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Human Rights Watch said Thursday that an Israeli strike on an apartment building in Gaza City last October was an “apparent war crime,” citing no military rationale behind the attack after a months-long investigation. The Oct. 31 strike killed at least 106 civilians, including 54 children, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its report. The report “found no evidence of a military target in the vicinity of the building at the time of the Israeli attack, making the strike unlawfully indiscriminate under the laws of war,” the group said. “Israeli authorities have provided no justification for the attack.” The findings...

Scientists say they have created an experimental new high-tech window coating that works similarly to polarized lenses on sunglasses by allowing all of the visible light through while also reflecting unwanted heat. If added to existing buildings and car windows, the new coating could reduce internal temperatures in hotter climates without sacrificing any of the visible light while also reducing energy usage for indoor air conditioning by as much as 30%. The new coating was developed by researchers from Notre Dame University who were looking for a cheap yet viable way to reduce the use of air conditioning in cars...

Canada's largest pension fund sold a stake in a New York building for $1. Crashing office values have led investors to turn cautious on the sector. Office buildings have suffered from the pandemic's work-from-home boom. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the biggest pension in Canada, has completed a string of recent deals at discounted prices, including a sale of its stake in a New York building for $1, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.Commercial real estate concerns have escalated thanks to the pandemic's work-from-home boom and high interest rates in the wake of the Federal Reserve's inflation fight, and the gravest fears...

Plans to build the tallest skyscraper in the United States are shaping up in an unlikely metropolis: Oklahoma City. Developers at a real estate company are adjusting the already ambitious plans to construct the Boardwalk at Bricktown Tower by a few hundred feet to make the building reach 1,907 feet high — which would make it the tallest in the country, the Oklahoma City Free Press reported. “The symbolic height honors the year that Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state of the United States,” Matteson Capital said in a statement.

The Biden administration announced hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to upgrade energy codes nationwide that conform with strict energy efficiency standards, a move experts said is tantamount to a backdoor natural gas ban. The Department of Energy (DOE) said it will begin accepting applications for a total of $530 million in technical assistance competitive grants for local residential and commercial building code upgrades as part of its implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). According to DOE, adoption of the latest model energy codes, zero energy codes and building performance standards would lead to widespread emissions reductions....

California-based developer Scot Matteson has revealed updated plans for an impressive building project in Lower Bricktown, Oklahoma City. The new proposal, if realized, would feature a colossal 134-story apartment tower, standing at twice the height of the city’s 50-story Devon Energy Center. The proposed skyscraper would not only transform the city’s skyline dramatically but also serve as an iconic landmark, potentially attracting more investments and developments in the area. Furthermore, the 134-story tower aims to provide luxurious living spaces, along with numerous amenities, offering residents a unique and unrivaled experience in the heart of Oklahoma City.

New York City suspended an engineer’s inspection authority after determining that a fundamental error may have led to the partial collapse of a Bronx apartment building this week. The state-licensed engineer made a “catastrophic” mistake by labeling a load-bearing column as a decorative part of the structure in June in plans filed with the Department of Buildings, Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. Adams and Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo said that they suspended the engineer’s authority to inspect buildings’ exterior walls and were looking to revoke the authority permanently.

Part of a six-story building crumbled to the ground in the Bronx on Monday afternoon, resulting in a scene of destruction with a pile of rubble below. The apartment complex in the Morris Heights neighborhood partially collapsed around 3.30pm. Photos of the scene showed the bare walls of several units completely exposed. A ground-level shed at the foot of the building was surrounded by a heap of sheet metal, bricks, concrete and metal rods. Rescue crews equipped with police dogs responded at the scene of the collapsed building, searching for residents who may still be trapped inside. New York City...

When you’re a huge, publicly-traded company with more than eight million square feet of offices in a struggling market, it helps to have a world-famous Observatory on top of your most famous building. Empire State Realty Trust’s third-quarter results revealed a solid overall leasing performance including 90.5% occupancy in Manhattan and comfortable liquidity.

Last year, production at American factories increased — and so did the production of factories themselves. According to data from the Census Bureau released last week, construction spending by US manufacturers more than doubled over the past year. For April 2023, the annual rate reached nearly $190 billion compared with $90 billion in June 2022, with manufacturing accounting for around 13% of non-government construction. The US government has offered billions of dollars in subsidies for the production of electric vehicles and solar panels to compete with countries such as China and to fortify US leadership in sectors including clean energy....

A Yale University building under construction in New Haven, Connecticut partially collapsed on Friday and left eight people injured with two of them in critical condition. The collapse happened at an apartment block on Lafayette Street at around 12.30pm when crews were pouring concrete. Part of the second floor fell into the first floor and into the basement at the building site where 36 people were working. It left eight construction workers injured with six of them pulled out of the building by first responders and the other two were able to escape on their own. New Haven Fire Department...

On Friday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Ford Motor Company President and CEO Jim Farley argued that building up the electric vehicle charging infrastructure so people can go wherever they can with a gas-powered car will require retailers to put fast chargers in front of stores, which will require a change in building standards. Co-host Becky Quick asked, “[J]ust the idea of building up the infrastructure and making sure that you can go anywhere that you would with a gasoline-powered vehicle, how long do you think it takes before those problems are really resolved and you don’t run into snags...

Terrified workers fled a soaring new Manhattan skyscraper after experiencing a huge 'shake' run through the building, that made it feel as if its floors were collapsing. One Vanderbilt, a $3.31 billion tower which sits just north of Grand Central train terminal in Midtown Manhattan, was struck by the tremor on Tuesday afternoon. A spokesman for One Vanderbilt said the shaking was due to repair work on the elevators, and there were no injuries as the public viewing platform was closed.

Former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration had drafted legislation to transfer power in the Police Department’s East Precinct building to a Black Lives Matter activist organization. Newly released documents obtained by The Seattle Times showed that on June 8, 2020 Calvin Goings, the director of Seattle’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services (FAS) sent three memos and a draft resolution via email to Durkan about abandoning the precinct.

An apparently suicidal man jumped off the roof of a Yonkers apartment building on Monday night and landed on a person below — resulting in both of their deaths, police said. The shocking scene unfolded at the Cromwell Towers on Locust Hill Avenue as a "distraught" 25-year-old leaped off the building and onto a 61-year-old man on the parking garage roof, cops said. NEBRASKA BAR OWNER CHARGED WITH SHOOTING AND KILLING PROTESTER TAKES HIS OWN LIFE Both men died at the scene. An apparently suicidal man jumped off the roof of a Yonkers apartment building on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021...

CLICK ABOVE ARTICLE LINK FOR THE VIDEO In a jaw-dropping moment caught on camera, 15 high-rise buildings were obliterated simultaneously in China after sitting unfinished for eight years. In the country’s Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, the skyscrapers were destroyed into huge pile of dust. Now, video of the demolition is going viral, leaving netizens stunned while starting a serious conversation about country’s excessive and unplanned urbanisation projects. China’s state-run Xinhua News stated that 4.6 tons of explosives were placed at 85,000 blasting points in the buildings for the demolition. The report said the mission was successfully completed in...

•The price of lumber futures has fallen to its lowest level since November 2020, erasing this year's dizzying gains.•An investment chief says the price of the commodity could reach its pre-pandemic level in the next 12 months.•He added, however, that the price trends will vary by geography. Prices for lumber futures have descended to levels not seen since November 2020, erasing this year's dizzying gains amid a cooling demand for the red-hot commodity. Lumber prices fell for the 10th consecutive week to trade at $536 per thousand board feet - 67% lower from their May 7 peak of $1,670 per...

SURFSIDE, Fla. - A top Miami-Dade fire official on Saturday told family members of people missing in the rubble of a collapsed condo building that demolition workers planned to bring down the remainder of the building on Sunday. Worries have intensified over the past week that the damaged structure could come tumbling down on its own, endangering the crews below and complicating the search for victims. Fire Rescue Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told family members during a morning briefing that the building would be brought down “as soon as possible. First thing tomorrow.” But he cautioned that there “may...

Lumber futures on Chicago Mercantile Exchange plunged more than 40% in June, suffering the worst ever monthly decline on record dating back to 1978. Prices are down 18% in 2021 and recorded the first negative first half since 2015. Lumber peaked in late April/early May at around $1,711 per thousand board feet, and as of Thursday morning, prices are down more than 4% to $684. It appears the great lumber bubble of 2021 has encountered a classic commodity blowoff top, down -60% from the highs.Readers may recall we’ve been closely following the lumber bubble: The latest drop in prices “suggests...

Rosendo “Ross” Prieto, who previously served as a municipal official in Florida and once told Champlain Towers South board members that their building was in “very good shape,” has left his new job. A Doral spokesman confirmed Prieto is presently on a leave of absence from a contracting business position that offers services to the city. Prieto assured Champlain Towers South board members in 2018 that their property was solid, a claim which followed an engineering company’s warning that it possessed structural deficiencies. The firm said sizeable repairs were needed to fix the building’s various issues.