By KANIS LEUNG, Associated Press

HONG KONG (AP) — China’s military on Monday dispatched air, navy and missile units to conduct joint live-fire drills around the island of Taiwan, which Beijing called a “stern warning” against separatist and “external interference” forces. Taiwan said it was placing its forces on alert and called the Chinese government “the biggest destroyer of peace.”

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Taiwan’s aviation authority said more than 100,000 international air travelers would be affected by flight cancellations or diversions.

The drills came after Beijing expressed anger at what could be the largest-ever U.S. arms sale to the self-ruled territory and at a statement by Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, saying its military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan. China says Taiwan must come under its rule.

The Chinese military did not mention the United States and Japan in its statement on Monday, but Beijing’s foreign ministry accused the Taiwanese ruling party of trying to seek independence through requesting U.S. support.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said rapid response exercises were underway, with forces on high alert. “The Chinese Communist Party’s targeted military exercises further confirm its nature as an aggressor and the biggest destroyer of peace,” it said.

Beijing sends warplanes and navy vessels toward the island on a near-daily basis, and in recent years it has stepped up the scope and scale of these exercises.

Senior Col. Shi Yi, spokesperson of China’s People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, said the drills would be conducted in the Taiwan Strait and areas to the north, southwest, southeast and east of the island.

Shi said the activities would focus on sea-air combat readiness patrol, “joint seizure of comprehensive superiority” and blockades on key ports. It was also the first large-scale military drill where the command publicly mentioned one goal was “all-dimensional deterrence outside the island chain.”

“It is a stern warning against ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and external interference forces, and it is a legitimate and necessary action to safeguard China’s sovereignty and national unity,” Shi said.

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since 1949, when a civil war brought the Communist Party to power in Beijing. Defeated Nationalist Party forces fled to Taiwan. The island has operated since then with its own government, though the mainland’s government claims it as sovereign territory.

Drills will continue on Tuesday

The command on Monday deployed destroyers, frigates, fighters, bombers and unmanned aerial vehicles, alongside long-range rockets, to the north and southwest of the Taiwan Strait. It carried out live-fire exercises against targets in the waters as well. Among other training, drills to test the capabilities of sea-air coordination and precise target hunting were conducted in the waters and airspace to the east of the strait.

Hsieh Jih-sheng, deputy chief of the general staff for intelligence of the Taiwanese Defense Ministry, said that as of 3 p.m. Monday, 89 aircraft and drones were operating around the strait, with 67 of them entering the “response zone” — airspace under the force’s monitoring and response. In the sea, the ministry detected 14 navy ships around the strait and four other warships in the Western Pacific, in addition to 14 coast guard vessels.

“Conducting live-fire exercises around the Taiwan Strait … does not only mean military pressure on us. It may bring more complex impact and challenges to the international community and neighboring countries,” Hsieh told reporters.

Military drills are set to continue Tuesday. Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration said Chinese authorities had issued a notice saying seven temporary dangerous zones would be set up around the strait to carry out rocket-firing exercises from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, barring aircraft from entering them.

The Taiwanese aviation authority said more than 850 international flights were initially scheduled during that period and the drills would affect over 100,000 travelers. Over 80 domestic flights, involving around 6,000 passengers, were also canceled, it added.

The Chinese command released themed posters about the drills online accompanied by provocative wording. One poster depicted two shields with the Great Wall alongside three military aircraft and two ships. Its social media post said the drills were about the “Shield of Justice, Smashing Illusion,” adding that any foreign interlopers or separatists touching the shields would be eliminated.

Last week, Beijing imposed sanctions against 20 U.S. defense-related companies and 10 executives, a week after Washington announced large-scale arms sales to Taiwan valued at more than $10 billion. It still requires approval by the U.S. Congress.

Under U.S. federal law in place for many years, Washington is obligated to assist Taipei with its defense, a point that has become increasingly contentious with China. The U.S. and Taiwan had formal diplomatic relations until 1979, when President Jimmy Carter’s administration recognized and established relations with Beijing.

Asked about the drills, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party has attempted “to seek independence by soliciting U.S. support and even risk turning Taiwan into a powder keg and ammunition depot.”

“External forces’ attempts to use Taiwan to contain China and to arm Taiwan will only embolden the Taiwan independence forces and push the Taiwan Strait toward a dangerous situation of military confrontation and war,” he said.

There was no immediate U.S. statement on the drills.

Taiwanese army on high alert

Karen Kuo, spokesperson for the Taiwanese president’s office, said the drills were undermining the stability and security of the Taiwan Strait and Indo-Pacific region and openly challenging international law and order.

“Our country strongly condemns the Chinese authorities for disregarding international norms and using military intimidation to threaten neighboring countries.” she said.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry released a video that featured its weapons and forces in a show of resilience. Multiple French Mirage-2000 aircraft conducted landings at an air force base.

In October, the Taiwanese government said it would accelerate the building of a “Taiwan Shield” or “T-Dome” air defense system in the face of the military threat from China.

The military tensions came a day after Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an said he hoped the Taiwan Strait would be associated with peace and prosperity, instead of “crashing waves and howling winds,” during a trip to Shanghai.

Developers and New York City are building homes in factories and propping them up on vacant lots in the outer boroughs. Proponents say it can significantly cut down on construction time—and create more affordable housing in the process.

A modular home under construction on Greeley Avenue in Staten Island. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Building housing in New York is notoriously expensive. Part of the reason: it takes a long time to build.

The city is testing an innovative building method in the outer boroughs that significantly cuts down on construction time—and could create more affordable housing in the process.

On the south shore of Staten Island, developers are shipping pieces of homes from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and plopping them on vacant lots. The pieces are assembled in a factory, and then joined together on a foundation.

It can shorten construction timelines between 30 and 50 percent, according to Everett Perry of Urban Ecospaces, the developer behind a project to build 23 modular homes on Staten Island.

“You show up at four or five o’clock in the morning, there’s nothing here except the foundation. By 12 o’clock, you’re looking at a sort of a house. By two o’clock, you’re looking at a house. By four o’clock the roof is on,” said Perry.

After the pieces are assembled on site, it takes another two months to complete the home with finishes and hardwood floors, Perry said.

(Adi Talwar/City Limits)

(Adi Talwar/City Limits)

The one and two-family homes will hit the market in mid-2026 and be homeownership properties, available to New Yorkers with moderate and middle incomes through the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Open Doors program. 

New Yorkers can apply for the homes, which will have list prices between $300,000 and $500,000, through the city’s affordable housing lottery system, Housing Connect. The typical home value in New York City is nearly $800,000, according to Zillow.

The Open Doors program, which provides construction financing to qualifying affordable homeownership projects, allowed the developers to list the homes at affordable prices. Under the program, the more affordable a property is, the more money HPD gives to offset costs.

“At the end of the day, it pencils about the same [as non-modular construction], quite frankly, but the time value is just—it’s hard to quantify,” said Perry.

Details of a roof construction with prefabricated parts at a modular home construction site on the corner of Father Capodanno Boulevard and Linda Avenue on Staten Island. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Less construction time on site means lower labor costs and fewer overruns, he added.

Factory work elsewhere may also save builders money on prevailing wage requirements in public projects—New York has some of the highest in the country—because builders only pay those rates for work done on site, said Alex Carmack, director of government affairs for the Modular Building Institute.

Another perk: the more work done offsite, the less disruption to the neighborhood during construction.

A modular home under construction at 527 Greeley Ave., Staten Island. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Everett Perry and his partner Tamia Perry began building modular after Hurricane Sandy, when storm surges destroyed many homes in coastal areas like Staten Island’s South Shore.

The modular houses are built on raised foundations, making them resistant to future storms. One site City Limits visited this fall was once a home that was badly damaged by Sandy, and sat vacant. The lot eventually came into the city’s hands.

Usually, crews build a foundation, put up a frame, then add electrical and plumbing before closing up the walls and finishing construction. When modular homes are placed on their foundations they already have electrical, plumbing, cabinets, and some finishes in place. 

Prefabricated door units at a modular home construction site. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Insulation and walls are up, but the pitched roof is folded in on itself. After raising the roof, 70 to 80 percent of the work is already done, according to Urban Ecospaces.

“This is still a traditional stick built house, built in a controlled environment, and they build inside out instead of outside in,” said Stephen Kenner, the company’s director of construction.

Despite all the work done off-site, “you cannot tell it is a modular home,” said Perry.

Right now, the developers are targeting single and two-family projects on Staten Island and in the Rockaways, but are hopeful that the method could catch on in other parts of the city.

“If you can fit a truck down the street like and get a delivery, you can build a modular home,” said Perry.

A modular home under construction at 527 Greeley Ave. on Staten Island. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

The method is taking off around the United States, where it grew to be a $20 billion industry in 2024, according to the Modular Building Institute. A third of that business was for multifamily apartments, not just single and two-family homes.

HPD previously tested modular building in 2022, and this year Gov. Kathy Hochul launched a $50 million program to build more manufactured homes in the state, following a pilot in Syracuse, Schenectady, and Newcomb.

Carmack said the industry took it as a positive sign for the future of modular housing in the state. He also pointed to City of Yes zoning reforms and the housing ballot measures that passed earlier this year as potentially opening up new opportunities in the city.

“New York City has taken a position of ‘we know there are issues that we have that make it tough for these modular builders or any builder to do business in our city, we want to start addressing those,’” said Carmack. “That’s extraordinarily encouraging to us as an industry.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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The post Could Modular Homes be Part of the Solution to NYC’s Housing Crisis? appeared first on City Limits.

By WILL WEISSERT, SAM MEDNICK and SAMY MAGDY, Associated Press

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, as Washington looks to create fresh momentum for a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza that could be in danger of stalling out before a complicated second phase.

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Trump could use the face-to-face at his Mar-a-Lago estate to try to leverage his strong relationship with Netanyahu and look for ways to speed up the peace process, especially as Israel’s leader has been accused of not pushing his side to move fast enough.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that Trump has championed has mostly held, but progress has slowed recently. Both sides accuse one another of violations, and divisions have emerged among the U.S., Israel and Arab countries about the path forward.

The truce’s first phase began in October, days after the two-year anniversary of the initial Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people. All but one of the 251 hostages taken then have been released, alive or dead.

Now comes the next, far more complicated part. Trump’s 20-point plan — which was approved by the U.N. Security Council — lays out an ambitious vision for ending Hamas’ rule of Gaza.

The two leaders also could discuss non-Gaza topics, including Iran, whose nuclear capabilities Trump continues to insist were “completely and fully obliterated” following U.S. strikes on its nuclear sites in June.

There are many key facets of the ceasefire’s second phase that Israel’s leader doesn’t support or has even openly opposed, said Mona Yacoubian, director and senior adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“This is going to be a really tall order, I think, for President Trump to get Netanyahu to agree,” she said.

“How he does that, what kind of pressure he puts on Netanyahu, I think, is going to be important to watch for,” said Yacoubian, who also said the two could exhibit ”a broader clash of approaches to the region.”

Next phase is complex

If successful, the second phase would see the rebuilding of a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision by a group chaired by Trump and known as the Board of Peace. The Palestinians would form a “technocratic, apolitical” committee to run daily affairs in Gaza, under Board of Peace supervision.

It further calls for normalized relations between Israel and the Arab world, and a possible pathway to Palestinian independence. Then there are thorny logistical and humanitarian questions, including rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza, disarming Hamas and creating a security apparatus called the International Stabilization Force.

The Board of Peace would oversee Gaza’s reconstruction under a two-year, renewable U.N. mandate. Its members had been expected to be named by the end of the year and might even be revealed following Monday’s meeting, but the announcement could be pushed into next month.

Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to meet Trump at the White House in his second term, but this will be their first in-person meeting since Trump went to Israel in October to mark the start of the ceasefire’s initial phase. Netanyahu has been to Mar-a-Lago before, including in July 2024 when Trump was still seeking reelection.

Much remains unsettled

Their latest meeting comes after U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son in law, Jared Kushner, recently huddled in Florida with officials from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, which have been mediating the ceasefire.

Two main challenges have complicated moving to the second phase, according to an official who was briefed on those meetings. Israeli officials have been taking a lot of time to vet and approve members of the Palestinian technocratic committee from a list given to them by the mediators, and Israel continues its military strikes.

Trump’s plan also calls for the International Stabilization Force, proposed as a multinational body, to maintain security. But it, too, has yet to be formed. Whether details will be forthcoming after Monday’s meeting is unclear.

President Donald Trump speaks during a NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Tracks Santa Operation call at his Mar-a-Lago club, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A Western diplomat said there is a “huge gulf” between the U.S.-Israeli understanding of the International Stabilization Force’s mandate and that of other major countries in the region, as well as European governments.

All spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that haven’t been made public.

The U.S. and Israel want the force to have a “commanding role” in security duties, including disarming Hamas and other militant groups. But countries being courted to contribute troops fear that mandate will make it an “occupation force,” the diplomat said.

Hamas has said it is ready to discuss “freezing or storing” its arsenal of weapons, but insists it has a right to armed resistance as long as Israel occupies Palestinian territory. One U.S. official said a potential plan might be to offer cash incentives in exchange for weapons, echoing a “buy-back” program Witkoff has previously floated.

Questions about Gaza reconstruction

Israeli bombardment and ground operations have transformed neighborhoods in several Gaza cities into rubble-strewn wastelands, with blackened shells of buildings and mounds of debris stretching in all directions.

Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are pressing for a negotiated deal on disarming Hamas, and on an additional Israeli withdrawal from Gaza before moving to next elements of the plan. Those include deployment of the international security force and reconstruction, three Arab officials told The Associated Press.

That appears to run against ideas floated by U.S. officials to quickly start building temporary housing for Palestinians in parts of southern Gaza still controlled by Israeli troops. Three officials said the United Arab Emirates has agreed to fund reconstruction in Gaza, including new communities, although they said discussions are ongoing and plans remain unsettled.

A proposed map created by the U.S. and obtained by the AP shows an area labelled “UAE Temporary Emirates housing complex” inside an Israeli-controlled area of Gaza. The map shows a “U.S. planned community area” surrounding the UAE area.

An Arab official said he was aware of the map, but said it was a suggestion from the U.S. and Israel that was put to the Emiratis and other countries.

The UAE did not respond to multiple requests for comment about whether it has agreed to the plans or to fund the communities. It is not known if the money would be contingent on gestures from Israel and Hamas, such as a commitment to Palestinian statehood or disarmament.

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Lee Keath in Cairo contributed to this report.

Web traffic is a fickle thing, but online readership numbers do at least give us at the Observer a sense of what stories are making a splash with a bigger audience, and that’s useful information for us to have. So, for my benefit and perhaps yours, here’s a moderately curated list of our most-read stories of 2025.

1. ICE Prosecutor in Dallas Runs White Supremacist X Account. The Observer has identified the operator of “GlomarResponder,” an overtly racist social media account, as ICE Assistant Chief Counsel James Rodden, based on an overwhelming number of biographical details matched through publicly available documents, other social media activity, and courtroom observation. By Steven Monacelli

(Shutterstock, X)

2. Veterans Who Work in Texas VA Health System: ‘The Dam’s Gonna Break’. Some vets say they’re being hurt as both workers and patients by Trump administration staffing decisions. By Josephine Lee

(Shutterstock)

3. How Voucher Vendors Could Make Millions from ‘School Choice’ in Texas. The Legislature’s current proposals put a handful of private contractors in the driver’s seat. Other states have already seen problems. By Josephine Lee and Justin Miller

(Logan Hannigan-Downs/College Station Eagle via AP)

4. Name Games: Trump’s ‘Gulf of America’ Move Flouts History, International Cooperation. The president could just as logically rename the body of water the “Chinese Sea,” one historian argues. By Lise Olsen

Mercator 1569 world map (Wikimedia Commons)

5. Texas Can’t Keep Up with Surge in Workers’ Wage Theft Complaints. State labor investigators struggle to process more and more paycheck complaints, with millions of dollars in workers’ pay at stake. By José Luis Martínez

(Shutterstock )

6. The Love and Loss of the Quintanillas. A new documentary uses archival family footage to retell the story of Selena y Los Dinos. By Francesca D’Annunzio

Selena (Courtesy/Q Productions, Inc.)

7. Reefer Madness Returns to Texas with Dan Patrick’s THC Ban. If the governor signs SB 3 into law, thousands of jobs and billions in revenue could soon disappear. By Kit O’Connell

(Photo illustration; photo Courtesy of Texas Senate)

8. ‘With What Water?’ The shrinking of a mighty Mexican river has hollowed out the economy of Chihuahua’s Conchos Valley and bred civil unrest as South Texas demands the water it’s owed. By Chilton Tippin

La Boquilla Reservoir (Eduardo Talamantes)

9. Son of a Gun: What to Do with a Legacy of (Unwanted) Firearms. I love my dad; I don’t love his guns. By Michael Ward

(Photo illustration by Ivan Armando Flores/Texas Observer)

10. ‘How Innocent Do They Have to Be?’: Texas’ First Scheduled Execution of 2025 Raises Thorny Questions. Steven Nelson says he was a lookout for a robbery that ended in a pastor’s death. He’s set to be killed by the state February 5. By Michelle Pitcher

(Courtesy/Noa Dubois)

The post Our Most-Read Stories of 2025 appeared first on The Texas Observer.