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Tag: exodus

  • California’s exodus isn’t just billionaires — it’s regular people renting U-Hauls, too

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    It isn’t just billionaires leaving California.

    Anecdotal data suggest there is also an exodus of regular people who load their belongings into rental trucks and lug them to another state.

    U-Haul’s survey of the more than 2.5 million one-way trips using its vehicles in the U.S. last year showed that the gap between the number of people leaving and the number arriving was higher in California than in any other state.

    While the Golden State also attracts a large number of newcomers, it has had the biggest net outflow for six years in a row.

    Generally, the defectors don’t go far. The top five destinations for the diaspora using U-Haul’s trucks, trailers and boxes last year were Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Texas.

    California experienced a net outflow of U-Haul users with an in-migration of 49.4%, and those leaving of 50.6%. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Illinois also rank among the bottom five on the index.

    U-Haul didn’t speculate on the reasons California continues to top the ranking.

    “We continue to find that life circumstances — marriage, children, a death in the family, college, jobs and other events — dictate the need for most moves,” John Taylor, U-Haul International president, said in a press statement.

    While California’s exodus was greater than any other state, the silver lining was that the state lost fewer residents to out-of-state migration in 2025 than in 2024.

    U-Haul said that broadly the hotly debated issue of blue-to-red state migration, which became more pronounced after the pandemic of 2020, continues to be a discernible trend.

    Though U-Haul did not specify the reasons for the exodus, California demographers tracking the trend point to the cost of living and housing affordability as the top reasons for leaving.

    “Over the last dozen years or so, on a net basis, the flow out of the state because of housing [affordability] far exceeds other reasons people cite [including] jobs or family,” said Hans Johnson, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

    “This net out migration from California is a more than two-decade-long trend. And again, we’re a big state, so the net out numbers are big,” he said.

    U-Haul data showed that there was a pretty even split between arrivals and departures. While the company declined to share absolute numbers, it said that 50.6% of its one-way customers in California were leaving, while 49.4% were arriving.

    U-Haul’s network of 24,000 rental locations across the U.S. provides a near-real-time view of domestic migration dynamics, while official data on population movements often lags.

    California’s population grew by a marginal 0.05% in the year ending July 2025, reaching 39.5 million people, according to the California Department of Finance.

    After two consecutive years of population decline following the 2020 pandemic, California recorded its third year of population growth in 2025. While international migration has rebounded, the number of California residents moving out increased to 216,000, consistent with levels in 2018 and 2019.

    Eric McGhee, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, who researches the challenges facing California, said there’s growing evidence of political leanings shaping the state’s migration patterns, with those moving out of state more likely to be Republican and those moving in likely to be Democratic.

    “Partisanship probably is not the most significant of these considerations, but it may be just the last straw that broke the camel’s back, on top of the other things that are more traditional drivers of migration … cost of living and family and friends and jobs,” McGhee said.

    Living in California costs 12.6% more than the national average, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. One of the biggest pain points in the state is housing, which is 57.8% more expensive than what the average American pays.

    The U-Haul study across all 50 states found that 7 of the top 10 growth states where people moved to have Republican governors. Nine of the states with the biggest net outflows had Democrat governors.

    Texas, Florida and North Carolina were the top three growth states for U-Haul customers, with Dallas, Houston and Austin bagging the top spots for growth in metro regions.

    A notable exception in California was San Diego and San Francisco, which were the only California cities in the top 25 metros with a net inflow of one-way U-Haul customers.

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    Nilesh Christopher

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  • Exodus RPG Loses Studio Head Days After Game Awards Trailer

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    James Ohlen joined Wizards of the Coast back in 2019 after a 22-year stint at BioWare to create a new IP for the Hasbro-owned tabletop gaming company. Six years later, after cofounding Archetype Entertainment to ship a very Mass Effect-looking RPG called Exodus, he’ll no longer be head of the studio when the game eventually ships in 2027.

    “At this stage, James felt his work on the game was complete and that the polishing and tuning were in great hands with the team,” Hasbro VP of Communications Abby Hodes told Bloomberg in a statement. She added that Ohlen asked to “shift his creative focus” and would remain a consultant for the company on tabletop gaming.

    Updated with a new trailer during last week’s Game Awards 2025 showcase, Exodus touts all of the things fans loved about Mass Effect, including bespoke relationships with NPCs, but with a new time dilation twist where the impact of choices players make will show up when they return to past locations decades or even centuries in the future. It’s an expensive-looking game from a brand new studio that began work during the pandemic, which might be part of why the delayed project is still a couple of years from launching.

    But Exodus isn’t just the potential start of a new franchise, it’s an entire world that Hasbro wants to use as a springboard for other products. Wizards released an Exodus TTRPG book earlier this year and would no doubt love to look at trading card and TV spin-offs if the game eventually becomes a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33-like hit.

    Bloomberg also reports that Ohlen stepping down comes alongside Blizzard veteran and Dreamhaven co-founder Paul Della Bitta becoming head of Wizards’ Digital Ventures division underneath fellow Blizzard veteran John Hight. Plenty of other BioWare veterans still remain at Archetype, including Chad Robertson and Drew Karpyshyn.

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    Ethan Gach

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  • Russia opens border draft offices as exodus continues in response to military call-ups

    Russia opens border draft offices as exodus continues in response to military call-ups

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    Russian authorities are opening more military enlistment offices near Russia’s borders in an apparent effort to intercept some of the Russian men of fighting age who are trying to flee the country by land to avoid being called up to fight in Ukraine.

    A new draft office opened at the Ozinki checkpoint in the Saratov region on Russia’s border with Kazakhstan, regional officials said Thursday. Another enlistment center was set to open at a crossing in the Astrakhan region, also on the border with Kazakhstan.

    Earlier this week, makeshift Russian draft offices were set up near the Verkhny Lars border crossing into Georgia in southern Russia and near the Torfyanka checkpoint on Russia’s border with Finland. Russian officials said they would hand call-up notices to all eligible men who were trying to leave the country.

    Over 194,000 Russian citizens have fled to neighboring Georgia, Kazakhstan and Finland — most often by car, bicycle or on foot — since Russian President Vladimir Putin last week announced a partial mobilization of reservists. In Russia, the vast majority of men under age 65 are registered as reservists.

    The Kremlin has said it plans to call-up some 300,000 people, but Russian media reported that the number could be as high as 1.2 million, a claim that Russian officials have denied.

    Background: Putin’s ‘all instruments’ remark perceived as nuclear threat as Russia mobilizes some 300,000 reservists

    Russia’s Defense Ministry has promised to only draft those who have combat or service experience, but according to multiple media reports and human rights advocates, men who don’t fit the criteria are also being rounded up.

    The official decree on mobilization, signed by Putin last week, is concise and vague, fueling fears of a broader draft.

    In an apparent effort to calm the population, Putin told Russia’s Security Council on Thursday that mistakes had been made in the mobilization. He said that Russian men mistakenly called up for service should be sent back home, and that only reservists with proper training and specialties should be summoned to serve.

    “It’s necessary to deal with each such case independently, but if there is a mistake, I repeat, it must be fixed. It’s necessary to bring back those who were drafted without proper reason,” Putin stressed.

    The mass exodus of Russian men — alone or with their families or friends — began Sept. 21, shortly after Putin’s address to the nation, and continued all this week. Airline tickets to destinations abroad have sold out days in advance, even at unprecedentedly high prices.

    Long lines of cars formed on roads leading to Russia’s borders. Russian authorities tried to stem the outflow by turning back some men at the borders, citing mobilization laws, or setting up draft offices at border checkpoints.

    The bus stations in Samara and Tolyatti, two large Russian cities in the Samara region, on Thursday halted service to Uralsk, a border city in Kazakhstan.

    See: Officials say 98,000 Russians enter Kazakhstan after military call-up

    Finland announced that it would ban Russian citizens with tourist visas from entering the country starting Friday. With the exception of Norway, which has only one border crossing with Russia, Finland has provided the last easily accessible land route to Europe for Russian holders of European Schengen-zone visas. The Nordic country has taken in tens of thousands of people fleeing the military call-up in recent days.

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