cheap casual-dining chains, or just cooking more at home instead.

"At the end of the day, the consumer is fatigued" because of rising restaurant prices, Jim Sanderson, an analyst at Northcoast Research, told Business Insider.

Fast-food chains put up their menu prices during the pandemic in response to soaring food and labor costs. Analysts told BI that consumers feel like prices are still rising too fast because they're comparing them to the slowing rate of grocery inflation.

Fast-food prices have been shooting up

Restaurant prices are determined by "two major categories" — food costs and labor costs, Citi analyst Jon Tower told BI.

In 2023, for example, for every $100 McDonald's company-owned restaurants made in sales, about $31.12 was spent on food and paper, and about $29.60 was spent on payroll and employee benefits.

Prices of many of the ingredients used by fast-food chains, especially beef, soared during the pandemic because of factors including changes in demand and supply-chain problems.

Restaurants also had to raise their wages to attract and retain staff as huge numbers quit in search of better wages, benefits, and working conditions during what was dubbed the "Great Resignation." Average restaurant wages rocketed in 2021 in particular, data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

"2022 was obviously characterized by very high inflation on the food side as well as labor, particularly after Russia invaded Ukraine,'" Sharon Zackfia, an analyst at William Blair, said. "And so we saw well above-average price increases start to filter into the restaurant space."

Fast-food chains put up their menu prices to reflect the higher food costs and payrolls. Price increases have varied massively by chain depending on factors such as the type of food, locations, and number of restaurants. Franchisees are largely able to set their own prices.

And though inflation of limited-service restaurant prices is much lower than it was a couple of years ago, it's still way higher than pre-pandemic, BLS data shows. Legislation in California that raised the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour is pushing prices up further.

Grocery inflation is cooling

Fast food seems particularly expensive right now because grocery inflation is cooling much more rapidly, analysts BI spoke to said.

"What typically matters in the context of restaurants and restaurant traffic is the delta between grocery inflation and restaurant inflation," Danilo Gargiulo, an analyst at Bernstein, said.

Groceries, not rival restaurants, are the biggest competitor to fast-food chains, because people are trying to decide whether to eat at home or get fast food, Gargiulo said.

At the peak of inflationary periods, prices of groceries rise at a much higher rate than fast food because food costs represent a much bigger part of grocery stores' expenditure than restaurants' spending. This happened during the pandemic, especially during 2022, when grocery prices shot up.

But the inverse is also true — grocery stores benefit much more than restaurants when food inflation cools. This has happened over the past year: grocery inflation has shot down dramatically, while prices at limited-service restaurants are still rising at rates well above pre-pandemic levels, as the chart below shows:

At grocery stores, where prices are determined mainly by food costs, "they've been able to quickly reflect lower food prices at the store level, whereas restaurants need to account for the fact that labor inflation continues to run ahead of food inflation," Tower, the Citi analyst, said.

Diners are getting fed up

Price increases during the pandemic were "actually well absorbed by consumers" because the vast majority of restaurants were upping their prices, Garguilo said.

But as overall inflation falls, "we would expect consumers to be … less tolerant of the big price increases that we've seen from the [restaurant] industry over the past few years," Bank of America analyst Sara Senatore told BI.

"It feels like what used to be cheap, not that long ago, is now expensive," Chad Frye, a cartoonist and illustrator based in California, told BI. He said he'd cut down his fast-food habit from four or five times a week to just twice.

"I find that I do a lot more cooking at home now," he said. "It's much more economical."

Do you think fast food is too expensive? Email this reporter at gdean@insider.com.

from All Content from Business Insider https://ift.tt/Fe3mY75
via IFTTT