housing

Reporting from Sacramento — A Bay Area lawmaker wants to knock down what he believes is a key barrier to California meeting its ambitious climate change goals: one of the state’s most prominent environmental laws.

Assemblyman Tim Grayson (D-Concord) has introduced legislation that aims to make it harder for lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, to stop construction of roads and public transit.

CEQA requires developers and public agencies to disclose a project’s environmental effects and take steps to reduce or eliminate them. But Grayson says the law can grind to a halt transportation projects that are needed to reduce the amount of cars on the road.

His legislation, Assembly Bill 1905, would make it easier for road or transit projects included in a state-approved regional growth plan to begin construction before any CEQA litigation is resolved.

Since state climate regulators will have already signed off on those road and transit projects when approving a region’s growth plan, the projects shouldn’t face multiple threats of environmental litigation, Grayson argues.

“What I’m looking at is how do we cut down on traffic congestion where we’re just spilling greenhouse gases, creating clouds of greenhouse gases and impacting the environment negatively,” Grayson said.

But Grayson’s approach is already attracting concerns from high-profile environmental organizations. Environmental groups often credit CEQA, which took effect in 1970, with preserving California’s natural beauty, and argue it is complementary — not contrary — to the more recent climate change laws.

A court should rule in a CEQA lawsuit before construction starts, said Kyle Jones, a policy advocate for Sierra Club California.

“It just seems prudent that you’ve gotten all your legal barriers out of the way,” Jones said.

California has many laws that force private developers and public agencies to examine the environmental impacts of their housing, commercial, industrial and transportation plans and projects.

In 2008, the state Legislature began requiring regional governments, including the Southern California Assn. of Governments, to draw up plans to accommodate population growth and reduce greenhouse gases with proposals for new housing and transportation primarily in already developed areas. The goal is to reduce sprawl and emissions from long commutes. Regional governments are now revising their plans to comply with the state’s new aggressive targets to cut carbon emissions by 40% of 1990 levels by 2030.

But actual growth doesn’t have to follow the plans, and individual projects can stall for many reasons, including environmental litigation. Under Grayson’s bill, however, any road, transit or other transportation project included in an approved regional climate plan would receive relief in potential CEQA lawsuits.

Currently, a court can stop construction on a project if the judge finds its required CEQA analysis failed to account for all effects on the environment. Under Grayson’s bill, a court could do so only if the project was found to have serious life or safety risks.

State lawmakers have approved this legal standard before to speed the development of a new Sacramento Kings basketball arena. Those rules weren’t tested in a lawsuit against the arena. But state and local officials have said the legal standard allowed construction to go forward without fear of litigation tying up the project and potentially costing the city the team.

In Los Angeles, Grayson’s bill could affect large road and transit projects including a Metro Gold Line extension into eastern Los Angeles County and tunnels through the Sepulveda Pass.

But Sierra Club California and the Natural Resources Defense Council are among the environmental organizations that believe the bill goes too far. State climate regulators don’t heavily scrutinize individual projects when approving regional growth plans, representatives of both groups said.

For instance, a judge might find that a transportation project’s environmental review didn’t account for all the effects the development could have on air quality, but under AB 1905 that judge couldn’t stop the project because of it, said David Pettit, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Without the threat of halting construction, agencies won’t need to take seriously any subsequent demands to improve the air surrounding the project, he said.

AB 1905 “may look good on its face, but it’s fantastically unrealistic when you look at the effects of when concrete is already in the ground,” Pettit said.

Grayson said the inspiration for his bill came from the California Transportation Commission, a state agency that advises Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature on transportation policy and spending. In its most recent annual report, the commission recommended an idea similar to Grayson’s bill as a way to speed up project construction.

The recently passed gas tax and other fee increases are expected to bring in more than $5 billion annually for road repairs and mass transit upgrades. Grayson said it’s important to spend that money quickly, and making it easier to defend against CEQA lawsuits is one way to do it.

“If we’re ever going to make a huge impact it is going to be now with the amount of revenue at our disposal,” he said.

liam.dillon@latimes.com

@dillonliam

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Updates on California politics

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is expected to lose her leadership role on the L.A. City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, which she has chaired since 2023, according to people familiar with the situation.

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson is planning to announce this week that the committee will be split into a housing committee and a homelessness committee — neither of which will be led by Raman, the people said.

Harris-Dawson is a close ally of Mayor Karen Bass, whom Raman is challenging for re-election. He declined to comment.

“It’s hard to imagine that it’s not related to politics. The timing of it would be too much of a coincidence,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former Los Angeles City Councilmember and Los Angeles County supervisor who now serves as chair of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Raman’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the impending shakeup, which was reported earlier by the California Post.

The move comes at a pivotal moment in the mayor’s race on homelessness.

The city’s unsheltered homeless population increased this year after two straight years of decreases, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported last month.

While the citywide number has increased, the number of homeless people living on the street in Raman’s district decreased by 49%, a fact she has touted as she challenges Bass.

Raman and Bass have presented starkly different takes regarding the situation citywide and in Raman’s district.

The mayor has posited that her signature program, Inside Safe, which addresses homeless encampments by moving homeless individuals into temporary housing, was largely responsible for the drop in Raman’s district and that federal and state budget cuts partially led to the increase citywide.

She also attacked Raman’s performance as the chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee.

“While Raman takes credit for the City’s work in her district, ignoring the fact that she’s the Chair of the Homelessness & Housing Committee for ALL of Los Angeles, Mayor Bass is working to move our city forward and address years of neglect,” said Bass’ campaign spokesperson Alex Stack in a statement last month about the homeless numbers.

Raman claimed that there have only been three Inside Safe operations in her district and that her committee has been stifled by inaction from the mayor.

“Council can pass legislation… move motions forward, but it is the mayor that has charge of the implementation and outcomes, she said at a press conference last month.

A few of Friday’s editorials reflect the anger about the government’s early release scheme for prisoners in England and Wales. The Daily Express, external calls on the prime minister to halt what it calls a “preposterous plan”, which it says will reward sex offenders and the killers of police officers. The Sun calls Andy Burnham’s failure to exempt two of PC Andrew Harper’s killers from the scheme a “terrible decision”, external.

The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph lead on Conservative proposals to scrap social housing for many foreign nationals. The Mail calls it a “bold move”, external. According to the Telegraph, the Tories believe the change will stop Britain from being treated as a “cash machine for the world”, external. But it also highlights concerns from Labour about the effect on long-term UK residents, including “NHS staff”.

The Guardian, external says the government’s review of youth unemployment will recommend that primary schools in England should identify children at risk of leaving education at 16 without a job. Alan Milburn, who is leading the review, tells the paper that “the warning signs are there from a very, early age”.

The Financial Times calls the sale of EasyJet, external to an American private equity firm the “latest foreign swoop”. The paper says the £5.7bn-takeover paves the way for “another London listed company to be taken private”, with the airline joining an “exodus from UK listings”.

“Number 10 aides show blokey Burnham the red card”, declares the Times. It says Downing Street social media experts have told the prime minister to tone down his “blokeish”, external videos – by limiting references to “football and the pub”.

Some of the papers poke fun at the suggestion drinkers could be discouraged from standing in pubs in London’s West End. The Daily Mirror, external asks “wouldn’t this effort be better spent making it a crime to leave when it’s your round?” The Daily Star , externaldeclares it “madness”, and pictures the band of the same name standing in a Soho pub.

Thousands of people in India have been displaced since July after monsoon rains triggered severe flooding. India’s northeastern state of Assam is among the hardest hit, with at least 87 recorded deaths.

A cluster of fast-moving wildfires has devastated the outskirts of Spokane, Washington state, with 65,000 people told to leave their homes. More than 700 buildings have been destroyed as the fires spread from surrounding vegetation into residential neighbourhoods, posing an unprecedented threat to lives and property.

The blazes have become the top firefighting priority in the US because of their scale and the danger they pose to communities. While no deaths have been confirmed, authorities say it will take time to assess the full extent of the damage as search teams begin entering the hardest-hit areas.

The evacuation orders expanded from about 4,000 people on Sunday to 65,000 by Monday, highlighting the speed at which the fires spread into populated communities.

Here is what to know:

What is happening in Spokane, Washington?

Spokane, Washington’s second-largest city, is at the centre of one of the state’s most destructive wildfire emergencies in recent history after three fast-moving wildfires erupted on its northern outskirts over the weekend. Fanned by strong winds and fueled by exceptionally dry vegetation, the fires have burned more than 8,000 acres (3237 hectares) and spread from surrounding forests and grasslands into residential neighbourhoods, forcing approximately 65,000 people to evacuate, according to the Spokane Valley Fire Department.

Hundreds of buildings, most of them homes, have already been destroyed, with aerial surveys suggesting many more may have been damaged. Entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to charred rubble, with some properties left standing only as brick chimneys.

The scale of the disaster has overwhelmed local resources, prompting one of the largest firefighting operations in the state, with more than 1,000 firefighters deployed from across the region.

Despite the massive response, the fires remain uncontained, and officials say it could take days to fully assess the destruction. While no deaths have been confirmed, authorities initially received nearly 300 reports of missing people after the evacuations, though that number has since fallen significantly as families have been reunited. Emergency shelters have been opened across Spokane, and officials are urging residents not to return to evacuated areas or fly drones, which can disrupt critical aerial firefighting operations.

Firefighters are taking advantage of a brief period of cooler temperatures and lighter winds, but forecasters warn that hotter, drier and windier weather is expected to return later this week, raising fears that the fires could spread even further.

Washington is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in more than three decades, with about 450,000 acres (182,000 hectares) burned so far this summer. More than 250,000 acres have burned in recent major fires alone.

What caused the fires?

Local news outlets have reported that the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office announced on Monday evening that a 37-year-old had been arrested on suspicion of arson in connection with the fire.

However, experts say the conditions that allowed the fires to spread so rapidly were already in place.

Washington has been experiencing severe drought and an unusually low winter snowpack, leaving vegetation exceptionally dry and highly flammable. Those conditions have been compounded by periods of extreme heat, low humidity and strong winds, creating an environment in which even a small ignition can quickly grow into a fast-moving wildfire.

Scientists have also linked increasingly severe wildfire seasons across the western US to human-caused climate change, which has contributed to hotter temperatures, longer droughts and drier landscapes. While climate change does not directly ignite wildfires, it makes them more likely to spread rapidly and become more destructive once they start.

Why are the Washington wildfires so severe?

The Washington wildfires have become particularly severe because several factors have converged, allowing the blazes to spread rapidly.

• Multiple large fires burning simultaneously: Spokane is dealing with three major wildfires at once, while dozens of other significant fires are burning across the western US. Managing multiple large incidents simultaneously has made it harder to concentrate resources on a single fire.
• The fires advanced rapidly into populated communities: Driven by strong winds, the flames jumped roads and rivers, allowing them to move from forests and grasslands into residential neighbourhoods. More than 700 buildings have been destroyed, making the fires far more difficult to contain as they threaten homes, businesses and critical infrastructure.
• Firefighting resources are stretched: More than 100 new wildfires have been reported across 15 US states over a single weekend, placing extraordinary pressure on national firefighting resources. Although more than 1,000 firefighters have been deployed to Spokane, emergency officials say aircraft, equipment and personnel are being shared across multiple emergencies.
• An ongoing threat despite improved weather: Firefighters have benefitted from a brief period of cooler temperatures and lighter winds, but officials warn that hotter, drier and windier conditions are expected to return. With the fires still not contained, there is a significant risk that they could grow further or ignite new areas.

What role are drought, heat and climate change playing?

Scientists say drought, extreme heat and climate change are making wildfire seasons longer, more frequent and more destructive across the western US.

Drought dries out vegetation, turning forests and grasslands into fuel that can ignite and burn more intensely.

Heat and low humidity accelerate fire spread by drying vegetation even further and creating conditions in which flames can move rapidly across the landscape.

Climate change amplifies these conditions, as rising global temperatures are increasing the likelihood of prolonged droughts, more frequent heatwaves and longer fire seasons, making large, destructive wildfires more likely once they ignite.

What is the weather forecast for midweek?

The weather is expected to worsen again by midweek.

While Monday and Tuesday offered a brief, helpful window of cooler temperatures and calmer winds, the midweek forecast calls for a return of:

• Extremely high temperatures, particularly on Thursday, with highs forecasted up to 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit). On Monday, it was at 22C (72F).
• Low humidity (very dry conditions).
• Gusty winds with speeds up to 26 km/h.

Because the fires remain completely uncontained, authorities are keeping evacuations in place. They warn that the worst outcome would be letting residents return to their homes, only to have to evacuate them again 24 to 48 hours later when the hot, windy weather returns.

Washington’s entire congressional delegation is awaiting a response from President Donald Trump regarding their request for an expedited emergency declaration to deliver immediate federal relief to displaced families.

Are other states also fighting wildfires?

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, most of the fire activity in the US remains concentrated across the country’s northwest.

Right now, the major fires are mostly grassland burns in Idaho, Oregon and Utah, as well as fires in Florida’s Everglades National Park, in addition to new fires reported in Left Creek in Wyoming, Antelope Creek Fire in Nevada and the Sand Creek and Middle Coulee fires in Montana.

A lightning-caused fire that has burned more than 530 square miles (about 1,370 sq km) of grassland in western Idaho and eastern Oregon continued to grow on Monday. The area is home to cattle ranches, and authorities said the fire is threatening more than 600 homes and 800 other structures.

In central Utah, a blaze quadrupled in size more than the weekend to nearly 109 square miles (282 sq km) by Monday afternoon. More than 100 cattle have died, according to law enforcement.

Bodycam footage from firefighters shows the speed needed to put out the blaze sweeping through the northwestern US. More than 60,000 people have fled their homes as wildfires raged near Spokane, Washington for a third straight day.

A controversial wealth tax won backing from the California Democratic Party on Sunday, the latest episode in the measure roiling the left and its allies.

The party’s executive board voted Sunday to endorse Proposition 40, which, if approved by voters this November, would impose a 5% one-time tax on billionaires’ assets to pay for healthcare.

The measure has proved divisive. While it has support from progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), others including Gov. Gavin Newsom, gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, and a growing list of labor unions have come out against it, arguing the one-time nature of the tax and billionaire flight could cause more harm than good to California’s state budget.

“This endorsement puts to rest the idea that California Democrats are not united by the billionaire tax — they are,” said Dave Regan, President of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the labor union that gathered enough signatures to put Proposition 40 on the ballot.

Regan cited an internal poll which found more than 80% of registered Democrats support the tax, “and now the Democratic Party of California has officially embraced that strong support through this endorsement.”

Public opinion polls have shown the measure with slim majority support. According to a May poll from the Public Policy Institute of California, 54% of likely voters and 76% of Democrats said they would vote for the tax.

Proposition 40 seeks to raise $100 billion over a five-year span to backfill cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Trump last year. Its supporters argue that the federal tax cuts benefit the wealthy at the expense of low-income people and that Proposition 40 would reverse the damage.

Its opponents, which include the California Teachers Assn. and tech founders spending millions to defeat the measure, argue it could destabilize the state budget — which already taxes wealthy earners at higher rates — by pushing billionaires to leave California for other states.

In a statement, the No on Prop. 40 campaign said Newsom, Becerra, and organizations including the California Professional Firefighters union and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California oppose the tax “because it’s bad for our budget, bad for our economy, and bad for our future. We need smart, durable solutions to our biggest challenges, not unreliable, untested schemes that shortchange healthcare, education, and public safety.”

Democratic executive board members endorsed the measure Sunday during a meeting in San Diego. The party also voted to oppose two competing ballot measures that seek to undercut the billionaire’s tax, along with a voter ID measure and a proposal to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act for housing and infrastructure projects.

Democrats voted to endorse two housing bonds — a $11.25-billion bond to build affordable housing and a $25-billion down payment assistance program — and an $8.4-billion immunology research bond.

The party is also supporting a measure to make permanent an existing tax on high-income earners which funds education and health care.

“Every endorsement we make is earned, not given,” California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks said in a statement. “California Democrats take a deliberative approach to our endorsement process that puts our values first and ensures our members have a meaningful voice in shaping the future of our state.”

José Gregorio Rengel is a civil engineer with a master’s degree in seismic-resistant engineering from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), where he presently teaches, and specialization studies in geological risks at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Rengel is a member of the government commission tasked with assessing the structural damage from the June 24 double earthquake. 

In this interview, he discusses the effects of the tremors, Venezuela’s building codes, and the steps toward reconstruction.

Why did the double earthquake on June 24 have such devastating effects on La Guaira?

Every seismic event is caused by a rupture along geological faults, and in this case, the rupture –which began in Yaracuy State –follows a distinct east-west direction along the San Sebastián fault. The coastal strip that is La Guaira lies directly on that rupture plane. In fact, the distance from La Guaira to the fault –specifically, the fault’s rupture plane –is 0 kilometers in some areas; in other words, the state lies directly on the rupture. This is made clear in all the reports released by various agencies, from [Venezuela Seismological Research Foundation] FUNVISIS to the US Geological Survey.

In an earthquake, the effects are maximized the closer cities are to these rupture planes. Furthermore, the earthquake was a very shallow event. In other words, it occurred at a small depth, which also leads to stronger effects. Thus, La Guaira meets these two specific conditions: first, it is practically located on the rupture plane, and second, the earthquake was a shallow event.

From a structural standpoint, with thousands of buildings affected, what are the priorities right now?

For now, our task is to inspect the buildings that were affected. Four weeks after the earthquake, we have conducted more than 32,000 inspections using the traffic-light system. Buildings that have not been damaged in any relevant way receive a green label; those that have been moderately affected, a yellow label; and those with significant damage, where people should not remain, a red label.

Next will come a reconstruction phase, which must be carried out in accordance with Venezuela’s seismic codes, most recently updated in 2019. In the case of La Guaira, additional studies are needed, such as developing a seismic microzoning analysis that already exists for Caracas. Although several studies are well underway, this classification has not yet been completed in La Guaira.

Can you explain a bit further what these building inspections consist of?

The current inspections are rapid assessments designed to enable an immediate decision regarding the occupants: whether they can stay, use the building under restricted conditions, or whether they must evacuate. Our job is to categorize the level of damage to the building.

This is followed by a second phase, during which a more detailed inspection will be conducted on structures that received yellow or red labels to determine which of these could proceed to the repair stage. This, in turn, requires a more detailed assessment by structural experts to determine what type of repair work can be performed and how it would be carried out. In cases where it is not possible to restore the structure, for those that are too severely damaged, protocols for safe, controlled demolition must be established.

The corporate media has tried to push the narrative that buildings constructed as part of the Great Venezuela Housing Mission (GMVV) were particularly hard hit in La Guaira. Is there any truth to it or is it a myth?

We have witnessed the collapse of various types of buildings, ranging from those built by the private sector, which account for the majority of the destroyed buildings observed, to those built by the public sector. Some of them were part of the Great Venezuela Housing Mission.

In some cases, the flattened buildings were very old. In other cases, they had structures that were supposed to be built in accordance with the latest codes. We will need to assess whether they failed to meet the standards, and that must be investigated. We cannot jump to conclusions. 

However, it is also possible that the buildings did meet the standards, but the seismic event exceeded them. So far, everything seems to indicate that this was an extraordinary geological event and may have surpassed the country’s existing codes, especially in La Guaira.

As far as we understand, in Venezuela the building codes are primarily governed by the standards of the Ministry of Habitat and Housing and the COVENIN industrial norms system. What do these standards establish?

Basically, there are two types of standards: seismic standards, which specify the level of acceleration for which a building is designed to withstand, in terms of ground acceleration. In other words, this relates to the force that an earthquake exerts on structures. Therefore, the structural setup of buildings is designed to withstand these lateral forces caused by earthquakes through a calculation of acceleration at the base. This is something the standards define very clearly. Our most recent seismic standards were updated in 2019.

And then there are the building codes. These are essentially regulations governing how to construct with reinforced concrete, steel, and other materials. But fundamentally, in Venezuela, we build with concrete and steel. Currently, both types of codes are up to date and comply with international standards. Furthermore, Venezuela has a long tradition of good engineering practices in earthquake-resistant construction and structural engineering.

If the investigations ultimately reveal that those standards were not met, should penalties be imposed?

Certainly, yes. It is necessary to conduct an investigation into each collapsed building, or at least a sample of these buildings. This is the ideal approach. Of course, we must also take into account that the earthquake was an event with characteristics that we might call extreme or extraordinary.

In the case of La Guaira, given that the geological fault is very close to the affected areas, this generated what in science jargon are called near-field effects, which subject structures to extreme stress. That is why even buildings that were well-constructed and very robust sustained significant damage.

However, all cases of total collapse must be investigated to understand the causes: whether the earthquake exceeded the standards under which they were built, or whether there were construction defects or regulatory violations. The goal is to determine the predominant cause of the collapse. In La Guaira, we are working with the hypothesis that the seismic event exceeded regulatory parameters.

Looking now toward reconstruction, what are the next steps, particularly in La Guaira?

The first step is to continue developing seismic microzoning studies. This is what will allow us to understand in which areas of La Guaira there is an amplification of accelerations, an amplification of the effects of earthquakes, so that we can impose the strictest design and construction requirements precisely in those areas. Therefore, these rigorous microzoning studies must be conducted, completed, and translated into a map that complements the other regulations.

Caracas, August 1, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government and the United Nations have launched a joint 60-day plan to assess the country’s recovery needs following the twin earthquakes that struck the country on June 24.

The initiative, announced in a press conference on Wednesday, is titled the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA). It will be led by Venezuelan authorities with technical support from UN agencies, the European Union, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), and other “strategic partners from various sectors.”

Under the proposal, a multidisciplinary team will work jointly to evaluate nine socioeconomic sectors in the hardest-hit regions and produce technical recommendations to guide reconstruction policies and investment decisions.

“The plan will provide a common and objective assessment of damages, losses, and recovery needs,” outgoing UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Venezuela Gianluca Rampolla told reporters in a televised broadcast with Acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

Rampolla stressed that “the success of this process will depend on the commitment, collaboration, and continuous exchange among all participating institutions.”

For her part, Rodríguez forecast “extraordinary results” from the initiative and expressed confidence in her government’s ability to establish “highly effective coordination mechanisms with international organizations and the United Nations system.”

The acting leader emphasized that the objective goes beyond simply restoring damaged infrastructure.

“It is not only about recovering what existed before; it is about going further. The double earthquake also affected sectors already living in poverty,” she affirmed. “We must move beyond the humanitarian phase and advance toward a recovery process that places the human being at the center in every dimension,” she said.

Education Minister Héctor Rodríguez, who also participated in the press conference, said that the working groups would begin immediately and produce a “detailed and realistic report” with general policy guidelines within the 60-day deadline.

Real estate subsidies and reconstruction plans

The acting president had previously announced that both public and private banks would offer housing loans to affected families. Homes valued at up to US $70,000 will receive an 80 percent state subsidy for their purchase, with the remaining 20 percent provided via a bank loan to be paid over 25 years. For properties valued between $70,000 and $100,000, the state will subsidize 50 percent, while the remainder will also be granted 25-year financing plans.

Venezuela’s present minimum income stands at $240 a month for public sector workers.

Rodríguez added that residents who lost their apartments will retain their property rights to the land and receive support for reconstruction.

“I have requested that the Supreme Court establish a special jurisdiction to address civil matters related to property ownership and personal identity,” she explained during a meeting with government officials on Tuesday.

The Venezuelan acting president likewise met with a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday to discuss the possible use of international reserves to finance the Venezuela Rises Plan, through which the government aims to deliver 4,000 homes before the end of the year and build at least 10,000 additional ones in 2027.

According to reports, the talks additionally focused on the Caribbean nation’s macroeconomic outlook and economic policy priorities.

On July 17, the acting president announced access to$346 million from Venezuela’s IMF reserve tranche, funds that are immediately available to address urgent humanitarian needs arising from the disaster. However, the fund has yet to release around $4.5 billion in Special Drawing Rights that have been frozen since being issued in 2021.

The World Bank has estimated the immediate earthquake damages at $19.6 billion and warned that a slow reconstruction process could hinder Venezuela’s economic recovery for the next decade.

According to the latest official figures, the twin earthquakes left at least 5,546 people dead, 16,740 injured, and over 20,000 people homeless.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

July 30 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s state-run housing guarantor failed to properly investigate debtors and recover claims after paying about 15 trillion won, or $10.3 billion, under defaulted guarantees over the past five years, a government audit found Thursday.

The Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation, commonly known as HUG, has yet to recover about 12 trillion won, or $8.2 billion, of that amount.

The Board of Audit and Inspection released the findings of its regular audit of the corporation, identifying problems in guarantee issuance, project financing reviews, debt collection and customer refunds.

HUG provides guarantees intended to protect tenants if landlords fail to return jeonse deposits.

Jeonse is a housing rental arrangement widely used in South Korea in which a tenant provides a large refundable deposit instead of paying, or in exchange for paying less, monthly rent.

Corporation undercharged guarantee fees

Auditors found that HUG undercharged a corporate rental business by about 2.77 billion won, or $1.9 million, when issuing guarantees covering 12,752 homes.

HUG’s rules required it to calculate the fee using the company’s credit rating on the date the guarantee was issued. Employees instead used an earlier, more favorable credit rating from the application date.

The audit board called for disciplinary action against the employees involved and instructed HUG to review ways of collecting the unpaid fees.

HUG has reported financial losses since 2022 as rental deposit guarantee defaults increased, including cases involving large-scale jeonse fraud.

Its operating loss grew from 242.9 billion won, or about $166 million, in 2022 to 2.19 trillion won, or about $1.5 billion, in 2024.

Weak reviews led to $261 million in PF guarantees

The audit also found deficiencies in HUG’s reviews of housing project financing guarantees.

Such guarantees rely largely on a developer’s projected income from future home sales, making an accurate assessment of expected cash flow essential.

Auditors found that HUG accepted financial data in which developers had arbitrarily delayed construction payments, improving the projects’ apparent debt-service capacity.

As a result, HUG approved a combined 382 billion won, or about $261 million, in guarantees for three projects that should have been rejected under its own standards.

HUG also incorrectly graded two other projects and collected about 1.64 billion won, or $1.1 million, less in guarantee fees than it should have.

Thousands of debtors were not investigated

The audit board also found major gaps in HUG’s efforts to identify assets belonging to debtors after paying claims on their behalf.

An examination of seven regional management centers found no record of an asset investigation for 2,915 of 9,003 debtors, or 32.3%.

The rate varied widely among regional offices. The Seoul Northern Center investigated the assets of only 21.6% of the debtors assigned to it, compared with 99.8% at the Seoul Western Center.

HUG’s headquarters failed to adequately monitor or address those differences, auditors said.

Tenants missed refunds

HUG also failed to refund fees to some tenants who had been enrolled in both a landlord rental deposit guarantee and a tenant jeonse deposit return guarantee.

The audit identified 1,699 cases involving about 173 million won, or approximately $118,000, in unreturned fees.

It also found 454 guarantee-default cases in which money owed to tenants had not been properly returned.

The audit board instructed HUG to analyze the causes of the problems and develop improvements in its core operations, including guarantee reviews, issuance procedures and debt recovery.

It also called for disciplinary or corrective action against employees responsible for improper decisions.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260730010011338

In a small mountain town you may stumble across hundreds of half-built., abandoned homes that resemble castles. While this development had big dreams, the plans never came into fruition

Imagine living in your very own miniature château, a three-storey villa that had gothic-inspired architecture with turrets and balustrades that made it resemble Cinderella’s castle at Disney World.

One housing developer had this dream, and it was set to build 732 of these unusual homes in a small town not far from Istanbul. But sadly, despite many homebuyers looking to buy into this unique community, it now lies abandoned 12 years after construction began.

While the houses looked straight out of a Disney film, they were actually inspired by Istanbul landmarks including the medieval Galata Tower and the Maiden’s Tower from Istanbul. The name of the development, Burj Al Babas, translates as ‘tower of Babas’ in Arabic, and came from the nearby Babas thermal springs. Each castle was set to have its own pipeline to the waters to create luxurious indoor swimming pools.

But the plans didn’t stop at rows and rows of castles. If completed, lucky residents would have had access to a huge domed complex with a shopping centre, mosque, cinema, and hammam, creating an entire community in the mountains. The relatively cool weather in the area was also seen as a selling point, allowing people from nearby Middle East countries to escape the worst of the summer heat.

The castles were listed in a glossy brochure, with prices ranging from $370,000 to $530,000, about £278,500 and £400,000, a modest sum to live in your own château. But despite half the castles being sold in advance, mostly to buyers from the Gulf states, not a single moving van made it to the complex.

As soon as construction began in 2014, with the aim of finishing in four years, it started to hit several snags. Firstly, contractors complained that the disposal of rubble had breached environmental laws, and a year later, workers protested that they hadn’t been paid. Contractors soon pulled out and started the long legal process of trying to reclaim their lost wages.

Add a failed military coup and bad luck with weather, and the construction soon fell behind schedule. Sales stalled too, due to the country’s instability at the time, and the lack of cash flow soon put the developer into bankruptcy.

Not a single castle was completed as of 2022, and there are 587 half-built castles on the plot, with the exposure to the elements likely causing water damage in many of them as time goes on.

As recently as 2024, there was renewed interest in the development with the Emir of Kuwait visiting President Erdoğan, and it was reported that Burj Al Babas was discussed. The Guardian were also given a tour of the site in the same year by Adem Tekgöz, a representative of developers the Sarot Group, who claimed: “It gets cold in the winter, so we stopped construction. We’re preparing to restart next summer”.

However, as of 2026 there appears to be no trace of the Sarot Group online and still no word as to whether the project will ever be restarted, leaving a ghost town rather than a fairytale village.

Have a story you want to share? Email us at webtravel@reachplc.com

Taiz, Yemen – Um Yousef knew that living on the front line in Taiz was dangerous. The area had been quieter for the past few years thanks to a general de-escalation of the war in Yemen, but it still lay between territory controlled by Yemeni government forces and Houthi rebels.

Destroyed buildings mark the city’s front line areas, evidence of the brutal fighting that has lasted for more than a decade.

But Um Yousef felt that she didn’t have a choice. A single mother of four children in her 40s, she couldn’t afford the typical market rate of about $130 for a three-bedroom house in the central Yemeni city. Her husband died years ago while working abroad, so she was the sole breadwinner for the family in a country where poverty has increased sharply since the war began more than a decade ago.

“There is a huge demand for houses, and all my efforts failed while I was living in a single room with my children,” recalled Um Yousef, who asked to use a pseudonym for security reasons. “It was very difficult to stay in that one room.”

After eight months of moving from one area to another, and even searching on the outskirts of Taiz, she ultimately decided that her only option was a home near the front line. Yes, it was dangerous, but with little money coming in, the home she found for about $13 a month couldn’t be ignored.

In January 2025, the family made the move. Two months later, her 11-year-old son came into the house from playing outside with blood pouring out of his mouth – he’d been shot.

Sniper danger

“I couldn’t understand what happened – I didn’t hear any gunfire,” Um Yousef said.

She still doesn’t know the exact cause of the shooting, but many of the casualties near Yemen’s front lines are the result of sniper fire.

Taiz is particularly dangerous in this regard. The front line going through the city is one of the few in the country in an urban area. The city’s geography, hilly and with a mountain overlooking it, offers numerous vantage points for snipers.

A United Nations monitoring project found that 66 percent of all civilian casualties from sniper shootings in Yemen last year were in Taiz. Of the 21 cases recorded, nine were children.

Thankfully, Um Yousef’s son’s injuries were not as serious as first feared. After being immediately taken to hospital, he received medical treatment and was discharged the next day.

The incident woke Um Yousef up to the reality of where she had brought her children to. But she still can’t afford to move. Instead, she has had no choice but to stay and learn ways to reduce the risk.

“Residents here take precautions I wasn’t aware of, like turning off lights at night in rooms visible from a distance, and keeping children from playing in open areas,” she explained. “They have to play behind the houses instead. I’m aware of these things now and follow them to keep my children safe.”

Damaged homes

Taiz governorate is the most populous in Yemen, with a population of almost 4.5 million and more than 400,000 internally displaced people, according to Khalid Alwan, director of the local statistics office.

“More than 10,000 houses were completely or partially damaged by the conflict in Taiz, and there are many more we couldn’t reach to count,” Alwan told Al Jazeera. “Reconstruction is expensive, and most residents cannot afford to repair their homes even if they are in safe areas. This further worsens the housing crisis in the city.”

He noted that while some humanitarian organisations have repaired partially damaged homes in safe areas, these efforts are a drop in the ocean compared with the sheer number of affected properties.

The Nahda Makers Organisation (NMO) is one such group rehabilitating homes in several Yemeni governorates. To date, NMO has repaired 2,389 houses in Taiz, Lahj, Hodeidah, Aden and Abyan governorates – the vast majority of them in Taiz.

While this initiative has helped some families return to safe areas, the overall need remains overwhelming, with an estimated 4.8 million displaced people across the country still unable to return.

Housesitting

Mohammed Saeed has been living in the al-Thawrah neighbourhood of Taiz near the front line since 2023. He believes the war has taken a heavy toll on society, with soaring rents being one of its worst consequences.

“I’m not happy living here as we frequently hear the sounds of gunfire at night. Even if we aren’t targeted, just hearing it is enough to terrify us,” the 53-year-old told Al Jazeera. “In the beginning, my children couldn’t sleep when they heard the shooting, but now they’ve adapted. Adapted to what? Adapted to living in a dangerous area.”

Mohammed, who is unemployed and cannot afford rent, lives in a house for free in exchange for guarding it. Because the neighbourhood is near the front lines, many residents here do not pay rent.

“Nowadays it is calm, but if there is any escalation, we will be trapped in the crossfire,” Mohammed said. “I hope I can find a job that enables me to rent a house in a safe place and leave this one.”

Khalid Abdulhadi, 46, is one of the people who could afford to leave. He was born in the al-Kamb neighbourhood of Taiz city and owns a house there. However, he fled during the heavy fighting in 2018 and has not returned, as the proximity to the front line makes it far too unsafe.

“It is not the right decision to return and live in a dangerous area,” he told Al Jazeera. “Even though I am paying rent while owning my own home, going back could cost me my life.”

Khalid, who works as an accountant for a local company, said some of his neighbours did return and one of them lost their son, shot dead by a sniper.

He has allowed a family he knows to live in his house free of charge, knowing that they are impoverished and willing to guard the property. But he has decided to stay far away.

“I would prefer to live in a safe camp for displaced families rather than a dangerous house,” he said.

“We lost everything during this war; our lives are all we have left, so we must protect them.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is running for mayor against incumbent Karen Bass, seized on significant decreases in street homelessness in her district Friday while blasting increases citywide.

Street homelessness — people living outdoors or in their vehicles — went down by 49% in Raman’s district compared to the previous year, she said at a press conference Friday.

Citywide, street homelessness increased nearly 8%, while overall homelessness, which includes those living in shelters and other temporary facilities, increased 3.4%, according to numbers from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s January point-in-time count that were released Friday.

The contrast between her district and the city overall offered Raman an angle to present herself as more effectively handling the homelessness crisis than Bass.

An estimated 45,194 homeless people live in the city, with about 36% of them in shelters, according to LAHSA.

“Far fewer people living outside. Far more people indoors,” Raman, who has served on the council since 2020 and is chair of the City Council’s housing and homelessness committee, said at the press conference. “As mayor, that is the approach, and the results, that I want to deliver citywide.”

The numbers across the city were a setback for Bass, who has made homelessness one of her signature issues and previously touted two straight years of drops in street homelessness.

Raman cited her office’s homelessness team and their “aggressive interventionist” approach as reasons her district — which extends from Los Feliz and Silver Lake into Studio City, Sherman Oaks and other parts of the San Fernando Valley — did not suffer the same increases as other parts of the city.

She said her team is very familiar with homeless individuals in the district and knows many by name. The team tracks homeless encampments on a map and makes sure that empty shelter beds are filled, she said.

Bass’ campaign said Raman was attacking the mayor’s Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people from the streets to shelter and motel beds, at the same time that it contributed to the decreases in her district.

Raman has critiqued Inside Safe as too costly and insufficiently transparent.

“Nithya Raman is taking credit for the results of Inside Safe while campaigning against it,” Alex Stack, a spokesperson for Bass’ campaign, said in a statement. “While Raman takes credit for the City’s work in her district, ignoring the fact that she’s the Chair of the Homelessness & Housing Committee for ALL of Los Angeles, Mayor Bass is working to move our city forward and address years of neglect.”

Raman responded to those critiques at her press conference, saying that her district only had three Inside Safe operations over the past four years — fewer than some other districts.

She deflected when asked Friday about her responsibility for citywide homelessness, as chair of the city’s housing and homelessness committee.

“Council can pass legislation … move motions forward, but it is the mayor that has charge of the implementation and outcomes,” she said.

Citywide, Inside Safe has moved more than 6,000 people into hotels, motels and other types of interim housing since Bass took office in December 2022. But by May 31, 41% of those people had returned to homelessness, according to LAHSA figures collected separately from this year’s homeless count.

Bass attributed the citywide homelessness increases in part to funding cuts by the state and federal government. She also said the county has not provided adequate mental health or substance counseling services.

“This crisis was ignored by city leaders for decades, it’s only now that we’ve seen a historic decline,” she said in a statement Thursday. “I will never stop fighting until we end street homelessness, because no Angeleno should be sleeping on the street.”

Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this report.

The price of resale housing in Spain ended the second quarter of 2026 with a year-on-year increase of 17.2%, according to the Fotocasa Real Estate Index.

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Between April and June, prices also rose by 4%, bringing the average to €3,133 per square metre in June. Spain’s resale home prices have hit new record highs in four of the first six months of the year and are now at their highest level in the past 21 years.

Fotocasa’s head of research and spokesperson, María Matos, attributes this trend to a sharp imbalance between strong demand and limited supply. She explains that the shortage of available properties, financing conditions and demographic pressure in the main markets are driving prices up and making it more difficult to access housing.

According to Matos, “the result is ever faster price growth that makes it harder to access housing and widens the affordability gap for a large proportion of households.”

Fotocasa’s data is in line with the trend shown by statistics from the National Statistics Institute (INE), although the two use different methodologies.

While the property portal analyses the asking prices of advertised listings, the INE measures the prices of homes that are ultimately sold. According to the institute, the overall price of housing rose by 12.9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, while second-hand homes became 13.5% more expensive.

Murcia leads the increases

Prices rose during the second quarter in 16 autonomous communities.

The Region of Murcia recorded the largest rise, at 8.6%, followed by Cantabria (6.3%), the Valencian Community (5.9%), Castile and León (5.6%) and La Rioja (5.1%). The Canary Islands was the only region where prices fell, with a drop of 0.7%.

On an annual basis, Murcia once again came out on top with an increase of 28%, ahead of Cantabria (20%), the Valencian Community (19.8%), Asturias (17%) and Andalusia (16.9%).

The report also highlights that “June 2026 ended with 14 autonomous communities posting double-digit year-on-year increases, compared with 11 in 2025, six in 2024 and seven in 2023”.

The Balearic Islands and Madrid remain the most expensive regions to buy a resale home, at €5,441 and €5,410 per square metre respectively.

They are followed by the Basque Country (€3,925), Catalonia (€3,418) and the Canary Islands (€3,374). At the opposite end of the scale are Extremadura (€1,352), Castile-La Mancha (€1,407) and Castile and León (€1,816).

Provinces, provincial capitals and major cities

Forty-six provinces recorded quarterly increases, with León (10.7%), Palencia (10.2%) and Murcia (8.6%) seeing the sharpest rises, while Cuenca, Huelva, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Ávila were the only ones where prices fell.

The Balearic Islands remains the most expensive province to buy a resale home, at €5,441 per square metre, followed by Madrid (€5,410), Guipúzcoa (€4,695) and Málaga (€4,690). Jaén continues to be the most affordable, at €1,112 per square metre.

Among provincial capitals, León recorded the largest quarterly increase, while Donostia-San Sebastián maintains the highest average price in Spain, at €7,158 per square metre, ahead of Madrid (€6,630), Barcelona (€5,368), Palma (€5,275), Málaga (€4,320) and Bilbao (€4,157).

At municipal level, Santa Eulària des Riu in Ibiza tops the national ranking with €8,491 per square metre, followed by Sant Antoni de Portmany (€8,284) and Eivissa (€7,441). In Madrid, the Salamanca district reaches €10,786 per square metre, while Sarrià-Sant Gervasi leads the way in Barcelona at €7,540 per square metre.

Democrat Xavier Becerra holds a commanding lead in the California governor’s race in a new poll, which also shows broad voter support for a ballot proposition to reform the state’s landmark environmental law to speed up housing and infrastructure.

The survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, released Wednesday night, focused primarily on questions related to climate change and environmental policies.

The results show Californians have a strong distaste for building data centers for artificial intelligence technology, and largely favor the state’s efforts to protect the environment and cut emissions — with some exceptions.

The survey showed Becerra with a big lead over Republican Steve Hilton in the race to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom. Becerra, a longtime Democratic officeholder, received support from 61% of likely voters, compared with 36% for Hilton, a populist conservative who once advised a British prime minister.

Gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks at the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in L.A. on Wednesday.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The results are not surprising in a state where Democratic voters significantly outnumber Republicans. The GOP has not won a statewide election since 2008.

Just 2% of likely voters said they were unsure which candidate to support in the November election. The poll results skewed heavily partisan, with more than 9 in 10 Democratic and Republican voters picking their party’s respective candidate. Most independent voters leaned toward Becerra, 60%, over Hilton, 34%.

The results are similar to data from a poll conducted just before the June 2 primary election that asked voters to pick between the two candidates. In that survey, 52% said they supported Becerra and 31% were for Hilton.

In a statement Wednesday, Hilton characterized the race as “wide open,” contending that Becerra’s support was weaker than the poll’s headline figures would indicate.

“Instead of a 36-year career politician, we need a positive, energetic problem-solver with business experience and plans to make our state ‘Califordable’ — that’s me,” Hilton said.

Becerra spokesman Jonathan Underland said in a statement that “Californians got to know Xavier Becerra during the primary, and they’re ready to make him their next governor. We’re keeping our eyes on the prize — hitting the trail every day ’til November to turn that support into votes.”

Support for CEQA reform

A ballot measure aimed at reforming the California Environmental Quality Act to speed up construction notched a strong showing in the poll.

Nearly three-quarters of likely voters, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents, said that they would vote for Proposition 45. The measure would shorten windows for environmental review, public comment and legal challenges for certain housing, transportation, water infrastructure and other projects.

“At this early stage in the campaign, California voters are feeling more aligned with Democratic candidates on the environment, and it shows in the polling,” said PPIC survey director Mark Baldassare. “But strong support for Proposition 45 reveals their desire to balance environmental priorities with housing and infrastructure needs.”

Strong data center opposition

The poll found large majorities of Californians do not want new data centers to support the AI boom built in their area; 44% of adults say they “strongly oppose” such projects, and 29% “somewhat oppose” them.

The majority opposition holds across political parties, geographic regions, gender, race and income. It’s especially pronounced in the Inland Empire, where plans for a 950,000-square-foot data center came to a halt after fierce resident pushback. Three-quarters of people surveyed in that region said they oppose building new data centers.

“Every day, we are hearing about how local communities across the nation are responding to plans for data centers,” Baldassare said. “Californians have weighed in and they share this growing concern.”

Support for environmental policies — except if they cost more

The poll also shows strong, if somewhat qualified, support for California’s efforts to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment.

Three-quarters of adults said policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been a good thing overall, and 65% said they support California leaders’ efforts to make their own environmental policies separate from the federal government.

While most respondents — 62% — said they favor a law requiring 100% of the state’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources within the next two decades, just 38% said they were willing to pay more for electricity sourced from renewables.

“With energy prices spiking and affordability a growing concern, Californians are just not willing to pay more for renewable energy,” Baldassare said. A near-unanimous majority, 96%, said the cost of energy — including gasoline, natural gas and electricity — is a problem.

Newsom’s move to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035 also appears to have fallen out of favor. Two-thirds of Californians oppose the policy, a significant slip in approval from 2021, when a PPIC survey showed 49% supported the move.

Still, majorities of likely voters — 53% and 51%, respectively — said they approve of Newsom’s and the state Legislature’s handling of environmental issues.

At 28%, President Trump’s approval rating on the environment was much lower. In his second term, Trump has moved to slash environmental regulations, including easing pollution regulations on coal-fired power plants and pushing for oil drilling off California’s coast.

“Given this ratings gap, it’s not surprising that Californians want to see the state take the lead on climate change policy,” Baldassare said.

The survey polled 1,578 California adults, 1,003 of whom were likely voters, in English and Spanish from June 29 to July 6 and had a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points in either direction.

Mérida, July 14, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan National Assembly preliminarily approved two laws granting expanded benefits to landlords and the private real estate sector as part of authorities’ post-earthquake reconstruction plans.

The Tuesday session was held at Simón Bolívar Park in La Carlota, Caracas, after the legislative palace suffered damage from the June 24 double tremor.

The Venezuelan legislature voted in favor of a Law for the Special Regime of Housing Property Leasing and a partial reform of the Law Against Real Estate Fraud. Both projects will now be subject to consultations and revisions before being put to a second and final vote.

“Our main task with this reform is to stimulate the housing rental market,” National Assembly Vice President Pedro Infante stated. “We have to strengthen the legal certainty for property owners and also protect tenants. It’s a legal balance.”

Infante added that officials estimate that there are around 200,000 homes that could enter the rental market but that parliament has to “untie the knots that are holding this market back.”

The existing legislation governing housing rentals was enacted by former President Hugo Chávez in 2011 and it is highly protective of tenants. Grassroots movements participated directly in several housing laws.

In a recent press conference, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez called the current law “regressive” and argued that parliament needed to make property owners feel “more secure in renting their properties.” Real estate chambers have long lobbied for reforms to housing laws.

The preliminarily approved bill expands conditions for landlords to evict their tenants, including two months of unpaid rent, deterioration of the property, or unauthorized subletting. It additionally establishes that disputes are to be resolved via mediation or municipal courts. Tenant movements have recently denounced a growing trend of landlords bringing “invasion” charges against tenants as a way to evict them, with the complicity of public prosecutors.

The partial reform of the law against real estate fraud, likewise approved during Tuesday’s session, loosens conditions for the sale of housing properties yet to be built or under construction while also reducing collateral requirements for developers.

“The reform seeks to guarantee better conditions, legal security, and financing capacity so that the private sector initiates an aggressive, accelerated process of housing construction,” Infante explained, adding that it “removes rigid price schemes,” allowing real estate developers to factor “variations in the costs of materials in supplies” into house prices.

Under the updated law, house sale and pre-sale contracts no longer need to be individually approved by government housing authorities. Instead, the governing body will publish a set of general rules. According to the reform text, banks that finance real estate projects will no longer be liable for their non-completion, with legislators arguing that the measure will boost credit options.

Deputy Alejandra Rodríguez, from opposition party Un Nuevo Tiempo, endorsed the preliminary housing reforms for seeking a “balance between the right to housing, the protection of private property, legal security, and the promotion of responsible investment.”

Venezuelan authorities have prioritized finding housing solutions with over 20,000 people forced into temporary shelters after losing their homes in the June 24 double earthquake, most of them in coastal La Guaira State. The latest official figures placed the death toll at 4,734, with nearly 17,000 injured.

Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has launched the “Venezuela Renace” program to conduct inspections and repair works in affected buildings, as well as revitalize the construction sector to generate new housing complexes in a short time frame. She likewise called on public and private banks to expand mortgage programs, vowing that the government would subsidize them up to 80 percent.

On Monday, Rodríguez met with representatives from business chambers, including construction and real estate, and reiterated calls for the private sector to participate in the post-earthquake reconstruction. 

“Every person who lost their home should have hope of being under a new roof in the short term,” she stated.

Rodríguez announced that the government is working on construction plans in La Guaira alongside the Venezuelan Construction Chamber and the Venezuelan Real Estate Chamber. Authorities are conducting soil studies and identifying potential land plots. She recalled that the export of construction materials is presently banned.

The acting president assured those present that Venezuela remains on a path of economic growth and that household consumption had risen by 33 percent in June.

Rodríguez reiterated calls for the removal of economic sanctions against the country and ongoing efforts to secure the release of frozen Venezuelan assets, including gold reserves held by the Bank of England.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Following the passing of Qatar’s Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani on Sunday, his solidarity with the Palestinian people remains one of the defining legacies of his leadership. He is being remembered not only as a regional statesman, but also as a steadfast ally of the Palestinian people and the only Arab leader to physically break the crippling siege on the Gaza Strip.

In October 2012, Sheikh Hamad visited the embattled Gaza Strip, six years after Israel imposed its crippling international blockade on the territory, following the 2006 Palestinian elections.

Accompanied by his wife, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, and a high-level delegation, the emir bypassed the political isolation imposed on the enclave by Western powers and regional actors, leading to a massive official and popular reception.

The head of Hamas’s diaspora office, Khaled Meshaal, told Al Jazeera that the visit to the Strip means that “Jerusalem, Gaza and Palestine mourn him.”

“He was the first Arab and Muslim leader to visit Gaza, standing by its side with chivalry and magnanimity, as if officially announcing the breaking of the siege in its darkest circumstances,” Meshaal told Al Jazeera. “He was intelligent, brave and a man of principles.”

Ahmed al-Sheikh, a senior journalist, Arab affairs commentator and former news director at Al Jazeera Arabic Channel, said the Father Emir had ”a special kind of love for Palestine”.

“Has any other leader in the Arab world done that [visit to Gaza], except Hamad bin Khalifa?” al-Sheikh reflected in a recent interview.

”Why did he go to Gaza? It’s because he saw that everyone around Gaza is neglecting it”, he added.

During that landmark visit, Sheikh Hamad announced an increase in Qatar’s reconstruction grant to the enclave from $254m to $400m, laying the foundation for vital housing, infrastructure and healthcare projects that benefited thousands of Palestinians.

Addressing crowds at the Islamic University of Gaza – which awarded him and Sheikha Moza honorary doctorates for their humanitarian efforts – he praised the resilience of the Palestinian people, while criticising the international community’s double standards.

Personal pain and the ‘spearhead’ of liberation

His commitment to the Palestinian cause predated the blockade on Gaza. In 1999, Sheikh Hamad became the first Gulf leader to visit the Palestinian territories since 1967, meeting with the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat during a critical political impasse.

According to al-Sheikh, the emir viewed the Palestinian struggle through a deeply personal lens. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon besieged Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, the emir was profoundly pained. He told his aides that when Sharon attacked the Muqata’a, it felt as though he was attacking Qatar itself.

His connection to Palestine was coupled with a regret that he had never visited Jerusalem before its occupation in 1967, According to al-Sheikh, that prompted him to commission an extensive three-hour documentary on the holy city to capture its history and identity.

Rather than relying solely on international intervention, he believed in the agency of the Palestinian people and that they were the essential spearhead of their movement. “You will do the primary action and without this action there can be no liberation,” the emir once told al-Sheikh.

Defying regional consensus

This stance put him frequently at odds with the regional consensus. During Israel’s devastating 2008–2009 war on Gaza, deep divisions emerged among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members over how to respond to the crisis.

Sheikh Hamad called for an emergency Arab summit in Doha, proposing a $250m reconstruction fund and a maritime corridor to bypass the blockade. He famously expressed his disappointment on live television about the lack of an Arab quorum for the emergency meeting. “God is sufficient for us and he is the best disposer of affairs.”

Some of Gaza’s most vital infrastructure projects before the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023 were the result of financial pledges made by Sheikh Hamad.

Qatar funded the rehabilitation of vital highways and the flagship Sheikh Hamad City in Khan Younis—a $58m public housing project with 53 modern apartment buildings for thousands of low-income families.

Additionally, the Sheikh Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, which officially opened in April 2019, became the territory’s premier facility for amputees and children with hearing impairments.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has systematically erased much of the infrastructure Qatar helped finance during Sheikh Hamad’s leadership. Satellite imagery from May this year confirms that Hamad City and other areas in southern Gaza have been wiped from the map.

The Sheikh Hamad Hospital managed to resume its vital services last December, despite suffering direct attacks, severe shortages and the broader collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system. Operating the only CT scanner in northern Gaza, the hospital has even opened a new branch in the south to cope with a 225 percent increase in amputation cases.

Sheikh Hamad Hospital’s continued operations during the ongoing genocide in Gaza remain a tangible remnant of the late emir’s unprecedented efforts in the besieged enclave. His support for Gaza will remain for generations to come.

The largest single piece of federal housing legislation to come out of Congress in at least a generation is is now law.

It happened in the middle of night early Saturday, without fanfare — or even President Trump’s signature — and it might be a while before many Californians notice its effects.

That’s because the bill, though politically monumental — both chambers approved it overwhelmingly — doesn’t do one big thing. Instead, it does a lot of little things. Individually, none of the bill’s 56 regulatory tweaks, pilot programs and low-cost loans and grants are likely to move the needle on the nation’s housing affordability woes, nor on California’s specifically.

Supporters hope that collectively, they just might.

Even the law’s path to enactment had an under-the-radar quality to it. The White House abruptly canceled a planned signing ceremony late last month, with Trump vowing not to sign the bill until Congress first passed his restrictive national voter ID proposal. That bill has stalled out in the Senate.

Still, Trump did not veto the housing package, so it automatically became law Saturday just after midnight, as per the Constitution.

For all that, supporters say this is still a big deal: a major, bipartisan piece of legislation aimed at boosting housing construction from a hyperpartisan legislative body that doesn’t typically touch the topic.

“We don’t often gather to celebrate federal housing legislation,” Stephen Russell, president of the San Diego Housing Federation, said at a news conference Thursday. “I think the last time Congress passed anything of this magnitude, many of you were not even alive. … It is almost a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

That’s thanks in part to a growing caucus of lawmakers aligned with the “Yes In My Backyard” movement that helped push the bill into law. Many hail from California, a state that has had more experience than most contending with wildly unaffordable housing. But the cause of making housing more affordable, and attributing high housing costs to a lack of sufficient supply, has become a national and bipartisan concern. Case in point: The bill originated as a joint proposal by Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), an ardent conservative, and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), among the most liberal members of the Senate.

While the constituent parts of the bill are relatively narrow and none is specifically focused on California, experts highlight a few provisions that could leave a notable imprint on the state.

Build now (or else)

For high-cost cities that don’t build much housing, as in much of urban California, the federal bill includes a novel carrot and stick.

This portion of the bill would change the Community Development Block Grant, one of the largest sources of federal funding for affordable housing and local economic development. Pricey cities — defined through a variety of data benchmarks like median prices and vacancy rates — with a track record of under-building that continue to see below-average housing construction will have their grant funds cut by 10%. The savings will go to their municipal counterparts that build at a faster clip.

That’s likely to have “real implications for cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco that have traditionally lagged behind” in adding housing supply, said David Garcia, the deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

The city of Los Angeles received $48.4 million in its last award from the block grant program in 2024, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data. San Francisco received $18.9 million.

Those numbers aren’t enough to make or break the budget of either city.

“I think this will be a small nudge,” said Laura Foote, executive director of YIMBY Action, in an email. “Which taken across the country could still have a good impact! Little nudges add up.”

More dramatic than the number of dollars involved may be the precedent the policy sets. Even in California, where the state government has aggressively incentivized cities to plan for more housing development and penalized those that don’t, lawmakers have never punished municipalities for failing to actually grow — an outcome that may not always be under a city government’s control.

Such an idea would have been “inconceivable in previous congresses,” Garcia said.

Despite that, the provision hasn’t engendered much public opposition from local government groups yet. In an online summary, Michael Wallace, a lobbyist with the National League of Cities, applauded the overall housing bill as an example of the federal government “choosing partnership with local governments over preemptions.” He singled out other provisions of the bill that provide expanded flexibility for Community Development Block Grant spending, new incentive programs for adding supply, and new supports for local urban planning.

Chassis change

Manufactured housing units are often colloquially referred to as mobile homes, but they don’t tend to move around much. Built on assembly lines and shipped to where they’re needed, these naturally affordable houses — the likes of which lawmakers across California and the United States claim we need in droves — are often placed upon permanent foundations where a fewer than 1 in 10 ever move again.

Even so, the federal building code applied to manufactured housing includes a costly, vestigial reference to its mobile origins: a permanent chassis.

A giant steel frame with removable axles and wheels, the chassis ostensibly exists to make it easier to pick up and move a manufactured house by truck. In practice, it serves as a 10- to 12-inch-thick floor beneath the floor. Because it cannot be removed upon delivery, it just serves as “dead space and wasted money,” said Jess Maxcy, president of the California Manufactured Housing Institute, the industry’s trade group. Aside from adding thousands of dollars in added costs per unit, it also makes it harder for manufactured units to be stacked into double story homes or multifamily apartment buildings.

The federal housing bill removes the permanent chassis requirement, something that manufacturers and some housing policy experts have been pushing for since the mid-1980s.

“That relatively minor change will expand access to one of the most affordable forms of home ownership available,” Rep. Scott Peters (D-San Diego) said at the Thursday news conference.
Maxcy said he doesn’t expect the end of the chassis requirement to trigger an overnight building boom in the manufactured home industry. But especially in California, where, due to the high price of land, new single-family homes are more likely to be built stacked on small lots, the regulatory change “provides more opportunities and helps us reduce the price.”

Recovering after disaster

In the months after a natural disaster, long after emergency federal dollars have come and gone, Congress has provided communities with long-term rebuilding grants through the Community Development Block Grant—Disaster Recovery program. Over the last three decades, the program has spent more than $100 billion on the long-term work of recovery, like home construction, infrastructure repair and rental and relocation assistance. That money tends to be reserved for low-income people and communities “who are not going to bounce back without the funds,” said Marion McFadden, who used to run the program under the Biden administration and now works at the disaster preparation and recovery consulting company IEM.

Unfortunately for California, the program only kind of exists. Since the mid-1990s, it’s been stood up and funded on an ad hoc basis, one appropriation bill at a time. That presents a challenge for communities planning in the middle of post-disaster planning. It also means the rules that govern the program — when the money goes out, to whom, under what conditions and for what purposes — are redrafted with each political administration. That’s had the effect of slowing things down considerably. No program funding has gone to Los Angeles in the wake of the 2025 fire storms, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Congress has yet to appropriate any.

The new housing bill would officially write the program into law for at least three years.

“It creates the ability for HUD to have money on hand before a disaster and then make a decision within 15 days about whether they’re going to provide funding,” McFadden said.

What the housing bill doesn’t do: provide fresh funding. Disaster-prone communities will need to wait for Congress to take that up later.

A ‘bottleneck’ removed

For the last two decades, public housing authorities in Los Angeles and the Bay Area have been turning to the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program to help repair and upgrade their aging stock of increasingly dilapidated public housing. The program works by switching up funding sources in a way that gives locals more flexibility to borrow money and attract private investment dollars.

Until the new law took effect this weekend, the federal government was only authorized to permit 455,000 of these conversions. The law raises the cap by an additional 100,000.

“This has been a bottleneck in California for years and that bottleneck just got removed,” said Russell with the San Diego Housing Federation.
Not all affordable housing advocates are cheering the development. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has consistently opposed expansion of the program on the grounds that the change in funding source could weaken existing tenant protections. It’s unclear whether and to what extent that might be true. A study from last year found no evidence that conversions under the program lead to more evictions.

Wall Street out of suburbia

If you’ve heard only one thing about this housing bill, it’s that it bans “large institutional investors” from buying up more single family homes.

Caveats apply in the final version of the law. The bill defines “large” as any of a number of business structures with control over more than 350 single-family homes. It doesn’t apply retrospectively, so current investors with portfolios brimming with houses need not divest. Exemptions exist for new construction, renovations and senior housing. In California specifically, where corporations and other major investors do not play a significant role in the housing market, the effect is likely to be muted.

The measure “takes a hyper-salient issue for lots of people across the country and does a pretty modest intervention to address it,” said Chad Maisel, a fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress and a former housing policy advisor to President Biden.

Even so, the provision has plenty of bipartisan appeal. Earlier this year, Trump called for an even stricter crackdown on so-called corporate landlords. Gov. Gavin Newsom followed suit the same week.

The anti-investor language was considerably watered down from earlier this year, when a related provision threatened to undermine “build-to-rent” projects: well-financed subdevelopments of single-family homes reserved for renters. That prompted a revolt by many developers and YIMBY activists who had otherwise enthusiastically supported the bill, who argued that such communities are one of the fastest growing sources of the U.S. housing stock and provide some of the few opportunities for renters to live in suburban-style, family-sized housing.

After the build-to-rent provision was left on the cutting room floor of Congress, state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Fremont Democrat who is now running for Congress, introduced a bill that picked it back up again. SB 880 would have banned the bundled sale of multiple single-family homes, striking at the heart of the build-to-rent business model. That bill died in the Assembly Judiciary committee in late June.

Christopher writes for CalMatters.

July 11 (UPI) — A housing bill passed by Congress became law at midnight Saturday when President Donald Trump refused to sign it, but didn’t veto it.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is a comprehensive law that was designed to make housing more affordable and increase housing supply. Trump refused to sign it because he wanted Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, an election reform bill that would require those registering to vote to provide proof that they are U.S. citizens.

But Congress doesn’t have the votes to pass the SAVE Act.

On Friday, Trump announced that he again would not sign the ROAD to Housing bill.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” he said on Truth Social.

The housing bill includes measures that modernize building standards, encourage renovating older homes, encourage communities to build more housing with funding and grant programs, local governments to reform restrictive zoning policies around building housing and effectively ban private equity from buying up single-family homes. Critics of the bill say it doesn’t go far enough, but they acknowledge it’s a good first step.

“This bill becoming law is a genuine milestone — and I don’t use that word lightly,” Dennis Shea of the Bipartisan Policy Center told the BBC. “Getting Congress to move on housing supply and affordability has been a long time coming, and the American people made clear they were ready for it.”

Earlier this year, a BPC survey found that 89% of voters wanted congressional action to make housing more affordable.

Congressional leaders had planned a bill signing ceremony last month, ready to show voters that they are trying to bring down costs, a key issue to Americans. But hours before it was scheduled to begin, Trump canceled it.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., criticized Trump’s ongoing refusal to sign Friday.

“At the stroke of midnight, a huge bipartisan bill to lower housing costs became law without the President’s signature. Why did President Trump sit on the landmark housing bill for more than 2 weeks? Maybe because there was nothing in it for him personally – no gold-encrusted ballroom, no Qatari jet, no $2 billion crypto deal. Nothing in the 21st Century ROAD to Housing except ways to make housing more affordable,” she said in a statement. “Donald Trump couldn’t pick up the pen because he just isn’t interested in lowering costs for American families.”

At 4 a.m. Saturday, she posted on X: “BREAKING: the clock struck midnight and our bipartisan housing bill is now law. Trump refused to sign it, but he couldn’t stop it.”

“This law is GROUNDBREAKING. It will build more housing, bring down costs, and for the first time, stop private equity from buying up homes,” she said.

Trump had called the housing bill “so unimportant” and “a yawn.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., defended the bill without criticizing Trump’s comments.

He said, “the president has a lot going on, and I think it’s safe to say he’s not read through every line of that piece of legislation.

“What he was saying is in comparison to ensuring election integrity, which is now represented by the SAVE America Act, nothing is as important,” Johnson said. “That’s not to say that there are not also incredibly important issues, and the cost of living and affordability is among them. It’s top of mind.”

“So I hope he does sign it. If he doesn’t, it’s still law; we’ll still celebrate it,” Johnson said. “But he’s trying to make a point and I think he’s making it very effectively.”

Edward Pinto, co-director of the American Enterprise Institute Housing Center argues that the new US housing bill is unlikely to significantly ease the country’s housing crisis. He says it’s too limited to address the core issues – like restrictive local zoning. For the full segment, watch Al Jazeera’s ‘This is America’.