Portland committee advances ordinance that would ban AI rental price-fixing software
On Tuesday, the Homelessness & Housing Committee discussed an ordinance that would amend the Affordable Housing Code to ban 'anti-competitive rental practices' — such as those that use artificial intelligence to impact rental costs.
Oregon Children's Theatre to put programs on hold amid $1 million fundraising campaign
Federal officials have sounded the alarm on the practice in recent months. In August, the that accused tech company RealPage of using its software to help property managers skew rent prices.
Oregon was one of eight states that joined the original federal lawsuit, in addition to the . The suit was updated to include 'some of the nation's largest landlords' like Cortland Management, Cusman & Wakefield and Greystar Real Estate Partners.
According to the court documents, renters in local submarkets ranging from Central Portland to West Beaverton could have been impacted by RealPage's software. Some of the identified landlords, like , also name several Portland apartment buildings on their list of properties.
Severe weather threat paired with record-breaking heat Wednesday
During Tuesday's meeting, New York-based Legal Fellow Angelo Pis-Dudot told committee members that an increase in consolidation and financialization has brought an increase in rent and evictions to the housing market.
He noted that one in six U.S. apartments were owned by the nation's top 50 property managers in 2019, and the number of properties that these companies manage has increased annually for the past 14 years.
'We know that 47% of Portlanders are renters and they deserve to have some representation on this city council and have their needs centered,' Councilor Angelita Morillo, one of the councilors who introduced the amendment, said. 'We also know that the homelessness crisis on our streets is going to continue and get even worse if we don't do some of the changes that we need to do now.'
The Homelessness & Housing Committee voted to refer the ordinance to the entire city council.
Hwy 26's hazardous 'The Bump' to see major repairs after multiple accidents
At a state level, Oregon legislators are also attempting to ban rental price-fixing with .
While supporters of the measure argue that it would support tenants who struggle to pay their rent as it rises, opponents have contended that it could hinder development amid the state's housing crisis.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
WIRED
a minute ago
- WIRED
Highly Sensitive Medical Cannabis Patient Data Exposed by Unsecured Database
Lily Hay Newman Matt Burgess Aug 19, 2025 12:14 PM Nearly a million records, which appear to be linked to a medical cannabis card company in Ohio, included Social Security numbers, government IDs, health conditions, and more. Photo Illustration:As legal cannabis has expanded around the United States for both recreational and medical use, companies have amassed troves of data about customers and their transactions. People who have applied for medical marijuana cards have had to share particularly personal health data to qualify. For some patients in Ohio who use medical weed, a recent data exposure could impact their sensitive information. Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler found a publicly accessible database in mid-July that appeared to contain medical records, mental health evaluations, physician reports, and images of IDs like driver's licenses for people seeking medical cannabis cards. The 323GB trove stored close to a million records, including Social Security numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, dates of birth, and medical data—all organized by name. Based on information that seemed to describe specific employees and business partners, Fowler suspected that the data belonged to the Ohio-based company Ohio Medical Alliance LLC, which goes by the name Ohio Marijuana Card. Fowler contacted the company on July 14; when he checked the database the next day, it had been secured and was no longer publicly accessible online. Fowler did not receive a response about his submission. Ohio Medical Alliance did not answer WIRED's questions about Fowler's findings. At one point, though, the company's president, Cassandra Brooks, wrote in an email: 'I need time to investigate this alleged incident. We take data security very seriously and are looking into this matter.' 'There were physicians' reports that would say what the underlying problem was—whether it was anxiety, cancer, HIV, or something else. In some cases, the applicants would submit their own medical records as proof' of their qualifying condition, Fowler tells WIRED. 'I saw identification documents from lots of states, from everywhere. And I even saw offender release cards, which are basically IDs for people who just got out of prison that they submitted as proof of identity to get a medical marijuana card.' Fowler says that most of the files in the database were image formats like PDFs, JPGs, and PNGs. One CSV plaintext document called 'staff comments' appeared to be an export of internal communications, appointment histories, notes about clients, and application status. That file also contained more then 200,000 email addresses of Ohio Medical Alliance employees, business associates, and customers. Databases that are misconfigured and have inadvertently been left publicly exposed on the open internet are a common problem online in spite of efforts to raise awareness about the mistake and its privacy implications.
Bloomberg
a minute ago
- Bloomberg
Stada Owners Are Said to Resume IPO Work as CapVest Talks Stall
Stada Arzneimittel AG 's private equity owners are resuming preparations for a listing of the German drugmaker after talks stalled on a potential sale to CapVest Partners, people with knowledge of the matter said. Bain Capital and Cinven, which jointly own Stada, have started gearing up to hold an initial public offering of the business as soon as October, the people said. London-based buyout firm CapVest was in discussions to acquire Stada but it's been unable to reach an agreement, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
Business Insider
a minute ago
- Business Insider
A shipbuilding behemoth is rising in China. By scale, nothing else comes close.
A Chinese state-owned shipbuilding group was already the world's biggest. Now it's finishing up a merger with its main domestic rival, resulting in an absolute juggernaut of an industry force. China has been quantitatively dominating the global shipbuilding game, leaving the US and its allies playing catch-up. The merger only tightens Beijing's grip on the industry, handing China a critical advantage in generating commercial and naval power. Last week, trading in the shares of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) and China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) was suspended as CSSC moves to absorb CSIC, which is ultimately being delisted. CSSC previously received approval from the Shanghai Stock Exchange to absorb its competitor in a substantial share-swap deal. It marked the latest step in a merger that's been in the works since 2019, a move that will create a new streamlined shipbuilding behemoth. Though the companies merged years ago, industrial overlap continues to be an issue, as is unresolved internal industry competition. The mega merger cuts duplicated costs and redundant functions for more efficient, more coordinated operations. Post merger, Chinese media reports, CSSC will control some $56 billion in assets while generating $18 billion in annual revenue. Some estimates are higher. CSSC is China's — and the world's — largest shipbuilding group. It built more commercial vessels by tonnage in 2024 than the entire US shipbuilding industry has built since the end of the World War II, according to a report on Chinese shipbuilding earlier this year from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. And CSIC was the country's second-largest. Both are state-owned, meaning their operations and developments are overseen by the government, and they were originally part of the same firm until split in 1999 under Chinese Communist Party reforms. The reunion between the two is expected to result in a bigger, more powerful CSSC. It signals China's push for a more consolidated approach to its commercial and military shipbuilding. "When it's all said and done, CSSC will be the largest listed shipbuilding company in the world by a considerable margin, in terms of both assets and revenue," Matthew Funaiole, a CSIS senior fellow with the China Power Project, told Business Insider. "And maybe more importantly, it will have the full backing of the Chinese state and its industrial policy might." That kind of state backing means global rivals face not just a company, but an arm of Beijing's industrial strategy. A massive shipbuilding empire CSSC alone is a commercial shipbuilding giant, boasting expansive shipyards, factories, and research institutes controlled by political and military leaders in Beijing. It includes 84 subsidiaries and employs over 200,000 people across shipbuilding, engineering, research and development, and other areas, CSIS said earlier this year. Comparatively, the entire US shipbuilding industry directly employs just over 100,000 people, per available data. When the companies first began the merger process, CSSC and CSIC oversaw, by some estimates, $120 billion in combined assets — almost four times as much as South Korean rival Hyundai Heavy Industries. The companies shared resources, including financing, technologies, and personnel. The merger itself is part of China's long-standing push to consolidate its shipbuilding, as the "central government is trying to reduce horizontal competition between companies within its domestic market in order to be better positioned to extend its dominance over global markets," Funaiole said. And while the number of active Chinese shipyards has decreased since peaking in 2009 at just over 300 — as of 2024, it was around 150 spread across a handful of major production sites — the total production has continued to increase, substantially so in 2023 and 2024. China produced over 50% of global commercial shipbuilding in 2024, well beyond Japan and South Korea. And at its major shipbuilding hubs, especially in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Dalian, commercial vessels are pumped out at rapid rates. Similarly, CSSC and CSIC have thrived on foreign ship orders. Data reviewed by CSIS has shown that foreign firms have purchased hundreds of hulls from China's biggest yards, resulting in billions in revenue. Many of these yards are co-production for military shipbuilding, too. CSSC in particular has been a successful case of what Beijing has called its "military-civil fusion" strategy, which removes the barriers between its commercial and defense sectors, allowing one to fuel the other. China's dual-use approach has allowed its shipbuilding industry to quickly produce naval vessels using the same equipment and personnel it uses for commercial ones, which has resulted in a naval force buildup that has received increased attention from the US and its allies and partners. The Chinese People's Liberation Army's Navy is the largest in the world, the Pentagon has noted repeatedly in its more recent annual reports on China's military. China's navy maintains a battle force of over 370 ships and submarines. And because China can produce a wide range of ships, engines, weapons, and systems, it is "nearly self-sufficient for all shipbuilding needs," the most recent report said. Self-sufficiency is an essential capability in a serious conflict, when supply lines could face unexpected pressures. Challenges for the US and its allies and partners The finalization of this merger adds to long-standing concerns in the West about China's shipbuilding dominance and raises questions about what the US and its allies, specifically South Korea and Japan, can and will do to bolster their own industries. US President Donald Trump has made revitalizing American shipbuilding a top priority, and there's growing talk about having the US military and defense contractors work more closely with South Korean and Japanese companies. Rhetoric, however, has been somewhat out of sync with action. By combining CSSC and CSIC, China appears to be notably strengthening its domestic industry for continued dominance of global shipbuilding. In January 2025, China held around 62% of the global order book for merchant vessels through 2033, CSIS reports, with over 80% of orders for new container ships and 30% for LNG, or liquefied natural gas, carriers vital for global trade. The new CSSC will now have even more resources across its yards for building military vessels. The consolidation between CSSC and CSIC lends to further expansion of China's shipbuilding capabilities and capacity, especially as Beijing will have more centralized control that will make it easier to transfer technologies, personnel, and assets for building ships across divisions, Funaiole said. For Washington and its allies, the merger underscores how far ahead Beijing already is — and the difficulties in catching up.
