Deadly Haitian gangs over the weekend ambushed members of an international security force deployed in Haiti, kidnapping four Salvadoran Air Force members, authorities confirmed Monday.
The post Haiti Gangs Ambush Foreign Troops, Kidnap Four Salvadoran Air Force Members appeared first on Breitbart.
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week, we're going to jump right into it with a philosophical question: What is an accessory dwelling unit anyway?
It's a question that officials in Somerville, Massachusetts, are realizing they didn't know the answer to after learning that a state law allowing ADUs in single-family neighborhoods could also require them to approve three-story backyard mini-apartments.
As the Boston Globe reported on Sunday, Somerville's "deep ethos in favor of new housing" is being tested by the extent of the state law. Elected officials are describing the potential for three-story ADUs as a "joke," and the area's state lawmakers, including one who voted for the state law, are demanding reforms to stop them.
The law in question was a statewide accessory dwelling unit (ADU) legalization tucked inside a major housing package of mostly new spending programs that passed in 2024.
The bill required municipalities to allow ADUs of either 900 square feet or half the size of the primary dwelling (whichever is smaller) anywhere single-family homes are allowed. A subsequent rule issued by state regulators also forbade localities from imposing height and bulk limits on ADUs that are stricter than the limits imposed on primary dwellings.
That latter rule is what's causing Somerville's freakout.
Because the town allows triple-decker apartments (a three-story triplex common in New England) in all its single-family zones, the state rule means that it must also allow ADUs to be three stories tall.
The Globe story notes that the mini-triple-deckers could still only be 900 square feet, meaning each floor of a mini-triple-decker would have to be pretty small. Thus far, no one has proposed building an ADU tower in Somerville.
Even so, the town is worried that someone will eventually propose one of these "out-of-scale" units that it'll have to approve. Its officials are now agitating for changes to the state law to prevent this.
On the one hand, one can perhaps understand why Somerville officials feel blindsided.
The text of the 2024 ADU law allows localities to set "reasonable" height and bulk limits on accessory units. It was state regulators who decided after the law's passage that requiring ADUs to be shorter than the primary unit was "unreasonable."
On the other hand, allowing a second home on a lot to be as tall as the first house sounds "reasonable" enough. Can one complain about out-of-scale development when the new unit is the same height as an existing home and a little bit smaller?
Somerville is not the first city where people's own colloquial definition of an accessory unit as "a tiny home that doesn't bother anyone" has clashed with official regulatory definitions that allow ADUs to be a fair bit bigger.
San Diego's ADU Bonus program once allowed a technically unlimited number of ADUs to be built on single-family parcels near transit stops. (Height and bulk regulations imposed practical limits on how many units could fit on a site.)
That enabled developers to build what were, in effect, ADU apartment complexes on large single-family lots throughout the city. This year, the city imposed new restrictions to stop these "monster" ADU developments, including a per-lot accessory unit cap.
The latest dust-up in Somerville, like the San Diego controversy before it, provides several lessons about the realities of housing reform.
The first is that the definition of "accessory dwelling unit" is completely arbitrary.
In Massachusetts, an ADU is a 900-square-foot home that can be one story or three stories, depending on the town and zoning district it's being built in.
In Montana, it's a 1,000-square-foot unit. In California, state law can require localities to allow ADUs as large as 1,200 square feet. Under certain conditions, these ADUs can even be sold separately from the main house.
At a certain point, an accessory dwelling unit is just a dwelling unit. A house is a house.
The second lesson is that any ADU reform that is actually intended to produce new housing units is going to cause controversy.
State and local laws allowing ADUs have been one of the more common forms of housing reforms to pass.
Supply-boosters see them as a way to get a modest number of new units. Supply skeptics don't see much to object to about allowing someone to install a kitchenette and bathroom in their garage.
If the ADU regulations don't allow much more than the garage conversion, supply-boosters will be disappointed and push for expansions of the law. California passed dozens of ADU laws before they started enabling actual units to be built.
If an ADU law actually allows more homes, the ADUs will look like homes, and the supply skeptics will be mad.
No amount of branding or planning will resolve the inherent conflict of some people wanting more development while others oppose it in their neighborhoods.
Thus far, Massachusetts' ADU law has been modestly productive. The state's ADU survey reports that 2,048 ADU permits have been issued since the state law went into effect in January 2025. About half of those units are attached ADUs (think the garage with the kitchenette).
That's a little under 10 percent of Massachusetts total housing production during that time, per the Census Bureau's building permit survey.
At 50 units permitted, Somerville has actually approved the second most ADUs of any jurisdiction in the state. (Boston has only approved 49.)
But now that it's facing the prospect of allowing ADUs that look like actual homes, it's starting to get cold feet about the new law.
The post ADU Nihilism appeared first on Reason Magazine.
A Kenyan doomsday cult leader on Monday was found guilty by a Mombasa court of murdering 190 children and one adult.
The post Kenyan Starvation Cult Leader Found Guilty of Murdering 190 Children appeared first on Breitbart.
An intense Monday downpour at the Spanish exclave of Ceuta pushed feces and waste left by invading illegal migrants around the city's drains and into the sea, local outlets reported.
The post Besieged Ceuta Awash with Feces and Trash Left by Invading Illegals appeared first on Breitbart.
An Ecuadorian Catholic priest died over the weekend while giving a sermon about the fleeting nature of life during a livestreamed Mass.
The post Ecuadorian Priest Dies After Cross Falls on Him During Livestreamed Homily: ‘One Day, All of Us Here Will Die’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Brazilian socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in an apparent gaffe, said in Sunday's heated presidential debate that Brazil will be "finished" if he is reelected for a fourth term in the upcoming runoff election.
The post Oops: Lula in Presidential Debate: If I Win, ‘People Will Say Brazil Is Finished’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Over 270 rioters were detained by Italian law enforcement officials Monday after the second day of "guerrilla war" unrest at the historic city of Milan, local outlets reported.
The post Italy: 270+ Rioters Detained After Day Two of ‘Guerrilla War’ Chaos in Milan appeared first on Breitbart.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday morning refused the resignation of his Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, as the nation reels from a weekend of violent riots.
The post Emmanuel Macron Refuses Interior Minister’s Resignation After Weekend of Riots appeared first on Breitbart.
Sottovalutare Elly Schlein è un errore: potrà piacere o no, ma la segretaria del Pd non è una sprovveduta, come pensano alcuni grandi vecchi del suo partito. Schlein è una seria professionista della politica, brava a farsi scivolare addosso le feroci critiche che riceve dalla destra e a smontare i complotti orditi dentro casa, ma anche pronta a liquidare con una certa spregiudicatezza quel pezzo di partito insoddisfatto dell’addio alla vocazione maggioritaria del Pd.
All’assemblea nazionale di domenica, Schlein ha fatto le sue proposte su sanità, istruzione, ed economia, delineando di fatto il programma del governo di centrosinistra, astutamente senza mai fare cenno a Giuseppe Conte né ad altri fastidiosi ma ininfluenti alleati. La realtà però è leggermente diversa da come l’ha prospettata Schlein davanti ai compagni di partito, perché in questi anni la linea di Conte è stata più egemonica della sua, che al contrario è stata sempre gregaria perché concentrata a tenere insieme i cocci populisti e radicali dell’opposizione.
Alla Nuvola di Roma, Schlein è stata molto abile a trasformare l’improbabile coalizione che vorrebbe guidare fino a Palazzo Chigi in un’alternativa sociale a Giorgia Meloni. Ma non ha fugato i dubbi sulla difesa dell’Ucraina, come hanno sottolineato durante il dibattito Giorgio Gori e qualche altro riformista. Sono rimaste anche le ambiguità su Israele, come ha fatto notare Marco Pierini, così come l’ipocrisia furbetta e truffaldina del “no al riarmo nazionale” e del “sì a quello europeo” come se Schlein non sapesse che l’Europa è una confederazione di Stati e che la difesa (purtroppo) non è materia di competenza di Bruxelles, ma dei singoli paesi membri. Quindi dire di no all’aumento della spesa pubblica sulla difesa e di sì alla difesa comune europea, nel pieno di un attacco russo alle istituzioni democratiche europee, è un modo ingannevole e disonesto per cercare di salvare la rispettabilità europeista del Pd, lasciando però, come imposto dagli alleati di coalizione, che l’Europa resti in balìa delle mire imperialiste russe e degli umori dell’America trumpiana.
Questi dubbi, queste ambiguità, queste ipocrisie nei prossimi mesi dovranno poi confrontarsi con le istanze degli alleati che le alimenteranno ulteriormente, fino a spostare il posizionamento della coalizione di sinistra su territori molto lontani da quello originario e fondativo del Partito Democratico e del socialismo europeo.
È sbagliato sottovalutare Schlein, d’accordo, ma finora a dare le carte è sempre stato Conte, non lei.
L'articolo Schlein fa sul serio, ma le carte le dà ancora Conte proviene da Linkiesta.it.
Janeese Lewis George, a D.C. councilmember and the city's presumptive next mayor, has come out against pending legislation that would allow autonomous ride-share vehicles onto city streets, citing the technology's potential to eliminate the jobs of ride-share human drivers.
"DC is facing a jobs crisis. Rushing the legalization of autonomous vehicles is irresponsible given the anticipated AI-related job displacement and disruptions that put countless workers at risk," she said on X yesterday.
DC is facing a jobs crisis.
Rushing the legalization of autonomous vehicles is irresponsible given the anticipated AI-related job displacement and disruptions that put countless workers at risk.
— Janeese Lewis George (@Janeese4DC) October 15, 2026
In a follow-up post, she said that the D.C. Council should delay consideration of a pending bill that would allow Waymo, which is currently testing its technology with human safety operators on District streets, to offer autonomous rides to the public.
Ever since Lewis George won a commanding victory in D.C.'s Democratic mayoral primary earlier this year, pundits and wonks have been trying to read the tea leaves on how the Democratic Socialist will govern.
D.C.'s economy is currently in a rough spot. Unemployment is high. The housing market is down. Population growth is slowing.
Lewis George's comments about Waymo suggest the mayor has a deeply mistaken view about the effects and benefits of technological innovation. Contrary to her contention, Waymo legalization is unlikely to exacerbate a "jobs crisis" for at least three reasons.
The first reason she's wrong is that very few D.C. residents work full-time as ride-share drivers. On her Capital Commonsense Substack, Ashley Schapitl reports that, by Lewis George's own estimate, there are only 200 District residents who work full-time as ride-share drivers.
For comparison's sake, the District has a labor force of roughly 400,000 people. So even if Waymo displaced all human drivers in the District, it would be a statistical nonevent.
Few headlines, for instance, reported that D.C.'s labor force shrank by 1,000 people between May and June. Neither did many outlets report that the labor force grew by roughly 600 people between July and August.
Yet here the mayor is talking about a "jobs crisis" over what would be an even smaller change in the number of employed workers in the city.
The second reason not to fear an exacerbated "jobs crisis" as a result of Waymo legalization is that autonomous vehicles (A.V.s) will not completely replace human rideshare drivers in the foreseeable future.
In the cities where Waymo has been active for years, A.V.s are still responsible for a minority of rideshare rides.
That's the case in Phoenix, where Waymo has been offering autonomous commercial service since 2020. In an article from April, Business Insider cites one study that put Waymo's market share at 16 percent of ride-share rides.
In other words, 84 percent of ride-share rides are still being performed by humans a full six years after A.V.s came onto the scene.
That isn't to say the impacts of A.V.s are necessarily positive for human drivers' earnings.
Another study by Gridwise from August 2025 found that A.V.s appeared to be marginally reducing drivers' hourly pay and number of trips per hour. That's evidence of the market for rides becoming more competitive, but it's not, as of yet, evidence of a job apocalypse.
Network design matters too. In places like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Waymo is a standalone competitor to traditional ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft. In Austin and Phoenix, Waymo partners with Uber to offer rides on hybrid human-and-A.V. networks.
A report by EnoTrans, funded by a grant from Lyft, found that the later cities' hybrid networks actually increased human drivers' trips per hour. Their pay-per-hour fell, albeit less steeply than in cities without hybrid networks.
All of that is to say that while Waymo, as a competitor to human-operated ride-share services, shouldn't be expected to have a positive impact on drivers' earnings. It shouldn't be expected to have a catastrophic impact on them either.
The third and final reason that Lewis George is wrong to think that Waymo will worsen a coming "jobs crisis" is that Waymo's employment impacts are not limited to its effect on competing human drivers.
If Waymo earns any market share at all, it'll be because it's offering some travelers a better transportation option than the ones that currently exist. Increased ease of travel within the city would be expected to raise employment levels, not lower them.
If Waymo makes it easier or cheaper for people to get from home to the office or from the office to their kids' school, they might be more willing to live in D.C. over Arlington or Silver Spring. If it's more convenient to get to the movies or dinner, residents will be more willing to patronize local businesses.
None of that even touches on the economic and human benefits of Waymo's likely positive impact on road safety.
The direct effects of Waymo on drivers' employment must be weighed against all the other economic activity that autonomous vehicles will facilitate.
In the long run, the economic effects of autonomous vehicles may well be revolutionary. In the foreseeable future, they'll make the market for for-hire rides slightly more competitive.
A reasonable assumption then is that Waymo will have a modest, but positive, impact on overall economic activity and employment in the District, even if it has a modest, but negative, impact on the small number of full-time ride-share drivers who live here.
If the new mayor can't even tolerate that level of economic disruption, that does not portend good things for D.C.'s economy under a Lewis George administration.
The post Presumptive D.C. Mayor Janeese Lewis George Demands Halt to Waymo Legalization To Protect Drivers' Jobs appeared first on Reason Magazine.
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