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An 87-year-old woman being forced out of her Madrid home has sparked a major change in Spain.

The eviction of Maricarmen Abascal last week triggered protests in Madrid, Barcelona and beyond, with demonstrators setting up encampments and demanding action on the country's housing crisis.

Abascal had lived in her home for over seven decades and was removed from the property on a stretcher.

She said she had been forced to leave her home after she was unable to afford the 230% rent hike demanded by the investment fund that bought her apartment.

Now, Spain's coalition government has responded. Ministers have approved new measures including a ban on evictions until 2030, the rolling over of rental contracts until 2028, tighter rules on short-term and room rentals, and a ban on investment firms buying homes.

Health Minister Mónica García said the measures could bring relief to more than five million people, and thanked the protesters directly, saying it wouldn't have been possible without them.

But it's not a done deal yet. The decrees take effect immediately but must be approved by Congress within a month, and the government doesn't have a majority. Critics argue the rules unfairly lump ordinary people who've invested their savings in a single flat together with huge investment funds.

Housing activists say the fight has only just begun, and more protests are planned.

We've all been there 😅

Sometimes you just need to get away after an argument but one Italian man took that idea rather literally.

A 48-year-old man from Como, in northern Italy, had an argument with his wife and decided he needed some time to clear his head.

So he started walking and boy did he walk.

He walked all the way from Como to Fano, a coastal town on the Adriatic Sea, a staggering distance of around 450km.

It took him roughly a week, meaning he was covering around 60km (37 miles) every single day, entirely on foot. No car. No train. No bus.

Along the way, strangers reportedly offered him food and drinks, and when police eventually found him, he told them he was fine just a little tired.

There was just one problem.

At around 2am, officers stopped him in Fano and when they checked his details, they discovered that his wife had reported him missing in Como a week earlier.

Perhaps most awkwardly of all, his wife then had to drive all the way to Fano to pick him up and bring him home.

Whatever had caused the argument, you have to imagine they had quite a story to tell each other on the journey back.

Sometimes a walk around the block just isn't enough.

Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt set out to corner former Special Counsel Jack Smith with a rehearsed "gotcha" question this week, but instead found himself in an embarrassing position live before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

During Tuesday's hearing on Smith's now-scuttled federal investigations into President Donald Trump, Schmitt tried to place Smith in Atlanta around the time Fulton County prosecutors Fani Willis and Nathan Wade admitted to an affair. Schmitt asked, "What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta, at a Warriors-Hawks game, on Feb. 3, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair?"

A staffer held up a poster board of texts as Schmitt warned Smith, "I'll give you a second to process it so you don't, you know, perjure yourself." Moments later, Schmitt declared, "I think you've already perjured yourself," and said Smith "will go down as a total dirtba*g."

There was one problem. Smith had not attended an Atlanta Hawks NBA game. Multiple outlets reported he was actually at a women's college basketball game in Maryland featuring the University of Iowa Hawkeyes. Schmitt appeared to have confused the NBA's Atlanta Hawks with a different team: the Hawkeyes.

Seated beside Schmitt, Alabama Senator Katie Britt appeared stunned as the blunder unfolded. An MS NOW camera caught the Republican wide-eyed, mouth hanging open, as Smith explained he had been at the Iowa game in Maryland, before she slowly closed it and seemed to swallow hard.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar caught the error and told Schmitt that having false information, placing Smith in the wrong city off a mixed-up team name, and calling him a "dirtb*g" over it "is something that deserves an apology."

Senator John Fetterman had an unscripted moment on stage at the Texas Tribune Festival this weekend that says more about his political trajectory than any campaign ad could.

Asked by an audience member why he doesn't just run as an independent, the Pennsylvania Democrat blurted out, "Because I'm a lifelong Republican," before catching himself. The crowd erupted in laughter, and Fetterman knew exactly what he'd done. "I guarantee you that will break through. That will get clipped," he admitted, before walking it back and reaffirming that he remains a Democrat.

The response comes weeks after Fetterman appeared in a video introducing Republican Senator Dave McCormick at the Republican National Committee's midterm convention, a move that fueled speculation he could eventually caucus with the GOP. Republicans have made clear they would welcome him. Meanwhile, frustration inside his own party has been building, with some Democrats reportedly pushing to oust him altogether.

Fetterman didn't back away from that tension on stage. He acknowledged he believes he has "no path as a Republican," even as he conceded many Democrats are fed up with his willingness to work across the aisle. Asked about the calls to remove him from the party, Fetterman said, "If the Democratic Party votes me out or expels me, they're always entitled to do that."

President Donald Trump has lost again in federal court over his push to put his name on the Kennedy Center, and the center's Trump-appointed board responded within minutes by voting to shut the historic main building to visitors indefinitely, though a smaller extension and some off-site programming will continue.

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled Tuesday that Trump cannot inscribe his name on the building's facade or dodge that order by renaming the plaza after himself instead. "Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress's blessing," Cooper wrote. "The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted."

This marks the third time since February that the board has voted to close the building. The board says the closure is needed for repairs, but Cooper's ruling noted that emergency repairs were already permitted under his earlier order. Trump has said he will not allow renovations to move forward unless his name is restored to the building, and he has threatened to have the center demolished if he does not get his way.

Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, praised the ruling. "The law is extremely clear: The John F. Kennedy Center is named for President Kennedy — and no one else," Beatty said in a statement. "But President Trump is holding the Kennedy Center hostage unless he can put his name on this sacred memorial."

The Justice Department, defending the board's actions in court, argued that if Cooper blocked the board's moves, donors would stop giving to the center, leaving it without the money needed for badly required renovations. The Kennedy Center, a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy for more than five decades, has its main building closed to the public while the legal fight continues.