“New York City landlords are suing to block the recently-approved rent freeze championed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The complaint, filed in Staten Island Supreme Court, alleges Mamdani placed undue influence on the nine-member Rent Guidelines Board — which then cherry picked data to understate landlord costs and overstate incomes. The mayor-appointed panel voted 7-1 in favor of a rent freeze on one- and two-year leases. The decision will take effect on leases signed on or after Oct. 1.” (07/22/26)
“A federal judge has barred the deportation of a witness in the [murder] of a Mexican homebuilder by federal immigration officers during a traffic stop in Houston. Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego was one of three passengers in a van driven by Lorenzo Araujo Salgado when Araujo Salgado was [murdered] by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on July 7 while they were driving to work at a construction site. … Rojas Pliego must remain in the Southern District of Texas while his habeas petition is pending, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison wrote in an order on Monday. Rojas Pliego says he is being held unconstitutionally in ICE custody, court records show.” (07/22/26)
“President Trump must make detailed information about his finances available to attorneys for the BBC in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the venerable UK broadcaster, a Miami judge ruled Tuesday. The president had accused the Beeb of defaming him by deceptively editing his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of the Capitol riot …. The initial complaint, filed in December, argued that ‘the injury to President Trump’s business and personal reputation … continue into the present, thereby causing massive economic damage to his brand value and … direct harm to his professional and occupational interests, including, without limitation, the value of his brand, properties, and businesses’. On Tuesday, US Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett ruled that Trump had to back those claims up …” (07/22/26)
“Bulgaria’s Parliament on Wednesday backed a government proposal to allow the U.S. military to use an air base in the Balkan country to support U.S. operations in the Middle East, while some expressed concern about becoming involved in the Iran war. The Trump administration has faced pushback from certain other countries in the European Union over the use of air bases in support of its war with Iran. Legislators in Bulgaria voted 136-13, with two abstentions, to allow up to eight U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft along with 250 personnel and supporting equipment at Bezmer Air Base from Friday to Oct. 1. No further approvals are needed.” (07/22/26)
“House Republicans pushed through a spending bill that would fund the government through early December in an effort to avoid a shutdown just before the midterm elections. The bill, which passed on Tuesday, is similar to what they would pass just before the Sept. 30 deadline. It passed 220-205 almost along party lines, though six Democrats in battleground districts voted for it, and one Republican [Thomas Massie, R-KY)] voted against it. … It’s not clear if it has much of a chance to pass the Senate. Republican leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday that he would try to get a spending bill to a vote before the five-week recess in August. But it may have to wait until lawmakers return in September.” (07/22/26)
“The building Adolf Hitler was born in near the Austrian border with Germany officially begins a new life as a police station on Wednesday, a conversion Austria’s government hopes will prevent it serving as a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis. After years of debate about the large, traditional terraced house in the town of Braunau am Inn, which was in private ownership and had housed a charity for handicapped people, Austria made a compulsory purchase in 2017. The government announced in 2019 it would be remodelled and turned into a police station, with work beginning in 2023. … There has been some opposition, including from the Mauthausen Committee, Austria’s main Holocaust survivors’ group, which has argued both that a police station is inappropriate and that more should be done to draw attention to Hitler’s crimes.” (07/22/26)
“OpenAI has revealed some of its most advanced AI models went rogue and hacked a start-up after it lost control of them during a security test. The ChatGPT-maker said its agent – an AI system which can operate alone after some human instruction – was being tested in a controlled environment, but found vulnerabilities and managed to escape. They targeted Hugging Face, one of the world’s largest hubs for sharing AI models, gaining access to some internal company systems. OpenAI said the incident was ‘unprecedented’, and it was conducting an investigation alongside Hugging Face, whose boss Clement Delangue said in a post on X it was ‘mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously’.” (07/22/26)
“Latvian soldiers used tear gas and fired a warning shot to stop migrants trying to enter from Belarus, the army said on Wednesday, as the prime minister said Latvians were worried about a rising number of migrants trying to cross the border. Latvia, along with Poland and Lithuania, has accused Belarus and its ally Russia of orchestrating migrant flows from the Middle East and Africa in an attempt to destabilise countries on NATO’s eastern flank, an allegation both Minsk and Moscow deny.” (07/22/26)
“A Georgia city’s youngest-ever mayor was temporarily stripped of his duties and privileges amid an investigation over his alleged spending – less than a year after being elected on a campaign premised around accountability and transparency. Jayden Williams, the 22-year-old mayor of Stockbridge, Ga., was ordered to hand over his city-issued credit cards by Monday at noon due to his spending, but failed to meet the deadline, Atlanta News First reported. Stockbridge city council officials launched a probe into Williams after ‘information’ was presented to finance officials and the city attorney, without divulging further. … ‘Mayor Williams welcomes a full and independent investigation and looks forward to the opportunity to address any allegations through the proper process,’ a statement shared on his Facebook page says.” (07/22/26)
“President Donald Trump has approved a landmark civilian nuclear deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia that is expected to be announced Wednesday, a senior administration official told NBC News. The agreement will see the U.S. support the creation of a nuclear power program and see American companies build the program inside the kingdom, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. … Congress will be required to vote on the agreement, but would need a veto-proof majority to actually block it. The deal could pave the way for the kingdom to pursue its own uranium enrichment, likely raising fears of nuclear proliferation.” (07/22/26)
