Mark Zuckerberg Grilled Before Congress; Paul Ryan Retires from House

Here’s what you’ll find on today’s show:

— On Tuesday, Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg apologized in a congressional hearing for the abuse of data scraped from Facebook users without their permission. Testimony this week was motivated largely by reports that research firm Cambridge Analytica improperly gained access to the data from 87 million Facebook users. Zuckerberg sits before the House Energy and Commerce Committee today where he faces more questions about how and when information was shared and to what effect.

— While American lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to reckon with Facebook’s informational power, E.U. lawmakers already have plans in the works to change data collection and data usage. It’s the result of a new data protection law called the General Data Protection Regulation, which goes into effect in Europe next month. Among a number of different areas, the legislation will require companies like Facebook to only collect and store the minimum amount of user data needed for a specific, stated service.

— Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan is announced today that he will not seek re-election in Congress, closing out a nearly 20-year career in office and a four-year hold on the House speakership, assuming that chamber’s top post upon the retirement of his Republican colleague John Boehner in 2015. Reports from multiple media outlets and a statement from the speaker’s counselor Brendan Buck confirmed the news first reported by Axios.

— 221b Baker Street, London, is known worldwide as the residence of the fictional genius, private detective Sherlock Holmes. But it’s also a real building in London, with a mystery of its own that’s coming to fruition: no one knows who owns it. Sherlock Holmes isn’t around to solve the case, but real-life geopolitics reporter for Quartz Max de Haldevang took a stab at it. The characters in de Haldevang’s investigation would eventually grow include the long-time president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and further reveal the tangled web of London’s shadowy real estate dealings.