A New York City housing board has voted to freeze rent for approximately 1m apartments.

In a major victory for Zohran Mamdani, the mayor who campaigned on a pledge to freeze rent, the Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 on Thursday to freeze increases on one- and two-year leases. The decision will provide relief to tenants in more than 1m rent-stabilized apartments, representing over 40% of the city’s rental housing.

Mamdani hailed the vote, calling it a “historic victory for New York City tenants”. He added: “After reviewing the data and hearing from New Yorkers across the city, the independent RGB has delivered a freeze on one-year leases, and the first-ever freeze on two-year leases in our city’s history. This is the relief that working people across our city deserve.

“I’m grateful for the board members’ thoughtful consideration of the data, including tenants’ ability to pay, cost of living and building operating costs. I’ll continue working to deliver a more affordable city by building and preserving affordable housing, lowering building operating costs like insurance, and ensuring tenants know their rights,” he added.

Among the board’s nine members, six were appointed by Mamdani. One member, Christina Smyth, who had been appointed by Eric Adams, resigned shortly before the vote, saying in a statement that she was “resigning because the process I was appointed to take part in is not administered the way the law requires”.

“The Rent Guidelines Board has stopped being a fact-finding body. It has become a body that starts with an answer and vibe codes its way backward to justify it … This rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze. Everything since has been theater,” Smyth added.

Responding to Smyth’s resignation, the Rent Guidelines Board chair, Chantella Mitchell, defended the board’s process, saying in a statement: “I was surprised to receive Christina’s resignation this morning. I want to take this opportunity to affirm the independence with which this year’s board members have served, along with the rigor and integrity demonstrated by the RGB staff in preparing and presenting data.”

The vote has drawn mixed reactions. Ann Korchak, board president of the Small Property Owners of New York, criticized the decision, calling it an “absolute farce”.

“Proceeding with one of the most consequential rent votes in recent times with half of its owner representation undermined the balance and fairness of this process … The resignation of the only principled RGB member and the board’s only meaningful advocate for small owners validated our greatest fear, that the majority Mamdani-appointed RGB would cave to the political demands of city hall,” Korchak said.

The Libertarian party of New York tweeted in response that “rent freezes exacerbate the housing crisis”.

“NYC already has decades of rent regulations contributing to chronic shortages. Adding a freeze on top of that doubles down on the same mistake by punishing property owners rather than fixing the real problem: artificial scarcity created by government barriers to building,” they continued.

Meanwhile, the Legal Aid Society hailed the decision, saying: “We commend the board for their vote tonight to freeze the rent for the more than 2 million New Yorkers who currently reside in rent-stabilized housing … At a time of historic unaffordability across the five boroughs – marked by an increased cost of living, low citywide vacancy rates, and record-breaking market-rate rent prices – a rent freeze is a prudent, evidence-based response to the challenges facing tenants across the five boroughs.”

The rent freeze marks a significant policy victory for Mamdani, who has consistently argued that rising housing costs have made New York City increasingly unaffordable for working-class and middle-income residents.

On Friday, Mamdani also made another major policy announcement, this time aimed at supporting the transgender community. His office unveiled a $15m investment in transgender healthcare, including a direct access fund for providers of youth gender-affirming care, as well as a new call and text line connecting New Yorkers with resources. The investment will also go towards funding for research gaps in healthcare access and outcomes for transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers.

“Every New Yorker should have the freedom to live as themselves and access the healthcare they need,” Mamdani said, adding: “As the federal government attacks transgender people and attempts to intimidate patients, families and providers, New York City is stepping up. We will protect care, support the providers delivering it and make clear that trans New Yorkers belong in this city. Healthcare is a human right, and we will do everything in our power to defend it.”

10 Downing Street has two things: mice and a chief mouser. For more than a decade, an officially recognized feline has kept the residence’s rodent infestation to a minimum.

Over a similar period, the official residence of Canada’s prime minister has seen an unchecked explosion of rodents.

Nests and vast quantities of feces were found throughout 24 Sussex, the 35-room mansion overlooking Ottawa. They took over the attic, basement and crawl spaces. Decomposing carcasses filled the walls of the decrepit building.

Now, the prime minister, Mark Carney, has announced a competition for the country’s leading architecture firms to revive the storied building “to a standard worthy of the country that it serves”.

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada will design the framework and bring together an independent jury of experts in architecture, heritage conservation and design, which will recommend the winning design to cabinet.

“24 Sussex Drive will be built by Canadians for Canadians,” Carney said on Friday, telling reporters that the winning design would be announced on 1 July 2027: Canada Day.

“At a time when much of the world is buffeted by crisis, Canada’s history, our institutions and our traditions matter more than ever,” he said, standing outside the uninhabitable building. The prime minister said that while foundations of identity largely take the form of language, culture and laws, buildings can stand as testaments “made of timber and stone … in which we recognize ourselves”.

Originally named Gorffwysfa (Welsh for “the place of peace”), the sprawling estate has housed 11 prime ministers since the government took it over in 1951. But its shortcomings have long plagued heads of government.

Jean Chrétien, prime minister from 1993 to 2003, brought reporters to witness the need for buckets to catch rainwater from a leaky roof. Only after a storm blew off sections of the roof did he finally get the needed repairs.

“It’s a symbol of the public office of the head of our federal government and of the democratic traditions that office represents. And yet it has not been cared for with the respect that it deserves,” he said. “Now it’s in critical condition.”

Years of negligence have left the official residence of the prime minister plagued with mold, cracked windows, failing plumbing and an electric system widely seen as a fire hazard.

In 2023, National Capital Commission (NCC), the group tasked with preserving heritage buildings in Ottawa, shut down the residence because of the voluminous safety hazards. The following year, it said it had stripped away the asbestos, mould, lead and rodents carcasses, leaving the building empty but with an estimated C$40m cost to fully renovate and upgrade. On Friday, Carney said it was difficult to estimate a cost because much of that would rely on the final design.

Last month, former governor general Mary Simon, whose term recently came to an end, said it was inappropriate for a prime minister to live on the grounds of Rideau Hall.

But Rideau Cottage, the a 158-year-old building meant originally for the secretary of the governor general, was chosen out of necessity for former prime minister Justin Trudeau and his family, given the inhospitable state of 24 Sussex.

Carney has continued the tradition, residing at Rideau Cottage.

Carney told reporters that while 24 Sussex has long been a symbol of the country, it “must also be a home, and the women and men who will lead our country in the future will need a residence for their families”. He was adamant that he would never live in the residence, given the starkly contrasting timelines for reconstruction and politics.

“I and all public officials are stewards of the offices we hold. We don’t own them. We serve them to serve Canadians and we have a responsibility to leave things better than we found them.”

Legendary architect Moshe Safdie, who envisioned many of the country’s most acclaimed buildings, will chair the jury assessing design plans.

“It’s an extraordinary site with extraordinary potential,” Safdie said. “Something wonderful can be developed here.”

Claims by a senior official in the Trump administration that British police were making thousands of “freedom of speech” arrests have been rejected by the UK government.

Sarah B Rogers, who has become the public face of the US state department’s hostility to European liberal democracies, was accused by MPs of echoing far-right memes and conspiracy theories during a speech at an international rightwing conference in London. She also referenced the death of Henry Nowak and a recent incident in which a child was thrown into a zoo’s crocodile pit.

Rogers, who has publicly attacked policies on hate speech and immigration by US allies and promoted far-right parties abroad, centred her speech on the notion of “Da Yookay” – a viral meme heavily associated with the online far right.

Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), which was also addressed this week by Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, Rogers listed what she said were examples of the Britain that people saw online. “In ‘Da Yookay’, you can be remanded without bail for an inflammatory tweet, while a psychopath who seizes a three-year-old and feeds him to crocodiles walks free.

“In ‘Da Yookay’ the moral sense of jurors won’t save you, because jury trials for speech crimes are abolished. In ‘Da Yookay’, a girl can escape from a rape gang, flag down a police constable and discover the cop is in league with the rapists.

“In ‘Da Yookay’ you get a free car for pretending to be disabled. In ‘Da Yookay’ cops defer to a murderer who calls his victim racist. Then they handcuff you as you bleed to death if you’re white.”

Rogers told the audience that she was not there to tell them “as your minders do, that it’s all misinformation”.

Rogers is undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, a US state department role that was created in 1999 to strengthen relationships between the US and foreign publics.

Her intervention at ARC marks the most explicit criticism of the UK government by a US official on British soil. She also claimed: “Some people look at Britain’s thousands of speech arrests per year and see only tyranny.”

A UK government spokesperson said on Friday: “Our world-renowned justice system operates without fear or favour to protect all our citizens, and we completely reject this characterisation.”

Max Wilkinson, the Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesperson, said repeated attempts by Trump officials to undermine the UK’s democracy and justice system were out of hand and ministers should contact counterparts in the US. “Echoing bizarre online conspiracy theories about the UK is something we might expect from a hostile state rather than a Nato ally,” he added.

Citing gun violence in the US and deportations of children, the Labour MP Stella Creasy, also hit back, saying figures like Rogers “should spend less time reading Twitter conspiracy theories about the UK and more time fixing their own problems”.

Keir Starmer suggested earlier this month that the US was trying to interfere in British democracy after JD Vance, the US vice-president, blamed the murder of the British teenager Henry Nowak on mass immigration.

More than 4,000 delegates from 85 countries attended the three-day conference, which has emerged as a force shaping policies on the right both in the Britain and abroad. It is headed by the influential Conservative peer Philippa Stroud, a former adviser to Iain Duncan-Smith and, with him, was one of the architects of the universal credit overhaul of welfare.

ARC’s advisory board includes the Reform MP Danny Kruger and James Orr, a Cambridge theologian who is a senior advisor to Nigel Farage. Other themes promoted by ARC include calls for action to tackle a “demographic decline” in the west and encourage people to have more children.

Kruger told delegates in a keynote speech that Britain’s cultural and political crisis was a battle to defend what he called the “English settlement” – a civilisational inheritance rooted in scripture, national sovereignty and the rule of law.

Appearing a day after Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, Farage made an explicit pitch for support at the gathering in west London, likening “family breakdown” to “community breakdown” as populations grew more diverse.

Attenders over the past week have included delegates from members of the European far-right groups: Alternative für Deutschland, Vlaams Belang from Belgium, Spain’s Vox and the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom.

Also on stage as an official participant in one event was Carl Benjamin, a provocative British rightwing political commentator known by his online pseudonym Sargon of Akkad and for speculating about whether he would rape the Labour MP Jess Phillips.