“The United States conducted a new round of airstrikes early Monday targeting Iran after announcing the death of another American service member, hitting around a northwestern city believed to be home to underground missile bases. Iran responded by launching an attack targeting Bahrain, the home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Kuwait. … As the strikes began, a vessel caught fire early Monday in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by a projectile near the coastline of Oman, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. The crew abandoned the vessel, which was adrift and still ablaze hours later, the UKMTO said.” (07/20/26)
“Ukraine fired more than 400 drones toward Moscow in its latest major attack on the Russian capital, the city’s mayor said Monday. The blitz came hours after Russia bombarded Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with ballistic missiles in a relentless cycle of tit-for-tat strikes that make a settlement to end Moscow’s more than 4-year-old all-out invasion appear a distant possibility. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said he would hold ‘key talks’ on Monday as he tries to defuse a domestic political crisis after last week’s government reshuffle exposed a deep split between the military’s old guard and young innovators over how to fight the war. Zelenskyy needs to reassure Ukrainians that sacrificing 35-year-old Mykhailo Fedorov as defense minister and keeping faith with 60-year-old Soviet-trained Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi as armed forces chief won’t derail the fight against Russia. Days of street protests in favor of Fedorov and against Syrskyi followed Zelenskyy’s decision.” (07/20/26)
“Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester and new leader of the Labour Party, is taking the final steps on Monday to succeed Keir Starmer and become Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade. The affable Burnham returned to Parliament in June by winning a risky special election and was sworn in as a member on July 12, hours after the unpopular Starmer announced his resignation to end a tenure of just two years in office. Starmer will travel the mile from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace to formally tell King Charles III that he is resigning. Soon after, the 56-year-old Burnham will go to the palace and Charles will ask him to form a government. That is when he will officially become prime minister, a moment known as ‘kissing hands.'” (07/20/26)
“Hundreds of protesters have rallied in Houston in the US state of Texas to demand justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man [murdered] by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent this month. … Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national, was [murdered] by an ICE agent on July 7 while he was driving his construction crew to a job site in Houston. The protests came amid mounting scrutiny of United States President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. … After the shooting in Houston, ICE claimed Salgado Araujo had used his vehicle to try to ram an agent who fired his weapon in self-defence. But witnesses contradicted ICE’s version of events, and a statement issued on Thursday by the US attorney for the Southern District of Texas made no mention of any collision between Salgado Araujo’s van and a law enforcement vehicle nor did it explicitly state that the officer feared for his life.” (07/20/26)
“Péter Magyar, the prime minister, has invited Judit Polgár, the most successful female chess player the world has ever seen, to become Hungary’s president. … On Saturday evening, President Tamás Sulyok announced that he would sign the 17th amendment to the Fundamental Law. His mandate will end on the day after the law is promulgated, meaning that from midnight on Sunday he is no longer Hungary’s president. For one month, the office will be held by the Speaker of the National Assembly, Ágnes Forsthoffer.” (07/20/26)
“Jens Spahn, a senior lawmaker with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz Christian Democrats, resigned from his post as the party’s parliamentary leader on Saturday amid controversy over his use of a surrogate to have a child. Spahn came under growing pressure to step down after he revealed earlier this week that he and his husband had become parents using a surrogate mother in the United States, despite the practice being banned in Germany. … Although surrogacy itself is illegal in Germany, there is no penalty for bringing up a child born through a surrogate mother abroad. But Spahn, a former health minister, faced accusations of hypocrisy as Germany’s Christian Democrats are firmly opposed to surrogacy, a position the party reaffirmed earlier this year. Spahn himself had also in the past expressed skepticism about legalising the practice.” (07/18/26)
“The US Department of Justice has announced that federal employees can now download and install TikTok on electronics provided by the government, explaining that its current version doesn’t pose the risks the previous one did. In 2022, TikTok was outlawed on almost all devices issues by the US federal government due to [fake] national security concerns. … it’s still up to individual agencies to decide whether or not to allow their employees to download TikTok on federal phones.” (07/18/26)
“Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a leader of the election denial movement who was endorsed by President Donald Trump for Minnesota governor this week, acknowledged that he is not registered to vote in the state he seeks to lead. … In Minnesota, voters are allowed to register to vote on Election Day. Lindell, who is registered in Texas, said he was not concerned that he was not yet registered in his home state, something first reported by The Minnesota Star Tribune. Lindell said he was registered to vote in Texas when he moved there for one year in 2024, soon after he married his current wife, Kendra. He said he returned to Minnesota, where he was born and raised, the following year, because he wanted to run for governor.” (07/18/26)
“A Chinese steel giant demanded compensation from the United Kingdom government on Sunday, claiming thetakeover of its subsidiary, British Steel, was ‘outright robbery.’ The UK government took operational control of British Steel last year, after owner Jingye Group warned that Britain’s last factory capable of making steel from scratch was no longer financially viable. … The company noted that nationalization could cost UK taxpayers more than 1.5 billion pounds ($2.02 billion, €1.76 billion) by 2028. Jingye said it had begun a procedure under bilateral investment agreements to seek damages, without expanding further.” (07/19/26)
“An off-duty employee of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement [concentration camp] in Aurora, Colorado, was arrested on Thursday after allegedly shooting a protester. … Brandon Booth, 42, an employee of the government contractor GEO Group, was allegedly waiting in his vehicle with coworkers near the privately run Aurora ICE Processing Center on Thursday night after protesters impeded their ability to start work at the 1,500-bed detention center. Two women who had been part of a protest near the facility earlier that evening approached the group, took pictures of their vehicles and engaged in a ‘verbal confrontation,’ according to a statement from the Aurora Police Department. ‘At that point, Booth retrieved his personally owned pistol and fired a single shot in their direction, striking one of the women on her lower body,’ the department said. ‘Booth then got into his vehicle and drove out of the area before he was detained.'” (07/18/26)
