LOS ANGELES — A group of California homeowners is taking on insurance companies that they say illegally coordinated to deny coverage to fire-prone areas, leaving thousands of displaced residents drastically underinsured as they fight for funding to rebuild.

The homeowners, many of whom were affected by the recent wildfires that torched large swaths of Los Angeles, have filed a lawsuit alleging that California insurance companies colluded in a “nefarious conspiracy” to shut out high-risk homeowners from the insurance market.

The complaint, filed Friday in Los Angeles County, accuses dozens of major insurance companies and their subsidiaries of collaborating in a “group boycott” of certain areas to eliminate competition and force homeowners toward the state’s insurer of last resort, a program known as the California FAIR Plan.

The lawsuits name California’s largest home insurers, including State Farm, Farmers, Berkshire Hathaway, Allstate and Liberty Mutual. None of them have provided a comment on the allegations.

The FAIR Plan has its own reserves and is intended to provide basic insurance to residents who cannot find a policy through the private marketplace. While it was created by the governor and the Legislature, and the state’s insurance commissioner has oversight, it is not a public program. The insurance companies named in the lawsuit jointly own and operate the FAIR plan, offering terms that limit their risk and place a higher burden on policyholders.

“They knew that they could force people, by dropping insurance, into that plan which had higher premiums and far lower coverages,” Robert Ruyak, an attorney with Larson LLP, the law firm that brought the complaint, said. “They realized that they could take this device, which is to protect consumers, and turn it into something that protected them.”

Ruyak argues the insurance companies knew they could limit their liability by directing policyholders onto the FAIR Plan, which allows companies to recoup up to half of their losses through premium increases, by agreeing that no company would insure high-risk areas.

“All of these insurance companies participate in the California FAIR Plan. They own it and manage it. It is not a California entity, it is not even a separate entity … the only way this scheme would work is if no one would pick up a dropped policy at any price, on any terms. And that’s what happened.”

Millions of U.S. homeowners have in recent years struggled to buy property insurance as companies have increasingly declined to offer coverage to people who live in high-risk areas, particularly as climate change has supercharged some natural disasters. An NBC News analysis in 2023 found that a quarter of all U.S. homes may be at risk of a climate-induced insurance shock.

California has been among the hardest hit by what some have called an “insurance crisis.” The state’s FAIR Plan, meanwhile, has been the subject of growing scrutiny and frustration from insurance regulators and customers.

The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial and seeking payment for three times their damages. 

A separate class-action lawsuit filed Friday makes similar allegations.

Berry unicorn startup Fruitist has surpassed $400 million in annual sales, thanks to the success of its long-lasting jumbo blueberries.

The company, which was founded in 2012, announced on Tuesday that it is changing its name from Agrovision to Fruitist. It previously only used the name for branding its consumer products, which also include raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.

As sales of its berries grow, Fruitist has raised more than $600 million in venture capital, according to Pitchbook data. Notable backers include the family office of Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio.

Fruitist is reportedly considering going public as soon as this year, even as global trade conflicts hit stocks and raise fears about a global economic slowdown.

The company has tried to set itself apart in a crowded space in part by positioning its berries as “snackable.” The snacking category has been one of the fastest growing in the food industry in recent years.

While many consumers still enjoy potato chips and pretzels, many big food companies have expanded their portfolios in recent years to include healthier options. The adoption of GLP-1 drugs and the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda pushed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have made healthier snacking options even more attractive to both consumers and investors.

Today, Fruitist’s berries can be found in more than 12,500 North American retailers, including Costco, Walmart and Whole Foods. Sales of its jumbo blueberries alone have tripled in the last 12 months, fueling the company’s growth.

Co-founder and CEO Steve Magami told CNBC that Fruitist was created to solve the problem of “berry roulette.” That’s what he calls the uneven quality of grocery store berries, which he blames on the business model of legacy produce players.

“You have a bunch of small growers that send their product to a packer, and the packer sends the product to a distributor or an importer, and then that player is either selling to the retailers or they are sending the product to another distributor to then sell to retailers,” Magami said. “You have this disjointed value chain that stifles quality.”

To sell more berries of higher consistent quality, the company grows its fruit in microclimates, with its own farms in Oregon, Morocco, Egypt and Mexico. It also uses machine learning models to predict the best time to pick the fruit. Fruitist invested heavily in infrastructure, like on-site cold storage to keep the berries fresh before they ship.

The company’s vertically integrated supply chain means that its berries should last longer than the competition.

“I’ve intentionally let them sit in my refrigerator for three weeks, and they’re still great after three weeks,” Magami said.

Larger berries, like the company’s non-genetically modified jumbo blueberries that are two to three times the size of a regular blueberry, also have a longer shelf life.

Looking ahead, Fruitist is planning to expand into cherries. The company is growing them now on its Chilean farms and plans to start shipping them next season, which means they could land in grocery stores by early 2026.

Magami said the company has invested more than $600 million to farm berries year-round and build a global footprint that spans North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

To date, Fruitist has spent little of the funding it has raised on marketing, although that’s set to change. In February, Major League Soccer team D.C. United announced a multiyear deal with the company, including an exclusive sleeve patch partnership.

One push for public recognition could come in the form of an initial public offering.

In January, Bloomberg reported that the company was weighing going public as soon as June. Magami declined to comment on the report to CNBC.

If Fruitist decides to go public, it will enter a public market that has yielded mixed results for new stocks in recent years.

Produce giant Dole returned to the public markets in 2021. Shares of the company have risen 14% over the last year, outpacing the S&P 500′s gains of 2% over the same period. Dole, which reported annual revenue of $8.5 billion last year, has a market value of $1.3 billion.

However, market turmoil caused by the White House’s trade wars have led a number of companies, like Klarna and StubHub, to delay their plans to go public. But investors are interested in consumer companies with strong growth; shares of Chinese tea chain Chagee climbed 15% in the company’s public market debut on Thursday.

Trade tensions present other challenges for a global produce company. President Donald Trump has temporarily lowered new tariff rates on imports from most countries to just 10% until early July, but it’s unclear what could happen after that deadline. India, where Fruitist owns nearly 50 acres to grow blueberries, is facing a 26% duty, for example.

Still, Magami said the company is anticipating “minimal impact” from the duties, noting that it has been investing in U.S. production for years.

“We’re optimistic about how this will play out,” he said. “We don’t import to compete with the domestic supply, we import to actually provide 52 weeks.”

Luckily for Fruitist, the tariff rates are set to rise when domestic berries are in season.

CORRECTION (April 23, 2025, 9:08 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated Dole’s revenue last year. It was $8.5 billion, not $2.2 billion.

Boeing could hand over some of its aircraft that were destined for Chinese airlines to other carriers after China stopped taking deliveries of its planes amid a trade war with the United States.

“They have in fact stopped taking delivery of aircraft due to the tariff environment,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Wednesday.

Ortberg said that a few 737 Max planes that were in China set to be delivered to carriers there have been flown back to the U.S.

He said some jets that were intended for Chinese customers, as well as aircraft the company was planning to build for China later this year, could go to other customers.

“There’s plenty of customers out there looking for the Max aircraft,” Ortberg said. “We’re not going to wait too long. I’m not going to let this derail the recovery of our company.”

The CEO’s comments came after Boeing reported a narrower-than-expected loss for the first quarter and cash burn that came in better than analysts feared as airplane deliveries surged in the three months ended March 31.

President Donald Trump earlier this month issued sweeping tariffs on imports to the U.S. While he paused some of the highest rates, the trade war with China has only ramped up.

Trump said Tuesday that he’s open to taking a less confrontational approach to trade talks with China, calling the current 145% tariff on Chinese imports “very high.”

“It won’t be that high. … No, it won’t be anywhere near that high. It’ll come down substantially. But it won’t be zero,” Trump said.

Five years removed from the onset of the Covid pandemic, Google is demanding that some remote employees return to the office if they want to keep their jobs and avoid being part of broader cost cuts at the company.

Several units within Google have told remote staffers that their roles may be at risk if they don’t start showing up at the closest office for a hybrid work schedule, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC. Some of those employees were previously approved for remote work.

As the pandemic slips further into the rearview mirror, more companies are tightening their restrictions on remote work, forcing some staffers who moved to distant locations to reconsider their priorities if they want to maintain their employment. The change in tone is particularly acute in the tech industry, which jumped so aggressively into flexible work arrangements in 2020 that San Francisco’s commercial real estate market is still struggling to recover.

Google began offering some U.S. full-time employees voluntary buyouts at the beginning of 2025, and some remote staffers were told that would be their only option if they didn’t return to the nearest office at least three days a week.

The latest threats land at a time when Google and many of its tech peers are looking to slash costs while simultaneously pouring money into artificial intelligence, which requires hefty expenditures on infrastructure and technical talent. Since conducting widespread layoffs in early 2023, Google has undertaken targeted cuts across various teams, emphasizing the importance of increased AI investments.

As of the end of last year, Google had about 183,000 employees, down from roughly 190,000 two years earlier.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin told AI workers in February that they should be in the office every weekday, with 60 hours a week being “the sweet spot of productivity,” according to a memo viewed by CNBC. Brin said the company has to “turbocharge” efforts to keep up with AI competition, which “has accelerated immensely.”

Courtenay Mencini, a Google spokesperson, said the decisions around remote worker return demands are based on individual teams and not a companywide policy.

“As we’ve said before, in-person collaboration is an important part of how we innovate and solve complex problems,” Mencini said in a statement to CNBC. “To support this, some teams have asked remote employees that live near an office to return to in-person work three days a week.”

According to one recent notice, employees in Google Technical Services were told that they’re required to switch to a hybrid office schedule or take a voluntary exit package. Remote employees in the unit are being offered a one-time paid relocation expense to move within 50 miles of an office.

Remote employees in human resources, or what Google calls People Operations, who live within 50 miles of an office, are required to be in person on a hybrid basis by mid-April or their role will be eliminated, according to an internal memo. Staffers in that unit who are approved for remote work and live more than 50 miles away from an office can keep their current arrangements, but will have to go hybrid if they want new roles at the company.

Google previously offered a voluntary exit program to U.S.-based full-time employees in People Operations, starting in March, according to a memo sent by HR chief Fiona Cicconi in February.

That came after the company said in January that it would be offering voluntary exit packages to full-time employees in the U.S. in the Platforms and Devices group, which includes Android, Chrome and products like Fitbit and Nest. The unit has made cuts to nearly two-dozen teams as of this month. While internal correspondence indicated that remote work was a factor in the layoffs, Mencini said it was not a main consideration for the changes.

A year ago, Google combined its Android unit with its hardware group under the leadership of Rick Osterloh, a senior vice president. Osterloh said in January that the voluntary exit plan may be a fit for employees who struggle with the hybrid work schedule.

Mencini told CNBC that, since the groups merged, the team has “focused on becoming more nimble and operating more effectively and this included making some job reductions in addition to the voluntary exit program.” She added that the unit continues to hire in the U.S. and globally.

U.S. trucking is heading for a slowdown, with industry players fearing the “worst is yet to come” as tariffs start to crimp imports.

Trucking volumes have plunged to near pre-pandemic levels, according to Craig Fuller, founder of the logistics industry publication FreightWaves.

“With imports deteriorating, volumes are expected to fall by another 3-4% over the next month,” Fuller said Tuesday in a post on X, citing the real-time freight data platform Sonar, which he also founded. Fuller said that’s a worrying sign for truckers this year.

Container volumes are down 20% at the busy Port of Los Angeles since a year ago, FreightWaves reported Tuesday, saying “this downturn spells trouble” for trucking firms that ship the overseas cargo inland across the country. Freight trucks carrying goods out of the metro area are “converging downward toward 2020 lockdown levels,” the outlet said.

The flags come as warning signs pile up for the broader U.S. economy due to President Donald’s Trump’s evolving trade war.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday knocked down its forecast for the year, lowering its January projection for global gross domestic product growth to 2.8%, from 3.6% previously. The IMF also cut its outlook for U.S. growth to just 1.8%, down from 2.7%, citing “epistemic uncertainty and policy unpredictability” out of the White House. Fresh GDP data is due out next Wednesday.

Freight carriers are “heavily dependent on the health of the U.S. economy, and many industry insiders are waiting on the final outcome of tariffs prior to expressing opinions regarding their outlook,” said John Crum, head of specialty equipment finance at Wells Fargo.

Trucks are the nation’s freight mode of choice for everything from grain to gravel, as measured by weight, and also carry the lion’s share, by dollar value, of foodstuffs, electronics and vehicles, federal data shows. Imports accounted for 40% of freight tonnage moved domestically by truck as of 2023.

Despite freight firms’ broader reticence, many are still “expressing caution regarding freight volumes for 2025,” Crum said.

In a separate note, Wells Fargo supply chain finance managing director Jeremy Jansen said one silver lining is that companies “have a bit more profit margins than in 2018/19 to absorb some tariff actions.” 

The growing pessimism comes just months after industry experts were heralding a likely rebound in trucking volumes after two years of declines. Just days before Trump was sworn in to a second term in January, the American Trucking Association released a forecast projecting a 1.6% boost in freight for the year.

“Understanding the trends in our supply chain should be key for policymakers in Washington, in statehouses around the country and wherever decisions are being made that affect trucking and our economy,” ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said in a statement at the time.

But in the more than three months since then, consumers’ outlooks have nosedived, executives across industries have ramped up their warnings about slower sales, and Wall Street has swung wildly in response to ever-shifting signals about the administration’s trade agenda. Small-business owners say they’re doing their best to stockpile inventory before steeper tariffs take hold, even as many already get hit with higher bills from suppliers.

With much of Trump’s sweeping April 2 slate of tariffs temporarily rolled back, shipping volumes could jump in the second quarter “as consumers scoop up pre-tariff goods before prices go up,” logistics researchers at Cass Information Systems said in their March report. “But thereafter, the trade war is likely to extend the for-hire freight recession as higher prices reduce goods affordability and consumers’ real incomes.”

Overall U.S. exports rose 4.6% through February, federal researchers reported this month, while imports surged 21.4% as the trade war heated up.

The Cass Freight Index fell 5.5% in 2023 and 4.1% last year, “and so far, is trending toward another decline in 2025,” the analytics company said.

Mack Trucks recently announced layoffs of hundreds of workers at a Pennsylvania plant due to economic uncertainty, betting on slower demand for its iconic freight vehicles.

The decision drew sharp criticism last week from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, who said, “I fear that we’re going to see more like this” due to tariffs. “We’re going to see more rising prices, more layoffs, more companies not investing in the future.”

“The economy has COVID,” Fuller wrote in a follow-up X post on Wednesday, in response to downbeat manufacturing data released this week. “The only cure is a deescalation of the tariffs.”