Author: BBC

The US government is taking aim at the engine of Google’s immense wealth – its extremely lucrative ad tech business.A trial beginning on Monday will hear the Department of Justice’s case that the search engine’s parent company Alphabet illegally operates a monopoly in the market.The company earned more than $200 billion (£152bn) last year through the placing and selling of ads seen by internet users.Alphabet has argued its success is due to the “effectiveness” of its services – but prosecutors say it has used its market dominance to stifle rivals.“It is a really important industry that grabs billions of consumer…

BBCMandi Masters, a community midwife, was hospitalised with Covid in the pandemic.The public inquiry into the pandemic will start 10 weeks of hearings on Monday looking at the impact on patients, healthcare workers and the wider NHS. Covid patients have been admitted to hospital more than a million times in the UK since the virus emerged in 2020, while countless others have had care for other conditions disrupted. The third stage of the inquiry will also examine the impact on NHS staff, the use of masks and PPE in hospitals, the policy of shielding the most vulnerable and the treatment…

Boeing is offering its staff a 25% pay rise over four years in a bid to avoid a strike that could potentially shut down its assembly lines as early as Friday.Union leaders representing more than 30,000 employees have urged the workers to support the proposal, describing it as the best contract they had ever negotiated.If approved, the agreement would be an important achievement for Boeing’s new chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, who faces pressure to fix the company’s quality and reputational issues. Boeing workers in the Seattle and Portland region are set to vote on the deal on Thursday. If the…

Google uses anti-competitive practices to dominate the market for online advertising technology, a UK watchdog has provisionally found.The potentially unlawful behaviour could be harming thousands of UK publishers and advertisers, an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has warned.It accuses Google of preventing rivals from “competing on a level playing field” with its own tech for the billions of pounds spent by UK businesses on online advertising.Google said the watchdog’s findings were “flawed” and said it would respond.According to the CMA, the vast majority of businesses use Google’s services when placing digital ads on websites.Google maintains it has…

Getty ImagesThe government’s plan to tackle the hospital backlog in England will fail without a fundamental reform in how services work, health leaders say.Labour aims to increase the number of appointments and operations done each week by 40,000, to help hit the 18-week waiting time target.But NHS Confederation research found that would only deliver about 15% of the extra capacity needed to get back to reaching the target, which has not been hit since 2006.It called for a wider transformation of hospital care, including greater use of digital technologies to improve productivity.The warning comes ahead of the release of a…

CheryChery has set up brands, including the Omoda, focused entirely on international marketsChinese car giant Chery is weighing up the possibility of building cars in the UK, according to a senior executive.Its UK head Victor Zhang told the BBC it was a “matter of time” before the company made a final decision.He said Chery, which is already preparing to build cars in Spain, was determined to take a “localised” approach to the European market.Mr Zhang denied the company’s exports had benefitted from unfair subsidies.Chery, which was set up in 1997, is one of China’s largest car companies. It is already…

EPAIn Hanoi, people are seen battling strong windsSuper Typhoon Yagi, the most powerful storm in Asia this year, has killed at least four people after making landfall in northern Vietnam.The storm hit Hai Phong and Quang Ninh provinces with winds of up to 203 km/h (126 mph) on Saturday morning, the Indo-Pacific Tropical Cyclone Warning Center said.Strong winds and flying debris have caused damage to buildings and vehicles, with falling trees leading to power outages in the capital, Hanoi.State media said three people died in the northern Quang Ninh province on Saturday, with another killed in Hai Duong, near Hanoi.…

Knock Off NessaKaz Barrett, who goes by Knock Off Ness, said her life has been “absolutely mental” since the final Gavin and Stacey episode was announcedA carer has said her life has been turned upside after embracing a striking resemblance to one of the UK’s best-loved TV characters. Kaz Barrett, from Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, said her hairdresser believes Gavin and Stacey co-creator Ruth Jones must have based the character of Nessa on her. After beginning work as a professional impersonator in 2019, she said demand has exploded in recent months as Gavin and Stacey mania sweeps the nation ahead…

Akara EttehAkara Etteh had his phone stolen as he walked out of a Tube station.Early on a Saturday morning in April, Akara Etteh was checking his phone as he came out of Holborn tube station, in central London.A moment later, it was in the hand of a thief on the back of an electric bike – Akara gave chase, but they got away.He is just one victim of an estimated 78,000 “snatch thefts” in England and Wales in the year to March, a big increase on the previous 12 months.The prosecution rate for this offence is very low – the…

Getty ImagesScientists have studied more than 2,000 samples of poo from babies in the UK to get a clearer idea of which types of bacteria first colonise a newborn’s gut.Researchers say they were surprised to find baby poo fell into three distinct microbiological profiles, with different “pioneer bacteria” being abundant in each.One in particular, called B. breve, could help babies make the most of nutrients in breast milk and ward off bugs, preliminary tests suggest. Another type could be harmful and put babies at greater risk of infection, the early work, published in Nature Microbiology, shows. There is growing evidence…