“Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will summon China’s ambassador in Manila, his office said on Tuesday, hours after Manila’s envoy in Beijing was similarly summoned following accusations by both sides of provoking tensions in the contested South China Sea. Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro confirmed to reporters Marcos had summoned Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan at 5 p.m. (0900 GMT) on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, China’s foreign ministry said it summoned Manila’s envoy to China. The summoning of ambassadors comes a day after the Philippines and China accused each other [over] an encounter in the Second Thomas Shoal of the South China Sea. Philippine officials said one of its navy personnel was struck on the head but Beijing said Manila provoked the incident.” (07/21/26)
“A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides ‘meaningful relief’ to affected authors and publishers. About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment. Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was ‘the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.'” (07/21/26)
“Prosecutors and investigators with Hungary’s tax authority on Tuesday raided offices housing data servers used by former prime minister Viktor Orbán ‘s Fidesz party as part of a probe into suspected embezzlement and other crimes, a prosecutor’s office spokesperson told The Associated Press. Fidesz accused the governing Tisza party, led by pro-European Prime Minister Péter Magyar, of seeking to use legal means to destroy it. Marianna Bodó, a spokesperson for the Bács-Kiskun County chief prosecutor’s office, said in an email that the raid was part of an investigation into the suspected misuse of grant money through Hungary’s National Cultural Fund while Orbán’s government was in office.” (07/21/26)
“Novo Nordisk filed a lawsuit against Eli Lilly, alleging that its advertising campaigns for its blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs are designed to mislead consumers about their superior efficacy relative to the Danish drugmaker’s rival injections. Novo Nordisk is specifically taking issue with nationwide ads that cite what it called ‘outdated’ clinical trials to compare the highest doses of Lilly’s medicines to lower doses of Novo’s drugs. Novo asked the court to permanently stop Lilly from running the ads and require the drugmaker to issue corrective advertising.” (07/21/26)
“Tropical Storm Bertha is expected to make a Louisiana landfall later this week—possibly Wednesday—before a more disorganized system impacts the Texas Gulf Coast on Friday and Saturday. If that turns out to be true, the biggest impact for Texas could turn out to be low levels of rain from one to four inches. … If Bertha heads to Texas, it will most likely do so as a tropical depression or weaker. That could mean rain for portions of the Texas coast. The 4 a.m. update downgraded that rain chance and mostly erased predicted rainfall south of Victoria. Houston would still get potentially two inches of rain.” (07/21/26)
“The deposed leader of Turkey’s main opposition announced plans on Tuesday to create a new political party to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ozgur Ozel ‘s announcement came months after he was removed as leader of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, by a court order — a ruling critics say was a politically motivated effort to weaken the opposition. His ouster, and the reinstatement of the party’s former and unpopular leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, sparked outrage among many CHP supporters. … The new political movement, which is expected to be called Yeni Parti, or New Party, will be formally launched later this week, according to reports. Many of the CHP’s 135 legislators in the 600‑seat parliament were expected to defect and join the new party, which Ozel said would become the parliament’s main opposition ‘by a wide margin.'” (07/21/26)
“Former President Joe Biden lost his bid Monday to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of interviews with his longtime ghostwriter that were used in special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s unlawful hoarding of classified information. A divided federal appeals court ruled the 46th president’s privacy claims did not outweigh the ‘substantial’ public interest in the material, though it suspended its decision until Aug. 3 to allow the former chief executive to consider additional action. … The Heritage Foundation initially sued the Justice Department in March 2024, seeking the transcripts and recordings under the Freedom of Information Act. The former president is arguing the material isn’t subject to FOIA because it’s personal property.” (07/21/26)
“A judge granted Washington’s request to block Kalshi from offering its so-called event contracts in the state, saying the prediction markets platform likely violated the state’s gambling laws. In a decision on Monday, Judge John McHale of the King County Superior Court granted Washington’s motion for a preliminary injunction. … The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, meanwhile, has claimed exclusive jurisdiction over the industry, and challenged regulatory activity in at least nine states. In April, a divided federal appeals court cited the CFTC’s authority in blocking New Jersey gaming authorities from regulating Kalshi’s sports event contracts. ‘States don’t have jurisdiction to regulate prediction markets,’ Kalshi said in a statement on Tuesday. ‘We’re disappointed to see Washington state continue wasting taxpayer dollars.'” (07/21/26)
“Ghana’s main opposition party has reacted with anger after one of its most influential leaders was sentenced to 20 years in jail, with hard labour, for illegal mining offences. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) alleged that the landmark judgement against Bernard Antwi Boasiako, the party’s chairman for the Ashanti region, was politically motivated. Popularly known as ‘Chairman Wontumi’, Boasiako is the first senior politician in Ghana to be convicted of illegal mining since the government began a crackdown on the practice in 2017. As well as receiving a jail sentence, Boasiako, who had denied the charges, was ordered to pay more than $10,000 (£7,450) in fines.” (07/21/26)
“A descendant of an executed opponent of the Nazis tried to remove a wreath from the far-right Alternative for Germany party at an event in Berlin marking the 82nd anniversary of a failed attempt to kill Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Tobias Korenke, a great-nephew of Protestant pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, attempted to remove the wreath from the parliamentary group of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, at Monday’s event at the site where the main plotters were executed, German news agency dpa reported. Security officers intervened, and the wreath was damaged in the scuffle. ‘Many descendants, myself included, feel really great anger when we see AfD laying wreaths here,’ Korenke said. ‘We will not accept this.'” (07/21/26)
