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Google said Friday what it thought should change to address a ruling that it had illegally maintained a monopoly over online search: not much. Google's proposal followed the landmark ruling in August by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who said Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search by paying companies like Apple and Samsung to be the search engine that automatically appears when users open a web browser or a smartphone. In response, the government last month asked the judge to force Google to sell Chrome, the world's most popular browser, among other remedies. In Google's own proposal to fix the search monopoly, it asked Mehta to allow it to continue to pay other companies for its search engine to get prime placement. But it said those agreements should be less restrictive than in the past.

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has announced its investment in the US based healthcare BPO -Omega Healthcare Management Services and joins with Goldman Sachs Alternatives as Co-Lead investor. Omega is a leading technology-enabled healthcare management solutions provider. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, said an Ontario Teachers’ press release. ET first reported on 20th December that Ontario Teachers' is all set to acquire a majority stake in Omega. Ontario Teachers' is looking to invest about $700-800 million to buy out existing investor Everstone Capital, valuing Omega at $1.8 billion, ET reported.

The Center for Immigration Studies’ Todd Bensman discusses the cost of illegal immigration on ‘The Bottom Line’ as the issue takes center stage in the congressional budget battle.

Meta Platforms' WhatsApp in a lawsuit accusing Israel's NSO Group of exploiting a bug in the messaging app to install spy software allowing unauthorized surveillance. U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, granted a motion by WhatsApp and found NSO liable for hacking and breach of contract. The case will now proceed to a trial only on the issue of damages, Hamilton said. NSO Group did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Frank McCourt is crafting a fundamental overhaul of TikTok's business model as part of a plan to bid for the Chinese-owned short-form video app, he told Reuters. McCourt, who formerly owned the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said he has received verbal funding commitments totaling $20 billion from a consortium of investors to rescue the app from legal purgatory as it awaits a Supreme Court decision to determine if it will be forced to sell its US operations. His vision for TikTok includes revamping the company's advertising model so that users will have control over the ads and type of content they want to see. Over time, TikTok could earn revenue through ecommerce and licensing data for artificial intelligence training models — with users' consent — which will diminish the business' reliance on ads.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has warned the EU that it must commit to buying “large scale” amounts of U.S. oil and gas or face tariffs, in his first trade salvo against Brussels since his election victory.

midnight government shutdown, defying President-elect Donald Trump's demand to also greenlight trillions of dollars in new debt. Next, the Democratic-controlled Senate would need to pass the bill to ensure the government will be funded beyond midnight (0500 GMT Saturday), when current funding expires. The White House said President Joe Biden intends to sign it into law if they do. The legislation would extend government funding until March 14, provide $100 billion for disaster-hit states and $10 billion for farmers. It would not raise the debt ceiling — a difficult task Trump has pushed Congress to do before he takes office on Jan. 20.

Accel India, an early-stage backer of Flipkart and Swiggy, has closed its eighth fund, securing $650 million in investor commitments, people briefed on the matter said. At the same time, Accel’s global growth fund based in the US has also closed its latest fund with a $1.35 billion corpus, the people said, citing US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. A portion of the funds raised will be allocated to Indian startups in their pre-IPO rounds, the people added. Once formally closed, Accel’s latest fund will boost its total commitments in India to nearly $3 billion. It signals a likely more active strategy by Accel to deploy capital through the India and the US growth funds across various lifecycle stages of startups.

Indian exporters of garments, handicrafts, and engineering goods expect 5-10% gains from the rupee’s depreciation, but more import-dependent sectors such as gems and jewellery and electronics see rising oil and commodity prices offsetting any benefits, trade insiders said. Moreover, the sharper depreciation of the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, and Mexican peso against the US dollar may prompt buyers to pressure Indian exporters to pass on the gains, besides undermining any long-term competitive advantage from the rupee’s fall, they said. The rupee hit an all-time low of 85.09 per dollar on Thursday, crossing the 85 mark for the first time. On Friday, the rupee hit a new low of 85.10/$1. Almost 60% of India’s goods trade is in dollars, and the depreciation will help traditional sectors such as textiles and leather.

Trudeau government in Canada, as ex-House Speaker Newt Gringrich has claimed that the people of Canada and the House is losing confidence in the reigning Canadian PM, based on the way caved in to Trump recently. Gingrich went on to say that Trump has had an undue influence on Trudeau and the overall perspective changed about the Canadian PM in this sudden ceasefire of sots, which was looking impossible at a point when Trudeau was going all guns blazing.

Nvidia investors will soon reap in some awesome benefits in the coming months, when Donald Trump assumes the role of US President after Joe Biden's tenure. This is majorly because of the fact that Trump is considered to be pro-market and some of his economic policies, although reportedly inflationary, may bringing in a bulkload of money for the US Treasury, if reports are to be believed.

US stock market roared back on Friday to nearly halve their losses from what was tracking to be one of the market’s worst weeks of the year. Wall Street index S&P 500 rallied 1.4 per cent toward its best day since Election Day and shaved its loss for the week down to 1.7 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 602 points, or 1.4 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.4 per cent. Superstar stock Nvidia and other Big Tech companies led the market, which got a lift after a report said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than economists expected. It’s an encouraging signal following recent reports suggesting inflation may be tough to get all the way down to the Fed’s 2 per cent goal from its peak above 9 per cent. The threat of higher inflation was one of the reasons Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave this week when the central bank hinted it may deliver fewer cuts to interest rates next year than it earlier expected.

Luigi Mangione is currently in custody of the NYPD for the alleged killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which shook the entire country, while a manhunt for the killer went on or days until Mangione was nabbed very recently. He is now lodged into a Brooklyn prison, which is one of the most dangerous ones in the entire US, and even lodges alleged sex trafficker and hip-hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs, as per reports.

Luigi Mangione shot to the headlines after becoming the prime suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, for which a manhunt went on for days on end until Thompson was captured. NYPD officials had a few field days trying to nab a suspect in this shocking incident, and tried to use every resource at their disposal, and even federal authorities tried to assist them in the case.

Amazon in the peak festive period extended into a second day Friday as the retail behemoth said the labor action would not affect its business, as per a report on AFP. Amazon has experienced «no disruptions at all,» a company spokeswoman told AFP. «And we aren't anticipating any either», AFP reported. The Teamsters union on Thursday launched a strike targeting seven Amazon facilities spaced around the United States. Union officials said the stoppage continued Friday at the same locales.

NYPD precinct in Manhattan. Authorities responded swiftly to assess potential threats.

Party City will close all of its locations in the US due to ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. Employees were told by the CEO that closures would differ depending on the location, with some staying open until February 2025. The retail chain's decades-long presence in the market came to an end when the precise shutdown dates were not made public, as quoted in a report by Times Now. After 40 years in the US market, the retail chain Party City is scheduled to close all of its locations due to the ongoing bankruptcy. According to reports, the CEO of the retail chain informed corporate staff on Friday that all of the chain's locations would close. Nevertheless, the precise dates of the stores' closure have not been disclosed.

Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and EcoHealth Alliance. This effort aimed to collect and study 500,000 unknown viruses with the potential to infect humans, costing an estimated $3 billion. The project, co-led by EcoHealth's Peter Daszak and Wuhan’s Shi Zhengli, proceeded despite biosafety concerns and warnings about national security risks. New documents obtained by US Right to Know (USRTK) highlight these concerns just months before the Covid-19 outbreak. The Global Virome Project aimed to identify and experiment with 99% of undiscovered viruses that could jump from animals to humans. Supported by USAID and the US State Department from 2016 to 2019, the project also involved China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), a company later blacklisted by the Pentagon. The initiative faced scrutiny over transparency, data ownership, and potential national security threats, as the US and Chinese governments were warned about each other’s involvement. Also Read: The Housemaid: When will the Sydney Sweeney thriller release in US and UK

Donald Trump makes a bold statement when he walks out sporting a new hairstyle reminiscent of Home Alone. At his Florida golf club, Donald Trump debuted a new hairstyle that was very different from his trademark bleach-blonde toupee, and his fans are obsessed. Donald Trump caused quite a stir on the internet with his windswept new hairstyle at his Florida golf club. While welcoming supporters at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Tuesday, the president-elect made a bold statement with his new appearance.

The film, which promises to keep audiences on the edge of their seats, has now confirmed its release date in US cinemas on Christmas Day in 2025, as mentioned in a report by Digital Spy.