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European Union regulators have hit Google with a €890m ($1bn) fine for violating the bloc’s Digital Markets Act. The European Commission said that the Alphabet-owned platform had unfairly favored its own search services and prevented app developers from steering consumers to offers outside its Play Store. The company was fined €460m for the alleged search abuses and €430m for the Play Store breaches. “Google has fallen short of effective compliance with the Digital Markets Act, and today we have taken decisive yet balanced enforcement action sanctioning these breaches,” EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said. “The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine.”

 

Bloomberg

New York Times

 

Bloomberg reports that Donald Trump has become the first modern U.S. president to issue pardons for companies, with his clemency grants wiping out almost $200m in financial penalties, some of which were destined for victims of wrongdoing. “In any previous era no president would touch this with a barge pole,” observed Frank Bowman, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law. “Maybe individual cases with some compelling reason, but the systemic elimination of criminal liability of major financial crime would never have happened before, and it didn’t.” Trump has granted clemency to nine companies since the start of his second term. Bloomberg profiles one such company, which had been charged with conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act for deleting controls on vehicles that were meant to stem emissions.

 

Bloomberg

U.S. Senate Republicans have released the text of the Clarity Act, the long-awaited, landmark bill that would create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. The 616-page bill adds ethics rules that bar public officials, including the President, from issuing or sponsoring digital assets while in office. The unveiling of the text moves the bill closer to a Senate floor vote, though uncertainty remains around Democratic support. Beyond ethics, the text divides oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). 

 

Reuters

Yahoo Finance

Paramount Skydance has received approval from the European Commission for its $111bn acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The Commission's consent allows the merger to proceed in the EU, with one condition: Paramount must terminate its partnership with Universal Pictures for film distribution in Europe. “The Commission found that, at film production level, enough film studios remain as competitors,” the Commission said in a statement. “These include other major U.S. studios like Disney, NBC Universal . . . and Sony, along with smaller US studios such as Amazon MGM, A24 and Lionsgate, as well as European studios.” Paramount will not be required to divest Cartoon Network, a Warner asset, because of its ownership of Nickelodeon. “The Commission found that streaming platforms offering children's content will continue to act as a competitive constraint on the merged entity's TV channels,” the agency said.

 

Los Angeles Times

Senator Elizabeth Warren has raised concerns regarding staffing cuts at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The agency has reportedly reduced its workforce by about 25% since last year. In a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Warren said: "Given reasonable concerns that staffing cuts may have a material impact on the CFTC's ability to carry out its mandate as required by current law, I request that the GAO thoroughly reviews ⁠the staffing cuts." The CFTC has in recent months said that it expects to increase its workforce and has sufficient resources to meet its obligations, in part due to the use of artificial intelligence.

 

U.S. News

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has proposed to eliminate the EEO-1 reporting requirement, which mandates that employers submit data on the race and sex of their workers. The EEOC has previously used the information to probe bias complaints filed by individual workers and to determine if companies exhibit a pattern of discriminatory conduct. EEOC chair Andrea Lucas, a Trump administration ​appointee, said that sorting workers by race and sex can encourage discrimination, including against majority groups such ⁠as ⁠white people and men. "The EEO data ⁠reports stand in direct tension ​with (federal law's) requirement that employment practices be colorblind," Lucas said. Kalpana Kotagal, the lone Democratic member of the commission who voted to reject the proposal, said: "These efforts should ⁠be seen for what they are: an attempt to weaken equal employment opportunity, and to undermine progress for women and historically marginalized communities." 

 

Los Angeles Times

U.S. News

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has begun serving house arrest after being convicted of plotting a coup following his 2022 election loss. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ruled to suspend Bolsonaro from receiving visitors for 30 days, allowing only medical care and lawyers. Bolsonaro, sentenced to over 27 years in prison, is prohibited from using social media or phones under the terms of his house arrest. In his ruling, Moraes also banned the ex-president from receiving visits "with a political-electoral finality" until the end of the October elections, and from releasing "political-electoral remarks," including by third ​parties.

 

U.S. News

Denis ​Machuel, the CEO of Zurich-based Adecco Group, the world's largest staffing company, has told Reuters that AI will not precipitate a collapse in ‌employment despite concerns the technology will displace large numbers of workers. "AI is bringing a massive evolution in the world of work, but ​a job apocalypse is not on the horizon," Machuel said. "It's more about changing roles ‌and ⁠tasks than eliminating jobs." He said employers needed to reinvent ​the entry-level roles that are however disappearing so AI can complement them, observing that upskilling, reskilling, and closer collaboration among ​companies, governments and education systems was essential.

 

Reuters

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has said the Trump administration will soon reveal trade actions under Section 301 of the Trade Act related to forced labor. "We ⁠expect to ⁠see some action soon . . . I can't really specify ​a timeline right now," Greer told CNBC when asked about a Financial Times report ​that the White House was expected to announce tariffs ⁠on ⁠dozens of countries soon ⁠as ​U.S. President Donald Trump's temporary 10% global tariff ​is scheduled ⁠to expire on Friday. Section 301 of U.S. trade law is a provision that authorizes investigations into alleged unfair trade ⁠practices.

 

CNBC

U.S. News

Chinese regulators led by the Ministry of Commerce (MofCom) are considering tightening export controls on artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies as U.S.-China rivalry intensifies in cutting-edge AI.

 

Financial Times

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has urged the Trump administration to crack down on imports of partially finished solar cells, known as blue wafers, alleging that some companies are using them to evade trade duties and improperly claim federal manufacturing tax credits. In a letter to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Internal Revenue Service, the lawmakers argued that importers complete final processing in the United States to avoid tariffs on finished solar cells while benefiting from incentives intended to support domestic manufacturing. The lawmakers said the practice undermines U.S. solar manufacturers and weakens the effectiveness of trade policies aimed at countering low-cost imports linked to Chinese producers. The Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition, whose members include First Solar and Hanwha Qcells, welcomed the request, saying stronger enforcement would help protect billions of dollars of domestic investment and thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs. 

 

Reuters

Jean Kaseya, the director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, has said that 1,031 deaths have been confirmed since the emergence of the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus in May. “The Ebola outbreak is escalating at an alarming pace. We must act now,” Kaseya wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “If we do not stop it today, this will become the worst outbreak the world has ever documented.”

 

AP News

AlJazeera

The American Heart Association (AHA) has said that drinking up to five 8-oz cups of coffee a day, or around 400mgs of caffeine, is safe for most adults and may reduce the risk of heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes. The scientific statement, published in Circulation, reviewed dozens of studies and concluded that evidence supporting coffee’s safety and potential cardiovascular benefits has strengthened over time. The AHA said the greatest benefits appear to come from consuming two to four cups of coffee daily, while noting that individual responses to caffeine vary. Researchers also cautioned that adding large amounts of sugar, syrups, or high-fat creamers can offset potential health benefits, and advised consumers to avoid high-caffeine energy drinks, which have been linked to irregular heart rhythms and high blood pressure. 

 

ABC News

USA Today

Wall Street Journal