“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)
“A modelling scout linked to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead at his home. Daniel Siad, 69, was discovered on Monday in Colombes, a north-west suburb of Paris, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office confirmed to the BBC. ‘An investigation to determine the cause of death was opened on Monday evening following the discovery,’ the office said, adding that an autopsy will be carried out. Siad’s name appeared thousands of times in the Epstein files released by the US government. He had previously denied any knowledge of the threat that Epstein posed.” (07/22/26)
“A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the criminal conviction of Peter Navarro, a longtime adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, for refusing to testify about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Navarro was convicted of contempt by a jury in 2023 after he rejected a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the insurrection. … Navarro has claimed that Trump asserted executive privilege to keep him from testifying. However, judges have repeatedly said he has failed to produce evidence of this, and Trump has not backed up his claim.” (07/21/26)
As reigning 2026 FIFA World Cup champions, Spain won $50 million in prize money, but a large portion of that could be subject to federal taxes in the United States — potentially up to 30%. ‘I think it’s a rip-off,’ Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital. ‘I’m not a fan of it, but Americans have to do it. American professional athletes do it, so they knew that when they came over here.’ Income earned from activities performed in America is generally, in almost all instances, taxable by the IRS. Under tax law in the U.S., certain payments to nonresident foreign athletes are generally subject to a 30% federal withholding unless reduced by a tax treaty or a different exception.” (07/21/26)
“President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that all generic drugs brought into the US will continue to have a tariff of 0% for two years starting from August 1, after which the tariff rate will be raised to 100% for one year and to 200% thereafter. ‘This is done in order to RESHORE Generic Pharmaceutical Production into America, with a penalty to those Companies that decide not to build Plant and Equipment within the stated period of time given to them,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social. … More than 90% of medicines sold in the US are generics, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. The policy on patented, branded or innovative drugs will remain unchanged, Trump said.” (07/22/26)
