When a politician is collapsing under the weight of his own worsening scandals, the series of events that plays out is so often the same familiar pattern. First the politician insists the entire scandal is false and attacks the news outlet that first reported it. Then as other news outlets dive in and help confirm the allegations, the politician tries a new strategy. He confesses to the things that have been proven true, even while downplaying them, and denies all the other allegations that haven’t yet been proven true – in the faint hope that the media won’t be able to substantiate the rest of it.

Thus far we’ve seen George Santos follow this pattern pretty much to the letter. It’s not clear if he’s been listening to the kinds of crisis managers who usually handle this sort of thing, or if it’s just human nature to go through these response stages. In any case, Santos is now trying the next step along the line. According to ABC News, he’s promising not to seek reelection, in the hope that this will be enough to get the target off his back and allow him to finish out his one term.

Usually it’s pretty obvious why a scandalized political office holder tries to pull off this kind of compromise. No one wants to have to resign in disgrace, right? They want to finish out their term and then insist they left office on their own terms. And deep down they’re hoping that by the end of their term the heat will have died down, and maybe they can quietly seek reelection after all.

But with Santos, we may be seeing a different familiar pattern play out. When political office holders come to fear they’re going to be criminally indicted, they’ll often try to hold onto their office for as long as possible, in the hope of ultimately using their resignation as a bargaining chip in any plea deal negotiation. This may sound odd, but we’ve seen it play out with two different House Republicans in the past five years alone.

So it’s entirely plausible that Santos is promising not to seek reelection in the hope that this will allow him to take office and remain in office through his indictment, so he can try to include his resignation as part of the plea deal he’ll inevitably have to cut. Of course this doesn’t mean Santos’ ploy will succeed.

The last two House Republicans who were facing indictment were merely on the hook for financial crimes. In contrast George Santos is an embarrassment and punchline across the board, so he may not be able to withstand the pressure and scrutiny of remaining in office long enough to use it in a plea deal.

At some point we’re going to have to rewrite the law so that office holders who are under criminal investigation like Santos don’t have a built-in incentive to remain in office until they’re indicted. Things shouldn’t work that way. That said, the longer Santos remains in the House, the more the Democrats will be able to use him as a weapon against every other House Republican. So if House Republicans don’t have the guts to expel Santos, then so be it.

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The British arm of the Extinction Rebellion environmental group said on Sunday it would take a break from acts of public disruption in order to bring more people on board its campaign for urgent action to counter climate change.

The grassroots group’s protests have previously included closing key roads and bridges in central London, blockading oil refineries, smashing windows at Barclays bank headquarters and spraying fake blood over the finance ministry building.

In a statement entitled “We quit”, Extinction Rebellion UK said that in the four years it has been taking direct action, very little had changed, with emissions continuing to rise.

“As we ring in the new year, we make a controversial resolution to temporarily shift away from public disruption as a primary tactic,” the group said.

“What’s needed now most is to disrupt the abuse of power and imbalance, to bring about a transition to a fair society that works together to end the fossil fuel era. Our politicians, addicted to greed and bloated on profits, won’t do it without pressure.”

The group said it would focus on strengthening in number and bridge-building to increase its power and influence.

The government is in the process of passing a new law to make it harder for people to stage disruptive protests such as halting public transport networks or disrupting fuel supplies, giving the police greater powers to manage and prevent them.

Extinction Rebellion said it planned to surround the Houses of Parliament from April 21 with 100,000 people.

“This year, we prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks, as we stand together and become impossible to ignore,” it said.

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• Sam Bankman-Fried promised big returns when seeking emergency cash in 2018, a report said.
• Alameda Research was struggling due to a failing algorithm, per The Wall Street Journal.
• The outlet said that Bankman-Fried’s troubles long predated FTX and Alameda collapsing in 2022.

FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried promised potential lenders returns of up to 20% as he sought to save his crypto empire from an earlier crisis in 2018, a report said.

The Wall Street Journal described problems at Alameda Research, the sister company to FTX, which it said stretched back years before its collapse in late 2022.

Citing anonymous sources, the outlet said Alameda was already struggling in 2018.

The crypto hedge fund needed rescuing after its algorithm for automated trading ran up losses on a series of inaccurate calls, The Journal said.

The issue, the report said, led Bankman-Fried to seek out additional loans to keep Alameda going.

Per The Journal, he promised annual returns as high as 20% in exchange for loans of cash or crypto, but offered few specifics.

Alameda continued operating past that crisis, and Bankman-Fried founded FTX in mid-2019.

Both spectacularly failed in late 2022 after losing billions, and legal action began against Bankman-Fried and others after accusations that FTX and Alameda had misused client funds.

Bankman-Fried is due in court on January 3 to answer federal charges linked to the collapse.

He is expected to made a plea deal after he was criminally charged on eight counts. They include fraud for allegedly using FTX funds to support the endeavors of Alameda, buy real estate, and fund millions of dollars in political contributions.

His victims were lenders and customers of FTX, according to prosecutors, who accuse him of securing the funds by deception.

His former associates have already struck plea deals.

Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison pleaded guilty to seven counts, while FTX cofounder Gary Wang pleaded guilty to four. They are both now cooperating with prosecutors.

FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 11 after it imploded, wiping out customer deposits worth billions. Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO the same day.

Representatives for Bankman-Fried didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider, made outside normal working hours. 

Andrii Yalanskyi/Getty Images

• It’s the hardest that it has ever been for the average person to pay for housing costs.
• Real estate businesses, lenders, and local governments can help alleviate these costs, though. 
• Insider asked top real estate experts to share their ideas on how to do so in 2023. Here’s what they said.

With the new year is another chance to make housing more affordable for all. 

Right now, it’s harder than ever to buy a home. In 2022, an astronomical rise in mortgage rates coupled with already steep home prices pushed many out of the market altogether. Meanwhile, countless renters saw their monthly payments soar to the point of becoming rent-burdened — a situation where one is putting more than 30% of their household income towards housing expenses. Although rents and home prices started to trend downward in recent weeks, many American households remain cost burdened.

From modernizing zoning policy to make it easier for homebuilders to construct more housing — whether it’s traditional apartments or prefabricated homes — there are things that developers, mortgage lenders, and local governments can do in 2023 to ensure that more people have affordable access to a roof over their heads, according to the following six real estate experts Insider spoke to. 

The solutions are not simple, experts say. There are many hurdles to overcome in conjunction with the political will to make housing more affordable throughout the country in years to come.

Here are five actions that experts say could ease the affordability crisis in 2023.

1. Local governments should address outdated zoning policies and reform them based on today’s needs

Local officials in San Ramon, California look over zoning maps

San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images /Contributor

It all comes down to zoning, George Raitu, senior economist at Realtor.com, told Insider.

In fact, zoning in many places is about 60 years out of date, he said. 

In order to make housing more affordable, Raitu explained, cities need to be zoned to allow housing to be built at a greater density further away from the city’s downtown. 

Houston has been able to keep its housing affordable in large part because of just this, he said. More housing is built as a result and the supply keeps prices down. Still, there are other problems with that kind of building: a Princeton University study found that this sprawling development father away from the downtown area increased flooding during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. When planning new zoning laws, cities should be asking how do we increase total housing units while minimizing the negative impact on the city. 

“It sounds old fashioned, but movement in the right direction would be a truly innovative task,” Raitu said.  

Raitu is not alone in his thinking. Jeff Tucker, the chief economist at Zillow, also told Insider that the biggest hurdle to affordable housing was “zoning reform.”

It’s a mission that is taking off in California. This year, several new housing laws were introduced to the state’s legislature as a means to alleviate its housing crisis.

The two most significant housing bills, titled SB 6 and AB 2011, were signed into law in September and permit home construction on what had previously been classified as non-residential lots. This means that homes can be built in places that were previously reserved for commercial uses like retail and offices.

Critics of the bills are concerned that the law may lead to lower levels of commercial property tax income for local governments, however, supporters hope rezoning will eventually bolster the state’s affordable housing supply.

2.  Local governments can forge private-public partnerships to combat prohibitively high costs to build

andykazie/Getty Images

Before even putting a shovel in the ground, the current cost of building a home is about $100,000 in material and labor, according to a Fannie Mae report. These high costs trickle down to the consumer, ATTOM’s Rick Sharga said, because it’s impossible to make a profit without pricing a new home out of reach for typical households in the US. 

For this reason, local governments need to step in, and offer deals that incentivize development, he explained. This would be a situation “where the government actually helps me to offset costs and contributes to a certain extent,” Sharga added. 

In Philadelphia and Chicago, local governments have been operating programs that sell long-vacant publicly-owned land to individual homeowners and private developers for as little as $1 to help spur new construction and to get the parcels back on tax rolls. 

But local governments can also offer tax breaks or actively contribute to the cost of building in exchange for a chunk of equity in the project. California has already done this when its citizens voted to pass Proposition 46, which provides funding specifically for affordable housing. It allocated just shy of $1 billion to the multifamily sector, according to CCIM, and is expected to see $13 billion in private funds be pushed into affordable housing. The aim is to add up to 134,000 places to live by 2027. 

3. Cities should incentivize building for the workforce, not just the billionaires

Local government leaders should prioritize building housing for the typical family, rather than the ultra-wealthy, Jonathan Miller said.

MoMo Productions/Getty Images

Local lawmakers also need to craft policies that incentivizes equitable distribution of luxury, market rate, and workforce housing in cities like New York, according to housing expert and appraiser Jonathan Miller. 

New York City, home to some of the most unaffordable zip codes in the US, is a perfect case study of what happens when this is not in place.

There are too many ultra luxury units geared towards billionaires but not nearly enough housing for the typical worker in the city of nearly 8.5 million people, Miller said. Because of this, many of those that live and work in the city simply can’t find an affordable place to live because there is a dearth of homes created for this price range. 

But, Miller admits, it’s a “Catch-22.”

“The thing that you have to couch all that with is that the city doesn’t have the money to subsidize,” he said. So instead, the city needs to zone to incentivize building in certain areas, so that real estate can continue to be profitable while striving to be affordable. 

4. Mortgage companies can make it easier to get financing on manufactured and prefabricated homes. 

Eliminating some barriers to accessing financing for prefabricated homes could alleviate the crisis.

Louise Beaumont/Getty Images

Tiny and prefabricated homes have been having a moment in the last few years. These minimalist, typically under 500-square-foot dwellings, can cost as little as $10,000 to buy — a far cry from the typical home prices that hit over $400,000 this year. 

There are numerous draws to these types of homes with their small footprint, largely due to their affordability and flexibility they offer. 

But unfortunately, because securing a mortgage on these properties is difficult, they are still out of reach for many — lenders require higher credit scores than a mortgage on a conventional home would, and they are more likely to lend money to companies that then lease out the homes, instead of directly to the person living it the home, according to a study the Pew Research Center released this month. 

Indeed, nearly 54% of those surveyed said they were flat out denied a mortgage for a manufactured home, the study found. Experts say that breaking down those barriers could be one way to quell the affordability crisis. 

“These aren’t your grandfather’s mobile homes. In a lot of cases they’re really nice properties,” Sharga said. “The mortgage industry really needs to take a look at how to make that kind of financing more widely available.” 

In July, Ginnie Mae, a federally-backed mortgage provider, specifically focused on affordable housing, requested that a manufactured home mortgage program be extended. 

5. Local governments can encourage homeowners to refurbish deteriorating or abandoned homes

Encouraging homeowners to refurbish their homes could take some strain off the market.

James Osmond/Getty Images

Denise Scott, president of Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a national nonprofit organization, told Insider that persevering the nation’s existing housing stock is an important step in boosting its supply of affordable homes.

“We are looking at preservation as a part of an innovative strategy given market conditions and the fact is that it’s hard to build more homes,” Scott said. Indeed, higher mortgage rates and supply strain constraints have deterred home builders from constructing many homes in 2022 — this has only exacerbated the nation’s affordable housing crisis.

With home construction slowing and home prices still rising — albeit at a slower pace of growth — Scott suggests that local governments introduce more home repair programs to help citizens “recapitalize their homes.”

“LISC is particularly interested in this strategy as it connects to BIPOC homeowners,” Scott said. “The idea here is to use a blend of government and private dollars to provide very low or zero-interest loans to help these families recapitalize their homes and bring them up to standard.”

This method could lead to more families owning the title of their homes, making it easier for them to eventually pass on the property to a family or community member. This could eliminate participation from developers or brokers who could purchase the property and later sell it or re-market it as costly rental units.

Andriy Nebytov, via Facebook

• The wreckage of a Russian drone inscribed with the message “Happy New Year” was discovered in Kyiv.
• The drone also featured a crude drawing of a gift.
• Russia has ramped up its air strikes on Ukraine in recent days, including on New Year’s Eve.

Russia sent an exploding drone inscribed with “Happy New Year” as part of a barrage of strikes to mark the new year, according to an official.

Andriy Nebytov, the chief of police in the capital Kyiv, posted images of the drone on Facebook after attacks across Ukraine on New Year’s Eve and in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

The images show “Happy New Year” written in Russian on part of the wreckage. It also features crude drawings of a gift, and a bauble labelled “boom.”

The drone was marked as a Geran-2, the Russian name for the Shahed-136 drones which it acquires from Iran and has been launching at Ukraine in vast numbers.

A zoomed-out image of the wreckage.

Andriy Nebytov, via Facebook

Ukrainian officials said they shot down 45 of these drones on the night of December 31, including 32 over Kyiv.

Nebytov said the drone in the photos landed in a children’s playground. He did not say whether it was shot down or landed there itself.

“This is all you need to know about the terrorist state and its army,” Nebytov wrote of the message on the drone.

The strikes across Ukraine on New Year’s Eve also included at least 20 cruise missiles, officials said. These killed one person and injured 20 more in what one Ukrainian official described as “terror on New Year’s Eve”.

A file photo showing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy standing over the wreckage of a Shahed-136 drone earlier in 2022.

Screenshot/President of Ukraine official website

It followed major bombardments in recent days, including Russia firing more than 120 missiles across Ukraine on December 29, its biggest wave of attacks in recent months, according to a Ukrainian official.

Russia said the latest strikes targeted locations involved in the manufacture of drones, with the aim of limiting attacks on Russia.

Ukraine has repeatedly said that Russia rarely hits military targets, and mostly harms ordinary people and civilian infrastructure.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

• Donald Trump invited the press to a “media availability” slot at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve.
• No cable news network covered it, not even Newsmax, according to Raw Story.
• The audio was also barely audible during the first half of Trump’s remarks.

Former President Donald Trump invited journalists to a surprise slot of “media availability” at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on New Year’s Eve.

But in a likely blow to Trump’s ego, not a single cable news network covered it, according to Raw Story.

Notably, the media outlet said that even Fox News and Newsmax, which have historically offered sympathetic coverage of the former president, skipped on covering his remarks.

On Saturday, MSNBC host Alex Witt announced that the former president would host a surprise New Year’s Eve “media availability” slot at approximately 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.

New York Times journalist Peter Baker, who was appearing on MSNBC, said he did not know what it would involve, but added that he suspected it could be a “gimmick” to “get attention in a positive way,” per Raw Story.

At 9.00 p.m., Trump and former first lady Melania Trump appeared in front of reporters. But for the first minute of his remarks, which lasted approximately two minutes in total, the audio was barely audible.

A video of the “media availability” slot, which was covered by the fringe conservative media outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), shows that Trump spoke about the FBI, his 2024 presidential campaign, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

On Saturday afternoon, Trump had complained about cable news networks in a Truth Social post, notably criticizing Fox News.

“Fox News Ratings are also way down because they never say ‘Trump’ or TRUTH, never talk about the Rigged Presidential Election, and is a Fake Polling Network,” he wrote.