“A federal judge on Monday threw out multiple Justice Department subpoenas issued to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other officials, saying they are unconstitutional and part of attempts to harass President Donald Trump’s political opponents. The subpoenas sought to force Walz and others to turn over records and information as part of a federal investigation into whether Democratic officials obstructed the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown through public resistance. … District Judge Patrick Schiltz said the subpoenas were ‘part of an unconstitutional effort to coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration laws and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so,’ CNN reported.” (06/22/26)
“Six people were wounded in Russian air strikes on Ukraine overnight on Tuesday, local authorities said, while Russia’s ongoing fuel crisis deepened into parts of Siberia. The strikes came in the wake of a Ukrainian attack on a plant producing electronics for missiles in Russia’s border Voronezh region on Monday that killed five people and injured dozens, according to the local governor. … Ukrainian attacks on maritime logistics and supply roads have sparked a fuel crisis in Russia and areas of Ukraine it controls. … The Omsk region, about 2,500 kilometres southeast of Moscow, is limiting fuel sales and the nearby Novosibirsk region is preparing to do the same, local governors said on Telegram. … From Tuesday, Lukoil, Russia’s second biggest oil producer, was limiting gasoline and diesel sales in Voronezh region, the regional government said on Telegram.” (06/23/26)
“Iran has denied a claim by Vice-President JD Vance that it will allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, after the first round of talks between Washington and Tehran to reach a final deal to end the war. Following negotiations in Switzerland, Vance said discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could be happening ‘as soon as today.’ But Iran’s foreign ministry told state media that Tehran had made ‘no new commitments’ on nuclear inspections. It came as the US temporarily waived sanctions, allowing Iran to sell oil in US dollars for the first time in decades.” (06/23/26)
“A federal judge on Monday ruled the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it created a centralized database that contains Americans’ private information, which she said has since been used by some states to incorrectly remove U.S. citizens from their voter rolls. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C., sided with a voting rights group and nonprofit that works to protect privacy in finding that the administration violated three different laws with its new system that includes Americans’ citizenship data. … The judge set aside the administration’s overhaul of a database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security to verify citizenship and immigration status, called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system.” (06/22/26)
“Alan Greenspan, who served five terms as chair of the Federal Reserve, died on Monday at the age of 100. Greenspan’s wife, longtime NBC News journalist Andrea Mitchell, said in a statement to the network that her husband died from complications of Parkinson’s disease. … Greenspan served as the 13th chair of the central bank from 1987 to 2006, a tenure spanning four presidents — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.” (06/22/26)
“The Senate voted overwhelmingly Monday to pass a sweeping housing affordability [sic] bill aimed at lowering costs, putting Congress on the brink of a rare bipartisan victory in President Donald Trump’s second term. … The legislation, which would make it easier to build homes and slap limits on Wall Street investors’ buying up houses, now goes to the House, which hopes to vote on it in the next few days. Then, it would go to Trump’s desk to be signed into law. … The legislation would approve a series of funding and grant programs for constructing new homes. It would slash red tape and empower local governments to expedite reviews to build more housing. And a key section titled ‘Homes Are For People, Not Corporations’ would restrict any ‘large institutional investor’ from buying single-family homes.” (06/22/26)
“House lawmakers announced a bipartisan deal on a package for protecting [sic] kids [sic] online on Monday, months after negotiations on digital and social media regulation fell apart between the two parties. … The KIDS (Kids Internet and Digital Safety) Act includes portions from the landmark Kids Online Safety Act, dubbed KOSA, which aims to hold social media companies accountable for the alleged harms their platforms cause for minors and young kids.” [editor’s note: Censors always screech that their proposed restrictions are “for the chilllllllllllldren,” but we know better, don’t we? – TLK] (06/22/26)
“Japan has implemented a five-fold increase to visa fees for all foreigners, marking the first price hike in nearly 50 years. From 1 July, single-entry visa fees will be raised from the current 3,000 yen ($18.69; £14) to 15,000 yen, while multi-entry visas will now cost 30,000 yen, up from 6,000 yen. The visa fee revisions – the first since 1978 – were made to ‘reflect inflation and exchange rate fluctuations,’ Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters on Friday. ‘We do not anticipate that it will have an immediate impact on inbound tourism,’ he added. The Japanese yen has been weakening continually since 2021, and is now hovering near historic 40-year lows. This, along with a post-pandemic travel rebound, has led to a surge in tourists to Japan. The country welcomed a record 42.7m international tourists last year.” (06/22/26)
“A UK lawyer who led volunteers to clean up a heavily polluted river in East London is now being probed and could face a prison sentence for doing the cleanup without official permission, The Guardian reported. Paul Powlesland, who is an environmental campaigner, spent 10 days in late February organising a community effort on Alders Brook, a tributary of the River Roding in Barking. Alongside the River Roding Trust, volunteers removed around 200 bags of litter, silt, weeds, and branches from a 250-metre stretch that had reportedly become choked and stagnant. The media outlet suggested that the cleanup worked, as within days, locals reported fish, dragonflies, herons, and reed beds returning to the revived section. … Within a week of the cleanup, Environment Agency investigators visited the site and sent Powlesland a letter saying the group was under investigation for ‘unpermitted works’ in breach of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.” (06/22/26)
“Getty Images has announced a multi-year partnership with OpenAI that will bring its licensed content libraries to the AI company. The agreement means Getty’s content will appear in OpenAI search and ChatGPT. … Getty, until recently, had taken a strong stance against working with AI companies. In September 2022, Getty banned all AI-generated art from its library. A few months later, it sued Stability AI, alleging copyright violations — a notion that was rejected late last year. A year after its AI-generated art ban, Getty announced its own generative AI tool, trained on its library and powered by NVIDIA’s Edigy AI model. Each of the resulting images came with a royalty-free license. But in October 2025, Getty signed a deal with Perplexity AI, allowing the latter’s AI search and discovery tools to access Getty’s library.” (06/22/26)
