April 2023 – Page 5 – The Tarbabys Blog

Are Tiny Homes Worth It? 21 Reasons Why They’re a Huge Mistake

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Are Tiny Homes Worth It? 21 Reasons Why They’re a Huge Mistake

Daria Uhlig – April 19, 2023

All the hype surrounding TV shows like “Tiny House, Big Living” and “Tiny House Nation” have piqued the interest of people looking for a financially and environmentally sustainable lifestyle. But what looks good on reality TV can be much less appealing in real life — especially if you have children.

A home is generally considered tiny if it’s less than 600 square feet. However, the average tiny home is much smaller — just 225 square feet, according to a 2021 survey by Porch Research.

Before making a huge mistake, you should do your research and learn the true cost of getting a tiny house.

Types of Tiny Homes

Tiny homes come in several varieties. At the higher end are traditional stick-built or modular homes constructed on permanent foundations. A more common style is built on a mobile trailer using conventional construction materials. It’s also possible to convert a shed or storage container into a tiny house by using the structure as the home’s shell.

But no matter how you construct your tiny home, you might encounter the same problems with it — so, keep reading to see why you should think twice before springing for that purchase.

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1. Tiny Homes Are a Fad, Not a Trend

The difference between a trend and a fad is staying power. Trends endure and evolve, whereas fads are met with wild enthusiasm for a short time, but then they fizzle.

The tiny-home movement might’ve sprung from the trend toward minimalism and experiential lifestyles, but many proponents dive in without considering the significant challenges inherent in living in a tiny space — suggesting that tiny homes are a fad, not a trend.

2. Tiny Homes Are Expensive

The small size of tiny homes doesn’t make them much cheaper to build — in fact, the typical tiny house costs more per square foot than larger houses do, in part because larger construction jobs make for more efficient use of resources.

The average 2,600-square-foot home costs about $190 per square foot to build, according to Fixr, whereas the best-selling home constructed by Tumbleweed Tiny House Company — one of the best-known tiny-house builders in America — costs about $326 per square foot.

3. It Might Be a Home, but It’s Probably Not a House

Many tiny homes are built on trailers, which makes them recreational vehicles. In fact, the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company calls its products “tiny house RVs” and builds its homes according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association certification standards. By Tumbleweed Tiny House Company’s own definition, its products are RVs, not houses.

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4. Houses — Even Tiny Ones — Must Be Built to Code

Tiny homes built on foundations typically must meet the same code requirements as any other house, but the cost might be disproportionate — and even prohibitive — if you’re working with a bare-bones budget. You might have to prepare the land for construction, pull permits, order inspections and pay to bring utility service to the site.

5. Many Tiny-Home Owners Aren’t Tiny-Home Dwellers

Owners of tiny homes don’t necessarily live in their houses full time. Often, these owners use their homes as vacation getaways or trade up for larger homes. The challenges that come with living in a tiny home aren’t so challenging if you’re only there for a few nights per year.

6. Millennials Might Regret Their Home Purchase

According to the “Real Estate Witch 2023 Millennial Home Buyer Survey,” Millennials’ biggest homebuying regret is paying too much interest (22%), which could make a case for going tiny. But almost as many (18%) regret not anticipating future needs — a regret that’s likely much more prevalent among tiny-home buyers.

Read: Dave Ramsey’s 7 Tips for Paying Off a Mortgage Faster

7. There’s No Space To Expand Your Family

A tiny home that works for individuals might not work for couples. And what works for a couple might not accommodate a baby and the supplies that come along with having one. Even bringing a pet into the mix can overcrowd your tiny space.

8. Tiny Homes Limit Where You Can Live

While some cities have loosened zoning restrictions to accommodate tiny homes, most cities don’t allow tiny homes on wheels to be parked in residential yards or used as permanent residences without the appropriate permits. You’ll have to research local codes and ordinances before you make any decisions, or park your tiny home in an RV park or other designated area.

9. It’s a Tough Lifestyle

Tiny living takes a lot of work. You’ll have to go grocery shopping more often, pick up mail from a post office box and do frequent small loads of laundry in a compact washing machine. You might also have to empty out a composting toilet, climb in and out of a sleeping loft and grapple with multifunction furniture that needs to be opened or closed — or folded and unfolded — every time you use it.

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10. Tiny Living Isn’t Always Functional

Tiny living looks like a simple lifestyle at first glance, but it can actually be rather chaotic. Tiny houses often have low ceilings and tight transition spaces that require residents to constantly duck and squeeze as they navigate their surroundings, prepare meals, take showers and climb into bed. Even eating takeout becomes a chore when you lack adequate dining space.

11. The Cramped Space Wears On Your Mental Health

An overcrowded home has been linked to increased stress and anxiety in families, likely due to lack of privacy and disrupted sleep. Children might also find it difficult to locate a quiet place to read or complete schoolwork in such close quarters.

12. Parking Your Tiny Home Isn’t Free

Unless you’re allowed to park your tiny home in someone’s backyard, you’ll have to find a place to put it — and that costs money. You can purchase land if you have enough savings or lease a lot — perhaps in an RV park or manufactured home community — for a fixed price per month.

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13. There’s a Limit to How Small You Can Go

Even if zoning laws allow you to build or park a tiny home, you’re not necessarily out of the woods. Those laws might also mandate the minimum size of the lot that your home sits on — typically 1,000 square feet. Considering that lots cost anywhere from about $6 per square foot in Mississippi to over $110 per square foot in Hawaii, according to Angi, lot requirements could interfere with your dreams of constructing your home on a small budget.

14. A Tiny Home Might Not Be Legal in Your City

State and local governments have their own building codes for homes built on permanent foundations. Permanent tiny homes often don’t meet those standards, so you’ll need to check the tiny-house ordinances for the specific city you’re living in.

15. Tiny Homes Are a Bad Investment

A tiny home built on a trailer isn’t real estate, even if you own the land that it’s parked on. Tiny homes on wheels are personal property, and like other personal property — such as cars and RVs — they depreciate over time. Real estate, on the other hand, usually appreciates over time.

Find: 5 Expensive Renovations Homeowners Always Regret

16. You Might Get Stuck With It

In the event that you want or need to sell your tiny home, finding a buyer won’t be easy. Tiny homeownership has more barriers to entry than traditional homeownership — there simply aren’t as many people willing to live in 400 or fewer square feet.

17. RVs Are Less Complicated

Unlike tiny homes — which require utility hookups unless they’re made for off-the-grid living — RVs are designed to be self-contained, so they have their own water and power supplies, plus a septic tank to hold waste. Also, RVs are usually lighter and more aerodynamic than tiny homes, so they’re safer and easier to tow.

18. Tiny Appliances Can Have Big Costs

From built-in vacuum systems that clean up pet hair to rainwater recycling systems to rotation devices that keep tiny homes facing the sun to maximize energy efficiency, construction trends can drive the cost of your tiny home way up.

Also: 5 Kitchen Appliances That Just Aren’t Worth the Money

19. Financing Can Be Difficult

Unless your tiny home meets zoning and building code standards and is built on a permanent foundation, it won’t qualify for traditional mortgage financing. You’ll need alternative financing, such as an RV loan, a personal loan or a credit card, which can have higher interest rates and might require a better credit score than a mortgage loan.

For example, you can get RV financing from Good Sam with a credit score of 600, but you’ll pay an exorbitant annual percentage rate of 19.95% as of March 24 — more than triple the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. The minimum credit score jumps to 640 for loans of $50,000 or more, and rates are still double the average mortgage rate.

20. Tiny Homes Typically Cost More Than RVs

Construction prices for a completed tiny house average $45,000, according to HomeAdvisor. For about the same price, you can get a 902-square-foot mobile home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, according to Mobile Homes Direct 4 Less.

21. There Are Better Ways To Be a Minimalist

There’s a lot to be said for living simply and within your means. You can adopt that lifestyle now by selling extra belongings, vowing not to buy any more unnecessary items or even downsizing to a smaller — but not tiny — home. You’ll have a chance to build equity in your property instead of investing thousands into a potential fad that won’t appreciate.

I Lost My House in the Fort Lauderdale Flood While Ron DeSantis Campaigned in New Hampshire

Daily Beast

I Lost My House in the Fort Lauderdale Flood While Ron DeSantis Campaigned in New Hampshire

Elijah Manley – April 18, 2023

Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty

Fort Lauderdale last week was inundated with a historic downpour that caused massive floods and catastrophic property damage, upending the lives of thousands of people. According to experts and meteorologists such as Dan DePodwin of AccuWeather, this level of rain was so historic and rare that it is expected to only occur once every thousand years. Some areas saw over 25 inches of rain.

Cars and trucks floated through the city, and artery roads were turned into rivers that can only be passed by swimming through them. Many residents lost their homes, their vehicles, and their every material possession.

I know all this to be true because my family experienced it all.

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As I was heading home last Wednesday night, I got a frightening text. It was from my mom, telling me not to come home. “You can’t come home. Water is everywhere, inside and outside. We’re flooded.”

Though it was pouring, I wasn’t gravely concerned. “It’s just a little water,” I thought to myself. I was wrong.

I would have no home to return to that night, but I would swim through two feet of water across the city just to sleep on the ground downtown. When the waters receded days later, I came back to what had been my home to find all my belongings destroyed and the interior of the house flooded.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Elijah Manley</div> — Elijah Manley

Pictures, clothes, books, everything: gone. They’re irreplaceable. Everything I spent my life building was gone in one night. It’s like the memory of your identity has been wiped away. I couldn’t help but feel destroyed inside knowing that everything I had to my name is gone. It takes me back to a time in my childhood when my family was homeless. During that time, it was difficult maintaining all of our belongings.

And as I and countless others were experiencing this tragedy, our governor was in other states, far away, hawking his book and hyping up donors for a likely presidential run. In a time of historic crisis, the leader of our state’s government went AWOL.

It was only a few years ago when another Florida Republican governor, Rick Scott, traveled to areas affected by other natural disasters. He’d put partisanship aside and advocate for emergency aid to support affected communities. “We can rebuild homes. We can rebuild businesses. We cannot rebuild your life,” Scott said.

Our current governor, Ron DeSantis, is no Rick Scott.

While our local mayors, city commissioners, and emergency management personnel were on the ground immediately working to address the crisis, Gov. DeSantis didn’t even have the time to call Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis to offer his support.

This angers me beyond words. I’m not rich. My family is working class, and we have been blue-collar all our lives. It hurts my heart to know that my governor couldn’t make time to visit my city, witness our suffering, and demonstrate leadership. He could have promised swift and aggressive relief, pledged to help us rebuild, and looked into our eyes and let us know some things are more important than politics. But he didn’t.

Some DeSantis supporters have argued that his book tour and speaking engagements were planned in advance, while these floods could not have been predicted. That excuse might work for a day. Once it became clear there was a catastrophe back home, he could (and should) have hopped on the first jet back to Florida.

Instead, he continued his journey across the country to three states, including the early primary state of New Hampshire.

Yes, you read that correctly: while a major city in the governor’s home state was underwater, Ron DeSantis continued to sell books and campaign across the country.

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When he did fly back, it was in the middle of the night for a quick stop at the state Capitol to sign the six-week abortion ban. Then he left again, making no stops in Fort Lauderdale or affected areas. (His campaign and office staff did muster up the energy to attack critics on social media and lambaste the media for pointing out his absence.)

This isn’t about partisanship, this is about responsibility. I have levied the same criticism at President Joe Biden for not visiting East Palestine, Ohio, after the catastrophic train derailment that devastated the working-class region.

If Ron DeSantis is more interested in running for president than being the governor we deserve in difficult times, then he must resign immediately. When we lost everything, our governor was absent. If DeSantis can’t demonstrate basic humanity and offer effective leadership during an emergency as governor, how can we expect him to handle larger crises as president? We shouldn’t.

Southwestern US rivers get boost from winter snowpack

Associated Press

Southwestern US rivers get boost from winter snowpack

Susan Montoya Bryan – April 18, 2023

FILE - In this May 9, 2021, photo a dam along the Rio Grande is seen near San Acacia, N.M. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File) — In this May 9, 2021, photo a dam along the Rio Grande is seen near San Acacia, N.M. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)

FILE - Low water levels are seen at Elephant Butte Reservoir near Truth or Consequences, N.M., on July 10, 2021. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File) — Low water levels are seen at Elephant Butte Reservoir near Truth or Consequences, N.M., on July 10, 2021. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Federal water managers have more room to breathe this spring as two Southwestern rivers that provide New Mexico and Texas with drinking water and irrigation supplies are seeing the benefits of record snowpack and spring runoff.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service delivered the good news Tuesday for water managers, cities and farmers as federal officials rolled out operating plans for the Rio Grande and the Pecos River.

The mountain ranges in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico that serve as headwaters for the two rivers last winter saw nearly double the snowpack of historic averages, resulting in runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs.

And even more of that snowmelt will reach streams and rivers since soil moisture levels were able to recover last summer during what was one of the strongest monsoons the region had seen in 130 years.

“This is really good news for us because one of the big things that’s been killing water supply for the last 10, 15 years is really dry soils soaking up a lot of that runoff before we could ever get any of it. That is not going to be the case nearly as much this year,” said Andrew Mangham, a senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service. “We’re going to have a much more efficient runoff coming out of this.”

The same story is playing out around the West. In California, most of that state’s major reservoirs were filled above their historical averages at the start of spring thanks to one of the massive snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. In neighboring Nevada, the snowfall was so overwhelming that the final day of the high school ski championships had to be cancelled.

Many of the officials gathered for Tuesday’s river briefing were combing their collective memories, trying to recall when they last saw hydrology graphs this favorable.

“We’re in better shape than we’ve been for a real long time,” Mangham said.

New Mexico’s largest cities that rely on diverted water from the San Juan and Chama rivers are expected to get a full allocation this year — the first time since 2019.

The Carlsbad Irrigation District on the southern end of the Pecos River opted to allocate a bit more to farmers this year due to the increased runoff.

“With the snowmelt coming in and still the chance for the monsoon season, things are looking pretty good,” said Coley Burgess, the irrigation district’s manager.

Still, he said farmers have had to be economical about how they use what amounts to just a little over half of a full allotment. Some have left fields unplanted so they can shift their share of water to their best alfalfa crops.

On the Rio Grande, managers say they have enough water stored in Elephant Butte — the largest reservoir in New Mexico — to avoid restrictions that prevent storing water in some upstream reservoirs. Under a water sharing agreement with Colorado and Texas, New Mexico is required to deliver a certain amount to Texas each year.

The states also are tangled up in litigation over management of the Rio Grande that is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. A special master is considering a proposed settlement that would resolve the decade-long fight.

Officials with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in New Mexico said whether the state can keep enough water in Elephant Butte later this year will depend on the monsoon season.

Farmers across southern New Mexico and in West Texas will be crossing their fingers, too.

Putin’s Regime Is Descending Into Stalinism

Politico

Putin’s Regime Is Descending Into Stalinism

Leon Aron – April 18, 2023

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a pro-democracy opposition leader in Russia — and my friend. He was arrested in April of last year for
“discrediting the armed forces” of Russia. His arrest was apparently triggered by a visit he made to Arizona the previous month during which he simply told the truth.

“The entire world sees what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s regime is doing to Ukraine,” Kara-Murza told members of Arizona’s state legislature. “It bombs civilian areas, hospitals and schools.”

In the months that followed his arrest, the Kremlin piled on. He was also charged with using the funds of an “undesirable organization” — the Washington, D.C. -based NGO “Free Russia Foundation” — to convene a conference in support of Russian political prisoners in Moscow in October 2021. Simultaneously, he was accused of “high treason” because he testified before the Helsinki Commission and the NATO Parliamentary assembly, and for allegedly “consulting foreign special services” for $30,000 a month.

On Monday, Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in a “strict regime” prison colony. This is likely the longest sentence ever meted out for political activity in post-Soviet Russia, where the maximum term for murder is 15 years and the punishment for rape is the same. His sentence combines penalties for all these “crimes”: seven years for the first, three for the second, and 15 years (apparently “reduced” from eighteen) for the third.

This punishment is much harsher than the ones to which the regime’s vengeance has lately subjected members of the opposition. The two other leading opponents of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny and Ilya Yashin, were sentenced to nine years and eight-and-a-half years respectively.

Heightened repression is always a sign of fear. Could Kara-Murza’s punishment have had something to do with the fact that Navalny was sentenced a year ago and Yashin last December, when the war in Ukraine may not have looked to the Kremlin as much of an endless bloody slog as it appears today? And also when its prosecution of the war, while dealing with harsh Western sanctions, was not as much fraught with the possibility of popular discontent over gradual impoverishment and casualties in the hundreds of thousands? It seems that the reason the sentence is so harsh is to scare civil society and preclude any chance of organized resistance.

Even in the post-Stalin Soviet Union, the authorities generally avoided charging dissidents with crimes like “high treason,” most often espionage. (The 1977 case of the Jewish refusenik Anatoly Sharansky was an exception.) As Kara-Murza, whom the Kremlin almost certainly tried to poison twice before, pointed out to the kangaroo court this week, his sentence harkens back not just to Soviet times but to the 1930s Stalinist purges of “enemies of the people.”

Kara-Murza is a Cambridge-trained historian, and he was right. Putin’s regime is descending into Stalinism. Sustained by indiscriminate ruthlessness, such regimes do not “evolve”— witness North Korea or Cuba. They can only be destroyed either by an invasion, like Pol Pot’s Cambodia or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, or exploded from within by a miraculous leader like Mikhail Gorbachev.

Neither outcome is likely in Russia so long as Putin lives. And so the struggle is very personal now between the two Vladimirs, Putin and Kara-Murza, even biological: Only Putin’s death can free my friend Vladimir. Putin is 70, Kara-Murza is 41. But the effective age gap will narrow steadily as Kara-Murza’s jailers will undoubtedly begin grinding him down from day one.

Yet Kara-Murza was defiant and hopeful even as his sentence came down. “I know that the day will come when the darkness over our country will be gone,” he said in his final statement before the court. “When the war will be called a war, and the usurper [in the Kremlin] will be called a usurper; when those who have ignited this war will be called criminals instead of those who tried to stop it… And then our people will open their eyes and shudder at the sight of the horrific crimes committed in their names.”

And that is how Russia’s road back to the community of civilized states will commence, Kara-Murza told the court. Even as he sat in the steel cage in the courtroom, he said he believed that Russia would travel this road.

“Because,” he concluded, despite everything, “I love my country and I have trust in our people.”

‘Time doesn’t heal’: Ukraine’s war widows count the cost

AFP

‘Time doesn’t heal’: Ukraine’s war widows count the cost

Jonathan Brown and Elizabeth Striy, in Warsaw – April 17, 2023

Olga Slyshyk began to fear the worst in January this year when her husband, Mykhailo, a military engineer serving on the front line in eastern Ukraine, didn’t contact her on her birthday.

It wasn’t unusual for the 40-year-old trained lawyer to be offline for days at a time, but Slyshyk knew he would reach out — one way or another — on January 14 if he was alive and well.

“I was sure he would call or find some way to congratulate me. But I had had a very bad dream and I already knew something was wrong,” she told AFP in Kyiv wearing black and holding her two-year-old son Viktor.

“On January 15, I found out he had died.”

More than one year after Moscow invaded, Slyshyk is among a growing number of women widowed by Russian forces and left to count the cost of Ukraine’s determination to hold out and push Moscow’s invasion back.

Neither side has disclosed the exact figures of troops killed, though recently leaked US intelligence documents suggest as many as 17,500 Ukrainian servicemen have been lost.

Slyshyk said a social media group for war widows she joined had more than 300 members after her husband was killed defending Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region, but it had doubled in size since.

– ‘You learn to live with it’ –

President Volodymyr Zelensky last August hosted widows and their children at an honours ceremony to reassure next of kin their loved ones’ sacrifice had not been in vain.

“They will remain forever at battle. But they live on in the memory of their relatives,” he said, greeting mourning women and their children one by one.

Thirty-year-old Slyshyk, who was born in Mariupol — a port city besieged and captured by Russian forces last spring — said she often evokes the memory of her killed husband.

“All the time. Both in my head and aloud. I’ll be unable to open a tin can, weeping from frustration, and I cry out: ‘Misha, I’m not even able to do this’ and then suddenly, it opens.”

Daria Mazur, 41, said she learned of her husband’s death in 2014 from graphic pictures of his bloodied corpse published on Russian media after fierce fighting with Kremlin-backed separatists.

He was killed while withdrawing from Ilovaisk, an infamous and costly chapter of the conflict for Ukraine that saw hundreds killed that August as Kyiv troops pulled back in the face of advancing pro-Russian forces.

“Time does not heal. You just get used to it. You accept it. You learn to live with it. And that pain just becomes a part of you,” she told AFP in her kitchen in Kyiv, next to pictures showing her husband smiling with their child in his arms.

They met on a beach in2006, fell in love and married in 2010 in the southern region of Kherson, where Mazur fled from when Russia invaded last February. Her home town is currently occupied by Russian forces.

She said her final conversations with her husband, Pavlo, who was 30 when he was killed, betrayed a sense of foreboding. He knew the situation was precarious.

“He told me: ‘please promise me that no matter what happens to me, you will be happy,'” she recounted to AFP.

– ‘I need you by my side’ –

“These guys are giving their lives so we can live on,” she added, referring to Ukrainian servicemen fighting now.

It was precisely this need to go on that pushed Oksana Borkun, who also lost her husband to the Russian invasion, to create “We Have to Live,” an organisation that supports widows — the same group that Slyshyk joined.

Borkun said that while the government offers financial and psychological support, she wanted to go a step further.

“The girls face a huge amount of pain. You can say it’s possible to go crazy from it. Life is going on around you, and you want to talk to those who understand.”

The organisation gathers money for widows, offers logistical and moral support, too, but chiefly it provides a platform — mainly online — for already nearly one thousand widows country-wide to share.

For Slyshyk, her husband’s family has proven a stronger pillar of support than her own.

Her mother, who is also a widow of two years, lives in Donetsk, a pro-Russian stronghold city captured by separatists in 2014 and does not support Ukraine in the war.

The fact they have both lost their husbands has not brought them together, she said.

Months after Mykhailo’s death, Slyshyk is torn when weighing whether his sacrifice was worth it.

“He said he was going there for me and Viktor,” she recounted, explaining her husband believed Ukraine had no choice but to fight back and win.

“But if you want me to be safe, to be ok, I need you by my side, not somewhere else,” she added, swallowing back tears.

“For now, I’m emotionally conflicted”.

Ex-Navy Officer Reportedly Probed for Amplifying Pentagon Leak to Russian Channels

Daily Beast

Ex-Navy Officer Reportedly Probed for Amplifying Pentagon Leak to Russian Channels

Josh Fiallo – April 17, 2023

The feds are reportedly probing a former U.S. Navy non-commissioned officer who’s accused of overseeing a prominent Russian propaganda account that made leaked documents from the Pentagon go viral this month.

Sarah Bils, 37, was unmasked this weekend as being behind the online persona “Donbass Devushka”—which roughly translates to “Donbass Girl”—despite her being a New Jersey native who lives in Washington state.

Two U.S. defense officials told United States Naval Institute News that Bils is now being probed for potentially sharing four classified docs—allegedly leaked initially by Massachusetts Air Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who was arrested last week—to Donbass Devushka’s 65,000-plus followers on Telegram.

Exact details on the probe—and potential charges for Bils—have not been released.

A Navy biography for Bils says she was an aviation electronics technician who worked out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington state until November 2022. Speaking from her home, she admitted to The Wall Street Journal that she’s partially behind the Donbass Devushka network, which describes itself on its social media pages—including Twitter, Telegram and YouTube—as engaging in “Russian–style information warfare.”

But Bils told the paper she’s just one of 15 people “all over the world” with access to the propaganda accounts, maintaining that she wasn’t the administrator who posted the classified U.S. intel. Instead, she claims she was the admin who eventually deleted the posts.

The leaked docs quickly went viral in Russia after they were posted by Donbass Devushka on April 5, the Journal reported, with “several large Russian social-media accounts” picking up the documents and reposting. The channel’s posts with the classified documents remained online for days.

“Some very interesting potential intel,” the Telegram channel for Donbass Devushka posted with screenshots of the documents. “The authenticity cannot be confirmed but looks to be very damning nato information.”

It was the virality of this post that alerted U.S. authorities that classified intel was compromised. Previously, Teixeira, 21, had been posting other classified documents to a private Discord channel for months but the docs never went public, group members told The Washington Post.

Bils said she never used her position in the Navy to leak classified intel and that she didn’t work with Teixeira, telling the Journal, “I obviously know the gravity of top-secret classified materials. We didn’t leak them.”

The military and Justice Department have not made a public statement about Bils and her alleged role in amplifying the leak. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Journal that the military has ordered a review of intelligence access, accountability, and control procedures to nix future leakers.

Teixeira has been charged with unauthorized detention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials. The feds allege that he shared classified information on social media starting in December.

Members of Teixeira’s Discord channel told the Post that he shared screenshots of battlefield conditions in Ukraine, highly classified satellite images of the aftermath of Russian missile strikes, and vivid details on troop movements within Ukraine.

The Donbass Devushka network has basked in the aftermath of this month’s leaks—gaining thousands of new followers. Those new to its multiple social media pages were met with posts advertising pro-Russia merchandise and a promise that proceeds would go to the mercenary Wagner Group and the Russian military.

The Journal reported that Bils was honorably discharged from the military in November after a “significant demotion.” Bils told reporters that she’d left the Navy because she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that she has “some” Russian heritage.

On a podcast that shares the same name as her popular Telegram channel, Bils spoke with a “slight Russian accent,” the Journal reported—an accent other outlets have described as being “phony.” She also posed as being a woman from the Donbas region of Ukraine, one of the bloodiest areas of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

Bils told the Journal her old gig gave her clearance to view top-secret information but that she no longer has that access.

“I don’t even know the authenticity of the documents or what they say,” she told the Journal about the leaked intel shared on her page. “I am not very well versed in reading documents like that.”

One of the most prolific pro-Russia propaganda channels is run by a US Navy veteran living in Washington

Business Insider

One of the most prolific pro-Russia propaganda channels is run by a US Navy veteran living in Washington

Hannah Getahun – April 16, 2023

rows of people's legs wearing boots and camouflage pants — US Navy sailors lining up on the USS Carl Vinson.Getty Images

A popular pro-Russia social-media account is run by a Navy veteran, per reports.
Donbass Devushka, whose real name is Sarah Bils, previously claimed to be from Eastern Europe.
The account helped to spread the leaked Pentagon documents that were posted on Discord.

A social-media account that spread misinformation about the war in Ukraine and pro-Russian war talking points was created by former US Navy non-commissioned officer, The Wall Street Journal confirmed in an exclusive interview.

Sarah Bils is a 37-year-old woman in Oak Harbor, Washington, who served at the US Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island until November of 2022, online Navy records show. Bils’ identity was first uncovered by users on Twitter and Reddit, and first reported by an advocacy site mainly posting about the war known as Malcontent News.

Online, however, Bils goes by the name Donbass Devushka, and her account sometimes posts graphic images of the fighting, praises the brutal wing of the Russian military known as the Wagner group, and sometimes celebrates the death of Ukrainian fighters.

Bils told the Journal that 15 other people help her run the account.

The persona has a YouTube channel, a Twitter, and a Spotify podcast with tens of thousands of followers. On the podcast, Bils, who in previous posts claimed to be from Eastern Europe, appears to put on a phony accent.

On the bio of her Telegram — from which she posts dozens of times a day — Bils says the account is “Russian-style information warfare” that’s “Bringing the multipolar world together.” The account, ironically, once posted a screenshot of the popular meme reading “I’ll serve crack before I serve this country” — meant to signify that someone would never join the US military.

The Telegram account was also recently associated with helping to spread four images of the dozens of leaked US intelligence documents that appeared on a Discord server called Thug Shaker Central. Many of these documents contained information on US intelligence gathering on the war in Ukraine. Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old junior-ranking US National Guard airman, was arrested on Thursday and charged on Friday with possessing classified documents pertaining to national security, and possessing national defense materials.

Bils, who had secret security clearances while serving, told the Journal she did not help to leak the documents. The Journal also noted that the documents posted on her channel were altered versions of the Discord documents, but Bils denied that her team had altered them.

“I obviously know the gravity of top-secret classified materials,” she told the publication.

The documents are no longer on the account, but the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel shared a theory on April 13 that the leaks were actually an intentional effort from US intelligence officials and that Teixeira unknowingly carried out their plan.

Insider reached out to emails associated with Donbass Devushka and Bils but did not immediately receive a response.

The US Navy did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Correction: April 17, 2023 — An earlier version of this story mischaracterized Bils’ position in the Navy. She was a noncommissioned officer, not a commissioned officer.

Former Navy NCO running pro-Russian social account under investigation for helping spread classified documents

Fox News

Former Navy NCO running pro-Russian social account under investigation for helping spread classified documents

Michael Lee – April 17, 2023

A former Navy non-commissioned officer is reportedly the subject of a Justice Department investigation into her role in helping spread classified documents recently leaked online.

Sarah Bils, a 37-year-old former aviation electronics technician in the Navy, is allegedly behind the pro-Russian “Donbass Devushka” social media account that helped classified documents originally leaked by Massachusetts Air Guardsman Jack Teixeira reach a wider audience, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Donbass Devushka, which translates as “Donbas Girl,” is a series of social media accounts popular on Telegram, Twitter and YouTube that pushed a pro-Kremlin view for an English-speaking audience. Despite presenting itself as being a single Russian blogger, the accounts are run by multiple administrators, including Bils.

US DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN SAYS LEAKED CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS WERE ‘SOMEWHERE IN THE WEB’

The social media accounts and Bils’ role are now the subject of a Justice Department investigation, according to a report from USNI News on Monday.

Bils last served at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island before leaving the service late last year. She reached the grade of E-7, or chief petty officer, during her time in the service, but she left the military as an E-5, or petty officer second class. It is unclear why the former service member was demoted.

The Navy did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Selfie Jack Teixeira alleged leaker — Jack Teixeira

SOUTH KOREA SAYS LEAKED PENTAGON DOCUMENT SUGGESTING US SPYING IS ‘UNTRUE’ AND ‘ALTERED’: REPORTS

Classified documents allegedly posted to the internet by Teixeira had gone relatively unnoticed until they were picked up by the Donbass Devushka social media account, which boasts a much larger following than the invite-only Discord server that was run by the Massachusetts Guardsman.

From there, the documents were picked up by several large Russian social media accounts, spurring the Pentagon investigation into the leaks.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bils, who had access to classified material in her capacity in the Navy, said the documents were posted to Donbass Devushka by another administrator and later deleted by her.

“I obviously know the gravity of top-secret classified materials. We didn’t leak them,” she told the outlet.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered a review of intelligence access and procedures in response to the leaks.

Bils is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Washington state. She joined the Navy in 2009 and completed “A” school at Naval Aviation Technical Training Center in Pensacola, Florida, and first reported to Fleet Readiness Center Northwest, Whidbey Island, in 2011.

Her awards include two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, a Meritorious Unit Commendation, four Good Conduct Medals and the National Defense Service Medal, according to USNI News.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the case.

Tiny homes tucked into Boise neighborhoods? This pilot project will test the idea

Idaho Statesman

Tiny homes tucked into Boise neighborhoods? This pilot project will test the idea

Angela Palermo – April 17, 2023

The city of Boise is working on a tiny home pilot project to study its potential impact on housing affordability.

The program aims to assist selected residents in placing six movable tiny homes on land across various neighborhoods within city limits for a temporary period of time. City code currently does not allow for movable tiny homes.

The pilot project will allow approved applicants to be the first to test the concept.

“The idea was that we need more housing that’s affordable to folks on a Boise budget,” Kyle Patterson, director of innovation and performance at the city, told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “Meanwhile, things like tiny homes and small-footprint living are in high demand these days, but not something that’s allowed within city limits.”

Developer Hannah Ball opens the back door of a tiny home she had on display in Garden City in 2021.

About a year and a half ago, the city participated in an innovation program through Bloomberg Philanthropies and Harvard University where staff members were tasked with identifying new solutions for housing relief. The group of about 10 city employees took what they learned and interviewed dozens of Boise residents, from developers to homeowners to people experiencing homelessness, to try to understand the issue of housing affordability from their perspectives.

The city also held sessions where residents were invited to brainstorm creative solutions to address the rising cost of housing in the area. Hundreds of ideas were shared.

The plan was to test out some of the most promising proposals.

“There were a few ideas that rose to the top from that work,” Patterson said. “One of them was around tiny homes. The thought was, could we try this on a small scale for a few tiny homes, and then evaluate that pilot to see if it’s something we might consider allowing permanently throughout the city?”

Housing advocates see tiny homes as among a variety of housing types that could help address affordability.

In Boise State University’s 2022 survey on growth, when asked which type of building Idaho needs to meet the demand for more housing, 17.9% of respondents said new, alternative types of housing like tiny homes were needed. Seventy percent of those surveyed said they favor their local government changing zoning laws to allow them.

The survey was conducted Nov. 13-21, 2021, of 1,000 adults living in Idaho.

In Boise State’s 2023 survey, 68.8% of respondents said if they had to move out of their home for whatever reason, it would be very unlikely they’d be able to purchase or rent a similar home for the same amount.

What is a tiny home?

Tiny homes are small houses on wheels, and are usually 200-400 square feet. They’re much smaller than a typical single-family American home, which is around 2,500 square feet on average, but have most of the essential amenities such as a bed, kitchen and bathroom — albeit on a much smaller scale.

“The hope is that because these are very small homes, they might be more affordable,” Patterson said. “Through the pilot, we’re hoping to test whether that’s actually true.”

Many people who choose to live in tiny homes are single, according to Patterson. Some are retired, some live only with a dog and oftentimes they don’t need a lot of space.

Developer Hannah Ball had this tiny home on display in Garden City in 2021.

Homeowners who are willing to place a tiny home in their backyard have to pay to install a gravel pad and to extend hookups to electricity, water and sewer services. Plus, there’s the cost of the tiny home itself. Tumbleweed Tiny House Co., one of the largest manufacturers of tiny homes in the U.S., sells the made-to-order homes for around $90,000.

Still, it’s considerably less than the median price of a newly built, single-family home in Ada County, which was $507,500 in March.

The city is working with LEAP Housing, a local nonprofit, to administer and manage the tiny home pilot program. Zeb Moers, director of development for LEAP Housing, told the Statesman by phone that the project has to get unanimous neighborhood approval from each homeowner who shares a property boundary with the tiny home applicants, at least for the pilot program.

That’s a requirement that could change if the pilot program is successful and the city decides to permanently change its zoning laws to allow them.

For now, it means that even if 10 neighbors say yes, but one says no, the application can’t go forward.

The city already had screened who it thought were the top candidates, but after finishing site plans and a few other processes, one neighbor voiced concerns about two tiny home projects planned nearby.

“We just had to move on to the next person on the application list,” Moers said. Right now, the city and LEAP Housing are working on filling all the slots.

The hope is to try out the tiny homes in a mix of contexts to see what works best. For example, Patterson said one site could have a community scenario with a few tiny homes in the same area, another could involve someone renting a tiny home from someone who already owns one on their property and a third scenario could include someone moving their tiny home onto another’s property.

But the city planners and organizers from LEAP Housing want to make sure the tiny homes for the pilot are generally spread out among a few different neighborhoods in Boise to see what works best.

The program is planned to last 12-18 months.

“The folks that we’re going to work with for the pilot, we’re going to make sure that they’re renting to folks for whom this won’t make them more unstable,” Patterson said. “I think there’s a lot of folks who are happy to have a place to stay for the next 12-18 months. You think of like a traveling medical worker or a child who just graduated from college but can’t afford the cost of living here.”

5 Ways Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Brain and Mood, According to Sleep Doctors

Real Simple

5 Ways Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Brain and Mood, According to Sleep Doctors

Lindsay Tigar – April 17, 2023

Your mind needs sleep just as much as your body does.

<p>Westend61/Getty Images</p> — Westend61/Getty Images

Parents of newborns, students cramming for exams, overworked professionals pushed to their max, insomniacs, caffeine dependents, night-shift workers, and menstruating people—at some point, we all know how getting less than enough sleep feels (very bad). Though it’s normal to have trouble falling asleep and/or staying asleep occasionally, prolonged periods of sleepless nights and chronic sleep deprivation can harm not only our bodies, but our minds.

Sleep is essential for brain development, wellness, and functioning, explains Heidi Riney, MD, board-certified sleep medicine and neurology psychologist and the chief medical officer of Nox Health. “Sleep has long been thought to be a passive process, but it’s actually an active state, and the quality and duration of our sleep impacts crucial brain functions,” she says, including memory storage, attention maintenance and arousal, learning new material/tasks, mood stability, the ability to read social cues, problem-solving, executive functioning, and impulse control.

So what happens to your brain health and mental capacities if you consistently don’t get enough sleep? And how can you power through on days when you didn’t get enough shut-eye the night before? We asked sleep specialists and mental health experts to weigh in.

How Much Sleep Do You Need for Optimal Brain Health?

Though it seems like a straightforward question, it’s somewhat complicated to understand how much sleep your mind needs to perform well and stay well. The human brain is as different from one person to the next as fingerprints. Because of this, the specific amount of optimal sleep one brain needs isn’t the same for everyone, says licensed clinical psychologist Bethany Cook, PsyD.

Generally speaking, Cook says, scientists have found that most adults need around 8 or 9 hours of sleep to perform and feel their best. However, since this estimate is a bell curve, some people need more, and some need less to feel great.

Though without undergoing formal sleep analysis, it’s difficult to know exactly how much sleep you need, there are a few things that can help guide your body’s natural cues. Quality and quantity of hours sleep do matter, but so does how you feel in the morning.

“The only way of knowing if you’re getting ‘quality sleep’ is if you typically wake up feeling rested, refreshed, and revitalized,” Cook says. “Our brains need around four to six full sleep cycles a night to wake [feeling] rested. If you’re sleeping for 10 hours every night, but not waking up feeling refreshed, you’re getting poor sleep quality.” She adds that it can be helpful to visit a clinic for a sleep study to identify and fix the problems in your sleep cycle.

The Mental Health Effects of Sleep Deprivation

A Slower Response Time

Even if you didn’t have a single sip of wine last night, you might wake up feeling foggy and sluggish, unable to respond to questions or respond to things happening around you quickly, explains Nicole Avena, PhD, research neuroscientist, psychologist, and a wellness ambassador for Nature Made.

“Lack of sleep, short term, has been linked to poor response times and processing,” she says. “This not only can impair your awareness, but it can also harm others around you. Demanding cognitive functions, for example, driving, cannot be performed adequately when sleep is hindered.”

Short-Term Memory Disruption

When you miss your date with Mr. Sandman, the next day may likely bring a struggle to remember much of anything: your keys, your wallet, your phone, you name it. According to Taz Bhatia, MD, board-certified integrative medicine physician and OLLY ambassador, this is because there is a connection between sleep and its impact on memory retention. “Sleep is essential in consolidating memories and allowing us to retain and recall information,” she says. “However, this process can be disrupted without enough sleep, leading to difficulties forming, keeping, and calling back memories.”

Increased Appetite and Cravings

After tossing and turning for hours, you finally leave your bed and head straight to the kitchen. What do you reach for? Probably simple carbohydrates and sugar, since one common effect of sleep deprivation is increased hunger by 24 percent, says Melissa Halas, MA, RDN, CDE, registered dietitian and brain health expert for Neauriva.

“Often, the carbohydrates consumed aren’t nutrient-dense foods like apples, or whole grains, but rather simple carbs like snack foods high in refined sugars or refined grains,” she says. So if you’re wondering why you can’t stop craving sugar, maybe you should take a look at your sleep patterns first.

Trouble Making Decisions (Large or Small)

Depending on what type of career path you’re on, the ability to make fast decisions is vital to your success. Think: operating heavy machinery, responding to an emergency, or managing a large team with many moving parts. (And let’s not even get started on all the decision-making that also needs to happen at home.) Even if you don’t have a high-stakes job, being able to make simple decisions, like what to wear for the day, is impacted by sleep. Avena explains that our brains process things differently when we don’t get enough sleep. “What’s called ‘naturalistic decision making,’ or being able to make everyday decisions, like what to have for lunch, can be altered,” she says. “This is due to the prefrontal cortex lacking adequate rest.”

Difficulty Regulating Emotions

Maybe you don’t usually have a short fuse with your partner and friends, but every interaction might feel tense and irritating when you’re running on only two hours of rest. This is because people who don’t sleep well or enough often feel snappy, depressed, and more likely to make risky choices, according to Avena. “There’s no need to break up with your boyfriend after days of not sleeping properly, but your brain may think otherwise,” she says. “Sleep plays a role in the brain to regulate and process emotions, which affects how we react and manage emotions every day.” If you’re mood seems like it’s on a chaotic roller coaster, part of the reason may be that you (and your brain) are under-slept, leading to quick tears, more flashes of frustration, negative reactions, and the like.

How to Cope if You’re Running on Little Sleep

We all have our reasons for sleepless nights once in a while, and in these cases, while making sure to catch up on sleep A.S.A.P. is the best solution, it’s not always an immediate possibility. Here are some of the healthiest and most effective ways to power through and compensate for any mental glitches that come with occasional sleep deprivation. But don’t rely on these tips as an excuse to skimp on sleep! They’re temporary bandages, not the final fix for sleepiness.

Get outside.

You might want to crawl under the covers and hide from the world after a restless night, but you should do the opposite, as sunlight and fresh air are both great for triggering endorphins and serotonin, Avena says. “Serotonin, in particular, is a melatonin precursor and can help fight insomnia together,” she says. “It can be as easy as sitting on your porch for your morning coffee.”

Listen to music to wake up your brain.

Taylor Swift can get you through a breakup, and she might also help your brain power through a tough day. When you need an energy boost on sleepy mornings, turn up the volume on your favorite, upbeat playlist while driving or taking a shower. Believe it or not, when you listen to music, your entire brain lights up with neuronal activity, getting the entire brain ‘online,’ Cook says: “While all the parts are awake and working, music’s vibrational energy will inevitably sync your own body’s internal energy to match the faster, higher and happy vibrations.”

Caffeinate (responsibly).

Although turning to too much caffeine habitually to make up for poor sleep isn’t wise, there’s little downside to using it as a wakefulness tool every now and then, says Valerie Ulene, MD, MPH, cofounder of Boom Home Medical. “A caffeinated beverage early in the day will almost certainly help keep you more alert for a few hours,” she says. “Just remember to avoid caffeine after about mid-day as consuming it too close to bedtime will likely cause more problems than it solves.”

Try to find the root issue.

Though you may need to power through the day after a poor night of sleep, it’s crucial to try to identify the reason you’re not sleeping the night before and address it before it becomes a chronic issue.

“It can take days to catch up from even losing one hour of sleep the night before, so it’s best to try and maintain a consistent sleep and wake schedule and allow yourself to get at least seven hours of sleep each night,” Dr. Riney says. “If you feel you’re experiencing poor quality sleep or have daytime dysfunction that may be attributed to poor sleep, it’s important to seek out a sleep specialist for further evaluation.”

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