Some workers temporarily furloughed at Holston Army Ammunition Plant due to supply chain issue
A spokesperson for BAE Systems, the international defense company that operates the facility, said a 'percentage' of the workforce is being temporarily furloughed due to a 'short-term supply chain disruption.'
Kingsport agrees to help with new airline deal
'We are working closely with our customer and suppliers to find a solution and bring employees back to work to deliver products for our armed forces,' the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson did not say exactly how many employees were being furloughed.
The Holston Army Ammunition Plant, which has been around since World War II, manufactures explosives for the military. BAE Systems has operated the facility since 1999. In 2023, the company was awarded a $8.8 billion contract to continue operating the plant for another decade.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
$200,000 homes in the Bay Area? Yes, but residents worry their affordable neighborhood is changing
Just $150,000 for a one-bedroom home. In the San Francisco metropolitan area, where the typical home goes for nearly $1.2 million, that price tag sounds like it comes from the history books. In some ways, it does. Built during World War II to house shipbuilders and their families, the Richmond neighborhood of Atchison Village has a typical home value of just $211,000, according to data from real estate brokerage Zillow. That price point is the lowest of any neighborhood in the Bay Area. Many of Atchison Village's 450 homes, which are typically between 500 and 1,000 square feet each, sit around shared courtyards, where neighbors host barbecues or wave down each other for a quick chat. Fruit trees and rose bushes dot the front lawns of each property. The neighborhood is small — it takes just 10 minutes to walk across — and it's common to see both children and older residents taking afternoon strolls by themselves to the city-run park in the middle of the Village, which includes a baseball field and a small playground. Tucked away between Interstate 580 and the Richmond BART Station, Atchison Village isn't just affordable, it's one of California's first housing cooperatives, founded in 1956 with the community sharing costs for maintenance and some utilities. This setup, fairly uncommon in California, keeps housing costs low and makes Atchison something of a haven for blue-collar workers wanting a piece of Bay Area real estate. Many of the residents are retirees, with the estimated median household income just $31,000, half of the county figure, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Most banks and other lenders in California, not being familiar with the co-op model, won't provide a loan for a home in Atchison. Unless a buyer takes a personal loan from the neighborhood credit union, where the interest rate is a whopping 12%, they have to pay that $211,000 in cash. It's a sum that, in many cases, only existing homeowners have the assets to cover. Still, that's less than the usual down payment for a Bay Area home. And the monthly dues residents are charged — which cover insurance, property taxes and some utilities — are often much lower than the typical mortgage payment. But after years of putting off maintenance, fund-building and other costs, can the community cover its expenses without pricing out its own residents? Some residents are worried it's already happening. 'It feels like (moving here) was the golden ticket,' said Chris Dunaway, a 11-year resident of the Village. 'Maybe now it's a silver ticket.' Rising costs strain budgets The roughly 30 acres that make up Atchison Village have changed relatively little since the neighborhood was built in 1941, due to the strict rules on alterations. Many of the homes bear their original wood flooring and exterior paneling. 'I felt like I'd stepped back in time,' recalled Renee Garabedian, who moved to the Village in 1990. The community welcomed Garabedian immediately, she said, with her soon-to-be neighbors inviting her into their homes before she even joined the co-op. There are plenty of other examples: The group that cares for their neighbor with dementia, the cookouts in the shared courtyards, the extra set of hands on a fence project. The neighborhood largely feels safe, residents told the Chronicle, despite Richmond's reputation for crime. Of more concern for many community members is the neighborhood's proximity to the Chevron refinery, which has faced scrutiny over flaring at the facility. In other ways, the neighborhood has changed drastically. When the federal government owned Atchison, homes were only available to white workers. Now, Hispanic residents make up the largest share of the community, which has hosted an immigrant rights group in response to the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. Not everyone gets along, of course. There's been the odd lawsuit and the occasional restraining order. Tara Ayres, one of the Village's 11 elected board members, said the community's leaders have to juggle balancing the budget with being 'camp counselors' when disputes arise. And few issues here are more contentious than housing costs. Atchison, like neighborhoods throughout the Bay Area, are up against rising insurance costs and other financial pressures. One board member, Casey Bastiaans, said her monthly dues have gone from about $400 to $700. Others pay closer to $900. They could get even higher. A fire gutted one of Atchison's fourplexes in May — the co-op's first major blaze — and board members are concerned the neighborhood's insurance premiums will spike. The co-op's rainy-day funds are also far below their recommended levels, putting the community at further financial risk until those are built up. The price of the homes themselves, or rather, of a homeowning share of the co-op, has also surged. Garabedian paid about $30,000 for a two-bedroom home in 1990. Now, the price for a similar home can be nearly nine times that amount, which also means a buyer has to pay much more in property tax through their dues. A sub-$1,000-a-month bill may not seem like much to the average Bay Area renter, but for some residents, it's more than they can take. 'Many people have moved out because of that, or are in the process of moving out,' Garabedian said. Still here, but different Atchison Village is about as old as the cooperative itself. After the city of Richmond declined to buy the property from the federal government, residents purchased their neighborhood in 1956 for just over $1.5 million, or nearly $19 million in today's dollars. Disagreements broke out almost immediately. Within the co-op's first year, a dispute over the elections process led to two boards of directors being formed, requiring a judge to untangle the results. Not long after, the community's veterans got into a feud with the board after the latter cut their property tax exemptions to pay for neighborhood improvements. And then there was the roofing fight. In 1962, the board decided to use the co-op's funds to pay for new roofs, a move that a large group of Atchison residents swiftly condemned as unnecessary and fiscally irresponsible. 'We don't need new roofing!' one picketer's sign read, according to a Richmond Independent article covering the protest. 'Are we under a dictatorship?' The board soon canceled the contract, but not before six of its members were recalled (three were reelected just weeks later). Nearly 70 years after Atchison Village's residents bought their neighborhood, housing issues still roil the community — and this time, it may not be able to avoid raising dues. A group of residents petitioned the board some months ago to soften a proposed dues increase, while other neighbors insisted it was necessary. A flooded bathtub led to an expensive lawsuit between the co-op and one of its members over allegations of negligence. The board voted earlier this year, over the opposition of some of its members, to temporarily increase dues by $24 a month to recoup an increase in insurance costs last year. 'I feel like we are paying for what didn't happen in the past,' Dunaway said. Bastiaans said she and the rest of the board are exploring a number of options to address the co-op's costs while keeping members' expenses manageable. Ideas include surveying members on how tight their budgets are, purchasing a stripped-down fire insurance plan from the state and spreading out costs more evenly between members. Whatever happens, Bastiaans is confident Atchison Village will find a way to move forward as it has in the past. But she worries that working-class families will no longer be drawn to the neighborhood as they once were. 'I think the Village will be here,' she said. 'It'll just be different.'
NBC News
2 days ago
- NBC News
Why a 'mini Trump' is breaking through in Japan
TOKYO — As President Donald Trump's tariffs add to a sense of uncertainty in Japan, more voters here are embracing an idea inspired by their longtime ally the United States: 'Japanese first.' The nationalist slogan helped the right-wing populist party Sanseito make big gains in Japan's parliamentary elections on Sunday, as it capitalized on economic malaise and concerns about immigration and overtourism. Party leader Sohei Kamiya, who since 2022 had held Sanseito's only seat in the upper house of Japan's parliament, will now be joined by 14 others in the 248-seat chamber. It's a far cry from the party's origin as a fringe anti-vaccination group on YouTube during the Covid-19 pandemic. Though Japan has long had a complex relationship with foreigners and its cultural identity, experts say Sanseito's rise is another indication of the global shift to the right embodied and partly fueled by Trump, with populist figures gaining ground in Europe, Britain, Latin America and elsewhere. Kamiya 'fancies himself a mini-Trump' and 'is one of those who Trump has put wind in his sails,' said Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies and history at Temple University's Japan campus. Speaking at a rally on Saturday at Tokyo's Shiba Park, Kamiya said his calls for greater restrictions on foreign workers and investment were driven not by xenophobia but by 'the workings of globalization.' He criticized mainstream parties' support for boosting immigration in an effort to address the labor shortage facing Japan's aging and shrinking population. 'Japan is still the fourth-largest economy in the world. We have 120 million people. Why do we have to rely on foreign capital?' Kamiya told an enthusiastic crowd. The election results were disastrous for Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is facing calls to resign now that his conservative Liberal Democratic Party — which has ruled almost uninterrupted since the end of World War II — has lost its majority in both houses of parliament. The Japanese leader had also been under pressure to reach a trade deal with the Trump administration, which said Tuesday that the two sides had agreed to a 15% U.S. tariff on Japanese goods. On Wednesday, Ishiba denied reports that he planned to step down by the end of August. The message from his party's string of election losses is that 'people are unhappy,' Kingston said. 'A lot of people feel that the status quo is biased against their interests and it advantages the elderly over the young, and the young feel sort of resentful that they're having to carry the heavy burden of the growing aging population on their back,' he said. Kamiya, 47, an energetic speaker with social media savvy, is also a strong contrast to leaders such as Ishiba and the Constitutional Democrats' Yoshihiko Noda, both 68, who 'look like yesterday's men' and the faces of the establishment, Kingston said. With voters concerned about stagnating wages, surging prices and bleak employment prospects, 'the change-makers got a lot of protest votes from people who feel disenfranchised,' he said. Sanseito's platform resonated with voters such as Yuta Kato. 'The number of [foreign immigrants] who don't obey rules is increasing. People don't voice it, but I think they feel that,' the 38-year-old hairdresser told Reuters in Tokyo. 'Also, the burden on citizens including taxes is getting bigger and bigger, so life is getting more difficult.' The biggest reason Sanseito did well in the election, he said, 'is that they are speaking on behalf of us.' Kamiya's party was not the only upstart to benefit from voter discontent, with the center-right Democratic Party for the People increasing its number of seats in the upper house from five to 16. Sanseito, whose name means 'Participate in Politics,' originated in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, attracting conservatives with YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories about vaccines and pushing back against mask mandates. Its YouTube channel now has almost 480,000 subscribers. The party has also warned about a 'silent invasion' of foreigners in Japan, where the number of foreign residents rose more than 10% last year to a record of almost 3.8 million, according to the Immigration Services Agency. It remains far lower as a proportion of the population than in the U.S. or Europe, however. Critics say such rhetoric has fueled hate speech and growing hostility toward foreigners in Japan, citing a survey last month by Japanese broadcaster NHK and others in which almost two-thirds of respondents agreed that foreigners received 'preferential treatment.' At the Sanseito rally on Saturday, protesters held up signs that said 'No Hate' and 'Racists Go Home.' Kamiya denies that his party is hostile to foreigners in Japan. 'We have no intention of discriminating against foreigners, nor do we have any intention of inciting division,' he said Monday. 'We're just aiming to firmly rebuild the lives of Japanese people who are currently in trouble.' Despite its electoral advances, Sanseito doesn't have enough members in the upper house to make much impact on its own and has only three seats in the more powerful lower house. The challenge, Kingston said, is whether Kamiya can 'take this anger, the malaise, and bring his show nationwide.'
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F. racket sport startup expanding at two waterfront locations
Less than two years after opening the Bay Area's first club dedicated to the fast-growing racket sport padel, the San Francisco startup Bay Padel is planning major expansions at both Pier 70 in Dogpatch and Treasure Island. Bay Padel, which recently opened a club next to the Google campus in Sunnyvale, will add four more padel courts and six pickleball courts outside at Pier 70's Building 12, the historic mixed-use complex that recently saw the opening of a Standard Deviant brewery and an outpost of the Asian American bakery Breadbelly. At Treasure Island four more pickleball and two more padel courts will be built in the historic Hangar 3, near the entrance to the island. When completed, the Treasure Island club will have eight padel courts and eight pickleball courts. 'Our thesis originally was to create as many clubs as possible in the next five years based on the hypothesis that with padel being the fastest growing sport in the world, it will eventually take off in the U.S.,' said Bay Padel co-founder Lucas Tepman. So far the thesis has been solid. The Treasure Island and Pier 70 clubs are at 85% capacity at peak hours. The Dogpatch courts are at 70% capacity in non-peak hours and Treasure Island is at 40%, according to Tepman and his partner Matias Gandulfo. Padel is played on a synthetic grass, glass-enclosed court, where players can hit the ball off the back wall. It is bigger than a pickleball court but smaller than a tennis court. The paddles are solid but perforated and the ball is like a tennis ball, but slightly smaller and softer. The game has the same scoring system as tennis. The rise of padel over the last two years has been similar to the growth pickleball saw during the first few years of the pandemic. In 2024 there was a 26% increase in new padel clubs opening around the world, with 7,000 new courts built, according to Playtomic, an app that allows padel players to reserve courts and find people to play with. Of the 7,000 new courts built in 2024, 352 were in the United States. For Pier 70, which is being redeveloped by Brookfield Properties, the Bay Padel expansion caps a flurry of activity at Building 12, a restored football-field-size historic structure that was originally built in 1941 for the World War II shipbuilding effort. In addition to Bay Padel, Standard Deviant and Breadbelly, tenants that have moved in include custom sneaker designer Studio Duskus, paper artist Zai Divecha, metalsmith and maker Emi Grannis, florist Marbled Mint, and motorcycle dealer Scuderia. In addition, Brookfield recently announced that Elevation XR has signed a five-year lease to put four structures (three geodesic domes and a pyramid) on a site between the bay and Building 12. The domes will feature live music, movies, educational programing like nature documentaries, and wellness-oriented offerings like sound baths and yoga. While Building 12 is being billed at the centerpiece of the Pier 70 development, the vast majority of the old shipyard redevelopment remains stalled, with Brookfield still struggling to attract capital needed to start on the 2,150 homes and up to 1.75 million square feet of commercial space the master plan calls for. The land that will be occupied by both Elevation XR and the Bay Padel expansion is slated for housing. Tim Bacon, senior director of development for Brookfield, which is redeveloping Pier 70, said Bay Padel is a good fit for Building 12 because it will bring activity at night and on weekends. 'I was there on Sunday and Breadbelly had a line out the door, the courts were all reserved at Bay Padel, and every seat was taken at Standard Deviant,' Bacon said. Bacon said the activation of Building 12 will bring other potential tenants and investors out to Pier 70 and eventually help build momentum for the larger project. 'We are creating a mixed-use destination — with a dome park and padel club — that is becoming a place where office tenants will want to be,' he said. 'We are continuing to work with our partners at the port and the city to find creative ways to unlock development opportunities.' Meanwhile there will be plenty of beer, bread, pickleball and padel at Pier 70. Tepman and Gandulfo said they are hoping to open the new courts in October — or as soon as possible since they said there is a waiting list for people trying to get into the padel clinics. 'We are hiring coaches,' Gandulfo said.
