Cost-of-Living Protests Roil Europe—and Everything Else You Need to Know About This Week

• While protests in Paris have grabbed most of the international headlines, frustration with the status quo is on full display across Europe. Over the weekend, thousands took to the streets over issues ranging from rising living costs and underfunded education to threatened public pensions and government corruption. Housing affordability has become a particular flash point in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, where soaring rents and proposed changes to tenant protections have added to the unrest. (NPR)

• In Louisiana, the business of evicting tenants can be remarkably profitable. The state’s little-known justice of the peace courts churn through thousands of eviction cases each year, with judges personally collecting a portion of the court fees, including those paid by landlords seeking evictions. The arrangement has helped some part-time judges earn six-figure incomes, while renters can lose their homes in proceedings lasting less than a minute. See which courts are bringing in the most money. (The Guardian)

• The ultrarich are taking disposable income to its logical extreme: disposable mansions. Faced with an acute shortage of vacant oceanfront lots in places like Palm Beach, elite buyers are shelling out nine figures for livable luxury homes they have no intention of keeping. Apparently, if you can afford a $100 million mansion, you can afford to knock it down. (The Wall Street Journal)

• Having heat in your rental apartment is generally considered a basic right. But what about your right to beat the heat? As extreme temperatures become an increasingly serious threat, cities and states across the country are beginning to treat indoor cooling as a renters' right, not a luxury. But as protections expand, a debate is heating up over how landlords should comply—and who should foot the bill. (Grist)

• Former luxury real estate brokers Tal and Oren Alexander, and their brother Alon, have each been sentenced to 30 years in prison following their convictions on federal sex trafficking charges. Once known as real estate’s "A Team," Tal and Oren used their industry connections, wealth, and access to luxury properties to help lure women to exclusive parties and getaways, where the brothers drugged, raped, and sexually assaulted them. At Tuesday’s sentencing in Manhattan, 11 women addressed the court, but prosecutors say at least 70 women were raped or sexually assaulted by one or more of the brothers over two decades. (ABC7 New York)

Top photo courtesy Djoudi Hamani / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images