As the homelessness crisis in California grows more acute, Gov. Gavin Newsom is planning to ask lawmakers for $1.4 billion to pay monthly rents, build more shelters and provide treatment to those struggling with finding long-term housing, the governor’s office announced on Wednesday.

Newsom also signed an executive order directing agencies to locate public properties near state roads and highways that can be used for short-term emergency shelters. The order additionally calls for using 100 camping trailers for temporary housing and the development of a multi-agency “strike team” to help get people off the streets.

“Homelessness is a national crisis, one that’s spreading across the West Coast and cities across the country. The state of California is treating it as a real emergency – because it is one,” Newsom said in a statement, describing his budget proposal on homelessness a “massive infusion of state dollars.”

The ambitious plan comes in the context of a mounting homeless crisis in the state.

A report released Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a report underscored the depth of the homelessness problem in California, finding that more than a quarter of the nation’s homeless population resides in the state, totaling about 151,000 people.

The report noted that while homelessness declined in most states over the past year, it went in the opposite direction in California, where the homeless population jumped 16% in one year.

In a briefing with reporters, a HUD official said the response to homelessness in California is not at the scale of the problem.

“Affordable housing problems are a massive and overwhelming contributor,” said a top HUD official, speaking on background. “Certainly any efforts to make housing more affordable and to increase the supply of affordable housing and to increase development of housing. Those are all going to be important to turning the ship around and reducing homelessness.”

Trump’s feud with California officials over homeless problem

The briefing came as the Trump administration doubled down on criticism of state leaders in California for not adequately dealing with the state’s swelling homeless ranks.

President Trump has repeatedly attacked state lawmakers’ inability to curb the state’s homelessness problem, vowing to enlist the federal government to get involved if the crisis does not start turning the corner.

“It’s a shame. The world is looking at it,” said Trump in September of the state’s struggles with homelessness.

The White House has blamed the “overregulation of housing markets” on the country’s homelessness issues.

Last year, Trump sent a team of aides to California on a fact-finding mission on solutions to homelessness in the state. The administration is weighing a number of proposals, including moving those who do not have permanent, stable housing into refurbished federal facilities, but it is not clear how the idea would work in practice.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in October, issued a notice to San Francisco officials that they were violating the Clean Water Act for polluting ocean waters with homeless encampment drainage, an allegation one elected official in California called a “fraudulent political attack.”

A $1.4 billion plan to combat homelessness

Newsom is hopeful his proposal, expected to be sent to state lawmakers on Friday, will put a dent in rising homelessness in the country’s most populous state.

According to California officials, most of the money in Newsom’s plan, or about $750 million, would be placed in a special fund to pay the rent of individuals facing homelessness and to spur the building of affordable housing.

The money would be drawn from a one-time fund of surplus tax revenue collections as the state expects another tax collection windfall in the coming year of about $7 billion.

Another large slice of funding –$695 million – to boost the state’s Medicaid programs to expand services for homeless individuals whose housing struggles are directly linked to health problems.

“Californians have lots of compassion for those among us who are living without shelter. But we also know what compassion isn’t. Compassion isn’t allowing a person suffering a severe psychotic break or from a lethal substance abuse addiction to literally drift towards death on our streets and sidewalks,” Newsom said.

Newsom hopes the taxpayer-funded plan begins to put a dent in the homeless crisis, but he is calling on philanthropy and the private sector to address California’s deep homelessness problem.

The formal state budget proposal from Newsom is expected on Friday, and the legislature has until June 15 to pass a deal.

NPR’s Pam Fessler contributed to this report.

The U.S. Army wants Americans to know they have not been selected for a military draft despite a rash of texts that falsely tells people they’re heading to fight a war against Iran.

The warning comes amid escalating tensions with Iran. Last week, the U.S. launched a drone strike that killed top Iranian military leader, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and in retaliation, Tehran launched more than a dozen missiles at two military bases in Iraq on Tuesday.

“U.S. Army Recruiting Command has received multiple calls and emails about these fake text messages and wants to ensure Americans understand these texts are false and were not initiated by this command or the U.S. Army,” officials said in a statement on Wednesday.

The notice clarified that the decision to enact a draft is not made at or by U.S. Army Recruiting Command. It is made by the Selective Service System, a separate agency outside of the Department of Defense.

A screenshot of one of the messages claims Army officials have made repeated attempts to contact the individual.

“We’ve tried contacting you through the mail several times and have had no response. You’ve been marked eligible and must come to the nearest branch in Jacksonville, Florida, for immediate departure to Iran,” the text says.

It also threatens that the recipient will “be fined and sent to jail for minimum 6 years if no reply.”

A second version of the message states, “You’ve been marked eligible and must come to the nearest branch in New Jersey Area for immediate departure to Iran.” It also instructs the recipient to contact officials immediately.

There does not seem to be any particular demographic that is being targeted by the messages.

“It does seem pretty random,” Lisa Ferguson, media relations chief for U.S. Army Recruiting Command, told NPR.

“I spoke with a mom on Monday whose 14-year-old daughter had received the text and her friends had also received a text,” Ferguson said.

“We have no way of knowing, you know, why people are getting them or who’s being sent the text,” she added.

The draft has not been held since 1973 and the military has been an all-volunteer force since then.

For now, Ferguson said, Army recruiting operations are proceeding as normal.

Updated at 2:45 p.m. ET

Satellite photos taken Wednesday show that an Iranian missile strike has caused extensive damage at the Ain al-Assad air base in Iraq, which hosts U.S. and coalition troops.

The photos, taken by the commercial company Planet and shared with NPR via the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, show hangars and buildings hit hard by a barrage of Iranian missiles that were fired early Wednesday morning local time.

At least five structures were damaged in the attack on the base in Anbar province, which apparently was precise enough to hit individual buildings. “Some of the locations struck look like the missiles hit dead center,” says David Schmerler, an analyst with the Middlebury Institute.

Iran’s attack targeted at least two military bases in Iraq. The extent of the damage to the second base, in Irbil, was unclear.

Shortly afterward, President Trump said in an optimistic tweet: “All is well!

There are no reports of casualties as a result of the strike on Ain al-Assad, which follows last week’s U.S. drone strike in Iraq that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

Schmerler says it is unclear whether targets on the base were chosen to avoid loss of life. “The buildings we’re tallying now seem to be used for storing aircraft,” he says. “There are other structures at the air base that would be exclusively for people so maybe they intended to strike sites with equipment over people.”

Photos circulating online that were reportedly taken on the ground some 20 miles from the air base show the wreckage of two missiles. “These appear to be the remnants of a Qiam missile body/airframe,” tweeted Michael Elleman, who directs nonproliferation and nuclear policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Qiam-1 missile is a single stage, liquid-fueled, short-range ballistic missile developed by Iran with a range of up to 500 miles, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Missile Defense Project. It is capable of carrying a 1,650-pound warhead and has a precision guidance system that can be redirected during flight.

Videos posted on Iranian state media also showed what appeared to be solid-fueled missiles being launched, according to Fabian Hinz, an Iranian missile expert at the Middlebury Institute. Such missiles can be launched at short notice, are precision guided and can include decoys to foil missile defenses. They are “very advanced,” Hinz says.

All the missiles used are far larger than the rockets used in previous attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq. Those weapons carry warheads of a few pounds in size, while these ballistic missiles have warheads that are many hundreds of pounds. “It’s a really, really substantial difference,” Hinz says.

A U.S. official confirmed to NPR that 10 missiles struck Ain al-Assad, one hit the base in Irbil, and four missiles apparently fell short.

Analysts at Middlebury identified several impact points at Ain al-Assad, including one missile that landed on a runway — a likely miss.

“Overall I think it’s a relatively modest response,” says Tom Karako, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Karako says he believes the strike deliberately avoided areas that house personnel. Given the apparent precision of the missiles used: “If they wanted a bunch of causalities they could have done something different,” he says.

“U.S. early warning systems detected the incoming ballistic missiles well in advance, providing U.S. and Coalition forces adequate time to take appropriate force protection measures,” added a U.S. defense department official.

Despite the possibly symbolic thrust of Iran’s attack — Iraq’s foreign minister says it targeted the base where the Reaper drone used to kill Soleimani was launched — Iran’s military has also demonstrated its ability to openly strike U.S. forces in Iraq at the same military installation that Trump visited last year.

“For the time being, the Americans have been given a slap, revenge is a different issue,” Iran’s Fars News Agency quotes Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying Wednesday. “Military moves like this are not enough. The Americans’ corruption-stirring presence should come to an end.”

Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, Trump sought to portray the missile attacks as the end of Iran’s military response to the killing of Soleimani. “All of our soldiers are safe and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases,” he said. “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.”

But one expert on Iran says the missile attacks may prove to be only a prelude to further reprisals.

“My mother used to say a gentleman carried two handkerchiefs: 1 for show (in the breast pocket of his jacket) and 1 for blow, ie, use. I expect what we have seen is the Iranian retaliation for show,” tweeted Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass. “What is likely to come at some point are the deniable attacks meant to cause harm.”

NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman contributed to this report.

Updated at 10:03 p.m. ET

Iran has launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against U.S. military and coalition forces, targeting at least two military bases in Iraq, the U.S. Defense Department announced late Tuesday.

The strikes on military and coalition personnel at the Ain al-Assad air base in Anbar province and in Irbil — at the center of Iraq’s Kurdistan region — began at approximately 5:30 p.m. ET, according to a statement.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif defended the strike, saying it was an act of “self-defense.”

“Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched,” he wrote in a tweet.

The attacks come less than a week after a U.S. drone strike killed the top Iranian military commander, Qassem Soleimani, in Iraq.

Iran had vowed to avenge the killing, and Zarif suggested the Tuesday bombing may be the extent of Iran’s planned retribution.

“We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression,” Zarif said.

President Trump projected an air of cheerful calm on Tuesday night, tweeting: “All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq.”

He said damage is being assessed but, “So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning.”

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said officials are working to assess the extent of the damage.

Hoffman added:

“In recent days and in response to Iranian threats and actions, the Department of Defense has taken all appropriate measures to safeguard our personnel and partners. These bases have been on high alert due to indications that the Iranian regime planned to attack our forces and interests in the region.

“As we evaluate the situation and our response, we will take all necessary measures to protect and defend U.S. personnel, partners, and allies in the region.”

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Trump has been briefed on the situation and is monitoring it closely with his national security team.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper arrived at the White House late on Tuesday.

Hours earlier, Esper had cautioned that the administration expected Iran would “retaliate in some way shape or form,” adding that it could come from proxy groups outside of Iran.

The Federal Aviation Administration has banned civilian flights over “Iraq, Iran, and the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.”

Iranian media outlets, meanwhile, report that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out in “hard revenge” for Soleimani.

“We are warning the US that if they take any further action, they will receive a harsher response,” it said in a statement, according to state-run ISNA.

The organization also called on Americans to “prevent more damage by asking for their soldiers to be sent back home.”

“They shouldn’t let the lives of the military personnel be exposed to more potential danger because of the acts of their government.”

Members of Congress, who have already expressed frustration with Trump for circumventing them before striking against Soleimani, are warning the U.S. cannot afford to start a war with Iran.

“We must ensure the safety of our service members, including ending needless provocations from the Administration and demanding that Iran cease its violence,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a tweet.

“America & world cannot afford war,” she added.

Pelosi was briefed on the Iranian attacks by Vice President Pence earlier in the evening, her staff said.

Florida Republican Marco Rubio said, “A full assessment is underway to determine an appropriate response.”

Iran has used short-range ballistic missiles for attacks against ISIS, and also a deadly precision strike against Kurdish leaders in 2018.

All of Iran’s ballistic missile forces are under the control of the IRGC Aerospace Force, Fabian Hinz, an expert on Iranian military and missile systems at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told NPR.

Hinz added that the Tuesday airstrike is not symbolic, but a serious attack.

This is a developing story. Some things reported by the media will later turn out to be wrong. We will focus on reports from officials and other authorities, credible news outlets and reporters who are at the scene. We will update as the situation develops.

NPR’s Ayda Pourasad contributed to this report.