100: M23 rebels – a Rwanda-backed militia – took control of a second major city, Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday. The city’s capture comes on the heels of M23’s occupation of the capital Goma last month. The expansion of rebel territory is escalating the risks of a full-blown regional war – M23 is just one of over 100 armed groups fighting over the mineral-rich region.
5: Brazil's top prosecutor on Tuesday hit former president Jair Bolsonaro with five charges of trying to orchestrate a coup after losing his 2022 re-election bid to current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro is accused, among other things, of planning to poison Lula and assassinate a Supreme Court Justice. In January of 2023, thousands of supporters of Bolsonaro, a far right firebrand who was in power from 2018 to 2022, ransacked government buildings in the capital, Brasilia, in a bid to interrupt the handover of power. Bolsonaro has already been banned from political office for questioning the election results. If he is convicted of these latest charges he could face up to 40 years in prison.
40: Officials are planning to lay off at least 40% of the Federal Housing Administration’s staff as part of President Donald Trump’s government overhaul. The FHA, one of the world’s biggest mortgage insurers, provides mortgage insurance on loans for those who otherwise wouldn’t qualify and is key to many first-time home purchases, especially for low-income Americans.
282: In Turkey, the police have detained 282 suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, aka PKK, in raids stretching across 51 provinces over the last five days. The raids were justified as counter-terrorism operations, and suspects were arrested on accusations of spreading PKK propaganda, financing the group, or joining in protests. They come as Turkey continues to remove pro-Kurdish mayors from their elected positions.
42.7 million: A federal judge has refused to block DOGE’s access to the Department of Education’s data on student loan borrowers. The judge ruled that the case brought by the University of California Student Association did not prove the agency posed irreparable harm to the privacy protections of the 42.7 million student loan borrowers if DOGE was not preemptively stopped.
