By JESSE BEDAYN, Associated Press/Report for America

DENVER (AP) — As Americans struggle under backbreaking rental prices, builders are turning to innovative ways to churn out more housing, from 3D printing to assembling homes in an indoor factory to using hemp — yes, the marijuana cousin — to make building blocks for walls.

It’s a response to the country’s shortfall of millions of homes that has led to skyrocketing prices, plunging millions into poverty.

“There’s not enough homes to purchase and there’s not enough places to rent. Period,” said Adrianne Todman, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under former President Joe Biden.

Modular homes wrapped in plastic await shipping outside of the Fading West factory in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

One way to quickly build more is embrace these types of innovations, Todman said. “I can only imagine what our housing situation would be like now if we could have made a decision to be more aggressive in adopting this type of housing” decades ago.

So what are these new ways of building homes? And can they help reduce the cost of new housing, leading to lower rents?

Factory-built housing put together in a week

In a cavernous, metal hall, Eric Schaefer stood in front of a long row of modular homes that moved through the plant, similar to a car on an assembly line.

At a series of stations, workers lay flooring, erected framing, added roofs and screwed on drywall. Everything from electrical wiring to plumbing to kitchen countertops were in place before the homes were shrink-wrapped and ready to be shipped.

A worker inspects the framing of a modular home at the Fading West factory in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

The business in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Fading West, has pumped out more than 500 homes in its just over three years of operation, each taking just five to seven days to build, even in the coldest winter months, Schaefer said.

Once assembled in the plant, the narrow townhouse-style homes with white trim, balconies and front porches, are about 90% done. At their final destination they are move-in ready within six weeks, Schaefer said.

The company works with towns, counties and housing nonprofits to help address the shortage of affordable homes, mostly for workers who’ve been squeezed out by sky-high prices in ritzy mountain towns.

Workers construct modular homes at the Fading West factory in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. ( AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

That includes Eagle, Colorado, not far from the Vail ski resort, where Fading West worked with Habitat for Humanity to install modular homes at affordable rents for teachers and other school district employees. The homes tend to be on the smaller side, but can be multifamily or single family.

“You can build faster. The faster you build — even at a high quality — means the lower the price,” Schaefer said. “We see this as one of the pieces to the puzzle in helping solve the affordable housing crisis.”

There’s a hefty upfront cost to build the factory, and part of the challenge is a lack of state and federal investment, he said. A patchwork of building codes governing how a structure can be built also makes it difficult, requiring changes to the construction depending on the town or county it is being sent to.

Modular homes built by Fading West are seen in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

Manufactured housing is similar to modular housing, but the units are constructed on a chassis — like a trailer — and they aren’t subject to the same local building codes. That’s part of the reason they are used more broadly across the U.S.

Roughly 100,000 manufactured homes were shipped to states in 2024, up from some 60,000 a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau data. Estimates of modular homes built annually often put them below 20,000.

3D printing is innovative but still ‘a long game’

Yes, there’s technology to 3D print homes.

A computer-controlled robotic arm equipped with a hose and nozzle moves back and forth, oozing lines of concrete, one on top of the other, as it builds up the wall of a home. It can go relatively quickly and form curved walls unlike concrete blocks.

Modular homes built by Fading West are seen in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

Grant Hamel, CEO and co-founder of VeroTouch, stood inside one of the homes his company built, the wall behind him made out of rolling layers of concrete, distinct to a 3D printer. The technology could eventually reduce labor costs and the time it takes to build an abode, but is farther off than manufactured or modular methods from making a dent in the housing crisis.

It’s “a long game, to start chipping away at those prices at every step of the construction process,” Hamel said.

A worker constructs the window of a modular home at the Fading West factory in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

The 3D printers are expensive, and so are the engineers and other skilled employees needed to run them, said Ali Memari, director of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, whose work has partly focused on 3D printing. It’s also not recognized by international building codes, which puts up more red tape.

The technology is also generally restricted to single-story structures, unless traditional building methods are used as well, Memari said

It’s “a technology at its beginning, it has room to grow, especially when it is recognized in code,” Memari said. “The challenges that I mentioned exist, and they have to be addressed by the research community.”

Workers construct the flooring of a modular home at the Fading West factory in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

A hemp-and-lime mixture called hempcrete has ‘a bright future’

Hemp — the plant related to marijuana — is being used more and more in the construction of walls.

The hemp is mixed with other materials, most importantly the mineral lime, forming “hempcrete,” a natural insulation that’s mold- and fire-resistant and can act as outer wall, insulation and inner wall.

A worker stands inside a framed modular home at the Fading West factory in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

Hempcrete still requires wood studs to frame the walls, but it replaces three wall-building components with just one, said Memari, also a professor at Penn State University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Memari is now helping oversee research into making hempcrete that doesn’t need the wood studs.

As much as a million hemp plants to be used for hempcrete can grow on one acre in a matter of months as opposed to trees, which can take years or decades to grow.

A worker constructs part of a modular home at the Fading West factory in Buena Vista, Colo., on Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

The plant is part of the cannabis family but has far less of the psychoactive component, THC, found in marijuana. In 2018, Congress legalized the production of certain types of hemp. Last year, the International Code Council, which develops international building codes used by all 50 states, adopted hempcrete as an insulation.

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Confusion over the legality of growing hemp and the price tag of the machine required to process the plant, called a decorticator, are barriers to hempcrete becoming more widespread in housing construction, Memari said.

Still, he said, “hempcrete has a bright future.”

Associated Press video journalist Thomas Peipert contributed to this report from Buena Vista, Colorado.

Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The moon will appear to take bites out of the sun this weekend during a partial solar eclipse in the Northern Hemisphere — but make sure to protect your eyes.

The eclipse will be visible Saturday across Europe, western Africa, eastern North America and northern Asia. The sun will shrink the most for the northeastern United States, Greenland and eastern Canada.

During a partial solar eclipse, the moon passes between the sun and Earth. The moon casts a shadow on Earth and only partly blocks the sun, making it appear like a crescent. Unlike a total solar eclipse, there’s no totality so experts say proper eye protection must be worn the whole time.

“Eclipses are just a game of light and shadow that are played by the sun, moon and Earth,” said Auriane Egal with the Planetarium in Montréal.

Solar and lunar eclipses happen anywhere from four to seven times a year, according to NASA. Due to the moon’s tilted orbit around Earth, they tend to come in pairs: a total lunar eclipse turned the moon red mid-March.

To see the eclipse, look on astronomy websites to see when it begins in your area. The spectacle is slotted during sunrise for most of the Americas, late morning for western Europe and Africa and afternoon for eastern Europe and northern Asia.

During the eclipse, the sun will slowly slim to a crescent as the moon appears to cover it and the day may get dimmer.

“It will feel like a particularly cloudy day,” said Juan Carlos Muñoz-Mateos with the European Southern Observatory.

Check weather conditions before heading outside. Clear skies away from tall buildings and city lights are best, especially in the Americas where the sun may be rising during the eclipse.

Grab eclipse glasses ahead of time to spot the sight safely through a local science museum or ordering online from a seller cleared on the American Astronomical Society’s website.

Viewers can also enjoy the spectacle through indirect ways such as making a pinhole projector using household materials. Holding up a colander will produce a similar effect. Peering at the ground under a shady tree can yield crescent shadows as the sunlight filters through branches and leaves.

Another total lunar eclipse and partial solar eclipse will return in September with the best solar eclipse views in Antarctica and New Zealand.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Someone tucked a heart-shaped note of encouragement into socks packed for Luigi Mangione to wear to court recently in the case surrounding the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, prosecutors said in a court document released on Wednesday.

A court officer intercepted the note, which urged the accused killer to “know there are thousands of people wishing you luck,” Manhattan prosecutors wrote in responding to recent requests from Mangione’s lawyers. They include a bid for him to get a laptop to review legal material in his cell while he awaits trial in the December shooting of Brian Thompson. Mangione, 26, has pleaded not guilty.

FILE – Luigi Mangione, accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, is escorted to Manhattan state court in New York, Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah, File)

A message seeking comment on prosecutors’ filing was sent to Mangione’s attorneys.

Objecting to the proposed laptop as a request for unmerited special treatment, prosecutor Joel Seidemann wrote “special treatment to the defendant’s benefit was violated when (prosecutors) made accommodations for defendant’s fashion needs during the last court appearance.”

Most jailed defendants wear jail uniforms at routine court dates like the Feb. 21 date, the prosecutor explained. Mangione, however, was allowed to change into clothes brought by his legal team.

The note — plus another heart-shaped message addressed to someone called “Joan” — was hidden in a piece of cardboard at the center of a new pair of Argyle socks, Seidemann wrote. It’s not clear who wrote the note or slipped it into the socks.

Mangione donned the socks but later took them off “because he felt that ‘they did not look good,’” according to Seidemann.

Mangione appeared in court in loafers without socks, his feet shackled at the ankles.

Thompson, 50, was shot in December outside a Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealthcare was about to hold an investor conference.

In addition to the Manhattan case, Mangione faces federal charges in Thompson’s killing and state-level gun possession and other charges in Pennsylvania. He hasn’t entered any pleas in those cases.

Mangione’s writings and words on bullets recovered from the scene reflected animus toward health insurers and corporate America, authorities have said. The case has made him something of a cult celebrity to people frustrated with corporate health insurers. Others, including elected officials, decry what they see as glorifying violence and vigilantism.

By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war is hurting Americans, noting that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low.

Carney also said the kinship that exists between U.S. and Canada is under more strain than at any point in the two countries storied histories.

“His trade war is hurting American consumers and workers and it will hurt more. I see that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low,” Carney said while campaigning in Windsor, Ontario ahead of Canada’s April 28 election.

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks in front of Irving Shipyard workers during a campaign stop in Halifax, NS on Tuesday March 25, 2025. (Frank Gunn /The Canadian Press via AP)

The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its U.S consumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9, the fourth straight monthly decline and its lowest reading since January of 2021. Trump has plunged the U.S. into a global trade war — all while on-again, off-again new levies continue to escalate uncertainty.

Trump put 25% tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products — as well as all of America’s trading partners — on April 2.

“He wants to break us so America can own us,” Carney said. “And it will never ever happen because we just don’t look out for ourselves we look out for each other.”

Carney, former two-time central banker, made the comments while campaigning near the Ambassador Bridge, which is considered the busiest U.S.-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25% of all trade between the two countries. It plays an especially important role in auto manufacturing.

Carney said the bridge carries $98 billion in goods every year and $281 million per day.

“Now those numbers and the jobs and the paychecks that depend on that are in question,” Carney said. “The relationship between Canada and the United States has changed. We did not change it.”

Carney announced Wednesday a $1.4 billion “strategic response fund” that will protect Canadian auto jobs affected by Trump’s tariffs.

The Liberal Party leader noted the bridge is especially important to Canada’s auto sector, the country’s second largest export. He said Canada’s auto sector employs 125,000 jobs directly and almost another 500,000 jobs in related industries, many of them union jobs.

“Canada will be there for auto workers,” Carney said.

Earlier this month, Trump granted a one-month exemption on his stiff new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada for U.S. automakers, as worries persist the newly launched trade war could crush domestic manufacturing.

In the auto sector, parts can go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.

Trump has declared a trade war on his northern neighbor and continues to call for Canada to become the 51st state, a position that has infuriated Canadians. The American president has threatened economic coercion in his annexation threats and suggested the border is a fictional line.

The new prime minister, sworn in March 14, still hasn’t had a phone call with Trump. It is unusual for a U.S. president and Canadian prime minister to go so long without talking after a new leader takes office.