• My now-husband was planning to propose to me at an ice rink, but I was too tired to go.
• He ended up proposing to me at home while we were watching TV, and it was perfect.
• Our laid-back engagement represents who we are as a couple.

"Can we please just go?" my boyfriend of four years pleaded with me. I had arrived home exhausted, asking if it was OK to cancel our plans that December evening.

It should have registered that it was odd behavior for him to be urging me to go ice skating. But I was clueless and depleted from a long workday — one of my last before the Christmas break. Even though I'd written this date down excitedly on the calendar a week prior, and despite the fact that the rink was inside our private building complex and just steps away, I can still recall the resounding desire I felt to stay home that night as I was walking home almost a decade ago.

"Let's just go tomorrow or another time," I said. My reply was met with a huff, which caused us to momentarily bicker. "You shouldn't cancel things last minute, it's not nice," he muttered under his breath. "What is wrong with this man?" I thought to myself.

It turned out, there was a reason he wanted to go ice skating

Thirty minutes later, I was in sweatpants, watching a random episode of "Seinfeld" on TBS. I basked in the simple joy that comes with crashing on your couch after a long day. It felt good to be home. Then, my partner suddenly made a stealthy movement from the couch to the floor.

Before I could comprehend what was happening, he sat before me with a diamond ring in his hand.

"Will you be my wife?" he nervously asked to my genuine surprise. Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza continued talking in the background as we embraced and got engaged. It was the episode when the guys pitched their show about nothing to NBC.

Private proposals are on the rise

A survey from 2021 found that women were increasingly disinterested in grand or public gestures when it came to being asked that big question. Instead, 66% of the 300 respondents preferred a private proposal. Yet, The Knot's recent report on engagement trends from 2024 showed that only 14% of couples had a low-key, at-home proposal. Though many couples do want a private place, home isn't usually the popular choice.

I was delighted when I heard about Tom Holland's laid-back proposal to longtime girlfriend Zendaya at home over Christmas. The news comforted me and brought some validation that a casual proposal could be special and romantic — even for celebrities.

Our engagement represented us as a couple

I loved my own engagement, even though I accidentally sabotaged a more elaborate idea. Though not planned, having it happen in our living room was more symbolic of our relationship than any forced, clichéd ice rink setting. I had finally found someone who ignited that feeling everyone wants to have about someone — he felt like home. Proposing inside our own home was only natural.

But it's more than that. I believe there's an intimacy in choosing this kind of engagement. It reflects the foundation two people need to make a lifelong relationship work.

As we celebrate our anniversary — our eighth year married, our first as new parents — I look back on everything we've done together. The adventures, but more importantly, the moments in between the minutiae of daily life. That's where the purest joy can be found.

Of course, we did replace that first couch. The navy fabric one my once boyfriend brought when he moved into my apartment. The one we sat on to make out and watch movies. The one we were on that cozy night in 2015, watching "Seinfeld," when my perfectly imperfect engagement occurred.

It was small, past its prime, and overstayed its welcome the way any piece that brings comfort does. When we grew up and got married, we finally outgrew the loveseat. In its place, a more grown-up, brown leather L-shaped couch now sits. One large enough for sleeping dogs, playful babies, and lazy days doing absolutely nothing.

• Co-leading DOGE means Elon Musk is spread increasingly thin.
• Tesla shareholders told BI that Musk's position could help reduce regulatory red tape for the EV giant.
• Others said Musk proved his ability to multitask and DOGE has an expiration date.

With his new role co-leading the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk has another plate to keep spinning — and many Tesla investors aren't fazed by his new area of focus.

Business Insider spoke to more than a dozen Tesla shareholders and analysts about the billionaire's new role with DOGE and how they think it could impact the company.

Many said they aren't worried that Musk is juggling more — and that the CEO has proven himself a capable multitasker.

Questions about the amount of time Musk spends on Tesla have swirled in the last year, including at the EV maker's annual shareholder meeting, where the CEO's pay package was approved for a second time (more on that later). The serial entrepreneur is also involved with SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, xAI, and X.

With DOGE, Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy vowed to slash the federal budget and cut wasteful spending. They've also pledged to restructure federal agencies, or in some cases eliminate them, with the goal of improving efficiency.

It's no small job.

Musk's work with Trump could benefit Tesla

Some of the shareholders BI spoke to said they believe Musk's involvement in the Trump administration could help reduce the regulations that Tesla must navigate, paving the way for technological advancements and generally making life easier for the company.

Anthony L. Gurino, a Tesla shareholder from Long Island, said he sees Musk's position easing the "red tape around autonomous driving." The technology is currently approved on a state-by-state basis and Musk has said he'd push to create a national approval process for fully autonomous vehicles.

Patrick O'Connell, a Tesla shareholder who started investing in 2013, said he went "all in" on the stock in 2019. He told BI he hopes Musk's new role will ease regulations and could help with brand awareness.

Philip Engberg, a Tesla shareholder in Denmark, said that under the Biden administration, it seemed like there was a "lot of political will against" Musk's companies and the technology they were trying to develop.

Despite being the top EV seller in the US, Tesla was famously not invited to President Joe Biden's EV summit in 2021. When asked at a press conference if Tesla's exclusion was due to not having a unionized workforce, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said she would let people come to their "own conclusion."

"Now the outlook is that is completely gone," Engberg said.

Faced with increased competition and slowing growth across the EV market, Tesla reported its first year-over-year car sales decline in January. However, Telsa isn't the only car company to face declining sales, and the EV giant recently reached a new milestone, outselling Audi globally for the first time in 2024.

Wall Street appears optimistic about Tesla's fortune during the Trump administration. Tesla shares are up nearly 70% since the election, and some on Wall Street expect them to rise higher still. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas recently raised his price target from $400 to $430 and revised his bull case to $800.

Craig Irwin, a managing director and senior research analyst at Roth Capital Partners who recently changed his Tesla buy status from neutral to "buy," told BI that he estimates that "the pool of Tesla enthusiasts" has doubled since Trump's reelection.

"Right now, you have technology-oriented conservative fighters that are going to say, 'You know, I think Elon Musk is a cool guy — let's go see what this Tesla car is about,'" Irwin said.

Not all shareholders are convinced that Musk's affiliation with Trump will have a positive impact on Tesla. John VonBokel, a shareholder who voted against Musk's pay package the second time, said he "can't make sense" of why Tesla's share price has gone up so much.

"Certainly Trump is not going to go in there and write code to make FSD better," VonBokel said, referencing Tesla's Full-Self-Driving beta software, which requires drivers to be ready to take control of the vehicle at any moment. VonBokel said he sees it as a "classic situation of the market seems to think this is worth more than I think it's worth."

Charlie Redmond, a Tesla shareholder since 2017, told BI that he doesn't see the relationship with Trump lasting more than six months. He said the main benefit he sees from Musk's involvement would be convincing Trump to keep the EV tax break, which Trump has talked about getting rid of. Musk has also said he supports ending the credits.

Tesla shareholder and investing author Kiana Danial also said she sees the relationship likely falling apart at some point. If that were to happen, Danial said Musk has "always been unpredictable" and she believes any stock dip in the short term could be regained.

'Musk has shown that he can multitask brilliantly'

Some of the Tesla shareholders told BI they believe the second shareholder vote approving Musk's pay package galvanized support for him as the company's leader. Engberg told BI he thinks retail shareholder support "is the greatest it has ever been."

"Musk is Tesla, and Tesla is Musk," Wedbush analyst and Tesla bull Dan Ives told BI, adding that the court battle has "become a soap opera" and he expects Tesla to win its appeal at the Supreme Court level given "overwhelming" shareholder approval of the pay package.

In addition to some shareholders being invigorated by the Tesla shareholder vote and Trump's victory following Musk's endorsement and fundraising, a majority of the investors and analysts BI spoke to said Musk has proven his ability to take on multiple projects at once.

"Musk has shown that he can multitask brilliantly," said Irwin of Roth Capital Partners.

David Abrams, a Tesla shareholder who started investing in the company about three years ago, told BI he thinks Musk's involvement in politics could have some level of impact on his focus on the company. However, he said Musk has "proven over the years that multitasking is one thing that he is undeniably good at."

"He keeps throwing stuff under his plate and you would think at some point the focus would go away," Redmond said.

Abrams said that while Musk may be spread thin, his companies likely have enough people in place that they can "largely run on their own." Other shareholders also said that at this stage of the company, Musk doesn't need to be involved in every step.

"Elon's an important leader, but it's about delegating and he's really good at that," Tesla shareholder Larry Winer told BI.

Tesla and Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Alexandra Merz, a staunch Tesla advocate and shareholder who goes by the username "TeslaBoomerMama" on X, said the company hasn't relied on his constant attention to run the business "for a long time."'

"He doesn't need to be the one opening factory doors in the morning," Merz told BI, adding that he doesn't turn "every bolt in every rocket" at SpaceX either.

Others pointed to DOGE's seemingly limited timeframe. Merz told BI that she is "in no way concerned" that Musk will be involved with the government for decades.

"Keep in mind that DOGE is set to expire on July 4, 2026," Tesla shareholder Cianna Swartz told BI.

Are you a Tesla shareholder? Reach out to the reporter at [email protected]

• Captain RK Smithley flies McDonnell Douglas DC-10 fire bombers for New Mexico-based 10Tanker.
• Smithley dropped red fire retardant over the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles.
• Mountainous terrain, winds, busy air traffic, and drones have complicated the mission.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Captain RK Smithley, a pilot flying McDonnell Douglas DC-10 widebody airliners converted into tanker planes for a New Mexico-based company called 10Tanker. The DC-10 is one of dozens of aircraft assisting in fighting the California wildfires near Los Angeles. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a third-generation ground firefighter who ended up in the air fighting fire, so my career has come full circle.

Starting at age 16, I spent 16 years as a volunteer firefighter in southwest Pennsylvania, where I'm from, before I became a pilot. I flew for World Airways in these same McDonnell Douglas DC-10s for 10 years and another 15 years in the MD-11, which is basically a modern version of the DC-10.

We're the biggest tanker fighting the California wildfires

To fight the California fires, 10Tanker has four DC-10s and two — ships 912 and 914 — here in San Bernardino at the old Norton Air Force Base. I'm on Ship 912. The DC-10 is a capable airframe for our size, at 420,000 pounds. We're dropping 85,000 pounds of fire retardant on our target.

It's a very good airplane for what we're doing — we're the largest tool in the Forest Service's arsenal because we're the biggest tanker out here.

January is an odd time for wildfires in California

This fire is unprecedented. In 10 years of doing this, I've never flown fire in the United States in January. Working fires in January usually means we're in Australia, Mexico, and Chile.

We're in the off-season. That's why all four of our DC-10s aren't here; the other two are in maintenance. Typically, we park our airplanes in October or November, and we'll do recurrent annual training in February and March before the first airplanes go out on contract in mid to late March.

We're one part of a large team

There are different contract tankers that fight fires. We're all on the same team, from the little single-engine tanker carrying 700 hundred gallons to us big ones carrying 9,400 gallons, and all the stuff in between.

I can't stress enough how much of an orchestrated team effort it is. We work as a team with the tanker base, with the mechanics who keep us rolling, the air traffic controllers to get us out there, the guys fueling the airplane, and all those retardant loaders. Some airplanes out here are what they call "initial attack qualified," which means they can go out with just aerial supervision orbiting over top, but we in the DC-10 have to have lead aircraft that we follow to guide us on the drops.

But at the end of the day, the real heroes are the guys and gals we're helping — the firefighters on the ground. They're the ones that we're there to support to the best of our ability so that they can help protect lives and property.

The 10Tanker flies a very specific mission

It's not as simple as flying over the fire and pushing a button and all the stuff comes out.

Helicopters are generally dropping water to directly attack the fires, but air tankers — or fire bombers as I like to call them — are designed to carry fire retardant, which is designed to build walls around fires to stop or at least slow down the fire so that the ground firefighters can get in there and get things under control. The retardant is colored red so that we can see it build lines and change angles on it.

We start our days at 7 a.m. — basically sunrise — at which time the airplane is prepped, ready, and fueled to go. How many flights we can wedge in between 7 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. depends on how far the fire is from the base, and how much daylight you have.

We flew four missions on Friday to the Palisades and six on Saturday. The record for 10Tanker is about 11 runs in a day, with a 20-minute reload time in between flights.

LA's weather and geography have been a challenge

These fires have been bad not only because of the destruction and the wind, but also because we're fighting fire while wedged into tight air space between the LAX, Van Nuys, Burbank, and Santa Monica airports.

The Palisades fire is around 24,000 acres; I've worked 300,000 and 400,000 acre fires that were massive compared to this one. But the destruction and air space and the 60 to 80 MPH winds kind of made this a cataclysmic event. Entire neighborhoods and towns burned until the winds died down enough for us to get in there and get to work. It's been a terrible situation.

We're threading needles, like going straight down the side of a mountain. The DC-10 is very capable; we yank and bank it around like a fighter. If we were flying passengers, these maneuvers would be considered an emergency descent.

If drones fly, we can't

Drones have been a big problem here in California. "If drones fly, we can't" is an axiom we use in aerial firefighting. Normally a drone will shut down an aerial firefighting effort.

At one point, we moved to a different section of the fire to get away from them so that we could continue to help save lives and property, along with the work that firefighters on the ground are doing to get this thing under control. We had a drone come sailing past our left wing on Saturday; the Super Scooper air tanker from Montreal got a hole punched into its wing because a drone ran into it.

The drones have to stop because they're jeopardizing our lives and safety in the fire traffic area. It's unacceptable. Get the drones out of there so we can do our jobs.

• Warning: Spoilers below if you haven't seen "Back in Action."
• Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz play former spies who have to save their kids from a villain in Netflix's "Back in Action."
• Director Seth Gordon told Business Insider he wants to cast a big name to play Diaz's father in a potential sequel.

Netflix's "Back in Action" follows Matt (Jamie Foxx) and Emily (Cameron Diaz), two former CIA spies who, after leaving the agency to start a family, are thrust back into the espionage game 15 years later when their cover is blown and their kids are kidnapped.

The action comedy concludes with a thrilling fight on London's River Thames where Matt and Emily save their kids — with the help of Emily's estranged mother, Ginny (Glenn Close), a gun-toting former spy — and the bad guy, Chuck (Kyle Chandler), dies in a fiery wreck.

In the final sequence, Matt and Emily are cheering for their daughter at her soccer game and appear to be back to living their normal lives.

But suddenly MI6 agent Baron (Andrew Scott) appears and informs Matt and Emily that they never found Chuck's body. They now want to enlist Emily's father to help them with the search. Matt is shocked, as Emily never told him about her father.

The ending clearly sets the stage for a sequel that will add another big name to this already star-studded potential franchise.

"I've got a couple ideas, yes," "Back in Action" director Seth Gordon told BI when asked if he has any actors in mind to play the father role. "I'm not going to say because who knows what's going to happen, but there's definitely a plan of what we could do."

It certainly would have to be someone who can have a playful rapport opposite not just Diaz and Foxx but Close, as the two characters have a history.

Gordon said the fun of developing the project was plugging in comedic elements of the family dynamic — Matt and Emily's son spending too much time on his devices, while their daughter lies about studying to go out partying with friends — around the action sequences.

"This came out of all these conversations I had with the producer Beau Bauman of what we deal with with our kids," Gordon said.

"I think what really works in the movie is you see this family deal with traditional family issues in their very specific and crazy way, so I think that would be a good thing to continue in the sequel," Gordon said.

He's already thinking about what else he could do in a potential follow-up: "What are some other life events that you got that involve the kids where things could haunt Emily and Matt from their past?"

"Back in Action" is available now on Netflix.

• This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Welcome back to our Saturday edition, a roundup of some of our top lifestyle stories. Being ultra-wealthy might seem great in theory, but it doesn't come without issues. A therapist who's worked with clients worth at least $30 million shared the types of problems they often discuss.

On the agenda:

• Young adults with clean diets are getting colon cancer, and we're starting to understand why.
• Stylists share 7 items the rich and famous are actually wearing right now.
• "Friday Night Lights" star Taylor Kitsch paved his own way.
• Red flags to look for at fine-dining restaurants, from a high-end chef.

But first: Let's hit the slopes.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here.

This week's dispatch

Keep your tips up

Winter can be a drag for plenty of reasons. There's less daylight, cold weather, and your nose won't stop running.

But for all the downsides, the winter season comes with a big benefit: ski season.

With all due respect to pristine beaches and breathtaking hikes, there's something truly magical about getting first runs on a trail that just got a foot of fresh powder. (Growing up on the East Coast those types of days were few and far between, which only made them more special.)

Let's address the elephant in the room first. The sport is incredibly expensive. The gear and clothing alone can easily set you back a few thousand dollars. Then there is the process of getting to the mountain, staying there, and buying the lift ticket itself.

There are still ways to keep costs down. A trip to the slopes doesn't have to be a costly hassle. Just look at Amtrak's "Ski Train" from Denver to Winter Park.

Speaking of resorts, don't be fooled by the big names. One writer who has hit over 20 US mountains wasn't impressed by Brighton Resort, finding it too crowded. Arguably the biggest name in skiing — Vail Resorts — also has what we'll call a complicated relationship with the ski and snowboard community.

Not a skier? Not a problem. There are plenty of ways to enjoy yourself at some of the jaw-dropping accommodations on the mountain. And après-ski might translate to "after ski," but you don't need a lift ticket to enjoy the festivities.

It's also never too late to learn. For starters, I recommend reading my newsletter colleague Amanda Yen's great piece on the mistakes people make on the mountain. Otherwise, you risk being a "gaper."

One last thing: Show some respect to the ski patrol. Contrary to what every bad '80s movie has taught us, ski patrollers aren't the enemy. In fact, they're critical to the mountain and oftentimes have to work multiple jobs to survive living in costly mountain resort towns.

So get out there and have fun. Just don't jinx yourself by calling last run. It's "two with a wink."

Combating colon cancer

Colon cancer among patients under 65 is becoming alarmingly common. While a convenient explanation for the rise is diet and weight, doctors and lab scientists told BI the cause wouldn't be attributed to a single thing.

Other factors that defy genetics and lifestyle, like pollution, microplastics, and artificial light, are pervasive in our lives but difficult to study. Fortunately, with recent research and well-funded multinational studies, we're on the cusp of some big results.

What's really causing the disease?

Also read:

• A new report breaks down the alarming rise in cancer among working-age women

Styles of the rich and famous

Dressing like the moneyed set goes beyond flashy logos and designer brands.

BI asked high-end stylists what their wealthy and celebrity clients are wearing right now. Their answers: timeless silhouettes, minimalist details, and high-quality fabrics.

Quiet luxury continues.

Also read:

The clothes successful men always wear, from expensive athleisure pieces to designer denim

Taylor Kitsch pioneered his own path

After his breakout role as Tim Riggins on "Friday Night Lights," Kitsch was set up to become the next big thing. Then Disney's "John Carter" was a box-office flop.

Becoming the next blockbuster star wasn't Kitsch's main goal, anyway. Instead, he explored character-driven roles that he finds more fulfilling, like the opioid-addicted car mechanic Glen Kryger in "Painkiller" or his latest role as Isaac Reed in Netflix's "American Primeval."

Now, he plans to get his own project off the ground.

Fine-dining warning signs

Many high-end restaurants offer tasting menus, which include multiple courses and are often about more than just the food.

Telly Justice, the executive chef and co-owner of the fine-dining restaurant HAGS in Manhattan, told BI the red flags she looks for when selecting a tasting menu.

The menu can tell you a lot.

What we're watching this weekend

• "Severance": After three years, the twisty psychological thriller starring Adam Scott finally returns for season two on Apple TV+.
• "Back in Action": Cameron Diaz makes her acting comeback in a new Netflix action movie alongside Jamie Foxx.
• "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night": Peacock's new four-part docuseries pulls the curtain back on the sketch comedy series with cast interviews and never-before-seen audition footage.

See the full list

What to shop

• Star-studded jewelry: We put celeb-favorite accessory brand Heaven Mayhem to the test after Hailey Bieber sent the internet spiraling over its affordable earrings. Spoiler alert: We're big fans.
• Sweater re-stock: It's a tough job testing out cashmere sweaters for men, but someone's gotta do it. See our picks for the very best.
• Dry January winners: We tested over 40 non-alcoholic spirits, wines, and beers to bring you a list of our favorites.

More of this week's top reads:

• The new Miss America said allowing winners to go public with their significant others is a good way to 'boost recruitment' for the competition.
• Millennials and Gen Zers are hooked on plushies — and that's good news for the toy market.
• I've been to 3 Alpine-style towns in the US. Each was charming and made me feel like I was in Switzerland.
• Exclusive: 'Back in Action' director recounts finishing the Netflix movie amid Jamie Foxx's sudden illness: 'A bit of a miracle.'
• Kate Middleton says she's in remission nearly a year after sharing her cancer diagnosis.
• I spent 48 hours in the 'top city to visit' in 2025. It was nice, but it definitely didn't live up to that title.
• The viral 'Wirkin' bags are disappearing from Walmart's online store. Here's why.
• BMI, one of the most popular ways of telling if you're a healthy weight, is bogus. Here's what to use instead.

The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York City. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.

• Raising my daughters as teenagers has been the hardest time of my life as a parent.
• They were sneaking out, skipping school, and eventually ended up in jail.
• When I got the call from jail, I wanted to rescue them but decided not to. It was the right move.

Having my two daughters was the best decision I ever made.

When they were kids, all the moments we had were special. However, kids don't remain kids forever, and their teenage years have been the hardest.

My girls hated school and struggled to keep their grades consistent. When they were 13 and 15, I got a call from their class teacher, who hadn't seen them in school for two weeks straight.

Still, I didn't enforce any hard rules or punishments because I felt that talking to them would have more of an impact than grounding them or revoking privileges. I was wrong.

We tried having open conversations with our kids about their poor behavior

My daughters weren't motivated to get an education because they never knew hardship growing up.

On the other hand, I grew up believing that a good education was the only way to a good job and a better life for myself and my family.

As any parent might, I tried to make them see why education matters and why going to school was the way to a brighter future, but they didn't see it my way.

"Dad, stay out of our business!" was their constant one-liner.

To add insult to injury, they would sneak out in the middle of the night and return early in the morning, thinking we didn't notice. It broke my heart many times.

My wife always wanted to take the harder approach, but I would talk her out of it for fear of pushing them even further away. In those situations, my wife and I did our best to sit down with our daughters to have open conversations.

After they were suspended from school, I got a call from jail

A month passed after that first call from their teacher. The second call came from the school principal, who said that both my daughters had been suspended for the rest of the term for poor attendance and causing trouble in school.

I considered going down and attempting to offer an explanation to the school but decided not to. I knew a suspension record on my daughters' school reports would affect their chances of college acceptance, but they had to learn.

They took the news as I expected, with a carefree attitude. They even said they were done with school.

A few weeks later, they got into trouble for drug possession. Granted, the drugs were found in their friend's car, but that did not save them from the law.

When I got that call from jail, I immediately wanted to go to their rescue and post their bail, but my wife and I decided it was best to let them take responsibility for their actions.

After spending some time in jail, my two daughters were sent to a court-appointed drug program for six months. We hoped the time apart would help all of us reflect, which it thankfully did.

That horrific experience caused my daughters to reconsider their actions. Change didn't happen overnight, though. It was a journey.

I'm finally enjoying parenting again

First, we had to forgive each other for the disappointment, the hurtful actions, and the things that were said in anger.

Over time, my daughters also had to make amends with their school and stay on track with their education.

Getting arrested was enough to inspire them to change their ways.

Now they're in college, and my daughters look back and see their experiences as a stepping stone to a better future.

Slowly but surely, they are turning into responsible adults and I'm enjoying parenting again after that dark phase.

• Psychologist Sue Verreault lost her Altadena home in the Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County.
• Several massive wildfires began raging across Los Angeles last week, destroying thousands of homes.
• Despite her loss, Verreault says she's continuing to work because her clients need her.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sue Verreault, a 55-year-old psychologist who lost her dream home in Altadena, California, in the Eaton Fire, which began on January 7.

Several massive wildfires, including the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire, have devastated parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, destroying over 12,000 structures, likely causing at least 27 reported deaths, and leaving up to $275 billion in damage.

The following has been edited for length and clarity:

I found out about the fire on social media

I first became aware of the fires on Tuesday night when I got on social media and noticed that there was a fire coming down from the mountain ridge toward the foothills of Altadena where I live.

I have a family living in my back house, and we could see that the fire was behind our house, and there were other houses that were starting to catch on fire.

We knew that with the embers flying around, that it was any moment that we would be in danger. There was a lot of smoke. It was really bad, and with the winds being about a hundred miles an hour, it was a high risk.

And my three dogs were just so scared.

The only thing I could fit in my car was just my dogs, and what I could pack in my passenger seat.

There was part of me that thought, they won't let all these houses burn, it's going to be OK. I just need to get to safety right now, and we'll come back when it's safe.

It wasn't until after the fact, at 4:30 in the morning, that I got a "Leave now!" evacuation order. But it was too late.

After spending the night at a coworker's house, I tried to go to my house in the morning. Just while driving on the freeway, you couldn't see anything.

When I turned onto my street, I saw fire. I could only get about a block and a half away from my house. And then the smoke was touching the ground.

It was like a solid brick wall from the sky to the ground of just black soot and smoke.

I could see that there was no one there except for one firetruck. It was like a wasteland. I couldn't believe it.

I saw this pickup truck on fire on the side of the road, and I knew, I had the feeling then, that my house was gone and I couldn't go any further.

'This was our oasis' — and then there was cancer

My partner, Jamie, and I bought the house in 2008 for $760,000 and it was now worth about $1.6 million. When it was built in 1909, it was one of the main houses there in Altadena.

That home was our oasis.

We had a beautiful backyard, plants, a hot tub. We were doing gardening and renovations. We took in rescue dogs that needed help along the way because we had a half-acre. It was our sanctuary.

And then when Jamie got diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2010, she got sick pretty quickly, and the renovations stopped.

She was my everything, and then when she died, that house was my connection to her and my way of honoring her by continuing the renovations.

I left a lot of things behind, like my grandmother's perfume that smelled like her, and especially things of Jamie's that I cherish.

I had her clothes. I had her ashes in a necklace and partially spread in our backyard. That's gone. But she's in my heart. She'll always be there.

Last Saturday, my friends took me to see what was left of my house, and if there was anything we could salvage.

When I looked at my house, and I climbed my concrete stairs, and I saw the devastation — everything gone — and I saw my fireplace standing, I collapsed to the crowd.

I just felt desperation. I felt this deep, deep, deep, deep loss. And the first thing I thought of was Jamie.

I couldn't breathe. I was having a panic attack, and I was throwing up.

I put my savings into that house. That was my retirement. I put everything into that house. And because of all the upgrades I did, my mortgage payments are over $4,000 a month, and now I'm going to have to pay for rent.

That's really torturing me because I don't think I can afford to rebuild. I don't know what I should do because I may have to sell the land to not have to file bankruptcy.

I still feel like I need to go to work and help people

I'm 55 — I don't have much more time before retirement, and I'm starting over in a negative, so that's hard to even think about right now, especially when I've worked so hard just helping other people.

I work 14-hour days as a supervising psychologist for the LA County Department of Public Health, and then as a private practitioner in the evenings.

I went back to work on Monday. It's a good distraction and there's so many people that are in so much need right now, and in more dire need than I am.

I've been with some of these clients for a couple years, and this is also their pain because they live in these areas, or they're displaced.

So I just don't feel like I can stop working right now.

I want people to know that this will pass, and it'll make you stronger. It's a mindset. Only you can carry yourself through by asking for help — and accepting the help.

That was the hardest thing for me — people I didn't even know were giving me money to help me, and to accept that help was just really hard.

But it's the compassion of strangers that's giving me hope.

• I spent 15 hours in a sleeper car on an Amtrak Superliner train going from Denver to Salt Lake City.
• For $400, I stayed in a private cabin, which had two seats during the day and two bunks at night.
• The 23-square-foot space was cozy and full of space-saving hacks that made it feel larger.

Taking a sleeper train from Denver to Salt Lake City was more expensive than flying or driving — and it took a lot longer. But for a locomotive enthusiast like me, it was worth it.

In January, I took a 15-hour ride through the American Southwest on Amtrak's California Zephyr, an overnight train. I paid $400 to stay in a private, enclosed 23-square-foot space with two chairs and two bunks — also known as a roomette.

I found that 23 square feet is plenty of space for me to feel comfortable on a long journey. And with an efficient arrangement and a design that seemed to prioritize relaxation, I was far cozier than I am on flights and road trips.

On a cold morning in early January, I boarded the California Zephyr at Denver's Union Station.

Amtrak's Superliner is a two-story train fleet that runs on routes west of Chicago and New Orleans, including the California Zephyr. The cars are roughly 30 to 50 years old, and Amtrak plans to replace this fleet and others in the 2030s, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari told Business Insider.

For now, the train line is investing $28 million into interior renovations on long-distance trains, including new carpets, LED lighting, and a seating makeover in coach, communal, and sleeper cars.

Roughly 76% of the Superliner sleeper cars have been updated, and the rest are scheduled to be completed in 2025.

I was lucky enough to ride in a newly refreshed Superliner.

My ticket included lounge access, priority boarding, and three meals on board.

A roomette accommodation is a step above coach seating and a step below a bedroom, which is twice as large and includes a full private bathroom. Two steps above, a bedroom suite joins two bedrooms, providing four beds and two bathrooms with showers.

The train also has family bedrooms, which sleep two adults and two kids, and accessible bedrooms with two bunks.

My ticket also included access to a first-class attendant who took meal reservations, offered turndown service, and fielded questions and requests.

My roomette was on the first floor of the double-decker train.

I skipped the coach passenger line to board, stepped onto the train, and placed my luggage in a shared storage space where each passenger was allowed two suitcases.

Then, I walked down a short hallway to my room, which had a sliding door that locked from the inside.

Inside, I found two cushy recliners facing each other beside a wide window.

The roomette sleeps up to two people. During the day, the room was set up with two seats, which reclined to form the lower bunk. The upper bunk could be pulled down to reveal the cot.

Next to one of the chairs, there was a shelf below a tall mirror. There were multiple hooks around the room that I used for jackets and accessories.

I could tell the seats were new. They were wide and cushy with no signs of wear. But just to make sure, I asked Magliari how a passenger could tell if they were in an updated sleeper car.

"Doing away with the blue fabric is the biggest giveaway," he said. "If you see gray, vinyl seating, then you know that you are in a fresh room."

Magliari added that the new seat cushions and upholstery provide more lumbar support than the older models.

The sides of each headrest contained room controls.

There were lighting, speaker volume, and temperature controls, as well as one outlet and a call button for the attendant.

Between the chairs, a pullout table had two foldout leaves for extra space.

There were cupholders on either side of the table — each holding a complimentary water bottle. However, the holders were too shallow to contain the bottles when the train shook, causing them to fall over during turbulent stretches.

"The cupholder size is a challenge we've faced. Beverage shapes and sizes change over time," Magliari told BI, alluding to the rise of brands expanding circumference like Stanley and Yeti.

A thin closet stood above a small trash can next to one seat.

Inside the closet, I found some hangers and fresh linens.

The sleeping car shared four bathrooms and a shower.

My booking didn't include a private bathroom. The shower and three of the bathrooms were on the first floor. I never had to wait in line to use the restroom, and I noticed they had been cleaned since my last visit a couple of times during the ride.

At night, I slid the chairs into bed mode.

After dinner in the dining car, I reclined both seats to be flat, forming the bottom bunk. The bed was wider and more comfortable than most train bunks I've slept on. The pillows were thick and fluffy, and the plush blanket had a luxurious feel.

The highlight of the 23-square-foot roomette was the expansive window.

A 23-square-foot room may seem small, but the wide, comfy seats, impressive space-saving hacks, and views outside the expansive window made it feel large.

• Housing inventory could improve as boomers age and pass on their homes, Zillow says.
• Rust Belt markets are poised to benefit the most from this trend.
• Here are the top 5 markets that are ripe for a so-called silver tsunami.

In what's been dubbed a silver tsunami, there's an $84 trillion generational wealth transfer that's slated to happen in the next two decades as boomers age and pass on their assets.

That could seriously shake up a housing market where home ownership is heavily skewed toward older Americans. Boomers, who comprise 20% of the overall US population, owned 36% of all homes in 2024, according to Freddie Mac. They're also sitting on over $17 trillion, or roughly half, of the total home equity in the US.

The silver tsunami might not be a silver bullet for the housing crisis at a national level, according to Orphe Divougny, a senior economist at Zillow.

But certain markets throughout the country have a particularly high concentration of empty-nest homes, which are expected to come on to the market as their boomer owners either downsize or pass away, according to Zillow. If you're looking to buy a home but have been discouraged by the lack of supply on the market, these areas could provide an easier entry point.

Boomer-heavy metro areas don't have much overlap with the expensive markets popular with Gen Z and millennials such as San Jose, Austin, and Denver, according to Zillow. That means inventory in those hot spots won't see much of a boost from empty-nester houses coming onto the market. Rather, many of the markets that have a high concentration of empty-nest households are located in the Rust Belt.

But Gen Z and millennials are proving that they're increasingly willing to relocate out of expensive metro areas and seek affordability, thanks to the flexibility of remote and hybrid work. In fact, there's been a recent trend of younger Americans moving out of cities and into suburban or exurban communities. Some are going even further into rural areas.

For homeowners willing to look outside the popular housing markets, there are deals to be found where the boomers are located.

"When these homes hit the market as owners downsize or otherwise move on, that extra supply should benefit buyers," Divougny said.

Listed below are the top five housing markets that'll benefit from the silver tsunami and the percentage of empty-nest households in each, according to Zillow. For context, the average empty-nester share of households in 2022 nationwide was 16%.

5 housing markets ripe for a silver tsunami

Pittsburgh, PA

% of empty-nest households: 22%

Buffalo, NY

% of empty-nest households: 20%

Cleveland, OH

% of empty-nest households: 19%

Detroit, MI

% of empty-nest households: 19%

New Orleans, LA

% of empty-nest households: 18%

• My twins had similar achievements in high school and applied to the same colleges.
• They received different merit scholarships at every school — sometimes a $13,000 difference.
• I will never understand how that happened because the merit scholarships are awarded in secrecy.

Understandably, merit scholarships are a hot topic in social media parent college groups. My twins applied to colleges simultaneously, so I was determined to learn as much as I could. Spoiler alert: It's complicated.

One thing I learned? Not all scholarships are the same. There are two main types: need-based and merit-based. Sounds simple, right? It's not. While both types come from the college after a student applies, they're awarded for different reasons.

Need-based scholarships are determined by the student's (or, more accurately, their parents') financial situation. Meanwhile, merit scholarships reward students for their accomplishments — whether that's grades, leadership, or athletic abilities.

Still confused? Don't worry, you're not alone. For now, let's stick to merit scholarships since my teenage twins didn't qualify for need-based aid.

How do you qualify for merit scholarships from the college you apply to?

This question often comes up in social media groups, and honestly, I don't think anyone knows the definitive answer. There's a lot of speculation, but unless someone from the college admissions office directly explains why your kid received a merit scholarship, it's really just guessing.

From what I understand, merit scholarships are based on how much a college wants your child to attend. If your child has qualities that the college values, they're more likely to offer a scholarship to encourage attendance. Some parents compare merit scholarships to Kohl's Cash or coupons — essentially, incentives to choose that school.

Somehow, they received different merit scholarships

My boy/girl twins seemed to have qualities colleges were seeking. Both were "high-achieving students," meaning they took advanced placement (AP) and honors classes. They were in the National Honors Society, with high GPAs that differed by only 0.20 points. They were also leaders; both were club presidents and captains of their respective tennis teams (boys' and girls' teams were separate).

I'm not sharing this to brag (though I'm incredibly proud!) but to give you an idea of the kinds of achievements that colleges might look for when awarding merit scholarships. Many colleges also like high SAT or ACT scores, but neither of them submitted scores.

My twins applied to seven of the same colleges, and each offered them different amounts of merit scholarships. Naturally, you'd think the twin with the 0.20 higher GPA would receive more scholarship money, right? That would make sense, but that's not what happened.

When I shared this observation with a friend, they suggested that the school might have been trying to increase enrollment for a specific gender since my twins are of different genders. It also could have been influenced by the majors they were interested in or the clubs they belonged to. Who knows? Not me!

Their merit scholarships were very different at some schools

For most schools, the difference was between $1,000 and $2,000, which is a lot of money, but not when you consider that some private college tuitions with room and board are over $90,000 per year. Suddenly, $1,000 seems like a small dent or pennies in comparison.

The biggest discrepancy in merit scholarships they received was at a small liberal arts college. One twin was awarded $13,000 a year more than the other, which is $52,000 over four years of college.

When I looked on the college's website, I couldn't find the name of the scholarship listed in their acceptance letter. The only information I found states that they offer merit-based scholarships based on achievement, which is pretty vague.

I still have no idea why the scholarship amounts were so vastly different.

I'm trying to move forward without answers

The results of this very unofficial experiment show that your child can qualify for a large merit scholarship if they have some sought-after quality. GPA is probably a key factor, but clearly, there are other mysterious variables at play because, statistically speaking, a 0.20 difference in GPA isn't significant.

So, what's the secret to cracking the mysterious merit scholarship code? I have no idea.

But if colleges are going to hand out merit scholarships like Kohl's Cash, the least they could do is toss in a 30% off coupon — or better yet, a BOGO deal for a mom of twins.

• A 33-hour journey to Tanzania was the longest and farthest I've traveled.
• While the long travel day was worth it, I did make some mistakes that made the trip harder.
• I forgot to pack my foot hammock and a change of clothes for the journey.

After embarking on some of the longest flights in the world, sitting in a plane cabin for hours on end is beginning to feel normal.

I've spent 13 hours traveling between Los Angeles and Auckland, New Zealand. I've also made my way to Tokyo via a 12-hour flight.

However, getting to Tanzania from Denver was an entirely new feat. It took a whopping four flights and 33 hours.

I arrived at the airport two hours early and kicked off the trip on a three-and-a-half-hour flight to Washington, DC. After a five-and-a-half-hour layover, I embarked on a 13-hour flight to Ethiopia. Next was another two-and-a-half-hour layover followed by a three-hour flight to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

For the last stretch, I had one more two-and-a-half-hour layover and an hourlong flight to Tanzania's island of Zanzibar.

Altogether, I spent more than 33 hours on planes and in airports. Unsurprisingly, the journey was filled with mistakes.

I packed a neck pillow but forgot my foot hammock.

I've experimented with a handful of viral airplane products. While some have let me down, others have drastically improved my flying experience.

One winner is a foot hammock that wraps around a seat's tray table. It allows me to have my knees bent, creating a different seated position for a long flight.

I love it, but for this flight to Tanzania, I packed an inflatable travel pillow. I was flying light and felt like having two long-haul comforts was overkill in my limited space.

Unfortunately, I didn't love the blow-up pillow. It felt bulky and uncomfortable, and instead, I longed for my hammock.

Looking back, the hammock wouldn't have taken up much space and would've been worth packing. For future long-haul flights, I might even consider trying a brand-new product.

After landing in Ethiopia, I headed to the airport bathroom to freshen up. Instinctively, I used the tap water to brush my teeth.

Delirious after 22 hours of travel, I landed in Ethiopia feeling gross. I hadn't brushed my teeth like I typically do on long-haul flights, so I immediately headed to the terminal's bathroom to freshen up.

Instincts kicked in, and I used the airport's bathroom water to brush my teeth.

I had spent less than 15 minutes in the country and already made one of the mistakes everyone urges you to avoid — drinking tap water.

The Ethiopia tourism site cautions people against drinking the country's tap water and brushing their teeth with it, as it can cause waterborne diseases.

I spent the rest of my layover monitoring any slight change in my body. Thankfully, I didn't consume much and was fine for the rest of my journey.

I typically don't pack extra clothes, but for this journey, I wish I had.

Some long-haul travelers swear by changing into new clothes during lengthy travel days. I, however, have always considered this a waste. Unless I can shower and get clean, dirtying two sets of clothes typically doesn't make sense to me.

After this 33-hour day, I've changed my mind. Brushing my teeth and washing my face in Ethiopia didn't make me feel much more refreshed. But having a clean set of clothes would've been a game changer — mostly because it would've helped my mindset.

Instead of dreading the remainder of the trip, new clothes would've felt like a fresh start and potentially helped me manage the nine hours of the journey I had left.

I didn't drink nearly enough water and should've packed electrolytes.

This is a common mistake I make on flights. Experts recommend drinking 8 ounces of water for every hour you're in the air since flying is a dehydrating experience.

While it would've been challenging to consume 160 ounces of water, I definitely didn't drink close to that amount, which contributed to my exhaustion and lethargy after landing in Tanzania.

Electrolytes or hydration salts could have also helped, so I'll carry them on future flights.

I slept during the wrong flights.

I started my journey with a red-eye flight, which I initially thought was smart. My game plan was to fall asleep during the first flight and continue sleeping after a five-hour layover and during the longer 13-hour flight.

I successfully slept through most of the first flight, which was only three-and-a-half hours.

As soon as I boarded the 13-hour flight, I realized I made a major error: My body was still on Mountain Standard Time. It was morning, and I was wide awake.

Looking back, I should've forced myself to stay awake for the first flight and focused on sleeping during the longer flight. That way I could've been better adjusted to my destination's time zone and had a few more hours of rest.

I didn't pack enough comforts for when I struggled to fall asleep.

I didn't give up hope after making that major mistake of snoozing on the first flight. So, after finishing meal service on my Ethiopian Airways flight, I attempted to get more rest.

I blew up my travel pillow, snuggled in my seat, and closed my eyes.

Sleep didn't come, and I regretted not packing melatonin or another sleeping aid for the flight.

In general, I relied on technology too much for entertainment.

After boarding my 13-hour flight wide awake, I was ready to binge. I had downloaded the latest season of the "Great British Baking Show," a movie or two, and a handful of "Normal Gossip" podcast episodes.

I was content for four hours. By hour five, my eyes had glazed over, and my ears ached from my headphones. Since I couldn't sleep, I needed anything to keep me occupied.

What I wanted was a physical book or crossword puzzle. I was tired of looking at screens, but without anything physical in my bag, I was stuck flipping through passenger safety instructions and an e-book on my phone.

Next time, I'll pack a crossword puzzle, magazine, and book to keep me occupied.

My TV downloads disappeared during my layover.

Once I landed in Ethiopia, I connected to the airport's WiFi and checked in with friends and family.

Fast-forward to my next three-hour flight — I hopped into the Netflix app to finish my downloaded episodes, but everything had disappeared.

My guess is that the shows I downloaded weren't licensed for Ethiopia, so Netflix removed them from my downloads.

I believe I would have kept my downloads if I had kept my WiFi turned off and my phone on airplane mode.

Either way, it was another reason for me to have packed a physical book to read.

Despite all these mistakes, I landed in Tanzania eager for new experiences.

I was groggy, smelly, and slightly delirious when I finally landed on the island of Zanzibar.

More importantly, I was thrilled to kick off my adventure. From the people to the animals to the food and scenery, my trip to Tanzania was worth every cramped minute on a plane.

• President-elect Trump has warned he may try to withdraw the US from NATO.
• Any attempt would counter Congress and venture into uncharted legal waters.
• A legislative expert saw signs that could favor Congress in this largely untested area.

In 2018, President Donald Trump privately warned that he might withdraw the US from NATO. He complained that other alliance members weren't contributing their fair share of defense spending, which left American taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Congress thought otherwise. It added a special provision in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which sets funding for the US military. Section 1250A specifies that the president cannot unilaterally withdraw America from NATO without an act of Congress, or unless two-thirds of the Senate concur.

Should Trump follow through during his second term, which starts Monday, the withdrawal would fall into a legal gray area likely to be settled in court and that may favor Congress. The problem is that while the Constitution specifies that the president has the power to negotiate treaties, it doesn't say whether he has the power to break them.

"Although Congress has to some extent regulated the President's withdrawal from a treaty in the past, Section 1250A is the first statute in which Congress has prohibited unilateral presidential withdrawal from a treaty," according to a report by Karen Sokol, a legislative attorney for the Congressional Research Service, which analyzes issues for Congress.

The Founding Fathers were rightly proud that they created a government of checks and balances, where neither the executive, legislative or judicial branches could monopolize power. But they probably would be less than thrilled with the dispute over NATO, which America was instrumental in forming 75 years ago, when a devastated Europe appeared easy prey for Soviet conquest.

Normally, the executive branch handles most foreign policy and national security matters such as negotiating treaties, though Congress exercises considerable clout through defense budgets, ratifying treaties, and approving arms sales. Powers between the executive and legislative branches are delineated clearly enough that for the most part, the system works.

When the executive and legislature can't agree, the courts are supposed to step in. Yet of all the myriad issues that end up in American courts, foreign policy is the area that judges are most reluctant to touch. In the case of withdrawing from NATO, the courts will search for legal precedents in an area that lacks them.

The White House has long maintained that it can withdraw from treaties absent Congressional opposition, such as when the Carter Administration withdrew from a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, which Senator Barry Goldwater and other members of Congress then appealed to the courts. "Ultimately, the Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the dispute," Sokol noted. "With a plurality of the Justices concurring in the judgment to dismiss the complaint, concluding that the case presented a political question that was properly addressed by the political branches rather than the judiciary — a determination that is not uncommon in cases involving separation- of-powers disputes in areas of foreign policy."

In 2020, at the end of Trump's first term, the Department of Justice published an opinion that asserted treaty withdrawal is an exclusive presidential power that Congress cannot restrict. And the Supreme Court has ruled that the executive branch has the authority to recognize foreign governments, even though that power is not specified in the Constitution.

Yet past cases suggest that the courts may reject this argument. Sokol points to the 1952 Youngstown Steel case, when the Supreme Court ruled against President Harry S. Truman's attempt to seize steel mills during the Korean War, on the ground that this violated the intent of Congress.

"Under the Youngstown framework, courts assess presidential claims of authority based on what Congress has—or has not—said about the matter," Sokol wrote. By that standard, Congress has expressed its intent that the US remain in NATO by passing Section 1250A.

Sokol also believes that the courts may reject the Trump administration's assertion that the executive branch alone can decide to withdraw from treaties. "A court may find a President's claim of exclusive constitutional power to withdraw from a treaty to be unpersuasive given that the Constitution is silent about treaty withdrawal powers and that Article II makes treaty entry a power shared between the President and the Senate."

Either way, the question of whether Trump has the power to withdraw from NATO means venturing into largely uncharted legal waters. "Ultimately, it is uncertain how a court would rule on the constitutional distribution of treaty withdrawal power based on its analysis of the Constitution's text and structure, relevant Supreme Court precedent, and historical interbranch practice," Sokol concluded.

Trump may not need to formally withdraw from NATO to damage it. For example, a wargame run by British experts last year found that Trump could sabotage the alliance simply by having America do less. This could include minimizing US participation in NATO exercises or restricting American officers serving as NATO commanders. The effects of a US pullback would be global and hard to predict.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• On social media, my sons seemed like near-perfect kids. Reality looked a little different.
• I now see my sons' experiences weren't failures, just benchmarks of growth in their own stories.
• Despite our past struggles, my sons have grown into successful, responsible men that I'm proud of.

On Instagram, it might have appeared that my children's father and I did everything right when it came to parenting. My sons — who are now 25 and 27 — each earned their Eagle Scout, graduated high school, went to college, and based on the updates and pictures I posted, they probably seemed like perfect kids. The thing is, perfect doesn't exist and in the world of curated social media posts, one family's success story is often filled with quiet mistakes, secret crises, and untold moments of so-called failure. That was our story.

Everything wasn't as it seemed

I thought I was the cool — but tough — mom, the one whose kids could talk to her about anything, but one who also had firm boundaries and expectations. School was important, as was keeping your word, being helpful, kind, and forward-thinking. It was okay to laugh, have fun, and spend time with friends. But it was just as important to be smart. I spent a majority of my sons' childhoods talking to them in depth about things like safe sex, the dangers of drugs and alcohol, and avoiding peer pressure.

While I posted glowing reports about my oldest son's grades, his hobby building computers, his travels abroad, and his witty sense of humor, only my closest friends and family knew about the time I kicked him out of the house two weeks before his graduation after our millionth argument about doing chores and being respectful turned south. Only my then-husband knew the toll that moment took on our relationship and how hard it was to repair, even though he moved back in a week later.

When, at the age of 20, that same son told me he and his girlfriend were actively trying to get pregnant and that he felt "ready" for a child — even though he was unemployed — I didn't turn to Instagram to share my concerns. But when they announced her pregnancy a few short months later, I happily shared the news of our newest family member.

My youngest son had his own struggles

Even my youngest son, who looked like a golden boy in my social media posts, had his own fair share of moments that made me doubt my ability to parent.

He was our honor and AP student, ran cross country, and was on the football team. He had a part time job, and his entire academic and career path seemed planned from the time he was 13.

When he had his first sexual experience as a teen, he talked to me about it openly, but also revealed he didn't wear a condom.

Apparently, even though I'd spent the entirety of his pubescent years teaching him and his brother about STDs, teen pregnancy (something I had personal experience with as I'd had my sons at 17 and 19), and the importance of consent, partner selection, and not breaking the law, he decided to not only skip the condom, but had sex in public at a beach on base where we were stationed, not far from our house.

Thankfully, he didn't get caught, his partner did not become pregnant, and the STD panel he later took was negative. Of course, I didn't share any of this on Instagram.

Two years later, he started smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, and skipping classes. For six months, his father and I were on edge, trying to force our son into sobriety while desperately trying to keep him safe. In the end, it wasn't the begging, pleading, grounding, threatening, or yelling that saved our son, it was a bad case of psychosis he experienced while high that terrified him so badly, he quit using altogether.

The only people who knew were our closest friends. A year later when he graduated high school, I proudly posted his picture with a list of his accomplishments, never uttering a word about the months of chaos we'd endured.

Today, they are different people

Now that same son is engaged to a wonderful young lady, in a masters program for biochemistry and has his eye on pursuing an MD-PhD. Meanwhile, my oldest is an amazing single father to two beautiful little girls, working on his undergraduate degree, and still building (and selling) computers in his free time. Both of them are drug-free, only drink on occasion, pay their taxes, and have never been in trouble with the law. They're also genuinely funny, smart, and deeply kind people. In my eyes, they are both success stories.

We all have unique stories

Did I do everything right as a mom? Of course not. Although I loved them, kept them fed, sheltered, and (to the best of my ability) informed, I made mistakes, too. Looking back, I realize I wasn't as cool as I thought, and often failed to really listen to my sons when they needed me. I yelled when I was upset, fought with their dad often, and missed the mark when it came to seeing them as people with their own unique wants and needs. Maybe things would have been different had their dad and I divorced sooner, had I done the healing work I needed to do to recover from my own chaotic and abusive childhood, and had I been a more patient and understanding mom. Or maybe, things would have remained the same.

Watching my sons grow into men taught me to consider another possibility: What if everything went exactly how it was supposed to and my sons' experiences weren't failures at all, just benchmarks of growth in their own individual stories?

Try as we might, our kids are going to grow up and do things we don't want them to do. Even things we've specifically told them not to do. Sometimes those choices will be a reflection of our own failures as parents, but often, have nothing to do with us at all. As easy as it is to blame ourselves when things go wrong, it's also important to remember that every perceived failure is an opportunity to learn, change, and grow. There is no such thing as perfect parenting (regardless of what you see on social media) and every person — even our kids — has the right to choose their own adventure. Sometimes that leads to failure, but with enough love and patience, things often turn out just fine.

In the end, I didn't get parenting right one hundred percent of the time, but that didn't make me a bad mom, it just means I am human, and so are my kids, even if I only post the highlight reels on Instagram.

• Some Airbnb hosts decided not to welcome guests during Donald Trump's inauguration weekend.
• They worried about safety or supporting a political agenda. Others, though, had no issues hosting.
• Demand for DC-area short-term rentals in 2025 is on par with Trump's 2017 inauguration, AirDNA said.

Washington DC Airbnb host Stacy Kane blocked her calendar for president-elect Donald Trump's second inauguration.

Kane and two friends contacted community members and city councilors urging other hosts to join in, saying in an email that it would "show Trump supporters who are coming into the DMV that we do not welcome hate, misogyny, or intentions to take over DC," according to the Washington Post.

A handful of other hosts have removed their short-term rentals from the market. One Airbnb owner — who lives in the same property as the apartment she rents out about three miles from the Capitol — told Business Insider that she was concerned for her own safety given the language and actions of Trump supporters on January 6.

Other people who have said they run Airbnbs have posted on Facebook and Reddit forums for hosts that they not only kept their homes open to book — but added premiums to their rates.

"I'm charging $1,200 a night with a four-night minimum," one Redditor posted in November.

It appears that the conflicting opinions over how to treat inauguration weekend have had little effect. Demand from guests looking to stay in short-term rentals in the DC area this year is similar to Trump's first inauguration in 2017, according to Bram Gallagher, the director of economics and forecasting at AirDNA.

"In the DC metro area, the number of available listings has remained stable, and search trends and average nightly rates are typical for periods of increased demand," an Airbnb spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson also said that the company "connects guests and hosts of all political perspectives" and is "committed to ensuring that this is their experience on the platform. Our policies and Terms of Service make this clear, and if we learn of instances where these are violated, we take action."

Are you a Washington DC Airbnb host renting — or not renting — your home this weekend? Email Hana Alberts at [email protected] to share your thoughts for a future story.

DC's rule that Airbnb hosts rent out their primary residence made one feel at risk

The Airbnb host worried about her safety, who asked to remain anonymous due to the same concerns, said DC's rule that short-term rentals for stays under 30 days must also be the owner's primary residence makes her feel more vulnerable.

"If something happens, these people can forever just target me," she told Business Insider. "It opens you up to way more than what it's worth for a few nights of rental income. I just could never see myself putting myself out there for that."

Because of the law, many Washington DC hosts live in the homes they rent out and have strong connections to their neighborhoods.

"From my perspective, it's not about the money," she added. "I love hosting. I love meeting people and helping people enjoy my city, but I couldn't possibly be somewhere where people are using hate speech and targeting people and being violent. Those aren't the kind of folks that I want to host, and I would just rather be safe than take that risk."

Bookings for inauguration weekend are close to 2017 figures

Every four years on January 20, people from all over the country regularly stream into Washington and brave inclement weather to see the president get sworn in outside the Capitol. Trump announced Friday that his 2025 inauguration would be held inside the Capitol Rotunda instead due to expected freezing temperatures.

Gallagher, of AirDNA, broke down how short-term-rental demand in 2025 is on par with 2017's.

AirDNA data shows that the peak day for short-term rental demand for the 2017 inauguration — as measured by the total number of nights booked — was 6,796 as of January 13, 2017. As of the same date in 2025, the total number of nights booked was 8,100.

Gallagher noted that AirDNA did not start tracking Vrbo data until later in 2017; the 2025 figures reflect Airbnbs and Vrbos booked.

In the Capitol Hill neighborhood, where the Capitol is located, demand was 1,191 nights booked in 2017 and 1,189 in 2025 — almost the same.

"I was surprised by how close these demand figures are — it was a pretty big event in 2017," Gallagher said.

So far, the data also suggests that major price hikes haven't occurred. The highest average daily rate in 2017 during the inauguration was about $363 a night. In 2025, it's about $304.

"I think people just became very, very cost-conscious in 2023, and that's still sort of going on," Gallagher said. "We saw prices decline all through 2023 on average nationwide. It might just be kind of a hangover from that."

He added that some hosts care more about getting bookings than about securing the most profitable rate.

"It may be also too that the short-term-rental operators just prefer to fill up rather than have the highest possible price," he said. "I can imagine if you're a management company or if you're a small manager, you go to your owner and say, 'Well, I've got this DC apartment in Capitol Hill, but we couldn't rent it out on inauguration,' they'll be pretty mad."

• A founder shared her "Shark Tank" experience and why she didn't close her deal with Mark Cuban.
• Blaine Anderson posted on X that she had to submit "TONS of paperwork" and pass several interviews.
• The Dating by Blaine chief said she realized later an outside investor would make her life harder.

A founder who pitched her dating startup on "Shark Tank" and struck a deal with Mark Cuban shared what it was like to appear on the show — and why she ultimately didn't take the tech billionaire's investment.

Blaine Anderson, the CEO of Dating by Blaine, walked through her "Shark Tank" experience in a thread on X after the episode featuring her was shown again this week.

Her company sells online courses aimed at men about various aspects of dating, plus one-on-one teaching sessions with the boss herself.

Anderson, who has more than 700,000 Instagram followers, wrote that one of the show's producers contacted her in early 2023 after reading about Dating by Blaine in a newspaper article. She agreed to chat with "tempered excitement" because she was selling digital products and services and required little working capital.

The matchmaker recalled submitting "TONS of paperwork" including bank statements, and going through several rounds of interviews, before she was invited to Los Angeles to film in May 2023.

During the episode, Anderson revealed she founded the company in mid-2020 after losing her job during the pandemic, and had already generated more than $2.2 million in sales. She also made about $500,000 of profit on some $1 million of sales in 2022, she said.

Anderson asked the Sharks for $100,000 in exchange for 2% of her company, valuing it at $5 million. The Sharks were visibly intrigued by her pitch, but grew less impressed when she couldn't break down her revenues from different products or say how many classes she'd sold.

Guest Shark Michael Rubin quickly dropped out. Kevin O'Leary showed interest, but Anderson had her eye firmly on Cuban. Barbara Corcoran helped her reach a deal that would give him 10% of the business for $100,000, valuing it at $1 million, and the pair agreed to those terms.

Anderson wrote on X that after filming, she was directed to a private room where a psychologist checked on her, which she described as a "nice touch" from the studio. She added that everyone working on the show was "thoughtful and kind," and understood how much was at stake for the entrepreneurs involved.

The dating guru said her pitch was "ROASTED on Reddit," but she defended her right to ask for whatever valuation she wanted. Anderson added that she's not great with numbers as she's a "dating coach and matchmaker, not an accountant," and that she probably benefits from "pretty privilege" as some critics had said.

Anderson said she didn't end up closing the deal with Cuban despite spending "tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees, plus months of my focus, hoping to make things work." That was because she eventually realized that having an outside investor would make her life harder.

She also showered praise on Cuban. "Mark is down to earth, easy to work with, shockingly accessible, super smart, and funny. He cares about his entrepreneurs, and I'd be glad to work with him someday."

Cuban and ABC didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. Anderson declined to comment.

• LGBTQ+ apps are seeing a surge of interest after Meta's content moderation changes.
• Business Insider spoke with several founders building apps about the influx of users.
• The apps are focused on safety, privacy, and community amid tech industry shifts.

Between Meta's changes to its content-moderation policies and the TikTok ban, the past week has left many social-media users questioning where to go next.

For some LGTBQ+ users, that's resulted in a search for platforms specifically designed for their community that offer both connection and safety.

BI spoke with three founders building apps for the LGBTQ+ community who said they'd seen a spike in downloads and new users this month.

"We've just been trying to stop the product from combusting because we've been having so many people come in," said Callum Smith, founder of Collective, a queer community and dating app where users can share photos, songs, GIFs.

One user on Collective posted this week that they were "slowly looking for options to shift from Meta."

Meanwhile, Lex, a queer community and text-based app that was acquired by 9count in September, also noticed a spike beginning in the second week of January. Jennifer Lewis, Lex's CEO, said the app saw a 2x spike in downloads following Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's announcement that the company would alter its content-moderation and community standards.

Meta's changes included updating its Hateful Conduct policy, which now allows "allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like 'weird.'"

"This is the most anti-LGBTQ announcement that a social-media platform has made in recent memory," Josh Helfgott, an LGBTQ+ advocate and content creator, told BI last week.

Meta told BI that its content-moderation policies had been too far-reaching in years past, and its updates draw a line between offensive speech and potentially dangerous speech. The company also continues to prohibit attacks on protected characteristics, including dehumanizing speech, calls for harm, slurs, and more, as well as maintain its bullying and harassment policies.

In May 2024, GLAAD, a nonprofit advocacy organization for LGBTQ+ representation in media, published its fourth annual Social Media Safety Index report, which said that anti-LGBTQ "rhetoric and disinformation on social media translates to real-world offline harms."

"What I felt, time again, is that Big Tech doesn't really cater to us because they don't care about us," said Carmen Hernandez, founder of Freddie. The app describes itself as "for the sapphic and trans community to find friends, events, and lovers."

Designing apps with safety in mind

As LGBTQ+ apps welcome new users amid changes happening across tech, safety and privacy are top concerns.

Freddie, for example, is integrated with the encrypted messaging service Signal for security and data privacy.

"That need for safety is really what I think people are coming to Lex for," Lewis said. "What we've been doing since the acquisition by 9count has been building our backend moderation practices, trust and safety, user verification, bad actor banning."

On Collective, one safety measure (in addition to a zero policy for anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric) is its new user review process, which can take up to 24 hours and looks at a user's digital footprint across the web.

"We are creating a safe space for queer people, which means we have bad actors who want to get in and do bad things," Smith said.

Meta apps are still a necessity for visibility

For these LGBTQ+ apps, Meta platforms like Instagram are likely to remain crucial tools for getting in front of new users, despite the content-moderation changes.

Boyan Golden, founder of Purr, a social app for queer women, nonbinary, and trans people that will launch later this year, said the moment is a double-edged sword.

On one side, Golden hopes Meta's changes show the need for more queer-led social-networking platforms. At the same time, Meta platforms are still the largest channels Purr has for spreading its brand.

"You could rely on more traditional advertising methods, but you'd have nowhere the same reach," Golden told BI.

Collective, Lex, and Freddie also each have Instagram pages that are used as a marketing tool to direct users to their apps.

"I'm personally deleting all my Meta accounts on Friday," Hernandez said, but the separate account for Freddie will keep posting. "We're going to keep it as a beacon."

• Aligning a brand with a celebrity can be risky.
• Last year, a number of stars suffered reputational damage that affected their business partners.
• Going into 2025, brands must be more thorough and savvy when deciding who to partner with.

Celebrity brands can be as risky as they are glamorous, and last year was no exception.

The most serious scandal — and dramatic financial downfall — was that of Sean Combs, who was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering, allegations the rapper denies.

But other A-listers, like Blake Lively and MrBeast, faced reputational damage in 2024. Their unravelings — and the effects they have had on their businesses and partners — show just how dangerous it can be to rely on star power to propel a business.

"2024 taught us that no creator — no matter the scale of their success or support — is immune from controversy," Nate Harris, a VP at creator marketing platform CreatorIQ, told Business Insider.

For decades, Combs exemplified how a star can monetize their fame. However, since he was first accused of rape and abuse in November 2023, his fall from grace has been swift, and his businesses have taken hit after hit.

Diageo, his partner of more than a decade, said it best: "Mr. Combs is well-aware that these lawsuits make it impossible for him to continue to be the 'face' of anything," lawyers for the liquor giant wrote in a letter to a judge after the sexual assault lawsuits started pouring in.

Diageo is now reportedly considering offloading Cîroc, the vodka brand Combs represented. It may be a tough sell given its synonymity with Diddy, who has denied any wrongdoing.

"Combs went from cultural icon to cautionary tale in record time," Stacy Jones, the CEO of the branding agency Hollywood Branded, told BI.

But celebrity fallout — and the toll it has on a business — does not have to be so pronounced.

Take the Blake Lively backlash. Upon the premiere of her film "It Ends With Us," the actor faced an onslaught of negative press and social media attacks, calling her difficult to work with and resurfacing unflattering clips of her past behavior.

Whether justified or not — Lively has sued Justin Baldoni, her costar and director, saying he conducted a retaliatory smear campaign — the attacks had a negative effect on her hair care line Blake Brown, the company said in a report cited by The New York Times. The hair care line said it lost as much as 78% of its sales, according to the Times.

Blake Brown is a joint venture with Give Back Beauty, a celebrity brand incubator. Give Back Beauty, Blake Brown, and representatives for Lively did not respond to BI's requests for comment.

Similar reputational damage came for Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson, the world's most popular YouTube star who was set to break through into traditional media this year with the Amazon Prime show "Beast Games."

While Amazon has not disclosed the show's budget, Donaldson said the series cost more than $100 million. Amazon hoped it would attract advertisers to the platform.

"Beast Games" was marred by controversy for months before it debuted. Contestants said they sustained injuries and complained about what they described as a lack of medical care and food on set at a preliminary shoot for the show in Las Vegas. The show was also received negatively by critics, earning a 14% on Rotton Tomatoes.

"The MrBeast promotional video shoot, which included over 2,000 participants, was unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues, which we reviewed, and are grateful that virtually all of those invited to Toronto enthusiastically accepted our invitation," a representative for MrBeast told BI, adding that they "continue to comply with standard industry rules and regulations."

While it is performing well, according to Amazon's own rankings, the entire ordeal was a headache for the tech company — and it may turn out to cost the streamer. One Amazon insider told BI that they believed the negative press affected ad sales. A number of "Beast Games" contestants also filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging sexual harassment and pay issues, among other complaints.

MrBeast's representative said he has not been served, but declined to comment further on the lawsuit.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment from BI.

Celebrity bright spots

To be sure, some brands had blockbuster years. Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty is reportedly receiving investment offers at a billion-dollar valuation, and Kim Kardashian's Skims opened its own brick-and-mortar stores.

Those success stories may be reason enough for brands to continue to partner with celebrities or investors to put money into celebrity businesses.

Going forward, more caution will be taken when choosing partners and deciding whether to maintain those partnerships, Harris and Jones said.

Part of that means properly vetting celebrities or influencers by using tools that assess the online sentiment — positive or negative — around those stars and whether they align with the current cultural moment.

Brands are more often evaluating partners based on their content around politics, competitor mentions, profanity, illicit substances, and sensitive social issues.

And when a celebrity does go out of line, brands will be more proactive in distancing themselves.

"Brands are increasingly swift in cutting ties with problematic figures to protect their own integrity," Jones said.

"Audiences understand that brands aren't always to blame for a celebrity's actions, but they expect clear, thoughtful responses when controversies arise," she added.

• Sue and Ken Allen's Palo Alto home, bought for $63,000 in 1975, is likely worth $3-4 million.
• The threat of capital gains taxes and higher property taxes discourages them from selling.
• Instead, they're planning to downsize to a tiny home accessory dwelling unit in their backyard and rent out the main house.

Sue Allen and her husband, Ken, moved to Palo Alto in the 1970s, just as the South Bay was beginning to be known as Silicon Valley.

Allen, 75, and her husband, 77, bought their home in South Palo Alto for about $63,000 in 1975. These days, surrounded by Stanford University and the headquarters of a slew of the biggest tech companies in the world, the home is likely worth close to $4 million.

The home is large — in the mid-1980s the couple added a second story to the house to accommodate four additional bedrooms and two bathrooms as their family grew.

In the early 2000s, they rebuilt the single-story cottage in their backyard — also known as an accessory dwelling unit — to include a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. They've rented out the cottage ever since.

But the Allens have no plans to sell their home, despite the fact that it's larger than what they need. That's because they plan to eventually downsize to their backyard cottage and rent out the main house.

The Allens aren't alone in relying on an ADU for housing in their older age. Backyard tiny homes — or other accessory units in basements or attics — are an increasingly common way for homeowners to add living space, boost the value of their property and earn extra income through rent, and even create a place to age in. California is one of 14 states that have broadly legalized ADUs and more than 60,000 have been permitted in the state since 2016.

When selling will cost you

In addition to having a backyard home to downsize to, it doesn't make much financial sense for the Allens to sell their property and buy a smaller home to age in.

If they sold the property, they'd be on the hook for hefty capital gains taxes, which apply to couples who make more than $500,000 in profit and individuals who make more than $250,000. They'd also likely have to pay significantly higher property taxes if they purchased a new home, not to mention a relatively high interest rate on any new mortgage.

Like other California homeowners who purchased their properties decades ago, the Allens benefit from exceedingly low property taxes as a result of Proposition 13, which mandates that property taxes are just one percent of the home's purchase price and can't rise by more than two percent each year until the next sale.

The California law has contributed to the so-called homeownership "lock-in effect," which intensifies over time as home values rise and the property taxes someone would have to pay on a newly purchased home rise.

"We're living in this $4 million house, and we don't downsize because it's kind of not worth it," Allen said. "We'd have to pay so much in taxes."

Allen's story reflects a broader trend of boomer homeowners who've grown significant wealth through their home equity. And she's quick to acknowledge that she's both benefited from and perpetuated "generational wealth" through homeownership. She could afford her own $12,500 downpayment only with help from her mother. In turn, she's helped her five adult children with their down payments. But the Allens' kids have all left California to live in other states — Texas, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada — where housing is more affordable.

Zillow estimates the Allens' property is worth about $3.1 million, while Redfin puts it at nearly $3.5 million. Allen thinks it could be sold for closer to $4 million, based on what similar homes in her neighborhood have fetched in recent months. A much smaller home down the street from the Allens' house sold for $3.6 million in August.

"People spend three to $4 million for a house, knock it flat, and build a big new house on the lot," she said.

Allen still works part-time for the East Palo Alto school district doing tech support, but her husband, a former patent attorney, is fully retired.

If Allen's husband, who has Parkinson's disease, develops dementia and she can no longer take care of him, they plan to move into assisted living in Utah, where two of their kids live and where long-term care is cheaper than in California. But they hope to stay in their neighborhood, where they have strong ties with neighbors and friends, for as long as they can.

"Our support system, our friends — we have a really strong church community here," Allen said. "We really want to stay here."

• Trump has indicated he wants to put tariffs in place on his first day in office.
• Trade policy experts told BI he could do so using a national emergency trade law.
• While it'll take time for tariffs to actually go into effect, Americans could see price increases quickly.

New tariffs are looming with President-elect Donald Trump about to take office — and Americans could see the impacts soon after.

Over the past few months, Trump has suggested a range of tariff proposals related to key trading partners with the US, including China, Mexico, Canada, and the BRICS nations. Trump's largest target has been China, with a 60% tariff proposal, along with a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico.

Trump has not specified which authorities he will use for tariff implementation, and it's possible that he could choose to roll them out at a smaller scale than he had initially proposed. However, he has previously said he wants to begin the process of putting tariffs in place on his first day in office, saying that he'll use his executive authority to roll them out at the beginning of his term.

"On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders," Trump wrote in a November post on Truth Social.

Some reports have suggested that Trump might use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which would allow a president to impose tariffs in the event of a national emergency. Some trade policy experts told Business Insider that Trump could use emergency powers to begin rolling out his tariff plans on day one.

While they would take time to actually go into effect, Americans could still quickly begin to see price increases on impacted goods.

Inu Manak, a trade policy fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told BI that the US would likely see an economic impact "fairly soon" after Trump makes a tariff announcement because markets could react to it before any plans actually go into effect.

"You're going to also have firms shift a lot of their production where they can, they're going to stockpile, they're going to move things around, they're going to raise prices," Manak said. "So the effect of the tariff could actually take place before the tariffs are even there."

Trump has previously denied that his tariff plans will raise prices for Americans. Brian Hughes, a Trump-Vance transition spokesperson, told BI in a statement that Trump "has promised tariff policies that protect the American manufacturers and working men and women from the unfair practices of foreign companies and foreign markets."

"As he did in his first term, he will implement economic and trade policies to make life affordable and more prosperous for our nation," Hughes said.

How Trump can roll out his tariffs on day one

There are a range of existing avenues within federal trade law that Trump could pursue to implement his tariffs. One route — which has never been used before for tariff implementation — is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Manak said that under this act, all Trump would have to do is declare a threat outside the US that threatens national security, foreign policy, or the economy. Once he declares his intent to use tariffs to address that threat, Congress would have the ability to push back on the executive order — but Manak said that's unlikely to happen under a Republican-controlled Congress.

Even under that law, it would still take some time for tariffs to come into effect. "There are a lot of moving parts. It's not like the tariffs would be charged on the first day that he comes into office," Manak said, adding that there's also the possibility of legal challenges from companies who the tariffs would impact. "But in the meantime, we'll probably have some sort of implementation occur in the first few months that he's in office if he chooses to do that route."

Some Democratic lawmakers have already introduced legislation to prevent Trump from implementing tariffs using IEEPA. On January 15, Reps. Suzan DelBene and Don Beyer introduced the Prevent Tariff Abuse Act, which would prohibit Trump from imposing tariffs using IEEPA without congressional approval.

"It's outrageous that without congressional approval, one of President Trump's first actions upon taking office could be creating what is effectively a nationwide sales tax on foreign goods that saddles working families with higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump, and the pharmacy counter," DelBene told reporters on a press call.

Alan Wolff, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, told BI that along with IEEPA, he could see two other trade laws — Section 338 of the Tariff Act and Section 301 of the Trade Act — as viable alternatives Trump could use to implement tariffs. They would allow Trump to impose tariffs if finds there are unfair trade practices from foreign countries.

Multiple routes are available — but Wolff said it's likely Trump is threatening tariffs as a negotiation tactic to achieve policy goals, and the scale of the tariffs may end up not being as broad as initially proposed. Trump said when proposing the tariffs on Mexico and Canada that he wanted the countries to strengthen border policy.

"My guess is he favors using tariffs as a hammer to get results that he likes," Wolff said.

The impact of tariffs on Americans

While inflation did not increase significantly under the tariffs during Trump's first term, some economists and trade experts expect the broader scope of Trump's proposals this time around to have a greater impact.

Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, told BI that she expects consumers will see the impact of proposed tariffs "rather quickly this time."

"We'll see businesses deciding whether they're going to absorb those extra costs or they're going to pass them through to consumers," Lovely said. "Given that consumer spending has been fairly buoyant and that the economy is doing well, we would expect them to pass a lot of it through to consumers."

Some businesses have already warned of price increases should Trump implement broad tariffs. Walmart CFO John David Rainey told CNBC in November that if Trump's tariff proposals go into effect, "there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers."

Manak said that some businesses might try to stockpile products before the tariffs are implemented, and larger firms would have an advantage because they likely have more warehouses and the ability to move things around faster.

"For smaller firms and small businesses, midsize businesses, it's much more challenging," Manak said. "So for a lot of those folks, it might make sense for them just to increase prices right away because they're going to have to make up that cost."

• Increasingly, young people with clean diets and healthy lifestyles are getting colon cancer.
• Doctors say diet plays a role in the rising risk, but doesn't tell the whole story.
• We are learning more about ways microplastics, sleep cycles, and our environment may play a role.

At 30, Chris Lopez was hitting his stride. He was attending culinary arts school in Dallas. He was meal prepping and hitting the gym regularly, focused on getting a degree and setting up his life right.

His symptoms were easy to dismiss, at least at first. "I had a real bad stomach ache that was going on for about a month," he told Business Insider. "I thought, 'Oh, maybe I ate some sushi, some fish or something that was undercooked.'"

Except food poisoning doesn't typically last for weeks on end, and doesn't leave blood in your stool. He rapidly lost weight, from 175 pounds to 145 in a single summer — without eating less. "I was pretty much like a skeleton," he said.

Lopez went to his doctor, who eventually decided to do a colonoscopy to learn more. That's when they discovered a "grapefruit-sized" tumor in his colon, he said. Lopez saw the scan and couldn't believe his eyes. Colon cancer? He was so young, healthy, and fit.

Stories like Lopez's are increasingly common. Colon cancer rates are rocketing among athletic young people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and survival rates are dropping.

Take Chris Rodriguez, a 37-year-old improv actor and CrossFit enthusiast who adheres to a high-fiber, high-protein diet, with plenty of veggies. He was 35 when he was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer.

"The question pops in your mind, 'What else was I supposed to do?'," Rodriguez told BI. "That's really the unfortunate thing with a diagnosis like this, is there isn't really much else that you're supposed to do, outside of looking for symptoms."

The most convenient explanations for the rise in young colon cancer are diet and weight. We know diet can influence colorectal cancer risk, and it's something people can fix, to a degree. Plus, our diets have changed. These days we all consume more sugar, more ultra-processed foods, more oil and butter, while moving less.

Still, doctors say the trend we're seeing now defies neat categories of genetics or lifestyle, and it's baffling. Other factors are clearly messing with our digestive systems, but they're tough to pinpoint. Pollution, microplastics, and artificial light — all are pervasive in society, yet very tricky to study.

Thanks to recent research, we are starting to get a better picture of why young colon cancer cases are rising, and we're on the cusp of some pretty big results that may uncover better ways to prevent and treat it.

Young colon cancer is getting deadlier and more common

Something shifted in the 1960s. Everyone born after 1960 has a higher colon cancer risk than previous generations. This phenomenon is known as the "birth cohort effect."

"The rise that we're seeing cannot just be accounted for by inherited differences," Dana Farber colon cancer researcher Dr. Marios Giannakis told BI.

In the US, young colon cancer rates have been rising about 3% every year since the early 1990s, according to National Cancer Institute data.

"We do think since genetics haven't changed, the cancers that are increasing are environmentally based," Dr. William Dahut, the chief science officer at the American Cancer Society, said during a recent briefing to reporters. "Exactly what's doing it is really — more research is needed."

The biggest cancer centers in the US are opening units to investigate this trend. In 2018, Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York opened a first-of-its-kind center for "young-onset" colorectal cancer patients. Dana Farber in Boston, Mass General, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Columbia University Irving Medical Center followed close behind, all opening special programs for young colon cancer cases.

In 2021, the CDC took action, lowering the age of recommended colon cancer screening from 50 to 45. It's an effort to catch more young colon cancer cases sooner, upping the odds of people surviving.

It isn't a uniquely American issue. Wealthy countries, in particular, are seeing similar spikes. New Zealand, Chile, Norway, and Turkey are among 27 countries recording record-high rates of young colon cancer.

Diets matter — to an extent

It's hard to dismiss the role our changing food landscape has played. We are undoubtedly eating worse than our grandparents did 100 years ago.

Take fiber, for example. Found in abundance in whole plant foods like beans, it is a nutrient clearly associated with lower risk of cancer.

Some of the most popular foods in US supermarkets — prepackaged for our convenience — tend to have fiber stripped out during processing, and extra salt, sugar, and oils added in to make them more palatable and shelf-stable.

It started in the aftermath of World War II, when industrial processing and factory farming took hold nationwide.

"Essentially we redeployed what had allowed the United States and allies to prevail in that war to non-military applications, and it completely transformed agriculture," Dr. David Katz, a leading expert in chronic disease prevention and nutrition, told BI.

"You only have a certain total number of calories you can eat per day, and if a higher percentage of those is made up of hamburgers and Pop-Tarts, then a lower percentage ipso facto is made up of lentils and all the other good stuff."

Ultra-processed foods now account for a significant proportion of what we eat. Excess sugar, salt, and chemicals lurk in pasta sauce, breakfast cereals, and salad dressing. Brown bread labeled "heart healthy" can have a higher sugar content than white Wonderbread.

Upsetting the balance of nutrients in our guts has consequences. Compounds that aren't necessarily harmful in moderation, like omega-6 fatty acids from seed oils, take up a disproportionate part of our diets. That can lead to inflammation, infection, and diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and, yes, colon cancer.

Your microbiome is not just about what you eat. It's influenced by myriad factors, from how you were born to your work schedule.

What else is going on?

Doctors and lab scientists who spoke to BI for this story all said the rise in millennials getting colon cancer likely won't be attributed to one single thing.

Shuji Ogino, an epidemiology professor at Harvard Medical School, has been studying young colon cancer cases across the world. He published a study in Nature that showed the early life "exposome" — diet, lifestyle, environment, exposures — has changed dramatically, becoming conducive to cancer.

We've introduced lots of new things to our environment without knowing the ramifications. Now, we're starting to see the long-term effects.

Something as simple as artificial light could play a role. "That's something no human being experienced 200 years ago," Ogino said. Lights allow us to work and socialize at all hours, impacting how our body clocks regulate hormones and metabolism.

Dr. Heinz-Josef Lenz, co-lead of the gastrointestinal cancer program at the University of Southern California cancer center, is also studying how the environment may be damaging our DNA in ways we don't yet understand.

His data so far suggests the trend of more younger folks developing colon cancer isn't genetic, but our genes may affect how we respond to our exposures — the processed food we eat, the antibiotics we take, and the polluted air we breathe.

"When you are 16 years old or 20 years old, you cannot blame it on diet or exercise or obesity — it's just too short," he said. "We're just scratching the surface on better understanding the impact of the parents, particularly in the young onset: was their exposure part of it, or not?"

Here are five things we're learning:

1. Sleep cycle

We can't separate gut health from our internal clock.

Gut bacteria help regulate sleep, which cuts cancer risk.

Emerging evidence suggests that disrupting the circadian rhythm creates problems in the gut that can contribute to colon cancer, according to studies in mice and data in humans. Our sleep can be derailed by late schedules and artificial light from our homes and phones, which may be one factor in rising colon cancer cases.

2. Microplastics in air and water

Increasingly, researchers are finding evidence that microplastics play a negative role in fertility.

They can also be pro-inflammatory, driving diseases like cancer and obesity, hurting lungs, and possibly helping cancer to thrive in the body.

A new evidence roundup from researchers at UCSF analyzed 22 studies that compared microplastic exposure to health problems in mice and people, and found that all of them showed some harm.

"We basically saw this continuous effect that the more you get exposed to it, so in our environment, the more it gets produced, the greater the health harm," Nicholas Chartres, one of the study's authors and a former head of the science and policy team at UCSF's program on reproductive health and the environment, told BI.

Chartres says the time is now to act to reduce our microplastic exposure, and it must be done at a policy level. At home, Chartres runs around the house throwing out his kids' plastic toys, but he knows he's playing a losing game of environmental whack-a-mole.

"We don't need to have specific quantification of the level of harm, there's enough here to show that they're certainly contributing," he said.

3. What your parents were exposed to

Lenz is conducting research that aims to unravel why so many Hispanic patients in Southern California seem to be especially at risk of developing early colon cancer.

His team is studying cancer patients' blood, DNA damage, lifestyles, and ZIP codes to pinpoint where their exposure risks might be coming from, whether it be overuse of antibiotics, pollution that families are exposed to, or something else.

"It could be an epigenetic event, not only from the patient itself but from the family, from the parents and their exposure," he said. "Epigenetics can be influenced by lifestyle and by exposure to chemicals, or whatever it is that will actually react."

4. Antibiotics

It is well established that antibiotics disrupt the gut microbiome, killing off some beneficial bacteria. And humans aren't the only antibiotic consumers.

Most of the antibiotics (73%) in use worldwide are for meat production, recent research suggests. Some meat advertised as antibiotic-free has failed independent testing.

Red meat consumption ups a person's colon cancer risk, and so does antibiotic use, but these two factors aren't necessarily separate.

5. C-section

Newborns are exposed to trillions of their mother's microbes as they travel through the birth canal, giving an infant's microbiome an initial boost. Kids who are delivered through the abdomen via cesarean section don't get those same health benefits.

Recent research from Sweden suggests girls who are born via c-section have a higher risk of developing young colon cancer than those born vaginally.

Major colon cancer discoveries coming in 2025-2026

In 2024, a group of international researchers mapped 1.6 million cells in the gut to create the most comprehensive picture to date — the "gut atlas."

"It's rare that any one study squeezes out all the relevant biological insights," Ivan Vujkovic-Cvijin, a professor of medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who was not involved in the study, told Business Insider.

"By identifying which components of tissue function are dysregulated in disease, the scientific community can design drugs to restore those functions," he said.

There's more to come. Multiple big, well-funded multinational studies are underway, including a US-UK collaboration that's giving out interdisciplinary cancer grants to teams around the world. The studies are expected to release results this year and next.

2 ways to reduce your risk today

Until we know better what's going on, researchers and clinicians say there are two steps you can take to reduce colon cancer risk.

First, control what you can control.

"Let's focus on the stuff we can change," Dr. Cassandra Fritz, a gastroenterologist and colon cancer researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, tells her patients.

That means no smoking, regular exercise, less alcohol, reducing your intake of ultra-processed snacks and processed meats, and no sugary beverages — factors directly linked with colon cancer risk. You could also consider microwaving food in glass or ceramic instead of plastic.

Second, know the signs of colon cancer and do not be complacent about them. Many young cases are diagnosed too late, making treatment complicated.

These four symptoms can occur up to 18 months before a colon cancer diagnosis:

• Abnormal diarrhea that lasts for weeks
• Persistent abdominal pain
• Bloody stool (red, magenta, or black)
• Iron deficiency anemia (determined by a blood test)

Don't fear the process of getting checked, experts told BI. Anyone dealing with these persistent symptoms can ask their doctor for a fecal immunochemical test (FIT) that is noninvasive and costs just a few dollars.

"If there are symptoms which could be associated with colon cancer, make sure you get the screening and don't just accept that they're saying 'It's unlikely' or 'I've never seen it,'" Lenz said.

When it's spotted early, colon cancer is a very survivable disease.