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(LOS ANGELES) — Multiple fires raging across the Los Angeles area will cost insurers as much as $30 billion, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs estimated in a report released this week.

After accounting for non-insured damages, the total costs will balloon to $40 billion, the report said.

The ongoing fires, according to analysts, “appear to already be the costliest wildfire event in California history.”

The forecast would make the fires one of the 20 costliest natural disasters in U.S. history, when calculated as a share of the nation’s gross domestic product, analysts added.

The wildfires have left a path of wreckage in their wake. More than 12,000 homes and other structures have burned down in the fire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

At least 24 people have died and more than a dozen others remain unaccounted for as multiple wildfires, fueled by severe drought conditions and strong winds, continue to burn.

Thousands of firefighters are battling wildfires across 45 square miles of Los Angeles County. About 92,000 people remain under mandatory evacuation orders and another 89,000 are under evacuation warnings.

A rise in high-cost natural disasters has strained insurers and helped send home insurance premiums nationwide soaring, experts previously told ABC News. Plus, a recent bout of acute inflation has made homebuilding and repairs more expensive, they noted, exacerbating the cost crunch for insurers.

Industry unrest roiling the insurance market in California demonstrates the role climate change has played in skyrocketing premiums and struggling insurers, some experts said.

The average home insurance price jumped a staggering 43% in California from January 2018 to December 2023, S&P Global found last year.

Over recent years, many insurers have reduced coverage or stopped offering it altogether in California as wildfire risks have grown. With more frequent and intense wildfires, insurers face the prospect of more claims and higher costs.

While wildfires are a natural and necessary part of Earth’s cycle, climate change and other more direct human influences have increased their likelihood. Climate change is making naturally occurring events more intense and more frequent, research shows.

Los Angeles residents and homes remain under threat from the wildfires.

A “particularly dangerous situation” with a red flag warning will go into effect in western Los Angeles County and most of Ventura County on Tuesday, weather officials said, with winds threatening to further fuel historic Southern California wildfires.

ABC News’ Kevin Shalvey, David Brennan, Emily Shapiro, Meredith Deliso, Max Golembo, Matthew Glasser and Julia Jacobo contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — TikTok mounted a last-ditch effort at the Supreme Court on Friday meant to stop a ban of the app set to take effect within days — but the platform’s arguments may have landed with a thud.

A majority of the justices appeared inclined to uphold a federal law that would ban the company unless it divests from China-based parent Bytedance.

TikTok has challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, claiming that a ban would limit free-expression rights on a platform used by one of every two Americans. Lower courts, however, have found merit in security concerns about potential data collection or content manipulation that could be undertaken by the Chinese government.

If the court challenge fails and TikTok forgoes a sale, the ban would take effect on Jan. 19, a day before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Experts who spoke to ABC News said the measure would not penalize individuals for accessing or using the app, even after the ban takes hold.

Here’s what to know about exactly how the potential ban would work, and how users could still access TikTok, according to experts:

How exactly would the TikTok ban work?

The law potentially banning TikTok — the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — cracks down on the app by targeting third-party companies vital to the functioning of the platform.

Specifically, the law would restrict app stores and hosting companies, which provide the digital infrastructure on which web services like TikTok depend.

Mandatory withdrawal of the app from major app stores, such as those maintained by Google and Apple, would bar new users from downloading the app and prevent existing users from updating it.

Without updates, the app would degrade in quality over time through inconveniences such as video-loading delays and performance glitches, some experts said.

“If the app were not able to download updates, it would eventually become obsolete,” Qi Liao, a professor of computer science at Central Michigan University, told ABC News.

A separate stipulation would also make it illegal for hosting companies to provide services for TikTok — and the measure offers a fairly broad characterization of such firms.

Hosting companies “may include file hosting, domain name server hosting, cloud hosting, and virtual private server hosting,” the law says.

TikTok would stop functioning if the firm’s U.S.-based hosting companies stopped providing services, experts said.

“For you to pull up TikTok content on your phone, somebody has to be hosting that,” said Timothy Edgar, a computer science professor at Brown University and a former national security official.

At least in theory, however, the social media giant could establish partnerships with hosting companies outside the U.S., putting them out of reach of U.S. enforcement, the experts added.

Such a move would keep TikTok available to U.S. users, but the service would likely be slower and glitchier as the digital infrastructure moves further away, they added.

“The whole point of hosting content is to have it close to users,” Edgar said. “It certainly wouldn’t work in any kind of smooth way.”

Considering potential legal liability, TikTok will likely opt against efforts to preserve its U.S.-based platform in modified form, Edgar added. Instead, he said, services may simply come to a halt, as they did in India in the immediate aftermath of the country’s 2020 ban.

“You’ll get a message saying, ‘Oh, it looks like you’re using the app in the U.S. It’s not available in your country,” Edgar said.

TikTok did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Would TikTok users be able to access the app after the ban?

No matter the extent of potential service interruptions, users would still be able to access TikTok after the ban by using workarounds, experts said.

Users who do so will face technical hurdles and reduced app quality, Liao said. For some, that will likely prove a formidable deterrent; but others may seek out TikTok anyway.

“If they really want to use it, the user will find a way to use it,” Liao said.

Users giving it a shot can rest assured that the conduct is perfectly legal, the experts said.

“If you’re an ordinary user with TikTok on your phone, you’re not a criminal,” Edgar said. “There’s no penalty at all.”

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Online holiday shopping soared to a fresh record high in 2024, driven by an array of e-commerce discounts and adoption of AI-fueled shopping assistants, according to data released on Tuesday by Adobe.

E-commerce sales topped $240 billion in November and December, climbing nearly 9% when compared with the gift-buying season a year prior, data showed.

The data indicated that three product categories accounted for more than half of the online holiday spending: electronics, apparel and home goods.

Spending on cosmetics totaled nearly $8 billion, jumping more than 12% compared to a year prior. That marked the largest year-over-year spending increase for any product category, the data showed.

Discounts helped drive strong sales for some high-priced items, Adobe said, pointing to a 20% jump in units sold for expensive goods.

The fresh data indicated a spike in use of shopping assistants powered by generative AI, suggesting the technology has seeped into the retail sector’s busiest time of the year.

Traffic to retail sites from generative AI-powered chatbots skyrocketed 1,300% over November and December when compared to the same period a year prior, the data showed.

The share of consumers arriving via AI shopping assistants remains modest, however, Adobe said. Shoppers arrived at retail sites via links shared by the chatbots.

“The 2024 holiday season showed that e-commerce is being reshaped by a consumer who now prefers to transact on smaller screens and lean on generative AI-powered services to shop more efficiently,” Vivek Pandya, a lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement.

The e-commerce data comes weeks after initial indicators pointed to a robust holiday shopping season.

Overall holiday spending surged in 2024, blowing past expectations and outpacing customer purchases over the gift-buying season last year, according to data released by Mastercard SpendingPulse last month.

The end-of-year flex of consumer strength marks the latest indication of resilient U.S. buying power, which has kept the economy humming despite a prolonged stretch of high interest rates.

Gross domestic product grew at a solid 2.8% annualized rate over three months ending in September, the most recent quarter for which data is available.

The labor market has slowed but proven sturdy. The unemployment rate stands at 4.2%, a historically low figure.

Consumer spending accounts for nearly three-quarters of U.S. economic activity.

The increase in holiday spending coincided with an initial bout of relief for borrowers, as the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a total of one percentage point over the final few months of the year.

However, interest rates still stand at a historically high level of between 4.25% and 4.5%.

Lower interest rates typically stimulate economic activity by making it easier for consumers and businesses to borrow, which in turn fuels investment and spending. But interest rate cuts usually influence the economy after a lag of several months, meaning the recent lowering of rates likely had little impact on holiday spending.

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(NEW YORK) — Facebook plans to replace its fact-checkers with “community notes,” a move that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said would allow the social network to return “to our roots around free expression.”

“We’re replacing fact checkers with Community Notes, simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing mistakes,” Zuckerberg said on Tuesday. “Looking forward to this next chapter.”

The changes, which will also be in place for Instagram and Threads, will lift restrictions “on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse” and will focus the company’s “enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations,” Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer, said in a blog post.

Meta executives sought in their statements to tie the update to what they described as a sea change in public discourse accompanying the rise of President-elect Donald Trump’s brand of politics.

Fact-checkers who were put in place in the wake of Trump’s 2016 election have proven to be “too politically biased” and have destroyed “more trust than they’ve created,” particularly in the United States, Zuckerberg said.

“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said.

The decision also follows Zuckerberg recent meeting with Trump at the president-elect’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. And Meta is donating to Trump’s presidential inaugural committee, marking a first for the company.

The shift in policy mirrors a series of updates that Elon Musk — a Trump ally — made after purchasing rival social network Twitter, which he’s since rebranded as X.

Kaplan on Tuesday praised the approach Musk has taken, saying X under its new owner has empowered its “community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context.”

“We think this could be a better way of achieving our original intention of providing people with information about what they’re seeing — and one that’s less prone to bias,” Kaplan said.

As the company’s fact-checking capabilities have grown, they have expanded “to the point where we are making too many mistakes,” which in turn has frustrated many of the social networks’ users, Kaplan said.

“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’ and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” he said.

ABC News’ Michael Kreisel, Zunaira Zaki and Chris Donovan contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Facebook plans to replace its fact checkers with “Community Notes,” a move that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said would allow the social network to return “to our roots around free expression.”

“We’re replacing fact checkers with Community Notes, simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing mistakes,” Zuckerberg said on Tuesday. “Looking forward to this next chapter.”

The changes, which will also be in place for Instagram and Threads, will lift restrictions “on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse” and will focus the company’s “enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations,” Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer, said in a blog post.

As the company’s fact-checking capabilities have grown, they have expanded “to the point where we are making too many mistakes,” which in turn has frustrated many of the social networks’ users, Kaplan said.

“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’ and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” he said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

ABC News’ Michael Kreisel and Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — In a major change that could affect millions of Americans’ credit scores, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday finalized a rule to remove medical debt from consumer credit reports.

The rule would erase an estimated $49 billion in unpaid medical bills from the credit reports of roughly 15 million Americans, the CFPB said.

That could help boost those borrowers’ credit scores by an average of 20 points, helping them qualify for mortgages and other loans.

“No one should be denied economic opportunity because they got sick or experienced a medical emergency,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement touting the new rule.

She announced the proposal for the rule last June alongside CFPB Director Rohit Chopra.

“This will be life-changing for millions of families, making it easier for them to be approved for a car loan, a home loan or a small-business loan,” Harris added.

Major credit reporting agencies have already announced voluntary steps to remove medical debt from their reports.

The final rule is set to take effect in March – but that timeline could be delayed by legal challenges.

Debt collection industry groups like the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals have opposed the change, saying it would result in “reduced consequences for not paying your bills, which in turn will reduce access to credit and health care for those that need it most.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Friday announced a decision to block the $14 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japan-based Nippon Steel, saying domestically produced steel is essential to U.S. national security.

“Without domestic steel production and domestic steel workers, our nation is less strong and less secure,” Biden said in a statement.

The move marks the latest effort on the part of the Biden administration to protect U.S. markets from foreign-owned firms.

Biden has preserved many of the tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump, and he enacted a law that would ban China-based social media platform TikTok later this month if the company doesn’t find a new parent company. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this month in a legal challenge brought by TikTok.

The decision comes weeks after a federal committee declined to issue a recommendation on the merger, leaving Biden an opportunity to block the deal.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, tasked with the potential acquisition, shared concerns about the national security risks posed by the loss of the country’s second-largest steel producer.

In response to the committee’s decision, Nippon Steel alleged the White House had “impermissible undue influence” on the review. Nippon Steel has previously threatened to challenge the White House decision in court.

The fate of U.S. Steel – a storied 120-year-old firm based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – became a lightning rod during the 2024 election season.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — Homebuyers eager to forget this year’s housing market may ring in 2025 with an extra dash of zeal.

A rapid rise in home prices has coincided with stubbornly high mortgage rates, shutting out potential buyers with daunting costs.

A burst of supply could have eased prices, but no such relief was forthcoming. Instead, homeowners have balked at swapping out their current mortgage rates for higher ones, and construction has failed to make up for a long-standing shortage in new homes.

Unfortunately, next year’s housing market will likely bring more of the same, experts told ABC News.

Home prices may rise at a slower pace, offering a glimmer of hope as high mortgage rates fall slightly but continue to weigh on consumer activity, they said.

Still, the market appears locked into a fundamental mismatch of supply and demand set to frustrate buyers, the experts added.

“I don’t see much sunshine in the forecast,” Ken Johnson, chief of real estate at the University of Mississippi, told ABC News. “It’s going to be gloomy and overcast, but it’s not going to be stormy.”

An unusual trend has beguiled buyers: Home prices are soaring, despite a prolonged stretch of high mortgage rates that, in theory, should crimp demand and push down prices.

Market observers who spoke to ABC News said they expect both price increases and mortgage rates to ease in 2025 — but only a smidge.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage stands at 6.85%, FreddieMac data last week showed. That figure has ticked up slightly since the start of the year, despite a series of interest rate cuts at the Federal Reserve in recent months.

Earlier this month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said rate cuts may slow over the course of 2025. Such a policy would leave mortgage rates higher for longer, experts said.

Redfin, a Seattle, Washington-based real estate giant, forecasts average 30-year fixed mortgage rates will remain in the high 6% range over the duration of 2025. Online real estate marketplace Zillow says mortgage rates will fall, but only moderately.

Alongside persistently high mortgage rates, experts predicted a continued, albeit slower, rise in home prices.

In September, Goldman Sachs predicted a 4.4% rise in home prices in 2025, which would mark a slight decline from the 4.5% rise in 2024.

The persistence of high mortgage rates will put some downward pressure on prices, since demand will soften as many consumers forego expensive loans, experts said, but the high rates will also exacerbate a lack of supply that has kept prices soaring.

Current homeowners will want to remain locked into relatively low mortgage rates. Homebuilding will deliver much-needed supply of new homes, but it will fall well short of the amount required to meet demand, experts said.

“I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but it doesn’t feel like prices are going to moderate that much,” Marc Norman, associate dean at the New York University School of Professional Studies and Schack Institute of Real Estate, told ABC News. “If you don’t have a lot on the market, that’s going to put pressure on prices.”

Experts who spoke to ABC News acknowledged that economic forces could defy expectations, leaving the housing market in better or worse shape than anticipated.

Faster-than-expected progress in bringing inflation down to the Fed’s target level could free up the central bank to slash interest rates, which in turn would lower mortgage rates, some experts said. An economic downturn would damage household finances and ease demand, likely leading to a drop in home prices, they added.

If inflation proves more stubborn than expected, however, interest rates may stay high for even longer, experts said, which could put the housing market into an even deeper freeze.

For now, the outlook for 2025 appears clear, Christopher Mayer, a real estate professor at the Columbia University Business School, told ABC News.

“My best guess is that next year is a lot like this year,” Mayer said.

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(NEW YORK) — Nearly half of U.S. states are set to raise their minimum wage at the outset of 2025, boosting pay for millions of workers stretching from California to Maine.

In all, 21 states will raise their wage floors on Jan. 1 in keeping with inflation-adjusted increases or as part of scheduled hikes that take effect at the beginning of each calendar year.

The pay increases will affect about 9.2 million workers, who will gain a combined $5.7 billion over the course of 2025, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, or EPI.

After the wave of wage hikes, Washington will become the state with the highest minimum wage, offering workers $16.66 per hour. Workers in California and New York will enjoy the second-highest wage floor, as both states implement a minimum hourly wage of $16.50.

Pay increases set to take hold in the new year will bring the wage floor to $15 an hour or higher in Washington, D.C., as well as 10 states, among them Delaware, Illinois and Rhode Island. Those areas play host to one of every three U.S. workers, EPI found.

Overall, the states set to raise their minimum wage on Wednesday include: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

The nation’s highest wage floors will take effect in some of the nearly 50 cities and other localities that will impose minimum pay hikes.

Twenty-nine cities in California will see pay hikes, including a $17-an-hour wage floor that will take effect in Oakland. Seven localities in Washington will increase their minimum wage, among them the country’s highest wage floor: $21.10 an hour in Tukwila.

The latest round of pay increases, however, will not affect more than a dozen states concentrated in the South that lack a minimum wage or offer a minimum wage that does not exceed the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.

The last federal minimum wage hike took place in 2009, when Congress raised the pay floor to its current level. When adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage stands at its lowest level since February 1956, nearly 70 years ago, EPI found.

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(NEW YORK) — The fund disbursing money to the victims of Bernie Madoff’s legendary Ponzi scheme began its 10th and final distribution on Monday, putting another $131 million in the pockets of swindled investors.

Twenty-three thousand victims worldwide are receiving payments, bringing their total recoveries to 94% of their losses. Most of these victims were small investors who lost less than $500,000 in the fraud, according to federal prosecutors.

Since the collapse of Madoff’s investment house and his 2009 guilty plea, the Madoff Victim Fund has paid more than $4 billion to nearly 41,000 victims in 127 countries.

“This office has never stopped pursuing justice for victims of history’s largest Ponzi scheme,” acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim said.

For decades, Madoff used the investment advisory business he founded in 1960 to steal billions from his clients, turning his wealth management firm into the world’s largest Ponzi scheme to benefit himself, his family and select members of his inner circle.

He was sentenced to 150 years in prison, where he died in 2021.

“The unprecedented scope and complexity of the Madoff remission process shows the power of forfeiture to recover assets and to compensate victims,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent Wible said in a statement on Monday.

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