#displacement

#displacement

Politics "Our vision is for Boston to sustainably reach our peak population of 800,000 residents with the housing and schools, parks and public transit to support that growth."BOSTON (AP) - Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Wednesday that she wants to set the city on a path to reach its former peak population while guarding against trends that are already putting pressure on residents because of soaring housing costs.

Hundreds of apartments for people earning lower incomes or who are homeless are set to be constructed in San Jose, in a move by city leaders to help alleviate the affordable housing crunch.The San Jose City Council unanimously approved a plan Tuesday for the city to issue roughly $120 million in housing revenue bonds that will be purchased by banks to help fund construction of two developments for a total of 231 affordable apartments.

Afghan women stage a protest for their rights to mark International Women's Day in Kabul on March 8, 2023.Global freedoms declined for a 17th consecutive year in 2022 as the struggle for democracy approaches a turning point amid a curtailment of freedom of expression in countries such as Russia and Iran.

Ukraine's ministry of defence claimed in total to have shot down 11 of 14 drones deployed overnight, including nine over Kyiv.Two emergency service workers were killed and three other people injured during a drone attack on Khmelnytskyi, according to the city's mayor.Russian forces have escalated shelling and infantry assaults in the Bilohorivka, Svatove-Kupiansk and Kreminna areas of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk province, according to the region's Ukrainian governor Serhiy Haidai.

Friday, June 2, 2023 by Seth Smalley
Travis County is mulling its very own "Marshall Plan" - an all-encompassing system for revamping social programs in East Travis County, modeled after the post-World War II plan to rebuild Europe's economy and infrastructure.On Thursday, Economic Development & Strategic Investments Director Christy Moffett and Commissioner Jeffrey Travillion briefed the Commissioners Court and the public on the idea during a work session.

Thursday, May 25, 2023 by Jonathan Lee
A new mixed-use development is in the works on East 12th Street.The Planning Commission on Tuesday recommended approval of a rezoning that would allow taller and denser buildings on two properties at 3117 and 3121 E. 12th St.
Developer Geyser Group hopes to add Vertical Mixed-Use (CS-MU-V-CO-NP) zoning on the properties, which total 1 acre, in order to build an 80- to 100-unit multifamily development with ground-floor retail.

Monday, May 8, 2023 by Jonathan Lee
In a move aimed at increasing housing supply, City Council on Thursday passed a resolution to make it easier and cheaper to subdivide properties.Council Member Ryan Alter, the sponsor of the resolution , said that splitting land into multiple lots means more homes at cheaper prices.

AUSTIN, Texas Some neighborhoods in Austin are facing a displacement crisis, and city leaders have put a plan in motion that could help people from being priced out of their homes.City council member Vanessa Fuentes is launching the Displacement Prevention Navigator Pilot Program on Thursday, which will focus on two neighborhoods that are at most risk for displacement.

Monday, March 13, 2023 by Jonathan Lee
ATX Walk Bike Roll, an update to Austin's active transportation plans, is heading for City Council approval in the coming months.Over the past few weeks, city staffers have made the rounds at boards and commissions, presenting the draft plan for feedback.Walk Bike Roll unites plans for urban trails, bikeways and sidewalks under the same banner.

A state of emergency was declared in Auckland, New Zealand, on Friday night, and residents in the worst-affected areas were ordered to evacuate their homes as rain and severe flooding battered the country's largest city.Heavy rain ahead of a three-day weekend on Friday afternoon had initially led to traffic snarls, the sudden cancellation of an Elton John concert and sodden highways.

While I was standing in the Jewish archives in Warsaw, Poland, during a recent humanitarian trip to strengthen programs of protection and safety for refugees from Ukraine, time became quite circular - an evocation of William Faulkner's adage that "the past is never dead.It's not even past."

US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday announced a deal to curb illegal migration between their two countries."The United States and Canada will work together to discourage unlawful border crossings," Biden said in a speech to the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa.

Happy Monday, everyone!Grab a lawn chair and enjoy live music outdoors at the summer's first Jazz in the Parks, or attend one-or all-of Capital Pride's beloved festivities.Best Things to Do This Week



Capital Pride Parade and Festival.The Capital Pride Parade will take to the streets in support of the LGBTQ+ community and its allies beginning at the intersection of 14th Street NW and T Street NW.

Rola Z., 50
Forced to flee the civil war in Lebanon as a child, Rola was inspired to get into comedy by the implosion of her marriage, the loss of her corporate-communications job, and the agony of seeing her home country endure one crisis after another."I thought, 'If I cannot change it, can I laugh about it?'

CARTAGENA, Colombia For a champion of peace, Leyner Palacios faces a lot death threats.The latest menacing message came in February, when Mr. Palacios, 47, was warned he had 12 hours to leave the region where he was born on Colombia's Pacific Coast, and to never come back.The last time he had received a similar warning, in March 2020, one of his bodyguards was killed.

YEREVAN, Armenia It would be easy to mistake Tuf for a trendy club somewhere in Russia.A meditative indie band played, a family of Muscovites sold homemade cosmetics and a tattoo artist from St. Petersburg drew a seal on someone's arm.But Tuf is in the capital of Armenia.It was born of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent exodus of Russians, many of whom are still in shock.

Last month, residents of the Wyndford estate in Glasgow barricaded themselves in their flats in a last-ditch attempt to save their homes from demolition.The 600 socially rented dwellings, designed by Ernest Buteux and sitting next to the River Kelvin, were denied listed building status in January, and will now make way for a development of half as many homes and triple the rental value.

A federal judge in the Southern District Court of New York is allowing a lawsuit over an affordable housing policy, known as community preference, to progress to trial, according to a report by the New York Times.The lawsuit, first brought in 2015, takes issue with a policy that has been in place within New York City since 1988 and reserves 50% of the units in most subsidized affordable housing developments for residents of the local community district.

By Honey Mahogany-
Imagine a place where trans people thrive.Imagine a place where we have a home and a community, where we can afford housing, start a business, start a family, and have access to amenities that serve us.Imagine a place where we are surrounded by affirmation-from the people in the street, the art on the buildings, the plaques on the sidewalks, the flags on the light poles.

I always find it amazing how, after every conviction of an Illinois politician, lobbyist, etc., those who remain say not only that we must do better but that we already are.State Senate President Don Harmon and House Speaker Chris Welch did that on Tuesday after the convictions of the "ComEd Four," talking about the new ethics laws they have passed.

The cab rank rule expresses a beautiful idea: that access to the law society's great leveller is for everyone, whoever they are and whatever they are said to have done.The rule remembers that for a lawyer to say I will not act appropriates a role the system gives to judges or juries.And it recognises that if lawyers are tainted by association, the criminal justice system is jeopardised.

The threat of a Russian missile attack remains high, Ukraine's military said early Friday, less than 24 hours after the Kremlin launched more than 90 missiles across Ukraine, including hypersonic weapons.The attack left at least nine dead and hit critical infrastructure and residential areas.Freedom House, a Washington-based nonprofit organization, said that"Moscow's war of aggression led to devastating human rights atrocities in Ukraine."

Afghan women stage a protest for their rights to mark International Women's Day in Kabul on March 8, 2023.Global freedoms declined for a 17th consecutive year in 2022 as the struggle for democracy approaches a turning point amid a curtailment of freedom of expression in countries such as Russia and Iran.

The CEO of OpenAI, the company responsible for creating artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT and image generator Dall-E 2, said regulation of AI is essential on Tuesday as he testified in front of a Senate judiciary committee panel.In his first appearance in front of Congress, Sam Altman said he supported regulatory guardrails for the technology that would enable the benefits of artificial intelligence while minimizing the harms.

In his epic new romance, Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style, author Paul Rudnick celebrates a pair of 18-year-olds falling in love at Yale University and follows them across an arc of gay history from New York to Hollywood to Paris and beyond.Like all the writer's work, it's non-stop incisive and insightful, as well as a rare combination of achingly funny and achingly tender.

I can't pinpoint exactly when I started imagining myself in the stories I read, but I know it was at a young age.Some of the first books I really connected with were Sweet Valley Twins, an American series about blonde, blue-eyed twin sisters who lived a very middle-class, white life I could barely picture.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy cancelled a Wednesday event sponsored by Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib meant to commemorate al-Nakba, or the catastrophe, as many Arabs refer to the period surrounding the birth of Israel, saying it's wrong for members of Congress to traffic in antisemitic tropes about Israel.

An imminent British government decision to proscribe the Wagner mercenary group would speed up plans by Ukrainian refugees to sue the organisation for up to 5bn in damages in the UK courts, the lawyer leading the case has told the Guardian.The UK government signalled it was prepared to proscribe the group, which is active in Russia and parts of Africa, on the basis of it being a terrorist group, a move that makes it illegal to help the group, Jason McCue said.

Home Office plans to uproot Afghan refugees from a London hotel and move them hundreds of miles from their children's schools could result in a court battle, a lawyer has warned.About 40 families with 150 children have been told by the government that they must move from Kensington to a hotel in Yorkshire despite no guarantee of school places or jobs.

A one-time payment of $5 million to each eligible Black resident is among recommendations unanimously accepted by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors as part of a draft plan by a panel proposing reparations.The move Tuesday was an intermediate step, with a final report that includes board feedback due in June, the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee said, and the board set to meet again on the issue in September.

When I was about 10, the teacher at the Catholic school I attended in Massachusetts asked students to bring in a poem from home to share with the class.Looking at our bookshelves, I plucked out a slim volume by Constantine P. Cavafy.Many of its poems were short, manageable to read out loud and gorgeously plain-spoken.

Lisbon, Portugal has been inundated with tourists in recent years, as fans from across the globe (and particularly America) head to the coastal European city in search of seafood, steep hills, and lots of sherry.Now Angelenos can book a closer-to-home trip for much the same experience, with this week's opening of Barra Santos in Cypress Park.

Key to the local authority's efforts in reducing carbon emissions and promoting active travel, the initiative sees certain roads near to schools closed to traffic on weekdays during term time, when pupils are picked up and dropped off.However, not all traffic is banned, with walkers, cyclists, permit holders and residents still able to travel through.

A robot nicknamed Icefin operates under the sea ice near McMurdo Station in Antarctica in 2020.The pencil-shaped robot is giving scientists their first look at the forces eating away at the Thwaites glacier.Schmidt/Lawrence/AP Scientists got their first up-close look at what's eating away part of Antarctica's Thwaites ice shelf, nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier because of its massive melt and sea rise potential, and it's both good and bad news.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (Getty) Los Angeles has greatly expanded protections for renters, heading off a potential wave of evictions.The L.A. City Council voted to enact permanent tenant protections 11 days before a policy expires that prevents landlords from evicting tenants who claimed COVID-19-related hardships, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A Chicago City Council ordinance to transfer a chunk of Englewood's roads to Norfolk Southern Railway was blocked Wednesday by the presiding alderman - the latesttwist in the freight company's multiyear plan to double the size of one of its rail yards despite pushback from local residents.Ald.Jeanette Taylor, 20th, and allies used a parliamentary tactic to defer the legislation that would allow the railroad to acquire the streets and alleys it doesn't already own between two existing sets of tracks from Garfield Boulevard south to 59th Street.