• Daniel Peebles left his film career to care for his two sons, one with special needs, full-time.
• Peebles' wife, Courtney, started a toy business in 2023, which she runs full-time from their home.
• The family business, Solobo, supports them now as Peebles embraces stay-at-home dad life.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Peebles, a 27-year-old stay-at-home dad in Arizona. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

While I was growing up with my dad in Virginia Beach, he would surf often. When I was eight, he asked me to start filming him surfing.

I learned to love telling stories, and as I got older, I picked up the camera again to make videos for my family and friends in our town for $100 each.

I grew that into a successful film career, but I quit to stay home and care for my two children, one with special needs, while my wife runs a company.

When I was 18, I started making real money with film projects

I decided not to go to college because I knew what I wanted to do for a career. At first, filming was just a hobby, but I started to get serious and charge more.

Through word of mouth, local businesses in our area contacted me to ask if I offered filming and editing services. I charged local companies between $1,000 and $3,000 per project.

I met the woman who would become my wife in 2017

Courtney was working as a producer at a mega church. We worked together on film projects and hit it off. We married in 2018 and moved in together.

I realized that the film projects I was doing here and there would not be enough income for a family — I needed a real job.

In 2018, I worked for six months at a mortgage company. Courtney was a multimedia specialist at the time. We were making good money but were miserable and wanted to spend more time together. We both quit at the end of that year.

I went back to freelancing for film projects in 2019

Our firstborn son was born in December. Courtney stayed home with our son, and I picked up freelance film work, but I lost all my film clients when the pandemic hit. Since opportunities were scarce, I networked and got a full-time job as a film director at Ironclad.

I was grateful for the work and the $80,000 salary. With bonuses, it was well into the six figures annually. Our second son was then born in May 2021.

My youngest son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which meant a lot of care

I traveled constantly. There were some weeks where I was gone three weeks out of the month. Every time I left home, I felt a ping because I didn't want my sons to grow up with a dad who wasn't around.

After my son's diagnosis, I started scaling back and moved into more post-production, which kept me at home.

My son requires supervision at all times and is on long-term care through our state. I'm the registered provider under the program. If I weren't registered, attendants would come to our home whenever needed.

Courtney became frustrated with our youngest son's toys

Courtney found that the toy industry lacks toys for neurodivergent kids. My youngest son had a lot of mobility issues with his hands. She couldn't find any toys to help him with those movements.

She started making things just out of cardboard, and then she kept having more ideas. Courtney started Solobo LLC, our family toy business, in March 2023. We invested $10,000 we had saved into prototypes.

At first, she worked on product creation, marketing, sales, and logistics for the business at night while I worked during the day.

We decided I would quit my job and let Courtney pursue her dream

As the business grew, I told Courtney how miserable I was being away from her and the boys, and we talked about her passion for the business. I hesitated about becoming a stay-at-home dad, but it seemed to be the right choice.

I was on my way to becoming the lead director of production when I quit my job at Ironclad in June 2023. I took the leap even though we had no savings at that point.

My dad traveled a lot for work while I was growing up, and I didn't get to see him as much as I wanted to. Staying home with my sons was more important to me than the money.

My day-to-day life as a stay-at-home dad is totally different

One of my kids wakes me up — they're my alarm. I get up and cook breakfast for the family. Courtney goes upstairs to work while I play with the boys.

We have activities a few times a week. I teach them practical things, like how to swim. The boys go to school a few times a week, too — it's an inclusive learning space through play.

I help Courtney with fulfillment coordination, inventory, and logistics at night. We have a few regular subcontractors and a team of pediatric experts.

Money is tight at times, but the business pays our bills

Our relationship has become stronger. Courtney and I first met through work, so it's cool to be working with my best friend again. I get the privilege of spending more time with my boys than most dads, and it's beautiful.

I've had people approach me who are genuinely puzzled that Courtney and I don't get tired of always being around each other. We work, laugh, cry, and dream together, and I wouldn't have it any different.

How I grew up — dads work, moms stay home — I felt there was a stigma for stay-at-home dads, but I did it anyway. I can see how we're building a better future for our boys.

The toy business continues to grow

I love the stay-at-home dad life. The only reason I would consider returning to work depends on the level of care our son needs (as he gets older) and where our business is by then.

Everyone thought I was crazy when I quit my film industry job to become a stay-at-home dad, but it was the best decision for our family.

• About a fifth of recruitment ads in 2024 were "ghost jobs," a Greenhouse report found.
• Ghost jobs frustrate candidates and erode trust, but hiring managers continue to see the benefits.
• Greenhouse and LinkedIn now offer verification features to help identify potential ghost jobs.

Everyone has a story about a role they thought they were perfect for, only to hear nothing back or be ghosted later on.

You may have even been love-bombed during an interview and told you were the ideal candidate, only for it to be crickets afterward.

Greenhouse may have an explanation. It found that between 18% and 22% of jobs listed with it in 2024 were appeals for new workers that never actually got filled.

The hiring platform surveyed 2,500 workers across the US, UK, and Germany, finding that three in five candidates suspected they had encountered a "ghost job."

In analyzing the data, Greenhouse found that about a fifth of the jobs posted on its platform could be classified this way — jobs that go up on boards but don't actually exist.

"The data highlights a troubling reality — the job market has become more soul-crushing than ever," Jon Stross, Greenhouse's president and cofounder, said in a statement.

Spotting a fake job ad

Ghost jobs are not a new phenomenon. Business Insider reported in 2022 on a survey of 1,000 hiring managers conducted by the lending firm Clarify Capital. Half of managers said they kept job postings live even when they weren't actively recruiting because they were "always open to new people."

A Resume Builder survey last May found that seven in 10 hiring managers also think it's "morally acceptable" to post ghost jobs, while three in 10 companies have posted fake listings.

Other reasons for putting up these ads include giving the impression of company growth, placating frustrated staff members, or holding out hope for the perfect "unicorn" candidate.

While hiring managers may see the benefit, in reality, ghost jobs frustrate candidates and erode trust in the process, BI's Tim Paradis reported last year.

The Wall Street Journal reported that in response to persisting ghost jobs, Greenhouse and LinkedIn now have a verification feature to help candidates weed out ads that may be a waste of time.

Some ways to identify a ghost job, BI previously reported, include it being up for 30 days or more, can no longer be found on the company's website, or a vague description of the role and its requirements.

• Almost 50 years ago, a young Donald Trump had a career breakthrough redeveloping a NYC hotel.
• Now, developers want to replace the property with the country's most expensive tower.
• The project's builders need almost $5 billion of federal loans to do it.

Donald Trump was a young developer eager to make a name for himself in the Manhattan real estate industry when he struck a career-making deal to redevelop the Commodore Hotel next to Grand Central Terminal into a 1,300-room Grand Hyatt clad in dark glass.

Nearly half a century later, Trump may again have an opportunity to play a role in the site's destiny when he returns to the White House.

New York developers RXR and TF Cornerstone have proposed leveling the property and raising a 1,575-foot-tall office and hotel tower in its place that would cost as much as $6.5 billion to construct. It would be both the tallest skyscraper by roof height ever built in America as well as the most expensive.

Renderings of the mega-tower show how it will dwarf surrounding structures, including the neighboring landmark Chrysler Building and even a new headquarters tower being built nearby for JPMorgan Chase.

As part of the work, the pair have imagined making improvements to portions of the historic neighboring train terminal and the subway station below the site.

To help pay for the immense project — called 175 Park Avenue — the developers are taking an unusual approach at a moment when lenders have remained wary to finance such large-scale office development.

The property was recently included on a list of mostly transportation related projects that are seeking access to federal money earmarked for transit infrastructure development and upgrades.

RXR and TF Cornerstone are planning to apply for as much as $4.84 billion of federal loans to help pay for the tower, according to the document. The developers expect to spend as much as $6.5 billion on the project, a sum that includes about $550 million of accompanying transit improvements they will make as part of the project. The team is listed as having submitted a draft letter of interest in the federal money, a preliminary and non-binding step in applying for the funding.

The federal money is discretionary and administered by the US Department of Transportation, meaning that the incoming Trump administration — and possibly even the president himself — will have decision-making authority over which projects are ultimately awarded.

"I would expect he'd be supportive and excited about it, and obviously at the appropriate time we're going to be reaching out," Scott Rechler, the CEO and chairman of RXR, said, noting that he hadn't yet attempted to discuss the tower project with the president-elect or anyone in his circle. "He understands office buildings better than any president before."

A shortage of capital for office development

Rechler said the project team behind 175 Park Avenue is exploring the federal loans because of lingering dislocations in the lending market that have made it difficult to source financing from private sector lenders.

Banks, life insurance companies, debt funds, and other sources of mortgage debt have pulled away from office financing as a result of concerns about the stresses of higher interest rates on property values and vacancies created by the enduring popularity of hybrid and remote work.

Trey Morsbach, an executive managing director at JLL who co-leads the firm's real estate debt advisory practice, said that multi-billion-dollar office projects are tricky to finance even during favorable leasing and lending conditions, requiring collections of lenders to divide the loan and spread their risk.

One Vanderbilt, a roughly 1,400-foot-tall tower that opened in 2020 on the other side of Grand Central Terminal from 175 Park Avenue, for instance, received a $1.5 billion construction loan from a group of six banks in 2016 in order to proceed.

Morsbach said that lenders were still funding office construction today, in large part because there is a growing belief that newly built, high-end spaces will outperform the broader market. The pool of active financing groups has shrunk, however, challenging deals like 175 Park Avenue that rely on lending consortiums and benefit from market depth.

Lenders "are interested, but just aren't willing to commit the same scale," Morsbach said.

An unused pot of tens of billions of federal dollars

RXR and TF Cornerstone are aiming to tap lending programs called the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act and Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing. The programs, known by their acronyms Tifia and Rrif, respectively, offer projects access to low-cost financing and long payback periods stretching 35 years or more.

The cost benefits of sourcing a loan at the scale necessary to fund the construction of 175 Park Avenue from the federal government versus the private market would be "absolutely astronomical" for the developers, according to Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, the Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate at Columbia Business School.

Although the programs are aimed at transit upgrades, they were updated as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 to allow funding for private development located "within a half mile walking distance of transit — commuter and intercity passenger rail stations," according to a DOT spokeswoman.

Few builders, however, have tapped the money, even though the Rrif program holds about $30 billion of unused funds, in part, because of the tedious qualification process.

To receive the financing, the 175 Park Avenue project must receive an investment grade credit rating from a major ratings agency and pass through a federal environmental review.

"It's extremely cumbersome to access that money," Van Nieuwerburgh said.

There has been optimism in the commercial real estate industry that the Trump administration will be more accommodative of business, including by stripping back regulation.

"Donald Trump comes in, his team cuts through the red tape, navigates through and unleashes a $6 billion project that's going to improve transit, create the biggest building in the Western hemisphere," Rechler said of 175 Park Avenue's potential appeal to the president-elect. "It speaks to a lot of his policies and the administration's approach to wanting to get things done."

Unflattering politics

Rechler, however, was for years closely aligned politically with former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo — a Democrat and nemesis of Trump's during his first term in the White House.

Rechler, who noted he is a registered independent, is hoping that economic development will prevail over politics.

But a person who is in line to become a Trump administration official said that Rechler's past associations may not be lost on the new administration.

"I'm not speaking for Trump, but I would be in utter shock if the transportation department, which must oversee the railroads, if they signed off on that deal," the person said.

• Jack Clark was a reporter at Bloomberg when I was an editor there.
• He told me he was quitting to join OpenAI in 2016.
• I told him that was a terrible idea. The rest is history.

In 2016, Jack Clark walked up to me in Bloomberg's San Francisco newsroom and asked if we could go for a walk. As an editor, it's often not good when one of your reporters makes a request like this.

Sure enough, as we sat on a bench looking over the Bay Bridge, Jack told me he was quitting to join a nonprofit called OpenAI.

I said this was a terrible idea. OpenAI was less than a year old at the time and was still a relatively obscure AI research group. Its major claim to fame was Elon Musk's (uneven) financial support.

I pressed my case. As a reporter on Bloomberg's Big Tech team, Jack had a pretty stable job. In contrast, OpenAI didn't seem to have much of a direction, and I couldn't see a path for it to become financially sustainable beyond asking Musk for more money. I selfishly also wanted Jack to stay at Bloomberg and keep covering Google and AI, which he was good at.

I thought I was pretty persuasive, but Jack ignored me and left.

"Just read the research papers"

He went on to be an influential expert and advisor on AI safety and related topics, co-authoring several AI research papers. Jack also built one of the most popular AI email newsletters, called Import AI, which researchers widely follow in the field. He still writes this regularly.

He often told me to "just read the research papers" when I asked how to learn more about AI and get better stories about the technology. He was right. There's a lot of valuable information buried in these papers.

Jack stayed at OpenAI for over four years, doing strategy and communications before becoming a policy director. He may have gotten some equity in that startup, but I'm not sure.

Then, in 2020, he left OpenAI and I didn't hear from him for a while. He popped up a few months later as one of seven cofounders of Anthropic, which was started by a bunch of early OpenAI employees.

Cofounders reminisce

Anthropic is now challenging OpenAI at the forefront of generative AI and large language models. It's backed by Amazon and Google, along with several top venture capital firms.

The cofounders got together last month to talk about the start of Anthropic. Jack holds court with his colleagues, who reminisce about the early days.

"I met Dario in 2015 when I went to a conference you were at, and I tried to interview you, and Google PR said I would've read all of your research papers," Jack says to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, who used to work at Google.

"I think I was writing 'Concrete problems in AI safety' when I was at Google," Amodei replies. "I think you wrote a story about that paper."

"I did," Jack says, with a cheeky smile.

Not his style

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic was raising money at a $60 billion valuation. Then, Forbes reported that the seven cofounders, including Jack, are set to become billionaires.

I asked Jack about this last week and said I wanted to interview him for a story. 

"Haha, Ali, thanks, but really not my style," he replied.

It's true. Jack is among the gentlest, kindest, and most self-deprecating people I've ever met. He's not classic billionaire material. 

I'm still stunned and trying to process his new situation. What I do know is that Jack's decision to ignore me was a testament to his passion, single-mindedness, and vision.

Back in 2015, when very few people thought about AI, he was obsessed with it and was constantly pushing to write about the technology at Bloomberg. 

Jack knew that AI was important. When his chance came, he took a risk and went for it.

• Mark Zuckerberg wants more "masculine energy" at Meta. There's some disconnect with the user base.
• In the US, 61% of men use Facebook — while 78% of women do.
• Academic studies suggest men and women view frequent posting to social media as a less masculine trait.

Mark Zuckerberg said he thinks Meta needs more "masculine energy" and that the company's culture has been "neutered" in the last few years.

There might be a disconnect between Zuckerberg's ambitions — which he shared on Joe Rogan's podcast last week — and the actual social platforms he runs. In the US, more women use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp than men. (Global numbers aren't available.)

Facebook — still the most popular social network — is where the gender divide gets even more obvious. A 2024 Pew Research Center report on social media use showed that 61% of adult men in the US used Facebook "at all," while 78% of adult women did. That 17-point difference is greater than the divide between men's and women's use of any other social network except Pinterest.

If you look back at a similar 2013 Pew report, 66% of men and 72% of women used Facebook. However, the most current metric is slightly different, measuring internet-using adults, not all adults. But even a decade ago, there was still a noticeable gap between the genders — and it's gotten bigger.

Quite simply, Facebook is in some way a women's platform — or at least it leans that way.

Now, of course, it's an exaggeration to say that men "don't" use Facebook — a majority of them say they use it or have an account.

But that doesn't tell us how they're using it, exactly — if they're frequently posting or engaging or just checking in once a month. I don't have data about which gender actually uses Facebook more, but I have some ideas based on both research and my own anecdotal experience that suggest that women are driving the daily conversations on the platform.

It's important to note that these stats are for US users, which makes up only a fraction of the 3 billion-plus users. Globally, the gender breakdown may be quite different; Meta doesn't release its own statistics on gender and declined to comment for this story.

So why don't more men use Facebook?

Why do more women than men use Facebook? I have some theories, some of which are sweeping generalizations about gender — like that some men don't find as much value or pleasure in keeping up with old acquaintances as women do.

You can see in the Pew study that other platforms like X (Twitter) and Reddit have more male users. This doesn't seem surprising at all, and you can probably come up with some easy theories in your mind right now as to why.

For our purposes, we're talking about traditional gender roles here. (I recognize the irony in talking about gender this way when Meta has just changed its content rules to allow for more hateful rhetoric about trans people). I am sure that there are many people out there — perhaps even you, dear reader — who don't use Facebook this way and can't relate to any of this. That's OK.

Frequent posting on social media is perceived as "feminine"

There is some interesting academic research that can help us try to make sense of this female energy. A study published last year looked into perceptions of masculinity and the use of social media. Participants were to rate the masculinity or femininity of a person who posts either frequently or infrequently. What they found was that consistently, people rated men who post frequently as being less masculine.

Andrew Edelblum, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Dayton, who authored the paper, and his coauthor tried different "bias-breakers" in their surveys: What if the man wasn't posting about himself but posting about other people? Or what if the man was posting not as a regular person but as a professional influencer who was doing it for work? They found that the perception remained the same — frequent posting was viewed as feminine.

Perhaps men, sensing this perception, stop themselves from being active on Facebook.

"What we found is, and we're drawing on, what at this point is kind of a well-known phenomenon of 'precarious manhood,'" Edelblum told Business Insider. "It's essentially the idea that 'man card' credentials are really hard to gain but very easy to lose."

Anecdotally, I have noticed that Facebook seems to be predominantly used by women. My male friends rarely use Facebook, and as I poke around many corners of the platform, either for professional or personal reasons, I tend to see fewer men posting in groups or even listing things on Marketplace.

I'm incredibly active on Facebook — I spend hours there a week, mainly in groups that are nearly all women — groups for parenting, fans of "Vanderpump Rules," shopping, or decorating (now that I think about it, perhaps Facebook being a matriarchal society is why I have more unregretted user seconds spent on there than, say, X).

I also see some well-worn gendered division of household labor dynamics play out: For example, my kid's school has an active Facebook Group, but it's almost all moms. Same with a group for hiring local babysitters. Even a non-gendered general local town group or a Buy Nothing group seems to be mainly used by women.

My husband deactivated his own Facebook account in 2009 after deciding it was "uncool," but I recently whined to him that it was unfair that I had to be the sole Facebook admin for the family. (He made a new account with a fake name so he can browse Marketplace at least.)

So what does this mean?

Mark Zuckerberg's comment about wanting more "masculine energy" was about his company's internal culture and the need to be more aggressive instead of accommodating external critics.

This has seemed to play out in some ways that appear boorish, like removing the tampons in the men's bathrooms that were meant to accommodate a handful of trans or nonbinary employees and visitors.

I do wonder if part of Zuckberg's apparent personal King of the Bros rebrand is hoping to entice younger men back to Facebook, trying to demonstrate that you can be both masculine and a frequent Facebook poster.

It seems that his comments and his actions aren't really meant for the nosy housewives who are among the biggest users of his platforms. His peacocking, new politics, and Joe Rogan appearances are meant for Silicon Valley workers who work at or invest in his products — and many of them seem to love it.

But somewhere, I do worry that people have forgotten something that seems clear to me: Facebook is powered by feminine energy.

• "Shark Tank" investor Barbara Corcoran is one of many celebrities to lose homes in the LA wildfires.
• Her property was in a mobile home community in Pacific Palisades that's been razed to the ground.
• She spent $150,000 renovating the trailer, which she called her "Taj Mahal."

The oceanfront mobile home that TV star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran spent hundreds of thousands renovating burned down during the Los Angeles fires.

The "Shark Tank" investor, 75, is among a growing list of celebrities and Hollywood A-listers to lose homes in the fires that continue to cause havoc in Los Angeles.

Corcoran's spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that her two-and-a-half bedroom trailer, located within the Tahitian Terrace mobile home community in Pacific Palisades, was razed to the ground by the flames and that she has launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds for the residents.

"I'm absolutely heartbroken about the mass devastation throughout Los Angeles," Corcoran said in a statement to BI. "Pacific Palisades and the Tahitian Terrace community in particular is a little slice of heaven."

Corcoran said she owned her home in the community for five years, during which she befriended many neighbors.

The park was originally built in 1963 and comprised 250 "manufactured homes," according to real estate group Compass.

"Many of the residents, most of them elderly, had built their lives here over many decades and planned to live out their retirement here," Corcoran added. "They've lost absolutely everything."

Corcoran's GoFundMe has raised more than $145,000 toward her goal of $600,000. She herself donated $100,000.

In 2023, a tour Corcoran gave of her mobile home, which has unobstructed views of the Pacific Ocean, went viral.

Shared by TikToker Caleb Simpson, who is known for posting videos of unique homes, the video included Corcoran joking that her trailer was her "Taj Mahal."

Corcoran said she bought the property for $800,000 and spent another $150,000 on renovations, including a pricey freestanding bathtub. "You're in a million-dollar home," she added.

‘Self-detonation and suicides: that’s the reality about North Korea’

Decision to aing Y.M.C.A. for Donald Trump’s inauguration marks a huge u-turn by group

A Los Angeles resident appeared away from home when their security camera system recorded the house being consumed by flames from a major wildfire.

The deadly Los Angeles area fires show what can go horribly wrong even when weather forecasts and warnings prove eerily prescient.

Why it matters: Weather forecasters are struggling with how to communicate the dangers of extreme weather events as those events increase in frequency and ferocity with human-caused climate change.

• This involves a mix of meteorology and climate science, along with social science research into how people respond to warning language and official advice.

The big picture: It's unclear if the public fully grasps the meaning of the National Weather Service's fire weather warnings or the criteria behind its terms, Stephen Bieda, chief of the service's Severe, Fire, Public and Winter Weather Services Branch, told Axios.

• "There is a larger-scale conversation going on" about better aligning NWS' products with input from communications and social science professionals, he said.

Zoom in: There are some eerie similarities between the firestorm that began to engulf portions of LA County on Jan. 7 and recent hurricanes — such as Ian and Helene — that were accurately forecast but still led to a large loss of life.

• In the case of Ian, some late shifts in the storm's path occurred but it remained within the so-called "cone of uncertainty." Yet many were caught off guard when storm surge roared across Sanibel Island and into Fort Myers Beach, killing dozens.
• The fires began during a period when the National Weather Service was practically screaming about the fire threat from a rare high wind event in ALL CAPS text.

The consensus was that any fire start could grow "explosively" and be nearly impossible to contain even with the pre-staging of fire crews.

• Sadly, four such fires occurred around the same time, overwhelming responders, many of whom had been prepositioned to act quickly.

Context: Red flag warnings were initially created for emergency managers and land management agencies in the 1990s, Bieda said.

• Similarly, "Particularly Dangerous Situation" Red Flag warnings were implemented about five years ago — again primarily for the emergency management community to increase readiness rather than the public.
• But, given the accessibility of information, those warnings are widely consumed, Bieda said.
• He said their basic message is that forecasters have the highest-possible confidence that a worst-case combination of dry vegetation, or fuels, and strong winds will occur to produce a potentially devastating event.

Friction point: According to Amanda Stasiewicz, a researcher at the University of Oregon, and Stephanie Hoekstra, a wildfire social scientist at CIRA and NOAA, it's one thing to tell people to be prepared for potentially dire fire weather conditions.

• But pinpointing fire ignitions isn't currently possible — and they said that may limit forecasts' utility.
• "You never know where the next fire is going to break out," Hoekstra told Axios. "Something that makes fires unique is that anywhere can be ground zero."

Both Stasiewicz and Hoekstra told Axios that so-called PDS Red Flag warnings are currently only used by some NWS forecast offices, including the LA office.

• They're geared mainly to partners of the NWS such as emergency management agencies and elected officials at the state, regional and local levels.
• Little research has been done on how they affect public preparation and response.

Between the lines: Social scientists who study responses to extreme weather watches and warnings — as well as evacuation orders — are limited by a lack of studies on wildfires, said Julie Demuth, who studies weather risks and decisions at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

• "A major challenge we have with answering these questions is that we often don't have the social science 'observations' we need to answer these event-specific questions," she told Axios via email.
• Even evidence gleaned from other fire-prone areas is relatively sparse, Demuth and other experts told Axios.

The intrigue: The NWS proactively anticipated the fire weather threat on Jan. 7, as well as the ongoing threat Tuesday through Wednesday.

• The first briefing for emergency managers on the Jan. 7 fire danger took place on New Year's Day, a Weather Service spokesperson said.
• The service's LA office began briefings the next day, but had first mentioned the threat in its forecast products as early as Dec. 30.
• Watches and warnings were hoisted beginning four days in advance of the event, NOAA's timeline states.

What's next: Its potential shortcomings aside, the Weather Service's most dire fire weather warning, the PDS Red Flag Warning, is in effect for parts of LA and Ventura Counties through Wednesday at noon.

Go deeper:

Climate change plays key contributing role in LA fires

New, rare fire warning issued in Southern California

The psychological toll of California's catastrophic fires

You’ve probably heard the statistics about indoor air being more polluted than outdoor air. Cleaning products, pet dander, cooking emissions off-gassing furniture and decor — they all contribute. Letting in fresh air from outside is the quickest way to clear things up, but if that’s not possible — due to wildfires, extreme weather, allergies or just plain bad air quality — an air purifier can help clean the air you breathe. With their combination of filters, fans and sensors, these helpful devices remove particulate matter, VOCs, dust, dander and even smells from the air. We tested a handful of well-reviewed options to find the best air purifier for most people, along with a few alternatives and even an air purifying plant.

What an air purifier can and can’t do

There are three key categories of air pollution that adversely affect the quality of the air you breathe: volatile organic compounds (VOC), particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and carbon dioxide. VOCs are emitted gasses that can come from cleaners, off-gassing plastics, paint, solvents, fragrances, cooking food and, ironically, air fresheners. VOCs are most closely related to odors you can smell. High levels can irritate your breathing passages, cause headaches and may become cancer-causing over time. Air purifiers with activated charcoal components can help clean VOCs from the air.

Particulate matter is usually discussed as PM2.5 and PM10, with the numbers indicating particle size in microns. This is dust, dirt, mold, smoke and, again, emissions from cooking food. Higher levels of PM can lead to respiratory irritation, allergy symptoms, respiratory infections and potentially lung cancer. Air purifiers that include a HEPA or particle filter can help remove airborne particles from your space.

Carbon dioxide is what humans and pets breathe out. Elevated levels can cause dizziness and lethargy. But no air purifier can reduce CO2 levels because the molecules are so small. Plants can help to some extent, but really the only solution is opening a window or otherwise ventilating the space.

There are no federal standards for air purifiers, but the state of California does require all air cleaners sold in the state to be certified by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). All of our top picks here have met that certification.

What to look for in an air purifier

HEPA filters and other filter types

An air purifier isn’t an overly complicated device. Smart modes and app connectivity aside, they’re not much more than a filter and a fan. The latter pulls air through the former to capture particulate matter and other unhealthy elements so you don’t breathe them in. The type of fan can make some difference — it should be powerful enough to pull in air quickly, but also quiet enough on its low speed so it can unobtrusively clean all day long.

Filters, on the other hand, are more varied. Most have two or more layers, typically a pre-filter, an activated carbon component and sometimes a particle or even a true HEPA filter. The pre-filter is made from a fine mesh that captures big stuff like pet hair and larger chunks of dust. Sometimes this part is separate from the more technical filters — which means you can remove and clean it without needing to swap out the whole thing. For all-in-one filters, you can vacuum the outside of it to remove larger particles.

An activated carbon or activated charcoal layer is extremely porous, tightly packed coal that presents a vast amount of microscopic surface area to the passing air. Gaseous chemicals, VOCs and other molecules become lodged in the crannys and stick. This is the layer that gets rid of odors.

Nearly all types of air purifiers include a particle filter. Some of those can be called "true HEPA" (high-efficiency particulate air) filters — meaning they conform to the standards set out by the DOE. Particle filters are made up of pleated masses of ultrafine fibers that force air to take a convoluted path in order to pass through. This traps and absorbs tiny molecules of smoke and dust, allergens like dander and pollen, and some viruses and bacteria.

Since all of these air filters physically trap particulates, they’ll eventually fill up and become less effective. Most manufacturers recommend replacing the filter every six months, while others claim a year-long life span. Most smart air purifiers will let you know in the app when it’s time to replace. When you’re considering a unit’s cost, be sure to factor in the expense of replacement filters, which you may end up buying twice a year.

Room size

Air purifiers list their cleaning capabilities in terms of room size and frequency of air exchanges, sometimes listed as clean air delivery rate (CADR). For example, a smaller one might say it can exchange the air in a 500-square-foot room twice per hour. So that model should be able to pass all of the air in a 250-square-foot room through the filter every 15 minutes, but a 1,000-square-foot room would probably be outside its effective range. Of course, there’s no standard for manufacturers to adhere to when it comes to these calculations, but typically, larger air purifiers can handle large rooms.

Where you put the machine makes a difference, too. Since it requires airflow to effectively clean air, somewhere close to the middle of the room and at least a foot away from furniture, walls and other potential blockages is ideal. That’s not always practical, so aim for getting it as close as you can to the center of your space while maintaining a one-foot clearance all around.

Controls

In our testing, we focused on Wi-Fi-connected “smart” air purifiers with companion apps that can monitor air quality and adjust the fan settings as needed. Within the apps, you can control auto-clean settings, set timers and schedules and check the health of the filter as well. Most will remind you when it’s time to get a replacement, and let you order one directly from the manufacturer through the app. You can also see the current and historical readings from the internal air quality (AQ) sensor. Most determine air quality through an optical particle meter, though some brands like Dyson and Molekule also include chemical sensors for VOC measurements. When levels of particulates become elevated, the fans switch up to high speed to move more air through until the quality improves.

Most smart purifiers also work with voice assistants, so if asking Alexa to turn on your air purifier makes your life easier in some way, you can do so. If you don’t want to talk to an AI or grab your phone to control your purifier, getting a unit with simple on-board controls is a good idea. These can be as basic as buttons with indicator lights or as elaborate as a touchscreen panel. At minimum, it’s good to have a way to control the fan speed and turn on or off auto mode on the device itself.

Design

As we mentioned, sticking the device as close to the middle of the room is helpful for getting the best performance. That means you’ll be looking at it a lot, so design considerations matter. Most purifiers are cylindrical towers with fan vents up top. Units meant for larger rooms are not small, weighing between 12 and 20 pounds and reaching two feet tall (or in the case of the Dyson Purifier Cool, three and a half feet). Some, like Coway’s Airmega IconS, take on more furniture-like designs to blend in. Others, like Dyson's, are conspicuously designed to stand out.

When an air purifier just isn’t enough

The most striking bit of knowledge I picked up from testing air purifiers is how effective opening windows can be on indoor air quality. What took an air purifier a half hour to clear out took mere minutes when I opened my front door and a few windows. Every variable measured by the air quality sensors, including VOCs, PM, and particularly CO2 levels (which air purifiers can’t alleviate), improved dramatically after exposure to fresh air — significantly faster and better than any machine we tested. Even on very cold or very hot days, it might be worth it, even if your doors and windows are only open for a few minutes. True, my HVAC system had to work a little overtime afterwards, but venting a room was the most surefire way of getting air quality quickly back in the green. Of course, if the air outside is unhealthy from wildfire smoke or run-of-the-mill pollution, or if you're dealing with seasonal allergies, throwing open the windows won’t work and an air purifier might be the best way to consistently clean things up.

How we test air purifiers

My living room is not a science lab; there’s far too much pet hair for that to be the case. Still, I went beyond just turning stuff on and sniffing the air by acquiring two consumer-grade indoor air quality monitors that performed well in laboratory assessments, the Element from Element from Awair and the uHoo Smart Air Monitor. I conducted burn tests in this medium-sized room by measuring the ambient air quality, then burned a brick of piñon incense for twenty minutes and measured the air again. Then I ran one purifier at its highest speed for thirty minutes and recorded levels, then ran the unit on the lowest setting for a half hour and remeasured. I made note of the sound levels using a simple iPhone app to compare one machine’s noise level to the next.

Over the course of a month, I used each unit in different scenarios (such as in the basements where the cat litter boxes are) and tried out each device’s smart features, controls and auto modes. I also just lived with them and evaluated how they fit into everyday life. As new purifiers come on the market and as we become aware of other units that seem worthy of inclusion, such as Blueair we’ll continue to test them and update this guide accordingly.

Best air purifiers for 2025

Other air purifiers we tested

Sensibo Pure

At $229, and nearly always on sale for $130, I had the Sensibo Pure pegged as a contender for a budget pick. Unfortunately, replacement filters are $99 unless you subscribe to automatic shipments and many of the app features are behind a paywall as well. It’s not certified by CARB and underperformed many of the other units in the burn test, though it did return the air back to a “good” rating according to the air monitors after 30 minutes. The design is inoffensive, it’s not overly loud and it does integrate with Sensibo’s smart AC devices, so if you’re already happy with one of those, this may be a decent option.

Dyson Purifier Cool

Like all Dyson products, this air purifier is dripping with design. It looks like no other unit on the market and it’s up to you to decide whether you like that or not. I was indifferent to the looks, but appreciated the slick and informative app, which not only displays indoor air quality, it also shows what conditions are like outside, using a clever house graphic to differentiate the two sets of numbers. I also like that it detects VOCs as well as particulates and the auto mode seemed to read the room accurately. The air coming out of the fan did indeed feel cool, though at first had a strong plastic odor. Unfortunately, it was the lowest performing unit during two separate burn tests and had repeated connectivity issues.

Molekule Air Pro

The Molekule Air Pro comes from a brand that pays keen attention to aesthetics. It and the app have that Instagrammable, muted-modern look that countless clothing and bedsheet brands emulate these days. That style doesn’t come cheap as the Air Pro costs over $1,000 and requires $140 filters. The company came under fire for and had to stop making many of its claims about its filtration system, which may have led to it filing for bankruptcy in 2023. Molekule is still able to tout its patented photoelectrochemical oxidation, which the company says destroys pollutants at a “molecular level.” In my tests, it performed almost as well as the others in improving VOC and PM2.5 levels. But it’s also very loud: When auto mode kicked the fan into high gear, it would make me tense. Also, I found the unit often indicated “bad” or “very bad” levels when my two monitors indicated the air quality was actually pretty good.