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In the ongoing battle of the Tims, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company plans to appeal a judge’s ruling yesterday that it has violated a court order in a legal fight with Fortnite maker Epic Games.

“We strongly disagree,” he said on a conference call with analysts after quarterly earnings. “We have complied with the court’s order and we are going to appeal,” he said in response to question about the scathing judgement yesterday in the antitrust fight that dates back to 2021.

Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez said Apple knowingly violated a court order prohibiting it from collecting fees on purchases made outside of iOS apps. It held the company in contempt and referred Apple and one of its executives to federal prosecutors for a possible criminal investigation.

“No Fees on web transactions. Game over for the Apple Tax,” gloated Tim Sweeney on X.

No Fees on web transactions.

Update 1/27: Judge Amit Mehta, responding to a motion by the Trump Department of Justice, has removed all post-release restrictions on Stewart Rodes and the other Oath Keepers whose sentences were commuted. Mehta’s order rules that DOJ’s expansive reading on Trump’s vaguely written commutation, to include not only the prison sentence but also supervised release, is “reasonable,” and therefore “will not be enforced.”

The federal judge who oversaw the conviction of militia honcho Stewart Rhodes has barred him — and the other notorious Oath Keepers whose Jan. 6 sentences...

Donald Trump has issued a blanket pardon to 1,500 of individuals who were convicted of offenses or faced charges relating to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He also signed 14 commutations, deeming the offenders to have fulfilled their sentences with time served.

“This is January 6,” Trump said, sitting in the Oval Office, holding a black folder with the proclamation. “And these are the hostages. Approximately 1,500 for a pardon. Full pardon.”

The clemency will extend to high-profile convictions for seditious conspiracy, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio,...

With Donald Trump winning back the White House, his Big Lie that Jan. 6 was just an enthusiastic rally that got out of hand, rather than an insurrectionist mob he unleashed to disrupt the count of the 2020 electoral college, has new currency.

A new congressional Republican report, spearheaded by Maga lapdog Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) has recommended a criminal probe of former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) for co-chairing the House Jan. 6 investigation. Loudermilk’s report reached a through-the-looking-glass conclusion that Cheney & co. had promoted “a false, pre-determined narrative that President Trump...

Shares of mighty Alphabet are down about 7% today after the U.S. Department of Justice said it should sell its Chrome web browser among other remedies after the tech giant lost a landmark antitrust case last summer.

Government lawyers said in a filing that splitting Google’s dominant search engine from Chrome, which controls about two-thirds of the browser market, as well as from its Android operating system, is necessary to ensure a competitive Internet.

The filing comes after U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in San Francisco ruled in August that Google had violated antitrust laws “by maintaining its monopoly” on product markets including search. “After having carefully considered the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote. “It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”

The DOJ’s filing requests what...

The government’s antitrust victory over Google has cleared the way for a lawsuit against the company from Yelp, a competing online service that lets users find and review local businesses.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, Yelp accuses Google of leveraging its monopoly power in general search to divert people away from local search providers and toward its own offerings. It seeks a court order blocking Google from further engaging in anticompetitive conduct, as well as unspecified monetary damages.

The filing of the complaint follows a federal judge earlier this month finding that the tech giant violated antitrust laws by building a moat around its monopoly over search through anticompetitive agreements, such as exclusive deals with Apple and Samsung to have Google as the default search engine on their phones and browsers. The decision is expected to have ripple effects across the digital ad market,...

A federal judge ruled that Google violated antitrust laws “by maintaining its monopoly” on two product markets, search and general text advertising.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta came after a landmark trial last year in Washington, D.C.

“After having carefully considered the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote. “It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”

Read the Google antitrust ruling.

The case will next enter a remedy phase, where the judge will determine what action Google has to take to resolve the antitrust issues.

The judge said that Google’s distribution agreements — in which it was placed as the default search engine on browsers, Apple and Samsung mobile devices and wireless carriers — have foreclosed competition. The judge noted that Google paid $26 billion in 2021 on...

Google has been found to have violated antitrust laws by building a moat around its monopoly over search.

In a ruling that could have sweeping impact in the digital ad market, a federal judge sided with the government in a landmark antitrust case over allegations that competitors were sidelined and customers got a lower-quality experience on the internet due to the tech giant’s dominance in search. The court pointed to exclusive deals with other companies, like Apple and Samsung, to have Google as the default search engine on their phones and browsers.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” wrote U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.

In the following months, the court is expected to decide on structural relief, which could mean divestitures or changes to the way the company is allowed to run its business.

The ruling marks the government’s...

Elon Musk‘s X, formerly Twitter, has aggressively gone after watchdogs reporting on the hate speech that came to saturate the platform after he bought it in 2022. The company argues that such research is to blame for major advertisers — the ones Musk famously told to “go fuck yourself” — abandoning ship.

So far, legal attacks on organizations pointing out X’s abundance of extremist content have been rebuffed: a judge tossed X’s suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate in March on First Amendment grounds, ruling that Musk’s...

Former President Donald Trump‘s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., visited former Trump adviser Peter Navarro in federal prison. Navarro faces a sentence of four months after he was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress related to the January 6 investigations.

Navarro failed to provide the necessary information, including documents and testimony, to the former January 6 House committee by evading a congressional subpoena. Navarro claimed that former President Trump had asserted executive privilege to maintain confidentiality. However, no evidence of Trump invoking the privilege was ever presented.

Navarro attempted to appeal his prison sentence twice to the U.S. Supreme Court, once to Chief Justice John Roberts and again to Justice Neil Gorsuch. Both Justices denied his requests. Later, District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Navarro to six months in prison and a fine of $600,000.

Trump Jr. claimed he visited Navarro to show support for “a good man” who was “wrongfully convicted.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected former Trump adviser Peter Navarro‘s bid to stay out of prison while he appeals his conviction for evading a congressional subpoena.

Navarro, 74, was charged with two counts of contempt of Congress after he refused to cooperate with the House January 6 committee investigating the Capitol Riot. Navarro failed to provide documents to the committee and refused to testify. Navarro cited former President Donald Trump‘s executive privilege to maintain confidentiality. However, there is no evidence that Trump ever asserted the privilege or that it would apply in this case.

This is Navarro’s second attempt to stay out of prison. In March, Chief Justice John Roberts denied Navarro’s first request. Navarro was ordered to report to a federal prison in Miami on March 19. Navarro renewed his request to Justice Neil Gorsuch. The motion was brought to a full court for a vote. Previously,...

A judge on Friday moved to halt an investigation by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) into the liberal watchdog journalism organization Media Matters, issuing a preliminary injunction in the case.

Calling Media Matters a “radical left-wing” and “anti-free speech organization,” Paxton claimed to be investigating “potential fraudulent activity” by the group under Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act, in response to its reporting about X — the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone said in a statement on Friday evening that X owner...

On Tuesday morning, Donald Trump ally and former White House aide Peter Navarro reported to prison in Miami to serve a four-month prison sentence.

The move came just hours after Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts denied his appeal of the sentence.

Navarro is the first senior aide to Trump to serve time in association with the plot to overturn the 2020 election.

“I’m pissed. That’s what I’m feeling right now,” Navarro told reporters before entering prison. “But I’m also afraid of only one thing: I’m afraid for this country because this, what they’re doing, should have a chilling effect on every American regardless of their party. They come for me, they can come for you.”

In September 2023, a jury found Navarro guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress.

Four months later, the Justice Department sought a sentence of six months in prison...

Peter Navarro, the former White House adviser to Donald Trump, was ordered to report to a federal prison in Miami by March 19.

Back in September 2023, Navarro was found guilty by a jury on two counts of contempt of Congress.

In January, the Justice Department sought a sentence of six months in prison for him after he was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. He was scheduled to be sentenced on January 25.

Prosecutors also wanted a $200,000 fine. In a 20-page sentencing memo, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi stated that prosecutors sought to punish the former White House aide for his bad-faith strategy.

Navarro complained that the legal costs of the case left him bankrupt.

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On January 25, Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison.

The prosecution asked U.S. District Judge...

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta dismissed former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro‘s plea to avoid incarceration while he appeals his criminal conviction for defying a subpoena from the January 6 select committee.

Mehta stated that Navarro’s claim of potential success on appeal was insufficient grounds to postpone the four-month prison sentence handed down last month.

The judge rejected multiple arguments put forth by Navarro and underscored that his claims of testimonial immunity, executive privilege and other defenses lacked merit. While Navarro asserted political bias, Mehta ruled that Navarro’s claims of political bias were unfounded and lacked substance. If the ruling stands, Navarro may become the first member of Trump’s inner circle to face imprisonment for crimes connected to attempts to undermine the 2020 election.

Navarro cited past court rulings from the Nixon era to argue for a postponement of his sentence while he appeals, citing the...

On Thursday morning, former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison for two charges of contempt of Congress following his refusal to cooperate with the congressional investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot.

The prosecution has asked U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to deliver the sentence of six months with a fine of $600,000. Navarro’s counsel asked to have the sentence not exceed six months with a fine of $100,000.

Navarro argued that he did not have to cooperate due to former President Donald Trump‘s executive privilege rights, although Navarro never established that Trump had asserted the privilege in his case.

“The words executive privilege are not magical incantations,” Mehta said. “It’s just not, it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. I have a great deal of respect for your client and what he’s achieved professionally, I do. Which makes it all the more disappointing,...

Peter Navarro — the former Trump adviser who has bragged openly about working to overturn the results of the 2020 election — was sentenced to four months in prison on Thursday for contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 Committee.

The sentence, handed down by Judge Amit Mehta, is the same one that was given to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress in 2022. Mehta also fined Navarro $9,500.

Navarro was not happy outside the courtroom after he was sentenced, where he was heckled by protesters. “This...

Update: Google’s market dominance has been due to the company’s continuous innovation in its search engine, not by exclusionary conduct that stifle competitors like Microsoft’s Bing, the company’s lead attorney said in his opening statement in the landmark antitrust trial on Tuesday.

John E. Schmidtlein, lead attorney for Google, said that Microsoft failed to win over consumers with Bing because it did “invest, innovate and prioritize the development of search.” He said that Microsoft, having been beaten in the market, chose instead to focus on its Windows operating software.

The Justice Department and state plaintiffs claim that Google’s deals to become the default browser on search engines and phones have given it an unfair advantage over rivals.

But Schmidtlein said that browers like Mozilla and Apple conducted competitions on which search engine would be the default and that Google won “on the merit.” Apple’s Safari,...

Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, whose members stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, has been sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy. The sentence is the longest yet for a conviction on charges related to the 2021 uprising.

Kelly Meggs — a top Oath Keepers deputy from Florida who led the militia’s charge of the Capitol wearing a patch reading, “I’M Just Here For The Violence” — received a sentence of 12 years on the same sedition charge.

Rhodes was convicted last November of the plot to block, by force,...

Brian Ulrich, an Oath Keeper from Georgia, has pleaded guilty to participating in the seditious conspiracy plot that sought to keep Donald Trump in power by force, as well to obstruction of an official proceeding — the certification of the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.

A tearful Ulrich entered his plea, virtually, in the courtroom of Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. This marks the second guilty plea in the seditious conspiracy case, and Ulrich has promised to cooperate with prosecutors. Ulrich, who is in his mid 40s,...

Stewart Rhodes — the founder of the Oath Keepers — will be jailed until he faces trial on charges he plotted a “seditious conspiracy” to block the peaceful transfer of power and keep president Biden out of the White House by force.

Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee on the D.C. District Court, passed down the ruling Friday afternoon, denying a plan proposed by Rhodes’ legal team that would have let the militia leader live with a cousin in California.

Mehta characterized Rhodes as “extremely sophisticated,” and likely able to undermine...

A federal judge on Friday refused to dismiss lawsuits against Donald Trump, rejecting the president’s legal team’s argument that there was no way he incited violence when he told people the 2020 election was stolen, called them to a mass demonstration in Washington, and then exhorted them to “flight like hell” in defense of the country.

Trump faces lawsuits attempting to hold him accountable for the Jan. 6 violence, arguing that his actions in the run-up to the deadly riot make him partly responsible. Of the three civil lawsuits, two...

Kino Lorber has acquired U.S. rights to writer-director Ajitpal Singh’s debut feature, “Fire in the Mountains,” which premiered in the World Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival in 2021.

A powerful feminist tale set in a tourist homestay in the Himalayan foothills of northern India, the film centers around a woman (Vinamrata Rai), the sole breadwinner of the household, who scrimps and saves for her son’s medical treatment, while her alcoholic husband believes that an expensive shamanic ritual is the answer to all their woes.

The film is produced by Alan McAlex and Ajai Rai of prolific Indian arthouse producers Jar Pictures alongside Mauli Singh and Amit Mehta. Jar previously produced Busan title “Children of the Sun” and Toronto title “The Elder One.”

Kino Lorber will open the film at Film Forum in New York this spring, followed by a theatrical rollout in the U.S. and...

A judge in a Jan. 6 case laid the blame for the insurrection at the feet of former President Trump. Judge Amit Mehta at a sentencing hearing on Friday said that the people who stormed the Capitol are paying the price while Trump and others who “created the conditions” causing the riot haven’t been “held to account for their actions and their word.”

Mehta made the remarks while sentencing John Lolos, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegally parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the U.S. Capitol. Although...

Feature directing debutant Ajitpal Singh’s “Fire In The Mountains,” the lone Indian film in Sundance 2021’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition, is a powerful feminist tale told by a male who learnt to face down his own prejudices.

Set in a tourist homestay in the Himalayan foothills of northern India, the film centers around a woman (Vinamrata Rai), the sole breadwinner of the household, who scrimps and saves for her son’s medical treatment, while her alcoholic husband believes that an expensive shamanic ritual is the answer to all their woes.

Singh, who had previously directed several shorts, including the Oberhausen festival-winning “Rammat-Gammat” (2018), says that he found himself not heeding advice from his wife, sister and mother, while having plenty of time to listen to the men of the house.

“I understood my own prejudices, how it’s so deep-rooted, and how just with education and by reading books, it doesn’t just go away,...

By now, all of us know that Desi Magic is the film which will be Ameesha Patel's maiden film as a producer. With the kind of publicity blitzkrieg that is hovering around the film, the film is definitely generating lots of curiosity amongst the cinegoers. The Usp of this film is that Ameesha is playing a double role for the first time in her career. Talking about her role, she said that, in this film she plays two diametrically opposite characters. When asked about her 'twin role' as an actor as well as a producer, she said that while the production house is Kuunal Goomer's brainchild, it was him who coaxed her to set up a company with him. While on his part, Kuunal said that Ameesha and he started with the production house with an aim to make good films. He added that as far as the cast...

Veebha Anand, who plays Sugna in Balika Vadhu on Colors, enters Sukh By Chance on Sony. The teenage actress will play an interning doctor and will be paired with Amit Mehta (Anuj Thakur). She will play his love interest. Anand confirms the news and feels that doing other shows is an attempt at trying out different kinds of roles.“I don’t want to be typecast in one kind of role only. I would love people to remember Sugna, but I would also want them to remember my other characters. That’s the reason I agreed, when Jd sir ...

Tribeca Film Festival

A taut and uncharacteristically intelligent crime thriller, this first feature from director Dominique Forma, while unlikely to reap significant commercial exposure in a marketplace saturated with explosives-laden suspensers, is a significant industry calling card. Its simple premise, handled with wit and style in Dan Golka and Amit Mehta's screenplay (from a story by the director), has the focus of a one-act play, only occasionally lapsing into cutesy excess. "Scenes of the Crime" was recently showcased at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Lenny (John Abrahams), who likes to style himself after Steve McQueens's ultracool persona in "Bullitt", is a young mechanic and occasional driver for low-level Los Angeles criminals like Rick (Peter Greene), who enlists him one morning for a quick chauffeuring gig. Lenny soon finds himself in over his head when it turns out the job consists of kidnapping a wealthy and mob-connected businessman, Jimmy (Jeff Bridges), whom Rick intends to kill.

Before he can accomplish the task, though, he's taken out himself, thanks to Jimmy's unflappable if slightly delinquent bodyguard Seth (Noah Wyle). A standoff ensues, with Lenny holding his hostage in his van parked outside a deli while Seth and his associate (rocker Henry Rollins) keep their eyes on him. While Jimmy's partner (Bob Gunton) and Rick's boss (Brian Goodman) engage in negotiations over the situation, the ever persuasive and smooth Jimmy tries to convince Lenny that his best course is to let him go. The tense conversations are periodically interrupted by a series of crises, involving a pair of window washers, a dotty old man R. Lee Ermey) and the owners of a nearby convenience store (Morris Chestnut, Madchen Amick).

The sharp dialogue and intricate plotting, not to mention the incisive if terse characterizations, make for a tense, tightly wound experience, well orchestrated by director Forma. The performances are another plus; Bridges conveys a sharp cunning with just the right hint of underlying menace, and Wyle, in an interesting departure from his sensitive "ER" persona, is convincingly cool and confident as his henchman. Brian Goodman brings real humor to his role as a soft-talking but tough-as-nails hood, and Gunton and Ermey contribute sharp supporting turns. While Chestnut and Amick's roles seem superfluous, they handle their chores in professional fashion, and Abrahams is appealing as the naive but not unintelligent protagonist.