• I moved to Los Angeles 16 years ago, and then met my husband and had two daughters.
• While our house wasn't affected by the fire, our lives have been.
• Many of my friends lost their homes and I wonder if I need to move for my kids.

"Are you OK?" is the text I've received every day for the last week. And the answer is complicated. Yes, I'm OK in the sense that while I live in Los Angeles, my family and house are safe from the wildfires.

But also, I'm absolutely not OK.

I moved to Los Angeles 16 years ago as an aspiring writer. I lived in West Hollywood, which is where I met my husband. Eventually, we moved to the sleepy suburbs of Burbank, where we've been raising our two daughters.

Moving to the suburbs, for me, meant a sense of security for our family. The roads here are wide, the trees are ancient and enormous, and the schools are top-notch. We're surrounded by other families and local businesses we love. I recently texted a friend, "This feels like our forever home."

The Palisades and Eaton fires, though, have changed not only LA itself, but how I see our future in this city

Last week, my husband and I packed up a suitcase with clothes, birth certificates, and our marriage license as intense winds knocked over those mighty trees on our street. We buckled our daughters into their car seats as ash fell from the sky. We drove out of LA under enormous plumes of smoke to find better air quality. And days later, when the Palisades fire moved East, we could see the glowing flames in the distance, just behind our house.

Like everyone else, I don't know when the LA fires will be contained. What I know is that many of my friends have lost all of their possessions and sense of safety. What I know is that while we are safe, my daughters can't go outside because of the air quality. What I know is that I'm not the only parent in LA right now trying to both process the heartbreak of all this and maintain life as usual for my kids.

I also know that I don't want to do this again

I don't want to live every year wondering if the fires will start closer to our house. What if the home we worked so hard to have goes up in flames? Or worse, what if we can't get out in time?

Los Angeles is where I began my career as a novelist. My first two books are set in Hollywood. My husband has been lucky enough to be a TV writer for shows that film here in Los Angeles. Our community and work is here.

My husband has nervously laughed off my questions of, "Should we stay in LA?" and "No, really, are we staying?"

But to ease my anxiety, I've started looking at listings in North Carolina — not because I'm from there, but because my best friend lives there. Maybe that could be fun?

But then the practical part kicks in. How would we be able to make a living? There are no TV writers rooms, and I'd have to hope that I got a full-time job that could make enough money for all of us. The idea of moving our family somewhere else is currently very tempting, but financially maybe impossible.

And on top of that, I can't imagine another place in the world I'd want to live. I love Los Angeles. My kids love that we can drive to the beach and swim in our backyard pool in the summer. This is our home.

As I made my daughter's bed this morning, I silently said a prayer of thanks for the life we have. I imagine each day will be something like that — both gratitude that we were spared, and the small knowledge that we were very close to losing everything. But next time — if and when there is one — will my family be as lucky as we have been?

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Microsoft says it will no longer support Office apps, known as Microsoft 365 apps, on Windows 10 later this year. The support cutoff coincides with Windows 10’s end of support on October 14th, and will mean businesses and consumers that rely on Microsoft 365 apps will need to upgrade to Windows 11.

“Microsoft 365 Apps will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025, on Windows 10 devices,” says Microsoft in a blog post. “To use Microsoft 365 Applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11.”

While support will end for Office apps on Windows 10 in October, it doesn’t mean the apps will suddenly stop working. Microsoft notes in a support document that was updated in December that “the applications will continue to function as before” after Windows 10 support ends, but that there could be “performance and reliability issues over time.”

Microsoft really wants people to stop using Windows 10 this year, and is calling 2025 “the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh.” The software maker declared at CES last week that refreshing an old Windows 10 PC will be more important than buying a new TV or phone this year.

“We believe that one of the most important pieces of technology people will look to refresh in 2025 isn’t the refrigerator, the television or their mobile phone. It will be their Windows 10 PC, and they will move forward with Windows 11,” said Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft.

Windows 11 adoption is still lagging behind Windows 10, and millions of machines simply can’t upgrade to the latest OS due to Microsoft’s strict hardware requirements. Microsoft recently closed the door on Windows 11 supporting older hardware, noting that its Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 is “non-negotiable.” Microsoft is now trying to convince Windows 10 users to buy a new PC with full-screen prompts.

While support for Windows 10 ends later this year, Microsoft is also offering Extended Security Updates to consumers for the first time ever. Consumers will be able to pay $30 for an extra year of updates, while businesses will be able to purchase up to three years of extended updates.

Drake has withdrawn the petition he raised accusing Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG) of illegally boosting Kendrick Lamar‘s diss track “Not Like Us.” According to documents filed with the New York Supreme Court on Tuesday, the pre-action case is being discontinued with no financial cost to any of the parties involved.

The petition, or “pre-action case,” isn’t a full lawsuit — it refers to a stage of litigation that seeks information from each party and allows time for issues to be resolved before disputes are escalated to court.

The legal petition filed by Drake (real name: Aubrey Graham) in November alleged that Spotify and UMG — the parent label that represents both him and Lamar — used “bots,” discounted licensing rates, and pay-to-play agreements to artificially inflate the streaming numbers for Lamar’s song. The diss track, aimed at Drake, became a viral hit following a feud between the two artists last year that attracted significant attention.

A second legal petition was also filed by Drake in November that accused UMG of funneling payments to iHeartRadio to promote Lamar’s diss track. Drake’s lawyers said that the song, which describes Drake as a “certified pedophile,” a “predator,” and someone who should “be registered and placed on neighborhood watch,” was defamatory, claiming that the damage to Drake’s reputation should have prevented UMG from releasing it.

While the initial pre-action case against Spotify and UMG is now resolved, the second petition against UMG and iHeartRadio is still active. Spotify had previously filed an opposition against the first petition and hasn’t objected to Drake withdrawing the pre-action case. UMG — which hadn’t filed an opposition — has “reserved its position.”

Microsoft has quietly killed off its spoofed Google UI that it was using to trick Bing users into thinking they were using Google. Earlier this month you could search for “Google” on Bing and get a page that looked a lot like Google, complete with a special search bar, an image resembling a Google Doodle, and even some small text under the search bar just like Google search.

The misleading UI no longer appears on the Google search result of Bing this week, just days after it was originally discovered by posters on Reddit. Microsoft’s spoofed Google UI even automatically scrolled down the page slightly to mask its own Bing search bar that appear at the top of search results, in a blatant attempt to trick Bing users into thinking they were on Google.

Image: Tom Warren / The Verge

Microsoft refused to comment on its fake Google UI, but Google was more than happy to offer up its opinion. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Microsoft spoofing the Google homepage is another tactic in its long history of tricks to confuse users & limit choice,” said Google Chrome boss Parisa Tabriz in a post on X last week. “New year; new low Microsoft.”

Microsoft has a habit of using a variety of tricks to convince people to keep using the defaults of Bing and Microsoft Edge in Windows, including modifying Chrome download sites and using malware-like popups to get people to ditch Google. Microsoft has even previously had to reverse pop-up ads inside Google Chrome to address “unintended behavior.”

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