AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT
Justice Dept. files landmark antitrust case against Google
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Tuesday sued Google for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising — the government’s most significant attempt to protect competition since its groundbreaking case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago.
And it could just be an opening salvo. Other major tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook are under investigation at both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
“Google is the gateway to the internet and a search advertising behemoth," U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen told reporters. “It has maintained its monopoly power through exclusionary practices that are harmful to competition.”
Lawmakers and consumer advocates have long accused Google of abusing its dominance in online search and advertising. The case filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that Google uses billions of dollars collected from advertisers to pay phone manufacturers to ensure Google is the default search engine on browsers. That stifles competition and innovation from smaller upstart rivals to Google and harms consumers by reducing the quality of search and limiting privacy protections and alternative search options, the government alleges.
Critics contend that multibillion-dollar fines and mandated changes in Google’s practices imposed by European regulators in recent years weren’t severe enough and that structural changes are needed for Google to change its conduct. The Justice Department didn't lay out specific remedies, although it asked the court to order structural relief “as needed to remedy any anticompetitive harm.”
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In debate countdown, Trump holds rally, Biden does prep
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump shunned formal debate practice Tuesday and was heading instead for another of his big rallies, two days ahead of the final presidential debate that may be his last, best chance to alter the trajectory of the 2020 campaign. Democrat Joe Biden took the opposite approach, holing up for debate prep.
In the leadup to Thursday's faceoff in Nashville, Trump is trailing in polls in most battleground states as he works to pull off a repeat of his come-from-behind victory of 2016. Also trailing in fundraising for campaign ads, Trump is increasingly relying on his signature campaign rallies to deliver a closing message to voters and maximize turnout among his GOP base.
Three weeks of wrangling over the debate format and structure appeared to have subsided Tuesday after the Commission on Presidential Debates unveiled a rules change meant to reduce the chaotic interruptions that plagued the first Trump-Biden encounter last month.
This time, Trump and Biden will each have his microphone cut off while his rival delivers an opening two-minute answer to each of the six debate topics, the commission announced. The mute button won't figure in the open discussion portion of the debate.
Trump's team is calling for a more in-depth focus on foreign policy in the debate, believing it to be a strong suit for the incumbent, but there is not expected to be any shift away from the announced topics, which include a segment devoted to national security.
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AP finds most arrested in protests aren't leftist radicals
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump portrays the hundreds of people arrested nationwide in protests against racial injustice as violent urban left-wing radicals. But an Associated Press review of thousands of pages of court documents tells a different story.
Very few of those charged appear to be affiliated with highly organized extremist groups, and many are young suburban adults from the very neighborhoods Trump vows to protect from the violence in his reelection push to win support from the suburbs.
Attorney General William Barr has urged his prosecutors to bring federal charges on protesters who cause violence and has suggested that rarely used sedition charges could apply. And the Department of Justice has pushed for detention even as prisons across the U.S. were releasing high-risk inmates because of COVID-19 and prosecutors had been told to consider the risks of incarceration during a pandemic when seeking detention.
Defense attorneys and civil rights activists are questioning why the Department of Justice has taken on cases to begin with. They say most belong in state court, where defendants typically get much lighter sentences. And they argue federal authorities appear to be cracking down on protesters in an effort to stymie demonstrations.
“It is highly unusual, and without precedent in recent American history,” said Ron Kuby, a longtime attorney who isn’t involved in the cases but has represented scores of clients over the years in protest-related incidents. “Almost all of the conduct that’s being charged is conduct that, when it occurs, is prosecuted at the state and local level.”
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Trump ups pressure on Barr to probe Bidens as election nears
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on Attorney General William Barr to immediately launch an investigation into unverified claims about Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter, effectively demanding that the Justice Department muddy his political opponent and abandon its historic resistance to getting involved in elections.
With just two weeks to go before Election Day, Trump for the first time explicitly called on Barr to investigate the Bidens and even pointed to the nearing Nov. 3 election as reason that Barr should not delay taking action. Trump has been leveling accusations of corruption against Biden without verified evidence for months, but is stepping up the pressure in the final days of the campaign.
“We’ve got to get the attorney general to act,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends.” “He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election.”
Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, suggested that Trump’s pressure campaign on Barr has moved into uncharted territory for presidential politics.
“The question is, Does Barr erode the guidelines and reforms from the post-Watergate era and move forward with this?” Zelizer said. “We are seeing a total politicization of the justice system in the final stages of an election.”
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Leaders in US, Europe divided on response to surging virus
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Virus cases are surging across Europe and many U.S. states, but responses by leaders are miles apart, with officials in Ireland, France and elsewhere imposing curfews and restricting gatherings even as some U.S. governors resist mask mandates or more aggressive measures.
The stark contrasts in efforts to contain infections come as outbreaks on both sides of the Atlantic raise similar alarms, including shrinking availability of hospital beds and rising deaths.
Governors of states including Tennessee, Oklahoma, Nebraska and North Dakota are all facing calls from doctors and public health officials to require masks.
In Utah, a spike in cases since school reopened has created a dynamic that Republican Gov. Gary Herbert has called “unsustainable.”
But Herbert, who has been pressured by an outspoken contingent of residents opposed to masks, has resisted a statewide mandate. Instead, he announced last week that they would be required only in six counties with the highest infection rates, while leaving it to others to make their own rules. Meanwhile, many hospitals are being pushed to the breaking point.
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McConnell warns White House against COVID relief deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday told fellow Republicans that he has warned the White House not to divide Republicans by sealing a lopsided pre-election COVID-19 relief deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — even as he publicly said he'd slate any such agreement for a vote.
McConnell made his remarks during a private lunch with fellow Republicans on Tuesday, three people familiar with his remarks said, requesting anonymity because the session was private.
The Kentucky Republican appears worried that an agreement between Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would drive a wedge between Republicans, forcing them to choose whether to support a Pelosi-blessed deal with Trump that would violate conservative positions they've stuck with for months. Many Republicans say they can't vote for another huge Pelosi-brokered agreement.
McConnell's move dampens even further any potential for an agreement and comes as Pelosi and Mnuchin have arrived at a critical phase of their talks if any relief is going to be enacted by Election Day. The contours of a potential deal are taking shape behind the scenes even as President Donald Trump's GOP allies are recoiling at the administration's tolerance for a $2 trillion package.
McConnell said if such a bill passed the Democratic-controlled House with Trump's blessing “we would put it on the floor of the Senate.” Those public remarks came after the private session with fellow Republicans.
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Safety board: Lack of oversight blamed for deadly boat fire
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The lack of oversight by a Southern California boat owner led to a fire that killed 34 people on a 2019 scuba diving excursion, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled Tuesday.
The predawn fire aboard the Conception is one of California’s deadliest maritime disasters, prompting criminal and safety investigations. The Sept. 2, 2019, tragedy killed 33 passengers and one crew member on a Labor Day weekend expedition near an island off Santa Barbara.
The five-member board voted unanimously to place the deadly fire's blame with the Conception's owner, Truth Aquatics Inc.
The NTSB board also said inadequate Coast Guard regulations contributed to the high death toll, such as a lack of a requirement for smoke detectors in all accommodation spaces and poor emergency escape arrangements. The board passed several recommendations to suggest to the Coast Guard.
The NTSB does not have enforcement powers and must submit its suggestions for safety enhancements to bodies like the Federal Aviation Administration or the Coast Guard, which have repeatedly rejected some of the board’s safety recommendations after other disasters.
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Altered photo shows Ice Cube, 50 Cent in 'Trump 2020' hats
An altered photo of rappers Ice Cube and 50 Cent in hats that appear to show support for President Donald Trump circulated widely on social media Tuesday, fueled in part by a tweet by Eric Trump.
“Two great, courageous Americans,” Trump’s son tweeted. He removed the tweet with a photo of the two rappers in hats saying “Trump 2020” after being called out by Ice Cube on Twitter.
In the original photo, both entertainers were wearing baseball caps with sports logos. Ice Cube’s hat says “Big3,” a reference to a 3-on-3 basketball league he co-founded, and 50 Cent wears one with the New York Yankees logo. Ice Cube shared the original photo on his Twitter account on July 6 to send a birthday message to 50 Cent.
“Happy birthday to the homie @50cent,” he tweeted with the photo.
The manipulated image was shared thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook since it began gaining attention on Monday.
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Wisconsin voters line up to cast early in-person ballots
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Voters across Wisconsin lined up Tuesday to cast their ballots on the first day of early in-person voting in the presidential battleground state, marking the beginning of the final push to Election Day in two weeks.
Locations and times to vote Tuesday varied across the state, but lines were reported in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha and Sheboygan. Voters can also drop off completed absentee ballots at locations around the state, including in specially installed drop boxes in some larger cities.
“I took about 10 minutes and I was in and out,” said first-time early voter Stuart Check, a 31-year-old attorney from Milwaukee. “I’ll probably vote early from now on because it’s so easy.”
The campaigns of President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, were encouraging their supporters to vote early in Wisconsin, which Trump won by fewer than 23,000 votes four years ago. Trump held a rally in the southern Wisconsin community of Janesville on Saturday.
Biden said in a statement Tuesday that if voters can cast their ballots early, they should.
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US spacecraft diving to asteroid for rare rubble grab
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft descended Tuesday toward the surface of an asteroid 200 million miles away to collect a handful of rubble for return to Earth.
The Osiris-Rex spacecraft dropped out of orbit around asteroid Bennu right on time, beginning a 4 1/2-hour plunge to the rough, boulder-covered face of the ancient space rock.
It was America's first attempt to gather samples from an asteroid, something already accomplished by Japan — twice.
Bennu’s gravity was too low for the spacecraft to land — the asteroid is just 1,670 feet (510 meters) across. As a result, Osiris-Rex has to reach out with its 11-foot (3.4-meter) robot arm while dodging boulders the size of buildings, and attempt to grab at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of Bennu.
It promised to be the most harrowing part of the mission, which began with a launch from Cape Canaveral back in 2016.