By Emily Goodin, senior US political reporter in Washington DC

Published: 4:33 PM EDT, March 22, 2024 | Updated: 11:34 PM EDT, March 22, 2024

Justice officials said Thursday they are suing Apple, saying its devices and software constitute a monopoly and generate huge profits at the expense of customers.

“Every step in Apple’s course of action built and strengthened the moat around its smartphone monopoly,” the lawsuit said.

The U.S. Department of Justice and 15 states allege it used strong demand for its iPhone and other products to drive up prices and hurt smaller rivals in the first major antitrust effort against Apple.

For example, it is claimed that Apple is making it more difficult for competing payment apps and smartwatches to work with iPhones.

Instead, it prioritizes Apple Pay and Watch, rather than PayPal or Garmin, for example. Shares in both companies rose today on news of the lawsuit.

Another major complaint concerns messaging. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said users who try to message owners of other brands of smartphones end up experiencing issues such as videos not being sent.

Apple shares are having their worst day since August 2023 – down 4 percent at one point – on a day when the stock market hit record highs across the board.

Apple joins a list of major tech companies indicted by U.S. regulators, including Alphabet’s Google, Meta Platforms and Amazon.com under the administrations of both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

The lawsuit accuses Apple of five key areas in which it has denied rival companies full access to its technology – in an effort to stifle competition.

In addition to messaging apps, smartwatches and digital wallets, Apple has been accused of blocking competition so-called ‘super apps’ and cloud streaming gaming apps.

Apple is said to be making it harder for competing messaging apps and smartwatches to work with iPhones.

Officials also say it has blocked access to its contactless technology that enables mobile payments – meaning iPhone owners can only use the Apple Pay service.

Meanwhile, App Store rules surrounding game streaming services have hurt competition.

Super apps are apps that combine multiple functions, such as calling, messaging and payments, in one place, making it easier to switch between smartphone platforms. They are common in China and include WeChat.

The Justice Department cited an email chain from Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder who died in 2011, in which he said it “wasn’t nice to see” how easily consumers could switch from iPhones to Android phones and promised to protect developers ‘force’ its payment systems in an effort to capture both developers and consumers.

The case could drag on for years. If the DoJ wins or Apple makes concessions, Apple’s rivals will initially benefit.

But it would also mean better and cheaper apps and products made by third-party companies like Spotify or tracking gadget Tile.

“Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies violate antitrust laws,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Garland said monopoly power is classified by the Supreme Court as “the power to control prices or exclude competition.”

He said: “As outlined in our complaint, Apple has that power in the smartphone market.

“If there’s no doubt about it. Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly.”

The Justice Department alleges that Apple uses its market power to get more money not just from consumers, but also from developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses and merchants.

The 88-page lawsuit, filed in U.S. federal court in Newark, New Jersey, said it aimed to “free the smartphone markets from Apple’s anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct and restore competition to lower smartphone prices for consumers , reduce costs for developers and preserve innovation for the future.”

The case takes direct aim at the digital fortress Apple has built around the iPhone and other popular products like the iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.

They have created what is often called a ‘walled garden’ – where the carefully designed hardware and software can flourish together seamlessly, while the consumer has to do little more than turn on the devices.

But the complaint is that this prevents other companies from working together so seamlessly.

The strategy has helped make Apple one of the largest companies in the world, with annual revenues of nearly $400 billion and, until recently a market value of more than $3 trillion.

Shares of Apple are down 7 percent this year, while most of the stock market has soared to new highs.

It has led to longtime rival Microsoft – the target of a major Justice Department antitrust lawsuit a quarter-century ago – taking the title of the world’s most valuable company.

Apple is already subject to antitrust investigations and injunctions in Europe, Japan and Korea, as well as lawsuits from corporate rivals such as Epic Games.

One of Apple’s most lucrative businesses – the App Store, which charges developers commissions of up to 30 percent – ​​has already survived a lengthy legal challenge under US law by Epic.

Although the lawsuit found that Apple had not violated antitrust laws, a federal judge ordered Apple to allow links and buttons to pay for apps without using Apple’s in-app payment commission.

“We believe this lawsuit is flawed on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend ourselves against it,” Apple said in a statement.

live

Breaking News LIVE Updates: In the latest update, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have continued to solidify their lead in the race for delegates after the primaries.

Latest news LIVE updates: Former US President Donald Trump has won the Republican primary in Illinois, The Hill reported, citing Decision Desk headquarters. However, Trump has already reached the required delegate threshold he needs to clinch the Republican nominations, and his victory in Illinois adds to his winning streak on the Republican Party side. According to a tracker from Decision Desk headquarters, The Hill, there are 64 GOP delegates up for grabs in Illinois. Earlier in 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Illinois by nearly 17 points, and Trump lost the state in 2016 to former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Notably, this year, Biden has emerged as the Democratic pick and will win a whopping 147 state delegates as both head toward a presidential election rematch, The Hill reported.
Trump won the Republican nomination for president on March 13, while Biden won the Democratic nomination a day earlier.

Check out all the latest breaking news updates from around the world here

Insiders claim President Joe Biden is privately “talking” about his disastrous election numbers to his staff and is “angry and concerned” about his 2024 reelection efforts.

The story comes after Biden didn’t get the typical election rating after his State of the Union address last week — and his approval rating is now at a new low of 37.4 percent.

However, reports of the president’s anger date back to January, when aides told him that his voting numbers in the key swing states of Michigan and Georgia had fallen as a result of his handling of Israel’s war against Hamas, although he still believed he had done the same. right thing.

‘He started shouting and cursing’ NBC reports, citing a story that interviewed 20 lawmakers, current and former administration officials and Biden allies.

“President Biden makes national security decisions based solely on the country’s national security needs – and no other factor,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in response.

However, allies say Biden’s frustrations are growing as he questions travel choices and apparent inability to communicate his agenda to the American people.

His weak approval rating is well below the last three presidents who failed to win a second term: George HW Bush (39 percent), Jimmy Carter (43 percent) and his November opponent, Donald Trump (48 percent).

The 81-year-old Biden is reportedly unhappy with those who are said to want to “minimize the chance of catching the flu” and says he is cocooned and wants to make his case to the public and thwart Trump.

The president’s temper toward staff has been detailed in the past, with him often yelling at staff and shouting obscenities.

“He’s probably a little mad at himself for not being more forceful with the staff,” a Biden White House insider claimed, adding that he often gets conflicting advice on how to deal with the perception that he’s too old to do the work.

Many polled by NBC agreed that Biden simply needed to be clearer about what he has done for the country during his first term, citing clean energy projects, high-tech manufacturing and infrastructure.

“There’s a real story to be told,” said Biden supporter and ex-Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

‘It’s a winning message and it’s about jobs, prosperity and evolution. If that message can be delivered, I think the American people will respond.”

However, some Democrats, such as Washington State Congressman Adam Smith, are losing patience.

“Biden stood up in front of the whole world and said, ‘I’m ready. “I am the man who can take down Donald Trump,” he said.

“So he damn well better do it. We don’t have time for him to worry about whether or not people are saying things right or whether the poll numbers are at the right level. I want focused energy and not defensive anger.”

However, campaign chairman Jen O’Malley Dillon remains confident that once Trump is the clear opponent, Biden can beat him again.

“We know he lost in 2020,” she said. “To win, he must expand his voter base to find new people to join him. And that’s not something he’s shown he’s really focused on.”

Biden and former President Donald Trump both reached the number of delegates their respective parties needed for the 2024 nomination in Tuesday’s primaries.

This means that a rematch between the two geriatrics will take place in November, despite the majority of Americans saying they do not want that.

A Yahoo News/YouGov poll The survey, conducted just days after Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, shows that the current president’s chances against Trump actually diminished following his fiery comments.

Before the speech, Trump was up 45 to 44 percent over Biden in the late January poll. While the latest recording from March 8 to 11 is still within the polls’ margin of error and amounts to a statistical tie, Trump is now at 46 percent to Biden’s 44 percent in a hypothetical election battle.

The same poll shows Biden’s approval rating dropping from 40 percent to 39 percent before and after the speech. His disapproval went from 56 percent to 55 percent.

But a FiveThirtyEight average shows that the number of Americans who approve of Biden’s job as president has fallen to a new low of 37.4 percent.

A post-State of the Union Harris X poll estimates Biden’s approval at a flat 37 percent and disapproval at 58 percent. But among those in that survey who did watch the State of the Union, 13 percent more approved of Biden’s job as president, compared to those who did not tune in.

In previous years, State of the Union addresses were a way for presidents to address everyone — and often the comments were accompanied by a backlash.

For example, Trump’s approval rose a few percent after his 2019 speech in February of that year.

Before his State of the Union address, his approval rating was about 37 percent, according to Gallup polls. But after the comments, the same poll showed the then-president rising to 44 percent.

Overall, Biden’s final speech of his first term wasn’t exactly the reset the White House was hoping for amid low approval and mounting criticism of the president’s age and fitness for office.

Fifty-one percent of those who watched the State of the Union say Biden looked 81, according to the YouGov poll. Another 24 percent say he seemed “older” than they expected. Only 17 percent say he didn’t seem that old.

Most polls from the past year show that Americans do not want Biden and Trump (77) as two options in the 2024 presidential election.

But after Tuesday’s primaries in the states of Georgia, Mississippi and Washington, that is exactly the general election ballot Americans will receive in November.

US President Joe Biden made a snide and joking comment about his rival, Republican Party candidate Donald Trump.

Joe Biden vs Donald Trump: The process to elect the next US president has begun and the two contenders, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, are leaving no opportunity to get on the nerves of the others.

In this turn of events, Democratic Party candidate and current US President Joe Biden made a snide and teasing remark about his rival, Republican Party candidate Donald Trump, during a weekend in Washington in which it was said that two candidates were had secured their party’s nomination for president.

“But one was too old, too mentally unfit for the job. The other is me,” Biden said.

It is said that Biden made this statement due to the continued criticism and questioning of his memory and the claim that he appears to be confused.

It was at the annual Gridiron Club and Foundation Dinner that Biden dispelled these perceived doubts by highlighting moments when the 77-year-old Trump also made a mistake.

“Don’t tell him, he thinks he’s running against Barack Obama, that’s what he said,” the 81-year-old Biden said, joking about staying up way past his bedtime.

It was the first time Biden had attended the dinner during his presidency, with the 2024 election just around the corner, in an action replay of the Biden-Trump rematch.

On a serious note, Biden said he sees a real threat to democracy if Trump, who continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen, returns to the White House. The speech had echoes of Biden’s campaign remarks, which both criticized Trump for being too soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We are living in an unprecedented moment in democracy,” he said. “An unprecedented moment in history. Democracy and freedom are literally under attack. Putin is on the march in Europe. My pastor bows to him and tells him: ‘do whatever you want.’

“We will not bow down. They will not bow, and I will not bow,” he said.

Biden was accompanied by his daughter Ashley.

Biden closed the dinner and also spoke about the importance of a free press.

“Good journalism holds a mirror up to society,” he said. “We need you.”

The dinner took place at the Grand Hyatt and no photos or TVs were allowed.

(With AP inputs)

Donald Trump has sparked a liberal media meltdown after warning that there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the election in a fiery speech where he also branded migrants ‘animals.’

The penultimate president painted an apocalyptic vision of the country if Biden wins a second term while speaking at an airfield rally outside of Dayton, Ohio, Saturday to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno.

‘If I don´t get elected, it´s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that´s going to be the least of it. It´s going to be a bloodbath for the country,’ Trump, 77, warned. 

On the subject of immigration and the murder of Laken Riley allegedly at the hands of an undocumented migrant, Trump also described criminal migrants as ‘animals’ – in the latest sign that his campaign rhetoric has become increasingly inflammatory. 

Critics including Nancy Pelosi and a retired FBI boss blasted the incendiary ‘bloodbath’ comment as ‘a threat’ – while MAGA supporters said it had been taken out of context by the press because it came in reference to a clampdown on foreign car imports. 

‘Mexico has taken over a period of 30 years, 34 percent of the automobile manufacturing business in our country,’ Trump said at the Dayton rally. 

‘China now is building a couple of massive plants where they’re going to build the cars in Mexico, and they think that they’re going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border.

‘Let me tell you something to China. If you’re listening President Xi, and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal.

‘Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, if you think you’re going to get that and not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us – no – we’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every car that comes across the line.

‘If I don´t get elected, it´s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that´s going to be the least of it. It´s going to be a bloodbath for the country.’ 

Headlines quickly seized on the ‘bloodbath’ comment, which Trump supporters said was unfair to use without context -involving the outsourcing of the auto industry that the GOP expects to continue if Biden stays in the White House – and prompted Elon Musk to blast the reports as ‘legacy media lies.’

The outcry over his comments quickly poured onto Musk’s X platform, formerly known as Twitter, as users branded Trump as ‘hateful’ ‘grotesque’ and ‘a dangerous lunatic’ over both his ‘bloodbath’ comment and reference to migrants as ‘animals’. 

Retired FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi was among those who raised concerns.

‘Trump says if he’s not elected “It will be a blood bath for the country”,’ Figliuzzi wrote on X. 

‘FYI, if he IS elected, it will also be a blood bath based on his intentions. The choice is as clear as the threat.’

Former house speaker Nancy Pelosi also weighed in. 

‘We just have to win the election, because he’s even predicting a “bloodbath”,’ she told CNN. ‘What does that mean? He’s going to exact a bloodbath? There’s something wrong here. 

‘How respectful I am of the American people and their goodness, but how much more do they have to see from him to understand that this isn’t what our country is about?’   

‘This is so dangerous,’ UCL professor Brian Klaas wrote while reposting the clip from Trump’s speech on X.  

‘Everyone who cares about democracy, rule of law, the Constitution, or the avoidance of death should call this out, denounce it, make clear this is unacceptable. 

‘It is a grotesque indictment of our system that this man could still win the presidency.’

Others said Trump was ‘threatening violence once again’ after the Capitol riot of January 6.

Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer also accused Trump of doubling ‘down on his threats of political violence.’

‘He wants another January 6, but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge,’ Singer charged in a statement.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president had clearly been talking about the impact of a second Biden term on the auto industry and broader economy.

‘Crooked Joe Biden and his campaign are engaging in deceptively, out-of-context editing,’ he said.

Trump also doubled down on his increasingly radical campaign rhetoric in reference to the immigration crisis, after he described migrants as ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ in December. 

‘Among my very first actions upon taking office will be to stop the invasion of our country and to send Joe Biden’s illegal aliens back home,’ he said. 

‘These are the roughest people you’ve ever seen. And now we have a new form of crime. I call it Biden migrant crime, but it’s too long so let’s just call it migrant crime.’

‘Throughout the world right now, crime is way way down, you know why? Because they sent us their criminals, that’s why,’ he added. 

‘Venezuela is down 66 percent because they sent us their gang members and their gangsters. They sent us their drug dealers and their murderers, they’re all coming into our country. 

‘All over the world, crime is down, because they’ve sent them to the United States of America because we have a stupid president that allows this to happen. Stupid.’ 

‘I would do the same thing if I had prisons teeming with MS-13 and all sorts of people that they’ve got to take care of for the next 50 years – young people, if you can call them people, I don’t know if you can call them people,’ he went on. 

‘In some cases they’re not people in my opinion, but I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.

‘They’ll say ‘you’ll have to vote against him because did you hear what he said about humanity?’ I’ve seen the humanity, and these are bad – these are animals, ok.’

Trump also referred to criminal migrants as ‘snakes’ and claimed that ‘what’s happening to our country’ with the influx ‘has not happened before’.

He claimed that ‘no one has been hurt by Joe Biden’s migrant invasion more than our great African American and Hispanic American communities’ along with people on social security because ‘they’re taking our jobs’. 

‘With his open border policy Joe Biden has repeatedly stabbed African American people in the back including by granting millions and millions of work permits taking their jobs,’ Trump said. 

‘The African American community, the Hispanic community are going to be the ones who suffer the most, and you know who else? Unions. Those unions are going to go out of business.’  

Just under an hour into the speech, Trump also appeared to confuse former president Barack Obama with an opponent of Biden’s in the 2020 race. 

‘Joe Biden won against Barack Hussain Obama, has anyone ever heard of him?’ Trump told the crowd. 

‘Every swing state Biden beat Obama, but every other state he got killed. You think that’s an honest election?’ 

Turning back to the subject of the rally, Trump said Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno is ‘going to be a warrior in Washington’. 

Moreno faces Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan in Tuesday’s GOP primary. 

LaRose and Moreno have aligned themselves with the pro-Trump faction of the party, while Dolan is backed by more establishment Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine and former Sen. Rob Portman.

Saturday’s rally was hosted by Buckeye Values PAC, a group backing Moreno´s candidacy. 

A one-time Trump critic, Moreno, a wealthy Cleveland businessman, supported Marco Rubio for president in the 2016 Republican primary, and once tweeted that listening to Trump was ‘like watching a car accident that makes you sick, but you can stop looking.’ 

In 2021, NBC News reported on an email exchange around the time of Trump´s first presidential run in which Moreno referred to Trump as a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘maniac.’

On Saturday, however, Moreno praised Trump as a ‘great American’ and railed against those in his party who have been critical of the former president, who this week became his party’s presumptive nominee for a third straight election.

‘I am so sick and tired of Republicans that say, `I support President Trump´s policies but I don´t like the man,´’ he said as he joined Trump on stage.

Trump also dismissed recent allegations against Moreno, comparing them to attacks he has faced through the years, including his criminal indictments. 

Trump has been charged in four separate cases that span his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

His decision to back Moreno marked a major blow to LaRose, who had taken a number of steps to win his favor. 

Just days after entering the Senate race, LaRose endorsed Trump for president – reversing an earlier stance that the state´s elections chief should remain politically neutral. 

The next month, he fired a long-time trusted aide after old tweets surfaced in which the staffer criticized Trump.

The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face third-term Sen. Sherrod Brown, viewed as among the nation´s most vulnerable Democrats, in November.

Brown, first elected in 2006 and uncontested in his primary this year, has managed to hold onto his seat even as the state has shifted to the right. 

In his most recent reelection in 2018, he defeated then-Rep. Jim Renacci by almost 7 percentage points. Two years later, Ohio voted for then-President Trump by 8 points.

Former President Donald Trump blamed his successor, President Joe Biden, for some awkward moments with his teleprompter as he spoke at a rally in Ohio on Saturday afternoon.

Trump spoke Saturday at a windswept airport outside Dayton in support of his presidential rematch with Biden and his favored Senate candidate Bernie Moreno.

The presumptive Republican nominee, 77, repeatedly noted that he was having trouble reading his teleprompters, which were visibly flapping in 35-mph winds.

As the prompters rolled around and Trump became increasingly visibly frustrated – at one point saying, “Don’t pay these suckers!” to those who set it up – about the inability to understand his speech, he joked: “I think Joe Biden put them in there!”

Although he bragged about how nice it was to have “a president who doesn’t need a teleprompter,” he made some obvious speaking errors during the meeting without being able to use them.

Notably, he claimed that President Biden once defeated former President Barack Obama in an election, after saying Trump would beat Biden by “the largest margins ever.”

‘You know what’s interesting? Joe Biden defeated Barack Hussein Obama, has anyone ever heard of him? Biden defeated Obama in every swing state, but he was assassinated in every other state.”

He was also recorded struggling to pronounce the name of the band The Rolling Stones, whose music Trump’s team uses at rallies, calling them “The Rolling Storns.”

Trump also mispronounced the word “bite” while retelling his infamous “The Snake” story.

Progressive media also claimed that Trump made a mistake in pronouncing candidate Moreno’s name, pronouncing it more like “Marino.”

Moreno, a former Trump critic who is a wealthy Cleveland businessman, supported Marco Rubio for president during the 2016 Republican primaries, once tweeting that listening to Trump was “like watching a car crash that makes you sick, but you can stop looking’. ‘

In 2021, NBC News reported on an email exchange around the time of Trump’s first presidential run in which Moreno called Trump a “crazy” and a “maniac.”

On Saturday, however, Moreno praised Trump as a “great American” and railed against those in his party who criticized the former president, who this week became his party’s presumptive nominee for a third straight election.

“I’m so sick of Republicans saying, ‘I support President Trump’s policies, but I don’t like the man,’” he said as he stood on stage with Trump.

Trump also dismissed the recent allegations against Moreno, comparing them to attacks he has faced over the years, including his criminal charges.

The former president has been charged in four separate cases involving his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“He’s getting very harsh bogus treatment from the Democrats right now,” Trump said. ‘And we will not support that.’

Trump also accused Biden of posing a threat to Social Security in his comments as he continued to clean up comments from an interview earlier this week in which he appeared open to cuts.

“Your Social Security will be gone,” he warned of a second Biden term, even as Biden has pledged to protect and strengthen Social Security as it faces a projected budget deficit.

“With this man in office, you cannot get social security because he is destroying our country’s economy. And that also applies to Medicare, by the way, and American seniors are going to be in big trouble.”

“I have promised that I will always adhere to Social Security and Medicare. We will always keep it. We’ll never make it,” he said.

Trump is scrambling to catch up on President Joe Biden’s huge fundraising advantage with just eight months until the election.

The Republican National Committee has just $40 million in the bank, compared to the $130 million the Democratic operations had last month.

The massive funding gap is steadily widening as Democrats open their wallets to support Biden’s campaign to retain the White House.

Democrats raised more than $10 million in the 24 hours after last Thursday’s State of the Union, far more than Trump’s biggest day, where he raised $4.2 million after his mugshot in the Georgia election fraud case was released .

Donald Trump’s ‘hush money’ case: Judge postponed trial for 30 days after new evidence was turned over to parties.

Washington, DC: In the latest development in former US President Donald Trump’s ‘hush money’ case, the judge has postponed the trial for 30 days after new evidence was turned over to the parties. Jury selection originally scheduled to begin on March 25, which would have been Trump’s first criminal trial, was postponed by Judge Juan Merchan after prosecutors agreed to the one-month delay, the Hill reported.
Notably, the decision came after parties turned to the judge and told him that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York had turned over more than 70,000 pages of documents, some of which are related to Donal Trump’s case.

What did the judge say?

Judge Merchan adjourned the trial for 30 days and stated that a hearing on the case will take place on March 25 to discuss the new trial dates and new documents, according to the Hill Reported.
“The Court will, if necessary, set the new trial date when ruling on Defendant’s post-hearing motion,” Merchan wrote, adding: “It is this Court’s directive that the parties, including Defendant, make no commitment or otherwise enter into pending completion of this process remains in effect.”

What the Manhattan District Attorney said

They were ready for trial on the previously indicated date, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. However, the agency hinted that it will not oppose the delay out of an “abundance of caution.”

What Trump’s legal team said

The former US president’s legal team said the new documents would require a delay extending until the end of April. In a letter written to the judge on Thursday, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles stated: “For now, however, a delay is necessary, and thirty days is not sufficient given the amount of recently produced material and the nature of the ongoing dispute. .”
Bragg’s office said it had previously requested the records and placed blame on the U.S. Attorney’s Office. However, Trump’s lawyers accused Bragg of trying to “rewrite the record.” According to court filings, federal prosecutors will make their final production of documents on Friday, The Hill reported.
During the hearing, Merchan said he would review the delay in receiving the data from federal prosecutors. He asked each party to submit a detailed timeline, including their correspondence with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, according to The Hill.
“The correspondence must include, but is not limited to, letters, subpoenas, emails, notes, messages, etc. The requested documents are necessary for this Court to properly assess who, if anyone, is to blame for the late presentation of the documents. , what prejudice, if any, has been suffered by both parties and what sanction(s), if any, are appropriate,” Merchan wrote.
“This Court emphasizes that the hearing will be limited to the specific issue of Defendant’s motion to dismiss based on the People’s alleged discovery violations relating to USAO-SDNY’s production of documents – alone,” Merchan wrote, according to The Hill.
The delay in the hearing will benefit Trump as he seeks to delay his ongoing criminal trials. In the hush money lawsuit, Trump has filed a separate motion asking for evidence to be thrown out based on his immunity claims, suggesting the entire case be dropped. The Supreme Court is considering the case.
In connection with the case, Trump said prosecutors engaged in discovery violations as he asked for the charges against him to be dismissed and for sanctions to be imposed against prosecutors.
Bragg’s office rejected the allegations and insisted it was meeting its obligations.

TikTok is facing a ban in the United States after Congress voted overwhelmingly to force the app’s Chinese parent company to divest.

The House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 352 to 65 on Wednesday morning, despite calls from Donald Trump and Elon Musk to oppose the bill.

Now senators will decide whether the national security threat TikTok poses is worth the headaches of voters who love the app, and they have been calling lawmakers nonstop urging them to vote against the measure.

The House China Select Committee says Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials through ByteDance are using TikTok to spy on the locations of US users and dictate its algorithm to carry out influence campaigns, making it a national security threat.

ByteDance would have five months after signing the law to get rid of TikTok. If not, app stores and web hosting platforms are not allowed to distribute it in the US

The bill has a good chance of becoming law as a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed the bill and Joe Biden confirmed he would sign it if it also passes the Senate.

But as the bill has gained momentum, so has the opposition. Trump threw cold water on it last week, insisting that if TikTok were banned, its rival Facebook would “double their revenue.”

“I don’t want Facebook, which cheated in the last election, to do better,” Trump wrote in a social media post. ‘They are a real enemy of the people!’

Elon Musk joined Trump in opposing efforts to control TikTok’s influence, calling it government censorship, in a post on X Tuesday.

‘This law isn’t just about TikTok, it’s about censorship and government control! If it were just about TikTok, it would only mention ‘foreign control’ as an issue, but that’s not the case,” Musk said.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also voted against the bill, mentioning Musk by name, praising him for restoring her account on

“What’s to stop the U.S. government from forcing the sale of another social media company in the future that claims to protect U.S. data from foreign adversaries?”

‘I think this bill could cause future problems. It opens Pandora’s box and I am against this bill,” Greene said in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

“This is really about controlling US data, and if we cared about US data, we would stop the sale of US data universally, not just to China.”

But the bill’s author, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., backtracked that Wednesday morning.

“TikTok is a threat to our national security because it is owned by ByteDance, which is doing the bidding of the Communist Party,” Gallagher said on the floor.

“This bill therefore forces TikTok to break up with the Chinese Communist Party. It does not apply to American companies.’

Gallagher argued that his bill would only affect companies controlled by foreign adversaries.

Greene was among several key Republican members who voted against the bill, including Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Tom McClintock, R-Calif., Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and more .

Across the aisle, “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., also voted against the measure.

One lawmaker, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, voted present.

TikTok opposed the “ban” in a statement released after the House passed the bill.

‘This process was secret and the bill was blocked for one reason: it is a ban. We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents and realize the impact on the economy, on seven million small businesses and on the 170 million Americans who use our service.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said in a statement that the vote “demonstrates Congress’s opposition to communist China’s efforts to spy on and manipulate Americans and signals our resolve to defeat our enemies.” to be frightened.’

“I urge the Senate to pass this bill and send it to the President so he can sign it into law,” he continued.

In response to the growing support behind the bill, TikTok sent a push notification to its 100 million users yesterday saying, “Your voice matters in ending the lockdown.”

The notification prompted users to contact their member of Congress to urge them to vote against the proposed bill.

As a result, congressional offices received hundreds of calls about the bill Tuesday and Wednesday morning, congressional aides told DailyMail.com.

Many callers appeared to be children or concerned parents pleading for the app not to be banned.

Users are told that the bill threatens TikTok’s survival, but what it actually does is force the parent company to divest — something callers are largely in favor of once employees explain the bill’s nuance.

“TikTok’s campaign to have users call their representatives shows how much control they have. This campaign is reminiscent of typical Communist Party tactics,” Rep. Greg Murphy, R-NC, said in a statement to DailyMail.com on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, these callers don’t understand what they are really advocating: they are following orders from Beijing. The CCP hopes to copy its modus operandi of telling its citizens what to do.”

His office phones ‘exploded’ according to staff. Murphy voted in favor of the bill on Wednesday.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., told DailyMail.com that he is in favor of the bill and despite the flood of calls: “We will talk to any voter who wants to call us and talk to us through this avenue.”

“We explain our position, and it is a normal part of the process,” he said.

Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., told DailyMail.com that while he doesn’t yet know how he will vote on the bill, “he won’t because 16-year-olds are calling me from all over the country.”

The bill passed the committee last week on a unanimous 50-0 vote.

In a statement, TikTok said of the bill’s passage through committee: “This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban on TikTok in the United States. The government is trying to deprive 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free speech. This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”

Lawmakers have also expressed reservations about how the TikTok bill could affect First Amendment protections.

“I think it’s a terrible idea and it’s the hysteria that’s sweeping through both parties now.” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told DailyMail.com on Friday.

“In America, we don’t just tell people that you can’t have a business because we don’t like you. And 150 million people are using their First Amendment freedom to express themselves on TikTok, and you can’t just take that away from them.”

Fellow Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie agreed.

‘The so-called TikTok ban is a Trojan horse. The president will have the power to ban websites, not just apps,” he wrote on X.

President Joe Biden officially became the Democratic nominee just minutes after polls closed in Georgia on Tuesday evening.

Former President Donald Trump is also expected to clinch the Republican nomination in Tuesday’s primaries.

Earlier Tuesday, Democrats in the Northern Mariana Islands handed Biden victory — as the current commander-in-chief received 93 votes to long-awaited hopeful Jason Palmer’s four and self-help guru Marianne Williamson’s two.

Georgia was quickly called for Trump and Biden shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m., with CNN projecting that Biden had collected enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee.

Mississippi was also quickly called for both Trump and Biden, with results coming in later Tuesday from Washington state and Hawaii for Republicans.

The president needed it 1,968 delegates to become his party’s official candidate.

Trump needs 1,215 delegates and has 1,184 with his victories on Tuesday in Georgia and Mississippi.

Last week, Trump dominated the so-called Super Tuesday races and defeated his last rival, former UN Amb. Nikki Haley.

Haley dropped out of the presidential race on Wednesday, but did not support Trump on her way out.

Still, a significant number of Republican voters in Georgia came out Tuesday in support of Haley.

With about 13 percent of the votes counted, about 17 percent had chosen Haley.

Biden practically held the card on Super Tuesday, said with one exception: He lost the American Samoa caucus to Baltimore-based entrepreneur Jason Palmer, who wasn’t even considered a mainstream Democratic hopeful before his victory.

Since then, Palmer has said he will continue his challenge, while Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips dropped out on Wednesday.

Williamson, who dropped out of the race in February after a poor performance in Nevada, restarted her presidential campaign earlier this month after outperforming Williams in Michigan.

She continues to campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Williamson sent a note to supporters in which CNN predicted that Biden would become the Democratic nominee.

“Given the political realities, President Biden will likely have the nomination sewn up very soon in terms of the number of delegates. But it does not matter. We’re having the conversation without which Democrats won’t win in 2024. And that is why we must continue,” Williamson wrote.

Both Trump and Biden campaigned in Georgia this weekend ahead of the primaries, but also to set the table for a general election battle in the state.

Biden defeated Trump in Georgia in 2020 — a shocking outcome in a state that was traditionally red.

The Biden-Harris campaign sent a statement Tuesday highlighting Biden’s nomination win.

“Four years ago, I ran for president because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this country,” the president said. “Thanks to the American people, we won that fight, and now I am honored that the broad coalition of voters representing the rich diversity of the Democratic Party across the country have once again placed their trust in me to help our party – and our country – to lead. – at a time when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever.”

Biden said the country is facing a “sobering reality” as Trump again closes in on the Republican nomination.

“Freedom and democracy are at risk here at home in a way not seen since the Civil War,” the president said.

“Donald Trump is waging a campaign of spite, revenge and retaliation that threatens the very idea of ​​America. He idolizes dictators and promises to become one himself on day one. He is trying to bury the truth of January 6 by promising to pardon the insurrectionists who stuck a dagger into the throat of American democracy,” Biden warned.

The president also pointed to comments Trump made in an interview with CNBC on Monday in which he suggested cuts to health care and Social Security were on the table.

“He’s rooting to crash the economy, deliver tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and make plans to ban abortion nationwide,” Biden said.

Voters, the president said, “have a choice to make about the future of this country.”

“Are we going to stand up and defend our democracy or are we going to let others tear it down?” Will we restore the right to choose and protect our freedoms or will we allow them to be taken away by extremists?’ Biden asked. “Will we finally make the rich pay their fair share of taxes – or will we allow corporate greed to run rampant on the backs of the middle class?”

“I believe the American people will choose to move us into the future,” Biden said. “In every crisis, America has always come out the other side stronger and more united.”

“November will be no different – ​​and I believe we will do it together,” the president added.