• California Gov. Gavin Newsom is already looking ahead to an "LA 2.0" post-wildfire.
• He said he is "organizing a Marshall Plan" to hasten the city's recovery efforts.
• The fires, which started last week, burned through more than 40,300 acres of land and resulted in at least 24 deaths.

As the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles continue to rage, Gov. Gavin Newsom is looking toward rebuilding an "LA 2.0" post-fire.

Newsom was asked in an NBC "Meet the Press" interview on Saturday if California would be ready to host the World Cup, the Super Bowl, and the Olympics over the next couple of years in the aftermath of the wildfires.

Speaking against the backdrop of a fire-ravaged neighborhood, Newsom said that he's already "organizing a Marshall Plan" and already has a team "looking and reimagining LA 2.0."

The Marshall Plan harkens back to the post-World War 2 period when President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. The act saw more than $13 billion invested in rebuilding Western Europe's economies, bringing investments into the region, and stimulating the US economy by building a market for American goods.

When asked for details of the new "Marshall Plan," Newsom said he was talking to city, civic, business, nonprofit, and labor leaders about recovery efforts and working to "galvanize the community."

"We have got to be thinking three weeks, three months, three years ahead; at the same time, we're focusing on the immediacy, which is life safety and property," he told NBC.

Representatives for Newsom did not provide further comments in response to queries from Business Insider.

Newsom said in the interview that the wildfires will likely be one of the worst natural disasters in the country's history, in terms of the costs associated with it and its scale and scope.

AccuWeather, a weather forecasting service, estimated the total economic damage to land between $52 and $57 billion. JPMorgan analysts estimated that insured losses could reach $20 billion.

The wildfires have ravaged over 40,300 acres of land across Los Angeles. At press time, at least 24 people have died, and according to CalFire statistics, more than 12,300 structures have been damaged.

As the fire passed through the wealthy Pacific Palisades neighborhood, the homes of several Hollywood A-listers, like Paris Hilton, Milo Ventimiglia, and Billy Crystal, burned down.

The two largest fires, the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, are only 11% and 27% contained, per CalFire.

The governor said he had also ordered an investigation into why fire hydrants ran dry and lost water pressure in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, hindering firefighting efforts.

Newsom's latest statements come as he faces criticism from President-elect Donald Trump for his handling of the wildfires.

In a Truth Social post, Trump called Newsom "incompetent" and said he was to blame for the wildfires.

Newsom said in the NBC interview that Trump's comment was "inaccurate."

He then invited Trump to "come out" to California and "take a look for himself." Newsom's team has also launched a fact-checking website to combat misinformation about the fires.

• Dutch pension fund ABP sold its Tesla stake over Musk's pay and working conditions at the company.
• ABP disagreed with Musk's compensation package and voted against it in June.
• The fund called the pay package "controversial and exceptionally high."

A Dutch civil service pension fund sold its entire stake in Tesla over disapproval of CEO Elon Musk's pay package and working conditions at the company.

Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, one of Europe's largest pension funds, sold 2.8 million shares in the electric vehicle maker in September because it disagreed with Musk's pay package, Dutch outlet Het Financieele Dagblad reported Friday. The report did not detail the fund's specific concerns about labor conditions at the company.

A spokesperson for ABP, which manages $552 billion overall, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bloomberg reported that ABP's Tesla stake was valued at about $585 million.

In a statement to the NL Times, ABP said "we cannot and do not need to invest in everything," and that the divestment was not politically motivated. Musk has been a prominent supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, and is co-leading a commission called the Department of Government Efficiency.

In 2018, Tesla's board and shareholders voted in favor of a performance-based compensation plan. The same year, a shareholder sued Tesla and Musk, arguing that Musk influenced the board's decision through his personal relationships with board members, including his brother. In January 2024, a Delaware judge ruled to strike down Musk's compensation package, siding with a shareholder. The stock option-based package could be worth tens of billions of dollars.

In June, the EV maker held a second vote, which led to shareholder approval of Musk's pay. ABP voted against the pay package and called it "controversial and exceptionally high."

Last month, the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, once again ruled against the compensation package, saying that Tesla's June shareholder vote wasn't enough to pass the package.

Tesla's Model Y was the best-selling car in the Netherlands in 2024, but the carmaker's sales have been declining in Europe. New Tesla car registrations from January to November 2024 fell over 15% compared to the same period in 2023, according to European Automobile Manufacturers Association data.

Tesla is worth about $1.27 trillion and its stock has risen about 74% in the past year.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A historic Black community that grew out of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s is among the communities wiped away by devastating wildfires charring through Los Angeles County.

The big picture: The Eaton Fire has all but flatted the many Black-owned homes and businesses in the unincorporated area of Altadena, California, in San Gabriel Valley and the Verdugos regions.

Zoom in: The community of 42,000 residents — 18% are Black — has been among the hardest hit by wildfires that so far have claimed 24 lives and burned away over 12,000 structures across the county.

• The Eaton Fire alone charred more than 1,000 structures and killed at least five people in Altadena, per the Los Angeles Times.

Octavia E. Butler, the late-pioneering Black science fiction novelist who wrote about a wildfire from climate change starting on February 1, 2025, in her novel "Parable of the Sower," is buried in an Altadena cemetery.

• The cemetery caught fire, the LA Times reports.

Zoom out: Satellite images of burning buildings in Altadena examined by Axios show that last week, a large portion of the community was in flames or burned to ash.

• The images give clues to how quickly the fire moved to long-protected communities because of high winds and drought conditions.
• The whole community was ordered to evacuate when the Eaton Fire began last week and has since claimed many of the community's churches, landmarks and much of its downtown.

State of play: Much attention on the wildfires has focused on the destruction of homes in wealthy areas and of celebrities, but Altadena's devastation shows how middle-class areas and communities of color were also hit.

• In the days after the Eaton Fire started, Black residents returned to homes passed down by family members only to see them gone as the fire burned block.
• The community, where 58% of residents are people of color, also saw many Latino and Asian American residents return to rubble.

Among those returning to ash in Altadena was Shawn Brown, a Black homeowner. She told The Associated Press she lost her home and a charter school she founded.

• She had a message for fellow Black homeowners in the wake of despair: "I would tell them to stand strong, rebuild, continue the generational progress of African-Americans."

Flashback: In 1960, 95% of Altadena's residents were white, according to Altadena Heritage, a nonprofit organization that seeks to preserve the community's history.

• After President Lyndon Johnson signed several civil rights bills, including The Fair Housing Act of 1968, Altadena's Black population grew from 4% in 1960 to 27% in 1970.
• Altadena was one of the few communities offering housing and loans to Black Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. As a result, it became a popular community for a growing Black middle class seeking to escape discrimination elsewhere.

Stunning stat: Before the fire, the Black homeownership rate stood at 81.5% — nearly the national rate for Black homeowners, per the AP.

What we're watching: Recovering and rebuilding efforts typically overlook communities of color, who struggle amid the maze of insurance bureaucracies and federal disaster relief programs.

• Communities like Altadena near wildfire-prone areas may consider building fire-prevention walls or barriers, as Octavia E. Butler foresaw in her futuristic novels.

More from Axios:

• Climate change plays key contributing role in L.A. fires
• L.A. fires could be the U.S.' worst natural disaster, Newsom says
• L.A. County fires already among most destructive ever recorded in California

• DOGE plans to deploy its staffers to major government agencies after Donald Trump takes office.
• Two DOGE representatives will be embedded at each agency, The New York Times reported.
• The commission has been hiring since it was announced in November.

Elon Musk's government efficiency commission is looking to embed staffers at government agencies to lead cost cutting efforts.

Most major government agencies will be given two representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing about a dozen people who are familiar with DOGE's operations.

Those who aren't deployed will instead be stationed at the US Digital Service, a branch of the White House that provides IT consulting services to federal agencies, the outlet reported.

Then-President Barack Obama described the USDS as a "startup at the White House" when he created the agency in 2014.

The Times added that DOGE could also have an office at the White House's Office of Management and Budget. The OMB prepares the president's budget request for Congress.

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

In November, Trump announced that DOGE would be co-led by Musk and biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. The commission, Trump said in his announcement, is set to conclude its work by July 4, 2026.

DOGE kicked off its recruitment efforts in the same month. The commission started an account on Musk's social network X and asked applicants to send in their CVs via direct message.

Thus far, the commission said it has been hiring for software engineering, information security engineering, HR, IT, and finance roles.

Back in October, Musk said that DOGE would help the government to save at least $2 trillion, though he didn't specify where the savings would come from. The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year.

Last week, Musk said that saving $2 trillion would be "the best-case outcome" for DOGE, adding that his commission had a "good shot" at saving $1 trillion.

"If we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome," Musk told Mark Penn, the chairman and CEO of marketing company Stagwell, in an interview on January 8.

Steve Bannon will "do anything" to keep Elon Musk out of the incoming administration, the former Trump White House adviser said in a new interview.

Why it matters: The conservative media firebrand's comments to Corriere della Sera about the tech billionaire whom whom Trump has tapped to co-lead the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) mark an escalation in a MAGA-world civil war over immigration as the president-elect prepares to begin his second term.

What he's saying: "I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day" on Jan. 20, Bannon told the Italian outlet, per excerpts from the interview published in English by Bannon's former employer Breitbart over the weekend.

• "He will not have full access to the White House. He will be like any other person," Bannon said.
• "He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down."

Driving the news: The MAGA world division emerged last month over the H-1B visa scheme that's designed to attract foreign workers to the U.S. and which the South African-born naturalized U.S. citizen Musk has said he held.

• Some in MAGA world want to restrict immigration and promote U.S. workers, but Axios' Ben Berkowitz and Zachary Basu note others want to cut costs and increase efficiency no matter who does the work.
• Musk branded Republicans opposed to the scheme "hateful, unrepentant racists" following anti-Indian rhetoric online and Trump publicly backed the world's richest person over the visas.
• "This thing of the H-1B visas, it's about the entire immigration system is gamed by the tech overlords, they use it to their advantage, the people are furious," said Bannon in his interview, adding that Musk's "sole objective is to become a trillionaire."
• Bannon said Musk "should go back" to South Africa. "Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?" he said.

Zoom out: Musk donated millions of dollars to Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign after endorsing him in July following the assassination attempt on the Republican leader at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally,

• Musk has said he voted for Democrats Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in previous presidential elections.
• Bannon cast doubt on Musk's intentions during his interview.
• "He will do anything to make sure that any one of his companies is protected or has a better deal or he makes more money," he said. His aggregation of wealth, and then — through wealth — power: that's what he's focused on."

Between the lines: Trump fired Bannon during his first administration. However, the "War Room" podcast host remains an influential figure in MAGA world.

• He was released from prison in October after serving a four-month sentence on contempt of Congress charges for refusing to comply with a subpoena related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
• Representatives for Musk's companies, Bannon and Trump did not immediately respond to Axios' comments in the evening.

Go deeper: Reality bites: Trump and Musk pare back promises as inauguration approaches

• Ukraine has been releasing excerpts of what its forces say is a North Korean soldier's diary.
• They include a stick-figure sketch of using a comrade as "bait" to shoot down a drone.
• Other entries include musings on class struggles and a confession for stealing undisclosed Russian items.

Excerpts from a North Korean soldier's diary released by Ukraine show a glimpse at how Pyongyang's troops in Russia believed they could defend against drones and artillery strikes.

Ukraine's special forces have been releasing excerpts of the diary since Christmas week, saying the entries were written by a now-deceased North Korean private named Gyeong Hong Jong.

The latest of these, published on Thursday, appeared to feature the young soldier confessing that he was stealing items from his Russian allies to sell. He did not specify what the stolen goods were but wrote that he had been caught.

"While working in the barracks, I thought that no one was watching me and put the Russians' things in my pocket," the diary excerpt said, per Ukraine's special forces.

"I will no longer trade in other people's things. I will heroically advance in the forefront and destroy the enemy," the soldier added.

Other entries released by Ukraine included praises of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and musings on class struggle.

"Longing for my homeland, having left the warm embrace of my dear father and mother here on Russian land. I celebrate the birthday of my closest comrade Song Ji Myong," another entry read, per a translation by The Wall Street Journal.

One of the earliest entries, published by Ukraine on December 26, featured a stick-figure drawing of what the soldier described as "How to eliminate a drone."

The simple illustration showed a figure standing upright on open ground while another two stick figures fired at a quadcopter drone.

"If a UAV is spotted, gather in groups of three," the diary read, per The Journal's translation. "One person must act as bait to lure the drone while the other two take aim and neutralize it with precision shooting. The bait must maintain a distance of seven meters from the drone. The other two should prepare to shoot down the drone from a distance of 10 to 12 meters. When the bait stands still, the drone will stop and it can be shot down."

Ukraine's special forces said the North Korean soldier also wrote of how to avoid artillery strikes. An excerpt of his diary said that Pyongyang's troops were supposed to "disperse in small groups" if fired upon by artillery.

The excerpt also said he could hide in the location of "the previous hit" because he believed artillery doesn't repeatedly strike the exact same spot.

Business Insider couldn't independently verify the authenticity of the diary entries. Ukraine posted photos of what it said were the soldier's corpse and passport. The Journal also cited a former North Korean soldier and a former South Korean major general who said the choice of words in the diary aligned with the ideology and vernacular of North Korea's troops.

The soldier's diary could give insight into how North Korean forces are adapting battlefield doctrine for combat in Russia.

The West worries that Pyongyang's involvement will allow its forces to glean valuable lessons from battling Ukraine, especially as they face off against American and European equipment and encounter drone warfare.

Dorothy Camille Shea, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday that Pyongyang "is significantly benefiting from receiving Russian military equipment, technology, and experience, rendering it more capable of waging war against its neighbors."

Western and South Korean intelligence says that 12,000 North Korean troops are stationed and fighting in Kursk, a Russian border region that Ukraine attacked in the summer of 2024.

Moscow hasn't addressed the presence of Pyongyang's troops on its soil, but Ukraine has increasingly been trying to cast a spotlight on North Korea's direct involvement in the war.

Most recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy published images of who he said were two captured North Korean soldiers. He did not provide evidence that they were North Korean, though Seoul's intelligence service backed up his claim.

"This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea's involvement in the war against Ukraine," Zelenskyy wrote. He has said that around 3,000 North Korean soldiers were wounded or killed.

Thousands of North Korean troops serve as a valuable source of manpower for Russia, which is relying on mass infantry assaults along the front lines to whittle down Ukraine's defenses.

Still, Pyongyang's reinforcements are still few compared to the over 600,000 people that Ukraine and the West believe Moscow has lost.

Russia is believed to be providing Kim with much-needed finances, economic support, food, and technology in exchange for the latter's troops.

• Microsoft Outlook is an email platform with productivity features like calendar and file-sharing.
• Microsoft discontinued its old email platforms, MSN and Hotmail, and folded them into Outlook.
• Outlook is free for personal accounts, but paid subscriptions offer greater storage and security.

In case you hadn't noticed, Microsoft has a released a lot of software over the past five decades. From its groundbreaking Windows operating system to its search engine Bing to stalwart programs like Word and Excel, now a part of the subscription-based Microsoft 365 suite, the company is a juggernaut of the software industry.

And when a company has released a plethora of programs, it's no surprise that the company has cancelled, merged, or rebranded many programs, too.

What is Microsoft Outlook?

Microsoft Outlook is, first and foremost, an email platform, but it goes well beyond just sending and receiving electronic mail. It also features a calendar, an easy way to store and manage contact information, file sharing of data saved in the cloud, and schedule and task tracking.

Microsoft Outlook is free to use for personal email and calendars, but there are some limitations. For example, a free Outlook account can only store up to 15 GB of mail, and that cap can be surprisingly easy to reach. Also, advanced security features are only available with a paid subscription.

Using Outlook is a great way to streamline your work and home life, keeping yourself up-to-date and aware of appointments, assignments, travel, deadlines, and more. You can set it up such that flight or hotel reservations are automatically added to your calendar, so that it will remind you of scheduled events, and you can set it to flag important messages for you — and to screen out the unimportant, too.

What happened to Hotmail and MSN?

Both Hotmail and MSN, also known as MSN Messenger, have been discontinued for a number of years, folded into other products. Chat messaging platform MSN was first released in 1999 and was rebranded as Windows Live Messenger in 2005.

Though it was used by hundreds of millions of people each month, following the acquisition of Skype in 2011, Microsoft found its own messaging platform redundant. The company shut the messenger service once known as MSN down for good in 2013. MSN email addresses still work, but they are managed via Outlook

Interestingly enough, the year 2013 also tolled the death knell for Hotmail. The mail platform was founded in 1996 and acquired by Microsoft the following year, and would enjoy nearly 17-year run until it was folded into Microsoft Outlook. You can still get an email address using @hotmail.com, but you'll need to sign up for it via Microsoft Outlook.

Is Microsoft discontinuing Outlook?

There are no plans for Microsoft to discontinue its Outlook platform. In fact, the company announced that as of the end of 2024, its Mail and Calendar applications would no longer be supported and that their functions would be rolled into Outlook, so Microsoft is putting even more of the proverbial eggs in the Outlook basket.

Outlook vs. Gmail

From contact management to calendar services to, of course, email, Microsoft Outlook and the Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Google Meet, Google Drive, and Google Docs, have a lot of crossovers.

Google's professional suite is great for collaborative teams, offering more storage space and easy ways to connect, work on shared documents, and to swap files. Alternatively, people wanting advanced email features and numerous optional automations might prefer Outlook.

Both are superb workflow suites; it's truly a personal call.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a "60 Minutes" interview airing Sunday he's retiring early because he didn't want to thrust the Bureau "deeper into the fray" after facing intense criticism from President-elect Trump.

Why it matters: Trump nominated Wray in 2017 for what's typically a 10-year term, but the FBI chief has in recent years been criticized by the Republican leader and his allies over issues related to Trump and President Biden.

• During the interview, Wray addressed being criticized over FBI investigations by both a Republican and a Democratic president.

Context: The president said after issuing a presidential pardon for his son Hunter Biden following his conviction on felony gun charges and guilty plea on felony tax charges that he believed "raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice."

What he's saying: "This is a hard job. You're inevitably going to make different people angry, often very powerful people," Wray said on "60 Minutes."

• "But part of the essence of the rule of law is to make sure that facts, and the law, and proper predication drive investigations, not who's in power, not who wants it to be so or not so," he told CBS' Scott Pelley.
• On his relationship with Trump souring after the FBI investigated alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, Wray said an investigator's job was to "follow the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it."

Zoom in: On criticism about Trump's classified documents investigation that saw the FBI searching the Republican leader's Mar-a-Lago home, Wray said the FBI strived to follow the rules throughout, and he believed they did this.

• Wray said a search warrant is "not anybody's first choice" and they always try less intrusive means, like getting information back voluntarily and after that via a subpoena.
• "Only if, after all that, we learn that the agents haven't been given all of the classified material and in fact those efforts have been frustrated, even obstructed, then our agents are left with no choice but to go to a federal judge, make a probable cause showing, and get a search warrant," Wray said.
• "That's what happened here," added Wray, who described himself during the interview as a "conservative Republican."
• He said he hadn't had "any interaction with the Biden White House about investigations into the former president and neither to his knowledge had anyone else from the FBI.

The bottom line: Wray said in his 7.5 years of experience as FBI chief he'd seen "people often claim to be very interested in independence and objectivity until independence and objectivity lead to an outcome they don't like." 

• He added: "Truth is truth, not necessarily what either side wants it to be. And ultimately all we can do at the FBI is make sure that we stay focused on doing the work in the right way. Following our rules and not letting preferences, partisan or otherwise drive or taint the approach."

Threat level: Wray told Pelley that China's government targeting U.S. civilian critical infrastructure was the biggest threat the incoming Trump administration faced.

• "Things like water treatment plants. We're talking about transportation systems. We're talking about targeting of our energy sector, the electric grid, natural gas pipelines," he said.
• "Recently we've seen targeting of our telecommunications systems.  … we believe that they have collected their content, the actual communications of those people."

Meanwhile, "the most challenging type of terrorist threat we face" is online radicalization from extremist groups.

• Wray noted that the FBI's investigation into the New Orleans New Year's Day terrorist attack indicates at this stage that the suspect was "radicalized online" and he "appears to have been inspired — from afar — by ISIS."

Flashback: House GOP drops plan to hold FBI director in contempt

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.

• As the mom of two tweens, I really wish schools would keep snow days.
• I have so many great memories from those unexpected magical days growing up.
• I feel like my kids spend too much time on screens for school already; let them have fun.

As temperatures drop, I hope school administrators call for at least one "old-fashioned" snow day this season. I think it's important that kids across the country — including my own two pre-teens — experience the style of snow days that I did growing up, and not because I got to stay inside relaxing. In fact, I learned surprising lessons in those days about history, science, and art.

Lawmakers in states including Iowa, New Jersey, and Virginia have introduced bills to make it easier for districts to replace traditional days off with remote classes. I hope this doesn't become the preference. Kids will lose out if they're robbed of the unexpected time to be curious.

I have fond memories of my snow days

When I think back to the snow days I enjoyed growing up in the 1980s — in the farm-filled New Jersey town of Freehold — I picture long strings of glowing red lights.

My dad would drive my brother and me to Monmouth Battlefield State Park, where lit-up displays at the visitors' center outlined routes that Washington's Army and British soldiers took to get to the bloody battle in which as many as 400 died. We were actually there because the hilly park has become a popular sledding destination, but after we took turns careening toward the woods on our creaky Flexible Flyer, we'd head inside to thaw out and study the displays.

I remember learning about the long battle that took place on a hot day, pondering what it was like for soldiers to battle the elements through the seasons as they battled each other. Reading history in a textbook was one thing; seeing a display or demonstration was more impactful.

I learned a lot while out of the classroom

When winter came, I used to write the forecasts on a wall calendar near my bed. Tracking temperature trends, probabilities, and records is a terrific introduction to the principles of empirical evidence.

One of my best lessons from a snow day was about small joys and art. I was 9 years old, gazing out my kitchen window as I sipped soup, and I spied — on a snow-covered pine — a cardinal sitting sentinel, observing the terrain. The contrast of the red on white was so beautiful that I longed for a camera, but my dad never let me use our cheap Kodak 110. I vowed to get a camera of my own someday, and a few years later, I bought a 35-millimeter with babysitting funds. To this day, I take photos for my job. I love framing and capturing a scene to share the beauty with others.

Nature's handiwork can be surprising, powerful, and treacherous. I want my kids to appreciate all of it. It's hard to watch the snow fall, build with it, and play in it when chained to a Chromebook all day.

It can be hard as a working parent

As a working mom, I understand the nervousness of watching the forecast and wondering about childcare if schools close. Inclement weather days should, of course, be used sparingly. But when safety precautions force a closure anyway, the default shouldn't always be remote learning. Those days can be just as challenging for a caregiver.

Some traditions aren't coming back. I remember the wonder and joy of gazing at the streetlights when a storm was predicted, hoping to catch the first flakes fluttering when it was too dark to see the street. My classmates and I would snuggle in our beds the next morning, listening to our clock radios to see if our district would be on the list of closings read by the announcer. Parents also had not-so-reliable phone trees to spread the word decades before robocalls. But even with communication becoming less personal, I've observed the magical reactions of kids who realize they're getting a snow day; I actually heard cheering outside my window last February when our district made the announcement via email in advance of a storm the next day.

I think schools are over-relying on technology in general. I was disappointed this past summer when one of my kids was expected to do all of the summer assignments on a Chromebook, including the actual reading. I placed an order for the physical book anyway. Kids spend enough time stuck to their screens. If a day comes this winter when it's unsafe to go out, let them have their magical time to explore and dream — at least once.

• Andrew Taylor, 70, left the US to retire in Malaysia a decade ago.
• He now lives in a 2-bedroom condo in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city, that costs about $620 a month.
• "I probably would not be retired if I were still in the US," Taylor said.

At 60, Andrew Taylor retired and left the US to move to Malaysia.

Taylor, who used to do administrative work, started thinking about retirement when he was in his mid-fifties. However, the high cost of living in the US made it feel like a pipe dream.

"I realized that I was probably not going to be able to stay in the United States, or I was going to have to work until I was 80," Taylor, now 70, told Business Insider.

He started considering retiring abroad, and it was through his then-partner — who lived in Penang, a state in the northwestern part of Malaysia — that he first learned about the Malaysia My Second Home, or MM2H, visa program. The MM2H program was introduced by the government in 2002 to attract foreigners to retire and live in Malaysia.

The conditions for the visa have been tightened over the years.

Based on the most recent rule changes announced in 2024, there are now three different categories: Platinum, Gold, and Silver. Depending on the category of visa they apply for, applicants are required to have minimum bank deposits of between $150,000 and $1 million and also buy property in Malaysia. The validity of the visa ranges from 5 years to 20 years. Because Taylor got a visa under an earlier version of the visa rules, he wasn't required to purchase property in Malaysia.

Having visited multiple times before, the idea of living in Malaysia appealed to him. He said he saw the visa program as something that could help him retire much earlier.

In late 2014, he applied and was approved a few months later. In 2015, Taylor packed up his bags and moved from Washington, D.C. — where he had lived for 40 years — to start the next chapter of his life.

Creating a dream apartment in the city

It's been 10 years since Taylor arrived in Malaysia. He spent seven years in Penang before moving to Kuala Lumpur, the capital city, three years ago.

He's been in his current rental — a two-bedroom condo — for about five months.

Taylor said that his previous unit was on two floors, and he had to climb 20 steps to reach the bedroom. "I'm 70 and the stairs are irritating to me now, so I want it to be all on one floor," he said.

Taylor says he took just one weekend to find his apartment, which was about two miles outside the city center. The view of the city immediately caught his attention.

"I'm on the 22nd floor, and I can see the Twin Towers. I can see all the major towers in KL, and it's just a beautiful view. I think if I'm going to be in KL, that's what I wanted," Taylor said.

His rent costs 2,800 Malaysian ringgit, or $620, each month. It's a two-year lease with an option for a third year. Unlike his previous apartments, he opted for an unfurnished unit this time.

"I really never liked the furniture in the apartments that I was renting," he said, adding that he has always been interested in interior design. Most of his furniture is sourced locally.

"It's sort of eclectic," he said, describing his apartment. "I have oriental carpets and things like that, but with modern furniture."

His apartment block is part of a five-building condo development, which offers amenities like a pool and a gym.

This is Taylor's fifth apartment in Malaysia, and he says he plans to continue renting and riding around the city on his Vespa for the foreseeable future.

Lessons learned along the way have contributed to his decision. The first place he moved into after arriving in Malaysia was on the 35th floor of a building in Penang.

"The landlord said, 'Oh, they'll never build in front of it.' Well, yes, they built right in front of it immediately," he said. "If you buy a place, it's just harder to move on."

Americans are retiring abroad

Taylor isn't alone in his decision to retire abroad.

Analyses in the past year have estimated that a single person would need to earn $96,000 a year to live comfortably in many major US cities. It comes as no surprise that more and more Americans are being priced out of the US.

There's also a retirement crisis sweeping across the nation, with more people over 65 still punching the clock because they can't afford to retire.

An AARP survey of 8,368 people conducted in January 2024 found that 1 in 5 Americans 50 and over reported having no retirement savings. Over half of them also said they do not think they'll have enough money to keep them afloat in retirement.

It's a sentiment that Taylor shares. "I probably would not be retired if I were still in the US," he said.

In contrast, the MM2H visa has made Malaysia an attractive destination for expats.

As of January 2024, there were 56,066 active MM2H pass holders in the country, Malaysia's Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Tiong King Sin said during a parliament session, per local paper The Star. Chinese nationals form about 44% of pass holders, followed by those from South Korea and Japan. There were 1,340 pass holders from the US. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment sent by BI.

'Pretty similar' lifestyles in both countries

While Taylor's lifestyle in Malaysia is "pretty similar" to the one he had back in the States, the lower cost of living here means that his money can go further each month.

"I would say I used to try to keep my budget to $2,000. Now it's a little bit more than that. I would say $2,500 is what I live on now," Taylor said, adding that he doesn't think he could live on the same amount back in the US.

He has a basic health insurance policy that costs 340 Malaysian ringgit each month.

"There are other much better policies, but I went with the cheap option," Taylor said. He says it only covers hospitalization and related costs.

He's also satisfied with Malaysia's healthcare facilities.

"And you don't have to wait long for an appointment or wait long at your appointment," he added.

Cost of living aside, Taylor says he also feels safer in Malaysia.

"I've never felt safer anywhere. Where I lived in my last place outside D.C., sometimes I would hear gunshots from outside my window, and that just is so foreign here. There's nothing like that," he said. "I've never ever felt any uncomfortable feeling when I'm out, even alone walking around."

These days, Taylor spends his time filming YouTube videos about what it's like to live in Malaysia.

However, he says that such a drastic move might not be for everyone — especially for those who have children, grandchildren, or even aged parents. It only worked for him because he had loose family connections.

Looking back, Taylor says he's learned not to be afraid of living outside his comfort zone.

"My family thought I would last about six months, and then I would come back. 10 years later, and I'm still here, and I have no intention of ever going back to the US," he said.

Have you recently relocated to a new country and found your dream home? If you have a story to share, contact this reporter at [email protected].

• Shruti Dhumak navigated maternity leave amid Google's AI industry shift and layoffs.
• She split her leave to maintain visibility and manage family support from India.
• Dhumak focused on self-improvement and open communication to regain her work efficiency.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Shruti Dhumak, a cloud customer engineer in Google's Boston office who gave birth in February 2023. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified her employment history.

Before I had my son, I always doubted how I was going to manage being this overly ambitious person with motherhood.

I've been with Google for about four years. I had my first child in February 2022 and split up my maternity leave in three phases to make the most of temporary support I had when my family visited.

Between Google's policy of six months of maternity leave, one month of prepartum leave, and one month of paid time off, I had a total of eight months of time away from work. I knew I was fortunate to have this time off because it is rare in the US, but going on leave and the anxiety of being replaced while I was away was one of the hardest things I have dealt with.

I'm a customer engineer, and a large part of my role revolves around managing relationships with our cloud clients. If someone takes over for me, the customers end up being closer to that representative and I risk losing my accounts to someone else.

I was also paranoid that my absence or my performance below my peak, once I returned, would make me more susceptible to a layoff. Two weeks before my delivery, Google announced its biggest, 12,000-people layoff. As someone on an H1-B visa, a layoff would mean I would have to find another job in a matter of weeks or risk having to move back to India with a newborn.

When I came back to work, I was not a hundred percent myself — not as a person and not as an employee. I was not a hundred percent efficient. I've had my moments where I broke down and lost my train of thought during a call.

Despite my efforts, some other senior people were preferred by the business partners for some responsibilities. To add to it, Google was entering the artificial intelligence industry. Being away months felt like I was behind by many years.

But I was able to turn my performance around. In 2024, I got awards for my performance, and it's just the opposite of how last year went.

There were four things I did to make the transition easier on myself:

1. Split up my leave

Google offers employees the flexibility to take their maternity leave for up to a year after the baby is born. I broke up my leave into three stages, which allowed me to come back to work periodically to ensure I was visible and my work was not forgotten.

I took my first break a month before the baby was born. I returned in my third month after the delivery and went back on leave in the months of September, November, December and January. It was designed based on who was there to help me with the child throughout the year — first my parents and then my in-laws.

2. Highlight my work

Nobody is going to talk about me until I do, which is something I have struggled with in my previous companies.

I made sure to speak up when things weren't going right and made sure to collect evidence of my efforts and achievements.

I took advantage of the help I had and spent evenings and weekends taking exams and completing certifications to upskill myself and show others that I was coming up to speed.

3. Have open, honest conversations

What helped me through the year was my manager. She saw what was happening when I missed things because I've been a good performer all these years.

I shared everything with her openly during one-on-ones, which helped because she understood my challenges. She also helped me maintain visibility with upper management, because Google is strict with grades and the ratings you get.

It made a world of a difference to have a female manager and a work culture where men could empathize, too. My job involves a lot of talking and explaining, and I suffered from shortness of breath during my third trimester. My male counterparts recognized this and asked me to take breaks and go off-camera, which helped me work until the day I left for leave.

I also built my network and spoke to women who are managers in other teams in the company. Women who have been outperformers shared their experiences crying secretly after they became parents, and nobody said they had it all sorted out. Now, I share my journey with others.

4. Taking it one day at a time

During the wave of tech layoffs in 2022, I had at least three close friends who were laid off from Google, Microsoft, and Meta, which lingered on my mind and made me paranoid about my own situation.

The stress and postpartum depression is not behind me, but I decided to take it one day at a time.

I decided to be laser-focused and do things as they come up. There have been times I feel like delaying a reply but do it anyway, because I know it could lead to more tasks that I can add to my annual review.

Do you work in Big Tech and have a tip or story to share? Please reach out at [email protected].