Jacking up rent on an apartment with a silent “r” might become illegal soon. A statewide rent control ballot proposal in Massachusetts that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu endorsed last week has ignited some of the most heated debate in the state since the American Revolution.

In a bid to make housing more affordable in a state where even studio rentals are priced as if they’re stuffed with lobster rolls, a group of labor unions and housing activists collected enough signatures to put the issue to a vote in November. Midterm voters will decide whether to cap rent increases at no more than the state’s inflation rate (with a maximum of 5% yearly).

Opponents, including Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, say the rent cap would disincentivize supply-boosting housing development—an approach many housing researchers and advocates say is the true solution to making rents affordable.

Beyond Bean Town

Boston’s conundrum echoes similar discussions an Amtrak ride away. New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, ran on a promise of freezing rent on the Big Apple’s ~1 million rent-stabilized units.

• Critics argue the move could stunt construction and make it economically infeasible for landlords to make costly repairs.
• They cite research suggesting that San Francisco’s rent control in the 1990s pushed many landlords to convert their rentals into owner-occupied units.

But Mamdani previously suggested that his rent-freezing platform was necessary to get New Yorkers onboard with other parts of his housing plan, like removing red tape for homebuilders. Yesterday, in a move that could further impact rental economics, Mamdani proposed a 9.5% property tax to fill the city’s budget holes.

And it’s not just an East Coast issue: Los Angeles tightened up its rent control laws at the end of last year for the first time in decades, and Washington’s governor signed a rent control law into effect last year.

Not up for debate…is the need to address housing affordability as American renters spend an average of 40% of their income on housing, according to a recent survey by rental platform Zumper.—SK

Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson dies at 84. Known for his passionate oration, Jackson took up the mantle of leader of the Civil Rights Movement after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A tireless advocate for social change, Jackson founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, seeking to create an inclusive force to address economic issues. He also ran for president twice. Jackson’s family said yesterday that he “died peacefully,” but did not share a cause of death, though he was known to be fighting a rare neurological disorder.

Paramount gets another shot at WBD acquisition talks. In the latest twist in the ongoing corporate soap opera that is Warner Bros. Discovery’s efforts to sell itself, Paramount has returned like a long lost twin. WBD’s board reopened its talks with Paramount after getting a seven-day waiver from Netflix, the company it already struck a deal with, after Paramount sweetened its all-cash hostile bid for the company. The move means that there may still be a bidding war. Netflix has the right to match any offer WBD accepts from another party, while Paramount’s latest offer includes paying the $2.8 billion fee WBD would owe Netflix if their deal falls apart.

Stephen Colbert says CBS blocked interview airing over FCC concerns. The Late Show host said on his show that CBS’s lawyers told him he could not broadcast an interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat who is running for Senate—or mention not being allowed to have him on. Colbert suggested that CBS was bowing to the Federal Communications Commission, which recently issued guidance that questioned a longstanding exemption allowing talk shows to avoid giving equal airtime to opposing election candidates. The network said yesterday it didn’t force the interview off the air but had merely provided legal guidance.—AR

People are taking free stuff from the Louvre like it’s being run by a prediction market company looking for good press. Four months after a $100 million art heist, nine arrests were made over an alleged decade-long ticket scam that siphoned $12 million from the famed Paris museum.

Millions walked out the door because of how guests were walking in the door. According to authorities:

• Two Chinese tour guides were reusing tickets for tourists that they split into groups to avoid larger reservation fees (it’s $23 for a group of six and $106 for groups of seven to 20).
• Each day over 10 years, guides moved up to 20 groups through the museum and bribed museum employees to stay quiet.
• Some of the money was invested in real estate in France and Dubai, and more than $1 million in cash was seized.

Inside jobs: In more bad news for the museum, a pipe leak at the Louvre caused water damage to one painting last week, and in November, water damaged hundreds of works in the Egyptian wing. Nothing was stolen, so the Wet Bandits are not currently suspects.

Falling apart: An ~$800 million renovation was announced early last year. However, the museum has closed several times since then due to strikes over working conditions and other issues.—DL

Not since your apartment’s post-Halloween-party-sequined load has your laundry machine seen this much excitement. Procter & Gamble’s Tide is beginning a nationwide roll out of waterless detergent squares, an innovation it believes is the future of the $25 billion laundry care market.

No plastic or liquid. The product, known as Tide evo, is about the size of your palm, and the plain white tile has six different layers of woven fibers made from cleaning materials. The fibers dissolve in cold water to cut down on energy usage and come in a recyclable box that is much smaller and cheaper to ship than other detergent products.

It pays to pre-package

A box of 42 tiles costs $19.99 on Amazon, compared with $12.97 for a pack of 42 Pods. Still, the new product—which took about a decade to develop, according to P&G—could open up a whole new avenue of revenue in the big business of laundry.

Last time…Tide introduced Pods in 2012, a product that is significantly more expensive than a liquid or powder alternative, and it has since become a $2 billion annual business for the company.—MM

If you’re angling to work from home, new research shows you’re most likely to get what you want at a company that was born after Snapchat let you morph your face into a dog. A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that younger firms and younger bosses are more inclined to support WFH. The study found that:

• People who work at companies founded after 2015 WFH nearly twice as often as those at companies founded before 1990.
• If the CEO is under 30, the average WFH rate is 1.4 days per week, compared with 1.1 days, when the CEO is age 60 or over.

The good news for anyone who doesn’t consider wearing pants a necessary part of the work day is that as younger leaders take over, being forced to work from a cubicle might one day become as much of a relic as Don Draper’s hat collection. But for now, the easiest way to ensure your ability to work from your couch is to be your own boss: The study noted that the self-employed WFH more than twice as often as wage-and-salary employees.—AR