Departing staff will get 14 weeks of pay, plus another week for every year they’ve worked at Airbnb, and will get a year’s worth of health insurance in the US. International workers will get health coverage through the end of 2020. Employees who’ve worked for less than a year can buy their vested share options.

Airbnb has a degree of cushioning. It scrambled to raise capital once the pandemic hit, including $2 billion in debt. All the same, it’s easy to see why the company would cut jobs to such a severe degree. While lockdowns are beginning to lift, it could be a long time until travel resumes in earnest, let alone until enough travellers are comfortable that Airbnb sees pre-pandemic booking levels. The layoffs might help Airbnb survive until that point without having to ask for more money.

Accordingly, Airbnb has introduced a donation tool that lets people contribute to partners supporting COVID-19 relief efforts.

The project has its roots in pilot programs in France and Italy, where healthcare workers can already get free stays through Airbnb. There are close to 6,000 hosts in those countries, and Airbnb hopes its new program will host as many as 100,000 COVID-19 responders. Whether or not this happens, the effort might be important. It could not only provide comfort to workers under tremendous stress, but reduce the need for long commutes that make it harder to practice responsible social distancing.

The allure is fairly self-evident: you can rent a car from the same app you’d use to hail a ride or grab a bike, and you don’t have to stress about visiting a rental counter or driving limits.

For Lyft, this is part of both a larger effort to cover many forms of transportation and shore up its bottom line. It has long wanted to be your go-to provider no matter how you want to ride. And when Lyft expects to see its steepest losses this year, it needs options like car rentals to boost revenue and (eventually) turn a profit.

The change led a judge to grant Disney an injunction, and Redbox lost all of its counterclaims save for one accusing Disney of false advertising. It had run out of options, to put it another way. The settlement helps Redbox avoid potentially worse consequences that might come from fighting to the very end.

Redbox turned to selling codes after the one-two combo of downloads and streaming threatened its disc-based rental business. The company has tried digital services, but it has never really threatened heavyweights like Netflix or Apple. This leaves Redbox with one less digital option, and the competition won’t get any easier now that services like Disney+ are available.

The company had already promised close reviews of high-risk rentals, such as people renting giant homes when they live in the area. The Halloween shooting occurred at an estate that was ostensibly rented for a family gathering, but was really used to host a party with more than 100 guests.

To back up the review process, Airbnb will also implement a “guest guarantee” if your rental doesn’t match the description. You’ll either get an alternative that’s worth at least as much as what you paid or, if that isn’t available, a full refund.

As with the policy changes unveiled in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, there’s a degree of damage control involved. Airbnb doesn’t want would-be customers to believe that violence or scams are relatively commonplace. This could root out misleading entries that would otherwise go unnoticed, though. If there’s a concern, it’s whether or not there will be ongoing reviews. Homeowners and rentals change, and a one-time review might not help if new shady rentals go unreported.

The executive vowed tighter scrutiny as well, including a rapid response team devoted to party houses and expanded human screening for “high-risk” rentals the company’s technology flags for closer review. These combined initiatives could take effect relatively quickly, as Chesky vowed a “10 day sprint” to review and speed up its new safety efforts.

The Orinda incident represented a textbook example of a party house, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. The renters had falsely claimed that they were holding a 12-person family reunion at the estate, only for owner Michael Wang to discover the party following noise complaints and security footage. He had called the police to intervene, but the shooting took place before officers could arrive. It’s not clear who committed the shooting or why it took place, although this wasn’t the first party at the house.

While tragedies like this are rare, the Orinda shooting highlights the challenges Airbnb faces in keeping its rentals above-board. While it can ban party houses and makeshift hotels, the company can’t always guarantee that hosts or visitors won’t abuse the service. Cities like San Francisco have instituted registrations and other measures to keep rental customers honest. Airbnb’s latest steps won’t necessarily prevent abuses, but they could discourage the most egregious violations.

Airbnb wants to make it easier to find work-friendly listings, and its solution is fairly simple. Before, the company would ask if you were traveling for business at checkout. Now, it’s offering an Airbnb for Work toggle that you can select at the beginning of your search. The feature will bring up listings that are more relevant for business trips.

For $999 per month, subscribers will be able to choose from full-size sedans, small SUVs and trucks. For $1,399 per month, tier two subscribers will have access to luxury sedans, regular SUVs and large trucks. Both tiers are cheaper than the Enterprise program. Though, Enterprise allows customers to exchange vehicles up to four times per month, and Hertz only allows two swaps. Both of the Hertz subscription plans include vehicle maintenance, roadside assistance, vehicle damage and limited liability protection.

Hertz My Car will launch in Atlanta and Austin, Texas — markets the Enterprise service hasn’t entered. Hertz sees this model as an alternative to traditional car ownership, which it says is becoming less popular in cities. The company shared a survey by Cox Automotive that reports 40 percent of respondents said access to transportation is necessary but owning a vehicle is not. More than half of those living in cities said private vehicle ownership is not necessary. With Hertz and Enterprise testing subscription-based rentals, it’s likely we’ll see other companies follow suit. Perhaps they’ll fill a gap left by ridesharing services and not yet met by other car-sharing programs.

Some of the data transfer won’t be completely voluntary. A judge has ordered Airbnb to comply with subpoenas by providing detailed info for “dozens” of hosts and “hundreds” of guests who’ve either listed or stayed in over a dozen buildings in three boroughs over the past seven years. The data includes sensitive material like names and addresses, bank account details and reservation histories.

An Airbnb representative told Wired that the company hoped that honoring the subpoenas was a “first step” toward city regulations that were in line with its rights and obligations. It also claimed this “reinforces” privacy concerns by having the city show the court why it needed more detailed information. The company had previously characterized the subpoenas as “overbroad and unduly burdensome.”

This doesn’t represent a definitive end to the quarrel between Airbnb and NYC, but it could have a significant influence on how the city treats home rental services. The metropolis has long been concerned that Airbnb and similar services exacerbate housing issues by letting tenants and landlords turn apartments into makeshift hotel rooms, denying permanent residents a place to stay. Airbnb’s info could help NYC determine the scale of this practice and prosecute offenders.

Marriott recently completed a pilot, in which it rented 340 properties in Paris, Rome, Lisbon and London. The pilot is expected to serve as a model for a US-based, home-rental program. Though, we don’t know when or where that will launch.

With about 1.3 million guest rooms globally, Marriott is the world’s largest hotel operator. But Airbnb, the world’s largest home-rental platform, boasts as many as 6 million rentals globally. While Airbnb has faced its fair share of challenges — from privacy concerns to lawsuits over ads and data — those close to Marriott say the home-rental market is too big an opportunity to pass up.

Airbnb is expected to go public no later than 2020, and in the meantime, it’s been busy diversifying. There are rumors of original TV content meant to spark the travel bug. It’s toyed with the idea of building houses, and it has framed itself as a way to make corporate meetings more fun. While Airbnb is no longer strictly home rentals, that is still the company’s bread and butter, and time will tell if Marriott is able to cut into Airbnb’s main business.