Search engine giant Google has been found to have an illegal monopoly in the ad tech sector by a U.S. federal judge, a landmark ruling that has far-reaching repercussions for the digital advertising business.
A larger antitrust case filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and multiple state attorneys general includes the ruling.
The court concluded that Google unjustly suppresses competition and hurts both advertisers and consumers by controlling important aspects of the internet ad ecosystem, such as publisher platforms, ad exchanges, and ad-buying tools.
READ ALSO: Court adjourns Nigerian’s $150m suit against Google, GoDaddy.com to May 27
In her ruling, Judge Brinkema stated, “Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.” She further explained that Google had strengthened its monopoly by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers, which had a detrimental effect on rivals and publishers. The conduct, she said, “substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”
In response, Google vowed to appeal the decision. “We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs. “The court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition,” she added.
Major structural remedies, such as the potential dissolution of portions of Google’s advertising business, could result from the ruling. Google has declared that it will appeal the decision, claiming that its services offer competition and value rather than coercion.
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, issued a sharp rebuke of a new executive order signed by former President Donald Trump aimed at reforming federal seafood and fisheries policy.
“You can’t manage and grow American fisheries when you fire the very scientists and fishery managers who are charged with supporting the more than one million jobs that rely on sustainable fisheries,” Cantwell said. “This executive order comes on the heels of the leaked Trump Administration draft budget which would slash the National Marine Fisheries Service budget by 27 percent and eliminate the Habitat Conservation Program and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, which fishermen rely on to restore salmon and other fish populations. The administration’s actions are hurting fishing families, not helping them.”
Cantwell’s comments were in response to Trump’s newly signed executive order titled “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness,” which outlines a sweeping overhaul of the federal approach to regulating and promoting the domestic fishing industry. The order criticizes what it calls federal “overregulation” that has restricted the ability of American fishermen to harvest seafood and compete globally.
The order directs the Secretary of Commerce, in coordination with other federal agencies and fishery councils, to identify and revise or rescind burdensome regulations within 30 days. It also instructs federal officials to explore opening marine national monuments to commercial fishing, expand fishing permit programs, and pursue trade enforcement strategies against nations engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing or forced labor.
Trump’s directive builds on his 2020 executive order on seafood, which he claims streamlined regulations and improved data collection. The new policy aims to update those efforts by implementing an “America First Seafood Strategy” focused on increasing domestic seafood production, improving marketing and exports, and strengthening U.S. seafood supply chains.
Among its broader mandates, the executive order calls for:
• Public comment from the fishing industry, scientists, and stakeholders on modernizing fisheries management
• Reassessment of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program
• Development of a comprehensive seafood trade strategy
• Expansion of seafood education and nutrition initiatives through the U.S. Department of Agriculture
While the administration argues that the order addresses unfair trade practices and promotes American competitiveness, Cantwell and other critics argue that it undermines scientific integrity and removes essential environmental protections. Cantwell emphasized that proposed cuts to programs like the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund would directly affect efforts to restore declining salmon populations critical to the Northwest’s economy and ecosystem.
The executive order also includes provisions that could roll back conservation protections by re-evaluating the designation of marine national monuments, with the possibility of reopening them for commercial fishing.
Environmental and fishing advocates have expressed concern that the changes prioritize deregulation over sustainable fisheries management. Cantwell’s statement underscores growing fears among Pacific Northwest stakeholders that the executive order could lead to long-term damage to fragile fish stocks, particularly salmon, and undercut the scientific resources needed to sustain the industry.
It was a special night for Manchester United as they pulled off a completely crazy victory over Lyon.
The Red Devils secured a place in the Europa League semi-finals.
Old Trafford delivered the kind of night football fans dream about.
United battled back to win 7-6 on aggregate despite throwing away a comfortable 4-2 lead at half-time.
Ruben Amorim’s side produced one of the greatest comebacks in club history.
Manchester United make new European history
Many are already calling it one of European football’s all-time classics.
As Rio Ferdinand declared a miracle was needed, Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo and Harry Maguire stepped up to deliver exactly that in front of a stunned crowd.
Alongside the headline-making scorers, Casemiro’s leadership helped lay the foundation for United’s late fightback.
The win didn’t just send United into the last four – it also etched their name into football’s record books.
United became the first team in history to score two goals in the 120th minute or later of a major European match.
With Mainoo and Maguire rewriting the script at the death.
Opta Joe highlighted the remarkable sequence:
120 – Manchester United are the first team in history to score two goals in the 120th minute of a major European match. Amorimtime. pic.twitter.com/d9VCeb0Wiq
A clear nod to the famous ‘Fergie time’ that defined so many of United’s iconic comebacks under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson was present at Old Trafford on Thursday.
The former boss will no doubt have recognised the same fight and belief that were the trademarks of his own trophy-laden teams.
But that wasn’t the only record to fall on the night.
In total, five goals were scored during extra time, making it the first major European game in history to see such a goal rush in the added 30 minutes.
Kobbie Mainoo’s equaliser was the pick of the bunch.
However, it was Maguire’s header that sealed one of the most chaotic wins in the club’s European history.
5 – Tonight’s game between Manchester United and Lyon is the first match in major European football history to see five goals scored after extra-time. Chaos. pic.twitter.com/PwWruh2awz
In this episode of “True Crime News,” Chris Coleman had a busy job as the bodyguard for a famous televangelist, but it turns out he committed more than one sin — including murder. Plus, a new mom goes missing and is presumed dead after she tried to get away from her controlling boyfriend.
U.S. military planners are building an army of deadly but relatively cheap drones, as part of an emerging “unmanned hellscape” strategy to stymie a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
This drone army concept is an attempt to overcome some of the apparent challenges the United States would face if it were to come to Taiwan’s defense in a future conflict.
The hellscape strategy has emerged as successive war games have shown the U.S. military is likely to face a costly fight to defend the de facto independent island territory. One set of 2022 war games conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that the United States could win, but at a cost of up to two aircraft carriers, 20 other warships, 400 warplanes, and around 3,000 troops in just three weeks of fighting.
With U.S. lawmakers and military leaders unsettled by these findings, some strategists have begun to focus on a battle plan that could preserve their most exquisite weapons warships and weapons systems, and keep the human casualties to a relative minimum, by instead sacrificing thousands of rapidly producible air and sea drones.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, began to articulate this battle plan in a June 2024 interview with The Washington Post. As he explained it, the moment Chinese leaders order their troops to attack Taiwan, U.S. commanders will begin deploying as many small aerial, surface, and submersible drones as possible into the Taiwan Strait, to gather intelligence and harass the Chinese force as much as possible.
“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities, so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything,” Paparo.
The Taiwan Challenge
Since normalizing ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s, the U.S. policymakers have described the overall approach policy toward Taiwan as one of “strategic ambiguity.”
The United States treats it contacts with the de facto Taiwanese government as informal interactions, and continues to supply the island with weapons it could potentially use to resist a Chinese invasion, but still leaves unclear whether it will sail to Taiwan’s defense in a worst-case scenario.
For decades, this policy of strategic ambiguity has allowed a peaceful but uneasy status quo. But in that time, China has vastly increased the size of its military, and modernized its fighting capabilities.
In 2020, China officially overtook the United States as the country with the largest naval force, by sheer number of vessels. The country is also making advances with modern fighter jets, and missiles.
U.S. military planners have concluded a major component of this Chinese force modernization is the development of what’s known as anti-access, area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. As U.S. planners see it, the Chinese military is built to assert control over a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific region, and use their A2/AD components to block any outside forces from intervening.
Adding to the challenge in a Taiwan conflict scenario is the sheer distance from which the U.S. has to move. The Taiwan Strait puts about 100 miles distance between the island and the Chinese mainland, well within range of many advanced Chinese weapons systems.
U.S. forces, by contrast, would have to cross hundreds or even thousands of miles come to Taiwan’s defense.
With hundreds of miles of coastline to choose from, Chinese forces could easily array their A2/AD capabilities to fire on the avenues of approach leading up to Taiwan. In essence, the United States and any coalition of willing allies will have to sail into a veritable shooting gallery to get to Taiwan.
In a Taiwan conflict scenario, there is a real risk that China could make significant progress overwhelming the island’s defenses, or even capture the island outright, before the United States and its allies will have mobilized enough forces to fight back.
If Chinese forces have significant control over the island, the fight becomes much more difficult for the U.S. side. The 2022 CSIS found that Taiwan’s ability to contain a Chinese beachhead was one of four requisite components to a relatively successful defense of the island.
As Paparo explained it, his hope is that this “unmanned hellscape” strategy will provide a rapidly-deployable mass of drones that can stall and degrade a Chinese invasion force.
The ‘Hellscape’ Drone Army
The U.S. military is already taking some steps to build up the drone army needed to fulfill Paparo’s hellscape vision for Taiwan.
In 2023, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks revealed a program, dubbed “Replicator,” which aims to develop a portfolio of expendable unmanned systems for grinding down China’s military.
“Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass. More ships, more missiles, more people,” Hicks said at the time.
Hicks indicated the plan took inspiration from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, where both sides have rapidly weaponized relatively cheap drone systems to devastating effect.
Last May, the Pentagon announced it had chosen the AeroVironment Switchblade-600 as its first Replicator system, and had begun looking for vendors to produce unmanned surface vessels. The Switchblade-600 is a loitering munition that has already seen use in Ukraine. With a set of spring-loaded wings and a pusher prop, the Switchblade can be launched from a tube and hang around over a battlefield, searching for a target.
In November, Hicks announced the first batch of replicator drone systems would be ready to ship to the fighting forces by August of this year.
Other systems are also moving toward delivery. The Pentagon has chosen the Anduril Dive-LD as its first drone submarine.
The Army has chosen another two drone systems as part of the Replicator program. The first is the Anduril Industries Ghost-X drone; an autonomous operating drone helicopter for surveillance, which troops can pack down into a rifle case and assemble for flight in as little as two minutes. For their second new drone, the Army has chosen the Performance Drone Works C-100; an autonomous quad-copter drone capable of carrying and releasing munitions weighing up to 10 pounds.
The Marine Corps has chosen the Anduril Industries Altius-600; a tube-launched autonomous pusher-prop plane that can carry a variety of payloads, including explosive ordnance. The Altius-600 is a loitering munition with similarities to the Switchblade-600.
Alongside the main batch of Replicator systems, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit is also working to develop Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). The service is seeking an autonomous system that can fly for up to 500 nautical miles, at a speed of over 100 miles per hour, with the capability to carry a variety of different payloads.
Last month, the Air Force narrowed the ETV program to two finalists: the Anduril 500 Barracuda, and the Zone 5 Rusty Dagger Open Weapon Platform. Both companies have presented their offerings as relatively low-cost, rapidly-producible small cruise missiles.
It remains to be seen whether this Replicator drone army will ever be called into action, and whether it will be effective.
As with any widely publicized strategy, China is likely developing its own answers. A January paper by the China Landpower Studies Center at the U.S. Army War College notes China is preparing a range of systems to counter drones, including laser interceptor systems.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
There are indications that the House of Representatives and the Presidency may be jostling for control of the affairs of the Rivers State government.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu, while declaring emergency rule in Rivers State on March 18, 2025, had stated that the Sole Administrator, retired Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, would be reporting to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
However, the House of Representatives, while approving the emergency rule on March 20, 2025, had invoked Section 11(4) of the Constitution, shifting the power to exercise oversight function on Rivers State to the National Assembly.
As follow up, Reps Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, had on Tuesday, inaugurated a 21-member legislative ad hoc committee charged with the oversight function on the activities of the Rivers Administrator.
On Wednesday, the 21-member committee, chaired by Rep Julius Ihonvbere, summoned Ibas to appear before the panel the next day, to give account of his four-week stewardship as Administrator of Rivers State.
In a curious twist, however, the scheduled interactive session with the Administrator was postponed indefinitely, barely 24 hours after the summons were issued.
In a statement issued by House spokesperson, Rep. Akin Rotimi, in Abuja on Thursday, the lawmakers said the indefinite postponement was at the instance of the Administrator.
“In the spirit of transparent and effective oversight, the committee will promptly inform the public once the rescheduled date is confirmed,” Rotimi said.
Stakeholders have observed that the 24-hour notice the 21-member panel gave the Administrator might be inadequate for him to prepare for the session, more so as he would be traveling from Port Harcourt to Abuja.
But a competent source in the National Assembly confided in THE WHISTLER on Friday, that the Presidency may have objected to the decision of the House to oversee the running of the affairs of the state.
“The Presidency actually asked the House to back down on the mission for the simple reason that the President has continued to insist on the Administrator reporting directly to the FEC, which is chaired by the President himself.
“If the National Assembly is to oversee affairs in Rivers State, membership of the ad hoc legislative committee would have been jointly empanelled with members from both the Senate and the House.
“The leadership of the Senate had rightly guaged President Tinubu’s body language concerning who oversees the affairs of the Rivers Administrator.
“That is why the Senate did not nominate any of its members into the panel to avoid potential clash with the Presidency,” the source said.
Meanwhile, there has been a deluge of complaints over the running of the state under the Administrator, especially the dismantling of existing public and democratic structures.
They cited the sacking of commissioners, political appointees and top civil servants in the Rivers bureaucracy.
Similarly, the sacking of the Caretaker chairmen in the 23 local governments in the state, and the replacement of the chairman of the state’s Electoral Commission have continued to raise concerns as to the motives behind the Administrator’s actions.
Observers and civil society groups have accused the Administrator of acting beyond his briefs by usurping both executive and legislative functions in the state.
A source in the House of Representatives hinted that these were some of the anomalies the 21-member panel wanted to address when it summoned the Administrator.
The source, who craved anonymity for lack of authorisation to make public comments on the matter, said it’s apparent the House has washed its hands off the Rivers affairs.
“There is more to the indefinite postponement of the interactive session between the Reps panel and the Rivers Administrator than what is being served the public.
“The indefinite postponement, as announced by the House, may as well be ad infinitum. It’s a clever way of saying that Rivers is a no-go-area for the federal legislature.
Emergency Rule: Why House Of Reps Rescheduled Rivers Administrator’s Summon is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
By LISA MASCARO, Associated Press Congressional Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) — First the nation’s top law firms. Then its premier universities. Now, President Donald Trump is leaning on the advocacy groups that underpin U.S. civil society.
Trump said Thursday that the administration is looking at the tax-exempt status not just of Harvard, but environmental groups and specifically the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. It could be a devastating financial blow to the nonprofit organizations — and his perceived political foes.
The president’s remarks, during an event at the White House, began to confirm what advocacy groups have been quietly warning: Trump’s campaign of retribution is coming next for them.
President Donald Trump waits as members of the press are escorted out of the Oval Office after he signed executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“It’s supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said about CREW, in particular. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.”
Trump and his team have been working their way through the nation’s institutions, threatening to chisel away at the independence and autonomy of the law firms, college campuses and now advocacy groups — or putting them at risk of losing their federal funds or professional livelihood.
It’s all coming quickly, not yet 100 days into the new administration, and in ways historically unheard of in this country for their speed and scope. And it’s sending shock waves reverberating throughout the American system.
“It’s a sad day in this country when organizations that provide critical services to their communities are under attack from their government,” said Cole Leiter, executive director of the advocacy group Americans Against Government Censorship. “No administration, Republican or Democratic, should be able to weaponize the weight of the government against their political enemies.”
The list of organizations grows
On their own, Trump’s actions are an almost daily list of executive pronouncements from the White House. The Trump administration has issued orders against the law firms that had cases or attorneys perceived to be against him, and it has made demands of the universities over their rules around campus activism.
Thursday brought potentially more to the stack: Trump singled out CREW, the watchdog group whose founder, Norm Eisen, played a pivotal role in Trump’s first impeachment, and the environmental groups that largely stand at odds with his “drill baby drill” agenda.
Signs rest on the ground at the University of California, Berkeley during a Day of Action for Higher Education protest against the Trump administration on Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Berkeley, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
“Tax exempt status — I mean, it’s a privilege. It’s really a privilege, and it’s been abused by a lot more than Harvard,” Trump said. “We’ll be making some statements. It’s a big deal.”
But taken together, the executive orders and actions and memos are making one thing clear: The Trump administration is eager to test new ways to flex executive power, and dare the courts and Congress to intervene. And there’s more expected to come.
Environmental, immigration and civil society advocacy groups have been bracing for potential threats to their tax-exempt status, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. The person said some expect Trump might start taking action against the environmental groups on Earth Day, which is Tuesday.
These are the largely nonprofit organizations and groups, many based in Washington, advocating for various communities, constituencies and causes.
Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said environmental groups have heard that the Trump administration is preparing executive orders targeting the tax status of environmental groups that work on climate change, as well as that of any foundations that fund their work.
“Trump is marshaling all the power of government to punish his perceived enemies,” Suckling said. “We’ve got a crack legal team and will have him in court within 24 hours. We’re ready and waiting for him to come at us.”
CREW has examined Trump’s affairs for years
CREW has been a leading ethics group in Washington, with Trump long the subject of its probes.
Ahead of the 2024 election, the group was part of the legal effort to disqualify Trump from regaining the White House under the 14th Amendment, in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. More recently, CREW sued over the firing of federal workers by Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency.
“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” said Jordan Libowitz, the organization’s vice president.
Trump’s attacks on civil society have created a climate that is potentially chilling for the organizations in question — but they have had mixed results.
Five of the major law firms and Trump reached a deal in which they agreed to provide a combined hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono counsel to causes the administration says it supports. The firms are trying to avoid various sanctions, including terminated federal contracts, federal employment investigations over diversity hiring and others.
While Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s demands to overhaul its rules for public protests rather than risk billions of dollars in lost federal funds, Harvard rebuffed the administration and now faces a $2 billion federal funding freeze and the threat to its tax-exempt status.
The tax-exempt status allows nonprofit organizations to receive donations that are crucial to their financial bottom line. Changing that could, in some situations, lead to calamity.
“Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy,” Libowitz said. “We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”
Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed to this report.
Zaporozhye, Zaporozhye Province, Ukraine, April 17, 2025
Photo: TelegramHis Eminence Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye, one of the most outspoken hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, has condemned the LGBT film festival that will open in Kiev on Holy Friday and called upon other religious leaders to raise their voices.
The Sunny Bunny LGBT Film Festival will be held on Holy Friday, Holy Saturday, Holy Pascha, and throughout Bright Week. According to the organizers, the goal of the festival is to “become a significant representative of the Ukrainian and international LGBT community, play a significant role in political and social representation and catalyze changes towards equality in Ukrainian society,” reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
But holy days must not be mocked, Met. Luke writes in his relevant Telegram post.
Our faith calls us to love everyone, he writes, but “love cannot be indifference. True love speaks the truth—with compassion, but also with courage. God loves man but hates sin, so the idea that ‘God loves everyone,’ is inappropriate in such cases.”
He continues:
Holy Friday is the day when the entire Christian world remembers the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross for the salvation of people from sin. Pascha is a celebration of victory over death, a celebration of light, purity and life. Using these days to promote an ideology that contradicts Christian morality is deeply disrespectful not only to believers, but also to the very spiritual essence of the human person.
“This festival isn’t even a malicious joke—it’s an outright outrage,” His Eminence writes.
Given that this outrage is happening on such holy days, it is only natural to ask where is the voice of Ukraine’s spiritual leaders, Met. Luke laments. Given how important religiosity has always been in Ukraine, the silence from spiritual leaders is deafening, he writes.
“We hear statements on political topics, about the social structure, and others—and this is necessary. But where is the word about moral corruption, which is presented under the guise of ‘art?’ Where is the protection of sacred symbols, where is the guidance to the flock, where is the fatherly voice that can stop madness?”
Unfortunately, he writes, the answer is obvious—these spiritual leaders are “busy supporting legislative initiatives aimed at the legal ‘murder’ of my Mother Church, the UOC, tacit consent to the violent seizure of its churches, the beating of the faithful children of the UOC who defend their churches, and the vociferous declaration of the persecution of the UOC as ‘incredible religious freedom.’”
The Metropolitan concludes:
Why is there no joint voice of Orthodox, Catholics, Greek Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Protestants—the voice of reason, faith and conscience? Why is faith silent when unbelief screams?
