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A U.S. federal judge has rejected the Department of Justice’s attempt to force Google to sell its AdX advertising exchange and publisher ad server, despite an earlier finding that the company had built an illegal monopoly in online advertising. Judge Leonie Brinkema has instead opted for behavioral remedies, likely to include data-sharing requirements and greater compatibility with rival products, with the final measures still to be agreed. The decision marks the second time a court has declined to break up Google after an antitrust defeat, following a similar ruling in its search monopoly case. Judges in both cases have cited the practical difficulties of forcing major divestments and the risk that rapid technological change, particularly in artificial intelligence, could overtake remedies during lengthy appeals. The ruling leaves Alphabet’s core businesses intact and follows a 57% rise in its shares over the past 12 months. Google welcomed the rejection of a break-up, while anti-monopoly campaigners criticized behavioral remedies as insufficient to curb its market power.

 

Bloomberg

CNBC

Financial Times

An anonymous Postal Service official has raised concerns about a hastily developed system for verifying mail-in ballots, warning it could lead to significant delays or rejections. The whistleblower, whose allegations were shared by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, described the process as “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed.” The system, part of President Donald Trump's new federal mail-voting requirements, was created in just three months, a timeline deemed inadequate for such a complex task. The whistleblower highlighted a “zero-percent failure policy,” where even one unscannable ballot in a batch could result in the entire batch being rejected. The Postal Service has not yet commented on the claims.

 

The Hill

NPR / National Public Radio

U.S. News

The Dutch central bank has moved 86 tonnes of gold reserves out of the U.S. and Canada to London. De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), citing “increasing geopolitical unrest,” said gold reserves held in London could be traded more easily than those held in New York and Ottawa. “This makes it the quickest for DNB to deploy in a crisis situation . . . With this step, we have improved the deployability of the gold reserves. We assume that we will never need to deploy the gold, but it is nevertheless necessary to strengthen our resilience and preparedness,” explained DNB’s president, Olaf Sleijpen.

 

CNBC

Euronews

BBC News

The Guardian

Research from risk-modelling firm Verisk suggests as much as 62% of global losses from natural catastrophes are uninsured, and are expected to cost the world $450bn in a typical year.

 

Financial Times

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from carrying out the president's latest effort to impose new limits on automatic birthright citizenship, granting a preliminary injunction against an executive order that the White House said would target so-called “birth tourism,” whereby women travel to the United States to give birth. U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman in Maryland issued the injunction until a class-action lawsuit brought by immigrant families and advocacy groups is resolved. “The Supreme Court has spoken: Children in the certified class are ‘citizens at birth,’” Boardman, appointed by President Joe Biden, wrote. Shana Khader, legal director at We Are CASA, one of the groups that brought the case in Maryland, said that “the White House must recognize it will not succeed in stripping children of their right to citizenship, evading binding court decisions or placing the president’s anti-immigrant agenda above the Constitution.”

 

AP News

Bloomberg

Reuters

The U.S. Department of Justice has expanded its investigation into rising beef prices to eight major retailers, including Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Kroger, Albertsons, Aldi, Publix, and Ahold Delhaize USA. The move broadens an existing antitrust probe into the U.S. beef industry, which has included a criminal investigation into large meatpackers over alleged price manipulation and collusion. Beef prices reached a record high in May.

 

Reuters

A coalition of state attorneys general has warned Deloitte, EY, PwC, and KPMG that their support for climate-related financial disclosures could violate state laws, professional independence requirements, and contractual obligations. The letter raises concerns about the firms’ involvement with initiatives including the TCFD, ISSB, and the now-disbanded Net Zero Financial Service Providers Alliance, arguing that supporting expanded climate disclosures could create conflicts of interest by increasing compliance costs while generating additional accounting and auditing work. The attorneys general also warned of potential violations of unfair and deceptive practices laws and requested extensive information about the firms’ climate commitments, independence, advertising, conflicts of interest, and the potential impact of disclosure requirements on small businesses and farmers.

 

ESG Today

Citibank's London branch has been fined £4.7m ($6.35m) after the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) found it violated the U.K.'s sanctions regime on Russia. The bank processed £19.7m in illicit transactions, failing to freeze 24 accounts linked to a designated Russian individual. The OFSI noted that the bank's compliance guidance was temporarily altered, leading to delays in reporting frozen assets. The severity of the case was rated as 'high', with significant harm to U.K. foreign policy objectives.

 

The Times

The Daily Telegraph

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has found that Cisco may have violated the civil rights of its Middle Eastern and Muslim employees by subjecting them to a hostile work environment amid anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments on internal messaging platforms. A group of Cisco employees called “Bridge to Humanity” (B2H), which had voiced concerns that the company’s technology was provided to the Israeli military for use in Israel’s war on Gaza, alleged that Cisco had not responded to their complaints until they created a 76-page report cataloguing the hate comments they had been subjected to in an internal messaging group called Connected Jewish Network. Jeffrey Wang, a civil rights managing lawyer at the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) San Francisco Bay-area chapter, said: “Employers have a legal responsibility to address harassment and discrimination fairly and consistently. Workers should not have to fear retaliation or a hostile work environment because of their religion, national origin, or association with protected communities.”

 

AlJazeera

Uber plans to lay off about 10% of its global workforce - around 3,400 employees - as part of a major organizational overhaul. Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of the taxi and delivery firm, told staff that the changes would create a “simpler and faster” business, including by reducing the number of small teams where one or two employees report to a single manager by nearly 50%, and cutting by 20% the number of employees who sit more than seven layers from the chief executive. The move will also reinforce a hybrid work policy which requires three days a week in the office. Analysts said the layoffs could generate up to $2bn in annual savings.

 

CNBC

Financial Times

Los Angeles Times

NJ.com

The Guardian

U.S. private employers added 38,000 jobs in August, below the 47,000 expected and down from an upwardly revised 46,000 in July, according to ADP, marking the weakest monthly increase since January and providing further evidence of a slowdown in the labor market. Employment growth was heavily concentrated in a handful of sectors, with education and health services adding 45,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality gaining 16,000, and construction adding 12,000. By contrast, manufacturing lost 17,000 positions, professional and business services shed 16,000, and natural resources and mining, as well as trade, transportation, and utilities, each lost 5,000. Large companies accounted for almost all net hiring, with businesses employing at least 500 workers adding 34,000 jobs, compared with a gain of 3,000 among companies with fewer than 50 employees. Wage growth remained stable, with base pay for employees staying in their jobs increasing 3% year over year, while gross pay, including bonuses, commissions, tips, and other earnings, rose 4.4%.

 

Bloomberg

CNBC

Fox News

U.S. construction spending unexpectedly declined 0.5% in July to $2.158tn, its lowest level since October 2023, and was down 3.8% from a year earlier as elevated mortgage rates continued to weigh on homebuilding. The Commerce Department's report also found that residential construction spending fell 1.3%, led by a 3.2% monthly decline in single-family projects, which were down 6.5% year over year, while the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate remained near a one-year high at 6.66%. Private nonresidential construction increased 0.4%, supported by power projects, but factory spending fell 0.8% for the month and 21.7% from a year earlier as momentum from the CHIPS and Science Act continued to fade despite investment related to artificial intelligence. Public construction spending declined 0.2%, with federal government projects falling 3.5%, while state and local government spending was unchanged.

 

Reuters

Sixty per cent of American adults view themselves as “working class,” including those who have college degrees and higher incomes, according to a report from the Pew Research Center. The share is up from 54% in 2024. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to identify as working class, even after taking economics, occupation, education and other factors into account. About 60% of White and Hispanic adults consider themselves as working class, compared with about half of Black and Asian adults, the report showed.

 

Bloomberg

Business Insider

Pew Research Center