By Samantha Delouya, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump has vowed to tackle the housing affordability crisis, but the White House has offered few details about its plans.

Now, a bipartisan group in Congress is moving forward with its own solution.

Members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives have introduced a package of bills to address high housing costs and the shortage of affordable housing by reforming zoning and reducing federal barriers to construction. The House’s bill is expected to receive a floor vote this week.

Washington is under pressure to address the high cost of living, and housing has emerged as a pain point. In recent years, surging home prices and persistently elevated mortgage rates have put homeownership out of reach for millions of Americans.

A New York Times/Siena University poll last month showed that more than half of registered voters surveyed said the cost of housing has gotten so high that it has become unaffordable.

What is Congress’s plan?

In the years since the 2008 financial crisis, homebuilding has lagged, creating a housing shortage that has pushed prices higher as demand far outstrips supply across much of the country. An additional three to four million homes need to be built to close the gap, according to an October estimate from Goldman Sachs.

Congress’s package aims to tackle the housing shortage directly, and the legislation is nearing the finish line.

The Senate’s ROAD to Housing Act — led by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat — had passed late last year as part of a broader package but was ultimately stripped from the final bill negotiated with the House. The Senate is expected to vote on a standalone version of its bill in the coming weeks.

The House’s companion bill, introduced by Arkansas Rep. French Hill, a Republican, is called the Housing for the 21st Century Act.

The House measure is narrower than the Senate’s version, containing 25 provisions compared with the Senate’s 40.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether Trump would sign a version of the bills into law if they reached his desk, but his administration has previously signaled support for the Senate’s bill.

Here are some key provisions in the bills:

Easing zoning and permitting rules

Many housing experts point to local zoning and red tape as the root of the slowdown in homebuilding — something that is difficult for the federal government to address, since each local government makes its own rules.

But if land-use regulations were relaxed, an extra 2.5 million housing units could be added to the US in the next decade, the Goldman Sachs report found.

The bills include provisions to encourage states and local governments to adopt more pro-housing land use and zoning policies, encouraging them to boost their housing productions.

“State and local governments are directly in charge of what’s built in their jurisdictions,” said Andy Winkler, the managing director of housing and infrastructure policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “Both packages are designed to kind of give state and local governments more tools, more guidance and additional flexibility to adopt pro-housing policies.”

The Senate’s bill would tie some community development grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to housing production, offering bonuses to local governments that accelerate homebuilding while reducing funding for those th

Por Yumi Asada, CNN

El partido de la primera ministra de Japón, Sanae Takaichi, podría obtener una amplia mayoría de más de 300 escaños en la cámara baja de Japón en las elecciones anticipadas de este domingo, según proyecciones de la emisora pública NHK basadas en encuestas a pie de urna.

Esto le daría al Partido Liberal Democrático (PLD) de Takaichi más de los 233 escaños necesarios para asegurar la mayoría, según NHK.

En total, la coalición gobernante del PLD y su socio, el Partido de la Innovación de Japón, está en camino de asegurar dos tercios de los 465 escaños, proyectó NHK.

La política conservadora Takaichi convocó las inusuales elecciones anticipadas apenas tres meses después de asumir el cargo.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The post Proyectan que el partido de la primera ministra de Japón obtenga una amplia mayoría en las elecciones anticipadas appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Associated Press

Atlanta (AP) — Atlanta Falcons rookie star James Pearce Jr. was arrested near Miami on Saturday night after fleeing officers and then crashing his car following what police said was a domestic dispute with WNBA player Rickea Jackson.

Pearce, the first-round pick who led the Falcons in sacks and was third in NFL defensive rookie of the year voting, was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center after Doral police were summoned to investigate a reported domestic dispute between a man and a woman.

According to jail records, Pearce is facing charges of two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon as well as aggravated stalking and fleeing or eluding police with lights or siren. Bond was not immediately set on all the charges.

The Falcons said in a statement they are aware of the arrest.

“We are aware of an incident involving James Pearce Jr. in Miami,” the Falcons said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “We are in the process of gathering more information and will not have any further comment on an open legal matter at this time.”

WPLG TV in Miami reported Doral Police Chief Edwin Lopez confirmed the dispute was between Pearce and Jackson, a forward for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. Jackson was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft and averaged 14.7 points in 38 games, including 37 starts, in the 2025 season. Jackson played for Tennessee and Mississippi State.

Pearce, an edge rusher from Tennessee, was the No. 26 overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft as the Falcons emphasized the pass rush. Pearce had 10 1/2 sacks and his 45 quarterback pressures set a team record for a rookie. Pearce had 26 tackles and 16 quarterback hits. He forced a fumble and recovered a fumble while playing in all 17 games.

The Falcons finished 8-9, leading to the firings of coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot. The Falcons hired Kevin Stefanski as coach and Ian Cunningham as general manager.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The post Falcons rookie Pearce arrested after what police said was a domestic dispute with WNBA player appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Yumi Asada, CNN

(CNN) — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s party could secure a large majority of more than 300 seats in Japan’s lower house in a snap election Sunday, public broadcaster NHK projected based on exit polls.

This would give Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) more than the 233 seats needed to secure a majority, according to NHK.

Overall, the ruling coalition of the LDP and its partner, the Japan Innovation Party, is on track to secure two-thirds of the 465 seats, NHK projected.

Conservative politician Takaichi called the rare snap election just three months into her premiership.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The post Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi’s party projected to secure large majority in snap election appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Dana O’Neil, Ben Church, CNN

Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (CNN) — Lindsey Vonn crashed in her run on Sunday, bringing her Olympic downhill dream to an end after coming into the Games with a “completely ruptured” ACL.

The American burst out of the start in the final but caught a gate with her right arm after just 13 seconds, sending her tumbling down the slope to a halt.

Total silence then fell across the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, as medics attended to the three-time Olympic medalist.

The 41-year-old was then airlifted off the course as the crowd stood to applaud her.

After a lengthy pause in the women’s downhill event, proceedings eventually got underway. Concern now turns to how seriously Vonn has hurt herself.

“Lindsey Vonn fell in the Olympic downhill and will be evaluated by medical staff,” the US Ski & Snowboard Team said in a short statement on social media.

Always a risk

It was always going to be a risk for Vonn to compete at this year’s Games after she suffered such a serious injury in a crash in Crans-Montana on the World Cup circuit on January 30.

She had completed two training runs ahead of the final, though, and seemed to believe she could still compete at the highest level.

“I will race tomorrow in my final Olympic Downhill and while I can’t guarantee a good result, I can guarantee I will give it everything I have,” she wrote on Instagram on Saturday.

“But no matter what, I have already won.”

Some of her fellow athletes looked emotional after watching the crash on Sunday, worried about the damage Vonn might have sustained.

“We all know the difficulties that Lindsey was going through these last days and to come to the race I think she just leveled up too much and risked too much and that’s why this kind of crash can happen,” retired Slovenian skier and two-time Olympic gold medalist Tina Maze told Eurosport.

“It’s really tough for everyone here to see this and especially for her family, her teammates and everyone working with her. It’s terrible for everyone.”

Vonn’s sister Karin Kildow told NBC that the crash was scary to see and that the skiing legend was being evaluated. She also said Vonn would have no regrets about her decision to compete.

“She always goes 110%, there’s never anything less, so I know she put her whole heart into it and sometimes, just like things happen,” Kildow said.

“It’s a very dangerous sport and there’s a lot of variables at play, so I don’t really know exactly what happened, but it did look like a pretty rough fall, so we’re just hoping for the best.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The post Lindsey Vonn crashes in the final, bringing Olympic downhill fairy tale to an end appeared first on News Channel 3-12.