Latest news with #Har
Yahoo
7 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Rabbi talks about how Boulder attacks have left community reeling: ‘I know all of them'
BOULDER, Colo. (KDVR) — A rabbi who typically would participate in the weekly peaceful walks on Sunday to raise awareness for Israeli hostages in Gaza is speaking out about how the community is reeling from the attacks. Rabbi Ori Har, born in Israel, says that because Boulder is a small community, she knows all the victims, whether that's personally or by meeting them a few times in prayers or celebrating holidays. Attack at demonstration calling for Israeli hostages' release was first where group faced violence She says the victims who were injured have all made the walk before, except for one guest who came from out of town to walk for the first time. 'We always tend to believe Boulder is a safe bubble, even though it's an illusion,' said Har. 'It's a story people hold, and that bubble definitely burst last Sunday.' Har is still in shock after Sunday's peaceful afternoon walk turned violent. 'Sometimes, as a rabbi, you have to officiate a funeral and a wedding in one day,' said Har. 'That's kind of just the nature of life, but this one has been so out of the normal.' It was devastating to learn that people she was familiar with had been badly burned on Pearl Street. 'I know all of them, of course,' Har said. 'It's a small community we know each other. It's so hard to even you know conceive something like this happened. It's painful, it's months of months of recovery. I just pray for a speedy recovery, but don't know any specific details. After the Holocaust, we thought people learned from history, but history repeats itself.' Har is referring to one of the 12 victims, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who she says is a real activist, especially for immigrants. 'Also for their well-being. Here she was hit by an immigrant. I mean, this is just, I have no words to describe it,' she said. Emergency fund created for victims, Jewish safety after Boulder terrorist attack She says all the support has been overwhelming and says it really has been helping the Jewish community to navigate through this difficult time. 'I think the community is now engaged in this conversation to see how safe it is in the future, maybe it'll be more of a police presence in the future. Usually, it's no police presence, so it's time,' said Har. She says the tragic situation comes on the heels of celebrating a holiday. 'It's a very special holiday. It's called Shavuot. Which is celebrating the giving of what we call the Old Testament. It's a holiday you know we celebrate, but that didn't give a reason to celebrate.' A community vigil is scheduled to be held Wednesday, June 4, for the victims of the recent attacks. It will be held at the Boulder Jewish Community Center beginning at 5 p.m. The Boulder Jewish Festival scheduled for Sunday will still go on, but will be 'reimagined' to incorporate healing and recognition of the victims. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Time of India
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Water tank built under Jal Jeevan Mission collapses in Sitapur village
Lucknow: A newly constructed water tank collapsed in Sitapur's Chunkaw Behema village on Thursday. No casualties have been reported so far. The 3,500-litre zincalume tank was built at the cost of Rs 5.31 crore and commissioned in Jan 2024. It was constructed as part of Har Ghar Jal Yojana, a flagship scheme under the Jal Jeevan Mission to provide tap water to rural India. Meanwhile, additional chief secretary Anurag Srivastav, who is also the mission's director, ordered a technical audit of all Har Ghar Jal tanks in Sitapur. This was the second tank collapse in Sitapur and the fifth in Uttar Pradesh . Taking cognisance, the state water and sanitation mission (SWSM) took action against 12 employees—from junior engineers to assistant engineers of the Rural Water Corporation and the Mission itself—who were either suspended or dismissed. The construction agency, NCC Limited, was blacklisted, as was the third-party inspection firm that had greenlit the project. A 5% liquidated damages penalty was slapped on NCC. Spokesperson of the SWSM said, "Action has been taken by the department against officials, issued blacklisting notices to NCC and the inspection agency, and ordered a probe." The executive engineer Rajiv Kumar has been served chargesheet and departmental inquiry has been initiated against him, assistant engineer Sanjeet Yadav, and junior engineer Saurab Singh Yadav have been suspended, while the district's third-party inspection head was sacked on the spot. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Que tal voar para Madrid? Azul Clique aqui Undo The mission has formed a high-level committee—comprising a chief engineer from the rural water corporation, another from the mission, and a superintendent engineer—tasked with delivering a report within three days. Under the Jal Jeevan Mission, more than 16,000 tanks have been tested in the state so far. "Out of these, only five reported damage, and immediate action was taken against those responsible in the case of tank damage," said an official.
USA Today
29-05-2025
- Business
- USA Today
The housing market needs more small homes. Here's why that's unlikely to happen.
The housing market needs more small homes. Here's why that's unlikely to happen. Show Caption Hide Caption Taking a look at the 2025 hurricane season forecast The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season will bring months of danger for millions of Americans. In 1998, Zinie Chen Sampson and her husband, Craig, bought a 1,400-square-foot home in the near West End of Richmond, Virginia, when she was newly pregnant with their daughter, Sabrina. It's an early-1940s beauty in a desirable neighborhood of brick colonials and Cape Cods with slate roofs. When families start to outgrow their homes, many sell, often reluctantly, and move on to something bigger. But the Sampson family stayed and raised Sabrina until she went to college. As relatively high-earning professionals, the couple could have afforded more, but they loved where they were, and with Sabrina their only child, they didn't need to upsize. 'We're sort of anti-consumerist,' Sampson said. 'It fits with our desire not to have higher energy costs, or buy more things to fit the space, or have more space to clean.' Now, the Sampsons' first home has become their empty nest. The couple was able to pay off their mortgage years ago, and while money hasn't generally been a challenge, they appreciate the financial flexibility – especially with home prices skyrocketing all around them. 'We've been content here over the years,' Sampson told USA TODAY. Why the housing market needs small homes In the U.S. housing market, there's a crying need not just for more homes, and not just more affordable homes, but for smaller homes, specifically. Those properties, defined loosely as 1,500 square feet or less, punch above their weight, offering Americans an entry into the housing market, a place to retire to after raising a family, and for plenty of families, a step in between. In addition, their relative scarcity – making up only 20% of newly built homes, according to a recent report – also makes the market 'less liquid,' according to its author. 'Any choke point in one part of the market creates fewer potential matches for the first time home buyer,' said Thomas Malone, an economist with real estate data provider Cotality. 'It's a cascading effect. There's less supply in one pocket of the market. This in turn creates less availability for the people who are looking for it, which means they stay in their homes, which chokes up that point, and so on.' Malone's report traced the history of America's love affair with bigger properties, noting that the higher margins on bigger homes was one important factor in boosting suburbanization in the 20th century. But as developers move increasingly outward, Malone wrote, 'these far-flung lots eventually have diminishing returns. At the periphery of suburbia, land becomes cheaper to the point where the economies of scale can no longer offset the price to build, and developers turn back to urban environments to redevelop existing properties.' Chris Herbert is managing director for the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, a think tank whose signature annual publication, the State of the Nation's Housing, documents the challenges in the market. 'When the top line numbers say we need to have more units, it gets a lot of attention, as it should,' Herbert said. As previously reported, the general consensus among analysts is that the nation is short approximately 4 million housing units. 'But I think the attention needs to be focused on the fact that it's not just any old units, but smaller ones that we need,' Herbert said in an interview. 'It's not like we're not building anything, but what we are building is very large, very expensive apartments and single family homes.' Newly-constructed homes are still large It's in single-family homes where the bloating of the American Dream can be seen most clearly. In the first quarter of 2025, the average square footage for newly-built single-family homes was 2,408 square feet, an analysis from the National Association of Home Builders found. Those numbers were even higher in the years after the housing bubble burst in the 2000's, when homebuilders were picking up the pieces from the crash and constructing only the highest-margin properties. But it's not just homebuilders protecting their margins that conspires to keep properties larger and thus less affordable. Herbert thinks regulations play an outsized role. In the Cotality report, Malone wrote about builders retreating from exurbs to redevelop existing properties, adding that such projects, often called 'infill,' 'are limited by a variety of interests that restrict the type of new homes that are acceptable. Herbert sees that first-hand in the expensive suburbs around Boston and Cambridge: municipal codes that insist on larger lots, minimum home sizes, parking for new development, and so on. 'We don't allow density for single family housing in a way that we really need it,' he said. More: 'The civil rights issue of our generation'? A battle over housing erupts in Massachusetts Homes aren't just houses Lowell, Massachusetts is about 30 miles away from and a world apart from Harvard. Cathy Mercado grew up there in public housing, and now serves as executive director of the Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership, a nonprofit that offers homeownership counseling, affordable housing development, and more. One of MVHP's proudest recent accomplishments is the Acre Crossing Residences, affordable condos for low and moderate income residents. Mercado calls the condos 'stepping stones.' They can be starter homes for building equity and then moving on – or a place to settle for empty-nesters who can no longer afford the utilities or insurance in a larger property. Or they can be a forever home, Mercado said. Having grown up in the neighborhood herself, she chafes at the notion that a 'real home' is synonymous with living in suburban sprawl. 'You don't have to have a house with a white picket fence,' she said. 'Housing is not a luxury. It's about sustainability and stability and a roof over your head.' In 2013, Michelle Leder and her husband bought a modest house in Los Angeles County for themselves and their young son. While the family has since added on, the house at its core is a basic two-bedroom, 1-bathroom house built in the late 1940s that is common all over California and other suburban areas of the country. Unlike in Sampson's corner of Richmond, plenty of new owners in Leder's neighborhood do choose to 'tear down' an existing home and build something new – usually a house that's large enough to loom over the older properties that remain. 'We could be doing that too, but we chose not to,' Leder told USA TODAY. 'I think this house works for our size family and quite frankly, the idea of having to clean a big house is not very appealing to me. I don't need to have a showcase house to show off.' Living within their means has meant more flexibility for big life changes: the family spent a year living in Paris recently, and Michelle and her husband returned to the east coast for two years to take care of aging parents. But the reality of the housing market is that the 1,250-square foot home built for returning GI's and others making the first trek out to a suburban American Dream will never be affordable to anyone starting out, Leder says. Her home has roughly doubled in value in a little over a decade. "It's our retirement fund now," she said.
Time of India
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Koraput receives PM's excellence award for ‘holistic devpt'
1 2 3 Koraput: Tribal-dominated Koraput district was awarded the Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Administration 2024 under the category of ' holistic development of districts' on Monday. The award was presented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to collector-cum-district magistrate Keerthi Vasan V during a function in New Delhi, coinciding with Civil Services Day. The award recognises the districts outstanding performance in implementing social welfare and development schemes aimed at last-mile delivery. "This recognition is the result of several innovative steps taken to ensure that social security schemes reach the last mile," the collector told TOI. According to the collector, effective implementation of initiatives such as Har Ghar Jal Yojana, PM Awas Yojana (Urban and Rural), Mission Indradhanush, PM-Jan Arogya Yojana, PM Ujjwala Yojana, PM SVANidhi, PM Matru Vandana Yojana, PM Vishwakarma Yojana, PM Poshan Yojana and the Kisan Credit Card scheme, among others, contributed to the recognition. The collector noted that PM Matru Vandana Yojana has been instrumental in promoting institutional deliveries. "We are effectively running Maa Gruha centres (maternity waiting homes) where pregnant women are shifted 15 days before their expected date of delivery, ensuring their complete care for safe institutional births," he said. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Free P2,000 GCash eGift UnionBank Credit Card Apply Now Undo Additionally, under PM Poshan Yojana, millet-based food items are being provided in schools and govt-run residential institutes catering to SC and ST students. Calling the achievement a result of collective effort, he said, "It was a team effort involving all members of the district administration . The award is a great motivation for us to continue addressing the challenges faced by our people." The award includes a trophy, a scroll, and an incentive of Rs 20 lakh, which will be utilised to further strengthen welfare programmes or fill resource gaps in public service delivery. Koraput: Tribal-dominated Koraput district was awarded the Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Administration 2024 under the category of 'holistic development of districts' on Monday. The award was presented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to collector-cum-district magistrate Keerthi Vasan V during a function in New Delhi, coinciding with Civil Services Day. The award recognises the districts outstanding performance in implementing social welfare and development schemes aimed at last-mile delivery. "This recognition is the result of several innovative steps taken to ensure that social security schemes reach the last mile," the collector told TOI. According to the collector, effective implementation of initiatives such as Har Ghar Jal Yojana, PM Awas Yojana (Urban and Rural), Mission Indradhanush, PM-Jan Arogya Yojana, PM Ujjwala Yojana, PM SVANidhi, PM Matru Vandana Yojana, PM Vishwakarma Yojana, PM Poshan Yojana and the Kisan Credit Card scheme, among others, contributed to the recognition. The collector noted that PM Matru Vandana Yojana has been instrumental in promoting institutional deliveries. "We are effectively running Maa Gruha centres (maternity waiting homes) where pregnant women are shifted 15 days before their expected date of delivery, ensuring their complete care for safe institutional births," he said. Additionally, under PM Poshan Yojana, millet-based food items are being provided in schools and govt-run residential institutes catering to SC and ST students. Calling the achievement a result of collective effort, he said, "It was a team effort involving all members of the district administration. The award is a great motivation for us to continue addressing the challenges faced by our people." The award includes a trophy, a scroll, and an incentive of Rs 20 lakh, which will be utilised to further strengthen welfare programmes or fill resource gaps in public service delivery.
