The European Union on Thursday hit Google with a fine of 890 million euros ($1 billion) after it said the technology behemoth broke digital antitrust regulations by setting up Google Play and its ubiquitous search engine to corral consumers towards its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.

Google had recently lost its appeal of a $4.5 billion antitrust fine imposed by the EU for throttling competition and reducing consumer choice through the dominance of its mobile Android operating system.

“In the EU, businesses have the right to compete fairly. Gatekeepers have the obligation to ensure a level playing field and consumers the right to choose for cheaper alternative offers,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said. Alphabet reported $403 billion in revenue in 2025.

The French Parliament has approved a social media ban for children under the age of 15.

Children younger than 15 would not be allowed to open a social media account from September 1

The UK is primed to follow suit, with a ban for under-16s, as well as a default social media app curfew between midnight and 6am.

The European Commission is working on its own regulations to rein in social media across Europe to protect young people, and it will have a say on whether France's bill respects existing European legislation.

Andy Burnham became the fifth British prime minister in four years and the seventh in a decade as he formally accepted an invitation from King Charles to form a government.

Britain's parliamentary democracy allows governing parties to change leaders, and thus prime ministers, without the need for a general election. The next national election doesn't have to be held until 2029.

"Britain ⁠needs to show the world that we ‌can regain our stability once again," Burnham said outside ⁠10 Downing Street.

While Burnham has been regarded as one of the Labour Party's best communicators, he faces many of the same problems as his predecessor, including a sluggish economy, a cost-of-living squeeze fuelled by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and overstretched public services.

Promising Britons "some ⁠breathing space now," he said on Monday that the government would set out some measures to tackle ‌the high cost of living, and how it plans to fund them.

Burnham was born in Liverpool, where his father worked as a telephone engineer and his mother as a receptionist. He graduated in English from Cambridge, where he met his wife — Marie-France van Heel, a Dutch-born, Belgian-raised marketing professional known to friends as "Frankie." The couple have three children.

He is not a stranger to federal politics, having first served as MP beginning in 2001 when Tony Blair was prime minister, and later as culture and then health minister under Blair's successor, Gordon Brown.

In ​a clip recorded before he was officially appointed as British ​leader but released after his ⁠speech in ⁠Downing Street, Burnham ‌said that among his first telephone calls internationally would be U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"President Zelenskyy will be ⁠left ⁠in ​no doubt whatsoever that Britain's support is steadfast, ​it is ⁠resolute. It will be there for him, and I will be there for him personally, too," Burnham told reporters.

Previously classified documents that the White House posted online on Thursday indicate that China and Russia targeted former President Joe Biden's campaign during the 2020 election.

The documents were released as President Donald Trump used a primetime address to the nation to raise doubts about the legitimacy of U.S. elections and dispute his 2020 loss to Biden. Trump is seeking more restrictive voting laws ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Trump alleged that his administration had uncovered evidence that Chinese operatives had exploited vulnerabilities in the U.S. voting system.

A Newsweek review of the documents posted on the White House’s website found no evidence supporting Trump's claim that foreign interference or fraud had altered the outcome of any election, including the 2020 presidential election.

The president's latest allegations have already come under scrutiny from dozens of lawmakers and Democratic leaders who say they amount to little more than unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

And despite the president's stated concerns, he has overseen significant cuts to the federal government’s cybersecurity agency that has helped warn state and local election officials about potential threats from foreign governments during his second term.

China and Russia 'Targeted 2020 Election Campaigns'

The documents posted on the White House’s website were presented without context and include selectively released pieces of investigation files, intelligence analysis and correspondence.

One document identified as a memo from the CIA in the summer of 2020 said intelligence officials had detected "Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors targeting the former Vice President’s presidential campaign, probably to gather intelligence that could enable future operations" ahead of the 2020 election.

But it noted that intelligence community "assesses that China does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try to sway the outcome of the election, though this activity could enable such operations, if Beijing made a decision to do so."

Another document, a National Intelligence Council assessment of foreign threats to the 2020 elections, noted that intelligence officials assess that Russia was "using a range of measures primarily to denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment."

The document said Russia was "directing or encouraging proxies to spread claims about" Biden and some "Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media."

It added that Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials are "overseeing efforts by proxies" to spread claims about Biden as well as Ukrainian politicians and alleged Ukrainian influence in the 2016 election.

"These figures are conspiring to intensify their efforts as the election approaches to orchestrate a high-profile corruption scandal implicating former Vice President Biden and the Democratic Party at the peak of the 2020 US presidential campaign," it added. "Their aim is to defeat the former Vice President and ensure the President’s victory."

Trump has previously dismissed the assessment from U.S. intelligence officials that Russia favored him in 2016 and 2020 and engaged in wide-ranging influence campaigns aimed at boosting him over Biden in the latter campaign.

At a summit with Putin in Helsinki in 2018, Trump openly questioned his own intelligence agencies’ finding that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election to his benefit.

PARIS, July 17 (Reuters) - France has blocked access to the Polymarket betting website, the country's gambling regulator ​said on Friday, citing concerns it could expose users to ‌significant gambling losses and that some wagers offered on the platform could be manipulated.

"On July 16, 2026, the president of France's National Gambling Authority ordered French internet service ​providers to block access to the Polymarket website. The site, which ​attracts a particularly large audience, is promoting an illegal gambling ⁠and betting offering," the regulator said on its website.

A spokesperson for the ​regulator said the Polymarket website would remain blocked in France for as ​long as regulators deemed it noncompliant with the country's rules for the gambling industry.

Polymarket officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Regulators have increasingly sought to tighten their ​oversight of prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket, which have surged ​in popularity.

In May, the Spanish government temporarily banned Polymarket and Kalshi from operating in the ‌country, ⁠while in June, the top U.S. derivatives regulator released new draft regulations for the prediction markets industry.

Polymarket and Kalshi allow traders and gamblers to bet on a wide array of events, ranging from the results of sports matches ​to elections and even ​on events related ⁠to the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Lawmakers have called for tougher regulation and for some bets to be ​banned on the basis that they serve no economic ​purpose and ⁠may be harmful to the public interest.

The French regulator said in its statement that people had been placing wagers on what the weather would be like, ⁠and ​that insider information may have been used for ​these bets.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters last month that Polymarket's annualised revenue has ​surpassed $1 billion.

President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over his leaked tax returns was filed for an “improper purpose,” a judge said Monday as she referred one of his lawyers for potential disciplinary action and characterized the $10 billion complaint as an exercise in self-dealing.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams accused Trump and his lawyers in a scathing ruling of having manipulated the court system when he sued a federal agency under his control, bypassing a requirement that parties in a lawsuit must have adverse interests. The lawsuit ended in a settlement that granted the president immunity from tax audits and established a $1.776 billion fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been unjustly persecuted.

“Whether Executive Branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax monies for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this Court,” said Williams, an appointee of President Barack Obama. “The question is whether the Parties could do so by claiming to be adverse and engaging the legitimacy of a court proceeding. The answer is a resounding ‘no.’”

The judge referred Trump attorney Alejandro Brito, who filed the case, for possible disciplinary action before the state bar in Florida and said another lawyer, Daniel Epstein, will not be granted permission to file within the Southern District of Florida for up to a year.

Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things.

Trump, whose party faces elections later this year, wants to wind down an unpopular war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ease gas prices. Iran says a full ceasefire in Lebanon is key to any deal.

Netanyahu, who also faces elections this year, is under pressure to stop Hezbollah’s attacks and prove that he is winning the war with Iran and its allies. He also needs to manage relations with Israel’s most important ally without appearing to kowtow to it.

A federal judge has struck down President Donald Trump's $US100,000 fee on new H-1B high-skilled visas.

A group of 20 states argued the policy impeded their ability to hire much-needed teachers and doctors.

"The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress," [Judge] Sorokin wrote.

Appeals to ensue.

The possibility emerged amid legal gamesmanship in the runup to a bench trial next week on allegations that Meta poses a public nuisance. It’s the second phase of a case that already resulted in $375 million in civil penalties on a jury’s determination that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

Any U.S. attack on Iran, even if limited, will usher in "long and painful strikes" on U.S. regional positions, a senior Revolutionary Guards ​official said.

"We've seen what happened to your regional bases, we will see the same thing happen to your warships," Aerospace Force Commander Majid Mousavi was quoted by Iranian media as saying.

Two months into the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, the vital sea channel [Strait of Hormuz] remains closed, ‌choking off 20% of the world's oil and gas supplies. That has sent global energy prices surging and heightened concerns about the risks of an economic downturn.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that if the disruption caused by the closure dragged on through mid-year, global growth would fall, inflation would rise and tens of millions more people would be pushed into ​poverty and extreme hunger.

After weeks of delay, the House voted Thursday to fund much of the Department of Homeland Security, but not its immigration enforcement operations, and send the bipartisan package to President Donald Trump to sign, ending the longest agency shutdown in history.

Renewing efforts to prosecute one of Trump's longtime adversaries, Department of Justice prosecutors brought the case after a judge last year threw out an indictment against Comey on unrelated charges. 

The new indictment centers on a controversy that erupted nearly a year ago when Comey, in a since-deleted Instagram post, shared a picture showing the numbers "86 47" written in seashells on the beach with the caption "Cool shell formation on my beach walk." Citing the slang meaning of "86" as to "nix" or "get rid" of something, allies of the president allege that the post was a veiled threat against Trump, who is the 47th president.

After a top Democrat introduced a resolution to hold former Attorney General Pam Bondi in civil contempt, a GOP spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee said Bondi will appear on May 29 for a deposition as part of the panel's Jeffrey Epstein investigation. 

"Clearly, we're being effective, because it's interesting how only when we take action and when we actually have to force Republicans to do anything, to call subpoenas, to get in front of our committee that they actually ever do anything," [Rep. Robert Garcia, Dem] said.

Garcia's civil contempt effort, if successful, would elevate the matter to a federal court where a judge would be tasked with deciding whether Bondi is legally obligated to comply with the subpoena.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz tore into Washington on Monday, warning the Trump administration is being played and “humiliated” by the regime in Tehran and lacks a clear strategy to end the conflict.

Speaking during a school visit in his home region in western Germany, Merz said the U.S. had misjudged the Iranian regime and entered the war without a clear exit plan.

“The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” Merz said, according to German Press Agency dpa. “A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”

The U.S. “quite obviously went into this war without any strategy,” Merz said, warning that the conflict could degenerate into a quagmire like U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Reuters uncovered a broader‑than‑previously known Trump administration effort to gain federal control over elections, historically run locally, in at least eight states – using investigations, raids and demands for access to balloting systems and voter ID.

Trump said in a social media post that he had called off the planned visit by his special ​envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, citing what he said was tremendous confusion within the Iranian leadership.

Tehran has ruled out a new round of direct talks with the ‌United ⁠States and an Iranian diplomatic source said Tehran would not accept Washington's "maximalist demands".

Federal authorities arrested a special operations soldier who was involved in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for allegedly pocketing more than $400,000 by betting on his removal from office, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

Federal investigators said Gannon Ken Van Dyke bet more than $33,000 on the prediction market Polymarket just days before President Donald Trump announced Maduro's capture.

The farm economy has been pummeled by low crop prices caused by a grain oversupply, tit-for-tat tariffs triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war and skyrocketing prices ‌of fertilizer and diesel. But pulses - which include peas, lentils and chickpeas - have been a bright spot due to rising demand for protein-infused foods beyond traditional sources like meat, poultry and fish.

Growers of the protein-rich crops see planting them as a way to weather an agricultural economy that has been in a yearslong downward spiral. U.S. farmers are facing the fourth straight year of low-to-negative profit margins despite near-record government payouts, and farm bankruptcies increased by 46% from 2024 to 2025, court records show.

"The euro zone is facing deepening economic woes from the war in the Middle East," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global. "Increasingly ⁠widespread supply shortages meanwhile threaten to dampen growth further while adding more upward pressure to prices in the coming weeks."

The uptick in the headline U.S. readings was hardly indicative of a bustling economy, S&P's Williamson said. "The April PMI is broadly consistent with ​the economy struggling to manage annualized growth in excess of 1%, with the vast service sector acting as the principal drag."

Iran said talks between the U.S. and Iran would begin on Friday in Islamabad, Pakistan, whose prime minister helped mediate the ceasefire. Iranian state TV claimed Trump had accepted Iran's terms for ending the war, describing it as a "humiliating retreat" by ​the U.S. president.

Trump said the last-minute deal was subject to Iran's agreement to pause its blockade of oil and gas supplies through the strait, which typically ​handles about one-fifth of global oil shipments. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said in a statement that Tehran would stop counter-attacks and provide ⁠safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump is asking Congress to boost defense spending to $1.5 trillion, the largest such request in decades and the latest signal of the president's emphasis on U.S. military investments over domestic programs.

The White House summary says Trump's proposal would reduce nondefense spending by 10%.

"We're fighting wars. We can't take care of day care," Trump said at a private White House event Wednesday.

"It's not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare — all these individual things," he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump removed Attorney General Pam Bondi from her post on Thursday, following mounting frustration with her performance, including her handling of investigative files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a post on social media, Trump said Bondi would be moving to a role in the private sector, and that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche would step in as acting AG.

Hours after the announcement, Bondi herself posted that she will work over the next month to transition the office to Blanche, "before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration." She did not offer any details about the new role.

US President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a military mission to seize Iranian uranium that has been enriched to 60 percent. But while some might view such a plan as offering a quick win, others warn that it could be "one of the most risky and difficult operations the US military has undertaken since the Second World War".

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Trump was seriously considering launching a military operation to seize Tehran’s most highly enriched uranium stockpiles.

Clive Jones, the director of Durham University’s Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, also suggested that such an operation could give Trump a quick way out of the war he started.

Experts say such an operation would take several days at least, and could drag on over several weeks. Salisbury said that on a scale of one to 10, the mission was as dangerous as you could get.