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Puerto Rico announces compulsory visits to assess conditions in housing projects

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico ’s government announced on Tuesday compulsory visits to hundreds of public housing projects to check on residents and their living conditions.

Juan Rosario Hernández, director of the Public Housing Administration, said more than a dozen agents will inspect a total of 56,000 units at 328 projects across the U.S. territory by the first week of March.

Agents will check on the welfare of children and elderly people as well as determine whether occupants are authorized to live there, he told Tele11, a local news station.

The announcement comes a week after neighbors in the U.S. territory’s biggest public housing project denounced alleged subhuman conditions of an apartment where a mother and her two children were living. The investigation is ongoing, with authorities noting the family has fled.

The Public Housing Administration seized 44 units last August it deemed were illegally occupied, noting that thousands of people were on the waiting list for affordable housing at the time.

Authorities say some public housing units are used for drug trafficking operations.

Beijing bans 4 New Zealand lawmakers from entering China because they visited Taiwan

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese embassy conveyed via parliamentary officials and shown to The Associated Press on Thursday. China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory. Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing. The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
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