Pasco receives state funding for housing
The Washington State Department of Commerce is awarding $97 million in grants and loans for affordable housing projects, the agency announced Tuesday.
The department awarded funding to 37 projects in the state that will provide nearly 1,404 multifamily rental units, 121 single-family homes for first-time homebuyers, 86 modular housing units and 74 units in cottage-style communities, according to a news release.
Catholic Housing Services of Eastern Washington was awarded $3 million for its proposed 59-unit Pasco Haven project in the Tri-Cities. MORE ON NORTHWEST, 3
Pandemic buying boosts home prices in October
WASHINGTON – U.S. home prices jumped in October by the most in more than six years as a pandemic-fueled buying rush drives the number of available properties for sale to record lows.
That combination of strong demand and limited supply pushed home prices up 7.9% in October compared with 12 months ago, according to Tuesday’s S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index. That’s the largest annual increase since June 2014.
The coronavirus outbreak has forced millions of Americans to work from home and it’s curtailed other activities like eating out, going to movies or visiting gyms.
That’s leading more people to seek out homes with more room for a home office, a bigger kitchen, or space to work out.
The biggest price gain was in Phoenix for the 17th straight month, where home prices rose 12.7% from a year ago. It was followed by Seattle with 11.7% and San Diego at 11.6%.
Railroad industry finishes nationwide braking system
OMAHA, Neb. – The railroad industry has installed an automatic braking system on nearly 58,000 miles of track where it is required ahead of a year-end deadline, federal regulators said Tuesday.
Federal Railroad Administration chief Ronald Batory said railroads worked together over the past 12 years to develop and install the long-awaited technology known as positive train control, or PTC.The roughly $15 billion braking system is aimed at reducing human error by automatically stopping trains in certain situations like when it’s in danger of colliding, derailing because of excessive speed, entering track under maintenance or traveling the wrong direction because of switching mistakes.
The braking system uses GPS, wireless radio and computers to monitor train position and speed, and it can give engineers commands.
The NTSB said the system could have prevented the December 2017 derailment of an Amtrak passenger train in Washington state that killed three passengers and injured 57 people.
Security upstart wins victory over Apple
Corellium, a security research firm sued by Apple, has won a major legal victory against the iPhone maker.
In a ruling that has wide-reaching implications for iPhone security research and copyright law, a federal judge in Florida threw out Apple’s claims that Corellium had violated copyright law with its software, which helps security researchers find bugs and security holes on Apple’s products.
Corellium, co-founded in 2017 by husband and wife Amanda Gorton and Chris Wade, was a breakthrough in security research because it gave its customers the ability to run “virtual” iPhones on desktop computers.
The judge in the case ruled that Corellium’s creation of virtual iPhones was not a copyright violation, in part because it was designed to help improve the security for all iPhone users.
From staff and wire reports